| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:56.31 | Steven Woodside | closed session c1 is conference with real property negotiators the property is the attorney street dock c2 is public employee performance evaluation the title is city manager c3 is conference with labor negotiator the employee organization is the sausalito police association and c4 is conference with legal counsel anticipated litigation significant exposure to litigation one case |
| 00:01:22.95 | Ian Sobieski | And Mayor, I'll be recusing myself from that case because of the location of the property and the... my assessment of the financial impact it will have on my property. Thank you. |
| 00:01:34.09 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. City Clerk, do we have any public comment? |
| 00:01:40.44 | Walfred Solorzano | there's nobody in the audience and seen none on Zoom. |
| 00:01:43.19 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. With that, we will adjourn to closed session and we will resume. We will reconvene at 7 p.m. Thanks. |
| 00:01:52.60 | Ray Withey | . |
| 00:01:58.75 | Steven Woodside | All right. Good evening, everyone, and welcome back. We are reconvening the Sausalito City Council meeting for Tuesday, June 17, 2025. I'll ask the city clerk to call roll. |
| 00:02:15.49 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blaustein. |
| 00:02:17.83 | Steven Woodside | here. |
| 00:02:18.07 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 00:02:18.84 | Walfred Solorzano | Council Member Hoffman? |
| 00:02:20.53 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 00:02:20.55 | Steven Woodside | here. |
| 00:02:21.28 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski? Here. Vice Mayor Woodside? Here. Mayor Cox? |
| 00:02:25.46 | Steven Woodside | Here. Next is our Pledge of Allegiance. |
| 00:02:31.15 | Unknown | I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. We held. |
| 00:02:46.91 | Steven Woodside | We held a closed session this evening. There are no closed sessions announcements. May I have a motion approving of the agenda? So moved. |
| 00:02:55.18 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:02:55.23 | Steven Woodside | Second. All in favor? Aye. That motion carries 5-0. Next is special presentations. |
| 00:03:11.51 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:03:11.53 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:03:16.34 | Jill Hoffman | Is Yoshi here in the audience anywhere? I'm not seeing him. Thank you. You know? Thank you. |
| 00:03:22.13 | Steven Woodside | All right, I'm going to exercise my discretion and postpone my special presentation until on my first special presentation. And we're going to move forward with our next presentation, which is the police department oath of office ceremony. And I'll welcome our police chief to the podium. |
| 00:03:44.38 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:03:44.40 | Unknown | Well, I have to say that worked out for us. It's hot back there. So thank you, Yoshi. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council, and the Sausalito community. I'm honored to be here tonight to introduce four of our newest members of the department and to share with you and the community A ceremony that holds great significance in our profession. The swearing-in ceremony is more than just a formality. It's a meaningful tradition that marks the beginning of the public service servants commitment to serving the community. By taking the oath, which they will tonight in front of you, our employees are pledging to uphold the values of integrity, accountability, and service. And before we proceed with the actual swearing in, I'd like to take a moment to say a few words about each of them. I'm going to invite them up in just a minute. Um, This is a special occasion, not just for them, it's for their friends, their family, the photo. It's a moment that we remember in our career. Um, and so after the introductions, we'll have the official swearing in. with a city clerk. and Then following that, and we'll try to make it as quick as possible. We'll have a family member come up, pin their badge, take a photo, and then And then we'll be out of here. So with that, I'll ask all four of you to come on up. |
| 00:05:16.76 | Unknown | And while they're coming up here, if you could just line up right here in front of the board. So, I asked each of them to write me a bio. I edited a little bit, but about themselves and not just what they're doing here, but who they are as a person, where they came from, and their family and hobbies and just their whole being. So we're gonna start with Pete. Pete Flores, he's one of our newest parking enforcement officers. He was hired in August of 2024. And so I'm just going to read this. So bear with me. He was born and raised in San Francisco. He attended a Japanese elementary school at an early age. He later graduated from... Woodrow Wilson High School and continued his education at the City College of San Francisco. He began his law enforcement career in 1997 as an animal control officer for the city and county of San Francisco. A fun fact, and I will pass this around when I'm done. is that he was on the Animal Cops of San Francisco TV show. He shared with me proof right here on his bio. His proudest achievements was retiring after 23 years of dedicated service as a public officer. While he still holds a deep passion for animals, Pete chose to retire in order to pursue new challenges and focus on the next chapter of his life. He enjoys various hobbies, including cooking, scuba diving, motorcycle track days, traveling, spending time outdoors, and meeting new people. lives on the coast in San Francisco with his beloved cat Oliver, who is also here. Pete's goal is to serve the city of Sausalito by delivering high quality service and continuing to grow in his professional public service career. With a strong foundation in law enforcement and a commitment to community, he looks forward to continuing meaningful service to the city of Sausalito. So that is Pete Flores. Next we have... |
| 00:07:16.00 | Unknown | Next, we have Officer James Angelopoulos. He's our newest police officer. He's been with us for 10 months. Actually started as a full-time police officer in August of 24. He was hired as an academy trainee and sponsored by us to go through the Santa Rosa Police Academy, where he graduated successfully. After completing his five months of internal training, he's now serving as a solo beat officer and patrolling the streets of Sausalito. James grew up in Novato, attended Marine Catholic High School, He holds a degree in marketing from the University of San Francisco. Before joining the force, James worked for several years as an EMS professional in both San Francisco and San Mateo counties. A fun fact about James is that he started as a high school basketball coach, a role that eventually led him to train NBA players in shooting and dribbling skills, including... Thank you. Help me. Kawhi Leonard, who played for the LA Clippers and Richard Jefferson, who played for the New Jersey Nets. James is engaged to his fiancee, Cassidy, who you'll meet in a minute. In his free time, he enjoys working out and playing basketball. He's excited to continue developing as a police officer while serving the Sausalito community. So that's James. |
| 00:08:39.17 | Unknown | Okay, next we're gonna talk about Michael Brand. |
| 00:08:44.35 | Unknown | there. Okay. Thank you. Most people, at least around the police department, we call him Mac. He's been employed as our property and evidence technician, also parking enforcement officer, although we haven't trained him yet to be out on the streets yet. He's been with us since September 24. His role is to manage, document, and safeguard all our evidence and property to make sure the chain of custody is intact for our cases and all the work that we do out on the streets. He currently lives in Pacifica with his girlfriend, Alicia, who is also here tonight. He moved there primarily to be closer to his family after earning his bachelor's degree in criminal justice and law enforcement administration from Colorado State University. Matt grew up in San Francisco, and his mother still lives on Mission Street. He spends many weekends helping her care for foster dogs. She currently has five dogs, and that number changes depending on the need. Mac and Alicia both share a love of books and movies, especially in the horror genre, and he says that she's the biggest fan. They spend most of their free time enjoying these hobbies together. Mac is grateful for the opportunity to serve and support the community and is committed to maintaining the integrity and professionalism of his role. So that is Mac. |
| 00:10:05.10 | Unknown | And last but not least, Cynthia Morgan. She joined us in February of 2025 as our administrative aide. She serves as the face of our department as visitors come to the front counter and, um, taking the phone calls when people call the police department. Cynthia was born into a military family and spent her younger years moving all over the United States and living in Japan for three years after her father retired. They settled down in Petaluma. And she has been a proud resident of that community since 1988. Cynthia's professional career has been dedicated to retail management, loss prevention, and most She's been a part of the as a record specialist and call taker for the San Rafael Police Department. During her time there, she was also part of the crime scene investigation team and contributed to their recruitment team. She is married to her husband, John, who you'll meet tonight, and enjoys the outdoors cooking and spending time with her five dogs. She looks forward to serving the citizens and employs a Sausalito, and her fun fact is that it's her birthday. Thank you. |
| 00:11:11.47 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:11:11.76 | Unknown | Thank you. So happy birthday. So with that, Walford, are you ready? |
| 00:11:32.99 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay, everybody can raise their right hand. And please repeat after me. I state your name. to solemnly swear. that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States. and the Constitution of the State of California. against all enemies born and domestic. that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States. and the Constitution of the State of California. that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion. And that I will well and faithfully discharge. |
| 00:12:36.81 | Walfred Solorzano | The duties upon which I am about to enter. |
| 00:12:52.77 | Unknown | Okay, we'll just start with James. We'll go in order and pin the badge, take a photo, and then we'll leave you to the rest of your meeting. Cassidy, come on up. |
| 00:13:05.07 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 00:13:05.11 | Unknown | Bridget. |
| 00:13:10.29 | Unknown | Go slower. |
| 00:13:11.67 | Walfred Solorzano | So, |
| 00:13:14.20 | Unknown | Oh. |
| 00:13:15.74 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:13:17.44 | Carolyn Revell | Thank you. |
| 00:13:18.76 | Melissa Blaustein | I know. Yeah, I know. |
| 00:13:25.73 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:13:34.35 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:13:34.42 | Bonnie McGregor | Thank you. |
| 00:13:34.54 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:13:34.65 | Bonnie McGregor | Thank you. |
| 00:13:34.91 | Walfred Solorzano | you |
| 00:13:34.98 | Bonnie McGregor | Thank you. |
| 00:13:35.03 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:13:37.12 | Bonnie McGregor | put them together. |
| 00:13:38.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:13:38.18 | Bonnie McGregor | Thank you. We'll do it after. |
| 00:13:39.80 | Unknown | Thank you. Okay. Pete, you want to call up whoever's going to pin your badge? |
| 00:13:43.24 | Katie Thao Garcia | you want to call |
| 00:13:50.40 | Unknown | Jared is a captain with Tiburon Police Department and a good friend of Pete's. |
| 00:13:50.74 | Adrian Brinton | a |
| 00:13:56.93 | Adrian Brinton | I've seen police officers 18 and a half years ago, even my bad. |
| 00:14:00.15 | Walfred Solorzano | Oh, wow. Thank you. |
| 00:14:15.61 | Adrian Brinton | Yeah. Thank you. |
| 00:14:25.63 | Unknown | All right, Alicia, you're up. |
| 00:14:30.00 | Sunshine | Thank you. |
| 00:14:30.02 | Alice Merrill | Yeah. No. |
| 00:14:32.03 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:14:43.08 | Walfred Solorzano | Bye. |
| 00:14:45.93 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:14:50.32 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 00:15:04.06 | Unknown | Okay, and last but not least, John, come on up. |
| 00:15:31.14 | Unknown | As always, thank you for allowing us to have the ceremony here. It's very important that the community sees us, you meet our new members, and that we get to share this awesome ceremony in front of you. So we're going to leave and go have cake and let you to your meeting. |
| 00:15:45.03 | Steven Woodside | THE FAMILY. |
| 00:15:45.10 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:15:45.17 | Steven Woodside | We'd like you to do the tradition of coming in front of the council so we can each shake the hands of them. Absolutely. All right. |
| 00:15:50.28 | Unknown | Absolutely. |
| 00:15:52.03 | Melissa Blaustein | I'd like to do a screening of the SFPD animal dog show that you were on at some point at our library. I'd just like to put that on as a future agenda item. |
| 00:16:02.65 | Unknown | I'll send you the picture via email. |
| 00:16:15.52 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:16:21.87 | Bonnie McGregor | Thank you. |
| 00:16:21.89 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 00:16:22.04 | Bonnie McGregor | taking a photo |
| 00:16:23.98 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 00:16:24.13 | Bonnie McGregor | you |
| 00:16:24.18 | Babette McDougall | you |
| 00:16:24.53 | Walfred Solorzano | Oh, yeah, okay. Thank you. |
| 00:16:26.61 | Adrian Brinton | Bridget, you're new to the kids. Right? |
| 00:16:29.36 | Unknown | Yeah. you |
| 00:16:30.07 | Unknown | you |
| 00:16:30.12 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:16:30.32 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:16:30.91 | Unknown | you |
| 00:16:30.93 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:16:31.03 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:16:31.40 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:16:32.08 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:16:33.19 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:16:33.21 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:16:33.46 | Adrian Brinton | Thank you. |
| 00:16:33.83 | Walfred Solorzano | Talk soon. |
| 00:16:36.37 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:16:37.33 | Alice Merrill | Thank you. |
| 00:16:39.62 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll see. Thank you. Thank you. of a lot of questions. Thank you. |
| 00:17:08.06 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:17:14.70 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:17:15.38 | Kevin McGowan | All right. |
| 00:17:15.97 | Bonnie McGregor | Thank you. |
| 00:17:21.34 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:17:31.93 | Chris Zapata | Congratulations. |
| 00:17:33.99 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:17:34.08 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 00:17:34.53 | Alice Merrill | Thank you. |
| 00:17:34.55 | Unknown | talking to the |
| 00:17:39.28 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:17:39.29 | Unknown | Thank you. And |
| 00:17:43.17 | Sunshine | know. |
| 00:17:44.76 | Unknown | Okay. We're actually really quick. That's out. |
| 00:17:48.10 | Sunshine | Thank you. |
| 00:17:48.13 | Steven Woodside | It's really supposed to sign. |
| 00:17:49.69 | Unknown | So, Thank you. |
| 00:17:58.77 | Steven Woodside | All right, folks, we have one more special presentation for this evening. One of my great privileges as mayor, actually each of us enjoys as mayor, is to issue a proclamation. I'm issuing a proclamation that evening to Yoshitome. who's here in our audience, and I'm gonna go ahead and read it. |
| 00:18:17.51 | Unknown | Hmm. |
| 00:18:19.18 | Steven Woodside | Proclamation City of Sausalito recognizing the dedicated service and contributions of Yoshi and Susie Tomei to the Sausalito community. Whereas, the City of Sausalito is pleased to have this opportunity this evening to acknowledge the many ways in which Yoshi and Susie Tomei have been involved with and participated in our community, city civic organizations, worldwide civic organizations, and special events. And... Whereas Yoshi first came to California in 1981 for a six-month teacher exchange program, and that's when he fell in love with the United States. And? Whereas just five years later, and nearly 40 years ago, Yoshi opened Sushi Ron Restaurant in Sausalito in 1986. And? Whereas since then, Yoshi and Susie built the restaurant from a small sushi bar into an industry star with international renown. And? Whereas hundreds of Sausalito residents were fortunate to be members of Sushi Ron's Sushi Lovers Club back in those days. And? including me. Whereas, long committed to giving back to his community, Yoshi is a long-term member and director with the Associated Chamber of Commerce. And... Whereas beyond his participation with the Chamber of Commerce, Yoshi is constantly engaged as a business and neighborhood leader along Caledonia Street and in all of Sausalito and. Whereas in addition to attracting customers from around the world, Sushi Ron is also known for entertaining and making Sausalito residents feel at home with many of their customers also turning into friends and family. And... Whereas Yoshi has been an amazing sponsor and resource for Sausalito's Sister City program with Sakai de Japan, fostering the relationship since its inception in 1988, accompanying our student delegations and hosting theirs, hosting numerous dinners and fundraisers in support of the Sister City organization, and serving as an amazing ambassador and liaison for decades. And... Whereas Yoshi and Susie's commitment to serving others embodies the spirit of Sausalito, and we are endlessly grateful for his friendship and humanitarian efforts. And whereas in honor of his tireless service to our town, Sausalito is honored to invite Yoshi Tomei to serve as its Grand Marshal for its 2025 4th of July parade. Thank you. |
| 00:20:40.41 | Steven Woodside | Now, therefore, and in witness whereof, I, Joan Cox, mayor of the city of Sausalito, have hereunto set my hand upon this proclamation, recognizing and thanking Yoshi and Susie Tomei for their many, many hours of community involvement, and ask that the citizens of Sausalito also offer their gratitude and thanks to them when they pass them on the street. Arigato goza maisu. |
| 00:21:08.17 | Yoshi Tomei | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:21:11.04 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:21:11.92 | Yoshi Tomei | Thank you. |
