City Council Apr 16, 2024

Apr 16

City Council Meeting Summary

Time	Item	Item Summary	Motion Summary	Comment Summary
00:00:19	None: None	Amir Sobieski announces the start of the April 16, 2024 meeting, held in Council Chambers at 420 Little Street. The meeting is accessible to staff and the public via Zoom and is broadcast live on the city's website and cable TV channel 27.	No Motion	0 Total: 0 In Favor 0 Against 0 Neutral

00:00:36	I: CALL TO ORDER, ROLL CALL & ADJOURN TO CLOSED SESSION	The meeting was called to order, and roll call was taken, noting Councilmember Blasstein's late arrival (00:00:36). The council then moved to adjourn to a closed session to discuss four matters: two cases of existing litigation, 'Yes, in my backyard versus the city of Sausalito' and 'Port G.J. versus city of Sausalito', and a conference regarding real property negotiation at the Martin Luther King site for the new village school (00:01:03). Vice Mayor Cox recused herself from the fourth item due to the proximity of her residence to the property (00:01:35). Councilmember Hoffman inquired about the closed session being listed as a special meeting and the absence of time estimates in the agenda, which was clarified (00:01:50). The regular meeting was confirmed to start at 7 PM (00:03:36). After the closed session, the council reconvened for the open session (00:04:48).	No Motion	0 Total: 0 In Favor 0 Against 0 Neutral

00:06:16	2: ACTION MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING	The council is considering the approval of the minutes from the previous meeting. The city clerk explains the procedure for public comments, both for those in the council chambers and those participating via Zoom. There were no public speakers at the time of the consideration.	No Motion	0 Total: 0 In Favor 0 Against 0 Neutral

00:06:48	3: CONSENT CALENDAR	The council is considering the consent calendar, which includes routine and non-controversial items. The items are: 3a, the Sausalito Police Department's crime and traffic report from calendar year 2024; 3b, adopting a resolution authorizing the city manager to award a construction contract for the North Street step slide repair project to WR construction; 3c, receiving and filing a status report regarding the Fairy Landslide Improvement Project; and 3d, adopting a resolution accepting and approving the 2023 multi-jurisdictional hazard mitigation plan. Councilmember Blasin expressed concerns about item 3d and requested a more full representation of the assessment and the next steps for the community. (00:08:11) Councilmember Hoffman requested item 3c be removed from the consent calendar for further discussion. (00:08:58) The council discussed whether to hear public comment on item 3c immediately or after the staff report. The council decided to hold public comment on item 3C when it is discussed as item 5C. There was a typo in item 3b, stating that reserve funds were being used for the project, and it was confirmed that capital funds were being used instead. (00:09:27)	Motion to approve the consent calendar items 3A, 3B, and 3D. (00:11:51)	1 Total: 1 In Favor 0 Against 0 Neutral
00:11:26 Sandra Bushmaker was In Favor: Supported the removal of item 3C regarding the Fairy Landslide Improvement project for public discussion and further questions.
00:11:53	5: BUSINESS ITEMS	The council seems to be wrapping up item three, with a consensus to move forward.	No Motion	0 Total: 0 In Favor 0 Against 0 Neutral

00:11:59	5.A: Discussion and direction to Staff regarding Initiation of Sewer Rate Setting Under Proposition 218 for Fiscal Years 2024-25 through 2026-27 or through 2029-30	The City Council discussed initiating a sewer rate setting process under Proposition 218 for fiscal years 2024-25 through 2026-27 or 2029-30. Vivian Housen from VW Housen and Associates and Rick Simonson from HFNH presented the sewer rate study. The city has approximately 20 miles of sewer pipes, most of which are over 80 years old. The last rate study was completed in 2019 and set rates through June 2024. The purpose of the capital program is to implement an even spending program, which involves replacing assets with the highest risk of failure. The city completed a closed-circuit television inspection of its system in 2019 and identified $18 million in needed repairs, with $5 million considered critical over the next 5-10 years. The consultants recommended a 5% annual rate increase to complete the repairs over seven years. Rick Simonson from HFNH discussed the rate study timeline and the necessity of getting rates approved. The sewer enterprise fund is separate, and revenues can only be used for the sewer collection system costs. The collection rates are collected via the property tax roll. The presentation included how charges are calculated, objectives of the rate study, cost of service, revenue requirements, and bill impacts. The consultants are asking for the council to take in the information and provide direction to city staff to move forward with the Proposition 218 process, setting the public hearing for June 4th (00:25:16). Councilmember Cox asked how the volumetric component of the rates benefit smaller households (00:39:20). Simonson explained that those who use less water and discharge less into the sewer system will have a smaller bill (00:40:00). Cox inquired about Marin City's lower rates, and Simonson explained that Marin City has not invested as much in their capital program but will need to increase rates in the future (00:40:24). Cox recommended that the council adopt a three-year plan rather than a five-year plan. Councilmember Blasin wanted to understand the differentiation between the 2019 rate increase and the proposed 2024 increase (00:42:06). The consultants explained that the last rate study recommended 4% increases, whereas this one will recommend 5%. Blasin asked about the cost to consumers and the municipality if a pipe breaks, and Director McGowan explained that this is why there is a reserve fund. The council discussed the need for a rate increase to address deferred maintenance and the potential for significant cost increases if the system is neglected.	I move we direct staff to transmit notice to ratepayers by this Friday, April 19, a Proposition 218 notice for the establishment of new sewer rates for a three-year sewer rate structure beginning fiscal year 2024-25 at the rate of 5% per year. (00:48:53)	0 Total: 0 In Favor 0 Against 0 Neutral

00:49:28	5.B: Review of Sausalito Municipal Code Chapter 17.36 Report and Request for City Council approval of an Annual Sidewalk Repair Program	Director McGowan presented a proposal for an annual sidewalk repair program, highlighting the current municipal code that places responsibility for sidewalk maintenance on adjacent property owners (00:50:37). The program aims to incentivize property owners to repair damaged sidewalks by offering a 50% cost-sharing arrangement, up to $1,000 per property, with a total annual budget of $40,000 (00:52:15). The city would also provide no-fee encroachment permits and potentially negotiate rates with local contractors (00:52:38). The program would prioritize areas like Caledonia and Bridgeway, and address sidewalk damage caused by city-planted trees (00:53:05). A webpage would be created to provide clarity for residents (00:53:37). Councilmember Blasin inquired about the origin of the copayment program and its success in other communities (00:57:28). He also asked about the CIP and what happens if the $40,000 is not used. (00:59:05) Vice Mayor Cox expressed surprise that sidewalk maintenance was not primarily the city's responsibility and suggested an overall city survey to identify the most troublesome areas (01:00:16). She also inquired about managing root systems under the ground. (01:03:05) Councilmember Kelman questioned the administrative costs and processes involved in the program, particularly regarding reimbursement. (01:04:00) He also brought up the possibility of exemptions for residents who cannot afford repairs (01:05:47). Councilmember Hoffman supported the program (01:06:39).	Motion by Vice Mayor Cox to approve staff's recommendation to provide an annual sidewalk repair program included in the fiscal year 2024-25 capital improvement program in the amount of $40,000 to assist and incentivize resident participation in the program, and that we include in our rollout, advance noticing to the community (01:23:16).	2 Total: 1 In Favor 0 Against 1 Neutral
01:16:08 Vince Connick was In Favor: Vince Connick, who lives across the street from a city tree that is forcing the sidewalk up, suggested that residents could help by notifying the city about sidewalks that need to be repaired. He proposed rewarding residents for reporting problematic trees or sidewalks to reduce staff time. 01:21:07 Babette McDougall was Neutral: Babette McDougall, who lives above City Hall, discussed the history of the sidewalk ordinance. She suggested revisiting the viability of the ordinance given increasing density. She also mentioned damage to sidewalks and curbs on her street (Girard Avenue) due to contractor vehicles and parking issues.
01:31:12	3.D: Adopt a Resolution Accepting and Approving the 2023 Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan for the City of Sausalito	The council concluded discussion on the resolution to adopt the 2023 Multi-Jurisdictional Hazard Mitigation Plan.	The Vice Mayor's motion to adopt the resolution carried. (01:31:12)	0 Total: 0 In Favor 0 Against 0 Neutral

01:31:40	3.C: Receive and File a status report regarding the Ferry Landside Improvement Project	The council is considering a status report on the Ferry Landside Improvement Project. Councilmember Cox requested clarification on the additional funding source, which Director McGowan confirmed is the Tidelands Fund and currently holds over a million dollars with an annual increase of $300,000 (01:33:00). Cox raised concerns about the staff report deviating from the council's prior direction, emphasizing the need for a phasing plan (01:33:52). McGowan explained that a new engineer's estimate suggests all phases are within the grant amount. The discussion then turned to the cost of construction drawings, BCDC submission status and process, and communication with the Golden Gate Bridge District about potential delays. Councilmember Hoffman questioned inconsistencies in the staff reports and the re-inclusion of Tracy Way in the plan, which was originally excluded (01:46:50). Hines explained the inclusion of Tracy Way as a deduct alternate (01:55:10). Councilmember Kelman requested clarification on the basis for using Tidelands money, as those funds have specific uses, and City Attorney Sergio provided details (01:57:38). The public comment period featured a range of opinions, with some supporting the project's progress and others raising concerns about safety, scope, and impacts on the Sausalito Yacht Club. (02:12:10) Council reached a consensus to receive and file the report, directing staff to include additive and deductive bids that include Tracy Way, and directing staff to issue a staff report to the next council meeting proposing processes to legally close Tracy Way. (02:57:50)	Direct staff to include additive and deductive bids that include Tracy Way, and to issue a staff report to the next council meeting proposing processes to legally close Tracy Way. (03:07:30)	11 Total: 7 In Favor 3 Against 1 Neutral
02:12:29 Peter Van Meter was In Favor: Supports the project, highlighting the recent estimate indicating that the entire project, including Tracy Way, can be done within the available funds. He urges the council to move forward, push for BCDC approval, release the specs, and start construction soon. 02:13:46 Patty Bot was Against: Speaking on behalf of the Sausalito Yacht Club leadership, implored the council to address their objections to the concept designs, citing concerns about public safety, parking, junior sailing boat storage, and insurance implications. She stated the club does not object to the scope of the ferry land site improvements, but objects to the severe impacts to SYC. 02:16:01 Kaye Mitzel was Against: Expressed agreement with the Yacht Club's concerns about safety and access, as well as concerns about closing Tracy Way and moving bikes to Humboldt Street. She's concerned about buses parked there and how the design will impact revenue to the city. 02:17:10 Jim Gabbert was Neutral: Representing the Sausalito Chamber of Commerce, he requested copies of the bids and alternative bids for each of the seven elements of the project to ensure responsible endorsement, since they would like to verify what the cost of each of the elements will be. 02:18:25 Kit Hayes was In Favor: Expressed support for the project and encouraged the council to work together, find common ground, and break ground this fall to prevent further delays. She is excited about the potential for beautifying and modernizing the city. 02:19:47 Sharna Brockett was In Favor: A resident and Yacht Club member, she stated that she does not agree with the Yacht Club's latest letter and their attempt to derail the project. She claims it looks to her to be a repeat of what we already considered at that meeting. She believes the plan keeps the same footprint, and states that members disagreed with the leadership, and 100 plus residents support the plan. 02:21:57 Adrian Brinton was In Favor: A resident and Yacht Club member, Brinton agrees with the previous speaker, stating the Yacht Club now feels very unsafe there. He notes that there's a ton of people really excited about the project, and wants to see it move forward to be completed this fall. 02:23:58 Sandra Bushmaker was Against: Agreed with the Yacht Club's Commodore on the routing of traffic, and requested that the club get the appropriate information. She reminds the council that the grant is to improve and enhance pedestrian and bicycle access routes, not to close Tracy Way or improve Humboldt Street. 02:26:10 Steven Woodside was In Favor: Appreciates that this seems Kafkaesque, and that it's also very clear to those in the audience that support the project what needs to happen. This staff report seems to have little purpose other than to obfuscate the point, and this process should be for this should be good news. 02:27:42 Beth Swerke was In Favor: Feels like she's experiencing deja vu, and this is what discourages locals to not be involved in politics. It's clear that people are trying to stall the project. 02:29:22 Mary Griffin was In Favor: Urges everyone to move forward since Mr. Hines has completed his work. Breaking it up into small components would increase the price. It's appropriate to make progress and move it forward and get it built as soon as possible.
03:10:17	6: COMMUNICATIONS	The Communications section of the meeting allows for public comments on items not on the agenda. Several members of the public spoke on a variety of issues. Amir Sobieski called 'Sunshine' (03:10:26). Vince Connick spoke about parking issues related to the B Street C permit, the impact on elderly residents, and the need for better communication methods from the council (03:10:40). Vince Casalina discussed his documentary about wooden boats on the bay and requested endorsement for his project (03:12:57). Sandra Bushmaker expressed disappointment that the geologic hazard mapping study was not on the agenda and emphasized its importance for the community's safety and stability (03:15:27). Steven Woodside endorsed the wooden boat documentary and announced the C's celebration (03:17:10). Babette McDougall criticized the council for not fully understanding the Brown Act and suggested that staff reports should be reviewed by the city attorney before being submitted for public consideration (03:18:17).	No Motion	6 Total: 1 In Favor 2 Against 3 Neutral
03:10:26 Amir Sobieski was Neutral: Called 'Sunshine'. 03:10:40 Vince Connick was Against: Expressed concerns about the parking situation due to the B Street C permit, particularly its impact on elderly residents and their helpers. He also criticized the council's communication methods, suggesting they need to be more accessible to people without computers or smartphones. 03:12:57 Vince Casalina was Neutral: Announced his documentary about wooden boats in Sausalito and requested the council's endorsement for the project. He mentioned endorsements from other organizations. 03:15:27 Sandra Bushmaker was Neutral: Expressed disappointment that the geologic hazard mapping study was not on the agenda. She emphasized the importance of the study for community safety and the need for substantial funding to address the identified vulnerabilities. 03:17:10 Woodside was In Favor: Endorsed the wooden boat documentary. He also announced the C's celebration and invited councilmembers to attend. 03:18:17 Babette McDougall was Against: Criticized the council for not fully understanding the Brown Act and for not ensuring that staff reports are reviewed by the city attorney before being presented to the public.
03:19:31	8: CITY MANAGER REPORTS & OTHER COUNCIL BUSINESS	The meeting moved on to City Manager Reports and Other Council Business. (03:19:31)	No Motion	0 Total: 0 In Favor 0 Against 0 Neutral

03:19:34	8.A: Emergency/Disaster Safety Preparedness Training and City Council Future Agenda Items Status	The City Manager reported that the police and HR departments have been working on emergency preparedness exercises for both natural and man-made disasters (03:19:52). On Wednesday, city hall and non-emergency services will close for a half-day tabletop exercise on active shooter training (03:20:12). The City Manager also referenced a report in the council packet with updates on 24 pending agenda items, indicating action needed on 15 and no action on 5. (03:20:39) The City Manager will provide quarterly reports to track progress on basic and strategic priorities.	No Motion	0 Total: 0 In Favor 0 Against 0 Neutral

03:20:01	8B: Future Agenda Items	Councilmember Kelman requested that the Bridgeway Marina issue and the geologic hazard study be placed on a future agenda (03:21:25). Councilman Blasin requested the hazard mitigation assessment and the geologic hazards assessment be placed on the agenda (03:21:40). Councilman Blasin also requested a report from staff after the completion of the tabletop exercise to have a conversation about disaster preparedness and future tabletops (03:21:51).	No Motion	0 Total: 0 In Favor 0 Against 0 Neutral

03:21:07	9: ADJOURNMENT	The council adjourned the meeting in honor of Kevin Carroll, a former Larkspur council member who passed away from lung cancer. He was remembered as a fixture in downtown Sausalito, driving his checker cab. He was also recognized for his advocacy for children with special needs during his time on the San Rafael Board of Education. Supervisor Katie Rice noted that Carroll brought a unique and valuable perspective to the public forum. The speaker shared a personal anecdote about taking Carroll's cab to the airport last year and expressed missing him. (03:23:31)	No Motion	0 Total: 0 In Favor 0 Against 0 Neutral

