| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:04.77 | Walfred Solorzano | And council members, this is the meeting of May 7, 2024. It's being held in council chambers at 420 Little Street and at the courtyard by Marriott, Sacramento, 2101 River Plaza Drive, Sacramento, California, 95833. Staff and members of the public are also watching and participating through Zoom. This meeting is also being broadcast live on the city's website and on cable TV channel 27. Thank you, city clerk, would you please call the roll? Council member Blaustein. |
| 00:00:38.99 | Janelle Kellman | Yes. |
| 00:00:40.06 | Walfred Solorzano | Council member Hoffman? Here. Council member Kuhlman? Here. Vice Mayor Cox? |
| 00:00:43.23 | Unknown | Here. Thank you. |
| 00:00:49.32 | Unknown | Here. |
| 00:00:50.57 | Walfred Solorzano | and Mary Sobieski. |
| 00:00:51.87 | Steven Woodside | here. All right. We called a meeting to order. He did the roll we have two items in closed session conference with legal counsel anticipated litigation Government Code Section 54956.9 and Conference with Legal Counsel existing litigation, yes, in my backyard versus the city of Sausalito. We will now open public comment on these closed session items. |
| 00:01:17.84 | Walfred Solorzano | Seeing none. |
| 00:01:19.43 | Steven Woodside | All right, we will close public comment and join the closed session. |
| 00:02:45.56 | Steven Woodside | All right, we are coming back from closed session to no closed session announcements. And we're going to begin the meeting with a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you very much. |
| 00:03:11.92 | Steven Woodside | We will now move on to Special presentations and mayor's announcements. We will have a special presentation on, the new Fix-It app, which should be of great interest to everyone in the community as a step forward in how the city administers its trouble tickets from It's infrastructure and other issues. And Director McGowan, I think you're doing the honors. |
| 00:03:39.74 | Kevin McGowan | How's that? Good evening, Mayor, members of City Council. I'm Kevin McGowan, Public Works Director for Sausalito. And we do have a presentation this evening. Hopefully our City Clerk or Assistant can help out with that and bring up the presentation. This evening, the presentation regarding the City's new reporting software, the new Fix-It application is an active response tool to address public works maintenance issues Utilizing this software will help Sausalito be a more, sorry, up-to-date smart city by improving response times and developing data. in regards to our responses. So luckily this evening we have Megan Lockett, who is our permit technician, will be presenting this item. And Megan has been leading the way with this effort on behalf of the city. So with that, I'd like to turn it over to Megan to kind of walk us through a presentation. |
| 00:04:46.97 | Megan Lockett | Thank you. I'll just share my screen instead of the presentation if you don't mind. Let's see. |
| 00:05:06.40 | Megan Lockett | Okay, okay. Good evening, mayor and council members. In 2022, based on direction from the city council |
| 00:05:14.78 | Steven Woodside | Could you speak a little, maybe move the microphone down a little bit to help yourself out? |
| 00:05:16.56 | Megan Lockett | Oh, sorry. A little shorter. |
| 00:05:19.61 | Steven Woodside | And then I know Director McGowan did, but please just introduce yourself to everyone in the community. |
| 00:05:20.76 | Megan Lockett | Okay. |
| 00:05:25.14 | Megan Lockett | So good evening, Mayor and Council members. In 2022, based on direction from the City Council and the City Manager, the Public Works Department initiated a project to implement newer reporting technologies to improve the public's ability to report maintenance issues in the public right of way or on city property. The new issue reporting software system, developed by RockSolid, includes a fix-it application that can be accessed through the city's website as well as through smartphone devices. The Fix It app allows the public to report problems such as potholes, or block storm drain systems directly to the maintenance division. This system will increase the city's responsiveness, allows our maintenance staff to respond directly to the person submitting the report and tracks progress on a graphic information systems map or GIS system. prior to the implementation of this new application, Residents and members of the public could report a maintenance issue on the city's website um, Finding the correct website location proved to be somewhat cumbersome to locate and took additional time to fill out. In addition, responding in a timely fashion and corresponding with the person submitting the request was time consuming. |
| 00:06:52.17 | Megan Lockett | Thank you. So the new fix application is intended to allow members of the public a simple way to report a city maintenance problem. The software is also helpful to staff because of the GIS approach that visually identifies what actions have been taken by staff in response to a request. Staff is able to simply address the issue, take a picture and note that the request has been addressed. implementing newer technologies that are compatible with cell phones, can better streamline and maintenance reporting, and is part of a smart city approach. To implement the Fix It app, staff reached out to a local professional firm called the Department of Civic Things to assist with starting this development process. Civic Things developed a request for information, gathered information on vendors, and assisted with a selection team made up of city staff from public works, maintenance and engineering divisions and the community development department. The panel reviewed demonstrations of three software providers and refined the selection based on internal city needs, vendor attributes and an ease of community interaction. RockSolid was selected to develop the software and implement the application on behalf of the city. The planning and development process took a little longer than expected, with app build approvals from the app stores, training of staff, and internal testing of the system being recently completed. In March of 2024, the city council and VWC The various Sausalito Commission chairs beta tested the new application The system now is ready for an official public launch So let's take a look at the city's web page. So you can see here the web versions up and running on the city's website. You can find it by visiting Sausalito.gov, then selecting services, and then report a pothole that are circled on the screen there. |
| 00:08:57.13 | Megan Lockett | And then here's the online service request page. You can use this page to submit a service request or check the status of an existing request. So you can see there's the create a request button. You can view an existing case, create a new case, or create an account to use the system in the future. |
| 00:09:20.97 | Megan Lockett | And then in addition, the Fix-It app for Sausalito can be found on Apple and Android app stores. The apps include all the same features available on the website, along with the ability to take and submit photos and videos directly from your mobile device. |
| 00:09:40.02 | Megan Lockett | and future announcements in the current newsletter and on city social media pages will be addressed in the next few weeks. Staff will also be posting signs in parks and other public places to inform visitors and residents how to access the software. |
| 00:09:58.86 | Megan Lockett | Okay, so let's go back to creating an online service request. When you select create a new service request that I had circled up above before, you're taken to this form which shows a simple, easy to follow outline of the steps needed to create the request. And then let's go to the website and I can show you a live version of submitting a request. And the creation of a service request looks the same on the app as it does on the website. |
| 00:10:36.29 | Megan Lockett | Okay, so you can see the service request page on our website that I got to from clicking services and report a pothole. You scroll down and then you can click create a new service request. |
| 00:10:58.22 | Megan Lockett | Okay, so then I'll use an example that I actually submitted on here before for a pothole that was just down the street on Caledonia and Litho Street. So we'll go to the first one, select a report type, You'll choose from one of the categories, so we'll go to streets and then choose pothole. You can see there are several different categories and subcategories, and there's also an other category if there's something that isn't on that list. Then you'll click on where's the request you can There's a couple ways you can kind of click on there, highlight the area. So it's at this intersection here. Oops. And then you go back. Okay. Then you can tell more details where the pothole's located. It's in the street, in the crosswalk. what type of material is a pothole in. So it was in asphalt and then a brief description. So I'll put it was, in the... Thank you. Crosswalk next to. |
| 00:12:11.48 | Megan Lockett | Okay. And then you can upload photos. Just click on the link here. Saved on my desktop. You can also do it from the mobile device the same way. So I have a picture of the pothole itself there. And then I took a picture of the street sign, so it's easy. Even though we have the GIS location, it's easier to see where it is. And then if I wanted to submit this and keep it private so it doesn't show up on the city website for everybody else to view, I can click this, keep this request private. Otherwise, I'll keep it open so anybody else can see that it's already been submitted. So we submit that. |
| 00:12:56.06 | Megan Lockett | And then it shows the confirmation that your report was received. And then it'll also immediately send an email. So I just got this email that popped up. You can't see it, though, but it does say that I got a comment right away saying the request was received and that they're going to be working on it. |
| 00:13:15.55 | Megan Lockett | I'll go back. |
| 00:13:23.35 | Unknown | Oops. |
| 00:13:25.85 | Megan Lockett | It's slightly delayed apparently. Thank you. |
| 00:13:41.76 | Megan Lockett | Oops. Sorry about that. |
| 00:13:56.25 | Megan Lockett | Sorry, I don't know why my mouth seemed to have disappeared for some reason. Thank you. |
| 00:14:02.53 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:14:03.36 | Megan Lockett | Thank you. |
| 00:14:03.46 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:14:03.51 | Melissa Blaustein | Well, just... |
| 00:14:03.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:14:04.17 | Megan Lockett | Thank you. |
| 00:14:09.40 | Megan Lockett | Um... I can't seem to. Do you think you could pull the presentation back up? For some reason, my mouse is not letting me go to. Oh wait, hold on. Oh, never mind, I think I got it. Okay, sorry. Okay, so then here is an example that's already existing from the website. So you can see all the information that was submitted is listed on here. You can see unless the request was made private, like I said before, or it was made anonymously, the public can view the ticket and all the details, so we don't get duplicate submittals. But if we did get duplicate submittals, it has a detection software built in, so it's supposed to catch that and prevent duplicate submittals from being submitted. Okay, and then here's an example of what the request looks like in the app. So that's my request that I did before for that same pothole. So it shows information submitted, all the updates that were received from the maintenance division, letting me know the status of my request. |
| 00:15:22.18 | Unknown | I'm not. |
| 00:15:29.39 | Megan Lockett | And then this shows kind of the back end page that staff sees when we look at the service tickets. So we can send messages directly to the author as well as upload the progress photos showing the work completed and then update the status of the tickets. So you can see all the information submitted there and we can add to that as well. And that will show up on the public side as well. So then this shows another back end view. It's kind of a map view showing the list of service tickets that are submitted as well as a GIS map showing the location of the tickets. And so it's helpful too that the tickets are color coded. So all the little points on there show the status of the tickets based on the color. So that comes in handy. So then I can show you a live version of that map showing all the requests that have currently been submitted as of now. So about the last month and a half. |
| 00:16:37.17 | Sandra Bushmaker | Let's see. |
| 00:16:39.84 | Unknown | Oops. All right. Thank you. |
| 00:16:44.94 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:16:48.62 | Unknown | it. |
| 00:16:49.04 | Megan Lockett | Oops, let's see. Sorry about that. Okay. So there you can see, it looks the same, but that shows all the current tickets that have been submitted. |
| 00:16:56.28 | Cameron Razavi | same. |
| 00:16:59.89 | Megan Lockett | Thank you. as of right now. |
| 00:17:16.17 | Megan Lockett | Okay. So then just software is also a reminder that residents, visitors, and city staff are all on the same team. The software is an excellent tool to help us all work together more efficiently to keep Sausalito running smoothly and make it a better place for all. While the software allows staff to fix many issues, please note that not all issues can be fixed right away. Some examples include streetlight maintenance and installation of shields that take time to schedule with our streetlight contractor. Private property issues and maintenance requests that are outside of the city's jurisdiction, such as Marin City or Caltrans right away, come up quite often, and we can't fix those since they're not within the city limits. Other issues which are related to capital improvement projects may be linked to the completion of other specific projects can't be addressed immediately through this software since they'd have to wait for that project. |
| 00:18:15.71 | Megan Lockett | And so far, staff has received positive feedback in addition to the suggestions that we received from the beta testing that we're currently working on. So many thanks for all the compliments, and we appreciate the collaborative approach with our residents with this new software. So as we can easily get buried with some adults and inquiries, having the system that automatically sends updates to the applicant and the general public will help our communication with the public. |
| 00:18:46.13 | Megan Lockett | Okay, so this is a dynamic reporting software, which does have some limitations. So staff's investigating some additional measures, such as setting up the reminder system for staff to address open cases. In addition, it's not uncommon to identify minor problems with the software as it is developed. such as some Android users have reported issues with uploading photos from their mobile devices. Staff will continue to work with Rock Solid to address these issues. So I'd like to thank the rest of the implementation team, which includes Abbott Chambers, our Director of Communications and City Librarian, Eric Graham, our Sewer Systems Coordinator, and Kevin McGowan, our Public Works Director. And at this point, I'll turn it back over to Kevin for a few final comments. |
| 00:19:33.96 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Ms. Lockhart. |
| 00:19:34.53 | Megan Lockett | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:19:36.69 | Steven Woodside | Good job. |
| 00:19:40.30 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you very much, Megan. Great job. Megan doesn't always get up and speak in front of public. And so I just want to thank her. She's done a great job this evening, and she has been a lead with this project. I'm really excited about it to tell you the truth, just the graphic information piece of it, the fact that our staff can take a look at a map of the city and find out which areas or which fix it tickets have not been addressed is pretty important. In addition, we can use this application, especially during heavy rain seasons and other times at which we don't have enough eyes in the field in order to take a look at issues. And if we can get our residents, members of the public to help us out, Tell us where we have problems. That will help us out quite significantly. So many thanks again, and even though Megan has done a great job with the presentation, she's led us with this particular project. So many thanks, and thanks to the council for helping us out with this as well. And with that, if you have any questions or comments, we're here for you. |
| 00:20:39.90 | Steven Woodside | THE FAMILY. |
| 00:20:39.97 | Ian Sobieski | Do you have any questions? |
| 00:20:40.53 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. or from his |
| 00:20:43.68 | Kevin McGowan | it. |
| 00:20:43.97 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. What would be the best way for members of the community to see, can we download these things in aggregate and see a status and compare it to the capital improvement program? Is that future functionality? |
| 00:21:00.81 | Kevin McGowan | I believe it is. Megan, do you want to comment on whether... Thank you. we can actually do that. So we'll have to investigate a little bit, but I think it is possible to give an update on each one of the fix-it tickets that come in. And so it's kind of a reminder system to those who might have submitted something. |
| 00:21:21.59 | Steven Woodside | Any other questions? All right, let's take public comment on the presentation. |
| 00:21:25.91 | Walfred Solorzano | City clerk. Members of the public that would like to comment. There are sheets over by the table, by the television. You can pull out one of those sheets and then turn it back in. And if you're on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function and speakers have two minutes to speak. And we do have one speaker right now and then one speaker on Zoom. We can start with Zoom. Okay, so we'll start with Senator Bushmaker. |
| 00:21:48.55 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 00:21:56.82 | Sandra Bushmaker | Hi, everybody. I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate this app. I have used it several times and I found it really effective and very, uh, easy to communicate. I just downloaded it a month ago on my phone and have already used it a couple of times. So thank you for implementing this. I really appreciate having this service available to the public. |
| 00:22:20.82 | Walfred Solorzano | All right, next speaker, Sharna Brockett. |
| 00:22:26.08 | Sharna Brockett | I just want to also say the same thing. Huge kudos to staff. Wow, that's amazing. |
| 00:22:26.59 | Walfred Solorzano | also say the same |
| 00:22:31.53 | Sharna Brockett | Um, I lived in the city for a long time in San Francisco and they have a fix it app there that I use all the time. So super excited to see this and start using it. So kudos. |
| 00:22:43.63 | Walfred Solorzano | All right, seeing no further public speakers. |
| 00:22:45.69 | Steven Woodside | Okay, we'll close public comment. Any comments here from the Dice? |
| 00:22:49.62 | Janelle Kellman | Just thank you very much for the hard work on this. I know it was a long time coming and I appreciate the efforts and also having seen it from the early phases of what the app was gonna look like and how far along it's come and how much progress you've made and responded to feedback. We really appreciate the engagement of all of you. |
| 00:23:05.50 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:23:05.62 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:23:05.65 | Ian Sobieski | I just want to call up and basically say what Councilman Blasin said, except say it. even more energetically. This is awesome. Really cool job. Great job staff. Chris, thank you for pushing this through. I think maybe it was even your idea, Councilman Blaston, so thank you for that. I think this is a really wonderful way to engage with our community and super stoked to see it. So thank you and thanks staff and thanks to the city manager. |
| 00:23:28.28 | Steven Woodside | Okay, thank you very much, congratulations, and we will now move on to the next item, which is action minutes of the previous meeting. The minutes are attached. We can take public comment on them. First, are there any comments from the dais? And if not, we'll do public comment. All right. Public comment, city clerk. Thank you. |
| 00:23:47.57 | Walfred Solorzano | See none. |
| 00:23:48.72 | Steven Woodside | All right, no public comment. We'll close public comment and now move to approve the minutes. Is there a motion to do so? So moved. Is there a second? |
| 00:23:55.00 | Ian Sobieski | I'll say again. |
| 00:23:55.86 | Steven Woodside | All in favor, aye. |
| 00:23:56.82 | Walfred Solorzano | I think we have to do a roll call vote. Sorry. |
| 00:23:58.61 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Oh, yes, that's right. Thank you for the catch, because one of our members is participating remotely. We will do a roll call vote. |
| 00:23:59.01 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:24:06.96 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blossom. Yes. Councilmember Hoffman? Yes. Councilmember Kelman? Here. |
| 00:24:10.47 | Janelle Kellman | Yes. Thank you. |
| 00:24:12.09 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:24:13.49 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:24:13.53 | Ian Sobieski | Sorry. |
| 00:24:14.05 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:24:15.99 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Cox. |
| 00:24:20.21 | Steven Woodside | Yes, all right. |
| 00:24:20.87 | Walfred Solorzano | Right. So we'll... |
| 00:24:22.50 | Steven Woodside | Count her as an abstention or no. |
| 00:24:24.58 | Walfred Solorzano | I'll call him her as absent for this vote for zero. |
| 00:24:26.72 | Steven Woodside | Okay. And yes, from me. So we will now move on to the consent calendar. These are matters generally considered routine and non-controversial and require no separate discussion. They're expected to pass with unanimous council support and may be enacted in one motion. There'll be no separate Discussion on consent calendar items, however, before we vote. Any council member can request that an item be removed from the consent calendar. Items removed will be discussed later on the agenda. And we will hear public comment for that item at that time. So the consent calendar items currently are 3A, the proclamation of Jewish American Heritage Month. 3B, the proclamation of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. 3C waive the business license tax penalty imposed on Brody in an amount of $6,884. 3D, receive and file the treasurer's report for March 31st, 2024. 3E, adopt a resolution to approve a new position in the police department and an updated position allocation table with the following change in related classification, quote, the addition of a police community service and evidence technician, unquote. 3F adopt public official reimbursement policy required by government code section 53232.2. 3G the library Q3 report for fiscal year 2023-24. 3H adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute a reimbursement agreement with the city of Sausalito and Marin municipal water district for the construction of the Edwards Avenue pipeline replacement project. 3I the adopting a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute the license agreement with the interactive charging to purchase, install, maintain, and manage electric vehicle charging stations at Suslita City Hall and Dumfey Park. 3J, adopt a resolution approving the installation of two new stop signs at the five-way intersection of San Carlos, Dillon Drive and Harrison Avenue. 3K adopt a resolution to execute a professional consulting services agreement with Ascent Environmental for cost recovery planning application processing services. That's CEQA review for Bridgeway Commons housing project application 2018 00413. 3L adopt a resolution to authorize the city manager to execute an amended professional services agreement with Robert Brown in an amount of $29,050 for a total contract not to exceed $95,215. Do any of my colleagues wish to remove any of the consent calendar items? Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 00:27:04.35 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, I would like to remove item 3F, adopt public official reimbursement policy required by government code section 532.2. I received several requests from the public to remove that and discuss that. |
| 00:27:16.30 | Steven Woodside | Okay. And discuss that. We will remove that, and it will be heard as vitamin 5E at the end of the agenda. Anything else? Yes, Councilmember Boston. |
| 00:27:23.50 | Janelle Kellman | I was wondering if you might allow me to read both of the proclamations. Just because I think that they're important to acknowledge. And as a Jewish woman, I'm excited about the proclamation of the Jewish American Heritage Month, but I also want to acknowledge the AAPI Heritage Month. So we'll start with the |
| 00:27:27.76 | Steven Woodside | Please. |
| 00:27:34.02 | Cameron Razavi | No objections. |
| 00:27:42.17 | Janelle Kellman | with item A, which is the proclamation of the city of Sausalito honoring Jewish American Heritage Month 2024. Thank you. Whereas during Jewish American Heritage Month, we celebrate the remarkable contributions of Jewish people, community and culture to America and the American story. And whereas for generations, the story of the Jewish people is one of resilience, faith, and hope in the face of adversity, prejudice, anti-Semitism, and persecution, And whereas Jewish Americans have served in government and the military, have won Nobel Prizes, headed universities and corporations, advanced medicine, created and performed an enduring works of performing in visual art, written great American novels and become emblems of justice as members of the Supreme Court and so much more. And whereas we honor the timeless values, contributions, and culture of Jewish Americans who carry our nation forward each and every day, now, therefore, the mayor and city council of the city of Sausalito hereby proclaim May as Jewish American Heritage Month in the city of Sausalito. And then I will read the proclamation for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders Heritage Month as well. whereas during Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we celebrate the diversity of cultures and remarkable contributions of these communities that have been part of the American experience for more than 200 years and whereas in the last in less than 50 years nearly one of every 10 people in America will trace his or her heritage to Asia and the Pacific, a region that covers more than one-third of the Earth, including the Far East, Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and the Pacific. And whereas generations of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders have helped develop and defend the United States, often in the face of a range of adversities, including racial and cultural prejudice, and now, therefore, the Mayor and the City Council of the City of Sausalito hereby proclaim May 2024, Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in Sausalito. |
| 00:29:37.56 | Steven Woodside | Thank you very much, Councilmember Blaustein. So are there any public, oh please, Councilmember Kellman. |
| 00:29:43.04 | Ian Sobieski | It was just an item, oh gosh, it's the electric vehicle charging. So I am very excited to see item 3I, adopt resolution authorized and city manager execute the license agreement with integrative charging to purchase, install, maintain and manage seven electric vehicle charging stations, a long time coming. I just wanna clarify because I believe the term of the license agreement is that integrative charging purchases it. I just, it's worded funny, so I just wanted to clarify that, that the city won't own the chargers, it is the third party vendor that owns the chargers. So that's all. |
