| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:01.94 | Steven Woodside | I will call the meeting to order. It's 5.03 p.m. and ask the city clerk to take the role. |
| 00:00:11.20 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blaustein. |
| 00:00:12.82 | Steven Woodside | here. |
| 00:00:14.24 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 00:00:16.65 | Steven Woodside | Here. |
| 00:00:17.70 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Selyeski. |
| 00:00:19.54 | Steven Woodside | Absent. |
| 00:00:20.75 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice. |
| 00:00:21.75 | Steven Woodside | He will be arriving later. |
| 00:00:24.62 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Woodside here and Mayor Cox. |
| 00:00:27.96 | Steven Woodside | here. Okay, first thing on our agenda for this evening is interviews for the Historic Preservation Commission and the Disaster Preparedness Committee. And so... Um, our first interview and do we have anybody participating via zoom? Walfred? I don't know. |
| 00:00:46.66 | Walfred Solorzano | No, none that have told me. |
| 00:00:50.69 | Steven Woodside | Okay, well, do you want to pull up the Zoom just in case someone, because I see that not all of our applicants are here. |
| 00:01:03.26 | Walfred Solorzano | I see the city attorney is promoted to panelists and then we have Lynn and Lynn is not one of the applicants. So the first person we have is Mary Lee, |
| 00:01:11.51 | Jeffrey Conan | applicants. |
| 00:01:12.04 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:01:16.39 | Walfred Solorzano | Hi. Okay. |
| 00:01:17.27 | Steven Woodside | but, |
| 00:01:17.56 | Walfred Solorzano | That's Bickford. |
| 00:01:18.52 | Steven Woodside | But this is a public meeting, and so we need to make this meeting available to observe these interviews. Okay, I'm not seeing it up on our screen. |
| 00:01:23.81 | Walfred Solorzano | and to come to... Oh, sorry. |
| 00:01:39.04 | Steven Woodside | Mary Lee Bickford, please come forward. Sorry, you can stand at the podium. and turn on the mic so that we can. Okay, great. And These interviews typically last five minutes apiece. |
| 00:01:52.70 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:01:52.72 | Jill Hoffman | It's a great day. |
| 00:01:56.20 | Steven Woodside | And we have received your application and reviewed it. Congratulations on being in Sausalito for such a long time. |
| 00:02:03.79 | Mary Lee Bickford | Thank you. |
| 00:02:05.06 | Steven Woodside | And so go ahead and share with us anything you'd particularly like us to know about why you're applying for the Historic Preservation Commission. |
| 00:02:13.51 | Mary Lee Bickford | Thank you very much to all of you. I've lived in Sausalito 15 years. I come from the Northeast, from New England, where I grew up in historical places. I'm degreed in interior design technology, where we also were studied and had a part of that was in architectural design and interest. I've served on two previous boards here for the City Arts Commission and Trees and Views. So anyway, I just note about Sausalito is that there's so much richness in its history and its culture and its places that my desire is to make that part of it more known. not just the retail shopping, not just a few plaques here, but more of the the secret places or the unknown places like Swede Beach, which I think needs whole lot more attention and More history there. So... That's where I am with Tassel. |
| 00:03:14.03 | Steven Woodside | it off. Wonderful. Thank you for that. I'll open it up to questions. |
| 00:03:20.54 | Steven Woodside | Just a quick follow on. Give us some thoughts, your thoughts, on how you would make it more visible or unlivened. |
| 00:03:28.98 | Mary Lee Bickford | Love to. So for instance, Swede Beach, for example, at the top of the stairs to Swede Beach, you have a trash can, you have doggy bags, and you have a sign that says clean up after your dog. There is no mention of a historic site, historic landmark. or anything about the history of. fact that it was even called Whale Cove, I believe. So that is just I would put a plaque at the beginning with notification of what's going on down there and what used to happen. And see the railings that used to be out there. That was for, I mean, there's such an in-depth timeline. Pick any part. But I'd like to expose more of that original history. |
| 00:04:11.49 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Have you ever attended any of our Historic Preservation Commission meetings? I have not. |
| 00:04:16.99 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | Okay. |
| 00:04:17.36 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Okay. And are you aware of our historic preservation guidelines that we adopted, I think, about eight, seven, eight years ago. the guidelines as far as service on the committee? No, the guidelines for Sausalito for evaluating |
| 00:04:31.58 | Mary Lee Bickford | Thank you. |
| 00:04:31.63 | Sandra Bushmaker | timeline? |
| 00:04:35.23 | Steven Woodside | the historic nature of our various buildings and structures. |
| 00:04:39.62 | Mary Lee Bickford | I'm aware of what is considered or looked at for historic preservation as far as exterior. It could be a place. It could be a person. It could be, uh, an architectural feature. Okay. |
| 00:04:56.36 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Oh, please. Hi, Mary Lee. We met before the meeting and thank you for coming down. I'm currently the council liaison for historic preservation. I want to thank you for coming down tonight and joining us here in the council chambers for an interview. And I invite you to come to any of the historic preservation meetings. They're also on Zoom, if you'd like to join on Zoom. And there are lots of ways to become, come involved with this work preservation and the efforts that that board does outside of their meetings too. And so I'm happy to talk to you more about that offline if you'd like to. Absolutely, yes. Yeah. So thank you for throwing your hat and ring. We appreciate it. |
| 00:05:35.61 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:05:38.96 | Mary Lee Bickford | Welcome, welcome. Thank you all. |
| 00:05:42.00 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:05:42.15 | Mary Lee Bickford | Thank you. |
| 00:05:42.17 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:05:45.94 | Steven Woodside | Okay, so that concludes our interviews for Historic Preservation Commission. We'll now turn to disaster preparedness. And City Clerk... Did you invite Janelle and Bonnie to the meeting? |
| 00:06:00.99 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes, they all received emails and they all responded that they would attend. |
| 00:06:03.96 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, I thought I saw Bonnie in the hallway, but... |
| 00:06:07.65 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:06:07.72 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:06:07.75 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:06:07.91 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:06:08.11 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:06:08.12 | Steven Woodside | I didn't know. But I thought I saw her come down. |
| 00:06:13.12 | Jill Hoffman | as I'm a teacher. |
| 00:06:14.03 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | you know. |
| 00:06:14.32 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 00:06:15.08 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | Okay. |
| 00:06:15.42 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:06:20.56 | Walfred Solorzano | I put the time slots on there. I think I put 5 o'clock, 5.14, and 5.21, so maybe they're waiting until the time slot begins. |
| 00:06:28.64 | Steven Woodside | And when did you send the emails? |
| 00:06:30.08 | Walfred Solorzano | I sent it to them on Monday or Tuesday, I believe. |
| 00:06:32.83 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:06:33.15 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:06:33.22 | Steven Woodside | of, uh, |
| 00:06:33.30 | Walfred Solorzano | of this week. |
| 00:06:34.25 | Steven Woodside | Last week. And did you receive anything back from anybody? |
| 00:06:37.17 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes, I received |
| 00:06:39.02 | Steven Woodside | responses that they would have done. So Janelle said she would attend? Yes, she would. Well, it's not yet 520, so. |
| 00:06:52.20 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 00:06:54.53 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. |
| 00:06:54.97 | Jill Hoffman | And she was slated for that time. |
| 00:06:59.12 | Steven Woodside | Sure. Hi, Bonnie. |
| 00:07:03.66 | Steven Woodside | No, welcome. We're just starting the interviews for Disaster Preparedness Committee. So we have a person here, Stella, who had applied for... |
| 00:07:16.98 | Jill Hoffman | For as long. |
| 00:07:18.55 | Steven Woodside | Oh. HPC, but who's And HPC does not have an alternate position. She's ineligible for the commission but she could be an alternate for disaster preparedness, given that she lives within the 94965 area. So I was gonna start with you, Bonnie, because you have experience on the Disaster Preparedness Committee and thank you for your application. So would you like to come up chat with us for a few minutes. Oh, and here's Janelle. this to the podium. |
| 00:07:58.62 | Steven Woodside | is on paper. |
| 00:07:59.62 | Bonnie | Yes. |
| 00:07:59.63 | Steven Woodside | Yes. Yes. So first, I want to thank you for your long years of service already on the HPC. And perhaps you'd like to share with us a little bit about what that was like for you and what you'd like to see happen. as we reconstitute the committee. Thank you. |
| 00:08:16.36 | Bonnie | Bye. |
| 00:08:16.49 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 00:08:16.92 | Bonnie | Thank you. Well, I was on the committee for quite a few years. along with Tom Perazzo, and other members came and went over the years. I would say it was probably... I think I was on that committee for at least 10 years. It got casual as to when your time was up and this and that, and there was no one else to take our places, so we kept going on and going on. Gosh, so many things did happen, and then a lot of things kind of petered out. We did develop some documents that I looked up on my computer, which we can pull up and print if we need to. I put together a pretty heavy duty bug out bag. And I could have been, I'd hate to have to do it, I can hardly lift it now. I could have survived, if I had to, in the boondocks for at least a week out of that bag, probably longer, because the only thing that would run out would be water and food, depending on where you were. And I made an index, a table of contents, but it was more than that. And I did it alphabetically, and I also did it by what pocket on my backpack the items were in. So he had a good cross-reference on it. So I would hand that out every time we went somewhere. We also set up days in the park during the flea market garage sale times, and we would have a tent there and hand out materials that we had. And over the years, we started getting more and more materials. Of course, we had a representative from the fire department and the police department who were our co-sponsors, that type of things. And we met monthly. Sometimes we met more frequently than that. And after about 10 years... I wasn't invited to leave, but I wasn't invited to stay because I had kind of outlived my... terms, if you will. So, uh, I did keep in touch with Tom and, um, a couple of the other people, Sondra Bushmaker, and, um, I can't remember some of the others now. It's been a while. So I'm happy to see that this is being regenerated when you brought it up. I think it's a wonderful idea. And I do have, um, I made a list of some things that this is just very cursory, of course. Regular meetings, of course, and with reps from citizens, such as the team would be, really, and represent from the fire and police departments again. Probably we actually were under the police department. And how about some citizen organizations? Women's Club, Sausalito Village, etc., to, again, more saturate the community with what needs to be done. And I think neighborhood visits, which haven't been done since Herbie was around, Herb Weiner, for those who don't know, he's a city council member and a former businessman in town. And he was adopted by the whole town. Everybody in town loved Herbie. And we went around to, we did this two or three times. We went to various neighborhoods from one end of town to the other with the city council members. And we had donuts and goodies and coffee. I think we called them, excuse me, mobile coffees. And I think something like that would have a bigger impact today than it did then. We hadn't had all these horrendous fires at that time when they were being done. I guess the Oakland Hills fire had happened, but there was enough time in between. Excuse me. That's my curse for having smoked. Um, So I think we need to do things like that again. And I would like to see... in the meetings, in the visits... would be council members and DPC members and perhaps some other people. And it would be what I call educational support. And neighborhood, get people encouraged to do neighborhood watch groups. This town is not very good at that, and I think our geography has a lot to do with that. But I think people are going to pay more attention now. Those fires are getting closer and closer. And floods. Not that I have a problem with a flood. I live on Princess Street. we need funding to develop meaningful materials to distribute, such as more publications and videos, and whether we can get them from other fire departments and what have you, I don't know. We need in-person meetings to the neighborhoods, which I just alluded to. I think we also should have the funding in order to get speakers at the meetings and maybe some of the neighborhood things or use this room to have a meeting. And, um, |
| 00:13:16.11 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:13:18.34 | Bonnie | Thank you. |
| 00:13:18.35 | Steven Woodside | Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. Did anyone have any questions of Bonnie? Bonnie, thank you for your service and for all of your brilliant ideas. It's great to hear some of the things that you did do and that we could redo again. Does anyone have any questions for Bonnie? |
| 00:13:33.85 | Unknown | I, yeah, I should do. |
| 00:13:35.74 | Jill Hoffman | I think would be super helpful, Bonnie, from the time that you were on. This isn't really a, this is an ask actually from you. from the time, just from the summary that you read off, I think it'd be super helpful if, You could put together a one-pager, kind of the highlights. You've already started it from when you were on the committee before, you know, of what you thought were the biggest things that we could transfer going forward. I mean, some of the things aren't going to transfer because, you know, of the different environment that we're living in now. But some of the things that were the most helpful. And I think the neighborhood outreach is, I mean, I think that translates very well. And some of those things and some of the other efforts that you guys did. So I think that would be really helpful for reconstituting this group. And You know, some of the guys are still around. I think Mike McKinney was probably still on there, you know, when you were on there. Yes, he was. So and maybe touching base with him and just sort of paring down. I saw him. |
| 00:14:32.71 | Bonnie | Yes, it was. |
| 00:14:33.40 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:14:37.63 | Steven Woodside | I saw him the other day. Oh, he's going to be the liaison for staff. |
| 00:14:38.51 | Jill Hoffman | Oh, he's going to be the liaison. Thank you. Yeah, so I mean, I wouldn't want you guys to waste time. Or new people coming on might have great ideas. But to kind of focus the group moving forward, I think, would be super helpful. So anyway, just. |
| 00:14:51.27 | Bonnie | Thank you. |
| 00:14:51.28 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | Thank you. |
| 00:14:51.30 | Bonnie | I'll be happy. |
| 00:14:51.79 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | Thank you. |
| 00:14:51.81 | Bonnie | to do that. |
| 00:14:52.41 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | Thank you. |
| 00:14:52.57 | Bonnie | Since you're here, |
| 00:14:52.97 | Jill Hoffman | THE FAMILY. |
| 00:14:53.04 | Bonnie | Anybody else? |
| 00:14:56.45 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | you |
| 00:14:56.47 | Steven Woodside | All right, Bonnie, thank you so much. We're hearing from Stephanie Moulton-Peters and from Chief Tubbs this evening, if you feel like sticking around. Okay. All right, I'm going to go ahead and invite Stella Benton, since we're still a couple of minutes ahead of Janelle's slot. Hi, Stella, welcome. Thank you for applying and for your interest in serving on one of our boards and commissions. Do you want to say a few words? Yes, please. |
| 00:15:19.90 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:15:19.97 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 00:15:20.04 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | Thank you for it. |
| 00:15:20.73 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 00:15:26.98 | Stella Benton | Well, thank you for having me. So I'm not originally from Marin, but my mother is. She was born and raised in Mill Valley. And so she does take a liking into wanting to protect Marin, and especially from any natural disasters. Right now, we reside in the headlands of Marin City, and as many of you are aware, it's susceptible to a lot of floods, and the fire roads are closed. I have been interning in the interim for the past year with Felicia Gaston, who, alongside Housing Commissioner Sarah Kanson, run the disaster preparedness for Marin City, preparing backpacks and supplies as the storage supplies for Marin City were all molded and unusable. this includes developing pamphlets to pass out to community to advocating to possibly open up the fire roads for an emergency escape, since there's one way in and one way out, as well as meeting with the Office of Emergency Planning to develop what is going to happen in case there is a flood that we cannot drive through. I know that Marin City is the unincorporated Sausalito, and I would like the opportunity to be a liaison with Sausalito Incorporated. to reach across the aisle and have more collaborative efforts with disaster preparedness, since we all share this Southern landmass. Um, there's any questions whatever but uh thank you for having me and Thank you for allowing me to speak. |
| 00:17:12.28 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. You know, we're always looking for more ways to collaborate with Marin City, so this just sounds ideal to me. Did anyone have any questions of Stella? Stella? Thank you. |
| 00:17:22.21 | Jill Hoffman | I mean, I really appreciate that you're here and also your willingness to shift your service. I'm sorry about the historic preservation committee, but we're so fortunate that you're interested in disaster preparedness. And I was looking at your resume and it seems like you have a lot of board experience already serving on Interfaith Council and doing a lot of work, as you mentioned with Felicia. Do you want to just share a little bit about how your, you know, your style or your previous experience there would be applied here just to highlight some of the great stuff that's already on your resume? |
| 00:17:52.10 | Stella Benton | Well, for one, I tend to, I know they're all very unique and diverse in experience. I take what I know and anyone I can reach out to to bring them into the fold. So for the Marin Organizing Committee, being part of the Housing Core team, While I believe it's the Bellinas, or no, it's CLAM CLT, they're part of the members of MSC. And I thought, well, all CLTs should. So I serve on Mount Tam CLT, and I think they should be members of MSC as well. I mean, we all want affordable housing, so we all should together formulate some kind of plan to do so. With MIC, it's reaching across and collaborating and bringing together people of different faiths, but even people of no faith, but also helping communities that are disadvantaged. That means the canal, that means Marin City, that means West Marin. And MIC has a lot to do with just people and communities throughout Marin County. So my experience has been well serving as secretary, but also handling along with our accountant of MIC, the financials, um, And Mal Tam. Right now, we're only serving in Mill Valley, but we hope to expand out into Southern Marin, just earmark some land that is maybe dilapidated, vacant, and make it affordable housing for essential workers, teachers, firemen, police officers. Keep the community of Marin County a community like it used to be when a lot of hippies came through from the 60s and 70s. That's just a little tidbit. |
| 00:19:42.88 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | Thank you. Any other questions? |
| 00:19:44.67 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:19:46.93 | Steven Woodside | No. All right. Thank you so much, Stella, and welcome. All right, and this next applicant needs no introduction. Mm-hmm. I'm wearing a pocket square this evening in your honor. |
| 00:19:59.57 | Janelle Kelman | Thank you. Well, thank you everybody for having me. Wonderful to see all of you. And I really appreciate you giving me the opportunity. |
| 00:20:08.01 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Janelle. You had said and for anyone who watching who doesn't know, this is Janelle Kelman, former mayor, former council member, candidate for lieutenant governor. If you could share some of the ideas that you shared with me in text when you were saying that you'd like to get involved again. |
| 00:20:24.82 | Janelle Kelman | Sure. Thank you for that, Mayor. So I know we've had a really great history of community outreach and trying to bring people together to explain what some of the programs or evacuation patterns are. I really want to focus my efforts on creating a more resilient Sausalito so that we are prepared to respond effectively. I've been spending some time with some of the victims of the Eaton fire down in Altadena, the Palisades fire victims. And one of the big issues, I'm sure you know, is the hydrants run out of water. Well, because most residential hydrants are not intended for more than one alarm fire. And when you have something that's massive, you run out of water. You may also notice that many of the hydrants in Sausalito are placed along right of ways. We also, when it rains, it literally pours here. So one idea that I think is long overdue, and I think Councilmember Blaustein had said, I talked about this previously generally. are graywater catchment systems. So I would imagine a graywater catchment system in every neighborhood, right? So divide Sausalito into neighborhoods, develop these graywater catchment systems, align them closely where the hydrants are so that every neighborhood, based on what Chief Tubbs and his battalion dictate, have extra water resources should they be needed. I'm sure you've all seen the Southern Wind Fire model that should we have a fire comes across GGNRA and rolls down the hillside. And there's a lot of vegetation up by Montemar and Spencer in that area. So being able to respond very quickly. We also have a lot of landmass devoted to MMWD. We have the area up over Woodward. We have actually the Cypress Ridge area. What if we co-located larger cisterns there so that we made sure that we had water? Another effort that I think is an opportunity for us is to be able to pilot new technologies. If you may recall then in Australia, they had a terrible bushfire a couple of years ago. It was actually devastating. And out of that came a technology around fire suppression, not a retardant, but suppression. And I've been approached by some of those technologists to deploy this in California. And what it does is it takes the inner heat and reduces it from 2,000 degrees down to 150 degrees. And that's a much more manageable fire to be able to fight, particularly. the way we are oriented on hillsides. So I would want to continue to do that type of work, bring some new technologies to make us more resilient so that we are ready. The other part of what I'm hoping or willing if you if the Council so wishes is to continue a focus on insurance with community based cash traffic risk insurance parametric insurance ways to make sure that our community members many of them are actually on fixed incomes have the opportunity to respond should we have some type of disaster which as we know could be a landslide could be flooding and not just fire related. Thank you for all of that. |
| 00:23:13.97 | Steven Woodside | Does anyone have any questions? |
| 00:23:16.05 | Steven Woodside | Since she's running for lieutenant governor, the governor announced last week, I believe, that he was directing senior people in his administration, various departments, to develop regulations for a five-foot rule whereby every residence would be separated from anything flammable by a... |
| 00:23:38.26 | Jimmy Jessup | Thank you. |
| 00:23:38.76 | Steven Woodside | So in zero. Yeah, but it's a five foot zone. Just curious if you've had a chance to look at that and what your thoughts are about this. |
| 00:23:48.06 | Janelle Kelman | Yeah, so let's take the Palisades fire. So the chaparral that exists along the mountain behind Palisades is not the same as the type of fuel that we saw burning in say the Sonoma or the Santa Rosa fires. So there's no one size fits all for every community when it comes to vegetation and vegetation management. When I was on the planning commission, we began to see a number of people come in and wanted to cut down trees, including coastal live oaks, which are a protected species in this community. What I would say is there's an opportunity to craft something that is applicable to Sausalito, but I wouldn't necessarily just flat out deploy something I saw in another community, because I think what you'll see is we'll remove much of the vegetation in Sausalito and we'll have other impacts that could lead to erosion, could lead to heat sinks that will be unintended consequences. |
| 00:24:41.15 | Steven Woodside | And you're going to hear, if you stay or can watch via Zoom, you'll hear Southern Marine Fire talk about Zone Zero more this evening. |
| 00:24:47.77 | Janelle Kelman | Yeah, and thank you all for elevating this and making sure it's, I was very happy to see that in your newsletters and on the current. So thank you so much. Thank you so much. Nice to see you all. |
| 00:24:57.05 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Great to see you. All right, and that concludes our interviews. and um, I'm going to wait a couple of minutes to give anyone who wants to sign on for closed session to provide public comments. |
| 00:25:15.69 | Jill Hoffman | Do you want to maybe just, we'll be continuing to accept applications for some of the committees, or do you know what the... Just because I know there are folks who submitted that didn't interview this evening, for example. |
| 00:25:24.64 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:25:25.75 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:25:25.80 | Steven Woodside | So we interviewed everyone who has so far applied for disaster preparedness and for HPC. I know of someone else that applied. |
| 00:25:33.97 | Jill Hoffman | late last week, probably after that had been posted. |
| 00:25:36.87 | Walfred Solorzano | I believe we got more applications after the posting of the agenda. |
| 00:25:43.20 | Steven Woodside | Okay. I was not aware of that. So yes, absolutely. But I am going to go ahead and make some appointments this evening with the council's concurrence. because I want to get the Disaster Preparedness Committee started. |
| 00:25:54.47 | Jill Hoffman | Sure. I just mean, but it's not going to be full yet, right? Because I know there are additional interested applicants. I want to make sure they know that that's going on. |
| 00:26:02.03 | Steven Woodside | Is that agendized that we're making appointments? It is agendized at the end of the evening. It's a appointment. I just haven't gotten there yet. |
| 00:26:08.07 | Steven Woodside | And just so that the public- |
| 00:26:09.73 | Steven Woodside | So it says it's six C. |
| 00:26:12.09 | Steven Woodside | So there are still vacancies, if you will, for disaster preparedness. |
| 00:26:17.61 | Steven Woodside | So there are three people already. We have two people that we interviewed tonight. And then we have an alternate, and that does leave one or two additional spots. |
| 00:26:28.56 | Steven Woodside | people. |
| 00:26:28.64 | Steven Woodside | I had invited one person to apply. I don't know if he's applied yet. And... |
| 00:26:28.80 | Steven Woodside | I had. |
| 00:26:33.98 | Steven Woodside | And then for HPC, we have someone who is termed out. Thank you. |
| 00:26:37.33 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:26:37.47 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. And so I'm hoping to appoint at least someone to that term. Thank you. this evening. And then the chairs or I don't know if she's the chair, Vicki Nichols is about to be termed out, and she's going to, she submitted her application today. And so that will go on consent for our next agenda as per our policy, that someone who is currently serving who would like to continue to serve, we consider on consent. |
| 00:27:05.01 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:27:07.13 | Jill Hoffman | but there are, let me just, But the window for applications for disaster preparedness is still open. Absolutely. Yeah. So I'm just throwing this out here. But as long as the window for applications is still open, we don't know the universe of who's going to apply. And I'm just saying this as a caution. We can talk about this later when we do the applications. Yeah, yeah. I think that's – Do we want to fill up the slots before we know the universe of who all is going to apply? And I'm just throwing that out there. Yeah. Because if we fill up tonight, we don't know who might want to apply during the open applications. |
| 00:27:46.74 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, even if we appointed everyone who applied tonight, we're not going to fill it up. And I actually invited those people to apply other than Stella. |
| 00:27:52.82 | Jill Hoffman | Other than Stella. Yeah, but we might have more people that we would want to consider for the slots that would apply after we do the appointment. So the thing is, this is urgent. If I could finish. But the more prudent way to do it is to wait until the applications close, you know, all the universe of people that we're going to consider, and then make the appointments after we know of all the applications. So I'm just throwing it out there. Okay. We can talk about it later. |
| 00:28:00.95 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:28:01.03 | Unknown | This is urgent. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:28:15.44 | Steven Woodside | Okay. We can talk about it later. |
| 00:28:16.41 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:28:16.73 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:28:16.88 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:28:17.74 | Steven Woodside | Okay. It's now 530, so I'm going to turn to the next item on our agenda, which is closed session. Items C1 through C3 will be discussed in closed session, and I'll open it up for public comment on closed session items. |
| 00:28:33.89 | Walfred Solorzano | seen none. |
| 00:28:34.97 | Steven Woodside | All right. So we will adjourn to closed session to consider the following conference with labor negotiator agency designated representative Charles Sakai employee organization Sausalito Police Association. Number two conference with legal counsel anticipated litigation significant exposure to litigation one case and item three conference with legal counsel anticipated litigation initiation of litigation pursuant to California government code section. 54956.9 D4. one potential case, I will be recusing myself from item three. Okay, because of the proximity of my residence to the property under discussion. And that's it. Thank you. |
| 00:29:25.46 | Steven Woodside | after 7 p.m. so I will say welcome to the regular city council meeting for the city of Sausalito for Tuesday, February 18, 2025. City Clerk, would you call the roll? |
| 00:29:37.74 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blalstein? |
| 00:29:39.37 | Steven Woodside | Present. |
| 00:29:40.46 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 00:29:42.00 | Steven Woodside | Here. |
| 00:29:42.86 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski. |
| 00:29:45.31 | Steven Woodside | He will be arriving around 8 p.m. |
| 00:29:48.85 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Woodside? Here. And Mayor Cox? |
| 00:29:52.24 | Steven Woodside | Here, Cass Green, would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? |
| 00:30:00.26 | Steven Woodside | I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America |
| 00:30:00.29 | Mary Lee Bickford | I pleasure you. |
| 00:30:04.86 | Mary Lee Bickford | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:30:05.45 | Steven Woodside | public for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. |
| 00:30:05.47 | Mary Lee Bickford | Oh. |
| 00:30:15.83 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. We had held a closed session this evening. There are no closed session and announcements. Is there any public comment on closed session items. |
| 00:30:27.05 | Jeffrey Chase | But, Yes. |
| 00:30:30.01 | Steven Woodside | On closed session items? Step forward on closed session. |
| 00:30:33.55 | Jeffrey Chase | On closed session. I'm sorry. I misspoke. Okay. |
| 00:30:37.18 | Steven Woodside | Okay. Okay. Thank you. All right. I'll seek a motion approving our agenda. Thank you. |
| 00:30:43.39 | Steven Woodside | So moved. |
| 00:30:43.78 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:30:43.79 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:30:44.42 | Steven Woodside | Second. I'll roll. |
| 00:30:49.03 | Walfred Solorzano | Council member Blasin. Yes. Council member Hoffman. Yes. Council member Sobieski absent. Vice mayor Woodside. Yes. And Mayor Cox. |
| 00:30:50.11 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. Yes. |
| 00:30:58.37 | Steven Woodside | Yes. Thank you that approves unanimously all right, the first thing on our agenda is special presentations mayor's announcements, I have no announcements this evening, but I am. Very pleased to welcome the first of our two special presentations we have with us supervisor stephanie molten peters welcome supervisor molten peters. |