| 00:21:11.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:21:13.18 | Jesus Nava | nobody gets off me. |
| 00:21:20.39 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 00:21:20.40 | Yoshi Tomei | at least. |
| 00:21:21.25 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. The same few words. |
| 00:21:25.92 | Steven Woodside | Yes, can you tell us if you accept to become the grand market? |
| 00:21:29.57 | Yoshi Tomei | Yes, yes. Thank you. This is a great honor to be this community, being here. I'm celebrating my, as an owner, 39 years. I was there before the manager, three and a half years, 42 years in Sassariro. I'm very humbled, and I greatly appreciate it, accept a great honor, and I continue to keep working i tell the other guests i'm not retiring i might take a little more time off but i just visited my first granddaughter in new york city and i came back late last night anyway it's a great honor thank you i will continue to be part of south rave power community don't worry at all |
| 00:21:29.87 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:22:13.04 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:22:21.64 | Steven Woodside | All right. With that, 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. Except in very limited situations, state law precludes the council from taking action on or engaging in discussions concerning items that are not on the agenda. And so with that, I will welcome Sunshine to the podium. |
| 00:22:47.41 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:22:54.70 | Sunshine | Good evening, everybody, City Council, and all of you. I'm here just because I'm starting to now speak on behalf of seniors. And seniors need to be treated with much greater respect than they've been treated in the past. I've lived here across the street for 12 years. A new manager came the 8th after, in all those 12 years, and she lied. I was not served papers, although they said I was. They knew, they found out that I wasn't served papers because the Zoom camera caught me here when he was supposedly serving me papers. It was January 15th that I moved out, and I still have not found a place to live. I went to legal aid, My lawyer took his vacation during my case and didn't inform me that I was in a federally subsidized apartment and it was not a Section 8 and everyone else seems to want Section 8 vouchers. I was told California has not, or Marin has not offered any for two years and no one is offering me one now, although I thought someone's got the power to be able to do that. But I'm looking for the yes in this situation. And, Healing, I have a handicap placard because I'm handicapped. That didn't matter. All the other tenants spoke on my behalf. They wanted me to stay. I don't know if the court that was ever presented to the court, but in any case, it was a perfect storm of being evicted. And the council helped on some, they helped house my storage, my storage. possessions, but not me. And I'd like to get housing and I'm asking for help throughout the community of San Francisco. I can live in and help someone. I just need a place to live and That's it. Thank you. |
| 00:24:58.53 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:24:58.63 | Sunshine | Thank you. |
| 00:24:58.65 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:24:58.70 | Sunshine | Thank you. |
| 00:24:58.77 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:24:58.90 | Sunshine | Thank you. |
| 00:24:58.92 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:24:58.94 | Sunshine | Thank you. |
| 00:24:58.95 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:24:59.02 | Sunshine | Thank you. |
| 00:24:59.71 | Steven Woodside | city clerk |
| 00:25:01.35 | Walfred Solorzano | No further public comment. |
| 00:25:02.73 | Steven Woodside | Okay, with that, we will move on to the... Oh, Fred, did you have something? |
| 00:25:11.59 | Steven Woodside | Welcome. |
| 00:25:12.64 | Unknown | Welcome. Just real quick, Mayor and Councilmembers, I just want to thank you again on behalf of the citizens. I know you guys have a lot of things on your plate, a lot of things to consider. And I know you guys always give very strong, deliberate decision-making in your comments as well as your decisions. I know you don't always agree, but I really appreciate the fact that I know that you've given it thought and you haven't just brushed it aside. And also, as a member of EBIT, I was wondering if you could consider a potential future item of putting back on their thought process of power washing the sidewalks downtown. We just got back from Portugal in our sister city and it's about four times the size of Sausalito, but we were remarked on how clean the sidewalks and the surfaces were and how uncluttered the city was. And I think that might be something to consider going forward to help clean up the downtown with power washing. I'll volunteer to do the work. Just need a power washer and coordination with the downtown people as far as electrical outlet, and I'll get it done early in the morning. So just bring it up with PBIT if you wouldn't mind. Thank you very much. Thank you. |
| 00:26:18.10 | Steven Woodside | Thank you so much. |
| 00:26:18.67 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 00:26:18.72 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:26:20.19 | Walfred Solorzano | No further public comment? |
| 00:26:21.47 | Steven Woodside | All right, seeing none. I'll move on to the consent calendar. Matters listed under the consent calendar are considered routine and non-controversial, require no discussion, are expected to have unanimous council support, and may be enacted by the council in one motion. The items on our consent calendar today are items 3A through 3I. 3A, adopt the draft minutes of May 27, 2025. 3B, Juneteenth National Freedom Day Proclamation. 3C, National Gun Violence Awareness Day Proclamation. 3D, authorize the city manager to sign a grant agreement with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife for Turning Street Dock Improvement Project in the amount of $170,439. 3D, authorize the city manager to sign a grant agreement with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife for Turning Street Dock Improvement Project in the amount of $170,439. and contribute $56,813 of in-kind money. Staff time wages. 3E, adopt a resolution adopting a list of projects for fiscal year 2025-26, funded by Senate Bill, the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017, in the estimated amount of $186,780. 3F, adopt a resolution approving updated job descriptions and approve an updated pay range for existing positions. 3G, adopt a resolution approving an encroachment agreement to allow construction of relocated entry steps and wraparound landscaping planters and to permit the existing southern wall and central bay window of legal non-conforming residents to remain within the public right-of-way at 416 Richardson Street. 3H adoption of a resolution approving an encroachment agreement for a 42 inch fence in the public right of way at 99 cloud view road and 3 I authorized the city manager to waive building permit fees associated with necessary and needed replacements and Ada improvements at 5.3. O-1 Olima Street, Sausalito Rotary Senior Housing to continue to support income-restricted senior multifamily housing in the city. but, Any questions about the consent calendar? I'll open it up for public comment. I have no speaker cards. |
| 00:28:46.73 | Steven Woodside | Go ahead, Babette, you're our only public speaker. |
| 00:28:52.49 | Babette McDougall | Thank you very much. Babette McDougall, Sausalito resident. So on the consent calendar, I thought this was a really interesting read today. For one thing, I'd like to call out our relationship with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. I had the opportunity just recently to actually witness... the disposition of these little Chinook salmon that were created up in the McAloney river hatchery area, and released under the North Tower of the Golden Gate Bridge. It turns out they say it's their most successful site, I think they said, up and down the Pacific. How exciting. So really, I think the more we do with them, the better. So I look forward. to building these relationships. And I know that they're not going to be easy going forward, but they're never more important as they are now. Thank you for allowing me to speak. Thank you. City Clerk. |
| 00:29:39.50 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:29:40.22 | Walfred Solorzano | Seeing none. |
| 00:29:41.24 | Steven Woodside | All right. I'll entertain a motion approving the consent calendar. So moved. |
| 00:29:48.56 | Joan Cox | Second. |
| 00:29:49.32 | Steven Woodside | All in favor? Aye. That motion carries. 5-0. We will next move on to business items. And I will turn it over to the city manager to introduce item 5A, adopt a resolution adopting the city of Sausalito budget for fiscal year 2025 to 26. |
| 00:30:11.65 | Chris Zapata | Thank you, Mayor, members of the public. I wanna begin by saying, Your work and your time on the dais as a mayor and council and the time you put in to get to this foundational document and bringing it forward tonight is much appreciated. I want to give you a little history. In June of 2021, my first month on the job post pandemic. And that budget was a little rough in October of 2021. 2021 after seeing the impacts of the budget as well as some of the things that to me were pretty obvious in the community. I gave some recommendations to that city council that they could benefit by focusing on a back to the basics approach. And that approach involved personnel, finances and infrastructure. I'm proud to say that this budget is that. It is absolutely the best budget that I have worked on in my four years here and why. It creates an environment that continues stabilizing our workforce. It provides for continued emergency and pension strategies that are funded at $9 million and $4 million. It invests over $17 million in our capital projects that are much needed in the city. So that is why this is the best budget that I have been a part of in my four years in Sausalito. As you know, budgets are documents that express our values, our city values. What you fund is what you value. Budgets are documents that have many facets, and there is a process in these budgets. These budgets, like tonight, they come forward for adoption. They come forward for adoption. At the end of this calendar year, you probably will have a completed audit In the beginning of January, you will be looking at a mid-year financial process. And then in January, after you have your strategic planning session, you will then start with a new budget calendar for that year. So these opportunities for these foundational types of policy decisions and the budget is that are really, really milestones for our city staff our community and certainly for yourselves so as we present tonight's uh presentation i really like to thank the interim finance director jesus nava and our finance department for working with you and working with city departments to present tonight's budget and our strong recommendation is is that you adopt it jesus please |
| 00:32:46.61 | Jesus Nava | Good evening, members of the city council. We just have a short presentation today. So on the third, we went through an extensive presentation showing you most of the budget issues and most of the budget policies that were being implemented as part of this year's financial plan. What we have for you today is just sort of a recap of some additional changes final actions uh for today so review the final revenues and expenditures for the general fund review the all funds summary as organized by the city council discretion to appropriate funds so the council had asked for us to organize the all funds summary in such a manner so that the council could tell what discretion they had in the uses of those funds. Review the general fund summary, since it's the major fund, review the measure L subfund, again, given the emphasis on capital improvements, and then adopt the resolution approving the budget. Next slide. |
| 00:32:48.13 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:33:50.23 | Jesus Nava | So the first item that you have before you are the final expenditure adjustments to the adopted budget. So since June 3rd, we've made a number of changes. Those are documented in this sheet. As you can see, they're pretty much neutral. Overall impact on the general fund is about negative $3,300 or less than two hundredth of a percent. So it's really insignificant and minuscule. But those are included in the adopted budget that's before you today. Any questions? It pretty much just implements the city manager's recommended reorganization. Next slide, please. Yes. |
| 00:34:34.78 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, Jesus, for providing this to us. So what's the total... the total revenue and total expense in this budget. |
| 00:34:47.33 | Jesus Nava | or You want to know general fund or entire |
| 00:34:54.05 | Jill Hoffman | Just the bottom line. |
| 00:34:54.99 | Jesus Nava | The bottom line film. |
| 00:34:55.67 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 00:34:56.24 | Jesus Nava | In terms of the bottom line, if you look at your report, the City Council report, we have an operating budget amount and about the $32 million range, and then a CIP amount as well. I'm not sure. |
| 00:35:07.68 | Jill Hoffman | Well, I'm just talking about just in a, in just a... Um, not operating, but when you look at just a balance sheet, just a regular balance sheet, bottom line revenue and bottom line expense. Or you can do it the other way, however you want to say it. Whatever you want to say, like expense. |
| 00:35:17.93 | Katie Thao Garcia | Thank you. |
| 00:35:17.95 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:35:18.26 | Walfred Solorzano | to. |
| 00:35:25.71 | Jesus Nava | I like it. Let's go to the all funds summary. Next slide, please. So you'll see that you have in your recommended budget a revenues column. If you go down to the bottom, you'll see revenues, 36.6 million. And then on the expenditure column, you'll see expenditures of 32.7 million. And then transfers to the CIP of 16.6 million. For estimated ending balance, all funds of 22.7 or 22.8 million dollars. |
| 00:36:04.77 | Jesus Nava | I do not. Sorry. |
| 00:36:07.32 | Steven Woodside | You don't have, you're fine. Okay. |
| 00:36:11.96 | Jesus Nava | So everybody can hold these numbers. |
| 00:36:12.16 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. you |
| 00:36:13.80 | Jesus Nava | Okay. All right. |
| 00:36:16.03 | Ian Sobieski | I guess just to emphasize that, uh since it's on the top of mark the total revenue is 36.6 million for the whole enterprise the total expenses is 32.7 million so that's just shy of a four million dollar surplus so what you've done new over the whole enterprise more money we've taken in than expenses and then what you've done new in this budget is we've had a capital improvement fund for a long we've had a capital improvement improvement like you can't hear me, sorry about that. So the total revenue is 36.6 million. The total expenses is 32.7. So we're exceeding expenses by just shy of 4 million. And what you're doing new here is we've had a capital improvement fund for some time, but you're taking $16 million that has been sitting on a bunch of other funds, including the general fund, and you're putting it into the capital improvement fund. |
| 00:36:32.53 | Jesus Nava | Sort of pleasant. |
| 00:37:06.42 | Jesus Nava | Correct. So the general fund will be contributing to the CIP fund $5.6 million. |
| 00:37:17.89 | Jesus Nava | All of Measure L will be taken in the CIP. In terms of your rental funds, you'll be contributing $470,000 to the CIP. |
| 00:37:23.75 | Katie Thao Garcia | THE FAMILY. |
| 00:37:31.91 | Jesus Nava | Your capital improvements fund 1.1 million. The CIP. And then out of your restricted 1.4 billion from the title, and for that 16.6 million. |
| 00:37:44.00 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:37:44.01 | Jesus Nava | Thank you. |
| 00:37:44.03 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:37:45.38 | Jill Hoffman | And to follow up on that, and you're including all of the revenues from the parking fund, the Martin Luther King fund, the old city hall fund and the Bank of America, well, such as it is, the Bank of America fund. |
| 00:37:57.50 | Jesus Nava | Yes, correct. Those are described as rental funds where the city council has full discretion to use the collected revenues subject to potential lease requirements that may exist now or in the future. |
| 00:37:58.24 | Jill Hoffman | THOSE ARE THE THINGS THAT WE |
| 00:38:10.14 | Jill Hoffman | And so, and you run that down straight through the revenues and it goes all the way down. That's how you got the 36 million in revenue. |
| 00:38:17.46 | Jesus Nava | Correct. |
| 00:38:17.85 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Thank you. |
| 00:38:18.93 | Chris Zapata | Can we clarify the comment that I heard, which is we're using all of the funds from the parking in Mucket? We have fund balances in those funds after this year's budget, Jesus. What are they? |
| 00:38:29.81 | Jesus Nava | Yes, we do. So parking fund starts with an estimated fund balance of 2.5. We're bringing in revenues of 3 million. We have expenditures of 2.8. We have a transfer to the CIP of about 400,000. We're an estimated ending balance in the parking fund of 2.35 million. |
| 00:38:51.38 | Jill Hoffman | And as a follow up then on that, one of the things I had asked at the last city council meeting was that you include the deferred maintenance or the maintenance costs of the facilities assessment from the Veritas report. And we discussed this earlier this week. And in fact, we discussed it last weekend earlier this week. And there was a decision made not to include those deferred maintenance costs in this year's budget. Is that correct? Oh. |
| 00:39:16.14 | Jesus Nava | Not a decision that was made, but that we would not be including some of those repairs or rehabilitations in the budget unless they've been included in the CIP budget. |
| 00:39:25.37 | Jill Hoffman | And at this point, there's no way that any of those, none of those, the facilities assessment and those costs in the Veritas report have been tied to directly to any of the CIP or tied to any of the funds at this point. Not as part of the budget exercise. In this presentation, not as this budget exercise. |
| 00:39:44.50 | Jesus Nava | you |
| 00:39:44.52 | Walfred Solorzano | Not as part of the budget exercise. Correct. |
| 00:39:48.64 | Jill Hoffman | There might be some somewhere in the budget, in the CIP, but it's not booked, and it's not booked against specifically any of the funds at this point. |
| 00:39:57.92 | Jesus Nava | We haven't specifically identified any of the items in the varieties report to be addressed as part of the revenues that you have before you. |
| 00:40:08.18 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:40:08.20 | Steven Woodside | Okay, thank you. |
| 00:40:08.94 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Yeah. |