| 00:30:19.68 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 00:30:19.70 | Steven Woodside | That's correct, council member. |
| 00:30:20.99 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you, Kevin. |
| 00:30:23.38 | Steven Woodside | So we will have public comment on the consent calendar, except for item 3F, which has been put onto the general. Council Member Hoffman. |
| 00:30:31.47 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I just have to know Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I cannot hear. Sorry. I need to recuse myself from item 3K, which is a property at 1755 Bridgeway. That's within 500 feet of my house. Okay. |
| 00:30:49.63 | Steven Woodside | Okay, so we will have first, well, we'll take public comment on all the items and then we will manage the vote. City Clerk, could you please open public comment on the consent calendar? |
| 00:30:59.40 | Walfred Solorzano | All right. Seeing none. |
| 00:31:01.41 | Steven Woodside | Okay, we will close public comment on the consent calendar. We'll have a vote on the consent calendar items 3A through 3L except for 3K and 3F. So please call the roll. |
| 00:31:17.58 | Walfred Solorzano | Council Member Blashtey? Yes. Council Member Hoffman? Yes. Council Member Kuhlman? Yes. Vice Mayor Cox? |
| 00:31:18.89 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:31:18.91 | Unknown | Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And I will note that I was using my phone as audio and I could not respond to the consent calendar, but I, I mean, to the, Um, minutes, but I was here and I did vote in approval of the minutes. Thank you. |
| 00:31:40.53 | Walfred Solorzano | and Mary Sobieski. |
| 00:31:42.25 | Steven Woodside | Yes. Now we'll hear from the council with Council Member Hoffman accused for item 3K. Please call the roll. |
| 00:31:51.07 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:31:51.50 | Walfred Solorzano | Council member Blossene? Yes. Council member Hoffman? |
| 00:31:52.98 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 00:31:58.40 | Walfred Solorzano | Oh, sorry. Sorry. Councilman Kellman? Thank you. |
| 00:32:00.52 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:32:00.54 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes. Vice Mayor Cox. Yes. And Maris will be asking. |
| 00:32:04.83 | Steven Woodside | Yes, okay, we'll now move on to our business items. The first item is receive a report regarding the city's insurance, insurance procurement and risk management discussion and direction from staff. |
| 00:32:18.46 | Chris Zapata | I will handle that. Mayor. Thank you, City Manager Zapata. So can we put the PowerPoint up, Walford, please? So if you read the San Francisco Chronicle today, you saw that insurance was front page news for homeowners trying to get protection and it's been front page news for the city of Sausalito for a good eight months. So one of the things that I want to point out to the public and I think it's well known that as insurance is fundamental to your home, insurance is fundamental to our city, we must have insurance. And when we talk about insurance for the city, we're not just talking about one area. We're talking about multiple areas that we have coverage in that are required and, you know, that we have in order to contain or keep our city functioning with some level of risk assurance or risk, being able to deal with risk. And some of those areas are obviously property, automobile, workers' comp, cyber insurance, employment practice, and general liability. So it's two slides. And so in order to have insurance, no, back one more, please. In order to have insurance, the city has basically joined other cities that made this work for them and created what they call a joint powers authority, which is a pool of cities and special districts to provide insurance coverages where cities share their risk and and you know savings as a group and so the city has been a member of what's called the Bay City's joint powers Insurance Authority since 1986. And at this time, that's 19 cities in two special districts. And typically what the city pays for basic insurance coverage is about $1.2 million a year. Next slide, please. So one of the things that's happened with our insurance and the reason it's been front and center for the city and city staff and the city council for the last eight months is that in October we were notified that we were going to potentially be expelled immediately from the pool by the executive director and that there was a board of directors meeting in which Sosolita was going to be without insurance if the executive committee recommendation carried through so this recommendation was based on what the pool says is an excessive loss history over the past 10 years and you know significant events that we've had where there's been big claims so the pool executive committee and the city manager and city attorney met to you know basically tell them this is not how you treat longtime members we want to talk about a mutual separation and so they agreed and so on October of this past year the city attorney and I met with the board whereby they agreed to keep us on in the pool until June 30th of this year with the stipulation that our self-insured retention amount go from fifty thousand to five hundred thousand dollars in November of this past year the City Council approved that separation agreement and so here we are so one of the things that happened as this was all unfolding is you know what is it that we have to do to make sure that we acquire coverage for the city and its operations and so we were directed to pursue bids from pools and from the private sector and we were also directed to hire a risk manager to help us lower our risk profile we were also given direction to look at our city quote our municipal code because some of it is antiquated doesn't have compliance with local laws and that needs to be freshened up to be right we're looking at our contracts to make sure that there was equitable risk transfer that the city didn't share all of the burden of something going wrong and that our employment practices and how we procured services would be reviewed as well so that we could in fact begin to talk to our potential new partner in providing insurance about how we are mindful and making this a priority by virtue of a risk manager position, by virtue of improving our practices, and at the same time asking that they provide us an opportunity to join either a pool or the private sector. And in that process, that has been driven by myself and a team that's really been working hard on it our city attorney our finance director our HR manager and our former human resources consultant to make sure that we provided bids or pools the information that they needed so that they could see what it is is Sausalito had in terms of its property that need to be covered its loss run history its personnel practices its cyber security all the things that a risk pool wants to know or a private insurance carrier wants to know so so we've been working really hard on that and so our city attorney is going to take it from here and give you an update on where it is that we are and what we're doing. And then at the end, our finance director is going to talk about the financial implications of our situation as we are in right now. So Sergio, can you run with it from here? |
| 00:37:43.46 | Sergio Rudin | Yes, so... Let's see. So the city has been looking at, um, procuring insurance, uh, on both the, uh, Public market. In terms of contacting additional risk pools, the city's contacted Plan JPA, CIRA, the Municipal Pooling Authority of Northern California, Golden State Risk Management Authority, and Public Risk Innovation Solutions and Management, which is more commonly referred to as PRISM, which is the largest risk pool in California, and they are expanding outside of California. Additionally, the city has been using Hub International, which was a broker that was referred to the city by its coverage council to look at the private insurance market as well. Again, as the city manager has already overviewed, the city's 10-year Loss history has been a significant issue in terms of the city's Um, present situation with its current pool and its exiting from its current pool. Of course, that same information with regards to its loss run history has to be provided to all potential insurers. So this has been something that has been a pretty significant challenge moving forward. Next slide. Um, so again, as I've overviewed, um, hub is a private broker. The city has been working with to, uh, look at the private insurance market hub has contacted, um, I think over 20 different insurers in the private market that provide insurance to public agencies, Again, Prism is the largest risk pool in California and has a lot of member entities that include cities and counties throughout California. In order to get pricing information from insurers the city has had to compile not only its loss run history for various lines, and those include all losses for workers' comp claims, for general liability claims, information on its existing assets so that it can get property insurance. So preparing complete and correct inventories of what sort of property, both in terms of real property and vehicles and other insurable assets the city has, and then answering questions about various losses the city has had, as well as its risk management practices from various insurers, as well as the status of ongoing litigation and pending claims. So we've provided all that information and we've received. indications of pricing from Prism as well as from Hub in terms of what is available out there on the private insurance market. The details of that are in the staff report. Next slide, please. Um, in terms of the Um... private insurance market, At this point, the indications of pricing are relatively high, and additionally they would be subject to aggregate limits, which are less typical in, um, risk pools and public agency risk pools because typically the structure of public agency risk pools are that the other members are providing the insurance. There's not a limitation on the number of claims you can make or the number of losses that you can incur. But of course, if you incur too many losses, then your fellow members look at you and decide whether or not they want to continue doing business with you. So on the private insurance market, depending on the levels of coverage that the city would like to procure and it is a good idea to have, you know, coverage in the range of 10 to $30 million for, you know, various events that have occurred in other cities and where cities have had to have very significant payouts for wrongful death litigation and things that unfortunate nature. But the pricing has come back, at least with the general liability line of Um, you know, exceeding 1.5 million for the first 5 million general liability coverage. And likely the city would want more coverage than 5 million in general liability coverage. All in, it is likely that the city would probably be looking for... at close to $3 million per year in premiums just to have general liability coverage, workers' comp, employment practice liability, and property insurance. On the PRISM side, the city is still being evaluated for participation in PRISM. The Underwriters Committee of PRISM actually met on May 1st, and we received some additional feedback and request for information from the underwriters committee. So the city is still being considered for membership in PRISM at this time. Um, And we anticipate, uh, having another meeting where the city manager and the city attorney attend that underwriters committee meeting to answer questions. of the participating board members with respect to city's loss run history and risk management practices. to address any concerns that PRISM has about the city's participation in that risk pool. Um, with regards to the figures we've received from the private insurance market The feedback we've gotten to date has been while the premiums you are facing are high, It is anticipated that some of those premiums, particularly for the general liability line, would come down. after a few years once the city's five-year loss history is more stable and excludes the 2019 landslide, losses that were faced by the city, which were relatively significant and resulted in payouts by insurers of um, several million dollars. I believe off the top of my head, that number may have been five to six million dollars for those particular incidents. Um, So. That is generally the status of where we are in terms of the private insurance market versus PRISM. We'll have a better sense of whether or not we are... Eligible for acceptance in to prison by the end of this month, but if we are the costs of getting general liability coverage would be significantly less than the private insurance market and we would anticipate that it would provide for better coverage, although it'd be at a slightly higher retention. Next slide, please. And then in closing, the big change that the city is facing with regards to its insurance situation is as a result of its separation from Bay Cities, its self-insured retention increased from $50,000 to a half million dollars. We're anticipating that regardless of where your insurance is procured, you're going to have a self-insured retention in line with that. which means the city is likely going to be paying the first half million dollars more or less, of defense costs and settlement costs with respect to any claim filed against the city. While this gives the city a lot more control over the defense and resolution of claims within the self-insured retention, Um, most of the claims the city faces are under that self-insured limit. It is a rare circumstance, and I would say probably in the Last 10 years, there's less than 10 claims that I can think of where the city has paid more than half a million dollars. |
| 00:45:55.48 | Cameron Razavi | $1 million. |
| 00:45:56.97 | Sergio Rudin | in terms of resolution. So again, the bulk of the claims the city would be dealing with itself. Any questions? |
| 00:46:05.91 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Sergio. I have a question, but I'll be happy to. Defer to others. All right, Sergio, over the last 10 years, how much has the pool paid on our behalf for all claims from the city of South Slito over that 10 year period? |
| 00:46:21.17 | Sergio Rudin | So according to Bay Cities, the city has incurred 13.1 million in losses. in the general liability program alone, so that excludes workers comp claims, or excludes property claims, due to 36 claims. And so that was information back from September 2023. Bay Cities indicated that the city paid that the risk pool paid $11.2 million out of those $13.1 million in claims. And basically the city would have paid the remainder and self-intentioned retention costs. |
| 00:46:53.77 | Steven Woodside | Okay, so between the city and the pool, there was approximately $13 million paid out. And then in addition to that are amounts for worker comp claims and property claims. Do you have a sense of how big those are? |
| 00:47:05.63 | Sergio Rudin | Thank you. I suspect that there's significantly less, but I don't have those figures offhand. |
| 00:47:12.94 | Steven Woodside | like a million dollars or? more. |
| 00:47:15.94 | Sergio Rudin | I won't speculate on this. |
| 00:47:18.05 | Steven Woodside | Okay, so $13 million. So that's in addition to the premiums we were paying. During that time, we were also paying policy premiums to the insurer, the base cities, right? |
| 00:47:26.62 | Sergio Rudin | Yes. And according to the city's finance director, the premiums paid during the 10 year period were around $6.9 million. |
| 00:47:34.10 | Steven Woodside | Okay, so 13 million was paid out on our behalf, but we paid and of that 13 million, 1. How much was it from the city in itself insured, a self insurance retainer? |
| 00:47:47.31 | Sergio Rudin | Uh, that would have been around 1.9 million. |
| 00:47:50.52 | Steven Woodside | 1.9 million was basically our deductible put it in language. I understand 1.9 million from the city of that 13 million. And then in addition to that was 6 million in premium. So the city paid 7.9, it was $8 million. And then Bay cities paid roughly $11.1 million in claims. So that's roughly how much we paid out over the 10 year period. Is that what I understand? |
| 00:48:16.00 | Sergio Rudin | Yes. And of course, I think that on top of that, there were, you know, defense costs and certain other expenses that likely aren't figured into those numbers. But those are rough estimates. Yes. |
| 00:48:28.71 | Steven Woodside | So as a rough swag though, the city over that period of time invested six, 7.9, roughly $8 million between premiums and it's deductible. And the pool paid on our behalf roughly $11.1 million. So that's how it split out. But if we, for instance, weren't insured and we were paying for everything ourselves, we'd have paid out $13 million. |
| 00:48:51.67 | Sergio Rudin | Yes. |
| 00:48:52.08 | Steven Woodside | Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Council Member Hoffman. |
| 00:48:56.59 | Jill Hoffman | But on a lot of those claims, we weren't paying the cost of defending, correct? |
| 00:49:02.26 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, so basically the city's under the existing risk pool, the city pays $50,000 in a self-inturbed retention or deductible. And then afterwards, all defense costs and settlement are typically covered. |
| 00:49:18.18 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, so in other words, we didn't pay the attorneys to defend us in those cases. |
| 00:49:22.35 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, after probably the first couple of months. Yeah. |
| 00:49:23.99 | Jill Hoffman | Or the litigation. So I don't know the order of what those additional costs were. And we also didn't, anyway. |
| 00:49:33.17 | Unknown | you |
| 00:49:33.84 | Jill Hoffman | And we also didn't have the risk of a large you know, a large, um, judgment against us because we were insured for that, correct? Thank you. |
| 00:49:45.25 | Sergio Rudin | Correct. |
| 00:49:47.02 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:49:47.75 | Steven Woodside | Councilmember Cox. Yes, I'll get to you. |
| 00:49:51.31 | Unknown | Thank you. This is not the only insurance policy available to the city, Sergio. Correct. We have various historical policies which have also afforded us a defense for certain actions over the years, correct? Correct. And we still have those policies available to us moving forward. |
| 00:50:12.54 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, those policies are available, but they are limited in terms of the kinds of claims that you can tender to them. Typically they do have to have claims, where you can plausibly allege that damages reach back to those historic periods. So, you know, for example, if you have an incident that happens tomorrow and You know, there's really no nexus to events happening back during the policy period in say the 1960s or 70s, you know, it would, the city should expect the denial of coverage for those particular claims. But if you can demonstrate, like for example, if there was a pollution incident in the 1960s and just gets discovered now then yes those historic insurance policies are valuable for those kinds of claims |
| 00:51:02.22 | Unknown | And in 2016, we have relied on that historical endurance for various Thank you. Bye. We have |
| 00:51:16.16 | Steven Woodside | Councilmember Cox, I think you dropped out there for a moment. |
| 00:51:16.22 | Sergio Rudin | at this moment. |
| 00:51:16.60 | Unknown | you |
| 00:51:16.65 | Sergio Rudin | I think he's probably But I believe Councilmember Cox is referring to the fact that the city has had certain kinds of historic related pollution claims that it has tendered to those historical insurers and yeah that would be correct. And those. The losses and the figures that are given to us by Bay Cities would not include those kinds of claims. |
| 00:51:42.68 | Steven Woodside | All right, Councilmember Blaustein. |
| 00:51:44.84 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. Sergio, could you just give a little bit of context to the benefits of the public market versus hub here in terms of our coverage as a city and what we might receive from PRISM? |
| 00:51:60.00 | Sergio Rudin | So in terms of overall limits, again, the indications of pricing that we've preliminarily received from PRISM is that our general liability costs, just for the premium for the general liability line of coverage would be about a million dollars a year that is more or less in line with what the city's paying right now to bay cities which maybe a little bit more. Um, The difference in terms of coverage is that PRISM does not cover inverse condemnation claims, nor does it cover pollution claims. There's some limited pollution coverage with Bay Cities. There's also some limited coverage for inverse condemnation claims to Bay Cities. And the limits of coverage are a little different. I believe right now the city has limits of coverage in excess of $30 million through Bay Cities and its reinsurers. With PRISM, that would be around $25 million. On the private market side, the picture is significantly different. The city's looking at significantly higher premiums with much lower limits of coverage. Thank you. So that would be the big difference between participating in PRISM Um, Additionally, when we had discussions with other risk pools, including CIRA, Um, The discussions we had or the information we received was that the city would not be provided general liability coverage, but if the city improved its loss run history and. You know, proactively addressed risk management and took a significant steps towards reducing its magnitude of claims that basically the city could apply to those other risk pools as well in the future. So again, and similarly, we received information from the private insurance market that you know, at present that they're not willing to make, give the city a deal on insurance, but if the city can demonstrate that it's, you know, has a steady track record of decreased losses, then obviously the insurance market would respond positively. And on the private insurance side, that it would be competitive with some of these risk pools. |
| 00:54:19.54 | Janelle Kellman | And... In the staff report, you included a letter that was written to the prison executive committee. Could you give a little bit of context for that to the members of the public? |
| 00:54:28.09 | Sergio Rudin | Yes. So in terms of we received, we've been working with Alliant, which is one of the largest reinsurers of public agencies in the state. They're also the manager for the PRISM program. Um, We received information from them that they had spoken to Prism's management and they wanted a explanation and history of how the city had come to a exit of its present risk pool and In particular, they were looking for the city to address some of the coverage disputes and prior litigation that had occurred between the city and CARMA and provide some sort of explanation for that. So we had provided that to them in terms of trying to explain our relationship with our prior insurer. |
| 00:55:22.85 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you for that. And I noticed there's an explanation for why we might have had the higher liabilities that we've had and trying to make a claim for a case for why, just to provide context for that. So did they indicate or the PRISM Executive Committee indicate that if we were able to sufficiently de-risk the city's liability that they would potentially decrease premiums as well to be more competitive, similar to the private providers? |
| 00:55:49.13 | Sergio Rudin | I mean, the way that most of these risk tools work is that that. Your premiums on any given year are based on a risk modifier. And that takes into account your track record and loss history. As your risk modifier changes over time, you know, your premiums reflect that. So the short answer is yes. We would expect that PRISM would adjust the premiums to reflect the risk. |
| 00:56:16.68 | Janelle Kellman | And in that letter, you also just again, just to the members of the public, because it wasn't in the presentation, indicate some of the things that might have gotten us to the situation we're in with regards to Bay City and higher risk. So one of those was the landslide. The other was the litigation in 2020 and 2023. And these are considered sort of, as it's written in the letter, black swan events. |
| 00:56:40.29 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, they're pretty atypical, and they're all unique events which the city hasn't really had, they're all unique events and yes, the city has had three of them, but they have nothing to do with each other and The city has never had similar kinds of events in its past, and there's no real expectation that they would recur. So, yeah, in my opinion, they would be about black swan events. You know, it's it's atypical for the city to expect, you know, significant landslides that affect 50 properties in one year. Um, you know, additionally, um, you know, the city hasn't had any sexual abuse and molestation claims other than the one incident that the city had faced. So. |
| 00:57:23.43 | Janelle Kellman | And just more generally as well, as city managers have pointed out, this is an ongoing discussion with a number of municipalities. So in any of the other cities that you work with, are they seeing similar issues with rising premiums in insurance? |
| 00:57:38.14 | Sergio Rudin | Yes, this is this is an issue that is affecting municipalities throughout the state. Additionally, Sausalito is not the only public agency that has had issues with this risk pool and has been expelled. BBK does have other. you know, has represented other agencies where that has occurred. It would not. You know, even as the city was having issues with, um, its risk pool-based cities, At the same meeting, Bay Cities took issue with another member city's membership. And while they were willing to give them a chance to turn things around, you know, based on the fact that they only had one significant loss... Um, You know, it's... You know, it is something that is increasingly affecting all municipalities and As property values increase, the dollar value of claims against public agencies increases. So, you know, risk pools are taking steps to try and protect themselves and protect their members, which means less coverage for each individual member, typically, or higher premiums. |
| 00:58:45.35 | Janelle Kellman | Okay, thanks Sergio, I appreciate that context. |
| 00:58:47.53 | Steven Woodside | That's remember coming. Council Member Hoffman, you had another question it seemed. |
| 00:58:54.70 | Jill Hoffman | So, Sergio, with regard to, you talked about the numbers of I don't want to spend a lot more time on this, but... You talked about the numbers that the Bay City's pool paid out in response to the mayor's questions and that the city paid out. But on some of those claims, there were other defendants that paid that also paid out in those claims, correct? |
| 00:59:17.55 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, that's correct. And, you know, again, these are figures that were provided to us during our meeting with Bay Cities in their public facing staff reports. obviously doesn't have that level of granularity that you're pointing out, but yeah, typically with You know, sidewalk maintenance claims, you know, if there's liability for somebody else, you know, the city's attorney, whether they're paid for by Bay Cities or somebody else, or paid for directly by the city, they will look for other sources of money you know, and they will potentially sue the business owner or the property owner responsible for maintenance of the condition. and seek contribution from there, I'm sure. So, I mean, that is pretty typical. |
