| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:00.13 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:00:01.03 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 00:00:04.03 | Unknown | capturing that image. |
| 00:00:09.79 | Ian Sobieski | Let's go ahead and start, please. |
| 00:00:09.82 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah. All right, good evening, Vice Mayor Sobieski and council members. The regular meeting of October 17, 2023 is being held in council chambers located at 420 Litho Street. Staff and members of the public are also participating through Zoom. This meeting is being broadcast live on the city's website and on cable TV channel 27. |
| 00:00:34.52 | Ian Sobieski | Great. The meeting, the city council meeting of October 17th is called to order. We, well, I don't even have a script. So are we just going to go straight in the closed session then? |
| 00:00:43.53 | Walfred Solorzano | to the next day. I'll do a roll call right now before closed session. |
| 00:00:45.39 | Ian Sobieski | Call the roll call right now. |
| 00:00:47.65 | Walfred Solorzano | So Councilmember Cox. Councilmember Hoffman. Here. Councilmember Kelman? Yes, here. Vice Mayor Sobieski? Here. |
| 00:00:55.06 | Melissa Blaustein | HERE. Yes, sure. |
| 00:00:58.05 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:00:59.68 | Walfred Solorzano | And Mayor Blachstein has not arrived yet. |
| 00:01:02.57 | Joan Cox | that she'll be here. |
| 00:01:03.26 | Walfred Solorzano | it. |
| 00:01:03.55 | Joan Cox | She said she'll be here in two minutes. |
| 00:01:05.54 | Walfred Solorzano | you Okay, I'll know her arrival on the minute. Thank you. |
| 00:01:09.03 | Ian Sobieski | So do we take public comment before going to close session? Thank you. |
| 00:01:11.56 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:01:12.22 | Ian Sobieski | So is there any public comment for any of the matters listed as topics in closed sessions? |
| 00:01:17.17 | Walfred Solorzano | At the moment, we don't have anybody from the public on Zoom or in-house in council chambers. So there is no public. All right. |
| 00:01:23.33 | Ian Sobieski | All right, we'll close public comment and we will move into closed session. |
| 00:01:25.86 | Joan Cox | So we're required to call out what we're going to talk about in close. |
| 00:01:28.08 | Melissa Blaustein | about enclosed right here you just read those two because |
| 00:01:29.92 | Ian Sobieski | Right here. |
| 00:01:34.13 | Ian Sobieski | So in closed session, we're going to be speaking about public employee evaluation for the city manager, and we're going to have conference with legal counsel on existing litigation Whiskey Springs, Villa HOA versus the city of Sausalito. |
| 00:01:49.13 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you very much. |
| 00:01:54.55 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, thanks for being close. Thank you. |
| 00:01:57.26 | Unknown | Recording stopped. |
| 00:01:59.42 | Unknown | Thank you. and check. Bye. Thank you. |
| 00:03:10.19 | Unknown | Are they already going too close? Yeah, did you get any email presentation? Uh... Thank you. Like a half hour ago? Thank you. Okay, I'll put it up. Oh, yeah. Thanks, maybe you can't find it. |
| 00:03:26.43 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 00:03:36.66 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:04:21.59 | Unknown | Who's that? not taking people. Cheers. not taking people off. Love. And thank you so much. Thank you. |
| 00:04:33.04 | Unknown | while we can check out that. Thank you. Thank you. Maybe we'll be doing a lot. I know. Thank you. Yeah. |
| 00:04:48.09 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:05:01.12 | Unknown | you Thank you. |
| 00:05:45.97 | Unknown | so much I got there. So that you're taking a burden of support. And then you're like, oh, right. And I get right back to.. Right. Where do you go? Yeah. Yeah. And have a similar.. Right. Happy. Because it was so happy. I don't know if you were a hard deal. Well, of course. I love that you've come down. I think, but I hope not. I hope you guys know I just.. I was looking for it. You know, I thought you were going to really do that. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. We so appreciate that. You know, less that than more level. |
| 00:05:50.12 | Unknown | or more. |
| 00:05:55.50 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. I mean, I see. |
| 00:06:01.12 | Chris Zapata | See you. |
| 00:06:05.61 | Chris Zapata | Exactly. |
| 00:06:11.13 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:06:16.28 | Unknown | Right? That's what they say. That's what they say. We're trying. |
| 00:06:18.05 | Sandra Bushmaker | That's what they say. |
| 00:06:19.14 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:06:20.24 | Unknown | We'll get it from now. one one one Yeah. but one of your thoughts, yeah. Okay, you can take that corner and I'll take that corner. All right, we got it anchored down. Okay, that works. Thank you. Yeah, where is everybody? |
| 00:06:40.24 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:06:41.76 | Unknown | I have a good market. We don't have to do it. OK. It's not a good thing. |
| 00:06:42.87 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:06:43.02 | Chris Zapata | I could mark it. Thank you. |
| 00:06:45.79 | Unknown | I'm not. |
| 00:07:02.55 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:07:06.43 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:07:08.39 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:07:16.25 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:07:16.69 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:07:16.87 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:07:17.43 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:07:17.45 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:07:17.77 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:07:17.85 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:07:20.62 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:07:20.65 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:07:21.14 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:07:21.18 | Unknown | Let me see that. Perfect. Bye. Thank you. I want to remind you, I feel like you're in the room. It's really exciting. Are you sure? Please welcome. I'm going to talk about it. |
| 00:07:44.41 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:07:54.35 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:07:57.64 | Unknown | I don't know how to do it. |
| 00:07:59.79 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:07:59.80 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:07:59.82 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:08:00.02 | Unknown | That was very sweet. That was sweet. You probably learned that. |
| 00:08:00.04 | Unknown | Exactly. |
| 00:08:00.33 | Daryl Nimro | Bye. |
| 00:08:00.34 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:08:00.90 | Daryl Nimro | Thank you. |
| 00:08:00.92 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:08:01.04 | Daryl Nimro | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:08:03.90 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:08:03.97 | Daryl Nimro | Thank you. |
| 00:08:05.57 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:08:05.86 | Daryl Nimro | you know. |
| 00:08:07.62 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:08:07.65 | Unknown | We have to hold it. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I've done it. Thank you. Bye. |
| 00:08:25.12 | Unknown | where all the fact that it was born. Good, how are you? Good. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:08:30.18 | Unknown | All right. |
| 00:08:30.62 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. I was going to have a hard time. |
| 00:08:33.42 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:08:33.67 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:08:37.27 | Unknown | Recording in progress. |
| 00:08:50.77 | Unknown | Welcome back everyone, I will now call our, we return a closed session and there are no announcements from closed sessions, so we will begin this meeting at 7.03 PM and we're going to take the goal but I will know that I am now present and I was not here for the roll call. Thank you very much Vice Mayor for stepping in and leading the opening of the meeting. So the first item on the agenda in open session is the Pledge of Allegiance, so. who would like to lead our team side of the leadership? I'll leave it on that. Oh, that's cheaper. Do it together. Let's go. Ready? Yes. |
| 00:09:22.54 | Chris Zapata | Back up, but you Thank you. |
| 00:09:27.89 | Unknown | I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, |
| 00:09:28.58 | Chris Zapata | I love you. |
| 00:09:33.05 | Unknown | and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. |
| 00:09:36.02 | Unknown | One nation, under the law. with everybody. Okay. Thank you. |
| 00:09:44.04 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:09:44.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:09:45.34 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:09:45.37 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:09:45.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:09:46.93 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:09:46.96 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:09:47.25 | Steven Woodside | My microphone isn't on and now it is. Thank you very much, everyone. Okay. And we have no announcements from the closed session. So the first item here on the agenda is approval of our agenda. Could I have a motion to approve the agenda, please? So moved. Second. Okay. All in favor say aye. Aye. Fantastic. Okay, thank you very much. So we'll get started with Mayer's Announcements. So I wanted to share that the toast to Sausalito event, the inaugural toast to Sausalito, which will feature over 100 local vendors and is not your typical street fair. per Brian Vitale, who couldn't be here, I'm sharing out for him, is going to be taking place this Saturday. And it's from 1 to 5 on Caledonia Street, much like hearkening back to the Caledonia Street Fair. There will be a beer, wine, spirits festival, musical arts, a kid zone, and a lot more. So we would encourage you to get on line and buy your wristband in advance. But of course, you can do it on the day of Thursday. I also just wanted to, before we get started, mention some of the current events that we're obviously all very aware of. Last Saturday, our hearts were all broken by the unprecedented terrorist attack of Israeli citizens by Hamas. And we know that the resulting conflict will cause many more casualties, including innocent civilians in Gaza and in Israel. Personally, this is a difficult time as a Jewish woman. I will share that I recently traveled with a number of elected officials through the Jewish Community Relations Council to Israel, and we visited the kibbutz Kifar Aza, which was one that was very deeply impacted by the attacks. But I feel this is really not a time for posturing or moral provocation. I'm just going to say, to borrow words from Pastor Paul Mowry, who mentioned it in his sermon at Sausalito Presbyterian this weekend. compassion is not complicated. We need to all stand together and for each other, and we can't let this conflict come home. So we must unequivocally condemn anti-Semitism. We must condemn terrorism. We must condemn Islamophobia, and we are here. to support the many members of our community who have family and friends in the region who are impacted. So please know our thoughts are with you during this very tragic time. And thank you for allowing me the opportunity to touch on those topics. Okay, so we'll move on to the first item on the agenda. which is special presentations. So do we have Daryl Nimro from our Chamber of Commerce on the line? Oh. Daryl really wanted to be here in person, but she has the flu. or something like it. you Hi, Daryl, welcome. And can you pull up the PowerPoint, please? Right. |
| 00:12:30.02 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:12:31.54 | Steven Woodside | . |
| 00:12:32.03 | Joan Cox | She always has a deep voice, flu or not. Thank you. |
| 00:12:35.46 | Daryl Nimro | True, that is true. |
| 00:12:37.25 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:12:37.26 | Daryl Nimro | Yeah. you |
| 00:12:41.48 | Steven Woodside | Great. So this is really short and an overview presentation because we've mentioned many times that we're working on this City Inclusive Entrepreneurship Network. And before we bring any sort of formal items forward, we just wanted to share out some of what's been going on so the council is aware of this work going into the upcoming November League of Cities Summit. So that you're all aware, the City Inclusive Entrepreneurship Network is a program that was developed by the League of Cities to really ask city leaders to commit to policies and programs that will drive inclusive entrepreneurship and economic growth in their community. The whole point of the program is to create shared visions for local stakeholders, to position communities as national leaders, and to connect with resources, partners, and information. So I have a really good... short but informative video. that Walford will now show, hopefully. |
| 00:13:32.56 | Unknown | Bye. Thank you. |
| 00:13:32.88 | Steven Woodside | Yep. Yeah. |
| 00:13:44.26 | Steven Woodside | And while he's pulling that up, for those of you that don't know or haven't had the opportunity yet to meet Daryl Nimro, she is the new CEO of the Sausalito Chamber of Commerce. And we are so lucky to have her and thrilled to have her back in the community because she's been involved for quite some time with Sister Cities, taking a trip to Sakaide and very connected to the community. So Daryl, thrilled to have you with us tonight and hopefully continue to partner on a number of initiatives in your new role. It's fantastic. |
| 00:14:08.20 | Daryl Nimro | Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate the kind words. |
| 00:14:13.38 | Steven Woodside | How's it going over there, Walford? |
| 00:14:29.57 | Steven Woodside | I don't know. Oh, yeah, that's fine. |
| 00:14:37.75 | Steven Woodside | I don't think that's the right video. Yeah. |
| 00:14:45.07 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:14:46.48 | Steven Woodside | Okay, well, in the meantime, I can go back to the PowerPoint while you pull up the video if you want. Okay. |
| 00:15:12.14 | Steven Woodside | And this video was created by the National League of Cities and gives an overview of some of the prior participants in the program and some of the different opportunities and ways to engage with the program. So it's a sort of storytelling example of what you can achieve through the City Inclusive Entrepreneurship Program. |
| 00:15:27.85 | Daryl Nimro | Here we go. |
| 00:15:29.18 | Steven Woodside | I think this is the right one. |
| 00:15:30.52 | Daryl Nimro | Yes. |
| 00:15:32.59 | Steven Woodside | Great. |
| 00:15:38.84 | Unknown | That's good. |
| 00:15:41.27 | Steven Woodside | No, we can't hear it. Okay. Well, we'll share it later because I don't want to slow down the meeting, but it does have some great testimonials from other cities who have participated. And if you're able to figure out how to pull the audio, that's great. But I don't want to hold up the meeting because people are waiting online. So we'll go back to the PowerPoint while we see what happens. And I'll just share out that there are a number of really incredible cities that have partnered through CIE in a number of different ways, whether it's creating an entrepreneurship Kiva Lending Hub, doing an inventory of their small business and where there are areas they can fill, providing lending, the list goes on. So go ahead and go to slide three, please. Okay, so just to get you guys up to speed on sort of what the program looks like and what the purpose is. It's got a lot of depth and we're really excited. And of course, Sauce Leader Chamber of Commerce, Daryl, will weigh in on because they'll be facilitating the programming aspect. But this has taken absolutely no staff time. Basically volunteer driven myself and Daryl really trying to create and get us engaged in an entrepreneurship program that makes sense and will help our community going forward. So the League of Cities, because they run CIE, Kiva, because they offer micro-lending programs to entrepreneurs up to $15,000 at no cost to Um, the entrepreneur is 0% loans. And I've been in conversation as well with the small business administration who was thrilled to support. Sausalito's engagement in the City Entrepreneurship Network. program and to provide support to anyone who might be interested. And really excited to share as well that Bank of Marin is really thrilled about this program as well and the opportunity to create an entrepreneurship runway for Sausalito and has committed $5,000 to the administrative cost to the Chamber of Commerce. So again, and the National League of Cities offers up to $15,000 in grant funding. So there should be already about $20,000 procured before we've even really hit the go button. Next. |
| 00:17:29.20 | Unknown | THE FAMILY. |
| 00:17:29.37 | Steven Woodside | you So just an overview of how it works. So you partner with the League of Cities, which we get to do for free because city of Sausalito is a National League of Cities member, and this is one of their programming benefits to cities of which they offer many. And I would encourage, uh, fellow council members to join in attending the National League of Cities conference, November 14th through the 16th of which all council members are of course invited. Um, so this is a partnership through that league of cities. And we also, as I mentioned, have support from Bank of Marin to begin to help us with the administrative work that will be required in supporting the program. We also will be working closely with Kiva to support loans of up to $15,000 for new businesses and entrepreneurs, either through creating a lending hub or through individual entrepreneurs. We have support from the Small Business Administration to provide ongoing training for new businesses that we develop here in Sausalito. And we have the opportunity to provide a preference for first-time business owners and minority business owners and people from the 94965 who otherwise haven't yet had the opportunity to build a business. Next slide. So I will let Daryl take it from here and kind of lean into the some of our next steps and i'll just say that we're really excited but this is a informative overview and we're looking forward to really engaging with the Council about how does this program evolve what exactly is the city's. Engagement what is the ask of the city with regards to staff time or other uses of potential city funds and how can we do more to. really create the best possible entrepreneurship program for the League of Cities that we can be really proud of here in Sausalito and that can create new pathways for first-time business owners and for folks from the 94965 and hopefully from Marin City to engage in business here in Sausalito. |
| 00:19:08.98 | Daryl Nimro | Absolutely. And I just want to start by saying thank you, Mayor, for including us in this exciting new initiative. It should be noted that the Chamber Board is 100% behind this initiative. But where you're going to see the Chamber's role become more critical, as you mentioned, is in the program execution. So if you go to the fifth slide, what you're going to see is the Chamber is going to help identify program and fiscal partners to scale impact. We're actually going to attend the National League of Cities Summit in Atlanta, Georgia, in November for a couple of reasons. One, we want to meet the partners of the CIE community nationally. But a lot of those partners are also interested in other initiatives. It's a great way to cultivate the national network. So we're excited to bring more initiatives like this into Sausalito and the Chamber. And then also to establish a Kiva hub, we're still assessing the potential, understanding requirements, funding and resources. And again, as the mayor had mentioned, we're going to vet this through all of our partners before making some final decisions. And then ultimately, we'll launch and identify CIE candidates. The exciting part of the CIE candidate process is that we're going to match them with chamber members to help them kind of navigate the business sector. So we're very excited. We're confident about the role. And again, we're very, very grateful for this opportunity. So thank you. |
