City Council - Regular Meeting

Bye. . . ¦ ¦

City Council, June 18th, 2026, calling the meeting to order at 6.31 p.m. And I hope you will join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right. We have no council members attending remotely tonight, so city clerk, could we do the roll call, please?

Council Member Davis.

Here.

Council Member Kern. Here. Council Member Lentz. Here. Council Member O'Connell.

Here.

And Mayor Mackin.

Here. So tonight we have our acting city attorney, Mark Tran. Welcome. This is your second visit to Brisbane. Nice to see you again. Can I get a report out of closed session from June 18th, please? Yes.

Yes, Mayor. The City Council met in closed session earlier this evening to discuss the one item listed on the closed session agenda. Deliberation occurred and no reportable action was taken.

Okay, thank you. And we go on to the adoption of the agenda. Can I get a first and second to adopt the agenda as it stands, please?

I make a motion.

Second. All in favor?

Aye.

Anyone opposed? No. We move on to oral communications number one, and I have to read the caveat to you. We welcome speakers providing public comment, but please be advised, this is a limited public forum. It's therefore important for speakers to please, please stay on topic, whether speaking to a particular agenda item or speaking during general public comment. On topic matters are those that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the City of Brisbane. Speakers, whether during oral communications or on agenda items, will have two minutes to speak. Do we have a member of the public wishing to make public comment on an item not on the agenda? I can answer that question myself. I have some slips here, so we'll start with those. Janice Ah Young. Welcome. Thanks for joining us.

I'm here today as a Brisbane resident who lives on the Northeast Ridge. I'm part of a group of concerned citizens that would like appropriate buffers between industrial uses in Crocker Industrial Park and residential uses at the Ridge. So our goal is to preserve the feasibility of industrial operations but also to maintain residential quality of our community. So in March, we sent a letter to the city council with four topics. First, we requested a review of Crocker Park zoning. We believe now is the time for the city to review what future redevelopment could mean to our community. Second, we have concerns about future uses. Prologis owns 24 properties in Crocker Park, as you know, and It's the largest real estate logistics company in the world and operates distribution centers worldwide. So with one owner controlling most of Crocker, changes could happen quickly and at a larger scale than before. So most importantly, third, what are their potential impacts on homes, schools, and open space? So Altamar and Viewpoint on the Northeast Ridge are adjacent to Industrial Park. As you know, they're just up the hill. So as a resident and board member of Viewpoint of the Ridge HOA, I'm concerned about possible increases in noise, lighting, night activity, truck traffic and air pollution, especially at the Northeast Ridge and at our middle school. So I recently joined Complete Street Safety Committee, and one of our 2026 work plans is to study commercial truck circulation patterns and identify opportunities to improve freight mobility and safety. And so I've actually prepared a slide deck with commercial truck information and approaches to manage truck circulation patterns, which I would like to share with the Complete Street Safety Committee and also with you, the city council. So fourth and finally, we are requesting to work together. We respectively request the council to look with us at the current zoning and truck circulation rules. for crocker to protect our neighborhoods school parks trails and our quality of life before changes happen so brisbane currently has no real protections in place that i know of please place this on your next available agenda thank you thank you janice okay and i have chris evers

Hello, Perseverance 200 Kings Road.

I'm here again to note that, as Janice points out, that a large portion of Crocker Industrial Park is now controlled by Prologis. Oh, sorry, is now controlled by Prologis. And Prologis is touting their ability to go into data centers and e-commerce sites. These uses have negative impacts on the adjacent community, especially on the ridge, and were not envisioned when the zoning for Crocker was last updated. As a result, we don't have anything that specifically addresses e-commerce van services or AI data centers. Other cities have acted to protect themselves, in some cases by banning these uses, making them conditional. Or passing ordinances about where when what can happen? I know the council has discussed this possibility. I know that the Madison asked for staff consideration of this back in May and I hope that staff has in fact been looking into this at the last meeting we said maybe July 16th we could address this as an agenda item and It would be great to do that as I'm sure you guys all know that people are very interested in concerned about this So thank you for getting back to us.

Thanks City manager and would you address the item about data centers because we do have some news on that Yes, Thank You madam mayor members of the council we have just recently scheduled a meeting of the planning issues subcommittee and

made up of two members of the council to meet on July 21st from 3.30 to 4.30 here at City Hall, actually I believe it's in the annex, to discuss a data center issue. We typically utilize our subcommittees to begin a deep dive process on behalf of the council, and we thought that that was an appropriate way to begin the process. so based on that conversation we'll be bringing something forward i'd also like to report that when the council did initially indicate its interest i had a conversation with our city attorney and they've been looking into this issue obviously because it's happening all over california they're preparing some materials as well thank you thank you sherry goodwin come on up here

Real quick, July 21st, what time? So if anyone from the public would like to attend, they are welcome to?