| 00:31:25.58 | Stephanie Moulton-Peters | Good evening, everyone. I'm admiring your fancy new podium, or at least it's new to me. Thank you, Madam Mayor, members of the council, City Manager Zapata, and members of the public for having me this evening. It's an honor to be with you here. And so I'm going to do something a little different tonight. I will report out a little later on what's going on in the county, but I thought for a change I'd change it up and talk a little bit about where we're going at the county because we are making some changes. We have a new county executive, and I think it's fair to say that the current Board of Supervisors, which includes Supervisor Brian Colbert, who I'm very happy has joined us. And actually, I will say, was the instigator of many of the thoughts on this slide. And along with Derek Johnson, our new county executive, we're all really blazing a new trail. So let me share with you a little bit about where we're going. We really are aiming now to bring the county to a new level. I think cities have always been more outwardly focused and focused on your residents. The county has, but we've also had more of an inward facing focus. So that's shifting now with Derek Johnson. And we really want to work on rethinking how we work. the processes we use become more client focused and become more 21st century. So next slide please, if we could. Just a brief overview. It's a little late, folks, but here are our five county supervisor districts, starting with the best district, District 3 in the south, and that's where we are. And then you've got Supervisor Rodoni with a very large West Marin District and part of. the baylands that he connects with, You have Mary Sackett in District 1, the San Rafael area, Brian Colbert in District 2, the Ross Valley, where some of us are from. and then yours truly. So let's quickly look then at the next slide. which is just to give you a sense of our incorporated cities. And I think it's a good perspective that a lot in Southern Marin and the Ross Valley that were built on the old train lines, these are communities that have been around for a very long time. Going farther north into Terra Linda and Nevado, newer communities, and then out to West Marin, very small villages and wonderful parks and open space out there. So 21st century, let's go to the next slide. What does this mean? We are taking a placemaking focus, which is something that Derek Johnson has brought with him in name. It is looking at the public realm and the things for which we are most responsible, our streets, our parks, our gathering spaces. And all of the new places for mobility hubs and shared rides and these things that are happening to us in the transportation world, And we're taking a fresh look at the county and how can we think forward in the future, building on the wonderful past that we've had in our rail-oriented older communities like Sausalito, Mill Valley, Tiburon. How can we think about the future in creating neighborhoods where people want to live? Now, I'm talking primarily in the unincorporated area where we have a fair amount of property that has been open where we will build houses. But we are taking lessons from great cities like Sausalito. What makes them work? What makes your downtowns charming? What makes people want to park their car and walk around. And You're doing placemaking in your own Landside Ferry Plaza extension right now. It's fabulous. It adds to the beauty that you already have. These are features that we want to look more closely at. and give our communities an invitation to think into the future, not fearfully, but as a way that we can create neighborhoods that we all want to live in. So that and smart city planning. I know, Council Member Blaustein, that's been on your list to do smart city planning. That was always my thought in Mill Valley, is to keep our communities charming. We are going to have to be smart and up our game to make them function in a modern way while retaining their community character and charm. So lots of ways to do that. I know you've had those conversations. We are too. Next slide, please. Now something that is always a good thing to do is see things with fresh eyes. And again, our new county executive and Brian Colbert have fresh eyes, and we are looking at... What do you do when you come in? You challenge assumptions. I did this as a new supervisor. Why are we doing things this way? Are there better ways to do them? Learn from others. Yes, look around. What are other people doing? What are other counties and communities doing that's worthwhile and things that we could learn from? And then engage diverse perspectives. I think anyone who has sat on the dais, as you do, realizes that we don't always have all the great ideas, so we need to engage with diverse perspectives and learn from others. Um, These are the conversations we're going to be having in the county and we are having with our many communities. What can we learn from what Sausalito is doing? What can we learn from Nevada, from San Rafael? What can we learn from other countries, honestly, and other places across the country? Next slide. So here we are in the lovely Frank Lloyd Wright building, which is pretty fabulous, except for finding your way around. Steve, as you'll remember, is not always the easiest thing to do in that building. But again, rethinking our processes. Government has a way. And I know you know this, Mayor Joan. Just we We can get very bureaucratic. We can add processes on top of processes. And sometimes you just have to say, stop the music. How did this all get started? And is this the right way to continue going? And so we are looking to identify outdated methods and barriers. And we have quite a few of them, frankly, at the county. So we're going to be looking at making our systems customer focus more efficient and adaptable. Things change quickly now. So how do we keep it moving? Let's go to the next slide. This is revolutionary tools. And this is how do we How do we harness digital transformation Do you have Report a Pothole online here in Sausalito? Because we don't have it at the county yet. You do? Okay. See? That's it. Well, finally, we're going to be behind you on this. But, you know, how can we make it easier for our citizens to report in their service needs and then respond reliably to them? So that's good. City Manager Zapata will be down to take a look at how it works. How do we use AI and data and really get more sophisticated about identifying where our real problem areas and friction points are and then what we do about them. So we're going to be employing these tools. Public engagement happens in our city council chambers a lot, happens at civic center a lot, and we need to get out to the communities too and meet people where we live. So that is high on our list of adding to our toolbox and public engagement. And then finally, just agile methods. And this is a recurring theme. Change is constant. So how do we keep looking at what we're doing, continuous improvement, things like that. We have to look at who our stakeholders are, too. Are there new stakeholders? Are there different ones? Are there changing demographics that we need to deal with? So all of these tools and lenses will help make us more efficient at our decision making and more efficient in the way we conduct our business, and that's what we want. But we don't only want to be efficient. Let's go to the next slide. We want to be user friendly and responsive. Because that's the other side of bureaucracy is, boy, it's hard to find your way into our services sometimes. And I think we all know that. Finding the right door, the right person. Here in cities like Sausalito and Mill Valley, you can walk into City Hall and probably find what you're looking for on a face-to-face basis. At the county, it's a little harder to do. So despite, by our size, how do we do that? And again, I'm a little repetitious, but streamlining things, prioritizing what the community wants and finding a way to meet that, and then make the back room and back house work to meet what people want. And just improve in customer service across the board. So let's go to the next slide on intentional placemaking. And again, we don't have to look very far to communities like Sausalito that have done this. You live in a beautiful community. You've been doing placemaking for a very long time. For us in the county, again, our focus, we are more far flung in our unincorporated communities. A lot of them don't have community centers. A lot of them are not very walkable or bikeable or even easily drivable for a lot of people. So, you know, we're going to take a fresh look at what is it that makes great places and how can we do that in the county. I don't know the We'll ever equal Sausalito, but we'll try. Um, And I think then this bottom, square. You know, the housing numbers... There's no debate. They're over the top, and it remains to be seen how all communities will do meeting the Renda numbers. But one thing we do know is we need to add some housing where it makes sense in a way that blends with our communities. Marin has placed a big premium on open space, and it is wonderful. But at 80% open space, I think we have enough open space. We need to focus now on how do again we create neighborhoods that people want to live in and are accessible. |
| 00:42:06.86 | Stephanie Moulton-Peters | Okay, so. Thank you. Moving on to the next to the end. So key focus areas at the county, as I've been saying, are housing. and particularly for supporting our working families. We know that we want our people who work here to live here, and we need to create more housing for that to happen. Transportation is always an issue. We can always do better with this, and we will. And then finally, and you have Yoda and, oh, God, who's the swashbuckler from the other movie? Thank you, Harrison Ford. Okay. You know, right. Thank you. So this is taken in San Anselmo, the little park that was built by George Lucas, when he decided they needed a park next to the Civic Center. They have one, but that was a public-private partnership, the same way the median that goes out to San Ensemble. On Sir Francis Drake, Mr. Lucas had a hand in that. How can we cultivate more people to invest private funds in our communities? So finally, last slide. Here we have the Guggenheim Museum, another one of Frank Lloyd Wright's creations. This one was to be a hub of art and culture. You have your own wonderful Sausalito Center for the Arts as your own hub. But it really is a call to how do we shape Marin's future in a way that honors our past and then helps us go forward with the needs and challenges we have. We have to have bold conversations and honest conversations. Let's try pilot projects. those are always a way to start a new concept and see how it works and then let's understand that marin and california are going to be dynamic we always have been so how do we move forward in a way that is again honoring the past but moving us forward to the future So those are some of the things we're thinking about, and that's going to keep us busy for a while. But I want to move now just briefly to a few of the areas that I've been working on and then open to your questions. So I think you may know or you may not that I have spent quite a bit of my volunteer and elected career on emergency preparedness, whether it's wildfire, earthquake safety, or flooding and sea level rise. And we live in a part of the state that has an abundance of all of those issues. So those continue to be forefront for me and helping our communities through them. I'm very pleased that in Marin City, for the first time ever, in December when the atmospheric river came through, the only place that didn't flood was Marin City because of the portable pumps that we put in. And this is the same as happened in this last atmospheric river. Donahue underpass has not flooded. It's miraculous. I wish we had pumps for every community, including Gate 5 Road that Melissa and I walked. But anyway, this is a huge accomplishment for a community that has waited a long time for this. In Marin City, we have also moved forward now with a contract to renovate the units in Golden Gate Village. We've selected Burbank Housing, and they are moving forward. We expect to apply for financing in May and then another tranche of financing in September. And we hope to be under construction next year. So that will be welcome news. We will be bringing a county services hub to Marin City in the rec center building, the old Marin Clinic building that will bring social services as well as other county services to Marin City, but also all the southern Marin. So you won't have to drive to San Rafael. uh, Well, all right, let me move on from that. RBRA, Southern Marin, Richardson Bay. We've made quite a bit of progress working with the anchor outs. Appreciation to Jeff, who's here tonight. We have, at this time... Housed 20 individuals in the last, I'd say, 14 months. We have nine more clients who've been referred for vouchers, two more in addition who are in the search for housing, and one new client will move into a new apartment this week. So we are making steady progress. We have a total of 18 votes left in our Bay R.A. waters. Two of those are recent and here just visiting the others. We will be moving again into the yield grass out of the yield grass protection zone. Thank you, Mayor Joan and Jill. You set a model that we followed, and it took us a while to get it together, but we did, and we're making progress, and I think that we'll meet our deadlines with BCDC. So let me open now to your questions. Thank you. |
| 00:47:18.62 | Unknown | Questions? Sure. |
| 00:47:21.02 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you so much for being with us. Supervisor Moulton-Peters, we're really lucky to have you representing us. And I know you didn't speak about this specifically because you're very humble about your achievements, but you were recently also appointed vice chair of the MTC. And I think this is the first time that Marin County has had a representative ascend to that level within the MTC. Could you talk a little bit about how your regional work is impacting what's going on in Marin, one of the larger transit vision areas? Yeah, thank you. |
| 00:47:47.65 | Stephanie Moulton-Peters | Yeah, thank you, Councilmember Blasting. I'd be happy to. You know, it was quite an honor to have been recruited. for vice chair, which role I will serve in for two years and then be chair the following two years. Now, Supervisor Steve Kinsey did precede me in this role. But what it means for Marin County in the North Bay is honestly some extra influence, some extra leverage when it comes to funding. And we do need funding for some of our various projects. northward we have Highway 37 and raising that and making that wider and more passable. Thank you. But right here in Southern Marin, I want to go on record as saying that flooding and sea level rise in Southern Marin are one of my high priorities. And it will take a mega effort working with Caltrans. Our community, Sausalito, has done a fabulous job with your sea level rise vulnerability adaptation study. I'm hoping to link that together with the work up the road in both the marsh and with Caltrans and really dig into what can we do for sea level rise in the future. It will take money and MTC has money. So I hope to help that way. We always need more transit. MTC and ABAG have joined hands now. So there's a housing component. So I think we'll see some benefit that way, too. So I'm honored to do it. It's a whole lot more work, but it'll be worth it. |
| 00:49:18.13 | Steven Woodside | Just quickly, Supervisor Moulton Peters, it's a real privilege to be working with you in a new capacity. I'm speaking for myself now, but in your capacity cooperating with the cities in your district as well as countywide, it's really encouraging to see that new spirit. And speaking of housing, I know the mayor and other council members from some of the other jurisdictions have indicated an interest in looking at our housing issues on a more regional basis because we here in Sausalito have precious little room to grow. We do want to preserve our historic character, et cetera, and way of life and quality of life. But we also recognize in these, particularly for worker housing, senior housing, and the like. And I'm just hopeful that while working together, or we might be able to come up with a new vision for how we can meet those needs on a more regional basis. Just want to make that comment. Curious as to your thoughts. |
| 00:50:17.64 | Stephanie Moulton-Peters | Thank you, Council Member Woodside, and I couldn't agree with you more. I know the mayor and I have talked about this as well, and frankly it came up spontaneously at a meeting of the Southern Marin mayors and city managers, city manager Sipana's brainchild that we started a couple years ago. I just bring together the mayors and city managers, and at our first luncheon this year, which Sausalito hosted, Belvedere brought up the idea for collaborating in the future on planning housing. Maybe we don't all have to hire consultants to do our own housing elements. Wouldn't that be nice? Could we do it together? And then how can we work together to figure out where future housing needs to go? So I am envisioning already asking MTC for study dollars to help us look at the feasibility. And so we will look at it, Steve. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:51:09.83 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. Thank you, Supervisor Molten Peters for coming in and for our brief conversation earlier today about coming in. I'm excited to work with you as president of the North Bay Division for the Cal Cities. Which is some of the overlap I saw from your slides and some of the things we talked about last week with the meeting that we had for the executive committee for the North Bay Division of the Cal Cities. And so, and I just wanted to talk a little bit about what |
| 00:51:23.50 | Unknown | Congratulations. |
| 00:51:23.97 | Stephanie Moulton-Peters | I'm a good one. |
| 00:51:38.15 | Jill Hoffman | Stephen just talked about and Karen Hollweg, You know, working collaboratively on a broader sort of effort, especially with the housing, because I think one theme, I think that sort of. Karen Hollweg, works our way through all of our regional discussions is the need for more housing and how we can all work together, but also when you talked about disaster preparedness and how. You know, we try to work with that and the environmental issues that we have and the work that you've done on disaster preparedness. Have you seen, and through your work with MTC, so all of these things all touch on each other. Have you seen any sort of, I WANT TO TALK ABOUT any sort of theme going through of how to, you know, balance all of these pressures of the, you know, the geologic issues, and especially in tight communities like ours that are reacting in ways with sea level rise and our hillsides and the fire dangers and all of these things, and where's an appropriate place for housing? Do you see any changes or amendments to where we're thinking about appropriate places for housing? |
| 00:52:37.31 | Stephanie Moulton-Peters | Yeah. |
| 00:52:43.03 | Stephanie Moulton-Peters | That is a great question, Councilmember Hoffman. And I was just speaking with Damon Connolly, our Assemblymember, this morning about this. And I think, honestly, we've had some pretty blunt-edged tools used at the state to encourage housing. And I think there are a lot of people talking about how do we refine these tools, refine the parameters for the lands where housing really makes sense and also where it doesn't. And so I expect that we'll see initiatives aimed at sharpening the focus of where housing can be and to have more of a partnership with cities in the state. I don't think it's going to happen overnight. But, um, You know, honestly, if the fires in the Palisades and Altadena and all the ones we've experienced up here haven't made the point that we really need to think carefully about where we add housing, nothing will. So I think it's coming. Jill. Thank you. |
| 00:53:43.76 | Jill Hoffman | Appreciate it. |
| 00:53:44.03 | Steven Woodside | efforts. |
| 00:53:44.79 | Stephanie Moulton-Peters | Thank you. |
| 00:53:47.58 | Steven Woodside | I've been lucky to meet with you a couple of times, so I don't have any questions. I do just want to say a thank you for some of the things that you've done for collaborating with us to provide funding to renovate and occupy our Dorothy Gibson house. which is about to be finalized for collaborating with us on housing the homeless and in particular, some of the anchor outs in Richardson's Bay for collaborating on the Vista Point Trail that bicyclists will be able to use as they cross the Golden Gate Bridge. for collaborating with us to adapt to and mitigate sea level rise, for collaborating with us in your role on BCDC as we address the intersection between sea level rise and incursion of sea waters inland. and for collaborating with us to address housing requirements on a regional level rather than confining them to individual local municipalities. And I listened with interest to your mention of the CSDs, and you and I have talked about perhaps starting to include them in our Southern Marin mayors and city managers meetings, which I think would be a great way for us to encourage collaboration with them as well. So thank you for the collaboration. That's the theme of the. and city managers' meetings, which I think would be a great way for us to encourage collaboration with them as well. So thank you for the collaboration. That's the theme of the evening that you bring to us and to your other towns. |
| 00:55:06.38 | Stephanie Moulton-Peters | Thank you, Mayor. Collaboration is what it's all about. Thank you, and thank you for the opportunity to be with you tonight. |
| 00:55:13.76 | Chris Zapata | Mayor, before the supervisor leaves, can I say a word? |
| 00:55:16.96 | Unknown | Yes, absolutely. |
| 00:55:16.98 | Chris Zapata | Yes, absolutely. Thank you. On behalf of our staff, thank you for the work you do. the service you provide and also your team. I really want to point out how happy we are that you have a resident of Sausalito helping you, and that's Doreen Gennard. |
| 00:55:31.00 | Stephanie Moulton-Peters | We absolutely do. Doreen, raise your hand. And thank you, city manager. Doreen Gennard, I tell people, is like having two supervisors. So Doreen is fabulous. Thank you for sharing her. Doreen, thank you for doing what you do for this community and for the county. |
| 00:55:48.57 | Steven Woodside | And then I do want to tell you that our software that we use for identifying issues that need repair is called Sausalito C-Click Fix, Sausalito Fix It app. And I'm sure the city manager will collaborate with you on that. And I. |
| 00:56:04.48 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | app. Good. |
| 00:56:10.20 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | Thank you. |
| 00:56:10.24 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:56:10.36 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | . |
| 00:56:11.20 | Steven Woodside | do also want to extend a welcome to Supervisor Brian Colbert. I did not know that he would be attending. Thank you. |
| 00:56:16.97 | Unknown | Frank over here. |
| 00:56:18.05 | Steven Woodside | Oh, I thought you were saying... |
| 00:56:19.03 | Stephanie Moulton-Peters | he was here. |
| 00:56:19.52 | Steven Woodside | I don't know. |
| 00:56:19.69 | Stephanie Moulton-Peters | No, he's not here, but he was the genesis of the slides that I'm working from tonight. These are his framing, and I thought it was appropriate to use and share with you on what's new. So thank you again. |
| 00:56:24.97 | Vicki Nichols | Yeah. |
| 00:56:33.64 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:56:33.66 | Stephanie Moulton-Peters | Thank you so much. |
| 00:56:34.22 | Steven Woodside | Thank you so much. |
| 00:56:34.52 | Stephanie Moulton-Peters | Welcome. |
| 00:56:34.82 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | Thank you. |
| 00:56:34.84 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:56:34.86 | Stephanie Moulton-Peters | Thank you. |
| 00:56:43.03 | Steven Woodside | Okay, we have another special presentation. And so I am happy to welcome Southern Marin Fire District. I know we have Matt Barnes and Fred Hilliard and there are others here as well. So welcome and thank you for being with us this evening. |
| 00:57:02.01 | Matt Barnes | All right, good evening, Madam Mayor and council members and city manager Zapata, thank you for having me. And of course, thank you for all your work, supervisor, Moulton Peters. My name's Matt Barnes. I'm your deputy chief of operations for the Southern Marine Fire District. We're here to talk a little bit about what we're doing in regards to wildfires, We're here to also discuss a little bit of the aftermath and a lot of the sensitivity around the Los Angeles fires. I was actually down at the Eaton fire for almost three weeks as part of the incident command team, and I'll talk a little bit about that. And then Chief Hilliard is also here. He's going to talk a lot about the nuts and bolts of all the community preparation and preparedness and all the wildfire mitigation efforts that we're doing throughout the county and specifically to Sausalito. If you can go to the next slide, please. So just that this is a big collaborative event or program between the district, the Marin wildfire community, Prevention Authority, Mill Valley and city of Sausalito. So that's everybody that we serve in working towards the progress of home hardening, community resilience and wildfire mitigation. Next slide, please. So I'm going to talk very high level and then Fred's going to come up and, and talk nuts and bolts, but. The big things that we want to, this is actually, I'm going to take that back one second. This is a great segue from Stephanie Moulton-Peters, Supervisor Moulton-Peters. The vision of the county is to have, you know, a pristine area, want people to live in our communities. Beautiful county. I live here in the county in the city of Novato. So our work in the fire department, as well as the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority, is to plan and prepare and and and really respond to emergencies so we can keep them as small as possible so we can continue to live in such a great county environment. I'm going to talk a little bit about the wildland impacts from the LA fires. These were significant, a little bit more significant than the 2017, 18, 19, and 20 fires that we historically saw in the North Bay. Okay. Fred's going to talk a lot about the proactive measures. Um... Fuel reduction and infrastructure evaluation is super important to us. It's one of our highest priority things. We have a significant and talented staff that work tirelessly every day in preparing, evaluating, and planning for future fuels reduction programs. The biggest thing tonight for us is to really concentrate on the community Holistic approach, it cannot be done just with one firefighter, one prevention division, one aspect or one city. This is a county wide initiative that we need to take a holistic approach to looking at our regulatory things like zone zero ordinances, home hardening and preparation and communication around wildfire. And then really kind of a renewed call to action for this community and the county as a whole. So we can collectively collaborate and work together and really build better plans for I think a lot more people and a lot more brains involved will create some significant success and build on some of the national standards that here in Marin that we've already undertook with the Marin wildfire authority. If we can go to the next slide, please. So the recent wildfires in Los Angeles really brought out a lot of community sensitivity, worry, anxiety, because of the significant amount of devastation, 26 square miles of devastation, you know, 15,000 homes approximately. At the Eaton Fire, my area of concentration was over 8,000 homes. that were destroyed in less than 24 hours. So the what what does that mean to Marin? And the water system was a big issue in Los Angeles. And and how are we prepared in Marin County water system? And and Chief Hilliard is going to talk a little bit about that. One of the downsides of major catastrophes is the amount of misinformation that comes out. And we're here to tell you today that when questions arise, when concerns arise, we're only a phone call away. We're willing and able to meet people in their homes, in their neighborhoods, in their communities, and talk about facts and preparation and things that we're doing throughout Marin to hopefully ease some of that anxiety. And then some of the things that are super important is the Marin Wildfire Authority and our partnership with the district is really becoming a national standard and example of how we can come together, collaborate, Hey. and move initiatives to home hardening, Um, wild wildfire risk reduction, um, pathways, emergency egress, things like that are super important in one of our highest priorities. And then, um, chief Hillier is going to really talk about some of the things that we're doing locally with the Marin wildfire authority and, and through some funding and some initiatives to, to really amplify, um, some of the, the progress that we've made. I'm going to turn it over to Chief Hilliard, and then I'll come back. and wrap things up and hopefully answer whatever questions everybody has. |
| 01:03:09.80 | Unknown | All right. Good evening, everyone, Madam Mayor. Sorry, I sound worse than I feel. I got that flu bug last week, and so I'm still recovering. So if I start coughing, that's Yeah, I remember a couple of council meetings, but all right, let's get in the weeds. No pun intended. But so I think, you know, really important to start and I think, let's see what's the slide. Next slide, please. Thank you. Let's see. I apologize. Go back to the other one. Yeah, a note. Yeah, that one. So let's talk about wildfires and wildfire preparedness. It's not a new concept, obviously. Over the past eight years, we've been working full steam ahead after the devastating Tubbs fire, October 8th of 2017. Some of you will recall, and I can tell by the smile over there, the visiting the site. And unfortunately, it wasn't a fun time to see that. But we went out to the Tubbs Fire location in Coffee Park. We were with the past deputy chief, just retired not too many, like two years ago or a year ago, Tom Welch. And we looked at, he gave us a very dramatic perspective of what happened because in the fire, obviously, he lost his home, but he also saved a bunch of lives, actually, because of his ability to do that in his skill. I think it's important we talk a little bit about the Tubbs fire because I know we wanted we were looking at Los Angeles, but the Tubbs fire was a fairly close reminder what Los Angeles fires. It's just a much smaller scale, but the same kind of idea it's we were in it was in a vegetative area. It burnt down a hill and then it got into an urban area right and then there was a conflagration in the urban area where the houses were igniting themselves through ember transfer and direct flame impingement. Some of the stats from that, from the Tubbs fire, we was active for 123 days. That was, you know, of active fire burning, 36,000 acres. It was through Napa and Sonoma counties. It destroyed about 5,000 structures, 5,600 structures, actually, and caused direct loss exceeding $7.8 billion. We've gained a significant amount of information and data since the fire and many others that happened throughout the state since the 2017 fire, the Tubbs fire. Science software and new hardware and early detection has become available. And from all these fires, we've learned throughout the state of what we could do better and what needs to be done. Um, So following the Civil Grand Jury Report, which was in 2019, on wildfire preparedness in the county, the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority was dreamt up. It was actually a conversation over at a local cafe between a couple of fire chiefs on a napkin. That's how, honestly, that's how MWPA was formulated. It was, what do we do in the county to make sure that we have the funding and the support that we can make sure that this kind of thing doesn't happen, or at least limit the effects if it does happen. Um, So following the the civil grand jury report and the stand up of. MWPA was established through a countywide tax measure to foster a comprehensive wildfire prevention strategy across the county. MWPA total tax generation of 20 million dollars annually gave 17 member agencies the ability to work together to provide fire protection and prevention services in the areas of and this is important vegetation management. wildfire detection systems, evacuation planning and alerting, and public education initiatives. So those are the majority. Then on top of that, there was ability for grants, for local grants, for homeowners, and also to work collaboratively with other partnering agencies or jurisdictions so that we could limit the amount of flammable vegetation. Next slide, please. So the Southern Fire District has laid out a comprehensive work plan for 2025. focusing on enhancing community safety and forest health through targeted projects initiatives throughout the city of Sausalito. Some of the key points, is our major fuel breaks. We have seven total in progress right now. They were started in 2023. We're about 85% complete, and we're going to complete the rest of that this year. So we have 15% to go. I can tell you it's Sausalito Boulevard, High Vista, Alexander Avenue, Marion Avenue, Hetch Avenue, Wolfback Ridge, and Edwards Avenue. So those are the areas where this major fuel break is happening. And then on top of that, we're also looking at extending more fuel breaks surrounding the city. So our goal is to go from point to point all around the backside of the city, and then certain pockets that are within the city, that's where we're gonna do these fuel breaks. What is a fuel break? I know everybody, this is where everybody has that sudden urge to take a deep breath, We're not going to moonscape the city. That's. like the most important thing for everybody now, we're not into moonscaping the city. What we're into doing is We're trying to get Basically... Good forest health and management and remove flammable vegetation and limit the ability for fire to travel quickly. So that's what when we talk about a fuel break, that's what we're looking at. We also want to establish new community fuel breaks and forest health restoration projects. There's five total sites that we're looking at this year. Cypress Ridge and Rodeo Avenue, Nevada Street and Kendall Court. The terraces, open space Sausalito and Willow Creek are some of the target areas that we're looking at doing this year. Efforts to aim to reduce fire hazard and promote healthier, more fire resilient forest ecological systems in our community. And the work plan underscores the district's commitment to preserving community safety and enhance environmental health and Sausalito. And then we should talk about evacuations and evacuation routes, which falls in line with what MWPA is also do, is evacuations. So ongoing maintenance, maintenance and clearing of over 100 essential evacuation routes of encroaching vegetation throughout Sausalito. That's what we've been doing. That's what we're going to continue to do. We're maintaining those and as Time goes on, the emergency personnel in the case of an emergency or emergency personnel in case emergency can break up fuel continuity and reduce overall fuel load If we're doing these evacuation route clean. So in other words, people can get out, we can get in and we can do the treatments that we need to do to stop the fire. Emergency notification