| 00:20:31.94 | Steven Woodside | Thank you very much, Daryl. And again, we're really excited and hopefully we'll continue this conversation and be able to share more and have clear asks of the council, but wanted to make sure that there was some general information about what we have been working on since we'll be going to the League of Cities Summit to talk more about how amazing Sausalito is and everything that we have to offer to small business owners and first-time entrepreneurs here in our community. So typically we take questions from the council if there are any. |
| 00:20:58.50 | Melissa Blaustein | A couple. Yep, please. Well, congrats. It sounds like a great program. Daryl, thank you for your contribution. Any thoughts on the division of labor between City Hall and the Chamber? |
| 00:20:59.33 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. |
| 00:21:11.26 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:21:11.29 | Steven Woodside | At this point, we have used zero staff time from City Hall, and we're aware of our finance position. So we're trying to fundraise to determine or pay for whatever sources might be required or what staff time might be required. Sorry. |
| 00:21:22.60 | Daryl Nimro | Well, that's- Go ahead. |
| 00:21:24.42 | Steven Woodside | Go ahead, Daryl. Yeah, no, go ahead. |
| 00:21:25.75 | Daryl Nimro | To be clear, the Chamber would be lifting the program aspect. So I think from a city perspective, there'd be advice, you know, there'd be thought partnering, but the Chamber's role is actually to execute, manage, and handle the administration and the fiscal responsibility and allocation of the program. |
| 00:21:46.36 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, and I think areas where we could potentially partner, and again, this is a conversation we need to have and agendize and see what the ask is and what it looks like and have that discussion. But for example, having a dedicated person at the community development department, should we be able to fundraise for that role or a key point person or providing... pathways for free parking to these first time entrepreneurs for their employees for the first however many months, that type of thing. But again, nothing's been decided and wouldn't be without council discussion and direction. Anybody else? Nope. Okay. All right. Well, great. Thank you so much. Do we have to take public comment on that, Sergio? |
| 00:22:28.21 | Sergio Rudin | Here's a presentation. Oh, okay. There we go. Yes, I would take public comment. |
| 00:22:34.67 | Steven Woodside | Okay, I will now open it up for a public comment. |
| 00:22:38.82 | Walfred Solorzano | Again, members of the public that would like to speak, you can fill out a form over by the television. I know there's only one person in here, but just for the announcements for everybody. So if you come into the council chambers, you can fill out a form, hand it over to the city clerk. And if you're on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function. And right now we have Babette McDougall. |
| 00:22:56.15 | Babette McDougall | Yay. Hi, Beth. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for acknowledging me. So this looks like a promising program, and I would just love to hear some examples of What are the hypotheticals of how we see a best case outcome in Sausalito by employing this program? What would be a typical model of a business and how do you see it playing out? |
| 00:23:18.53 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:23:18.88 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:23:19.42 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Hopefully we'll be able to answer some of those questions when it's agendized as a topic going forward. |
| 00:23:26.24 | Walfred Solorzano | Next we have is Sandra Bushmaker. |
| 00:23:28.54 | Steven Woodside | Hi, Sandra. |
| 00:23:29.19 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 00:23:31.83 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:23:31.86 | Sandra Bushmaker | Hi, good evening everybody. I just wanted to ask whether or not it is anticipated that city funds will be used in this loan program. And while that may be great within the Sausalito city limits, I am concerned about it being outside of the Sausalito city limits. And if that, whether or not that is a proper use of city funds. Thanks. |
| 00:23:56.14 | Steven Woodside | Just to respond to that, the funds are managed through Kiva. So the funding, the loans would come through Kiva and their micro lending program, not from the city. if I may. And I appreciate your comments. Thank you. |
| 00:24:09.90 | Walfred Solorzano | No further comments. |
| 00:24:10.96 | Steven Woodside | Great. Thank you so much. And the next item. Sure. |
| 00:24:16.11 | Jill Hoffman | I believe that you did say that the program was also for city of Sausalito, I think, but also broader 94965, which is outside of Sausalito and also Marin City. So I think that was maybe the question of the funds would be used for a broader community than just Sausalito. That seems to be the goal. you |
| 00:24:36.76 | Steven Woodside | The goal is to make Sausalito a more part of the program is inclusive entrepreneurship. And so when we met with, when Councilmember Kellman and I met with representatives from Marin City, one of the things they mentioned was wanting to have more economic opportunity. And while this program is absolutely open to all Sausalito residents, we are hoping to expand the breadth to 94965 so that we can welcome more entrepreneurs from Marin City to start a business in Sausalito, which Sausalito would see revenues from as we know that our businesses provide more than half of our general fund. So we're excited about that. |
| 00:25:08.07 | Jill Hoffman | So the next question I had then, it wasn't clear on the agenda tonight what this was about and I asked for, If there's a presentation, the presentation be at least sent to the council members and also attached to the agenda. So now clearly there was a presentation. And so I would request that that now be attached to the agenda under the sign-in so people can be clear. And also the slides went so fast. I don't know that it was clear from the slides that this was for a broader community and not just Sausalito. So I would ask that that somehow also be included so that when people, look at this agenda item that it's clear the scope of the program, not, not commenting, you know, either. I think it's an interesting program and something to look into. um, But I would ask that those things be added. So anyway, so that it's clear when when people want to see what this program is about, it's clear because I, as a council member, was not clear. And when I asked for information today prior to the meeting, it was not available as a council member. |
| 00:26:15.16 | Steven Woodside | Right. That's exactly why we brought it before the council, because there's been questions about it, and we wanted to provide as much transparency before we agendize the items. So I'm glad that you brought that up. And I'll also note that at the February 23rd special presentations meeting of the Willow Creek community. We didn't receive the presentation in advance as a standard for the special presentation. So we will have it added. I would love for it to be added. And I'll look forward to an ongoing discussion about the future of the program and exactly who it serves and how it operates. But again, any business in Sausalito generates revenue for Sausalito. So that's really exciting for us and potentially for the chamber as well. |
| 00:26:47.07 | Daryl Nimro | I'm thrilled to do that. And as a chamber partner, we'll do better to prep the council prior to future presentations. |
| 00:26:57.11 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, great. Yeah, but I think my point was, this is a program that I know that certain council members have been working on, we have talked about the concept in the past, but not this name. as it appeared on the agenda as a special agenda item. So it was not clear to me as a council member what the scope of this was. And I had to make several phone calls today and requested that at least the slides be provided or the presentation be provided so that we could be briefed on this and it didn't happen. So for next, any other future questions, any other future, you know, when we're talking about something that's outside the scope of what a special presentation is. Usually special presentations are, we're happy that you achieved this in Sausalito and here's a proclamation or something like that. This is a substantive program. We're talking about now staff time and we're talking about a pretty significant effort on behalf of Sausalito. |
| 00:27:55.73 | Daryl Nimro | understood. |
| 00:27:56.22 | Joan Cox | Thank you. I actually thought I heard there was not going to be staff. I thought there was only going to be thought partners, but no staff. investment in this. |
| 00:28:04.63 | Jill Hoffman | I heard that part of the analysis was going to be whether or not a staff member was going to be assigned to help manage this from community development. |
| 00:28:13.30 | Joan Cox | So meaning there's been no commitment to that yet. So right now there's no investment of staff. |
| 00:28:17.84 | Jill Hoffman | The first time I've heard about this part is tonight. Same. And so it would be nice to have been briefed on that beforehand and to have seen the slides. Great. |
| 00:28:27.04 | Steven Woodside | Well, That's why we had the presentation to have a beginning of this discussion together. And I look forward to providing all of the details and making this be something that's beneficial for our fiscal bottom line and for entrepreneurs and for our neighbors in Marin City. So I appreciate the feedback and transparency is critical. So that's great. And with that, we'll go ahead and move on to the next. Can I just. |
| 00:28:45.74 | Joan Cox | Can I just say thank you, Daryl. It's so good to see you again. Welcome back. Thank you for taking on the leadership role. of the Chamber of Commerce. I'm very excited to see what you will accomplish. Welcome, and I look forward to collaborating with you. |
| 00:28:57.92 | Daryl Nimro | Thank you, John. That means a lot to me. I appreciate the kind words. It's good to be back. |
| 00:29:01.68 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. And get well soon. Thank you so much for being here despite being sick. Still looks great. So we appreciate you. Thank you. All right, we'll move on to the next agenda item then. Thank you very much. And that is action minutes from the previous meeting. |
| 00:29:05.63 | Unknown | Right. |
| 00:29:13.68 | Steven Woodside | I had one correction. Please. |
| 00:29:15.98 | Joan Cox | Page three, item 5A, Bill Hines' name was misspelled. It's Bill. Somebody wrote nil. I think it's just a typo. |
| 00:29:26.18 | Walfred Solorzano | What would we do without you, Joan? I'm so sorry. The B's next to the end. I should have checked. Okay. |
| 00:29:31.62 | Steven Woodside | Neil Hines would not appreciate that. So good to know. Great save. Okay. Well, we'll reflect that change then. Do we have a motion to approve it with those changes? |
| 00:29:39.67 | Joan Cox | Move approval as amended. |
| 00:29:42.50 | Steven Woodside | Okay, and doing a public comment on the minutes. |
| 00:29:43.03 | Joan Cox | What was the other one? No. |
| 00:29:46.03 | Steven Woodside | You're right. Okay, we'll open up public comment on the minutes |
| 00:29:54.60 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 00:29:54.91 | Joan Cox | Sorry, seeing none. |
| 00:29:54.97 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Okay? |
| 00:29:56.61 | Joan Cox | All right, move approval as amended. |
| 00:29:59.55 | Steven Woodside | Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Great. Okay. Thank you. Item three B sauce to the police departments crime and traffic report calendar year 2023 item three C sauce lead a bike return monthly report for September. Item 3D adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute the professional services agreement with parametrics provide on call engineering services in the amount not to exceed $45,000. Item 3E, adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to award the construction contract for the Woodard Avenue sewer main realignment project in the amount of $241,750. And authorize a construction contingency for the project in the amount of $36,250 for a total authorized amount of $278,000. And item 3F. Adopt a resolution amending the budget for fund 110550 to allow for the purchase of a maintenance vehicle and the amount of $55,000. And item 3G, adopt a resolution approving the third professional services contract amendment with BKF engineers for design services related to the Ferry Landside Improvement Project. So I'll bring it back up to the dais and I will just start by saying I would like to pull item 3G in light of the appeal of the Ferry Landside Improvement Project. Any other comments from councils? |
| 00:31:53.32 | Joan Cox | I see that we have our public works director here. I wonder if I could ask a quick question about one of the items without pulling it. Sure. If you would indulge. Of course. This is item 3E. The contract amount is 241,000. 10% of that would be 24,175. But instead, it looks like we are, um, authorizing a contingency of 15% at 36,000. And I was wondering if you could briefly comment on What risk causes us to. need a 15% contingency instead of 10%. |
| 00:32:27.31 | Kevin McGowan | Good evening, Mayor and members of City Council. I'm Kevin McGowan, Public Works Director. Generally, for underground projects, we try to have a little bit more contingency because we don't know what we're going to find. If we had something that way we could see everything, we would have less contingency. That's generally the rule. And so that's why we're requesting a little bit more contingency for something that's underground. |
| 00:32:29.65 | Joan Cox | even one. |
| 00:32:50.76 | Joan Cox | I figured, but just wanted to confirm since you were here, thank you so much. |
| 00:32:55.03 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:32:55.57 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:32:55.59 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:32:56.99 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:32:57.01 | Steven Woodside | Thank you very much. Are there any other items that the council would like to bring forward or pull from the consent calendar? Okay, so I'll go ahead and open up the consent calendar for public comment. |
| 00:33:09.10 | Walfred Solorzano | We... No public comment. |
| 00:33:12.58 | Steven Woodside | Okay. and no public comment from the chamber. Okay, we'll go ahead and close public comment at this time. And I will ask for a motion to approve consent items 3A through 3F. And we'll move forward with 3G. |
| 00:33:25.42 | Joan Cox | So moved. What do you mean we'll move forward to three? Well, we're pulling it. |
| 00:33:28.44 | Steven Woodside | What do you think? We're pulling it. That's what I mean. So we're taking it out separately. Okay. Yes. So do we have a second? |
| 00:33:30.99 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:33:37.34 | Steven Woodside | No seconds for the consent calendar? I'll second it, 3A through 3F, yeah. |
| 00:33:39.75 | Melissa Blaustein | Seconded. 3A through 3M. |
| 00:33:44.02 | Steven Woodside | No. |
| 00:33:44.34 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:33:44.41 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:33:44.56 | Melissa Blaustein | That's good. Thank you. |
| 00:33:46.43 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 00:33:46.97 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. |
| 00:33:47.04 | Steven Woodside | second. Okay, all in favor? I thank you. Okay, we'll go ahead and hear. 3G. |
| 00:33:55.93 | Kevin McGowan | Madam Mayor, may I make some clarifications on item 3G before you? |
| 00:33:58.82 | Steven Woodside | That would be great. No. |
| 00:34:00.08 | Kevin McGowan | Wonderful. I'm glad you pulled it this evening. I made a few mistakes on the staff report, and I wanted to clarify them. If you'll notice on page three under the financial impact, it notes that the design cost is $246,450. And I noted a date off to the right hand side of the staff report, which said 1-28-20. That's incorrect. That should be 2-25-2020 in compliance with the rest of the staff report. So I must have missed a date along the way. And at the very bottom of that same page, it also suggests that attachment three, the third amendment proposal to BKF engineers was dated November 14th, 2022. That's a mistake as well. So my apologies. That date should match when the actual proposal came in. which was August 29th, 2023. And it shows on the attachment itself. So my apologies for having too many staff reports and trying to catch up to everything. |
| 00:35:00.72 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:35:00.73 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 00:35:01.00 | Joan Cox | Thank you. May I ask a question? |
| 00:35:04.92 | Steven Woodside | Yes, please. |
| 00:35:05.49 | Joan Cox | you um, Thank you again, Kevin, and thank you for being here. The... staff report says that this is necessary to carry out the direction of the Planning Commission. But. The Planning Commission action has been appealed and we've not yet heard that appeal. And so. would it be prudent to postpone the award of this additional work until we know what the actual scope of the work will be following the city council hearing on the appeal. |
| 00:35:40.30 | Kevin McGowan | You know, it's my opinion that we will continue to utilize this consultant regardless. They've had to put a lot of time and effort into preparing the documents associated with what the Planning Commission has requested. And they're getting that documentation ready for you and the appeal itself so that we can demonstrate. exactly what the two different components, excuse me, the two different alternatives are. for the council to weigh in on. So my recommendation is to move forward with this. We will still have to use BKF regardless. |
| 00:36:11.07 | Joan Cox | Thank you. And then when do you anticipate the price increases for BKF will cease? Because when we awarded this contract first, when I was on the council in January of 2020, We did not anticipate that we would be adding half again, as much of the contract value to the contract. So do you anticipate any additional? additions or can we count on this being the final price? |
| 00:36:38.62 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. You know, that's a very good question. I'm anticipating that this should be it because we've gone through quite a securitous route to get to this point. That includes involving the local professionals group. That also includes utilizing SWA and having more input from the Planning Commission as well as the public. It's been a bit of a securitous route, and I think initially if we would have known that, their costs would have been higher regardless. |
| 00:37:07.58 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:37:07.61 | Kevin McGowan | THANK YOU. |
| 00:37:07.70 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:37:07.82 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 00:37:09.86 | Steven Woodside | I appreciate the clarification. I think that kind of covers what I was wondering and why I pulled it, which is why would we authorize this before we had the appeal, given that everything might change and we'd have to spend the money again. But it seems like you've made it clear that that's not the case here. |
| 00:37:24.25 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:37:24.64 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you, Mayor. Appreciate it. |
