| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:00.03 | Walfred Solorzano | Lito is being held here at City Hall Council Chambers at 420 Little Street. It's also being broadcast live on Zoom on the city's website and on cable TV channel 27. |
| 00:00:13.35 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, welcome to the special meeting of the city of Sausalito at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, November 4, 2025, election day. City clerk, will you please call the roll? |
| 00:00:26.61 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blaustein. |
| 00:00:28.18 | Steven Woodside | here. |
| 00:00:29.16 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. you |
| 00:00:30.57 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:00:30.62 | Walfred Solorzano | THE FAMILY. Councilmember Sobieski. Thank you. |
| 00:00:33.01 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. |
| 00:00:33.04 | Walfred Solorzano | Here. Vice Mayor Woodside. Here. And Mayor Cox. |
| 00:00:36.60 | Steven Woodside | Councilmember Sobieski, did you want to make any announcements about your remote appearance? |
| 00:00:43.18 | Steven Woodside | I have a work conflict here in San Francisco, so I'm attending closed session, but will not be attending open session. And it's duly posted. by the city clerk on the agenda. |
| 00:00:55.95 | Steven Woodside | City Attorney, do we need to approve this? I don't see it posted. Or maybe I don't have an updated agenda. |
| 00:01:02.64 | Sergio Rudin | This is under the traditional Browning rules. |
| 00:01:02.82 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. to the next. |
| 00:01:05.02 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:01:05.03 | Steven Woodside | My agenda is not updated, so sorry about that. Thank you. |
| 00:01:09.02 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:01:09.03 | Steven Woodside | It's noted on the agenda. Okay, wonderful. All right, with that, we will move on to closed session. We will be considering items C1 through C5 in closed session today. C1 is public employee employment, title city manager. C2, conference with real property. negotiators property 558 bridgeway negotiating parties 558 Bridgeway Real Property, city manager and city attorney, C3 conference with real property negotiators property 300 Spencer negotiating party, Southern Marine Fire Protection District, city manager and city attorney, C4, Conference with Real Property Negotiators. government code section 549 5 6.8 property old city hall City negotiator, city manager and city attorney, negotiating parties, Jean Hiller. and C5 Conference with Legal Counsel, Anticipated Litigation, Significant Exposure litigation, one case. Is there any public comment on closed session items? |
| 00:02:08.77 | Walfred Solorzano | Seeing none. |
| 00:02:10.88 | Steven Woodside | Are there any announcements regarding recusals from closed session items? |
| 00:02:16.67 | Steven Woodside | I think one of the matters has to do with the property, which is, uh, within 500 feet of my property and I am as I have been on this matter. |
| 00:02:26.71 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:02:26.72 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:02:26.76 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, that's item C5, council member. |
| 00:02:29.21 | Melissa Blaustein | I will also be recusing from item C3, Spencer Firehouse, due to the proximity to my residence. |
| 00:02:35.80 | Steven Woodside | Great, okay, with that we will adjourn to closed session. We will reconvene at 5 p.m. |
| 00:02:49.59 | Steven Woodside | Okay, welcome back. I will reconvene into open session. Actually, I'm gonna continue. So we adjourned at what time, city clerk? |
| 00:03:05.44 | Walfred Solorzano | Sorry, adjourned from the last meeting. |
| 00:03:07.43 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. |
| 00:03:08.54 | Walfred Solorzano | That was, let me look it up one moment. |
| 00:03:20.19 | Walfred Solorzano | Last meeting we had adjourned at |
| 00:03:27.07 | Walfred Solorzano | 8.54 p.m. |
| 00:03:28.42 | Steven Woodside | So we adjourned our last meeting at 8.54 PM. There were no closed session announcements from that meeting, and there are no closed session announcements from this meeting. let's stand, salute, and have the Pledge of Allegiance. |
| 00:03:49.72 | Steven Woodside | 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. |
| 00:04:10.46 | Steven Woodside | City Clerk, will you call the roll? |
| 00:04:14.29 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blaustein. |
| 00:04:16.18 | Steven Woodside | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:04:17.27 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 00:04:19.06 | Steven Woodside | here. |
| 00:04:20.14 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Sobieski. |
| 00:04:22.66 | Steven Woodside | absent he joined us for closed session he will not be here for our regular meeting this evening |
| 00:04:28.33 | Walfred Solorzano | Vice Mayor Woodside? Here. And Mayor Cox. |
| 00:04:31.06 | Steven Woodside | here. All right, may I have a motion to approve the agenda? |
| 00:04:36.58 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:04:36.65 | Steven Woodside | So, |
| 00:04:36.68 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:04:36.71 | Steven Woodside | moved. |
| 00:04:37.07 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:04:37.17 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:04:37.29 | Steven Woodside | Second. |
| 00:04:38.30 | Steven Woodside | All in favor? Aye. Aye. That motion carries unanimously 4-0. we have no special presentations this evening so 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. and I have some speaker cards. I will first invite Arthur Grovallo. |
| 00:05:24.22 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:05:27.20 | Steven Woodside | Welcome, Mr. Gravaio. You have two minutes. |
| 00:05:29.41 | Art Giovara | Thank you. My name is Art Giovara and I own the building at 599 Bridgeway. It's an office building and retail downstairs with a garage. Thank you. I came here predominantly tonight for this, but I understand that it's going to be postponed until next year. Uh, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about the unfairness that exists. The first page that I showed you was presented before where In the CC district, in the last 25 years. You've produced. three. or Three units. And since 2020, you've produced one unit. And when you look at the commercial district, the next section that I have, and you look at the zoning, commercial zoning district, You... Thank you. Item D, you encourage owners to complete the ground floor and put residential on the upper floor. And. you would like property owners to use the whole frontage of their building according to number E. If you look at the next page, You require... uh, 1500 square feet per unit. uh, and The maximum building coverage is 100%. the, Uh, The height limit in the CC is 32 feet. So, For example, in my building, My time is up. |
| 00:07:32.13 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:07:32.15 | Art Giovara | THE END OF |
| 00:07:32.20 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. |
| 00:07:32.26 | Art Giovara | Yeah. |
| 00:07:32.35 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 00:07:32.97 | Art Giovara | THE FAMILY. |
| 00:07:33.02 | Steven Woodside | minutes. Thank you very much for providing this information. Can I do another thing? |
| 00:07:38.24 | Chris Zapata | Can I do another thing? |
| 00:07:40.38 | Steven Woodside | You can come to our next meeting and speak again. |
| 00:07:43.67 | Chris Zapata | Mayor, he can submit. So that's it. |
| 00:07:44.65 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. |
| 00:07:44.67 | Art Giovara | that. |
| 00:07:45.65 | Steven Woodside | Say again. |
| 00:07:46.25 | Chris Zapata | He can submit in writing whatever comments he has to staff and we can |
| 00:07:49.34 | Steven Woodside | Sure, but I do see the attachments that you've provided, and I understand the data that you're sharing with us. We appreciate that. But you are welcome to email us or you can email just city council at Sausalito dot gov. |
| 00:08:04.09 | Art Giovara | Don't they normally give three minutes? |
| 00:08:07.26 | Steven Woodside | We've had two minutes. |
| 00:08:07.67 | Art Giovara | I only have two. |
| 00:08:08.73 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. I understand. We've had two minutes on our agenda for months. I see. Thank you so much for stopping by. |
| 00:08:22.10 | Steven Woodside | Our next speaker is Sophia Collier. |
| 00:08:30.38 | Sophia Collier | Hi, Sophia Collier here, and I'm here to discuss SNAP benefits. We are here in Sausalito, we probably, we have 4% of our population in Sausalito that's below the poverty line. So that means we probably have around 280 people in Sausalito who are SNAP recipients. And as we know, the SNAP program is under threat in question, and even though there has been court action saying that the program will be partially funded. It is also of concern that it will be only partially funded And so we have a situation here in Marin County and in here in Sausalito that we need to respond to. And the Marin Community Foundation has a fund called the Food on Every Table Fund. And they're trying to raise $3 million in the next few weeks. So I would like to say that we are committed at Save Our Sausalito, and I am committed to raise $10,000 And I would like to see the city a step up with a contribution of around the same amount. that would pay half the SNAP benefits that would be missing. So we would take care of our SNAP people through this fund. I also think what we should do is we should put in currents the information about the Marin Community Foundation program so that people can make incremental donations. But I think if we had this together with maybe other people would want to join as well. So we would have the 10,000 from of our donations. 10,000 from the city and that we would be making a serious contribution to our fellow citizens. |
| 00:10:21.62 | Melissa Blaustein | I just say one thing I just wanted to share that I've been in touch with the marine community foundation and Rhea as well as with the county with regards to snap benefits specifically you may have seen that the city of San Francisco received a matching challenge grant much larger but they have 112,000 residents who rely on snap from eight million dollars from a philanthropic partner and the city matched it so we can talk about it in future agenda items but a number of cities and towns and communities are mobilizing to provide a bridge |
| 00:10:54.00 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:10:54.02 | Steven Woodside | Great. City manager, will you, or city clerk, will you put this on future agenda items for the agenda setting committee to consider? |
