| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:00.03 | Mayor Woodside | on Tuesday afternoon. So, Ms. Clerk, can you |
| 00:00:01.06 | Walfred Solorzano | And... |
| 00:00:05.53 | Mayor Woodside | open the meeting for us and, um, Call the roll. |
| 00:00:08.62 | Walfred Solorzano | Good afternoon, Mayor and City Council. Today's City Council meeting of April 7th, 2026 is being held at 420 Litho Street, City Council Council Chambers. It is also being broadcast live via Zoom on the city's website and cable TV channel 27. |
| 00:00:25.28 | Mayor Woodside | Very well, thank you. Would you please call the roll? |
| 00:00:28.31 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Cox? Here. Councilmember Hoffman? Here. Councilmember Sobieski is on his way. Vice Mayor Blaustein? Mayor Woodside. |
| 00:00:38.41 | Mayor Woodside | here. Thank you. So I'll call the meeting to order our first Actually, only item of business for the first hour is closed session. where we'll be discussing public employee employment, and that would be regarding the position of city manager, and secondly, conference with our labor negotiators. Those are the two items for this. closed session. And are there any public comments before we adjourn to closed session? |
| 00:01:07.51 | Walfred Solorzano | Seeing none. |
| 00:01:08.98 | Mayor Woodside | Okay. None in the council chambers and none online. So we will now go into closed session. Thank you. We have returned to close session to start our regular meeting. I'm going to ask the clerk to start us off and then later call the role. |
| 00:01:29.37 | Walfred Solorzano | Good afternoon again, Mayor and City Council. Today's City Council meeting of April 7th, 2026 is being held at 420 Litho Street City Council Council Chambers. It is also being broadcast live via Zoom on the city's website and cable TV channel 27. |
| 00:01:46.51 | Mayor Woodside | Very well. Will you please call the roll? |
| 00:01:48.96 | Walfred Solorzano | Councilmember Cox. here. Councilmember Hoffman here councilmember Sobieski here Vice Mayor Blaustein? Here. Mayor Woodside? |
| 00:01:58.38 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you very much. I'm here. So we'll do the Pledge of Allegiance. I'm going to ask Sophia Collier if she would kindly lead us. |
| 00:02:06.80 | Sophia Collier | 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. |
| 00:02:26.98 | Mayor Woodside | So before we get started with the business items, I just have a brief report from closed session. We did meet, both on, trying to remember now, |
| 00:02:38.81 | Alice Merrill | This morning at 8 a.m. |
| 00:02:40.60 | Mayor Woodside | This morning at 8 a.m., we also met last Saturday on the public employee employment matter city manager, and we have nothing to announce today on that topic, but we will be continuing the meeting until... |
| 00:02:42.05 | Alice Merrill | Oh, |
| 00:02:59.04 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:02:59.16 | Babette McDougall | Stay at 2.30. |
| 00:02:59.97 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:03:00.00 | Faye Rosenthal | Thank you. |
| 00:03:00.19 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:03:00.22 | Mayor Woodside | Thursday at 2.30 to 2.30 p.m. So this item will be heard again at 2.30 p.m. And we will probably go into closed session at that time and then come out and make any announcements that we're able to make. |
| 00:03:00.37 | Walfred Solorzano | Thursday. |
| 00:03:00.97 | Babette McDougall | THE MIDDLE. |
| 00:03:01.39 | Walfred Solorzano | I'm sorry. |
| 00:03:16.78 | Mayor Woodside | So having said that, we also discussed in closed session just now conference with labor negotiators for public employee bargaining units for employees here in the city, non-peace officer employees. And again, we have nothing to report out at this time. Now, I'd like to ask for approval of our agenda as posted and published. |
| 00:03:39.73 | Unknown | So moved. Second. |
| 00:03:42.87 | Mayor Woodside | Okay? I do, we can all voice vote, say aye. |
| 00:03:46.80 | Unknown | I... |
| 00:03:47.41 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. |
| 00:03:48.22 | Mayor Woodside | Well, that passes unanimously. We'll proceed with the agenda. We have number of special while we have a special presentation, we have some announcements. We have some city manager report, so I'm gonna, ask if the city manager would like to start with a brief report |
| 00:04:11.59 | Chris Zapata | I would like to tell you that the agenda tonight is chock full of finance. It will continue to be chock full of finance as we build a budget in the coming month. There are some serious policy discussions upcoming that will inform the upcoming budget. And so I hope that the public is mindful of all the work that is in the packet for items 5A and 5B, one involving the audit and the other involving budget appropriations. That concludes my report, Mayor. |
| 00:04:41.02 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you very much. We now have a very special presentation, and I would like the Vice Mayor to lead it off. |
| 00:04:48.10 | Unknown | Yeah, great. We're going to hear from On the Waterfront Foundation, but actually I'd like to call up Mr. Jim Gabbert because this is actually not a presentation of On the Waterfront. It is a proclamation in honor of your 90th year here in Sausalito. So we're going to. formally present you with this proclamation and I'm going to start by reading it and we'll each go around and then you can come up and accept it and we can take a photo and we. Surprise. I don't know if it was that much of a surprise, but we tried. So. And if you want to come forward as we read it to you or at least stand so we can acknowledge that you're, yes, thank you so much. Let's give Jim Babbert a big round of a hand. Plus. |
| 00:05:29.41 | Unknown | It's really hard to surprise you in this town, but we tried. So. I'm sorry. |
| 00:05:34.38 | Unknown | Are you? |
| 00:05:34.56 | Unknown | Exactly. Thank you. Good. Your birthday was a couple months ago, so we're a little late, but better late than never. Proclamation honoring James Gabbert. Whereas James Jim Gabbert has called Sausalito home since the early 1960s, first living aboard a boat in our harbor before putting down roots on our hillsides, becoming over more than six decades as much a part of the city's character as the waterfront, the fog and the hills above Richardson Bay and |
| 00:06:05.09 | Unknown | So much for any good luck. Whereas Jim Gabbard is a singular figure in Bay Area Broadcasting History. And a man who, beginning in 1957 with a modest FM station, a vision, built a media empire spanning radio television across the Bay Area and Hawaii, in whom the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences recognized upon his induction. into the gold circle for changing the way people listen to radio and watch TV in the Bay Area and |
| 00:06:39.06 | Sarah Bostock | Thank you. |
| 00:06:43.97 | Jill Hoffman | Whereas Jim Gabbert received a commendation from President John F. Kennedy for operating the first successful FM station. in the country. earned or achieved an award from the National Association of Broadcasters the first ever to receive that honor and was inducted into the Bay Area Radio Hall of Fame in 2006. And |
| 00:07:09.45 | Sophia Collier | Whereas, Jim Galbert is an accomplished aviator and proud, active member of the National Gay Pilots Association, championing inclusion, safety, and community with characteristic enthusiasm. And? |
| 00:07:27.15 | Mayor Woodside | And whereas upon you upon concluding his broadcasting career, Jim devoted himself fully to Sausalito, serving as president of the Sausalito Art Festival, president of the Chamber of Commerce, commodore of the Sausalito Yacht Club, Grand Marshal of the Lighted Boat Parade for more than 20 years, and a founding member and vice president of the Sausalito On the Waterfront Foundation, helping bring the beloved Winterfest fireworks spectacular to Gabrielson park year after year after year. And I'll just keep going unless we want to pass it. And whereas Jim Gabbert, has turned 90 years old. |
| 00:08:10.17 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:08:10.28 | Mayor Woodside | this year. |
| 00:08:11.38 | Unknown | No. |
| 00:08:12.98 | Mayor Woodside | Having soared. literally and i should say literally he's still a pilot and figuratively through a life of extraordinary achievement And having given Sausalito far more than any city could hope to receive from one of his or her own. So now therefore be it proclaimed that the city of Sausalito hereby celebrates and honors James Jim Gabbert. on the occasion or a little after his 90th birthday with deepest gratitude for a lifetime of dedication to the airways, the skies, the waterfront and the people of this remarkable city. |
| 00:09:06.70 | Babette McDougall | Get a picture? We want to get a picture with you. I saw that. |
| 00:09:10.98 | Unknown | That's great. Congratulations. Thanks very much. |
| 00:09:11.27 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. |
| 00:09:11.30 | Babette McDougall | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:09:13.90 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:09:15.08 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 00:09:15.10 | Sophia Collier | Well, |
| 00:09:15.59 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 00:09:16.37 | Unknown | there. |
| 00:09:17.90 | Sophia Collier | and turn around and take a picture. There we go. Thank you. |
| 00:09:22.12 | Unknown | Mayor, I can see you. |
| 00:09:28.57 | Unknown | I'll pick them from over here. |
| 00:09:30.10 | Mayor Woodside | Okay, great. |
| 00:09:30.14 | Unknown | Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Amen. Thank you. |
| 00:09:39.47 | Jim Gabbert | I just want to say one quick thing. |
| 00:09:41.48 | Sophia Collier | Please, do you want to go to the microphone? |
| 00:09:41.85 | Jim Gabbert | Want to go to the mic? |
| 00:09:45.91 | Sophia Collier | Here you go. |
| 00:09:46.76 | Jim Gabbert | Okay, I got a microphone. I don't know how to talk into all of these. I came to Sausalito in 1965 because my rent in San Francisco went up, and Sausalito had Believe it or not. And I look at the progress and what this town has done, and I don't think I could live in... anywhere else in the world besides Sausalito. And I want to thank all of you so much. Really, thank you, thank you, thank you. |
| 00:10:20.59 | Faye Rosenthal | I love them. |
| 00:10:27.04 | Mayor Woodside | Well, that's going to be hard to beat. Rather than go into a few special presentations, I have been given a number of speaker cards that I think have something to do with the waterfront. Um, And it's not with respect to a matter on our agenda. So if I could quickly have a show of hands of those of you who I think want to talk, speak to us briefly about Pelican Harbor. There's quite a number of you. So I think, Since it's not on the agenda, if you can be fairly brief in your comments, we'd appreciate it. And I'd give you a chance to come in, come out, and say your piece. It's not something we can deal with right now. We can hear from you, though, and we want to do so. I'm gonna take a wild guess here. I'm going to start with |
| 00:11:27.03 | Faye Rosenthal | Alex Merrill. |
| 00:11:27.55 | Mayor Woodside | Alice Merrill. |
| 00:11:31.62 | Faye Rosenthal | then I would do Mr. Mondo. Okay. Thank you. |
| 00:11:34.05 | Dan Morgan | Thank you. |
| 00:11:34.07 | Faye Rosenthal | Thank you. |
| 00:11:34.08 | Dan Morgan | All right. |
| 00:11:34.12 | Faye Rosenthal | Thank you. |
| 00:11:36.16 | Dan Morgan | Thank you. |
| 00:11:39.67 | Unknown | Sure, but. Thank you. |
| 00:11:41.41 | Robert McCullough | but I think that Thank you. |
| 00:11:43.01 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:11:45.32 | Alice Merrill | Thank you. Oh, now it is. Pelican is a nice little community that's been perking along for a long time. And it's had a variety of owners and they've been you know, keeping it up, et cetera, et cetera. And all of a sudden... out of nowhere, the fellow next door who has the I never couldn't remember the name of it. Brickway Marina announces that he's now the new owner, and he proceeded to tell the harbormaster |
| 00:12:11.38 | Unknown | Brickway Marina. |
| 00:12:18.72 | Alice Merrill | not to fix the water to get to the boats because he's the owner now and he doesn't want anything done, which the harbormaster kept going, thanked you very much. We want you to, we know how out of compliance Bridgeway Marina is. We know big time. Everybody does. We are asking you to watch that they stay in compliance in this place. We have heard that he says, I could put liver boards in the whole harbor then, so I sure can here. I can do this then, I can here, I can do that there, I can. It... Please, please help us to not just turn into the Bridgeway Marina, because he's not a nice person to work with. Thank you. |
| 00:13:08.70 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you, Alice. Chris Monte. |
| 00:13:15.32 | Mayor Woodside | followed by Skip Klieger. |
| 00:13:26.55 | Chris Monte | Good evening. Mayor Woodside and council members, my name is Chris Monte. I'm a 16 year Sausalito resident and boat slip holder at Pelican Harbor. Many of us here tonight are long time residents and members of Pelican Harbor community for decades. Since its conception by Ned Martin in 1971, Pelican Harbor has been a unique and well-loved Sausalito waterfront gem. carefully stewarded since 2005 by the Flynn family and passed Harvard Master for 21 years, respecting the tied standards Thailand's lease agreement with the city of Sausalito. Recently, we became aware of the pending sale of Pelican Harbor. I want to be clear, we are not opposed to the sale or transition to new ownership. However, There is significant concern that without proper review and clearly defined conditions, a new leaseholder may result in non-compliant operations, including excessive liveaboard occupancy, health and safety risks, and potential violations of public trust obligations. For these reasons, I respectfully request that the council direct staff to place this item on the next agenda prior to approval for a full review of the operator's fitness compliance history and appropriate conditions before approval. We... Appreciate your careful consideration to ensure the next tide lens lease serves the long-term public interest. Thank you. |
| 00:15:08.87 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you, Chris. Skip Klieger, followed by Elizabeth. Sutherland. |
| 00:15:23.72 | Skip Klaeger | I will be briefer, more brief. My name is Skip Klaeger, 118 Filbert Avenue, Sausalito. As a 27-year Pelican resident, we take We take great pride in the care and maintenance of our harbor. I strongly request that the harbor shall, at a minimum, do the same in verifying The applicant. And we'll... similarly be required to do the same. I yield the balance of my time. |
| 00:15:56.76 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you very much, Elizabeth Sutherland. |
| 00:16:02.66 | Elizabeth Sutherland | Hello, I'm here to talk about the new development in Sausalito. I don't know if you want to shift sets or continue with Pelican Bay. |
| 00:16:08.88 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:16:08.89 | Elizabeth Sutherland | Thank you. |
| 00:16:08.98 | Mayor Woodside | These will be Pelican because I know there are a number I asked for a right hands and I guess I misguessed. Don't worry, I'll call on you in a bit. Let's see. |
| 00:16:21.08 | Ruthann Spike | I'm not sure. |
| 00:16:24.52 | Mayor Woodside | else was hoping to speak about Pelican? Anyone? Yeah. Why don't you come forward and identify yourself? Sorry. |
| 00:16:28.10 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:16:35.74 | Robert McCullough | Good evening, Mayor and Council members. My name is Robert McCullough. I'm a resident of Sausalito, and I'm also a permitted live aboard resident at Pelican Harbor. In 1999, it set sail from Sendai, Japan, arriving in San Francisco 44 days later. Naively thinking I could get a 50 foot slip for my boat and upon learning that it's a 10 year waiting list, I was preparing to head south. I was at the Golden Gate Yacht Club and I got a call from Tony Maricanti, the former marina manager, and he said, send me a picture of your boat, which I did. Tony said, I think we have a place here for you because he liked wooden boats or things that look like wooden boats. And so I remember thinking, what a stroke of luck. That was 26 years ago, and I still feel lucky every day to be here. I want to bring to your attention an upcoming decision regarding the assignment of the title Tidelands Least for Pelican Harbor This is not a routine real estate transaction. Okay. Because the marina sits on public trust lands, the city has a fiduciary obligation to sure that any operator is compliant with lease terms, BCDC requirements and public trust uses. There's a significant concern among residents that without proper review and conditions, the assignment could lead to non-compliant operations, including excessive liveaboard occupancy, health and safety issues, and potential violations of public trust obligations. I want to emphasize that liveaboards are not recognized housing units. under state housing law. And this cannot be used as a substitute for low income housing. You need to think about that with what you're dealing with. For these reasons, I respectfully request that the council direct staff to place this manner on the next agenda for a full review of operator fitness compliance history and appropriate conditions of approval. This is about protecting the city's legal positions, the public trust, and the safety of residents. This request was submitted in writing this afternoon to the city clerk. I have copies of a letter to the BCDC and the California Trace, if you guys are interested. |
| 00:18:42.69 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you very much. Could you repeat your name again? Thank you. |
| 00:18:49.96 | Mayor Woodside | Anyone else hoping to speak on Pelican? |
| 00:18:56.14 | Mayor Woodside | Okay, thank you. Seeing none in the audience, and since we do have a very crowded agenda tonight, I think I'm gonna... direct and indicate, and we will be considering this at the next meeting. Secondly, I'm appointing an ad hoc subcommittee consisting of Joan Cox and Jill Hoffman to delve into some of the issues that have been raised tonight as well as other issues. We do have obligations with respect to this and take it very seriously. So it will be agendized for the next meeting. with respect to this and take it very seriously. So it will be agendized for the next meeting and hopefully we can, be responsive to some of the concerns raised tonight. Thank you very much. Okay, having said that, |
| 00:19:57.24 | Mayor Woodside | I think in the interest of time now, I'm going to save some of my announcements and other sort of technical scheduling things until the end of the meeting, since there's so many people here tonight on not just Pelican, but other matters. And if it's okay, we'll go right into other public comments of matters not on the agenda. And... I believe I have a card from Sophia Collier. |
| 00:20:34.61 | Sophia Collier | Hello and good evening, Mayor and Council members. My name is Sophia Collier and I'm here representing Save Our Sausalito. on the ongoing noise compliance issue on the arena or area operations at the former Trident site. Since opening, this venue has operated as a party space with ongoing violations of Sausalito's noise ordinance and public safety standards. I reviewed eight police reports in just one week from March 13th to 21st and additional complaints since that time. I personally measured sound at 73 dB. decibels up at Buckley Avenue at 10, 11 p.m. And the legal limit at 10 p.m. is, of course, 50 decibels. And nuisance noise is prohibited at any hour. Music with explicit lyrics projecting beyond the venue into the neighborhood. Loud speakers being used on the exterior balcony, which is not permitted. Events centered on alcohol. consumption, including an upcoming drunk brunch to raised legitimate public safety concerns about impaired attendees This is not an occasional, it's a pattern. I have a petition here, and it's been sent in to the Council of 20... nearby residents who have been impacted and has been emailed to you. So we request three things, one direct engagement by the city manager. to require clear compliance plan from the operator, no new permits to be issued and suspension of existing permits until the plan is agreed to. and then ongoing enforcement with a permit revocation if violations continue. We support a vibrant hospitality in Sausalito, very proud of Franco and a lot of the cultivar new operators. but all venues must operate within the law and respect residents. And we ask the council to ensure that happens here. Thank you very much. |
| 00:22:31.68 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. Sarah Bostock. |
| 00:22:42.99 | Sarah Bostock | Good evening, Mayor. Thank you. I'm Sarah Bostock. I live on Bulkley Avenue directly above the recently closed Trident, where the upstairs space is now being operated as an event space. Sound from this new business is reverberating on Bridgeway and up the hillside where there are many residents of all ages. The level of disturbance from the event noise is really unlike anything we've experienced in our 14 years of living here. It's noise that's not typical for our neighborhoods, It includes amplified music with deep throbbing bass and significantly disrupts our ability to lead our normal lives. And the disturbances have occurred at all times of the day. They've prompted multiple calls to the police department, which you've just heard about, by many different people. Despite the police responding reliably, the disturbances continued. The event website indicates several concerning events scheduled for the coming weeks. They're advertised with names like biggest SF dance party starting at 9pm with no finish time. and brunch-drunk love from 11 to 4. And mentioning, for example, a DJ setting up outside on the deck and loud bass as features. The events seek to attract a large number of guests. One ad mentions 200 locals coming together, and the website states there's capacity for 350 standing guests. I don't even know if that's allowable. I believe these disturbances are in violation of noise control ordinances. including those that pertain not just after 10 p.m., but at all times of the day. I'm here to seek confirmation by the Council of the applicable code and ask that city management, A, direct the operators of the event space to take steps to abide by the code immediately, and B, to take such further action as is permitted under the code. to bring infringement to a permanent stop. Thank you very much. |
| 00:24:47.17 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you very much. |
| 00:24:52.12 | Mayor Woodside | Faye Rosenthal. |
| 00:25:01.42 | Sophia Collier | Yeah, that's fine. Okay. |
| 00:25:03.88 | Sophia Collier | Mm-hmm. |
| 00:25:04.20 | Mayor Woodside | Yes, you are. And are there any other speakers wishing to speak to the noise issue? Um, Um, can simply say this though, we do confirm that there is a noise ordinance and we have including members on the dais, made those referrals ourselves. when hearing noise as far away as a mile. So that's all I can say right now. |
| 00:25:29.08 | Unknown | you. |
| 00:25:29.14 | Mayor Woodside | you |
| 00:25:29.29 | Unknown | Well, I'll say one of those police complaints is for me. Right. So yeah, I feel your pain, literally. |
| 00:25:34.27 | Mayor Woodside | So we hear you loud and clear. Okay. |
| 00:25:40.04 | Steve Rosenthal | Thank you. Mr. Rosenthal. Thank you. Uh, my name is Steve Rosenthal. My wife and I have lived in Salsa, Lido. for 43 years. The traffic has consistently gotten worse year after year for someone who goes downtown. as I do quite often. Putting 250 units on Harbor Drive is going to make it intolerable. to get from the north end of town. into downtown. That's gonna be somewhere between 250, and 400 more cars. And I just don't know that that makes any sense in a city where traffic is already in my opinion, Awful. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:26:26.59 | Mayor Woodside | And. |
| 00:26:26.60 | Steve Rosenthal | Thank you. |
| 00:26:26.97 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:26:28.54 | Steve Rosenthal | FAYEROS. |
| 00:26:28.96 | Mayor Woodside | and all. |
| 00:26:38.21 | Faye Rosenthal | Thank you, Dave Rosenthal, and this is the mayor and council members. |
| 00:26:39.76 | Steve Rosenthal | Thank you. This is this. |
| 00:26:43.88 | Faye Rosenthal | I'd like to correct my husband. It's 294 units that is being planned on Harborway. Um, |
| 00:26:58.75 | Faye Rosenthal | I decided that I would sort of show you on the map. how dense the plan is as it stands now. And the plan that I, and I'm sure others, were totally unaware of when we voted. Um, But if you take a look at this, the stickers represent what's in the plan. and just on one block on Bridgeway. the Martin Luther King park. They estimate that would be 60 units. And there are 44 more units slated for across the street And there were also several areas where there's, I have a question mark because I couldn't find what they determined um, the number of units would be. It just seems... that on two blocks both sides. I like to be accurate. uh, Harbor Drive. you're putting in so many units This represents, this area represents I figured out it was two thirds of the locations you listed. in the voting information that we got in November. |
| 00:28:43.56 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you for your comments. |
| 00:28:47.36 | Faye Rosenthal | right? |
| 00:28:48.64 | Mayor Woodside | Don't be sorry. Thank you for your comments. And just so we're clear on process, we can't do anything tonight. We can hear from people. It's not on the agenda. |
| 00:28:50.58 | Faye Rosenthal | you |
| 00:29:00.27 | Mayor Woodside | as we understand it and preliminary application has been filed and there's a quite an extensive process that will be followed, including opportunities at various levels for public input. And we encourage you to stay tuned to that process. Also, we do have a state-approved housing element. It's maybe hard to locate for some people, but it is on our website. And if you need some help locating it, please contact the city manager, the clerk, and we'll help you find the detail. Thank you. |
| 00:29:37.32 | Faye Rosenthal | Can I ask one question? Well, |
| 00:29:39.62 | Mayor Woodside | Only one, please. |
| 00:29:40.19 | Faye Rosenthal | please. Yes. Why is there not an environmental report done? There |
| 00:29:45.31 | Mayor Woodside | There actually was a preliminary, well, there's a report on the, actually two reports, I believe, on the environmental impacts, not of the particular sites, but of the overall program. I don't know if that makes sense, but that was done a number of, well, started a number of years ago and completed within the last year. So. That's all I can say about that at this point. Thank you. Also on public communications on items not on the agenda, Michelle McCullough. |
| 00:30:26.50 | Elizabeth Sutherland | Thank you. |
| 00:30:26.55 | Mayor Woodside | Well, come forward, please. I'm sorry. I'm shuffling papers here. Family. |
| 00:30:30.61 | Elizabeth Sutherland | I'm Elizabeth Sutherland. I've lived here for over 20 years and I'm talking about the new project development in Bridgeway and Harbor. And the concern with the article that was in the newspaper And just hoping that the city council you know, supports the residents on the north end as they did on the south end. and oppose the new projects due to the fact that this exceeds our height limit, I believe. It violates. It's the housing codes and impacts our historic assets and that transparency is... really the cornerstone of what we sort of need to I believe look at The North End seems to be sort of kind of a dumping site for all the housing projects and not the South end. the city council hoping is going to be transparent. with regard to open plan for Measure J parcels to encourage development and building, opposing this project. largely due to the fact that Thank you. You look at 300 units, six stories on Bridgeway and Harbor. Over 300 families, as Mr. Rosenthal mentioned, numerous cars, traffic, schooling that we really don't have. It sort of lays the footprint, I think, I believe, of the insight of where you guys want to do the marina buildup on the waterfront down at the south end. And it feels to me like we're moving right into Marina del Rey. where in the 70s and 80s and 90s, it really built up. So I'm hoping for some transparency as we move forward. But sixth building height is, I think it's against the rules of Sausalito. Thank you. |
| 00:32:14.85 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you very much. Michelle McCullough. |
| 00:32:35.96 | Michelle McCullough | Hi, good evening. My name is Michelle McCalla. I've lived in Sausalito for officially 10 years now in April. And I agree with a lot of what Elizabeth just said. I share your sentiment. However, I want to be clear that I am pro building. I just, As a representative of Friends of MLK, I'm not a fan of building on Parkland so Mike. Comment. is in light of reports of potential housing at One Harbor Drive, I would like us to again consider the potential of other more appropriate building sites like this one for low income and very low income housing. Specifically, if 60 units were to be built at this location, Again, as a representative of Friends of MLK, Member of the Sausalito, Parks and Recreation Commission, I am urging you to please continue to look at more appropriate locations some that have been identified a Measure J and to continue working with building owners to. try to come to some compromise and hopefully limit the housing, if any, at MLK. If and when we do get RFPs, because I don't want to get ahead of myself, we may get RFPs, but I want to be clear. prefer personally not to build up to the 50 units if we can identify other sites, which I really hope we do for this housing element and the next. Thank you so much. |
| 00:34:01.42 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you very much. Any further public comments, uh, In the room? Any online? |
| 00:34:09.53 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. |
| 00:34:10.14 | Mayor Woodside | Oh, I'm sorry. Have you filled out a. Slip. Why don't you go ahead and do it now? We'll take some on the Zoom. Do we have any? |
| 00:34:22.07 | Walfred Solorzano | We have Babette McDougall. |
| 00:34:26.41 | Mayor Woodside | I bet you have two minutes. |
| 00:34:28.97 | Babette McDougall | Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. Welcome, everyone, this evening. And once again, I'm going to tip my hat to you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for your patience and your willingness to be flexible as Sausalito itself. finds its way back to its own small-D democracy. Thank you. It's just what we need. And then saying that, I would like to segue into saying, Way to go, Jim Gabbert. Hooray. Hooray for everybody. Hooray for... Kevin McGowan and the Department of Public Works. I really want to tip my hat to these guys. Just from my little perch, I can see so many projects in motion, and every one of them matters. I really tip my head and at the same time, I want to urge us forward. Let us not be idle in observing. |
| 00:35:11.80 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:35:14.50 | Babette McDougall | the need to implement these bigger laws that help protect everybody. It's a shared vision. If you want to reinstate confidence and stop signs, start by doing things like, oh, shared vision for our intersections, the daylight thing. We just might restore our faith and stop signs that way. So going forward, I just want to remember... One thing. We said we wanted infrastructure. Now we're getting the infrastructure we asked for. Thank you. I think Bridgeway looks awesome. I can't wait to see even more. People cannot miss it. And actually people like it. So I'm glad. I say make people pay attention. Bring their faces up to see those lights. Look at those gorgeous colors freshly painted. And then look what else is out there too. Oh my God, people. All right. I yield back my time. Thank you so much. |
| 00:36:00.82 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. Anyone else online? |
| 00:36:05.40 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes, we have 415-261-3169. |
| 00:36:13.09 | Mayor Woodside | Not sure who that is. |
| 00:36:16.96 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:36:16.97 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:36:17.01 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 00:36:17.18 | Mayor Woodside | Um, |
| 00:36:19.94 | Walfred Solorzano | You don't have them all memorized? He's unused? |
| 00:36:21.83 | Mayor Woodside | I don't have them all memorized. No, I don't. |
| 00:36:22.95 | Walfred Solorzano | SHOW. Yeah. |
| 00:36:24.97 | Mayor Woodside | If you recognize and can I see a raised hand up in the top of the screen. |
| 00:36:37.26 | Unknown | I don't know. Thank you. |
| 00:36:37.63 | Mayor Woodside | Since we can't hear you and you haven't unmuted, we're going to go on to the next person. I know some speakers have said- |
| 00:36:49.17 | Walfred Solorzano | No more online. |
| 00:36:50.32 | Mayor Woodside | No more online. You want to just come forward and identify yourself. I see you submitted a card, so. Thank you. |
| 00:36:58.15 | Andy Greer | Hello? Hello? |
| 00:36:59.72 | Mayor Woodside | Oh, here we go, 415. |
| 00:37:00.01 | Andy Greer | I'm going to go. here. Hello, can you hear me? |
| 00:37:03.78 | Mayor Woodside | We now can hear you. Could you identify yourself, please? |