systems. On the emergency notification systems, otherwise known as LRAD, long range acoustical devices, we have two sites within the city currently. The two sites that are located at the old fire station 2 on Spencer Avenue and then also, sorry, just really quick. on Cypress Ridge. So those are the two current locations of LRAD Sirens. And then in the next year or two, depending on funding, we're going to add one more additional site, which is going to be in Old Town. So it'll be somewhere located. We don't have a specific site picked out yet, but we're looking at somewhere in Old Town. Um, And then our major fuel break. So we were talking about that. So then our on-demand chipper program. So with our on-demand chipper program, what does that mean? It's a free service provided to all residents, allowing them to efficiently utilize chipping services for reducing flammable vegetation and overgrowth on their properties. So you call us and you have a project. We usually try to get three homes to do it together, just more efficient. But if not, then, you know, we have a clearing. service that will be able to go to your house, pick up the vegetation that you cut from your property, you put it in the street, and we'll pick it up and haul it away. And that's our on-demand chipper. But we also have a scheduled chipper program. And our scheduled chipper program is actually throughout the year, and it's all year round. We pick certain areas in Sausalito streets to go in, and we send mailers out. We do emails. If we have your email address, We'll do door hangers and let you know that we're going to be in and we send mailers out. We do emails. If we have your email address, we'll do door hangers and let you know that we're going to be in the area to remove vegetation. That's to promote people to really get involved and clean their lots. And all they have to do is just have somebody clear whatever vegetation, bring it to the street, and we'll haul it away. So another really good program that we have right now. And then again, forest health restoration is continued maintenance. So this is the funny thing is I've been doing this for a while. And we always talk about we need to clear. We need to clear, make fuel breaks. We got to keep... Well, once we do it once, it's not one and done. So this is do it and then we have to maintain it. So a lot of what we do at the beginning is we put a bunch of money into clearing a bunch of areas to have you know, good defensible space. And then we have to annually go back and, and maintain those. It's a much less, a much lower cost because obviously we've done all the heavy work, which is the big costly portions of it, but we have to revisit it. And we revisited it on a cycle between two and three years is what the cycle is, depending on what aspect they are. Cause some areas grow faster than others. But we continue to do that type of maintenance. Next slide, please. Okay, so I would be remiss if I didn't talk about the MMWD or Marin Water District. They do actually a very good job to help with wildfire prevention and also to prepare the community for large scale fire events. Now, I'm gonna tell you that they're really, the fires that happen in LA and the fires that happen up in the Tubbs Fire, The MMWD has the capability of managing their water and getting water to where it needs to be. But on a scale that big where you've got every, you know, every fire hydrant almost in use, and then you have these, basically the structures are burned so that you have these open plugs. They're just, you know. it's really difficult for the water district to be able to keep up with that kind of demand. And that's where we have the biggest, we have water problems. But what I'd like to point out and what I'd like to talk about is that, you know, the fire flow program that was with MMWD in response to water system delivery limitations for firefighting demands. And that was dates back to 1986. So MMWD was already collaborating with the fire departments in 1986, looking at the fact that there was a lot of water source issues, supply issues, old pipes. Like when I say old pipes, I mean like wood pipes in the ground, old pipes. that needed to be changed and upgraded so that they could carry the water supply and the demand that was needed. We have a very robust hydrant maintenance program where we're able to service our hydrants. We replace hydrants as a hydrants, you know, age. And then as they need maintenance, we're able to maintain those hydrants. So we do that annually. So if you have a hydrant in your neighborhood that doesn't look so good, please let me know because I got to talk to somebody at work because they should be looking real nice. And then the funding mechanism, the fire flow program is funded through the resident approved parcel tax, which is renewed, but was renewed in 2020. The program operates in coordination with local fire agencies and the primary objective of the fire flow program is to enhance district infrastructure, especially in areas with substandard fire flow. And I know that Sausalito has gotten some of that funding back in the past, probably in the year 2000 range where MMWD did a fairly substantial upgrade of some of the water mains and hydrants that were in some of the older areas of Sausalito. And then the fire flow plan, which during this period between 20 or sorry, 1997 and 2012 during the period, the fire flow program achieved 50 miles of fire flow improvements averaging about three miles per year and that's that's county wide. And then from 2012 to the present, the program is focused on additional 26 miles of fire flow improvements averaging about two miles per year. So they're doing a lot of work. We're collaborating with MMWD. They're doing a lot of good stuff for the fire district. They call us when they're doing, if they're replacing some pipes, I'll get a call and they'll say, you know, Chief Hillier, do you guys want to move a hydrant? You want to add a hydrant? You know, we're doing work here. We got the road cut up. We can easily do that if you need that. So they're a good partner. Next slide, please. So, As part of what MMWD does, I know I'm talking about MMWD, but it's important because they also do home hardening and defensible space. And through their programs and their initiatives, they've done improvements like prioritized list of facilities that need to be upgraded, like pump stations and whatnot. And then they've also... now part of a regular revaluation cycle, ensuring ongoing compliance with safety standards over time. So they're looking at what they're doing, what's in our area, and what they can improve on for us, for you, for the community, so that way we have the water that we need in order to fight the fires. Okay, next slide, please. Okay, so... This slide talks about the fire code cycle, and I think it's important that we also bring up the fire code. Because part of the problem that we've had, and I've been doing fire prevention for the city of Sausalito since 2010. I can't believe it's been that long. And I've been a firefighter for 31 years, 25 with this district. And I've got to tell you, the one thing I learned when I came into fire prevention is, okay, we have all these codes, but how do we enforce them and what do they mean? Well, the fire code simply is a book of rules and standards, right? We've the fire code is looked at as, you know, things that have gone wrong or potentially could go wrong that It needs to be addressed and it needs to be codified and put into place before something else bad happens, right? So every three years we have a code cycle and it happens to be that this year's are one of our code cycles. And what does that look like? Well, the International Code Council is... has a model code. They're just basically model code makers. They have the International Fire Code. And then the state of California takes that code and looks through it and goes through a whole series of code adoptions and then comes out with the minimum code standards. So at the end of the day, when they finally say this is the fire code that we want for California, then this is what we get is the model code for California. And we'll see that. We'll receive those codes in July of 2025. And then before January of 2026, then we have to adopt that code. So we'll adopt the code and then we'll come to you to ratify that code. What we do in that is we take that model code and we take the minimum code standards that the state gives us and we look at what, how does that apply to us and here and locally. And what we do with that is we come out with local ordinances that may be more stringent because we need those in certain aspects in certain areas. Or we may adopt some of the model code that actually has not been adopted by the state because it applies here. Because at the end of the day, it's fire and life safety. That's what we're trying to do. We're not trying to cause people to spend more money or, you know, have more heartache. What we're trying to do is just have a really safe place for you and I and families to be here and visit here. So, yeah. That's basically how the code cycle works. Next slide, please. And I'll turn back over now. Thank you. |
| 01:20:47.12 | Matt Barnes | So as we wrap up, I just want to hit on a couple key items. I'm not going to read all the bullet points that you can see on the slides and in the staff report. But a couple key concepts to really start to focus in on. A call to action. And one of the things that I'm super proud to stand in front of. of the council tonight is that your, your fire department has been working tremendously hard well in advance of 2017 and then just got into a highlight and, and more broadcast community-wide after 17 and, and, Our firefighters and our prevention officers have taken a ton of the lessons learned from the Tubbs fire, from the Nuns fire, from the Glass fire. and then recently from the LA fires to bring home those lessons learned and apply them here locally. The next point I really want to focus in on is it's a systems approach to home hardening and defensible space. It's not just removing a bush. It's not just replacing some soffits on your roof line, and it's not just putting a new roof on your building. It's a combination of all those things. It's preparing the eave lines. It's preparing the clearance around the home to really minimize the ember mitigation or the ember propagation when wind is introduced with with fire. And then and then lastly, just the the work at a county wide level through the Marin wildfire prevention authority has been super significant and beneficial for this community of Sausalito and all the hard work that Fred his his team and, and, um, all our partners throughout the county, including Marin, Marisville water district have, have, um, under, you know, taken, taken big shoulders to, um, start to accomplish. And I, and I believe we've accomplished a lot. We still have a lot more to go. And then I'm sure there'll probably be a few questions about the zone zero. And, and I think Fred put it very clearly that it's not about moonscaping our communities. It's about protecting our communities in, in a logical, um, intellectual way that, that will help, um, reduce the amount of ember cast in the event of a fire associated with wind. So thank you for your time. Um, happy to answer any, any questions. |
| 01:23:26.35 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:23:26.37 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:23:26.39 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:23:26.40 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:23:27.37 | Steven Woodside | you |
| 01:23:27.45 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:23:27.60 | Steven Woodside | Yes, Melissa. |
| 01:23:28.82 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. First, thank you so much for the great work that you both do, and especially, Chief Barnes, thanks for being in Los Angeles. And I know that we sent a number of our staff down there and really appreciate the amazing work that you all did. This was a very comprehensive presentation, so a lot of information to digest. I want to hone in on a couple of things. You mentioned Zone Zero and not wanting to moonscape. in conversations I've had with the chief, he has said that we finally have political momentum potentially for some enforcement of Zone Zero at the very least. And in researching Los Angeles, there were existing programs that lost funding or didn't have enough funding to provide for Zone Zero for residents who wanted to be able to do that. I guess my question to you is how can we support Zone Zero efforts and what can we do to lobby to get more funding for that to support you? And also, are you offering as part of your on-demand chippering or just in terms of general safety visits, Zone Zero assessments, if folks want to go ahead and take those steps proactively as well? |
| 01:24:30.53 | Matt Barnes | Great, great questions. I'll try to hit each one of them. And if I missed just just let me know. So the first part of zone zero is I think we have a statewide level engagement and, you know, um, interest in providing some state level um, recommendations and. Um, Um, authority levels that will go down to the counties in, in, in city. So that's a, that's, that's one thing I think is super important that no one city is going to have to bear the burden of, of, of being the first to, to introduce zone zero as an, as an ordinance. So I think there's significant state level momentum. |
| 01:25:10.61 | Jeffrey Conan | at. |
| 01:25:14.49 | Matt Barnes | That will be driven throughout all of our counties and specific to Marin. And I think we have a very good head start. And then as far as inspections, absolutely. I'm going to put our prevention division on notice. We're more than happy to come out. provide some education and, and some information in regards to zone zero, because I think that's one of the very first steps, because I think, again, there's some miss misunderstanding and, and, you know, miss information out there and then provide, um, recommendations and, and assistance towards, um, any of those goals that people want to take on the independently. |
| 01:25:52.78 | Jill Hoffman | So if a resident wanted to make an appointment for a zone zero assessment, would they go to the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority website or would they reach out directly to SMFD? |
| 01:26:00.24 | Matt Barnes | Reach out directly to SMFD. |
| 01:26:01.94 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, great. And then I have a couple more questions. Sorry, I just, it's very important issue. So you mentioned as well, we digged in a little bit to the work that MMWD is doing with regards to water pipelines and making sure that we would have the access that we need. I just wanted to get a sense for how frequently we're testing our fire hydrants in the community and what those tests look like in Sausalito in particular. |
| 01:26:22.95 | Matt Barnes | We touch and, um, inspect our hydrants every year. Every single hydrant in the city of Sausalito is, is either looked at, tested and or touched, um, every year. |
| 01:26:35.17 | Jill Hoffman | And then the last question, a lot of your presentation touched on what your team is doing, which is fantastic, but what can our community responsibility be in terms of what residents can do to prepare beyond just working proactively to set up assessments? What does that look like? |
| 01:26:50.47 | Matt Barnes | Yeah, I think the city of Sausalito has done a wonderful job in firewise community buildup, community engagement. And then I think very specifically, we're going to push out a lot of social media and news articles in and around just understanding fire weather and being prepared in the times of the year. that is important for them to be listening to the radio, be, you know, not turning their phones on silent at night. Having a... of the year that is important for them to be listening to the radio, be, you know, um, not turning in their phones on, on silent at night. Um, having, having their go bag ready and, and, and having all the preparation steps that, so when we. hit the unfortunate bell of evacuations. People are already ready. They already have a plan. and they're already engaged in the community and they can help their neighbors. We need people to multiply. Our communities need to multiply in an emergency versus just solely rely on one engine company or two engine companies or 100 engine companies to get the thousands of community members out of harm's way. So I think those are some significant things that we can all do together as a community. |
| 01:27:51.60 | Jill Hoffman | ways. |
| 01:27:56.00 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:27:56.03 | Unknown | Thank you very much. |
| 01:27:56.61 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:27:56.86 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:27:57.20 | Matt Barnes | Welcome. |
| 01:28:01.21 | Unknown | Hi, thank you for coming. Nice to see you guys both. |
| 01:28:04.10 | Jill Hoffman | I have a question about, we saw each other, I think recently at a, at a, |
| 01:28:09.99 | Janelle Kelman | Where are we at? |
| 01:28:10.88 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, the Lions lunch recently. And one of the things we veer off into, because every time I see you guys, I opportunistically... heckle you about certain things. But one of the things that came up was the management or the lack thereof of the Golden Gate, our nearest neighbor, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. And so I was wondering if you could just sort of, the synopsis of our conversation of you know, Thank you. it seemed to me a concerning lack of management and coverage for, you know, the recreation area that comes right up to, the line of Sausalito, our Sausalito line, and it comes right over the hill from the seashore and should the conditions prevail, it would be a high risk risk. Could you guys just a quick synopsis of that? Absolutely. Maybe what we might wanna look into is a policy of coverage for Sausalito and how we might want to address that going forward. |
| 01:28:57.29 | Matt Barnes | Yeah, absolutely. |
| 01:29:03.89 | Matt Barnes | Great, great questions. Um, the first thing, just to clarify, um, The headlands, the national park system does have a seat at the table at the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority at the operations level. And then we have, you know, multiple decades, the Southern Marin Fire District has a multiple decade period. very positive relationship with, with, um, and so, um, even though Greg Jones just retired, the new, um, fire, uh, prevention, um, Ranger that will be taking his spot, um, is very, is already very engaged, has already had a few meetings with us. I I'm meeting with him personally, um, in March. Um, and I think that the biggest, the first tool is communication and relationship building. And the second tool is just the understanding of some of the complexities of decision making that happens at the national level that goes all the way back to Washington, D.C., where we can make local changes very quickly. Sometimes national changes are a little bit more difficult to make, but that does not under signify the importance that we need to do work in the, in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. This last year, I probably was part of and have seen more defensible space work on their fire roads than I've ever seen before. We ran multiple large machinery to open up the fire breaks and reduce some of the vegetation that if we weren't able to control at the fire roads could spot across the fire road and into the city of Sausalito. We still have a lot of work to go. I'm not here to say we don't, but I think that we can leverage our relationships. I think that's can leverage our relationships. I think this council and the city manager can also leverage some of the needs and the in the importance of those needs to protect the community of Sausalito as well. |
| 01:31:06.15 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, let me just say, I'd like to announce that the National Park Service Superintendent, David Smith, will be addressing this council in April. And Chief Tubbs has already committed to attend that meeting as part of this ongoing collaboration between the two. Yes, absolutely. |
| 01:31:23.46 | Jill Hoffman | One of the follow-up then that I would ask is that whatever the grade that we have or what are the assessment we have for inside of Saus Leo for defensible space and whatever grade we give for our streets and, you know, for fire fuel, I would ask that whatever contiguous spots we have next to the fire, because some of our, you know, some of our streets go right away. up against some of our houses go right up against the that we receive that before they come and give us an assessment and that's part of the staff report so i'm going to ask that that be part of the staff report when we get um a report in the golden gate national recreation superintendent comes and talks to us because um that's a real uh concern that i have about the vegetation that comes right up to the side of sausalito and we don't you know we have an issue with whether or not we can even go in and and you know assess that or you know prune that so anyway thank you for that i appreciate that and thank you for bringing that up mayor |
| 01:32:15.37 | Steven Woodside | I appreciate that. |
| 01:32:15.74 | Gail Schell | Thank you. |
| 01:32:16.69 | Steven Woodside | THE FAMILY. Yes, absolutely. I'm going to ask staff to make a note of the request from Councilmember Hoffman for the presentation that David Smith will be making, that we include the information she's requested in our staff report. |
| 01:32:31.67 | Matt Barnes | The report specific to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area work will come from them. |
| 01:32:35.52 | Jill Hoffman | That work will be done. them. Yeah, well, yeah, but give me your grade for what it looks like, what that – your site across the street, like what does that look like? I mean it's not – Understood. It's not that onerous, I don't think. |
| 01:32:44.61 | Matt Barnes | Understand. No, and like I opened up, this is a system wide approach. We need to engage not only national parks, but Caltrans has a significant easement and right away passage that butts up against the city of Sausalito along the one on one corridor. Our, our open space also has some, some, you know, responsibility as well as the city of Sausalito and in some of the unincorporated areas as well. |
| 01:33:14.58 | Steven Woodside | Councilmember Hopman anticipated my questions about cooperation with the GJNRA. So what I'm going to do is just ask you, before you leave, to meet two of my neighbors who have been very active in that interface in one part of town, Rob and Maggie Cox, who are sitting at the back of the room. I think there are many members of the community who at different places have been active in that level of collaboration with you and also with the GGNRA, Caltrans, and others. It's got to be a group effort. Absolutely. Thank you. |
| 01:33:46.41 | Steven Woodside | And I'll just close it out. I spoke with Chief Tubbs last week about the new fire hazard severity zone mapping that will be coming out. It's already come out for 16 counties, but not yet Marin. Marin is due February 24th. So I'm renewing my request that you all provide us some sort of update about the implications of that new mapping on Sausalito. And then I just want to, you know, thank you for your ongoing collaboration with us as we address all of these issues moving forward. |
| 01:34:22.27 | Matt Barnes | Absolutely. And our plan is to do a, um, a wide broadcast of the new severity maps. Once they become public with some, with some recommendations and, and what does that actually mean to our communities? |
| 01:34:34.82 | Steven Woodside | And then, you know, Chief Tubbs mentioned to me that MWPA has an evacuation tool. So we would like to focus on that because that's something of great interest to our residents. We are reconstituting our Disaster Preparedness Committee. I mentioned that to you earlier, and I want to thank you for agreeing to staff that, along with Mike McKinley, our police department, and our residents. That will be convening very soon. And so we will count on that committee to keep us up to date on a monthly basis on your activities and to collaborate. So thank you. |
| 01:35:11.36 | Matt Barnes | Yeah, you're welcome. Just one thing on the ladder is AI that's the tool for evacuation planning. Um, it, it, it models traffic flows time. Um, one of the things that we're still working on, um, refining is introducing the weather component. Um, as far as specific to the smoke and, and how detrimental smoke at the ground level is for our traffic. When you can't see the road in front of you, it becomes very hazardous for people to drive, and oftentimes they'll drive, you know, the wrong way. So one of the limitations of that program right now is we're still refining some of the weather aspects in it. And then once it's available and we're confident with some of the modeling and we've tested it, we're more than happy to share. |
| 01:36:02.25 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | All right, thank you so much. Thank you all for coming. |
| 01:36:05.09 | Matt Barnes | You're welcome. |
| 01:36:11.79 | Steven Woodside | Okay, we have a public hearing scheduled at 8 p.m. We're running a little bit late. I'm going to go ahead and hear communications and our consent calendar and then we will move on to the public hearing so communications, this is the time for the city council to hear from citizens regarding matters within the jurisdiction of the city council that are not on the agenda. So is there anyone here who would like and by the way, because we have a full. Chambers this evening, I will limit public comment to two minutes per person. So is there anyone here to speak on the communications? City Clerk. |
| 01:36:49.65 | Walfred Solorzano | I don't have any speaker cards. No? No. |
| 01:36:49.70 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. No? No. Okay. |
| 01:37:05.69 | Steven Woodside | Is there anybody to speak? Otherwise, will you step up to the podium, please? |
| 01:37:14.73 | Jill Hoffman | you have the clock clock city clerk. |
| 01:37:16.45 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:37:16.47 | Jill Hoffman | you Thank you. |
| 01:37:16.54 | Jeffrey Chase | Thank you. |
| 01:37:16.59 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes. |
| 01:37:21.16 | Jeffrey Chase | Madam Mayor, City Council, city workers, fans of politics, local and otherwise, You asked to have the opening comment on jurisdictional matters within the city of Sausalito. Now, as an anchor out still on the Jubilee II sloop, 27 foot, We are in the middle of many... different jurisdictions. One of our jurisdictions here to be whether or not we are supporters of war. Whether we're supporters of hostage taking whether we're supporters of prisoner releases, So I have tried to fit in in the two minutes. I mean, I don't see a big line of people, Madam Mayor, to talk on communication. here. Two minutes is a very short time. especially when I'm dealing with a Torah portion called Mishpatim, which means judges, excuse me, please. Thank you, Chris. |
| 01:38:32.46 | Steven Woodside | Please confine your comments to us. |
| 01:38:33.81 | Jeffrey Chase | Yes, yes. I speak as a member of the Jewish community that our religious freedom is to give our words from the holy text before every public meeting, not just speak about the minutiae, of budgets and amortization. and fire safety, however important all of those things are. So because I've tried to fit in In two minutes, this Torah portion, which I absolutely cannot do, You can say thank you later or right now. If you'd like. I will say the war in Gaza now means no bombing. The hostages have been released and the prisoners released from the Palestinians as well. And the Jewish community here says hallelujah. |
| 01:39:24.70 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | Thank you. |
| 01:39:25.31 | Jeffrey Chase | Hallelujah. |
| 01:39:26.17 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | Anything else? City Clerk? |
| 01:39:27.71 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah, online... Thank you. Online we have Babette McGoo. |
| 01:39:37.51 | Steven Woodside | Good evening, Babette. |
| 01:39:38.81 | Babette McDougall | Good evening. Thank you so much. First of all, let me just say, wow. Now, are we in public comment on the two public presentations? Because I do have something to say about that. Or are you in general citizenship? |
| 01:39:51.03 | Steven Woodside | here. |
| 01:39:52.12 | Babette McDougall | Where are we? |
| 01:39:52.14 | Steven Woodside | We do not take public comment on special presentations. We are in item two, communications, on items not on our agenda. |
| 01:39:55.70 | Babette McDougall | Okay. But... Okay, great. Well, you know, I'll just blend it all into one lovely pie. as we Southerners do. So I want to say bravo to Stephanie Moulton-Peters, our supervisor. That was a brilliant presentation. And I applaud her because... in a very elegant way. She was capable of putting everything that Sausalito currently faces, good, bad, or otherwise, on the table. And I applaud her for that. And I'm glad to know that of all people, It's our supervisor who ascends to that vice chair role because we need to get down to business with the MTC. After all, it was Kieran Culligan who pointed out to me that it's been over two or three years now since we were designated as a Tier 4 regional transit nexus, and not anybody in town has a clue what that means or what it's all about. So bravo, I had other things that I'd like to speak about, like censorship issues. This idea of talking over someone because you disagree with what they're saying during their right of public speech, and the editing and the censorship that goes on in the videos that you finally post. It's appalling. And what are you afraid of? I mean, honestly, We love to disagree because it allows us to find common ground. And if you won't allow for that common ground, then how do you know that who those, as Ms. Peters pointed out, who are the stakeholders today? Is it really the citizens of Sausalito who reside here and have a vote? I think we need to carefully examine this, and I think it's great that we have Doreen to help facilitate our ongoing connection to Ms. Peters. Stephanie, that was well done. Thank you so much for your time. |
| 01:41:41.69 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker is Senator Bushmaker. |
| 01:41:46.60 | Sandra Bushmaker | Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm making an inquiry as to whether or not you got the extension from the authorities with regard to the Bridgeway Bicycle. Lane project. And if not, are you going to be making a decision on the project at the February 25th meeting. Thank you. |
| 01:42:11.26 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker is Sunshine. |
| 01:42:12.56 | Steven Woodside | Actually, hold on one moment, city clerk. So we have scheduled the hearing on the Bridgeway median city manager. |
| 01:42:21.70 | Chris Zapata | That would happen Saturday, March 29th at 1 p.m. Sausalito time. And we did receive a six-month extension from the granting agency. |
| 01:42:33.38 | Steven Woodside | So there's a question about whether it's 1 or 2 p.m. City Manager. |
| 01:42:39.51 | Chris Zapata | My notes said 1 p.m. |
| 01:42:41.92 | Steven Woodside | Okay, in any event, it will be March 29th. We will publish the agenda in advance. All right, city clerk. All right, sunshine. |
| 01:42:50.66 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:42:56.99 | Unknown | Some of you, hello? Can you hear me? You can hear me? |
| 01:43:02.69 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes. |
| 01:43:03.32 | Unknown | Yes, okay. As many of you know, I used to live across the street from the city council meeting in the library. And I was evicted. And so at this point, I have not been able to find a home. So I want to speak on behalf of all of the seniors, me being handicapped, 84 years old. I lived there 12 years, a new manager came in from EAH, who had only been there for three or four months before she placed an eviction notice on four handicapped women, three of us being 80 and one of us being 70. I have not been able to find housing because I cannot get a Section 8 for low-income housing. I need help. I need help immediately. And I don't know how to go about getting that help. I've called every agency possible. and no one No one can give me a Section 8 voucher so far. They say they haven't been given out for two years. What is Marin doing? What is Sausalito doing to protect seniors, especially handicapped seniors, And. I miss sitting in that front row and seeing all of you. But one of these days, I hope to be back. I hope I can find, I have found places that I could live, but no one will take me because I don't have a Section 8 voucher. So saying that there's no place to live is not true. It's just that you need a special voucher to be admitted into those places. So someone, please help me. I need some help getting a place to live. Thank you very much. |
| 01:44:51.72 | Walfred Solorzano | No further public speakers. |
| 01:44:53.02 | Steven Woodside | Okay, then we will move on to the next item on the agenda, which is the consent calendar. We have consent items 3A through 3I. Um, The matters listed under the consent calendar are considered routine and non-controversial, require no discussion, are expected to have unanimous Council support, and may be enacted by the Council in one motion. So the items are 3A, adopt the meeting minutes from February 4, 2025. 3B, adopt the 2025 Women in Construction Week proclamation. 3C, adopt a resolution adopting Sausalito's Title VI program and language assistance plan. 3D, adopt a resolution approving an encroachment agreement for exterior improvements in the public right of way at 207 Woodward Avenue. Thank you. 3E, adopt a resolution approving landscaping improvements in the public right-of-way at 388 to 390 Sausalito Boulevard. 3F, adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute the professional services agreement with Miller Pacific Engineer Group to develop the geologic hazard monitoring plan in an amount not to exceed 220,000 for Measure L funds. 3G, adopt a resolution of the city of Sausalito authorizing the city manager to execute the professional services agreement with CSWST2 for the development of the storm drain assessment study in an amount not to exceed 188,764 dollars from the general fund. 3H, adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute a management and disbursement agreement between the city of Sausalito and the downtown Sausalito Business Improvement District Association. And 3I, adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute a professional services agreement with Kimber Companies for property management services for an amount not to exceed $102,000 paid by MLK, Tidelands, Old City Hall, and Bank of America funds. Is there a request to remove any items from the consent calendar? Seeing none, I'll open it up to public comment. |
| 01:46:51.45 | Walfred Solorzano | Jeffrey Chase. |