| 00:11:05.95 | Steven Woodside | And if I may, just the prior speaker, it didn't make a specific request. So I'm kind of at a loss to know exactly where he wanted to go. If he had another minute, maybe he can, he could write. |
| 00:11:15.10 | Steven Woodside | You're welcome to ask him a question, Vice Mayor. |
| 00:11:18.98 | Steven Woodside | Okay. Do you have a specific request you'd like to make of us? And if so, I think it's best to put it in writing. |
| 00:11:23.72 | Steven Woodside | No, it's not of you, Ms. Collier. It's of the prior speaker. He's asking the prior speaker if he has a specific request of the city. |
| 00:11:32.50 | Art Giovara | Yeah, sure. My specific request was in regard to the FAR it's 1.3 and if you occupy the bottom space and you use it 100% that leaves 0.3 for residential use and that's the reason you're not producing housing in the commercial district |
| 00:11:55.02 | Steven Woodside | All right. So this is something we might possibly put on a future agenda. Thank you. |
| 00:11:59.93 | Steven Woodside | No. |
| 00:12:00.15 | Steven Woodside | That's good. |
| 00:12:00.78 | Steven Woodside | The city clerk, will you add this as a future agenda item also to consider amending the far for multi use projects in the CC district? |
| 00:12:16.49 | Steven Woodside | All right, next is Michelle Back. Welcome. |
| 00:12:25.10 | Michelle Bank | So as you said, my name is Michelle Bank. I just wanted to say that I'm very surprised to see that again. the project that we've already petitioned about Um, came to two meetings that finished late about, and that it's coming up today on the day where we're voting for other stuff and people are not aware of what's going on, and I find that absolutely abnormal. That's what I want to say. |
| 00:13:06.98 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Next is Thomas Meijer. |
| 00:13:13.87 | Thomas Maher | If you pronounce it Maher, that's a G. I'm sorry about that. Maher. Yes. |
| 00:13:16.31 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:13:18.47 | Thomas Maher | All right. Hi, I'm Thomas Maher. I'm representing the owner of 27 Central Avenue. We're hoping you can head something off and maybe refer this to the city council for resolution. |
| 00:13:30.61 | Steven Woodside | We are the city council. |
| 00:13:31.72 | Thomas Maher | I mean the city attorney, I'm sorry. Yes, you are the city council. This concerns this structure. This is an already built, portion of this structure is this outstanding feature. This is already built, permitted in 2017, permitted and built. And now there is a move to do something different and my client is being fined And she's being fined because this mitigation, which is to cut off 3% of the feature you saw in an angle, has not been completed. That is an highly unusual remedy, extremely damaging to the building, very expensive, probably undermines the value of the property probably forever because of unusual action. So I've looked at the facts this case. I've done a lot of property cases. here's what I found my client has standing she has strong and favorable facts she has real costs and real detriments with this mitigation plan and the equities really favor her this is supposedly the view it's being protected if you look very hard at this you can may be seen on this side through the shrubbery, the supposed impingement of view. I suggest the city has fixed mixed facts. The enforcement actions, if you were to enforce this action, you're benefiting a single citizen. But we, because this is so expensive, we have to fight it. We have to go to court. And why litigate? when we might be able to resolve so that there is a real benefit to the city of Sausalito and you're not stuck defending a civil a single citizen who is the third owner since this complaint's been filed it's an unusual set of facts we look forward to the referral to from the from you to the city attorney to speak to us about this so |
| 00:15:30.40 | Steven Woodside | So our city attorney is Sergio Rudin. He's on this call now. Um... Thank you. |
| 00:15:36.75 | Thomas Maher | Thank you. |
| 00:15:36.78 | Steven Woodside | LOWIS. |
| 00:15:36.80 | Thomas Maher | Hello, Sergio. |
| 00:15:38.03 | Steven Woodside | And are you new counsel for |
| 00:15:38.55 | Thomas Maher | Yeah. |
| 00:15:42.14 | Steven Woodside | The homeowner? |
| 00:15:43.70 | Sergio Rudin | Yes. |
| 00:15:44.05 | Steven Woodside | Okay, so I don't know if you're familiar the city attorney can fill you in this has been to the Planning Commission numerous times It was heard by this City Council. Yes, and you may |
| 00:15:53.30 | Jill Hoffman | Mayor, this is matters not on the agenda. I think maybe these guys should talk offline. I agree. It's not agendized. I don't think we should get into the merits or these guys should talk back and forth or our city attorney. |
| 00:15:58.53 | Steven Woodside | This is me. |
| 00:15:58.97 | Thomas Maher | I agree. It's not agenda. |
| 00:16:04.74 | Thomas Maher | The only reason we brought it up, we filed a complaint in the resolution. |
| 00:16:05.25 | Steven Woodside | . I'm just inviting him to become familiar with the procedural history I want to be sure that you do have- Anybody should be familiar with- Please don't interrupt me, council member. Mayor, I'm trying to keep you |
| 00:16:12.86 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:16:12.89 | Thomas Maher | Anybody. |
| 00:16:13.21 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:16:13.89 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:16:13.90 | Thomas Maher | THE END OF |
| 00:16:13.96 | Jill Hoffman | These don't have to. |
| 00:16:17.03 | Steven Woodside | on track about what is the parameters of public comment. |
| 00:16:18.00 | Jill Hoffman | I understand what you're trying to do. Please don't interrupt me. City Attorney, could you remind us all about what are the parameters with public comment for matters not on the agenda? |
| 00:16:24.64 | Steven Woodside | Okay. You can do that in a moment. |
| 00:16:27.42 | Jill Hoffman | This is not in a moment. I don't want to get out too much. |
| 00:16:29.53 | Steven Woodside | I am allowed to make a brief comment regarding an item not on the agenda. Please do not interrupt me. I want to make sure this gentleman has contact information of our city attorney. I'm sure he has it. |
| 00:16:35.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:16:35.35 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:16:35.45 | Unknown | make sure |
| 00:16:35.89 | Jill Hoffman | This is a matter that is headed for litigation. |
| 00:16:37.97 | Unknown | on. |
| 00:16:38.03 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. I'm sure he has. He just asked us to reconnect him. Sir, do you not know how to Google the city attorney for Sausalito. |
| 00:16:49.02 | Thomas Maher | THE FAMILY. Councilmember in my experience when I just did this and from the San Joaquin County Board of Supervisors |
| 00:16:50.18 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:16:55.99 | Thomas Maher | The lead said to the city attorney, handle this. That's what I'm hoping to hear. |
| 00:17:02.10 | Steven Woodside | Okay. You're not going to get that from me today. But I do want you to have Mr. Rudin's contact information. It is S Rudin at Sausalito. Go ahead. |
| 00:17:18.27 | Thomas Maher | How do you spell Rudin? I-N or E-N? |
| 00:17:20.17 | Steven Woodside | It's cityattorney at Sausalito.gov. |
| 00:17:20.76 | Thomas Maher | Yes. |
| 00:17:22.01 | Sergio Rudin | . |
| 00:17:22.15 | Thomas Maher | Bye. |
| 00:17:22.18 | Sergio Rudin | at the end. |
| 00:17:22.35 | Thomas Maher | Thank you. |
| 00:17:22.37 | Sergio Rudin | Thank you. |
| 00:17:22.40 | Thomas Maher | Thank you. |
| 00:17:22.43 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 00:17:22.45 | Thomas Maher | . |
| 00:17:22.54 | Chris Zapata | E.K., Mayor. Thank you. |
| 00:17:23.92 | Sergio Rudin | It's www.roodin.bbklaw.com. And I believe my phone number is also on the city website. |
| 00:17:23.93 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, well, that's... |
| 00:17:24.47 | Thomas Maher | Really? |
| 00:17:30.41 | Thomas Maher | I'm gonna be able to find you, sir. Thank you very much. |
| 00:17:32.49 | Sergio Rudin | Great. |
| 00:17:32.80 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:17:37.65 | Steven Woodside | All right, next is Babette McDougall. |
| 00:17:49.25 | Babette McDougall | Good evening, this is a really important day for us to have this of all kinds of meetings, so I'm glad to be here. Babette McDougall, Sausalito resident. And I just wanna say that this kind of exchange, which is a little out of the normal, and it's appropriate to call it out for what it is, it does invite us to consider once again returning to Robert's Rules of Order. I think everyone on both sides of the room, it's never been so polarized, it didn't used to be, I think everyone will benefit from Robert's Rules because it's more of a fair exchange. It's like a volley. It's an easy thing to handle when you know how. So with that in mind, I'd like to thank you for your ongoing commitment to keeping this small-D democracy going. I love the fact that you're willing to take points of order among each other. Maybe someday you'll recognize a point of order from a member of the audience as well. I know it is not described in Rosenberg because Rosenberg doesn't take up the people's voice. So with that in mind, I urge us forward because we need a consensus now going forward. Our town's under siege, whether it has to do with how the vote works out. Or as you know, Madam Mayor, the immediate aftermath of the arrival of MTC. So one way or the other, we're going to be doing battle about density and ecological issues that will face us forever going forward. If we can't work out these things together, I'm not exactly sure what kind of a future we can look forward to. So consensus for the greater good, especially among those who are voting constituents, has never mattered more. And this has been a banner year for people turning out and appealing to you to listen to the people who actually vote for you. Thank you so much. Thank you. |
| 00:19:41.21 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Those are all of my speaker cards. City Clerk, is there anyone online for public comment? you know. |
| 00:19:47.29 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes, we have Lizanne Goring. |
| 00:19:52.20 | Steven Woodside | Welcome. |
| 00:19:56.18 | Walfred Solorzano | Lizanne if you're going to mute yourself |
| 00:19:57.35 | Lizanne Goring | to. Thank you. Yes, sorry, I was on mute. Can you hear me now? Yes. Okay, hello. I was here a month ago talking about the 101 South Street and the 103 South Street. I wanted to thank you guys for some of the help. The building department has been very good. They are helpful to begin with, but I gave them a little more guidance. I wanted to talk today about a different situation, which has to do with storage boxes that are in shared spaces. So we sent a letter to Sergio. I did find him online. It is BBKLaw. |
