| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:00.03 | Walfred Solorzano | May 21, 2024 is being held in council chambers located at 420 Little Street. And staff and members of the public are also participating through Zoom. This meeting is being broadcast live on the city's website and on cable TV channel 27. |
| 00:00:17.48 | Steven Woodside | Thank you very much, city clerk. We will now call this meeting to order and we will conduct a roll call. If you please roll call the roll. |
| 00:00:25.88 | Walfred Solorzano | All right. Council Member Blaustein. |
| 00:00:25.97 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:00:28.35 | Janelle Cox | here. |
| 00:00:28.97 | Walfred Solorzano | you Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 00:00:31.62 | Janelle Cox | Here. |
| 00:00:32.68 | Walfred Solorzano | Council Member Kellman. Here. Vice Mayor Cox. |
| 00:00:33.93 | Janelle Cox | Sure. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:00:36.02 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:00:36.04 | Janelle Cox | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:00:36.23 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. and Mary Sobieski. |
| 00:00:38.17 | Steven Woodside | year. We will be going into closed session and discussing the following two items, the Conference with Real Property Negotiator, MLSK School Site, 100 Ebtide, New Village School. And the second item is Conference with Legal Counsel, Anticipated Litigation. Is there any announcements concerning closed session items? |
| 00:00:59.73 | Janelle Cox | Thank you, Mayor. Because of the proximity of my home to both of those properties that are the subject of the two closed session items, I will not be participating in the closed session this evening. |
| 00:01:11.78 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Vice Mayor. Is there any public comment on these two items? |
| 00:01:16.83 | Walfred Solorzano | Any public comment? I've seen none. |
| 00:01:19.73 | Steven Woodside | We will close public comment and we will adjourn to closed session. We'll resume here at 7 p.m. |
| 00:01:23.38 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:02:58.85 | Steven Woodside | We are now resuming open session. There are no announcements from closed session. We will begin today's meeting with the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. |
| 00:03:14.04 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. the republic of which it stands, one nation, under God, individual, with liberty and justice. Thank you very much. The only announcement, a mayor appointment announcement is the vice mayor and I are going to join a working group or former working group to focus on the insurance issue. Sausalito is going to need to find a new insurance carrier and we are going to work on that with a regular meeting schedule to help bird dog that solution. The next action is the review of the draft minutes. And are there any public comments for the draft minutes? Thank you. |
| 00:03:57.90 | Walfred Solorzano | City clerk. If any members of the public have, want to make any public comments, there's two ways. If you're on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function. If you're in person, there are speaker slips over by the television and you can fill one out and give one over here. Seeing none at the moment. |
| 00:04:15.32 | Steven Woodside | Thank you very much, City Clerk. We'll close public comment. |
| 00:04:18.49 | Janelle Cox | May or may I recommend one revision to the minutes? |
| 00:04:22.01 | Steven Woodside | Yes, please. |
| 00:04:22.59 | Janelle Cox | Following the item recess to closed session, there should be an announcement that there were no reportable actions from closed session. |
| 00:04:30.71 | Steven Woodside | Could you please make that amendment city clerk, anything else? See nothing else is there a motion to approve the minutes? |
| 00:04:37.34 | Janelle Cox | So I move approval of the minutes as revised. |
| 00:04:41.37 | Steven Woodside | Is there a second? |
| 00:04:44.11 | Janelle Cox | Second. |
| 00:04:44.53 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:04:44.66 | Steven Woodside | Okay. All in favor, say aye. |
| 00:04:46.57 | Melissa Blaustein | Aye. |
| 00:04:47.11 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:04:47.21 | Melissa Blaustein | or, |
| 00:04:47.43 | Steven Woodside | Opposed? And it's our proof when I move on to the consent calendar. These are items generally considered routine and non-controversial and require no discussion and are expected to be passed unanimously. There will be not any separate discussion on consent calendar items. However, any council member may request that one item or any item be removed, and that item will then be heard later on today's agenda as a separate item. The items on consent are first 3A, proclaiming June LGBTQT Pride month and approving to fly the progress pride flag during the month of June. Item 3B approval of the memorandum of agreement of the Marin operational area and political subdivisions at an annual cost of $7,500. Item 3C approval of the agreement with fireworks and stage FX America for the 4th of July fireworks show in an amount of up to $35,000 and item 3d is going to be withdrawn by staff and heard at a future agenda time. Are there any requests to remove any of the items 3 a B or C from consent? Seeing no such request, could you please open it up for public comment? you |
| 00:05:59.82 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes, we have Charles Melton. for |
| 00:06:03.03 | Charles Melton | Thank you. |
| 00:06:03.08 | Walfred Solorzano | Item 3. |
| 00:06:03.60 | Charles Melton | Thank you. |
| 00:06:06.15 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:06:06.17 | Charles Melton | Good evening. My name is Charles Melton. I want to give a hearty thank you to our city council for item 3A, which is flying the Progress Pride flag during the month of June to recognize pride. Sausalito has a vibrant history of an LGBTQ plus community. In the 1950s, Sausalito was a safe haven for members of the military where they didn't live in San Francisco, where their commanding officers were from. So that way they could live openly and freely without being afraid of being discharged. members of the LGBTQ community make up our vibrant community today. They are shipbuilders, artisans, public servants, city staff, residents, taxpayers. They are the ones who contribute here to our city. The importance of flying the pride flag during the month of June is really to send a welcoming message to the LGBTQ community that our city hears them, sees them, and welcomes them. And I want to thank our city council for displaying that message here in the month of June by having the pride flag flown here at City Hall. I also want to invite our city council, our incredible city staff, and also the public to join in a citywide pride celebration during the month of June. June 20th, 21st, and 22nd is when our pride celebration will be taking place. It is being led by Sausalito Pride, a local nonprofit that's established by local volunteers for putting together this effort. Entire communities welcome to attend our events. You can learn more about the events and also about our LGBTQ history here in Sausalito at www.sausalitopride.org. Again, thank you, City Council, for your leadership on this, and look forward to celebrating with everyone during Pride Month in June. Thanks. |
| 00:07:32.08 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Any other public comment? Is there a motion on the consent calendar? |
| 00:07:39.71 | Janelle Cox | I will move approval of consent items 3A through 3C. I did want to just take a brief moment to thank Councilmember Hoffman, Jim Gabbert, and our Parks and Recreation Department for negotiating and finding an affordable fireworks option for us. |
| 00:08:01.12 | Jill Hoffman | this year. Saving the Fourth of July, is that what you meant to say? Yeah. Thank you. |
| 00:08:01.14 | Janelle Cox | this year. |
| 00:08:07.69 | Steven Woodside | Is there a motion? I'll second. OK. All in favor? |
| 00:08:07.92 | Jill Hoffman | I'll second |
| 00:08:10.23 | Steven Woodside | Aye. Opposed? Consent calendar items passed. There is no public hearing items. We move on to 5A, the first item of business, fiscal year 2025, 2425 budget and discussion. City managers,. |
| 00:08:10.54 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. |
| 00:08:11.03 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:08:23.72 | Chris Zapata | Thank you, Mayor, members of the council, members of the public. Chad Hess, our finance director, will be on Zoom if we need him, but this is essentially some information that I want to bring forward that I want to have council direction to staff on. It involves how we finally finish building a draft budget. I want to talk a little bit about our last report, which showed some things that are good and some things that are challenging to the good we talked about some of the savings that have been garnered by city administration and city councils over the past years talked about some of our audit conditions and our audits have improved and talked about cash on hand in various different funds whether it's general fund ml, MLK fund, old city hall fund, Thailand's fund. So all that was information that we shared that was to the positive. To the negative, what we said is, you know, given our insurance conundrum, that we are expecting a huge increase in that obligation. And so that obligation is about, you know, two million, potentially three. We talked about our pensions, which we understand are going to be more expensive this year, and we talked about a slower sales tax revenue capture this coming year that's been projected by our consultant, HDL. So I want to speak about the sales tax first. Sales tax trends, good years, bad years, that's not unusual the pension issues that we've known about for 20 years 15 years 10 years and have planned for that's not a big issue the big issue is our insurance cost increase which is you know very very sizable and very very impactful and so it puts us in a situation where you know we have a budget that is going to be in need of some assistance and some direction from the City Council so what we proposed was that we bifurcate the fix this two to three million dollar fix by using unassigned reserves of which there are unassigned cash which there are 7.75 million of and marry that to some of the 115 trust money that we save for pensions over the past it's like eight years now and that number is about 3.7 million dollars that's in that account I heard from the council also as I asked that we do not diminish our service levels, that this year is not the year to diminish service levels. We understand there's a big budget challenge with our insurance costs, but the idea of fixing that in one budget cycle is probably not wise. So we want to maintain service levels to the community. We want to keep the same programs we've talked about to a certain extent, things like the the 4 July things like the cars programs things like this jazz by the by the Bay programs which are staples in Sausalito what we are not recommending is a continuation of funding the CDA contract in this year's budget we received a note from our chair of the economic development Advisory Committee Scott Thurmburg which, which says they're not asking for money, but they do recommend that, you know, we do fund that in the high season times to take advantage of it. I don't, and Chad doesn't, and Brandon doesn't, our Community Development Director, our Finance Director, and myself believe that we should make that expenditure at this time. $ thousand dollars is what it cost us last year this past year to fund that you talked about a stopgap measure which provided six months of funding of thirty seven thousand five hundred dollars that amount in that contract and that obligation ended at the end of April so we're essentially operating without the services of CDA right now as we don't have an agreement we aren't recommending that we continue that agreement at least this fiscal year and so that's one thing that we believe is important city staff is requisitioned certain purchases that I don't believe are necessary out of the general fund that involve some vehicle purchases and fleets and so some fleet upgrades that I think can wait one more year given our financial position. So there's a real clear direction that's needed as it relates to how we maintain our service levels because if we do, we have, you know, the problem of insurance, pensions, and lower sales tax. if we don't then you know you're going to ask me to make cuts in less than three weeks before we come back with a draft budget for you to adopt by June 30th. So, time is ticking, and I think the answer this year is clear direction on how much of that $7.75 million in unassigned cash that we've accumulated over the last 10 years through practices do we use if in fact there is a revisitation of using 115 trust the reason that was brought up is because the cash we have in the unassigned account is absolutely stronger in terms of its interest earnings over the last couple of years due to Chad's involvement in investment in Treasury bills in the Bank of Marin upping the interest return on our holdings with them to 4% so that's good what the average from the pars fund and the 115 trust has been more akin to two and 3%. So the idea of taking 3% money and spending that was why we thought it made sense as opposed to spending the higher yielding money in our unassigned reserve that we have in treasury bills and in the Bank of Marin. So again, the other piece of this is we also know that there is a mid-year budget uh review that we're going to have to do and that'll give us time to see if we need to course correct some more there's a 10-year financial projection plan program that's being worked on by mayor sobieski council member hoffman citizen ray withy and chad hess that involves you know strategies for looking out more than one year two years or three years but actually 10 years so i'll stop there and see if there are questions from me or for Chad regarding some of the things that we've talked about. But in order to build our budget for this coming year and get this to you on June the 4th, clear direction is needed on where we take funds from to keep our service levels constant or we don't take funds from those unassigned cash reserves and then start to make some significant cuts in two weeks or less. So that concludes my report right now. I'll answer questions and then I'm sure there'll be more to talk about as we go forward. Thank you. |
| 00:15:06.83 | Steven Woodside | Vice President. |
| 00:15:07.18 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 00:15:08.50 | Janelle Cox | Sure. So we heard about this for the first time officially at our last meeting. I'm certain that you've communicated these issues to staff. I'm wondering if there's any plan to collect a one or even two-year budget from the various department heads. And since they are the ones with boots on the ground, to ask them what cost savings measure can they recommend while maintaining levels of service and not reducing staff. |
| 00:15:42.16 | Chris Zapata | Yes, thank you for that question, Vice Mayor Cox. In our discussions with staff this year, we told them that we were facing some insurance questions and challenges and that this would be at best a status quo budget. So they know that. And I go forward basis if in fact, you know, we know that we have issues, you know, there's a very interesting program that I want to implement here called Cost and Revenue Efficiency, and that involves getting ideas from every department about ways to create revenue or create efficiency. And so that will be a charge going forward because, again, you know, we have worked on the insurance question for the last six months, and it struck us full on in the last three months. And so now it's important to try to get our sea legs and then work with the staff to do exactly what you've asked me to do, which is to get ideas from the departments who know where to find savings or where there might be revenue opportunities so that we can in fact be more efficient or recover revenue that will help us balance our budget if these costs continue down the road because they could the insurance costs are known for this year what we've heard from our insurance advisors is because we have a bad tenure loss history because we've had some significant events in the past five years it involved claims of millions of dollars we are in a bad state but as those come off the books our insurance could go down but that's not to say we won't have another event which causes our insurance to stay high or go higher so we have to have a long-range plan that's what the tenure approach is about it has to factor in insurance costs down the road future insurance costs our pension costs but there also has to be a corresponding effort by our staff to figure out internally how we can use our collective thoughts to figure out if there are efficiencies or revenue opportunities through the conversations that need to be had so that we can come back and give you better budget information in the future, better efficiency in the future to go along with, you know, a policy and a program that this 10-year plan could help us develop. So, again, that's a long answer to your question, but that's what needs to happen. |
| 00:17:59.69 | Janelle Cox | Along similar lines, your staff report makes mention of the performance of the Section 115 trust. And I know this council expressed some dismay at the somewhat subpar performance of that fund during the report last year. So I know that we have the ability to give direction to our fund managers regarding how we'd like to see that fund managed. And so I wanted to hear what you had in mind regarding how we might encourage the realization of better performance of the monies in that fund. |
| 00:18:44.90 | Chris Zapata | So I'm glad you brought that up. So the program, the group that manages our 115 trust, and it's $5.7 million between the Pension Trust Fund and the Post-Employment Benefit Fund is a group called PARS. And you've had this relationship with them from day one. And when they came in and they made the presentation to the City Council this past year I was underwhelmed as well not just by the performance but by you know the acceptance of poor returns and so at that point you know I had a conversation with one of the representatives pars and I said the people that are doing the work for Sausalito really didn't impress the City Council nor me So something has to happen better. So they've been put on notice. The second part of that is Chad has been talking to, it's actually the California State Retirement Fund, I believe. Chad, if he's on the phone, he can correct me. But there are other people that administer 115 trust funds that have lower administrative fees that we want to initiate conversations with because again you know we need to find more efficiency in those funds and if we can find one that you know creates a return to sequel or better with less administrative fees then we'd probably make a recommendation to move that money out and over Chad, do you want to add anything to that? |
| 00:20:10.05 | Chad Hess | No, you are correct. CalPERS is the second approved vendor of a Section 115 trust in the state of California. their administrative fees are much much lower we are evaluating their their performance of their investment options. Nothing to bring back to council at this point, but we are exploring other alternatives for that trust. |
| 00:20:34.05 | Janelle Cox | And then I just wanted to inquire about, you know, when last year and earlier this year, we all identified possible revenue-generating measures for the city. One of those was a vacancy tax on businesses that remain empty. And I'm seeing more businesses become empty now. downtown and there's one business that has remained empty for I mean, it's coming, it's over five years, and it's a sizable business. And of course, businesses, storefronts that aren't operating, affects our sales tax revenues. And so I wanted to know the plan for bringing forward. And then at the last meeting, you know, some additional revenue generating opportunities were, So I'm wondering if we might include as a part of this dialogue a renewed attack on identifying and implementing additional revenue-generating measures. Thank you. |
| 00:21:38.01 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. Thank you for that. And you did suggest that that would be something the staff should look into along with hotels, development impact fees. So the one that had the most bang for the buck are development impact fees. We've been working on those. Those are coming forward to you pretty quickly. You've approved an RFP for a consultant to do the work. Once they do the work, the idea is, you know, new growth pays for new growth, and that could be significant dollars depending on the categories you choose. The hotels were brought forward to us. We had conversations with not one, not two, but three different hoteliers, I guess is how you call them. One was out of North Marin County or North Sausalito, I call it, and they expressed an interest. We have not heard back from them since we had the conversation with them. We talked to the owner of the Valhalla about the rooms that he thought could turn into something that would be beneficial if they were rentable. It's been quiet for that conversation as well. We were told to talk to every hotelier in Sausalito. There are four of them about the possibility of expanding or their interest. We've done that and we haven't received any real strong ideas about how we could, you know, use existing people to add more rooms to Sausalito for the revenue. There has been conversations and continue to be with community and economic development about floatels, which could be an option and an opportunity for Sausalito. So that's the livest one at this point in terms of the hotels. In terms of the vacancy tax, you know, we saw that as something that was not a revenue generator, but more of a policy push to have people create and sent people to fill their spaces for you know obviously the jobs and the sales tax but again we focus primarily on impact fees but we can up the ante on the vacancy tax which I understand obviously you know the revenue would not be big big but the message to people that are holding on to these properties would be loud and clear so that's important and analysis was done to show that we could in fact do that the other item was you know talking about monetizing and creating opportunities on the water and you know things that we could do that would involve activating our shoreline, creating more activities, events, and sending businesses, you know, delving in and diving into the blue economy concept that then Mayor Kelman raised. And so that hasn't gone away, but, you know, there is, in fact, what I call a need to look at revenue. and so one of the things that came up at the last council meeting is also the idea of a charter city and what could be done there. I come from two charter cities, and one of the benefits of a charter city besides more local control is there is no general law city attachment to a property transfer tax. And so when you a property transfer tax right now it's stuck for the state regulation I think it's 55 cents per a thousand but if you're a charter city you can go higher and you know Anaheim benefited from that Stanley and we're benefited from that it's volatile revenue but at times with certain property sales it can be good revenue so again we know we committed to bringing back an analysis of charter cities and that would be one of the pros to it that would also crop potentially create revenue |
| 00:25:15.10 | Janelle Cox | Thank you, Mayor. Those are my questions for now. |
| 00:25:16.70 | Steven Woodside | who would like to go next counselor reich helman |
| 00:25:20.50 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you, city manager. So just so we're clear, the current general fund budget gap is $2 million, right? |
| 00:25:29.06 | Chris Zapata | So let me be very clear there. That is if we are successful in acquiring PRISM as our carrier. Okay. If we don't acquire PRISM, it could be significantly more depending on our appetite for, you know, risk. |
| 00:25:38.63 | Carolyn Revell | Okay. |
| 00:25:45.66 | Ian Sobieski | So today we know it's at least going to be, was PRISM 1.7, did we know? |
| 00:25:53.14 | Chris Zapata | Say that again? |
| 00:25:53.68 | Ian Sobieski | Do we know how much PRISM is, the offer is for PRISM? |
| 00:25:56.73 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. That's what you have in that 2 million calculation. Chad, it's 1.7 prism with the combination of- |
| 00:26:02.52 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:26:02.54 | Chad Hess | Thank you. |
| 00:26:02.69 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah. |
| 00:26:02.86 | Chad Hess | So the PRISM general liability premium was about $1.2 million with a $500,000 SIR. I'm not sure. Our property coverage is increasing, our workman's comp is increasing, and then I'm setting aside 700,000 for SIR to pay those claims that are under $500,000. The impact on the general fund is 1.7 million. The other portion of this is gonna be allocated to sewer fund, MLK. to ensure their buildings as well. |
| 00:26:32.24 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, I just wanted to confirm that we had a number and that's the base, it could be higher. And Chad, how much of an increase is that over what we're paying now for insurance? |
| 00:26:42.01 | Chad Hess | It's more than double when we factor in the SIR payment or the SIR reserve. |
| 00:26:48.32 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, and then I know I emailed you on this, but I just wanna clarify it. So I think in one of the emails to us, there was a comment of unassigned fund balance in excess of reserves. And then there were two numbers for the reserves. Can you just do a definition moment for me? How are you defining unassigned fund balance and when you refer to reserves, is that reserves with a capital R or lowercase r? |
