| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:00.03 | Walfred Solorzano | Good evening, Mayor, City Council. Tonight's February 20, 2024 City Council meeting is being held at 420 Little Street in Council Chambers, 420 Little Street. It's also being broadcast via Zoom, cable TV, Channel 27, and the City of Sausalito's website. Thank you very much, City Clerk. |
| 00:00:22.04 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Our first after calling the meeting to order as I am right now, our first act will be to approve the remote participation by our colleague Janelle Kelman. She will be participating remotely from the Magical Resort, Calle 38 and Entre Avenida. a five a in Arizona federale maritama central in playa del Carmen Mexico. So could we please have a motion to approve our participation. |
| 00:00:50.44 | Jill Hoffman | So moved. I'm sorry, a point of order. I think she's appearing under a certain section of the Brown Act that doesn't require approval because it was properly noticed as an open meeting at a remote site. |
| 00:01:02.91 | Steven Woodside | My script says approval of remote participation by council. So city attorney, please advise us on what we should do. |
| 00:01:10.21 | Sergio Rudin | Yes, I don't think that the council needs to provide any sort of approval. The council does need to vote to provide approval when council members are participating under the emergency circumstances exception in the Brown Act, which Council Member Kellman is not using for this meeting. |
| 00:01:25.81 | Steven Woodside | Thanks for the catch and correction. And maybe we can fix that in going forward in our standard script for remote participation under this provision. So council member Kelman will be participating remotely from said lovely spot. And we will now do a roll call Attendance, our attendance. |
| 00:01:45.48 | Walfred Solorzano | for our tenants. Councilman Blossene. |
| 00:01:48.67 | Ian Sobieski | Yes. |
| 00:01:49.48 | Walfred Solorzano | Council member Hoffman. |
| 00:01:51.56 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:01:52.17 | Walfred Solorzano | That's when we're coming. |
| 00:01:53.36 | Ian Sobieski | Cheers. |
| 00:01:54.38 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Cox. |
| 00:01:55.27 | Ian Sobieski | you |
| 00:01:55.29 | Walfred Solorzano | here. and Mayor Sobieski here. |
| 00:01:57.68 | Steven Woodside | Our closed session items are conference with legal counsel, existing litigation, Whiskey Springs, Villa, HOA versus City of Sausalito, conference with legal counsel, city-deficant exposure on new case, and council with real property negotiator, parties being Sausalito Center for the Arts in the City of Sausalito, Chris Zapata, Chad Hess, and Lamor Bonilla as city negotiators. Are there any public comments on the closed session items? |
| 00:02:23.72 | Walfred Solorzano | We don't have any other members of the public in-house. And on Zoom, if anybody would like to make a public comment, you can use the raise hand function and we will call you. Seeing no public comment. Thank you. |
| 00:02:36.02 | Steven Woodside | Public comment is closed and we'll adjourn in closed session. |
| 00:02:41.95 | Steven Woodside | are going to resume coming back from closed session. There are no announcements from closed session. We'll begin today's meeting with a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. especially the black. |
| 00:02:54.15 | Unknown | The United States. And to the republic, where we stand, one nation, and the peace of God, |
| 00:03:04.15 | Steven Woodside | Thank you very much. We will now move to approve the agenda. Could I have a motion to approve the agenda, please? |
| 00:03:10.35 | Joan Cox | So moved, I understand there may be a correction to the title of one item on the agenda. |
| 00:03:16.59 | Steven Woodside | Maybe, thank you very much. I was going to announce that in a moment, but there is a typo in the title of item 3G. The three letters BKF should say instead SWA. I'll reiterate that title out loud when we get to it. |
| 00:03:29.91 | Joan Cox | With that amendment, Mayor, I move approval of the agenda. |
| 00:03:33.92 | Steven Woodside | or second. |
| 00:03:34.72 | Joan Cox | Second. |
| 00:03:35.44 | Steven Woodside | City, I believe we need to do a roll call because Councilmember Kelman is coming in remotely. Is that correct? I think it is. So let's do a roll call vote, please. City Clerk. |
| 00:03:44.03 | Walfred Solorzano | So, |
| 00:03:44.30 | Steven Woodside | of |
| 00:03:44.52 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:03:44.55 | Steven Woodside | Bye. |
| 00:03:44.59 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah. |
| 00:03:44.71 | Steven Woodside | to |
| 00:03:44.92 | Walfred Solorzano | Bye. |
| 00:03:45.41 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 00:03:45.77 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 00:03:48.13 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 00:03:48.15 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes. Councilmember Kelman. Vice Mary Cox. Yes. And Mayor Sobieski. |
| 00:03:54.24 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Yes, we will now move on to approval of previous action item minutes for the agenda for the minutes of February 6th and February 10th meetings. Are there any public comments on the minutes from those two meetings? |
| 00:04:08.92 | Walfred Solorzano | If anybody has any public comments, you can fill out one of these forms over there and bring it back over here. If you're on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function right now. And right now we have two people. You can put your hand down if you don't plan to speak on the item about the minutes. Because we have Claudia Brisson, but we're going to wait for a little bit to give Claudia the chance to either keep the hand up or keep it down if you're going to speak on the action items. All right. Thank you so much. All right. See no public comment. |
| 00:04:40.44 | Steven Woodside | All right, we'll close public comment for that item and ask someone to move. |
| 00:04:44.46 | Joan Cox | Move approval of the two sets of action minutes. |
| 00:04:47.33 | Steven Woodside | Is there a second? |
| 00:04:48.73 | Joan Cox | Second. |
| 00:04:49.56 | Steven Woodside | Item is approved and seconded. All in favor, let's hear a roll call. Sorry. Go ahead, City. |
| 00:04:55.04 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilman Bossing? you |
| 00:04:56.39 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 00:04:57.15 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Huffman? |
| 00:04:57.91 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:04:58.16 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes. on somewhere we're coming. Vice Mayor Cox? Yes. And Marisol Bioski? |
| 00:05:02.89 | Steven Woodside | Yes, moving on to the consent calendar. These are items that are normally considered routine and non-controversial require no independent discussion and expected to have unanimous council support and may be enacted in one motion. There'll be no separate discussion on these items. However, before we vote, any member of the city council can request that a specific item be removed for a separate action items removed from the consent calendar will be discussed later in this same meeting. We will, I will just go over the titles and then we will take public comment. So item three A is a library second quarter report for the last fiscal year, 2324. Item three B is the Sausalito Police Department's crime and traffic report calendar year, 2023. Item 3C, review and file of the treasurer's report, December 31st, 2023. Item 3D, adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute the professional services agreement with parametrics to develop the plan, specifications, and estimate for the Bridgeway Safety Improvement Project, Napa to Johnson Street, in an amount not to exceed $189,978. item 3e adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute a supplemental agreement with the county of Marin for the joint cycle nine highway safety improvement signal intersection improvement project. Item 3F, adopt a resolution declaring one public works vehicle as surplus and authorize the city manager to dispose of said equipment at auction. Item 3G, adopt a resolution approving the third professional services contract amendment with swa architects for design services related to the ferry landside improvement project item 3h the second reading and adoption of ordinance number 2-2024 an ordinance of the city council of the city of sausalito amending chapter 10.5 for design review procedures of title 10 and chapter 8.34 building permit conditions of title 8 of the Sausalito municipal code item 3i authorize the city manager to execute a professional services agreement for planning and building services with four leaf effective January 1st 2024 not to exceed $300,000 through June 30, 2024. Item 3J, adopt a resolution to amend the length of terms of three members of three years for each member and set term limits to a maximum of two for Economic Development Advisory Committee EDAC members. Item 3K, reappoint Scott Thornburg, Rachel Daniel stout and john de rey to the edac for three-year terms ending january or february sorry 20th 2027 and reappoint malcolm morgan and monica finnegan to terms ending june 9 2026 those are the consent items does anyone wish to remove any That's Remember Hoffman. |
| 00:07:48.63 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, in the same vein, the last time the EDAC motions were on the agenda, I would request that items 3J and 3K be removed. and combined with item the business item. Sorry, Lord. What is it? 5E. 5E. And then we discuss all those. |
| 00:08:05.93 | Melissa Blaustein | Lord. |
| 00:08:06.44 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:08:07.08 | Melissa Blaustein | to eat. |
| 00:08:07.50 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. All right. Those two items that we pulled and combined with item 5e. Any others? Can I get a motion over sorry now we have public comment on the consent calendar. Any public comment, please. City Clerk. |
| 00:08:22.25 | Walfred Solorzano | So anybody that wishes to have public comment, we have a bunch of five C's over here, but if you wanna, if you raise your hand in house, we can get you. Right. Seeing none in-house. Sandra Bushmaker on Zoom. |
| 00:08:41.65 | Walfred Solorzano | You may begin. Unmute yourself, please. |
| 00:08:49.87 | Walfred Solorzano | You can't unmute yourself. |
| 00:08:56.89 | Joan Cox | She can call in from her phone. |
| 00:09:00.65 | Steven Woodside | Oh, hang on. Whatever you did work for a second. Do it again, Mr. City Clerk. |
| 00:09:08.15 | Sandra Bushmaker | There we go. Thank you. I thought we took public comment on the agenda because I had some comments to make on the agenda. as a question that I wanted to bring up. On the consent calendar, I wanted to know what happened with the building assessment item that has been put over from two or three meetings ago. And lastly, on the consent item, I'd like to know where the $300,000 is going to come from. |
| 00:09:37.91 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:09:37.93 | Sandra Bushmaker | Yeah. |
| 00:09:37.97 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:09:38.03 | Sandra Bushmaker | Yeah. |
| 00:09:38.05 | Unknown | you |
| 00:09:38.10 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 00:09:38.20 | Unknown | We had another guy who was |
| 00:09:40.02 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 00:09:40.04 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:09:40.31 | Sandra Bushmaker | We can hear you. |
| 00:09:43.72 | Steven Woodside | We can hear you just fine. Please proceed unless it's too distracting. |
| 00:09:46.66 | Sandra Bushmaker | Okay, with regard to, I lost my train of thought there. Item 3, aye. |
| 00:09:51.94 | Steven Woodside | Start over. Start over. |
| 00:09:55.03 | Sandra Bushmaker | I'm going to charge you the $300,000 for LEAF for staff for our Community Development Department. I want to know the source of those funds, where that's going to come from, particularly in light of the anticipated lost revenue from SCA. Thank you. |
| 00:10:13.69 | Steven Woodside | Any other public comment? No further public comment? |
| 00:10:14.63 | Walfred Solorzano | No, for sure. |
| 00:10:16.05 | Steven Woodside | All right, we will close public comment. Is there a motion to approve the consent calendar? |
| 00:10:19.75 | Joan Cox | approval of the consent calendar with the removal of items 3j and 3k |
| 00:10:26.77 | Steven Woodside | Second? Is there a second? Second. |
| 00:10:27.70 | Joan Cox | THE COUNTRY. |
| 00:10:28.46 | Steven Woodside | All right. Let's roll call, please. City Clerk. |
| 00:10:31.44 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blossin? Yes. Councilmember Hoffman? Yes. Councilmember Kuhlman? |
| 00:10:33.03 | Steven Woodside | you |
| 00:10:33.05 | Ian Sobieski | Yes. Yes. Yes. |
| 00:10:38.02 | Walfred Solorzano | you Vice Mayor Cox. Yes. And Maris will be asking. Yes. |
| 00:10:41.15 | Steven Woodside | Yes. All right. Moving on. There are no public hearing items. The first business item, item 5A, adopt a resolution to adjust the fiscal year 2023-2024 operating in capital budget. So can we get a presentation? Who's doing the presentation, city manager? That's going to be our finance. Here's our finance director, Jed. Yes, welcome. |
| 00:10:59.00 | Chris Zapata | So that's going to be our financial. |
| 00:11:03.40 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. Just give me one second to get set up here on my end, and I will share my screen with everyone. |
| 00:11:18.81 | Angeline Loeffler | All right. Let me know when that comes through and you guys are able to see. |
| 00:11:23.15 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:11:23.35 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. All right, awesome, thank you. All right. Thank you, Mayor, Council, and the public. I am honored to be here and presenting a mid-year budget update for fiscal year 23-24. To start off, we're going to go ahead and start on the general fund. I've got just a few updates to share. with everyone. Looking at general fund revenue, things are looking stable. I have very few adjustments to make to the general fund revenue. I'm not sure. What we are going to increase is intergovernmental revenue. We have a slight increase of $243,000 for intergovernmental revenue. which is attributable to some grant dollars that we received that I was not expecting when we prepared our original budget. um, Of that increase, we have $160,000. That is revenue that we receive from the state for reimbursement for the housing elements design plans. And we also received some dollars from the California Department of Transportation around $66,000. We are also increasing our contributions, private contributions, to $43,574, which is an increase of just over $3,000. That is coming from Friends of the Library. So I went ahead and adjusted that to their actual contribution above what we anticipated. And there was just a minor adjustment to recreational Property taxes, sales taxes, business licenses are trending as they should, and I feel that our original projections were right where they needed to be. They are conservative, which is ideal when we're looking at budgeting. but I'm going to go ahead and leave them where they are with no recommended mid-year adjustments. Moving on to the revenues, we are going to decrease our expense budget for the general fund, and this is focused strictly on operations. Salaries and benefits are being decreased by about $600,000. When we do our original budget, before the fiscal year begins, I use Full staffing, full staffing assumption. I also used the highest step for all positions. And I made assumptions around the benefits that individuals would choose during open enrollment. that happened last November. based on the vacant positions that we had the first half of the year, and also looking at where payroll is at the mid-year point and projecting out for the next six months I feel confident that we can reduce that salaries budget by $656,225. I'm also gonna decrease the professional services budget by about $134,000. Now this is because we filled more of those positions, the planning and business, inspection department. . And. To one of the public comments, the four-leaf contract is accounted for in my professional services line item. that you can see right here on the screen of $4,311,000. We are increasing our materials, supplies and materials budget by about 311,000. We were underestimating when we did our original budget, and I am seeing signs of inflation creeping into this line item. So we are requesting an increase for supplies and materials. And I am also requesting a $100,000 transfer from the general fund. over to the traffic signals or the traffic safety funds. which funds the maintenance and repair of our traffic signals within the city of Sausalito. I'm not sure. This, the Traffic Safety Fund we'll discuss later on, but that transfer is required to continue the operations of that fund. So, and keep it afloat as we continue to maintain our traffic signals. Overall, we have a decrease in The expenses by about $311,000, considering that transfer, which is a decrease of about 1.6%. All right, moving on to the other funds. We'll get back to projected fund balance here in a minute, but I want to move on to some of our other funds. Looking at our Other funds, this is going to include all of our unrestricted dollars. So the general fund, our measure L sales tax fund, Old City Hall, MLK, parking, and Bank of America buildings. I've got a couple changes here. Here you can see the overall impact. on the general fund, so I am decreasing Um, the overall change, I'm sorry, I'm decreasing the overall I'm sorry. Let me back up. So here you can see, here's my original budget. And here's my mid-year budget. I'm increasing revenues by the $251,000. and I'm decreasing expenses by the $331,000. Overall, we have a positive increase in the projection for the general fund by $582,000, considering both of those actions. The other significant changes that I want to point out, our parking fund is having a very successful year, and I am projecting that our revenues will exceed our original budget, so I am increasing that revenue budget by $487,000. um, Another significant change on this budget, the Old City Hall Fund. I would like to request additional funding so that we can repair that building. There was some water damage that has taken place, and DPW has been repairing that space under an emergency authorization. but I would also like to request additional funding that we can repair some doors that are starting to rot on the exterior of the building. as well as improve the HVAC system within that building. Additional communication will come forward to council when quotes are formally established for those two projects. We have some estimates at this point that are included in that budget. but we want to get authorization from council for funding those future projects included in this mid-year budget. The Old City Hall Fund is projected to catch all those improvements without additional resources from the general fund. using its current resources. But overall, we are projecting a decrease in that fund balanced by about 249,000. as a change from our original budget. um, Moving on to our other funds, these are our special revenue funds and our capital funds. These are a lot of the funds that we draw on for our CIP projects. addition to the Tidelands Fund. A couple of my significant changes, I want to draw attention to the sea level rise grant. This is the million dollar grant that we received from state of California. Now, in the original budget, I had made the assumption that we were going to recognize all of that revenue in the previous fiscal year, fiscal year 23. During the audit, we found some out more information and we We recorded that inflow of dollars as unearned revenue on our balance sheet. Now, as those funds are expended, we will recognize revenue in the fiscal year that they're expending. So what I am doing here is we are requesting an increase in our revenue budget or our inflow budget, of about $218,000 a dollar increase And that accounts for the increase or, well, actually the anticipated spending, of that fund. Originally, when working with our sustainability and resiliency manager, The original estimate was we were gonna spend about 600,000 of that million dollars in fiscal year 24. That fund has gone out for RFP and based on our current timeline, we are anticipating only spending about $200,000 of that million dollars in fiscal year 24. And then the remaining of that contract will be expended in fiscal year 25. So I'm requesting a decrease in expenditures for the sea level rise fund. That has an increase in our projected fund balance over the original adopted budget. of about 618,000 simply because of the movement on the revenue. and the expense side. I WANT TO BE ABLE TO BE ABLE TO Another change that I want to point out within the gas tax and the general capital projects funds, we are changing how we record our SB1 revenues, which is a gas tax. In the past, we have recorded that revenue directly in the capital projects fund. At the request of the state controller's office, they have requested that we move that to a special revenue fund instead of a capital projects fund. So I'm making that offsetting adjustment between those two funds. You can see here we have an increase in gas tax. and a decrease in the capital projects. It's a net zero. But that is a change that I want to draw your attention to. The other significant item here is the County Measure AA. We have some additional funding that came through in that fund, so we're going to go ahead and increase that budget. to our new expectation of $249,000. And here you can see that transfer from the general fund to the traffic safety fund of $100,000. to continue operating that traffic safety fund. On the expense side, we are going to go ahead and decrease revenues within our state police state grants fund based on discussions with the leadership in the police department We've identified how we are gonna spend these dollars and we are projecting to spend $383,000 in this fiscal year to purchase a variety of equipment Additional staff reports will be coming once we have specifically identified and quotes in hand, but we want to get the funding lined up and available through this mid-year budget request. Overall, I have a change of about $415,000 in revenue. And I'm decreasing expenses by about $401,000 for our special revenue and capital projects fund. All right. Our other funds are going to include our debt service funds. and our pension and OPEB section 115 trust funds. Really, the only significant change here is I'm recognizing the interest revenue within these funds. So at the beginning of the year, I was really unsure where these funds are going due to the volatility within the Section 115 trust fund. So I was very, very conservative on what type of revenue we will see. As the year has progressed, we've seen more stabilization within the fixed income markets and those balances or those investments have started to recover. So I'm estimating about a 4% return on our dollars within the pension and the OPEB trust funds And I've reflected that in the budget. They've also increased the expense of the pension trust fund to be more in line with our current balance as this is a percentage of the balance when we made that additional contribution of a million dollars last year, that's going to increase our expense in that pension trust fund. So I wanted to capture that in this mid-year budget review. |
| 00:22:50.86 | Angeline Loeffler | Next, we have the sewer fund, which is kind of a fund all by itself. Here we are, we're not gonna change our revenues, simply because we are feeling very confident where those revenues are and they're trending as they should mid-year projections. we are going to decrease our estimated Expense budget by $40,000 simply because of unfilled positions at the beginning of the year, salary savings based on open enrollment. benefit election So we're going to just scale that salaries and benefits line item back by $40,000 this year. All right, next I wanna do a real quick summary of projected ending balances, I'm not sure if you're going to But what we have here is we have our audited fiscal year balances. This comes from our Bought it. That's ended. Fiscal year, July 30, 2023, that audit report was issued December 28. 2023. That is very helpful going into this mid-year budget review as well as setting us up in good position for our fiscal year 25 budget, having that audit out of the way, and having audited open imbalances for this mid-year projection. Here you can see our projected revenues and our projected expenses based upon those changes. and our transfers. And then here's the projected change in balance. So you can see here we have a projected change in balance of the general fund, just over a half a million dollars, 583,000. or plus in this fiscal year. You can see the parking has a surplus of $370,000. And then... The other significant changes that I'll just point out, Tidelands has $380,000 surplus. Our capital projects fund has a projected decrease in balance simply because we are spending those previously accumulated resources on improvements throughout the city. Overall, when considering all city funds across the board, we have a surplus of 288,000. $54 for the fiscal year. Oh, That is my mid-year budget update. Looking forward as we move forward to fiscal year 25 budget prep, Um, kind of our next steps is we recommend that council I recommend staff move forward with the mid-year budget as presented. We're gonna start our development on the fiscal year 25 budget. We're gonna develop the fiscal year 25 CIP budget and bring that forward to council. And then again, we need to approve our fiscal year 25 budget by June 18th. 2024, which would be the last city council meeting in June. This slide I have a little bit more detail on the budget calendar. This was brought forward to council a previous meeting, but again, just a quick summary for the audience. and then I'll open it up for questions and comments. |
| 00:25:42.95 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Director Hess. And we will now move to the dais for questions. But first, I'll compliment you on yet another tour de force of financial reporting. Congratulations. Questions, please, from the dais. Vice mayor. |
| 00:25:57.02 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Thank you, Chad, for a great presentation. And also, your staff report was really thorough, and I very much appreciate that as well. I don't know if you heard during public comment on our consent calendar, but there was a question raised about our proposing to pay $300,000 to FourLeaf for continued work with our Community Development Department In your staff report on page three, it says that our professional services budget was actually decreased by 134, 201 based on less reliance on external contractors within the city. My question to you is whether that... |
| 00:26:20.07 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:26:20.09 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 00:26:20.36 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:26:36.34 | Joan Cox | uh, estimate that revised budget includes this proposed payment to four leaf which will |
| 00:26:44.98 | Ian Sobieski | in this budget year. It does, yeah. |
| 00:26:48.03 | Angeline Loeffler | that is captured within the community developments budget. |
| 00:26:50.87 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:26:51.31 | Angeline Loeffler | There were reductions in professional services in administration and finance that we've made that offset that slight increase within professional services in the community development and planning department. |
| 00:27:04.94 | Joan Cox | Thank you. You're welcome. That was my only question for now. Thank you. |
| 00:27:09.41 | Steven Woodside | Other questions? Council Member Kelman. |
| 00:27:16.15 | Melissa Blaustein | Oh, you're muted. |
| 00:27:16.79 | Steven Woodside | And mute yourself, stand by, or someone needs to unmute yourself? |
| 00:27:18.93 | Melissa Blaustein | Yes. So, Chet, you mentioned grant monies and how they're being accounted for. Can you just run through, like, Sarah Silver, Exactly how you plan to integrate some of the grand monies that we're applying for particularly around some of the climate resilience and infrastructure work that we're doing. Sarah Silver, Will we get allocated so like a sea level rise like SP one grant money is if allocated with that be put into the separate sea level rise. Sarah Silver, Account, you know how do you. How do you adjust for those? |
| 00:27:42.23 | Margaret Shane Ware | How do you adjust |
| 00:27:42.76 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. you |
| 00:27:43.32 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:27:43.38 | Angeline Loeffler | So typically what we do when we receive grant dollars that have a very particular purpose or an intended use, what we would do is we will create a special revenue fund to house those dollars like we did for sea level rise. And then any expenditure that draws down those grant dollars will be accounted for in the special revenue fund. to enable better transparency in how we are using those grant resources. |
| 00:28:12.59 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:28:13.27 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. |
| 00:28:14.05 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:28:14.06 | Melissa Blaustein | You're welcome. |
| 00:28:15.33 | Ian Sobieski | I have one. Thanks, Director Hess, for another great presentation and for simplifying budget for all of us and helping us understand how the different funds work. I wanted to follow up on your positive response for the projections and the performance of the OPEB funds and the 4%. Can you just, are you adjusting or considering for the performance of those funds as projected in the next two to four years? Because I think we know that there is potentially less of a positive performance, and I just want to be considering that in our overall fund. |
| 00:28:46.02 | Angeline Loeffler | Yeah, so with this, I'm looking at it just from this fiscal year's perspective. We're only projecting out through the end of July of 2024. We will again reevaluate for fiscal year 2025 for that mid-year budget. I'm not sure. From a long-term planning perspective, myself, Two council members and a member of the community are working on a longer term plan where we will consider a longer time horizon for that fund. In this budget, though, it is just through the end of this fiscal year. |
| 00:29:19.12 | Ian Sobieski | And can we expect to see a report from that committee and from you prior to the next budget review in May for our fiscal year 24, 25? |
| 00:29:26.98 | Angeline Loeffler | you |
| 00:29:27.03 | Ian Sobieski | you |
| 00:29:27.08 | Angeline Loeffler | Yes, the goal is to bring that forward as we bring forward the fiscal year 2025 budget. some of the preliminary Assessments or outputs of that were brought forward to the special Saturday meeting on February 10th. We did not have time to discuss. But some of our early, early projections were published there And again, take those with a grain of salt because they are very early projections, but it just looks at some of the modeling that we are bringing forward as we look to plan longer than just a single fiscal year. |
| 00:30:01.93 | Ian Sobieski | just for the benefit of the community here can you just give a little bit of a timeline for the upcoming review and approval of the budget for fiscal year 25? |
| 00:30:10.58 | Angeline Loeffler | Yeah, certainly. Let me let me share my screen one more time and I can bring that that that calendar back up. on the screen. All right. Are you guys able to see my screen. Great. Yeah. All right. So really what we're looking at is I'm going to start working with our department February 29th. We're going to start bringing this to City Council early May, so May 7th the the council meeting on Tuesday May 7th that will be our Our first meeting with city council, where we bring kind of the city manager's proposed budget, We will hear feedback and we will refine our budget based on your comments and we'll bring it back on May 6th. Again, I THINK I'M GOING TO BE May 21st is when we'll kind of start reviewing those comments again and we'll bring it forward to a council meeting on June 4th, final adoption on June 18th. |
| 00:31:03.12 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you, Director Heston. |
| 00:31:06.07 | Steven Woodside | Other questions? Councilman Hoffman? |
| 00:31:08.55 | Jill Hoffman | um thanks chad so uh since councilmember blaustein referenced it and i was going to ask anyway um we did have um some projections uh attached to the agenda for the saturday meeting and i asked you to have those ready to pull up so if you could pull those up that'd be great understanding these are preliminary uh models yeah but i think it's helpful for context um |
| 00:31:10.30 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. |
| 00:31:26.15 | Melissa Blaustein | These are- |
| 00:31:26.61 | Unknown | Thank you. you |
| 00:31:28.61 | Angeline Loeffler | But- |
| 00:31:31.79 | Jill Hoffman | and planning purposes for us to have those. |
| 00:31:35.57 | Angeline Loeffler | All right. Are you guys able to see my screen again? |
| 00:31:37.84 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 00:31:38.76 | Angeline Loeffler | All right, so on the screen here, I have our first scenario. So we did I did four scenarios on this. And the only assumption that I changed between the scenarios is the, annual CalPERS UAL payment, the unfunded actuarial liability. Now, I actually wanna bring that up on the screen real quick. Let me start with that. One second. I should have had that open and available. |
