| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:25.45 | Walfred Solorzano | Good evening, Mayor, City Council. Tonight's meeting of the special and regular City Council agenda is being held live at 420 Litho Street in the Council Chamber. We're also at Weston Vancouver Hotel at 1601 Bayshore Drive, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. the meeting has also been broadcasted live on cable TV channel 27 and live on the city's website and Zoom. |
| 00:00:54.91 | Steven Woodside | Thank you city clerk good evening and welcome to the special meeting for the city of Sausalito city council for Tuesday July 1st 2025 I'll call the meeting to order and ask the city clerk to take role. |
| 00:01:08.64 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blastin? |
| 00:01:10.96 | Steven Woodside | year. |
| 00:01:11.26 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:01:13.02 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 00:01:14.79 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:01:14.80 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. |
| 00:01:14.97 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:01:16.19 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski, Vice Mayor Woodside, and Mayor Cox. |
| 00:01:17.54 | Melissa Blaustein | I'm sorry. |
| 00:01:20.96 | Steven Woodside | you |
| 00:01:21.01 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:01:21.03 | Steven Woodside | Here. |
| 00:01:21.98 | Melissa Blaustein | I will do any need to know there is no one over the age of 18 in the room with me. |
| 00:01:28.98 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, and on that basis, I will move that we approve the remote participation of Councilmember Blaustein. |
| 00:01:39.51 | Steven Woodside | You have to say so moved. |
| 00:01:41.60 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:01:41.62 | Steven Woodside | He said second. I didn't make the motion. I'm asking for a motion. |
| 00:01:41.65 | Joan Cox | HE SAID, |
| 00:01:42.02 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:01:42.14 | Joan Cox | THE END OF |
| 00:01:44.44 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay, so moved. |
| 00:01:45.75 | Steven Woodside | Second. Please call Roland. |
| 00:01:48.49 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blaustein. |
| 00:01:50.58 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 00:01:51.79 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 00:01:53.97 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 00:01:54.59 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski. Vice Mayor Woodside. Yes, Mayor Cox. |
| 00:01:58.70 | Steven Woodside | Yes. With that, we will move to closed session. We will be you |
| 00:02:10.79 | Steven Woodside | Okay, they're supposed to be. Okay, I see. We will be discussing four items in closed session. The first is conference with labor negotiator, employee organization, Sausalito Police Association. The second is conference with legal counsel, anticipated litigation, significant exposure to litigation for two cases. And the third is conference with legal counsel, existing litigation, County of Marin versus Monsanto. Is there any public comment? |
| 00:02:36.19 | Walfred Solorzano | There is no public comment. |
| 00:02:38.03 | Steven Woodside | any recousals? |
| 00:02:39.58 | Ian Sobieski | I am. Okay, one of the matters is likely the one we hear often that I need to recuse myself from because my assessment is that there may be a financial conflict of interest due to the proximity of the project. |
| 00:02:51.28 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Councilmember. And with that, we will adjourn to closed session. We will see you back at 7 p.m. |
| 00:02:58.62 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:03:04.02 | Steven Woodside | All right, folks, welcome back. I will reconvene our open session. It's 7.03 p.m. And I'll ask the city clerk to call roll. |
| 00:03:16.73 | Walfred Solorzano | Can someone laugh this thing? |
| 00:03:18.78 | Steven Woodside | Cheers. |
| 00:03:19.04 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:03:20.02 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman? |
| 00:03:21.55 | Ian Sobieski | Here. |
| 00:03:22.56 | Walfred Solorzano | Council Member Sobieski. |
| 00:03:24.03 | Ian Sobieski | Yes. Here. |
| 00:03:25.72 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Woodside? Here. Mayor Cox. |
| 00:03:28.22 | Steven Woodside | THE FAMILY. THE FAMILY. |
| 00:03:28.39 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:03:29.62 | Steven Woodside | Sophia, will you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? |
| 00:03:36.59 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:03:36.89 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. |
| 00:03:36.91 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:03:36.93 | Sandra Bushmaker | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:03:40.86 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:03:41.16 | Sandra Bushmaker | Absolutely. |
| 00:03:41.97 | Sophia Collier | Bye. |
| 00:03:42.54 | Unknown | I would think. |
| 00:03:43.09 | Sophia Collier | One nation, under God. |
| 00:03:44.03 | Unknown | What nation? |
| 00:03:44.97 | Michelle DeMonte | I'm your god. Thank you. |
| 00:03:45.94 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. |
| 00:03:45.97 | Michelle DeMonte | Indivisible. |
| 00:03:46.85 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. |
| 00:03:46.97 | Michelle DeMonte | you |
| 00:03:47.03 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 00:03:47.17 | Michelle DeMonte | with liberty and justice. |
| 00:03:47.98 | Babette McDougall | justice for all. |
| 00:03:48.92 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. |
| 00:03:48.97 | Michelle DeMonte | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:03:50.81 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. |
| 00:03:50.86 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 00:03:51.74 | Steven Woodside | We held a closed session. There are no closed session announcements. I'm going to ask for approval of the agenda, but we are going to remove one item from our agenda tonight, and that is Three. |
| 00:04:12.28 | Joan Cox | E. |
| 00:04:13.46 | Steven Woodside | E. |
| 00:04:16.87 | Steven Woodside | on my 3E that says the Sewer Ridge Fund. I think it's on my agenda, it's 3F. |
| 00:04:27.50 | Sunshine | Thank you. |
| 00:04:27.52 | Walfred Solorzano | 3E. |
| 00:04:28.07 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Okay, my agenda. Can I get a correct agenda? Primack construction. 3E. |
| 00:04:30.08 | Walfred Solorzano | Can I get a correct agenda? I'm going to make instruction. 3E. Agenda for the mayor? |
| 00:04:34.62 | Steven Woodside | All right. And so I will ask for a motion approving the amended agenda, we will still take Public comment on item 3E. Excuse me, Mayor, perhaps you could read the title. |
| 00:04:50.15 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:04:50.26 | Steven Woodside | of the... |
| 00:04:50.72 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:04:50.75 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:04:50.79 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:04:50.87 | Steven Woodside | Sure. It is, um, Authorize staff to proceed with soliciting for construction bids for the 2024 roadway rehabilitation project. Do I have a motion? |
| 00:05:03.11 | Ian Sobieski | I THINK WE HAVE TO MOVE TO |
| 00:05:04.03 | Walfred Solorzano | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:05:04.30 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:05:04.32 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:05:06.48 | Steven Woodside | Will you call the role city clerk? |
| 00:05:08.34 | Walfred Solorzano | on some of it. Councilmember Blasthin? |
| 00:05:10.87 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 00:05:12.12 | Walfred Solorzano | Johnson, remember Hoffman? |
| 00:05:14.18 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 00:05:14.83 | Walfred Solorzano | Council member, Sylvia? Yes. Vice Mayor Woodside? Yes. Mayor Cox. |
| 00:05:18.36 | Steven Woodside | Yes, that motion carries 5-0. Okay, we will now move on to special presentations. I'm going to turn it over to Council Member Hoffman to introduce our speaker. |
| 00:05:29.97 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. are running. For our special presentation, I would like to welcome, I am the Saucyote City Councilmember I'm the special liaison to our sister city group, and I would like to Welcome Keith Schellen, who's the president of our Sausage of Sisters City Group. And I would like to say, bienvenido. Yosoko, I think that's right. And Benvito to him for our sister cities, Kashkai, Portugal, Yokosuka, Japan, and Vigiene del Mar. And we're trying to load his presentation right now onto our city website. furiously trying to load the presentation onto our city website. Almost ready. |
| 00:06:22.50 | Jill Hoffman | County down. Well, let me just say, since the sister city was first, our first sister city was established with Viña del Mar, and perhaps you've been to our beautiful Viña del Mar Park downtown with our historic elephants and the beautiful fountain. in the center of our historic downtown. It's beautiful. And as you walk north in our town, you'll see our beautiful praka de Qashqai, which was donated from the city of Kashkai, who will be here. In fact, they may make it by the end of our meeting. I don't believe they touched down yet, but. Our delegation is here this week. We have the dignitaries are here and they'll be out and about in Sausalito this week. Our kids are here with the youth sailing program. Our Qashqai Sister City program is a youth sailing exchange program. And they are with the Sausalito Yacht Club And we have a youth sailing regatta. They're here this week. And they will be in our 4th of July parade on a lovely rented trolley. And our later this month, our delegation from Yokosuka Japan will be here. Also, as our exchange kids and and that is a youth exchange with high school students. and so it is the Kaede Japan will be here That's always a wonderful exchange, high school exchange students. And so should I keep talking or should we pause for a minute until? But... |
| 00:08:06.98 | Steven Woodside | are you able to make a presentation without your PowerPoint. |
| 00:08:12.65 | Jill Hoffman | We're almost there. Okay. So, and of course, Vineyard Omar is our oldest sister city, and it is a women's business exchange. |
| 00:08:12.68 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 00:08:24.58 | Jill Hoffman | And I don't know what the rotation is. There's been some issues with the city and fires and some other challenges with the city of Villa del Mar, and we hope to have them back here. soon and I know Keith is going to give us updates on all these things. So we are blessed here in Sausalito. We have three wonderful cities, which is an incredible benefit to our city and the fabric of our culture here in Sausalito. We have so many international cities who want to be exchanged with us and participate in our international sister city program. |
| 00:09:00.64 | Ian Sobieski | Jill, since you're killing time, I might give you a bit of content to promote. If I recall correctly, there is a request for anyone who wants to support the program to make a donation to the Yacht Club or to the Sister of the Cities program. I forgot which, but I saw an email on that subject. |
| 00:09:00.69 | Jill Hoffman | you know? |
| 00:09:16.45 | Jill Hoffman | Yes, yes. Anybody can go on the Sister City website and make a donation in support of the Sister City programs. We also are constantly looking for families who want to participate and hosting students who want to come. and be part of the exchange programs. These are always wonderful things. connections to make with families. You don't have to have a student in the program. Any family that wishes to host a student is welcome to contact our program and go through the vetting process to provide to be part of the program. And here you go. And here we are. And we welcome all people who want to participate. you know, it's a wonderful program, but it's also just super fun. I have to say. So thank you. And it is almost 100% funded and supported by volunteers in the city of Sausalito. |
| 00:10:24.17 | Jill Hoffman | Go ahead. Okay, here we go. So exciting. It's going to be worth the wait, you guys, I promise. Yeah, go ahead. Approach the podium. And this is Keith Schell and the president, and he will be president this year and next year. It's a two-year rotation. |
| 00:10:39.15 | Keith Schellen | That's right. Okay, excuse me. I'm so sorry that this got off to a bad start like this. My first time presenting and have something like this come up. |
| 00:10:41.20 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:10:49.04 | Steven Woodside | I'm not hearing you very well. Are you? |
| 00:10:49.08 | Keith Schellen | I'm not hearing that. THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:10:51.17 | Steven Woodside | Jimmy? There. |
| 00:10:53.28 | Keith Schellen | Yeah, but no. |
| 00:10:54.05 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:10:54.12 | Keith Schellen | Okay, there we go. So thank you for allowing me to speak on behalf of Sausalito Sister City, Inc. tonight. For those of you who might not know me, my name is Kishelan and I'm president of Sausalito Sister City, Inc. I'm also a board member of the California Japan Sister City Network, which oversees all 112 California Japan Sister City programs. |
| 00:10:54.29 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 00:11:21.33 | Keith Schellen | I want to begin by thanking each of you for all your support for our programs. I know many of you have been personally involved. I've actually been to Sakai-Day Japan with Mayor Joan Cox. I've also been there with then Mayor Melissa Blasthien and our past mayor and council member Herbie Weimer. This year we have the benefit and pleasure of working with Joe Hoffman as our city council liaison and she has brought a lot of know how and experience to our board. I'm honored to share that I will be representing |
| 00:11:59.19 | Keith Schellen | that I will be representing both the city of Sausalito and the state of California at the US-Japan Sister Cities Summit, taking place from September 16 to the 19 in Izumi-Sano, adjacent to the Osaka Expo site. This is a four-day summit and is held in conjunction with Sister Cities International and brings leaders across Japan and the United States together. to strengthen global friendship, cultural exchange, and local diplomacy. One of the featured speakers will be the granddaughter of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who founded the Sister Cities program in 1956. As a... way to promote peace through people-to-people connections. It's a true privilege to be a part of this historic event and to help represent Sausalito's international partnerships on a world stage. |
| 00:13:00.37 | Keith Schellen | Our mission to promote and facilitate people-to-people relationships between individuals in both cities and a deeper understanding of the culture, society's histories, and other circumstances of the two societies. |
| 00:13:19.26 | Keith Schellen | are three sister cities. Sakai-de Japan, established in 1988. This is a high school student exchange program. Vina del Mar Chile, established in 1960. It's a women in business exchange. And Qashqai, Portugal, established in 2013, youth sailing exchange. |
| 00:13:43.68 | Keith Schellen | Here is a slide showing the SSCI board and positions held on the board. As of yesterday, we're very excited to have added a new member, Jack Sherwood. So that will bring our board membership number to 13. |
| 00:14:02.23 | Keith Schellen | Let me give you an update on our three operations councils. This year we're celebrating 37 years of friendship with Sakai Day. A delegation of nine students will be visiting Sausalito from July 24 to August 3. They will be accompanied by two chaperones and they'll be here for seven days of activities. The nine delegates will be staying with host families, and the two chaperones will be staying at one of our operations council members' homes. The first day is a grand tour of San Francisco meant to give the delegates a series of San Francisco experiences from riding the cable cars to walking across Golden Gate Bridge on their way to Sausalito. The second day is the official welcome in City Hall Council Chambers, followed by the busiest schedule of the program, and this is done in... in part to fully exhaust the students by the end of the day, because we want them to get over jet lag as quickly as possible. And our welcome party is on day three. |
| 00:15:16.26 | Keith Schellen | Each day has a theme that gives the delegates a very well-rounded experience and exposure to as many different aspects of our community as we can manage to fit in the seven days. A major new highlight this year is the Alcatraz Tour, an exclusive experience arranged by our newest operations council member, Linda Cahill. As a retired state parks volunteer with strong connections to regional Rangers. Linda has secured special access for our delegations. |
| 00:15:50.30 | Keith Schellen | Our farewell party will be held in a local Sausalito restaurant with a stage where our delegates will perform a dance and they will have learned over the course of their stay in Sausalito, in addition to giving farewell speeches and thanks to their host families. Cash case. Thanks to the citizens of Sausalito, we were able to gift our sister city, Qashqai, an exact replica of the John Liberton sculpture, Bolinar, that resides at the intersection of Bridway and Napa streets. The Bolinar is located on the Praka de Qashqai's at the entrance to the Qashqai Marina. This dedication ceremony included Mayor Ian Zabowski, delegates from the Sausalito Adult Tour, the Youth Sailing Exchange sailors, and representatives of the Qashqai local government. This is the first public art donated to Qashqai by one of its sister cities. |
| 00:16:59.42 | Keith Schellen | In 2024, the Youth Sailing Exchange and the Qashqai adult tour were sponsored by the Sausalito Qashqai Sister City Council. Right now, the youth sailors are here in Sausalito and we are expecting the representatives to arrive very momentarily. Hopefully by the end of tonight, they're going to come here. In 2026, the Youth Sailing Exchange will be going to Qashqash and we'll be having our fifth adult tour. |
| 00:17:35.92 | Keith Schellen | In October 2024, the Qashqai Council, working with Public Works Department, contracted a professional local service to deep clean and seal the paved sidewalks of the Qashqai Square. |
| 00:17:52.84 | Keith Schellen | In May 2025, the CAS Council hosted the 8th Annual Fado at the Pines. This is a fundraising event that funds the Youth Sailing Exchange. This event features Portuguese Fado performers and brings Portuguese culture to Sausalito. And this is a bar chart of the major 2025 activities of the Qashqai Council. It's important to note that the Sausalito-Cashqai sister city relations are considered to be one of the best from the Portuguese sense of view, their perspective. Vina Delmore. Vina del Marcelli is our first and oldest sister city. During the Pinochet years, the U.S. State Department halted interaction and was concerned about human rights issues and upheaval. Herbie Weiner reinstated the Vina Del Mar relationship in 2011. The program involves coaching and empowerment for small business association women owned by who owned businesses is important to note that in 2021. The SSCI and Vina Del Mar program was awarded the International Award for best business trade and professional exchange by sister cities international. Here is a list of the many Post pandemic challenges in October and September 2024 we hosted eight business women and three firefighters. The firefighters were housed in three southern Marin fire department stations and shared best practices. Here is a photo of the business leaders in Sausalito in 2024. Here is the SEA collaboration. and the firefighters from Vina d'Aumar. This slide shows some of the projected programs for Vena del Mar coming up in the near future. |
| 00:20:10.96 | Keith Schellen | This slide showing a few of our current challenges. Number one is fundraising. Our annual fundraiser requires a lot of time and effort for relatively modest returns. We are looking for more effective ways of fundraising while staying active in our community. Number two. is the COVID protocols. This year, we are allowing our delicate families and host families to decide how to handle a positive COVID test. Ideally, we would like a universal COVID protocol shared by all sister city exchanges. Number three is a background check. complying with new California laws regarding host family background checks, police fingerprinting, online training, etc. It's a big lift for small operations councils, so we risk burning out our volunteers. And number four is a minimal social media presence. We would like to be more visible where young future delegates can see us on social media. I'm almost finished, only one more slide. SSEI goals for the future. We are focused on sustainable financial support. expansion of the board and committees, expanding partnerships within the community, and continuing our people-to-people diplomacy. Again, thank you to you. your continued support, the spirit of cooperation, Staff support and all else that you do. Thank you. |
| 00:21:48.25 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Keith. And I'd like to take the opportunity to recognize some of the other volunteers that I see in our audience this evening. We have Yoshi Tomei, who has been instrumental in assisting us with the Sakaide Japan and our entire Sister City organization, as well as Monica Finnegan, who has been instrumental with the various delegations, been to Sakaide many times, very involved with the Vignette del Mar instrumental with the various delegations, been to Sicaide many times, very involved with the Vigna del Mar programs, so thank you both so much for your contributions to this worthy cause. You didn't mention Keith, but we won a great award several years ago as one of the preeminent sister cities for our participation in so many programs. |
| 00:22:34.06 | Keith Schellen | programs. We've won twice. Yeah. |
| 00:22:35.79 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. Thank you so much for the presentation. |
| 00:22:38.69 | Keith Schellen | Thank you very much. Thank you. |
| 00:22:45.02 | 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. My first speaker card is from Sunshine. |
| 00:23:10.43 | Steven Woodside | And speakers will have two minutes. |
| 00:23:18.43 | Sunshine | Good evening. I'm here for two minutes to speak on behalf of seniors who are being dismissed from their living spaces here in Sausalito. Just this week, I met three people. People are starting to come to me to tell me that they have lost their housing or are being threatened. Right across the street, my next-door neighbor, who lives where I used to live before I was dismissed from my housing six months ago, I have still not found a place to live. He is 89, he's handicapped also. He has had two cancers and three heart procedures. The same manager that worked very hard to dismiss me from the living situation, is still there, and dismissed four other seniors with handicaps from other locations other than this one, but also is now threatening him with eviction. She has not been investigated. I would like to know, I don't know what the city can do to investigate EAH housing which has been very corrupt in lying about what people do as they live there. And this woman, Oberlin Asavi, who's been threatening everybody right and left. Well, I would love to see some investigation, and it hasn't happened. I'm still looking for a place. I would love a sponsor home to take me in and... Thank you. Thank you. I can. help with all sorts of things. But right now, it's not happening. And I was told that if I get on a waiting list, well, I'll be 88 or 90 by the time I can get in. So this is what's happening in Sausalito. And please do something about it that seniors can't be evicted and dismissed from their living situations. Thank you. |