| 00:27:14.80 | Chad Hess | So the reserves that I'm referring to in that email are the 5% and the 10%. that we are holding on to. So it's the budget stabilization, budget stabilization, shortfall reserve and then the emergency shortfall reserve. So those are the five and 10%. Those are gonna be the last dollars that we spend. We do not spend those unless we absolutely have to. the unassigned fund balance is the fund balance in excess of those reserves. So it's available resources above and beyond what is designated for pensions. what's designated for our Interfund loans, what's designated for any prepaids or anything like that. These are dollars that truly have no intended use at this point. |
| 00:28:03.09 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, and you also sent us an email, I think, maybe you city manager, that showed us a comparison of Sausalito's capital R reserves to other communities with capital R reserves. We're at around 15%, is that right? |
| 00:28:18.11 | Chad Hess | Yes, our current reserve policy is 15%. City Manager Zapata did do a survey across Marin County, and there is a wide array of reserve policies that we found. |
| 00:28:31.09 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, I thought I read that sort of there was a disproportionate skew towards 25%. And so then I had asked you how much of the unassigned cash do you need to be moved to reserves to hit a 25% reserve? And if can you just articulate that for everybody? |
| 00:28:45.62 | Chad Hess | Yeah, let me get back to that email just so I can quote you. Yeah, so as it stands now, We currently have An increase in reserves would increase that to our reserve amount to 5.2 million and then our excess above reserves would be lowered to 5.6 million. So it's about a $2 million increase to get us to a 25%. Reserve. |
| 00:29:13.92 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, and then one sort of strategic question. At the end of the staff report, the recommendation is to provide staff a direction in the areas of use of unassigned general fund cash. But also tonight on the agenda, we are looking at item 5C, city property portfolio update. Why not also recommend that we look at that portfolio update and divest ourselves as a way to help bridge the gap today on the deficit? |
| 00:29:44.01 | Chris Zapata | So thank you. I think we can jump forward a little bit for that question, Council Member Kellman. In that staff report, one of the things that we talk about is, you know, I believe it was Council Member Hoffman brought up this idea of small lots that we have or small properties that we should analyze in addition to our leases. And as part of that, a few months ago, I asked that we look at sale of the fire station number two given it's it's you know it's a storage bin for us right now and could be something that you know could create a nice little infusion to offset some of these insurance costs that we're facing but it's in that report so I think that all are fair game given the direction from the council that we look at the leases and the properties that we own aside from leases. That's going to take a little bit of time. But that exercise is started because obviously that is part of our spare property list that we have. In addition to some of these small lots and other lots that you own in this city that may be of value to a neighbor or nobody, but we should assess those all and include something larger, which is the fire station, number two, not one, two. |
| 00:30:57.06 | Ian Sobieski | Not one, two. And one last Charter City question. You mentioned the tax roll. So the numbers that, if we were a Charter City, and the numbers that would come off in the transfer tax that were associated with property tax, is there a way to carve those out so that they're not regular property tax and thus diluted by the deal with Southern Marine Fire? |
| 00:31:16.62 | Chris Zapata | So whenever there's a property transfer tax in your community, which we have, there's a certain amount that comes one time on the sale of the property to the organization. In general, law cities have a cap. You know, charter cities have more flexibility. And so they become part of your budget adoption. They become things like sales tax because they're not constant like property taxes. You know, there lot of sales selling a property going on in your city then your property transfer tax revenue is stronger if there is you know flattening or no then it becomes less so when you have that in place it's one of those you know good revenue streams it is a little bit of a volatile revenue stream but in my experience it's been good because there have been significant sales of properties in every city I've been in and including Sausalito and if you're capped by your general law status maybe you want to reconsider that along with other pros but you obviously have to look at the downside of a property transfer tax and other parts of a charter city that you may not want to do but I think we're going to give you that report next meeting is what I understood and you can do some more questioning then we can give you some more responses then about what it is and what it means in Sausalito. But it's not a stable revenue stream, but it can be a spiky revenue stream that could create assistance in bad times or in good times when things are running in terms of sales of homes and properties. |
| 00:32:52.36 | Ian Sobieski | So my question for next time is whether a portion of that goes to Southern R. and Fire or not. |
| 00:32:58.02 | Chris Zapata | I don't believe so. |
| 00:32:58.94 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:32:59.21 | Ian Sobieski | THE END OF Thank you so much. |
| 00:33:01.41 | Steven Woodside | Who's going to be next? Councilmember Bustin. |
| 00:33:04.14 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you, Mayor Sobieski, and thank you, City Manager and Chad, Director Huss, for your hard work on this. So when we met last time, we talked specifically about the issues associated with deferred maintenance and how we're trying to make a focus on risk and resilience and de-risking in our budget. And so with that in mind, are we considering those strategies that we had all discussed together with in the continuation of the larger picture for the budget? So what I'm asking is, is it clear that the direction that we gave at the last meeting, since I didn't hear it brought up in your report, is a continued focus on the deferred maintenance issue and de-risking in general, with a special emphasis on consideration of hiring a risk manager, because we desperately need a risk manager hired. |
| 00:33:48.66 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. So the risk manager position, obviously I gave you an update that we made an offer to an individual at the top level of our range and was turned down. So we started all over again. We're having conversations with the people that might provide insurance to us about loaning us a risk manager while we solicit one for us. So that's one thought on the risk manager. As it relates to deferred maintenance, yes. There are a number of efforts that are going into trying to figure out what that amount is obviously you have allowed us to request proposals for overall comprehensive facility assessment and parallel to that we've engaged through an rp process climate at our facilities to figure out, you know, some of the basic needs that we have in terms of lighting, cooling, energy efficiency, electrification. And so that report is ready to come to the council this month. We just have to schedule it with the agenda setting committee. But that's in partnership with this whole RFP for an overall facility assessment. So, you know, we know that getting a handle on that and then taking and turning that into our information that can be fed into our 10 year financial model, which, you know, is really important because on one hand, you see cash on hand, on the other hand, you see deferred maintenance and costs that, you know, we, you know, should be spending money on. So trying to balance out how you do it, when you do it. and incorporate that into a plan in your capital improvement program, really, really important. |
| 00:35:25.13 | Melissa Blaustein | Well, and also getting the premiums down over time, because if we're operating at the $1.7 million or the million-dollar-plus funds for insurance every year, it's not going to be a sustainable solution to pull money from our Section 115 or unassigned balance. So one of the other things we talked about at the last meeting was a lot of revenue opportunities. And my colleague, Councilmember Helman, mentioned outdoor adventure as an opportunity. We talked about potentially charging for parking on Caledonia or what parking funds are available and leases and property assessment. Are we as well, will that come back to us on the fourth? Because I think these are all important areas for consideration. |
| 00:36:02.04 | Chris Zapata | So what was the third one, Councilmember Kelman? |
| 00:36:04.00 | Melissa Blaustein | Leases and, oh, Councilmember Kellmans was the outdoor. Councilmember Blaustein. |
| 00:36:06.59 | Chris Zapata | Outdoor. Thank you. |
| 00:36:08.86 | Melissa Blaustein | the leases and property assessment, which is on the agenda tonight. So that's good to know. Okay, but the other two as well? |
| 00:36:16.30 | Chris Zapata | You're saying parking on Caledonia and outdoor recreation are the other two? |
| 00:36:21.46 | Melissa Blaustein | Yes. And then we also talked significantly about our lack of grant funding received. I think we all saw that Tiburon received a multimillion-dollar grant for electrification of their ferries simply by partnering and pursuing that. I forwarded you an email this morning from Arnita Harnan at the EPA about $300 million that just became available for improvements in pollution in other areas. There was a $3 billion amount made available from the Obama administration last week specifically for cleaning pipes. And I believe that there are a lot of places where this is applicable. And I'd like to see, built into our budget, at least a grant target. Because if we don't have an incentive and we're just using the money we have, then we're just using the money we have. And I think we need to create a way for staff to be aggressively chasing some of this funding or to work it into our capital improvement projects. So is that part of the, these are kind of leading questions, is that part of the consideration? I'm sorry, I just, isn't that right? |
| 00:37:14.75 | Chris Zapata | Yeah. Thank you. So, you know, we currently have four grants pending with California consulting that we put the work in on. We had, I think it was 11 grants that we applied for last year that we did not get funding for. And so the track record of getting funds in Sausalito from other people has not been good. So I have had questions raised to me about, you know, the effectiveness of our grants program. and so I think that if you're suggesting that we should have I have had questions raised to me about the effectiveness of our grants program. And so I think that if you're suggesting that we should have some Thank you. targets that we benchmark against to try to get done you know is it 5 million 10 million 15 million you know what is it because we've applied for over I can tell you it's over 20 million dollars we've received 450,000 through a COPS grant 40,000 was a pass-through grant we got good information last week from the SB1 Ocean Protection Council that we're lined up for a grant thanks to you all and Councilmember Kelman so you know maybe we'll see $250,000 there but yeah we could do much better with grants and putting a a target that you know we should try to reach to determine if we're successful or not and what that target consists of yeah that could be something that we should work on as a staff as well |
| 00:38:33.17 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. And then just another question before, because the rest of it is probably more comments. But there's a mention in here of funding for a nonprofit, which I'm a huge fan of. But we had had a number of discussions about how we would review funding for nonprofits as a whole. Is that being considered in the way that we look at the budget? |
| 00:38:50.25 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, so, you know, the best laid plans of mice and men, you know, we wanted to have a full-on conversation about, you know, nonprofits in our community and which ones that you felt we should fund and which one. But again, we're up upon a budget deadline again, so my apologies. That responsibility is mine for not bringing it forward. But one of the things I've tried to do is take the ones that I believe are most beneficial to the community and we don't have many many outlays to nonprofits in our city I did meet with sauce little beautiful where they made a request for funding I told them that you know outside requests by individual nonprofits was probably this was not the year to do it you know the one exception to this is the partnership we have with cars right now which is a relatively small grant but high-impact service so we left that in there you know we want to take out some of the other funding that we might contemplate EDAC isn't asking for funding but they did ask for us to consider continuing the CDA contract. We're saying no to that. So in an abbreviated way, in a non-comprehensive way, we are doing exactly that. We're trying to tell you this is not the year to fund outside agencies other than those that we really, really, really need to fund. |
| 00:38:50.47 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:40:12.65 | Melissa Blaustein | Did you have a chance to see the county of Marin's participatory budgeting rollout over the last year? |
| 00:40:19.99 | Chris Zapata | Pardon me, say that again? |
| 00:40:21.02 | Melissa Blaustein | The county of Marin, as part of their equity managers program, started a participatory budgeting program where members of the community voted on which grant funds would go to specific nonprofits. So maybe that's something that we could look at, too. |
| 00:40:36.19 | Chris Zapata | Okay. |
| 00:40:38.00 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you very much, city manager and director Huss. |
| 00:40:40.17 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Councilmember Busting. Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 00:40:44.71 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I do have some questions. Primarily, and we've talked about this a lot in the past with both the city manager and I think with Chad too about our reserve and what's an appropriate reserve for Sausalito. And we, I don't believe we've ever set, we've talked about it a lot at the city council level. I don't believe we've ever actually set a city council reserve or city council defined reserve. And so I think if Chad's still on the line, I have a couple of questions to ask him. So thanks Chad. So we've talked about this a lot in the past. We talked about it with our, when we received our audit I think last fall. And the auditor talked to us a little bit about what an appropriate reserve is and how to determine one. I think my recollection was that |
| 00:41:21.94 | Unknown | And the auto. |
| 00:41:32.38 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. 15% reserve is a red flag for any funding agency or any other agency with regard to a city and that That's a red flag and that there is no Standard really standard for a city, but the higher your risk the higher your reserve should be is that |
| 00:41:51.77 | Chad Hess | Yes. So the GFOA has come out with a new article that talks about setting reserve policies based upon a risk-based approach. And what that does is it looks at what are the risks, what are the probabilities of that risk happening or the occurrence and then assigning a value to it. Um, I agree that a comprehensive review of our fund balance using a risk-based approach would be warranted. It takes time and effort. . That is something we could hire a professional service to do or something we could do in-house, but it would take longer to fit that into our work. But yes, you are correct. 15%, I feel, is low. 25 is better, but again, the most appropriate would be a risk-based solution. |
| 00:42:38.11 | Chris Zapata | So I think- If I can add to that. Sure, go ahead, Chris. When you're done with your question, Council Member Hoffman, |
| 00:42:38.18 | Chad Hess | Thank you. |
| 00:42:38.20 | Jill Hoffman | So I think. If I can add to that. Sure, go ahead, Kristen. No, go ahead, and then I have some follow-up questions. I agree. |
| 00:42:44.81 | Chris Zapata | Great. So one of the one of the things that you know I saw in this community when I came was this 5% and 10% reserve and I heard over and over the sauce that was unique has different challenges and you know we need to consider our policy for what we should say and so and talking to some people that were on the City Council in the past in particular former mayor with the he indicated to me that you know it was never 15% as a floor it was always you know if it was 25% the 10% plus a 15% then on top of that they would take that money and put it in the capital or put it into the 115 trust so it was a practice but not a policy so one of the things that I did is I asked my colleagues in Marin County okay you know we're Sausalito and you have some of the same kind of situations as us in certain cities so what are your reserves policy so I want to read them to you so you have them so Belvedere which is eight million dollar general fund budget eight and a half million dollars has a policy of 50 percent that's Belvedere quarter Madera which is a 22 million dollar general Fund Budget has a policy of 50%. That's Belvedere. Corte Madera, which is a $22 million general fund budget, has a policy of 20%, so they have a $4.5 million reserve. Fairfax, which is a... |
| 00:42:45.79 | Jill Hoffman | So, |
| 00:44:01.02 | Chris Zapata | larger budget, 13.7 million or a smaller budget. Their reserve policy, they have a target of 25% and an unassigned amount, kinda like Sausalito and their reserve is $2.8 million. Larkspur's policy on their $21 million budget is 25% of their operating budget and they currently have a reserve of $18 million. The city manager qualified that, said they've been saving money, over a number of years for a particular need project. So that number is really generous at this time, but that's what they have. The city of Mill Valley has a policy of 15%. They have a $32 million general fund, and they have $14 million in their reserve, even though their policy is 15%. Novato has a policy of 15%, and they have a $49 million budget, and their reserve is $9.6 million. Ross has a $10 million general fund, and they have a different mousetrap where they have economic uncertainty fund permanent at 1.5, and the operating fund reserve should exceed 30%. So that's there. So they currently have $6,497,000 in their reserve on a $10 million budget. San Anselmo is 20% of the annual budget. So they have a general fund budget of $100 million. So they have unassigned reserves of $9,783,000. Sausalito, we obviously have the 5% and the 10%, and then we have the excess cash that Chad's referenced, that I've referenced. When you add those three things together, it's $10.67 million. Tiburon's policy is 25% of the general fund budget. They have a $12 million general fund, and their reserve is $6 million, so they're doing much better. And then Marin County has a policy of five to ten percent so my experience has always been the larger the city the lower the amount because you have bigger chunks of cash that you could attach smaller cities may mean may need larger reserves what's right for Sausalito is something in the conversation that we should have because if it's 25 percent okay if it's 30 percent okay if it's 50 percent okay but right now what you have on the books is five and ten percent |
| 00:46:31.93 | Jill Hoffman | So that brings me to the point of back to a circular point, I think, which is that we need to decide as a city before we move forward on a strategy. I think there's several things I think we need to talk about before we move forward on the strategy for next year and how to address the current, what I suspect will be a long term shortfall. Do we have an offer from PRISM on the table that we are going to accept at the 1.7 or is there, are we still looking for other carriers? |
| 00:46:59.42 | Chris Zapata | We only have a private sector offer on the table right now. |
| 00:47:03.35 | Jill Hoffman | So we don't have an offer from PRISM for 1.7. |
| 00:47:04.80 | Chris Zapata | We're in discussions with PRISM right now. |
| 00:47:07.13 | Jill Hoffman | So we're in discussions with PRISM right now. So this is an unknown cost, and that makes me nervous as well. So I'll circle back to that when we get to our comments. But I think when we're talking about what's appropriate from a management perspective and from a risk reduction perspective, I don't think anybody in this room looking at the cancellation of our insurance from the pool would say that we are no longer... a low risk, that we are no longer a high risk town. We are a high risk town and we need to effectively address that one way to address that is having an appropriate reserve for these catastrophic events that happen and the risk that we're gonna have with our loss of insurance and much higher premiums, much higher premiums and much higher deductibles. So, and that's what Chad is talking about when he's talking about a range of, if we have a higher deductible that means our costs go up, that we need a higher reserve. Thank you. deductibles. So, and that's what Chad is talking about when he's talking about a range of, if we have a higher deductible, that means our costs go up, that we need a higher reserve. And we probably need to segregate some money into a fund specifically for that. But we can talk about that when we get to our strategies. So my next question, and then we can talk about that with our discussion about how we want to approach that aspect. |
| 00:48:27.66 | Jill Hoffman | You know, I think that's our biggest issue that we need. Well, I'm sorry, let me just do this. So we have this pool of money called unassigned cash, but you know, we've talked over the years, I think in the presentation that you gave back in 2021, you know, we had, I mean, I think you said 500 million in, 500 million in deferred maintenance over, and we had some big ticket items in there. One was sewer and the other one was undergrounding, but the hard deferred maintenance that you had calculated that time was close to 25 million. And that's just deferred maintenance on things that we already, capital improvements that we need to make. So we don't, in my mind, we don't really have an aside in cash. We have non-prioritized capital improvements that we haven't gotten in the pipeline. And we have a capital improvement presentation that we had from Kevin. We should be going much deeper, again, as a method to reduce our risk, right? I mean, you're the one that's brought these things to our attention on the capital improvement risks. We also had a presentation last fall with Director McGowan on our payment index. And it was an ad of another, I think, 3 million a year to get us up to a higher failing score of our payment index. So, you know, my question, I think, to you and to Chad is, you know, wouldn't you agree that we need to be more aggressive? It's not really unassigned cash. It's cash that we haven't assigned to priority projects in order to reduce our risk. |
| 00:50:05.79 | Chris Zapata | If I can respond to that, I'm happy to, and thanks for the question, Council Member Kelman. Yes, when I got here, I told folks that my observations of Sausalito were, you know, finances were important, infrastructure was important, and the people that were their people infrastructure were important. So infrastructure has been a constant, and one of the things that I knew was in front of us, as you all, as Council Member laid out to me, to me was you know the revenue that we had for infrastructure through measure O was at risk of ending in 2024 so one of the big priorities was to make sure that we in fact got that on the ballot and became more aggressive with our capital improvement program so we not only push that to the public, which they embrace and support it, we extended and expanded Measure O to Measure L to add revenue so that we could work on infrastructure. So it's not like we've been sitting with our hands in our pockets. The second thing is the idea of, okay, we have cash in the bank, but what do we need to spend it on and that's where the idea of we need to spend it on our facilities we need to spend it on our infrastructure and so where this facility management plan came into play was as a result of those kinds of conversations that you know before we start spending you know two three four million dollars on capital projects we need to know what those needs are where the priorities are and develop an approach so so working through this RFP for facility improvements is going to inform that as well so the third thing is you know we truly Thank you. in my mind, sitting on $10 million while your streets are falling apart were really not a wise course of action. So, you know, but for this insurance problem, my recommendation this year would have been to up the ante on the capital improvement program and fix more of our streets. Unfortunately, I don't think you'll be able to do that because this insurance cost is going to create a situation where you've got to use money to address that gap if you want to maintain services but yeah there have been some real work there's been real work done on trying to figure out infrastructure not just by this city council in this administration you know you put measure O together in 2014 I believe you know you've done some things that I think are important to help create revenue in the city through your TOT and the Mid-2000s, but as it stands yeah, there is a big infrastructure versus Cash on hand gap that I I would say yeah, we could blow through eight million dollars in fix some of our streets But not all of them we could blow through eight million dollars and fix some of our sewer, but not all of it. But, you know, it's getting an informed look at what is in the worst condition and allocating the funds that we have to that is what, you know, we've been doing for the last year and a half. |
