| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:19.40 | Walfred Solorzano | This meeting of April 16, 2024 is being held in council chambers located at 420 Little Street. Staff and members of the public are also participating through Zoom. This meeting is being broadcast live on the city's website and on cable TV channel 27. |
| 00:00:36.02 | Steven Woodside | Thank you very much city clerk. We will call the roll, but first I'll just let everyone know that our colleague, Councilmember Blaustein, is running late. She intends to join closed session around six o'clock and will be here for open session. So will you please kindly call the roll? |
| 00:00:51.65 | Walfred Solorzano | Council member Blasting has noted she is not arrived yet. Council member Hoffman. Here. Council Member Kelman? Here. Here. Vice Mayor Cox. Here. Amara Sobieski. |
| 00:01:03.97 | Steven Woodside | We have four matters tonight on closed session conference with the council government code section 5495, 4956.92 cases. Conference with legal counsel, existing litigation, Yes and Run Backyard versus the city of Sausalito. Conference with legal counsel, existing litigation, Port GJ versus city of Sausalito. And a conference with the real property negotiator on the Martin Luther King site for the new village school. Did you want to make a comment, Vice Mayor? Yes. |
| 00:01:35.69 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, thank you. I will be recusing myself from the fourth item due to the proximity of my residence to the property at issue. |
| 00:01:42.90 | Steven Woodside | Are there any public comments on the closed session items? |
| 00:01:46.16 | Walfred Solorzano | There is nobody in the council chambers, and I don't see anybody on Zoom. All right, we'll close. |
| 00:01:49.73 | Steven Woodside | All right, we'll close. |
| 00:01:50.60 | Jill Hoffman | Mayor, sorry, excuse me. Good evening. I just had one clarification that the agenda lists, it looks like it lists the closed session as a special meeting. Is that accurate? |
| 00:01:50.88 | Steven Woodside | I mean, |
| 00:01:51.27 | Unknown | you're right. |
| 00:01:53.75 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:01:53.80 | Walfred Solorzano | I'm sorry. |
| 00:01:53.85 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:01:53.99 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:02:02.86 | Steven Woodside | That's the way that they're always done. They're always special meetings actually. |
| 00:02:05.53 | Jill Hoffman | So I learned. Okay. Well, thank you. It was a little tip. |
| 00:02:07.15 | Steven Woodside | It was a little kid that |
| 00:02:09.88 | Jill Hoffman | Right? It was on red. Maybe it's because it's on red. |
| 00:02:10.05 | Steven Woodside | It was unreal. |
| 00:02:12.18 | Walfred Solorzano | We were advised by the city attorney to label it that way so that we can be very compliant with any of them. |
| 00:02:18.95 | Steven Woodside | So our ordinances are that our meetings start at seven on this first and second, third Tuesday of every month. And so all our closed sessions, as I came to learn, are actually special meetings. So the city council that just happened to coincide with the meeting. And by the way, as a result, it also answers the question that we can actually adjourn back to closed session as long as we don't adjourn the closed session in closed session. Then that session stays up until we adjourn both at the end of the night. |
| 00:02:21.95 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay. |
| 00:02:45.84 | Jill Hoffman | At the end of the night. Thank you. Okay, and then one other clarification on the agenda. It doesn't list, I mean list at the beginning, but not in the agenda when we're going. Usually we have times, time estimates and times when we're starting open session. And so it says it on the front of the agenda, but I didn't see it in the actual agenda that we're starting open session at seven and that's our normal practice. I assume that's what we're going to do tonight. |
| 00:03:09.38 | Steven Woodside | Well, here at the top on my meeting, it says special meeting begins at 5 PM and then the regular meeting begins at 7 PM. |
| 00:03:14.87 | Jill Hoffman | Right. So that's what I just said. So it's at the top. But then as you read through the agenda, we usually have, you know, open session. or at least I recall, we'd start at seven and then different things on the agenda, we have time estimates, but I didn't see that. I just wanna make sure, |
| 00:03:27.90 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:03:27.91 | Jill Hoffman | I can't. |
| 00:03:28.03 | Jill Hoffman | THE END OF THE END OF THE comment on that. We actually stopped providing time estimates because they were never accurate. So long. Okay, okay. |
| 00:03:33.91 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:03:34.02 | Beth Swart | Thank you. |
| 00:03:34.16 | Jill Hoffman | THE FAMILY IS |
| 00:03:34.44 | Beth Swart | Yeah. |
| 00:03:36.01 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 00:03:36.82 | Jill Hoffman | That's good, okay. And so we could add back in the fact that regular starts at 7 p.m. but we stopped doing time estimates for the rest unless it's a public hearing specially noticed for a specific time. Okay, got it. |
| 00:03:37.84 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 00:03:38.12 | Beth Swart | It's good. |
| 00:03:41.75 | Beth Swart | Thank you. |
| 00:03:41.77 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 00:03:48.11 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:03:48.59 | Steven Woodside | So we will now adjourn to close or move to closed session. |
| 00:04:39.14 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. I'm very supportive. |
| 00:04:48.61 | Steven Woodside | Okay, hello everybody, thanks, welcome back. There are no announcements from closed session. We are going to go ahead and begin our meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance. |
| 00:05:12.30 | Steven Woodside | Thank you very much. I have just one special announcement. I'll be attending the Tall Ship Celebration this Saturday at the Bay Model Visitor Center here in Sausalito. The community event takes place from 11 to 2 p.m. It features tours of the Brigantine Matthew Turner, our official Tall Ship. The Schooner Seaward exhibits from the Sailing Science Center, music by Waterfront Pickers, and the Village Charter School Children's Choir. Admission is free and food and beverages are available for purchase. Those attending will also have a chance to meet the new manager of the Bay Model, Taylor Bon, and to meet the sailing and education crew of the Call of the Sea, the Sausalito nonprofit that's celebrating its 40th year of teaching people about maritime activities and the ocean environment. So that is the one announcement and we will now move on to approving of the action minutes from the previous meeting. Is there any public comment about the action minutes from the April 2nd City Council meeting? |
| 00:06:16.18 | Walfred Solorzano | Once again, for members of the public that are in council chambers, we have some of the slips over by the television. You can fill it out. and you can bring them back over to the city clerk's desk, and we will call you when it is your turn and you have two minutes to speak. For those that are on Zoom, you have used the raise hand function at the bottom right hand of your screen, and we will unmute you so you can speak. See not no speakers right now |
| 00:06:40.39 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Thank you. All right, shall we have approval of the minutes? |
| 00:06:46.36 | Steven Woodside | So moved. |
| 00:06:48.54 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. All right, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? Minutes are approved. Moving on to this consent calendar. These are matters that are generally considered routine and non-controversial, require no discussion, and are expected to have unanimous council support. There'll be no separate discussion on consent calendar items. However, any item can be removed by a request from one of the council members. Items removed from the consent calendar will be discussed later on the agenda, and public comment will be heard on any item that was removed from the consent calendar at that time the consent calendar items are 3a of the sausalito police department's crime and traffic report from calendar year 2024 3b adopting a resolution authorizing the city manager to award a construction contract for the north street step slide repair projectair Project to RWR Construction in an amount of $475,620.50. And authorize a construction contingency for the project in an amount of $49,379.50. And adopt a resolution accepting an easement for a portion of 6 Josephine Street related to the project. Item 3C, receive and file a status report regarding the Fairley Landside Improvement Project. I think that's a good thing. accepting an easement for a portion of 6 Josephine Street related to the project. Item 3C, receive and file a status report regarding the Fairie Landside Improvement Project. And item 3D, adopt a resolution accepting and approving the 2023 multi-jurisdictional hazard mitigation plan for the city of Sausalito. Is anyone wanting to remove anything from consent? |
| 00:06:50.87 | Steven Woodside | Bye. |
| 00:08:10.44 | Steven Woodside | Yes, it comes from every boss. |
| 00:08:11.51 | Steven Woodside | I don't want to necessarily remove it from consent, but I have a request on the item regarding adopt a resolution accepting and approving the 2023 multi-jurisdictional hazard mitigation plan, especially in light of the new geologic hazard assessment that the Planning Commission heard this past week and considering our serious need to put more emphasis on disaster preparedness. I am okay with approving it as is, but I'd like to ask staff to come back to us with a more full representation of the assessment and the next steps for us as a community, because I think it deserves more discussion. |
| 00:08:19.50 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 00:08:19.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:08:41.47 | Steven Woodside | great if you could also maybe remember to bring that up at future agenda items that would be great |
| 00:08:46.29 | Unknown | Mayor, I just want to put on the record that yes to everything that Councilman Blasian said. |
| 00:08:49.87 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 00:08:50.18 | Unknown | You may be wanting to. |
| 00:08:50.23 | Steven Woodside | Maybe one of you can remember that. Yes. Future agenda items, too. |
| 00:08:51.90 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:08:55.19 | Steven Woodside | Anything else? |
| 00:08:56.91 | Jill Hoffman | I didn't. Yes, I would like to remove item 3C from the agenda, but I think there are people here that are here for public comment on that. So I think we might want to take public comment now, maybe. I'll remove it. I don't know if we can do that. We can do that item 3C. |
| 00:09:11.56 | Steven Woodside | We always have it with the item. |
| 00:09:16.04 | Jill Hoffman | I was, okay. Oh, that's fine. |
| 00:09:19.50 | Steven Woodside | So do you wish to remove that item or leave it on consent? |
| 00:09:21.73 | Jill Hoffman | Oh no, we need to, yeah, no, I have some questions about, you know, our |
| 00:09:27.76 | Steven Woodside | Okay, we'll remove the item, we'll move 3C from the consent calendar and put it on item 5C on the business items. And then I don't want to remove the award of the North Street steps, but I did have a question for Director McGowan just, and maybe it's an error, I believe, or just a highlight, I think, because I did ask Chad Hess to call you about this when he and I spoke. title under fiscal impact it says that the hundred and that there are three categories reserve funds, starif fund, and capital fund. And I wanted to be sure that according to Chad Hess, that title reserve funds is incorrect and that it should be capital funds. Sorry, Director McGowan. |
| 00:10:08.09 | Chad Hess | Yes, that is correct. We are not pulling out of our reserves, which is our dollars that are held in the general fund in case of an absolute emergency. This is coming from available fund balance within the capital project fund. |
| 00:10:19.56 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Okay, so there are no reserve funds are being used for this project that is correct. So if you could kind of make that correction, we've been staff early on the record and we can leave it on consent for approval with that typo fixed thinking. All right, so can get a motion to approve the consent column public comment. Oh, sorry. Thank you for the catch public comment, please. And items 3 a B and D. |
| 00:10:26.60 | Chad Hess | THE STAFF REPORTING. |
| 00:10:33.03 | Chad Hess | right? |
| 00:10:42.43 | Jill Hoffman | So that was, I guess, Council Member Hoffman's request, is that we hear public comment now on 3C rather than make people wait until after the other two visits. |
| 00:10:52.81 | Steven Woodside | Well, then we don't have the report. There's a report first, so we would have to hear that item. So that's. |
| 00:10:56.43 | Jill Hoffman | I can hear that. That's true. |
| 00:10:58.17 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:11:00.94 | Steven Woodside | So that's not the way we've ever done things here, so I guess we'll not start today. So could I get a approval for items 3A, B and D? |
| 00:11:10.00 | Walfred Solorzano | Sorry, for clarification, Peter Van Meter, did you want to speak on 3C or another item? Okay, then. We'll wait on that. And we do have Sandra Bushmaker. So I'll ask to unmute. Sandra? You have two minutes. |
| 00:11:26.57 | Sandra Bushmaker | I good evening everybody. I just wanted to support the removal of that item with regard to the ferry land side improvements for public discussion and further questions on that particular item. So thank you for removing it. |
| 00:11:44.51 | Walfred Solorzano | All right, no further public comment. |
| 00:11:46.27 | Steven Woodside | Okay, we'll close the public comment. Can we get an approval for the consent calendar of item 3A, B, and 3D? |
| 00:11:51.78 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:11:51.80 | Steven Woodside | So moved. |
| 00:11:53.56 | Steven Woodside | All the paper. |
| 00:11:54.50 | Steven Woodside | Bye. |
| 00:11:54.52 | Steven Woodside | Aye. Opposed? Consent. Calendar passes, item three. C is now item 5C, we're moving on to public hearing items of which there are none. We will now move on with our business items 5A, discussion and direction to staff regarding the initiation of a sewer rate setting under proposition 218 for fiscal years 2024, 25 through 2026, 27, or 2930. Director McGowan. Thank you. |
| 00:12:20.88 | Kevin McGowan | Good evening, Mayor, members of City Council. We do have a presentation this evening from our consultant staff who helped with this. So consultants from VW Housen, that would be Vivian Housen, and HFNH. So we have a presentation which our city clerk is bringing up and I will turn this over to Vivian to lead us through this first part of the discussion and then HFNH will take on the second part of the presentation. How are we doing there, city clerk? |
| 00:12:55.17 | Unknown | to be sure. All right. |
| 00:12:57.92 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:12:57.93 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:13:03.44 | Walfred Solorzano | Oh, one more time. you Thank you. |
| 00:13:05.97 | Unknown | Thank you. you |
| 00:13:56.96 | Walfred Solorzano | All right. I'm sorry about that. Is that the incident? |
| 00:14:03.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:14:04.09 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:14:04.13 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:14:06.99 | Vivian Housen | Ready to go. All right. Great. And then I'll just signal to you to change or should I use these. OK. All right. I'm going to stand to the side so I can see the presentation. So if you can't hear me I'm going to try to move this over here. Let me know. |
| 00:14:12.15 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 00:14:12.49 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:14:19.76 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I'd like to be able to hear you too, Thank you. |
| 00:14:21.97 | Vivian Housen | Okay, okay, so good evening council members and staff. So my name is Vivian Housen as Kevin McGowan mentioned and I'm with VW Housen and Associates and we have a joint presentation. Rick Simonson from HFNH will be presenting the second half on rates. I will provide an overview of the work that we've been doing on the rate study and really focus on the annual sewer replacement program because this is one of the major components of the rate model. And with this discuss the 2025 capital improvement program provide some background. and discuss pipe repair goals and the capital improvement plan or CIP and also talk about in very general terms the rate study and the implementation schedule and HF and H will provide more detail on that. So we can go to the next slide. So as an overview, the city has about 20 miles of sewer pipes and the colors are not showing that well on this presentation, but they are in lime green on the presentation. There are also some there's another pipe that's shown in dark blue. And the dark blue pipe is owned and managed by Sausalito Marin City Sanitary District. The city's flows flow into that pipeline and then flow north or flow south to the SMCSD plant. That pipe also conveys flows from the north, from Marin City and also from a portion of Talapais Community Services District. Most of the pipes are over 80 years old. There are four city pump stations. As I mentioned, all flows are sent to Sausalud and Marin City Sanitary District and they provide treatment and discharge of the flows. Thank you. The city's last rate study was completed in 2019, and that was a five-year rate study. It set rates through 2024, which is this June. The sewer rates were established for residential classes and there were fixed and flow based components of that rate. And the city rates are collected through the tax roll for sewage collection and that The fact that the city rates are collected through the tax roll that impacts the schedule for implementation. And then the district has South Southern Marin City Sanitary District has its own rate for treatment and disposal. The rates must be sufficient to cover the cost of service in a manner that's equitable and manages risk, and HFNH will provide quite a bit more information on this. But as a very, very high-level overview, the rate model includes operating costs, includes existing debt service on prior bonds, and then addresses the capital needs. And the capital needs are what I'll be discussing in these next few slides. |
| 00:17:18.97 | Vivian Housen | So really stepping back, the purpose of the capital program is to and for the last five years as well, and for years prior, is to implement an even spending program. So if you look at this slide that's up and you look at the blue, the blue represents generally how pipes were installed in the city. The city in the 1900s, people built their holiday homes. In the 1950s, post-war, there was a big boom of housing all over the Bay Area and many, many, pipes and other infrastructure were installed during that period. That really shows the peak there in the blue. And then in more recent years, there's been continued development and replacement of homes and replacement of infrastructure, but not nearly to the rate that we saw in the 50s. And the challenge with a pattern of installation like this is that generally, infrastructure has a useful life and if you and we want to extend the useful life and replace infrastructure at the end of its useful life so we can get the most use of that asset But if we do that for every item, every asset, then we could conceivably have a replacement program that looks like that blue cycle. It could look like the green. So if you mirrored the blue and you replace things as they were installed, you could end up with a graph that looks like the green. And that does not support a consistent rate um, rate approach. So what asset management does is it looks for, looks at the needs of the system and looks to replace assets. that have the highest risk of failure and to even out the replacement schedule so that you can even out your funding plan and so that's what we're continuing to do with this rate study and with the cip that's included in the rate study now this um just anecdotally is called the nessie curve and it's called the nessie curve because the shape of the curve of the infrastructure looks like the shape of Nessie's hump in Loch Ness. So if you do hear that term, you'll hear it. The shape of the curve of the infrastructure looks like the shape of Nessie's hump in Loch Ness. So if you do hear that term, you'll hear it quite a bit in asset management, is that we're trying to flatten out the Nessie curve. |
| 00:19:40.54 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:19:44.88 | Vivian Housen | So just some background on that 2025 capital improvement plan. The city completed closed circuit television inspection of its system in 2019. It has been a continuous process but there was a big push to really capture all the pipes that hadn't been inspected in 2019. Issues within the system were documented and repairs prioritized. There was about $18 million of repairs needed over the long term, but about $5 million in critical repairs identified for the next five to 10 years. And critical repairs are openings in the pipe, known infiltration, pipe separations, issues that should be repaired because they could eventually lead to some sort of failure in the system. And depending on the agreed rate structure, the repairs will take between seven and 10 years to complete. Right now, we've recommended to staff to proceed with a seven-year schedule to complete the five million in repairs, which would correspond to a 5% annual rate increase as HFNH will describe further. |
| 00:21:06.01 | Vivian Housen | The goals of the pipeline replacement program are to bring the system to a standard of good repair. And how do we define good repair? By looking at the risk of failure, and we use a numerical model for this, we're able to address the highest risk types first, therefore addressing the the greatest risks in the system early and also early. reducing the opportunity to have to spend money unnecessarily in the future. So we're really looking at the worst issues first. We're looking specifically at inflow and infiltration and through closed circuit television inspection, we can actually see inflow and infiltration coming into the system. In light of anticipated climate change and also of subsidence that's known to occur in the Gate 5 area, the importance of reducing infiltration is heightened. The overall goal of the program is to extend the service life. So really repair what's broken, but don't repair what's not broken and use a surgical approach to do that. So for rate planning, again, the pipes with the structural issues that indicate potentially increased risk are being heightened. And I do have some maps that follow this slide that show that. And also while implementing construction projects, our goal is also to reduce construction impacts by coordinating projects, grouping projects, trying to coordinate the work with pavement reconstruction projects, which has happened in the past five years. Consider planned outside utility projects, such as work that the underground utility owners are conducting to replace construction. THE END OF THE END OF THE utilities outside of water utilities and to coordinate with private replacements. So the pipe repairs are prioritized based on inspection findings, and they are grouped by area to be cost effective And so this map just shows all of the different colors of the map show the different defects and when the different defects are slated to be repaired. And if you're able to see the colors on the slide, the most imminent issues are located in the southern portion of the city and that actually correlates with the older portion of the city. So this makes sense. |
| 00:23:38.21 | Vivian Housen | And with that, Rick Simonson will discuss the rate study. |