| 00:25:21.68 | Steven Woodside | Sophia Collier. Welcome. |
| 00:25:28.74 | Unknown | and |
| 00:25:29.23 | Sophia Collier | Hello, I'm here to just give a quick update on ViewSync. So today is July 1st and we are ViewSync compliance web app has come out of beta. So that is a huge milestone for us. We will be during July working with volunteers to go through different areas of the community and look for ask people who want to document their view or we can see if ViewSync documents it adequately. So it's going to be a testing engagement with the public. We also had another important ViewSync milestone in that ViewSync Interactive, which is the version that we've been using since the first of the year. has now a contractor that is providing it, and he has provided successfully his first ViewSync report for a housing project that was proposed here in Sausalito and very nicely the project passed the it was found to be completely compliant, so these are important milestones for view sync and we will continue to. move ahead with that. |
| 00:26:40.22 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Sophia, so much for that update. I will apprise the council that we will be here. hearing our item on the odds, including ViewSync, I think within the next 60 days. So Sophia, thank you so much for your and your committee's Herculean efforts to assist us. All right, that's all the, anything online? |
| 00:27:01.50 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes, Senator Bushmaker. |
| 00:27:05.73 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:27:05.77 | Sandra Bushmaker | Hi everybody. This is kind of an unusual thing that I want to report, but I got my currents last week and it was nothing more than an Amazon ad for books. The entire content of my currents was a book advertisement for books for sale on Amazon. I did, communicated and sent it to the city manager but I haven't heard a response and just today I had a friend who was trying to get the website for the council meeting agenda And in that website address is the word Amazon. So could someone please explain what's going on? Are we having contracts with Amazon or are we using their services in some way? But I just found it an aberration. Thank you. |
| 00:27:59.80 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Sandra. You may be aware that Tabitha Abbott, who managed our currents for years, recently retired, and we have a new library employee who has taken over that considerable task. And I will turn it over to the city manager to provide any feedback he may have on this recent glitch. |
| 00:28:20.15 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, Mrs. Bushmaker is correct. She sent me an email. I spoke to the library manager, Jeffrey Jackson, about this. He doesn't know what this is, but we're looking into it, Mayor, so you know that. And it shouldn't happen. It is an anomaly. Not sure if it's fishing or some other problem that is related to it, but everybody should be getting currents as normal, and we will follow up on this again. |
| 00:28:43.17 | Steven Woodside | Thank you so much. And thanks for the update, Sandra. Anyone else, city clerk? |
| 00:28:48.13 | Walfred Solorzano | Um, Babette, you had your hand up. Do you still want to talk? Yeah, it is. |
| 00:28:54.60 | Steven Woodside | Is that yes or no? That's a yes. |
| 00:28:58.46 | Babette McDougall | Hey, you know, you're home if they say, hey, but you want to say something after all, I was going to excuse myself. But you know what? Actually, I wrote a letter that I haven't yet released to the city manager asking what's going on with the currents. I get such irregular service. And when I do. Like Ms. Bushmaker, I can't quite make out what in the world is going on. So I tried to refresh my own email address I guess that was an invitation to be removed from the list altogether. I just don't really get the instructions. Maybe it just doesn't speak to people like me. So I'm only going to echo what Ms. Bushmaker said, because it's important. And Speaking of the currents, frankly, I'd really like to see it expanded. So now that it's, you know, under community services, Let's look at a broader vision and be more inclusionary about what gets put into the currents because we still suffer. from a place where we can, you know, we don't have our weekly newspaper anymore. So we're still suffering from good flow of valuable information that we can count on. Thank you so much. I yield back my time. |
| 00:30:06.28 | Joan Cox | I'm just going to make a note that I just opened the currents for June 27th, and at least on my computer, it came up with quite a bit of information relevant to things going on in the city. So it may be an aberration that's affecting only some end users. I don't know, but I just opened it to check myself, and it seems to be fine. So hopefully whatever problem exists has been resolved. |
| 00:30:29.82 | Steven Woodside | All right. Thank you, Vice Mayor. |
| 00:30:31.71 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:30:31.73 | Walfred Solorzano | I'd just like to note that Amazon is what we use to, so with Granicus, with our website, their servers, we use Amazon servers, so that's why you might see them in the URL, something that Sandra Bushmaker had mentioned earlier. |
| 00:30:50.88 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, city clerk. Any other further communications? |
| 00:30:54.93 | Walfred Solorzano | Seeing none. |
| 00:30:55.98 | Steven Woodside | All right, then we will move on to our consent calendar matters listed under the consent calendar are considered routine and non controversial require no discussion or expected have unanimous counsel support and may be enacted by the Council in one motion. We have items 3A through 3J on our consent calendar this evening. I would like to note that We will be making a change. Hold on. we will be making an addition to item 3G that I will have the city attorney provide for us and we will be making a slight change in the recommended resolution for item 3D. Are there any questions regarding the consent calendar from council members? Okay, seeing none, we will be considering items 3A through 3, H three a adopt the draft meeting minutes of June 3 2025 3B adopt three resolutions to amend parking regulations on Caledonia Street and certain adjacent streets to extend. Time limited parking hours to amend parking regulations and municipal lot five to establish permit only parking restrictions in the upper lot and three amend the master fee schedule to adjust daily employee parking and permit fees in downtown municipal lots, we will also be adding. language to the resolution for these three items following public comment. 3C authorized the city manager to enter into a renewal first amendment of the professional services agreement with dixon resources unlimited for on call parking consultant services in an amount not to exceed 30,000. 3D, adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute a contract amendment with Hardiman Construction, increasing the contract sum for the Block 303 sewerage improvement project by... up to. $675,000 funded by the sewer fund. 3E, authorize staff to proceed with soliciting for construction bids for the 2024 Roadway Rehabilitation Project. 3F. Adopt a resolution approving the updated job description for city librarian 3G. Approve the updated publicly available pay schedule and 3-H Adopt a resolution changing the City Council regular meeting time to 5 p.m. THE FAMILY. With that, I'll open it up to public comment. I do have some speaker cards. The first is from Lori Felton. |
| 00:33:31.75 | Unknown | Bye, thank you. I'm a Sausalito resident. |
| 00:33:36.61 | Steven Woodside | You have to speak into the mic so people watching us remotely can hear you. Thank you. |
| 00:33:36.66 | Unknown | YOU HAVE A BIT OF THEM. Can you hear me? Watching us remotely can hear you. Hi, thank you. I am a Sausalito resident, live on Napa Street. I've lived here for eight years. During that time, parking has become increasingly more complicated and more limited. We have lost at the bottom of Caledonia Street, and we're very concerned because we understand that there's this proposal to extend parking until, enforce parking until nine o'clock in the evenings. And what we have on our side is we've lost several parking spaces at 500 Caledonia block. That's at the end near Napa Street. And we've also lost two additional parking during the last couple of years. And then starting in 2023, parking on the base at. 500 block has become enforced parking. And it means that all the people in the neighborhood are having to go over to. Napa Street, I mean to B Street and also up to the library to park and it's very problematic and and I'm surprised to hear that it's that you are planning to vote altogether on this without it's being seen as a problem. And it is a problem for the neighborhood. We also understand that there needs to be a balance between businesses and community, but having it extended until nine o'clock means that it's even more complicated. So we urge you. to make the 500 block sea parking. |
| 00:35:22.06 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:35:23.09 | Unknown | Thank you. Next speaker is David's |
| 00:35:26.11 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:35:26.16 | Steven Woodside | Bot. |
| 00:35:27.02 | Unknown | results. |
| 00:35:30.62 | Unknown | Hello, she is my neighbor and I will, Add to what she said and that the whole time I've lived here since 1998 that part this side the IDESC part was not. I WANTED TO TAKE A LOOK AT two-hour parking. And when that was installed, it took away what was the overflow for the excess Napa parking. And it is excessively going to impair everything if that is going to go till 9 p.m. right there. And I know right now of two units that are opening up on Napa. And depending on who Barbara at L&L rents to there could be another four or five cars to come in and it just doesn't need to be going till nine o'clock I would think if it was stricken from Napa to be on your proposal it would be much much easier on the people that live in the area |
| 00:36:26.39 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:36:27.27 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:36:27.40 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Morgan Pierce. |
| 00:36:32.67 | Morgan Pierce | Welcome back. Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Cox, Vice Mayor Woodside, members of City Council, City staff, and my fellow Sausalitans. My name is Morgan Pierce, and I'm an architect, landscape architect, past chair of both the Planning and Historic Preservation Commissions, longtime resident and currently president of Sausalito Beautiful. I'm speaking to you this evening with regard to Item 3E, even though it has been removed from this consent calendar. In November of this past year, Sausalito Beautiful submitted a letter encouraging you and offering our support in the adoption of a Complete Streets program as you began planning improvements to our roadways. In this letter, we ask that you emphasize the following elements in this planning effort. Street repaving and narrowing, greening our streets, and enhancing walkability and livability. The benefits of adopting a Complete Streets program prior to embarking on major road improvements are as follows. Reducing street widths to 32 feet not only minimizes pavement use, it saves money and helps address the urban heat island effect caused by excessive pavement. Narrowing the streets creates space for vital landscaping, including native pollinator plants, bioswales, and additional trees to provide shade for sidewalks. These enhancements will offer important ecological benefits, such as providing habitat for pollinators, improving stormwater management by absorbing runoff, and naturally calming traffic. Studies show that streets with greenery encourage slower driving making them safer for pedestrians and cyclists. I've taken a cursory look at Saucelita's streets and see the potential for applying these improvements to the following streets. Olima, Coloma, Lincoln, Buchanan, Nevada, Spring, Pearl, Locust, Tourney, Harbor, Gate 5, Testa, Rodeo, and there are probably others. These changes will transform our streets into more inviting, walkable spaces that encourage people to connect with their community and environment. And it reduces long-term infrastructure costs through forward-thinking urban design and aligns with Saucelita's general plan. With your thoughtful addition of architect Sarah Cushitifard to the Department of Public Works, you've put in place a system to apply design thinking to many facets of our city's... infrastructure from large planning efforts to small yet important design details. And we encourage you to apply these practical tenets as we work together to improve circulation and save money for Sausalito. Thank you. |
| 00:38:37.09 | Steven Woodside | Great timing. Thank you. All right. Our next speaker is Mark Palmer. |
| 00:38:52.29 | Mark Palmer | Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. Good evening. Mark Palmer, Sustainability Commission. First of all, I would just want to shout out to Public Works Department for the great job that they do. I'm very impressed with their project management team, both Ali Iqbal and Sarah Karshidafard. I think they're just top flight technicians and city employees, and I want to really commend Public Works on these hires. At the November 19, 2024 City Council meeting, the theme, as I heard it, was roads and resilience. And that each decision that city council makes needs to be looked at through a sustainability lens or resilience lens. The current staff report on 3E, which has been taken from the consent calendar for later discussion, focuses on roads but comes up short on resiliency. I know that you directed staff to consider sustainable practices in the paving program. A complete streetscape should reflect a unified relationship. complete design that balances among a wide variety of functions, including stormwater management, Safe pedestrian travel. uses public space. bicycle, transit, and vehicle movement, Parking and loading requirements, ease of maintenance, and emergency access. Coordination of streetscape improvement project requires a holistic approach. I'm just wondering if a cost-benefit analysis was done to understand the lifetime cost of reduced roadway surface area. Thank you very much. |
| 00:40:34.81 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Mark. Thank you for your work on our Sustainability Commission. I will let folks know that we will bring this back for consideration on July 15th, and we are pulling it. to give our staff an opportunity to thoughtfully consider the various public comments and other comments we've received to the published staff report. Thank you very much. Thank you. Alice Merrill. |
| 00:41:02.80 | Alice Merrill | Hello. Hello. Let's see. I'm 117 Caledonia Street, Alice Merrill. So I'm just going to respond. Thank you. |
| 00:41:13.13 | Jill Hoffman | TO BE ABLE TO BE ABLE TO |
| 00:41:13.32 | Alice Merrill | Thank you. I can't remember your name, but two before me. I'm lose names right and left. Thank you. I've heard this thing about this Morgan. Morgan Pierce. Morgan Pierce. |
| 00:41:27.34 | Babette McDougall | Sorry. |
| 00:41:28.50 | Alice Merrill | Yes. I've heard this thing about the streets being smaller and this and that. We really do have parking problems. You know, it's just a given. And to... Really, on all the downtown streets that he talked about, that's where they are. And they're packed, they're always parked out. And to think that, you know, I don't know, Do you live in one of those streets? Um, You know, talk to the people who actually live in these streets. It's not a picnic. And to just casually say, well, we're going to make it pretty and walkable. And it's walkable. It's also parkable. And we need to have that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. City Clerk. |
| 00:42:18.54 | Walfred Solorzano | We have Jock Oman. |
| 00:42:25.17 | Jock Oman | Can you hear me? |
| 00:42:26.59 | Steven Woodside | Yes, we hear you. Welcome, Jacques. |
| 00:42:28.51 | Jock Oman | Thank you. Well, item 3E, we need immediate action to direct bicycles away from the plaza. And Right now, many of them are going through El Portal. If you spend money microceiling El Portal you're wasting money because We need a pedestrian table across El Portal at Bridgeway. We need signage. We need efforts to make the bicycle circulation work properly And we're only diverting our attention if we start to make improvements to El Portal, at this point because El Portal is not going to be a major street. It's the automobiles will be limited to just those that are serving the local businesses. mainly going to be a pedestrian street. So I'm just speaking out to encourage you not to waste money on Improvements to help. that are not related to the final product that we want. Thank you. |
| 00:43:37.63 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Jacques. City Clerk, |
| 00:43:40.75 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker is Michelle DeMonte. |
| 00:43:43.76 | Steven Woodside | Welcome. |
| 00:43:44.03 | Michelle DeMonte | to Michelle. Hi. Good evening, council members. I'm Michelle Dumas and I'm speaking on 3E as an architect and a Sausalito resident. I know, Joan, you said it's already going to come back, so thank you for that. But I just want to stress here that the project is more than maintenance. It's a design opportunity and simply repaving the old you know, Standard Streets misses a chance to improve our streets and how they function and serve the community. I really do urge you to look at complete streets and road diets as you did last November. Now is the time to apply these. I also want you to know that in April, I casually invited design colleagues to Smitty's. I called it a space for creators, collaborators and supporters of thoughtful places to connect, share ideas and unwind. I'll tell you, I didn't think anyone was going to be there and the entire bar was packed. I think there were over 70 people that were there and it really just shows how much this community values thoughtful and resilient design So I urge you to include a landscape architect or an urban designer to help reimagine and not just resurface our streets. Thank you so much. Thank you. |
| 00:45:11.05 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:45:11.07 | Michelle DeMonte | CITY CLEARLY. |
| 00:45:11.44 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:45:11.91 | Walfred Solorzano | No further public speakers? |
| 00:45:13.36 | Michelle DeMonte | Thank you. |
| 00:45:13.38 | Steven Woodside | All right, we're going to close public comment and bring it back up here for discussion. I'm going to invite Wayne Kwan from our police department, who's in charge of our parking management, to come up and address some of the public comments we heard this evening on item 3B. Thank you. |
| 00:45:33.49 | Wayne Kwan | Thank you. You're welcome. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council Member, members of the public. My name is Wayne Kwan. I am with the South Leo Police Department, and my role is the parking... |
| 00:45:34.49 | Steven Woodside | I'm not sure. |
| 00:45:42.45 | Wayne Kwan | manager. So thank you for the comments from the residents in our C zone. So first of all, I'd like to acknowledge that, you know, parking in Sauslio is very complex. We have many different demographics of people. We have transients, we have residents, we have visitors. And the list just goes on and on, you know. I'm not going to deny the fact that parking is complex, and I acknowledge that. And what we try to do at the police department is, you know, we try to work with, everybody and anybody to the best of our ability. You know, the solutions may not be perfect, but what we try to do is we do try to create a balance and we do listen and we try to accommodate everybody. And in a response to more specific for the C-Zone residents who express concerns about parking. I want to THE END OF Let everybody know back in May of 2025, May 12, we released a C-Zone pilot program. especially when, tailored for the C zone residents. And that pilot program allows C-Zone residents with a C permit or a guest permit to park on the 500 block of Caledonia Street and be exempt from the two hour time limit. So yes, we are proposing to extend the two-hour time limit from currently 9 a.m. to 5. 6 p.m. to 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. to help. the merchants and the turnover of vehicles, I actually think this is going to actually help the residents because the help with more turnover, there would be more spaces available for residents who park. And once resident park, in that particular 500 block of Caledonia Street, they are not, they don't have to move their car every two hours because they are exempt based on this pilot program. And I do want to clarify that we originally, when we announced this back in May, it was originally planned for two months. But, you know, given so much is going on and all the complexity, We plan to extend it in an additional two months. to give us more time to evaluate the program and gather some additional data. And hopefully at some point, you know, bring it back to council for a consideration. |
| 00:48:22.46 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Wayne. I do want to reemphasize that I did meet with the chief about some of the residents' concerns. And there is a plan by your department to ask us to adopt this and then to bring it back to us for a report and any proposed refinements. You're now saying that would be in four months, not in two months. Is that right? |
| 00:48:42.04 | Wayne Kwan | That's the plan, correct. So, originally the plan was to run this for two months, which two months would be a July 12th. So that's right around the corner. But you know what we're proposing now is to extend it another two months, you know, just continue the pilot program because we believe the pilot program is working well. Um, And so it will allow us to continue to gather data over the next two months that we can bring back with a report and presentation and two minutes down the line. |
| 00:49:14.03 | Steven Woodside | And as part of this, would it be possible for you to write a short article to put in the currents that lets residents know that they have the opportunity to purchase this permit that allows them to extend their parking beyond the two hours? Of course. Sure. All right. I see Councilmember Blaustein has her hand raised. |
| 00:49:29.30 | Melissa Blaustein | I see. Yeah, I was just going to ask for those residents who already have an area C parking permit. Do they have to do anything to opt in? Are they automatically able to participate? in additional fees. |
| 00:49:42.33 | Wayne Kwan | an additional fee. They are already opted in. So all current C-Zone residents who have a current C-Zone resident permit or guest pass, they will be exempt from the two hour time limit. |
| 00:49:46.33 | Melissa Blaustein | about. |
| 00:49:59.75 | Wayne Kwan | All right. Thank you. |