| 00:53:01.83 | Jill Hoffman | So my point is, and thank you for that explanation, my point is, though, that terming this as unassigned cash makes it seem like that we have excess cash that's just laying around that we can, you know, spend on whatever non-priority projects. We have many priority projects that are currently unfunded that if we spent all of that money on those priority projects, it would reduce our risk. |
| 00:53:28.27 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, and you should, but you have to do that once you figure out how much you're comfortable with having in your contingency accounts. |
| 00:53:38.26 | Jill Hoffman | I 100% agree. I 100% agree on that. That's the number one. And then the number two is, you know, how do we allocate the rest of the unallocated money that should be going to priority capital improvement projects? And that's how I would characterize any kind of excess over a reserve, whatever it is that we decide on. The other thing is, you know, going back to Thank you for that analysis of the other cities, too. It's informative, but I go back to what our finance director has said and what our auditor said last year is that it's a very specific thing. It's somewhat informative to talk about other cities, but we have to do the analysis ourselves and come up with the specific analysis for Sausalito. That may take us some time, but we can certainly start off with going up to 25% right now. I would be even more comfortable going up to 30. So let me see if I have any further. |
| 00:54:36.72 | Unknown (Disruptive Commenter) | Yeah, but why do you refuse to fix our sewers? Is it because of all those chews that are hiding down there? |
| 00:54:38.98 | Jill Hoffman | Is it because of all those shoes that are hiding down there? |
| 00:54:41.86 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 00:54:42.69 | Unknown (Disruptive Commenter) | Is it because those Jews are all in the sewers or what? Eating all those four skins drinking the blood of children. Come on guys |
| 00:54:46.86 | Steven Woodside | skin. Let's just mute the mute that audio |
| 00:54:51.58 | Unknown (Disruptive Commenter) | Google Matisse Mappe on nyc.gov. Did you suck baby dick? |
| 00:54:53.09 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:54:54.27 | Jill Hoffman | you. |
| 00:54:54.45 | Steven Woodside | It's like, |
| 00:54:54.89 | Jill Hoffman | you. |
| 00:54:54.96 | Steven Woodside | Baby dicks. Thank you. |
| 00:54:55.97 | Unknown (Disruptive Commenter) | Thank you. |
| 00:54:56.16 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:54:56.26 | Unknown (Disruptive Commenter) | Let's just take a break. |
| 00:54:56.31 | Steven Woodside | Let's take a break and tell. |
| 00:54:57.03 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:54:57.46 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Well, he's going to keep it. |
| 00:55:00.73 | Jill Hoffman | That's okay. We're off the record right now. |
| 00:55:04.75 | Steven Woodside | You get it turned down. All right. |
| 00:55:08.56 | Unknown (Disruptive Commenter) | Okay. Fair enough. Let's continue. Do you have any other questions? All right, thanks. Let's see. Turn the volume down. We can keep talking. We know that your webhose can hear us, you fucking niggers. |
| 00:55:08.80 | Walfred Solorzano | . |
| 00:55:10.91 | Steven Woodside | Fair enough, let's continue. Do you have any other questions? All right, thanks. |
| 00:55:15.38 | Jill Hoffman | Um... |
| 00:55:17.23 | Mary Faust | I have... |
| 00:55:21.28 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, I think we're back on the, we're back in. |
| 00:55:28.15 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, I think that's all my questions right now. All right, thank you very much. |
| 00:55:29.40 | Steven Woodside | All right, thank you very much. So I will then, I have no additional questions. I will open it up for public comment. Are you able to handle that secret? Do you need a few minutes to get a grip on the, |
| 00:55:34.33 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:55:34.48 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:55:34.53 | Unknown | I'm not sure. |
| 00:55:34.70 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:55:34.80 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:55:35.09 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:55:35.22 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:55:37.10 | Adrian Brinton | Thank you. |
| 00:55:37.11 | Walfred Solorzano | bigger. |
| 00:55:38.68 | Adrian Brinton | Thank you. |
| 00:55:38.70 | Walfred Solorzano | NIGGERS. |
| 00:55:39.12 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:55:39.32 | Walfred Solorzano | grip. |
| 00:55:45.18 | Gail Schell | Amen. |
| 00:55:46.34 | Walfred Solorzano | We don't have, we use the regular one, we don't use the other one, we have more control. |
| 00:55:52.50 | Steven Woodside | Well, let's fix that in the future. But yep, fair enough, fair enough. But can you, do you need more time? |
| 00:55:52.59 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. I didn't mention that. |
| 00:56:02.31 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:56:05.02 | Walfred Solorzano | I understand the other one. You need to go shut it down. Thank you. Yeah. |
| 00:56:08.45 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:56:08.50 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:56:08.52 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. So I would suggest that you turn the Zoom off and let everyone who's legitimate rejoin the Zoom link. It'll be the same link and you can add them one at a time. No, did you get a grip on it? It seems like maybe you did. |
| 00:56:27.74 | Melissa Blaustein | She shut it down and reboot it. |
| 00:56:31.84 | Steven Woodside | All right. Thank you. So let's take just a pause. How much time do you need to reestablish the public here to admit the people? that. |
| 00:56:49.42 | Steven Woodside | Bye. |
| 00:56:49.66 | Melissa Blaustein | I looked too and I was worried. |
| 00:56:52.29 | Steven Woodside | So... |
| 00:56:53.54 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. |
| 00:56:54.20 | Steven Woodside | Well, we're dealing with a point of order, a technical issue on the Zoom. So, I mean, we can take a recess, but I wanna know whether... |
| 00:57:00.98 | Walfred Solorzano | whether |
| 00:57:01.44 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:57:01.55 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay. |
| 00:57:01.78 | Steven Woodside | All right, there's a general request for a recess. So let's take a five-minute recess, and I'll come over there and speak with you, city clerk. |
| 00:57:13.39 | Steven Woodside | Okay, resuming from recess. |
| 00:57:13.54 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:57:13.57 | Kieran Culligan | Thank you. |
| 00:57:13.82 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:57:17.57 | Steven Woodside | So we're going to open this up actually to public comment. Public comment, please, on this budget item. Anyone in the audience? On the budget? |
| 00:57:26.89 | Walfred Solorzano | On the budget? Thank you. |
| 00:57:39.47 | Steven Woodside | I'm happy just to let people know in the audience. Scott Thornburg. Mr. Thornburg. |
| 00:57:40.05 | Walfred Solorzano | just to let you know. |
| 00:57:44.33 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:57:48.59 | Sandra Bushmaker | Can't hear anything on Zoom. |
| 00:57:51.54 | Scott Thornburg | I'll be really fast just to say thank you. |
| 00:57:55.39 | Steven Woodside | but I'm also wondering why we could hear them say that. Can we please make it so that they can't speak up? |
| 00:58:01.22 | Sandra Bushmaker | We cannot hear anything on Zoom. |
| 00:58:15.62 | Steven Woodside | So that sounds like Ms. Vicki Nichols, is that right? |
| 00:58:19.26 | Walfred Solorzano | Sounds like a question. |
| 00:58:21.44 | Steven Woodside | Is that Ms. Bushmaker? |
| 00:58:27.33 | Walfred Solorzano | There you go. I got a computer. |
| 00:58:31.18 | Steven Woodside | I don't know. |
| 00:58:38.28 | Sandra Bushmaker | We can't hear anything on Zoom. |
| 00:58:44.05 | Steven Woodside | So no one is saying anything. Oh, that's why she isn't responding, because she can't hear me on Zoom. So we will sort that out. Yeah. |
| 00:59:00.64 | Steven Woodside | So. |
| 00:59:01.59 | Ian Sobieski | What did the city attorney say about not having a Zoom |
| 00:59:03.59 | Steven Woodside | Unfortunately, this meeting is advertised on Zoom, so we can sort that out to a greater degree, but the most straightforward thing is to have it on Zoom. |
| 00:59:03.66 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:59:24.28 | Steven Woodside | Thanks. you So, That's it. Okay, I'm going to text Ms. Bushmaker and see if she can hear us. |
| 00:59:38.09 | Sandra Bushmaker | We cannot hear anything on Zoom. |
| 00:59:39.37 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. Okay. |
| 00:59:51.23 | Steven Woodside | I just texted her to see if she can hear. I'm just going to do a little soliloquy to see if she hears us. I just texted Ms. Bushmaker to see if she can hear. And we can hear you. All right. |
| 01:00:06.02 | Steven Woodside | So she still says that she cannot hear us. of course, can anyone hear us on Zoom? If there's anyone on Zoom who can hear us, could you raise your hand just to make sure it's not an issue with Ms. Bushmaker? How many participants are there? Okay. Okay. Okay, our city attorney also says that the audio does not work on Zoom. |
| 01:00:43.68 | Jim Gabbert | Thank you. |
| 01:00:43.70 | Charles Melton | STILL. |
| 01:00:44.03 | Jim Gabbert | no audio. |
| 01:00:44.96 | Charles Melton | Thank you. |
| 01:00:45.03 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:00:45.10 | Charles Melton | Thank you. |
| 01:00:45.20 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 01:00:55.86 | Janelle Cox | So, Walfred, one thing you can do is disconnect computer audio and use a cell phone to connect using a speaker phone. it's actually more low tech and less susceptible to hacking. Thank you. |
| 01:01:10.01 | Sandra Bushmaker | City Clerk, could you get some audio on Zoom please? |
| 01:01:10.66 | Janelle Cox | you get some |
| 01:01:13.38 | Sandra Bushmaker | Could you ask her? |
| 01:01:13.99 | Janelle Cox | That's really nice. |
| 01:01:14.93 | Steven Woodside | I don't know if that, is that Ms. Bushmaker? Yeah. I told her we're working on it, so. |
| 01:01:14.97 | Janelle Cox | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:01:24.72 | Steven Woodside | You know, I'm going to stay here with the microphone to work on this. |
| 01:01:30.37 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:01:30.39 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. Yeah, that's why I'm suggesting that you all clear the dice. I'll keep working with the audio because they need someone speaking to hear it. And we will continue to work with this problem. Thank you. Thank you. So. |
| 01:01:44.28 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 01:01:46.54 | Steven Woodside | uh, |
| 01:01:47.57 | Sandra Bushmaker | There's nothing on channel 27 either. |
| 01:01:49.81 | Steven Woodside | situation. Thank you everyone for your patience and apologies for everyone for what just happened on many fronts. Mr. Thornburg. |
| 01:02:01.14 | Scott Thornburg | Thank you. I'll be brief. I just want to say thank you for all of these wonderful ideas to focus on driving revenue and looking after our city's finances. In my letter, I also included a number of ideas that EDAC would like to focus on. So we would love the opportunity to partner with staff more closely on some of those things and really would encourage I would ask the council to guide us on where you want us to focus there to help really drive revenue for the city. A couple of things in follow-up to comments made. We discussed the vacancy tax very specifically on our call yesterday. I personally, you know, I look around and I had the same reaction. You know, there's a lot of vacant buildings. Seems like a great idea. In discussing further with committee members with EDAC who really focus on real estate, they recommend that we not pursue that at the time because they think it's already a difficult climate. generally, they think this would be more of a deterrent. So I think that's worth a discussion with industry professionals and not just EDAC, but let's get some guidance on that. And then the only other thing I would mention is, we have a lot of revenue coming in from TOT taxes currently. One of the greatest opportunities that I see in generating more revenue for the city is actually increasing our off-season TOT taxes. We're doing great in the summer. Occupancy at our hotels is at peak. high, we're sold out 90 to 95% occupancy pretty consistently. It's between November and March that we really need help. And that is where if we do decide to invest in marketing, and I understand the city manager's perspective, that is where I would put the money. So my recommendation from my experience, but other than that, I think we're on the right track. So thank you for your attention to this tonight. |
| 01:03:54.99 | Steven Woodside | Anyone online, Mr. City Clerk? |
| 01:03:57.95 | Walfred Solorzano | for a moment. |
| 01:04:05.89 | Walfred Solorzano | Senator Bushmaker. Senator Bushmaker. Thank you. |
| 01:04:08.97 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:04:11.21 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:04:11.24 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Ms. Bushmaker, can you unhost yourself? I'm sorry, unmute yourself. |
| 01:04:23.71 | Walfred Solorzano | Sorry, I bumped up the security settings. |
| 01:04:24.44 | Steven Woodside | That's okay. Let's see if she can. |
| 01:04:26.97 | Walfred Solorzano | I'm going to have to do something else with security. |
| 01:04:34.34 | Steven Woodside | Ms. Bushmaker, we are working on our end to unmute you. |
| 01:04:45.01 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. You'll need it. |
| 01:04:48.08 | Sandra Bushmaker | Okay. I think I'm finally through here. But I can't start the video. All right. I just wanted to say good evening, everybody. I'm sorry that we went through that experience. That's very unpleasant. Um, I just wanted to let you know Marin TV is not on. So they need to rejoin the Zoom application or whatever their however they turn things on. I'm looking at the TV screen right now, and all there is is a Zoom. email and password Uh, Anyway, Back to the budget. I just want to emphasize, you know, we're talking about the budget, Hi. increasing revenues, we need to stop spending Money. on non-discretionary or non-priority items. while we get ourselves organized here. You know, when you run short of money at home, You stop spending. while you work on trying to increase your revenues. And I think the city needs to do that as well. And so I'd like to really encourage that we look at the spending on non-priority items and Put a brake on. Tighten the belt and let's wait until we get our revenues back up to stream and then take a good hard look at the non-discretionary spending. Excuse me, the discretionary spending. Thank you. |
| 01:06:15.12 | Steven Woodside | Anyone else on Zoom? |
| 01:06:19.95 | Steven Woodside | All right, we'll close public comment and move up to a discussion on this item. Does anyone wish to be recognized? |
| 01:06:27.27 | Ian Sobieski | I'll go. |
| 01:06:27.83 | Steven Woodside | Councilmember Kelman. |
| 01:06:27.86 | Ian Sobieski | Council Member Kelman. Yeah, thank you. I actually wanted to clarify something with Chad if he is still here. The question, or maybe Sergio, just somebody had asked me at the break about infrastructure and insurance. Sergio, are you able to just sort of give a sense to members of the public how many of our claims tend to be associated with any type of deferred maintenance so we have a sense of what the risk looks like for the city? |
| 01:06:56.57 | Ian Sobieski | Surgery may be unavailable. Okay, well, this is fine. So my understanding, and if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Yeah, for the next meeting, it's a rather high number. And so I just want people to understand that the risk is around deferred maintenance in a large way. So I think that's important. And the other question that I would have had for Chad, if he was able to join, would be to understand whether the budget numbers we're seeing here take into account loss of parking on future projects or anything along those lines. I'm just trying to figure out what we're dealing with. But I would say this overall, I think we need a matrix that prioritizes deferred maintenance with our capital improvement program. I think given the situation and thanks, Sergio, I see your hand, but I'm just going to give my comments in the interest of conversation. So I think we do need to look at raising the reserve, I think 25%, given our risk profile right now. And I'll just tell you, the loss of insurance makes me very, very nervous, makes me very uncomfortable, and it is a very big deal for the community. and it's very expensive to move into the private market. I cannot emphasize that enough. So I think a 25% revenue is something we should consider as a council. I also think, Pardon me, reserve, sorry. Can't read my own handwriting. I also think that when we get to the third item, so if we get there, we should look at selling off one to three parcels pay off our pension debt pay off um pay down some of this deficit i also call attention to what scott thornburg at the chair of our edac put together about our parking opportunities there's a september 19th dixon parking report that is really really good and it tells us things like the value per spot in lot one if you back the numbers, is something like $7,500 per spot. And so if you wanna look at loss of revenue, you can understand in that fashion, but conversely, you could look at maybe areas around Humboldt Street and think, well, if I could put 20 spots there, that's $7,500 a spot, that's over $150,000. And so thank you, Scott, for raising that. I think we really need to look at that parking revenue as a huge opportunity. I agree with the comment around vacancy tax can be quite difficult, but maybe something to do in the future is take a look at our conditional use permits. Oftentimes our conditional use permits allow for certain uses or parking or other benefits in exchange for some give and take. We may have, let's say, a parcel that got a variance on a parking requirement because they were going to offer a certain type of use and then that use didn't come to fruition it may be worth looking at the conditional use permit I'll also say and thank you for highlighting it on the grant program there's so much grant money out there I want to make sure everybody heard it this SB 1 grant is to help address flooding on gate 5 Road we've been conditionally approved for $250,000 to do some planning around that and there was more money. And so we'll hear about that on June 4th. So there's just my preliminary comments. I look forward to hearing colleagues. |
| 01:10:02.38 | Steven Woodside | Who else wishes to be recognized? |
| 01:10:06.51 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you, Mayor Sobieski, and thanks again to staff for your hard work on the budget. I'm going to share in similar concerns of Council Member Kelman and also just repeat what I had said at the last budget meeting, which is that I really believe that we're in a position at this point to address our budget through a lens of risk and resilience. How do we de-risk our existing deferred maintenance, and how do we create a resilient city going forward and I think that the path for that much of which was just outlined is it's essential to raise our reserve to 25% so that we can de-risk and be more attractive to insurers going forward and we need to start thinking about where the most critical capital improvements lie and invest in those I'm a huge believer in available grant funding as I I mentioned, $300 million that's available for pollution and other environmental issues. Just found out about that today. $3 billion for pipes. There's more out there that we need to be getting that can help fill some of these gaps. That's not going to be enough. We're going to have to do even more and explore aggressively the revenue opportunities that all of us have brought forward at past meetings and again this evening and I won't go over too many of them but I do think there's a strong emphasis on parking opportunities and revenues available through parking and would agree with councilmember Kelman's suggestion that we sell off some of our property so that we might be able to be in a better fiscal position going forward especially if we're not using using them to their highest and best use right now. So another thing that I want to make sure we're working on and thinking about, I understand we've made an offer about the risk manager position and that's fine. But that was several weeks ago, and we still don't have a candidate. And we may need to reconsider how we're advertising that position. We may need to be willing to allow someone to initially work remote. We may need to invest further in a search. But we need a risk manager sooner rather than later. So I'd like to see that prioritized in whatever form necessary going forward. But I look forward to seeing what the budget looks like. I'd also like us to consider thinking about potential for participatory budgeting going forward and how we think about awarding grants to nonprofits as a community. The county's done some amazing work and looking at budgeting from an equity lens, and I think there's real opportunity there as well. So thanks to staff. I'll look forward to what you come back with at the next meeting in our first budget hearing. |
| 01:12:26.91 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, council member, who would like to be, go next. Johnson member Hoffman, please. |
| 01:12:33.61 | Jill Hoffman | So I think overall my the overall direction that I would give at this point is that I'm really uncomfortable with the strategy with regard to how we address the budget for this year so I fundamentally mentally disagree that this is the time for business as usual and that it's not the time to aggressively stop and look at how we're managing our budget, and really do a more strategic dive into what are we going to do this year because we know I know 100% that this deficit is not a one-year item. This is a multi-year Increased incredible increased cost to our city and it's going to dovetail with the balloon payments for our pension debt In the next three to five years and so these two things together will overtake Any reserve that we have if they're going to overtake any You know actions that we could have with regard to our current revenue streams in our current expenses. And so... actions that we could have with regard to our current revenue streams and our current expenses. And so I strongly feel that this is a bandaid approach and it's a temporary approach and it's the wrong approach for this year. And I think that we need to really pause and look at the all of our current revenue streams, all of our current expenses, and decide how we're going to move forward, not just this year, but for the next five years. Because we're gonna have to figure out, and keep in mind, the 1.7, that's why I asked Chad, The 1.7 million, is that a done deal or not? And the answer was it's not. And we're still looking at other insurance. much higher cost insurance. And so waiting to do the 10-year, you know, waiting for mid-year budget or waiting for us to finish our 10-year projections, there's really no point in that, because we know right now that we're going to have a deficit this year. We're probably going to have a deficit next year. And going forward, we can continue on the same track. So I think it's great. And the other side of it is, yeah, we need to look at, increased revenues. and where we're gonna get aggressively go after and get increased revenues. But all of these things that we've talked about, that we've just talked about increased revenue possibilities, we've talked about these for the past year, those are aspirational in some sense and so is grants. And so what we really need to do right now is look at the bare bones risk that we have with our budget, come up with some hard strategies for the next year Thank you. And so what we really need to do right now is look at the bare bones risk that we have with our budget, come up with some hard strategies for the next year, and then figure out what the bad news is a year out from now. I think, You know, we need to do a lot more work on this, and it's either, you know, a deep dive at the next city council meeting. And that's the only thing on our agenda because we, you know, do that. Or we set a special meeting to talk only about agenda items. So I think, and I absolutely think we need to increase our reserve and we need to earmark all of what we're calling unassigned cash because that sends the wrong message The wrong that seems that seems to indicate that we have a lot of money out there that we can spend on non priority projects. And that is not true. We have a lot of priority infrastructure projects that need to be funded that we're not funding. And part of that is our facilities, part of that is our roads, part of those are sidewalks. So I'm throwing that out there for our council to talk about and maybe talk about future agenda items. But that would be my direction tonight and my input for the staff. |
