| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:25:34.41 | Steven Woodside | It's great to see you here in the chambers and online. Sorry for the delay. There was a technical problem that we have now resolved for Zoom attendance. We are reconvening from closed session. There are no announcements from closed session. We'll begin our meeting today with a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. |
| 00:25:55.25 | Chris Zapata | of the United States of America, that the computer product for which it stands one may be under honor of the individual of liberty for your citizens, |
| 00:26:09.78 | Steven Woodside | Thank you very much. We'll begin with a special presentation from Brian Vitale, our community services manager, about the 4th of July. I already, |
| 00:26:21.99 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:26:22.01 | Unknown | already on. It's great. Thank you. |
| 00:26:23.33 | Steven Woodside | Welcome. |
| 00:26:23.70 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council, City Manager and staff and members of the public. Thank you for the opportunity to for giving me the opportunity to be here with you tonight. It's always a delight to stand here with you and share some positive moments of a successful event. Thank you to all who helped, gave insight and supported this annual event. As 4th of July is our largest event in the city. It was all hands on deck for police, fire, and the parks and rec department throughout the day. The pre-event support and coordination from our parks, public works, police, and fire, finance, communications, and HR departments is crucial in helping facilitate a successful day of events. The support and help from our volunteers in public service, the VIPs, closing our streets for the parade and posting over 200 no-parking signs is such a help to our department, along with the pre-event help closing the streets, standing guard at the parade to help make sure that the streets are closed is only possible with their support. Thank you to our parade judges for making the toughest decisions of the day and crowning winners of each parade category. And of course, to our recreation department, we're a small but mighty force. We collaborate with business and restaurants, partner with nonprofits, and always put in the effort to bring the best to Sausalito. It certainly takes a village, and we appreciate the work our city team has done day in and day out. Next slide, please. With three events in one day, residents and their visitors had the opportunity to join for part of the fun or enjoy its entirety in Sausalito and the tradition that goes along with it. Event goers got eight hours of jam-packed fun throughout the day. Next slide. We'll start with the parade. About 3,000 plus onlookers stood by and cheered for our 34 floats, classic cars, and marching groups. From a Ford Model T to a personal flying craft, we saw history and technology meet. With tractors pulling boats, bands jamming in the back of pickup trucks and dancing groups that got you grooving, parade attendees, young and old, got to witness a unique blend of how we do it in Sausalito. We paid homage to those that came before us and celebrated the ones who are bringing us into the future. Next slide, please. Next was our picnic. We had 2000 plus people come out. to kick back, relax, and enjoy the beautiful afternoon. We had Johnny Gunn and The Wanted in the gazebo playing rock and roll, the Rotary Club serving burgers and hot dogs, Galilee Harbor serving fish and chips, the Lions Club serving beverages, and Kona Ice cooling everyone down with their shaved ice. Pivotal Aeronautics sponsored the event and gave everyone a glimpse into the future of flight or driving during their multiple launches throughout the day. The crowds gathered around to test out their flight simulators, watch innovation, and maybe put a down payment on one of their latest crafts. Small price tag. Along with the new activities comes fan favorites and traditions. And Pivotal wasn't the only objects taking flight during the picnic. Over 60 egg-cited teams. Yeah, don't worry, I'll get there. Competed for an egg toss for an eggstravaganza of high-flying entertainment. The tug-of-war also brought out people's competitive nature. Newtown beat Oldtown. Smitty's beat No Name. And the kids took down the cops in a best of three showdown. No officers were injured during this portion of the event. And we already discussed Ropeburn not being eligible for short term disability. Next slide, please. Our fireworks drew in 1,500 concert goers, which quickly turned into 3,500 plus people all over the park, down the waterfront to the Spinnaker, throughout the parking lot and beyond. Elena Keating and the R&B All-Stars brought their best and got the crowd off their feet for two and a half hours of rhythm and blues. Big Jim's Barbecue had a line all night long, and the fireworks started promptly at 9.15. The night was capped off by perfect weather, no clouds, cool air, and bombs bursting in the air. The 16-minute fireworks show wasn't the only highlight of the evening, as a wedding proposal stole the band's intermission with a story of relationship that started six years prior at a Friday night jazz and blues concert series. six years ago. Next slide. So we're gonna do a little rundown of the numbers here. Our daily attendance for the entirety of the day was about 10,000 people. The city was bustling throughout the whole day with many red flag warnings and other cities canceling their fireworks and festivities. Sausalito certainly reaped the benefits. The total cost of the day was approximately $53,500. And our projected revenue is about $51,500. This includes the $22,827 in parking revenue. We have about 700 total parking spots in town, which include meters and lots, which means that every spot turned over two times or more. This does not include the resident pass cards for the Muni lots, so it's likely that 2,000 plus cars were parked downtown throughout the whole day. With a gap of $2,000 in revenue, the return on involvement was $0.20 per attendee or $0.28 per resident. We're excited to continue this tradition for years to come and close that gap of $2,000. We love providing free events for our community and look forward to continuing to add value to our city year after year. Next slide, please. want to thank each and every one of you for coming out, supporting us, and doing your part to make this event happen year in and year out. So thank you, and my department thanks you. I'm happy to answer any questions that you have or go more in depth on our breakdown from our budget or any of the other revenues that we had. So thank you. |
| 00:32:06.03 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Thank you very much, Brian. Are there any questions? my colleagues. |
| 00:32:14.36 | Councilmember Kellman | I just want to say, Mayor, thank you, Brian. I know you work very hard, and you're literally there all day long, and I can hear you even when I go home for a brief nap. I can still hear you in Dunphy Park calling out the tug of war and all the other games and fun, so thank you. I know it's really hard, and you've really stepped up on Parks and Rec, and it's noticed, so I appreciate it. |
| 00:32:34.71 | Unknown | Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Hear, hear. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:32:39.98 | Chris Zapata | Brian, before you leave, can you tell us who the Grand Marshal was, please? |
| 00:32:43.51 | Unknown | Yes, it was Jim Gabbert. He was our grand marshal. He's been a resident of Sausalito for over 30 years. He helped get our fireworks happening this particular year. He's been grand marshal of the Lighted Boat Parade and has been a fixture of our community for decades. He plays in our bocce leagues and you always see him over at events. So it was a big... fluffy dog. So if you see a big fluffy dog around Chipper, you'll see Jim. though. It was great. Thank you. |
| 00:33:14.93 | Unknown | Thank you so much, Brian. It was really great work. It was a lot of fun. |
| 00:33:18.94 | Unknown | Thanks. Looking forward to more events to come in the summer and in the fall. |
| 00:33:24.90 | Steven Woodside | Awesome. Okay, thank you very much. Our next presentation will be from Mr. McKinley. on a community emergency response. |
| 00:33:42.79 | Mike McKinley | Slide, please. |
| 00:33:48.09 | Chris Zapata | you |
| 00:33:48.10 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 00:33:50.18 | Mike McKinley | Good evening, Mayor, City Council members and City Manager and public. My name is Mike McKinley. I'm the emergency service coordinator for the Saucyut Police Department. I'm pleased to describe the Sausalito Police Department's emergency services organization and functions supporting the city of Sausalito for all hazard events. My first, may I let, let me first introduce you to the phases of emergencies, if I could have that slide. |
| 00:34:20.47 | Mike McKinley | Next slide. |
| 00:34:25.95 | Mike McKinley | Thank you. |
| 00:34:30.05 | Mike McKinley | So there's four phases of emergencies, mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. The mitigation plans are the key to breaking the cycle of disaster damage and reconstruction. Examples are revised and new building codes and hardening of critical infrastructure. The preparedness phase includes response plans, SOPs, drills, exercises, community preparedness, and understanding threats and hazards. The response phase is the capabilities necessary to save lives, protect property and the environment, and meet basic human needs after an incident has occurred. the recovery phase. Are the capabilities necessary to help a community affected by an incident to recover effectively? The Saucena Police Department's priorities are the response phase and the recovery phase. Next slide, please. |
| 00:35:24.37 | Mike McKinley | Emergencies versus disasters. The emergencies are small scale localized instances which will resolve quickly by using local resources. Examples of emergencies would be a medical emergency, A single alarm, room and content, structural fire, an auto accident, or a water rescue. Disaster is a large scale and crosses geographic, political, and academic boundaries. Examples, Loma Prieta earthquake, the Columbine shooting, in Hurricane Katrina. |
| 00:35:58.95 | Mike McKinley | Next slide, please. |
| 00:36:02.98 | Mike McKinley | SIMS, the Standardized Emergency Management System, So this is the cornerstone of California's emergency response system and fundamental for the response phase of emergency management. The system unifies all the elements of the California emergency management community into a single, integrated system and standardizes key elements. Sausalito adheres to the Sims governance. The SIMS components include the Incident Command System. multi-agency coordination. mutual aid, and the operational area concept. |
| 00:36:37.46 | Unknown | you're not. |
| 00:36:42.98 | Mike McKinley | Slide, please. |
| 00:36:47.50 | Mike McKinley | So Marin County is the operational area for Sausalito. And that is a proponent of the Office of Emergency Management, which is now a division or unit of the Marin County Fire Department. So the OEM is a direct support element supporting the SOSLU during emergencies or disasters. We will turn right to our operational area the County Office of Emergency Services for support. The emergency services director is Stephen Torrance. He's been there about a year now, and he's doing a fantastic job. a lot of outreach to all the jurisdictions in Marin. Again, they're considered the operational area, so they coordinate all the emergency operation activities in the county. Again, each county in the state of California is its own operational area for disasters. They develop written guidelines for local jurisdictions to follow. For instance, tsunami playbooks or debris management standard operating procedures are developed by the OEM, and we use those documents. They prepare countywide EOC training. Of note, tomorrow is the monthly OEM meeting and training session. The subject is mass violence and victim assistance. Slide, please. |
| 00:38:20.20 | Mike McKinley | The OEM The Office of Emergency Management also manages the Alert Marin and the emergency alert systems, including Nixle and the County Emergency Portal, which is a website portal. Last but not least, they maintain the county emergency operations center. |
| 00:38:40.31 | Mike McKinley | Next slide, please. Sausalito's prepared preparation. I believe one of the most important subject of this presentation is the level of Sausalito Police Department's involvement and preparations for response phase operations and networking and developing working relationships with other local and state federal agencies. Some of the preparations are listed in your packet and they are listed here. If you have any questions about any of these, please don't hesitate. |
| 00:39:16.12 | Mike McKinley | I'll end by stating the police department continues to prepare for emergencies to help ensure the safety of members of our community. Have any questions? |
| 00:39:25.87 | Steven Woodside | Thank you very much. Thank you. Any questions here from the dais or from my colleagues online? Councilmember Blastig. |
| 00:39:26.82 | Mike McKinley | Thank you. |
| 00:39:32.05 | Unknown | First of all, thank you. Very nice to see you, Mr. McKinley. I really appreciate the great work that you and Sausalito PDA are doing on emergency management, which some of us don't get to see at the forefront. So I appreciate you being here and making the time. If you could just, you know, talk to us a little bit about, since we're members of the city council and we're not in necessarily these coordination meetings and obviously not participating in the tabletops. Could you educate us about what we would be doing in, for example, if the EOC was activated because of a disaster response? What kind of role would you expect us to play in informing our constituents and how could we be helpful to you in the event of a disaster? |
| 00:40:12.60 | Mike McKinley | Absolutely, you have a critical part. Even though it doesn't show up in the ICS system, it is actually part of the the operational components. The city manager would be your conduit, really, to get messages out to your constituents. Policy issues certainly would probably be run past you to ensure that we're cognizant of what is going to be going on, what our response functions are going to be. Yeah. Certainly, we can't depend on everything to go exactly the way we want it. So a heads up to the community about being strong and being prepared is critical. But the conduit would certainly be through the emergency manager of the city. And certainly, there would be briefings for you. But it would just depend on the incident. Does that answer your question? Yeah. Yeah, you're certainly involved. I know there's sort of a gap in the elected officials' participation, but yeah, definitely. |
| 00:41:23.57 | Councilmember Kellman | Thank you very much, Mike. Two governance questions. So I think I saw the slide. Is the OEM a part of Southern Marin Fire is my first question. |
| 00:41:35.07 | Mike McKinley | Thank you. No, the OEM is part of Marin County Fire. |
| 00:41:39.34 | Councilmember Kellman | Marine County Fire. |
| 00:41:39.88 | Mike McKinley | It was. as of about six months ago. part of the Sheriff's Office. And the sheriff has given that responsibility up and it's gone over to the Marine County Fire. |
| 00:41:51.49 | Councilmember Kellman | Okay. And my second question is, how does an entity like this at the county level interact with Cal OES at the state level? |
| 00:41:58.61 | Mike McKinley | Great question. So this is the operational area concept at work. If there's an incident, Let's say we have the catastrophic earthquake and Sausalito needs X amount of resources. WE WOULD GO TO OEM. our operational area. They would look at the resources that they could provide us. If they couldn't provide us anything, they would push it up to Cal OES regional EOC. Information would always be going up to them in a status report. So Cal OES would have all that information. They would be ready to pull the trigger on providing mutual aid down through the OA to Sausalito or other entities. So that's all part of the SIMS system. And Cal OES would be talking to FEMA if we had to go that far. So that's sort of the chain of command in the emergency management system. And it's embedded in SIMS. |
| 00:42:57.84 | Councilmember Kellman | you had a great dense slide not to create work, but at some point I'd be very interested to see that laid out graphically so we understand the chain of command and who's responsible for what. So maybe we can talk offline about that. |
| 00:43:09.48 | Mike McKinley | Absolutely. Yeah, that's that's definitely easy to do. |
| 00:43:12.37 | Councilmember Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:43:13.14 | Mike McKinley | you |
| 00:43:13.16 | Councilmember Kellman | you |
| 00:43:13.18 | Mike McKinley | Yes. I'll be followed by... There's still a question from the Vice Mayor Cox. Oh, I'm sorry. |
| 00:43:20.01 | Councilmember Kellman | Thank you. |
| 00:43:20.05 | Vice Mayor Cox | HOPE. Thank you. |
| 00:43:22.71 | Mike McKinley | Thank you. |
| 00:43:22.85 | Vice Mayor Cox | Thank you, Mayor. And thank you |
| 00:43:23.42 | Fred Moore | Thank you. |
| 00:43:26.97 | Vice Mayor Cox | um, Mike. Mike. McKinley. Thank you, Mr. McKinley. Um, Mike, I wanted to also talk about other opportunities that the city council members have to participate. Of course, you have various neighborhood Um, disaster preparedness meetings throughout the year that we can participate in. And it used to be that you had an annual disaster preparedness drill where we could come downtown to the fire station and participate and observe the manner in which you would drill you respond to various potential emergencies. I don't know whether those still take place in Sausalito or elsewhere now that your organization has changed somewhat. Could you comment on that? |
| 00:44:20.24 | Mike McKinley | Yes. The police department's not really doing that kind of outreach. The Southern Marin Fire District's neighborhood response group coordinators have done a wonderful job and have sort of taken that slice over. So evacuation drills, awareness of alert Marin and other alerting systems are presented by that neighborhood response group and Southern Marin Fire. So they're really the proponent for that kind of outreach right now. And they do a great job. And we are, you know, tied to their hip, but they're the ones that are really doing the groundwork. |
| 00:45:04.49 | Vice Mayor Cox | And then I also just wanted to thank the Sausalito Police Department and Southern Wind Fire. and the Marin County for their participation with our sister city. efforts, for example, in response to the disaster in Vigna Del Mar, Argentina. You've been invaluable assistance to them. |
| 00:45:27.89 | Mike McKinley | Thank you. |
| 00:45:27.91 | Vice Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:45:28.09 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:45:28.11 | Vice Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:45:28.23 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:45:31.82 | Steven Woodside | I think you're now gonna introduce Mr. Clark, is that right? |
| 00:45:34.17 | Unknown | Yep. |
| 00:45:34.47 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:45:34.51 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:45:34.62 | Unknown | Go ahead, Andy. |
| 00:45:35.69 | Unknown | One more question. Just on slide seven, which is this great slide where you list all of the Amazing emergency management work going on across Marin. And I'm sorry I didn't mention Southern Marin Fire. You guys are doing great work as well. In addition to, hello. |
| 00:45:48.93 | Unknown | Thank you. They are. |
| 00:45:50.05 | Unknown | You're doing a lot. You're doing great. And we appreciate it. But I see on here that you also noted that you have... regional weekly briefings with briefings with the Nick rick. And I don't know that most people are familiar with what that is. Could you just give it a quick overview, just given our current political environment and some of the ongoing threats we're dealing with, what the Nick rick is and what it does? |
| 00:45:58.86 | Unknown | I do. |
| 00:46:09.62 | Mike McKinley | Yes. So the NICORIC is a Northern California Regional Intelligence Center. It's a task force. It's made up of various law enforcement agencies in the task force, federal agencies as well, FBI, Department of Homeland Security, |
| 00:46:29.59 | Mike McKinley | the sheriff's office. So pretty much all the entities fire. And they, they're the task forces duties are to act as a fusion center. So they put together threat briefings. They, they get, um, Information from various jurisdictions through terrorism liaison officers. Saucedo have several terrorism liaison officers that work directly with NICRIC. And Syria's Issues are pushed up for investigation by that task force. And that task force is sort of a brain trust. There are so many different entities that cross pollinate through it that you know, we will get information back if in fact it's a viable threat in our area. |
| 00:47:21.44 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:47:22.03 | Mike McKinley | Yeah. Yes. Thank you. |