| 01:46:58.98 | Jeffrey Chase | I said earlier that I was making a mistake, the closed calendar versus the consent calendar. Now we're on the consent calendar. And I thank you prematurely, Madam Mayor. That last meeting, there were no items that were costing the citizens of Sausalito. on the consent calendar, there were no consultants is what they're called. What are consultants? Consultants are people that do not work for your government. They work for themselves and their companies, and they make a link with the government to achieve certain things. On this list is half a million dollars. justice. Meeting. for consultants. Geologic hazard monitoring plan. That sounds pretty technical, not easy to figure out for a layman, certainly. But there's nobody in government or there cannot be somebody hired to work for a temporary period without getting a pension, Mr. City Clerk, that cannot also do that job. Storm drain assessment study, same thing. that that's very technical, but there's nobody that can take a position work for the government for a limited period of time, and then leave. Otherwise, there is not nearly as much transparency. 3J is called property management. I visited the jail. Twice recently, And there is a private company now that makes sure that they're making money every time somebody visits the jail. Every time somebody makes a phone call, every time somebody sends a letter, anytime somebody puts money on an inmate's account, There is no reason for that. There's no reason for any of these consultancies, not a one. Thank you very much. HONKLATER. |
| 01:49:02.91 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:49:02.92 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you. |
| 01:49:03.02 | Steven Woodside | P. Nichols? |
| 01:49:06.11 | Vicki Nichols | Good evening, Mayor Vicki Nichols, and my pen ran out of ink, but I'll fill out a card. I know you have a tight agenda. I have a quick question on 3H, which is the agreement on the new business district, which I'm very happy to hear that you're getting so close to getting this signed. I have one question, though, on the... Um, the page that talks about physical improvements. As you know, the downtown district is a historic district. I'm not sure if the authority for improvements has been given to the district. exclusively and if so what kind of oversight if anything there might be even some of the landscaping is documented down there so just a question don't really want it removed and maybe i can talk to director phipps afterwards thank you |
| 01:49:51.78 | Steven Woodside | Or Cass Green is in the audience. Speak with her. |
| 01:49:58.22 | Steven Woodside | Other public comments? |
| 01:49:59.22 | Walfred Solorzano | Other public comment? Online, we have Babette McDougall. |
| 01:50:10.42 | Babette McDougall | Thank you very much. So I realize we do have a heavy agenda. So I just rather than go through the motions of moving things around, I'd like to just say, first of all, 3G, I actually read the contract. What a terrible contract for Sausalito. Don't sign it. And then with regard to 3i. Well, You know, that really gets us down to that Sausalito policy governing how we manage our portfolio. So where are we on that? And I just want to put that out there that, you know, we might just sort of pass this under consent, but that doesn't mean this issue goes away, y'all. Thank you very much. |
| 01:50:48.17 | Walfred Solorzano | No more further public comment. |
| 01:50:49.73 | Steven Woodside | All right. |
| 01:50:50.03 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:50:50.70 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:50:50.74 | Jill Hoffman | We'll close public comment. I'll entertain a motion. I'm sorry, mayor. I think I do need to, I'm looking at the staff report for the business improvement district. I'm just trying to find the, the, I'm just trying to find the budget for the business improvement district. I see that in the staff report, there's a narrative, but I don't see. I mean, someone can help me. |
| 01:51:13.40 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, the budget was already approved. This is simply, it was approved |
| 01:51:16.69 | Jill Hoffman | by our prior meeting city manager. Well, this is to talk about a disbursement, but I don't see anything in here about what the disbursement is. |
| 01:51:18.67 | Steven Woodside | Well, this is. |
| 01:51:24.12 | Steven Woodside | $100,000 from the city and then $100,000 from the, is that right, city manager? 100. |
| 01:51:29.96 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, I think we've gone through the 50-50 split of how the city pays and how the property- |
| 01:51:34.31 | Jill Hoffman | That's not a hundred thousand, is it? |
| 01:51:36.01 | Chris Zapata | And so that hasn't changed. And so the exact number, Brandon can provide that for you. It's a little bit over $200,000 in total. |
| 01:51:43.69 | Unknown | Yeah, if I may. |
| 01:51:43.90 | Jill Hoffman | Where is that in the staff report and where is that in this? I mean, we need to take it off if we can, but I can't find it. |
| 01:51:49.46 | Unknown | So thank you for the question, Councilmember. Happy to clarify that. Everything related to X's and O's and dollar signs is encapsulated in the management district plan, which is attached to this item. I believe it is attachment two. I would say that the mayor is correct. This particular item before Council this evening is related to a disbursement agreement which clarifies how the funds that council has already approved via assessments in the bid will be dispersed to the non-profit that will manage and implement the management district plan to further clarify the specific numbers that we're talking about here from the private assessment dollar bucket is approximately 117 000 and the city's share is the same. So that would be 117,000, approximately 234, $235,000 in total. |
| 01:52:48.14 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, and what page is that on? |
| 01:52:51.55 | Unknown | All of the details related to funding will be detailed in the management district plan, which is an attachment to this item. |
| 01:52:59.46 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, and it's an attachment too? |
| 01:53:02.28 | Steven Woodside | It's on the agenda. |
| 01:53:03.07 | Unknown | I believe so. Let me look at the staff report to clarify for you. |
| 01:53:03.11 | Jill Hoffman | I think. |
| 01:53:10.94 | Jill Hoffman | So. Thank you. |
| 01:53:11.22 | Unknown | Thank you. It is shown as attachment three, council member. Okay, thank you so much. I appreciate that. Thank you for the question. |
| 01:53:14.21 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you so much. I appreciate that. Thank you for the question. Okay, thank you. And so we're, I'm just for budgeting reasons, is this in our budget tonight? Okay, and so in the disbursements from the, sorry, I'm just following. And the disbursements from the property owners have occurred, it's going to occur, sorry. |
| 01:53:27.52 | Unknown | from the. Sorry. |
| 01:53:35.34 | Unknown | Happy to provide some detail on that. I just didn't see that detail in there. No, again, I appreciate the question. So the city is taking the responsibility of collecting year one assessments from private property owners in the bid. We have worked closely with the Department of Finance on that, so I'll just give a quick tip of the hat to Director Hess. Appreciate your time and your collaboration. I'll give a quick update. Today we have collected approximately $77,000 from private landowners in the PBID. That means we are yet to collect approximately 40,000 additional dollars. |
| 01:53:36.72 | Jill Hoffman | I just didn't see that detail in there. |
| 01:54:10.23 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, and at some point we'll get an update or something on that. Okay, from the finance department I assume. Yeah, certainly. |
| 01:54:15.43 | Chad Hess | Certainly we can we can provide a listing of collections we can show the schedule of those unpaid parcels all of that information is available in my accounting system. |
| 01:54:24.86 | Jill Hoffman | And is somewhere, is the 77 that we've collected to date, is that noted anywhere? |
| 01:54:31.01 | Chad Hess | in terms of |
| 01:54:32.53 | Jill Hoffman | if anybody wanted to look at what the status of collections is to this point. It's not in the staff report anywhere. |
| 01:54:37.81 | Unknown | We have provided updates on collections at recent PBID meetings. I'm glad that you brought this up for the record this evening so it can be on the record. And we will be doing an update as far as any changes to the most recent aging report. This is a report that I received near the end of last week. I'd like to do an additional update with Chad's department for our PBID meeting that we'll be holding this Thursday so that they can have the latest and greatest information. |
| 01:54:43.23 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 01:55:03.81 | Jill Hoffman | Great, are PIPID meeting minutes posted anywhere? |
| 01:55:08.00 | Unknown | Yes, they are. Thank you for the question. Yeah, we want to be very transparent with the nonprofit prior to its transformation into a more formal board. And to that effect, we've created a PBID webpage, which, similar to the Planning Commission, Council, Historic Preservation Commission, other Brown Act bodies, contains all of the meeting recordings, meeting agendas, and meeting minutes associated with the item. I'll have to confirm on the minutes themselves, but at the very least you'll find the agenda and the video recording. |
| 01:55:09.52 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:55:40.77 | Jill Hoffman | All right, so if everybody's interested in that, they would find it there. Absolutely. Okay, thanks so much for your... |
| 01:55:44.48 | Unknown | Absolutely. Absolutely. |
| 01:55:46.00 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Indulgence. I appreciate that. Certainly. All right. I'll entertain a motion to approve the consent calendar. So moved. |
| 01:55:52.14 | Jill Hoffman | some moves. Oh, second. |
| 01:55:54.52 | Steven Woodside | All in favor? Aye. That motion carries unanimously. We will now move on to our public hearing items. The first item is for A, Appeal of Planning Commission Resolution No. 2024-24, approving a joint hotel and restaurant use at 715 Bridgeway. I will welcome Matthew Mandich, Senior Planner. |
| 01:56:32.27 | Matthew Mandich | Excellent. Thank you. Thank you, council members, mayor, vice mayor. Happy to be here before you tonight. So before we have an appeal of a planning commission decision for a joint restaurant and hotel use at 715 Bridgeway, the former Wells Fargo building. Next slide, please. So just quickly here to brief everyone on the location. Here's 715 Bridgeway right across the street from Vineyard Elmore Park next to the Excelsior Stairs. Here's a view of that in Google Earth on top here. And there's the property in question right there in our central commercial district and in our historic downtown. Next slide, please. I'm just going to give a little bit of background on the building as well as a little background on the project. I know probably council members are familiar having read the staff report, but for the public here and those watching, I just want to give a quick overview of what happened at the Planning Commission, what was approved, and then we'll talk about the appeal and the rebuttal. So the building was built in 1924 for the Bank of Sausalito. It's designed to be a grand banking temple that was popular on that time, although of a smaller scale to fit with the Sausalito landscape. It is a contributor to the Sausalito downtown historic district. It's on the local and state register and is eligible for the national register with a listing of 2D2. The building remains largely unaltered and is very well preserved. Following the Sausalito bank, it became the American Trust and Savings before the Wells Fargo, which it was until July of 2023. It was purchased by its current owner, Kent Ipsen, who's here with us tonight in 2024. Next slide, please. So here's the rendering of the project proposal here. Can we go back one, please? Here's what the building will look like once restored. It will have a joint use of the pocket restaurant on the ground floor. An artificial floor will be constructed right here inside the building. This is a very large space there presently, which will line up with the mullions for the in the pocket hotel use on the constructed second floor. Next slide, please. Um, so ground floor, fine dining restaurant and bar, um, has a maximum capacity of 105 guests. Um, there will also be outdoor seating, which will actually be, uh, 16 guests that was conditioned down from 20 in the planning commission meeting. Um, there will be construction of the second floor inside the building for the three hotel rooms and the Western rear facade will be removed to create space for a new patio fire pit and hot tub lounge area, which will be guest amenities. Um, this will all be contained within the existing retaining walls on the site that are coterminous with the property lines exterior. We're looking at new signage lighting flower boxes and just a general repaint refurbish all the defining characteristics of the building will be preserved and rehabilitated next slide please. So this required a number of permits to get this done, first at the HPC and then at the Planning Commission, but a design review permit for extra floor area, variants to demolish and remodel existing legal nonconforming structures in the rear setback, a conditional use permit for hotel use in the Commercial Zoning District, another conditional use permit for the sale of alcoholic beverages in the Commercial Zoning District, a conditional use permit for a parking waiver, which we'll discuss later. That was not heard by the Planning Commission., a minor use permit for outdoor seating and then a sign permit for the signage and a certificate of appropriateness for the for the work on the historic building next slide please. So just a little bit about the building. We're going to do kind of an outside in. As you can see, the building remains largely intact. Existing facade here, proposed facade there, very few changes. Next slide, please. And again, you can see here on the southern facade, very similar, no changes at all to the building's envelope and shape. Next slide, please. Exterior details, here's the palette that's going to be used right here, and this is the colors that were approved by the HBC and the Planning Commission. It's kind of an off-white gray graphite. The new lighting system here, which will have bulbs here and condescent bulbs, which will replace the LED lighting that's currently on site. Next slide, please. as well as some exterior restoration. So there was a safe deposit box that was installed here by Wells Fargo. That'll be restored and brought back to its former glory. You all remember the ATM that used to be right here, that's since been removed, that will now become the entrance to the in the pocket, which will take guests upstairs to the rooms. Next slide, please. So moving into the floor plan here. can see down here, this is the main dining area. This will be entered through the main entrance of the building, which was the old bank entrance. Number of seats in here, max capacity of 105, full bar right there, kitchen, back area here. As we discussed, this little door right here where the ATM used to be, that will be the entrance to the inn in the pocket, which you go up to the stairs. So you'll walk through here. There'll be a little elevator and a stair set here that will take you up to the second floor. The stairs will let you out right here. These would be the bathrooms that will be used by the restaurant as well. They can be accessed via stair as well as elevator. This is a little kind of lobby area here, which will enter into this inner court. You'll see there's a spa here, a kitchen there, fire pit, and then the rooms going down here to the arched windows facing out to look at Viña del Mar. This is the largest room here on the left-hand side, two-bedroom, two-bath, kitchen, lounge area, fireplace. The room in the middle is the smallest, just one-bed, lounge area, fireplace, and then another medium-sized room here with one-bedroom, bath, kitchen, and lounge area and fireplace. Next slide, please. Moving up on level from that, you have the electrical kind of mechanical level that's on the same level of this first little patio right here, which also contains a fire pit another electrical area on this side and then above that is a patio or view deck up there, which will be restricted to hotel guests only. This area closest to the Excelsior stairs will be landscaped and not accessible for guests next slide please. Looking at the floor area, here's how the floor has been calculated here. This is the first floor down here in the restaurant, second floor with the hotel use surrounding this inner court that we have on the second level. This comes in at 1.29, which is just under the 1.3 floor ratio for the CC district required by both the zoning ordinance and ordinance 1022. Next slide, please. Oh, so this is the second floor edition that was approved by both the HPC and the PC. I'm not going to go into too much detail here, but this will again go across the mid the middle of the windows and the mullions here and the three bedrooms will or hotel suites right here will line up with views out to Vinod Elmar Park and the waterfront. Next slide. Again, Western Facade, here's a rendering, an early rendering that was done on the project. Following the HPC hearing, the applicant already agreed with the appellant to limit access to this area in particular. So this area will not be part of the plan and is not part of the plan that was approved by the PC. So that's kind of an older rendering. But just to give you an idea of what this space will look like in the rear area, which is currently occupied by unused space. There are rooms underneath here. There there's bathrooms over here which the new bathrooms will also be there as well as a storage area and old break room for the Wells Fargo next slide please Yeah, and here's actually a breakdown of that. So you see the bathrooms here, storage area here. That's all contained under this area in the back of the building. Next slide. So we had some concern about views from the stairs. And will this be something that a lot of people can see? There's an apartment building here next door. Will people be able to see in? And as you can see from the photos that I was able to take here, there's really, this is a quite imposing retaining wall. And you have to really stand on this top rail and really hook your body over on your chest to even see down in here. So there's really zero visual impact to anyone that will be walking down the stairs or from these apartments and certainly nothing from the street. So these are pretty imposing tall retaining walls right here. So I just want to highlight that for the council. Next slide, please. Here's another look. This is a photo that I took again, kind of hooking myself up on top of that retaining wall. Just want to give you an idea of this space down here. This will all be, you know, demolished and remodeled and for the new amenities that we already discussed in the back area. Want to highlight this line right here. I know it's a little hard to see. It's yellow, but you can see the flagging right here. This will be for where the deck will be located, the view deck in the back. And you can see that drop down from the top elevation of the walls and where it will extend out to. So just some kind of story polls there for you. Next slide. Um, again, just some sections of this back area just to show you, you know, the roof of the structure here and then the proposed patio deck that was already approved by the PC and a look back into the spa area and this kind of inner courtyard that we have next slide. All right, so already kind of talked about the use permits conditional use permit required in hotel for a hotel use in the central commercial zone. We do have a noise ordinance that governs noise in the central commercial zone as well to make sure that ambient noise is kept at a certain level, especially at past certain hours. Next slide. We also needed a conditional use permit for the sale of alcohol and beer on site consumption, as well as a minor use permit for outdoor dining. Next slide, please. I just want to highlight some of the approved outdoor dining areas in the vicinity and what a great location this is. This is kind of a keystone piece in our historic downtown with this historic landmark building. These stars represent outdoor dining places that have already been approved. So we have Copita here, Cultivar, soon to be, Lappert's, and Napa Valley Burger. It's also very close to two other hotel uses, Hotel Sausalito and In Above Tides right there. So really centrally located among a number of restaurant and hotel uses already. Next slide, please. Sign permit was approved. Largely mimics the signage from the previously approved World Fargo sign program. Same amount of square footage complies with our sign ordinance. Next slide, please. And here's just some visuals of what those signs will look like. They will be the pocket restaurant sign, which is the sign below, and the end will be interiorly illuminated. While the upper sign in above pocket will have some soft exterior lighting that will be done with an LED strip recessed into the cornice. Next slide, please. So certificate of appropriateness also approved by HPC and the PC. All the defining features of this building will be kept and preserved and refurbished, which includes the decorative freeze, the medallions, the Corinthian column capitals, arch windows, and bronze sashes. Next slide, please. So you can skip this one. Next slide. So planning commission approval on December 11th, 2024, the planning commission approved the application for someone five bridgeway approving a number of permits, which we just covered. The proposed project is designed appropriately and will not result in a substantial adverse impact on the historic resource or the historic district. It's in conformance with the required standards of the secretary of the interior one through 10. The proposed project is in conformance with all the required findings in the Sassabino Municipal Code as detailed in the staff report and the resolution. The proposed use also fills a really difficult space in the heart of our downtown central commercial corridor and this historic building. The proposed uses are also a boon for economic development within the city. If we have sales tax in the restaurant as well as the TOT tax at 14% for each of those hotel rooms each night. And approval is also subject to the conditions of approval that were included in the resolution approved by the Thank you. tax from the restaurant as well as the t ot tax at 14% for each of those hotel rooms each night and approval is also subject to the conditions of approval that were included in the resolution approved by the planning commission there's a number of conditions that were built in there to kind of restrict the impact of that rear area on surrounding neighborhood E. These included, you know, reducing capacity or limiting capacity to only hotel guests with keys only allowing you know use of that space up to certain hours and trying to make sure that everything, of course, abides by our city noise ordinance next slide please. So following that approval and despite the conditions being put in, the project was appealed by Breckhouse Law on behalf of the neighbor Sharon Kahn, the appellant, the owner of 10 and 14 Excelsior Lane, which are behind the property on Excelsior Lane. The grounds for appeal stated were that the CUP for the hotel use was granted an error as no commercial use over $10. 1,000 square feet is allowed on the second floor in CC. They also stated that the design review permit would issued an error because the far was incorrectly calculated. The variance was issued in there as the findings cannot be made. The parking exemption, which uses AB 2097, cannot be used for hotel use and that the project is inconsistent with the general plan. So I'm just going to give a quick rebuttal to each one of those items here and then we will turn it over to the appellant. So next slide. Um, Excuse me. So... The CUP for the hotel was not granted in error. It was issued due to the fact that California Building Code qualifies a hotel use as a residential use and not a commercial use. As we can see here, I've taken a snippet from the code section itself. We can see residential use, R1, hotel transient, which is what this would be. It's considered a residential use by the California Building Code. Again, I want to emphasize these are sleeping quarters. They have to be accessed only by guests. This is not a locus for commercial activity. No one can just walk up those stairs and enter into that area. So it's not a retail space, as you would say, and I think it aligns with the intent of the code of not having commercial spaces above the first floor and the CC. Next slide. Again, they also state that the FAR was calculating correctly. However, intercourts do not count as part of the FAR, as we can see here. They are excluded as our elevator shafts, which you can see here. An intercourt, as defined by the code, is an open area with no roof that is surrounded by at least three sides of floor area, which we can see this is clearly surrounded by floor area on three sides. You have the rooms extending here, the bathrooms here, and the kitchen there. So all three sides surrounded by floor area. There is no roof over this space. There's only a slight overhang over the hot tub here, which was the patio, which is approved via variance. Next slide. The variance also not issued in error. The findings can certainly be made. They were made and they were approved on a unanimous vote by the Planning Commission. This is an existing historic building. It's a legal non-conforming building, which imposes its own constraints. It was already built all the way up to the lot lines on all sides when it was constructed, which, of course, it predates the zoning code. So, you know, there are constraints there that the owner of the building is trying to work with, and we granted a variance in order for him to be able to build in that rear setback and remodel that area. This variance is not interest to other properties. In fact, there's a vacant lot next door. This is an undeveloped lot. The appellant owns both of these lots. However, the one that abuts the property is undeveloped. And there's plenty of conditions that were put on the outdoor space, including the approval that will limit the impact on the surrounding neighborhood. Next slide, please. So. This is one where I'm happy to fall on my sword. Appellant is correct that the parking exemption used via AB 2097 is invalid, cannot be applied to a hotel use. This is a parking exemption I've used on other commercial and residential projects. Hotels don't come around very often in Sausalito, so there's some fine print in there, and I didn't catch that. You cannot use it for hotel use. However, this does not preclude the project's viability. our code does allow for a waiver of parking exemptions via cup whenever a new or expanded use allows This does not preclude the project's viability. Our code does allow for a waiver of parking exemptions via CUP whenever a new or expanded use allows the preservation of a historic structure, which we have, in the downtown historic district, which we are, and does not require substantial alterations, which it doesn't. So we can get around the parking with a waiver through the granting of a CUP. Again, it's qualified for this as none of the defining characteristics will be altered or removed uh the project conforms to the secretary of interior standards and a certificate of appropriateness was approved by both the planning commission and historic preservation next slide please Um, also the appellant, uh, says that, you know, this project's not consistent with the general plan. In fact, it is, it's very consistent. Um, they focus on this sentence here in yellow, which talks about hotels can potentially generate nuisances due to overnight parking, employee parking. However, they choose to ignore the green here, which says that hotels can really have a minimal impact as long as they're well-managed and there's adequate parking. There's a number of public parking lots very close to this, parking lot one, two, three. This building is going to be managed by someone who has a lot of experience doing this, a proven developer who has a proven model. It'll be managed very well. It's in the historic setting. It serves economic uses. It's small. It's to scale. It's compatible with the surrounding structures, it's in line with everything the general plan wants for a hotel. Not to mention, it's also right next to three other hotel uses, including Casa Madrona, Hotel Sausalito, and In Above Tides, all of which have hotel rooms above the first floor. Next slide, please. So on that note, recommendation staff recommends the city council adopt the resolution denying the appeal and upholding the planning commission's decision to approve this project for a new joint hotel and restaurant use in the historic building at seven, one five Bridgeway. Thank you very much, and I'm happy to answer any questions. |
| 02:13:21.92 | Steven Woodside | Any questions of staff? |
| 02:13:23.03 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. All right, seeing none. I am going to go ahead and ask the council members to reveal any ex parte communications they may have had concerning this project. |
| 02:13:39.32 | Ian Sobieski | I'm not. |
| 02:13:39.84 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. I had none. |
| 02:13:42.07 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. |
| 02:13:44.08 | Steven Woodside | And I've had none as well. Okay, with that, I will open the public hearing. City Clerk, can you confirm the notice required by law for this public hearing? |
| 02:13:56.82 | Steven Woodside | or Community Development, Community and Economic Development Director. |
| 02:14:04.41 | Unknown | I'd have to defer to admin staff or planning staff on that. |
| 02:14:12.01 | Steven Woodside | I'm just seeking confirmation that this public hearing was properly noticed. |
| 02:14:15.30 | Matthew Mandich | Um, I believe so. I'm not 100% sure. I'd have to check. |
| 02:14:20.12 | Steven Woodside | All right, so I'm going to ask you to check. while we're hearing from others and circle back. And this is on the agenda. So if someone can please confirm that, that would be great. And so I'm now going to open this to the appellant for a presentation, 10 minutes. That will be followed by a presentation from the respondent. And then we'll hear public comment. |
| 02:14:46.21 | Breckhouse Law (Attorney for Sharon Kahn) | Thank you. Can you, you've got my slide. Mayor Cox, members of the council, thank you. I represent. |
| 02:14:54.07 | Steven Woodside | important that you actually speak into the microphone because we're on zoom as well as here in the chambers got it |
| 02:14:59.32 | Breckhouse Law (Attorney for Sharon Kahn) | Thank you. |
| 02:15:00.99 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:15:01.01 | Breckhouse Law (Attorney for Sharon Kahn) | Mayor Cox and members of the council, thank you. I represent... Sharon Kahn. who's here and this I want to start by saying I did direct a letter to many of you, but I was not in the staff report. And the letter is dated February 12th, 25. And unfortunately, this is the second time this has happened to the cons along this public process where their communications were included in staff reports. |
| 02:15:28.33 | Steven Woodside | And did you address that just to the counselor or did you send it to the clerk and the city manager? |
| 02:15:32.57 | Breckhouse Law (Attorney for Sharon Kahn) | Yes, we did. OK, yes. So starting with slide one. the general plan does require residential use on the second story of the CC district to minimize impacts on the surrounding neighborhoods that is the general plan that you elected and that the city adopted and it cannot be ignored |
| 02:16:04.98 | Breckhouse Law (Attorney for Sharon Kahn) | Are you okay next slide, thank you. And the general plan specifically speaks to this scenario and it says that second story downtown is where you are going to place more housing units. And it specifically talks about the fact that housing on the second story of the CC district is going to minimize impacts on the intensely used commercial area on the surrounding neighborhoods. So the idea is you're not gonna intensify that use, which is what this project proposes to do, but rather you're going to minimize it. Next slide, please. The staff report notes that a state law calls hotels residential. But you can't look to the state law because your own code has its own definition. And so they have gone out and scoured the internet for a state law that looks and describes this as residential. But you are required to use your own definitions and your municipal code says that. You look at your definitions and when you look at your definitions, you find that residential occupant is defined in the code as occupancy for a period of 30 days or greater. So that analysis and interpretation is flawed and it's wrong. Next slide, please. And the general plan also requires that there be proper management and parking. And it notes that both management and parking are needed in order for hotels to have minimum impacts on nearby residential areas. And this hotel has no management. There is nobody on duty at night. And you have a huge party space that is right up next to a residence. Next slide, please. So we pointed out that the parking exemption requires a CUP, but it's not just that it requires a CUP. It requires an application, and it also requires a notice, and that has to be done to the plan. Planning Commission and we didn't even know that a cup what might be adopted at this hearing until the staff report issued. So the public did not have the proper notice that an application and a hearing before the Planning Commission would have given them so it isn't okay. and the city cannot fix this flaw by doing what staff recommends you do and just adopt a CUP in response to this appeal because the notice is inadequate. And I'm I believe that those of you with a legal background, those of you who have served on planning commissions, and those of you are familiar with just general, the way planning approvals work, know that first an application occurs, then a hearing, and then we consider adoption. We don't just do it in response to an appeal after we realize we made a mistake. Next slide, please. |
| 02:19:14.05 | Breckhouse Law (Attorney for Sharon Kahn) | Okay, the staff report and the presentation incorrectly state that this is not a covered patio. And I understand why the staff report, it's a little more clear from the presentation why he's seeing like that. But what I want to point out, and if I could go up to the page and just show you why this particular area is not covered by three sides of FAR and therefore It cannot be exempt from the FAR count. And it does have a roof. And it's cute to call it an overhang, but it's not an overhang. It's a roof. And it absolutely meets the definition. So I just want to point that out. |