| 00:23:45.34 | Rick Simonson | Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Councilmembers. Rick Simonson, Senior Vice President with HF&H Consultants. And working with Vivian and staff, we put together our rate study and we attached to the agenda packet our full report but I'm just here to give you an overview of what we looked at and our recommended increase to the rates over the next three year period so we will start off with letting you know what we are asking for tonight and what Also importantly, what we're not asking for tonight, go through the rate study timeline of how and what is necessary to get rates approved. Go into some background on how bills are calculated, what the objectives of a rate study is, what is a cost of service rate study, and get into some more details of your revenue requirement that Vivian has already touched on. What are those expenses that need to be covered with the rates? And lastly, getting into bill impacts, we're always asked, well, how will this impact our rate payers? As well as how do we compare to other jurisdictions? So we'll finish with that and then open it up for feedback from council. So first, the requests and actions tonight are just for the council to take in the information and provide direction to city staff to move forward with the Proposition 218 process, which I'll get into a little more details on the next slide of what's involved in that process before rates can be adjusted. And during this process, it will also be setting the date of the public hearing for at that time rates can be adopted if it's a desire of the council. And that is currently scheduled for June 4th. So here we are tonight after about three or four months of working with city staff and Vivian to understand the costs and your current rates and revenues and how we can bridge that cap of any revenue shortfalls so again here we're looking to Get authorization to mail the Proposition 218 notice to all customers and parcels within the city to make them aware of the proposed changes to rates. That notice needs to be mailed by this Friday, and that will allow a 45-day protest period for which those customers and parcels may submit a protest to the city if they are not in favor of the increase. The June 4th public hearing, if there's not a majority protest, which you have about 3,000 parcels, if there's not 50% plus one or 1,501 parcels at protest, the city may consider the rate increases at that time. It does take two readings of the ordinance, so that'll be scheduled for the first reading at that public hearing, followed up by a second reading two weeks later and this is all in getting to the county the charges for your parcels by their July 15th deadline so it's on next year's tax roll. So a little background on the sewer enterprise fund. So the city has a separate enterprise fund, which means all revenues and expenses are accounted for specific to the system. The rates and the revenues generated from this rates can only be used. for the sewer collection system costs, the day-to-day O&M, as well as the capital costs for repairing the collection system. The sewer collection costs are not funded by the general fund. It's by rates only. In addition, that there are none of the revenues that are generated from the rates and charges for sewer that can be used for anything other than sewer and cannot fund general city services. So it's a self-contained entity, revenues and expenses just for the enterprise. Reserves, again, are specific to this enterprise. If revenues exceed the cost of service during those expenses during any one year, those revenues stay within the fund for future costs. So the collection rates, I know Vivian touched on some of this. It is collected via the property tax roll on an annual basis. Rates were last studied five years ago in 2019, and we're in the last of that five-year adopted plan. Rates were increased July 1, 2023. And also a nuance, the city provides the collection services to all customers except the floating homes. The floating homes wastewater goes directly into the collection system owned and operated by SMCSD or Sausalito Marin City Sanitary District. So the rates that we're proposing tonight do not affect floating homes. And just to reiterate, as Vivian touched on, the collection rates that we're looking at today are for the sewer collection, via the city service that are on the tax roll. In addition, the treatment of those waste waters or a separate charge by SMCSD also on the tax bill. We're just here focusing on the collection rates. Next slide, please. So how are these charges calculated? You currently have two components to the charges. There's a fixed component to the charge. Residential customers pay on a per dwelling unit basis, which means if it's a duplex, it's two times that fixed charge. If there's four units on the property, it's four times. For commercial customers, you look at actual water use and compare that to the average water use of a single family customer. We call that an equivalent dwelling unit. Water use fluctuates depending on the type of business they have and they're compared and charged one equivalent dwelling unit for their fixed charge. In addition to a fixed charge, there is a volumetric component to the charges based on how much water you use. So your smaller customers, maybe two-person households, may discharge less water into the system. So this allows those differential costs that would be incurred by larger households versus smaller households to really reflect that in the bill. They have some control over their their bill so residential customers are charged based on their winter water use and the reason we do that is that's where there's less irrigation because the water use is based on a water meter we don't have a meter for the wastewater So to make sure we're not including that irrigation for residential customers, you analyze their winter water use. when it's more than likely that there's less irrigation occurring. For commercial customers that typically have a separate irrigation meter, so you just look at their full water use for the year. multiplied by their volumetric rate. And one question we had during this process was, well, how have the rates changed over the last 10 years? So there have been two rate studies prior to this 2024 study. in 2014 and 2019 this is a summary over those last 10 years of the average increase. And you can see they differ based on customer type. Because each year you do a cost of service study, you're realigning the true costs with the cost of service to each customer class. So single family customers, for example, on average over the last 10 years have increased 5.3%. The volumetric rates on the bottom of the chart, about 4% per year. Let's give some context to the recommended 5% that I'll be getting to here shortly. Next slide. When we conduct these rate studies, there are a few items that objectives that we do have. First, we want to provide the revenues for your day-to-day operations, maintenance, and the capital improvements that are necessary over this next five-year planning period. but also in accordance with Prop 218, we need to conform with best practices for rate setting so that the cost of service is, the rates are cost-based and it's equitable by customer class. We have to avoid having one customer class subsidize another. We can't have commercial subsidizing, residential, or vice versa. in addition to the uh, Proposition 218 procedures and requirements Also maintain a prudent reserve. You need cash on hand. as You receive revenues from the county. Only twice a year. So you have day-to-day costs that you need to cover, so we need to make sure there's prudent reserves. Next slide. Just briefly, the four steps as we go through any of these process. First, determine the expenses that need to be covered. That's the revenue requirement projections, working with staff. We looked at over the next five-year planning period. And then the cost of service by customer class. so that one class is not subsidizing another. And then your rate design, your current design, fixed charge and volumetric charge, we're not changing that. that is a good way of making it more equitable for those smaller businesses or households that don't use as much wastewater. And then last step, the customer bill impacts, and we'll provide some summaries of what residents can expect First step is looking at your costs. This is just a simple bar graph to illustrate your O&M expenses, your day-to-day operations, and administrative overheads, increasing from about 2.5 million last year up to about $3.5 million by 28-29. There are two outstanding loans. There's a loan from Let me see 2011 that's outstanding that will be paid off by 2032 as well as a bond revenue bond that was issued in 2015. That's the light green on the chart here about 500,000 per year. And that bond will mature in 2044. So there's still quite a few years left to pay on that debt service. And then lastly, the capital projects that Vivian has touched on. If we could fund all five years worth of the $5 million within the next five years, you see another million dollars per year of expenses. We compare these total expenses to the revenue at current rates, and that's indicated with the solid black line. You can see in all years there's a revenue shortfall. if we do nothing with their rates. So that's our starting point. And we can bridge that gap in a couple ways. So on the next slide. What we're recommending, and we start with our rate models is we've plugged in a 5% annual increase. On the bottom portion with the graph here, I'll explain what we're indicating here. The solid green line, that's your reserve fund balance. So you see you're starting out with a fairly healthy reserve to pay for these capital projects that are necessary. The solid red line is a minimum when we're setting rates and messing with that 5%. We wanna keep your fund balance above that red line at all costs. That's for maintaining your day-to-day cash flow. On top of that, annual capital, average annual capital costs are added to that red line to get the solid blue line and that is our target if we can get there with the least amount of revenue increases we'd like to be around that blue line So what we're seeing here is with the dotted green line, if you did nothing with your rates, you would quickly drop below that minimum balance and almost deplete your entire reserves by the fifth year. So we know some sort of rate increase is necessary. With our 5% you see the declining green line. So what we're doing here is bridging that revenue shortfall first with some reserves that have been built up to pay for these capital projects and with some revenue increases over the next five years. So it's a balance of reserves and increases. What's that mean for the rates? So we've listed the annual rates here. The first column are your current rates, and they do differ by customer class. And then for the fixed charges and the volume metric, everybody pays the same rate per month. 100 cubic foot of water. You'll see the 24-25 column, it's not a uniform 5% increase. Again, that's the year we're gonna generate an additional Overall, 5% in revenue. However, it's going to affect each customer class's rate slightly differently. You'll see the fixed charges are coming down. So we're getting less revenue from the fixed charge except for in the case of the single family attached. That's still going up slightly based on their recent water use patterns. and the volumetric charges are actually increasing. So we're rebalancing that fixed and variable revenue. For 25-26 and 26-27, once the cost of service is being realigned, those are 5% increases to each rate. |
| 00:37:26.63 | Rick Simonson | What's the impact to customers? Well, since customers use water differently, what we've shown here is the average water use. So I'll use single family as an example on how to read this chart. So for single family, the average single family customer uses about 125 gallons of water per day. So their current annual charge would be $807.85. with the realignment of the cost of service in that first year their total bill will actually decrease slightly for 806.79 again this is for average water use so you'll see a slight slight decrease in this upcoming year and then five percent increases moving forward. The largest impact we're seeing is on the commercial. We'll see a little bit higher increase in that first year. How do these proposed rates compare? So we put together this chart of some of your neighboring jurisdictions. We show the city of Sausalito's current there, about the fourth from the right. And then the proposed increase would be a slight increase to the average water use customer from 1807 to 1840. Still same relative position compared to some of your neighboring agencies. Next slide. So again, to remind, we're not here to adopt rates tonight, but to get direction to mail the notice to customers, A protest period of 45 days, coming back for the public hearing June 4th to consider those maximum increases. At that time, you could do something less, just not something more than the proposed increases in the notice. So with that, I'll open it up for questions. |
| 00:39:20.24 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you for that really clear and succinct presentation. I had the benefit of seeing a preview as part of the subcommittee. I wanted to re-ask you a question I asked you before, which is, how does the volumetric component of the rates benefit smaller households? |
| 00:39:27.22 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:39:41.89 | Rick Simonson | Yeah, great question. So if charges were completely fixed, regardless of how much water is actually discharged into the system, everybody would pay the same rate, smaller households, larger households. But because you have employed the volumetric component, Those that use less water and discharge less into the sewer system will have a smaller bill. |
| 00:40:09.19 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, and you showed us a chart, and our neighbor, Marin City, seems to have a much lower rate than we do, and I asked you why as well. Could you please share that with us as well? |
| 00:40:24.11 | Rick Simonson | Yes, absolutely. So we've assisted the SMCSD with their rate setting, and we do know with the Marin City, they have not put as much into their capital program and will need extensive repairs and maintenance moving forward. Recently, they had moved that charge from, it was as low as $71 just for the collection component, $71 per year. It's now $400 per year and it will be climbing. So they haven't put as much into their capital projects, but they will be in the forthcoming years and you'll see their charges increase. |
| 00:41:01.81 | Jill Hoffman | And then finally, that chart that you showed us for the past 10 years compared to what you're now proposing. That was for a single family home. That was an average over 10 years of what, five? |
| 00:41:15.26 | Rick Simonson | 5.3. |
| 00:41:16.10 | Jill Hoffman | 5.3% and you're now proposing 5%. |
| 00:41:16.12 | Rick Simonson | 5.3%. That is correct. |
| 00:41:21.14 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, and you're recommending a three-year, that we adopt a three-year plan |
| 00:41:29.03 | Rick Simonson | We did the study for five years. That's a maximum allowed through Prop 218, and you can choose anywhere from one to five. |
| 00:41:37.50 | Jill Hoffman | I know that we're considering consolidation with Sausalito Marin City Sewer, Sanitary District and so, Were we to adopt a three-year plan, that would give them some more flexibility, assuming we accomplished consolidation by then. True. |
| 00:41:54.98 | Rick Simonson | I would suspect so. I don't know the nuances of the negotiations and discussions at this time. |
| 00:42:01.29 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. Those were my questions. |
| 00:42:03.89 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Vice Mayor. Councilmember Blasley. |
| 00:42:06.22 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, thank you very much for that concise presentation. I just kind of want to get a sense of the differentiation between our 2019 rate increase and the proposed 2024 increase and whether you feel like this is a significant jump. I think it is certainly a little bit more, but it makes sense given the justifications that you've demonstrated. But could you just talk a little bit about that? |
| 00:42:17.05 | Rick Simonson | This is the same. |
| 00:42:25.47 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:42:25.49 | Rick Simonson | Yeah, absolutely. So the last five year rate study recommended 4% increases. So this is slightly higher than that spending now as much as 780,000 per year in capital projects because of the assessment of the collection system. It does warrant putting more into the system to get it less risk on the breaking of the pipe. |
| 00:42:25.73 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:42:25.76 | Steven Woodside | AND I'M GOING TO BE |
| 00:42:49.40 | Rick Simonson | Though it could be higher instead of doing this over a seven year period of trying to do those repairs, it could be done over five years, but that would require a higher annual increase. But these are reasonable considering also the recent inflationary increases over the last few years. |
| 00:43:07.14 | Steven Woodside | And from a bottom line consumer standpoint, since they're just going to see a higher number on their rate fee, could you maybe explain what the cost would be to the consumer or the municipality? Maybe the Director McGowan's better equipped to answer this, if one of the pipes was to break. |
| 00:43:20.65 | Rick Simonson | you Happy to, yes. And just, you know, from our experience, yes, the longer you neglect something, the more catastrophic and the additional costs. |
| 00:43:35.34 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. That is why we have a reserve fund, and that's why he was going over some of that, is if we do have a break, we do have some funds in order to cover that. |
| 00:43:35.57 | Rick Simonson | Thank you. |
| 00:43:43.30 | Steven Woodside | Right, but the cost would be significant in terms of overall expenses if we don't make these improvements. That's true, yes. And isn't it true that, that's an interesting way to start the question. Is there a, there's a significant amount of deferred maintenance with regards to our sewer system at this point? Yes. Okay, thanks. |
| 00:43:49.00 | Kevin McGowan | THE FAMILY. Yeah. |
| 00:44:08.46 | Steven Woodside | Are there other questions? All right, seeing no questions, we'll take public comment please. City Clerk. |
| 00:44:25.00 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay did a very shine wanna make a public comment on this you |
| 00:44:26.64 | Steven Woodside | Are there any- Do you wish to make a public comment on this item? |
| 00:44:32.22 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay. seeing none. |
| 00:44:38.33 | Steven Woodside | No public comments, online either, City Clerk? Nope. All right. So we'll close public comment and bring it back to the dais, please, for any discussion on this issue. Anyone wish to be recognized? I can start. |
| 00:44:49.25 | Steven Woodside | can start. Listen, nobody likes it when we have to increase rates. No one wants to charge our residents more. No one is in favor of upping all of our fees. And in a perfect world, this wouldn't be something that we have to do every five years. But as was demonstrated by our very competent and well-thought-out team of consultants and the work from our Department of Public Works, we don't have much choice but to take action now. And the potential for significant increased deferred maintenance costs makes me want to move ahead with this at the fastest rate possible, especially given the potential for a serious climate event with climate change being a very real and serious issue right now. So as much as I would like to say, no, we don't want to raise our rates, it seems that we are essentially given no choice. And the ability to have the extra $200,000 with the 5% would significantly impact the overall effectiveness of our sewer system. So I'm inclined at this point to support the suggested 5% increase, although begrudgingly because I don't like spending or asking for extra money from our residents. But in this situation, it appears that we're left with Little or no choice. That's where we're coming. |
| 00:46:00.80 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:46:02.35 | Unknown | I think the Vice Mayor had her first. Please. |
| 00:46:04.29 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I thank you. I endorse everything Councilmember Blaustein said. I'm pleased that we've really made a concerted effort to address deferred maintenance since at least 2014, which, and through the present, and that we've maintained fairly consistent average, around 5% for our rate payers, which is better than some public agencies do, both in terms of not deferring our maintenance for an overly long time and managing our rates. And so I also endorse the proposed rate increase. I do endorse the 5% increase per year recommended. I would like to Um, recommend that we adopt it for three years rather than five years which is a 15 hike rather than a 25 hike so and that would in the event that we're able to consolidate that would enable the district which is the expert to do its own rate study and adopt rates uh appropriate at that time so that that would be my recommendation. And so, I almost knocked over the water, sorry. adopt rates appropriate at that time. So that would be my recommendation. And so, I almost knocked over the water, sorry. So the request was to authorize the rate increase. Oh, and I do recommend we authorize the issuance of the notice to the rate payers. |
| 00:47:41.00 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:47:42.22 | Unknown | Yeah, as a member of the working group with the Vice Mayor, I just want to really thank Vivian and H&H. I entered this a little bit on the later side, and you guys were really excellent, and so I just want to tell that to the public because this is some of the best analysis I've seen of a potential infrastructure project in a long time, so thank you for that. So I just want to endorse what the Vice Mayor and Councilmember Blausin articulated, both with the duration of the increase and the type of increase, and also just reinforce what Councilman Blaustein said about, you know, this is money spent now to save us a lot of money later, given a lot of the deferred maintenance, the way our infrastructure looks today, and the increase in problems that we anticipate. So I think it's a good move for us. |
| 00:47:42.25 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 00:48:30.21 | Steven Woodside | Anyone else? No other comments. All right. So I don't know that we need a motion per semo sure if you would like to a direction. |
| 00:48:34.01 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:48:34.02 | Unknown | I make a motion. |
| 00:48:41.60 | Steven Woodside | It was discussion and direction to staff is how it's entitled. So we can offer it in the form of a motion if you'd like to be that structured. Do you want to hit your talking points? Yeah, if you can. All right. |
| 00:48:53.56 | Jill Hoffman | all right i move we direct staff to uh transmit notice to rate payers by this friday april 19 a proposition 218 notice for the establishment of new sewer rates for a three-year sewer rate structure beginning fiscal year 2024-25 at the rate of five percent per year |
| 00:49:18.52 | Steven Woodside | Second that. Is there any other comments on that, any discussion on this motion? Call the question on this motion, all in favor say aye. |
| 00:49:27.43 | Steven Woodside | Bye. Bye. Bye. |
| 00:49:28.45 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. All opposed? The motion carries. That is the direction on this matter. We will move on to the next agenda items. Item 5B, review of the Sausalito Municipal Code, Chapter 17.36, Report and Request for the City Council Approval of an Annual Sidewalk Repair Program. Director McGowan. Thank you. |