| 00:32:15.41 | Angeline Loeffler | All right. Here we go. So to start this discussion, I want to bring forward the last three years of valuations that we received from CalPERS. So... The yellow line is the fiscal year 23 valuation, and that shows what the UAL payment would be. The next year came out fiscal year 24, and that is the current schedule that we're on for fiscal year 24. That's our UAL payment that we made this year. It was about 2.6 million. And then fast forward, we received the fiscal year 25 valuation, and you can see that the UAL payment has increased substantially. This was based upon the myths investment performance of CalPERS. They have a goal of 6.8%. If they miss that investment performance, the UAL payment increases. If they exceed that investment target, the UAL will decrease in subsequent years. There is a lot of volatility within our pension UAL payment, as you can see on this chart. So, That brings us forward to our first scenario. So what we did is we projected out our revenues and our expenses based on assumptions. that we are still kind of trying to refine. But you can see here, here's our fiscal year 2024 budget, and this is using our mid-year projection. And then in subsequent years, based upon that higher UAL payment, you can see that we are starting to run general fund operating deficits, because of that UAL payment. The yellow or the orange line represents our total general fund fund balance. And the blue line represents a target of 25% reserves. So that's a 10% increase over what we currently have. Just for illustrative purposes, that is not a council decision. I was just putting that in there as a representation. But you can see over the next several years, we will be trending downwards as that UAL payment starts to top out. If we go back to here, you can see that same time period where we're starting to decrease in fund balance That's when we really start to see an increase in those UAL payments. ending, they start to decrease again in 2020, 34, 35, 36. and let me flip back to that projection. And then in that same time period, 2036, you can see that's kind of the bottom point where we start to increase back up and start to rebuild that fund balance. Now, this is based upon the... Fiscal year 2025 UAL payment, the red line. Now, The next scenario that I'm gonna show you, this represents a 10% decrease in that UAL payment. That's the only change between these two is I decrease For illustrative purposes, that UAL payment by 10%. Here you can see a much different story. We have surpluses the next several years, and then we start to run into deficits simply because of that increasing UAL payment. And then again, you can see we have that kind of bottom out in 2036. as we start to rebuild that fund balance after we get over that kind of peak of the pension payment. This scenario here, I increased the UAL payment by 10%. Same assumptions across the board, simply increase that UAL payment. And here you can see we run deficits, much higher deficits, over that same time period and we actually go below our goal of 25%. Now, This is, again, an assumption. We're assuming a continued increase in UAL payment, and CalPERS doesn't exceed its investment performance any time in the future. I think this is probably worst-case scenario. But just for illustrative purposes again, I'm going to take that same assumption, but I'm going to use the fiscal year 2024's UAL payment. This is represented as our green line, the current line that we are on for fiscal year 24, had the red line not come out, we would have a much different Outlook. on our general fund. The point that I want to make is regardless of how we manage our expenses, our salaries, our supplies and professional services, the biggest determinant on the outcome or the outlook of the general fund. is that pension UAL payment. There's a lot of volatility within that UAL payment, and that's our risk. that we need to plan for. So I'll end it there and let you ask some additional questions. |
| 00:36:56.63 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I think, let me ask you a question. On the third scenario that's attached to the February 10th meeting under finance. So that's where you can find these graphs. Um, It's titled Scenario 3 Reflects a 10% Reduction in the CalPERS UAL Schedule. This scenario also says, |
| 00:37:15.92 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:37:15.93 | Angeline Loeffler | Yeah. Thank you. |
| 00:37:18.85 | Jill Hoffman | Reflective. |
| 00:37:18.94 | Angeline Loeffler | There should be an increase. That is titled wrong. |
| 00:37:22.82 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 00:37:22.89 | Angeline Loeffler | This should be a 10% increase. Thank you. |
| 00:37:25.20 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Yeah, no, thank you so much for explaining those to us. And I'm sure we're going to talk more about this when we talk about our budget and how we evaluate risks. Indeed, |
| 00:37:36.67 | Angeline Loeffler | Indeed we will. |
| 00:37:37.55 | Jill Hoffman | as we move through this, but I thought that was important to have that as context. |
| 00:37:40.99 | Angeline Loeffler | Certainly. Thank you. |
| 00:37:42.14 | Jill Hoffman | My next question is, regarding um the your fund, the, let's see, the unrestricted fund slide that you had. I don't have your slides, but I was looking at the totals for the unrestricted funds. And I just had a question about the Bank of America. |
| 00:38:01.82 | Angeline Loeffler | Yeah, let me bring that up on the screen here real quick. |
| 00:38:01.85 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 00:38:05.19 | Angeline Loeffler | And we can discuss, I will be emailing these slides to the city clerk and we will publish these. I was a little bit behind preparing these so they are not part of the agenda, I do apologize. |
| 00:38:15.59 | Melissa Blaustein | Everything. |
| 00:38:15.67 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. Everything in them is really part of the staff report. |
| 00:38:18.79 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. |
| 00:38:19.05 | Angeline Loeffler | Um, So I don't, there's really no new material, but I will certainly, um, share this with the |
| 00:38:24.94 | Jill Hoffman | That's okay. Yeah, I understood. If you could just bring that slide up. |
| 00:38:28.24 | Angeline Loeffler | Yep, here we go. All right, so yeah, Bank of America is part of our unrestricted. And here you can see this is based upon a this is based upon the lease. I'll just, I'll, Bring it out. |
| 00:38:40.07 | Jill Hoffman | So on that line, I don't know if anybody else can see it. It was, you could see it easier in your slide because that's where it popped out to me. Yeah, here. |
| 00:38:47.21 | Angeline Loeffler | Yeah, here, let me bring it up. I'll bring it up as a PDF. because that'll be easier for everyone to see. I can zoom in. |
| 00:38:50.81 | Jill Hoffman | I'm going to go ahead and |
| 00:38:54.37 | Angeline Loeffler | There we go. Are you guys still able to see him? |
| 00:38:57.49 | Jill Hoffman | Uh, Yeah, okay, now I can see it. So it says under that line, under projected change 2024, change in balance. If you go down that line for Bank of America, it says a reduction of $55,650 and $4. |
| 00:39:15.32 | Angeline Loeffler | Correct. |
| 00:39:15.46 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. But That is the delta between the current lease payment of the tenant and what the costs are to the city, correct? |
| 00:39:27.61 | Angeline Loeffler | That represents the change in fund balance based upon our debt service payments and interest payments. So yes, it is a reduction of fun balance. because we are paying back the debt service which captures principal and interest of that loan. |
| 00:39:51.86 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, and that comes from our general fund. |
| 00:39:54.98 | Angeline Loeffler | What we will do is we will book a inter-fund advance between the general fund to the FCA fund or the Old Bank of America fund. So we're keeping track of that. that borrowing from the general funds resources, the intent is once that loan is paid back and it continues to generate lease revenue, that fund can then pay back the general fund what it is borrowing to make the general fund whole. in the long run. or if the building was sold and there was an inflow of cash, We are keeping track of what has the general fund lent to this Bank of America fund. So again, it can repay the general fund and make it whole for those deficits, those previous year deficits. |
| 00:40:38.74 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:40:40.02 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. |
| 00:40:40.12 | Jill Hoffman | Welcome. |
| 00:40:42.30 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Chad. City Manager, do you have... |
| 00:40:45.62 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 00:40:45.64 | Steven Woodside | any |
| 00:40:45.86 | Chris Zapata | I do, Mayor, and thank you for calling on me. |
| 00:40:49.12 | Steven Woodside | Can you hear me? Yes. And, Jen, I have a question about that same slide, so don't lose it. |
| 00:40:50.13 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. Okay. |
| 00:40:52.71 | Steven Woodside | Okay. I'll- I mean, city manager's got the floor, but just keep track of it. Thanks. Go ahead, city manager. |
| 00:40:54.16 | Chris Zapata | I'm not sure. First of all, long-term financial projections are certainly important. And decisions made in early 2000 to enhance pensions for city employees, they come home to roost. And that's why you see this increase in pension costs. At one time, pensions were 400,000 a year in Sausalito, and now they're in the millions. So we had Bartell and Associates do a analysis of our pension burden. They did that. It was presented to the city council. And so, Chad, can you tell me in those scenarios where or when does the 115 trust money come into play or does it? Because that's $9 million. |
| 00:41:36.11 | Angeline Loeffler | That's a great question. So when we, I've got a couple of things that I can show you. So looking at our original scenario, The Section 115 trust will be utilized within the fiscal years 28, 29, 30, and 31. So that's when we're currently projecting to use that section 115 trust proceeds to help manage that UAL payment. So you can see that that's on scenario one within the February 10th. documents And you can also see that as this little asterisk in scenarios two, three, and four as well. I have another representation that I can share with the public and you kind of illustrates how that Section 115 trust is is expected to help us manage that UAL, let me pull up an Excel document real quick. and show that as an illustration. I think that is a really good question that you have. All right, so here on the slide, What I'm going to do is I'm going to turn off the blue line real quick. Let's go back to select data and let me turn off this line. So here you can see that chart that I showed you previously, where we have our red line, which is the 2025 UAL payment. Great. Now... The intent of the section 115 trust is really to help smooth out that, that that peak by utilizing these reserves that are these funds that we've set aside for or pension. And In this illustration, I started using some of those resources a little bit earlier. This was, I did this a while ago. But here you can see this blue line really represents a utilization of those Section 115 trusts to help move out that high peak. Based upon these projections, I'm saying that we're going to use about $400,000 of those section 115-plus assets in fiscal year 28. through 35, and that's what's represented here is that blue line. Really good question. Thank you. |
| 00:43:50.57 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 00:43:50.98 | Steven Woodside | Any other questions city manager? Thank you. Thank you. So director has to just pull that slide up that my colleague asked about. I just had a question too about that. Okay. |
| 00:43:57.73 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:43:58.12 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:43:58.64 | Angeline Loeffler | Yes. |
| 00:43:59.05 | Steven Woodside | Is it 55 or 65? I can't. |
| 00:44:01.66 | Angeline Loeffler | 55604. |
| 00:44:02.47 | Steven Woodside | That's 55K. So is that... Is that? |
| 00:44:06.27 | Angeline Loeffler | Is that? Go ahead. |
| 00:44:08.92 | Steven Woodside | Is that principle or is that? Thank you. Thank you. So, |
| 00:44:11.36 | Angeline Loeffler | So there is some GASB standards at play here. |
| 00:44:15.92 | Steven Woodside | Okay? |
| 00:44:16.39 | Angeline Loeffler | Gavdy 87. Yazzie 87 is a new leasing standard and they, The way it's accounted for, there is some time value of money at play here. Um, this doesn't, This is on full accrual, so it's not representing through hash out the door. Because there is a Ghazni 87 at play here, It is. viewing that a little bit, but I'm trying to mimic the leasing schedules or the lease receivable schedule that are required for financial reporting. This isn't a true Cash. cash on cash budget here. It is because |
| 00:45:00.61 | Steven Woodside | Is it principal or is it interest? |
| 00:45:03.81 | Angeline Loeffler | Say that one more time. |
| 00:45:05.03 | Steven Woodside | Is it principle? Or is it Cooper? |
| 00:45:06.39 | Angeline Loeffler | So the expense is going to represent the |
| 00:45:12.94 | Steven Woodside | I'm sorry, I'm talking about- |
| 00:45:13.40 | Angeline Loeffler | Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nope. So this here, this 156, is our principal and interest out the door. Let me double check real quick. |
| 00:45:23.08 | Steven Woodside | And the 55 or 65. So I'm asking about the 55. Is that, so I get that the 156 is our total so-called debt service, which is the sum of principal payments and interest payments. So what I'm asking is that number is 156, but 55 is of course a lot less. So is that number then net, is that the net principal payment, that payment on the |
| 00:45:49.39 | Angeline Loeffler | Yes. So, so... One second, let me just let me make sure I answer you correctly. I want to look up something real quick before I, before I talk out of line. My apologies. |
| 00:46:01.96 | Steven Woodside | Appreciate your meticulousness, sir. |
| 00:46:03.90 | Angeline Loeffler | Yeah, I don't want to give you an incorrect answer. So let me double check something in our accounting system before I |
| 00:46:06.47 | Steven Woodside | Let me know. |
| 00:46:10.97 | Angeline Loeffler | I respond. knees. 30 seconds to pull up this this worksheet. |
| 00:46:17.20 | Steven Woodside | Hope everyone here is enjoying the primer on the city's finances. |
| 00:46:21.30 | Angeline Loeffler | I hope so. and I hope they have some good public comments for me. |
| 00:46:30.19 | Angeline Loeffler | It's taking a little bit longer than I thought to open this, but I will get you your answer. |
| 00:46:40.00 | Steven Woodside | you It's going to take too long that I would just move on, Director Hess. It's not essential. |
| 00:46:45.33 | Angeline Loeffler | No, I got it. I've got it. I've got it right here. All right, so included in that, I have principal and interest. So yes, this, this expense here captures the principal and interest. |
| 00:46:59.84 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. |
| 00:46:59.98 | Angeline Loeffler | Now, principal is not a true expense. It's a reduction of a previously incurred liability. |
| 00:47:06.83 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:47:06.85 | Unknown | Right. |
| 00:47:07.45 | Angeline Loeffler | So I'm trying to show the the cash flows here, but it's not a true expense. When we pay down a debt, it's a reduction of a liability, it's not a true expense. We have something of value at the end of this. That was kind of my question. |
| 00:47:23.33 | Steven Woodside | That was kind of my question, because when I'm paying down my loan on my house, eventually, uh, you know, uh, you own the house. It's worth more than a million dollars. So I think of myself as having more than a million bucks. So where it is the value as we pay down the loan on say the bank of America building, where does that asset show up in this fund? Why is there not a commensurate increase in equity? We all know equity in our home. Yeah. Where does the equity in the bank of America building show up? |
| 00:47:47.45 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:47:47.47 | Angeline Loeffler | Yeah. So it's going to be It will be captured within, oops, sorry. And want to do that. I don't like that. |
| 00:48:09.22 | Angeline Loeffler | It will be captured in here, but because we have such a large balance of, of, of outstanding debt comparative to the asset. It is showing a negative. But when we go to our audit report, maybe that would be a better way to explain it. |
| 00:48:24.69 | Steven Woodside | I guess what I'm asking is when we paid the debt off, no more debt on the Bank of America building, or let's pick on other things we fully have paid off, like the old city hall. Old city hall, yep. Show up on any of our sheets as having a value, |
| 00:48:27.29 | Angeline Loeffler | Yep. |
| 00:48:32.76 | Angeline Loeffler | THE OTHER THING. |
| 00:48:36.66 | Angeline Loeffler | So it's at the historical cost, the depreciated historical cost. It's not going to show the actual... praised value or the fair value in today's dollars. Financial reporting for audit purposes looks at historical costs and we decrease that value for depreciation over the life of the building. |
| 00:48:59.94 | Steven Woodside | So in our financial reporting, we do not mark to market the value of our properties. Rather, we offer them at their historical cost. If we bought it in 1930 for $250, it might stick on our books for $250, or we depreciate it to maybe even zero or just to the value of the property. |
| 00:49:06.09 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:49:06.24 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:49:11.03 | Angeline Loeffler | Yeah. |
| 00:49:17.05 | Angeline Loeffler | It will probably depreciate to zero. So if we look at the old city hall, so let me see if I can get you a better view on this. The view... window, let's do View two screens. |
| 00:49:36.88 | Angeline Loeffler | Shoot and that's not gonna work out for me All right, so right here, this $1.3 million, this represents the historical cost of Old City Hall. This 1.1 million, and I'm going to zoom in a little bit. This is the depreciation on that building. So looking at old city hall, we have a book value. of $285,000 for the old City Hall building. That does not reflect current market value. |
| 00:50:03.82 | Steven Woodside | Okay, so in our books, the old city halls 200 worth 285 K. So back to the chart you've had before, if you don't mind with the 55 K from the B of A. You should want to ask about old city hall. So there was this year an unexpected expense associated with maintenance of how much? |
| 00:50:07.98 | Angeline Loeffler | so, |
| 00:50:12.71 | Angeline Loeffler | Yeah. |
| 00:50:18.83 | Angeline Loeffler | Yeah, so with the Old City Hall, we have... There's about $150,000 of repairs that are taking place to repair water damage that came in through the back of the building. There was mold that was discovered, so they had to repair and replace a lot of the interior in the back of the building. So that is about $150,000 of the expenses within the budget. The there's also four very large wooden doors that are rotten that are starting to rot or rotted through. Our current projection to replace those very large heavy wooden doors is about $80,000. And we also have a HVAC system current and the back of the napkin cost about $70,000. to improve the HVAC in that building. |
| 00:51:13.32 | Steven Woodside | Okay, so and those are all paid for by the city? |
| 00:51:15.18 | Angeline Loeffler | That's going to be, yes, that would be paid for by the city under the lease agreement that we have. How much would it be? |
| 00:51:20.24 | Steven Woodside | for the main expenses for Bank of America building? |
| 00:51:23.45 | Angeline Loeffler | That's a triple net lease. The Bank of America building is a triple net so we would not incur maintenance expenses that would be passed on to the tenants. |
| 00:51:31.23 | Steven Woodside | All right, I have just one more. Okay, I think that's it on my questions. I see Councilmember Kelman has her hand up. Councilmember Kelman. |
| 00:51:37.61 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:51:37.99 | Angeline Loeffler | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:51:38.26 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Chad. This is really excellent work here. Two questions follow on the Mayor. The first goes to the Mayor's questions around some of the maintenance issues. are we accounting for deferred maintenance at various city owned properties? It's not just in the city hall, MLK, and others have deferred maintenance. do we, she has |
| 00:52:00.03 | Angeline Loeffler | show up here. So for financial reporting, it does not capture deferred maintenance. The As was noted in one of the public comments, the facility of assessment, will help us understand what are the costs associated with deferred maintenance on our facilities. The RFP that we want to push out there would cover Old City Hall, Spinnaker, MLK, Bank of America and really look at what But I scratched back from America. I apologize. but really look at what type of What type of repair costs or maintenance costs the city incur to maintain those buildings or also improve those buildings above and beyond their current state. So the goal of that facilities assessment is to look at what do we need to invest or continue to invest to maintain or improve those properties. It's not captured in financial reporting. the deferred maintenance. |
| 00:52:59.32 | Melissa Blaustein | Great. And that's something that you mentioned at triple net lease. Like at triple net lease, there's a difference between internal cosmetic modifications and then actual improvements. |
| 00:53:08.09 | Angeline Loeffler | that are made, right? Yes, in my opinion, there is a big difference. So if there's a leasehold improvement, for example, a interior flooring or interior paints or walls to, create a space that is Thank you. preparing it for use for the intended or least purpose. That is, in my opinion, a leasehold improvement. It really doesn't add tremendous value to the structure of the building. compared to a more improvement. So if we replaced HVAC or if we improved the electrical panel, or we installed fire suppression, Those would be improvements to the building and in my opinion would increase the value of that property. So yes, there is a distinction in my opinion between a leasehold improvement just to get it in working condition for the intended use versus a |
| 00:53:57.01 | Unknown | work. |
| 00:54:00.99 | Angeline Loeffler | a capital improvement, increases the value or service capacity of the building. |
| 00:54:06.82 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, and then two more questions then. So you mentioned the facilities infrastructure assessment. Is there any scenario where after that assessment is completed that we would want to update our Are budget numbers to reflect the fair market value of these properties? No, so far. |
| 00:54:23.03 | Angeline Loeffler | Financial reporting, I can't write up the value of the asset. If we want to write up the value of the asset, the gap says we should sell the asset. |
| 00:54:27.91 | Melissa Blaustein | THE END OF |
| 00:54:27.98 | Unknown | you watch. |
| 00:54:33.85 | Angeline Loeffler | Or if we are holding the asset with the intent to sell, we could write up the asset. But because it's an asset in use, we can't write it up for financial reporting. I'm not. you know, the city could undergo an exercise and hire an appraisal company to value those buildings or other city properties to determine what is a, fair value or market value of those properties, Because there is considerable value within the city's portfolio that isn't captured within our audit report simply because of GAAP's rules. |
| 00:55:11.14 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, yeah, that makes sense. And my last question is about opportunity costs. We talked a little bit about that. Do we owe... |
| 00:55:15.78 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. |
| 00:55:16.85 | Melissa Blaustein | Do we have debt service on any other other than the Bank of America building? Do we have that service on any other city-owned properties? |
| 00:55:24.03 | Angeline Loeffler | And MLK has debt service. And then the... |
| 00:55:25.79 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay. |
| 00:55:28.34 | Angeline Loeffler | The Tidelands Fund has a loan with the state a state agency. Um, It's about 72,000 a year. Actually, yeah, it is. I'm not sharing my screen anymore. But yes, we have debt. in the Tidelands Fund for bulkhead improvements, but that's not really facility, if you will. Okay, so then for the two- There's also debt on |
| 00:55:47.30 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, so then for the two. |
| 00:55:50.71 | Angeline Loeffler | the 2006 A and B bonds, which is for the police department and fire hall building. |
| 00:55:55.57 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, but... I mean, not to get into |
| 00:55:57.41 | Angeline Loeffler | It's weird. |
| 00:55:57.43 | Melissa Blaustein | But the general obligation bonds get passed on to the individual taxpayer and your property tax bill, whereas the participation or paper by the city, which is a very different bond obligation structure. |
| 00:56:02.22 | Angeline Loeffler | I do. Yeah. |
| 00:56:07.62 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. |
| 00:56:07.72 | Melissa Blaustein | Yes, they're paid by lease revenues. Yeah, you're correct. |
| 00:56:10.24 | Angeline Loeffler | Okay. |
| 00:56:12.20 | Melissa Blaustein | So any recommendations on how we should consider opportunity costs around funds that are going to be allocated to debt? where they could be allocated to investment. Do we have a philosophy around we're trying to get 3%, 4%, 5% return on money in the bank? |
| 00:56:32.58 | Angeline Loeffler | Um, I have something lined up or, or queued up for the two, two topics from now, the SCA lease. Um, I can defer to that or we can jump ahead and talk. |
| 00:56:43.82 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:56:43.84 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, let's defer. Yeah. Let's get over to that. OK, great. Thanks, John. Thank you. |
| 00:56:46.37 | Angeline Loeffler | I just heard of that. |
| 00:56:49.25 | Steven Woodside | Any other questions? All right, we'll close questions and move the public comment. Public comment, please, on this item. City Clerk. |
| 00:56:56.85 | Walfred Solorzano | Any members of the public that would like to speak? Yeah. We'll start with Babette McDougal. |
| 00:57:06.91 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. So, obviously, the finance director's report raises questions. I don't know which of you would like to take a stab at answering them, or maybe Chad himself will speak. But I was looking at the line item of payouts and I didn't see anything on the city's IT or telecom budget. So maybe it's been aggregated into another figure. So that's question one, what about it or where is it? And where do you find it if it's aggregated? Then the question two would be, Um, You made an interesting comment about how you reflect some part of a grant that's restricted versus unrestricted. Now, that was an interesting statement. It almost sounded like you don't float it onto the budget charts. until the restricted components are deployed or Or does it get reflected from the very beginning? Could you clarify that too? Thank you so much. |
| 00:58:05.82 | Walfred Solorzano | Any other, any further public comment for this item? |
| 00:58:12.14 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | Yes, thank you. That was the most professional and detailed presentation of city finances I've ever seen. It was the first one I've looked at closely in maybe 17 years. And it was a wonderful presentation, Chad. I wanted to make sure I heard one item correctly. Did I hear correctly that the parking revenues were 487,000 over budget over, over what was anticipated? |
| 00:58:49.88 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:58:49.89 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. |
| 00:58:49.98 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:58:50.03 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:58:50.80 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | I don't know. You said yes. Thank you. |
| 00:58:52.88 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:58:52.91 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:58:53.03 | Steven Woodside | Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry, sir. I'm sorry. |
| 00:58:53.79 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:58:53.86 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. |
| 00:58:56.57 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:58:56.61 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | Thank you. |
| 00:58:56.86 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:58:56.88 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | Thank you. |
| 00:58:56.90 | Steven Woodside | Bye. |
| 00:58:56.95 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | I'm not sure. |
| 00:58:56.96 | Steven Woodside | otherwise we'd be here all night i know it drives everyone crazy we drive me it drove me crazy when i was at the podium |
| 00:58:56.98 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | I don't know. |
| 00:59:01.93 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | Thank you. |
| 00:59:02.24 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Uh, we'll never get through the night if we have a dialogue. Um, But one of the council members, of course, could ask any follow up questions they want. Are there other public comments? City clerk. |
| 00:59:12.29 | Walfred Solorzano | Anybody in the house? We have on Zoom, Sandra Bushbeaker. |
| 00:59:22.11 | Sandra Bushmaker | All right, now I'm unmuted. Chad, thank you very much for your presentation. I just wanna say that I watched the... j february 10th strategic planning session for the council and i was very disappointed to see that the um Karen Hollweg, This chads report an issue just kind of disappeared off the agenda because there's important information contained in it, and I appreciate Council member help men for bringing it those charts that were contained in his report to our attention. I, My concern is, among other things, is that we are going to be apparently in deficit spending starting next year. That means in my mind that we need to tighten our belts And, enhance revenues and decrease spending. Plain and simple. We just came out of years of deficit spending and we only enjoyed the luxury of being in the black last year and this year. And I'd like to see the city in the guise of fiscal responsibility stay in the black. So once again, I was concerned that Chad's report was not being heard on Saturday, February 10th, and I'm really delighted to see it brought back up, but it does show those bar graphs do show deficit spending starting next year. Thank you. |
| 01:00:49.00 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:00:49.01 | Steven Woodside | And no further public comment. All right. This doesn't require action, but there can be discussion here on the dice if there is any. there isn't, we can move on to the next item. Okay, then we will move on to the next item. Thank you. Item next item is item. |
| 01:01:05.48 | Angeline Loeffler | You guys need to vote on the resolution. |
| 01:01:07.15 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:01:07.17 | Ian Sobieski | We have to approve the changes to the modifications to the mid-year budget. |
| 01:01:11.41 | Steven Woodside | I'm sorry. Is there an action item we need to take? you |
| 01:01:13.92 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, there's resolutions. |
| 01:01:14.88 | Joan Cox | on page 192. |
| 01:01:14.88 | Steven Woodside | Thank you very much. I did not notice that. |
| 01:01:17.99 | Joan Cox | I move we approve a resolution of the City Council of the City of Sausalito approving adjustments to the fiscal year 2023-24 operating and capital budget. |
| 01:01:27.20 | Steven Woodside | Is there a second? |
| 01:01:27.79 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:01:27.84 | Joan Cox | So, |
| 01:01:27.93 | Ian Sobieski | and the |
| 01:01:29.41 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:01:29.43 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:01:29.45 | Steven Woodside | Please roll call. |
| 01:01:30.32 | Walfred Solorzano | you Councilmember Blossin? Thank you. |
| 01:01:32.50 | Ian Sobieski | Yes. |
| 01:01:32.87 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Councilmember Hoffman? Yes. Councilmember Kelman? |
| 01:01:35.35 | Ian Sobieski | Yes. |
| 01:01:37.88 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes. Vice Mayor Cox? Yes. And Mayor Sobius Kahn. Thank you. |
| 01:01:43.64 | Steven Woodside | Yes. All right. So motion passes 5-0. We will now move on to item 5B, review of city property leases for policy direction on lease pricing and management. |