| 01:16:26.71 | Steven Woodside | All right. Thank you, Vice Mayor. |
| 01:16:30.34 | Janelle Cox | Thank you. I disagree with drastic changes at this time. We don't yet have full information, and I think we have to make informed decisions based on data. I think it's more important that we continue to act methodically and strategically to maximize our fund balance, which has been growing year by year at a healthy pace. I do not believe that we officially refer to it as unassigned. I saw the definitions in the staff report from our last City Council meeting on this issue, and I felt that the Finance Director made important distinctions between reserves and fund balance, but I don't believe he referred to it as unassigned, but I suppose I could be wrong. I am very interested to learn the outcome of the 10-year plan. that our working group has been working on. I was hoping to hear some concrete recommendations at some point later this year. I think planning in the long term is what helps us avoid short-term emergencies. I'm dismayed to hear a member of that group say that its work is no longer relevant for some reason. So, um... I am very interested to hear feedback from department heads. They are boots on the ground. They know exactly what they're spending, what can be postponed, what is emergent. I'm very invested in upgrading PARS performance or replacing PARS with respect to the management of our pension trust. I endorse continuing to pursue revenue generating ideas, especially focusing on impact fees, which can be very lucrative. And I would very much like to continue to explore the concept of a charter city and the property transfer tax benefits that are available through that. I liked the idea of building a grant target into our budget and having staff aggressively pursue grant funding. I don't think that is, you know, shooting at windmills. There is so much grant funding out there, and Council Member Blaustein gave some examples of some, that just became available recently. In the Biden administration, there has just been tons. BRIC funding, IRA, all kinds of funding available for the very types of needs that we have. continuing to be aggressive, in pursuing grant funding, I think is an important strategy. We have annual revenues coming in from Measure L specifically to address infrastructure. We promise to spend those monies on infrastructure and related needs. I think we need to do our facility survey, our infrastructure survey, and then adopt an amortized plan just as we do for streets and sewers now. We don't need to fix everything tomorrow. we need to prioritize what needs to be fixed and then fix things at a reasonable pace within our budget. Once we know what we will need to spend on insurance, we will need to ensure that we retain enough fund balance to cover those needs for the next two to three years, which is the period of time it will take us to earn lower rates through better performance and reduced losses. And as to Councilmember Blaustein's point, I will say that one of the priorities for the working group on insurance is figuring out how to get a risk manager on board quickly. And then parking. You know, that's an easy. We approved last year implementation of the Dixon parking study. And so we didn't announce that as a priority this year, but I think revenue-generating ideas should be a priority for us this year, given this information. And I think that is low-hanging fruit that is easy to realize. And finally, I do agree with a 15 and 10 percent um, reserve policy. Although we as a council have not in recent history adopted a reserve policy, we have adopted a reserve policy on an annualized basis. I know we did this in 2018 when we adopted our budget. Part of our resolution included our reserve policy for that year. And the reserves have served us well. But in addition to earmarking a percentage, we also need to adopt a policy that says how we can spend those monies and how we cannot, what they are eligible to be spent on and what they are not. So those are my preliminary thoughts, and I look forward to hearing more data as city staff continues to compile data for us to make these important decisions. |
| 01:21:39.50 | Ian Sobieski | May I ask the Vice Mayor question? Please go right ahead. Vice Mayor, I want to follow up on your comment about hearing from the department heads who are on the ground. What type of information, because I agree with you, I'd love to hear your thoughts on what type of information we would want them to present, what KPIs we might look at, how that might benefit us. |
| 01:21:40.46 | Steven Woodside | Please go right ahead. |
| 01:21:41.19 | Janelle Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:21:41.29 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:21:41.93 | Janelle Cox | I would say, |
| 01:21:58.96 | Janelle Cox | Again, when I was most highly focused on this was 2018 when I was the mayor, and we had a four or five page report from each department head that was attached to our budget in which they identified, here are our needs, here are our challenges, here's our recommended spending, here's our recommended savings. That was the year that we invested nearly a million dollars in the pension trust. We made a concerted decision to keep our belts tight, maintain level of service, but make sure that we were investing reserves in what we knew were these long-term investments. impending pension obligations. And what's interesting with pension, we could pay it off one year and then owe more the next year. So there's no permanent payoff of pension obligations. And so I think we have to be mindful of that as we figure out our investment and our spending strategies. |
| 01:22:58.07 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. I'll just add, I'll thank you to Director McGowan. Director McGowan actually put together a really helpful, if I had money, this is how I would fix key infrastructure points, especially Gate 5 Road. And then Katie and I took that and went out and looked for funding. And it was really, really helpful. And I think maybe that could be included in what the staff are able to do. But, you know, Jill is right It's there's no guarantee in our track record on getting grants is not Even over 50% despite all the money that's out there. So I'm not sure how to reconcile that |
| 01:23:32.48 | Steven Woodside | Councilmember Hoffman, I see you. Yeah, so I have a- |
| 01:23:34.32 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, so I have a comment on something that the vice mayor said about the 10-year projection. So the reason that the 10-year projection is not something that we should wait on to figure out how we want to attack this ongoing deficit that we know that we're going to have for the next foreseeable future is because our projections, when you use standard assumptions, show that we were going to be back in deficit so it pretty quickly either this year or next year and so you know if we're talking about right now, the strategy right now, today, is it business as usual or is it let's take a look and how do we actually aggressively start attacking what we know is gonna be at least a $2 million deficit when we only have, if we raise the reserve, we're gonna be pretty close to even next year with our deficit. And so now's the time to start thinking about how we reduce our spending in concert with what's our revenues. And with, you know, I mean, I think, I feel strongly that there's no point in waiting. Why would we wait? We know that it's going to be at least $2 million going forward, likely higher. So, and the $2 million that can serve in November. So that's my, I think that we should still do 10 year, um, absolutely do 10 year, but I don't 10 year modeling and 10 year planning, knowing that we're going to have to adjust as we go forward every year. But, um, there, there's no reason to, I can't see a reason why you would have to wait for that or anything else to aggressively start looking at this right now. |
| 01:25:18.39 | Steven Woodside | Are you finished, council member? I am. Council member Lusting. |
| 01:25:19.60 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:25:19.69 | Jill Hoffman | I am. |
| 01:25:19.96 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:25:20.06 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:25:21.64 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, just a couple of points that were brought up by Vice Mayor and Council Member Hoffman, because I find that the reports from department heads are really essential. And actually, when we all were on, not all, you were not back yet. Glad to have you. But when we were on the dais during, immediately after COVID, I think you'll all remember that we were given from each department head as well, scenarios at three different levels. So scenarios for if we didn't reduce spending, if we maintain level service, scenarios if we had to for a little bit in a catastrophic situation, and scenarios for if we didn't reduce spending if we maintain level service scenarios if we had to for a little bit in a catastrophic situation and scenarios for if we're in an extremely catastrophic situation I appreciate and agree with the direction staff is taking on the budget but I think it's always a good idea to look at and have this data as vice mayor said so I think it would be helpful in a good way for us potentially to address some of Councilmember Hoffman's concerns and look at them and also be able to have an idea of what the department heads concerns are. If we could have that same sort of scenario planning that you'd previously prepared from the department heads while we're making these decisions going forward. you |
| 01:26:20.60 | Steven Woodside | Any other comments? That was a good discussion. I guess I'll just summarize and add my own comments. I think that the insurance issue is real. The question is, is it an acute or a chronic issue? We got kicked out of the pool in part because of three severe insults to our track record, a major landslide, |
| 01:26:41.58 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:26:43.88 | Steven Woodside | Basically a victimization by a contractor in one of the parks programs and the homeless crisis. So it could be possible that with the hiring of a risk manager, the adjustment of risk that this is an acute issue. And by acute it could still be a number of years and very expensive, or it could be chronic. This is an unfolding situation that we need to take seriously and engage with as a whole council. The Vice Mayor and I are on a working group to work with staff on a weekly basis. We're going to meet weekly to do a check in on making sure the ball is moving forward and that this isn't sitting to the side. There will be more information that comes and the information could be bad news or good news but that is but but both of those are possible I agree with councilmember Kelman about the notion of selling some of our property I think coincident with that it would be good idea to understand the value of what we owned. So my whole time here I've been asking, I've been describing that in business you would have a balance sheet and your balance sheet would show the value of your assets. Under government accounting, we literally don't have that kind of balance sheet. The assets of the city are either held at zero dollars or at the price that they were purchased at. They're either depreciated to zero or they're held at cost. So a building might literally be worth millions of dollars, but it's hidden to you and me because it doesn't show up anywhere. And so we can, of course, obviously pick a few things we know, and there's no reason to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We could proceed with the sale of some asset just to show that we can and that that it's possible to do that i don't know when the last time the city sold an asset was but we should also commensurate with that uh understand the value of the things that we own i support the idea of a 25 percent uh reserve across both the reserve funds i think there's consensus there on that. We give some credit where credit is due. We are beginning to get a handle under the leadership of the new finance department of our end of city council really of the entire picture. So we are doing for the first time and I know, I guess memory, a comprehensive facilities assessment of all our assists. And that's part of a council member Hoffman's description that I agree with entirely that we have a bunch of unknown liabilities. And I appreciate the city manager's swag at that when he first joined, but the idea of actually doing a professional assessment is to have a good number of what that is. What we're not doing, and I think Council Member Hoffman alluded to it, but we're not yet doing it is a comprehensive infrastructure assessment. We have it for our streets and our sewers, but getting a grip on what other liabilities are in town will help complete that picture. The 10-year model is in the works, but it can't really be perfected until those elements are inserted in it for it to be relevant out to 10 years. We do have a lot of cash. The term, Vice Mayor, that is in the last staff report was fund balance in excess of reserves. So that was the phrase that was used for the $7.7 million of excess fund balance. So that's the accumulation of previous year surpluses. And it's good to level set that last year we had a million dollar surplus that was put into the 115 trust. This year that ends next month is going to be balanced nominally in surplus, but by a small amount. The issue is this insurance and it is a kick in the shins and we have to get a grip on that over the coming meetings. And I support council member Hoffman's suggestion that we may even consider a special meeting devoted to the subject. And I agree with parking as well. I guess I'll foreshadow that I'm trying to put together a Mayor's Blue Ribbon Committee on Business Parking to bring in stakeholders to help staff move some of these things forward with the input of the community. And so as that comes together, that'll be one piece of the puzzle, but our attention to that issue is also important. That is it, and I don't know that we need a motion. That's a direction that you can bring back appropriate action from. Is there any comment here? |
| 01:31:09.39 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. City manager mayor Council and I do want to you know have you indulge me for a minute because I think it's important that this all be said I understand the direction that I've been given today isn't consistent across all of you but there are some common themes that will take in we'll see as implementable I know there's some work that's been going on with the ad hoc committee of Mayor sobieski councilmember Hoffman former mayor withy and Chad has to Work on the tenure model and in that work There are some things that I think are have been mentioned tonight that are important But there are some things that I think I want to highlight as well So just indulge me for a second, you know, we really have a ask that our infrastructure and our funds that are related infrastructure whether it's measure L money whether it's monies that can be used for infrastructure like title lens or our sewer enterprise be factored into this 10-year model in a meaningful way once we get our reports our analysis done you know you've touched on the idea of what to do with the 115 trust in terms of management of it and I didn't hear anyone say use it tonight So as we build the budget going forward that's going to be my assumption as it relates to you know rising insurance costs one of the things that the the committee is doing and has been asked to be done by me is to integrate rising insurance costs into that 10-year model so this is something that's ongoing and in process you You know, the idea of recommending general fund reserve, you did that tonight. I heard you say 25% is a starting point. It could be more, but at least I heard that. So I want to make sure I'm clear on that. you know I I had Chad on standby but last week when he was your last meeting when he was here he presented on our funds the old City Hall fund the parking fund the Martin Luther K funds and again the practice of the city has been to keep those different and away from the general fund so that if there were needs that came about there or debt service didn't be paid there that we would have the money in those funds to do this so that's something that you know I I recommend that we continue. We don't lump all the funds into one general fund you know we keep them separate so we can allocate funds that come from these revenue generating enterprises and not as an enterprise fund to the actual needs of them we have a practice in this city of budgeting our budgets based on the full staffing of the city and the top of the pay range of the city so it's a worst case scenario budget it's not accurate I don't know that we should conclude or continue that I rather look at what we realistically have what our realistic pay ranges are and you know there fact, you know, what I call salary savings built into that. So I would think that would be necessary this year to kind of taking some of the edge of this deficit that we're talking about. I obviously know that, you know, when I got here, there was a pandemic concern. The following year, there was a consultant concern. The following year, there was, you know, homeless cost concern. And then we had a pretty smooth budget, and now we're into an insurance concern. So these things happen. The question is how you manage through them. And, you know, I don't believe that the council sits on its hands or the city finance director and myself sit on our hands. You know, we have to do things, whether's create as vice mayor cox asked you know ideas for revenue generation or efficiencies or as you have asked you know more revenue ideas but also efficiency ideas so i think that that's something that i know that we will do and have to do at this time so we won't just sit on our hands and say you know we've we've got a problem, you know, we'll see what happens next year We're working on it You know the sale of one-time assets Or one time of assets to create one-time revenue like the fire station and how you do that and if you should do that So that's important that you know that group has been asked to take a look at you talked about that tonight Like the old fire station we talked about new impact fees and then the other thing that comes up is how we actually not just a find money, cut bills, become more efficient, but how we manage that money. And currently what we have is a situation where we have a city finance director who is also acting as our city treasurer. And so the question is, you know, and the question I brought to the group was, what's your recommendation on that? Because that's an old model that some cities have. It's pretty rare in California cities to have a city treasurer or an elected city treasurer outside of the city's staff it's usually the finance director who manages all that but if you want that separation as a policy then we probably need to have that conversation as well because it's not just finding money and managing money it's making sure that there are policy guardrails in place so that the public feels like there are safeguards because if the city manager has too much control over the budget or the finance director has too much control over the budget and you're uncomfortable with that I think we need to have that conversation as well so those ten points are things that I've asked the ad hoc committee to take a look at have had some preliminary conversations with the finance director about some of those but I wanted to make sure that the public heard that those are factors in my mind as well finally you know we're going to I guess have a special meeting that's what I'm hearing and so if you tell me we want to have a special meeting you know somebody needs to tell me when is it next week the following week we have not we have two more meetings scheduled before the June 30th adoption deadline so we have a June 4th meeting in the June 18th meeting so are we talking about a June 4th meeting to bring forward the culmination of some of this information or we're talking about a meeting between June 4th and June 18th we're talking about a meeting after June 18th and work through this and have a special meeting if we in fact don't get to some type of agreed upon solution to the budget. |
| 01:37:16.94 | Janelle Cox | May I respectfully suggest that the city manager recommend to us when the special meeting should be based on staff's readiness to address some of the issues that you've raised and that we've raised this evening. If we have it next week, I'm worried that staff won't have the wherewithal to put together the data and the presentations and such as staff is preparing for the next council meeting. So perhaps it would be good for staff to put their heads together and figure out how we can best help move this forward. |
| 01:37:22.38 | Unknown | THE FAMILY. |
| 01:37:51.18 | Chris Zapata | Great, thank you for that Vice Mayor and that's very respectful. I thank you for that. You know, I rarely get to set meetings, special meetings, it's usually the purview of the City Council, but if you're gonna allow me to do that and suggest that we need a little more time, I would concur with that. And so maybe we come back on June the 4th with this kind of information that's been spoken about tonight and in between June 4th and June 18th or after June 18th, we'll have a better read on what needs to happen given the information we provide. |
| 01:38:17.19 | Steven Woodside | Great. |
| 01:38:17.47 | Chris Zapata | I'm not sure. |
| 01:38:17.89 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:38:17.93 | Chris Zapata | Okay. |
| 01:38:18.55 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 01:38:18.89 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:38:18.91 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:38:18.94 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:38:18.96 | Ian Sobieski | Sorry, sorry, thank you. And one thing to add to make your list 11 is the combined request up here that we see the different scenarios from the department heads when we have that special meeting. So we understand like we saw post COVID what it looks like if we make cuts, if we keep the status quo, if we were to add certain things, I think that would be very helpful. |
| 01:38:37.87 | Steven Woodside | I second that. All right, so we will close that item and move on to item 5B, discussion and direction regarding bid process for the Ferry Landside Improvement Project, Tracy Way Improvement Enclosure. |
| 01:38:54.16 | Steven Woodside | Is there a Is the staff member going to speak to this matter? Is it Director McGowan or yourself, City Manager? |
| 01:39:00.32 | Chris Zapata | We're going to have a three-way conversation from the staff side, Mayor and Council, members of the public, if we can. I want to lead us off with, in June, there was a special appeal of the Planning Commission decision approving the design review for the Ferry Landing project. In that meeting, the City Council heard from the local professionals group. They heard from the appell they heard from Cruz concern residents they heard many many testimonies received many many communications and as a result of all of that communication you took an extraordinary step that night rather than rely on city staff to put together minutes you did him in real time on the board and there were components to it that City Council unanimously agreed to and so I want to read those so that I can refresh to the public as well as our team so you authorize the approved local professional groups recommended plan it was presented that night that was one you directed staff to make construction level drawings of phases that can be funded by the grant and that was done given the estimates at the time were more than the grant we were receiving the grant funds we had and so we have now provided new estimates sharpen our pencil and come back so this one is a little bit uncertain at this time because you direct us to obtain professional cost estimates which we did you directed us to identify phases of the plan that can be built within the budget which we're finding those estimates are at 1.59 million 1.8 million and usually originally from SWA and refined by BKF to 1.59 million dollars so the grant funds available are about two million dollars there's a 20% contingency built into this bid package so you know if all things hold out then you know we don't need to phase it you can do the whole plan but what we won't know is the actual project until we get the bids in. You talked about authorizing staff to solicit private and public sources of additional funding to construct the phases that cannot be paid with by the grant such as Raising Tracy Way |
| 01:41:17.01 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:41:28.73 | Chris Zapata | You directed the city manager to execute a service contract with SWA to continue coordination of design work, which we've done. You authorized staff to submit a permit application with all the appropriate agencies that are required, and you asked us to bring back a phasing plan. And that's fuzzy again, too, because the phasing was part of the discussion around the potential of not having enough grant funds to do this so at that point we brought some conversations of the City Council we were directed to come back with a transparent and public bid process which is what is in front of you tonight so the specifics of the bid and what's in that package and in that report were developed by a team of us. And, you know, we believe that that bid package provides the flexibility that is necessary. But in that conversation, there was conversation that involved Tracy Way. At some point in this conversation, we were told by the city attorney, you know, Tracy Way is a process, not part of this bid package. so there has to be a parallel process that would involve the City Council considering abandoning vacating Tracy way separate from the bids but we should still go out and do the bids but do those in parallel and that's what is in the recommended staff report tonight so if you have questions about the particulars of the staff report the legality of the staff report as it relates to the bids Kevin is here as it relates to how we go out to bid our city attorney is online as well so that concludes my presentation there right |
