| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:00.03 | Melissa Blaustein | Will, you tell me when we're ready. Yeah. This is. |
| 00:00:05.38 | Walfred Solorzano | Good afternoon, City Council, members of the public, Mayor and City Council, members of the public. Today's meeting is being held at 420 Litho Street, in Sausalito, California, over at Council Chambers. It's also being broadcast live on Zoom and on the city's website and on cable TV channel 27. |
| 00:00:26.04 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Welcome to all. Welcome to the special meeting for the City of Sausalito City Council. is 3 0 4 p.m on tuesday september 2 2025 welcome everybody back from our recess i will call the meeting to order and ask the city clerk to take roll |
| 00:00:50.22 | Walfred Solorzano | Council Member Blaustein. |
| 00:00:52.07 | Steven Woodside | will be joining us at 4 p.m. |
| 00:00:55.21 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 00:00:57.32 | Steven Woodside | year. |
| 00:00:57.98 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski. |
| 00:00:59.70 | Ian Sobieski | I hear I am sick and so I am at home participating and no one is in the room with me. |
| 00:01:06.16 | Steven Woodside | All right. And so city attorney, this will be pursuant to the, Emergency exception to the Brown Act Requirements. |
| 00:01:16.86 | Sergio Rudin | I don't know. Yes, this would be under emergency circumstances. Also, Councilmember Blaustein would be participating under emergency circumstances, so I think it's appropriate for the Council to vote to authorize both participation by majority vote. |
| 00:01:31.78 | Melissa Blaustein | So moved. |
| 00:01:32.98 | Sergio Rudin | seconds. |
| 00:01:33.23 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:01:33.27 | Sergio Rudin | Thank you. |
| 00:01:33.74 | Melissa Blaustein | I'll go ahead, call roll city clerk, please. |
| 00:01:38.43 | Walfred Solorzano | Council member Blalstein absent. Council member Hoffman. Thank you. Yes. Vice Mayor Woodside? |
| 00:01:48.99 | Steven Woodside | Yes. And I will note that we do have a quorum of the city council physically present here in the chambers for this meeting. OK, with that, oh, you have to finish calling the roll. |
| 00:02:03.35 | Walfred Solorzano | And Merrick Cox. |
| 00:02:04.99 | Steven Woodside | here. |
| 00:02:06.34 | Walfred Solorzano | I don't think you called me. |
| 00:02:06.69 | Steven Woodside | No, you called me. Call Zobieski. You have to call. |
| 00:02:08.65 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay. Sorry, I thought I called the vice. I'm sorry. |
| 00:02:09.55 | Steven Woodside | . Vice Mayor Woodside? Here. And Mayor Cox? Okay, so three of us are here. One is participating remotely, and one will join us at 4 p.m. Okay, with that, we're going to adjourn to closed session. The following items will be discussed in closed session. C1, Conference with Legal Counsel, Anticipated Litigation, Significant Exposure to Litigation, 2 Cases. Conference with Legal Counsel, Existing Litigation, Sullivan v. City of Sausalito. Um, Marin County spirit court case number CV 0004822 C3 conference with real property negotiators. The property is five five eight Bridgeway. The agency negotiators are the city manager and the city attorney. And the negotiating party is Bridgeway five five eight real property. And C4 threat to public services or facilities. Government code section five four nine five seven consultation with the police chief and the city attorney. Is there any public comment on our closed session items? |
| 00:03:12.42 | Walfred Solorzano | Not to go. |
| 00:03:13.69 | Steven Woodside | Okay? On the closed session item, Ms. McDougall? |
| 00:03:22.77 | Walfred Solorzano | Oh, hold on. |
| 00:03:28.30 | Walfred Solorzano | I can unmute yourself. |
| 00:03:29.69 | Babette McDougall | Thank you so much. Well, see you in September. This is just on the closed session items, correct? |
| 00:03:34.21 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 00:03:34.95 | Babette McDougall | Yes, ma'am. That's why I decided I needed to tune in. So there's a couple of things pursuant to this closed session as you have opened it. Number one, it does recall that we really ought to think about having a parliamentarian, perhaps we could reach out to Sauce Little Women's Club. I mean, just like there's a group that likes, you know, Sumye, aren't there also people that really enjoy the parliamentary procedure? That's number one. Number two, I'd just like to call out With regard to your meeting with our chief of police, I think that's the sort of thing that the public would want to know sooner, not later, only because we live in such uncertain times generally. And I think we rely very heavily. upon our find people in blue uniform, and I think people will work best. the better we are kept informed. So with that in mind, I'd like to welcome you all back. Happy birthday. Mr. City Manager. Happy birthday from those of us who rely on you. And thank you for your work in Sausalito. And I yield back my time. Thank you. THANK YOU. |
| 00:04:34.54 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:04:34.79 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 00:04:35.26 | Walfred Solorzano | No further public comment. |
| 00:04:35.31 | Steven Woodside | you Okay. we will adjourn to closed session. We will resume at 7 p.m. Sorry. |
| 00:04:48.83 | John Flavin | Bye-bye. Thank you. |
| 00:04:54.89 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:04:56.14 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:04:59.27 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. |
| 00:05:12.39 | Walfred Solorzano | All right, we're right back on. We're just waiting for Councilmember Sobieski. |
| 00:05:25.90 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:05:25.92 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:05:30.87 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 00:05:30.92 | David Besner | Thank you. |
| 00:05:31.08 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:05:31.86 | David Besner | Thank you. |
| 00:05:38.61 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I bet you may not laugh. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Fritz, please. |
| 00:05:52.57 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:05:58.88 | Jill Hoffman | He says he's on. Can you promote him? |
| 00:06:03.32 | Melissa Blaustein | He said, okay. |
| 00:06:08.28 | Walfred Solorzano | He's now a panelist. He's on now. Peace out. |
| 00:06:30.23 | Walfred Solorzano | That's fine. We got to lock the room over there. |
| 00:06:35.02 | Unknown | We're over. 12 to start? |
| 00:06:38.57 | Walfred Solorzano | you |
| 00:06:38.58 | Steven Woodside | All right, good afternoon. It is 5 or 5 p.m. And I will welcome everyone to the regular meeting of the City of Sausalito City Council for Tuesday, September 2, 2025. We are returning from closed session. Will you call roll city clerk? |
| 00:06:57.70 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blastham. |
| 00:06:58.83 | Steven Woodside | You're... |
| 00:06:59.98 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. Thank you. |
| 00:07:01.79 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. |
| 00:07:02.02 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Thank you. Also member Sobieski you |
| 00:07:04.24 | Ian Sobieski | here participating remotely. |
| 00:07:06.61 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Woodside? And Mayor Cox. |
| 00:07:10.38 | Steven Woodside | Here, I'm going to repeat what we did earlier, which is to make a motion that we allow Councilmember Sobieski to attend via Zoom in accordance with the emergency provision of the Brown Act because he has fallen ill. |
| 00:07:27.13 | Jill Hoffman | Second. |
| 00:07:28.16 | Steven Woodside | Will you call roll, city clerk? |
| 00:07:29.58 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:07:30.00 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Brossi. |
| 00:07:31.22 | Melissa Blaustein | Yes. |
| 00:07:31.62 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:07:32.35 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. Thank you. |
| 00:07:33.87 | Melissa Blaustein | Yes. |
| 00:07:34.14 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski? Yes. Vice Mayor Woodside? Yes. And Mayor Cox. |
| 00:07:40.62 | Steven Woodside | Yes, that motion carries unanimously. We'll now turn to the Pledge of Allegiance. |
| 00:07:45.76 | Linda Pfeiffer | And there's no flag. All right, so the symbolic flag is here. Salute. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. |
| 00:08:07.92 | Steven Woodside | We reached we held a closed session from 3 to 5pm this afternoon, there are no closed session announcements, may I have a motion approving the agenda. |
| 00:08:19.40 | Jill Hoffman | So moved. |
| 00:08:22.13 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:08:22.23 | Steven Woodside | Second, |
| 00:08:22.74 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. please call Roll. |
| 00:08:26.58 | Walfred Solorzano | That's a number blasting. |
| 00:08:27.78 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 00:08:28.93 | Walfred Solorzano | Council Member Hoffman. |
| 00:08:30.14 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 00:08:30.95 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilman Bersabieski? Vice Mayor Woodside? Mayor Cox. |
| 00:08:35.71 | Steven Woodside | Yes. We will now turn to special presentations. Mayor's announcements, I will start off with some Mayor's announcements. First, I'd like to welcome to our city staff, Angeline Loeffler, as our new finance director who started work for us on August 15th, 2025. She brings to Sausalito extensive experience from the California State Board of Equalization and the City of Berkeley. Welcome. We look forward to working with you. |
| 00:09:10.78 | Steven Woodside | I don't know if it's on... |
| 00:09:12.82 | Angeline Loeffler | Okay. |
| 00:09:16.50 | Angeline Loeffler | Can you hear it? Thank you. |
| 00:09:19.50 | Unknown | I'm not very glad that you're good. |
| 00:09:22.15 | Steven Woodside | Go ahead again. Can you hear me? Nope. It's not on yet. |
| 00:09:22.66 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. |
| 00:09:22.90 | Unknown | Can you hear me? |
| 00:09:27.57 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:09:27.64 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:09:28.48 | Angeline Loeffler | All right. Thank you. All right. It's a very place to meet all of you in person. And I'm very excited to join the city of the South Salido and their team, excellent teams. And this is my third week. I'm still going through a lot of transition, gaining the necessary, the access. But I look forward to. |
| 00:09:29.26 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. |
| 00:09:48.39 | Angeline Loeffler | learn more about the city's functions and contributing positively to the city's vibrant atmosphere. So one thing I just want to quickly share about myself is I am passionate about the making the numbers into clear storytellings and I'm hoping to work with our city's executive teams and colleagues to make some of those, some of those financial the idea effective financial the story tellings to assist and the support your the decision-making process and once again i'm very excited to be here and thank you for the opportunity for the quick introductions |
| 00:10:27.87 | Steven Woodside | Thank you so much. Next announcement is welcome to our updated chambers. I want to extend our thanks to Kevin McGowan, to Pat Guasco, to his entire team for all the hard work that they underwent during our break. You may or may not recognize the mural that is in the back of the room. That mural used to hang in the Wells Fargo building downtown. And when that building was sold, or when Wells Fargo vacated that building, we went to the realtor to see if we couldn't snag it because it's so commemorative of Sausalito. And it's funny, when the chambers were renovated, we saw for the first time, I guess in the plaque honoring Carl Spring who was a famous Sausalito contributor and for in whose honor this plaque was posted on the table underneath the television years ago so you'll notice we have new paint on the walls, new carpet. We're about to have some new light fixtures. But overall, I think this is a wonderful facelift that will last us four years to come. Third, I wanted to advise all of you that we will be holding a groundbreaking ceremony for the ferry landing this Friday, September 5th at 9 a.m. We will welcome our local public officials, the Golden Gate Bridge District, the many volunteers who contributed to this event. groundbreaking event. And we are very much looking forward to finishing this project. But we have made great progress so far. And so there will be a groundbreaking on Friday morning. |
| 00:12:20.15 | Chris Zapata | Mayor, if I may, that's a ribbon cutting. I think we hope in the |
| 00:12:23.36 | Steven Woodside | Sorry, ribbon cutting. Yeah, we already did the groundbreaking. We've done the work. It's now the ribbon cutting. Yeah, sorry about that. Okay, with that, and then I also do want to take a moment just to wish our city manager happy birthday. Thank you for being here on your birthday. |
| 00:12:38.73 | Ian Sobieski | . |
| 00:12:42.44 | Ian Sobieski | Which birthday is it? |
| 00:12:43.89 | Steven Woodside | We won't say. It's a big one. And I welcome a fellow Virgo. All right. With that, I'll turn it over to Brian Vitali, our Community Services Director, for a mid-year events recap. Welcome, Brian. Thank you. |
| 00:13:06.41 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:13:25.22 | Adrian Brinton | Even council members. City manager, city staff, member of the public. Thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight in our newly remodeled council chambers. Tonight I'm going to be providing a brief update on our 2025 special events and highlighting some memorable moments throughout the year. |
| 00:13:45.98 | Adrian Brinton | First event of the year is our Super Bowl event. It takes place in February. It's sold out for the fifth straight year with 450 participants and 22 restaurants and businesses participating. Many Sausalito locals tell us this is their favorite event of the year. and isn't there to love that event, the one in town just sampling soups. Businesses love it, residents love it, and it's a great revenue generator for the city with minimal expenses and overhead. Very tiny up there, but made about $10,000, $11,000 in there, and our expenses were under $1,000 for that particular event. Next up was our citywide yard sale, which also sold out. We packed 87 vendors in the MLK building, six parking lot, and outdoor basketball courts. And around 1,000 people moved their way to find some of Sausalito's hidden treasures. The event costs are minimal and generates a nominal revenue for the staff's effort and time. But overall, it's a great community event. At the end of the event, Salvation Army will typically have a trail run where vendors could donate any of their goods. Anything Salvation Army doesn't want, they could be tossed into the large dumpster door. by Bay City Refuge. I'm going to our 33rd annual Easter Parade and Egg Hunt. I think it happened in April this year. changes yearly. Nearly 1,000 kids hunted for 8,000 eggs, which are mostly reused and refilled from previous years. And as always, this event is free for kids and families to attend. We have a face painter, music, pictures with Easter Bunny, and of course, our bonnet contest, which is judged by the Women's Club. It brings our community together for a fun, lighthearted day and ends with an adventurous adult Easter egg hunt. This brings in some fierce competition at the end of the day. And this event has sold out for three years in a row, growing from 150 to 200 to now 250 adult Easter egg hunters. The $25 cost per wristband generated over $6,000 in revenue, which turned this net negative event into a net positive. We have over $5,000 in prizes for this portion of the event, mostly donated from local businesses. and additionally as a thank you for participating in the super bowl we buy 50 to 100 gift cards from the participating restaurants and business mostly donated from local businesses. And additionally, as a thank you for participating in the Super Bowl, we buy 50 to $100 gift cards from the participating restaurants and businesses from the Super Bowl and ask them to match this purchase. Not only is it a thank you for the businesses, but also a way to get more people back into Sausalito and into the downtown area. |
| 00:16:23.15 | Ian Sobieski | Excuse me, we may be having an issue with our live stream from Marin TV. I just got a text that it's not streaming. |
| 00:16:36.47 | Ian Sobieski | That's correct. I, uh, I, I mentioned to Walford that the, uh, If there's a presentation, it's not coming through. We just see Brian. |
| 00:16:47.25 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 00:16:47.86 | Walfred Solorzano | on the website or on the KBTV channel? |
| 00:16:50.83 | Steven Woodside | And he's not seeing what we're seeing. He's not seeing the screen that we're seeing. |
| 00:16:57.86 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, I see Brian, who looks great wearing a suit. It's nice. Thank you. |
| 00:17:02.00 | Steven Woodside | So did the camera get readjusted or something during the renovations? |
| 00:17:09.76 | Unknown | . What's happening here is showing and going back to, I believe it's kind of there. shared screen. |
| 00:17:23.70 | Steven Woodside | Well, that's Councilmember Sobieski, who has joined us many times via Zoom. So he's not able to see the presentation. |
| 00:17:30.60 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:17:30.72 | Steven Woodside | you should. |
| 00:17:30.89 | Walfred Solorzano | sharing your screen. Yeah, it looks good to me on the website. Yeah. So yeah, I think it might be pilot error. Thank you. Maybe we'll. |
| 00:17:40.57 | Steven Woodside | Are you able to see the screen? |
| 00:17:41.59 | Walfred Solorzano | I am. |
| 00:17:41.86 | Sergio Rudin | able to see it, yes, so I'm not having an issue. Thank you. |
| 00:17:44.57 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. So Ian, it looks like it might be on your end. |
| 00:17:47.71 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah. Not the first time. |
| 00:17:50.50 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Okay. Can someone check Marin TV? whether the stream is working. |
| 00:17:58.44 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. I'm checking the stream for Granicus on the website, and that one is streaming properly. So I don't have a TV on me, but we'll see if I can get somebody. |
| 00:18:22.85 | Melissa Blaustein | here. You can see it. I like that. |
| 00:18:25.51 | Jill Hoffman | you Thank you. |
| 00:18:26.36 | Melissa Blaustein | See you tomorrow. |
| 00:18:26.96 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:18:27.03 | Melissa Blaustein | is worth it. |
| 00:18:27.61 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:18:28.08 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. I don't know if they watch on Marin TV, |
| 00:19:30.58 | Unknown | I love you. I want you to be broadcasting. just allowing me to see that. It's all working. |
| 00:19:47.05 | Walfred Solorzano | Maybe because of the winds, people are being affected. |
| 00:19:47.56 | Steven Woodside | So- So Councilmember Blaustein just pulled up the Marin TV website and it doesn't look like we're scheduled at this time. It says piano segment, raw footage, white house recording. |
| 00:19:58.43 | Walfred Solorzano | Are you on channel 27? |
| 00:20:00.32 | Steven Woodside | Channel 26. So they have to go to Granicus to do it. Just go to the Saucyta website. They can log in from there. Um, City Clerk, when we changed our meeting time, did we change our schedule with Marin TV so that they broadcast us starting at 5 p.m. instead of 7 p.m.? |
| 00:20:17.85 | Walfred Solorzano | They're here right now, but I can confirm that afterwards. Yeah, it's Channel 27. That's what I said at the beginning. It's not 26, so maybe if we check 27, it might be on there. |
| 00:20:34.86 | Steven Woodside | Just give us another minute while we look at this, Brian. |
| 00:20:38.83 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:20:39.03 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:20:39.85 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:20:39.87 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:20:44.56 | Jill Hoffman | We're not on the schedule for today. Wait a second. No, we are live. |
| 00:20:51.87 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, so we're looking. you |
| 00:20:53.37 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:20:53.67 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:20:53.96 | Steven Woodside | It says it should be, it just, I can't check it. |
| 00:20:57.88 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah. |
| 00:20:58.16 | Steven Woodside | So it's not allowing us to access it from the website. |
| 00:21:02.42 | Melissa Blaustein | Walford, I don't know this guy's name. |
| 00:21:04.34 | Walfred Solorzano | Oh, Michael. |
| 00:21:06.99 | Melissa Blaustein | Good job. |
| 00:21:07.61 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:21:07.71 | Melissa Blaustein | it. |
| 00:21:07.88 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:21:07.97 | Steven Woodside | I see it on. Okay. It looks like it's flowing now, Jill. |