City Council Meeting Transcript

Adrian Brinton

City Council May 7, 2024

Time	Speaker	Text
00:00:19.40	Amir Sobieski	This meeting of April 16, 2024 is being held in Council Chambers located at 420 Little Street. Staff and members of the public are also participating through Zoom. This meeting is being broadcast live on the city's website and on cable TV channel 27.
00:00:36.02	Unknown	Thank you very much city clerk. We will call the roll, but first I'll just let everyone know that our colleague council member Blasstein is running late. She intends to join closed session around six o'clock and we'll be here for open session. So, uh, we please kind of call a roll.
00:00:51.65	Amir Sobieski	Councilmember Blasting has noted she is not arrived yet. Councilmember Hoffman.
00:00:58.22	Amir Sobieski	Here.
00:00:58.77	Amir Sobieski	Council Member Kelman. Here.
00:01:00.76	Amir Sobieski	Vice Mayor Cox
00:01:02.25	Amir Sobieski	Here. Amir Sobieski.
00:01:03.97	Unknown	Here, we have four matters tonight on closed session conference with the council government code section 54956.92 cases.
00:01:14.13	Unknown	Conference with legal counsel, existing litigation, yes, in my backyard versus the city of Sausalito. Conference with legal counsel, existing litigation, Port G.J. versus city of Sausalito. And the conference with the real property negotiator on the Martin Luther King site for the new village school. Did you want to make a comment, Vice Mayor?
00:01:35.69	Cox	Yes, thank you. I will be recusing myself from the fourth item due to the proximity of my residence to the property at issue.
00:01:42.90	Unknown	Are there any public comments on the closed session items?
00:01:46.16	Amir Sobieski	There is nobody in the council chambers, and I don't see anybody on Zoom. All right, we'll close.
00:01:49.73	Unknown	All right, we'll close.
00:01:50.60	Council Member Hoffman	Mayor, sorry, excuse me. Good evening. I just had one clarification that the agenda lists, it looks like it lists the closed session as a special meeting. Is that accurate? Yes.
00:01:50.88	Unknown	Mayor.
00:01:51.27	Kelman	I'm sorry.
00:01:53.75	Unknown	to be.
00:01:53.85	Unknown	Um,
00:01:53.99	Unknown	I'm not.
00:02:02.86	Unknown	That's the way they're always done. They're always special meetings actually. So I learned.
00:02:05.53	Council Member Hoffman	So I learned. Okay. Well, thank you. It was a little tip there.
00:02:07.15	Unknown	Thank you. There you go.
00:02:09.88	Council Member Hoffman	Right? It was on red. Maybe it's because it's on red.
00:02:10.05	Unknown	It was unreal.
00:02:12.18	Amir Sobieski	We were advised by the city attorney to label it that way so that we can be very compliant with. So
00:02:18.95	Unknown	So our ordinances are that our meetings start at seven on this first and second, third Tuesday of every month. And so all our closed sessions, as I came to learn, are actually special meetings of the city council that just happened to coincide with the meeting. And by the way, as a result, it also answers the question that we can actually adjourn back to closed session as long as we don't adjourn the closed session in closed session. Then that session stays up until we adjourn both at the end of the night.
00:02:21.95	Amir Sobieski	Okay.
00:02:45.84	Council Member Hoffman	At the end of the night.
00:02:46.40	Council Member Hoffman	Thank you.
00:02:46.45	Council Member Hoffman	okay and then one other uh clarification um on the agenda it doesn't list i mean list at the beginning but not in the agenda when we're going usually we have times time estimates and times when we're starting open session and so it says it on the front of the agenda but i didn't see it in the actual agenda that we're starting open session at seven and that's our normal practice i assume that's what we're going to do tonight
00:03:09.38	Unknown	Well, here at the top on my meeting, it says special meeting begins at 5 PM and then the regular meeting begins at 7 PM.
00:03:14.87	Council Member Hoffman	Right, so that's what I just said. So it's at the top, but then as you read through the agenda, we usually have open session.
00:03:21.32	Council Member Hoffman	or at least I recall, we start at seven and then different things on the agenda, we have time estimates, but I didn't see that. I just wanna make sure
00:03:27.90	Cox	Thank you.
00:03:27.91	Council Member Hoffman	I can see.
00:03:28.03	Cox	Thank you.
00:03:28.30	Cox	comment on that.
00:03:30.87	Cox	stopped providing time estimates because they were never accurate. So off. Yes.
00:03:33.91	Council Member Hoffman	I'm not sure.
00:03:34.02	Unknown	All right.
00:03:34.16	Council Member Hoffman	I'm not sure.
00:03:34.44	Unknown	Yeah.
00:03:36.01	Council Member Hoffman	Okay.
00:03:36.82	Cox	That's good. Okay. And so we could add back in the fact that regular starts at 7 p.m., but we stopped doing time estimates for the rest unless it's a public hearing specially noticed for a specific time. Okay. Got it. Okay. Thank you.
00:03:37.84	Council Member Hoffman	Okay, that's good.
00:03:38.12	Unknown	I mean, I get it.
00:03:41.77	Council Member Hoffman	Okay.
00:03:48.11	Council Member Hoffman	Thank you.
00:03:48.59	Unknown	So we will now adjourn to close or move to closed session.
00:04:39.14	Unknown	Thank you.
00:04:41.98	Unknown	Thank you.
00:04:42.21	Unknown	I'm very important.
00:04:48.61	Unknown	OK, hello everybody. Thanks. Welcome back. There are no announcements from closed session. We are going to go ahead and begin our meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance.
00:05:12.30	Unknown	Thank you very much.
00:05:14.94	Unknown	I have just one special announcement. I'll be attending the Tall Ship Celebration this Saturday at the Bay Model Visitor Center here in Sausalito. The community event takes place from 11 to 2 p.m. It features tours of the Brigantine Matthew Turner, our official Tall Ship. The Schooner Seaward exhibits from the Sailing Science Center, music by Waterfront Pickers and the Village Char Charter School Children's Choir. Admission is free and food and beverages are available for purchase. Those attending will also have a chance to meet the new manager of the Bay Model, Taylor Bon, and to meet the sailing and education crew of the Call of the Sea, the Sausalito nonprofit that's celebrating its 40th year of teaching people about maritime activities in the ocean environment. So that is the one announcement and we will now move on to approving of the action minutes from the previous meeting. Is there any public comment about the action minutes from the April 2nd city council meeting?
00:06:16.18	Amir Sobieski	Once again, for members of the public that are in council chambers, we have some of the slips over by the television. You can fill it out.
00:06:24.02	Amir Sobieski	And you can bring them back over to the city clerk's desk, and we will call you when it is your turn and you have two minutes to speak. For those that are on Zoom, you have used the raise hand function at the bottom right hand of your screen, and we will unmute you so you can speak.
00:06:40.31	Amir Sobieski	I've seen no speakers right now.
00:06:40.39	Unknown	Thank you, Mr. President.
00:06:42.31	Unknown	All right, sure of approval of the minutes.
00:06:46.36	Councilman Blasin	So moved.
00:06:48.54	Unknown	it.
00:06:48.83	Unknown	All right. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Minutes are approved. Moving on to this consent calendar. These are matters that are generally considered routine and non-controversial, require no discussion and are expected to have unanimous counsel support. There'll be no separate discussion on consent calendar items. However, any item can be removed by a request from one of the council members. Items removed from the consent calendar will be discussed later on the agenda, and public comment will be heard on any item that was removed from the consent calendar at that time the consent calendar items are 3a of the sausalito police department's crime and traffic report from calendar year 2024 3b adopting a resolution authorizing the city manager to award a construction contract for the north street step slide repair project to our WR construction in an amount of 475,620.50. And authorize a construction contingency for the project in an amount of 49,379.50. And adopt a resolution accepting an easement for a portion of 6 Josephine Street related to the project. Item 3C, receive and file a status report regarding the fairly landslide improvement project. And item 3D, adopt a resolution accepting and approving the 2023 multi-jurisdictional hazard mitigation plan for the city of Sausalito. Is anyone wanting to remove anything from consent?
00:06:50.87	Councilman Blasin	Aye.
00:08:10.44	Unknown	Yes, it comes from every bus. I don't.
00:08:11.51	Councilman Blasin	I don't want to necessarily remove it from consent, but I have a request on the item regarding adopter resolution accepting and approving the 2023 multi jurisdictional hazard mitigation plan, especially in light of the new geologic hazard assessment that the Planning Commission heard this past week and considering our serious need to put more emphasis on disaster preparedness. I am OK with approving it as is, but I'd like to ask staff to come back to us with a more full representation of the assessment and the next steps for us as a community, because I think it deserves more more discussion.
00:08:19.50	Unknown	Yes.
00:08:41.47	Unknown	Okay, if you could also maybe remember to bring that up at future agenda items, that would be great.
00:08:46.29	Kelman	Mayor, I just want to put on the record that yes to everything that Councilman Blasin said.
00:08:49.87	Unknown	Okay.
00:08:50.18	Kelman	You may be wondering.
00:08:50.23	Unknown	Maybe one of you can remember that. Future agenda items, too.
00:08:51.90	Kelman	Yep.
00:08:55.19	Unknown	Anything else?
00:08:56.91	Council Member Hoffman	I did.
00:08:58.78	Council Member Hoffman	Yes, I would like to remove item 3C from the agenda, but I think there are people here that are here for public comment on that. So I think we might want to take public comment now, maybe. I don't know if we can do that.
00:09:11.56	Unknown	We always have it with the item, so.
00:09:16.04	Council Member Hoffman	I was, okay. No, that's fine. If that's the way you go.
00:09:19.50	Unknown	So do you wish to remove that item or leave it?
00:09:21.73	Council Member Hoffman	Oh no, we need to, yeah, no, I have some questions about,
00:09:25.56	Council Member Hoffman	you know, our
00:09:27.76	Unknown	Okay, we'll remove the item, we'll move 3C from the consent calendar and put it on item 5C on the business items. And then I don't want to remove the award of the North Street steps, but I did have a question for Director McGowan just, and maybe it's an error I believe, or just a highlight I think, because I did ask Chad Hess to call you about this when he and I spoke. The title under fiscal impact, it says that the three categories, reserve funds, sterile fund and capital. I did ask Chad Hess to call you about this when he and I spoke. The title under fiscal impact, it says that the hundred and that there are three categories, reserve funds, sterile fund and capital fund. And I wanted to be sure that that according to Chad Hess, that title reserve funds is incorrect and that it should be capital funds. Sorry, Director McGowan.
00:10:08.09	Director McGowan	Yes, that is correct. We are not pulling out of our reserves, which is our dollars that are held in the general fund in case of an absolute emergency. This is coming from available fund balance within the capital project fund.
00:10:19.56	Unknown	Thank you.
00:10:19.90	Unknown	Okay, so there are no reserve funds are being used for this project that is correct. So if you could kind of make that correction, we've been a staff really on the record and we can leave it on consent for approval with that typo fixed. Thank you. All right, so can get a motion to approve the consent column public comment. Oh, sorry, thank you for the catch public comment, please. And items 3 a B and D.
00:10:26.60	Director McGowan	THE STAFF REPORT.
00:10:33.03	Director McGowan	All right.
00:10:42.43	Cox	So that was, I guess, Council Member Hoffman's request, is that we hear public comment now on 3C rather than make people wait until after the other two businesses.
00:10:52.81	Unknown	Well, then we don't have the report. There's a report first, so we would have to hear that item. So that's.
00:10:56.43	Cox	to hear that.
00:10:57.68	Cox	That's true.
00:11:00.94	Unknown	So that's not the way we've ever done things here. So I guess we'll not start today. So could I get a approval for items 3A, B and D?
00:11:10.00	Amir Sobieski	Sorry, for clarification, Peter Van Meter, did you want to speak on 3C or another item? Okay, then we'll wait on that. And we do have Sandra Bushmaker. So I'll ask to mute.
00:11:21.66	Amir Sobieski	Sandra? You have two minutes.
00:11:26.57	Sandra Bushmaker	I good evening everybody. I just wanted to support the removal of that item with regard to the very land side improvements for public discussion and further questions on that particular item. So thank you for removing it.
00:11:44.51	Amir Sobieski	All right, no further public comment.
00:11:46.27	Unknown	Okay, we'll close public comment. Can we get an approval for the consent counter of item 3 a b and 3 d?
00:11:51.80	Councilman Blasin	So moved. Second.
00:11:53.56	Unknown	All the favor?
00:11:54.50	Councilman Blasin	Bye.
00:11:54.52	Unknown	I who's consent to counter passes item three.
00:11:59.63	Unknown	C is now item 5C, we're moving on to public hearing items of which there are none. We will now move on with our business items 5A, discussion and direction to staff regarding the initiation of a sewer rate setting under proposition 218 for fiscal years 2024, 25 through 2026, 27, or 2930. Director McGowan.
00:12:20.88	Kevin McGowan	Good evening, Mayor, members of City Council. We do have a presentation this evening from our consultant staff who helped with this. So consultants from VW Housen, that would be Vivian Housen, and HFNH. So we have a presentation which our city clerk is bringing up and I will turn this over to Vivian to lead us through this first part of the discussion and then HFNH will take on the second part of the presentation.
00:12:48.47	Kevin McGowan	How are we doing there, city clerk?
00:12:55.17	Unknown	to be shared.
00:12:57.58	Unknown	All right.
00:12:57.93	Unknown	Thank you.
00:13:03.44	Amir Sobieski	Oh, my God.
00:13:04.87	Amir Sobieski	Thank you.
00:13:05.24	Amir Sobieski	Thank you.
00:13:05.97	Unknown	Thank you.
00:13:06.73	Unknown	you
00:13:56.96	Amir Sobieski	All right. I'm sorry about that.
00:14:03.07	Amir Sobieski	Is that easy?
00:14:03.97	Unknown	Thank you.
00:14:04.09	Amir Sobieski	Thank you.
00:14:04.13	Unknown	Thank you.
00:14:06.99	Vivian Housen	Ready to go. All right. Great. And then I'll just signal to you to change or should I use these? OK. All right. I'm going to stand to the side so I can see the presentation. So if you can't hear me, I'm going to try to move this over here. Let me know.
00:14:12.15	Unknown	Thank you.
00:14:12.49	Cox	Thank you.
00:14:19.76	Cox	Thank you.
00:14:20.23	Cox	public have to be able to hear you too,
00:14:21.96	Cox	Thank you.
00:14:21.97	Vivian Housen	Okay, okay. So good evening, council members and staff. So my name is Vivian Housen, as Kevin McGowan mentioned, and I'm with VW Housen and Associates, and we have a joint presentation. Rick Simonson from HFNH will be presenting the second half on rates.
00:14:38.44	Vivian Housen	I will provide an overview of the work that we've been doing on the rate study
00:14:45.06	Vivian Housen	and really focus on the annual sewer replacement program because this is one of the major components of the rate model.
00:14:53.90	Vivian Housen	And with this discuss the 2025 capital improvement program, provide some background.
00:15:00.80	Vivian Housen	and discuss pipe repair goals and the capital improvement plan or CIP. And also talk about in very general terms, the rate study and the implementation schedule and HFNH will provide more detail on that. So we can go to the next slide.
00:15:19.40	Vivian Housen	So as an overview, the city has about 20 miles of sewer pipes and the colors are not showing that well on this presentation, but they are in lime green on the presentation.
00:15:31.08	Vivian Housen	There are also some, there's another pipe that's shown in dark blue.
00:15:35.65	Vivian Housen	and the dark blue pipe is owned and managed by sausalito marin city sanitary district
00:15:41.55	Vivian Housen	The city's flows flow into that pipeline and then flow north or flow south to the SMCSD plant. That pipe also conveys flows from the north from Marin City and also from a portion of Talapais Community Services District.
00:15:59.00	Vivian Housen	Most of the pipes are over 80 years old. There are four city pump stations. As I mentioned, all flows are sent to Sausaludu Marin City Sanitary District and they provide treatment and discharge of the flows. Thank you.
00:16:13.80	Vivian Housen	The city's last rate study was completed in 2019, and that was a five-year rate study. It set rates through 2024, which is this June.
00:16:24.35	Vivian Housen	The sewer rates were established for residential classes and there were fixed and flow-based components of that rate.
00:16:31.88	Vivian Housen	And the city rates are collected through the tax roll for sewage collection, and that
00:16:36.45	Vivian Housen	The fact that the city rates are collected through the tax roll, that impacts the schedule for implementation. And then the district has, South London Marin City Sanitary District has its own rate for treatment and disposal.
00:16:50.79	Vivian Housen	The rates must be sufficient to cover the cost of service in a manner that's equitable and manages risk and HFNH will provide quite a bit more information on this. But as a very, very high level overview, the rate model includes operating costs, includes existing debt service on prior bonds, and then addresses the capital needs. And the capital needs are what I'll be discussing in these next few slides. Okay.
00:17:18.97	Vivian Housen	So really stepping back, the purpose of the capital program is to
00:17:25.39	Vivian Housen	and for the last five years as well, and for years prior, is to implement an even spending program. So if you look at this slide that's up, and you look at the blue, the blue represents generally how pipes were installed in the city.
00:17:44.94	Vivian Housen	The city in the 1900s people built their holiday homes in the 1950s post-war. There was a big boom of housing all over the Bay Area and many, many
00:17:56.10	Vivian Housen	pipes and other infrastructure were installed during that period so that
00:17:59.61	Vivian Housen	That really shows the peak there in the blue. And then in more recent years, there's been continued development and replacement of homes and replacement of infrastructure, but not nearly to the rate that we saw in the 50s.
00:18:11.51	Vivian Housen	And the challenge with a pattern of installation like this is
00:18:17.62	Vivian Housen	generally
00:18:18.95	Vivian Housen	infrastructure has a useful life. And if you, and we want to extend the useful life and replace infrastructure at the end of its useful life so we can get the most use of that asset.
00:18:30.36	Vivian Housen	But if we do that for every every item, every asset, then we could conceivably have a replacement program that looks like that blue cycle. It could look like the green.
00:18:40.51	Vivian Housen	So if you mirrored the blue and you replace things as they were installed, you could end up with a graph that looks like the green. And that does not support a consistent rate
00:18:51.87	Vivian Housen	I'm not sure.
00:18:53.26	Vivian Housen	rate approach. So what asset management does is it looks for, looks at the needs of the system and looks to replace assets.
00:19:05.08	Vivian Housen	that have the highest risk of failure and to even out the replacement schedule so that you can even out your funding plan and so that's what we're continuing to do with this rate study and with the cip that's included in the rate study now this um just anecdotally is called the nessi curve and it's called the nessi curve because the shape of the curve of the infrastructure looks like the shape of Nessie's hump in Loch Ness. So if you do hear that term, you'll The shape of the curve of the infrastructure looks like the shape of Nessie's hump in Loch Ness. So if you do hear that term, you'll hear it quite a bit in asset management is that we're trying to flatten out the Nessie curve.
00:19:40.54	Unknown	Thank you.
00:19:44.88	Vivian Housen	So just some background on the 2025 capital improvement plan. The city completed closed circuit television inspection of its system in 2019. It has been a continuous process, but there was a big push to really capture all the pipes that hadn't been inspected in 2019.
00:20:02.44	Vivian Housen	Issues within the system were documented and repairs prioritized.
00:20:06.95	Vivian Housen	There was about $18 million of repairs needed over the long term, but about $5 million in critical repairs identified for the next five to 10 years. And critical repairs are openings in the pipe, known infiltration,
00:20:25.91	Vivian Housen	pipe separations, issues that should be repaired because they could eventually lead to some sort of failure in the system.
00:20:38.64	Vivian Housen	And depending on the agreed rate structure, the repairs will take between seven and 10 years to complete. Right now, staff, we're we've recommended to staff to to proceed with a seven year schedule to complete the five million in repairs, which would correspond to a 5% annual rate increase as HF and H will describe further.
00:21:06.01	Vivian Housen	The goals of the pipeline replacement program are to bring the system to a standard of good repair.
00:21:12.31	Vivian Housen	And how do we define good repair? By looking at the risk of failure, and we use a numerical model for this, we're able to address the highest risk types first, therefore addressing the risk.
00:21:28.05	Vivian Housen	the greatest risks in the system early and also early
00:21:34.97	Vivian Housen	reducing the opportunity to have to spend money unnecessarily in the future. So we're really looking at the worst issues first. We're looking specifically at inflow and infiltration and through closed circuit television inspection, we can actually see inflow and infiltration coming into the system.
00:21:52.89	Vivian Housen	In light of anticipated climate change and also of subsidence that's known to occur in the gate five area, the importance of reducing inflow infiltration is heightened.
00:22:04.68	Vivian Housen	The overall goal of the program is to extend the service life, so really repair what's broken, but don't repair what's not broken, and use a surgical approach to do that.
00:22:16.21	Vivian Housen	so um for rate planning again the pipes with the structural issues that indicate potentially increased risk are being heightened and i do have some maps that follow this slide that show that
00:22:28.16	Vivian Housen	And also while implementing construction projects, our goal is also to reduce construction impacts by coordinating projects, grouping projects, trying to coordinate the work with pavement reconstruction projects, which has happened in the past five years. Consider planned outside utility projects, such as work that the underground utility owners are conducting to replace
00:22:53.66	Vivian Housen	I'm not sure.
00:22:54.50	Vivian Housen	utilities outside of water utilities and to coordinate with private replacements.
00:23:02.73	Vivian Housen	So the pipe repairs are prioritized based on inspection findings and they are grouped by area to be cost effective.
00:23:10.62	Vivian Housen	And so this map just shows all of the different colors of the map show the different defects and when the different defects are slated to be repaired.
00:23:21.06	Vivian Housen	And if you're able to see the colors on the slide, the most imminent issues are located in the southern portion of the city, and that actually correlates with the older portion of the city. So this makes sense.
00:23:38.21	Vivian Housen	And with that, Rick Simonson will discuss the rate study.
00:23:45.34	Rick Simonson	Good evening mayor vice mayor council members Rick Simonson senior vice president with HF and H consultants and working with Vivian and staff we put together
00:23:54.41	Rick Simonson	our rate study and we attached to the
00:23:58.22	Rick Simonson	agenda packet our full report but i'm just here to give you an overview of what we looked at and our recommended increase to the rates over the next three-year period so we will start off with letting you know what we are asking for tonight and what
00:24:14.64	Rick Simonson	Also importantly, what we're not asking for tonight, go through the rate study timeline of how
00:24:20.06	Rick Simonson	And what is necessary to get rates approved go into some background on how bills are calculated what the objectives of a rate study is what is a cost of service rate study. And get into some more details of your revenue requirement that Vivian has already touched on what are those expenses that need to be covered with the rates.
00:24:41.13	Rick Simonson	And lastly, getting into bill impacts, we're always asked, well, how will this impact our rate payers, as well as how do we compare to other jurisdictions? So we'll finish with that and then open it up for feedback from council.
00:24:54.60	Rick Simonson	So first, the requests and actions tonight are just for the council to take in the information and provide direction to city staff to move forward with the Proposition 218 process, which I'll get into a little more details on the next slide of what's involved in that process before rates can be adjusted.
00:25:16.72	Rick Simonson	And during this process, it will also be setting the date of the public hearing for at that time rates can be adopted if it's a desire of the council. And that is currently scheduled for June 4th.
00:25:29.31	Rick Simonson	So here we are tonight after about three or four months of working with city staff and Vivian to understand the costs and your current rates and revenues and how we can bridge that cap of any,
00:25:40.26	Rick Simonson	revenue shortfalls so again here were looking to
00:25:44.87	Rick Simonson	Get authorization to mail the Proposition 218 notice to all customers and parcels within the city to make them aware of the proposed changes to rates.
00:25:57.74	Rick Simonson	That notice needs to be mailed by this Friday, and that will allow a 45-day protest period for which those customers and parcels may submit a protest to the city if they are not in favor of the increase. The June 4th public hearing, if there's not a majority protest, which you have about 3,000 parcels, if there's not 50% plus one or 1,501 parcels at protests the city may consider the rate increases at that time does take two readings of the ordinance so that'll be scheduled for the first reading at that public hearing followed up by a second reading two weeks later and this is all in getting to the county the charges for your parcels by their July 15th deadline so it's on next year's tax roll
00:26:52.91	Rick Simonson	So a little background on the sewer enterprise fund. So the city has a separate enterprise fund, which means all revenues and expenses are accounted for specific to the system. The rates and the revenues generated from this rates can only be used
00:27:11.07	Rick Simonson	for the sewer collection system costs, the day-to-day O&M, as well as the capital costs for repairing the collection system.
00:27:19.47	Rick Simonson	The sewer collection costs are not funded by the general fund. It's by rates only. In addition, there are none of the revenues that are generated from the rates and charges for sewer that can be used for anything other than sewer and cannot fund
00:27:35.99	Rick Simonson	general city services so it's a self-contained entity revenues and expenses just for the enterprise
00:27:45.26	Rick Simonson	Reserves, again, are specific to this enterprise. If revenues exceed the cost of service during those expenses during any one year, those revenues stay within the fund for future costs.
00:27:59.43	Rick Simonson	So the collection rates, I know Vivian touched on some of this. It is collected via the property tax roll on an annual basis. Rates were last studied five years ago in 2019, and we're in the last of that five-year adopted plan. Rates were increased July 1, 2023. And also a nuance, the city provides the collection services to all customers except the floating homes. The floating homes wastewater goes directly into the collection system owned and operated by SMCSD or Sausalito Marin City Sanitary District. So the rates that we're proposing tonight do not affect floating homes.
00:28:42.71	Rick Simonson	And just to reiterate, as Vivian touched on, the collection rates that we're looking at today are for the sewer collection,
00:28:50.55	Rick Simonson	via the city service that are on the tax roll. In addition, the treatment,
00:28:55.13	Rick Simonson	of those waste waters or a separate charge by SMCSD also on the tax bill. We're just here focusing on the collection rates.
00:29:06.20	Rick Simonson	Next slide, please.
00:29:08.08	Rick Simonson	So how are these charges calculated? You currently have two components to the charges. There's a fixed component to the charge. Residential customers pay on a per dwelling unit basis, which means if it's a duplex, it's two times that fixed charge. If there's four units on the property, it's four times.
00:29:27.52	Rick Simonson	For commercial customers, you look at actual water use and compare that to the average water use of a single family customer. We call that an equivalent dwelling unit. So there,
00:29:38.61	Rick Simonson	Water use fluctuates depending on the type of business they have, and they're compared and charged one equivalent dwelling unit for their fixed charge.
00:29:48.90	Rick Simonson	In addition to a fixed charge, there is a volumetric component to the charges based on how much water you use. So your smaller customers, maybe two-person households, may discharge less water into the system. So this allows those differential costs that would be incurred by larger households versus smaller households to really reflect that in the bill. They have some control over their their bill so residential customers are charged based on their winter water use and the reason we do that is that's where there's less irrigation because the water use is based on a water meter we don't have a meter for the wastewater
00:30:26.97	Rick Simonson	So to make sure we're not including that irrigation for residential customers, you annualize their winter water use.