| 00:49:49.72 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you, Mayor, Councilmembers. I have another presentation on this one who our city clerk will bring up. This is kind of an interesting one. I'm hoping that you might be interested in this particular topic. And it has to do with initiating an annual sidewalk program. There we go, great. So thank you. Sausalito, as you know, is an older incorporated city, which was incorporated in 1893. Thank you. While the city has 26 miles of roadways, not all the streets have sidewalks. Sausalito Municipal Code 17.36 notes that the owner of real property adjacent to or fronting Any portion of a sidewalk area shall repair and maintain such sidewalk area in a safe and non-dangerous condition at the owner's cost and expense. This section of the code also references the California Streets and Highways Code, Section 5610, which states that the fronting property owner is responsible for maintenance and repair of the sidewalk. However, The cost of replacing a sidewalk can be pretty expensive. Assisting residents in repairing sidewalks may help implement the repairs at a faster pace and minimize any type of hazards that may be there. Next slide, please. Currently, in order to assist residents and decrease the possibility of sidewalk displacement, the Department of Public Works Maintenance Division has secured the services of a concrete cutting company. You may have seen them throughout town. What they do is they saw cut high points and possibly other All right. Tripping hazards associated with sidewalks. Unfortunately, this effort does not completely remove the possible hazard In some locations, property owners will be notified that they need to replace their sidewalk. Next slide, please. To assist residents, staff recommends developing a program to assist and incentivize property owners to repair damaged sidewalks. The idea is to partner with our residents to offer Uh, to have the city compensate property owners for 50% of the cost of the repair up to $1,000 per property. The funds would be available on a first come first serve basis and staff recommends setting aside a maximum amount of about $40,000 each and each year in order to support this part of the program. The city could also provide a no fee encroachment permit for the work as well. In addition, city staff would reach out to local concrete side, concrete sidewalk contractors to secure a cost per square foot for the repairs. A property owner could utilize these contractors to perform the work, or they could select their own contractor to do the work for themselves. Based on Chapter 1736, the city is responsible for sidewalks that the city-planted trees have damaged, such that a collaboration approach should be pursued to coordinate this work. Identifying an area in town to start the staff's review of sidewalk repairs will be needed. Repair of a sidewalk would follow a nuisance abatement process. Next slide, please. To initiate this program, city would develop a webpage and associated diagrams with the intent of providing clarity for residents regarding the repair of sidewalks. There are still some details which we need to address, such as the cross slope and the requirements for driveway aprons, which can be problematic here in town, especially with older sidewalks. Next slide, please. Our diagrams will need to reflect the sidewalk damage caused by city planted trees. Having an accurate list of city planted trees will be one of the tasks to develop before the program is initiated. Next slide. As noted earlier, the city may want to initiate a program in a specific area, such as on Caledonia or on Bridgeway. DPW maintenance will walk the area and identify which sidewalks are to be replaced and then contact the property owners to perform the work. if the property owner who participates in this program requests reimbursement for the project, they can receive up to 50% of the cost of the repair or $1,000 maximum. The Capital Improvement Program lists the project as, as you saw last time, I think it's S008, anyway, in the amount of $140,000. The additional $100,000 amount is to cover sidewalk damage by city-planted trees and roots and other sidewalks, such as those fronting parking lot one or even this building. So we do have some areas around this building that need to be replaced. Next slide. Again, Chapter 5610 of the Streets and Highways Code has been in place for some time. It requires fronting property owners to maintain sidewalks. Next slide. And this is just an excerpt of our municipal code, 1736. And it also denotes that sidewalk damage is the responsibility of the property owner, except in cases where a city-planted tree has uplifted the sidewalk. In addition, curb ramps and corners are still the responsibility of the city. So if we have to replace a corner at an intersection of a street where we need curb ramps, that's still the city's responsibility. Next slide. All right, the intent of this item and possibly program impossible program is to assist property owners to repair their sidewalks and eliminate sidewalk displacements. Walking in Sausalito is important to the community, to the community and continuing to have sidewalks with minimal displacements is important for access. Staff does recommend a systematic approach of reviewing and addressing sidewalks such as having a concentrated inspection program along bridgeway or Caledonia or Napa. For sidewalks that are impacted by tree roots, the removal of the tree may be necessary. Replacing the tree in the exact location is usually not possible since a tree root system for a large tree is difficult to remove even with stump grinding. Nevertheless, installation of a new tree to replace the one that was removed will be pursued. city is still required to follow a nuisance abatement program or process. with repairing sidewalks and we hope to incentivize the repairs by the city participating in the cost with the, but we'll improve the walking in Sausalito. So with that, that concludes my presentation, and I'm here for questions and comments. |
| 00:57:24.00 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Director McGowan. Questions, please, for the Director. Council Member Blasstein, and then Vice Mayor. |
| 00:57:28.93 | Steven Woodside | Thanks, Director McGowan. So I'm excited and interested to see this initiative, but can you kind of give me an idea of where the thought process around a co-payment program with residents came from, if you've seen other communities do it, or what brought you to bring this before us tonight? |
| 00:57:44.49 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, in San Rafael they have a similar program, and I believe in San Isomal they also have a similar program with basically the same costs. 50% of the cost of the repair up to $1,000. |
| 00:57:57.97 | Steven Woodside | And in those other communities, have we seen significant improvements to sidewalks or folks opting in to participate in the program? |
| 00:58:06.15 | Kevin McGowan | In some areas, yes, and in some areas, no. Areas such as Gerstel Park in San Rafael have some tree issues and it's been difficult to try to solve those in years past. However, in other areas out in Glenwood, the program was well received. And so we did move forward with that. |
| 00:58:25.10 | Steven Woodside | And right now, in terms of improvements to our sidewalks, where does that sit in this year's CIP outside of the realm of this program? |
| 00:58:32.88 | Kevin McGowan | I mentioned it is in the CIP. It is. |
| 00:58:35.62 | Steven Woodside | This program is, but I mean, improvements to our sidewalks generally, are those in the CIP outside of the ones that the city is responsible for on the corners? |
| 00:58:45.78 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, I think the intent of bringing this up and to have the CIP include the $140,000 amount was to address not just things that come up with folks replacing their sidewalks and trees in the sidewalk, but also to address ours around our buildings, around parking lot one. |
| 00:59:05.72 | Steven Woodside | Okay, and assuming we don't use the $40,000 because not enough residents opt in or choose to do this, would that roll over into general sidewalk maintenance? Or would that just be something that goes back into our CIP or our reserves? |
| 00:59:18.14 | Kevin McGowan | I would suggest we hold it for at least a year and don't use it for anything other than having our residents being part of this program. And then next year when we come back to our capital improvement program or our budget, we can report back to you on how many folks participated and whether the program is successful. |
| 00:59:36.84 | Steven Woodside | and, And Again, this is something that's coming out of our general fund, so we have to think about the cost overall. But this is a give to get situation where residents can opt in to have the city pay for part of their necessary repairs. So from your perspective, it's a resident money saving opportunity? |
| 00:59:53.22 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, it's more of incentivizing. We need residents to help us to fix these sidewalks, and it's better to be proactive and cooperative than it is to go down the nooses and batement process all the time and trying to get folks to do things. |
| 01:00:09.24 | Steven Woodside | Great, thanks for bringing this before us, Director McGowan. |
| 01:00:12.23 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:00:12.24 | Kevin McGowan | We'll be right back. |
| 01:00:12.58 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:00:14.42 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, and thank you, Director McGowan. This was something that was surprising to me to learn was that the sidewalks were not primarily the cities to maintain. And I know that if someone said to me, Joan, there's a tree that's destroying the sidewalk, you now have to pay X thousand of dollars to replace the sidewalk, that would be shocking. And so I'm really pleased to hear your proposal that the city helped to defray that cost. I was interested in the inspection program that you mentioned. You mentioned key streets like Bridgeway and Caledonia, but what about streets like Edwards and other streets that really suffer from use and age. What about commencing the program with an overall city survey and identifying the most troublesome areas that would then be spot checked more frequently, for example? |
| 01:01:14.83 | Kevin McGowan | Those are all very good suggestions. However, with limited staff, it's hard to go ahead and analyze the full city. one of the recommendations that I presented was let's start with those main thoroughfares. Let's start with Bridgeway downtown. Let's start with Caledonia. Why? Because that's where we get a lot of our foot traffic. And that's where we may have a lot of folks coming from out of town that want to circulate through our town as well. So I'm suggesting starting in a localized area and then moving out. I have no objection to trying to look at the entire city. It's just that as a staff dedication for that, that may take more time to put together than simply looking at one specific area. |
| 01:02:00.70 | Jill Hoffman | And then with respect to the fact that the city has to pay for the damage caused by its own trees, don't we have a lot of trees along those main thoroughfares? And might that not create a good bit of expense and liability for the city? |
| 01:02:18.67 | Kevin McGowan | I think that those trees may already cause a lot of problems for the city, including liability. It's true that if we do concentrate on that area, we may find that we might have to take some of those trees out because their root systems are way too big. Um, For instance, down on lot two and three, we have some pine trees, and their roots are spreading out so much that they're going into the roadway. So yes, that could definitely come forward, and we'll need to look at that. |
| 01:02:50.26 | Jill Hoffman | And then final question, when we were hearing about possibilities for paving of the ferry landing, we heard about a technique Bill Hines mentioned for managing the root system underneath the ground. And I'm wondering where the city is required to remove and replace trees, whether we could consider that approach to avoid simply repeating the same issues that is requiring their removal and replacement in the first place. |
| 01:03:18.12 | Kevin McGowan | We would be happy to work with Sausalito Beautiful and other folks in order to address tree placement and how tree placement is occurring. Remember that in Sausalito we have a lot of utilities that are right there at the same spot. There are always conflicts, but we're always open to new ideas and let's give it a try. |
| 01:03:38.79 | Jill Hoffman | I don't just mean tree placement, I mean management of the root systems underground. There's some system where you, the root ball is encased or it's directed in the manner that it grows. I don't recall the specifics. I just remember thinking it was a phenomenal idea. |
| 01:03:54.69 | Kevin McGowan | We'd be glad to look at that. Thank you, Director. |
| 01:04:00.29 | Unknown | Thank you very much, Director McGillen. So my question perhaps is for you or for Chad, which is what are the administrative costs associated with this? And how exactly do we plan to administer it? Meaning, we assign somebody to the project, we have the sidewalk, there's $1,000 at play, and then I got to ask for my refund. I just want to make sure that this is something we have the staff and the process implement. |
| 01:04:26.38 | Kevin McGowan | So this is similar to the same program that we have for Sanitary. Our sanitary program folks can request to be reimbursed for replacing part of their line, their laterals. It's very similar to that in that the intention is to have the property owner do the work and if they want to be part of the program, they need to sign up before they start the process. And they perform the work, and then they request a reimbursement for up to $1,000. As far as our staffing, we have a new assistant engineer who I'm anticipating assigning him to this particular program. Again, I'm not anticipating going all the way around the city in the first year. I'm trying to concentrate on one specific area in order to make improvements. So that staff would manage that at this point in time. I don't think that we've gone through a full detail on how much time that would take. The idea this evening is to just ask you if you are interested in this program. |
| 01:05:31.70 | Unknown | And Kevin, how much does it cost to put in a new sidewalk? |
| 01:05:35.64 | Kevin McGowan | Usually it's about, let's see, the last I checked, it's about $25 to $30 a square foot. So it can be rather expensive. That's why we have a pretty big ticket in our capital program. |
| 01:05:47.14 | Unknown | Okay, so we have some folks who have lived here for a long time and may not have the cash flow. Is there a process in your mind for an exemption? |
| 01:05:59.06 | Kevin McGowan | I don't think I'm able to make that determination. According to our municipal code, they are responsible for it. |
| 01:06:09.22 | Unknown | Sure, they're responsible for it, but asking them to replace it is a different. If I can. |
| 01:06:14.36 | Chris Zapata | If I can, Kevin, and respond, Mayor and Council. So let's say the $40,000 you allocate gets used up and there's a need for more and there is absolutely some cases where hardship is involved. We'd come back to you and ask you for more money. |
| 01:06:35.30 | Steven Woodside | That's remember Hoffman you have any questions? |
| 01:06:39.96 | Jill Hoffman | No, I support the program. Thanks. |
| 01:06:43.32 | Steven Woodside | All right. Sorry, I have a couple questions, Director McGowan. Do we have a, for our streets, you have a pavement quality index, a PCI. Is there an equivalent of a PCI for sidewalks? |
| 01:06:54.51 | Kevin McGowan | I have not heard of one. |
| 01:06:57.46 | Steven Woodside | All right. Thank you. Anecdotally, the impression is that some of our sidewalks are in disrepair around time. And so if we wanted to try to get a scope on what it would cost to quote unquote fix our sidewalks, do we have any way of doing that? |
| 01:07:18.12 | Kevin McGowan | Um, |
| 01:07:18.79 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:07:20.16 | Kevin McGowan | It would take quite a few hours of staff time to analyze all of the sidewalk within the city to determine if it needs to be replaced. That would be square footage to analyzing utilities, which are definitely an issue here in town. It's possible. It would just take a lot of staff time. |
| 01:07:41.00 | Steven Woodside | So right now, can the city issue a citation under current ordinances if there's a sidewalk in disrepair? |
| 01:07:46.86 | Kevin McGowan | Yes. |
| 01:07:46.89 | Steven Woodside | Yes. And if a resident calls City Hall and says, there's a sidewalk in disrepair, please fix it. Thank you. |
| 01:07:54.35 | Kevin McGowan | What happens? |
| 01:07:54.82 | Steven Woodside | that. |
| 01:07:54.97 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 01:07:55.02 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:07:55.12 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. we'd have to notify the fronting property owner to repair it. |
| 01:07:58.16 | Steven Woodside | Is that the standard operating procedure? Yes. So if residents began simply to |
| 01:07:59.93 | Kevin McGowan | Yes. |
| 01:08:04.89 | Steven Woodside | report sidewalks that are in disrepair. The standing operating procedure would be that the city would then compel the property owner to fix the sidewalk? |
| 01:08:16.71 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, we'd have to issue a nuisance abatement letter to them to repair the sidewalk. |
| 01:08:21.41 | Steven Woodside | How many of those nuisance abatement letters are written, say, last year, approximately? |
| 01:08:24.88 | Kevin McGowan | We have not done a whole lot of them in my time here. |
| 01:08:28.94 | Steven Woodside | So does that mean you're not getting complaints? |
| 01:08:31.25 | Kevin McGowan | No. No. We are getting complaints. We have not issued a whole lot of them. We haven't received a whole lot of complaints. |
| 01:08:40.72 | Steven Woodside | You have not received a whole lot of complaints. Yeah. So there haven't been so many complaints. But I'm just trying to understand if that is actually our SOP. If you get a complaint, are we sitting on them or are we issuing nuisance abatement letters? |
| 01:08:42.27 | Kevin McGowan | Yeah. |
| 01:08:51.99 | Kevin McGowan | No, we investigate first. So, you know, there's always some nuances with this of, you know, is the raise in the panels greater than three-quarters of an inch? Then they do have to replace it. We've seen some sidewalk shaving as well. Sometimes we can address some of those for the property owners. That's a service that we have provided right now. But if that displacement is more than three quarters of an inch and sidewalk shaving doesn't work, then yes, we would issue a nuisance abatement letter to the property owner to fix it. |
| 01:09:22.86 | Steven Woodside | Do you have any idea in the last five years, let's say, how many trip and fall lawsuits you've had to settle? |
| 01:09:30.94 | Kevin McGowan | I think that would be a good question for our city attorney, but I think there have been quite a few. |
| 01:09:36.32 | Steven Woodside | Okay, and I, like the Vice Mayor, was surprised. I thought the sidewalks were the city's responsibility. I have a stair slash sidewalk next to me that I might have to repair. Is there a way that we can let people know that this is something that they're responsible for? Because I think many property owners might be waiting for the city to come fix the thing that's Maybe they just need to be told it's their responsibility, and some of the people who have the means would get on it. Thank you. |
| 01:10:06.02 | Kevin McGowan | Um, Well, I think that's the intent of this program as well, is to put something on our website. to kind of initiate a program to start in one area, such as Bridgeway or Caledonia, and work our way out. And to let folks know that this is what we have, we can put something on currents as well in order to get the word out. |
| 01:10:23.78 | Steven Woodside | Okay, so in your staff report you said addressing all the sidewalks in Susselia at one time is not practical. Seems real. Seems plausible. It's not practical. But I'm wondering you in your graph there, show I think a two block section of Caledonia. So I also, maybe I should start by just saying thank you for your leadership, for bringing this forth and bringing forward this learning you had at San Rafael. So let me say all that, thank you. |
| 01:10:48.04 | Kevin McGowan | Sounds good. |
| 01:10:50.07 | Steven Woodside | So the question just is, why two blocks? If we're concerned is the high traffic sidewalk area, why not just say the whole, maybe not the whole city, but perhaps the high trafficked sidewalk areas of downtown and Caledonia. sort of the high traffic visitor area. |
| 01:11:08.71 | Kevin McGowan | No particular reason. I wanted a good polygon that I could show and that was fairly noticeable to everybody. So I picked that particular area. It's down in front of Equator Coffee, and I've noticed the trees there are starting to push up the sidewalk. So when I took some pictures for this presentation, I simply drew a line around that area. I'm not suggesting that we necessarily pick that. But I think downtown or Caledonia would be a good place to start. |
| 01:11:40.96 | Steven Woodside | You had me at Polygon. But I'll ask one last question, which is the, sorry, |
| 01:11:42.67 | Kevin McGowan | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:11:50.31 | Steven Woodside | ambition of the city. I get that this is a problem and this is a beginning of a solution. But is your ambition that, is it realistic that our residents could expect that all the sidewalks in town could actually be fixed in say the next 10 years somehow? I would hope so, yes. |
| 01:12:12.97 | Kevin McGowan | 10 year period that would seem more reasonable. |
| 01:12:15.99 | Steven Woodside | So can you just connect the dots? What happens after this that leads to the kind of comprehensive across the city renaissance of... of our sidewalks is it an expansion of this program is it letting people know about their liability is it more abatement letters what's the combination that creates that |
| 01:12:35.87 | Kevin McGowan | Probably all of the above. So I'm suggesting we start in a more heavily trafficked area and work our way out. In other words, yeah, we could start on Bridgeway, but let's say next year we'd have to work our way up Turney. Okay. A pine. and see if we can have the property owners fix all of those as well. So it's initiating a program, and yes, maybe next year we would have to request additional funding if it is a popular program. Regardless, I think the city still has a responsibility for addressing sidewalk displacements. Even if it is a city tree, we do need to take care of these. |
| 01:13:15.65 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 01:13:15.70 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:13:15.80 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. Thank you very much. |
| 01:13:17.03 | Steven Woodside | questions advice mayor |
| 01:13:18.69 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. You reminded me of one other question I had. When we imposed a higher business license tax, we gave a heads up to our businesses a year before we actually imposed the tax. Have you considered a rollout program that gives residents a heads up? This is like publishing it in the Currents, for example. This is a new program the city is undertaking. The city is going to subsidize, you know, Here's how it all works. But giving people at least some... heads up, same once you've identified a property that needs to be repaired. Can we build into that some length of time that makes management of that task more feasible for those members of our community who are retirees or on a fixed income? |
| 01:14:11.08 | Kevin McGowan | Definitely, that's a very nice suggestion, and I think that we could use at least a six-month period to just get the program going and to set up our polygons of where we're going to take a look at. So I like that aspect. |
| 01:14:28.77 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:14:31.16 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 01:14:31.18 | Steven Woodside | Any other questions? All right, public comment, please. Mayor, before you use this thing, |
| 01:14:32.53 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 01:14:32.55 | Chris Zapata | Mayor, before you leave this topic, if I can, I want to add a little bit to the awareness question as well as where to start and focus your resources. Besides highly trafficked areas, areas of safety required, ADA compliance, next meeting we're going to unveil a C-Click fix app. And, you know, my hope is that that will help inform and provide data so that the council Will know you know if there are a bunch of clicks on certain sidewalk areas will have that and then we can start to Understand where we can and should put Resources but I think that that's part of awareness that's part of where and you know We're going to do a whole marketing campaign around that as well so I'm previewing that for the public so they understand that there is an ability for them to help us understand where the problems might be so thank you city manager |
| 01:15:29.53 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:15:29.59 | Sergio Rudin | Mayor, you earlier had a question about liability for the city sidewalks. Over the last 10 year period, the city's received about 26 claims that were categorized by BCJPIA as being related to a sidewalk repair maintenance issue. So the city is averaging about 2.6 claims per year. |
| 01:15:30.66 | Steven Woodside | All right. |
| 01:15:52.16 | Steven Woodside | Thank you very much. City Clerk, public comment. |
| 01:15:58.81 | Walfred Solorzano | Sunshine. |
| 01:16:08.01 | Sandra Bushmaker | Greetings. It's not really what I came to comment for initially, but since I live across the street and there's a city tree that is. forcing the sidewalk up I was thinking, well, I could be very easily, like you say, I could be someone that could help. notify that there's a tree or a sidewalk that needs to be taken care of, It reduces your staff time because you were getting calls from the residents and That's all I really wanted to say about it. I think we could do a cooperative thing and maybe even give someone a reward for notifying you about a tree that needs to be done or a sidewalk. |
| 01:16:51.98 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. you |
| 01:16:54.75 | Walfred Solorzano | See no further, we have Mordecai Bedstein. |
| 01:16:56.31 | Sandra Bushmaker | I don't feel I love it. |
| 01:16:56.96 | Steven Woodside | I'm sorry. |
| 01:17:04.83 | Walfred Solorzano | All right, you know what? I'm gonna... |
| 01:17:12.39 | Walfred Solorzano | Hold on. Give me one moment real fast. |
| 01:17:20.96 | Walfred Solorzano | I just can do what I usually do. Sorry, if I can have one moment. Sure. |
| 01:17:25.26 | Steven Woodside | Sure. Please take your time city clerk. In fact, when we take a two minute bio break, uh, while the city clerk manages this it issue and we'll be right back. |
| 01:18:16.06 | Unknown | Yes. Thank you. |
| 01:20:41.99 | Steven Woodside | reset. |
| 01:20:46.36 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah, no further public speakers. No further public comments. |
| 01:20:47.90 | Steven Woodside | No further public comment. Okay, we'll close public comment, and we will bring it back to the diocese of discussion. |
| 01:20:52.96 | Walfred Solorzano | Oh, actually, we do have Babette McDougall. |
| 01:20:56.28 | Steven Woodside | Please proceed, Ms. McDougall. |
| 01:21:00.86 | Steven Woodside | Please unmute yourself, Ms. McDougall. You're still muted. |