| 00:47:24.41 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:47:24.60 | Mike McKinley | Thank you. Thanks. I want to introduce Tom Clark. He's representing the Marina Vista. Homeowner Association. Thank you very much. Thank you. |
| 00:47:34.34 | Thomas Clark | Thank you, Mike. I know. All right. Yeah. Yeah, I'm Thomas Clark. |
| 00:47:41.73 | Steven Woodside | Can you be sure to speak into the microphone, Mr. Clark? Thank you. |
| 00:47:42.94 | Thomas Clark | microphone. Okay. I'm Thomas Clark. I am the president of the Marina Vista HOA. And we have been very active for the last couple of years since the passage of the FIRE HAZARD. Safety zone. law that requires us to fire harden our properties in our buildings. When this came about, we were just beginning to take hold of our board and understand what the processes were. And it wasn't before a couple of weeks of looking at all this that we realized, RCC and R's. in our, bylaws. are out of date by about 50 years. And that this is going to have a tremendous impact on us. So we started to create a Hazard Mitigation service plan for our community. you know, This is for the specifics of fire suppression. RHOA doesn't have an asset it owns. We have no buildings. We don't have tennis courts. We don't have swimming pools. All the things that so many people Condo associations have. No, we have. Real estate. properties. separate properties that we maintain as open space. You drive down, it looks nice driving down Nevada when we take care of that. and in other places around our community we take care of. So our first real exposure to the depth of our Our issues came about when we had our own HOA properties assessed by Southern Marine Fire. That was an eye-opener. We did a walk through. with Bridget. And we, she walked us through our board and told us what to look for, what the problems were. And then we did follow up walking, walk through with. Madison who had a different take and a different position in the organization. and she helped us even further. So the support we have gotten in developing a plan has been terrific. So can you show this video? Because this is telltale. This is our website. And this is our This is RHOA. And you can see how beautiful it is. People like living there. We have great views of Richardson Bay. We have It's nice and green. It's just, great sidewalks. It's a real walking community. People know each other. We say hi. A lot of them have dogs. They like to know that. but you can see their views, you can see... how nice it is, and it goes all the way down to almost the end of Nevada Street, all of Almost the end of Lincoln. all of Marina Marina Avenue there, circle? And we have 166 properties. In the HOA. So. Moving on. |
| 00:51:25.86 | Thomas Clark | When was our first call to action? Our first call to action was nobody knew how life was going to change. in our membership. So our first call of action was Education. We started doing A CAMPAIGN. Our. Renda Vista HOA, fire. mitigation, campaign. And in this, we got educated talking to our fire marshals who have been extremely helpful here. I can't tell you how much health they have created. And we learned how to work together. in ways that are unique. Which brings me to this point here. RHOA is really located in what we call Nevada Valley. It's its own region, its own problems. And if you could turn this line on, that shows the maps. It can explain the valley pretty well. Um, Our valley is considered very high. in high fire danger. No, the slide pictures, it's in our slides there. It's in our slide three, I think in our slides. |
| 00:52:56.09 | Thomas Clark | Anyway. To talk about this, we realized that our neighbors and our neighbors to our HOA also had to be a part of this. We have the same fire problem. So We Right there. So if you look at where the stars are, that's kind of like the center of our HOA. And you can see how it's a bowl shape and it wraps around in almost all the properties down Lincoln down And around and the and he came. The majority of those houses belong to RHOA, including Kendall Court and Arena Circle. So. Um, And that's the majority of the upper part of the Nevada Valley. And we border against some other properties. We have Buchanan, And we have a lower Lincoln and we have, um, Williams Court. And we've been outreaching to these individuals, too, to join us in submitting for FHIR grants. |
| 00:54:08.42 | Thomas Clark | What we've learned working with in the Southern Marine Fire District. is there's slight gap when we call local. local to us. is the property owner. local to the city is something else. local to Southern Marine or something else. But it's the fire, it's the property owner that's most affected And, about the rules and regulations And The FH as S Z regulations. We have to fire hard on their properties. What does that mean? We had to educate. We put out flyers, we knocked on doors, we talked to people, talked to people, and talked to people and found out, interestingly enough, The majority of our homeowners agreed we need to do something about it. Not everyone. but I would say 80%. Yes. We never took a vote on that. But a lot did. And that culminated in our educational program we put together at the Spinnaker. that many attended. We had over 100 people there. And it wasn't us telling them, we brought the experts. I thank the Southern Marine Fire District for showing their force and really speaking to the issues. We also had Somebody from the insurance company, we had Joan Cox talk to about what the city was doing, And we had also Damon Conley speak about what the state was doing. So. Those are the experts we were learning from. This isn't our made-up world. This is our. future realities. And we are now adjusting our HOA bylaws. and CCNRs so that we can govern our own system around us. Because being a part of an HOA, we have authorities. We have coordinated authority over a lot of properties. So putting that in alignment with the needs works well. The other thing that happens working with the Southern Marine Fire District is we can be their outreach. So we are going to our neighboring neighbors outside our district. We are passing out those same flyers. We are going door to door and talking to them. and they can join us individually as property owners in our submission for our FHIR grants. So what we are doing is putting together the individual homeowners and property owners. in, common package. with a common look at What? are the grants available to us that we can we should be looking at. Here's the, you know, Cal Office of, as we talked about here, Emergency Services. They have grants that we can apply to. There are the largest grants that I see is from Cal Fire. There's a lot of grants there. So we are going through that like a checklist. This one works, this one works, this one works for us, for our region. And so we almost have like this fire region In Nevada Valley, that's perfect. for setting up a fire. Um, response mitigation response plan. for our Good. And that's what we're doing. And we're putting them together, attaching the proper which grants work for which for me and there's a lot of different Grand areas, I'm going to go through them for you. to give you a sample of what we're talking about. |
| 00:58:16.80 | Thomas Clark | Hazardous fuel reduction. is what the word is, the code word for the grants we're going for from CAL FIRE. I'm just going to do CAL FIRE. So there's vegetation clearance check. We need that. Creation of a maintenance and fuel brakes. Check. We need that. Removal of ladder fuels to reduce the risk of crown fires. Well, we have eucalyptus trees and large forests. Check that one. And selective tree removal we've already been doing. and modifying the vegetation adjacent to public egress. Now here's one. that not many people realize. We not only have sidewalks people walk on that we have to protect fire hardened five feet from the sidewalks, but we have roads and we have stairs. We have four stairways in our that were put in by the federal government during the marineship time. They don't appear on any maps in the city. because of the fact that they were done before The map. um, the subdivision map |
| 00:59:32.86 | Thomas Clark | laws were put into effect by the state of California and 1924. or our Our PUD was established in 1966. So they wouldn't appear there. So they're invisible. But there they are. And there are some ones that we really have to take care of because those are emergency exits. And right now, and Melissa walked through one with us. She knows what it looked like. A fire would engulf those stairs in a minute. So that's one of our high priorities this year. is to really start working on those, those, uh, Walk weeks. Um, Those are so important. And if you're coming in and you're locked into a fire problem on And you need to get out of Thank you. Marina. Avenue. That's the only way. Same with the Rana Circle or Kindle Corps. That's the only way. So, These are things that we were unaware of. Two years ago. So, What we would like from the city, if you don't, if I may ask, is we're putting together a letter of your support. to be put as a part of the packages that are going out for our grants. And we don't have one right here for you now. We're still having to work through that through our legal and want to have it looked at by the Southern Marine Fire District. So we get it right. And we have some other institutions that want to help support us in this effort around So we want them all to join in, as well as the county and other state officials that we are working on. so that we're there. We believe from what we have heard that we're very likely to qualify. We have enough properties, we're large enough, and our zone is extreme fire danger. |
| 01:01:50.81 | Thomas Clark | So that's what we've been doing. All right. |
| 01:01:53.44 | Steven Woodside | Thank you very much. Are there questions for... you |
| 01:01:55.50 | Thomas Clark | you |
| 01:01:55.53 | Steven Woodside | Mr. Clark, from anyone. |
| 01:01:57.37 | Councilmember Kellman | I'll just comment. Thank you, Tom. I attended the event, the Spinner Curve was excellent, really well thought out. And I thought Damon and the Vice Mayor had really great comments. You mentioned the insurance industry. Have you been under the impression, I don't want to say threatened, but feel that there are certain things that are happening where you may lose your insurance or have homeowners had trouble getting insurance in the H-Y? |
| 01:02:23.43 | Thomas Clark | Yes, that's a growing concern amongst our community. And it and there seems to be. The organization that's really plugged into that to bridge to the local homeowner is Firewise. FIREWISE has been very much working with the insurance companies and keeping track of that. For example, if you're a member of Firewise, our house, For example, gets a 2% discount on insurance from State Farm. So there's some slight incentives that way, but More importantly, you're beginning to see the outline of what future insurance is going to look like. because everything's still up in the air. But... If we take a step back, We're being penalized. because we're in a level five fire zone, the worst. Okay. If we can lower our fire zonings, We should be able to loan our insurance. or get the insurance. If we don't do anything, I don't even think we should be entitled to insurance, really. I mean, because the status quo is not going to solve the problem. So that's kind of where I'm going with all this. |
| 01:03:43.80 | Steven Woodside | Okay, the vice mayor has a question. |
| 01:03:47.43 | Vice Mayor Cox | Thank you, Mayor. Tom, you mentioned that you would be seeking the city's support once you had put together a letter and had gotten sign-off from Dr. Susan M. Southern Marin Fire and others, is it possible for you to transmit your proposed letter to the mayor and the city manager once it's prepared so that we can perhaps consider that as a consent item to throw in our support for your efforts? No problem, we can do that. Sounds great. Thank you for all of your work in this arena. |
| 01:04:19.76 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:04:19.85 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:04:23.34 | Steven Woodside | Johnson, remember, blessed. |
| 01:04:24.74 | Unknown | Thank you, Tom, very much. And I had the opportunity to walk the Marina Vista sites with you. And indeed, the stairways are frightening. But I was really struck by how engaged your HOA is and how much work you've all done and how much everyone is participating. And I know we have some folks from our fire here. And we know we really need more NRG teams in Sausalito, which is the neighborhood response groups. So I'm wondering if you might be interested in perhaps encouraging other Sausalito residents by hosting some sort of training around what you've done that we might be able to use to recruit some other NRGs on other parts of town. |
| 01:05:03.29 | Thomas Clark | Well, we've had discussion about that with individuals, and we think that, and I think the Southern Wind Fire District, we've talked about it, is to really duplicate with what we had done at Texas. the event at the Spinnaker, only we can expand to more of emergency response and things of that nature because they can bring some fire trucks and other things maybe, or some really cool stuff you could bring. Let's just applaud You know? |
| 01:05:34.61 | Unknown | Chief Hillary, are you gonna bring me fire? |
| 01:05:35.60 | Thomas Clark | And make it much more interesting than, than, you know, just, uh, old guys talking. |
| 01:05:42.03 | Unknown | Great. Thank you so much. |
| 01:05:43.52 | Thomas Clark | But we would like to see if we could do that at MLK. And the basketball, if they could put a date on, let's say in October, |
| 01:05:55.23 | Thomas Clark | Just an ask. |
| 01:05:57.61 | Steven Woodside | Thank you very much, Mr. Clark. Appreciate it. City Clerk, let's take public comment, please, on the 4th of July recap and the community emergency readiness update, please. |
| 01:06:10.11 | Walfred Solorzano | If any members of the public would like to speak on this item, please. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:06:16.56 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:06:16.59 | Walfred Solorzano | I don't see any speakers. Does anybody want to speak? |
| 01:06:18.77 | Steven Woodside | Nobody online. Okay. All right. We'll close public comment on that. |
| 01:06:20.59 | Walfred Solorzano | And. |
| 01:06:24.08 | Walfred Solorzano | I'm sorry. We do have one. All right. |
| 01:06:25.28 | Steven Woodside | All right, go right ahead. |
| 01:06:33.41 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:06:36.00 | Steven Woodside | Can you hear me? Go ahead, Mr. Woodside. |
| 01:06:39.02 | Steven Woodside | Hi, I'm Stephen Woodside. I used to live actually on Lincoln, and I live at the far south end of town, and I can tell you that what Mr. Clark has discussed certainly is applicable I think throughout our city And we need to take it very, very, very seriously and look for, not only grants but other mechanisms whereby we may to harden our our forests from and provide for defensible space for our city. I used to own a home in Santa Rosa that completely burned down in 2017, along with 600 homes. Other homes. I take this very seriously. We know about the town of Paradise and other communities that have suffered greatly because of extreme, uh, climate conditions that have created conditions that threaten not only are individual neighborhoods, but the entire city. So, I just want to compliment everyone for the hard work already done on this and to keep paying attention. Thank you. |
| 01:07:41.15 | Walfred Solorzano | I see no other comments. |
| 01:07:42.32 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. All right, we'll close public comment. Move on to mayor's announcements and appointments. Following up on the direction from the last city council meeting to reestablish the Brown Act Finance Committee. I'm announcing that it's reestablished. I'll appoint myself as mayor and vice mayor Cox to that committee. That's the only announcement and appointment I have. Moving on to action minutes of previous meetings. So there's an adoption of the minutes of the June 18th meeting. Is there any public comment on that item? Oh, go ahead, Vice Mayor. |
| 01:08:15.56 | Vice Mayor Cox | Yes, Mayor, I wanted to point out a correction for item 5C. Um, the last portion of it um, The beginning item demonstrates that Councilmember Hoffman recused herself from this item But then it. under the motion, it says that Councilmember Kelman made a motion seconded by Councilmember Hoffman. She actually recused herself from that item, and I was the council member who seconded that item. The motion failed. not by 3-2, but actually by 2-2, that we failed to take action on that because we voted 2-2. And then under the eyes, it should say Council Member Kelman and Council Member Cox. Under the nose, it should say Council Member Blaustein and Mayor Sobieski. And then it should indicate that Council Member Hoffman recused herself from the discussion of that item. |
| 01:09:09.98 | Steven Woodside | So noted with consent. Go ahead, Councilmember Helman. |
| 01:09:13.02 | Councilmember Kellman | And you asked for comments on the meeting minutes as well. Thank you. |
| 01:09:16.72 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, the June 18th meeting. |
| 01:09:18.71 | Councilmember Kellman | Okay, I think we had a member of the public write in and talk about the lack of listing of different members of the public who made comment. And I don't know how detailed we normally get, but I just want to note, as Babette McDougall submitted a letter, I just want to note for the record that that was a comment made and it may have been to the... |
| 01:09:18.72 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:09:39.48 | Councilmember Kellman | our last city council meeting not the june 18th meeting i have to go back and check but i just I just wanted to note that. |
| 01:09:44.14 | Walfred Solorzano | Sorry, what is the comment? |
| 01:09:45.77 | Councilmember Kellman | The comment is that the meeting where we looked at a lot of the marineship stuff, there was a significant amount of public comment, and so our meeting minutes don't really capture that public comment, and so there was concern about that. |
| 01:09:56.76 | Walfred Solorzano | And for clarification, we do action minutes. We don't do summary minutes. That's what's advised by the IIMC and by the CCAC. And it's also been advised. And actually, Sergio can talk about that. Yeah. |
| 01:10:10.73 | Councilmember Kellman | Great. Thank you, Alfred. That's exactly what I wanted you to put into the record. So thank you. And, |
| 01:10:14.97 | Vice Mayor Cox | And then I will note that with respect to the discussion of the Marinship Blue Economy Innovation District Initiative, The minutes do list the members of the public who offered public comment on that item. |
| 01:10:29.89 | Steven Woodside | Is there any public comment on the action minutes from June 18th? Seeing none. All right, we'll close public comment. And is there a motion to approve the minutes as modified by Vice Mayor Cox? |
| 01:10:44.72 | Unknown | So moved. |
| 01:10:46.86 | Steven Woodside | All right, we do need to do a roll call vote, city clerk. |
| 01:10:49.88 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blaustein? |
| 01:10:52.56 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 01:10:53.59 | Walfred Solorzano | Johnson, remember Hoffman? |
| 01:10:57.74 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilman Hoffman? |
| 01:11:01.58 | Walfred Solorzano | Is that a yes? No, I don't hear the mic. Okay, thumbs up. That's a yes. on Summer and Cullen. Can you guys hear me? Vice Mayor Cox. |
| 01:11:07.95 | Unknown | Thank you. And... |
| 01:11:09.90 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes. And Mayor Sobiaski. |
| 01:11:12.32 | Steven Woodside | yes we'll move on to the consent calendar these are matters generally considered routine and non-controversial and require no discussion and will be passed as a as a single motion however any city council member can remove any of the items from the consent agenda and we will hear them as business items so the consent counter items are 3a adopt a resolution approving the application for an execution of grant funds from the Ocean Protection Council under the Safe Drinking Water, Water Quality Supply, Flood Control, River, and Coastal Protection Bond Act of 2006, Prop 68, environmental license plate funds, once through cooling or our general funds. 3B, Sausalito Police Department's crime and traffic report for calendar year 2024, second quarter year to date report. Item 3C, adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute a professional services agreement with VR House and Associates for on-call services not to exceed $60,000. Item 3D, receive and file a report relating to parking prohibitions under California Assembly Bill 413. Item 3E, adopt a resolution approving an encroachment agreement for the construction of a 42 inch wood fence in the public right away of 96 harrison avenue item 3f adoption of a resolution approving an encroachment agreement for the in-kind replacement of a 610 square foot elevated car parking deck that was destroyed in the february 14th 2019 landslide at 412 414 Slito boulevard authorized 3g authorized the city manager to execute a professional services agreement with goldfarb and lipman llp for an as needed advisory service in an amount not to exceed fifty thousand dollars i am 3h reappointment of andrew jernius to the planning commission for a three-year term commencing on july 17 2024 and ending june 30th 2027 item 3i adopt a resolution approving the city's revised publicly available pay schedule effective july 1st 2024 does any council member wish to remove any item from consent |