| 00:37:06.47 | Andy Greer | Yeah. Hey, how's it going? I, sorry, I thought I put my name in there, but, uh, Um, My name is. Andy Greer. And, um, as others have have mentioned, I wanted to call and mention the proposal at One Harbor Drive. in the Marineship. for housing development. with roughly 294 units. multiple reports. say only about 45 Love those units. for low or very low income. with the intentions of claiming 100% bonus density. if there is a housing crisis, It's for the very low income bracket. which is why it's so, so important to focus all your effort on securing the development at the MLK site. That ensures proper oversight. and a guarantee for 100% of those units for the lower income earners. This proposal, one harbor drive is just the beginning And is why there needs to be a buffer. around what is still impact what is still intact of the waterfront. of the working waterfront. I WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT. And I'd ask the council to stop focusing all of their attention specifically on one property in particular, two, three, five, zero Marine ship way. So, It's on the water. The owner is a housing developer. and I'm pretty confident that, uh, what they would plan to do on that on that parcel. would look fairly similar to the massive six story development under review at one Harbor drive. So, That's all I had to say. Thank you very much. Thank you. |
| 00:39:02.57 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you very much. Please come forward. |
| 00:39:10.36 | Mayor Woodside | No one else online, is that correct? |
| 00:39:13.20 | Walfred Solorzano | Yes, that's correct. |
| 00:39:13.99 | Ruthann Spike | Thank you. |
| 00:39:14.30 | Mayor Woodside | I think you're the last speaker in the room. Yes. |
| 00:39:18.23 | Ruthann Spike | All right, thank you. My name is Ruthann Spike, and I live at the Willows, which, as you know, is at the center of three major housing areas. proposals. And for those of us who live at the center of those three different parcels We want to see new housing. We'd like to see things that are at a scope to which is sustainable for that part of the community. The scope of the new development, though, is outsized compared to what our town can take, especially at that end. We have the corporation yard that's being developed. for some low income and some senior housing which is needed. We have MLK, but to have that enormous property developed there at that level is going to be deleterious for our property values. And for the people who live there already, it's going to impact all of us in terms of traffic, When you look at the proposal, the parking spaces, there are enough parking spaces for each unit. That's a real problem. When you see parking spaces not being equal to the amount of properties, that means it's being overdeveloped. So I really wanna encourage the council to think about what's reasonable And if you lived at Whiskey Springs to the Willows to see on all three sides of you that scope, I think you too would have a hard time being enthusiastic about it. And you might come to one of these meetings, like we are, and saying to you, Hey, we've got to be reasonable. Our town can only take so much. We need housing, but this is too much. Thank you. |
| 00:40:51.16 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. Seeing no more comments. As I said earlier, these are not matters on our agenda tonight. We're hearing from you. Um, We do take them all very seriously. Certainly housing has occupied not only the council's time, but the public's time over the last several years and will continue to be an issue. I will only say this, that we are under an obligation to have a housing element. We've been given a number by the state. We don't necessarily like the number. In fact, councils before I joined were very, clear in their opposing the number given to us, but Um, state officials and regional officials turned a deaf ear to that appeal. It's not necessarily over, so we do hear you, and we're going to proceed as we can to deal with these things as they come up. We're in a cycle now that ends in a few years, however, probably within... We should be starting again to decide here locally what we think we can handle without having to wait for the state. I probably said more than I need to say, but I think it's important for us to all stay tuned. because we're under tremendous pressure. from the state. And I can go into more detail at the appropriate time. But thank you for your comments, all of you. Um, I think that's it for public communications on matters not on the agenda. Now maybe we can get on with the business that is on the agenda. Um, Um, First of all, we have a very extensive consent calendar. items three a through 3M, that may be a record. And again, thank you all for coming. And best wishes, Jim. Um, And first, before we undertake a motion to approve the consent item. These are all items, I won't read them all, that are we think are not controversial and can be handled in one motion. But before we take a motion like that, I'll ask If there are public comments on any of the consent items. |
| 00:43:12.69 | Unknown | Do you want to talk about one? We're going to pull first. You're in from Jamaica. |
| 00:43:15.49 | Mayor Woodside | Sure. Do we have any opposition to concerning one motion? Is there a request to pull? |
| 00:43:20.30 | Unknown | I would. I have two. |
| 00:43:22.19 | Mayor Woodside | You have two, okay, sorry. |
| 00:43:23.02 | Unknown | Okay. Well, sorry. Well, I have to recuse from item 3H because both for the proximity to my home and also I previously worked with a public affairs firm, the representative Verizon. So I would like to recuse myself from that item. |
| 00:43:36.33 | Unknown | Sure. |
| 00:43:36.80 | Unknown | Um, And then I would like to pull item three C, which is the. a contract with WRT consulting. |
| 00:43:46.46 | Unknown | Vice Mayor, could I just suggest... There is public comment for that, that we hear the public comment before pulling it. |
| 00:43:51.69 | Unknown | Well, when we hear it, when we heard the item so that we |
| 00:43:53.70 | Unknown | They get put at the end of the meeting and then that person has to sit around for I don't know. |
| 00:43:58.96 | Unknown | You don't think we could just quickly go do it right after consent and go through |
| 00:44:01.31 | Mayor Woodside | Well, when we pull the item, we have to determine whether we're going to hear it tonight. or maybe pull it and postpone it to another night. We have a busy night. So I would like to deal with that issue By itself, you're asking that it be pulled. And what's the pleasure of the body? Do you wanna hear it? If so, it goes to the foot of the agenda. |
| 00:44:20.93 | Sophia Collier | We hear public comment regardless. Yeah, we have to hear public comment either way. So I would say let's hear public comment and then make the decision about |
| 00:44:24.59 | Mayor Woodside | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:44:28.85 | Mayor Woodside | Yes, yes. |
| 00:44:28.86 | Sophia Collier | Yes. Where to put it. |
| 00:44:30.06 | Mayor Woodside | Yes. Right. I wasn't going to bypass public comment. I'm just saying if we do pull it for further discussion, it would be at the foot of the agenda. But in the meantime, Are there any public comments on item 3C or any of the items? Mr. Madden, please come forward. I've got your card. |
| 00:44:59.44 | Jim Madden | Jim Madden, South City, out of harbor. Members of the council, I urge you to reconsider approving this consultant contract. The proposal asks for another $120,000, yet it excludes critical elements like engineering, analysis, cost estimates, funding strategies, and even local title and data collection. We're funding more meetings and documentation revisions on a project that has already received substantial investment over several years. The scope continues to treat hold the line is just one option, but this council has already made clear the protecting existing shoreline uses is a priority. This should be the plan, not one of several scenarios still under discussion. |
| 00:45:37.85 | Steve Rosenthal | Thank you. |
| 00:45:37.86 | Unknown | to be able to get the |
| 00:45:37.93 | Steve Rosenthal | Thank you. |
| 00:45:46.44 | Jim Madden | We're serious about moving forward. We should invest in real data for just $10,000 to $20,000. We can install monitoring equipment to better understanding tidal wave. conditions and make informed decisions. And if the goal is true to hold the line, then we should be working with a consultant who shares that objection, that objective, Ron continues to study it as a possibility. We need results, not more process. For these reasons, I respectfully oppose this appointment. |
| 00:46:17.00 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. Thank you. Any other public comments on the consent calendar items? |
| 00:46:24.78 | Walfred Solorzano | We have Babette McDougall. |
| 00:46:26.75 | Mayor Woodside | Ms. McDougall, you're online and I see some more cards coming forward. Ms. McDougal? |
| 00:46:33.59 | Babette McDougall | Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So interesting comment. I'm going to direct my attention, however, to item 3H, as in Hilo. I ask you to look at that because within the context, are we really serious about restarting the uphill fire station. I mean, we're gonna redo it, right? There is a good need to restart that fire station. And similarly, as we continue to build out the density of this town, You better believe we're going to need more help up there. So please think carefully. The worst thing we can do is just keep cobbling together those horrible, egregious, horrible examples of Band-Aids that should have been changed ages ago. Don't just go, you know, for one thing, it's the, if you believe the data, it's the most dangerous place to position oneself is directly underneath. So do not say yes so that they can just go a slapdash and off they go. Let us be thinking proactively about what's next. Thank you. And with that, I yield back my time. |
| 00:47:35.35 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. Anyone else online? |
| 00:47:39.70 | Babette McDougall | No one online. |
| 00:47:40.63 | Mayor Woodside | So I do have two more cards that just came forward. |
| 00:47:42.93 | Babette McDougall | As a former telecommunications commissioner. |
| 00:47:46.57 | Mayor Woodside | I'm sorry. |
| 00:47:49.41 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. |
| 00:47:49.52 | Babette McDougall | Yeah. |
| 00:47:49.71 | Sophia Collier | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:47:49.79 | Babette McDougall | THANK YOU. |
| 00:47:49.86 | Sophia Collier | I don't think she's. |
| 00:47:50.70 | Mayor Woodside | Okay. Kuddelberg. followed by Dan Morgan. |
| 00:48:01.49 | Carlito Berg | Good evening, counsel. Nice to see you guys. I just wanted to echo Jim's comments. I took a look at sort of the overall process for this, and there's that law called SB 272, and it's basically a two-page law. You can read it. It requires five things, all very high level, easy to document items. It refers to the 2024 BCDC RSAPs, which are very clearly laid out in a 100-page document. But it's pretty clear what that actually requires, which is that you just have this plan that's actually realistic and feasible. And they actually in the plan want you to have data that's specific to your shoreline. Our shoreline is roughly 21,000 lineal feet, and about 70% of it is already developed with marinas. So when consultants are proposing spending an extra $120,000 for essentially four more meetings on data that you guys already own, which in the contract they signed in December about two years ago. You guys should see that data. We should all see it. We should all see what underlying assumptions they actually have, and then we can make a real plan with real engineering. as opposed to more meetings. So I appreciate your time. Thank you very much. |
| 00:49:27.28 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you, Dan Morgan. |
| 00:49:33.47 | Dan Morgan | Good evening, Mayor City Council members. Nice to see you. My name is Dan Morgan. I want to echo Jim and Carlos support for not spending another $120,000 on measure three, on 3B, on consent item 3B. We need real hard facts. We need engineering. We see it's not that difficult and spending more money and not having the data that we need to develop a plan to get to deal with the water. then sea level rise, I think, is a waste of time and money. I was impacted by three buildings on gate five in the recent floods, and I'm really looking forward to getting this under control. Thank you. |
| 00:50:17.64 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. Any other comments on the consent calendar? So. Before we take a motion, the question is pulling item 3C for further discussion. I take it you would move to pull it, and I'm looking for a second. I don't think it's like it's needed, but I also would love to pull it. Well, I like the black spares of this. I might. Beg to differ. I do think we should, when pulling it, it's not just the pleasure of one council member. We should act as a body. Pull it. So I hear a second from Mr. Sobieski, and I hear a consensus that it's coming off consent. That's that's what we will do. Now the question is, do we hear it at the end of the meeting tonight, or do we set this for the next meeting? |
| 00:51:06.25 | Unknown | I would ask Alex, who's here, just what the timeline for urgency is, because if we could continue it, I know our 21st meeting is rather busy already. But I guess it depends at what pace we move through the meeting this evening, but maybe Alex, you could give us an idea of if there's a particular... Timeline. |
| 00:51:26.86 | Mayor Woodside | You need to come to the mic so we can have it recorded. Thank you. And just please, Alex, identify yourself so everyone knows who you are. Welcome. |
| 00:51:40.54 | Alexandra Anderson | Good evening, everyone. My name's Alexandra Anderson and I'm the interim sustainability and resiliency manager here at the city of Sausalito. I do wanna echo that it is a really long meeting, so I think it will be best to see how the timing goes, but I would also like to differ to John and Christina who work with WRT and are online to provide any further comment. |
| 00:52:09.16 | Mayor Woodside | I'm not hearing from them. I don't know if they |
| 00:52:14.11 | Jill Hoffman | Mayor, I have suggestions. |
| 00:52:15.86 | Mayor Woodside | Yes, Ms. Hoffman. John T. |
| 00:52:17.50 | Jill Hoffman | Um, |
| 00:52:17.89 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. |
| 00:52:19.41 | Jill Hoffman | We, |
| 00:52:19.71 | Vicki Nichols | Thank you. There we go. |
| 00:52:22.12 | Jill Hoffman | We have a, we got a pretty comprehensive letter from the SSWA, I'm going to use their acronym, on this issue. And you and I, I think we're a working group. on this issue with the |
| 00:52:36.40 | Mayor Woodside | If we aren't, we're all going to be working on it no matter what. Yes. |
| 00:52:39.81 | Jill Hoffman | But I would suggest that we take a look at that letter and maybe vet this between now and the next city council meeting. If there's no exigent reason why we can't do that. and sort of come back with a recommendation to the city council and about where a path forward and how to address this with the agenda. That would be my recommendation. |
| 00:53:02.17 | Unknown | I might suggest in addition to that, since you would, two would be the city council members, why not include a couple of representatives of the SSWA, Jim Madden, Mr. Morgan. or whoever they would nominate to help provide some technical advice. They clearly had a comprehensive letter with real substantive recommendations. |
| 00:53:21.83 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:53:21.84 | Mayor Woodside | Don't. |
| 00:53:22.16 | Sophia Collier | So, |
| 00:53:22.42 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:53:22.52 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. |
| 00:53:22.57 | Mayor Woodside | for. So let me suggest this only because of my calendar. And if there's no real urgency, and I don't believe there is, we'll target the next meeting. I'm largely unavailable much of the time between now and then. So I'd like to ask Ms. Hoffman and Mr. Sobieski to be the ad hoc committee to work with interested parties and staff and do your best to come back with a a recommendation at the next meeting. Thank you. |
| 00:53:52.01 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Sir, happy to. Noted. Thank you. |
| 00:53:54.01 | Mayor Woodside | Okay, thank you. Okay, we're way behind, but we're making progress. So item 3C is continued until the next meeting. The remainder of the items with the exception of item 3H where Ms. Blaustein has recused herself, is there a motion to approve the consent calendar? |
| 00:54:18.20 | Sophia Collier | So moved. |
| 00:54:19.22 | Mayor Woodside | Second? |
| 00:54:22.64 | Mayor Woodside | Okay, I think we can do this on a, well, let's do it on a roll call, all in favor. |
| 00:54:29.33 | Sophia Collier | I. I? That's not a role. |
| 00:54:31.35 | Mayor Woodside | I'm sorry, never mind. |
| 00:54:31.37 | Sophia Collier | Thanks, Paul. |
| 00:54:34.09 | Mayor Woodside | So we have a unanimous consent on the consent calendar. And then as to item... three H, um, Ms. Boston has recuses their motion to approve 3H. So moved. And the second. Okay. All in favor. |
| 00:54:51.31 | Alexandra Anderson | I. |
| 00:54:52.11 | Mayor Woodside | With one recusal. Thank you. Okay, we move on to |
| 00:55:03.18 | Mayor Woodside | our first business item. Item 5A. And this is to receive and accept a financial statements and audit, et cetera, with respect to fiscal year 2425. That's the year that ended almost a year ago. And I'm going to ask the city manager to kick this off. |
| 00:55:24.83 | Chris Zapata | Yeah. Thank you, Mayor, members of the council, members of the public. I want to just note that we have our partner in the audit firm of Badawi and Associates online as well. I want to just provide some introductory comments on the audit. Obviously, there is a host of information that's attached to the staff report, including a summary of five years that I submitted to the council, as well as our single audit report, uh, the, uh, transactional detail report that goes into great, great, uh, um, uh, information about what the city was spending its money on. And then obviously, there is a memorandum from a blue chip firm called Kroll, who did a research and review of the blunt force cyber attack we experienced in March, as well as the damaged laptop received from the former finance director. So all that's in the packet. Let me cut to the chase so that we can get Angelina up here. Everyone knows that an independent audit is required by law. It's, you know, to ensure the city's financial systems are managed in the way that is required. The audit itself, which is your attachment three, two, is 137 pages of wonderful information. when you look at the information, it really informs you about what it is that some of the funds in the city are doing, and in one case, what one finding was that we were going to address tonight. To highlight the two areas that I think are salient to the public, there were no material weaknesses found in our audit. which is good news. However, there was one significant finding which we're going to cover tonight that involved the spending we did without council approval so that the public understands what that was, how that happened, how much it was, and the fact that this is something that we will correct. And Angeline will outline the steps into as to how we correct those at the end of her presentation. Angeline? |
| 00:57:27.59 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you, Chris, for the nice introduction. Good evening, mayors and council members. We finally are here to present the audits that completed in the for the FY 24 and 25. I know there was a lot of delays in getting things done. It's not because of there was any significant issues on the materiality deficiency. It was just a lot of the work was workload was issues with the auditors in that sense. So with that said, on February 7th, next slide, please. |
| 00:58:07.00 | Angeline Loeffler | Okay. I just. I just want to go through what we're going to be covering. This is rather extensive, the presentation, so I just want to give you a couple of updates what will be covered in this presentation. We will be reviewing the final audit result and as well as the minor changes that made from the draft of financial reports to the financial reports. And also, we did complete it during that from the the draft reports to the the idea through the march of 20th we actually also completed the single audit which was required by the federal requirements that we had over 750 000 of expenses and with that said and then we're going to go into the looking at a brief overview of the city's the general fund performances during the fy 24 and 25 and as well as a deep dive into the audit findings on more of the details by fund levels and the department levels and we will conclude the presentation with the questions next slide please So quick summary of the audits, the reports, is that on February 17th, City Council has received the presentation of draft of the financial statements. And the city actually, since then, completed the final audit reports, including the basic financial statements and along with the single audit reports issued by the Badawi and Associated, which was issued on March 20th of 2025, 26, excuse me. And then the cities that based on the final audit, the other financial statement city is the maintains a stable financial position that has not changed from the draft financial statements. and In a city, the governmental funding concluded a year with the fund balance of 29 million that has not changed from the draft of the reports, which is increase of the 3.4 millions from the prior years. and as well as the appropriate Proprietary funds also had a moderate increase of $13,000, which is the lead to the $13 million. 0.6 millionths. Next slide, please. And I'd like to quickly dive into the changes from the draft reports to the final reports. And there was a minor changes on allocations of the restricted fund balances or the other, the other patient benefit as well as the sewer, the bond liabilities. And with that changes, actually, it turns out the overall fund balance has, the unrestricted fund balance has increased from the $9.3 million to $10.4 million. Next slide, please. So there's two major components to the changes to the draft of final report is a pension benefits. And pension benefit was originally listed as a restricted funds on the draft of the financial reports under the governmental fundings, but that has been zeroed out based on the further reviews of the auditors indicating that our overall pension liability is $35 million, and then the restricted fund is paid towards to that one, so they actually zero out the restricted fund from the governmental funding, which is, that was one of the changes that was made by the auditors, and the other was the sewer fund restrictions are basically, the sewer, the two of the bonds was not fully paid out, until the August of 2025, which is the outside of the audited periods. That's why they actually allocated that 5.2 million of those bond payable funding to the restricted under the budget. business proprietary fundings that was the two minor changes which is with those two changes we ended up increasing the uh unrestricted the unassigned the other fund balance to the another the added the few thousands Next slide, please. Next, I just want to quickly touch base on a single audit result. And we had two major areas of the federal funding that received during the FI 25. One is for the ferry land's. landside projects for the 1.7 millions and also we did have a leftover residual fema fund that from the 2019 has received about five thousand thirteen so total of the 1.7 one 714,000 which is requires which is above the threshold of the 750,000 the federal government requires force to file the single audits and based on the the audits and auditor found the no findings through at the single audit reviews. Next slide, please. Now, I'd like to just quickly recap on the general funds, the performances during the FY25. And as you can see on the actual of the amounts of the revenue and expenditures, the city is actually net of the $1.6 million finishing the year of the FY25, in spite of all of those areas that audit finding indicated in the others overspending. But when you look at the city as an overall performances, it does shows that we are in the surplus as a city's performances. And then next several slides, I'm going to, can you go back? The next several slides, I'm going to be diving into the each components of the areas that identified by the auditors on the potentially overspending of the expenditures up and beyond of the budgeted amounts. Next slide, please. So these are the quick recap of what was stated by the auditors on those are the areas that identify that The expenditures were exceeding the budgeted amounts, but with with in those amounts. The areas are exceeding the budget, but overall, as a city, did not exceed the revenues on the expenditures. All right, next slide, please. I just want to bring the idea the really emphasis on all of those, the expenses exceeding the budgeted amount was not based on it, it's not authorized. It was it's been fully authorized by the city councils or the city managers, depending on the purchase, the other policies, the thresholds in this because of the due to the staff turnover at the finance departments, the timely of the budget appropriations has not been completed that was a result of the the audit findings showing that the other expense is exceeding the budgeted amounts Next slide, please. So this is, I'm gonna be actually diving into breakdown of each component of the audit findings, areas of the fundings. So this is basically for the general funds area where the administrations shows the 8,699 overspending and also library has a 27,032 and community development of the 300, three thousands of the overspending and as well as a public works 177 000 so as you can see that some of those areas that you can see some of the police departments has came in well under the budgets as well as the uh the the finance departments the as well as the it departments they all came in quite a bit under the budget amounts as well as the um the parks and recreation so it is is the it's not a full pictures of what we see it on the audit finding is just the other one side of the picture so this i just wanted to bring your attention that seeing the overall of the how city has performs but at the same time i do want to kind of dive into the appropriate budget budget appropriation importance of that one is needed to avoid the future audit findings from these these areas next slide please |
| 01:07:07.82 | Angeline Loeffler | So this is actually just looking at the administration departments, how this breaks it down onto that one. So the administration department is really the combination of all these departments into one area. So the city council administration, legal, and finances, and the resilience and sustainability departments are all lumped into come up with the 8,000 of the overspending of that one. So next slide, please. Okay, so the main reason for the administration departments is basically salary and wages. As you can see on the top, the four lines are really main cause of the other increases in the expenditures is mainly because of there are some As of the January 1st of 2025, director of communications was promoted from the city librarian and their salary was reallocated to administration departments without having the budget, the appropriations. be done. That was the reason that it's causing a lot of salary increases on those part of the administrations of the departments. And next, the biggest item is actually you can see it on the idea, the professional service agreements. |
| 01:08:36.67 | Angeline Loeffler | Yes. Next slide, please. That is actually on the next slide. So professional service agreements is actually showing the majority of those who are coming from the unbudgeted NHA and some of those outside the contractors, which is coming up to be 67,000, that's actually leading into some of those over budgeted. Once again, these were items that was the budgetary appropriation was not completed timely. Next slide, please. And moving into the legal departments, the overspending is basically coming in from the, the primarily from the seeking the legal assistance for the state mandate requirements for the, related to the housing elements. So majority of the overspending is coming in from the legal services from others outside of the, our normal use of the illegal services as the city, the, does throughout the years so that's where you see the 459 000 was about 153 000 above the other budgeted amounts for that areas in that account so which is coming in a large book of it is coming from the additional the uh the legal advices for the uh the our the housing elements related projects Next slide, please. So the library department is once again, that is mainly cause of the reshuffling of the, changes in the staffing models and also hiring additional attempts to cover the the library operations which has caused the increases on the salary amounts and as well and also as you can see the larger amounts between the digital resources versus physical material those are just basically offsetting each other so most the main difference is coming from the the staffing model changes at the libraries during that year which has caused the additional staffing requirements so Next slide, please. Next one is one of the biggest overspending was community development departments, which is comprised of the three separate departments, the planning and zoning and economic developments and the building in those cases. And most of the predominant overspending is coming from the professional services, which is coming in from the... some of those related areas of what I have mentioned on the same areas of the additional legal services. Next slide, please. So these are some of those details of the community development professional services, as you might be recognizing some of those, the vendor's changes in those, the budget adjustments, but authorization was obtained but the budget appropriation was once again did not take timely to reflect the the increase of the budget that's what resulted in the overspending of those the other the budgeted amounts Next slide, please. And public works departments are comprised of the engineering department and public works, which makes up for the $177,000 of the overspending. However, most of the predominant, the the overspending is coming from the repair and maintenance. And also that is actually due to the a lot of unforeseen repairs that took place. And that, once again, those are authorized, the budget appropriation was not done timely. And then one of the major areas of EASE was actually coming in from the climate tech projects, which is impacting various different departments. You will see that in the next couple of slides that climate tech is actually one area that is causing a lot of the expenses to go beyond to the budgeted amounts, which was not included in originally the approved budgets. Next slide, please. |
| 01:12:57.41 | Angeline Loeffler | So this is also leading into the, once again, the Climate Act project is leading into the overspending of capital outlay as well too. So the capital projects from the Climate Act was actually impacting the 168,000 for the police departments, which is part of the we record them as a part of their land improvement at the police department facilities. Buildings and also one other area was the unbudgeted but actually the purchasing of the. The mobile speed alert trailer and along with the related the accessory, which is for about $43,000 that was not initially included in the approved budgets. Once again, the authorization was obtained, but the appropriate budget appropriation was not timely done. Next slide, please. And looking into the, finally, the capital projects, over $400,000 overspending on the capital projects. And based on the conversation with the public works director, there was the, as you can see, there was a list of the four projects. Capital projects was not originally included in the CIP, the budget approved for the years. So that was actually was the additional work was performed which is make ups to the almost the over the 200,000 in that sense so those were once again the authorization was approved by the idea the public works director on those projects but timely appropriation was not been completed and outside of that 203,000 of the unplanned the CIP, there's the various of the other capital projects was exceeding the budgeted amounts, which was again, approved by it on a project level by the public works director, but the timely appropriation was not taking place. Next slide, please. |
| 01:15:05.34 | Angeline Loeffler | Now I'm going to be diving into the non major governmental fundings, which is inclusive Thailand's traffic safety gas tax storm drains and disaster assistance, age-friendly Sausalito Center and Business Improvement District, Library Capital Improvement. As you can see, these areas are very minor, the areas of overspending normally during the audits typically anything over under 10 000 does not consider as the immaterial amounts that but with this particular audit all of those little items of the overspending has been identified because of we did have some few major areas of the overspending was noticed so i will go into the each one on briefly on how the the overspending was took place this next slide please |