| 00:37:25.79 | Melissa Blaustein | Sorry, Mary. I'm sorry, that's still not clear to me. Okay. Can you maybe restate it in a different way? I mean, the summary on the staff report says this is to support staff and just changes to the plan required by the planning commission. But what we talked about at the last council meeting was an urgent need for this to come to the city council before any further decisions were made. And that would probably include spending any more money to respond to changes that we have not yet approved. Do you understand it differently? Am I missing something here? |
| 00:37:58.54 | Kevin McGowan | well, how are we going to present this information to the council if we don't have BKF to develop the plan that was approved by the Planning Commission. |
| 00:38:06.51 | Joan Cox | We don't want to spend money approving something that is being appealed and being asked to be unapproved by us. If the appellants want to submit information to us, great, that's on them. But I don't see a reason to spend. $60,000 of the city's money, in order. to support and appeal. |
| 00:38:29.97 | Kevin McGowan | How are we going to convey this information to your counsel? |
| 00:38:33.29 | Joan Cox | The only information the council we'll hear and we'll hear it de novo is what the planning commission approved so we will have the benefit of all of the information provided to the planning commission upon which the planning commission based its decision. I don't think we need Additional information. WE SHOULD the appeal based on the four corners. of the matter that the Planning Commission considered. |
| 00:39:00.02 | Kevin McGowan | you And the planning commission added additional conditions to whatever was presented. So do we have a consultant to put that on a plan to show that to you and show it to the public? If we go with your line of reasoning, no, we don't. We should stop right now and wait for the appeal. So I leave it to you and your counsel. I'm here for you, whatever you would like me to do. |
| 00:39:20.42 | Joan Cox | I apologize if I've offended you. I definitely hear the frustration in your voice and your tone. So, but I do not, I don't, I've not yet, I don't yet know exactly what we're going to hear because I've not yet seen the appeal. I don't believe we've, |
| 00:39:23.07 | Kevin McGowan | No, no, no. |
| 00:39:23.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:39:40.28 | Joan Cox | It's not been briefed to us yet. So I can't judge, but I will tell you never. In my history of eight years on the planning commission, This is my fifth year on the city council. Have I seen the city spend additional money on consulting fees in order to have a city council hear an appeal of a planning commission decision. |
| 00:40:03.25 | Kevin McGowan | Okay, my apologies, I didn't mean to offend anybody. Trying to get the point across that. It's my opinion that we need BKF to develop some type of documentation that will clearly show what the Planning Commission is wanting. And then comparing that to what the original plan was so that you have both together and can make a decision on the appeal itself. Okay. |
| 00:40:24.85 | Ian Sobieski | Just to clarify, can I just ask a clarifying question? I'm trying to sort this out, Director McGowan. So at the July planning commission meeting, there was a presentation of a schematic bird's eye view. Uh, it is a second meeting. There was a first meeting. there was feedback from the planning commission, The designers went back BKF, I presume. and generated a new bird's eye view. Isn't that bird's eye view the one that was approved by the planning commission with conditions, meaning that the, |
| 00:40:56.73 | Kevin McGowan | It is. They have developed that with conditions. |
| 00:40:59.02 | Ian Sobieski | Right. So the design as it's defined from that, that bird's eye photograph, that bird's eye view, that drawing. Would that change as a result of the money that you're talking about having us approve here today? |
| 00:41:11.81 | Kevin McGowan | Not significantly. No, it would not. |
| 00:41:14.11 | Ian Sobieski | Okay. So what would the extra design elements be? with that bird's eye view in mind, because that's what's what I'll leave you there. What design elements would be added to that bird's eye view that was approved by the planning commission with this extra money? |
| 00:41:28.91 | Kevin McGowan | Well, you have the conditions of approval, and then you have the details that go along with it as well. So we're trying to finalize the plan based off of the Planning Commission's comments. Now, to be honest, the the BKF may have moved forward with this work as part of the Planning Commission's comments and develop this plan. without having an addendum to their contract initially. So we're kind of coming back a little bit. and trying to catch that. |
| 00:41:54.68 | Joan Cox | I... Firmly, that should have been transparent in this staff report. My apologies. If, if, if BKF and if BKF went forward without your approval, then they should not be paid. |
| 00:41:59.87 | Kevin McGowan | My apologies. |
| 00:42:07.74 | Joan Cox | If they went forward with your approval, it should have been part of this staff report that in order to develop this or in support of the Planning Commission hearing, you authorized additional monies that you're now seeking approval for. I have no issue with that. It was when we're being presented with, prospective work for an appeal that that raised my concern. So I support staff in, and the city manager has authority, you know, up to what, 35 or 50,000. So I don't have an issue if you approved something in order to make the presentation to the planning commission. But if BKF did work, At the Planning Commission behest, without prior written authorization from the city. I do not want to approve this amendment. |
| 00:42:53.33 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 00:42:53.35 | Ian Sobieski | Understood. So just back, I think that, yeah, that, so, which maybe you could answer Consummate Cox's question, which is it? Is it that they've already done the work and they're looking to get paid or have they not done the work yet in terms of more design details. |
| 00:43:09.87 | Kevin McGowan | I think it's a combination of both. They have an entire contract where we haven't expended all the funds in the in the final contract. So, you know, they they still have money in their contract to finish the work at this point. They may have done work in order to bring it to the planning commission and don't have enough funding to complete the entire project. to get it out to bid. So they've kind of done some work in front of getting everything ready. |
| 00:43:34.26 | Ian Sobieski | Okay. And then my just last question around that is, there in the staff report, it says that the GGBHTD stated that the changes to the design asked for by the planning commission weren't satisfactory to them. So do you need some money to respond to that so that we have that information at the planning, at the appeal, or... |
| 00:43:47.03 | Chris Zapata | Like stated. |
| 00:44:05.59 | Ian Sobieski | Are you able, since it's just a bird eye schematic thing and you had the previous design and we're just talking about the highest level of where the curb line is and whatnot, do you feel like you've got the resources to respond to the GGBHTD? |
| 00:44:20.76 | Kevin McGowan | So that's the Golden Gate Bridge Highway Transportation District. And when this staff report was prepared, if you recall... Your counsel pulled this item, I believe, either last meeting or the meeting before. And since that time, we've gone back to the planning commission with the updated plan and the district came forward and actually requested to put a sidewalk on the northeast side of parking lot one. And that has been included in the recent plan presented to the planning commission, which was approved. So at this point, the the. the plan that was submitted to the planning commission. I think it's on September 13th. Let me check the dates again, but the latest one, that one has been approved and that did include a sidewalk on that side so that the district... is supportive of that plan. |
| 00:45:09.85 | Ian Sobieski | Got it. So when we hear this on appeal, that will be the design that's being appealed, the one that you just referred to. |
| 00:45:17.34 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. Yes. |
| 00:45:18.07 | Ian Sobieski | Okay. And in terms of, So, you know, the material changes to the design were where the queuing is, uh, And the number of parking, well, actually it was just a condition. The number of parking spots is approximately the same, but it's just the, where the queuing direction is the width of some sidewalks. So it really is about bird's eye stuff. It's not about where benches are or what the angle of curbs is, or whether it's gravel, crushed granite. paving stones, brick or concrete, right? So none of those design elements is particularly relevant until we hear this appeal, right? And so I'm still wondering what we need in terms of additional design work done now before the appeal to inform our decision about it. |
| 00:46:01.19 | Kevin McGowan | Keep in mind that the Planning Commission requested a full plan. with all the details. So they wanted a full plan at that time. So that's one of the reasons BKF put effort into developing a plan set. Now, however, the full details of that plan, we did try to bring those to them. So benches were shown, trees were shown. The planning commission also suggested or requested that Tracy way be closed so what should that be changed out to at this point the plan is showing concrete throughout to match the existing. So there are details that were shown and the planning commission requested those amount of details. |
| 00:46:38.58 | Unknown | and |
| 00:46:39.00 | Ian Sobieski | So you're saying that our process is sort of driven by the planning commission standard of what they expect to see and that that's driving this contract deliverable. |
| 00:46:51.32 | Kevin McGowan | Yeah. |
| 00:46:51.59 | Ian Sobieski | Thanks. |
| 00:46:51.68 | Kevin McGowan | Yes. |
| 00:46:52.20 | Joan Cox | May I just say again, that is a novel approach for this city. So on prior hearings on the ferry landing, No. Direction was carried out. There were Planning Commission recommendations but the city as the owner of the project, This and other project, the fountain at Viña del Mar, you know, plaza, various other projects, No. Expenditures were made on city owned property until the planning commission had made a recommendation and the city council then endorsed that. path forward as the owner of the property, even absent an appeal. I'm not saying that's the right way. I'm saying that has been the historic way. And that is why this process is unnerving to me, that we've expended. I don't know how much of this $60,000 we've already expended. on planning commission direction The Planning Commission All they do is make recommendations. They do not give direction for city expenditures. And so I'm just. that the city invested significant sums to carry out Thank you. design changes and we're not going to be able to We. shared this perspective when we last discussed this project. |
| 00:48:23.58 | Ian Sobieski | So, Joan, I too share your concern about the general process, but it was a learning to me in discussing with our city attorney who's here that actually per our ordinance, the planning commission, we, even though we're the city council, couldn't build this project without a design review permit issued by the planning commission. and absent so there was actually it came up before around who's in charge at a previous meeting if the designer permit is issued as far as far i understand it by the planning commission uh that constrains the project and we can't actually change it barring an appeal like after the appeal period passed that then becomes the approved design and so there's kind of |
| 00:49:08.82 | Joan Cox | But as the applicant, it's up to us to decide whether or not to spend the money. to, Make the design changes recommended by the planning commission. we City Council, the owner of the project, and the spender of the city's monies I did not have the opportunity to consider planning commission recommendations and make a decision about whether to spend an additional $60,000 to carry out the design changes recommended by the Planning Commission as any other applicant would. That's my concern. That's where I believe there was a hiccup in the process. So we're not here to discuss the process tonight, but I wanted to share my concern about the process, particularly now that I realized that this money you're asking us to reimburse monies already spent as opposed to monies being spent prospectively. |
| 00:50:00.91 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, I don't have the exact details, but thank you for your perspective. I appreciate that. We'll do better in the future to try to bring it to you sooner. This has been a very complex project with lots and lots of twists and turns. |
| 00:50:02.85 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:50:12.52 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:50:12.64 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 00:50:12.66 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:50:12.79 | Ian Sobieski | No doubt. How much, just to count some of Cox's presumption there, how much of the $60,000 has already been spent? Is it all it? |
| 00:50:20.32 | Kevin McGowan | Again, I'd have to dive into some of the more details that we've seen. I can get back to you on that. |
| 00:50:20.34 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah. |
| 00:50:24.81 | Ian Sobieski | And is it possible, as she said, that, I mean, is it authorized by you or is it presumed by them? Were they taking direction from you or from planning commission? |
| 00:50:32.79 | Kevin McGowan | They were taking direction from me in order to prepare the plan for the planning commission. I think what Councilmember Cox is bringing up is before we made that step, we should have come to your council to authorize that amount of funding for the consultant to move forward. And to be honest, in order to make some of the deadlines for the planning commission, we missed a step throughout July or early June in order to do that. My apologies. |
| 00:50:50.26 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:51:00.41 | Joan Cox | I, you know what? Thank you. I don't have any issue if there was a misstep. I have an issue when the communication is not 100% transparent and when the process. But if you'd come to us and said, listen, I should have come to you before we spent this money. I'm asking you now to approve it retroactively. I wouldn't have had any discussion about it. How much of it is retroactive? |
| 00:51:20.78 | Melissa Blaustein | though. |
| 00:51:21.51 | Kevin McGowan | I think Council Member Sobieski just asked that, and I don't know specifically. So I will have to get back to you if you want to. |
| 00:51:26.28 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:51:26.30 | Steven Woodside | Do you feel... |
| 00:51:29.14 | Kevin McGowan | Um, Continue this item, I can get back to you on it. |
| 00:51:32.49 | Steven Woodside | Well, I think we need to at least approve perhaps the retroactively spent funding so that we don't end up in a difficult situation. However, given I'd like to continue the item to know how much has been spent going forward, potentially, we do have to take public comment on this and we are supposed to still be in this in question. But I think a lot of us are kind of weighing in anyway, and I saw Councilmember Hoffman sort of way raise her hand so go ahead, please. |
| 00:51:44.88 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 00:51:57.43 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:51:57.47 | Jill Hoffman | JoAnne Hanrahan, Director would this also expenditure this money, other than the work that's already been done to respond to. JoAnne Hanrahan, or prepare for the planning Commission meeting right the meeting at which they are the design review authority would further expenditure this money also help prepare this for to be ready for the appeal. |
| 00:52:18.01 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, that's correct. |
| 00:52:18.90 | Jill Hoffman | So that, I mean, to me, that's also part of it is that when you do the appeal, you have to actually see. what, was approved by the planning commission the plan that was before the Planning Commission in September. Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm going to jump in. is that it was approved with conditions. So you have to adjust the plans to reflect those new conditions. This is what was approved. by the Planning Commission. And I think, you know, in preparation for that appeal hearing is better to err on the side of preparation. |
| 00:52:48.16 | Melissa Blaustein | That's it. |
| 00:52:48.94 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:52:48.97 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, I hear your point. I have a comment towards that, but I think we want to take public comment and bring it back up. |
| 00:52:53.75 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, let's do that unless we have further questions from the dais so we can make sure public has a chance to weigh in before we deliberate. |
| 00:52:59.32 | Ian Sobieski | I guess I did have another question. Sorry. |
| 00:53:00.78 | Steven Woodside | Sorry, Dr. McGowan. |
| 00:53:02.23 | Ian Sobieski | Sorry about that idea of just a factual question. It might be for Sergio, actually. Uh, because my understanding, uh, is that the planning commission's approval of the design, it might be even a question for Sergio, so I apologize if it's for Sergio, but it might be to you actually, since it's an ordinance question, What is the design is my question. Is it? The location of every dot and comma, every bench, has to be exactly 72 degrees, four feet from the curb? Or is it the... high level design details that the bird's eye view. That's the question I have because there's a approved design from the planning commission that, Uh, and, and even though park benches were shown, my understanding is that that, as far as I can tell you that modifications of that, is allowed as long as you don't break the covenants of the restrictions that the planning commission imposed and they had four of them i think on parking spaces viewing direction and so forth. So that's my question is what exactly constitutes the definition of the thing that was approved by planning commission? |
| 00:54:14.56 | Sergio Rudin | So the Planning Commission approves a design review permit for the project based on the plans that are presented to them. That is the approved design. That being said, the city code provides for a process for modifying approved design review permits, and there is a minister or there is a staff level review by the CDD director that authorizes the CDD director to make minor modifications to the approved design and approve modifications to the design review permit for those as long as they do not violate the conditions of approval of the Planning Commission or do not violate you know, or, implicate any of the specific findings that were made by the Planning Commission and necessary for the Planning Commission to approve the project. So typically small changes that are necessary in the course of construction are things that can be administratively approved by staff. provided there not a significant change to the design. |
| 00:55:16.98 | Joan Cox | So. When there is an appeal, is it typical for staff to carry out those changes in advance of the appeal being heard? |
| 00:55:27.04 | Sergio Rudin | Well, I won't say what is typical because I simply don't know, but I will say that the city code... voids the approval. So there is no design review permit in this instance until the council renders an appeal. |
| 00:55:41.47 | Joan Cox | And what the appeal is, is on the design presented to the Planning Commission. That is the design that was approved with conditions. |