| 01:13:24.10 | Councilmember Kellman | Mayor, I do not wish to remove it, but I just wanted to share that I... |
| 01:13:27.22 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:13:28.24 | Councilmember Kellman | shared with the city manager as to item 3B, the South Sea Police Department's annual report. I ask that future reports include some additional information around response times and call for service data, as well as personal information on staffing levels, et cetera. So I had that conversation with the city manager, and it's part of his understanding as well. |
| 01:13:50.29 | Steven Woodside | Okay, so let's take public comment on the consent calendar, city clerk. |
| 01:13:58.44 | Walfred Solorzano | Sorry, one moment, please. |
| 01:14:03.64 | Steven Woodside | Is there anyone? online or |
| 01:14:04.69 | Walfred Solorzano | online? Yeah, we do have public comment. Do we have Peter Van Meter? You heard Adam 3? |
| 01:14:17.80 | Peter Van Meter | Good evening, I want to talk about item 3H the reappointment of planning Commissioner Andrew Junius. I'm so glad that he's chosen to reapply for this position. There should never be an automatic renewal of a planning commissioner, they should reapply just as he's done that's the appropriate process. And he certainly deserves his reappointment. Here's an individual who has been fair in his deliberations, who is articulate, who is thoughtful, and has done an excellent job in his first term as a planning commissioner. Also, he has a level of expertise, being an expert in the field of commercial property, residential property, real estate, that is a very big resource to the Planning Commission here in Sausalito. So he certainly deserves a reappointment, and I wholeheartedly endorse that and hope that you do the same. Thank you. |
| 01:15:07.24 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker is Lisa B. Pierpont. |
| 01:15:15.07 | Walfred Solorzano | Lisa? This is gone. All right. We have Eitan on Zoom. |
| 01:15:26.09 | Eitan Elio | I just, I want to introduce myself. My name is Eitan Elio and I'm a resident in Sausalito for the last two years, and I'm totally opposing Commissioner Pagano for the next appointment. You shouldn't be appointed even the previous one. There are a couple of conflict of interest and as I perceive it as abuse of power. I just today morning filed an official complaint and sent it to the clerk and copied the honorable mayor. And I would like this complaint to be considered before any decision takes place. |
| 01:16:24.31 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you very much. Thank you. Now for this public speaker. |
| 01:16:25.34 | Eitan Elio | Thank you. |
| 01:16:27.87 | Steven Woodside | Okay, we'll close public comment. Is there a motion on the consent calendar? |
| 01:16:32.38 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:16:32.39 | Unknown | SO MOVED. |
| 01:16:33.66 | Steven Woodside | Wait a second. |
| 01:16:34.39 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:16:34.40 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:16:34.50 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 01:16:34.52 | Unknown | I'll second. |
| 01:16:35.21 | Steven Woodside | again. |
| 01:16:35.70 | Walfred Solorzano | The world called |
| 01:16:36.26 | Steven Woodside | please |
| 01:16:37.44 | Walfred Solorzano | Council member Blasden? |
| 01:16:39.33 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:16:39.35 | Alice Merrill | Yes. |
| 01:16:39.58 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:16:40.24 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 01:16:42.08 | Alice Merrill | Yes. |
| 01:16:43.09 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Kelman. |
| 01:16:44.10 | Alice Merrill | Yes. |
| 01:16:45.29 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Cox. Yes. and Maris Obieski. |
| 01:16:49.20 | Steven Woodside | Yes. Moving on to public hearing items, of which we have none. We'll now move on to our first business item item 5A. Receive and file a report regarding becoming a charter city. or provide and or provide direction to staff regarding becoming a charter city. |
| 01:17:03.58 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:17:03.61 | Vice Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:17:03.71 | Unknown | my hands or hands. |
| 01:17:04.35 | Vice Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:17:04.40 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:17:04.57 | Vice Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:17:04.66 | Steven Woodside | Oh, sorry, Vice Mayor Cox, go right ahead. |
| 01:17:04.76 | Vice Mayor Cox | Oh, sorry. Sorry about that. You know, I forgot to do this before closed session and I forgot to do it after closed session. I need to note for the record that I recused myself from one of the closed session items, which was the second item Conference 29th of July, |
| 01:17:34.46 | Steven Woodside | Thanks vice mayor. Let's be sure to note that in the minute city clerk for that closed session item. 5A, is that going to be handled by city? manager or Sergio, Mr. The attorney. |
| 01:17:47.76 | Sergio Rudin | So I will provide a brief staff presentation on this item. We previously came and brought this item before the city council discuss whether or not the city would like to proceed with becoming a charter city. The general deliberations and the feedback from the council was that this was an issue that, The Council wanted to further explore and to have additional time to discuss. Again, as I previously overviewed, you know, the time frame to prepare a charter and to adopt it requires significant public input and work. Um, Additionally, there's no real ability for the city to complete this effort in order to put a charter on the ballot for an election for November 2024. Um, that there has been some interest expressed by individual council members as to whether to move forward and how to move forward. on preparing a city charter, there's a handful of ways that the city can go about doing this. One is to, of course, try to get a charter commission That would be advisory to the council and would work on preparing a charter. Another option is, of course, the City Council can try to prepare or try to select members to work on an ad hoc group with the city attorney to prepare a charter. And then additionally, there's a number of you know, questions in terms of what kind of charter government the city may want to try to go down the path of forming, uh, whether that's a strong mayor, uh, or a strong council type of government. Um, and additionally, there'll be a lot of questions about what are the powers for say a city manager, um, and whether you'd like the form of city government to continue you know, and be modeled on the council city manager form of government that you presently have. Those are some of the issues that would need to be addressed if the Council wants to move forward with going down the path of a charter city is, you know, What process do you want to take? How would you like to go about deciding some of the bigger issues about structure of a charter? |
| 01:20:05.26 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, City Attorney, Council Member Kellman. |
| 01:20:07.55 | Councilmember Kellman | Sergio, can you identify any Marine County cities that are charter cities? |
| 01:20:14.08 | Sergio Rudin | I can. |
| 01:20:17.03 | Councilmember Kellman | Thanks, Dan Raffel. |
| 01:20:18.15 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah. I believe San Rafael is. I'm pulling up the list of charter cities that CalCities maintains. San Rafael is. That may be the only one. I believe Tiburon is not. |
| 01:20:37.76 | Councilmember Kellman | So I just want to provide that for people's reflection. And then my second question is, there have been some recent case law, I think Redondo Beach and elsewhere, regarding land use and housing policy and the role of charter cities. Are you able to give just a quick summary of that as compared to a general law city? |
| 01:20:37.84 | Sergio Rudin | game. |
| 01:20:57.47 | Sergio Rudin | Um, So in the staff report, there is some discussion about the potential advantages of being a charter city. You know, there is generally greater local control over municipal affairs. There's additional benefits in terms of the city being able to charge Um... document transfer taxes that are in excess of what a general law city can charge. So there is potential additional revenue sources. The charter city has some more flexibility in planning matters. For example, you're not limited in how many general plan amendments you can adopt per year. There are additional processes with regards to public works projects, where you have additional flexibility. Procedures with respect to revenue bond financing, again, you get more flexibility on some of those issues. Your ability to grant franchises, which again, another big revenue generating function. With respect to housing specifically, the courts are generally moving in the direction of applying state housing laws to charter cities and finding that housing is a matter of regional and or statewide concerns such that it trumps the charter city authority to regulate purely municipal affairs. So recently SB 35 was held to apply to charter cities. There have been other decisions that. indicate all of the provisions of Housing Accountability Act apply to charter cities. That was the City of San Mateo decision. So, Um, You know, there's I would not expect significant benefits on the housing side. There was a trial court decision that recently held that five charter cities were not subject to SB9. Now, it's expected that one, that the AG's office is likely to appeal that decision, and two, there is a likelihood that the state legislature may just simply change SB 9 to more clearly apply to charter cities. |
| 01:22:57.28 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:23:01.68 | Steven Woodside | Vice Mayor. |
| 01:23:03.34 | Vice Mayor Cox | Yes. Thank you for that question, Councilmember Kelly Redder, Kellman as it now stands as now you know enunciated charter cities do have more discretion and authority to manage their housing affairs, so I think that's something important for us to consider, but I also wanted to. Ask the city manager if he could repeat some of the financial benefits available to the city, should it choose to become a charter city. |
| 01:23:31.82 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:23:31.84 | Vice Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:23:31.96 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:23:32.61 | Vice Mayor Cox | May I also note that the camera for the Sausalito City Council is has the name Michael Healy underneath of it. And I think the attendee is actually the Sausalito City Council. |
| 01:23:46.54 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah, we've been trying to change that. |
| 01:23:48.04 | Chris Zapata | That's on Rint TV. Okay. I can respond to that question as quickly as I can regarding what the financial benefits might be if a charter city is adopted in Sausalito. San Leandro is a charter city. Anaheim is a charter city. The one that the city attorney mentioned about the property transfer tax and the ability of a general law city to be capped at, I believe it's 50 cents per thousand, and that cap not applying to charter cities. That's an actual revenue opportunity that was taken advantage of in San Leandro. In addition, when there are various projects, some of the bid requirements and ability for the city to issue different types of bidding is really beneficial and could also save the city money. Those are the two that I would highlight off the top of my head. I can look for some more and bring those back to you at a later date if that's the council's desire. |
| 01:24:46.02 | Vice Mayor Cox | May I ask a follow-on question? |
| 01:24:48.03 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:24:48.08 | Steven Woodside | right ahead. |
| 01:24:48.55 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:24:48.89 | Vice Mayor Cox | We've received some public comment concerned about the cost. of becoming a charter city. And can someone please comment on the cost versus benefit analysis. |
| 01:25:04.08 | Sergio Rudin | I'm not sure if you're a I'll give a guesstimate as to the cost. The cost is generally going to be the cost of preparing a charter. And again, I think – That is going to be primarily the costs of drafting and legal review, depending on how extensive or complicated your charter is. My guess would probably be $5,000 to $10,000 in terms of time and expense of preparing a draft charter. Now, of course, I suspect that there'll probably be several city council meetings to work on what a draft charter may look like. And then additionally by state law, you're required to have two public hearings on the charter before you place it on the ballot. Um, then in terms of the additional costs following that, you know, it's the cost of having a measure on the ballot. So typically I think for the city, those costs have usually been under $30,000 for the cost of the election. perhaps the city clerk can confirm that figure, but I understand that Generally, the cost for the city for putting something on the ballot are not Largely significant. |
| 01:26:13.47 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah, it'll probably be somewhere around $18,000 to $20,000. |
| 01:26:18.61 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:26:23.02 | Steven Woodside | Council Member Blasting. |
| 01:26:24.67 | Unknown | Thank you. Thanks for that overview, Sergio. I appreciate it. So in the staff report, you note that given the requirements for taking on a charter city, essentially the 21 days notification and then the two additional meetings and the 21 day notification afterwards. This timeline is not. feasible for the November 2024 election, correct? |
| 01:26:45.56 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, that's correct. |
| 01:26:47.08 | Unknown | Okay, so the main purpose of the discussion is to bring forward the issue today and ask some questions about it. |
| 01:26:53.49 | Sergio Rudin | Yes, and to the extent you'd like to start, you know, I think this is a, this is generally going to be a process that requires a lot of legal work, and then of course public outreach, public involvement. You know, there's a six month period before you can really put it on the ballot, even after the draft is done so. |
| 01:27:14.35 | Unknown | And clarify for me, would it be the city council who's responsible for the contents of that draft, a citizen council? How would we be able to involve residents? |
| 01:27:22.74 | Sergio Rudin | Ultimately, that choice is up to you. There is a requirement that if the charter is drafted by the council, that you have to have two public hearings on the matter. Additionally, if you would like to form a charter commission, and there is a process under the state law where you can have an elected charter commission formed to draft your charter. That would actually be a much longer process for preparing a charter, but that would generally take it out of the council's hands entirely. So. |
| 01:27:59.63 | Unknown | And help me understand, I mean, I can see where there may be given the court ruling precedence around state law, where the benefits might be, but what are some of the common risks associated with establishing a charter city that's outside the bounds of typical state and county city relationships? |
| 01:28:19.73 | Sergio Rudin | There aren't really legal disadvantages to having or becoming a charter city. I mean, the main ones are, you know, again, the time and the effort of... Preparing a charter, taking away from other projects that, you know, the city council may want to undertake or that staff have to do. So there's a workload issue. There's the expenses, which we've already gone over. There is, I think really the big issue is When you become a charter city, there's usually questions of first impression that will come up as to whether or not a matter is within your charter authority or whether it's a matter of statewide concern. So, you know, there is a little bit more legal uncertainty that occasionally comes up with charter cities and, you know, whether or not something's within their powers. But other than those issues, I don't know that there's, you know, a a certain drawback in becoming a charter city. |
| 01:29:18.28 | Unknown | We have an example, for instance, in San Rafael, and I understand this is a preliminary discussion, so if we haven't yet done the research where an issue came before the council that was maybe outside the bounds of what the charter city was able to achieve that otherwise would have been implementable with the general approach. City Council Incorporation. |
| 01:29:37.98 | Sergio Rudin | So... Charter cities will normally have all of the powers of a general law city. So again, there's no sort of disadvantage or limitation in becoming a charter city over a general law city. Charter cities generally have broader powers over municipal affairs and have more flexibility in how they operate, subject only to the restrictions of their charter. So, I'm not sure that I can more I'm not sure I necessarily understand what your question is getting at. |
| 01:30:14.51 | Unknown | I'm just trying to understand when we might be challenged by an application of, for instance, a housing policy or a municipal code amendment that would then otherwise require approval or engagement with the state that might not have if we weren't a charter city. |
| 01:30:29.53 | Sergio Rudin | I'm not aware of any such requirement. Charter cities are required to comply with housing element law. But other than and there are some mandatory requirements in the state general plan law for what you have to have in your general plan, but they're all applicable to general law cities already. So, again, no extra requirements for being a charter city. |
| 01:30:50.39 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:30:50.42 | Vice Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:30:50.45 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:30:50.59 | Vice Mayor Cox | Thank you, Sergio. |
| 01:30:52.06 | Steven Woodside | Vice President, you have another question. |
| 01:30:53.90 | Vice Mayor Cox | I actually wanted to comment on Council Member Blaustein's question. One challenge for charter cities is that charter cities that choose not to follow the public contract code or to adopt the public contract code may find limitations on state funding of their public projects because the state is very invested in having |
| 01:31:15.60 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:31:15.61 | Vice Mayor Cox | its municipalities follow the public contract code. challenge for charter cities, assuming on how they deal with the public contract code. But as the city manager pointed out, Um, of flexibility. that is available to a charter city and how it procures its public projects can be very advantageous. |
| 01:31:39.05 | Steven Woodside | Okay, any other questions from the diocese? All right. Can we take public comment, Mr. City Clerk? |
| 01:31:49.04 | Walfred Solorzano | People, sorry, people in the... Anyone here in the audience? Anyone here in the audience? Ms. Brown? |
| 01:31:54.14 | Steven Woodside | Ms. Barrett. |
| 01:31:57.28 | Walfred Solorzano | If you could have a speaker slip there, that would be good, but if not, you just kind of go up. |
| 01:31:57.72 | Steven Woodside | Come right in. |
| 01:32:06.17 | Alice Merrill | Good evening. Um, do you want a speaker slip? Care? Okay. You know me, I'm conservative. in all ways except some. And, um, I don't understand why. is a conversation why it needs to be changed, why we have this city that needs to be somehow changed. Charter cities are for big cities, the biggest one in Marin Mn County is San Rafael. And there they have one. And then probably San Francisco is one probably, you know. all over the country. or Why? This little tiny town that's probably the smallest one in all of Marin County. need to have these fancy big highfalutin ideas. I see it as a power grab by All kinds of things like the, as I understand it, the city council can do appoint people to the city council, and they don't actually have to live in In the town. Um... That's what it says in the description. if I'm getting it right. And, um, the mayor can appoint people to be on the city council. um, It's just... We just don't need this in this little town. We're doing fine. We have been doing fine until all of a sudden... It feels like people want more than we used to need. Thank you. |
| 01:34:05.95 | Walfred Solorzano | Any other speakers? |