| 00:40:10.22 | Steven Woodside | Can I ask a follow-up? So when we discussed the capital improvement plan twice, we specifically allocated various of the recommended Bureau Veritas repairs into our capital improvement program for this year, including... an amalgamation of small repairs that traversed many of our facilities. Is that not true? |
| 00:40:36.63 | Jesus Nava | Yes, there were included in there a variety of repairs and replacements. |
| 00:40:43.07 | Steven Woodside | Right, and we ascertained those by looking at the Bureau Veritas report and seeing what they communicated were our most urgent repairs to be undertaken. And then our public works director, um, compiled those and we have included a number of those in our current upcoming year capital improvement program. Is that not right? |
| 00:40:59.56 | Bonnie McGregor | Thank you. |
| 00:40:59.60 | Alice Merrill | Hi, old. |
| 00:41:00.22 | Katie Thao Garcia | Thank you. |
| 00:41:08.79 | Jesus Nava | Is that not right? That is correct. OK. I think the reference was that there isn't a complete match up between what we've got in the budget and the needs as identified in the report. |
| 00:41:18.46 | Steven Woodside | For each of our various facilities, like the Gene Hiller old |
| 00:41:19.68 | Jesus Nava | like the GMO. |
| 00:41:22.68 | Steven Woodside | City Hall like. the MLK, et cetera. |
| 00:41:26.93 | Jesus Nava | Yeah. Correct. |
| 00:41:27.59 | Steven Woodside | Understood. OK. for instance. |
| 00:41:29.94 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 00:41:30.97 | Steven Woodside | If I can follow up on that. Okay, the vice mayor had his hand first, then Melissa, |
| 00:41:35.64 | Joan Cox | And just quickly, my recollection is in this budget is about $600,000 plus for some of those recommended actions for long-term maintenance. |
| 00:41:47.01 | Jesus Nava | Yeah, I don't have an itemized list of any of the repairs or rehab items as identified. There is a total that we're including. They were included, a variety of them, but I don't have the specifics. That's what I'm telling you in front of me. |
| 00:41:52.50 | Joan Cox | There is a total. |
| 00:41:59.42 | Joan Cox | There is a dollar amount, a rather substantial one, to address some of those specifics this recommended budget year. |
| 00:42:07.92 | Jesus Nava | There are some needs that have been identified correct. But as to the actual dollar amount, I cannot provide it for you at this point in time because I don't have it in front of me. |
| 00:42:07.94 | Joan Cox | There are some numbers. |
| 00:42:11.05 | Chris Zapata | What, no? |
| 00:42:16.07 | Chris Zapata | Mayor and council, I can give you some examples of where this has occurred. You know, you have money set aside for the Spencer Fire Station Rehabilitation in this capital improvement program. The vice mayor mentioned the facilities maintenance. There's $630,000 or so attached there. We have $1.3 million set aside for lot one. There are different aspects of the capital improvement program that address the concerns that were laid in the Veritas study that total 55 million dollars so 55 million dollars is not one year fix it's going to take time to do that what you're doing tonight is you're taking the first aggressive step towards starting by adopting this budget which has a 17 million dollar investment in facilities across the city including the facilities mentioned in the Veritas report. But we are not trying to solve that problem with this budget. That didn't happen overnight. It's not going to get fixed overnight. |
| 00:42:16.09 | Jesus Nava | Thank you. |
| 00:43:08.25 | Jesus Nava | you |
| 00:43:08.27 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:43:08.34 | Jesus Nava | Mm-hmm. And as you recall, we'll still have the discussion at some point in time as to whether the council wants to take some Measure L money and actually go out and, you know, secure some debt to take care of those items up front as well. But, you know, that's at a future point in time together with our financial advisors. |
| 00:43:29.50 | Steven Woodside | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 00:43:30.58 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:43:35.76 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you. Well, no, let's, well, if we could just focus back then on the funds, right? So the enterprise funds, the segregated enterprise funds. And I believe that's the, the rental funds that you have up here. So the whole issue of the rental funds is, that you segregate the rental funds so that you build up a fund inside the rental fund as an enterprise, and so that you book the needed As an accounting, you book the needed repairs that you need on this rent producing capital asset so that you have the ability to make the repairs so that this thing continues to create the bottom line that you put into your general fund so that you can continue to do that. So when I was looking at the Veritas report and the reason that I had requested that the Veritas report totals be also added as a fifth column here or sixth column, one, two, three, four, five, six, seventh column over here on the right so that you can see why you need to keep money in or at least account as part of the accounting process. And you can see what the deferred maintenance is on this. So, for instance, my calculation when I added up the Veritas report for the next five years, the MLK income-producing enterprises at the MLK site need $3,795,000 in repairs in the next five years. So over the next five years, we're going to need $3 million in repairs to New Village School needs $500,000, Lycée Francais needs $2 million, the gymnasium needs $700,000, the bus bar needs $534,000, and the public restrooms there need $33,000. So if we keep siphoning money out of this fund to balance our general fund, as we have done in this budget, we're not going to have the money to do the needed repairs so that this continues to be a revenue-producing asset, for instance, the Lycee Francais, that pays a significant amount of money. Is that a question? It is. And so I'm wondering why we haven't done that. We paid a lot of money for the Veritas report. My understanding was that was going to be incorporated into our budget as soon as we got this report. And so I don't think that was a direction from the council not to |
| 00:45:48.99 | Katie Thao Garcia | It is. |
| 00:46:10.32 | Jill Hoffman | go through this exercise or at least account. And I think most ongoing businesses would incorporate that. So I'm wondering why we didn't do that this year. |
| 00:46:20.41 | Jesus Nava | Well, possibly timing. I mean, the report came out, the budget was being worked on, two different processes. You know, one could be just a timing issue. Second is that you really do have time to work on some additional financial plans as well. I mean, you've identified the needs that exist and have been identified. you do have some additional resources and you have measure l money that you could consider to leverage some debt if you really wanted to use measure l money to fix more of your facilities so i mean there are options that you can work with with your financial advisor you just need to sort of think about how you're going to approach that and then take sort of the next steps |
| 00:47:00.50 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you for that. And so, but at this point, we haven't gone through that exercise, and we're really sort of at risk at this point because we haven't accounted for that in this budget. |
| 00:47:11.50 | Jesus Nava | You've accounted for minimalized what I, and again, I don't want to talk for public works because I didn't do the actual work in terms of identifying the immediate needs. Um, But there are needs and there'll continue to be needs. And part of the strategy will be to figure out how to finance them as we go along. |
| 00:47:29.51 | Jill Hoffman | So let me go down here with this rental fund through the Bank of America Fund. So I'm interested in this fund as we go across. And this also doesn't have the outstanding capital improvements that we're going to have to start making this year. So the losses over here. that we see on this fund in the estimated ending balance, that represents... does that, that represents the loss to the city or that represents the number that we're taking out of the general fund to balance the debt service on this. |
| 00:48:11.19 | Jesus Nava | Yeah, pretty much the debt service is their biggest expense there. You know, you have a debt payment of about $161,000. |
| 00:48:20.30 | Jill Hoffman | And then again, going back to the Veritas report, we're going to be, it reflects that we're going to be needing to make another $600,000 in capital improvements at the SDA over the next five years. Thank you. |
| 00:48:32.42 | Jesus Nava | I believe they have been identified, but I also understand that the city is working on additional revenue sources for that particular fund as well. So |
| 00:48:32.54 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:48:42.41 | Jill Hoffman | But those additional revenue sources are only going to bring us up to maybe breaking even on the debt service. It's not going to address the need for the capital improvements of $618,000 over the next five years. |
| 00:48:55.13 | Chris Zapata | Let me respond, Mayor, if I can. I'm going to help shed some context to this. I'll give you an example. The city went into debt to buy the MLK facility. Once the city paid that debt off, it's now generating $1.4 million a year. At some point, you will pay off the debt for the B of A building, and then it will be generating cash to the general fund that's in excess of the expenses that you are paying. Now, you amortize that over time. Maybe this improvement that needs to happen there doesn't allow you to start recouping cash until you're out in the six, seven, eight, nine years, but at some point, you will, just like with the MLK school, start generating cash with that. Very few assets that you buy turn into cash cows, net cash cows immediately. It takes time. And so with the D of A building, you are trying to minimize the outgo to the city, plan for the future capital improvements that the city council agreed to, and somewhere in the near future, five years away, six years away, you will have something that's actually 10 years, the debt will be paid off, and that will be free and clear cash to you other than operating costs or any sinking fund you want to set up. But you can't start these funds with the presumption that they've got to generate cash, net cash, from day one because they don't. |
| 00:50:19.47 | Jill Hoffman | I'm sorry, City Manager, are you saying that when we bought the B of A that we should not have expected to be able to rent it to somebody that might have been able to pay a rental fee that would have exceeded our debt service? |
| 00:50:31.78 | Chris Zapata | You tried. And direction from the council was to adopt the lease structure that we have in place. So you will get there. |
| 00:50:38.43 | Jill Hoffman | So you will get there. We made it a quick break. Okay, we made a decision. Let me finish, council member, please. |
| 00:50:41.29 | Chris Zapata | I didn't make that decision. We made a decision. Let me finish, council member, please. Let me finish. Okay, pardon me, go ahead. The debt service to purchase that building for $2.3 million was well known. |
| 00:50:44.35 | Jill Hoffman | Let me finish. Okay, pardon me, go ahead. |
| 00:50:56.24 | Chris Zapata | and was scheduled out over 15 years, you're five years into it. There was no surprise there. I'm not sure what council voted on that, but good move. That's a strategic asset that you acquired. It's now generating cash and visits to support your downtown. Is it netting revenue today? No. Will it net revenue in the future? Absolutely. That's all I'm trying to say. |
| 00:51:19.85 | Jill Hoffman | Well, when we first, yeah, the thought process when we first took over, it was a conscious decision. Is this a question? This is really Q&A. |
| 00:51:28.97 | Steven Woodside | THE END OF |
| 00:51:29.03 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:51:29.05 | Steven Woodside | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:51:29.14 | Jill Hoffman | TODAY. |
| 00:51:29.20 | Steven Woodside | Well, no. |
| 00:51:29.22 | Jill Hoffman | Well, I'm going to correct the record because the city manager- |
| 00:51:32.11 | Steven Woodside | You can do that during your public comment. |
| 00:51:33.64 | Jill Hoffman | I'm going to do it now. |
| 00:51:34.96 | Steven Woodside | Nope, this is the time for questions. Mayor, respectfully? Respectfully, this is the time for questions. The city manager, this is- |
| 00:51:40.78 | Jill Hoffman | You can. I'm sorry. |
| 00:51:42.52 | Steven Woodside | We're going to be missing. about what this council please don't speak over me I don't speak over you I was not finished and you interrupted me please don't |
| 00:51:49.82 | Jill Hoffman | Well, you just cut me off. |
| 00:51:49.91 | Steven Woodside | YOU CAN. Yeah, because it's a point of order. |
| 00:51:52.00 | Jill Hoffman | I don't know who's cutting off whom. |
| 00:51:53.69 | Steven Woodside | I'm making a point of order. This is the time for Q&A. You may address your opinions on our capital improvement program and our budget when it's time for comments. This is the time for questions. I have other council members awaiting the opportunity to ask questions. |
| 00:52:06.77 | Jill Hoffman | Well, point of order, if our city manager makes the misstatement about what this council did when we first did our first lease with the SCA, I think that I have the right to correct that statement. When we did our first lease with the SCA, we consciously decided to have a break-even lease with the SCA. It was amended a year ago. And now it's not a break-even lease with a triple net lease. We now... Do you have a question, Councilmember Hoffman? Yes, and I'm going to get to that in a second. We made a decision a year ago to no longer have a triple net lease, so we are now responsible for all of the maintenance on it. And this is a big part of why this issue needs to be booked in our budgets, and it's not. And so anyway, okay, moving on to my next question. With regard to the business improvement district, I'm looking – |
| 00:52:52.01 | Katie Thao Garcia | it. |
| 00:53:05.64 | Jill Hoffman | Is that here on, oh yes, okay, the Business Improvement District. So is that's down there under restricted funds. I'm interested in why the business improvement district is down under restricted. That's listed as a restricted fund. Are you we considering that to be a revenue producing fund? |
| 00:53:24.46 | Jesus Nava | That's because the uses of those resources are the specific to be used by the business improvements district itself. So we transfer that money over to them for their use based on their budgets and their strategies for implementing their expenditures as agreed to with the council. That's what I'm assuming. |
| 00:53:42.58 | Jill Hoffman | And is that, and that was just because we didn't know where else to sort of account for that? Or because we can't use those funds. |
| 00:53:48.29 | Jesus Nava | No, we can't. I mean, they really belong to the DBID. We collect them, we send out the bills, we collect the revenue, and then we'll transfer it right back to the Business Improvement District for the least. |
| 00:53:58.14 | Jill Hoffman | But the city doesn't use those funds. We can't use those funds. |
| 00:54:01.16 | Jesus Nava | We do not use those funds. They belong to the business improvement district. |
| 00:54:04.25 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, and as I understand it though, we are 40,000 or are we 40,000 or $45,000 short in collections from the property owners? |
| 00:54:14.49 | Jesus Nava | This just simply shows that at the beginning of the year, you had $45,000, that the revenues that are projected to come in are $235,000, and that the whole amount will be transferred right back out to the business improvement district for their use, leaving a fund balance of about $45,000, but we'll probably transfer the complete amount over to them for their use since it's part of their budget. |
| 00:54:37.22 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so let me ask the question again. The 45,000 that's estimated fund balance, does that reflect the collections that we have not collected from the property owners? |
| 00:54:50.13 | Jesus Nava | No, it's just the money that's sitting in the fund. Is that just a coincidence? It's just a coincidence. Okay. The whole amount will be transferred over to the BID for their uses. Okay. It really belongs to them. We're just a fiscal pass-through agency. |
| 00:54:52.19 | Jill Hoffman | Is that just a coincidence? Okay. |
| 00:55:04.49 | Jill Hoffman | OK, so I'm sorry. So then there's no accounting here for the fact that we have not received or collected |
| 00:55:06.67 | Jesus Nava | Thank you. |
| 00:55:13.71 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:55:13.72 | Jesus Nava | No, it's just spending on fund balance. Yeah. |
| 00:55:13.76 | Jill Hoffman | No, it's just what's bidding on Thank you. |
| 00:55:16.24 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Can I ask you guys not to interrupt each other because we need the public to be able to hear what you're saying. |
| 00:55:17.03 | Jesus Nava | Thank you. Yes. you're saying. Yes, sorry about that. Thank you. |
| 00:55:21.44 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:55:22.82 | Jesus Nava | you |
| 00:55:22.84 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. I apologize. And there's no under expenditures then for the PBID. I don't see anything, or the business improvement district fund under expenses, expenditures. So there's no, we also don't have an accounting for what they've expended money on, or do we not book that at this point? |
| 00:55:47.57 | Jesus Nava | No, we don't control their budget or their expenditures. Okay, gotcha. We just collect on their behalf. |
| 00:55:48.50 | Jill Hoffman | We don't. Okay, gotcha. Okay. Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you for that. you Councilmember |
| 00:55:56.00 | Melissa Blaustein | that was |
| 00:55:56.28 | Jill Hoffman | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:55:56.47 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, great. Thank you. So I think you said that according to the accounting here, we had something like $36 million in revenues, $32.7 million in expenses, and then the general fund contributed to the capital improvement plan. So I just want to Hone in or zoom in on the capital improvement plan and I might have director mcgallon answer these questions i'm not sure who the right. person for it is, but director McGowan, you presented to the planning commission last week, right on the CIP? Okay, great. And during that time in the staff report, you said, The CIP is a five-year planning document, which includes a list of known improvement projects for the city. Products are broken into different categories based on the type of sources, and then you go forward to break it down, right? Okay. |
| 00:56:33.66 | Steven Woodside | And then you also noted- Can you step to the podium and answer vocally so those watching- I can do my yes, yes, yes. |