| 00:50:00.96 | Steven Woodside | so much. You're welcome. All right. So with that, I do have language that I'm going to read into the record to be added to item 3B. So all three resolutions would have this section added at the end, and it has to do with CEQA, and this is in response to some comments we received. The City Council finds and declares that the proposed action is consistent with all applicable policies in the City's general plan, including but not limited to LU-2.11 caledonia street parking and that the proposed action furthers the goals and objectives of the city's circulation element the city council further finds in the exercise of its independent judgment that the proposed action is not a quote project quote under sequa because it will not have a direct or reasonably foreseeable indirect impact on the environment, and in the alternative further finds that if the proposed action is a, quote, project, quote, under CEQA, that it is exempt under CEQA guidelines section 15301, covering operation and minor alteration of existing facilities, and that none of the grounds in CEQA guidelines section 15300.2 preventing the use of a categorical exemption apply, and that the action is further exempt from CEQA under the common sense exemption, paren CEQA guidelines section 15061B3, paren, in that CEQA does not apply to projects where there is no possibility that the activity in question may have a significant effect on the environment. In addition, I am proposing a revision to item 3D, the resolution that we authorize the Karen Hollweg, Increasing the contract sum for the block 303 sewage project improvement project by up to 675,000 funded by the sewer fund it's quite possible, we will not actually have to authorize that full amount, so I want to give staff the flexibility on that we are removing item. Erika Endrijonas, M.D. 3 E, but we did receive public comment from Jacques all men and Michael Rex with some requests of the public works director that I will forward to the public works director. And finally, I'm going to turn it over to the city attorney for language to be added to item 3G regarding approving the updated publicly available pay schedule. |
| 00:52:23.88 | Sergio Rudin | Thank you, Mayor. I was recently notified, and I'm going to share my screen, that on the bottom left page of 13 of the publicly available pay schedule, some of the figures were not correct with regards to the community services director position. The annual minimum and maximum figures need to be corrected for the monthly, biweekly, and hourly tables as shown on the screen. I can read those into the record as well if you would like. |
| 00:52:41.44 | Joan Cox | minimize. |
| 00:52:54.37 | Steven Woodside | I defer to you, city attorney, whether you putting it on the screen is adequate or whether you should read it into the record. |
| 00:53:02.00 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, I'll read it in the record so it's reflected in the minutes. For the monthly minimum, it should be 11,000 505 and 33 cents with a maximum of 13,000 766 and 67 cents for the biweekly That means $5,310.15 is the minimum, $6,353.85 is the maximum. Hourly rate minimum is $66.38, and maximum is $79.42. |
| 00:53:20.90 | Talia Smith | and then a |
| 00:53:31.51 | Steven Woodside | Thank you for that. city attorney. I am now seeking a motion approving consent items 3a through 3d and 3f through 3h as amended. |
| 00:53:44.88 | Joan Cox | I'm prepared to make that motion. I have one additional amendment to offer. It's a one-word substitution. It's in the resolution regarding parking, and it's in response to the 500 block issue on Caledonia Street. So if under Section 1 of the resolution pertaining to the extended parking hours, Section 1, the first bullet point, refers to adding those hours or increasing those hours from Caledonia Street from Johnson to Napa Street. And my one word amendment would substitute for Napa Street, B Street. In other words, the 500 block of Caledonia Street would, at this moment, not be subject to the extended hours. I appreciate very much what the police department is doing to continue to take a look at this. And their plan is to come back, possibly with changes on the 500 block, possibly with changes elsewhere in response to public comments. And if it's OK with the rest of the council, I'd like to see that additional amendment be included. |
| 00:53:47.71 | Steven Woodside | and, |
| 00:54:47.64 | Steven Woodside | So I'm going to pull that and we'll have a discussion item because that is contrary to what the police force is offering. They've explained that the residents can get a C permit. I think it merits discussion to change what the police is recommending, particularly since they're coming back in two months. |
| 00:55:08.39 | Joan Cox | So we would, uh, |
| 00:55:09.74 | Steven Woodside | You've made a motion. Is there a second to the... Vice Mayor's motion. |
| 00:55:19.06 | Ian Sobieski | I'm so it is the idea to pull it and we'll have a discussion later in this meeting. |
| 00:55:23.75 | Steven Woodside | Unless someone's if the council is ready to adopt this now in contravention of the police force recommendation, then you can do that. But I'm recommending we pull it for further discussion. |
| 00:55:35.02 | Jill Hoffman | I don't think we can. I think if we're changing what's on the consent calendar, we have to pull it. |
| 00:55:39.39 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. |
| 00:55:39.46 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:55:39.58 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:55:39.70 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:55:39.74 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:55:39.85 | Ian Sobieski | It seems like we should. |
| 00:55:41.01 | Steven Woodside | I THINK IT'S A GREAT |
| 00:55:41.08 | Jill Hoffman | I think so, too. |
| 00:55:42.53 | Steven Woodside | All right, so, and we always pull if there's even one member who requests it. So I'm gonna pull item three. Thank you. Um, 3B and that will now become business item 5D. All right, so I'll seek a motion approving items 3A through 3C and 3F through 3H. |
| 00:56:07.93 | Joan Cox | Show moves. |
| 00:56:10.22 | Steven Woodside | second. |
| 00:56:11.01 | Sergio Rudin | And that is as amended. |
| 00:56:11.05 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:56:11.07 | Joan Cox | and that is absolutely |
| 00:56:11.55 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:56:11.57 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:56:11.62 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:56:12.43 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 00:56:12.45 | Sergio Rudin | as in fact. |
| 00:56:12.47 | Joan Cox | As amended. |
| 00:56:12.77 | Steven Woodside | It's amended. Thank you. City Clerk, will you call the roll? |
| 00:56:12.95 | Walfred Solorzano | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:56:18.27 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember lasting. |
| 00:56:20.97 | Steven Woodside | you |
| 00:56:20.99 | Melissa Blaustein | Yes. |
| 00:56:22.25 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 00:56:24.26 | Melissa Blaustein | Yes. |
| 00:56:24.57 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:56:24.58 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski. Vice Mayor Woodside. Thank you. |
| 00:56:29.71 | Ben Kahane | Yes. |
| 00:56:29.97 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. And Mary Cox. |
| 00:56:31.40 | Steven Woodside | Yes, that motion carries five zero. Okay, we'll now move on to our public hearing items. The first is item 4A, adoption of resolution amending the city of Sausalito master fee schedule. And I'll welcome Jesus Nava, our interim finance director. |
| 00:57:00.04 | Unknown | Good evening. So this item came before you in May, where the consultants, World End Financial Services, gave a lengthy presentation and an overview of all the fees that were proposed by the city council. At that meeting, the council gave direction to the staff, particularly to limit any annual increases to no more than 10%. We took that council direction into consideration and have amended the fee schedule to reflect that maximum. At this point, the fee schedule has been formalized for your adoption. And today's public hearing is to allow the citizens to be heard. And once the public hearing is closed, address any additional questions that the council may have. And if there are none proceed with the approval of the fee schedule with implementation through the city manager |
| 00:57:54.31 | Unknown | So with that, I think we're ready to open the public hearing. |
| 00:58:05.44 | Steven Woodside | um, I'll open the public hearing. Can you please confirm that the notice required by law was provided? |
| 00:58:16.07 | Unknown | Yes. Yes, the notice that was provided that was required by law was provided and was included as part of the agenda packet for council review. |
| 00:58:23.35 | Steven Woodside | All right, great. I see Councilmember Blaustein has her hand raised. Did you have a question, Councilmember? Thank you. |
| 00:58:28.90 | Melissa Blaustein | I did. I just had a question. Previously, we had discussed at council ensuring that nonprofits from Marin City are able to have a waiver of fees for our parks and rec use, and I didn't see that reflected anywhere here in our fee schedule, and I just wanted to make sure that that was our ongoing policy as part of our partnership with them. |
| 00:58:48.54 | Unknown | Yeah, I don't recall an actual specific waiver for nonprofits, but if that is the pleasure of the council, we can reflect that moving forward. |
| 00:58:58.40 | Steven Woodside | I don't recall that, but I know that we do that for our Sausalito Center for the Arts. City Manager, did you have a comment? |
| 00:59:05.03 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, Councilmember Bloussaint is correct. The council discussed this before Mr. Nava was here. You know, this would be a good practice and policy to implement. So we have continued that and we could still continue it unless there's a direction to change it. I support it. |
| 00:59:21.38 | Steven Woodside | I support it as well. I do too. All right. So there's unanimous support. So Mr. Nava, if you could add that into the... fee schedule. That would be great. Any other questions of Director Nava? |
| 00:59:36.89 | Unknown | None whatsoever. |
| 00:59:39.44 | Steven Woodside | All right, seeing none. |
| 00:59:40.23 | Jill Hoffman | I'll just weigh in on that for just a second. |
| 00:59:41.82 | Steven Woodside | a second. Well, this is only questions. We'll weigh in after public comment. |
| 00:59:45.34 | Jill Hoffman | Let me just comment on the nonprofit part of it. |
| 00:59:49.48 | Steven Woodside | No, it's a question. This is not the comment period yet. |
| 00:59:52.23 | Jill Hoffman | So... |
| 00:59:53.53 | Steven Woodside | We're taking questions, and then we'll hear public comment. Then we get to comment. |
| 00:59:57.76 | Jill Hoffman | I think we need, okay, do we have any definition anywhere in our, in that section about how we define nonprofit. I don't know. |
| 01:00:06.79 | Unknown | I don't think we actually have a definition, but I'm assuming that it's the federal tax code. |
| 01:00:13.05 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, let's then when we get down to our comments, then we can talk about that. Okay. |
| 01:00:17.29 | Steven Woodside | Great. Thank you for that. All right. I don't have any speaker cards. Is there public comment on item 4A? See none. All right, then I will close public comment, close the public hearing, and bring it up here for discussion and emotion. |
| 01:00:37.76 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. To Councilmember Hoffman's point, the definition of nonprofit seems appropriate. So 501c3 status seems appropriate. |
| 01:00:45.45 | Steven Woodside | Mm-hmm. Agree. |
| 01:00:49.77 | Ian Sobieski | I agree. |
| 01:00:49.97 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:00:50.45 | Steven Woodside | OK, so will you just ensure that that's included as part of the policy, as the definition of a non, the federal government definition of a nonprofit? Any other discussion or I'm ready for a motion? |
| 01:01:08.86 | Joan Cox | prepared to move adoption of the resolution amending the city of Sausalito master fee schedule as with the inclusion of the nonprofit waiver. |
| 01:01:18.88 | Steven Woodside | and the amendment regarding the waiver for 94965. |
| 01:01:25.45 | Joan Cox | Ah, yes. For the nine... Yes, nonprofits, as well as the Marin City, 94965 nonprofit users of our facilities. |
| 01:01:25.68 | Steven Woodside | Yes. in the city. |
| 01:01:36.43 | Steven Woodside | And this is for fiscal year 2526. |
| 01:01:38.59 | Joan Cox | Correct. |
| 01:01:40.04 | Steven Woodside | All right, so I have a first and a second. If there's no further discussion, city clerk, will you call the roll? |
| 01:01:40.14 | Joan Cox | SECOND. |
| 01:01:40.43 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:01:46.61 | Walfred Solorzano | Council Member Bloss team. |
| 01:01:48.60 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 01:01:49.02 | Alice Merrill | Thank you. |
| 01:01:49.78 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 01:01:51.70 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 01:01:52.04 | Alice Merrill | Thank you. |
| 01:01:52.80 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski. Yes. Vice Mayor Cox. Sorry, Vice Mayor Woodside. Yes. Mayor Cox. Yes. |
| 01:02:00.50 | Steven Woodside | Thank you that motion carries five zero will now move on to our business items, the first business item is five a discussion of approved amendments to section 10.44 and review of impacts to the housing production and I will welcome our Community and economic development director brandon phipps. |
| 01:02:01.05 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:02:25.34 | Chris Zapata | Hi, Maren. You're so efficient. We're trying to get our act together. |
| 01:02:29.66 | Steven Woodside | I'm going to actually take the opportunity to offer my council members a five minute break for personal convenience. |
| 01:02:37.79 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:02:40.37 | Steven Woodside | going to resume. |
| 01:02:44.49 | Steven Woodside | Thank you for indulging our moment of personal privilege. We will now turn, folks, we're going to resume. We're going to now have discussion on business item 5A, discussion of approved amendments to section 10.44. and review of impacts to housing production. And I will welcome, our Community and Economic Development Director Brandon Phipps. |
| 01:03:15.51 | Brandon Phipps | Thank you very much, and good evening to you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council Members, members of the public, and staff. Happy to be joining you this evening, as always, this time to address Item 5A, as stated by the Mayor, a discussion of approved amendments to Section 1044-010 and 1044-190 of the Sausalito Municipal Code and review of impacts to housing production. Next slide, please. Okay, as Council is aware, the ordinance edits related to the potential impacts we're discussing today have already been approved. These were approved based on the timeline shown here. Those amendments were specifically approved on May 20th of this year. Based on Council's previous exposure on this item, I'm not going to go through an exhaustive summary of the amendments that were approved, but I have summarized them here. Relating to Section 1044-010, the City Council amended this section, which formally allowed for the Planning Commission to waive certain requirements on a case-by-case basis if minimum standards are not met, to require the approval of a variance or CUP if minimum standards are not met. So this generally minimizes risk for the city. relating to sections 1044 190 the city council amended this section to require projects of five or more units to designate at least 20% of their units as affordable. This section previously required that projects ranging from one to five units provide at least one affordable unit, and that projects composed of six or more units must designate at least 20% of their units as affordable. This section was also amended to allow for exceptions to a second-story residential development requirement in the Central Commercial District. Exceptions are available for projects which propose limited expansions, involve historic structures, if the planning commission deems it to be infeasible, and if the restated requirement is deemed to be an unconstitutional taking. And just to clarify, I use the term and there, those can apply individually. They need not apply collectively. Due to concerns expressed by members of the city council related to the potential negative impact of these amendments to affordable housing production, the council directed staff to prepare an evaluation of housing production within the city's commercial districts over time to better understand the ways in which Sausalito's municipal code language may have impacted the extent of housing production in the city. in these areas. And the former section... Have the amendments approved as related to 1044190 is the primary subject of this evening's discussion. And I have highlighted it here in green as it amends affordable housing requirements for new development. Next slide, please. Okay, based on council direction, staff conducted a preliminary analysis of housing production and supply within commercial districts, including central commercial, commercial residential, and neighborhood commercial. That analysis is provided in a more substantive form as attachment to, but we've also summarized it here. And I will note before I dig into the numbers and findings that this evaluation was truly a group effort. Tip of the hat here to senior planner Matthew Mandich, associate planner Katie Nelson, and community development technician Lisa Telles for the collaborative efforts associated with accomplishing this evaluation, which took the form of a three-step process. Step one. City staff analyzed each and every property within our commercial districts based on county records to assess how many units are reported to exist on each parcel. Step two, staff checked the county records against our local records, using multiple sources to evaluate available records, primarily including a review of TrackIt and SoftFile. And again, that was a Herculean effort. So Ms. Tellez, thank you very much. Step three. Conduct a community survey to evaluate structures and parcels within our commercial districts to identify properties with higher potential for new development. And that community survey is provided as attachment three to this item. As a part of the analysis, staff evaluated residential unit production in commercial districts since 2011. That is when the affordability requirements that were recently amended went into effect. And based on the analysis conducted, only one residential unit was permitted and built in the city's commercial districts since 2011. That project is located at 325 Pine Street, just east of the Sausalito Market. Regarding deed restrictions, staff was able to identify one deed restricted unit on record within the city's commercial districts. No other records of data restricted units were identified as part of this analysis and record search. So from a high level, the data supports that limited residential development has occurred in these city's commercial districts since 2011, but moreover in the last 25 years. Next slide, please. Associated with that last statement, only three residential projects have been approved and built in the city's commercial districts in the last 25 years. That is relative to a total project number of 40. And as detailed on the summary table here, we can see that the highest intensity of development from an objective project number standpoint occurred in the 1970s. So based on the analysis conducted and the findings from the analysis, I think we can all agree that limited residential development has occurred in the city's commercial districts since 2011. As related to the findings of the analysis, I think it's fair to say that the amendments that the city council recently approved did not, or do not, excuse me, represent a new constraint to development. Rather, I think the data seems to support that the former language actually represented a constraint to development. And next slide, please. So I'll state just for those who may be concerned with, you know, development running rampant in our commercial districts, which I think is a bit of an overstatement. I'd just like to clarify that we still have a number of rules in place that ensure that our development is reflective of community context and ensure that development is well-sized for our community and is not going over any unreasonable boundaries. Some of those things are listed here. We have minimum lot area requirements, FAR requirements, building coverage, setbacks, height limits, among others. Ordinance 1022 also continues to be in effect in all of our commercial districts, which also limits the extent of development and conversion. And finally, we still maintain our discretionary review practices, design review, CUPs, in addition to reviewing from review required from multiple bodies, such as the BCDC, such as our friends in the fire district and the historic preservation commission. So with that, I think I'll end my presentation. Next slide please and I'll open it up to questions. |
| 01:10:58.98 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. I forwarded a couple of questions to you. My first question is for the city attorney. Thank you. |
| 01:11:10.25 | Unknown | Yes, ma'am? |
| 01:11:10.27 | Steven Woodside | Yes, ma'am. Sergio. So, Sergio, the Community and Economic Development Director just characterized the program that we adopted in 2011 as a constraint to development based on the data that he shared with us this evening. Can you please advise what cities are obligated to do when programs they adopt within their housing element constitute a constraint to development? |
| 01:11:10.69 | Sergio Rudin | Thank you. |
| 01:11:36.54 | Sergio Rudin | So yeah, in general, housing element law requires that as part of the housing element, cities evaluate their existing regulations to determine whether or not they are Uh, unduly constraining development. And if the cities do find that they do so, they are required to repeal those. So |
| 01:11:55.05 | Steven Woodside | So we received a question from Sandra Bushmaker this afternoon that said, |
| 01:11:55.09 | Sergio Rudin | So we just... |
| 01:12:00.25 | Steven Woodside | Is our approved amended housing element at risk with this move referring to the adoption of this revised ordinance? |
| 01:12:08.65 | Sergio Rudin | In my opinion, no. And I do think that given the data that has been presented today, the city would be very well positioned to defend the adoption of the new regulations as being in harmony with the requirements of state law. |
| 01:12:23.99 | Steven Woodside | And in in light of your prior uh, statement would our approved amended housing element be at risk if we had not removed the constraint on a develop on development represented by this program that we adopted in 2011. |
| 01:12:40.78 | Sergio Rudin | Um, It's certainly hard to say, but I think that it is something that could be a concern. Yes. |
| 01:12:49.93 | Steven Woodside | And then there are three others. There are questions that Ms. Bushmaker forwarded to us that I said I would, I told the Community and Economic Development Director I would ask, May a buyer of a building in commercial zones build four units of market rate housing on the second floor in the commercial zones under this change? |
| 01:13:07.92 | Brandon Phipps | I think the answer on its face is it depends on where the property is located and what project is being proposed. For example, no residential is allowed in the CN-2 district. |