| 00:20:01.48 | Walfred Solorzano | Hello. |
| 00:20:25.66 | Lizanne Goring | really worse in a shared space. There is lack of clarity in the Sausalito code, and as a result, the building department isn't quite sure how to rule on that. And as a result, there's an impact around all of the residents that live there and the disruption that is in there. So we have asked for guidance for the building department to get better feedback in this area. The second thing about this, though, is the importance of refreshing the code. The code is vague in this area. Ten years ago, Amazon boxes were not needed and were not considered. And so whether not, it's in a setback or shared, etc. That does need to be able to do it. And I do think that in the refreshing of the code, the storage boxes should be better articulated as to what is allowed and not allowed. And when code is vague like this and the building department isn't know what to do, it just creates a very difficult, situation for the community that is there as different residents have different opinions and everyone starts getting very agitated about it. So this is a period of stress for my mother. There is an obstruction to our house right now for her to be able to exit and there is not code that they can follow to help address with that. So that is all for now. I appreciate the time and thank you. Thank you. Under 30 seconds left to give back to your day. |
| 00:21:36.07 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Bye. |
| 00:21:38.78 | Lizanne Goring | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:21:39.96 | Steven Woodside | Thank you so much. |
| 00:21:41.01 | Walfred Solorzano | No further public comments? |
| 00:21:42.28 | Steven Woodside | All right, we will close public comment and move on to our consent calendar. matters listed under the consent calendar are considered routine and non-controversial required no discussion are expected to have unanimous council support and may be enacted by the council in one motion in the form listed below we have a very short three items on our consent calendar this evening 3a is to adopt the draft meeting minutes of October 21 2025 3B is Waiver of second reading and adoption of ordinance number 10-2025, an ordinance of the City Council of Sausalito. repealing Sausalito Municipal Code Chapter 18.12, Sewers. And 3C is adopt a resolution authorizing the city of Sausalito to access state and federal level summary criminal history information for employment purposes. Are there any questions regarding consent? I'll open it up to public comment. I have no speaker cards. Anyone online? |
| 00:22:43.73 | Walfred Solorzano | See you then. |
| 00:22:44.93 | Steven Woodside | Then I will close public comment and I'll entertain a motion. |
| 00:22:49.10 | Steven Woodside | I moved the consent calendar, items 3A, B, and C. |
| 00:22:53.39 | Steven Woodside | Second. All in favor? Aye. That motion carries 4-0. We'll now move on to our public hearing item. This is unusual because we heard this item, we previously heard this item on consent, and now we will hear it as a public hearing item. This is item 4A, waive second reading and adopt ordinance number 09-2025, an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Sausalito repealing 2022 California Building Standards Code and Penalty Provisions. and enacting 2025 California Building Standards Code and local amendments thereto into Saucedo Municipal Code Chapter 8.02 and I will turn it over to Brandon Phipps, our Assistant City Manager. |
| 00:23:42.07 | Brandon Phipps | Thank you very much, Mayor. As you mentioned, |
| 00:23:43.03 | Steven Woodside | This is good. |
| 00:23:44.92 | Brandon Phipps | This item was already heard by the council on October 21st, 2025. This action is also required per state law and is a standard update. We did go over many of the details, some of the details during the business item when it was initially heard and it was unanimously approved. I will pass the mic to Attorney Rudin if he would like to add any additional details. and I will also just state that Cal Tier 1 measures are an additional item on the agenda and we will be discussing that. if you would like to add any additional details. And I will also just state that Cal Tier 1 measures are an additional item on the agenda, and we will be discussing that as a follow on. |
| 00:23:52.23 | Steven Woodside | THE FAMILY IS GOING TO BE |
| 00:23:52.31 | Unknown | Oh. |
| 00:24:16.06 | Steven Woodside | All right, I do want to go ahead and open the public hearing, and I would like to confirm with you, Assistant City Manager, that the required notice was provided for this public hearing item. |
| 00:24:26.81 | Brandon Phipps | Yes, we have overly noticed for this item because we want to ensure that the community is aware of the changes that we're making to the building code. This has been noticed in the Marin IJ multiple times. |
| 00:24:36.81 | Steven Woodside | Great. Attorney Rudin, do you have anything to add? |
| 00:24:41.00 | Sergio Rudin | I'll just give a 10-second overview of the ordinance. The ordinance repeals chapters 802 through 828 of the existing Sausalito Municipal Code and combines all of the previous building codes into a single chapter 802. It adopts, by reference, the 2025 California Building Standards Code, including all of its constituent parts, including the new Wildland Urban Interface Code. In accordance with AB 130, the city is carrying over all of its, for the most part, all of its relevant local amendments from 2022. We are removing those which are no longer relevant based on changes in the 2025 building standards code. The ones that are being carried over include requiring roof coverings throughout the city to be Class A, ignition resistant coverings, restricting the use of wooden retaining walls, clarifying and Um, keeping private swimming pool testing and safety requirements. And in addition, the requirements of the 2025 codes will be applied to any projects that are substantial remodels as defined as affecting any floor area, which exceeds 50% of the existing floor area within any 36 month period. This again is similar to how the city had in 2022. Um, If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask. |
| 00:26:10.13 | Steven Woodside | All right, your 10 seconds are up. Any questions of the city attorney? Seeing none. I will open this up to public comment, and I have one speaker card from David Cooper. Welcome. |
| 00:26:31.07 | David Cooper | I'LL MAKE THIS BRIEF. THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR SUPPORT OF THIS PARTICULAR WORK THAT WE'RE DOING AROUND THE BUILDING CODES. I'M VICE CHAIR OF THE SUSTAINABILITY COMMISSION, DAVID COOPER. FULLY IN SUPPORT OF THIS. ALL THE STAKEHOLDERS HAVE WORKED VERY HARD ON THIS PROGRAM. WE SPENT QUITE A BIT OF TIME WORKING WITH THE CITY ON THIS AND ALSO OTHER SORT OF MUNICIPALITIES AROUND THE AREA. I want to thank you all for your attention to this and feel that this is a very good program for the city and in full support of it. Thank you. |
| 00:27:01.79 | Steven Woodside | Thank you so much. Thank you. My next speaker card is from Babette McDougall. |
| 00:27:06.24 | Chris Zapata | That was for 5A. That was just referring to. The conference room. |
| 00:27:13.85 | Babette McDougall | Thank you for acknowledging me. You know what, I think you're actually for 5A. This is, we're on 4A. |
| 00:27:15.37 | Chris Zapata | You know what? This is, we're on 4A. |
| 00:27:18.96 | Steven Woodside | TODAY. |
| 00:27:19.13 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 00:27:19.91 | Unknown | Oh, damn. |
| 00:27:22.56 | Steven Woodside | So I'll call you back when we get to 5A. I do beg your pardon. I yield. OK. All right. Anything online, city clerk? Thank you. |
| 00:27:34.25 | Walfred Solorzano | See you then. |
| 00:27:34.30 | Steven Woodside | seen then. All right, I'm going to close. And sir, I apologize. I was handed this for this item. You actually are here on item 5A as well. So my apologies for the mistake. Okay. All right. I'm going to close public comment. I'm going to close the public hearing, and I will entertain a motion from city council. |
| 00:27:58.69 | Steven Woodside | Do you want me to read the whole thing? Thank you. |
| 00:28:00.88 | Steven Woodside | you |
| 00:28:01.03 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 00:28:02.06 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:28:03.04 | Steven Woodside | I would move approval and this is waving the second reading and adopting the ordinance number 09-2025. We've had discussion about its intent and meaning. So I don't think I need to read all of this. It's in the published agenda. |
| 00:28:18.10 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 00:28:18.11 | Steven Woodside | Great. Second. All in favor? Aye. Councilmember Rothman. Aye. That motion carries 4-0. 4-0. All right, with that, we'll move on to our single business item for the evening, which is introduction and waiver of first reading of ordinance number 11-2025, an ordinance of the Sausalito City Council amending Sausalito Municipal Code Section 8.02.070 to adopt energy reach code requirements for single family building remodels, amending Sausalito Municipal Code Section 8.02.120 to adopt Cal Green Tier 1 Voluntary Measures, and Enacting Saucy-Dom Municipal Code Chapter 8.04, Low Carbon Concrete Standards. And I will welcome our Sustainability and Resiliency Manager, Katie Tho Garcia. |
| 00:29:15.77 | Katie Thao Garcia | All right, good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the public. As the mayor previously said, my name is Katie Thao Garcia. I'm the city's resiliency and sustainability manager, and I'm here tonight to present item 5A, ordinance number 11-2025, amendments to the Sausalito Municipal Code for energy conservation measures and low-carbon concrete. Next slide, please. Next slide, please. So updates to the California Building Code occur every three years. At the same time, local jurisdictions are allowed to adopt amendments to the state code that are more restrictive to address local climatic, geologic, and topographic conditions, and also adopt energy conservation goals provided They're determined to be cost effective by the local jurisdiction and the California Energy Commission. tonight, staff bring forth one ordinance which addresses three local, those three local amendments. These include consideration of adoption for Cal Green Tier 1, a single family remodel ordinance, and low carbon concrete standards. Staff bring forth these proposed amendments to address priorities outlined in our 2021 general plan, our 2015 climate action plan, and our 2019 low emissions action plan. |