| 00:56:39.16 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. Bye. Great. Perfect. And so when you started the capital improvement project planning for this year, based on the upcoming fiscal budget, did we yet have the Veritas study? |
| 00:56:50.37 | Kevin McGowan | When I first started, no. |
| 00:56:52.90 | Melissa Blaustein | And it looks like you added here a new category to the CIP based on that assessment study. What did you call it? It's not- |
| 00:57:00.71 | Kevin McGowan | Building assessment. |
| 00:57:01.72 | Melissa Blaustein | Building assessment. So you've already accounted for it and we're thinking about it in the CIP, correct? Okay. And then I want to zoom in on some of the funds specific to the CIP as they relate to our use of these funds, because that's being- brought up and you might be able to enter this or Jesus, but so if you look at, for example, the parking fund, which is a specific fund that we expected two and a half million in revenue, we got three, we use 2.8, then we took 400 to our CIP. I have a couple of questions, Director McGowan. So in the CIP, we have a plan to improve our parking payment systems, correct? |
| 00:57:33.89 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, we have a few projects that relate to parking. That's correct. |
| 00:57:37.65 | Melissa Blaustein | And would you say also our parking lot reconstruction, which is also in the CIP would relate to the parking fund. |
| 00:57:44.05 | Kevin McGowan | No, if you take a look at the details, we split that between the Tidelands Fund as well as the Parking Fund because it is within the Tidelands Zone. |
| 00:57:51.02 | Melissa Blaustein | because it's- Right, but what I'm trying to get to the bottom of is the funds that are going into the CIP will be going to projects that benefit the parking fund, correct? Yes. Okay, so you could say that the funds that we're moving are going back into the work that will reallocate revenue for that fund specifically. Okay, and then just to pull out on some other revenue generating funds, I noticed also in the capital improvement projects this year you've allocated $75,000 for the MLK gym, right? |
| 00:58:17.14 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, that was a specific project. |
| 00:58:19.37 | Melissa Blaustein | And that's part of the capital improvement project that plans based on all of these revenue generating funds. |
| 00:58:24.21 | Kevin McGowan | Yes. |
| 00:58:24.77 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, great. I just wanted to clarify. And then one last point is that, Jesus, last time we heard from you and we talked about the budget going forward, we all asked for a 10-year planning horizon and agreed to discuss a 10-year planning horizon, correct? Correct. And that's something we're still going to look into. as we budget going forward. |
| 00:58:41.64 | Jesus Nava | I believe the city manager has committed to get going on the 10 year financial modeling |
| 00:58:47.21 | Melissa Blaustein | Right. |
| 00:58:47.63 | Jesus Nava | Project. |
| 00:58:47.65 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. And Director McGowan, I imagine that as we go forward with our CIP and project for the next five years, we would take into account both the Veritas study and the 10-year budgeting, but you did your best possible job, given our fiscal picture this year, to start taking steps for capital improvements and use of our measure L dollars. |
| 00:59:04.81 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, that's correct. We want to take a look at that longer range that's anticipated in the BV report and anticipate with some of these buildings and areas that We have to set aside funding in future years in order to address things. So you're correct. |
| 00:59:19.93 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, and you have every intent to help us plan to set aside funding so that we can deliver on the Veritas project going forward. |
| 00:59:25.90 | Kevin McGowan | I will do my best. |
| 00:59:26.76 | Melissa Blaustein | great. Thank you very much. |
| 00:59:29.74 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:59:29.75 | Jesus Nava | All right. |
| 00:59:31.27 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:59:31.29 | Jesus Nava | Did you want to continue with your presentation? Yeah, sure. I mean, so just a couple of things. It's the nature of local government to always have more needs than would you have resources. You know, I think at the last meeting, Mayor, you said, hey, between you and Chris, you got like 70 years of experience between you. And you know what? In those 70 by 35 years, you've never have had enough money to do everything that is needed it's always been a hard decision to decide or to put your money to get the best bang for the buck so you know it's a that's just the nature of the work and the nature of the decision making process so even though it may seem a little bit conflict written that's just the way it is you know and ultimately that's how you get to your decisions Next slide. So the general fund, high-level general fund. So the general fund accounts for all general revenues of the city, not specifically levied or collected for other city funds. So this is your default fund. In many cities, small cities in particular, you may have one or two funds, but the general fund is always a fund that you need to have. And as you can see there, you know, we started, it gives you three fiscal years worth of data. It gives you your actuals for 23-24. It gives you your estimates for this current year, which ends in a couple of weeks. And then it gives you your budget for the next fiscal year as well. Let's concentrate on the budget for next fiscal year. As you can see, the general fund has a beginning balance. We'll have a beginning balance of $24.3 million. We're projecting general fund revenues of 22.8, transfers in of 2.75, expenditures of 22.7, transfers to the CIP totaling 13.7, and that's both the general fund and the measure L. So a net change in your fund balance of $10.8 million, mostly because of the transfers to the CIP. For an ending fund balance next, June 30th, 2026, of $13.5 million. When you break out the fund balance into your designations, you can see that $4 million is for your PARS pension And 5.5 is for your economic stability reserve, leaving you an unassigned balance of $4 million. And that $4 million is clear of any restrictions or clear of any encumbrances at this point. |
| 01:02:09.76 | Mark Palmer | Okay. |
| 01:02:10.01 | Jesus Nava | Thank you. Next slide. Measure L. So Measure L, when you look at your audited financial statements and you look at the general fund, your general Measure L and your pension is included in that display. And then at the end of the book, you have a schedule that breaks them out as well so that you have so that the citizens can see what's in the general fund. This schedule breaks out the measure L for you so that the citizens can also follow how much money aside from the general fund it will produce. So once again, three columns, your actuals. You had begun with a general fund balance of about a little less than $700,000. You brought in revenues of almost $3 million. You had available resources of $3,600. Coming in, no expenditures. This current year, you brought in another 2.8. So available resources are 6.4. You had expenditures of about a million dollars. So your ending fund balance is projected to be 5.5 million dollars. And the new budget, we start with that 5.5. We bring in another 3 million. For available resources of 8.4, you actually have expenditures of $450,000, which is your two project managers. And then you're transferring out the remainder to the CIP, and that amount is $8,027,000. So at the end of next year, you'll have used all your Measure L revenue for CIP. It should reflect zero. |
| 01:03:48.87 | Steven Woodside | So, thank you for including the expense allocation for our two project managers. It was my understanding from our discussion of our capital improvement fund expenditures in the upcoming year that this $8 million would also cover additional staffing necessary to oversee, manage the projects that we're undertaking in the coming year, that those projects exceed the capacity of our existing staff. Am I right about that? |
| 01:04:21.44 | Jesus Nava | Yes, you are. And that's what that 450 pays for, the two additional project managers. |
| 01:04:25.55 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. IT'S A LITTLE BIT. |
| 01:04:25.96 | Jesus Nava | fish. |
| 01:04:26.18 | Steven Woodside | not our two existing |
| 01:04:27.49 | Jesus Nava | to additional. |
| 01:04:28.24 | Steven Woodside | Okay, great. Thank you for that. |
| 01:04:30.41 | Melissa Blaustein | See you. Director McGowan, do you want to just speak to what those two project managers are going to be working on for the public to be aware of, just which projects? |
| 01:04:42.88 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. We're taking a look at all of the projects. Generally, it's most of the new ones that are coming in. Remember, on the capital improvement program, we separated them to active projects versus new projects. There are some of the new projects that we want our staff to work on, but most of the new ones are going to be handled by the part-time staff coming in for capital managers. |
| 01:05:10.68 | Jesus Nava | Any other questions on Measure L use? Okay, good. So council fulfills its commitment to the public by using all the money for the capital improvements program. So congratulations to that. Next slide, which is the final slide, and it's just simply the acknowledgements. So we've worked, you know, this was a quick budget. We had a couple of months to turn it around. we've met with every member of the city council to hear their concerns and to hear their ideas to share information. So you've made your voices heard loud and clear about what your expectations were, not only in this budget, but moving forward as well. So we have done our best to try to incorporate as much as your feedback and your desires in the budget. We may not have gotten them all, but it's a good start. And given the comments that we heard tonight about the needs for additional maintenance dollars, I think the council has heard that also very clear and will probably be looking to do more in that arena as well. So, you know, all things being equal, I think the council has done their due diligence in making sure that the planned expenditures are what they need to be. And unless there's further questions or further comments, I think we're ready to adopt the budget. |
| 01:06:28.35 | Steven Woodside | I'm going to first open it up to public comment. Mm-hmm. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. |
| 01:06:33.35 | Ian Sobieski | I just wanted a level setting question, sir. First of all, thank you very much. I know you stepped in and congratulations. The city manager described this. Well, maybe I'll ask the city manager this. You described this as the best budget I've worked on in four years here. And I know you two work together on it. And that's quite a statement. This is a man not given to hyperbole or adjectives very often. So can you help me understand why the public should think of this? |
| 01:07:01.12 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:07:01.55 | Ian Sobieski | in those terms. |
| 01:07:02.36 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:07:02.42 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:07:02.44 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:07:03.13 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:07:03.15 | Chris Zapata | Sure, I can. It's called investment in longstanding capital improvements that have been languishing, frankly, because we've had some decisions to make. Are we going to have a renewal of Measure O? When that happened, that created Measure L. The expansion and extension of that created a resource. how do we know what we want to have in reserve so that we can handle an emergency as best we can? That resulted in the 25% formalization of that longstanding societal policy. You know, what are we going to set aside for pensions? That resulted in a million dollar investment a year after. And then it was, well, how do we know what we need to spend? And that was the Veritas Facilities Assessment. So the culmination of all that is $17 million commitment to starting to move the needle in something that we've been trying to get right for three years. So for me, that's one aspect and the main facet of why this is a great budget. The second one is, is there's some succession planning in this budget, you know, trying to maintain and keep and recruit staff that we have, reward staff that have been here. This budget does that. The reorganization that's set forward that I proposed, oh, a month ago involves, you know, some recalibration of the organization and making it a little more agile, a little more sustainable, and doesn't cost the city a whole lot of money. I think that's really important. And then the completion of audits in the past, and I thank the people that worked on them, has resulted in what I told you two years ago was some unassigned fund balance that you needed to invest. And at one time I told you that was $ plus million dollars. Well, tonight you're taking and investing at least half of that into needed capital projects that will do a couple of things. One, they help our business environment. Two, they certainly help our risk profile. They meet longstanding needs that are quality of life. So this is, yeah, absolutely the best budget that I've been a part of in Sausalito and and by the way, you know It takes a lot of hard work to get here And you all have put in that work to get to the point where it took three years, but here we are tonight So that's why I say it's the best budget since I've been here that I have been a part of |
| 01:09:21.54 | Ian Sobieski | So my follow-up question is all this money that we're investing in infrastructure that we've moved into the CIP fund all this money. My second question is all this money that the city council has now moved into the capital improvement fund. where did that come from? It looks like we doubled the amount of cash on our balance sheet over the last 10 years. So is that coming? Where's that from? Is that from bringing in more money than we spend every year or something else? |
| 01:09:46.58 | Jesus Nava | Well, yeah, I mean, the only way you can accumulate these fund balances is by not spending all the money that comes in. So, you know, on the one hand, we've heard we've got additional needs that need to be taken care of. But on the other hand, you've done very well in terms of accumulating some balances of cash in some areas where you need them. You know, now when we're hearing it, let's put that money to work in the smartest way that we can in order to make sure that we fulfill the needs as best identified by the citizens and you as a city council so your job now is to decide hey here's where the needs are best and here's where we're going to place our money and the budget just does that it provides uh numerous resources well what i heard from when i came in from the was, hey, the council really wants to jumpstart the CIP program and really wants to get ahead of making these improvements. So let's figure out a way of doing it. So most of the emphasis was on that CIP area and making sure that we could identify the dollar amounts that were needed to at least begin putting that money aside so that you could get those projects done. And is there more needs? Yes, there are. So that means we've got to be smarter and figure out how to even do our job even better. You know, take the money that we have and try to leverage it even a little bit smarter and see what we can do. You know, that's just that's the nature of the business. |
| 01:11:08.87 | Ian Sobieski | exciting. Thank you very much. |
| 01:11:10.50 | Jesus Nava | Thank you. All right, I'm gonna open it up to public |
| 01:11:13.03 | Jill Hoffman | comment. |
| 01:11:14.67 | Steven Woodside | I don't have any. |
| 01:11:15.31 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Okay. Pardon me. Jesus, I had one more question. And we had discussed this when we were talking. And that's the downward revenue trend that we're seeing. And so can you just briefly explain that and what we saw in the OpenGov what we saw in the OpenGov when we looked at that, and then what you're seeing in the numbers that haven't yet been uploaded into the OpenGov report. |
| 01:11:38.36 | Jesus Nava | So the OpenGov shows very succinctly how the revenues trend here in Sausalito. You have good years followed by some less prosperous years, I should say, where revenue is not the same. But the good years come, and then you have a couple of years. So you had a great year in 23, 24, as you saw, revenue succeeded expenditures by about $5.8 million between the general fund and Measure L. So a lot of cash came in in that year. We are now seeing sort of a slowdown of those revenues, and I'm even projecting a greater, not a greater slowdown, but a slowdown as well in the coming years. If you look at your TOT, I've dropped them by about 2% in anticipation, and I've also lowered your sales tax collections to about 2.67 for next year, as opposed to 4 or 5% as they've been. |
| 01:12:41.53 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:12:41.54 | Jesus Nava | Thank you. |
| 01:12:41.71 | Jesus Nava | Thank you. |
| 01:12:41.75 | Jill Hoffman | So, |
| 01:12:41.80 | Jesus Nava | It's a very conservative estimate. |
| 01:12:43.85 | Jill Hoffman | And that's from the downward trend that you're seeing from 23, 24, and 24, 25, and you expect that to continue in- To normal- |
| 01:12:50.10 | Jesus Nava | The normal cyclical, you know, redundant economic, you know, trends that come and go. I mean, we've talked, I think I've spoken to all of you about this. The city's economy trends with the tourism and the business cycles of the Bay Area. So when the economy and tourism are up, Sausalito prospers. When the economy and tourism is sort of ebbing and on the down low, your revenues tend to go down. And with sales tax and the TOT and your business license taxes all being sensitive to economic trends, you know, that's what you would expect to see. |
| 01:13:35.21 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you for that. Thank you. |
| 01:13:37.96 | Steven Woodside | All right, we're gonna open it up to public comment. We'll hear first from Babette McDougall. |