| 01:21:07.35 | Steven Woodside | There you go. Thank you. |
| 01:21:07.44 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 01:21:08.65 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:21:08.67 | Babette McDougall | Can you hear me now? |
| 01:21:09.48 | Steven Woodside | We can. Go right ahead. |
| 01:21:11.20 | Babette McDougall | I don't know that you can see me even though I have my... |
| 01:21:12.86 | Steven Woodside | You can see you as well. Please go right ahead. |
| 01:21:14.43 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. Thank you, sir. I just want to tell you, I'm really dating myself, but I was actually sitting in that very room when the sidewalk ordinance was first introduced as a statewide initiative that might be appropriate to the city of Sausalito. And now here we are all these years later, finally revisiting it. And I think what we need to do is revisit viability of the ordinance as originally written and how it may apply today given the increasing amount of change in density within our neighborhoods. As you know, my home is directly above City Hall. And I'm on a corner and there is a stretch of sidewalk in front of me that has been destroyed. by the cheek by jowl parking of all these pickup trucks by all the contractors that bring their vehicles and surround their homes and park whatever they can't fit around their own homes along my street because i'm one of the few flat streets that being gerard avenue As a result, a great deal of the curb has been destroyed because they drive their wheels up on the sidewalk curbs without even a thought of what the damage might be. They routinely rest their largest vehicles right over the storm drain grates. So there's a tremendous amount of difficulty in determining who's who's really entitled to park where. I've had to beg people to allow me to park in front of my own access to my own home. I mean, really, everybody says, well, I'm entitled to 72 hours here. I can stay as long as I want. I said, well, I understand that, sir, but you know what? I also am responsible. for 50% of this entire thing to the center of the road, and I pay taxes every year faithfully because I honor that commitment. Now, if you want to talk about negotiating some portion of that tax responsibility, let's talk about you blocking my steps. And I happen |
| 01:23:11.20 | Walfred Solorzano | THE END OF THE END OF THE No further public comment? |
| 01:23:14.59 | Steven Woodside | to the diaspora discussion, please, Vice Mayor. |
| 01:23:16.99 | Jill Hoffman | I'm going to go ahead and move that we approve staff's recommendation to provide an annual sidewalk repair program to be included In the fiscal year 2024-25 capital improvement program in the amount of $40,000 to assist and incentivize resident participation in the program, that we include in our rollout, advance noticing to the community. |
| 01:23:43.26 | Steven Woodside | We'll now have discussion on that motion. discussion who wants to lead off, if any. |
| 01:23:53.22 | Unknown | My only point, if I can't remember, is that the advance notice, I think will have to be thought through carefully. I think there are probably many people who don't want to be told it was in currents and they didn't know about it. And so we'll have to maybe think through how we could directly inform people that they may be on this list so they can give us some consideration. I think that would be helpful. |
| 01:24:16.52 | Steven Woodside | Any other comments? I have one, but go ahead. |
| 01:24:19.93 | Steven Woodside | I'm happy to see the program move forward, and I would encourage all residents who are eligible to participate in the new program as it becomes available. |
| 01:24:29.18 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, I don't know. I offer it for our consideration about being a little more ambitious, and even in this first step, I want to again commend Director McGowan for bringing this idea from San Rafael to our community, and it could be a first step on fixing our sidewalks. But one thought I have is that some property owners are land poor. They have a very valuable piece of property but not great cash flow so it is a huge calamity really from a cash flow point of view if they get an assessment so if they get a complaint and when we rolled out see click fix next month there could be a lot more complaints and if it's connected to abatement letters you could suddenly have a lot of people who don't have the cash flow having the choice between an expensive bill or an expensive citation. But conversely, there are many property owners, not a few of them, particularly in commercial areas that are absentee property owners. Trusts, corporations that have a lot of money, that simply haven't been maintaining their sidewalk. Maybe they don't know they need to, but they haven't been compelled by a complaint. And so I wouldn't like a one size fit all subsidy that subsidizes the person that's in dire financial distress and someone who is not, whether to be a corporation or a person. So I do not know what other mechanisms we have in this city for helping people where they have issues with their fees or otherwise because they struggle to pay them. But I would love to, in the next round of discussion, just see what anyone else has to say about that notion. So I see the vice mayor is chomping at the bit. So what do you have any, have a slide in my comments? |
| 01:26:19.88 | Jill Hoffman | Well, I would be very cautious about penalizing people who have saved their shekels and are well off, as opposed to those who are living hand-to-mouth. So I would be very cautious about the city making any program associated with sidewalk repairs equally available to all residents slash property owners. So I just would make that caution. You know, I would hate to be penalized because I've carefully saved for my retirement, and I'm not broke. So that just feels unfair to me. |
| 01:27:05.48 | Steven Woodside | I was like, I remember Hoffman. |
| 01:27:07.15 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I would suggest that we move forward with the program as presented to us by Director McCowan and then see how, what we learn from this. And if we want to amend it or add to it later, then I think that we can. I'm also cognizant of staff time and any additional, I know they're overloaded now as it is, and I think this is a really good start. And I think we should go ahead and move forward. That doesn't prevent us from doing or iterating later. So that's what I would suggest at this point. |
| 01:27:43.07 | Steven Woodside | That's very common. Yeah, Mayor. |
| 01:27:43.82 | Unknown | Yeah, Mayor, I'll give another perspective or actually just build on what you're offering. Perhaps there is a distinction between commercial and residential property owners that needs to be examined that can help achieve some of what you're outlining. |
| 01:27:58.65 | Steven Woodside | So I don't know if we want to pull that into this very notion or not. You know, that is kind of, this is a pilot project, right? So whatever we do is at a pilot scale. But that's the nature of pilot projects is that they then expand. So I'm just cognizant of the difference between a mom and pop that bought a storefront and a corporation that has 5,000 properties across the country and a billion dollars in assets. |
| 01:28:01.20 | Unknown | or not. |
| 01:28:26.39 | Unknown | $1.5 billion. |
| 01:28:29.80 | Steven Woodside | you I'm cognizant of it. I don't know where to go with that. And if we can't figure it out here from the dais, it could be something that we ask the director to consider in the future or to riff off of our other programs. Because we do, Vice Mayor, have programs, I believe, in the city for when someone can't afford a fee or a penalty, so this isn't breaking new trail, it's really copying a structure we might have already for other fees. |
| 01:28:53.71 | Jill Hoffman | I have no issue with Councilmember Kelman's distinction between residential and commercial. What I thought I heard you say was that our subsidies would only be available to certain segments of our population, which is the programs you're discussing are request-driven as opposed to an across-the-board program, I think. But I really like the idea of asking staff to, you know, consider other approaches as part of this pilot program. |
| 01:29:27.85 | Jill Hoffman | I think maybe it's a, oh, sorry. Please go right ahead. |
| 01:29:29.71 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:29:29.72 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:29:29.74 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:29:29.79 | Steven Woodside | Please go right ahead. |
| 01:29:31.56 | Jill Hoffman | I think maybe it's a let's roll it out and see how it goes and have staff come back in a year and tell us how it went. and then whatever whatever problems have come up um there are like you know with regard to people that can't afford um especially pursuant to citation, right? I mean, there are avenues to address that. And then the inequities that we've sort of touched on up here, but without any metrics or any sort of analysis. I think the staff when they come back at the annual one year annual from the rollout could be able to they'll be able to get some really good information at that point and if we need to amend or move forward in a different way but I think this is a great program I think it's simple it's only a thousand dollars per person right for whatever the match so it's it's not a windfall to anybody at least I don't see that it is a windfall and then let's just see how it goes |
| 01:30:27.47 | Steven Woodside | So let me ask you this. Would my colleagues be in favor of, in that sense of getting information and doing this trial, of having Director McGowan keep good stats on the complaint resolution around all the sidewalk complaints that we get? I think that's gonna be, oh sorry. Just as a report, connecting it to either it was fixed or it was an abatement letter that led to a penalty, or it was a complaint that led to an application under this program. But just that we don't have a PCI for our sidewalks, and we don't have a method of doing it, but we could start keeping track of our own data. |
| 01:30:41.61 | Jill Hoffman | I think that's going to be. Thank you. Oh, sorry. |
| 01:30:43.57 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:31:01.29 | Jill Hoffman | I think that would be part of the report that he comes back at the annual, right? I mean, that would just be what you report on. I agree with you, but I think, yeah. Thank you. |
| 01:31:09.40 | Steven Woodside | Yes, Mayor. |
| 01:31:10.48 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thanks. |
| 01:31:10.55 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Any other discussion on this? All right, we have a motion that's been seconded. We'll call the question. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed? All right, the Vice Mayor's motion carries. We'll move on to the next agenda item, which is the consent item that was pulled off of the consent calendar. This is item 3C, receive and file a status report regarding the Ferry Landside Improvement Project. |
| 01:31:17.67 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 01:31:17.71 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. |
| 01:31:17.89 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:31:40.96 | Steven Woodside | Director McGowan, are you presenting this? |
| 01:31:43.96 | Kevin McGowan | item |
| 01:31:44.91 | Steven Woodside | Or is there a presentation? |
| 01:31:46.87 | Kevin McGowan | There is not a presentation. This was a consent item at this point in time. |
| 01:31:48.23 | Steven Woodside | So, Okay, so the floor is open for questions of Director McGowan. I see Mr. Hines is here as well, Vice Mayor. |
| 01:31:57.26 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I was actually pleased to see this item pulled because I also had some questions on this. In the staff report, it makes mention that staff has identified an additional funding source and noted that source on the draft capital improvement program submitted to the Council on March 19, but it didn't say what that funding program was. I'm assuming that was the Tidelands Fund? |
| 01:32:22.91 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, it's noted in the Capital Improvement Program on 4-2 And Tide Lens program is what's noted. |
| 01:32:29.71 | Jill Hoffman | And then I think as part of considering using the Tidelands Fund, we at some point asked to know how much is in the Tidelands Fund. I think I asked how much is in the Tidelands Fund. And what are the pending obligations against the Tidelands Fund? So when and if we decide to call upon the tidelands fund, will you be able to provide us with that data? |
| 01:32:53.76 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:32:53.79 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:32:53.83 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:32:53.91 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:32:53.98 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:32:54.10 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:32:54.48 | Kevin McGowan | Our finance director is standing behind me. |
| 01:32:56.63 | Jill Hoffman | All right, I wasn't gonna take the time right now, but fine. Yeah. |
| 01:33:00.48 | Chad Hess | Yes. And the Tideland's fund, we currently have over a million dollars available. I don't have any intended use for those funds at this point in time. The cash flow of that fund increases about $300,000 each year, so there is available funds in the future as well. |
| 01:33:18.23 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. um, |
| 01:33:25.64 | Jill Hoffman | Your recommend, your, so our direction to staff on, in February was to, direct staff to make construction level drawings of the phases that can be funded by the grant. And. We directed staff to identify phases of the plan that can be built within the budget of the grant. Your staff report today is proposing that we prepare construction drawings for the entirety of the project, not just what we think we can afford today, and that we consider going out to bid for the entirety of the project. And so your staff report today seems to be abandoning the direction we gave in February that you come back to us with a phasing plan. |
| 01:34:23.35 | Kevin McGowan | No, not exactly. We've received an additional engineer's estimate or an estimate from SWA stating that all of these phases can be included in the grant amount. Therefore, we're moving forward with the design of all of the phases based off of SWA's estimate. |
| 01:34:40.29 | Jill Hoffman | But did you not say to me in an email that you take the accuracy of the estimate with some level of reservation because you've not seen the details and because we are never sure of the cost of a construction project until we bid it? |
| 01:34:52.78 | Kevin McGowan | That's true. |
| 01:34:54.01 | Jill Hoffman | And isn't the estimate we received today considerably lower than prior estimates that we've received? Thank you. |
| 01:34:59.98 | Kevin McGowan | Yes. |
| 01:35:00.96 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so I think that's why we wanted to have a phasing plan and I can't speak for my fellow council members, but I think that's why we were seeking a phasing plan. so that we're not stuck if the base bid is for the entire project without alternates, as you discussed in your staff report, and we can't afford the base bid that comes in. That's not the direction we gave. We wanted to be sure that we could actually get moving on something without having to reject all bids and come back. And so. it. It seems to me a better course, wouldn't you agree, it's a better course of action to have a discrete base bid, which is what was described to us on February 6th, and have the ancillary projects such as Tracy Way and other aspects as alternates, where you also get the bid prices. If we can afford all of it, hallelujah. But if we can't afford all of it, isn't it better to at least have a base bid that we can proceed with immediately? |
| 01:36:05.54 | Kevin McGowan | I think I'm on the same page as you. However, the way you've stated this is in order to get bid alternatives, you have to design something. So we have to design these alternatives in order to get bids for them. Even if they're separated out from the base bid, we still have to design them. So my proposal is to go ahead and design these phases. Get another estimate from BKF for each phase. At that point in time, you can decide what is the base bid amount, and how do you make that work with the amount of the grant funding. |
| 01:36:40.24 | Jill Hoffman | And so what is the incremental cost that we will pay to the architects to design the entirety of the project, as opposed to the direction that we gave on February 6th? |
| 01:36:52.20 | Kevin McGowan | You've already approved BKF's design. They are already moving forward with that. |
| 01:36:57.99 | Jill Hoffman | we approved the design concept we did not approve preparation of construction drawings for the entirety of the project, specifically Our motion. at bullet1238. Bullet two was, can prepare construction level drawings of the phases that can be funded by the grant. |
| 01:37:19.07 | Kevin McGowan | And how am I to obtain that without designing something? |
| 01:37:23.35 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. that wasn't an issue that you raised when we gave direction on February 6th. So I'm certainly— |
| 01:37:31.30 | Kevin McGowan | I'd be glad to do whatever it is you'd like me to do. |
| 01:37:34.85 | Jill Hoffman | Well, I just would like to know the differential. I'd like to know, I guess, what it is that we're going to do. |
| 01:37:40.11 | Steven Woodside | Can you help educate us on the process? Because I think that's where the vice mayor is just going. And I think you're trying to answer it. But just elaborate a little bit on how you get how you do a bid document, maybe educate us all. |
| 01:37:51.35 | Jill Hoffman | Well, I obviously know how to do a bid document. I'm a construction lawyer, but I'm asking What is the cost to the city to have an architect provide construction-level drawings of all phases. |
| 01:38:04.83 | Kevin McGowan | That cost has already been approved through BKF. I can look up their cost to find that out. I think it was 116,000 was their latest amendment. and they are design engineers, not architects. |
| 01:38:17.59 | Jill Hoffman | Fair enough. |
| 01:38:24.05 | Jill Hoffman | Um, |
| 01:38:30.08 | Jill Hoffman | And then I wanted to ask about the submission to BCDC. Your staff report said it was anticipated that the project Documentation will be sent to BCDC on April 9th. I wanted to find out if that happened and what the status of review is. |
| 01:38:44.45 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, we have submitted that to BCDC. We probably need another week for them to catalog it and see where they stand with it. We've alerted their staff that this is coming and met with them prior to submitting. |
| 01:38:56.08 | Jill Hoffman | A prior staff report said their typical review time is three to six months. Have you discussed with them what the specific review time for this permit will be? |
| 01:39:04.87 | Kevin McGowan | They have not told us what that would be. They have not been specific. When we've talked to their division manager, she said that she gave me the standard answer, which was six to nine months. |
| 01:39:17.18 | Jill Hoffman | And have you communicated to Golden Gate Bridge District that our project could be delayed three to six months while awaiting a permit from BCDC? |
| 01:39:25.66 | Kevin McGowan | I'm not sure if that's considered a delay, but we are meeting with Golden Gate Bridge Highway Transportation District and will convey that to them. |
| 01:39:35.37 | Jill Hoffman | I think it's important, you know, we got another letter April 2 from them about time is of the essence. And so I just want to make sure that they understand that we're at least three to six months out from being ready to put shovels in the ground. |
| 01:39:50.27 | Kevin McGowan | unless we can ask BCDC to move it quicker, which we are anticipating doing. |
| 01:39:55.60 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:39:58.37 | Steven Woodside | Council Member Blassey. |
| 01:39:59.67 | Steven Woodside | Great, thanks. Hi, Director McGowan. Nice to see you on this issue again. I appreciate the report that you've included. I wanted to follow on Council Member, or sorry, Vice Mayor Cox's questions here, just to kind of get to the bottom of this. So we approved construction level drawings in the February meeting, correct? Yes. Okay, and would it be possible to bid any phase of the project without those construction level drawings? |
| 01:40:19.53 | Kevin McGowan | Yes. |
| 01:40:25.91 | Kevin McGowan | No, you still need construction level drawings in order to get a construction |
| 01:40:29.08 | Steven Woodside | Right. So there's no way for us to know the cost of phases A through G whether or not we choose to engage in them at any point or time without the construction level drawings, correct? Yes. And at this point, you're just asking us to go forward with the construction level drawings, and then we can talk as a council again about the phases if they are outside the realm of the 1.8 as suggested by the architects group. |
| 01:40:51.71 | Kevin McGowan | I'm not sure. Yes. |
| 01:40:53.04 | Steven Woodside | Okay, so again, it's not, authorization necessarily outside of the realm of what we had approved in february but rather as part of the overarching funding that we've already approved they will do these phase drawings and yes okay great i just wanted to clarify that it's putting those drawings forward so that we can decide if we are going to engage in the phased approach and we have them whether or not we move forward at whatever phase of the project |
| 01:41:05.31 | Unknown | And the. |
| 01:41:05.82 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:41:16.43 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, you will have the details on each one of the pieces and we can decide, you can decide, on which piece would be considered as a base bid compared to a bid alternative. |
| 01:41:26.51 | Steven Woodside | So you're trying to empower us to use our money as effectively as possible. Yes. Thank you, Director McGowan. |
| 01:41:30.29 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 01:41:30.30 | Steven Woodside | you |
| 01:41:30.35 | Kevin McGowan | Yeah. |
| 01:41:30.51 | Steven Woodside | you Thank you. Is there a council member Hoffman? |
| 01:41:36.90 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. So just a follow-up on a couple of questions from Council Member Blaustein. So I notice one of the reasons I brought this up last week with the CIP where this was listed was because there was some discrepancy between what the council had approved in February and March 19th staff report, which was an update. Going forward, I think it would be really helpful for all of us to adhere to what was actually directed by the council on February 6th, 2024, to have have a verbatim transcript from that, or at least the bullets, verbatim bullets of what we approved, right? Because I'm looking at the minutes right now. They could be a little bit clearer, as Councilmember Council Member Cox just pointed out, you know, two was that we wanted to have phases that can be funded by the project. And then further down, there were bullet five is, you know, to solicit private and public sources for additional funding to construct the phases that cannot be paid by the grant, such as raising Tracy ways. So I was surprised in the March 19th staff report when raising Tracy way as part of the local professional group was recommended as phase two of the plan. And so my concern with this staff report from March 19th, as we discussed it last week, the CIP discussion was that it seemed to me that the direction of the council was not being followed as we move forward through this plan. And so, and that's why I was further confused by the staff report because it didn't, alternately in the staff report, it looked like we were gonna just do one bid for the entire project. As you've explained now, we're going to do Um, as I understand it, we're gonna do bids for each of these A, A through A. I suppose, and I will note, okay, so A through F, and then there's G as well. Are we gonna do, are we intending to do, include G as part of the, |
| 01:43:52.46 | Jill Hoffman | part of the drawings and part of the bid requests? |
| 01:43:54.77 | Kevin McGowan | I think the complexity of, let's see, it says landscaping and site furnishings is part G. |
| 01:44:03.86 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 01:44:03.90 | Kevin McGowan | Yes. So those particular pieces, they are integral to the project. But I'd suggest that as our design team looks at this, that they include the furnishings and landscaping for each component and don't separate them out into a separate separate piece. In other words, on part A and part D and E, those would be integral to those costs. |
| 01:44:30.19 | Jill Hoffman | But they would be called out separately in that bid when it comes back. Like the bid for Section E would include whatever portion of it is for trees and furniture and things like that. |
| 01:44:41.43 | Kevin McGowan | Hard for me to say right now. Let's see how the bids, how our design engineer splits it out. And I would say yes, you're correct, but it would still be integral to a part of each one of these components. |