| 00:30:16.54 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:30:35.34 | Katie Thao Garcia | Since 2022, adoption of these amendments has been strongly advocated for by the Sausalito Sustainability Commission. Next slide, please. In early 2025, AB 130 was passed and established a freeze on the building code updates until 2031. Importantly, AB 130 contains exemptions for emergency standards in alignment with the general plan, as long as it was adopted before late 2024. It is staff's understanding that amendments proposed tonight qualify under the general plan exemption, given our general plan outlines greenhouse gas reduction targets and specifies measures, like reach code adoption, to help us achieve these targets. Next slide, please. Adoption of ordinance 9-2025, repealing the 2022 California Building Standards Code and enacting the 2025 Building Standards Code is required for jurisdictions to complete and was just completed in a public hearing in the previous item. While the 2025 code contains green building codes, which may aim to reduce environmental impact of building new construction and significant modifications, they represent a baseline requirement for jurisdictions to meet Cal Green Tier 1 is voluntary for jurisdictions to adopt and present the opportunity for jurisdictions to adopt code that goes beyond the required elements of the green building code. Once a council chooses to adopt a Cal Green Tier 1 standard, qualified projects become required to comply with Cal Green Tier 1 standards. Next slide, please. Elements of Cal Green Tier 1 that would become required if adopted by City Council tonight include electric vehicle ready wiring for single family homes and new construction, electric vehicle supply equipment for multifamily and commercial projects, and bicycle parking, heat pump, and solar baseline requirements, among other ones. Importantly, these would go, these would affect both residential and non-residential projects over a set size. Next slide, please. In addition to Cal Green Tier 1, Ordinance 11-2025 contains code for single family remodels. This model code was developed by the County of Marin in 2019 to address greenhouse gas emissions from our largest housing stock in the county, single family homes. The single family home remodel code, or sometimes called flex path by other jurisdictions, requires projects to choose from menu of weighted energy efficiency and electrification measures in order to achieve a total target score. The menu allows for different paths to compliance, allowing buildings, allowing builders and homeowners to choose what measures make the most sense for the project. Importantly, this code allows mixed fuel adoption as required by the federal government while incentivizing electrification and energy efficiency. Next slide, please. If adopted, the single family remodel code would apply to remodels greater than 500 square feet. Generally, the electrification measures, such as heat pump water heaters or heat pump HVAC conversion from gas have a high value point and can be simple, and can be in a simple way to achieve a target score on the single family remodel project. The policy has been proven to be an effective tool to encourage home appliance electrification. in conjunction with the Electrify Marin Rebate Program. In addition, the Bay Area District Zone NOx requirements, that's N-O-X, appliance rules are scheduled to ban the sale of gas water heaters and furnaces in 2027 and 2029 respectively. The code's encouragement of heat pumps makes Marin homeowners and building professionals better prepared for that transition now. Next slide, please. And finally, the third part of the ordinance. In 2019, Marin County became a national leader and adopted a code creating low carbon concrete standards to address climate goals through the embodied carbon used in the concrete production. The code limits Portland cement content and allows supplementary, more sustainable materials like fly ash to reduce the embodied carbon inherently found in concrete. This code goes beyond Cal Green Tier 1 concrete requirements by requiring low carbon concrete to be used in most concrete uses like slabs and driveways. Since the county adopted the standard in 2019, the concrete market in Marin County has actually adjusted and oftentimes makes low carbon concrete the cheaper alternative and therefore used anyways. This was the case when staff looked into the concrete used for the Ferry Landside project. So next slide, please. Many other jurisdictions in the county have adopted similar measures to those we are proposing tonight. In 2022, the majority of jurisdictions in Marin County adopted Cal green tier one and the single family remodel code. Today, many are in the process of readopting both of those codes for 2025 with slight modifications. Marin County has been the only adopter of the low carbon concrete code, however, and remains a national leader on its implementation. Adopting this tonight would mean Sausalito is the only only the fourth adopter in the nation of the low carbon concrete standard Just after the county the city of Santa Monica and the city of Palo Alto Oh However, the city of Mill Valley is potentially looking to adopt this low carbon concrete standard in 2026. Adopting the Cal Green Tier 1 and the single family remodel code tonight would help us bring more code consistency to Marin County. This would ensure builders are more able to easily navigate code compliance throughout the county while achieving greenhouse gas emission reduction. Next slide, please. Adopting this ordinance tonight would not result in a direct impact to the city's general fund and is aligned with strategic plan goal D. Next slide, please. And finally, staff recommend adopting Ordinance 11-2025 to address sustainability measures identified in the General Plan and Climate Action Plan as allowed under AB 130. Staff believe these policies strike a fair balance, offering cost-effective options that contribute to Sausalita's climate goals. In addition, the additional energy efficiency standards proposed for the single-family remodel have been demonstrated to be cost-effective in a modeling study completed by the statewide reach code program. This was included in attachment six in your agenda package. This concludes my presentation. I will now take questions. |
| 00:38:06.59 | Steven Woodside | Thank you so much for that presentation and for all your great work on this. I did forward to you earlier today Concerns from one of the esteemed members of our planning commission, so I'm just going to briefly ask you those questions and ask if you don't mind responding you provided me a very thorough response thank you for that Um, So they said that, um, while well-intentioned, uh... the cal green tier one single-family remodel code and low-carbon concrete codes uh... have a chilling effect on remodel projects and add to overall housing prep costs both during construction and during the permitting phase, because preparing and verifying compliance is not free, Moreover, some of the specific measures are effectively moot or redundant with new energy codes that go into effect in January. And then they point out that Um, reducing overall housing cost is important to make housing more accessible for those who are less fiscally advantaged and that claiming there's no fiscal impact is not entirely true since the proposed changes are not free to those who undertake them. So do you mind responding to those? You've provided some really great information. |
| 00:39:28.34 | Katie Thao Garcia | Yes, yeah, I will try to respond to any of those. If I miss any points, feel free to just reiterate that. You know, I'll start off at the last point. In the staff report, when staff say there's no fiscal impact, typically that means there's no fiscal impact to the general fund that we're seeing tonight. That doesn't mean that there are no fiscal impacts, period. You know, building permits, home renovations, those cost money. So there will be fiscal impacts as a result of this. I will say the single family remodel or the flex path as it's called has been adopted by the county in 2019. From 2023 to 2024 they saw roughly 150 homes meet meet those flex path requirements so it's not a huge total number of buildings it's really you know targeting the single-family remodels that that are going on In addition, if you're already doing a single family remodel, most of the time these standards are relatively low and relatively easy to implement. If you're already doing an AC remodel, or a heating heat pump water heater Um, electrification measure, it's relatively easy to do other measures while you're in the wall doing those same measures. So through the single family remodel pathway, it will give you a point score and if you're doing those big ticket projects and you're choosing to electrification it's very easy to meet your electrified score in combination with you know Marin County and state rebates most of the time the appliance you know while electric appliances tend to be more expensive the upfront cost with the rebates that brings the price down and if you're talking about the price the price of electricity or at the price to run that electric appliance over the lifespan electric appliances typically last longer they have lower maintenance and they reduce your your energy consumption so they end up being more cost-effective which attachment six identifies. Hopefully that answered all of the questions but if not |
| 00:41:51.98 | Steven Woodside | I am going to prompt you with the Bay Area Air District Zero Knox rules. |
| 00:41:57.71 | Katie Thao Garcia | Yes, yeah, absolutely. So the Bay Area Air District Zero Knox rules requires, starting in 2027, heat pump, gas heat pumps will not be available and gas water furnaces, I believe, will not be available starting in 2029. So essentially this code incentivizes electrification right now to prepare builders and homeowners for those things that are already coming, um, and offers rebates to do them now through the county's programs. |
| 00:42:14.91 | Unknown | starting it. |
| 00:42:30.70 | Steven Woodside | So it is an incentive program. It's not a requirement yet and won't be until 2027 and or 2029. |
| 00:42:37.10 | Katie Thao Garcia | Yes, absolutely. Through this, you know, you still can purchase gas appliances. It's going to be harder to meet your target score. You're going to have to do more measures to meet your target score, according to the single family home modeling score criteria, but you still can have gas appliances. After 2027 and 2029 respectively, you will no longer be able to buy them in the Bay Area. Thank you. |
| 00:43:06.61 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:43:06.63 | Katie Thao Garcia | Thank you. |
| 00:43:06.73 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:43:06.92 | Katie Thao Garcia | Thank you. |