| 01:16:00.43 | Angeline Loeffler | Thailand funds is mainly caused by the professional services and through the Kimber management. Those are one of the major areas. Kimber management, the contract was not included in the approved original budget. And once again, the service agreement has been approved, but it has not been approved. appropriately the idea budget appropriations done on the timely and as well as the some of those additional the expenses for the technical services under the resiliency and sustainability departments and the police department is another contributing factors of that one as well too and once again and also the purchase of the furniture and fixture is another areas of that one but that was initially it was unbudgeted amounts but there was unforeseen the the purchase was required so that was authorized by the city managers and that has been approved but the timely budget appropriation has not been completed next slide please |
| 01:17:08.44 | Angeline Loeffler | Traffic safety only has about $4,500, which comes out to be about less than 5% of the over-budgeted amounts. And these particular fundings could be very fluctuated from year to year. So less than 5% is considered a mature amount. But as you can see, those are actually nothing outside of the ordinary expenses patterns that the city has. It was just this year, there's the additional repairs was gone into that one. Same thing with the gas tax is more the gas tax has is really this particular budget line items is very depending on how much of the streetlight fixed maintenance that we have to do. So it's really kind of we need a crystal ball to really get the exact budgeted amounts once again. But the timely budgeted appropriation was not completed, so that was the result of that one. But when you're looking at the patterns of expenses and the vendors that we used on that particular the HGL account is nothing outside of the unusual of the expenses that we have incurred in the past as well. Next slide, please. And disaster assistance of the over $1,000, this looks like the budgeted amount was only $4,000, but we actually spent $5,000. But when I look at the patterns of the appropriate budget, the ranges within the past three years. Oh, I think we're not on the same slide. Can you move up to the next slide? Yes, there you go. So this disaster assistance is a very, there's highly fluctuated expense amounts from the year to year. One year we would have less than 2,000 of expenses. One year we will have over 10,000 of the expenses. So this was highly fluctuating accounts that the budgeted amounts cannot be sustainable in many cases. So we have to kind of play by the ear. However, the timely budget appropriation was not taken into the places due to the staffing turnovers. I think that will conclude all of those, the itemized, the findings areas in the idea from the audit reports. And next slide, please. So with that, we are taking to address those audit findings, make sure that it doesn't happen again in the future. We're taking following steps, too, as an organization, as a finance department, as a finance director. We are enhancing the budget monitoring tools, which is we are doing a lot more frequent reviews of the expenses for each of the departments. And as the expenses did the request for the payment comes through uh the finance departments will be looking into a little bit more closely on the pos and their budgeted amounts to make sure that it's in line and as well as the timely submissions of the budget appropriations And also strengthening the approval that's goes into, I think I just briefly mentioned on that one, strengthen the approval control is where tightening the some of those PO processes, make sure all those POs are timely submitted prior to the submissions of the invoices. That way we can kind of control the idea how much is anticipated expenses throughout the year. So that way we wanna ensure that the expenses will not be exceeding the budgeted amounts. And also we have done a number of the trainings that are already done by the finance departments to the various departments and the person who needs and how to complete the purchase order and timely submissions of those. So we have gone through a lot of training provided to each of the departments, and that training is ongoing process right now. So we are continuing to do the trainings, provide the trainings for the departments who's going to be doing the purchase orders and also inform the finance departments those processes. And that should help the idea to control the budgets a little bit more, the idea timely addressing the issues in that sense. And then we will be also making some policy updates on that ones and that will be included in the budget reports and upcoming budget reports and how do we address those the added possible the budget appropriations and authorizations to be obtained timely of that one so that should be included in our budget The book that's going to be published in upcoming years, as well as we're going to be updating the procurement policies as well, too. And also we're in the process of almost close to the implementation of the OpenGov and we're excited and that will be the great tools for the other departments could monitor the their budget to actual on the live times so that way they will have a much better sense of how when they're actually planning additional expenses that the expenses was not included in the budget so that will be another the exciting tools that were soon to to go live with that tools next slide please And I just wanted to restate and conclude my presentation showing that the overspending on each individual certain departments does not reflect the overall performances as a city. So at the end of the last fiscal year, the city, the general fund is actually surplus of 1.6 million in spite of all those overspspending but it's there's a lot of departments that has when came in under the budget so I think that was needs to be brought and to make sure that it's clearly indicated it's there is no the lack of controls of the other city how we're managing the budgets. And that will conclude my presentations. And next slide, please. And open up for any questions. |
| 01:23:30.30 | Mayor Woodside | Well, First, I'm going to ask the city manager if he has anything he wishes to add. |
| 01:23:37.96 | Chris Zapata | Yes, I can add something to that. I want to thank Angeline for their work, and I want to note the one word, timely. The question was timely, and the idea that these expenses weren't timely submitted. And so I think the question is, how does that happen, and who's responsible for that? The answer is I'm responsible for that. I can tell you how it happened. I don't want to go into much detail about what happened in March when we separated our finance director. No, do I want to talk about the Bridgeway bike item or the housing element item or the new finance director that we pulled out of retirement after seven years? We were very, very busy at the time, including the sewer transfer. And so, you know, in that process, things fall through the cracks. And when they fall through the cracks, the responsible person is me. And so I take full responsibility for the overages. And I work with the new finance director to make sure that this doesn't happen to the city again in the future. But again, you know, I think that the next item will inform how serious we are about that. But this particular finding is one finding and one finding only. The bottom line is the city is not in. THE CLARITY THAT THE CITY COUNCIL GAVE TO, YOU KNOW, TAKE AND MAKE SOME OF THESE PROJECTS HAPPEN OR EXPENDITURES OR PROGRAMS GO IS CLEAR. WHAT DIDN'T HAPPEN WAS THE TIMELY DOTTING OF THE I, WHICH IS TO GET THE APPROPRIATION. AND SO THE IDEA THAT WE HAD $1.4 MILLION that was somehow suspicious. There's no suspicion to it. All of the information is in the staff report. The auditor looked at it, found it, did their job, which is what they should do, and now we have to do our job. |
| 01:25:36.83 | Mayor Woodside | Okay, I'm going to ask for public comment at this point. |
| 01:25:43.09 | Babette McDougall | We have questions first. |
| 01:25:44.22 | Mayor Woodside | The agenda says, and I think we've all seen this material. Twice? you And I want to hear from the public and then we'll have questions and discussion. |
| 01:25:57.40 | Jill Hoffman | Well, actually, that's not how we proceed. |
| 01:25:59.27 | Mayor Woodside | Read the agenda. |
| 01:26:01.69 | Jill Hoffman | Well, I don't know what the agenda says, but how we proceed is we have a presentation from our from our staff. |
| 01:26:10.33 | Mayor Woodside | Excuse me. |
| 01:26:11.97 | Jill Hoffman | And we haven't even been able to ask questions from the auditor, from the final audit. |
| 01:26:12.47 | Mayor Woodside | I mean, it's been. |
| 01:26:17.72 | Jill Hoffman | We is our auditor even here, Mr. Bedaly. |
| 01:26:17.75 | Mayor Woodside | We, |
| 01:26:18.12 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. |
| 01:26:25.73 | Angeline Loeffler | Mr. Badawi has some conflict of that one, but we do have the Admin, Mr. Badawi associate, other partners who's here to answer any questions. Matisse Desai. I'm sorry. Excuse me if I butcher your name. |
| 01:26:39.57 | Mayor Woodside | Excuse me, please. |
| 01:26:41.40 | Angeline Loeffler | you |
| 01:26:42.10 | Mayor Woodside | We have seen the audit. in its preliminary form. had a chance, all of us on the dais, to read in detail everything we've just heard. We've been meeting weekly with the city manager, each of us. We've had ample opportunity to ask our questions. And we will continue to ask questions later, but I would like to hear from the public first. That's what we set up for this particular meeting. And I think it's important that we hear from the public. |
| 01:27:14.35 | Jill Hoffman | Well, I think this is the irregular, but if you're going to insist on that, not allow me to ask questions. |
| 01:27:21.05 | Mayor Woodside | You will be allowed to ask questions. Please listen to what I've said. I'd like to hear from the public first. I have one speaker card. I have two. |
| 01:27:32.22 | Jill Hoffman | I don't, can you give a reason why you were deviating from the normal course of |
| 01:27:36.32 | Mayor Woodside | I'm not deviating from a normal course. |
| 01:27:39.31 | Jill Hoffman | It is. |
| 01:27:39.51 | Mayor Woodside | Okay. |
| 01:27:39.87 | Jill Hoffman | It is. That's the way we proceed in our meetings. You have a staff presentation. We ask questions from the staff. And then the public can follow up on our questions. And then we proceed to public follow-up. |
| 01:27:39.88 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:27:49.01 | Mayor Woodside | If the council as a whole would like to rearrange the agenda, you can do so right now with a motion. |
| 01:28:00.88 | Mayor Woodside | So. |
| 01:28:01.28 | Jill Hoffman | I'll make the motion that we proceed in the normal course of publication. |
| 01:28:04.42 | Mayor Woodside | uh make a motion to rearrange the agenda have your your comments and questions First, when we have people who've been here, it's long overdue. We only have two speaker cards. |
| 01:28:18.95 | Sophia Collier | I'll just say, with all due respect, The whole reason that we ask questions before hearing public comment is so that the public comment has the benefit of understanding or hearing, some of the questions before they make public comment. Otherwise, once we ask questions, they can't then comment on our questions, but Listen, with two Speaker cards, I'm not going, I will defer to the agenda setting committee. |
| 01:28:46.10 | Mayor Woodside | And if I could. |
| 01:28:48.06 | Jill Hoffman | I'll admit, it is odd. There appears to be |
| 01:28:48.55 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. |
| 01:28:51.25 | Jill Hoffman | a mistake in our agenda, it does say staff report. |
| 01:28:54.74 | Mayor Woodside | It's not a mistake. |
| 01:28:57.12 | Jill Hoffman | Did somebody... |
| 01:28:58.34 | Sophia Collier | They made a conscious decision to do this. |
| 01:28:58.37 | Jill Hoffman | They meet. |
| 01:29:00.02 | Mayor Woodside | We made a conscious decision because... Members of this body have had difficulty asking questions. Instead, members of this body have given lengthy speeches. And I would like to hear from the public first. We have two speaker cards, and then we can ask questions and comment. |
| 01:29:12.66 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:29:22.42 | Mayor Woodside | Oh, OK. I'm not hiding anything. |
| 01:29:24.51 | Jill Hoffman | I wasn't aware that this was a conscious decision to cut off council members. |
| 01:29:28.71 | Mayor Woodside | We're not cutting off anything. If you... |
| 01:29:30.11 | Jill Hoffman | I think if you- Council members and you don't like the way we ask questions. So please proceed, Mayor. |
| 01:29:33.62 | Mayor Woodside | No, it's because some people have difficulty asking a question. |
| 01:29:39.04 | Jill Hoffman | As your perception, as you perceive that, I see that you're manipulating the system. Please proceed. |
| 01:29:45.82 | Mayor Woodside | No, I'm not manipulating the system. Thank you very much. Mr. Excuse me, Elizabeth Sutherland, item 5A. |
| 01:29:47.83 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 01:29:55.10 | Elizabeth Sutherland | Thank you. Obviously, we talk about money, whether it's a city or personal, it gets a little heated. with living here for over 20 years and walking in here, with the fact that, and there's been themes in Sausalito about money management issues for a while. And so walking in here and seeing that it's talking about being in the whole $1.3 million, and then I believe I'm hearing a presentation, a very nice presentation, that we're in a surplus now of 1.6. I'm a little concerned if we're gonna stick with a single audit. I would think that you'd want either multiple audits or definitely a forensic audit to go back and really look to see what what we're doing here in the city of Sausalito. So I'm really hoping going forward. you'd consider not just a single audit, But going forward with the forensic audit, given the shift, |
| 01:30:52.36 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you, Mr. Adrian Britton. |
| 01:31:03.50 | Adrian Brinton | Good evening, Mayor and Council. Thank you for taking my comment. A lot of information was released with the staff report. A lot wasn't discussed, particularly around the finance director's termination and what was done in the wake of that. And I was really glad to see that Kroll conducted a forensic review. of his work and of his computer. They didn't find anything. I've actually worked with Crow before in my career in IT. When it comes to investigation, They're incredibly well-respected. They didn't find any evidence of wrongdoing. They didn't find any hints of misuse, any evidence of fraud or crime, or anything that would warrant further investigation. And all of this information apparently was provided in closed session shortly after our finance director was terminated. And yet, it was intimated that something was being hidden There was something we needed to investigate. Okay. that we needed this full forensic audit. A forensic audit is needed when there is suspicion or evidence of a crime, why are we not investigating the crimes? The calls to investigate continued, and then they were parroted by some on the city council. Calling for a forensic audit is not a neutral act. It carries with it the implicit accusation of criminal activity. How does that affect morale of our city staff? I don't think our staff were criminals. They're not perfect and there's been some mistakes recently and the mistakes need fixing. and they need fixing with priority. This is where their full attention should be. The presentation given tonight gives me confidence that this appropriate attention is being given to these issues, they're being taken seriously. and they're being addressed with priority. By continuing to call for a criminal investigation, we're taking resources away from addressing these real issues. We're in our budget process. We have an infrastructure report showing our long-term capital investment needs. We're working on a 10 year financial model, We need to finish these things and not investigate these pizza gate conspiracies. Thank you. |
| 01:33:09.57 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. Any other comments from inside the chamber? |
| 01:33:14.78 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:33:18.89 | Mayor Woodside | Faye Rosenthal followed by Elizabeth Sutherland. |
| 01:33:24.64 | Unknown | Okay. I'm just sitting here. Okay. |
| 01:33:32.05 | Mayor Woodside | my Thank you. |
| 01:33:33.01 | Unknown | They're all. |
| 01:33:34.07 | Mayor Woodside | Okay. Alice Merrill. |
| 01:33:43.37 | Alice Merrill | Thank you very much. I'm just going to say that we've had a variety of... of financial people, all of who sounded great, like this one just sounded great. And yet we have issues. So why not just do a forensic audit? We're not talking about accusing anybody of anything. We're not talking about, about being criminals. We're just saying, do a forensic audit and, and just go through and see what's what and what's where and where is it? And that's, Why not? Why in the world not? Thank you. |
| 01:34:22.77 | Mayor Woodside | Anyone else in the chambers? comments online, public comments online. |
| 01:34:28.61 | Walfred Solorzano | We have. |
| 01:34:29.03 | Vicki Nichols | Nikki Nichols. |
| 01:34:30.96 | Mayor Woodside | Ms. Nichols? |
| 01:34:32.71 | Vicki Nichols | Good evening, Mayor Woodside and council members. I first of all would want to agree with Councilmember Cox, you know, the public really benefits from what our elected officials talk about or have questions about. I, um, Karen Hollweg, i'm disappointed in the in this process for this the budgets been going on for a long time we heard last. fall that we found two million dollars Then we didn't find it, and then we found it again. I did corporate budgets in my previous career. It's just as bad to find a bunch money is to lose it. So I'm heartened to hear that there's some controls in place, but I was sitting here squirming wondering why if these items were over budget, why these invoices were even being paid Where were the checks and balances? So I hope the steps are there. I don't have an opinion one way or another about the forensics, but I believe there's some trust to be rebuilt and I think that just constantly saying it's the staff, the staff, the staff. Um, It doesn't feel comfortable. I have never in my over 40 years here seen it this bad. So I hope we can clean this up. And I really do want to hear from my council people so that I have an opportunity to hear their thoughts before I give mine. Thank you. |
| 01:36:06.76 | Mayor Woodside | Anything else online? |
| 01:36:11.28 | Walfred Solorzano | We have Sandra Bushmaker. |
| 01:36:15.52 | Sandra Bushmaker | Good evening, counsel. I too missed the question and answer period. prior to public comment. There's a lot to be gleaned from that information, that back and forth. And I'm just perplexed on why we are changing process here in the middle of of a budget matter. Uh, Secondly, I too would like to support the forensic audit. We've had massive staff overturned in the finance department. And I just think the public needs to be put to put at ease. by the results of a forensic audit, just to be sure everything is ship shape. Obviously, we have some problems and they keep reoccurring and new ones keep cropping up. And I would like to make sure our finance Department and prior finance people left squeaky clean. Lastly, I did notice that the BID is over $190,000. I thought when we signed up for the BID that we were talking 135K per year. for a fixed number of years. And I noticed that it's 190K. just in listening to the oral presentation and the slides. So I'd like to have that addressed. Thank you. |
| 01:37:34.71 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. Anyone else online? |
| 01:37:37.02 | Walfred Solorzano | We have Babette McDougall. |
| 01:37:43.20 | Babette McDougall | Thank you very much for acknowledging me. You know, I would just like to say With regard to do the forensic audit versus not forensic audit, if I'm clear on how this error in at least this error that we're addressing now, could be possibly interpreted. If I think back to the number of times in the last council cycle, that we heard from our city manager, for example, that each executive within the ranks who needs to make a decision is empowered to spend up to $10,000. Well, I mean, how many times do you spend $10,000 and then it goes boom. So I think maybe that's where we need to address some of the scrutiny, because one would hope that we can train our team to be their best, which they can exercise independent judgment that matters, but it has to be informed judgment. And I think here's where maybe making sure that the team knows all the resources so that we can hit the buttons before we you know, hit the ka-ching. Maybe going forward, it might be that, I don't know. I think in the interest of being very transparent, especially since we're very sensitive to this right now, why not say yes? It might be the cheapest PR investment you all have made yet. And let's face it, you have spent a lot of money on PR. What about that last election cycle as an example? So what's wrong? was saying yes. I mean, one way or the other, we need to walk our talk as fiduciary agents, so let's just move on with it. We need to reinvent some of it. We need to sharpen it in a lot of ways like we do nationally. So what better place to work than right here, right now? Thank you. |
| 01:39:25.49 | Mayor Woodside | Anyone else? |
| 01:39:26.03 | Walfred Solorzano | No more comments. |
| 01:39:27.30 | Mayor Woodside | Okay? Thank you. Now we're bringing it back so that we can all, from the dais, having heard from the public, thank you very much. In my mind, it's either the chicken or the egg. Do we hear from the public first about their concerns so we can consider them as we discuss? Or do we? If we could be disciplined to ask questions first, which I don't believe we have in the past, That was my concern. So we're now going to Ask each council member, if you have questions first, please put them in a question format and then we will have ample time to discuss. I'll start to my right. Mr. Soby. Yes, key. |
| 01:40:16.56 | Unknown | So it's questions and discussion. |
| 01:40:18.67 | Mayor Woodside | Well, I think if we can start with questions first, so everyone hears... what the questions are and the answers. Um, Let's do that first. and then we'll come back for discussion. |
| 01:40:30.18 | Unknown | Okay, thank you. Hi, city manager, and hi, Angelina. |
| 01:40:33.38 | Mayor Woodside | I mean, it's, it's, it's, |
| 01:40:34.78 | Unknown | Can you speak up a little bit? Yeah, sorry. Just to go over. So the audit was done. |
| 01:40:34.84 | Mayor Woodside | Can you speak up a little bit? |
| 01:40:41.59 | Unknown | this agenda item is just reviewing the audit results from 2425. And this is on the agenda again because there was one finding that was done in the audit. There was a slide that you showed that said that the auditor found no material weakness in the cities. financial mechanisms. yet. Yet there was a finding. Can you help me understand the difference between that finding and what a material weakness is. Or maybe the auditor can speak to that. |
| 01:41:17.26 | Angeline Loeffler | That's probably the auditor. |
| 01:41:20.43 | Unknown | Material weakness is more severe than a finding. Help me understand what a material weakness would be |
| 01:41:25.04 | Unknown | is this finding. Good evening, Yav. Council members, yes, so a material weakness would be a deficiency in internal control that we would consider that would have a. there would be a good chance that they would cause the financial statements to be materially misstated. A SIGNIFICANT DEFICIENCY IS A DEFICIENCY LOWER THAN A MATERIAL WEAKNESS BUT THAT WE CONSIDER SIGNIFICANT ENOUGH THAT IT WARRANTS COMMUNICATION TO THOSE IN CHARGE OF GOVERNANCE WHICH IS THE CITY COUNCIL. THERE ARE ALSO LEVELS OF DEFICIENCIES BELOW THAT WHICH THEY ARE CONSIDERED TO BE JUST ITEMS FOR MANAGEMENT TO CORRECT. SO THIS WAS AN ITEM THAT DIDN'T ELEVATE TO WHAT THE That was thought. Ahmed Wadawi, the partner in charge of the audit, considered to be warranted to be classified as a material weakness because it doesn't necessarily impact the financial statements in a material amount as far as material in relation to the financial statements as a whole. But it considered to be important that we communicated to counsel. |
| 01:42:30.97 | Unknown | this is not considered a material weakness. because This is a, and you say material weaknesses are where there's a failure of some internal control that could potentially result in a misstatement of our financial position. And what you're saying is this was not such a thing. |
| 01:42:47.03 | Unknown | than that. Right. So a statement in the numbers of the financial statements, so any number in the financial statements in a material impact where it would cause the reader who's using the financial statements to make a different decision, which Material, when you look at that, is essentially based on the financial statements as a whole. |
| 01:43:09.01 | Unknown | Okay, and so that's where I think some people were understandably confused by both the audit presentation and also The reporting that as it turned out in the Marin IJ, the first sentence of the article that our friend summarized was, I think, quoting your audit report where you say the city made $1.37 million in unauthorized expenditures in the fiscal year. but, The slide six here from staff says that the expenditure amounts were authorized by either the city council or the city manager. The distinction is that they were authorized all, every one of these expenses was authorized, but that they, at the same time also exceeded the budgetary amounts that we had. So, am I understand to put this on lay terms that all this. that we're talking about, were authorized expenses that simply we didn't take the next step as a city council and adjust our budget to reflect the actions that we were taking. when we were authorizing them. |
| 01:44:12.67 | Unknown | Correct. My understanding is that essentially, or when we have situations like this, the question is that, you know, should the expenditure shouldn't really be |
| 01:44:12.79 | Unknown | Right. uh... |
| 01:44:24.06 | Unknown | occurring or the purchase order or what have you shouldn't really be occurring until the budget is amended. Or essentially, I think in this city's case that the reclassification of the budget from one department to another department where there is a variable budget and reclassifying that to a department that is budgeted. So essentially that would be the control that we would like to see is that prior to expenditures actually being incurred in a budget item or a line item in the is that it actually gets approved for for that purpose before that expenditure actually takes place. So that's essentially the timing aspect of things. So that's essentially the internal control deficiency that we identified. Thank you. |
| 01:45:17.00 | Unknown | Okay, so I just want to underline this because that's the material distinction for a layperson like me and I think for most of the community. the, every one of these expenses that were exhaustively delineated by staff was authorized according to our purchasing process. by either the city manager or the city council, the, failure or the Improvement in our budgeting control is that we should have then adjusted our budget in an affirmative way to reflect the authorized expenditure. So the summary that these were unauthorized expenditures, a shorthand that's to me misleading because they were all authorized. They just weren't perfected by then adjusting the budget. |
| 01:46:02.24 | Unknown | Right, and apologies, I'm not necessarily the person who was in charge of the audit, so that might be something for the partner who can chime in more, but essentially authorized, the way we interpret authorized essentially is the budget authorization. So when we look at the budget, essentially that's what we consider to be the authorized expenditures. We also understand that when you have authorized purchase orders, you have authorized contracts, so there is also authorization and procedures that go into that as well. I think when we're looking at, when we use the terminology of authorization, primarily just based on the budget Uh, is essentially communicating that authorization. |
| 01:46:43.30 | Unknown | Thanks. And then, Angeline, just that's very helpful. I appreciate it. So just to reiterate, you said that our we ended the the year with a fund balance of twenty nine point one or seven. I can't read my own writing million dollars. And that was an increase of 3.4 million. So over the entire organization, The city of Sausalito increased its |
| 01:47:07.57 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:47:07.69 | Unknown | the total cash position by $3.4 million. So it had a surplus. That is correct. $3.4 million. And that amount of money did not change materially before or after the audit. |
| 01:47:18.52 | Angeline Loeffler | That did not change. |
| 01:47:19.48 | Unknown | you |
| 01:47:19.67 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. |
| 01:47:19.72 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:47:19.77 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. |
| 01:47:19.82 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:47:19.89 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. |
| 01:47:19.92 | Unknown | Working numbers were exactly the same. Um, So I don't know if this is a question for anyone, but if there's no evidence that... there's any missing money and all the money exactly lined up with every purchase order and every authorized activity. And there's no evidence of fraud and no evidence of a crime and no evidence of any money being stolen. Where exactly would you do a forensic audit to look and investigate fraud for? |
| 01:47:44.84 | Angeline Loeffler | If I may answer that one, is the win-win. When we look at these transactions, when I'm actually diving into the details, I also look for the actual authorization of those additional expenses. And also, I think the failure on our part was getting additional. authorizations to increase the budgeted amounts to reflect those additional authorizations but having said that that was because it's simply a lot of times those the monitoring factors kind of take it into the place of the finance directors and the finance staffs to catch those and because of the the turnover on the staffs and those parts has been kind of fell through the cracks along with the interim. And the department staffs may not be able to make those. Those processes normally do take place during the month-end process to catch any of the over expenditures on that way. So the finance director normally do address those in those time frames. |
| 01:48:45.22 | Unknown | My question was, if there's no missing money, |
| 01:48:47.79 | Angeline Loeffler | Now mixed. |
| 01:48:48.21 | Unknown | All the money lines up with what was reported after an extensive audit that found no material weaknesses. There's no suspicion of fraud. If we were going to do a forensic audit, which is looking to investigate fraud, and I'm kind of looking for any suggestions from the members of the public that suggested we should do a forensic audit, where would you do the forensic audit? I mean, which account would you... |
| 01:48:55.53 | Adrian Brinton | No. |
| 01:49:08.97 | Unknown | Where would this begin? I'm looking for the auditor to suggest any ideas too. So how would you even, what does that mean exactly in this context? Does anyone? Can someone explain to me what people are even talking about? I don't want to. Okay. |
| 01:49:25.81 | Angeline Loeffler | I guess the question is, do you feel that there is the forensic audits is required based on the reviews of the audits? If I'm the to me, going through the all of those expenses and looking through the authorizations, there is no weaknesses in material. Every single one of those, the expenses that was authorized prior to. Yes. |
| 01:49:38.63 | Walfred Solorzano | to me. |
| 01:49:51.76 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. |
| 01:49:53.65 | Mayor Woodside | Ms. Blasting. |
| 01:49:57.36 | Unknown | Sure. Okay. Thank you for the presentation. Thank you for bringing this item back. I appreciate it. Um, I have a couple of questions, both on the specifics of the spending, because I, some of it, I just really want deeper information and then some on the new steps that you're taking. So, um, I'll just start with some questions I had around the specific spending so community development overage was about 308, 307,000. That was essentially de novo. Can assistant city manager, can you just confirm at, because our next item is about our forward thinking budget. Is that spending complete and we shouldn't expect a forecast for that going forward? |
| 01:50:33.24 | Mayor Woodside | Could you explain what de novo is? |
| 01:50:36.26 | Unknown | De novo is the help will actually have our assistant city manager do that. I'm asking questions only. |
| 01:50:42.06 | Unknown | Thank you for the question. Happy to answer that. So that's correct. And as you saw on the finance director's slides, the vast majority and actually all of the overspend is based on contracts that were taken to city council and approved by city council or either contracts that were taken to the city manager and approved by the city manager. Those major components is DeNovo. That's our housing element consultant. The second is Bob Brown, who assisted us with our odds development process. And as Angeline mentioned, finance director mentioned, we also had some legal expenses that were accrued as a result of certain housing element related happenings in the city. |
| 01:51:11.36 | Steve Rosenthal | who is. |
| 01:51:26.29 | Unknown | But those are separate from the 750,000 in BBK legal fees for our city attorney. |
| 01:51:31.71 | Unknown | Some of those might be shared. However, we have a separate contract with another attorney that provides additional legal services as appropriate. |