| 00:55:49.94 | Sergio Rudin | That is correct, but it is not atypical, I would say, for an applicant in any sort of project. when they're on appeal to present their best case for what they think should be approved. And in this instance- |
| 00:56:01.21 | Joan Cox | So, yes, who the applicant is. The applicant is the city, so it would be up to the city council whether the city council wants to spend the money to quote unquote improve its plans in support of the planning commission decision, but we don't yet know whether city council supports the planning commission decision. or not. And so, I would Posit that perhaps Well, I would want to know how much money has been spent and how much money the Public Works Director proposes to spend to prepare the plans for appeal. |
| 00:56:40.82 | Sergio Rudin | And I can try to help answer that question just looking at the scope of work that is in the contract before you today. There are three tasks that would be added by this amendment. One is the site plan coordination and construction document updates. And I believe the... our DPW director can help assess whether all of those things are done, but it was conducting additional meetings with the local resources group, attending an additional meeting with the district, |
| 00:57:03.21 | Chris Zapata | And how? |
| 00:57:03.39 | Unknown | THE FAMILY. |
| 00:57:03.45 | Chris Zapata | Bye. |
| 00:57:13.28 | Sergio Rudin | and making some additional modifications to the design drawings. That is a task for 41,674. One task is task 17, attendance of the planning commission meetings, including preparing a revised construction documents for that meeting. I would assume that that item has already been completed. The last item is task 18 city council meeting. That's for $8,500, which is the smallest item. So hopefully that helps provide you folks with some context. |
| 00:57:44.37 | Joan Cox | Sergio I did read that, but the scope of services in their contract says for task 16 following the receipt of feedback from the planning Commission during the July 26 hearing BKF and our sub consultant will develop an updated site plan for city review. That process is priced at 41,674. This memo is dated August 29 2023. Nothing in this memo suggests that some of this work has already been performed. |
| 00:58:14.35 | Melissa Blaustein | May I ask that we not speculate on the amount being paid. I think we're highlighting here, Sergio, for further consideration, a process question. If the city is in fact the applicant, the city has to approve the amount spent on the application but the city council has not yet the application, so how can we actually justify any spend? Exactly. That's the process question. I do not need an answer to that right in this minute, but I think that's the question for you later. |
| 00:58:37.30 | Joan Cox | Exactly. |
| 00:58:43.53 | Joan Cox | I would like to continue this item so that that process question, we have to take public |
| 00:58:46.79 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. |
| 00:58:48.04 | Steven Woodside | Please. And then we can have a deliberation discussion because we're definitely moving away from questions into comments. So let's go ahead and open it up for public comment, please. |
| 00:58:48.20 | Joan Cox | Please. |
| 00:58:56.49 | Walfred Solorzano | We have a Babette McDool. |
| 00:59:02.68 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. I just want to say that there's a reason why the ferry landing improvement concept has been around for decades. And that's because we have to step back and ask ourselves one big question, which is just how big do we want Sausalito to be? We're a really small |
| 00:59:20.84 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 00:59:22.16 | Babette McDougall | focused place in terms of how much land we have to use, how big the Richardson Bay water space is to begin with, and we need to consider all of that. When you look at the impact of Larkspur landing by comparison, the other place in Marin They're maxed out. Now, what, how would it look for Sausalito to build either a revised or the expanded? It doesn't matter, either version. How soon before it too is maxed out, the whole town gets maxed out because just like Larkspur, all these commuters are going to bring their cars in and everybody needs a place to park them. And we barely can take care of what we have now. So, I mean, really in the big picture of things, just how big a ferry terminal do we want? What do we want Bridgeway to become? Santa Monica Boulevard? Bigger? I mean, think about it, just how big do we want Sausalito to become? Because this fairy project... will most certainly turn the key one way or the other. |
| 01:00:19.74 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:00:19.75 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:00:19.94 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:00:19.97 | Unknown | to be. |
| 01:00:20.01 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Next speaker is Fred. |
| 01:00:33.24 | Walfred Solorzano | or mute yourself. |
| 01:00:35.72 | Fred | Can you hear me now? |
| 01:00:37.34 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes, we can hear you. |
| 01:00:38.72 | Fred | I agree 100% with Councilwoman Cox. I'm very much troubled. With the process that seems to have more than a minor glitch. like Councilman Cox indicated, Any situation with an applicant, when the planning commission makes a recommendation about design changes that they want to see implemented before they've made grant or deny their approval, the applicant always decides, well, we disagree or we agree with your recommendations. We're going to agree or not agree to spend the money. We may want to have our plan go forward as it is and get an up, you know, vote up or vote down with the plan as submitted. So to me, that process glitch is something that needs to be seriously looked at so that it doesn't happen again. And I strongly recommend that you look into deeply what money has been spent, what needs to be spent, and determine whether or not you want to spend the money to change the plan, update the plan before you actually look at the approval of the appeal. Because you may decide that you may want to make a whole bunch of other changes with what's been presented. So I agree, a pause on this, getting more information probably is the better part of Valor and take it up at another meeting. Thank you very much for listening to me. Thank you. |
| 01:01:56.29 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 01:01:56.31 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:01:57.83 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay, next speaker, Sandra Bushmaker. |
| 01:02:04.53 | Sandra Bushmaker | Exactly. Good to see you. Can you hear me all right? Yes. I happen to agree with Fred. and Joan Cox and Janelle Pillman about the kerfuffle we have with process here. It is highly confusing. I think that also spending money without Council approval. was a mistake. And I really would like to see us Learn from this process. It is very confusing to the public to figure out what's going on and I think that we need to really get the lessons learned and get our process a little more together so that we can uh, do projects. Perhaps the problem is because the city council, I mean the city of Sausalito is the applicant. And perhaps that is what is making so much confusion with this particular process. So I think some work needs to be done on that. So I would support the continuance of this matter. |
| 01:03:05.31 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Sandra. |
| 01:03:08.47 | Walfred Solorzano | No further speakers. |
| 01:03:09.97 | Steven Woodside | Okay, we'll go ahead and close public comment and bring it back up to the dais. And I will just begin by saying I would like to motion for continuance on this item, but I'll open it to discussion just for the interest of moving things forward. |
| 01:03:19.76 | Chris Zapata | the internet. |
| 01:03:20.08 | Joan Cox | to be able to get the |
| 01:03:23.72 | Steven Woodside | Okay, anyone wanna comment on that or no? Okay, so we'll, all in favor? Thank you. you |
| 01:03:28.11 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:03:28.18 | Steven Woodside | Bye. Okay. So we'll continue this item and hopefully we can answer some of those questions. Okay, great. So we'll now move forward to our business item for this evening. Yes, please go ahead. Yes, no, go ahead. By all means. Second time. |
| 01:03:41.56 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:03:42.03 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:03:42.07 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. |
| 01:03:42.32 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:03:42.45 | Jill Hoffman | Um, So, okay, so we're gonna, we're gonna continue this. Is it thought then that we would continue this to after the appeal? Or is this a, is this a precursor to the appeal? |
| 01:03:51.08 | Joan Cox | That's a great question. I would like us to hear this before the appeal so that we can decide as the applicant whether to spend the monies that the public works director seems to believe. We should spend. in order to hear the effect of appeal, but my fellow, the vice mayor has obviously watched the Planning Commission meeting and seems to perhaps believe that The Bird's Eye View plan that exists and that was approved by the Planning Commission is adequate. So I would like to hear this before the appeal. so that we can make a decision about whether to spend those monies to better decide the appeal. |
| 01:04:27.61 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:04:27.63 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:04:27.65 | Steven Woodside | That would mean we'd have to push the appeal to after November 7th, which means we'll send in a new doodle because the first soonest we could hear this item again at the next regular meeting is the seventh. |
| 01:04:27.66 | Joan Cox | that would make it. |
| 01:04:35.97 | Steven Woodside | you |
| 01:04:35.98 | Joan Cox | So Sergio, is there a deadline for us to hear the appeal now that there has been an appeal? |
| 01:04:41.08 | Sergio Rudin | There is not. Um, But, you know, again, scheduling wise, um, there are, you know, our holidays coming up and, you know, It's difficult to schedule things in December, so. |
| 01:04:54.95 | Ian Sobieski | Is there any, that was still my question. And I think the answer is no, there's no material information. in what you would, that you don't already currently have that you could present to us that you need to have for the appeal. Like the design that you have the bird's eye view of the design that is approved by the Planning Commission. Thank you. |
| 01:05:16.82 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, with the exception of the conditions of approval that need to be added. Madam Mayor, would it be acceptable if I would get you this information within the next week, independently of a council meeting, would that be acceptable or it. |
| 01:05:16.84 | Ian Sobieski | Yes. Okay. |
| 01:05:33.20 | Kevin McGowan | No. Just throwing an idea out. |
| 01:05:34.64 | Steven Woodside | Throwing an idea. |
| 01:05:35.52 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:05:36.02 | Steven Woodside | I appreciate how much work and effort has gone into the ferry landing project, Director McGowan, and I know it has been quite a bit of work for your team and community development. And, but I do think this, based on the concern here, this is probably something that we need to continue to discuss together. I would, I mean, I'm open to it if other council members are, but based on the direction and also just the process issues that have been brought up, which are critical, I do think we need to talk about it just to answer them for future, because my concern is the city will be applicant on other projects where we receive grant funding, for example, and we need to know and fix this issue so it doesn't occur again. That's my feeling. |
| 01:06:11.16 | Ian Sobieski | That's a slightly different issue. That's the process issue in general. We're talking about the particular issue vis-a-vis the particular appeal. And I still am perplexed because it sounded like you had said that you did already got a planning commission approval for a revised design, which means there's a design that I haven't seen since the planning commission that has a bigger sidewalk on the east that meets the GGBHTD requirement that there be such a sidewalk. So there has been already a turn on the design. at least a bird's eye version. So it sounds like you have that done. So again, it sounds like you're ready to go for the appeal, not that it's going to be tomorrow, but whether it's tomorrow or next week or the week after, you have what you need. present. |
| 01:06:55.01 | Joan Cox | Yeah. Do you? I would like to know the answer to that. |
| 01:06:57.83 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, we do have enough information to make a presentation to the council. |
| 01:07:02.32 | Joan Cox | then I would say Let's move forward. Then I think at the next meeting, you need to let us know what was already spent, what you were planning to spend additional. Obviously, he's going to charge you 8,600 to attend the city council meeting, That's fine with me. You know, so it doesn't answer the question, but we do need to know as a matter of process and to clear the record for the public, what has already been spent. |
| 01:07:22.62 | Steven Woodside | So it doesn't answer the question, but |
| 01:07:31.57 | Joan Cox | Um, as of now that has prepared you already to bring this to back to the council. |
| 01:07:38.92 | Steven Woodside | Yes, ma'am. Okay, the vice mayor wanted to say something, then we'll go to Councilman Rothman. Okay. |
| 01:07:42.89 | Ian Sobieski | I was just going to say on the basis of that, it seems like we can take this matter up after we hear the appeal. |
| 01:07:47.83 | Joan Cox | agree. We don't need to make this decision. I stand corrected. We don't need to make this decision before we hear the appeal, since you already have everything you need for the appeal. |
| 01:07:58.25 | Jill Hoffman | I thought, sorry, I thought I heard differently. So, but I thought that the, my question earlier was, um, Do you need this additional money to present the plan that was approved by the Planning Commission at the appeal? And would this help you be better prepared to present. the plan. at the appeal. My fear is that I don't want to create any issue in order to attack a decision one way or the other at the appeal. that we're not presenting or addressing. the plan that was approved by the planning commission. So that's, And that's my issue. And, I thought I heard you say that you have a plan, but it needs further. adjustments based on what the decision of the planning commission was as the design review authority. That's where I thought we were going. |
| 01:08:59.44 | Kevin McGowan | So, yes, you're hearing two different things, and I don't want to present a third to make it too confusing. So my apologies. So we do have enough detail to make a presentation to council. And some of our details may not be as precise as, let's say, the Planning Commission would have liked because they like to have full details. So the conditions of approval from the planning commission were to install a drop-off area at the end of El Portal. We will not have details for that specifically, but we might have a yellow square on the plan that says this is one of the conditions. So that's what we can get away with at this point in time. Is that helpful? |
| 01:09:41.72 | Steven Woodside | Yes. So that means that you have what you need to proceed with the appeal without the hearing of this continuance. So we should go forward in scheduling the appeal. |
| 01:09:45.01 | Kevin McGowan | where you know what? |
| 01:09:51.16 | Steven Woodside | That is my recommendation. Let's keep this going. Okay, great. If that's okay with cancer. That's great. Okay, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Appreciate everyone's feedback here. Can we hear this? |
| 01:10:00.03 | Joan Cox | But can item again, even on consent. Yes, yes. |
| 01:10:03.14 | Steven Woodside | Yes, yes. you |
| 01:10:04.27 | Joan Cox | you |
| 01:10:04.28 | Steven Woodside | at the next meeting. |
| 01:10:04.98 | Joan Cox | to be able to get the |
| 01:10:05.10 | Steven Woodside | Yes, it's been continued. Yes, we can put it on consent if that makes sense. Okay. |
| 01:10:05.52 | Joan Cox | We can continue. Yes. |
| 01:10:09.65 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Director McGowan. |
| 01:10:09.69 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:10:11.15 | Steven Woodside | Thank you very much, Dr. McGowan. I know that you have been living and breathing the ferry landing since you arrived here. So we appreciate you. Thank you for being here. All right. So we'll move on to the first business item on our agenda, which is public hearing items. There are none this evening. So we'll move to business items. And then item 5A, adopt a resolution of the city council establishing compensation and benefit plans for the non-represented employees for July 1st, 2023 through June 30th, 2026. And changing classification groups from management and confidential to city management, police management, and professional and technical employees. So I believe our city manager is giving, or is Deborah much more giving this presentation? |
| 01:10:51.15 | Chris Zapata | Thank you, Mayor. We're going to tag team this. Great. We had anticipated we might have Chad with this, but something's going on where he can't participate. So we will handle this. First of all, thank you and the public for your time and work. I'm going to go through a presentation about why the recommendation is to support this agreement. I want to start with the first slide, Noelle, please. |
| 01:10:54.56 | Steven Woodside | That's it. |