| 00:43:07.71 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:43:07.73 | Katie Thao Garcia | it. |
| 00:43:08.00 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:43:08.01 | Katie Thao Garcia | Thank you. Damn. |
| 00:43:08.86 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. Yes. Hi, Katie. Thank you so much to you and also the Sustainability Commission for all of the time and energy put into getting us up to getting us up to par with the majority of the county. So that's really exciting and giving us the opportunity to be a leader. I just wanted to kind of revisit some of the reasons why our code requires us to take these steps and is asking us to do so. do so. Could you highlight just some of the language in the sustainability element of the general plan that relates directly to this and then perhaps I'll follow on with some questions about the low emissions action plan |
| 00:43:45.24 | Katie Thao Garcia | Yeah, absolutely. Back into that and say it's not just a sustainability element of the general plan. I believe even in the community development portion of the general plan, there is an explicit measure saying, YOU KNOW CITY STAFF SHOULD LOOK INTO AND SUPPORT you know, energy reach codes to achieve greenhouse gas reduction measures. Within the sustainability element of the general plan, it is very robust and goes through you know, general greenhouse gas reduction measures, but also an associated number with the, you know, if a certain number of Sausalito houses were to upgrade to electric appliances, this amount of greenhouse gas reduction would be saved. And that would help us get to our 2040 targets. So the general plan sustainability elements goes into that robustly, which is It's more less an upgrade from the climate action plan to the low emissions action plan, which also touch on that in a very comprehensive document. |
| 00:44:46.97 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. So the low emissions action plan goes further into detail about the specifications within the general plan that where we as a city have essentially committed to taking steps to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and and move towards our climate action goals. |
| 00:45:01.74 | Katie Thao Garcia | Yes. And importantly, I believe in 2022, prior to me coming on board, city council adopted, um, the, climate emergency resolution saying roughly that you know a lot of a lot of the City Council decisions should at least take advantage of greenhouse gas reduction measures when applicable |
| 00:45:23.77 | Melissa Blaustein | And we unanimously adopted that resolution, correct? |
| 00:45:26.09 | Katie Thao Garcia | I believe so. |
| 00:45:27.18 | Melissa Blaustein | Right, and that was in 2022. And what year did we hire you? When did you come on? Early 2023. And a main focus for your work is ensuring sustainability and resiliency for the city of Sausalito. |
| 00:45:37.26 | Katie Thao Garcia | Exactly. The core functions are my of my job are obviously implementing things that city council instructs the city manager to tell me to tells me to implement, but also, you know, checking off the measures in the climate action plan and in the general plan on things that we can do. That's the core duties of my every day. |
| 00:45:55.36 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. my everyday. and you would consider adopting these codes a part of that process. |
| 00:46:00.31 | Katie Thao Garcia | Thank you. |
| 00:46:00.41 | Steven Woodside | Yes. |
| 00:46:00.63 | Katie Thao Garcia | Absolutely. |
| 00:46:01.09 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay, great. Thanks, Katie. . |
| 00:46:04.16 | Jill Hoffman | Hi, other questions? |
| 00:46:05.32 | Steven Woodside | Yes, Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 00:46:08.31 | Jill Hoffman | So Katie, I'm glad that council member, or sorry, the mayor forwarded, apparently she forwarded the David Marlott's letter to you who's on our planning commission. And so I assume you've read that letter. Yes, it was also included on the agenda. Right. And so anybody can go and read that. And so I also read that, and I also talked to David Marlott this afternoon, because some of the things in that letter were concerning and also consistent with some of the builders that I talked to prior to tonight about some of the things that you and I talked about prior to this hearing, and they were about driving costs up in some of these measures. And some of the things that concerned me you know, were some of the things that Mr. Marlott talked about in his letter and especially the additional concerns about the chilling effect on building and having to comply with additional Thank you. you know on remodel projects and additions to overall housing costs and some of the additional costs with regard to appliances that you and i had talked about um and it i didn't see any hard costs or hard hard listing in the reports of additional costs but you and i had talked about additional costs with regard to appliances did Is there any breakdown of additional costs in any other materials or any other expected costs from builders, or do we have anything to rely on from that aspect of it? |
| 00:47:42.81 | Katie Thao Garcia | Yeah, I mean, attachment six, which is, you know, essentially the single family remodel cost effectiveness analysis goes into that. I would have to, you know, look at it and point you to a page number. I don't know that it goes so far to say a gas furnace costs this much and an electrified equivalent costs that much. However, the county's rebate program more or less tries to close that delta between the two costs of the appliances. So it is a cost effective measure for builders. |
| 00:48:05.07 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:48:21.43 | Jill Hoffman | Or at least a breakdown, or at least we would have some sort of way to look at that. or at least the anyway. |
| 00:48:27.68 | Katie Thao Garcia | Yes, I can follow up with some sort of table if you want. Or something, yeah. |
| 00:48:32.25 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, some kind of way for us to evaluate. My point being is that we have to do a lot of building in the next four or five years. At least we hope to do a lot of building in Sausalito. And one of the things, you know, that we need to look at is what are our building costs and what do builders, if they want to come to, do we want to attract to Sausalito? You know, we don't want to increase costs, and that's my concern. Did we think about it all, taking this back to the Planning Commission first? As Mr. Marlott, I think he suggests that, or maybe he just, no, he says, he suggests remanding this to staff to analyze the report. and realistic and complete financial with a cost-benefit analysis. So he just says to go back to staff. But he suggested to me that maybe an avenue might be to send this back to the Planning Commission for a review. Did he talk to you about that or did you talk to him about that at all? |
| 00:49:28.85 | Katie Thao Garcia | No, I did not have any direct contact with Mr. Mr. Marlott. I will say, you know, in development, I forgot to mention this in the, in the staff report. Um, |
| 00:49:31.84 | Jill Hoffman | I will. |
| 00:49:38.23 | Katie Thao Garcia | In the development of really the single family remodel ordinance that the county adopted, I think, in 2019, in 2020 and in 2021, they coordinated closely with the Marin Builders Association, who represents the largest constituent of builders in Marin County. and several of them, including sustainability commissioners who are here tonight participated in those folk those focus groups as well and the general consensus from the Marin Builders Association was that they liked the consistency throughout the county and they liked they liked the suite, the flexible path of different measures to give builders opportunities on ways to choose while still allowing for gas appliances. So that was the feedback that the county generally heard. That mostly predates me, but I think Commissioner Mark Palmer and Dave Cooper sat on some of those task force. |
| 00:50:46.36 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 00:50:46.83 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. |
| 00:50:47.07 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 00:50:47.20 | Melissa Blaustein | I have some follow-up questions. Great. Thank you so much. So I know that Mill Valley, just because we're talking about build and incentive to build, so just for perspective, Mill Valley in 2020 adopted this Tier 1 reach codes. And in the time since then, you know, they had 27 new ADUs permitted in 2024, 25 units in 2023, about 69 from the time. And so Brandon, how many units have we permitted since 2020? |
| 00:51:20.21 | Brandon Phipps | Well, off the top of my head, I know that we are in progress on approximately 100 units. That is projects that are being reviewed by the Planning Commission, reviewed by our planning staff, or are in the building permit phase, or in the construction phase. So that's all very good news for us. I would agree with some of the comments as related to a concern around the chilling effect. However, as discussed, this does not apply to new development in the same way. The this chilling effect, I believe, as highlighted by David Merlot, would apply only to those renovation projects greater than or equal to 500 square feet. |
| 00:52:00.08 | Melissa Blaustein | Great. And then I noticed that there were some very specific language around covered projects and what's included that gives exemptions or ability to offer exemptions via our chief building official. Could you elaborate on that and what we might be able to do, for example, if there was an affordable developer who was concerned about the costs for adhering to some of the reach codes? |
| 00:52:23.22 | Katie Thao Garcia | Yes, exactly. I think the city attorney can more touch on the exact exemptions. But as my understanding, for the single family remodel, if you're enrolled in PG&Es, low income a subsidization of your energy you qualify or there's federal programs that would also qualify you. I think the ordinance also contains something for chief building official. Subsidation as well. So. |
| 00:52:54.34 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah, there is a provision in the ordinance that exempts uh, certain ADU projects. Uh, there's an exception where the building official determines that it is either technically or economically infeasible to achieve compliance. The building official can reduce the target target score, waive some of the mandatory requirements. There's an exception for, um, |
| 00:53:01.88 | Unknown | Thank you. Yeah. |