| 02:20:11.17 | Breckhouse Law (Attorney for Sharon Kahn) | So again, that area has no housing by it. There's no other floor area counted. And that area where there is a roof being called now an overhang, that has to be counted to FAR, and that takes it over the the limit that it was approved at. And again, you have your own definitions and you have to look to them. So the inner courts must have a roof. And here it has a roof. And the covered patios are counted as if they are, and the definition meets the definition of a covered patio. Next slide, please. So the variance requested is unreasonable, and it doesn't pass the legal requirements. And the reason for that is that it's not a hardship to have this great big outdoor space for these guests. And they don't really need the upstairs party area. It's an extra amenity. And if it's not going to be used intensely, it is not needed, it can be used as landscaping, or as a critical space, vacant space that would be a side yard and can be afforded as a side yard here to lessen the impact on the properties. And again, no management is on site at night. Next slide, please. Um, Also, the project does not meet the variance requiring because it is injurious to appellants and to even the public for that matter, using the stairs. The presentation noted that people on the stairs won't see it, but there's two levels to that patio. There's the lower level, and then it goes up to the hot tub, which is a raised area. And then everybody gets a view of everybody on the party deck. So that presentation I don't think is fair. And that party deck also is going to be exactly below the lot, the folk or suggestion that it's a vacant lot you're supposed to make good land use decisions for all residences all lots buildable or not and in fact that lot that is currently doesn't have a home on it the home did burn down it is subject to being developed you've even identified it as subject to development in your housing element. Next slide, please. So again, appellant's request here. are that the rental of the hotel units is conditioned on a minimum of 30 days. I do want to point out this project is a complete end run around the city's prohibition on Airbnbs. And what is Superman? other people from having a non-managed hotel and simply call it a hotel. So this should be conditioned on a minimum of 30 days. Thank you. The next request is that the applicant guarantee on-site management or public post the telephone number of management less than five minutes away who can reasonably enforce the limits on the outdoor space for the project, including noise limits, times of use, and no hosting event space management. You know, the idea of them having bachelor parties, which they say is a desired target of, their population that's quite a concern to people who live right next to that again staff should be able to enforce maximum occupancy and subdued exterior lighting We also request that the applicant provide parking spaces because without the application of AB 2097, And for this intensive use, it should require parking spaces and it's not providing any. 29 spaces. And we know that the public would like to weigh in on that because the public always wants to weigh in on parking. The applicant should correctly calculate and then reduce the FAR. And again, there should be a denial of the variance for the third tier parking deck and the raised hot tub. These are impactful. They're injurious on nearby residences. And they also are just don't meet the hardship or the legal requirements for variance. Thank you very much. |
| 02:24:52.78 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. I'm going to pause for just one moment here. Mm-hmm. |
| 02:25:08.56 | Steven Woodside | Okay. I'm going to circle back to my inquiry regarding confirmation of notice required by law. Unfortunately, this public hearing was not properly noticed. And so we are going to have to um, I will go ahead and take public comment since I've noticed this for this evening, and then we're going to have to continue this hearing to a date that is properly noticed. And my apologies to the appellant and to the applicant and to all of those who wrote in and commented on this really important project. |
| 02:25:49.79 | Steven Woodside | Can I just ask what the error was in noticing? |
| 02:25:53.72 | Steven Woodside | No. |
| 02:25:54.00 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Okay. |
| 02:25:55.14 | Steven Woodside | I don't yet know. Oh, okay. I'm going to have to investigate. Okay. All right. So I'm going to call out the – and so applicant, we're not going to hear from you this evening now that we know this hearing was not publicly noticed you are welcome to make public comment should you like um, |
| 02:26:15.18 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | Thank you. you |
| 02:26:16.04 | Steven Woodside | So I'm. I have some. |
| 02:26:18.68 | Ian Sobieski | Can I just ask about that? I know it's a curve ball here. but we heard a full presentation from the We're not going to. |
| 02:26:26.10 | Steven Woodside | We're not going to do that. |
| 02:26:26.61 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | take action on something that wasn't properly noticed. |
| 02:26:28.46 | Ian Sobieski | I know this. I know just in terms of... giving airtime to both parties is it would be appropriate to at least give the person the option i'm seeing the lawyer shaking their head no but |
| 02:26:38.83 | Steven Woodside | Not properly noticed. |
| 02:26:39.70 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:26:39.70 | Ian Sobieski | All right. |
| 02:26:39.72 | Steven Woodside | All right. |
| 02:26:39.85 | Jill Hoffman | I'm not sure. |
| 02:26:40.99 | Steven Woodside | I did not know it was not properly noticed before I heard from the appellant. I now know it's not properly noticed. |
| 02:26:46.25 | Jill Hoffman | All the way. We do apologize. Thank you. |
| 02:26:48.76 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, I totally apologize. And I'll hear from the city attorney if he disagrees. But I believe the safest course is to take public comments since this item was on the agenda and continue it. And of course, the appellate will get to make |
| 02:26:49.84 | Jill Hoffman | I apologize. |
| 02:27:03.34 | Steven Woodside | their presentation again at the continued hearing. And thank you to the mayor for confirming that. Yeah, that's the danger of being a lawyer at the dais. Okay. City Attorney, do you disagree? |
| 02:27:21.64 | Sergio Rudin | No, I agree completely. The safest course of action is to re-notice the searing. |
| 02:27:27.24 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:27:27.26 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 02:27:28.13 | Steven Woodside | All right, so with that in mind, I'm going to call out the people who provided speaker slips. Knowing that this is going to be heard at another date, it's up to you whether you choose to make public comment this evening. The first speaker slip I have is Bonnie McGregor. |
| 02:27:51.94 | Bonnie | Yes, I will make public comment and I will make it again when we reconvene on this. I'm so sorry this happened. But, you know, the expression does happen. I feel very strongly about this moving forward. I spent 15 years in the hospitality business, so I'm not totally a novice at it. I'm not an expert, but I'm not a novice. I support the restaurant and three suite hotel at 715 Bridgeway. I urge you to deny the appeal and uphold the unanimous approvals of the planning and historic commissions. This project will revitalize a historic building that has sat empty for way too long. The pocket team, I called it, has demonstrated their ability to create and successfully operate a small hotel and restaurant. There are so many empty stores in our downtown without prospective operators. Why would we let this golden opportunity Get away from us. This is truly a rare opportunity to restore and preserve a handsome and unique landmark, strengthen our local economy, and bring new life to downtown for locals and visitors. We have ordinances in place to address noise concerns that neighbors have raised, and the project certainly is smaller than the one other successful downtown hotels. The owner has expressed a strong commitment to running a business that works in Sausalito. Please deny the appeal and move this project forward. Time is slipping by. I have a couple of questions on it. How long would it take to, before they can open, forgetting about appeals, et cetera, et cetera. When they get down to the nitty gritty of doing the reconstruction, when do they expect to open? What's the timeframe? And parking would be where? In the public lots with certain assigned spots? Okay, those are my questions. Thank you. |
| 02:29:49.70 | Steven Woodside | Thank you for your questions. I encourage you to reach out to Matthew Mandich, senior planner, who's overseeing this project. Next, we'll hear from, I think it's Fred Moore. I recognize you even if I don't recognize your writing. Sorry about that. |
| 02:30:04.13 | Fred Moore | No one recognized my writing. Good evening, Madam Council members. I also hope that eventually when it gets come back before you, you deny the appeal, you approve this project. I applaud staff for, I think, amazing job they've done on presenting this project. I've gone to numerous hearings, heard numerous complaints about it. I think staff has done a great presentation. I applaud Bonnie's comments. It would be a great addition to downtown. We need it. The applicant has done, in my opinion, gone overboard in making concessions to some good points of design, which maybe aren't there anymore. But overall, it's a great project. I think everybody in the city will enjoy it. The opportunities for dining, the opportunities for the hotel. I know I'm not injured when I walk up the stairs, walk by that place with an outdoor area. I think there's been comments before about the potential noise impacts. My neighbor down the street probably has louder parties and may occur in this place, and there's noise ordinances to keep that in check. I'm sure that will occur here. I'm sure the neighbor behind will make sure that the noise never gets above a level that doesn't get a ring to the police. So there's all sorts of mechanisms in place already with the city to ensure this is a convenient, well-run, managed opportunity for the city. And I'll probably be back again. I submitted something in writing. I'll come back the next time. And I do hope you deny the appeal, make this project go forward, give us something to look forward to this summer. Thank you. |
| 02:31:30.80 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Mr. Moore. Gail Schell. |
| 02:31:40.40 | Gail Schell | Hello, Council. Thank you for taking the time to listen to all of us. We really appreciate it. I'm also in support of moving forward with this project. I think it's wonderful. You've heard all the professional reasons why it's a good thing. I think the city staff, the planning, I really applaud their efforts. I have to tell you the one thing that really meant a lot to me was reading a letter from the mayor of Carmel, who spoke about the person developing this project so highly and talked about what they brought to the community in addition to the actual physical property. And that's the kind of people that we want to do business with here in Sausalito. I hope you move forward. Thanks. Thank you. Adrienne Brinton. |
| 02:32:16.31 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | Thank you. |
| 02:32:23.06 | Adrian Brinton | Adrian Brinton, thank you for taking my comment. Great to see so much community support for this. It looks like a great project, and I hope we do come back and move forward with it. Also, you know. I think in the last year or so, getting more involved with the city. I heard that Sausalito is hard to do business with, and I'm learning a lot more about why. And when you see the way our ordinances are written, there are a lot of vague and ambiguous parts that are used in a way to stymie business. We've said hotels are good for Sausalito. There's second floor hotels all over downtown. Why on earth would we put that in our general plan? We need to go and clean these things up. If we wanna have business in town, we should make our ordinances support doing business in town. And today they just don't. And I applaud the applicant for coming in and working with the city, even though it's clearly gonna be a difficult process. So I hope we can also look at that and make a difference to make this place easier to do business and we can actually hope to fill more than just this storefront as well. Thank you. |
| 02:33:26.73 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Hank Baker? |
| 02:33:37.38 | Hank Baker | Good evening. I, too, echo most of the comments, request that you deny the appeal. Your job is to take a look at what is best for the city overall. This project is terrific, terrific use for downtown. I spoke in favor of it at the Historical Commission, one hearing at the Historical Commission, and they overwhelmingly approved it. It's going to be a great addition um and uh i think that the applicant has demonstrated their professionalism they've demonstrated their uh ability to consider the concerns of their neighbors in the revisions that they've made before coming in front of the planning commission again i hope that you deny the appeal and let's get a beautiful new building going downtown as soon as possible |
| 02:34:24.19 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Cass Green. If someone wants to speak, please submit a speaker card. |
| 02:34:32.84 | Cass Green | Hi, I'm Cass Green, one of the owners of the Inn above Tide. You might think as an owner of a hotel downtown that I would be against this project, but I'm totally in support of it. I think it'll help to revitalize the downtown I echo what other people have said, so I urge you to deny the appeal. I think this is gonna be an incredible, incredible asset to downtown Sausalito. Thank you. |
| 02:34:58.06 | Vicki Nichols | Vicki Nichols. Two carts now to turn in and a borrowed pen. Thank you. I don't want to speak to the miracle. of the projects or the appeal, but I'd like to just say something on behalf of the Historical Preservation Commission. You've all heard what an important building this is. The applicant engaged with the city early. He checked all of the ordinances, the Secretary of Interior Standards. He has cooperated, and I would just like to thank him again. This is just in terms of historic preservation, and if we had projects like this that people did enough considerate planning, it would be a joy to work with. So not about the applicants or anything, but just how the project adhered and really worked with the preservation standards with that building will not lose significance. They did a great job. Thank you Thank you. |
| 02:35:54.03 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:35:54.13 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you. |
| 02:35:54.16 | Steven Woodside | Do we have |
| 02:35:54.92 | Vicki Nichols | in the next video. |
| 02:35:54.97 | Steven Woodside | went online |
| 02:35:55.51 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you. |
| 02:35:55.55 | Steven Woodside | City Clerk. |
| 02:35:56.31 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes, we do, Babette McDougall. |
| 02:36:04.15 | Babette McDougall | Good evening. Thank you for allowing me to speak. I want to say that actually all these affirming remarks about What a lovely treatment with that architecture. really lovely. I would like to see it go forward, but I also totally appreciate the door that it opens to a much bigger. Questions? that the whole community will suddenly examine with great scrutiny that rigorous debate and examination that you guys are so fond of speaking of. So I think that's why If you. I finally do a convener. Proper hearing and everyone does get to weigh in. You would not want to be surprised to know that there would be some that would raise exceptions. That doesn't mean it shouldn't go forward. It just means let's be really wise about it. Let's consider what this appeal represents and let's make sure we work with our neighbors. That's what we want to do, right? So, I mean, I think we can, if we're going to be the model for the world and how it rebuilds itself, well, then we need to really show how we step up with our neighbors, don't we? And other than that, I just think, We can find a way. Ultimately, there will be the whole question of whether it's wise to have parking along the seashore at all. I think there are a lot of good ideas on how to resolve problems like that, but ultimately the bottom line is correct. The downtown is appropriate. That is an appropriate use for the downtown. We just have to find a proactive way. to make it work for everybody. And I have the impression that all the parties are keen to do that. Thank you very much for allowing me this time. Thank you. |
| 02:37:39.90 | Gail Schell | Thank you. |
| 02:37:40.86 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah. Jeffrey Conan? |
| 02:37:48.48 | Jeffrey Conan | Yes, thank you. I am in support of this project. Please deny the appeal. I think it does a great bank conversion, which is a daunting and difficult task in and of itself. With a proven concept in Carmel, I think we are in such a great situation to both have a private investor invest in Sausalito and Sausalito invest in this space. We really want to tackle the vacancy and blight that empty buildings project not only in the downtown space, but also in Caledonia, I think we need to really take this project and apply the merits of it across the city and really look at our empty buildings and how we can engage with other investment partners to really revitalize the city and bring it back post-COVID. Thank you. |
| 02:38:55.96 | Walfred Solorzano | No more further public speakers. |
| 02:38:57.55 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. I will close public comment. I will close the public hearing. We will not take action on this tonight. Again, I sincerely, on behalf of the city and the staff, apologize to the appellant, to their counsel, to the applicant. We will work with you to schedule a new hearing on this. Thank you. |
| 02:39:18.91 | Ian Sobieski | Madam Mayor, could I just ask a question about that? scheduling question we had a special meeting scheduled that we're not going to use. And. |
| 02:39:27.75 | Steven Woodside | I don't think we have time, it doesn't give us adequate notice for the public hearing. |
| 02:39:27.87 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:39:31.57 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, but I'm just wondering while we have everyone here, whether we could find the time to... |
| 02:39:35.11 | Steven Woodside | The agenda setting committee will do that. |
| 02:39:36.85 | Ian Sobieski | All right. |
| 02:39:39.50 | Steven Woodside | And I do want to accommodate the applicant and the appellant since we brought them here tonight and then didn't move forward. So. All right. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. |
| 02:39:49.84 | Steven Woodside | And just a closing comment from my perspective. This is the first time I'll be sitting as an appellant, as part of an appellate body. And my understanding is that we at the council level will be hearing this anew or a fresh de novo. And I just want to make sure everybody understands what that means. We have to keep our powder dry, not prejudge anything. And we will be hearing all of the arguments from scratch. |
| 02:40:17.18 | Ian Sobieski | The reason I'm asking about the scheduling is I appreciate that the agenda setting committee has a lot on their mind, but there is also just a policy approach about how long we let these things fester. And this is already dragged on. |
| 02:40:27.12 | Steven Woodside | Okay, we can discuss this under future agenda items. I'm not gonna take this, have this discussion. I'll bring it up again then. |
| 02:40:32.26 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:40:32.42 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:40:32.48 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:40:35.17 | Steven Woodside | I'm going to pause 30 seconds for the chambers to clear. |
| 02:40:44.97 | Steven Woodside | unless people want to stay. All right, let's take five minutes. I'm going to take a five minute break. City Clerk. Okay, so we're going to move to business items first business item is five a adopt a resolution to amend the mid year fiscal year 2024 25 operating and capital budget as directed by the city council and i'd like to say welcome in person Chad Hess our finance director. |
| 02:41:13.03 | Chad Hess | Good evening, Mayor, Council, members of the public. It's an honor to be here in front of you in person this evening. So tonight's agenda, we are going to adjust or modify our fiscal year 24-25 budget. So to begin, what I want to do is just give a quick overview of where we're at for our current fiscal year. What you're seeing up on your slides here, this should be very familiar. I've done this four or five times now. My goal is to continue to do this monthly as we close out our months. So this will give you a high-level overview of our general fund, the primary operating fund of our local government. This general fund captures about $20 million of the $30 million enterprise-wide budget. So this is a great indicator of where things are trending and going. So first off, I want to mention that the first seven months, revenue is exceeding the prior year. We are trending above prior year by $350,000, or about 3.5%. Some of the key highlights of this budget is the building and planning departments. They are doing very well with charging the appropriate fees for projects that are coming across Their plates so combined those two departments are exceeding last year's revenue by 270,000 so great job director Phipps of really coordinating a cohesive staff and making sure that they're aware of what are the proper fees to assess all of these applicants that are coming through the door and Again, interest earnings are up over last year. Again, we are going to be cautious on that with the feds tapering down their rates. But overall, year to date, we've collected about $10 million of general fund revenue. And we will collect the second half for the last five months of the year. Again, that property tax settlement coming in April will be a large portion of that uncollected revenues. On the expenditure side, we are trending above last year, as expected. A couple of those primary changes, should be no surprise, insurance is still that large outlier when it comes to prior costs year over year. Our UAL payment is slightly higher in the general fund, but overall, salaries are trending where they need to be. Salaries over last year are up about $3877,000 which is expected with our step increases in cost of living adjustments that were taking place by our MOUs. Next side please. Here is just a visual representation of this year's activity. Again, if you look at the green line, the green line is this year's fiscal year 2425. You can see that is above the blue line, which represents last year. And again, that red dotted line is a linear representation of our budget. Again, our budget. for revenues isn't quite linear, but you can see that inflection point will be coming up right around April when we can collect those property tax settlements that our actuals should exceed that budget line. Next slide, please. This slide here is going to look at your general fund wages. General fund wages are the primary expense of the general fund. It accounts for the majority of those expenses. Looking here, you can see the top graph looks month by month, and you can see Thank you. primary expense of the general fund. It accounts for the majority of those expenses. Looking here you can see the top graph looks month by month and you can see how wages have changed over the last three fiscal years. And then I think the more important graph down below you can see the cumulative wages. That green line is trending right in line with budget. That is a perfect representation. Wages are more of a linear representation or a linear expenditure. Every two weeks we make payments to our staff that perform their services for the city. You can see we're trying to run out of budget slightly above last year as expected based on those cost of living adjustments. But right in line with budget. I really have no concerns right now with our labor budget seven months in. So overall great controlling of expenses there from our departments. Next slide, please. We're going to look at the total expenditures. Here you can see we are above budget as it stands now, but again, that is due to those nonlinear expenditures. If you look at the top graph, kind of a broken record, July is really our most expensive month in terms of cash out the door, simply due to the UAL payments that we prepay to take advantage of the 3.5% savings savings and then our insurance premiums to prism are due in July as well. You can see that inflection point where our expenditures will come in line with budget is is forward coming. But again I'm not concerned about our current status and where things are trending. We do monitor this every month and again I hope to bring this forward to Council every month so you guys can stay current and informed on the status of the general fund. Next slide please. Here we are going to look at MLK rentals. The MLK is basically an investment fund for the city. We invested in this property years ago as we bought it from the school district, and we've been running it as a rental enterprise ever since. You can see here that our revenues are right in line with where they have been in prior years, right in line with budget. The expenditures are up a little bit due to some facility repairs and maintenance that we've performed at that facility. And we will be amending the budget to account for that later in this presentation. Next slide, please. This slide talks about the parking fund. And again, I do want to bring forward, if we look at January, they are trending slightly below last year or below last year. I'm curious as to why last year's January was as high as it was. I haven't had a chance to dig too deep into that. But again, we are trending above last year. That positive growth is starting to taper back as we've lost some of that ground over the last couple of months. But we will continue to monitor this and keep the council posted and informed as the year continues on. Overall revenues are up about 97,000, looking at a year over year comparison. And the expenses are up. Again, that's due to the recording of that UAL payment that we're gonna actually move back to the general fund and then adjust the transfers accordingly like we spoke about last time we discussed the budget. Uh, next slide, please. So now, we're gonna get into more of our mid-year budget amendment. A lot of these adjustments, we've already talked about, so I'm not gonna go super deep into it, just to be brief here. Here on this slide, some of those general fund revenues, again, are very stable. Nothing is alarming at this point. We are adjusting, not adjusting, we are undergoing a comprehensive fee study. We've got a couple departments that are still working on theirs, but we hope to bring that forward to council late March for review and adoption. That's gonna help our general fund.'re going to start getting more of a cost recovery when it comes to those fees for services that we charge, primarily building, planning, DPW, and then also police and parks and rec have revenue sources that should be operated on a more cost recovery basis. So as we go through that, we will see positive increases in revenues for those transactions that are more of an exchange-like, where somebody comes in and requests a service from the city, we should be charging an appropriate amount for that. Looking at the expense side, again, primarily driven by I'm sorry. Yeah, so primarily you're driving by, you know, recording the pension UIL payment in the general fund instead of the parking. So that accounts for about $200,000 of that increase. Again, I discussed the error in my budget regarding the engineering department. I had an unfunded position that snuck in there on me. That was one of our project managers from last year. And then we had some additional professional services that were required for an annual speed survey, not an annual, I think it's every five years that that's required. And then to answer Council Member Hoffman's question regarding the PBID included in the budget, that is captured in the general fund budget as well. You know, again, the care plan is in effect. We are slowly working through that, primarily on the expense side right now, but we are having really good conversations in some of our departments on the revenue side on what we can do to increase revenues. But again, right now, we're really focusing on the expenses, evaluating things, making sure we know what we're paying for, and trimming things as we can. |
| 02:49:31.52 | Chad Hess | Next slide, please. Some of the challenges facing the general fund, you know, a lot of uncertainty remains around insurance. You know, looking out, I anticipate that we're gonna have higher insurance costs coming up in our next fiscal year. It's still a really tough market. There was a letter that came out from the PRISM CEO today talking about the property market. Is seeing a little bit of softening, so I think rates will be stable in the property market next year, but I suspect general liability and workers comp will probably be held higher than we would like. Thank you. And I do envision that we're probably going to have a significant SIR next year as well, but we're going to continue to evaluate with prism and allegiance Alliance to really take a hard look at our premiums and our SIR in try to drive those down to a more affordable level for the city. Deferred maintenance on our buildings, roads, sidewalks, stairs, storm drains. We'll continue to challenge the budget. We have a lot of deferred maintenance within the city that we need to start addressing. That facilities assessment is going to be coming forward in the very near future. I believe a report release date in March. So that will give us a lot more clarity on what do we need to set aside and what are some of those funding requirements in you know, the general fund for the city hall, for the police department, but then also our enterprise funds. When we start looking at Old Bank of America, we look at Old City Hall, as well as the MLK. So that's gonna give us a lot more clarity on what do we need to set aside or have in those funds to continue to invest in those facilities so they can continue to provide revenues and profits for the city to reinvest or subsidize the general fund for. Um... Next slide, please. This slide I did update so I wanted to red line it I tried to increase a little bit of transparency due to a question at the last time they wanted more more clarity on the general fund revenues which are external revenues versus the internal transfers so I added the internal transfers as a carve out but my total didn't update so this is a different slide than what's out on the public agenda. I apologize for that but I will give this to Walford to update the online as well. So our current budget, as it stands, we had that $1.8 million deficit. I have diligently worked with our departments and looked at revenues and expenses until I was blue in the face, and I've got this down to $91,000, still in the deficit. You know, I didn't want to just plug it or balance it just for the sake of that. I really wanted to try to give an accurate reflection where we're at. I still believe that there are going to be additional savings to help us effectively manage this budget. But I didn't think it would do us justice just to pick an account to plug it. I didn't feel that was right. So I left it where it was. Looking at even my department, I know there's going to be small pockets of savings that are going to come out. Over time, those are going to add up. So I am confident we're going to be able to balance this thing for this year. Um, I'm talking with some departments next year, we're going to come forward with, with a larger package. We have some needs in some of our departments for vehicles. we're going to have to spend some of our accumulated fund balance in, I believe, next year to really start to address some of those deferred maintenance items on our vehicles, but also our facilities. So that's where we are at today. The total increase in revenue is about 1.4. A large portion of that is the ERAF, the excess rebate, that we discussed before. Again, that revenue is something that we have to monitor. It's been given for the last many, many years, but again, that could be a target of the state in future legislative season, so we do need to be cautious. Internal transfers are increasing slightly. I have decreased the transfer in the MLK and slightly increased it from the parking. One of the reasons for that is with that facilities assessment forthcoming, I know that that MLK fund is going to need some additional resources to start making some of those improvements. So I wanted to start to taper that down. And I believe that we are going to continue to invest in that property, but I think the general fund support will be limited in the near future. With that being said, our COP debt will expire 2031. That is a level payment. There was a public comment that was posted earlier today that said that the COP bonds or the COP debt service payments is increasing. That is untrue. It was designed as a very level payment. That annual debt service payment is around $620,000. It varies by about $3,000 each year just because of the interest and the principal. But again, that is a more, it's a very level payment, $620,000 per year. As that rolls off, it'll free up some capacity in that fund, but I do envision that that fund's ability to transfer to the general fund will be limited in the coming years. With that being said, let's move forward. The next slide will give a more general understanding or more visual of where are those transfers coming from. So if you look, the rows represent the transfer from, what is the fund giving the dollars, and the columns represent the receiving fund. You can see the largest beneficiary of transfers is the general fund of about 2.9 million. 1.8 of that comes from the parking fund, 500,000 from the MLK, which was reduced by 200,000. Old City Hall Fund about 1.5. That is going to cause a slight reduction in fund balance in that fund, but there is ample cash in that fund. And we have been investing in that fund with replacement of the roof, with the exterior backside doors, and then the new HVAC system, which was included in the Climatec agreement. And then $200,000 from the Tidelines to help with some of the administrative costs that take place from that fund. And then you can see in that second column, that's our capital projects funding. We got some dollars from Measure L moving over to the Capital Project Fund, Measure A, Measure AA, and then our construction impact fee. We're going to use some of those resources so that's part of our transfers and then we have a couple debt service just one debt service transfer from the tidelands to the debt service fund that debt expires next fiscal year so that'll free up about 72 000 in the tidelands fund and the go forward basis to deploy as the city chooses to next slide please This slide here is a little busy. I would definitely recommend looking at the attachment. Again, here on this, I tried to continue to follow that grouping that we see on our treasurer's report. So we have kind of the operating funds. We have our trust funds when we start looking at our resources for pensions, self-insurance, and then the restricted use like seal-level rise grant, the million dollars that we got from the state, the tidelands, et cetera. I do want to focus on the operations. So here you can see the first column is the cash balances, audited cash balances. Where were we at the beginning of the year in terms of cash? The second column is audited fund balance. And you can see that there is a slight difference between fund balance and cash. So I did want to bring that to your attention. Cash to me is king. What we have in cash is really what we can use to deploy. Here you can see projected revenues, expenses, those transfers, again, are outlined here, and then that projected change in fund balance. When we look at our operating funds, that first subtotal, you can see we have deficit spend of about $158,000 across all of those funds. But when we look at that total cash balance of about $14 million, I'm not concerned about that slight consumption of resources. And again, a large portion of that is in the general fund. And I feel that we will be able to budget that slight consumption of resources. And again, a large portion of that is in the general fund, and I feel that we will be able to budget that or close that gap. Um, A couple other highlights. Our self-insurance reserve, that is starting to accumulate a decent cash balance. At the beginning of the year, we had about $781,000. Our general liability was underfunded, but as of now, it has, as of December 31st, it has $700,000 of that original $2 million that was put into that fund. The rest was sent towards PRISM for premiums and then defending some small claims that have come in over the last seven months. Our workers' compensation fund is well-funded. That's got over a million dollars in it. We may consider doing a reallocation between the workers' comp and the self-general liability fund in the future, but at this point, I'm not recommending any changes there. Next, if we go down to the next slide, you'll see our infrastructure and improvements. Total cash balance at the beginning of the year was 5.3. Cash balance as of December 31st was 5.0 million. But again, we are trending really well when it comes to Measure L collections. Measure L collections are projected to be about 2.9 million this year. Cash balance as of December 31st was 3.8 million, which is an increase of the three million in there at the beginning of the fiscal year. That fund is again continuing to accumulate resources. We have a discussion coming up for the Finance Committee later on and potentially borrowing against some of those dollars to do a big bang or a big road project in the near future, but again, at the current point, we have 3.8 available in that fund. Next on the list is debt service funds. Those are, the second one, the debt service fund for the Tidelands, that's really just a zero balance fund. We transfer dollars from the Tidelands fund to this fund and then we make our payment to the state. The other 2006 A and B bond, I do wanna again remind council and the public that that is a separate levy. That does not impact our general fund. So as those B bonds start to become due and those payments start to increase, that is the debt that has increasing payments. That is a separate levy. So it's not going to stress the general fund, but it is going to impact our community. Those individuals paying the taxes are going to see that line item on their property tax statement increase to defies those capital appreciation bonds. So that is something just to be aware of from a personal standpoint as ratepayers or taxpayers, That that that line item is going to increase to pay for those bonds. And then the last item is the sewer fund. Again, we are looking to use some of our sewer fund resources as we continue to to rebuild and invest in that that infrastructure. But again, we had, you know, five point three million at the beginning of the fiscal year. We're at four point nine. As of 1231, and we still have our second half of property tax collections coming into that fund later in April. So overall, the city is looking very good. From my perspective, we have some challenges coming up, but I think we are well positioned to manage them considering the resources that we have available on our books. So with that, I will pause and open it up to questions and discussions. |