| 01:44:54.96 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, I would request that that be separated out. I would request that it still be, that G, Section G, still be separate or it be itemized in those sections that are contiguous to those new phases. No problem. You know, I will note that these are different. These are, this drawing, and another reason why this was confusing, right, this drawing on page two of the staff report, |
| 01:45:10.02 | Kevin McGowan | No problem. |
| 01:45:19.04 | Jill Hoffman | is different than what we saw on February 6th. Thank you. |
| 01:45:21.78 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:45:21.79 | Jill Hoffman | So I went back and looked at, I'm looking at it right now, the February 6th drawings that we received from the architect group, |
| 01:45:21.83 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:45:27.19 | Jill Hoffman | Don't include Tracy White. None of the drawings, your drawings, their drawings, they don't include Tracy Way. And so now Tracy Way has been added back in and raising Tracy White. has been added back in, and I would request that that just be removed. I don't know why Tracy Way, We specifically said Tracy Way wasn't part of our direction. and now it's been included in a consent item staff report. So if we're deviating from direction that was given by the council on February 6th, then I would seriously request that that, Every time something's added that we didn't direct, that slows us down. So when we have to pull things off the consent calendar, I know we're gonna get criticized because we got some critical, emails about the council approved the plan. We did not approve specifically the plan. In fact, council member Kellman very specifically said the Council approved the design concept but this is not a commitment to build this exact design. As a project moves forward through construction phases, public safety assessments, resilience and funding, the design will evolve. So this is what we're doing. we're going through this evolution, But now, a new section has been added back in. And so can you tell me how Tracy Way as C is now part of this plan? |
| 01:46:59.90 | Kevin McGowan | I think I might turn that over to Bill Hines, who brought that up. But, um, It's a good question and we will remove it. |
| 01:47:09.91 | Jill Hoffman | Can I ask a follow-on question before we hear from Mr. Hines? |
| 01:47:12.71 | Jill Hoffman | I do have one. Let me ask one other thing. And I'm looking at the staff report from February 6th. |
| 01:47:14.15 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:47:19.87 | Jill Hoffman | And it, you know, I'm looking at the estimates from that report. And it was... on slide 10 of the staff report Tracy Way, not Toicy Way, but Tracy Way remains the same. And even without, even taking Tracy Way out, $310,000 of additional funding is needed. You know, this is... I'm not clear if over on Humboldt there's a red box around it and I'm not sure if that was supposed to be removed or not. it's still in our plan as well. Do you have an explanation why even without Tracy Way in February, additional $310,000 was requested? |
| 01:48:13.89 | Kevin McGowan | Was I requesting that in February? I don't believe so. |
| 01:48:16.75 | Jill Hoffman | believe so. It's on page 10 of your |
| 01:48:19.62 | Kevin McGowan | I was suggesting that that would be a preliminary estimate for it. We can still decide on whether to add that at a later point in time. |
| 01:48:26.69 | Jill Hoffman | Well this was the revised estimate with Tracy Way it looks like it was an additional $800,000, but without Tracy Way, it was an additional $310,000. |
| 01:48:36.63 | Kevin McGowan | Yeah, I think the idea was to try to get you an order of magnitude, because that was probably the intent of that meeting, is to say, okay, where are we ending up at this point in time? |
| 01:48:45.46 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so I don't have any further questions. I'm happy to pass, but I do have a follow up, I think. |
| 01:48:51.90 | Steven Woodside | Any other, let's give, if it's narrow to this. It's very narrow to what we just said. |
| 01:48:52.63 | Jill Hoffman | Let's give a follow-up. Very good. |
| 01:48:56.04 | Steven Woodside | narrow to what we just said. |
| 01:48:57.31 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:48:57.39 | Steven Woodside | Just to follow up on that, a lot of the questions that came up were around the potential evolution of the construction and what the design would look like. So construction-level drawings would help us clear up some of those questions, right? Yes. Okay, so then we would be able to see better what that evolution would look like. And if we had construction-level drawings of Tracy Way, we would be able to determine the actual cost of Tracy Way. Yes, we would get an estimate for it. Just wanted to clarify. |
| 01:48:57.76 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:49:19.41 | Steven Woodside | Yes, we would get an estimate for it. Councilmember Kelman. |
| 01:49:23.26 | Unknown | Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Director McGowan. How about we just pull Chad up, because I actually have questions about the Thailand Fund instead. Give Kevin a break here. Thank you. So Chad and maybe Sergio, you're available as well. I'm wondering, I just want to be totally clear, what the basis is for use of Thailand's money on this project because those are very specific as you know and we all know. Expand on construction, repair, operation, maintenance of harbors, stadiums, maritime museums, beaches, waterways, and related facilities. Thank you. Is it, are you guys, yeah. Sergio, what's the basis for using these monies? |
| 01:50:00.10 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:50:00.16 | Sergio Rudin | Sergio Woodson. |
| 01:50:00.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:50:05.29 | Steven Woodside | We can't hear you. |
| 01:50:06.61 | Unknown | We're missing all your good stuff. |
| 01:50:09.31 | Sergio Rudin | I'm trying to pull up the exact provision of the public resources code that governs that. So give me a, |
| 01:50:15.10 | Unknown | Okay, so while you're looking that up, and so, Chad, you had said earlier, I think, that this fund increases by $300,000 every year. And can you just articulate where that revenue comes from? |
| 01:50:16.72 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah. |
| 01:50:25.29 | Chad Hess | Yeah, so we have primary tenants, the Spinnaker, Sausalud, Yacht Harbor, and I'm drawing a blank on the other one, sorry. Spinnaker, sauce lute at Harbor. SCOMAs, Trident, And I'm drawing a blank on the other one, but primarily it's going to be Spinnaker. |
| 01:50:45.03 | Unknown | And has that been consistent influx of revenue over like a five-year period? |
| 01:50:49.94 | Chad Hess | It's been building fund balance for a number of years. |
| 01:50:53.91 | Unknown | but we could expect $300,000 annually for the next five, 10 years? |
| 01:50:57.83 | Chad Hess | Yes, for the foreseeable future. |
| 01:50:59.92 | Unknown | Okay, and we have, what do you say, a million in there right now? We have over a million in there now. Okay. Sorry, I'm just killing time for Sergio to find the resources. |
| 01:51:02.23 | Chad Hess | We have over a million in there now. Yeah. |
| 01:51:05.84 | Sergio Rudin | Bye. |
| 01:51:08.95 | Unknown | Did I do it? |
| 01:51:10.53 | Sergio Rudin | No, not quite. Trying to see if I can find it in my Okay, I just want that to be... |
| 01:51:15.41 | Unknown | Okay, I just want that to be part of the record for this hearing, what the basis is. because it could be used for maintaining riprap and other flooding that we're experiencing and other things, right? |
| 01:51:33.77 | Unknown | Okay, I'm happy to, if someone else wants to use the time, |
| 01:51:37.75 | Steven Woodside | I think the Vice Mayor wanted to ask a question. |
| 01:51:40.49 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:51:40.50 | Jill Hoffman | My question was actually of Director McGowan. Sorry. |
| 01:51:44.59 | Sergio Rudin | And I should be able to find it following the inclusion of the comment. |
| 01:51:46.24 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, no problem. Sorry, I should have passed. |
| 01:51:47.88 | Unknown | Thank you. before the meeting. Sorry about that. |
| 01:51:48.55 | Jill Hoffman | Sorry about that. Were you reading it from it, Janelle? |
| 01:51:50.71 | Unknown | but it was quoted in something else. I didn't have the actual code. |
| 01:51:54.32 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. So, Director McGowan, Council Member Hoffman was asking you about Tracy Way and some other aspects of the project that we had specifically said hold off on. I realize that the local professionals group would prefer to prepare construction drawings for the entirety of every prospective phase and get bid quotes and provide cost estimates for the entirety. But were you clear on the direction from the council that the phases initially were not to include Tracy Way? |
| 01:52:31.75 | Kevin McGowan | I am now. |
| 01:52:33.19 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, but you weren't clear on February 6th? |
| 01:52:36.01 | Kevin McGowan | Um, apparently not. |
| 01:52:39.26 | Steven Woodside | Okay, so I directly think that's incorrect. The motion, and I'll just read it in full into the record. The city council hereby authorized the following approval |
| 01:52:39.92 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 01:52:39.94 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:52:51.56 | Steven Woodside | approval of the local professional groups recommended plan. Thank you. direct staff to make construction level drawings of the phases that can be funded by the grant. direct staff to identify phases of the plan that can be built within the budget of the GGTHB grant. Authorize staff to solicit private and public sources of additional funding to construct phases that cannot be paid with the grant, such as raising Tracy Way. Exactly, so how can the raising and changing of Tracy Way not be part of the design and yet be part of the motion? |
| 01:53:20.02 | Rick Simonson | Exactly. |
| 01:53:28.52 | Jill Hoffman | Because we specifically excluded it. |
| 01:53:31.20 | Steven Woodside | It's not in the motion. That motion specifically excludes it. No, it doesn't. It says it's not. |
| 01:53:31.57 | Jill Hoffman | It's not in the motion. That motion specifically excludes it. No, it doesn't. It says such as raise money for other aspects of the project that can't be built, such as Tracy Way. |
| 01:53:36.96 | Steven Woodside | So. Such as Tracy Way. Thank you Vice Mayor. I appreciate the back and forth, but that's not what the plain English says. So I see that the Council Member Hoffman agrees. But the motion is, all right, I'll call on you in a moment. So I think that that will come as a big shock. to all the people here and a fair bit of surprise. So, In your reading of this motion, it sounded like back in February 6th, you thought the plain language of this when we approved the local professionals group plan. The local professional groups plan included modifications to Tracy way. It sounds like you interpret that to mean that modifying Tracy way was part of the local professional groups plan. Is that true? |
| 01:54:28.97 | Kevin McGowan | That was part of their plan, but I'm glad that we're talking about it now, and I welcome your clarification. |
| 01:54:35.66 | Steven Woodside | Okay. So. |
| 01:54:39.14 | Unknown | I think we need to ask questions of staff and bring it back to council for discussion when we can. |
| 01:54:45.18 | Steven Woodside | I'm trying now to get this state of mind to play. I'm living in a Kafkaesque world where words don't have meaning apparently. So, yeah. Okay. All right, so let me ask Mr. Hines since you did some of these estimates. |
| 01:55:04.76 | Steven Woodside | Just was the raising of Tracy Way a part of the plan? |
| 01:55:10.85 | Unknown | Yes, it was. Initially there was some concern that we would not be able to fund it with the budget. You'll see attached to the staff report our recommendations for how to bid this project out within the current budget. And you'll see as a part of that that we have worked with city staff to develop a solution with a permeable gravel paving that we can use to raise Tracy Way. that's going to be substantially less money than the 300 some odd thousand dollars that was originally quoted to do it in concrete. And it's also something that could be you know, undone later or allow for continued evolution of downtown. But absolutely, it can include raising Tracy Way. And if for whatever reason, that doesn't play out. we're instructing staff to include that as a deduct alternate. so that that would reduce the base bid cost. We do think that there's a project here for $1.89 million. And I'm a little confused as to why there's so much conjecture over this, because we sharpened our pencils in order to develop an estimate that would get us to that standpoint. So it's great to be able to express this, because you guys have enlisted my expertise and have paid for my time on this. |
| 01:56:40.30 | Steven Woodside | Vice Mayor has a follow-up question. |
| 01:56:41.38 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, we were never, so it was not communicated in the March report or this evening's report that you had come up with a different means for constructing Tracy Way that would bring it within the budget. So in the plans I'm looking at on the screen, the plans, Tracy Way was hatched out as not being included in the base project, in the plans that were provided to us on February 6th because of cost. And so if you've come up with another way to include it within the budget, that's brilliant, but that was not communicated to us. And I also find it notable that you just said that you have instructed staff |
| 01:56:41.44 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:57:20.13 | Jill Hoffman | to do something. And that's really our role to instruct staff as opposed to the local professionals group. |
| 01:57:26.71 | Unknown | Forgive me, I've offered my suggestions to staff. |
| 01:57:29.49 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:57:30.88 | Steven Woodside | Can you elaborate on this design element for the permeable surface? I'm just following up. |
| 01:57:34.98 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:57:35.00 | Unknown | I actually had a hand. At some point, maybe we go back to the city attorney for my question. |
| 01:57:42.62 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, so I have, I have located it. It's public resources code 6306. All revenues from trust lands and trust assets. shall be expended only for those uses and purposes consistent with the public trust for commerce, navigation, fisheries, and the applicable statutory grant. Pulling up the 1957 statutory grant for the city of Sausalito of the Tidelands. It says that the lands shall be used by the cities and its successors for the establishment improvement and conduct of a harborer, David Vogelpohl, MD, Including an airport or aviation facilities and for the construction maintenance operation there on a wars docks peers slips case and other utility structures facilities. David Vogelpohl, MD, and appliances necessary or convenient for the promotion accommodation of commerce and navigation by air, as well as by water and for the construction maintenance and operation there of a public buildings and public parks and playgrounds and for public recreational purposes. and the city shall not at any time grant convey or give away those lands. you know, subject to restrictions. So the thought here is that this parking lot is part of the Ferry Landside project, which, you know, is at least in part provides parking and facilities for use of, you know, for the ferry, which is navigation and commerce by water. So it does fit within the purposes of the statutory grant, and it's consistent with the public trust uses because it will be used by the public. |
| 01:59:15.76 | Unknown | Thank you, Sergio. |
| 01:59:17.81 | Steven Woodside | Councilman, how often you said you had a question for Mr. Heist. |
| 01:59:20.08 | Jill Hoffman | Mr. Hines. Yeah, it is a question for Mr. Hines, because I'm looking at your drawings right now from the, that were attached to attached to the meeting on February 6th, Tracy Way is not part of your plan. And so I'm confused now by Thank you. these claims that closing Tracy Way, well closing Tracy Way because we're doing At the head of Tracy Way, we're redoing the crosswalk. And probably gonna block it off, right? It looks like. So we did view that and we did agree on that, but we specifically did not consider any type of change to the street, of Tracy Wade. I think that would have to be noticed in a different way with the city council and it would have to be, and certainly we certainly didn't have that discussion at that meeting. Are you saying that you presented a plan on paper 6 that included Tracy Wade? Because I'm not seeing it. |
| 02:00:19.43 | Unknown | We, as a part of that meeting, you know, we submitted drawings, and then we also had a presentation. I'm looking at both. The drawings do not show raising Tracy Way when they were submitted as the original, you know, package of drawings. Upon further review, however, and when we presented the presentation, we stated that we recommended seeing if it's possible to raise Tracy Way within this next phase of work because Tracy Way doesn't serve vehicles. So we found a cost-effective way of adding permeable paving to Tracy Way to achieve that objective. |
| 02:00:19.76 | Jill Hoffman | as a way. |
| 02:00:26.48 | Jill Hoffman | THE DEPARTMENT OF THE |
| 02:01:02.57 | Unknown | uh, Madam Vice Mayor, I share your laments. One of my frustrations standing here is that I don't write the staff report. And so it is often hard for me to convey in either technical terms or layman's terms how I would approach this. |
| 02:01:23.15 | Sergio Rudin | And if I can supplement that particular point. To the extent the city wants to permanently close Tracy Way to vehicle traffic, there are requirements that it would have to follow either in the Vehicle Code or in the Petestrian Model Act of 1960 to effectuate a permanent closure. Thank you. and create that into a pedestrian mall. So there would be additional requirements and procedures for the city to hop through if the intent was to permanently close Tracy Way to vehicle traffic. |
| 02:01:50.70 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. Thank you. I don't think I have any further questions for staff. Thank you. |
| 02:01:57.25 | Steven Woodside | Are there other questions here? Vice Mayor? So just, if you don't have, do you have a question? No. Well. So Mr. Hines, if you just walk through, since this is what you do for a living, how the city can most cost effectively consider what it should actually authorize the expenditure of funds for, in terms of implementing the design that we approved on February the 6th, |
| 02:02:04.15 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:02:04.19 | Unknown | Well. |
| 02:02:25.63 | Unknown | Right. I think my advice would be, first of all, that the list of elements shown in the plan is not a list of phasing or a list of items to be priced separately and then to be decided whether they're done or not. So. There are general conditions that go along with this project. You know, there's a certain amount of cost that goes along with that. And at a certain point, you can pull stuff out and you're not going to realize the savings of completely you know, not doing an area. So, you know, our approach is really working to review the estimate and kind of review quantities to make sure that they're in line with what we estimated. Through that process, we saw that an example was the city currently moves the bike racks around. Well, the cost estimator had included an allotment for relocating bike racks. Well, if that's something the city does, then that's something that we can accept for savings in this estimate. So we've identified a few of those items. We had made a suggestion that we could include the Humboldt Street bike parking paving material as asphalt for this current phase, which would be substantially cheaper and a little less permanent, obviously, than concrete. And then we had identified the lighted component of the bollards that, you know, may end up contributing six figures to the cost. And our advice was that it would make sense to pursue those as an alternate. So I think with kind of structuring these alternates and kind of how we've taken the current design and have made recommendations on how to bid it, we have a strategy to achieve what we want to achieve for the base bid. |
| 02:04:18.04 | Steven Woodside | So what's the most definitive estimate? Is it your estimates or is it a bid from a contractor to actually build the thing? |
| 02:04:23.32 | Unknown | It's always going to be the bid from the contractor to estimate this. However, in this case, we worked with a third party cost estimator that specializes in developing an estimate at the exact date when you're going to construction. So, In this instance, our estimator could tell us that you could actually save over $50,000 by starting the project this fall rather than waiting to go out to bid in the spring. We all know that cost escalation is a significant component of these projects. And when you factor in the inconvenience of starting a project in the spring and it bleeding into busy tourist season. Um, That's one of the reasons that we've circled the wagons and have pursued getting the BCDC permits and getting this project moving so that we can save more money and have more of that money be spent on the actual project. |
| 02:05:24.29 | Steven Woodside | And what's the best way, if we get bids that are in excess of what our budget is, what would the city do in that event? |
| 02:05:32.66 | Unknown | we're recommending including a DDocked alternate so there's something that could be, you know, pulled out of the project scope in order to achieve that. |
| 02:05:42.11 | Steven Woodside | So the path the city is on is to get bids for the whole project that we approved, including adding a permeable service to Tracy Way. And if elements of the project are more expensive than we have a budget for, then they would provide alternate bids for removing those elements. |
| 02:06:01.48 | Unknown | Yeah, I think if you didn't have the budget to pave Tracy Way and the permeable paving, that that would drop the corresponding bid number low enough so that it would be in the range of what we're forecasting. |
| 02:06:18.34 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 02:06:21.97 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks. So this is your recommendation, Mr. Hines, that we move forward with one bid for the entire project. And then if it doesn't come back within the grant proposal, or what's left of the grant proposal, which I think we're down to less than a million, right? More than 1.8 or something now, right? |
| 02:06:40.36 | Unknown | Sorry, more than that. |
| 02:06:43.40 | Jill Hoffman | So, but that's different than what's I've heard from the staff. And so I want to be clear about who's directing what And you know, um, you you know, what we're being presented with here today. Because a staff report seems to indicate that the staff is recommending that we do it we get bids for the discrete phases, and then we can decide how we want to move forward depending upon how much each of these I'm sorry. each of these costs. information today was that from Director McGowan via email was that this estimate will be broken into parts such that if the sum of those parts exceeds the grant allocation, we can separate pieces as directed by the Council. So it seems to me that there's a difference in what you're representing and what Director McGowan is representing that the staff is recommending. |
| 02:07:42.29 | Unknown | There is a difference. I have looked at breaking them down into the areas and the kind of granular analysis you know that that's stated in the staff report for purposes of bidding the project though it it really makes uh i would i would not advise bidding every phase of these as separate elements um it really just doesn't make sense it's going to be complicated and i i think that um it's it's going to be very difficult to move forward unless you're targeting a number for a base bid and then some alternates to either go slightly above or below that number |
| 02:08:22.19 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. As I understand it, the local professional group meetings have been completed. |
| 02:08:27.94 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 02:08:28.63 | Jill Hoffman | and Mayor Sobieski also participated in those meetings. |
| 02:08:34.20 | Unknown | He has attended some of those meetings, yes. |
| 02:08:38.86 | Jill Hoffman | And oh, sorry, this is a question for you. Okay. Okay. I think how are you recommending that we move forward with a bid for closing Tracy away without going through the process that was outlined by our city attorney just now? |
| 02:09:01.54 | Unknown | I don't even know how to respond to that. |
| 02:09:03.23 | Jill Hoffman | but would you, |
| 02:09:04.46 | Unknown | I mean, you have to go through your own process. |