| 01:13:21.34 | Steven Woodside | Well, I'm talking about the commercial residential districts affected by this ordinance. |
| 01:13:26.94 | Brandon Phipps | And I'm just getting started. Okay. Per the last slide that I presented... |
| 01:13:28.40 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 01:13:32.88 | Brandon Phipps | In order to ensure compliance with standards, you need to make sure that you are meeting our standards. Minimum lot area, floor area ratio, building coverage, setback, height limits. Staff can only really answer the question of what can happen on a specific parcel in a commercial district that allows residential after we've evaluated the specific elements. |
| 01:13:53.53 | Steven Woodside | All right, let me frame it this way, because this is really what she's asking, I think, is if a property owner could have built four units of market rate housing on the second floor in commercial zones prior, under the program that was adopted in 2011, can they still, with the change that we adopted, can they still have a change? |
| 01:14:13.01 | Brandon Phipps | So previously they would not have been able to develop four market rate units. There would have been a requirement for one affordable unit. Assuming, I think, per your kind of pushback that the development standards are met, the answer is yes. You would be allowed to construct four market rate units. |
| 01:14:29.59 | Steven Woodside | Okay. I think that the city attorney has already answered the second question, which is why is this change being raised now in light of the affordable housing crisis in California and in Sausalito? |
| 01:14:41.46 | Sergio Rudin | Well, Thank you. |
| 01:14:42.44 | Steven Woodside | Go ahead. |
| 01:14:42.45 | Sergio Rudin | Go ahead. Yeah, I think I have. And it is because housing element law requires that the city continuously review its existing housing regulations to determine whether or not they are constraints on development of additional housing. And if. They are found to be constraints and they should be removed. |
| 01:14:59.63 | Steven Woodside | And third and last question is, what happens to the current affordable housing on the second floors in the commercial zones? |
| 01:15:08.66 | Brandon Phipps | Yeah, I would say, based on the specific changes the council recently approved, there is no direct impact to existing affordable units. As was the case prior to council's recent adoption of these amendments, property owners always have the right so long as they meet state requirements and our local requirements to evict tenants and to retrofit or rehab their spaces. |
| 01:15:32.62 | Steven Woodside | City Attorney. |
| 01:15:33.72 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, and again, typically with regards to any deed restricted units, and I think the data shows that there are very few units, Brandon, I think it was one. |
| 01:15:45.41 | Brandon Phipps | Yes. |
| 01:15:46.19 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, so that would be subject to a deed restriction. Changes in city ordinance requirements would not affect the validity of that deed restriction. Now, typically those restrictions are for a fixed duration, and so sometimes cities will need to have programs in place to pay property owners to extend those or provide some other financial incentive to extend those existing deed restrictions when they expire. |
| 01:16:10.90 | Steven Woodside | And then finally, City Attorney, can you address one other public comment we received, which was that there was... Council for one of our residents contended that the city council failed to undertake the second reading of this ordinance because we made changes to the ordinance when we adopted it. Can you briefly address that assertion? |
| 01:16:34.42 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, so as mentioned in the presentation this evening, the City Council introduced this ordinance on May 6th and waived first reading. On May 20th, which is the date that the City Council adopted the ordinance, there was some discussion and competing motions by the council to make further amendments. Ultimately, none of those motions passed, so the council adopted the ordinance in exactly the form that it was introduced. and therefore the city did comply with both with all of the procedural requirements for adopting the ordinance. |
| 01:17:06.45 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. With that, I'll yield to any other questions |
| 01:17:09.03 | Jill Hoffman | members So thank you, Brandon, for your presentation. Thank you. But when we originally adopted, the first time this was presented to the council, the analysis that you've presented tonight showing or at least pertaining proposing to show the constraint to development that had not been presented that had not been done prior to the presentation to the planning commission nor prior to the presentation to council nor prior to the second vote from the council. Yeah. |
| 01:17:43.59 | Brandon Phipps | Yeah, I appreciate the question and the clarification. I would say a formal analysis of this extent had not been completed. Staff's analysis had been more internal and more qualitative. |
| 01:17:55.52 | Jill Hoffman | What was the internal analysis then? Had any analysis been done? |
| 01:17:59.84 | Brandon Phipps | Yes, yes. |
| 01:18:00.58 | Jill Hoffman | What was the analysis that was done? |
| 01:18:00.62 | Brandon Phipps | But... Well, we've qualitatively analyzed the unit production that we're aware of in the recent past to assess potential impacts. And even in speaking to certain members of the community and asking, are you aware based on your history? Because I know I haven't been here as long as many folks in the community. Even after asking those folks, what's your experience or recollection of projects that have been built in commercial districts that are residential, their answer is generally, I'm not sure that I can name any. So that's one example. |
| 01:18:34.67 | Jill Hoffman | And so did you bother or did prior to the presentation to the Planning Commission and prior to the presentations to the City Council on May 6 and May 20 when the matter was brought before the City Council. Did you talk to any of the owners of any of the buildings in any of the districts about development of new projects? |
| 01:19:01.38 | Brandon Phipps | Also appreciate the question. Discussions with property owners as to, you know, potential for new projects is one of the things that we do on a daily basis in CDD. What I can say specifically as related to at least one site in the CR district, prior to, this is maybe a year and a half back, an owner came to staff and asked what the process and feasibility would be to build a two-unit project. We shared with them the inclusionary requirements at that time, and they promptly discontinued discussions with us. Specifically due to that onerous requirement, that it wasn't going to pencil for them at such a low scale. So based on specific discussions with owners, I have highlighted and been aware of this constraint. No, I have not discussed with every specific owner. And that would be a very interesting project, particularly because, right, as mentioned, every site requires a bit of an ad hoc analysis. So happy to engage in those future discussions. That's something that we really enjoy doing in CDD. |
| 01:20:12.44 | Jill Hoffman | So at any point, did anybody at CDD uh, reach out or or try to canvas property owners who might be interested in inclusionary housing projects for a discussion or a forum on what the city could do to support that program. Because we've done that in the past and we've had forums of what can we do to support these programs. |
| 01:20:38.30 | Brandon Phipps | I agree and I appreciate the kind of commitment to ensuring a thorough public outreach process. Unfortunately, that was not done in connection with this specific item. If that's council's direction, staff's happy to carry it through. |
| 01:20:51.12 | Jill Hoffman | And so in the other, conversely, I'm going to ask this question to our city attorney. City attorney, prior to the amendments that came before the Planning Commission, the quite extensive amendments to this ordinance that came before the Planning Commission and then on to the city council, Um, I'm curious. Who gave you direction to make these extensive and quite large policy changes in direction to this this ordinance because it didn't come from the city council. I didn't have a CDD. |
| 01:21:31.23 | Sergio Rudin | I actually do think it did. It came from the city council. We did have an agenda item related to 715 bridgeway project, which, involved modifications to this specific code provision. |
| 01:21:43.84 | Jill Hoffman | We had. And was it your understanding that it was to Um, to do away with the inclusionary housing program. |
| 01:21:54.40 | Sergio Rudin | Um, No, but I will state that the existing regulations are highly anomalous when it comes to regulations of comparable cities. |
| 01:22:05.74 | Jill Hoffman | Was it your understanding that it was |
| 01:22:05.89 | Sergio Rudin | Is it your understanding? |
| 01:22:08.15 | Jill Hoffman | Sorry, were you finished? |
| 01:22:09.77 | Sergio Rudin | No. And I will point out that government code 65850.01 gives HCD the authority to review inclusionary housing regulations wherever possible. A city adopts a new regulation after December 2017 that imposes a inclusionary housing requirement greater than 15% of the total number of units. So the fact that we had a existing regulation that effectively on small projects could have been 100% or 50% inclusionary housing requirement. again, was very very strange to see in a municipal cut provision And I did recommend to staff that staff evaluate that and that we try to address it as part of revisions to the code. |
| 01:22:56.45 | Jill Hoffman | Was it your understanding, you had specifically been instructed to essentially give Planning Commission the ability to excuse a property owner from providing or complying with second floor housing in the commercial central district |
| 01:23:14.88 | Sergio Rudin | Yes, actually yes. |
| 01:23:16.99 | Jill Hoffman | And so... All second floor housing. In any location, not just one location. |
| 01:23:24.41 | Sergio Rudin | you. Well, in the affected zoning districts, and that issue did arise in the context of the 1715 Bridgeway Project. as you are aware. |
| 01:23:33.68 | Jill Hoffman | I'm aware, but I was not aware that it was your understanding or that the counsel had given you Thank you. direction to do that for the entire district. |
| 01:23:41.80 | Sergio Rudin | Well, as a practical matter, That was an issue with that particular project, and the city can only make zoning regulations by district. It can't make them for a specific project. |
| 01:23:56.34 | Jill Hoffman | And so back to, |
| 01:24:08.46 | Jill Hoffman | With regard to the |
| 01:24:14.38 | Jill Hoffman | zoning changes in the CC district Was there any notice given to the residents of any of those second floor units that we were contemplating changes of this nature for that district? |
| 01:24:29.03 | Brandon Phipps | Yep, appreciate the question. Always want to ensure that our public is aware of changes that we are assessing. We met all of the noticing requirements in connection with this item, which did require us to, I believe, publish notice of the meeting and discussion in the local paper. |
| 01:24:49.35 | Jill Hoffman | but notice wasn't given to the second floor residents in the district. |
| 01:24:55.13 | Brandon Phipps | in the sense I'm not sure what you mean by giving notice. What I can confirm is we met our noticing requirements. |
| 01:25:01.73 | Jill Hoffman | Really? |
| 01:25:06.32 | Jill Hoffman | My question, yeah, sorry, that was a little vague. We didn't mail notice to them directly, to their addresses. |
| 01:25:13.29 | Brandon Phipps | in connection with that specific action, I don't believe that we did. |
| 01:25:16.97 | Jill Hoffman | And I agree that that would have been more than what was probably required, that was required in a law, but okay, thank you. And so, and furthermore, none of this was done prior to the council's action on these changes to the ordinance. |
| 01:25:36.41 | Brandon Phipps | I appreciate the question. I just ask to clarify what you mean by none of this. |
| 01:25:39.23 | Jill Hoffman | What you mean by none of this? Thank you. Sorry, that was a super vague question. So none of these outreach issues that I talked about or very few of these outreach issues about the sweeping changes to the ordinance were made directly to people, meaning direct contact to the addresses, direct contact to property owners of these sweeping changes to the ordinance or public outreach efforts prior to these changes at the city council level. |
| 01:26:09.69 | Brandon Phipps | I would agree with that, council member. |
| 01:26:11.46 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thanks. I don't have any further questions right now. |
| 01:26:14.82 | Steven Woodside | Bye. |
| 01:26:14.89 | Brandon Phipps | Please make me feel free. |
| 01:26:15.14 | Alice Merrill | Thank you. |
| 01:26:15.17 | Brandon Phipps | Bye. |
| 01:26:15.24 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:26:17.10 | Joan Cox | I have a question or two that might test your memory as well as mine. This first came up at a meeting, the first meeting in May, our first council meeting in May, and then it came back again later in May. Is that your recollection? |
| 01:26:30.97 | Brandon Phipps | Yes, and there is a timeline provided, and I can answer that question specifically. May 6 is when it went to the council for first reading, approved 4-1. May 20 was second reading. It was pulled, discussed, approved 4-1. That followed an April 8th planning commission meeting where they provided recommendation of their approval. |
| 01:26:45.14 | Joan Cox | Right. |
| 01:26:50.05 | Joan Cox | OK, and my recollection of my asking you a question at that time had to do with the impact as you understood it, or perhaps understood it then, as to the effectiveness of the 20% housing requirement, affordable housing requirement. And I believe, my recollection is you answered that it would be one or two, or very few at the most. Do you remember my asking that question and your answer? |
| 01:27:18.84 | Brandon Phipps | I do recall that. I do recall that. And I, and I think that you, your recollection is also correct. Okay. |
| 01:27:24.75 | Joan Cox | And you've done the complete study now and you've confirmed that the number is exactly |
| 01:27:29.49 | Brandon Phipps | want. That is correct, as related to the one unit at, what is it, 325 Pine that I described. Thank you. |
| 01:27:41.50 | Steven Woodside | Any other questions? All right. I'll open it up for. I have questions. Oh, sorry. I did hand raise. Council Member Blaustein, my apologies, please. |
| 01:27:45.76 | Melissa Blaustein | Oh, Mayor, my hand was raised. |
| 01:27:51.02 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate it. Hey, Director Phipps, great presentation. Thank you for being with us. I wanted to ask you, could you explain a little bit about Program 15 in our housing element? |
| 01:28:04.02 | Brandon Phipps | Sure. Can you remind me what program that is? |
| 01:28:06.28 | Melissa Blaustein | The Inclusionary Housing Program that's addressed in this. |
| 01:28:08.88 | Brandon Phipps | The evolutionary housing program. Understood. The inclusionary housing program in our housing element is designed to ensure that new development provides for their appropriate apportionment of affordable units. |
| 01:28:23.35 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay. And in your experience in assessing this, how do you feel like these changes align with Program 15 and ensuring that we're compliant with our housing elements? |
| 01:28:30.88 | Brandon Phipps | These changes and to the question, I think that so thank you for the question. Thank you for the opportunity. This also gets back to one of the other questions that the mayor had asked. Does this make our housing element stronger? I would, per your question, add and just say and say, I believe it makes our housing element a better version of what it used to be that. That is because the foundations under which our housing element is built upon is now streamlining and incentivizing housing development in all commercial districts that are impacted. So all districts but for the ECN-1. |
| 01:29:09.64 | Melissa Blaustein | And about how many |
| 01:29:09.71 | Brandon Phipps | about. |
| 01:29:10.94 | Melissa Blaustein | About how many community hearings and outreach conversations did we have regarding our housing element and housing needs in Sausalito in general? |
| 01:29:19.24 | Brandon Phipps | I'm not sure that there is a number large enough to describe that. No, no, I'm being a little bit... I think we've had many, and I don't have a specific number. |
| 01:29:31.48 | Melissa Blaustein | But we had several open forums, town halls and community conversations about our housing, correct? |
| 01:29:36.37 | Brandon Phipps | Correct. |
| 01:29:37.74 | Melissa Blaustein | And one of the things that we heard from a number of members of the community was that we wanted to increase access to housing and have more housing in our community. And that was the goal of the housing element, correct? And as a result of these changes, have we seen any early interest from developers or folks who might want to build now that we've made this change? |
| 01:29:58.14 | Brandon Phipps | Yes, we have. Thank you also for asking that question. I can say I did kind of qualitatively summarize a previous discussion based on previous language. I can qualitatively summarize in the CN-1 district. Staff have recently had discussions with property owners interested in developing second story residential based on this constraint removal. |
| 01:30:21.31 | Melissa Blaustein | So you're saying we're already seeing an increase in housing as a result of this change? |
| 01:30:25.34 | Brandon Phipps | That's correct. |
| 01:30:27.10 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay. And in your experience in community development and just in seeing the way Regulations are evolving, for example, in cities like Austin, where we've seen removal of red tape and more access to being able to build by creating pathways for more housing. What do you think has been happening significantly to rents in areas where housing's been going up as far as you've seen? |
| 01:30:47.18 | Brandon Phipps | Yeah, thank you for the question. This gets to the economics of housing. And I don't want to make it more complicated than it needs to be for purposes of this discussion. We live in a microeconomic climate. The city of Sausalito is relatively small, and this is a beautiful city. People want to be here. As a result of that, we see much of demand being geared or directed towards this city. A lot of people wanna live here. That means prices are going to rise. The only way to combat additional increases in price is to provide additional supply. So it's our duty to ensure that we are approving, carrying forward a municipal code that incentivizes and streamlines affordable housing development and housing development approvals in general. |
| 01:31:35.09 | Melissa Blaustein | Great. And then I did just wanted to touch on at our prior meeting, I think on May 6 or May 20, I had asked specifically about anti displacement measures and ensuring that those residents who are in existing affordable housing units be protected. You and I have since talked with rooted in Moran about that. Do you want to just give a little bit of background on those discussions and where that stands? |
| 01:31:53.21 | Brandon Phipps | Yes, I was going to thank you for being an ally with staff on that and for initiating those discussions with the county. So this also gets to streamlining development, but I would say more on the preservationist side. The county of Marin is looking into creating a more robust program centered around displacement reduction and ensuring that existing tenants are able to stay in their units and age in place. Specifically in the case of Sausalito, that's an issue that we're very interested in. So this program is in its infancy, but Sausalito is excited, or I'll just restate, I'm excited and CDD is excited to collaborate with the county and to push these programs forward. |
| 01:32:43.90 | Melissa Blaustein | Great. No other questions. Thank you, Director Phipps. |
| 01:32:46.62 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Councilmember. Okay, with that, I'll open it up for public comment. I have no speaker cards. City Clerk, anyone online? |
| 01:32:54.18 | Walfred Solorzano | Babette McDougall. |
| 01:32:56.24 | Steven Woodside | Welcome, Babette. |
| 01:32:59.70 | Babette McDougall | Thank you, Madam Mayor. Gosh, what to say? You know, I got to say that whole month of May was not exactly an example of Sausalito's finest moment as a democratic society. I first, found the first meeting in May to be Confusing. Then the next meeting came along where I recall vaguely, but I recall that there was a motion that was seconded And then there was discussion and the vote was called. And I recall, that was by the way, when Ms. Blaustein arrived a bit late in person for that particular meeting. So she came late. And, That's okay. The only reason I bring that in is that There was a motion. It was seconded. It was debated. Then you called the vote, Madam Mayor. And I think, I don't remember if it was a yes or no. I just remembered the first, let's just say it was no. The first vote was no. I believe you, Madam Mayor, was the second vote. You also voted no. Ms. Blaustein had no sooner taken her place at her dais chair And so, was now asked to tender a vote and she joined you in voting no. And here's what you did, Madam Mayor, you turned your full measure of your posture toward Ms. Blausin, and in the following, my pretty kind of voice, you said, Oh, I didn't think you were going to vote like that. And the first thing out of Blaustein's mouth was, well, I forgot what you told me to vote on. I forgot what way I'm supposed to vote. What do you want me to do? And then you hushed her down. And with a physical gesture of your hand, it was like you just pushed the whole thing off the dice table. And then there was this long pregnant moment of silence. And I raised the issue with some of your colleagues and said, wait a minute. just went on there. And I was told, just hold on, eventually it's going to come back. So I guess this is the night it comes back. Thank you. And I just want to say, I hope I never see a display like that again. Ms. Blaustein, I know you're capable. Thank you. |
| 01:35:01.98 | Alice Merrill | No. |
| 01:35:02.03 | Walfred Solorzano | Next, sorry, next speaker, Sandra Bushmaker. |
| 01:35:02.19 | Sandra Bushmaker | I'm not sure. |
| 01:35:07.32 | Sandra Bushmaker | Yeah, thank you for answering my questions that I posed in my letter to you. I have a couple issues. This seems to say that affordable housing is a constraint. And I remember the discussion was very brief. There was one case referenced. I wanted a further discussion on how It could be affordable housing requirements could be a restraint or a taking. And I don't feel that we had a complete discussion on that particular issue. Um, I would also. like to challenge the assertion, and this has been in the housing circles in California. that the increased supply reduces the price. that just is not supported by the evidence. And I think that we're making a mistake if we think that and saying that is misleading. And then lastly, I just want to confirm that this change in this ordinance is being made now, if I heard the city attorney correctly, Because it's a requirement of our continuing duty to review our Yeah. Ordinances. in the housing element process. So I just wanna make sure I understand that correctly. that it's being raised as part of our ordinary course of business under the housing law. Now, I am unaware of any other ordinances that reduced affordable housing in Sausalito that, was done in the ordinary course of business in reviewing our housing element, our housing requirements. So there's some things that don't make a lot of sense to me right now. And I find it's still highly... Yeah. I hope. what's the right question about why this issue came up right at this time. And I realized, |