00:30:33.82	Rick Simonson	when it's more than likely that there's less irrigation occurring. For commercial customers that typically have a separate irrigation meter, so you just look at their full water use for the year.
00:30:44.30	Rick Simonson	multiplied by their volumetric rate.
00:30:47.29	Rick Simonson	And one question we had during this process was, well, how have the rates changed over the last 10 years? So there have been two rate studies prior to this 2024 study
00:30:57.92	Rick Simonson	in 2014 and 2019. This is a summary
00:31:01.34	Rick Simonson	over those last 10 years of the average increase. And you can see,
00:31:05.65	Rick Simonson	differ based on customer type. Because each year you do a cost of service study, you're realigning the true costs with the cost of service to each customer class. So single family customers, for example, on average over the last 10 years have increased 5.3%. The volumetric rates on the bottom of the chart, about 4% per year. Let's give some context to the recommended 5% that I'll be getting to here shortly.
00:31:33.58	Rick Simonson	Next slide.
00:31:36.33	Rick Simonson	When we conduct these rate studies, there are a few items that objectives that we do have. First, we want to provide the revenues for your day to day operations, maintenance and the capital improvements that are necessary over this next five year planning.
00:31:54.28	Rick Simonson	Period.
00:31:55.24	Rick Simonson	but also in accordance with Prop 218, we need to conform with best practices for rate setting,
00:32:01.01	Rick Simonson	so that the cost of service is, the rates are cost-based and it's equitable by customer class. We have to avoid having one customer class subsidize another. We can't have commercial subsidizing, residential, or vice versa.
00:32:16.59	Rick Simonson	In addition to the
00:32:18.12	Rick Simonson	uh,
00:32:19.41	Rick Simonson	Proposition 218 procedures and requirements
00:32:22.87	Rick Simonson	Also maintain a prudent reserve. You need cash on hand.
00:32:26.39	Rick Simonson	as
00:32:27.05	Rick Simonson	You receive revenues from the county.
00:32:29.36	Rick Simonson	Only twice a year. So you have day to day costs you need to cover. So we need to make sure there's prudent reserves.
00:32:35.96	Rick Simonson	Next slide.
00:32:38.63	Rick Simonson	Just briefly the four steps as we go through any of these process first determine the expenses that need to be covered That's the revenue requirement projections working with staff and
00:32:47.89	Rick Simonson	we looked at over the next five year planning period
00:32:51.01	Rick Simonson	And then the cost of service by customer class.
00:32:54.78	Rick Simonson	so that one class is not subsidizing another. And then your rate design, your current design, fixed charge and volumetric charge, we're not changing that.
00:33:04.95	Rick Simonson	that is a good way of making it more equitable for those smaller businesses or households that don't use as much wastewater.
00:33:15.13	Rick Simonson	And then last step, the customer bill impacts, and we'll provide some summaries of what residents can expect.
00:33:24.83	Rick Simonson	First step is looking at your costs. This is just a simple bar graph to illustrate your O&M expenses, your day-to-day operations, and administrative overheads, increasing from about 2.5 million
00:33:36.53	Rick Simonson	Last year, up to about $3.5 million by 28-29. There are two outstanding loans. There's a loan from
00:33:48.91	Rick Simonson	Let me see, 2011, that's outstanding, that will be paid off by 2032, as well as a bond, revenue bond, that was issued in 2015. That's the light green on the chart here. About 500,000 per year.
00:34:01.96	Rick Simonson	And that bond will mature in 2044. So there's still quite a few years left to pay on that debt service. And then lastly, the capital projects that Vivian has touched on. If we could fund all five years worth of the five million dollars within the next five years, you see another million dollars per year of expenses. We compare these total expenses to the revenue at current rates, and that's indicated with the solid black line.
00:34:29.80	Rick Simonson	You can see in all years there's a revenue shortfall.
00:34:33.29	Rick Simonson	if we do nothing with your rates. So that's our starting point.
00:34:36.94	Rick Simonson	And we can bridge that gap in a couple ways. So on the next slide.
00:34:41.87	Rick Simonson	What we're recommending, and we start with our
00:34:44.63	Rick Simonson	rate models is we've plugged in a 5% annual increase.
00:34:50.59	Rick Simonson	On the bottom portion with the graph here, I'll explain what we're indicating here. The solid green line, that's your reserve fund balance. So you see you're starting out with a fairly healthy reserve to pay for these capital projects that are necessary.
00:35:07.11	Rick Simonson	The solid red line is a minimum when we're setting rates and messing with that 5%. We want to keep your fund balance above that red line at all costs. That's for maintaining your day-to-day cash flow. On top of that,
00:35:22.79	Rick Simonson	annual
00:35:24.58	Rick Simonson	capital, average annual capital costs are
00:35:28.73	Rick Simonson	Added to that red line to get the solid blue line and that is our target if we can get there with the least Amount of revenue increases. We'd like to be around that blue line
00:35:40.25	Rick Simonson	So what we're seeing here is with the dotted green line, if you did nothing with your rates, you would quickly drop below that minimum balance and almost deplete your entire reserves by the fifth year. So we know some sort of rate increase is necessary. With our 5%, you see the declining green line.
00:35:57.70	Rick Simonson	So what we're doing here is
00:36:01.92	Rick Simonson	Bridging that revenue shortfall first with some reserves that have been built up to pay for these capital projects,
00:36:09.28	Rick Simonson	and with some revenue increases over the next five years. So it's a balance of reserves and increases.
00:36:17.41	Rick Simonson	What's that mean for the rates? So we've listed the annual rates here. The first column are your current rates, and they do differ by customer class. And then for the fixed charges and the volume metric, everybody pays the same rate per year.
00:36:34.88	Rick Simonson	100 cubic foot of water.
00:36:37.49	Rick Simonson	You'll see the 24-25 column. It's not a uniform 5% increase. Again, that's the year we're gonna generate an additional
00:36:46.47	Rick Simonson	overall 5% in revenue. However, it's gonna affect each customer classes rate
00:36:52.38	Rick Simonson	slightly differently. You'll see the fixed charges are coming down.
00:36:56.95	Rick Simonson	We are getting less revenue from the fixed charge except for the single family attached.
00:37:02.25	Rick Simonson	That's still going up slightly based on their recent water use patterns.
00:37:06.37	Rick Simonson	and the volumetric charges are actually increasing. So we're rebalancing that fixed and variable revenue.
00:37:14.79	Rick Simonson	For 25, 26 and 26, 27, once the cost of services be realigned, those are 5% increases to each rate.
00:37:26.63	Rick Simonson	What's the impact to customers? Well, since customers use water differently, what we've shown here is the average water use. So I'll use single family as an example on how to read this chart.
00:37:39.24	Rick Simonson	So for single family, the average single family customer uses about 125 gallons of water per day.
00:37:46.78	Rick Simonson	So their current annual charge would be $807.85.
00:37:51.62	Rick Simonson	With the realignment of the cost of service in that first year, their total bill will actually decrease slightly for $806.79. Again, this is for average water use. So you'll see a slight decrease in this upcoming year, and then 5% increases.
00:38:08.47	Rick Simonson	moving forward.
00:38:11.05	Rick Simonson	The largest impact we're seeing is on the commercial. We'll see a little bit higher increase in that first year.
00:38:17.17	Rick Simonson	How do these proposed rates compare? So we put together this chart of some of your neighboring jurisdictions. We show the city of Sausalito's current there, about the fourth from the right. And then the proposed increase would be a slight increase to the average water use customer from 1807 to 1840. Still same relative position compared to some of your neighboring agencies.
00:38:47.53	Rick Simonson	Next slide. So again, to remind, we're not here to adopt rates tonight, but to get direction to mail the notice to customers so they have
00:38:55.60	Rick Simonson	A protest period of 45 days, coming back for the public hearing June 4th to consider those maximum increases. At that time, you could do something less, just not something more than the proposed increases in the notice.
00:39:11.90	Rick Simonson	So with that, I'll open it up for questions.
00:39:20.24	Cox	Thank you for that really clear and succinct presentation. I had the benefit of seeing a preview as part of the subcommittee. I wanted to re-ask you a question I asked you before, which is, how does the volumetric component of the rates benefit smaller households?
00:39:27.22	Unknown	Thank you.
00:39:41.89	Rick Simonson	Yeah, great question. So if charges were completely fixed, regardless of how much water is actually discharged into the system, everybody would pay the same rate, smaller households, larger households. But because you have employed the volumetric component
00:40:00.01	Rick Simonson	Those that use less water and discharge less into the sewer system will have a smaller bill.
00:40:09.19	Cox	Thank you. And you showed us a chart and our neighbor, Marin City, seems to have a much lower rate than we do. And I asked you why as well. Could you please share that with us as well?
00:40:24.11	Rick Simonson	Yes, absolutely. So we've assisted the SMCSD with their rate setting and we do know with the Marin City, they have not put as much into their capital program and will need extensive repairs and maintenance moving forward. Recently they had moved that charge from it was as low as $71 just for the collection component, $71 per year
00:40:49.32	Rick Simonson	It's now $400 per year, and it will be climbing. So they haven't put as much into their capital projects, but they will be in the forthcoming years, and you'll see their charges increase.
00:41:01.81	Cox	And then finally, that chart that you showed us for the past 10 years compared to what you're now proposing. That was for a single family home, that was an average over 10 years of what, five?
00:41:15.26	Rick Simonson	5.3%.
00:41:16.10	Cox	percent for me percent and you're now proposing 5%
00:41:16.12	Rick Simonson	5.3% if I'm not mistaken.
00:41:20.17	Rick Simonson	That is correct.
00:41:21.14	Cox	Okay, and you're recommending a three-year, that we adopt a three-year plan?
00:41:29.03	Rick Simonson	We did the study for five years. That's a maximum allowed through Prop 218, and you can choose anywhere from one to five.
00:41:37.50	Cox	I know that we're considering consolidation with Sausalito Marin City sewer.
00:41:43.12	Cox	Sanitary District and so,
00:41:45.07	Cox	Were we to adopt a three-year plan, that would give them some more flexibility, assuming we accomplished consolidation by then.
00:41:53.28	Cox	True.
00:41:54.98	Rick Simonson	I would suspect so. I don't know the nuances of the negotiations and discussions at this time.
00:42:01.29	Cox	Okay, thank you. Those were my questions.
00:42:03.89	Unknown	Thank you, Vice Mayor. Councilmember Blaston.
00:42:06.22	Councilman Blasin	Yeah, thank you very much for that concise presentation. I just kind of want to get a sense of the differentiation between our 2019 rate increase and the proposed 2024 increase and whether you feel like this is a significant jump. I think it's certainly a little bit more, but it makes sense given the justifications that you've demonstrated. But could you just talk a little bit about that?
00:42:17.05	Rick Simonson	ASSISTANT.
00:42:25.47	Councilman Blasin	Thank you.
00:42:25.49	Rick Simonson	Yeah, absolutely. So the last five year rate study recommended 4% increases. So this is slightly higher than that, spending now as much as $780,000 per year in capital projects. Because of the assessment of the collection system, it does warrant putting more into the system to get it less risk on the breaking of the pipe.
00:42:25.73	Unknown	Yeah.
00:42:49.40	Rick Simonson	Though it could be higher instead of doing this over a seven year period of trying to do those repairs, it could be done over five years, but that would require a higher annual increase. But these are reasonable considering also the recent inflationary increases over the last few years.
00:43:07.14	Councilman Blasin	And from a bottom line consumer standpoint, since they're just gonna see a higher number on their rate fee, could you maybe explain what the cost would be to the consumer or the municipality? Maybe the director McGowan's better equipped to answer this if one of the pipes was to break.
00:43:20.65	Rick Simonson	you
00:43:23.32	Rick Simonson	Be happy to, yes. And just from our experience, yes, the longer you neglect something, the more catastrophic and the additional costs.
00:43:35.34	Kevin McGowan	Thank you. That is why we have a reserve fund, and that's why he was going over some of that. As if we do have a break, we do have some funds in order to cover that.
00:43:35.57	Rick Simonson	Thank you.
00:43:43.30	Councilman Blasin	Right, but the cost would be significant in terms of overall expenses if we don't make these improvements as that's true. Yes. And isn't it true that work? That's an interesting way to start the question. Is there a that there's a significant amount of deferred maintenance with regards to our sewer system at this point? Yes. Okay, thanks.
00:43:49.00	Kevin McGowan	That's true.
00:43:49.39	Kevin McGowan	Yes.
00:44:08.46	Unknown	Are there other questions?
00:44:11.97	Unknown	All right, see no questions. We'll take public comment, please. City Clerk.
00:44:25.00	Amir Sobieski	Okay did a are there any sunshine want to make a public comment on this you
00:44:26.64	Unknown	Are there any?
00:44:29.47	Unknown	You wish to make a public comment on this item?
00:44:32.22	Amir Sobieski	Okay.
00:44:34.63	Amir Sobieski	seen none
00:44:38.33	Unknown	No public comments online either, city clerk? All right. So we'll close public comment and bring it back to the dais, please, for any discussion on this issue.
00:44:47.56	Unknown	Anyone wish to be recognized? I can start. Councilman Blassey.
00:44:49.25	Councilman Blasin	can start.
00:44:50.68	Councilman Blasin	Listen, nobody likes it when we have to increase rates. No one wants to charge our residents more. No one is in favor of upping all of our fees. And in a perfect world,
00:45:01.33	Councilman Blasin	this wouldn't be something that we have to do every five years. But as was demonstrated by our very competent and well thought out team of consultants and the work from our Department of Public Works, we don't have much choice but to take action now. And the potential for significant increased deferred maintenance costs makes me want to move ahead with this at the fastest rate possible, especially given the potential for a serious climate event with climate change being a very real and serious issue right now. So as much as I would like to say, no, we don't want to raise our rates, it seems that we are essentially given no choice. And the ability to have the extra $200,000 with the 5% would significantly impact the overall effectiveness of our sewer system. So I'm inclined at this point to support the suggested 5% increase, although begrudgingly, because I don't like spending or asking for extra money from our residents. But in this situation, it appears that we're left with
00:45:57.00	Councilman Blasin	Little or no choice.
00:46:00.09	Councilman Blasin	That's where we're coming.
00:46:00.80	Cox	Thank you.
00:46:02.35	Kelman	I think the vice mayor had her first.
00:46:03.92	Kelman	Please.
00:46:04.29	Cox	Thank you.
00:46:04.80	Cox	I thank you. I endorse everything Councilmember Blaustein said. I'm,
00:46:13.67	Cox	Pleased that we've really made a concerted effort to address deferred maintenance since at least 2014, which, and through the present, and that we've maintained fairly consistent average, around 5% for our rate payers, which is better than some public agencies do, both in terms of not deferring our maintenance for an overly long time and managing our rates. And so I also endorse the proposed rate increase. I do endorse the 5% increase per year recommended. I would like to
00:46:53.90	Cox	um,
00:46:54.88	Cox	recommend that we adopt it for three years rather than five years which is a 15 percent hike rather than a 25 percent hike so and that would innate in the event that we're able to consolidate that would enable the district which is the expert to do its own rate study and adopt rates uh appropriate at that. So that would be my recommendation. And so almost over the water. Sorry. So the request was to authorize the rate increase. Oh, and I and to and I do recommend we authorize the issuance of the ballots to of the notice to the ratepayers.
00:47:41.00	Cox	Thank you.
00:47:42.20	Cox	Thank you.
00:47:42.22	Kelman	Yeah, as a member of the working group with the Vice Mayor, I just want to really thank Vivian and H&H. I entered this a little bit on the later side and you guys were really excellent. And so I just want to tell that to the public because some of the best analysis I've seen of a potential infrastructure project in a long time. So thank you for that. So I just want to endorse what the Vice Mayor and Councilmember Blausin articulated, both with the duration of the increase and the type of increase and also just reinforce what Councilman Blasene said about, this is money spent now to save us a lot of money later, given a lot of the deferred maintenance, the way our infrastructure looks today, and the increase in problems that we anticipate. So I think it's a good move for us.
00:47:42.25	Cox	Yeah.
00:48:30.21	Unknown	Anyone else?
00:48:31.24	Unknown	No other comments. All right. So I don't know that we need a motion per semo sure if you would like to a direction.
00:48:34.01	Kelman	Thank you.
00:48:34.02	Unknown	Should I make a motion?
00:48:41.60	Unknown	It was Discussion and Direction to Staff is how it's entitled. So we can offer it in the form of a motion if you'd like to be that structured. Do you want to hit your talking points? Yeah, if you can. All right.
00:48:53.56	Cox	I move we direct staff to transmit notice to ratepayers by this Friday, April 19, a Proposition 218 notice for the establishment of new sewer rates for a three-year sewer rate structure beginning fiscal year 2024-25 at the rate of 5% per year.
00:49:18.52	Unknown	I'll second that.
00:49:20.75	Unknown	Is there any other comments on that? Any discussion on this motion? Call the question on this motion. All in favor say aye.
00:49:27.43	Councilman Blasin	Bye. Bye. Bye.
00:49:28.45	Unknown	Thank you.
00:49:28.58	Unknown	All opposed? The motion carries. That is the direction on this matter. We will move on to the next agenda items. Item 5B, review of the Sausalito Municipal Code, Chapter 17.36, report and request for the City Council approval of an annual sidewalk repair program. Director McGowan.
00:49:49.71	Unknown	Thank you.
00:49:49.72	Kevin McGowan	Thank you, Mayor, Councilmembers. I have another presentation on this one who our city clerk will bring up.
00:49:56.41	Kevin McGowan	This is kind of an interesting one. I'm hoping that you might be interested in this particular topic. And it has to do with initiating an annual sidewalk program.
00:50:12.00	Kevin McGowan	There we go, great.
00:50:14.01	Kevin McGowan	so thank you sausalito as you know is an older an in an older incorporated city which was incorporated in 1893
00:50:22.34	Kevin McGowan	Thank you.
00:50:22.53	Kevin McGowan	While the city has 26 miles of roadways, not all the streets have sidewalks. Sausalito Municipal Code 17.36 notes that the owner of a real property adjacent to or fronting
00:50:37.87	Kevin McGowan	Any portion of a sidewalk area shall repair and maintain such sidewalk area in a safe and non-dangerous condition at the owner's cost and expense.
00:50:50.30	Kevin McGowan	This section of the code also references the California Streets and Highways Code, Section 5610, which states that the fronting property owner is responsible for maintenance and repair of the sidewalk.
00:51:03.97	Kevin McGowan	However,
00:51:04.97	Kevin McGowan	The cost of replacing a sidewalk can be pretty expensive.
00:51:09.02	Kevin McGowan	Assisting residents in repairing sidewalks may help implement the repairs at a faster pace and minimize any type of hazards that may be there. Next slide, please.
00:51:23.55	Kevin McGowan	Currently, in order to assist residents and decrease the possibility of sidewalk displacement, the Department of Public Works maintenance division has secured the services of a concrete cutting company. You may have seen them throughout town.
00:51:37.40	Kevin McGowan	What they do is they saw cut high points and possibly other
00:51:42.30	Kevin McGowan	Uh,
00:51:42.97	Kevin McGowan	Tripping hazards associated with sidewalks.
00:51:46.35	Kevin McGowan	Unfortunately, this effort does not completely remove the possible hazard.
00:51:51.05	Kevin McGowan	In some locations, property owners will be notified that they need to replace their sidewalk.
00:51:56.57	Kevin McGowan	Next slide, please.
00:51:59.97	Kevin McGowan	To assist residents, staff recommends developing a program to assist and incentivize property owners to repair damaged sidewalks. The idea is to partner with our residents to offer
00:52:14.21	Kevin McGowan	Uh,
00:52:15.22	Kevin McGowan	to have the city compensate property owners for 50% of the cost of the repair up to $1,000 per property.
00:52:23.84	Kevin McGowan	The funds would be available on a first come first serve basis and staff recommends setting aside a maximum amount of about $40,000 each and each year in order to support this part, part of the program.
00:52:38.14	Kevin McGowan	The city could also provide a no fee encroachment permit for the work as well.
00:52:44.95	Kevin McGowan	In addition, city staff would reach out to local concrete sidewalk contractors to secure a cost per square foot for the repairs.
00:52:56.06	Kevin McGowan	A property owner could utilize these contractors to perform the work, or they could select their own contractor to do the work for themselves.
00:53:05.37	Kevin McGowan	Based on chapter 1736, the city is responsible for sidewalks that the city-planted trees have damaged, such that a collaboration approach should be pursued to coordinate this work.
00:53:20.97	Kevin McGowan	Identifying an area in town to start the staff's review of sidewalk repairs will be needed. Repair of a sidewalk would follow a nuisance abatement process. Next slide, please.
00:53:37.72	Kevin McGowan	To initiate this program, City would develop a web page
00:53:40.96	Kevin McGowan	and associated diagrams with the intent of providing clarity for residents regarding the repair of sidewalks.
00:53:47.70	Kevin McGowan	There are still some details which we need to address, such as the cross slope and the requirements for driveway aprons, which can be problematic here in town, especially with older sidewalks. Next slide, please. Thank you.
00:54:03.59	Kevin McGowan	Our diagrams will need to reflect the sidewalk damage caused by city planted trees.
00:54:09.95	Kevin McGowan	Having a accurate list of city planted trees will be one of the tasks to develop before the program is initiated. Next slide.
00:54:20.40	Kevin McGowan	As noted earlier, the city may want to initiate a program in spit in a specific area such as on Caledonia or on bridgeway.
00:54:29.46	Kevin McGowan	DPW maintenance will walk the area and identify which sidewalks are to be replaced
00:54:35.47	Kevin McGowan	and then contact the property owners to perform the work.
00:54:39.37	Kevin McGowan	if the property owner who participates in this program
00:54:42.76	Kevin McGowan	requests reimbursement for the project, they can receive up to 50% of the cost of the repair or $1,000 maximum.
00:54:52.70	Kevin McGowan	The capital improvement program lists the project as, as you saw last time, I think it's S zero zero eight. We're anyway in the amount of $140,000, the additional $100,000 amount is to cover sidewalk damage by city planted trees and roots and other sidewalks, such as those fronting a parking lot one or even this building. So we do have some areas around this building that need to be replaced. Next slide.
00:55:23.61	Kevin McGowan	Again, Chapter 5610 of the Streets and Highways Code has been in place for some time. It requires fronting property owners to maintain sidewalks. Next slide.
00:55:34.78	Kevin McGowan	And this is just an excerpt of our municipal code 1736. And it also denotes that sidewalk damage is, uh, is the responsibility of the property owner, except in cases where a city planted tree has uplifted the sidewalk.
00:55:50.43	Kevin McGowan	In addition, curb ramps and corners are still the responsibility of the city. So if we have to replace a corner at an intersection of a street where we need curb ramps, that's still the city's responsibility. Next slide.
00:56:05.70	Kevin McGowan	All right, the intent of this item
00:56:08.36	Kevin McGowan	and possibly program impossible program is to assist property owners to repair their sidewalks and eliminate sidewalk displacements walking in Sausalito is important to the community to the community and continuing to have sidewalks with minimal displacements is important for access staff does recommend a systematic approach of reviewing and addressing sidewalks such as having a concentrated inspection program along bridgeway or caledonia or napa
00:56:37.58	Kevin McGowan	For sidewalks that are impacted by tree roots, the removal of the tree may be necessary. Replacing the tree in the exact location is usually not possible since a tree root system for a large tree is difficult to remove even with stump grinding. Nevertheless, installation of a new tree to replace the one that was removed will be pursued.
00:57:00.98	Kevin McGowan	city is still required to follow a nuisance abatement program or process
00:57:06.70	Kevin McGowan	with repairing sidewalks and will and we hope to incentivize the repairs by the city participating in the cost with the
00:57:15.82	Kevin McGowan	What will improve the walking in Sausalito?
00:57:19.46	Kevin McGowan	So with that, that concludes my presentation. And I'm here for questions and comments.
00:57:24.00	Unknown	Thank you, director McGowan questions, please for the director.
00:57:27.16	Unknown	Councilmember Blustein, and then Vice Mayor.
00:57:28.93	Councilman Blasin	Thanks, Director McGowan. So I'm excited and interested to see this initiative, but can you kind of give me an idea of where the thought process around a copayment program with residents came from, if you've seen other communities do it, or what brought you to bring this before us tonight?
00:57:44.49	Kevin McGowan	Yes, in San Rafael they have a similar program, and I believe in San Isomal they also have a
00:57:50.02	Kevin McGowan	similar program with basically the same costs.
00:57:53.45	Kevin McGowan	50% of the cost of the repair up to $1,000.
00:57:57.97	Councilman Blasin	And in those other communities, have we seen significant improvements to sidewalks or folks opting in to participate in the program?
00:58:06.15	Kevin McGowan	In some areas, yes, and in some areas, no.
00:58:09.09	Kevin McGowan	Areas such as Gerstel Park in San Rafael
00:58:12.51	Kevin McGowan	have some tree issues and it's been difficult to try to solve those in years past. However, in other areas out in Glenwood, the program was well received. And so we did move forward with that.
00:58:25.10	Councilman Blasin	And right now, in terms of improvements to our sidewalks, where does that sit in this year's CIP outside of the realm of this program?
00:58:32.88	Kevin McGowan	I mentioned it is in the CIP.
00:58:35.62	Councilman Blasin	This program is, but I mean, improvements to our sidewalks generally, are those in the CIP outside of the ones that the city is responsible for on the corners?
00:58:45.78	Kevin McGowan	Yes, I think the intent of bringing this up and to have the CIP include the $140,000 amount
00:58:53.96	Kevin McGowan	was to address not just things that come up with
00:58:58.20	Kevin McGowan	folks replacing their sidewalks and trees in the sidewalk, but also to address ours around our buildings, around parking lot one.
00:59:05.72	Councilman Blasin	Okay, and assuming we don't use the $40,000 because not enough residents opt in or choose to do this with that rollover into general sidewalk maintenance or would that just be something that goes back into our CIP or our reserves?
00:59:18.14	Kevin McGowan	I would suggest we hold it for at least a year and don't use it for anything other than having our residents being part of this program. And then next year when we come back to our capital improvement program or a budget, we can report back to you on how many folks participated and whether the program is successful.
00:59:36.84	Councilman Blasin	And
00:59:37.28	Councilman Blasin	And,
00:59:37.72	Councilman Blasin	Again, this is something that's coming out of our general fund, so we have to think about the cost overall. But this is a give to get situation where residents can opt in to have the city pay for part of their necessary repair. So from your perspective, it's a resident money saving opportunity?
00:59:53.22	Kevin McGowan	Yes, it's more of incentivizing. We need residents to help us to fix these sidewalks, and it's better to be proactive and cooperative than it is to go down the nooses and abatement process all the time and trying to get folks to do things.
01:00:09.24	Councilman Blasin	Great, thanks for bringing this before us, Director McGowan.
01:00:12.23	Unknown	Thank you.
01:00:12.24	Kevin McGowan	Vice mayor.
01:00:12.58	Unknown	Thank you.
01:00:14.42	Cox	Thank you, and thank you, Director McGowan.
01:00:16.99	Cox	This was something that was surprising to me to learn, was that the sidewalks were not primarily the cities to maintain. And I know that if someone said to me, Joan, there's a tree that's destroying the sidewalk, you now have to pay X thousand of dollars to replace the sidewalk, that would be shocking. And so I'm really pleased to hear your proposal that the city helped to defray that cost. I was interested in the inspection program that you mentioned. You mentioned key streets like Bridgeway and Caledonia, but what about streets like Edwards and other streets that really suffer from use and age. What about commencing the program with an overall city survey and identifying the most troublesome areas that would then be spot checked more frequently, for example?