| 03:00:31.62 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Chad. I'm actually gonna start off with some questions. you |
| 03:00:34.37 | Chad Hess | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 03:00:34.54 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:00:34.59 | Chad Hess | Thank you. |
| 03:00:34.61 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:00:34.64 | Chad Hess | Thank you. |
| 03:00:34.66 | Steven Woodside | you And my questions mainly pertain to the transfers. Um, The first is Tidelands. We're transferring 200,000 um, From tidelands to the general fund? Yeah. That doesn't seem like an appropriate administrative cost. |
| 03:00:51.79 | Chad Hess | That's been that way for a number of years, and it's probably something we should reevaluate. Yeah, I would welcome that, or I think that is something that we do need to look at. Down the road, I think a cost allocation plan would be appropriate. Right now, a lot of our administrative costs are just reported as general government. So when I think finance and IT, those are really support services that benefit all of the departments. And right now, those costs are just accumulated general government. But I think a cost allocation and really looking at those costs would help us better understand what is an appropriate transfer from Thailand's over to the general fund, but then also look at what are those general government costs that should be pushed out towards those departments. They are being considered when we look at our cost recovery or our fee study, but from financial reporting, I think it would be better to look at that in the near future. |
| 03:01:43.17 | Steven Woodside | I mean, if you treat each of our funds the same way, you would be transferring $2 million. into the general fund, if you assume that every fund costs us $200,000 to administer. That just doesn't seem right to me. I don't understand how the Tidelands Fund costs us $200,000 to administer, given how infrequently we actually use it. |
| 03:01:55.93 | Jeffrey Conan | Yeah. |
| 03:02:07.18 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | Thank you. |
| 03:02:07.69 | Chad Hess | Yeah, so that is something we certainly can evaluate. If that's your direction, I can engage, you know, look for a cost allocation or some more additional justification or background on that. Yeah. |
| 03:02:19.15 | Steven Woodside | So I think the reason for my questions is that... |
| 03:02:19.33 | Chad Hess | Bye. |
| 03:02:23.67 | Steven Woodside | Like you, I don't want to balance our budget through fund transfers unless the fund transfers are justified. I agree. And so that brings me to the parking fund. We're transferring 1.85 million. |
| 03:02:32.24 | Chad Hess | Yeah. |
| 03:02:37.86 | Steven Woodside | But we know we need to repave lot one. Back in 2018, when I worked with, my dear colleague who passed away, Bill Werner, He estimated the cost of simply repaving and restriping lot one doing it properly at $2.5 million. And so And every meeting we hear Peter Van Meter talk about now that we've done all this work on the ferry landing, the one thing we haven't done is the thing that really needed to be done, which is repave lot one. And so I question the appropriateness of transferring monies from the parking fund into the general fund when we really need those monies. |
| 03:03:15.95 | Steven Woodside | you |
| 03:03:18.21 | Steven Woodside | to So I would like to know from you what will be left because we're not going to repave it this fiscal year. We would repave it next fiscal year. So I'd be interested to know from you what will be left after this transfer for us to... Yep. |
| 03:03:35.36 | Chad Hess | Thank you. |
| 03:03:35.44 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:03:35.46 | Chad Hess | So, |
| 03:03:35.80 | Steven Woodside | So if not just what's there now, but what will come in in revenues, anticipated revenues from parking, some of which we know. |
| 03:03:35.98 | Chad Hess | If we... |
| 03:03:42.38 | Chad Hess | Yeah. |
| 03:03:42.70 | Jeffrey Conan | So, |
| 03:03:44.18 | Steven Woodside | will go down due to this construction, but some of which will recover through parking spaces at the Maddens and through moving buses elsewhere and parking across from lot two. So I'd like, not necessarily tonight, but I'd like to hear from you |
| 03:03:53.26 | Jeffrey Conan | Yeah. |
| 03:04:02.83 | Steven Woodside | What? Thank you. whether we will have 2.5 million in our parking fund next year that we can spend on lot one, if we should so choose. |
| 03:04:12.08 | Chad Hess | Yep, so if we look at the beginning of the fiscal year, we had just over We just had over 2 million in that fund, and I am projecting an increase in available resources by about 160. So I'm not taking all of the profits, but I'm taking a large portion of that. And that fund, I believe, is going to outperform my budget. I'm budgeting very conservatively. But, yeah, I think we need to take a more holistic approach on that parking fund to make sure that we have adequate parking surfaces, but also our parking technology is in need of investment. So... You know I think as we continue to move forward I think maybe one policy or one thought that we can look at is you know if we if we end the year with a surplus. In our general fund we may want to start scaling back some of these transfers to only transfer what would be needed. |
| 03:04:59.09 | Steven Woodside | What I'm saying is that we should not even transfer to make a balanced budget if it's not appropriate to transfer given known obligations coming on. I don't want to have an unassigned fund balance or a surplus in the general fund at the expense of our enterprise funds that we need to make to address deferred maintenance. |
| 03:05:23.93 | Chad Hess | Understood, yeah. So that's certainly something we should look at in the next fiscal year's budget and continue that dialogue. |
| 03:05:31.10 | Steven Woodside | With respect to the sewer fund, you have a transfer of $225,000. You know that we are, negotiating a consolidation of services, and that it will be important that we retain a certain balance in order to make that transfer financially viable. So I want to be sure that you're in sync with the city manager with respect to his negotiations with, um, Saucyde Marin City Sanitary District in terms of maintaining the balance that we need to make that |
| 03:06:05.98 | Chad Hess | at a successful transfer. |
| 03:06:06.86 | Steven Woodside | A successful transfer and we're hoping to do that this fiscal year. |
| 03:06:10.27 | Chad Hess | Thank you. |
| 03:06:10.47 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:06:10.57 | Chad Hess | Yes. So that, that again is one of those legacy transfers that have been out there for a number of years. The, the, you know, the concept or the thought around it is none of the administrative salaries for Mr. City Manager Zapata, myself, a small portion of Kevin's are assigned, Director McGowan's are assigned to the sewer fund, but there are a lot of administrative costs that aren't directly assigned. Information technologies would be a big one, the finance component. So there is, you know, those administrative burdens, but I, yeah, that cost allocation study would be helpful in that. But again, that is going to be eliminated upon the transfer of the sewer fund. But some of those administrative costs, I would believe, would also be reduced. |
| 03:06:55.49 | Steven Woodside | Okay, and then the other funds that are being transferred are going into the... capital projects fund. And so that those, like Measure L, we promised to only use that in a particular way. But by transferring it to the capital projects fund, we're still keeping that promise to our voters. |
| 03:07:16.08 | Chad Hess | We certainly are. Yeah. So in the past, we've always receded the measure O in the general fund, and then we would make a transfer over. The way it's set up now is I created a segregated fund from all measure L dollars, and it's still part of the general fund. But if we look at our audit report, there's what's called a combining schedule, where it shows the detail of the operating fund, the measure L fund, and the pension trust fund, which represents the general fund in total. So yes, with that transfer, it's being assigned or allocated to very specific projects that meet that pledge to our community to invest those dollars in infrastructure. Yes, ma'am. |
| 03:07:57.34 | Steven Woodside | OK, and then finally the MLK fund, thank you for reducing the transfer. I still, you know, we're going to have the report from Bureau Veritas within the next 30 days. So I would question whether we should make this transfer now or better understand what the deferred maintenance, what the immediate... need in terms of deferred maintenance that we need to address this year or next year and make that transfer based upon more full knowledge. Would you agree that would be prudent? Yeah. |
| 03:08:29.15 | Chad Hess | that Yeah, I think we certainly should reevaluate when that comes out. I know that there's going to be costs that are going to be needed in that campus. I just know it. |
| 03:08:42.14 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. So then to wrap it up, what is the, what is your timing on needing to make these mid-year budget adjustments? What, I mean, could we... postpone some of these adjustments until we have because we're getting a whole lot of information coming in in the next 30 days. |
| 03:09:00.54 | Chad Hess | So there's no requirement that we do it today. There's no requirement that we amend our budget at all. But yeah, if that is council's direction, we can certainly postpone that adoption of our resolution tonight and wait until that report from Bureau Veritas is available. And then we can incorporate some of those findings or that information into a updated mid-year process. |
| 03:09:20.96 | Steven Woodside | I'll wait to hear from my fellow council members regarding how they feel about that. But thank you for answering my question. Great questions. Thank you. Questions. |
| 03:09:25.70 | Chad Hess | Great questions, Brad. Thank you. |
| 03:09:31.81 | Steven Woodside | Some of these funds, such as Measure Airell, are... essentially restricted. |
| 03:09:37.51 | Chad Hess | So Measure L was a general tax. So it was a 50% plus one. It wasn't a special. So it's technically general revenues and it's not restricted, but we've made a pledge to our constituents that we would invest those dollars into infrastructure buildings, roads, sidewalks, stairs, etc. |
| 03:09:57.35 | Steven Woodside | So whether it's legally restricted, it is effectively restricted by counsel. |
| 03:10:02.54 | Chad Hess | Internally, yes. It's not restricted by law. |
| 03:10:05.61 | Steven Woodside | And with respect to other funds that are separately identified apart from the pure general fund, such as a parking fund? |
| 03:10:13.17 | Chad Hess | Thank you. |
| 03:10:13.18 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:10:13.22 | Chad Hess | Mm-hmm. |
| 03:10:13.93 | Steven Woodside | Those aren't officially restricted. |
| 03:10:16.31 | Chad Hess | those are unrestricted dollars as well. Yeah, the city could deploy those in any manner that they choose. |
| 03:10:22.82 | Steven Woodside | And the mayor suggested that if there are parking lot needs for infrastructure improvement, that whatever the balance is available to us in terms of available funds to spend, that could be a choice. |
| 03:10:39.56 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, I'm proposing we treat it as a cost center, even though we're not required to within our general fund. This is a system that we set up. over 10 years ago in terms of segregating certain funds so that we understand what is the MLK, what revenue are we getting from MLK and what's it costing us? What revenue are we getting from the old City Hall, Gene Hiller building, what's it costing us? |
| 03:10:53.18 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 03:11:04.03 | Steven Woodside | And if there's a surplus, sorry to interrupt, but if there's a surplus, it would be up to the council to decide how to use that surplus. |
| 03:11:10.88 | Steven Woodside | And we could serve if there's a surplus, if there's a true surplus in any, Fund. operating center cost center then we can just transfer that to the general fund. positing hypothetically is that we consider delaying those transfers until we really know whether there's a true surplus in those funds, given what we know are the needs in the next fiscal year. |
| 03:11:38.91 | Steven Woodside | Okay, so there's definitely cash on hand, and the question is, how is it allocated, how is it accounted for, and what we do with it? End of the day. Thank you. |
| 03:11:48.11 | Steven Woodside | So the finance director would like us to have a balanced general fund budget. |
| 03:11:54.70 | Steven Woodside | I think we all would. |
| 03:11:55.61 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. And he is suggesting that we and this is really part of discussion, but he's suggesting that we make certain transfers from cost centers that we have traditionally maintained. in an effort to balance the general fund balance. And I'm saying. |
| 03:12:16.27 | Unknown | Absolutely. |
| 03:12:16.51 | Steven Woodside | You consider... |
| 03:12:16.83 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 03:12:17.74 | Steven Woodside | whether that is appropriate, because we already have a significant unassigned fund balance in the general fund. And so I prefer to be completely transparent in what MLK is costing us, in what parking is costing us. And so when we simply transfer all that into the general fund, we're not as effectively tracking those as separate cost centers, which is, again, a process adopted by the council years ago. We are not required to follow that process, but I think it makes it... more clear for us as decision makers about how to allocate dollars. |
| 03:12:53.78 | Steven Woodside | Okay, so apart from we don't have to do anything tonight, we're getting a mid-year report as to where all these things are. You're not asking us necessarily. |
| 03:13:02.29 | Chad Hess | It's terrible. There is a recommend motion to adopt a resolution to amend the budget. Okay. But you certainly as a governing body could delay that and recommend some adjustments or wait until that Bureau Veritas report is available. and then incorporate those needs into our mid-year adjustment and bring it back to the body if so desired. |
| 03:13:22.30 | Steven Woodside | PB, David Ensign, And apart from what you're looking at now, there is also available funding, in addition to the annual budget. |
| 03:13:30.67 | Chad Hess | Yeah, so the fund balance, the residual surpluses of the government from the beginning of time, you know, we've built up revenues or accumulated surpluses over the years. You know, we had at the end of last fiscal year, it was close to $35 million in cash on hand, and that has accumulated over the years. You know, the city of Sausalito, in order to get that cash on hand, has run surpluses for a number of years to accumulate those resources. |
| 03:14:01.20 | Steven Woodside | And the city manager has recommended, and we'll hear this at a future... that. on a future agenda item, has recommended but the finance committee will hear this first, that we leverage some of that unassigned fund balance to... undertake a borrowing to address today the most urgent infrastructure needs. Raise our road index. Fix our stairways that are critical to, and these are these are priorities we established at our strategic planning session. And so That's again until we have all this information and can figure out how best to spend our monies, which right now are segregated into cost centers, I'm suggesting we take a break. |
| 03:14:48.15 | Chris Zapata | I'M A MAYOR IF I CAN, I ALWAYS HEAR NUMBERS. AND THE NUMBER I HEARD WAS $35 MILLION. AND IT NEEDS TO BE BALANCED WITH WHAT THAT $35 MILLION CAN DO. And you can't spend $5 million of sewer money on general fund purposes. You can't spend certain monies from grants on other general fund purposes. So that's one factor that I think needs to be crystal clear to the community. The second one is if you had $35 million, you'd put that up against the $100 million in deferred maintenance we have. So when the community hears $35 million or anybody in the public that's interested of the public, here's $35 million that we've accumulated. We've also accumulated a significant backlog of deferred maintenance. And so how to get to that is going to be the challenge. And so all the studies that you've talked about doing and we're doing, they will help facilitate that and inform that. But, again, let me be clear. We know that we have money in the bank, but we also know that we have a larger ticket that is involved with our streets, our roads, our stairs, our buildings, our sidewalks, et cetera. |
| 03:16:02.19 | Steven Woodside | Did you have other questions, Vice Mayor? I'm thinking. Okay. I mean, we have plenty of time to address this. I'm happy to speak with you offline, or I recommend you talk to Ray Withey, who really is a great historian on some of this. |
| 03:16:14.23 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | Thank you. |
| 03:16:15.90 | Steven Woodside | Understood. I just I don't want to have things extend or continue to the point where we don't take action on our urgent needs, which I think we recognize we have and we. me personally would like to see us get on with identifying some of those priorities, it may well be parking lot number one or such, but and we don't have unlimited funds, we have limited funds and to the extent we're going to defer decision now. to in effect not respond to the recommendation or not approve the recommendation that's before us now. I think we are putting off further when what we should be doing, I think, is identifying what those needs are and then identifying what funds are available. to spend them. I think the practice of moving from fund to fund, I understand historically, has been done. In other words, these haven't been pure enterprise funds where the money's locked up forever and ever for parking, for example. |
| 03:17:19.87 | Jeffrey Conan | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 03:17:19.92 | Unknown | you |
| 03:17:20.07 | Jeffrey Conan | Thank you. |
| 03:17:22.45 | Steven Woodside | So I'm reluctant to not approve the recommendation. |
| 03:17:27.51 | Steven Woodside | So again, this is questions, not discussion yet. |
| 03:17:30.47 | Steven Woodside | Okay, I'm sorry, but I thought we were getting into that also. |
| 03:17:32.98 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. WE WANT TO BE ABLE TO BE ABLE TO |
| 03:17:33.88 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:17:33.89 | Steven Woodside | I THINK IT'S A GOOD QUESTION. Yeah, so I was trying to answer your questions by explaining. But in terms of what you recommend doing going forward, |
| 03:17:42.63 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 03:17:43.26 | Steven Woodside | I still have to take questions from Council members, and hear public comment before we can make a decision about how we'd like to move forward. |
| 03:17:49.38 | Steven Woodside | I understand. I'm just responding to your suggestion that we not. |
| 03:17:53.97 | Steven Woodside | I only said I was asking the questions. I'm not anyway. Um, I mean, |
| 03:17:59.03 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Okay. |
| 03:18:00.10 | Steven Woodside | You'll have your three minutes. We'll each have our three minutes to comment. Yes, Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 03:18:10.44 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:18:10.46 | Jill Hoffman | Sorry, this is a, I think, a relevant follow-up question with regard to |
| 03:18:11.05 | Steven Woodside | this is a, |
| 03:18:16.06 | Jill Hoffman | The facilities assessment from Veritas and the reason that we're waiting for it and the reason why it's relevant to these funds. And that's because it will tell us, hopefully, the scope of the deferred maintenance on Veritas properties that are specific to these funds. Thank you. |
| 03:18:32.75 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 03:18:32.77 | Jill Hoffman | And the idea is that the revenue from these funds, the reason they're segregated is because the maintenance cost is supposed to come out of these funds. And that's the whole purpose why they're set up this way. That's correct. Yeah. And so that's why it's relevant. |
| 03:18:43.94 | Chad Hess | That's correct. |
| 03:18:46.93 | Jill Hoffman | And that's why they were set up this way to help us keep a more traditional good business practice for the operating expenses for these hard assets that we have. Correct? Yes. And so, and we expect to have this within the next 30 days. |
| 03:19:07.68 | Chad Hess | That's my understanding. |
| 03:19:09.61 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. Well, let me just say, we've been hearing this for the, about the next, the last year. So the agenda. |
| 03:19:14.64 | Steven Woodside | The agenda committee has put it on the agenda already. |
| 03:19:16.93 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. So we will have one. Yeah. Excellent. |
| 03:19:17.77 | Steven Woodside | So we will have it. |
| 03:19:19.73 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, well that's a step in the right direction. |
| 03:19:22.38 | Chad Hess | Yeah, the March timeframe, I don't think it's changed for a while. |
| 03:19:25.22 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, good. |
| 03:19:25.39 | Chad Hess | It took us a while the RFP issued, but it's progressing. |
| 03:19:28.25 | Jill Hoffman | Well, there's- Okay, well, then we could have a, for this issue, I mean, we could have that on the same agenda. That would be nice. Okay, that would give us some certainty, certainly. Okay. Okay, thank you. There was a public comment letter that was sent in, and I did see your responses, so thank you so much for that. I don't have any follow up questions on that, but I do thank you for giving me those responses. I might later, but I don't have any. Thank you. Okay. I don't have any follow up questions based on your questions I've been asked. Thank you. |
| 03:19:54.09 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:20:01.99 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:20:02.00 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, thank you. Thanks, Director Hass. Always lovely to hear from you. Appreciate seeing you in person. Thank you for being with us. So I particularly appreciated that you proactively address the general fund challenges as a conversation here because that's going to be |
| 03:20:07.08 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:20:16.79 | Jill Hoffman | potentially where we see the most risk or shift in what our budget looks like. And I just like to. understand, I mean, you acknowledge here on the slide that the UAL payment will be roughly 190 in 25, 26. before we see the relief, that's all been put into your budgeting plan. |
| 03:20:34.10 | Chad Hess | Yeah, yeah. So next year, fiscal year 26, our UAL payment will be higher than the 25 payment by 190. That's known. The fiscal year 27 UAL payment is not known at this point. CalPERS releases those reports mid-August. So mid-August, we'll know how much of a savings our fiscal year 27 UAL payment will yield due to CalPERS' better-than-expected rate of return. in fiscal year 24. |
| 03:21:02.94 | Jill Hoffman | which is expected to be good. So that's positive for us, but there are other things on here like, the insert insurance costs uncertainty and and deferred maintenance uncertainty. And I guess I just would like to hear you revisit a little bit our reserves policy that we voted on together and where we're at in the event that something does show up that would significantly impact our budgeting purview |
| 03:21:24.27 | Chad Hess | Yeah. So last year we did adopt a updated reserve policy. Our previous reserve was composed of two components, a budget stabilization and an emergency shortfall. Combined, that was at 15% of the prior year's general fund expenditures. The council approved a resolution, I don't think it was a resolution, but directed staff to adjust that policy and increased our reserves to 25% of the prior year's general fund operating expenditures. And that was simply a reclassification between unassigned fund balance and assigned fund balance. |
| 03:22:01.29 | Jill Hoffman | But so let's say our infrastructure assessment comes back that we've all been waiting for just to follow on, and it is five times the anticipated costs that we would need to make some of those improvements. Would that be a time when you would consider dipping into... the reserve is that a situation where we have a planning for that kind of budgeting horizon |
| 03:22:19.58 | Chad Hess | Yeah, I don't think that we would necessarily want to tap into the reserves for facilities improvements. I think we have resources in excess of reserves that I think would be prime for expense on some of those. But I wouldn't tap into our reserves to fix... the MLK campus, unless it's a dire emergency. |
| 03:22:40.81 | Jill Hoffman | So we shouldn't need to. |
| 03:22:42.00 | Chad Hess | Yeah, I wouldn't. You know, those improvements are going to take time. They're not going to recommend that we replace every system or every component in these buildings in year one or two. I mean, these things are going to be multi-multi-year plans. |
| 03:22:42.06 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 03:22:53.72 | Jill Hoffman | I guess what I'm trying to get at is it appears, and please let me know if I'm wrong, that you have sufficiently planned for the general fund challenges in your budgeting. Yeah. |
| 03:23:03.34 | Chad Hess | Yeah, the UAL payment is already is already kind of baked in. We can find another one hundred ninety thousand for next year and then we'll find some relief. You know, there are a lot of challenges, but we will overcome. We'll find creative ways to to manage our expenses. We'll increase our revenues from this fee study. You know, we are also looking at impact fees is another revenue source that we're exploring with our with Wilden, one of our consultants who's doing the fee studies. So those are some other ways that we can help fund some of these improvements that need to be made. |
| 03:23:33.26 | Jill Hoffman | Thanks, Director Huss. |
| 03:23:36.55 | Chad Hess | Thank you. |
| 03:23:36.57 | Ian Sobieski | Thanks, Mayor. Back in the fall of 2023, I put a video out asking the question of his sauce little broke. And in that video, amongst other things, I called for this facilities assessment and this 10-year model. when that facilities assessment is done, we're going to get a number, which is the cost of deferred maintenance on buildings. Uh, In that video I made, it was the call for that number wasn't just to have a singular number, but it was to actually create a business model for our MLK business unit. And similarly, the deferred maintenance in our parking lots and other Equipment costs and operating costs should be put into a business model. So my question is when that facilities assessment is done or when you do some of the work around parking lot number one or the other parking lots. Are we going to get just a simple scary number like a hundred million dollars that city manager cited for our whole town's deferred infrastructure. Are we going to get something which is an amortized annual expected obligation to maintain our business in a certain level of operating quality? |
| 03:24:45.86 | Chad Hess | Yes, so the facilities assessment that I've seen, some preliminary drafts, they break it out by system. So they went and evaluated all of the systems and all of the components of these buildings, and then they would put an estimated remaining life on that. So they provide us with a schedule over the next, is it 20 years, I believe? the next 10 years of what are those components that are going to be due so we can start to plan for year by year those projected expenditures, and they also adjust them for inflationary costs as well. So it gives us a much better understanding of what are those capital requirements going forward so we can plan our business model accordingly. |
| 03:25:26.16 | Ian Sobieski | Great. So that's what we should expect. Yes. My number, but actually inputs into a more robust. |
| 03:25:27.91 | Chad Hess | Yes. |
| 03:25:32.55 | Ian Sobieski | business model that we can assess the profit or loss of the enterprise. |
| 03:25:37.19 | Chad Hess | of that enterprise. And that's gonna be a key component in our 10 year model that I've started to develop and you and I have collaborated on. But I think that big missing component is what are those capital costs? What are those capital costs for MLK, for the parking lot, old city hall, et cetera? |
| 03:25:51.97 | Ian Sobieski | A related question to that is we have, we're still gonna debate what our Pavement Quality Index aspiration is. It's currently 58. And we're gonna decide, are we shooting for 65 in 10 years or 75 or 85 or A, 95? Uh, It would be easy to, my question is, are we gonna have the same symmetric a strategic choice about the quality of our various business enterprises. So, or are we going to, imply that because there's $10 million of deferred infrastructure in our buildings that we have to bring all our buildings up to A. 95 plus quality, even while we leave our roads at grade C 75. So I'm asking. |
| 03:26:37.17 | Chad Hess | So... That may be getting a little bit out of my expertise. |
| 03:26:39.24 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:26:42.38 | Chad Hess | I'm going to defer to Director McGowan. |
| 03:26:43.59 | Ian Sobieski | I mean, it's to the business model a little bit question. Like, will it be a variable control where we, as a city council, can choose that we're going to take money from the enterprises because we want to fix our roads or fix our stairs or fight the potential wildfire risk or landslide risk? Or are we going to implicit in the business model have our buildings be A-plus quality and our streets paved with gold? I mean, our parking lots paved. |
| 03:27:07.29 | Steven Woodside | THEIR OWNERS. So I just want to, as a point of order, I just want to confine us to the topic of tonight, which is whether we want to approve a mid-year budget adjustment. And, remind us that this is all part of our strategic planning effort for this year and will be addressed in great detail in meetings upcoming very soon. But I don't want to shut you down, but just remind us that this dialogue is not for tonight. |
| 03:27:32.11 | Ian Sobieski | Thanks, Mayor. I was riffing off of the previous questions. Maybe if we could just answer this one, I'll move on. |
