| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:03.81 | Joan Cox | Can you hear us? Yes, I can, Mayor. |
| 00:00:05.50 | Ian Sobieski | Yes, like, |
| 00:00:06.75 | Joan Cox | Okay, great. All right. I'm still showing 529, so wait just a moment. |
| 00:00:14.07 | Mary Boeck | Thank you. |
| 00:00:23.02 | Joan Cox | Okay, I'm showing 530. City clerk. |
| 00:00:25.63 | Walfred Solorzano | Good afternoon, Mayor and City Council. Tonight's meeting is being held at City Council Chambers, 420 Litho Street and via Zoom and on the city's website. It's also being held in Opus Hotel, Vancouver, 322 Davies Street, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6B1R2. |
| 00:00:46.94 | Joan Cox | you city clerk good evening and welcome everybody to the continuation of the adjourned meeting of tuesday march 4 2025 as well as the special and regular meeting of tuesday march 18 2025. i will call the meeting to order and ask the city clerk to take roll |
| 00:01:04.66 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blaustein. |
| 00:01:05.98 | Joan Cox | Here. |
| 00:01:07.16 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 00:01:08.49 | Joan Cox | Here. |
| 00:01:10.35 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski. Here. Here. Thank you. Vice Mayor Woodside? Here. And Mayor Cox? |
| 00:01:16.61 | Joan Cox | Here. Okay, so first thing on our agenda this evening is interviews for several of our commissions. City Clerk, who is first? |
| 00:01:26.13 | Walfred Solorzano | We have Stephanie Carrullo. |
| 00:01:28.22 | Joan Cox | Carullo, okay. |
| 00:01:33.91 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Well, you know, I'm sorry, we can't, you can't be heard unless you're at the |
| 00:01:34.75 | Stephanie Carullo | Please touch the plate. |
| 00:01:40.69 | Stephanie Carullo | mobile, just one-legged at the moment. Hi, everyone. |
| 00:01:45.79 | Joan Cox | Hello. Well, the good thing for you is these are short. And so we have your application together with your CV. And so this, if you would like to just tell us a few words about why you are interested in the commission, and then we will ask you any questions. |
| 00:02:07.57 | Melissa Blaustein | Are you in pain? I'm sure we can figure out we can... |
| 00:02:09.01 | Stephanie Carullo | No, not really. No, I'm perfectly fine. I'm supposed to be mobile. I had knee surgery five weeks ago, but I am walking slowly. So I'm good. Thank you so much. I'm pretty sure we |
| 00:02:17.31 | Melissa Blaustein | I'm pretty sure. Thank you. |
| 00:02:17.97 | Stephanie Carullo | a comedy yeah no no no I'm perfect thanks I appreciate that |
| 00:02:18.39 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:02:18.47 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. |
| 00:02:18.56 | Joan Cox | Thank you. So she's hailing Hardy ready for the park and wreck. All right. So we're going to have about three minutes. |
| 00:02:29.04 | Stephanie Carullo | You want to... Pretty quickly? Yeah. All right. Thank you for having me this evening. Stephanie Carullo, resident of Sourcelet. I've lived here now for a decade, coming up on July, my husband and I. Very active member of the community. We participate in lots of things and quite frankly... I have more time on my hands. I retired from working in the tech industry for the last 35 years, last year. My last role was chief operating officer for a large... Software firms, I've spent a lot of time sort of in and out of initiatives and programs and turning things around and building things. And so I am very passionate about the city of Sorcerito. And quite frankly, I have a set of skills that I think may be of value or of use, and I'd love to participate. on one of the numerous commissions that are available. I don't have any preference. I do wanna see a prosperous city. And so I spent a lot of time prior to the knee injury, I'm a runner, so I run the city every morning about six or seven miles and spend a lot of time sort of meeting people, having coffees at all the different places. And I just think we have this unique opportunity to bring it to life even further. So from either a development perspective or even the recent housing petition that I was a part of as well, I just want to be able to provide some sort of, you know, skills if I can to any of the commissions that are available right now. So that's really about it. |
| 00:03:50.49 | Joan Cox | Wonderful. Thank you. Any questions of Stephanie? Yes, vice mayor. |
| 00:03:55.18 | Steven Woodside | Just a quick question. Given your experience down under, we have lots of people who live here who come from all over the world. How would your experience, you think, lend itself to helping us with this? |
| 00:03:59.20 | Joan Cox | Mm-hmm. |
| 00:03:59.54 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:04:08.03 | Stephanie Carullo | It's a great question. So we are fortunate enough to have a home here and a home in Australia. And the little town that we have our home in in Australia is this beautiful seaside town called Middle Park. And we lived there for many, many years and we still have our home there. And it is It's like this jewel in the crown in terms of what we've been able to do with the little village down there. And it is a village. It's called the Middle Park Village for a reason. People come from everywhere. And we spend a lot of time thinking about what we wanted in our village to make it good for the residents, for those of us who live there, but also a community that is part of a broader community in the City of Melbourne. And it has gone from strength to strength over the last 20 years. And so there are some parallels. between the two cities because we're by the water. There are a lot of visitors that come in. There's a really thriving group of residents that live in the community. And so I have some ideas. I don't want to throw too many out here, but so I've been thinking about how can we potentially even share some of those ideas and try them here in Sorceletra. |
| 00:05:11.86 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:05:12.69 | Stephanie Carullo | You're wonderful. |
| 00:05:12.73 | Steven Woodside | Wonderful. |
| 00:05:12.96 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:05:13.00 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:05:13.03 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:05:13.18 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:05:13.21 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:05:15.02 | Stephanie Carullo | Thank you. |
| 00:05:15.04 | Joan Cox | Okay, well, thank you so much for coming in, Crutch and all. |
| 00:05:16.67 | Unknown | coming in, crutch and all. We wish you a speedy recovery. |
| 00:05:23.17 | Walfred Solorzano | Sorry, next person we have is Beth Swerg. |
| 00:05:25.99 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:05:26.00 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:05:26.04 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 00:05:26.38 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Hi and welcome. Hi. |
| 00:05:32.01 | Beth Swerg | Thank you. Mm-hmm. Thank you for having me. My name is Beth Swerke. I've been a resident for 10 years of Sol Soledo and I'm here interested in the Parks and Rec Commission. It was about 12 years ago that I came to visit my friend in Sausalito from Chicago, and we went to Bocce. I... one night and I was sold just seeing how special the park is and the community at something like Bocce. Everybody brought all of their like snacks to share and their drinks. And it was people who were 20 and people who were 80. And it was just this beautiful place of community that I had never experienced. And it was literally the beginning of my move out here. Um, From there, I came back and went to jazz and it was the same thing. What a special, beautiful thing we have here. It's why I moved. This town is a gem. The community is so special. And I've seen so much more since moving here. I mean, the 4th of July, Pickleball, Jazz, Chili, the Tosa Sausalito, the Easter egg hunt. We do such important and amazing things. And if there's ever a time that the community is more important, it's right now. And so I would love to bring my skills to help level that up even more. I'm an executive in marketing. I specialize in communications and social media. I literally plan events for my career. I can do creative big picture thinking and cross T's and dot I's and do logistics and budgets and volunteer sign up and all the things. So I would be very happy to bring my skill set to our beautiful community and make it even more special than it already is. |
| 00:07:12.72 | Joan Cox | That all sounds wonderful. Are there any questions for Beth? |
| 00:07:19.56 | Beth Swerg | Thank you. All right. |
| 00:07:20.92 | Joan Cox | Thank you very much. All right. Thank you so much for coming in. |
| 00:07:24.89 | Walfred Solorzano | So next person, we're gonna start doing the sustainability commission, and we're gonna have Sammy Schubert. |
| 00:07:33.29 | Joan Cox | Is Allison Eames going to interview? |
| 00:07:35.59 | Walfred Solorzano | I'm sorry. do not see Allison Eames inside. |
| 00:07:38.39 | Joan Cox | here right now. Okay. All right. So Samantha Schubert for sustainability. Is she on Zoom? |
| 00:07:45.51 | Samantha Schubert | Thank you. |
| 00:07:45.55 | Walfred Solorzano | She's on Zoom and if you can, yeah, your camera. |
| 00:07:48.60 | Joan Cox | Okay. |
| 00:07:49.04 | Samantha Schubert | Can everyone see me and hear me? |
| 00:07:51.86 | Joan Cox | Yes, we see you and hear you. We're taking about three minutes per person. If you could take a few moments and describe your background and your interest in the Sustainability Commission. |
| 00:08:03.31 | Samantha Schubert | Yeah, so I have been studying environmental science for About 10 years now, my degree is in environmental science with a minor in data analytics. For a long time, I've studied small island state research and how that pertains to climate change and what we can do to mitigate the effects that the small island states are feeling. I also have a really big interest and research Capability in biomimicry and blue and green infrastructure. So just like improving systems and building nature-based solutions. I'm super active in town and I volunteer a lot. So I think that I have a lot of ideas that pertain to San Francisco Bay area in particular, but definitely how to make that a reality in Sausalito. So. And I'm a resident here. I've been a resident here for three years. |
| 00:09:08.71 | Joan Cox | Great. And have you attended any of our sustainability meetings? Yes. |
| 00:09:12.59 | Samantha Schubert | Yes. |
| 00:09:13.26 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Okay. |
| 00:09:13.70 | Samantha Schubert | Yeah, there's only been in two big public forums and I was at both of them. Yeah. Wonderful. |
| 00:09:22.37 | Jill Hoffman | listen, |
| 00:09:22.71 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:09:22.73 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:09:22.78 | Joan Cox | you |
| 00:09:22.85 | Jill Hoffman | you Could you speak to, I'm a big fan of biomimicry. Could you speak to how you think that might apply to issues like sea level rise in Sausalito or might be explored in Sausalito? |
| 00:09:33.05 | Samantha Schubert | Yeah, so, um, I've done a lot of, I've done a few projects with biomimicry already, but I think in particular to Sausalito, we can take advantage of some of the energy uh innovative energy things that are happening in South Salido, as well as like some of the oyster based like water are happening. There's a lot of oyster innovation happening right now in the industry. And I think that there's a lot of great opportunities for the Bay Area, but we have so many opportunities in Sausalito being water-based already. So yeah, I think biomimicry could be a really big player for us. |
| 00:10:21.98 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:10:24.78 | Samantha Schubert | anything else. |
| 00:10:25.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:10:25.42 | Samantha Schubert | Thank you. |
| 00:10:25.45 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:10:26.11 | Samantha Schubert | Thank you so much, Samantha. Yeah, nice to meet you. Yeah, nice to meet everyone. Thank you so much for having me. |
| 00:10:27.51 | Joan Cox | Yes. |
| 00:10:27.97 | Unknown | I mean, nice to meet you. |
| 00:10:28.27 | Joan Cox | Thanks, Dawn. |
| 00:10:28.91 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:10:34.21 | Joan Cox | Okay, and City Clerk, do we see Allison yet? |
| 00:10:36.84 | Walfred Solorzano | We do not see Allison, but is Wayne Bonnet here? for. |
| 00:10:41.40 | Joan Cox | Wayne Benet. Yes. Would you please come up and let us welcome you? So Wayne is applying for the Historic Preservation Commission. He really needs no introduction. He's a former city council member. |
| 00:10:53.48 | Wayne Benet | Well, we have. |
| 00:10:53.90 | Joan Cox | And publisher editor and publisher of moments in time by Jack Tracy. |
| 00:10:59.08 | Wayne Benet | Yes. |
| 00:10:59.76 | Joan Cox | So welcome. Thank you. And we can't imagine your interest in the Historic Preservation Commission. |
| 00:11:05.35 | Wayne Benet | Well, as you probably know, I haven't been involved in city politics in a number of years. I've been so busy with publishing. And now I'm working on a revision of the book And I started reviewing the historic structures and landmarks in Sausalito. and became interested in the use of new materials that people are using to restore and maintain original facades on buildings. So I got interested and I thought, well, yeah, this is about time I dipped back into Sausalito politics. As you know, I've lived here a long time and participated in many different ways. functions within the city. at. I helped work on the original assessment back in the early 70s with Jack Tracy. on setting up the historic district. So I am familiar with the ordinance of last year and also the historic... um statement. that is quite lengthy and quite thorough that was adopted by the council in what, 2022 or so. |
| 00:12:21.08 | Joan Cox | Yes, part of the general plan. Yeah. |
| 00:12:22.57 | Wayne Benet | Yeah. So I can answer any questions you might have. |
| 00:12:29.59 | Joan Cox | You know, we have a policy that puts homes under scrutiny if they're 50 years or older. What do you think about that timeframe in terms of, you know, assessing the historic value of a home? Thank you. |
| 00:12:48.57 | Wayne Benet | Well, it's a good... |
| 00:12:48.69 | Joan Cox | or property. |
| 00:12:51.44 | Wayne Benet | operating principle, but there might be exceptions to that. I think there are. I'm happy to know my house qualifies now. It's just past its 100 year mark. But, uh, I see nothing wrong with that policy. It's a good, I don't know whether a majority of people now who live in historic homes like the idea. Or not. Oh, wow. I haven't been in touch with very many of them in the last few years. I know at one time people were very proud to have their, Holmes considered that, unless they just bought it and have intent to remodel extensively, and then they're not happy with it. |
| 00:13:36.36 | Joan Cox | Right. Mayor. |
| 00:13:37.88 | Steven Woodside | Something you said piqued my interest. You mentioned new materials. And often today, when people look at putting new siding on a wooden structure, concerned about fire, Do you have any comments about that? How the concerns like that? |
| 00:13:53.94 | Wayne Benet | Well, I certainly understand their concern, particularly in today's climate change and other activities. activities that affect potential. But, I have no problem with that. I worked with a company that made terracotta. for a number of years. on restoring their historic buildings and how they went about it and how they made a product that is fire resistant that resembles the any kind of material that you want. And so I see nothing wrong with that. I think it's an intriguing possibility that you could use synthetic materials that resemble original structures. as so many original structures were used wood extensively, and that wood may not be even available nowadays. like first growth redwood and so forth. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:14:55.99 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:14:56.33 | Wayne Benet | Thank you. |
| 00:14:58.03 | Joan Cox | We're about to adopt a Zone Zero ordinance that requires five feet of defensible space around each home. And so how do you think that will affect some of our historic problems? |
| 00:15:14.91 | Wayne Benet | Thank you. I'm not sure how that would be resolved because I'm sure you're aware a lot of houses in Sausalito are plopped on lots that were designed many years ago, and they encroach on neighboring lots and I know the five foot. setback for building has always been a problem. So it's gonna be thorny. |
| 00:15:37.86 | Joan Cox | Yeah. |
| 00:15:38.62 | Wayne Benet | I don't know how to answer it. Fortunately, I wouldn't have to decide. It would just be a recommendation. But I know if I clear 10 feet on, |
| 00:15:46.84 | Unknown | I'm not sure. Thank you. |
| 00:15:52.34 | Wayne Benet | Both sides of my house, I'm in somebody else's living room. I mean, there just isn't that much space. So I'm sure some of the historic downtown structures, I know the, from studying the maps from years ago, that that's a difficulty. the whole thing. |
| 00:16:10.23 | Joan Cox | Well, thank you so much for coming in. We so appreciate seeing you again and hearing from you. It's our plan to make some appointments at the end of the meeting this evening. |
| 00:16:19.59 | Wayne Benet | Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you very much for hearing me out. Thank you. |
| 00:16:22.93 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:16:24.10 | Wayne Benet | Yeah, I'll talk to you later. |
| 00:16:28.10 | Joan Cox | And so city clerk Allison missed her slot? Yes. |
| 00:16:33.75 | Walfred Solorzano | Allison. Yes. |
| 00:16:36.41 | Joan Cox | Okay. |
| 00:16:39.28 | Walfred Solorzano | No, she is not. |
| 00:16:41.53 | Joan Cox | Okay. All right, so then that's the end of our interviews for this evening. We are going to adjourn to closed session. |
| 00:16:57.14 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:16:59.16 | Joan Cox | Yeah. So our regular meeting starts at 7 p.m., And that hearing will be sometime after 7 p.m., maybe closer to 8 p.m. Okay. All right, so we are going to adjourn to closed session where we will discuss the following. Conference with legal counsel, anticipated litigation, significant exposure to litigation, two cases, and conference with labor negotiator, pursuant to government code section 54957.6. The agency designated representative is Kathy Nikitas, our human resources manager, and Charles Sakai of Sloan Sakai. The employee organization is Sausalito Police Association. So at this time, is there any public comment on our closed session items? |
| 00:17:46.57 | Walfred Solorzano | seen none. |
| 00:17:47.46 | Joan Cox | With that, we will adjourn to closed session. We will reconvene at 7 p.m. Thank you all. |
| 00:17:56.34 | Walfred Solorzano | Greetings, everybody. It is now 7.03 p.m. The meeting for the March 18th, 2025 is now back in session over in council chambers for 20th Street. And we're also at the Opus Hotel, Vancouver, 322 Davies Street, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6B1R2. |
| 00:18:14.58 | Joan Cox | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:18:18.59 | Joan Cox | Thank you folks. We will reconvene to open session. Will you, we'll start with the Pledge of Allegiance. John Flavon, you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. |
| 00:18:36.77 | Joan Cox | United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. |
| 00:18:48.12 | Jody Moore | Thank you. |
| 00:18:48.55 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:18:48.97 | Jody Moore | Although you're in four speakers. |
| 00:18:50.49 | Joan Cox | I asked them to move, but they forgot. |
| 00:18:56.24 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:18:59.23 | Joan Cox | um, |
| 00:19:03.67 | Joan Cox | Go ahead and call roll. Would you? |
| 00:19:08.00 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blaustein. |
| 00:19:10.38 | Joan Cox | here. |
| 00:19:12.20 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 00:19:14.10 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:19:14.13 | Walfred Solorzano | up. |
| 00:19:14.30 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:19:15.98 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski. Here. Vice Mayor Woodside? Here. And Mayor Clarks? |
| 00:19:21.13 | Joan Cox | here. May I have a motion to approve the agenda? So moved. |
| 00:19:26.35 | Walfred Solorzano | Second? |
| 00:19:27.11 | Joan Cox | Oh, would you call the roll, the city clerk? |
| 00:19:30.97 | Walfred Solorzano | on some of her blasting. |
| 00:19:32.24 | Joan Cox | Yes. |
| 00:19:33.40 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. Thank you. |
| 00:19:34.67 | Joan Cox | Here. |
| 00:19:35.68 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski. Thank you. |
| 00:19:38.24 | Joan Cox | Yeah. |
| 00:19:38.33 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor Woodside? Yes. And Mayor Cox? |
| 00:19:42.19 | Joan Cox | Yes. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. |
| 00:19:50.55 | Jan Johnson | um, Thank you. I have no announcements. We're going to make an okay. |
| 00:19:56.99 | Joan Cox | All right, there are no announcements for the evening. We will move on to 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. Um, We have a very tight and full agenda tonight, and so public comment tonight on all items will be limited to two minutes. Our first communications is from John Flavin. Welcome. |
| 00:20:20.06 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:20:28.38 | Walfred Solorzano | for that. |
| 00:20:28.84 | John Flavin | Thank you. the city for a cover sheet and the petition signed by well over 500 people. seeking a recommissioning of the Spencer Avenue firehouse. We're very concerned about fire risk, particularly in our area up on the hill, because the CAL FIRE has recently issued a map that shows that the Spencer Avenue firehouse is right in the middle of a district that's rated the highest fire risk that CAL FIRE gives. We're concerned about response times because the roads from the downtown fire station to Spencer Avenue are twisted and winding. And in an emergency situation, they're going to clog fast. The same goes true for Highway 101. Everybody assumes we're going to evacuate into Highway 101 But so is Mill Valley, so is Marin City, so is Tiburon. So that's going to get jammed up very quickly as well. I wish I could tell you what the current status of the Sausalito emergency evacuation plan is, but the emergency services coordinator was for some reason, unknown to us and unknown possibly to him, he was suggested he not Meet with us. So we didn't get any information other than what's on the website. Finally, The current instruction of go to the water doesn't hold much because people who follow those instructions in Maui, and in Portugal perished at water's edge from the smoke inhalation. So we are very concerned about fire risk in this area. And so are the 500 people who signed the petition. And I'm sure there's a heck of a lot more, particularly up there on A Wolfback Ridge. So I'll leave it to you. to address that issue, but I do encourage you to take it seriously, particularly in light of LA. Thank you. |
| 00:22:36.21 | Joan Cox | Thank you. I will respond briefly to say that we are aware of the updated Cal Fire maps. Thank you for the petition. We will review it. We have asked the agency responsible for our fire protection to re-examine our current plan in light of the updated Cal Fire maps. There will be a meeting that their chief, our chief, and our city manager. And then we will see where we go from there. So. Okay. Thank you. Next is... Jan Johnson. |
| 00:23:25.72 | Jan Johnson | Thank you. As you may know, I'm extremely concerned about the possible removal of the bridgeway emergency median and the dangers I believe that this poses. I've read parametrics' material. The data they present regarding collisions in this stretch of bridgeway changes between presentations. A source is noted at the bottom of the most recent map, SWITRS, our statewide integrated traffic record system. I've spent more than three hours on this website looking for the map that parametrics provided, and I cannot find it. It would be beneficial for the average citizen to have a direct link provided by parametrics well before the special council meeting so that we can study the actual facts. The varying numbers provided by parametrics makes me mistrust their data and hence their conclusions and recommendations. Thank you. |
| 00:24:28.07 | Joan Cox | Thank you. I see our Public Works Director in the audience. Mr. McGowan, may I ask that for our online materials that parametrics provide a direct link to the data that they are relying upon? Because we attended a Chamber of Commerce meeting this morning. We heard this same concern and we've heard from We've heard feedback from other residents and, in fact, from our police force about the accuracy of the parametrics data. |
| 00:25:00.32 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you, Mayor. Yes, I'll convey those concerns to parametrics and we'll do our best to get that information to you and the public. |
| 00:25:07.32 | Unknown | Thank you. Next is Hank Baker. |
| 00:25:21.13 | Joan Cox | Welcome. |
| 00:25:21.97 | Hank Baker | Welcome city manager, city members, city manager and staff. The parking committee has met over the last nine months, working with Wayne Kwan on a number of recommendations and skipping the introduction because of two minute limit. I want to just jump into those recommendations. First, we recommend as recommended by the Dixon report and proposed parking authority. The struck we strongly support the need for new parking equipment throughout the city to replace the aging and technologically outdated current equipment. whether or not the current pending a bag grant is awarded We estimate the annual loss of parking revenue and fines due to inoperable equipment and poor to nonexistent connectivity. along Bridgeway is 10 to 20% of annual parking revenue, or $300,000 to $600,000 a year. The cost of any new equipment is an investment that will earn a double-digit return through added parking revenue now lost through poorly operating equipment. Further, we recommend that the city immediately release the RFPs for parking equipment and mesh internet repeaters that will provide adequate internet coverage along Ridgeway for the new equipment. The responses to these RFPs will be necessary for the Council to make an informed fiscal decision regarding this issue. Speed is of the essence if we are to get anything done for this season Second, we recommend that the city resolve any issues regarding handicapped parking for the 47 new spaces in the Sausalito Yacht Harbor parking lot that were to replace the 31 spaces lost in the new Ferry Plaza project so that these new spaces can be utilized by the end of this month and the beginning of our busy visitor season. Third, we recommend that the city increased Caledonia business district parking capacity by leasing the privately owned Christmas tree lot or improving the adjacent city lot for use as employee and resident permit parking, freeing up street parking for customers of the Caledonia Street business district. Each of these lots can accommodate as many as 75 cars. Finally, we recommend that the city modify rates and hours in the downtown. Thank you. |
| 00:27:26.02 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Mr. Baker, as I told you in an email, we will be having an agenda item specifically related to parking. And so we look forward to having a dialogue with you at that time. |
| 00:27:37.66 | Hank Baker | Thank you. I think some of this stuff, though, is urgently. |
| 00:27:39.32 | Joan Cox | I'm not. |
| 00:27:39.82 | Hank Baker | Thank you. I get to. |
| 00:27:40.46 | Joan Cox | Sorry, that was my privilege to make an announcement and to let the public know. THE END OF All right. Next is Babette McDougal. |