| 01:11:15.78 | Chris Zapata | You know, over the last two years, we started with an assessment of what matters in the community. We made recommendations. We said finance matters. This is that. Infrastructure matters. This could lead to that. And personnel matters. And this is exactly that. So focusing on finance, infrastructure and personnel has been something you've been doing diligently since that October 2021 meeting, and it's borne some fruit. I also know that at that time, we were coming out of a pandemic. We were looking at increased pension costs that all cities are facing for the most part, and we also knew that there was some volatility in our revenue stream, so this created a series of challenges. And so we didn't start from scratch because people before us did a lot of good work, including, you know, getting some infrastructure money through Measure O. prior to that, making sure that the tourism and tax rate was set so that we could see revenue from the hotels and the visitors that come here. And then the city councils of the past were, and administrations were one of the first adopters of the 115 Trust Program to offset pension and post-employment benefit costs that are rising. Next slide, please. So when we look at the past, it informs the future. And at that particular time, we were plugging budget challenges with one-time money. So the one-time money that the city received in 2021 from the federal government, the one-time money that we took out of our parking funds, the $800,000, $900,000 we took out of our reserves, all of that was used to create and figure out how we could get to that moment and that challenge in our fiscal situation. We took further steps, dovetailing on what the city council was doing, which is, you know, cutting some administrative overhead, including an assistant city manager position. And then we went further with the reorganization of the parks department so that we did not retain a parks and recreation director. Those two scenarios alone saved us about half a million dollars on an ongoing basis when you fully load them. Another thing that we did to kind of contain costs was we had a pretty untenable contract for our finance department, which was about $1.3 million. The city council understood that it was not tenable and gave me direction to cease that contract. And so after six months, we did, which resulted in the savings of about half a million dollars, as well as those measures to manage our budget and to make decisions that would help us get to a better day. We froze positions. We stopped spending. We stopped buying. And the city council negotiated three one-year labor contracts and using a unique format that I think is bearing fruit today. And that was to create work-life balance. Certain groups within the city of Sausalito were negotiating bargain for a 36-hour work week, and one of the things that the city did not do in that labor cycle, all three of those contracts were all done with bonuses. No perishable expense, meaning no retirement additives based on a bonus, so that was something the city council did intentionally to meet budget challenges. Next step. Thank you, Emily. So the, the one thing that we heard from the community is that, you know, our finances were in disarray and, you know, some of our audits reflected that and that was true. There was a lot of churn in Sausalito and that change in those churns of staff creates problems with reporting requirements and other things. And so our auditor noted those. And so we tried to address head on what the auditors told us was wrong. We actually did what the council requested us do after one year and hire new auditors because we wanted to see fresh eyes on our books. And then the other concern that you wanted to take a look at besides our audits and our numbers and our auditor was our pensions. And so you commissioned a report from Bartell & Associates, who is the gold standards of pension analysis companies in California. They showed us a number of things, made recommendations. And the highlights for me were, is it in 26, 27, and 28, our pensions will rise in a way that is concerning? They also gave recommendations on what we should do with our 115 trust money, which at the time was about $2 million. Their recommendation was to use it in 26, 27, and 28 to smooth out future pension obligations in those years so that we wouldn't see big problems. And then to get to what really needed to happen is we rebuilt the entire finance department. There's not one single person in that department right now that was there when I came two years ago. And it's being led by a very competent person that we hired on an interim basis and now on a full-time basis, Chad Hess. So he's been really helpful in that regard. While you're looking at cost cutting and taking care of problems that are in the future, I think the idea of revenue was really important to the city council. So you did that. you know, there was real effort given to analyze Measure O to bring Measure L forward, which expanded and extended the infrastructure tax that the voters passed in Sausalito in 2015 for eight more years. That combined number of the half cent add-on to the existing half cent will add about $3 million a year for the next eight years. So that will be about $24 million that the city will see for infrastructure investment, which is sorely needed. The council was very eager to see other people's money. That's what OPM stands for, other people's money. And so $2 million in state funds. And I give a lot of kudos to then-Mayor Kelman and her team for getting a million-dollar commitment on resiliency from the state of California, almost said Arizona, state of California. And then also the city council requesting that Moran County assist in some of our unhoused persons, homeless challenge needs, and ask for $1.5 million. And so the state has provided $500,000 and the county is committed to matching that $500,000. You also asked us to chase the money and thanks to the good work of Director McGowan and his team and a consultant. The 2019 landslide in Sausalito, you know, was a pretty big spend for our city. So we were out of pocket. My recollection is close to $2 million. So we've recovered about a million of that. And that money is great. Our grant program that we initiated at your request, we've hired a group called California Consulting. They were successful this past cycle in getting a $495,000 COPS grant and a $40,000 grant from, I believe it's PG&E. So all of that to say revenue and other people's money and ongoing revenue that may be not ongoing after eight years is something that you worked on. In addition to help strengthen our financial fiscal and financial position, our revenues have rebounded as the pandemic has waned or stopped and started. So all of that stuff is really important for the public to know. Again, I make the point that, you know, Saucyotl's revenue mix is volatile. You do rely on tourism you tax from the hotels. You do rely on sales tax. You do rely on parking revenues. And when we do that, you know, we're subject to economic cycles in a more direct way than, you know, property tax or some other ongoing tax that's stable, like a utility user tax. You know, we've looked at our properties that, you know, generate revenues and the foresight of Sausalito leaders to create entrepreneurial models and parking that generate revenue for the city, as well as buildings. The property portfolio of Sausalito is significant. And so we just completed a long-term lease with Lice Francais, who was our biggest payee into our funds for properties. That's going to add an additional $200,000 a year in revenue that we couldn't count until we got the agreement done. It was done with the assistance of Cushman Wakefield at the direction of Councilmember Kelman and Vice Mayor Sobieski, who were then the mayor and the remainder of the OMIT team. So that's great. And then through recommendations from the vice mayor, we've upped the ante. Chad, in particular, has really been aggressive in trying to figure out how to make our money work for us in a secure way, you know, safety. Liquidity and yield are the three tenets of what you want to do with your money as an entity of government. And so Treasury bills are safe and they're not as liquid as life, but the yield is much higher. And at the same time, we approached one of our two remaining banks in Sausalito. When I got here, the Bank of America building and operation had closed. Now the Wells Fargo has closed. Now we're seeing just the Bank of Marin and one other bank in our community. And so we've had a longstanding relationship with the Bank of Marin. They've let us know that they provide loans to people and businesses in Sausalito, their community minded. And so we negotiated an increased amount from the money we keep in their accounts to 4% of what we call newfound money, because at one time it was 0%. Now it's 4% that we're getting from them, and we're getting 5% on our treasuries. And so Chad's created a plan to create a scenario of every six months, we invest a little more in higher yielding, if that's the market at the time. So that's created new revenue and better financial situation for the city. So let me go to the next slide, please. And I'm telling you all this, so I want to justify why I think this particular recommendation will make sense to you. But you have to hear the whole story. You can't hear the punchline. So the 115 Trust Fund this past year, this past last quarter, City Council directed an additional million dollars be put into that. So that number is closer to $3.4 million. And with the other 115 trusts, which is for post-employment benefits, we're over $5 million in protected money for pensions in the future, as we mentioned in the Bartell report, is illustrative in how we should do that. And for other post-employment benefits like healthcare, retirees, etc. Again, you set aside money this year in the budget for landslides. That FEMA money we got back, $450,000 is there for what we believe are the steps recommended by the landslide task force and anything that may come up in the future. So you're watching that. We did receive 500,000, as I noted earlier, from the state for unhoused and homeless needs, of which $193,000 was reimbursement for encampment expenses, which was significant, as well as $307,000 to finally begin working on an additional unit at the door to Gibson House. You know, we're not going to see the $800,000 this year or next year in housing element costs for consultants. So that's something that I think is really important. So all of the spend that we've done are in this budget and spent last year. We don't see that big chunk of change coming out of the city's coffers in the coming year. So that's positive. So let me talk about the recommendation. One of the things that people say is, well, when you raise the budget, what's going on? Cities are service organizations that manage projects, provide public safety, check out library books, maintain your parks, keep your books, handle your legal affairs, all of these things. And so personnel in the city equal services to the community, to the businesses, to visitors. And a lot of people don't make that connection. And it's very important. When you say we're paying somebody in public works, you know, you're not just paying that person, you're paying for the service that person provides. And when you say you pay a police officer, you're paying that person for the safety and security that person provides. So all of that to say that personnel equals city services. I think that's really fundamental for people to really know my philosophy on that. And in our personnel, in our staff report, I talked about all the work that you've done, we've done, much more than our HR people have done to stem the tide of city churn. In two years, we've replaced sometimes the same position multiple times, 70 positions. And that's a function of a number of things. But what I would tell you, it's undesirable. You don't want to do that. So one of the factors is obviously compensation and, you know, work-life balance and, you know, how you feel valued in the organization by the people that you work for and the people, I'm talking about the residents and the people you work with. I'm talking about the city council and other staff. So the city council made a conscious decision to say that, you know, we don't know that we can afford to be top of the market and pay people in our organization, but we don't want to be bottom of the market because bottom of the market means we'll get what we've gotten, which is churn. And replacing positions on a constant basis may be invisible to residents, but you see it in institutional knowledge, you see it in service levels, you see it in production. So this pay philosophy is what initiated how we approached our bargaining sessions with the three bargaining units, including the one we're talking about tonight. As you know, you did three one-year cycles, and in this past quarter, you've approved contracts with SEIU. You've approved contracts with the Sausalop Police Officers Association. And tonight, we're asking you to approve a contract for the non-represented employee groups. The SEIU agreement and this agreement are three-year agreements, so you don't have to be back at the bargaining table for another two years and six months, hopefully. But the police agreement is two years. And so we will probably be back at the bargaining table in 18 months. So I just tell you that's the nature of it. And so one of the things I want to talk about is all these things in aggregate. And I was told that, you know, we just blew a four million dollar hole in our budget. And I was confident and I am confident that that's not the case. There are savings and new revenue over the three-year period that will more than offset the cost of these agreements and this investment in your people infrastructure. Like you invest in physical infrastructure, your people are your other infrastructure. And so this investment in them over three years will cost you, we project $3,430,000.74. That's what we project. And so one of the things that, you know, one may ask is, well, how do you pay for that? And how do you, city manager, adhere to that statement you've been making that the $10 million in audited reserves that are the city savings are not going to be touched? And so in the staff report, there is a listing of where we believe the fixes are over the next three years. And the one thing I will point to is because we have a two-year deal with the police department and SPA, we cannot peg the third year at a fixed number. So we took the last number of the second year, which is $377,344, and put that in there as a placeholder. It may be less, it may be the same, it may be more. But we wanted to put that in there to show transparently what the full cost over three years is projected to be. And again, that's $3,430,754. And then what we've worked hard on, in particular, our new finance director, Chad Hess, is how we accommodate this without spending more than we're taking in. And so one of the things that is really, I think, a mystery to the residents is we used to budget everybody at 40 hours a week. And we're not doing that now. Some some portion, a good portion of our staff is being budgeted at 36 hours a week. But when we adopted the budget, we did not have the labor agreements done. And so we had to assume that scenario. And so when you see the notation in the staff report about budgetary slack for SCIU at three hundred sixty seven thousand dollars for confidential, et cetera, et cetera. you you see that's the immediate savings that you got from going from a 40-hour workweek to a 36-hour workweek, even though you provided an increase in pay this year and in the next two years. So the other revenues that you need to know about are, I just noted the MLK and Lice Francais agreement at $200,000. This year, we have to prorate it because it's not for a full year. It's for a partial year. So that's what you see there. Chad is projecting stronger than expected parking revenues, stronger than expected business license. We received $193,000 from the state and hard money for homeless camp expenses. We don't have property tax growth in this savings matrix because we already did that in our budget. And then cities always have unfilled positions. Even if, you know, we we have 75 paid for in the budget. We never have 75 people working. We always have vacancies. We have them in the police department. We have them in other departments. And so there's always savings there. So when you extrapolate that across three years, the total amount you get to is $4,235,967. projected. So the delta between 4.2 million and 3.4 million is about $800,000, $797,000 that if our projections hold, and I believe they will, we're not taking an aggressive approach to, you know, picking numbers out of the sky. That's not Chad's style, nor is it mine. I don't think you would appreciate it, nor would the public. But we believe that at the end of three years, even with these contracts, that we should be close to $800,000 in the black based on these two numbers. So with that, I want to talk, I want to have Deborah talk about the nuts and bolts of what the agreement actually is, and then I'll answer questions. Thank you. |
| 01:30:35.84 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | Thank you. Hi, Deborah. Hello, Mayor, Councilmembers. Oh, there we go. That's a little better. So I'm going to take us down a little bit of history first. The city management group salaries that are on our website, that are on our publicly available pay schedule, which I'll briefly show in a moment. Those are from the 20 to 23 year. And they actually were from the 21, 22. And so those salaries are the pay ranges for each of those positions. And in, in September, October, mid-October of 2022, those management positions took a reduction in pay from that pay schedule of 10%. And that is still in place today. So the approval of this item actually removes that reduction. So they're actually getting paid within the range that's on the pay schedule that we have on the website. So that's one piece of the element that we're going to explain in this agreement. So the next slide shows us the pay schedule and that pay schedule. So these are the ranges that have been in place for a while. And these ranges here are the ranges that will receive the 4% increase. So managers are paid 10% below them and have been since October. They would come back to these original ranges and get a 4% increase. So if you move to the next slide, it kind of explains the whole program. |
| 01:32:32.85 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | There we go. So the police management did they did not have the 10 percent reduction during that time frame. And so they worked 40 hours. They their ranges on the pay schedule are what they're getting paid and their ranges will go up four percent in year one, two percent in year two, three percent in year three for a total of 9%. And those increases are to the range. So increases individually to employees occur on their anniversary day based on merit and their evaluation. The city management, those that are not police management, they did have the reduction. That reduction goes away. They come back to their pay scale. The pay ranges go up 4% in year one, 2% in year two, 3% in year three, total of 9%. And those increases for individual employees occur on their anniversary date based on merit and after an evaluation. There's also a group of professional and technical employees in the non-represented unit. And they work 36 hours a week. They are paid hourly. And they received a similar increase to that which the council approved for SEIU, which is 8% in year one, 2% in year two, 3% in year three. In addition, there's been a $2,000 available for each employee each fiscal year for education. And that has been now allowed to be one that 1,000 can be used for wellness. If they don't use that for wellness, they can ask to have, they can ask HR to move that 1,000 into tuition if they're going through a college program or something like that. So that's. Any questions? Yes. |
| 01:34:37.24 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:34:37.34 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | I'll bring it back to that. |
| 01:34:38.03 | Steven Woodside | I have several questions too, but go ahead, Councilman Cox. |
| 01:34:40.66 | Joan Cox | Just one quick clarification. You said that the council has approved We actually gave direction to you to bring this back to the council, but we've not approved anything yet. It's on our agenda for consideration of approval this evening. |
| 01:34:53.45 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | I was speaking of the SEIU contract that was approved. My, my, if I spoke wrong, I'm sorry. Thank you. |
| 01:34:59.63 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:34:59.68 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | No, don't worry. |
| 01:34:59.70 | Joan Cox | I just want to be clear. We're considering this proposal. Yeah, absolutely. |
| 01:35:00.93 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | you |
| 01:35:04.05 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | Yeah, absolutely. This is not approved. This is under consideration. If you do approve, this is what will happen. |
| 01:35:10.72 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:35:11.61 | Steven Woodside | . |
| 01:35:11.66 | Joan Cox | Right. |
| 01:35:12.22 | Steven Woodside | And thank you for the presentation. I have a couple of questions as well. Could you give me an idea? How many employees have we hired since the last time we negotiated this contract and how many have we lost? |
| 01:35:25.65 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | We have hired close to 70 employees. |
| 01:35:29.68 | Steven Woodside | And we have 75 positions and in the last two years we've hired 70 employees. Yeah. |
| 01:35:34.29 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | Yeah. |
| 01:35:34.71 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 01:35:35.69 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | Yeah, now that 70 does include our summer flux, and that is not part of our permanent position number. Okay. |
| 01:35:46.85 | Steven Woodside | And what's the typical churn for city employees? You usually, I mean, you represent a number of cities that you would say that our turnover was rather high during that time. |