01:01:14.83	Kevin McGowan	Those are all very good suggestions.
01:01:17.62	Kevin McGowan	However, with limited staff, it's hard to go ahead and analyze the full city.
01:01:24.64	Kevin McGowan	one of the recommendations that I presented was let's start with those main thoroughfares. Let's start with Bridgeway downtown. Let's start with Caledonia.
01:01:33.72	Kevin McGowan	Why? Because that's where we get a lot of our foot traffic. And that's where we may have a lot of folks coming from out of town that want to circulate through our town as well. So I'm suggesting starting in a localized area and then moving out.
01:01:48.26	Kevin McGowan	I have no objection to trying to look at the entire city. It's just that as a staff dedication for that, that may take more time to put together than simply looking at one specific area.
01:02:00.70	Cox	And then with respect to the fact that the city has to pay for the damage caused by its own trees, don't we have a lot of trees along those main thoroughfares and might that not create a good bit of expense and liability for the city?
01:02:18.67	Kevin McGowan	I think that those trees may already cause a lot of problems for the city, including liability. It's true that if we do concentrate on that area, we may find that we might have to take some of those trees out because their root systems are way too big.
01:02:36.51	Kevin McGowan	Um,
01:02:37.69	Kevin McGowan	For instance, down on lot two and three, we have some pine trees. And their roots are spreading out so much that they're going into the roadway.
01:02:45.35	Kevin McGowan	So, yes, that could definitely come forward, and we'll need to look at that.
01:02:50.26	Cox	And then final question, when we were hearing about possibilities for paving of the ferry landing,
01:02:56.45	Cox	we heard about a technique
01:02:58.68	Cox	Bill Hines mentioned
01:03:00.28	Cox	for
01:03:01.21	Cox	managing the root system underneath the ground and I'm wondering
01:03:05.33	Cox	where the city is required to remove and replace trees whether we could consider that
01:03:09.95	Cox	approach
01:03:11.03	Cox	to avoid simply repeating the same issues that is requiring their removal and replacement in the first place.
01:03:18.12	Kevin McGowan	We would be happy to work with Sausalito Beautiful and other folks in order to address tree placement and how tree placement is occurring. Remember that in Sausalito we have a lot of utilities that are right there at the same spot.
01:03:33.53	Kevin McGowan	There are always conflicts, but we're always open to new ideas, and let's give it a try.
01:03:38.79	Cox	I don't just mean tree placement, I mean management of the root systems underground. There's some system where you
01:03:45.20	Cox	the root ball is encased or it's directed in the manner that it grows. I don't recall the specifics. I just remember thinking it was a phenomenal idea.
01:03:54.69	Kevin McGowan	We'd be glad to look at that.
01:03:56.63	Kevin McGowan	Thank you, Director.
01:04:00.29	Kelman	Thank you very much. Director McGillan. So my question perhaps is for you or for Chad, which is what are the administrative costs associated with this and how exactly do we plan to administer it? Meaning we assign somebody to the project, we have the sidewalk, there's $1,000 at play, and then I got to ask for my refund. I just want to make sure that this is something we have the staff and the process implement.
01:04:26.38	Kevin McGowan	So this is similar to the same program that we have for
01:04:30.24	Kevin McGowan	Sanitary.
01:04:31.54	Kevin McGowan	our sanitary program.
01:04:33.35	Kevin McGowan	folks can request to be reimbursed for replacing part of their line, their laterals.
01:04:39.19	Kevin McGowan	It's very similar to that in that the intention is to have the property owner do the work
01:04:44.89	Kevin McGowan	And if they want to be part of the program, they need to sign up before they start the process. And they perform the work, and then they request a reimbursement for up to $1,000. As far as our staffing, we have a new assistant engineer who I'm anticipating assigning him to this particular program. Again, I'm not anticipating going all the way around the city in the first year. I'm trying to concentrate on one specific area in order to make improvements. So that staff would manage that at this point in time. I don't think that we've gone through a full detail on how much time that would take. The idea this evening is to just ask you if you are interested in this program.
01:05:31.70	Kelman	And Kevin, how much does it cost to put in a new sidewalk?
01:05:35.64	Kevin McGowan	Usually it's about, let's see, the last I checked, it's about $25 to $30 a square foot. So it can be rather expensive. That's why we have a pretty big ticket in our capital program.
01:05:47.14	Kelman	Okay, so we have some folks who have lived here for a long time and may not have the cash flow. Is there a process in your mind for an exemption?
01:05:59.06	Kevin McGowan	I don't think I'm able to make that determination. According to our municipal code, they are responsible for it.
01:06:09.22	Kelman	Sure, they're responsible for it, but asking them to replace it is a different ask for it. If I can. Yes.
01:06:14.36	Unknown	If I can, uh, uh, yes, Kevin and respond mayor and council. So let's say the $40,000 you allocate gets used up and there's a need for more. And there is absolutely, um, some cases where hardship is involved. We'd come back to you and ask you for more money.
01:06:35.30	Unknown	That's member Hoffman you have any questions
01:06:39.96	Council Member Hoffman	No, I support the program. Thanks.
01:06:43.32	Unknown	All right, so I have a couple questions, Director McGowan. Do we have a, for our streets, you have a pavement quality index, a PCI. Is there an equivalent of a PCI for sidewalks?
01:06:54.51	Kevin McGowan	I have not heard of one.
01:06:57.46	Unknown	All right.
01:06:58.96	Unknown	Thank you.
01:06:59.71	Unknown	anecdotally, the impression is that some of our sidewalks are in disrepair around time. And so if we wanted to try to get a scope on what it would cost to, quote unquote, fix our sidewalks, do we have any way of doing that?
01:07:18.12	Kevin McGowan	Um,
01:07:20.16	Kevin McGowan	It would take a quite a few hours of staff time to analyze all of the sidewalk within the city to determine if it needs to be replaced. That would be square footage to analyzing utilities, which are definitely an issue here in town.
01:07:37.34	Kevin McGowan	It's possible.
01:07:38.77	Kevin McGowan	It would just take a lot of staff time.
01:07:41.00	Unknown	So right now, can the city issue a citation under current ordinances if there's a sidewalk in disrepair?
01:07:46.86	Kevin McGowan	Yes.
01:07:46.89	Unknown	Yes. And if a resident calls City Hall and says, there's a sidewalk in disrepair, please fix it.
01:07:54.31	Unknown	Thank you.
01:07:54.35	Kevin McGowan	What happens next?
01:07:54.82	Unknown	next.
01:07:54.97	Kevin McGowan	Thank you.
01:07:55.02	Unknown	Thanks.
01:07:55.12	Kevin McGowan	Thank you.
01:07:55.33	Kevin McGowan	we'd have to notify the fronting property owner to repair it.
01:07:58.16	Unknown	Is that the standard operating procedure? Yes. So if residents began simply to
01:07:59.93	Kevin McGowan	Yes.
01:08:04.89	Unknown	report sidewalks that are in disrepair. The standing operating procedure would be that the city would then compel the property owner to fix the sidewalk?
01:08:16.71	Kevin McGowan	Yes, we'd have to issue a nuisance abatement letter to them to repair the sidewalk.
01:08:21.41	Unknown	How many of those nuisance abatement letters are written, say, last year, approximately?
01:08:24.88	Kevin McGowan	We have not done a whole lot of them in my time here.
01:08:28.94	Unknown	So does that mean you're not getting complaints?
01:08:31.25	Kevin McGowan	No.
01:08:33.28	Kevin McGowan	We are getting complaints. We have not issued a whole lot of them. We haven't received a whole lot of complaints.
01:08:40.72	Unknown	You have not received a whole lot of complaints. So there haven't been so many complaints. But I'm just trying to understand if that is actually our SOP. If you get a complaint, are we sitting on them or are we issuing nuisance abatement letters?
01:08:42.27	Kevin McGowan	Yeah.
01:08:51.99	Kevin McGowan	No, we investigate first. So, you know, there's always some nuances with this of, you know, is the raise in the panels greater than three-quarters of an inch? Then they do have to replace it. We've seen some sidewalk shaving as well. Sometimes we can address some of those for the property owners. That's a service that we have provided right now. But if that displacement is more than three-quarters of an inch and sidewalk shaving doesn't work, then yes, we would issue a nuisance abatement letter to the property owner to fix it.
01:09:22.86	Unknown	Do you have any idea in the last five years, let's say, how many trip and fall lawsuits you've had to settle?
01:09:30.94	Kevin McGowan	I think that would be a good question for our city attorney, but I think there have been quite a few.
01:09:36.32	Unknown	Okay, and I, like the Vice Mayor, was surprised. I thought the sidewalks were the city's responsibility. I have a stair slash sidewalk next to me that I might have to repair. Is there a way that we can let people know that this is something that they're responsible for? Because I think many property owners might be waiting for the city to come fix the thing that's
01:10:00.29	Unknown	Maybe they just need to be told it's their responsibility, and some of the people who have the means would get on it.
01:10:05.99	Unknown	Thank you.
01:10:06.02	Kevin McGowan	Um...
01:10:06.77	Kevin McGowan	Well, I think that's the intent of this program as well, is to put something on our website
01:10:11.39	Kevin McGowan	to kind of initiate a program to start in one area, such as Bridgeway or Caledonia, and work our way out.
01:10:16.81	Kevin McGowan	and to let folks know that this is what we have. We can put something on currents as well in order to get the word out.
01:10:23.78	Unknown	Okay, so in your staff report you said addressing all the sidewalks in Susley at one time is not practical.
01:10:30.20	Unknown	Seems real. Seems plausible. It's not practical.
01:10:34.41	Unknown	But I'm wondering you in your graph there, show I think a two block section of Caledonia. So I also, maybe I should start by just saying thank you for your leadership, for bringing this forth and bringing forward this learning you had at San Rafael. So let me say all that, thank you.
01:10:48.04	Kevin McGowan	Sounds good.
01:10:50.07	Unknown	So the question just is, why two blocks? If we're concerned is the high traffic sidewalk area, why not just say the whole, maybe not the whole city, but perhaps the high trafficked sidewalk areas of downtown and Caledonia.
01:11:05.12	Unknown	combined, sort of the high traffic visitor area.
01:11:08.71	Kevin McGowan	No particular reason. I wanted a good polygon that I could show and that was fairly noticeable to everybody. So I picked that particular area. It's down in front of Equator Coffee, and I've noticed the trees there are starting to push up the sidewalk. So when I took some pictures for this presentation, I simply drew a line around that area.
01:11:32.27	Kevin McGowan	I'm not suggesting that we necessarily pick that.
01:11:35.49	Kevin McGowan	But I think downtown or Caledonia would be a good place to start.
01:11:40.96	Unknown	You had me at Polygon. But I'll ask one last question, which is the, sorry,
01:11:42.67	Kevin McGowan	Oh.
01:11:50.31	Unknown	ambition of the city like so
01:11:54.63	Unknown	I get that this is a problem and this is a beginning of a solution, but is your ambition that, is it realistic that our residents could expect that all the sidewalks in town could actually be fixed in say the next 10 years somehow?
01:12:10.95	Unknown	I would hope so, yes.
01:12:12.97	Kevin McGowan	10-year period that would seem more reasonable
01:12:15.99	Unknown	So can you just connect the dots? What happens after this that leads to the kind of comprehensive across the city renaissance of.
01:12:24.80	Unknown	of our sidewalks is it an expansion of this program is it letting people know about their liability is it more abatement letters what's the combination that creates that
01:12:35.87	Kevin McGowan	Probably all of the above. So I'm suggesting we start in a more heavily trafficked area and work our way out. In other words, yeah, we could start on Bridgeway, but let's say next year we'd have to work our way up Turney.
01:12:50.71	Kevin McGowan	a pine
01:12:52.09	Kevin McGowan	and see if we can have the property owners fix all of those as well. So it's initiating a program, and yes, maybe next year we would have to request additional funding if it is a popular program. Regardless, I think the city still has a responsibility for addressing sidewalk displacements. Even if it is a city tree, we do need to take care of these.
01:13:15.65	Unknown	OK.
01:13:15.70	Cox	Okay.
01:13:15.80	Kevin McGowan	Thank you.
01:13:15.85	Kevin McGowan	Thank you very much. Are there other questions?
01:13:17.03	Unknown	questions. Advice, Mayor?
01:13:18.69	Cox	Thank you. You reminded me of one other question I had. When we imposed a higher business license tax, we gave a heads up to our businesses a year before we actually imposed the tax. Have you considered a rollout program that gives residents a heads up? This is like publishing it in the Currents, for example. This is a new program the city is undertaking. The city is going to subsidize, you know,
01:13:47.46	Cox	here's how it all works, but giving people at least some
01:13:53.52	Cox	heads up same once you've identified a property that needs to be repaired can we build into that some length of time that makes management of that task more feasible for those of members of our community who are retirees or on a fixed income
01:14:11.08	Kevin McGowan	Definitely, that's a very nice suggestion. And I think that we could use at least a six-month period to just get the program going and to set up our polygons of where we're going to take a look at. So I like that aspect.
01:14:28.77	Cox	Thank you.
01:14:31.16	Kevin McGowan	Thank you.
01:14:31.18	Unknown	Any other questions? All right, Mayor, before you use this thing,
01:14:32.53	Kevin McGowan	Thank you.
01:14:32.55	Unknown	Mayor, before you leave this topic, if I can, I want to add a little bit to the awareness question as well as where to start and focus your resources. Besides highly trafficked areas, areas of safety required, ADA compliance, next meeting we're going to unveil a C-click fix app. And you know my hope is that that will help inform and provide data so that the council will know You know if there are a bunch of clicks on certain sidewalk areas will have that and then we can start to Understand where we can and should put Resources but I think that that's part of awareness that's part of where and you know We're going to do a whole marketing campaign around that as well so I'm previewing that for the public so they understand that there is an ability for them to help us understand where the problems might be so thank you thank you thank you city manager
01:15:29.53	Unknown	Thank you.
01:15:29.59	Sergio	Mayor, you earlier had a question about liability for the city sidewalks. Over the last 10-year period, the city's received about 26 claims that were categorized by BCJPIA as being related to a sidewalk repair maintenance issue. So the city is averaging about 2.6 claims per year.
01:15:30.66	Unknown	Thank you.
01:15:52.16	Unknown	Thank you very much.
01:15:54.56	Unknown	City clerk, public comment.
01:15:58.81	Amir Sobieski	Sunshine.
01:16:08.01	Vince Connick	Greetings.
01:16:09.16	Vince Connick	It's not really what I came to comment for initially, but since I live across the street and there's a city tree,
01:16:15.65	Vince Connick	that is
01:16:16.51	Vince Connick	forcing the sidewalk up
01:16:18.96	Vince Connick	I was thinking, well, I could be very easily, like you say,
01:16:21.98	Vince Connick	I could be someone that could help.
01:16:24.24	Vince Connick	notify
01:16:25.51	Vince Connick	that there's a tree
01:16:26.88	Vince Connick	or a sidewalk that needs to be taken care of
01:16:29.88	Vince Connick	It reduces your staff time because you were getting calls from the residents and
01:16:38.10	Vince Connick	That's all I really wanted to say about it. I think we could do a cooperative thing and maybe even give someone a reward for notifying you about a tree that needs to be done or a sidewalk.
01:16:51.98	Unknown	Thank you.
01:16:52.69	Unknown	Thank you.
01:16:54.75	Amir Sobieski	Seeing no further, we have Mordecai Bedstein.
01:16:56.31	Vince Connick	Uh, we got to.
01:16:56.96	Unknown	I WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT.
01:17:04.83	Amir Sobieski	All right, you know what?
01:17:07.14	Amir Sobieski	I'm gonna...
01:17:12.39	Amir Sobieski	Hold on. Give me one moment real fast. Please.
01:17:20.96	Amir Sobieski	I just can do what I usually do.
01:17:24.15	Amir Sobieski	Sorry, if I can have one moment. Sure.
01:17:25.26	Unknown	Sure, please take your time, city clerk. In fact, why don't we take a two-minute bio break while the city clerk manages this IT issue, and we'll be right back.
01:18:16.06	Unknown	Thank you.
01:18:17.49	Unknown	Thank you.
01:20:41.99	Unknown	Are we set?
01:20:46.36	Amir Sobieski	Yeah, no further public speakers. No further public comment.
01:20:47.90	Unknown	No further public comment. Okay, we'll close public comment and we will bring it back to the diocese.
01:20:52.96	Amir Sobieski	Oh, actually, we do have Babette McDougall.
01:20:56.28	Unknown	Please proceed, Ms. McDougall.
01:21:00.86	Unknown	Please unmute yourself, Ms. McDougall. You're still muted.
01:21:07.35	Unknown	There you go. Thank you.
01:21:07.44	Babette McDougall	Thank you.
01:21:08.65	Unknown	Thank you.
01:21:08.67	Babette McDougall	Can you hear me now?
01:21:09.48	Unknown	We can. Go right ahead.
01:21:11.20	Babette McDougall	I don't know that you can see me even though I have my...
01:21:12.86	Unknown	We can see you as well. Please go right ahead.
01:21:14.43	Babette McDougall	Okay.
01:21:15.56	Babette McDougall	Thank you, sir.
01:21:17.18	Babette McDougall	I just want to tell you, I'm really dating myself, but I was actually sitting in that very room when the sidewalk ordinance was first introduced as a statewide initiative that might be appropriate to the city of Sausalito. And now here we are all these years later, finally revisiting it.
01:21:33.16	Babette McDougall	And I think what we need to do is revisit the
01:21:36.67	Babette McDougall	viability of the ordinance as originally written and how it may apply today.
01:21:41.69	Babette McDougall	given the increasing amount of change in density
01:21:45.41	Babette McDougall	within our neighborhoods. As you know, my home is directly above City Hall.
01:21:50.32	Babette McDougall	and I'm on a corner, and there is a stretch of sidewalk in front of me that has been destroyed.
01:21:56.51	Babette McDougall	by the cheek by jowl parking of all these pickup trucks by all the contractors that bring their vehicles and surround their homes and park whatever they can't fit around their own homes along my street because I'm one of the few flat streets, that being Girard Avenue.
01:22:14.08	Babette McDougall	As a result, a great deal of the curb has been destroyed because they drive their wheels up on the sidewalk curbs without even a thought of what the damage might be
01:22:24.02	Babette McDougall	They routinely rest their largest vehicles right over the storm drain grates. So there's a tremendous amount of difficulty in determining who's really entitled to park where.
01:22:35.66	Babette McDougall	I've had to beg people to allow me to park in front of my own access to my own home.
01:22:42.18	Babette McDougall	I mean, really, everybody says, well, I'm entitled to 72 hours here. I can stay as long as I want. I said, well, I understand that, sir, but you know what? I also am responsible
01:22:52.99	Babette McDougall	for 50% of this entire thing to the center of the road, and I pay taxes every year faithfully because I honor that commitment.
01:23:01.56	Babette McDougall	Now, if you want to talk about negotiating some portion of that tax,
01:23:05.85	Babette McDougall	responsibility, let's talk about you blocking my steps.
01:23:11.20	Amir Sobieski	All right.
01:23:11.52	Amir Sobieski	No further public comment.
01:23:14.59	Unknown	Back to the discussion, please, Vice Mayor.
01:23:16.99	Cox	I'm going to go ahead and move that we approve staff's recommendation to provide an annual sidewalk repair program to be included.
01:23:23.87	Cox	In the fiscal year 2024-25 capital improvement program in the amount of $40,000,
01:23:28.45	Cox	dollars to assist and incentivize resident participation in the program and
01:23:32.38	Cox	that we include
01:23:33.90	Cox	in our rollout, advance noticing to the community.
01:23:43.26	Unknown	We'll now have discussion on that motion.
01:23:47.26	Unknown	discussion who wants to lead off if any.
01:23:53.22	Kelman	Yeah, my only point if I can't matter is that the advanced notice, I think will have to be thought through carefully. I think there are probably many people who don't want to be told it was in currents and they didn't know about it. And so we'll have to maybe think through how we could directly inform people that they may be on this list so they can give us some consideration. I think that'd be helpful.
01:24:16.52	Unknown	Any other comments? I have one, but go ahead.
01:24:19.93	Councilman Blasin	I'm happy to see the program move forward and I would encourage all residents who are eligible to participate in the new program as it becomes available.
01:24:29.18	Unknown	I don't know. I offer it for our consideration about being a little more ambitious, even in this first step. I want to again commend Director McGowan for bringing this idea from San Rafael to our community, and it could be a first step on fixing our sidewalks. But one thought I have is that some property owners are land poor. they have a very valuable piece of property, but not great cash flow. So it is a huge calamity really, from a cash flow point of view, if they get an assessment. So if they get a complaint, and when we rolled out C, click, fix next month, there could be a lot more complaints. And if it's connected to abatement letters, you could suddenly have a lot of people who don't have the cash flow,
01:25:17.41	Unknown	having the choice between an expensive bill or an expensive citation. But conversely, there are many property owners, not a few of them, particularly in commercial areas that are absentee property owners. Trusts, corporations that have a lot of money, that simply haven't been maintaining their sidewalk.
01:25:36.73	Unknown	Maybe they don't know they need to, but they haven't been compelled by a complaint.
01:25:40.97	Unknown	And so I wouldn't like a one-size-fit-all subsidy that subsidizes the person that's in dire financial distress and someone who is not, whether it be a corporation or a person. So I do not know what other mechanisms we have in this city for helping people where they have issues with their fees or otherwise because they struggle to pay them. But I would love to, in the next round of discussion, just see what anyone else has to say about that notion. So I see the vice mayor is chomping at the bit. So what do you have any, have a slide in my comments?
01:26:19.88	Cox	Well, I would be very cautious about penalizing people who have saved their shekels and are well off, as opposed to those who are living hand-to-mouth. So I would be very cautious about the city making any program associated with sidewalk repairs equally available to all residents slash property owners. So I just would make that caution. You know, I would hate to be penalized because I've carefully saved for my retirement and I'm not broke. So that just feels unfair to me.
01:27:05.48	Unknown	Councilmember Hoffman.
01:27:07.15	Council Member Hoffman	Yeah, I would I would suggest that we move forward with the program as as presented to us by Director McAllen and then see how what we learn from this. And if we want to amend it or, you know, add to it later than I think that we can. I'm also cognizant of staff time and any additional I know they're overloaded now as it is. And so I think.
01:27:31.02	Council Member Hoffman	I think this is a really good start.
01:27:34.15	Council Member Hoffman	And I think we should go ahead and move forward. That doesn't prevent us from doing or iterating later. So that's what I would suggest at this point.
01:27:43.07	Unknown	That's very common.
01:27:43.78	Unknown	Yeah, marriage.
01:27:43.82	Kelman	Yeah, Mayor, I'll give another perspective or actually just build on what you're offering. Perhaps there is a distinction between commercial and residential property owners that needs to be examined that can help achieve some of what you're outlining.
01:27:58.65	Unknown	So I don't know if we want to fold that into this very notion or not. You know, that is kind of, this is a pilot project, right? So whatever we do is at a pilot scale. But that's the nature of pilot projects is that they then expand. So I'm just cognizant of the difference between a mom and pop that bought a storefront and a corporation that has 5,000 properties across the country and a billion dollars in assets.
01:28:01.20	Kelman	or not.
01:28:26.39	Unknown	BILLION DOLLARS.
01:28:29.80	Unknown	Thank you.
01:28:30.91	Unknown	I'm cognizant of it. I don't know where to go with that. And if we can't figure it out here from the dais, it could be something that we ask the director to consider in the future or to riff off of our other programs. Because we do, Vice Mayor, have programs, I believe, in the city for when someone can't afford a fee,
01:28:46.17	Unknown	or a penalty. So this isn't breaking new trail, it's really copying a structure we might have already for other fees.
01:28:53.71	Cox	I have no issue with Councilmember Kelman's distinction between residential and commercial. What I thought I heard you say was that our subsidies would only be available to certain segments of our population, which is the programs you're discussing are request-driven as opposed to an across-the-board program, I think. So, but I really like the idea of asking staff to, you know, consider other approaches as part of this pilot program.
01:29:27.85	Council Member Hoffman	I think maybe it's a, oh, sorry. Please go right ahead.
01:29:29.71	Cox	Thank you.
01:29:29.72	Unknown	Thank you.
01:29:29.74	Cox	Thank you.
01:29:29.79	Unknown	Please go right ahead.
01:29:31.56	Council Member Hoffman	I think maybe it's a let's roll it out and see how it goes and have staff come back in a year and tell us how it went.
01:29:39.60	Council Member Hoffman	and then whatever problems have come up. There are like, with regard to people that can't afford,
01:29:48.81	Council Member Hoffman	pursuant to citation, right?
01:29:50.50	Council Member Hoffman	I mean, there are avenues to address that. And then the inequities that we've sort of
01:29:55.71	Council Member Hoffman	touched on up here, but without any metrics or any sort of analysis.
01:29:59.73	Council Member Hoffman	I think the staff, when they come back,
01:30:03.39	Council Member Hoffman	at the annual, one year annual from the rollout, they'll be able to get some really good information at that point, and if we need to amend or move forward in a different way. But I think this is a great program. I think it's simple. It's only $1,000 per person, right, per whatever the match. So it's not a windfall to anybody. At least I don't see that it is a windfall. And then let's just see how it goes.
01:30:27.47	Unknown	So let me ask you this, would my colleagues be in favor of, in that sense of getting information and doing this trial, of having Director McGowan keep good stats on the complaint resolution around all the sidewalk complaints that we get? I think that's gonna be, oh sorry. Just as a report, connecting it to either it was fixed or it was an abatement letter that led to a penalty or it was a complaint that led to an application under this program. But just that we don't have a PCI for our sidewalks and we don't have a method of doing it, but we could start keeping track of our own data.
01:30:41.61	Council Member Hoffman	I think that's going to be.
01:30:42.66	Council Member Hoffman	Thank you.
01:30:42.93	Council Member Hoffman	Oh, sorry.
01:30:43.57	Unknown	Thank you.
01:31:01.29	Council Member Hoffman	I think that would be part of the report that he comes back at the annual, right? I mean, that would just be what you report on. I agree with you, but I think, yeah.
01:31:09.39	Council Member Hoffman	Thank you.
01:31:09.40	Unknown	Yes, Mayor.
01:31:10.48	Council Member Hoffman	Okay, thanks.
01:31:10.55	Unknown	Thank you.
01:31:12.27	Unknown	Any other discussion on this? All right, we have a motion that's been seconded. We'll call the question. All in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed? All right, the Vice Mayor's motion carries. We'll move on to the next agenda item, which is the consent item that was pulled off of the consent calendar. This is item 3C, receive and file a status report regarding the Ferry Landside Improvement Project.
01:31:17.67	Kevin McGowan	Thank you.
01:31:17.71	Council Member Hoffman	Bye.
01:31:17.89	Unknown	Bye.
01:31:40.96	Unknown	Director McGowan, are you presenting this
01:31:43.96	Kevin McGowan	item
01:31:44.91	Unknown	Or is there a presentation?
01:31:46.87	Kevin McGowan	There is not a presentation. This was a consent item at this point in time.
01:31:48.23	Unknown	This was a great day.
01:31:50.27	Unknown	Okay, so the floor is open for questions of Director McGowan. I see Mr. Hines is here as well, Vice Mayor.
01:31:57.26	Cox	Thank you. I was actually pleased to see this item pulled because I also had some questions on this.
01:32:05.36	Cox	In the staff report, it makes mention that staff has identified an additional funding source and noted that source on the draft capital improvement program submitted to the council on March 19, but it didn't say what that funding program was. I'm assuming that was the Tidelands Fund?
01:32:22.91	Kevin McGowan	Yes, it's noted in the Capital Improvement Program on 4-2,
01:32:26.91	Kevin McGowan	and Tide Lens program is what's noted.
01:32:29.71	Cox	And then I think as part of considering using the Tidelands Fund, we at some point asked
01:32:35.40	Cox	to know how much is in the Tidelands Fund. I think I asked how much is in the Tidelands Fund