| 03:27:34.57 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, yeah. Thank you. |
| 03:27:36.62 | Kevin McGowan | . So good evening Kevin McGowan Public Works. I think what you're going to get is you're going to get a list from Veritas of what needs to be done in each building. It's not going to have a rating system similar to our road system where you're going to have put in a million dollars into one facility and that will make it a a one facility. Buildings aren't rated that way. It's just going to give you a list of what they think needs to be done, and we're going to hopefully prioritize that list per the next 10 years so that you have a cost per year and you can look down a 10-year period to say, okay, in this year we need 1.5, and year seven we need 5.2 million, that type of thing. |
| 03:28:18.52 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. Thank you. It might show you since it's follow up and then I'll finish. Go ahead. If it's directly on point. |
| 03:28:26.90 | Jill Hoffman | So Kevin, this is a follow-up question for you and from Veritas. So, okay. Not a surprise to anybody. I have a military background, right? So every time you walk into a military building or ship, something called a PMS, a preventative maintenance schedule for every piece of equipment. everybody that works on that equipment, it's a checkoff. You pick up the PMS and you know what you're doing almost every day on that equipment. If you're a response for that piece of equipment, you pick up the PMS sheet and you know what you're doing that week, sometimes that day, that day, that week, that year, and that's, and so. That's your schedule. That's your preventive maintenance schedule. I was a little bit surprised that we didn't have anything like that. for Sausalito. So is that what Veritas is going to give us? Are they going to give us a preventative maintenance schedule? Are we going to have a PMS schedule for our, you know, for our buildings? Are they going to say, this is your, you know, this is your MLK building number 55. You need to do starting tomorrow. You need to do this, you know, you need to start looking at your, you know, this switch needs to be switched out in today. And then you need to switch it out again in five years and you need to start, you know, this. You need to start looking at your, this switch needs to be switched out today, and then you need to switch it out again in five years, and you need to start, this is your preventative maintenance schedule from, A to Z, and here's your schedule. Is it going to be? that I mean, maybe not that level of you know, specificity or at least going to tell us this is what you need to do on an ongoing basis, you know, to keep this equipment in working order until it needs to be replaced. |
| 03:29:59.14 | Kevin McGowan | I think what you're going to get is you're going to get a list that's going to say on this building, your HVAC needs to be replaced in year seven. It won't get into that level of specificity of you need to replace those filters every year or you need to paint the building every year. It may have some specificity on carpet, things that we all need, but I don't think they're going to have that level of detail that you will see in a military facility. |
| 03:30:28.64 | Jill Hoffman | So, okay, so they're going to tell us what, so granted, but then does it come back to our public works department? Who's responsible for maintaining those physical assets that are owned by the city of Sausalito? Is it public works? |
| 03:30:41.70 | Kevin McGowan | It would depend upon the facility, of course, and whether it's leased or not. But those that are our responsibility, yes, that's up to us. |
| 03:30:48.97 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so then we get, the city gets, the city manager is gonna take the report from Veritas. He's gonna talk to you as our public works and you're gonna look at it with your team and say, okay, here's our report. Here's our to-do list. And then you guys are going to figure out how to move forward from there. |
| 03:31:05.38 | Kevin McGowan | I think the way I look at it is we're going to use this report to help us with our capital program. |
| 03:31:10.54 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:31:10.56 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 03:31:10.84 | Kevin McGowan | We're going to start allocating funds to facilitate these improvements, including, you know, the easy one is HVAC systems don't last forever. So within the next years, 10 years, a lot of these will have to be replaced. How much money do we set aside to do that? |
| 03:31:24.21 | Jill Hoffman | And then, yeah. That's our intention. |
| 03:31:25.05 | Kevin McGowan | That's our intent. |
| 03:31:26.22 | Jill Hoffman | then that will be helpful for us as a council to then evaluate and decide, is this something we want to keep or do we need to sell it because we can't maintain it? Okay, thanks. You got it. |
| 03:31:36.06 | Chris Zapata | And mayor and council, if you can. |
| 03:31:37.30 | Jill Hoffman | Perhaps. |
| 03:31:38.32 | Chris Zapata | So they're doing this building by building, which is really important, and it's phased. But I think the thing to consider is always safety and where are you going to spend money that relates to safety. And then the second thing is what's producing revenue for you? Are you going to fix buildings that don't produce revenues for you when you can fix something that does? So those factors all be to work into this whole conversation about how we move the needle in a significant way on our buildings as well as our streets. But yeah, they're doing good work. I've seen drafts of it, and I think it's going to be what the council's looking for, but not to the detail that a trillion dollar military has. So we're just a small place. Thank you. |
| 03:32:23.56 | Ian Sobieski | My last question, Director Hess, is just about the the way we should think about our city's resources as just regular residents, because I think it's pretty complicated when we have 14 different funds. 28. |
| 03:32:37.48 | Matt Barnes | 28. |
| 03:32:37.89 | Ian Sobieski | 28 different funds, some of which are restricted, some of which are not restricted. Even the example that the mayor cited, a parking lot number one, could be paid for with monies from parking revenue, but might also arguably be paid for partly by Tideland's funds because it's within the Tideland's range. Correct. And that's an example that we face on many different projects across the town. So... |
| 03:32:57.07 | Hank Baker | Correct. |
| 03:33:02.56 | Ian Sobieski | You often report just on general fund, the main operating funds of the city. And yet there are many funds that have sources of revenue that are Really? similar to Other operating businesses so MLK generates rent so does Spinnaker restaurant and okay right goes to the MLK fund Spinnaker restaurant goes to Tideland's Tideland's fund so Would it be appropriate to comment on just how the city's doing overall? Sort of total revenue in? Yeah. Total expenses out? So this year and previous years? |
| 03:33:32.22 | Chad Hess | Yeah. So, Yeah. So if we, you know, if that's a report going forward, we'd like to see that certainly available. I think one great gauge of that is our treasurer's report that comes out quarterly. That's going to tell you your cash position and how it's changed over that quarter, over that current fiscal year. So that gives a very holistic view of the enterprise on how things are changing in terms of cash. That report could be brought forward every month. I've created a great workflow or a template that it's really easy to update. So that's one opportunity that we could bring forward. We could publish this on our website so people could see that cash balance month by month and how it changes. You know, when we talk budgets, we could start talking more broad than just the general fund. I mean, we could talk about the enterprise wide if that's a direction we want to go. You know, we could also change those classifications of those categories that I've been grouping the treasurer's report on or the report on today. You know, I'm open to ideas. If there are better ways to convey this information, I certainly want to explore them. |
| 03:34:37.80 | Ian Sobieski | I'd look a little bit, it's just a question. Yeah. Maybe it's even a recommendation. Yeah. Fair enough. I did say that. And I will actually honor that. It could also be a comment, which is you're the expert also. And some of those funds are very small. But other ones, you could draw a dotted line around and say, this is the operating business of the city. I mean, we're a town with a lot of, you know, we generate a lot of money from parking. We're in the parking business. So it's an operating income and there's an expense. And it's that top group that's really getting that. you know people want they basically want to know are we going to go broke and it's easy to forget that as a finance director, that that's what people are wondering about. And I'm wondering if we could get a kind of reporting that basically says, are we really in a deficit or are we really in a surplus? And that's a little lost if we only look at one fund and then argue about transfers, but then don't have an amortized cost of the underlying asset maintenance. Everybody can see what they want to see in that picture. And it would be helpful as the expert if you could actually take a firm grip and say, this is what I think the truth is, as best as I can say it. |
| 03:34:45.95 | Unknown | Go ahead. |
| 03:34:46.96 | Jeffrey Conan | Thank you. |
| 03:35:42.92 | Bonnie | you |
| 03:35:42.94 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah. |
| 03:35:43.02 | Steven Woodside | Well. |
| 03:35:43.26 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:35:43.27 | Bonnie | Thank you. |
| 03:35:46.08 | Steven Woodside | Okay. Yeah, and I think it's his job to report on facts, and it's our job to interpret those and set policy based on those facts. okay and i i need to open up to public comment so go ahead |
| 03:36:10.68 | Steven Woodside | We do annually, so I'm hoping that would be part of our budget planning. Yeah. |
| 03:36:14.66 | Chad Hess | We certainly can devote a session to how do we want to approach that pension? Like what is going to be our plan in fiscal year 27th? |
| 03:36:21.58 | Steven Woodside | We had a consent item on our last agenda to switch our... |
| 03:36:26.34 | Chad Hess | Um, |
| 03:36:26.56 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:36:26.68 | Chad Hess | Thank you. Our Section 115 trust, where that is in the process of being converted over to the CalPERS. |
| 03:36:29.65 | Steven Woodside | in the process of being panic. |
| 03:36:36.55 | Chad Hess | Bartle and Wells used to do it. Yeah, we used to bring Bartle and Associates here and offer some guidance on pensions. They have been acquired by another firm, but we could certainly engage them if you so desire to have them come in and give us- |
| 03:36:48.11 | Steven Woodside | Can you just raise that on future agenda items, Council? |
| 03:36:49.54 | Chad Hess | The report. Okay. Yeah. |
| 03:36:52.23 | Steven Woodside | Okay, with that, I'm gonna open it up to public comment. I have one speaker card from Adrian Britton. |
| 03:37:02.32 | Adrian Brinton | Again, Adrian Brinton, thanks for taking my comment. Just wanted to comment really quickly on the enterprise funds. Great to hear this discussion. I think the discussion that I'm hearing You guys have aligns a lot with the understanding I have of the enterprise funds, which is that we have Revenue generating assets, we want to take the money from those, understand how much money we're getting, and then have money to apply to maintain those assets so they continue to generate revenue, which is great. It's also fairly limiting in that things like the Tidelands Fund, which is a restricted fund where we can only spend it within certain parameters., something like paving parking lot one to pick up Peter's mantle since he's not here. Yes, we definitely need to pay parking lot one. And yes, we can definitely pay for it by saving up parking revenue and paying for it with parking revenue. We can also take restricted tidelands funds and pay... If we're parking lot one is within the title and zone and by doing that we take unrestricted parking funds and open them up for use anywhere in the city. So things like that we can get a definite benefit from, even though it doesn't quite align with the idea that we want to actually know exactly that the parking money is paying for the parking lot. So I think you know. It's great to have that in concept, but I think we should also be open to looking at how we're applying the money that we have to spend and doing it in the most sensible way. and having the most flexibility with money. without losing the visibility as well. We have a ton of backlog of infrastructure. We've obviously talked about it a lot, and that's a huge priority. It's going to be really hard to get to a perfect plan to move forward with something. You know, paving parking lot one is a great place to start. Let's start there. Get that done this year. We'll have something to show for it. We can move forward. We've got a ton of other stuff to do. It won't be the only thing. But I think if we can just pick one thing and move forward with it, we do the city a great service. Thank you. |
| 03:39:02.82 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. I have no other speaker cards. Is there anyone online? |
| 03:39:05.52 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes, we have Babette McDougall. |
| 03:39:11.87 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. Well, Joan, I just want to know, are you going to time all my public comments tonight too? So I'd like to know what it turns out to be. This was a, I want to thank you very much. It wasn't me that timed you, Babette. |
| 03:39:21.99 | Steven Woodside | Very nice. |
| 03:39:23.92 | Babette McDougall | Okay. All right. I don't want to use up my time talking about that. Here's what I want to get to. |
| 03:39:25.28 | Steven Woodside | I'm giving up. |
| 03:39:29.50 | Babette McDougall | I want to thank you because you're running a really tight ship here. And I really do appreciate all the drilling down that you all are doing. So I, And you answered a lot of my questions. So I've got one question that I would just like to know that we get clear on. My question is, I will phrase it as an assumption. The labor, the line item thing called labor, the three colored trajectory lines, right, on how we're doing with budget. I would like to know, does labor costs, I immediately just think of our city staff. But maybe it also includes the paid consultants. Now, we're paying out millions to these consultants, and that could be staff positions, well-earned and well-deserved. So I just really would like us to drill down on the dang labor costs as a line item. Let's get real about what kind of staffing we really need. Thank you. CLERK. So. |
| 03:40:21.51 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Sandra Bushmaker. |
| 03:40:27.11 | Sandra Bushmaker | Hello again. I'm really looking forward to this report on the facilities assessment, because I think we're going to get a shockingly large number of of repairs that need to be done. And then we're going to need to decide Which ones take priority? But I would like to piggyback on what Councilmember Hoffman was saying about maintenance schedules. My father was a deputy commander of maintenance for SAC Wings And maintenance was the name of the game. And I see, I see, Council Member Hoffman smiling there. But nevertheless, I think one of the problems, we're going to have a large number coming from this report. And I think that we need to start factoring in some preventive maintenance. Some maintenance that will be done on a regular basis so we're not bludgeoned by these huge numbers when we finally decide to look at the total picture. I think we can avoid some of these surprises by developing a preventive maintenance plan to not only, but we have a lot of catch up to do to get to that point. And I would just like to see the council focus in on how we're going to hit that big number how we're going to plan to do that. and also develop a preventive maintenance plan so we don't constantly get hit with these large numbers. Thank you. |
| 03:41:56.75 | Walfred Solorzano | No further public speakers. |
| 03:41:58.24 | Steven Woodside | Okay, I'll close public comment and bring it back up here for discussion. So the motion before us this evening is to adopt the resolution that was provided to amend the mid-year fiscal year 2024-25 operating in capital budget. I would like to propose that we postpone that decision for 30 days or until the evening that we hear our our facilities assessment so that we can move forward more confidently with more information. So, That's my motion. Someone else can make an alternative motion or someone can second my motion and then we can have discussions. |
| 03:42:45.55 | Jill Hoffman | I'll second the motion that the mayor just made. |
| 03:42:47.36 | Steven Woodside | Okay, so anyone is welcome to make an online. alternative motion and if there's a second then that will be the first motion heard otherwise we can discuss have discussion on my motion |
| 03:42:59.83 | Steven Woodside | I'll make an alternative motion that we accept the recommendation of the staff. |
| 03:43:07.12 | Ian Sobieski | I'll second it. |
| 03:43:09.36 | Steven Woodside | Okay, so we have two motions. It's now open for discussion. Can I just ask a question with regards |
| 03:43:14.97 | Jill Hoffman | the two motions, what are the implications of say we adopted tonight to amend and then the facilities assessment comes back differently wouldn't we just amend again in light of that conversation. |
| 03:43:27.67 | Steven Woodside | Go ahead. I just want to get a sense of the implications for both of them. I think we have to move things back from the general fund, but. |
| 03:43:28.26 | Jill Hoffman | I just want to |
| 03:43:33.60 | Chad Hess | Yeah, you can adopt the amend the budget as many times as you like. So if we get new information and it's overwhelming, we can certainly revisit this and make another adjustment down the road. |
| 03:43:45.26 | Jill Hoffman | Wouldn't we do that anyway? |
| 03:43:46.73 | Chad Hess | Say that again. |
| 03:43:47.37 | Jill Hoffman | Wouldn't we do that anyway, if there was a significant- |
| 03:43:49.38 | Chad Hess | Yeah, yeah, we would sell it. |
| 03:43:52.58 | Chris Zapata | Mayor, if I can, I'm getting comments from the public about speaking into the mic. From me? No. I won't point a finger, but please speak into the mic. |
| 03:43:58.49 | Jill Hoffman | From me? |
| 03:44:02.74 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 03:44:02.98 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:44:03.03 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:44:03.21 | Steven Woodside | you |
| 03:44:04.26 | Jill Hoffman | But I'm so loud. |
| 03:44:06.03 | Steven Woodside | Really? Yeah, but if you don't speak into the mic, people online can't hear us. Okay, so who would like to, okay, go ahead. Thank you. |
| 03:44:17.17 | Unknown | Thanks, man. |
| 03:44:17.74 | Steven Woodside | If I can just speak to the motion that was made and seconded, I think... Well, there are two motions that were made and seconded....the alternative motion. |
| 03:44:21.62 | Steven Woodside | Well, there are two motions that were made in second. |
| 03:44:25.15 | Steven Woodside | Um, It seems to me that there's been a pattern of using, for example, parking revenues to balance our budget. It's not unique this year. It's been done for a long time. I'm not saying that's the best way to go forward if you're trying to improve your parking lots as a top priority. But I don't think we've reached the point of establishing what our priorities are for spending what few dollars we have on infrastructure. And I agree. with the mayor that we're going to learn a lot more about our facilities. But to me, we already know we have priorities that affect public safety, that are infrastructure related, that we haven't yet come to grips with. So what I'm afraid of is that we |
| 03:45:11.34 | Unknown | it. |
| 03:45:13.92 | Steven Woodside | by continuing this to wait for yet more information that is relevant, it's irrelevant. But we keep postponing what I think is the inevitable coming to grips with how do we spend our very limited funds. And yes, I've heard from... Many people, we should make parking lot number one our top priority. I'm not sure I agree with that. for public safety reasons but I'm not prepared to decide that tonight. I don't think we are deciding that tonight. We're simply... following the past practice of trying to reach a balanced current operating year budget, and then we can calculate what limited funds we may have available to spend according to the priorities we're setting and have yet to be set in terms of infrastructure. So that's where I stand. I just think Chad has done an excellent job with the numbers. He's doing his best to balance the current year operating. This year, we have a much higher reserve, general reserve, that I think you suggested. Councilmember Hoffman. So we're in a different dynamic this year. than perhaps we've been before. And when we finish when we deal with our budget coming up and what our priorities are, that's where the rubber meets the road. And I'm afraid by keeping... this issue off the table for long time just postpones the inevitable. So that's where I'm coming from. |
| 03:46:43.41 | Steven Woodside | So I'll respond. So I'm not suggesting we postpone it for a long time. I'm suggesting we postpone it for 30 days. My hope is to create a business as the as as Councilmember Sobieski referenced. I my vision is to have a 10 year comprehensive plan that addresses facilities streets storm drains sidewalks stairs Ada requirements hillside management all of the things that we identified in our strategic plan that need to be addressed. ASAP. So I am calling this the year of foundational building blocks, and it's my hope to create a business model to address deferred maintenance in each of those facilities. Um, when we And We are now, we started out this year with a $1 million deficit to make transfers from funds that we know we're going to have to spend else. We're making a $200,000 transfer from the Tidelines. I guarantee you we have not spent $200,000 in administrative expense on the Tidelines fund that is. And that is a restricted fund. I think that's illegal. We don't have the legal base. I don't believe we have the documentation to support a $200,000 transfer from the Tidelines Fund. The others are, you know, cost centers. They are not restricted. They are cost centers. I appreciated what Adrian said about the distinction. between restricted funds versus enterprise funds. But if we look at lot one, lot one is going to cost $2.5 million. minimum. I think that's a priority because that's how we get to our ferry. We park our visitors there. I, I tripped, all the time over the potholes and the and the tree roots in that lot so i think that's a priority We only have $1.3 million in the Tidelands Fund, and so we don't have adequate monies in the Tidelands Fund to fix Lot 1. We also gave direction at the end of 2023 to carry out much of the recommendations of the Dixon Report for parking. We haven't yet done that. And we heard at the end of last year that Climatec had identified all of these electronic needs in order to for our parking meters to function so we can actually collect monies. And so making this transfer, making a $1.850 million transfer from the parking fund when we have these unaddressed obligations is concerning to me. It's not illegal. You know, if we want to pretend that we have a balanced general fund when we know that these enterprise funds are operating at a deficit, you can do that. But that's the criticism. If you read the Marin IJ, that's the debate that's going on right now amongst Sausalito residents about whether these inter-fund transfers, when we know there are outstanding obligations to these funds— are a legal fiction and not a way to announce the fiscal health of Sausalito. So I'm just trying to be more transparent about the way that we Um, that we, um, manage our finances. |
| 03:50:20.66 | Jill Hoffman | We don't have the three minute clock going and I think we all have to hold ourselves accountable. I appreciate everything you're saying I think it was very good. I don't want to interrupt, but I just I am breaking your own rules here |
| 03:50:23.12 | Steven Woodside | Oh. I appreciate it. Yeah. We're breaking our own rules here. Yeah, I didn't see the three-minute clock. Um... And the last thing I'll say is the MLK fund is the collateral for the borrowing that we undertook to fix our parks. And that's another aspect of the MLK fund that I believe needs to be... That's another reason that fund needs to be a separate cost center that we monitor. So listen, the council will do what the council does. It's just a difference of opinion. But this is what I believe we could reach consensus if we put this off for 30 days. |
| 03:51:01.43 | Ian Sobieski | I admire your motivation, Mayor. I just share with the Vice Mayor the point of view that the liabilities of the parking enterprise or the MLK buildings are not prima facie, superior to the liabilities of the general obligation of our city to maintain its streets, its sidewalks, and its hillsides. And that's why I'm supporting the vice mayor's motion because the idea. of scrutinizing the transfers in the way that some members of the community have is to elevate the quality of the pavement in our parking lots above the quality of the pavement on Bridgeway or on Lotus Street or somewhere else. We should agree as what our priorities are for our spending of all our resources for our community obligations, whether it's stairs, sidewalks, fire risk, and so I do think they all should be brought onto the same playing field, and that's why I'm supporting the Vice Mayor's motion. I, as I said, You know, more than two years ago, called for this kind of work. then your model is a real tool. It's always gonna be imperfect. It is hard to develop. We haven't even seen a first draft of it. The first draft is going to be poor. It's going to get better over time. I have the highest faith in our finance department that we'll have a useful tool, but Council Member Hoppen brought up our UAA payments and pension liabilities. What we've seen with Bartlett is not my view of what you would need to have a rational input about pension liability into a 10-year model. You'd have to have a Monte Carlo analysis of a range of interest rates and a range of stock market performances and figure out, what confidence interval you're comfortable with, 95%, 80% about the net liability over time. |
| 03:52:52.61 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:52:53.16 | Ian Sobieski | So I cannot imagine any that's going to get done in the next 30 days. So we're not going to be in a position yet. It's aspirational, and I want us to move in that direction, but I don't want to hold up the game or the regular order of business that our department is asking us to proceed with. So that's why I supported the vice mayor. |
| 03:53:10.70 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:53:11.14 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:53:13.35 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:53:13.37 | Steven Woodside | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 03:53:14.40 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, so I think if I could just respond to the concerns that we get from the public about the funds, especially these three funds here. And when you talk about the enterprise funds, particularly the parking fund, the MLK fund, the Old City Hall fund, these are funds that they have an operating cost. And so they have it's a hard asset and it's a revenue generating asset. And so the concern is that you have to invest in this asset to keep it generating revenue. And if you don't invest in the asset and if you don't, if you don't, use the revenues from that asset to actually pay for the maintenance on the asset that you won't have a revenue generating asset anymore because you're not going to have a roof on your building over at MLK because you've rented it to a very high paying school and it generates quite a large revenue for the city that we've also used to pay off our cop funds so that that's the key and that's why you want to segregate these funds and that's why it was set up that way so and that's why we have to know what that maintenance number is and and also the parking fund keep in mind mind, we have five parking lots. It's not just parking lot one that needs to be redone. Parking lot two looks pretty good. That's the one by... the bank of america that looks pretty good that was done recently but parking lot three looks also pretty darn bad and has tree roots also growing up in it. That needs to be redone. We conveniently not talked about that, but that's also going to be about a million, I think, or 1.2 million, right? That's also a pretty good revenue generating lot Not as good as parking lot one, which is our highest revenue generating parking lot. We also have a parking lot five. that is unpaved and has no, Chad's nodding at me, and this is something we talked about last year. It's unpaved and there's no revenue off it at all. And there's another lot at the end of that that also is not revenue generating. So we have another parking lot next to a commercial area that is not revenue generating at all because it's unpaved and completely out there. |
| 03:55:26.90 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:55:27.46 | Jill Hoffman | It's a lot that we need to take care of. So that's why I see no harm, actually. And if we, you know, if we need to, if we get a bad report back, um it would just take more time and more effort to come back on this and more you know more headache for chad i don't see any reason there's no downside to waiting a month i know it's a hassle i know i actually think all of us up here agree At the end of the day, I think we all agree, of course, we need to balance your deficit. You wouldn't have a deficit. You would pull the money from somewhere. I think we, The mayor and I are saying, pull it from the general fund surplus that we have, not from enterprise funds, because that that's a bad accounting system because you need to keep your your assets with your enterprise funds. |
| 03:56:19.17 | Unknown | I'd like to... Yes. If I could, yeah. |
| 03:56:20.89 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you very much. Yeah, I appreciate this discussion. I think it's really brought about that what Councilman Hoffman just said, which is that we generally all agree about wanting to balance the budget and also about understanding the critical importance of. these enterprise funds and why we need transparency surrounding the funds. But I tend to agree with the vice mayor on his motion, particularly because I take the more holistic view shared by council member sobieski that we need to prioritize management of our city's infrastructure as a whole, as it relates to these enterprise funds. And I just wanted to address, um, mayor your comments about the tidelands funds and the $200, $200,000 and to push back because I have a lot of respect for our budgeting process. And I'm aware that we have a sustainability coordinator who does substantial work specifically on the waterfront and sea level rise. We spent quite a bit of money, whether it be from the grant or otherwise, for sea level rise assessment and sea level funding. We've hosted a number of workshops. We've put a lot of effort into finding grants for our tidelands, specifically for the waterfront. We've spent a lot of time and efforts on the waterfront and the future of sea level rise. So I believe that if we were challenged about our spend on tidelands funding, it would be quite easy to find administrative costs associated with that. And I wouldn't suggest otherwise with regards to our decisions around around budgeting although I take no harm in putting together itemized places where we have spent the money because I am in favor of transparency but I do just want to say for the record that I believe that we are spending substantial amounts on things like our sea level rise and how we're thinking about our future which we absolutely should be doing with a resilience lens. The issue of the facilities assessment, again, tend to agree with everything that's come up with regards to what it's going to mean for a 10 year program. Totally agree, Mayor, with all of the topics you mentioned there, and I think that they're spot on and I appreciate thinking about that plan with regards to our 10 year planning horizon, but I also don't think that in the next 30 days that will shift. the picture of what it looks like. in the lens of our budget right now. We will have to continue to make changes to our budget, We already saw that there are some risks associated with our general fund that I specifically asked Director Hess about. that we will need to address and assess and make changes for and i think in the context of the facilities assessment we can do that i also came forward and asked for this facilities assessment as well as for climate tech to do a more comprehensive climate facilities assessment and i think looking at, these issues with the climate lens and the need for resilience that we have going forward and the conversations we had about wildfires tonight in our insurance. We're going to have to consistently make these changes and think about. all of the decisions with regards to our enterprise funds from a larger holistic view. But I would push as well for more transparency about where and what is being spent from each of those funds because the concerns of our community members do deserve to be addressed. But I am going to vote in favor of the vice mayor's motion. |
| 03:59:13.50 | Steven Woodside | Okay, so I'm gonna call the question. Um, city clerk, will you take the role on the second motion made by, uh, vice mayor, um, Woodside and seconded by Councilmember Sobieski. |
| 03:59:29.65 | Walfred Solorzano | Council member Blosting. Thank you. |
| 03:59:33.09 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 03:59:34.39 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. Thank you. |
| 03:59:36.94 | Jill Hoffman | No. |
| 03:59:37.16 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:59:38.17 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski. Yes. Vice Mayor Woodside. Yes. And Mayor Cox. |
| 03:59:42.02 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 03:59:42.27 | Matthew Mandich | Thank you. |
| 03:59:44.43 | Steven Woodside | No. So that motion passes 3-2. I hope that's one of our only 3-2 votes this year, but we shall see. Okay, the next item on our agenda is... Actually, I'm going to flip our agenda with the indulgence. We are not going to be able to hear item 5C tonight, our formula retail ordinance item, because it was not properly noticed. So if there's anyone here who would like to make public comment, so I'm going to move. I'm going to switch the order of items 5B and 5C so that if there's someone here for item 5C, they can make their public comment and depart. Is there any objection to my flipping the agenda in that manner. Okay, so I'm going to open up five see introduction by title only and waiver of first reading of ordinance number 03 dash 2025 and ordinance of the city council of the city of Sausalito. |