| 00:27:54.34 | Babette McDougall | Welcome. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you for recognizing me. I'm here under the public comments section because I have to speak once again as US government 101 teacher. Tough love time. I'm, going to reflect on what I heard in our community over the weekend. People are wondering if this Friday morning last minute meeting to try to convey people's business was really a soft coup attempt. And do we have the orange man rules going on in Sausalito? Are we supposed to coto and be really polite, or else we're going to get our funding and our everything else chopped off? Or what? I mean, really, it's kind of upsetting to have people speak about our government in this manner. It brings us to kind of a new low in the town, a lot of people feel. This is, I don't understand why we have so many agenda items that are not correctly noticed, that there is so much illegality. You want to know the most common question I heard on the weekend was, isn't Joan Cox the mayor? Answer, yes. Isn't Joan Cox a municipal lawyer by specialty? The answer, well, yes. Well, then why is Sausalito messing up so much? Why is everything going wrong? Why is the housing element upside down? Why is infrastructure upside down? Why is everything so upside down? If she's supposed to know what she's doing and she's running the show, why is it so upside down? These are tough love questions. This is not an easy job. This is a thankless job in so many ways, and yet rewarding in many more other ways. And the citizens are counting on you folks. to serve us well. which means buy the book. And right now I realize a lot of people are wondering, well, what do we do with the book? Because the orange man says, let's throw it out. I mean, after all. We have doge. And in Sausalito, The equivalent to that, I just don't know. And I beg you, America has done really well for you so far. So don't be so quick to toss it aside. |
| 00:29:57.89 | Joan Cox | Thank you, Ms. McDougall. If you look at the agenda, you will see that the item we considered last Friday is on the agenda this evening for ratification so there is no effort to hide the ball or be less than transparent. All right, anybody online, city clerk? |
| 00:30:14.63 | Walfred Solorzano | See no further public speakers. |
| 00:30:16.12 | Joan Cox | All right, then we will move on from communications to the consent calendar matters listed under the consent calendar considered routine and non controversial require no discussion are expected to have unanimous counsel support and may be enacted by the Council in one motion. in the form listed below. So on our consent calendar this evening, we have items 3A through 3H. 3A, adopt the minutes from February 18, 2025. 3B, National Women's History Month proclamation. 3C, proclamation honoring Japanese Emperor Naruhito's birthday. 3D, Seger Chavez Day proclamation. 3E, reappointment of Vicki Nichols to the Historic Preservation Commission for a three-year term. 3F, waiver of second reading and adoption of ordinance number 02-2025. Amending section 15.0406 of the sauce to municipal code to prescribe speed limits within the city of Sausalito. 3G, adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute the first contract amendment with CSW. to provide additional design services to facilitate the Alexander Beach Sewer Improvement Project in an amount of $83,297.75. 3-H adopt a resolution to authorize the supplemental appropriation of $47,599.86 to purchase the 2024 Westward Industries G04E V20 contract. KW. interceptor And to purchase that from Turf Star Western, that is an EV, metering vehicle. With respect to item 3G, I have asked the city attorney to revise the resolution. to reflect that these are additional design services, not additional design build services, which is a term of art, which is not what we are seeking from that. Consultant. Other than that, are there any questions on the consent calendar? Yes. |
| 00:32:13.06 | Jill Hoffman | want to pull anything but I did want to give special recognition for item 3h and just acknowledge that we received correspondence from the chair and a member of the sustainability commission and that it's actually quite an accomplishment that our PD is taking the steps to purchase and acquire an electric vehicle and that we're on a path to having a fully electric fleet so I wanted to make sure that the hard work of the PD and of our staff for pulling that together was seen here Thank you. |
| 00:32:37.16 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:32:38.29 | Steven Woodside | I'd like to make a little comment about National Women's History Month. Even though we're midway through the month, this resolution should have been adopted at our last meeting, which unfortunately was canceled. And I just want to take note that we have many, many, many women who have made history right here in Sausalito, including our current mayor, who was in the first class admitting women to the US Naval Academy. |
| 00:33:04.85 | Joan Cox | you vice mayor. Any other questions? All right, I'm gonna open it up for public comment on the consent calendar. I have one speaker card from Lauren Wiley. |
| 00:33:16.51 | Beth Swerg | If you have a comment, Melissa said it. |
| 00:33:19.01 | Joan Cox | Oh, Melissa said it. All right. Thank you. Anything online, city clerk? |
| 00:33:23.87 | Walfred Solorzano | See you then. |
| 00:33:24.73 | Joan Cox | All right, then I will entertain a motion to approve the consent calendar. |
| 00:33:27.84 | Walfred Solorzano | So moved. |
| 00:33:28.87 | Joan Cox | Second. Will you please call roll city clerk. |
| 00:33:32.44 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blaustein. Thank you. |
| 00:33:33.76 | Joan Cox | Yes. |
| 00:33:34.20 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 00:33:36.56 | Joan Cox | Yes. |
| 00:33:37.76 | Walfred Solorzano | Council member Sobieski. Yes. Vice Mayor Woodside. Yes. And Mayor Cox. |
| 00:33:43.04 | Joan Cox | Yes, that motion carries unanimously. We will now move on to public hearing items, the first of which is Appeal of Planning Commission Resolution Number 202424, approving a joint hotel and restaurant use at 715. Bridgeway, I will welcome our senior planner, Matthew Mandich, and I will again remark that this, most of the items we are hearing tonight were continued from our March 4th. 2025 meeting, which had to be canceled at the last moment. |
| 00:34:16.89 | Matthew Mandich | Hello, council members, mayor, vice mayor. Good to be here with everyone tonight. If we could get the presentation up real quick. Thank you. |
| 00:35:04.56 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:35:16.02 | Matthew Mandich | Thank you very much, C. Clerk. All right. Thank you launching right in here. Okay, so yes, this is for the appeal of planning Commission approval of a joint hotel and restaurant use at 715 bridgeway. As you can see right here, this is the site in question in our central commercial district in the downtown right across the street from vineyard Elmar park. Pulling out a little bit here, you can see the building from an aerial view next to the excelsior stairs, the park right here and the ferry landing and parking lot one next slide please. Just a little background on the building. It was built in 1924 for the Bank of Sausalito. It was designed to mimic the grand painting temples of that time, but on a smaller scale. It is a contributor to the Sausalito. Bye. |
| 00:36:00.15 | Joan Cox | I am so sorry. I am going to back up. I'm actually going to open the public hearing. And I would like to confirm that notice was provided as required by law. |
| 00:36:11.59 | Matthew Mandich | Yes, it was. |
| 00:36:12.91 | Joan Cox | Okay. And were there any ex parte communications by council members? |
| 00:36:19.00 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:36:19.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:36:19.78 | Joan Cox | No. No. No. |
| 00:36:21.66 | Unknown | So, |
| 00:36:21.70 | Joan Cox | Thank you. And no. Okay. All right. You can continue. Thank you so much. |
| 00:36:25.78 | Matthew Mandich | Thank you, Mayor. Okay, so we are at the contributor to Sausalito Downtown Historic District, appears on both the local and state register, and is eligible for the national register with a listing code of 2D2. As you can see, the building facade means largely unaltered, and it is a great example of the banking style of this 1920s era. It became American Trust and Savings Bank after it was the Bank of Sausalito, before it became Wells Fargo, which was in operation until July 12th of 2023, after which it was purchased by the current owner who's with us today, Kent Ibsen, in 2024. Next slide, please. |
| 00:36:59.78 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:37:01.49 | Matthew Mandich | Here's just a little rendering of the project proposal here and the rehabilitation that's planned for the site next slide. The project proposal is for a ground floor dining, restaurant, and bar with a total max capacity of 105 guests, as well as which will be now 16 outdoor dining seats. Construction of a second floor will be built inside the building for the three hotel rooms for an artificial second floor above, considering this is a very grand, vacuous space. The western rear facade is to be removed to create space for a new patio, fire pit, and a hot tub lounge area, which will serve as guest amenities and be restricted to hotel guests those will all be within the existing perimeter retaining walls on site which are quite imposing concrete walls the exterior will require new signage new lighting flower boxes and a general repainting and refurbishment and all the defining characteristics of the building will be preserved and rehabilitated next slide please |
| 00:37:49.25 | Unknown | Well, Thank you. |
| 00:37:53.28 | Matthew Mandich | There were a number of planning permits required for this project, including design review for the addition of square footage, a variance to demolish the existing buildings in the required rear setback, conditional to demolish and rebuild, rather remodel, a conditional use permit for hotel transit lodging use in the Central Commercial Zoning District, a conditional use permit for alcohol sales in the Central Commercial Zoning District, and a conditional use Use Permit for waiver parking, which will be heard by the Planning Commission in a subsequent hearing. Also a minor use permit for outdoor dining and sidewalk dining, a sign permit for a new business signage on the south and eastern facades, as well as a certificate of appropriateness that was approved by both the HPC and the Planning Commission as well. Next slide, please. Just to give a little walk around the building, we're going to kind of go from the outside in. As you can see here, facade has remained largely unchanged over the years. The only addition that we're seeing here is the side door, which will be used for hotel guests to access the rooms upstairs, as well as a new signage reflecting the new use of the building. Next slide, please. Moving to the southern facade, as you can see, very similar. Only real additions to the historic building are the addition of the new signage. Next slide, please. Exterior details here's just a example of what the building will look like and the palette that will be used will range from kind of an off white light gray to a darker gray scale. There'll be new lamps installed here, which are kind of a throwback to the 1920s dawn of electricity era and those will replace the LED lights that are currently located in that area next slide please. There will also be a restoration on the front of the left side of the front facade, including there was a bank deposit box here. This will be restored to match the original marble that was once there, where the ATM for the Wells Fargo used to be right here. Again, that will be that door that will allow access to the upstairs for the hotel guests. Next slide. And here's walking in through the floor plans. So here's the front facade here on Bridgeway. Here's that little side door I was talking about that leads back up the stairs to the hotel. Here's the main entrance into the dining room area, up to 105 guests, multiple tables, chairs, kitchen, and a full bar right here. As you move in through the side door, you'll have stairs and an elevator as well that will take you up to the second floor. You pop out right here. This is where the bathrooms for the restaurant will be as well, located up these stairs. There'll be a little bit of a foyer here that allows access into this back rear courtyard, which is the guest amenity area. It includes a fire pit and a hot tub, and the rooms flow off of this inner court here, which the largest room here on the left-hand side, two bed, two bath, lounge area, kitchen area, a small fireplace in the corner. This is the smallest room in the middle, a studio room, basically one bed, one bath, lounge area, and fireplace, and another one bedroom room over here, one bed, one bath, kitchen area, lounge area, and fireplace. Next slide, please. Moving up in the rear facade in the western area, you can see that we'll actually start over here. There's a small little deck that comes up through these stairs. This is adjacent to an electrical storage room as well as to other electrical equipment that will be located above the hallway, which leads to the bathrooms in this back area. Moving up to the deck above, this will be, again, a deck, a viewing deck for hotel guests. The left side will not be used by guests they'll be confined to the northern area and it will be only accessed by hotel guests and it would be prohibited to access the deck after 10 p.m and before 7 a.m next slide please It's just an example of the floor area mapped out here. See the first floor restaurant, second floor hotel use and the inner court excluded there. Next slide, please. And if we actually can we go back one, please see clerk, thank you just want to remark that this is the 1.29 floor area which is permitted and 1.3 is the max far for the zoning district next slide please. So this is the second floor addition inside the historic building, which will be used to create an artificial floor for the hotel rooms above. This is kind of the mechanism of how that addition works. This was approved by both the HPC and the planning commission. Here's a cross section of the room that we looked at earlier. One, two, three, all of which will have advantage, take advantage of these great arched windows to look out on Vineyard Del Mar Park and Richardson Bay beyond. Next slide, please. So moving back to the exterior of the building. This is the current existing situation here, as you can see, built all the way up to the rear lot line. This is the proposed situation. This area will not be used by guests as we discussed already. All of these rooms and areas that are that are down here will be removed for the creation of the new guest amenity area. Next slide, please. Again, looking at this area, what's currently constructed there underneath these roofs right now is a bathroom, which will be replaced by another bathroom, a storage area right here, a lunchroom, and then the kind of a foyer where the staircase leads up from below right here in the bank building. So this is kind of a second story terraced into the hillside above the larger bank building, but to the rear. Next slide, please. Just an example of looking at from the Del Monte apartments, excuse me. I know we've had a number of public comments concerned about noise and visual activity going on here. Just wanted to point out that the view from these rooms right here is directly across at this retaining wall. That will not change. There is a view from the apartments located here near this first landing that does have a little bit of a look into there. However, it's hard to see on this, but there's only one flag that you can see of the, of the story polls there that would show even maybe someone's head or something like that, which again, this is a pedestrian pathway. So it wouldn't really be causing much more visual or noise impact. Next slide, please. This is looking really into this area in the rear, which is one of the areas that we're going to be focusing on tonight. Here is the story poles that have been laid out, some bands that show where the deck will be and how that'll be, how much further that'll be down from the wall in the back. These are these large imposing concrete retaining walls I was talking about earlier. These walls are coterminous with the property lines and the building when it was constructed before the zoning ordinance was built all the way back to the rear setback. Um, and then this is the appellant's house up on the hill. Next slide, please. Here's just some cross sections of that area as well, this back amenity area. So you can see here looking across. Contrary to popular belief in some of the public comment, the hot tub is not located on the roof of the bank, but in fact is down here, recessed below, overhung by the deck right here. And then this is just another cross section of that looking the other direction back into where the hot tub is. First deck up, viewing deck here, and then this is the foyer with the bathrooms, electrical equipment above that. Next slide, please. So a number of use permits were approved already for this project. We already went through some of them, but conditional use permits for the hotel use, alcohol sales, as well as a minor use permit for outdoor dining. 16 people on a 12 foot wide sidewalk and is nearby multiple outdoor dining areas in the CC district. Next slide, please. As we can see here, this really fits into kind of the program and the synergy that we have going on in the central downtown area. These stars represent other approved outdoor dining areas in the CC district. If Copita, Cultivar, Lapperts and Real Napa could see how the pocket would fit right into there. And it's also adjacent to two hotel uses across the street, Hotel Sausalito in above tides, as well as Costa Madrona. So really right in the middle of a number of restaurant and hotel uses in our central commercial zone. |
| 00:45:10.29 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:45:33.85 | Matthew Mandich | Next slide, please. A sign permit approved by both the HBC and the planning commission signage is minimal largely mimics the pre existing sign program next slide. The pocket restaurant signs will have internal illumination, as can be seen here, whereas the in-the-pocket sign on the front of the facade will have exterior illumination in a small LED strip light here. And here's some renderings of what that will look like at night. Next. Next slide, please. A certificate of appropriateness was also approved by both the HBC and the planning commission. All the character defining features of this building, including the decorative freeze, terracotta medallions, Corinthian capitals, bronze grill work, or excuse me, copper grill work and sashes and the Roman next arch windows will all be preserved. Everything will reign intact, be restored and maintained as part of this project. Next slide, please. So kind of wraps up the general gist of the what the project is. It was approved by the Planning Commission on December 11th. The proposed project is designed appropriately will not result in any substantial adverse impact on the historic resource or the historic district. It's in conformance with all 10 of the Secretary of Interior standards. The proposed project is also in conformance with all the required findings in this hospital municipal code required for this project. The proposed uses that coming to this building fill a difficult vacant spot in the heart of our downtown central commercial corridor, and the proposed uses are also a boon for economic development in the city with sales tax and TOT tax, which is up to 14%. Approval is subject, of course, to the conditions of approval that were included in the original Planning Commission approval, which did limit deck access to key carded guests only and limit the hours of use next slide please so despite all this uh the project was appealed by a neighbor the appellant uh sharon khan breckhouse law submitted the appeal on behalf of the appellant the grounds for that appeal were that the hotel use was granted in air as no commercial use over a thousand square feet is allowed on a second floor in the central commercial zoning district. It also states that the hotel use was granted in error, as no commercial use over 1,000 square feet is allowed on a second floor in the Central Commercial Zoning District. It also states that the design review permit was issued in error as the project exceeds the required FAR, which is a 1.3 limit. Variance issued in error as the findings cannot be made, and that the parking exemption used was incorrect and that the hotel doesn't have adequate parking. It also stipulates that the project was inconsistent with the general plan. Next slide, please. So I'm just going to quickly go through some of staff's responses to this appeal here before turning it over to the appellate. First response is that the CUP for the hotel use was not issued in error, as the California Building Code states that a hotel for transient use is a residential R1 use. And I've pulled a section of the Building Code right here for you as well, which talks about how uses for hotel guests and transient uses, which are sleeping quarters by the building code are considered to be residential uses. This is not a locus of commercial activity. There is no point of sale. This is restricted to guests only for sleeping purposes. So the building code sees this as a residential use type. Next slide, please. Um, the appellate also states design review permit was issued in there. However, this is not correct. Uh, inner courts are excluded from FAR calculations. The definition of an inner court is an open area with no roof that is surrounded by at least three sides by structures with floor area. As we can see here, there are three sides of structures with floor area. So it is an inner court and is excluded from FAR calculations. While there is an overhang over the hot tub, it is not a roof structure that expands one side to the other and encloses the court. This is still an all-in open-air intercourt area for guest amenities. Next slide, please. Um, The variance was also was not issued in there. All findings were made by the planning commission and it was approved five zero. These is an existing historic building as we discussed already a number of times it has legal nonconformity as it was built before the zoning code existed and these these impose constraints on the building. It's also built next to a vacant lot which is right here. This is a vacant undeveloped lot to the granting of the variance is not interest to the adjacent properties as it actually is. contiguous with a vacant lot also owned by the appellant, however, who resides back there. The conditions of use were also put on the project that control the outdoor space, how it will be used by who and what hours. And we also have a noise ordinance in place that will restrict and enforce that use of that space. Next slide, please. The appellant is correct in that the exemption used by AB 2097 is invalid as it cannot be applied to hotel use. However, this does not preclude the project's viability in any way. The hotel use can certainly be parked, and we have exemptions in our municipal code that allow for a waiver of parking requirements via CUP when a new or expanded proposed use allows the preservation of a historic structure in the historic downtown, which does not require substantial alteration. This project ticks all the boxes that would be required to get this waiver granted. So the issue about the hotel not being parked properly or the exemption are really moot points because a CUP may be granted by the Planning Commission, and this project, this specific CUP, will be heard by the Planning Commission and hopefully approved due to the fact that it ticks all the boxes and all the findings can be made for a parking waiver next slide please Um, last argument of the appellant was that this hotel use is not consistent with the general plan. They'd like you to focus on this section here in yellow that says hotel and restaurant uses can be a nuisance if, you know, not operated properly. However, we have a lot of section in the same paragraph in green here talking about, you know, what a great thing hotels can be for the city if they're properly located and properly managed. Um, this hotel isn't an ideal location in the central downtown historic district. It's of small scale. It's only three rooms. It's compatible with all the surrounding structures in the districts. There's no alterations will be made significantly to the exterior of the building and is also adjacent to three other hotels which have hotel rooms above the first floor. The applicant has also agreed to provide on-site 24-hour management of the hotel. That will be provided to enforce conditions, so they won't be relying solely on the police department to enforce the noise ordinance, but they will have 24-hour management on-site. All lights will be facing down, and any exhaust from the restaurant will point away from the con properties, and a CUP will be heard by the planning commission to waive the parking. And there are also additionally multiple large city lots within a hundred feet of the property. Next slide, please. With that staff recommends City Council adopt a resolution nine appeal and upholding the planning Commission's decision to approve this project. |
| 00:52:03.70 | Ron Albert | Thank you. |
| 00:52:03.71 | Matthew Mandich | The proposed project is designed appropriately, will not result in any substantial adverse impact to the historic resource or the historic district. It is in conformance with all the required findings in the Sausalito Municipal Code as it was approved by both the HPC and the Planning Commission unanimously. It fills a difficult vacant space in the heart of the central downtown corridor. And again, this will be a great economic boost for the city with the sales tax from the restaurant and the tot from the hotel rooms of course approval is subject to the conditions of approval included in the resolution or any any additional conditions proposed tonight by the council that concludes my presentation and I'm happy to take any questions thank you |
| 00:52:40.92 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Any questions for our senior planner? |
| 00:52:47.79 | Joan Cox | seeing none um then we will, move to the presentation by the Appellant. |
| 00:53:02.44 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Councilman. |
| 00:53:04.66 | Joan Cox | which is not on the agenda. |
| 00:53:17.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:53:23.34 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:53:25.05 | Joan Cox | Her name is Elizabeth Reckes. Can you promote her to a panelist? |
| 00:53:25.12 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:53:34.94 | Joan Cox | City Attorney, how much time are we providing to the... the appellant and the applicant for |
| 00:53:47.58 | Sergio Rudin | I believe that the agenda states, let me just pull it up right quick. |
| 00:53:51.66 | Joan Cox | The agenda was not stated. So somehow it got removed from the agenda. So I'm asking you. |
| 00:53:56.96 | Sergio Rudin | I mean, I think a reasonable amount of time. It says appellant presentation 10 minutes. I think both sides should have the same amount of time in the interest of fairness. |
| 00:54:07.69 | Joan Cox | OK, I guess I'm looking at an old version of the agenda, whatever I have. So OK, great. How much time? |
| 00:54:13.18 | Elizabeth Reckes | Thank you. |
| 00:54:14.27 | Sergio Rudin | 10 minutes. |
| 00:54:15.49 | Joan Cox | Okay. Thank you. |
| 00:54:16.23 | Elizabeth Reckes | Can you hear us? |
| 00:54:17.50 | Joan Cox | you |
| 00:54:18.19 | Elizabeth Reckes | I can. Yes. Can I get clarification? I, I was understanding it was 10 minutes and then five on rebuttal, or I can save part of my time, 10 minutes for rebuttal. What is, what, what would you say is the rule? |
| 00:54:31.06 | Joan Cox | So I have 10 minutes, then city council questions, five minutes, and then... public comment. So I don't have |
| 00:54:47.15 | Joan Cox | So city attorney, |
| 00:54:51.68 | Sergio Rudin | Yes, ma'am. |
| 00:54:53.09 | Joan Cox | I don't see the respondent time on the. agenda. |
| 00:54:58.43 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, and we should provide the same amount of time to the respondent as well. |
| 00:55:02.76 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:55:02.91 | Sergio Rudin | Okay. |
| 00:55:02.97 | Joan Cox | you So we're going to have 10 minutes for the appellant and then 10 minutes for the respondent. You can reserve a portion of your 10 minutes for rebuttal if you would like. |
| 00:55:12.54 | Elizabeth Reckes | Got it. Thank you. Thank you all. Is my PowerPoint that I sent today... Don't start. Yeah. that we have. |
| 00:55:24.42 | Walfred Solorzano | You can share your screen if you want to control it, but I do have that PowerPoint. How would you rather go about it? |
| 00:55:29.55 | Elizabeth Reckes | I'll have you control it and I'll just say slide one like we do when I'm present. And I'm so sorry I'm not present. I have a bit of a. I'm under the weather or I would be. I'm so sorry you're under the weather. Thank you. So I can't see though, if it's on the screen yet. So if you would let me know. |
| 00:55:49.50 | Joan Cox | Not on the screen yet. We will share the screen in a moment. And then does the respondent have a presentation, city clerk? |
| 00:55:52.47 | Elizabeth Reckes | Thank you. |
| 00:55:57.26 | Joan Cox | All right, so can we cue that up as soon as we finish cuing this up so that we are ready to roll? |
| 00:56:06.39 | Elizabeth Reckes | Thank you very much. I want to start by noting that staff said that there would be onsite management at this property and it would be- Well, hold on. |
| 00:56:16.35 | Joan Cox | Well, hold on. I'm going to start your clock if you're ready to start. |
| 00:56:20.03 | Elizabeth Reckes | Thank you. |