| 00:21:08.15 | Melissa Blaustein | you |
| 00:21:08.17 | Melissa Blaustein | I see it on, it's right here. |
| 00:21:09.34 | Melissa Blaustein | I guess. |
| 00:21:09.38 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:21:11.28 | Steven Woodside | Melissa has it on her |
| 00:21:13.23 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah, usually it's always pilot error. So. |
| 00:21:17.25 | Steven Woodside | All right, then we will resume. Thank you, Brian, for indulging us for a few minutes. |
| 00:21:20.66 | Adrian Brinton | Thank you. |
| 00:21:20.67 | Walfred Solorzano | Absolutely. |
| 00:21:20.98 | Adrian Brinton | Absolutely. |
| 00:21:25.35 | Adrian Brinton | All right. All right, the next one we had was our San Francisco Opera. This was a two-day event. It happened at the end of April, and this year the SF Opera offered to bring their out-of-the-box performance to Sausalito. It was a major hit. Had about 600 people come out for those two days. We shut down Lot 2, and we partnered with the Sausalito Center for the Arts, Marin Open Studios, and the San Francisco Opera. This event was free for the public to attend and received a heartfelt response from residents telling me that they want more opera and more in Sausalito. more, excuse me, artist offerings in Sausalito. So for 2026, though this event didn't make any money, certainly was a great way to mobilize our public spaces at minimal cost. Currently, in lieu of the outcry from our public, I'm working with the San Francisco Opera and other groups to find new artist offerings to add to our 2026 calendar. Next slide, please. So in May, the farmers market made it back to Dunphy Park. There were some couple months taken off on there. It's been going really strong. This weekly attendance is climbing over 200 people weekly and upwards of 20 to 30 vendors selling. Local musicians are performing, nonprofits are hosting free programming, and new businesses are getting the opportunity to share their work with the public. We've heard real great positive feedback with this weekly event, and we'll continue to monitor its successes and challenges on a regular basis. Next, we have our Jazz and Blues concert series. We're two weeks away from closing out our 29th year of this concert series. Season table sold out in early April, and although our sponsorship revenue was slightly down and the expenses are ever-growing, this concert series always brings in around 900 to 1,300-plus people per week to the downtown area for almost three months straight. The work and coordination that goes into this weekly event is pretty heavy, but the reward to see the happy concert goers always makes it worth it, weekend and week out. somehow we're already past 4th of July. Not sure how it happened, but. Good luck. In September, countless people came out and told them that this was the best parade they've seen in 20 years. We had over 30 local community member groups participate by walking, biking, showing off their classic cars or building ride-on floats. The excitement carried on through the day during the picnic, even though our best in blue didn't win the tug of war. by Chief Gregory. Maybe next year. Just as we were winding down from the picnic and getting ready for the evening, we burst in through the air, 6.10 p.m., I received a call from our fireworks vendor, Fireworks America, that their boat had sprung a leak during cleaning and to make it from the dock in Oakland. We sprung well into action. Chief Gregory and I were on the call talking together about this, and we alerted locals via Mixel alerts. Thank you, Sausalito PD, for that. We posted on our website, social media, reached out to all major news networks regarding the cancellation. We don't want people coming to Sausalito disappointed only to be stuck in traffic. They could be happy stuck in traffic at the end of the night, but not without fireworks. So as a result, and with our heavy event calendar, we decided to cancel the fireworks for 2025 and use that $18,000 in security deposit for the 2026 fireworks. And although the expenses outweigh the revenue, a $3.50 return on involvement per participant for the day is still pretty good throughout that day. Next slide, please. Next, I'm going to jump into library services and the many events and offerings happening on a regular basis. All the events for adults and children are free to attend. They're curated by our really talented staff and funded primarily from the Friends of the Library. Upwards of $50,000 is journaled for ongoing programming from that group. 23 adult programs are hosted so far. Things like Spotify for Beginners, Author Talks, and Walk-In Tech Help are some of the most recent offerings. In the past two months for that tech help, nearly 60 people came out for help regarding questions on their iPhones, tablets, email, and more. This past Friday, the editor of Boats on the Blade did an author talk about the temporary story walk at Dunphy Park. people have been very excited about the next placement of the story walk and we are working to find new books and activations to help promote reading and learning in the parks. For children's events, we've had 110 take place and more and more kids and families are attending on a regular basis. We continue to have our regular weekly and monthly story time and music programs. We had a great summer reading program and lineup with seven special events, magic, puppets, music, reptiles, birds of prey, drumming, and a bubble man. 260 people came out to those. We did a great kids and teens journey board. to track summer reading with 146 participants, age 0 to 14. We gave away free books and prizes. to all participants and raffled off eight Lego sets and squish mellows to delighted winners. We did a first ever adult reading bingo board game with 42 participants and give away prizes and gift cards to finishers. We've given away about 300 take and make craft kits. There's a cart that's filled for parents and caregivers to take one home per child. or doing the library with their child, and they change on a monthly basis. The library is excited about their new equipment that's coming for movie screenings and author talks. Next slide, please. And there's a rotating art exhibit that's happening throughout the fall. Currently, it is photography from Margo Hertford, a Sausalito local. And additionally, the library, And our team will be headed out to more events such as the Farmer's Market and the Toast of Sausalito. Weekly, monthly programs, daily programs are happening each and every day by library. Our staff are curating each and every one of these events that are taking place, Music in the Park, Dungeons and Dragons, tech help for our seniors, author talks, all different types and fun things that are going on on a regular basis. And you can check out the library's website for each and every one of those activations. Next slide, please. There's more to come in 2025. Our fall season is just kicking off. It's some of our locals' favorite time of year. They say once jazz and blues ends, that's when the fun really begins. For us, our chili cook-off is taking place on September 20th. We've got 15 chili chefs so far, and we're expected to have about 1,000 participants. We've got a band coming out, drinks and fun throughout the whole day. It's about a four hour event right out at Dunphy Park. And we'll have our third annual hot chili pepper eating contest as well, sponsored by Marley Stone. Thank you. And then on October 18th, we have our third annual Toast to Salsa Ludo event. We're going to have 150 vendor applications for the event with over 100 applicants already accepted to the event. Nearly 100 people have already purchased tickets for it and we are off to the races to get that event underway. That's a four-hour event on Caledonia Street taking up all five of those blocks. I'll be heading to a meeting in the next few days to work with the Caledonia merchants on being able to activate that area to help their businesses along with providing great free activities to all that attend. The library has, like I said, many things coming up as well. So, you know, we offer a lot of free events and a lot of free programming to our community and to our visitors. I'm proud to be a part of this each and every day and to work with you and my fellow staff members to bring this to each and every Sausalito resident. So thank you for your time. |
| 00:29:19.87 | Steven Woodside | Thank you so much for that great report and for the great work that the Community Services Department is doing. |
| 00:29:25.11 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. Yes, go ahead. I didn't prep on this, but I don't think I heard this in your report. What's the revenue that your department generates? |
| 00:29:34.62 | Adrian Brinton | throughout the entire year. you |
| 00:29:37.47 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, that was in response, but I just forgot. |
| 00:29:37.80 | Adrian Brinton | This past year we generated about $700,000 in revenue. And that was about $100,000 over our expected revenue for the year. |
| 00:29:51.57 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:29:52.14 | Adrian Brinton | And our expenses were... 1.1 million for the year and we spent just over a million for the year. |
| 00:30:02.38 | Ian Sobieski | Thanks very much. Absolutely. |
| 00:30:03.01 | Adrian Brinton | Absolutely. Thank you. |
| 00:30:03.80 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. the next. |
| 00:30:04.04 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:30:07.19 | Ian Sobieski | Great, thank you. |
| 00:30:07.97 | Melissa Blaustein | you |
| 00:30:08.04 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:30:08.15 | Jill Hoffman | Just very quickly, in addition to events, and you've done many this year, you've also done some things to encourage people to individually create their own events, such as recently you published the Art Walk, Places Where There's Public Art. |
| 00:30:08.46 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:30:08.49 | Melissa Blaustein | I don't hear. |
| 00:30:21.91 | Jill Hoffman | for viewing, and I know there is an interest in this community in art and perhaps doing more of that, but thank you very much for everything you've done. Thank you. |
| 00:30:29.37 | Adrian Brinton | this year. Very happy to help on that. It was a great project, along with working with the Sausalito Foundation to turn each of those art pieces into a story walk, along with being able to scan a QR code to be able to listen to the description and the history of that piece of art. So we're working closely with that nonprofit to be able to activate those spaces a little bit more. So that little breadcrumb that we had is going to grow into bigger pieces to be able to do more great things. |
| 00:31:01.16 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. Yeah, Mayor, if I can just thank Brian in front of the public for his leadership and entrepreneurial spirit and how he creates activities that are good for Sausalito. And, you know, I never forget the term return on involvement. So for $400,000, the city is seeing thousands of participants in city programs at city facilities that benefit our community. |
| 00:31:25.46 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:31:26.18 | Adrian Brinton | Thank you so much. |
| 00:31:32.29 | Steven Woodside | Okay, with that, we will turn 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 regarding items that are not on the agenda. I have one speaker card. Welcome, John Flavin. |
| 00:31:59.85 | John Flavin | I've asked several times that you all consider a forensic audit. After reviewing the numbers more thoroughly, I'm even more convinced that it's required. I don't know if you realize it, but you've had seven finance directors since the beginning of this decade. Second thing you have, you have some very confusing financial reports. One year does not match another. I know this because I tried matching them. And then I found that the 20, I think it's 2025, no, 2024-25 budget book is not posted on the Internet. There's a gap there. Why? I have no idea. So it's part of the confusion that I could see generated by such a turnover in leaders in the finance department. The other question that comes up regarding the, I got into the fun side of life. And what I was trying to find is where $5 million went out of the Martin Luther King fund. I found the answer. It's not scandalous. It's just an accounting adjustment, but it should be more advertised as to why it was done and why it waited till this year to have occurred. And it left the Martin Luther King Fund with less than $200,000 or about $200,000 in terms of its total fund. That's after the city moved $500,000 from the MLK fund to the general fund. Now that's great. And that's how you balance your budget. But that's not a great way to balance your budget by hitting a crippled fund. The final item that comes up I guess it won't. Thank you. |
| 00:34:04.59 | Steven Woodside | Mr. Flavin, would you mind putting your comments in writing to me so that I can confer with the city manager? I submitted it. Okay. If you did, I just haven't seen it. Fair enough. Thank you so much. Bye. |
| 00:34:17.06 | Walfred Solorzano | We have Sandra Bushmaker. |
| 00:34:21.53 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:34:21.55 | Sandra Bushmaker | Good evening, council. I'm communicating with you about Measure J and Measure K. The count one, the countywide website has the ballot measure and the ballot question does not match the city's resolution. The words, quote, subject to a 32 foot height limit has been removed. Number two. Section four of the city's enabling resolution says the city council does not authorize the city council as a body nor any individual member of the council to file a written argument or any rebuttal argument for or against the measure. And I was very surprised to see Mayor Cox as the filer for arguments in favor of both ballot measures. I cannot reconcile these facts. In addition, I know of several residents who signed arguments in favor of Measure K who wanted their names removed. Uh. They were told by the city that they had to get a court order. The city could have obtained such a court order, but required that of the signatories. I have I would request an explanation why this burden is being placed on regretful signers. Thank you. |
| 00:35:43.58 | Walfred Solorzano | Okay, next speaker is Babette McDougall. |
| 00:35:50.68 | Babette McDougall | Well, good evening. Thank you. And once again, happy birthday, Mr. City Manager. So, um, We're all seeing each other in September. I hope you all had a lovely break. Now that has returned, I want to just say a couple of things, and they all have to do with how we speak to our publics. I don't know, is anybody paying attention to what I'm saying up there on the dais? It looks like, okay, thank you, Ms. Blaustein. Thank you so much. All right. So OK, because actually, I actually had a chance to look at that. Sustainability Commission thing. And I just want to say that, you know, it isn't just the positive people of Sausalito, Council Member Blaustein, that you should be outreaching to. It needs to be all the residents of Sausalito who vote, especially. But you know whether or not they vote, if they live here, they care about what happens. And I don't understand how come the whole, you know, the EV thing is like a new, new thing, right? And because paradigm shifts are required whenever we, face change, we need to think about things like, well, gosh, if telecom is overseed by, let's say, a planning commission, why wouldn't the EV thing be overseen by planning commission too? I mean, we're talking about public access as well as private, I suppose, and it's up and down the street of Bridgeway and it's in our parks. And so I do believe planning commission engagement is appropriate. So I'd like to encourage us to look forward to that. And then the last thing I'd like to say is regarding public engagement generally, the most frequently asked question to me over the summer was exactly what is missing in terms of democracy and engagement in the council chambers. So I'm going to start calling these things out. First and foremost, we need to abandon Rosenberg. It deliberately carves out the citizen voice. Deliberately. For example, I mean, there are so many, you know, what, how do you look up point of order on behalf of a person sitting in the audience or however you want to, characterize the other side of the room. It doesn't, it's just one. And I look forward to sharing many more. But citizen engagement, please. |
| 00:37:56.18 | Walfred Solorzano | All right, next speaker is Linda Pfeiffer. |
| 00:38:01.61 | Linda Pfeiffer | Hello, can you hear me okay? |
| 00:38:03.78 | Walfred Solorzano | We can hear you. |
| 00:38:08.32 | Linda Pfeiffer | Thank you. |
| 00:38:08.33 | Babette McDougall | We hear you. |
| 00:38:13.75 | Walfred Solorzano | You can unmute yourself. |
| 00:38:19.28 | Steven Woodside | We heard you for a moment, but now we don't hear you. |
| 00:38:22.76 | Linda Pfeiffer | Is this better? |
| 00:38:23.84 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:38:23.87 | Linda Pfeiffer | Thank you. |
| 00:38:23.89 | Steven Woodside | . |
| 00:38:24.03 | Linda Pfeiffer | We hear you now. |
| 00:38:24.87 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:38:25.19 | Linda Pfeiffer | Okay, great. |
| 00:38:25.36 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 00:38:26.34 | Linda Pfeiffer | So, um, Let's see, consent calendar 3B has a letter from Mayor Joan Cox about a Saucyoto Center of the Arts request for funding. But the letter does not mention the amount requested by the Saucido Center of the Arts. And I would like to know the amount. Mount being requested. I'd like to know also how the South South Central Center of the Arts is performing against the contract terms. I support the arts, but I also support protecting Sausalito from wildfire. We saw Pacific Palisades and Paradise and Altadena and Maui. And just last night, Sausalito had a fire in one of our neighborhoods. And I support the arts, but Sausaledans cannot enjoy the arts if we do not have homes left to display the arts. I am very concerned about wildfire prevention. And I would ask the council to please prioritize wildfire prevention like recommissioning the Spencer Firehouse, and while I'm at it, let's prioritize maintenance of our city's critical revenue generating assets like MLK per the Veritas report. because maintaining this infrastructure, especially these assets, ensure we have the funds to prioritize wildfire pretensions. prevention. Thank you. |
| 00:39:44.81 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:39:46.24 | Walfred Solorzano | No further public speakers? |
| 00:39:47.89 | Steven Woodside | City Manager, are you prepared to comment regarding the Spencer Firehouse recommissioning now or during your report? |
| 00:39:54.71 | Chris Zapata | I can comment quickly now if you'd like. I gave a brief verbal report to the council. We are in discussions right now with the Southern Marine Fire District. We anticipate getting a letter of intent from them on what it would take to restart. You as a council have authorized funds to remove records. You've authorized cap improvement funds to ensure the readiness of that building. We just have to work through the logistics of an agreement with the Southern Fire District that will allow them to place resources at that station. That's going to take a three to six month window, but we are working on that as we speak. Thank you. |
| 00:39:57.18 | Steven Woodside | Yes. Thank you. |
| 00:39:59.45 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:40:34.59 | Steven Woodside | I will add to that. Bruce Huff notified me last week that the Southern Marin Fire had signed and transmitted an initial draft letter of intent to the city that had a proposed term of 15 years, contingent only upon the renewal in six years of the Measure C fire measure. So. All right. With that, we will move on to the consent calendar. I am going to ask that we postpone consideration of item Um, three, ah, Is this a three? Yeah, 3F. The staff report makes reference to a retroactive encroachment agreement, but the Planning Commission resolution and findings do not make mention of retroactivity. The planner who worked on this is not here, he's out. Thank you. on vacation and so I would like the planning department to have an opportunity to resolve this question. And so I'm asking that we not approve item 3F tonight. We'll put it on calendar for our next meeting. We will, of course, still hear public comment if anyone would like to hear public comment. is there are there any other questions or um requested removal of items from the consent calendar Okay, seeing none, I'm gonna open it up to public comment on the consent calendar. |
| 00:42:11.47 | Walfred Solorzano | We have |