| 01:34:11.11 | Fred Moore | Hi, my name is Fred Moore. I've missed some ignorance on the charter cities versus general law cities. Other than generically, I've always heard that charter cities provide a little more flexibility than a general law city. However, I was curious if anybody legal or otherwise could expound on, given that overall understanding, why is there a significant abundance of general law cities versus charter law cities. The ratio is heavily granted toward general law cities, so I'm not sure if anybody understands why more cities aren't going to a charter city other than preparing the charter. Thanks. |
| 01:34:48.90 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Mr. Moore. Are there any, oh, Mr. Genius. |
| 01:34:53.74 | Andrew Junius | Thank you. Council members, Andrew Junius, Sausalito residents. Fascinating issue for government wonks like me. Good news is we've got you know an expert on the city council, I think city council which talks is a you know, this is what she does, and I think you're lucky to have her. In close session or whenever you guys chat about these kind of issues so that's excellent, I also want to thank. Council Member Kelman for raising the housing issue because that I think that is kind of key. It's the timing here is interesting in that that city of Hernando Beach case was in the news a couple months ago. And I do think that the attorney general has appealed, filed a notice of appeal of that case. So the SB 9 case with respect to application of charter cities will be going to the court of appeal. And if I had to bet i would bet that the court of appeal is going to rule like they have everything else so i think the city is kind of stuck on that but complicated issue um interesting options i think the issues about complexity are real ones i think it is complex i think there's a process that you know may uh get contentious in the city um i don't really have a feeling one way or the other, frankly, in terms of whether it's the right thing, but it is a small town for a big process. And I do think, frankly, the reason why a lot of small towns don't do it is because it is complicated and, you know, small towns can fall back on general law and that's what most California cities do. So thank you. |
| 01:36:22.45 | Walfred Solorzano | Anybody else in here? All right. Can we get Steven Woodside? |
| 01:36:31.09 | Steven Woodside | I'm very familiar with charter counties, having represented a charter county for more than 25 years. I've also represented charter cities, and I think it gives, on occasion, charter city the upper hand on issues that it really, really cares about. Let me give you an example related to housing. the California legislature directed that in every industrial zone, There shall be. housing. Sausalito may well want to stand up and say, no, not here, not in the marine ship. For example, I'm not advocating one way or another as to that issue, but I do think It's worth taking a look at. the advantages that I think Sergio has very carefully described And there's not too many downsides. I understand Alice Merrill. believes that perhaps a charter city can change the way of council elections and appointments. I don't think that's the case. But I do think this is a topic that's worth taking seriously. Personally, I think there's great advantage in local government. deciding things at the local level. All five of you do a great job. You work very hard. We have the opportunity to come and appear before you to express our support or disagreement on different policies. Compare that to going to Sacramento. and trying to influence something of statewide concern where frankly the political gravitas is in Los Angeles. And many in Northern California and in small cities like Del Mar or Solvang, have chosen to be charter cities in part, protect themselves against an overreach by the state government. These are things that we can and should be talking about, and I think I'd be very happy to participate in those discussions as they come forward. Thank you. |
| 01:38:27.87 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay, Sandra Bushmaker. |
| 01:38:30.99 | Sandra Bushmaker | Good evening, everybody. Um, One of the thoughts that occurred to me about this is why are we doing this? Is our general law city broken? I'm not sure that it is. So I would want a real clear statement from this council why we are doing this and also a very clear statement on the advantages and disadvantages. Obviously, public... Public outreach is going to be really, really important because I foresee a culture change. and our city council and our city government. I question whether we need in Sausalito a quote strong mayor and a strong city manager. I also noted on the chart, and this was very upsetting to me when I looked at that, and it should raise a big concern, particularly in light of the other business item you have on the agenda, is that the council under a charter city decides the qualifications for city council. which could include non-residents. And I think we need to be very, very careful about that particular matter. So, I would like to the council to explain why we are dealing with this at this time in Sausalito. And in light of the costs of this endeavor, when we have a budget deficit, I really want a strong justification of moving forward. Thank you. |
| 01:40:00.29 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay, no further speakers. All right. Oh, sorry. One more, one more, one more. Babette McDougall. |
| 01:40:01.47 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:40:01.49 | Sandra Bushmaker | All right. |
| 01:40:01.79 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 01:40:01.81 | Sandra Bushmaker | Bye. |
| 01:40:01.86 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 01:40:01.91 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:40:09.42 | Babette McDougall | Can you actually hear me? |
| 01:40:11.12 | Steven Woodside | Yes, go right ahead, Ms. McDougie. |
| 01:40:13.49 | Babette McDougall | So bear with me. I'm suffering from a lung infection. So I will speak more slowly. So please don't just disarm me after the buzzer goes off. So let me just say that you are being asked to address this issue. I'm sorry. because precisely because of what Mr. Woodhouse just said, Thank you, Mr. Woodhouse. That's exactly the key concern for even... That's why up and down the state of California... People are now suddenly saying, maybe we need to become a charter city. There's no other protection. Otherwise, we are in the, as you know, nationally speaking, everyone's speaking about a potential change in government in the next election. Not just the people, whether it's blue or red, but the type of government. Well, the same is true in the state of California. Perhaps you all don't know that. And perhaps some of you do. Because this issue of overreach that Mr. Woodhouse references is actually much more sinister than we know. There is actually a whole new government ready to take over in California. So we have to decide where we want to stand. And I say we need to dig in. I like the idea of being stronger for ourselves. I'm not saying we have to be a charter city. I just know we need to get a lot stronger. And if that's what it takes... Then I say we start there. Thank you. |
| 01:41:36.95 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Ms. McDougal. |
| 01:41:38.72 | Walfred Solorzano | for the speakers. |
| 01:41:39.40 | Vice Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:41:39.45 | Walfred Solorzano | to be able to get the |
| 01:41:39.52 | Vice Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:41:39.53 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:41:39.99 | Steven Woodside | We'll close public comment, and is there a discussion on the dais, Vice Mayor Cox? |
| 01:41:45.19 | Vice Mayor Cox | Thank you, Mayor. I'm actually one of the people who asked that we consider this moving forward and one of the primary reasons was the home rule authority and the obtaining of potentially additional authority over matters governed by Sacramento. So one of my campaign slogans years ago was not one size fits all. And I find it unfortunate that with respect to housing laws and other mandates handed down by the state of California, legislators are not particularly aware of the impacts on smaller towns such as ours. I do want to point out that, you know, there are 121 charter cities in California, and there are cities smaller than ours, which are charter cities, such as Big Bear Lake, Del Mar, Solvang, and there are other comparably sized cities that are charter cities. And so it's not a matter of size, it's a matter of wherewithal. And all of the concerns raised by public speakers about the authority under a charter will be addressed in the authorship of the charter. And so our charter can specifically mandate that we are still subject to most of the municipal laws of the state of California, but we get to or customize other laws to better suit Sausalito's specific needs. And so I think that's where the advantage comes. I think that. We are at a good time. to consider this matter when you have experts such as Stephen Woodside, former county council in various municipalities, myself a municipal lawyer for cities and counties around the state, I think that we are uniquely qualified to author a charter that will well suit Sausalito's needs, not just today, but moving into the future. Thank you. |
| 01:43:55.68 | Steven Woodside | Who else would like to be recognized? Anyone? Going once? |
| 01:44:03.16 | Unknown | because remember |
| 01:44:03.55 | Steven Woodside | remember Blastin? |
| 01:44:05.03 | Unknown | Sure. I mean, I'm happy to just comment on the issue. I appreciate this being brought forward for discussion. I would like to see a lot more research as to the benefits of establishing a charter city, the amount of time, the consideration required, the staff time. I understand the interest in local control given the situations of the aggressive mandates at the state level right now, but I wouldn't want to jump to the immediate action of establishing a charter city without more significant discussion. My understanding is that This is the beginning of having a conversation about what a charter city might look like, and I'm certainly comfortable with that discussion getting started, but I would need much more information about what our charter would or wouldn't look like, what are the benefits, and more importantly, what are the risks of funding loss, because I'm deeply concerned about what it would mean if we lost access to some of our much-needed state and county funding. for taking this kind of action. But again, I'm open to continuing the conversation and appreciate that it was brought forward. |
| 01:45:14.59 | Steven Woodside | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 01:45:16.87 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I think, you know, thank you for the staff report, actually, Sergio from our city attorney, letting us know what the process is, right? So, I mean, I think that should give people some comfort that it's not, you know, it's an involved process and there's a lot of votes that have to happen. And I think it does merit further discussion. Again, you know, as everybody else has said, we are in a significant deficit right now. We do have high-priority items. The third one notable on our agenda tonight, we're cutting funding for roads because of our agenda, I assume. I'm sorry, our budget, our current deficit budget. So, I mean, I do, that is a priority, I think, our lens that we look at and what makes it on our agenda, what takes up staff time. |
| 01:45:19.79 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. Thank you. |
| 01:46:00.22 | Unknown | I mean, |
| 01:46:08.49 | Jill Hoffman | But having said that, I would be interested in knowing more about some of the concerns that were raised and how we could address that in the charter and protections that I believe that we could probably come up with. But also a little bit more specifics on the benefits. And I think that's probably what people are interested in. I do things that would give us more local control, I think, and more protections against states. I think that's probably what people are interested in. I do think that would give us more local control, I think, and more protections against state mandates. I think it's probably something that merits further discussion and further |
| 01:46:34.07 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:46:37.65 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:46:45.48 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. investigation. And so, and you know, this sounds to me like it's going to be some kind of a subcommittee. I wouldn't, at this time, task force maybe. I wouldn't want to direct staff time for this or those sort of city assets, but I think this merits further discussion and I'm interested in hearing more about that. And I'll read more about it. |
| 01:47:11.85 | Councilmember Kellman | Sure, I'll just say briefly, I think my colleagues have already articulated it well, the staff recommendation is to receive and file the report. I'm of huge interest in complete transparency around conversations like this. So sometimes we agendize them so that we can have the open public discourse and rather than have something behind closed doors, which we can't do because of the Brown Act anyway. And so this is the way to vet issues and to get feedback. And I think this is exactly what we wanted to do. There is sort of a widespread loss of local control across different avenues. which I think many communities are concerned with and at the same time to Councilman Blasin's point, want to make sure we're not missing out on certain type of funding or other opportunities and so. I receive it I file it I take the recommendation for the staff report I don't think we need to spend excess resources, because we don't have them on a further. you know, deep, deep dive, but I do think that the community should be aware that as we face a changing economic climate, a changing regulatory climate, we have tools at our disposal, and this may be one of them, and it may be something we want to bring back. You know, if there's a way, and I, Don't want to assign anyone to counsel this, but should there be some type of subcommittee and there's a way to assess some of those costs and some of those benefits. I think I'd be very interested in receiving another report on it in the future. So I just appreciate you guys putting on the agenda so we can have that open, transparent conversation about it. |
| 01:48:37.36 | Steven Woodside | I'm not sure what else to add. I'm not a lawyer and so the benefits of this were out of my wheelhouse. I thought the staff report was interesting. I know that others had talked about the benefits of in regards to some of the housing restriction stuff. I'm hearing some, so is there some consensus about something that we want to direct or are we just going to file this report and pick it up again as a future agenda topic in some future date, future city? |
| 01:49:07.99 | Vice Mayor Cox | I will point out that the recommended action at the front of the report is to provide direction, even though the at the back of the report, it says receive and file. And so I think we could, provide direction if we wanted to, and I would suggest perhaps direction could be to appoint a subcommittee I would certainly volunteer. for such a committee. I don't know if anyone else would be interested. |
| 01:49:35.29 | Steven Woodside | Does anyone else want to? Well, first off, do my colleagues want to have a subcommittee that's officially appointed? Or do we want to let people just work on this on their own? And if so, who wants to join Blaise Mayor Cox on that committee? |
| 01:49:55.22 | Councilmember Kellman | Thank you. I'm news for a lot of people. Council Member Hoffman is either volunteering or not volunteering. |
| 01:49:56.38 | Steven Woodside | for a lot of people's |
| 01:49:59.40 | Jill Hoffman | No. Thank you. |
| 01:50:02.56 | Steven Woodside | We can be neutral. |
| 01:50:02.68 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:50:02.95 | Councilmember Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:50:03.03 | Unknown | She's a new drug. |
| 01:50:04.64 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I'm neutral. I certainly would want to hear more about it. I'm not opposed to a subcommittee forming. I'm certainly not opposed to Council Member Cox, or sorry, Vice Mayor Cox, you know, bringing her resources to bear. And I'm pretty sure that there are some resources out there already, you know, about the benefits of being charter citizen. So I would be interested in knowing more about that. |
| 01:50:24.08 | Unknown | resources out. |
| 01:50:32.19 | Jill Hoffman | frankly. |
| 01:50:34.37 | Councilmember Kellman | I feel the same, Mayor. I mean, I don't think I'm the right person for this. I think it's something that is going to be a continuous conversation past my term, but I do think it is important for us to know for city manager and for director of finance and community development director to know what the opportunities could be as part of this, but I again don't want to prioritize this from a fiscal perspective, so I want to be very conservative about who does the work and how, but as Commissioner Junius pointed out, we have an expert on the council, I'd be delighted to hear more. |
| 01:51:08.44 | Steven Woodside | Would you be willing to be on it just for the remainder of the year? |
| 01:51:13.91 | Councilmember Kellman | Thank you. |
| 01:51:13.93 | Sandra Bushmaker | Sure. |
| 01:51:15.01 | Steven Woodside | Sure. then why don't we do that? You know, the one thought I did have after reading the 20 letters, angry letters about even considering this item is that there is, as Ms. Merrill pointed out in her public comment, an underlying question of why. With a Christian mark. |
| 01:51:28.71 | Councilmember Kellman | Mayor, I'm sorry, I'm going to have to renege on that offer. I don't think I'm going to be able to give it the suitable amount of time and diligence that it requires. |
| 01:51:36.62 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 01:51:36.84 | Councilmember Kellman | Thank you, though, for the offer. |
| 01:51:40.05 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I'll help out. Okay. Yeah, thank you. |
| 01:51:40.06 | Steven Woodside | one. |
| 01:51:43.61 | Steven Woodside | Okay. All right, well, great. Then let it be so that you two will be that working group on this issue. I was just articulating that I thought from the letters, there was some question as to why. And so one thing to do perhaps would be just to answer some of those emails with the highlight of, well, really directing to the portion of the staff report that starts to lay out as to why so that it is about some some of those emails with the highlight of, well, really directing to the portion of the staff report that starts to lay out as to why. So that it is about some of these issues that I know for a fact some of those letter writers very much care about, like local control over housing and how this might be a tool for that, so. Let us move on then to the next item item 5b the introduction and waiver of the first reading of ordinance 424 an ordinance of the city council of the city of Sausalito amending Sausalito municipal code section 2.58.040 relating to residency requirements on city boards, commissions and committees. Again, I think this is a city attorney led item city attorney. |
| 01:52:52.59 | Sergio Rudin | Yes, thank you. So this item really comes to the City Council for probably the umpteenth time. Originally, this was first presented and discussed before the Council on February 20th, where the Council considered appointments of various individuals to EDAC, and then directed the city attorney to investigate the residency requirements for EDAC and bring back appropriate implementing documents to authorize non-residents to serve on EDAC. Um, the city municipal code currently requires residency, um, in the city for all city boards, commissions, and committees. It authorizes the council to establish additional requirements beyond what's set forth in Chapter 258. In March, after the ordinance was introduced for the first time, the Council directed further revisions to this ordinance to limit... Uh, EDAC to be the sole body where non-residency is authorized. So again, this item has been revised and brought back to council for reintroduction in line with the council direction that was previously given. |
| 01:54:09.05 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, city attorney. Are there questions for our city attorney? Councilmember Boston. |
| 01:54:14.22 | Unknown | So I noticed that in the staff report, there wasn't necessarily mention around the current system we had had for what we were referring to as 94965 liaisons on the council. it was more broadly about the appointments of non-residents. Are you aware of the background on why and how we established that appointment? I know you weren't here yet at that time. |
| 01:54:39.28 | Sergio Rudin | Yes, I am aware that the council has the authority to create non member liaisons to boards and commissions and has done so for several committees in the past. But the question here is whether or not. the city can appoint non-residents to serve on EDAC. And I think that is the issue that this draft ordinance is intended to address. |