| 01:37:14.92 | Walfred Solorzano | We have a speaker. |
| 01:37:15.96 | Steven Woodside | card. All right. Sharna Brockett. Okay. All right. With that, we will close. Public comment. Bring it up here. Actually, this is only a discussion item. We're not taking any action on this this evening. This was an agenda item that I made a promise to a fellow council member that I would bring this back with the data that had been requested to ensure that we had support for the decision that we made. All right, we will move on. |
| 01:37:53.54 | Alice Merrill | I have ponds. |
| 01:37:54.66 | Steven Woodside | Oh, go ahead. |
| 01:37:55.52 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:38:00.24 | Jill Hoffman | Well, so I'm obviously very disappointed in the action by the council. I think that this is the first time in the council's history that we've ever actually reduced existing housing programs, let alone done it with almost no notice to the people that they affected prior to our action or had substantial public comment or public interaction. As Mayor, Council Member Blaustein, you know, talked with our CDD director, we had almost too many meetings prior to our housing element and through the housing element process to count on public comment, never once did we talk about this inclusionary housing program. Never once did we talk about actually removing protections in place for second floor housing in the commercial commercial district. And so, you know, it's one thing to come remove protections for housing in a certain district and say, well, we're after the fact going to put some other protections in place or, you know, get a nice sound bite for something Sausalito might do to protect the people that live in those houses. The truth is the best protection they had was just taken away. the requirement for second floor housing is the best protection those people would have had. And when you talk about one or two deed restricted properties, That's one thing, but we didn't do a study on what the actual rents were in those second floor units in the Central Commercial District. My bet is that most of those rents were in the affordable range. And once those start disappearing, they're gone forever. And so my question is, why didn't we do that? And when we were talking about the inclusionary housing program, we should have talked about this beforehand. An after-the-fact discussion at the council level is not adequate this should have been a noticed public discussion and forum and we should have asked the property owners why are you not building what can we do to support you what programs can the city have to effectively encourage these programs to build housing in place. That's an infill housing program that would have helped alleviate density in other parts of town. We're coming back later this summer to talk about ballot measures for high density programs in other parts of town. Effectively working on infill housing programs that we already had in place. These inclusionary housing programs to encourage current property owners to build affordable units in buildings that we already have. If you drive through these districts, all five districts in town, and say, what can we do to encourage you to build affordable one affordable unit will help you build three or four units but please let us help you build one affordable unit they probably would have gotten on board but we didn't even bother to do that shame on Sausalito because we could have done that and guess what one of these ballot measures might not even have to go forward but we didn't bother to do that. Lazy city council, shame on us. We should have done that. And we never should have put these second floor units at risk and we should have encouraged every second floor unit in Sausalito, every property owner that has a second floor that they're under utilizing. We should also be engaging with them for those second floor units, and we should have been engaging them and saying, what can we do to encourage you to build these out for affordable second floor units or just second floor housing units? That's your time for now. |
| 01:41:43.30 | Steven Woodside | That's your time for now. We can circle back to you. |
| 01:41:47.26 | Joan Cox | Just briefly. |
| 01:41:47.95 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:41:48.19 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 01:41:48.26 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:41:48.29 | Joan Cox | you |
| 01:41:48.38 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:41:48.55 | Joan Cox | Thank you. Sorry. |
| 01:41:50.98 | Ian Sobieski | Go first. Well, yeah, I just feel a little inspired there because I don't know, we live in strange times where up is represented by some is down. left is represented by someone's right. And we don't seem to be able to agree on basic facts. And it's bewildering. And we see it in our national politics. But here on this issue, we see it in microcosm. So, some of the public commenters who question this action the city council taken are those who say and make the extraordinary claim that increasing supply does not decrease price. This is apparently the only place in the capitalist system where increasing supply doesn't decrease price. |
| 01:42:40.98 | Babette McDougall | It's true. |
| 01:42:42.36 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. How can that possibly be? Of course, the population increases at a faster rate than and increasing supply, then the price of housing will continue to go up. and the more housing you have, the lower the rate of increase will go. If you increase housing faster than the rate of population, it will go down. So, It's basically supply and demand. It's... strikes me as odd that those then who advocate and are calling for and lamenting that we don't do enough to build housing above on second floors are also those who often represent that it won't make any difference. I would encourage everyone to look in the staff report and just look at attachment three, which are photographs of prospective sites that we're talking about. That's attachment three to the city council agenda. These are actually photographs. of places in town that are single story and that could have a second story. The proof is in the pudding. before these restrictive measures are put into place. we actually had housing development on the second stories. And as my colleague mentioned, The best way to have an affordable space is to have a small space because small spaces charge. less rent. They're intrinsically affordable by their structure. Many of these units, if we would make them available to have multiple units, will it necessarily by definition be affordable? But the restrictive covenants that we've implemented, actually retarded development of this service to our less affluent neighbors. And we have fewer people of modest means in Susslita today than we would have. While population of California has grown 30% since 1980, 30%, the population of Sausalito has gone down. It's just a fact. And this brave step we took last meeting to finalize is one small step in the right direction and our small piece in the larger California housing crisis problem. |
| 01:44:58.69 | Joan Cox | Yes. Sometimes the title of an ordinance actually does not reflect the effects. of that ordinance. We have so-called inclusionary housing policies. This particular one served as an impediment That's the fact. Those are simply the facts. And don't take my word for it. Don't take the majority of the council's word for it. Use your own common sense and look at the numbers. They certainly have not helped. And according to the city attorney, we are vulnerable on the claim that we are actually standing in the way of affordable housing. And again, don't take my word for it. Don't take the city attorney's word for it. The grand jury has just issued last week its report on housing in Marin. The title is The Worrisome Future of Marin Housing. It's a 21 page, exceptionally well-written report. And I say that because it, in plain English, clarifies what the laws require, what we have done or not done in Marin, and it recommends several things that we must do in order to resolve the housing crisis. I encourage you to look at the grand jury report. These are neutral citizens who have studied this over the last year and have written up their findings. And we, as a council, have to respond by the latter part of September to their recommendations, and we will do so. But I just want to quote from one sentence. From their report, building more housing has been shown to ease housing costs at all income levels, citing a recent Upjohn Institute report. And our current grand jury here locally, appointed by the courts to look at this issue, has come to that conclusion. And I don't think we should question all of those who believe that building more housing will have an effect. Now, I have a particular concern about affordable housing, as I think most Salitans have, and it may well be that our only real ability on affordable housing is on our own property, where we can control perhaps the size of it, the type of it, etc. Much harder to do in the world of economics in which we live, where interest rates are high, where there's a demand for housing that far exceeds our capacity, and sadly, people at the lower end of the income suffer the most when there's more building that doesn't meet their needs. So I'm particularly interested in how we move forward on the affordable housing front and be effective in actually building it. |
| 01:46:50.93 | Talia Smith | THE FAMILY. |
| 01:47:48.52 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Vice Mayor. um, I will say that I was on the Housing Element Committee that adopted the 2011 inclusionary housing requirement. This is before Councilmember Hoffman was elected to the council. And it was actually something that was developed by the Blue Ribbon Housing Committee on which Councilmember Blaustein and I both served. And it was recommended by Michael Rex, and we thought it was a great program to try to increase the stock of affordable housing in Sausalito. We adopted this program together with the ADU program, together with the Liveaboard program, and various other programs to bolster the stock of affordable housing in Sausalito. Not many of you know that I was a professor at Golden Gate University who taught law and economics, and I will take exception to my fellow council members' position that increased supply leads to lower prices. There are some exceptions to that rule. One is with rare or collectible items, such as the Mona Lisa, and I would venture to say that Sausalito housing is one of those exceptions because it is such an amazing place to live. Everybody wants to live here. So it really doesn't matter how much housing we build, unless we deed restrict it, we're not going to increase the stock of affordable housing. And one way to deed restrict it is to use our property to build housing. And that is why we have identified our own MLK site as a site for potential affordable senior housing. And that is one of the ballot measures that Councilmember Hoffman referenced that we will be hearing on August 5th. As a planning commissioner, I actually voted in favor of a variance to allow a second floor variance. Uh, property owner at the end of Caledonia Street to build units that were less than 1,500 square feet because we had an ancient ordinance that required at least 1500 square foot minimum size. And so, um, And I am the person who brought this back to us tonight to really examine the data and to ensure that we've made the right decision, because I also am absolutely committed to increasing our stock of affordable housing. I actually, during my two years not on the council, started a small website called Sensible Housing Sausalito in which I did poll very nearly every property owner who's an owner of an inventory site or an opportunity site in our housing element to understand what their needs were, what they... like to develop. And so I have to say that I believe that the city council and staff have made a fully informed decision in deciding to eliminate this program that was adopted in 2011 that was not yielding additional stock but actually constraining additional affordable housing stock in Sausalito. Thank you. |
| 01:50:57.10 | Jill Hoffman | So I'd like to follow up there. |
| 01:50:58.55 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:50:58.99 | Jill Hoffman | Oh, Melissa hasn't spoken. |
| 01:51:02.53 | Steven Woodside | Councilmember, I'm actually going to call on Councilmember Hoffman and then Councilmember Blaustein. No, I'm calling you next. Nope, I insist. |
| 01:51:14.43 | Jill Hoffman | I'm happy to go. |
| 01:51:15.93 | Steven Woodside | I promised you I'd let you finish your comments. |
| 01:51:17.74 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. So, What I wanted to continue to say was that I think that we, the problem was that we finished the, we had the inclusionary housing program We had it for 14 years, but we left it kind of as an orphan sitting out there. And we didn't appropriately support it, and we didn't appropriately follow it and look at the metrics for performance on it. And I think that we could have done better supporting it and coming up with programs to carry it forward and produce more affordable housing. And also, I do agree with the vice mayor that it is better and it is— to use your own property, actually, to produce affordable housing. And I want to play off that with ADUs. I think when you're talking about your own property and you're talking about infill housing for affordable units, the smallest units are often affordable units, are ADUs. And we've also left that program kind of on its own, and we've forgotten about that program. And there's a lot of ADU inventory that we can also use for our affordable housing and infill housing. And so I want us not to forget about those. And I want us to be cognizant of these second-floor housing units and inventory those, especially for seniors who are living in those units and for the affordable nature of those units. And that's why I was hoping that we had done a more comprehensive process. comprehensive review of the rents in those units, of the second floor units in the central commercial district. My sense is that those are below market and much more in the affordable range. We don't have those metrics, and putting those units at risk with property owners and understanding why a property owner might want to get out of the housing business for those units and putting those units at risk. I think we need to understand that, especially with the affordability range for those units. And so, again, I think this is the first time Sausalito has actually reduced a housing program. We should have done that with public forums and much more public interactions. |
| 01:53:46.85 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Councilmember Blaustein. |
| 01:53:49.93 | Melissa Blaustein | Great. Yeah. So I'm someone who really believes is that when I think about affordable housing, I think about the people that it's going to be serving, like the people who are working for our city, who deserve to live in our city, the seniors that live among us who might not be able to afford their larger houses anymore. And so for almost a decade now, I've been actively advocating for, and in fact, sometimes invited criticism from members of the community for being so in favor of housing and taking votes in favor of housing sites that some of my colleagues didn't agree with because we really are in a housing crisis. And I really believe we need to do all that we can to encourage and increase all types of housing. When I was on that Blue Ribbon Committee, in fact, at that time, one of the members mentioned to me the issue with the inclusionary ordinance in the downtown area. And I remember thinking, well, that's right, it would be very cross prohibitive if you had to build something and there were two units and one of them had to be affordable. At some point, we should do something about that. And it was already being discussed and considered then. And since I came on the council, since 2020, all we've talked about consistently and importantly with regards to this conversation is how can we get more housing and where can we put it? I know that Mayor Cox actively asked a number of developers. In fact, she called property owners that we couldn't really find in the phone book to say, please, would you be willing to maybe you put housing on your site? And if they said yes, we put it in our housing element. So a lot of the buildings you see on the attachment from Brandon, we know they're going to put something there. And I appreciate that Sausalito is a particularly rare and beautiful community. And of course, lots of people want to live here. But I have to say Austin, Texas is not so bad either. And a recent study showed that after Austin decreased the barriers to building and to creating more housing, rents dropped. 20% in the city, 20%. Imagine what 20% could mean for one of our teachers or for one of our public works employees or for one of our seniors. So yes, I think we can do more talking to developers. I agree, Council Member Hoffman, we should go to every building and knock on every door and say, hey, what does it take for you to be willing to build more housing? And what would it take for you to be willing to have deed-restricted or affordable housing? And that's why I'm working so hard with Director Phipps on a displacement program to ensure that we keep people who have housing in our housing, because this is the right time to do it. The state of California has made clear that it intends to not only support, but perhaps force us to build more housing, and I see this as a critical moment where we have an to create this framework to be whatever we want it to be and to demonstrate what we're capable of. And to me, this was a step in the right direction in an ongoing conversation that we're going to have together as a community and a council about how to create more housing, how to keep more housing and how to build Sausalito, not just for the next five or 10 years, but the next. |
| 01:56:42.75 | Steven Woodside | All right. Thank you all. I'm going to go ahead and move on. Thank you for that robust discussion. I think it's really important, and I think it's really important that the public and HCD know that these are the kinds of things that we're really paying attention to. All right, with that, I'm going to move on to item 5B, authorized city manager to execute amended and restated license agreement with Integrative Charging LLC to install, maintain, and manage six EV charging stations at Dunphy Park to include maintenance language requested by PG&E and. License agreement with Integrative Charging LLC to install, maintain, and manage four EV charging stations at parking lot two. And I will welcome our Resiliency and Sustainability Manager, Katie Tho Garcia. Thank you. |
| 01:57:26.54 | Katie Thao-Garcia | All right. Good evening. Mayor, vice mayor, council members, members of the public. As previously stated, I am Katie Thao-Garcia, the city's resiliency and sustainability manager. Tonight, Director McGowan and I will be presenting the EV charging item for council consideration. Next slide, please. In 2023, City Council reinforced their commitment to climate action by hiring a full-time resiliency and sustainability manager to help accelerate projects that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote resiliency. Since being hired, I've been assisting the Department of Public Works when needed on things like electric vehicle chargers. In 2024, 40% of Marin County vehicle sales were from zero emission cars. The city's adopted general plan, climate action plan, and low emissions action plan all call out the need for publicly available chargers to support. support this growing adoption of zero emission cars and to fulfill our commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Next slide, please. anticipating this need and the increasing demand in 2021 when parking lot two was resurfaced the department of public works had the foresight to install conduit to easily easily adopt electric vehicle chargers at a later point in 2022 public works identified the best possible locations for chargers as for public chargers as city hall dunphy park and parking lot to. The idea was to spread chargers out around town for our residents and encourage encourage visitors to stay in town, while they're charging their cars next slide please. So at this point in 2022, the strategy was for the city to pay for installation, own and manage all of our installed buildings. electric vehicle chargers. This represented a high upfront cost and high workload for city staff to take on, which was not ideal. In 2024, staff became aware of a new strategy to partner with a Sausalito business, Integrative Charging. who would install, own, and manage charging stations on the city property for our behalf. Through a license agreement, the city would receive 20% of net revenue from the chargers and have zero fiscal impact from the city for installing these chargers. At this time, staff recommended moving forward with this approach at the May 2024 Council meeting. I will now pass it to Director McGowan. Thank you. |
| 02:00:06.67 | Kevin McGowan | Thank you, Katie. Kevin McGowan, Public Works Director. I think she covered most of my points already, so I may not have a whole lot to cover. Next slide, please. So as Katie mentioned, and I wanted to cover it just one more time as well, that in 2022, we were anticipating to purchase, install, maintain, and manage all the electrical vehicle stations. And since that time, we've moved forward with utilizing integrative charging to purchase, install and manage these stations on our behalf. So this is at no cost to the city. And we've moved forward with installing four charging stations here at City Hall. Originally, council had mentioned, let's put in five stations here at City Hall. Well, we weren't able to do that because our lovely electrical system here couldn't support it. So we ended up putting four here instead. The Council also suggested putting in one station at Dunphy park as well as one station in lot two, but that was prior to 2024 when we move forward with having a separate contractor who will install manage purchase and take care of everything so that that's kind of a good point to move forward. let's see next slide please. The original license agreement with integrative charging from May 2024 includes, like I mentioned before, purchasing an installation. We had anticipated putting six EV charging stations at Dunphy Park. One of the reasons for this is this made it economically viable for integrative charging to move forward with the project. less charging stations at that location would be problematic. Currently, Dunphy Park has 69 parking spaces, and we're anticipating putting in six EV charging stations at this location. One thing that I found interesting in my research with this particular item is that the building code in California references the green building code, which if this were a brand new parking lot, we would be required to put in more EV stations here, more like 19% compared to 10%. Thank you. It's important to remember that, especially as we move forward with some of our other projects. Thank you. In this particular case, Galilee Harbor is not affected by these EV charging stations. Their parking area is in another location on Dumpy. And reducing the number of stations at this location would be... kind of detrimental to integrative charging because we have an agreement with them already. And I'll get into some of those conditions in a minute. but we would end up having to probably pay integrative charging for the work that they've put into this already. Next slide, please. |