| 01:51:41.57 | Unknown | Okay. And I know that this evening we approved a $300,000 new contract for four leaf and they build 151,000 in this, um, in this report. I'm just trying to understand going forward. Is this something that we, again, should be considering and expecting? Will we get another $300,000 proposed budget from Four Leaf in the next budgeting cycle? |
| 01:52:04.79 | Unknown | You will, Council Member and Vice Mayor, and I look forward to bringing this to Council prior to the start of next fiscal year to show you that we're already empowering our departmental staff and myself as Director to bring these items forward in a timely way so that we don't get in the situation again. |
| 01:52:24.44 | Unknown | And do you think that perhaps there's a point where we consider significant additional staffing rather than consultants going forward as a cost saving measure for CDD. |
| 01:52:33.90 | Unknown | I'm very much open to that discussion, Vice Mayor, and I appreciate you bringing that up. One of the narratives that I was going to share in connection with that contract this evening is that we are very much fully staffed up relative to how we looked in 2022 when I joined the department. So one of the discussions or components of that discussion is, should the city of Sausalito consider doing in-house plan check services for building permits? That's generally not typical for a city of this size. However, it is a meaningful discussion to be had. And I will just state the contract approved with Fourleaf this evening is predominantly pass-through payments from applicants to Fourleaf to support building permit plan check processes. So the actual net impact to the general fund is zero. |
| 01:53:24.06 | Unknown | Okay. Thanks for clarifying that. And then I have to ask, the $47,675 in the Tidelands funds for furniture and fixtures, I'd like to know which furnitures and fixtures. Was that for the ferry landing? Just for clarification, it seems like a rather significant amount that I'd like to get a better understanding of. |
| 01:53:42.95 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. |
| 01:53:42.98 | Sarah Bostock | No. |
| 01:53:43.51 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. |
| 01:53:43.52 | Sarah Bostock | Thank you. |
| 01:53:45.44 | Angeline Loeffler | I may need to pull the details reports on that one. So that one is. Thank you. |
| 01:53:51.88 | Unknown | You can, well, I'll ask a couple of questions then about the budgeting procedures we have while you look into that, take your time. And then these are probably more for the city manager or for department heads. I appreciate that there's a lot of work that's gone into. what we're gonna do to improve monthly reporting. There's mention of these monthly variance reports. Who's gonna review those, and what is the escalation process if we're not trending the way we're supposed to be on those reports? |
| 01:54:17.19 | Chris Zapata | It starts with the department head, goes to the finance director, then goes to the city manager in terms of review. |
| 01:54:24.16 | Unknown | Okay. And based on the findings that we heard tonight, we can see that the budget adjustments weren't submitted because of the staff turnover, but with these new measures in place, are there new redundancies built so that it won't just be the department head, for example, who has to submit every request? |
| 01:54:39.12 | Chris Zapata | And that's the point. The finance department and the city manager and ultimately the city council |
| 01:54:46.33 | Unknown | Okay. And then I'm very excited about OpenGov and what that means going forward. Does this mean that our department heads are going to have... real-time visibility into their own budgets to help streamline some of these issues. |
| 01:54:59.65 | Chris Zapata | That's correct. |
| 01:55:00.77 | Unknown | Okay, and when do we expect the OpenGov implementation to be available to the public? |
| 01:55:05.23 | Chris Zapata | I thought I heard April from Angeline. Is that right, Angeline? |
| 01:55:08.84 | Angeline Loeffler | Yes, actually, there might be slightly delayed on going into the transparency, but we're actually fully live on the budget components, and I'm expecting once the budget is the completest and that the same tools that our department has to utilize and see the budget to actual. And my plan at the moment is it's not going to be overnight updates, but it's going to be based on a monthly basis on the full updates of those, the budget to actual data. |
| 01:55:40.87 | Unknown | And could we request some sort of formal training for all of the members of the council as well with how to integrate and use the new features of OpenGov? I'm sure it's improved since the eight years ago that we had it. |
| 01:55:51.20 | Angeline Loeffler | I think the I was planning to give the all the council members of full access to open gaps in that sense, so you guys. The you can all go into the idea use the idea that open gaps the way that everyone else's could use at this point so it's going to be more or less of read only but you should i'm going to be planning on giving the full access to the all the council members. |
| 01:56:12.81 | Unknown | And will these monthly variance reports that we're hearing about somehow be uploaded into OpenGov as well, just for full transparency? |
| 01:56:18.72 | Angeline Loeffler | the monthly reports, those will be actually available in through the add transparency, the add the portals that's going to be separate from the budget modules that department has is going to be utilizing budget to actual |
| 01:56:33.05 | Unknown | Okay, so there's significant steps that have been taken in the feedback from this audit to just, I just wanted to go through what some of them were more in detail. And then did you check on the- |
| 01:56:40.88 | Angeline Loeffler | Thailand's furniture? I did. Okay. It looks like I don't have the direct invoices, but the vendor is actually the... Hermesos Siteworks on the furnitures. It's from the one vendor, the Investor Inc. So I will have to go into the look at the details of those invoices. Okay, yeah, if you could let us know. |
| 01:57:00.69 | Unknown | Okay. Yeah. If you could let us know, I imagine it's likely for the ferry landing and the furniture at the ferry landing, but I would, I don't know what it's for. It's a significant amount of money. So I'd like to understand. Okay. Again, thank you. I appreciate the amount of time from the auditor and the finance director, and I'm sure we'll have discussion, but those are my questions. |
| 01:57:07.25 | Angeline Loeffler | Absolutely. |
| 01:57:17.04 | Mayor Woodside | Before I move to Councilmember Hoffman for the next questions, Quickly, could you explain what OpenGov is? You asked about it. I'm not sure everyone understands what it is. |
| 01:57:30.96 | Angeline Loeffler | I'm sorry, can you repeat the question? |
| 01:57:32.97 | Mayor Woodside | What's OpenGov? |
| 01:57:34.05 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. The OpenGup is actually the one of the third party tools that complete integration with the ERP, the accounting systems. And our current, the accounting system is not really user-friendly in terms of generating the reports. The OpenGup is going to be pulling the data directly from our, the accounting software to display it on a lot more the graphical and meaningful and easy to read the financial data. Yes. |
| 01:58:06.43 | Mayor Woodside | and anyone in the public can access it. |
| 01:58:08.54 | Angeline Loeffler | Absolutely, yes. And once the transparency tool is up and running, then we will have the links on our websites for public good access as well, too. |
| 01:58:21.32 | Mayor Woodside | Okay, questions from Ms. Hoffman? |
| 01:58:24.37 | Jill Hoffman | Um, Thank you. And so, Angeline, let me, I did have a follow up question on the invoices or what the business improvement district Um, additional over budget 195,321 invoices were for. Can you tell us what those were additional work was for? In addition to the amount that we had budgeted for? |
| 01:58:46.75 | Steve Rosenthal | Thank you. |
| 01:58:49.79 | Chris Zapata | It's probably best that the assistant city manager answer that, but my understanding is that's a year and a half worth of city's contribution. |
| 01:58:58.76 | Jill Hoffman | Well, that wouldn't be over budget. That would have been budgeted. So I'm asking what the overage was for. So this is listed in our, this was identified by our auditor as business improvement district, $195,321 in over budget. Okay. |
| 01:59:17.97 | Unknown | I'm happy to speak to that, Director Woffler. With respect to expenditures on the P-Bid, I will just take a half step back and say, they have all been approved by council or approved by city manager. Two big buckets of expenditures that add into that 195 that I think you're seeing. One, assessments from the city for year one of the district. Unfortunately, it was just an administrative oversight based on some of the Changes that were occurring in the Department of Finance during that time where we weren't able to true up that specific number But of course as you recall council approved the formation of the P bid which included cities submittal of assessments and the P-Bit. to the tune of about 115,000. year. In addition to that second bucket, the consultant that we hired to support the formation of the P-BIT. That will represent the difference. And that contract was approved at council as well. So again, another just administrative oversight. And I think we can chalk this up to transitions within the finance department. Of course, we look forward to fixing this moving forward. And that's part of the reason why we're here this evening. Thank you. |
| 02:00:31.78 | Angeline Loeffler | Just adding on to that $195,000, the business improvement is actually all associated with the pivots, which is the others, as the assistant city manager mentions, there is some oversight on the payments coming in from the public about the $26,000 true up. will cost the differences. That's the total amount that we paid out to the county was $195,000. And then we also later pay additional $26,000 to fulfill the entire obligation of $211,000 of the total pivot liabilities. I'm sorry, can you repeat that? |
| 02:01:13.02 | Angeline Loeffler | Yes. So 117 is the city's portions and the other 117, my math may not be correct, but the 117 is the city's portion, the other 117,000 is from the public's. And so that 195,000 is coming from the city's portion of 117. And plus the other we have collected through that point, we'll be made up to 195,000 that we have made. And then When later when we did the true up of those entirety agreeable amounts, we had an additional 26,000, which was paid out later. |
| 02:01:50.11 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 02:01:50.74 | Angeline Loeffler | And so that was all part of the, |
| 02:01:52.04 | Jill Hoffman | process. Correct. Yes. Okay. |
| 02:01:58.35 | Jill Hoffman | And so I have a question for for our for the auditor, and this goes back to the actual audit, and I think it's attachment three, which is the SAS letter, which is the short letter on our, on our, on our agenda tonight, and it's the significant risks identified. And you have two uh two you've identified uh the following significant risks for our city and the first one is it's uh page four of our agenda but it's page two of your report, the Badawi and Associates report. And so, sir, I'm just going to ask you, the first is risk of management override internal controls. And it says a risk, and then I'm going to ask you to explain it. A risk of management override of internal controls exists at any entity where management can change or decide not to perform that entity's internal controls. And so that's the first significant risk that you identified for Sausalito. Can you explain that, what that means for Sausalito and why that was found as a significant risk for Sausalito? |
| 02:03:13.15 | Unknown | Sure. Uh, Yes, I can explain. Thank you, Councilmember Hoffman. This is a default risk. Essentially, all our audits, every audit that we conduct, has this risk included. It's essentially the risk that management may not follow their own controls if they so choose. So for example, the city has internal controls in place such as approval of invoices, approval of time cards, approval of contracts, management can always inherently choose not to follow those policies and procedures that they put in place. So the audit standards requires to address that risk that And we do that by essentially looking at manual journal entries, for example, which are a controlled process that overrides the underlying systems of the accounting system. We look at any unusual transactions, look at estimates. So that's what that risk is. It's not necessarily something we've identified specifically for the city of Sausalito. It's essentially a risk that the auditing standards require us to address as part of every audit that we conduct. |
| 02:04:30.86 | Jill Hoffman | And what about the second significant risk identified? The revenue risk recognition? |
| 02:04:37.88 | Unknown | Right. So the revenue recognition risk is also a standard risk that we essentially identify for majority of our clients. It's essentially the auditing standards identify that revenues are a very significant line item in the financial statements, essential to bondholders, essential to other stakeholders that use the financial statements. So We address that risk by looking at, we do a lot of validation work on revenues, we do analytical procedures, we do a lot of confirmations with third parties to verify the existence of revenues. But similarly, that's a standard risk that the auditing standards require us to essentially identify. If we don't identify that risk as a significant risk, it requires essentially a lot of explanation as to why that wouldn't be considered as a significant risk. |
| 02:05:32.14 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, thank you for that. And with regard to the findings with regard to excess of expenditures over appropriations, what we've been talking about tonight, the excessive expenditures over the 14 different funds anyway, of the 1.3 million that we've been talking about. Do you have a date range for those? Can you tell us what the... over what period of time you found those overages during the fiscal year 24, 25? |
| 02:06:09.31 | Unknown | Essentially, we're looking at the entire fiscal year at the end. So essentially, our audit is looking back. So we look at the final budget that's presented to us, and then also look at the actuals, and essentially we identified those overages. It's not necessarily something that we identified through the different phases of the audit, essentially, when we did our final audit and we've drafted the report and looked at the final budget and the actuals essentially identify that seems like that they are a number of overages. Whenever that occurs, we always ask the question of how did that occur? essentially then looking at internal controls and identifying that as a deficiency and area of improvement for management. |
| 02:06:56.80 | Jill Hoffman | And looking at the report that you prepared for the program, for us. |
| 02:07:18.36 | Jill Hoffman | And it says that the expenditure budgeted at and may not legally exceed the department level for the general fund. And- And that's an accurate statement, correct? Expenditures may not legally exceed unless they're budgeted, correct? |
| 02:07:40.67 | Unknown | Yes. I'm trying to look up the report. They're looking at the single audit. |
| 02:07:48.08 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:07:48.28 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:07:48.39 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I'm looking at the explanation, the criteria in accordance with Sausley on municipal code expenditures are budgeted at and may not legally exceed the department level for the general fund and the fund level for special revenue debt service. condition in the fiscal year 2025. And as you just said, it, it was for the throughout the fiscal year, several funds and apparently continued into fiscal year the next fiscal year is we're going to talk about an item, the next item on our agenda, several funds exceeded their authorized budget appropriations. The detailed fund categories are as follows, and then you list the 14 funds. |
| 02:08:28.28 | Unknown | Eric. I just wanted to clarify, I am essentially sitting in for the audit part, so I wasn't involved in the city's audit, but that seems to be the case that in further finding the criteria states that for the city's municipal code, essentially that's the expenditures, our budget at the department level. And essentially we know that those excesses for each department. |
| 02:08:55.16 | Angeline Loeffler | If I may add the little comments on that one, based on my conversation with Ahmed, who actually was the auditor who conducted the audits for the city of Sausalito. So in that sense, the reason that it's showing it as a finding is because we did not get the timely appropriations of those budgets increases. That is coming into, so basically we are spending beyond to the budget without having the appropriate budget appropriations completed prior to it I think that that's where the idea the finding is coming in as and legally yes we're not supposed to go over the budget without the budget appropriations |
| 02:09:36.54 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I think we're all, I think that's the point. Yes. Okay, thanks. I don't have any questions. Any further, I have further questions on a different subject. And this is, I think, for the city manager and maybe for our city attorney, whoever our city attorney is tonight, but I don't think it's a city attorney who, at this issue. And that's the Coroll Memorandum. I have a question about when the Kroll memorandum was attached to the agenda because I didn't see it before this meeting Thank you. When was it attached to the agenda? |
| 02:10:06.41 | Chris Zapata | We put that in today to supplement the information that was part of my report, which referenced the Cole report. So I wanted people to see it. So I asked that it be attached so people would see that they actually did something and this was their finding. It is something that you can interpret in my memo. It's their memo. |
| 02:10:24.02 | Jill Hoffman | So we talked about, we talked yesterday and you didn't mention this to me. |
| 02:10:27.89 | Chris Zapata | So this is a question. |
| 02:10:28.51 | Jill Hoffman | So this is a hotly discussed issue at our last city council meeting about whether or not the council was going to vote to release this information. and, We haven't discussed it as a council, and we didn't discuss it yesterday in our meeting. with the city manager, and it was, attached to our, we had a very busy day today. |
| 02:10:47.07 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, well, there were a couple of things attached, including some amendments to the PowerPoint, because we're working really hard to try to get as much as we can to you. So you have the information you need. I apologize. if it's late, but this is something you were well aware of. |
| 02:11:00.54 | Jill Hoffman | I was well aware that we discussed this at our last city council meeting about whether we were going to take a vote to release this closed session information and agendize it as a discussion point for our city council. We haven't done that. And now I'm seeing a million |
| 02:11:15.54 | Mayor Woodside | The city manager has released to the public. a memo. It's written. I'm not sure you guys are with that. |
| 02:11:22.65 | Jill Hoffman | I'm not sure he has the authority to do that. |
| 02:11:24.37 | Mayor Woodside | It certainly does. |
| 02:11:25.82 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. So let's talk about it. And we have a member of the public who, stood up and talked about it. So, There's a memo on our agenda. that I wasn't briefed on. Apparently other members of city council were briefed on it. Councilmember Sobieski's not shaking his head. He wasn't breathed on it. |
| 02:11:46.86 | Unknown | THE FAMILY. |
| 02:11:46.95 | Jill Hoffman | you. |
| 02:11:46.96 | Unknown | In the city manager's report to us, it's mentioned specifically the Kroll, the work that Kroll did is mentioned in the item that was in the staff report. I just want to make, just want to point that out. |
| 02:11:53.31 | Jill Hoffman | report. Okay, but I wasn't brief that we were gonna be releasing this information. Councilmember Sobieski wasn't brief. |
| 02:12:03.18 | Mayor Woodside | I also remember I said earlier, he has released it to the public and to us. It was mentioned in his report. This is transparency. We're not waiving anything in the closed session. We have a report that he's now made public. |
| 02:12:22.62 | Jill Hoffman | I'm not entirely comfortable with this. because this is a closed session and this was subject to some criminal investigation activity that was briefed to our city council that we addressed and that we actually submitted to the Marin County You're a prosecutor. |
| 02:12:40.56 | Mayor Woodside | Are you releasing closed-session information? |
| 02:12:43.82 | Jill Hoffman | Well, |
| 02:12:45.17 | Mayor Woodside | I'm asking. |
| 02:12:46.52 | Jill Hoffman | We had this, this memo seems to indicate that there was no criminal activity. There's, inaccurate information in this memo. |
| 02:12:54.62 | Chris Zapata | That let me dispute that if I can mayor and council That's exactly what the memo said. There is no criminal activity in that review that was done. Zero. |
| 02:13:05.92 | Jill Hoffman | Well, we disagree on that. |
| 02:13:07.74 | Chris Zapata | Well, Kroll is the expert, not me. That's why we hired him. |
| 02:13:14.55 | Jill Hoffman | I I |
| 02:13:15.24 | Chris Zapata | Okay. |
| 02:13:15.25 | Unknown | Are you accusing someone of a crime? |
| 02:13:17.48 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 02:13:18.02 | Unknown | Who are you accusing? |
| 02:13:19.40 | Jill Hoffman | Well, I don't, I'm not gonna sit here. That's the point of our closed session conversation that I would like to read I'm going to make my emotion again. If we're going to go to, we are now, you, you city manager, have put us in the position of now putting this at issue in the public realm by issuing this memo. We need to discuss this in public way because now we are squarely back at issue. |
| 02:13:46.93 | Mayor Woodside | It's in the public realm. |
| 02:13:48.92 | Jill Hoffman | you |
| 02:13:48.94 | Mayor Woodside | You mentioned it. |
| 02:13:48.95 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 02:13:49.22 | Sarah Bostock | Thank you. |
| 02:13:50.62 | Mayor Woodside | So when we get to discussion time, you can certainly discuss it. |
| 02:13:55.75 | Sarah Bostock | Well- |
| 02:13:56.02 | Mayor Woodside | We have not waived any of our attorney-client privileges. We have not waived any of our closed-end session personnel. Uh, Confidentiality is required by the government code. the city manager in an effort to bring all of these numbers and all of these reports to the public view. So everyone can see it. Every single detail. He's done so. And he has that right. And he's conferred, I believe, with the city attorney. Hasn't talked to me, hasn't talked to any of us. He's made a decision that I think should be welcomed by all. |
| 02:14:35.26 | Sophia Collier | Is our city attorney on the line? |
| 02:14:35.85 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:14:37.59 | Sophia Collier | May I note this memo is dated March 5, 2026. This memo was not the subject of any closed session discussion, which all occurred last year. Now, this is a great thing. |
| 02:14:48.74 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:14:48.79 | Sophia Collier | MEMBERS. |
| 02:14:49.03 | Jill Hoffman | is over a month old and was never shared with the city council. So if the city manager is galloping around getting memos from a consultant that we had, was it a direct relevant to our discussion? It should have been shared with a city council. |
| 02:15:02.02 | Mayor Woodside | Do you have questions? Because we're in question time, and we'll get to discussion in due course. Do you have a question? |
| 02:15:08.33 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I have a question of our city attorney. So we're discussing whether or not apparently our former finance director was involved in criminal activity. And I'm wondering whether or not we can freely discuss that here on the dais. |
| 02:15:27.13 | Sergio Rudin | I have not heard, well, first of all, you can't discuss the personnel matter. without the person present, but I'm not hearing the discussion of the person i'm hearing the discussion of the budget that is the item before council tonight. |
| 02:15:40.51 | Jill Hoffman | Well, one of the issues that have come up repeatedly is whether or not we should do a forensic audit. And what has come up repeatedly is whether or not there's evidence of some sort of misconduct by our former |
| 02:15:55.45 | Jill Hoffman | finance director and the circumstances of his departure. |
| 02:16:00.14 | Sophia Collier | And this, I just heard the city does not address that at all. It does not. But there are circumstances. I don't understand why you think that we're discussing that this evening. Because there are circumstances that are. |
| 02:16:00.55 | Jill Hoffman | I just heard the city So that's true. I don't understand. |
| 02:16:09.00 | Mayor Woodside | so please maybe finish with questions and then we can move on to discussion are there additional questions miss hoffman |
| 02:16:30.82 | Jill Hoffman | I'm wondering why certain information in this Imagine. |
| 02:16:34.33 | Mayor Woodside | I deserve a question. |
| 02:16:35.38 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, this is a question for the city manager. I'm wondering why certain information was left out of this memo. |
| 02:16:43.49 | Chris Zapata | You say certain information was left out of the memo |
| 02:16:45.91 | Jill Hoffman | the damage to the laptop. |
| 02:16:47.27 | Chris Zapata | What are you speaking about? |
| 02:16:48.22 | Jill Hoffman | There was damage to the laptop. It was left out of this memo. |
| 02:16:51.91 | Chris Zapata | It is not, it's in my memo. |
| 02:16:57.08 | Jill Hoffman | What line does it say that there was damage to the laptop? |
| 02:17:00.55 | Chris Zapata | Look under April, May of 2025. |
| 02:17:04.67 | Jill Hoffman | The March 5th, 2026 memo. |
| 02:17:07.35 | Chris Zapata | No, the memo I put together is part of a comprehensive review of the audit and the circumstances in the last five years with our financial systems. There's a summary, it is chronological, that you will see that that's mentioned. |
| 02:17:22.22 | Jill Hoffman | That's a crime. |
| 02:17:26.49 | Chris Zapata | Are you accusing me of a crime? |
| 02:17:27.79 | Jill Hoffman | No. |
| 02:17:28.48 | Chris Zapata | And. |
| 02:17:35.53 | Jill Hoffman | That's evidence of a crime. |
| 02:17:37.54 | Chris Zapata | Well, now you're telling me I committed a crime, not accusing me. |
| 02:17:39.21 | Jill Hoffman | Not excusing me. |
| 02:17:40.02 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. |
| 02:17:40.12 | Jill Hoffman | Not you. |
| 02:17:41.02 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. Well, let's just say this. |
| 02:17:43.85 | Sophia Collier | It's on page, it's on, it's in the city manager memo, the fourth one to the fourth page of the city manager memo in the chronology of what occurred. |
| 02:17:58.47 | Mayor Woodside | questions? |
| 02:17:58.99 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 02:18:00.10 | Jill Hoffman | I don't understand why that's not in the Kroll memo. |
| 02:18:03.44 | Chris Zapata | their charge was not to do anything but retrieve the information and review it for any malicious activity. That's all they did. |
| 02:18:13.69 | Jill Hoffman | their memo doesn't include that information. |
| 02:18:17.35 | Chris Zapata | My memo does. There's a lead up to it where we talk about all of the work we did to make sure that we could retrieve the information and so that we could assure the public and the council that nothing nefarious occurred and nothing nefarious occurred on the part of financial management by the former finance director. That's clear. |
| 02:18:50.48 | Jill Hoffman | I, there are other circumstances with the finance director that are undisclosed. that, Point to it. |
| 02:18:58.61 | Mayor Woodside | I'm sorry. This is question time. Do you have a question? |
| 02:19:04.74 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I do have a lot more questions that I could ask the city manager and that we could talk about, but I'm not at liberty to do that because |
| 02:19:10.22 | Mayor Woodside | You are at liberty to ask questions now, please. |
| 02:19:12.87 | Jill Hoffman | I'm not at Liberty. That's the point. |
| 02:19:15.55 | Mayor Woodside | Well, you can't ask about personnel matters. |
| 02:19:18.71 | Jill Hoffman | Right? Because? |
| 02:19:20.12 | Mayor Woodside | We cannot pass the brother. |
| 02:19:20.87 | Jill Hoffman | of the way you structured this meeting. No. Because of the way we've, I mean, these are the reasons why we need a forensic audit. |
| 02:19:22.64 | Mayor Woodside | No. |
| 02:19:27.60 | Jill Hoffman | This is the point. So for us to sit up here. And you're making comments. Okay. Okay. |
| 02:19:29.64 | Sophia Collier | here. |
| 02:19:34.99 | Sophia Collier | We'll have an opportunity to make comments. |
| 02:19:37.51 | Mayor Woodside | Ms. Cox, do you have questions? |
| 02:19:39.01 | Sophia Collier | Yes, I had a couple of minor questions. So. Thank you. |
| 02:19:48.41 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:19:49.86 | Sophia Collier | we had a member of the public make reference to a deficit. Um, Your memo, city manager. Um... says that, Well, I'm not sure it's your memo, but the staff report says, there was no deficit. So the $1.4 million identified as a significant flagged as a significant deficiency flagged by the audit was not a deficit. Is that correct? |
| 02:20:19.64 | Chris Zapata | Let me make sure I make that Crystal clear. The city had a $1.6 million surplus within that surplus. The spending that occurred is what's referenced to as it was not approved with authority or appropriation by the council. It doesn't mean the city has a deficit of 1.4 million. It means we spent $1.4 million without getting the budget appropriation for the council. But the budget was 1.6 million in the black. |
| 02:20:47.60 | Sophia Collier | So the... finance director in varying times during her presentation, made reference to this was not budgeted, or this was not appropriated. Is it true that the 1.4 million concerned items that were not appropriated not items that were not for which the budget was not approved. |
| 02:21:13.59 | Chris Zapata | It's it's Angelina can answer that. But I will tell you it's both. |
| 02:21:18.89 | Angeline Loeffler | So what happened on that one is we actually incur a lot more revenue enough to cover those overspending and also resulted in 1.6 million of surpluses. |
| 02:21:29.78 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. But my question is, of the 1.4 million My understanding is that every item within the $1.4 million Significant deficiency flagged by the audit. was for expenditures that were approved by the city council. |
| 02:21:53.42 | Chris Zapata | That is correct, Council Member. |
| 02:21:55.51 | Sophia Collier | Okay. And so what happened is the approval by the city council did not get translated into paperwork. moving monies amongst the various city accounts. |
| 02:22:10.04 | Chris Zapata | That is what the auditor flagged and said we did not come back and get the appropriation to match the council or the city manager's approval of that expense. |
| 02:22:10.23 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. |
| 02:22:19.46 | Sophia Collier | I did not see in the in the corrective actions that the city council is taking an addition of this extra step to have the council approve the appropriations necessary to carry out The council's approval of approved budgetary items. |
| 02:22:42.10 | Angeline Loeffler | I think that is really great, excellent points. And sometime these additional authorizations may not be resulting in the additional budgetary appropriations. So I think that is a great point that we need to kind of looking into whenever there is additional the purchasing authorization, we need to look at it in a point of whether we need a budgetary appropriation is needed. Correct. Yes. Okay. |
| 02:23:08.12 | Chris Zapata | And council member, that's the point of the next agenda item. |
| 02:23:11.26 | Sophia Collier | Okay. I would like to, okay, and I will save my recommendations for my comments, but that, thank you for answering my questions. |
| 02:23:22.85 | Mayor Woodside | A couple of questions first for the auditor. If you can come back on, thank you. And I'm sorry, I can't read your name and I haven't addressed you before, I don't believe. But I did ask at the previous hearing when the preliminary audit you I asked if there was any suspicion, of a crime or fraud. As far as our audit, we did not identify any fraud He did not. Just want to make sure everyone heard that you did not. And to you, you are an independent auditor. All right. You don't, you work. Um, for the city, but you are independent. You follow the rules with respect to what independent auditors must do and what kinds of things they must review, correct? |
| 02:24:20.45 | Unknown | Correct. We follow rules set by the State Board of Accountancy and also the AICPA to ensure that we are independent from the city. |
| 02:24:30.14 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. Okay, thank you. And a question for the city manager. You're the appointing authority of the former finance director? Correct. And you made a decision to part ways with that person, correct? |