| 02:09:06.65 | Jill Hoffman | Right, but why would we bid that before it's even been approved or we haven't gone through the process of that for the city? I mean, that seems... |
| 02:09:12.44 | Steven Woodside | Mr. Hines is a design consultant to Director McGowan. He's not in charge of this project. So I think that's a question for- |
| 02:09:13.65 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:09:17.11 | Jill Hoffman | So I think that's a question for- Mr. Hines is standing here in front of us recommending that we, we approach this from a different way than what the staff is recommending. he's inserted or the group, somebody, the professional group has inserted Tracy Way. into this plant, back into the plant, and now it's before us to bid out. So I think this is a fair question. |
| 02:09:38.49 | Steven Woodside | Not the force to do that. This item is receive and file a status report regarding the Ferry Landside Improvement Project. It sounds like you're not satisfied with the report, but it's not for any other purpose. That's what this agenda item is. Oh, I disagree. And it's simply not the case that the- |
| 02:09:49.01 | Jill Hoffman | And it's simply not the case. I don't want to argue with you. I'm asking Mr. Hines questions. If you want to discuss that during our discussion, I think that's fine, but I don't... |
| 02:09:55.03 | Steven Woodside | I am. I'm directing your question to the appropriate party, who is our |
| 02:09:59.81 | Jill Hoffman | I don't think it's appropriate, Mayor, for you to interrupt me or argue with me when I'm trying to ask questions from the person that's standing up here that's been presented to us as the professional. and is directing Thank you. things that are appearing in staff reports that we didn't approve. I don't know who else to ask this question of. |
| 02:10:22.76 | Steven Woodside | You wouldn't ask him a legal question, you'd direct the Sergio, and so- |
| 02:10:25.81 | Jill Hoffman | I think he's a professional and what you ever recommend a design for a portion of a plan. that you know, we now know that has not been approved and needs to go through a legal process? He may not have. |
| 02:10:38.00 | Unknown | He may not have known, right? And so I think that's helpful to have Sergio inform that. And I think you were just giving a design component to it. But I've learned. I didn't know what the process was. So I just take it as you did your piece of it. |
| 02:10:50.74 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:10:50.80 | Unknown | Did you? |
| 02:10:58.15 | Steven Woodside | City manager, did you come up for a reason? |
| 02:11:01.03 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 02:11:01.05 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:11:01.06 | Chris Zapata | Right. |
| 02:11:01.33 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:11:01.52 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. Just to say that This is a team effort for sure and some things are fluid and if this trace away information which is new to me as well is important then you know that's what we'll consider as we go forward. But the important thing is I heard you know there's a clock ticking has been clicking for since 2014. 2017 2024 and we spent time and money on this and so in order to do the things we need to do like check with BCDC which we are doing in order to get the bid package out and then come back to you and say you know what bill's estimates were great or they were off and we have to come up with a different decision at that point but we need to get the bids out that's the important thing so that we can start the project so we don't interrupt the things that are happening in Sausalito in the springtime and that we don't jeopardize a $2.4 million grant. So I would recommend that, you know, you let us noodle around the Tracy Way issue, which I think is valid. But we've got to get a bid packet out. |
| 02:12:07.21 | Steven Woodside | Are there other questions? Thank you, Mr. Hines. We'll open public comment now. City Clerk, would you kindly call anyone in the audience who wishes to make a public comment and online? |
| 02:12:19.01 | Walfred Solorzano | Start with Peter Van Meter. |
| 02:12:29.12 | Peter Van Meter | Well the good news on this status report is that the sharp pencil estimate most recently made shows that you can do the entire project on the estimate within the available funds, including the Tracy Way. So as Mr. Hines has pointed out, you need to go to the 90% drawings, BKF is working on those, you've authorized that expenditure already, get those bid documents out, and look at D-Dougs or, you know, there's another word for that, but deletes, I guess it is, for some phases that are maybe over budget. But you have a good estimate that says it looks like you can do the entire thing. So let's not argue about what's included or not included, because the good news is, The whole thing that the council once voted unanimously for All right. You know, it can be done. It looks like it can be done. So, gosh, let's move ahead. Push BCDC to get their approval right away. get these specs out by August. Get this construction going in September. And let's get this done this winter. and have a beautiful ferry landing project. Thank you. |
| 02:13:36.79 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker is Patty Botts. |
| 02:13:46.52 | Patty Botts | Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for reading my submission probably three or four times today. I appreciate that. Thank you so much. I'm just going to go ahead and reread the letter. I know some of you have read it, maybe not everyone. On behalf of the Sausalito Yacht Club leadership, we're writing again to implore... that you address our real and justified objections to the concept designs that impact Sausalito Yacht Club. It seems that there is a discrepancy between the February 6th and the March 19th drawings that we saw. So that's leading us to present some of these comments. The designs, if implemented, materially impact public safety by directly creating a substantial conflict between bicycle, pedestrian, automotive at our driveway for parking. Facility access, loading dock, trash removal, and emergency access to the dock. Furthermore, the revised proposed design inherently appears to eliminate a number of our parking spaces and potentially our junior sailing boat storage. Finally, we've discussed the proposed design with our insurance provider who has confirmed our insurances will be raised to account for a rather egregious public safety risk. Please note our insurance does include the coverage for the club and our use sailing program. We ask you don't take any further action on this initiative until such time as SYC can retain a professional and unbiased analysis of the concept designs to date in order to seek all options to avoid dangers and unnecessary public safety risks. Finally, We really want to reiterate the position of Sausalito Yacht Club. We do not object to the scope of the ferry land site landside improvements as defined by the grant. We object to the severe impacts to SYC, reasonable enjoyment and function of our premises. Thank you. |
| 02:15:51.72 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker, Kay Mitzel. |
| 02:16:01.05 | Kaye Mitzel | Hi everyone, I'm Kaye Mitzel. I am a 40 plus year resident here and I first of all will agree with our Commodore from the Yacht Club of our concerns about the safety of our club and the impact that it does have on our members being able to access, which will impact the revenue that we pay the city. part of our rent is based on revenue. So that's what we do. As a resident, I'm concerned about closing Tracy Way just for more plaza. I think that there's plenty of space for plaza. Moving the bikes over to Humboldt does not seem like a good idea to me, in my humble opinion. I can't imagine all those bicycles. The other day there must have been six huge buses parked there. How is that going to work? I don't understand it. You've heard me say this a number of times. I'm going to take my minute and go sit down. Thank you. I'm glad you're reconsidering this, and I'm glad that the Council has raised these important questions again. Thank you. |
| 02:17:02.07 | Walfred Solorzano | Jim Gabbert. |
| 02:17:10.68 | Unknown | Good evening. I'm here representing the Sausalito Chamber of Commerce. And we had a wonderful session with Bill back at their place. Obviously they were looking, as the city council was looking for the Chamber of Commerce to endorse this project. And I ask for just very little things right now. This to me is very responsible. What we need is we would like to have copies. I understand there's seven different elements. We would like copies of the bids and the alternative bids of each one of the seven elements. And that's the only request at the moment we have. It's just responsible for us to endorse this thing. We've got to make sure this is being done right. It just doesn't make sense to say this is what it's going to cost when there are seven different elements to it. And all we'd like to have are the bids on those seven elements. Thank you. |
| 02:18:15.22 | Walfred Solorzano | Kit Hayes. |
| 02:18:25.72 | Kit Hayes | Hi there. Thank you, City Council, for everything you've done and your service. It's not doesn't go unnoticed in the community. So thank you. It's a gigantic undertaking. just wanted to come up and give a comment in support of the fairy landslide project i continue as a resident here to be so excited about this and i know it's excruciatingly difficult to get these sorts of projects off the ground as evidenced by all the different conversations and confusion We're here, we're there, we're everywhere, and I just want to encourage the council to continue to work together and find common ground to get this project executed and break ground this fall. No further delays, the more that we can just get to the bottom of things, Thank you. come together on what the staff report says or doesn't say so that we can just move ahead, get bids, and break ground in the fall. I'd really love to see this project come to life. I think it holds great potential for beautifying our city and modernizing it. It's a great compliment to everything that's happening at the SCA. It'll look great when the ferry comes in. There's just like endless pluses to this on top of it being paid for with grant money. So let's make it happen. Thank you. |
| 02:19:35.55 | Walfred Solorzano | All right, Sharna Brockett. |
| 02:19:47.24 | Sharna Brockett | Hi, I'm Sharna Brockett and I'm a resident of Sausalito. And I'm also a member of the Yacht Club. I love the club and I really love its junior sailing program. I'm a sailor myself. I learned here in Sausalito as an adult. And so I really appreciate that part of Sausalito and the club. With that said, I do not agree with the club's latest letter and their attempt at what I see as derailing this project. It looks to me also from looking at the minutes from February 6th to be a repeat of what was already in, what we already considered at that meeting. It was in their letter, it was in their lawyer's letter. We've already, you've already seen this information. But I did note that there was some added confusion to this latest letter. Basically, the letter said, and I think they just said it here, that it would eliminate parking spots in their lot and possibly the boat storage for the junior sailing program. I don't know, but I've looked at the plan and it keeps the same footprint. So that to me is confusion and it's not true. For the rest of the letter, you've already heard the Yacht Club's opinion, as I said. You've also heard on February 6th many Yacht Club members who disagreed with their own leadership. You have already heard from 100 plus residents who are in support of this plan. And more residents, I can tell you, are getting excited every day about it. You've already heard from a third-party independent, unbiased traffic engineering consultant He presented to you on February 6th as well about the safety benefits of the wider sidewalk, improved sight lines, the importance of creating an intersection at the SYC entrance and the benefits of a crosswalk. After all this input and Q and A, you made a five to zero informed decision to approve the plan. The yacht club entrance will be wider, better, and safer after all of this. So we're on the cusp of losing the grant. Let's get, go forward. Let's approve this. Let's get it out to bid. And then we can discuss what, what happens after we get the bids. Thank you. |
| 02:21:49.03 | Walfred Solorzano | Adrian Brinton. |
| 02:21:57.92 | Adrian Brinton | Hi, thank you. Adrian Brinton. I'm a South Slater resident and also a Yacht Club member. Yeah, I saw the letter as well from the Yacht Club today, and when I was reading it at first, I thought they were talking about the current conditions. It feels very unsafe there today. When you go in and out of the parking lot, there's often quite a melee right in front of the parking lot, in front of the Yacht Club. When I've driven in and out of there, I felt it's dangerous in its current situation. Looking at the plan, it looks so much safer to have a wide driveway that's clearly marked, that has a crosswalk, that has plenty of room for everybody to use the sidewalk as they see, you know, as we're planning to have them use it, unlike today. So, you know, again, I think to echo the last speaker's comments, a lot of that information came out as part of the decision when the decision was made, 5-0, to move forward with the design. Let's keep it moving forward. Let's not get off track. Everybody seems to be saying the same thing. We want to get this project done. Everybody knows we need to get it done within the budget, within the grant, and if we can't do it within the grant, there will be pieces that come in the future. Everybody's trying to work towards that. So as we pick apart all these different process things, It risks delaying and we risk losing the $50,000 that we get from not getting the project off the ground in the fall. So, you know, everybody's clear what we need to do. Let's keep moving forward. Let's get ground broken in the fall. You know, as also the last speaker said, we've got a ton of people really excited about this. More people are getting excited about this every day. You know, 100 plus people turned out last time. I think if this comes back again and there's questions about what are we doing? Are we going to do this? Are we going to do that? Maybe we shouldn't do this. Maybe we shouldn't do that. You know, I can see 200 people showing up here to support this. This is a really, really popular project. I'm super excited about it and really excited to see it break ground in the fall. Thank you. |
| 02:23:47.71 | Steven Woodside | Any other comments in the audience? |
| 02:23:48.45 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah, we have some people via Zoom, Senator Bushmaker. |
| 02:23:56.32 | Sandra Bushmaker | Bye again. I wanted to say first of all, I agree with the Commodore patty's comments uh the Rerouting of the traffic in front of that yacht club is asking for trouble. You're mixing pedestrians, bicycles, and cars. where we should be separating them. So I think that's a problem. I also, so I would like you to respect her request. so that the club can get the appropriate information. I've been a member of that club since the mid the mid 80s. I raced for years and years. I spent a lot of time in the club. I served on the rules committee for three years just recently. And so I'm very, involved in the club the club's well-being. Secondly, the point that I'd like to bring up is to remind you what the scope of the grant is. The grant is to improve and enhance pedestrian and bicycle access routes to the shore side Ferry Plaza Promenade. That's the purpose of the grant. It's to optimize vehicle, pedestrian, and bicycle flow. So let's not forget the cars. That's part of the grant. And I have requested of the city manager to ask the grantor, the federal government, scope of this. plan that was approved. in concept as to whether or not it fits the grant application. the grand scope, if you will. I'm concerned that Tracy Way is outside the scope of the grant application and the Humboldt Street improvements are outside the scope of the language of this grant. So I would request if the city connect with the grantor of this money and ask them as the Golden Gate Bridge District is the pass through agency, not the granting agency and let's get clarification on this. Thank you. |
| 02:25:52.66 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker, Steven Woodside. |
| 02:26:04.03 | Steven Woodside | Hi there. It's about getting close to 10 p.m. And I just want to let you know that I appreciated the mayor's comment that this seems very Kafkaesque. uh, My understanding of Kafka is that He wrote many novels that were nightmares, night. nightmarishly complex very bizarre. and had a very illogical quality. And I have to say that Much of what I've heard in the cross-examination of your very competent staff strikes me as very Kafkaesque. Sorry to be so blunt, but This was all decided in February. It's very clear to those who are in the audience, and I think clear to those who support the project, that, um, This should be good news. that the staff and your consultants have come up with an idea that will perhaps allow THE END OF THE END OF THE this project to go forward at lesser costs with more involved in it. That should be good news. Instead, what I hear is relentless cross-examination. that seems to have no purpose other than to obfuscate the point. that this was decided in February. Please move forward. This is very frustrating to have to have to look at a consent item, come off consent, with really very little notice in what the issues were. And they have to stay up until 10 o'clock at night to nightmare. Thank you. |
| 02:27:34.58 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker is Beth Swerke. |
| 02:27:41.74 | Beth Swart | up. I'm very blurry. Stand by. I don't know what. Oh, there we go. Hi, I'm Beth Swart. I'm a resident of nine years. Thank you for having this conversation, though, I have to say, I've been at the February meeting I feel like I'm experiencing deja vu. We have these conversations, we heard these arguments, and you voted this through, all five of you. I am a new citizen to getting involved in local politics. February was my first meeting. I left inspired. I left excited. I left wanting to get involved and I join you tonight Disappointed? pretty discouraged. This is why people don't get involved in local politics to see us just swirling and spinning circles this is so disappointing i just i have to be really honest about that it's clear that you people are trying to stall this, that are trying to take back what was approved. And like, come on, let's go. I know Tracy Way was talked about because I was the one who Didn't know we had a pedestrian walkway until that night. So that was a big conversation. And, This is such a positive thing. We all left. I know you guys said to the mayor wrote a note the next day, how inspiring and beautiful that was. Don't take that away from us, please. This is something that's been approved. Let's go. Let's use the fall. Let's use the right time. Let's use the grant money. And let's get people like me more inspired to want to be involved and to participate. Thank you. |
| 02:29:10.75 | Walfred Solorzano | And final speaker, Mary Griffin. |
| 02:29:21.74 | Mary Griffin | Hi. Thank you, everyone on the city council. And I would also just like you to urge you to move forward Mr. Hines has done his work. He's determined that within the scope, this is totally normal professional practice. And then you have something called deduct alternates that you can identify things that you can take out of the bid. if you need to. You don't break it into little components that usually raises the price. It'd be like cooking something with pricing each ingredient or something. So this is the way you do develop a design and move it forward. And I think to go back and reconsider all these things about the design, the design is developing to a better design. and it supports what you voted for So please proceed and get the information you need. had progress made and let's continue to make progress and get this built as soon as possible. Thank you. |
| 02:30:19.03 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. All right, no further public comment. |
| 02:30:24.24 | Steven Woodside | Okay, we'll bring it back to the dais. Who wants to start? Vice mayor. |
| 02:30:28.44 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I do want to thank Bill Hines for the extraordinary investment of effort and volunteer work that he's contributed to this. I appreciated what you said, Bill, about it would have been nice if you could help write some of the staff reports because had I known uh, at the outset tonight, what I learned from you, that you had changed the design, the design has evolved, and for that reason, it's less than what it was initially anticipated to be, I would have approached this entirely differently, so, um, Apologies for the cross-examination you endured, and thank you for your contribution to the city ongoingly on this and various other projects. Um, We have a history of approving projects that end up costing a lot more than we anticipated. It happened with our parks, it's happened with other facilities throughout town. once burned three times shy. And so, Personally, I am very vigilant to ensure that however we bid a project and however we put it together, it's something that we can build within our budget. And that's something I've stood for since discussions back in 2020 about this project. So, um, that's where I'm coming from. I appreciate the fact that sharp pencils were used, but I would appreciate the council having an ability to weigh in. So, for example, I like the concept of a permeable surface for Tracy Way. But in my view, not having lighted bollards is a problem for our elderly, including myself, who at night it takes me a half an hour before my eyes adjust to be able to see where I'm walking without lighting. And so I want to make sure that whatever we do remains well lit, just by way of example. And I do just want to... Um, make it clear that our instructions on February 6th did not include Tracy Way. We asked for construction drawings of those components that could be funded by the grant. We then separately asked that staff solicit public and private sources of additional funding to construct those phases that cannot be funded by the grant, including Tracy Way. So our understanding on February 6th was that Tracy Way could not be funded by the grant funding and would not be part of the initial construction drawings to be bid. If we had included Tracy Way on February 6th, I'm sure our city attorney on that night would have made to us the comments he made tonight about the process that we have to go through in order to close Tracy Way. That being said, I don't have an issue with Tracy way and the permeate, you know, with a permeable surface. My issue is budgetary. And so I am asking that the reason I asked for phasing on February 6, and the reason I continue to ask that the bid be structured in such a way is that it includes additive alternates and deductive alternates is to be sure that we get bids in that we can actually approve and move forward with, however they may, whatever the pricing for the various elements may be. So I... |
| 02:33:56.90 | Steven Woodside | So you're okay with an additive or deductive element that includes Tracy Way? |
| 02:34:00.93 | Jill Hoffman | I am. I am. We need to have the bid separated into elements so that we can if the sum total of the components is more than we can afford, we have a solution without having to go back and re-bid. That's great. |
| 02:34:22.52 | Steven Woodside | Councilman Kellman. |
| 02:34:23.90 | Unknown | Thank you everybody. |
| 02:34:23.92 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:34:26.18 | Unknown | This is... This is local politics. This is what it is. So sorry. It's not more fun or less interesting than this. We are diligent about what we've said and what we needed. And so I really appreciate everybody's curiosities tonight and the information. And Kevin, all your hard work here. And Bill, you met with me several times. So thank you for all of that. And I actually like Joseph Kafka quite a bit. So I think this project, I just want to say this sort of generally, would be aided by just making sure there's consistency between meetings. I think we beat that down already. We know that. I was the one that actually articulated pulling out Tracy Way, so I do know what I said. But I've never heard more deja vu moments than up at this council on this dais as we have this year. So I don't need to debate it. I think that the vice mayor articulated it quite well. I had a concern about closing Tracy Way because I think Humboldt is a great place to put parking. And so I remember articulating my concern about including that in the original plan. I do remember talking about the different levels and layers and elements. And so I like this idea of allowing us, I think you call it deductive alternates, Vice Mayor. I think that quite makes sense. But I really just have to urge the council, and we've been doing, I think, a very good job, and the public to hear us when we say, you're not approving a plan. You read from the excerpts of Vice Mayor, we didn't approve a plan. We gave very clear direction about what we were doing. We're very clear to say, this is not an approval of a plan. This is exactly what we're doing. And so I just don't think spending a lot of time rehashing that is particularly productive but I do think that when you have multiple staff reports it can lead to confusion and so I think we all learned that tonight and I think the new information that we got from the city attorney about closing Tracy way was really important really helpful and so if there's anything that we can do to help consolidate some of that information from meeting to meeting and make sure that we have everything at one time, I think that would probably help all of us. So I'm interested to hear everybody's thoughts on how we move forward with this. But it did lead to, I think, quite a bit of confusion to see some alternate realities. I think we all experienced those. |