| 01:13:49.90 | Babette McDougall | Thank you for acknowledging me, Babette McDougall. So I want to speak to two core issues with regard to looking at the new budget for the coming year. First of all, I would like to quote the city manager when he says this budget, like any city's budget, is supposed to reflect that community's values. So I just want to ask the question. On the one hand, when we had a finance director available to us who led us through a very similar discussion over the previous couple of years, and we had great confidence that everything was going well, and then suddenly this year, there was this huge disconnect that was never appropriately addressed or explained. I don't know why there was no forensic investigation, at least by the some impartial citizen group. The one that comes to mind for me would be like the finance committee because these are citizens, of course. with oversight or with assistance to the finance direction for the city itself. So that's one item I'd like to put out there because I don't, Thank you. There's a lot of us that wonder, well, how are we supposed to have confidence going forward if it wasn't confident before? What's the difference? And then the second item has to do with, I'm glad to see an acknowledgement that the visitor traffic industry, the hospitality business has on the city budget. I don't understand why there is not a corresponding constant attention being given to the marine ship. You know, the working waterfront, I come from a household where we had a pleasure craft for decades, right here in Sausalito at Clipper. and then later at Travis, where it still lives. And every single thing needed for that 32-foot sloop was taken care of right here in Sausalito. Never had to leave town to keep the boat always beautiful and in shape for anything. So if we let the working waterfront degrade. What are we doing to our waterfront as a whole? How soon before the waterfront itself dies? Thank you. |
| 01:15:49.95 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:15:49.97 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 01:15:50.04 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:15:50.58 | Babette McDougall | you |
| 01:15:50.66 | Steven Woodside | you Cynthia... egg egg ink. And Mark Palmer. Then I'll call on Ray with you. |
| 01:16:06.46 | Ray Withey | Yeah, good evening, everybody. I always show up on budget night. So first, I want to make three points. First, adopt this budget. It's, I agree with the city manager, this is a very solid budget. On the operational side, it's status quo. There's needs to be a lot of analysis to figure out long term. its sustainability But, Three months ago, you had no finance director. You had a budget ahead. And you have now, I think, a budget. I feel pretty comfortable about it. And we've not been very good at budgeting over the last few years. That's the first point. Second point. There's a narrative going around town. with some residents, that the only way in which the city balances its general fund is by using its business enterprise funds, such as Parkin, MOK, etc., Yes, that's correct. Thank you. That's the purpose of those funds. The purpose of those funds is to transfer revenue into the general fund. And so this conversation that is ongoing is utter nonsense. Nonsense. The third thing I want to say is that there are issues you need to address. MLK is an example. Council Member Hoffman is correct. You need to schedule out future needs for capital improvements. But guess what? That needs to be done in our capital improvement plan. The facilities assessment report needs to be washed through our capital improvement plan with all of its prioritization. And then a schedule, future schedule of possible investments that need to be made. And then you will know and have the funds from the enterprise fund to pay for it. What does that mean in the end for my last three seconds? A long range financial model. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:18:21.42 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:18:21.44 | Ray Withey | I'm not sure. |
| 01:18:21.49 | Steven Woodside | Bye. |
| 01:18:21.51 | Ray Withey | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:18:21.59 | Steven Woodside | That's Merrill. |
| 01:18:27.65 | Alice Merrill | Welcome. Two things. I agree with, um, with Babette. I'm not going to go into it because she just said it all. I thought it was. She hit on the points that I think are important. And B. little, little housekeeping thing. It says in the, in the agenda that we get three minutes. |
| 01:18:46.62 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:18:46.67 | Alice Merrill | And we don't think |
| 01:18:48.03 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Thank you. I'll ask the city clerk to correct that. Okay, city clerk, anyone online? |
| 01:18:57.13 | Walfred Solorzano | Senator Bushmaker? |
| 01:18:58.56 | Steven Woodside | Welcome, Sandra. |
| 01:18:59.46 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 01:19:01.74 | Steven Woodside | you |
| 01:19:01.75 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you very much. Good evening, counsel. I just want to, I hope we got three minutes. I'm just human. |
| 01:19:08.47 | Walfred Solorzano | Absolutely. It's actually. |
| 01:19:11.56 | Sandra Bushmaker | To say that we have $36.6 million in revenue and $32.7 million in expenses does not mean we have $4 million of surplus income. which I think one of the council members says, because we have used all these fund transfers, we don't have $4 million of new revenue. And I just wanted to go through some numbers that I pulled out of the Veritas and attachment six. with regard to using these funds. We pulled 500,000 out of the MLK fund. We have $140,000 left in that fund and we have $13.4 million of repairs to MLK. Old City Hall, we pulled $100,000 out and we have $1.1 million of repairs for Old City Hall. We pulled out 1.7 million from the parking fund and we've got 2.6 million of parking, matters, parking lot repairs. to to happen with the Veritas report. So we've got $53.3 million of deferred maintenance, according to the Veritas report. And I believe that we need to get real with that. And I'm happy to hear that there is some discussion about really moving that forward. I am concerned about depleting the funds for the general fund when we have these costs associated with these particular assets. With regard to the retirement pension, It came, the city manager responded to my letter, which is in your packet. And made a comment about the 2001 decision for increasing. retirement benefits. When we did that, and I was on the council at that time, |
| 01:21:06.09 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker is Jacqueline Armikas. |
| 01:21:12.05 | SPEAKER_01 | Good evening, council members. Anne, thank you for taking my questions here. I don't know if I really have a question. I have a statement to make. regarding the fees, the, um, financial health of the city moving forward after this fiscal year ending June 30th, 2026, My concern is whether the city of Sausalito has the ability to continue annual debt service requirements beginning fiscal year ending June 30th, 2027. Starting in 2027, the annual debt service for obligation bond series B 2006 is $1,145,000. My concern is that as the city continues its deficit spending close to $3 million, as noted in the fiscal year ending budget 2026, And it continues to draw on MLK funds, parking funds, city funds to bridge this gap. Um, And that moving forward, um, from you. fiscal year in 2027 to 2042. We have a general obligation fund to meet in the amount of $25,615,000. And those payments begin in fiscal year end, June 30th, 2027, My question is, is how are these funds going to be repaid. |
| 01:22:48.86 | SPEAKER_01 | Thank you. |
| 01:22:48.88 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:22:49.41 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:22:51.25 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. City Clerk. |
| 01:22:52.91 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker is Adrian. |
| 01:23:01.87 | Adrian Brinton | Hi, thank you for taking my comment. You know, one of the commenters earlier talked about how we're gonna get confidence going forward. And I think one way we do that is by looking back and looking at what our city manager said about |
| 01:23:09.04 | Katie Thao Garcia | and |
| 01:23:15.34 | Adrian Brinton | his priorities when he came in about staff finances and infrastructure. And I think over the first years that he was here, looking at the staff and the way that we've actually kind of rebuilt our staff since he's been here, it's been really good. Finances, I feel like we've made a lot of progress in how our finances are seen and understood. And now this year we're investing a lot in our infrastructure. So I would say kudos to that. I think we've done a great job Um, you know, the city manager has done a great job in implementing what he said he was, uh, going to implement. I'm glad that we split out the unrestricted funds from the restricted funds, but it sounds like there's still a lot of confusion, especially listening to some of the other comments. So we have a lot more work to do there. Understanding the difference between a capital budget and an operational budget is difficult. And understanding what our long-term capital plan looks like versus our operational budget is difficult. You know, we do need to increase our revenues to be able to pay for our infrastructure needs looking out 20, 30 years. And the time to do that is now. So hopefully we can kind of come back around to that and understand how we can raise our revenues increasing our business downtown or developing areas of town that are underutilized. But, you know, it's great that we're having these conversations. I think we've come a long way. So thank you very much. |
| 01:24:37.89 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. City clerk. |
| 01:24:39.69 | Walfred Solorzano | No further public comment? Thank you. |
| 01:24:41.03 | Steven Woodside | Right, I will close public comment and bring it up here for discussion city clerk will you set our clock as we each embark upon our comments who would like to lead off. |
| 01:24:52.13 | Joan Cox | I'm happy to. Thank you. I agree with former Mayor Withey. I agree with our city manager. This is a very decent budget. It emphasizes capital improvements by a significant dollar amount that we have in the bank, just to use the vernacular. All of these funds that are not restricted have historically been transferred over the years to fund basic operations, capital improvements, et cetera, et cetera. Over the last few years, are not restricted have historically been transferred over the years to fund basic operations, capital improvements, et cetera, et cetera. Over the last few years, this city has determined that it will have a 25% reserve. |
| 01:24:53.01 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:25:28.09 | Joan Cox | general reserve. And that's in this budget, built into this budget. The estimates of revenues are conservative, according to our finance director. Conservative revenue estimates, expenditures that do a whole lot to improve infrastructure. And during the last campaign for office, that was a big deal to the community. We want infrastructure improvements. We want our roads. We want to deal with sewers. We want to deal with sewers. We want to deal with our stairs and steps, et cetera, et cetera. That's in this budget. |
| 01:25:53.32 | Katie Thao Garcia | group. |
| 01:26:02.95 | Joan Cox | I don't believe it's appropriate to use question time to make a statement. So I only asked one question, and that was about the minor maintenance, $500,000 or $600,000 that's in this budget, plus the big ticket items like parking lot one in this budget. So let's approve this budget. It reflects, thank you, city manager and director of finance. We gave clear direction. We had input from the public. Many, many hours of hearings. We gave direction, and you've come back to meet our goals, as we stated. Thank you. |
| 01:26:37.26 | Steven Woodside | Who's next? Thank you. |
| 01:26:41.78 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, I again really want to thank our city manager and our interim finance director and all of our different departments, especially Director McGowan, for thinking so much about what our CIP looks like. amount of Collective leadership and effort that went into this process, thank you so much, and we've talked a lot about you know does this budget reflect fiscal responsibility, but it also reflects how we make our priorities and our values in the Community and. I'm really proud to see that our level of service is going to remain very high. that all of our employees are going to stay with us here in Sausalito. We didn't have to eliminate any positions. We're seeing a huge investment in improvements to our infrastructure. So we're listening to our residents, and we're applying our Measure L dollars to infrastructure improvements. And we're preserving a 25% in our reserves, which is well above average. So I'm just really impressed by what we were able to get to, even though there are many local jurisdictions right now who are really being squeezed and our statewide budget is under a lot of pressure. We here in Sausalito have managed to maintain a smart fiscal picture, and that's really thanks to the great team that we have working here for us at City Hall. I'm definitely thrilled to see that we have two specific contract manager positions that not only will aid our public works department for the work and help that Director McGowan needs, but it will also ensure that we deliver on our capital improvement projects and deliver on the sources of funding that we are prioritizing to move those forward. So I think really what I think about when I think of approving this budget is that we've done a great job in a challenging fiscal environment. and I'm very supportive of moving us forward. I do think that we can continue to do better because it's always great to iterate and improve. And I look forward to our 10 year budgeting picture, our long-term budgeting picture, so we can make decisions about how we want to spend our spend our fund balances and also about how we address our pension issues. I would like to work with our consultant on a hybrid solution to our pension balance, as I discussed at our last budgeting hearing. And I think that's something that deserves consideration. But I think once we have a 10-year fiscal picture, we can do a better job of what we want our long-term budget to be, and we can also do more to integrate the Veritas facilities assessments needs that have been addressed. So, again, thank you, and I'm enthusiastic and ready to pass this budget this evening. |
| 01:29:05.66 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:29:07.03 | Jill Hoffman | Who's next? Councilmember Hoffman? I'm happy to go. Thank you. Well, so let me just say straight off the bat, I completely support the CIP budget. I pushed for that for years. I voted for that. I'm glad that we're allocating so much of our unallocated funds to those CIP projects, and I think that's the right thing to do, and I'm glad that that that was brought forward and I'm glad that Kevin put that together for us and I'm glad that we've got two new project managers contract project managers I think that's the right thing to do too so I'm happy to support that part of the project and I budget in as much as it was brought before us and I voted for it before but I do have concerns about the way that this budget is configured and the way that it's been presented and specifically I don't know. as much as it was brought before us and I voted for it before. But I do have concerns about the way that this budget is configured and the way that it's been presented. And specifically, it's pretty obvious, the way that the rental funds are booked and the way that the outstanding maintenance is not booked against it, particularly since we now have this information. I mean, we've been pushing for this information for years and years. And the Veritas, incredibly thorough Veritas report that is now in our hands that we got in March, that's actually attached, if anybody else wants to look at it, to the March 18th, 2025 City Council meeting. It's item 5A, attachment 1, on that agenda. So it's a really great resource. You know, it's $50 million over 20 years, but just for these four rental facilities, you know, there's almost $4 million in the next five years. And so that's the short runway. And so that's not that hard to pop that into the budget. And that's what I had requested that that be that fourth line. And thank you to, by way let me just get that set out before thank you to Jesus Navi for coming in and helping us with this budget I know it was a huge lift and I appreciate that the work that he did and you worked with our staff and our city manager and got this summary sheet together for us and because it really helps it's just very very clear, right? So you look at the rental income on that subtotal rental funds, four million, but you look at the five-year outlook from the Veritas report, we've got four million in outstanding maintenance on all four of those buildings that we need to look at. And it would have been easy just to pop that number into a... into the spreadsheet and account for it. So ignoring it doesn't help us. And I know that there are some projects in the current CIP project list, but they're not those projects. And those projects are in the next five years because those were prioritized by Veritas, the professionals that we hired and paid a good amount of money. So the economic trend is also troubling. I would request that we also do a forensic audit. I think that's absolutely in line for the way that our finance manager left us. I would also ask for an update to opengov.org for the information. It's the end of your time for now. We'll come back to you. Thank you. Okay. |
| 01:32:12.90 | Steven Woodside | up That's the end of your time. For now, we'll come back to you. |
| 01:32:18.20 | Ian Sobieski | Okay. Council member Sobieski. I'll use my part of my time to ask you a clarifying question. Mr. Director of Finance, you might want to go to the microphone. Just you heard one of the public commenters say that it's false to say that we have $36 million, $36.6 million forecast in revenue and $32.7 million. Are those two numbers correct? |
| 01:32:39.92 | Jesus Nava | The numbers are what the numbers are. |
| 01:32:41.44 | Ian Sobieski | And so if you subtract those two numbers, that means it's a $3.9 million surplus is the forecast. |
| 01:32:47.26 | Jesus Nava | That's the, what do you call the- Delta. The Delta. |
| 01:32:50.25 | Ian Sobieski | The Delta. So this is not from a transfer. This isn't from some hocus pocus. Your forecast is for a surplus budget across the entire enterprise. All the funds are just shy of $4 million. Correct. So the commenter was just mistaken. |
| 01:33:04.34 | Jesus Nava | Well, and again, we begin with the assumption that all city money is public money. That's right. Belongs and is under the control of the city. |
| 01:33:04.39 | Ian Sobieski | Well, in the game. |
| 01:33:12.46 | Jesus Nava | counseling. Right. |