| 01:43:04.87 | Steven Woodside | Bye. bear. |
| 01:43:06.64 | Janelle Cox | Thank you. Thank you, City Manager, and thank you, Director McGowan, for the staff report, which was very thorough and which I carefully reviewed, given my background as a procurement contracting lawyer. City Manager and Director McGowan, one thing in the staff report mentioned that we would have to wait for BCDC permit approval before going out to bid. And I wanted to clarify, as I did with Director McGowan via email, that we actually can go out to bid while still awaiting final BCDC approval of the permit so long as we're prepared. if BCDC makes comments to address those via an addendum to the bid documents or a change order to the bid if necessary. I would hope that we would have some hints from BCDC about what they might require in advance of them actually issuing the permit so that we can adjust our bid documents appropriately. Do I have that right? |
| 01:44:13.31 | Kevin McGowan | I think. |
| 01:44:13.38 | Janelle Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:44:13.43 | Kevin McGowan | you That's correct, Vice Mayor. You've got it right. |
| 01:44:19.44 | Steven Woodside | Anything else? All right. Any other questions? Councilmember Kelman. |
| 01:44:22.97 | Ian Sobieski | Yes, so Director McGowan, I had forwarded you the Yacht Club email, which I'm sure you got and we all got, about safety concerns. And I hope you saw it, because I said, I'm going to ask you about that email. So I'm wondering if you can respond to that and if you've had an opportunity to review that. |
| 01:44:42.49 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, we were planning on making a written response to Miss Bott from the Sausalito Yacht Club. And a lot of the things in that letter are true. As far as the striping in the existing lot one, it doesn't necessarily match the current standards, nor should it. because this parking lot was constructed prior to the current standards for parking lots. And there are a couple other things in here that are good suggestions. One is to update the striping. I think that's appropriate. We'll take a close look at it. I was out there this afternoon and the striping didn't look too terrible. It could use some updating, so I agree with that. There are some questions in the letter dated May 7th from the Watery Design Group. And a lot of these things have been addressed in the past through the Planning Commission, through the, the City Council as well, Why are we considering putting bike parking over on Humboldt The idea is to split the flow between the pedestrians and those boarding the ferry with their bicycles. And the idea is also to improve the congestion in that specific area. And so this was the basic premise from the very beginning in order to split those specific flows. Thank you. and have a less congested area in the plaza itself. There are some more things in here, the letter itself, that will take a little more studying on my behalf. But that's the general consensus, and we've gone through this with the Sausalito Yacht Club in the past and have addressed their comments. They may not have agreed with the way this project has progressed, and we respect their opinions on that specifically. But at this point, the idea is to split the flows for bicyclists as well as pedestrians. |
| 01:46:43.40 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you and follow up question. So I know we've seen different iterations of the local recommended plan. Just for the record as of tonight, how many parking spots are being removed from lot one? |
| 01:46:57.14 | Kevin McGowan | Well, you had to quiz me on that. |
| 01:46:58.22 | Ian Sobieski | Oh, sorry. Sorry. |
| 01:46:58.23 | Kevin McGowan | I'm sorry. Sorry. It's like the big, we talked about parking and revenue. I had to. You know what? If I spout off, I'm probably going to get it wrong. I think it was 39 or 31, something like that. |
| 01:47:08.48 | Ian Sobieski | I'm hearing 31 so sounds like okay and then so a quarter to that I had shared with my colleagues that I was very interested in looking at car parking on Humboldt that Parisi document I referenced earlier from September 19th valued the spots in this area at about $7,500 each right that 20 spots's 150K, we just had a long talk about budget. Did you have the opportunity to potentially look instead of putting the bikes on Humboldt, but instead to round the corner on Spinnaker Drive? Was that ever looked at? |
| 01:47:45.81 | Kevin McGowan | Absolutely. That was looked into quite extensively as well. And I believe that one of the reasons not to go in that direction was there's a couple different things. One has to do with blocking the view. The other one has to do with having enough space for bicyclists down that specific roadway in order to make that happen. In other words, there is enough space in that direction. But the group that was developing the design looked at specifically a more appropriate area would be on Humboldt itself. Why? Because it's in sight of the ferry itself. It's a more direct path for those who are who are accessing the ferry in that direction. |
| 01:48:25.34 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, so maybe you could just myth bust for me. I was under the impression, perhaps incorrect, that Spinnaker Drive was wider than it needed to be under the code. Is that correct? |
| 01:48:36.43 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. That's true, too. Our designer took a close look at that, and there's a bit of a sidewalk, or it's more of an asphalt sidewalk in certain areas, and the road could be narrowed in some way, shape, or form to provide some additional space for bicycles in that area. |
| 01:48:55.50 | Steven Woodside | Any other questions? No other questions, Councilmember? Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 01:49:00.76 | Jill Hoffman | I actually have a question for Officer Mather, who's there in the back, as our lone police officer here. And I note that our police department is responsible for managing the traffic, managing the congestion downtown, and did a tremendous amount of work in the past 10 years about how to approach the safest avenue for bikes to make it to the ferry landing. So thank you for coming, Officer Madden, and thank you for answering my questions. So, What are your safety concerns about moving the bicycles to the proposed location and building a new bicycle parking facility there next to the buses? How do you think that will affect the intersection of people and buses and bikes. |
| 01:49:53.68 | Unknown | Yeah, I think adding another element to that location is going to be difficult. In years past, we had a big issue with the tour buses, just alone the tour buses on their own being there. and having to manage the influx of traffic with pedestrian traffic, vehicle traffic, bike traffic, and then the tour buses coming and going and then the offloading of passengers that come off that bus and go whatever way they want, right? So... In the past, we didn't have anybody there to manage that. The only person we had was a former mayor and city council member. |
| 01:50:28.19 | Walfred Solorzano | Amen. |
| 01:50:28.60 | Unknown | and Herb Weiner would volunteer his time and would be out there all summer for my first five years here. So our concern is what's in place to manage that now that you're gonna add potentially bike parking to that same location. Uh, who's going to manage the crossing of the pedestrians and the coming off of the buses with that bicycle traffic with the vehicle traffic, and then going across Spinnaker towards the ferry landing. that that's the police department's concern. We're not for or against or opposed to anything. We're just trying to understand what's, what that impact is gonna be based on what we've seen in the past. |
| 01:51:08.14 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:51:08.17 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 01:51:08.37 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:51:08.54 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:51:08.56 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:51:09.08 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:51:09.17 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:51:11.81 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, that's Lieutenant Mathers, if I could. |
| 01:51:12.29 | Unknown | That's true. |
| 01:51:15.31 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, he's our newly promoted lieutenant. Lieutenant. |
| 01:51:17.89 | Steven Woodside | Lieutenant. congratulations any other questions councilmember |
| 01:51:25.30 | Steven Woodside | Any other questions? Council Member Blaustein, no? |
| 01:51:29.75 | Melissa Blaustein | I can just a clarifying question. Sorry to do this. And this might be for Director McGowan and a similar line of questions at our last meeting. But I just want to clarify based on the extensive staff report about the bidding process. This is to understand whether or not the project is on budget and it's not possible without bidding every component of it, correct? |
| 01:51:55.30 | Kevin McGowan | I'm not sure I understand the question. |
| 01:51:57.04 | Melissa Blaustein | So if we bid the project per the staff recommendations, we'll have an understanding of whether or not we are within the projected budget as suggested by the two estimates we have now. |
| 01:52:07.37 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, that's the intent. |
| 01:52:09.26 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, so the purposes of pulling this together is just to move forward following the direction we already gave regarding Stacey Way, Tracey Way, and the professional groups assessment |
| 01:52:22.17 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, that's the intent. |
| 01:52:23.94 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, I just wanted to clarify. Thanks. |
| 01:52:26.06 | Kevin McGowan | I wouldn't mind adding a very small detail which probably doesn't really matter but |
| 01:52:28.48 | Melissa Blaustein | Yes, please. |
| 01:52:31.28 | Kevin McGowan | the furniture purchase will be handled internally. In other words, it's cheaper for us to purchase any type of furniture for that area instead of having a contractor do it. So even though it says furniture purchases element, I think it's G, we'll end up purchasing it and possibly installing it ourselves. |
| 01:52:49.91 | Melissa Blaustein | Are you saying you're going to function as the landscape designer for the |
| 01:52:53.66 | Kevin McGowan | I would never propose to be a landscape designer, no. |
| 01:52:54.10 | Melissa Blaustein | never Thank you. |
| 01:52:58.13 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:52:58.25 | Kevin McGowan | Bill Hines can help me with that. |
| 01:53:00.07 | Melissa Blaustein | Great. I'm glad to know that the professional group will continue. You'll help us with the furniture selection, Bill? Sure. Great. |
| 01:53:07.43 | Steven Woodside | All right, thank you. Any other questions? Council Member Kellman? I'm sorry, Kevin, for you sit down. Council Member Kellman has a question, Director McGowan. |
| 01:53:10.07 | Ian Sobieski | I'm sorry, Kevin, before you sit down. That's right, Kelman has a question, Director McGowan. Sorry, we were talking about the BCDC permits. What are the BCDC permits for, and how long might they take, and does that impact the bids that we get, do the bids expire after a certain time? |
| 01:53:24.57 | Kevin McGowan | So we have had several conversations with BCDC and their staff. We've submitted for a permit And we are submitting for permit because we are within 100 feet of the mean high tide level. That's their jurisdictional line. Some of our project extends past that, but some of the work is within it itself. So that's why we need to get a permit from them. They have not let us know if there's anything major with the project. So I'm not anticipating if there's anything that will be out of the ordinary. They may submit certain comments and requirements upon the city. And I'm trying to think of one. Let's just say for the sake of argument, we did not have a bioretention system noted on the plan. They may have required that of us and put it in their conditions of approval. So we would have to change the plan so that we put one in place. We're trying to stay ahead of BCDC. So we have one on the plan already. |
| 01:54:20.60 | Walfred Solorzano | RECOVERY. |
| 01:54:20.66 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:54:20.70 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:54:20.73 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:54:20.85 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:54:21.51 | Kevin McGowan | In conversations with BCDC, they have mentioned that they are trying to get us the permit by July. We will continue to call them every other week to make sure that we can try to get the permits. |
| 01:54:35.56 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Director. If there are no other questions, we'll open this for public comment. City Clerk. |
| 01:54:42.94 | Walfred Solorzano | All right. I'm going to call a couple people. James Gabbert. |
| 01:54:47.71 | Steven Woodside | Mr. Gabbard. |
| 01:54:48.69 | Walfred Solorzano | Mary Faust and Carolyn Revelle. |
| 01:54:54.73 | Jim Gabbert | Good evening, everybody. I am Jim Gabbert. I used to be my stage name on radio and TV after 67 years of James, but I prefer Jim. I am the Chairman Emeritus of the Sausalito Chamber of Commerce and currently Chair of the Government Action Committee. And of course this is something that involves a chamber. And what we did in the meeting we had at SWA back in January, the Chamber came back in and said, we support the concept and we think it's a great thing. However, there are a lot of problems that keep us from coming out and saying we endorse the entire project. We need the bids to see what it's going to cost. There's the issue of 31... parking places in parking lot one and talking to people. They think they have it solved by moving into another lot and everything. That's not completely done yet. There are some issues. But overall, I think it really could end up to be just an extraordinary plan for Sausalito. But there's still a lot to do before we as a Chamber of Commerce could come out and say we really support it. Now, one thing that the government action committee of the chamber came up with, we heard and they promised us that the kiosk would stay. We've heard that twice. Then somebody, somewhere, someplace, one of the officials said, well, when they tear the kiosk down, we at the chamber if the kiosk goes away we're gonna be kind of mad about it and we hope that you know that becomes in because we've been promised the kiosk it's very important for the merchants and all and overall I think there's a lot of work to be done but I think it's very good for Sausalito to get the thing done and done within budgets and everything else thank you Thank you, Mr. Gavart. |
| 01:56:51.43 | Walfred Solorzano | Hi, Mary Faust. followed by Carolina Revelle. |
| 01:56:58.97 | Mary Faust | Hello, I'm Mary Faust, and thank you, City Council, for your time. I want to let you know I'm also on the board of Sausalito-Beautiful, full disclosure, and a park and rec commissioner. I'm up here to say that I'm happy that the Ferry Plaza, the Ferry Landside plant, is to a point to come to a bid, I'd like for it to come to a bid, and also like that bid to include the enclosure of Tracy Way. I think that promenade is very important to our to the flow of the city and I think it can be. Um, designed to be safe. And it will also give all those people that eat ice cream a good place to sit down. Thank you very much. |
| 01:57:43.03 | Carolyn Revell | Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm Carolyn Revell, an 18-year resident and urban planner and Sausalito beautiful board member. I urge you to move forward with the Ferry Landside Improvement Project. Please direct the Public Works Department to pursue the standard base bid recommended in the staff report for the entire project approved on February 6th and initiate the vacation of Tracy Way within 40 days of submission to the Planning Commission. |
| 01:58:04.29 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:58:09.64 | Carolyn Revell | All elements of the plan for the Ferrylandside project work together to improve pedestrian and bicycle circulation, including creating a pedestrian promenade on Tracy Way for strollers and events like art fairs and farmers markets and, yes, ice cream eating. um, Two estimates indicate that the project can be funded by the grant. The project cost is not coming from city coffers competing with other priorities. The deduct alternates allow flexibility if the estimates are off a bit. So by approving the steps to initiate construction in a timely manner after years of planning, this council will be remembered as the one who transformed the heart of our Bayside town into a welcoming, attractive place for residents and visitors alike. Thank you very much. |
| 01:59:00.27 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay, we have Jock Ullman followed by Gail Schell and then Sharna Brockett. |
| 01:59:12.30 | Jacques Ullman | Jacques Alderman. local professional group. We have come. through years of design, we've gone through years of design studies, public outreach, and discussions, compromises, mitigations, addressing budget concerns, investigating ordinance restrictions, and most recently working with council, legal expertise and city staff, crafted bid documents that conform to proper procedure and include alternates that provide ways for the project to proceed without removing any key elements vital to the basic design concept. Please approve the staff recommendations for putting the future the entire project out to bid as approved on January 6th and highly anticipated by an overwhelming number of citizens and please instruct staff to expedite the process for vacating Tracy way so there are no delays in getting the project under construction this project will create a ferry landing plaza free of bicycles we can be proud of and want to spend time in a pedestrian pomade that will encourage folks to venture to businesses north of Anchor Street and to the Saucieto Center for the Arts. It will turn El Portal into a predominantly pedestrian way. The dominance of the automobile in the heart of our downtown will be replaced with a beautiful pedestrian experience. We have all worked long and hard and the time has come to get it done. |
| 02:00:53.24 | Walfred Solorzano | Gail Shaw. |
| 02:00:55.34 | Gail Schell | Hi, I'm Gail Schell. I've lived here for five years. One of the things I've loved best about being in Sausalito is volunteering with other people who care about the city and want to make it better. and more enjoyable for us as well as visitors. And I have been thrilled to work with the group, have been promoting this project, And I was here when you voted to move forward. So I'm very excited the night has come. And I really want you to go ahead and put this project up to bid in its entirety. I know it's... really easy for people to criticize or say no or be concerned, but I I hope that you're hearing the voices from the community, not just here tonight, but in letters and emails you've gotten and in conversations you've had that this is something that's good for a city. And there are so many of us behind you. And we really want you to move forward. Thank you. |
| 02:01:53.89 | Sharna Brockett | Thank you for all your hard work volunteering to help our city thrive. I just wanna, talk about my support for moving forward with the entire design, including bidding out Tracy Way. Um, And I'm super excited to hear that our latest estimates are under budget, so that's great news. So let's get on with it and bid it out and see what the actual numbers are, and then we can make the decisions we need to make if we need to make them, if they are over budget. I do want to address budget because I could see that this is probably going to be part of the discussion since we are worried about money. This is free grant money that we have. So and we all know that we're on the cusp of losing it. This has been seven years in the making. So let's get this going and use that money properly. Um, I also want to say, I know that there's going to be probably discussion around loss of revenue with parking. We do have to take out some parking, we all know that for this plan to happen. But there's also some misinformation out there about the parking revenue loss. It's not like 200,000, and I'll let other people cover that, but it's more like 30,000. It's a much smaller number than it's been circulating out there. The math has been incorrect from what I've seen. And then with that said, the Dixon study, as you mentioned, has tons of opportunities, low-hanging fruit, for us to maximize our revenue and to actually create more parking. A lot of our meters don't even work because we don't have, I guess, enough Wi-Fi or enough of a connection here. So let's fix some of those things, and let's really make sure that we're getting the maximum revenue. And then I also want to say that the way I see it is that if you're talking about increasing revenue, let's look at the jewel of our city. It's our downtown. If we get more people to come downtown because it looks nice, then they will spend more money, they will stay on our hotels in the off season, and we will fill our empty storefronts, and we'll build our tax revenue that way. Thank you. |
| 02:03:58.90 | Walfred Solorzano | Next is Peter Van Meter followed by Muriel Ullman and then Cheryl Puff. |
| 02:04:10.29 | Peter Van Meter | Thank you. I don't need to repeat the benefits of bidding out the entire project and moving expeditiously at the parallel project of. |
| 02:04:10.38 | Unknown | that. |
| 02:04:20.15 | Peter Van Meter | in the opposing Tracy way. The great news from that is that when you do those two things in parallel, We have a great opportunity. to have the whole project They accept it. as a one project. including the Closing of Tracy way because you've taken care of the legal aspects of that And by July 30th, you can move ahead with the entire thing. And it looks very likely that's gonna be within budget. And once you do those two things in parallel, then you're gonna have that happen by the end of July. So please, go ahead. What a great milestone this is, and you'll be taking a terrific vote here tonight. Thank you. |
| 02:04:54.08 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:04:57.24 | Walfred Solorzano | Marielle Ullman. |
| 02:04:59.25 | Muriel Ullman | My name is Muriel Ullman, I'm the wife of one of the local professionals who's been working on this project for years, doing Zooms from the house, which I have overheard. Several a week, it's been going on and it's been done with so much goodwill. and respect for each other. I was amazed. And it's just gonna be a beautiful downtown. I'm a person who walks the downtown Several times a week and I would love this promenade thing and so I'm just hoping this happens soon Sooner the better. Thank you |
| 02:05:45.06 | Cheryl Popp | Hello, City Council. Thank you for all you do. I am Cheryl Popp, a 30-year resident of Sausalito, a downtown business owner, and a member and former board member. uh, Officer at the Sausalito Yacht Club I'm sorry and dismayed I have to be here again. I thought this was all done. As much as I love you all, I'm here again urging you to stay the course with this entire Ferry Landslide project as it was approved by all of you February 6th. Please do not be swayed by a local minority at a private club. Do what's best for the community, especially local businesses. And I think we all agree, this landslide improvement project is going to dramatically enhance the downtown for visitors as well as our residents. Please approve the bidding process as proposed by city staff. It seems to have satisfied everything that you requested. And while I love the Yacht Club, I do disagree with their ongoing, seemingly irrational opposition to this project. Contrary to what has been suggested, I think that Humboldt and Tracy Way, as well as the entrants of the Saucido Yacht Club and their current condition, pose far more life safety issues than the design that you have already approved. And I think our officer mentioned how chaotic and crazy it is down there. This is an opportunity with this improvement plan to make it much better. My bookstore is at Humboldt and Bay, right on the Sausalito Yacht Harbor Marina. I walk past the Yacht Club and down Tracy Way Daily. I'm there seven days a week right there, so I speak with some authority. So please, let's demonstrate some fiscal responsibility. Don't risk losing this incredible grant and the opportunity to enhance our downtown area. It's already been delayed seven years. Let's break ground this fall. Thank you. |
| 02:07:36.54 | Walfred Solorzano | Beth Swerke, followed by Karina Hughes, and then Todas Antanavisic. |