| 01:01:55.18 | Chris Zapata | City. City manager. Manager, please. Thank you, Mayor, members of the council, members of the public, and thanks for your patience on these financial and portfolio issues. In this presentation, I'm going to speak about our portfolio, the goals that are met by our portfolio, some lease data, what our leases are used for, what kind of leases we have, what kind of tenants we have we have and how we manage our lease and how we implement policy from the council so again this item was requested by the City Council can I get the next slide please I want to really commend Sausalito for its entrepreneurial approach to revenue. And not all cities have a fucking enterprise like Sausalito does. And not all cities have a property portfolio that generates revenue like Sausalito does. So in your packet, there's an attachment, which is every single lease that the city has for the public's view, and there are quite a few of them. There's also a vacancy report that the public might want to note because the city doesn't have all of its properties filled. I want to say that these leases and agreements obviously span many councils and many city administrations. And, you know, the idea that, you know, South City would be this entrepreneurial I think is important because what it does is it generates revenue and it meets goals of the city. The city council had a strategic plan that it adopted in 2020, and the property portfolio and the management of these leases meets five of these goals. It helps balance community character. It helps strengthen our community identity. It enhances our fiscal resiliency. And using revenue from these leases, we can maintain a stronger organization to deliver effective, efficient services to our residents, visitors, and homeowners. Okay. So today, go to the next slide, and Noelle, you're behind me, about two. You try to go pretty fast, yeah. |
| 01:04:07.31 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. |
| 01:04:10.26 | Chris Zapata | So, there you go. Thank you. So, today the city of Sausalito is the landlord to 39 different tenants. Thank you. And all these leases and spaces, they vary in size, condition, and use. And the financial impact of these 39 leases is a little over $2.2 million on a yearly basis. We have vacancies, as I mentioned earlier. They're attached. And that's a loss of a potential $153,000 in revenue. So if all of our properties were filled, our staff estimate is that we would be in the vicinity of about $2.5 million in revenue. I also want to point out during the COVID pandemic, the city of Sausalito did provide relief to some of our tenants. I want to talk about what people want to know, which is what do we use lease revenue for? I think Chad mentioned a little bit of it. Debt service for park improvements is part of it. Obviously, maintenance costs of the property. We have financial oversight. We have legal oversight. And we use some of this money to supplement our city budget. |
| 01:05:22.22 | Chris Zapata | One of the things that has been apparent to me is that there are different ways to manage properties, and Sausalito has managed their leases in different ways over time. At one time, it was managed by the finance department. At one time, it was managed by a contract property manager, and at one time, it was managed by a consultant with assistance from city staff. And there's always been the city attorney's involvement as well as the OMIC committee or the city council subcommittee. I want to go back a slide if I can. The leases are varied. Sassilo has different kinds of leases, different kinds of tenants. We have for-profit tenants. We have nonprofit tenants. We have large leases. We just completed the largest lease in the city's history with Licee Francais, which generates about $700,000 a year. We have small leases with nonprofits, some as small as a dollar a year. They're in various locations. Many are at MLK. Some are on Bridgeway, and some are along the shoreline. And one of the things that needs to be made clear to the public is the city of Sausage is not always the final say on leases. At times, we have to comply with state of California entities, such as BCDC or the State Coastal Commission, |
| 01:06:49.87 | Chris Zapata | So there's the one thing that I think is important that is noted is the variation in the leases. I want to talk about variation because you have a large nonprofit school paying what the council directed to be a negotiation, which resulted in a market-based pricing of it. That was done with the help of a contract real estate firm. And then we have small leases, which are done by city staff, that are not negotiated by our consultants, and they're for nonprofits. And they are typically, you know, small amounts, as little as a dollar a year, in return for leveraging community goals. Some of the profit in these leases is much different. For-profit leases such as the Gene Hiller building is over $200,000 in the Old City Hall. For-profit lease with somebody as small as a photographer is $3,000 a year. And so all of that to say is, you know, we have an important portfolio that does many, many things for our community, is varied, and is subject to constant requests. We currently have three requests for lease negotiation in front of us. New Village School has had a longstanding request. They're a nonprofit. The Saucelos Center for the Arts has one that's in front of you tonight. We have two for-profit MLK tenants that also have requests for funds. So what is important about tonight in this conversation is there are various ways to manage properties, and the city council has seen different direction. City staff has followed that direction. That has been everything should be a market-based rent. Others have been there's a different one-size-doesn't-fit-all philosophy. And so in order to get to a good negotiating posture, we need some policy direction from the City Council that's going to tell us, you know, these are the approaches we would like you to take with these properties when they come due. or when they're asked for renegotiations, whether it be market or whether it be some unique a la carte menu for an individual property lease. And then also, it's really important to talk about how and who manages the lease. If it's a finance department, that's one way. If it's a contract consultant, that's another way. If it's going to be what we do now, which is a hybrid with finance staff, the city manager, and a contract consultant on specialized leases, that's another direction we need so that we can, in fact, get some firmness in how we approach lease and who's going to manage the leases. If it's going to be city staff, a contract, if we're going to charge a market or some different number. And so all of that is part of a policy discussion that was asked for probably four months ago by council member hoffman and so we're here in front of you tonight to see if you have some direction for us that would help us do a better or do the best job we can to manage these assets for the benefit of all people in sausalito that concludes my report and my presentation mayor and councilor |
| 01:09:57.40 | Steven Woodside | Thanks, city manager. Questions, please, for staff from the council. Vice mayor. |
| 01:10:03.00 | Joan Cox | Thank you, Mayor. City Manager, I cannot see you, but I will look at you on the screen. Okay. In order to really properly arrive upon a leasing philosophy that you know, I will give a portent of things to come. We are about to next, at our next meeting, I believe, hire a consultant to evaluate our facilities and let us know what their Thank you. what our liabilities are with respect to existing facilities, including deferred maintenance. And so as we evaluate our portfolio and what we need to be earning from those various facilities in terms of rents, is it not important to understand A, their market value, B, the liabilities that we face in connection with them, see the type of lease that we have, whether it is a triple net lease where they are fully responsible for all of the repairs and maintenance or like the Saucydo Center for the Arts or whether we're responsible for all of that, such as the old city hall building. So would you not need that data to inform you and us as we Ponder what the best rental philosophy is in addition to whether it's profit, nonprofit, whether it provides a community benefit, et cetera. |
| 01:11:48.45 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, Vice Mayor, yes, you would need that information. And, you know, that's one of the things. What we have is a mishmash, and you have a mishmash built over time. And with that mishmash, you have questions about what the next lease is going to be or not be. So, yeah, you need to understand the value. We've started that conversation. We would need to organize our leases. We did that a year ago. But the idea of figuring out the value of our leases and the market rate or other rate of those has been the question. Some people on the dais have said we need everybody to pay market. Other people in the diocese said, you know, one size doesn't fit all. So for me, if a starting point is to do an evaluation of our leases, and get that done so that we could understand what we're talking about. I use city manager valuation. It's Two and a half million dollars. That's what their value is to you today. Could there be more? Possibly. |
| 01:12:51.01 | Joan Cox | That $2.5 million, it does not include the cost of repairs to, for example, the City Hall building. Is that right? Correct, correct. Yeah, so that is just revenue. That is not expense. |
| 01:13:06.76 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, and, you know, in your expenses, there's obviously maintenance, deferred maintenance, debt service management, et cetera. And so the $2.5 million is not net, but that's what they bring into you right now. |
| 01:13:18.95 | Joan Cox | So for example, the Ice House pays us $1 a year. Who paid for the renovations to the Ice House? |
| 01:13:30.08 | Scott Thornburg | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:13:30.67 | Joan Cox | And I may be putting you on the spot. |
| 01:13:30.73 | Chris Zapata | Yeah. Out of the 39 leases, that's one I don't know who pays for the |
| 01:13:36.45 | Joan Cox | Okay. I think they did some fundraising. I know they did a bunch of it. |
| 01:13:44.57 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah. |
| 01:13:44.98 | Joan Cox | Yeah, I think a bunch of us chipped in on that one. The Caskidley Marina pays us a dollar a year, but who is paying for the renovations to that marina? |
| 01:13:56.08 | Chris Zapata | They are, and some grants are involved as well. |
| 01:13:58.86 | Joan Cox | So, um, |
| 01:14:04.55 | Joan Cox | I wonder if in devising a lease philosophy, it would be important for us to understand the risks and benefits of each lease across the board in order to understand the fiscal impact of whatever philosophy we adopt. notice. Would you agree that's important? |
| 01:14:30.15 | Chris Zapata | Well, I think it's important for leases that are going to come due. I don't know that it's important for leases that got 20 years left on them. Thank you. |
| 01:14:37.64 | Ian Sobieski | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:14:37.73 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:14:37.76 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:14:37.80 | Chris Zapata | So I don't think it's a blanket across the board approach for all leases. It might be for every lease that's coming through in five or ten years, if you'd want to do that for it. |
| 01:14:45.56 | Joan Cox | Right. All right, thank you. And thank you for your informative presentation. And thank you, Councilmember Hoffman, for putting this on our agenda four months ago. I think this is a really important task for us to undertake. |
| 01:15:00.95 | Steven Woodside | Other questions? Yep. Constable Bill Boston. |
| 01:15:04.44 | Ian Sobieski | I'm not. Thanks, City Manager Zapata, and thank you for getting this on the agenda and suggesting that we discuss it. I think we have been missing a uniform policy for how we address city-owned leases. I was wondering, since it's not clear necessarily in the staff report, City Manager, if you might provide some more specifics as regards to what types of direction you're looking to from us, whether it's for an overarching policy that might match every type of property for nonprofit? What options are available for us to pursue in your expertise in overseeing these leases currently? |
| 01:15:36.71 | Chris Zapata | So I think that it's important to get the council's consensus or unanimity on how you want staff to approach lease negotiations. If it's make the most money on the leases, that's one. If it's consider other things like community benefit, that's another. If it's nonprofits are treated a certain way and for-profits are treated differently, that's what's missing. and that's another. If it's, you know, nonprofits are treated a certain way and for profits are treated differently, you know, that's what's missing. And that's what's, I think, important for staff to know. The other thing is, is if you feel like it needs to be done, and I've heard this by someone that's a professional real estate firm, then, you know, tell us and we'll go out there and find out what that costs how that could work and what that would set up we started that initially it was you know let's catch all of our leases let's hire someone that's a consultant to do that let's have that person negotiate these leases we were paying 128 an hour I didn't know that that was sustainable, but that's what we were paying. When we talked about doing some things a la carte with our big lease, which was complex, we hired a professional real estate firm, Cushman Wakefield, and that was $10,000 for that work. So there are different ways to approach it. I just want to know that there isn't one way because what I've heard from different council people is you ought to consider them uniquely. One size does not fit all. And I've heard from other council people they ought to pay market across the board. So that's one thing I need. So if that's not clear to me, then, you know, when we approach some of these folks that want to renew their leases or enter into leases, then, you know, we don't know if we're going to charge a market or not. We don't know if we're going to negotiate something based on community benefit or not. So it'd be important to know that. The other thing is, if we in fact are looking at, you know, leases, every lease should have some type of escalator in it. And without an escalator, you know, I think that's a problem because costs go up. We have to fix something, costs go up. So, you know, my recommendation would be tell us one size doesn't fit all, tell us you want an escalator, and tell us keep doing it in a hybrid fashion as you're doing it, or tell us to do something different, or add, I think, information that you might need as the vice mayor just did. And we can bring all that back and say this is what we heard, and so this will be our approach to these upcoming one, two, three, four negotiations. |
| 01:18:10.67 | Ian Sobieski | I'm sorry, were you going to add something? |
| 01:18:12.97 | Steven Woodside | I can ask my questions after you. |
| 01:18:14.98 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, thank you, Mayor. Okay, so you're saying you'd like for us to consider if we want the same policy for nonprofits or for for profits, and also what type of property management we would like, so if we'd like to use Cushman Wakefield. I'm wondering, though, as you mentioned, nonprofits as a separate entity in your mind in terms of payment structures or otherwise, what are some of the examples or programs that the city currently offers for nonprofits, whether it's for payments or otherwise? |
| 01:18:23.94 | Unknown | management. |
| 01:18:41.50 | Chris Zapata | So are you talking about specific contracts that we have with nonprofits? |
| 01:18:47.07 | Ian Sobieski | I think that as well as, for instance, earlier last year, we worked to allow for nonprofits from Marin City to use our parks and rec facilities free of charge. So just to put into perspective, you know, why we might or how we do treat our nonprofit community in South Slado. |
| 01:19:03.37 | Chris Zapata | It's widely varied. So you talk about free to Marin City nonprofits to help build a communication and a connection with them. That's free. You've talked about $1 for history. You've talked about $1 for boating. You've talked about $4,000 for art and culture. So there's a wild variation. And until we get some type of direction from the council, we're going to be in the dark. And so I understand that you need more information, but this is a conversation we just thought was ripe to have. So, again, thank you all for letting us put it on the agenda. Thank Councilmember Hoffman for bringing it forward because it's important to everything we're doing right now, especially tonight. |
| 01:19:48.06 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. Go ahead, Mayor. Thank you. |
| 01:19:49.76 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:19:49.88 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:19:50.69 | Steven Woodside | I actually, Council Member Bustin, I was gonna try to summarize the questions you're looking for as the leader of our staff. Do we treat nonprofits different than for-profits? Does one size fit all the second question is what type of property management for each of those categories if they are to be treated differently and then I guess I had a. And my my third question it dovetails with what I asked the finance director, this is my question for you city manager, so we currently do not have. any program or process at the city to ascribe a market valuation for the asset values that the city owns. Is that, is it true that we're not currently trying to figure out what the market value of old city hall is or edge edgewater marina. Do we have any work going on there? |
| 01:20:38.97 | Chris Zapata | we have anywhere going on there? We do not have an effort underway to do that. If we're directed by the council to do that, we would. I think Chad touched on what's required by our audits and how government accounting works to value those types of assets in ways that I thought didn't make sense to people. And people say there's obviously more value on the old city hall building than $235,000, but we haven't ascertained that. If you'd like us to, I'm sure we can. |
| 01:21:07.07 | Steven Woodside | OK, and most of the time the the these leases, a lot of them are done in closed session between the city council and the potential tenant. Do you happen to know just just for point of reference, like with the ice house that was mentioned by my colleague, what the rationale was for I mean they have operating hours that are set there, they're a nonprofit what was the rationale of a guided that was that a public discussion or was it in private that that that was held between the city council. |
| 01:21:40.38 | Chris Zapata | That lease was done way before my time, I believe. I don't believe I was here when that occurred. |
| 01:21:45.68 | Steven Woodside | I was just wondering if you happen to know. No, you don't happen to know that that's right. And then similarly with our private firms like the Gene Hiller lease, for instance, or the Saucyacht Club, those are generally done in closed session directly. |
| 01:22:02.22 | Sergio Rudin | And Mayor, if I can correct you on one minor point, we can we can provide direction to our city staff in terms of negotiating leases, but all of our leases are approved in open session. |
| 01:22:03.40 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:22:03.41 | Steven Woodside | it. |
| 01:22:03.53 | Unknown | I'm sorry. |
| 01:22:03.60 | Melissa Blaustein | like, |
| 01:22:03.67 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:22:03.68 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:22:03.77 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:22:03.87 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:22:03.89 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:22:14.50 | Steven Woodside | They're approved, but we do hear them in closed session, right? In terms of talking about giving direction to our staff about negotiating positions, responding to offers and counter offers, generally considering the negotiating. Here to four, we've generally done that in private with in most of our cases. |
| 01:22:32.34 | Sergio Rudin | Yes, and that is the typical practice in all public agencies is that they will give direction. Council members will give direction to city staff or a designated negotiator in closed session while negotiations are ongoing. |
| 01:22:44.27 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Um, and I guess we'll come to it with the Bank of America lease, but that was a little unusual in our process, right? Like we had a more public process on that one. Well, I guess you weren't here at the time, city manager. I can't remember exactly. Exactly when you joined us. So I'm not sure you can answer that question. Do you remember her? Thank you. |
| 01:23:02.97 | Chris Zapata | was here. |
| 01:23:03.10 | Steven Woodside | you know. |
| 01:23:04.81 | Chris Zapata | Yep. I was here when you entered in an agreement with SCA. I wasn't here when you purchased the building. |
| 01:23:11.30 | Steven Woodside | Okay. All right. Those are my questions. Any other questions up here? Chancellor Member Hoffman. |
| 01:23:17.78 | Jill Hoffman | So yeah, thank you. So I think, to be clear, I think what you're asking for us, not to give you I don't think we're going to be able to give direction today, but what you're looking for is some some objective standards from the city council on how to approach leases going forward. and I think one of the things that I was looking for in the staff report, and apologies if it's somewhere that I don't see it, but you gave us, thank you very much for the full property listing, which is attachment one to the staff report. it doesn't break out like what I would look for and correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not seeing... like a price per square footage for these and i'm not seeing the type of rental that it is so i mean i think one of the things we're struggling with up here that i don't think we're going to solve today is sort of this disparity of what exactly is you know what is included in a lease notation here for a very low rent for the year. and some other very high rents. And just looking through this, I can see that For some of these things, you're renting an underwater street. And for other things, it's a full building, like it's a full operating, you know, walls, everything, buildings. I think unless it's somewhere in the staff report, And I don't see it broken down anywhere. |
| 01:24:50.53 | Chris Zapata | It is. |
| 01:24:51.30 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. I think that would be really helpful for us when we're looking at sort of what's our policy going forward. So I think all my other questions were asked, so thank you so much. |
| 01:24:51.67 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:25:05.11 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:25:05.26 | Ian Sobieski | All right, let's move to that. |
| 01:25:05.83 | Unknown | Good. |
| 01:25:06.79 | Jill Hoffman | to the next episode. |
| 01:25:06.96 | Ian Sobieski | dovetail on that because she made a really good point um just in the in the staff report i don't think it says in there and maybe this is a question or direction for later unless you know now but i didn't see anywhere also what the current market rate is for any of those properties so is that something that we could look at at a rate or just to have a real understanding because as we said the 225 000 old city hall is probably not appropriate. |
| 01:25:31.15 | Chris Zapata | Those are all good comments. More information, valuation, and again, you're right. This is not a conversation that's going to end the night, but it's something that you asked to be brought forward so we could start it and start to work towards some type of approach that allows staff to do the work that it needs to do to manage these properties in a way that you want to manage. |
| 01:25:52.86 | Steven Woodside | All right, so we will be done with questions, move to public comment, and then bring it back for discussion. So public comment, please, on this topic. |
| 01:25:59.38 | Walfred Solorzano | If we can have Greg Price. |
| 01:26:03.19 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:26:12.23 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | Hello. |
| 01:26:13.23 | Greg Price | Can you guys hear me okay? Great. So I have three questions, one comment, and an invitation. So my name is Greg Price. I'm the co-founder of the New Village School. We're the second largest tenant. I negotiated pretty much all the amendments and leases over the last 16 years. So I've seen a lot. I would love to share that with you. But one of the first questions from the staff report, and this has been touched on here, it would be helpful to define, quote, economic viability with community values, just understanding what that means, that would be helpful. Second question is, and again, this was touched on, how will the council balance the contributions to the community from commercial tenants versus non-profit tenants? So it sounds like you guys are already working on that. The staff report lists 153,000 as non-recognized or non-realized rent. Pardon me. That sets a false expectation. 40% of that amount is from a space that has been unoccupied for 16 years since we've been there. And in all my conversations with staff, no one knows when that space ever generated revenue. So to include that is misleading, because I think it sets a number in your head that, oh, we need to get 153,000. It's a fantasy number. So just to be aware of that. Second, I'm grateful for the city manager and the mayor to come by and view that space and back just to see the state of the building that we rented initially. And it explains in stark detail many of the improvements that we've made over time. So I've invited each of the council members to come tour that space, not the vacant spaces that have been vacant for some time that are available on the city's website, but particularly the backspace, because it's a time capsule to show the space that's available. So I've invited all of you. I would love to show you around so you have a context for what we're talking about, because just seeing a number like that, |
| 01:27:07.64 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:27:08.04 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:28:10.60 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:28:19.71 | Greg Price | is not going to provide, uh, uh, uh, accuracy. Thank you. |
| 01:28:24.23 | Walfred Solorzano | Steven Woodside? |
| 01:28:32.11 | Stephen Woodside | Stephen Woodside, M.A.: Hi mayor sobieski and may please the Council, my name is Stephen Woodside I lived here in Sausalito for over 10 years and. Some of you know that I've been involved with the construction and operation of the Matthew Turner, which is the official tall ship of Sausalito, and it's relevant to this discussion because Call of the Sea, the 501c3 charitable nonprofit educational organizations been around for 40 years. This is our 40th year. And the only reason the Matthew Turner could have been built here is because one, a charitable Donor step forward with a lot of money. Secondly, a charitable property owner Thank you. loaned. vacant land or a tent to be built under which the Matthew Turner was constructed. That took seven years, by the way. And finally, The United States government through the Army Corps of Engineers gives us free rent. That's worth a ton of money. And it's probably one of the one reasons we can stay here and operate. on Richardson Bay and in San Francisco Bay and so on. And the reason I think it's important is that you should distinguish those truly public benefit, charitable organizations that provide a great benefit to our community as you look at this issue going forward. Thank you very much. |
| 01:30:04.30 | Steven Woodside | I would comment online, please. |
| 01:30:06.43 | Walfred Solorzano | Anybody else in-house? All right, no. Okay, online we have Vicky Nichols. Oh, sorry, one moment. |
| 01:30:14.81 | Unknown | uh, Thank you. Yeah. for. |
| 01:30:22.91 | Steven Woodside | Is that all right? Yeah. |
| 01:30:25.38 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:30:25.49 | Steven Woodside | you Thank you. funding our new statement. Thank you. |
| 01:30:30.17 | Unknown | Thank you, Mayor Sobieski, City Council members, staff. Friends, I'm delighted to be here. My name is Jerry Taylor. I'm the president of Sassado Historical Society. I guess I'm the poster child for the bad behavior of only paying a dollar a year. I remember that because nine years ago, as a newly appointed president of the Social Historical Society, I came up with a check for $50 from the Historical Society because we were 10 years in arrears. We'd never paid any rent for it. Um, I'd like to, this may go more than two minutes, but then I'll end up writing a letter to you. But let's briefly say that... The city was gifted the ice house by Michael Rex. The city decided not to use it for recreation, decided to, they wanted to use it with the historical society. The city resolution said the city would not spend one penny on moving that. We helped raise $30,000 to get it down there. The exhibit that Phil Frank had made was in Village Fair. We moved that into then. That was about the end of the 90s. Somewhere in the mid-2016, 2015. We spent $30,000 to replace the doors and windows. We spent $192,000 on what we call the Ice House Plaza project. We had a lot of conversations with Dylan about that and stubbing her toe. I hope we never forget those things. In 2023, after another couple-year project, we created a very interesting, exciting museum that cost us $272,000. The city put none of that money in. These are from us begging, scratching, from anything we could get. So, and it doesn't count the in-kind things. Those are cash type expenditures. If you added that all up, You know, it's pretty good investment that the people of Sausalito have made in those things. I thank you for your time. Anybody else in-house? |
| 01:32:38.79 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Thank you. Let's try not to do the applause thing. Uh, run. |
| 01:32:47.84 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | Thank you. |
| 01:32:47.85 | Steven Woodside | THE FAMILY. |
| 01:32:48.02 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | Thank you. Yeah, good evening, Ron Albert. You'll be seeing me again in a little while. But this is a terrific topic for the council to take up. You're not going to resolve it tonight, but... When I was on the council, our handling of leases, from my perspective as an attorney, was poor, occasionally abysmal. I think having a broad policy, a written policy, even a broad one, to provide some guidance as to how to deal with these is a great idea. I also think bringing an annual review of all the city's leases under the city's agenda annually is a great idea. It calls to the public's attention how many leases you have |
| 01:33:13.16 | Unknown | I love it. |
| 01:33:28.27 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:33:39.79 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | and how many valuable properties are out there. I'm going to go. SCA is going to be under considerable scrutiny, already is. We welcome it. We're willing to respond to that scrutiny, improve our value. But... There's a whole lot of other leases the city handles that don't receive any scrutiny. And I think the fiscal hawks in town would be well served. and could really create more value for the city by paying attention to some of those other leases as well. And I echo Councilmember Hoffman and Cox. I think you may have all mentioned it, but that, The list of the leases was a great start, but it should be supplemented, showing the price per square foot they're paying, what expenses they're responsible for. I know a couple of those tenants are on percentage rent, and that's not reflected. So that chart is a great start, but it needs more information to provide better context for you to work with and for the public to understand. Thank you. |
| 01:34:54.97 | Walfred Solorzano | Anybody else in council chambers? |
| 01:34:57.74 | Unknown | What? We're confused. This item is on the record. |
| 01:34:58.87 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | Thank you. |
| 01:34:58.89 | Steven Woodside | This item is on the review of all the city's leases. This is not the South City Center for the Arts item, which you'll be following. |
| 01:35:04.02 | Unknown | this that's the next item |
| 01:35:07.10 | Steven Woodside | That's the next Eidolon. That's the next item. |
| 01:35:08.56 | Unknown | That's next time. Thank you. |
| 01:35:12.91 | Steven Woodside | All right. There's a hand raised in the audience. |
| 01:35:16.57 | Babette McDougall | I'm trying to put both on the same slip and maybe I got distracted by it. |
| 01:35:19.96 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 01:35:26.29 | Babette McDougall | Thank you for recognizing me. There's actually been a tremendous amount of discussion about this very item among the community. resonance. and business owners over the last couple of days. And it's very telling. Everybody would like to see a consistent policy adopted. What they worry about is whether a level of ethics will be applied to that policy so that it endures, so that it's evergreen over time, so that there are impartial, empirical standards of ethical approach that can be worked into it. And I'm just inviting the idea that as we go forward, there will be a lot of penciling to the nitty gritty of nonprofit versus for profit, etc. But I think looking at the big picture of what will be the philosophical take on this policy is fundamental. Thank you. |
| 01:36:27.46 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay, we'll go with the people on Zoom. So next we have is Vicki Nichols. |