| 01:00:04.01 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, but my point is that the total risk for those claims was higher than what we paid and what Bay City's paid. |
| 01:00:09.59 | Sergio Rudin | Correct. |
| 01:00:10.40 | Jill Hoffman | And the other question is with regard to the, part of the reasons why we were let go from Bay Cities was not just the three, you know, it's been described as black swan events, but it was also the sheer number of lawsuits that we had and that many of those were related to deferred maintenance and infrastructure. |
| 01:00:37.79 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, I'm not sure I can... agree or disagree on that point. But yes, the sheer number of claims and Um, In part, I suspect it was the city's low self-insured retention, which made the city responsible for less share was driving the city's lost run history, which in turn was the motivating factor for the pool to ask the city to leave. |
| 01:01:06.68 | Jill Hoffman | So let me ask this then to the city manager, because I believe the city manager has given us that information. And that part of the reason that is that that the reason one of the reasons in combination with other things was the number of the lawsuits that we had and the issues related to deferred maintenance and infrastructure issues. |
| 01:01:25.46 | Chris Zapata | They're they're related Councilmember Hoffman. Thank you for the question. And you know, my recollection and Sergio can help me with this is over a 10 year period. We had 252 claims and you know, we can break down for you which of those were infrastructure related or others. And we're happy to do that. I think that's important information because that will help drive some decisions on your part about where you invest your money in the future. |
| 01:01:47.42 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Thank you. We'll see if that's of interest. Thank you. |
| 01:01:58.62 | Steven Woodside | So Sergio, just to follow up on Councilmember Coffman's question about the litigation expenses, or rather defense expenses associated with the $13 million paid by the, actually the 11.1 million paid by the pool on our behalf. Do we have any way of assessing or getting that information if we wanted to have it? |
| 01:02:17.64 | Sergio Rudin | I can ask Bay Cities to confirm that information. I would expect that that $13.1 million figure for those 36 claims over the last 10 years I assume that includes defense costs, but I would, again, I'm, I am speculating at this point because their staff report where I pulled that figure from is not that specific. |
| 01:02:38.24 | Steven Woodside | Okay. it. What, if any, effort has staff done to assess the obvious alternative of being self-insured versus paying insurance companies? When I look at this just as a swag, when I look at these numbers and add them up and divide them by 10 over the 10-year period, I get roughly $1.5 million a year, which is roughly what we were paying in premiums. That's just the payout. As I said, we were already paying $6 million over that period of time. So I'm just wondering if staff has sort of methodically started to block out by checking with other municipalities what the standard of excellence is for self-insurance or other entities, whether they've done that. |
| 01:03:25.49 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, I mean, so technically, these risk pools, these public agency risk pools, they are functionally self-insurance. because you're pulling the risk with other participating municipalities and you're agreeing that you're going to help them pay for their claims if they agree to help you pay for yours. Um, In terms of the city not participating in a risk pool and not participating in a you know, having some form of insurance from private insurer, I would strongly discourage that in part because Sausalito as a small city just doesn't have the kinds of reserves available to pay a catastrophic loss. You know, there are certain wrongful death claims that have you know, been paid out by cities. in California in the last 10 years where a single claim, you know, of a tree limb falling in a city park, killing somebody has resulted in a, you know, settlement in a range of $28 million, you know, and that's the sort of issue that would be very difficult for the city to deal with. Cities have had claims where they have lost Um... and they have been uncovered. And to my mind, I can think of one immediately, and it deals with the town of Mammoth, and they lost a litigation to a developer over an airport. The verdict against the city was more than the city's reserves, and typically when that happens, you have to take out judgment bonds. So you have to borrow debt on the public market to pay back any of your liabilities and As a result, the taxpayers pay for that. Thank you. |
| 01:05:08.35 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:05:08.64 | Sergio Rudin | you |
| 01:05:08.87 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Thank you for that. So have you looked at then, is staff looking at, and I'm really just exploring the edges of what staff's been working on to address this issue. How about looking at a hybrid combination of getting, paying for an insurance policy that covers for these kinds of catastrophic events. The same kind of thing we have in healthcare where you cover for catastrophic injury, but you don't get every test covered. So you basically self-insure for the small stuff and pay premium for the big stuff. |
| 01:05:35.47 | Sergio Rudin | I don't know. |
| 01:05:40.31 | Sergio Rudin | I mean, functionally, that is what is being proposed here and what has actually been offered to the city, because I would say probably 90 to 95% of the claims faced by the city are small dollar value claims where. insurance where the settlement and the defense costs together probably approach half a million dollars at most. Most slip and fall injuries, you know, the you know, the kind of claims the city faces in terms of sidewalk maintenance claims, maybe small dollar claims for sewer damage where there's a pipe that leaks but doesn't cause a lot of property damage. A lot of those claims are typically you know, and somewhere in the range of, you know, maybe $5,000 to $100,000. And the typical cost of defense, depending on the length of reaching a resolution, maybe $50,000 to $100,000. In terms of the city's loss run history, there's only a handful of claims that have exceeded the half million dollar mark. So functionally, if you get either sign up for insurance from the private market right now at a self-insured retention of $400,000, which has been the best the city's, been able to get pricing for. Or if you joined Prism where your self-insured retention is a half million dollars, you know, Again, I'd probably say somewhere in the range of Um... 80 to 95% of your claims are not going to be claims that are covered because they'll fall, all of the costs involved in dealing with the claim will fall under the self-insured retention. |
| 01:07:25.14 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Are there other questions from the dais before we take public comment? All right. Can we take public comment, city clerk? |
| 01:07:33.17 | Walfred Solorzano | I'll wait for anybody on Zoom. Yeah, we have Sandra Bushmaker. |
| 01:07:41.03 | Sandra Bushmaker | Hi, everybody again. Thank you for that presentation. It helped explain a lot of our situation. It seems to me that One of the things that this council should be doing and our city staff should be doing is looking at a program on how we can reduce our claims. And as several council members and the city manager said, Deferred maintenance and preventive maintenance seem to be two issues that really would help our, our, uh, City. in this program to reduce our claims. But I would look to staff also to come up with a program on steps that the city council can take to reduce that claim history. That's what got us into this situation to begin with. And if there are things that we can do as a city, You know, back to basics again. To reduce that exposure, I think that's time well spent, and we should proceed with that and focus on issues that will help reduce our exposure. Thank you. |
| 01:08:50.39 | Walfred Solorzano | Seeing no further public comment. |
| 01:08:52.99 | Steven Woodside | OK, we'll close public comment. Is there discussion from my colleagues? Anyone want to say anything? |
| 01:09:04.01 | Steven Woodside | No. Thank you. We just did public comment. |
| 01:09:08.28 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:09:08.31 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:09:08.38 | Ian Sobieski | Now it's your turn. |
| 01:09:08.70 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:09:08.72 | Steven Woodside | Now it's your turn. Now your turn to comment. |
| 01:09:09.91 | Ian Sobieski | I'm going to go to Thank you. Yeah, I'll jump in. I think it's worth mentioning that our city attorney, to Ms. Bushmaker's astute comments, our city attorney has undertaken a very thorough risk analysis and developed a strategy for us to mitigate a lot of that risk. I do a lot of this work with my nonprofit and one of the big problems in the state of California is that most insurance companies do not reduce premiums for any type of proactive mitigation. And so if we can get to the point, I know the Department of Insurance wants to work with insurance companies to increase that, I think we'll be in a much better direction. So I would suggest, as I think staff is already doing, that we continue a program where we identify our biggest ticket items. And then when we receive, maybe from Director McGowan or others, when we receive staff reports on critical infrastructure, we also have a staff report component from the city attorney as to the risk that has been associated with that historically and any potential future risks. So to help guide our policy making and our allocation of funds as the city manager suggested. So that would just be my additional direction. I would not be comfortable with any type of self-insurance program, although I do appreciate you, Mayor, exploring that. |
| 01:10:23.39 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:10:23.40 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. I really appreciate the attention to this really critical topic of how we're going to get our city insured. We have a lot of risk, and there's been a lot of thought by both our city manager and our staff and our city attorney put into it. And I appreciate Sandra Bushmaker's comments regarding a real emphasis on risk. And I know we're going to hear from our finance director next about our budget and how much of our funds need to be put towards really de-risking our our city as much as possible and I would like to suggest that potentially and given that we as well have had a risk manager position open since November and have not yet been able to hire or fill that position I'd really like to see us create and I would volunteer to serve on but I would leave that to your discretion Mr. Mayor some sort of subcommittee just work focused on risk and resilience I think there is a lot here in terms of how we look at the lens of what we're gonna do over the next five to ten years as a city to both prepare for and mitigate the risk of climate change and also shore up our city's expenses and get us into a place where we have a much less liability and we're operating with the appropriate levels of service. So I'd like to see some sort of smaller working group that sees that through, make sure that we hire that risk manager sooner rather than later, and that we can continue forward hopefully with a part as part of a public pool, given the cost of the private market. But again, everything is evolving. So those are my thoughts. |
| 01:11:44.66 | Ian Sobieski | Can I add to that, Mayor? Just want to say, well said, Council Member Blasdine completely endorsed all of that. I think the sewer consolidation is a good opportunity to undertake that analysis. What type of risk are we offsetting here? What would be the risk if we kept it? And try to monetize that risk, and then utilize that in our future negotiations. |
| 01:12:04.99 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:12:07.73 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I agree with the strategy that's laid out in the staff report for addressing this issue. I strongly agree with the city attorney that we need to make sure that we're covered, especially on the catastrophic side of insurance claims. The risk is just too great for our city not to be. And as he points out, a high deductible pretty much means we are self-insured you know in this strat completely agree with the strategy of identifying the risk that led us to this point and the number of the lawsuits and attacking that and the other risk factors that we have in the city so thank you for this presentation and the explanation and I look forward to hearing more about this thank you |
| 01:12:52.49 | Steven Woodside | vice mayor. You're muted. |
| 01:13:03.01 | Steven Woodside | Nope, still muted, still muted. Give it a go. |
| 01:13:08.19 | Melissa Blaustein | Can you hear me now? |
| 01:13:08.81 | Steven Woodside | Yes, we can. |
| 01:13:10.67 | Melissa Blaustein | Oh, great. Okay. I, I also would like to thank staff for the very thorough and explanatory presentation to really help us understand this complex issue. And I will endorse. all of the comments of my fellow council members, as well as the direction. Thank you. |
| 01:13:29.25 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Vice Mayor. Yeah, I think we are in a version of self insurance and always have been. It's just a question of where we draw the line of what we're getting for our premium. So I appreciate that staff's been looking for the best bang for the buck in terms of premium for coverage. I would love to just look at what the optionality is for higher deductible plans so we can choose among them uh instead of just looking for the lowest deductible uh so we have that in the mix so i know that that's what staff's been uh working on and there are limited number of options but would love to see that as well um that's my only additional comment So we'll move on then from this item and move on. |
| 01:14:11.39 | Chris Zapata | One, two. |
| 01:14:12.31 | Steven Woodside | man. |
| 01:14:12.62 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:14:12.64 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 01:14:13.02 | Chris Zapata | City manager. You know I appreciate what resident former mayor Bushmaker said about working on the basics and infrastructure and I mean I think it's important to note that you know that's been a focus for some time here you know and tonight you know we're finally going to talk about the landslide issue in the geologic hazard study that's been a long time in coming and you know a meeting before we talked about sidewalks and how to work with partnerships with the community so that you know we could have more resources to maintain our sidewalks and you know in talking to a few of you today about the resiliency aspect of it and disaster preparedness aspect of it I think it goes without saying that you know this has been in my mind priority number one along with working on our housing programs. So it will continue to be our priority. I heard about the need to be more aggressive in recruiting our risk manager. We will do that and so I just wanted to assure the community and council that's all happening. |
| 01:14:13.72 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:15:15.51 | Steven Woodside | Thank you city manager. So now we'll move on to item five B to the discussion of our 2024 25 budget director has. |
| 01:15:21.84 | Chris Zapata | Mayor, if I can kick this off, I appreciate that. Sorry. So first of all, this meeting marks the first of four meetings, not one, not two, not three, but four meetings in which we're going to talk about our budgets for the 24-25 fiscal year, which starts July 1st. As you know, we have to make sure that we adopt the budget by June 30th, which we will do. And tonight, you know, I'm happy that we're providing information that chat and our city team have worked on diligently to give you base information and you know receive input and comment from you as we go forward and adopting a final budget because I think it's important here your comments the public's comments on where we are at this point and what we're thinking I think the one thing I want to stress is that in the staff report one of the things we talked about was auditing and fiscal responsibility and hiring different auditors we did that we hired a new auditor that auditor came in and gave us a report on where we were financially for the past year and you know one of the things I noted was there was ten point eight million dollars in city cash it was in the general fund that is something I really value the work that was done by prior councils to save that money prior administrations to save that money because now with what we're seeing today there's going to be a challenge the second thing is in addition to the cash that was saved the staff report points out that some policy decisions to save for pensions and postpone post employment benefit costs have also worked and been done by intentional decisions of the council and staff has implemented them so there's 5. seven million dollars in that account that can be used specifically for pensions or post-employment benefits and so I say all that tonight to say this is a moment where we see the raw numbers the challenge in front of us it's a two million dollar plus challenge in my mind I think that with the savings you have it's really a question of at the next meeting or the subsequent meeting we get some direction from you but not tonight what you decide to do in terms of if you want us to you know dig into the cash reserve or if you want us to dig into the pension trust or the OPEP trust but tonight we're going to give you the landscape we're going to tell you that we don't I will tell you that we don't believe this is a year to diminish or change our service levels and that's why you know we're showing you the amount that's in your savings as opposed to the amount that we believe this year we're going to be short for the factors that Chad's going to discuss, which include insurance, pension costs, and a slowing economy. But all that to say, this is not the time to panic. It's the time to be measured and start to look forward. And we won't have all the answers for you tonight. We won't have all the answers for you down the road. But there is work being done for a 10-year financial model that we need to ramp up so that we could look at you know what scenarios might be on a go-forward basis because it could be this way next year and we won't know that it could be this way two years from now but we need to do some work get that back to you but tonight you know we want to give you some basic information Chad's going to review it and understand that we have not one, not two, not three, but four meetings in which to adopt a budget, beginning with this night where we kick it off. So, Chad. |
| 01:15:24.00 | Steven Woodside | Sorry. |
| 01:18:55.00 | Chad Hess | All right, thank you. City Manager Zabatta. Good evening mayor council public. My name is Chad Hess. I'm the director of finance So I want to start off by talking about what's the difference between accounting and finance. As you all know, I'm a classically trained accountant. I'm a CPA and we look backwards. We're very factual. We like to dig into the numbers and present details. Whereas finance is more forward looking and the goal is to tell more of a story. So, if we envision that we're in a car together and we're driving to a concert, It's really less important from a finance perspective how fast we're going But... |
| 01:19:39.69 | Chad Hess | Here we go. What you really wanna know is if we're gonna make it to the concert on time. You don't care if we're going 67 miles an hour or 64. I really want to try to convey some larger concepts here and not get bogged down in the details. So this will be a little bit different than what we've seen in the past as far as budget presentations. I'm not going to get super detailed, so I've got to put on my finance hat. So, As you can see here, last time we met, we talked about the concept of citywide funds where we have everything except the sewer under kind of a mass umbrella. And we talked about things in aggregate. And we're still going to get there. I'm going to start talking about specifically the general fund but I wanna break things down more as operations versus capital. So tonight we're going to talk general fund and we're only going to talk general fund. We're going to talk a little bit about MLK, Old City Hall and Parking. because those funds really feed into the general fund. They make annual transfers or annual subsidies to fund that operation. So we'll talk briefly about those, but really the focus is on the general fund, our core operations. Next time we meet, we'll get more into the capital improvement section of this and what resources are available to fund that. Now I do want to talk about some terms, just to make sure that we're all talking about the same thing. So a surplus or budget surplus is an excess of receipts, revenues, over disbursements, so revenues over expenses in an accounting period or a fiscal year is a surplus. On the flip side of that, a budget deficit, again, we're looking at an accounting period, one fiscal year, That's really when we have excess disbursements over receipts. Another way to look at it, when a government spends more on goods and services than they collect in revenues. Now, the fund balance, we're going to talk about fund balance, and we're also going to talk about reserves tonight. But when we think of fund balance, what is the fund balance? How much do we have? It's really an accumulation of prior year surpluses. So if we have a surplus in one year, it adds to fund balance. if we have a deficit spend, it decreases fund balance. When you have a positive fund balance, it's because we've had surpluses in prior years that enable us to build up those reserves. So another way to think about fund balance is those are resources that are available to be expended. Now we're going to talk about reserves. And reserves, I really want to restrict our usage of that term to really a portion of our fund balance that is set aside for really true emergencies. It's really... the last dollar that we are going to spend. If we start digging into reserves, We have issues. We have real issues or trouble. So I've got a graph today that will help explain kind of where those reserves fall into our fund balance tower, if you will. Now, we're gonna talk about resources available in excess of reserves, and this is really a component of fund balance. And it's really the fund balance that is above the established reserve policy. So right now we have a 15% reserve policy. So anything above that is really resources available in excess. Thank you. Under GAP, we've always called this, and we still call this, unassigned fund balance. So I'm going to try to be very intentional about when I use the term reserves and when I use the term resources available in excess of fund balance. I wanted to kind of depict this, you know, surpluses and deficits and, you know, fund balance, positive or negative, as a graphical representation. So real briefly, we have year one, FY1, and here you can see we had a $500,000 surplus represented by the green bar. Now the blue line represents our fund balance, and in year one, after we've closed that fiscal year, we have surpluses, we have available fund balance, And you can see that the surplus for that year and the fund balance at the end of that year In FY2, you can see represented as that second column, that year we had deficit spending. So again, our expenses exceeded the revenues. by 200,000. So here we still have positive fund balance. We have not gone into debt or we have not had to borrow money to fund our operations. We are using or consuming prior years surpluses. we continue on we go to year three there we had a much bigger deficit of four hundred thousand So now we are getting into areas where we have negative fund balance. and we have no longer a surplus, or previously accumulated surpluses. You can see that blue line goes below zero. We are not in that scenario. We have accumulated fund balance over the years, and we're gonna talk about that tonight. And then in FY4, you can see we had another surplus, and that did bring our fund balance back up to the positive. So as we talk about surpluses and deficits, just remember that they are for a single fiscal year. and that we measure those things in those accounting periods. I hope that was helpful. Tonight here on the screen, you can see we have our treasurer's report. This was part of the consent agenda. And At the bottom of this, you can see total cash investments in this first column. We have $33 million of available cash. spread throughout all kinds of different funds, some are operations, some are for employee benefits, OPEB and trust in their section 115. Some are related to infrastructure. You can see up there in that blue box, that's really the component that we're gonna discuss tonight. So again, it's a very small subset of all of the funds throughout the city. But we're going to focus on that operations and the general fund. |
| 01:25:40.16 | Chad Hess | All right, here we go for the general fund. So as you've read in the staff report, we are facing some significant challenges in the general fund this year, and I'm gonna bring forward the three of the larger items. I'm not gonna get into the details, but we're gonna talk about these pensions, and OPEB. So as we've known and as we've discussed in the past, we have pension obligations or UAL payments that are going to creep up over the next several fiscal years with a peak. Yes. Sorry, Council Member Hoffman has. |
| 01:26:10.94 | Jill Hoffman | I'm not asking a subsequent question, but I don't see your presentation on the agenda. |
| 01:26:17.84 | Chad Hess | Can it be added, city clerk? |
| 01:26:24.76 | Jill Hoffman | OK, I just did it and it didn't come up. Let me turn it over. |
| 01:26:27.14 | Chad Hess | Councilman Hoffman likes hanging it on her screen. I know you got it late. Yeah, I got it really late. Then send it late. |
| 01:26:27.74 | Walfred Solorzano | I think they got it beforehand, that's why. |
| 01:26:29.53 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 01:26:31.14 | Walfred Solorzano | I got it really late. It's not up there yet. |
| 01:26:33.95 | Jill Hoffman | Oh, it's not up here. Thank you. |
| 01:26:35.44 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:26:36.20 | Steven Woodside | So it's not posted yet. It will be. You just pull it up on your screen as |
| 01:26:40.97 | Unknown | live feed. |
| 01:26:42.15 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 01:26:43.28 | Unknown | I apologize for the timeliness of that. |
| 01:26:45.26 | Jill Hoffman | of that. |
| 01:26:50.10 | Steven Woodside | So she can't flip between the slides then, which is a habit we all like to do. But that's great. Now you're at our. Thank you. |
| 01:26:56.68 | Chad Hess | Your mercy. I've got your attention. Your captive audience. Go right ahead. Thank you, Director. |
| 01:26:57.27 | Steven Woodside | I don't know. Your capitalization. Thank you. |