| 02:07:46.07 | Beth Swerke | Hi, I'm Beth Swerke, resident of nine years, ferry commuter and walker of the future promenade daily. Thank you for approving the plan over three months ago. We really appreciate that and are excited to move forward. Loved seeing in the currents that there's a farmer's market to coming to Dunphy Park. Let's do more of that. That's what's going to happen at this new location where we when we break ground and make this a really magical place for all of us. Everyone who comes to South Salado says it reminds them of Europe. Let's follow Europe's lead. Let's continue to do these awesome things with beautiful public promenades. You mentioned during the budget combo idea that you need ideas for revenue generating measures. This is one including off season through hotels and whatnot. you talked earlier this evening about applying for grants to go towards budget. that that's a great idea to get revenue. Well, we have one. We're sitting on it. We're about to lose it. We're looking for new grants. We literally have one for this specific thing. Parking, again, if that's a concern, let's fix the current meters. My understanding, there's a lot of money being left on the table through broken meters, issues with solar, what have you. Those 30 spots aren't the problem. Please pass the whole project tonight including Tracy Way start the administrative process for Trace Your Way at the same time, and please do it now so we can stay on track and break during the fall. Thank you. |
| 02:09:10.21 | Karina Hughes | Hello, good evening. I'm Karina Hughes. I just want to express my enthusiasm and my energy and my excitement for this wonderful plan. It's a big yes for me, and I believe it appears that the money is there. So I think that now is the moment, and it's time to improve the downtown waterfront for generations to come. It'll be safer, better organized, and more enjoyable space for everyone to enjoy our visitors, our residents, and businesses alike. Please move forward with... the bid, go out to bid, do so in accordance with how the staff has recommended in their process and approach. Please bid for the entirety of the plan to transform Tracy Way into a pedestrian promenade. It'll be wonderful for everyone, and the safety will be underscored there as well. And lastly, during the bidding process, please do instruct the city staff to go out and do what they need to do to start the administrative steps required to close Tracy Way. It'll be efficient in terms of time and cost and effective in the long run. So let's meet the moment for making something really, improving something wonderful for everyone in the downtown area of Sausalito. Thank you. |
| 02:10:48.83 | Unknown | Hi everyone, my name is Titus Antonovicis, I'm a resident of Sausalito. I wanted to voice my support for putting the ferry landing project to bid as is with Tracy Way work included. The project overall is a great investment. We use money we've already paid for in federal taxes to make our downtown more appealing to residents and tourists alike. One way to increase revenue that we've been talking about today is investment in things that make our downtown more appealing to spend money in. And this investment comes without a meaningful cost to our operational budget. We should even be able to fill more of our parking capacity to full for more of the year with improvements like this. Maybe creating more net parking revenue than we even lose for those Tracy Way parking spots. I personally feel like the Tracy Way plan connects the whole project to the heart of the town town in a way that will make me proud to show it off to visitors and it helps make the most of this Ferry Landside project as a whole. I so appreciate all the hard work that has gone on to the project so far and thank you everyone. |
| 02:11:53.97 | Jim Gabbert | Thank you. |
| 02:11:55.57 | Walfred Solorzano | We have Kit Hayes, Martha Loftus, and... Michael Rex. |
| 02:12:08.75 | Kit Hayes | Hi there, my name is Kit Hayes. Great to be with you all again tonight. And I'm so happy that the Ferry Landslide Project has continued to move forward and that we're still making so much progress. I want to echo some of the other comments that have been made and encourage you to please get bids out for the whole design, including the Tracy Way pedestrian promenade I really love that idea specifically because one of my favorite things about living in Sausalito is that we have a kind of a heritage of having these beautiful public spaces that are available that everyone can enjoy the beauty of our city. It's one of my favorite things to go around and find new little nooks, and this is sure to be a favorite new little nook for a lot of people. I also think this is a really substantive step we can take alongside our ongoing support of the SCA, of which I'm a board member to be clear. to improve the look and feel of our downtown. Now more than ever, I think we really do need to leverage the free money that's available to enhance the heartbeat of our city. And I'm so excited to see the creativity that erupts from local business owners and the artist community to make good use of that promenade space. I also want to echo some of what's been said about getting moving. on taking the steps that would need to be required to close Tracy way now so that if that's approved and we have all the money we can just go and keep our momentum. So thank you very much for your ongoing attention here. |
| 02:13:34.36 | Kit Hayes | Thank you. |
| 02:13:34.37 | Martha Loftus | Hello, thank you for having us. I'm Martha Loftus, resident of Sausalito, and I'm also a construction project manager. So I echo everything that's been said about how fabulous our community is, but I really want to talk to, I know extremely well what it means to bid level, how to engage vendors, the procurement process, and specifically working with contractors. It's what I do. So I really encourage you to implement the staff's recommendation of bidding this entire process project in its whole. the entire project, the way that they put it together. you can go through if the bids come in, the actual construction bids come in higher than the estimates, there's a way to assess this project and move forward as it is. at including Tracy Way, to have it be a promenade for pedestrians I personally would like to walk my dog there and sit outside and go to a farmer's market in our downtown as opposed to the parking lot at CVS on East Blyesdale and Mill Valley. So I really encourage you to move forward with this project and continue the great work that you've done so far and bid the whole project. Thanks so much. |
| 02:14:50.06 | Michael Rex | Well, I'm Michael Rex, local architect and a member of the local professional group. Uh, I've been volunteering my time and energy for over 30 years to get a plaza downtown. So. we can enjoy our town more rather than the automobiles. um, taking over the downtown. And I ask that you stick to your previous vote, five to zero, to move forward with the entire plan. That included closing trace away vehicles. and I ask you tonight to direct staff to pursue the legal process promptly, commence that process, pursue it quickly. It could be part of the bid package. if we make that a swift process. And you don't need to abandon it as a right-of-way. I think staff's alternative that it could become a mall for pedestrian use and occasional special events like a farmer's market and a pop-up art show. In terms of parking, if we need revenue, I wouldn't just focus on parking. In fact, if downtown was more enjoyable, more of a desirable destination for residents and business and visitors we wouldn't have probably so many empty storefronts And we'd get greater revenue then from a few more parking spaces, particularly in light of where the future is headed with autonomous vehicles and electric bikes, We'll probably need less parking. And if you get going on implementing the low-hanging fruit and the Dixon, A report. That would be smart. If you want to know, you can ask me questions about our study of parking bikes on Humboldt versus Spinnaker. I'm out of time now, but if you ask me a question, I can give you a quick answer to why we went with Humboldt, not Spinnaker. Thank you. |
| 02:16:52.03 | Janelle Cox | Actually, Mr. Rex, I would like to ask you a follow-up question, if that's OK. You heard Lieutenant Mather voice some police department concerns about circulation and bicycle oversight. Have you and the working group considered these concerns of the Sausalito Police Department? And if so, how would you propose to address them? |
| 02:16:56.54 | Walfred Solorzano | Huh. |
| 02:17:17.48 | Michael Rex | Yes, absolutely. We considered those concerns before we even heard from the officer. And I think, We have some refinements that we can make to the bike parking on Humboldt Street. that are not in the current plan, where we can completely separate the bikes from the loading of the buses. It's not in the plan because we want to be sure that We can afford the basics. When we get the bids in, we might show as a change order. a refinement. There is a very definite way to separate the two. and make it much more functional and safer. It might cost a little more. I don't think significant. We can show you those options. We could price them out once we have a builder and negotiate A change order if need be. But it's just not there for the reasons I mentioned, because we want to be sure that the whole package is affordable within budget. |
| 02:18:18.87 | Janelle Cox | Well, why wait and pay a contractor a change order? And I see Jacques behind you, ready to weigh in as well. My thought would be why not include this as an alternate or as something to be addressed now. I certainly don't want to ignore concerns of those charged with protecting public safety. |
| 02:18:43.64 | Michael Rex | We don't want to delay getting this out to bid, and we think the refinements I'm describing are a fairly minor cost. I'm just saying that we've considered it, and I think it could be implemented pretty easily. But I wouldn't want to risk slowing the process down to try to nail all that down |
| 02:18:46.85 | Janelle Cox | And... |
| 02:19:04.43 | Janelle Cox | I agree. I don't want to slow the process either, but this is, tonight was the first I've heard of these circulation concerns. I don't know why we've not been apprised of this sooner or why the police WEREN'T. consulted sooner, but I believe we need to design and build a holistic project. And if you have a simple and cost effective way to address these issues, why not put it to paper? |
| 02:19:30.15 | Michael Rex | It was the consensus of the local professional group to keep it simple because we were afraid the project might be the most important parts of the project might be in jeopardy. That was a decision that was made. I'm just telling you that there is possibilities that we could always refine a design, and it isn't built yet. |
| 02:19:48.64 | Janelle Cox | I'll just say this council member does not consider public safety to be unimportant for a project. I see Mr. Ullman is ready to comment as well. |
| 02:19:55.17 | Michael Rex | I see Mr. Ullman is ready to comment. Thank you. |
| 02:19:58.55 | Janelle Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:20:00.00 | Jacques Ullman | I had a long talk a couple of days ago with the attendant who operates the bicycle parking now on Tracy Way. He was alone, but during the peak periods, there at least one other person. So you've got two city employees who are working the bicycle parking, and I observed that they also help people with the parking meters. They answer questions as to where you can go to a bathroom and so on. So you've got those two people that are going to be right there where the tourist buses are. And they can certainly help to make all that work properly. I think that that's a cost-effective system that you've got right there. |
| 02:20:04.83 | Walfred Solorzano | you |
| 02:20:49.75 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:20:49.76 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:20:49.78 | Walfred Solorzano | It... Okay, we have Kieran Culligan followed by Scott Thornburg. |
| 02:20:52.03 | Steven Woodside | Bucks. |
| 02:20:58.39 | Bill Hines | Is it possible to make a comment on the traffic item? Well, |
| 02:21:01.97 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:21:02.22 | Bill Hines | Thank you. |
| 02:21:02.24 | Steven Woodside | as a public comment matter, but can you just wait your turn? And if someone wants to ask you a question, I mean, you are part of the design team, and I think during our discussion there's also an opportunity for city council members to ask you a question. |
| 02:21:02.47 | Bill Hines | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:21:10.34 | Kieran Culligan | There's also a |
| 02:21:14.91 | Kieran Culligan | All right, I'd like to apologize in advance for talking about parking dollars and cents, but the budget is super important. I've heard in numerous places, including tonight, this math of taking the average revenue per space, multiplying that in terms of an increase in spaces, a decrease in spaces, and that being a resulting financial impact. But let's talk about how the dollars flow, because that's not the way it works. It's quite a different result. Let's take an imaginary parking lot, 100 spaces. We're going to add one space. That space doesn't earn the city any extra money until the parking lot is full. So if there are 50 cars in that parking space, having 100 spaces or 101 spaces makes zero difference in terms of revenue. So it doesn't matter until it fills up. |
| 02:21:20.16 | Walfred Solorzano | I'm sorry. |
| 02:21:57.75 | Kieran Culligan | So when does it fill up and what would we get from that? The Dixon study wasn't super comprehensive, but it actually looked at two weekend days, and it only showed an average occupancy of 50% to 70% on those two days. Wow, that would mean you might not have filled up at all that day. Even with an extra space on that peak day, we get nothing from it. But let's say what we do. Let's say 60 days a year, it fills up for five hours a day, $5 an hour. I'm overestimating on all of these because we know the averages are lower. That's $1,500 per space. So we heard 7,500 is the average. In that overestimated example, it's actually $1,500 per space. We would gain if we added one space. And it's about the same math if we were to remove one space. So we're talking about a tiny, tiny fraction of the kind of illustrative math people have been using elsewhere. The budget impact we've been talking about way, way smaller than we've been getting to. I'll discuss this at depth with anybody because when I'm not doing Zoom security controls, I look at our parking. I'm really fun to hang out with. But yeah, that's all I got tonight. Thank you for looking into this. |
| 02:23:10.66 | Scott Thornburg | It's a hard act to follow. Thank you. I just wanted to mention, you know, from my perspective as a marketer, when I see a lot of the visitors that are coming to our town and I see them taking photos of our city, what I usually see them doing is they walk out to the water and they take a selfie. And what is behind them? It's San Francisco. They're not actually taking photos of the city. They're taking photos of the bay. And I love that we have that to offer them. What I would love even more is if we had a pride of place and we had a place downtown that really showed the best side of this community that I believe we have. And I would love for the ferry landing to be that. We have a great opportunity. It's costing us very little. because it's paid for with a federal grant. And I think this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I know that's been said, but I really encourage you tonight to be brave and to move this community forward and move this project forward in its entirety. Thank you. |
| 02:24:10.06 | Walfred Solorzano | Now we have, on Zoom, we have Steven Woodside. |
| 02:24:20.21 | Steven Woodside | Can you hear me? |
| 02:24:21.67 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah. |
| 02:24:23.08 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. My name is Stephen Woodside. I live in Sausalito. My ancestor's been hanging around Richardson Bay since probably about, 1919. Um, I really want to compliment Director McGowan. and the city staff for submitting a report tonight that I think is very consistent with the council unanimous direction to move forward. I know they've recommended a particular approach to bidding. which I think is viable. There may be an alternative that would also be viable, but the point is move on. This project in its entirety was approved by unanimous council vote in February. And, um, The bid is just the next step. So take it. And please take it promptly because we don't want to risk losing the federal grant. that will help us enhance the access by people visiting Sausalito, but also make the whole area much improved for those of us who walk around that area. separating the bicycles and, the ferry. pedestrians is essentially the heart of this plan so please please move forward thank you |
| 02:25:51.08 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay, next speaker, Alice Merrill. |
| 02:25:58.83 | Alice Merrill | Hello. I, I, all I want to say Part of the plan. was to get some parking from the Sausalito Yacht Club not Sassy Jack Club, sorry, strike that. Harbor. I'm not sure. some parking places from them. And I don't hear anybody talking about those spaces. I think that the parking is important for the people in the town who like to come down town. to go to things. And And if we lose all of those things, parking spots where the or the sidewalk is going to go in. It's a lot. There's a lot of places missing, and I really want you to work on working with the Yacht Harbor Make those spaces available. Please don't leave those out. Thank you. |
| 02:26:55.23 | Walfred Solorzano | All right, Adrian Brinton. |
| 02:27:10.36 | Steven Woodside | Mr. Brinton, can you hear us? If you can, you're muted. |
| 02:27:16.62 | Walfred Solorzano | No, their mic is on. |
| 02:27:21.52 | Steven Woodside | maybe call on Fred and we'll come back to Mr. Brenton. Thank you. |
| 02:27:24.94 | Walfred Solorzano | Sure. All right. Fred? |
| 02:27:31.91 | Fred Moore | Um, hello, I'm Fred Moore and I strongly support you guys approving and continuing moving forward the ferry landing. The current intersection of Tracy way between the intersection of the cars, the pedestrian pass and the bikes is an unsafe situation. Yet there doesn't seem to be a lot of effort to try to change the existing. So I would hope that the existing improvements don't prevent you from moving forward with an improved plan. Change orders. I mean, I'm a real estate lawyer. I worked with developers for 40 years. Change orders are inevitable in any project. And oftentimes that's good. engineering, cost engineering happens, change orders occur. So I hope that you don't move forward with a no vote because you don't think everything is perfect with the plan and that you want to redefine and redefine thinking that you could approve a plan eventually that won't include change orders. That's part of the process and oftentimes a good part of the process. I appreciate your efforts in approving it earlier, unanimously, and I look forward to you voting again tonight to continue moving forward with the bidding process. And thank you again for looking at all the details and being conscientious about making Sausalito better for all the residents and not a small minority. Thank you very much. |
| 02:29:01.50 | Walfred Solorzano | Right, Adrian Brenton again? |
| 02:29:08.78 | Adrian Brinton | Hi, can you hear me now? Yeah. Yes, we can. Okay. Sorry for the earlier technical issue. Sorry. Adrian Brinton, city resident. |
| 02:29:11.73 | Steven Woodside | Okay. your technical issues. |
| 02:29:16.77 | Adrian Brinton | I just wanted to say I support the city staff recommendation for bidding the project. I think they did an excellent job putting that together and I hope you move forward with it. I did want to talk a little bit about the congestion management. It's a hard problem and people obviously have a lot of scars from when it didn't work well in the past. Officer Mather talked about when Herb Wiener was out there helping with congestion management, when we had like 150,000 bikes coming to town every year in 2016. Now bike counts are changing. You know, we have a window now after COVID, the bike counts are way down. E-bikes are coming, they're changing the usage patterns. There's a lot more opportunities with people on e-bikes to do more. They can go further than just get an ice cream and get on the ferry. Um, you know, the bikes might come back, but we have a window right now to get this change in and get it and dial it in and get it right. You know, the Waterside project is coming. That's going to make a lot more room for bike QA. You know, it may take some work. We'll need to work with the police department. We'll need to work with Wayne. We'll need to make sure we're getting the signing right. But we have the big pieces in place. Is it going to be borne perfectly, you know, whole cloth? Probably not. There'll be some adjustments that have to happen as the bike queueing goes in and the changes get made. Change is hard. We can do it. All the big pieces are there. All of the elements are there. We have people to guide people. We can adjust signing. You know, the question, will it be safe? You know, the Parisi analysis shows it's going to be much safer than the current configuration. We're talking about an area of very low speeds, You know, there'll be a lot of people, but people aren't moving fast. They're not running into each other in cars. They're not gonna kill each other. They're gonna be inconvenienced maybe while we work things out, but it is very workable. So, you know, I definitely think that, We just need to move forward on this. Get it in. Everybody's so invested in this to get it right. We're going to get it right and we can do it. Looking forward to that, and thanks very much. |
| 02:31:18.36 | Walfred Solorzano | All right, Charles Melton. |
| 02:31:24.50 | Walfred Solorzano | Oh, no, he's not going to speak. All right. |
| 02:31:30.83 | Walfred Solorzano | Charles, did you want to speak? |
| 02:31:34.37 | Charles Melton | Yes, thank you, Alfred, for unmuting me. My name is Charles, and I'm a solid resident, and I really want to thank the city council for the thoughtful process behind this very landslide improvement plan. As the previous broker said, change is hard. But here we have a tremendous opportunity to really make meaningful change, impactful change, that's really going to improve the quality of life for all residents here of South Salido. I appreciated the vice mayor's comment regarding safety being the utmost priority and of importance. Currently, our current situation downtown is unsafe. And that's really the purpose of this plan. The plan, as we've been given funding from the federal government, our taxpayers that have gone to the federal government that the opportunity to come back to us, what it does is address the safety Currently with the intersection of Tracy Way and Bridgeway and Anchor, There's vehicle traffic, pedestrian traffic, and bicycle traffic all right there. That is why I'm in strong support of repurposing Tracy Way into a promenade. This would eliminate the longest crosswalk in town and actually create much more robust safety measures there in town in that critical intersection. Furthermore, there's been a lot of conversations about parking spaces. We've heard a lot about the finances about it. Let's also talk about the environmental impact. A typical vehicle emits 4.6 metric tons of CO2 per year. 30% of all air pollution comes from vehicles. As we live here in this climate, close to a fragile waterfront, it's really a question of, is vehicles really what we wanna prioritize here? Or is it more active mobility, such as pedestrians and bicycles? This whole plan has been a trade off from the beginning. No plan is perfect. No plan is going to check all the boxes, but what this plan does is it adjust the safety. gets things done under budget, and improves the quality of life for all Sausalitoans. So please move the currently approved plan, including repurposing Tracy Way, into a pedestrian promenade and move the entire bid, as it currently approved by City Council, out to bid. Thank you and appreciate our City Council being a leader of change here in Sausalito. |
| 02:33:33.75 | Walfred Solorzano | Senator Bushmaker? |
| 02:33:46.28 | Sandra Bushmaker | All right. Um, I just want to say that I'm, I'm very concerned about hearing over change orders already. And I just, Hope. that you As the City Council. are fiscally responsible. in this project. And that it does not go one cent over the the grant that was awarded to the city. |
| 02:34:06.57 | Unknown | I'm not sure. |
| 02:34:13.34 | Sandra Bushmaker | In addition, I have read the Dixon report. I find that there are some flawed assumptions in that report. And I don't think we should go to the bank with it. So that's all I have to say at this time. And good luck. I'll be watching you, and I'll be watching the expenses. Thank you. |
| 02:34:35.61 | Walfred Solorzano | All right. Bill Hines. |
| 02:34:44.67 | Bill Hines | I guess I'm using a public comment to respond to the issues about traffic, but I just wanted to remind everybody that in February, when the plan was reviewed, we had David Parisi up here to speak to the safety aspects of the plan. I believe his conclusion was that it's a good plan. He identified the fact that we're widening the walkway along the Yacht Club. That extends all the way over to Humboldt. At the Yacht Club driveway, we've provided a lot more space for maneuvering. We have provided all of the requisite standard striping, crosswalks, signage, both at the Yacht Club driveway and at the Spinnaker Drive intersection. Part of what David Parisi and I both do as professionals is envision a future scenario of one that doesn't exist yet. In this simple scenario on Humboldt, we're talking about expanding the sidewalk much wider than it currently is to provide some more space to avoid some of the congestion that was identified as a potential by Lieutenant Mather. So I do appreciate the observations. I do think that we've done everything that we can, you know, within our professional realm to address these issues. And the result is going to be getting the cluster. I do think that we've done everything that we can, you know, within our professional realm to address these issues. And the result is going to be getting the cluster and congestion of bikes away from our ferry landing. Thank you. |