| 01:33:12.74 | Ian Sobieski | Right. Thank you, sir. And all city money is public money. And I guess I would just say Congratulations on this budget. City Manager, congratulations on this capstone of achievement. After several years, we have a surplus budget, again, And we had the surplus budgets over and over again. And back in September 28th of 2023, I put out a video to the town, which at the time was shocking because it was entitled to Sausalito Broke. And in it, I pointed out something that I was almost scared to say because I couldn't believe by looking at the numbers that we consistently had operating surpluses in town. And the tell is that the amount of cash on our balance sheet doubled. And part of the reason was this myth that we were broke. And so we actually weren't spending as much money in our infrastructure as we should have been. So finally now, we are investing more than $17 million in infrastructure, thanks to getting on the same page. But I want to say this myth is harmful. This attempt to confuse and so fear, uncertainty, and doubt is not a formula for fiscal restraint. It's a formula for confusion. And it means that we're not investing in our infrastructure the way we should. And those bills have added up. No matter what you do now, we can't tinker around the edges of any and have any hope of ever solving our 50 to $100 million deferred infrastructure bill. And part of that is sown by the confusion. So I would ask everybody not to write grandstanding letters, but talk to you, the director of finance, talk to you, the city manager, learn for yourselves what the truth is, and then come together to try to figure out ways to grow our economic pie. Because the only way we're going to really solve our infrastructure problem long term is by doing that. In that same email in September 28th of 2023, I was the first one to ask for this comprehensive facilities assessment, because I was also saying what we need is a 10 year tool. And with that tool, we can trade off the level of quality. We went in our parking lots versus the level of quality. We went in our playgrounds versus the level of quality. We went out of our streets because everything's not going to be a plus and have low taxes. And we need to make adult decisions. And we do that with tools and with truth. |
| 01:35:23.05 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. All right. I'm in agreement with my fellow council members. I do want to thank City Manager Chris Zapata and Interim Director of Finance, Jesus Nava, who joined us when we had only a little under three months left to put together this year's budget. A herculean and really excellent effort. Thank you so much for that. At the end of last year and as a part of our priorities established at the beginning of this year, the City Council gave direction to the City Manager and staff to undertake the study necessary to understand our various deferred maintenance requirements in a number of areas, including streets, sidewalks, stairs, storm drains, hillsides, ADA requirements, and others, so that we could decide how best to spend our unassigned fund balances to address these needs. I believe our decision to expend a significant amount of those funds this upcoming year to address needed capital repairs is good business. I am pleased that we have compiled a number of resources to better understand our needs and how best to allocate scarce resources over the coming years. I was dismayed that the quotations from the Bureau Veritas report were misleading. The $53 million in deferred maintenance is certainly not intended to be spent all in one year, and certainly not this year. There is no way we could possibly manage that level of projects in a particular year. Instead, we have already given direction to our city staff to hire a consultant to assist us in developing a 10-year model to better plan how and when to undertake the capital improvement needs identified in the Bureau of Veritas report and other resources we have compiled. As I stated at our last City Council meeting, we also do need to adopt a policy for how and when we transfer funds from our various cost centers, including our rental funds. At our last meeting, I recommended we undertake that effort at the time we close out this fiscal year and decide how to allocate this year's projected budget surplus amongst our pension obligations and other needs. I disagree that we need to undertake a forensic audit. We received a clean audit from Badawi last year with no findings, and that includes our compliance with needed checks and balance requirements to ensure sound fiscal practices. And so at this point, I'm prepared to make a motion that we adopt the resolution attached to our staff report, adopting the City of Sausalito budget for fiscal year 2025 to 26. |
| 01:37:56.51 | Joan Cox | Second. |
| 01:37:58.05 | Jill Hoffman | Um... There. Go ahead. I have one thing that got lost, I think. The other one was a request that we update OpenGov.org to our current, I think 2324 needs to be updated, and 2425 numbers we have. But those haven't been updated in OpenGov. |
| 01:38:15.08 | Chris Zapata | Mayor if I can thank you for that Councilmember Hoffman in addition to the updates we will print budgets for the City Council and half of the public in the library and the City Clerk's Office and they will certainly be printed online so that people can access this budget going forward thank you |
| 01:38:33.00 | Steven Woodside | And city manager, we usually keep one in the library as well so that the public has access. I thought I said the library and the city clerk's office. Okay, if you did. The fan is on over here, so I have a hard time hearing some of our... The library where the public gathers. Okay. There will be a budget. Thank you. Hard copy. |
| 01:38:37.87 | Chris Zapata | Okay, if you did, the fan is. |
| 01:38:46.18 | Steven Woodside | All right, great. With that, I'll call the question. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? |
| 01:38:50.38 | Walfred Solorzano | Bye. |
| 01:38:50.41 | Carolyn Revell | Bye. |
| 01:38:51.98 | Steven Woodside | know. All right, so that motion carries 4-1. At this point, I see that we have a board member and the executive director of the Sauciuto-Marin City Sanitary District in our chambers, and I would like to indulge upon my colleagues to move item 5C up to 5B so that we undertake that item next. Seeing consensus, I'll first turn it over to the city manager to introduce this item as well. And, of course, this item is... Sorry, it's item 5D. approve and authorize the city manager to execute a memorandum of understanding between the city of Sausalito and the Sausalito Marin City Sanitary District to transfer sewer collection services and authorize the mayor to execute a bill of sale for the sewer collection system following completion of financial transactions for the collection system. |
| 01:39:48.68 | Chris Zapata | City manager. Thank you, mayor and council. I want to start by saying this has been a priority of this city council and past city councils. As recently as 24, you affirmed that this was something you wanted to see done. So the city and the sanitary district have been working on this for years in an agreement to transfer services from the city to the district. there's been consistent work done by council committees, the most recent one being Vice Mayor Woodside and Council Member Hoffman, to work with the district's special committees and district staff and legal staff to make this all come forward. Tonight, we are pleased to bring forward with the sanitary District a revised memorandum of understanding for consideration by the City Council with one change from December of 2024 and two omissions from December of 2024. The two omissions being the council direction to add a service area expansion limitation language. That's not in this MOU. The language to add a city of Sausalito seat on this new commission as a contingency of the Memorandum of Understanding. That's not in this MOU as well. I can say that there are four of the five members or residents of Sausalito that are on the board at this time. What it does have is revised financial language. And what that revised financial language does and is necessary for this transfer to occur provides a legal framework and a financial framework for the city to undertake this. And the highlights of that are it cleans up our balance sheet. The transfer of the district of the sewer system to the district means that the state revolving loan fund that the city has on its books now will be extinguished. The 2015 sewer bond debt that is on the city's books now will be paid off with the sewer district participation. It also sets aside money in the financial section for the legacy costs of pensions as well as the legacy costs of other post-employment benefits that would be related to this service. So that is really, really important. I also think that it's important to acknowledge that this is not the transfer of the the fire district to Southern Marin or fire department. This is something totally different. This is something that we worked with the district on. They worked with the local agency for mission commission on and LAFCO made it very clear that this was a call that the district and only the district could make to go it alone or to bring it before LAFCO. The district chose to go it alone and take forward the process we have, which is perfectly legal. So tonight what you have in front of you is a roadmap for OF CO. THE DISTRICT CHOSE TO GO IT ALONE AND TAKE FORWARD THE PROCESS WE HAVE, WHICH IS PERFECTLY LEGAL. SO TONIGHT, WHAT YOU HAVE IN FRONT OF YOU IS A ROADMAP FOR THE ORDERLY TRANSFER. THERE'S A SCHEDULE. KEVIN'S GOING TO WALK THROUGH SOME OF THE HIGHLIGHTS AND THEN HOPEFULLY WE CAN SEE A VOTE. AND THEN I ALSO REALLY WANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE BOARD FROM THE SANITARY SEWER DISTRICT AND THE GENERAL MANAGER, JEFF KINGSTON, AND HIS TEAM FOR THEIR CONSTANT WORK ON THIS OVER THE YEARS. |
| 01:43:08.21 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. |
| 01:43:08.23 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:43:08.24 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you. Thank you, Mr. City Manager. Public Works Director for Sausalito and I too want to thank Jeffrey Kingston and Dan Rayner for being here this evening. They have been instrumental in this entire process. Next slide, please. I only have a few slides and I'll do my best to run through them. I think you've seen most of these before. We're moving forward this evening or requesting to move forward with a memo of understanding. And I just want to kind of back up and make a refresher that we have 21 miles of sanitary collection system systems. And currently residents of Sausalito receive two invoices on their property bills, one from the city of Sausalito and one from the district. And it would be good to consolidate those into one bill. The district is an entity that all they do is sanitary work. And so they have skills in dealing with just sanitary. Well, our public works department is good at this, but we do have other priorities that we have to take into account. So- Oh, having the district move forward with managing this is a good idea for our residents. It's an efficiency that will help our residents move projects forward. Next slide, please. The district is a five-member board and provides conveyance and treatment services for Sausalito, Marin City, TAM CSD, and some outlying areas. They service 10,000 equivalent dwelling units and 16,000 members of the district. of the public. So they are a decent sized organization and they know what they're doing. Next slide, please. As many of you know, this discussion has been happening for many years, and we have worked very hard with the district to move it to this point. So again, many thanks for that. That includes you folks as well on the council, as well as members of the board of the sanitary district. In 2094, the district and the city met with members of LAFCO, and I think this was mentioned before, that we do not need LAFCO approval at this point in time, and that's a big step for us. So that will save us time and effort. Next slide, please. In order to move forward, we kind of need a roadmap. And the roadmap is the memo of understanding. So this specific document will allow us to move forward with certain key elements. And there's a lot of steps noted in the memo of understanding. But keep in mind that the major portions have to do with fiscal transfer, and as well as public outreach and personnel and equipment transfers as well. Next slide. So the city has several financial issues that need to be addressed as part of the transfer. This includes retiree pensions, as well as other post-employee benefits, clean water revolving loan, as well as a 2015 sewer bond. The bond was mentioned by Chris as well, and I think that's covered in your packet of how we intend to address that. Next slide, please. We have a schedule included in your packet. Um, our folks from the district have suggested there might need to be some minor changes with that. And we'll need to discuss the timing with the district. But in general, the idea is to move forward with this MOU, The district will meet hopefully tomorrow to weigh in on whether the MOU is approved, depending upon your actions this evening. And that'll set the stage for things such as bond transfer, public outreach, as well as other actions such as transferring easements. One of the things I wanted to mention is that transferring easements is something I haven't done in the past, and I will probably need the help of the district to move that forward, and it may take some time. But we will utilize our resources as best we can to move that forward as quickly as possible. |
| 01:47:21.99 | Chris Zapata | Kevin, can we go back two slides One more. One more. The financial slide. |
| 01:47:33.54 | Kevin McGowan | forward. |
| 01:47:37.05 | Kevin McGowan | Here you go. |
| 01:47:39.22 | Chris Zapata | I don't think we can go past that so rapidly. I think there really needs to be some understanding of what is actually being done by the district and the city to facilitate this. So, yes, you know, setting aside money for pensions and post-employment benefits and paying off the loan. But what the district has committed at this point to do is the delta between the $5 million payoff, $5.1 million payoff of those water bonds, the district is going to fill that delta by writing a check of approximately $3.198764 million to the city so we can pay off the bonds and then legally transfer the system to them. So, you know, the fact that the district is coming up with $3 million to do this, I think is really, really notable. I didn't hear Kevin mention it. So I thought it was important for me to mention it because Mr. Kingston and his team are here. They can tell you, you know, that's a lot of money, but that's what's going to take to get the city out of the sewer business and transfer this service to them. They understand. |
| 01:48:49.22 | Chris Zapata | Chris, I think your mic's off. They're prepared to vote on that tomorrow at noon, which at their board meeting, which I will attend. And to culminate the work that both sides have done to move this forward. Thank you. |
| 01:49:04.00 | Kevin McGowan | All right. Thank you, Mr. City Manager. I appreciate the clarification. Next slide and one more after that. Here we go. I think that concludes my short presentation. And again, I want to thank Jeffrey Kingston and all of his staff, because it's not just Jeffrey, it's Kevin Rahman and his staff behind the scenes helping us out, as well as Dan Rainier and Don Beers, who have attended most of our subcommittee meetings, and you folks on the council as well. So many thanks. This is one of those projects that it takes a village in order to make something happen. So thank you. |
| 01:49:42.28 | Chris Zapata | And, Mayor, kudos to Kevin for staying with us all this time. And thank you to our city attorney, Sergio Rudin, for his work, as well as our finance department, Jesus Nava, Peter Stonebreaker, to get this information in a way that it could be digestible, working with the Bank of New York regarding the sewer debt and working with the state involving the revolving loan fund. So lots of folks have had work here. There's still some work to do, but I think we're at that point where if you approve tonight and the district approves tomorrow, it's going to create a different scenario in Sausalu for the residents, which it should be seamless to. And for the district, it'll be, I don't want to say that word,, but it brings forward, you know, that whole aspect of collection into their service and their operations. Thank you. |
| 01:50:36.02 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. With that, I'll open it up to questions. |
| 01:50:39.10 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:50:39.11 | Ian Sobieski | Council member Sobieski. Maybe I missed it, but when will you estimate this all to be finished? |
| 01:50:45.66 | Kevin McGowan | My original schedule said sometime in, I believe, in September or October. Some of those details I, again, need to discuss with the district to make sure I'm on the right page. There are some key components there. One has to do with public outreach, and we intend to utilize an outside consultant to help us with that. In addition, the easement transfers make me a little bit nervous, and so I want to make sure I have enough time to deal with that. |
| 01:51:14.23 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:51:14.24 | Melissa Blaustein | I don't know if you've |
| 01:51:15.32 | Kevin McGowan | Councilmember Blaustein. |
| 01:51:16.79 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:51:17.81 | Melissa Blaustein | Hi, Director McGowan. I just wanted to clarify just a few things that will shift when if we approve the memorandum of understanding for the consolidation. That means that now the South Sudomarine City Sanitary District would take on the environmental compliance risks associated, or the environmental compliance generally associated with the Sewer Protection District, correct? |
| 01:51:37.95 | Kevin McGowan | Yes, everything associated with the collection system. |
| 01:51:40.91 | Melissa Blaustein | And so the same goes for the infrastructure and infrastructure liability. Yes. Okay. And also all of the regulatory reporting and audits and whatnot. Yes. Okay, great. So it'll save us a substantial amount of staff time and oversight concerns. Yes. Okay. And potential risk for insurance around our infrastructure. Yes. |
| 01:51:49.51 | Kevin McGowan | Yes. |
| 01:51:54.63 | Kevin McGowan | Yes. |
| 01:51:58.86 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 01:51:59.13 | Melissa Blaustein | Great. Thank you. |
| 01:52:02.36 | Steven Woodside | Any other questions? All right, I'm going to open it up for public comment. |
| 01:52:11.47 | Steven Woodside | Bebeke McDougall? |