| 01:35:54.76 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | three times, three to four times the norm. It's normally 20 to 25%. Thank you. |
| 01:36:01.22 | Steven Woodside | And would you say that our current pay package might be a contributing factor to that? |
| 01:36:07.62 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | I would say that we have significant impediments to recruitment based on our historical ranges. |
| 01:36:16.61 | Steven Woodside | And based on our historical ranges, are we falling within the middle range, the lower range? higher range. Thank you. |
| 01:36:23.58 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | We have recently been provided direction from our city council to pay close to the mid-range of the market. And that's been actually very helpful in some of the most recent recruitments that we've been doing. |
| 01:36:42.80 | Steven Woodside | Okay, so our SEIU contract and our police contract, the effort was to move towards the middle market. And is that the efforts here as well? |
| 01:36:48.98 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | Yes, it is. |
| 01:36:50.04 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 01:36:50.09 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | Thank you. |
| 01:36:50.21 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. you |
| 01:36:51.01 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | Thank you. |
| 01:36:52.25 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:36:52.29 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | Thank you. |
| 01:36:52.39 | Chris Zapata | Mayor, you raise a good point. Let me jump in real quick, because one thing that I didn't cover and Debra didn't speak about either is the request that the city council made for salary comparisons in traditionally measured cities, but specifically Marin County cities and where Saucydeo stood with those. So that's part of the information that we provided as well. |
| 01:37:12.72 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, it would be great just for the community to be aware of that fact, because the reality is, while this will be a substantial investment should we choose to approve it this evening, in line with other communities in Marin County, barring approval of this, we're going to remain on the lower end. So that was sort of the part of the process of the negotiations here. Yeah, we should have added that. Yeah, that would be helpful. And maybe you can amend later to add that information so the public can be aware of existing salary ranges and where we would fall with this agreement. Because I think we've agreed from the dais that getting to mid-level is what we would like to see for, and that was a driving factor in this. And then another question that just came up, thank you city manager for me, is what is the cost to hire an employee, to search for an employee, et cetera, just to weigh the cost? |
| 01:37:34.36 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | for the company. Yeah, that would be helpful. |
| 01:37:59.69 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | Yeah, it depends on whether it's a sworn or a police employee or a city employee. A city employee around $5,000 for cost only, not lost opportunity, not lost productivity. And it's closer to $100,000 if we're talking about a safety personnel. |
| 01:38:20.15 | Steven Woodside | So about $100,000 to hire a police sworn officer and $5,000 not including opportunity cost and lost time for hiring an employee. And we've hired 70 people in the last three years. Okay. So we've already spent the expected amount essentially in the hiring if we did the math. |
| 01:38:23.18 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | Thank you. |
| 01:38:23.21 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:38:27.28 | Unknown | hiring. I'm sorry. Thank you. |
| 01:38:30.03 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | THE FAMILY. |
| 01:38:30.10 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:38:30.20 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | Thank you. |
| 01:38:30.21 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:38:30.28 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | Thank you. |
| 01:38:37.00 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | If we did the best. Yeah. And then ideally with retention, we would have a more reasonable, sustainable number. |
| 01:38:44.45 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, absolutely. And we wouldn't lose money every time we lose someone or we need to hire someone or conduct a search. And what's the cost as well of a search for an executive position? Because those are much higher, right, than the $5,000. |
| 01:38:54.44 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | Yeah, an executive position, depending on the type of work that we're going for, if it's a high-level executive, those current contracts I'm seeing at 28,000 to 35,000 right now, 12,000 to 15,000 if we're doing a mid-level executive. |
| 01:39:13.97 | Steven Woodside | Okay. So just to find the executive again, I'm just really trying to reinforce the cost of not being able to retain our employees versus the costs that we're making this evening, because I'm sure that. |
| 01:39:20.25 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | versus the |
| 01:39:20.77 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:39:23.74 | Steven Woodside | members of the public might look at the numbers and be concerned, but I've seen the city manager justify that cost, but further these other opportunity costs that we're not thinking about with regards to hiring are important to bring forward. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it, Debra. Other questions from the dais? Yes, Councilmember Hoppin. |
| 01:39:41.73 | Jill Hoffman | So let me ask you a question about this 70 number. We have 75 employees. total on our books, I guess, and then we've hired 70 employees. |
| 01:39:52.18 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:39:52.56 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:39:53.61 | Jill Hoffman | That soundbite makes it seem like we've had almost a complete turnover. So, but I think you tried to clarify that, that a lot of those 70 employees were seasonal employees, had nothing to do with anything other than that they're seasonal employees. So is the number, the numbers really about 40 that we've hired in the last few years? |
| 01:40:12.14 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | It's closer to 60. The seasonal employees are about 15, maybe so closer to 55 full time employees. So |
| 01:40:22.92 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so then I have a question. During our discussions, our council discussions, the number was about 40. that we've hired new employees during the past few years, even with our lower pay scale. And now you're saying, but now you're saying it's closer to 60. |
| 01:40:38.45 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | So as we prepared this item, we pulled historical documents straight out of the payroll system just to verify the numbers. And that's where that number came from. And they actually have names attached to it. So we were able to verify it. |
| 01:40:51.85 | Jill Hoffman | So 60 new employees. So as you're standing here today, Thank you. How many full-time employees do we have? |
| 01:40:59.44 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | As how many full-time employees do we have? |
| 01:41:01.82 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 01:41:03.05 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | I will get back to you on that exact number because I don't want to give you an exact number today. |
| 01:41:08.25 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so I'm doing the math in my head. we're saying we have 70 new employees, a large number of those are seasonal. And you're telling me we've hired 60 new employees. Right. But if we go with 75 employees total, are you saying, because that cannot be true. |
| 01:41:27.81 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | Our human resources manager says there's 68 full-time employees. |
| 01:41:31.75 | Jill Hoffman | 68 full-time employees and we've hired 60. You're saying we've hired 60. |
| 01:41:32.87 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | Oh, yeah. Over two years, some places, some positions filled more than one time. |
| 01:41:39.79 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, but I'm looking around the staff and I know people who have worked here for years and that number's not 100% turnover. That's what you're telling me. Like I'm looking at Kevin McCallum. I'm looking at. other people who are sitting up here. So I don't know. I just wanna make sure, and I'm looking at our police chief in the back and I'm looking for other police officers. |
| 01:41:53.40 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | Thank you. That would leave eight. Yeah. We have police officers. Okay. |
| 01:41:59.35 | Jill Hoffman | So I think before we start throwing these numbers out at a city council meeting, we need some certainty as to what those numbers are because they don't seem to be accurate to me as I'm sitting here. My, what we had during our Briefings was that we had hired 40 new full-time employees, but this was at a time when we were, we had a reduced pay scale. So the idea that we have to increase our pay in order to hire new people, to me, didn't particularly reign true. Thank you. |
| 01:42:26.87 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | So if I may clarify, I'm |
| 01:42:27.64 | Jill Hoffman | I |
| 01:42:29.60 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | If that's okay, I... |
| 01:42:31.04 | Jill Hoffman | I mean, this is both these were questions that were asked from the diet. So this is new, you know, different information than what we are. Could we allow her to respond? So. |
| 01:42:38.68 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | So positions like our community development director, there were three placements in that full-time position. It was challenging. There were, there were also other positions like our finance director that had multiple placements. And so that does change the number picture. So we can get a more accurate accounting of exactly where those were for you. But that's why we get to the number that I said that doesn't seem to ring true. |
| 01:42:46.41 | Jill Hoffman | It's challenging. |
| 01:43:06.56 | Jill Hoffman | Well, this is a public presentation to the council. |
| 01:43:09.22 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | Bye. |
| 01:43:09.95 | Jill Hoffman | There have been questions up here that aren't adding up. And so my decision-making process was based on different information that was provided to us and different conclusions. Because you're saying that we had trouble hiring you know, a community development director, we did We had one that did not work out and should not have stayed and did not stay. And so, we had an interim person and then we were able to hire our director Phipps, but we hired him at a time when we were at a reduced salary. And I think he was an excellent hire. So, Um, You know, I... I agree that we want to retain people, You know, I don't see that. I don't see the justification here that, we were not able to retain good people during this time period. And even more importantly, that we were not able to hire good people because we hired some really excellent people. during this time period. And I had some questions for Um, I had some questions for the city manager. I also want to note that I just tried to open this presentation on our agenda and it's not opening. So I, they were, I think those were your slides, Deborah, but there's a, there's a. Attachment one or sorry, attachment three to this item on the agenda. I'm clicking on it right now and it's saying error. I printed it out. Would you like the hard copy, council member? |
| 01:44:38.32 | Joan Cox | XML. |
| 01:44:40.38 | Jill Hoffman | No, I'm more concerned about the people who are trying to look at this on the public and our ability to comply with the Brown Act and provide information to the public this is a second item now on our agenda tonight where We either did not attach relevant information, even though it was requested or we aren't able to open presentations. So, I I don't need a copy. What I need is an accurate attachment to our public record. |
| 01:45:10.86 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:45:10.88 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:45:10.98 | Joan Cox | you |
| 01:45:10.99 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 01:45:11.20 | Joan Cox | So I'm just saying I was able to open and print it. So I don't know why it's not open. |
| 01:45:11.48 | Jill Hoffman | I'm just saying. |
| 01:45:16.34 | Jill Hoffman | I don't know. I don't know either. Um, |
| 01:45:19.40 | Walfred Solorzano | So I'll tell you the issue. I think what might have happened is we had some last minute ads on to the agenda, to that presentation. And so like at about, I'm not sure what time it was sent, like around 440 when I did the refresh, I think something happened with that link and I'll make sure it's up after this meeting. So, but it had been, it had been up all the way to like about whenever I switched it out again because of the new presentation at, at, I'm not sure when Deborah, when Deborah sent it, but sometime around five o'clock. So I'll make sure it's back up. It was up before and we just added a couple of slides and, and right now it's not popping up. So I'll make sure that gets taken care of. |
| 01:45:58.13 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:46:02.48 | Walfred Solorzano | But yeah, the public has, it was available to the public beforehand and it just happened just so right now. So sorry about that. |
| 01:46:08.45 | Babette McDougall | Okay, thank you. |
| 01:46:09.30 | Joan Cox | I appreciate getting a hard copy because if we added slides at 440, I don't have those. So thank you for the hard copy. |
| 01:46:09.31 | Babette McDougall | I appreciate getting |
| 01:46:13.92 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 01:46:14.17 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:46:18.66 | Steven Woodside | Do we have other questions from the diast? |
| 01:46:20.27 | Chris Zapata | Mayor, if I can, I'd like to address the concern at hand that I heard from Councilmember Hoffman. No. |
| 01:46:26.63 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:46:26.65 | Unknown | We're... |
| 01:46:26.73 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:46:26.73 | Joan Cox | City Manager, as a point of order, Before you do, I just want to make sure that when we talk about things that we've discussed, I perhaps the council member was just talking about things she had discussed with you, but I hope that we're not. talking here from the dais about things we've discussed in closed session. So I hope that if you're comparing information, we don't refer to things that we discussed or learned in closed session. |
| 01:46:50.94 | Chris Zapata | It's not my first rodeo. I won't do that. So what I'm going to talk about is what's in the staff report, because if the public can't see it, I can give them an illustration of it to point to whether it's six positions or 40 positions. I'll give you the names and the positions that have changed in two years. The city attorney has changed three times, from Mary Wagner to Greg Rubin, Sergio Rudin. The city clerk has changed four times, Heidi Scoble, Serge Avila, Molly Perry, and now Walford. Community development directors changed five times. Lily Whalen, Heidi Scoble, Jim Moore, Dan Hortert, and now we're Dan with Brandon Phillips. The finance directors changed three times. Charlie Francis to Vivian Chu to Chad Hess. The police chief has changed three times from John Rohrabacher and William Frost to now Chief Gregory. The human resources manager has changed three times. Sabran Flanau, Deborah's been acting, and now we have Kathy Nikitas on our team. The Parks and Recreation Department, the changes there that have been significant with Mr. Langford and Mrs. Myers leaving, now we have Brian Vitale. We just hired a new person, which is a recruitment, and that's Katie Tho in resiliency and sustainability. Our office assistant, Diane Cliff, left. We've replaced her with Noelle Property Management. Our consultant is no longer with us. We've replaced them with a combination of people in our finance department and a contract consultant. So just those people that work with me, that gives you a sense of the churn in the city, which I will tell you I've never seen, and it's not healthy. And whether it's six positions or 40 positions, if you change that many positions in two years, you're not on shaky ground. So I think that needs to be reversed. And that's the reason for my recommendation that you support this contract as you supported SEIU, as you supported SPA. |
| 01:46:52.67 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:48:34.90 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:48:42.30 | Jill Hoffman | So let me follow up on that if you don't mind. with the city manager. I agree that that's a lot of, I agree that's a lot of change. And Debra, you mentioned the sort of, I don't want to call it churn, is there a nicer word for that? I think there's probably a better word for that. Turnovers, right? Staff turnover numbers. I would suspect that the number of turnover of staff across the board after COVID has been high across sectors. So I don't know if your 25% number is from post-COVID or if it's from pre-COVID. I don't know. But I would suspect it's high, just anecdotally what I've seen in the news. And staffing positions that you noted There's only one that I know of that was due to a pay issue. Well, let's see, finance director, too. The community development position, that's one. and the finance director, that's two, were offered higher pay, and they left for substantially higher pay that we would never be able to counter. And so, in fact, we tried to counter And we couldn't. So I mean, those people left and that turnover happened. It didn't have to do with pay. The police chief had nothing to do with pay. The other positions that you. mentioned. you know, there were other staffing issues that happened that did not, were not tied to pay. So when you're justifying pay raises of this scale, you know, of these sizes in order to keep people that that's not borne out by the facts. |
| 01:50:21.24 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:50:21.51 | Jill Hoffman | And so I, I, you know, uh, |
| 01:50:22.56 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:50:26.10 | Jill Hoffman | I don't think that that's appropriate to you know, to link those changes to issues because they're not related. And like I said, most of the ones that you just read off unless I'm I'm uninformed, but I don't believe that they were pay issues. So let's, if I do have some follow-up questions with regard to your table on page five of the staff report, where you're noting the non-budgeted funding sources. And so, I mean, this is probably elemental and I don't, you know, just common sense, but, you know, you list these three things, budgetary slack for SEIU, budgetary slack for confidential, budgetary slack for city management. So those three lines, those were, those were, that was money that was budgeted, but that, um, we didn't have the positions filled and therefore that's where the, the quote slack comes from. Is that right? |
| 01:51:27.81 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | Some of the... |
| 01:51:28.96 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I don't care. |
| 01:51:32.28 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | We budgeted for an anticipated fill in a position, and we had a lot of different positions where for finance director, Three really great candidates actually spoke to our recruiter and said, I can't come for that much money. We had a human resources manager call and say, unless you go up $30,000, I'm not interested. And so those things did happen. And we had to reopen recruitments two and three times, not only for those positions, but also for planners in the community development department. Very difficult to find people and hire. So the budgetary slack is because we anticipated filling and it was months later before we actually filled in. Some are still vacant. |