| 02:36:17.27 | Steven Woodside | Are there any other public comments? Seeing none. All right, we'll close public comment and bring it up for discussion. Just to give some form to the discussion, I'll kick things off with a motion, which is really a version of the City Council, the motion that's in the staff report. So it's literally the words of the staff report I just added in red because I thought it should explicitly highlight the additive and deduct off to alternates from the staff report. So the motion is to direct the public works department to utilize the process specified in section. Two zero one oh three point B eight a of the California public contracts code for the very landslide improvement project. With all project elements included in the base bid except element C Tracy way improvements to be bid as a separate alternate alternate and include the additive and deduct alternates from the staff report. Order the planning commission to complete a report and recommendation on the vacation of Tracy Way within 40 days of submission to the planning commission per government code section 65402. So that's the motion. |
| 02:37:14.94 | Melissa Blaustein | I'll second it. |
| 02:37:16.51 | Steven Woodside | Okay, the motion is seconded and we can now have a discussion on the motion. AND, AND, |
| 02:37:21.39 | Janelle Cox | um so i i was concerned to hear lieutenant mather's comments tonight and um i know that a member of the police department has attended all of our hearings on this ferry landing project um including the february hearing at which david parisi spoke so i would like to direct that um the local professionals group meet and confer with the police department to identify and aligned upon solution to the safety concerns raised by the police department to the extent they've not already been addressed by David Parisi's Thank you. |
| 02:38:04.79 | Carolyn Revell | report. |
| 02:38:07.83 | Janelle Cox | And whatever that solution is, I don't know if it's too, you know, Michael Rex seems to think it's a simple solution. If that's true, I don't know why. It can't be incorporated into the bid documents. If it's not a simple solution, Um, I still think it's important that it be part of the holistic project rather than building something and finding out that it doesn't work from a circulation or public safety perspective. |
| 02:38:40.58 | Steven Woodside | you |
| 02:38:42.66 | Ian Sobieski | Mayor, I have a point of order of question on your motion. |
| 02:38:43.64 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 02:38:44.23 | Janelle Cox | question on your |
| 02:38:44.97 | Walfred Solorzano | motion. |
| 02:38:46.44 | Steven Woodside | I thought it's me, I would do that. So, and this is maybe, |
| 02:38:48.13 | Ian Sobieski | Oh, sorry. So, and this is maybe, maybe Vice Mayor, one of you could respond to this. So there were several public comments stating that we authorized, pardon me, we approved this in a 5-0 vote. And as the city manager articulated in the beginning, what we did was to authorize construction level drawings such that we could get the bid, such that once we knew the pricing, we could review it, and then we would vote on it and approve it. And so my question is whether your motion is intended to be an authorization to proceed with that direction, wherein we receive the necessary information, or whether you feel your motion is intended to be an approval of an item such as Tracy Way. |
| 02:39:41.15 | Steven Woodside | In the motion, the SAP report is that this project is being advertised for bid. Yes. With all the design elements, we have to award the contract to build anything. Correct, after we get the bid. And we have to act on closing Tracy Way. So this is an authorization. This doesn't award the contract, nor does it affirmatively close Tracy Way. It just begins the administrative and legal process to give us that choice. |
| 02:39:47.83 | Ian Sobieski | Yes. |
| 02:39:53.82 | Ian Sobieski | Correct, after we get the bid. So this is an authorization. |
| 02:40:05.38 | Ian Sobieski | To give us that. So not an approval. |
| 02:40:08.17 | Steven Woodside | Of closing Tracy way? Correct. No, it's not. |
| 02:40:09.36 | Ian Sobieski | Correct. No, it's not. Not an approval. No. But an authorization of getting the bid to see how much it would cost so we can discern whether or not we want to approve it. Correct. Okay. |
| 02:40:10.87 | Steven Woodside | No. |
| 02:40:16.99 | Steven Woodside | And it's also the- |
| 02:40:18.00 | Ian Sobieski | Can we get that somehow put into meeting minutes very specifically because it's making me feel circular here. |
| 02:40:21.99 | Janelle Cox | It's making me feel circular here. And also to hear feedback from the Planning Commission regarding the closure of Tracy Way before we make a final decision on the closure or the vacating of Tracy Way. |
| 02:40:24.67 | Ian Sobieski | Bye. |
| 02:40:34.73 | Steven Woodside | So yeah, that's the process is that this is about advertising the project. And we are going to get a contract proposal that's gonna say $1.5 million for such and such, or let's just say hypothetical. We have to act to award that contract. So that is another action which this director McGowan is nodding his head about. And there is a parallel administrative process for closing Tracy way that we have to direct start. But Tracy way doesn't close without us affirmatively voting to close Tracy way at the end of that process. If we start now, then we can make that decision at the same time we award. We may be able to make that decision the same time we award or not the contract. |
| 02:41:22.99 | Ian Sobieski | All right, thank you, Mayor. So we would be authorizing the information, not approving this. Correct. |
| 02:41:27.83 | Steven Woodside | We do not have to award the contract. |
| 02:41:29.83 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, and then I will just share, I have some consternation around the Humboldt. And I would love to sit down with Kieron anytime. And Chad Hess, our planning director, as Chad told me earlier, and he hasn't had extensive time to review, but he says, I think you're in the ballpark with the Dixon number, $6,275 would be the value of each parking spot. So that's what I was basing my evaluation from, was our finance director's information. So I just want to share that with the public as well. So I had shared with colleagues that I think Humboldt is a great place to put more parking for a number of reasons. And then the addition of the public safety concern is just another reason to look at that again. But I'm not sold on that, although I appreciate that the sidewalk would be slightly larger. That is a That is literally, the mayor knows this. I will walk by that area and text him and tell him how dissatisfied I am with those buses and everything that is going on down there, so it's in need of approval. I just don't know that this plan achieves that for me personally. |
| 02:42:42.66 | Steven Woodside | Well, the thing is that we, on February 6th, we approved the plan. We didn't authorize its construction. We approved the design. And we're not designing from the dais, right? I mean, that's- |
| 02:42:58.57 | Ian Sobieski | I don't think that's at minute 350. I think we authorize, not approve of that meeting, which I went back to familiarize myself despite whatever transcription you may have. My ears listen to the video. So this is where we're getting around in circles a little bit, which is fine because it doesn't really matter other than to say this is the opportunity for us to share what our concerns may be. And so I just wanna put on the record that is a concern for me. |
| 02:43:31.38 | Steven Woodside | So the, you know, We are a legislative body, so we approved the thing called a local professional. I mean, I'm not sure process wise how you can be any more transparent and clear than having had the motion on the screen and say. As construction drawings is what we did. If I could, I really want to have the dialogue, but, and I don't mean pedantic, but the first bullet point was the city council hereby authorizes, approves the local professional group plan, which is defined in the staff report with a bunch of details so we can set that aside but i just want to be clear that my view is we approved the plan the real point is that we've received a letter from the grant agency that this grant after seven years more than 10 is on the cusp of being rescinded So there is a case of the perfect being the enemy of the good, and this sounds like, or even the good being the enemy, the very good being the enemy of the merely good. What we can agree on is right now what's down there is bad. We have railings, we have bollards, not bollards, but concrete barriers. It is unsightly, dangerous, unattractive, uneconomic. This improves it. It is progress. And we can't let the grinding down of progress mean that we get stuck. So this was assessed by David Parisi in public here, where we had a chance to engage with him on safety concerns, who engaged with the police department about those safety concerns, and he said it's a safer design. It is an improvement. There is no perfect safety, there's safer. This is an improvement. Can it be improved? Yes. But did anyone design the current configuration down there? No, we have always adapted to circumstances and how you queue bikes, how you queue people, that you solve problems as they come up in practice. We can't keep sitting here trying to anticipate every possibility or we'll never move anywhere. |
| 02:43:47.03 | Ian Sobieski | construction drawings is what we call it. |
| 02:45:40.57 | Janelle Cox | I was just going to suggest we hear from all council members and then perhaps respond. |
| 02:45:45.85 | Steven Woodside | I stopped speaking. Anyone else want to speak? Councilmember Hoffman please. |
| 02:45:51.81 | Jill Hoffman | So yeah, based on some of the comments that we received today and other comments on this dais about what we actually approved or what our action was on February 7th led me to actually watch the video again today. Anybody else do that? Because it was super fun. So the real meat of it, if anybody cares, is the 20-minute conversation that we had amongst the council. And what was clear to me was that, like repeatedly, we said we're approving the concept. It's going to evolve, like every plan we've ever approved in this town. A great example is Dunphy Park. So we approved Dunphy Park, we changed things and had to adapt things as we moved through that process. So, you know, and this is also, and I'm trying to figure out how to make the motion clearer that, You know, we're agreeing to move forward with the general concept of the local architects group. That is true. We did not agree to build this plan. Mayor, you and I had a conversation at the very end of that. that. This plan is the concept, it's a vision, Whether or not we actually build it depends on budget. It depends on operational issues. And to me, I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THAT. as I talked about at the February 6th meeting, I'm not, I'm not, I'm still uncomfortable with, with building an entirely new area specifically for bike parking when we haven't done an actual safety plan on how that will affect our risk, our risk management, are increased. liability issues. when you're intentionally routing people. cueing to get to a ferry landing and you're routing them across at least at least two open roadways one is spinnaker drive and the other one is the yacht club and so my first comment is that i think we need to be very specific and whatever motion we make that we are not committing to build this exact thing. we're gonna see what the bids come back with, and I hope that we're gonna do an actual safety study, because the Parisi study was not a safety study. comments on traffic and load No one talked to the police. And I was ready to talk to, ask Chief Gregory at the February 6th meeting about her view of what the increase in safety issues from moving the current bike corral over to the proposed area. And unfortunately, she wasn't actually in the room. When we got to that point, she was out in the hallway because there were so many people. So I couldn't see her, so I didn't call on her. But I'm happy that Officer Mather here was here today and gave us the benefit of his experience. |
| 02:49:06.38 | Unknown | INSTITUTION. |
| 02:49:08.03 | Jill Hoffman | you know, These things are not divorced from the conversation that we just had at our prior And so decreasing risk. is a huge issue right now. Decreasing risk, not increasing risk, not even keeping risk the same as it is. when you're pushing people parking bikes, they're gonna be riding their bikes and then they're gonna be looking for a place to park In the same area where these huge buses are, where you have pedestrians trying to navigate out between those buses, and then routing. People on the bikes... on sidewalks, sharing sidewalks with people trying to get, you know, across one roadway, down a sidewalk that they're sharing with pedestrians and then across the Yacht Club parking lot and then into the ferry line. So, Yeah, I agree. Like what's down there right now is not, you know, I wouldn't advocate for that, right? I wouldn't say, hey, this is marvelous. I think this is beautiful. It's a lot better than it was. But if you go down there and look at it, there's a reason the configuration You know, there's a reason why it's that configuration. It's a funnel. and it funnels the bikes into a barricaded area where they then, you know, funnel down to a single line. And then they get on the ferry. because that's a safe, and they're separated by bollards from pedestrians. So that's principally the pink area. Right now, that's the bike transiting area onto the ferry. So I'm not advocating that this is the best, but it's the best that we could come up with the current situation that we have, which remains, frankly. Number one. We're increasing risk, I think, by moving it over here. I think that's what I'm seeing. Um, And that's a concern to me. So that's something that I would want to have addressed as we move forward in a more succinct way because risk and reducing risk is a big part of our conversation right now. The other issue is, you know, we're, we are imposing, we are putting, pressing an impact upon one of our lessees, right? We have a business relationship with the Sausalio Yacht Club. So I would hope that we would address them respectfully and not, not, not denigrate their concerns because we also have about eight other lessees in that same area. So we lease land to Casa Madrona, we lease land to Jean Hiller, Hotel Sausalito, Inn Above Tide, Spinnaker, Center for the Arts, Sauccio Yacht Club's on the list, Sauccio Yacht Harbor, in that same area. So if we were pressing impacts on any one of those other businesses in that area, I would hope that we would be respectful to the current concerns of that business as well. And so I think, That is part of the conversation. When you talk about litigation risk and income risk, you know, there are less, we've had a demand letter from the Yacht Club saying, we think this interferes with the quiet enjoyment of our leasehold. That's a serious claim that we need to look at. They've also said, we've also had a report from their, their safety guys that say this is increasing risk and that, you know, the current plan is not up to code. you know i think that we need to look at these things the revenue thing is a simple annual revenue analysis of the spots in parking lot one so we've talked about this in the past our parking guy confirmed it at the last meeting so the annual cost for a parking spot in parking lot one is $7,500. The math on that is that if you lose 31 spots, you're going to lose $230,000 annually in revenue. If you lose 10 spots along Humboldt, I'm happy to talk to whoever and I'm happy to sit down with Chad And I mean, you can review the video from our last meeting when I confirmed that with our parking person. It's not I'm not looking at the number a fungible number, that's an annual number. It takes into account these changes in, the changes in, you know, the changes in the timing, right? Because we do have times when our parking lots are empty. We have times when our parking lots are full. That's an annual number. So I think if somebody wants to engage with our parking experts or our finance expert about that, but that's the information that I have from our staff. So. So these are the concerns with the plan. Principally, I voted for the plan. I wanna move forward with the plan. I've been working on this for seven years, right? I mean, I've worked with Kevin, I've worked with subgroups, I've worked with the mayor on this. I think that we're close. I think we're really close. I think principally we're close. we have to look at Again, back to the conversation we just had. what's our overall budget constraints going into the next year? You're talking about a permanent loss of revenue and a permanent loss of parking spots, right? So they're two independent things. We're talking about a loss of parking lots straight off the top, but then you have the corresponding loss of revenue regardless of some sort of fix that you're going to have. I think, anyway, it's incredibly important to talk about the safety stuff and get that nailed down before we move forward with Section F. You're also talking about increased cost with Section F. So I'm interested in seeing when the bids come back. And let me see if those are my current, that's the end of mine. |
| 02:55:07.98 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. Okay. Thank you. That's it. |
| 02:55:11.57 | Steven Woodside | Vice Mayor. |
| 02:55:15.99 | Janelle Cox | Thank you. I definitely hear the concerns. Some of the concerns are mine. I'm not prepared to delay this project tonight. I'm very mindful of the letter from the Golden Gate Bridge District about the importance of moving swiftly, and that is why I'm asking that we have several parallel paths. So we've already identified one parallel path, and that's the... decision-making regarding the vacating of Tracy Way. That's one parallel path. Another parallel path we've already discussed from this dais is a parking agreement with the Sausalito Yacht Harbor to... address the loss of parking spaces and revenue in lot one i know that is moving forward i'm anxious to see how that transpires i did not realize until tonight that a third parallel path i would like to see us pursue is the safety concerns raised by the sausalito police department So if they don't believe the current plan is adequate, if Michael Rex and the local professionals group have ideas about how to address those circulation and safety concerns, I would like to see those before we vote on approving a final vote. contract with a general contractor to move forward. We have plenty of time to do that. A great thing about addressing these issues in our plans and specifications before we approve those plans and specifications in their final form and before we approve a contract with a general contractor is that if we undertake that properly, we enjoy design immunity legally based on our review and approval of plans and specifications. We as a public agency enjoy design immunity. But I want to make sure that we take the proper steps to ensure that we indeed are satisfied that our plan is a good plan. Um, I'm aware of correspondence from the Sausalito Yacht Club as with any threat of litigation We treat those seriously. Um, I'm not convinced based on other correspondence I've seen that the correspondence we've seen from Yacht Club representatives represents the sentiment of the entire Yacht Club. So I would want to have a better understanding of that. But I do want to say that we take all such correspondence seriously and are addressing that. So those are my thoughts. I believe it's important that we move forward, but I would like to direct that staff address these other issues on a parallel path. |
| 02:58:19.39 | Steven Woodside | So I just amended the motion to incorporate the feedback from Council members Hoffman and Vice Mayor, and I'll come to you, Council Member Vossman, just to add this. I included this phrase, including any addition staff recommends to make Humboldt safer. So that just gives the direction, part of your direction. The other direction, I think we all agree with moving the Yacht Harbor parking agreement forward. Councilmember Blavstein. |
| 02:58:44.67 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you, Mayor Sobieski, and thank you again to the Local Professionals Working Group and to Director McGowan for your hard work on this project over many, many years. I'm happy to see it coming forward. I think it's no surprise that I'm consistently supportive of the project. I just want to remind us from the dais that the objective of this evening is, in fact, to bid the project. So we need need this information to have this discussion so I appreciate the concerns raised and that we're providing direction to staff but we will all have an opportunity to weigh in on the drawings and the biddings and and make a final decision but I think what's most critical is that we do get the bidding out including Tracy way so we know what the cost is so we can deliver on what we have agreed on whether or not it was an authorization or an agreement for moving forward in terms of bidding and we need to make sure we do it in a manner that will not slow the process so it's really critical that we do move forward with the motion including a demand for the Planning Commission to respond to the vacation of Tracy Way in a timely manner so that we can continue to move forward effectively. So those are my thoughts. I appreciate everyone's feedback, and I think there'll be ample opportunity for us to discuss all of those concerns. Safety is critical. The police department's involvement is critical. I think we heard from the professional working group that they're more than willing to engage in those conversations together. So I continue to look forward to seeing this project move ahead and so I'm happy to continue to support the motion. |
| 03:00:20.97 | Steven Woodside | Okay. This is the amended motion. |
| 03:00:26.46 | Melissa Blaustein | Can I second the amended motion too? |
| 03:00:27.94 | Ian Sobieski | clear. |
| 03:00:27.98 | Steven Woodside | THE FAMILY IS |
| 03:00:28.04 | Melissa Blaustein | CLEAR. |
| 03:00:28.36 | Ian Sobieski | I feel that I did not get to fully express myself, so I'm hoping I can finish my thoughts. Yes, thank you very much. So I really just very much want to call out the Vice Mayor and House Mayor Blaustein. I thought you both succinctly described my concerns. And you said it as well, because we're having around this is a project in motion. We want to move it forward as part of the motion, but it's also a place for us to explore better things for our community. And if you're not rilediled up from the budget conversation we had then we should all watch the video again like it's we're worried and I think you can see it up here we're trying to be cautious and smart about how we make decisions and we spend our time so I would just make one change to your amendment I think we may want to say the police department as opposed to staff weighing in on the public safety concerns. And then Vice Mayor, you very succinctly articulated three parallel paths. I want to make sure you feel that this redrafted motion addresses all three of those. |
| 03:00:31.13 | Melissa Blaustein | Please. Thank you. |
| 03:01:24.32 | Janelle Cox | Thank you, the motion does not address the Sausalito Yacht Harbor parking, but I do know that that is proceeding. already on a parallel path. And so the most important thing for me was the addition to the motion of any additions staff, including the police department, recommend to make Humboldt safer. |
| 03:01:45.52 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, great. So these are fine with that. And I will just, again, for the record to state that, should that not be the option, The option I continue to like is more parking on Humboldt. That's just for the record in case we ever wanna watch the video again. |
| 03:01:59.49 | Janelle Cox | I am with you. I would love to see that. But again, it's not up to us to design from the dais. I look forward to seeing what solution the local working group comes up with in collaboration with safety officials. |
| 03:02:11.54 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, fair enough. Thank you. |
| 03:02:13.68 | Janelle Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:02:13.72 | Jill Hoffman | So can I add, can I, I think I just, just to make it clear, because I don't want, you know, when I watched the report, I watched the video and then I looked at our motion, there was some ambiguity between the two. And so I think that caused some maybe confusion up here at the dais and also in the community. So I think what I'm trying to get to is, what I'm trying to say is that I think one thing that I would like to is including any staff, let's see. including the police department, recommends to make Humboldt safer, particularly with regard to bike parking, because that's the main concern with that. I mean, the buses are also a concern, and you can put that in there too. Sure. Yeah, with regard to bicycle parking. And so, because I don't want it to come back later and say you approved whatever, right? And so also what language do we want to put in there? I'm just throwing it out here for everybody to talk about. What do we, that this is, we are design, we are approving the concept and directing to move forward with construction plans Understanding that this plan may and likely will adapt as we move forward. I'm just thinking out loud here because I didn't see your proposed. But it was something I thought about today. And there needs to be something in here that calls out, I think. that we will likely, because we're moving on these parallel paths, we've asked for additional things will adjust exactly like they did with Dumpy Park and all the other parks. |