| 00:42:17.51 | Babette McDougall | My goodness, everybody's still coming home from their holidays, I guess. Thank you for acknowledging me. So... What I'd like to talk about with regard to the consent calendar is this item, in fact, of the mayor's letter, because on the one hand, of course, I want to see the city support the arts. This is an artisan community, but it worries me that one would take out and specifically reference an agency which on public record, excuse me, Madam Mayor, but I'm really addressing this to you. It's your letter. And, uh, You know, on public comment, when we were first trying to evaluate whether to adopt this organization as our welfare child, because it's my welfare child, it's every resident's, every taxpayer's welfare child. We are paying for them. What gives them the right? They said they would never be an art gallery. They said in a public record they'd never be in competition with other art galleries and that they would promote the arts as an event center. And maybe they'll sell stuff and it might or might not include art. Well, just look it up in the public record. I think it was a year, a year and a half ago. And now here we are today. Somebody doubles down and tells all their friends to please vote. Not just the best art gallery in Sausalito all of a sudden, but in the entire county of Marin. Now, I don't know how the other art galleries are feeling right now, but if I were an art gallery, what if I were Hanson? Oh my gosh. What about the heavy hitter, Hanson? |
| 00:43:37.49 | Unknown | I'm like, |
| 00:43:40.18 | Babette McDougall | What if they came to the city of Sausalito and says, Lisa, I'd like a handout too. I mean, honestly, it just gets a little bit much. We have to be balanced in all of this. And I really don't see where we're drawing a balance in this case. Thank you very much. I yield back my time. |
| 00:43:59.23 | Walfred Solorzano | Next person we have is B. Rangchi. |
| 00:44:11.38 | Unknown | Good evening, can you hear me okay? |
| 00:44:13.20 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes. |
| 00:44:14.20 | Unknown | Yes, good evening, Mayor Cox and council members. I appreciate this time. I'm asking on behalf of the Sweet Marlene neighborhood, for the setting aside of item 3G in the consent calendar, for additional evaluation and reconsideration. The entire neighborhood has significant concerns about the design review and construction plan that was the representations that were made every neighbor on the surrounding Sweet Briar has objected to this project, we spoke to the planning commission and it was dismissed, unfortunately. The applicant misrepresented, we feel many things about the project, We did submit this in writing, this request in writing earlier to the council members. There was a map provided illustrating all of those who have serious concerns and objections about this. Um, particularly the proposed construction plan was changed mid meeting with the planning commission. and it poses serious safety and access issues for everyone who's a resident of Sweetbriar Lane, We'd invite any of the council members to come on up. It's about 15 feet wide in our, on our lane. to see just what an impact this would make to everybody. The design that's proposed is overbuilt and diminishes views and values that have been in place for the residents, long-time residents for quite a while. There's an encroachment related to this that was approved during the meeting, but we believe it's done prematurely. because there's been no contact made with the people most likely to be impacted. at the next door parcel. And there's really been no opportunity for anybody to respond from the community related to these applicant representations. What we're simply asking is that the council help us Set this aside for further evaluation. Even the chair of the planning commission voted against this, but unfortunately it was not enough of a vote So we would ask that you just set this aside so that further evaluation can be made. before anything Thank you. impacting all seven families that have express their concerns is further evaluated. Thank you very much. Thank you. |
| 00:46:16.02 | Walfred Solorzano | THANK YOU. |
| 00:46:16.07 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:46:16.37 | Walfred Solorzano | And no further public speakers? |
| 00:46:20.57 | Steven Woodside | Okay, thank you. |
| 00:46:25.03 | Ian Sobieski | Mayor, I don't want to remove 3B, which is the letter supporting the, regarding the Sussle Way for Sanity Arts, But I do note that the grant was not attached, or the grant application wasn't attached. Do you want to provide any information about the grant |
| 00:46:46.49 | Steven Woodside | I will happily return with information. This was county grant money. This is not Sausalito money. This is a request to the county. So this has no impact on Sausalito's general fund or Sausalito's budget. It's grant funding being requested from the county. So, but I will happily... return with additional information. I will advise folks that I am also supporting requests from Um, Sybil Boutelier that I support a request for grant funding from the county. This is And so this is a letter of support for age friendly Sausalito's grant application to the Marin County Board. So I will be transmitting that letter tomorrow and I will share that on consent as well. I'm not required to share these letters. It's just I want to be totally transparent in what in the correspondence that I'm sending out. |
| 00:47:45.25 | Ian Sobieski | Should we attach that then to the agenda for the next agenda, whatever the grant application is for the county of Marin for Sausalito Center for the Arts, along with your letter? Would that be... How would we do that on the matters? Maybe it's just a... Mayor's announcements. Here's the letter along with the grant. that we submitted. |
| 00:48:06.01 | Steven Woodside | No, I'm happy to put it on consent. Oh, that's fine. Okay, thank you. But we didn't submit the grant. It's important. We did not submit the grant. No, I understand that. Yeah, each of these organizations is submitting the grant. They're simply asking for a public official to support their request for grant funding. Understood. But this is a- As enunciated in the letter, it does not, it will support three separate projects. And I know that SCA requested the maximum amount for each of those. |
| 00:48:12.03 | Melissa Blaustein | We- |
| 00:48:13.50 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:48:13.52 | Melissa Blaustein | No, I understand that. |
| 00:48:15.07 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:48:15.09 | Melissa Blaustein | organization. |
| 00:48:15.76 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:48:35.20 | Steven Woodside | three projects. I just don't have the paperwork in front of me right now to tell you what that was. |
| 00:48:39.73 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you for that. |
| 00:48:40.64 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, happy to do it. and I'll provide as much information as I can regarding the, um, Age-Friendly Sausalito grant application as well. when that comes on consent. at our next meeting. |
| 00:48:57.97 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, I think it's the issue. I think with SCA is it's in a different category than age friendly because we the city supports Sauselio for a senior center of the arts. monetarily. |
| 00:49:07.05 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:49:08.36 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:49:08.38 | Steven Woodside | So if I'm recalling correctly, the amount requested for each of the three programs for um, from by SCA, I'll tell you what the three programs were, was $50,000 for each of the three programs. So, and those three programs were Hold on a second. Here we go. It was for Marin Open Studios, for an expanded Sausalito Village program showcasing artistic contributions of Southern Marin's senior community, and for an outreach partnership with West Marin's six historical societies. So those are the three programs, and they are enunciated in paragraph two of the letter. And the amount requested was $50,000 for each. |
| 00:49:56.22 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 00:49:59.75 | Steven Woodside | Okay. With that, I'm going to move on to the consent calendar. I'm going to pull item 3G so that I can ask a couple of questions of the city attorney and the Assistant City Manager. But so and we and I've asked that we not hear item 3F tonight. So I'll seek a motion. approving items 3a through 3e and 3h through 3i. |
| 00:50:29.57 | John Flavin | so moved. |
| 00:50:32.52 | Steven Woodside | Second, city clerk call roll. |
| 00:50:38.00 | Walfred Solorzano | Council member Blalstein? Yes. Council member Hoffman? Yes. Council member Savieski? Yes. Vice Mayor Woodside? |
| 00:50:39.40 | Steven Woodside | Yes. Yes. |
| 00:50:45.18 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:50:45.23 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 00:50:46.04 | Walfred Solorzano | Mercock. |
| 00:50:46.68 | Steven Woodside | Yes. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and dispatch item three. So, Assistant City Manager, will you place item 3F on our next agenda with the information requested? |
| 00:51:01.56 | Steven Woodside | Yes, okay. And then Assistant City Manager and City Attorney, I wanna address the questions raised by a member of the public regarding item three, it is. regarding item 3G AND I THINK THAT'S A has the appeal period passed, uh, from the planning commission, um, decision regarding 87 San Carlos Avenue. |
| 00:51:27.73 | Brandon Phipps | Thank you for the question, Mayor. This decision was made by the Planning Commission on July 23rd. So the answer is yes, the appeal period has passed. |
| 00:51:37.13 | Steven Woodside | And did you receive any appeals of the Planning Commission decision? |
| 00:51:41.89 | Brandon Phipps | No, we did not. In the case that we did receive an appeal, unfortunately this item would not be able to go before council this evening. |
| 00:51:50.80 | Steven Woodside | Okay, so then unless there are any other questions, I'll ask for a motion approving item 3G. |
| 00:51:58.19 | Jill Hoffman | So moved. |
| 00:52:00.05 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:52:00.08 | Melissa Blaustein | Second. |
| 00:52:01.28 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:52:01.30 | Melissa Blaustein | City Clerk Call Roll. |
| 00:52:03.37 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilman Blossom? Yes. Councilman Hoffman? |
| 00:52:04.59 | Melissa Blaustein | Yes. Yes. |
| 00:52:07.74 | Walfred Solorzano | Council member Sobieski? Yes. Vice Mayor Woodside? Yes. Mayor Cox? |
| 00:52:12.39 | Steven Woodside | Yes, okay that motion carries unanimously with that we will move on to business items. The first business item is item five a review and discussion of zoning land use development standards and code compliance within and around the bridgeway Marina, including Dunphy park. I'll welcome Brandon Phipps our assistant city manager and i'll start off with a question. Did we... notify Cameron Rosabi that we would be hearing this item this evening. |
| 00:52:39.52 | Brandon Phipps | I personally did not notice Mr. Razzavi. |
| 00:52:43.35 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:52:43.37 | Ian Sobieski | Mayor, can I, can we open the windows? It's really stuffy and hot up here. It's pretty worn in here. |
| 00:52:47.00 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:52:47.03 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, it's pretty worn in. |
| 00:52:48.06 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:52:48.87 | Ian Sobieski | Like, open all the windows. And do you mind, may I turn this fan on over here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And astonished me, I polled the vice mayor. |
| 00:53:00.46 | Steven Woodside | Did we have any discussions with Mr. Rozavi in preparation of this staff report? |
| 00:53:07.14 | Brandon Phipps | I would ask what you mean by we, Mayor. |
| 00:53:10.01 | Steven Woodside | Did any member of city staff have any discussions with Mr because he's been requesting that we bring this that we consider this item for nearly a year. So And I apologize for not thinking to ask this question sooner. Thank you. |
| 00:53:27.53 | Chris Zapata | Mayor, counsel, that's my problem, my fault. |
| 00:53:34.11 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, we closed them earlier because it's so windy outside. |
| 00:53:37.81 | Chris Zapata | I thought this was a general discussion about all things around the midtown of Sausalito and not specifically directed at any particular property owner or property. So my apologies. I will make sure that as this transfers forward that we will notify all of the people that have a stake in that part of Sausalito, including Mr. Toe, the Cruising Club, Galilee Harbor, the Joinery, all of these people. |
| 00:54:08.18 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, I think it's really important as we And I don't know that we'll be making decisions tonight, perhaps giving direction. But I really do. You know, when we talk about something on Gate 5, I would like us to notify Heath and Anchorage Cafe and the stakeholders on Gate 5. So when we do the sea level rise presentation coming up, City Manager, I'd love us to notify... the, you know, the folks along Bridgeway as well as the folks along Gate 5 having this presentation. And the same thing when we consider Um, the Marine ship, I'd like to make sure we include the Marine ship property owners this area, as you said, This is something he has been asking. He's been reaching out to me and to others. And so I feel very embarrassed that I didn't notify him that we were hearing this tonight. And I want to make sure that we include him in future discussions. you |
| 00:55:04.04 | Chris Zapata | Duly noted. |
| 00:55:05.05 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:55:05.61 | Brandon Phipps | Yeah, I think your instinct is correct, Mayor, but I will agree that the scope of this discussion is fairly large. So based on direction or discussion from Council this evening, I think a follow-on with Mr. Razavi is absolutely necessary. Agreed. Thank you so much. And if we could put up the PowerPoint presentation. and I'll just get started. Good evening. Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council members, members of the public, happy to be here for the city's first meeting in nearly one month. And I'll just say the chamber looks excellent. I am joining you this evening to introduce 5A, as stated by the mayor, an opportunity to review and discuss the current status of a number of items around Dunphy Park. Park in the Bridgeway Arena area and to hear both the public and Council's feedback and discussion following the staff presentation. I'm just going to start by saying this is a complicated but extremely important area of our city, and I'm going to be attempting to provide and describe some of the primary puzzle pieces that contribute to both this complexity and importance in hopes of follow-on council discussion. Next slide, please. Stay there, please. This presentation is broken into six primary sections, starting with identifying this presentation and discussions alignment with city stated goals and objectives, hold them move to a high level area overview from a land use and zoning perspective, talk about active and potential capital projects identified within the area, provide an enforcement and compliance overview of the Bridgeway Marina, and finish off with sustainability and sea level rise related content and findings informed by the city's shoreline adaptation plan. Next slide, please. Regarding alignment with city goals, based on current activities occurring in the area and depending on discussion and direction provided by council, this item complements a number of previously identified goals in the general plan. Thank you. 2026 strategic plan, as well as the most recent strategic planning council retreat, which occurred in January of this year, identified goals primarily relate to infrastructure, climate change, and sustainability, as well as placemaking efforts, which engender fiscal resiliency utilizing comprehensive planning approaches. Next slide, please. As related to zoning, this area contains parcels with varying zoning designations, as summarized on the left side of the screen, with the most prominent designations being public park, shown in green here. Commercial waterfront shown in purple here and our waterfront zone shown in light blue. To summarize the purpose of each district, Public Parks District assists in ensuring conservation and protection of existing and future public parks. The commercial waterfront district assists in protecting the city's waterfront area while promoting uses that benefit and need a waterfront location and the waterfront district assists in protecting the waterfront area while promoting marine oriented uses, which will benefit from and also need a waterfront location. Next slide please. This area also contains two housing element opportunity sites, as shown here, Site 47 and Site 301. And two additional opportunity sites are shown within the immediate area, Site 44 and Site 39, as indicated with the different color stars on this map. Following the successful rezoning of these sites, as they are currently impacted by Ordinance 1022, Opportunity site 47 will be rezoned from Commercial Waterfront to Mixed Use 29. And opportunity site 301 will be rezoned from Commercial Waterfront to H29. Thank you. These new zoning classifications will allow for housing to be developed on each site with a density of up to 29 units per acre, as stated in the city's adopted housing element. Regarding the question mark in the table on the top right of the slide, the housing element opportunity site to be rezoned, that is a 301, is approximately 0.71 acres. However, the total area of each of the parcels that make up the totality exceeds 8.5 acres. So that's the reason why that is left blank. Next slide, please. Here's a summary of the development standards that apply to the predominant zoning districts, including the housing element designations. These standards are further detailed in section 10.24 and 10.20 of our municipal code and are further detailed in our housing element, as well as policy docs approved by the city on May 27 of this year. Next slide, please. The area also contains numerous city-owned properties, 11, to be exact, which are summarized on the table and map you see here. Yep. As you can see, the majority of city on property in this area is zoned for public parks with two additional sites having commercial waterfront designation. One site having an open area designation. That's the one in the water and one site, the city hall site outside of the area on the bottom left, having a designation of public institutional. Next slide, please. In addition to city owned property, Although technically considered rights of ways, the city also has control over certain state grant tidelands within and around the area which were conveyed to the city in 1957. They were shown as the orangish color on the map provided and these lands have specific use requirements associated with them, which predominantly support maritime and weatherfront uses as well as public access and public facilities and parks. These properties carry with them certain restrictions. For example, the city may not lease these properties for a period longer than 50 years in a given lease and sitting outside these properties. Next slide, please. The city has also ideated the conveyance of privately owned water based parcels of via a letter of intent between the virtual Marina Corporation in the city, which was approved by members of the city council in September of 2020. The purpose of the LRI at the time was to allow the virtual Marina Corporation to negotiate an agreement for the sale of two parcels to the city, in addition to applying a development restriction, to four additional submerged parcels in the area in exchange for the opportunity to expand and improve the existing 32-berth-marillion facility, including new docks and upgrades to utility and lighting. The parcels in question are all currently owned by the Troye Marina Corporation and are bordered in the thick black, as you see here. And I think that the parcels that I mentioned are kind of indicated here that the city parcels will be the two parcels transferred over to the city. The retired parcels would be those undeveloped and the Marina parcels would be the parcels improved and expanded. Next slide, please. There's a site plan of the Barena expansion that was considered previously. Now, it's hard to read, but the northernmost parcels with the red hatch marks are described as dedicated open water. Again, those would be the city parcels that would be transferred to the city and untouched. This aligns with, yeah, that transfer. Unfortunately, the property owner requested changes to the LOI in early 2023, which stalled or contributed to the stalled development in this area. Next slide, please. There are also a number of active capital projects planned and being implemented in this area, however, which are summarized here and include Dunphy Park phase two improvements, street improvements such as the bridge wall paving project between Napa and Johnson and the addition of EV charging stations at Dunphy Park. Next slide, please. These photos show current site conditions at Dunphy on the left and a high-level site plan for the Dunphy Park Phase 2 improvements on the right. Next slide, please. Here are some additional photos of projects within the area. At the top and bottom right, you'll see photos of the Napa to Johnson Bridgeway project improvements. The area associated with the Locust Street resurfacing is also shown, and the Humboldt walkway dock connection. Next slide, please. So a number of capital projects are also planned for this area as potential future projects, which are summarized here, including the Humboldt Street Dock and Piers, which may come to you in the near term for review as Citi is currently drafting an RFP to solicit for this potential project to a public solicitation. So we'll come back with more information for you on that The expansion of recreational uses at Dunphy Bark and the volleyball courts are also being considered, as well as circulatory improvements at the Napa and Bridgeway intersection. Certain projects on the list, such as the Trinity Street boat ramp replacement, have already made significant progress towards implementation, which I'm happy to share. Next slide, please. example. Recently, $174,000 by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to assist in the planning for a safe, resilient and accessible redesign of Turney Street boat ramp to allow for continued motorized and non-motorized boat access. The amount provided will cover the planning portion of the redesign, cover the cost of community engagement, as well as the cost of presentations before city council. The RFP for this project has already been issued. And the city looks forward to awarding this contract sometime in October of this year. So happy to see progress there. Next slide, please. On to code enforcement. With the focus on the Bridgewater in particular, I wanna start with a quick reminder, however, to council that staff are aware of certain code compliance challenges in the area, which we will summarize for you this evening, but because code enforcement related decision making responsibility may come before the council, I recommend that we not dive too deep into a discussion on the code enforcement matters and specifics here. Um, with that being said, this area has a long history of enforcement and there was uncertain, uh, uncertainty in the official records, even as to the compliance of the current Marina operations that are in place. The city has previously observed a general pattern of noncompliance as well, which include the items you see here, including, um, the addition of unpermitted floating docks and other unpermitted improvements around the property. Next slide, please. So to address these issues of noncompliance, it's likely that repairs, upgrade, and planning and building approvals are needed in some form to bring the property into compliance. Although there are no active code cases on this property, staff are interested in really comprehensively documenting the current conditions and any improvements to identify what specific actions are needed to create compliance. Once staff are able to create this comprehensive summary, we will be able to chart a compliance path forward. And I'll just mention we have had specific code compliance issues and complaint forms submitted to our department, but they're all quite piecemealed. They're all quite small and sometimes specific to a specific tenant. That does not allow us to take a comprehensive view, which I think is a step, the next step that staff is ideating. |