Again, July 21st, 3.30 to 4.30, and I believe it's the Annex conference room across the street.

Thank you. Sherry Goodwin, Kings Road. I also am very concerned about AI data centers. They strain local electricity, water resources, they emit noise, diesel backup, and generator pollution. What has, and I, you know, other cities in California are doing things to fight them, and like Monterey Park, voters overwhelmingly passed a measure to ban them within city limits. Coachella city leaders recently enacted a temporary moratorium on all new data centers while they study the long-term impacts. In Imperial County, residents are currently gathering signatures to place an Imperial County Data Center Prohibition Act. And other cities include San Gabriel Valley, Alhambra, Montebella, El Monte, Baldwin Park. They're all, you know, trying to stop them. So I am just very concerned. And I have to leave early, but I'm also in favor of Parcel R. Parks make people happy.

Thank you. Thank you. Any other members of the public here who would like to speak? Yes, come on up here.

Hi, Byron Anderson. I'm coming today as a member of the public. We've heard lots of very valid and important reasons to fear AI data centers, but I don't see them going away anytime soon. And I fear that if cities that care and populations that want to limit the water loss just continually ban them and push them to other locations, they're gonna get built in places where people don't care as much. And they are going to end up getting free reign over those resources. There are lots of examples all over the country of water neutral data centers. And so we have a unique opportunity as a town to put the regulations in place to make sure that whatever is built is built the right way. AI is not going anywhere and it is our responsibilities as government at every level to regulate it, not to run from it. Thank you.

Okay. City Clerk, do we have anyone else online at this time would like to speak? Madam Mayor, I see no hands raised. Okay. Anyone else here in the audience? No? Okay. All right, thank you, everyone. We move on to the consent calendar. Can I get a first and second to adopt consent calendar items B through K?

So moved.

Second?

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? No. All right, our next item, or first item, really, on the agenda is a public hearing. Item L, consider adoption and acceptance of the Master Fee Study and adoption of resolution amending the Master Fee Schedule to update and adopt new fees and charges for services rendered by various city departments pursuant to section 3.32.040 of the Brisbane Municipal Code. Could we have a staff report, please?

Good evening, Madam Mayor and council members. So we're bringing back the results of the master fee study. And the recommendation today is to formally adopt it through the resolution. And then also, we had reviewed the master FEE SCHEDULE PRESENTED IT ON MAY 21, BUT CONTINUED THE REVIEW TO TONIGHT. SO TO ALLOW THE COUNCIL MEMBERS AND THE PUBLIC TO REVIEW THE SCHEDULE AND questions and so we're bringing it back tonight for discussion and if you were recommending that it be also adopted as part of the resolution so with that how you would like to proceed I'll leave it to you okay council questions let's start with councilmember Kern

THANK YOU SO MUCH. CAROLINA, THANK YOU SO MUCH. THE REPORT IS EXTREMELY COMPREHENSIVE. JUST A COUPLE OF OBSERVATIONS AND QUESTIONS THAT I HAVE HERE. ON PAGE 90 OF 298 IN THE INTRODUCTION EXECUTIVE SUMMARY, THERE'S A LITTLE BIT OF A TYPO, I THINK, BUT YOU COULD CORRECT ME HERE. IT SAYS THE CITY OF BRISTOL, SPAIN, HAS NOT CONDUCTED A FORMAL ANALYSIS SINCE 2002, WHICH IS APPROXIMATELY 13 YEARS AGO. THAT'S 24 YEARS AGO. IS THAT A TYPO, OR AM I DOING SOMETHING WRONG HERE?

NO, IT WAS 2002, SO THAT'S CORRECT.

OKAY, SO IT WASN'T 13 YEARS, IT WAS 24 YEARS. OKAY. The next question I have is on page 91 of 298, and it's on table two, annual cost recovery analysis. And when I went through this, maybe I missed this part, but it looks like our building division is exceptionally better at their cost recovery at 76% as opposed to the planning division, which is only recovering 23%. Can you just help me with that a little bit?

That is correct. And so I do have on the line is Courtney Ramos from Matrix, who was the consultant company that helped us with the fee study. So I apologize, I forgot to introduce her. And she's going to be attending tonight with additional, to help us with additional questions. But yes, so there were, some of the building fees were not updated for several years, whereas a lot of the planning fees were actually part of the regular master fee study that we've been updating annually. And so we incorporated into the study all of the fees related to the building and planning department. IN ORDER TO BRING THEM ALL UP TO DATE, CURRENT, WITH A THOROUGH REVIEW ACROSS THE BOARD.