| 00:53:17.79 | Sergio Rudin | care rate participants. So that is basically a proxy for low income individuals. Additionally, there is a process for waiver or modification of the low carbon concrete standards as well. So there are certainly requirements that can be modified. And additionally, as mentioned, Uh, you know, the, Agenda item includes an overall analysis with regards to the cost effectiveness of the Um, FlexPath improvements. As already mentioned by Katie, the low carbon concrete standards additionally have Um, proven to be cost effective in that oftentimes the low carbon concrete is cheaper than the regular concrete mixes. Um, So, Uh, In general, these improvements are going to be cost effective, which the sick council does have to find in order to adopt them. Thank you. And because overall, either they'll be upfront cheaper, or they will be cheaper over the lifetime of the improvements. |
| 00:54:29.48 | Melissa Blaustein | Great. And so for example, if a builder was working on senior housing and there was an issue with regards to a cost associated with one of these things, they would Sergio review and rely on the ordinance and work with the chief building official to determine which requirements were mandatory. essentially. |
| 00:54:47.13 | Sergio Rudin | Yes. And additionally, with regards to affordable housing, there is provisions of density bonus law and things like that where applicants can seek waivers of these kinds of development standards as well. |
| 00:54:57.25 | Melissa Blaustein | And then actually there are, because some of the builders that I spoke to in advance of this ordinance as well pointed out to me that there are a number of perhaps tax benefits or cost saving initiatives to builders and to owners for making these types of improvements. Can you maybe share your information on that, Katie? |
| 00:55:15.60 | Katie Thao Garcia | Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's similar to when, you know, you buy so much of an item, it can drive down the price if you're, if you're doing electrification of, you know, multi-family units and you want to, you know, use electrification measures in those, it can drive down the price of those. Great. Vice Mayor. |
| 00:55:42.07 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, just a couple questions. We currently are having outside contract building officials and that's soon to change. And as I read through, some of these are rather complicated and may be challenging for a new building official to come to grips with. So my question to you is, do you have any concerns about implementation should this be and do you have any suggestions as to how that might be smoothed out in terms of timing? I'm not asking this very well, assuming we adopted first reading, when would you suggest that we come back for the second and final |
| 00:56:25.16 | Katie Thao Garcia | Yeah. I mean, I think typically the second reading comes back in the, in the next city council meeting. So, you know, I certainly would be prepared for that, but if city council would want to wait till the new chief building official is on board, you know, so I have time to liaise with them and the assistant city manager to talk about implementation of this. Um, you know, I would say in terms of Calgary in Tier 1 and the single family remodel, implementation is already happening in other jurisdictions throughout the county, and I know the chief building officials all have a monthly meeting in which they meet on. So I would be more than happy to attend one of those meetings with the new chief building official and work on implementation of that. The low carbon concrete standards, as I said, has only been adopted by Marin County. So implementation of that I would imagine to be more difficult. So we would have to work with the county on that to make sure that we are able to implement effectively and monitor effectively with the staff time that we do have. |
| 00:57:38.53 | Steven Woodside | And as to the concrete issue, you mentioned earlier in your presentation that it appears that that option is actually lower in cost. Is it possible to verify that before we finally adopt this? |
| 00:57:52.82 | Katie Thao Garcia | Yes, I mean as as proxy so the I dove into the ferry land side project Which was you know recently redone and According to our procurement laws we are required to choose the lowest bidder for construction So, you know, we went ahead city council went ahead and chose the lowest bidder, and that bidder included low carbon concrete standards. Because the county hasn't been implementing those low carbon concrete standards and been working with major concrete operators like Shamrock in the county, the market price has already been affected for low carbon concrete, and a lot of the times it's already the cheaper option. And yeah, the example of that is the Ferry Landside project. |
| 00:58:42.60 | Steven Woodside | Okay. And finally, is there, are we facing a deadline? I know for some things recently we've, we have rather urgent deadlines. Is there a deadline associated with this particular deadline? |
| 00:58:57.18 | Katie Thao Garcia | It's my understanding that there is not a deadline, but I will let Sergio confirm that. |
| 00:59:03.26 | Sergio Rudin | No, there is not a specific deadline to adopt this. Additionally, the count the council following passage of this, this can't go into effect until Uh, after both January 1st, 2025, and also staff taking this for approval before the California Energy Commission. So there will be some lead time even after the council passes this and adopts it, assuming the council does so. |
| 00:59:32.10 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:59:34.95 | Steven Woodside | I'm going to open it up to public comment. I do want to reiterate that the public comment that we heard from David Cooper applied to this item and not to item 4. |
| 00:59:37.36 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:59:48.09 | Melissa Blaustein | Bye. I'm going to go ahead, but he might want to give comment again in light of what was heard. I mean, it was the wrong item and now we've discussed it. I think he should be allowed to comment on the item in context of conversation, but. Thank you. |
| 00:59:58.74 | Steven Woodside | Did you want to approach Mr. Cooper? |
| 01:00:05.78 | David Cooper | THANK YOU FOR THAT. I'M SORRY WE HAD A LITTLE MIX UP THERE. I DO PROVIDE THE SUPPORT AS I MENTIONED BEFORE. WE'VE WORKED ON THIS AS A SUSTAINABILITY COMMISSION FOR OVER FIVE YEARS. THE WRITING OF THIS WAS VERY ARDUOUS AND DONE IN AN EXCELLENT WAY AND CONTINUE TO SUPPORT THIS. I DO BELIEVE THAT THIS IS IN SYNC WITH THE OTHER CITIES IN MARIN COUNTY AND WE HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO MATCH THAT OR BETTER THAT AS A CITY OURSELVES. believe that this is in sync with the other cities in Marin County and we have an opportunity to match that or better that as a city ourselves and it's good for our community it's good for our climate it's also good for our buildings and the resiliency in those properties over a long time thank you |
| 01:00:47.09 | Steven Woodside | Next speaker is Babette McDougall. |
| 01:00:57.92 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. Thank you. So First of all, let's just look at how our local community is most certainly plugged into the big picture. Houston is the energy capital of the whole world now. There are ample supplies of natural gas, trust me. There is not a dearth. I have barely even started to finish amortizing the incentive to convert to natural gas in my home. So this idea of ebb and flow electric versus something other, it's going to be an ongoing thing, which brings me to my main point. which is we are at teachable moments here. We have all these schools in Sausalito, including a brand new one in the pipeline. And we have a nearby high school, not to mention others. We should be bringing the kids in. Maybe we set them up at the Bay Model, but one way or the other, they need to see how we are reengineering our future. And I have to say, Brandon Phipps, Katie Tao Garcia, I mean, these guys have their arms around it. I feel very confident about our future, but I think we need to be big picture here you know it's cool it's you know Simmons cool it's not cool really I'm it's important absolutely it's important but the point is our children need to know why so the more we integrate our our secondary primary whatever we have that will come like they used to come maybe we need to bring back Chris Gallagher really I mean, ever since she left, nobody thinks the Bay Model's open. And yet it's such a great place to teach kids, and they always were there. So let's bring them back, and let's make everything going forward through sustainability teachable moments. Thank you. |
| 01:02:38.47 | Steven Woodside | Mark Palmer. We have two members from our sustainability commission here this evening. |
| 01:02:48.56 | Mark Palmer | Good evening Mayor Cox and council members. Mark Palmer, Sustainability Commission. I'm speaking in strong support of this ordinance and I want to acknowledge the excellent work of staff to bring this item forward. To align with California's legally mandated climate targets, so it'll almost reduce total emissions by 80% over the next 20 years. Achieving this requires every sector to contribute particularly our building sector, THE CITY HOLDS DIRECTION TO authority through its building code. Calgary Tier 1 is a standardized framework for new construction that strengthens the state baseline including measures such as native and drought tolerant landscaping, EV charging outlets, enhanced thermal performance, and healthy building materials. Single Family Remodel Code offers homeowners flexible phased options to improve efficiency during remodels and additions. helping residents participate without excessive costs. Low carbon concrete directly cuts embodied emissions while maintaining safety and performance. This ordinance allows for common sense exceptions and gives enforcement discretion to the city's chief building official. In 2022, Sausalito declared a climate emergency. and pledge to prioritize sustainability in every decision. This isn't just about buildings and energy. It's about clean air. healthy homes, and a livable future for Sausalito. Thank you. |
| 01:04:28.95 | Steven Woodside | Thank you, I have no more speaker cards. City Clerk, is there anyone online? |
| 01:04:33.65 | Walfred Solorzano | See you then. |
| 01:04:34.78 | Steven Woodside | right a close public comment and bring it up here for um discussion |