| 00:56:20.06 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:56:20.65 | Elizabeth Reckes | Thank you. |
| 00:56:20.67 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:56:20.70 | Elizabeth Reckes | I am, thank you. |
| 00:56:21.59 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Okay, go ahead and start the clock, city clerk. I don't see it. |
| 00:56:29.48 | Elizabeth Reckes | All right. Go ahead. So I just want to note in the staff report staff said that there would be 24 hour on site management and that's news to us that has never been part of this project. I don't believe it's a condition of approval. |
| 00:56:30.59 | Joan Cox | Bye. |
| 00:56:30.61 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:56:30.79 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:56:43.82 | Elizabeth Reckes | It's welcome news, but if it is a requirement, it should be a condition of approval, which at present it is not. And our understanding is that when the restaurant is closed, there will be no onsite management, which is one of our complaints. Moving to the next, the first slide, please. If you take a look at the, um, general plan, you'll see that there is a requirement that there be residential uses on the upper floors of the building in this area. And that is to minimize the impacts on the residential areas adjacent to the Civic Center Center and those provisions in the general plan cannot be ignored. Next slide please. The general plan also speaks to the fact that The second story is where you're going to place more housing units. And again, the idea that you place more housing units there is not only to get more housing units, but also to minimize the impacts to the residential areas that are adjacent to it. And so the idea is don't intensify the uses. Instead, minimize the intensity of the commercial area to the residential areas. Next slide, please. The staff report is trying to focus you on a state law. that talks about THE FAMILY IS A a hotel being residential, but your own zoning, code. says that you're to use your zoning code. and it has definitions and you can't ignore it. And so what it says is that You look at your definitions and your definitions say residential equals 30 days. And So you can't ignore that. And staff has apparently scoured the Internet to find some code. that would support this novel interpretation. but it will not stand withstand scrutiny. You shouldn't buy it, and I'm afraid that if this was challenged, it would not. be bought by anybody else because we know that we don't look to our own code when we're interpreting uh, zone, the zoning laws of the city of Sausalito. Next slide, please. The general plan also notes that hotels can have minimal impacts on nearby residential areas with good location management and adequate parking. But the planning commission has approved a project. that doesn't have management, and has no parking. So it's the opposite of what the general plan states, and you can't violate the general plan. Next slide, please. Regarding the parking exemption, there has to be a CUP application and none has been submitted. You have two CUP approvals that's regarding something totally different from parking. And here there's been no CUP application. to exempt from parking And there's been no notice. And in fact, your code requires a a Planning Commission hearing, which necessarily then contemplates that that could go up on appeal to you. You can't do it as staff is suggesting. by simply Um, you know, deciding at this hearing that you're going to grant one. In fact, if you look at the notice of this hearing, there's been no notice today. that you are going to consider a CUP application. So it's completely inadequate. And we know that the public wants to speak and weigh in on parking. It's a hot topic of conversation. And here you have 125 guests at this restaurant. And then as easily 14 people that could be in that unit. And so you are now waiving the parking for a lot of people coming into the downtown. and you have not given notice of it, and you have not proved it, and it obviously does not pass muster. Next slide, please. |
| 01:00:56.68 | Elizabeth Reckes | Um, so again, the procedure is not followed. The notice is not adequate and the code is being violated. And until the staff report issued, suggesting that you just pretend that wasn't a problem. and you in fact approve a CUP application today. there was no notice to the public. And so it's inadequate, you need to send it back down, and an application has to be submitted. Next slide, please. |
| 01:01:28.64 | Elizabeth Reckes | Um, So again, here's the code language that talks about it. And here's the appeal notice. And what it's saying is today is a hearing on an appeal. It does not say that today is a hearing on a CUP application. And again, no notice has been given. And of course, the code specifically requires the planning commission to hear that. It doesn't allow you to do a do-over and pretend this mistake didn't happen on an appeal. Next slide, please. The FAR has been incorrectly calculated, and staff's explanation still doesn't pass mustard. And the reason why it doesn't work is because if you look at the FAR definition, the FAR definition says that we count covered patios. And if you look at the inner courtyards definition, it said an inner courtyards have no roof. So again, you count covered patios, and inner courtyards have no roof. So calling this a quote roof overhang, Uh, it's cute. Doesn't work. That bumps the FAR when properly calculated up to one over 1.3. And again, that then doesn't work under your code. So again, you have a very easily appealable, and I don't just mean to this, this city council, you have an easily appealable to a court way to show that this project fails as an as a matter of law. Next slide. |
| 01:03:13.53 | Elizabeth Reckes | So again, the roof and overhang, that's not defined in your code. But if you look at the FAR definition, It says that you count anything that has a weatherproofed enclosure. And we all have to agree that what's overhanging the hot tub is a weatherproofed enclosure. And again, A building means a roofed structure. And so you know, even under your code, permanent tents have to be counted as FAR. And so if a permanent tent is roofed, and counts, well then a weatherproof spa room is roofed and counts. Next slide, please. |
| 01:03:58.79 | Elizabeth Reckes | Okay, so we have a variance request and instead of a 15 foot setback, we have a zero setback. And we all know that variances have legal requirements and here it doesn't meet the definition. primarily because there's no hardship. They have a great outdoor usable space without the third story deck. It's a nice amenity to have this third story deck. It's one that's injurious to my client, but it certainly is not a hardship because the project has plenty of outdoor usable space without it. Next slide, please. Here is the current space. It's not just a 15 foot setback from any use. It's a huge setback. And my client could never have imagined that this area that is just dead space would all of a sudden become this party space with a hot tub. a raised, uh, fire pit, a lower fire pit. There's even a kitchen, um, beyond the hot, hot tub. And why do they need a kitchen? Because they're going to store a bunch of alcohol on there and they're going to have a bunch of party space and the, the conditions of approval don't adequately do the job. They, um, they may limit times, but again, there's no management on site. And we all know that anybody can walk around and carry a, um, you know, a Sonos player or some kind of sound box and create music where there is none. So it is injurious to my clients. And I'm sure if anybody was proposing a party deck and an outdoor party area right next to your homes and on your property line, you would oppose that as well. So I just want to point that out. The appellants are being reasonable and being very concerned about this. I don't know if you can see the clock. You're down to 20 seconds. Okay, next slide, please. |
| 01:06:07.21 | Elizabeth Reckes | Our requests are that the residential unit be 30 days. that there'd be on-site management, and that there be adequate parking spaces after hearing, and that they recalculate the FAR correctly, And you deny the variance for the third party deck and the hot tub. And that's it. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:06:30.18 | Joan Cox | Okay, we'll hear from the respondent. City Clerk, I noticed that neither the appellant nor the respondent presentations are |
| 01:06:38.51 | Walfred Solorzano | I just got them today. |
| 01:06:41.41 | Joan Cox | Right, and they're not attached to the agenda item? |
| 01:06:43.88 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah, I got them today, not too long ago, so. |
| 01:06:47.64 | Joan Cox | Okay, I'm simply asking if you would please attach them to the Jedi item. |
| 01:06:50.49 | Walfred Solorzano | Oh, I will. Will do. |
| 01:06:52.35 | Kent Ibsen | Thank you. |
| 01:06:52.65 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay. |
| 01:06:52.99 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:06:53.02 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. All right, let me... |
| 01:06:56.80 | Kent Ibsen | Do you have our presentation that you can put up? Yes, I do. One moment. |
| 01:07:11.54 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:08:04.44 | Kent Ibsen | Okay. It's great to be able to speak to you this time instead of what happened a month ago. I'd like to start off by just kind of taking you through the property again, because there's been the big elephant in the room here is this deck. We have been approached by the appellant to eliminate the deck. The appeal's gone. And it's it's so it's that's where All of the attention has been not about the far, not about, it's just a bunch of things where mud has been slung against the wall and seeing what sticks. So let's just drill down on this deck. So next slide, please. |
| 01:08:42.69 | Kent Ibsen | Okay, this is the general area that you see there I've circled our the restaurant and the deck location, along with the cons house and the you know behind it flank to the right is a incredibly large apartment complex and the left is the Presbyterian church there. Next slide please. I took it, I wanted to take a look at this, um, from basically the Bay looking in. So now when you're looking in, I would thank you all to take a look at the orientation of every single building. Every single building is oriented out to Richardson Bay, out to the park, out to beautiful downtown Sausalito. This is what people pay for. We're doing a three-room suite in this location, and it is not a minor addition for the guests in this location. It is an absolute necessary amenity. If you see the line on the wall there, the orange line on the wall, that Is where the deck sits. So to be clear, it is not coming up over the wall. We're not looking into any. We are way down from the very start when I spoke with the city. So our goal is to be incredibly sensitive and come in and not be disruptive to anyone. Next slide, please. So this is the picture kind of similar to what Matthew had put up. You have to climb up on top of the wall with an eight-foot ladder to get up to the top of the wall to see this. There were large acacia trees back there. The cons cut them down and have since replanted some small trees there. But as you can see, when we bought the property, you could not see the cons' house. And there's a vacant lot behind it and then the Kahn's house. Those trees are since gone. It's still very, very difficult to see the Kahn's house when you when we take up this next slide. Next slide, please. Okay, here we are. This is the orange line that I had shown you from afar. That is the deck height. And coming out where you see the pink flags, that's the edge of the deck. So if you look in the lower right slide, that's the COO of our company. He's vertically challenged at 5'4". His head is... that that line is five feet. So essentially this variance is to move that roof up five feet. And when we move that roof up five feet, From that orange line, it will be 11 feet from the top of the wall. So again, to provide perspective, I measured this wall before I came in tonight. This is 11 foot 4. This is where we're standing. This is reality. All of this other stuff is smoke and mirrors. There's no other place like this in Sausalito that has this walled city inside of it. We have stayed way below it. We've tried to be very, very, very conscientious about all of our neighbors. There's no way. So now you can look from this. Look up. You can't see the cons house from there. And the trees have been eliminated. It's either the roof goes up and it's an asphalt roof, an ugly asphalt roof that the cons never see and doesn't do anyone any good. Or we raise up the roof and create a garden on it and a beautiful amenity for everyone else that the cons don't see. And I would make the argument as I stand here with this being the top of the wall. It's going to be very difficult for anyone to hear Two people at 55 or 60 or 75 years old clanging their glasses, having their anniversary, looking out at that beautiful view. It is not a party deck. offensive and that's just used to get everyone's dandruff up so uh next slide please This is what we originally presented to the city. We paid to have these renderings done before we purchased the property. This was a part of our due diligence. We you know, there's no guarantees until we go through the process, of course, but Everyone felt with a great degree of assurity that we could do this because of how we've designed it. Next slide, please. Since that time, the cons had asked for noise mitigation for site mitigation. We've done these other iterations, one with just a sound wall. That's a top a top of the of this wall. So now you're talking about 16 feet up at some point in time. It just becomes a little bit unreasonable, I think. But a garden wall, a garden wall with a sound wall. And the reason that we put these little pavilions there is because they were concerned about large groups convening. So we thought, well, if we put these pavilions, there's one pavilion for each suite. Now there's just no large expansive spaces to convene or to have these types of events that plus we're conditioned to only the guests in the suites. So these are the iterations that we have tried to accomplish to, uh, Make this whole thing work with our community and with the cons I want to really give the rest of the time to I to land here. |
| 01:13:49.58 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:13:49.95 | Joan Cox | and welcome. |
| 01:13:51.20 | Len Rivkind | Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the council, Len Rivkind, Rivkind Mediation and PC. And so I have four minutes, so we're going to make that work. |
| 01:13:59.00 | Lorette Rogers | Thank you. |
| 01:14:01.65 | Len Rivkind | um i'll just address the legal issues so um the issue about the hotel on the second floor look elizabeth and i can argue till the cows come home i think we're right i think that your municipal code is adopted by reference the state code that the planner has referenced and we think that you can absolutely make a finding elizabeth isn't going to agree with that she's threatened years of litigation writ writ writ up to the court of appeal the whole nine yards that doesn't It doesn't solve the problem for anybody. The city needs this project. It's a good thing for the city. So how are we going to solve the problem? We solve the problem, send it back to the Planning Commission, amend your zoning ordinance, and make an express ordinance that you can have hotel use on the second floor, which is obviously happening at Casa Madrona Hotel, Sausalito and in at the tides. The next issue is... is about whether hotels require management or parking. Well, let's just talk about the parking issue. Again, Elizabeth is technically correct and maybe is going to win the battle, but not the war. And so we send it back to the Planning Commission, let them make the proper finding under your ordinance, says CUPs have to be first heard by the Planning Commission. Let's do that and check the box, because you absolutely can make an express finding that you don't you can exempt uh parking if you have a historic building that you're preserving and this is the mother of all historic buildings that you're preserving here uh with this project um The next issue and what we've all been talking about is this courtyard, excuse me, the viewing deck and all that. Let's talk about that for a minute. There's not a scintilla of evidence or factual information. that the appellants, these NIMBY appellants, have provided to you that there's really any material or substantial impact from this viewing deck. You heard Kent describe, I'm height challenged as well, and that looks like a pretty big wall above me. And what happens is this. This is not a quiet neighborhood that the appellant's house is in. This appellant's house is in a sea of, I went and walked the Excelsior stairs. There's apartments across the Excelsior stairs. There's two apartments directly above. All of these apartments have outside decks facing towards the water that face towards their house. The appellants themselves have the beautiful deck. They just don't want this project to have a deck behind an 11 foot wall. the applicant is going to be absolutely reasonable. with the conditions of approval that I won't say again because you've heard what they are, but in addition, We would have sound engineering analysis, material analysis to try to mitigate. We would do fencing, we'd do landscaping, anything reasonable. As you heard the appellant cut down all their trees. that doesn't seem like a good plan to try to mitigate impact. But by doing that, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. So, um, I'm just going to... I Cut to the chase. What we would like to see the commission, the council to do tonight is remand the parking to the PC. Uh, direct staff to draft a zoning amendment. As I discussed, so you have an express finding of that. You can have hotel on the second floor, which is already happens everywhere in your CC district. uh, give direction to the council to approve a variance for the viewing deck, because that's it's just, there's no, there's absolutely no evidence to support why it's a material significant impact. And lastly, in my last 20 seconds, I didn't discuss FAR, but, um, That area there, it's 25 feet from the hot tub up to that viewing deck, and it's open to the weather. There is no roof. It's a bit of an overhang, yes, but it's not covered space. Thank you, Madam Mayor and Council Members. I appreciate your attention. Thank you. |
| 01:18:13.12 | Joan Cox | I don't know. Are there any... All right, we're going to open up to public comments. Public comments will be limited to two minutes. I don't have any speaker cards. |
| 01:18:33.42 | Joan Cox | Can you just hand them over so I can get it? |
| 01:18:40.64 | Joan Cox | All right. Well, we've already heard from Len Rifkind. Okay. So first is Jan Johnson. Actually, this is for B. |
| 01:18:52.20 | Joan Cox | Okay, I have Wright Bass, then Joel Carr, and then Elina Franklin. Come up, please. |
| 01:19:01.53 | Wright Bass | Right, Das? Welcome. And I live right, Bass. I live across the street from the cons. I used to live in that empty lot that's above the bank. And my dad used to live there when we were kids. Oh, yeah. Anyway, but know the area well. And contrary to what this guy said, it is a very quiet street. Anyway, so I'm within about 100 feet of my deck. It's within about 100 feet of this deck. |
| 01:19:03.56 | Joan Cox | Welcome. |
| 01:19:03.91 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:19:03.95 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:19:03.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:19:04.08 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:19:04.10 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:19:04.89 | Joan Cox | Yeah. |
| 01:19:28.85 | Wright Bass | Thank you. And I never got a notice. Okay. So I don't know what that means. Anyway, I don't care about the rest of the project. I wish him good luck. But that observation deck is going to encroach on our neighborhood. And also, I'd want to note that that parking he's talking about has been reduced because of the new plaza by the ferry landing, which is very pretty. But there's a lot less parking spots. So I don't know how that's going to work. And I'm going to make one more point, and that's that. you're gonna get people speaking in favor of this plan. But I can tell you, none of them live on our street. I just want you to remember that, and I'm done. Thank you. |
| 01:20:11.03 | Joan Cox | Thank you. May I ask you, do you own or rent? I rent. Okay. |
| 01:20:15.60 | Wright Bass | Yeah, but been there since 1966. |
| 01:20:18.57 | Joan Cox | Thank you. All right, next is Joel Carr and then Alina Franklin and then Jody Moore. |
| 01:20:27.31 | Joel Carr | Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um, I am Joel Carr. I'm a proud Sausalito homeowner. um, This appeal is just simply beyond belief. It's a great way to save. This is a great way to save a historic building that has sat vacant for many years. The condition has resulted in significant amount of lost tax revenue that could have repaired our streets and potholes, improved our parks and many other infrastructure needs during the years when the revenue was lost. Sausalito is a premier tourist destination, and we must support high-end businesses. It is unimaginable that one party can derail an excellent project that already has unanimous approval by the planning commission. And the basis for the appeal is specious at best. All the issues in the appeal letter have been more than adequate adequately addressed by the city, the owners and today's testimonies. A successful community requires compromises by all the members of the community. Those who say no to everything are actually slowly killing our town, not saving it. Doing one-off things like selling a building like the B of A building, which has been put forward as a significant revenue generator, does nothing to improve our financial condition. We need new and ongoing tax revenue to begin making a difference. All the naysayers slow or stop the progress that could be made over years of slowly strangling good projects please deny this appeal and let us move ahead to make our city a vibrant place that supports all of us Thank you. |
| 01:22:10.69 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Elina Franke and then Jody Moore and then Renee Lind. |
| 01:22:15.94 | Elina Franklin | Thank you. Good evening. Thank you for the time to speak on the project. Really great project. So wonderful that somebody is coming and willing to restore the building while providing a revitalized use in our downtown. I am a three year resident and a recent homeowner in Sausalito. Definitely want to see improvements in the downtown core. We're an old town, which today I found out is not a term. Hurricane Gulch is the term. So we love the tourists there, but really the project is great. It preserves the historic building. It is a small hotel, so pretty sure the disturbance isn't going to be great, even if it's there until 10 p.m. according to the ordinance. And I think it's great to enhance the economic activity of our city and provide the funds to fix up some of the infrastructure you know, that needs fixing right now, but also improvements in the future. It also, It would be great to have a municipal code that doesn't allow a single neighbor to derail a whole project that benefits the whole community. Not very collaborative or community-like. Thank you. |
| 01:23:23.98 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Thank you. Jody Moore, and then Renee Lind, and then John Dimonte. |
| 01:23:33.27 | Jody Moore | Hello, Mayor and Councilmembers. There is before you tonight a desirable and innovative repurpose of an historic building in our downtown. It was unanimously approved by the Planning Commission and given the unanimous go ahead by the Historic Preservation Committee. Please bear in mind that it will add second story hotel rooms like all the other hotels in our downtown. It will add a street level restaurant and bar like other restaurants and bars in our downtown. Yes, it may have some parking challenges, but all the other businesses in our downtown do as well. It will increase much needed tax revenue to our city and replace an empty, dark building with renewed vibrancy. It will provide a lovely meeting place for our residents, their families, and our tourists. I urge you to deny this appeal and, if necessary, fight any action filed in court. Let your denial of this appeal send a message that this council will fight for what is best for the entire city and will not support the short sighted interests of a single resident to the detriment of the entire town and our tourists supporting our economy. I, for one, cannot wait to enjoy dinner at the pocket. Even the name is cool. Thank you. |
| 01:24:41.28 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:24:41.30 | Joan Cox | Thank you. All right, Renee Lind, then John Diamante, then Hank Baker. |
| 01:24:52.18 | Renee Lind | Good evening, Mayor and City Council. Um... I've been a resident of Sausalito for 15 years. I welcome anything that's going to add vibrancy to downtown and will bring more of our residents into downtown. a very vibrant and active commercial area. I have gone through the planning process. I know how thorough planning can be, and the fact that this was unanimously supported, I echo or I mirror what other people have said that to have one person come in and try to derail a project that's going to bring very badly needed tax revenue I wish that we could come up with a way that that's not possible going forward. So again, I know everyone's talked about the the contribution that this will make to both the vibrancy of downtown as well as to our badly needed tax revenue. So I am asking City Council to deny this appeal. Thank you. |
| 01:25:59.97 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Thank you. John Diamante, then Hank Baker, and then Babette McDougall. |
| 01:26:12.84 | John Dimonte | Good evening. This is a really difficult project and it has numerous challenges. Um, |
| 01:26:24.30 | John Dimonte | And because the two dozen inhabitants of the Dalmati apartments were not notified by postcard or letter or posting, you're only hearing from the appellant. You haven't heard from the people who are most affected, 30 feet away by possible noise, party activity, and so forth. of The issue of the trees is a complete red herring because it was at the last meeting, you all were told that PG&E after the removal of the trees And the appellant responded to PG&E. It was not a malicious or ornery thing she did. Reality number one is there are no views from any aspect of this project, not from the three rooms, not from any rooftop. You go up there, you'll see the best you see is a bit of the harbor, a little bit over the park toward Raccoon Straits. There are no views. Reality number two is no motor vehicle access to this property is possible. You have a five-page letter from me. In depth, it rehearses. detail all the difficulties of motor access. We're not talking about parking, we're talking about any kind of service. And you have my letter on that. So number three, the substantial change it introduces to the neighborhood, to these long-time inhabitants, most of whom are working people, that is, they are workers or retired, is substantial. So I would ask you, please, to continue the hearing, because I think you need additional information that will shed great light, especially from the immediate neighbors. And thank you. |
| 01:27:58.89 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:27:58.92 | Joan Cox | AND YOU CAN SEE THEM |
| 01:27:58.99 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:27:59.14 | Joan Cox | Yeah. |
| 01:27:59.19 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:27:59.26 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:27:59.31 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:28:00.40 | Joan Cox | Hank Baker, then Babette McDougall, then Carolyn Revelle. Thank you. |
| 01:28:05.79 | Hank Baker | Council, Hank Baker, resident of downtown Sausalito, business owner of downtown Sausalito, member of Sausalito's economic advisory committee, and interim member of the downtown PBID. I'm involved a lot in downtown. This is by far one of the most outstanding uses of a building I have possibly seen, and you're never going to get anything better. As far as the noise, We have the no-name bar that's open till one or two o'clock in the morning with music. We have Jazz by the Bay. We have the new restaurant that's going to be underneath the Sausalito Hotel. And many, many other noise things that are part of an active, successful downtown business. The The denial of this particular project will cause irreparable harm to the economy of Sausalito. to the benefit of one person, and I would finally suggest that the value of their real estate is probably gonna be increased by the completion of this project. Please... deny the appeal. Thank you. |