01:32:40.70	Cox	and what are the pending obligations against the Tidelands Fund. So when and if we...
01:32:46.44	Cox	decide to
01:32:49.32	Cox	call upon the tidelands fund, will you be able to provide us with that data?
01:32:53.76	Unknown	Thank you.
01:32:53.79	Cox	Thank you.
01:32:53.83	Unknown	Thank you.
01:32:53.91	Cox	Thank you.
01:32:53.98	Unknown	Right.
01:32:54.10	Cox	Yeah.
01:32:54.48	Kevin McGowan	Our finance director is standing behind me.
01:32:56.63	Cox	All right, I wasn't gonna take the time right now, but fine.
01:33:00.10	Cox	Yeah.
01:33:00.48	Director McGowan	Yes. And the tight lens fund, we currently have over a million dollars available. I don't have any intended use for those funds at this per at this point in time.
01:33:09.37	Director McGowan	The cash flow of that fund increases about $300,000 each year, so there is available funds in the future as well.
01:33:18.23	Cox	Thank you.
01:33:21.67	Cox	Um...
01:33:25.64	Cox	Your recommend, your, so our direction to staff on, in February was to,
01:33:39.57	Cox	Direct staff to make construction level drawings of the phases that can be funded by the grant.
01:33:45.68	Cox	and
01:33:46.41	Cox	We directed staff to identify phases of the plan that can be built within the budget of the grant.
01:33:52.60	Cox	Your staff report today is proposing that we prepare construction drawings for the entirety of the project, not just what we think we can afford today, and that we consider going out to bid for the entirety of the project.
01:34:14.68	Cox	And so your staff report today seems to be abandoning the direction we gave in February that you come back to us with a phasing plan.
01:34:23.35	Kevin McGowan	No, not exactly. We've received an additional engineer's estimate or an estimate of
01:34:29.22	Kevin McGowan	from SWA stating that all of these phases can be included in the grant amount.
01:34:34.50	Kevin McGowan	Therefore, we're moving forward with the design of all of the phases based off of SWA's estimate.
01:34:40.29	Cox	But did you not say to me in an email that you take the accuracy of the estimate with some level of reservation because you've not seen the details and because we are never sure of the cost of a construction project until we bid it?
01:34:52.78	Kevin McGowan	That's true.
01:34:54.01	Cox	And isn't the estimate we received today considerably lower than prior estimates that we've received?
01:34:59.93	Cox	Thank you.
01:34:59.98	Kevin McGowan	Yes.
01:35:00.96	Cox	Okay, so I think that's why we wanted to have a phasing plan
01:35:07.06	Cox	and I can't speak for my fellow council members, but I think that's why we were seeking a phasing plan.
01:35:12.79	Cox	so that we're not stuck
01:35:14.73	Cox	if the base bid is for the entire project without alternates, as you discussed in your staff report,
01:35:23.39	Cox	and we can't afford the base bid that comes in,
01:35:26.66	Cox	That's not the direction we gave. We wanted to be sure that we could actually get moving on something without having to reject all bids and come back.
01:35:34.97	Cox	And so
01:35:36.37	Cox	it,
01:35:36.91	Cox	It seems to me a better course, wouldn't you agree, it's a better course of action to have a discrete base bid, which is what was described to us on February 6th, and have the ancillary projects such as Tracy Way and other aspects as alternates, where you also get the bid prices. If we can afford all of it, hallelujah. But if we can't afford all of it, isn't it better to at least have a base bid that we can proceed with immediately?
01:36:05.54	Kevin McGowan	I think I'm on the same page as you. However, the way you've stated this is in order to get bid alternatives, you have to design something.
01:36:14.96	Kevin McGowan	So we have to design these alternatives in order to get bids for them. Even if they're separated out from the base bid, we still have to design them.
01:36:23.62	Kevin McGowan	So my proposal,
01:36:25.09	Kevin McGowan	is to go ahead and design these phases. Get another estimate from BKF for each phase. At that point in time, you can decide what is the base bid amount and how do you make that work with the amount of the grant funding.
01:36:40.24	Cox	And so what is the incremental cost that we will pay to the architects to design the entirety of the project, as opposed to the direction that we gave on February 6th?
01:36:52.20	Kevin McGowan	You've already approved BKF's design. They are already moving forward with that.
01:36:57.99	Cox	we approved the design concept, we did not approve
01:37:02.23	Cox	preparation of construction drawings for the entirety of the project, specifically
01:37:08.00	Cox	our motion,
01:37:09.18	Cox	at bullet 1, 2, 3,
01:37:11.74	Cox	Bullet 2 was,
01:37:13.36	Cox	can prepare construction level drawings of the phases that can be funded by the grant.
01:37:19.07	Kevin McGowan	And how am I to obtain that without designing something?
01:37:23.35	Cox	Mm-hmm.
01:37:24.15	Cox	That wasn't an issue that you raised when we gave direction on February 6th. So I'm certainly— I'd be glad.
01:37:31.30	Kevin McGowan	I'd be glad to do whatever it is you'd like me to do.
01:37:34.85	Cox	Well, I just would like to know the differential. I'd like to know, I guess, what it is that we're gonna-
01:37:40.11	Unknown	Can you help educate us on the process? Because I think that's where the vice mayor is just going. And I think you're trying to answer it. But just elaborate a little bit on how you get
01:37:48.73	Unknown	how you do a bid document, maybe educate us all.
01:37:51.35	Cox	Well.
01:37:52.55	Cox	I obviously know how to do a bid document. I'm a construction lawyer, but I'm asking,
01:37:56.63	Cox	What is the cost to the city
01:37:58.67	Cox	to have an architect provide construction-level drawings of all phases.
01:38:04.83	Kevin McGowan	That cost has already been approved through BKF. I can look up their cost to find that out. I think it was $116,000 was their latest amendment.
01:38:13.88	Kevin McGowan	and they are design engineers, not architects.
01:38:17.59	Cox	Fair enough.
01:38:24.05	Cox	Um,
01:38:30.08	Cox	and then I wanted to ask about the submission to BCDC.
01:38:33.76	Cox	Your staff report said it was anticipated that the project
01:38:37.06	Cox	Documentation will be sent to BCDC on April 9th.
01:38:40.00	Cox	I wanted to find out if that happened and what the status of review is.
01:38:44.45	Kevin McGowan	Yes, we have submitted that to BCDC. We probably need another week for them to catalog it and see where they stand with it.
01:38:51.78	Kevin McGowan	We've alerted their staff that this is coming and met with them prior to submitting.
01:38:56.08	Cox	A prior staff report said their typical review time is three to six months. Have you discussed with them what the specific review time for this permit will be?
01:39:04.87	Kevin McGowan	They have not told us what that would be. They have not been specific. When we've talked to their division manager, she said that she gave me the standard answer, which was six to nine months.
01:39:17.18	Cox	And have you communicated to Golden Gate Bridge District that our project could be delayed three to six months while awaiting a permit from BCDC?
01:39:25.66	Kevin McGowan	I'm not sure if that's considered a delay, but we are meeting with Golden Gate Bridge Highway Transportation District
01:39:33.27	Kevin McGowan	and will convey that to them.
01:39:35.37	Cox	I think it's important, you know, we got another letter April 2 from them
01:39:39.67	Cox	about time is of the essence. And so I just want to make sure that they understand that we're at least three to six months out from being ready to put shovels in the ground.
01:39:50.27	Kevin McGowan	unless we can ask BCDC to move it quicker, which we are anticipating doing.
01:39:55.60	Cox	Thank you.
01:39:58.37	Unknown	Councilmember Blastie.
01:39:59.67	Councilman Blasin	Great, thanks. Hi, Director McGowan. Nice to see you on this issue again. I appreciate the report that you've included. I wanted to follow on Vice Mayor Cox's questions here just to kind of get to the bottom of this. So we approved construction level drawings in the February meeting, correct? Yes. And would it be possible to bid any phase of the project without those construction level drawings?
01:40:19.53	Kevin McGowan	Yes.
01:40:25.91	Kevin McGowan	No, you still need construction level drawings in order to get a construction base.
01:40:29.08	Councilman Blasin	Right. So there's no way for us to know the cost of phases A through G
01:40:33.96	Councilman Blasin	whether or not we choose to engage in them at any point or time without the construction level drawings, correct? And at this point, you're just asking us to go forward with the construction level drawings, and then we can talk as a council again about the phases, if they are outside the realm of the 1.8 as suggested by the architects group.
01:40:51.71	Kevin McGowan	Okay.
01:40:52.44	Kevin McGowan	Yes.
01:40:53.04	Councilman Blasin	Okay, so again, it's not...
01:40:54.93	Councilman Blasin	authorization necessarily outside of the realm of what we had approved in February, but rather as part of the overarching funding that we've already approved, they will do these phased drawings. Yes. Okay, great. I just wanted to clarify that it's putting those drawings forward so that we can decide if we are going to engage in the phased approach and we have them whether or not we move forward at whatever phase of the project.
01:41:05.31	Unknown	And the.
01:41:05.82	Unknown	Thank you.
01:41:16.43	Kevin McGowan	Yes, you will have the details on each one of the pieces, and we can decide, you can decide,
01:41:21.92	Kevin McGowan	on which piece would be considered as a base bid
01:41:25.12	Kevin McGowan	compared to a bid alternative.
01:41:26.51	Councilman Blasin	So you're trying to empower us to use our money as effectively as possible. Yes. Thank you, Director McGowan.
01:41:30.29	Kevin McGowan	Thank you.
01:41:30.30	Unknown	Yes.
01:41:30.35	Kevin McGowan	Yes.
01:41:30.51	Unknown	So,
01:41:33.14	Unknown	Thank you. Is there a council member Hoffman?
01:41:36.90	Council Member Hoffman	Thank you. So just a follow-up on a couple of questions from Councilmember Blaustein. So I notice one of the reasons I brought this up last week with the CIP where this was listed was because there was some discrepancy between
01:41:51.72	Council Member Hoffman	what the council had approved in February and March 19th
01:41:56.65	Council Member Hoffman	staff report, which was an update. And so going forward, I think it would be really helpful for all of us to adhere to what was actually directed by the council on February 6th, 2024, to have
01:42:12.25	Council Member Hoffman	have a verbatim transcript from that, or at least the bullets, verbatim bullets of what we approved, right? Because I'm looking at the minutes right now. They could be a little bit clearer,
01:42:23.19	Council Member Hoffman	as Councilmember
01:42:25.40	Council Member Hoffman	Councilmember Cox just pointed out, you know, two was that we wanted to have phases that can be funded by the project. And then further down, there were bullet five is, you know, to solicit private and public sources for additional funding to construct the phases that cannot be paid by the grant, such as raising Tracy way.
01:42:47.39	Council Member Hoffman	So I was surprised in the March 19th staff report
01:42:50.97	Council Member Hoffman	when raising Tracy Way as part of the local professional group was recommended as phase two of the plan. And so my concern with the staff report from March 19th, as we discussed it last week, the CIP discussion was that it seemed to me that the direction of the council
01:43:11.79	Council Member Hoffman	was not being followed as we move forward through this plan. And that's why I was further confused by the staff report because it didn't, alternately in the staff report, it looked like we were gonna just do
01:43:24.50	Council Member Hoffman	one bid for the entire project. As you've explained now, we're going to do
01:43:29.24	Council Member Hoffman	Um,
01:43:30.45	Council Member Hoffman	as I understand it, we're gonna do bids for each of these A,
01:43:37.02	Council Member Hoffman	A through A.
01:43:38.27	Council Member Hoffman	I suppose, and I will note, okay, so A through F, and then there's G as well. Are we gonna do, are we intending to do, include G as part of the,
01:43:52.46	Council Member Hoffman	part of the drawings and part of the bid requests?
01:43:54.77	Kevin McGowan	I think the complexity of, let's see, it says landscaping and site furnishings is part G. Okay.
01:44:03.86	Unknown	Yes.
01:44:03.90	Kevin McGowan	Yes.
01:44:04.61	Kevin McGowan	So those particular pieces, they are integral to the project.
01:44:10.19	Kevin McGowan	But I'd suggest that as our design team looks at this, that they include the furnishings and landscaping for each component and don't separate them out into a separate component.
01:44:22.26	Kevin McGowan	separate piece. In other words, on Part A and Part D and E, those would be integral to those costs.
01:44:30.19	Council Member Hoffman	And so, but they would be called out separately in that bid when it comes back. Like the bid for section E would include whatever portion of it is for trees and furniture and things like that.
01:44:41.43	Kevin McGowan	Hard for me to say right now. Let's see how the bids, how our design engineer splits it out. And I would say, yes, you're correct, but it would still be integral to a part of each one of these components.
01:44:54.96	Council Member Hoffman	Okay, I would request that that be separated out. I would I would request that it still be that G section G still be separate, or it be itemized in those sections that are contiguous to those, those new phases. No problem. You know, I will note that these are different. These are this this dry and another reason why this was confusing, right? This drawing on page two of the staff report
01:45:10.02	Kevin McGowan	No problem.
01:45:19.04	Council Member Hoffman	is different than what we saw on February 6th.
01:45:21.74	Council Member Hoffman	Thank you.
01:45:21.79	Council Member Hoffman	So I went back and looked at, I'm looking at it right now, the February 6th drawings that we received from the architect group,
01:45:21.83	Unknown	So I was like,
01:45:27.19	Council Member Hoffman	Don't include Tracy Way.
01:45:29.25	Council Member Hoffman	None of the drawings, your drawings, their drawings, they don't include Tracy Way.
01:45:34.10	Council Member Hoffman	And so now Tracy Way has
01:45:37.59	Council Member Hoffman	been added back in and raising Tracy White.
01:45:40.64	Council Member Hoffman	has been added back in. And I would request that that just be removed. I don't know why
01:45:47.49	Council Member Hoffman	Tracy Way,
01:45:49.22	Council Member Hoffman	We specifically said Tracy Way wasn't part of our direction
01:45:52.37	Council Member Hoffman	And now it's been included in a consent item staff report.
01:45:57.28	Council Member Hoffman	So if we're deviating from direction that was given by the Council on February 6th, then I would seriously request that that...
01:46:08.40	Council Member Hoffman	Every time something's added that we didn't direct,
01:46:11.32	Council Member Hoffman	that slows us down.
01:46:12.84	Council Member Hoffman	So when we have to pull things off the consent calendar, I know we're going to get criticized because we've got some critical issues
01:46:19.59	Council Member Hoffman	emails about the council approved the plan. We did not approve.
01:46:25.65	Council Member Hoffman	specifically the plan. In fact, Council member
01:46:28.53	Council Member Hoffman	Kellman very specifically said the Council approved the design concept
01:46:33.18	Council Member Hoffman	But this is not a commitment to build this exact design. As a project moves forward through construction phases, public safety assessments, resilience and funding,
01:46:41.56	Council Member Hoffman	the design will evolve.
01:46:43.82	Council Member Hoffman	So this is what we're doing.
01:46:46.10	Council Member Hoffman	we're going through this evolution,
01:46:48.06	Council Member Hoffman	But now,
01:46:50.37	Council Member Hoffman	a new section has been added back in. And so can you tell me how Tracy Way as C is now part of this plan?
01:46:59.90	Kevin McGowan	I think I might turn that over to Bill Hines, who brought that up.
01:47:04.73	Kevin McGowan	But
01:47:06.79	Kevin McGowan	It's a good question and we will remove it.
01:47:09.91	Cox	Can I ask a follow-on question before we hear from Mr. Hines?
01:47:12.71	Council Member Hoffman	I do have one. Let me ask one other thing. And I'm looking at the staff report from February 6th.
01:47:14.15	Cox	Amen.
01:47:19.87	Council Member Hoffman	I'm looking at the estimates from that report.
01:47:24.85	Council Member Hoffman	And it was
01:47:26.82	Council Member Hoffman	on page on slide 10 of that of the staff report.
01:47:31.70	Council Member Hoffman	Tracy Way, not Twicy Way, but Tracy Way remains the same.
01:47:39.48	Council Member Hoffman	And even without even taking Tracy Way out, $310,000 of additional funding is needed.
01:47:47.10	Council Member Hoffman	You know, this is...
01:47:49.35	Council Member Hoffman	And I'm not clear if over on Humboldt, there's a red box around it
01:47:55.68	Council Member Hoffman	And I'm not sure if that was supposed to be removed or not.
01:47:59.20	Council Member Hoffman	it's still in our plan as well.
01:48:05.04	Council Member Hoffman	Do you have an explanation why even without Tracy way in February, additional $310,000 was requested?
01:48:13.89	Kevin McGowan	Was I requesting that in February? I don't believe so.
01:48:16.75	Council Member Hoffman	I don't believe so. It's on page 10 of your
01:48:19.62	Kevin McGowan	I was suggesting that that would be a preliminary estimate for it. We can still decide on whether to add that at a later point in time.
01:48:26.69	Council Member Hoffman	Well, this was the revised estimate with Tracy Way,
01:48:30.57	Council Member Hoffman	it looks like it was an additional 800,000, but without Tracy Way, it was an additional 310,000.
01:48:36.63	Kevin McGowan	Yeah, I think the idea was to try to get you an order of magnitude, because that was probably the intent of that meeting is to say, OK, where are we ending up at this point in time?
01:48:45.46	Council Member Hoffman	Okay, so I don't have any further questions. I'm happy to pass, but I do have a follow up, I think.
01:48:51.90	Unknown	Any other, let's give a follow up. If it's narrow to this. It's very narrow to what we just said.
01:48:52.63	Council Member Hoffman	Let's give a follow up.
01:48:55.77	Council Member Hoffman	It's very nice.
01:48:56.04	Councilman Blasin	narrow to what we just said.
01:48:57.31	Council Member Hoffman	Thank you.
01:48:57.39	Councilman Blasin	Just to follow up on that, a lot of the questions that came up were around the potential evolution of the construction and what the design would look like. So construction level drawings would help us clear up some of those questions, right? Yes. Okay, so then we would be able to see better what that evolution would look like. And if we had construction level drawings of Tracy Way, we would be able to determine the actual cost of Tracy Way. Yes, we would get an estimate for it. Just wanted to clarify.
01:48:57.76	Council Member Hoffman	Thank you.
01:49:19.41	Unknown	Yes, we would get an estimate for it.
01:49:21.89	Unknown	Councilmember Kelman.
01:49:23.26	Kelman	Thank you Mayor. Thank you Director McGowan. How about we just pull chat up because I actually have questions about the Thailand's fund instead. Give Kevin a break here.
01:49:33.82	Kelman	Thank you. So Chad and maybe Sergio, you're available as well. I'm wondering, I just wanna be totally clear, what the basis is for use of Tidelands money on this project because those are very specific as you know and we all know. Expand on construction, repair, operation maintenance of harbors, stadiums, maritime museums, beaches, waterways and related facilities.
01:49:57.85	Kelman	Thank you.
01:49:58.19	Kelman	Is it you guys? Yeah. Sergio, what's the basis for using these monies?
01:50:00.10	Unknown	Thank you.
01:50:00.16	Sergio	What's Sergio?
01:50:00.84	Unknown	What does that mean?
01:50:05.29	Unknown	We can't hear you.
01:50:06.61	Kelman	We're missing all your good stuff.
01:50:09.31	Sergio	I'm trying to pull up the exact provision of the public resources code that governs that. So give me a,
01:50:15.10	Kelman	Okay. So while you're looking that up, and so, Chad, you had said earlier, I think, that this fund increases by $300,000 every year. And can you just articulate where that revenue comes from?
01:50:16.72	Sergio	It's a,
01:50:25.29	Director McGowan	Yeah, so we have primary tenants, the Spinnaker, Sausalud Yacht Harbor,
01:50:30.34	Director McGowan	and
01:50:32.21	Director McGowan	I'm drawing a blank on the other one, sorry.
01:50:34.27	Director McGowan	Spinnaker, Slossalutti Yacht Harbor,
01:50:36.40	Director McGowan	SCOMAs, Trident...
01:50:39.16	Director McGowan	and I'm drawing a blank on the other one, but primarily it's going to be Spinnaker.
01:50:45.03	Kelman	And has that been consistent influx of revenue over a five, ten-year period?
01:50:49.94	Director McGowan	It's been building fund balance for a number of years.
01:50:53.91	Kelman	but we could expect $300,000 annually for the next five, 10 years?
01:50:57.83	Director McGowan	Yes, for the foreseeable future.
01:50:59.92	Kelman	Okay, and we have, what did you say, a million in there right now? We have over a million in there now. Okay, sorry, I'm just killing time for Sergio to find the resources coach.
01:51:02.23	Director McGowan	We have over a million in there now. Okay.
01:51:05.52	Director McGowan	There we go.
01:51:05.84	Sergio	Yeah.
01:51:08.95	Kelman	Did I do it?
01:51:10.53	Sergio	No, not quite. Trying to see if I can find it in my
01:51:15.38	Sergio	Okay. I just want that to be part
01:51:15.41	Kelman	Okay, I just want that to be part of the record for this hearing, what the basis is.
01:51:21.67	Kelman	Because it could be used for maintaining riprap and other flooding that we're experiencing and other things, right?
01:51:33.77	Kelman	Okay, I'm happy to, if someone else wants to use the time, and we can come back.
01:51:37.75	Unknown	I think the Vice Mayor wanted to ask a question.
01:51:40.49	Kelman	Thank you.
01:51:40.50	Cox	My question was actually of Director McGowan.
01:51:44.25	Cox	Sorry, Hannah.
01:51:44.59	Sergio	And I should be able to find it. Yeah, no problem. Sorry, I should have asked.
01:51:46.24	Cox	Yeah, no problem.
01:51:47.98	Kelman	before the meeting, sorry about that.
01:51:48.55	Cox	Sorry about that.
01:51:50.71	Kelman	But it was quoted in something else. I didn't have the actual code.
01:51:54.32	Cox	Thank you.
01:51:57.26	Cox	So, Director McGowan, Council Member Hoffman was asking you about Tracy Way and some other aspects of the project that we had specifically said hold off on. I realize that the local professionals group would prefer to prepare construction drawings for the entirety of every prospective phase and get bid quotes and provide cost estimates for the entirety. But were you clear on the direction from the council that the phases initially were not to include Tracy Way?
01:52:31.75	Kevin McGowan	I am now.
01:52:33.19	Cox	Okay, but you weren't clear on February 6th?
01:52:36.01	Kevin McGowan	Apparently not.
01:52:39.26	Unknown	Okay, so I directly think that's incorrect. The motion, and I'll just read it in full into the record. The city council hereby authorized the following approval
01:52:39.92	Kevin McGowan	Thank you.
01:52:39.94	Cox	Thank you.
01:52:51.56	Unknown	approval of the local professional groups recommended plan.
01:52:55.97	Unknown	Thank you.
01:52:56.52	Unknown	direct staff to make construction level drawings of the phases that can be funded by the grant.
01:53:02.52	Unknown	direct staff to identify phases of the plan that can be built within the budget of the GGTHB grant.
01:53:11.15	Unknown	Authorize staff to solicit private and public sources of additional funding to construct phases that cannot be paid with the grant, such as raising Tracy way.
01:53:19.95	Unknown	Exactly, so how can the raising and changing of Tracy Way not be part of the design and yet be part of the motion? Because we specifically-
01:53:20.02	Rick Simonson	Exactly.
01:53:28.52	Cox	Because we specifically excluded it.
01:53:31.20	Unknown	It's not in the motion. That motion specifically excludes it. No, it doesn't. It says so. So.
01:53:31.57	Cox	It's not in the motion. It specifically excludes it. No, it doesn't. It says such as raise money for other aspects of the project that Cannava built such as Tracy Way.
01:53:36.96	Unknown	So...
01:53:40.65	Unknown	So we, thank you vice mayor. I appreciate the back and forth, but that's not what the plain English says. So I see that the council member Hoffman agrees, but the motion is calling you in a moment. So I think that that will come as a big shock.
01:54:02.44	Unknown	to all the people here and a fair bit of surprise.
01:54:09.95	Unknown	In your reading of this motion, it sounded like back in February 6th, you thought the plain language of this when we approved the local professionals group plan, the local professional groups plan included modifications to Tracy way. It sounds like you interpret that to mean that modifying Tracy way was part of the local professional groups plan. Is that true?
01:54:28.97	Kevin McGowan	That was part of their plan, but I'm glad that we're talking about it now, and I welcome your clarification.
01:54:35.66	Unknown	Okay.
01:54:37.98	Unknown	So.
01:54:39.14	Kelman	I think we need to ask questions of staff and bring it back to council for discussion when we can.
01:54:45.18	Unknown	I'm trying now to get this state of mind to play. I'm living in a Kafkaesque world where words don't have meaning apparently. So yeah. All right, so let me ask Mr. Heinz since you did some of these estimates.
01:55:04.76	Unknown	Just was the raising of Tracy way a part of the plan?
01:55:10.85	Hines	Yes, it was. You know, initially there was some concern that we would not be able to fund it with the budget. You'll see attached to the staff report our recommendations for how to bid this project out within the current budget.
01:55:27.22	Hines	And you'll see as a part of that that we have worked with city staff to develop a solution with a permeable gravel paving that we can use to raise Tracy Way.
01:55:39.25	Hines	that's going to be substantially less money than the 300 some odd thousand dollars that was originally quoted to do it in concrete.
01:55:45.95	Hines	And it's also something that could be
01:55:48.82	Hines	you know, undone later or allow for continued evolution of downtown.
01:55:55.15	Hines	But absolutely, it can include raising Tracy Way.
01:55:59.31	Hines	And if for whatever reason,
01:56:01.41	Hines	That doesn't play out.
01:56:03.13	Hines	we're instructing staff to include that as a deduct alternate.
01:56:08.12	Hines	so that that would reduce the base bid cost, but
01:56:11.28	Hines	We do think that there's a project here for $1.89 million. And I'm a little confused as to why there's so much conjecture over this, because we sharpened our pencils in order to develop an estimate that would get us to that standpoint. So it's great to be able to express this, because you guys have enlisted my expertise and have paid for my time on this.
01:56:40.30	Unknown	The vice mayor has a follow-up question.
01:56:41.38	Cox	Yeah, we were never, so it was not communicated in the March report or this evening's report that you had come up with a different means for constructing Tracy Way that would bring it within the budget. So in the plans I'm looking at on the screen, the plans, Tracy Way was hatched out as not being included in the base project, in the plans that were provided to us on February 6th because of cost. And so if you've come up with another way to include it within the budget, that's brilliant, but that was not communicated to us. And I also find it notable that you just said that you have instructed staff
01:56:41.44	Hines	Thank you.
01:57:20.13	Cox	to do something. And that's really our role to instruct staff as opposed to the local professionals group.
01:57:26.71	Hines	Forgive me, I've offered my suggestions to staff.
01:57:29.49	Cox	Thank you.
01:57:30.88	Unknown	Can you elaborate on this design element for the permeable surface? I just follow you.
01:57:34.98	Cox	Thank you.
01:57:35.00	Kelman	Actually, I had a minute.
01:57:38.98	Kelman	At some point, maybe we go back to the city attorney for my question.
01:57:42.62	Sergio	Yeah, so I have, I have located it. It's public resources, uh, code 6306, um, all revenues from trust lands and trust assets, um,
01:57:53.39	Sergio	shall be expended only for those uses and purposes consistent with the public trust for commerce, navigation, fisheries, and the applicable statutory grant.
01:58:01.94	Sergio	Pulling up the 1957 statutory grant for the city of Sausalito of the Tidelands, it says that the lands shall be used by the cities and its successors for
01:58:11.78	Sergio	The establishment improvement and conduct of a harbor.
01:58:14.67	Sergio	David David David David David David David David David David David David David David David David David David David David
01:58:37.85	Sergio	And the city shall not at any time grant, convey, or give away those lands.
01:58:43.00	Sergio	you know, subject to restrictions. So the thought here is that this parking lot is part of the Ferry Landside project, which, you know, is
01:58:54.46	Sergio	at least in part provides parking and facilities,
01:58:58.78	Sergio	for use of, you know, for the ferry, which is navigation and commerce by water.
01:59:06.78	Sergio	So it does fit within the purposes of the statutory grant, and it's consistent with the public trust uses because it will be used by the public.
01:59:15.76	Kelman	Thank you, Sergio.
01:59:17.81	Unknown	Councilman Hoffman, you said you had a question for Mr. Heitz.
01:59:20.08	Council Member Hoffman	Well, I yeah, it is a question from Mr. Hines because I'm looking at your drawings right now from the that were attached to.
01:59:28.58	Council Member Hoffman	attached to the meeting on February 6th. Tracy Way is not part of your plan. And so I'm confused now by
01:59:36.98	Council Member Hoffman	Thank you.
01:59:37.10	Council Member Hoffman	these claims that closing Tracy Way and well closing Tracy Way because we're doing
01:59:41.93	Council Member Hoffman	at the head of Tracy Way, we're redoing the crosswalk
01:59:44.98	Council Member Hoffman	And
01:59:46.57	Council Member Hoffman	probably gonna block it off, right? It looks like.
01:59:49.61	Council Member Hoffman	So we did view that, and we did agree on that, but we specifically...
01:59:54.99	Council Member Hoffman	did not consider any type of change to the street,