| 01:04:43.66 | Jill Hoffman | Sure. dive right in so you know great you know obviously great work on the part of the sustainability Commission I would suspect or expect nothing less from them other than the report that we received and support for this but having said that you know I'm cautious about this because I'm cautious about anything that's going to create any friction or any hesitation of any builder that's going to come to Sausalito and any Thank you. anything that's going to cause any slowdown in homeowners or single-family remodels in Sausalito because we here all the time and we receive appeals to the City Council of people that are having trouble with remodels and so I And this is in no way a comment on the Sustainability Commission's work, and it's no way a comment on Katie's report to us, but it's just my lived experience on this council for the past 11 years and Mr. Marlott's letter as an architect and the appeals that I've heard up here and so I would have liked to have seen this as a study session as and not for a vote and so as a study session I should we transition these from voluntary to required and should we transition these? And I would think that these are excellent goals, but what is the hard cost that builders and families that are trying to do a remodel gonna have to bear to transition from what they're living with now with substandard or antiquated systems in their homes to what we want them to get to which is correct Cal green tier one and or upgraded systems and how can we incentivize them to get there rather than penalize them when they can't get there and that's my concern and so i'd rather see an incentivizing program with us helping them get there as opposed to a penal code which is i fear where we're going to get if we just change our code in this way and I'd like to have more hard facts of what the cost is going to be. When I see this type of decision, a draconian change in our code, which is what this seems to me. And I did talk to some builders who have built here in Sausalito for years who told me that their initial take on this is that it's consistent with Mr. Marlott's letter, which is this is going to have a chilling effect on remodels and overall housing costs in Sausalito. And it's going to slow down construction at a time when we've had a tremendous amount of talk in Sausalito right now about the 724 units so we need to build in this next cycle and that's my perspective. And I have more comments when it comes back to me. Thank you. |
| 01:08:02.41 | Steven Woodside | Okay. |
| 01:08:02.47 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Vice mayor. |
| 01:08:05.45 | Steven Woodside | Yeah. Thank you. I think that's a good thing. We have a climate crisis, we have an affordability crisis, and we also here in Sausalito are working very hard to smooth out our various codes so that they can be more easily administered. And I wanna make sure those three things are not on a collision course. So I'm in favor of this, I'm in favor of, you know, moving this first step, moving it forward. I would simply encourage Katie and our new building inspector, building official and others, to make sure that in the implementation it's easy to understand and the exceptions, etc., are clear. They're described as common sense. But when you read through all of this, it's complicated. It's not just a straightforward, simple thing. And we want to make sure it's done right. Otherwise, it will backfire, and people will choose not to adhere it. So that's my... my main issue. I also know that, for example, many people will look to the state law and see an easy avenue for over the counter approval of an ADU, for example. In addition, however, we will have requirements associated with that because ADUs, more than 500 square feet, et cetera. So again, we don't want them to be on a collision course we want them to be understood so we know at what point do we require all the additional things that may not be necessary right now for that ADU so that we get the housing and maybe some things are deferred or granted exceptions for a later day I think that has to be done case by case it's very hard to legislate the final solution so having said that I'll be happy to at the appropriate time either make a motion or second a motion I think Melissa you've been on this for so many years I'd prefer it if you would like to make the motion but but I this is a very very important step that we're taking we just want to get it right |
| 01:10:05.52 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:10:05.64 | Walfred Solorzano | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 01:10:05.72 | Unknown | to make the most |
| 01:10:14.43 | Melissa Blaustein | Thanks. Do you wanna? Oh, go ahead. Oh, okay, yeah. I think it's no surprise that I am absolutely in favor of adopting these changes to our building code. I think it's really important to be consistent and remember what we've said we're gonna do from this dais. And when we all voted to say that we are in a climate emergency and we voted, you served with me on the general plan advisory board and we worked together on ensuring that sustainability and resilience were key pieces of what we were going to do together as a city and our climate action plan and then our LEAP plan and of course, the sustainability element specifically of the general plan. And I think probably one of the best things we've done since my tenure on city council, hiring Katie Tho Garcia to take steps forward to really enact some of that. And this is a real opportunity for us to step up and meet the moment. You know, we are behind in terms of the majority of the county of who's already doing what with regards to reach codes and I think our city attorney did an exceptional job of ensuring in the ordinance, if you read through the language of the ordinance, that should an exemption be requested or required, there are avenues for that. So if a builder is encountering or has a concern that we're going to have WE ARE WORKING CLOSELY WITH THE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT AND THE CHIEF BUILDING OFFICIAL TO BE SURE THAT THERE IS A PATH FOR THAT. AND I APPRECIATE THE VICE MAYOR'S COMMENTS WITH REGARDS TO ENSURING THAT THIS IS SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T IMPACT THE AFFORDABILITY CRISIS OR THE CLIMATE CRISIS, BUT RATHER IT ALL WORKS TOGETHER TOWARDS OUR GOALS AS A COUNCIL. Absolutely think that we should move ahead tonight, and I am very happy. to make a motion to have to say the whole thing, hold on. uh, make a motion to approve to adopt ordinance number To introduce and waive first reading of ordinance number 11-2025, an ordinance of the Sausalito City Council amending Sausalito Municipal Code section 802070 to adopt energy reach code requirements for single family building remodels amending Sausalito Municipal Code section 802120. And I also just want to add that I think it's really fantastic that we will be among the pioneers of using climate friendly concrete. |
| 01:12:38.91 | Steven Woodside | I'm just going to add that it also amends Sausalito Municipal Code Section 80. 8.0 2.120. Oh great. Thank you. Yes. And with that, I will second that motion. |
| 01:12:45.27 | Melissa Blaustein | Oh, great. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:12:49.07 | Steven Woodside | And I will just briefly say, I too am so pleased and proud to have Katie Tho Garcia, who's really at the forefront of her trade. We are envied by other cities and municipalities in Marin and elsewhere because of the quality of work that she provides to us and the manner in which we've been able to advance various sustainability resiliency and other goals and this is just another example of that I also am so pleased and proud with our sustainability Commission which has long been a really foundational aspect of our volunteerism here in Sausalito. I was privileged years ago to serve as the liaison to the Sustainability Commission, and it's always been staffed by such smart, intelligent, forward-thinking individuals, and now is no exception. So thank you all for your great efforts on this goal and this ordinance and this project. And I am satisfied that we have heard evidence that the marginal cost to our builders will be mitigated by the savings in the longterm regarding implementation of these measures, that there are monies and funding out there available to incentivize the use of the more sustainable approaches. I myself prefer gas. I love my gas stove and my gas oven. |
| 01:14:18.51 | Melissa Blaustein | post. |
| 01:14:27.69 | Steven Woodside | But I'm a dinosaur and I'm not part of the future and I know that I need to progress. And so, you know, I support this effort. |
| 01:14:41.86 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. And so my follow up comments are that I see from the chart that there are no other cities in Marin County that have all three of these things that, according to the chart that Katie gave us in her presentation on Slide nine. Only the county has Cal Green Tier 1, the single family remodel and also low carbon concrete. And so my fear is that without a review or further information and further scrutiny of Perhaps the Planning Commission and additional information for the Planning Commission to make a well-reasoned and informed decision based on our for the council that it's going to drive costs up for our builders and slow construction down in Sausalito at a time when we need to speed construction up and that builders simply won't engage and that they'll just move on to someplace else where it's easier to build at a time that we need to deliver many units here in Sausalito and so at a time I want to get to yes to support this and unfortunately I don't think that I have enough information to support a vote of yes at this time and since there's no rush to get to a vote tonight as our city attorney said and that's why I suggested that we go back to the Planning Commission so at this time I'm not ready to vote in support of this at this effort thank you a question |
| 01:16:01.82 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:16:01.93 | Jill Hoffman | . |
| 01:16:01.97 | Steven Woodside | I'll call. |
| 01:16:02.71 | Jill Hoffman | THE FAMILY IS |
| 01:16:02.90 | Steven Woodside | THE END OF |
| 01:16:03.03 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:16:03.05 | Steven Woodside | question. |
| 01:16:03.39 | Jill Hoffman | the |
| 01:16:03.96 | Steven Woodside | the same. |
| 01:16:04.03 | Jill Hoffman | THE FAMILY IS |
| 01:16:04.23 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:16:04.30 | Jill Hoffman | All right. |
| 01:16:04.41 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:16:05.58 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Blostey. you |
| 01:16:06.85 | Jill Hoffman | Yes. |
| 01:16:07.32 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Hoffman. |
| 01:16:10.35 | Jill Hoffman | Respectfully, no for the reasons that I stated. |
| 01:16:13.07 | Walfred Solorzano | Council member sobieski is absent vice mayor Woodside aye and mayor Cox |
| 01:16:19.85 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:16:19.87 | Steven Woodside | Yes, that motion carries 3-1. |