| 01:29:14.54 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:29:14.55 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Beppette McDougall, then Carolyn Revelle, then Adrienne Britton. |
| 01:29:23.85 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. So First of all, let me just not repeat anything that anybody said, because you already know I love the project and I also love the neighbors, but we have neighborhoods in Sausalito and each neighborhood. is its own acoustical bowl. And it was really great to hear the folks involved with the project actually speak about the issue of sound and that they've listened to it. Now let's take the bigger picture. The bigger picture is neighbors need to get along. So this idea of deny versus approve. Let's kill them or let's let them live. I mean, what about the meeting in the middle? Isn't that why we're here at the city council? Isn't that what the city council is for? The real straightforward nuts and bolts is handed the planning commission level, right? They're the ones that say, okay, it checks the boxes. All right, now the neighbors need to figure out how to get along from here. So not properly noticing the neighbors doesn't help. But let's move on. Let's find a way to meet in the middle because we are neighbors after all. Now, a vibrant downtown requires the laughter at night instead of the banking hours during the day. So there's a paradigm shift. Everyone needs to recognize change equals paradigm shift. Well, we want more vibrant downtown. We've got other businesses that are dying on the vine because there's not enough vibrancy downtown. So the more people can walk between establishments, the better it is for everyone. We just have to remember that there are people living in homes right above, a quiet neighborhood right above, And I suppose it's good why we sort of shut down early, even on Saturday nights. But I, for one, have a perfect ear shot of the cruising club, and I love that music. Thank you very much. |
| 01:31:05.98 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Carolyn Revell, then Adrian Britton, and then Branca Popovich. |
| 01:31:13.66 | Carolyn Revell | Good evening. I'm Carolyn Revell, and I'm also a member of the interim board of the Business Improvement District, and I'm here to support this imaginative reuse of an historic building for all the reasons that have been discussed, among them the boon to economic development for the downtown and revitalization of the city. of a wonderful building. I think the owner has gone over backwards to try to accommodate the concerns of the Appellant and has several suggestions for you tonight. I won't repeat them, but they seem to me to be quite sensitive, sensible ones, and I urge you to consider them so that this project can go forward. Thank you so much. |
| 01:31:51.29 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Adrian Brinton, then Branka Papovich, and then Ron Alberts. |
| 01:31:57.67 | Adrian Brinton | Adrian Brinton. Thank you for taking my comment. I'd like to comment on the parking. That's something that seems to be a real concern. We've done a lot of study of our parking lots and how we can generate more revenue from them. And one of the things that we found is that there's a lot of times when the parking lots are not full, One of the times they're not full is generally in the evenings and having a restaurant there with 120 seats that brings in people who are parking in our lots in the evening is a very, very good thing for the city. Generally in the evenings, there's plenty of space in the parking lots. I've seen it in the numbers from our meter revenue. Granted, there are some evenings like, you know, when there's fireworks, the lots are full, but that's the exception to the rule. So this will bring in a lot of revenue for us from that standpoint. The second comment I'd like to make is just about the noise. I myself, like Babette, I hear the cruising club. They're right down the street from me. I hear the music, I hear the noise. There's only one thing worse than hearing the noise of the cruising club, and that would be not hearing the noise of the cruising club. This means that we have a life in our city. And downtown, a quiet downtown is a dead downtown. I have to say an 11-foot wall, that was an interesting thing to hear. I mean, I think that's taller than most freeway sound walls. Freeway sound walls are built to reflect noise out from the freeway. The noise from this deck is going to be reflected out towards the bay. where maybe the anchor house will hear it. So I think that there's a lot of concern about the noise. I think that generally this noise is not going to be going up the hill. And if it is, we have sound noise ordinances that come into play. If the cruising club gets a little too rowdy, we can call and we can complain about the noise. We generally don't. So I think that this noise issue, while definitely a concern, is not something that should prevent this project that is so obviously great from the town from moving forward. Thank you. |
| 01:33:52.96 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:33:53.55 | Joan Cox | you |
| 01:33:53.61 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:33:54.39 | Joan Cox | Branka Papowicz, Ron Albert, and then Jan Johnson. Good evening. |
| 01:34:01.19 | Branka Popovich | Good evening. I am a resident of the Excelsior or Del Monte apartments. What I've heard all night tonight is you're saying smoke and mirrors. It is not fair from where I as a resident that we are, that we're demonizing one appellant, i.e. the con property, because there's many of us that feel the same thing as the appellant has provided this evening in the show, in the presentation, we who live there on a day-to-day basis, morning, noon, and night, do hear noises that would be exaggerated because of especially the party roof or the deck, party deck, whatever. And I also am concerned because with all the commotion that will be going on, which I love the project. I love the building, and I think it's wonderful that we'll see revenues generated for the city, which we do need. But I'm also concerned about the fact that there's a bus stop literally 100 yards away from this property and I watch people come and go especially in the summer with them people on bikes waiting for the 130 to go back to San Francisco. There is no place for them. to stand. I've seen 8, 10 people, 20 people where the bus can't even pick them up and that they have to wait for the next bus. And to have that congested right with outdoor dining and that just seems like a state of confusion that was not necessary. Just rethink the project or scale it down and I'd love to see that project continue. Thank you. |
| 01:35:32.92 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Ron Albert and then Jan Johnson. |
| 01:35:39.57 | Ron Albert | Good evening, Council members. I'm here to speak in support of the project. As most of you are aware, I served on the Council. Prior to that, I served on the Planning Commission. Many times I'd hear... angry, concerned neighbors expressing concern about all manners of things. I can't think of a single instance when they actually came to fruition with any project that I ever approved. It's natural when something is happening next door to you to fear the worst. I think the concerns regarding noise are overblown. The appellant made a lot of accommodations in order to get a 5-0 approval from the Historic Landmarks Board and a 5-0 approval from the Planning Commission. Re reference was made to the cruising club. The cruising club doesn't have a 10 o'clock curfew. This deck that everyone's so concerned about does. Um, I do call to your attention there are three learned attorneys up there. You may have some different thoughts, and I'm looking forward to hearing them. But absent certainty on how you're viewing things, I would defer to the appellant's counsel. I was disappointed, but I would defer to him. if he thinks the best course is to refer this back to the planning commission in order to make this thing bulletproof and put an end to the threat of litigation. Go ahead and do that. Thank you. |
| 01:37:27.57 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:37:27.61 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Jan Johnson and then I have no more speaker cards on this one. |
| 01:37:32.82 | Jan Johnson | I'm... I'm surprised. I'm surprised I'm speaking on this, but I think it's a lovely project. It's highly preferable than a multiple. a storied high-density housing unit. I live at the corner of 2nd and Richardson. When I first moved to my home, there was a little three-foot picket fence, the noise from the road was intolerable, including cars bottoming out from the dip. So I bit the bullet and I put in an acoustic sound wall. It made a complete difference to my home. The backyard is now quiet. I can enjoy the birds and actually hear them. So the sound wall that the Project developers are proposing should ameliorate any noise concerns that the surrounding neighbors have, at least in my personal experience. Thank you. |
| 01:38:28.74 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Sharna Brockett, then Ed Morisi, and I see Carly Toberg. |
| 01:38:35.98 | Sharna Brockett | Hi, I'm Sharna Brockett. I'm a resident. So I urge the city council to deny this appeal and move this project forward. Don't change a thing about it. The small viewing deck is great. It's a great amenity to the hotel and makes the whole project work. Um, I, I'm sure many of you read by now the recent San Francisco Chronicle article entitled California is full of NIMBYs. Sausalito is vying to rule them all. While it's focusing on our building housing, the same NIMBY mindset has blocked or delayed countless projects across town. The dumpy park that we enjoy today was people were against that the fairy plaza that's so beautiful now people were against that and more and more and more. And now here we are again with an appeal against a thoughtful project to restore a historic building and turn it into a first class restaurant and hotel. The property owner has meticulously worked with our historic preservation commission to get their unanimous approval. as well as the Planning Commission approval. Instead of celebrating this project as a rare opportunity to revitalize a historic district, we see familiar NIMBY objections, complaints about neighborhood character, and fear about noise. But let's be honest. Let's look at this neighborhood. There's our beloved church there, the Presbyterian Church on the Excelsior Lane. If it were proposed today, the same people would be in this room saying, we can't have a church there, we don't like weddings, we don't like Sunday services, potlucks or parking. They would be against it, let's be honest, but nobody's complaining about the church, and the church is right there in that neighborhood. So this project is a gift to Sausalito. Not everyone buys a historic building and really works with us to make it work. There are so many historic buildings like this across the Bay Area that are rotting because they just don't work. There's too much red tape. There's too many things they need to do to make it work with their historic preservation committees. So let's approve this project. Let's start to ask ourselves, how can projects like this benefit the whole community? instead of how do they possibly inconvenience me? Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:40:41.38 | Joan Cox | Ed Morisi and then Carlito Berg and then I have no more speaker cards. |
| 01:40:46.26 | Ed Morisi | Hi, my name is Ed Moreci. I have known this is not about the project. This is about the man behind the project known Kent for 52 years He and I were the first two guys that his dad hired At the first skip leanies pizza in downtown Clayton He was nine I was not nine. I was way older than that. But we've formed a friendship for now 52 years. Kent has always, at a young age and at a little bit older age, has been a visionary. What he sees, he makes happen. And he sees this project not next year, not next week. He sees it 30, 40 years down the road. and every town that hasn't that he has invested in has benefited greatly from an ipson project carmel clayton every town reno and they've all thanked themselves one town did not believe in his vision. And they kicked themselves every day because he built a project in the next town and it's flourishing. And if you have money to bet, I'm not a better, but I'm betting on Kent Dipson. He'll make it happen, and you will all benefit, and your children and your grandchildren will benefit. So thank you very much for your time. |
| 01:42:22.63 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:42:24.69 | Joan Cox | Carlito Berg and then Tracy Clifford. |
| 01:42:28.86 | Carlito Berg | Hi, everybody. Carlito Berg. I live in the Marino ship on Varda Landing. I just want to tell a super, super quick story. When this building came on the market, I took a look at it, toured it with the brokers. There's obviously a lot of different things to look at in a historic building. There's a lot of constraints. The creativity to put in a hotel like this is something that I have never seen, especially on the small scale. on a high, excuse me, on a high ADR basis. Um, but really what we're talking about here is, is it easy to do business in Sausalito or not? Um, is it, is this something where we're going to, where people are going to come into town retail, you know, we have a formula retail thing and is the formula that we're going to look at be exclusionary and rejection or is it it going to be welcoming and, as Ibsen has done, be incredibly compromising? One of the things that I had looked at was getting a French-Japanese company called Bullion who have totally that same aesthetic. They could have kept the facade of the building. They talked to some local brokers in San Francisco. They wanted their first American store. The local brokers referred them to some Marin brokers. The Marin broker said, Don't you dare go to Sausalito. It will never work. It's a really bad idea. They're going to reject you. So they said, we can't be in this project. I said, okay, I can't bid on this building. So the idea that. Um, that the Ipsen companies had to do this is incredible. It's small scale. It's really low impact. It brings vibrancy to downtown. It's something that should absolutely be approved. And like another commenter said, this appellant is totally spurious. You guys should approve this. It's pretty straightforward. Thank you. |
| 01:44:21.06 | Unknown | Thank you. And Tracy Clifford. |
| 01:44:25.69 | Tracy Clifford | Thank you very much, Mayor, Council Members. I want to thank you for being bold enough to come into a town like Sausalito and try a project like this. We are not, as the gentleman just said, the easiest city to get things done. That doesn't mean it's not worth it. But. What is happening to our town? I want to talk to you guys too. What's happening to our town? I walk around here. I, until I recently put my dog down every day for six years. Walk downtown. and would engage with tourists, would engage with the locals, would engage with the business people. Our business owners are dying. They're looking for jobs so that they can keep people on in their store. Because we don't have people coming to our town. San Francisco's not getting tourism. Therefore, we don't get tourism. We're not doing anything to promote it. to the nearby communities And Marin, to drive business into town from then, maybe another restaurant would help us do that. But this is desperately needed for the vitality of Sausalito. for the continuance of investment in our infrastructure. And for... Sausalito would become a destination again. It's no longer a destination. People won't come here. from, anywhere else in Marin. You don't talk to people from there. You talk to them from South Bay, talk to them from East Bay. You just don't talk to them from a rent. And I would tell you, If I'm not mistaken, there are three units. Three units. That's gotta be one hell of a party deck. And I would like to be invited. |
| 01:46:17.58 | Jacques Ullman | it. |
| 01:46:18.81 | Tracy Clifford | You got a whole apartment complex behind it, and you're worried about three units. It's ridiculous. It's a frivolous lawsuit. Thank you, sir. I ask you to deny this. |
| 01:46:27.51 | Joan Cox | Thank you, sir. Anything online, city clerk? |
| 01:46:32.84 | Walfred Solorzano | We have about six speakers. I wanted to ask, Elizabeth Berkus is one of the people on public comment. Is she allowed? No, she is. |
| 01:46:41.19 | Joan Cox | No, she did not reserve any time. you |
| 01:46:43.10 | Walfred Solorzano | Understood. |
| 01:46:44.30 | Joan Cox | All right. |
| 01:46:44.60 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:46:44.63 | Joan Cox | I'm not sure. |
| 01:46:44.87 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:46:44.90 | Joan Cox | Pastor Paul Murray? |
| 01:46:46.10 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:46:51.30 | Paul Murray | Hi. Can you hear me? |
| 01:46:53.34 | Branka Popovich | Thank you. |
| 01:46:53.36 | Paul Murray | Yes. |
| 01:46:53.68 | Branka Popovich | Thank you. |
| 01:46:53.71 | Paul Murray | Great. Sorry. Yeah, I'm Paul Mowry. I've lived and worked on this block for 13 plus years. I'm the pastor of the Saucido Presbyterian Church. Charmingly referenced earlier, thank you. We've been, the church has been here since 1906 Like I think everyone who has spoken in favor of the appeal, I'm excited about the restaurant. Let's not lose track of that. We have legitimate concerns, but we're not anti-business. We're not anti-development. We've supported A lot of the things that have been um, have been developing here. I'm sorry, Carlito. was discouraged from the site. But first, so let me first clarify something. There's this repetitive and odd tone against the appeal from one neighbor who filed the appeal that really casts a strange tone to this. That one neighbor speaks for me and my family and for my place of work. And secondly, Um, fairly represents the position of every one of my neighbors I've spoken with I'm not sure. around here. The planning commission earlier and the respondent erroneously think that this is just about the view 14 Excelsior Lane. That's not why everyone has shown up. one neighbor is carrying the weight for the neighborhood and is being characterized as some lone wolf campaign. And I just think it's really inaccurate and unfair. And nevertheless, a lot of great campaigns I've been, led by one person. I think that what we're really concerned about is the sound. The gentleman from the development said he walked around and saw all these balconies. You know what, those balconies belong to people who are permanent residents. We're not in Sausalito for the weekend having a great time. and hooting it up. I really think that I'm really, really glad that they've added that 24 seven onsite management. It should definitely be. a, requirement for the proposal. But I also think that |
| 01:48:54.72 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Who's next? |
| 01:48:57.14 | Walfred Solorzano | Joris Von Menz. |
| 01:49:05.02 | Joris Von Menz | Hi there, this is George speaking. I'm a resident of Sausalito for many years. This looks like a really great project and I'm very excited that it's coming to our town. I wish in the future we could, find a way to make such improvements perhaps happen a little bit more speedily. But I'm very excited about this one and looking forward to visiting the restaurant very soon. Thank you. |
| 01:49:31.91 | Unknown | Thank you. City Clerk? |
| 01:49:33.82 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker is Beth Swerke. |
| 01:49:43.15 | Beth Swerg | Thank you. Hello. Hi. I'm Beth Swart. Um, Can you hear me okay? Yes. Okay, great. Beth Stork, resident of 10 years. You know, I sat in the city council meetings when we were talking about the ferry landing and I listened to true visionaries in the landscape architect field who do work in Barcelona and Brooklyn and we're offering their time for free to invest in our town and make it special. And it was a fight. And now I hear visionaries in this business who want to bring such a beautiful thing here again, how lucky we are that all of these visionaries want to bring, their visions to Sausalito and make us a better town. What I don't want in my backyard are no storefronts and no businesses and no life and no vitality in our town. I coincidentally was just talking to a friend a couple of weeks ago, who's in Tiburon about a trip I'm taking to Carmel. And knowing nothing, she said, If you go to one place, you have to go to the pocket. It's the most special, unique gem of a place in Carmel. And what a beautiful opportunity would be for us to be able to say that about Sausalito, to bring in tourism, to have a place for us locals, even others in Marin, the city, whatnot to come to. This is an opportunity that we shouldn't pass up. And I urge you to continue to move it forward as you all have been wanting to. Thank you. |
| 01:51:10.21 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker is Bonnie McGregor. |
| 01:51:19.71 | Bonnie McGregor | Can you hear me now? |
| 01:51:21.47 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 01:51:22.18 | Bonnie McGregor | Okay. I was muted. Well, I'm a long-term resident. I've been here over 40 years and I've been involved with various things around Sausalito for the whole time. And I've seen projects come and go and other projects never be able to get started because how difficult it is to do it year and down. Part of it is procedures and part of it is the group I have labeled the no-no gang. They just say no. They don't have a reason for saying no. This this appellate does at least have a reason for saying no. I'm 100% behind moving forward this project as quickly as possible. I also walk all over downtown. And then I stop and chat with the merchants as well as everybody else. And the number of merchants that are really upset and almost going under is unbelievable. And I think some of them tell me things not to be passed around, but I can tell you this, there are a lot of them who are really, really hurting. We need to get this going. And I spent 15 years in the hospitality business, in other words, the restaurant and bar business. And I had pubs. which were a lot noisier than this could ever be, even if it tried to be noisy. with three rooms and it has to be a price point that is not exactly going to attract hell raisers. Bye. really think these people are stretching for a reason to say no to something. that I'm opposed to saying, no, let's move forward with this and let's do it now, please. It's still going to take them a year to get it running. |
| 01:52:53.34 | Unknown | Thank you. City Clerk. |
| 01:52:56.07 | Walfred Solorzano | We have Ava. |
| 01:53:00.31 | Ava Krizan | Thanks. As someone who worked many years in Sausalito in the hospitality industry, I just like to remind the people who are so concerned about the noise in this project that Sausalito has not always been this fusty and fussy. You know, it was a working town for a long time. It had lots of noise. It had lots of bars. If you know the history of Harry Bridges, you know that he was actually jumped by two people over politics at Sally Stanford's back in the day. That was the early 1950s, legendary union leader. I mean, I, I understand that the population of Sausalito is aging and they've become incredibly averse to change and incredibly conservative and that's too bad. you know, The history of Sausalito is a lot longer than most of the people who are complaining. about Um, you know, noise that they can learn to live with. It's a downtown area. It needs to be understood as such. And I do want to point out that the extreme conservatism with regard to any change in Sausalito is really evident on the body cam that I got from Um, through a CPRA request to the city regarding the September 26 incident. at the candidate forum. I'm going to stop there. This is, |
| 01:54:39.14 | Joan Cox | I'm going to stop there. This is only going to hear public comment related to this project. |
| 01:54:49.23 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 01:54:49.25 | Joan Cox | did she hang up? |
| 01:54:49.93 | Babette McDougall | Yeah. |
| 01:54:50.33 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:54:50.45 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:54:50.55 | Walfred Solorzano | Oh, but I'm going to... I'll ask her to mute. |
| 01:54:54.72 | Joan Cox | No, she can finish her comment. She just can't comment about something that is not the agendized item. |
| 01:55:02.36 | Ava Krizan | I'm just going to point out, and thank you for unmuting me, I'm just going to point out that this sort of contempt from certain members of the board, of the council, toward the First Amendment, this is relevant. And I think what you see in general, the criticism that you just got in the San Francisco |
| 01:55:24.97 | Walfred Solorzano | That was our two minutes. Next speaker is Jacques Ullman. |
| 01:55:34.54 | Jacques Ullman | Yes, I definitely am in favor of this project and I wasn't going to really take your time, but I have to respond to this. to the recent comment about the population getting older, I'm going to be 90 and October and I've lived here since 1970. And I've been for a lot of the changes here. I was behind improvements in Dumpy Park. and our plaza. So a little bit resent the impression that us older folks are all negative. I have not been one of the no people in this town. Thank you. |
| 01:56:11.95 | Joan Cox | I don't know if you could hear it, Jacques. There's applause for you. Yeah. |
| 01:56:16.17 | Jacques Ullman | Okay. |
| 01:56:16.27 | Joan Cox | Okay. |
| 01:56:22.08 | Unknown | Anything else, City Clerk? |
| 01:56:23.28 | Walfred Solorzano | Charles Melton. |
| 01:56:23.63 | Unknown | of the |
| 01:56:31.23 | Charles Melton | Good evening City Council, my name is Charles Meltson. I want to provide some comments tonight. Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments on this issue. Sausalito is not just a collection of buildings and neighborhoods. It's a shared endeavor, a place where we all benefit from progress. As a community, we all contribute to challenges and solutions that come with our unique yet wonderful city. Some opponents of this project have suggested that its impact will be unfairly borne by a select few. The reality is the repurpose of this building, especially responsible small-scale projects like this one benefit the entire city. It drives economic activity, drives support for local businesses who desperately need it right now, and enhances our cultural and historical appreciation by giving a new purpose to historic spaces rather than allowing them to deteriorate or remain underutilized. Change by its nature brings adjustment, but any burdens of progress must be weighed against the burdens of stagnation, which our downtown suffers from. Leaving historic properties empty serves no one. Restricting a thoughtful and appropriate revitalization of a historic building, |
| 01:57:00.77 | Unknown | THE FEDERAL. |
| 01:57:30.73 | Charles Melton | does not preserve our city's character, it risks allowing it to wither or worse, be subject to even grander developments in the future. This hotel will not be a high rise, a disruptive mega development, or corporate intrusion to our city's history. It is a small, carefully considered investment in our community, repurposing a historic space in a way that honors its past while ensuring its future. I urge us to remember that our city thrives when we embrace balanced, fair, and forward-thinking decisions. Progress should not be seen as a burden on a select few, but as a shared opportunity for all. This project is a prime example of thoughtful, reasonable, and a responsible project. I urge our city council to deny the appeal and move this project forward. Thank you for the opportunity to provide comments. |
| 01:58:15.58 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:58:15.61 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:58:15.77 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:58:16.88 | Walfred Solorzano | No further public speakers. Oh, yeah, no further public speakers. |
| 01:58:20.00 | Joan Cox | OK, so I'm going to close public comment. At the beginning of this hearing, I gave appellant an opportunity to reserve. She did not. I don't believe any new issues have been raised during public comment. But I am nevertheless going to give both the appellant and the respondent two minutes to address issues raised during public comment to the extent they believe those issues were not previously addressed. |
| 01:58:51.74 | Unknown | So if you- |
| 01:58:51.81 | Joan Cox | So can you promote Elizabeth Brekus to a panelist, please, city clerk? |