| 01:36:35.31 | Vicki Nichols | Hi, that that took a while good evening mayor sobieski I want to just pile on a couple of little historical facts to add to my friend Jerry Taylor's comments. The genesis of that $1 lease was when the city gave the rights for the art festival to the Chamber of Commerce. They were to provide docents to help the public navigate town, et cetera, et cetera. That task fell on the historical society who was paying for the docents at a great cost to our annual budget. They were not making tons of money, but we were paying. The city subsequently gave us a stipend And that was eventually dissolved. And they've since raised all the money that they have. I want to also comment about the last speaker. When she was the president of the Chamber of Commerce, she knew the burden. on the, uh, Historical Society for docents. So as she was president on her term as that board president, she raised among her board $2,000 to help the society. So I'd just like to applaud her for being a good community community. person and working together. And it seems to make a difference if There's a tenant in on a building that we're still having debt service. versus one that may be paid off that we might have more leniency. I'm loathe to say anything because it sounds like I may be against a nonprofit, which I'm not. but there has to be a fair component here so everybody's treated similarly. Thank you. You got a tough one on your hands. |
| 01:38:16.27 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker is Claudia Brisson. |
| 01:38:22.01 | Claudia Brisson | Like two. the video starting. Okay. I think you, oh, here I am. All right, hi. My name is Claudia Brisson. I am. I do a lot in Sausalito, and a member of the Saucy attorney. Thank you. And, um, I just wanna say that This is a gem. |
| 01:38:52.23 | Steven Woodside | It sounds like your comment is related to the next item, which is the Saucyuta Center for the Arts. Yes, it is. Kindly wait for that item. And also your microphone is cutting in and out. So you might want to work on that in the interim. Okay, thanks. |
| 01:38:57.87 | Claudia Brisson | Yes, it is. |
| 01:39:05.06 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, thanks. |
| 01:39:06.55 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker, sir. Senator Bushmaker. |
| 01:39:12.87 | Sandra Bushmaker | Hello again. I'm really happy that the council is taking this issue up. It's long overdue. And I think we need policy that will apply to all leases. and policies with regard to whether we're going to treat different lessees differently. 26 years ago, During my tenure on the dais, we put together a three ring binder manually with all the leases that the city had. And that's how we worked with it that length of time ago. But now electronically, we've got a lot more flexibility. Just wanted to give you that image of a three ring binder which sat in the city council conference room. My issues are Dealing with non-productive leases, and enforcement of lease terms. I believe that the consistent policy will help that. And of course, the term, the definition of a nonproductive lease is gonna be up to you. And I think that determines that will distinguish between the profit and nonprofit tenants. And I really like Ron Alpert's suggestion. of the annual renewal of the city leases and to give the public an update on where we are with the city property after all We are the owners of our property. Thank you. |
| 01:40:37.85 | Steven Woodside | No further public comment. Okay, we'll close public comment, bring it back up to the dais. just reiterating the city manager's questions to us and we of course could add to it. Do we treat nonprofits differently than for profits is one question and what type of property management, well maybe what type of property management do we want? add to that list. But, uh, Perhaps, you know, I know it's gonna be a multi, oh, I'm very sorry, Council Member Kellman. I guess that's all I had to say. So why don't you take it from there? |
| 01:41:08.23 | Melissa Blaustein | Great, thank you. Yes, I'm very delighted to see this finally on the agenda. I know several of us have wanted this to come forward for a while. In the interest of, I think, consistency and fairness within our fiduciary duty, I didn't have questions for the city manager because I thought that this was something that we could cogitate on as a council because I think it's a little bit broader than one or two questions to address. So I want to offer up some ideas for how we might approach this with full disclosure that I don't think we're going to reach agreement tonight, but hopefully this helps us, you know, ideate on a structure for how we might pursue this. So, you know, first of all, I think we need that audit that Ron Albert and Sandra Bushmaker just articulated. I think we need to make sure we have our house in order before we start making any changes. So I'd love to know that we know exactly what is happening for us with all our properties. The second thing is, I just want to acknowledge we have 39 properties, over 70 acres in ownership. Our finance director told me this week that that is highly unusual, particularly for a community of our size. This is far exceeds what most communities would have in terms of their property ownership. And yet we don't have a property manager addressing these. And that seems like with a risk management and a loss of opportunity for us. And I think that's something the council needs to take under consideration. So I would start with a map. Where are our properties located? And what does council think based on these map and in alignment with our general goal, our general plan goals and policies? What do we think each part of town should be trying to achieve? The goals for properties owned in MLK are going to be different than goals for properties owned downtown or along the waterfront. But we need to see this visually. And I think the entire community deserves to see that as well. And that could help us to identify, again, in accordance with the general plan, what we want to do with these properties. I think we also then need to start reviewing deferred maintenance and bring in a third party to provide a market rate analysis of our properties. I don't think it's necessarily accurate to look at the value, the so-called value of a property without knowing exactly the last time we fixed the roof or the pavement or the doorframe. And I think we need to really understand the level of different maintenance on some of our properties. And then, of course, like I said, Cushman, Wakefield or others could come in to provide a market rate. I think we need to set goals of a total lease property percentage. So if we have 39 properties, how many of those do we actually think could be rented on an annual basis? I think a property like Seagate is in the 90% for that property at One Harbor Drive across from Molly Stones. Could the city of Sausalito expect to have 90% rental rate? I don't know. But we should figure that out so we can set our expectations. And then I think we finally get into that meaty question of the policy for a nonprofit versus a for-profit in alignment with the aforementioned goals of ownership. in alignment with the general plan based on areas of town. And within that examples might include what is the least term, What is the percentage of revenue shared with the city? Is it a triple net lease? How much different maintenance? But we really need to get all those other things in order before we can even identify that. we may want to consider divesting ourselves of some property as needed. Are we really in position to manage all of these properties? And then develop a plan to improve our properties as needed. Then finally, as some speakers allocated and identified, an annual review, including sales tax return. We have seen many letters come through for tonight for the next agenda item, asserting that there's been a benefit from a sales tax perspective. We actually need to have data that outlines the economic benefit of each and every one of our leasing properties should we expect them to have some type of profit. If we don't, then that gets included in our policy. But I think we need to really rely heavily on data. So that would be the framework that I would offer the council, and I look forward to hearing what my colleagues have to say on it. |
| 01:45:10.10 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Council Member Kellman, Vice Mayor. |
| 01:45:13.83 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:45:13.85 | Joan Cox | Thank you, and thank you for the interesting and thoughtful feedback from many of you. To this item city manager, thank you for raising various things for us to think about. Um, I do I am one of those who believes not one size fits all I believe geographic location should be a factor, as mentioned by Council Member Kalman. Whether there's a community benefit should be a factor. The city's usage of the site should be a factor. And the cost of, the cost to the city of the site, that is whether the city pays for maintenance or whether the tenant pays for maintenance, should be a factor. I agree with Steven Woodside that we need to distinguish public benefit charitable organizations that benefit our community from for profit and other types of nonprofits. I, In the long run, we would probably benefit from having a professional property manager and we have looked for one. We had eight applications, none of which panned out. And so Um, For now, I like the... approach of having staff handle the smaller, less challenging leases and bringing in Cushman-Wakefield when we need to for more complicated negotiations or leases. I absolutely agree on an escalator in every situation. Lease? um, I do not believe money should be the sole objective in lease negotiations. We should not be requiring every tenant across the board to pay market rent for the reasons that I have already mentioned. I think we should adopt a policy of paying commission to those who bring in tenants for our vacant properties. If we have all of this lost rent for properties that are vacant, provide an incentive to others to bring us tenants. Um, I endorse the comments of my fellow council members about the chart. I think our chart needs to be updated to include the appraised value of each property. the price per square foot being charged, the expenses, the lessee is responsible for, and whatever deferred maintenance is identified through our facilities evaluation that we will be approving hopefully next month. And while we cannot legally tie the hands of future city councils, I agree with Babette that any policy we adopt should include impartial empirical standards. And of course I agree with council member Kalman and with, um, Ron Albert about an annual review of our leases that's transparent and available to the public. can see what we're doing. You know, some of our leases... Existing leases have a 20-year term, so there's not much we can do about those, but we can certainly address some of these objectives when it comes time to negotiate existing leases. Thank you. |
| 01:48:35.62 | Steven Woodside | That's my husband. |
| 01:48:37.54 | Jill Hoffman | I think this is a good start to start this conversation. I think that the way we've been approaching it kind of in an ad hoc way has changed. you know, it's sort of naturally encompass some of the things we've been talking about today about in extrinsic things and non-monetary value that the different lessees bring to our town. I think we've been doing that sort of naturally. And, I'm looking forward to getting some more objective criteria. just as boundaries, right? Knowing that, that, All properties are different, right? Naturally, they're just in Sausli or they're just different. I think that agree, you know, we need some additional information to sort of start this process. And I think the breakdown per square foot is the starting place, right? We have to know that and we have to understand that. The type of lease that it is and what type of property it is is super important. Because when someone looks at something and says, like the discussion we've just had, well, somebody pays a dollar a year. Okay, but you know we don't own that building and we're renting, you know, the dirt underneath it or not the dirt but the land underneath it, as opposed to a fully operating hard facility so. That's super important for us to look at in our analysis. Also, all the other things we talked about, right? The fair market value for the rent, the fair market value of the parcel, fair market value of this building that we may own, the operating costs of that building, right? We just talked about expenses booked against a revenue source, capital improvements that are needed. So hopefully we're gonna get our facilities assessment, RFP done and out so that we can see how much deferred maintenance some of these buildings have. And some of it is affecting our current as we also just heard from Chad, is affecting our revenue stream because we have significant deferred maintenance on buildings that we own. Interestingly, I think we need to also include an inventory of small lots and properties that the city owns all over town. So we own a lot of little micro lots all over the place. And obviously too small to rent, obviously too small to put a building on, but it may have value to somebody. And so I think as a policy, as perhaps a revenue generating sort of, exercise. What are these plots that we own and do we want to keep them or do we want to offer them for sale? We also have to maintain those and we're responsible for those. Um, so. those are an added expense for which we're not receiving revenue. So that may be something that we haven't discussed that we might want to look at. I think what we're going to look at one thing we might want to look at when we come back is a lease, a total lease percentage range, like based on whatever metrics we want to use, whatever, um, whatever graphing we want to use to define how we're gonna look at a lease, but then what's the top and the low of whatever it is we think we're gonna, what we need to lease that for. And all these factors, intangibles that we've been talking about, Those might go into the discussion, but I think a range a percentage range would be really helpful. Um, completely agree about annual revenue or annual review of the leases. Um, And, uh, the discussion about how we approach nonprofits versus profit, but that would go back to What's our total least percentage range as perhaps a way to approach this? Um, agree that we got to figure out how we're going to manage our properties. So, I mean, we've gone through how many property managers here in Sausalito, just since I've been on the council, I'm sure we've all, you know, experience this, but I do agree Um, that it's difficult for an untrained staff person to be a property manager. So that's the difficulty of that. I completely agree that on the bigger leases, Cushman & Wakefield has been, I think, super helpful and cost effective for accessing their expertise. You know, the assets that the city owns, the assets that we have purchased and invested in, are assets of the people of Sausalito. And so it's incumbent upon this council to understand what were, you know, why we purchased that. and the benefit of that revenue stream to the city of Sausalito, that's what pays for our streets, that's what pays for our salaries, that's what pays for, you know, so all the things that you expect as a resident, as an owner of these assets, you know, that's the exercise that we have to go through. So I think that's at the base, that's the important analysis that we're starting tonight. So I'm glad that we're happy. I'm happy that we're on this path. I hope that we're gonna see our facilities assessment review RFP soon. That's super important to understand what the deferred maintenance is and what the cost of these operating Um, assets of our city booked against what is the rent and what we need is rent. So that's it. Thanks. |
| 01:53:59.81 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. I'm also very pleased to see this item and have this important conversation with our colleagues. I think what's really clear to us from the presentation is that there is a discrepancy amongst almost every property. Almost no one has the exact same deal in Sausalito. And that's a problem that we immediately need to solve because, as my colleagues pointed out, these are assets that the city owns and they can all potentially be revenue generating. I don't want to spend too much time rehashing all of the points that were made by my colleagues because I tend to agree with all of them, especially items like the annual lease review, the escalator in every lease, you know, considering Cushman Wakefield for larger properties, solving for the property manager. I think that direction is clear. One thing that I would add that I'd really like to also see us look at is the age of these leases and when we made them and how people ended up getting them, because some of these deals are rather sweet and others of them are quite complicated and difficult. And so I think when we're looking at what these look like, we should also have a consideration for all of that and make a process that is fair. I'm someone who truly values our volunteer community and our nonprofit community. So I would absolutely like to see us treat our nonprofits with a special level of respect and consideration with regards to the fees they may or may not be paying for what they contribute to our community and what that looks like. So I would love to see some sort of proposal with regards to how we might offer up a return on their investment in our community by investing further in them and in what they do. But I, and I also think based on this discussion, perhaps we need to reignite our OMIC committee or a council member committee that focuses specifically on, on the leases. If this conversation is going to be ongoing, it doesn't have to be a lasting committee necessarily, but I would happily volunteer to review how some of the recommendations for this so that we can have a working group or something to that effect. So thank you to my colleagues for starting this conversation. |
| 01:55:55.53 | Steven Woodside | I was originally on the thank you very much Councilmember Boston I was originally on the OMIC committee and you know I think that the whole council has made and the city staff especially has made a lot of progress on how we manage our leases it's worth noting that the lease a France a new lease is generating how much is it so you manager 200k extra $8 million over the life of the lease $4 million over 20 years $4 million extra that's above in addition to what they would have otherwise paid, And that there is generally this whole topic being on our agenda is a sign of our engagement with that issue. Yeah. Scott DeRue, SCA lease which we'll hear next went through a big public process a year and a half on that lease. Scott DeRue, And we are still struggling with how to have harmony and a good sense about what we're doing here in town, I would love i've taken notes about everything everyone has said i'd love to turn to my colleagues just to ask. Scott DeRue, Whether we can move the ball for obviously we're not going to get everything done in one night, but the city manager. needs to make some choices. And so he asked one question. which is, do we treat our nonprofits different than our for-profits? Should we, or should we not? Can we decide that? Not how we're gonna treat them, that sets up then the discussion, within those two categories, do we treat them differently? |
| 01:57:09.95 | Joan Cox | I think it should be a factor, but I don't think we can say yes or no across the board, because not one size fits all. So our nonprofit school is our highest rent payer at the moment. And so I just don't think, and yet they bring in huge revenues. They're a privately run organization with huge revenues. And they're a nonprofit. And so they can afford to pay us market rent. And so I don't think one size fits all, even when it comes to profit or not. Okay. In my humble opinion. |
| 01:57:18.02 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:57:18.17 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:57:39.30 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 01:57:39.70 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:57:42.00 | Steven Woodside | they're |
| 01:57:43.01 | Jill Hoffman | I would agree. I think I'm not ready at this point to make that type of a... I think I need to look more at all of the analysis that we're going to get. And I think we're going to naturally see sort of a fallout. And we're naturally going to see kind of what we've been doing. And it will be easier for us to sort of come up with what we think are going to be our factors, our objective factors, if we can get to that point. |
| 01:58:10.35 | Steven Woodside | So is it so we can't give the city manager that policy direction here tonight so. City Manager, when I guess I'm looking to you because I want to try to see if there's anything we can extract from here that's useful for you in the near term when you're engaging with I'm sorry Council member Clement it's sometimes hard to see the hand raised I apologize. |
| 01:58:29.60 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, sorry, no problem. I'll change the color. Yeah, thank you, Mayor. So I think that the city manager, if I may, has some work to do first before we can render an opinion on this. I appreciate you wanting to move this forward, but I think the vice mayor put it well. there's not going to necessarily be a one-size-fits-all. I think we need to identify on a geographic basis what the needs are within the community. And then if we decide that we need a historic society, but as much as we have now, that it's done this amazing job of the city of Sausalito, then we're able to say, yes, in this area, we need this, this makes sense. But I don't know that we're at this time able to make a blanket authorization without further analysis. I would recommend that SAP goes back, answer some of the questions that we've put out there, provides us with more information and the community with more information, including just an audit. You know, where's the binder kind of thing? So we can see exactly what we're dealing with, and then we can take that to heart. And like I said, I think the general plan is a guiding force for us here because we did a lot of that hard work in terms of what we see different segments, you know, serving a purpose for. |
| 01:59:37.66 | Steven Woodside | Thank you very much, Councilman Rickalman. I did have a few of those things I wanted to summarize, but city manager, and I'll get to you, Council Member Hoffman, in just a second. Let me just ask, because I did want to ask if there was anything, there are a few things I think we do have a consensus on. I asked one that apparently we don't, but is there anything... |
| 01:59:44.49 | Melissa Blaustein | the second. |
| 01:59:55.30 | Steven Woodside | Any low hanging fruit you think we could give you guidance on? |
| 01:59:58.08 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:59:58.13 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:59:58.16 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. I don't, Mayor and Council. I've got 15 good ideas to incorporate into a summary report and bring back to you. And then, you know, you can provide some specific direction at that time. And I appreciate the discussion and the ideas from the public as well as from you all because it's all helpful. |
| 02:00:06.67 | Yoshito (or Leticia Fernandez?) | Okay. |
| 02:00:14.73 | Steven Woodside | I did think there was consensus for everyone that we want to have an inventory of our properties that include the small lots that Collins Member Hoffman mentioned, that we would want just as a matter of policy there to be an annual review of all the leases, that we would like actually, I think I heard consensus, raise your hand if I am wrong, that we would love there to actually be an appraisal of the value of all our city properties. So that would be an RFP probably for a professional who can do that work. And I think those were the main points that I thought that there was consensus on. Is there anyone? Sorry, I have one more. |
| 02:00:52.10 | Jill Hoffman | Sorry, I have one more. |
| 02:00:53.31 | Steven Woodside | Oh. |
| 02:00:55.03 | Jill Hoffman | There might be some uses of city properties that are not listed on here by third parties. So I don't know that we gave that particular direction, but that should probably also be included. I mean, I see some on here that are $1 a year. They don't pay anything, but I think I know of others that. that aren't listed on here. So |
| 02:01:23.28 | Steven Woodside | When would my colleagues like to see this back? |
| 02:01:23.77 | Jill Hoffman | When would my |
| 02:01:28.77 | Steven Woodside | What's our deadline to staff to get us the inventory, this the visioning that Councilman Kellman talked about, those sort of themes of these different areas? |
| 02:01:39.26 | Jill Hoffman | I would, we just gave a lot of direction. Some of this is going to take A lot of time I would, I would look to the city manager sort of give us an estimate on a reasonable estimate on when this, you might be able to bring this back to us. I mean, that would be our first question. |
| 02:01:57.30 | Chris Zapata | I'm looking at them too. I was going to interject myself and say, I need some time. So I would guess 60 days. Thank you. |
| 02:02:05.67 | Steven Woodside | that's phenomenal but am i fair in those four points i think i made about the consensus items any objections there okay so at least we have those to hold on to and we're going to hear from the city manager at a future meeting about moving the item forward um more broadly uh any i guess that's it on this item we can move on to The next item, which is Do we have my sheet of paper? |
| 02:02:40.87 | Steven Woodside | actual The actual title is Consideration of the Request by the Sausalito Center for the Arts, a nonprofit to amend the existing lease by maintaining rent at $4,029 per month. |
| 02:02:56.82 | Steven Woodside | who's presenting this item. |
| 02:02:59.76 | Chris Zapata | City Manager? No, no. My recommendation, Mayor, is this was a request made by the Sassler Center for the Arts. Let them make the presentation, and if you have questions, then I think that would be a time that staff would engage. But this specifically came from them as a request. |
| 02:03:10.45 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 02:03:14.42 | Steven Woodside | All right, fine. Who's representing, who's speaking, Mr. Albert? Peace. |
| 02:03:28.44 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | We were expecting a staff report first, but that's okay. Shiva Pachtel, our executive director, is going to begin the presentation, and then I'm going to pick it up partway through. |
| 02:03:41.42 | Shiva Pachtel | Fantastic. Thank you for your time tonight. I'm Shiva Pachtel. I'm executive director of Sassilir Center for the Arts. And I just want to take a few minutes and talk to you about talk to you about our accomplishments. I will start with our mission. Our mission is to enrich the cultural experience of Marin and unite our community through diverse artistic expression for the benefit of all. Sausalito's new cultural gem. I've been at the Sausalito Center for the Arts since April of last year, and this is exactly what I hear almost daily. People walk in, people look around, and people always comment on what a fabulous use of a bank building Sausalito Center for the Arts is. I always hear the gasp when they see the collection, and they're always very complimentary. So it's Sausalito's new gem. So we took a vacant bank building and turned it into an active art center. I'm not going to bore you with all of the details that we did, but from remodeling to painting to fixing to buying furniture to buying equipment, AV equipment and everything, we put in hundreds of hours and a lot of dollars into getting this space ready for Sassalier Center for the Arts. So next slide. So we're off to a fast start. This is really important because it's all that we've accomplished. We've had 58 exhibitions and events from which 13 of the exhibitions were full on exhibitions, meaning that two and a half weeks to a month. And so we've attracted 555 or 54 artists from all over Bay Area to show at Sausalito Center for the Arts. We've had 316 volunteers with 4,200 volunteer hours in this past year. We've had 35,000 visitors to our website and we've had 32,000 visitors. And I always have a clicker in my hand. Monica has given it to me so I can verify this fact. So we support diversity and inclusion. We've always made sure that every show that we put on at Sausalito Center for the Arts is diverse. We also had the specific exhibitions that are about diversity. Our Pride exhibition, Milagros and Memories, which was an exhibition of Mexican-American, Latin American artists of Marin County and also San Francisco. Breaking Barriers, which was the art of Iran and the local Iranian-American artists of Marin County. And we've also had music events that focus on diversity. We're becoming a regional arts center. This is pretty important. We're partnered with Marine Open Studios. Marine Open Studios has been around for 30 years and it's one of the premier artist organizations here in Marin County. Artspan, they've been around for 50 years. They're the premier art organizations in San Francisco Bay Area. Marine Photography Club, ICB, Pacific Rim Sculptor Group, Sausalito Arts Festival, and many other organizations that want to work with us or have worked with us already. We are uniting the community. We are community-based. We try to accommodate all kinds of community-based events. We recently had the large school fundraiser. They were very successful at their fundraisers. We've partnered with Sip and Sound a couple of times. We've had a fundraising for Ukraine. The slide is up. I'm not going to take your time. Actually, if we go to two slides, Yeah. And so we're making a name for ourselves and for Sausalito. This is pretty important. We've been written up over 20 times this past year in different publications. For example, the very first article that was written about us was in Marin IJ. and the title of the article was Sassalito City Council Favors Art Center at former Bank Building. Okay. Yeah. We also had, we were written up in New York Times, just two lines of copy. And the two lines of copy recommended Sausalio Center for the Arts as an art center to see while in California. This was pretty exciting because we were looking at the data on our website and we saw a 700 jump. that day when New York Times mentioned us. We were written up in The Guardian and many other newspapers as far as San Jose Mercury News. We are continuing the legacy of Sausalito's artistic heritage. This is pretty important because the very first show that we did was Spotlight Sausalito. And it was from a timeline from 1948 to today, 2023 or 2022 at the time, just highlighting the history of Sausalito with arts. So starting there, ending up with Sausalito Center for the Arts. We had an exhibition called Paint Sausalito. 18 artists fanned out in the city of Sausalito for two days. They painted scenes of Sausalito and they brought their paintings back to SCA and people would follow them just to see the paintings. I see Chris Felber here next month. We're going to have an exhibition of his photography at Doug Sandberg, and they are local and also world-renowned. We receive support from many. This is a partial list of our donors. We have corporate sponsors such as PG&E, Bank of Moran, Maria Santana, Mourinho Community Foundation, County of Marin, and many, many, many friends that support us. So we are here to say Saucerito City Council, we are asking you to join us. And join us in the celebration of a vibrant and active art association supporting a variety of artistic programs for artists residents and visitors alike, thank you. |
| 02:10:56.39 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:11:01.39 | Steven Woodside | Let's temper the applause, please, so we can move on. Thank you. |
| 02:11:05.27 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | Can we go back to the slides? |
| 02:11:14.29 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | Okay, the next slide, please. |
| 02:11:21.75 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | forward. |
| 02:11:25.57 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | Oh. |
| 02:11:32.81 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | You have a thumb drive there. You have to This will take a minute, but the first slide shows the SCA building's central location. |
| 02:11:44.70 | Steven Woodside | This happened last time. I need a biobreak, so we'll pause for three minutes for a biobreak and resume shortly. |
| 02:11:49.36 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | Okay. |
| 02:12:00.50 | Steven Woodside | Let us kindly resume our meeting. |
| 02:12:06.74 | Unknown | Thank you. there. |
| 02:12:13.07 | Steven Woodside | You can grab Jill, I think she's in the hallway. |
| 02:12:13.10 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.. |
| 02:12:34.53 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 02:12:44.19 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:12:49.22 | Unknown | I'll start with you. Thank you. |
| 02:13:04.96 | Unknown | Thank you. I haven't seen her yet. Thank you. So those are those processes. |
| 02:13:15.81 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | She's there. She knows. She's... |
| 02:13:49.39 | Unknown | but never returned to the school. |
| 02:13:59.47 | Unknown | I was thinking. President of the United States. |
| 02:14:51.20 | Jill Hoffman | I'd like to say before we start, I'd like to make a comment, please. |
| 02:14:51.44 | Ian Sobieski | Before we start, I'd like to make a comment. |