| 02:36:47.15 | Steven Woodside | Any other comments? |
| 02:36:51.08 | Steven Woodside | Do you have more comments? |
| 02:36:54.24 | Steven Woodside | Oh, did you want to go? Amen. You can, I mean, |
| 02:36:59.12 | Steven Woodside | I'll just ask you since we're figuring who to go next. The first line of the motion was the City Council hereby approves the local professional plan. |
| 02:37:08.68 | Unknown | I totally hear you, Mayor, and I can read that with my own very sleepy eyes as well. But I also remember at length the conversation and the agreement amongst three of us that we would hold off on that. And so, short of having a review of the film, the game film right now, I'll just concede what it says on paper, and I don't intend to have an argument about that, but I know what I participated in in the conversation, so I appreciate your pointing out the paper. |
| 02:37:39.72 | Steven Woodside | I remember the conversation too, but I thought the way we clarify and act, it's like there's the discussion in Congress and there's what the bill actually says. And so the motion is what the motion is. I made the motion and And so, you know, the word choice was deliberate. It, of course, doesn't mean, I mean, what does it mean to have a plan? It doesn't mean that it is authorized to spend money yet. It doesn't mean that we've jumped through the legal steps of what Sergio said we need to do, right? So we can't, we haven't closed Tracy Way yet. That hasn't happened, so it requires more steps, but the plan was approved. I mean, that was the whole point of that day. |
| 02:38:25.30 | Unknown | I so appreciate that. Thank you. And I think that maybe from here on out, we either all need to review the game film or we need much better articulation maybe at the end of a long evening. So again, thank you for pointing out what the paper says. I can read it as well. I appreciate that. And I will just move on from there. Thank you. |
| 02:38:45.88 | Steven Woodside | Thanks. Anyone else make a comment? |
| 02:38:50.56 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, sure. I'll go ahead. I want to give a big thank you to staff for the years of time spent on this project and to the local professionals group, as usual. Bill, thank you for being here and for enduring our questioning this evening. And, you know, shout out to Chad Hess, too, for the Tidelands and our city attorney, Sergio Redden. I really appreciate everyone's feedback. This was a robust conversation. I would be remiss if I didn't say that I share the disappointment of some of our public commenters this evening in that we saw |
| 02:38:56.94 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:39:26.01 | Steven Woodside | I don't know, about 100 people show up and more than that doubly in letters in support of this project. And it was one of the first times for me that I experienced from the dais that many people coming forward to say yes to something, which was really invigorating and a reminder of the positives of public service. So I just wanted to acknowledge that and point that out and thank everyone who did come forward. Whether you were providing positive or negative feedback, we really need that local engagement. So I hope we don't discourage anyone from coming. I appreciate everyone's letters and everyone's time. And I think it's interesting that, I mean, I guess it makes sense that the project was pulled because there are a number of questions, but I think it's interesting that the arguments that are coming up to push back on the staff report is actually kind of what staff is asking us to do, which is essentially move forward with construction drawings so that we can look at each of these phases more closely together and decide what we want to do. And so with respect to everyone's dedication and deep interest in this project, which has been going on for a number of years, and some of maybe the verbiage of approval of the project was otherwise confusing, but I think what we all know is we like the ideas that the professional group brought forward. We voted on that as a community. We wanna have construction designs so we can look at them more closely and decide in what way we move forward and what we can and can't afford, which to me is what the staff report was asking us to do. So I would like to see us, given this new innovation around Tracy Way, be able to at least consider that. And so I'm supportive of the Vice Mayor's approach there and I'm supportive of anything that will help us move this project forward because we've been through this again and again. And I appreciate the serious fiscal attention that's being made by the local professionals group, by the other members of the dais. We We need that attention given our budgetary situation, but again, We know we've been we've been through it. So let's get the construction drawing so we can keep going through it because this is local government and without that information we can't make those informed decisions that we're being asked to make. |
| 02:41:32.29 | Steven Woodside | Thanks, Councilmember. Councilmember Hoffman. Thank you. |
| 02:41:35.27 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, so thank you. Again, yeah, listen, I don't hope, none of my comments were meant that I don't appreciate the efforts of the staff and Mr. Hines, because I know that you guys worked a ridiculous amount of time on this, and myself included as part of the Ferry Landing Working Group for almost two years, and then seven years before that. so yeah I think I'm happy that we're finally at the point where that we can move forward and I completely happy that we're finally at the point where that we can move forward and I completely agree that we should move forward. But I wanna be clear that the reason that I felt it necessary along with Council Member Cox to, or sorry, Vice Mayor, to remove it was that there were inconsistencies from what we approved and from what I was seeing in the staff reports on March 19th. the CIP report that we got, in a staff report tonight. And so it's incumbent upon us as a deciding body when we see inconsistencies or something that wasn't approved by us in the past to question that. And I think that's exactly how this should work. I was disappointed to see these different, these new things popping up in the phasing that we hadn't approved, but I'm happy that we're discussing it tonight. And so I think one of the things that we need moving forward, and I'm I'm hesitant to approve the Tracy Way portion because we haven't closed it yet. So it doesn't make sense to me to pay for somebody to do that plan if we haven't actually completed that process yet. And that wasn't news to me, frankly, because I think we had talked about it a long time ago. And how do we close a street? There's a very specific process. There's a very specific process also under the brown act you have to actually inform people what you're going to do before you do it especially when there are very specific requirements and so I'm not comfortable tonight saying go ahead with construction drawings for Tracy Way because actually uh, approve that as a council and we haven't approved it as a council, nor have we allowed the public to weigh in on it. Because there are members of the public that feel very strongly about that and had that been on our agenda tonight. they possibly would have weighed in. I'm less inclined to approve that part of it because that, I'm sorry, it just wasn't approved at February 6th. And to be clear, The first bill of the minutes is that we approve the local professionals group recommended design concept. plan. we recommended the plan. We didn't recommend, or we didn't approve the entire, as we've all discussed, right? This is going to continue to change. And so, I just want to be clear for people that come later to a later meeting when we get the construction plans back and they we're gonna have further conversations about this. And I would expect that it's gonna be, consistent with our conversation on February 6th, frankly. So, um, I, uh, |
| 02:44:51.97 | Jill Hoffman | I might, anyway, so anyway, that's my thought process, and thanks to everybody. |
| 02:44:58.43 | Steven Woodside | Thank you Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 02:44:59.58 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:44:59.61 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:45:00.83 | Jill Hoffman | I do want to point out, Mayor, and thank you for quoting the fact that the City Council approved the Local Professionals Group recommended plan. I don't know if you heard Mr. Hines tonight say that the plan that was in our staff report did not include Tracy Way. And that is what we approved. It was the proposal. The Tracy Way improvements were discussed as part of his presentation. but they were not. in the plan. that was attached to our staff report and noticed to the public as something that we That being said, I think we should identify a logical path forward for deciding whether indeed this council approves the closure of Tracy Way and if so, then ask the uh, local professionals group and BKF to to continue moving forward with the plan for that. |
| 02:45:55.40 | Steven Woodside | So earlier you said you're okay with having a bid alternative that has a deductive alternative. That includes Tracy Way, but has a deductive alternative not including it. |
| 02:46:04.79 | Jill Hoffman | Absolutely, but I think as a part of that parallel, we need to make a decision about closing Tracy Way. We've not... undertaken the process necessary to close Tracy way so even if everything came back and it was within budget we couldn't approve until we go through the steps to close Tracy way right so that's a parallel process |
| 02:46:22.74 | Steven Woodside | Right, so that- So I'm asking for that as a question. Okay, that certainly we would need to Right. So go ahead, Sergio, did you have something to say? |
| 02:46:35.26 | Sergio Rudin | you |
| 02:46:35.28 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, no, I mean, just the way the item is agendized, I... I am concerned about the Council making motion other than to receive and file the report, because this is receive and file a status report. But of course, the Council can give direction to bring back specific items for discussion or can give us direction in future agenda items as to what they would like to see discussed moving forward on this project and approved. |
| 02:46:58.40 | Steven Woodside | So it sounds like the direction that you're suggesting, Vice Mayor, and that I hear that there's at least three votes for is to proceed with a bid of the design that includes Tracy Way, but that has a bid, deductive bill alternative that does not. And in parallel with that, have a process for actually considering whether or not to close Tracy Way. |
| 02:47:20.59 | Kaye Mitzel | Thank you. |
| 02:47:21.35 | Steven Woodside | Let me just see if that's a fair summary. |
| 02:47:23.61 | Jill Hoffman | I had not specifically identified Tracy Way as a deductive alternate. I simply asked that the bid include additive and deductive alternates so that we have flexibility in deciding what to accept when the bids come in. Separately, given the city attorney's comments, I would like to direct the staff return to us with a proposal for the closure of Tracy Way that comports with the statutory requirements so that we can decide as a group whether that's something and give the public an opportunity to weigh in on whether that's something we're advancing. |
| 02:48:03.50 | Steven Woodside | Okay, but earlier I asked you whether, when you said deductive alternative, I asked you for Tracy Wayne, you said yes. So are you now amending your- |
| 02:48:10.50 | Jill Hoffman | Well, I would leave it up to the engineers to decide what should be additive and deductive alternates. Certainly, Tracy Way should be a deductive alternate since, in my view, it was not part of our initial plan. But there may be other appropriate deductive alternates as well. So I'm not proposing that Tracy Way be excluded from the bid process. But... perhaps before we go out to bid, we can actually confirm that this entire council is in favor of closing Tracey Way, something we've not yet done. according to Sergio, under the statute. |
| 02:48:47.58 | Steven Woodside | I heard two things there though, so I'm just trying to sort it about the path forward because that's, we have limited number of meetings, so we're gonna have another meeting on Traceway before we even go out to bid on what it might cost. So instead of looking at what the costs could actually be, |
| 02:49:03.10 | Jill Hoffman | If we get a bid that includes closure of Tracy Way, we cannot accept that bid if we haven't already undertaken the process to close Tracy Way. |
| 02:49:06.90 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:49:14.09 | Jill Hoffman | And so I am recommending we undertake that process in advance of receiving bids. |
| 02:49:22.80 | Unknown | May I ask the vice mayor a question? So is part of your concern, because I, like the mayor, I heard two different things, but I think I know why, is part of the concern that you have, we have not, as the council said, Tracy Way is a part of this. Right. And so when he phrased it as the plan with Tracy Way, that was different than a bid with a deductive element being Tracy Way. |
| 02:49:39.54 | Unknown | Right. |
| 02:49:47.27 | Jill Hoffman | Right. I believe that the reason we did, the minutes indicate that the reason we didn't include Tracy Way is we didn't think it could be funded through the grant funding. They've now identified a way that it can be funded through the grant funding. But before we can include it, we actually have to undertake the steps identified by the city attorney to close it. We have not done that. |
| 02:50:08.46 | Steven Woodside | So it's true that I'm an engineer, okay? But my undergraduate degree was actually in philosophy, and one of my favorite courses was logic. So I appreciate that you're a lawyer, but I'm sorry I have to call foul on that, just from logic, all right? The first bullet is we approve the plan. Which did not include Tracy Way. Let me just, let me make my case before you try to undermine it, okay? This is an action by a legal body that we approved the plan, all right? In one of my bullets here, it's direct staff to identify phases of the plan, capital P, just like in the plan, so it's a name term, of the plan that can be built within the budget of the GGTHB grant. |
| 02:50:25.47 | Jill Hoffman | which did not include Tracy Way. Okay. |
| 02:50:29.71 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:50:49.53 | Steven Woodside | staff. In today's report that we are considering to accepting has identified that all the elements of the plan can be built within the GGTHB grant. The next point is direct staff to make construction level drawings of the phases that can be funded by the grant. So it's, I can't say it in Latin, but it's one, two, three. |
| 02:50:59.25 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:51:09.95 | Jill Hoffman | You're leaving out one bullet. |
| 02:51:11.20 | Steven Woodside | And this point, yes, authorized staff to solicit private and public sources of additional funding, to construct phases that cannot be paid with the grant, such as Raising Tracy Way. So phases, right? And earlier we say phases of the plan. So by definition, such as is an example, such as an example, Tracy Way is a phase of the plan that was approved by city council. |
| 02:51:36.73 | Jill Hoffman | No, it was a phase of the plan that cannot be paid with the grant. |
| 02:51:37.27 | Steven Woodside | I agree with you. |
| 02:51:40.85 | Jill Hoffman | And then we only approved phases of the plan that can be built within the budget of the grant. on the one we're directing staff to identify phases of the plan that can be built with the budget of the grant. On the other we're saying, Solicit private and public sources of funding to construct the phases that cannot be paid with the grant, such as raising Tracy Way. So Tracy Wade was not included. |
| 02:52:07.78 | Steven Woodside | Sorry, your logic is wrong. Period. |
| 02:52:11.63 | Jill Hoffman | It doesn't matter. I'm proposing a path forward. I don't think we need to continue to argue about what we intended at the time. Obviously I need to do a better job editing your proposed motions. Apparently we need like legal |
| 02:52:24.76 | Steven Woodside | apparently we need like legal scrutiny instead of what clearly everybody in the audience knew and so i am i'll say my piece and i'm sure and i i help council member i find it absolutely will give you the floor but uh yeah i think everyone in the room knew period so i think that this is catholic councilmember hoffman |
| 02:52:31.68 | Jill Hoffman | I have. |
| 02:52:48.40 | Jill Hoffman | Well, your logic is flawed. because three of us didn't have that meeting of the minds. Anyway, based on the plans that were presented, it clearly says Tracy Way remains the same. whatever with regard to Tracy Wade. Here's the thing though, like we can do a 5-0 vote tonight and just leave Tracy Wade off because How much is it going to cost and what's the effort if we decide to close Tracy Way to just Do it. Thank you. I mean, and if there's money left after we do all these construction things, then we just do it, right? So why are you creating the issue of, you know, Brown Act issue, we haven't given notice. All of a sudden, this thing pops up in the staff reports that we haven't discussed, and we're changing tack on something that we decided last February. That, to me, is not logical. The logical thing is follow the process, If we're gonna just consider closing Tracy Way. We have to go through the legal process of doing that, and what we're bound to do by law to do as council members for which we took an oath and then we'll fix it afterwards. I mean, Tracy, of all of these things, of all the complicated construction plans, Tracy Way's. nothing. Like that's an easy thing. So if we decide to go forward, I don't want to taint this project. by adding this in, and creating another issue that we're gonna have to deal with later. certainly, surely, someone is going to object to our action tonight if we take this action. I have a question for the for the city attorney. just based on your comment and the motion, right? So your comment was, hey, the only thing we've noticed Is it... Yeah, receive and file a status report. So I'm not even sure we could take action on a motion tonight. So, but what we could do is say, hey, based on our discussion, bring us a quick, consent item staff report based on the conversation that we've had tonight. And I would support a 5.0 to go forward with the construction plans additive and deductive so that we know that we can, if we take something out, we need to move something around, we can do it. full disclosure to the public, that's what the council is likely going to do. So even though we say we're gonna go forward this concept plan, what the final plan is and what we're gonna vote on as we move forward is gonna be based on what happens with the construction drawings, right? This is just how these things evolve. And so... that's my suggestion on how we would move forward tonight based on the discussion we've had based on the comments from the city attorney |
| 02:55:40.31 | Steven Woodside | That's a member of Boston. |
| 02:55:41.69 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:55:41.71 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. In the interest of moving us forward, I think we should take the city attorney's direction to receive and file, and I would like to figure out a path forward, perhaps with the vice mayor's suggestions, including in a way that we can consider Tracy Way as part of the deductive process without naming it, or whatever we need to do legally. But for the record, I don't want to remove it from the process entirely because I distinctly remember whether or not, it seems we all have different memories of what was and was not discussed that night, but I do remember a lot of conversation about Tracy Way, under what context specifically or how it applies. I'm not going to rehash. I just want us to move forward so city attorney doesn't make sense. I think however we can support the vice mayor's suggestion or I don't know. I don't know that we need to even take a vote, right? Thank you. |
| 02:56:32.62 | Steven Woodside | I think it's direction and but am I hearing correctly that we can do additive and deductive bids that include raising Tracy way? |
| 02:56:33.41 | Steven Woodside | Okay. and, |
| 02:56:43.98 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:56:44.06 | Sergio Rudin | Yes, that definitely is something that you can do as part of the design process for the construction drawings. I do think that they're... |
| 02:56:44.08 | Steven Woodside | Yes. So that's our direction. |
| 02:56:47.69 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 02:56:53.88 | Sergio Rudin | is concerned about accepting a construction contract and awarding a construction contract that includes construction work on Tracy way that requires its closure permanently. |
| 02:56:58.88 | Unknown | construction. |
| 02:57:06.08 | Sergio Rudin | without going through a legal process to close the street to the vehicular traffic. |
| 02:57:11.08 | Steven Woodside | Okay, yeah, of course. |
| 02:57:12.14 | Sergio Rudin | But there is, as staff mentioned earlier, a three to six month period with BCDC for permitting, you'd also have to complete permitting before you can award. the project and during this time we can make use of that time period to not only address any issues with the construction drawings, um, phasing of the project and also the potential closure of Tracy way. Again, my recommendation would be that you folks have a motion to receive and file the report this evening. If you want to direct staff to prepare a future agenda item that encompasses future actions, that would also be appropriate at this time. |
| 02:57:50.45 | Steven Woodside | Thank you city attorney. So I think the consensus is to file and receive the report and directing staff to issue, to get deductive and additive bids that include Tracy way and we will take further action after we get that. |
| 02:58:07.07 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:58:07.25 | Jill Hoffman | I don't think so. No? What is it? I think that we do agree to receive and file the report. Thank you, Kevin. But that we direct staff to come back to us with a procedure, a recommended procedure for the closure of Tracy Way and come back to us with proposed construction documents to go out to bid that may include Tracy Way as a deductive alternate depending on the outcome of our process to close Tracy Way. |
| 02:58:07.63 | Unknown | I don't think so. |
| 02:58:08.59 | Steven Woodside | We'll be right back. |
| 02:58:08.74 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:58:37.14 | Jill Hoffman | So it's a parallel process as I said. |
| 02:58:40.67 | Steven Woodside | So we get construction drawings with a deductive alternate, but we will not send that stuff out to bid until after the next city council meeting. It can go out to bid. |
| 02:58:48.43 | Jill Hoffman | It can go out to bid. We just can't accept a bid until we've... |
| 02:58:52.51 | Steven Woodside | I'm fine. That's the key. So we can go out to bid with the additive or deductive Tracy way element, but we won't accept the bids. Got it. So that's the consensus that we go out to bid. Is that clear, Director McGowan? |
| 02:58:54.98 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:59:10.27 | Steven Woodside | in a useful way. Sort of. |
| 02:59:12.59 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, I will do my best. |
| 02:59:12.71 | Steven Woodside | Yes, I will do my best to- Ask us what's not clear, please, so that we can be. Because you have to get this work done, and we should get on the same page about that. |
| 02:59:14.82 | Kevin McGowan | Ask us what's that. because you know. |
| 02:59:23.78 | Kevin McGowan | Additive and deductive bids are interesting. We need to bid something with a base bid amount. In other words, all the bidders need to bid on one specific thing. So gathering different components to that |
| 02:59:32.02 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 02:59:40.25 | Kevin McGowan | and then coming back to council to say, OK, which components do you want to include as a base bid? will probably be needed. |
| 02:59:46.18 | Steven Woodside | Can't you just decide that? Can't you just go out with the base bid and with Tracy Way as a deductive alternate and the bollards and other things? |