| 01:59:08.40 | Elizabeth Reckes | Hi there. Hi there. Welcome back. Thank you. Well, the main thing I want to address is the lack of notice that was raised by various tenants. And I did email the city today and advise that there were five specific tenants that my client had spoken to who, said that they did not get notice of this. And given that the last hearing was, terminate it because of lack of notice. I want it you know, the city to know about that. And the response back was that There wasn't notice to the tenants. And yet that notice was not a reason to not go forward with the hearing because under your code. Lack of notice is not a reason to eliminate a decision. But I just don't feel like that does justice to the spirit of public notice, which is, we give notice to everybody. And giving notice to the owners, that's important and that's good. But it seems very unfair to not give notice to the tenants, many of whom, are in the apartment building very close to this project. And so some of them spoke about this. I believe that that was a wide spell. spread failure. The email I got, which I do ask that my email and the email from the city attorney And, um, from you, Mayor. be part of the public record. I looked while the break was happening and I don't see it's on the agenda. I asked that that be added. And the explanation was, well, our notice to the public to to people that aren't owners. is kind of antiquated. So we just didn't give notice, but we don't have to invalidate it. And I just think that's wrong. I think that You know, South Salado has a lot of tenants. It's really important that you give notice. it would be very unfair if owners get notice and tenants don't. And so- |
| 02:01:18.15 | Joan Cox | I'm sorry, that's your two minutes, Ms. Brekus. But I think you've made your point. Thank you. All right, and I'll give the respondent an opportunity to respond. You have two minutes as well. |
| 02:01:30.93 | Len Rivkind | I think the council's probably heard enough, and so I want to use my two minutes to offer the council to ask any questions of Mr. Ipsen. Architect is also present, or God forbid you'll ask me some legal question that I won't know the answer to. But we're available to answer your questions before you deliberate if you have any. |
| 02:01:51.44 | Joan Cox | That's a separate process. I'm going to allow that to happen after I close the |
| 02:01:58.47 | Len Rivkind | We have nothing further to add. |
| 02:02:00.64 | Joan Cox | All right, thank you. All right, so with that, I will close the public hearing and bring it back up here for a motion and or City Council. um, discussion, I am going to go ahead and make a motion Um, that we remand this matter to to the Planning Commission and give the applicant an opportunity to make application for the CUP as referenced by the appellant during their presentation. And as some of you pointed out, that is actually motion that the respondent is seeking. And so I think both parties would like to see this properly Um, heard and our staff have acknowledged that that the Planning Commission did not initially consider the CUP for parking. I would also like to direct staff that any noticing for this project be that staff use their best faith efforts to transmit notice to owners and tenants. within 300 feet. |
| 02:03:20.06 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. I can second that motion. |
| 02:03:23.09 | Joan Cox | Thank you. And so I'm open for friendly amendments or a alternate motion or discussion. |
| 02:03:31.35 | Melissa Blaustein | THE END OF THE END OF THE Madam Mayor, one of my questions to The applicant was, if he wanted to repeat, I think he had four items that he was going to request, I guess not remand to the Planning Commission, but referral back to the Planning Commission. And I had. |
| 02:03:51.97 | Joan Cox | He had mentioned the an ordinance, but that's not something we have to do by motion. That's something staff can consider as it considers bringing this back to the Planning Commission. |
| 02:04:04.05 | Melissa Blaustein | I just wondered if we wanted to have that in our, what his, his request, if we had. |
| 02:04:08.79 | Joan Cox | Mr. Rifkin, did you want to step back up? Because I only heard two requests. |
| 02:04:11.49 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. |
| 02:04:16.77 | Melissa Blaustein | Four. Yeah, I had in my notes four. But I heard four from the appellant. They looked like they were in your notes. |
| 02:04:23.29 | Len Rivkind | We're not the appellate, we're the applicant. |
| 02:04:24.96 | Melissa Blaustein | the app. I know. I heard the app. I didn't. All right. Pardon me. |
| 02:04:25.92 | Joan Cox | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:04:25.97 | Len Rivkind | I'm sorry. |
| 02:04:26.21 | Len Rivkind | Hexner's a leader. Right. What I was talking about about the ordinance issue is I'm trying to avoid years of litigation. I want this project to go forward. And so my esteemed... colleague that I hear often in these matters is telling me that she's going to challenge the, you know, on a writ, if you approve this issue about the use of hotel on the second floor. And so it seems to me the best way around that is simply to amend your zoning ordinance to expressly say that, I mean, that's assuming the council agrees with that, just happens to be hundreds of hotel rooms on second floors all around the town. So it's not like a big stretch in my view that agrees with that, just happens to be at hundreds of hotel rooms on second floors all around the town. So it's not like a big stretch in my view. That's how we would like to take that issue basically off the table from something that could be litigated in this case. or there's, all comes down to basically is the deck, the deck, uh, viewing deck in our view or in the party deck and the appellants view. And, um, and so, We're comfortable that that that is the issue that ultimately is presented, that if they want to challenge on that, we think the council, of course, can make findings for the variants. approve that so the things that i specifically want is i would like to see a remand about the parking that we've just talked about uh some language that the council direct staff to consider an ordinance like what we're talking about i don't know if it's appropriate at this point or how you do it but i'd like to see something like that Um, I'd like to see language from this council based upon all the testimony and information you've had that suggests direction to the planning commission on your feeling about whether or not the viewing deck is you can make findings for the variance or not. Um, And then lastly, we had the FAR. you know, and... And. our view is that based upon the information that you've seen that we comply with the 1.3 we're actually at 1.298 or something like that if I did the math right, but we're below the 1.3 threshold and we would like to see direction at least either. direct I don't know procedurally whether you make the decision tonight or you remanded the Planning Commission, but that based upon the evidence and information you've received that the FAR's requirements have been met as well. |
| 02:06:48.40 | Joan Cox | I think the Planning Commission already made those findings on the FAR and on the variants. |
| 02:06:52.36 | Len Rivkind | Well, then if you can approve that tonight, that's what we would like to see. |
| 02:06:57.03 | Joan Cox | Okay, I do want to add to my motion a request that the Planning Commission add a condition of approval that there be 24-7 on-site management, as staff has announced was the applicant's intention. |
| 02:07:12.91 | Melissa Blaustein | I see our city attorney's got his camera on. Yep. Did he need to weigh in on something? |
| 02:07:18.65 | Joan Cox | you |
| 02:07:18.80 | Melissa Blaustein | I'm sorry. |
| 02:07:18.97 | Joan Cox | Yeah. |
| 02:07:19.12 | Sergio Rudin | Yes. |
| 02:07:19.97 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. |
| 02:07:20.26 | Joan Cox | Hold on one second. Is there a second to my amendment? |
| 02:07:20.59 | Sergio Rudin | Bye. |
| 02:07:23.97 | Steven Woodside | So I'm understanding it. This is something that the applicant has conceded. |
| 02:07:30.41 | Joan Cox | According to staff, yes. |
| 02:07:32.91 | Steven Woodside | Correct? |
| 02:07:33.42 | Unknown | Yes, and I'm happy to confirm that that condition is currently written into the draft resolution attached to this agenda. We intend to keep that. |
| 02:07:33.69 | Joan Cox | you know, |
| 02:07:33.76 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. |
| 02:07:33.79 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:07:33.89 | Steven Woodside | to the next episode. |
| 02:07:33.92 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:07:41.13 | Unknown | Thanks. Thank you. Okay, all right, city attorney. |
| 02:07:45.38 | Sergio Rudin | Um, Okay, yeah, I was going to comment on your motion and that I think that you can remand the matter to the planning consideration to consider with some direction, but I don't think that we can require at the Council the imposition of conditions for the planning commission's Uh, decision. |
| 02:08:04.37 | Babette McDougall | Okay. Okay, thank you. |
| 02:08:06.91 | Steven Woodside | If I can just add, that's certainly my view. I think we are an appellate body sitting here. We may have formed conclusions already about how we see the project based upon a lot of testimony, but we're not able to come to a conclusion until other T's have been crossed and I's have been dotted, so to speak. So I think the proper remedy right now is to remand it to the Planning Commission so they can address the various issues that have been raised at this hearing and perhaps correct if there's a problem so that when it comes back, if it does, on an appeal, we have a much cleaner record and certainly greater certainty with respect to some of the issues that have been raised both here tonight and at the previous hearing. |
| 02:08:07.03 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 02:08:55.61 | Joan Cox | Great. So the motion does not include direction. I was asking for the Planning Commission to consider adding a condition of approval regarding the 24 seven onsite management, which is an issue raised by the, and that the staff has indicated the respondent is willing to provide. All right, any further discussion? |
| 02:09:15.80 | Jill Hoffman | for me. Thank you. |
| 02:09:18.90 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:09:18.95 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:09:19.48 | Joan Cox | Yes. |
| 02:09:19.49 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, I guess I... |
| 02:09:20.89 | Joan Cox | Yes. |
| 02:09:21.03 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 02:09:21.43 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. Well, I'm just wondering if you consider having that ask for direction to be separate from your primary motion because, uh, I support the one, but. not the other. I understand where you're coming from there. and even understand that perhaps the applicant has conceded that that's what he's going to do, but I was wondering if he'd be willing to separate them for your, while you're thinking about it, just thought I would ask the applicant a question, which is, um, much like what we're just talking about with this 24 seven, Uh, presence, are there other concessions that were made in the course of attempting to avoid being here in this appeal? That. you made that might, you might Now, might not be in the best interests of the project, that since you weren't able to actually reach reach a agreement with the that pellet. that you might wanna now change the project Is there anything like that? |
| 02:10:22.35 | Ian Sobieski | there was a question for Mr. Rifkin or Mr. or the other person feeds. |
| 02:10:26.69 | Joan Cox | So I, First of all, The project Yeah. I've already closed the public hearing. So... |
| 02:10:35.11 | Ian Sobieski | I'm sorry, I thought we had a chance to ask the question. So I thought you said that there was a chance. So if I misunderstood that we're not allowed to. |
| 02:10:40.21 | Joan Cox | I offered an opportunity to ask questions after the staff presentation. |
| 02:10:45.47 | Ian Sobieski | So there's no more question time. If that's the case, then I'm sorry, I didn't know that we weren't allowed to ask questions. I will not ask the question. |
| 02:10:51.36 | Joan Cox | I will. I don't want to thwart your ability to ask questions, but the The agenda clearly says staff report, then council questions, then public comments, then Motion and discussion. amongst ourselves. So I did close the public hearing already. um, |
| 02:11:09.76 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, well, then I will just say that I the reason I was suggesting you might want to separate your direction around the 24 hour monitoring from your other motion, which is remaining back to the planning commission is because I don't. I understand that there is from the presentation I got the impression that there's several concessions made by the applicant to the appellate in. in an attempt to avoid there being a continuation of the appeal. And so rather than the goalposts constantly being moved, you know, I would rather that the They should just be Consider it. uh, cleanly. |
| 02:11:45.61 | Joan Cox | So I actually asked that the planning commission consider that condition of approval because I personally believe that site security is important, particularly for a brand new hotel restaurant and so that's something I personally. as a council member would like the Planning Commission to consider And it's an issue raised by the appellant. And it sounds as though the respondent has already conceded that point. So I'm not inclined to shrink the requirements of the respondent simply because they didn't reach an agreement with the appellant. |
| 02:12:26.98 | Ian Sobieski | So you're combining the two things into one motion. |
| 02:12:30.84 | Joan Cox | It's a consider. It's simply a request that they consider, not that they adopt, just that they consider. I can't get a correction to that. |
| 02:12:39.34 | Ian Sobieski | I can see that. Can I add some other things for them to consider? |
| 02:12:46.31 | Jill Hoffman | Any other comment? Yes. I just want to thank the members of the public who came. We received a lot of comment and most of it was in favor of a robust downtown, whether whether or not there was full approval of the project in its current form. Everyone was excited to share the perspective and really invigorated by new interests in the downtown so i really appreciate all of the feedback that we receive and again we are an appellate body but i just wanted to say that it really we really did um we received numerous email correspondences prior to this meeting as well we reviewed all of those and it's great to see so much public engagement on this and i was wondering if we might be able to just given the amount of effort that the um that the applicant has put forth thus far, find a way to agendize this sooner rather than later at the Planning Commission. I don't know what the future agendas look like, but if there's a way we can give direction to do that, I would like to see that. |
| 02:13:43.98 | Joan Cox | happen. |
| 02:13:44.31 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:13:44.41 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:13:44.43 | Jill Hoffman | I |
| 02:13:45.02 | Joan Cox | I believe that the applicant actually has to file an application for a cup before the planning commission can hear that application. So I'm not sure it's fully within our control in terms of schedule, even though we're remanding it. even though we're remanding it, we're remanding it to address issues raised by both the appellant and the respondent. Yes, Councilmember Sobieski. |
| 02:14:08.27 | Ian Sobieski | This just points to a real problem with our code mayor. I mean, it's just nuts. I mean, I'm not a municipal attorney. I get it, but I don't understand why it is that the Supreme legislative body of the city of Sausalito isn't able to act in a more expeditious manner. to help either the applicant or the appellant in this matter. And so I'm looking for a little guidance by colleagues and we'll discussion about what other direction might be able to give the our city staff. that's a good question. to solve this problem going if not in this one instance going forward, so that we don't get into this, endless, seemingly endless delay. for resolution. |
| 02:14:51.71 | Joan Cox | Councilmember, I recommend you bring that up during future agenda items. |
| 02:15:00.94 | Joan Cox | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 02:15:06.17 | Melissa Blaustein | I, I, I think that this process that we're going through is the appropriate process. And I too am appreciative of everybody who came forward and made their comments tonight. As always, when we have these kinds of hearings here at the city council, we appreciate everybody who comes forward. And I want to acknowledge everybody that came forward. It's not. an easy thing to come. and appear at a city council meeting, especially in person. And when you're talking about somebody's home, and when you're talking about big changes or perceived changes next to somebody's home, that's always something that is of concern. and it takes a certain amount of bravery to come down here and speak about that when that's something that's happening next to your house. And so I hope that we're all going to be kind and patient with people that come down here and talk about concerns that are happening next to their home. And I think Pastor Mallory, who spoke with compassion with people in his neighborhood and the people from the Del Monte apartments that came and spoke. And I understand and I'm empathetic to the concerns that they have. And I think the developers at the pocket end that are compassionate to the people that are next to them in that neighborhood and are working to listen and are working with their neighbors to come up with a solution. I have every thought that they're going to come up with a solution for their neighbors there, and it looks to me like they're going to come up with some good solutions. So thank you for that. |
| 02:16:56.30 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:16:59.37 | Steven Woodside | nothing further. |
| 02:17:00.49 | Joan Cox | I will go ahead and say thank you to everyone as well. And I also do want to... I had not realized that Carlito Berg had previously visited that property and considered bringing a business there and was thwarted by the perception of the challenges of doing business in Sausalito. want to tell you that part of our strategic planning effort this year on January 11th improved customer service, faster turnaround times, and facilitating business development in Sausalito. Um, I also... feel badly that this project has had a couple of hiccups in terms of noticing, in terms of the scope of the project initially considered by the Planning Commission, and we are working to address those challenges, and I thank the applicant for their perseverance. I thank Ms. Brekus for coming back here to make her presentation a second time, even though she was under the weather. And I can tell you that the staff and the council are committed to ensuring that we dot our I's and cross our T's moving forward to ensure that when this comes to the Planning Commission, it is properly considered and when or if it comes back up here the same. is true. We are really committed to transparency. One of the things we love most about our community is how involved our residents are and how much they care about what goes on in our community. And so we have designed our ordinances to ensure transparency and to ensure process, both at the planning commission level where they really investigate the nuts and bolts and at the city council level where we have, you know, bigger picture, perspective regarding matters that we consider. So we are doing our best and we will do better moving forward. And I see Councilmember Sobieski has more comment. |
| 02:19:12.06 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, well, I just appreciate what you had to say there. I just wanted to offer an alternate perspective because I come from the world where time equals money. And, you know, we are later today going to see an agenda item with tens of millions of dollars of liability and, uh, And we have a real need in town to strike a balance between many competing interests. So when I look around at our vacant storefronts and I hear when literally a book has been written about our Um, planning process, I am applicant, then I think there's, you know, it's an open question whether we're getting that balance straight. So, um, You know, I don't want to. open up, celebrate prematurely. I think it's a great strategic goal. and we have to balance many competing interests, but I think we have our work cut out for us. |
| 02:20:03.02 | Joan Cox | All right, with that, I'm going to call the question. City Clerk, will you call the roll? |
| 02:20:08.22 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blosty. |
| 02:20:10.50 | Joan Cox | Yes. |
| 02:20:11.42 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman? you |
| 02:20:12.84 | Joan Cox | Yeah. |
| 02:20:13.03 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Councilmember Sobieski? Yes. Vice Mayor Woodside? Yes. And Mayor Cox? |
| 02:20:19.54 | Joan Cox | Yes, that motion carries unanimously. We're going to go ahead and take five minutes, and then we will resume. |
| 02:20:35.25 | Joan Cox | Okay, everybody, we are back. During the break, I had an opportunity to confer with the city manager and the agenda setting committee, and we are going to postpone from our agenda this evening. the item 4B the formula retail item, we will hear that on April 1st. And so we're going to move right to The item 4C, introduction and waiver of first reading of ordinance number 042025. re-adopting Chapter 2.60 Military Equipment Use, and I will welcome our Police Chief St. Gregory. |
| 02:21:17.10 | Chris Zapata | I'm. Mayor, if I may, so on 4B, which you're pushing to the next meeting, is there a public comment? |
| 02:21:22.81 | Joan Cox | I am going to take public comment. Thank you, City Manager. Is there any public comment on item 4B? City clerk. |
| 02:21:31.89 | Walfred Solorzano | You have the speaker. |
| 02:21:35.89 | Joan Cox | So we're not going to hear it tonight, but if someone, we will hear it on April 1st. So if anybody would like to comment. You're welcome. |
| 02:21:43.31 | Jan Johnson | She went. |
| 02:21:43.82 | Joan Cox | Public comment for 4B. Yes, we're not going to hear the item tonight, but you may still provide public comment tonight if you like. |
| 02:21:56.89 | Joan Cox | Anybody online, city clerk? |
| 02:22:00.27 | Jan Johnson | Will you allow public comment on April? |
| 02:22:02.60 | Joan Cox | I absolutely will. The full agenda item will be on April 1st. We just ran late, and so... |
| 02:22:04.35 | Jan Johnson | that. |
| 02:22:09.50 | Joan Cox | Sorry about that folks. |
| 02:22:14.65 | Joan Cox | All right, so I see three. Absolutely. |
| 02:22:17.57 | Walfred Solorzano | Do you have some speakers online? |
| 02:22:19.12 | Joan Cox | Okay, go ahead. |
| 02:22:19.19 | Walfred Solorzano | THE END OF THE END OF THE Okay. Okay, we'll start with Eva. |
| 02:22:24.82 | Ava Krizan | I'm sorry, I just want to clarify it. I left during the break and it sounds like you've changed up the agenda. So you've removed You have removed 4B. Correct. Okay. Um, but you will still be taking a comment on 4C, am I correct? WE'RE GOING TO BE ABLE |
| 02:22:45.97 | Joan Cox | about to hear that next. |
| 02:22:47.70 | Ava Krizan | Okay, so I would like to speak on 4C. I do not need to speak on 4B. |
| 02:22:51.91 | Joan Cox | to speak on forward. Yeah. |
| 02:22:53.26 | Ava Krizan | it is raised it is |
| 02:22:54.98 | Joan Cox | You can raise your hand after the presentation, Ms. Krizam. |
| 02:22:55.60 | Ava Krizan | Because you. |
| 02:23:02.18 | Joan Cox | We're right now on item 4B. Anything else online, city clerk? |
| 02:23:05.95 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah, Lorette Rogers. |
| 02:23:15.25 | Walfred Solorzano | All right, and we can unmute yourself. |
| 02:23:21.54 | Lorette Rogers | Hi, Lorette Rogers. My husband, Mike, and I have been part of Sausalito for a long time. I'm fourth generation Renite, and both of our grandfathers worked on Renship. And by the way, in the 1940s, my mother worked as a teller in the bank, just disgust. So that's kind of fun. |
| 02:23:37.70 | Joan Cox | of fun. Did you hear our announcement that we're going to hear 4B on April 1st and not tonight? I'll be on vacation. |
| 02:23:45.47 | Lorette Rogers | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:23:45.72 | Joan Cox | Okay. |
| 02:23:45.99 | Lorette Rogers | Thank you. Can I have a little more time? I just need to do that. |
| 02:23:48.29 | Joan Cox | Absolutely take your comment. Go ahead. |
| 02:23:50.68 | Lorette Rogers | Thank you. |
| 02:23:51.29 | Joan Cox | Yeah. |
| 02:23:51.48 | Lorette Rogers | So as you heard, we're old timers. We're residents of Spring Valley. My husband's family has been there for 100 years. As old timers, we are alarmed at the move to take the CN1 area of Spring Valley and combine it with two other CN areas. Don't understand why this is happening. we ask please let us nearby residents have a say as to what formula retail is going in close to our homes I watched this past Saturday morning before 7 a.m a large delivery truck pulled into a lot between a business and our cousin's house to offload supplies and I just wondered about our cousin sleeping about 20 feet away from that truck 20 feet away from the man with the forklift I mean it's a trade-off but it's one that highlights how important it is to think about retail placement very carefully because the placements of these formula retail operations can have big consequences for us nearby neighbors. We must have a say as to what comes into our little neighborhoods close to our homes. So first, please don't combine the three commercial neighborhood areas. Please don't do that. Retain the existing CN1 zoning for spring and Easterby streets. And second, please don't eliminate the planning commission process from the formula retail permit process. Once a formula retail business goes in, it will be there forever. And please let those of us who live right there a place at the table. Proceed very carefully. The formula is the formula retailer, the best operator for Sausalito and is the retail store in keeping with the character of the neighborhood. We're all worried that the formula retail stores will all end up in one place and thoughtless formula retail development could bring inappropriate congestion, traffic, noise and garbage. So let's take the time and let's work together and be sure we get it right. So in short, please keep the CN area separate, spring and Easter. |
| 02:25:56.62 | Joan Cox | Thank you very much. Anyone else? City Clerk? |
| 02:25:58.73 | Walfred Solorzano | No further public speakers? |
| 02:26:00.38 | Joan Cox | Okay, so then we'll move on to item 4C, Oh, so I asked anybody in the audience who still wanted to speak, Ms. McDougall, |
| 02:26:13.76 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 02:26:16.42 | Joan Cox | you |
| 02:26:16.45 | Babette McDougall | Yes, of course. |
| 02:26:21.44 | Babette McDougall | Thank you for allowing some public comment, even though you have brought this back on for the 1st of April. Because in my last public comment on this very item, I asked about the fairness between locally sourced places, the smallness of locally sourced food that we all are privilege to enjoy versus a formula retail. And just what this lady described as one other side effect of formula retail. So I have to urge this very cautious approach. I know there's desperation to try to fill the place up with ka-chinks. But this idea that any old idea is a great idea because it isn't here for a reason. So we have to really balance this out. And I agree that maybe some formula retail can be good, but you know, I think back immediately to Mike Stone, When Costco opened in Novato, he said, they will be the death of us. They will be the death of my store. And I thought at the time, oh, come on, all the way up there in Nevada? And now it turns out they've got these hyper-growth models and they're opening stores all over the Bay Area. So maybe he's right. So it's a time for us to balance the old with the new, the big with the small. This is a village after all. Thank you. |
| 02:27:40.52 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Okay, we're going to close item 4B and move on to item 4C and welcome our police chief Stacey Gregory. |
| 02:27:50.26 | Stacey Gregory | Good evening, Mayor and Councilmembers. Lieutenant Brandon Rogers was scheduled to do this presentation tonight. So in his place is Sergeant Nick White to do the military equipment use presentation. Welcome, Sergeant. |