| 02:14:55.00 | Jill Hoffman | I'm I'm uncomfortable with the way we're proceeding with our meeting tonight. And I'm just gonna state really quickly for the record, and I may be in the minority, But we don't typically give lessees standalone city council agenda items, nor do we allow them to advocate for their lease, whatever it is they're going to advocate for, individually at a city council meeting. So I'm uncomfortable with this drastic departure from how we treat every other lessee in town. I mentioned this at the break to the city manager because I didn't want to cause a disturbance. I didn't know that this is how the agenda was going to flow. Apparently, neither did the SCA. So apologies to anybody. This is not directed specifically to anybody else. This is about fairness and impartiality and how we operate with every other person that comes before the city council. I think it's really important that we be fair and treat everybody equally. And I feel like this is a drastic departure from the way we normally operate. So, I would, I'm not entirely sure how to proceed at this point. I just, you know, Anyway, I'm highlighting this. as well. |
| 02:16:12.97 | Joan Cox | as we move forward. |
| 02:16:13.86 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:16:14.77 | Joan Cox | Mr. Mayor, if I could. |
| 02:16:16.27 | Unknown | least. |
| 02:16:16.52 | Joan Cox | This is on the agenda because Council Member Blaustein several months ago asked us to add this to the future agenda items list, which we did. And then the lease rate increase was scheduled to go up March 1. And so we put it on the agenda for a meeting in February. But the entire council has seen this on our future agenda items list for months and there's been no objection to this being. an agenda item for us to consider. So this is the first I'm hearing of this. the mayor and I sit on the agenda setting committee Apologies. you now think this is improper, but this was requested and there was no objection at the time it was requested that this be an agenda item on our agenda. |
| 02:17:04.28 | Jill Hoffman | But the normal flow is we have a staff report. that lists facts, the staff report, The staff gives the facts. They give whatever recommendation they have in the staff report, and we have public comment. That's it. the fact that we've now given you know, this entity that's requesting action by the council is a vast departure from the normal process. the way that we normally operate. So I'm just uncomfortable with this whole, how this is, how this is come up and you're right, I probably should have more forcefully addressed it when we talked about future agenda items, but this, the way that this has proceeded tonight is, is. |
| 02:17:45.14 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 02:17:51.53 | Jill Hoffman | a large departure from the way that we normally operate and I'm uncomfortable with it. |
| 02:17:55.95 | Joan Cox | I understand. I will say that we do hear from our various nonprofits, from the Sister Cities organization, from various other organizations regarding their work on behalf of our community. And so it is not unusual to get an update. |
| 02:17:56.16 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:18:10.35 | Joan Cox | from some of the organizations that serve our community from time to time. |
| 02:18:16.90 | Jill Hoffman | That's true, but it's not in the context that they're asking for a quite dramatic lease reduction. |
| 02:18:23.65 | Steven Woodside | Well, yeah, thank you, Councilmember Hoffman. I also feel like we're a small town. This is a volunteer organization that is partnering with the city in a public-private partnership to provide services to our town in our artistic tradition And we can add layers of process that obfuscate and make everything more hard and more complicated deal with, but what better way to get to the heart of the matter than both having the SCA present and put them on the spot to answer any questions that you have. about anything you have. So that's why they're here is just to listen to the horse's mouth instead of filtering it through a bunch of layers. So |
| 02:19:10.57 | Melissa Blaustein | Mayor, may I turn in? |
| 02:19:12.48 | Steven Woodside | Please, Councilmember Kellman. |
| 02:19:14.08 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. Yeah, I think the middle ground here in to capture everybody's points, I think is, we've been wanting to hear from SCA about their progress of what's coming up for 2024, how they see things working. We wanted to hear from Shiva and as a new director, I think we all agreed on that. I think the unusual nature is the aspect of the lease specifically. And it may in fact be premature given the prior item that we just had in that, you know, there may be just a need to say no changes until, in fact, we have our policy in place. So I don't know if that's something people would want to entertain. And we just sort of receive an update and then recognize that we're going to have a plan in place and revisit. I don't know, but I just want to throw that out there sort of middle ground here. |
| 02:20:07.63 | Steven Woodside | you councilmember kelman i mean the agenda item is the item that's notice we can, of course, abandoned it during our discussion. We're still in the Q&A. We haven't gotten public comment yet. So I think, barring any other comments, we will proceed with you, sir, to do your presentation and answer any questions from the dais directed towards you or to our city staff. And do you have him on a timer? |
| 02:20:35.73 | Walfred Solorzano | We never had the Monotimer. I wasn't aware that this was like a public hearing. |
| 02:20:39.08 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | Thank you. |
| 02:20:39.12 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:20:39.17 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | Thank you. |
| 02:20:39.24 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 02:20:39.44 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | you |
| 02:20:39.77 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:20:39.81 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | I've timed my presentation roughly 10 minutes. 10 minutes then, please. Okay. First, I'd like to say I respect Council Member Hoffman's comments, and I agree this is unusual. The entire lease negotiation seemed unusual to me, and as a former council member, I wasn't quite sure how to approach any of this. Our primary lease negotiations were with Mike Wagner, who's no longer with the city. |
| 02:20:41.41 | Walfred Solorzano | I, I, |
| 02:21:14.32 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | Anyhow, move on to my presentation quickly. This first slide shows an aerial view of SCA's building in the heart of downtown. Next slide, please. |
| 02:21:14.45 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:21:31.80 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | Well. Well, Oops. |
| 02:21:42.60 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | We lost the slides. |
| 02:21:51.88 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | There we go. Thank you. The second slide shows the surrounding property that was already owned by the city before it bought this building. We thank you and future generations of Sausalito's thank the council for its foresight and wisdom in acquiring this property. This was a long-term, multi-generational investment in Sausalito's future, not a purchase to make a quick buck. This last piece of property gives Sausalito a remarkable assemblage of contiguous property with tremendous planning opportunities for generations to come. In your future reviews of real estate, there may be properties you want to sell, but never, never sell this property. This is critical. to Sausalito's future. SCA's challenge was to create a successful regional class multimedia arts center. The lease contains nine requirements specifically labeled as milestones, but has an array of other requirements, including payment of rent. responsibility for 100% of the maintenance and repairs of the building, payment of all utilities, minimum hours of operation, Minimum number of programs and events to be held. a requirement that 20% of those events have a DEI theme and many other requirements. Other than some very aggressive fundraising milestones that SCA came close to but did not meet, SCA met or exceeded every requirement and milestone in the least to date. SCA's overarching requirement was to create a dynamic, successful, inclusive regional class multimedia arts center. As Shiva presented a few minutes ago, the results are in. And SCA nailed it. SCA's performance far exceeds... Thank you. |
| 02:24:00.71 | Steven Woodside | Please not appreciate it, but please no applause from the audience. Thank you. |
| 02:24:05.75 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | SCA's performance vastly exceeded anyone's reasonable expectation for its first year of operation, with high quality programming and programs and events and enthusiastic reception by residents and visitors alike. The enthusiastic receptionist demonstrated by the incredible outpouring of letters from residents, artists, and art lovers from Sausalito and throughout the Bay Area. I hope you took time to read all those letters because some were quite emotional in stating how much SCA meant to them. There were 392 pages of letters posted on the city's website. The first tranche was 248. 144 more pages were posted today. I took the time to tally them. There were 305 letters in support of SCA's request to not increase its rent. Of that 305, 111 could be clearly identified as Sausalito residents. 89 were clearly identified as non-residents, but that included some Sausalito business owners. And I probably should have just plugged them into the Sausalito category. And then there were 105 letters where I couldn't identify whether they were a Sausalito or non Sausalito. Um, |
| 02:25:34.55 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 02:25:34.70 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:25:38.55 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | And a lot of those people were volunteers, and there are people who took an interest in SCA. Opposed to the request were 30 letters. 15 of those letters were one-sentence form letters. So 305 to 30 in terms of the letters you've received. SCA's initial proposal for this building was paired with a proposal for the construction of a rooftop restaurant. The two tenants together proposed to pay money. all of the building's maintenance and cover the city's debt service. It was never anticipated in that original proposal that SCA alone would achieve this. The rooftop restaurant required significant study and planning, but the city wanted SCA operating in the building as soon as possible. So the city chose to bifurcate the lease discussions. SCA was given early occupancy of the building under a temporary license agreement, while five months of the lease negotiation dragged on. During those five months from February 2022, when I first got involved, to July 2022, SCA's proposed rent was fixed at $4,029 a month for the full 10 years of the lease. That $4,029 a month was an amount roughly equivalent to the city's initial interest cost under its interest payments on its debt service. The city's interest payments are now quite a bit lower than that, and the $4,029 a month is paying part of the city's principal payments on its loans. It was anticipated that the rooftop restaurant lease would cover the remainder of the city's debt service. In July 2022, at the Council's last meeting, before its summer break, The council changed its proposal to require S-C-A. to fully cover the city's debt service. SCA was already in possession of the building under a temporary license agreement and has scheduled contractors to perform tenant improvements and has scheduled programming for that fall. The board made a decision, right or wrong, to do its best to meet the revised request and to move ahead with its schedule and demonstrate the value it could give to this community. The Historical Society, Cass Gidley, and Friends of the Library, which didn't go mentioned earlier, are all fantastic, all volunteer, nonprofit organizations that provide valuable community services to Sausalito. I'm a member of two of them, and I don't mean to denigrate any of them by mentioning that they received the city's report through their use of city properties at a nominal charge. That should continue. SCA is a new all-volunteer nonprofit. Like these other nonprofits, we're providing community services that enhance the lives of our residents. But unlike them, SCA is providing significantly more direct and indirect contributions to the city's revenues. In addition to the little over $48,000 of rent SCA pays annually, SCA is paying about $14,000 a year in utility payments that the city would otherwise bear for that building. SCA has also made substantial improvements to the building. But in addition to all that, SCA may already be contributing over $8,000 a month to city revenues in its first year of operation. Next slide, please. |
| 02:29:31.81 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | we put together an estimate |
| 02:29:42.31 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | Oh. Thank you. |
| 02:29:43.84 | Joan Cox | And is this available on the website for the public? |
| 02:29:43.86 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | is |
| 02:29:48.60 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | Thank you. |
| 02:29:48.62 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:29:48.64 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | We'll make it available. we just put this together within the past day. Wow. |
| 02:29:55.79 | Joan Cox | I see the city clerk nodding, so we'll make sure this gets added to the |
| 02:30:00.02 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | There's no way to calculate with certainty the indirect benefits, but here's a ballpark we came up with. Out of the 32,000 visitors that we had in our first full year, if 25% of them came and paid for parking, and the annual parking charge was $10, or the average parking charge was $10, that would be $80,000 extra in the city's coffers. We may have been low with this estimate after hearing that the city is now $487,000 over its projections for its parking revenues this year. So SCA may already be more than paying for itself. and more than covering the city's debt service. In addition, we've got some numbers there estimating additional sales tax revenue. If 1%... of those 32,000 visitors decide to stay overnight, one night in connection with one of our evening events, that would lead to almost $16,000 in extra revenue because the TOT tax, 100% of that goes direct to the city. There's a sec, is it on? Oh, yeah. To the right is a projection as to what this might look like in a couple of years. Our first projection showed over $100,000 in annual city revenue, which was almost $8,500 a month. |
| 02:31:35.18 | Unknown | And, |
| 02:31:41.36 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | more than the $7,000 increase that's provided for in our lease. uh, You know, one projection for growth of that shows that doubling in a few years. Certainly the city's parking rates aren't going to stay frozen. They're going to continue to increase, but the city's loan payments do stay frozen. So in a few years, we'll definitely be exceeding the city's debt service costs with the additional revenue we're creating. Besides these financial contributions, SCA has made significant other tangible contributions, which a lot of the letter writers have stated, and hopefully some of the people in the audience will share. Most importantly to me, SCA is allowing residents to take back our beautiful downtown by enjoying it more frequently. SCA has also made a significant investment in the building. We're trying to, next slide please. the exact number we're still working on, but we've put over $140,000 of improvements, furniture, fixtures, and equipment into the building. through purchases and donations. We currently estimate that we'll need to put an additional three over 300,000 and additional improvements. improvements to the building, furniture, fixtures, and equipment. I think that's, yeah, it's all on the same slide. So we're here to respectfully request not only that SCA's rent not be increased, but kept... frozen at 4,029 for the balance of the lease term. as it had been proposed for the first five months of the negotiations, but also that the council provide a full-throated, unambiguous, loud endorsement of SCA and its support of SCA as it continues to build a regional-class multimedia arts center for the benefit of our residents and visitors to Sausalito. Thank you. That's what I've got here and happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Mr. Robert. |
| 02:34:01.17 | Steven Woodside | documents. Thank you. Questions, please, from the dais of the city staff or Mr. Albert. Vice Mayor. |
| 02:34:10.33 | Joan Cox | So if you've read the letters, and particularly the letters in opposition, you know that... And indeed, the staff report recommends that there be some increase, not zero increase. So I read from your letter, I thought you were seeking a zero increase. I mean, every lease at least should have an escalator, as we just said in our prior discussion. And so I'm curious to know what rent increase can SCA accommodate? You did sign a lease for $11,000. And so, and right now you're paying for it. |
| 02:34:39.02 | Melissa Blaustein | Mm-hmm. |
| 02:34:48.57 | Melissa Blaustein | Mm-hmm. |
| 02:34:52.42 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:34:52.43 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. |
| 02:34:52.70 | Joan Cox | Certainly you had some business plan in place to plan to accommodate people. a large increase. if not a large increase, what increase can you accommodate and what would you offer? |
| 02:35:06.12 | Steven Woodside | Well. |
| 02:35:06.42 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:35:07.42 | Joan Cox | or |
| 02:35:07.89 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | Thank you. |
| 02:35:08.03 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. First, I mean, I'm going to let you answer the question, but I neglected that I got a text from Chad Hess who says he has some slides to present to. So I apologize. Feel free to answer that question, but I should have. identified chat has to do and then maybe we'd ask more questions after that |
| 02:35:21.21 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:35:21.24 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | Thank you. |
| 02:35:25.85 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | We're unusual among the city's leases, apparently, but we haven't seen a full description of all of them. But it's a triple net lease where we're fully responsible for the building. The former city hall building, if I got the numbers right, There were $300,000 of various repairs and improvements the city was going to bear this year, which would negate all of the rent paid by the tenant and you'd actually be in a negative situation. We've got all that on us. I mentioned to you that we've got over $300,000 that we need to put in, or SCA needs to put into that building. Um, The rent we pay to the city delays, defers the improvements we would make to the city's building. If the city would be open to changing that arrangement and having a more conventional lease where the landlord took some responsibility for the building, we'd be able to accommodate a larger increase. But as it stands now, any extra dollar we pay in rent is a dollar of improvements deferred to the building. But yeah, certainly we can accommodate a rent increase. |
| 02:36:53.08 | Joan Cox | Okay, I guess... That raises a question. Is there any deferred maintenance that jeopardizes the safety and utility of the building that you would be deferring by I mean, if you're not able to function as a viable enterprise and maintain the building as the lease requires, we need to know that. |
| 02:37:16.02 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | No, I wouldn't go that far. But certainly there are significant improvements that need to be made. Long term, the building needs to be sprinklered. You know, that wasn't the community standard for generations. It is now. So, you know, I guess that's a matter of opinion whether, you know, we're safe. I think we're safe, but at the same time, we should bring it up to current standards. And that's a very significant investment right there. And there are others as well. The electrical needs to be upgraded. There's maybe more cosmetic things, but very important for the functioning and quality of the building. We need to replace the ceiling and the lighting. |
| 02:38:05.13 | Joan Cox | So I think it would be helpful to us, again, as Councilmember Kelman mentioned, I don't know if we'll have a decision on this issue tonight since we're— |
| 02:38:12.98 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | Mm-hmm. |
| 02:38:13.32 | Unknown | to the community. |
| 02:38:14.19 | Joan Cox | considering a citywide leasing philosophy, so to speak, but it would be helpful for me personally in evaluating this to understand what expenses you are planning to undertake in the next five years and what those will cost and how urgent they are so that we understand just as we said earlier, what is the deferred mate for every building? What is the deferred maintenance? |
| 02:38:43.00 | Melissa Blaustein | Mm-hmm. |
| 02:38:43.32 | Joan Cox | what is the revenue, what is the appraised value, et cetera. So it would be helpful to us I cannot wait to see your slides because I haven't seen them yet. And I could not see them from here. |
| 02:38:53.11 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 02:38:56.09 | Joan Cox | And so, but it would be helpful to us to have that data to better evaluate the viability of your lease for the city. |
| 02:39:05.02 | Ron Albert (SCA representative) | Understood. Understood. You know, we're hoping that if we don't get a decision tonight, you've at least provided very clear direction to the staff. And, you know, we'd welcome a transition to a more normal or typical lease negotiation after you've provided that very clear direction. |
| 02:39:27.53 | Steven Woodside | I didn't know if they were pertinent or they were just backup slides that you're referring to. I'm not sure you're leaning in. Is there something you wanted to show, Director Hess? Yeah. |
| 02:39:41.54 | Angeline Loeffler | Yeah, so I have kind of a slide deck that helps maybe frame the conversation from a financial perspective, if that would be helpful. several questions that I received and I wanted to try to provide some clarity to counsel. I don't know if that's helpful or if I should just, Thank you. |
| 02:40:02.29 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:40:02.31 | Angeline Loeffler | The first? |
| 02:40:03.64 | Jill Hoffman | I would find that to be helpful. Yeah, I think. Yeah, I think it'd be great. |
| 02:40:04.76 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. Go ahead. |
| 02:40:07.15 | Jill Hoffman | . |
| 02:40:07.19 | Angeline Loeffler | All right, let me share my screen. |
| 02:40:09.33 | Steven Woodside | please. |
| 02:40:14.41 | Angeline Loeffler | Let me know when those come through for you guys. |
| 02:40:19.24 | Ian Sobieski | I can see it. |
| 02:40:20.37 | Angeline Loeffler | Awesome. Thank you. All right. What I want to do is I just want to talk real quickly about definitions, just to try to level the playing field so we're all talking about the same, hopefully the same thing as we start to use various terms. Next, I want to just show the debt service requirements. but an illustration of carrying costs. perhaps lose a tenant. Talk about opportunity costs as maybe a comparison that we could frame a discussion around. And then current rent scenario. So I'm gonna jump right into it and start with my definition because there's been some confusion. around what does What does debt service mean? When somebody says debt service, what does that represent or what is being captured? solve. The definition that I use, and if you do a quick search on online search, debt service is the money required to pay the principal and interest, on an outstanding debt for a particular period of time. So that covers both principal and interest when we talk debt service. Interest expense is the interest portion of the loan. that is an expense to the city, it's an outflow of resources that we are paying for the usage of someone else's money. It really provides us no value besides the usage of value. It's an expense. The principal payment is the principal portion of the loan or the principal payment part of that payment. The city is paying down the debt assumed when the asset was acquired. So when we purchased the building, we borrowed dollars to finance the purchase. This is not an expense to the city. It's a reduction of a liability And at the end of this, we receive something of value. We have a building which should appreciate in value at the end of this term, if we choose to sell it and or hold the building. It should rise in value. Principal payment is not a traditional expense. Carrying costs is the money required to pay either the principal on the outstanding debt plus any maintenance, and sturrent. off. to hold this building. If we have no tenant, What does it cost to hold this building, to essentially own it? And then opportunity cost is the foregone benefit. that would have been derived from an option other than the one that was chosen. So as we move forward, here on the screen, you can see our debt service requirements for the loan that we have on the old Bank of America building. So we borrowed $1,858,000. And over the next 15 years, we will pay that principal back. That's the return of the bank's dollars. that we use to acquire this asset. And as you can see here, the interest of this loan is $423,000 over that 15-year period. The one thing that I do want to point out, and it was mentioned in SEA's presentation, you can see that the interest portion of this loan is reducing as that principal balance is paid down. So here you can see the orange line. This represents the rents that we've collected. or should collect, from SCA at its current rate. lost the Bank of America's ATM rents of $2,000 per month. You can see here in fiscal year 21, we received $16,000 for that partial year. Fiscal year 22, we received $24,000 of ATM revenue. And then here in fiscal year 23 and at 24, we are collecting rent. from SCA. As you can see, the rent from our two tenants, Bank of America ATM, as well as SEA, covers the interest expense plus a portion of that principal paid on the loan. Now, Let's say we lost our tenant. Let's say we did not offer any concessions to SEA. And all we had was our rents from Bank of America. We are obligated to provide them that ATM space as part of the purchase agreement. making an assumption that you know, we pay $24,000 a year to maintain this building, which I think is a low assumption. you can see that the ATM rents do not cover the carrying cost, the interest component of the debt, What's any maintenance or interest? In fiscal year 25, that the difference between the ATM rent and our carrying cost is about $39,000. In fiscal year 30, that difference between the orange line, ATM rents of 24,000 per year, And the carrying cost is about 21,000. And then in fiscal year 35, it's about $1,000. So again, that's just the carrying cost as an illustration on what it would cost if we do not have any additional rents coming in on this building. Next, I want to talk real quick about Opportunity Call. So the assumption, we paid $2 million to this building. . I also want to assume that the current T-bill rate is 4.9%. And this is based upon an actual security that I purchased last week on behalf of the city. and this is a treasury bill or a T-bill, And the current rents from the building is $72,000 per year, which represents the SCA's current payment lost $24,000 from Bank of America for their ATM rent. Now, had the city not purchased the old Bank of America building, the city could invest that $2 million in a U.S. Treasury T-Belt at the rate that we just acquired or just purchased of 4.9%. Given the scenario, the city would generate about $98,000 of interest earnings over that year. Now the opportunity cost is Then my headset may die. If it does, I'll come right back. The opportunity cost of the city is $26,000. That's the difference between the T-bill interest earnings of $98,000 and our current rent of $72,000 from SCA and Bank of America. In this scenario, maybe the city would be better off not owning the building. We would perhaps have $24,000 or $26,000 of additional earnings. if we invested in NT-bills. But now, you know, does the SEA benefit the city in other ways? And I think they made points to this. increase sales tax, increase business license revenue. and increased parking revenue. Now, as a different scenario and opportunity cost, Same assumptions, $2 million purchase price. T-bill rates lower. I don't think interest rates will stay at the level they are today. And if we look back two years, they weren't where they are today either. So simply for a comparison, we chose 3%, tried chose 3%. So this would generate about $60,000 of interest earnings over the year. So, you know, the city has a negative opportunity cost. Maybe they would be better off owning that building and leasing it to SEA. at its current rent. lost the Bank of America ATM revenues. generating that $72,000 of revenue. Um, As a comparison, the current loan that we have with the Ion Bank carries an interest rate of 2.79%. If we use that as a discount rate instead of the 3%, that would generate about $55,800 worth of interest revenue, just as a comparison. Now, The current rent scenario, if we hold rents where they are, So we keep them at 72,000. Over the next eight fiscal years, which represents fiscal year 25, through fiscal year 32, so the remaining eight years perhaps on their lease. The areas in blue, the rents collected would be $578,800. The interest on our loan would be $212,000. and the principal... reduction of principal payment would be 1,046,000. Now, If we look at that, the interest costs of the death you know, over the same time frame as $212,000. This means that the current lease will cover $366,000, really the difference between these two. Of the principal. So they would be contributing to our principal pay down of this loan. This revenue above the interest component of the debt service will cover about 35% of that $1 million. $46,000. of, And that should be principal paid. I apologize. Principal paid over the next eight fiscal years. So I wanted to provide this to help perhaps frame the context and I will answer any questions about my short five decades. |
| 02:49:09.52 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Chad. Director Hess, I actually did have a question, but can I ask it first, just because I think there's one, I love this, by the way, thank you so much, but can you go back to your opportunity cost slide, because I think your analysis might be missing something, and |
| 02:49:21.99 | Angeline Loeffler | Yeah. |
| 02:49:25.41 | Angeline Loeffler | Certainly. You want the first one or second one? |
| 02:49:25.43 | Steven Woodside | THE END OF You want the first one or second one? Let me get you on a number question if I'm right. But on your opportunity cost question, you said if the city had not purchased the Bank of America building, it could have invested $2 million in U.S. Treasury bills. But the city did not buy the Bank of America building for $2 million. It bought the Bank of America building for its initial down payment of like $180,000. And that's the whole point. the rest of the debt service is covered by the tenants. And we actually have $1.8 million on our balance sheet that we can invest in T-bills right now. Isn't that the kick? |
| 02:49:57.41 | Angeline Loeffler | Yes, yes, yes. I was trying to simplify it to |
| 02:50:03.74 | Steven Woodside | If we had bought it for cash and not done a loan, that would be the opportunity. Correct. We ended up getting the best of both worlds. We bought the building, which appreciates as an asset for a few hundred or $200,000 down payment. And now we are keeping the $1.8 million in cash invested. So we're making roughly $90,000 in interest and we're having appreciating buildings. |
| 02:50:04.31 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. Yes. Correct. Correct. up there. |
| 02:50:09.96 | Jacques Ullman | Thank you. |
| 02:50:21.34 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:50:21.35 | Angeline Loeffler | Yes, sir. |
| 02:50:28.69 | Angeline Loeffler | Yes, that's a very valid point. This is a previous thing. |
| 02:50:30.75 | Steven Woodside | This is a previous city council that bought this building, so I get no credit for it. I thought that was a brilliant buy. By the way, the Bank of America building in Mill Valley, of course, was sold recently for $3.5 million or $4, so that was there. But there you go, Vice Mayor. |
| 02:50:45.87 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Thank you. And I see that council member Kelman has her hand raised. So after my question. Oh, Chad, thank you for that analysis. And again, I'm hoping that this will get attached to our agenda item. Yes. I certainly learned some terms tonight. |
| 02:51:00.74 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:51:00.76 | Debbie Patrick | Yeah. |
| 02:51:00.98 | Unknown | I can certainly. |
| 02:51:05.11 | Joan Cox | He used to teach economics, so I am familiar with opportunity cost. I'm not sure. I have a question for you regarding the value provided to the city. The city gets to use this building. for events if it needs to. So what value did you assign to that? |
| 02:51:30.68 | Steven Woodside | He is putting on his headset. So just a moment. Bear with him. |
| 02:51:35.03 | Angeline Loeffler | I'm back. I apologize, my headset died, so I had to switch. Can you repeat the question? No worries. |
| 02:51:40.34 | Joan Cox | As I understand it, the lease allows the city to use the SCA building for events a certain number of times per year. So instead of renting iDesk Hall, for example, we can use the SCA. |
| 02:51:40.95 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. |
| 02:51:53.88 | Joan Cox | Did you assign a value to that ability of the city, and indeed the right of the city under the lease to use |