| 02:59:58.14 | Jill Hoffman | I don't, I think that's the point. The staff, to say to, I'm sorry Ian, but the staff reporters, Mayor, Mayor, but this is the problem, right? |
| 03:00:05.04 | Unknown | Mayor. |
| 03:00:08.87 | Jill Hoffman | that the city attorney just talked to us about, right? We can't just say, go do with a staff report, you know, except in because the staff report is somewhat about how to do this. And what we're saying, I think what half of us are saying is this is a problem. Thank you. half of us are saying things that the other half isn't understanding. and you're interpreting differently, right? So there's seven phases. I'm saying, sorry, seven elements. |
| 03:00:41.95 | Jill Hoffman | It's actually eight. Number two is in there twice. So it's actually eight. |
| 03:00:46.13 | Jill Hoffman | Oh, no, I'm looking at the plan that's in the staff report, right? And this is different than what we saw. So this is why I think that we receive and accept the staff report because of this... Thank you. communication issue. I think this has to come back either on a consent item or that it's clear what we're correcting because we can't even agree what we said on February 6th. |
| 03:01:11.85 | Unknown | What was it? |
| 03:01:17.60 | Unknown | ask the city attorney question for you. So February 6th, we have a motion to approve the plan. Capital P. And that plan did not include Tracy Way. Today we're presented with a plan that does. how, it's two different, like literally two different plans. How do we smooth that out from an acceptance of something way, so I think that I'd love to hear the city attorney's thoughts on that. Because we accepted something and then we were given something else How do we proceed? |
| 03:02:02.41 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, so on February 6th, the council reviewed and approved a conceptual design for the project and directed staff to go do further work. There have been further work done on the project, and staff have come back to provide a status report. I think that the appropriate next step is you receive today's status report. You provide direction to staff to come back with the subsequent agenda item, for example, to address and to discuss and decide on. what should be included in a base bid to the extent that Kevin would like that direction from the council Additionally, it sounds like next steps are going to include an agenda item to discuss the closure of Tracy way. Typically under the pedestrian mall act, the process is you adopt a resolution of intention to close and then you address any sorts of, you know, protests or claims that come in as a result of that. And I'll separately provide briefing for the council on that. There's also some other alternates, alternative pathways in the vehicle code that may or may not apply. which are more streamlined, but I would need to review things like your circulation element and your general plan to see if you can use those. Um, So, in terms of the The tonight's action, again, I would recommend you receive and file. And two, to the extent you have future actions you want the city to take on this project, I would recommend that you give direction to staff to agendize those in the not too distant future. |
| 03:03:31.78 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, so I was just going to add, because Council Member Hoffman was referring to the staff report and the difference between that and what you were saying. The way you summarized it is the staff report didn't show the Tracy way and the presentation did the one we approved. But what was in the staff report was the closure of Tracy way. That was definitive and it's in the drawings. There was a Tracy way pedestrian safety landing. It eliminated the crosswalk across the street on Bridgeway to the SCA building. So the closure of Tracy Way was a definitive element of the plan that was approved. The raising of Tracy Way, admittedly it was in one drawing and was not in the staff report but was in the presentation. So the closure of Tracy Way was a definitive element of the capital P plan. The designation of it as an element of the plan. So the only issue... is whether or not to have included in the word plan what was presented here that I spoke to and many of us did, some of the speakers referred it to, which was the raising of it. So let's be clear that the plan we approved 5-0, that's the definitive action of the council, that could certainly be undone by their undoing procedures that we have, but it was including the designated and approved closure of Tracy Way, admittedly that we would then have to jump through all the hoops that you have to jump through Thank you. that we have, but it was including the designated and approved closure of Tracy Wade admittedly that we would then have to jump through all the hoops that you have to jump through to legalize it. |
| 03:04:53.72 | Jill Hoffman | I agree. I actually agree with you. When you make the distinction between the closure of Tracy Way and the raising of Tracy Way, I agree with you. |
| 03:05:00.44 | Steven Woodside | Okay. So, |
| 03:05:00.46 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. What the plan included. |
| 03:05:03.22 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Yeah, so with that in mind, can I just ask a question? Because I just want to know either Director McGowan or Mr. Hines. How much is adding a green ecological permeable surface to Tracy Way, how much roughly would that cost? I appreciate that there's economies of scale if it's done in conjunction with the project or not, but just ballpark figure. |
| 03:05:24.81 | Unknown | Thank you. you know, kind of in the range of 50 to 100,000. |
| 03:05:28.03 | Steven Woodside | $50,000 to $100,000. And is it cheaper if it's done as part of a bigger construction project? |
| 03:05:32.75 | Unknown | Absolutely. Thank you. |
| 03:05:34.27 | Steven Woodside | All right. So my point is, thank you very much, sir. I, I, my point is that The time to consider whether to doing it is now. The money, if it's not in the budget, can be raised from private parties. I would personally commit to trying to raise that money from private parties if it's not in the budget. We approved that, and so it's really just an option for us to consider, because we're gonna have to go through, since it's the approved plan already, Vice Mayor, we're gonna have to go through that procedure that you outlined for closure, Tracy Way. That's in parallel. And, and that will be an action we take at the end of the day, even though we approved the plan, we may not approve the budget for it. We may not build a project at all, we could take some future action to give the money back. So just because we approve the plan doesn't mean that we've given up our authority to can't change or to cancel our path. But the keepers on track here with a letter from the district that tells us we're on the cusp of losing the grant. We can't let three weeks go by where the staff is twiddling their thumbs. We should let them go out and get the bids so that we meet next and talk about it with concrete. |
| 03:06:40.51 | Jill Hoffman | I didn't understand that staff has construction drawings ready to bid. They don't. We're not ready to issue construction drawings. |
| 03:06:51.26 | Steven Woodside | I'm saying that why not include this element? |
| 03:06:55.00 | Jill Hoffman | That's fine with me. I would like to do exactly what the city attorney said. I second that. So I move, he enunciated a clear two-step process. One, staff comes back to us with the bid additive and deductive, proposed bid additive and deductive alternates. Two, staff comes back to us with a staff report concerning the closure of Tracy Way. |
| 03:07:20.37 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. I'm curious if you wait, he's already closed, right? It's the raising or no? |
| 03:07:22.54 | Jill Hoffman | you have to go through the we have to go through a process to actually close Tracy way we approved a conceptual plan that included closing Tracy Way, but if we actually want to close it, we have to follow the statute to do that. And so the city attorney said that we should hear a staff report regarding that approval of that process. |
| 03:07:42.66 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:07:42.68 | Steven Woodside | We would. |
| 03:07:44.48 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, it might be easier just to have the city attorney help us draft our motion right now. |
| 03:07:51.23 | Steven Woodside | right now. I would recommend you we're trying to |
| 03:07:51.38 | Sergio Rudin | Now it's just approved. |
| 03:07:52.97 | Unknown | that you... |
| 03:07:54.98 | Jill Hoffman | Sorry, direction? |
| 03:07:56.72 | Steven Woodside | to. |
| 03:07:57.41 | Jill Hoffman | So it's direct motion is, well, okay. Tell us what your recommendation is. |
| 03:08:02.83 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, I would recommend that you receive and file the staff report per the title of the agenda item. And then additionally, I would recommend that you provide direction to staff to bring back subsequent agenda items regarding the construction bid documents and the development of the base bid discussion and direction on closure of Tracy Way. and anything else the council would like to... direct step to the end. |
| 03:08:28.85 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Yeah, I mean, the issue was also what's the base bid? we need to talk about what the base bid is for the construction drawings. So that's, sorry, thank you. That was what I was searching for. So receive and file the report. direct staff to come back. Thank you. |
| 03:08:45.30 | Jill Hoffman | with staff reports concerning what the base bid is comprised of. |
| 03:08:45.37 | Jill Hoffman | Exactly. |
| 03:08:50.89 | Jill Hoffman | and with a separate staff report concerning the process for the consideration of a process for closing Tracy way. |
| 03:08:58.14 | Jill Hoffman | It's a staff report on base bid, including additive and deductive. And deductive alternatives. Yeah? Okay. |
| 03:09:02.92 | Jill Hoffman | and deductive alternates. |
| 03:09:05.75 | Jill Hoffman | And then, And then staff report regarding the closure of Tracy Way. |
| 03:09:09.72 | Jill Hoffman | Regarding the... adoption of a process for the closure of Tracy Way, or consideration of a process for the closure of Tracy Way. |
| 03:09:19.25 | Jill Hoffman | considerate yeah okay that's So |
| 03:09:22.05 | Jill Hoffman | So moved. |
| 03:09:22.58 | Jill Hoffman | Second. |
| 03:09:24.30 | Steven Woodside | All right, we'll have discussion on that motion. Can I ask you a question, Director McGowan? On current basis with the staff that's working on the construction level drawings, when would you be ready, if not for this meeting, to go out to bid? |
| 03:09:38.20 | Kevin McGowan | We will be ready before the six-month period to go out to bid. |
| 03:09:42.49 | Steven Woodside | He wouldn't be ready in the next two or three weeks. |
| 03:09:43.28 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. No, that's too soon. |
| 03:09:45.98 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 03:09:46.57 | Kevin McGowan | No, it could give us at least a month and a half. |
| 03:09:48.77 | Steven Woodside | It would take you a month and a half anyway to be ready. Thank you. |
| 03:09:52.12 | Unknown | And Director McGowan, you're in contact with the district and they understand where we are in the process |
| 03:09:57.03 | Kevin McGowan | District meeting BCDC. |
| 03:09:58.72 | Unknown | No. The Golden Gate. |
| 03:09:59.74 | Kevin McGowan | Golden Gate? Yes. We have a meeting with them next week to talk about their project as well. |
| 03:10:03.35 | Unknown | Okay, and they know we're moving forward, right? Yeah. Okay. |
| 03:10:08.80 | Steven Woodside | Okay. So we have that motion that's seconded. All in favor. |
| 03:10:12.80 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:10:13.15 | Steven Woodside | Aye. Opposed? Okay, motion carries. We'll move forward with the. Next item of business, which is communications, this is the time for anyone to. Make comments on items not on the agenda. |
| 03:10:26.97 | Walfred Solorzano | Sunshine. |
| 03:10:40.67 | Sandra Bushmaker | Good evening. I've learned a big lesson today. I didn't realize I had to wait until all the business was taken care of before I did public comment. And I made public comment at the original planning meeting, which was I don't know how many months ago, and then after that. And I talked about the terrible disaster and the very bad decision to make B Street and all the streets around City Hall C, permit. I have. been told that She would investigate with the police department and would get back to me, and I have not heard a word, And? I... have had endless residents because, Next month, I'm going to be 84. I was the youngest in our complex, OK? And their helpers come to help them out, and they get tickets. Even if they park for one minute, dropping them off, They get tickets. It's awful. There was a whole crowd here at the library, maybe 80 or 90 people on Friday night. I asked Abbott to tell them that if they parked on these streets around, They would be ticketed and people were shocked. So communication is one of the. Biggest problems that I see here with the council. First of all, you send out emails. A lot of people don't have computers. They don't have smartphones. You know, you've got to find good ways to communicate. Because it's been a disaster. I have a handicap permit. It doesn't affect me at all. But it's affecting me through all my neighbors that keep calling me to ask me what they should do. And I told them I was told we can get a one time waiver because you didn't know. I was told that I was also Vince. |
| 03:12:43.96 | Walfred Solorzano | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 03:12:44.01 | Sandra Bushmaker | you |
| 03:12:44.08 | Walfred Solorzano | Lina thank you |
| 03:12:44.96 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 03:12:45.30 | Walfred Solorzano | Rich. |
| 03:12:46.33 | Sandra Bushmaker | you |
| 03:12:46.49 | Steven Woodside | Thank you very much. |
| 03:12:46.97 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 03:12:47.00 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:12:47.96 | Sandra Bushmaker | You're welcome. Thank you for taking action on this. |
| 03:12:57.83 | Vince Casalina | Hello, I'm Vince Casalina and I'm here to tell you a little bit about the documentary that I'm doing. So how many of you have actually been on a sailboat? Sailboat. There is the magic moment when the motor goes off, and all there is is the water and the wind and you. Sausalito is the epicenter of wooden boats on the bay. I'm doing a documentary about wooden boats on the bay and the life cycle of those boats. Wooden boats are biodegradable. They die if they're not taken care of. I'm looking at boats that have been resurrected. Frida, 1893, still sailing on the bay, has died twice, come back to life twice. There are other boats that have not been nearly so lucky, like Vidura that died. So I'm very hopeful that you will consider endorsing my project in the future. People who have so far endorsed it are the Master Mariners Benevolent Association, Spalding Marine Center, Latitude 38, Sausalito wooden boat tour, South Saludo Working Waterfront, San Francisco Saline Science Center, and Paul Kaplan from KPMI. So I will be back again, and I hope that you will consider it. I'm going to leave behind a synopsis of my project so that you can see what I'm looking to do. Thank you very much for your time. |
| 03:14:45.60 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:14:45.61 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 03:14:45.73 | Unknown | to get to the next level. |
| 03:14:45.80 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 03:14:45.95 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:14:46.10 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 03:14:48.75 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:14:48.77 | Vince Casalina | ANYWHERE. |
| 03:14:48.97 | Steven Woodside | online, city clerk. |
| 03:14:50.22 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah, Sandra Bushmaker. |
| 03:15:00.06 | Sandra Bushmaker | I'm coming. All right. |
| 03:15:06.69 | Sandra Bushmaker | All right, let's see. I can't start my video, so you'll have to just look at my black box and my name. Great. What are you doing? |
| 03:15:15.20 | Unknown | I was. |
| 03:15:17.19 | Sandra Bushmaker | Okay. |
| 03:15:18.37 | Steven Woodside | Please go ahead, Ms. Bushwicker. |
| 03:15:19.48 | Sandra Bushmaker | My video. |
| 03:15:21.88 | Steven Woodside | Can we restart her clock, actually? That's just a courtesy. Okay. |
| 03:15:26.18 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 03:15:26.81 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. All right. All right. |
| 03:15:27.46 | Sandra Bushmaker | All right. All right. Just, I was really disappointed, uh, uh, that the geologic hazard mapping study was not on the agenda for tonight. Um, I had, as you know, I was on the landside task force and I heard the presentation of this project, and it was presented last week. to the Planning Commission. It's an important, important study that I would like to make sure gets on the radar. for the council. And, and the recommendations that are in that report are going to require substantial sums of money, but we need to stabilize our community. I mean, we've been arguing about this ferry landing for years. And we've got hillsides that are coming down and hillsides that are susceptible and ridgetops that are susceptible. And we need to pay attention to that. So I really hope that we can get that on the agenda ASAP so we can start paying attention to the health and safety of our community and the longevity of our community. where we are with our geologic hazards. You will be shocked when you see the maps. And, that demonstrate what vulnerabilities we have at the present time. And we need to do something about that. So let's not get that off the radar, please. Thank you. |
| 03:16:59.15 | Steven Woodside | Anyone else, city clerk? |
| 03:17:00.12 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker, Steven Woodside. |
| 03:17:09.24 | Steven Woodside | Mr. Woodside. |
| 03:17:10.55 | Steven Woodside | Hi there. On a positive note, the next to last speaker spoke about wooden boats I think I can safely add Call of the C's endorsement to his effort to make a documentary about the various wooden boats that exist here. And, um, Just to make sure on another positive note that those of you who don't know about it the Seas having a celebration this coming Saturday. There will be tours of the Matthew Turner, which was built right here in Sausalito with sustainably harvested woods. And we look forward to seeing some of you out there enjoying the ambiance of the day. Thank you. |
| 03:17:54.09 | Walfred Solorzano | All right, final speaker, Babette McDougall. |
| 03:18:01.15 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:18:01.16 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 03:18:01.28 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:18:01.30 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 03:18:01.45 | Steven Woodside | Okay. year. What'd you say? |
| 03:18:05.77 | Steven Woodside | Ms. McDoug, it's next. |
| 03:18:05.78 | Steven Woodside | Ms. McDoug. |
| 03:18:07.57 | Babette McDougall | Can you hear me? I was just given a sign saying that I'm not able to start my video either. |
| 03:18:08.25 | Steven Woodside | Go ahead, Ms. McDougall. |
| 03:18:13.41 | Steven Woodside | We can hear you. |
| 03:18:15.12 | Babette McDougall | Can you hear me? |
| 03:18:15.91 | Steven Woodside | Yes, we can. Go right ahead. |
| 03:18:16.84 | Babette McDougall | Yeah. Thank you. And I cannot see a timer, just so you know. And my timer showed that you cut me off after one minute. You have two minutes. Last time. So I have one comment to make. It's a gnawing issue that I've brought to your attention, each and all. |
| 03:18:24.28 | Steven Woodside | You have two minutes. |
| 03:18:31.18 | Babette McDougall | especially you, Mr. Mayor. It's mission critical to run legal meetings. And the fact that no one takes the time to educate themselves fully on the Brown Act is the reason why we are seeing what we are witnessing this evening. Now, how long is this gonna go on? You gloat over the fact that you don't need to know because if you need to know something, you're gonna wait for the city attorney to weigh in. If he doesn't weigh in, silence is consent word for word is what you've told me personally and I'm saying not just you sir but also obviously the members of your staff it seems to be that the staff reports are not reviewed by the city attorney and therefore they come to you without having been blessed legally now we could probably save ourselves all these hours of endless things that your publics are complaining about if you simply made sure that these staff reports were reviewed by the attorney before they were submitted for public. What do you say about that? Thank you. |
| 03:19:31.98 | Walfred Solorzano | All right, no more speakers. |
| 03:19:34.02 | Steven Woodside | All right, we will now move on to council member committee reports. Do any of my colleagues have a report? No, last chance. All right, city manager reports and other council business city manager. |
| 03:19:46.33 | Chris Zapata | If I can, Marin, I'll be brief, and members of the public. Our police department and our human resources department have worked on an exercise in emergency preparedness. Disasters can strike in natural forms or manmade forms, including earthquakes and fires, but also things that happen that involve utilities or people acting badly. Wednesday, May the 8th, City Hall and non-emergency city services will be closed half a day for a tabletop exercise and an active shooter training that we believe is really important for our staff to undertake and be ready. I understand there's more to do and this is, you know, one of the steps that we must take to get ourselves prepared for something that is unthinkable that, you know, we hope will never happen anywhere, much less Sausalito. I also want to point to the city manager report that is included in your packet. That includes, you know, very brief updates on what's going on with 24 of the pending agenda items that you've asked for. And, you know, 15 or so there's action and, you know, five or so there is no action. So please take a look at that. It's part of the record now. And I will try to keep that in front of you so you can see how closely you're tracking with what it is that you've asked for. And I will also do a quarterly report so that you all know how you stand with, you know, the basic priorities you have, as well as the February 10th priorities that you arrived at with our strategic planning session and our consultant, Amy Haworth. Thank you. |
| 03:21:21.86 | Steven Woodside | Fine. Any future agenda items from my colleagues? Councilmember Kellman. |
| 03:21:25.52 | Unknown | I think maybe I jumped Councilman Blast in here, but Bridgeway Marina. I think we would all like to hear and decide what is going to happen there. And then I think the geologic hazard study needs to get on ASAP. |
| 03:21:39.05 | Steven Woodside | Councilmember Blasdy. |
| 03:21:40.47 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, as I mentioned when I pulled it off of the consent calendar, the hazard mitigation assessment as well as the geologic hazards assessment, please. |
| 03:21:47.54 | Steven Woodside | Okay, anyone else? Public comment please on items. |
| 03:21:51.56 | Steven Woodside | One more thing. Also, sorry. I just, I'd like to continue the conversation around tabletop exercises. So after the exercise is completed, a reported staff on that, and then we could have a more robust conversation about overarching disaster preparedness and what tabletops we want to undertake. |
| 03:22:07.62 | Steven Woodside | very well. Any public comment, please, on those two items? Seeing none. All right, we'll move on to adjourn. And we're adjourning today in honor of our friend Kevin Carroll. First term Larkspur council member died last month from the effects of lung cancer. I was shocked to hear of his loss that seemed to come out of the blue. Kevin was a fixture in downtown Sausalito in his checker cab. As Dick Spotswood pointed out in his Marin IJ editorial, Carol wasn't your stereotypical Marin County elected official. By occupation he was a cab driver. He lived in a mobile home in Larkspur's Marin RV Park. For me, Carol was a reliable source of information about traffic and parking." He went on to say that carol was an honest and straightforward person who saw it told it like he sees it he said years ago as a member of the san rafael board of education he advocated for kids with special needs he was well read and was perfectly suited to be a council member from 1993 to 1997 car, Carol served in the San Rafael Board of Education. Bruce Rolfo, a member of the board from 1991 to 1999, said Carol was an advocate for special needs children and their welfare in public school. Supervisor Katie Rice, whose district includes Larkspur, said Carroll, quote, brought a lived experience and perspective to the public dais that we don't often hear from here in Marin, unquote. Last year, I made a special effort to take his checkered cab to the San Francisco airport, and I didn't know it would be the last time. I miss him, and we will all miss him. The adjourned, Kevin's on. |