01:59:59.01	Council Member Hoffman	of Tracy Way
02:00:00.74	Council Member Hoffman	I think that would have to be noticed in a different way.
02:00:04.69	Council Member Hoffman	with the city council and it would have to be, and it certainly, we certainly didn't have that discussion at that meeting and then,
02:00:13.11	Council Member Hoffman	Are you saying that you presented a plan on February 6th that included Tracy Wade? Because I'm not seeing it.
02:00:19.43	Hines	We, as a part of that meeting, you know, we submitted drawings, and then we also had a presentation. I'm looking at both. The drawings do not show raising Tracy Way when they were submitted as the original, you know, package of drawings. Upon further review, however, and when we presented the presentation, we stated that we recommended seeing if it's possible to raise Tracy Way within this next phase of work because Tracy Way doesn't serve vehicles. So we found a cost-effective way of adding permeable paving to Tracy Way to achieve that objective.
02:00:19.76	Council Member Hoffman	as opposed to the
02:00:26.48	Council Member Hoffman	I don't know about that.
02:01:02.57	Hines	Uh,
02:01:03.60	Hines	Madam Vice Mayor, I share your laments. One of my frustrations standing here is that I don't write the staff report. And so it is often hard for me to convey in either technical terms or layman's terms how I would approach this.
02:01:23.15	Sergio	And if I can supplement that particular point.
02:01:26.89	Sergio	To the extent the city wants to permanently close Tracy Way to vehicle traffic, there are requirements either that it would have to follow either in the vehicle code or in the pedestrian model act of 1960 to effectuate a permanent closure.
02:01:39.97	Sergio	Thank you.
02:01:40.06	Sergio	and create that into a pedestrian mall. So there would be additional requirements and procedures for the city to hop through if the intent was to permanently close Tracy Way to vehicle traffic.
02:01:50.70	Council Member Hoffman	Okay, thank you.
02:01:52.80	Council Member Hoffman	Thank you.
02:01:54.62	Council Member Hoffman	I don't think I have any further questions for staff. Thank you. Are there other questions here?
02:01:57.25	Unknown	Are there other questions here?
02:01:59.43	Unknown	Vice Mayor? So just, if you don't have a, do you have a question? No. So Mr. Hines, if you just walk through, since this is what you do for a living, how the city can most cost effectively consider what it should actually authorize the expenditure of funds for, in terms of implementing the design that we approved on February the 6th.
02:02:04.15	Council Member Hoffman	Thank you.
02:02:04.19	Unknown	Well,
02:02:25.63	Hines	Right. I think my advice would be, first of all, that the list of elements shown in the plan is not a list of phasing or a list of items to be priced separately and then to be decided whether they're done or not.
02:02:40.48	Hines	So
02:02:41.48	Hines	There are general conditions that go along with this project.
02:02:45.44	Hines	You know, there's a certain amount of cost that goes along with that.
02:02:49.11	Hines	And at a certain point, you can pull stuff out and you're not going to realize the savings of completely
02:02:54.24	Hines	you know, not doing an area.
02:02:56.62	Hines	So, you know, our approach is really working to review the estimate and kind of review quantities to make sure that they're in line with what we estimated. Through that process, we saw that an example was the city currently moves the bike racks around. Well, the cost estimator had included an allotment for relocating bike racks. Well, if that's something the city does, then that's something that we can accept for savings in this estimate. So we've identified a few of those items. We had made a suggestion that we could include the Humboldt Street bike parking paving material as asphalt for this current phase, which would be substantially cheaper and a little less permanent, obviously, than concrete.
02:03:43.07	Hines	And then we had identified the lighted component of the bollards that may end up contributing six figures to the cost. And our advice was that it would make sense to pursue those as an alternate. So I think with kind of structuring these alternates and kind of how we've taken the current design and have made recommendations on how to bid it, we have a strategy to achieve what we want to achieve for the base bid.
02:04:18.04	Unknown	So what's the most definitive estimate? Is it your estimates or is it a bid from a contractor to actually build the thing?
02:04:23.32	Hines	It's always going to be the bid from the contractor to estimate this. However, in this case, we worked with a third-party cost estimator that specializes in developing an estimate at the exact date when you're going to construction.
02:04:40.97	Hines	So,
02:04:41.87	Hines	In this instance, our estimator could tell us that you could actually save over $50,000 by starting the project this fall rather than waiting to go out to bid in the spring.
02:04:53.98	Hines	We all know that cost escalation is a significant component of these projects.
02:04:59.84	Hines	And when you factor in the inconvenience of starting a project in the spring
02:05:04.43	Hines	bleeding into busy tourist season.
02:05:07.35	Hines	Um,
02:05:08.44	Hines	That's one of the reasons that we've circled the wagons and have pursued getting the BCDC permits and getting this project moving so that we can save more money and have more of that money be spent on the actual project.
02:05:24.29	Unknown	And what's the best way, if we get bids that are in excess of what our budget is, what would the city do in that event?
02:05:32.66	Hines	We're recommending including a DDocked alternate, so there's something that could be pulled out of the project scope in order to achieve that.
02:05:42.11	Unknown	So the path the city is on is to get bids for the whole project that we approved, including adding a permeable service to Tracy Way. And if elements of the project are more expensive than we have a budget for, then they would provide alternate bids for removing those elements.
02:06:01.48	Hines	Yeah, I think if you didn't have the budget to pave Tracy Way and the permeable paving, that that would drop the corresponding bid number low enough so that it would be in the range of what we're forecasting.
02:06:18.34	Unknown	Thank you.
02:06:20.69	Unknown	Councilmember Hoffman.
02:06:21.97	Council Member Hoffman	Thanks. So this is your recommendation, Mr. Hines, that we move forward with one bid for the entire project. And then if it doesn't come back within the grant proposal or what's left of the grant proposal, which I think we're down to less than a million, right? No.
02:06:40.24	Council Member Hoffman	More than 1.8 or something now, right?
02:06:40.36	Hines	Sorry, more than a second.
02:06:43.40	Council Member Hoffman	So, but that's different than what's,
02:06:45.51	Council Member Hoffman	I have heard from the staff. And so I wanna be clear about who's directing what
02:06:51.90	Council Member Hoffman	And
02:06:53.52	Council Member Hoffman	you know,
02:06:55.19	Council Member Hoffman	it.
02:06:55.85	Council Member Hoffman	you know, what we're being presented with here today, because the staff report seems to indicate that
02:07:01.93	Council Member Hoffman	the staff is recommending that we do it
02:07:04.83	Council Member Hoffman	we get bids for the discrete phases and then we can decide how we want to move forward depending upon how much each of these
02:07:12.90	Council Member Hoffman	Um,
02:07:14.10	Council Member Hoffman	each of these costs and my
02:07:16.46	Council Member Hoffman	information today was that
02:07:18.62	Council Member Hoffman	from Director McGowan via email was that this estimate will be broken into parts
02:07:23.41	Council Member Hoffman	such that if the sum of those parts exceeds the grant allocation, we can separate pieces as directed by the Council.
02:07:31.75	Council Member Hoffman	So it seems to me that there's a difference in what you're representing,
02:07:36.73	Council Member Hoffman	and what Director McGowan is representing that the staff is recommending.
02:07:42.29	Hines	There is a difference. I have looked at breaking them down into the areas and the kind of granular analysis
02:07:52.16	Hines	you know, that's stated in the staff report. For purposes of bidding the project, though, it really makes, I would not advise bidding every phase of these as separate elements. It really just doesn't make sense. It's gonna be complicated and I think that it's going to be very difficult to move forward unless you're targeting a number for a base bid and then some alternates to either go slightly above or below that number.
02:08:22.19	Council Member Hoffman	Thank you. And so as I understand it, the local professional group meetings have been completed.
02:08:27.94	Hines	Yes.
02:08:28.63	Council Member Hoffman	And Mayor Sobieski also participated in those meetings?
02:08:34.20	Hines	He has attended some of those meetings, yes.
02:08:38.86	Council Member Hoffman	And oh, sorry, this is a question for you.
02:08:44.09	Council Member Hoffman	Okay.
02:08:44.88	Council Member Hoffman	Okay, I think, how are you recommending that we move forward with a bid?
02:08:52.76	Council Member Hoffman	for closing Tracy away without going through the process that was outlined by our city attorney just now?
02:09:01.54	Hines	I don't even know how to respond to that.
02:09:03.23	Council Member Hoffman	but would you,
02:09:04.46	Hines	I mean, you have to go through your own process.
02:09:06.65	Council Member Hoffman	Right. But why would we bid that before it's even been approved or we haven't gone through the process of that for the city? I mean, that seems
02:09:12.44	Unknown	Mr. Hines is a design consultant to Director McGowan. He's not in charge of this project. So I think that's a question for-
02:09:13.65	Council Member Hoffman	Thank you.
02:09:17.11	Council Member Hoffman	So I think that's a question for- Mr. Hines is standing here in front of us recommending that we
02:09:22.97	Council Member Hoffman	We approach this from a different way than what the staff is recommending.
02:09:26.87	Council Member Hoffman	He's inserted or the group, somebody,
02:09:30.01	Council Member Hoffman	The professional group has inserted
02:09:32.02	Council Member Hoffman	Tracy Way.
02:09:33.50	Council Member Hoffman	into this plant, back into the plant, and now it's before us to bid out.
02:09:37.28	Council Member Hoffman	So I think this is a fair question.
02:09:38.49	Unknown	This is not the report to that. This item is receive and file a status report regarding the Ferry Landside Improvement Project. It sounds like you're not satisfied with the report, but it's not for any other purpose. That's what this agenda item is. Oh, I disagree. And it's simply not the case. Well, I don't want to argue with you
02:09:49.01	Council Member Hoffman	I disagree. And it's simply not the case. Well, I don't want to argue with you. I'm asking Mr. Hines questions. If you want to discuss that during our discussion, I think that's fine, but I don't think that's
02:09:55.03	Unknown	I'm...
02:09:57.29	Unknown	I'm directing your question to the appropriate party who is our-
02:09:59.81	Council Member Hoffman	I don't think it's appropriate, Mayor, for you to interrupt me or argue with me when I'm trying to ask questions from the person that's standing up here that's been presented to us as the professional.
02:10:11.33	Council Member Hoffman	and is directing
02:10:13.68	Council Member Hoffman	Thank you.
02:10:14.07	Council Member Hoffman	things that are appearing in staff reports that we didn't approve.
02:10:19.72	Council Member Hoffman	I don't know who else to ask this question of.
02:10:22.76	Unknown	You wouldn't ask him a legal question, you'd direct to Sergio. I think he's a professional.
02:10:25.81	Council Member Hoffman	I think he's a professional and would you ever recommend a design for a portion of a plan
02:10:33.20	Council Member Hoffman	that you know, we now know that has not been approved and needs to go through a legal process? He may not have.
02:10:38.00	Kelman	he may not have known, right? And so I think that's helpful to have Sergio inform that, and I think you were just giving a design component to it, but I've learned, I didn't know what the process was, so I just take it as you did your piece of it, and
02:10:50.74	Council Member Hoffman	Thank you.
02:10:50.80	Unknown	your
02:10:58.15	Unknown	City manager, did you come up for a reason?
02:11:01.03	Unknown	Thank you.
02:11:01.06	Unknown	Right?
02:11:01.33	Unknown	Thank you.
02:11:01.50	Unknown	Thank you.
02:11:01.52	Unknown	Thank you.
02:11:02.26	Unknown	Just to say that.
02:11:03.53	Unknown	This is a team effort for sure and some things are fluid and if this trace away information, which is new to me as well, is important, then that's what we'll consider as we go forward. But the important thing is I heard there's a clock ticking that's been clicking since 2014.
02:11:20.99	Unknown	2017 2024 and we spent time and money on this and so in order to do the things we need to do like check with BCDC which we are doing in order to get the bid package out and then come back to you and say you know what bill's estimates were great or they were off and we have to come up with a different decision at that point but we need to get the bids out that's the important thing so that we can start the project so we don't interrupt the things that are happening in Sausalito in the springtime and that we don't jeopardize a $2.4 million grant. So I would recommend that, you know, you let us noodle around the Tracy Way issue, which I think is valid, but we got to get a bid packet out.
02:12:07.21	Unknown	Are there other questions?
02:12:10.12	Unknown	Thank you, Mr. Hines. We'll open public comment now. City Clerk, would you kindly call for anyone in the audience who wishes to make a public comment and online?
02:12:19.01	Amir Sobieski	Start with Peter Van Meter.
02:12:29.12	Unknown	Well, the good news on this status report is that the sharp pencil estimate most recently made shows that you can do the entire project on the estimate within the available funds, including the Tracy Way. So as Mr. Hines has pointed out, you need to go to the 90% drawings. BKF is working on those. You've authorized that expenditure already. Get those bid documents out.
02:12:51.16	Unknown	and look at D-Dougs or, you know,
02:12:56.30	Unknown	there's another word for that, but deletes, I guess it is, for some phases that are maybe over budget.
02:13:03.37	Unknown	But you have a good estimate that looks like you can do the entire thing.
02:13:06.65	Unknown	So let's not argue about what's included or not included, because the good news is,
02:13:10.87	Unknown	The whole thing that the council once voted unanimously for
02:13:14.39	Unknown	All right.
02:13:14.95	Unknown	It can be done. It looks like it can be done.
02:13:18.12	Unknown	So, gosh, let's move ahead. Push BCDC to get their approval right away.
02:13:23.39	Unknown	Get these specs out by August.
02:13:26.14	Unknown	Get this construction going in September.
02:13:29.01	Unknown	And let's get this done this winter.
02:13:31.08	Unknown	and have a beautiful ferry landing project. Thank you.
02:13:36.79	Amir Sobieski	Next speaker is Patty Bot.
02:13:46.52	Bot	Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for reading my submission probably three or four times today. I appreciate that. Thank you so much.
02:13:55.67	Bot	I'm just gonna go ahead and reread the letter. I know some of you have read it, maybe not everyone. On behalf of the Sausalito Yacht Club leadership, we're writing again to implore
02:14:07.31	Bot	that you address our real and justified objections to the concept designs that impact Sausalito Yacht Club.
02:14:14.54	Bot	It seems that there is a discrepancy between the February 6th and the March 19th drawings that we saw. So that's leading us to present some of these comments. The designs, if implemented, materially impact public safety by directly creating a substantial conflict between bicycle, pedestrian, automotive at our driveway for parking. Facility access, loading dock, trash removal, and emergency access to the dock.
02:14:44.24	Bot	Furthermore, the revised proposed design
02:14:47.48	Bot	inherently appears to eliminate a number of our parking spaces and
02:14:52.39	Bot	potentially our junior sailing boat storage.
02:14:55.37	Bot	Finally, we've discussed the proposed design with our insurance provider who has confirmed our insurances will be raised to account for a rather egregious public safety risk. Please note our insurance does include the coverage for the club and our use sailing program. We ask you don't take any further action on this initiative until such time as SYC can retain a professional and unbiased analysis of the concept designs to date in Order to seek all options to avoid dangers and unnecessary public safety safety risks finally
02:15:31.50	Bot	We really want to reiterate the position of Sausalito Yacht Club. We do not object to the scope of the ferry land site
02:15:40.53	Bot	landside improvements as defined by the grant. We object to the severe impacts to SYC, reasonable enjoyment and function of our premises. Thank you.
02:15:51.72	Amir Sobieski	Next speaker, Kay Mitzel.
02:16:01.05	Mitzel	Hi everyone, I'm Kaye Mitzel. I am a 40 plus year resident here and I first of all will agree with our Commodore from the Yacht Club of our concerns about the safety.
02:16:10.87	Mitzel	of our club and the impact that it does have on our members being able to access, which will impact the revenue that we pay the city.
02:16:20.22	Mitzel	part of our rent is based on revenue. So that's what we do. As a resident, I'm concerned about closing Tracy Way
02:16:29.15	Mitzel	just for more plaza. I think that there's plenty of space for plaza.
02:16:33.64	Mitzel	Moving the bikes over to Humboldt does not seem like a good idea to me, in my humble opinion.
02:16:39.41	Mitzel	I can't imagine all those bicycles. The other day, there must have been six huge buses parked there. How is that going to work?
02:16:47.17	Mitzel	I don't understand it. You've heard me say this a number of times. I'm going to take my minute and go sit down. Thank you. I'm glad you're reconsidering this, and I'm glad that the council has raised these important questions again. Thank you.
02:17:02.07	Amir Sobieski	Jim Gabbert.
02:17:10.68	Unknown	Good evening. I'm here representing the Sausalito Chamber of Commerce. And we had a wonderful session with Bill back at their place.
02:17:23.37	Unknown	Obviously they were looking, as the city council was looking for the
02:17:28.40	Unknown	Chamber of Commerce to endorse this project. And I've asked for just very little things right now. This, to me, is very responsible. What we need is we would like to have copies. I understand there's seven different elements. We would like copies of the bids and the alternative bids of each one of the seven elements. And that's the only request at the moment we have.
02:17:55.24	Unknown	It's just responsible for us to endorse this thing. We've got to make sure this is being done right. And that, I mean, it just doesn't make sense to say this is what it's going to cost when there are seven different elements to it. And all we'd like to have are the bids on those seven elements. Thank you.
02:18:15.22	Amir Sobieski	Kit Hayes.
02:18:25.72	Hayes	Hi there. Thank you, City Council for everything you've done and your service. It's not doesn't go unnoticed in the community. So thank you. It's a gigantic undertaking.
02:18:36.77	Hayes	I just wanted to come up and give a comment in support of the Fairylandslide project. I continue as a resident here to be so excited about this, and I know it's excruciatingly difficult,
02:18:47.69	Hayes	to get these sorts of projects off the ground as evidenced by all the different conversations and confusion and
02:18:53.31	Hayes	We're here, we're there, we're everywhere, and I just want to encourage the council to continue to work together and find common ground
02:18:59.12	Hayes	to get this project executed and break ground this fall.
02:19:03.40	Hayes	no further delays, the more that we can just get to the bottom of things.
02:19:06.98	Hayes	Thank you.
02:19:07.05	Hayes	come together on what the staff report says or doesn't say so that we can just
02:19:11.37	Hayes	move ahead, get bids and break ground in the fall. I'd really love to see this project come to life. I think it holds great potential for
02:19:19.48	Hayes	beautifying our city and modernizing it. It's a great compliment to everything that's happening at the SCA. It'll look great when the ferry comes in. There's just like endless pluses to this on top of it being paid for with grant money. So let's make it happen. Thank you.
02:19:35.55	Amir Sobieski	All right. Sharna Brockett.
02:19:47.24	Brockett	Hi, I'm Sharna Brockett and I'm a resident of Sausalito. And I'm also a member of the Yacht Club.
02:19:53.39	Brockett	I love the club and I really love its junior sailing program. I'm a sailor myself. I learned here in Sausalito as an adult. And so I really appreciate that part of Sausalito and the club. With that said, I do not agree with the club's latest letter and their attempt at what I see as derailing this project.
02:20:14.23	Brockett	It looks to me also from looking at the minutes from February 6th to be a repeat of what we already considered at that meeting. It was in their lawyer's letter. You've already seen this information.
02:20:27.29	Brockett	But I did note that there was some added confusion to this latest letter.
02:20:31.94	Brockett	Basically, the letter said, and I think they just said it here, that it would eliminate parking spots in their lot and possibly the boat storage for the junior sailing program.
02:20:41.99	Brockett	I don't know, but I've looked at the plan and it keeps the same footprint. So that to me is confusion and it's not true.
02:20:47.83	Brockett	For the rest of the letter, you've already heard the Yacht Club's opinion, as I said. You've also heard on February 6th many Yacht Club members who disagreed with their own leadership. You have already heard from 100 plus residents who are in support of this plan. And more residents, I can tell you, are getting excited every day about it.
02:21:08.16	Brockett	You've already heard from a third-party independent unbiased traffic engineering consultant,
02:21:13.98	Brockett	He presented to you on February 6th as well about the safety benefits of the wider sidewalk, improved sight lines,
02:21:21.81	Brockett	The importance of creating an intersection at the SYC entrance and the benefits of a crosswalk. After all this input and Q and A, you made a five to zero informed decision to approve the plan.
02:21:32.81	Brockett	The yacht club entrance will be wider, better, and safer after all of this. So we're on the cusp of losing the grant. Let's go forward. Let's approve this. Let's get it out to bid, and then we can discuss what happens after we get the bids. Thank you.
02:21:49.03	Amir Sobieski	Adrian Brinton.
02:21:57.92	Brinton	Hi, thank you. Adrian Brinton. I'm a South Slater resident and also a Yacht Club member. Yeah, I saw the letter as well from the Yacht Club today, and when I was reading it at first, I thought they were talking about the current conditions. It feels very unsafe there today. When you go in and out of the parking lot, there's often quite a melee right in front of the parking lot, in front of the Yacht Club. When I've driven in and out of there, I felt it's dangerous in its current situation. Looking at the plan, it looks so much safer to have a wide driveway that's clearly marked, that has a crosswalk, that has plenty of room for everybody to use the sidewalk as they see, you know, as we're planning to have them use it, unlike today. So, you know, again, I think to echo the last speaker's comments, a lot of that information came out as part of the decision when the decision was made, 5-0, to move forward with the design.
02:22:46.41	Brinton	Let's keep it moving forward. Let's not get off track.
02:22:49.07	Brinton	Everybody seems to be saying the same thing. We want to get this project done. Everybody knows we need to get it done within the budget, within the grant, and if we can't do it within the grant, there will be pieces that come in the future.
02:23:00.85	Brinton	Everybody's trying to work towards that.
02:23:02.60	Brinton	So as we
02:23:03.40	Brinton	pick apart all these different process things.
02:23:06.03	Brinton	it risks delaying and we risk losing the fifty thousand dollars that we get from not getting the project off the ground in the fall
02:23:12.31	Brinton	So, you know, everybody's clear what we need to do. Let's keep moving forward. Let's get ground broken in the fall. You know, as also the last speaker said, we've got a ton of people really excited about this.
02:23:23.97	Brinton	More people are getting excited about this every day. You know, 100 plus people turned out last time.
02:23:28.95	Brinton	I think if this comes back again and there's questions about what are we doing, are we going to do this, are we going to do that, maybe we shouldn't do this, maybe we shouldn't do that, you know, I can see 200 people showing up here to support this. This is a really, really popular project. I'm super excited about it and really excited to see it break ground in the fall. Thank you.
02:23:47.71	Unknown	Any other comments in the audience?
02:23:48.45	Amir Sobieski	Yeah, we have some people via Zoom, Senator Bushmaker.
02:23:56.32	Sandra Bushmaker	Hi again.
02:23:58.04	Sandra Bushmaker	A couple of things I wanted to say. First of all, I agree with Commodore
02:24:03.05	Sandra Bushmaker	Patty's comments.
02:24:06.43	Sandra Bushmaker	rerouting of the traffic in front of that Yacht Club is asking for trouble. You're mixing pedestrians, bicycles, and cars.
02:24:12.70	Sandra Bushmaker	where we should be separating them.
02:24:14.48	Sandra Bushmaker	So I think that's a problem.
02:24:16.45	Sandra Bushmaker	I also so I would I would like you to respect her request.
02:24:21.06	Sandra Bushmaker	so that the club can get the appropriate information. I've been a member of that club since the mid-80s. I raced for years and years. I spent a lot of time in the club. I served on the Rules Committee for three years just recently.
02:24:35.37	Sandra Bushmaker	And so I'm very,
02:24:36.68	Sandra Bushmaker	involved in the club.
02:24:38.81	Sandra Bushmaker	the club's well-being.
02:24:41.00	Sandra Bushmaker	Secondly, the point that I'd like to bring up is to remind you what the scope of the grant is. The grant is to improve and enhance pedestrian and bicycle access routes to the shoreside Ferry Plaza Promenade.
02:24:56.75	Sandra Bushmaker	That's the purpose of the grant.
02:24:58.84	Sandra Bushmaker	It's to optimize vehicle, pedestrian, and bicycle flow.
02:25:03.58	Sandra Bushmaker	So let's not forget the cars. That's part of the grant. And I have requested of the city manager to ask the grantor, the federal government,
02:25:13.72	Sandra Bushmaker	scope of this
02:25:15.63	Sandra Bushmaker	plan that was approved
02:25:17.62	Sandra Bushmaker	in concept as to whether or not it fits the grant application.
02:25:22.36	Sandra Bushmaker	The grand scope, if you will.
02:25:24.58	Sandra Bushmaker	I'm concerned that Tracy Way is outside the scope of the grant application and the Humboldt Street improvements are outside the scope of the
02:25:33.40	Sandra Bushmaker	the language of this grant. So I would request if the city
02:25:37.79	Sandra Bushmaker	can connect with the grantor of this money.
02:25:41.30	Sandra Bushmaker	and ask them as the Golden Gate Bridge District is the pass through agency, not the granting agency. And let's get clarification on this. Thank you.
02:25:52.66	Amir Sobieski	Next speaker, Steven Woodside.
02:26:04.03	Woodside	Hi there.
02:26:06.12	Woodside	It's about...
02:26:08.11	Woodside	getting close to 10 p.m.
02:26:10.41	Woodside	And I just want to let you know that I appreciated the mayor's comment that this seems very Kafkaesque.
02:26:16.90	Woodside	I'm not sure.
02:26:17.61	Woodside	My understanding of Kafka is that
02:26:20.58	Woodside	He wrote many novels that were
02:26:23.25	Woodside	nightmares, night,
02:26:25.78	Woodside	nightmarishly complex.
02:26:28.26	Woodside	very bizarre.
02:26:29.59	Woodside	and had a very illogical quality.
02:26:32.51	Woodside	And I have to say that
02:26:33.97	Woodside	Much of what I've heard in the cross-examination of your very competent staff
02:26:38.57	Woodside	strikes me as very Kafkaesque.
02:26:41.47	Woodside	Sorry to be so blunt, but...
02:26:44.19	Woodside	This was all decided in February. It's very clear to those who are in the audience, and I think clear to those who support the project,
02:26:52.24	Woodside	that
02:26:53.84	Woodside	This should be good news.
02:26:55.33	Woodside	that the staff and your consultants
02:26:58.20	Woodside	have come up with an idea that will perhaps allow
02:27:01.59	Woodside	MR KIRBY, I think that's a good question.
02:27:02.15	Woodside	this project to go forward at lesser costs with more involved in it.
02:27:06.20	Woodside	That should be good news.
02:27:07.76	Woodside	Instead, what I hear is relentless cross-examination
02:27:11.38	Woodside	that seems to have no purpose other than to obfuscate the point.
02:27:14.92	Woodside	that this was decided in February.
02:27:17.10	Woodside	Please move forward.
02:27:19.00	Woodside	This is very frustrating to have to
02:27:20.81	Woodside	have to look at a consent item, come off consent,
02:27:23.98	Woodside	with really very little notice in what the issues were.
02:27:27.63	Woodside	And they have to stay up until 10 o'clock at night to nightmare.
02:27:31.27	Woodside	Thank you.
02:27:34.58	Amir Sobieski	Next speaker is Beth Swirke.
02:27:41.74	Unknown	Thank you.
02:27:42.16	Unknown	I'm very blurry. Stand by. I don't know what. Oh, there we go. Hi, I'm Beth Swerke. I'm a resident of nine years. Thank you for
02:27:51.91	Unknown	having this conversation, though, I have to say, I've been at the February meeting.
02:27:56.36	Unknown	I feel like I'm experiencing deja vu.
02:27:58.93	Unknown	We have these conversations, we heard these arguments, and you voted this through, all five of you.
02:28:04.25	Unknown	I am a new citizen to getting involved in local politics.
02:28:08.78	Unknown	February was my first meeting.
02:28:10.74	Unknown	I left inspired.
02:28:12.87	Unknown	I left excited, I left wanting to get involved, and I join you tonight
02:28:17.12	Unknown	Disappointed?
02:28:19.50	Unknown	pretty discouraged. This is why people don't get involved in local politics, to see us
02:28:25.37	Unknown	just