| 01:55:04.35 | Unknown | So it maintains the non-member liaison appointments that we have as established now? |
| 01:55:09.85 | Sergio Rudin | Correct. It would not alter that. |
| 01:55:11.69 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:55:13.33 | Steven Woodside | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 01:55:18.90 | Alice Merrill | I think. |
| 01:55:19.94 | Steven Woodside | Your hand is raised. |
| 01:55:19.96 | Alice Merrill | Your hand is raised. |
| 01:55:22.70 | Steven Woodside | Well, sure, I can go to using vice mayor. |
| 01:55:26.95 | Vice Mayor Cox | Sure. Thank you, Councilmember Hoffman. Thank you. |
| 01:55:29.23 | Unknown | I wanted to point out that although the staff report states that the or to the |
| 01:55:35.98 | Vice Mayor Cox | and it specifically allows non-residents to serve on EDAC. |
| 01:55:39.20 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:55:39.62 | Vice Mayor Cox | It additionally authorizes the city to create positions by resolution for non-residents to serve as non-voting liaisons or in a non-voting advisory committee capacity on any city board commission or committee. So, Is that new Sergio or existing? |
| 01:56:01.58 | Sergio Rudin | That is new language for the city code, and that... that is in line with, I believe, the city council direction at the I'm trying to pull up the exact meeting where the council gave that direction April 2nd. So that was specifically requested by the council. |
| 01:56:22.45 | Vice Mayor Cox | And then I thought that we had limited the number of non-residents that could serve on EDAC. And I don't see that covered. |
| 01:56:31.93 | Sergio Rudin | It is not. If you would like to include a modification to limit the number of non-resident slots on EDAC, that is certainly something the council can do. |
| 01:56:45.22 | Vice Mayor Cox | I will defer to my fellow council members, but I do recall that when we appointed, Um, people to EDAC, we did limit the number of non-residents who could serve on EDAC and indeed We selected our most recent round of EDAC members applying that filter. So I would just put that out there |
| 01:57:05.03 | Unknown | consideration. Thank you. |
| 01:57:09.18 | Steven Woodside | Now Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 01:57:11.98 | Jill Hoffman | So, |
| 01:57:13.21 | Steven Woodside | Stand by while we turn up the volume. |
| 01:57:15.91 | Jill Hoffman | Sure. |
| 01:57:17.04 | Steven Woodside | Or say something, please. |
| 01:57:19.59 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, testing. |
| 01:57:20.79 | Steven Woodside | That's better. Please. |
| 01:57:23.44 | Jill Hoffman | So, um, so Sergio, You know, one of the things I think was unclear was that the original appointments of non-residents to EDAC and that process, I don't believe we had the conversation or that it was called out that the city ordinance did not allow that. And so those people that were originally appointed to EDAC that were non-residents were actually prohibited by our ordinance, correct? |
| 01:57:56.04 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, that would. There was a conflict between the city municipal code and the resolutions that created EDAC. And so, you know, my recommendation would be that we resolve that conflict one way or another, whether that is to not have residents serve on EDAC or whether that is to change the municipal code to reflect, you know, some of the prior city council discussions. You know, again, this is sort of the council's council decisions. |
| 01:58:22.36 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you for calling that out, too. I appreciate it. |
| 01:58:28.96 | Steven Woodside | Any other questions? the dose then? Go ahead. Council Member Hawkins, go right ahead. |
| 01:58:37.01 | Jill Hoffman | Pardon me. How does that affect the votes of EDAC or the actions of EDAC? I guess they're just recommendations, but how does that affect that when you have members on EDAC that are voting for recommendations that weren't properly appointed? |
| 01:58:56.37 | Sergio Rudin | So, you know, again, I would point out that these are recommendations. And, of course, they carry the force of recommendations, not the force of a city decision or of law. So again, I think it really comes up to the council as to how you want to consider and weigh the recommendations of EDAC in light of that issue. So I'm not sure it has, you know, a strong or meaningful legal effect. But really, again, this is one of those issues where if you have a conflict between city practice and city law, we should try to resolve the issue. |
| 01:59:30.66 | Jill Hoffman | I have one more follow-up, Mayor Samofay. |
| 01:59:32.97 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, please go right ahead. The floor is yours. |
| 01:59:34.96 | Jill Hoffman | Um, Also, you know, the issue of conflicts of interest have come up in the past. I know that we apply the conflict of interest rules for the required to, for the city council, for the planning commission, and I believe for the historic landmark board. But how do the conflict of interest requirements and laws apply to not just EDAC, but all of our boards and commissions? |
| 01:59:59.58 | Sergio Rudin | So for City boards that exercise meaningful participation in making of governmental decisions, and that would be the Planning Commission when they're approving permits, Historic Preservation Commission where they're making substantive decisions, the City Council. You're required by state law, the Political Reform Act, to... you know, recuse yourself and disclose conflicts of interest when they come up. And those conflicts can arise under, you know, various kinds. They can be, you know, your interests in real property, they can be your business dealings, they can be source, you know, gifts, income, what have you. Um, Typically, when you are on a position that is unpaid, on a purely advisory body that has no powers other than to make a recommendation You're not subject to conflict of interest requirements under the Political Reform Act. You may, however, be subject to conflict of interest requirements under Government Code 1090, which prohibits you from making a recommendation to someone to approve a contract where you have a financial interest in the contract. So that would be the main one. You know, of course, you know, I would encourage in the interest of transparency that, you know, people disclose their conflict of interest and not participate in decisions that, you know, create the appearance of impropriety. Additionally, we do have specific requirements for conflict of interest under our city code. dealing with boards and commissions. So we would need people to comply with those. That's under 258, 080, No member of a city board, commission, or committee on behalf of a business client or customer shall attempt to influence the decision before such board, commission, or committee. And so that's a local requirement under our own local requirements that the city council has imposed on it on the city. members of a board commission. |
| 02:01:59.41 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you for that. |
| 02:02:02.85 | Steven Woodside | Other questions from the dais? Okay, we will take public comment then please, Mr. City Clerk. |
| 02:02:10.35 | Walfred Solorzano | We have Scott Thornburg. |
| 02:02:11.36 | Scott Thornburg | Thank you. |
| 02:02:17.06 | Scott Thornburg | Good evening. Thank you for this important discussion tonight. Ethics is really important to me as committee chair. We, it's really important to me that our committee uphold the expectations of the community, making ethical recommendations is a really important part of that. So I applaud you for having this discussion. I think a really important part of this that Sergio just outlined is that EDAC retains no Edick has a real power there we're making recommendations it's an advisory body there's there's no authority or oversight of budget or resources as a result of that we're making recommendations and ultimately the oversight is retained by the city council. So I do hope you'll take that into consideration our committee's mission is to foster economic growth in Sausalito. And that includes longstanding business owners, even if they aren't residents. It's crucial. Nearly 40% of Sausalito's revenue comes from business taxes. That's vital, that funds vital services. Have you ever heard the phrase taxation without representation? That's exactly what we're talking about here. It is business owners that are vested in it, that are trusted entities in the community that want to give back to the community and we should give them a voice. And that's truly all we're doing here. We're not giving them the authority to make decisions. We're not putting any power in their hands. They're not benefiting from making a recommendation. or advocating for the betterment of the community. So thank you for that. And I hope that you will continue to To, uh, can keep that in mind. Also, as a reminder, when EDAC was founded, this is resolution 5925. It includes the residents as a category for membership, not a requirement. Furthermore, the resolution 5426, which founds the business advisor committee, specifically states that except where specifically stated members do not need to be city residents. So thank you, Mr. Thornburg. |
| 02:04:25.89 | Andrew Junius | Council members, Andrew Junius again, Sauce Lita resident, everything Scott just said, that's exactly right. Again, the EDAC doesn't have binding authority on anybody recommending body. That's critical. And it, it, I mean, come on, the business owners need a voice. I mean, it just makes no sense to bar them, you know, from serving on a recommending body like this, an advisory body. And then finally, I'm really glad that the discussion included the confirmation that notwithstanding the fact that EDAC doesn't have to comply with the FPPC rules. there is a local rule about conflicts of interest and there's a government code as well. So it's not like, know they they're flying out there and and doing things that aren't governed and frankly the decisions come to you in the end you know if there's an issue that might have been missed and a conflict is raised after any DAC decisions made well you'll hear about that probably so I think I think it's pretty straightforward so thank you. |
| 02:05:27.56 | Steven Woodside | Any comments online, Mr. Sederberg? Yes, Sandra Bushmaker. |
| 02:05:33.50 | Sandra Bushmaker | Hello again, everyone. I don't want to be a curmudgeon, but I do want to state that business owners have the Chamber of Commerce through which they can make their voices known. I, You know, we just talked about an item, the item before this about local control. And I am in favor of having a residency requirement for our boards and commissions. just as we always have. I'm very concerned about the language in the proposed ordinance change that states by resolution the council can Consider non-residents. Does this apply to the Planning Commission? Where do we draw the line? Um, So, I would like to suggest, and I do appreciate the input that we get from our businesses on these various boards and commissions. And I would like to encourage their continued participation, but I'm in favor of having residents with a vote be appointed to these boards and commissions. There's nothing to prevent the business owners and other interested parties who are non-residents from participating in the discussion at the any of these committees, boards or commissions meetings. I would like to just make sure that we keep our local control local. And I don't want to see a diminution of that impact. So I would be in favor of the the old The old way, that and figure out other ways to to encourage the business owners and other interested parties who are non-residents to participate in our boards and commissions, but not to appoint them in an appointment. Thank you. |
| 02:07:30.52 | Steven Woodside | No further public comment? We missed Alice Merrill. You want to just come to the podium, Ms. Merrill? |
| 02:07:38.80 | Alice Merrill | Wouldn't want to have me not talk after all, right? I do think that the concept of appointing non-residents... over, you know, in a bigger quantity and, um, is a problem. Just because here we are being residents and this is our little town and then we get people. coming in from here and there and having their needs and wants and I hear that you're saying that they can't vote. Um, That could be changed easily. We just need to keep this. I'm all for residents. I believe that this town, we hear from residents and we need to know about what they do. And it's true that we have a chamber of commerce for our businesses. So |
| 02:08:21.88 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 02:08:32.63 | Alice Merrill | I'm just status quo, I guess, but I am. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:08:41.63 | Steven Woodside | No further public speaking. Thank you, Mr. City Clerk. We'll close public comment. Any discussion here on the dice? Anyone wish to be recognized? No one. Go ahead, Councilman Hoffman. |
| 02:08:53.22 | Jill Hoffman | I do have a follow-up based on the comment with our city attorney. And that based on the comment, there's nothing that prevents, in our current city ordinance, or is there, that prevents appointment of non-residents to a task force. |
| 02:08:54.91 | Steven Woodside | I'm going to say, let's turn up your mic. |
| 02:09:14.58 | Jill Hoffman | or Blue Ribbon Committee. |
| 02:09:17.15 | Sergio Rudin | Um... Task forces and working groups are not subject to chapter 258. Let's see. Yeah, so yeah, those... tasks like one off task forces or, you know, again, you know, ad hoc working groups, things like that. Yeah, those are not subject to a residency requirement. |
| 02:09:41.82 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks. Thanks very much for that. |
| 02:09:47.27 | Steven Woodside | Does anyone want to have any discussion or comments? Are we just moving along? Go ahead, Councilmember Vostina, Councilmember Kellman. |
| 02:09:53.35 | Unknown | Yeah, I'm happy to get us started. So I appreciate this being brought forward. I understand the importance of our residents being well represented. I also think it's critical to acknowledge that our business community has always played a significant role in not only generating about half of our revenue that's our general fund, but also in our ongoing governance and discussion. So some of you probably, you Alice Merrill, remember our business advisory committee that we had, our hospitality committee prior to the EDAC, of which there were always members of the business community who have historically served who were not residents, but had the ability to be represented and be a part of the conversation and frequently made presentations to the Council. and in an effort to sort of subsidize and streamline that. The creation of EDAC was a compromise that brought in members of the business community and more residents so that we could have an ongoing coordinated conversation that would represent everybody in an equal and fair way. And this really only came back before us because we wanted to make sure we were getting it right and that we had everyone's terms, even an equal. And given that EDAC is a body that is not applicable for FPPC rules and that we've always engaged with our business community, and I think given the work we saw on the bid and the work that EDAC has brought forward and the growing finally strengthened relationship with our business community, I would really hate to see that negatively impacted right now. And I also just wanted to make a point in general about our 94965 appointment. I think that people are reading this and assuming that we're hoping to appoint for those positions. people from other towns. And I want to remind those of us on the dais that that was the decision that we made together so that we could strengthen our relationship with Marin City and our houseboat community. And it was specifically so that houseboat residents who often feel that they make up the fabric of Sausalito in many ways, and also our neighbors in Marin City who don't have the opportunity to vote because they're not necessarily within the city limits, but are at all of our, many of our events, participate in a lot of community boards or volunteer regularly, would have an opportunity to engage as well in a non-voting capacity. So we're really working to just bring forward as many voices that make up the fabric and color of our community as possible. And I think we're incredibly fortunate that we have this many members of our business community, our houseboat community, and Marin City who want to engage with us. And so I'd like for us to move forward with the ordinance. And, you know, we can certainly shore up the perspectives of what voting bodies are capable of or otherwise, but I think that EDAC is doing great work. And I think I'd like to see even more continued engagement with our houseboat residents and hopefully our other 94965 liaisons. |
| 02:12:42.03 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Councilmember Kelman. |
| 02:12:43.24 | Councilmember Kellman | Thank you, Mayor. Certainly, there's no doubt that EDAC has done an incredible job of being very creative and bringing us a lot of wonderful ideas. And I think we could all probably say we implemented many of those ideas and have done a significant amount of work and dedicated a significant amount of resources to the business community to heal a lot of those relationships. So I think we shall be very proud that we have done that. I think my perspective on it is actually coming from a conversation we had on the dais over a year ago about streamlining our boards and commissions and trying to actually remove some of them. I think we're the only city in Moran, I can't remember, city manager, but that has nine standing boards and and commissions and we had lengthy conversations first two years on council about actually doing away with all of them doing it with some of them um and so i'm coming at it from that context and i think this is probably an opportunity to hit some of those notes that we kind of um backburnered for a little bit i also um i think some really great comments have already been made by my by, Council Member Blaustein, but I don't know that I feel compelled to change an existing ordinance because I don't also see where the limits are. And I don't see where the limits might be. A similar argument could be made as to the Planning Commission. People build commercial properties in town. Should they be able to have representation on the Planning Commission? So I just haven't heard arguments yet as to that would compel me to change an existing ordinance. That said, you know, I do remember the uh, the conflation of the hospitality and the BAC and a lot of that was because there were non-residents were making decisions that people felt were impacting the fabric of the community. And so maybe what we should examine is the idea of staying with the 94965 to be able to provide the broad outlook that Councilor Boston mentioned and then maybe even offering members of the business community non voting membership or something like that, so they can participate now that may be duplicative and not necessary because these are open meetings the brown act anybody can come and i'd be curious. I haven't seen very many business individuals come other than folks that are on the committee so that's an interesting data point so that I don't I don't feel compelled to change the existing ordinance I am I think it could lead to other opportunities to add non residents i'm happy to hear my colleagues have to say but that's kind of. I'm coming at it from the streamlining perspective of something that we talked about, but I do think a 94965 retain that demographic is important. |
| 02:15:19.99 | Steven Woodside | Council member, who is first? Vice Mayor or Council member? I think Jim. Council member Hoffman. |
| 02:15:29.12 | Jill Hoffman | Um... So, yeah, I mean, I was surprised, actually, that we did have a rule and that the appointments for EDAP violated our ordinance. So I think that was the discussion, you know, that we had back in whenever it was in February and March. You know, looking into this, I think there's, we have an ordinance, there's a reason why we have an ordinance limiting our boards and commissions to city residents. And I think it's a pretty good reason. And that's because the people that are paying for most of these things are residents. Even though we do have revenue from, obviously, from the businesses here in town, and we want to have a strong relationship with our business community is really important. And not to undermine or denigrate anybody that's on EDAC. This isn't really specifically anything about people who are serving or who are thinking about |
| 02:16:12.73 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:16:28.02 | Jill Hoffman | I am surprised that, and I haven't looked at the resolution for EDAC in a while, but I'm surprised that resident is just a category of |
| 02:16:37.65 | Unknown | and it's just like, |