| 01:27:01.43 | Chad Hess | Thank you. So when we look at our UAL payment, as we've known for some time, our UAL, unfunded actuarial liability, is going to increase. So in fiscal year 25, our UAL payment will be just under $3 million. which is an increase over last year's payment of about $470,000. So that is a portion of a portion of that, about $225,000 or about $250,000, is going to be impacted directly to the general fund. Other portions of that will be spread across other enterprise funds that employ city staff. But again, looking at it from a total perspective, about $470,000 increase. OPEB costs are also increasing and I just want to bring forward that our OPEB costs, the direct payments retirees is approaching 300,000 in fiscal year 25. Insurance, as we've just discussed, are going to be a significant challenge in the general fund this year. In my assumptions or in my planning, I've had to make some assumptions because we do not know where we're gonna fall, whether it's with Hub or whether it's with Prism. In this example, I am using our GL, or I'm assuming that we get into Prism. and we are able to participate in the GL1 pool. With that pool, it's a $500,000 SIR, self-insured retention under the policy, meaning that we pay the first $500,000 of any and all claims. I'm also making the assumption that we participate in the state pool, the state plan for workers compensation. This plan does have first dollar coverage. Premiums, I think, are about $350,000 for that plan. but they cover the first dollar. There is no self-insured retention under that. I'm making the assumption that we go to the commercial market for our property insurance. We have requested from PRISM an evaluation. I don't have any inclination on pricing, so I had to use what was available to me at this time, which is from the private market. The commercial policy for our property is about $400,000 a year. And then also, When I look at all across our lines of insurance, and I also need to factor in our very high SIRs, The general funds impact I'm predicting is about $1.7 million above what we've paid, or I'm sorry, it is $1.7 million in fiscal year 25. Part of that dollar, part of that amount, is setting dollars aside to pay those first dollars of claims. I've got $750,000 set aside. That we are going to use to pay legal fees as well as subtle those claims under our sir I can't be naive and assume that we're not gonna have any claims. So I have to plan So I chose 750,000. Another challenge in the general fund is we have a softening sales tax revenue. We are seeing projections bringing our sales tax down by about $300,000 a year. Perhaps it's the, maybe the end of the COVID rebound. and things are starting to normalize. Um, We also had one of our local businesses change the location of where they ship their products, and that made a significant dent in our sales tax. That one business accounted for about a reduction of $200,000. in sales tax revenue projected for 2025. Those are some of the challenges or the challenges that we are We're facing. As it stands now, I have a projected budget deficit of $2.05 million, so we'll call it $2 million. Um, In order to maybe bridge that gap, we are bringing forward a few different items or ways that we can kind of accommodate that or lessen the blow on the general fund. The first one up here is we currently have a workman's comp internal service fund being self-insured We had an SIR that we had to set dollars aside for As we transfer to perhaps the state run plan, which has a first dollar coverage, those resources would not be needed. Pay those claims under the SIR going forward. We currently have over seven hundred and eighty thousand in that fund I'm proposing we bring a half a million back to the general fund We could also increase our transfer parking parking fund is doing very well in fiscal year 24 Exceeding our expectations and if that continues into 25 I feel comfortable that we could increase that transfer from 1.5 to about 1.8 million And item three is in fiscal year 23, we did contribute our surplus for that year. We had a surplus of just under a million dollars. in the general fund and we transfer that over to the Section 115 trust. If council chooses, we could bring those dollars back. MR. and pay part of our $3 million UAL payment in fiscal year 25 as a way to lessen that impact upon the general fund. As it stands today, the general fund has $15 million in fund balance. 15% of this is designated as our reserves. We have our budget stabilization reserve at 5% and our emergency shortfall at 10%. I am proposing that we move that reserve up to 25% by taking that budget stabilization reserve, which is currently at five, and moving that up to... 15% So we're gonna see this on the next chart, the impacts of this. But as it stands now, you can see that our fund balance and excess of reserves is 7.4 million. And then we have pension resources or section 115 trust assets of 3.5. non-spendable, about a million dollars, that relates to the Interfund loans between various funds. And here's our fund balance slide. So let's take a little bit of time and talk through this. As we spend fund balance, we are gonna spend it from really the top down. If you look at the green bars on this slide, That represents our fund balance in excess of reserves. So that's $7 million in fiscal year, 23, it was 7.7 million. What I am... As we move to that second column, so that's gonna be our projected fiscal year 24, there's a couple of things at play here. So the first, you can see that that orange bar, the orange section, That increases. That's going to be our budget stabilization reserve. Right now that sits at 5%. If we increase that to 15%, then we have 25% of our fund balance or 25% of that year's expenditure set aside as a reserve really for those true emergencies. And then we also have available resources above and beyond that. You can see the light green bar that represents our pension assets held in trust. And then the darker green bar represents the available resources in excess of reserves. Now there is one goofy thing with financial reporting. You can see that white box with the orange outline. That represents the assets held in our Section 115 Trust for OPEB. Now, that is not reported as part of the general fund due to GASB rules or GASB standards. But as it stands now, there's 1.9 million of available resources within that OPEP trust that we could use to pay some of those direct subsidy costs for our retirees. If we look to that last column, that's really looking at fiscal year 25, the budget talk at hand. What we are asking is if we spend down a million of our section 115 trust, you can see that there is a decrease within that light green bar, as well as we would consume some of our fund balance in excess of reserves. Um, Again, simply based on those challenges that we've seen on the previous slides, that is one of the options that we're looking at today. Next, I want to jump real quick over to the general fund, the MLK fund. So in the MLK fund as we just do some of our As we're starting to develop our 10-year plan, it's come up that we need to start establishing some cash reserve minimums in some of these, or in all of our enterprise funds, the funds especially that feed into the general fund through their annual transfers. The intention here is as we plan and as resources accumulate, we wanna have some form of plan that helps us establish what are we gonna keep in those funds. I'm proposing that we establish a minimum fund balance of 15% of annual revenues for the MLK fund. as well as we set aside 200,000, which increases by 50,000 each year up until 500,000, for emergency capital reserve. So if the roof needs to be replaced or if there's a an HVAC unit that needs to be replaced. things set aside for those emergencies. Now the justification for this is we have long-term leases in place that brings stability to that fund. We have the new we have the French school that just signed a five-year lease with options to extend and we are currently in negotiations with New Village School Now, in the staff report, there is the disclaimer that as we get information back from our facilities assessment, things are subject to change if that comes back and there are health and safety issues that are raised up in that facilities assessment, we are going to need to address those much sooner. than what we have in our current five-year plan. The other recommendation that I would like to bring forward to council again is the acceleration of the payback of our general fund advance. So as of today, there's 467,000 that is yet to be paid back from MLK to the general fund, which is the, that loan or that inner fund advance is resulted from the acquisition, the original acquisition of that campus several, several years ago. This would free up some of the fund balance within the general fund if this was paid back. And also, it would assist the general fund to earn higher rates of interest. It's simply because of our advances, a fixed rate of 3%, whereas the treasuries that we're buying, I just purchased a treasury today that yielded 5.1%. So that would... impact the general fund in a positive way if those dollars were in the general fund accruing interest versus the MLK fund. So that's my request. Can I pay that back this year? Looking at our projections, here you can see fiscal year 24, 25, and 26. We're projecting revenue growth, and here you can see we've got our COPs, ranging about $620,000 per year. In attachment, I believe it's attachment one to the staff report, this is projected out through 2035 to give a, a much longer than a 10-year projection, but gives you some inclination of capital spend in the future as well as when those COPs fall off and there's available resources to transfer more to the general fund. This year I am proposing a $700,000 transfer. You can see right here, there's the $700,000 transfer to the general fund And in fiscal year 24, there's the payback of our Interfund loan. Now the thing that here, this line here is our projected cash balances and then here is our reserve analysis where we're looking at that 15% of revenues as well as our capital reserve starting at 200, increasing 50,000. per year. And then here you can see any I'm not sure. excess cash above or below. that minimum. So I am holding some additional cash within that fund. simply because I have a larger capital expenditure planned out here for FY27. Um, So that is my recommendation for the MLK fund, is to help us establish a minimum cash balance as well as pay back that interfund loan to the general fund. next I want to talk real quick about parking fund And again, we would like to establish a minimum cash balance Here I'm proposing 30% of annual revenues and then again setting aside 200,000 increasing by 50,000 per year. up to half a million for emergency capital reserves. Anything above and beyond that, we would transfer over to the general fund Um, Now I do have a justification that revenues in this parking fund are a little less stable. We've seen that during the COVID pandemic. where parking revenues have dried up. So I think that warrants a slightly higher reserve Here you can see fiscal year 24, 25, and 26. We've got some projections. The same sort of thing is going on here. where I'm showing The revenues up top, lesser expenses for salaries, benefits, professional services, supplies, materials. and then various CIP projects. Here's our projected cash balances. So you can see we currently have at the end, at the beginning of fiscal year 24, 1.3 million. There's our annual transfer of 1.5 million that took place in FY24. Here's FY25s. And you can see that we still have available cash in excess of that minimum. under this reserve analysis. And really that is simply because I have $900,000 capital improvement. plug sitting in here for FY26. Again, based upon our facilities assessment, all of this planning can change, but it is something, it is a place to start. We have to start making longer term projections and assumptions. Um, There is also attachment to which gives the parking funds 10 year projections as well as City Hall. The City Hall the old City Hall fund was less significant so I wasn't going to bring that up in today's presentation. But it is there is information the staff report as well as an attachment. So the next steps is really we're looking for feedback from council as to do we spend those section one $15? Do we spend resources in excess of reserves instead of using those trust assets to help close the gap? We're going to continue to refine our payroll budgets. This year I did scale back some of my budgetary slack just to accommodate our the tightness that we have within the general fund. And then identify CIP projects that have available funding or meet the priorities of the community. And we are going to bring those items forward at next council meetings. We're gonna continue to refine our revenue projections as more information is available. and make sure that we are being very conservative with all those revenues. Here's our budget calendar. As city manager Zapatta has said, we are coming back. at next council meeting, the next three council meetings to be honest. So we'll be talking lots of budget. over the coming weeks. So with that, I'll go ahead and open it up for questions. |
| 01:42:12.15 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:42:12.20 | Chad Hess | Thank you. |
| 01:42:12.24 | Steven Woodside | City manager of Sabata wanted to. |
| 01:42:14.06 | Chad Hess | Thank you. |
| 01:42:14.08 | Chris Zapata | If I can, Mayor and Council and Public. Thank you very much, Chad. Thank you for the work you've done with the departments. And I just want to be crystal clear on a couple of things. This is the first leg of a four-step race. You know, we've got three more laps to run before we adopt the budget. And one of the things that's really important to note is we're not asking you tonight to make a decision on what you take from your cash reserve or what you do with your 115 trust fund, simply because with the cash reserves, that's a deeper discussion in terms of what you really feel comfortable with and with the 115 trust there has been work done by prior councils and plans set and potentially direction given via resolutions that you know would govern how we approach that and if we're going to change that we need to do some serious analysis with respect to those two funds before we come back and say this is what we recommend we're pointing out to you that you have money and those accounts there are potential uses but we're not asking you to make a decision on using reserves tonight or your 115 trust and I don't want to make that clear thank you |
| 01:42:14.11 | Steven Woodside | THE FAMILY. Thank you. |
| 01:42:14.33 | Chad Hess | Thank you. |
| 01:42:14.35 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:42:14.40 | Chad Hess | Mayor and Councilor. |
| 01:43:16.06 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, city manager. Are there questions for Director Hess? |
| 01:43:21.02 | Janelle Kellman | And I can start. |
| 01:43:22.02 | Steven Woodside | Consum member Buffs team. |
| 01:43:22.03 | Janelle Kellman | Councilmember Busty. Sure. Okay. Hi, Director Hess. Thank you very much for all of the time that you've put into a challenging and unexpected budgeting situation with regards to our insurance, which we heard about earlier this evening. When you and I met earlier this week, you talked about your overarching strategy for the budget being a real focus on de-risking. So can you just speak to that a little bit when you give these projections here and these ask for us? I noticed things like the 15% reserve and hold an MLK, the $750,000 for insurance. Can you just give a little bit more context there? |
| 01:43:58.45 | Chad Hess | Thank you. |
| 01:43:58.47 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:43:58.50 | Chad Hess | Yeah, certainly. So as we know, risk is an issue that we have. In our budget, we do have resource allocated for that risk manager position. So that would be a position that we would fund in fiscal year 25's budget. That would be a request that we would bring forward. Actually, I think it's already on position control. Let me take that back. But it is officially funded, fully burdened within the finance department to fund that. additional things are taking place where we look at our employee handbooks we look at all of our policies and procedures to really make sure that they are the best practice as far as managing the risk to reduce that risk profile of the city. Ultimately, we have to bring down our insurance costs. what we are presented with by the private market is very unsustainable. |
| 01:44:47.30 | Janelle Kellman | Thank you. When you're making decisions about our spend in CIP, for example, are you taking into consideration the deferred maintenance that we discussed earlier this evening and that we know is an ongoing problem? |
| 01:44:58.59 | Chad Hess | Yeah, there certainly is. And we have dollars available in the general fund for maintenance, sidewalk maintenance, road maintenance, but then there's also considerable CIP dollars that you can see on the treasurer's report that is available for infrastructure maintenance and that deferred maintenance. |
| 01:45:14.98 | Janelle Kellman | And obviously, while none of us would like to see our level of service decreased, are you having ongoing conversations with, or as city managers, the product perhaps is the right person to ask about this with different departments. But in particular, I'm thinking about the spend that we would be required on CIP because deferred maintenance is so critical here about how we would fund each of those projects. Thank you. |
| 01:45:36.02 | Chad Hess | Yeah, so those CIP projects that are identified have funding sources outside of the general fund. So Measure L dollars are not part of what we discussed today. Those, even though they are a general tax, they could be used to fund operations. We have made the promise to our constituents that those dollars will be spent on infrastructure. So there are significant dollars available there to continue to fund our infrastructure improvements. We get county dollars, some state dollars, to continue to fund those infrastructure improvements. So regardless of what's taking place in the general fund, our CIP can continue to move forward. |
| 01:46:12.57 | Janelle Kellman | And can you give a little bit more justification for the increase in the amount of reserves that you're seeing in MLK if we were to make that transfer for that 15% ask, for example? |
| 01:46:21.23 | Chad Hess | Yeah, so this would actually be a reduction in cash that we hold at MLK. So we would pay back the the advance to the general fund and then we would keep a minimum amount of cash within that fund |
| 01:46:32.62 | Janelle Kellman | Could you put up that chart of the MLK fund, just because I think it's really interesting and it's a good demonstration of the next 10 years for members of the public to get a sense of what that movement of the money out of the fund would be? |
| 01:46:43.37 | Chad Hess | of the fun would be. you want the |
| 01:46:45.01 | Janelle Kellman | that's not going to be. |
| 01:46:45.24 | Chad Hess | the attachment. |
| 01:46:45.85 | Janelle Kellman | And... |
| 01:46:46.07 | Chad Hess | Let me pull that up real quick. |
| 01:46:46.12 | Janelle Kellman | Yes. |
| 01:46:48.97 | Chad Hess | Thank you. I don't have that up. but I can get it. |
| 01:46:58.71 | Chad Hess | All right, so here is attachment one where I'm trying to get this to fit. Thank you. a little bit easier to do when I'm presenting remotely. All right, so, one second. |
| 01:47:16.88 | Chad Hess | technical difficulties with the surface here. I can't get it to zoom right. All right, so it's really small. Sorry about this. |
| 01:47:31.38 | Chad Hess | All right. So yes, as we look here, this Indian cash balance, kind of right in the middle. I think it'll show it, yeah, right there, kind of where my cursor is. There you can see that projected Indian cache balance And that balance is decreasing for a period of time. through fiscal year 29 and At fiscal year 29, you know, that cash balance starts to increase. But also, let's see here if I can scroll this over. |
| 01:48:01.73 | Chad Hess | So also one thing to note on this longer term plan in fiscal year 2030, That is the last year of our COP payments. So this is really interesting where you can see that drop in our spend. But then we're also able to increase our transfer to the general fund or other resources starting in fiscal year 20. I'm sorry, 2031. trying to get this |
| 01:48:26.34 | Janelle Kellman | So we pay back that loan in 2030, and so then our fiscal picture looks very different. It looks different. |
| 01:48:26.52 | Chad Hess | Thank you. |
| 01:48:30.88 | Chad Hess | We have an additional $600,000 in available cash flow, $620,000 in free cash flow. |
| 01:48:35.89 | Janelle Kellman | And if you were to predict what the OPEB or the pension liabilities would look like and whether we could move some of the funding there. I mean, I know that Councilmember Hoffman and Mayor Sobieski and also former Mayor Withee are on a working group to look at those 10 year projections. Yes. I just think it's important when we're having these budget conversations to think about in the context of the next 5 to 10 to 15 years. |
| 01:48:55.30 | Chad Hess | Yes, we need to look farther out. Now, the plan is, and we see that in our model that we're building and discussing, is those resources that end, or the loan payment that ends in 2030, in 2031, those are transferred over to the general fund to pay for those increasing pension costs, which are starting to peak in that exact time frame of 2031 through 2035. |
| 01:49:20.34 | Janelle Kellman | Okay, and let's talk about the pension costs for a minute, because the 115 trust is something that, you know, we were very happy to be able to have that surplus to move into the 115 trust, to help pay down some of our pension costs. When you think about, well, first of all, is that money fungible? Like, for example, if we wanted to move it back because we were able to garner public funding for something, we could do that. |
| 01:49:41.45 | Chad Hess | Yes. So the rules on the trust is we can reimburse ourselves for previously incurred pension costs. So we pay our UAL payment every July. We prepay it to take advantage of the savings. So we would write CalPERS a check for $3 million. We could turn around the very next day and take those dollars out of the Section 115 trust to reimburse ourselves. So really dollars are fungible in that degree. We pay an annual UAL payment that, would create a liquidity event to pull those dollars out of the trust. |
| 01:50:13.28 | Janelle Kellman | And from an interest standpoint, which fund is performing better for us right now? The section 115 trust or the general fund? |
| 01:50:18.85 | Chad Hess | Yeah, that's an interesting question. So if you look at the Treasurer's Report on page... Actually, I don't have page numbers. On the Treasurer's Report where I give the details of the portfolio... Now, you can see that the PARS trust is showing a much higher rate of return for this fiscal year. We give you the annualized rate. The treasuries that I'm purchasing are yielding around 5.1%, 5.2%. The parse trust here on this report, and it's simply because we are taking that annualized rate, it shows 7.8. But when we look at the history of that trust fund, so I've got the statement here, If we look at our three-year annualized rate of return, we're at less than 1%. In my opinion, that forest trust is our underperforming asset and is not as productive as it could be. if we invested in treasuries at this point. |
| 01:51:11.41 | Janelle Kellman | Okay, but we also have a very unpredictable macroeconomic environment, so we don't necessarily know what's going to happen. So I think we talked about this a little bit, but I would love your perspective on the long-term impacts of moving the money from 115 Trust into the general fund. Yeah. |
| 01:51:15.88 | Chad Hess | Sure. |
| 01:51:24.86 | Chad Hess | Yeah. If we pull the dollars out now, it just means there's less dollars that are earmarked. for Pensions down the road. But again, these dollars are fairly fungible. You know, we could pull dollars out of trust and they would be held within our general fund cash. Or we could spend our general fund cash this year and leave those dollars available there for subsequent years. Um, The Section 115 Trust, I believe, is very beneficial when our funding status of the pension plan, the CalPERS plan is a much higher funding status than where we are today, closer to that 90%. Um, Our pension debt is one of our most expensive debts at 6.8%. So I would be as aggressive, or I'd be a proponent to be as aggressive as we can at paying that down. |
| 01:52:12.09 | Janelle Kellman | Okay, and if you look at, if we were to approve the recommendations today as provided by you and by the city manager, that would leave us with a $250,000 deficit. So the reason that I mentioned that is, oh, sorry, is that wrong? |
| 01:52:25.22 | Chad Hess | Well, so it's still going to be a deficit. We're still going to have deficit spending, but the way we present it, it would be less of a deficit in the general fund proper, the operating side of it. It's still a consumption of fund balance. Okay. |
| 01:52:38.70 | Janelle Kellman | So I think, I mean, I'm definitely aware, and I know my fellow council members are, that there's a significant amount of grant funding and public funding available. So to date, how much have we received? |
| 01:52:48.24 | Chad Hess | for grant funding, I don't have that available off the top of my head. |
| 01:52:51.50 | Janelle Kellman | Well, I know Councilmember Kellman sought out a million dollars from the state, and that was great. But the reason I bring that up is because it seems like a positive way to close the gap if it's only a quarter of a million, not to say if only, but I know that there are several available grant sources, so I'm just trying to get a sense of whether or not our grant consultant is operating in the way, because I see a real opportunity there to fill that gap with some of the significant federal and state funding that's available specifically for climate mitigation and energy projects. |
| 01:52:54.74 | Chad Hess | Yes. |
| 01:53:10.92 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah. |
| 01:53:23.54 | Chad Hess | Yeah, I agree. We could do a much better job of looking for grant dollars or other people's dollars, certainly. |
| 01:53:28.70 | Janelle Kellman | Certainly. Because Corte Madera received funding for their freeway. Novato got funding for Highway 37. And we seem to be missing some, I mean, not to say that that's your fault by any stretch, but just in thinking about strategies for how we close the gap. |
| 01:53:41.16 | Chad Hess | Yeah. . Yeah, it's a real opportunity that we do need to look more intentional at and apply for more grants. I would agree. |
| 01:53:48.01 | Janelle Kellman | Okay. Okay. I think that's it for my questions for now. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:53:51.69 | Chad Hess | Councilmember Vice Mayor Cox. |
| 01:53:56.26 | Chad Hess | Oh, you're muted. Muted. Vice mayor. |
| 01:54:03.52 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, can you hear me now? Yes, ma'am. |
| 01:54:04.61 | Steven Woodside | Yes, ma'am. We can. |
| 01:54:06.40 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, great. um, I wanted to address a little bit further the pension trust issues that Councilmember Blaustein mentioned and I And I wanted to provide some historical perspective that Councilmember Hoffman and I have shared previously with this council. regarding, I think, important work that we undertook as a council in 2018. in which we very thoroughly. ANALYZE. with the assistance of our consultant at that time. what the escalating pension obligations would be. through 2030 and how we plan to minimize their annual impact to our general fund. And so, We essentially adopted a policy in 2018 to flatten the otherwise bell curve that we knew that we were facing. |
| 01:55:09.06 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 01:55:09.85 | Melissa Blaustein | AND The reason I raise this is because under that policy that we adopted, we did not anticipate actually withdrawing from the Um, 115 Trust until the AND I THINK I'M GOING TO READING THEM TO their zenith and so that did not our plan did not CONTEMPLATE. A WITHDRAWAL. in this upcoming fiscal year. And I can share my screen and show you a couple of graphics |
| 01:55:42.12 | Cameron Razavi | Thank you. |