| 04:00:32.48 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. |
| 04:00:45.00 | Steven Woodside | Amending Chapter 10.44.240, Formula Retail. and ask whether there's any public comment on item 5C. |
| 04:00:55.61 | Walfred Solorzano | Babette McDougall. |
| 04:00:55.63 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 04:00:55.68 | Jeffrey Conan | not, |
| 04:00:58.78 | Steven Woodside | So I see none in the chambers, so we'll turn to Bebette. |
| 04:01:05.50 | Babette McDougall | Thank you very much. And again, I really want to applaud each and every one of you. By the way, Ms. Blaustein, I really... like the character that you played tonight, really drilling down on questions. It's starting to sound like a real leader instead of a cheerleader. And I think a lot of people will agree with me on that. So I just want to go to this issue. of, Are we saying we're going to let, I mean, we had Starbucks in Sausalito for a while, and then we kicked them out. I mean, we had Autodesk in Sausalito. We kicked them out for crying out loud. So, I mean, what do we mean when we say we're going to amend the formula retail thing and bring it online? Are we, how are, do the local businesses know that this is coming? Have we got a, are there shields up? Are they ready to run this gauntlet in terms of price and competition? You're talking about, you know, Cisco and the likes of, |
| 04:01:34.48 | Jeffrey Conan | THE FAMILY. |
| 04:01:57.12 | Babette McDougall | infuse these people with their foodstuffs. That is not locally sourced, right? How do they cost compete if this is what we're talking about? Thank you. |
| 04:02:08.87 | Walfred Solorzano | And all further public speakers. |
| 04:02:10.11 | Steven Woodside | Okay, we're gonna close public comment and we're gonna move on |
| 04:02:10.18 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. Mayor, if I can, I'd like to make a comment. First and foremost, thank you for apologizing on behalf of staff on the 715 Bridgeway item. That was gracious of you. This one here, which is the same scenario where staff failed to put something on in the proper format for public notice, that's staff's fault, as was the first one. So I, again, apologize on behalf of staff. It's not the council that should be apologizing. It's the staff that should be apologizing. So we'll do better. And this is a twofer, which, you know, should never happen. But we appreciate the public's understanding that it wasn't the council's fault. |
| 04:02:14.69 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 04:02:52.86 | Steven Woodside | Vicki Nichols and Matthew Mandich, could you please let the city managers speak? Thank you. |
| 04:02:58.24 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. We just want to make sure the public knows that the council's not at fault here. This is all the staff problem that we will fix. Thank you. One last thing, if we can re-notice this for the meeting of the fourth, I think that's probably the right approach. |
| 04:03:16.23 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, City Manager. And I have already sent a note to you and to staff asking for sort of your SWOT analysis. How did this happen? And what are we going to do to prevent this from happening again? And I'm asking that staff make that report to the council at the appropriate opportunity. Okay, we're going to move on to Item 5B, introduction by title and waiver of first reading of Ordinance Number 02-2025, an Ordinance of the City Council of the City of Sausalito, amending Section 15.04.060, to prescribe speed limits within the city of Sausalito. |
| 04:03:52.19 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you, Mayor. |
| 04:03:53.03 | Steven Woodside | Oh, and welcome to our Public Works Director, Kevin McGowan, and our City Attorney, Sergio Rudin. |
| 04:04:00.07 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, thank you so much. Due to the lateness of the hour, I'm hoping we can make this fairly quick. Reviewing and amending speed limits was performed in 2020. This happens every five years or so. In the past, we have updated our speed limits via a resolution. However, in 2025, staff recommends passing an ordinance to amend Section 150460 of the Municipal Code to be in compliance with the state law. In order to assist with establishing the applicable speed limits here in Sausalito, the city secured the services of Parametrics. This evening, we have a short presentation for you about changing speed limits on Bridgeway and 2nd Street. And Jimmy Jessup is here from Parametrics to kind of lead us through a couple different slides. And hopefully we'll move this fairly quickly. Thank you. |
| 04:05:01.75 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 04:05:02.34 | Jimmy Jessup | Thank you, Kevin, and good evening, Honorable Mayor, Council Members. If we could go to the next slide, Jimmy Jessup, transportation engineer with Parametrics. I'd like to talk just a little bit about speed limits and the work that we've performed for the city. The basis of this presentation is largely upon the requirements in the California Vehicle Code. The California Vehicle Code, or the CBC, is quite specific to, on what has to take place in order for speed limits to be established and to be enforceable by radar, by local police enforcement. One of those requirements is that speed limits are set established and updated every five years. And as the last ENTS was conducted, Kevin mentioned in November and 2020, that time for renewal has come to pass now. And so parametrics has been, um, Uh, a prepared a citywide in ENTS, engineering and traffic surveys, and our recommended speed limits are also in accordance with new state provisions through Assembly Bill 43. Assembly Bill 43 for the first time offers local jurisdictions the ability to lower speed limits from what used to be a prescribed engineering approach. So on the next slide. We'll discuss a little bit about how speed limits are established. Because CBC... has two categories of speed limits. One, you might be familiar with, say, in a residential community, you might not see a posted speed limit sign, but there is a presumed speed limit of 25 mile an hour on residential streets. For all other streets, an engineering and traffic survey is required in order to establish a speed limit. And this traffic survey is based off of taking speed surveys of free-flowing vehicle speeds, And the speed limit is established at the 85th percentile or... that speed. at or below which 85% of the vehicles travel on the roadway, Another way of thinking this is the fastest 15% of the vehicles are actually determining what the speed limit is. The industry largely now agrees that the 85th percentile, which was established 75 years ago, is no longer appropriate for allowing cities to achieve safety goals and often results in speed limits higher than appropriate context. That's where AB 43 comes into play. First, a note about safety on the next slide. The reason why we take great care in establishing speed limits within this range of 20 to 40 miles an hour is the chance of pedestrian surviving a crash with a vehicle traveling 20 miles an hour is 90%. But if that vehicle is traveling 40 miles an hour, the chance of pedestrian survival drops down to 20%. And so this... range between 20 and 40 miles an hour is really quite a great inflection point in terms of safety. And for that reason, we take great care in attempting to look at the context of our roadways and establishing speed limits that are appropriate. Now for the first time on the next slide, AB 43, um, harkens back to this idea of wanting to improve safety on our roadways. Last year, Sausalito approved the local road safety plan for the city. And one of the recommendations from that study was to use recent legislation, such as AB 43, to set context appropriate speeds suitable for all roadway users and to improve safety outcomes. And you'll see here on the map. the crashes from the recent historical period. that result in injury are largely centered along the corridor bridgeway from North and South. That's not a surprise to us, but also kind of concentrated on this area with near and within the historic downtown. One other item to note from the local road safety plan is that unsafe speed is the most dangerous, A frequent primary collision factor that we see. And so managing vehicle travel speeds is one of those intentions from the local road safety plan that we're putting into play with this work. On the next slide, we're going to talk just a little bit about Assembly Bill 43. As mentioned, it's been largely recognized that this 85th percentile engineering approach to setting speed limits has not improved safety outcomes. Quite the opposite. You'll see over the last 10-year period in California overall, pedestrian fatalities have increased and are now at an all-time high. Over a course of an eight-year period, legislatively within the state, Assembly Bill 43 now finally, for the very first time, allows local jurisdictions to consider what speed limits are context-sensitive and appropriate for their own cities as opposed to just being at the whims of an engineering study. So on the next slide, we talk a little bit about how Sausalito has gone about a in-depth evaluation of what goes into considering appropriate speed limits. There's a bit of talk about how roadway characteristics, collision history, land use adjacency is all investigated as part of the work that we've come alongside the city with. If you can go to the next slide. Thanks. And what AB 43 allows us to do is to reduce speed limits in certain areas. And in pursuant to the updates to the California Vehicle Code. So we've looked very closely at identifying safety corridors within the city. We look carefully at land uses that do generate high numbers of pedestrians and vehicles. bicyclists, what we would consider vulnerable roadway users. And then we've also looked at other provisions in the code that allow for business districts to take advantage of reduced roadway speed limits. The next slide is just a snapshot of some of what we've seen in the Bay Area in Larry Appelbaum, Ph.D.: Larger cities to smaller cities, there have been a lot of recent implementation of AB 43 you'll see some pictures of speed limits being reduced to 20 miles an hour. Larry Appelbaum, Ph.D.: This is being largely undertaken in accordance with local safety goals to reduce the number of crashes that result in injury and fatality. Um, And so cities from as large as San Francisco to neighboring Petaluma, Napa, San Rafael, Corte Madera have all implemented 20 mile an hour zones in business districts and on neighborhood commercial streets. The next slide just shows a little bit of what we do as part of our work and some of the evaluations that we undertake as described. It is based in an engineering study, and we also layer on an additional evaluation in accordance with provisions in AB 43. And then the next slide shows our recommendations as part of our work. We do recommend that the roadway speed limit be reduced on six segments. All of these segments are really along bridgeway, and as it curves down into 2nd Street, The recommendations result in a 20 mile an hour stretch between Napa and Richardson and continuing on second. currently. And maybe strangely, northbound 2nd Street is 25 miles an hour, whereas southbound is 20. So our recommendation is also aligned that both directions be posted at 20 miles an hour. What this actually results in is that 20 mile an hour zone connecting down to the southern border, down to Alexander Avenue, which also has a 20 mile an hour speed limit. Other speed limits within the city would remain unchanged as a result of our evaluation. So in conclusion, tonight we're here to recommend that these changes be adopted as part of an ordinance that would change the municipal code indicating posted speed limits within the city. If you go to the next slide, thanks. And then as further steps going on into the summer, the city will undertake installation of new speed limit signs and stencil markings to indicate the updated speed limits. Recommended speed limits throughout the city that are subject to our engineering traffic surveys are here on a city map. for us to understand. That's all for the presentation. Happy to... Take any clarifying questions. Thanks. |
| 04:14:13.31 | Steven Woodside | I had a question. The ordinance that is proposed lists |
| 04:14:22.41 | Steven Woodside | like 20 declared speed limits for roads. But the chart, can you go back two slides? The chart you listed only lists six changes. Can you go back forward one slide? Thank you. So it's not clear from the ordinance what's being changed. It's simply saying that these speed limits shall be set forth as set forth below. Why are we declaring speed limits on roads that we're not changing? |
| 04:14:55.41 | Sergio Rudin | And Mayor, this is City Attorney Sergio Rudin. I'll handle that question. It is my recommendation that all the speed limits for the city be codified in one place in the Municipal Code. And that is in part because of the process enacted by AB 43 and the general procedures in the vehicle code. that require that the city set the speed limits by ordinance, and it is generally advisable that they be listed in your municipal code for easy reference. |
| 04:15:24.47 | Steven Woodside | That was a great, simple, concise answer. Thank you, city attorney. Any other questions? Yes. |
| 04:15:32.35 | Jill Hoffman | Just clarification with the city attorney and city attorney because these are roads that go all the way through Sausalito because many of us are within 500 feet of these roads we don't need to recuse. |
| 04:15:44.10 | Sergio Rudin | No, that's correct. |
| 04:15:45.92 | Steven Woodside | I'm sorry. I mean, except maybe this is I think this is a matter of general concern, right? |
| 04:15:52.70 | Sergio Rudin | Um, Yes, I do believe that either the public generally exception applies or there's also I believe another exception that potentially applies to the setting of speed limits I'll double check that really quickly. |
| 04:16:04.52 | Steven Woodside | or a |
| 04:16:04.58 | Jill Hoffman | I'm not sure. |
| 04:16:04.70 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 04:16:05.07 | Jill Hoffman | Or is that, or am I incorrect on that? |
| 04:16:07.35 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Well, and also, if all of us would have to recuse, then at least three of us don't have to recuse. So that's the other... Because I'm moving. |
| 04:16:13.63 | Jill Hoffman | There. So I don't have to. |
| 04:16:15.26 | Steven Woodside | I don't know. Thank you. |
| 04:16:16.28 | Jill Hoffman | At least three of us are within 500 feet. |
| 04:16:20.72 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, I mean, as a practical matter, this is not something that would actually impact |
| 04:16:21.10 | Jill Hoffman | I mean, as a, as a, |
| 04:16:27.11 | Sergio Rudin | have any reasonable possibility of impacting the value of your real property and for that reason I don't anticipate recusal would be required. |
| 04:16:35.31 | Jill Hoffman | I'm sorry I didn't. I'll bring this up with you before the meeting. Just sitting here. |
| 04:16:40.75 | Steven Woodside | Any other questions from council members? All right, I'll open it up to public comment. Seeing none here, city clerk. |
| 04:16:55.61 | Walfred Solorzano | We have two. We'll start with Sandra Bushmaker. |
| 04:17:01.33 | Sandra Bushmaker | I'm just looking at the schedule here of three different speed limits on Bridgeway. And I wonder if we could get it down to two speed limits because it's gonna be confusing as it is. Uh, to have three different speed lengths on Bridgeway. |
| 04:17:22.72 | Sandra Bushmaker | City Clerk. |
| 04:17:23.78 | Jenny Silva | Thank you. |
| 04:17:24.60 | Walfred Solorzano | Our next speaker is Jenny Silva. |
| 04:17:29.28 | Jenny Silva | Hi, thanks for- Welcome, Jenny. |
| 04:17:37.94 | Walfred Solorzano | Oh, sorry. |
| 04:17:41.73 | Jenny Silva | Can you hear me now? Yeah, we hear you. |
| 04:17:42.98 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah. |
| 04:17:44.28 | Jenny Silva | Okay. I would like to encourage you to extend the 30 mile per hour speed limit from Nevada Street to Gate 6. I agree with Sandra Bushmaker that having the three different segments is a lot of change in a very short distance and that 30 mile per hour segment is very, very short. Increasing it to 35 miles an hour would In the best of circumstances, save drivers maybe two seconds of travel time. but the safety difference is really, really stark. The slide that was shown at the beginning that shows the difference in fatalities between 40 miles an hour 35 miles an hour. It's a really big differential. And I think it's worth noting that in the chart on the accidents, There are fewer accidents up north, but that is the site of the one fatality. It seems like where we've had a fatality, we should have a lower speed limit. And as a resident of the North End I walk and ride my bike down there. And it's really, really uncomfortable having cars speeding by you. when you're walking and it would just be I feel that the north end residents deserve the same safety protection as those in the southern end of Sausalito. Thank you very much. |
| 04:19:08.23 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 04:19:08.35 | Steven Woodside | is |
| 04:19:08.74 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 04:19:08.77 | Walfred Solorzano | No further public comment. |
| 04:19:08.79 | Steven Woodside | No further public comment. I'm going to close public comment and move it back up here for discussion. I will start off with a motion that we introduced by title only and waive first reading of Ordinance No. 02-2025, an Ordinance of the City Council of the City of Sausalito, amending Section 15.04. point of to prescribe speed limits within the city of Sausalito. |
| 04:19:31.98 | Steven Woodside | Go move. |
| 04:19:33.31 | Steven Woodside | That's my motion. Are you seconding? I'm seconding it. Yeah, sorry. Thank you. |
| 04:19:34.31 | Steven Woodside | I'm seconding it. Yeah, sorry. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:19:36.38 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. All right, any discussion? Yes, Council Member Sobieski. |
| 04:19:40.38 | Ian Sobieski | I'd actually just like to ask you, sir, a question based off of the public comment from Ms. Silva about whether you'd considered... the idea of having the 30-mile speed limit going all the way to Gate 6 Road. and whether you're asking. |
| 04:19:53.85 | Steven Woodside | We're asking parametrics? |
| 04:19:57.48 | Jimmy Jessup | Thank you for the question, the public comment. the section. that is currently recommended to retain is 35 mile an hour speed limit from Nevada northward to the city limit. is eligible for reduction to 30 miles an hour. In consultation with city staff and the police department, we had decided that the |
| 04:20:13.78 | Jeffrey Conan | Thank you. |
| 04:20:21.32 | Jimmy Jessup | David Vogelpohl- Priority in the primary focus for reducing the speed limit was along the main second of bridgeway which did incur the highest number of crash crashes in its historical analysis, but that being said that northern section does meet the provisions of AB 43 for. Reduction of five mile an hour to 30 mile an hour. |
| 04:20:45.03 | Ian Sobieski | Well, I was just hoping to get a little bit of the rest of the discussion about pros and cons and trade off and a rationale for why you chose 35 over 30. you heard Miss Silver talk about the one fatality being in that area. So is there any more color you can help? |
| 04:21:01.23 | Steven Woodside | Well, the one fatality was a car that ran into a pole. That was, it was not a... I mean, I live there and I walk there and I scooter there. Thank you. |
| 04:21:10.24 | Ian Sobieski | That's exactly the kind of detail I was looking for. I was wondering if you had any other, as professional traffic engineers and staff, to why you, in balance, are recommending 35 miles an hour instead of 30. |
| 04:21:10.27 | Steven Woodside | So. Yeah. Yeah. |
| 04:21:22.83 | Kevin McGowan | I think our concentration was where the other accidents were occurring, you know, Napa Street down to Richardson and that type of thing. So that's where we concentrated our efforts to look at reducing the speed limits per AB 43 and didn't necessarily think that extending that all the way up to gate six was necessary at this point in time. But as Mr. Jessup does say that you can definitely change that if you so choose. |
| 04:21:52.36 | Jill Hoffman | I do note that there are stoplights all along the North Bridgeway corridor, which does calm traffic, and there are, which also helps pedestrians cross and helps the safety aspects along North Bridgeway that you don't have in the corridor of Napa, Napa all the way down to Johnson. And so I think that might, that justifies a slower traffic along that corridor from Napa to Johnson. Well, actually from Easterby, I think, to Johnson is a lack of. |
| 04:22:27.93 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. I'll also note the road is wider from Easterby to Gate 6 with more healthy bike lanes. So when I take my scooter, I'm great up until I get to the 7-Eleven, and then I take my life in my own hands. |
| 04:22:43.58 | Unknown | So, |
| 04:22:43.76 | Steven Woodside | So- So that's just my personal experience. |
| 04:22:47.96 | Jill Hoffman | it's |
| 04:22:48.52 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 04:22:50.23 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I agree. It's a four lane. It's a four lane, divided four lane from east to north. |
| 04:22:58.80 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 04:22:58.81 | Steven Woodside | comments from anyone? OK, I'll call the question. All in favor? |
| 04:23:07.07 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | Thank you. |
| 04:23:07.50 | Steven Woodside | Aye. Aye. Motion carries unanimously. I don't know. All right. |
| 04:23:19.87 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. Okay, we're going to move on to item 6A, city manager information for council. |
| 04:23:32.55 | Chris Zapata | Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor, members of the council, members of the public. I'll be brief. In this staff report, you have an executive action analysis that is telling the community and the council that we are monitoring federal actions, and we're doing that with our partners at the League of California Cities, National League of Cities, which we're members of, and in particular looking at the impact of funding to Sausalito. you received a memo from Katie Tho Garcia that said you know the gate five members of, and in particular looking at the impact of funding to Sausalito. You received a memo from Katie Tho Garcia that said, you know, the Gate 5 Economic Development Administration grant for 600,000 and change has already been executed, so that's not in jeopardy. We're still monitoring what might happen to tax credits that go along with renewable energy. We'll see what happens. So we are monitoring. I wanted to let you know that. The other thing I want to report on is Thursday morning at 8 o'clock there is a finance committee meeting. There will be a posting of that, Chad, tomorrow. |
| 04:24:31.54 | Walfred Solorzano | got to do it tonight. |
| 04:24:32.67 | Chris Zapata | Tonight. Tonight. Okay. And the items on the agenda include two things of interest to the council and the community. One is to talk about a climate emergency strategy to put some money aside beyond the 25% that you have so that we can, in fact, deal with anything from floods to landslides to fires to earthquakes, et cetera. That's something that came up in a council discussion. So that's a conversation. And then we're going to talk about waste and tools that you might consider to finance infrastructure, in particular a model or a technique called a private placement. So those are the two items on the agenda, 8 o'clock in the morning on Thursday night. That concludes my report. |
| 04:25:19.92 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Any public comment on the city manager report? |
| 04:25:23.03 | Walfred Solorzano | See you then. |
| 04:25:24.28 | Steven Woodside | Next is Councilmember Committee Reports. |
| 04:25:28.44 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | We'll start. you Go ahead. |
| 04:25:30.25 | Jill Hoffman | I attended the Sustainability Commission's special meeting with regards to the sea level rise implications for the planned bridgeway safety grant. And they determined recommendations that are, I believe, going to be in the minutes, but essentially their overarching recommendation for the project was that we move forward, that we consider a solution that has longer term impact for a sea level rise beyond a more short term 10 year horizon. So I just wanted to make sure that I shared that out. Thank you. |
| 04:26:08.03 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, Councilmember Hoffman. we'll see if this falls in our committee reports, but I think that the vice mayor and I attended the IDESC Hall crab feed Saturday night. Was that last Saturday night? Yeah. I think it was, yeah. It was a... Not last, prior. The prior, yeah. Yeah. Prior. It was a full house, and it was a delight. And it was our... The new consul general from Portugal was there with his wife and two sons who were not. |
| 04:26:24.07 | Unknown | Not bad. |
| 04:26:24.98 | Steven Woodside | The prior, yeah. |
| 04:26:26.21 | Jeffrey Conan | Thank you. |
| 04:26:41.56 | Jill Hoffman | They were not grumpy. They were just tired. And they were a delight. And it was very nice to meet him. And he was very gracious. And his wife was very gracious. And it was a nice evening. So anyway, I think that's my report. I think you qualify. |
| 04:26:57.04 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 04:26:57.07 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. |
| 04:26:57.19 | Steven Woodside | Because you are the liaison to Sister City. That's true. |
| 04:26:59.91 | Jill Hoffman | I am, that's true. So that's an ancillary report. And I was, I was voted as the, the president for the North Bay executive committee for the county. So that was good. That was a unanimous vote. Yeah. Yeah. So that's good. And I look forward to, you know, creating forward regionally, you know, for Sausalito, but also for all of us with that group. It's a great group. |
| 04:27:08.63 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. |
| 04:27:08.97 | Jeffrey Conan | So that was good. That was a unanimous vote. |
| 04:27:11.03 | Mary Lee Bickford | Yeah. |
| 04:27:11.40 | Jeffrey Conan | Thank you. |
| 04:27:25.22 | Steven Woodside | And although I wasn't, it's not part of a committee. We didn't talk city business. We enjoyed the craft. |
| 04:27:25.30 | Jill Hoffman | And... |
| 04:27:25.34 | Janelle Kelman | And. |
| 04:27:25.37 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:27:25.41 | Janelle Kelman | Oh. |
| 04:27:30.33 | Unknown | I enjoyed that. |
| 04:27:30.77 | Janelle Kelman | Thank you. |
| 04:27:31.82 | Unknown | It's only two of you. I know. We've talked about y'all. |
| 04:27:34.13 | Steven Woodside | you |
| 04:27:34.15 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | Yeah. Okay, did you have something? |
| 04:27:38.96 | Ian Sobieski | since you're talking about parties we attended i went to the 94965 fundraiser at the salser center for the arts and though it's not of course city council it is community and was a delight to see thousands of dollars raised to benefit our local school by by our local residents |
| 04:27:38.97 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | and I'm going to go. |
| 04:27:54.45 | Steven Woodside | Okay, next is appointments. Appointments to the Historic Preservation Commission and to the Disaster... Preparedness Committee. I am going to move that we appoint David Kornblum, Vicki? Kornmeyer to replace the HPC member whose term has expired. Any objection? Okay. |
| 04:28:24.97 | Jill Hoffman | I want to vote when it's an appointment. I don't remember, but I don't care. I just remember that we've done that previously. |
| 04:28:25.24 | Steven Woodside | We'll have to vote. Thank you. |
| 04:28:30.42 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. I forget if I can appoint or if we have to vote. We interviewed for this. |
| 04:28:37.34 | Jill Hoffman | I remember being |
| 04:28:39.35 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 04:28:39.40 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I think you do, because I remember. |
| 04:28:43.15 | Steven Woodside | All right. All in favor? Aye. That motion carries unanimously. |
| 04:28:44.31 | Jill Hoffman | BELL RINGS. |
| 04:28:50.91 | Steven Woodside | uh, Commissioner Nichols term is expiring. I mentioned this earlier. She has put in an application for to serve a second term. And as with other commission, in accordance with the policy we adopted two years ago, that will be an item in our consent calendar at our next meeting to reappoint her to a second term. Okay, next is disaster preparedness. I am going to move that we appoint Bonnie McGregor and Janelle Kelman to the committee and that we appoint as an alternate Um, Stella Benton. I think the correct term is. |
| 04:29:35.53 | Jill Hoffman | or Ms. |
| 04:29:36.03 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 04:29:36.05 | Jill Hoffman | 94965. |
| 04:29:37.11 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. |
| 04:29:37.15 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:29:37.17 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 04:29:37.18 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:29:37.20 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 04:29:37.22 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:29:37.23 | Steven Woodside | Okay, 94965 liaison. That will still leave openings on that committee. And so that committee is still open, but I would like to get, I spoke with Mike McKinley this evening about getting an agenda out and getting a meeting scheduled to get the work of the committee moving forward. And then as more committees, |
| 04:29:37.69 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, 94965, the ACA. |
| 04:29:57.45 | Steven Woodside | Applications roll in. I know Rob Cox is going to apply. As other applications come in, we can do more interviews and fill the other slots. |
| 04:30:01.11 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 04:30:06.21 | Steven Woodside | All right, may I have a second to that motion? |
| 04:30:09.80 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 04:30:09.82 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | Second. |
| 04:30:10.85 | Steven Woodside | All in favor? |
| 04:30:12.22 | Kent Ipsen (Applicant) | I, |
| 04:30:12.86 | Steven Woodside | That motion carries unanimously. Okay, future agenda items. we conferred during the break on the, um, 715 Bridgeway appeal and barring any unforeseen circumstances, we are planning to place that on our March 18th agenda for rehearing. I asked you to remember a future agenda item to something you mentioned earlier. pension so city clerk we'd like to add a report from the successor to Bartle Wells on our pension as a future agenda item Any others? Okay, I have no, I'm going to go ahead and take public comment. |
| 04:31:04.36 | Walfred Solorzano | We have a Bette McDougall. |
| 04:31:12.86 | Babette McDougall | Thank you, ma'am. Now, I waited all this time specifically for this agenda item. The last time on the February 4 meeting, you did not call for public comment, and I was in the room at the time, and I could not miss the look on the city clerk's face because last year he didn't hesitate to always remind Sobieski while serving as mayor. Don't forget public comment. And Sobieski was ever gracious in that regard. He always says, thanks for guarding my six. And that's the way it's supposed to be. But I could see this cultural crisis washing over that man's face because he was taught by his, you know, it's a matriarchal culture. You love your mothers, you respect them, and he's not going to call you out for forgetting public comment. I could see it on his face. Now, maybe I'm wrong, but he did not call you out where he never hesitated to call out the previous mayor. So, and I'll tell you why I'm making an issue of it now, because. Actually, something was said that really troubled me. Ms. Blaustein mentioned the need again. I mean, I have lost count of how many times she has raised this since I've been paying attention, but she is so desperate to bring Bridgeway Marina to the city council, and there's not a stitch of paperwork anywhere in the planning trail that would legitimize why this ought to be fast tracked up to the city council and actually start there first. Now, if if Linda Fotch can play by the rules, surely the resident notorious slumlord of Sausalito can play by the rules, or is he exempt because he's a slumlord and is therefore in league with the convicted felon in Washington leading the show right now. I mean, it's pathetic. It's pathetic that you continue to flout what is supposed to be our institutions. So I just want to call this out because it happens a lot. Thank you very much. |
| 04:33:01.07 | Steven Woodside | I will just respond with the fact that we ended our last meeting at 1229 AM. And so hopefully I can have a mulligan if I forgot to ask for public comment. And hopefully if someone was in the room, they could raise their hand. All right, I'm going to move on to adjournment. I am going to adjourn this evening's meeting in honor of my friend and neighbor and long-term Sausalito volunteer, Adam Krivatsi. |
| 04:33:36.64 | Stella Benton | Thank you. |
| 04:33:36.72 | Steven Woodside | It happened a week ago Saturday. Adam was, I think, 94 years old. Um, Yes, he just wrote. He came to our strategic planning session. He wrote to me after that. Yeah. |
| 04:33:46.95 | Jenny Silva | He's more strategic. Thank you. you |
| 04:33:53.19 | Steven Woodside | For over a decade, I have been personally aware of his huge love and contribution to the city. Back in 2016, he provided insightful feedback into the design of the ferry landing improvements. Um, Although he was not a member of the general plan advisory committee, he attended every meeting sitting in the back. He wrote a one page over. of his recommendations for what we were considering that evening for every meeting. He, and as an urban planner, his contributions were invaluable. Despite his health struggles over the last couple of years, he wrote to us less than a month ago with feedback on our strategic plan, And of course, I happen to be on the board for my homeowners association and he lived in my development business. He was a board member for the Terraces of Sausalito for years and continued to volunteer even after his retirement from the board. I wrote to his wife to let her know that we would be bestowing this honor upon him this evening and she wrote this lovely response, she said, Adam was a man who lived a life of service to his family, his friends, his community, and his profession. We are all so very grateful for his love, his kindness, his joy for living, and his timeless example. And so, um, It is my privilege to honor Adam this evening and to adjourn this meeting in his honor. Thank you. |