02:28:26.69	Unknown	swirling and spinning circles. This is so disappointing. I just have to be really honest about that. It's clear.
02:28:32.80	Unknown	that you
02:28:33.69	Unknown	people are trying to stall this that are trying to take back what was approved
02:28:37.69	Unknown	And like, come on, let's go.
02:28:39.53	Unknown	I know Tracy Way was talked about because I was the one who
02:28:42.38	Unknown	Didn't know we had a pedestrian walkway until that night.
02:28:45.18	Unknown	So that was a big conversation and
02:28:48.42	Unknown	This is such a positive thing. We all left. I know you guys said too. The mayor wrote a note the next day how inspiring and beautiful that was.
02:28:55.46	Unknown	Don't take that away from us, please.
02:28:57.40	Unknown	This is something that's been approved. Let's go.
02:28:59.95	Unknown	Let's use the fall. Let's use the right time. Let's use the grant money.
02:29:03.70	Unknown	And let's get people like me more inspired to want to be involved and to participate. Thank you.
02:29:10.75	Amir Sobieski	And final speaker, Mary Griffin.
02:29:21.74	Griffin	Hi.
02:29:22.80	Griffin	Thank you everyone on the city council. And I would also just like you to urge you to move forward
02:29:28.76	Griffin	Mr. Hines has done his work.
02:29:31.34	Griffin	He's determined that within the scope, this is totally normal professional practice. And then you have something called deduct alternates that you can identify things that you can take out of the bid
02:29:42.93	Griffin	if you need to.
02:29:44.42	Griffin	You don't break it into little components that usually raises the price. It'd be like cooking something with pricing each ingredient or something.
02:29:52.26	Griffin	So this is the way you do develop a design and move it forward.
02:29:56.55	Griffin	And I think to go back and reconsider all these things about the design, the design is developing
02:30:03.10	Griffin	to a better design.
02:30:05.05	Griffin	And it supports what you voted for
02:30:07.91	Griffin	So please proceed and get the information you need.
02:30:12.97	Griffin	had progress made and let's continue to make progress and get this built as soon as possible.
02:30:19.01	Griffin	Thank you.
02:30:19.03	Amir Sobieski	Thank you.
02:30:22.39	Amir Sobieski	All right, no further public comments.
02:30:24.24	Unknown	Okay, we'll bring it back to the dais. Who wants to start? Vice Mayor.
02:30:28.44	Cox	Thank you. I do want to thank Bill Hines for the extraordinary investment of effort and volunteer work that he's contributed to this.
02:30:42.94	Cox	You know, I appreciated what you said, Bill, about it would have been nice if you could help write some of the staff reports because had I known
02:30:51.27	Cox	at the outset tonight, what I learned from you, that you had changed the design, the design has evolved, and for that reason, it's less than what it was initially anticipated to be, I would have approached this entirely differently, so.
02:31:10.07	Cox	Apologies for the cross-examination you endured, and thank you for your contribution to the city ongoingly on this and various other projects.
02:31:20.50	Cox	Um,
02:31:21.97	Cox	We have a history of approving projects that end up costing a lot more than we anticipated. It happened with our parks, it's happened with other facilities throughout town, and so
02:31:32.92	Cox	once burned three times shy.
02:31:37.34	Cox	Personally, I am very vigilant to ensure that however we bid a project and however we put it together, it's something that we can build within our budget. And that's something I've stood for since discussions back in 2020 about this project. So that's where I'm coming from.
02:31:55.62	Cox	I appreciate the fact that sharp pencils were used, but I would appreciate the council having an ability to weigh in. So, for example, I like the concept of a permeable surface for Tracy Way. But in my view, not having lighted bollards is a problem for our elderly, including myself, who at night it takes me a half an hour before my eyes adjust to be able to see where I'm walking without lighting. And so I wanna make sure that whatever we do remains well lit just by way of example.
02:32:30.01	Cox	And I do just want to
02:32:32.63	Cox	um
02:32:33.44	Cox	make it clear that our instructions on February 6th did not include Tracy Way. We asked for construction drawings of those components that could be funded by the grant. We then separately asked that staff solicit public and private sources of additional funding to construct those phases that cannot be funded by the grant, including Tracy Way. So our understanding on February 6th was that Tracy Way could not be funded by the grant funding and would not be part of the initial construction drawings to be bid.
02:33:04.42	Cox	If we had included Tracy Way on February 6th, I'm sure our city attorney on that night would have made to us the comments he made tonight about the process that we have to go through
02:33:15.49	Cox	in order to close Tracy Way.
02:33:17.63	Cox	That being said,
02:33:19.91	Cox	I don't have an issue.
02:33:21.44	Cox	with
02:33:23.37	Cox	Tracy way and the permeate, you know, with a permeable surface. My issue is budgetary. And so I am asking that the reason I asked for phasing on February 6th and the reason I continue to ask that the bid be structured in such a way is that it includes additive alternates and deductive alternates is to be sure that we get bids in that we can actually approve and move forward with, however they may, whatever the pricing for the various elements may be.
02:33:56.90	Unknown	So you're okay with an additive or deductive element that includes Tracy way?
02:34:00.93	Cox	I am.
02:34:01.86	Cox	I am. I just need, we need to have the bid separated into elements so that,
02:34:09.44	Cox	If the sum total of the components is more than we can afford, we have a solution without having to go back and re-bid. That's great.
02:34:22.52	Unknown	Councilman Kellman.
02:34:23.90	Kelman	Thank you everybody.
02:34:23.92	Unknown	THANK YOU.
02:34:26.18	Kelman	This is.
02:34:27.17	Kelman	This is local politics. This is what it is. So sorry, it's not more fun or less interesting than this. We are diligent about what we've said and what we needed. And so I really appreciate everybody's curiosities tonight and the information and Kevin, all your hard work here and Bill, you met with me several times. So thank you for all of that. And I actually like Joseph Kafka quite a bit. So I think this project, I just want to say this sort of generally, would be aided by just making sure there's consistency between meetings. I think we beat that down already. We know that.
02:35:07.27	Kelman	I was the one that actually articulated pulling out Tracy Way, so I do know what I said. But I've never heard more deja vu moments than up at this council on this dais as we have this year. So I don't need to debate it. I think that the vice mayor articulated it quite well. I had a concern about closing Tracy Way because I think Humboldt is a great place to put parking and so I remember articulating my concern about including that in the original plan I do remember talking about the different levels and layers and elements and so I like this idea of allowing us I think you call it deductive alternates vice mayor I think that quite makes sense but I really just have to urge we've been doing, I think, a very good job, and the public to hear us when we say, you're not approving a plan. You read from the excerpts of Vice Mayor, we didn't approve a plan. We gave very clear direction about what we were doing. We're very clear to say, this is not an approval of a plan. This is exactly what we're doing. And so I just don't think spending a lot of time rehashing that is particularly productive but I do think that when you have multiple staff reports it can lead to confusion and so I think we all learn that tonight and I think the new information that we got from the city attorney about closing Tracy way was really important really helpful and so if there's anything that we can do to help consolidate some of that information from meeting to meeting and make sure that we have everything at one time, I think that would probably help all of us. So I'm interested to hear everybody's thoughts on how we move forward with this. But it did lead to, I think, quite a bit of confusion to see some alternate realities. I think we all experienced those.
02:36:47.15	Unknown	Any other comments?
02:36:51.08	Unknown	No more comments? Do you have a comment?
02:36:54.24	Councilman Blasin	Oh, did you want to go...
02:36:56.38	Councilman Blasin	Amen.
02:36:57.68	Councilman Blasin	You can, I mean.
02:36:59.12	Unknown	I'll just ask you since we're figuring who to go next. The first line of the motion was we have the city council hereby approves the local professional plan.
02:37:08.68	Kelman	I totally hear you, Mayor, and I can read that with my own very sleepy eyes as well. But I also remember at length the conversation and the agreement amongst three of us that we would hold off on that. And so, you know, short of having a review of the film, the game film right now, I'll just concede what it says on paper, and I don't intend to have an argument about that, but I know what I participated in in the conversation, so I appreciate your pointing out the paper.
02:37:39.72	Unknown	I remember the conversation too, but I thought the way we clarify and act, it's like there's the discussion in Congress and there's what the bill actually says. And so the motion is what the motion is. I made the motion and
02:37:54.26	Unknown	And so the word choice was deliberate. It, of course, doesn't mean, I mean, what does it mean to have a plan? It doesn't mean that it is authorized to spend money yet. It doesn't mean that we've jumped through the legal steps of what Sergio said we need to do, right? So we can't, we haven't closed Tracy Way yet. That hasn't happened, so it requires more steps, but the plan was approved. I mean, that was the whole point of that day.
02:38:25.30	Kelman	I so appreciate that. Thank you. And I think that maybe from here on out, we either all need to review the game film or we need much better articulation maybe at the end of a long evening. So again, thank you for pointing out what the paper says. I can read it as well. I appreciate that. And I will just move on from there. Thank you.
02:38:45.88	Unknown	Thanks. Anyone else make a comment?
02:38:50.56	Councilman Blasin	yeah sure i'll go ahead uh i want to give a big thank you to staff for the years of time spent on on this project and to the local professionals group as usual bill thank you for being here and for uh enduring our questioning this evening uh and you know shout out to chad has to for the tidelands and um our city attorney sergeant red. I really appreciate everyone's feedback. This was a robust conversation. I would be remiss if I didn't say that I share the disappointment of some of our public commenters this evening in that we saw
02:38:56.94	Unknown	I'm sorry.
02:39:26.01	Councilman Blasin	I don't know, about 100 people show up and more than that doubly in letters in support of this project.
02:39:31.61	Councilman Blasin	And it was one of the first times for me that I experienced from the dais that many people coming forward to say yes to something, which was really invigorating and a reminder of the positives of public service. So I just wanted to acknowledge that and point that out and thank everyone who did come forward. Whether you were providing positive or negative feedback, we really need that local engagement. So I hope we don't discourage anyone from coming. I appreciate everyone's letters and everyone's time. And I think it's interesting that, I mean, I guess it makes sense that the project was pulled because there are a number of questions. But I think it's interesting that the arguments that are coming up to push back on the staff report is actually kind of what staff is asking us to do, which is essentially move forward with construction drawings so that we can look at each of these phases more closely together and decide what we want to do and so with respect to you know everyone's dedication and deep interest in this project which has been going on for a number of years and you know some of maybe the verbiage of approval of the project was it was otherwise confusing but I think what we all know is we like the ideas that the professional group brought forward. We voted on that as a community. We want to have construction designs so we can look at them more closely and decide in what way we move forward and what we can and can't afford, which to me is what the staff report was asking us to do. So I would like to see us, given this new innovation around Tracy Way, be able to at least consider that. And so I'm supportive of the vice mayor's approach Thank you. asking us to do. So I would like to see us, given this new innovation around Tracy Way, be able to at least consider that. And so I'm supportive of the vice mayor's approach there. And I'm supportive of anything that will help us move this project forward because we've been through this again and again. And I appreciate the serious fiscal attention that's being made by the local professionals group, by the other members of the dais. We definitely need
02:41:17.64	Councilman Blasin	We need that attention given our budgetary situation, but again,
02:41:21.59	Councilman Blasin	We know we've been through it, so let's get the construction drawing so we can keep going through it, because this is local government, and without that information, we can't make those informed decisions that we're being asked to make.
02:41:32.29	Unknown	Thanks Councilmember. Councilmember Hoffman.
02:41:34.60	Unknown	Thank you.
02:41:35.27	Council Member Hoffman	Yeah, so thank you. Again, yeah, listen, I don't hope, none of my comments were meant that I don't appreciate the efforts of the staff and Mr. Hines, because I know that you guys worked a ridiculous amount of time on this, and myself included as part of the Ferry Landing Working Group for almost two years, and then seven years before that. so yeah I think I'm happy that we're finally at the point where that we can move forward and I completely happy that we're finally at the point where that we can move forward. And I completely agree that we should move forward. But I want to be clear that the reason, you know, that I felt it necessary, along with Council Member Cox to or sorry, Vice Mayor to remove it was that there were inconsistencies from what we approved and from what I was seeing in the staff reports
02:42:20.38	Council Member Hoffman	on March 19th.
02:42:23.01	Council Member Hoffman	the CIP report that we got
02:42:24.62	Council Member Hoffman	in a staff report tonight. And so it's incumbent upon us as a deciding body when we see inconsistencies or something that wasn't approved by us in the past to question that. And I think that's exactly how this should work. I was disappointed to see these new things popping up in the phasing that we hadn't approved, but I'm happy that we're discussing it tonight. And so I think one of the things that we need to do
02:42:53.61	Council Member Hoffman	moving forward and I'm
02:42:56.53	Council Member Hoffman	I'm hesitant to approve the Tracy Way portion because we haven't closed it yet. So it doesn't make sense to me to pay for somebody to do that plan if we haven't actually completed that process yet. And that wasn't news to me, frankly, because I think we had talked about it a long time ago. And how do we close a street? There's a very specific process. There's a very specific process also under the Brown Act. You have to actually inform people what you're going to do before you do it, especially when there are very specific requirements.
02:43:30.50	Council Member Hoffman	I'm not comfortable tonight saying go ahead with construction drawings for Tracy Way because we haven't,
02:43:35.85	Council Member Hoffman	actually
02:43:37.06	Council Member Hoffman	uh,
02:43:37.67	Council Member Hoffman	approve that as a council and and we haven't approved as council nor have we allowed the public to weigh in on it because there are members of the public that feel very strongly about that and had that been on our agenda tonight I
02:43:49.03	Council Member Hoffman	they possibly would have weighed in.
02:43:53.89	Council Member Hoffman	I'm less inclined to approve that part of it because that,
02:44:00.18	Council Member Hoffman	I'm sorry, it just wasn't approved February 6th. To be clear,
02:44:07.42	Council Member Hoffman	The first bill of the minutes is that we approve the local professionals group recommended design
02:44:13.33	Council Member Hoffman	concept.
02:44:14.54	Council Member Hoffman	plan.
02:44:15.49	Council Member Hoffman	we recommended the plan, we didn't recommend, or we didn't approve the entire, as we've all discussed, right? This is gonna continue to change.
02:44:24.23	Council Member Hoffman	I just want to be clear for people that come later,
02:44:27.75	Council Member Hoffman	to a later meeting when we get the construction plans back and they
02:44:33.31	Council Member Hoffman	we're gonna have further conversations about this. And I would expect that it's gonna be,
02:44:41.96	Council Member Hoffman	consistent with our conversation on February 6th, frankly. So, I,
02:44:51.97	Council Member Hoffman	I might, anyway, so anyway, that's my thought process and thanks to everybody.
02:44:58.43	Unknown	Thank you, Councilmember Hoffman. Yeah.
02:44:59.58	Council Member Hoffman	Thank you.
02:44:59.61	Unknown	Yeah.
02:45:00.83	Cox	I do want to point out, Mayor, and thank you for quoting the fact that the City Council approved the local professionals group recommended plan. I don't know if you heard Mr. Hines tonight say that the plan that was in our staff report did not include Tracy Way. And that is what we approved. It was the...
02:45:19.95	Cox	The Tracy Way improvements were discussed as part of his presentation.
02:45:23.68	Cox	but they were not.
02:45:24.83	Cox	in the plan.
02:45:25.89	Cox	that was attached to our staff report and noticed to the public as something that we would consider.
02:45:31.52	Cox	That being said, I think we should identify a
02:45:35.27	Cox	logical path forward for deciding whether indeed this council approves the closure
02:45:42.07	Cox	of Tracy Way and if so,
02:45:44.03	Cox	then ask the
02:45:45.60	Cox	uh,
02:45:46.59	Cox	local professionals group and BKF to
02:45:49.95	Cox	to continue moving forward with the plan for that.
02:45:55.40	Unknown	So earlier you said you're okay with having a bid alternative that has a deductive alternative, that includes Tracy Way that has a deductive alternative not including it.
02:46:04.79	Cox	Absolutely, but I think as a part of that parallel, we need to make a decision about closing Tracy Way.
02:46:11.79	Cox	undertaken the process necessary to close Tracy Way. So even if everything came back and it was within budget, we couldn't approve until we go through the steps to close Tracy Way. Right. So I'm asking for that as a parallel process.
02:46:22.74	Unknown	Right, so that-
02:46:25.49	Unknown	Okay, that certainly we would need to
02:46:32.53	Unknown	Right. So go ahead, Sergio, do you have something to say?
02:46:35.28	Sergio	Yeah, no, I mean, just the way the item is agendized, I...
02:46:39.51	Sergio	i am concerned about the council making motion other than to receive and file the report because this is receive and file a status report but of course the council can give direction to bring back specific items for discussion or can give us direction in future agenda items as to what they would like to see discussed moving forward on this project and approved
02:46:58.40	Unknown	So it sounds like the direction that you're suggesting, Vice Mayor, and that I hear that there's at least three votes for is to proceed with a bid of the design that includes Tracy Way, but that has a bid, deductive bill alternative that does not. And in parallel with that, have a process for actually considering whether or not to close Tracy Way.
02:47:20.59	Mitzel	Bye.
02:47:21.35	Unknown	Let me just see if that's a fair summary.
02:47:23.61	Cox	I had not specifically identified Tracy Way as a deductive alternate. I simply asked that the bid include additive and deductive alternates so that we have flexibility in deciding what to accept when the bids come in.
02:47:41.14	Cox	Separately, given the city attorney's comments, I would like to direct the staff return to us with a proposal for the closure of Tracy Way that comports with the statutory requirements so that we can decide as a group whether that's something, and give the public an opportunity to weigh in on whether that's something we're advancing.
02:48:03.50	Unknown	Okay, but earlier I asked you whether, when you said deductive alternative, I asked you for Tracy Way and you said yes. So are you now amending here?
02:48:10.50	Cox	Well, I would leave it up to the engineers to decide what should be additive and deductive alternates. Certainly, Tracy Way should be a deductive alternate since, in my view, it was not part of our initial plan. But there may be other appropriate deductive alternates as well.
02:48:27.13	Cox	So I'm not proposing that Tracy Way be excluded from the bid process.
02:48:33.02	Cox	But...
02:48:33.98	Cox	perhaps before we go out to bid we can actually confirm
02:48:37.40	Cox	that this entire council is in favor of closing Tracey Way, something we've not yet done.
02:48:43.29	Cox	according to Sergio, under the statute.
02:48:47.58	Unknown	Okay, I heard two things there though, so I'm just trying to sort it about the path forward because that's, we have a limited number of meetings, so we're gonna have another meeting on Traceway before we even go out to bid on what it might cost. So instead of looking at what the costs could actually be
02:49:03.10	Cox	If we get a bid that includes closure of Tracy Way, we cannot accept that bid if we haven't already undertaken the process to close Tracy Way.
02:49:06.90	Unknown	way.
02:49:14.09	Cox	And so I am recommending we undertake that process in advance of receiving bids.
02:49:22.80	Kelman	May I ask the vice mayor a question?
02:49:25.19	Kelman	So is part of your concern, because I, like the mayor, I heard two different things, but I think I know why, is part of the concern that you have, we have not, as the council said, Tracy Way is a part of this. Right. And so when he phrased it as the plan with Tracy Way, that was different than a bid with a deductive element being Tracy Way.
02:49:39.54	Unknown	Right.
02:49:47.27	Cox	Right. I believe that the reason we did, the minutes indicate that the reason we didn't include Tracy Way is we didn't think it could be funded through the grant funding.
02:49:56.11	Cox	They've now identified a way that it can be
02:49:59.06	Cox	funded through the grant funding.
02:50:01.12	Cox	But before we can include it, we actually have to undertake the steps identified by the city attorney to close it. We have not done that.
02:50:08.46	Unknown	So it's true that I'm an engineer, okay? But my undergraduate degree was actually in philosophy, and one of my favorite courses was logic. So I appreciate that you're a lawyer, but I'm sorry I have to call foul on that, just from logic, all right? The first bullet is we approve the plan. Which did not include Tracy Wayne. Let me make my case before you try to undermine it, okay? This is an action by a legal body that we approved the plan, all right? In one of my bullets here, it's direct staff to identify phases of the plan, capital P, just like in the plan, so it's a name term, of the plan that can be built within the budget of the GGTHB grant.
02:50:25.47	Cox	which did not include Tracy Way.
02:50:29.44	Cox	Okay.
02:50:29.71	Unknown	Thank you.
02:50:49.53	Unknown	staff
02:50:50.43	Unknown	In today's report that we're considering to accepting has identified that all the elements of the plan can be built within the GGTHB grant. The next point is direct staff to make construction level drawings of the phases that can be funded by the grant. So it's, I can't say it in Latin, but it's one, two, three.
02:50:59.25	Unknown	grand.
02:51:09.95	Cox	You're leaving out one bullet.
02:51:11.20	Unknown	And this point, yes, authorized staff to solicit private and public sources of additional funding.
02:51:17.60	Unknown	to construct phases that cannot be paid with the grant, such as Raising Tracy Way. So phases, right? And earlier we say phases of the plan. So by definition, such as is an example, such as an example, Tracy Way is a phase of the plan that was approved by city council.
02:51:36.73	Cox	No, it was a phase of the plan that cannot be paid with the grant.
02:51:37.27	Unknown	Period.
02:51:40.85	Cox	And then we only approved phases of the plan that can be built within the budget of the grant.
02:51:48.61	Cox	On the one, we're directing staff to identify phases of the plan that can be built with the budget of the grant. On the other, we're saying,
02:51:56.51	Cox	Solicit private and public sources of funding to construct the phases that cannot be paid with the grant, such as raising Tracy Way.
02:52:05.42	Cox	So Tracy Wade was not included.
02:52:07.78	Unknown	Sorry, your logic is wrong.
02:52:09.93	Unknown	Period.
02:52:11.63	Cox	It doesn't matter. I'm proposing a path forward.
02:52:17.00	Cox	I don't think we need to continue to argue about what we intended at the time. Obviously I need to do a better job editing your proposed motions. Apparently we need like legal
02:52:24.76	Unknown	Apparently we need like legal scrutiny instead of what clearly everybody in the audience knew. And so I am, I'll say my piece and I'm sure and I help Council Member Hoffman absolutely give you the floor, but yeah, I think everyone in the room knew, period. So I think that this is Kafkaesque. Council Member Hoffman.
02:52:31.68	Cox	I have.
02:52:48.40	Council Member Hoffman	Well, your logic is flawed.
02:52:51.10	Council Member Hoffman	because three of us didn't have that meeting of the minds. So, and I think that, anyway, based on the plans that were presented, it clearly says Tracy Way remains the same, right?
02:53:01.24	Council Member Hoffman	whatever, with regard to Tracy Wade. Here's the thing, though. We can do a 5-0 vote tonight and just leave Tracy Wade off because...
02:53:10.68	Council Member Hoffman	How much is it gonna cost and what's the effort
02:53:14.98	Council Member Hoffman	after we, if we decide to close Tracy way to just
02:53:18.46	Council Member Hoffman	Do it.
02:53:19.06	Council Member Hoffman	I mean, and if there's money left after we do all these construction things, then we just do it, right? So why are you creating the issue of,
02:53:27.96	Council Member Hoffman	you know, Brown Act issue, we haven't given notice. All of a sudden, this thing pops up in the staff reports that we haven't discussed, and we're changing tack on something that we decided last February. That, to me, is not logical. The logical thing is follow the process,
02:53:43.68	Council Member Hoffman	If we're gonna close, if we're gonna just,
02:53:45.76	Council Member Hoffman	consider closing Tracy way we have to go through the legal process of doing that and what we're bound
02:53:50.74	Council Member Hoffman	by law to do as council members for which we took an oath
02:53:54.53	Council Member Hoffman	and then we'll fix it afterwards. I mean, Tracy, of all of these things, of all the complicated construction plans,
02:54:02.18	Council Member Hoffman	Tracy Way's
02:54:03.85	Council Member Hoffman	Nothing. Like that's an easy thing. So if we decide to go forward, I don't wanna taint this project
02:54:08.76	Council Member Hoffman	by adding this in,
02:54:10.43	Council Member Hoffman	and creating another issue that we're going to have to deal with later.
02:54:14.99	Council Member Hoffman	Certainly, surely someone is going to object to our action tonight if we take this action. I have a question for the
02:54:21.40	Council Member Hoffman	for the city attorney,
02:54:24.24	Council Member Hoffman	just based on your comment and the motion, right?
02:54:28.07	Council Member Hoffman	So your comment was, hey, the only thing we've noticed
02:54:31.75	Council Member Hoffman	Is it?
02:54:33.09	Council Member Hoffman	Yeah, receive and file a status report. So I'm not even sure we could take action on a motion tonight. But what we could do is say, hey, based on our discussion, bring us a quick...
02:54:44.03	Council Member Hoffman	consent item staff report based on the conversation that we've had tonight. And I would be, and I would, I would, I would support a 5.0 to do, go forward with the construction plans, additive and deductive so that we know that we can, if we take something out, we need to move something around, we can do it.
02:55:04.31	Council Member Hoffman	full disclosure to the public, that's what the council is likely going to do. So even though we say we're gonna go forward with this concept plan, what the final plan is and what we're gonna vote on as we move forward is gonna be based on what happens with the construction drawings, right?
02:55:26.79	Council Member Hoffman	This is just how these things evolve.
02:55:30.71	Council Member Hoffman	That's my
02:55:32.34	Council Member Hoffman	suggestion on how we would move forward tonight based on the discussion that we've had based on the comments from the city attorney.
02:55:40.31	Unknown	That's a member of Boston.
02:55:41.69	Council Member Hoffman	Thank you.
02:55:41.71	Councilman Blasin	Thank you. In the interest of moving us forward, I think we should take the city attorney's direction to receive and file, and I would like to figure out a path forward, perhaps with the vice mayor's suggestions, including in a way that we can consider Tracy Way as part of the deductive process without naming it or whatever we need to do legally. But for the record, I don't want to remove it from the process entirely because I distinctly remember whether or not, it seems we all have different memories of what was and was not discussed Thank you. need to do legally but for the record I don't want to remove it from the process entirely because I distinctly remember whether or not it seems we all have different memories of what was and was not discussed that night but I do remember a lot of conversation about Tracy way under what context specifically or how it applies I'm not gonna rehash I just want us to move forward so I city attorney doesn't make sense I think however we can support the vice mayor's suggestion, or I don't know. I don't know that we need to even take a vote, right?
02:56:32.54	Councilman Blasin	Thank you.
02:56:32.62	Unknown	I think it's direction and, and, and, but am I hearing correctly that we can do additive and deductive, uh, bids that include raising Tracy way?