| 02:24:44.68 | Chris Zapata | I did at the worst possible time, but I did. |
| 02:24:47.74 | Mayor Woodside | And you did so for conduct. unrelated to his handling of finance. |
| 02:24:53.66 | Chris Zapata | It's in my memo, and that's the case, that there was no work issue with him. As a matter of fact, I paid him two bonuses for submitting good work for the auditor to, if I have no findings the last two years, or minimal findings. So, no, it was not related to work. He was a very good finance director. |
| 02:25:12.83 | Mayor Woodside | But nonetheless, you parted ways. After you parted ways, well, you closed off his access to accounts, et cetera, et cetera, as you would with any employee who's left the city service? |
| 02:25:28.32 | Chris Zapata | correct. That's in my memo. Certainly, whether any employee leaves, the protocol is to take their keys, turn off their computer, whatever it is that is involved with Citi, you take all of that. And we did that. And we took extraordinary steps to make sure because this was a position that was in a lot of areas, whether it's IT or investments or whether our bank relationships, all of the things that you see in my memo. We did all of that at the point in time when the separation occurred, and we did it intentionally because we had to. |
| 02:26:08.89 | Mayor Woodside | And after he left, he was asked, or upon leaving, you asked him to return not just his keys, but his computer, his laptop, correct? |
| 02:26:17.92 | Chris Zapata | That's correct. |
| 02:26:19.01 | Mayor Woodside | And he did so via the mail from his location |
| 02:26:24.73 | Chris Zapata | We received it late. |
| 02:26:26.47 | Mayor Woodside | And what was its condition? |
| 02:26:29.49 | Chris Zapata | damaged. |
| 02:26:30.73 | Mayor Woodside | How damaged? |
| 02:26:31.94 | Chris Zapata | to the point where we couldn't retrieve the information |
| 02:26:36.14 | Mayor Woodside | So what did you do when you couldn't retrieve the information? |
| 02:26:41.29 | Chris Zapata | We reached out to some experts at the state level. They helped us internally. We worked with our IT people. They actually helped us unencrypt a locked system, which was really important and very difficult. So once we did that, then we were able to suggest to ourselves that in order to make sure nothing nefarious happened, I then engaged Kroll to do a review of the laptop. And so all those steps took place at the time of separation over a two month period. |
| 02:27:18.55 | Mayor Woodside | And Kroll is a cybersecurity expert of national reputation. |
| 02:27:24.57 | Chris Zapata | They have a very good reputation in these circles and were recommended to us by a certain person that's an expert in cybersecurity. So the first iteration was a result of the blunt force attack we had March of 2025 when we had to close the council meeting down. And we wondered if, in fact, there was something that was wrong with our systems. But thank goodness we were able to survive that. And due to some of the work that the former finance director did, but then, you know, understanding the connection between our separation and that event, Kroll was already on board for that work, which was important to the city to make sure we don't have a scenario where we are ransomed. And, you know, we're not, you know, ever out of those woods, but that day we escaped. So Kroll was the person we brought forward. And since they were already working, they had a great reputation. I entered into agreement with them to look at the laptop. |
| 02:28:20.78 | Mayor Woodside | And you mentioned a certain person recommended crawl. |
| 02:28:24.60 | Chris Zapata | Correct. |
| 02:28:26.54 | Mayor Woodside | Are you at liberty to tell us who that certain person? No, I would not. |
| 02:28:30.18 | Chris Zapata | No, I would not. |
| 02:28:31.23 | Mayor Woodside | You would not. |
| 02:28:32.27 | Chris Zapata | I would not. This is a sterling reputation in the community. That's all I'll say. |
| 02:28:37.67 | Mayor Woodside | in this community. in this community. |
| 02:28:41.81 | Chris Zapata | Yes. |
| 02:28:42.13 | Mayor Woodside | Okay. That's all you want to say to that. Yep. Okay. Um, Thank you. I don't have any additional questions. So unless there are further questions, we'll now do something unusual unless you object if there are members of the public having heard all this would like to address us, even if you've already done so before, in particular, Miss Nichols. I know you express interest in hearing our questions before you had to say anything and And I'm happy to hear from the public. The effort here is for transparency and full disclosure. So anyone in the audience wish to comment further? Seeing none, anyone online? |
| 02:29:30.43 | Faye Rosenthal | Thank you. |
| 02:29:30.44 | Elizabeth Sutherland | and in the spirit of the army. |
| 02:29:31.73 | Mayor Woodside | Okay, so first in the audience, please. |
| 02:29:35.45 | Elizabeth Sutherland | Elizabeth Sutherland again, I'd say with all the discussion that's been going on for well over an hour, And there's so many emotions around it and thoughts and feelings. I don't know why you just don't go forward and do a forensic analysis and be done with it. |
| 02:29:52.97 | Mayor Woodside | I hear your question. I'm prepared to respond to that at the appropriate time. Anyone else? I see you, Alice. |
| 02:30:09.61 | Adrian Brinton | Thank you, Mayor and Councillor. I'll be quick. I Just to reiterate again, in all of the information that was released, there was no evidence of criminal activity, which is the goal of a forensic audit. And I heard nothing in the comments to change the opinion there. Thank you. |
| 02:30:29.84 | Mayor Woodside | Anyone online wish you'd to comment? |
| 02:30:33.05 | Walfred Solorzano | We have Sandra Bush. |
| 02:30:33.98 | Sandra Bushmaker | Maker? |
| 02:30:34.30 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 02:30:36.22 | Mayor Woodside | Miss Bushmaker. |
| 02:30:37.35 | Sandra Bushmaker | Yeah, thank you, Council. I just wanted to let you know that the Crowe memorandum is unopened on the city agenda on the agenda. It's in green as opposed to the rest of the attachments. which are in blue. And also the presentation is in green. So I don't know why the public is not able to open the crawl. |
| 02:30:58.30 | Mayor Woodside | Well, according to the members of the council sitting to my left and right, they're able to open it. So, Sandra, we apologize if you're not able to. I can't explain why. |
| 02:31:10.65 | Sandra Bushmaker | and I'm not done. I have one other item, you know, |
| 02:31:13.08 | Mayor Woodside | you know, |
| 02:31:14.00 | Sandra Bushmaker | A forensic audit is not just to discover, quote, criminality, as alleged by a few of the speakers. It's to look for any irregularities or any other things that needs to be brought to the attention of the Council. And, you know, the, If you just Google municipalities and forensic audits, you will see that when finance directors leave under less than optimal circumstances, it's not unusual to order a forensic audit. just to put the public's mind at ease and the council's mind at ease that everything is okay. And now that I've heard about a damaged laptop, And that we had to get cyber people in to open it up. I think that more than ever, it calls for a forensic audit to check our systems to make sure that the public is confident in the finance situation of the city. Thank you. |
| 02:32:16.71 | Mayor Woodside | Anyone else? |
| 02:32:18.52 | Sandra Bushmaker | Seeing none. |
| 02:32:19.04 | Michelle McCullough | Thank you. |
| 02:32:19.68 | Unknown | Michelle has seen it. |
| 02:32:22.85 | Mayor Woodside | Michelle, just for the record, identify yourself. |
| 02:32:25.79 | Michelle McCullough | Hi, my name is Michelle McCullough and yes, Elizabeth, I agree with so much emotion and talking for so long. It gets very confusing, but I want to say that Two words were just mentioned. First, criminal activity by Councilmember Jill Hoffman. Second, irregularity by Sandra Bushmaker. Both of these words, to me, do not fall in line with findings. Findings versus material weakness that was covered in length. I am clear. on what that means. Clearly, no material weakness was found. My layman understanding of that is, it's worse if we found material weakness. Like that's bad. That's fishy. That feels weird to me. I don't like that at all. But after all of the information I reviewed, I'm at peace with the findings. And I don't think there's anything fishy, so I don't think we should belabor this, but I can understand why certain council members might feel this way, and I appreciate the further examination, but I feel we've exhausted at this point. satisfied with the findings. Thank you. |
| 02:33:36.35 | Mayor Woodside | Any other comments online? |
| 02:33:38.74 | Walfred Solorzano | Seeing none. |
| 02:33:39.79 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you very much. I'll bring it back. Who wants to speak first? |
| 02:33:42.02 | Walfred Solorzano | Bye. |
| 02:33:46.01 | Unknown | I guess I'll go, mayor. You may. Yeah, thank you. Hi, everybody. So, Look, I'm no expert. I'm a volunteer on this council, like everybody else, a resident who doesn't like his tax money wasted. one of my favorite movies is entitled The Never-Ending Story. It's a charming story, but the title is really appropriate to this because from the day I started on city council to now, there's a never-ending questioning of our finances, no matter how much we look at it. Part of the satisfaction of being on City Council is that it's made me understand the world I live in better. And I understand the birther conspiracy with Obama and Pizzagate. And QAnon all the better. You remember how it started with Obama? He wasn't born here, a slight insinuation. then We had to prove he was born here, so we insisted on producing his birth certificate. When he did, That wasn't enough, we needed to see the long form birth certificate. There have been insinuations about our finances ever since I started here, so much so that I bought into them. I ran on the platform of eliminating our budget deficit. Well, as our city manager reported at our strategic meeting, we had a surplus in the year 2014-15. We had a surplus in 2017. in 18, in 19, in 2020, in 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024. How do you think all the new construction you see around town is being paid for? It's constant. albeit too small, but constant budget surpluses that have accumulated more than $15 million, which the city council, because we finally started to get rid of the conspiracy theory stuff, has been able to allocate in a balanced way, increasing our reserves, that is money for a rainy day, to 25% of our annual budget, still leaves us millions of dollars in unallocated fund balance. And we took all the rest of the money and put it into the capital expenditure fund. So this indulging of fear actually had a cost. It had a cost in potholes and delayed stormwater drain fixtures in the King infrastructure. So it isn't without a cost. And it can't be satisfied by the so-called forensic audit because the forensic audit always focuses on something. Look under that table, look in that account, look in that person, You can't look absolutely everywhere. The whole idea of the audit is to look in various places and samples. and do so in a way that You look for yellow flags and if you find a yellow flag, then you start digging in deeper. Well, we've had multiple. audits independent year in year out that have never found any suspicion of fraud. There is no basis for, for concern about the quality of our finances. There is no basis. There is a basis for a concern about the nature of our discussion about it. Thank you. because members of the community Understandably. have some concerns. And that is exacerbated when people in the know or people who should know better, prey on those concerns, feed on it. If not intentionally, then perhaps unintentionally. And the reality is that fear and certainty and doubt and stoking fear and certainty and doubt is a way to power. It is what we see in Trump. It is what we see in the world today. And when we talk about thinking globally and acting locally, It is my mission to always try to speak in a way that clarifies understanding, in a world that's imperfect and complex and my charge to everyone who spends the time to actually know the facts, is that there's an obligation to try to serve clarity and not so confusion. And my big objection, to what is done by some activists in the community is that they take a fact and try to cast it in the worst possible light, instead of, Finding a time to meet with our city manager and our finance director doing the hard work of figuring out a complex situation and then explaining it to their circles of trust. So when I get 50 letters, calling for a forensic audit. My heart breaks. because I know those are 50 people who are in a circle of trust around a nexus, and I fault the center of those nexuses for not being willing to do the work in calming the fears of their friends. and it breaks my heart. So this is about a lot more than dollars and cents. It's about. Compassion. and hope in getting along as humans. So there are always issues in our finances that are worth doing the hard work to figure out. There are always those issues, but we can't even begin to do them. If what we do is undercut, our basic faith in each other, in our staff. in ourselves. Thank you, Mayor. |
| 02:38:33.95 | Mayor Woodside | Who wants to speak next? |
| 02:38:37.34 | Jill Hoffman | I'm happy to go. Unless you wanted to We can rearrange the order. |
| 02:38:42.19 | Mayor Woodside | I just asked who wanted to speak next. |
| 02:38:45.23 | Jill Hoffman | You want to? I'm happy to go. |
| 02:38:47.20 | Mayor Woodside | Okay? |
| 02:38:48.06 | Jill Hoffman | So when we had to We had to let our finance director go last year. under the circumstances that we've now Not fully talked about. Uh, that we've talked about it tonight in greater detail. I pushed for a forensic audit. And we had a petition come forward with about 150 people that signed that. because of the concerns that we had about what was going on and the circumstances that he had to leave. I thought that was a good idea at that time. to instill confidence in our budget and our finances and just basic concerns about what was going on. And I think that was a good idea. I still think that that's a good idea. Had we had a forensic audit at that time, we certainly would have caught the problems that were going on right now with the unauthorized spending. So, would we have Cut. the problem that the auditor found and the 1.3 million in unauthorized spending at that time, yes. Now, retroactively, or did we you know, At the time, you know, can we say this spending was authorized or, you know, someone said spend. But- The issue with unbudgeted spending is the same. You know, it's not like it's free money. So. The value of a forensic audit at that time to instill confidence and to catch something that may have been a problem, which clearly it is a problem, it was a problem, it's a continuing problem, the unauthorized spending. that would have been a value in and of itself. whether or not there's something that was going on that shouldn't have been going on that we still haven't found may still be going on or may have gone on that we haven't caught. So there were other behaviors that we haven't talked about tonight. that we know about, that we haven't talked about, that we haven't authorized release of that information. that we know about. that were happening, was happening. In another jurisdiction. So those are things of concern. And I feel based on the behaviors that we have talked about, are alarms. Anybody that does any kind of work in this area know that when you have a finance director, that sends back a laptop That's damaged. That's a red flag. Period. So what are you, why are we arguing about that? I don't, I don't even know, you know, I don't even know why that's a conversation. So we had to pay Kroll to come in and do you know, a report, you know, to look at the laptop, Kroll does forensic audits. I don't even know why we didn't ask Kroll how much would it cost to do an audit of let's look at What he had access to. We had a cyber attack. He was our IT guy. Don't you think we should have at least looked at that? No, we didn't even look at that. So we're, you know, we leave ourselves at risk. This is inexplicable to me. I think, and the fact that we are now 18 months into it and the overspend continues, I'm glad that we're looking at it now. I'm glad that Evangeline is now looking into it and reining ourselves in. But it was this overspin This, as our auditor says, expenditures are budgeted that may not legally exceed I mean, we're all in agreement. This is the universe that we're talking about. We legally exceeded our budgeted amounts. at the department level for, months. And it wasn't just after our finance director left. It was before he left. It was throughout the fiscal year. That's why it's a finding in our audit. across 14 different funds. This is not an insignificant situation. that occurred in our city and in our finance department, it was not recognized or caught in our fiscal year 24, 25 budget that was presented to us last spring. This is also of concern to me. And so this is why we need an audit. a forensic audit. I don't know why we're still confiding about it. I don't know why I'm still being attacked for considering it. I don't know why good people in our CPAs who have come forward. and requested it. You know, I don't know why we're still arguing about whether or not our former finance director engaged in criminal activity in our jurisdiction. Clearly he did. We can quibble about how you cut the chase on it. He did. So, you know whether or not we're talking about the full scope of what we know. Okay. whether or not Kroll decided to include it in their memo that was sprung on us. after how many meetings did we have today as a city council, why the city manager didn't fully discuss it with me yesterday when clearly he's had this memo for how many weeks. I can't explain that. but I can't explain why I'm pushing for full financial responsibility and why we would benefit from that as a city and a city council. |
| 02:44:17.82 | Mayor Woodside | Ms. Cox. |
| 02:44:19.18 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. I really cannot let the inaccurate statements just made stand. So the council member made at least four references to unauthorized spending. WE HAVE HEARD TIME AND TIME THIS EVENING THERE WAS NO UNAUTHORIZED SPENDING. EVERY EXPENDITURE WAS AUTHORIZED BY THE CITY COUNCIL. So to continue to mischaracterize what actually happened is misleading and fraudulent in and of itself. In addition, you made reference to findings. There were no findings in our audit. There was not even a material weakness identified. There was a significant deficiency. You heard tonight several times there were no findings identified. It was a significant weakness identified. to continue to raise public concern to forward an agenda is misleading, deceptive, and very disappointing. um, Our auditor is not recommending Ending a forensic audit. A California public agency should undertake a forensic audit when there is credible evidence or strong indicators of fraud, misappropriation, conflicts of interest, procurement irregularities, or systemic control failures. None of those exist. Thank you. We did have a brute force cyber attack last year. We did investigate it. We absolutely thoroughly investigated it and through Marin IT, through our own forces, and we realized that there had been no damage to the city's systems. And then when we got back a damaged laptop, we took the correct steps and hired Kroll. and you knew this for the past year and are still raising alarm bells that are inappropriate so um I really... I cannot say strongly enough how important it is for the purposes of transparency that our city council accurately report to the public what is happening rather than. intentionally misrepresenting to the public in writing and verbally what is actually happening to advance an agenda. Thank you. So, |
| 02:46:55.19 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. |
| 02:46:55.24 | Sophia Collier | So, |
| 02:46:55.33 | Jill Hoffman | Since I was attacked, I think I've |
| 02:46:55.34 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. |
| 02:46:55.44 | Mayor Woodside | . |
| 02:46:55.48 | Sophia Collier | Bye. |
| 02:46:56.83 | Mayor Woodside | No, I'm going to call now. You'll get another turn if you wish. I'm going to go through. |
| 02:47:01.42 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 02:47:01.47 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:47:01.49 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 02:47:01.55 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:47:02.90 | Mayor Woodside | and ask Ms. Blaustein if she wants to say anything. |
| 02:47:06.25 | Unknown | Sure. I'll, I'll make a few comments. I want to say I absolutely acknowledge the critical role that audits play. That's why they are required by the state, and that's why we have dutifully submitted ourselves to an audit every year. And not only that, we willingly change our auditor without being required to do so, so that we wouldn't necessarily develop a longstanding relationship with the auditor, and it would in fact be entirely independent. We shifted to Badawi three years ago. We'll likely shift again. These are independent entities who don't have longstanding relations with the city, and their only role is to come in and do an assessment. And, of course, we had some feedback from the audit, and we did what you're supposed to do when you received feedback from the audit. We took immediate action. Our city manager completed an extensive memo explaining what happened within the audit. We had a 27-page presentation from our finance director this evening. Thank you, Angeline. That took us step by step through how we arrived where we did. We came forward with a number of new actions we're going to take, including monthly reporting from all of our finance heads, moving forward with OpenGov, which will increase and provide further transparency, and ensuring that we've addressed what they considered as a weakness. So we did, |
| 02:48:17.36 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:48:17.39 | Steve Rosenthal | Thank you. |
| 02:48:23.89 | Unknown | complete an audit as is required. We did take steps going forward from that audit. And we are now moving on to talk about our budget next year and how we can do a better job and, and that's what you're supposed to do. And that's why audits are required. And a forensic audit is something different, and that is something that is also that should be taken very seriously. And I understand that we did have a significant issue with our finance director, and it was very unfortunate. But not only did we work with Cole to complete an investigation, which is probably on par with what a specific forensic audit for this type of item would require, We also informed the Cal OES after the brute force cyber attack. And I just want to share a couple of lines from the city manager's memo to us in our report, which was provided to us last week. So it does give a play by play of exactly what Kroll did, in addition to the one pager, which was uploaded this afternoon, California's Office of OES consent signed at 418 March 17th by city manager to allow digital access to observe city network activity and authorization to review finance laptop and telephone. Marin IT began work with Cal OES Cyber Task Force to work with the digital forensic response lead of the Cyber Task Force. Interim finance director search begins. Interim finance director appointed. Coal review of brute force cyber attack and potential involvement revealed no evidence tying former director to brute force attack. Coal review of laptop data for malicious financial fraud and credit card abuse completed with no findings. Second Coal review of laptop data for malicious financial fraud and credit card abuse shows no findings. Coal review of brute force cyber attack and potential involvement revealed no evidence tying former finance director to brute force attack. I also want to note that we spend a lot of money on our audits, and this conversation tonight is about budgets and how we can do a better job on our budgets and how we can do a better job of forecasting. And if we have a process in place where we are checking what we're spending, and we've already spent funds on an investigation of the cyber laptop in question, and we will spend money again on an additional audit, a forensic audit could cost up to $500,000 if we did an audit of our entire budget over a number of years. So I am absolutely an advocate for strong financial reporting, for transparency, for tools like OpenGov, for our required annual audits, and for changing our auditors on a regular basis. But I also acknowledge and appreciate the amount of time, energy, and thought that has gone into producing these reports, providing transparency, and providing us with a step forward so that the issue that was raised by our auditor is being addressed. |
| 02:50:59.76 | Mayor Woodside | I have just a few comments. One is that we all bring to this dais, and all of you in the audience bring to this issue, your personal experience, your expertise, your understanding, and your fears and concerns. And I'll just speak for mine. I think my number one obligation as a council member is to protect the public health and safety of the community. And a close number two, is to be a fiduciary and protect the public finances. Those are the core of our fiduciary obligations, not to ourselves, but to the whole community. And in that context, what I bring to this dais, or to this office, is over 50 years in positions where audits of all kinds were standard operating procedure and called for under my, I guess, direction at times. I was the chief legal officer in three counties, one of which was the 10 largest county in the country with a budget larger than many states, with audits, independent audits, every single year, just like this small city. And you look to those audits to see if there's anything missing, any suspicion of fraud. And if there is, you take step two, which is a forensic audit. That was done here. Not just a little bit, but a lot, as you've heard tonight. I hope you all appreciate. that once the broken laptop appeared, It was thoroughly investigated, okay? It is, in and of itself, likely to be a crime to break public property. That's a separate matter. |
| 02:53:01.99 | Unknown | you |
| 02:53:02.88 | Mayor Woodside | but the forensics involved. in, finding out what that laptop revealed And Kroll determined after a huge effort and it's in the writing in the report. There's no evidence. of fraud, no evidence of activity that would require us to do more. So I'm satisfied at that level, and I'm very familiar with forensic audits. They are Once you have evidence of something missing, you go look. to see who took it. and figure out how you're going to get it back. That's plain English. Our fiduciary obligation does not stop at that top line, that we had a balanced budget. Not only that, we had a surplus at the end of last year. The auditor shows that. But in the course of dealing with the accounting last year, if I were grading how things happened, I would give it an incomplete. We authorized expenditures for things that this community wants, needs, or in some cases, we didn't want, but we had to do, like spend extra money on our housing element. We authorized it in public to the penny. And guess what? the next step of moving money from our available funds. to cover that cost before the check was written. That didn't happen. We're all familiar with checkbooks. We're all familiar with bank accounts. How many people have a checkbook and a bank account? Do you write a check? for more than you have in your checking account. Some people do, and some banks will automatically cover it. automatically from your savings account. That's not the case for a city. When we know When any department head knows, like I used to know as a department head, when I'm coming close to the end of the year and I don't have money to do something that has to be done, I have to go back to the governing board and get authorization or hopefully they can find some money to cover that or it can't be done. That's the step that was missing here. And I'm concerned about it. The city manager is concerned about it. He's explained the circumstances under which that happened. And it shall not happen again, not on my watch or on this watch. And whoever is in charge, whoever is the director of finance, whoever is the controller, and we don't actually have a separate controller, that's the job of our director of finance. is to exercise those controls on an ongoing basis. That is what happened for years in this community before, There was a lapse. The independent auditor caught it. called it out. didn't make us happy. and It shouldn't have happened. but it did and it will be fixed. That's how I see it. |
| 02:56:09.65 | Unknown | I just want to note that some millennials don't have checkbooks, but we do have debit cards. So we understood the analogy. And you can see real |
| 02:56:17.03 | Jill Hoffman | time on your iPhone. |
| 02:56:18.75 | Unknown | It's true. |
| 02:56:19.17 | Steve Rosenthal | I'm sorry. |
| 02:56:20.69 | Mayor Woodside | And that's what OpenGov is supposed to be about, right? Okay. Thank you. That's why I asked about it. |
| 02:56:26.16 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, you said you'd give me some more time since I was personally attacked by Council Member Cox. Okay, so... Here's the deal. I use the word finding because in our draft audit, it says finding 2501 excess of expenditures over appropriations. And that's, and that's where they list out. and that's why I'm reading this verbatim. Criteria in accordance with Sausley Municipal Code, expenditures are budgeted at may not legally exceed the department levels, right? And then they list the 14. So that's why I call that a finding. And that's why our auditor called that a finding. And that's where the 14 funds are listed. And that's where it lists all of the summary of of the totals. Um, and so I'm just using otters words and otters findings. Um, and so, Forensic audits can be used when you suspect there's been activity in your jurisdiction and you want to get to the bottom of it. |
| 02:57:25.54 | Mayor Woodside | So you don't wait, wait, wait a second. Excuse me. Please repeat that, you suspect you |
| 02:57:31.01 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 02:57:31.04 | Mayor Woodside | What in your jurisdiction? |
| 02:57:32.56 | Jill Hoffman | criminal activity or you suspect fraud. |
| 02:57:34.53 | Mayor Woodside | That's not what you said. |
| 02:57:36.20 | Jill Hoffman | What did I say? You want to have the record right back? That's what I. |
| 02:57:41.47 | Mayor Woodside | No, I'm sorry to interrupt. I apologize. |
| 02:57:41.49 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. I don't know. |
| 02:57:44.02 | Mayor Woodside | Just proceed. I interrupted you because I thought you said something very general. Like we suspect something might be going wrong. |
| 02:57:44.29 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. |
| 02:57:50.41 | Mayor Woodside | So we're going to do a forensic audit. I think that's what I was hearing. |
| 02:57:52.27 | Jill Hoffman | I think. Okay, sorry. Well, all right. |
| 02:57:57.94 | Mayor Woodside | I'm sorry to interrupt, I apologize. |
| 02:58:02.63 | Jill Hoffman | Here's the thing. We terminated our former finance director for a reason. Uh, He sent a... There were reasons why. He was terminated. We now know that there were, he wasn't a great finance director, clearly, uh we were spending money unauthorized unbudgeted right um and |
| 02:58:37.51 | Jill Hoffman | There were red flags all over the place that would indicate we need to do an investigation about what's going on in our finance department. There's still red flags out there. I mean, we could list them all. that he was doing things in other jurisdictions that caused concern. that would lead you to believe What's going on? We had a cyber attack. He was our I.T. director. We had Kroll here. Why not direct Kroll to do it? You talk about the expense, it's not $600,000 to do a forensic audit. I'm sorry, it's just not. It depends on how far and how long you do the forensic audit. We didn't even ask for an estimate. Like, Why would you not do that? What crawl was right here. So I can't. I mean, you can attack me all you want to. But what's the efficacy of not doing a forensic audit i still don't get it i'm sorry just stick your head in the sand all you want to, we would have at least found out this problem and it would have been fixed. six months ago or a year ago. I can't understand why why the Crowell letter was hidden from me until today. That's a mystery. |
| 02:59:50.82 | Jill Hoffman | have nothing further to say about that. |