| 02:28:05.93 | Nick White | Madam Mayor, City Council, Chief Gregory, thank you. I'm Sergeant Nick White. I'm filling in for Brandon Rogers. This is the 2024 Annual Military Equipment Use Report. Per Government Code Section 7071, City Council shall annually review our military equipment use policy and approve any funding acquisition and use of this equipment and vote on readopting the policy yearly. Per Saucy Municipal Code 2.60 and Government Code Section 7072, Saucy Ludo PD shall submit to the council every year an annual report on this equipment, which is this presentation right now. Next slide, please. Some of our currently owned military equipment, we have one Colt AR-15 SRD 556 rifle and an associated one SRD 556 rifle suppressor. This is a single item. It is a fully automatic rifle that was purchased a number of years ago for an officer assigned to a regional SWAT team. As part of that SWAT team membership, we're required to provide a fully automatic rifle, and that currently sits in storage as we have nobody currently assigned to that team, but we maintain it in the day that we may get someone back on that regional SWAT team. We also have six Remington 870 less lethal shotguns and 240 associated bean bag munition rounds. This is a less than lethal device. It's in all of our patrol cars. It is a ranged impact device user in critical incidents. Next slide. None of the equipment that I just talked about was used in 2024 in the line of duty. Next slide. In May and August of last year, on each of those dates, we used 30 of the bean bag around munitions during training and qualification for in-service personnel. Next slide. The 60 beanbag rounds used during training and qualification cost a total of $375. There are no other costs associated to the training and use of those items. And no other equipment was purchased in 2024, and the source of the money was the general fund. We've received no complaints or concerns addressed to Sausalito PD. For our equipment use policy, we do have a policy in place where we have an email dedicated to complaints and a policy and procedure in place where we're voicing concerns about our policy, all listed in our public manual. We conducted one internal audit for verifying the use of the munition rounds and to verify our stock and inventory. No violations were discovered during the audit. Next slide. This is the biggest part of the presentation. We're actually requesting an acquisition of new equipment. And these items are known as Defense Technology 40-millimeter LMT tactical shot launchers with required munitions, accessories, and training. The approximate total cost of three launchers and associated training is approximately $7,748. This is intended to be purchased next fiscal year. These devices are slowly but also taking over the role of the 870 Remington beanbag shotgun. Their intended use is a ranged impact incapacitating device. In short, it shoots a larger gauge projectile than the beanbag shotgun. Getting ahead of ourselves here, we would never intend to use this during any kind of riot, protest event. It's simply used for any critical incident would be the intended use. Um, We're also requesting to have the replenishment of the 60 beanbag shotgun rounds at a cost of $375. Next slide. Questions or comments? |
| 02:31:44.70 | Joan Cox | Thank you. the replacement for the beanbags, is that still non-lethal? It is. |
| 02:31:54.83 | Ava Krizan | Questions? |
| 02:31:56.50 | Steven Woodside | How does this compare to other jurisdictions in the area? |
| 02:32:00.02 | Nick White | Thank you for asking. I did conduct a brief survey around Marin County. I found that Fairfax Police do not use the 40 millimeter. The Marin County Sheriff's Office does not use the 40 millimeter. St. Rafael PD does use the 40 millimeter. They have it in addition to their 870 Remington beanbag shotguns. They have three to four that are available for their use during patrol. Central Marin Police Authority does use the 40 millimeter launchers, also supplanting and augmenting their 870 Remingtons. Novato PD does also use the 40 millimeter, and they have fully replaced the beanbag shotgun with this device. So they no longer use the shotguns at all. They've removed all the way to going to 40 millimeter. And outside of our jurisdiction, San Francisco PD also uses these, and they're assigned to what's known as specialists, trained officers, or SWAT team members. |
| 02:32:52.81 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:32:55.00 | Joan Cox | Any other questions? Okay, I'll open it up for public comment. |
| 02:33:00.79 | Walfred Solorzano | Eva Cressan. |
| 02:33:14.90 | Ava Krizan | Thank you for finally unmuting me. I want to point out that the person giving this presentation |
| 02:33:28.30 | Walfred Solorzano | He's online. |
| 02:33:32.11 | Ava Krizan | And I also want to point out that there's a section on this. I'm sorry, excuse me. I'm speaking right now. Yeah, we could not hear you. I'm okay. |
| 02:33:32.14 | Walfred Solorzano | And I also want to point out that there's a section |
| 02:33:38.62 | Joan Cox | Okay. Letting you know that your voice became muted after you said the person making this presentation. |
| 02:33:45.68 | Ava Krizan | Okay. |
| 02:33:46.00 | Joan Cox | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:33:46.03 | Ava Krizan | Let's restart the clock. Can you hear me now? |
| 02:33:46.27 | Joan Cox | Let's restart the clock. |
| 02:33:49.75 | Ava Krizan | We hear you now. Please. One. Excellent. |
| 02:33:52.61 | Ava Krizan | The person making this, and I would like to reclaim my time, the person making this presentation, Nick White, has a very checkered history. He had to go to court. Charlie Drezzo had to represent the poor school teacher whom he falsely accused of assaulting him. He is also involved in the unlawful and violent removal of myself from the candidate forum. in September. Okay, Ms. Krizon. Excuse me. I'm sorry. I'm speaking right now. Do not interrupt me. I'm speaking. |
| 02:34:22.38 | Joan Cox | Excuse me. Do not interrupt me. Point of order. |
| 02:34:26.92 | Ava Krizan | Thank you. |
| 02:34:26.94 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Your comments are outside the scope of this item. I ask you to confine your comments to an ordinance readopting military equipment use policy. |
| 02:34:43.95 | Ava Krizan | You need to stop interrupting me so I can finish my comment. On the section, of this report about the police complaint. What you were not indicating is that the police complaint forms are themselves dysfunctional. There are multiple problems with that But also, your city attorney sent me an outdated police complaint form. I asked for a paper version. He sent me one, even though Stacey Gregory was already the chief, he sent me a complaint form that lists John Rohrabacher. Now, I do want to point out that it is relevant that the police. The staff sergeant who just gave this report was involved in an illegal, an unlawful, and an improper and violent removal of myself when I was simply very civilly raising the issue of war costs at the candidate forum. And I have repeatedly requested an apology from those involved, and I have received none. Thank you. |
| 02:35:56.71 | Joan Cox | Any other public comment? Thank you. |
| 02:35:58.79 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:35:58.82 | Joan Cox | . |
| 02:35:58.87 | Walfred Solorzano | I'm not sure. |
| 02:35:59.08 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:35:59.31 | Walfred Solorzano | See you then. |
| 02:36:00.48 | Joan Cox | All right, I'm going to close public comment, bring it up here for motion and discussion. I move that we introduce by title only and waive first reading of Ordinance No. 04-2025, an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Sausalito, re-adopting Sausalito Municipal Code Chapter 2.60, Military Equipment Use Policy. Second. Second. I have a motion and a second is their discussion. Seeing none, I'll ask for a roll call vote, please. |
| 02:36:33.58 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:36:33.87 | Walfred Solorzano | customer lost him |
| 02:36:35.10 | Joan Cox | Yes. |
| 02:36:36.27 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 02:36:37.67 | Joan Cox | Yes. |
| 02:36:38.46 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski. Thank you. |
| 02:36:39.86 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:36:39.96 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Woodside. Yes. Mayor Cox. |
| 02:36:43.39 | Joan Cox | Yes, that motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much. We'll move smartly on to item 4D, ratify adoption of resolution to form utility undergrounding district taken by city council on March 7, 2025. This was continued from March 4, 2025. We then noticed a special meeting. properly noticed it for March 18, 2025, during which we held a public hearing and adopted a resolution to establish an underground utility district on Bridgeway Boulevard between Napa Street and Easterby Avenue. I am now seeking ratification of that resolution. That constitutes the staff report unless staff has anything else. I didn't see you behind the city manager Director McGowan, that's why I went ahead |
| 02:37:38.81 | Joan Cox | did this off the top of my head, any public comment? |
| 02:37:43.61 | Walfred Solorzano | See you then. |
| 02:37:44.69 | Joan Cox | I will close the public hearing and make a motion that we ratify the adoption of a resolution to establish an underground utility district on Bridgeway Boulevard between Napa Street and Easterby Avenue, as shown on Exhibit A. |
| 02:38:00.41 | Steven Woodside | seconds. |
| 02:38:02.95 | Joan Cox | Any discussion? All right. City Clerk. |
| 02:38:06.99 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blaustein. Thank you. |
| 02:38:08.41 | Joan Cox | Yes. |
| 02:38:08.67 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman Thank you. |
| 02:38:10.60 | Joan Cox | Yes. |
| 02:38:11.48 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski. Thank you. |
| 02:38:13.33 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:38:13.45 | Walfred Solorzano | Thanks. Thank you. Vice Mayor Woodside. Yes. And Mayor Cox. |
| 02:38:16.94 | Joan Cox | Yes. Okay. That concludes our discussion. Public hearing items, we will now move on to our business item, which is five a discussion and provide direction regarding infrastructure priorities related to the Bureau very toss technical assessments for the city of Sausalito facility assessment study will welcome our public works director Kevin McGowan. |
| 02:38:39.96 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you very much. I appreciate it, Mayor and City Council members. We have Ali Iqbal, who is our project manager, who will kind of be helping us with this introduction. So Ali, off to you. |
| 02:38:58.05 | Ali Iqbal | you mayor vice mayor council members my name is Ali Iqbal I'm a project manager here at the city of Sausalito I'm here because the city council tasked DPW with finding which properties we own their conditions and how much it costs to fix them bureau veritas has provided individual reports for each of these assessed properties which wasn't limited to buildings Other types of infrastructures that were included in the assessment were items such as Turney Street, boat launch, and all five parking lots. Inevitably, questions still remain, especially for the lease properties. Who's responsible for these fixes? Is it the city? Is it the tenant's And what do the leases say about maintenance and repairs? Arriving just this afternoon from the bright lights of Las Vegas is Mary Boeck. Venable. She's a project manager at Vera Veritas and is here to present her findings. Mary, the floor is yours. |
| 02:39:59.38 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. It's a fun intro. |
| 02:40:07.68 | Mary Boeck | Hello. |
| 02:40:07.71 | Unknown | Hello. Thank you. |
| 02:40:08.07 | Mary Boeck | Thank you. Mayor Cox, Mr. Vice Mayor and counsel, thank you for having me. |
| 02:40:10.29 | Unknown | You're welcome. |
| 02:40:14.76 | Mary Boeck | I was the project manager for the assessment of your facilities. And I wanted to go through and made a little presentation to tell you about Bureau Veritas, the process that we used, and a little about our findings. Next slide, please. Just to tell you about Bureau Veritas, we do all kinds of assessments and reports for building owners, facility owners from acquisition to disposition, and primarily we help you... with the management of your facilities that you maintain and the Um, the ongoing management of those facilities. OK, next slide, please. We're a national company. as you can see. the 37 years is my division that I work in. It's called the Asset Management Division. We've been doing these kind of assessments for a long time. Next slide, please. just to show you that we've worked with many, many of your neighboring communities. Next slide, please. All right, next slide, please. |
| 02:41:34.99 | Mary Boeck | All right, so our goal here was to look at the current condition of your facilities. As you know, we looked at buildings and the Excelsior stairs and several of the piers. Look at any deficiencies there are, what kind of costs we expect you'll incur in the next 20 years in keeping up these facilities, and any priorities that we can identify. Next slide, please. Next slide. Our process is basically a four-step process. First of all, we met with staff and requested questionnaires because what we do is a visual assessment. Sometimes there are things that you can't see, for instance, if heating and cooling in a building is inadequate. Uh, so we, uh, We look at the questionnaires and any documents that are available for the facilities. We come on site, which we had two assessors come to your city in the past few months and look at this building and many others and pretty much every aspect of the building and the grounds. We prepared a draft report and spoke with staff about that. received comments, and now our final stage is to deliver our findings to you, which includes this presentation and our asset count database, which I want to talk to you about in a little bit of detail, because this is a very cool thing. Next slide, please. Uh, Thank you. So AssetCalc is the name of our database and our app. Um, the fundamentally it's a collection of thousands of building items. Uh, this includes prices for those things and, uh, expected useful life. And so when our assessors come on site, they're able to, they bring an iPad and it's directly connected to that database. And so, um, the assessor can take a very detailed record of each capital item that they see and in addition we take photos I'm not sure if you're not We estimate the age, or if we know the actual age, we enter it. We enter the condition and the expected remaining life of that asset. And of course, the cost then, the typical cost for that item is recorded. So all of these things were recorded for each item as we come on site. And These items include doors, paint, flooring, roofing, everything that is associated with a facility that will be replaced one of these days. Next slide, please. So this is an attachment you have. This is a summary of the 20-year expected costs of maintaining each of those facilities that you see on the left-hand column. Next slide, please. So, and I should mention that, so of course we have a detailed list for every facility that has every item on it. So that was a summary that you just saw. The facility condition index, is that something y'all are familiar with? Okay, so I don't want to bore you. But... it's a numeric way of assessing the condition of a building either now or in some future period. And basically, it's a ratio of how much do you need to spend to keep the building or the facility running right now versus what it would take to replace that facility. And take note of the color coding, please. Next slide, please. |
| 02:45:42.34 | Unknown | you |
| 02:45:44.91 | Mary Boeck | Is that the next slide? There we go. All righty. So this facility condition index applies primarily to buildings, not to the piers and the stairs, because it's based on a replacement cost for a building per square foot. But as you see here, over a 10 year period, assuming that nothing is done to buildings and no money is spent to replace things that need replacement, You see that a couple of them get into pink, which is... which is poor condition. And I'd like to point out just a couple of them. Um, Fire Station 2, I think, speaks for itself. Let's see. The MLK campus is, as you know, very old. And a lot of that cost that you see accumulating over 10 years is finishes. But there's also roofing in there. And skylights, as you know, there are extensive skylights at that campus. And I do want to point out the Marinship Park. That one looks high. It's misleading because there are park costs bundled into that, park facilities. And then you can't look at that with just the square footage of a building, square footage cost of the building. So that was a little misleading. It's not in that poor condition. Next slide, please. All right, next slide, please. All right. So you have this in your packet. It's, of course, pretty small to look at up here. But those are the costs in five-year chunks and the current year. Next slide, please. This is just a graphic to show you orders of magnitude of cost. Now, the first item is assuming that you actually want to rebuild that pier, which there's basically no pier there right now, just mostly pilings. Next slide, please. And this is another just order of magnitude, just for purposes of seeing what some of the relative costs will be between the facilities. Next slide, please. All right, next slide. All righty. So another tool that we have, see, there's a lot of data that we collected And you have to look at it in certain ways. that will be helpful to you in making decisions as to where to put your money. the priority score is a formula that is included in our database, which, by the way, we turn over to you. All of our findings, we have turned over to you. to the public works so that you have the use of all of that. Every piece of data we've collected, every photo, is there for your use. You see there's the raw score in that column. Um, So when you look at these, you see it's 80 point something something. Really the important part of this is the 80 before the decimal point. The way we prioritize things is that if there's a safety issue, that's top priority. And those things are weighted in this report so that the safety items come to the top. And I had some notes for myself. The next priority that you'll see some things with a score of 71 point something something, that's generally things on a building or a site that are in poor condition already and already should be replaced. Next priority is accessibility items, which there were a few. after that come things like environmental issues. Like there, I did see that there's some, vital asbestos tile somewhere. I forget which building it's in, but yeah, that's an environmental issue. Or there are things that are just outlived their estimated useful life. There are some of those. And then there are other things that are just fine. They're within their estimated useful life. They don't need to be replaced right now. And so those are weighted the lowest priority. |
| 02:50:12.11 | Unknown | WHERE I HAD IT. |
| 02:50:38.40 | Mary Boeck | So that list is a tool just to help you. Now, if you look at it, you see things like protruding nails. It's up at the top. they're not exactly the high-cost items. That thing is pretty easy to fix by sending a guy out with a hammer. But they're all safety items. And, you know, you could look at them. and see which ones really are an issue. Um, The data is the data, but the interpretation is, is something that's up to you. and what's going to be important to the city. Next slide, please. And just to give you an idea, just for an example, I wanted to show you a couple of things that we put into our report for this building. Next slide, please. So there's our facility condition index. It's not bad. So that 10-year cost going into your 16%, Um, That's not bad. That's assuming that you don't put any money into this building for 10 years. Next slide, please. I'm not sure. I want to explain this a little bit. This chart appears in every building report. And the red line that you see that corresponds to the index, the vertical index on the left, you see facility condition index. um, That shows what happens with your FCI if you do nothing to a building. the Blue bars represent expenditures for that year. The gray bars represent carryover if no money is spent. And that shows you what happens. to the perceived condition of the building. if you do nothing for 10 years. Of course, if you do spend money within that time, the facility index is lower and you have a better building. I will notice, I will point out that you'll notice like in 2029, There's a... There's a... Tall blue bar. Um, What that represents is interior paint for major expenditures, interior paint, plumbing systems, because we assume a plumbing system should last about 40 years. It can last longer. It can last less. You have to have some kind of point for planning. HVAC, hydronic piping, duct work. So there's some major expenses that we anticipate in 2029. Next slide, please. |
| 02:53:34.22 | Mary Boeck | Part of the report you'll see is labeled the key findings. And it's just an outline of the top dozen or so items in each building. and this is more like you may be looking at a report on paper or PDF, but you may not be delving into the software, as the public works people will, But this gives you an idea of the things that we found that need the most attention at each facility. Next slide, please. OK, and that's just the second page of this. Next slide, please. I think this is my final graphic. Um, This just gives you an idea of what kind of expenditures each facility is going to need. And as you see, about 11% is stuff that's old, past his life or not. Actually, that's not right. Not past his life, but basically failed or poor. The darker gray is items that are past their nominal life, but they're still okay. So we call that age but functional. They are still fine, but they could go at any time. And then everything else is just typical expenditures that you would have over 20 years as something ages out. I believe that's my last slide can you please switch it yes um Okay. |
| 02:55:09.93 | Kevin McGowan | So quickly before we get into questions and comments, I kind of wanted to step back from some of the detail that is in the report and what was brought up by Mary. And their report takes into account over, I think in our staff report it said 32 buildings. That's actually 31. One is a catch-all for MLK campus, and there really was no cost to it, so my apologies. Okay. And then in a If you look at some of the summaries. their summaries over time have a 3% increase per year. So if they would have estimated something in this current fiscal year, they escalate that over 20 years with a 3% increase each year for inflation. So that's why some of the costs will go up over time. And in the end, when you look at all the numbers together, the estimate is $53 million over a 20-year period. That's a huge number that does not include design, that does not include... include construction management or contingency. That is simply their estimate of a cost for improvements. Now, diving into some of the detail, because we, here in Public Works, we kind of separate things out a little bit into the scale of each project as well. So each fiscal year, they've laid out a whole bunch of tasks for, it could be small things like painting this building, not this building, but let's say this room. So that's a small task. We wouldn't want to include that in the capital improvement program. We'd want to do that either ourselves or just hire a contractor to come in and do it so the reason I mention this is I'm in the process of developing the CIP for the next fiscal year and identifying the larger projects that need to go into the CIP would be important at this point. So I've segregated a lot of those out. One of the things that we might need your counsel's discussion about is how do we deal with not just the big projects, but we also how do we deal with the small ones as well, because there are a lot of them. So even though there might be a whole bunch of little painting projects all over the place, when you add them all up, they become $150,000 over a year. How do we address those? David Miller, In addition, some of the bigger projects, we still have a bit of research on our hands from public works to get into the leases to find out who's responsible for doing what I think Ali kind of mentioned that quickly, and we still need to dive in a little deeper with our. let's see, property managers, new property managers to find out, okay, what do the leases say? Who is responsible for Let's say changing out the HVAC system on the Spinnaker building, something like that. So we have a little bit more work on our hands to deal with that. But with that, I'd like to turn it back over to the council and say thank you very much. And Mary is here for questions. You can tell from her presentation. her presentation that there's a lot of things that can come up in the program itself to give you some ideas of how long these facilities last. That is good for us to take a look at when you step back. It takes a little while to understand what the program does. And for myself, it took a little while to get into it, but everything's there for me. I know I can get into it. It just takes a little effort to find all the pictures and all the details. So many thanks. Sorry that took us a little time this evening, but we're here for questions and comments. I'm going to lead off. |
| 02:58:31.69 | Joan Cox | Thank you very much, Director McGowan, for your staff report and for the very thorough presentation. I had a couple of questions from the staff report and from the PowerPoint presentation. On page four of the staff report it talks about spending 3.86 million just for construction over the next two years. And that's addressing the projects that you list in attachments three and four for fiscal year 2025 and fiscal year 2026. But then on page five, it says that the estimated construction cost for Fiscal year 2526 for projects estimated to exceed 35,000. is 3.28 million. So, Do the projects exceeding $25,000, are they included in the $3.86 million to be spent over the next two years? |
| 02:59:24.59 | Kevin McGowan | Good question. I've got to take a closer look at that. That sounds a little bit too high for two years of minor projects, less than $35,000. |
| 02:59:34.04 | Joan Cox | No, more than 35. Less than 35, you say, is $581,000 over the next two years, and you recommend perhaps hiring an outside firm to address those because you don't have the staff. I'm talking about larger projects, more than 35,000, that you said could be included in the capital improvement program. |
| 02:59:53.69 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 02:59:54.09 | Joan Cox | You estimate those at 3.28 million on page five But on. page four, you say if the city proceeds with addressing the two projects, the projects recommended over the next two years, a total of 3.86 million will be needed just for the construction. So I'm trying to reconcile those two. |
| 03:00:08.49 | Branka Popovich | Thank you. |
| 03:00:08.52 | Kevin McGowan | I'm trying to do it. |
| 03:00:12.32 | Joan Cox | Numbers. |
| 03:00:12.97 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, give me a couple minutes to stare at it. I will get back to that question. Thank you. |
| 03:00:17.36 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Um, Then your staff report mentions that the Saucido Yacht Club did not allow access into their interior of their facility, but are they not a city-owned facility? |
| 03:00:30.31 | Kevin McGowan | It's my understanding from them that we own the property. We don't own the building. |
| 03:00:38.34 | Melissa Blaustein | Sorry, the city owns the land. Yacht Club owns the building. |
| 03:00:38.49 | Unknown | See you. |
| 03:00:42.89 | Melissa Blaustein | Yes. |
| 03:00:43.47 | Kevin McGowan | That's my understanding. Now, I haven't stared at the least to know that or not. I don't know. |
| 03:00:47.42 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 03:00:47.48 | Joan Cox | So. |
| 03:00:47.72 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 03:00:47.97 | Jody Moore | or not. |
| 03:00:48.23 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:00:48.26 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 03:00:48.33 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 03:00:48.63 | Joan Cox | Okay. All right, my next questions had to do with the presentation. Um, It was interesting. um, There's a slide called 20-year replacement costs. But when you were going over this in your – and again, thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you for being here. When you were going through the slides, you called it maintenance costs. Ah, missed number. But the slide says 20-year replacement costs, attachment one. |
| 03:01:16.98 | Elina Franklin | I missed the number. |
| 03:01:22.13 | Mary Boeck | Thank you for pointing that out. It should say properly termed capital replacements. Capital replacements. Not routine maintenance. |
| 03:01:32.67 | Joan Cox | Okay, so I have a question. So I'm just going to use one facility as an example. The second facility on there is the Bridgeway Public restroom which was built in 2016. I remember it fondly because my dear departed friend designed it. Thank you. Um, On your FCI by Facilities, you list the current replacement value at $125,000. But... in the 20 year replacement costs for the calendar year 2034, when that facility will be just 18 years old, you list a replacement cost of $909,140. And so I do not understand how those numbers reconcile with one another. Oh, okay. We certainly, that is not a million-dollar restroom. It is not adorned in gold. Yes. |