| 01:55:45.53 | Melissa Blaustein | if that's helpful from staff reports that we considered back in 2018. Bye. And so, IT'S A This council decides to go in a different direction for some of the reasons discussed by Councilmember Blaustein our finance director, For example, if we believe It's more advantageous to invest our general fund money in in that will provide better performance than the 115 trust. I'm certainly willing to I WANT US TO MAKE A CONSCIOUS DECISION to no longer follow the policy that we adopted as a council in 2018. And that policy was, to THEIR OWNERS. CONTRIBUTE an initial amount in for 27, 18, 2017, 2018 fiscal year. And then, contribute our annual surplus THE TRUST. SO, which we did last year and which we weren't able to do in prior years when we didn't have a surplus. And so, I just wanted to remind this council of that history I've spoken with the city manager and forwarded some materials to him so that perhaps We can consider this more thoroughly over the next couple of meetings before we make a final decision, but I just wanted to remind us of the work that we did back in 2018 in an effort to minimize the potential adverse effects to our general fund. Um, the escalating pensions obligations. Thank you. |
| 01:57:34.69 | Steven Woodside | Councilmember Kelman. |
| 01:57:35.86 | Ian Sobieski | Great, thank you. Thank you, Director Hess. And thank you for your time earlier today to go over a lot of this. So my questions are really around methodology with two subcategories, timeframe and key drivers in your analysis. So you probably know that the cost of living in California is 38% higher than the national average, right? And you probably also know that CalPERS gets a COLA every year, and I think the COLA, the inflation rate this past year was 4.12%, and they get a COLA that reflects that. Okay. Yep. So I have some concerns around using something like the MLK community participation going away as a key driver for why things get easier in the future, because I don't see how we are also taking into consideration inflation, rising cost of living, cost of services, the increased pension debt. So can you help me understand that? |
| 01:57:47.16 | Cameron Razavi | SO, YOU KNOW, IT'S A |
| 01:58:30.53 | Chad Hess | Yeah. So a lot of that planning needs to take place within our long-term plan that we're developing. When we look at just this single fiscal year, it is important to look at, but it's really going to be prevalent when we get into that longer term plan. and looking at how are we going to fund those future UAL payments. um, You know, as the MLK COPs are paid off, those funds are available. And we have a couple options. We could leave them within that fund and improve that campus, or we could transfer them to the next greatest need. Um, in our planning, that need is really defeating our pension obligations. How are you, A.O.? |
| 01:59:07.98 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, so then this is a question, but also a recommendation, which is can you help us identify the ideal timeframe with which to evaluate budget shortfalls? So I'll give you an example. Over the last six months, we passed four different business improvement type scenarios, one of which the CDA contract relied on statements that we were doing great based on HDL numbers, but it turns out, based on the macroeconomic climate, it was just a rebound and now we're smoothing out. I mean, you tell me if that's what you think is happening. Yeah. |
| 01:59:39.99 | Chad Hess | Yeah, you know, I don't necessarily have that crystal ball, but yes, it looks like we had a great rebound right after COVID. There was pent-up demand, in my opinion. I think we're seeing the impacts of that. We're not seeing the boom that we had right after the travel restrictions were eased. So I do believe that we're in more of a normalized period at this point where we will see slower growth. |
| 02:00:00.90 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, and so when we talk about a normalized period, is that a three year, a five year, a ten year? Can we set some standards? I know there's probably industry practice, but it's tough when we've been making decisions based on these little blips in the radar. And it's fine because that was just a one year decision and that's, but just for the purposes of this, I'm trying to wrap my head around a suitable time frame. |
| 02:00:09.86 | Unknown | Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. |
| 02:00:22.72 | Chad Hess | Yeah. And that's a great observation. I think as we continue to plan, we will get more structured in how we plan. So I think it's a great observation, and I don't have an immediate response for that. But yeah, I think it's an important. |
| 02:00:34.34 | Ian Sobieski | Okay. Okay, thank you. And then I have a question about CalPERS. So, we're talking about what we do with the 115 money. So, one question I've always thought about is, can we get a better rate of return on the investment by simply paying the money directly to CalPERS? I think at one point they were charging like a 7% interest rate of money owed to them. you |
| 02:00:52.05 | Chad Hess | Yeah. So the Kelper's discount rate was 7%. They just recently lowered it to 6.8%. So As our UAL is out there, there is this unfunded balance, and we are being charged an interest rate of 6.8%. So in some of our analysis, one of the scenarios that I ran kind of outside of our group was paying down our outstanding pension debt early and accelerating that. |
| 02:01:15.91 | Ian Sobieski | because our securities are at 5.1%, right? Yeah. |
| 02:01:18.10 | Chad Hess | And we would get a 6.8 instant rate of return or guaranteed rate of return by paying down that pension debt directly to CalPERS. Now, the, as the funding approaches that 90%, that's when I think you would, kind of slow down and not overfund your pension because if you exceed 100% funded, you don't get your dollars back from CalPERS. |
| 02:01:37.10 | Ian Sobieski | Sure. |
| 02:01:37.68 | Chad Hess | But in my opinion, that's really where the Section 115 trust comes in is when we're approaching a higher funding level put those dollars in the section 115. Right now, we're kind of hedging our bet that the market is going to outperform the 6.8% at CalPERS. |
| 02:01:53.72 | Ian Sobieski | Okay. |
| 02:01:54.41 | Chad Hess | It hasn't. |
| 02:01:55.02 | Ian Sobieski | So, thank you. My last question is, since this is the first of four meetings, is there an opportunity to, in your projections, include, I guess, new revenue opportunities is how I think about them, because we're trying to get blood from the stone on this. Like, it is what it is. We can play around all we want, but unless something significant happens, we're still always going to be dealing with 500K here, 500K there. |
| 02:01:59.56 | Chad Hess | Yeah. |
| 02:01:59.80 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:01:59.81 | Chad Hess | Thank you. |
| 02:02:21.55 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:02:21.77 | Ian Sobieski | Do you recommend that council really focus, and we've talked about it a handful of times with NHA advisors and others around new revenue, but this just seems like we're just moving money around, but we're not really addressing the core, which is potentially we need more resilient revenue sources. |
| 02:02:38.38 | Chad Hess | Yeah, more stabilized revenue. So our current revenue mix, property tax is very stable, sales tax, business license, TOTs, that is all really dependent on tourism and travel. So there is some fluctuations in that. With NHA Advisors, we have looked at other revenue sources. We put out the RFP for impact fees. We did get responses back, and we're gonna bring that forward to next meeting to issue ask for your blessing to award that contract. But yes, there are other revenue opportunities that you and I have discussed, I'll bring those forward to city manager and we can have a discussion around what is the viability of those to bring additional dollars to the table utilizing our current resources. |
| 02:03:22.22 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, yeah, because when I think about MLK and I think about, you look at the fund and it's a moment in time, but as Councilor Blassoen pointed out, we have massive deferred maintenance on the MLK property, plus we have massive vacancy. We do. |
| 02:03:30.81 | Chad Hess | Yeah, but... We do. |
| 02:03:33.62 | Ian Sobieski | And so I know we're only talking about the money that's coming in the door, but we're also just leaving money on the table. |
| 02:03:38.23 | Chad Hess | We are, yeah, I would agree with that. And how can we get more of that? That wasn't a question that filling those spaces. |
| 02:03:40.63 | Ian Sobieski | That wasn't a question. an expression of feeling Thank you. |
| 02:03:44.49 | Chad Hess | Thank you. |
| 02:03:49.00 | Chad Hess | Thank you. |
| 02:03:52.78 | Jill Hoffman | So thank you and I understand that this is the first presentation, but with regard to giving feedback and to follow up on some of the things Councilmember Kelman talked about. We have received presentations for funding and for non-priority projects throughout since January 1st, certainly, and even before that. But we knew that we were having this increased risk that was coming up. And as the city manager just talked about, we knew that the... problems with the insurance and that we were getting drop from insurance goes back to October so that was also not part of our conversations when we're talking about what's our budget what's our budget perfect projections and how does this ask fit within that budget projection so I would suggest amongst the council perhaps in our discussion period that we focus our agendas on things that are priorities strictly related to risk management, because that seems to be the biggest driver right now with what we're dealing with. Risk management in the context of infrastructure, risk management in the context of, you know, finishing our housing element, and then risk management. which goes back to infrastructure, right, with regard to these funds and the fund balances that we're talking about. um, pulling money from because those fund balances, and we decided we were gonna call them business model, Yeah. |
| 02:05:10.11 | Steven Woodside | you |
| 02:05:10.15 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:05:10.22 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. |
| 02:05:10.32 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, but instead of enterprise funds, because enterprise funds is a technical, |
| 02:05:10.55 | Chad Hess | Bunch. Sure. It's a GASB term. |
| 02:05:15.33 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, it's a technical fiscal term that doesn't apply to some of these, the MLK fund and the parking fund and the... Thank you. What's the third one? Well, certainly the pensions, right? So, but all three of those things were developed over the years to address risk issues with regard to those assets. And so the risk issue with regard to the pension fund is that it's a huge fiscal risk as we move forward. And so interestingly, We've talked about this in the past, Council Member, or sorry, the Vice Mayor Cox and I were involved and me before that from 2016, 2018 on about how do we smooth out this fiscal risk The pension. And but yet we always uncover well, we're no one's adhering to that policy that we put forward, right? So there were certain years that we didn't invest in the pension fund even though there was clear policy direction from the council to do that, and the reason to do that was to smooth out those huge payments, those ballooning payments that are coming later. To your point, Chad, you and I have talked about this a lot, That's probably our biggest fiscal risk is that unfunded liability and how to attack |
| 02:06:23.81 | Chad Hess | Well, it's the volatility as well. You know, looking at how it swings based upon market performance. |
| 02:06:25.31 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 02:06:29.21 | Jill Hoffman | But that's known. Like the volatility and the risk of that is known. So you can't take a one-year snapshot of the pension |
| 02:06:31.42 | Chad Hess | Yeah. Yeah. |
| 02:06:35.86 | Jill Hoffman | fund and say, okay, this year it looks okay because we know that the volatility is out there and the risk is out there. And so, you know, that has to be, very specifically discussed amongst the council, I think, about whether or not we're gonna alter the strategy as we've unknowingly altered it in the past and haven't adhered to the policy, but that's hurt the overall strategy |
| 02:06:55.23 | Cameron Razavi | Yeah. |
| 02:06:57.44 | Jill Hoffman | of smoothing out that risk later, as opposed to just selling off a bunch of property and paying off the unfunded pension liability, right? Like we could sell off five properties and just pay it off. And that's a different kind of strategy. and a different kind of rescue. With regard to the MLK fund, As we talked, there's deferred maintenance. That's a risk. There's also deferred maintenance with regard to revenue. So the those those funds are set up to protect their revenue generating aspect of those specific assets. When you start ignoring the revenue generating costs, of those assets, then your revenue goes down, which we're also seeing with the MLK, right? Because we're not fully rented out, and we have a lot of deferred maintenance. With regard to the Phil's facilities assessment, I think that's crucial before we decide what we're going to take from one of these business enterprise funds because You know, it's shocking, frankly, that we don't have this. I think every other business model, if you have a capital asset, you know what you're doing on an annual basis for the maintenance of that asset because that's your capital asset, and that's how sometimes you make your money, and certainly that's true in this case. So, MLK high risk of not receiving return on investment of that, but we're using the revenue from that to pay off our COPs and some other quite large debt that we took on in the past. So that's my concern about MLK. The parking fund, There are maintenance issues with regard to parking fund. There are, as Chad and I discussed earlier this week, one parking lot that we're getting zero revenue off of, that we have probably maybe 100 spots there. That on weekends, when those restaurants are fully operational and fully, the restaurant parking lots are full. And so the fact that we're not charging anything for parking lot five, and we have no ability right now to charge for anything for parking lot five, indicates to me that we need to seriously look at the parking fund, which is supposed to be for maintenance on the parking lot. That's our revenue, quite a large revenue generator for Sausalito. And then also maintenance that needs to be done on our parking systems throughout town, which we've talked about on our parking, you know, when we were looking at the parking committee or whatever it was, whatever it was we were calling it, anyway, a year ago, that there are certain areas of town that also are in the downtown corridor that either were undercharging for parking or there's no parking at all there that are principally for people coming into town and not residents. I mean, We're giving you feedback, right? This is my feedback. And then the other thing we also talked about earlier this week, is the reserve. And so, you know, I don't recall, we've talked about a reserve a lot, right? And Yeah, I was surprised that it was called out specifically in our staff report as a 15% reserve. Because I don't believe the council has ever stated, we talked about a lot, what's an appropriate reserve, but I don't believe the council's ever voted on that. I guess I'm glad that we have a minimal reserve, but I don't think, and you support this, that's not appropriate. |
| 02:10:17.91 | Chad Hess | No, I think 15% is low. |
| 02:10:19.79 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 02:10:19.84 | Chad Hess | as far as a reserve. I think what we're holding in that fund right now is close to 50%, maybe high, but. |
| 02:10:27.16 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, so what about, you know, we had, When we had our, it was an audit, now I can't remember what it was. It wasn't a CAFR, it was a- |
| 02:10:37.73 | Chad Hess | Yeah, so when we did our basic financial statements, our current auditor, Badawi and associates, Ahmed Badawi, |
| 02:10:45.25 | Jill Hoffman | Right. Right, and so we asked some questions of him of what an appropriate reserve might be and if there was an industry standard or standard among cities. His response was, no, it's specific to every city and your risk assessment. |
| 02:10:57.98 | Chad Hess | Yes, you do need to take a holistic look at your risks. |
| 02:11:02.21 | Jill Hoffman | So you would agree that we have a pretty high risk at this point? |
| 02:11:06.18 | Chad Hess | Yes. |
| 02:11:06.52 | Jill Hoffman | I mean, we just lost our insurance carrier. Yeah, so it's pretty, I mean, I don't know if we need to go into too much. So I would like to discuss that, too, is what's an appropriate reserve for us as we move forward. And I think those are all my questions for you at this point. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Binks. |
| 02:11:07.27 | Chad Hess | We just lost our insurance carrier. |
| 02:11:20.93 | Steven Woodside | call school member. Thanks. That's my Rothman. Chad, just a question on this nice little biography thing. I don't know if you can pull that up easily. Just because I wasn't sure. |
| 02:11:26.41 | Jill Hoffman | I'm sorry. |
| 02:11:26.46 | Chad Hess | Bye. |
| 02:11:26.63 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:11:29.26 | Chad Hess | Yeah, I certainly could. |
| 02:11:54.17 | Steven Woodside | So 2023, the leftmost column stack of bricks there. Yes. That was a year of surplus. |
| 02:11:58.42 | Chad Hess | Yes. Yes, this was the year that we had our million dollar surplus within the general fund. |
| 02:12:05.19 | Steven Woodside | Okay, so and the next two columns are both projections, right? Correct, that is correct. What we've mostly been talking about today is the projection for the next fiscal year which starts in June and ends in June of next year. And that's the right most column of |
| 02:12:08.41 | Chad Hess | Correct. That is correct. |
| 02:12:18.00 | Chad Hess | Thank you. |
| 02:12:18.11 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:12:18.15 | Chad Hess | Yes, so this would be fiscal year 25. Thank you. |
| 02:12:20.75 | Steven Woodside | The middle column of squares, that's the fiscal year we're currently in, and it ends next month. Correct. So it's also a projection, but it's a projection that's just 30 days, well, 60 days away. 60 days away. So are you pretty confident in those numbers? |
| 02:12:25.76 | Chad Hess | Correct. |
| 02:12:27.08 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:12:31.90 | Chad Hess | Six years, right? So this was based upon our budget. We are currently budgeted for just over a half million dollar surplus. I think revenue is a little bit softer, but our expenses are coming in below budget. So yeah, I feel we're going to end the year, fiscal year 24, with a surplus close to that half a million dollars. |
| 02:12:52.39 | Steven Woodside | Okay, so on this three, with these three square, with the columns of squares, the first two columns both represent years of surplus, and what you're saying, that's the thing you're talking about here, is largely because of the insurance issue, we are facing a deficit in the projection for the next fiscal year that we have to be mindful of. That is correct. |
| 02:12:56.19 | Chad Hess | Thank you. |
| 02:12:56.22 | Unknown | with the columns of squares. Yes, columns, stacked columns. |
| 02:13:02.61 | Unknown | Yes. I think you're talking |
| 02:13:12.18 | Chad Hess | That is correct. |
| 02:13:12.76 | Steven Woodside | So that's one issue, and that's the primary. And then you're making some other recommendations about how to continue the creeping excellence in your department about reserve levels, both in the journal fund and also in the various other funds. Is that what I'm understanding? |
| 02:13:28.55 | Chad Hess | Yes, so I am asking for the nod to go ahead and establish some minimum cash balances for MLK parking. And then also, you know, if we are interested in bringing forth action to increase our reserves to 25% within the general fund. Okay. As Councilmember Hoffman stated, I don't believe that was a formal council action. Right. But it could be it certainly could be and then it would be a committed fund balance designation. |
| 02:13:57.19 | Steven Woodside | And to Council Member Hoffman's questions around the facility assessment and Yes. has been connected to the reserves. You know that's a comment we've talked about in our one on ones. |
| 02:14:03.16 | Chad Hess | Yeah. |
| 02:14:10.76 | Steven Woodside | Is your reserve level then a placeholder that will then be |
| 02:14:13.96 | Chad Hess | Yes, they did once that work is done. Yes. So as soon as we get that facilities assessment We're gonna have a lot more information on that deferred maintenance and as far as the health and safety Components those are things that we're gonna have to address right away And then also that that facilities assessment will help us plan. What is that required capital spend to maintain? MLK Spinnaker |
| 02:14:15.30 | Steven Woodside | Once that work is done. |
| 02:14:35.01 | Chad Hess | So this is ready. |
| 02:14:35.31 | Steven Woodside | This is what I didn't quite understand. So your recommendations in the current proposal, which we'll address, is sort of a placeholder. What you didn't say in the staff report, but I think it's your goal, is that those numbers are going to be replaced once you have a better methodology for what the minimum fund balances should be in the different accounts. Correct. That's sort of your recommendation. It wasn't actually said in writing, so I just wanted to. |
| 02:14:54.28 | Chad Hess | Thank you. Correct. |
| 02:14:58.82 | Chad Hess | your assessment is correct. It is a placeholder as we know more information as far as the what it would take to maintain or improve those spots. those those facilities, we would have to readdress our projections. |
| 02:15:14.10 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:15:14.15 | Chad Hess | Thank you. |
| 02:15:14.21 | Steven Woodside | And I too was interested in the thing, I think, Councilmember Kelman brought up, which is that the hurdle rate on CalPERS being 6.8% now means that while treasuries are great and they do a good return, the best ROI on your dollar is simply giving it to CalPERS now. |
| 02:15:32.28 | Chad Hess | That's our most expensive debt. |
| 02:15:33.97 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:15:33.98 | Chad Hess | Thank you. |
| 02:15:34.57 | Steven Woodside | The issue, do I understand it correctly, that if you do that, that's a good use of that dollar, but it doesn't help you with the particular UAL payment the next year, because that is amortized over its full 20-year. That $1 does very well, but it doesn't help you with your next year's. |
| 02:15:34.62 | Chad Hess | Thank you. |
| 02:15:50.22 | Chad Hess | The next year. No, there is a lag between when you would make that discretionary advance payment and when the next valuation would come out. So there would be savings down the road or a reduction in the UA down the road, but there's a lag. That's correct. |
| 02:16:07.77 | Steven Woodside | Okay, thank you. Those are all my questions. |
| 02:16:09.49 | Chad Hess | Great questions. |
| 02:16:10.20 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Mayor. you Let's take public comment now, please. |
| 02:16:16.10 | Walfred Solorzano | Sorry. Anybody in the audience? Would you like to make any public comment? All right, seeing none in the audience, we do have Sandra Bushmaker. |
| 02:16:30.77 | Sandra Bushmaker | Hi again. couple of things. Thank you for this presentation. This is my 30,000 foot analysis. We have got a budget deficit projected for the next fiscal year of $2 million. We need to tighten our belts. We have to stop discretionary spending. We need to focus on our priorities. We need to pay down our pension debt. And I agree with you. Vice Mayor Cox about the 215 trust because I remember when that was enacted. And there was not anticipated withdrawals from that fund. We need to get insurance. We need to get our facilities assessment done. to look at deferred maintenance, current maintenance schedules, and preventive maintenance schedules. And we're going to have a presentation shortly about the geohazard mapping study that was done. And that is a health and safety issue that the council must address there are recommendations in that report that are costly and need to be addressed So basically we're at a position we were a few years ago of having to tighten our belts, stop discretionary spending, and get our city back on track again. That's it for now, but I'm sure I'll have more later. Thank you. |
| 02:17:59.65 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker, Babette McDougall. |
| 02:18:15.31 | Walfred Solorzano | If you can unmute yourself. |
| 02:18:21.11 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:18:21.16 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:18:21.22 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:18:29.58 | Sergio Rudin | Uh, |
| 02:18:34.29 | Walfred Solorzano | We have some user error. |
| 02:18:39.08 | Steven Woodside | Is she still online? |
| 02:18:40.39 | Walfred Solorzano | She's still online. She has a new computer. Can you unmute her? I'm trying to, she needs to unmute herself. |
| 02:18:41.53 | Steven Woodside | Can you unmute? |
| 02:18:47.98 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah. I've already, yeah. |
| 02:18:59.83 | Steven Woodside | No luck, and is there any other public speaker? |
| 02:19:02.24 | Unknown | 29. |
| 02:19:02.52 | Cameron Razavi | Thank you. |
| 02:19:02.59 | Unknown | you |
| 02:19:03.84 | Steven Woodside | All right, we'll have to move on. If she is able to do it, we'll take her comment during our discussion. So any discussion here? We have sort of a mixture of Q&A and discussion, but let's maybe just go down the... I'll start with whoever wants. Colin Sprenner, Calvin Good. |