| 02:16:40.22 | Jill Hoffman | of EDAC. I mean, that's, I'm surprised that we didn't have this conversation when EDAC was formed, frankly, and it should have been called out that what we were trying to do violated our city ordinance and this whole idea of do we want to elevate non-residents to authority positions on a board or commission that tasks staff in very significant ways and makes decisions about and recommendations to the city council about how we spend our money specifically. So I think, and I, you know, I'm a big fan of the task force and working group model. And I think that the specific goals of EDAC can be achieved by simply having residents on EDAC, but forming tasks for either the city council can or EDAC can, bringing in these areas of expertise and people that we have in town and accessing that level of specific expertise. We've done that twice that I've done it very successfully with the landslide task force that I chair and the sea level rise task force. So I think the structure of a limited scope about what an effort is going to be, specifically people that are chosen for that limited scope, the timeline and a deliverable helps us all be more efficient just generally. And I think that's a good model for EDAC in accessing members of the community who aren't residents. We have lots of business members, by the way, who are members of our community. So I think that's kind of where I stand. I'm not compelled to change the ordinance or the standing ordinance that we have. I think we need to clean up EDAC and make it comply with the ordinances that we currently have, which I think are probably a good thing. |
| 02:16:52.74 | Unknown | doing what |
| 02:18:39.96 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:18:41.94 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Vice Mayor Cox. |
| 02:18:44.37 | Vice Mayor Cox | Thank you. I actually see this a little differently. I think Council Member Hoffman and I were the only council members on the city council when we appointed EDAC. And we had scads of applications from all over the place and very carefully narrowed it down And at that time we did make a very specific decision. that EDAC would benefit from membership of non-members. um, and particularly because it is intended. to be, remember it used to be called the Business Advisory Committee. We dissolved that committee and became the Economic Development Advisory Committee. But its purpose was to really liaise with the business community. And although the Chamber of Commerce is a representative of the business community, they are not a city appointed. Commission as EDAC is. Chamber of Commerce charges a membership fee for businesses to join and runs by its own rules and regulations and only has the interface with the city that it chooses to have, whereas EDAC, takes its charter and its assignments from the city. And, you know, they come to us each year in order for us to give them their priorities and they come back to us and make recommendations and invest the time and effort as directed by us. Cass Green comes to mind. She has been invaluable. in her contributions to the city. She is not a resident of the city, but she is a member of Edak, who has made tremendous contributions, not just as a member of that, Commission, but in her involvement in other key city decisions. I feel as though the ordinance as drafted by the city attorney is pretty limited. I wouldn't mind limiting it further by limiting the number of non-residents who could be members of EDAC in order to assuage concerns about some majority of EDAC making advisory Um, recommendations to the City Council but it is only an advisory board. And the ordinance is very clear that any other non-resident positions are limited to non-voting liaisons or non-voting advisory positions. capacity. I wouldn't mind making confining that sentence to members in the 94965 area so that only EDAC would allow membership outside of the 94965 area. So I would recommend that we consider this already very narrowly drafted ordinance confining it to limit the number. of non-residents who could, be appointed to EDAC, and to confine other non-resident, non-voting liaisons or non-voting advisory capacity to confine those to residents of the 94965 area code. Those would be my recommendations. Thank you. |
| 02:22:12.08 | Steven Woodside | Thanks, Vice Mayor. |
| 02:22:13.30 | Vice Mayor Cox | Uh, |
| 02:22:16.47 | Steven Woodside | I'm a little foggy still on Portugal time. So we'll see if I can articulate this thought. I thought this was going to be pretty, uh, Non-controversial. In fact, I think it first showed up on consent calendar and we eventually decided to make it a business item. And I see there actually is very interesting different points of view on this subject. I thought it'd be non-controversial, but I very much see the point of view of people that are worried about the idea that there's a slippery slope and that residents have a clear vested interest in this community that's unassailable and and that there have a clear vested interest in this community that's unassailable and and that there are some entities that might not have that north star guiding them my own point of view honestly held is a broader definition of community that i would like my colleagues to consider uh, Someone who owns a home here and is registered to vote here, but goes there behind their gate and doesn't engage in the community, they have a right to vote, they have a right to be on the commission. Chris Ancona, who feeds people day in, day out in a restaurant under the old regime, the regime that we would have if we did not pass this ordinance, she would not be able to participate. Reason Bradley, who just built a mount for the sea lion that hopefully will last 100 years, who owns a business here, who's devoted to the community, who grew up here but no longer actually lives here, would be prohibited from being on official boards and commissions, even as a non-voting member. I don't know. That doesn't square with me. I think our definition of community should include people that are stakeholders in town. So it is a very, it actually maybe is a more important issue and deserve to be on the business agenda because it is a cultural question. Do we define our community as people that registered to vote here or do we define our community as people who have a stake here and i i guess i put a little more emphasis on the latter and i i get that you have to we have to parse it at some point uh but actually now that i think of it that way to me it's really clear and i'm sort of supportive of the ordinance as it is i would certainly of course vote for wherever the center of gravity is of my colleagues on a modified endorsement but i think that the the ordinance as is is a statement to people about their value at the end of the day i don't know that any board commission has ever had a vote that's been has there ever been a non-unanimous vote of a board and commission outside of the planning commission i mean has sustainability edac and others had split votes have any of them been close I kind of think the voting doesn't matter as much it's really the message that we send to the participants about their value their participation and their inclusion in the community that matters and so that's why I actually think the ordinance matters to send that message and to kind of underline a broader definition of community that I think is positive |
| 02:25:26.47 | Unknown | Councilmember |
| 02:25:26.70 | Steven Woodside | Councilmember Blousteen and then Councilmember Toman. |
| 02:25:29.22 | Unknown | I agree and appreciate your sentiment, but in the interest of reaching consensus, I liked the vice mayor's recommendations that we might include specific number of residents. And then what was the second one, vice mayor? You had a second suggestion. |
| 02:25:43.59 | Vice Mayor Cox | To confine the positions for non residents to serve as non voting liaisons or any non voting advisory capacity to residents of the nine four nine six five area area. |
| 02:25:58.33 | Councilmember Kellman | Thank you. |
| 02:25:58.36 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 02:25:58.53 | Councilmember Kellman | Thank you. |
| 02:26:01.16 | Steven Woodside | you |
| 02:26:01.95 | Councilmember Kellman | Two comments. One comment, one question. For the vice mayor, is that refinement only as 94965, or could the change be to limit to a non-voting member? of the business community and non-body member of 94965. Is that what you're saying, or you're saying only SNI for 965? |
| 02:26:24.83 | Vice Mayor Cox | I was limiting, I was not limiting the zip code for EDAC members since businesses don't necessarily reside in the 94965 area. I'm suggesting the second sentence Thank you. of 2.58.040A be confined. for the positions for non-residents to serve as non-voting liaisons or in a non-voting advisory capacity be confined to residents of the 94965. zip code. |
| 02:26:55.94 | Councilmember Kellman | Okay, sorry. For some reason, maybe I'm jet lagged. I think I'm hearing it in the inverse. So you're saying that we... Could have non-residents so long as they're in 94965. |
| 02:27:08.17 | Vice Mayor Cox | only in a non-voting liaison or non-voting advisory capacity. The only exception is EDAC. where you can have those in voting capacity, but I'm recommending that the number of non-residents on EDAC be limited to a number that we choose. |
| 02:27:26.77 | Councilmember Kellman | that was a good one. Okay, thank you that that's clarity for me um and I just want to thank you mayor for your very thoughtful comments and really appreciate your perspective and I just want to. um, just put into the record that my sort of contribution and perspective on this is not at all about the definition of community. I am, for me, my analysis is grounded in the streamlining and the resource conversations that we had a year or so ago around boards and commissions. And so that's just want to put on the record for myself that that's where I'm coming from. And I appreciate your thoughtful comments. |
| 02:28:06.29 | Steven Woodside | So, |
| 02:28:06.44 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:28:06.51 | Steven Woodside | Go ahead. Thank you very much, Councilmember Komen. Councilmember Boston, the only thought I had about limiting the number of non-residency, that makes sense. And I mean, I'll obviously vote for whatever you wherever the majority is on on some modified ordinance. But I I can't help but think about people that have a vested interest in the community, have expertise on things we care about, whether it be sustainability. Who, let's say we're born here, they know people here, they're raised here, but now they live in Mill Valley. or they live in in Larkspur, but they still come here. I mean, wasn't Chris Gallagher, didn't she actually live in Mill Valley? Am I wrong about that? And she, I mean, a paragon of the community. |
| 02:28:47.43 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:28:48.68 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:28:48.83 | Unknown | We lived in Larkspin. |
| 02:28:50.40 | Steven Woodside | Larkspur okay so Peregrine of the community I just think of examples of people that we would want we're thinking about constraining a future city council to not have the flexibility to have an outstanding individual because at the end of the day these are not people won't get to just by lottery show up on these commissions they have to go through an interview process and so are we saying we want to constrain a future city council to have to change their ordinance to be able to point someone like Chris Gallagher to a to a board and commission as a non-voting member I don't see the case for that. |
| 02:29:20.81 | Councilmember Kellman | I'll point out that we're asked to change an existing ordinance. So this is the ordinance that is currently in effect. So we're not constraining future in a way that is different than what is current. But may I recommend that we make a motion if someone would like to make a motion, because I think that there seems to be a pattern and, I think I see where this is going and I don't want to Thank you. |
| 02:29:39.40 | Unknown | Sure. |
| 02:29:39.66 | Councilmember Kellman | Um, go back and forth on sort of intent behind some of it. It could be a very long conversation. |
| 02:29:46.49 | Vice Mayor Cox | May we hear from Councilmember Hoffman and then I'm happy to make a motion. |
| 02:29:49.48 | Steven Woodside | Go ahead, Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 02:29:54.15 | Steven Woodside | We can't hear you have to unmute yourself. Thank you. |
| 02:29:56.89 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, just a comment on, you know, there is an existing ordinance, so this action is changing. the existing ordinance. And also, you know, nothing prevents anybody from showing up at any meeting, right? These are all Brown Act required meetings. So anybody, the sort of involvement I think that you were talking about, Mayor, you know, these people can still be involved. In fact, they do. They are quite involved in a lot of our city council meetings and a lot of different efforts in town, whether or not they're, you know, they're a member of the board or not. So I think we do have a lot of involvement from people who want to be involved. And also, you know, we do have an ordinance for 94965 currently. So I think the issue is, you know, we don't really need to, I don't know that, anyway, I don't know if that's necessary because that ordinance is not affected by whatever action we take tonight. We've already, that's already an ordinance for 94965. So I'm not sure why we're digressing back into that. Unless you want to... you know, and the effect of the ordinance change, if we do it in a way that it's written, Is that... the council has broad discretion. probably overbroad, in appointing people from outside of Sausalito in directing staff and directing city budgets, directing staff in support of whatever effort that board is coming up with. And so that's my, to be clear, that's my main concern is that, you know, the people in Sausalito who live here should be able to direct staff and direct the efforts and recommendations to the city council. Anybody can weigh in, but that should be the role of residents. |
| 02:31:37.53 | Unknown | You know, the people in the community. |
| 02:31:53.41 | Steven Woodside | on some of her cocks. Thank you. |
| 02:31:55.53 | Vice Mayor Cox | Thank you. I'll just say that it is different to be an attendee who's confined to two or three minutes public comment versus serving on a. committee board or commission or committee. And so, and also there's a certain distinction of being appointed by the city council to a task force. I agree with Council Member Hoffman that tasks for some forces are also very useless, very useful for specific purposes. So my motion would be to adopt To introduce and weigh first reading of Ordinance No. 04-2024, an Ordinance of the City Council of the City of Sausalito, amending Sausalito Municipal Code Section 2.58.040, relating to residency requirements on city boards, commissions, and committees with the following changes. the Section 2.58.040A would be revised to read except for members of the Economic Development Advisory Committee residency in the city of Sausalito at the time of appointment at all times during one's tenure on any city board, commission or committee is required for continued membership on such a |
| 02:33:13.24 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:33:13.28 | Vice Mayor Cox | to have a great day. |
| 02:33:13.45 | Unknown | Commission. |
| 02:33:13.87 | Vice Mayor Cox | or not. |
| 02:33:14.04 | Unknown | committee. |
| 02:33:15.00 | Vice Mayor Cox | In addition, and then the second sentence would be revised to read. In addition, the city council may by resolution create positions for residents of the 94965 area to serve but who are not residents of Sausalito to serve |
| 02:33:32.03 | Unknown | as non-voting liaisons or in non-voting advisory capacity on any city board commission or committee other than the Planning Commission. |
| 02:33:41.66 | Sergio Rudin | And vice mayor, if I may make a suggestion, you introduced that to say, except for five members of the Economic Development Advisory Committee, I would suggest that read except for up to five members. That way you don't have to appoint five. |
| 02:33:59.33 | Unknown | I agree. I accept that amendment. And so there's a motion to |
| 02:34:03.26 | Councilmember Kellman | Unfortunately. Can you repeat the changes? |
| 02:34:06.99 | Sergio Rudin | So if I follow this correctly, it would read, uh, except for up to five members, uh, of the economic development advisory committee, non-residents shall be permitted, uh, residency. in the city of Sausalito, At the time of appointment at all times during one's tenure irony city board, commission or committee is required for continued membership on some board commission or committee. In addition, the city council may by resolution great positions for And Joan, can you read that section again? |
| 02:34:41.15 | Vice Mayor Cox | Yeah. residents of the 94965 area who do not live in |
| 02:34:47.03 | Unknown | Sausalito. |
| 02:34:47.74 | Vice Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:34:48.11 | Unknown | to serve as non-voting liaisons or in a non-voting advisory capacity. on any city board commission or committee, with the exception of the planning commission. |
| 02:35:00.15 | Councilmember Kellman | I'm sorry, city attorney, where's the EDAC language exemption? |
| 02:35:03.88 | Sergio Rudin | It's at the beginning of, it would be at the beginning of 258.040a. Um, |
| 02:35:09.26 | Vice Mayor Cox | I read it out as Economic Advisory Development Committee So it really reads, Janelle, except for up to five members of EDAC, residency in the city of Sausalito at the time of appointment and at all times during one's tenure |
| 02:35:24.02 | Unknown | the city board commissioner committee is required for continued membership on such board commissioning committee. |
| 02:35:30.57 | Unknown | I'll second that. |
| 02:35:32.97 | Steven Woodside | Okay, motions made second. Is there any discussion? I see your hand is raised, Council Member Hoffman. Did you want to? Your hand is raised. I don't know if that's a vestige of the old. And your |
| 02:35:44.36 | Jill Hoffman | Andrew. Yeah, I know I have a question. |
| 02:35:45.00 | Steven Woodside | Oh, yeah. |
| 02:35:46.82 | Jill Hoffman | So I don't understand How is the, we already are able to, are we able to vote on non-voting liaisons for awards and commissions for 94965. I don't know why it's not. |
| 02:36:03.38 | Unknown | So... So this he is this. |
| 02:36:05.98 | Vice Mayor Cox | ordinance is being this ordinance is being quoted in its entirety so not every portion of what we're reading is new This ordinance is being and is being amended to read in its entirety. And so we don't have a red line version that shows us what changes were made from the prior ordinance. |
| 02:36:26.95 | Sergio Rudin | And the city code currently on the issue of non-voting liaisons is silent. It doesn't address it one way or another. So I think your prior city attorney has expansively interpreted the city council's powers to appoint non-voting liaisons. I would suggest that it's probably safer to have the city code address that issue. |
| 02:36:45.78 | Vice Mayor Cox | We made that decision by resolution, Jill, and it was never memorialized in an ordinance, I think. |
| 02:36:51.91 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, and is there a limit on the number of 94965 liaisons to boards and commissions, non-voting? |
| 02:37:00.95 | Unknown | I recall that when we made that decision as a body, it was going to be one for each board and commission. |
| 02:37:06.83 | Vice Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:37:06.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:37:06.86 | Vice Mayor Cox | Okay, so I'm willing to accept that friendly amendment as well to limit the so Um, So this, the The revised second sentence would read, In addition, the city council may by resolution create up to one position for non-residents, for residents of the 94965 area who are not residents of Sausalito to serve as non-voting liaison or any non-voting advisory capacity on any city board commission or committee except the Planning Commission. And I don't know if you also want to say, and the historic preservation Commission. I don't know if you want to exempt both of those commissions from this. |
| 02:37:51.83 | Vice Mayor Cox | I would recommend it be both. So I'm going to say except for the planning commission and the historic preservation commission. |
| 02:38:00.98 | Vice Mayor Cox | So is there a second to my amended motion? |
| 02:38:04.78 | Steven Woodside | Councilmember Blastien, second native, if you want to reaffirm it with the changes that the vice mayor made. |
| 02:38:09.69 | Unknown | Sure. Reaffirmed. |
| 02:38:13.10 | Steven Woodside | of memory color. |
| 02:38:14.08 | Councilmember Kellman | I'll just for the record offer a friendly amendment that I think will fail, but I'll just put it on the record, which is that the addition of a non-resident and a 94965 would be a non-voting member would be the change. So that this up to five who are non-residents would be non-voting members of EDAC. And I don't know if that would be considered. and that's quite alright if not I just wanted to put in up to five who are non-residents would be non-voting members of EDAC. And I don't know if that would be considered. And that's quite all right. If not, I just wanted to put it in the record. Uh, |