| 01:06:32.77 | Brandon Phipps | So please. So here's a code enforcement timeline associated with the property. we go all the way back to the 1960s where ACUP was issued, There are some concerns related to what was constructed And this process, as mentioned, I won't go into the details of this timeline, but this process, as mentioned, is repeated, and there are continue to be code enforcement compliance opportunities on site. Next slide, please. Okay, on to sustainability. To meet the present and future challenges of sea level rise, the city of Sausalito has embarked on creating a community-informed shoreline adaptation plan that aspires to protect our community from surface and groundwater flooding due to sea level rise. Enhance shoreline recreation, maintain transportation and utility corridors, and to provide continued access for businesses and enhance marshes and beaches with nature-based solutions. |
| 01:07:24.60 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:07:38.05 | Brandon Phipps | As a part of the city's sea level rise adaptation planning, we've selected three scenarios which are reflective of potential future sea level rise realities. And those are shown on this map here. First scenario is a 2050 scenario with 10 inches of sea level rise, no storm surge. Scenario two is a 2050 scenario, 10 inches sea level rise with 3.5 feet of storm surge. In scenario three... the most impactful scenario on our sea level rise conditions will be a 2100 scenario with 37 inches of sea level rise and 3.5 feet of storm surge. So you can see the... of our current world network and above water lands that are impacted by this. And that really helps to highlight some of the importance of these studies and the need for us to respond. They have been evaluated and mapped, as you can see here. Recognizing this, There are also some requirements that the city is moving to the requirement to have adaptation plans created. So we are doing that. Next slide, please. Here's a slide of our existing conditions as we know them today. Next slide, please. So this gets us to our resilient edge discussion. As a part of the city's adaptation planning efforts, we have developed community-informed sea-level rise planning scenarios. I do. will be through scenarios that I mentioned. Now, planning to 2050 with eight feet of sea level rails, The question of resilient edge, that gives us the option of the existing shoreline. We could use the existing shoreline as the resilient edge and in doing so, strong water retention along the shoreline and adapt our floating buildings or potentially expand on the extent to which that area will be will be floating and submerged in the future. Planning to 2100. The most impactful scenario mentioned. The city could consider next slide, please. making bridgeway the resilient edge. In doing so, all buildings on both sides of bridgeway will be moved to the height of bridgeway or adapted to accommodate water through fixed piers or floating lots, thus creating a larger, resilient space for our community to live within. So this is a start, I think, and Katie Val Garcia has worked hard with the community to get this study put together, but it does allow us to understand what options we have what limited options we have, and to pave the road for long term approaches to responding to sea level rise and making our coastline more resilient. With that, next slide, please. I'll say thank you for... letting me address you today. I want to also thank Director McGowan, Katie Thalgocia, our Director of Resiliency and Sustainability, and our Code Enforcement Officer, Justin Gorgermalo, for all of the content that they contributed to this presentation, as is often the case in Sausalito. This was a group effort, and they are all here to answer more specific questions as to each of their elements. Thank you. |
| 01:10:52.56 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. I'm actually going to start off with some questions since I was integrally involved in the negotiation of the LOI with the property owner of, um, of the Bridgeway Marina. You... uh, Brandon, you made mention, um, that the city cannot sell certain properties. You know that, and thank you for this very helpful chart Oh, it's page one, two, three, page four of the staff report. that shows what's owned by the Bridgeway Marina, what's owned by the city and what was proposed to be retired. I wanted to be clear that although those parcels that were to be retired cannot be sold, they can, the property owner could, either the city or Bridgeway Marina or whoever, could obtain credits in the form of monetary value to other municipalities or developers who need to demonstrate that they are you know, retiring certain developable parcels. Part of the letter of intent that was negotiated with Bridgeway Marina was that Um, the city would retire these parcels, but that he could take credit through the city's retirement of those parcels from a developer who needed development credits as part, so he could actually reap monies for the retirement of those parcels. So I wanted that to be clear, that that was a deal point, and that although the city cannot sell them, the city nevertheless or a developer could obtain monetary value for their retirement. And so... We can't sell the property, but we can obtain value for the property rights. So that's one clarification. |
| 01:12:43.91 | Brandon Phipps | Yeah, and thank you, Mayor, for the feedback on that and for your wisdom on being involved in the LOI. I will just make the quick clarification that, yes, we do have state grant title and right-of-ways kind of crisscrossing their way between certain privately and publicly owned properties. |
| 01:13:03.28 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:13:03.90 | Brandon Phipps | Some of the city owned properties in the area Are are. kind of engrossed into the state grand Tideland umbrella. |
| 01:13:12.91 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 01:13:13.18 | Brandon Phipps | Some of the privately owned parcels are not and can be treated and sold as per the desires of the owner. |
| 01:13:16.27 | Steven Woodside | Correct. |
| 01:13:21.49 | Steven Woodside | But the four parcels that are labeled retire are city-owned properties that were going to be retired. |
| 01:13:37.15 | Brandon Phipps | Well... Looking at the map, I'd like to maybe do a follow-on discussion with you, but my data indicates that the parcels to be retired, some of the parcels to be retired are owned by Bridgewater Maroon Incorporation. |
| 01:13:49.28 | Steven Woodside | Agree. Agree. I think two of them are owned by Bridgeway Marina. We were not going to allow them to build, but they were going to get development credits for the retirement of those parcels. So that's why I asked about the five-inch binder, because the five-inch binder has an older version of this map that has... |
| 01:14:08.69 | Unknown | You brought it with us. |
| 01:14:08.96 | Steven Woodside | It's being raised in the air. So it does have some useful older maps that help clarify the current ownership, not the ownership pursuant to the LOI. You also mentioned that the property owner requested changes to the LOI in early 2023. He actually wanted, he actually uh, Um, abandoned the LOI. So he didn't just request changes. He has no interest in moving forward with the LOI. And it really was a letter of an intent. And until memorialized in a development agreement is not enforceable. It's simply a letter of intent. Part of the consideration for that letter of intent was The. um, the, Uh. suspension of code enforcement activities being undertaken by the city. So I'd like you to update your chart, your timeline, because you show from 2016 to 2024 that the city and Bridgeway Marina cooperated to address code violations, I would say, to 2022, but commencing in 2023, that cooperation ceased? And as you mentioned, we have received additional code violation complaints since then. and you've received them from the Nate from the, um, you know, renters and neighbors. I received them from neighboring marinas. And so. I would, would you please update the timeline to reflect that the cooperation really went through 2022. It ceased in 2023 with the withdrawal. of the Letter of Intent |
| 01:15:48.89 | Brandon Phipps | That's a fine wrinkle. And thank you for that clarification. We will make that change, Mayor. |
| 01:15:54.19 | Steven Woodside | I You mentioned the resilient, oh, you also went through in detail the grant funding. Congratulations on the $174,000 in grant funding. However, the staff report mentions Humboldt Street bulkhead twice. It is listed on your slide and in the staff report as a future project being considered. It is mentioned in the staff report as being a component of, of the grant funding that the Humboldt Street Bulkhead Conceptual Design and 65% design is part of the grant funding. Can you update us on the Humboldt Street bulkhead? project. any further than that? I mean, that's just a one line throwaway. |
| 01:16:39.70 | Brandon Phipps | I would defer to our director of public works for additional info on that, and he is present this evening. |
| 01:16:45.98 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:16:46.79 | Steven Woodside | on the show. |
| 01:16:47.02 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:16:47.23 | Steven Woodside | I mean, oh, Oh, I see Katie has... |
| 01:16:49.77 | Brandon Phipps | We also have Katie Founders, yeah. |
| 01:16:51.65 | Steven Woodside | Katie, I saw so much of your good work in this report. So and I'm going to get to you in a minute in terms of a question. or if you want to address this question, please. |
| 01:17:01.47 | Katie Val Garcia | Yeah, I can answer the question to the extent that has to do with the grant. included on the grant application and in the grant agreement, |
| 01:17:09.92 | Unknown | THE END OF |
| 01:17:10.65 | Katie Val Garcia | is the Humboldt Street bulkhead and connecting peers. We have included that in the RFP that is now out to bid. We're not sure if $170,000 and change is going to be able to cover planning of that area. So we have included it in the RFP and are awaiting responses. But according to the grant agreement, we are allowed to include that area. |
| 01:17:44.08 | Steven Woodside | That's such great news because that's been something that's been hanging fire for decades. So I'm pleased to see that we're moving forward. forward to figure out how to address it, even if we can't address it right now. And then, Katie, I saw in the sea level rise and climate resiliency portion of the report, you know, we talked about these three concepts as to where our resilient edge might be. But I wanted you to comment because you and I participate in a sea level rise. Um, group with the county. And so the county And it's sort of like it used to be when we used to talk about RBRA and the city with respect to anchor routes. RBRA said the city is the hare and we are the tortoise. And I feel as though that is the attitude that the county is taking now with Sausalito's sea level rise efforts. That Sausalito is the hare and the county is the tortoise. But nevertheless, there is this real interest in collaborating regarding mitigating and adapting to sea level rise. And so I wanted you to share perhaps a lens from the meetings that we've been attending with various county and other city officials, because, you know, there are other concepts beyond simply designating Bridgeway or, you know, another area as the resilient edge. There are other potential plans to address sea level rise. So can you comment on that at all? And sorry, I'm putting you on the spot with no warning. |
| 01:19:25.75 | Katie Val Garcia | No, no, no, absolutely. I'm more than happy to talk about this. I'll try to summarize it very briefly, but I'm happy to talk in detail. Um, If you need more detail, I should start with a background on SB 272 that was passed, I think, in at the end of 2023. That requires all jurisdictions, coastal and bayside, to have sea level rise adaptation plans in place, approved by BCDC, by 2034. So with the passing of that, the county initiated a countywide planning process for understanding the governance of sea level rise. in Marin County. Um, so the county is in the process of taking that governance process all the way through As part of that, Mayor Cox, you and I have been included in the county's working groups on those meetings, so as BCDC, so of all of the other jurisdictions in Marin. But essentially, you know, with us getting a million dollar grant, and working on our shoreline adaptation plan, we have been a little ahead of the curve As I've said before, our shoreline adaptation plan is set to wrap up by the end of 2025. So indeed, you can probably call us. the hair, it will be long before 20 34. that we are making significant progress on this. Regardless, the houseboat section is obviously outside of the city's jurisdiction, but we have been working closely with the county received a letter of support, to include the houseboat section, of 94965 in Sausalito's plans. But ultimately, you know, a lot of the adaptation will be up to the county because it's not in Sauslitos jurisdiction. But we have involved them in the planning process, involved the houseboats in the planning process. um, and we'll be moving forward through the end of the shoreline adaptation plan. Hopefully that answered your question. |
| 01:21:36.14 | Steven Woodside | It does. I'm going to throw out a hypothetical to you. So, you know, one thing that has long been bandied about is this concept of a seawall, for example. So, And I don't think there's any jurisdiction that believes that that's probably a financially feasible alternative, even though we did see that as part of the presentation when we were discussing the Bridgeway median. We did see that as a potential long-term. plan for at least part of Sausalito. Suppose that the county were to somehow miraculously come up with millions of dollars to fund a seawall that would benefit obviously, you know, various communities, not just Sausalito. Will our sea level adaptation plan be nimble slash flexible enough to incorporate these opportunities for collaboration with regional partners? |
| 01:22:26.53 | Katie Val Garcia | Yes, it's certainly, I mean, we are proposing these resilient edge concepts, whether that resilient edge is a seawall, you know, going... along the current shoreline as Brandon presented, or if that resilient edge, we don't want to call it a sea wall because it's not technical a seawall. is, you know, Bridgeway Um, you know, presenting those different options leaves us the ability to be flexible with the county's governance process and with whatever future adaptation plans, you know, the county could propose us all to work on together. Because as we know, the water does not care which jurisdiction you are on, if you build something to keep it out, move. someplace it's going to affect somewhere else. |
| 01:23:12.85 | Steven Woodside | And my last question for now has to do with scenario three, the 2021 scenario where the, where Bridgeway is the resilient edge. When you bring back to us this report, will you include the stakeholders whose buildings will all be underwater in their current configuration if Bridgeway were to become the resilient edge so that they can participate in our, you know, consideration. of which scenario we endorse and how we best would like to proceed because I think You know, they've, many of them have participated in your community workshops, but I think it would be important that they be notified that the city council will be hearing your your presentation and considering your plan. and have an opportunity to provide feedback that will directly affect them. |
| 01:24:05.71 | Katie Val Garcia | Yes, absolutely. Our final public meeting will be held September 10th, where everybody, property owners, residents, visitors, council members are able to review the draft plan, comment on it, and we'll have up until October 7th. to comment on it. I will. Invite them to the extent that I know them or can deliver a flyer to their mailbox to the community meeting and continue to publish things in Currents about ways to provide public feedback before October 7th. |
| 01:24:44.20 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. I greatly appreciate that. This is, I mean, while very realistic, this is still a shocking slide to review so absolutely all right other questions from council members Yes, Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 01:25:00.48 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. Yeah, I've been also intimately and integrally involved in this. I think I was looking through my notes. I was first appointed to the Bridgeway Marina Subcommittee. or task force back in May of 2015, shortly after I was elected to city council for the first time. So, and I was not, that was not the start of this effort. That was then city manager Adam Pulitzer had been working on this for a while. And I believe it was first purchased maybe by Mr. Rivasi, I believe in 2009 or 2010 from the old boat yard. And so, I know. I know the city had been trying to figure out what to do with it. and And so I began working on it with, I think, Tom Theodorus at the time, and working with Mr. Ravazi about different concepts and how the city could support something moving forward. And so my first question to you is, I don't believe it still remains true that this, even though we call it Bridgeway Marina, it is not and has never been a permitted Marina. Is that true? |
| 01:26:03.81 | Brandon Phipps | So thank you for the question, and thank you for all the time that you've put out on this in the past. I'll say, just to answer the first statement, property was sold in 2009, and it was actually due to some fiscal concerns on the part of a previous owner. Now, |
| 01:26:05.45 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah. It's tremendous. Thank you. |
| 01:26:23.27 | Brandon Phipps | There was a conditional use permit issued in 1960 to rule establish not a marina, but a marine repair operation. with temporary boat repair storage and berths. That. use does have a C-U-P. Out. A conditional use permit for Zax Marina was issued, not Bridgeway Marina, but Zax Marina was issued in 1984. Unfortunately, Some illegal construction on site that we've highlighted in our dig into the record history here was unpermitted, which led the city to revoke the CUP. That was revoked in 1990. So the property sat in an uncompliant state for six years, and then it became more non-compliant after we revoked the CUP, which gets us to kind of the more modern era. The city was trying to partner with the owner to... outline a strategy so as to bring the property back into compliance while accomplishing some of the other waterfront goals of the city. Um, So that is, I think, But in person, where we find ourselves today, the LOI was entered into or drafted in part with that goal in mind. And we kind of reverted back to that former non-compliant status that both you and the mayor have outlined this evening. |