| 03:02:31.40 | Mary Boeck | Yes. |
| 03:02:31.84 | Joan Cox | Thank you. All right. Yeah. |
| 03:02:33.90 | Mary Boeck | Thank you. |
| 03:02:39.18 | Joan Cox | Oh, maybe I'm just, okay. So I used a magnifying glass to read this, so that may well, I can't believe. |
| 03:02:49.00 | Elizabeth Reckes | Yeah. |
| 03:02:49.29 | Joan Cox | Mine is on paper. Okay, got it. Okay, well, that solves that question. That's great. |
| 03:02:49.34 | Elizabeth Reckes | I mine is on paper. |
| 03:02:56.10 | Joan Cox | Okay, and then on your slide that says FCI by facility and you have the... darker, you have the fair and the poor highlighted in color for us. Yes. Are these facilities that are highlighted as fair and poor um, included in the 2526 and 2627 capital... improvement. plan attachments three and four to our staff report. |
| 03:03:29.64 | Mary Boeck | And I guess I have to defer. Thank you. |
| 03:03:31.69 | Joan Cox | Oh, okay. |
| 03:03:32.23 | Mary Boeck | on that. I think that's a question for you, I think. |
| 03:03:36.23 | Joan Cox | So in... Bureau Veritas presentation. It has FCI by facility, and it has... you know, the highlighted colors for fair and poor. Consider renovation, consider demolition. There are, and you know those include the Marin Ship Park restroom, the MLK campus, some of the ones, the Bridgeway restroom, some of the ones that were mentioned. The ones that are listed as fair and poor within the next five years are those in your two year capital improvement plan. |
| 03:04:14.98 | Kevin McGowan | Probably are. I'd have to check specifically if those are. I think the the FCI is related to not doing anything. We do nothing. David Miller, That we're going to end up, you know, having to put more money into this at a later point in time, so I have to have to check specifically within my 2025 2026 of whether that project is on there, and most of them are you know if they have a high rating. they will probably be on those two first years. |
| 03:04:44.56 | Joan Cox | And then there are two fire stations on this list, Station 1 built in 2010 and Station 2 built in 1964. I'm assuming Station 2 is the Spencer Fire Station. |
| 03:04:55.39 | Kevin McGowan | Yes. |
| 03:04:55.97 | Joan Cox | But what is station one? |
| 03:04:57.86 | Kevin McGowan | Station one is where the fire department currently is housed. |
| 03:05:01.39 | Joan Cox | So we're already showing that in five years, that is going to need... renovations. |
| 03:05:07.53 | Kevin McGowan | It's going to need improvements, yes. |
| 03:05:10.48 | Joan Cox | Okay, and given that we have shifted responsibility for fire protection and we're paying over 40% of our property taxes each year to Southern Rune Fire. Are we responsible to up those facilities or should that be paid for by Southern Marin Fire? |
| 03:05:28.81 | Kevin McGowan | I think that's one of the very big questions that we need to determine. I don't have an answer for it right now, but I need to look into it. |
| 03:05:36.25 | Chris Zapata | I do, Mayor. |
| 03:05:36.42 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. Yes, thank you, City Manager. |
| 03:05:37.19 | Chris Zapata | Yes, thank you, city manager. And thank you for the question. Yes, the city has an agreement with the Southern Marin Fire District that they pay the city $100,000 per year to rent our buildings. That is what is the arrangement that was made. And in that cost is supposedly the repairs to the money to maintain the building as were the owner. |
| 03:05:53.58 | Joan Cox | that was made. |
| 03:05:54.96 | Unknown | And, |
| 03:06:08.19 | Joan Cox | And so we heard earlier tonight about a 500-signature, which I haven't seen the petition yet. City Clerk, I thought that COPIES WERE MENDED. |
| 03:06:16.83 | Walfred Solorzano | Amen. Thank you. |
| 03:06:17.88 | Joan Cox | Oh, okay. And you'll add it to public comment to the communications for the evening? |
| 03:06:23.94 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes, I'll add it tomorrow. |
| 03:06:25.42 | Joan Cox | Okay. So when we have 500 signatures asking us to recommission the fire station, these costs of, you know, um of two, hold on. The repair costs in this chart are costs that the city would have to bear if we were going to recommission that station. |
| 03:06:51.80 | Chris Zapata | Mayor, members of the council, members of the public, you gave me direction to have this conversation with the fire chief, and I will. I think that's to be determined. I don't know that you would want to make that determination tonight to say that one party or the other would be burdened with those costs. If it was going to be used for a fire station, but it is our building, if we're going to use it for other things, then we have that obligation. But if it's going to be used for a fire purpose, then that's a whole different conversation. |
| 03:07:11.22 | Unknown | Yep. |
| 03:07:25.09 | Joan Cox | Okay. Did you want to answer? Thank you. |
| 03:07:31.17 | Kevin McGowan | So on page five, thank you very much. That is an error where it says 3.28 million. I apologize for that. The $35,000 limit when you add up the two numbers that I have for the report from 2025 and 2026, we're at 642,000 compared to that much larger number. And the 6442,000 relates to all the small little projects that you gather them all up. That's kind of the number where we end up at. So my apologies, I can correct that. |
| 03:08:03.30 | Joan Cox | Yes, but I was asking you about the projects over 35,000. |
| 03:08:06.57 | Kevin McGowan | Mm-hmm. |
| 03:08:06.98 | Joan Cox | Thank you. That number on page five is 3.28 million. |
| 03:08:11.72 | Kevin McGowan | on page five is an error. So I think it says, oh, I'm sorry. Maybe I'm misreading this. Thank you. |
| 03:08:17.89 | Joan Cox | So it says, based on BV's report, the estimated construction cost for fiscal year 2526 for projects estimated to exceed $35,000 is $3.28 million. |
| 03:08:17.94 | Kevin McGowan | It says, |
| 03:08:28.91 | Kevin McGowan | Yeah, the two numbers don't match, so I must have made a mistake along the way. I'll have to correct both of those. |
| 03:08:34.79 | Joan Cox | Okay. I see that the fire stations are included in your fiscal year 2026. your 2025 and 2026 expenditure recommendations, I guess it would be framed. the projects that you're proposing for 2025 and 2026. |
| 03:09:00.96 | Kevin McGowan | Right now, the charts or the tables that you have in front of you don't distinguish between who is responsible for the work. |
| 03:09:07.08 | Joan Cox | Exactly, it's just the construction costs. |
| 03:09:08.91 | Kevin McGowan | just the construction cost. We in public works are trying to get used to the data that is produced from asset calc. And so we've listed them all. We still have our research in front of us to find out who is responsible for that. |
| 03:09:24.20 | Joan Cox | So you're essentially saying that to address the priority projects, your It says, if the city proceeds with addressing the projects recommended over the next two years, a total of 3.86 million will be needed just for construction, and then you would add 35% to that for design, construction management, and other soft costs. |
| 03:09:46.62 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, that's correct. |
| 03:09:49.15 | Joan Cox | And you do say that we could use other fund sources such as grants, parking funds, |
| 03:09:55.70 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, we did not distinguish of where the funding would come from. We're still working on that. |
| 03:10:00.66 | Joan Cox | All right, thank you for helping me understand the way that all of these materials interrelate. Other questions? Yes, Councilmember. spouses. |
| 03:10:09.13 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you very much for this report and for taking this on and for flying here from Las Vegas to be with us for this presentation. So I have questions for both of you kind of back and forth, so it'll be helpful to have you here. So on the chart that you put together, where it's roughly $53 million for the next 20 years of improvements, or not even improvements, rather, upkeep for our buildings, Is that assuming that we spend the suggested amounts, for example, for fiscal year 2025 and 2026, you have the 3.86 million. So this is going forward. You're suggesting that if we just upkeep our buildings, according to this report, over the next 20 years, it will be upwards of $50 million. |
| 03:10:48.77 | Kevin McGowan | Yes. Sorry, yes, that's the intent of this table. |
| 03:10:52.13 | Jill Hoffman | And that's just upkeep. It's not necessarily substantial improvements, or maybe you can speak to that. |
| 03:10:58.48 | Mary Boeck | Yes, that's replacing it. |
| 03:10:59.98 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:11:00.03 | Mary Boeck | Thank you. |
| 03:11:00.22 | Jill Hoffman | things. |
| 03:11:00.53 | Mary Boeck | Thank you. |
| 03:11:00.67 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:11:00.79 | Mary Boeck | that is not going to be |
| 03:11:00.97 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:11:01.02 | Mary Boeck | as they need replacement. |
| 03:11:03.30 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. And when I look at your chart in the presentation and also in the staff report, you have recommendations for what conditions would require demolishing buildings because they were in such poor condition. Is that assuming we don't act and spend the money to move forward or is that they're just going to be hopeless? No, that's correct. |
| 03:11:22.14 | Mary Boeck | Thank you. |
| 03:11:22.32 | Jill Hoffman | And it's correct that there are |
| 03:11:24.02 | Mary Boeck | hopeless no matter what, or they're hopeless. No, just the opposite. Okay. |
| 03:11:25.19 | Jill Hoffman | hopeless. |
| 03:11:28.61 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 03:11:28.70 | Mary Boeck | All right. And one thing I'd like to say about that is that Um, That doesn't mean you have to. A lot of those costs may be finishes, and it may be that you just have a building that's unsightly in ways. It's just a reference point. |
| 03:11:49.69 | Jill Hoffman | But you did include those three for demolishment where the MLK campus, the Marinship park restroom and fire station too. |
| 03:11:56.51 | Mary Boeck | That's if no costs, no money is expended. |
| 03:12:02.50 | Jill Hoffman | And I'm not sure if you were aware of the revenue generating facilities, but MLK is a large revenue generator for us. |
| 03:12:09.45 | Mary Boeck | No. |
| 03:12:09.79 | Jill Hoffman | Bye. |
| 03:12:09.81 | Mary Boeck | I was not. |
| 03:12:10.52 | Jill Hoffman | I mean, demolishing that would be problematic for our bottom line. So hopefully that... Right. |
| 03:12:16.15 | Mary Boeck | And I'd like to say that it's a consideration. You know, there are many other considerations that would go into that. |
| 03:12:24.62 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, but when you prioritize the potential for demolishing them versus your raw score, neither of those three items are in your top priority raw score. Is that because they're not an immediate health and safety threat? That's great. |
| 03:12:37.52 | Mary Boeck | Correct. |
| 03:12:37.92 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Okay, so your recommendation and Kevin, would you, sorry, pardon me, Director McGowan, would you agree with this or not? The most pressing and immediate concerns are those for health and safety and they should be addressed as a priority within our structure for the CIP going forward. |
| 03:12:51.94 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, we do have a high priority for our projects and how our CIP is set up based on health and safety. Exactly what you just said. |
| 03:12:59.94 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, all right, great. I think that that's a good overview. I'm sure other council members have questions, but I'm just trying to get a bigger picture of where we stand, thank you. |
| 03:13:08.35 | Joan Cox | I found one question I forgot, I'm just gonna jump in. So the top project for 2025 is the 564 Bridgeway Public Pier. So why is that on the, I haven't heard any council direction to repair or replace that pier. So why is that on the recommended expenditure list for 2025? |
| 03:13:29.15 | Kevin McGowan | Well, the list that you see in front of you is simply based off of Bureau Veritas' summary and their rating score by itself. The city's rating score didn't come into it. and we didn't take into account whether it was a priority for the council or not. We are just listing what they've given us at this point in time. That's why I'm kind of bringing it back and tying it into that CIP. We need to have that discussion whether this council wants to pursue improvements on that pier or not. |
| 03:14:02.25 | Joan Cox | Okay, so this is not a recommendation of expenditures. This is what it would cost in 2025 and 2026 if we address the FCI... priorities identified by Bureau Veritas. |
| 03:14:17.64 | Kevin McGowan | This is simply bringing back Piora Veritas' numbers to the council, letting them know they have completed their analysis and their report. We're still diving into the details of who's responsible, and then also looking at a priority for our city council and yourselves in the CIP. Thank you. |
| 03:14:36.40 | Steven Woodside | Since we're talking piers for a minute, that happens to be, if you look at that column for 2025, that's about one-third of the total. I know. Which is stunning in and of itself. But also, it is a dilapidated, falling-apart pier. So I suppose from an aesthetic as well as maybe appearance of safety, it's not usable at all. There's almost nothing left. |
| 03:14:36.89 | Kevin McGowan | Bye, Sarah. |
| 03:14:37.40 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:14:37.41 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:15:04.04 | Steven Woodside | Right. My understanding is that there had been some grant money available years ago from the Costco-Busan accident. that was never spent. I'm not asking to go back and... look at that but I think the amount of money then was a couple hundred thousand dollars And I'm just curious how you got to 637,000. Just a question. |
| 03:15:29.22 | Joan Cox | I'll tell you why it wasn't built is because the requirements for clearance above the water were in the process of being increased. to render the plan for reconstruction questionable if not it's more expensive to accommodate the new requirements. |
| 03:15:51.29 | Steven Woodside | OK, and I'm not looking backwards as much as trying to figure out where the numbers come from or something like that, such a big number. |
| 03:15:53.84 | Joan Cox | as much as trying to do. |
| 03:15:54.72 | Mary Boeck | Thank you. |
| 03:15:54.73 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:15:59.07 | Mary Boeck | I can address that. So when I determine costs, I use primarily the RS Means database, which is a national database. It also is adjusted for localities, but I use those costs, and that's where I got that cost from. It was a square foot cost. I believe it was like $290 a square foot for that. And that's where I got that cost from. It was a square foot cost. I believe it was like 290 bucks a square foot for that. And that's where that number came from. I do want to say that. That doesn't necessarily mean what it would really cost. Because the only way to really know what it will cost is to get a bid. |
| 03:16:45.93 | Steven Woodside | And that may be one area where we have a lot of local expertise. Yes, indeed. Docks, piers, et cetera. Yes. I won't belabor it and go into other detail, but I do think that from my perspective, the filter to apply to much of this is indeed, as you mentioned earlier, public safety. We want to make sure we're not |
| 03:16:50.22 | Mary Boeck | Yes, indeed. Yes |
| 03:16:53.75 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:17:06.08 | Steven Woodside | having hazardous conditions unmet or unaddressed. |
| 03:17:08.85 | Paul Murray | Brad. |
| 03:17:09.15 | Mary Boeck | Thank you. |
| 03:17:09.61 | Steven Woodside | So, and I'm assuming that that's your rating system yields that as a priority. |
| 03:17:15.78 | Mary Boeck | Well, our rating system really just addresses physical conditions, and there are a lot more considerations that you would have as a city. for something like that. I look at that and determine what would it cost to rebuild it, you may look at it as an attractive nuisance that needs to be removed. |
| 03:17:39.49 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Okay, understood. And again, there's a lot of detail here that we're going to need to sort out over time, and I don't want to take the time now to delve any further, but obviously, Kevin, you're endorsing at least conceptually the concepts that appear on that chart, on that spreadsheet, addressing costs in a sequence that makes sense based on a rating system. |
| 03:18:01.31 | Kevin McGowan | Yes. Yes, but I'm also endorsing that staff take a close look at some of the higher profile projects, the ones that are greater than 35,000 that they are recommending in their report. We put it in a CIP listing and we really dive into it at some point in time and say, hey, should we do this or should we put this off for a year? The pier that you just talked about is one of those. It's been like this for many years. Nobody's used it, and they shouldn't use it. So from the city's perspective, do we want to pursue this in some way and dedicate staff time to it, or do we push it out for a few years until maybe we address other things that are on this list that are more important? |
| 03:18:40.97 | Steven Woodside | Okay, and I think this has been asked and answered before, but just to reiterate, some of these are projects that conceivably will be the responsibility of a tenant or perhaps somebody else. you |
| 03:18:52.01 | Kevin McGowan | Yes. |
| 03:18:52.34 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:18:56.41 | Stacey Gregory | Any other questions? |
| 03:18:58.99 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, I have, yes. So I'm trying to get my, I'm just trying to wrap my head a little bit around all of these different charts that we have. And specifically, you know, what we're expected to assimilate and give direction on tonight. And because I'm looking at, first of all, let me just back up and say thank you for giving us this. We've been asking for it for a long time. It's a lot of information and just behind these numbers. I know there's a just a mountain of additional information. It's incredible, right? It's really, really incredible. And it's a snapshot I know of. what exists or the information that we have today. And even some of this information might be a little bit stale because you've been gathering it, I think, for two years or three years, right? But I'm excited that we now have it, and at least we have a lot of metrics now that we haven't had for a long, long time. So I'm very, very excited that we have it. One of the things that strikes me is that we have, for such a small town, we have a lot of properties. And I'm not sure that that's a healthy situation for a town of our size to have this many properties that we're responsible for maintaining. And I'm not sure that we, like I said, a town of our size had a capability and staff bandwidth to be able to effectively manage it. So that might be a question to ask at some point. and whether or not we're not overwhelmed with the size and magnitude of what we have to manage with our staff. So, but anyway, be that it is made. So specifically, Kevin, I'm looking at all these different spreadsheets. I'm looking at all these different cost estimates. And I'm looking at 2025, and then I'm looking at 26 through 30, and then 31 through 35, and these rather large numbers. What is it that we're expected to do as a council today What is it that you want from us? |
| 03:21:08.44 | Kevin McGowan | I think what I just addressed was how I'm anticipating we should move forward, which is to take a look at some of the larger projects, put them into the CIP and have a more in-depth discussion specifically about whether we want to pursue some of these projects in the next couple of years. So I think what I'm asking for is maybe just let me know if I'm on the right track. |
| 03:21:11.46 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. |
| 03:21:26.97 | Joris Von Menz | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:21:34.17 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 03:21:34.21 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 03:21:34.23 | Kevin McGowan | Okay. If that's not correct and not in the right direction for you, just let me know. Otherwise, we can have some more detailed discussions. When we bring up the CIP, I think it's on the 15th of April. |
| 03:21:45.30 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay. Yeah, principally, I do. I support that. I support that direction. I support that. There's a couple of properties on here that I want to delve into a little bit more. I think we've talked about those. I think the MLK campus is, you know, some of these numbers are large and concerning, but we, you know, that is a large revenue generating operation that we've talked about at length here. And I've looked at the parking lots, also a large revenue generating operation for us and some other generating operations. |
| 03:22:24.97 | Bonnie McGregor | the |
| 03:22:26.13 | Melissa Blaustein | revenue generating operations or should be generating revenue generating operations for us. So I'll look at those before the next iteration of this and maybe reach back to you and see what kind of metrics we metrics we have on this. So it's exciting that we have this information. So thank you so much for all your hard work. Thank you. Thank you, Mary, for coming. |
| 03:22:45.47 | Joan Cox | I'd also like to hear from our city manager, Jeff. |
| 03:22:48.64 | Chris Zapata | Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate the opportunity to comment. And I appreciate the conversation about what lenses to look through. I have a city manager lens I look through on these things, and there is a process that Kevin's pointing us to. And the lenses are obviously safety. The other one is what's required by law, such as ADA. What improves our profile in terms of risk? What is revenue producing as spoken to by Councilmember Hoffman, what is the council priority. And so taking all that into account and melding those into existing work that's going on, whether it's the climate tech work that's happening, whether it's the capital improvement program that's happening, but to bring that forward as part of our capital improvement program discussion with our own metrics that Kevin and his team have as it relates to projects, it may be a little bit different than mine. And then we come back to you and we say this is, you know, what we recommend in the budget. These are the funding sources we think can fund it. You have a variety of funds in Sausalito that thank the community leaders before us that, you know, created Measure L or the Titleins Fund or the MLK Fund or the Parking Fund. There are different ways to look at some of these in terms of how we pay for them. And, again, I appreciate the big number, $53 million over 20 years. That's a splash of cold water. But when you look at it over 20 years, let's call it $30 million. It's $3 million a year that you'd have to invest, not $60 million in one year. It's time that you would have to set aside money. But you all have said, we want the data. We need data to make decisions. And so we did not want to overwhelm you with 2,000 pages of a report. So what you got was a 25-page PowerPoint, but we do have 2,000 pages of data to now inform some of the things that we need to bring forward to you. And I think people may ask, well, what was the direction that the council gave us some time ago? It was to look at our facilities, to look at them through various lenses, and to spend some money doing it. So you allocated $125,000 for all of this data, so we could get to the point where we could start to intelligently make recommendations and give you ideas about what you want to do that meets muster in a variety of different areas. Again, safety, you know, revenue producing, ADA, risk reduction, council priorities. And so it's an ongoing process. It's not going to be done in one night or, you know, in one budget year. It's, you know, long term. And we have a lot of work to do. And this is the start of it. So thank you for funding this. Thank you for giving us the direction for it. And again, not to overwhelm you, but there's 2,000 pages of information that BV provided in their service. So that concludes my comments, Mayor. |
| 03:25:34.44 | John Dimonte | Thank you. |
| 03:25:34.49 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:25:34.51 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 03:25:48.09 | Joan Cox | Thank you, City Manager. Are there any other questions? If not, I'm going to open it up to public. Okay, yes, Council Member Sobieski. |
| 03:25:55.13 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you, Mayor. And I don't know if this is for you, city manager, Someone else, or if it's just going to be rhetorical because we don't have anyone who can answer it right now, want to know as this number was coming together and as this visibility into just the expense. of maintaining our facilities. not our roads, not our, So I walked for Seward. comes into better focus. uh, whether there's an answer to the question of where the money is going to come from. So city manager Zapata, $54 million is only 2.2. $2.4 million a year. over the 20 year period. Where's that money? going to come from. Is there does that money exist or, off. in our projections, our rough projections or our revenue growth. |
| 03:26:48.37 | Chris Zapata | Of course it doesn't exist, Council Member, I'll do respect. But there are funds that do exist that, you know, we would try to make sure we spent efficiently and wisely, and I'll give you some examples of it again. Measure L is good for seven more years. That's about $3 million a year. We have title and funds, which comes in at about $400,000 a year, and that's something into perpetuity that we know we have. We have gas tax money that comes in. We have revenue from parking lots that comes in at three-plus million a year. We have revenue from MLK that comes in at over a million dollars a year. We have other funding sources that could be used through the general fund if you choose to make this a priority. So Saucyilo doesn't have enough money to deal with all of it, but it has some money to deal with what's really important, and that's the hard work. What is it important to do with the funds that you do have? So, again, it's not like we don't have any money to do these things. There's money that occurs every year from MLK, from the Tidlands, from the parking enterprise, as well as other sources, such as Old City Hall, the Spinnaker, et cetera. And so that's where Sausalito was pretty entrepreneurial, but to the earlier point that was made by, I believe it was Councilmember Hoffman, you own a lot of stuff here. And when you own a lot of stuff, that means you've got to be responsible for a lot of stuff. So there's good and bad with that, but there is some revenue streams that have been set up to address what can be addressed, but it's not enough to address the total package so you have a sparkling brand-new city with great roads, great buildings, great piers, great parking lots. You can do some of that, but you can't do all of it. Thank you. |
| 03:28:32.08 | Joan Cox | Okay, with that, I'm going to open it up to public comment. I have one speaker card from Babette McDougall. |
| 03:28:43.31 | Babette McDougall | I'll make the grand effort on everyone's behalf. Thank you for acknowledging me. So first, I really wanted to thank and applaud all y'all, the city, the council, and the wisdom to say, let's find a report like this and just get data heavy, because the citizens have been eager for this for some time. So thank you. Thank you for the good work. And thank you for opening it up to the implications. It does affirm what many long-time residents have always known, which is we've got money coming in, but we're not exactly maintaining these properties, which is why this basic question of transparency comes up. You know, first of all, let's move funds from here to there because it makes us look better. You have to understand how unsettling that is to your constituents. And it kind of drills down on, well, when we start planning going forward, like this $10 million we're always talking about that never gets used. This drills down to the transparency of what it takes to maintain any investment over time. any investment at all. So if you start paring away at your obligations that you have now because it just seems overwhelming, Well, what else are you going to pare a way out over time? You know, there comes a moment where you just simply have to embrace the community for what it is, which is a great place, and we have these assets to manage. So I would like to just urge going forward that there is less temptation to play with the money. And I'd like to hear from our finance director because he usually weighs in and has some pretty good input. So I hope that we will bring this back for a further discussion and that we will look seriously at how we're going to reinvest in our own portfolio. I know the citizens look forward to it. They speak about it often. Thank you. |