| 01:52:20.23 | Babette McDougall | Thank you very much. I'm not sure if the letter I sent earlier today made it to the public record, but I did address some of these items at that time. First of all, let me just say I am in favor of progress. And I love the idea of aligning with Marin city. I think there are two things that we need to have our we need to be mindful of as we go forward. Number one, to say again, the words from the city manager, about moving us out of the sewer business by basically exiting the traditional model of what hangs out there on the cliffs overlooking Richardson's Bay toward the Golden Gate. And moving instead toward what, and this is the second item to be mindful of, As we go into this new sewer district, what we're really doing is scaling up for the very kinds of projects that our supervisor, Stephanie Moulton-Peters, will be overseeing over the coming couple of years. of years, which has to do with this huge expansion population-wise in Southern Marin and Sausalito to accommodate transit worker housing. So this is on the horizon through the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, and it's pretty apparent that scaling up for a much larger sewer system is because we're going to have a whole lot more people to deal with coming forward. So I just want to make sure we're mindful of this as we go forward. And finally, as we exit the old, do we know that the people that may or may not have relied upon us in the past, do we know the status of how they're going to get on as our neighbors? Thank you so much. |
| 01:53:50.76 | Steven Woodside | Sunshine. |
| 01:54:00.19 | Sunshine | I would like to take this opportunity to say that I read the agenda, and it said we had three minutes for public opinion. And I was given two Oh, I see here. It does say it down here. But it only said two minutes, and I don't know why it was mistaken. I would like to have one more minute because I did email something to the city clerk that I was asked to please share with the city council and with the city manager. And that's because I had a call today from someone that works up in at the Civic Center for the government and he wanted me to mention to you to look at the report please called RootedInMarin.org. |
| 01:54:47.85 | Steven Woodside | Sunshine, this public comment period is strictly confined to the MOU with the... Understand, but I was... |
| 01:54:53.38 | Sunshine | I understand, but I was not given my third minute. We were giving everyone two minutes this evening. but it's set on the paper, and I can read English, It said three minutes. And I'm asking because I was asked... by this person working for the government in San Rafael. that's the Civic Center, to please let the city council and the city manager know about Rooted in Marin. We received your correspondence regarding Rooted in Marin. |
| 01:55:21.48 | Walfred Solorzano | Because- |
| 01:55:21.94 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:55:24.45 | Sunshine | because they're going to be pursuing that no elders will be treated as I was treated And I've been hearing in other communities, they don't even allow someone that's 85 to be evicted after they've lived in a place for 12 years and caused no problems. Thank you for understanding that if you write three minutes, please give us three minutes. Pray with thee. |
| 01:55:55.82 | Ray Withey | Good evening again. I was particularly wanted to come down for this agenda item. In 2014, I was mayor, actually, and our city manager, Adam Pulitzer, said, you know, Ray, we have got to develop a plan to get the hell out of the sewer collection business. Okay. It took a long time and a lot of work. So I'd like to say congratulations to all of you and all of you that have worked on this. This is very important. It's important to build scale, efficiency. Our residents can actually guarantee that their dollars that they spend on their property tax bill that goes to sewers is very efficiently spent because it's one very competent entity actually doing the work. So in 2020, as you know, my last year on the council, together with our current mayor, we worked hard on the sewer consolidation work and the various studies that were put forward. So I'd just like, again, to you guys to thank you and say congratulations. This is a job very, very well done. |
| 01:57:22.56 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:57:23.23 | Steven Woodside | I'm a city clerk. |
| 01:57:23.60 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:57:23.66 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:57:24.13 | Walfred Solorzano | No further public comment. |
| 01:57:25.92 | Steven Woodside | All right, with that, I will close public comment. I'm gonna bring it up here for discussion. I'm going to lead off. I'm going to move. that we approve and authorize the city manager to execute a memorandum of understanding between the city of Sausalito and the Sausalito Marin City Sanitary District to transfer sewer collection services and authorize the mayor to execute a bill of sale for sewer collection system following completion of financial transactions for the collection system. |
| 01:57:53.91 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:57:53.96 | Steven Woodside | again. |
| 01:57:54.22 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. um Second, sorry. |
| 01:57:56.09 | Steven Woodside | All right, and then I'm going to lead off with public comment. And city clerk, will you manage the three minute clock, please? not public comment, the comment by councilman. members. |
| 01:58:06.50 | Alice Merrill | Thank you. |
| 01:58:07.63 | Steven Woodside | So, again, I want to thank the city manager, the public works director, and the city attorney for their work to negotiate and memorialize the logistics and deal points necessary to implement this important transfer. Thanks also to General Manager Jeff Kingston and board member Dan Reiner for their attendance here tonight, but also for their really conscientious pursuit of... of this transfer of services over the last 10 years at least. Thanks to Ray Withey for his leadership in working with us to formulate an outline of deal points back in 2019 and 2020. Thanks to our current working committee, Vice Mayor Woodside and Council Member Hoffman for their work to bring this home. I think this is really going to be great to transfer this facility to the experts who have a track record of success. We are well familiar with their success because they already provide our treatment needs. They successfully navigated the settlement of an EPA consent decree regarding the adequacy of our services, facilitated in large measure by a very successful and impressive expansion of their facilities several years ago. They have been great partners over the years, successfully collaborating with us to construct impressive pump stations where needed in Sausalito, most recently on Olima Street. And there will be less confusion with a single sewer service invoice on our property tax rolls. I fully endorse the proposed public outreach to rate payers that will explain that this transfer has very different and positive financial implications, different from the consolidation of our fire protection services that the city undertook over 10 years ago. And so with that, I'm very pleased and proud to bring this longstanding priority and project to fruition. Would anyone else like to comment? Councilmember Hoffman. Oh, sure. OK. |
| 02:00:05.59 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you to our staff. I mean, they worked super hard on this. You know, Kevin, our public works director and Kevin McGowan, our city manager, Chris, just worked tremendously hard on getting this together. And also, Yeah. I think somebody already thanked Dan Reiner who's sitting out there. Our city resident, Dan Reiner, also the board president. Dan was originally appointed in 2011. |
| 02:00:27.09 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah. President. |
| 02:00:34.34 | Jill Hoffman | um his term current term ends in 2026 so you know we'll see how it goes he's only been president for 12 years i think so something like that um and jeff as the district director thank you so much for your help on this and your staff it's it's been a huge huge effort um and i look forward to this final um you know getting this at least starting the journey to finish the transfer this is the first step right also bill ring who is also a resident, Shirley Thornton also sits on the board. And it wouldn't be right to do this without a shout-out to Ann Arnott, our long-term resident who served for, worked for the board district for 30 years, I think, and then served on the board after she retired. I invited her tonight, but due to the late hour, you know, no doubt she's not here here. Ann, I hope you're watching, and if you are, I want to thank you personally and on behalf of the council for all of your service. And we were, at least, Council Member Blaustein and the mayor were there at the pump station down by Whiskey Springs last year that is named after Ann Arnott. And if you go by the bench there, there's a little plaque there that says it's the Ann Arnot pump station. So anybody who wants to go there and sit on the bench and look at the pump station, it's a lovely location. And I know it was a matter of great concern for the people at Whiskey Springs. And thank you to the district for delivering that lovely little bench and the plantings around it. So anyway, back to business. Thank you for your hard work, and I look forward to finishing this transfer and consolidating these. I think it's a good – we're on a good path, and I think the increased efficiencies, and I agree, it's the right path. So thank you to everybody. |
| 02:02:17.06 | Joan Cox | I think it's all been said. I just want to say thank you. I'm the late comer to this and looked into it in detail and was convinced more and more that a focused jurisdiction is the best way to go for sewage as well as a few other things. So thank you all for all your hard work and foresight, Madam Mayor, former mayor, and all those who started thinking about this years ago. Thank you. |
| 02:02:40.89 | Steven Woodside | Councilmember Blaustein. |
| 02:02:42.09 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, I'll just say that in 2017, when I... really started digging into our city budget and our infrastructure and I met with our then public works director, Director Goldman. The first thing that he flagged as a big concern was our sewers and just how much AND I THINK THAT WE'RE GOING TO you know, infrastructure upkeep they required, how much risk they might require or assume, and just the fact that SMCST, which is a phenomenal district with amazing employees, a great history, an incredible team, is willing to take this up and consolidate with us and work with us on this. very lucky. And I'm hopeful that because we're well positioned with the district being consolidated, that SMC SD will now be able to earn more grant funding because they have a larger jurisdiction. And, They'll be able to have longer term infrastructure investment and capital planning tools. So I just feel this is a really big. win-win and I'm really grateful to the district for wanting to partner with us and wanting to take this on and Appreciate everyone who's been involved. Obviously, also a big shout out to Ann Arnot. And the bench and the pump station and but all of the great work that the members of the district board do and thank you for being with us tonight as well both of you really appreciate it and excited for what the future holds on this. |
| 02:03:54.90 | Steven Woodside | Great. I will now call the question. All in favor? Aye. Aye. That motion carries unanimously. Congratulations. Thank you so much. We're going to take a five-minute break before we resume our final two business items. Thank you. |
| 02:03:59.21 | Melissa Blaustein | Bye. |
| 02:04:15.76 | Steven Woodside | We're ready? Okay, we're going to resume the next item on our agenda is to adopt a resolution establishing the GAN appropriation limit for fiscal year 2025 to 2026 and I'll welcome Jesus Nova our interim finance director. |
| 02:04:32.69 | Jesus Nava | So this is one of those perfunctory things that the council has to do as part of the budget. So the GAN appropriation limit simply takes your tax revenues, sets a limit on them based on the prior year data. That data is updated by information that's provided by the Department of Finance. It updates your population. In this case, we're using the Marin County population figures, which show some very slight growth, plus also the information provided by the Department of State on per capita income. So with those two numbers, we update the number, give you the new GAM limit. As you can see, we're way under the GAM limit by about $2 million, so we're in compliance. |
| 02:05:11.28 | Steven Woodside | All right. Thank you so much. Any questions of the finance director? Seeing none, I'll open it up to public comment. City Clerk. |
| 02:05:20.19 | Walfred Solorzano | Seeing none. |
| 02:05:21.07 | Steven Woodside | All right, I'll close public comment. And I guess, let's see, I will make a motion. |
| 02:05:33.94 | Walfred Solorzano | Ooh. Thank you. So. Sorry. |
| 02:05:38.97 | Steven Woodside | THE END OF |
| 02:05:43.12 | Steven Woodside | All right, I move we adopt a resolution establishing the GAN appropriation limit for fiscal year 2025 to 2026. |
| 02:05:50.90 | Melissa Blaustein | that can |
| 02:05:51.76 | Steven Woodside | All in favor? Aye. Aye. That motion carries 5-0. With that, we'll move on to item 5C, approval of amended and restated franchise agreement with Bay City's Refuse Service, Inc. for solid waste recyclables and organic waste services and adopt a resolution approving the solid waste collection rates. I'll just note that the title and the staff report make reference to Bay City's Refuge, but the resolution properly refers to Bay City's Refuse Service. You know, autocorrect is a bear sometimes. |
| 02:06:29.23 | Melissa Blaustein | Although sometimes Greg feels like a refuge for many of us when we call with a problem or catch. |
| 02:06:35.03 | Steven Woodside | Yes. Bye. All right. And I will welcome our Resiliency and Sustainability Manager, Katie Tho Garcia. |
| 02:06:43.31 | Katie Thao Garcia | All right. Good evening. Mayor, vice mayor, council members, members of the public. I'm Katie Thao Garcia, the city's resiliency and sustainability manager. Thank you for catching that clerical error, which I noticed very just at the late night of the hour. Thank you. So tonight I'm going to be presenting on the amended and restated franchise agreement with Bay City's Refuse and adoption of a new solid waste collection rates for tonight. Next slide, please. So Bay City's refuse has been Sausalito's longtime waste hauler. The most recent franchise agreement was approved in 2004 and had an original term through 2017 and a 10-year option to extend through 2027, which was exercised by the waste hauler. Included in the agreement are services that extend beyond traditional waste hauling and include street sweeping, e-waste hauling, bathroom cleaning, and waste hauling at many city-sponsored events. The city's compliance with SB 1383 requires curbside organic hauling. And under the current franchise agreement, the city receives a 15% of the waste haulers gross revenues. I'd also add that Bay City's refuse goes above and beyond in our community, participating regularly in the Sausalito Sustainability Commission meetings, the Chamber of Commerce, and volunteering and hauling at events organized by Sausalito Beautiful. One example of this is the annual Sausalito Shrine cleanup, which took place this morning and is pictured on this slide. Next slide, please. In 2024, the city was approached by Bay City's refuse to begin the process of amending and restating the franchise agreement. Um, In addition, this was in conversation with the passing of SB 1383 in 2021. While the current agreement is valid till 2027, Bay Cities Refuse Service is required to upgrade their hauling trucks to meet the California Air Resource Board air quality standard, which means they have to take on additional debt to purchase these trucks. As a result, Bay Cities needs the additional security of a longer term franchise agreement. And in addition to this amending and restating the franchise agreement allows the city to incorporate SB 1383 regulations and update residential and commercial hauling rates all at the same time. Next slide please. So updates to the amended and restated franchise agreement include SB 1383 compliance organics and contamination monitoring. Franchise fee moving from a percentage based collection approach to a fixed escalated fee. Modernized Service and Billing. community outreach improvement, and an extended term through 2037 with an optional five-year term after that. Next slide, please. So effective July 1st, proposed rate increases include residential rates up 3.2%, which reflects the Consumer Price Index, or CPI. Multifamily up 4.1%, which reflects 3.2 of CPI plus 0.9% for SB 1383 additional compliance. And commercial rates up 5.0%, which reflects the 3.2 of CPI plus an additional 1.8 for a additional COVID recovery, CARB regulations, and SB 1383 compliance. And even with these rate adjustments, there will still be the lowest waste hauling fees in Marin County. Next slide, please. Together, this makes up a fixed franchise fee of $686,400 per year plus CPI with rate adjustments made every five years, as is outlined in the franchise agreement. And last slide, please. So staff's recommendation tonight is to approve the amended and restated franchise agreement and adopt a resolution approving the solid waste collection rates. I will also just add that I've been working very closely with the city attorney on this. So he will be available for any questions and Bay Cities Refuse has joined us tonight. Thank you. |
| 02:11:22.06 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Thank you. Any questions? Seeing none, I'll open it up to public comment. |
| 02:11:33.52 | Alice Merrill | Oh, my God. |
| 02:11:39.22 | Mark Palmer | Good evening, Mayor, Council Members, Mark Palmer, Sustainability Commission. Bay City's refuse has been the city's waste hauler for 36 years. Can you believe it? And 33 years ago in 1993, the original incarnation of the sustainability commission was the waste management advisory committee. And for as long as I can remember, and looking at the minutes past minutes over 10 years, Bay Cities has been engaged an engaged participant in the sustainability commission meetings in helping to implement the city's goals for waste reduction, reuse, recycling, composting, and the single use plastics ban. COB, Dan Burke, SBA 1383 a statewide mandate authorizes enhanced requirements for including organic waste collection edible food recovery from large food businesses. COB, Dan Burke, Procurement of recycled organics compliance record keeping education and outreach and penalties for non compliance. This franchise agreement renewal with Bay City's refuse authorizes a continuing relationship toward managing Sausalito's solid waste and minimizing the use of landfill while ensuring implementation of SB 1383. I urge approval of the amended franchise agreement, including the proposed customer service rates. Thank you. |
| 02:12:59.19 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. And thank you for your service on our Sustainability Commission. Babette McDougall. |
| 02:13:07.86 | Katie Thao Garcia | Thank you. |