| 01:27:50.97 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, thank you. And so we worked, you did a great job by the way in the summary of putting together sort of all of the concepts that we'd worked on with with mr ravazi over the years of what did he need to make it pencil out for him and what could the city bring to the table and all of the swaps that we worked out over the years right up until um i was on the subcommittee up until i deployed in 2019 for that year and then tom riley i think took my place and worked on it for that year and then right before i came back in september of 2020 that's when They came to the council. And mayor at the time Susan Cleveland Knowles actually signed the LOI I believe. I stepped back into it when Mr. Ravazi wanted to start doing revisions and then Mayor, or well, Councilmember Kelman, Vice Mayor Kelman. And when I was mayor and I worked on it with it, with Mr. Ravazi trying to figure out what it was he wanted, but we couldn't come to consensus. And then, And here we are today. We are at consensus with Mr. Rivasi. That's where we are. At this point, I appreciate all the different a tremendous work in bringing the holistic concepts to us today of sort of the status of the current situation and sort of different, all of the different aspects of looking at this area down here. So, tremendous. Where are we at with with BCDC at this point, the Bay Conservation Area. uh, development corporation, where are we with them? Have they weighed in recently on this project? We had been sort of holding them off and saying, hold on, let us try to work with Mr. Rivasi. I mean, I think even Councilmember Blousey and I were working on this and trying to come up with a concept and for the marina and and what what can we do and what's the solution down there, but I'm you know? anyway in the status from b and we heard him from them lately |
| 01:29:53.96 | Brandon Phipps | Anyway. Yeah, so what I will say is, again, this area is a bit of a puzzle. It's a jigsaw puzzle, unfortunately. It's not a simple puzzle, and this is one of those puzzle pieces. So I will say... one of the things that contributes to that is the efforts that the city has taken on to decrease anchor outs. in Richardson Bay. And, you know, fortunately for the city, Mr. Razavi has been welcoming of Anchor Out's to be made into room boards in his marina. So he's been a bit of an oasis for those former anchor outs and provided them with a place to park their home. And in a way, it is compliant with BCDC's goals for Richardson Bay. So in that way, you know, we're very thankful for the efforts that he's done to complement our efforts there. Ultimately, however, we're hoping to solve that through some kind of attrition or through some kind of turnover or right through some kind of reimagining or development of the area, which would over time incentivize both the city the current labor boards and the property owner to resolve all those issues and to create full blown compliance. |
| 01:31:10.62 | Ian Sobieski | BCDC would be the agency by which we would get into trouble and so would Mr. Ravazzi for his unpermitted marine activities he's |
| 01:31:19.14 | Brandon Phipps | Oh, yes, I think that that is, well, I would say less the city, certainly the property owner, but the city would, at least my position would be, we would want to work collaboratively with our permitting bodies to ensure that everybody's happy with what we're putting forward. So I am aware of a... Thank you. BC DC based kind of informal permit review meeting that occurs between other coastal agencies as well If the city is going to be pushing forward a project if we're going to be proposing something That is a meeting that I would like to attend very early to give them a sense of what we're thinking |
| 01:31:50.17 | Ian Sobieski | Can we have a question? We do that. We do that periodically anyway. In fact, our mayor sits... |
| 01:31:54.07 | Brandon Phipps | for doing it. |
| 01:31:55.56 | Ian Sobieski | as an alternate on that board anyway. I do. |
| 01:31:57.97 | Steven Woodside | I sit actually once a month now at BCDC meetings. Okay. Thank you. And I did mention at a recent meeting Sausalito's investment in adapting and mitigating sea level rise. But the need by B.C.D.C. to revise its shoreline policies since its shoreline will will continually incur, you know, in move. |
| 01:32:02.38 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. for that. |
| 01:32:24.58 | Steven Woodside | deeper inland from current and that they need to adapt their policies to address those changes because buildings that were never under their jurisdiction will at some point become within their jurisdiction. |
| 01:32:38.30 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 01:32:38.32 | Steven Woodside | So. |
| 01:32:38.50 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. I don't think I have any further questions right now, but I might, come up with something. |
| 01:32:42.27 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you, council member. |
| 01:32:43.18 | Ian Sobieski | Vice Mayor. |
| 01:32:44.56 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, first of all, thank you. Thanks, everyone, for putting together really a very comprehensive report. I'd like to start with a few questions about tools or tools. Thank you. options that have been explored or might be explored. You've outlined several, the possible development agreement or some sort of cooperative agreement that could lead to various things. And Mayor, you mentioned the possibility of credits that might be of value to the property owner in exchange for concessions, if you will. Another common device in other contexts, for example, here in Marin County, the first agricultural land trust in the history of the country was created. and some agreements involving the use of land sometimes include a provision that portions might be donated or or otherwise preserved interest for agriculture in exchange for concessions. And I'm wondering, If anyone has ever suggested something along the lines of a maritime land trust concept. you're shaking your head like maybe that's an idea. |
| 01:33:59.71 | Steven Woodside | There have been discussions with landowners regarding that concept, for sure. I don't know that the staff has had a discussion. |
| 01:34:03.22 | Jill Hoffman | OK. |
| 01:34:03.67 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. If I could weigh in. Um, I probably have the most knowledge on every aspect of every parcel and every possible iteration of what could be done with the parcels. And I, we absolutely looked at, What could be done with the parcels of the city owned? And then what could be done with the swaps of You know, what could we, what could we do with the, with the current owner? I don't think we looked at iterations of what could be done in beyond that. But we were very interested in retiring underwater lots for conservation issues, if that's what you're asking. |
| 01:34:43.97 | Jill Hoffman | Well, I'm just saying the mechanism of saying this is permanently in trust for a particular purpose. |
| 01:34:44.90 | Ian Sobieski | mechanism. |
| 01:34:50.08 | Ian Sobieski | We absolutely love it. |
| 01:34:50.26 | Jill Hoffman | not building or not developing in a way that's inconsistent with adapting to sea level rise. That was part of it. |
| 01:34:57.40 | Ian Sobieski | That was part of our, that was absolutely part of our LOI with Mr. Ravazi. And we had two of the lots, I think two were going to be swapped three, two or four were going to be swapped for retiring permanently for open water. |
| 01:35:11.61 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. So, okay, thank you. The other thing, just to go a little bit further on... our adaptation plan. The next week's meeting is at 6 PM, I think, and the public's invited to consider the next sort of pieces of information regarding shoreline adaptation. I think the date was mentioned, but not the time. It's an evening meeting. Is that correct, Katie? |
| 01:35:38.34 | Katie Val Garcia | Yes, it is September 10th at the Sausalito Center for the Arts from 6 to 730. We would welcome everybody. |
| 01:35:47.25 | Jill Hoffman | Great. And my question has to do with, I heard a notion that we're going to have this all wrapped up by the end of 2025. That's this year. That's the goal. of the plan, and I appreciate that. And will it fall ultimately to the Council to make a decision on what I call line drawing? Where is the line going to be drawn from which we, I see Katie nodding. |
| 01:36:16.43 | Katie Val Garcia | Um, Taking her head, maybe. We will be including all of the designs that you have seen tonight. So planning for 2050. planning for 2050 with storm surge and planning for 2100. And we will include all of those conceptual designs, but we will not be asking council to choose to move forward with one of them. The purposes of this plan are to inform future decisions so we know what our options are, what, what is possible along the shoreline, I think then mayor Kelman called it. the art of what is possible. in Sausalito, but we will not be asking council to choose one. We will be asking council to approve the plan, though. |
| 01:37:02.68 | Jill Hoffman | And approving the plan assumes some of those dates and some of the lines in whatever plan comes out of the process. Is that a fair assessment? |
| 01:37:15.61 | Katie Val Garcia | Approving the plan would be help. would guide us to understanding what could be possible in the shoreline if we plan to 2050 or if we plan to 2100. not saying that we need to in those certain areas. but to get us looking forward on things like our capital improvement plan. |
| 01:37:42.32 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Thank you. |
| 01:37:45.65 | Melissa Blaustein | Councilmember Blaustein. Thank you, and thank you very much to all of the members of the departments who put together this very comprehensive presentation. And in fact, I feel like it's four separate presentations in one. So I hope that maybe as part of our direction, we can talk about agendizing conversation on each of these in depth more individually. I have a very different relationship with the Bridgeway Marina, but almost as long standing as Councilmember Hoffman. I actually lived in the Bridgeway Marina. So I am quite familiar with the historical issues, with the code enforcement issues. And also with the property owner, um, With that in mind, you know, I obviously have personal concerns having lived through some of the questions of compliance being brought up, but I do know that the property owner would like to see additional housing potentially at this site. And I also know that there are people who are currently living at this site. There isn't much on here, but I remember very clearly when we heard it at the Council, a commitment to maintaining housing for the people who are currently living in the marina. What is the status of those conversations and how are we protecting the current residents of the marina in light of anything we might do to move forward? |
| 01:39:05.41 | Brandon Phipps | Thank you for the question, council member. particularly important in the context of this being a housing element opportunity site as well as a water-based site that does contain liveaboards. So I will say Cameron has come to staff informally in the past eight months in connection with the housing element rezoning and the density that would be allocated to the site or could be allocated to the site given 1022 and the ballot passing. Some of the actions that we've taken is defining for him some of the bookends associated with the development. I will say, however, that there continue to be some question marks as far as what an ultimate agreement between the property owner and the city would be. partly because there is indication in the housing element that street right-of-ways would be vacated in order to expand the development area of Site 301. And that's further complicated by the fact that 301 is made up of eight parcels, two of which – and two separate property owners. And there is a right-of-way between two of these separate property owners. So that's something that will need to be resolved or at least discussed before we can move forward with confidence here. But as far as the city building in a responsibility to give first right of refusal to existing residents and things like that, I think that that's a bit of a legal discussion, and I would want to connect with our city attorney on that and what the city may be able to condition in connection with a housing approval on that site. |
| 01:40:49.60 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, because that's actually where a number of our lower income residents live and the idea of uprooting all of them while important to build additional housing without a plan for those residents. who many of whom were my neighbors and our friends is quite concerning. |
| 01:41:04.65 | Brandon Phipps | Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And that was part of the reason why through through the city's efforts to create a partnership with Cameron was that we were also going to create a plan to either through attrition or through or through first drug refusal or through creation of additional units to house all the folks that are there. And to address the 10% living board threshold that we come up against with BCDC at times. I'll say that we also ideated a W15 zone for the water-based parcels in that area, which in the housing element doesn't require rezoning, but it does commit the city to continuing to work... towards increasing the liveaboard threshold from 10 to 15%. That's one way that we do that too, council member, I think is increase that liveaboard threshold such that the existing liveaboard's actually do not trigger a non-compliance with that 10%. If we increase it, it becomes automatically more compliant. |
| 01:41:55.23 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, and to the point of BCDC and the requirements there, I know that there are a number of other communities similarly. For example, I've had conversations with Mayor Rivazio of Corte Madera, who's very interested in. seeing more water-based housing, and maybe this is a question for Katie, Phil Garcia, in the context of the sea level rise and resiliency discussions, have we been looking at resilient housing, perhaps using, I mean, there are a lot of experiments in the EU where they're using biomimicry for foundations that actually support the ecosystems. Is that something that we have explored or could explore in the context of this resiliency plan? |
| 01:42:35.12 | Katie Val Garcia | We haven't gone that far into depth into looking into materials. However, I will say out of the community engagement that we have had, We've had extreme interest. And the community has said that they are very comfortable with floating concepts and have encouraged us to include different types of floating concepts to look at examples from the Netherlands, from elsewhere, which is why we have people Dutch company on our team of consultants. that are helping us address this. So that's why you will see things like floating parking lots and floating piers. in the adaptation plan, but it hasn't gone that far. |
| 01:43:18.57 | Melissa Blaustein | And if you could go to slide 21, just a couple of questions just to dig in for the benefit of the public. And obviously, we're always all learning about the threats of sea level rise and what we can and can't do. Can you talk just a little bit in detail about what are and how would the living seawall panels work? And why is that different from just building a seawall? |
| 01:43:39.31 | Katie Val Garcia | Of course. So living seawall panels, they're a relatively new concept. They're being piloted through the Smithsonian Institute and through the Estuarine Ocean Science Center in Tiburon. on the piers in San Francisco. they have been shown at least scientifically to contribute to some sort of wave attenuation, to deflect some of the ferocity of the waves that could come in, while at the same time adding habitat value to what would otherwise be a very low habitat value. opportunity area. So allowing things like oysters or other other mollusks, um, space to anchor and to create better habitat, to increase water quality. |
| 01:44:30.58 | Melissa Blaustein | And is this related to the experiment that we're currently operating out just outside of Dunphy Park with the existing with the oyster beds? |
| 01:44:38.07 | Katie Val Garcia | Yeah, it would be in great connection. I mean, by saying living seawall panels in this... In this plan, we're not saying that we're committing ourselves to living seawall panels. We're saying they could be possible in that area. It's certainly... would be a great complement to the artificial oyster reefs that are outside Denfee Park, yes. |
| 01:44:58.34 | Melissa Blaustein | And they're also one of the more cost effective tactics for mitigating sea level rise as well. Correct. |
| 01:45:04.14 | Katie Val Garcia | Yes. Yeah. In terms of artificial oyster reefs, like we have those in Outside of Dunphy Park, they have been shown to reduce erosion in a relatively cost effective manner. when placed in the right way, when colonized correctly by oysters and other mollusks, to be able to use that, yes, which is why we're including nature-based solutions Also in response to a lot of community engagement, a lot of community interest in nature-based solutions, which we've heard throughout this process. |
| 01:45:31.24 | Melissa Blaustein | engagement, a lot of |
| 01:45:37.86 | Melissa Blaustein | And then this question might be for Brandon, but it also might be for Katie. I know that this is not shown necessarily in our model here, but obviously we're right next to Galilee Harbor. And many of the residents there have asked me specifically about what are we going to do about sea level rise? Can we start practicing in the same way, like with the oyster beds type of project? Have we engaged the residents of Galilee Harbor specifically on this topic? this topic or, um, are, are we posting flyers, for example, for them about the Wednesday, the 10th, um, event? |
| 01:46:09.06 | Katie Val Garcia | Yes, Galilee Harbor has been very included from the beginning of this. I think they were on one of our first community shoreline walks that we had to allow the consultants to come in and ask residents along the shoreline. very specific questions. So Galilee Harbor was also highlighted in our community workshop number two, as, you know, as Mayor Cox said, kind of a hair in this scenario where they have moved forward with raising their peers to accommodate the higher higher waves that they experience and some, and, you know, the associated impacts with sea level rise and are doing things like marsh restoration and the Mono street marsh right there. So they have been a wonderful example of, you know, the art of what's possible in terms of working with the community. and we certainly have involved them. are going to be asking for their input reviewing this plan. Um, come next week and into October. Um, and yeah, and involving all of the residents who are interested there. |
| 01:47:20.32 | Melissa Blaustein | And then if we look at this slide 21, and I'm not disinterested in slide 22, I'm just thinking about what's immediate versus the 2050. Where is the Turney Street Dock? I mean, I kind of can guess, but can you sort of point to where it is? |
| 01:47:37.94 | Melissa Blaustein | Ish. Thank you. Okay, so it's, if you can't see, it's sort of to the left of where the living seawall panel sign is. So when you look at this dream scenario of shoreline as the resilient edge, and we're looking at spending the grant funding for Tourney Street, what are the steps being taken to create it. Is it possible, for example, that the rehab habilitation of tourney street dock could be a pilot example of the steps we take here for shoreline as a resilient edge? |
| 01:48:05.87 | Katie Val Garcia | Yeah, absolutely. We've included in the request for proposals that we have released now for the Turning Street Doc. resilient sea level rise designs to be included, to look at the shoreline adaptation plan, And to to include you know, this notion of what public access looks like into the future. to prioritize motorized and non-motorized boating access. |
| 01:48:30.35 | Melissa Blaustein | And Katie, I also serve on the Transportation Authority Board. And as I shared, there's been a they've also facilitated a larger report on sea level rise, where they indicated that Sausalito was a serious area at threat. Have you coordinated with them or work with them on these efforts? And would we be interested in having them come to the council and present on their findings in the context of this? |
| 01:48:52.75 | Katie Val Garcia | Yes, fantastic question. Yeah, I served on the technical advisory committee for drafting and later getting that plan to TAM's board or Commission. So I'm very familiar with it, Director McGowan and a few public works staff. And I had a presentation directly from TAM. And we have included Um, We have overlapping consultants who are working on the TAM project, who are working on our sea level rise project. So we are very much building off of that. In the vulnerability assessment, which is one portion of the shoreline adaptation plan, we are talking about, you know, roadways as... as a, you know, extremely vulnerable asset being Sasslita's, Bridgeway being Sasslita's main ingress and e- So we are very much building off of that report. using it, but I would, more than welcome TAM or one of their consultants to come to council and explain it to you further. |