| 03:30:36.77 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:30:37.36 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:30:37.52 | Unknown | you |
| 03:30:37.67 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:30:37.72 | Unknown | Any. |
| 03:30:37.97 | Joan Cox | online, City Clerk? |
| 03:30:39.00 | Walfred Solorzano | City clerk. No further public speakers. |
| 03:30:41.04 | Joan Cox | All right, then I will close public comment. There is no motion. I believe by our questions, we've given some direction Public Works Director has given, and the City Manager had given their plan Moving forward as for consideration this fiscal year was there any further direction for many Council members. Seeing none. OK, then we will move on. |
| 03:31:04.48 | Ian Sobieski | Mayor? Sorry, I know the hours late. You can't wait. |
| 03:31:07.81 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Sorry. |
| 03:31:08.62 | Ian Sobieski | I did want to just say, uh, We did set a strategic priority at the beginning of this year to find $3 million of additional revenue on a recurring basis. And it's kind of curious that this number just from the facilities maintenance alone is close to $3 million a year. And when we are alone in the shower or at the breakfast table thinking about city, our Ferris, our fair town. this is really the, the, the motivation for trying to make some of the compromises we do on our economic model. Because just to fix our facilities, we need to find $3 million more this year and next year and the year after that. That's not just the streets and the sewers. and everything else. It's a big challenge and it's a call to action for all of us. to think of ways that we can help generate more revenue in town. Taxes should be the last thing we do. we have the real opportunity here to generate that kind of revenue if we had that intention, I'm sure. |
| 03:32:15.19 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:32:15.20 | Joan Cox | Thank you. All right, I'm gonna move on. We will move on to city manager reports, council member reports, city council appointments, and other council business. 6A is city manager information For council, we will take public comment on all of these items. Well, we will take public comment on 6A through 6C and 6E through 6F at 6G. Six, eight. |
| 03:32:38.88 | Chris Zapata | Thank you, Mayor, members of the council, members of the public that are with us. There is a report, a quarterly report from the city managers that involves different work that we're doing. And, you know, one of the things that we know is you have work at city council meeting, but there are always ongoing initiatives and follow-up from prior meetings in prior months. You see 65 activities in that report, things big and small, mostly important. And so I'm happy to provide that report on a quarterly basis so the community can see what city departments are doing, what the city manager is doing, and that's all included and is part of the written document. And now I'm going to go off script, and I'm going to give you some important news. I want to provide an update on a personnel matter yesterday I terminated Chad Hess the city finance director you know I am confident that you know we can move in a way that gets us to a place where we can adopt a budget bring in the right finance people work with existing finance staff but this was something that was very difficult the timing couldn't be worse but i i heard earlier that you know we need to work with our finance director who is no longer with us because he was terminated yesterday we've notified all of the different partners and stakeholders that are related to finance and i.t where there was that relationship So they know the situation and we will continue to work on how we make a transition, build you a budget, and maintain our great finance staff who has done a great deal of work in the last couple of years to get the city back on track with Chad's leadership. But Chad will not be a part of our team on a go-forward basis. |
| 03:34:22.12 | Unknown | Thank you. Next item is... |
| 03:34:24.97 | Joan Cox | City Attorney information for Council. City Attorney, anything to report this evening? |
| 03:34:29.53 | Sergio Rudin | No, other than I am working on your quarterly litigation update, and that will be provided to counsel sometime in early April. |
| 03:34:39.27 | Joan Cox | Great. Thanks so much. |
| 03:34:39.42 | Sergio Rudin | of it. |
| 03:34:41.17 | Joan Cox | Councilmember Committee reports. Thank you. |
| 03:34:44.85 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, I have quite a few. So I attended the Transportation Authority of Marin meeting, and we had a report from the MTC Marin County representative who was with us at our last meeting, Stephanie Moulton-Peters, who's actually the vice chair of MTC now. And she shared that there were two really substantial Marin County funding projects, the San Rafael Canal access and the downtown north-south Greenway, which ABAG and MTC are funding going forward, which was exciting news. We also heard a committee report funding projects, the San Rafael Canal access and the downtown North-South Greenway, which ABAG and MTC are funding going forward, which was exciting news. We also heard a committee report, or sorry, an executive director report from Ann Richmond who gave us an update on the White House executive order and what that means going forward for organizations like TAM. The long and short of it is we don't yet know, but there are 22 states who have officially filed lawsuits against it. But we know that, for example, the Department of Transportation is indicating a preference for communities with higher birth rates, which will impact some of our grant applications. So we're following that as we go. We also heard a vehicle miles traveled report and how Marin might adapt the VMT going forward as a measure and an update on the canal exit freeway improvement. I also sit on the countywide e-bike task force of Supervisor Sackett's ad hoc task force, and we had a substantial meeting on AB 1774. And the county is moving forward with an ordinance to comply with AB 1774. And in fact, Marin County and some of the cities in Marin will be the first in the state to actively comply with new e-bike requirements. So I'll mention this in a future agenda items, but after the county adopts the ordinance, they've offered to provide their staff report and even their staff to come present on the implementation of 1774 and those requirements. So I'll mention that again in future agenda items. And that's it. |
| 03:36:33.85 | Joan Cox | I'll go. The vice mayor and I attended with the city manager and insurance committee meeting last week, in which we heard from Alliant and from George Hills, our risk manager. They just had an annual meeting and we were lauded for the great work that we've done to reduce our risk profile. and to incorporate risk management strategies with the, you know, continue, keep up the good work essentially. We will be seeing an increase increase in our premium, as most agencies across California will do. For the first three years of our membership, we pay a new member fee. And so our costs are higher for the first three years, regardless of whether we have 100 claims or zero claims. But after the first three years, those costs will drop off. And that is somewhere short of half a million dollars is the category within which that new member fee is contained. So I'm looking forward to, and that's also when we can actually start to reduce our premiums based on our actual risk profile as opposed to our historical risk profile. So very interesting presentation. We will hear the full council will hear more, but that was a portent of things to come. I was appointed by the Marin County Board of Supervisors as an alternate to the BCDC Commission for Stephanie Moulton-Peters. So now I'm an alternate commissioner. I took my oath of office today. I will be attending a meeting on April 3rd regarding the bike lane on the Richardson Bridge, Richmond, Richardson Bridge, Richardson's Bay Bridge. So interesting and I look forward to building bridges and figuring out how better to collaborate with BCDC, which is such an integral organization to our work moving forward. Let's see. And then the vice mayor, Councilmember Hoffman, and I, all three attended a Chamber of Commerce forum this morning on the Bridgeway median. I want to say this has to be the third or fourth public meeting regarding this very important project. I attended a PBAC meeting. I know there was a Sustainability Commission meeting, this meeting, and of course the council will hear this as well. So I'm very pleased there were about 40 people there. This morning, I'm very pleased at this opportunity for members of the public to hear and understand what's being proposed and what the city council's options are. It promises to be a very interesting meeting on the 29th, which will be March 29th, special meeting Saturday, 1 p.m. And I think that wraps up my committee reports. |
| 03:39:49.02 | Steven Woodside | If I can just add a little bit about the risk management and insurance costs. Sure. It's frustrating to all of us that costs, not only are we still subject to our experience, a more recent experience, I'll put it that way, and hopefully we'll get out of that. And it seems like we're making progress. But we don't see a financial impact as much as we would have hoped. A lot of this is out of our hands, I think, as our various insurance advisors can Thank you. impact as much as we would have hoped. A lot of this is out of our hands, I think, as our various insurance advisors can explain. The whole profile of risk in California has gone up across the board, and we are one of |
| 03:39:52.82 | Joan Cox | Sure. |
| 03:40:28.34 | Steven Woodside | many victims of that. So it was a very interesting presentation, thoroughly done. And the good news, as you said earlier, is that we are improving on our risk profile going forward, and we want to keep that up. So kudos to staff for all of that good work. |
| 03:40:46.89 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 03:40:46.91 | Joan Cox | Great. |
| 03:40:47.26 | Melissa Blaustein | you Thank you. |
| 03:40:48.00 | Joan Cox | Yes. |
| 03:40:49.57 | Melissa Blaustein | I'll mention that we attended the mayor and Councilmember Blaustein attended the elected women's luncheon with the Marine Women's Political Action Committee. And the keynote speaker was the Cal City's CEO, Carolyn Coleman, which was great. She was a great speaker, and we were joined by our Congressman Huffman and the president pro tem of the Senate, the California Senate, McGuire, was there, and it was a really wonderful luncheon and a highlight, I think, of our year. I think you're right, yeah. |
| 03:41:24.27 | Joan Cox | I think you're right. Yeah, that's great. All right. Thank you all for those. All right. I'm going to move on to appointments. And I am going to recommend some appointments this evening. We do have a staff report on this. I will take public comment. if anyone wishes to comment, on our appointments to, I will be making an appointment to the Disaster Preparedness Committee. I'll be recommending appointments to the Sustainability Commission, the Parks and Recreation Commission, and the Historic Preservation. Thank you. |
| 03:41:57.02 | Jill Hoffman | aren't we commissioned? Can't we call for nominations since there's multiple, like for the Sustainability Commission? If, for example, if my appointment's recommendation differs from your own or otherwise... |
| 03:42:06.98 | Joan Cox | you So typically I make a recommendation, if it has majority, then great. If not, then we can make alternate recommendations. But that is typically- Can't you just at least have both names so that, okay. I mean, just how typically we have done it in the past is the mayor makes a proposed appointment, so. Okay. |
| 03:42:15.72 | Jill Hoffman | but can't, |
| 03:42:29.10 | Steven Woodside | So- |
| 03:42:29.44 | Ian Sobieski | These are for the boards and commissions, Mayor? |
| 03:42:33.22 | Joan Cox | For the, yeah, vacancies for the boards and commissions. |
| 03:42:33.54 | Ian Sobieski | See you. |
| 03:42:37.12 | Ian Sobieski | For EDAC, we would always just go around and Okay, we did different groups. |
| 03:42:41.76 | Jill Hoffman | I just think it's important for all of us to be able to |
| 03:42:41.77 | Ian Sobieski | it. |
| 03:42:46.68 | Jill Hoffman | Anyway. for the U.S. Department of Education. |
| 03:42:48.78 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:42:48.84 | Joan Cox | Our protocols call for a motion. If someone wants to make an alternative motion, they can. All right, but first I'm going to take public comment. Any public comment on appointments to boards and commissions? |
| 03:42:58.87 | Walfred Solorzano | We have someone on their iPhone. |
| 03:43:00.67 | Joan Cox | Go ahead. |
| 03:43:06.97 | Damien Morgan | Hi, sorry. I have a question. Damien here. A comment on the your, um, you talked about before this regarding your reports now that am I late too late for that |
| 03:43:16.59 | Joan Cox | No, we will take that at the end of these reports. This is a separate item that requires its own separate public comment. But after two more items, you can make comment on items 6A through 6F. |
| 03:43:31.61 | Walfred Solorzano | All right, see you then. Thank you. |
| 03:43:33.53 | Joan Cox | Okay, I'm gonna close public comment. For disaster preparedness, we have... We have vacancies for two members. We interviewed Eric Little. I'm going to nominate him for disaster preparedness. second. All in favor? Oh, actually, we have to take a roll call. Go ahead. City Clerk. |
| 03:43:56.46 | Walfred Solorzano | Council Member Blossom |
| 03:43:57.81 | Joan Cox | Yes. |
| 03:43:58.52 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman? Thank you. |
| 03:43:59.92 | Joan Cox | Yes, sir. |
| 03:44:00.28 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski? Vice Mayor Woodside? Yes. Mayor Cox. |
| 03:44:05.07 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 03:44:06.20 | Joan Cox | Yes. Okay, for Historic Preservation Commission, we have a vacancy commencing March 31st, 2025. We had one applicant, Wayne Benet, whom we interviewed tonight. I nominate him to fill that vacancy. |
| 03:44:22.48 | Joan Cox | City Clerk. |
| 03:44:23.01 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blaustein, Councilmember Hoffman, Thank you. |
| 03:44:26.57 | Joan Cox | Yes. |
| 03:44:26.99 | Walfred Solorzano | . Council member Sobieski. Yes. Vice Mayor Cox. Thank you. |
| 03:44:31.29 | Joan Cox | Yes. |
| 03:44:31.65 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Sorry, Vice Mayor Woodside? Yes. And Mayor Cox. |
| 03:44:34.25 | Steven Woodside | I'll see you guys. |
| 03:44:35.12 | Joan Cox | BASIC. Yes, okay that motion carries unanimously for parks and recreation there are vacancies for two members. And we have two nominees and i'm going to nominate stephanie carulo and best work second. City Clerk? |
| 03:44:58.29 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blasting. Yes. Councilmember Hoffman. Yes. Councilmember Sobieski. |
| 03:44:59.59 | Joan Cox | Yes. Yes. |
| 03:45:03.86 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 03:45:03.91 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:45:03.95 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:45:04.03 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Woodside? Yes. Mayor Cox. Thank you. |
| 03:45:07.78 | Joan Cox | Yes, that motion carries unanimously. For the sustainability, we need to fill vacancies for an alternate and a 94965 liaison. There are two applicants for the 949 liaison, Wilford Welch and Alexander Schauer. So I struggled over this because they are both extraordinarily qualified. Katie Tho Garcia would love to work with either one of them. So I'm going to go ahead and nominate Alexander Schor, but I am open to other nominations. |
| 03:45:40.45 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I also struggled over this. I thought we would disagree, but okay. I'll nominate Wilford because I love Wilford. |
| 03:45:47.70 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 03:45:48.31 | Joan Cox | Okay. And is there a second for that nomination? Okay, that nomination fails for lack of a second. We'll go ahead and take roll. |
| 03:45:58.40 | Walfred Solorzano | Council member Blastin. |
| 03:46:00.06 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:46:00.09 | Melissa Blaustein | Yes. |
| 03:46:00.16 | Walfred Solorzano | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 03:46:00.22 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:46:00.31 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 03:46:00.33 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:46:00.34 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 03:46:00.38 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:46:02.91 | Melissa Blaustein | And we're voting on Alexander because there wasn't a second for Wilford. Correct. I'll vote for Wilford. Sorry, Alexander. |
| 03:46:10.01 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski. Yes. Vice Mayor Woodside? Yes. Mayor Cox. |
| 03:46:14.53 | Joan Cox | Yes. And then we have three, sorry, four nominees for the alternate. And so again, everybody was extraordinarily well qualified. I'm going to go ahead and nominate Samantha Schubert. Second. |
| 03:46:30.80 | Jill Hoffman | I'm gonna nominate Ileana Frankov. |
| 03:46:31.88 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 03:46:39.07 | Melissa Blaustein | May I say why I nominated Samantha? Of course. I nominated Samantha because she has a bachelor's degree in environmental science and data analytics and I thought that was good. |
| 03:46:51.73 | Jill Hoffman | I nominated Liliana because she's the head of sustainability for a large transport organization and has a background in sustainability and also just has had a very compelling interview. So I was really impressed by her. But there, again, so many good candidates. I don't think we can go wrong. That's kind of the situation. It's a good position to be in. Thank you. |
| 03:47:14.73 | Joan Cox | It was your questioning of Samantha regarding biomimicry that really got me. Same. Wow. Okay. All right, then. I mean. All right. So you can call the role city clerk. And this is for Samantha Schubert. For lack of a second. Yeah, that's fine. I understand. |
| 03:47:19.13 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 03:47:19.25 | Unknown | So, |
| 03:47:19.33 | Jill Hoffman | So. |
| 03:47:19.57 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:47:20.06 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:47:20.08 | Melissa Blaustein | Wow. Thank you. |
| 03:47:20.97 | Unknown | . |
| 03:47:21.00 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. |
| 03:47:21.12 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:47:26.29 | Walfred Solorzano | All right. |
| 03:47:30.08 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blaustein. |
| 03:47:31.58 | Joan Cox | Yes. |
| 03:47:31.82 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 03:47:34.01 | Melissa Blaustein | you |
| 03:47:34.03 | Joan Cox | Yes. |
| 03:47:35.01 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski. Yeah. |
| 03:47:36.63 | Jacques Ullman | Thank you. |
| 03:47:36.73 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 03:47:36.78 | Jacques Ullman | Thank you. |
| 03:47:37.42 | Walfred Solorzano | Uh, Bison, Mayor Woodside? Yes. And Mayor Cox. |
| 03:47:41.25 | Joan Cox | Yes, that motion carries unanimously. Great job, guys. Okay. Future agenda items are listed. Does anyone want to add future agenda items? |
| 03:47:52.19 | Jill Hoffman | AB 1774 ordinance, please. |
| 03:47:57.35 | Joan Cox | Did you get that, city clerk? |
| 03:48:00.66 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 03:48:00.68 | Joan Cox | ordinance. |
| 03:48:08.46 | Steven Woodside | I was going to say that we did have a lot of testimony today concerning process and procedures surrounding the land use appeal that was here. So I really think we need to take a really close look at the whole questionnaire process, including notice, and including our ability to, on a narrow basis, take up things that are brought to our attention on an appeal after they've gone through the Planning Commission. So I know there may be controversy about that, but I think it's something that deserves at least a close look and discussion, because it is complicated, but I think we've all learned that the processes here can be cumbersome, and if there's a way to streamline them without... |
| 03:48:32.57 | Ron Albert | that. |
| 03:48:55.20 | Steven Woodside | reducing the opportunity for public input appropriate I don't want to give a whole speech about it, but I think it's a future agenda item that we should take very seriously. |
| 03:49:06.56 | Joan Cox | So, City Clerk, you can call that CUP process slash notice. |
| 03:49:10.59 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 03:49:11.79 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:49:11.81 | Melissa Blaustein | Others? Yes, as the representative to the South Leader Sister Cities, they would like to come and give an update. So it's not a, I don't think it's an agenda item. I think it's a presentation. |
| 03:49:24.56 | Joan Cox | I'll do that as a special presentation. Right. Okay. |
| 03:49:25.78 | Melissa Blaustein | right. |
| 03:49:28.58 | Joan Cox | And they do that once a year, typically. All right. Thank you. Seeing no others. Any other reports of significance? |
| 03:49:40.44 | Steven Woodside | It's not a report. I'm just thinking that because we do have a long list of future items, that what we might want to do is take a look at that list collectively at that point. |
| 03:49:49.15 | Joan Cox | We were supposed to do that last Sunday. I know. I know. You and I. |
| 03:49:50.58 | Steven Woodside | I know, I know. You and I can do it. I'm just thinking that we ought to. present what we have to the entire council, at least to take a look and see what's there. |
| 03:50:00.95 | Joan Cox | As soon as we do the work, we'll present it to the council. Okay. |
| 03:50:00.98 | Steven Woodside | As soon as we can do the work, we'll present it to the council. Okay, great. Thank you. |
| 03:50:05.55 | Joan Cox | All right. At this point, I'll take public comment on items 6A through 6C and 6E through 6F. Two minutes per person. And I have a speaker card from Babette McDougall. |
| 03:50:23.73 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. So this regards the reports starting, say, like with the city manager and our city attorney, etc., correct? Correct. Thank you. All right. Well, great. So I also would like to mention to Ms. Blaustein, I'm very pleased that you're working with our supervisor. with regard to MTC. And so the core question for you would be, how are you going to structure the daylighting of the Southern Marin plans that MTC has on their boards. And this is going forward, and I think we really need to maintain the momentum here. And on other reports, I took with interest the city manager, or correction, the city attorney's note about litigation reports. Now, this is actually something that gets a huge amount of buzz among your constituents, is how these payables on a monthly basis, and I think it would be useful to help daylight who is being paid month by month, how much they're being paid, and for what of these various closed session for which there is never a report. or rarely a report except for pushing for the YIMBY finally to be publicized on the record. Thank you. But, um, This is something that keeps getting brought up time and again. People leave printouts at my house, and I'm supposed to figure out what to do about these printouts. I just think There's a lot of people that have gone to ground right now. So I'm the one that's standing here. voicing something that may or may not agree with what other people are going to ask of you of this town. But I can tell you that there are a lot of people that would like some clarity on the finances. So moving forward, I look forward to a brighter day where we finally do get some clarity on finances and who's getting paid what on these legal fees and why is it so secretive? I think it's a good idea to daylight who gets paid what, because otherwise there's this perception of conflict of interest. And this is a problem. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:52:17.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:52:18.90 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 03:52:18.92 | Unknown | Anything online, city clerk? |
| 03:52:21.82 | Walfred Solorzano | Sorry, yeah. |
| 03:52:22.22 | Damien Morgan | Thank you. |
| 03:52:24.16 | Joan Cox | Welcome, Damian. |
| 03:52:25.75 | Damien Morgan | Hi, thank you. Can you hear me? |
| 03:52:27.27 | Joan Cox | Yes. |
| 03:52:28.10 | Damien Morgan | Thank you. Regarding transportation and infrastructure, I want to invite every Soslito resident to a very, very important project. workshop. in Marin City on Thursday, this Thursday. Um, in two days from 12 noon to three o'clock, three hour workshop. This workshop, is being hosted by the Marin City Climate Resilience, you know, Terry Green, but it's... The agenda in a nutshell is a presentation and goals and vision for emergency infrastructure. We have been working, we have been working very closely. with Cal Berkeley's students. They will be presenting green infrastructure sustainable stormwater management. AND I WANT TO TALK ABOUT There's community testimonies. It'll be breakout sessions for engaged discussions. You can pick which area you want to just be a part of. In the last half hour, I think there'll be question and answers, Q&A. But Sausalito... You know, some folks, you may want to come listen to this because Caltrans is talking about raising the freeway. 10 to 5 to 10 feet high from, you know, within the city area, possibly to the Richardson Bay Bridge, but don't quote me on that. But because, you know, it's not being it's not full transparent. Also, the bike path, they talked about rerouting into Marin City. We don't want that. So there's a barrier wall. that may go up on the Marin City side, going up Highway 101 South. |
| 03:54:31.05 | Walfred Solorzano | No. |
| 03:54:31.25 | Joan Cox | Thank you, Mr. Morgan. |
| 03:54:31.91 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Yeah, no further public speakers. |
| 03:54:34.91 | Joan Cox | Okay, then. at 1050. I'm pleased to adjourn our meeting. Our next meeting will be April 1st. |
| 03:54:41.24 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 03:54:48.16 | Joan Cox | Whoa, whoa. What? |
| 03:54:49.31 | Chris Zapata | March 29th, Mayor. |
| 03:54:51.94 | Joan Cox | Sorry, special meeting. Next regular meeting will be April 1st, 2025. Yeah. Well, that's what this says, next regularly scheduled meeting. But we do have a special meeting March 29th. at 1 p.m. here. In the chambers, we will have an overflow room in the event that we have lots of public participation. Thank you all, and good night. |
| 03:55:14.20 | Unknown | you |
Jan Johnson — Against: Expressed concerns about removal of Bridgeway emergency median and questioned accuracy of parametrics data. ▶ 📄
Hank Baker — Neutral: Presented parking committee recommendations including new parking equipment, handicapped parking resolution, and increased Caledonia district parking. ▶ 📄
Babette McDougall — Neutral: Expressed concerns about government transparency and process issues in Sausalito, questioning why things are 'upside down' despite mayor's legal expertise. ▶ 📄
Joel Carr — In Favor: Supported 715 Bridgeway project, stating it saves historic building and generates needed tax revenue, criticizing 'naysayers' who slow progress. ▶ 📄
Elina Franklin — In Favor: Supported 715 Bridgeway project as great for revitalizing downtown and enhancing economic activity while preserving historic building. ▶ 📄
John Dimonte — Against: Opposed 715 Bridgeway project due to noise concerns, lack of motor vehicle access, and impact on neighborhood residents who weren't properly notified. ▶ 📄
Sharna Brockett — In Favor: Urged denial of appeal, criticizing NIMBY mindset and comparing opposition to historical resistance to other community improvements. ▶ 📄
Paul Murray — Against: Expressed concerns about noise from 715 Bridgeway project, noting that one appellant represents broader neighborhood concerns about sound impacts. ▶ 📄
Ava Krizan — Against: Criticized police presentation on military equipment and raised concerns about police complaint process and officer conduct. ▶ 📄
Lorette Rogers — Against: Opposed combining CN1 area with other commercial areas for formula retail, expressing concerns about impacts on residential neighborhoods. ▶ 📄