| 01:52:23.16 | Jill Hoffman | So, but my question is, my question is that these were unfilled positions so that we had extra money in the budget. And that's, that's the point of this. That's the point of these three notations. My point is really actually simple. It's, you know, we have money left in the budget. That means that surplus money. It doesn't have to go to salaries. It doesn't have to be for salaries. It could be used for anything. |
| 01:52:33.34 | Chris Zapata | That's a |
| 01:52:47.92 | Jill Hoffman | like fixing Edwards Avenue, fixing other capital improvements. Is that the true statement? I think that it is. I mean, it's not earmarked. |
| 01:52:58.15 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | General fund money can be used for anything that the council decrees it should be used for. |
| 01:53:03.07 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thanks. It just wasn't, I don't think that it was clear from that, from the, um, from the way that it was set forth in there. |
| 01:53:11.29 | Steven Woodside | I have a follow-up question. Do you know how many consultants we hired during the two years where we had no employees in these vacant positions that we hadn't yet filled? That's a really good question. Um, Because I know that community development gave an excellent presentation on the updates of their hiring, and we were able to essentially phase out a consultant that was costing us, I don't know, upwards of half a million to $2 million a year, depending on the number of employees at any given time, where some consultants were charging I think one of the fees, and I may not be completely correct, but one of the fees was upwards of almost $400 an hour for one of the consultants that was in our department acting as the normal position, right? |
| 01:53:51.82 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | So thank you for that. You gave me time to think. So yes, we had a building inspector to cover a leave. We had a chief building official. We had planners to help plan. We did a community development director. We have this consultant standing in front of you now. We had a finance consultant. Did we have any others, Chris, that I'm missing? |
| 01:54:13.68 | Chris Zapata | enforcement. Yeah. No, you've covered them. |
| 01:54:17.39 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | Okay. And we are phasing them out, including myself. Yeah. |
| 01:54:22.03 | Steven Woodside | We'll miss you very much. |
| 01:54:22.30 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | Thank you. I'm not going to be a little bit. |
| 01:54:24.81 | Steven Woodside | understand why. Well, I mean. She's pretty great. Just she's wonderful. Just say she's we love Kathy. She's doing great job. Okay. And to that point, I mean, I think it would be helpful if we could pull up, although I'd maybe at least someone could look for the community development department budget cost savings as a result of that because and then just to be clear, I'd love to get more understanding. I mean, I know you took the 10% pay cut, which was very nice of you, but as far as I know, none of the consultants took the 10% pick it. |
| 01:54:30.27 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | See? |
| 01:54:43.82 | Chris Zapata | you |
| 01:54:43.83 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:54:43.85 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:54:56.59 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | I don't know any of the others that did. |
| 01:54:58.46 | Steven Woodside | And were our employees hired at this level with the understanding that the 10% would likely be restored? |
| 01:55:04.37 | Deborah (HR Consultant) | Our employees were hired at the pay schedule that's posted for CalPERS regulations on the website. And then they were told every other manager within the city is taking a 10% reduction. And as a new manager entering the city, one, we would want you to do that. Two, you don't want to be a colleague with your other managers and not have done that. And they all agreed. |
| 01:55:31.39 | Steven Woodside | Okay. Thank you. I think that's the last. Other questions from the dais? OK, we'll open it up for public comment. |
| 01:55:39.77 | Walfred Solorzano | Before, I just want to let the whole council know that the presentation is up and the link shouldn't be broken anymore, so you might want to refresh your page. Thank you. |
| 01:55:52.65 | Steven Woodside | Great. |
| 01:55:52.84 | Walfred Solorzano | you And so public comment? Yeah, we have a- |
| 01:55:57.53 | Steven Woodside | I was hoping you wouldn't let me down, Babette. I'm glad to see you making your way to the dais. That's great. |
| 01:56:02.15 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:56:02.98 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:56:03.03 | Babette McDougall | Yeah. Thank you for acknowledging me. So I just want to say one simple thing that, The city has been through a rough time generally in recent years, and I'm starting to feel rather optimistic that between the leadership mix at the top and in the middle, and then the soldiers that are working on the, you know, on the ground with the boots. I actually think we're moving in a good direction these days. So I just want to encourage you guys to pay the money. |
| 01:56:23.58 | Chris Zapata | you know. |
| 01:56:23.66 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. |
| 01:56:23.68 | Chris Zapata | So... |
| 01:56:32.03 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:56:37.25 | Walfred Solorzano | Seeing, oh, we have Fred. |
| 01:56:39.68 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:56:39.70 | Fred | Thank you. |
| 01:56:39.71 | Steven Woodside | Bye, Fred. |
| 01:56:42.02 | Fred | How are you doing again? you I apologize. I didn't hear the entire presentation, but definitely the list of the city managers, employee turnover clearly is disturbing as a resident to hear all those turnovers. And sort of a tendency to agree with Councilwoman Hoffman that money alone is probably not the reason why people come to Sausalito in the position of planning, police or whatever. they're coming into the city for the city itself, the vibrancy of the city, the small town community. If you want to get paid the big bucks, no pun intended, you would go to Chicago, the bigger cities. You're not going to come to a small coastal town and expect to get paid the price you would pay if you were working in New York or Chicago or some of these big cities. So it may be a situation where you need to go back and reevaluate if is money important or is it more the work environment that needs to be assessed in the various positions. I mean, as a planner, being a planner in Sausalito is a lot different than being a planner in a large city that has a lot of development all the time. So you have to come with a different mindset in that particular position. So I appreciate that you guys are looking at this with such scrutiny and that you're evaluating what's best for the community. and at the end of the day what will be beneficial to bring high quality employees into the community that stay and realize the value of the town for what it is, not necessarily coming in for the highest dollar they can get. Again, thank you for your time and thank you for all the effort you guys put in for the community. |
| 01:57:51.18 | Chris Zapata | that'll happen. |
| 01:58:23.70 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:58:29.42 | Walfred Solorzano | And, oh, I see no others. That's it. |
| 01:58:32.91 | Steven Woodside | Great. Thank you very much. So we'll bring it back up to the dais and I will just, for the interest of moving things forward, begin with a motion to approve the employee contract and see what discussion. I'm happy to comment on that and I'll give everyone an opportunity to weigh in, but I just wanted to start. |
| 01:58:48.17 | Melissa Blaustein | I'm gonna second the motion. Great. Okay. |
| 01:58:50.73 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. or we wanna know? |
| 01:58:54.51 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I win. Okay. Yeah. So I'll be a no on this vote. And here's why. It's consistent with my other votes. And especially in looking through the staff report today and understanding that this will approve a 20%, well, 19% pay raise. where the management staff over the three years, I think is just very hard for us to absorb from our largest and largest value group, which is our management group, largest money value group. I was hoping that throughout this process, we would be able to get away from tying tying our pay raises to our management group to whatever pay raises we negotiate with our represented groups, meaning our union groups. Um, and I wanted to, I was hoping that we would be able to move more toward, um, a more management oriented compensation package. So I'm um, You know, I'm disappointed that we were not able to do that in a more substantive fashion. I think I, I do agree with restoring the 10% pay cut because we've done that with all the other groups. In fact, we did that with groups that didn't receive a 10% pay cut. So... I mean, So I think that would have been unfair for the management group not to have that restored. My understanding was that the management group was always expected because they were the management group to continue to work a 40-hour work week. I think that's continued. And and so, you know, I would support that, but not the I think 9% increase over the next three years. I just find that hard for us to absorb, given the presentations we've had over the past few weeks about capital improvements that need to be addressed in Sausliu specifically. Just in our city streets, last week we had $35 million you know, presentation that it was, it was going to take 35 million over five years just to bring our streets up to a poor level. instead of actually making progress toward bringing us up to a higher standard. So the stresses on our budget have not disappeared. They are continuing. When you look at the increase of 3.5 million over three years, given all the rest of what we need to do in Sausalito, And the fact that this pay increase, the cost and expense increase does not disappear at the end of three years. it sets the new floor for what our expenses are. In other words, all these expense increase year over year for the next three years, that is going to remain. That continues going forward. Those increases continue going forward. And all the other expenses that we always talk about with regard to... employee benefits and pension and OPEB and all of those things, it increases that number that we've been working really hard to get down. And so. Unfortunately, I think this is a move in the wrong direction. And it pains me to say that I can't support it. I had hoped we'd be able to do more innovative things, but we were not able to do that. So I'll be a no, respectfully a no. |
| 02:02:07.06 | Melissa Blaustein | member Kelman and then Cox. Sure. Thank you. And I just want to thank my colleague, Councilmember Hoffman. I think it's really important to hear what she's articulated and to understand the various constraints that we were up against in looking through this really important decision. And so I don't take your comments lightly and I appreciate them, Jill. I just want to voice one of my primary goals in running for council and serving this community was to rebuild City Hall. And I am so incredibly proud that we have done that. We have really best in class working for us today. And that's where we are. And they deserve to know that we feel that way from the dais. I feel that way personally. And this is, I think, after several years of hard work, and I appreciate the city manager's effort here in bringing this together. This is consistent with how I voted on the other negotiations. It's also a signal that this won't continue to always go up. This is where, this is our goal. This is our target. We hit it. This is what we were striving for. Now we're here. We do have significant other expenditures, deferred infrastructure, climate risk, climate resilience that we need to undertake. And now we can go and continue to focus on those things. So I think this is part of putting together excellence here in Sausalito. it's been really hard to get to this point, but I think we should all be pretty happy that we've done it. But I do, like I said, want to acknowledge Councilman Hoffman's excellent points and insight because we do have to make trade-offs. We made trade-offs when we decided to fund the 115 trust. We make trade-offs when we decide how many roads we're going to fix. We make trade-offs. Everything on this budget is a trade-off. So I don't get too obsessed with having a deficit or not because at the end of the day, we make decisions. If we didn't spend any money, we'd have a ton of money in the bank and we pat ourselves on the back. No, I wouldn't because we wouldn't have the level of service that I think our community deserves. So that's my perspective on it, but I really appreciate the conversation. |
| 02:04:05.59 | Steven Woodside | Councilmember Cox. |
| 02:04:07.48 | Joan Cox | Thank you. I too would like to echo something Council Member Hoffman said about parity. That's something that I enunciated as a goal throughout this process is that we treat all of our employees with parity and we not unduly elevate the salaries of any one group over another, but rather treat all of our employees with respect and communicate to them how important they are to us. I want to echo Councilmember Kelman's comments about rebuilding City Hall. That is something that this council without me and with me has done a great job of doing, starting with hiring our city manager, who adopted a three-legged stool approach to taking care of our finances, our infrastructure, and our people. And we have really worked hard and focused on doing all three of those things, and I think we're showing great strides in all of those things. I am very proud of our current staff, especially our managers, many of whom have been with us throughout COVID. And while we did reduce their hours from 40, we reduced them to a 36-hour work week, I will tell you, I know from personal experience, they didn't work 36-hour work weeks, they continued to work 40-hour work weeks and more, on a 36-hour pay. And so that's just, they have invested in us and it's time that we invest in them. I believe this decision is financially prudent. We are continuing to address and mitigate our budget stresses. We have been planning for over a decade on how to address some of those stresses, including the measures we implemented starting in 2012 to address our pension debt. And so this has been a long term planning effort and will continue to be a long term planning effort. We are not we are working to be proactive and not reactive, and I am confident that we will continue to do so moving forward, particularly with the diversity of opinions sitting at this dais. I think that the diversity of opinions really makes our decision-making process stronger and more able to withstand scrutiny. So I am a yes for this. Thank you. |
| 02:06:28.40 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:06:28.41 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:06:28.52 | Steven Woodside | Vice Mayor? |
| 02:06:32.21 | Ian Sobieski | I think Councilmember Kelman and Cox could have cribbed my notes, so I will just... So they said everything I would say. I'll just add city manager Zapata, that was a tour de force of the accomplishments of the city staff for the last two and a half years. Truly impressive, one after another. often somewhat under the radar, steady, I think you call it creeping excellence. So this phrase you have of if Sausalito was a stock, I'd be buying it, I think is something that we should all feel take a little heat of. That doesn't mean that just like when you buy a stock, you always want to have eternal vigilance. And I appreciate that ongoing vigilance. this task that I know the city staff is committed to, to develop a, a. vigilance and i appreciate that uh ongoing vigilance this uh task that i know the city staff is committed to to develop a uh assessment of our infrastructure needs uh is going to be pivotal in the development of a understanding about how we strike the balance that council member kelman referred to between how much we spend on our people and how much we spend on our infrastructure so the fact that we're making these raises here today isn't to say that we know all the future challenges that we have yet to face, but all it does is bring us up to a level where we're paying commensurate salaries with the communities that we compete with for talent. And I hope we'll increase the stability of our staff here at City Hall. And will actually in that way pay for themselves in the long run. So I'm looking forward to voting for this. |
| 02:08:05.70 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. And I'll just say a couple of things. I, from a fiscal standpoint, I think it's really important that we're all considering what these, this impact will be. And I don't think any of us are taking it lightly. And I too appreciate council member Hoffman's diligence with regards to what our budget picture is. And I appreciate so much council member Cox's comments about our diversity of opinion in these conversations make us stronger. And I really believe that based on how this conversation went this evening, but I, but for my assessment, the, consultant cost is monumental when we're unable to hire. The consultant cost is upwards of millions and millions of dollars. And we hear from the community all the time, no more consultants. And I am so proud of what Director Phipps has done in the community development department. If you walk through there, there's just a different feeling. There's a different air about it. Everybody's committed. People live in town. People working in community development actually live in the city of Sausalito, which is so exciting. For a long time, I think we had two city employees that lived in the city of Sausalito. So the face of City Hall, as has been noted, is changing, and we're saving money while we're doing it. And the cost of hiring is monumental as well. $5,000 for a lower level employee, $100,000 for a police officer. And I will say from my conversations with mayors across the country, having participated in the Conference of Mayors across the country, having participated in the Conference of Mayors and other places, employee retention is a real issue. And salaries are a real issue that relate to that. So that's something that should be considered. And I'm surprised no one brought up. the CPI and the rising inflation that we've seen because the CPI in California was 3.2%. And we're asking for a 4% raise in year one, a 2% raise in year three, or two, and a 3% raise in year three. But if we're following the trends of- Sarah Silverman, Ph.D.: In inflation we're kind of just given the 10% back in many ways, so I think we need to be mindful of that as well when we're making these decisions, but to be honest this won't surprise anyone if we had a choice. I would pretty much always spend it on the employees so that we can do the work that is required to provide the level of service that we want to see. If we want to improve our roads, that takes a strong DPW department. If we want to get people permits, that takes a smart community development program. If we want a better fiscal situation, we need people like Chad Hess. We need people like City Manager Zapata. But we also need people like Pat Zelasko and people like our custodians who really keep our city going. So I just have so much respect and admiration for our city employees and what they bring to the table. So I'm really looking forward to supporting this. I'm obviously a yes vote, so we can go ahead and- And Call the roll or do we call the question? Okay. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed? Okay. Motion carries for one. Thank you very much, everybody, for what I think was a really Great conversation. So the next item on the agenda is communications. This is the time on the agenda for members of the public to provide any public comment for items that are not on the agenda. If you would like to raise your hand in the zoom application, please do so the city clerk will call on individuals who have raised their hands in the order that they were raised after you are called in you will be unmuted to allow you to share your comments. Remember public comments are each allowed two minutes to speak. Any public comment? |