| 03:04:05.66 | Janelle Cox | So the beginning line says that we're directing Public Works to utilize the process specified in Section 201.03.8. That's a bidding process. So what we're directing Public Works Department to do is to proceed with the bidding process. So by saying the process specified in the public contract code, that is only a bidding process. And that bidding process requires a subsequent award before a project can move forward. |
| 03:04:34.08 | Jill Hoffman | So how do we make it clear in here that the bidding process and the construction of this is contingent upon, okay, I see it. |
| 03:04:42.86 | Ian Sobieski | maybe with all project elements included in the conceptual plan constituting the base bid. Is that what you're trying to get at? Thank you. |
| 03:04:50.96 | Jill Hoffman | I'm trying to get at something that says it's clear from this motion. So that we don't have the same ambiguity going forward. |
| 03:04:52.27 | Ian Sobieski | So that it's |
| 03:04:57.07 | Steven Woodside | This motion is not ambiguous, as the vice mayor said, is an authorization to bid the project. But normally we wouldn't even be doing this, as the city manager said. Typically staff, after direction, bids the project. And they have experts, Director McGowan and BKF and our contract with SWA and the volunteers of the architects. There are a lot of cooks in the kitchen to look at this. So what I'm hearing is the vice mayor is giving and all of us are giving additional direction to staff to see if there are any, to work with the police department to see if there are any changes that need to be made to the bid documents. So that when they come back, they might be better. But at the end of the day, we have to award the contract and if we're not satisfied with the price or the details that come back to us, toward the contract. |
| 03:05:50.02 | Jill Hoffman | Right, and we also have concerns about the parking, and so, which the Vice Mayor talked about, and that's why we're talking to, you know, so my point being that, you know, I don't want to digress into, you know, arguments about what we approved tonight, |
| 03:05:59.00 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:06:09.97 | Jill Hoffman | Because I think it's pretty clear that we're saying, we've got these other, we're requesting additional information and the project may adjust based on what we get back, the additional information as well as the price. |
| 03:06:24.34 | Steven Woodside | We're gonna get back at the end of this process in July, is a set of responses to our bid, which will be construction response about how much it costs with additive and deductive prices. And over that period of time, as the vice mayor said, there's that period of time when there might be tweaks to what the details, the finishing details to address some of the concerns of the police department. So we're going to have a chance to review all this and decide whether or not we're satisfied to award the contract. And if we're not, then we won't award the contract. |
| 03:07:00.08 | Jill Hoffman | And if we're not, And also the parking issues. Loss of parking spaces and the loss of revenue. |
| 03:07:04.69 | Steven Woodside | It'll work. We'll have to factor that into our personal decisions about whether to vote for or against the award of contract, yes. |
| 03:07:12.60 | Jill Hoffman | So I just want that to be clear in this motion because I don't want to have to argue about this later. So I think what we've said is subject to, okay, hold on, listen, I didn't get to see this beforehand. It's really helpful if you, maybe if we have proposed motions, if we circulate them beforehand. |
| 03:07:20.32 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:07:30.20 | Steven Woodside | Normally we don't even have them on writing. Well, I'm happy. |
| 03:07:32.70 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:07:32.72 | Janelle Cox | Well, I'm happy that one in the staff report, he's edited the one that was in the staff report, so. Well, okay. |
| 03:07:33.90 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 03:07:37.72 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, this is the first page of the staff report and the red is what I've added. So I could, the red is all the stuff we've added here today, Council Member Hoffman, and otherwise it's the black that was in the staff report. |
| 03:07:42.59 | Janelle Cox | Okay. |
| 03:07:45.04 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Okay, so apparently we're not gonna be able to get to it. So, but the five of us here understand that we're asking for additional information and that these plans may adjust based on the additional information. We've all five agree to that. |
| 03:08:04.90 | Janelle Cox | I agree with that. And with that, Mr. Mayor, I'm going to ask that you call a question. |
| 03:08:05.91 | Steven Woodside | We're just... |
| 03:08:10.87 | Steven Woodside | Okay, I'm gonna call the question on this motion. All in favor say aye. |
| 03:08:16.29 | Janelle Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:08:16.31 | Jill Hoffman | Aye. And I agree. And did somebody not agree with that? |
| 03:08:20.10 | Steven Woodside | I'm not sure what you're saying. |
| 03:08:22.75 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 03:08:23.02 | Janelle Cox | Let me say it again. Council member Kelman said she agreed. I said I agreed. You agree. Okay. So we've all said aye. Yeah. And we've all said aye. |
| 03:08:30.80 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, the next time we'll see this is the contract responses to our bids. |
| 03:08:33.74 | Janelle Cox | No, no, no. Keep going. Well, Mr. Mayor, I believe that's up to the agenda setting committee. If we think it's appropriate to see this again on consent before then, then we'll see it on consent again before then. Very well. Thank you. |
| 03:08:46.23 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Very well. All right, the motion carries 5-0. Congratulations. Thanks for everyone for being here tonight. 10.30, do we want to take the last item? I've heard one person say no. I've heard one person say yes. Thank you. |
| 03:09:05.13 | Chris Zapata | Mayor, if I... Thank you. Mayor, I can make it three minutes. I need one thing from you and one thing really, okay? |
| 03:09:14.09 | Steven Woodside | Okay. Take it over. That's okay. |
| 03:09:17.83 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 03:09:17.97 | Steven Woodside | Right ahead, city manager. |
| 03:09:19.07 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 03:09:19.10 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:09:19.18 | Chris Zapata | So can you read the item, item three? |
| 03:09:27.98 | Steven Woodside | I do. Thank you. |
| 03:09:30.83 | Janelle Cox | It's city property portfolio update and approval to issue a request for proposals for property management services. |
| 03:09:37.10 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 03:09:37.14 | Janelle Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:09:37.68 | Chris Zapata | Okay, again, you know, a couple of months ago in February, you committed a six-month process to look at our property portfolio. We had some conversations on February the 20th. I committed to updates at 60-day intervals. This is the first one. You see some information in the staff report that is part and process of what you ask. I wanted to make sure that was clear. the one thing I want to point out is the map of the leases that the city has in the property the city has there are over a hundred properties in the staff report as an attachment but what's really important for you to give me direction on tonight is this request for proposals where I would work with the city attorney to issue and request for proposals for property management of city properties to see what we get back. It may be that you don't wanna do it, but I think we need to go out and kick that tire real good because the hybrid that we've been using, effective sometimes ineffective others, I wanna see what is out there in the private sector to manage our properties as you one time did in Sausalito. So if anything comes out of this conversation, it's authorizing the city manager to work with the city attorney to issue an RFP for property management services. |
| 03:10:54.83 | Steven Woodside | Right. Are there any questions for the city manager? |
| 03:10:58.27 | Jill Hoffman | No, I'm ready to make the motion. |
| 03:10:59.54 | Steven Woodside | THE FAMILY IS A LITTLE BIT. WE'RE GOING TO BE ABLE TO One step at a time, people are getting rambunctious. So are there any questions for the city manager? All right, we'll now take public comment on this item. City clerk. |
| 03:11:16.99 | Melissa Blaustein | Stephen Woodside has his Henrys. |
| 03:11:23.11 | Peter Van Meter | My public comment related to what I saw in the staff report about trying to get brokers opinion of value. on this city property. And is that gonna be part of the discussion here or is it only gonna be talking about this RFP for property management? |
| 03:11:43.58 | Peter Van Meter | Mr. Mayor. |
| 03:11:44.88 | Jill Hoffman | I'm going to finish for the city manager. |
| 03:11:46.66 | Steven Woodside | It's just questions, I mean, it's just public comment, I'm afraid, Mr. Van Der. |
| 03:11:47.03 | Peter Van Meter | I'll meet a little. |
| 03:11:51.38 | Peter Van Meter | Okay, I'll proceed with a public comment about broker opinion of value. That was my business for almost 25 years, commercial real estate broker. I know in a broker opinion of value is something that you get what you pay for, which basically you're looking for something that's free. And usually that broker is doing this with the expectation of getting some business from the person asking that question. That's not going to be the situation with the city. Number two. Many of your sites, and the one that's been mentioned mostly tonight, is the Spencer Fire Station. The way you're going to get a proper opinion of value on that property is relative to a development pro forma. for that site. It's a significant piece of property. As you know, it goes all the way over to Monty Mars. Now, a number of years ago, I, as a broker making an opinion of value, in fact did look at that site and saw that then it had a potential value of about $5 million. because it could be developed into multiple housing sites. with a driveway similar to Lower Glen. to access those properties. And part of that would be having the city pre-approve development potential for that site. So you'd be offering it for sale with the ability of a developer to in fact build five or more homes on that property. So you'd make that investment, and you'd get far, far more return for it. So what I'm trying to say is you've got many sites, some of them |
| 03:13:26.18 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:13:26.20 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes, sir. Hey, Steven Woodside. |
| 03:13:34.64 | Steven Woodside | Can you hear me? Yeah. |
| 03:13:35.95 | Steven Woodside | Yes, we can. Go ahead. |
| 03:13:37.41 | Steven Woodside | Okay, thank you. I really appreciate Peter's comments. Those are germane, but my approach, comes from a different direction, which is charitable nonprofits. I know we've had some discussion in the past about some of the properties that the city owns are in fact leased or otherwise made available to charitable nonprofits. And I think that's a great thing. I would be very happy to and work with others in the community to prepare something of a policy document or a draft ordinance that would take into account the community benefit of charitable nonprofits as well as the market value of the property. I think it's a delicate balance. that the city will be asked to THEIR TOOLS. try to balance. when you consider whether some of the the properties that you own. are made available to entities that are In fact, delivering a community benefit by law. So I'm happy to weigh in on this and try to help prepare something of a draft to submit to you as you go forward. I think the key here is transparency and I want to compliment the council members, all of you, for bringing this up to take a close look at how you lease. public. property. There's quite a variety of lessees, some of whom are well capable of generating revenue to the city directly. others perhaps indirectly, and yet others provide a community benefit. I think all of those need to be looked at. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:15:32.59 | Steven Woodside | No further public comment. I will post comment. Any discussion? |
| 03:15:32.61 | Steven Woodside | No, first of all. |
| 03:15:32.97 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 03:15:33.08 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:15:33.18 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 03:15:33.30 | Ian Sobieski | comment? |
| 03:15:37.81 | Ian Sobieski | I'll make the motion. |
| 03:15:39.95 | Janelle Cox | I would just like to say, I would like to see us, so I think the motion is separate from the path forward recommended by Steven Woodside, but I would like to see us pursue |
| 03:15:40.04 | Ian Sobieski | I would just say. |
| 03:15:50.41 | Janelle Cox | that path. And it's something we've discussed earlier, which is the development of a policy for how we lease our properties and the factors that we consider in ascertaining what the lease amount should be. But I think that's something that we should do in concert, perhaps, with a property manager if we're able to hire one. So I just wanted to make that comment. |
| 03:16:12.50 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you for making that comment, Vice Mayor. I could not agree more. And I don't know if we even need to wait for the property manager to be hired to do that. I think it's a council policy. How do we want to deal with our leases with nonprofits? And it shouldn't necessarily be tied to the value of a property, because I could go, I think, either way. |
| 03:16:31.89 | Janelle Cox | Right. I mean, I'd like to take Mr. Woodside up on his offer to help develop such a policy as a former county council. He's certainly well versed in those areas. And I would want to confer with the city manager about staff because I know our staff are stretched to the max at the moment. So we might need to harness some volunteer labor to help get an initial draft prepared. |
| 03:17:00.06 | Steven Woodside | I agree with that. |
| 03:17:03.64 | Janelle Cox | All right, did you want to make a move? |
| 03:17:04.75 | Steven Woodside | I think Council Member Hoffman wanted to make the motion. |
| 03:17:08.33 | Janelle Cox | Yeah. |
| 03:17:08.98 | Unknown | Thank you. I made a motion that authorized the city staff or property management and approved an approach to utilize broker opinions of value and fire stations for additional directions on areas including the staff. |
| 03:17:31.85 | Janelle Cox | May I just say, but I do want to be respectful of what Mr. Van Meter raised, that we have to be judicious in the manner in which we solicit broker values of property. |
| 03:17:46.65 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, my maybe friendly addition there, Councilor Mayor Hoffman would be, it's a little late, so I'm trying to think of the words. It's to imagine different development scenarios in their assessment of the value of the property. So be somewhat specific on that. |
| 03:18:07.96 | Jill Hoffman | draw my motion to make another one. I'm sorry, I was reading at the end of the staff report. Okay, here's my motion. Here's a recommend motion approve release a request for proposals for property management services and provide direction to the staff on information information related to city properties. Okay. |
| 03:18:23.30 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 03:18:23.57 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. I'd like to second that much. |
| 03:18:26.66 | Steven Woodside | Okay, call the question, all in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Moving on to the next section, this is the opportunity for members of the public to communicate on items not on the agenda. City clerk, will you please take public comment from anyone who wishes to comment on something not on the agenda? |
| 03:18:26.68 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:18:29.65 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. |
| 03:18:29.97 | Melissa Blaustein | Hi. |
| 03:18:30.59 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:18:30.62 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:18:47.06 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:18:47.08 | Walfred Solorzano | Is there any? Seeing none. |
| 03:18:49.00 | Steven Woodside | All right, we'll close public comment, move on to city manager reports and other council business. City manager, do you have anything to add? |
| 03:18:53.78 | Ian Sobieski | Pardon me, Mayor, Councilmember Committee reports. |
| 03:18:56.90 | Steven Woodside | I might think it's, you're right. Is that okay? Are your eyes that good? I'm eager to share just really quickly. All right, council member committee reports first. |
| 03:19:01.37 | Ian Sobieski | I'm eager to share just really quickly. All right. Okay, so we talked about the budget. $250,000, guys, I think we're gonna get it for Gate 5 stuff. I wanna thank the mayor for joining the Sea Level Rise walkabout and familiarizing himself with what the consultants are going to do. I'm also taking my newfound EDAC role very seriously. So I've been in touch, as I think you might have, Councilman Bustin, with Green Yachts, having seen their $24 million dollar grant I've been talking to Graham who owns that about doing a green boating center here in Sausalito and they have a number of areas that they are very interested in so we'll be having a call with them and then also I think you may know this but um subsequent to Council's disinterest in the machine shop and we let that go I continued to have conversations with the Army Corps who asked me to help them come up with a concept around a living lab. And Congressman Huffman has now written a letter of support to GSA that the Army Corps should acquire that property. And I talked to his office and they thought that a letter of support from the city of Sausalito would be helpful. And I think that's a prudent idea because I think that we should continue to have a place in the history of that building and maybe even a space somehow for some purpose. And so that is happening. And then I'll just say, I guess it's not my report out, but we'll talk about it tomorrow. We have a housing committee meeting, and I am hoping that we will talk about this new information about the school merging and consolidating in the city of Sausalito. The reason that is relevant for our committee vice mayor is that they will need more money to fund that, and their original proposal had 30 to 40 units of teacher housing on that parcel, and so I hope that we will continue to pursue that. Thank you. |
| 03:20:53.89 | Steven Woodside | Anyone else? Committee report, city manager, would you like to? |
| 03:20:58.03 | Chris Zapata | anything just real quick for the council and public awareness I want to thank Catherine Nikitas our HR manager for working with city staff to bring an internship program to the city of Sausalito so if you come to City Hall and you look at the window and you meet Betty she's one of our new interns who's working to help us help with Noelle's leave of absence we've also hired an intern to work with the city manager to help me with some of these little projects that are growing in responsibility. And so she will be with us through August. And so that's a start to try to build a pipeline of people interested in Sausalito so that we can, you know, fill vacancies and hire quality people. But I really thank Kathy for that. Just want you to know, so when you see new faces, Betty and Libby are their names and they're great. So thank you. |
| 03:21:47.08 | Steven Woodside | Any future agenda items for my colleagues? Councilmember Bostein. |
| 03:21:50.49 | Melissa Blaustein | I have a few. I've mentioned this before, but I'm going to keep mentioning it. I really want us to have some tabletops on disaster preparedness. I know we did a drill last week. That's great, but that's not enough. We need to have additional conversation about all of the potential scenarios. And I'd love to have Mike McKinley come talk us through the booklet that he provided for all of us, for members of the public to that. And there was a neighborhood group and an event at the Spinnakeraker which the vice mayor and Councilmember Kellman participated in around fire safety on the north side of town and in speaking with Tom and others from that HOA they are applying for a grant in partnership with Southern Marin Fire to do additional work and I would love for them to come before the council and talk about some of their efforts and also have us agendize a letter of support for their grants from from the council as a whole and from the city officially. given the really horrifying and upsetting hate speech that we heard this evening and especially given that it's Jewish Heritage Month, I would expect or at least hope that we would have some sort of proclamation around hate speech and that we're not a community that stands for this type of conversation as a whole and some sort of discussion around a code of conduct for how we might deal with that because I was rather dismayed and impacted and sort of surprised that that there was no immediate feedback from the dais with regard to the magnitude and disgust of some of the comments that we heard. So just wanted to make sure that we, as a council, stand against that type of language. |
| 03:23:18.23 | Janelle Cox | I endorse that. I would also like to see us, I don't know if we need to put this on a future agenda item, but I heard tonight that we have not authorized, you know, a platform that allows us to prevent that type of hate speech or mute that type of hate speech. So I'd like to see us work with Marin IT and with the city clerk or whoever else we need to work with to upgrade our Zoom platform or our webinar platform or adopt a better platform so that we are able to manage the public comments that we hear because I do not want to dispense with allowing our residents to participate virtually, but I do want to do it in a more responsible way. I also would like to see us hear from EDAC regarding their revenue generating opportunities and their request that we identify what we'd like them to prioritize. |
| 03:24:17.20 | Ian Sobieski | May I, sorry, Council Member Hoffman, before you go on. It is at the end of the meeting, but I do think it is worth just saying to the record, thank you for saying that, Council Member Vlasin. It is very startling as a Jewish member of council to hear that and not quite sure where to go with that. So I do wanna thank my colleagues for your professionalism on that. And I think just overall, including the LGBTQ month, I really just wanna thank you all for that. We are an inclusive community here in Sausalito. Anything we can continue to do to articulate that and be very outspoken I think is very important and shows a lot of character for all of us. So thank you and thank you again Councilman for bringing it up. |
| 03:24:54.53 | Jill Hoffman | Agree, I agree on that. Okay, so I have a- Sure, yes. |
| 03:24:57.25 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:24:58.28 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I'm aware that there's an effort in the community to bring forward an initiative on the of a blue economy innovation zone. And so I think it is, I believe it's going to be in the form of an, sorry, an initiative. And I want to draw that to the attention of the agenda setting committee. We haven't, I don't think, We haven't gotten the proposal yet, but I think it's coming. And if we want to add it to the ballot this fall, we're going to be on a short timeline. So I just want to highlight that, and it's coming, and... you know. |
| 03:25:38.39 | Ian Sobieski | Do I have to say out loud how much I love that? Yeah. Thank you. |
| 03:25:41.16 | Janelle Cox | I love that. I mean, that sounds great. I think it will be important that we hear from the city attorney about how much time he needs to review any initiative in order for us to, I'm assuming they're asking us to vote on it or something? |
| 03:25:43.28 | Karina Hughes | Great. |
| 03:25:48.95 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:25:56.93 | Jill Hoffman | They want, yeah, agendize it and then move forward. However it is, they want to frame it when we get it. |
| 03:25:57.51 | Janelle Cox | on the back. |
| 03:26:03.58 | Janelle Cox | Thank you. Okay, so I'd want to just include that as part of agenda setting. Yeah. |
| 03:26:07.25 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, agreed. |
| 03:26:07.58 | Janelle Cox | Thank you. I agree. |
| 03:26:08.33 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:26:08.41 | Steven Woodside | Completely agenda items anything else to councilmember Hoppe |
| 03:26:09.96 | Janelle Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:26:12.83 | Steven Woodside | Anything else for anyone? Okay, public comment please on items, city manager report and future agenda items. Any public comment? Seeing none. We'll close public comment and that will be the end of our meeting. Good night, have a good evening. |
| 03:26:19.18 | Walfred Solorzano | See you then. |