| 02:19:20.68 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, so I asked my questions, and so what I want to suggest to my colleagues is we're going to keep seeing the same issue over and over again unless we really figure out the methodology, the timeframe, and some new revenue sources. And I sat down with Chad today and I expressed something that I've thought about for a long time, which I was lovingly calling, the revenue improvement program until I realized that was RIP. So I went with the Sausalito Adventure Initiative, which is we never talk about Sausalito as an opportunity for water sports enthusiasts and trail adventurers as a way to enhance our revenue. And I think that we are going to continue to have the same result and the same conversation over and over again if we don't start thinking about how we enhance our reputation, particularly post-COVID. All of us on the dais here have some athletic endeavor that we actually love to do that is an outdoor sport, whether it's sailing or swimming or biking or running, right? And so, but we don't talk about our community in that way. And it's huge revenue opportunities for us. So some ideas that I would hope that Chad starts to think about because it's not just things that are new. They are things that change the way we use our assets. So a water sports center. A water sports center where we are holding regattas, kayak regattas, all sorts of floating movies where people gather in Dunphy Park and the movie is played out on the water. I've seen this before. It's interesting. It's different. People would come to us. We have the lease for the Cascule Marina coming up very soon. We could do yacht onboarding and drop-off in pickups. That is a significant revenue source. We could be looking at water taxis. Council Member Blossy and I have been very passionate about that. Lots of things that we can do. I think unused value equals waste, and it doesn't get baked into our budget adequately. And so I feel like it's my fourth year on council. We have the same conversation, and we're trying to get... I think unused value equals waste, and it doesn't get baked into our budget adequately. And so I feel like it's my fourth year on council, we have the same conversation, and we're trying to get blood from a stone, and we can't because we only have the same mix that we keep looking at. So our water support center, I also think, Promoting trail connectivity and access we have access right up here on morning Sun off of Spencer Rav We have the Cavallo point area Well, how are we not talking about that on social media and all the efforts that we make and I don't need to go too deep into this Rabbit hole But I only want to paint the picture that if we apply a different lens to how we see our community Then we start to develop new revenue sources, right? I also just mentioned we've talked for a while about about Alex at Bahala came in and said, I wanna do 15 units of hotels. We know what an individual hotel room gives to us in terms of TOT why don't we go after that include that in our projections we know we have 20 spaces at Humboldt Street we know what an individual parking spot is worth to the city why don't we measure those out and come to the council with the business case for making more of our decisions. As I run down other opportunities, you guys are gonna laugh, lighted pickleball courts, we have an unsightly piece of city owned property sitting immediately adjacent to Dunphy Park. We have done nothing with it for years other than store a pile of soil. That pile of soil is gone. We could have all sorts of opportunities there. We're just not making use of our resources so more regattos more water taxis more water-based activities more understanding of who we are as a community I think will help us not have this conversation year over year because it feels like deja vu all over again so thanks for listening and if you like the idea now that I'm the new EDAC liaison with Council Member Hoffman, thank you for doing that. I would love to be able to direct EDAC to really look at that. We had a boating show that was very successful. There have been some other endeavors like Shakespeare on the Water. So I'm talking fast because I'm excited, but those are my ideas. |
| 02:23:11.68 | Janelle Kellman | Great and love the enthusiasm, love, love outdoorsmanship and adventure. I appreciate all of that. I think in hearing what we heard earlier regarding our insurance and knowing that just after this we have a presentation on our landslide assessments, I said this previously, but I'm just going to continue to push that we really, I would love to see us look at as well as, and I can go into some of the revenue opportunities, of course, but I think we really need to consider our budget from a risk and resilience lens and think about how do we de-risk our city and how do we plan and prepare for climate change mitigation the potential macroeconomic trends that we're not prepared for just thinking about it from a 10 to 15 to 20 year perspective so that we're not making these decisions as councilmember Kelman pointed out year on year in a panic but rather how do we ensure and consider and continue these revenue streams and de-risk at the same time so that means making the less sexy less Thank you. in a panic, but rather how do we ensure and consider and continue these revenue streams and de-risk at the same time. So that means making the less sexy, less fun investments in really important infrastructure and maintenance that will help us de-risk our city and keep us prioritized while considering exciting revenue opportunities like waterfront, outdoorsmanship, and adventure marketing, and really engaging in our international destination of Sausalito I think we have a really strong relationship with our chamber for the first time in many years and we can leverage that to work closely with our business community we voted on a bid together and I think that there's a lot of potential for revenue development from there um I also think our parking fund there's there's more we can look at a couple of specific parking lots lot five and the lack of revenue at lock five thanks for bringing that up councilmember hoffman was mentioned i also think you know we have places where we have street parking along caledonia that is not metered and that's another lost revenue opportunity given the situation that we're in we're in the process of doing a significant lease and property assessment for all of our city-owned properties as well as a facilities. I think we need to look at where we can consider the costs that we're leasing for, what's still vacant and what needs to be rented out, what some of those costs and changes look like, and where that might be available. And then I mentioned this, and I'm just going to keep saying it, and I would really like to be part of a working group that focuses on it, but there is more grant funding available, and if you look at other cities and towns in Marin County, in the East Bay, they are receiving significant funds, whether it's from the direct funds and revenue refunds from the federal government because of IRA bill, or whether it's from partnerships with the government, with the state, we need to be sitting down on a regular basis with representatives from Congressman Huffman's office to brainstorm together about what CIP projects we have that might qualify and how we can fill that gap. Because if the gap is indeed $250,000, I know that that public funding is available because I saw Councilmember Kellman get a million dollars with one opportunity. So we need to be doing better, we need to be applying for more, we need to be thinking about where it fits. Through my work with the National League of Cities, Thank you. Councilmember Kellman get a million dollars with one opportunity so we need to be doing better we need to be applying for more we need to be thinking about where it fits through my work with the National League of Cities I participated in infrastructure hub boot camps to look at some of that funding those programs are free and available to members of staff pending bandwidth because we really need to focus on deferred maintenance and how we can solve some of those problems and I think you know so I agree with all of Kelman's suggestions, and then looking at new revenue streams and thinking about a 5 to 10 to 15-year plan from a risk and resilience lens. And again, thank you very much to Director Hess and to City Manager Zapata for your hard work on this, and we'll welcome an ongoing discussion over the next three meetings as well. |
| 02:26:29.92 | Cameron Razavi | and so. |
| 02:26:42.25 | Janelle Kellman | Thanks. |
| 02:26:44.06 | Steven Woodside | Vice Mayor? |
| 02:26:46.17 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. Thank you. Am I off mute? Yes. um, Thank you for all of that. I really love the creative ideas. proposed by council members um, you know, the city manager asked us |
| 02:26:59.63 | Cameron Razavi | you know, |
| 02:27:02.30 | Melissa Blaustein | for revenue raising ideas. over a year ago and we all provided him some. I recall. you know, discussing a vacancy tax. and some other So I want to remind staff of some of those concepts. that we identified A year ago, even when we didn't think we were facing a budget deficit. I do want to make sure that we don't um, you know, panic. over this year's I'm not sure. I'm not sure. forecast because we do have some. one time. perhaps not consistent EXPENSES. And I think we need to give staff an opportunity to restructure our economic model to face you know, whatever the new insurance cost reality will be moving forward. I'm grateful that we remain very strong financially which gives us time. weather this storm. I agree with the city manager's opening comments about not even thinking about reducing services at this time or level of service at this time. I agree with the finance directors, recommendation that we repay the MLK loan in full with the caveat that we need to understand the facility survey and ensure that there's that our, that. that the MLK Proforma that has already been prepared is accurate. with respect to capital needs for the future, including for the parking lot. I agree with a 25% Reserved. THE END OF Back in 2018, the finance director, Melanie Purcell, Ray Withy and I agreed to a 25% AND I THINK THAT WE HAVE reserve policy. in 2018. So there is a precedent, although I don't know that that was something that was adopted by the council, That was something that we included in the budget. for that year. That was back when we had a financing. committee. THE END OF THE END OF THE And so... I look forward to, and I would like to, um, THE END OF THE END OF THE MORE INFORMATION. about and how some of the options for addressing Pensions. would pencil out. I'm really worried. about drawing down on the trust, as tempting as it is to get more interest, on general fund on our general fund balance. THE END OF THE END OF THE because that trust was built and added to for a specific purpose which is so that we don't go bankrupt. as some cities have in the past. over pension obligations. And so I really, I'm happy to hear that we may have a surplus again, next year. but with the challenges facing San Francisco, our neighbor and our world. I think things remain pretty volatile at the moment. And so I hesitate. to draw down that trust. Now. when the need is not when that was not what we had planned. when the obligation has not reached has not yet reached its zenith. And when we aren't certain about what funds will be available to us, IN THE FUTURE. to address those needs. preliminary thoughts and I look forward to the ongoing dialogue regarding this. |
| 02:30:56.37 | Steven Woodside | THANK YOU. That's where we're Hoffman. |
| 02:31:01.60 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, just to briefly add to some of my comments that were It's included in my questions to Chad. uh, one of the first question I had Chad what's our what's our total pension unfunded pension liability right now. I'm, I know it's somewhere buried in |
| 02:31:32.77 | Jill Hoffman | It's okay, it's like 35 million or something, right? |
| 02:31:34.37 | Chad Hess | or something, right? Here, I'll give you the number. I've got it pulled up here. |
| 02:31:36.47 | Jill Hoffman | Total unfunded liability is $35 million. And that's not including |
| 02:31:42.08 | Chad Hess | Yeah, you're right, it is $35 million. |
| 02:31:43.79 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, oh my god, that's amazing. So yeah, okay, thank you. |
| 02:31:43.81 | Chad Hess | Thank you. Yeah. |
| 02:31:49.41 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. If we wanted to pay it off, I mean we could prepay some of the payments, right? But if we wanted to pay it all off, which is the soundest We could, but that would involve us selling off some assets of the city, but it would also save us quite a large sum of money. And as you and I have discussed, we could, on many times any surplus should go. straight into the unfunded liability to pay that down. Anyway, that's my thought on the unfunded liability with regard to the pension trust fund. I agree with Councilmember Cox. I think if we're going to take money out of that now, The trust fund that we set up to smooth those payments in the later later years, we need had a full discussion about why we formed those trust funds and what the risk is in those years and why that was a strategy that was adopted by the City Council. I do think we should have and would request that as part of this process, we agendize also what's an appropriate reserve level for our general fund. Because I don't think we've done that. We've talked a lot about it among the council, but we've never actually had it on the agenda and we never actually voted on it. So I think that's an important thing going forward. And so anyway, that's it in addition to my other comments I've already made. Thank you. |
| 02:33:15.88 | Steven Woodside | Thanks. Great discussion. I guess my comments, I need to ask you another question. Director Hess. The 115 Trust, it's set up and managed by a particular agency. |
| 02:33:30.95 | Chad Hess | PARS. PARS. |
| 02:33:32.04 | Steven Woodside | They have a fee, they have an investment strategy. Correct. We have no discretion over how it's done. Or very little. |
| 02:33:35.70 | Chad Hess | Correct. |
| 02:33:39.42 | Chad Hess | Very little. |
| 02:33:40.72 | Steven Woodside | There is no reason, tell me if I'm wrong in saying this, there's no reason you couldn't set up something called the Sausalito Pension Trust Enterprise Fund that could be funded with the same money we could have sent to the trust, but that we would have full discretion over whether to invest in T-bills or something else. |
| 02:33:59.06 | Chad Hess | Sure, we could set up a fund within our structure, our fund structure to segregate those dollars. They wouldn't have the same protections as a section 115 trust from creditors in the event of, of, of issues. And it looks like our city manager or city attorney has some thoughts. Yeah. |
| 02:34:16.56 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, there, the city is limited in terms of what it can invest money that it holds in his general fund and regular reserves. There are state laws that limit what kind of investment vehicles we're allowed to invest money in. Thank you. There are special rules for Section 115 trusts that deal with allowing us to invest in other kinds of more risky assets, given the long term nature of those kinds of trusts. So We can't invest in the same type of vehicles that a Section 115 trust can if they're held internally by the city. |
| 02:34:49.79 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. That's interesting. It sounds like the 115 trust would let us to do more risky things than we could do in a regular enterprise fund. |
| 02:34:56.08 | Unknown | it. Thank you. |
| 02:34:56.60 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. |
| 02:34:56.82 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:34:56.94 | Steven Woodside | And so when you have T-bills earning 5% or more, and we're only earning 1.9% in the 115 trust, there is a question that I would love to engage with at the appropriate time. That's my feedback about whether we can still meet the principles that my colleagues, Councilmembered Hoffman and Cox and my predecessors established, which was to have a well set aside pot of money to make sure we don't go bankrupt. But that we have the flexibility to actually earn better returns than we're currently getting. So that's one piece of feedback. Love the idea of other revenue streams. |
| 02:35:07.05 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:35:40.68 | Steven Woodside | Advocating the low hanging fruit on that, I share that with Council Member Kelman. A hotel seems like a no brainer. The question is, what do we do to make that happen? A few phone calls with Alex at the old Valhalla suggests that's not a plausible low hanging alternative, unfortunately. So what's our plan B? What's our plan C? Can we actually do that? What's the process? Can staff help with laying out a process for getting another hotel in town? And a pro forma for what that would get us. Is it 10 rooms or 20 or 30? There was some talk, I don't know if it's realistic about a flow tell. Is that a realistic thing to have? That would be really key. I mean, I couldn't agree more with you, Council Member Kellman, about the Sausalito Adventure Initiative. I'm strongly, though, and, you know, feel free to respond if you want because I don't know if the dialogue is helpful now or later, but you have to invest some money. I mean, who's going to run that, right? It's sort of like, and I'm struggling between is government the right entity to run initiatives like that or is private business the right entity to run initiatives like that, you know, seeing how hard it is to get stuff done in the committee environment the brown act and the decision cycle and just the way decisions are made it seems like some of those in it wonderful initiatives innovative ideas would be best executed on by private individuals a sort of business improvement development district in the Marinship, for instance, or on the waterfront. But that would require actually spending some money. So my question for my colleagues to ruminate on is, You see it all the time in companies where they cut themselves to death. And then you have to spend a little money to get, but you need to do it wisely on the places where you're going to get huge leverage. And spending a little money to help, for instance, do some of those waterfront initiatives you've talked about, I'd be completely in support of, even in an environment where we have this big insurance problem that we've got to also solve. So I wouldn't want to let this big insurance problem that has to be solved. It's not just a budget problem. It's an unsustainable problem that needs a solution. Take away from one of the solutions, which might be paradoxically spending some money on initiatives that generate a lot of tax revenue. Whether it's a business improvement to district for the Marin ship or something associated with some of the other areas that you talked about. So, but I would love to put that out there because I know that there's of course a concern on spending any dollars I'm looking for the leverage. So I would love your response on that. Let me just finish my. |
| 02:38:26.68 | Cameron Razavi | Yeah. |
| 02:38:28.64 | Steven Woodside | Let's see if there's anything else I had to say. I might remember later, but those would be, I guess that would be my real comment is, in these kinds of times, especially, it's really important to focus on what moves the needle, not what's gesture, but what's substance, what really moves the needle. And I gotta just tip my hat to all the previous city council and city council members, we've had multiple years of surpluses that were set aside dutifully with discipline. That gives us this incredible resource of $10 million in the general fund, and that's not even counting $10 million or so set aside in the capital funds, right? All of today was general fund. There's a whole bunch of money set aside in a bunch of restricted funds, tidalins and otherwise that are restricted for capital spending. And that's, I don't have the exact number here, but something like $7 million plus. So there's a lot of money that's been set aside by the predecessors that gives us, I think the vice mayor said was really strong financial position and we have a, particular thing we have to deal with that's important, and we don't have the answer today. around the insurance, but kudos to the previous city councils and city staffs that have given Sosli to such financial resilience. |
| 02:39:48.03 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you, Mayor. I do wanna respond, so thank you for that. I didn't bake exactly who would run what, but why I mentioned it today is because I think we need to be making the business case, and Chad and I talked about this, for policy decisions. And that needs to be a part of our financial planning. And it's funny, you started with the difference between a financial planner and an accountant, and I know that we make you blow those lines a lot, but I do think we would have a healthier ecosystem. I also am a little bit more circumspect, I think, about our financial position, because I often felt like Sausalito was like a duck. It looked very nice above the water, but under the water was furiously trying to stay afloat. And I think that's backed up by the fact that we have massive deferred infrastructure at MLK. We have $18 million worth of deferred sewer infrastructure maintenance. So we may have looked good on top because we have money in a bank account, but we didn't spend it. And that's one way to look like you have money is if you don't spend it. And so I wanna make sure that we, We continue that in a more balanced fashion. There was also a moment in time, right around when we were coming into office, where there was two or three years where money hadn't actually been put into the 115 trust. And in fact, when we took office, there wasn't even enough money in that account to actually cover the expenses. So that plan probably needs to have a good hard look based on missing a handful of years due to recession or whatever the reason was, but you know, I don't want to be a duck anymore. I want everything to be translucent. |
| 02:41:22.81 | Steven Woodside | Vice mayor? |
| 02:41:27.12 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. I did just wanna mention one more small detail about the Pension 115 trust it is that it is tax exempt. I don't know exactly what how that benefit translates financially to our use of it, but I wanted to remind us that that is a tax exemption. mechanism. |
| 02:41:51.41 | Steven Woodside | Thanks Vice Mayor. I just have to confirm because I think that's important. It's my understanding that we don't pay tax on our T-bills, right? Chad Hess is giving us a thumbs up. So we don't pay tax in our other accounts either. So and yeah, and Councilman Coleman, I agree with the notion we have these and have been saying all along we have this hidden deficit of our deferred infrastructure. We also have a hidden set of assets. I mean, the notion we have these, and have been saying all along, we have this hidden deficit of our deferred infrastructure. We also have a hidden set of assets. I mean, we sit on dispenser fire station doing nothing with it. It's empty, it's worth millions of dollars. |
| 02:41:51.53 | Melissa Blaustein | Express. |
| 02:42:29.58 | Steven Woodside | and we do nothing with it. And there are other examples around town. Council Member Hoffman and I are completely aligned that I'd be all in support of a revolutionary sale of assets to take care of our pension liability, full stop. But can we- |
| 02:42:44.46 | Ian Sobieski | That's one of the hidden reasons why we're doing |
| 02:42:45.97 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:42:46.00 | Ian Sobieski | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:42:46.08 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:42:46.17 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:42:46.20 | Steven Woodside | Can we? Yeah, exactly right. So let's not forget that the solution isn't just to middle around the edges and tighten our belts without considering that we have big hidden liabilities. We're also rich with huge assets. And we have to be thoughtful about what really moves the needle in solving things and not make gestures. All right, let's, I guess we'll close with that. Did you want to take public comment from my back? Oh, are we not taking public comment? |
| 02:43:14.47 | Walfred Solorzano | Did you want to take public comment from Babette? Oh, are we not taking public comment? Oh, from Babette. Yeah, she wasn't there. She's around now. Are we okay with that? |
| 02:43:18.64 | Steven Woodside | Oh. or Okay, we will take public comment from Ms. McDougall, the only person since she had got in under the wire, and then we will take a biobreak at the request of my colleagues. |
| 02:43:33.47 | Babette McDougall | Can you hear me? |
| 02:43:34.58 | Steven Woodside | Yes, we can hear you. Please go ahead, Ms. McDougall. |
| 02:43:37.48 | Babette McDougall | All right, well, thank you. I apologize for the technical glitches. Thank you for taking my words. So there are two things that I want to bring to mind. One is I would really like to see more I'm not sure. playing on what Councilwoman Kelman had to say, I think going forward, It's a sort of some sort of allocation of cost over time. I think there needs to be more concentration on the use of the TOT funds. I'm constantly surprised. Like, I know that this is the first of four. THE END OF THE END OF THE sessions on this. topic of the new budget, but The TOT funds have been channel directly into the general fund, and there's been very little thought to how any portion of it accrues back to the hospitality and visitor serving sectors over time. And I think we really need to buff that up. You want to know how to generate funds. That BID thing is sitting out there still. I don't know where that stands, but It seems to me that one way we can try to move the needle on that is to become more proactive in our discussions about the use of to T, because I think this is where the breakdown between the business community, the downtown. And, the city. probably lies in terms of this lack of trust. So the the TOT has traditionally been specifically to promote the visitor and hospitality segments and yet in Sausalito that hasn't been the case. So it's time for us to reassess that. Thank you. |
| 02:45:06.72 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Okay, we will take a five minute recess and be back at 10 minutes before 10. |
| 02:45:07.06 | Babette McDougall | Right. |
| 02:45:12.61 | Steven Woodside | hazard research geologic hazard report of the city of Sausalito. Director McGowan. |
| 02:45:22.53 | Kevin McGowan | Good evening again, Mayor, members of the City Council. Bear with me for one moment. We do have a presentation this evening. And let me grab my notes here. All right, as you know, I'm Kevin McGowan, Department of Public Works, and Item 5C before you this evening is a presentation from Michael Jewett of Miller Pacific Engineering Group related to the draft geologic hazard report. I would also like to thank the members of the landslide task force who helped review this, as well as commenting on the report itself, and also the members of the planning commission who received this presentation earlier in April. This evening, staff is recommending that the council receive and file the report, direct staff to develop and issue a request for proposal for future geologic professional services, in other words, gathering data and putting more information into a system, direct staff to also implement remedial measures that are recommended in the report, and also returned to the council in about a year with a discussion and implementation of a hillside ordinance, if not sooner. So with that, I'd like to turn the presentation over to Michael Jewett of Miller Pacific Engineering Group in order to lead us through his presentation. Thank you. |
| 02:46:58.74 | Mike Jewett | Good evening. Thank you all for having me here. Um, appreciate the intro, Kevin. My name is Mike Jewett. I am an engineering geologist with Miller Pacific Engineering. Uh, we're a local firm here in Marin. I've been doing this a little under 20 years. Um, And so I'm here to talk to you a little bit about geohazards and landslides and what we could do about them. |