| 02:02:57.90 | Kevin McGowan | There we go. Tonight, you're considering a new license agreement for putting in EV charging stations on lot two. Same company. And in this case, there's no out-of-pocket cost to the city. Again, four charging stations compared to 40 in the entire lot. That's only 10%. We'd prefer to put in a little bit more, but I think we're kind of limited with the conduit that we have right there now. doesn't mean we can't change it in the future. Katie already mentioned the pre-installed conduit. It would be good to get more EV charging stations downtown to service the community. So this is an ideal spot right now. Put in as many as we can and to increase folks coming to downtown, if they use this parking spot to charge their vehicles, they would still have to pay for parking. So we are not out of pocket for any revenue specifically. Next slide. So there are several options open to council this evening. One I mentioned before that if we do want to change the number of parking stasis, the EV charging stations at Dunphy Park, we would need to compensate our contractor integrative charging for those in the amount of time they put into it. Another alternative would be for council to identify other locations in downtown where we could pursue more EV charging stations. I actually welcome that and your travels as well because we're moving in that direction in the future. So identifying more locations would be a good idea. Next slide. |
| 02:04:34.39 | Kevin McGowan | All right. Yeah, there we go. All right. At this point, staff recommends moving forward with the installation of the charging stations at Dunphy Park and at Lot 2. There's no financial impact to this. That's a good thing to the city. And that concludes my presentation. And I think Katie's finished as well. Thank you. |
| 02:04:53.46 | Steven Woodside | I did have a couple of questions. Kevin, I think that you and Katie have done some extensive outreach. So you've reached out to the Chamber of Commerce and to... Sausalito Center for the Arts, can you comment on some of the folks you've made outreach to? |
| 02:05:08.38 | Katie Thao-Garcia | Yes, absolutely. Apologies that didn't make in the presentation. I would say first and foremost, the Sustainability Commission has been advocating for EV chargers, along with Councilmember Blaustein and previous council members. They have been involved in this, I think, since 2020 or 2021, long before my time with the city of Sausalito. In addition to this, we've reached out, or Ali has done quite a bit of legwork reaching out to the Center for the Arts. And most recently, I've been talking to the Chamber of Commerce to get them involved, as well as, you know, anybody who wants to talk to me about EV chargers. |
| 02:05:46.73 | Steven Woodside | One reason I know this is that we received a Very complimentary letter from the government affairs officer for the Chamber of Commerce, Jim Gabbert, greatly endorsing this effort by the city. And then, Katie, at one time, you and I had a conversation about whether one EV charger equals one spot or two parking spots. So under this contract, how many parking spots are we talking about? |
| 02:06:11.42 | Katie Thao-Garcia | Important clarification. In this contract, one parking spot equals one EV charger. It's a one to one ratio. |
| 02:06:20.82 | Steven Woodside | And then I think my final question is, I had talked to the city manager about the importance of making this available throughout Sausalito. And so have we done some investigation of what it would cost to bring EV charging stations to lots three and four? |
| 02:06:36.31 | Katie Thao-Garcia | At this point in time, I don't think we've done extensive estimates. I don't know the status of conduit in the area, but that is something that integrative charging said they would be willing to work with us on a separate scope of work to identify. |
| 02:06:51.65 | Steven Woodside | All right, thank you so much. Other questions? Yes, Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 02:06:55.70 | Jill Hoffman | How fast do these chargers, I mean, I know it depends on the car, right? But, and the different models, making models, but. |
| 02:07:03.33 | Katie Thao-Garcia | Yeah. THE END OF THE END OF THE It varies slightly, but we're proposing level two chargers. And so it also depends on how low your car is at the time. 80%. You know, like a full charge can be up to eight hours depending on the car. Most of the time, gathering from the data that we have from City Hall, people are parking for, you know, two to four hours just to top up during that time. |
| 02:07:12.66 | Talia Smith | Yeah. |
| 02:07:13.03 | Jill Hoffman | 50%. |
| 02:07:13.84 | Talia Smith | Thank you. |
| 02:07:32.49 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:07:32.51 | Steven Woodside | Okay, thank you. Council Member Blaustein, and then I'll come to you. |
| 02:07:34.28 | Katie Thao-Garcia | Thank you. |
| 02:07:34.33 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 02:07:34.38 | Katie Thao-Garcia | Yeah. |
| 02:07:34.40 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. |
| 02:07:34.46 | Katie Thao-Garcia | Thank you. |
| 02:07:34.48 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 02:07:37.40 | Steven Woodside | I saw her hand. |
| 02:07:38.02 | Melissa Blaustein | Hi, Katie. Thank you for a great presentation and Director McGowan and for all of your hard work on getting EV chargers in South Toledo. We received a resolution from the Sustainability Commission on this issue, correct? Yes. Okay. And could you just kind of reiterate what the sustainability commission discussed and shared and what the sum up the resolution? for the council in case they Didn't have a chance to review it. |
| 02:08:02.69 | Katie Thao-Garcia | Yeah, for sure. The chair, Mark Palmer, is here tonight. I believe he was going to read the resolution in for public comment. Is that do you want that? |
| 02:08:13.04 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, that's no problem. That sounds great. I just wanted to make sure that that was noted, that the Sustainability Commission had also submitted a formal resolution in support of the Chargers. |
| 02:08:22.29 | Katie Thao-Garcia | Yes. Thank you. I will let Mark read it later. |
| 02:08:27.05 | Steven Woodside | Councilmember Sobieski. |
| 02:08:29.63 | Ian Sobieski | Hi there, Katie. And it might actually be a Sergio question. We did not review this in closed session this lease. So I just was curious, is this lease identical to the lease we have in City Hall or is it different? |
| 02:08:41.52 | Sergio Rudin | So this evening you are you have before you an amended and restated agreement based on the one that you have approved for Dumpy Park to. add additional license language requested by PG&E to allow them to do vegetation maintenance and The second agreement is substantially identical for parking lot to to the one for Numphy Park. I do not know if they are. identical or substantially similar to their agreements with regards to City Hall. |
| 02:09:20.79 | Ian Sobieski | Well, I should have started by saying I'm fully in support of this. As a goal, I just want to make sure as we try to refine our policy on leases that we inch towards some best practices. That's the nature of some of my inquiries about the lease terms. I read this lease section. Gosh, what is it? 20 B as in boy to say that if either party shows they could terminate this agreement in 30 days. And then there's some that it delineates what each party owes the other in the event of that termination. Is that your understanding? |
| 02:09:58.09 | Kevin McGowan | Yes. |
| 02:09:58.76 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. Okay, so though we have a lease, if for any reason there was some redevelopment of the area and we were at loggerheads with the provider about the location of this and they were being unreasonable, we would be able to have some freedom of action in the public space as long as we adhere to paying off the lease as per this agreement. |
| 02:10:20.04 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, that's correct. 20B basically allows the city to terminate the agreement. the agreement as long as it pays off essentially the depreciated cost of the improvements plus some adjustments. |
| 02:10:30.62 | Ian Sobieski | Okay. then similarly, some of the line items will say, uh, for instance, any termination fees or penalties incurred by the licensee, or way up in the section where the revenue share is calculated, it will talk about gross revenue minus operating costs as the number that is then used to compute the city's portion of about the amount of money due to the city. It's not so precise as to say operating costs for that particular meter. And I was just wondering if it's implied in the very lengthy document here that these are amortized costs. And so what we're talking about when we do a calculation of the city's appropriate revenue share in this deal, that each of these computations is for each of the meters that is deployed by this company in the city. So it'd be amortized. |
| 02:11:29.65 | Sergio Rudin | Um, so operating cost is actually specifically defined on page four of the agreement to be the cost paid by licensee for electricity. Taxes, fees, and surcharges paid by licensee for operating the charging stations, 2% transaction fee, and any other operation maintenance costs paid by licensee for software licenses and network connectivity. So those are basically the, they're fixed transactions. daily operating costs is I think the intent of the agreement. |
| 02:12:00.77 | Ian Sobieski | That's how I would read it, too. And I'm not the lawyer. And I want to make sure it's clear that there's operating that operating cost calculation is for each meter and that you wouldn't, for instance, have all the operating costs of the company, which might have many locations around the state, piled on to, you know, a freedom of action to pile that on to, say, Sausalito. |
| 02:12:21.93 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, my understanding of it, and I think that the language of the agreement supports this, is that it relates to the operating costs of the charging stations, not of the company. |
| 02:12:33.71 | Ian Sobieski | Good, I'm glad to hear that clarification. Then just maybe a question for you, Katie, or whoever can answer it. I have an electric car, but I can't charge it here because I don't have the adapter for the Tesla station. Uh, These are gonna be different is what my understanding. |
| 02:12:48.59 | Katie Thao-Garcia | I, apologies, I forgot to mention that integrative charging owner and Sausalito resident Ben Kahane is online. So if you have any questions for him as well. But the two in City Hall, we have two Tesla chargers, which you could use if you purchase your own adapter. Or there are two non Tesla chargers. |
| 02:13:13.92 | Ian Sobieski | I didn't know that I'll look more carefully, but these new ones, are they gonna be Tesla adapters or? |
| 02:13:19.25 | Katie Thao-Garcia | They will be split 50-50 similarly. |
| 02:13:21.72 | Ian Sobieski | they will also be split in test and non-test. |
| 02:13:22.58 | Katie Thao-Garcia | Yes. Yeah. They look, they use, they mark Tesla on the outside because I believe that is the technology that they use. |
| 02:13:32.10 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. I'll just direct my question to the... The man doing the work here, sir? |
| 02:13:39.03 | Ben Kahane | Yes, hi, thank you very much for having me. So at City Hall, we have two Tesla chargers and we have two non-Tesla chargers Um, The expectation for Dumpy Park is to utilize a new I'm not sure. hardware that basically has a built-in adapter. regardless of whether or not you have a NACS Tesla cable, or if you have a J 1772 plug, you'd be able to use, um, each charger. Right. and you can use the charger regardless of the type of vehicle you're driving. |
| 02:14:18.55 | Ian Sobieski | And that's also true of the, Lot number two implementation. |
| 02:14:22.55 | Ben Kahane | That's correct. That's the expectation. |
| 02:14:24.54 | Ian Sobieski | Is there any way to retrofit that here in City Hall? The hardware are different. |
| 02:14:29.10 | Ben Kahane | We can retrofit. It wasn't out. commercially when we did the installation. So they've come out with a newer model that basically has the accessibility. |
| 02:14:42.72 | Ian Sobieski | So is that something I'm just curious now, since we're going into business together here for potentially many years and expanding something that you would view in your customer service approach here, we have a new ability to retrofit something that improves the flexibility of an installed station here at City Hall. |
| 02:14:48.51 | Ben Kahane | Yes. |
| 02:15:00.94 | Ian Sobieski | Is that what you intend to do? |
| 02:15:03.42 | Ben Kahane | um, Judging by the utilization and judging by the customer feedback, we haven't had any issues with the four charging spaces that are available. clearly marked as Tesla and non-Tesla. And so it really hasn't been an issue. Um, The speeds are exactly the same. Thank you. Um, But if there's substantial feedback to warrant a swapping of the hardware, that's something we can absolutely look at. |
| 02:15:30.47 | Ian Sobieski | No other questions. Thank you. |
| 02:15:32.47 | Steven Woodside | Great. Okay. Seeing no other questions, I'll open it up to public comment. I have no speaker cards. I'll invite the chair of our Sustainability Commission, Mark Palmer, up to speak. |
| 02:15:50.79 | Mark Palmer | Good evening again, council members. And thank you, council member Blaustein, for referring to the resolution. On behalf of the Sustainability Commission, the following resolution was approved unanimously. June 12th, 2025. Whereas the 2021 Sausalito General Plan The 2019 Low Emissions Action Plan. and the 2015 Climate Action Plan identify reducing emission from fossil fuel vehicles as priorities for the city of Sausalito. whereas Sausalito citizens and visitors are underserved in EV charging infrastructure relative to local demand and EV adoption rates. Whereas public charges are important for equity as they make it possible for residents who live in apartments or without home chargers to own EVs. whereas the city would incur an additional cost if it were to reduce the number of chargers at Duffy Park. Whereas supporting EV infrastructure is essential as Marin County transitions toward a zero emissions vehicle future, Therefore, the Sustainability Commission strongly urges the Council to maintain the agreement for six EV chargers at Dunphy Park and strongly encourages a minimum of four additional chargers at parking lot two. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:17:18.46 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:17:19.37 | Mark Palmer | Mark. |
| 02:17:19.98 | Steven Woodside | Glenn Moore. |
| 02:17:26.83 | Glenn Moore | Good evening, Mayor and City Council. I'm Mark. I am a member of the Sensibility Commission here in Sausalito. I'm sorry, I misspoke. I'm a member of the SOS Leo Sustainability Commission. I will give you my full support as we did in the commission. made the resolution. I have some personal experience in this I just wanted to offer. As an EV owner back in 2016, It was a little early. There weren't many stations here in Marin, and the ones that were around were usually full, and some of them were inoperable. So my home up on Pearl Street was a ship worker's home down in the day, and around 1945, it got moved up to Pearl Street. And it is on 110. So it took my car three and a half days to charge. plugged into the wall outlet because that was my only option. 20-foot extension cord from the garage. So to get 240 in there, to get a Tesla charger in my home, It was triple the cost. So not realistic. So at the time, I was traveling on business with my car. I'm planning all my stops based on the charging station. So my lunch stop, my dinner stop, Sleepover. The hotel I was going to book was based on that charging station. So I can validate that my dollars were being spent. pulling over at those stations. And I believe that it would add an economic benefit to the city for folks to plan their stopover for their charge and eat at our restaurants, get a cup of coffee or dine. So I'm in full support and thank you very much. |
| 02:19:12.95 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. City Clerk. |
| 02:19:15.03 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 02:19:16.55 | Walfred Solorzano | We have, sorry, we have Bette McDougall. |
| 02:19:22.01 | Babette McDougall | Gosh, doesn't anybody want to chime in on the website except me? So, Babette McDougall, Sausalito resident. I would like to say, let us be careful of false economy, number one. Number two, I wonder if we've introduced ourselves to a contract That might be a bit premature, number two. Number three, I'm grateful that Mr. Sobieski pointed out that in fact, Sausalito's population has recently dropped. I think it's since COVID. And I know that when I brought that data point to our city manager, he was in utter disbelief. But it's true. Believe it or not, we have dropped, which means more people have come to town more recently. Some among the dais, in fact. Perhaps you know or perhaps you do not know about the railroad right-of-ways that are contiguous along the length of bridgeway. Now, they actually have special... covenants and contingencies attached to them from the legal framework. As far as the state of California and the federal government are concerned, if you build on a railroad right away, you have to be prepared it down. upon demand because after all, it is the railroad right away. I have a problem with Dunphy Park. I think Dunphy Park deserves to have charging stations, absolutely. But I wonder why in the world we would want to flank them along Bridgeway on the railroad right-of-ways. I think, Somebody said, well, I think it's just the closest hookup to PG&E. And I thought to myself. Well, PG&E's got a ton of money. That cannot possibly be a problem for PG&E. And now I come to find that it's a subcontractor that's going to foot the bill for the electrical output. And he's the guy or they're the people who really don't want to have to pay a penny more if they don't have to. Well, maybe the citizens should have been offered some input on this whole thing before it came to pass. That's the first thing that I thought about. Second of all, I want charging stations at Dunphy Park. I just don't want them on the railroad right away is number one. And number two, I think it's... |
| 02:21:25.35 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. No further public speakers. |
| 02:21:25.90 | Steven Woodside | No. All right, I will close public comment and open it up. Council Member Blaustein. |
| 02:21:34.64 | Melissa Blaustein | I just want to start by going ahead and making a motion to approve the six EV chargers at Dempsey Park, the changes to the PG&E agreement, and the four additional chargers at lot two. And I'm happy to comment on it, but I would love to have a second on that because I'm really excited about the amount of work and effort that's. |
| 02:21:50.89 | Steven Woodside | the amount of money. |
| 02:21:52.64 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay. Thank you. |
| 02:21:53.22 | Steven Woodside | All right, Council Member Sobieski seconded that, so did you want to make comment? |
| 02:21:53.25 | Melissa Blaustein | Right. |
| 02:21:59.48 | Steven Woodside | Council member, did you have a comment you wanted to make? |
| 02:22:01.47 | Melissa Blaustein | I just want to say, I just want just to say that actually I also serve on our transportation authority board and this program is lauded as one of the first of its kind because it's an EV charging program that pays for itself through a public private partnership. So it's really positive for our community and it's positive for our revenue streams and it doesn't cost us anything. In fact, it enriches us and brings more folks who need to charge their EVs and makes it more convenient and accessible for all. And I fully support our Sustainability Commission and our Sustainability Coordinator in their efforts to make Sausalito more climate friendly and to make access to EVs more equitable and easily accessible for our residents and Marin County residents and visitors alike. So I wholeheartedly support and endorse the staff recommendations. |
| 02:22:44.55 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. I do want to take just a moment to thank and acknowledge our staff, particularly our city manager, directors, uh katie thoe garcia and kevin mcgowan there was a lot of behind the scenes effort to really um coordinate and organize and do public outreach and make sure this item was ready for prime time so i just want to acknowledge the great staff work that went into bringing this before us this evening uh councilmember hoffman |
| 02:23:14.81 | Jill Hoffman | Sorry, I think I had a question. I think, I know. I had a question for, I think, the operator, for Ben or maybe Katie or maybe Kevin. This is about the parking spaces. I'm sorry, at Dunphy Park. And it's about the length of time and the parking at Dunphy. We don't have parking restrictions at Dunphy, right? And so – There's no overnight parking there. There's no overnight parking. But my concern is if it takes eight hours to charge your car, and that was my question of to charge. This may be a question for Ben, the operator. If it takes eight hours to charge, I know it's faster maybe for a Tesla, if you have a Tesla, but for the other cars, my concern is people that are going to park at the charger all day and there's no turnover because someone's parking there, maybe a resident who's parking there, charging their car. |
| 02:23:36.25 | Steven Woodside | There's no overnight parking there. |
| 02:24:02.26 | Jill Hoffman | And that's just my concern. If we have six spaces at Dunphy and people are just parking there all day, not using the park, but using that as a space to charge their car. That's just my concern and whether or not we need to somehow. I don't know. Ben, do you have any? Thoughts on that? |
| 02:24:17.24 | Ben Kahane | Yeah, it's a very good question. And I think it basically speaks to congestion. And we have software that enables us when we reach a certain threshold. if say, 80% of the chargers are being used at any one time will basically have idle fees and those idle fees will prevent you from plugging in your car, not consuming electricity, walking away, you'll incur a cost so that it'll basically informed behavior so that you're there for a reason. When you're done charging, you're leaving. Um, if, if there's you know, if, basically, The average charge time, if we look at the data from City Hall, is probably around two hours. So within that kind of three hour general parking guidance, it has not been a problem |
| 02:25:09.98 | Ben Kahane | Um, but it's something that we can absolutely, um, you know, and we have the data to back up whether or not the charges are being used or abused. |