| 02:11:23.90 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes, we have Babette McDougall. |
| 02:11:25.99 | Steven Woodside | MAKING A LITTLE BIT OF |
| 02:11:26.04 | Babette McDougall | of it. on Southern. |
| 02:11:32.77 | Babette McDougall | This is actually the real reason I came this evening. Oh. So again, thank you for acknowledging me. I want to pick up on the last council meeting that we had where the mayor very boldly said, I challenge all you. Zoom people to just turn off your computers and come on back to the council chambers. I thought that was awesome. So I'd like to encourage you to think more about that because maybe we could do like, you know, a two for one, like give people four minutes instead of two minutes as a premium or an incentive to bring them to this room. I think that's really something to think about. And along those lines, after seeing those presentations last week and others, why don't we put the clock, you know, 360 degrees? Why doesn't everybody speak according to a clock? Because otherwise, you know, It does become, as one of you have said, a time suck or a mind suck. So, I mean, you know, that works for everybody. And we're all here for one purpose. And that is the other reason I'm here. I can't believe that Somebody on this. Board of Supervisors in San Francisco would like to. close off public comment altogether. I mean, I find that really shocking. I don't know why anybody would want to take out the First Amendment. And that's why I keep harping on this idea of re-engaging public comment in Sausalito. with or without a time clock on all sides or one side versus another. This idea of, trying to squelch citizen input as a, expedient means to get someplace is terrible. Mr. Levine said it best when he said, without public input, you have no idea. what to do. And so I leave you with that. Thank you. |
| 02:13:21.90 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Thank you, Babette. Do we have any other further public comment online? |
| 02:13:26.95 | Walfred Solorzano | No further public comment. |
| 02:13:28.79 | Steven Woodside | Okay, we'll go ahead and close public comment and we'll move on to item seven, which is council member committee reports. Do we have any committee reports? Council member Cox. As you know, Mayor, |
| 02:13:38.96 | Joan Cox | I serve on the Marin. Yes, yes. So the legis at the request of the legislative committee, we have recently started getting |
| 02:13:41.92 | Steven Woodside | Marin. Yes. |
| 02:13:51.42 | Joan Cox | weekly Sacramento legislative updates that are sent to MCCMC. And if council members are interested, I thought I would share those with Walfred and he can attach them to committee reports because they're, I mean, it's literally all of the bills pending. What's the status? Who's in favor it's and it's all easy to read. It's a quick read. It's about six pages each week. So I'm going to start sharing those. And I think we'll all benefit from reviewing. |
| 02:14:19.36 | Jill Hoffman | That'd be great. |
| 02:14:20.68 | Joan Cox | That's great. And. Thank you. |
| 02:14:22.92 | Jill Hoffman | We're off. |
| 02:14:23.51 | Unknown | I'm good. |
| 02:14:23.87 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. It's not a committee, it's a working group, but we did have our first meeting of the finance committee working group last week with myself and the vice mayor and former Councilmember and Mayor Withey, along with Chad. And so we had a very good discussion. I think the upshot was that Chad was going to finish the audit. And that he was going to work on the 10 year, a 10 year capital improvement budget. Yeah, that he's going to try to get out by the end of the year. So that's good progress made, I And go ahead. |
| 02:14:58.68 | Ian Sobieski | And also review and work on the RFP for the assessment of all the capital spend to make sure it covers what we need, well, what CHAT needs for the model to be accurate. |
| 02:15:10.76 | Melissa Blaustein | Does Councilman Hoffman want to report out on the vote show working group of one? |
| 02:15:15.56 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, very successful. I think inaugural boat show is hosted by Clipper Yacht Harbor, mainly done water carried, you know, no pun intended by Clipper. I thought they did a great job. I volunteered all three days. I had only not planned to volunteer all three days. I was going to only volunteer two days, but anyway. So, but it was a huge success. I think one thing to keep in mind is that, that I keep in mind is that sales of boats during the, the, the boat show. May. qualify for Sausalito sales tax. And certainly for the boat brokers who are located in Sausalito, that would also drive boat sale tax revenue to Sausalito, which I think we've discussed in the past is significant because of the numbers that you're looking at for the sales of some of these vessels. So it was very exciting. It was very well done for our first time. I thought it was a great, just really, really great, incredible showcase for Sausalito, for our shipbuilding heritage, for, um, you know, potential for next year. So I thought it was very exciting. |
| 02:15:53.66 | Chris Zapata | Yeah. |
| 02:16:27.14 | Melissa Blaustein | Awesome. I have one working group of one, which is not really a working group, but I'm still working diligently to pull together with the city manager and our state and build resilience manager, the catastrophic insurance program. So we are still meeting with Guy Carpenter and Swiss Rea to understand how that might work for us. So thank you for giving me the opportunity at some point to work with staff to bring it to everybody, but it's in progress. Great. |
| 02:16:55.76 | Steven Woodside | you I just wanted to report back on a couple of things. I had the opportunity, not as a working group, but I think there's important information to share. I met with Director Mulligan from the Golden Gate Bridge District, and he shared some really interesting numbers that I think are relevant for all of us. 150,000 fewer people every weekday are in downtown San Francisco as they were pre-pandemic. So that's significantly impacting the number of people that are using their transit services. The recreational transit is doing better, obviously, than the business transit, but it was quite interesting. They're still at 33% vacancy and they had had 25 trips to six trips. The Larkspur Ferry is down to 30 trips a day. Tiburon is scaling back since the summertime, so that service is changing as well. But there are 1 less rider drivers a week crossing the believe crossing the bridge since pre-pandemic so if you're seeing rate increases it's because of the lack of riders or users of the transit also interestingly weta is partnering with golden gate bridge district on a fuel cell ferry so we discussed the opportunities for fully electrifying ferries and they are starting that. And we'll be open to the discussion of perhaps testing one of those here in Sausalito as well. So we just need to open up those conversations with WIDA, but I know it's something that Councilmember Hellman, for example, has spoken about. So a lot of interesting numbers there. And he continues to be very supportive of and excited about working with Sausalito. We also talked about the work being done on the bike lane and the walk lane for exiting the Golden Gate Bridge. So as you may know, many of you ride your bikes or walk and the exit coming off the bridge from the city is pretty. pretty downright dangerous when you're crossing over the stop sign. So GGNRA and Bridge District are working on improving and creating a new path there that will direct walkers or bikers underneath the bridge and back around and up through Fort Baker. So that work has already begun and we'll see what that turns out to be, but it should help improve safety there because we're all dealing with the significant dangers of Alexander Avenue and anywhere we can direct traffic or slow it down to improve safety is great. Also, I just returned on Saturday night at midnight from Sakai Day. I visited our sister city. It was a fantastic few days. I am so impressed by the work that our sister city. committee and organization is doing to continue to keep these relationships thriving. It was the 35th anniversary of the sister city program in Sakaida, and we had past mayors there. They had big time government officials. I traveled with the president of Sister Cities, Harry Chapman and his wife, Janet, and their son Harrison and Keith Schiller and his lovely wife. And I was the representative of the city delegation. And hopefully all of my fellow council members will take an opportunity to go visit. I know some of you already have been to Kesh Kesh and other sister cities and it was truly fantastic. And I also just wanna say, All of these sister cities say we have the best program and they have cities that are enormous that are doing less. So I'm just immensely proud. And if you want to support the sister cities this Saturday at the Spinnaker, there will be a sister cities fundraiser beginning at 6 PM. So you can go to the toast and then kind of walk, hobble down from the toast over to the Spinnaker and support our sister cities. I believe you can find tickets at Sausalito sister cities.org. So they're doing some really fantastic work. Any other committee reports? Yes, please. I have a follow up question. |
| 02:20:19.96 | Jill Hoffman | Based on the |
| 02:20:20.77 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:20:21.21 | Jill Hoffman | information from Dennis, the director of Mulligan at the Golden Gauge. Bridge district. Did you say there were a million fewer commuters? Drivers across the Golden Gate Bridge. Drivers across the Golden Gate Bridge. Did you have, so here's my question and this is why I'm asking. Um, and, is maybe this may, maybe I need to talk about this in our future, Jenna, but our RHNA numbers are for the housing element are based in large part on people who are commuting into Yeah, so I, that's a great point. Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 02:20:58.03 | Steven Woodside | going forward, we might think of a strategy. And I need to see exactly what the number pertains to, because it says in my notes, a million less a week from the pre-pandemic numbers. So I wanna clarify that it's all of transportation or just the bridge, but transportation numbers are |
| 02:21:01.86 | Jill Hoffman | Exactly. |
| 02:21:11.96 | Steven Woodside | very much down. And I will also add that I've invited Director Morgan to give a presentation at MCC MC at a future meeting. So we'll all be able to hear from him. And I'm sure he'll share all of these numbers with all of the Marin County Council members and mayors. So But that's an excellent point and we should bring it up with a bag. |
| 02:21:28.97 | Joan Cox | Absolutely. And with our assembly member Connolly, who has indicated interest in these issues, right? |
| 02:21:36.53 | Steven Woodside | And he will be at the next MCCMC meeting. No, no, this coming Wednesday, next Wednesday. Oh yeah. The 24th in Novato. |
| 02:21:42.20 | Joan Cox | The 24th in Nevada. |
| 02:21:44.74 | Steven Woodside | Nevada yes, it is next Wednesday in Nevada, so he will be there as the guest speaker so everyone I hope that that's the other announcement. Please join us for the marine county council members and mayor's committee next Wednesday in Nevada and members of the public are also invited to join so putting that out there so that folks are aware. Okay, so we'll move on to item eight, which is city manager reports city council appointments and other council business and the first thing to do here is to take public comment on items eight B through eight E so do we have any public comment. |
| 02:21:45.64 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 02:21:45.66 | Joan Cox | next one. |
| 02:21:45.98 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:22:15.49 | Walfred Solorzano | We have Sandra Bushmaker. |
| 02:22:16.89 | Steven Woodside | Hi, Sandra. |
| 02:22:17.58 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 02:22:21.62 | Walfred Solorzano | Jesus. |
| 02:22:22.88 | Sandra Bushmaker | We can't have to say that asking for public comment before we hear these items is one of the most irritating things, I think, on the entire city council agenda. It is so difficult to comment ahead of time when we don't even know what is going to be said. So can we do something about that? Can we have, can we have, short public comment after each of the items so that we can respond to them. At this point, we can't we don't even know what's coming up because there's very rarely staff reports or other reports that we can respond to. So it's been a pet peeve of mine for quite some time. And I'm just wondering if we can't do something about it. |
| 02:23:04.39 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Okay, thank you. We'll take that into consideration. All right, item... 8B, city manager information for council. |
| 02:23:12.43 | Chris Zapata | Mayor, if I may, Mayor and Councilmembers of the public, I have two announcements that I'd like to convey. The first one is really important. This past Monday, I received a phone call from the Executive Director of the Bay City's Joint Powers Insurance Authority, notifying me that the Executive Committee had met in September and was recommending expelling the City of Sausalito from its insurance pool. So that's quite concerning. We have communicated with them. Between the city attorney and myself. We're working on potential solutions we could provide to the council. We've succeeded in getting the executive committee to host a special meeting next Monday to discuss this, where we will state our case that, you know, we've been a good faith, good dues pay and member, and we don't believe that we should be expelled, especially with respect to the timing that they indicated could happen. So that's important for the council and public to know that it's something that will be front and center in Sausalito in terms of my work for the next week, for sure. The other thing on a more positive note, I was recruited and asked, and I've agreed to join the Saucel Chamber of Commerce Executive Board. So I'm happy to do that. I believe that strong businesses and strong cities, like strong schools and strong cities, we're all partners. So hopefully I can, you know, do what I can to provide information about what the city is doing or isn't doing as part of that board membership. So that concludes my report, Mayor. Thank you. |
| 02:24:42.49 | Steven Woodside | Thank you very much. Okay. And then appointments to boards, commissions, and committees. I just want to ask about this. What is the status of. The advertisement and currents to encourage committee members or sorry, residents to apply. I know we have several vacancies and I appreciated the strategy of hosting the interviews in one special meeting for all of the committees and then making the decision and giving us the opportunity to have everyone's resume, et cetera, and robust discussion. So I'm wondering where we stand with that. Why are you looking at me? |
| 02:25:18.68 | Chris Zapata | Are you asking me, Mayor? |
| 02:25:19.82 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 02:25:19.83 | Chris Zapata | Yes. My understanding was that we were calendaring November 17th as the date to do the interviews for committees. Great. I think there's still the question of that wasn't answered at the last meeting that needs to be answered regarding which approach is going to be taken. The traditional approach of just extending terms or the advocated approach of do we in fact do full on interviews for important boards and commissions. |
| 02:25:29.11 | Fred | Great. Thank you. |
| 02:25:49.68 | Joan Cox | City manager, I had thought we were gonna actually hear that item this evening. So why are we not gonna hear that item before we... Because don't we need to decide that before we decide who we're going to interview? |
| 02:26:01.78 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, I mean, that's part and function to setting an agenda. And so I would anticipate that would be the meeting of the 7th before the actual interviews happen on the 17th. |
| 02:26:13.46 | Joan Cox | Is it the third that we're meeting? Pardon me, the third. Yeah. |
| 02:26:14.44 | Chris Zapata | Part of me. |
| 02:26:15.69 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:26:16.18 | Joan Cox | Oh. |
| 02:26:18.83 | Chris Zapata | that. I saw it. |
| 02:26:19.64 | Steven Woodside | I saw Sergio turn his camera on like he was worried. Yes. What is it sitting there? |
| 02:26:23.17 | Sergio Rudin | Well, Yeah, I will just briefly note that the decision as to whether or not the council wants to hold interviews is the council's under the city code. The MATE Act does require that we publicly post information regarding the expiration of existing terms. And, you know, the city can't prohibit folks from applying. But obviously, whether the council wants to give preference to existing commissioners in deciding to reappoint them, that's the council's decision to make, as well as the decision as to whether to hold interviews. |
| 02:26:54.52 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 02:26:58.53 | Sergio Rudin | So I agree with the city manager that it should be something the council considers either November 7th or shortly thereafter. |
| 02:27:08.05 | Joan Cox | So city manager, will we be getting the MADI report so that we know what the status is? |
| 02:27:14.94 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 02:27:14.95 | Unknown | you |
| 02:27:15.04 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. That's correct, Councilmember Cox. We provided it last year in accordance with state law. Typically, it's in the December timeframe. So what we provide for you now would be a current status report. And, you know, it may change between now and December when we have to meet the requirements of the law to publish it. But Walford is working with me and trying to figure out what our vacancies are with the rest of the city staff so that we can provide that for the city council so they will see the terms and vacancies and the commissions and boards that have those vacancies. |
| 02:27:51.18 | Steven Woodside | Okay, thank you. So then we'll move on to future agenda items. And I think we just discussed one that's very clear and that's already on the list. Are there additional, I mean, I'll put out that I would love to, after the League of Cities when we have a better idea of what the CIE program would look like, just keep that on the agenda for further city discussion. Anybody else have anything they want to add to the agenda at this point? No? Okay, well then, um, thank you very much. And with that is now 923. And I, with a request from Leon hunting to adjourn the meeting in honor of Suzanne summer, who apparently was at one time, a Sausalito resident, I learned, or very much loved Sausalito. So, so appreciating and honoring, uh, our former mayor hunting's request and, um, And, um, remembering Suzanne Thummer. The meeting is adjourned. Thank you. |
| 02:28:47.14 | Unknown | recording stopped. You did? |
| 02:28:49.56 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:28:49.79 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:28:53.45 | Unknown | We are in the coaches. |
Sandra Bushmaker — Against: Questioned whether city funds would be used for loans outside Sausalito city limits and expressed concern about the propriety of such use. ▶ 📄