| 02:38:47.49 | Steven Woodside | Zoom. |
| 02:38:47.81 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Yeah. |
| 02:38:47.86 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:38:47.98 | Councilmember Kellman | Thank you. |
| 02:38:49.51 | Jill Hoffman | That would say. |
| 02:38:50.03 | Councilmember Kellman | you I think Jill says she was supportive, but it's up to the vice chair. |
| 02:38:53.76 | Vice Mayor Cox | So I guess what you're doing is making alternative motion because I do not accept that as an amendment to my motion. |
| 02:39:00.70 | Steven Woodside | So an alternative motion has been made, I think, correct? |
| 02:39:03.64 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:39:03.74 | Vice Mayor Cox | And seconded. So we vote on the alternative motion first. |
| 02:39:04.28 | Councilmember Kellman | That's it. |
| 02:39:04.85 | Unknown | second. |
| 02:39:05.14 | Councilmember Kellman | you |
| 02:39:07.65 | Steven Woodside | you know. So it's sorry. |
| 02:39:10.44 | Walfred Solorzano | For the record, who seconded that? What's wrong? I don't know. |
| 02:39:10.61 | Vice Mayor Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:39:10.64 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:39:13.69 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. So there's a discussion on |
| 02:39:17.84 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:39:17.96 | Steven Woodside | I think we just call the voting. If there's no discussion, we can call the question. |
| 02:39:18.54 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:39:18.59 | Unknown | That's it. |
| 02:39:18.91 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:39:18.94 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:39:21.51 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:39:21.52 | Unknown | No. |
| 02:39:22.25 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember, sorry, Councilmember Blalstein. |
| 02:39:25.32 | Unknown | No. |
| 02:39:26.98 | Walfred Solorzano | Council member Hoffman. |
| 02:39:29.93 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:39:29.96 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 02:39:30.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:39:31.43 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Cummins. |
| 02:39:32.54 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 02:39:33.89 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Cox So, And Mary Sobieski. you |
| 02:39:37.99 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:39:38.13 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:39:38.33 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. And now we so that motion fails. We will now call the question on the original underlying motion. |
| 02:39:45.57 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blostey? |
| 02:39:47.00 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 02:39:48.41 | Walfred Solorzano | Council member Hoffman. Councilmember Kelman. Thank you. |
| 02:39:52.64 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:39:52.66 | Walfred Solorzano | So. Vice Mayor Cox. Yes. And Mayor Sobieski. |
| 02:39:57.81 | Steven Woodside | Yes, that motion carries through to. |
| 02:40:00.27 | Sergio Rudin | Thank you. |
| 02:40:00.29 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:40:00.32 | Unknown | Can you just ask the city attorney if you have the final motion in mind? |
| 02:40:00.52 | Sergio Rudin | Thank you. |
| 02:40:00.54 | Walfred Solorzano | you |
| 02:40:00.64 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 02:40:00.83 | Sergio Rudin | Thank you. |
| 02:40:00.84 | Steven Woodside | this. |
| 02:40:01.10 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah. |
| 02:40:05.82 | Sergio Rudin | Yes, yes, I do. So we just had a... Motion to modify the main motion, which failed on a two, three vote and the language of the ordinance is introduced. I do have down. So thank you. |
| 02:40:18.66 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:40:18.73 | Steven Woodside | THE END OF |
| 02:40:18.76 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:40:18.85 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:40:18.86 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:40:22.19 | Steven Woodside | Okay, we'll move on to 5C, discussion and direction regarding the 2425 road resurfacing project list and SB1 project funding. Director McGowan, the floor is yours. |
| 02:40:30.05 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, Mr. Mayor, if I can introduce us while Kevin's setting up. Oh, Mr. City Manager, yes. I appreciate that. So first and foremost, thank you all for taking the time to discuss infrastructure tonight, specifically roads, one of those important things. This is a preliminary step that's required by the state that we identify street projects in our community. So tonight we're seeking your input and your direction. And with that, you know, if that direction is provided tonight, at the upcoming meeting on July 30th, we'll be able to put into effect the plan that we are proposing tonight, a resolution ordinance to adopt the plan so that we can accept $184,000 in state funds to pair with $1.7 million in Measure L funds and add to $140,000 in county funds for our street program. So it's really important that we get this done and we get this direction from you tonight. So Kevin is going to give you the highlights. Thank you, Kevin. |
| 02:40:33.97 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 02:41:30.40 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Director McGowan. Please. |
| 02:41:32.14 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 02:41:32.17 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you, City Manager. Good evening, Mayor, City Council members. Kevin McGowan, Public Works Director for the City's Sausalito. Item 5C before you this evening is a discussion regarding the 2425 resurfacing project. Next slide, please. Over the last year, the city has been completing construction on several complex projects, including the repair and the plate replacement of the concrete surface on Edwards Avenue. Some of the pictures on this slide were taken last week on that construction. The project includes the installation of asphalt on a gradual roadway slope and the replacement of a concrete roadway surface on the steeper sections of the roadway. This is a very complex project, especially with residents on this roadway trying to gain access and having the concrete cure while the roadway was setting up. This is a complex project of less than 900 feet in length with a significant price tag of over a million dollars in order to get it finished. Next slide, please. Please. In 2022, Pavement Engineering Incorporated developed a pavement management program for the city of Sausalito, which provides a rating for all of the city's 26 miles of roadways. The rating is called the Pavement Condition Index or PCI. In 2022, the city's average PCI was 58 out of 100. An optimal rating is about 70 on the PSI scale. The report noted that the city can increase its PCI rating by dedicating more resources to repair and resurface its roadways. An allocation of $1.8 million annually is would not change the average PCI in the city, and an allocation of about $2.9 million, stated in the report, would increase the city's PCI on average five points over five years. Next slide, please. |
| 02:43:41.77 | Kevin McGowan | The report also provided details on which streets, based on the data collected, would be prioritized for repair with each treatment. This included resurfacing an entire street, microsurfing, microsurfacing, a street as well to extend its life expectancy and performing crack sealing to reduce water infiltration and extend the life expectancy of each roadway surface. Next slide. Public Works utilizes the recommendations in the report to refine the roadway. I'm sorry, I keep saying woadway. I sound like Elmer Fudd here at 930 at night. My apologies. So roadway repair list. We start with the recommendations in the report and then perform field reviews of each street to determine if the repairs are warranted. In addition, we receive input from the public as well as our maintenance staff on which roads we should review and may... include in the pavement list, pavement repair list. Staff performs field reviews and develops a preliminary estimate for the repairs of each of these roads. These are very rough estimates. Cost for resurfacing and construction can significantly change each fiscal year, especially with labor costs and material costs changing so radically each fiscal year. For some of our grants, such as SB1 funding, the city is required to develop a list of streets on projects for which the state funding is applied. So that's the funding that our city manager just mentioned. Next slide, please. Staff included 2024-25 resurfacing program in the capital improvement program budget. This year, the total amount recommended was $1.95 million, which includes soft cost as well as construction cost. Staff estimated the construction costs of about $1.6 million could be supported by this allocation, which is slightly less than the $1.8 million recommended in the pavement management plan program. However, if you add in the SB1 funding of $184,000, we're getting quite close to that $1.8 million. Next slide, please. The 2024-25 resurfacing list recommended by staff includes micro-ceiling as well as resurfacing and repairing several roads here in town. Preliminarily, staff estimates the construction cost for this work to be about $1.2 million. Based on this, an additional $400,000 could be allocated to additional roadways. And I wanted to kind of cover a couple of those. Next slide, please. Our maintenance division staff has identified three roadways that should be addressed in the next resurfacing cycle. The cost for these roadway repairs is about $200,000. These are noted at the top of the slide here, and I'll run through each one of these in a couple minutes. Keep in mind that these numbers are very preliminary, like I mentioned before. One of the next steps for this project is to secure the services of an engineering firm to develop the plan specifications and estimates for the work, including additional roadways in this list, such as microceiling bridgeway in the downtown area, will allow the city to obtain an estimate or a more refined estimate of the work on the roadway and keep it on our list for the next fiscal year if insufficient funding is, if we don't have sufficient funding to cover it this year. Next slide, please. So a couple quick pictures for you on some additional areas that have risen from our maintenance staff. This is North Street at 3rd, and it continues to have surface cracking and water coming up through those cracks, which tells us that we've got some water in the sub base. Staff is recommending the removal and the replacement of this concrete section, which can be rather expensive, but it's important to address it. Next slide. A similar issue is occurring on Easterby and Pearl. This situation has a lot of cracking in the old concrete roadway, and we feel that this should actually be repaired as well. Next slide. Coloma Street Sidewalk Project, the Coloma Street Sidewalk Project, has been on the city's list for some time. It has some funding from the Safe Routes to School Program, but has lacked sufficient funding to complete the project, which includes resurfacing of the roadway. preliminarily, This project needs an additional $650,000 to be completed. allocation of some resurfacing funding. to this project in the future. may be important to complete the work. So the idea here is if we want to allocate additional funding for this, we can, but to complete the project, we might need to do that over several years. Next slide, please. Sorry. Bridgeway, as it runs through downtown, is an important area for the city. While the roadway is in fair shape with a PCI of about 59, its surface material appears to be degrading, such that applying a microsurface in this section of roadway would prolong its life expectancy. So we might want to consider this on the list. In addition, signage and striping for this area has faded. Applying a new micro seal and new delineation will improve many aspects for motorists, cyclists, as well as pedestrians. Next slide. And then another one I've listed in the staff report is Gate 5 Road has been impacted by tidal waters backflowing into the drainage system on the roadway and impacting the roadway condition. Staff has cleaned this drainage system and has televised it. And DPW televised the system and found that settlement is a cause of the joints between the pipes separating. So that at the bottom of each pipe, it has a little bit of a gap and you have water infiltrating the system from underneath the pipe itself. Kind of an interesting project. However, DPW would like to line this entire system in order to try to seal it and make other improvements in the area with the intent of trying to keep tidal waters coming up into the roadway itself. If we can complete this type of work for the drainage system, resurfacing the road would be the next logical step. Next slide. |
| 02:50:52.74 | Kevin McGowan | So if council wishes to add streets to the current list DPW current engineering list, engineering will review the streets and modify the current list and develop a rough estimate. Staff will return to council on July 30th to request approval to submit the list to the state in order to receive SB1 funding. Following this effort, DPW will issue a request for proposal to develop the bid package and work to refine the estimates. Next slide. All right. Staff would like to thank the members of the public, our maintenance staff, as well as the council for assisting with developing the list of projects. Now, even if we have a list that we developed today and we submit it to the state, we can change it further on down the line. There isn't there is no specific reason that that list cannot be changed. The state of California simply wants to know what funding the funding that they will be allocating to the city of Sausalito. So they want to know if it's going to be changed. The state of California simply wants to know what funding, the funding that they will be allocating to the city of Sausalito. They want to know if it's going to be dedicated to roadway work. And that's the main intent. So that concludes my hopefully short presentation at this late hour, and I'll try not to be Elmer Fudd when I say Wodeway Wipaz in the future. |
| 02:52:08.48 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Director McGowan. Other questions, please, for Director McGowan from anyone on the dives or online? Go ahead, Council Member Hoffman. |
| 02:52:18.13 | Jill Hoffman | This is a question for, sorry, Council Member Gowan. And let me ask the first one, just a clarifying statement from our city attorney. So, city attorney, we talked about this beforehand and also about there are roads on here that my street and also I think maybe some other council members that come close to their houses. but as you told me because we're talking about resurfacing existing streets, the ethical and also I think maybe some other council members that come close to their houses. But as you told me, because we're talking about resurfacing existing streets, the ethical rules don't prohibit us from acting on this, right? |
| 02:52:52.18 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, there's an express exception for decisions that can solely concern repair, replacement, or maintenance of existing streets, water steward, storm drainage, or similar facilities. Council members are not required to recuse themselves due to ownership of real property as long as the decision is basically about repair of existing streets. |
| 02:53:15.17 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks for that. So I do have a question for Director McGowan. I think it was on one of your slides, Director McGowan, where you talked about the overall budget. And it looked to me like it was a reduction of the budget that was actually allocated. Do I have that right or have I got that? |
| 02:53:36.07 | Kevin McGowan | Well, the CIP document that I reviewed had $1.95 million for that specific resurfacing project. I don't believe that's changed at this point. If we add in SB1 funding, that will increase that amount by another $184,000. |
| 02:53:53.69 | Jill Hoffman | And so the current plan is to maintain our current failing score of the pavement index number of 58. |
| 02:54:02.38 | Kevin McGowan | We are trying to comply with the pavement report, which suggests that we put in 1.8 million each year in order to maintain the current rating of 58. |
| 02:54:15.39 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Those are my questions. Any other questions? Sorry, I had a follow-up. Go right ahead. Director McGowan, was the budget reduced for – you said there was a change, but was it actually reduced at some point? |
| 02:54:21.00 | Steven Woodside | Any other questions? Go right ahead. |
| 02:54:35.98 | Kevin McGowan | I'm not aware of it being reduced from the capital improvement program to this point in time. It's still the same. |
| 02:54:43.39 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks. |
| 02:54:48.08 | Steven Woodside | vice mayor. |
| 02:54:50.12 | Vice Mayor Cox | I understand that this list of projects is a prerequisite to grant funding. My question is, may we make modifications to this initial list once submitted? in support of our request for grant funding in the event that circumstances change or for other you know, reasons within our discretion. |
| 02:55:13.90 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, that's definitely the case. We can make changes as we work our way along, adding or reducing streets. The state is just interested in knowing whether we're applying that funding to maintenance of our roadways. |
| 02:55:27.23 | Vice Mayor Cox | Thank you. And thank you for your effort to secure these funds for us. |
| 02:55:35.03 | Steven Woodside | Any other questions? |
| 02:55:37.98 | Councilmember Kellman | I'm just wondering, Dr. McGowan, could you speak a little bit more to the Gate 5 project and the causation and whether you see that happening in other parts of town? |
| 02:55:47.41 | Kevin McGowan | So the causation. So right now, this is just my opinion. I don't have any engineering firms that have come back in to do a full review. My opinion is that this area has settled over time and that the concrete pipe that runs down the street itself has settled in the center so that you have water coming up. In addition, we also have neighboring properties that pump their stormwater to gate five as well. So if they... so that you have water coming up. In addition, we also have neighboring properties that pump their stormwater to gate five as well. So if they get tidal action coming back in through their Thank you. They're pipe systems or wherever it is, it'll go into gate five also. So we're kind of addressing gate five in an incremental approach. At first, we were trying to identify what we thought were the issues and that had to do with a tide gate that had failed. It also had to do with televising the pipe and making sure that was all clean. Our next step is to sleeve the pipe. Let's do that next. And, you know, if that's going to help us in installing that tide gate, we will know that because we get tides coming up every week. So the intent is one step at a time. Let's go to the next steps. If we still get tidal water back in this section, then we'll need to take another look at this entire system. |
| 02:57:05.61 | Councilmember Kellman | And so just from a strategic planning perspective, you know, Gate 5 has been flooding for a very long time. What are some ways that we can help your department prioritize things like that when we're looking at our roadways and our infrastructure projects? |
| 02:57:25.22 | Kevin McGowan | So I think our method here at the city, similar to other places, is to make sure that we include these type of projects in our capital plan and make sure that we identify them up front so that you as a council can prioritize them yourselves and tell us, hey, we really want to concentrate on Marinship or on Gate 5 or other places. So the intent is to use that system we have in place so that we can work on those as you would like us to. |
| 02:57:52.03 | Councilmember Kellman | Okay, and so I have one more question around the prioritizations. I think a question for you and the city manager slash city attorney, which is we're investing a lot of intellectual manpower into risk management. How is the work that the city attorney and the city manager have been doing around our risk assessment, hiring a risk manager, playing into some of the prioritization of some of these projects? You showed us some... pretty large cracks in roads and things like that. How is the department, maybe it's a question for the city manager, but how are we working together to help influence that prioritization? |