| 02:13:07.96 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:13:12.79 | Babette McDougall | Thank you for acknowledging me. So I could speak frankly as a business person in Sausalito, as a community volunteer, but I'm going to speak first and foremost as a resident of Sausalito because I have to say, That as someone who lives on a hillside and it's really impossible to deal with those bins the way they're supposed to be dealt with over the years, you really cannot even put a price tag on the wealth. intended and very careful, attentive service that this company provides every single person in our town, whether we're a resident or something other. I just cannot, I mean, it's kind of embarrassing really to not be able to say thank you often enough because they're always available to us. And I'm really grateful for that. So I just want to say that, yes, the price is probably going to go up, according to the CPI, and anybody with a fixed income household is going to say, ouch. But you cannot put a price on this kind of service and know that they've always got our backs. That's what matters. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. City Clerk. |
| 02:14:18.64 | Walfred Solorzano | We have Bonnie McGregor. |
| 02:14:26.30 | Walfred Solorzano | you can unmute yourself. |
| 02:14:30.90 | Bonnie McGregor | You couldn't hear me say sorry. Good evening Mayor Cox and City Council. Bonnie McGregor, a local resident for over 40 years. And I'm coming to you tonight also as a resident and I want you to approve the city's Refuge Service contract. They not only provide excellent refuge service, they have and continue to participate in various city activities such as today. which was shown in the previous slide. And I saw the back of my head in the slide so I could guarantee I was there. And they have for years, I volunteered for this art festival for over 35 years. and served as the captain of garbage one season, And so I worked with Greg Christie's team personally to keep these fairgrounds Katie for 35 years. They always go over the top in service. Greg's wife provided wonderful sandwiches and other goodies for us to eat as the garbage committee that year. They also are always at the fourth, you're in the fourth of July parade. and the party participation are above normal service as usual. for the whole event. They always used to participate, I don't know whether they'll always do it or not, in the chili cook-off as a participant, and also the refuse servants. So once again, they're over the top during the shine sauce lead event today. They took on They cleaned up a lot of the Tiffany park, which was not on our schedule. in addition to taking care of everything else today. We need to hold on to a service that is so dedicated to the community. Accept the contract. |
| 02:16:06.86 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. City Clerk. |
| 02:16:08.86 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker is Carolyn Revell. |
| 02:16:17.47 | Carolyn Revell | Can you hear me? Thank you. |
| 02:16:19.01 | Walfred Solorzano | We have. |
| 02:16:19.21 | Carolyn Revell | We have you. I want to simply echo everything that's been said about the community service that Greg and his company provide. As Bonnie mentioned and Katie, Greg was there with his crew today at our Sausalito Shine event and went beyond the duty, as Bonnie said, by going down as far as Tiffany Park. But he himself and his other associate were there themselves doing a lot of cleanup. He's always there at our Green Thumbs events, picking up the trash bags that we leave of refuse. And he's a community asset. And definitely, I want to add my recommendation to approve this contract for this community asset, Bay Cities Refuse. Thank you so much. |
| 02:17:03.86 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. No further public comment? |
| 02:17:06.66 | Steven Woodside | All right, with that, I will close public comment and bring it back here. I'm going to lead off by making a motion that we approve the amended and restated franchise agreement with Bay City's Refuse Service, Inc. for solid waste, recyclables, and organic waste services, and authorized execution by the mayor, and adopt a resolution approving solid waste collection rates in accordance with amended and restated franchise agreement. |
| 02:17:34.77 | Joan Cox | second. |
| 02:17:36.31 | Steven Woodside | I'll just echo some of the comments we heard, which is Bay Cities has provided refuse services to us for 36 years. Greg Christie is truly an engaged participant in our community, attending our sustainability committee meetings, volunteering at the Saucydo Art Festival for years and marching in our 4th of July parade. We really appreciate the civic mindedness of Bay Cities. I fully endorse facilitating their ability to obtain needed monies to carry out required implementation of SB 1385, and continue to minimize the use of landfills, I also appreciate the thoughtfulness of our city attorney and the manner in which he Um, negotiated and constructed this agreement to keep pace with pending legislation and litigation in this area. And so with that, I'm prepared to support this move. |
| 02:18:40.62 | Melissa Blaustein | Councilmember Blaustein. So I've had the opportunity to work with Kim and Greg for almost a decade now through the Sustainability Commission and then my service on the council. And we are so lucky to have Bay Cities in Sausalito. It is unbelievable to me. If you look at what they're proposing, they're really just adjusting us to CPI and agreeing with the SB 1383 requirements, which I believe you deserve a huge raise for everything that you do all the time to support our community. You are at every jazz and blues. You are at every Sausalito Beautiful event. You answer every phone call. You actively work to make composting and recycling a priority and not just a priority, but easier in our community, which, you know, often isn't talked about, but is a huge step just for sustainability. And your commitment to sustainability really shows in how much you contribute to the conversation at all of our sustainability commission meetings and how you always just show up to be a part of that discussion and to look for things like service providers. When we were using our single use plastic band, where can we find one that works with your composter and what is it and how do we get it to our restaurants? And just as someone who's really committed to climate change in our community and taking necessary sustainability steps, it's just really- amazing to have partners like you guys in that work. So I'm definitely supportive of and approving this. And just a big thank you to Kim and for everything you guys do for us. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:20:10.57 | Steven Woodside | Vice Mayor. |
| 02:20:12.24 | Joan Cox | Yeah, just two things that I learned tonight and today, actually. One is it's the lowest rate in Marin County. And given our hills and given the difficulty going on essentially one-way roads is just remarkable. And every single person I've encountered who's hauling around things that weigh a lot, and then they go off and work out just so they can stay in good shape, right? It's amazing. The other thing I learned this morning, I attended a Chamber of Commerce mixer where they were complimenting the fact that, oh, you're having a problem with your sidewalk? Well, Bay Cities also does that, which was frankly news to me. So thank you for all you do. |
| 02:20:47.62 | Katie Thao Garcia | Well, |
| 02:20:47.77 | Steven Woodside | THE FAMILY. |
| 02:20:53.29 | Joan Cox | And I fully support the contract. |
| 02:20:56.68 | Steven Woodside | Anyone else? |
| 02:20:59.18 | Ian Sobieski | Not to belabor the point, but you guys are great. It's a sign of corporate culture, which is remarkable. And congratulations. It really, building culture is hard and it endures through employees and generations. It's, we could all take a lesson. And anyone with a business can take a lesson from your company. So congratulations on what you built. |
| 02:21:24.49 | Jill Hoffman | Sorry. I just wanted to echo everything, but also to thank you for, I think you guys still do in some instances go upstairs to get trash for people that can't make it up and down the stairs. So I want to personally thank you for doing that. I appreciate that. I know that might be unique to our hillside community, but it's needed for some of those people. I know it's a unique service for Sausalito. So thank you for that. And thank you for being our partner for so many years here in Sausalito. We appreciate it. you |
| 02:21:55.29 | Steven Woodside | Great. And with that, I'll call the question. All in favor? Aye. That motion carries unanimously. Congratulations. And again, thank you. |
| 02:22:07.44 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:22:07.96 | Alice Merrill | Cheers. |
| 02:22:09.26 | Steven Woodside | Thank you so much. We appreciate you. All right, I'm going to move on to item six. The first is 6A, city manager information for council, including the city manager quarterly report. Thank you, Katie. Thank you. |
| 02:22:30.12 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:22:31.00 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:22:31.59 | Steven Woodside | Good night. |
| 02:22:37.34 | Chris Zapata | Mayor and council members of the public in your packet is the quarterly report from the city manager detailing work done by all the departments to keep the city services and projects moving forward. That concludes my report. Thank you. |
| 02:22:50.08 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:22:50.20 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 02:22:50.52 | Steven Woodside | Next is city attorney information for counsel. Anything, Sergio? |
| 02:22:55.21 | Joan Cox | Nothing further to report tonight. |
| 02:22:57.51 | Steven Woodside | All right, thank you. Next is council member committee reports. You'll see in your packet a request from Nancy Hall Bennett that the city of Sausalito... Transmit a letter of support for AB 996. Any objections from anyone? |
| 02:23:19.58 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:23:19.60 | Steven Woodside | No objection. Great. |
| 02:23:19.61 | Walfred Solorzano | No objection. |
| 02:23:25.50 | Alice Merrill | I have some committee reports. Yes, go ahead. |
| 02:23:26.25 | Melissa Blaustein | Yes, go ahead. Okay, so big week for committees. On Wednesday evening, the disaster preparedness committee, which Council Member Sobieski sits on with me, met for the first time as part of its reconfiguration. You might recall that it has been over a year since there was a meeting of the committee and we've since appointed a number of new members. I'm happy to report there's a lot of new enthusiasm as well as a number of people who have significant experience in emergency management, including someone who worked as a professional emergency manager and runs cyber management. For Kaiser, for instance, someone who did specifically marketing for an ambulance company so has marketing informational support for emergency management, and Janelle Kelman sits on the committee. So there's just a lot of, energy, folks with institutional knowledge, Bonnie McGregor. So we had a great first meeting and agreed that we would meet monthly for the first three months as we set our strategic goals. And we've recently reviewed and have received from the chief. Mill Valley Strategic Plan for Disaster Preparedness, and hopefully we can take some steps to model That then on Thursday, I attended our quarterly sustainability commission meeting. where we had a robust discussion regarding support for continued support for EV chargers at Dunphy Park and the contract that we established for the six EV chargers there. So there'll be a resolution from the sustainability commission regarding that on EV charging. generally in the community. This morning, or sorry, Monday morning was the PBID meeting. I was unable to attend, but I did review the presentations. And you have probably all seen and noticed some of the accomplishments of PBID to date. If you've been downtown, you will have seen that there are new patio chairs and tables, beautiful blue tables downtown that folks have been sitting at right in front of and in our new plaza that we've received a number of compliments and letters about. There's also new lighting on Tracy way, which is currently lit up in rainbow colors for pride, although those light colors will change it's really festive and great to have down there and there's also new floral hanging baskets so P bid also presented a report on that the. the funds that they've received and what they plan to do going forward. And then they have a lot of positive momentum. So I wanted to share out those three reports. One more, sorry. One more, just a nod to, I don't know if this is a committee report or like a response or note of significance, but I want to thank Chief Gregory and our city manager for responding to a pigeon on the loose in driver's market on Sunday evening. One of the pigeons from the. The Portuguese parade, the white dove that was released wouldn't leave and took up residence in driver's market for almost a week. And I think it's good luck, too. Anyway, they had trouble getting the Humane Society to come out. The city manager and chief Gregory on Father's Day handled it. And I think that the white dove is now safe. |
| 02:26:20.33 | Steven Woodside | Council Member Blaustein, earlier tonight, you heard an inquiry from a member of the public about power washing the sidewalks. Is that something you can mention to the PBID? Absolutely. Okay. |
| 02:26:33.17 | Joan Cox | Councilmember reports. If I could just follow on, we'll eventually sort out the confusion as to who's on the emergency response. I'm now on it and I'm not confused now. |
| 02:26:42.62 | Steven Woodside | Oh, good. That's been ironed out, yeah. |
| 02:26:44.93 | Joan Cox | Yeah. |
| 02:26:45.25 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Okay, yeah. |
| 02:26:45.83 | Joan Cox | Yeah. So I will be attending in the future. Thank you very much. And then I did this morning at a Chamber of Commerce presentation, Cass Green did a very nice presentation, which she has a PowerPoint for that really talks about the budget priorities, et cetera. So anyone who's interested, I think that can be made available to read. And then lastly, I'll be attending on Thursday, the Marin Clean Energy meeting. |
| 02:27:12.59 | Steven Woodside | Thursday is Juneteenth. I think they're not meeting until July 17th. |
| 02:27:16.24 | Joan Cox | Okay, that explains it. |
| 02:27:16.42 | Steven Woodside | According to English. That explains. If you could, you have an email in your inbox. |
| 02:27:21.87 | Joan Cox | I'll straighten it out. With them, yeah. Thank you. Great. |
| 02:27:23.09 | Steven Woodside | them, yeah. you MCE, Marin Clean Energy. Any other council member reports? Yes, council member Hoffman. |
| 02:27:31.86 | Jill Hoffman | This is upcoming. This is just for your FYI. On July 2nd, the North Bay Division of the Cal Cities will be hosting a meeting up at the Cal Maritime Academy, which excitingly will be coming the Cal Poly campus of the Maritime Academy. So it's going to be subsumed into or become part of Cal Poly, but it's with Congressman Garamendi. Okay. And the North Bay Division is hosting that up there. At what time? You know what? I don't know. It's in the morning. 1030, I think, is the... is when that's going to start but anyway every the council's invited and so that's put that on your that's going to be focused on the ships act and garamendi congressman garamendi is going is one of the authors of the ships act and so that's of interest obviously to um you know vallejo and that area and also some of the other towns up there that have former shipyards and um as president of north bay division uh i'm running the meeting but also i'm interested in that for possibilities here in sausalito so i understand you're attending and so that's of interest and i'll be reporting on that um at our second july meeting um and also on our is our for us our august 15th north bay division here at jazz by the bay so put that on your calendars for council members um and then our long beach cal cities conference so that's for us and our uh city staff down at uh down in long beach so you know sign up because it does sell out and of course the hotel rooms sell out fast so anyway that's for us in our upcoming calendar so |
| 02:29:12.74 | Steven Woodside | Great. Thank you so much. |
| 02:29:14.36 | Jill Hoffman | Go ahead. Do have more to report. Okay. So SB 79, which all of us, we did send a letter in opposition and that the current status on that is that it passed by one vote from the Senate to go back to the assembly. And so it's now working its way through the assembly. So, you know, look to a request sometime in July to probably weigh back in with our assembly members on amendments to that as it works its way through the assembly. And that's the bill where it allows transit companies to use whatever property they own as part of a transit company to build whatever it is they want to build, including housing, including commercial, including whatever it is, wherever they want to build it, regardless of zoning in the towns where they have property. So anyway. |
| 02:30:15.06 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:30:17.02 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:30:17.03 | Steven Woodside | Great, anyone else? Okay, then we have no appointments to make this evening. Anything regarding future agenda items? I'm sorry. I have a question. |
| 02:30:28.04 | Melissa Blaustein | One. OK, go ahead. Oh, two. Two. So I think many of you may have followed the recent vote at TUHSD regarding defunding a program that was in support of the black students within TUHSD and we had I had received a request to potentially consider a resolution supporting that program. So I'd like us to have a discussion about that sort of resolution if we could. I also just want to bring up again that I would love to see us agendize a marineship master plan and a general master plan. Yes. |
| 02:31:01.87 | Ian Sobieski | Mayor, I'd like to second that. May... uh 23rd of 2023 we had a nice staff report and a consideration i think things have evolved since then and i would propose we bring back just the same same staff report and have a discussion about next steps based off of it no need to for staff to do any more work than that without any further direction from the council but if we could just agendize that so that we can either not take agree not to take any action or agree to take some i'd appreciate it |
| 02:31:29.67 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. All right. I haven't seen any minutes attached to our agendas in a while, so I'm hoping we can continue to do that on a monthly basis. |
| 02:31:40.31 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah, as staff gives me their minutes, I'll post them on there. |
| 02:31:45.70 | Steven Woodside | Well, maybe you could just follow up to make sure you're getting them. Once a month. Will do. Okay. There are no other reports of significance. I'll take public comment on items, the items within item six. |
| 02:32:01.09 | Walfred Solorzano | See you, man. |
| 02:32:01.86 | Steven Woodside | All right, then I will happily adjourn our meeting at 9. 40 p.m. Thank you, everybody. |
Unknown — Neutral: Thanked council for thoughtful decisions and suggested a future item for power washing downtown sidewalks, volunteering to help. ▶ 📄