| 02:25:21.28 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, that's great. I totally support the program. I think I was an early adopter for an EV car. I think I was the first one on the council to have a total 100% EV car. I think 2018, my husband and I have it. We're a one-car family, one electric car, one electric bike family. Sometimes we do argue about who's to get the car today. But overall, I have to say, it works OK. And you can do it in Sausalito with one car and a couple of Uber apps, you're OK. Or whatever, ride sharing apps. So anyway, I support it. Great job. And I say, let's go forward. |
| 02:25:25.72 | Talia Smith | THE END OF |
| 02:26:01.83 | Jill Hoffman | With that caveat. |
| 02:26:04.05 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, and I just had a question for you. It is still the case that, for instance, in lot two, there'll still be metered parking for the visitors. I think you did say that. And so. |
| 02:26:06.86 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:26:06.88 | Mark Palmer | Thank you. |
| 02:26:06.91 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:26:19.30 | Ian Sobieski | And so it would be in your interest, I guess you haven't got the level of cooperation, but down the line, the city could actually, as it develops its parking program with Wayne, we could actually help clear out, could help turnover by changing the parking rules to encourage people to leave after they're fully charged. That would be probably done in cooperation with you to help make that happen. So yeah, I supported the program. I will note in lot two, just in terms of direction, I was exploring with the city attorney The Bank of America lease and it might be something for Wayne to look into there is no mention of the current free spot that we have given to Bank of America and lot number two for ATM parking so we may wish to recover that spot for revenue generating purposes. |
| 02:27:04.90 | Steven Woodside | I think our revenue generated by the ATMs goes up each year. And I think that was a condition |
| 02:27:13.18 | Ian Sobieski | Not in the least. The ATM spot. The parking spot's not in the least as far as I can tell. |
| 02:27:18.97 | Steven Woodside | Okay, well, that's another matter for another day. Okay. We ready to |
| 02:27:22.97 | Joan Cox | I'm ready to vote yes, and I just want to point out an arcane fact that the Northwest Pacific Railroad right-of-way was abandoned in 1970 in Sausalito. It's no longer owned by the railroad. Thank you. |
| 02:27:36.42 | Steven Woodside | THE FAMILY. |
| 02:27:36.59 | Joan Cox | THE FAMILY. |
| 02:27:36.66 | Steven Woodside | I'll call the question. City clerk. |
| 02:27:38.60 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blaustein. |
| 02:27:41.06 | Steven Woodside | Enthusiastic yes. |
| 02:27:42.97 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 02:27:45.85 | Steven Woodside | Council Member Hoffman. |
| 02:27:48.60 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski, Vice Mayor Woodside? Yes. And Mayor Cox. |
| 02:27:54.24 | Steven Woodside | Yes, that motion carries unanimously. Thank you again to staff. All right, we'll move smartly on to item 5C, introduction by title and waiver of first reading of ordinance number 06-2025, an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Sausalito enacting chapter. 15.14 Marin Electric Bicycle Safety Pilot Program of Title 15, Vehicles and Traffic of the Sausalito Municipal Code. Stacey Gregory is not here tonight, but I will welcome |
| 02:28:21.98 | Brandon Rogers | She is not here tonight. |
| 02:28:23.13 | Steven Woodside | police. |
| 02:28:23.47 | Brandon Rogers | So, |
| 02:28:23.53 | Steven Woodside | Good evening. |
| 02:28:23.58 | Brandon Rogers | Good evening, Madam Mayor, Vice Mayor, Councilmembers and members of the public. My name is Brandon Rogers, Lieutenant for the Police Department. I'm with me here tonight to talk to you about youth e-bike safety in Moran and Assembly Bill 1778 is Talia Smith, Director of Legislative and Intergovernmental Affairs for the County of Moran. I'm going to turn this over to Talia for a presentation. |
| 02:28:46.15 | Steven Woodside | Some of us up here on the dais just heard from Talia talking about Marin's electric bicycle safety pilot program at our Marin County mayors and council members meeting last week. So welcome. |
| 02:29:01.57 | Talia Smith | Thank you, Mayor, and good evening, Mayor and Council members. I have a relatively quick presentation today. I'm going to just go through it. I know. I want to thank your counsel in advance. For some of the input and being a part of the process that has brought us here today, I just want to call out that Councilmember Blaustein actually served on our Special Committee for Youth E-Bike Safety earlier in the fall. So I just wanted to start by saying what we have here today before your council is consideration of adopting a new ordinance. This ordinance was passed and made possible under Assembly Bill 1778. which was authored by Assemblymember Damon Connolly last year. And should your counsel move forward in adopting the ordinance, we are looking on track to actually have this adopted countywide by back to school in August. So next slide, please. Just want to just highlight kind of two key facts here of why we're here today. what this issue is in Marin County. I just want to start by saying, you know, where we got to around youth knee bike safety was actually not an issue that originated among policymakers. It was actually an issue that originated actually among emergency room doctors in Marin County started being really vocal advocates because they were witnessing some very serious injuries. with particularly very young people that were involved on a very serious collision where 911 was called on an e-bike. So I want to note that we saw from 2019, 2019 to 2022, a 110% increase just in 911 calls that were related to youth. That's 10 to 15-year-olds among all bikes. And so then in 2023, Marin County is actually very proud to be one of the first jurisdictions in the country to actually start tracking that 911 data and saying, Was a conventional bike involved or an e-bike? And so what we saw when we started tracking that data, and thank you to Dr. Matt Willis, our public health officer at the time, who really spearheaded this effort with our EMS providers countywide. was what we saw. Is for conventional bikes, the 10 to 15 year old age group has a slightly higher accident rate than all other age groups, but for e-bikes, the accident rate is five times as high. So knowing the prevalence of e-bikes in the community, what that means is that e-bikes pose a much higher accident rate. or I should say risk to 10 to 15 year olds. And I just wanna note that again, when we're talking about these accidents, these are 911 accidents. So these are very serious accidents. Um, and what we've noted again by our emergency room physicians are very serious traumas that are actually typically linked with motor vehicle accidents. So you'd see in a motorcycle accident. Next slide. This just illustrates on the dashboard what you all can visit, the data I just noted off. So next slide, please. Uh... And sorry, I'm saying that. Is this clicker work? Okay, never mind. All right, so just quickly types of e-bikes in California. I just want to note that currently I'm going to start actually at the bottom. Class three e-bikes are the only e-bikes in California law that have an age restriction. Those are actually already restricted statewide in California law to 16 and up. That's actually they are pedal assist only with the motor, but they actually can go up to 28 miles an hour. Class one and two before this assembly bill had no age restriction. Uh, However, class one and two, the motor can only assist up to 20 miles an hour. Again, these are legal e-bikes. Uh, class one is pedal assist only only in class two has a throttle. So no pedaling is required. I just want to note that these are California e-bike classifications. These are not nationwide. So if you're wondering how come I can order a bike online that might have a throttle that goes more than 20 miles an hour, that's because it could be sold from an out-of-state manufacturer. Next slide. And next slide, please. I just want to note just, you know, kind of how we brought this issue to your council today, how we got here. So I just want to note that you all probably are aware of last year's civil grand jury report on this issue. But this actually, you know, really was preceded by a lot of. activism, both in the school community and parents and local officials that were really concerned around the safety risk. We did convene a special committee on youth e-bike safety that was meant to be countywide. We had members from, as I noted, Councilmember Blaustein, but other cities. We had school represented. We had bike shops represented. We had law enforcement represented and we really talked about two things. We need a countywide education campaign and two. If we're going to go forward in adopting 1778 in needs to be done countywide. So next slide. What is Assembly Bill 1778? Your decision today, it would be to take those class two e-bikes and put the same age restriction on them as class three. So that would mean 16 and up. Everything else is unchanged with California state law. You might ask, why did we need a state bill to do this? Because e-bikes and age limits on streets and roads is actually regulated by the state California streets and highway code. And so we or I should say you as a city council could not pass this law. without a state law actually changing that and allowing Marin County jurisdictions to do this. So that bill was a one county pilot. That meant it only applied to jurisdictions in Marin County, and it was opt-in each year Jurisdiction has to approve it. Next slide. I already talked about some of our countywide coordination. So the last thing I just want to touch on in the next slide, Okay. Next slide. sorry, zoom in right through, is I just really want to highlight, actually, this is the first council meeting that I have had to present at where we have actually launched the campaign. So this is very exciting. I just want to note, you probably all got some notifications around this and we're going to continue to push it out But really, our special committee was focused on this cannot just be a law enforcement approach. We need public education, and we need public education that works, that actually reaches both the teens and parents in Marin and is able to message to them, not only what bike their child should be and now is allowed to be on, But also messages around safe riding, maintenance needs, e-bikes need to have brakes replaced much more than conventional bikes. And you need a repair shop that can service your e-bike if you cannot safely do the repairs yourself. A lot of repair shops will not service e-bikes that you've ordered online. Uh, and so we launched eBikers, uh, club campaign e dash bikers club.com. Next slide. There are some of the graphics. I will invite you to check it out yourself online. We are really, really proud of this campaign because we actually worked with a mural artist in Oakland to do a lot of the graphics. It was a very different kind of public information campaign. We didn't want people to actually see the materials and think that they were looking at a government campaign. And I just want to note that really uniquely, we actually involved Marin County teens in even selecting the firm and selecting the designs. And so we got a lot of great ideas from them around doing school mascots, around doing Marin County landmarks. And what I've showed you on the left here is a Sausalito poster because you see the floating homes in the bottom. But we have all we have actually 11 different posters with different Marin County landmarks. Next slide. So this brings us to today, which you will see this is a timeline since the fall, since we passed this bill, since we've discussed it with our committee. We're now in the process of bringing it to councils to consider for adoption. And what we have is really uniform messaging with August back to school. around what bikes kids should be on. And again, we are moving from a phase of, we strongly recommend your middle schooler is on a pedal assist e-bike if they are on an e-bike to they are only allowed to be on a pedal assist e-bike. And we've already been doing some focus groups with parents and it's really, really effective messaging because at the end of the day, it's a lot of the parents that are actually buying these bikes. Next slide, which I think is the last slide. How do we measure success? We got here today. I just want to note on this last bullet point, because of the really disproportionate e-bike accident rate for 10 to 15 year olds. We have been tracking the data of what types of bikes were involved in that. We know the vast majority were these throttle class two e-bikes. So we are looking and hoping that that accident rate goes down as fewer 10 to 15 year olds are on Class two throttle e-bikes. But that being said, We know that the impact and reach of the public messaging campaign We're seeing it more as a public health campaign. This is about behavior change. THE END OF getting students and kids to actually understand really the power of the bikes that they're on. and how you really do need to be uh, riding different, riding more safely. And another really strong messaging is you should be a competent writer of a conventional bike before you get on one of these bikes. They're powerful. They're heavy. And I think that that concludes my presentation. So we're ready to answer any questions. |
| 02:38:14.82 | Steven Woodside | Great. Thank you so much. Any questions? Yes, Councilmember Sobieski. |
| 02:38:20.76 | Ian Sobieski | I'm just wondering about enforcement and maybe it's a question actually for our police force. I see plenty of people speeding. with their cars, not getting tickets, including me sometimes, though I tried my best. So with our police force, how are we going to actually enforce this? |
| 02:38:38.04 | Brandon Rogers | We're gonna follow the California vehicle code, right? For speeding on an e-bike, we will... about them you know when we observed it but essentially it's going to be all based off of vehicle code you know reckless driving speeding this issue would become a secondary issue like let's say we pull over a e-bike for speeding they happen to be under the 16 years old on the class two then they would be issued the 25 citation from the ordinance |
| 02:39:06.54 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:39:08.92 | Steven Woodside | Any other questions? All right, I'll open it up for public comment. I have no speaker cards. |
| 02:39:18.92 | Steven Woodside | City clerk, anyone on the line? |
| 02:39:20.29 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah, we have a bet, McDougal. |
| 02:39:20.34 | Steven Woodside | you |
| 02:39:25.78 | Babette McDougall | Well, all right, here I am again. Thank you. And actually, I really wholeheartedly support this program I have to say I'm really glad that we're paying attention to how children behave. on these very powerful machines It was yesterday. It was not in Sausalito. Yeah. I happen to be somewhere. And. I'm talking 12 year olds, they had to be. were popping wheelies on these vehicles. that has got to be dangerous. And they're wearing the kind of bike helmets that, frankly, I don't know that they're going to protect their skulls all that well if they go crashing down. So it's a little... It's a little unnerving and I love to see new things and I love to see people having a great time. But when I saw three or four boys trying to impress each other with those wheelies on those heavy bikes. That really took my breath away. So I'm glad that we are taking this proactive action. I believe Damon Connolly has something to do with this. which is all good. I yield back the balance of my time. Thank you very much. See you. |
| 02:40:35.69 | Steven Woodside | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:40:36.31 | Walfred Solorzano | No further public comment. |
| 02:40:37.53 | Steven Woodside | All right, I'll close public comment and bring it up here for discussion, and I'll allow Councilmember Blaustein to lead off. |
| 02:40:44.85 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, I was really honored to serve on the special committee on youth e-bike safety. And thank you so much, Talia, for all of your hard work on this. And also Supervisor Sackett, who has just from the beginning been working so hard in partnership with Assemblymember Connelly to make Marin County the first county. to fully adopt this ordinance and we will potentially, I think, beat San Diego and be the most municipalities and the first county and region to fully adopt and comply with this ordinance. So it's a really big deal and really proud of the work that's being done and also the ad campaign, which is very cool. There's a really cool eBikers Club video that I recommend all of you check out and I hope we will be putting the eBikers Club's campaign stuff around town and in currents and at jazz and blues. And I just want to go ahead and make a motion to adopt the ordinance. |
| 02:41:34.03 | Steven Woodside | Thanks. All right, I'm going to formalize your motion, which is to introduce by title and waiver a first reading of ordinance number 06-2025, an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Sausalito, enacting Chapter 15.14 Marin Electric Bicycle Safety Pilot Program of Title 15, Vehicles and Traffic of the Sausalito Municipal Code. So is that your motion, Councilmember? It sure is. Thank you, Mayor. |
| 02:41:59.02 | Joan Cox | I'd like to second it. |
| 02:42:01.72 | Steven Woodside | City Clerk. |
| 02:42:04.28 | Jill Hoffman | Oh. Thank you. |
| 02:42:04.62 | Steven Woodside | you |
| 02:42:04.67 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:42:04.69 | Steven Woodside | Go ahead, Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 02:42:04.70 | Jill Hoffman | Go ahead, Councilmember Hoffman. Thank you. And Talia, thank you for giving your presentation again. That was a great presentation. We saw MCCMC the other night. It was a great crowd in the room at MCCMC. We all supported it. And as a person who's been riding e-bike for a long time, I've seen the change on the e-bike trails and on the e-bike paved roads of the difference in the kids that are riding the bikes just in the five or six years that I've been riding. I fully, fully support this and totally support this. And thanks to Assemblymember Connolly for bringing this forward. And we fully support his efforts as well in Marin County's out in front on this. And mainly because of you. And so thank you for that. And anyway. Yes. Thank you. Anyone else? |
| 02:42:55.23 | Steven Woodside | you |
| 02:42:56.26 | Joan Cox | All right. I want to add thanks on behalf of my grandkids and future generations that hopefully will benefit from this. But I also just want to comment that this is a great example of how when the county takes the lead and cities take the lead and you work together, along with our representatives in Sacramento, we can get something done. And I'm proud of that fact and happy to vote for this. All right, city clerk. |
| 02:43:22.09 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blaustein. |
| 02:43:24.14 | Joan Cox | Yes. |
| 02:43:24.59 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:43:25.37 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. Thank you. |
| 02:43:26.63 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 02:43:26.95 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski. Vice Mayor Woodside. Yes. And Mayor Cox. |
| 02:43:32.73 | Steven Woodside | Yes, that motion carries unanimously. Thank you again, Talia, and also thank you, Lieutenant Rogers. Yes, absolutely. All right, we will now turn to former consent item 3B. I'm going to invite Wayne Kwan back up to the podium. We pulled this off consent to consider the vice mayor's request that in the first resolution attached to the staff report that we confine the two-hour parking time limit from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. instead of from Caledonia Street from Johnson Street to Napa Street, instead to... from Johnson Street to B Street. And so, Officer Kwan, you heard public comment. You explained to us what your response to that public comment is. I'm going to ask you to respond directly to the Vice Mayor's request. I know he discussed that with Chief Gregory, who's not able to be here tonight. |
| 02:44:36.26 | Wayne Kwan | of course. So first of all, thank you for the question. Thank you for your comment, Vice Mayor. So let me start by providing some context of how the police department arrived at the proposal that we A purpose. So we met with merchants on two different separate occasions. So first of all, there's a lot of moving parts, right? In this whole resolution. Let's talk about, I wanna start by talking about the employee parking. So what we have learned in our outreach with the merchants is, um, Many of the employees that work in the restaurants that emergence along Caledonia Street come from far away from Saucydeo. They come from the East Bay, they come from as far as, you know, I don't remember to say, but they come from a far away to come work here. And they, We also learned through the merchants, they don't make a lot of money. Their wages are low. the employees will always look for free parking before paid parking. And so what's happening right now with the current situation, the two-hour zone from 9 to 6, what a lot of savvy employees are doing is they come early, they try to find a spot a little bit after 4 o'clock, and they sit there all day. So once you park at 4 o'clock, reinforce to six that's still under two hours and they can just work their entire shift up until whatever time they get off 10pm 11pm and So that was one of the reasons why we felt like we had to do the entire zone all the way from John Centineppa. Um, So that was the reason behind that. And The other piece is Bye. By including the entire California corridor, we are able to help incentivize with a lower cost for employee parking by reducing it to $5 per day. We also added some additional options with the one month option. So now employees can choose by paying it by the day. by the month or multiple months. And because what we learned is many different employees, they have a variety of different schedules. Some may only work one or two day a week. Some work up to six days a week. So, you know, and the math apps would be more economical on a variety of different permits. So what we've done is we took the L permit, which is the quarterly parking permit. Now they have additional options to purchase a month instead. And... One of the concerns with the Vice Mayor's proposal of stopping at B Street instead of Napa, so now you have the 500 block of between between between B and Napa. With the current situation, the employees will Shit, if I had a Marit Ball, I think the employee would just shift down there and start parking at 4 o'clock and just sit down there all day. But We proceed to change it to 9. Now they can no longer do that. And most employees shift starts before 6. Because of the dinner hour. So that's how the police department came to the conclusion of why we decided to propose the entire career of Caledonia Street. So I hope that helps. |
| 02:48:11.77 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. I think that helps a lot. And so the point you made earlier is that by keeping it until nine for the entire block, there's higher levels of turnover up until nine o'clock. because there's a two hour time limit, which actually gives residents with their Class C permit more of an opportunity to find a spot between 6 and 9 p.m. than they would have if the if the regulation ended at 6 p.m. |