| 02:59:52.45 | Mayor Woodside | Let me just say a couple things. My head is above... to sand and above water. And I'm looking out at the evidence. that the independent auditor produced. things. No evidence of fraud, no suspicion of wrongdoing in that regard, but a finding that an accounting step had not been done. That's the independent auditor's finding. So to suggest that it wasn't looked at at the time, is also wrong because we had in place, a budget we had approved expenditures. And what was missing was that accounting step to cover the costs of those approved expenditures. So from those facts... There is no reason for a forensic audit. The suggestion that there are red flags everywhere is an overstatement. The real red flag in my mind with respect to the departure of the finance director, because everything was shut down, everything was looked at, there was no missing money. But when that broken laptop came in, they looked at it. And it took a great effort to determine whether there was any indication that something was amiss there, a red flag involving our finances. None. The answer was none. Every member on this diet knew that at the time. and knows it now. And I will have to say, because I've done these things before. When there is an allegation or reasonable suspicion of fraud, that's when you do a forensic audit. A forensic audit is of the forum, from the Latin word, where they went to litigate their cases, okay? And I'm gonna date myself even more when I say this. This reminds me a little bit of Joe McCarthy, Thank you. Does anyone know? Nobody in the audience remembers. Okay. Okay. I have here. evidence of communists everywhere, okay? Okay? I mean, seriously. Seriously. I'm sorry, but I just think It's time to move on. We have another agenda item. |
| 03:02:09.28 | Unknown | I would like to just echo on that, if you don't mind. I'd like to echo what you said, Mayor. I was against this being agendized because if you're spending your time showing all the reasons, all the evidence that you are not beating your spouse, you're fundamentally losing the debate because you're talking about something that's sorted. So fundamentally, I didn't want to talk about this because it was an open and shut matter. We got a great audit report with no material findings. and a place we could do better. That we signed on page one, but our process sometimes didn't have a sign on page three for some kinds of expenses. It was not trivial, because you've got to get this straight, an improvement. Right. this conspiracy theory stuff, is tearing the country apart. And it's. here in our community. It was here the whole time I've been on council with this pervasive inaccuracy around our budget surpluses. And it's up to each of us in the community to decide whether or not we're gonna act locally to stop what we see globally. Remember how great it was with Obama? The whole system is being torn down by QAnon, Pizzagate, the Salem witch trials, McCarthyism. The nuggets of facts are exploited to sow fear and certainty and doubt. instead of clarity. I can't. compel anyone about how to look at these facts, but I can simply ask for better. You know, I really am asking for better. we are in a trusted position to try to convey this information to our people. And, And not everyone has the time we have to look at these things. So how we characterize things to Our audiences, our circles of trust really do matter. And we can either be curious about errors and try to improve them or we can use them amplify fear, uncertainty and doubt. And we see tons of that in our community. So to me, maybe that's the issue of the day. It'll show up where it's head many, many times over this and other issues. But it's to look at things earnestly. and not and exacerbate the passions. |
| 03:04:27.57 | Jill Hoffman | So why not just do a forensic off? You've spoken twice already. I've not spoken twice. Well, I feel like every time somebody attacks me, I should be able to respond. When someone attacks me directly. |
| 03:04:29.32 | Sophia Collier | Yeah. It's like, |
| 03:04:32.93 | Mayor Woodside | at times. |
| 03:04:36.66 | Mayor Woodside | No one is attacking. |
| 03:04:38.49 | Jill Hoffman | That was a good question. |
| 03:04:39.06 | Mayor Woodside | We are responding and stating our views |
| 03:04:41.61 | Jill Hoffman | Why do you keep Let me just say, I was making a |
| 03:04:45.77 | Unknown | Let me just say, I was looking at the mayor and I looked at Councilmember Cox and I also looked at you. Why you felt I was speaking at you, I don't, you know, I can only presume that some that you may interpret some of these things as landing close to home, but it's not meant to be personal. I endorsed you in 2022. I'm going to say, I think because you're a zealous fighter for Sausalito, But I feel like It's a call to action for all of us to be careful in our words and to be curious. So the people that wrote in letters asking for the forensic audit, how many of them have decided to sit down with city managers of Potter, our finance director, to go through these facts versus simply, being motivated by the call to action. You know, it's sort of like a real ask for us to do better. And so it's up to us. I mean, I see, you know, one member of the audience there shaking her head. She rejects my point of view. And that's fine. Everyone's allowed to. But I'm speaking to the people that are watching and the people that are friends, which is there's going to be more talk like this. There's going to be people trying to sow fear and certainty and doubt. and just ask if that's the kind of world that we want to live in and the kind of community we want to have. |
| 03:05:57.14 | Mayor Woodside | I want to speak to the simple reason why I do not believe there is evidence or reasonable suspicion of fraud |
| 03:05:57.43 | Unknown | I don't want to. |
| 03:06:09.34 | Mayor Woodside | And therefore, There's no reason to have a forensic audit. We've had an... independent audit. We will have an independent audit each and every year who will look for whether there's a reasonable suspicion. And if there is, we will then take the next step. It's premature. to think that we should be, well, not premature. It's unwarranted under the circumstances here. I'm sorry I'm repeating myself, but that's the answer why. That's the answer why we're not doing it. It's not warranted. Ms. Cox, you wanted to say something. |
| 03:06:42.85 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. wanted to actually address the corrective actions that the city plans to take. So, um, |
| 03:06:52.29 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:06:52.42 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. |
| 03:06:52.52 | Mayor Woodside | the item that's on the agenda that we need to actually deal with. Okay, thank you. |
| 03:06:54.78 | Sophia Collier | Yes. Yeah. Um... So I want to reassure the public and remind them that as local officials, effective January 1, 2026, each and every one of us sitting here on the dais will be required to complete at least two hours of specialized fiscal and financial training every two years. So within the next two years, each of us will undertake that. so that the training covers budget development, financial management, liability to promote transparency, And so we will become even better public stewards. for fiscal transparency. I was concerned by some of the comments made by the finance director, and thank you for your report, Director Loeffler. but you made mention during your presentation, and this was not in your written presentation, but you said, Well, we don't have a crystal ball. It's only 4,500. We have to play by ear. I want to encourage us to be very, structured and um, precise in the way that we talk about our budget. have a duty to protect the public fist. And so we can't afford to rely on a crystal ball We have to make as accurate a prediction as we can, and if it's not accurate, we have to correct it. And we do that through the mid-year budget process. So I want to be really... careful in the manner in which we speak about what it is we're doing. We're not relying on a crystal ball. Um, Something else you said was we if this should help control the budgets a little bit more We are not just going to control the budgets a little bit more. We're going to be very precise in the manner in which we manage our budgets and our appropriations moving forward. And to that end, I do want to add to the corrective actions to address the audit report that we return after the city council has approved an expenditure that we either include in the staff report for the approval of that expenditure, the appropriation that will be necessary to carry out that expenditure, or you return. Most of my clients, and I'm a municipal lawyer who represents cities and counties and special districts around the state. Most of my clients include the appropriation as a part of the staff report so that not only is the Council approving the financial transaction and the expenditure of monies or the budgeting of monies, but we're also identifying how that what will be appropriated in order to carry that out. So that's my recommendations. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. |
| 03:09:49.22 | Mayor Woodside | Okay. Um, Would it be appropriate to, and I can make a motion now that we accept the final audit report We accept the report from the city manager and give direction to follow through on all of those corrective actions, both with respect to the fiscal year ended and going forward to make sure that those actions that you mentioned, Mr. City Manager, are followed through on. |
| 03:10:21.99 | Chris Zapata | Second. One question. I believe that Councilmember Cox made mention that we need to insert City Council language in there as well. And we'll do that. |
| 03:10:33.30 | Mayor Woodside | In other words, that addition, you agree, should be done. |
| 03:10:39.91 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 03:10:39.93 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:10:39.95 | Chris Zapata | Yes. |
| 03:10:40.34 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. There's a motion and a second. Any more discussion? |
| 03:10:47.25 | Unknown | I just like to commend Steph. for their diligent work. And I guess my comment is just a highlight. We ended the year with a surplus. That's part of why we're able to fix all these roads. and why you see construction in Dumfey Park on on Bridgeway, on North Street, on North Street steps. The list goes on and on. I had a neighbor stop me on the street today. And she said, you know, I moved here in 2022. I can't believe how much is getting fixed around town. What's going on? I love it. |
| 03:11:17.07 | Mayor Woodside | That's your comment on the motion. |
| 03:11:17.16 | Unknown | That's all she's back. I bet my comment on emotions. |
| 03:11:22.51 | Mayor Woodside | Okay, any further comments? Should we do a roll call? Okay, all in favor. I'm not sure. |
| 03:11:28.77 | Sophia Collier | Bye. |
| 03:11:28.80 | Mayor Woodside | Bye. Okay, that's unanimous. |
| 03:11:32.18 | Sophia Collier | Let me take five minutes before our news. |
| 03:11:33.42 | Mayor Woodside | I think a request has been made for a five-minute personal convenience break. Thank you. Okay. And thanks to all of you. |
| 03:11:38.07 | Sophia Collier | Convenience. |
| 03:11:46.27 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 03:11:49.29 | Mayor Woodside | So we're now reconvening at about 835, if that clock is accurate. And we'll hear from the city manager first on item 5B. |
| 03:11:59.63 | Chris Zapata | and Thank you, Mayor, members of the council. Public, I know it's a little late, so I'm going to try to be as brief as I can because I also know that you've been here since 8 o'clock this morning doing your public service for this community. I thank you for the vigorous discussion on the last item. So I'll try to use some precision in laying this out so that there is an ease of conversation and discussion so we're not here all night. So I want to tell you that the last time we came in front of you with the midyear budget report, we were talking about an $875,000 projected shortfall. As you all know, budgets are estimates, and, you know, we used the midyear timeframe to look at where we're trending. That $875,000 was made up by, and you want to know what it's made up by? It's made up by items that for the most part, where after we adopted the budget, Number one. Number two, their one time in nature, in terms of the expense side of them, And so today we want to try to clean that up and provide some insight into the The next iteration that's going to get you to, and let me repeat this, at the end of this year, if you agree with the recommendation the staff is providing, then you will not have a deficit at the end of the year, but it's going to take a commitment of unassigned funds to make that happen. So the $875,000 is made up by about $400,000 plus for the Spencer Firehouse. That's something that didn't get approved until after we adopted the budget. There's about $70,000 in the city manager transition. the recruitment, the executive search firm, you know, the end of my time here. The sustainability and resiliency manager, acting, who's still here, that's another chunk of money, about $35,000. And then to help with all the work that we have, we had a part-time. and intern program that Kathy Nikita's put together, which has been really additive, and that's about $87,000. And then we had some miscellaneous projects and some utility rate increases that added to another $34,000. So that makes up the preponderance of the $875,000 shortfall that we talked about last time. Now, tonight, what I want to tell you is that we have done more work with the budget. Angeline has done a lot of work to figure out where we are at this moment so that we can make the appropriate corrections. So we don't have a replay of what we just had 20 minutes ago. So the staff report indicates there's an updated shortfall of one point. 4-4-1. 1,441,000, up from 875,000. And the reason for that increase is predominantly we didn't book a payment for the certificates of participation, which is about $500,000, $600,000. And so that inflates that number to what we are seeing is about 1.4 million dollars. So to get to the punchline of how this can be fixed, the one thing that is also late-breaking is, as Angeline's looked at the numbers working with Peter Stonebraker, our staff, and myself, she's identified that when we when we transferred the sewer collection system The general fund subsidized that transfer at the time. And so to true that up, that means that $600,000 back to the general fund. When you add that to the $625,000 from your unassigned fund balance that you are being asked to approve tonight, and then when you look at the staff savings and next quarter with stronger revenues of about $200,000, that's $1.4 million. And that would get you to what I hope is an action that will result in next year when someone says, what happened with these expenses that the council needed to approve this money the council need to move around that happened on april 7th 2026 so with that angeline has a brief report and we'll go from there |
| 03:16:16.67 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. Angeline. |
| 03:16:19.10 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. Thank you. The city manager is a brief introduction and then now they are based on the idea that Chris is the brief the summary I'm going to getting into the details of those each of the line items on that one. So just to the start of this presentation, I wanted to kind of inform the council members that these are the projections and additional budget appropriation. What we're requesting today is the combination of the retroactive of the expenses that already occur plus the projected for the remainder of the year so these are the combination of the the edit would in effort to finish the edit prevent from the another audit findings going forwards for the current years next slide please All right, so I'm just directly diving into the administration as the city manager has already addressed. So the $300,000 for the professional service agreement for the firehouse, the file cleanups, that is the contract was authorized by the city councils on July 6th. uh, July 22nd of 2025. Thank you. And also, ever since the firehouse projects began, we hired a number of interns to go through those files, and the total cost for the interns through the end of June 30th is estimated to the $120,000, which is adding up to about $420,000 is allocated for that one particular projects that we have not been the asked for the budget appropriations through this point. So this is the adding on to the authorization was already obtained, but the budget appropriation is what we're requesting at this time. And also the so total expenditure on these firehouses more than 50 of all the other budget appropriations that we're asking for in a total of 620 000 so as you can see the firehouse project is making the huge toll of the these additional budget appropriations next slide please |
| 03:18:45.51 | Angeline Loeffler | one please yes so this is the additional items on the the outside of the 420 000 is also adding on to the transition of the city manager's positions with the recruitment funds and the transitions of the city manager which is add up to about 70 000 of additional expenses that was unanticipated and we will be anticipating for that expenses to take place this before the end of the year so we will request for the additional budgetary appropriation and authorizations and the other recruiting firms the authorization for the 39 000 has been already been previously authorized through the councils in the in the previous the agenda items Next slide, please. And the next one is actually the idea the resilient and sustainability, the department's hiring of temporary interim managers, which is adding up to about 30,000 of the other salaries through the end of the fiscal year. That was the unexpected expenses that we are requesting for the additional budgetary appropriations for that particular amount. and also planning and zoning departments and hiring of these are the combination of the retros and possibly through the end of the fiscal year that the trying to manage the workload, we are hiring the interns to handle some of those tasks at the planning departments, which is also resulting additional budget appropriations in that area. And next slide, please. So now moving on to the public works that we are expecting. They were asking for the additional budgetary appropriation of 34,000. Out of that 34,000 is the contributing factors of the water utility rate increases effective January 1 of 2026, which has caused the increase of the utility water bills. by the another 23 2000 estimated based on the current trends of the use so that is the additional appropriations we will definitely need to cover those expenses through that throughout the end of the years on that one so that is actually the main component of the public works the budget appropriations request on that one Next slide, please. And now I'm looking into the some of those revenue forecasts. I'm the as the the sediment mentions at one point for that currently under the idea. over expenses that were anticipated through the year, which is not reflecting of the anticipated true up from the sewer fund, sewer, the fund transfer, the operation transfer. And I'm slowing the process of the going through all of those numbers and reconciliations. that Because of that reason, it has not been reflected on our projected revenue of those true ups for the sewer operations. So that will also take places prior to the ending of the year. And that will bring back down to, with the approval of the appropriation request of the $612,000. And we're left with the $829,000. and offsetting by the potential 600 000 of the sewer true up we're ended up with the uh working with the the managing the additional 200 thousands of the the overspending can be offset and i think every department is making an effort and we made some good progress since the media reviews we actually did reduce departments are making proactive and making cuts and we were able to make the reductions as this point and that efforts will be continue until the year end to make sure that we balance the the idea the budgets at the end of the years Next slide, please. And this is for the quick analysis of our, the funds that unassigned funds outside of the, excluding our restricted funds and also excluding 25% of the reserve amounts. And then this is the computations that I kind of see how much we can actually available outside of all those, the meeting the requirements of the reserve policies, as well as a restrictive fund. And based on the analysis on the current balance at the beginning of the fiscal year, July one of 2025, We were able to the right now there's 4.8 million of unassigned fund outside of the, uh, the restrict and reserve amounts that. We are asking from that amounts that is the additional budget appropriations for the 612,000 that for the threat to finish the ears with the surplus. the edit, make sure we don't run into the edit deficits. Next slide, please. |
| 03:24:02.35 | Angeline Loeffler | So approval of this request will decrease the available unrestricted fund by the 612,000 out of the 4.8 million of the unrestricted funds available to use at this point. Once again, outside of the city's 25% reserve policies and the restricted funds. And approval of this action will ensure the continuity of the operations and allow the department to fulfill the programs without the commitments and without any interruptions. Next slide please. And this is one additional, there will not be any of the fiscal impacts at this point on this one. The as going through the ongoing efforts of looking into the fund balances, I did actually noted that there's the mid year reviews that I did actually exclude the the loan obligation from the MLK funding for the 510,000. So by correcting that issues, I did actually request that, I'm asking to request the cancellation of the 500,000. So originally budgeted to transfer from the MLK fund to the, the general funds. So that will actually balance out the MLK fundings without over drawing the, the, based on the current revenues for this year's so In addressing that one, I did actually review the additional revenue sources for the general fund to make sure that we can close that gap of not having the $500,000 transfer from the MLK funding. And it turned out that we have a lot more of the revenue sources that will be coming in, which in one of the attachments of the attachment ones on the revenue, the forecast, we are expecting a lot higher amounts than TOT revenue than what we budgeted for at the beginning of the years. So the additional TOT, the revenue is expected to come out, additional almost the $450,000, which is mostly covers by the missing of the MLK fund transfers. So with that said, and MLK fundings is going to be in a good balance without having that transfer to the general fund at the same time, general funds will have enough of the additional revenues to cover those shortfalls that are not coming from the MLK fundings. Next slide. I think that will conclude my presentations for this particular budget appropriation request. And I'm opening it for any questions. end. |
| 03:26:48.32 | Mayor Woodside | um, Since this is new, we haven't reviewed this before, we're starting with questions from the dais before we hear from the public. So Ms. Cox. |
| 03:26:59.84 | Sophia Collier | I just had one question. So you said that In your description of the available unassigned fund balance, you said the amount that you're quoting excludes the 25% reserve requirement and restricted reserve. which means it excludes our pension trust and all those types of things. Correct? Does it also exclude the monies we set aside for insurance claims? Thank you. |
| 03:27:29.11 | Angeline Loeffler | That is not actually in the computations, so based on that one. So that's it's going to be something that we're going to have to address in the upcoming budget years. So I. Thank you. |
| 03:27:41.59 | Sophia Collier | No, but we made a policy decision to set aside certain monies because when we joined our new insurance company, Prism, we have a much larger SIR. And so we set aside monies to accommodate that S.I.R. or self-insured retention since as a new customer of Prism, it started out at a much higher level. |
| 03:28:08.68 | Angeline Loeffler | So I wasn't aware of the additional, the idea set aside outside of the 25%. |
| 03:28:17.30 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, this is one thing that I will have to come back to you with some research on because it was a certain amount that we wanted to have for claims coverage. We want to look at what claims we've had, where the balance is. If we had it in the budget, I hope so, but I will make sure that we check that because it could be a source of a plus or a minus in the sense that if our claims are higher than the amount we budget or we have in that account, then we would have a shortfall. If it is not, I think what you're leading to, Councilmember Cox, is then that is money that stays in the budget that isn't an expense that also helps balance in the sense that we're looking to balance. So but let us get back to you with some detail on that for sure. I can share with you, I sent a memo last week on our insurance coverage, Kathy, Sergio, and And Angeline, I've all been working really hard to make sure that we manage our insurance costs and our insurance costs are going to go down. We project about 500,000 next year. So that's good news. |
| 03:29:22.35 | Mayor Woodside | And just to follow up, I think, Angeline, you might have suggested that one question may be whether that set aside, if you will, is part of the 25% reserve or somewhere else. |
| 03:29:37.02 | Sophia Collier | I know that it's not part of the 25% reserves. |
| 03:29:39.47 | Mayor Woodside | Okay, so we need to... |
| 03:29:40.12 | Sophia Collier | Yeah. I'm wanting to be just be sure that it's not right now sitting as part of the unassigned fund balance that it is segregated from that that's |
| 03:29:50.59 | Chris Zapata | That's correct. |
| 03:29:50.99 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. |
| 03:29:51.97 | Angeline Loeffler | I think the part of the issues is I do I will get back to you on this one, but the in the insurance claim reimbursement additional set aside should be included in a part of the budgets, which mean is that's already appropriated to. That sentence, yeah. |
| 03:30:08.76 | Sophia Collier | That is a better way to say it. I just want to be sure those monies have already been appropriated as part of the budget and are not still sitting within the $4.8 million unassigned fund balance. |
| 03:30:18.19 | Angeline Loeffler | Right. |
| 03:30:18.45 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. |
| 03:30:18.46 | Angeline Loeffler | So any of the expected expenses should be already in the, we do have a separate the insurance liability accounts, and that has all the appropriation of expected insurance expenses. |
| 03:30:31.00 | Mayor Woodside | Others with questions? Ms. Bostein. |
| 03:30:35.20 | Unknown | Thank you. Thanks for another great presentation. Long night for you. Angela Browning, we appreciate you. Could you just help me understand the relationship between the 1.44 million projected deficit and tonight's appropriation request? So what I'm hearing is that even if we do, or after we do approve this $612,000, Thank you. We will still be in a 1.44 deficit. |
| 03:30:56.47 | Angeline Loeffler | We can. THE END OF No, actually, the 1.4 is the overall amount. So 1.4 includes the other budget appropriations of 612,000 we're requesting. |
| 03:31:10.15 | Unknown | So our deficit will go down after the $612,000? Correct, yes. |
| 03:31:12.63 | Angeline Loeffler | Correct, yes. |
| 03:31:14.64 | Unknown | Not to zero. Our deficit won't go to zero. I mean, yeah. |
| 03:31:15.99 | Angeline Loeffler | Definitely. Okay, can you go back to this slide number? one of the slides, the previous PowerPoint. |
| 03:31:24.16 | Unknown | have to make additional changes after the mid-year for it to go to zero. But the first step is the $612,000 to reduce. |
| 03:31:30.98 | Angeline Loeffler | to bring down the deficit. |
| 03:31:31.92 | Mayor Woodside | I think. |
| 03:31:32.41 | Angeline Loeffler | My projections at this point is that 1.4 is including the |
| 03:31:32.75 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:31:37.76 | Angeline Loeffler | the 612,000 of additional appropriations. |
| 03:31:40.29 | Unknown | So what I'm saying is even with that appropriation, we are left with a $1.44 million deficit. |
| 03:31:41.79 | Angeline Loeffler | RECORDING TO THEM. |
| 03:31:47.21 | Angeline Loeffler | Now, let me actually go back to the slides with the budget appropriations. |
| 03:31:47.23 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:31:52.32 | Mayor Woodside | There was another big ticket item that's being reversed as I understand it. |
| 03:31:56.42 | Unknown | MLK fund. Yeah, I know, but Thank you. |
| 03:32:00.90 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. |
| 03:32:01.37 | Unknown | What I'm trying, I'm trying to understand in the context of after this amount, what is our projected deficit? Yes, I think that's- |
| 03:32:08.74 | Angeline Loeffler | why I'm trying to get to |
| 03:32:10.68 | Unknown | But this is... |
| 03:32:10.89 | Mayor Woodside | the city manager said is that it will be zero. So we need an explanation for how it gets to zero. Let's hear what the explanation is. |
| 03:32:11.00 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. |
| 03:32:16.32 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. |
| 03:32:16.34 | Chris Zapata | Okay. |
| 03:32:16.67 | Angeline Loeffler | Sure. |
| 03:32:18.82 | Chris Zapata | Let me jump in and explain that as I did at the beginning. The $1.4 million, 600 in changes from your unassigned fund balance. Another 600,000 is from the True Up. of the sewer fund that the general fund subsidized when we defeats the bonds last year in August, July And then the 200,000 that we're talking about will be the savings or the new revenue that we generate by efficiency and then the question about the mlk fund which is a five hundred thousand dollar certificate of participation payment uh our tot and other revenues in parks and recreation have gone up to will offset that so that's zeroed out so if um i'm not here and i'll come back for it but uh to tell you that if we can um get the council to approve the appropriation of unassigned fund balance, which is a one-time expense. It will be in a good place to have no deficit at the end of this year. And a lot of that is based on the found money that we found in the sewer, which the general fund advanced to close the bonds. So the real deficit is $600,000. |
| 03:33:33.96 | Mayor Woodside | Which you're asking for an appropriation to close the real deficit. And that's because of those other adjustments that you mentioned. |
| 03:33:40.52 | Chris Zapata | And the real deficit is driven by the real projects. And the real projects were council-directed projects like the fire station project, which has happened after we adopted the budget, and then some miscellaneous things that Angeline went through and I went through. But it's not like we all of a sudden found a bad budget. You know, we found some opportunities to work with the fire district again, and that's really important. And we found some money that relates to the city paying off the sewer bonds, and we're going to do better with our TOT, and we absolutely are going to continue to hold the line on spending within departments over the next quarter so that you will end up the year with hopefully a zero deficit or something close to zero. |
| 03:34:12.00 | Steve Rosenthal | Thank you. |
| 03:34:12.01 | Mark Balmer | Thank you. |
| 03:34:12.10 | Steve Rosenthal | Thank you. |
| 03:34:12.11 | Unknown | And. |
| 03:34:28.16 | Unknown | Okay. And just, and I, I have, I would ask specific questions about the firehouse, but I live too close to it to wonder, I don't know how, what I'm allowed to question, except to say that I can see that we spent. about $420,000 on the firehouse project, and we approve that from the dais. I am wondering about the additional administrative costs with regards to salary. It looks like there are $75,000 in administrative costs, and that that has the city managers accrued vacation payout and then potentially additional administration. Could you break down those costs so we know which which ones they are? Yes. Because I don't think that we've. |
| 03:35:02.15 | Angeline Loeffler | Yes. |
| 03:35:03.87 | Unknown | yet been given that report of what those are or proven them necessarily. So |
| 03:35:05.74 | Angeline Loeffler | is our first. So they're hiring the recruiting firm is contracted for not to exceed the 35. |
| 03:35:14.03 | Unknown | But that's separate. That's administrative costs. I'm asking specifically just about the salaries, the $75,000 in additional spending for salary under administrative costs. |
| 03:35:24.26 | Angeline Loeffler | That is actually part of the additional cost of the interns. for the firehouse projects that 120 |
| 03:35:34.03 | Unknown | No, no, I'm referring to the $75,000. If you go to administrative costs for salaries and the additional, there's a $75,000 discrepancy for administrative costs, which says it's for the city manager accrued vacation request or payout request, as well as administrative, you know, like hiring of an assistant. I would like to understand which part of that is, |
| 03:35:34.28 | Angeline Loeffler | No, no, no. |
| 03:35:55.88 | Unknown | the hiring of the, which is the payment of the assistant and which is the accrued vacation because I, I, wasn't aware that that what we were budgeting for that or had had a discussion about it. |
| 03:36:05.33 | Angeline Loeffler | Right, $75,000 includes part of the city manager's payouts. plus the remainder years of the interns payouts for the firehouse projects. |
| 03:36:16.05 | Unknown | But the interns for the firehouse project are the $120,000, which is apart from the administrative costs. But what I'm asking is, what is the breakdown of the $75,000 administrative costs? How much is... the payment separation for the city manager and how much is the employee costs at the front office? |
| 03:36:34.14 | Angeline Loeffler | 30,000 is what we're estimating for the payout for the city managers and the remainder portion is payout for the remainder of the intern's salaries for the firehouse projects. In addition to the $120,000? No, actually the idea that part, 120,000 is what we have spent, the expected to spend for the entire fiscal year. And then we have been paying the interns throughout this points that was already included in that salary amount. So we just need an additional $75,000 to account for the City managers pay out and the remainder of the years of the interns, the cost to work on the firehouse projects. |