| 02:52:03.97 | Ian Sobieski | the SCA facility. Thank you. |
| 02:52:05.59 | Angeline Loeffler | I did not. I attempted to |
| 02:52:07.68 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:52:07.89 | Angeline Loeffler | Simplify this assumption as much as I could, but yes, there is value in the city's ability to utilize that space. I did not assign it in this overly simplistic opportunity cost example, but you are correct. |
| 02:52:20.88 | Joan Cox | But you are. For a future, you know, in the event we don't make a decision tonight, I do think for purposes of future evaluation, well, I do think for purposes of future evaluation, it would be helpful to include in the analysis |
| 02:52:28.67 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:52:34.95 | Joan Cox | Thank you. the opportunity cost to the city of how Thank you. |
| 02:52:40.03 | Ian Sobieski | elsewhere instead of getting it for free, so to speak, at SCA. Indeed. Yes, I think that's a great |
| 02:52:45.97 | Angeline Loeffler | great point and additional analysis can be done and I think to Ian's point including that differential on investing the 1.8 million that we borrowed in T-bills is part of this as well. But yes, you have a great point. Thank you. |
| 02:52:58.61 | Melissa Blaustein | THANK YOU. |
| 02:53:03.32 | Steven Woodside | Sorry about that. |
| 02:53:03.34 | Melissa Blaustein | Mayor, may I? Thank you. So, Chad, awesome job. This was a great presentation. I know we went back and forth on lot of this this week. So thank you so, so much. Let me make two or two questions for you. As a member of the Council who negotiated this lease with SCA, I would just share that that we took into account value of utilizing the property as part of the negotiation and determining the rent amount. So that could be the other way potentially to look at whether there's a value baked in right that would be a reasonable That's what Yes, I believe so. Okay, so then I'm glad you have the slides still up. There are a lot of assertions around the economic benefit to the city. Do we have any sales tax data. or any data to support any of those three that you have here, so that we can see a business case around the economic benefit. |
| 02:54:05.49 | Angeline Loeffler | I don't have anything available at this point. I certainly can dig deeper into those revenue sources. And I think we could look at probably the easiest one would be parking data. We have a treasure trove of data within our parking enterprise and we could pair that data up with a calendar of events from SCA to see how do things compare when they have an event versus they don't have an event. That's just one area of opportunity. I think we could do some analysis. to really validate the assertions on what is driving an increase in parking revenue. I'm not sure if you're not You know, the sales tax and the business license would be a little bit harder to dig into because I don't get very granular data. I only get monthly data. Um, I don't have the granularity that I would have from our parking data because that's, that's our data. We could query the databases. and really dig deep into that. |
| 02:55:02.46 | Melissa Blaustein | OK. |
| 02:55:02.96 | Angeline Loeffler | And then, |
| 02:55:04.60 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, thank you Chad. I noticed on the definition side, you didn't include definition of a triple net lease. I did. |
| 02:55:11.15 | Angeline Loeffler | I did. |
| 02:55:13.00 | Melissa Blaustein | I already asked you this on the other agenda item, but can you just please reiterate what is allegedly, or not allegedly, what is supposed to be covered under a triple net lease and what is not covered |
| 02:55:19.62 | Angeline Loeffler | I don't know. Yeah. Yep. So in a triple net lease, the tenant is responsible for insurance taxes and maintenance. they bear the, the, the risk of this building, of this structure. I'm not sure. under a gross lease. the landlord, the city would be responsible for those items. So a triple net lease really shifts the risk or the burden to the tenant to insure it, to maintain it. and to pay the taxes. |
| 02:55:50.57 | Melissa Blaustein | Also, that's a very broad statement. So are you saying that triple net lease means that the tenant would have to fix the roof? |
| 02:55:57.08 | Angeline Loeffler | Yeah. |
| 02:55:58.04 | Melissa Blaustein | and windows or enclosed aspects of the building? Yeah. Thank you very much, Chad. Appreciate all your hard work here. |
| 02:56:06.57 | Unknown | you. |
| 02:56:06.73 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 02:56:06.77 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:56:06.78 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 02:56:08.41 | Steven Woodside | about some of your health, |
| 02:56:10.40 | Jill Hoffman | so um thanks chad um and just a just a gentle request as well um it's really helpful when we're preparing for council meetings if we have for not just us but everybody who's trying to prepare um everything that's going to be presented so if staff is going to be presenting like please complicated stuff right i have lots of questions for you i'm just not going to frame them correctly so i'm going to refrain from asking a lot of the questions i probably have for these slides um but thank you so much for preparing them um but let me just clarify so um we talked a lot about uh you did a great job of showing us the difference between the interest, the principal, and all those things. But in the staff report on page three, you lay out a fiscal impact, or whoever prepared the staff report. I'm assuming it was you? |
| 02:56:30.59 | Unknown | I just. |
| 02:57:04.90 | Angeline Loeffler | I was, let me pull that up for you. I'll bring it up on the screen. I did not prepare it. I did review it. |
| 02:57:10.07 | Jill Hoffman | I think we did. Well, let me ask you this. I think it's fairly, but let's just confirm here. The contract rent increase, it says fiscal impact, It says 132 contract, the fourth bullet there under financial input. Contract rent increase will generate 132,000 $351 annually at $11,000. uh, $1195.25 a month, that $11,095.25 per month is what's listed in paragraph five of the lease agreement, correct? Thank you. |
| 02:57:46.85 | Angeline Loeffler | Yes. So that fiscal impact, let me reshare my screen real quick just so we're looking at the same thing. So when you capture... Right here. So this would be at the new increased rent. That's correct. So this is the new rent revenue. that's defined in the least that goes into effect marks first. And this is what that would generate. |
| 02:58:11.34 | Jill Hoffman | Right. And that was the rent escalation paragraph that was included in the original lease. That was signed by the SCA in August of 2022, correct? |
| 02:58:21.87 | Angeline Loeffler | That is correct. |
| 02:58:24.00 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, and when I add those two numbers together, the rent for the ATM, And now we're talking about the rent escalation under the terms of the lease 432,000. that together Equals. Well, actually equals $156,351. Essentially, that covers the debt service for the building. |
| 02:58:54.84 | Angeline Loeffler | That is correct, the entire debt service, yes. The debt service, let me go back. To here, yes. So roughly it's $157,000, $158,000 is our annual debt service, principal and interest over that loan. So yes, you are correct. The $11,000 per month rent plus the $2,000 ATM rent annualized would cover the entire debt service or Pretty close, too. |
| 02:59:23.09 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Let me. |
| 02:59:32.00 | Jill Hoffman | I think that's, at this point, that's probably all I have. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:59:35.93 | Angeline Loeffler | And I will provide these slides to Walford. I do apologize for not having them prepared. I prepared them today in a hurry just to try to help provide contacts for the meeting. Okay. |
| 02:59:36.74 | Jill Hoffman | I'll have to fight for a while. |
| 02:59:46.65 | Angeline Loeffler | I understand your point. Thank you. |
| 02:59:47.97 | Steven Woodside | Ed, while you have this slide up, let me just ask you kind of a related question. Is it fair to say, given this, what I see here, if the SCA rent is kept the same, $4,029 a month, then over the lifespan of the lease, the SCA will pay for all interest expenses of the building and will pay for all maintenance expenses of the building, and it will pay approximately half the purchase price, the list headline purchase price of the Bank of America building. |
| 03:00:17.38 | Angeline Loeffler | yes so they would pay all of the interest they would pay all of the maintenance under the triple net lease As far as the half, I don't have an exact analysis. The closest I can get you would be... this, where I looked at the next eight years and they're paying 35% of the principal. So, yes, if we take that out farther, it probably gets closer to half. Thank you, sir. |
| 03:00:41.98 | Steven Woodside | And if the rent goes up to 11,000, then they will pay for all interest expenses, all maintenance of the building. They'll buy the whole building, all the principal. And when the lease is up, the city will own a building free and clear. So the city will have gotten the Bank of America building, quote unquote, for free. |
| 03:00:51.47 | Angeline Loeffler | Yeah. |
| 03:01:00.06 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. |
| 03:01:00.33 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:01:00.43 | Angeline Loeffler | Theoretically, yes. |
| 03:01:01.47 | Steven Woodside | Okay, all right, I just wanted to be clear about that. Thank you. Thank you. Have a question, Council Member Blaston? |
| 03:01:06.53 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, thank you. If you could go back to the opportunity cost slide, Thank you. Also, if you could help me with my economics homework and my master's program going forward, that would be great. |
| 03:01:13.01 | Unknown | So, right. |
| 03:01:19.50 | Ian Sobieski | Very, very informative and I appreciated it. And again, thank you for simplifying some of the more complex questions that we might have about this. But when you are considering looking at our overall financial portfolio for the city of Sausalito and you're making decisions about the future of our general fund or longer term investments with regards to this opportunity cost and the purchase of a B of A building, Under your determination, having been the director of our finances for about just under a year at this point, do you think that this opportunity cost is a fair one given the benefit analysis that we've seen thus far? |
| 03:01:58.41 | Angeline Loeffler | Um... I guess if we looked at What, what rate of return? the current rents of 70, 72,000 is on our, our, on the building, on the $2 million building. It's about a 3.6. rate of return which is right now it's lower than what we would receive in t-bills but again i don't think the t-bills is a is going to sustain the 4.9% rate of return over the next 15 years. whereas here we have a tenant that's willing to pay, you know, 72, well, willing to pay $4,000 a month plus the, ATM lease, so generating $72,000 a year. for the next. 10 years. Eight years, I guess, we're two years into the lease. I guess I feel I feel it's a fair return on our capital. |
| 03:02:56.26 | Ian Sobieski | Great. That's good to know from you. And also, given that, do you have any concern about the fiscal sustainability of a lease of this type with regards to our general plan? Does this raise any red flags that we should be concerned with should the lease stay at the $4,000 and we follow this trend as outlined in this slide? |
| 03:03:15.07 | Angeline Loeffler | As far as our long term plan for the city that we're developing? |
| 03:03:20.29 | Ian Sobieski | Right, exactly. |
| 03:03:21.33 | Angeline Loeffler | Um, We're not that far into it. but in our general fund assumption The Bank of America building does not transfer resources to the general fund as the parking fund, MLK, or Old City Hall does. So, I... I don't believe it plays an impact. in that long-term plan that we're developing. because our current assumption is that it's not going to transfer resources to the general fund. |
| 03:03:55.35 | Ian Sobieski | And you don't believe that it puts an undue burden on our expectations of the general fund in that long-term planning? |
| 03:04:00.65 | Angeline Loeffler | it. It's going to It's going to consume Cash. in the sense that it's going to take our liquid cash resources and we're gonna invest it into this long-term capital asset, the building. So it changes our liquidity position. We are going to invest cash capital into this because we are making up the difference if I go a few slides forward. We're gonna make up the difference, the difference between our orange line and the top of this green line, about 86,000. would be additional cash the city would pay to pay down that loan. It's still a benefit to the city. It's still an asset to the city because we're paying down the loan. We own the building at the end of this thing. I'm not sure. It changes our liquidity slightly. In the grand scheme of things, I don't think it's, It's a significant change. Um, We're going to tie up about just over a million dollars over the next 12 more years. by paying down this loan. with the Bay. But after that, after the debts paid off and we still own the building, we are going to collect additional rents to refund or repay the general fund, essentially. And beyond the additional rents collected, |
| 03:05:20.13 | Ian Sobieski | Beyond the additional ones collected, if we found ourselves in an unsustainable fiscal position, would we be able to take out a line of equity on the capital asset of the building? Does it put us in a position to have more access to funds? Should we need them? |
| 03:05:32.01 | Angeline Loeffler | Should we need them? Yes, I think that's a true statement. So my understanding is the city acquired this building and physically paid cash. And then they went out and took a loan out against So, That's essentially what you're asking is, OK, if we paid this building off, Could we borrow against it in the future? And I would say more than likely yes. |
| 03:05:55.74 | Ian Sobieski | And given that we acquired it for under fair market value in a partnership with the Bank of America to maintain those ATMs, you would imagine that it would probably potentially be a strong revenue opportunity should we need it down the road? |
| 03:06:09.97 | Angeline Loeffler | I guess I can't. I don't have... evidence that we acquired at below market value. That was before my time and I don't have that knowledge, so I can't opine on that. Um, But I feel it is a stable revenue source with the Bank of America. They want that ATM at that location. They're willing to pay. $2,000 a month for the foreseeable future. Um, And I think we've got a tenant, the SEA, who is willing to maintain the building and willing to pay rent Um, to cover at least the interest expense plus a good portion of the principal of this loan. |
| 03:06:48.59 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, thanks, Director Hesse, I appreciate it. |
| 03:06:50.70 | Angeline Loeffler | So I'm |
| 03:06:55.41 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks, Chad. Okay, so with regard to going back to the debt service requirements, So the difference between the current revenue from the building. which is? the ATM combined with the SCA rent, the reduced rent, 48,000, right? 48,000 annually. Yep. ATM rent. is 124 annually? No, sorry, 24 annually. I'm looking at it. 24 annually. Yeah, sorry, pardon me. So we get, so that's a total of 72,000, right? 72,240. |
| 03:07:21.46 | Melissa Blaustein | The ATM, the ATM. |
| 03:07:24.03 | Angeline Loeffler | Yeah, sorry, pardon me. |
| 03:07:29.48 | Angeline Loeffler | Yeah. |
| 03:07:29.50 | Melissa Blaustein | Correct. |
| 03:07:31.81 | Jill Hoffman | if we subtract that from the debt service, we get about 84,000 to 85,000. |
| 03:07:38.07 | Angeline Loeffler | Yes. And that's, that's the difference that we would be converting cash into building. |
| 03:07:45.17 | Jill Hoffman | And that's what we're, yeah, what we're actually doing right now is we pay $85,760 more or less. out of our general fund. Thank you. |
| 03:07:57.16 | Angeline Loeffler | to come back. |
| 03:07:57.41 | Jill Hoffman | that |
| 03:07:57.49 | Angeline Loeffler | to cover the debt service. But I wouldn't consider that an expense because at the end of the day, we own that building. From a financial reporting perspective, Principal payment is not an expense. It's a reduction of a liability. |
| 03:08:13.03 | Jill Hoffman | Understood, and that's why it's considered a good investment for the people of Sausalito. |
| 03:08:20.09 | Angeline Loeffler | I feel it is. We are buying a building that we're buying a real property, real asset, prime location. |
| 03:08:20.10 | Jill Hoffman | So- |
| 03:08:28.56 | Jill Hoffman | Right. |
| 03:08:29.15 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. |
| 03:08:29.17 | Jill Hoffman | But we usually don't buy buildings |
| 03:08:29.27 | Angeline Loeffler | I don't. |
| 03:08:31.87 | Jill Hoffman | no reason. And when we you know, when we look at assets for the city, and revenue generating assets for the city, I hope that our goal is our revenue is cash positive at some point. Right now, even with the escalation of the 11,000, We're still. aren't we still within the debt service? |
| 03:08:54.41 | Angeline Loeffler | It's, it's, It almost covers the entire debt service. It's slightly below. I think over the life of the loan, we're shy a couple grand, a couple thousand dollars. I mean, the other way to look at it is the city perhaps could have took out a longer loan. We didn't necessarily have to take out a 15-year loan. We could have maybe asked for a 20-year loan, which would require that annual debt service. I think there are many ways to look at it. And we didn't necessarily have to finance the building. We had sufficient cash at the time to pay it off. And then we're looking at what's the rate of return on that capital investment. |
| 03:09:31.67 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:09:31.77 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. |
| 03:09:31.81 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 03:09:35.43 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thanks. Thanks very much. You're welcome. Thank you for everything. |
| 03:09:37.04 | Steven Woodside | You're welcome. Thank you for your question. We'll move to public comment. It'll just be a minute a person. So let's take the comment from the people in the audience first and then on Zoom. If you turn in a slip, the city clerk will call it the next three people. So please line up one after another to make the public comment. |
| 03:09:55.99 | Walfred Solorzano | We'll start off with John Ware followed by Debbie Patrick and then Thomas Rudeau. But John Ware? |
| 03:10:11.38 | SPEAKER_42 | I guess I'm speaking as a Sausalito resident, formerly a San Francisco resident, who's very happy with the city, very happy with SCA. I think it's had some great exhibits already. I'm puzzled about a lease deal that tripled for them in two or three years. I'm not sure why they accepted it. I'm not sure why it was proposed by the city. but I hope that you will at least stay the rent until you resolve the bigger question about how you manage. why they accepted it. I'm not sure why it was proposed by the city. But I hope that you will at least stay the rent until you resolve the bigger question about how you manage all of these leases. That seems only fair. Thank you. |
| 03:10:46.21 | Walfred Solorzano | Debbie Patrick followed by Thomas Rudeau and Deb Pierce. Debbie Patrick? |
| 03:10:57.50 | Debbie Patrick | Thank you. I'd like to speak to the importance of the Sausalito Center of the Arts. to both residents and visitors. This cultural gathering place in the middle of downtown Sausalito is exactly what this town needs, especially since visitors are often told, and it's often advertised, that Sausalito is an artist's colony I've been a resident here since 1983 and also an artist, and I have visited downtown four many more times since this cultural center has opened. I did not pay attention to downtown that much previously. I worked in the city, didn't spend a lot of time. Since this center has opened, I have volunteered there. I have brought friends there. I have brought visitors there. And all of them have spent money downtown, in shops, in restaurants, in bars, all connected to visiting this cultural center, which didn't exist before. And I firmly believe that we would lose a huge asset to the community if you raise the rents. |
| 03:11:59.61 | Walfred Solorzano | We would love to. |
| 03:12:06.01 | Walfred Solorzano | Thomas Rudeau, followed by Deb Pierce. |
| 03:12:11.51 | Thomas Rudeau | Thank you for the time to speak with you today. I'm not going to go through my background, but I was a 25 year resident of Sausalito and highly involved in the art community for the last 40 years in Marin. I was glad to hear it. idea that this is not a one size fits all. I think it's much closer to one size fits none. Literally. You're dealing with individual leases, with individual abilities to pay, with what they contribute to the city or what they cost the city. I loved your point about the fact that at the end of 15 years, you will actually get this building for free. which is pretty exciting, I would think. You asked earlier as well, and this is the key, I believe, as you asked, How much could they afford to pay above what they're currently paying. And I can tell you with absolute certainty, because I'm very close to the inside of this, is the answer is zero. zero, as long as they've got to pay for $300,000 of expected costs, some of them hanging over them, particularly the sprinkling, there is no way on earth. And, you know, I think it's a good thing. |
| 03:13:16.99 | Walfred Solorzano | followed by Luis Sriones. Yes. |
| 03:13:18.17 | Thomas Rudeau | Thank you, sir. Yes. |
| 03:13:19.97 | Walfred Solorzano | And Margaret Shingwe. |
| 03:13:25.91 | Deb Pierce | Hi, I'm Deb Pierce. I'm a resident of Sausalito and a volunteer at the center. |
| 03:13:30.13 | Melissa Blaustein | I'm a reporter. |
| 03:13:35.75 | Deb Pierce | And I just want to speak to my experience as a volunteer today. people from all over the world come in. And they're amazed and they've got lots of questions and our volunteer staff is there to help answer them. But it's not just visitors. It's residents who come in and... Now, most of them are coming back. But at the beginning, they were amazed at what they were seeing. So I hope that you will consider maintaining the current rent so that SCA can expand and enhance what they're offering the community. Thank you. |
| 03:14:18.41 | Walfred Solorzano | Luis Briones, Margaret Shane Ware, and then Kate Carlson. |
| 03:14:29.75 | Luis Briones | Hello. I'm Louis Barionis. I've lived in Sausalito. for like 22 years. First of all, thank you for being here tonight and for getting the center here to talk about this. And as you know, SEA is currently paying $4,000 a month in rent. It's covering the cost of maintaining and renovating the building and the interest payments on the loan. And as Chad said, probably a percentage of the principal as well. The city of Sausalito is getting an art center. with all the benefits of an art center. with no maintenance costs, no personnel costs, no staff costs, no programming costs. No utilities cost and the city gets to use the building a number of times a month in a year. The city of Sausalito continues to pay part of the principal and 15 years will own the building. This new rent increase means that the center will be buying the building. Thank you. |
| 03:15:32.73 | Walfred Solorzano | We are a great chance. Thank you. Mr. Ferguson, where? Thank you, sir. |
| 03:15:35.58 | Unknown | where follow-up. |
| 03:15:36.39 | Luis Briones | Bye. |
| 03:15:39.77 | Unknown | Why won't you? |
| 03:15:41.37 | Walfred Solorzano | I'm sorry. Margaret Shane Ware followed by Kate Carlson and then Todd Osborne. |
| 03:15:46.97 | Margaret Shane Ware | Margaret Chang-Weir is frankly terrified to be in front of this thing that's ticking down. I've never had that experience before. I am a newcomer to Sausalito, moved here in 21. And I watched the Drab old building in the prime location in downtown become this really vibrant art center. It's a source of pride and joy. not only to local residents, to visitors, but to the students, local and international students that come here. It says something really positive. about our community, and I sure hope it doesn't. go under, that the SCA doesn't go under. I'M GOING TO BE ABLE TO The bigger question is, you know, we've been talking about numbers. Numbers are not my strong point. Are the arts a financial necessity? Or is it, financial benefit No. The arts transcend language barriers, cultural barriers, |
| 03:16:47.98 | Debbie Patrick | Everything. |
| 03:16:48.90 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. We need it. |
| 03:16:49.26 | Margaret Shane Ware | We need it. |
| 03:16:49.76 | Walfred Solorzano | So, Thank you. followed by Todd Osborne followed by Michael Bang. |
| 03:16:54.84 | Unknown | Hi, thank you for having us. I'm your heritage speaker. I'm an artist in the Industrial Center building where I've had a studio for over 30 years. And I got the idea for Morin Open Studios in this room. 30 years ago. And look where we've come. I'm also on the board and the program committee of SCA because I felt that the 260 artists in this county needed an art center in Southern Marin. And so. I'm all in. And I think that there are a lot of people who will get all in as this center just grows and attracts the rest of the County and the rest of the Bay area, as Shiva is, is doing for us right now. So I ask you, you know, partner with us. That's what we really need is an all out city. to be behind this effort and for us to regain our heritage status as it was, you know, beyond 50 years ago. Thank you. |
| 03:17:58.85 | Walfred Solorzano | Osborne followed by Michael Bank followed by Lucilena Castro. Osborne? |
| 03:18:07.12 | Steven Woodside | He's not here, apparently. We'll move on to the next person. |
| 03:18:09.30 | Walfred Solorzano | Let's go with Michael Bank, followed by Lucilena Castro and Chris Escobar. |
| 03:18:14.05 | Steven Woodside | they're not here either. |
| 03:18:15.71 | Walfred Solorzano | Michael Bank, all right. Luzalena Castro. |
| 03:18:19.01 | Steven Woodside | move on please |
| 03:18:20.15 | Walfred Solorzano | All right. Chris Escobar? Then it's going to be Muriel Ullman. |
| 03:18:27.77 | Unknown | I'm new to the community and there's no argument that this is a good thing for the community. There's no argument that the benefits it'll bring economically and whatnot, everybody could see that. It's definitely, I love being in this town. I'm a newbie as well. And to see the passion here with the people here before you and everyone believes in that. So the question also comes up as what's the culture of the city and what does it want to be when it grows up? And I know the city has been around a long time, but it's really a bigger question about what we want this to be. Thank you. |
| 03:19:11.95 | Walfred Solorzano | All right, Mario Ullman, followed by Carolyn Revelle. |
| 03:19:21.10 | Walfred Solorzano | All right. Thank you. |
| 03:19:22.87 | Shiva Pachtel | Actually, let me know. |
| 03:19:23.38 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 03:19:23.50 | Shiva Pachtel | Thank you. |
| 03:19:23.51 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay. Carolyn Revelle. |
| 03:19:25.57 | Carolyn Revell | I'm a 17-year resident now of Sausalito, urging you to retain the current lease for the Sausalito Center for the Arts The center's diverse exhibitions attract visitors to our town. Last Saturday, a friend of mine came from San Francisco to see an art exhibit her friend was in, and we had lunch at Poggio's. as you know, the Visitors support our local restaurants and shops, helping revitalize our downtown. and contributing tax and parking revenue The Art Center complements plans for the Ferry Building and Business Improvement District It's the perfect use next to Qashqai Plaza and has become a community gathering place with events like the recent ones supporting our public schools. If SCA dies because of increased costs, there will be a hole in the center of downtown Will we have another empty building while we wait for a suitable tenant? And what build-out costs will the city have to pay to secure a new tenant? the council showed vision in buying the Bank of America buildings and leasing it to this non-profit. that needs a few more years of financial partnership with the city to realize its potential. Thank you very much. |
| 03:20:29.48 | Charles Melton | Thank you. |
| 03:20:29.51 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Jerry Taylor, followed by Tom Anderson, and then Scott Thornburg. Jerry Tender. |
| 03:20:46.76 | Unknown | Hello. As a 35 year resident of Sausalito, I support the Center for the Arts. I walk through downtown and see empty storefronts and multiple for lease signs. Do you want Sausalito to be a town that is only for tourists? I do not. As the city council, your legacy could be that you support the Art Center, which revived the soul of the town and restored its historical reputation, mixing artists and business. The center engages hundreds of artists and residents as volunteers. The cost of the city is minimal, while the benefit is huge. SCA's high quality exhibits and events have attracting artists and local residents, but also drew new people from all over the Bay Area. That is why many letters are written to the city council as positive and supporting of the center. Merchants have benefited and the city has increased parking and sales tax revenue since the center opened. Some say art doesn't make money but does attract people who have money. |
| 03:21:48.32 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 03:21:48.33 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 03:21:48.35 | Walfred Solorzano | that |
| 03:21:48.77 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 03:21:51.03 | Walfred Solorzano | Tom Anderson. Tom Ronison. All right. Scott Thornburg. |
| 03:21:59.60 | Scott Thornburg | Good evening. Thank you for being here. I'm Scott Thornburg, chair of EDAC and a resident. I would just like to say I would ask you to extend the rate of the current lease, at least until we have a new framework that we can follow. So if there's a specific term that you need to agree to tonight to extend the lease until we have that new term, that may be a consideration. But I firmly believe that the value they bring to the community, the value they bring to our downtown businesses is far greater than that price of their lease. So thank you for your time. |
| 03:22:37.30 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay, Babette McDougall followed by Zam Lemke, then Sharna Brockett. |
| 03:22:46.42 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. So I don't know if any of you had a chance to take a look at the letter I tendered earlier today. Um, Thank you. If you did have time to review it, I know you were inundated. So I just want to make one point, and that is we need to think about the health of the broader community. I think we've got a good treasure. that you all have managed to identify. So how you thread this needle is really important. And knowing how we give consideration to neighboring businesses who feel a bit slighted by the process and that homeostasis being thrown out of whack that I mentioned in the letter. I'd like you to just give serious thought to there are a lot of people pleading for a status quo, but I think you have to look at the bigger picture. Thank you. |
| 03:23:37.58 | Walfred Solorzano | ZNM key. All right, Sharna Brockett. |
| 03:23:44.67 | Sharna Brockett | Hi, I'm Sharna Brockett, and I'm a 12-year resident of Sausalito. And I ask you to please help support this startup, this nonprofit startup, so that they can survive and thrive. I think we've heard here that we believe it really will help revitalize our downtown. It really fills in with what we're doing with the Ferry Landslide plan and the bid. So it's just really that's going to complete everything down there. but I do want to say we talk a lot about opportunity cost and we're talking just. what we're doing with the ferry landside plan and the bid. So it's just, just really, that's going to complete everything down there. But I do want to say, we talk a lot about opportunity cost and we're talking just in terms of numbers, but there is an opportunity cost to a lack of civic pride. There is an opportunity cost to lack of community and a lack of, um, a quality of life for residents downtown. So I don't want to discount that because that is a true, it's qualitative, but it does matter. And some things in life are priceless as the master card ad says. So please support them. Thank you so much. |
| 03:24:40.54 | Walfred Solorzano | Robert Murals followed and then Sophia Collier. |
| 03:24:49.98 | Robert Miros | Good evening. I'm Robert Miros and it's past my bedtime. I'm a resident of Sausalito. I'm also a business owner here in town. And I'm a professional designer. And also somewhat germane, I'm the treasurer of the Sausalito Sister Cities. Council. Um, And so I have two quick perspectives. One is it's become a standard itinerary item when my clients come to Sausalito that I take them to the art center. So I pick them up at the ferry, I walk them over, say this town's about art and creativity and design, and then we go back to my office, We eat and I tell them how much money they owe. Then, As relates to Sister City, I'd just say I would take a wager with any one of you that if we were having this conversation in one of our sister cities, it would not be whether or not you're going to raise the rent. It would be how much more money you're going to give to a local art institution to support them. Thank you. |