| 02:48:41.28 | Wayne Kwan | We do believe so. recent so the other piece is the um customer parking for the merchants right so now you have you know customers that come. come to visit for dinner. So and the idea from the what we learned from the merchants is that, you know, because the employees are taking a lot of parking and the potential of losing more parking to AB 413. Uh. their customers go struggle, and they're afraid that If their customers struggle for parking, then, you know, customers may not come back. So that's the idea of the proposal that we extended at 9 p.m. Now the turnover is a little bit more frequent to help accommodate the customers of the merchants. |
| 02:49:27.37 | Steven Woodside | And when you make reference to AB 413, you're referring to the daylighting rules. And we've already given direction, as you're probably aware, to our public works director to come back to us with some traffic calming measures in order to reduce the number of spots that we lose to the daylighting rule. Yes, I heard about that as well. Right. Okay. All right. Those are my questions. |
| 02:49:45.82 | Wayne Kwan | Yes, I hear it. |
| 02:49:50.54 | Steven Woodside | Just reentering. |
| 02:49:50.67 | Ian Sobieski | Just to reiterate, so the C permit, now you can park in the 500 block? |
| 02:49:56.58 | Wayne Kwan | Yes, there is a PIE program. So if you have a seat permit, residential, or the guest hang tag, you can park on the 500 block of Caledonia and be exempt from the two hours. |
| 02:50:09.96 | Ian Sobieski | That's the new information that maybe went in underline. It was new to me here tonight. is the big change here, and I think it might even be new to the resident who's still here, is that she can now park on the 500 block of Caledonia Street with her C permit. |
| 02:50:26.80 | Glenn Moore | Thank you. |
| 02:50:26.84 | Wayne Kwan | Yes. Thank you. |
| 02:50:28.04 | Wayne Kwan | And be exempt from the two-hour restrictions. Exempt from the two-hour restrictions. |
| 02:50:31.73 | Joan Cox | The problem, as I see it, is that the resolution doesn't reflect that. It's a pilot project. Not everyone is aware. There's no sign that says, as it does elsewhere, C permit is a second sign. It says C permit is exempt from the two-hour limit. And I take it the pilot project was designed to address and consider whether you would extend the C permit to that block. And the pilot's not run its course. In the meantime, I think there's confusion because there's no sign that allows sea permits in that one block. Can you put a sign up? |
| 02:51:08.23 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, can we put a sign up? |
| 02:51:10.90 | Joan Cox | I think if you did that, you probably should change the resolution to say with the sea permit exception for the 500 block of Caledonia Street. |
| 02:51:21.48 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, I'll agree. I think that if there is an exception to parking limits, it should be stated in the resolution. |
| 02:51:28.77 | Steven Woodside | The reason it wasn't stated in the resolution is it is a pilot program undertaken by the police force in response specifically to questions and comments from folks in that 500 block of Caledonia Street. |
| 02:51:42.45 | Ian Sobieski | that. Could you kind of do the pilot the other way to rip on the vice mayor's suggestion, which is change the resolution, make it see parking on the 500 block? And then it's about four months. And if it's not working, ask us to change the resolution back. |
| 02:51:53.34 | Wayne Kwan | Yes. |
| 02:51:56.88 | Steven Woodside | . |
| 02:51:56.97 | Wayne Kwan | Bye. Thank you. If that's your direction, yes, we can change the language. |
| 02:52:00.56 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, I think that makes sense. |
| 02:52:02.23 | Joan Cox | I'd be happy with that, yeah. And I think the residents would at least have clarity for the time being. |
| 02:52:07.19 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:52:07.24 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:52:07.48 | Ian Sobieski | And you'll just, if it doesn't work, |
| 02:52:10.21 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:52:10.28 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:52:10.30 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:52:10.48 | Ian Sobieski | Change your back. |
| 02:52:11.04 | Jill Hoffman | Or Wayne, would you feel more comfortable if you just put a limitation on the pilot program and the resolution instead of, say, a pilot program is going to last for two months and it expires? |
| 02:52:12.26 | Unknown | actually |
| 02:52:12.69 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:52:12.71 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:52:12.73 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:52:22.97 | Steven Woodside | So before we give that direction, I want to go ahead and open it to public comment and then we can give that direction. All right, I'm going to open to public comment. Yes, please step forward. Please don't speak until you get to the microphone so that everybody can hear you. No worries. And thank you for staying here for the duration. |
| 02:52:37.06 | Unknown | And thank you for staying here. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:52:41.50 | Steven Woodside | so you can hear me. |
| 02:52:42.29 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:52:42.58 | Steven Woodside | You get to see us in action. |
| 02:52:43.91 | Unknown | Okay, yeah. Hi, can you hear me? Yeah. Okay. So the only thing about this six to nine at, you know, it sounds like it makes more opportunities for parking, but the reality is, is that people who live in the neighborhood will come home from work at the end of the day. And then if it goes on until nine o'clock. It means that there are, well, I guess I'm a little not sure about that, because if there is a C and it's clearly exempt, then it takes care of it. Right. Okay. Yeah, that would be great. |
| 02:53:22.10 | Ian Sobieski | I think you should have a champagne. |
| 02:53:24.25 | Unknown | Thank you. What'd you say? |
| 02:53:25.22 | Ian Sobieski | So I think you can. |
| 02:53:25.76 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:53:25.80 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:53:26.07 | Steven Woodside | THE FAMILY IS THE FAMILY |
| 02:53:26.12 | Ian Sobieski | you for champagne. |
| 02:53:27.97 | Steven Woodside | to go. |
| 02:53:28.08 | Unknown | I'm not. Thank you. |
| 02:53:30.18 | Steven Woodside | All right, thank you so much. Any other public comment? Seeing none. All right, we'll close public comment. So I think the direction to the city attorney and Wayne Kwan is that this resolution, the first resolution in our packet, in addition to the CEQA provision that we enunciated earlier, will specify that residents with a C permit are able to park in the 500 block of Caledonia Street and that this resolution will end um, that, |
| 02:54:13.45 | Sergio Rudin | And Mayor, I would recommend that we not put a termination date in part because If city staff do not come back to the council in a timely manner, my concern would be what parking regulations do exist in the city if this resolution has an expiration. |
| 02:54:27.91 | Steven Woodside | So I think what we'll do is we'll make the revision to the resolution that I just described, and we'll give direction to staff to return and report back to us as already promised by Officer Kwan. |
| 02:54:41.33 | Joan Cox | That's great. |
| 02:54:42.04 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:54:42.16 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:54:42.26 | Steven Woodside | All right, so that is my, so I am making a motion that we adopt all three resolutions attached to our packet with the addition of the CEQA provision that I enunciated earlier for each of the resolutions, and that we revise the first resolution, and I'm sorry, I don't have a number. There's no number on it. But it's the resolution that concerns parking on Caledonia between Napa and Johnson to reflect that holders of a C permit will be able to, will be, have the exemption available to them in the 500 block of Caledonia Street. |
| 02:54:42.33 | Joan Cox | All right. |
| 02:55:27.40 | Ian Sobieski | secondary. |
| 02:55:27.84 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:55:28.73 | Steven Woodside | Will you call the roll, city clerk? |
| 02:55:31.92 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blossy. |
| 02:55:34.91 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 02:55:35.19 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:55:35.90 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman? you |
| 02:55:36.98 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 02:55:37.34 | Walfred Solorzano | you Thank you. Councilmember Sobieski? Yes. Vice Mayor Woodside? |
| 02:55:41.47 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 02:55:41.61 | Walfred Solorzano | Mary Cox. |
| 02:55:42.62 | Steven Woodside | Yes, that motion carries unanimously. Thank you to our police force for staying late to hear this item so that we could re- discuss a reasonable resolution of the vice mayor's concerns. With that, we'll move on to item six, City Manager reports, Council Member reports, City Council appointments, and other council business. We're only 30 minutes behind schedule. 6A, city manager information for councils. |
| 02:56:09.25 | Chris Zapata | Thank you, Mayor, members of the council members of the public that are still with us. I do have some reporting to do. I'd like to first acknowledge the current article that was in this past Friday's edition, where we highlighted a new city librarian, Jeffrey Jackson, a new police captain, Brian Mather, a new community service director, Brian Vitelli, and an assistant city manager, Brandon Phipps. So that's something that we want to do more of in Currence, is to get the word out on who and how our public servants work for a community. I'd also like to provide some finance information. Today is New Year. And cities start their fiscal years on July 1st, end them on June 30th. So today is our new year. I want to pass on some very good information. I want to thank the city council and the Saucyote-Marin County Sanitary District Board, our staff, our committees that worked on the super transfer. One of the byproducts of that transfer was the action that our finance department took at my instructions in your direction was to eliminate the 2015 sewer bond and pay off the Clean Water State Revolving Loan Fund loan. That cost of 5.2 million and change that the city paid off took those off our books books, and it also created for the rate payers, which are residents and businesses of Sausalito, $1,917,860 in savings because you took 20 years of interest payments off the sewer bond and eight years off the revolving loan fund. So congratulations to you on that. That's only good news. I also want to talk about the work that we're doing that's really important. We have a CalPERS, or state retirement cost payment. Our finance staff is making that payment this month. That's a prepayment of $3.4 million, which then returns the savings of the city of about $300,000. We also received our 100% standing and good standing as a new member of PRISM, our insurance provider. So we're doing that renewal as well this month. So all of those things are really big, big items for the finance department and the city council and the public to be aware of. This is also the 10-year anniversary of our 115 trust. We still have some work to do in that regard in terms of the direction the council gave us. There is a new monthly report out that shows there's $4 million that the city has saved for pension obligations that it can spend only on pension obligation and $2 million on post-employment benefit obligations so a total of $6 million in the 115 trust funds which we will work to transfer we begin the discussions about our 10-year financial planning tool, which needs to happen. And most importantly, it's audit season for the city of Sausalito. The city of Sausalito has a three-year agreement with Badawi and Associates to do our audit. They're a certified independent firm of the city. This is a legal requirement. and their role is to look through all of our books and provide an assessment of if the cities managing the public treasury property. of the city, this is a legal requirement. And their role is to look through all of our books and provide an assessment of if the city's managing the public treasury properly. And in that process, I wanna kinda walk you through some of the steps involved. The interim finance director received 17 pages of instructions in the areas of looking at and reviewing conflicts of interest, form 700s for the city council and city manager, cash and cash handling. investments. payments that are receivable, lease payments that are receivable, capital assets, our payroll, our long-term debt, our risk management claims and all legal costs, our computer controls, our revenue review, our expenditure and procurement review our pensions, our post-employment benefits, our single audit act compliance, and our GAN limit compliance. Those are some of the headings within those 17 pages or multiple instructions. And I want to point out that our interim finance director is winding down his time, but he's still with us. And we're pleased that Mr. Nava is working with us as we transition to a finance director. We have been through interviews. We will continue to go through interviews till we bring the right person on board. But in the interim, I want the council to be aware of, we have three people in the finance department and an interim finance director and one vacancy. So it's a very lean, lean operation that's got a lot of responsibility and a lot of work to do. That concludes my report, Mayor and Council. |
| 03:01:01.15 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, city managers. |
| 03:01:03.01 | Chris Zapata | Can I ask you just a |
| 03:01:04.68 | Ian Sobieski | Could you go over those numbers again, the manager, right at the beginning? Because there's a lot of information there. But because we paid off the sewer bond early, how much will the taxpayers say? |
| 03:01:16.04 | Chris Zapata | as a result? Thank you for the question again. We paid off $5,352,721.08 in total, of which the majority or most of that was the sewer bond from 2015. As a result of that, you lose 20 years of interest payments from the sewer bond, and we paid off the State Revolving Loan Fund as well, and you lose eight years of interest payments on that, and that totals $1,917,860 in interest costs abated by these payments. |
| 03:01:48.55 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 03:01:50.50 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 03:01:51.39 | Steven Woodside | City Attorney, do you have any information for the council? |
| 03:01:54.98 | Sergio Rudin | No. |
| 03:01:56.23 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. We'll turn to council member |
| 03:01:56.43 | Sergio Rudin | Thank you. |
| 03:01:58.83 | Steven Woodside | Committee reports. The first thing is a bit mislabeled and apologies for that. So What we will are proposing and will bring back to you at our next meeting is a letter requesting an amendment to SB 79 to designate our historic is so to Actually, I'm gonna let Melissa Blaustein enunciate it, but essentially it's to the Exclude. |
| 03:02:28.97 | Melissa Blaustein | It was a request to historic districts from the implications surrounding SB 79, but we haven't actually had an opportunity to fully review or vet or discuss it was kind of prematurely added on so. that that was added in air, so I apologize. I don't know how it ended up on the agenda since it was something Mayor Cox and I were discussing, but. |
| 03:02:48.75 | Steven Woodside | Anyway, I acted precipitously. |
| 03:02:48.76 | Melissa Blaustein | Anyway, just wanted to- |
| 03:02:51.50 | Steven Woodside | um, The I spoke with Nancy Hall Bennett about this today she's requesting that we say that we oppose unless they which we've already previously opposed SB 79 that we continue to oppose. Unless there's this amendment that we're requesting and at that point that we simply withdraw our opposition, rather than. actively supporting because, you know, we will no longer be adversely impacted by it if our exemption is, um, adopted, but many of our fellow cities will be. And so her request was that we oppose unless the exemption is granted. So I'm looking for a consensus on that approach. And if so, we'll bring it back a letter at the next meeting. |
| 03:03:42.26 | Jill Hoffman | I think I would want to see the language in the letter, and I would also want to confer with our elected representatives in the assembly. |
| 03:03:50.32 | Steven Woodside | That's right. |
| 03:03:50.58 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 03:03:50.71 | Steven Woodside | you |
| 03:03:51.32 | Joan Cox | And the way you've described it sounds good to me. |
| 03:03:54.86 | Steven Woodside | Well, it came from Nancy Hall Bennett. I don't take credit. So all right. Any other council member reports? We have the TAM sea level rise report. |
| 03:04:06.79 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, I, I, I, there's a lot of updates from Tam, but one thing that I just really wanted to be sure to highlight is that after almost two years of a process, the transportation authority released a sea level rise report. Dr. Amy Quinton, Ph.D.: During in which they determined areas of key vulnerability and Sausalito was the first community that was considered in this vulnerability assessment and they not only present areas for concern, but also suggestions and recommendations in both the short term and longer term. So it's actually a really fantastic report that provides a lot of exciting potential solutions that we could consider. And I wanted to make sure all of the council members had the chance to review it. I have asked TAM staff what their next steps will be in terms of proceeding with recommendations from the report, assisting municipalities in taking steps to address sea level rise in light of these recommendations. |
| 03:04:50.67 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:04:57.01 | Melissa Blaustein | They would like at some point to come forward to the council and give a presentation of the report and potentially. things we might do. So I wanted to share it because it's a great resource and just note that going forward, we will probably be hearing more from Tam about how we can partner to start moving forward some of these solutions. |
| 03:05:15.75 | Steven Woodside | All right. Thank you, Councilmember Blaustein. Um, We have an obligation to attend Marin Clean Energy meetings. I designated the vice mayor as our representative, but they don't allow remote meetings, and he has a conflict on the night that they routinely meet. So I'm asking for volunteers of anyone who might like to serve on Marin Clean Energy. Thursdays. |
| 03:05:45.28 | Steven Woodside | Third Thursday. I have a board meeting the third Thursday of every month. |
| 03:05:45.34 | Joan Cox | Thank you. |
| 03:05:49.09 | Steven Woodside | So do I. Yeah. |
| 03:05:49.95 | Joan Cox | Bye. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:05:55.35 | Steven Woodside | All right, so Councilmember Hoffman will check her schedule. Thank you so much. We've had an empty position for several months, and I don't want us to lose our voice on that committee, so appreciate that. Okay, and then next on our agenda is future agenda items. I've been discussing this in the agenda setting committee with the vice mayor, we are committed Now that we've gotten through the first half of the year and we had many, many things that we really had to get done the first half of the year, but we are committed to calendaring in our future agendas the various agenda items that you all have raised and requested. And so we'll come back to you hopefully before our break with our plan for addressing, we'll come back with the matrix of future agenda items with dates that we would like to have some of those heard so that you have that for your information. And with that, I'll open it up to see if there are any other future agenda items you would |
| 03:06:50.03 | Jill Hoffman | like to add. |
| 03:06:50.63 | Steven Woodside | you |
| 03:06:50.87 | Jill Hoffman | I'm going to suggest one because it's been brought up in the last week. And our city managers just mentioned our audit. And this would take the place of the audit, I believe. And that's a forensic audit. And so I'm putting it out there. We can discuss it. heading into the list. you |
| 03:07:10.53 | Steven Woodside | All right, thanks. And city manager, could you inquire into what a forensic audit would cost and what the timing would be? Certainly, Mary. Not for tonight, but for future discussion. Thank you. |
| 03:07:18.27 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah. THIS IS A |
| 03:07:21.83 | Steven Woodside | Any other future agenda items? Thank you. |
| 03:07:24.55 | Ian Sobieski | I don't know. Just hearing that, it feels like such a distraction. I would appreciate if we're going to be having staff sending us information, then send everyone information about what a forensic audit actually is. Maybe I'm the only one who knows, but It makes no sense in our current situation, given that we had a clean audit and it feels... |
| 03:07:41.75 | Steven Woodside | Well, |
| 03:07:41.97 | Talia Smith | Thank you. |
| 03:07:43.23 | Ian Sobieski | in. It I mean so I mean anyone can say anything for a future agenda, but if we're asking for information to be passed to the Council and the public, I would request staff actually explain what a forensic audit is and why it makes no sense in our current environment. |
| 03:07:56.80 | Steven Woodside | All right, so we'll discuss at future agenda items how best to bring this to— we'll discuss at Agenda Setting Committee how best to bring this issue back to the Council. Any other future agenda items? |
| 03:08:08.56 | Joan Cox | One other thing that we are now in the just now today beginning the last year of the strategic plan. And we need to, I think, at least identify a process if we are going to go forward with a similar plan of six year duration or some other duration. And I heard the city manager mention a five or excuse me, 10 year financial plan. So I think it would be wise for us to coordinate as much as we can. |
| 03:08:25.71 | Talia Smith | And I heard |
| 03:08:34.36 | Joan Cox | And if we're going to have a strategic planning process that goes into effect when this one ends, I think it would be wise to at least know how we would go about doing that in a timely way. So we need to discuss it and have some recommendations, hopefully, from the city manager on and others on how to proceed. |
| 03:08:54.28 | Babette McDougall | Great. |
| 03:08:55.68 | Steven Woodside | Okay, if there are no other future agenda items, I will adjourn this meeting at 10, 17 p.m. and say Happy New Year. |
| 03:09:06.16 | Unknown | Ha ha ha. |
| 03:09:09.82 | Unknown | Bye. |
Sophia Collier — Neutral: Provided an update on ViewSync, announcing it exited beta, plans for public testing in July, and that a contractor successfully produced a compliant ViewSync report for a local housing project. ▶ 📄
Sandra Bushmaker — Neutral: Reported that the city's 'currents' newsletter appeared as an Amazon book ad and noted 'Amazon' in the council meeting website URL, questioning any contracts with Amazon and seeking an explanation. ▶ 📄
Babette McDougall — Neutral: Echoed concerns about irregular currents service, difficulty understanding instructions, and suggested expanding the currents to include more community information due to the lack of a local newspaper. ▶ 📄