| 02:47:21.35 | Mike Jewett | First off, the purpose of our study in this language comes from the task force recommendations to you several years ago. The purpose here is really Well, twofold. One is to identify local geologic conditions, seismic assessment, hydrologic risk areas, and combine this with updated development guidelines consistent with other local agencies. Other language in that task force request, the RFP, refers to a hydrologic and geotechnical assessment of vulnerability to future mudslide disasters that cause harm to residents and property, and assess the collective contributing factors in an effort to identify early warning signs and proactive measures. In shorter terms, really the purpose here is to avoid what's shown in the photo on the right, which I'm sure you all remember as being the Sausalito Boulevard landslide from 2019. If I overheard correctly, that may have been a topic touched on in the previous risk discussion. Our study here, I'm going to go through very quickly the components of our study and try to focus on the recommendations because I know this is a fairly thick technical report, and the real purpose of the discussion here, I think, is for the council to understand the recommendations. The first step to our project involved some geologic mapping and creating a GIS database. Prior to this project, the most detailed maps of Sausalito, geologic maps, were made in the 1970s. They use a topographic base that was most recently updated in the 50s, so they're fairly old. There's been a lot of development since then. we Compiled all the existing published data, which is to say those previous old geologic maps. We used current topographic data, drone-based LiDAR data collected by MarinMap that was done in 2019. So it's a very current representation of the ground surface. We did a fair amount of field reconnaissance. Once we have all these compiled in digital format, We go out there to cross-check what other geologists have mapped and or to modify things where we see fit. between 1976 when that old map was made and today. I'm sure you can all name several off the top of your head. There are several landslides that occurred in that time and there's a fair amount more development in certain areas I'm not sure if I'm not sure if Once we did our field reconnaissance, really it's a matter of refining and updating this digital map. This was done in GIS format, which is the same software interface that MarinMap uses, if you're familiar. It makes a really handy interactive map that can show you lots of different things all at once. This was step one, I'll move on to step two. Once we've got the geologic map, the next step is to develop some hazard zones. And the basic process for this involves first defining some criteria, what is and is not in a landslide hazard zone. For slope instability, the components of making that determination include a landslide inventory map, That last map I showed you had the landslides all inventoried on it, so we know where each of those are. A map about different slope angles, how steep is the hill? That seems like a fairly straightforward contributor to instability. And then each of those colored units on the map I just showed you were assigned a different value for their strength. The interaction between slope angle and strength is really the biggest driver with instability. Along with this study, we were asked to look at liquefaction and settlement. Those are a little more straightforward in that their occurrence is limited to areas with very specific geologic conditions. Liquefaction occurs when you've got granular soils, sand and gravel, that are saturated and shaken by an earthquake. That is the only instance in which liquefaction will occur. And settlement is limited to areas where bay mud, the old stinky, nasty clay that exists in the marshes, if you've ever walked in there, you know you sink right away. Same thing happens with buildings and fills and anything we put on the marsh. that's really... limit it again to the waterfronts. Those are those are straightforward. Um, Hazard zone. So I'm going to start with the landslide hazard zone, because that is probably the most, going to generate the most interest. The methods here are based on what the California Geologic Survey and USGS have done in lots of areas. They perform similar studies throughout the state. They just haven't got to this part of the Bay Area yet. But we took what they've done for the city and county of San Francisco and used that as a guideline for methodology and output product. Um, Again, this involved performing some field reconnaissance, identifying existing landslides, assigning strength values for each of those materials, and combining those values with the slope map. The fancy software does a little math and it produces the map shown on the bottom with a range of red and yellow and green colors. That map shows relative susceptibility to landsliding, which is to say the areas in red are zones that are very highly susceptible. One thing I should point out is it does not indicate necessarily the probability of landslides. Predicting landslides is quite frankly very challenging if not impossible. But the point is to say these are the areas where the ground conditions, the inherent geologic conditions are more conducive to instability. |
| 02:53:02.21 | Mike Jewett | Liquefaction and settlement. Like I mentioned, these are confined to areas that either are underlain by Bay Mud or are underlain by sand and gravel. |
| 02:53:11.81 | Ian Sobieski | Sorry, can I have a question about your methodology before you go on to liquefaction? |
| 02:53:12.48 | Mike Jewett | Thank you. |
| 02:53:17.41 | Ian Sobieski | Slide five, landslide hazard zone. So your methodology, which is the geologic survey of California uses, you do some field recon to see what's existing, |
| 02:53:23.33 | Cameron Razavi | Mhmm. |
| 02:53:27.77 | Ian Sobieski | you look at the materials, and then you plug those two things in, and it makes your map. |
| 02:53:33.54 | Mike Jewett | In so many words, yes. |
| 02:53:35.38 | Ian Sobieski | What about Um, So tell us again how you consider historic slides. You know, I spent 10 years on the Planning Commission, we saw many planning documents where in construction we had slides. |
| 02:53:47.94 | Unknown | Thank you. Mm-hmm. |
| 02:53:51.41 | Ian Sobieski | And I know some areas, I looked briefly on your map, and those areas are not highlighted on your map. |
| 02:53:56.75 | Mike Jewett | So part of this mapping was a landslide inventory, a catalog. There's a plate in that report that shows, I want to say, 59 individual landslides, and those are things that either were documented previously, shown on somebody else's map from long ago, are things that we have worked on during the course of our time consulting with the city, are things that, um, were documentation provided to me by the task force or things that I was able to track down through you know, available published sources. It is not likely to be an exhaustive catalog. The record keeping especially especially prior to about the mid-60s, is very, very spotty. A lot of areas have since probably been repaired. The way that this is set up is that any area of existing landsliding is defaulted to the least stable zone. Material that has moved down the hill is going to be weaker than its previous state, right? The weakest materials in all of Sausalito other than that Bay mud are probably the landslide debris deposits. They're few and far between because they get washed away very quickly, but That's the point is they are in the least stable areas. |
| 02:55:17.51 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, and then you combine the map of the strength value with the map of the slope angles. Can you give us a relative understanding of what kind of slope angle begins to really pique your interest? |
| 02:55:28.80 | Mike Jewett | It really depends on the material that underlies it. In other words, for instance, take the cut slopes along 101 on the Waldo Great. They're near vertical. Sure. They have their own history of landsliding and stability. The notion there is that where you've got very hard basalt rock, the slope will stand at half to one or one to one. in areas that are underlain by much weaker shale or are underlain by thicker deposits of residual soil or colluvium or slide debris, you can have movement on much shallower slopes. And so in a way for me to say, hey, You know, it really matters when slopes are steeper than X. It's a bit of a broad generalization. I would say that in general in Sausalito, where things are shallower we would say five to one, which is to say, vertical, or excuse me, horizontal to vertical. So five feet this way, one feet down, that's a 20% slope. Usually things flatter than that are pretty benign. but there are a lot of other factors that can induce instability. In other words, even on very flat slopes, specific drainage conditions may be a factor, changes in development, putting fill at the top of the slope, cutting away the bottom, things like that. |
| 02:56:52.06 | Ian Sobieski | We're gonna sign you up for the Click It Fix It app and ask people to report their landslides. I have a few. |
| 02:56:57.14 | Mike Jewett | I have filled that function before. No, that's okay. And totally happy to answer any questions. Like I said, I know it's a thick technical report, so if there's questions on methods or means, by all means, let me know. liquefaction settlement zones. These are, again, confined to the waterfront. Settlement is where you've got fill on the compressible clay and liquefaction is shaking all that loose sand that's underwater down there. In Sausalito, again, these are really in the marshlands. The effects here, you know, settlement is a long-term a long-term impact. Areas of marinship that were filled way back in the 40s and 50s, they've been settling for a long time. Some of those areas may have undergone all the settlement they were undergo. But... As new development is considered, if new buildings are built or new fills are placed, that will yet induce more new settlements. Um, liquefaction, like I said, is only going to occur during a seismic event. The potential effects of liquefaction would again be settlement, but instead of a uniform fashion, this would be very sporadic and differential. Photo on the left there is a good example of manholes that pop up out of the ground when they're hollow, and everything around it is saturated with groundwater and shaken very hard. |
| 02:58:23.39 | Mike Jewett | All right. Like I said, I'm going to try and get to the meat of this here. Conclusions. A couple of pretty broad brush conclusions. About 20% of the land area in Sausalito fell into the high landslide susceptibility zones. Those are the areas shown in red. Predictably, those are mostly the really steep parts of town, around Wolfback Ridge, around Hurricane Gulch and the upper part of Old Town, and above Spring Street Valley and Nevada Street Valley for the most part. Likewise, another 20%, give or take, of the land area falls in the liquefaction or settlement hazard zones. These are essentially reflective of what would have been the natural shoreline prior to all the waterfront development. Um, Within these zones, and something we can touch on a little bit, risk is a slightly different calculation, but the highest risk in these areas are generally going to be associated with older structures that were designed before modern, consistent building codes. The first California building code was adopted in 1979. And as you're, I'm sure, aware, a fair if not a majority of the development in Sausalito predates that. |
| 02:59:42.78 | Mike Jewett | Recommendations. We made you some maps. They're nice and colorful, but now what do you do with them? Before I get off with the recommendations, a couple of clarifications. The intent here, the primary purpose really is protection of public safety. Um, That's really what it comes down to. The secondary purpose here is really to help aid in effective and cost-efficient use of the limited resources. I just heard a big discussion about budgetary planning and deferred maintenance and capital improvements, and the idea here is that these recommendations can be used as a tool to help consider all that and assign priorities. One other thing that's not shown up there that has come up in my previous presentation, there will be some recommendations regarding policy guidelines. And one big overarching notion here is there is no um, no intent or focus on on commenting on what kind of development can occur. None of this is for the purpose of prohibiting or restricting development is merely for the purpose of having consistent standards and having things engineered appropriately in the interest of public safety. As far as general recommendations, developing cooperative working relationships with other critical stakeholders. You saw the extensive, the red zones on that map. They do not all lie entirely within city limits. A lot of that land is owned by Caltrans or NPS or other agencies. And having a good working relationship with them specifically for the purpose of collaborative documentation and hazard mitigation would be really beneficial. There's a brief list of them there. I am sure there are many more. Another general recommendation is that the output of this study, not only is it a written report and some nice, fancy printed maps for the planning department and Kevin's wall, but it is also being delivered in digital GIS format. If you are familiar with MarinMap, GIS is basically a digital database on steroids. It's capable of compiling. virtually an unlimited amount of information and allowing you to selectively view or not view or manipulate that information. It's great for everything from spatial analysis to statistics to simple map making. In this case, the recommendation is that the city really could see this as a living document. This is really step one toward a bigger database, which I will recommend in a moment, but it's something that could be used for a variety of purposes. One of which has come up is integrating this with the Sea Level Rise Task Force, since that goes hand in hand with settlement. |
| 03:02:32.75 | Mike Jewett | All right, now for some more concrete recommendations. One recommendation here, and this is something that is on the agenda, is to develop an infrastructure database for use by public works in prioritizing specific site evaluations. I heard some discussion about deferred maintenance. Like I said, a lot of the development here predates the 70s, if not several decades before that. Understanding What the city owns and is required to maintain would be a good first step toward prioritizing the limited resources available to approach some of that maintenance. The idea here is that A catalog would be made of either, you know, critical improvements in older structures, retaining walls, drainage systems, things like that. And you would start in the high hazard, high risk areas. Is there a need to catalog every little two-foot wall down here on Bridgeway? Probably not. But again, in those big bright red zones where we've got a history of slides and issues, those would be the areas to start with. Once there's a sense for where the specific sites are and how many, performing some detailed inspection, an initial inspection to confirm the catalog and get a sense for what kind of condition these things are in and what kind of risks they might present in the event that maintenance is deferred or if they are left to live out their design lives. Some specific things that really should be inventoried would be retaining walls, foundations, drainage systems, cut slopes. There's a lot of open space land that can be susceptible and roadways. Honestly, there's a lot of streets that have suffered over the years and a little bit of maintenance might improve that look in terms of avoiding some of these slide issues. I'm not sure. I miss having my computer up here. Performing successive inspections. The first inspection gives you a good baseline. Things change over time. Slides have appeared here since the last round of mapping was done. I'm sure all of you have watched conditions change on your own streets over the years with respect to certain things. But performing follow-up inspections in successive years will help evaluate the rate of change and also help dictate potentially some priorities You know, using that database, once you have a sense for activity and level of risk, that really allows you to assign some priorities. And once you've identified, hey, here's the 10 sites or here's the five sites that really you know, really could cause some harm, beginning to approach some design That's where you could develop some conceptual options, you know, once there's a sense for what is the facility, what would a remediation or a repair need to look like, before you blow ahead with full-scale design and planning, being able to have a sense for here's some optional, you know, at a range of performance and cost, here are some ways you could approach that, and here's what those would roughly cost, and that would allow DPW to financially plan alongside with, with, you know, development of repair and mitigation plans. Being able to proactively approach some of these things before they're totally failed is really the underlying purpose of the database, to let you look ahead and cut it off before it's an emergency. The GI database that we provided would make a really good basis for this, a really good map on which to start that would help you get a real quick visual sense for you know, where are these specific facilities we own and how many fall in those high-risk areas. Lastly, and this will play into the next slide, and this is something else that came up in the last meeting, funding. There's a lot of maintenance. There's a lot of improvements. None of this stuff is free. could be considered through the formation of a geologic hazard abatement district or districts. And this leads into maintaining existing improvements. A geologic hazard abatement district, really the function is to provide some administrative and funding mechanism to maintain or to otherwise improve areas where multiple stakeholders are married to the same hazard, and that mitigating that hazard is beyond the ability of any one stakeholder. In other words, for example, there are some areas below 101 where there are improvements, you know, the land is owned by NPS or the land is owned by Caltrans and their improvements are connected to city storm drain systems or otherwise impose a certain amount of runoff or a certain amount of structural load on city lands. and you know, being able to bring all the stakeholders to the table where they all are faced with the same risk, but not one individual can afford to fix it, and not one individual owns the land, this is one means by which you might get that done. In terms of maintaining improvements in the liquefaction and settlement hazard zones, Right away, liquefaction, there's nothing you can do. It happens during an earthquake. There's no way to monitor. There's no way to predict that beyond the extent to which people predict earthquakes, which is not reliable. As far as settlement, monitoring settlement, like I said, it's a long-term thing. You can periodically survey the ground surface, do it over a few years. You get a sense for how quickly things are subsiding. The reality is at this point in time, I think that sea level rise, there's going to be a lot of programs congealing where that might make more sense. But really, the landslide hazard zones are where the bulk of, I think, the maintenance here. would make sense. And the idea is that within these zones, this funding mechanism would potentially accommodate regular updates of that database year over year or every other year as the city sees fit, depending on changes in condition, could accommodate installation of some basic monitoring equipment, if and where that's appropriate and effective, and would fund some maintenance for roadways and storm drains and other critical pieces. As far as how to delineate this, this is the hard part, and I'm glad this isn't my thing to dictate. The hazard zone map could be used as a basis for delineating those zones if the city so chose. One other option would be to set up this more specific database of individual sites, and rather than simply apply the susceptibility zone, would be to see if there's any major hot spots or any particular concentration of those individual sites that might warrant a slightly different zone boundary. One other way to approach it might be to say, hey look, we're all bound to the same hazard if the landslide zone affects the one emergency route out of town. Maybe we're all in this together. Um, You know, and again, actual assessments, I won't get into that too much. It's not really geotechnical, but once you developed a DPW database, had a sense for conceptual cost and conceptual repair, that's where it makes sense to think about what, you know, an actual assessment might make sense. |
| 03:10:10.16 | Mike Jewett | New development and redevelopment, and this was the part of the RFP that alluded to guidelines consistent with other agencies. The suggestion here would be to create some kind of hazard zone development ordinance. Some of the other towns call this a hillside development ordinance. A lot of them have it worked into their general plans. The idea here is that this would require a consistent standard for engineering reports where people are proposing new development or rebuilds or significant remodels in these hazard zones. Part of the purpose would be to prevent construction phase landslides, which we've seen before. The suggested language, there's a whole section in the report that has some very specific language and checklist items for applicants that we'd recommend. This is all based on ordinances that are already in effect in several other jurisdictions around California. I have not personally come across one yet in Marin, but I know that the city of San Francisco has got their own, called the Mayor Ordinance, LA, San Diego, Santa Barbara. A lot of them have adopted stuff like this at this point. The idea here is that It does two things. It provides clear and consistent expectations for the report scope, both to project applicants and to the city's review staff. Before someone comes in with a report that doesn't address everything it needs to redress, they can be provided with a checklist when they come in for their pre-app meeting and say, hey, before you go spend time with an engineer, make sure they get this. Here's all the things they need to address in their report. You know, this would also ideally streamline the review process, you know, both the report prep and the review process for city staff. If reports are coming in with all the required information the first time, ideally that's fewer plan check letters going back and forth. Um, Again, the intent here is to reduce the risk of unexpected conditions during construction. and ultimately intended to reduce the likelihood of adverse post-construction impacts. In other words, you wanna make sure if someone's building in these unstable zones, that the engineering adequately considers the net effect they're gonna have on the neighboring lands. Again, I should reiterate the intent here is not to restrict development anyway. It's really only intended to enforce minimum standards for engineering. similar to the other jurisdictions around us. |
| 03:12:52.97 | Mike Jewett | One more slide. |
| 03:13:00.21 | Mike Jewett | Thank you. |
| 03:13:00.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:13:00.30 | Mike Jewett | Thank you. That's all. I made it through just as, well, not quite as fast as I thought. Thank you, and I am happy to answer any questions or clarify anything you would like. |
| 03:13:14.24 | Unknown | Thank you very much. Any questions, please? |
| 03:13:19.45 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you for answering my earlier questions. I'm interested in the anecdotal field study questions, and so maybe there is a way to do this on the Click It Fix It. I feel like I need four hours with you because a lot of my questions are around integration of the data, who needs to see this, what's the best way to make sure that we're doing a physical facilities assessment I want them to see it. I want the Sea Level Res task force or the Sea Level Res of vulnerabilities assessment How easy is it to, I think you said it was pretty easy for this data to be integrated with like an interactive sea level rise map. And is it something that the members of the public can actually go online and play around |
| 03:14:00.62 | Mike Jewett | Currently it is not. It is still in draft form. I have not been asked to deliver it as a final. Obviously it's being delivered to the city as my client. If the city so chose, that is really the underlying intent. The impression we were given at RFP time was that we would like to ultimately integrate this with MarinMap or a similar system. Um, thus far I am not aware of any alternative arrangement, and the discussion so far have indicated that MarinMap is likely the destination for this, and so I've set this up in a way to be compatible with what they're doing. |
| 03:14:37.04 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, and then maybe this is a question for the city attorney, and it probably is. You're suggesting that this Hazard Zone Development Ordinance would apply, but we all know that with many of the housing ordinances that we have for new construction, Thank you. SB 9, as an example, there is no actual review. Sergio, how would this interplay with some of the housing laws like SB 9? |
| 03:15:01.61 | Sergio Rudin | So, you know, provided that it creates objective requirements, typically you can impose them on things like SB 9. There will be some areas where they may be difficult to impose. You know, typically under the Housing Crisis Act, for example, you can adopt new standards that are not objective. Now, I do think that if you're setting forth standards for what kind of engineering what the content is of engineering reports or how detailed your engineering analysis has to be to support construction. I think it's unlikely you're going to be violating... you know, some of the laws that prohibit you from downzoning or reducing density or intensity of allowed land uses. |
| 03:15:47.23 | Ian Sobieski | So I heard you say objective, so is one idea perhaps to look at this in the odds process? |
| 03:15:53.28 | Sergio Rudin | Potentially, but again, I think what your consultant has just recommended is something that is not necessarily affecting what kinds of development you can construct, but really it's affecting more how you go about getting approval for development in general. So it's not setting forth a a standard that says, well, you you know, It's not like a change in height limit or density. What it is, is it's a change in how specific and how detailed and supported your development proposal has to be by adequate geotechnical analysis. So the city has assurances that what is proposed is actually constructible in line with, you know, best engineering practices. So, um, in, Yes, you could, I think, consider it as part of your odds, but no, I don't think that you necessarily have to. It does seem like it's its own standalone item. |
| 03:16:53.36 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:16:53.38 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:16:53.39 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:16:56.28 | Steven Woodside | I guess I just have a technical question for you in terms of monitoring. Of course. Given the state of microelectronics and mesh networks, is it possible to create an embedded mesh network of tiny sensors on a large scale, like tens of thousands of sensors, to create a real-time map of movement in the Earth? |
| 03:17:04.55 | Cameron Razavi | Mm-hmm. |
| 03:17:19.23 | Mike Jewett | It is likely within the realm of feasibility I don't think it is probably within the realm of immediate attainability, a couple of reasons. One. One is that monitoring movement on a broad scale like that. would involve installing. tens of thousands of these things or more, and I imagine there'd be a very large capital expenditure. The follow-up is, well, what are we getting out of it? And the thing that, you know, we considered some different types of monitoring systems. What you're talking about sort of exists as it relates to earthquake faults currently. There are systems all over the world that the things we're worried about happen very quickly in a matter of milliseconds or seconds sometimes. Regardless of how many sensors we have, the net value in terms of presenting or preventing hazards to life safety or public safety. There's not a lot of value there. They can't provide enough warnings. And so one of the, you know, one of the monitoring systems that's becoming a little more common and has been popularized in the last 10 years or so particularly in Santa Barbara and Carpinteria where they're affected by these debris flows. It rains really hard and a bunch of mud and rocks come down the hill. these aren't things that develop slowly over time. These are things where it rains hard enough and at some point it instantaneously hits that threshold where the soils are saturated and no longer can stay on the hill. Um, There are some areas down there where the source area, the part of the hill that breaks loose, is far enough from the houses that they can set up tripwires or cameras or whatever and broadcast some warning. In the best case, that warning may be 10 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, depending on the distance. In Sausalito, the trick is the source areas are very, very close to the houses. |