| 03:25:49.53 | Walfred Solorzano | Peter Van Meter. you |
| 03:25:52.99 | Peter Van Meter | Tradition says that I must announce, and as of August, a fifth in Saucerito, that if there's some reason you do not extend this lease at the current rent, with some perhaps some modest steps over the remaining term, then at least give them an opportunity, per se a year or 18 months from now to fulfill their capital raising goals. Because we know that in order to be a continuing viable enterprise, SCA must be philanthropic, philanthropically supported by the community. So that's a key element in your planning. Extend the lease with modest increases or, as a minimum, give them time to meet that capital raising goals. Thank you. |
| 03:26:39.02 | Walfred Solorzano | Sophia Collier followed by Daniel Daniloff and then Rita Winter and Rob Badger. All right. Do we have Sophia here? So. All right, do we have Danielle? I love you. you So |
| 03:26:56.81 | Unknown | I realize I have to speak very quickly. My name is Daniel Daniloff, and I'm speaking tonight not as a resident, not as a member of the Chamber of Commerce, not as a member of the Sausage Yacht Club, but as the president of the Marine Museum of Contemporary Art. And I would like to say that I would encourage the chamber to, I mean, excuse me, the board, the board. the council to look at other communities in the Bay Area who support their art centers. For instance, the Palo Alto Center for the Arts, the Rich and Senator of the Arts, who participate in the cost of those organizations being in their cities. I'm surprised by the emphasis on fiscal issues as opposed to the cultural benefits of an organization. And I want to say further that it has taken the Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, which has started as an art center, 40 years. to 40 years to gain the support that we need. It's an ongoing process. It's not simple. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:28:06.53 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 03:28:09.10 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:28:10.79 | Walfred Solorzano | Rob Badger? All right. Diane Johnson followed by Andy Cota. |
| 03:28:22.92 | Diane Johnson | Hello, I'm Diane Johnson, and I'm a 22 year resident of Sausalito. And I am so happy to see the Sausalito Center for the Arts because it is an asset to our community. It brings the residents, a whole, a lot of positive feeling about our city. Also, I'd like to say that I look at that versus the money that we spend on consultants. And I've been looking at the council meetings, $189,000 for the bridgeway safety improvement, the parking consultants, $30,000. It's just on and on. The new city, America, which isn't even in Marin, an improvement district, a business improvement district. This is an improvement of the business district right here with the arts, and it's bringing people to Sausalito, and it's having people leave here with a very good feeling. And, and, just, positive vibrations for Sausalito. Thank you. |
| 03:29:27.84 | Walfred Solorzano | Bye. This is Ms. Collier. |
| 03:29:33.75 | Sophia Collier | Hello, everybody. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak on this issue. And obviously, this is something that is a very passionate matter for so many of us here. And when listening to everything and when I first learned about it, I thought, well, gosh, you know, I'm a I'm an artist at MLK Center and I pay my rent and these folks should pay their rent, too. And that I do think that that has a very strong and important element when you sign a contract, you have to fulfill it. But I was trying to think, well, what happened here? Obviously, something went profoundly wrong. that when the art center signed the contract, they thought they could do it. So what happened and what and how can we help the art center actually fulfill its mission opportunity that obviously something is, is it we, the art center doesn't have enough either entrepreneurial energy, enough, something going on. And I would just love to see it become more successful so that it could fulfill its obligations. |
| 03:30:37.40 | Walfred Solorzano | Bye. |
| 03:30:37.48 | Melissa Blaustein | Bye. |
| 03:30:37.97 | Walfred Solorzano | become It could fulfill it. |
| 03:30:42.93 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:30:44.74 | Walfred Solorzano | All right, County Cota. |
| 03:30:46.29 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:30:46.33 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 03:30:46.38 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:30:46.39 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. |
| 03:30:46.43 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 03:30:47.76 | Walfred Solorzano | All right. Jerry Spalter. All right. |
| 03:30:51.73 | Steven Woodside | He's coming up to the podium. Who's behind him, sir? |
| 03:30:55.40 | Walfred Solorzano | And then behind is a petty petty school. Thank you. |
| 03:31:00.36 | Unknown | Mr. Spalter, go right ahead. |
| 03:31:00.43 | Walfred Solorzano | Mr. Spalter? |
| 03:31:02.71 | Unknown | Good evening. Thank God we only get one minute each. Yeah. Right. Jerry Spolter, 20 plus years, former board member for the Sausalito Art Festival. And if you can imagine... With the art festival gone for many, many legitimate reasons, if we didn't have the Sausalito Center for the Arts... we would no longer be an art community whatsoever. And when I look around here, we have one grossly underpaid, employee. of the Sausalos Center for the Arts, Shiva. She works 80 hours a week for Peanuts. Everybody else is a volunteer, whether it's Louis or Monica or other board members, Tom Anderson. I'm so proud to have it here. And because of them, I got to see the art from Iron Man, the art from Milagros, and my wife and I got to talk at the Center of the Arts about our trip to the Ukraine and the World Central Kitchen. Thank you. |
| 03:32:06.18 | Walfred Solorzano | Patty Smoltz. All right, Leticia Fernandez. |
| 03:32:14.56 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 03:32:16.20 | Walfred Solorzano | Yoshito |
| 03:32:18.51 | Scott Thornburg | Thank you. |
| 03:32:19.31 | Walfred Solorzano | for me. |
| 03:32:28.22 | Yoshito (or Leticia Fernandez?) | Hi, good evening all. I've been here for 38 years, but I sleep somewhere else. So I'm one of those guys. I wrote a letter this morning. I think it is very important for the city of Sasariro. And I took time to read every single letter submitted to the city until yesterday. It was overwhelming how much opportunities, positive energy created in Sasariro. You cannot ignore this. Finally, I can feel like, downtown used to belong to visitors now residents cities taking back south city city body this building is the best investment that has done and also future i'd like to see this place as a more like an event center it's already happening number of organizations everybody using so please keep that way until future decision that six months suggest to freeze the rent as it is then you can make a decision thank you |
| 03:33:28.46 | Walfred Solorzano | Stephen Woodside. |
| 03:33:37.54 | Stephen Woodside | Sorry if I'm repeating what others have said, but as I listened to the very comprehensive economic analysis and your questions and the great presentation by Director Hess, I felt sad that something was missing. And that's the heart. Others have said it. The most important things in my life are priceless. My... Mother was an artist. My daughter has a master in fine arts and teaches art, and my wife, Lucinda, is an artist here in Sausalito and a resident artist at Cabala Point. And the heart is worth more to me than the dollars. Thank you. |
| 03:34:16.43 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay, any further speakers in the council chamber? All right, we have some people on Zoom. Claudia Brisson. |
| 03:34:26.36 | Claudia Brisson | and mute, start. |
| 03:34:31.64 | Claudia Brisson | Okay. Hi. I have Brisson. I live in San Rafael. I feel very strong. That's, situation and I really think we need to nurture and Oscillator. Center for the Arts. just the measurements of these dollars. I agree. It is the heart. She, speech was very valuable. to all, to understand the information level. in and as well as national. and, the diversity that year. And she's... So the amount of the lease. Conclusion. Uh, she, It's an investment that that will be turned around all for the benefit of everyone but including dollars, to Sausalito. |
| 03:35:35.33 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 03:35:35.39 | Claudia Brisson | Thank you. Don't just look at that number. |
| 03:35:37.42 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Thank you. Speaker is Jacques Oman. Can you kind of mute yourself? |
| 03:35:43.85 | Jacques Ullman | Yes, my name is Jacques Ullman. I've lived here since 1970. And with the improvements now that we're going to make at the ferry landing, it, it, this Saucedo Center for the Arts links right in with it. And so finally, now we have a downtown that we can be proud of, and it's for residents, and Um, visitors. I do suggest that I would love to see a cafe attached to this center. And that might be a way to generate a little more income And the city could make some concessions like not having to have toilet facilities since we have a public toilet right next to it. and maybe facilitate the permitting process or something. to allow activity there that I think would bring people in. I think that the facade there should be more open. |
| 03:36:47.35 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker is Lorna Newland. |
| 03:36:56.76 | Walfred Solorzano | You can unmute yourself. |
| 03:36:57.95 | Lorna Newland | Could you please start my video? It won't start before you start the timer. says the host has stopped it. of your, |
| 03:37:10.87 | Steven Woodside | Stand by, please. |
| 03:37:11.70 | Lorna Newland | Thank you. |
| 03:37:11.72 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. you. Here you are. We see you. |
| 03:37:12.98 | Lorna Newland | Um, Thank you. I want to thank Ron Albert for his excellent presentation and also for the fact that he suggested I rent at MLK from the city 18 years ago. I'm a 30 year homeowner in Sausalito, a 21 year business owner as a starving artist or as a happy artist. And we need this. And I do understand Jill Hoffman's concerns that we're not talking about other rents and Nobody has approached me about my rent. I know we don't have a property manager right now, but The Center for the Arts, I've been juried in a couple times. I've done three holiday shows there. And Shiva, I'm so sorry I missed your presentation, but I've read all her literature. And I also want to thank Joan Cox for responding to my letter an hour after I send it. And it is about the heart. You guys, the finance director talked about all the dollars, but you're not counting what this is bringing into us in, |
| 03:38:16.92 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. It's, Carol's Mountain. Thank you very much. Oh, sorry. Next speaker is Arlene Gorham. |
| 03:38:27.06 | Steven Woodside | Anyone else online? |
| 03:38:28.43 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah, are you going to mute yourself for aiding? |
| 03:38:31.45 | Arlene Gorham | Hi there, thank you. I'm Raylene Gorham, I'm an artist and board member at SCA. And I've had the privilege of bringing several events to the SCA and while they involve a tremendous amount of work without any personal financial gain The effusive responses I received from the locals after these events about how the films music, art, and talk. delivered to their doorstep have moved them are what keep me involved. It's an intangible payment that far exceeds anything measurable on a balance sheet. I hope that the council recognizes the holistic of supporting art in our community and moves to support what this cultural center provides. Thank you for your consideration. |
| 03:39:19.16 | Walfred Solorzano | And Charles Melton. |
| 03:39:26.29 | Charles Melton | Good evening. My name is Charles Melton. I'm a SOS Leader resident and I'm a leader with SOS Leader Pride, our city's LGBTQ volunteer group. Sausalito has a legacy as an artist's enclave, which includes LGBTQ plus artists. As Sausalito Pride embarked on launching our city's first ever Pride celebration last year, SCA was an ally, a partner and a supporter. Without hesitation, they launched an LGBTQ plus artist showcase titled Pride Not Prejudice, hosted our Pride kickoff event, and they supported our efforts every step of the way. I respectfully ask the city to extend the current lease term until the city has established a policy on how it will manage its leases. Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments this evening. |
| 03:40:05.98 | Steven Woodside | All right. |
| 03:40:06.24 | Walfred Solorzano | No further speakers. |
| 03:40:07.15 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. We'll bring it back up to the dais, please. Councilmember Blasting. |
| 03:40:11.89 | Ian Sobieski | I'm happy to get us started. I was really lucky to grow up in this community and to be exposed to art from a young age, both attending the Sausalito Art Festival, but also I have an amazing father who took me to a lot of museums my whole life. And I also once visited the DeRosa Preserve, and something that stayed with me at that museum is there's a sign on the wall that says, don't touch the art, let the art touch you. And I think that everyone who has written to us in their letters, the 305 letters we received and the notes that we've, the people who spoke out tonight have been touched in some way by the art and by the Sausalito Center for the Arts. And I really deeply believe in the power of arts in our community and what it can bring to Sausalito and for Sausalito. And I know that there is some concern about our fiscal sustainability, but our director said to us very clearly that he does not have a concern for our general fund with regards to the Sausalito Center for the Arts, and that we should be able to sustain this lease without red flags for impact. And so I'm really ready to put forward and respond to the request to say, let's just not increase the rent and continue with this lease until we do have a more firm policy. I would welcome dialogue from our colleagues, and I hope we can get to consensus on that, but I'm happy to just. Start with a motion to do that if you want, because I know you like to do it that way, Mayor Sobieski, and I just want to thank everyone who put forth the time and who give hundreds of thousands of hours to the continuance of the Center for the Arts, the volunteers, the people who have given all of their time and energy to creating and continuing a bastion of the arts in Sausalito for decades to come and decades before. |
| 03:41:47.08 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:41:47.18 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:41:47.30 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 03:41:55.23 | Steven Woodside | Well, I'll check. |
| 03:41:59.65 | Steven Woodside | I'll second that motion just to get us going. |
| 03:42:02.12 | Joan Cox | you If we're considering a motion, may I offer a friendly amendment? So to the extent we're maintaining the current rent until we establish a new policy, I'd like to confirm that we will not in any event, require retroactivity if should we decide to increase the rent so that if we increase the rent, it starts on the date that we increase it and there's no retroactivity. |
| 03:42:28.21 | Ian Sobieski | I absolutely accept that amendment to my motion. |
| 03:42:30.50 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:42:30.55 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. the motions on the floor. |
| 03:42:32.69 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:42:32.75 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:42:32.81 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I'd like to put a timeline on that amendment. And I think the city manager said he was going to come back to us within 60 days. So under no circumstance would this delay the past 90 days without further action, I suppose. Thank you. |
| 03:42:48.93 | Steven Woodside | I think, look, this is our motivation for it to come back to us. We all want to get on this philosophy, right? And we don't want to have to do this again if we haven't gotten our homework. So I think it's on us to get... to get our policy together. |
| 03:43:03.53 | Jill Hoffman | I agree, but I think we need to put it on date. |
| 03:43:04.03 | Steven Woodside | But I think we need to put it in. Then we're going to have a meeting like this if we don't have that together. |
| 03:43:09.45 | Jill Hoffman | Actually, okay, that's a good point. I don't think that we should have a meeting like this again. I think that the... your um your point that i should have objected to it when it was first raised you know I should have caught that. I think we should all be uncomfortable with how this is proceeded. because it's outside the norm of how we address our leases with everybody. They have 39 other leases that we have in town or 40 leases that we have in town. So I would hope that it would be vetted back through the normal process from this point forward. We're going to have looking at our policy and I think looking at parameters and guidelines for what we do with our revenue generating assets in Sausalito. But I don't wanna get into the position where we have, this is open-ended. And we're gonna have questions from the community about what's going on with this, why, Haven't we resolved this yet? What's going on with the SCA lease? And we have a responsibility to manage this asset. So that's why, I mean, I put 90 days out there because, you know, it was no later then that it should come back to us for action, I would think. |
| 03:44:20.78 | Joan Cox | I would agree to six months because I certainly think we should be able to have a policy in place within six months. |
| 03:44:29.10 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, no later than six months. I would agree to that. It could come back earlier. |
| 03:44:31.24 | Ian Sobieski | agree to that. It could come back earlier how the of the Thank you. |
| 03:44:35.16 | Steven Woodside | I want to acknowledge, I did have a comment, but Council Member Kellman has her hand up, so let's hear from her, and then I would like to respond to that. |
| 03:44:43.53 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you, Mayor. Yes, I'm in alignment with this. I think it's more or less a postponement of any changes for six months while we develop a consistent clear policy so everybody knows exactly where we are. And I think, you know, some of the changes or inclusions we may make are Could be around governance, could be around term of the lease. There may be other changes that come back. But if everybody is okay with these six months and staying where we are, I can get behind that tonight as well. |
| 03:45:11.91 | Steven Woodside | So practically speaking, I'm struggling with how that operates. So we'd have that decision today that we'd defer the rent increase for six months, and then it would automatically kick in six months from now? No. Okay. Maybe I misunderstood. So it would not automatically kick in six months from now. It would only kick in if we have such a policy. Okay. That's different for sure. We're basically directing staff to come back with that policy in six months, and then we would we would any changes we would then input vote on would come into effect. |
| 03:45:45.20 | Ian Sobieski | I would expect that. I think in addition to that, it's not that in six months we're going back to the $11,000. It's that within six months we'll have a new policy and we'll review the rent pursuant to that policy. And then what we're saying and establishing here is that they will not be subject to paying back fees on the rent in the in-between while we move forward from that $11,000. |
| 03:46:05.30 | Joan Cox | But I also endorse the Councilmember Hoffman's comment that This was an irregular process. And so we should, within six months, be giving direction to our negotiator, the city manager, on behalf of the city, about how to negotiate that lease. I do not anticipate this lease to come back in for negotiation before this council, I expect it to be an item on consent for us to approve once an agreement has been reached as we do with our other lease. |
| 03:46:36.77 | Melissa Blaustein | I think the vice mayor, I think it goes to consent, right? Because that's the whole point of having this policy so everybody can forecast exactly how these things are going to play out. and there's consistent behavior amongst all the releases. And so, and I just wanna urge staff, this is not get it to us in six months. I think we, you know, the city manager said 30 days. I think that's ambitious, but why don't we aim for you know, this 90 day period. So we have some time to look at it and tweak it and make some changes to it. |
| 03:47:05.38 | Jill Hoffman | I think actually the direction is, maybe, the consensus direction is that we'll have our policy scope from the city manager or from staff within maybe the next 30 days. But the goal is within 90 days, we'll have it back for this particular lease. back before us for action on the negotiation and further negotiation within 90 days. But at any rate, no later than six months, You know, that's kind of the outside date, no longer than six months from the day to day. will be aiming to take action on this lease. |
| 03:47:48.17 | Steven Woodside | Well, let's be clear about the motion so there isn't confusion. Can you articulate the motion, Vice Mayor? |
| 03:47:50.15 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 03:47:55.14 | Steven Woodside | or whoever, council member. |
| 03:47:58.81 | Joan Cox | I don't mean to propose an alternative motion, but see if this represents your motion, council member. Blaustein, that we maintain the SCA's current rent until the City Council establishes a new framework for establishing an appropriate rent, and to give direction to the city manager to negotiate that rent with SCA and bring it back to us. For approval. within six months and confirm that in the event that the appropriate rent entails a rent increase, it will not be retroactive. |
| 03:48:37.55 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, I just want to make sure though part of that direction was that we would hear a framework for all of our leases so it's fair across the board. And then once that policy is established within six months, we would then direct the city manager to address the lease. But we need to make sure that we have that policy across all of our lessees before we move forward with negotiating the lease. |
| 03:48:59.42 | Joan Cox | I agree. I did say until the City Council establishes a new framework for establishing an appropriate rent. So that's the... the framework is the policy for how we negotiate leases moving forward. |
| 03:49:14.93 | Jill Hoffman | so Let me clarify, though, I think we're talking about, though, The timeline, right? And so we talked about six months. The six months, the goal is six months from tonight. to have the |
| 03:49:29.96 | Joan Cox | New. rent rate, whatever it may be, negotiated and approved. Yes. Agree. |
| 03:49:38.75 | Steven Woodside | So, yeah. So the motion is maintain current rent of the SCA until the city council establishes a new framework for establishing an appropriate rent and directs the city manager to negotiate with the SCA, confirming that, bring it back to us within six months. |
| 03:49:59.97 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:49:59.98 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:50:00.02 | Joan Cox | I mean, bring it back to us. |
| 03:50:05.08 | Steven Woodside | Of today. Of today. |
| 03:50:07.04 | Joan Cox | and confirm there will be no retroactivity in the event there is a rate of rent in the |
| 03:50:11.21 | Steven Woodside | And there'll be no retroactivity. |
| 03:50:14.63 | Ian Sobieski | it. OK, I just really want to reiterate somehow, though, that the expectation is not that we'll return to an $11,000 rent, given what we've heard today. But I mean, that might be a conversation for a future date. |
| 03:50:27.90 | Joan Cox | I think an appropriate rent is appropriate rent. |
| 03:50:29.40 | Steven Woodside | Appropriate rent. Thank you. I think the... THE CURRENT. Thank you. So. It's to maintain the current rent until Well, maintain the current rent until the city council establishes a framework for establishing an appropriate rent. I guess it's a new rent. Yeah. And confirm there will be no retroactivity. That's the motion. |
| 03:50:54.03 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:50:54.15 | Charles Melton | Thank you. |
| 03:50:55.01 | Ian Sobieski | How do you feel about that, Mayor? |
| 03:50:57.33 | Steven Woodside | about, What I want to make sure we're clear about is that this sets us up to have a future discussion in closed session, I suppose, about what the rent is that we're going to agree to. And until we agree to some other rent, the rent stays the same. |
| 03:51:13.32 | Joan Cox | Correct. It's an open session discussion of our rent philosophy. It's a closed session direction to the city manager for negotiating the rent with SCA in accordance with that adopted philosophy. |
| 03:51:27.31 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. But until we agree to some other rent, the rent stays the same. |
| 03:51:31.26 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:51:31.30 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah. |
| 03:51:31.61 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:51:32.12 | Ian Sobieski | Okay. great okay so that's there's a motion and a second |
| 03:51:38.33 | Steven Woodside | You seconded it, I thought. but I'll second it, sure. Yes, I second it. You seconded it, okay. |
| 03:51:41.30 | Ian Sobieski | You seconded it. |
| 03:51:43.50 | Steven Woodside | So. Should we call the question? Thank you. |
| 03:51:46.25 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:51:46.31 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 03:51:46.57 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:51:47.04 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. |
| 03:51:47.16 | Jill Hoffman | All right. I just want to make sure the timeline's in there, the six-month timeline. |
| 03:51:51.97 | Steven Woodside | about. The motion is the motion. I guess the basis rate, like we did on our last ferry landing project, we have a motion that's clear. We're giving direction for it to come back in six months No. |
| 03:52:03.34 | Joan Cox | Thank you. That's part of the motion. It was part of the motion I enunciated is that we would, and if we don't make the six months, we're gonna have to make a new motion. But this, this, |
| 03:52:17.43 | Steven Woodside | If we don't make the six months, what happens to the rent? |
| 03:52:19.84 | Joan Cox | If it comes back to us, we have to take public action to do something else about it. |
| 03:52:26.29 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 03:52:26.78 | Steven Woodside | Or what? If we took no action, then what happened? |
| 03:52:29.21 | Jill Hoffman | it would remain |
| 03:52:30.14 | Steven Woodside | same. |
| 03:52:30.17 | Jill Hoffman | But that would be the agendized item. Yeah. So the point of the six months is that it gives us some guidelines and expectations for everybody about what our framework is going to be. |
| 03:52:44.67 | Sergio Rudin | So if I understand you correctly, the council, the motion would be to authorize the city manager to, execute a side letter agreement or something similar with the lessee for a temporary abatement of rent or a in the increase of risk. the current lease agreement for a period not to exceed six months. That would be the documents that we would sign to effectuate this with the renter. And then the Council's other desired direction in this motion includes preparing a policy or other document that outlines the guidance in terms of the city's lease philosophy with its various lessees. |
| 03:53:29.42 | Steven Woodside | I'm more comfortable if we defer the rent increase until we affirmatively decide what their rent should be rather than have it be this abatement for six months, which means, you know, if things come up, there's a delay. I don't know if six months falls in the middle of August or not, but it's very close, that there's just a logistical problem that then they're on the hook for this. So, I mean, we can just leave things the same and just agree that we're not going to collect the rent increase until we take some other affirmative action and direct this policy inquiry about our rents and then take action. |
| 03:54:10.00 | Melissa Blaustein | Well, Mayor, I'd actually like to hear the agenda. I think sorry from from afar. Sorry, I'd actually really love to hear the agenda setting committee just commit to getting this onto the agenda with enough time so that we could Implement the new policy within six months. I think that is a fair request and very clear. And I think that is the motion. |
| 03:54:30.66 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, I think there are three of us who are in favor of the six month parameter. |
| 03:54:38.00 | Steven Woodside | I don't want to hear your spoilers. |
| 03:54:39.69 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah. |
| 03:54:39.92 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. |
| 03:54:39.94 | Joan Cox | Thank you. I don't need a camera. |
| 03:54:40.87 | Steven Woodside | you |
| 03:54:41.04 | Ian Sobieski | . |
| 03:54:41.19 | Joan Cox | Amen. And that was part of the motion was that it be a six month |
| 03:54:45.68 | Steven Woodside | Can you, just because I know it drives our city clerk crazy and the six months is not actually written down there. |
| 03:54:51.50 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:54:51.52 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. Thank you. |
| 03:54:51.82 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Could you take a moment since you are? I'm a municipal attorney to actually write the motion so that our city clerk can be clear about what the motion is. Well, we'll get it for you on a piece of paper, and we'll read it aloud. I think the public wants to know what the motion is also. |
| 03:55:16.19 | Joan Cox | Okay. But I'm mindful of the city attorney's guidance. So we actually need to authorize our city manager to execute a side letter with the Sausalito Center for the Arts that maintains its current rent for no more than a six-month period or until such time as the city council establishes a new framework for establishing an appropriate rent and utilizes that framework to negotiate the new rent for the Sausalito Center for the Arts with the proviso that in the event the rental rate increases, that rent increase will not be retroactive. |
| 03:56:06.48 | Jill Hoffman | that's that's direction or that's the motion the motion that's the motion i hold on a second i don't i don't think the direction to the city manager |
| 03:56:08.42 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:56:08.45 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:56:08.55 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:56:14.46 | Jill Hoffman | or a standstill agreement or a stay to authorize a side letter. Doesn't that could be separate though. Does that need to be part of the motion? |
| 03:56:18.44 | Joan Cox | THE FAMILY. Well, the city attorney said that's really the action that we are... |
| 03:56:21.83 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:56:27.08 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, no, it would be helpful to have some sort of documentation that is modifying the understanding of the parties and documenting the understanding of the parties with respect to the rent to be paid under the lease. |
| 03:56:43.35 | Ian Sobieski | Okay. |
| 03:56:43.65 | Charles Melton | Thank you. |
| 03:56:43.67 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:56:44.17 | Joan Cox | That's, |
| 03:56:45.96 | Charles Melton | So, |
| 03:56:46.72 | Joan Cox | So, Council Member Blaustein, are you comfortable with that motion? |
| 03:56:47.33 | Charles Melton | Thank you. |
| 03:56:52.58 | Ian Sobieski | I think, I mean, I'd like to see us get to 5-0 consensus. I think the community knows where I stand with regards to the police. I would be interested to hear the mayor's thoughts, though, before we. |
| 03:57:03.56 | Steven Woodside | I'm struggling with that because, you know, This is a choice between about. This is a really small in some ways it's a really small by maybe we could have just a little discussion about the motion that is our normal practice so that motion is on the floor. I just want to back up for just a second. even if this was a subsidy of the city, like if we could run our whole city this way, where we have something run at no cost to us, that provides us community service, we would have the highest level of service and lowest taxes in the world. And I wish we could do that. This is a really small, this whole amount, this whole difference between 4,000, 11,000 is an annualized expense, which is less than one half of 1% of the entire city's budget. And so if you make $60,000 a year, that's like five crab rolls at fish. And it's a, and we're able to have the opportunity to touch everyone's heart with a very modest allocation. It's getting incredible leverage for small towns to do this. So these are all the arguments in favor. And I appreciate that. And I'm just concerned that what's going to end up happening here is that that we're leaving the city manager in a tough spot because we're asking him to try to come up with a one size fits all and we heard that one size fits none but it's also the center for arts is in a very special spot with a very special opportunity to change downtown for everyone and i do believe that it's incumbent upon us to bring some of our wisdom to the qualitative choice about what we do there it is a very special thing that anchors us in the arts. And it is for, and so that I don't know that we want to miss that opportunity. So that's all I wanted to say just to see if that stirs any thoughts on you, my colleague, or anyone else on the desk. |