| 02:58:24.79 | Chris Zapata | Thank you for the question, Councilmember Kellman. We will do more work to make sure that if there are dangerous conditions, that we address them immediately, irrespective of the budget or the program that's adopted, because that is a risk management need, I think, would be a necessity. We rely a lot on our staff to tell us where there are real problems so that we can address them as quickly as possible. Because once we know about them, we're compelled to fix them. That's part of our risk approach. And then secondly, you know, continually to talk about, you know, how we do better with our pavement management, whether it's streets and sidewalks. We really want to make sure that we try to figure out an approach that will allow us to not tread water, which is what this program is this year. It's treading water. It is not improving our pavement and it's no better, no worse than last year. And we stay at 58, which I believe is unacceptable. So in the next coming month, I would work with our team on an expedited basis to try to start thinking about how we up the ante and become more aggressive in our pavement improvement program so that our risk profile can go down, our pavement management can go up. But I can assure you if we have a problem where there is something that's of imminent concern or danger to the public or anything, we want to address that independent of this |
| 02:59:59.68 | Steven Woodside | Any other questions? Councilmember Hoffman, your hand is still up. |
| 03:00:04.81 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I have a question. So with regard to Gate 5 Road, can you remind me, or Director McGowan, sorry, Director McGowan, can you remind us, Gate 5 Road, does the city own Gate 5 Road or is that private land? |
| 03:00:21.01 | Kevin McGowan | So there are portions of Gate 5 Road that are not owned by the city. The portions that we are looking at, which tend to run from Harbor down to Coloma, |
| 03:00:30.42 | Unknown | Mama. |
| 03:00:31.30 | Kevin McGowan | those are city-maintained roadways. That section is city-maintained. |
| 03:00:36.21 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you so much for that clarification. I just couldn't remember. |
| 03:00:41.76 | Steven Woodside | Okay, no other questions. We'll go to public comment. City Clerk. Mr. Moore. |
| 03:00:50.15 | Fred Moore | Thank you very much. Maybe you could help educate the public if there is a list of prioritizing the various roadway. I know the list Ms. McGowan presented didn't address a lot of streets up in the hills that are in desperate need of work. Montemar, I mean, you have to get a probably get an adjustment on your wheels or get a flat tire going up to the freeway because there's so many potholes and cracks and broken down streets. So I'm assuming somewhere there's a list of all the streets that are being prioritized, one to 50 or whatever, and how the repairs are going to go. If you go to the public, know where they can find that and then how best to communicate other streets that may not be on that list. I know there's a Fix It app that's available to the public. I'm not sure if there's other ways to best communicate that for your consideration. Thank you. |
| 03:01:42.11 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Mr. Moore, Ms. Merrill. Do you want to answer that question? We'll come on up, Director McGowan, sure. Ms. Merrill, then we'll get to you. |
| 03:01:50.14 | Kevin McGowan | So those are all great suggestions. Montimar from Curry to US 101 is on our list for resurfacing this year. |
| 03:01:57.02 | Steven Woodside | Maybe you could just direct where members of the public can see the full list. And I think it was the staff report associated with the presentation. Yes. On the parking improvement program. I'm sorry, the pavement improvement program. |
| 03:02:04.74 | Kevin McGowan | Yes. Well, So I will make sure that the pavement improvement program is on our website so that we can reference it. I think it's there already, but let me look into that. If you have questions, please contact me at the city. |
| 03:02:22.52 | Steven Woodside | There you go. If you want to know about your street, contact Director McGowan. Ms. Merrill. |
| 03:02:28.14 | Alice Merrill | Hello. I have a question. So one of the things you guys talked about when we were talking about the charter city is that we won't get funding from the state, or we won't get the same kind of help from the state if we have a charter city. If I've got that wrong, you can tell me. If that's true, this SB1 funding, is that something that we would get from the state if we had a charter city? It's curious. I'm just curious if I'm connecting the dots correctly. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Merrill. |
| 03:03:02.64 | Walfred Solorzano | And then online we have Babette McDougall. |
| 03:03:06.08 | Alice Merrill | Thank you. |
| 03:03:06.09 | Chris Zapata | They could sing them on the same thing. |
| 03:03:09.98 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 03:03:10.01 | Steven Woodside | I bet. |
| 03:03:10.92 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. Can you hear me all right? |
| 03:03:12.73 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, we can. Go right ahead. |
| 03:03:14.09 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. So first of all, thank you for, I don't know that I have ever heard in the city council chambers in all my years This kind of direct discussion about the nitty gritty of Gate 5 Road. So I really appreciate that, Director McGowan. Thank you. And, I hope our city manager has had something to do with that because I've seen him down there himself. talking to the local merchants. So I'm really delighted to see this. So I'm all in favor. I just wanna remind you all that our infrastructure tax dollars are being held And, And they constitute an emergency rainy day fund at the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. The fund is a rainy day fund is into the billions of our infrastructure tax dollars. I say we ought to tell them this is a rainy day fund need. Why don't they just give us our tax money for infrastructure so that we can get busy? And this idea that every time we have to apply to them for a grant and sign a loyalty oath, I have never heard of such. That's scary. I say don't do it, but give us our money. They have no right to hold it. Thank you. |
| 03:04:28.90 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker is Sandra Bushmaker. |
| 03:04:36.24 | Sandra Bushmaker | Hello again. I just wanted to report that the Fix-It app is not working. I had uninstalled it and reinstalled it several times and it does not allow access to the report a problem or to report a request. So it does not stay on that page. It's just something that I think might want to be looked at. Um, I don't know if the rest of the world is dealing with that, but I certainly am. because I've used it before and it works great. And because I have issues also up here. on Sausalito Boulevard. that I'd like to report. Just as an aside, 20 some years ago, we had a pavement management system. It was called PMS, which caused a great round of laughter on the dais every time we talked about PMS. So I'm glad to see we have an updated system. And I look forward to better streets in Sausalito, better than 58. Thank you. |
| 03:05:43.01 | Steven Woodside | No further public speakers. So we'll close public comment. Is there any direction? on this matter. or discussion. |
| 03:05:55.18 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 03:05:55.52 | Councilmember Kellman | I'll just repeat, Mayor, what I said earlier. I'm delighted to see Gate 5 Road getting the attention that it deserves, and I think |
| 03:05:55.64 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:06:02.52 | Councilmember Kellman | somebody to consider any of the SB1 monies and I think it would be interesting to know what you discover as a causation. And I think that could open up additional funding for us should we find that it subsides in towards some type of climate risk there are additional monies, and I also wanna be on the lookout for other types of areas where you're seeing similar causation, which I'm sure you'll already flag. So thank you for this. Yeah, long overdue and very happy to see it. And I know a lot of hard work and prioritization goes into it, so I appreciate it. |
| 03:06:38.21 | Steven Woodside | Councilmember Hoffman? |
| 03:06:41.12 | Jill Hoffman | Just thank you, too. Thank you, and I support the resurfacing and the roadway work. I look forward to the time that we can devote more money to get the pavement index number up. So I know that we have budget constraints now, but I appreciate Kevin's hard work and the work of his team to prioritize and help us to hit the highest priority needs. So thank you. |
| 03:06:49.11 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:06:49.15 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 03:07:08.40 | Steven Woodside | So, I'm Rick Cox, or Bryce Merrick Cox. |
| 03:07:10.99 | Vice Mayor Cox | Thank you. I am grateful that the grant funding we are seeking allows us flexibility in our list of in our road resurfacing list and so I will go ahead and move that we adopt the proposed 2024-25 road resurfacing list, including the alternative roadways, which staff recommended, including as bid alternates, which can be included in the project, depending upon the cost of the work. |
| 03:07:45.48 | Unknown | SECOND. |
| 03:07:46.73 | Steven Woodside | Okay, that's a motion made in seconded. |
| 03:07:49.97 | Walfred Solorzano | Oh, wow. |
| 03:07:51.47 | Steven Woodside | Yes, very quick. |
| 03:07:52.50 | Unknown | of the |
| 03:07:52.53 | Steven Woodside | Okay. you |
| 03:07:52.78 | Walfred Solorzano | on someone last team? |
| 03:07:54.89 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 03:07:56.19 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 03:08:01.37 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 03:08:02.59 | Walfred Solorzano | Council member, Common? |
| 03:08:04.50 | Councilmember Kellman | you |
| 03:08:04.55 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 03:08:04.66 | Councilmember Kellman | Thank you. |
| 03:08:05.73 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Cox. Yes. And Mayor Sobieski. |
| 03:08:10.17 | Steven Woodside | Yes, motion carries unanimously. We'll now move on to item six, which is communication where items not on the agenda. If any member wishes to make public comment on an item not on the agenda, this is the time to do so. Are there any public comments here in the room for items not on the agenda? about online, Mr. City Clerk. |
| 03:08:29.07 | Walfred Solorzano | Babette McDougal |
| 03:08:40.64 | Walfred Solorzano | Bye-bye. |
| 03:08:57.75 | Babette McDougall | Thank you for unmuting me. Okay, so I would just like to point out that I actually think this was probably one of the best council meetings we've had all year, probably the best council meeting we've had all year. So thank you for tightening up the agenda, and thank you for doing such a good job of running the meeting, Mr. Mayor. thought it went really smoothly considering all the obstacles that got thrown at you from the technology side. So I think this is part of a better idea of trying to understand who we are as a community. You're in this job for another few months. And We have a long way to go yet, so I think it's important that we understand better your concern about the lack of adequate voice among investors in our community. And I think you are probably uniquely qualified to speak to this as we go forward, because Sausalito has always had its fair share of carpetbaggers. And, It is true that we must, as citizens and residents, we also, we of course love our business community. We couldn't survive without them. There's, we all feel that way. Every citizen feels that way. So no one wants to exclude the businesses, regardless of place of residence. And the fact that they are here for the long term Acknowledging Cass is a wonderful thing because she's been here forever. I mean, it feels for as long as I've paid attention to the business community in Above Tide. has been the spectacular property. Thank you. And it remains a spectacular property. So I appreciate the concern. I would just like to see it more openly and, uh, vetted by as many points of view as possible as we go forward. I think the more we engage this discussion, the better we'll understand this new culture that you speak of. Thank you. |
| 03:10:49.53 | Walfred Solorzano | I'm seeing no other speakers. |
| 03:10:51.46 | Steven Woodside | Okay, we'll close public comment and move on to council member committee reports. Is there any member who wishes to make a comment or make a report? Being none, we will close council member committee reports and move on to the city manager reports. Another council business, city manager. |
| 03:11:10.58 | Chris Zapata | Yes, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, members of the public, I have a written report on the 4th of July parking revenue, which is included. I don't need to speak to it. Brian Vitale said it was $22,000. It was also about $22,000 last year. And some of the concerns raised by residents and businesses about how we charge for off-lot parking we are working on and will address, knowing that there is a parking committee that we will work with to try to understand how we deal best with holidays, with employees, with residents and with the changes in parking technology on a go forward basis. Thank you. |
| 03:11:53.03 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Mr. City Manager. There's now an opportunity for the public to, yes. |
| 03:11:57.08 | Councilmember Kellman | I'm sorry, I have a question for the city manager. Who is on the parking committee? |
| 03:12:01.32 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:12:01.45 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. That is a mayor appointed committee. |
| 03:12:04.04 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, that's something that's I pointed I'm going to be a little hard-pressed to remember all the names. I'm not on the committee myself. It's... None of us. No city council members. It's... |
| 03:12:13.47 | Councilmember Kellman | Any of us. |
| 03:12:18.65 | Steven Woodside | Ah, truly. |
| 03:12:21.65 | Councilmember Kellman | How about a one-way communication tomorrow? You probably send that out. |
| 03:12:22.58 | Steven Woodside | tomorrow Rather than forgetting someone, let me set it up. I think that's a good question. So now is there any public comment on the city manager? Oh. Thank you. |
| 03:12:36.27 | Jill Hoffman | Do you have my hand up for questions? |
| 03:12:36.33 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:12:39.54 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks, ma'am. |
| 03:12:40.35 | Steven Woodside | Yes, please. |
| 03:12:41.35 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. City Manager, in the report, the written report, I sent you an email this afternoon. I'm sure you haven't seen it with all the monitors of emails, so I should have sent you a text too. But you note that we did increase, I think there was back when, Mayor Sobieski and I were on the parking committee and we got the Dixon report. One of the initiatives we had was to raise the meters up to the same rate that were in the parking lots. And you note in your report that |
| 03:13:01.50 | Unknown | Maybe. |
| 03:13:20.78 | Jill Hoffman | We did that over Memorial Day weekend, but that concern was voiced, this is what you say, your concern was voiced, this was an impediment to the business environment and saw something undetrimental and that the rate was returned back to the original rate. And I'm wondering who, Who was it that brought forward this concern about the impediment to the business environment and who made the decision to lower the rate of the meters? Because I believe that was a city council directive to raise the rates at the meters to the same rate as the parking lots. |
| 03:14:01.00 | Chris Zapata | Thank you for the question, Council Member Hoffman. The request to consider this came at a city council meeting by an appearance from the floor where they stated that this was going to be harmful because people were confused about that $25 rate being consistent. And it was hard for a business to serve a cup of coffee and someone pay a $25 parking fee on the street. So the current ordinance provides a lot of latitude for the city manager to set these rates on holiday weekends. So it was my decision that can be undone, certainly, by the city council, because I've heard from others on the council that they would like to see, you know, the Dixon recommendation adhere to. I took it off just to provide some relief until we could figure out how to notify people better that on certain holidays, you know, we are looking at, you know, different ways of charging people, broadcasting that more aggressively than we have than just implementing it, which we did for about a year as far as increasing the rates to $25 in the lots and then following that with something else on top of that. And it seemed like I had overreached, so I pulled back, but I can easily take direction from the council and implement the will that you want in terms of how we charge people on the meters. Thank you. |
| 03:15:28.31 | Jill Hoffman | I think, yeah, I mean, if we have the, and I know we have it, so as part of the one-way communication, I'd like to know what the revenue was over Memorial Day weekend for the increased rates, you know, for the meters, because we are looking at, you know, direct revenue to the city from parking is one of our best revenue sources, frankly. And, you know, we're talking about different models right now where we're losing significant amounts of parking downtown anyway with a significant loss of revenue so I mean we're talking about 30 spots in parking lot one and as many as 10 to 14 more along the street where the new bicycle corral is proposed. |
| 03:15:44.15 | Unknown | you know, |
| 03:16:12.96 | Jill Hoffman | Anyway, I think I would appreciate being informed and that maybe we do need to have a conversation about But... If the council gives direction to increase rates, and I think we need to have that consistent. |
| 03:16:31.01 | Chris Zapata | Understood. We'll provide you more detail. Thank you. |
| 03:16:35.47 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:16:38.59 | Chris Zapata | I'm not. |
| 03:16:38.96 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:16:40.67 | Vice Mayor Cox | Thank you. With the city manager's response, I think it's probably appropriate that we have this as a discussion item since this is just the city manager's report, but I will note that the members of the business community who spoke up at a prior meeting expressed concern that they were losing business because of the extremely high rates on the streets, not necessarily in the lots, but on the streets. And. Obviously, as Scott Thornburg pointed out, 40% of our revenue come from our businesses. And so I think we have to walk the fine line between determining what's the appropriate what's what's an appropriate solution that walks that fine line between the importance of not disincentivizing businesses, visitors versus in capitalizing on revenue opportunities on holiday weekends. So I look forward to that. further discussion. Thank you. |
| 03:17:47.19 | Steven Woodside | Okay, public comment, please, for these items, city clerk. |
| 03:17:51.85 | Walfred Solorzano | We have Babette McDougall. |
| 03:18:00.54 | Babette McDougall | Good evening again. Thank you. First of all, with regard to this parking revenue issue, I appreciate it. I don't recall which of you, But I heard a voice drawing a corollary line between those Folks who are not residents or somehow, you know, invested in the town, but they're coming to the town because they want to play here, which is great. But, you know, there's this issue where they sort of flood the neighborhoods. Now, I have to say July 4th was a much better place. than last year's Caledonia Fair. So obviously we're moving in the right direction. But it occurs to me when we talk about revenue and the revenue derived from parking and what it's used for, have we ever given any thought to what percentage might be brought specifically back to those neighborhoods most heavily impacted by the influx of this event traffic flow? Because it does take a toll on the very roads that the sidewalk ordinance, for example, tasks the residents to take charge of financially and otherwise. So I would just invite your consideration about That integrated picture, once again, it's not an us and them environment in Sausalito, believe it or not. It's all interconnected, which is why, for example, the issues are not localized to neighborhoods. Everybody in town cares as much about the marineship as they do about the downtown. and as they do about the ferry landing. So the issue of parking revenue and when the neighborhoods have to kick in, on those occasions as they are kicking in. How does that remit or mitigate back to the neighborhoods themselves? Thank you. |
| 03:19:45.30 | Steven Woodside | No further public speakers? Okay, we'll close public comment. And that brings us to the end of the meeting. Thank you, everyone. We'll adjourn and see you in two weeks. Good night. |
| 03:19:52.60 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:19:54.39 | Vice Mayor Cox | Thank you. Good night. |
| 03:19:58.10 | Jill Hoffman | We're annoyed. |