| 01:16:22.05 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. I also want to give a shout out to our former council member, Janelle Kelman, who did a lot of work and support for reach codes and sustainability while here. So if you're watching, Janelle, thanks. For sure. |
| 01:16:35.16 | Steven Woodside | All right, with that we will move on to city manager reports, council member reports, city council appointments, and other council business. City manager. |
| 01:16:42.62 | Chris Zapata | Thank you, Mayor, members of the council, members of the public. I will be very brief. I am remiss at the last meeting. I failed to introduce Deidre Coyne, our new deputy city clerk and welcome her. So she is here. Deidre, wave. And so we're very pleased to have her on our team. I look forward to great things from her. Thank you, Mayor. |
| 01:17:05.10 | Steven Woodside | Thank you so much. City Attorney, any additional information for the Council this evening? None at this time. |
| 01:17:10.45 | Chris Zapata | Yeah. |
| 01:17:10.63 | Sergio Rudin | Yeah. |
| 01:17:10.70 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:17:10.72 | Sergio Rudin | Thank you. |
| 01:17:10.82 | Chris Zapata | time. |
| 01:17:10.90 | Sergio Rudin | Thank you. |
| 01:17:11.00 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 01:17:11.97 | Steven Woodside | All right, council member committee reports. |
| 01:17:16.77 | Melissa Blaustein | I just want to give a little bit of an update on the mascot plan and transportation authority. You may have seen that myself and Councilmember Catherine Mendel-Jones from Mill Valley co-authored a Marin voice this week, speaking to the loss of Route 17, which is the only direct route between Mill Valley and Sausalito as a result of that plan. So I didn't see the letter that we had written about that attached to the agenda at the last meeting but I would still really like us to figure out a way to more significantly weigh in Did I, what happened with that letter? the mascots letter from the, it wasn't attached to the agenda, but I know you drafted it. |
| 01:17:59.54 | Steven Woodside | We ended up, because we had met with Marin Transit two days earlier and knew that the action was already being taken, we did not send the formal letter. What we did instead was we're in the midst of scheduling a meeting with the representatives who came here to Sausalito to chat with us in order to try to further advance our position. I would love to be there for that. |
| 01:18:18.13 | Melissa Blaustein | Okay. I would love to be there for that position. Okay. |
| 01:18:25.68 | Steven Woodside | Other council member reports? Anything from League of Votes? |
| 01:18:28.04 | Melissa Blaustein | Thank you. I guess I missed the meeting with the feedback readout from the League of Cities Conference so I apologize. |
| 01:18:42.16 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. have a Okay. the Finance Committee will be meeting next week and I've just asked the city manager if he can remember the exact date and time |
| 01:18:59.49 | Steven Woodside | Chris, did you hear me? |
| 01:19:01.21 | Steven Woodside | We're looking for the date and time of the Finance Committee |
| 01:19:02.41 | Chris Zapata | THE FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING. IT'S THURSDAY THE 13TH OF NOVEMBER AND I BELIEVE THE TIME IS 9 A.M. |
| 01:19:10.29 | Steven Woodside | Right. Thank you, I just wanted to make sure people knew that and it will be an agenda is in draft form and will go out I think later this week. |
| 01:19:21.06 | Mark Palmer | Thank you. |
| 01:19:21.08 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:19:21.13 | Mark Palmer | Right. |
| 01:19:24.94 | Steven Woodside | Okay, I have no appointments to make this evening. Future agenda items, city clerk, we have updated the future agenda items matrix in the agenda matrix that I forward to you. a couple of times and this does not reflect that update so the next time we publish this can we just update that to the page in the from the agenda setting committee |
| 01:19:50.91 | Walfred Solorzano | Yeah, that was the last one I received, but yes, I'll do that. |
| 01:19:55.48 | Steven Woodside | I don't want to argue with you, but I removed some things on here that aren't going to happen in the version that I sent back. And I updated some dates. This still says that we're going to hear some items in October, and obviously October has come and gone. All right. And we gave you two agenda items this evening to add to the matrix. If we can add those, that would be great. All right. All right. We haven't seen any minutes from |
| 01:20:24.68 | Jill Hoffman | I have a future agenda item. Oh, go ahead. Forensic audit. I always request that. |
| 01:20:31.92 | Melissa Blaustein | I'm going to add, I know you already directed, but just to reiterate, I would really like to see us take up consideration of a snap matching grant for Save Our Sausalito. |
| 01:20:40.69 | Steven Woodside | And that's one of the items the city clerk memorialized this evening, I believe. |
| 01:20:45.15 | Melissa Blaustein | I would say that that is time sensitive given the needs and we don't know the amount of time the $3 million that so far I spoke to is how much it would cost for one month to provide bridge snap benefits to our residents. |
| 01:20:59.32 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. We haven't seen any minutes from boards, commissions, and committees recently. |
| 01:21:05.63 | Walfred Solorzano | We have them on 6F from the disaster preparedness committee and the sustainability commission. |
| 01:21:09.94 | Steven Woodside | Oh, great. |
| 01:21:10.70 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 01:21:10.73 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. Wonderful. And then we were, we did not interview at our last meeting for community disaster preparedness members. |
| 01:21:21.14 | Walfred Solorzano | Everybody dropped off, and then we did have a sustainability commission member, but it was canceled to not have anybody, and the person was here throughout the whole meeting. |
| 01:21:31.82 | Steven Woodside | Yeah, can we just make one more effort before the end of the year to try and populate those committees? Thank you. |
| 01:21:36.95 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes. Thank you. |
| 01:21:38.64 | Steven Woodside | All right, no other reports of significance. I'll open it up for public comment on items 6A through 6C and 6E through 6G. |
| 01:21:51.90 | Steven Woodside | at that that McDougal. |
| 01:22:00.70 | Babette McDougall | Thank you for acknowledging me. So I think this part of the meeting is actually always quite telling. When we see that we have transportation issues that are constantly being brought before certain of you, but are never daylighted in whole to the citizens of Sausalito. it actually speaks to a much larger problem that we do face in the near future, which is how we're going to transform our infrastructure in the transportation area. to accommodate this massive influx of people that will come with all this new construction. So we really need to look at these questions more fairly and more openly, and I'm not exactly sure why the citizens themselves are not gaining access to your reports. There should be some kind of a summary report. Maybe we can expand the currents. Maybe we can expand a portal on the website. But I mean something, because of course you can't sit here every single time, but as it happens, you could file something for us to know. And that sort of keeps the momentum going. Let's face it, things are moving so fast right now, the more we can stay afoot, and keep each other informed the better. And then the final thing is we still have a rather big disconnect in our community Those who find it easy to get to the Marin IJ, and frankly those who don't, those who find it easy to get to the city's website and figure it out and those who don't. And so the list goes on. We still don't have a consistent communication flow that everybody can count on. So I just want to urge you as we go forward, there's just no substitute for all those nice little postcards y'all put out just on behalf of measure K alone. I mean, imagine if you did that for the issues that matter day in and day out. Thank you so much. Thank you. |
| 01:23:56.32 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:23:56.49 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 01:23:56.51 | Steven Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:23:56.53 | Babette McDougall | the state. |
| 01:23:59.01 | Walfred Solorzano | No further public comments? |
| 01:24:00.86 | Steven Woodside | Great. Okay. Um, it has come time to adjourn and I'm adjourning this evening's meeting. in honor of former Novato City Councilmember Mark Milberg, who died in the middle of October unexpectedly, he was appointed to the Novato City Council in 2021, served as mayor in 2024, Before serving on the council, Mr. Milberg was a member of the Novato Citizens Finance Advisory and Oversight Committee. Many of us knew Mark. The vice mayor actually spoke with him and interacted with him at the League of California Cities Conference in Southern California in October. Mark's warmth, friendship, and tireless dedication to Novato touched countless lives. His leadership, kindness, and unwavering support for his community leave a legacy that will be remembered for years to come. And so on behalf of the city council, and staff, we extend our deepest sympathies to his family, and loved ones, and we will adjourn this evening's meeting. in his honor. And then just for those who don't know, the city clerk actually prepares a certificate commemorating the fact that we adjourned the meeting in favor of someone who has passed. This certificate, Mr. City Clerk, you could give to Council Member Hoffman to assure that it gets to the right place. And thank you all. We are adjourned. |
Sophia Collier — In Favor: Urged the city to contribute $10,000 to the Marin Community Foundation's Food on Every Table Fund to support SNAP benefits for approximately 280 Sausalito residents, matching a pledge from Save Our Sausalito. ▶ 📄
Michelle Bank — Against: Expressed surprise and concern that a previously petitioned project was being discussed again without adequate public awareness, calling it 'abnormal.' ▶ 📄
Thomas Maher — Neutral: Requested referral to the city attorney to resolve a code enforcement issue involving fines for a property owner, arguing the required view mitigation is damaging and costly, and benefits only a single citizen. ▶ 📄
Babette McDougall — Neutral: Advocated for adopting Robert's Rules of Order to improve meeting decorum and consensus-building, especially important given polarized debates on density and ecological issues. ▶ 📄
Lizanne Goring — Neutral: Requested clarification and updates to vague city codes regarding storage boxes in shared spaces, noting current ambiguity causes community disruption and hinders building department enforcement. ▶ 📄