| 03:58:50.74 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:58:58.30 | Joan Cox | I am very mindful that when this lease was negotiated, the city was in a structural deficit and was struggling to make ends meet. And so it insisted upon... an evolution of rent to become market rent and to cover the city's debt service so that the city was not going out of pocket every month. I recognize the reasons for reevaluating that decision today. I don't think we're in a position to reevaluate those reasons tonight until we've adopted a philosophy for how we negotiate our leases. I am not comfortable just leaving that as an open ended process. I think that things I think the squeaky wheel gets the grease. If we have a six month deadline, we are more likely and you and I get to manage this as the agenda setting committee to actually insist that we meet that deadline. If we don't meet that deadline, the solution is to put another item on consent that extends that deadline. But my commitment is to meet that deadline. |
| 04:00:06.03 | Steven Woodside | Thank you very much. I'll support the motion after hearing that from you, my colleague. Thank you. |
| 04:00:11.43 | Ian Sobieski | So who are you calling? Can we call the question? |
| 04:00:12.97 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, let's call the question. Have a vote on the motion as articulated. Do you feel, city clerk, that you heard the motion clearly? |
| 04:00:20.38 | Walfred Solorzano | on first. Councilmember Blostein? I'm sorry. Councilmember Hoffman? |
| 04:00:24.55 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. Thank you. |
| 04:00:27.70 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes. |
| 04:00:27.99 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:00:28.83 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember coming. |
| 04:00:31.99 | Steven Woodside | We didn't hear you, Councilmember Kelman. |
| 04:00:35.82 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Cox. Yes. And Mayor Sobieski. Yes. Thank you. Thank you all for being here. |
| 04:00:39.48 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you all for being here and for participating. |
| 04:00:41.03 | Steven Woodside | for being here and sticking out so late. Please go to item five. We're gonna move to item five. Can you please all, Can I have your attention for just a moment? |
| 04:00:56.25 | Steven Woodside | Would you please exit the room quietly so that we can take care of our business? Thank you. Item 5D is the appointment of a member |
| 04:01:07.41 | Robert Miros | I think. |
| 04:01:08.77 | Steven Woodside | Item 5D is the appointment of a member to the Planning Commission for a term beginning February 21st, 2024 and ending on January 31st, 2027. City Manager, does City Clerk have any kind of report on this? |
| 04:01:23.79 | Walfred Solorzano | So yeah, earlier today we had Michelle Dumas, who was one of the applicants that applied. And she withdrew her application. |
| 04:01:27.67 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah. I'm sorry. Bye. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Really? |
| 04:01:33.65 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah. Thank you. |
| 04:01:35.10 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah. |
| 04:01:35.12 | Walfred Solorzano | Why? |
| 04:01:35.32 | Ian Sobieski | Hi. |
| 04:01:37.70 | Walfred Solorzano | So we only have two candidates right now. |
| 04:01:39.69 | Steven Woodside | Okay, my understanding from the process that I understand the ordinance is that I open with making a nomination and call the floor for other nominations. |
| 04:01:47.86 | Jill Hoffman | So I'm saying Mike, can you hear us through the microphones? It's really loud in here. I just want to make sure that the tape, I'm sorry. Sorry to interrupt. You're quite right. Thank you. Yeah, he's giving us a thumbs up. So we're good. |
| 04:01:55.28 | Steven Woodside | You're quite right. Thank you. |
| 04:02:04.97 | Steven Woodside | questions. |
| 04:02:05.93 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I'd like to nominate David Kornmeier. What? |
| 04:02:11.08 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:02:11.08 | Steven Woodside | David Kornmeier is also nominated. Any other nominations? |
| 04:02:11.11 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:02:11.14 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:02:11.19 | Jill Hoffman | to. |
| 04:02:11.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:02:16.17 | Unknown | I'm going to close you up. |
| 04:02:19.24 | Steven Woodside | I see no other nominations. Let's go through and vote according to our, do we want, can you just call the roll please? |
| 04:02:27.12 | Ian Sobieski | Oh, no, you need to go. Oh, do I? I forgot. Put it on each person. you |
| 04:02:31.01 | Steven Woodside | I think, oh, I forgot. I thought it was you go through each person and everyone gets the vote. We want to do public comment. Thank you very much. Public comment, please, on this. |
| 04:02:32.41 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. We're going to have a great day. |
| 04:02:38.77 | Walfred Solorzano | Any members of the public would like to speak on this item? |
| 04:02:43.59 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 04:02:44.07 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah. |
| 04:02:46.02 | Steven Woodside | the planning commission nominee who was interviewed Is there anyone in the room? |
| 04:02:51.48 | Walfred Solorzano | in the room. |
| 04:02:52.69 | Steven Woodside | Okay. So please... go through and assemble. Is there any discussion? |
| 04:02:56.17 | Walfred Solorzano | So. |
| 04:02:56.42 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:02:56.52 | Walfred Solorzano | I just... |
| 04:02:56.77 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:02:59.20 | Steven Woodside | Seeing no discussion. |
| 04:03:00.55 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:03:00.62 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 04:03:02.78 | Jill Hoffman | Sorry, Mayor. Go ahead. I guess the only discussion is that both are architects. They're both architects. I just wanted to point that out. Yes. |
| 04:03:03.41 | Steven Woodside | Go ahead. |
| 04:03:07.25 | Steven Woodside | They're both on. Okay. |
| 04:03:11.03 | Walfred Solorzano | THE END OF Councilmember Blossy? |
| 04:03:13.48 | Ian Sobieski | Don't we have to say yes or no on each candidate? I think you say. |
| 04:03:16.40 | Steven Woodside | I think you say... Farla. |
| 04:03:19.76 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. Mr. Kornemeyer. Council member Cummins. Sorry. David Mervat. Thank you. |
| 04:03:31.81 | Charles Melton | Okay. |
| 04:03:32.11 | Walfred Solorzano | you Vice Mayor Cox. |
| 04:03:37.58 | Joan Cox | David Cornmire. |
| 04:03:39.30 | Steven Woodside | and Mr. Marlett. So Mr. Marlett wins three votes to two. Thank you, Mr. Kornmeyer and to Mr. Michelle Dumont for applying. We'll now move on to the economic development advisory committee appointments for terms beginning February 21st, 2024, ending February 21st, 2027. We have all the nominees and we also have two adjacent items that were moved off of consent. |
| 04:04:09.17 | Joan Cox | Can we deal with those items before we appoint |
| 04:04:11.31 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, let's do that. That's wise. Let's deal with the two items off of consent. |
| 04:04:17.28 | Joan Cox | So Councilmember Hoffman polled. |
| 04:04:19.01 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, this is gonna be easy. Okay, so this is just attention to detail, meticulousness, right? So our city ordinance says that members will serve on commissions for no more than six years. So we had two people that are currently on EDAC that were appointed in 2020, and I just felt like this was something that was missed in the staff report. And I did relay this to the city manager and our our clerk, that Two members, Monica Finnegan and Malcolm Morgan, were part of the original crew, and they were appointed in 2020. So to me, they would get a term for two years, right? So they're really kind of retroactively saying you're appointed for another year for a second three-year term. So that's what three cases. |
| 04:05:07.98 | Joan Cox | is. It says that they only serve until June 9, 2026. |
| 04:05:12.58 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, great. Well, then that's okay. I'm sorry. I didn't see that. Yeah, I think the city manager. Oh, that was in the staff. I'm sorry. I looked at the staff reports, and they look like the same staff report. So hold on. Okay. So then, okay. Sorry, that's why I pulled it off, because it looked like, to me, the staff report said that everybody was going to be appointed for three years. So anyway. Where are you? You're on page two of the staff reports. |
| 04:05:37.51 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 04:05:37.54 | Jill Hoffman | So. |
| 04:05:37.86 | Joan Cox | Agenda? I'm on the item, the title of the agenda, which is reappoint Monica Finnegan and Malcolm Morgan to terms ending on June 9, 2026. Reappoint Scott Thornburg, Danielle Stout, and John DeRay to three-year term ending on February 20, 2027. |
| 04:05:56.36 | Unknown | That's not in mind. |
| 04:05:57.89 | Joan Cox | It's on the agenda. |
| 04:05:58.25 | Unknown | agenda. |
| 04:06:05.25 | Jill Hoffman | Sorry, pardon me, you guys. |
| 04:06:08.44 | Walfred Solorzano | For clarification, are we on 3J or 3K right now? |
| 04:06:11.02 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:06:11.12 | Joan Cox | Well, we don't. |
| 04:06:11.68 | Jill Hoffman | Three. |
| 04:06:12.05 | Joan Cox | you |
| 04:06:12.32 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 04:06:12.41 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 04:06:12.83 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, sorry, we're on 3K, and I see there where it says... Malcolm Morgan to, yeah, 20, okay. Sorry, great, perfect. I'm sorry, I missed that in the staff report. And I missed that on the agenda. Yeah, I don't see it in the staff report. That's probably why I missed it. |
| 04:06:33.97 | Chris Zapata | Thank you for bringing up Councilman. Councilman Huffman. |
| 04:06:35.07 | Jill Hoffman | No, there it is. Yeah. |
| 04:06:39.35 | Joan Cox | He pivoted. |
| 04:06:40.67 | Vicki Nichols | you |
| 04:06:41.82 | Joan Cox | Walsh, after your comment. |
| 04:06:43.02 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 04:06:43.03 | Melissa Blaustein | you |
| 04:06:45.23 | Joan Cox | All right, so I move we approve a resolution of the City Council of the City of Sausalito extending the length of terms to three years for each member of the Economic Development Advisory Committee. |
| 04:06:45.40 | Unknown | So I move. |
| 04:06:46.59 | Chris Zapata | uh, |
| 04:06:46.90 | Greg Price | We appreciate it. |
| 04:06:56.84 | Joan Cox | Second. |
| 04:06:58.29 | Steven Woodside | Any discussion? Do we have to take public comment on each of these items? Probably we do. So public comment from the room on this particular item or on Zoom? Let me see. See none. |
| 04:07:05.27 | Ian Sobieski | Yep. |
| 04:07:14.00 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 04:07:14.03 | Steven Woodside | All right. |
| 04:07:14.35 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 04:07:14.37 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Any discussion? Julie made motion and a second. We'll call the question. Please call the roll. |
| 04:07:18.17 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 04:07:21.73 | Walfred Solorzano | Council Member Blossom. Yes. Council Member Hoffman. |
| 04:07:25.78 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 04:07:25.80 | Ian Sobieski | Yes. |
| 04:07:26.57 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Cohen. Vice Mayor Cox. |
| 04:07:29.90 | Ian Sobieski | Yes. |
| 04:07:30.25 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. And Mary Sobieski. Yes. |
| 04:07:32.55 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 04:07:32.56 | Walfred Solorzano | All right. |
| 04:07:33.03 | Steven Woodside | excited. |
| 04:07:34.03 | Joan Cox | You want to take... Yeah, you want to take... We have to take public comment. |
| 04:07:35.68 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 04:07:35.70 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 04:07:35.72 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 04:07:35.82 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 04:07:35.84 | Steven Woodside | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 04:07:35.89 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 04:07:35.92 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 04:07:35.95 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. Yeah, you want to |
| 04:07:39.90 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, the item is reappoint Scott Thornburg, Rachel Daniel Stout, and John DeRay to the Economic Development Advisory Committee for three year terms. ending February 20th, 2027, and reappoint Monica Finnegan and Malcolm Morgan. to terms that end June 9, 2026. |
| 04:07:57.84 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. |
| 04:07:58.23 | Walfred Solorzano | Seeing no public comment. So moved. |
| 04:08:02.13 | Steven Woodside | So moved. |
| 04:08:02.75 | Jill Hoffman | Comment? |
| 04:08:03.00 | Steven Woodside | There's a motion. Thank you. |
| 04:08:04.49 | Walfred Solorzano | I can. |
| 04:08:04.90 | Steven Woodside | someone. |
| 04:08:05.82 | Jill Hoffman | SECOND. |
| 04:08:06.72 | Steven Woodside | So, |
| 04:08:06.78 | Walfred Solorzano | Second, call the question. Councilmember Blostein. |
| 04:08:10.23 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 04:08:10.53 | Walfred Solorzano | you Council member Hoffman? Yes. Council member Kuhlman? Vice Mayor Cox? Yes. |
| 04:08:18.75 | Steven Woodside | And Mary Sobieski. Yes. All right. Now we'll move on to. item 5e consider making appointments to the economic development advisory committee for terms beginning february 21st 2024 and entering february 21st 2027 and we will see if there are any any public comment on this we have one When public commenter. |
| 04:08:44.05 | Scott Thornburg | I'll be really quick. Thank you for staying up late. I believe you have before you the opportunity to appoint an additional four members of the committee. You also have the opportunity to appoint an alternate and a 94965 liaison. I believe that is still in front of you. So for your consideration. Also, I have not been able to confirm this. I don't know if the city clerk or other staff members have, but my understanding was that Jane Farley is unable to serve. So I would love to confirm that before we were to appoint her to the board. I don't know if anyone knows that, but that would be just a follow-up item, unfortunately. We have not been able to confirm that. So thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:09:33.81 | Steven Woodside | Any other public comment? All right, we'll go through and nominate people, right? I'll nominate Craig Murielis. Thank you. And maybe I'll leave it at that and let other people |
| 04:09:46.60 | Joan Cox | I would nominate Daniel Chador. And I'm not clear if he lives here in town. I know he runs the Gables, but... I'm not clear. |
| 04:09:55.80 | Steven Woodside | If he doesn't, he would be the alternate, right? He would be the alternate, yeah. So if he is not a resident, then he would be the alternate. |
| 04:09:57.10 | Joan Cox | It would be the alternative, yeah. |
| 04:10:02.14 | Steven Woodside | Any other nominations? Levi Eastwood. |
| 04:10:05.84 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. I'm raising. |
| 04:10:14.41 | Steven Woodside | We need one more. |
| 04:10:15.71 | Joan Cox | you |
| 04:10:15.73 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 04:10:15.79 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 04:10:15.91 | Ian Sobieski | Casey O'Neill. |
| 04:10:17.97 | Steven Woodside | If you're Neil. |
| 04:10:19.00 | Joan Cox | No, I... So I had him crossed out. I guess he didn't show up one night, but showed up another night. Yeah. |
| 04:10:26.42 | Steven Woodside | What is Hank's last name? I have Hank and I can't read. Baker. I'll nominate Hank Baker. |
| 04:10:28.60 | Joan Cox | Baker. |
| 04:10:32.16 | Ian Sobieski | Do we know, did Casey say he doesn't want to be on either? I don't. |
| 04:10:39.50 | Walfred Solorzano | Casey did not mention anything about not wanting to be on the EDAC. That I'm not aware of. Thank you. |
| 04:10:47.06 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 04:10:47.22 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Thank you. And sorry, and who? |
| 04:10:51.15 | Steven Woodside | Hank Baker, Casey O'Neill, Levi Eastwood, Daniel Chador, and Craig Murielis. |
| 04:10:54.61 | Joan Cox | So Daniel Shador, oh, Craig Merrilees actually is not a Sausalito resident. He lives on the, he lives on gate six on the houseboats. So he would be the, he would be the. |
| 04:10:59.38 | Arlene Gorham | Thank you. |
| 04:10:59.43 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 04:10:59.53 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 04:10:59.65 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 04:10:59.69 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 04:10:59.80 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 04:11:00.01 | Arlene Gorham | Thank you. |
| 04:11:00.09 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:11:02.54 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 04:11:02.56 | Jill Hoffman | So, |
| 04:11:06.23 | Jill Hoffman | THE FAMILY. |
| 04:11:06.40 | Joan Cox | It'd be the 94965. |
| 04:11:06.59 | Jill Hoffman | I think, hold on. I think EDAC allows a member to non-Sasleo residents even, right? |
| 04:11:07.82 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 04:11:16.75 | Steven Woodside | I believe so, because Cass Green is not, it's also the resume. |
| 04:11:18.94 | Jill Hoffman | We don't have the same issues about non-voting liaisons, right? I agree. |
| 04:11:24.39 | Joan Cox | Right. |
| 04:11:25.25 | Jill Hoffman | I think, unless anybody else remembers stuff. I am not. |
| 04:11:27.31 | Joan Cox | I am. I would endorse Craig Merrilies as a regular member, not an alternate. |
| 04:11:32.78 | Claudia Brisson | Yeah, great. |
| 04:11:33.07 | Joan Cox | So who do we designate as the alternative? Because we've now put up five, which includes the alternate. |
| 04:11:42.25 | Steven Woodside | I don't know that I think the council member Hoffman's point is that you can have more than one person not be a resident. |
| 04:11:48.57 | Ian Sobieski | but there's only four spots that we're appointing in an alternate. So I mean, Casey could be the alternate. It doesn't, if we could make Casey the alternate, yeah. |
| 04:11:50.31 | Steven Woodside | and alternate. So I mean, Casey, |
| 04:11:55.59 | Steven Woodside | Okay, I endorse that. All right, that's our slate. |
| 04:11:56.25 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. and we're so... |
| 04:11:57.68 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 04:11:59.41 | Steven Woodside | Craig Miraless, Daniel Chidor, Levi Eastwood, Hank Baker, with Casey O'Neill as the alternate. All right, let's do the roll call. |
| 04:12:05.26 | Walfred Solorzano | Sorry, can you repeat that one more time? |
| 04:12:07.88 | Steven Woodside | Craig Murieles, Daniel Chador, Levi Eastwood, and Hank Baker are members with Casey O'Neill as the alternate. That's the consensus direction of the staff. I think we just have to vote yes by roll call. |
| 04:12:19.69 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay, Councilmember Blasen. Yes. Yes. Councilmember Cohen. Yes. Yes. Mayor Sobieski. Yes. |
| 04:12:30.07 | Steven Woodside | Yes. All right. Now we move on communications. This is the time for members of the public to... uh make any comment on anything not on the agenda uh city clerk |
| 04:12:41.93 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes, we have Babette McDougall. |
| 04:12:50.07 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. So I want to applaud the general receptivity that the council showed tonight toward the citizens who were present. That's a really good sign. letter this particular issue about the B of A building and everything that goes with it. This is actually the perfect example of why bringing democracy back to this council chambers is a good idea. Each one of you can be put on a clock. Each one of these presenters can be told ahead of time how to prepare and how to time their own presentations. You don't have to think that it's always the fault of the citizens that we're here all night. It's not. Things usually go faster when you engage in active debate among people who actually know what's going on in this community. You actually get better data, and it usually goes pretty well. So I'd love to just encourage you. to keep thinking about bringing democracy back to Sausalito. The citizens are ready for it. Surely you see that by now. Thank you. |
| 04:13:54.02 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 04:13:54.04 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. And on Zoom, we have Aaron Roller. |
| 04:14:01.99 | Aaron Roller | Thank you. |
| 04:14:02.00 | Walfred Solorzano | Hello. |
| 04:14:02.02 | Aaron Roller | Hello, everybody. Hey, thanks for staying up late. I'm coming to you from the future. It's tomorrow in Zurich, but also the future of mobility. I am also coming to you as your former chair of the pedestrian bicycle advisory committee Just wanted to let you all know that as my family has moved to Zurich and I'm happily I accepted a job here working for robots. I can no longer serve as the chair. My term is up anyway, so it's all good. And I can happily say that I'm leaving it in good hands the pedestrian bicycle advisory committee in good hands with the members that are there, Karen Culligan, of course, one of my favorite people on earth. One of the things I wanted to bring up is that we do not currently have a liaison and it would be wonderful if we did. We've had some controversy about some of the policies that we've brought forward and I can say that I'm very pleased with what we've brought forward in our time to you all. And it would be wonderful to have a somebody somebody from your Council giving the updates here on the upcoming Member reports Council Member Cox sorry Vice Mayor Cox. I would nominate you as being my favorite person for that because you would bring You would bring mobility in all forms and also a form of, uh, of making sure everything is done correctly. And I think that is something that can be done very well because we are bringing more and more opportunities to Sausalito because Let's be honest, grants come easily through that channel. So let's keep that going. And, um, This is me stepping down as chair, but I am 100% invested in Sausalito. And always available to continue everything that I helped start. And honestly, I will be living in Sausalito the rest of my life. And I hope that I can walk around there as much as I can. |
| 04:16:07.62 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 04:16:07.64 | Aaron Roller | Thank you. |
| 04:16:07.66 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 04:16:07.67 | Aaron Roller | Next speaker is |
| 04:16:08.67 | Steven Woodside | Thank you for your service, Mr. Roller. |
| 04:16:10.51 | Joan Cox | Thank you, Aaron, for your service, for your long-term service and contributions. |
| 04:16:18.47 | Sandra Bushmaker | Hi everybody. I know it's getting late and I just wanted to bring up an issue that's bothered me for the last year and this year I'm seeing a trend where soon as public comment is closed, the chair of the board, which is the mayor, makes a motion. And that forecloses any discussion by the council members on the matters just just at hand. I did look up in Rosenberg's rules and Rosenberg's rules says the mayor or the chair is to ask for motions from the from the Council. upon the closure of public Comment. I'm just concerned that We are unable, the council is unable to deliberate when you bring a motion immediately following the closure of public comment. And the public does not have an opportunity to see and to hear your thinking. Now, that didn't happen tonight. And I was grateful to hear that because I really appreciated hearing all of your discussion on the various topics. So it's just a point of order that I wanted to bring to your attention. Because bringing a motion by the chair immediately after the closure of public comment forecloses a lot of discussion that you deserve to hear about each other's thoughts and that the public deserves to hear as well. Thank you. |
| 04:17:47.00 | Steven Woodside | Did your camera come on for a reason? |
| 04:17:49.06 | Sergio Rudin | Yes, yes, I'm realizing that in the course of our discussion on the EDAC appointments item, there was some question as to whether or not non residents serve on that particular committee, having looked at the city code and look through the. resolutions creating EDAC, it is my opinion that they cannot. So to the extent that you have appointed non-residents to that committee, I would recommend you rescind your vote and make other appointments. |
| 04:18:14.67 | Joan Cox | I, |
| 04:18:16.17 | Shiva Pachtel | Thank you. |
| 04:18:16.53 | Joan Cox | With respect. |
| 04:18:16.58 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 04:18:17.80 | Joan Cox | would recommend we revise our resolution because when we formed EDAC, Because it serves the business community, it was always our intention to allow some non-resident participation, namely business owners, on EDAC. |
| 04:18:32.21 | Steven Woodside | Sergio, that might require, could we maybe put it to you to investigate this and we'll fix it because the original group I know had several members that were business owners that did not reside in Sausalito. So that flies in the face of our experience. Maybe Council Member Hoffman has a comment. |
| 04:18:50.78 | Jill Hoffman | Um, yeah. I think the proper process is we have to withdraw the motion, direction to staff, further research. You know, my recollection is different, but if our city attorney is looking at it and he's telling us, then... then I think I don't want to do anything that's not allowed under our I'm happy to, yeah, and I'm happy to, happy to look at it later and revise it if that's what we want to do. |
| 04:19:24.43 | Steven Woodside | How about this as a solution, which is to, just for the ones that we have a question about whether they're residents or not, unwind them by this action, direct the circuito to investigate it further. If they can be appointed, those individuals will put on consent next time. If not, we may bring a resolution that Vice Mayor Cox is directing to authorize additional non-residents on EDEC. |
| 04:19:34.91 | Melissa Blaustein | to it. Yeah, that's fine. |
| 04:19:52.30 | Ian Sobieski | Yes, agreed. |
| 04:19:53.49 | Steven Woodside | Did you get all that, Sergio? Yes. Okay. To affect that, what do we need to do? |
| 04:19:58.00 | Ian Sobieski | Bye. |
| 04:19:58.01 | Sergio Rudin | I would vote that you rescind your prior motion and make a new motion that gives that direction. Thank you. |
| 04:20:04.50 | Steven Woodside | All right, so I will move to rescind the prior motion. Let's start with that. Second. All right. We have a motion duly seconded. |
| 04:20:09.07 | Ian Sobieski | Second. |
| 04:20:12.53 | Steven Woodside | Do we need to take discussion, public comment on that or not? |
| 04:20:16.21 | Sergio Rudin | Sergio. Um, yeah, I, I, I think we already took public comment on this particular agenda item. So I think that you can continue. |
| 04:20:26.45 | Steven Woodside | All right. Thank you, sir. So please call the roll city clerk. Thank you. |
| 04:20:29.77 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blaustein. Yes. Council member Hoffman. Councilmember Cot. Yes. Sorry, Vice Mayor Cox, I thought you were going to... That's all right. Council Member Kelman... |
| 04:20:38.78 | Charles Melton | So... |
| 04:20:38.84 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 04:20:40.61 | Walfred Solorzano | us. Thank you. And Mayor Sobieski. |
| 04:20:43.26 | Steven Woodside | Yes. All right. The next motion is to appoint Levi Eastwood and Hank Baker to positions on the EDAC with Casey O'Neill as the alternate. That will be the motion. |
| 04:20:56.86 | Ian Sobieski | THE FAMILY IS |
| 04:20:57.09 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Any discussion? Questions called? Please call the roll. |
| 04:21:02.78 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blostein. Yes. Councilmember Hoffman. Yes. Councilman Rickellman. Vice Mayor Cox. Yes. |
| 04:21:11.98 | Steven Woodside | Yes, and then there's additional direction to the city attorney and staff to investigate whether or not Daniel Chidor and Craig Miraliz can be appointed as they are. And if not, if they can be, then please put that on consent. And if they cannot be, please bring back a resolution that changes the rules of EDAC that would allow them to be appointed and put that on consent next meeting. |
| 04:21:33.90 | Joan Cox | Is Cass Green still on next? |
| 04:21:36.14 | Steven Woodside | And for that matter, explore this issue on any other current serving members and ensure that they're in compliance with the rules. |
| 04:21:42.13 | Joan Cox | So whatever, if there are three non-residents, then we would allow three non-residents on EDAC. So we need to comport our resolution with our existing situation. |
| 04:21:49.95 | Jill Hoffman | It was. |
| 04:21:56.65 | Steven Woodside | break. Any council member committee reports? councilman community ports any city manager report uh and do we take |
| 04:22:08.65 | Charles Melton | Please go ahead. |
| 04:22:10.18 | Jill Hoffman | I have a working group report, but we kind of already went over it. |
| 04:22:13.50 | Steven Woodside | I think. |
| 04:22:13.98 | Melissa Blaustein | We'll see you next time. |
| 04:22:14.42 | Jill Hoffman | which is we've been working on the 10-year projections and continue to work on them. And some of the early projections were attached to the record or attached to the agenda on Saturday, and we discussed some of them tonight. So we're still working on that. |
| 04:22:28.02 | Steven Woodside | Thanks. City manager, I forgot. Do we take public comment before the city manager report? 8A? Yes. Okay. So public comment on 8A through C, taken together, please. City manager report and city manager info for council and future agenda items. |
| 04:22:33.52 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 04:22:33.89 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 04:22:45.01 | Steven Woodside | Any public comment? |
| 04:22:46.16 | Walfred Solorzano | then. |
| 04:22:47.10 | Steven Woodside | Anything online? Sandra, Ms. Bushmaker has her hand up. |
| 04:22:52.76 | Sandra Bushmaker | This will be quick. You know, I've raised this issue with you before on how crazy it is to have public comment on an item before the item is heard. And it just makes no sense whatsoever. Can we please move the public comment on this item to after the report so we can make an intelligent conversation? Comment, I'd appreciate that. And I'm sure other people would too. Thank you. |
| 04:23:17.27 | Joan Cox | We are not taking action on the city manager report or on council member reports. We are simply hearing reports. So. |
| 04:23:17.29 | Sandra Bushmaker | Okay. |
| 04:23:28.82 | Steven Woodside | We actually do have a public comment in the room. |
| 04:23:32.12 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay. |
| 04:23:37.69 | Walfred Solorzano | Let's go. |
| 04:23:38.52 | Unknown | Thank you very much. I agree with Sandra. If there's something happening that he's reporting on, I'd very much like to hear it before I say anything about it since I don't know what it is. Thank you. |
| 04:23:53.15 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Sidney, any other public comment? All right, city manager. |
| 04:23:58.64 | Chris Zapata | I just want to highlight the Saturday, February 10th planning strategy session that the public attended and the council attended and staff attended and let you know that the facilitator, Amy Holworth, will be getting a document to me, to you, by the end of this week. Thank you. |
| 04:24:17.11 | Steven Woodside | All right, and on future agenda items go around just just to inform everyone, we will be getting report from amy ho with our priorities and those will be. expeditiously inserted into the future agendas so that the report from those but please. |
| 04:24:34.88 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, this somewhat echoes what we said on the 10th, but since I am currently in a program in homeland security and disaster preparedness, I would really like to agendize the conversation about our disaster preparedness strategy and also some tabletop discussions amongst council members. I don't know if that's specifically an agendized item, but we need to do some tabletop exercises for disaster preparedness as well. So I want to get that on top of mind. |
| 04:24:51.10 | Unknown | And I. |
| 04:24:57.51 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. any other |
| 04:25:07.08 | Steven Woodside | as always next week. All right, well, we'll have play from Amy from our priority session to stick on future agenda topics. That's the end of the meeting. We will adjourn. Good night to you all. Thanks for sticking with us. Thanks, everybody. Bye. |
| 04:25:23.92 | Unknown | Thank you. |