THANK YOU SO MUCH. THAT MAKES AN ABSOLUTE TON OF SENSE. OKAY, AND THEN... SO THE STUDY ITSELF RELIES ON PRIMARY RESEARCH IN TERMS OF EMPLOYEES REPORTING HOW LONG IT TAKES THEM TO DO AN ACTIVITY AND THE LEVEL OF EFFORT. IT'S SORT OF AN ACTIVITY-BASED COSTING MODEL. How did we go back and validate that it was reasonably accurate or approaching accurate?

We did make sure that we were looking at current processes because as you are aware, planning was one department that had an updated software system. So we did make sure that all of that was, all of the information that was provided was after those implementations. And it was a best estimate that we had. So additional testing, there were several weeks involved between initial discussions of how to come forth with the information and when the deadlines were there. And part of that was for each department to do self-reviews of those steps.

THANK YOU FOR THAT. I JUST HAVE TWO MORE, THAT'S IT. SO, IN GOING THROUGH, LIKE, ALL OF THE DATA THAT'S IN THE REPORT HERE, AND AGAIN, THIS IS A VERY COMPREHENSIVE REPORT, DAILY CITY'S FEE SCHEDULE IS SO MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE THAN EVERYBODY ELSE'S. OVERALL, I'M JUST SAYING. I'M NOT PICKING OUT AN INDIVIDUAL LINE ITEM. I'M JUST CURIOUS WHY WE INCLUDED THEM, NUMBER ONE, AND THEN NUMBER TWO, WHY DIDN'T WE THROW THEM OUT AND JUST DO COMPARABLE TO OTHER CITIES? I'M VERY CURIOUS. THEY'RE WAY OUTSIDE OF WHAT WE'RE SEEING ELSEWHERE, SO I'M JUST CURIOUS.

WE DID LOOK LOGISTICALLY, SINCE THEY ARE A NEIGHBORING CITY, AND THEN ALSO AS PART OF THEIR DIFFERENT PARTNERSHIPS THAT WE HAVE. FOR EXAMPLE, THE FIRE JPA IS A PARTNER CITY, AND A LOT OF IT HAD TO DO WITH LOGISTICS, BUT YOU ALSO HAVE TO CONSIDER THAT THERE'S DIFFERENT PROCESSES AND DIFFERENT PAY SCALES BETWEEN THE CITIES. AND I DON'T KNOW IF COURTNEY HAS ANY FURTHER COMMENTS ON THAT. AND I APOLOGIZE BECAUSE I KNOW COURTNEY, I DON'T WANT TO PUT HER ON THE SPOT BECAUSE SHE WASN'T THE LEAD ON THE PROJECT, BUT SHE MAY BE ABLE TO EXPLAIN SOME ADDITIONAL WHY WE DON'T THROW OUT OR, THAT'S NOT THE PROPER WORD, WHY DON'T WE EXCLUDE SOMETHING IF IT APPEARS TOO DRASTIC.

Yeah, I'm happy to answer that. So we usually, you know, we want to look at kind of who are the surrounding neighbors, especially because, you know, if you look at something certainly like Parks and Recreation, we have choices here in the Bay Area. We can, you know, you can go to Coma, you can go to Brisbane, you can go to Daly City, San Mateo, right? We can go to any of these areas. And so it's really important, even if their fees are significantly lower or significantly higher, to kind of give us an understanding of where you, from a fee perspective, kind of align with all of those. It's also important to understand, you know, if you look from a building or a planning perspective, a lot of times too, you know, applicants, the more seasoned, you know, professional architects and construction companies, they work in a lot of these other different cities as well. And so understanding again, kind of how are their services and those costs aligning. just gives you a better understanding. So that's why we don't just throw it out because it's too high or too low. Thank you.

Thank you for that thorough response. Okay, my final question. It's a wildly unpopular question. People will be lined up outside of my house when I get home. Our senior lunches. This chart is the most eye-opening chart. It looks like most cities are spending under $20 a month, and Brisbane is coming in at $134. Now, I've attended a senior lunch or two, and they are good in Brisbane. They are high-quality food. There are people grilling. Just curious on your thoughts on this one, because we are way outside the ballpark on any of the comparable cities on something like this. And again, I don't want to stop.

Can you say the page you're looking at?

It's page 149 of 298.

I would love to answer this one. I think it's important to understand when we're looking at a comparative survey, what we're comparing is fees, not cost. And so really what we're saying is that the cost to the city of Brisbane to provide these services is $134. You're choosing to charge right now $10, much like I think many of these other jurisdictions are also choosing to charge a lower amount. And again, when we look at something like recreation, these are services that are quite often subsidized by a jurisdiction. So I just want to make sure that we understand that their costs are not kind of where that bar is. That's just what they're choosing to charge. So there is a difference between what we're seeing.