| 03:19:21.32 | Steven Woodside | You're telling me. You're telling me that There is no micro movement days or weeks ahead of a slide event. |
| 03:19:30.67 | Mike Jewett | There can be, in some instances, But by and large, my experience both in mapping the ones out there and in working on both doing emergency response when these things happen in the middle of the night and working on forensic studies. within Sausalito, the geologic conditions are such that most of the landslides are those fast moving debris flows. |
| 03:19:59.91 | Steven Woodside | and the land doesn't swell, swollen with water, doesn't expand in a way that'd be measurable by... Thank you. |
| 03:20:04.64 | Mike Jewett | The soils here don't swell as much as they do in other places. The thing that would be measurable in what you're getting at, I think, is that you could potentially measure rainfall rates. The way this is normally done is there are sensors that – measure the rainfall intensity, the duration and the rate. And when they reach a certain threshold in terms of inches per hour, that's when they trigger an alarm. And the idea is that that threshold is correlated to the soil's ability to absorb the water. How permeable is the soil? How quickly can it drain? If it rains harder than it can drain, now we've got a problem. Um, like I said, it's technically achievable and it's implemented in a lot of places. The trick with Sausalito is that. the amount of time you would have from when the warning is broadcast would not be enough to do anything about it, and the fear is it would be of little value. The other issue with those is that Oftentimes that intensity threshold is exceeded, but no slide actually occurs. It's not guaranteed a slide will occur. It's just that theoretically that's when a slide will occur. And so they have a tendency to generate false alarms. And you'll evacuate a whole neighborhood only to find that, wait, never mind, false alarm. So not to say it's out of consideration, but I think that if there were an interest in some kind of early warning or monitoring network system, there's a little more thought that would go into, you know, what would be the outlay and the effort required to justify scientifically where we put these things, how we set them up, and what what would be the expected value out of that? |
| 03:21:49.60 | Steven Woodside | So a different monitoring question, which is, I don't know if you were here for our earlier discussion about risk, but there is the question about the, as you alluded to, Caltrans connects to some of our infrastructure. And if it's our infrastructure that fails, it can then become our liability for the consequences of that failure. So is there a more narrowly tailored monitoring proposal that you could practically see that would help our Department of Public Works and the city actively and in a real time assess whether all our drains are draining? |
| 03:22:03.62 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:22:03.82 | Cameron Razavi | Thank you. |
| 03:22:03.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:22:03.91 | Cameron Razavi | Thank you. |
| 03:22:26.22 | Mike Jewett | I think that's really what the database suggestion is all about. Having a database where you've got a catalog of the improvements you're responsible for maintaining and having them inspected on a regular basis in a way is that monitoring. A lot of times, the signs are there visually. without the need to install instrumentation. You know, you can tell when the wall is made of rock and has no rebar and it's fallen over like this, it hasn't got a lot longer to live. And I think that in my experience here, the vast majority of the issues we've responded to both for the public agencies and working for private clients, The majority have to do with older or failed or neglected infrastructure. The one on Sausalito Boulevard, I heard the term black swan event come up earlier. That was a relatively unusual one, but again, in so many ways related to either a misunderstanding or Um... a lack of clarity about whose infrastructure is what and where is it. |
| 03:23:39.93 | Ian Sobieski | Was it unusual or we just weren't, we didn't know the signs? |
| 03:23:45.33 | Mike Jewett | Um, nobody would have predicted that. |
| 03:23:47.42 | Ian Sobieski | Okay. |
| 03:23:47.47 | Mike Jewett | Thank you. Nobody would have predicted that. Not me, not any other engineering geo. Um... Now it will be. |
| 03:23:54.22 | Unknown | Look at it. |
| 03:23:59.42 | Mike Jewett | Now it will be at the forefront of everybody's mind. You know, but to play devil's advocate there, that is the same condition as 60% of Marin County. |
| 03:24:15.45 | Jill Hoffman | But we had a previous landslide, not in that valley, but very close. |
| 03:24:21.71 | Melissa Blaustein | Bridgeway is collapsing. Pay attention to Bridgeway. Bridgeway. |
| 03:24:21.98 | Jill Hoffman | Wait. |
| 03:24:28.17 | Jill Hoffman | But my point is, and that line side killed at least one person, maybe two, and that was in the 1970s, 1980s. |
| 03:24:35.46 | Mike Jewett | That was 1982. That was a little farther up Sausalito Boulevard there at the base of the Caltrans Phil Slope. |
| 03:24:41.15 | Jill Hoffman | So the point being that landslides are not uncommon in Sausalito and significant ones are also not uncommon. |
| 03:24:52.79 | Steven Woodside | Any other questions? Thank you very much, sir. Can we move to public comment, please? Is there a public comment online? |
| 03:25:05.20 | Walfred Solorzano | Sandra Bushmaker? |
| 03:25:11.10 | Sandra Bushmaker | Hi again, as you probably know, Council, that I was on the landslide task force along with Councilmember Hoffman. And I've been trying to lead up to this report by giving you teases for the last four or five meetings. And there's a tremendous amount of work that needs to be done as a result of this mapping study that was completed. I think that There's some great ideas, and I just hope that you will make this a priority in your activities for the foreseeable future. because so many areas in Sausalito are in that red zone. And I think that we have been talking about a geologic hazard assessment district. for quite some time. And keep in mind that we've got a report to the City Council Wow. in 2019, that's five years ago, with these recommendations. So it's really important to get started on following through with them. Thank you. |
| 03:26:18.32 | Walfred Solorzano | Steven Woodside. |
| 03:26:25.37 | Steven Woodside | Can you hear me? Yes. |
| 03:26:32.95 | Steven Woodside | Hi, I too served on the task force and I want to compliment the presentation, the presenters for tonight. exceptionally and I think very informative. I do think we can sort of... Connect the dots. between what you've just heard about the geology of our area. about our budget. about our liability concerns. The other items that you had on your agenda tonight because I think this points the way to possibly at least mitigate some of the risks to active landslides. by taking advantage of the possibility of a geologic hazard abatement district or other development requirements that would prevent, for example, the slide or at least building, let's say, in the path of the slide that took out Susan Gordon's house. which is one of the big cases you have, that's jeopardizing your ability to gain insurance at a reasonable cost. So that's just one aspect of it that I would underscore. It was certainly something I pushed hard when working on the task force, and I think people realize No jurisdiction has available resources to handle all of the risks of landslides, subsidence, flooding, et cetera, fires. but we can do a better job now that we know where more of the high-risk areas are and pay closer attention to them. Thank you. |
| 03:28:05.59 | Walfred Solorzano | No further public comment. |
| 03:28:07.19 | Steven Woodside | All right, we'll close public comment. Any discussion here on the dais? |
| 03:28:13.12 | Janelle Kellman | I'll just say I really appreciate the work of the landslide task force in suggesting this. It's long overdue, and we really appreciate the detailed report, and what we see here is obviously rather concerning. I think we are all aware of the risk, but to see that 20% of all hillsides are significantly at risk for landslide means we have to do more, and we have to do it now. So I would support the staff recommendation of moving forward with the RFP and continuing this process and also continuing to take the steps as suggested by the Landslide Task Force to make sure we better mitigate our geologic hazards going forward. |
| 03:28:48.84 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, great presentation. I know a lot of work went into that. Really excited to see this and know we have this data at our hands. So thank you to Stephen and Sandra and Council Member Hoffman for their service on this task force and all the others. I endorse and say full speed ahead on the four recommended actions. And I would go even further and ask staff to think about some timeframes. So for number two, a request for a proposal, I'd like to have an understanding of when that might be able to go out. For number three, the remedial measures. I mean, that's obviously gonna be a big bulk of work. I'd like to see that get integrated into some of the other facilities assessment work that is ongoing right now, whether that is the physical infrastructure facilities assessment or the work by WRT for vulnerability assessment. And along the way, Chad's left, but I want him to be in the loop on all this as well so we have a cost perspective. I would also, and Kevin, you mentioned this, return to council within a year, sooner. It's got to be sooner. This is such a big risk. This is literally, this landslide is one of the fundamental reasons why we have such a problem with our insurance right now. And I just don't want to set us up for that in the future. I will also just report out that you know Kathy Schaefer, Director McGowan. I've been talking to her. There is a grant. It's called the USGS Cooperative Landslide Hazard Mapping and Assessment Program Grant. We should apply for it. I'll send it to you, city manager. But Kathy's willing to help us write the grant, and we would be the city. And it's for planning dollars. I think it's $10,000 to $300,000 is the range of funds that would be available. So that's not insignificant for planning and for community engagement. And then the last thing, it was embedded in my other comments, please make sure this report does get to those other ongoing groups, the facilities and infrastructure folks. I would even send it to David Parisi who's doing significant work on our traffic and our circulation. Most of our major consultants should be aware of this work so they can coordinate theirs with and be mindful of it. |
| 03:31:00.58 | Steven Woodside | Vice Mayor. |
| 03:31:08.72 | Steven Woodside | for your asking. |
| 03:31:10.30 | Ian Sobieski | We can't hear you, Joan. |
| 03:31:15.25 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:31:15.28 | Melissa Blaustein | Can you hear me now? |
| 03:31:16.16 | Steven Woodside | Yes, we can. |
| 03:31:17.86 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay. Thank you so much. for the presentation. I thought it was very well done. I'm going to endorse the comments of my fellow Council member, including the additional feedback Councilmember Hoffman. Kellman. I was specifically like to see a include this project in the budget discussion that we'll be having. through the three more meetings. that we're going to have I'm not sure which bucket it fits into, but I would like to see it addressed so that we have choices. about allocating money to advance this. And I agree with Council Member Kelman, about um, about issuing a request for proposals at the earliest opportunity so that we can assess what the cost for the services we'd like to undertake. will be but Thank you. I remember when council member Hoffman jumped all over this after our landslide. and we'll and with Steven Woodside and many others was very active with the land slide task force. generated great We adopted recommendations way back then, but we haven't actually implemented and funded them. So I'm happy to see this coming back to us for implementation. Thank you. |
| 03:32:51.47 | Steven Woodside | Any other comments? Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 03:32:56.06 | Jill Hoffman | So, yeah, I'm very excited that this is before us and we're moving forward. Yeah, I mean, I think we formed the slide was in February. We were able to form the task force, and I think in May, and we had our recommendations back and had the task force finished by October. So it was a great group of people, two of which are here tonight, but we were all dedicated with the staff as well and with other people that we able came in. to get that moving in a pretty quick way. succession, but then it just sort of We've had trouble getting it forward, so I'm very happy to see this today. um i endorse all four of them i think um based on the staff report that it looks like part of that what their recommendation is has already been allocated in 2021 so it looks like there was money set aside in the budget in 2021 for a capital improvement for 100 000 and then in any way we can i guess we can address this as we go forward with the budget but it looks like 100 000 already been allocated um and still in the capital improvement program, Kevin, and also $53,000 for the study. Yeah, I endorse all these things. The risk remains, and I think this is one of our highest risks if we look at risk factors, infrastructure, priorities. I think this is probably one of the top ones. And completely agree that it should be complementary with other efforts, but not to slow down this effort and to move forward. So thank you. Thanks for everybody for working on this. |
| 03:34:37.46 | Steven Woodside | All right, no other comments? We will close this item. And seeing the hour, 1045, so we will defer unless our next two items, yeah. So 5D and 5E, which was previously a consent item. Thanks, guys. 3F will be deferred to a future meeting, but we do have to take public comment on both of them. So we will take public comment on both items together. |
| 03:35:07.74 | Melissa Blaustein | I've lost town mayor, but do we have to take public comment? |
| 03:35:11.85 | Steven Woodside | That's what we're doing, yes. So city clerk. Would you kindly take public comment for items 5B or 5E? |
| 03:35:17.45 | Cameron Razavi | Thank you. |
| 03:35:17.84 | Walfred Solorzano | Sorry. |
| 03:35:18.10 | Cameron Razavi | Thank you. |
| 03:35:19.40 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 03:35:19.45 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 03:35:19.46 | Walfred Solorzano | E or part E. |
| 03:35:20.68 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:35:20.75 | Walfred Solorzano | The seat has. Senator Bushmaker. |
| 03:35:24.61 | Sandra Bushmaker | Hi again. With regard to item 3F, I think that needs a lot more work. To me, it's an open checkbook. There's no provision about retroactivity. This is with regard to the reimbursements. I don't like the part about the other boards and commissions having the ability to get reimbursement And given our budget talks tonight, I think this item needs a lot of work in order to make it acceptable given our budget environment. Thank you. |
| 03:35:57.57 | Steven Woodside | Any other public comment? |
| 03:35:59.64 | Walfred Solorzano | No further public comment. |
| 03:36:01.03 | Steven Woodside | All right, we'll close public comment on those two items. We'll move to... Items not on the agenda. So this is an opportunity for members of the public to make public comment about any item not on the agenda. So city clerk. |
| 03:36:14.92 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah, we have Cameron Rozzavi. |
| 03:36:21.53 | Cameron Razavi | Good evening, Council Members. I'm Cameron Razavi, property owner in Sausalito. I'd like to express my concern with the state of disrepair on Locust Street and Humboldt Street area. we were promised repaving of the surface areas back in november notices were put out and subsequently canceled without really an explanation and uh... what we ended up getting is uh... gravel for very deep potholes uh... cars were bottomed out regularly uh... it's uh... you know that area it's an important area. It's right in City Hall's backyard, and I really don't think there is another dilapidated area such as this in the most remote parts of Sausalito. We used to have trash cans, and then they were removed during COVID and never replaced. You know, we have tourists there. We have the residents. We have people that walk their dogs. Half of Sausalito's population walk their dogs in the area. People that go to the park. It is public shore access. so it's an important area. It is not a remote part of Sausalito. Even if it were, it still doesn't deserve to be in this state of disrepair. In addition to that, the bulkhead also is an issue. It's seriously just deteriorating on a daily basis. More pieces of it fall into the water. Our previous public works director, whom I just saw... Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:38:24.21 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, sir. |
| 03:38:24.77 | Cameron Razavi | All right, thank you. |
| 03:38:28.53 | Walfred Solorzano | Senator Bushmaker? |
| 03:38:31.72 | Sandra Bushmaker | Hi, again. This is the last time, I promise. I've been attending the Catalyst California meetings, and Pam Lee, who was the attorney for the charter cities who got a ruling by the court, here it is, Uh, holding that SB 9 was unconstitutional for charter cities. So the charter cities that were named in this litigation are now protected unless someone appeals this issue. I asked about the general law cities like Sausalito, and this is something I've discussed with the Council on numerous occasions in the past to to get. a finger in the pie, so to speak, But the litigation for the general law city's is being appealed at the moment. And as soon as I get details, I can pass that on to you. But I think it's an opportunity. for us to be able to get out from under the state mandate if we are able to participate in this litigation. So I just wanted to bring that to your attention. There's a lot of activity going on in this area. There was a big celebration about those charter cities being able to be relieved from the onerous burden of SB 9. Thank you. |
| 03:39:48.52 | Walfred Solorzano | Stephen Woodside. |
| 03:39:52.91 | Steven Woodside | I THINK IT'S A GOOD Actually, I'm just going to say good night. Thank you very much. I'll withhold any further comments until maybe some other time. Thank you. |
| 03:39:59.72 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:39:59.83 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:40:01.50 | Steven Woodside | Best kind of comment. Good night to you too, sir. |
| 03:40:01.53 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:40:04.52 | Steven Woodside | All right. City manager, no, I'm sorry. Council member committee reports. Any at this late hour? |
| 03:40:11.92 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:40:16.31 | Steven Woodside | Fantastic. |
| 03:40:17.73 | Steven Woodside | to make the last comment. |
| 03:40:19.38 | Steven Woodside | Someone's unmuted. Who's that? Mr. Woodside, could you please mute the public online? Go right ahead, Council Member of Health. |
| 03:40:25.88 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah, we got him. |
| 03:40:27.58 | Jill Hoffman | Go right ahead. Thank you. Thank you. I attended the first day of the city leaders summit, I think April, I don't know, a couple weeks ago. Anyway, there were very good discussions, mainly, especially legislative updates and what to expect coming forward. the main takeaway is there's a lot of housing legislation in the pipeline that will continue to dramatically affect the way that cities can manage, you know, building in their cities and things to keep an eye on. So that was the main, I think, takeaway from the legislative updates, and I'm happy to pass those along to our staff as they actually work their way through the legislature. But, yeah. |
| 03:40:53.54 | Cameron Razavi | city's |
| 03:41:14.77 | Jill Hoffman | That's the summary from that. I believe this isn't a committee update, but I believe the city manager might be giving an update on the sea lion. and I saw an email that came across, but one of the recommendations was that the city engaged with BCDC so that we can get permits so that we can hit our weather window, which starts May 10th and ends at the end of May. So we're waiting on feedback, I think, from BCC. But I don't want to steal the city manager's thunder, because I think that's super good And those are all I have for you. |
| 03:41:51.33 | Steven Woodside | Anyone else? All right, city manager, would you like to? |
| 03:41:55.49 | Chris Zapata | Give us your report. I'm going to finish the thunder. Please, we're right ahead. Okay. So there are four permissions we have to get. And so BCDC is outstanding and the Army Corps of Engineers is outstanding. The other two permits with the water board is fine. With fish and wildlife we're fine. But there's a short window. So I'm going to ask the mayor and council people to assist us in calling the folks we know at BCDC to kind of see if they will help expedite the work so that the foundation has been working on and raise money for it the staff has been working on it can put it in during the right timing of the tide so that's the seed line status I want to tell you that tomorrow City Hall will be closed from 8 until noon. There's a mandatory training for active shooter, part of our disaster preparedness. So if anyone comes to City Hall tomorrow during the day, in the morning until noon, City Hall won't be closed. Also, I'd like to make an announcement that Noelle Gonzalez had her baby. So that's a wonderful thing. The baby's healthy. The mom is healthy. Ever Luna is her name. Always a moon. Yeah. Thank you. |
| 03:43:15.41 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Future agenda items for anyone here on the dice? Council Mayor Kellman. |
| 03:43:19.56 | Ian Sobieski | Yes, thank you, Mayor. I just want to confirm that my request to put the resolution designating June as Pride Month for the city of Sausalito will be on the agenda for the 21st of May. Will it be on the agenda? |
| 03:43:38.52 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. You're asking me. |
| 03:43:40.77 | Ian Sobieski | You're the mayor. Thank you. |
| 03:43:41.85 | Steven Woodside | Oh, yeah, but... I don't know, Councilmember, Vice Mayor? |
| 03:43:47.54 | Ian Sobieski | I'm sure. |
| 03:43:48.28 | Steven Woodside | Thank you for going to hear you. |
| 03:43:53.98 | Steven Woodside | We don't hear you, Vice Mayor. |
| 03:43:57.64 | Melissa Blaustein | All right, do you hear me now? |
| 03:43:58.77 | Steven Woodside | We do. |
| 03:44:01.15 | Melissa Blaustein | You hear me? Yes. |
| 03:44:02.12 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:44:03.62 | Melissa Blaustein | Council Member Kellman, I previously emailed you and told you that the agenda setting committee would be considering that potential agenda item at our next meeting. |
| 03:44:13.15 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you, Vice Mayor. My question, since you have talked about it before, is to hear from the agenda setting committee whether or not you'll honor a sitting council member's request to have an item placed onto the agenda. that requires a time sensitivity to it such that the The rest of the council can decide the policy matter. rather than having the agenda setting committee serve as a gatekeeper. |
| 03:44:38.60 | Melissa Blaustein | the Agenda setting committee will place this on the agenda in some fashion at our next meeting. for consideration on consent. If the proposed consent item is not satisfactory, it can be pulled from consent as is always the case. |
| 03:44:52.72 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, thank you, Vice Mayor. Just so the rest of the council knows, I've asked that there be a resolution designating Pride Month in Sausalito for the month of June, since it is in fact Pride Month. And that resolution enabled us to raise the Pride flag here in Sausalito for the month of June. So that is the request that I've made. |
| 03:45:13.57 | Steven Woodside | Any other future genetimes? |
| 03:45:16.03 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:45:16.05 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:45:16.06 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:45:16.08 | Melissa Blaustein | because |
| 03:45:16.33 | Steven Woodside | Mayor, I have to. The vice mayor raised your hand first. |
| 03:45:16.69 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 03:45:16.89 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:45:16.92 | Melissa Blaustein | Mayor, I heard. |
| 03:45:20.35 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 03:45:21.21 | Melissa Blaustein | I would like to add considerations of the pros and cons of becoming a charter city as a future agenda item. Thank you. |
| 03:45:33.76 | Steven Woodside | Talk to whoever happened. |
| 03:45:37.73 | Melissa Blaustein | Your mic on mayor I have a hard time hearing you |
| 03:45:40.34 | Steven Woodside | Yes, it is, but I could speak into it more, and I called on our colleague, Council Member Hoffman. |
| 03:45:45.73 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Yeah, I would just request that in our budget discussions at some point that we have agendized the appropriate reserve number for the city as part of that discussion so that we can maybe vote on it as a council. This isn't an agenda item. It sort of is, I guess. I don't know. Anyway, can we get our slide presentations earlier? Like if we're going to have a presentation, can we get those before? Because that focuses our discussion, so that's not really... a future tonight, kind of. And just let me say and throw out that I support the charter law, charter city discussion and also the Pride Month. requested. |
| 03:46:36.74 | Steven Woodside | Any others? |
| 03:46:38.14 | Janelle Kellman | I also support the Pride Month request. I'd also like us to consider a project labor agreement, if we could, going forward, considering all the state requirements already in place regarding union labor, and I think it warrants a discussion. |
| 03:46:51.08 | Steven Woodside | Anything else? All right. Public comment on 8A through, or 7 through 8B. Everything. All right. Close public comment. And now we will move on to adjourn. And we will adjourn in the honor of the person having a birthday on the dais. Happy birthday, Councilmember Blaustein. |
| 03:46:59.07 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:46:59.10 | Unknown | Amen. |
| 03:46:59.51 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:47:07.76 | Ian Sobieski | you Thank you. For those of you who stayed, there is some chocolate cake to share. Yeah, chocolate cake. |
| 03:47:09.72 | Steven Woodside | for the next episode. Yeah. Meeting adjourned for the birthday, Councilwoman. |
| 03:47:17.04 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:47:17.11 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:47:17.17 | Unknown | . |
| 03:47:17.53 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:47:17.63 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:47:17.98 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:47:18.83 | Unknown | Thank you. |
Sharna Brockett — In Favor: Gave huge kudos to staff, excited about the app, and compared it positively to a similar app used in San Francisco. ▶ 📄