| 01:49:53.82 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:49:54.73 | Katie Val Garcia | Great. |
| 01:49:54.97 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. And then I have one more question for Brandon. As we look at the question of zoning as a response to this and what are we going to do with the downtown area, it strikes me that as we're considering sites for development, might we be able to adopt something in our building code that requires specific mitigations for sealant rise or that comp complements the steps we decide to take going forward? THE END OF |
| 01:50:18.22 | Brandon Phipps | I think that's a great recommendation and suggestion. I think, There may be some legality as to what the city can require from a building code perspective without adopting any reach codes, but that very well, Council Member, might be a follow-on step the city can take to ensure that we are able to require those kinds of additional improvements. As far as discretionary ability for folks to commissioners, for example, to issue or put certain conditions of approval on projects, that would depend on the nature of the project. um, So, for example, you know, the ability of commission to condition certain housing projects is limited by state housing policy. However, there are certain projects that the commission can exercise almost complete discretionary review over. |
| 01:51:12.83 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 01:51:12.85 | Steven Woodside | Great. Thank you very much. I just wanna make sure if council member Sobieski |
| 01:51:18.31 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, thank you. I'll try to. We're in Q&A, right? No, I'm still. So I have a question for Katie, actually. uh, Just to level set or context set something for me, looking at your presentation, you're doing shoreline adaptation plan for the whole city, and this is a subset of it, is that? Is that correct? |
| 01:51:39.57 | Katie Val Garcia | That is correct, yes. |
| 01:51:40.86 | Ian Sobieski | And the outcome of this exercise is what? Is it going to be a concept for how to attend to, there'll be a choice of concepts of how to attend to sea level rise? that will inform future projects and even our thinking about the kind of LOI we might reach with the property owner here or other property owners? Is that the thought? |
| 01:52:03.99 | Katie Val Garcia | Yes, I won't speak to exactly what the outcome is of this item, but the outcome of the shoreline adaptation plan is to present the art of what's possible along the shoreline, along Sausalito shoreline. in close concert with the understanding the vulnerability of all of our public infrastructure assets and what that means by 2050, by 2100 and how to potentially implement and the scale of how long implementation is potentially needed to address that. |
| 01:52:38.81 | Ian Sobieski | So your exercise involves, well, first off, the budget, something like a million dollars to do this. Is that right? Or how much is the budget to this shoreline adaptation plan? |
| 01:52:47.94 | Katie Val Garcia | The city received a grant from Cal OES for a million dollars under the. This contract. We are using you know, after uh, After the addition for the Bridgeway from Princess, to Richardson. It's going to be roughly around a little under $600,000. |
| 01:53:12.89 | Ian Sobieski | And the outcome of that Like this is these the final like these three sides I'm looking at here online. that the new shoreline with the living seawall and whatnot. Those are different concepts that are, we have a rendering here, a kind of cartoonish rendering. It looks compelling. And it introduces new technical things I didn't know about, like living seawalls. uh, What else is behind these slides that we're looking at? Is there a level of detail that would inform some thinking about where we might invest short term as well as long term. |
| 01:53:46.96 | Katie Val Garcia | The level of detail behind these is, you know, starts out with a vulnerability assessment to really dive in. in depth onto looking at Um, the different projections of sea level rise, what city assets are in those different projections, whether that's a storm drain, whether that's Bridgeway, whether that's, you know, something, a parking lot, those kinds of things. And then to summarize all of that in a very compelling way, which we can use for funding at future dates as a compelling story Um, of why. this needs to happen. And so that's the vulnerability portion of it when it comes to And we have, this is what you're seeing is probably. about one fourth, one and fifth of the total product of the kind of things that we are presenting, we will be diving into a little bit more in depth and to you know, like what a floating public access peer could look like, or examples of those from around the world that have been successful, and how long implementation takes to do those kinds of things. |
| 01:54:59.90 | Ian Sobieski | Okay. I mean, this is just really fantastic. I mean, as you know, I've been... beating the drum on stuff like this. The outcome of this is not a set of construction drugs, right? You couldn't build any of the things we're looking at. But this is... a great example of what you would call conceptual design, right? You're looking at the vulnerability The issues, the goals. |
| 01:55:17.63 | Katie Val Garcia | Yeah. Yes, this is an example to... A great way of getting the public, getting city council, getting city staff, very comfortable with talking about sea level rise, understanding our vulnerability, figuring out how that fits into the capital improvement project, how that fits into future city spending. and really understanding you know, what could be possible along South Slita shorelines. A lot of people probably have a lot of ideas of what could be possible, but looking at Using engineers on our team. using Dutch. architects who have done this in the Netherlands, really, and using the community feedback that we've heard over the past year and a half. |
| 01:56:06.39 | Ian Sobieski | and I have to. |
| 01:56:07.40 | Katie Val Garcia | Really understanding. What actually is possible And where? |
| 01:56:12.97 | Ian Sobieski | So it's an interaction between lay people in the community and experts. in the field. |
| 01:56:18.52 | Katie Val Garcia | I would say that's a fair assumption. |
| 01:56:18.55 | Ian Sobieski | And with that. Yes. Your goal is sea level rise resilience. Did you have experts or contributors in the thinking about And now the town's functions, because I heard it implied that you're imagining where the floating homes will be, how the parks will be used. So how did you, who are the experts that assessed or played around with different ideas of public parks, where to live, how the roads and circulation operate in addition to seawalls and living panels and that kind of thing? |
| 01:56:49.79 | Katie Val Garcia | Those things have mostly come from our consultant team, like I said, with Councilmember Blaustein's comments. um the the transportation authority of marin who has involved a consultant team, they're called Arup, They're professional transportation, sea level rise, engineers. They've been very involved. to help us, you know, look at specifically the transportation options of using Bridgeway as the Brazilian edge. In addition, we've been using the community feedback thus far from hearing people in community meetings, individual meetings with community groups like the Working Waterfront Coalition, and, you know, trying to vet these ideas and trying to get, like, big ideas like we don't like this or this, we don't believe this will work or, We haven't heard you talking about this to really get the plan to where we would like it to be. to present to the community next week. |
| 01:57:47.85 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you very much. Mira, is this Q&A time and then their discussion? Or how are you doing that? |
| 01:57:53.24 | Steven Woodside | We're going to hear from Councilmember Hoffman, and then we'll hear public comment, and then we'll provide comments. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Kate. |
| 01:57:58.82 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Kate. |
| 01:58:00.26 | Steven Woodside | see anybody in the chambers so it'll just be online commenters councilmember Hoffman |
| 01:58:06.32 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. I just wanted to follow up on a couple of comments that Councilman Blau... Austin made and just to reinforce that the LOI that we signed with Mr. Ravazzi, I believe prior and just to go back to the commitment that we made to the people that are currently that were living at the time in the marina and currently living in The LOI, I believe, has a commitment to rehouse those people Even if they had to be moved while the new marina was being built, they were going to have priority to come back. Isn't that correct? I believe that's in, I don't know, I think it's paragraph 10 of the LOI, but I think that's in there. As well as rent controls. |
| 01:58:42.16 | Melissa Blaustein | AS WELL. |
| 01:58:43.91 | Ian Sobieski | Sure, but I mean, But that was a specific agreement that that was, anyway, that was our commitment that we had. And so I think that's, we would certainly go forward that with any future project that was there. And also, just to reiterate, that's the only marina in, although it's unpermitted, marina in Sausalito that's 100% live aboard. other than Galilee, which is its own specially permitted and actually permitted type of type of facility. the limit for liveaboards in Sausalito officially is just 10%. It's its own special thing. I think that we support it, and we would support it going forward, and certainly interesting concepts that we could employ on how to get there and stay there. for these people should they want to come back, and we would certainly support that. in different ways i think that we could get there so i just wanted to comment on that Okay, that concludes our questions. |
| 01:59:47.97 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, Katie and Brandon. Very much appreciated. Kevin, thank you. I know you've been involved in this effort as well. I'm gonna open it up for public comment on this item. |
| 02:00:00.31 | Brandon Phipps | Thank you, Maryland Council. |
| 02:00:04.22 | Steven Woodside | City Clerk. There's no one in the chambers. |
| 02:00:09.05 | Walfred Solorzano | Pabit Magul |
| 02:00:13.30 | Walfred Solorzano | you |
| 02:00:14.04 | Babette McDougall | Thank you so much for acknowledging me. So, you know, I was wondering how this was all going to play out, and I'm hoping we're going to continue to regard tonight as a dry run since the fellow that owns the place and bought it for 50 cents on the dollar just to keep the city from getting it. This was all supposed to be permanent conservation easement. Where is that conservation easement now in this discussion? My gosh, the seminar we had, the one seminar we got this year turned on the working waterfront. In Marinship, none of those, that overlay that you just saw was not presented. Instead, we saw independent floating parking lots all over the place. Even the harbormasters couldn't ascertain where the shorelines were. And when then we saw separately separate buildings, we didn't see anything. Frankly, what I'm looking at now scares me. Now, really, this is last open shoreline. Sure, we have sea level rise, but this is a park. Anything that intends to diminish the size of our parks, as you seek to expand the population of Sausalito, doesn't that strike you between MLK and Dunphy as sort of, you know, I'm just going to say oxymoronic in a way, because why would you deliberately shortchange the public on where they can go if they cannot afford a yacht club or other expensive way to play on the bay? Why would you deprive them of the right? |
| 02:01:01.18 | Unknown | ME. |
| 02:01:33.05 | Babette McDougall | And I don't understand why diminish our parks. Why cluster them in with buildings? Why take away the open shore, the open access, exactly what defines Sausalito? Why do that? Why put buildings, pepper buildings on the shore? Why? I don't understand you at all. This is the last open shoreline that we have. Why do you want to weld it up? It doesn't make any sense. Yes, there's sea level rise. mitigate that. But we do this sensibly. I just wonder when we're ever going to town hall and have any direct discussions. You've had thousands of people asking you all year to daylight these hot button issues. When do we finally do this? Lots of people have opinions about this area, and you haven't heard a fraction of them. |
| 02:02:17.72 | Walfred Solorzano | Next speaker is Sandra Bushmaker. |
| 02:02:23.59 | Sandra Bushmaker | Welcome Sandra. A couple of things. One, I support the zoning enforcement for this quote, bridgeway, quote, marina, unquote, as well as other areas here in Sausalito. So I want to make sure that that doesn't get lost in all this discussion. but that we do have Zoning enforcement. We just hired a zoning enforcement officer not to too long ago. And I was also happy to hear that Protecting the housing for low-income people was really an important thing and a concern for many of the council members, and I was delighted to hear of the plans to help the tenants in Bridgeway Marina relocate and rehouse during any construction of a new permitted housing. Marina. I am upset. that that concern did not appear on this dais when you modified Ordinance 10.44.1.0. We're... The second floor residence requirement was removed in the downtown commercial district. I don't understand this inconsistency. I don't like it. If we're going to protect low-income housing, let's protect it. Thank you. |
| 02:03:42.74 | Walfred Solorzano | No further public speakers? |
| 02:03:45.20 | Steven Woodside | Great, I will close public comment and bring it back up here for discussion. The request is to receive and file, but also to provide direction as appropriate to augment or redefine the approach. So I would like to encourage staff to meet with Cameron Razavi and understand So I'm going to lead off. So my three minutes are going. All right. Hold on. I'll tell you. I do want to encourage staff to meet with Cameron Razavi and find out whether he has a proposal. If he doesn't have a proposal, then we're going to move forward with whatever we think is the appropriate thing to do in that area with respect to zoning. |
| 02:04:14.44 | Ian Sobieski | So... |
| 02:04:31.88 | Steven Woodside | I endorse the comments of Babette McDougall about not diminishing our parks. We're not looking to remove any open space. We're simply looking to develop the. those areas that have been identified for development. If anyone objects to the extent of the development that we are undertaking as a city, I would recommend they please lobby on our behalf to a bag and HCD, which has assigned an impossible 724 unit RENA number to us that we have to fulfill. Um, The most urgent priority to me is code enforcement. We deliberately put a stay on code enforcement efforts pending the development agreement that was supposed to arise from the letter of intent that was five years ago and things have just gotten worse since then so I really want to encourage our staff to make code enforcement a priority. And I disagree that you have to go out there and do a whole bunch of site inspections before embarking on code enforcement efforts. You can commence code enforcement efforts on a complaint-driven basis while you are undertaking the site inspection that you believe is necessary to fully understand the circumstances out there. But I would say you know, |
| 02:05:55.36 | Babette McDougall | I'm not. |
| 02:05:56.44 | Steven Woodside | there is no incentive to undertake anything. We need to be the squeaky wheel that gets the grease. And right now we are not. So I think we really need to, and really have a code enforcement campaign out there. Any development plan should protect our low-income tenants, their relocation, and the preservation of their rents. And I do absolutely endorse... seeking, continuing to seek, um, permission from BCDC to increase the level of our, the number of our liveaboards. So right now they adopted a measure that allows us to temporarily have 15% in order to reduce our anchor outs, but it's only temporary. We have been lobbying since 2018 to increase our liveaboard amount from 10% to 15%. So I'd like to see us renew those efforts. I'm happy to participate in any way Helpful. Um, helpful. And I'll pass. Who else would like to comment? Yes. Councilmember Hoffman. Councilmember Sobieski, did you want to comment? I want to make sure we Um, I can't keep. |
| 02:07:27.71 | Ian Sobieski | I will, but happy to let Jill, go first. |
| 02:07:32.98 | Ian Sobieski | THE END OF THE END OF THE I, I don't, I don't, let me just admit, let me just follow on your code enforcement statement. I don't believe that we put a stay on code enforcement. I think. what we said, I think of what we did back in, I think it was five years ago or even before that, I think it was before 2020, I think of 2017. I think maybe when Councilmember Blousey might have still been living there, but we brought the fire department out there, and we brought the police department, we brought the city out there, and we did a lot of work to make it safer there and to bring it up in line with what the codes were supposed to be. and worked very hard with the marina operator and with the residents to get it much better and in line and where everybody was comfortable um and that we could um still have a habitable place and safe place for the residents to live that was my enforcement we never officially said there was a stay on code enforcement as i recall let me just my recollection um so let me just make that clear um and uh but i think uh But going forward, I think that we do want to look at more liveaboard opportunities and more combinations of how can we get more and longer liveaboard opportunities at that marina and throughout Sausalito, frankly, with our housing element and our housing opportunities. We have lots and lots. We have 2,000 slips in Sausalito, and most of those slips on any given day are absolutely empty, and they're empty for months at a time. And so if we have different housing opportunities, and different housing methods. For those slips, there's lots of houseboats and houseboat configurations that you could have in the square footage of a slip where boatyard workers could live very comfortably in a studio-sized floating, you know, if they should wish, we should be able to have that opportunity for them to do that. And BCDC, I would hope, would work with us to do that and explore those opportunities. I think in aggregate we should be able to use those in whatever marina wants to do that. Some of our marinas have zero liveaboards because that's what they choose to do. We may be able to work out something with BCDC to have an aggregate across Sausalito. If there's a marina that wants to do that, maybe it's this one, maybe it's another one. Like I said, Galilee is 100% because it is an affordable by design living situation. And so let's move forward. I'm ready. If Mr. Rivasi is not ready, I'm ready to pivot to another type of opportunity for Sausalito. 100% code enforcement is the number one. opportunity and I think that's the number one ask from our director and I say let's go forward that Tomorrow, let's start on that. So thank you. Councilmember Sobieski. |
| 02:10:26.22 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, I would second what Councilmember Hoffman just said. I don't know. eager to move forward with code enforcement along with all the other priorities that Councilmember Blasdine and others had about protecting people. uh, We should move this forward. It's an important thing to resolve, and it's not going to get better with time. And the natural economics mean that the, Even the people there who are paying are probably getting less service than they would for their dollar than they would in a different situation. So we'd be doing everyone a favor by rationalizing that. Um, And kudos to all my colleagues, Jill included, who worked on various versions of plans for that area. And I hope we can resurrect some of them. Uh... and I'm in favor of you know, supportive of trying to move things forward. I do want to take this opportunity to underline something for my colleagues and for the community because The term conceptual design often gets a bad rap. or rather it's thought of as something you dream up in the shower or scribble on the back of a napkin. and that it should be cheap because it's silly stupid. It's stupid simple. You just scribble something. Your concept is this. As you saw from Katie Garcia's work, the conceptual design about what to do with sea level rise and resilience is a million dollar project, $600,000 project. It looks at what are all the various factors to go into the thinking. Before jumping to any answers, it thinks of factors. It thinks of resources. It brings in new technology, and it brings in community input. out of that process, you get couple of very divergent concepts. That exercise that Katie's leading is, involves outside experts. and they cost money and they interact with lay people like us on city council and in the community. But that's exactly the process I've been advocating across all the issues that we have. And I advocate it here too, even in regards to this Bridgeway Marina thing, because If we play checkers, Uh, that's not as good as playing chess. And if we can think a couple moves ahead about the whole region and integrate it, then we're going to get to better answers. So I'm going to proffer something that's a new idea on this very subject, which is Katie Garcia's work has been focused on sea level rise and resilience only. But I feel as though we could add an urban design element to this area where we get concepts and ideas that integrate with her work for how the various stakeholders in this complex tapestry that that Brandon outlined might work together to make something that really works for everyone, that preserves, that outlines our goals, preserves public access to the waterfront, but provides low income housing. gives ample Parking or Comprehend's Parking and Transportation thinks about sea level design. So I feel this is another example of where we could really benefit by spending the money to measure twice before we cut once and actually really think of a design and having us volunteers do it from the dais. or even a couple volunteers in the community isn't the same thing as spending money. So I would advocate that in this case for this marina is that we do a conceptual design exercise in that area. |