| 03:37:15.29 | Unknown | And you're saying the payout is the accrued vacation time that is owed is $30,000? Yes. Okay. All right. Thanks. |
| 03:37:27.66 | Mayor Woodside | Any other questions? So, Okay, Ms. Hoffman. |
| 03:37:36.96 | Jill Hoffman | So I'm... I'm a little confused about how you're describing |
| 03:37:46.43 | Jill Hoffman | I guess how you're describing expenses versus income and how you're describing balanced budget, I suppose. So, Pulling from reserve to balance a budget I'm not I don't think I'm understanding at this point how that's balancing the budget. So we have a $1.4 million deficit right now You're pulling from a reserve to balance that. But we don't have income to balance that right now, as I understand it. |
| 03:38:22.17 | Angeline Loeffler | I think I'm |
| 03:38:22.73 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:38:22.74 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. |
| 03:38:22.78 | Jill Hoffman | . |
| 03:38:22.96 | Angeline Loeffler | these the worksheets right here that shows 1.4 is what we projected based on the income the income and expense ratios in the year. |
| 03:38:33.04 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, let me just stop you. |
| 03:38:34.44 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. |
| 03:38:34.72 | Jill Hoffman | So just so we're clear, a $1.4 million total deficit, right? Income, a deficit of |
| 03:38:39.20 | Steve Rosenthal | Thank you. |
| 03:38:41.07 | Jill Hoffman | Income under expenses. Correct. Okay. and |
| 03:38:45.96 | Angeline Loeffler | And then we're asking for additional budgetary appropriation for $612,000 from the reserve funds. |
| 03:38:53.52 | Jill Hoffman | from the reserve. From our savings account. From the unassigned funds. Right. So that's not from income. That's from a reserve account. |
| 03:39:00.97 | Angeline Loeffler | And then with that approval, we were left with $829,000, still from that $1.4 million, that shortfalled. And we're expecting that $829,000 will be offset by the sewer transfer, the true ups, which is estimated about $600,000. So we have left with about $220,000 for the city's, the staff's effort to reduce the cost to balance the budget by the end of the year. |
| 03:39:32.44 | Jill Hoffman | That 612,000 though, that's, that's not income. That's just, we're pulling that out of a reserve. |
| 03:39:38.71 | Angeline Loeffler | That's the budgetary appropriations that we're requesting tonight, yes. |
| 03:39:43.57 | Jill Hoffman | Okay, so I'm not sure... I'm not sure that we're putting ourselves back in balance. We're just pulling out of reserve. I mean, that's just something we usually do at the end of the year when we need to by law, balance our budget. So I'm not sure why we're doing that now. I'm not sure why it is an effort. |
| 03:39:59.93 | Angeline Loeffler | I'm not sure why it is an effort to correct the issues on a timely on the previous year's audit findings as we getting into the rhythm of the before the expenses took places we're trying to get a budgetary adjustments to make sure that we're not overdrawing the idea approved budgets. |
| 03:40:21.20 | Jill Hoffman | I'm still not sure why we're doing that now. Like normally we do our accounting at the end of the year. We look at our balance sheet. how we're doing income over expenses. Are we in deficit? Are we not? We're still, I mean, we're in a deficit budget. So you're clicked in |
| 03:40:34.57 | Mayor Woodside | So your question is why we're doing it now? |
| 03:40:37.02 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. |
| 03:40:37.46 | Mayor Woodside | Okay. And, um, |
| 03:40:39.19 | Jill Hoffman | It seems like it's true. |
| 03:40:39.58 | Mayor Woodside | If I may, if I may just. attempt to bring us back to the item we just spent two hours on, the auditor requested that. |
| 03:40:49.89 | Jill Hoffman | Our auditor said that we do this now. |
| 03:40:51.95 | Mayor Woodside | Yes, before the end of the year. Otherwise, we're going to have a finding at the end of the year that we didn't do it. Isn't that clear enough? |
| 03:41:00.46 | Jill Hoffman | Before the end of the fiscal year, sure. We're not at the end of the fiscal year. |
| 03:41:05.06 | Mayor Woodside | We're two months away. We've got a budget hearing coming up. And if we don't |
| 03:41:05.64 | Jill Hoffman | Hey. |
| 03:41:11.98 | Mayor Woodside | reach an understanding of how we're gonna close the gap to zero. We're going to wind up at the last minute, perhaps without the ability to project a budget for the next year, for example. We should do it in a timely way. And to me, we should be doing this as they come up. That's the best practice. And I'm sorry to jump in, but I really think this is really important. |
| 03:41:37.41 | Jill Hoffman | come up. |
| 03:41:37.75 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. Of course, if we approve something that's gonna cost more money than is in a department budget, we should have as, Ms. Cox suggested a list right there where we're getting the money. Okay, and if it comes out of reserve, a available fund balance out of another fund. We should address it then, not necessarily agree to it, but deal with it. That's what the auditor clearly recommended. And that's why it's coming up now so that we can, take a timely action and I have some questions of my own which I'll get to but I think that's the answer. Mr. City Manager. |
| 03:42:21.52 | Chris Zapata | Like I said, if you didn't do it today, it goes back to that question of when you know about something, what is timely? And we know that we have committed these funds after we adopted the budget, and so we need to make sure that the funding appropriation is approved tonight so that there is a balanced budget and you won't have a similar finding next year in this year's audit so I want to be really clear that you know we are stating clearly that you know the end of the year should with this action tonight and councilmember Hoffman is correct we're six hundred and twelve thousand dollars short and the reason we're six hundred and twelve thousand dollars short is because we want to start the fire station. You need to hire a city manager. We have employee circumstances. dollars short and the reason we're six hundred and twelve thousand dollars short is because we want to start the fire station you need to hire a city manager we have employee circumstances that happen after budgets were adopted we have rate increases that you know we didn't foresee or plug in all of that to say when you add it all up The answer is we take $600,000 in found money from the sewer transfer to the general fund, and then we take $629,000. What is the number, 212,000? |
| 03:43:36.35 | Angeline Loeffler | 612,000. |
| 03:43:38.14 | Chris Zapata | that's, That's what we're short. |
| 03:43:41.14 | Mayor Woodside | Could I just interject and ask this question? |
| 03:43:44.16 | Chris Zapata | Thank you. |
| 03:43:44.74 | Mayor Woodside | not interrupting you, but, When I look at that chart, You don't get to zero. And there's a missing line that you just mentioned, the sewer charge. So right there, I mean, that's why it's difficult to understand. I get it. And that means there's another $200,000 that has to be explained. It's not an appropriation, it's a different prediction about savings. which may or may not come through, but we know right now we don't have to appropriate for it. I'm getting in the weeds, but... |
| 03:44:11.84 | Chris Zapata | Right. |
| 03:44:19.09 | Chris Zapata | that getting Yeah, there's the weeds, but no that that's apologies for the lack of the sewer $600,000 in that to bring that number down to 229,000. And that's the number you're referring to that we're going to take three months to try to get to so that we have a balanced budget. |
| 03:44:38.75 | Mayor Woodside | And so tonight what's before us is a request for an appropriation of 612,378.32. |
| 03:44:44.32 | Chris Zapata | And... |
| 03:44:48.35 | Mayor Woodside | That's correct. |
| 03:44:48.49 | Angeline Loeffler | That's correct. If I may, one note on that. The reason that I didn't add the additional sewer true-ups and whatever the actions that we're going to be taking to reduce the additional $229,000 to bring the budget to the balance at the end of the year is those numbers are the issue that the mayor mentions that things may not come through on the savings. And And at the same time, on the sewer true-up is still in progress of the reconciliation. I didn't feel that it was appropriate to bring the estimated amounts to offset arbitrarily. So I was waiting to get the accurate true-up amounts to bring it to the councils to show exactly the idea, how we're gonna be offsetting the balance. |
| 03:45:35.08 | Chris Zapata | Yeah, and let me be clear. Your 25% reserves are not being touched. It's your unassigned fund balance. That's the $4.8 million that you have sitting there on top of the 25%, which is roughly $5 million and change. So in an emergency, you have about $10 million. It is part of the 25% and part of the unassigned fund balance, which should be used for one time expenses like a fire station redo or a city manager recruitment or things of that nature, not ongoing types of activities. |
| 03:46:09.02 | Mayor Woodside | Ms. Hop and I interrupted, but I wanted to try to get some clarification on where the money is either coming from, Thank you. or what you're assuming won't need to be spent. |
| 03:46:21.91 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, what I'm trying to just confirm is, you know, as we get into our further into our budget, you know, in our discussions at the end of the year. um, what what we're looking at at the final spreadsheet and the final charts are what you know what's actually related to um the true expense over revenue obviously and then when we have to transfer money in from whatever fund whether it's from our unassigned reserve or whatever fund it is um to balance the budget right so that's what i'm getting to and that's why i guess i would found this i was trying to track the money Um, and from whatever fund it was too, but whether or not we were getting away from true revenue over expense. So it looks like we are veering away from that now. So. |
| 03:47:09.58 | Angeline Loeffler | So. |
| 03:47:09.77 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. |
| 03:47:13.12 | Jill Hoffman | That's a red flag for me. |
| 03:47:14.83 | Angeline Loeffler | An effort to bring these a little bit more timely is for the health day councils to whether we will continue to do the projects that was directed, whether it's a fund availability. So we're trying to bring the councils up to date what is available funding and what is expected cost going forward through finishing the year. So this was the sole effort to bring the idea to make sure that we are making whatever the appropriate adjustment request and true expenses incurred by the projects and directives that we received from the councils. |
| 03:47:51.50 | Mayor Woodside | Other questions? Thank you. |
| 03:47:53.42 | Unknown | Mr. Sobieski. Thanks. So how much is the fire station in the... |
| 03:47:58.79 | Angeline Loeffler | right now is the uh the true cost of that one is we have the uh the professional the service agreement of 300 000 however we have not expenses entire 300 000 yet but that may depending on the progress of the firehouse projects it may come through through the end of the year that's why we have to allocate entire 300 000 and then. And in terms of the perspective, my understanding, based on the conversation with our city clerks, it's about 85% completed on the labor side of it. So that is why the additional $35,000 is allocated through the end of the year to project the intern's |
| 03:48:42.55 | Unknown | Why is the $300,000 for the fire station? an expense in this is a general fund, right? Instead of it being out of the CIP. |
| 03:48:52.65 | Chris Zapata | Let me answer that, Angeline. Yes. |
| 03:48:54.44 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:48:56.50 | Chris Zapata | There's two buckets of expense with the fire station. In the CIP is the actual fixing of the fire station, which is $700,000, $750,000. In order to occupy that, we had to remove all the records out. So in doing so, it's good records management. You should have done this 10 years ago. We're doing it now. It's significant work. It's $300,000. So once we made the agreement with the fire district in July that they would work with us on recommissioning, the first thing we had to do is develop a lease, which we've done, which is an expense outside of that. But we also had to commit a CIP amount, which we did. And this $300,000 was something that came after the agreement. And so in order to get the project done, you're gonna spend about a million and change, to do that. |
| 03:49:47.14 | Unknown | So the whole project is a million, but in this budget, the 23 million, 23.4 million dollars of projected expense is for this fiscal year. Of that only 300,000 is the fire station or is it more? |
| 03:50:00.37 | Angeline Loeffler | Or after a 20,000. |
| 03:50:02.25 | Unknown | 120. I just would like the exact number. 425? 425? |
| 03:50:06.46 | Angeline Loeffler | Yes, $112,000 for the intern's labor and a $300,000 contract for the PSA, the professional service. |
| 03:50:13.26 | Unknown | Thank you. So if we did not authorize the one-time expense of the fire station. stuff than this shortfall of 620, 12,000. Okay. |
| 03:50:28.18 | Angeline Loeffler | Yes, 612,000. |
| 03:50:29.70 | Unknown | would be reduced by 425,000. So it would be. |
| 03:50:32.65 | Angeline Loeffler | Yes. |
| 03:50:33.45 | Unknown | roughly. |
| 03:50:35.15 | Angeline Loeffler | About 180. 180. |
| 03:50:35.64 | Unknown | $590,000. And now there are, so it'd be $190,000 that one time. Now there are some other one-time expenses that you delineated. What are some of the bigger ones? Not just that you're attributing to the overall, but what one-time expenses are in this general fund that are big? |
| 03:50:52.45 | Angeline Loeffler | Part of the city manager's transitions and also hiring the interim, the sustained and resilient, the departments of that one. And then also the account for the public force increase in expenses, especially on a water utilities, along with the minor, the miscellaneous of that one, and also the CDD departments of hiring the interns for the spread the workloads. |
| 03:51:20.78 | Chris Zapata | Let me kind of winnow that down for you. The fire station is a one-time expense. The city manager transition and recruitment is an expense that happens every so often, but it's not every year. The acting resiliency and sustainability manager is also a one-time expense that we're paying. The workload that we're trying to address with the fire station is also related to the fire station. We still have a need for interns. They do great work for us, cost effective. So some of that should be ongoing and included in next year's budget, as should the increase to the water rates. Those things will be ongoing expenses that we should build into a budget next year, but this year we did not. |
| 03:52:07.59 | Unknown | Okay, and then my last question is just to emphasize this use of language. which is an important distinction people are mixing the word reserves with unassigned fund balance. I believe there's a huge change night and day distinction between those two words. So I'm wondering if you could please, and you even used it. |
| 03:52:30.07 | Angeline Loeffler | unassigned. |
| 03:52:31.18 | Unknown | you used the word reserves when I think you meant on a signed fund balance. So I would like to give you an opportunity |
| 03:52:36.20 | Jill Hoffman | policy. |
| 03:52:36.58 | Unknown | to, well, you know, you apologize. It's a natural shorthand. It's certainly an easier word to say. |
| 03:52:41.04 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 03:52:43.35 | Unknown | than unassigned fund balance. But... hugely different. Can you please explain, maybe both of you, since you both have different perspectives on it, the difference between unassigned fund balance and reserves, and then comment on where this... proposal is coming from. |
| 03:53:00.82 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. |
| 03:53:00.85 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:53:00.97 | Angeline Loeffler | Thank you. On a sign that the fund balance is basically that anything that is available to use assist the close the gap of the current fiscal year outside of what was restricted and then as based on the policy set that we have to set aside. of the those monies so the the way that i see it as unassigned is available for the the additions to the general funds and for the any other operations |
| 03:53:33.01 | Chris Zapata | I can help with that. So 25% reserve is a policy dictated by the city council. And that's based on your general fund budgeted amount. And it's about five plus million dollars. The unassigned fund balance is money that's over and above that that the city council can use for whatever it wants to because it's general fund money for the most part. But again, as I said earlier, you should use that for one-time expenses, not ongoing expenses. Okay. |
| 03:54:02.97 | Unknown | You know, it actually does make me want to ask the other question. Because Councilor Merhoffman correctly points out, this distinction is important. about what our annual regular expenses are. at one time expenses aren't like one in a million years. it's once every so often so it's another way of thinking about it that We have these periodic expenses like a city manager search. or even fixing a fire station. See, master searches every five to 10 or 15 years. The fire station is every once, every 40 years. that's a liability, which in a sense can be amortized a little bit every year. So we've been having these budget surpluses every year for, you know, the last 15 years and it's been accumulating in our, in our funds, way above our reserves, way above our savings. They're in unassigned fund balance. In a sense, that's, funds available for the amortized expense that happens every once in a while. It's not sort of explicitly done that way, but we know there's gonna be a city manager search and city manager search every five or 10 years. There's gonna be the expense of that. But since we can't predict it ahead of time, rather than explicitly budgeting in year, eight years from now, we're gonna have a city manager search. We accumulate this unassigned fund balance specifically to be used for these kinds of periodic one-time-ish expenses. Is that a fair way of kind of thinking about it? |
| 03:55:24.58 | Angeline Loeffler | Yes, I agree. |
| 03:55:27.24 | Chris Zapata | Well, let me give you an example. You know, you spent unassigned fund balance that included Measure L money we were sitting on as well as general fund money to fund $17 million in capital improvements. So it did not come out of your reserve. It came out of the unassigned fund balance, which in my mind had grown to the point where, you know, you need to invest it. And you did. And that's showing in some of the things you're seeing out in the community in terms of slope stabilization, park projects, street projects, et cetera. |
| 03:55:58.00 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. |
| 03:55:58.02 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:55:58.04 | Mayor Woodside | like, |
| 03:55:58.26 | Unknown | Sure. |
| 03:55:59.49 | Mayor Woodside | Any other questions at this time? Any public comments at this time? Seeing none. Michelle, please come forward. |
| 03:56:09.72 | Michelle McCullough | on. |
| 03:56:12.95 | Mayor Woodside | Are there any online? Okay. |
| 03:56:18.17 | Michelle McCullough | Hi, Michelle McCullough. Angeline, I just wanted to say thank you so much. You did a really wonderful job. It's a lot of information. Thank you. And I'm happy to hear that $500,000 from the MLK fund will not be going into the general fund, in fact. |
| 03:56:34.30 | Unknown | I thought you might say that. |
| 03:56:34.66 | Michelle McCullough | So thank you. We are stopping that practice. Good. I like that because as a friend of MLK and a big fan of what I consider the biggest gift to the city. I'm not a mom, I don't have kids, but I am a businesswoman and I like families. So I think as master tenants, the new village school, Lycée Francais, they really deserve some park maintenance not to You know, let's not talk about all the other people that just live around the park like me that would like to see a nicer lead nicer maintained park. And as a positive person for Sausalito, I certainly appreciate all the beautiful upgrades at Dunphy park. But it does make me feel like, hmm, as a Northside resident, I'd love to see those upgrades at MLK Park. Because just like you have families at Dunphy Park who want a swing set, we have those at MLK and we can have a lot more because lots of families live there. So thank you so much for concentrating on using MLK funds towards facilities and park maintenance. Thank you. |
| 03:57:37.25 | Mayor Woodside | Other, no other comments in the chambers here, Online? |
| 03:57:44.06 | Walfred Solorzano | We have Vicki Nichols. |
| 03:57:45.02 | Vicki Nichols | I'm sorry. |
| 03:57:46.27 | Mayor Woodside | It's Nichols. |
| 03:57:48.01 | Vicki Nichols | Hi, good evening. Thank you for that report. I am looking forward, I hope, I think what OpenGov will do which will give us by department these line item expenses that you've had by necessity, to group together tonight in a, in a very thorough report. So, I'm looking forward and hope that we'll be able to look at that kind of detail again. I am thoroughly confused about the fire department. I know there's some improvements being made there, which I understand there's a an agreement with our Southern Marin Fire But I also know that for years, our public records have been stored there primarily our planning records, which has disturbed me for a long time, because those are not archival conditions up there. Are the interns being used to do the scanning or whatever? Or why would we have, I don't understand why they're being lumped together. One's a capital expense and one is like an administrative I would think expense for digitizing records that started during COVID And, just didn't get finished. I'm, Also concerned about the qualifications of the interns. since gone into the public records and community development, many of the things that I knew were in the records previously, the paper records, I don't see have been scanned. So I'm interested in the process and the qualifications of the people doing the scanning. So maybe those aren't connected. But if they are, I think they need to be bifurcated. To me, they're two totally different things. Around the same building. And that's about it. So if anybody could clarify that. or I'm happy to come in and maybe if the finance director If she has some office appointments, I'm happy to come in and see if she can help me. Thank you. |
| 03:59:46.66 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. Anyone else? |
| 03:59:50.44 | Walfred Solorzano | We have Babette McDougall. |
| 03:59:52.67 | Mayor Woodside | Ms. McGovern. |
| 03:59:58.20 | Babette McDougall | Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for acknowledging me. Well, I was just in the process of doing sort of a little... tick list of the three items that I think are the takeaways from this very interesting and meaningful discussion. So the first one, I mean, really has to do with the integrity of our financial reporting And I just want to say, my God, you know, you must have spent two plus hours telling us all the reasons why we should not do a forensic audit. I mean, wouldn't it be just cheaper to do the damn audit? I mean, excuse my French. But anyway, imagine all the people whose heads get to rest easy just because you did it. Oh my gosh. So there's that. I mean, who's standing on what sort exactly right now? I'm not clear. Now going back to sewer costs, I wonder if I'm the only one in Sausalito that got rather surprised by I mean, it's one thing to have two assessments on my property taxes, but it's another one to get something in the mail. Are we clear on the assessments that are coming down? |
| 04:01:03.19 | Babette McDougall | It seems like kind of fast and furious from the sewer, the new sewer district. And so with that in mind, I also appreciate the discussion on how to either commingle or not, how we get to account for money. Im or out of the MLK fund, which has always been a source of consternation. Let's just say that. And now that we're getting serious about Ms. Cox's vision for the future, which is to build, build, build MLK. I mean, she fully expects it's a matter of public records. that the annual business license renewals will far eclipse whatever money we're earning now from the current paradigm. So I don't know. Is it too late to go back and look at that? But I do agree with the folks who are there this evening. I once did live in the north end of town and I respect it fully. I think it's important to pay attention to all. |
| 04:02:01.32 | Walfred Solorzano | Next, we have Friends of MLK Park. |
| 04:02:08.27 | Unknown | I council members, thank you for spending time with us this evening. Just a quick question regarding the MLK fund. I wanted to know How often and how much money has the city transferred from the MLK fund to the general fund over these past 10 years? And echoing other speakers, I believe that the fund should stay within MLK Park to improve the park and maintain the buildings for the school. And I think the practice in the past is short-sighted. Thank you. |
| 04:02:46.99 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. Anyone else? |
| 04:02:49.16 | Walfred Solorzano | Seeing none. |
| 04:02:50.58 | Mayor Woodside | So coming back, if I may make a suggestion, maybe we can Get through this. Thank you. Before us is a question of an appropriation tonight of 600 and some odd thousand. Secondly, I think we have an incomplete |
| 04:03:06.95 | Unknown | you Thank you. |
| 04:03:11.71 | Mayor Woodside | I guess it would be spreadsheet that shows how we're getting to zero. I think that's the ultimate goal. So my suggestion there would be assuming we appropriate tonight that we ask the staff to put on consent next meeting a something that shows in greater detail how we get to zero. And so that it's clear to us and to the public what the plan is going forward. I do think that's important. And then lastly, and this is more It's a deeper question about what is our policy? with respect to fund balance. I know there are jurisdictions that have very clear policies |
| 04:04:04.61 | Chris Monte | that. |
| 04:04:06.13 | Mayor Woodside | anything that's accumulated over and above, in other words, that goes into a fund balance that can be spent, that it's only to be spent on, and then there's very clear direction. And what I hear Mr. Sobieski saying is that some of those apparently one-time expenses are pretty predictable over time. But I think this raises a big policy question A long term question. And then as a corollary, the question about the history of the MLK fund. I think we should go back and at some point have a record of the history. Mr. Hunting is in the room. He's largely responsible for the initial purchase, which was paid off over time with the income from the fund. Then the parcel was used as security for a bond. which we're paying off. certificates. for park improvements, including MLK, I assume, and other parks. So those were decisions made long ago, And where we go from here is the question. And those are policy issues that I don't think we've, at least to my knowledge, had discussions. Thank you, Mr. Sobieski, for raising the question, because these are really important questions that will affect our ability to predict going forward. So if I could put that in the form of a motion, it would be, maybe I'd do it separately. Number one would be a motion to make the appropriations contingent upon a report that goes on consent that gets us, it shows how, |
| 04:05:30.93 | Steve Rosenthal | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:05:42.49 | Mayor Woodside | the shows the plan for getting to zero. |
| 04:05:46.35 | Sophia Collier | I make a formal motion, mayor. |
| 04:05:47.72 | Mayor Woodside | Yes, that was not a very, yeah, that was not a very |
| 04:05:48.14 | Sophia Collier | That was not a very, yeah, that was not a very, |
| 04:05:49.96 | Dan Morgan | where you're going. |
| 04:05:50.13 | Sophia Collier | I move we authorize an additional 612,378 |
| 04:05:50.17 | Dan Morgan | I move we offer. |
| 04:05:55.40 | Sophia Collier | appropriation from the general fund unassigned fund balance, for unforeseen additional expenses and unfunded projects in the fiscal year. 2025, 2026. And removal of the Interfund transfer from MLK fund to the general fund in the amount of $500,000 and give direction to staff to return to the council with a report on our consent calendar on April 21st, 2026, that demonstrates how we will move from a 1.441 million, 460,000 $460, 14 cent, deficit to zero. Second. |
| 04:06:38.98 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you for articulating that so clearly. It's 9.30, I don't know how you do it. There's a motion and a second. Any additional discussion? |
| 04:06:49.67 | Unknown | You know, it is a languaging issue. Thank you. We're going to use shorthand, I know, but deficit to me implies a regular operating expense. And this is largely a shortfall for one-term costs. one-time cost, which as I have just highlighted, aren't all just once in a million years, but once periodically. So, Thank you. |
| 04:07:10.66 | Sophia Collier | Yeah, I'm happy to. |
| 04:07:10.94 | Unknown | I'm happy to change the wording of my motion from deficit to shortfall. I would use the word shortfall if you don't mind. |
| 04:07:16.48 | Michelle McCullough | Great. |
| 04:07:16.83 | Unknown | But you bring up a good point, Mayor, but about this notion of these periodic expenses that do show up that we're using one-time money for. That's really part of the impetus of the 10-year forecasting tool. If we have that tool that we don't have, that we don't have, but that the staff is working on, but the impetus there was because then you would capture these notions. You'd know every decade you'd plan on having at least one city manager search or this or that periodic expense. This budgeting we do with only a one or two year timeframe naturally omits those. |
| 04:07:30.76 | Mayor Woodside | that we don't have. |
| 04:07:50.05 | Unknown | and thus creates this situation. But let's be sure to praise staff where praise is worth it. Staff's hard financial work helped us discern that the city of Sausalito was not in operational deficits from year in the year, that in fact we had been accumulating surpluses while not paving our streets. Thank you. And so to their great credit, we were able to free up some one-time monies to do some long delay projects. And this fire station is such an example. So we can always do continual improvement. And I think this creeping excellence that city manager of Sabata is leading is part and parcel of that. But when we, you know, grind with a focus on where we can make improvement, it's easy to lose the larger narrative, which is this is really a good news budget. it's a good news context and we're just trying to make it better so that's just something i wanted to articulate so |
| 04:08:43.39 | Mayor Woodside | So with the suggested wording change to shortfall from deficit, Thank you. Any further discussion? |
| 04:08:53.92 | Jill Hoffman | So could I just address that for a second? Sure. So the distinction between |
| 04:08:56.35 | Mayor Woodside | Yeah. |
| 04:08:56.62 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 04:08:58.90 | Jill Hoffman | shortfall from deficit is how are you defining the shortfall and what are you putting into that bucket? |
| 04:09:09.24 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:09:09.26 | Sophia Collier | So a shortfall is a deficit is a structural deficit where we are under budget every year because we are spending more, predictably spending more than what our revenues than the revenues that we are generating. A shortfall is one-time expenses that have caused a delta between what we budgeted and what we are actually spending. |
| 04:09:38.45 | Unknown | I might just add, Jill, that we could create a much bigger shortfall, but if we spent more one-time expenses, if we transferred a million dollars from the general fund to repave a portion of Bridgeway, we could create a much bigger deficit or shortfall. Similarly, if we canceled the fire station, I guess it's too late to do that, but another approach, we could just cancel the fire station. That would save us $425,000. and of us to eliminate the search. |
| 04:10:03.64 | Jill Hoffman | Sure. If you don't budget any maintenance, you're not going to... Are you calling that a shortfall or are you calling that |
| 04:10:06.01 | Unknown | So, |
| 04:10:10.78 | Unknown | Thank you. This distinction between OPEX and CAPEX is a bedeviling perennial complication in us talking about our finances. It's a legitimate and and sometimes fuzzy boundary. And it is one that is totally legitimate to speak about, but they are different, CapEx and OpEx. And so a deficit, an operating deficit is from operating expenses that exceed operating revenue. And Literally this discussion here includes something that's not operating expense. It includes fixing the fire station up for, uh, for use by the fire department. And that's a sort of one-time non-operating expense. |