02:56:33.41	Councilman Blasin	Okay.
02:56:34.34	Councilman Blasin	and
02:56:43.98	Unknown	Thank you.
02:56:44.06	Sergio	Yes, that definitely is something that you can do as part of the design process for the construction drawings.
02:56:44.08	Unknown	Yes.
02:56:46.71	Unknown	So that's our direction.
02:56:47.69	Kevin McGowan	I'm going to go.
02:56:53.88	Sergio	is concerned about accepting a construction contract and awarding a construction contract that includes construction work on Tracy way that requires its closure permanently.
02:56:58.88	Unknown	and construction.
02:57:06.08	Sergio	without going through a legal process to close the street to the vehicular traffic.
02:57:11.08	Unknown	Okay, yeah, of course.
02:57:12.14	Sergio	But there is, as staff mentioned earlier, three to six month period with BCDC for permitting, you'd also have to complete permitting before you can award
02:57:22.15	Sergio	the project and during this time we can
02:57:25.07	Sergio	make use of
02:57:26.87	Sergio	that time period to not only address any issues with the construction drawings, um,
02:57:32.83	Sergio	phasing of the project and also the potential closure of Tracy way. Again, my recommendation would be that you folks have a motion to receive and file the report this evening. If you want to direct staff to prepare a future agenda item that encompasses future actions, that would also be appropriate at this time.
02:57:50.45	Unknown	Thank you city attorney. So I think the consensus is to file and receive the report and directing staff to issue, um, to get, to get a deck, a deck, um, deductive and additive bids that include, uh, Tracy way, and we will take further action after we get them.
02:58:07.07	Kelman	Thank you.
02:58:07.25	Cox	I don't think so. No? What is it? I think that we do agree to receive and file the report. Thank you, Kevin. But that we direct staff to come back to us with a procedure, a recommended procedure for the closure of Tracy Way and come back to us with proposed construction documents to go out to bid that may include Tracy Way as a deductive alternate depending on the outcome of our process to close Tracy Way.
02:58:07.63	Kelman	I don't think so.
02:58:08.59	Unknown	What?
02:58:08.74	Kelman	I think.
02:58:37.14	Cox	So it's a parallel process, as I said.
02:58:40.67	Unknown	So we'd get construction drawings with a deductive alternate, but we will not send that stuff out to bid until after the next city council meeting.
02:58:48.43	Cox	It can go out to bid. We just can't accept a bid until we've.
02:58:52.51	Unknown	Fine, fine.
02:58:53.85	Unknown	That's the key so we can go out to bid with the additive or deductive Tracy way element. But we won't accept the bids got it. So that's the consensus that you go out to be is that clear director McGowan.
02:58:54.98	Cox	THE FAMILY.
02:59:10.27	Unknown	in a useful way.
02:59:11.95	Unknown	Sort of.
02:59:12.59	Kevin McGowan	Yes, I will do my best.
02:59:12.71	Unknown	Yes, I will do my best to- Ask us what's not clear, please, so that we can be- Because you have to get this work done, and we should get on the same page about that.
02:59:14.82	Kevin McGowan	Ask us what's the
02:59:17.71	Kevin McGowan	Because you.
02:59:23.78	Kevin McGowan	Additive and deductive bids are interesting. We need to bid something with a base bid amount. In other words, all the bidders need to bid on one specific thing. So gathering different components to that
02:59:32.02	Unknown	Mm-hmm.
02:59:40.25	Kevin McGowan	and then coming back to council to say, OK, which components do you want to include as a base bid?
02:59:44.86	Kevin McGowan	will probably be needed.
02:59:46.18	Unknown	Can't you just decide that?
02:59:48.88	Unknown	Can't you just go out with the base bid and with Tracy Way as a deductive alternate and the bollards and other things?
02:59:58.14	Council Member Hoffman	I don't, I think that's the point. The staff, to say to, I'm sorry, Ian, but the staff reporters, Mayor, Mayor, but this is the problem, right? Right.
03:00:05.04	Unknown	Mayor.
03:00:08.87	Council Member Hoffman	that the city attorney just talked to us about, right?
03:00:13.95	Council Member Hoffman	We can't just say, go do with a staff report, you know, except in,
03:00:19.39	Council Member Hoffman	direct because the staff report is somewhat
03:00:22.58	Council Member Hoffman	vague about how to do this and what we're saying i think what half of us are saying is this is a problem
03:00:29.90	Council Member Hoffman	Thank you.
03:00:30.52	Council Member Hoffman	half of us are saying things that the other half isn't understanding.
03:00:35.28	Council Member Hoffman	and you're interpreting differently, right? So there's seven phases. I'm saying, sorry, seven elements
03:00:41.95	Cox	It's actually eight. Number two is in there twice. So it's actually eight.
03:00:46.13	Council Member Hoffman	Oh, no, I'm looking at the plan that's in the staff report, right? And this is different than what we saw. So this is why I think that we receive and accept the staff report
03:00:59.01	Council Member Hoffman	because of this,
03:01:00.83	Council Member Hoffman	Okay.
03:01:02.55	Council Member Hoffman	communication issue.
03:01:05.44	Council Member Hoffman	I think this has to come back either on a
03:01:09.56	Council Member Hoffman	consent item or that it's clear what we're directing because we can't even agree what we said on February 6th. May I
03:01:11.85	Unknown	WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
03:01:17.60	Kelman	I asked the city attorney question for you. So February 6th, we have a motion to approve the plan.
03:01:28.56	Kelman	Capital P. And that plan did not include Tracy Way.
03:01:35.36	Kelman	Today we're presented with a plan that does.
03:01:41.28	Kelman	how, it's two different, like literally two different plans. How do we smooth that out from an acceptance of something that's going to happen?
03:01:52.96	Kelman	way, so I think that I'd love to hear the city attorney's thoughts on that. Because we accepted something and then we were given something else
03:02:00.47	Kelman	How do we proceed?
03:02:02.41	Sergio	Yeah, so on February 6th, the council reviewed and approved a conceptual design for the project and directed staff to go do further work.
03:02:11.13	Sergio	There have been further work done on the project and staff have come back to provide a status report.
03:02:16.65	Sergio	I think that the appropriate next step is you receive today's status report.
03:02:21.68	Sergio	you provide direction to staff to come back with the subsequent agenda item, for example, to address and to discuss and decide on
03:02:29.41	Sergio	what should be included in a base bid to the extent that Kevin would like that direction from the council at
03:02:35.28	Sergio	Additionally, it sounds like next steps are going to include an agenda item to discuss the closure of Tracy way. Typically under the pedestrian mall act, the process is you adopt a resolution of intention to close and then you address any sorts of, you know, protests or claims that come in as a result of that and I'll separately provide briefing for the Council on that there's also some other alternates, alternative pathways in the vehicle code that may or may not apply
03:03:02.23	Sergio	which are more streamlined, but I would need to review things like your circulation element and your general plan to see if you can use those.
03:03:10.08	Sergio	Um,
03:03:11.83	Sergio	So.
03:03:13.08	Sergio	in terms of the
03:03:15.11	Sergio	The tonight's action, again, I would recommend you receive and file.
03:03:18.41	Sergio	And two, to the extent you have future actions you want the city to take on this project,
03:03:24.40	Sergio	I would recommend that you give direction to staff to agendize those in the not too distant future.
03:03:31.78	Unknown	Yeah, so I was just going to add because Council Member Hoffman was referring to the staff report and the difference between that and what you're saying, the way you summarize it is the staff report didn't show the Tracy way and the presentation did the one we approved, but what was in the staff report was the closure of Tracy way. That was definitive and it's in the drawings. There was a Tracy way pedestrian safety landing. It eliminated the crosswalk across the street on Bridgeway to the SCA building. So the closure of Tracy Way was a definitive element of the plan that was approved. The raising of Tracy Way, admittedly, it was in one drawing and was not in the staff report, but was in the presentation. So the closure of Tracy Way was a definitive element of the capital P plan. The designation of it as an element of the plan.
03:04:21.97	Unknown	So the only issue,
03:04:23.64	Unknown	is whether or not to have included in the word plan what was presented here that that i spoke to and many of us did some of the speakers referred it to which was the raising of it so let's be clear that the plan we approved 5-0 that's the definitive action of the council that could certainly be undone by some by their undoing procedures that we have but it was including the designated and approved closure of Tracy Way admittedly that we would then have to jump through all the hoops that you have to jump through. I agree.
03:04:53.72	Cox	I actually agree with you. When you make the distinction between the closure of Tracy Way and the raising of Tracy Way, I agree with you.
03:05:00.44	Unknown	OK. So.
03:05:00.46	Cox	Thank you.
03:05:01.89	Cox	So what the plan included.
03:05:03.22	Unknown	Thank you.
03:05:03.43	Unknown	Yeah, so with that in mind, can I just ask a question? Because I just want to know either Director McGowan or Mr. Hines. How much is adding a green ecological permeable surface to Tracy Way, how much roughly would that cost? I appreciate that there's economies of scale if it's done in conjunction with the project or not, but just ballpark figure.
03:05:24.81	Hines	Thank you.
03:05:24.94	Hines	you know, kind of in the range of 50 to 100,000.
03:05:28.03	Unknown	$50,000 to $100,000. And is it cheaper if it's done as part of a bigger construction project?
03:05:32.75	Hines	Absolutely.
03:05:34.22	Hines	Thank you.
03:05:34.27	Unknown	All right. So my point is, thank you very much, sir. My point is that
03:05:40.72	Unknown	The time to consider whether to doing it is now. The money, if it's not in the budget, can be raised from private parties. I would personally commit to trying to raise that money from private parties if it's not in the budget. We approved that, and so it's really just an option for us to consider because we're going to have to go through, since it's the approved plan already, Vice Mayor, we're going to have to go through that procedure that you outlined for closure, Tracy Way. that's in parallel. And, and that will be an action we take at the end of the day, even though we approved the plan, we may not approve the budget for it, we may not build a project at all, we could take some future action to give the money back. So just because we approve the plan doesn't mean that we've given up our authority to can't change or to cancel our path. But the keepers on track here with a letter from the district that tells us we're on the cusp of losing the grant. We can't let three weeks go by where the staff is twiddling their thumbs. We should let them go out and get the bids so that we meet next and talk about it with concrete.
03:06:40.51	Cox	I didn't understand that staff has construction drawings ready to bid. They don't. We're not ready to issue construction drawings.
03:06:51.26	Unknown	I'm saying that why not include this element?
03:06:55.00	Cox	That's fine with me. I would like to do exactly what the city attorney said. I second that.
03:07:00.24	Cox	So I move, he enunciated a clear two-step process. One, staff comes back to us with the bid additive and deductive, proposed bid additive and deductive alternates. Two, staff comes back to us with a staff report concerning the closure of Tracy Way.
03:07:20.37	Unknown	Thank you.
03:07:20.52	Unknown	I'm curious if he's already closed, right? It's the raising or not?
03:07:22.54	Cox	We have to go through a process to actually close Tracy Way. We approved a conceptual plan that included
03:07:30.73	Cox	closing Tracy Way, but if we actually want to close it, we have to follow the statute to do that. And so the city attorney said that we should hear a staff report regarding that approval of that process.
03:07:42.68	Unknown	Okay.
03:07:44.48	Council Member Hoffman	Yeah, it might be easier just to have the city attorney help us draft our motion right now.
03:07:51.23	Unknown	Right now it's just to prove that we're trying to
03:07:51.38	Sergio	Now it's just to prove that we're...
03:07:52.97	Unknown	THE FAMILY.
03:07:54.98	Council Member Hoffman	Sorry, direction.
03:07:56.72	Unknown	to it.
03:07:57.41	Council Member Hoffman	So it's direct, motion is, well, okay. Tell us what your recommendation is.
03:08:02.83	Sergio	Yeah, I would recommend that you receive and file the staff report per the title of the agenda item.
03:08:08.24	Sergio	And then additionally, I would recommend that you provide direction to staff to bring back subsequent agenda items regarding
03:08:15.78	Sergio	the construction bid documents and the development of the base bid,
03:08:20.95	Sergio	discussion and direction on closure of Tracy Way.
03:08:25.22	Sergio	and anything else the council would like to...
03:08:28.17	Sergio	Direct step. Thank you.
03:08:28.85	Council Member Hoffman	Thank you. Yeah, I mean, the issue was also what's the base bid?
03:08:32.44	Council Member Hoffman	we need to talk about what the base bid is for the construction drawings. So that's, sorry, thank you. That was what I was searching for. So receive and file the report.
03:08:42.83	Council Member Hoffman	Direct staff to come back.
03:08:45.26	Council Member Hoffman	Thank you.
03:08:45.30	Cox	with staff reports concerning what the base bid is comprised of.
03:08:45.37	Council Member Hoffman	It's not.
03:08:50.89	Cox	and with a separate staff report concerning the process for the clip consideration of a process for closing Tracy way.
03:08:58.14	Council Member Hoffman	It's a staff report on base bid, including additive and deductive. And deductive alternatives. Yeah? Okay.
03:09:02.92	Cox	and deductive alternates.
03:09:05.75	Council Member Hoffman	And then, um,
03:09:07.79	Council Member Hoffman	And then a staff report regarding the closure of Tracy Way.
03:09:09.72	Cox	regarding the closure.
03:09:11.57	Cox	adoption of a process for the closure of Tracy Way, or consideration of a process for the closure of Tracy Way.
03:09:19.25	Council Member Hoffman	Considerate, yeah, okay.
03:09:21.97	Council Member Hoffman	this.
03:09:22.05	Cox	So moved.
03:09:22.58	Council Member Hoffman	Second,
03:09:24.30	Unknown	All right, we'll have discussion on that motion. Can I ask you a question, Director McGowan? On current basis with the staff that's working on the construction level drawings, when would you be ready, if not for this meeting, to go out to bid?
03:09:38.20	Kevin McGowan	we will be ready before the six-month period to go out to bid.
03:09:42.49	Unknown	but you wouldn't be ready in the next two or three weeks.
03:09:43.28	Kevin McGowan	next week.
03:09:44.65	Kevin McGowan	No, that's too soon.
03:09:45.98	Unknown	Okay.
03:09:46.57	Kevin McGowan	No, it could give us at least a month and a half.
03:09:48.77	Unknown	It would take you a month and a half anyway to be ready. Thank you.
03:09:52.12	Kelman	And Director McGowan, you're in contact with the district and they understand where we are in the process
03:09:57.03	Kevin McGowan	District meaning BCDC?
03:09:58.72	Kelman	No. The Golden Gate. The Golden Gate, yes.
03:09:59.74	Kevin McGowan	Golden gate. Yes. We have a meeting with them next week to talk about their project. Okay
03:10:03.35	Kelman	Okay, and they know we're moving forward, right? Yeah. Okay.
03:10:08.80	Unknown	Okay.
03:10:09.52	Unknown	So we have that motion that seconded.
03:10:12.24	Unknown	All in favor.
03:10:12.80	Cox	Thank you.
03:10:13.15	Unknown	Aye.
03:10:13.83	Unknown	Opposed motion carries will move forward with the.
03:10:17.42	Unknown	Next item of business, which is communications. This is the time for anyone to.
03:10:24.08	Unknown	Make comments on items not on the agenda.
03:10:26.97	Amir Sobieski	Sunshine.
03:10:40.67	Vince Connick	Good evening. I've learned a big lesson today.
03:10:45.79	Vince Connick	I didn't realize I had to wait until all the business was taken care of before I did public comment.
03:10:53.84	Vince Connick	And I made public comment at the original planning meeting, which was, I don't know how many months ago, and then after that, and I talked about the terrible disaster and the very bad decision to make B Street and all the streets around City Hall
03:11:12.20	Vince Connick	C permit.
03:11:15.25	Vince Connick	I have
03:11:16.82	Vince Connick	been told that
03:11:18.34	Vince Connick	She would investigate with the police department and would get back to me, and I have not heard a word
03:11:24.48	Vince Connick	And
03:11:25.58	Vince Connick	I.
03:11:27.15	Vince Connick	have had endless residents
03:11:29.69	Vince Connick	because
03:11:31.37	Vince Connick	Next month I'm going to be 84.
03:11:33.73	Vince Connick	I was the youngest in our complex, okay?
03:11:37.44	Vince Connick	And their helpers come to help them out and they get tickets.
03:11:42.89	Vince Connick	Even if they park for one minute dropping them off,
03:11:46.50	Vince Connick	They get tickets.
03:11:49.02	Vince Connick	It's awful. There was a whole crowd here at the library, maybe 80 or 90 people on Friday night,
03:11:55.90	Vince Connick	I asked Abbott to tell them that if they parked on these streets around,
03:12:00.46	Vince Connick	They would be ticketed and people were shocked.
03:12:03.48	Vince Connick	So communication is one of the
03:12:06.43	Vince Connick	Biggest problems that I see here with the council. First of all, you send out emails. A lot of people don't have computers. They don't have smartphones.
03:12:16.94	Vince Connick	You know, you've got to find good ways to communicate.
03:12:21.92	Vince Connick	Because it's been a disaster.
03:12:24.96	Vince Connick	I have a handicap permit.
03:12:26.90	Vince Connick	It doesn't affect me at all.
03:12:29.01	Vince Connick	But it's affecting me through all my neighbors that keep calling me to ask me what they should do.
03:12:34.01	Vince Connick	And I told them I was told we can get a one time waiver.
03:12:38.23	Vince Connick	because you didn't know. I was told that I was also
03:12:43.56	Vince Connick	Vince Connick.
03:12:43.96	Amir Sobieski	Thank you.
03:12:44.01	Vince Connick	you
03:12:44.08	Amir Sobieski	Thank you very much.
03:12:44.96	Vince Connick	Thank you very much.
03:12:45.30	Amir Sobieski	Thank you very much.
03:12:46.33	Vince Connick	you
03:12:46.49	Unknown	Thank you very much.
03:12:46.97	Amir Sobieski	Thank you.
03:12:47.96	Vince Connick	You're welcome. Thank you for taking action on this.
03:12:57.83	Vince Casalina	Hello, I'm Vince Casalina and I'm here to tell you a little bit about the documentary that I'm doing.
03:13:05.60	Vince Casalina	So how many of you have actually been on a sailboat?
03:13:11.70	Vince Casalina	Sailboat.
03:13:14.39	Vince Casalina	There is the magic moment when the motor goes off and all there is is the water and the wind and you.
03:13:24.11	Vince Casalina	Sausalito is the epicenter of wooden boats on the bay.
03:13:29.76	Vince Casalina	I'm doing a documentary about wooden boats on the bay and the life cycle of those boats. Wooden boats are biodegradable. They die if they're not taken care of.
03:13:43.85	Vince Casalina	I'm looking at boats that have been resurrected
03:13:48.26	Vince Casalina	Frieda, 1893, still sailing on the bay, has died twice, come back to life twice.
03:13:57.52	Vince Casalina	There are other boats that have not been nearly so lucky, like the Vidura that died.
03:14:05.30	Vince Casalina	So I'm very hopeful that you will consider endorsing my project in the future.
03:14:12.91	Vince Casalina	People who have so far endorsed it are the Master Mariners Benevolent Association, Spalding Marine Center, Latitude 38,
03:14:22.44	Vince Casalina	Sausalito wooden boat tour
03:14:24.71	Vince Casalina	Sausalito working waterfront.
03:14:27.54	Vince Casalina	San Francisco Saline Science Center, and Paul Kaplan from KPMI. So I will be back again, and I hope that you will consider it. I'm going to leave behind a synopsis of my project so that you can see what I'm looking to do. Thank you very much for your time.
03:14:45.60	Kelman	Thank you.
03:14:45.61	Amir Sobieski	the
03:14:45.73	Kelman	to be able to get the
03:14:45.80	Amir Sobieski	Yeah.
03:14:45.95	Kelman	is.
03:14:46.10	Amir Sobieski	Thank you.
03:14:48.75	Unknown	Thank you.
03:14:48.77	Vince Casalina	Anyone?
03:14:48.97	Unknown	online city clerk.
03:14:50.22	Amir Sobieski	Yeah, Senator Bushmaker.
03:15:00.06	Sandra Bushmaker	I'm coming.
03:15:02.51	Sandra Bushmaker	All right.
03:15:06.69	Sandra Bushmaker	All right, let's see.
03:15:10.35	Sandra Bushmaker	I can't start my video, so you'll have to just look at my black box and my name. Great. What do you do?
03:15:15.20	Unknown	with the news.
03:15:17.19	Sandra Bushmaker	Okay.
03:15:18.37	Unknown	Please go ahead, Ms. Postmaker.
03:15:19.48	Sandra Bushmaker	My video.
03:15:21.88	Unknown	Can we restart her clock, actually? That's just a courtesy.
03:15:26.18	Sandra Bushmaker	Thank you.
03:15:26.81	Unknown	Yeah. All right. All right.
03:15:27.46	Sandra Bushmaker	All right, all right. I was really disappointed that the geologic hazard mapping study was not on the agenda for tonight.
03:15:39.23	Sandra Bushmaker	I had, as you know, I was on the land side task force and I heard the, uh,
03:15:44.58	Sandra Bushmaker	presentation of this project and it was presented last week.
03:15:49.10	Sandra Bushmaker	to the Planning Commission.
03:15:51.97	Sandra Bushmaker	It's an important, important study that I would like to make sure gets on the radar.
03:15:57.38	Sandra Bushmaker	for the council.
03:16:01.48	Sandra Bushmaker	And
03:16:03.66	Sandra Bushmaker	And the recommendations that are in that
03:16:06.26	Sandra Bushmaker	report are going to require
03:16:10.39	Sandra Bushmaker	substantial sums of money,
03:16:12.37	Sandra Bushmaker	but we need to stabilize our community.
03:16:15.46	Sandra Bushmaker	I mean, we've been arguing about this ferry landing for years.
03:16:19.02	Sandra Bushmaker	And we've got hillsides that are coming down and hillsides that are susceptible and ridgetops that are susceptible.
03:16:25.04	Sandra Bushmaker	And we need to pay attention to that.
03:16:26.80	Sandra Bushmaker	So I really hope that we can get that on the agenda
03:16:29.89	Sandra Bushmaker	ASAP so we can start paying attention
03:16:32.99	Sandra Bushmaker	to the health and safety of our community and the longevity of our community.
03:16:38.17	Sandra Bushmaker	where we are with our geologic hazards.
03:16:42.39	Sandra Bushmaker	You will be shocked when you see the maps.
03:16:44.97	Sandra Bushmaker	And, uh,
03:16:46.51	Sandra Bushmaker	that demonstrate what vulnerabilities we have at the present time.
03:16:51.16	Sandra Bushmaker	And we need to do something about that. So let's not get that off the radar, please. Thank you.
03:16:59.15	Unknown	Anyone else, city clerk?
03:17:00.12	Amir Sobieski	Next speaker, Steven Woodside.
03:17:09.24	Unknown	Mr. Woodside?
03:17:10.55	Woodside	Hi there. On a positive note, the next to last speaker spoke about wooden boats.
03:17:16.49	Woodside	I think I can safely add all of the C's endorsement to his
03:17:21.94	Woodside	effort to make a documentary about the various wooden boats that exist here.
03:17:27.68	Woodside	And,
03:17:28.95	Woodside	Just to make sure on another positive note that those of you who don't know about it,
03:17:34.09	Woodside	the C's having a celebration this coming Saturday.
03:17:37.89	Woodside	There will be tours of the Matthew Turner, which was
03:17:40.96	Woodside	built right here in Sausalito with sustainably harvested woods.
03:17:45.28	Woodside	And we look forward to seeing some of you out there enjoying the ambiance of the day.
03:17:51.05	Woodside	Thank you.
03:17:54.09	Amir Sobieski	All right, final speaker, Babette McDougall.
03:18:01.16	Amir Sobieski	Well,
03:18:01.30	Amir Sobieski	you
03:18:01.45	Woodside	say.
03:18:02.90	Woodside	here.
03:18:04.99	Woodside	What'd you say?
03:18:05.77	Unknown	Ms. McDoug, it's next.
03:18:05.78	Woodside	Ms. McDoug, it's a
03:18:07.57	Babette McDougall	Can you hear me? I was just given a sign saying that I'm not able to start my video either. We can hear you.
03:18:08.25	Unknown	Go ahead, Miss McDougal.
03:18:13.41	Unknown	We can hear you.
03:18:15.12	Babette McDougall	Can you hear me?
03:18:15.91	Unknown	Yes, we can. Go right ahead.
03:18:16.84	Babette McDougall	ahead.
03:18:17.12	Babette McDougall	Thank you. And I cannot see a timer, just so you know. And my timer showed that you cut me off after one minute. You have two minutes. Last time. So I have one comment to make. It's a gnawing issue that I've brought to your attention each and all.
03:18:24.28	Unknown	You have two minutes.
03:18:31.18	Babette McDougall	especially you, Mr. Mayor,
03:18:33.43	Babette McDougall	It's mission critical to run legal meetings. And the fact that no one takes the time to educate themselves fully on the Brown Act is the reason why we are seeing what we are witnessing this evening. Now, how long is this gonna go on? You gloat over the fact that you don't need to know because if you need to know something, you're gonna wait for the city attorney to weigh in. If he doesn't weigh in,
03:18:56.07	Babette McDougall	Silence is consent, word for word, is what you've told me personally. And I'm saying not just you, sir, but also obviously the members of your staff. It seems to be that the staff reports are not reviewed by the city attorney, and therefore they come to you without having been blessed legally. Now, we could probably save ourselves all these hours of endless things that your publics are complaining about if you simply made sure that these staff reports were reviewed by the attorney before they were submitted for public. What do you say about that? Thank you.
03:19:31.98	Amir Sobieski	All right, no more speakers.
03:19:34.02	Unknown	All right, we will now move on to council member committee reports. So any of my colleagues have a report?
03:19:40.17	Unknown	No, last chance. All right. City manager reports and other council business city manager.
03:19:46.33	Unknown	If I can, Mayor, and I'll be brief, and members of the public.
03:19:52.82	Unknown	Our police department and our human resources department have worked on an exercise in emergency preparedness. Disasters can strike in natural forms or manmade forms, including earthquakes and fires, but also things that happen that involve utilities or people acting badly.
03:20:12.58	Unknown	Wednesday made a city hall and non emergency city services will be closed half a day for a tabletop exercise in an active shooter training that we believe is really important for our staff to undertake and be ready. I understand there's more to do and this is you know one of the steps that we must take to get ourselves prepared for something that is unthinkable that you know we hope will never happen anywhere much less Los Alito.
03:20:39.60	Unknown	I also want to point to the city manager report that is included in your packet that includes you know very brief updates on what's going on with 24 of the pending agenda items that you've asked for and you know 15 or so there's action and you know five or so there is no action so please take a look at that it's part of the record now and I will try to keep that in front of you so you can see how closely you're tracking with what it is that you've asked for. And I will also do a quarterly report so that you all know how you stand with, you know, the basic priorities you have, as well as the February 10th priorities that you arrived at with our strategic planning session and our consultant, Amy Holworth. Thank you.
03:21:21.86	Unknown	Fine. Any future agenda items from my colleagues? Council Member Komen.
03:21:25.52	Kelman	I think maybe I jumped to Councilman Blaston here, but Bridgeway Marina. I think we would all like to hear and decide what is going to happen there. And then I think the geologic hazard study needs to get on ASAP.
03:21:39.05	Unknown	Okay, Councilmember Blasdy.
03:21:40.47	Councilman Blasin	Yeah, as I mentioned, when I pulled it off of the consent calendar, the hazard mitigation assessment, as well as the geologic geologic hazards assessment, please.
03:21:47.54	Unknown	Okay, anyone else?
03:21:49.34	Unknown	Public comment, please, on items.
03:21:51.56	Councilman Blasin	One more thing also sorry I just I'd like to continue the conversation around tabletop exercises so after the exercise is completed a reported staff on that and then we could have a more robust conversation about overarching disaster preparedness and what tabletops we want to undertake.
03:22:07.62	Unknown	Very well. Any public comment, please, on those two items.
03:22:12.35	Unknown	Seeing none. All right, we'll move on to adjourn. And we're adjourning today in honor of our friend Kevin Carroll. First term Larkspur council member died last month from the effects of lung cancer. I was shocked to hear of his loss that seemed to come out of the blue. Kevin was a fixture in downtown Sausalito in his checker cab. As Dick Spotswood pointed out in his Marin IJ editorial Carol wasn't your stereotypical Marin County elected official by occupation he was a cab driver he lived in a mobile home in Larkspur's Marin RV Park for me Carol was a reliable source of information about traffic and parking unquote he went on to say that Carroll was an honest and straightforward person who saw it told it like he sees it he said years ago as a member of the center called Board of Education he advocated for kids with special needs he was well read and was perfectly suited to be a councilmember from 1993 to 1997, Carol served in the San Rafael Board of Education. Bruce Rolfo, a member of the board from 1991 to 1999, said Carol was an advocate for special needs children and their welfare in public school.
03:23:31.07	Unknown	Supervisor Katie Rice, whose district includes Larkspur said, Carol quote, brought a lived experience and perspective to the public dais that we don't often hear from here in Marin, unquote. Last year, I made a special effort to take his checker cab to the San Francisco airport. And I didn't know it would be the last time. I miss him and we will all miss him. The adjourn to Kevin's honor.

City Council Apr 16, 2024

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City Council Apr 2, 2024

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