| 02:14:00.55 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, council member. Vice Mayor. |
| 02:14:04.04 | Jill Hoffman | I think as we think of what the work that Katie's done, whether we call it conceptual design, it's leading to alternatives. At this point, Um, a We need to think beyond what's gonna come by the end of this year, and I think there needs to be a sense of urgency. Sea level rise in my lifetime has taken down cliffs, destroyed homes, intruded in places right around here in the Bay Area, in the Monterey Bay, in the North Coast, and this is just in my lifetime. And we want to really take the good, great work And really conceptualize, to use a word that Ian has just used, what are the real alternatives? What are the realistic alternatives? And be ready to move more quickly than perhaps local government has been able to move in the past. Why? Because of lack of staff, lack of resources. But we're going to have to move because if we don't start making some decisions that are long-term, We're going to be behind the eight ball, literally underwater when the time comes. So where I'm coming from, I just want to encourage us to keep up this good work and come up with the concepts, the ideas that we think have a chance so that we can make a well-informed decision and actually make that decision sooner than later. Thank you. |
| 02:15:30.95 | Steven Woodside | THE CITY IS A CITY IS A CITY like. |
| 02:15:36.18 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. Council Member Blaustein. Thank you. And thank you again to staff for this impressive and comprehensive presentation. I would say that I'd like to direct staff if the council would. allow for there to be ongoing for additional more specific presentations on each of the topics mentioned here, because I think that we have quite a bit more to discuss, whether that's on the zoning overview in summary or capital projects where I do think we have more room for conversation we we didn't really touch on dumpy phase two and i think we need to deep dive on that as a council but also the issues of code enforcement outside the realm of just bridgeway marina important and of course sustainability and resiliency but i'll just dive into the ones that we did really touch on together bridgeway marina as i said it's a place that is very dear to my heart having lived there and for me it's very critical that whatever we do we absolutely prioritize housing and protecting those residents and doing whatever we can in the context of these discussions with the property owner to make sure that that is memorialized as it was in the prior loi and as we all voted for here from the dais i definitely support Council member Sobieski's conceptual design exercise for Bridgeway Marina. I think that there is a lot of opportunity to envision something that both suits our community and allows us to experiment with new approaches to sea level rise and also to create something that is really exciting for this area specifically. And to the point of housing, I absolutely reinforce what my colleagues have said about asking for more housing, more than the 10% up to the 15%. But beyond that, I would say it's really time that we collaboratively, both Saucido, Corte Madera, other communities on the waterfront, start to think bigger picture about a stronger approach for waterfront housing and how can we adapt ideas around biomimicry and around new approaches to living seawalls in the things that we build and create. And why wouldn't we rather embrace opportunities for housing on the waterfront to be a way to both mitigate sea level rise and mitigate climate change and help us move forward in a more resilient manner? So I would hope that we could have a conversation about that as well. And then on sea level rise, there's quite a bit to say here, but I just want to make sure a couple of points are considered and that staff is aware of them. Turning doc to me is an excellent opportunity for us to demonstrate what is possible. And I think we should really see that as a pilot going forward for the rest of that area, since we're already working on it. Continuing conversations with Galilee Harbor and using Galilee Harbor as a partner and example and a pilot as well for the work around sea level rise. Partnering with Tam, who's already doing a number of amazing measures around sea level rise and transportation. And then I would love to see us work with CDD to really explore what reach codes can we modify and what sea level rise overlays can we require as our own tactical measure to start taking steps within our city code even to demonstrate that we're mitigating sea level rise. |
| 02:18:44.86 | Steven Woodside | Thank you everyone for your comments. I wanna ask staff, would it be helpful for you, Assistant City Manager, for me to appoint, you know, we did have a Bridgeway Marina, Committee. Um, we, that committee disbanded when the LOI was abandoned so that we could bring it back here for discussion. Would it be helpful for you, to you, for me to reconstitute that committee to work with you In continuing to move forward the dialogue with Bridgeway Marina. |
| 02:19:15.96 | Brandon Phipps | Thank you for the question and the offer, Mayor. I think that that would in part go back to what goals council has and what kind of tenor council would like staff to approach this. Of course, it is to staff's benefit in general to have a working group assigned for a project when council wishes that the item be treated in a bit of a nimble fashion. So based on the priority that I'm hearing this evening, and also the depth and complexity associated with the item to have a smaller group to be able to touch base with on a more timely basis outside of council meetings would be helpful. |
| 02:19:53.66 | Steven Woodside | Okay, I will do that this evening. Thank you. All right. And do you have everything you need from us? You got the direction that you needed from us this evening? |
| 02:20:01.10 | Ian Sobieski | you |
| 02:20:03.82 | Steven Woodside | Okay, I got it. |
| 02:20:04.47 | Ian Sobieski | So, Mayor, I would like to underscore because I think I heard at least three affirmations for this direction to have a conceptual design planning exercise that might even cost some money. uh, I don't know how you want to handle it. I can make a motion that that's a direction and that we have an RFI or RFP for that kind of work or that we should issue such a thing. Or so. Maybe I'll make that motion, just that we have an RFP for the area to do a conceptual design exercise. and staff can write it to suit their purposes, but that will help your working group and would add resources to the problem. |
| 02:20:47.86 | Ian Sobieski | Wouldn't that have to be agendized on a future? Yeah, I think that... |
| 02:20:50.78 | Ian Sobieski | It's direction to staff. |
| 02:20:50.80 | Ian Sobieski | I mean, Thank you. |
| 02:20:53.76 | Steven Woodside | Well, I think staff should come back to us with a proposal and the cost so that we can, because it's not within our budget. |
| 02:21:00.99 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, they have to come back. Direct staff to come back with a potential RFP for conceptual design exercise. |
| 02:21:04.40 | Steven Woodside | for conceptual Assistant City Manager, are you clear on that direction to come back to? Okay, I'm getting a thumbs up. So he's clear on that direction. |
| 02:21:11.79 | Ian Sobieski | Okay, great. Thanks. Thank you very much. |
| 02:21:15.08 | Steven Woodside | All right, so that concludes this item. Um, hold on. |
| 02:21:19.03 | Ian Sobieski | And and Mary I'm out of esteem so I apologize to my colleagues. |
| 02:21:19.90 | Steven Woodside | like. |
| 02:21:20.27 | Ian Sobieski | Bye. |
| 02:21:22.11 | Steven Woodside | THE END OF |
| 02:21:22.43 | Ian Sobieski | I mean, I'm not sure. Thank you. |
| 02:21:23.03 | Steven Woodside | I think the offense is going to |
| 02:21:23.60 | Ian Sobieski | What? |
| 02:21:23.72 | Steven Woodside | one thing on this item. |
| 02:21:24.48 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, let's let's. |
| 02:21:24.65 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:21:24.66 | Steven Woodside | THE END OF |
| 02:21:26.22 | Ian Sobieski | Let's be clear on that. So the council hasn't decided that that's the, I don't think, So I think the direction might be that we've given some direction to staff. The direction is do code enforcement, right? We're going to figure out what the condition of this facility is in. I think we've given direction to our our director to engage with Mr. Ravazi. Is he still interested in executing the current LOI that's been You know, what does he want to do? That's a yes or a thumbs up or thumbs down. you know, that would give us, you know, direction of what we're going to do going forward with that area with a certain amount of space in that area. And then I assume we're going to get a response or an update from our director on that. And then And then we can engage and think about what we want to do from there. And I think that's an update. And to Councilmember Sobieski's point, then it's, a conceptual design or whether or not We want to come back, right, and engage and further conceptual design with that area. But I think I'm not entirely, are we ready to have staff come back with an RFP? I don't know. If we're ready for that step yet. I mean, I think we're ready to discuss that. But I don't know if we're ready if we have all the information. you |
| 02:22:53.04 | Steven Woodside | That's... |
| 02:22:53.26 | Ian Sobieski | So, |
| 02:22:53.31 | Steven Woodside | What I'm asking is that it be brought back to us for discussion. |
| 02:22:55.70 | Ian Sobieski | Oh, that's fine. Sure. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I just want staff to be clear, and I want to be able to. |
| 02:22:58.00 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:22:58.03 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:22:58.17 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:22:59.94 | Ian Sobieski | My motion is that staff is directed to return to a future city council meeting with the form of an RFP for a conceptual design effort that comprehends. |
| 02:23:00.85 | Ian Sobieski | We're all good. |
| 02:23:09.71 | Ian Sobieski | the Bridgeway Marina in the context of the nearby area and city goals. |
| 02:23:15.02 | Ian Sobieski | So that's my point. I don't think we're- |
| 02:23:16.41 | Ian Sobieski | That's my motion. It's just direction. |
| 02:23:19.87 | Ian Sobieski | It's just directly. |
| 02:23:21.62 | Ian Sobieski | Second. |
| 02:23:23.26 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:23:23.28 | Melissa Blaustein | Please call roll. |
| 02:23:26.91 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilman Blossy? Thank you. |
| 02:23:28.00 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 02:23:28.02 | Ian Sobieski | Yes. |
| 02:23:28.31 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman? |
| 02:23:30.52 | Ian Sobieski | No. |
| 02:23:31.82 | Walfred Solorzano | Council member Sabieski? Yes. Vice mayor Woodside? |
| 02:23:36.03 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 02:23:36.24 | Walfred Solorzano | and Mary Cox. |
| 02:23:38.21 | Steven Woodside | I'm saying no just because I prefer the sequencing that, I don't think it's an immediate thing. I think we need to engage in more discussion with Mr. Razavi before we start master planning the area around him. So for that reason, I'm going to say no, just as in terms of the timing, although I favor the approach. |
| 02:23:56.88 | Ian Sobieski | I agree. That's why I'm a no as well. Thank you. |
| 02:24:00.98 | Steven Woodside | Okay, that motion carries three, two. All right, with that, we're gonna move on. |
| 02:24:08.08 | Ian Sobieski | And I apologize, but I am. Not going to have the steam to make it through the rest of the agenda, so I |
| 02:24:14.61 | Steven Woodside | That's okay. Thank you so much. |
| 02:24:15.52 | Ian Sobieski | I wish you all good health. |
| 02:24:16.45 | Steven Woodside | Good health. We appreciate your participation. |
| 02:24:19.13 | Ian Sobieski | I hope I'll be well enough to see a lot of primaries. |
| 02:24:20.48 | Steven Woodside | I hope we see you Friday morning. |
| 02:24:22.14 | Ian Sobieski | I hope I'll be able to make it by then. I hope I'll recover. So thanks everybody. Good night. |
| 02:24:26.49 | Steven Woodside | All right, we're going to move on to business items sit five B consider whether to transmit letter agreeing to remove opposition to SB 79 if author will add exemption for 12 California historic districts, I wanted to. share. with the council A correspondence that I received from Nancy Hall Bennett today. AND I THINK THAT'S A that indicates that Under the revised version of SB 79, the most recent amendment, that Tier 3 is pulled out, and therefore the bill will not apply to Sausalito as of the most current amendment. |
| 02:25:05.27 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, Mayor, I was going to do that as part of my executive, North Bay Executive Committee update, so I could probably give a good answer. |
| 02:25:10.87 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, why don't you do that here since it's on our agenda? Because I'm actually proposing that we pull this, that we take no action on this. |
| 02:25:18.04 | Ian Sobieski | That's what. |
| 02:25:18.53 | Steven Woodside | That's what I was, yeah. |
| 02:25:19.39 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, so so we met last week on Wednesday, the North Bay Executive Committee met with our electeds and there was a committee of I think nine of us started the day off and so it was none of the electeds across I think three counties met with our elected officials. We met with the Senate President Pro Tem Senator McGuire, as well as the Senate Majority Leader Aguiar Curry and Assemblymember Chris Rogers and our Assemblymember Damon Connolly. And let's see, I met Chris, yeah, I got Chris Roberts and Lori Wilson. And so top of mind was SB 79, and we also talked about some other things, the cap and trade with regard to carbon offsets and other things, but SB79 was top of mind. We met with all of them all day, one after the other. And so at the end of the day, I got a call that night that there was movement in the committees and that likely the next day in the vote of the full assembly that it was likely that are our efforts and talking to our assembly members and our, and, and the other and our state senators was going to be effective and that tier three was likely to be removed as was historic designated areas and i think high fire areas was going to be removed from the bill as it exists right now and i just looked at the bill online and it is in print and so since it's in print um that is the recommendation from cal cities that's my recommendation as well that we remove uh that we take no action tonight and that we remove it from our agenda so |
| 02:27:11.43 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:27:11.90 | Ian Sobieski | Agreed. |
| 02:27:12.47 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. I'll entertain a motion unless any. Well, I'll open this item up to public comment. |
| 02:27:18.75 | Walfred Solorzano | We have Sandra Bushmaker. |
| 02:27:19.34 | Sandra Bushmaker | Yeah. |
| 02:27:24.02 | Sandra Bushmaker | Hi again. I'm really happy to see that you're not going to be taking any action because I think it's really, really important that your opposition letter stay in effect. I see that Amy Kalish and Susan Kirsch sent some really important letters to this council to you. containing some really important measures why this is important for the whole state. to try to defeat this bill. Uh, They outline some really important issues. I sent you a video link. a 90 second video link think it's important that we continue our opposition and take no action tonight so i i'm in favor of the direction that you're going. Thank you. City clerk. |
| 02:28:13.26 | Walfred Solorzano | I have a bit more to run. |
| 02:28:17.66 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. I guess Sandra and I are the only ones hitting today. All right, so listen, I would just like to add that I'm really glad that you're not going to take any action. I hope that is the resolve of this group for now. This is such a huge issue. It's a big lift. We can't just shortchange the discussion. People have been asking all year, for public meetings on hot button issues. And believe it or not, the plurality of people would like to have these public meetings convened right there in the council chambers. Ed Ayers was the first one to say it. He said, you know, we already have a people's hall for Sausalito. It's called the chambers, the council chambers. That is the public hall. You heard someone at a recent meeting say, hey, if we have to go to the ID test hall, whatever it takes, that's when you wanted to reduce everything, the roads to eight feet. Remember? Remember that? I mean, that really brought the citizens out. I'm asking you to please work with the citizens. Please just know that you have to go slowly and engage the citizens. Now, I know you've done it over the years, but now we're in 2025 and a whole contingent of people have come forward that you, by your own admission, had never even seen before. You said that in January when the chambers were full then. So please think about what the citizens, meaning the voters, the residents, What we really want to, it's not just about the Keqing. It really isn't about Keqing. Thank you. City clerk. |
| 02:29:48.85 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:29:50.02 | Walfred Solorzano | No further public comment? |
| 02:29:51.55 | Steven Woodside | All right, I'm gonna close public comment. I'm gonna move that we remove that we take no action on item 5b this evening and that we do not read We, We do not include it in future agendas. |
| 02:30:07.87 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:30:07.91 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:30:08.02 | Walfred Solorzano | second. |
| 02:30:09.69 | Steven Woodside | city clerk |
| 02:30:10.49 | Walfred Solorzano | Council Member Blasting. |
| 02:30:12.61 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 02:30:12.97 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:30:13.52 | Walfred Solorzano | Can I remember Hoppin'? |
| 02:30:15.57 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 02:30:16.44 | Walfred Solorzano | Council Member Sobieski absent. Vice Mayor Woodside? Yes. And Mayor Cox? |
| 02:30:23.28 | Steven Woodside | Yes, that motion carries unanimously. We'll move on now to city manager and we'll move on to city manager reports, council member reports, city council appointments and other council business. 6A is city manager information for council. |
| 02:30:40.75 | Chris Zapata | I have a brief report for you, Mayor. Council members of the public attached to the staff agenda is a report on our street paving program for this coming year and historical information on the past 10 years. This morning I received a phone call or a message from Council Member Hoffman that asked to be why Spring and Easterby streets were left off. And the answer was they shouldn't have been. They are included in the program. Apologize for leaving them out. But the bottom line bottom line is you can see that Saucer has had a hit and miss relationship with its streets, some of it exacerbated by COVID, some of it with, you know, different approaches to which streets get done. But this year you've aggressively funded capital projects, including streets. Just this past week, I signed a $1.8 million contract for work that begins on Bridgeway from Napa to Johnson. And then there's also the program that is attached in the staff report. So again, apologies for the leave out of spring and used to be streets. They are in the program. I'd like to thank Vice Mayor Woodside for asking me to include this. But I really thought it was important to take a look back as we look forward. Thank you. |