| 04:10:50.51 | Sophia Collier | And it was a change in direction. So the city council had mothballed the fire station. Our residents asked us, when it went on the potential... block to become housing, our residents asked us instead to recommission it because up that area had in the wildfire risk category. The WUI reclassified that to a severe high fire hazard area. And so in response to that, residents in that neighborhood asked us to recommission The firehouse, we went to Southern Marine Fire and asked them to recommission the firehouse. They said no at first, we went back, And they said yes. They are recommissioning that at significant expense to them, which comes from our property tax revenues. But in order to accommodate that, recommissioning, we had to bring it back up to snuff because we had let maintenance needs accrue over the roughly 15 years that we did not use it. |
| 04:11:58.48 | Jill Hoffman | I understand that. |
| 04:11:59.20 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. |
| 04:11:59.34 | Jill Hoffman | But you have a whole... |
| 04:11:59.66 | Sophia Collier | Yeah. Well, I'm explaining why it is a shortfall and not a structural deficit. This is a one-time |
| 04:12:00.91 | Jill Hoffman | Well, I'm excited. |
| 04:12:06.46 | Sophia Collier | plan a decision that we made in the wake of a decision to mothball that facility. |
| 04:12:14.44 | Jill Hoffman | That I understand, but we're looking at it in the context of the whole budget. And you're talking about whether or not that's going to whether or not that expense is pushing us into a deficit budget or not a deficit budget, but you're, you're, you're pushing apples and oranges together. And then you're separating that out and saying, well, we're, Just because it's that we're not in deficit or we are deficit. And we're looking at this not in the context of our total budget. |
| 04:12:39.67 | Mayor Woodside | So the question that was the motion that was in the middle of the region, we just heard |
| 04:12:40.09 | Jill Hoffman | the, |
| 04:12:44.34 | Mayor Woodside | you |
| 04:12:44.36 | Jill Hoffman | Right. |
| 04:12:44.67 | Mayor Woodside | Mr. Sobieski suggested sort for. They're both applicable. We could use either. The question is, in this case, I would say it was a projected shortfall. a projected shortfall. And we don't have a deficit unless, at the end of the year, we don't have money. that we have spent more than we, appropriated. And we're not there yet. Deficit is year by year. deficit in a department, we're trying to fix that tonight. We can't have a deficit in each department and we can't have a deficit overall. And, we fix those by making appropriations, assuming we have the money and we want to do so. |
| 04:13:31.95 | Sophia Collier | So with that explanation, Mayor, I would like to call the question. We have one more business item still in front of you. |
| 04:13:36.86 | Mayor Woodside | Yes. So all those in favor of the motion as amended motion, excuse me, I'm just getting late. And all I've had to drink is a bubble water, a shortfall. |
| 04:13:51.68 | Sophia Collier | I'll see you next time. |
| 04:13:51.71 | Mayor Woodside | that. |
| 04:13:51.78 | Sophia Collier | Right? Projected shortfall. |
| 04:13:53.43 | Mayor Woodside | Projected sortfall, thank you. All those in favor of the motion. |
| 04:13:56.49 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. |
| 04:13:57.51 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:13:57.53 | Sophia Collier | Aye. |
| 04:13:58.80 | Unknown | you Thank you. |
| 04:14:00.03 | Jill Hoffman | So, |
| 04:14:00.15 | Mayor Woodside | both. |
| 04:14:00.25 | Unknown | So, |
| 04:14:00.38 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:14:00.49 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:14:00.53 | Jill Hoffman | THE END OF |
| 04:14:00.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:14:00.86 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. |
| 04:14:05.56 | Unknown | Are you? |
| 04:14:05.95 | Jill Hoffman | I'm going to abstain because I can't. I'm not sure that I agree with the changing the terminology and and calling this shortfall versus deficit. So I'm going to abstain. I'm sorry. Fair enough. I think so. |
| 04:14:20.90 | Mayor Woodside | The motion passes four to one. We'll move on to the next item. Excuse me, one abstention. |
| 04:14:25.48 | Alice Merrill | Yeah. Okay. |
| 04:14:30.59 | Mayor Woodside | Finally, patiently waiting at the back, |
| 04:14:37.25 | Sophia Collier | is not only our sustainability director, but our sustainability commission representative. |
| 04:14:42.72 | Unknown | Yeah, Sustainability Commission Chair Mark Palmer has been here all evening as well. |
| 04:14:48.97 | Mayor Woodside | you know, |
| 04:14:48.97 | Unknown | Please note his T-shirt. |
| 04:14:50.27 | Mayor Woodside | And to our acting sustainability officer. We've just taken an action that assures that you can be paid. |
| 04:15:01.74 | Jill Hoffman | Exactly. Thank you very much. |
| 04:15:03.33 | Mayor Woodside | may proceed. |
| 04:15:05.10 | Alexandra Anderson | Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council members, and members of the public. As you know, my name is Alex Anderson, and I'm the city's interim resiliency and sustainability manager. I'm here. tonight to present building code amendments for Sausalito's building code. which include CalGreen Tier 1 measures, single family remodel requirements, and low carbon concrete standards. Next slide, please. Updates to the California Building Code occur every three years, and local jurisdictions are allowed to adopt more restrictive amendments to address local conditions and climate goals, provided that they are cost effective. This ordinance was previously introduced, named 11-2025 on first reading, on November 4th of last year, where the ordinance received a first reading. Following that meeting, staff identified that an additional cost-effectiveness study was required for certain energy efficiency measures to be adopted. Since we did not have a cost-effectiveness study, the ordinance could not proceed to a second reading. Since that time, both state guidance and regional approaches have evolved. Several marine jurisdictions have modified their ordinances by removing those energy efficiency measures. This ordinance before you tonight reflects these updates, incorporates the additional required cost effectiveness study, and is consistent with current legal requirements. Next slide, please. |
| 04:16:52.85 | Alexandra Anderson | Updating the building code can provide Sausalito with a clear and legally supported opportunity to implement building standards that align with its climate goals and community priorities. Reducing emissions from natural gas in buildings is particularly important, given that 28% of Sausalito's emissions come from natural gas use. While electricity emissions have already declined significantly due to solar and wind power, Additional reductions are needed to meet state climate targets by 2030. Specifically, Sausalito must reduce current emissions by 24% with even larger reductions required to meet state's net zero emissions for 2050. Next slide, please. AB 130 is a state law that limits local building code updates through 2031, with certain exceptions. One of those exceptions allows updates that are consistent with a city's adopted general plan. City staff believe that the proposed addition of reach codes falls within this exemption, which allows the city to move forward with updates that support its climate goals. Next slide, please. The state establishes a baseline building code known as Cal Green, which all jurisdictions are required to adopt. Cities then have the option to adopt reach codes, which go beyond these minimum standards. These updates allow the city to reduce emissions and lower environmental impact through updating local building standards and applying them to qualifying projects. Next slide, please. Cal Green Tier 1 is a framework offered by the state that is comprised of low-cost, high-impact measures to the building code. It is a reach code that applies primarily to new construction projects. It also applies to projects that are adding 50% or more of floor area within 36 months. Tier 1 measures include EV ready wiring and infrastructure and overall EV readiness. Additionally, it includes native and drought tolerant landscaping, enhanced thermal comfort measures and the use of healthy building materials. Next slide please. |
| 04:19:34.25 | Alexandra Anderson | Single family remodel projects represent a large portion of Sausalito's housing construction activity. So this single family remodel reach code known as the flex path is the most meaningful reach code to ensuring that energy efficiency and electrical upgrades support climate goals in Sausalito specifically. The FlexPath allows remodels that are 500 square feet or more to select from a menu of energy efficiency and electrification measures to meet a target score. This structure provides flexibilities for homeowners, and construction teams while encouraging meaningful emissions reductions. energy efficiency measures like insulation and air sealing. along with electrification options such as heat pump appliances and induction cooktops provide a straightforward path to compliance. This policy has been effective in reducing energy costs and encouraging electrification, while helping to prepare homeowners for upcoming state regulations, such as the phase-out of certain gas appliances happening later this decade. Next slide, please. Low carbon concrete standards address emissions from construction materials, specifically concrete, which is a significant source of embodied carbon. The proposed standard limits the use of high emission Portland cement and allows for more sustainable alternatives such as fly ash and slag, which are recycled industrial byproducts that can be mixed in with the traditional cement. These materials reduce the overall carbon footprint while still producing strong, durable concrete. Marin County adopted low carbon concrete standards in 2019, becoming a national leader in the space. Since then, the local market has adapted, making these materials readily available and cost competitive for use in both public and private projects. Marin County maintains a list of pre-qualified, cost-effective, low-carbon concrete products for suppliers and builders to easily choose from. Next slide, please. As you can see here, Many jurisdictions across Marin County, as well as unincorporated Marin, have adopted similar measures. particularly the flex path for single family remodel requirements, which as I mentioned was the menu of options to choose from. Adopting these measures would help maintain consistency across the region and support broader greenhouse gas reduction efforts. Next slide, please. The measures are designed to be flexible and cost effective while providing clear and consistent standards for development. The ordinance gives broad powers of discretion to the chief building officer to interpret and adjust the requirements for hardship or infeasibility. Adoption of this ordinance would not result in a direct impact to the city's general fund, which after I'm sure tonight you're happy to hear. No more budget talks. It supports the city's climate action plan, general plan, and strategic goals. Next slide, please. The ordinance reflects updates based on state requirements and regional codes and is intended to support the city's climate goals while maintaining flexibility for homeowners and developers. That concludes my presentation. Thank you, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council Members. I welcome any questions or feedback. |
| 04:23:40.82 | Mayor Woodside | So let's start with questions from council members. |
| 04:23:46.50 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:23:48.86 | Unknown | I'll ask a couple just because I know there's been a lot of work put into this. I don't want to take up too much time, but I just want something that you pointed out, but I want to do to reiterate is that. much of the county is already far ahead of Sausalito in terms of these reach codes, correct? That is correct. Yes. So we're one of the last municipalities to. |
| 04:24:05.10 | Alexandra Anderson | Yes. |
| 04:24:08.20 | Unknown | get to tier one reach. |
| 04:24:09.67 | Alexandra Anderson | That is correct. |
| 04:24:10.42 | Unknown | But after tonight, if we approve this, we'll catch up. |
| 04:24:13.98 | Alexandra Anderson | Honestly, even beyond catch up, we will be a leader in the jurisdiction because if we adopt all three, then we are above some of the cities that have not adopted all three. |
| 04:24:16.10 | Unknown | be able to. |
| 04:24:24.29 | Unknown | Great. Thank you. |
| 04:24:26.28 | Alexandra Anderson | Thank you for your question. and, |
| 04:24:28.56 | Mayor Woodside | I don't expect an answer, but a question might be raised in light of the earlier discussion, whether there are any indirect costs to the city, but we'll take that up at a future time. But I take it from looking at your chart that some cities have rejected the concrete altar. alternative, Portland cement alternative? And are you recommending that we adopt all three? |
| 04:24:54.73 | Alexandra Anderson | We are absolutely recommending that you adopt all three. Specifically with the carbon concrete, it's really cost effective. It's incredible for sustainability, right, because you're reusing materials from industrial processes such as steel that creates slag and ash, or excuse me, steel development. So we're reusing those materials, combining it with concrete, and then still making a product that works and is cost effective. So it's really a very positive impact all around to the environment and to our budgets. |
| 04:25:27.89 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. Any further questions from the diocese? Yes, Joe. |
| 04:25:34.82 | Jill Hoffman | Hi, thank you so much for that presentation. I just want to, in a staff report, I just want to confirm we've modified that we're excluding the energy efficiency measures. |
| 04:25:49.54 | Alexandra Anderson | Yes, thank you so much for bringing that up. We have excluded them, as has every jurisdiction in Marin. you |
| 04:25:56.59 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 04:25:56.73 | Alexandra Anderson | And there's no plan to adopt them at any point. |
| 04:25:59.90 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. And thank you. And that's because of. because- |
| 04:26:01.74 | Alexandra Anderson | Because we don't have the study. That's correct. |
| 04:26:03.48 | Jill Hoffman | additional cost affecting the study and they apparently they don't |
| 04:26:03.49 | Alexandra Anderson | Thank you. |
| 04:26:07.97 | Jill Hoffman | offer significant greenhouse gas emission reductions. That's correct, thank you. Or haven't been seen to affect the economy. We don't have to. |
| 04:26:12.44 | Alexandra Anderson | or haven't been seen. We don't have the study to prove it, so we will not be adopting them. Thank you for your questions. |
| 04:26:17.72 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. Yeah. |
| 04:26:21.97 | Mayor Woodside | Seeing no further questions, we do have a speaker, Mark Palmer. Thank you for being so patient and waiting through all of this. Mark, please come forward. |
| 04:26:36.82 | Mark Balmer | Thank you, Alexandra, for the presentation. And good evening, Mayor Woodside and council members. Mark Balmer, Sustainability Commission. I'd like to make two points about energy and building performance. First, California is shown that strong building standards work. California's energy consumption per capita is among the lowest in the nation, second only to Hawaii. and it's been declining down. Nearly 9% in the last decade That didn't happen by accident. is the result of decades of rigorous energy codes and efficiency programs. States without the same commitments have seen energy use go up, not down. Building codes are one of the society's most successful boring technologies. When they work, Nothing happens. Roofs stay on, walls don't collapse. Fire spread more slowly. and people are protected. And because nothing happens, we forget what we paid for. but modern codes are also an exceptionally high return investment. especially for energy and climate. And that brings me to the second. point. Base code is no longer enough. Codes are a minimum standard of floor, not a ceiling. Even today in California, a fully code-compliant building is the least efficient and worst building allowed by law. and it will likely be with us for decades. To align with state climate targets, South Pluto must reduce current emissions by roughly 80 percent over the next 20 years. That requires every sector to contribute. especially buildings. where the city has a direct authority through its building code. Adopting reach codes is how we act on that responsibility. by requiring higher performance reducing embodied emissions and avoid it. locked in future emissions. We've already proven that strong codes can bend the curve. A reach code is how we build on that success. and move at the pace the climate challenge demands. Thank you. |
| 04:28:52.78 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you very much. Seeing no other comments in the room. Are there some online? |
| 04:28:59.91 | Walfred Solorzano | We have Bebitt McDougall. |
| 04:29:04.09 | Mayor Woodside | Ms. McDougal? |
| 04:29:08.31 | Babette McDougall | Thank you. I'm so sorry. I thought I had lowered my hand. I'd like to go ahead and defer for now. Thank you. |
| 04:29:14.89 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you very much. Anyone else? Seeing none, bring it back for a motion. |
| 04:29:23.43 | Sophia Collier | Thank you, Mayor. I move that we introduce and waive the first reading of Ordinance Number 05-2026, 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 Sausalito Municipal Code Chapter 8.04 low-carbon concrete standards. |
| 04:29:56.30 | Unknown | Second. |
| 04:29:59.36 | Mayor Woodside | for discussion, seeing none. |
| 04:30:02.60 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah, I have some comments. Thank you. |
| 04:30:03.68 | Mayor Woodside | Okay. |
| 04:30:03.84 | Jill Hoffman | I'm happy to vote. I was a one-no vote on this last fall because I was concerned about the lack of a cost-effectiveness study, and I'm happy that we're going forward because apparently that was legally required that we do one, and since we didn't do one, we're now taking it out. and that other jurisdictions have done studies and that there's no significant greenhouse gas. we didn't do one, we're now taking it out. And that other jurisdictions have done studies and that there's no significant greenhouse gas emission reductions for that section at any rate. So I'm happy that we've decided to move forward without that section and that we can all vote yes on it. So it's good news. |
| 04:30:48.29 | Mayor Woodside | Very well. All those in favor of the motions, A.I.? |
| 04:30:52.36 | Jill Hoffman | I. |
| 04:30:52.93 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:30:54.32 | Mayor Woodside | I said, I, didn't come out. |
| 04:30:56.83 | Unknown | you |
| 04:30:57.78 | Mayor Woodside | That passes unanimously. And again, thanks to um both of you for being here tonight for your patience for your good work your continuing good work and an apology uh in retrospect we should have scheduled this earlier in the evening and asked everyone else to come a little bit later so Have a good night. Thank you. We have a few more things to report and go through. Let's try to be quick. Council member committee reports. Are there any that need to be done tonight? |
| 04:31:32.22 | Sophia Collier | No, but Mayor, I do want to address the concerns raised by a couple of community members tonight about Southern Rind Fire and Do they really plan to work out at the firehouse? So I am the liaison to the Southern Marin Fire District. I now attend each of their board meetings on the fourth Wednesday of the month. And indeed, they do regularly report. They have a building subcommittee that is engaged with the recommissioning of the firehouse. This is definitely something they are moving forward with. And they plan to do so this fall in time for our fire season. So it is definitely moving forward, and they are committed to taking over the management of the fire station once we finish our capital improvements there. |
| 04:32:27.23 | Mayor Woodside | So that's good news and responsive to some of those concerns, and I'm sure you'll keep us informed. |
| 04:32:32.92 | Sophia Collier | I will indeed. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:32:34.67 | Mayor Woodside | Any other committee reports at this point? future agenda items. There's actually a long list that we could go over in detail, but let's talk about our next meeting because I think it's really important to public understand what will be on the agenda. I'm not sure. |
| 04:32:51.73 | Unknown | Do you mean our Saturday meeting? I was just gonna bring up the USP, could I, to the letter. |
| 04:32:57.15 | Mayor Woodside | Okay, I was jumping ahead, but let's start with that. |
| 04:33:00.53 | Unknown | Okay. Just to share, we received significant correspondence from members of the community who are concerned about the removal of a drive-up post office dispensary box. That's the wrong terminology, but I think you get the point. And so in response to that, we've drafted a letter to our local branch of the Postmaster General, as well as a letter to Congressman Huffman. And we will be hopefully approving those on consent on Saturday during our special meeting. So if members of the public are interested, they can take a look that's already been posted on the agenda. |
| 04:33:35.02 | Sophia Collier | Can we possibly move that to our Thursday special meeting? |
| 04:33:39.07 | Unknown | Uh, the Thursday special meetings continued from today. So no, because we just continued the closed. So. We can't, I don't think. Sorry, I just wanted to bring that up. |
| 04:33:48.99 | Mayor Woodside | Okay, maybe we should have not continued it in that manner, but it's okay. |
| 04:33:53.73 | Unknown | But we did, so. Thank you. |
| 04:33:55.91 | Mayor Woodside | Okay. So now going to the 21st. We do know that we will be having a capital improvement plan presentation on that day, and that raises some questions perhaps with respect to budget policy. That will be agendized for the 21st. We hope to receive uh a proposal that would include an analysis of the ability of us to use several financial tools such as an enhanced infrastructure financing district and we are targeting the 21st to receive a report and perhaps a recommendation to move forward with a a contract with a provider who can help us get a good start on that topic. We have PG&E, yes. |
| 04:34:44.49 | Jill Hoffman | Yeah. this is Well, are we talking, are we thinking about a certain area of town for that or just in general for that, just a tool? |
| 04:34:52.41 | Mayor Woodside | That would be one of the issues that the consultant would help us with. |
| 04:34:56.17 | Jill Hoffman | Okay. |
| 04:34:56.54 | Mayor Woodside | I think everyone is thinking that in terms of enhanced infrastructure, we'd like to capture tax increment in areas likely to be growing, including already approved housing sites, for example. So drawing the lines is part of the process. Good. And then we do expect a PG&E proposal on the 21st. we will have on the 21st discussion, not limited to, but a discussion of Caledonia Street, the the red curb. Thank you. |
| 04:35:30.70 | Sophia Collier | 413. |
| 04:35:31.51 | Mayor Woodside | Yes, 413 issues. That's on the 21st. It's looking like a crowded agenda. We may or may not have a report on parking on that day because there have been a number of public comments about parking, new parking meters, et cetera. Eventually, we'll have a report. It could be as early as the 21st, although I'm not sure about that. There are other dates. I won't go into detail now, but we do know in May we've got many things related to budget that we have to deal with. And it's the city manager's last month. So anything else that you think we need to do while you're here? |
| 04:36:08.88 | Chris Zapata | Yeah. You alluded to it, Mayor, which is that the general fund transfer policy, which will set the stage for what you do with this coming year's budget and we do with this coming year's budget. And then on committee reports, Vice Mayor Blausin and Council Member Hoffman, I thought they would talk about the Dorothy Gibson House ribbon cutting on Thursdays. |
| 04:36:32.63 | Mayor Woodside | Boy, how soon we forget. It took forever to schedule. And can we just say that we do have a, what is it called? Grand opening? |
| 04:36:38.25 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. |
| 04:36:41.28 | Sophia Collier | Ribbon cutting? Ribbon cutting. Ribbon cutting. |
| 04:36:43.97 | Unknown | OK. |
| 04:36:44.39 | Mayor Woodside | Yeah. Thank you. Date and time. |
| 04:36:46.62 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:36:46.65 | Jill Hoffman | Thursday, 1 30 PM. Very exciting. Yeah. Very exciting. Long time project. Dorothy Gibson was a center of gravity in our town for a long time. Leon's shaking his head. I don't know, lived here for 80 years maybe. I don't know, had a beautiful little house on Johnson Street at something, 430 1⁄2 Johnson Street. 29 and a half. And she left it to the city. We received a grant from the state that passed through the county, and we used it to redo the house as part of our approach to homelessness and how to house people. And also Dorothy left it to us for workforce housing for the people who work for Sausalito. And so we married those two things together. And so we're not only providing housing for people formerly experiencing homelessness, but we gave them a job. And so we have two formerly homeless people who now have a beautiful cottage-type living, in a lovely location off Johnson Street with very nice and supportive neighbors who are very sweet. And so it's a really happy outcome anyway and so we're having a ribbon cutting Senator Mike McGuire will be there Assemblymember Connelly our our supervisor 70 Montpeters it was a absolute team effort for our community and the our city manager putting us together as well and coming up with a concept and our whole, everybody on the city staff, I think has been down there. hoeing weeds and pulling it together. So, and council member Blaustein and I have been working on it for years, I think. So, okay. |
| 04:38:41.23 | Mayor Woodside | So the day after tomorrow. |
| 04:38:43.24 | Jill Hoffman | Yep. Yeah. |
| 04:38:44.56 | Mayor Woodside | We, uh, years crossed. |
| 04:38:45.18 | Jill Hoffman | Ears crossed. |
| 04:38:46.01 | Mayor Woodside | We have many potential items. I'm just going to quickly say that we have several Center for the Arts, the EDAC, the Business Improvement District desiring to present to us. So we will schedule those as time permits and sooner rather than later. I'm going to jump ahead for purposes of highlighting why we need to reserve ourselves the last fifth week in June, June 30th, to have a meeting. |
| 04:38:50.87 | Jill Hoffman | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 04:39:16.85 | Mayor Woodside | There are a lot of things that are pending that may require our attendance, and we won't have but two meetings now scheduled in June, so please reserve June 30th. Thank you. And also, July 28th and the reason for that even though it's a fourth Tuesday is that if we want to adhere to the August recess we recognize that there is an election coming up and there may be things that we will need to call for an election and the last day to do that is the first week in August so let's reserve the last meeting in July so we can attend to any of those matters. |
| 04:39:40.09 | Steve Rosenthal | There is. |
| 04:39:56.87 | Mayor Woodside | I could go on, but I won't. Thank you. We want to be as... as transparent as possible about what's coming up so people can be prepared. |
| 04:40:05.89 | Unknown | I did want to add one more item. Sure. |
| 04:40:07.43 | Mayor Woodside | Sure, go ahead. |
| 04:40:08.07 | Unknown | I had been asked by folks working on the effort to bring forward a tobacco sales ban. Mill Valley has also started to work on this. Tiburon is working on it, Cordo Madera. And there's a number of actually students and youth groups that are promoting ending tobacco sales or some form of limiting tobacco sales or V cigarettes and otherwise. So I will be working on some sort of more formalized ordinance on that. |
| 04:40:33.97 | Mayor Woodside | And so we're hopeful of having that come up in May, correct? |
| 04:40:37.45 | Unknown | I mean, let's see what our agenda looks like and get our budget approved, but it is yes if we can. |
| 04:40:42.92 | Mayor Woodside | Okay, sorry, any other reports of significance? Seeing none, any public comments on what we've just discussed, item 6A and D? One item? |
| 04:40:55.90 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 04:40:55.91 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. |
| 04:40:55.96 | Walfred Solorzano | Thank you. |
| 04:40:56.00 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you. |
| 04:40:56.01 | Walfred Solorzano | Babette's got a name. Yeah, Babette McDougall. |
| 04:41:00.40 | Mayor Woodside | Would you like to lower your hand again, Vivette? |
| 04:41:02.59 | Babette McDougall | I swear to God, I must be, you know, specially blessed. I didn't even know my hand was up. Well, anyway... Thank you all very much for your very dedicated work tonight. and I'm really glad to see these vigorous debates because it shows all sides of the community. And it shows resolution toward these problems. So thank you for that, Mr. Mayor. With that, I yield back my time. |
| 04:41:27.92 | Mayor Woodside | Okay, thank you. Appointments. It's not an appointment to a commission, but I would like to work with Councilmember Cox on the possibility of producing a draft charter for the city, focusing on if you will, some financial and land use independence from some of the general laws that we are obliged to follow right now, we may still be obliged, but charter cities have a little bit of room to act independently and that's our motivation in trying to work on this. Both of us are familiar with charters, having worked for or. in charter communities, so we think we can rather quickly come up with a draft that would of course be put out to the public and discussed, and we'll take it from there. We have a very important former member of this council and sterling member of the community here. And I'd like to call on Council Member Cox. |
| 04:42:35.74 | Sophia Collier | Thank you, Mayor. As we prepare to adjourn this evening, we would like to take a moment to honor the life and legacy of Sally Huntington. um, wife of our former mayor, Leon Hunting, a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, boundless generosity, and singular elegance who recently passed from our community. Sally's career was nothing short of remarkable, She began as a model and went on to become one of San Francisco's most celebrated figures in the worlds of fashion, arts, and culture. For 20 years, from 1992 to 2012, she served as Executive Vice President of Public Relations at the Academy of Art University, where she produced events on a breathtaking scale. New York Fashion Week showcases, exotic car shows, chic designer luncheons featuring icons such as John Galliano, Philip Treakey, Missoni, and Suzanne Tucker, and annual commencement ceremonies drawing more than 20,000 attendees. She also helmed the Epidemic Film Festival, which brought Oscar-winning directors and producers to the forefront of the cultural conversation. Her executive roles extended to FIDM, Gumps, and the Knob Hill Gazette, In her later years, she devoted herself to philanthropy, serving in a leadership capacity at Ronald McDonald House, Susan J. Komen, and most recently as Executive Director of the Marin History Museum. a fitting role for a woman who was herself a piece of San Francisco history. She was nominated to the California Arts Project and chaired countless fundraisers, including as fashion show chair for the Junior League of San Francisco. Through all of this, including surviving three near-fatal accidents with a grace that astonished those who loved her, Sally never lost her warmth, her humor, or her incomparable style. From her home in Sausalito overlooking the bay, she and her husband Leon shared more than 60 years of devoted partnership. She was a true San Francisco legend. She was a mentor, a trailblazer, a philanthropist, and a friend. She was, as those who knew her best would tell you, Exceptional. We ask that you join us in a moment of silence as we adjourn this evening's meeting in her honor. |
| 04:44:52.42 | Sophia Collier | Thank you. Of course. Yes, please. Of course, please. |
| 04:44:55.86 | Dan Morgan | Of course. Yes, please. |
| 04:44:58.10 | Sophia Collier | please come forward to the podium where we have a microphone for you. |
| 04:45:05.73 | Adrian Brinton | Thank you. |
| 04:45:05.76 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:45:06.42 | Adrian Brinton | Thank you. |
| 04:45:06.44 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 04:45:06.86 | Adrian Brinton | Thank you. |
| 04:45:10.05 | Unknown | Thank you. and positive attention. Sally loved this. She dragged me out of law school. In class, we had two weeks to find a home. We were in the city at the time. And she took me out of class, brought me around kicking and screaming, no. And when we got here, I said, yes. |
| 04:45:43.97 | Unknown | Thank you. your It's really been great. Thank you. Pleasure and privilege. |
| 04:45:56.24 | Sophia Collier | Thank you, Leon. |
| 04:45:57.50 | Mayor Woodside | Thank you very much, Leon. And take good care. And we are now adjourned. |
| 04:46:09.47 | Unknown | you |
Chris Monte — Neutral: A 16-year resident and boat slip holder at Pelican Harbor, not opposed to the sale but concerned about potential non-compliant operations, excessive liveaboards, health and safety risks, and violations of public trust. Requested the council direct staff to review the new operator's fitness and set conditions before lease approval. ▶ 📄