| 02:31:54.07 | Steven Woodside | City Manager, since you published this report last week, we've received correspondence addressed to the City Council from various members of the community asking regarding their streets. Can you address how we will address those requests that have come in since we passed our street paving program? |
| 02:32:11.77 | Chris Zapata | Absolutely, and that is a council prerogative. We have brought before you our street pavement index, which shows which streets, a 10-year or a 5-year street improvement plan, which I allow streets, and that's really the right time to look at what you want to do with the money you have. But if the city council deems certain streets as being desirable to include in the program. You absolutely can ask us to bring something back, and we're happy to do that. Look for the allocation of funds, and it may not be included in this cycle because we're already deep into it, but it could inform future year street programs, which are upcoming their annuals. |
| 02:32:54.17 | Steven Woodside | Okay, I guess what I will do is forward those communications that I've received to you and to Kevin McGowan. to assemble and then, you know, you can present it as part of a city manager report or we can simply, I'm not sure. make a decision to include that for consideration in next year's program. I just don't want to lose sight of these requests from community members in response to your report. |
| 02:33:16.96 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, well, thank you, Mayor, and I appreciate the people's comments. We've made it a point that, you know, Saskatchewan's roads are not in good condition, and as much catch-up as we try to have with this year's program, there's obviously a lot more that needs to be done, and if people send their requests forward, don't be surprised that it exceeds your budget. But we were happy to understand what the community is asking for and incorporate that into future decision-making by this council. |
| 02:33:42.94 | Melissa Blaustein | I appreciate that. |
| 02:33:44.53 | Jill Hoffman | Just one added thought. I think a number of the communications that I received, and I think others received, involve a portion of North Street, maybe not the portion that's on the current list. I'd have to look more closely to determine that. But I think it's worth looking at when someone suggests a street that a portion of it is already on the list for repaving or possible repaving this year to see whether there's some economy of scale to include it. That's just a common sense thing since we're at it. uh that's the only comment i have with respect to this but i think the long-term issue is as people come forward complaining about streets showing information we hope that they are taking a look at seriously by by kevin and others and come back to us as appropriate we did save some money in this year's budget in contingency i'm not anxious to spend it right away but if something came up urgently we should consider it thank you |
| 02:34:44.40 | Steven Woodside | Well, the issue is when residents direct communications to us, they don't go to Kevin. And so it's important that somebody compile those communications to inform public works so they can bring back a recommendation to us. |
| 02:35:01.53 | Jill Hoffman | Understood. That's great. |
| 02:35:02.85 | Steven Woodside | Okay. All right. I'll move on to city. Oh. |
| 02:35:06.26 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah. |
| 02:35:06.42 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:35:06.61 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:35:06.68 | Steven Woodside | you Thank you. |
| 02:35:07.71 | Ian Sobieski | I had a follow up on that because we did the city manager and I, and Kevin McGowan had a round robin on this or just a quick, it wasn't around there was two texts on it. And so what happened was the, the July 1st staff reporter that it Attachment to the staff report should have been used instead of the july 15th the july 1st staff report had each to be and spring street on the list and inadvertently the july 15th attachment was used and kevin explained that in the subsequent text and i requested just to remove any confusion um Is it possible that we could have the July 15th attachment or sorry the July 1st attachment that includes Easter bee and spring. Could we attach that to the city manager's report on the, on the stat, on the, Agenda. Is that possible? Can we do that? Yeah. So we're not going to worry about it. |
| 02:36:02.08 | Steven Woodside | So we're not worried. We'll just now direct city clerk to attach, as an additional attachment to the city manager's report, the July 1st. Paving report used to be spring street. going to get paved. |
| 02:36:16.02 | Chris Zapata | But that's right. Certainly. Thank you. |
| 02:36:16.98 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Thanks. All right. I'll move on to city attorney information for council. Sergio? |
| 02:36:24.83 | Sergio Rudin | Uh, nothing this evening. |
| 02:36:27.00 | Steven Woodside | All right. Councilmember Cecilia Aragonese, Councilmember Cecilia Aragonese, Councilmember Committee reports. We've been absent, so you gave us an executive summary, but go ahead. |
| 02:36:34.28 | Ian Sobieski | I do. I have another one. I had two. It was a busy week last week. |
| 02:36:36.57 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:36:36.86 | Ian Sobieski | So we had a great North Bay Executive Committee quarterly meeting that was moved like three times. But it was the meeting that we hosted. Well, Congressman Garamendi was quite kind enough to be our keynote speaker. And he gave us an update on the Ships for America Act. And several people on this dais were actually signed up for the meeting. I think actually paid for their lunch. |
| 02:36:59.44 | Unknown | I want to say... |
| 02:37:03.98 | Ian Sobieski | And the mayor and the vice mayor, unfortunately, I think because it moved several times. It was because it moved. Yeah. I don't know about the town. At his, Congressman Garamendi's crowded schedule, it moved one time for the budget that was going down in Washington, D.C. It had to move. So we did it. It was fantastic. It was at the California Maritime Museum that just merged with Cal Poly. |
| 02:37:07.86 | Steven Woodside | IT WAS BECAUSE IT WAS Thank you. I had his town. |
| 02:37:26.03 | Ian Sobieski | A fantastic facility, fantastic program. If you know of anybody that's interested in, by the way, a maritime career, It's an incredibly great deal for your A four-year degree. At the end of it, you come out with an engineering degree and you are an officer if you want to be an officer in one of the uniformed services at an incredibly cheap rate. Anyway, he gave us a speech on the Ships for America Act. It's a bipartisan legislation aimed at revitalizing your shipbuilding and commercial maritime. industries by increasing the number of U.S. flagged vessels, strengthening our domestic shipyards, expanding the maritime workforce. and ensuring the nation's ability to transport critical goods and military cargo There is a concerted effort to bring shipbuilding back to Northern California that he is spearheading along with many of the elected officials that we met with, the day before in Sacramento. And so it was a nice, it was very busy two days for all of us, but it was incredibly productive two days. And I think you're going to see some movement in this region on those efforts. So he's an incredible public servant and the people in that region are behind him and behind the people that are trying to revitalize and and reinvigorate those industries in that region. So I'm happy to assist and bring my knowledge and experience in that area to help them. So I was happy to do that, and it was very productive and helpful for all of us. So hopefully the next time we do it, he said he would come back and give us another update. So sorry you guys could make it, and hopefully we'll do it again. Thank you. |
| 02:38:59.87 | Steven Woodside | Thank you for attending, and thank you for so capably representing our city in the North Bay Division. It's so great that you're such a great advocate for us. |
| 02:39:09.09 | Ian Sobieski | And I have one more. I have another report. Go. So our city manager and I were able to go to the PG&E Hazard Awareness and Warning Center, the HAWC, which is a super cool acronym, over in the East Bay. And if you get a chance to go over there, I highly recommend that you go over there. And it's a... Um, It's a system that's been stood up by PG&E, obviously for early awareness and rapid deployment to deal with wildfires. and incredible, incredible system that they've developed over a very, very short period of time highly competent people running that, um, running that enterprise over there in the East Bay. And they were very kind to give us a two and a half hour tour. And I felt like it weirdly that I was back in a combat information center. on a United States Navy base somewhere or on board a ship. And there was a reason because the guy running it was a retired Navy guy. And it was incredible. There were probably six or seven big screens across the room, and they could drill down with incredible detail on a specific space where they were going to sensor hit that there might be some kinetic activity, fire or otherwise, and they could very quickly zero down on it. And if it looked like it was a heat source, they could put it out. And so, or at least deploy some capability to go react to that situation and put it out. So, and this was PG&E working and working closely with firefighters, but this was a PG&E operation that they had stood up on their own. So. It was fascinating. I highly recommend to anybody who's interested in that to go have a tour and city manager Do you have anything to add on that? Oh, really? |
| 02:41:03.65 | Chris Zapata | I WANT TO SAY THAT COUNCILMEMBER HOFFMAN AND I WERE AMONGST A CROWD OF MARIN CITY OFFICIALS WHO ALL HAD THE SAME KIND OF CONCERNS. |
| 02:41:11.36 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah, it was really nice. Thank you. |
| 02:41:14.77 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Great. Thank you so much. Okay, I'm moving on to appointments. So I heard from the chair of EDAC that he is concerned that he doesn't have a liaison always attending their quarterly meetings. Yeah, I guess there was no one at the last meeting that happened in just several weeks ago. Yeah. So he had asked for two members to. Liaisons. So if anyone is interested in serving as an EDAC liaison, will you let me know? Council member Hoffman is a liaison now. Um, In addition, I am going to appoint council member Hoffman and myself as the bridgeway Marina subcommittee. Um, I'm going to move on to future agenda items. I have a couple. I want to add the machine shop. So vice mayor, um, Woodside has indicated interest. We right now there is an MOU out there for consideration and feedback, at which time this it is expected to go on the auction block at the end of October. Feedback on the MOU is due September 12th. Um, This, you know, a prior counsel said we're going to make a bid and then there's going to be no further action. But I do think it would behoove us to be able to. continue to monitor what type of tenant might go in there as well as the zoning and so i do want to bring that back as a future agenda item for the council consideration as well as I think we already asked for a report on short term rental code enforcement. So those are the two things. Anybody else have anything to add? Yes. |
| 02:43:05.10 | Melissa Blaustein | Yeah, I have been asked by Sybil Bouchelier for us to consider in the context of our building code and reach code updates, specific requirements for ADAs, especially in senior housing. So considerations for seniors with regards to our building codes. |
| 02:43:18.53 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, and she has also requested a visitability ordinance that I would like us to consider after... That's... Yeah. after the election. So that would be a December item, potentially. A visitability item? to render more accessible our senior housing. |
| 02:43:45.94 | Babette McDougall | Is there a limit? |
| 02:43:47.83 | Steven Woodside | Is there a limit on how... I don't have a clear concept on it. It's something she asked for as part of the housing element. And I said we would consider... addressing it following measure uh, K-N-L. J.N. Cain. J.N. Cain. All right. Um, I don't see any minutes recently, city clerk. Will you just follow up and make sure we're getting the minutes? |
| 02:44:11.40 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 02:44:11.96 | Steven Woodside | Okay, thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:44:13.23 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 02:44:13.73 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. |
| 02:44:13.80 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:44:13.82 | Jill Hoffman | I have uncharacteristically three items to suggest. Okay, for future. Okay. A couple are pretty, well, one is pretty small. Two or three individuals in the community have asked about |
| 02:44:13.83 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:44:13.87 | Unknown | I have... |
| 02:44:17.11 | Steven Woodside | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:44:17.27 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 02:44:17.55 | Steven Woodside | I suggest. |
| 02:44:17.92 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:44:17.95 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 02:44:18.51 | Unknown | I'm going to go. |
| 02:44:25.85 | Jill Hoffman | individual either landlocked parcels or no longer connected parcels |
| 02:44:30.24 | Steven Woodside | Playblots. |
| 02:44:31.00 | Jill Hoffman | like lots and et cetera. rights of way that appear on maps but no longer exist, et cetera. I'm wondering whether we could have a look at where these things exist, where city-owned property or city-owned right-of-way, and either make provision to... dispose of them appropriately or not. But it's a concern in some neighborhoods where there are on the map, some easements that are no longer being used, etc. Maybe some that are, but I think it might be worth a look. Some of these are small and in. you know one-offs but if we look at him as a whole maybe we can come up with some policy direction So that's what I hope we can have. Secondly, again, in response to a number of... |
| 02:45:16.19 | Steven Woodside | But just memorialize that as Inventory of Flag Lots. |
| 02:45:22.53 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:45:25.26 | Steven Woodside | city-owned flag lots. |
| 02:45:28.28 | Jill Hoffman | at. Second, again, this is in response to individual requests from private members of the community who are saying, we'd like to make provision to put up a statute to honor so and so, which I know is always controversial, but it would be appropriate for us to at least identify what is the process for that. |
| 02:45:51.62 | Steven Woodside | So we do have a process for certain things. So this will be, so Walford, consider expanding naming slash statue opportunities. |
| 02:46:03.52 | Jill Hoffman | Right. I think we have naming ordinances. Benches, yeah. Right, and benches, et cetera. But we don't have public art or commemorative statutes. Yeah. |
| 02:46:06.05 | Steven Woodside | Ordinances. |
| 02:46:12.97 | Jill Hoffman | And we do have some in the community that are quite nice. And last, in response to many members of the community have, Thank you. initiated contacts that involved the GGNRA with respect to fire suppression and have gotten some results over time. But there's still concerns. Recently, a nearby resident to my home had a large eucalyptus branch simply fall on his home. He's anxious, of course, to have the whole eucalyptus forest removed if possible. But I think it's something, again, where we had a really good report from the new head of the GDNRA, and we've had our fire people here at the same time a few months ago. It might be nice to reschedule that now in anticipation of the fire scene and also Zone Zero and where we are with that. |
| 02:47:02.43 | Steven Woodside | So we are gonna hear, so we do have on our future agenda items for this year, the Zone Zero and the in-reach codes, and we are inviting the FIRE folks to attend that meeting. GGNRA gave us the contact information and how to provide an application for them to address specific issues at the last meeting. |
| 02:47:24.00 | Jill Hoffman | at the last meeting. I think it's moving, but from what I'm hearing, it might I'll be moving a little slowly. So we can take it up as an encouraging, quicker response. Thank you. |
| 02:47:35.34 | Ian Sobieski | Okay. All right. Yes. Councilmember Hoffman. I had a request to follow up on that. from a member of our community to request a fire risk mitigation and response report. And I think that goes to the fire department. And so I think as part of if they're coming back to talk to us, I think that that's that's a report out from them. You say that again so the city clerk can get it. So ask Southerman Fire for a... I'll email this to you too. |
| 02:48:00.94 | Steven Woodside | So the. So, |
| 02:48:08.45 | Ian Sobieski | Yeah. Done. Okay. Thank you, Rolf. Thank you. |
| 02:48:11.91 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:48:11.96 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:48:11.97 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. |
| 02:48:12.51 | Ian Sobieski | Thank you. |
| 02:48:12.56 | Steven Woodside | Okay, that concludes future agenda items. There are no other reports of significance. I'll open it up now to public comment on items 6A to 6C and 6E to 6G. City Clerk. |
| 02:48:26.59 | Walfred Solorzano | All right, first person is David Besner. |
| 02:48:38.72 | Walfred Solorzano | David? |
| 02:48:46.77 | Walfred Solorzano | Do you want to go to the next person? |
| 02:48:48.78 | Steven Woodside | Yes, let's move on to the next person. You can come back to David. |
| 02:48:52.08 | Walfred Solorzano | All right. |
| 02:48:56.24 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:48:56.25 | Babette McDougall | Thank you for acknowledging me. So once again, Thank you. I actually find that this portion of your meetings turn out to be some of the best information that y'all share with we the citizens. And I really appreciate being brought up to speed on these various meetings. It matters. I'm also glad that you decided to drill down one more time on making sure that the street pavement. project is actually in basically checking the boxes as far as, managing expectations among residents. This is really important. So thank you for paying attention to that. And then finally, I just want to say there is great value Please know that there is great value in engaging your public. And believe me, everybody wants to see something good happen to the machine shop. Everybody wants to see great things happen for this town. It's just that we seem to be... differing on how much is great, like how much hyper development really is great. And how much can we reasonably absorb honestly? So we have to go back again to that appeal that was denied but never picked up again. We really have to stand our ground. We cannot allow ourselves to be pushed around by bureaucrats that honestly do not know our community. And we can only go so far. There are limits to growth. This is a tiny little place. It should not be a tier four regional hub. We don't need 700 plus units that people can only afford if they're into the big money. |
| 02:50:20.29 | Unknown | We don't, |
| 02:50:25.67 | Babette McDougall | I mean, how do you build affordable housing on the on the shoreline. |
| 02:50:28.91 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 02:50:29.69 | Babette McDougall | This is so, I mean, what are we doing here? So I really appreciate this big discussion. And I really thank you, all of you, because you've all shown tremendous open-mindedness, which I really appreciate, because this is the time for us to be open and looking for common ground. And with that, I yield the balance of my time. Thank you so much. |
| 02:50:50.43 | Walfred Solorzano | City clerk. All right, let me see David Bresner. |
| 02:51:02.63 | Walfred Solorzano | Hello. There you go. |
| 02:51:04.98 | David Besner | Thank you. |
| 02:51:05.06 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:51:05.58 | David Besner | Oh, we hear you. Okay, so I'm Dave Bresner. For over 30 years I've lived at the corner of North Street and Third Street on 400 North. So the potholes in question are directly in front of my house. I have seen them significantly deteriorate over the years. They are right next to the heavily traveled, beautiful, renovated Southview Park and people have tripped. I've seen them trip and in fact, They are very deep. They have sharp edges. They are very dangerous to both pedestrians and cyclists. For example, I almost fell off my bike when the edge of my tire hit the edge of the pothole. Not only are they dangerous, but they're extremely unsightly. So I strongly request the prompt and permanent repair of the pothole. Thank you so much. |
| 02:52:27.46 | Steven Woodside | Thank you so much. City Clerk. |
| 02:52:29.50 | Walfred Solorzano | No further public comment. |
| 02:52:31.02 | Steven Woodside | All right, that concludes our meeting. We are adjourning. Prior to the time we had scheduled to hear our reports, it is 7 51. Thank you, everybody. |
| 02:52:41.72 | Melissa Blaustein | Amazing. |