Thank you, Courtney. Again, I'm in no way suggesting that we get rid of these amazing senior lunches. I was just asking the question. So thank you very much. I don't have any further questions.

Councilmember Kern lives at Just asking a question guys, sorry, I couldn't resist Okay Mayor Pro Tem Davis

Thank you. Unfortunately, I want to dovetail off this topic more. $134 lunch. Like that's a Joe's of Westlake lunch for two. So what are you serving? How is it getting to $100? What are the other costs besides the food that's going in to calculate that the total cost is $134?

So the cost of $134 is per month. Oh, per month. Correct. So we do four lunches a month. Correct.

Okay. That's a bargain considering what they get. But we're charging $23.

We're currently charging 10 per month. 10 per month? Correct. We're proposing that there's a minor increase to that, but the council has the discretion to determine what that is ultimately.

Wow, 10, that's a steal.

And to answer your question as well, Madison, it's not just the food, but it's also any labor cost in order to serve in those types of things, overhead cost.

Who's cooking this?

So once a month we have staff do a barbecue. They purchase a lot of the food from Costco and then they barbecue it. It's actually more affordable to do that than to source food from Melissa's or the former Julie's Deli. We use mobile. So we try to use local businesses to support the lunches on the alternate weeks. But their costs are more significant than the cost of us purchasing food at Costco and having staff barbecue. But then there's an outlay of additional staff time with that.

Got it. Okay, my other question is, and this might be buried somewhere in here that I just missed, but the fee for not having a permit, still 10X the permit fee. So if you get caught doing work without a permit, right now, you're charged 10 times what would have been the permit fee. And so is that staying the same?

I'd have to look at the, I'm sorry, I'd have to look at the, look through the list to confirm that.

Maybe someone from planning knows?

I don't know if Julia's on the line.

Good evening, Marin Council, yeah. So it's line item, or I guess fee tag MF-9 is what I'm seeing. So penalty for building without a permit for violation up to 10 times permit fee.

Up to? So how does that determine what you're going to charge?

I think there's discretion involved. So the community development director can determine, you know, was this a, what are the facts and circumstances surrounding the violation and use that to influence the penalty that's assessed.

AND THEN, OKAY, THIS ONE WAS MY FAVORITE LINE. AND I'M SORRY, I'M ACTUALLY USING LAST MEETINGS PACKET, BECAUSE THAT'S WHERE ALL MY NOTES ARE ON, SO I DON'T KNOW THAT I CAN GIVE YOU AN ACCURATE PAGE TO THIS MEETINGS PACKET, BUT IT IS TOWARDS THE END OF THE PLANNING ANNUAL REVENUE IMPACT ON planning fees and so we're building maybe building. It's talking about the re-roofing permit. And it says the total cost was calculated to be 50, the city is charging $35 per 1,000 square feet. Total cost was calculated to be $52, resulting in a per unit deficit of $17. The per unit deficit, coupled with roughly 1,160 times this permit was issued in the last year, resulted in a large cost recovery gap. UNLESS EVERYONE GOT A NEW ROOF LAST YEAR. I STRUGGLE WITH HOW WE COULD HAVE 1160 ROOFING PERMITS, AND IS THIS A TYPO?

SO YES, IT IS, AND THANK YOU FOR POINTING THAT OUT. THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN INSERTED THAT THAT IS BASED OFF OF SQUARE FOOTAGE AND NOT THE NUMBER OF FULL PERMITS. SO THE TOTAL SQUARE FOOTAGE OF ALL OF THE PERMITS.

So are we aware of how many, does anyone have a rough guesstimate of how many permits we actually, roofing permits we issued last year?

Yes. Julia did look into it. Okay. Do you want to clarify that, Julia?

Sure. So from... We looked at both the 2024 and 2025 calendar years and found an average of 45 grouping permits per year.

Okay. So is the number that's assessed here still accurate, though, even though it's a typo?

CORRECT. SO WHEN THEY'RE DOING THE COSTING AND THE FEE PROPOSAL, IT IS AGAIN BASED OFF OF THE SQUARE OF FOOTAGE. AND IT'S A THOUSAND OF SQUARE OF FOOTAGE COMPONENT, SO IT'S PRICED ACCORDINGLY.

OKAY. THIS IS FOR PARK AND REC ON THE PRESCHOOL PROGRAM. BECAUSE WE'VE HAD A LOT OF DISCUSSION ABOUT THAT LATELY. AND THE RESIDENT RATE IS $9. The total cost is $9. And I mean, the current fee is $7 per hour. Total cost is $9 per hour. And that doesn't actually seem like that big of a loss when you're talking about, you know, the preschool program is losing so much money and therefore we were looking at a at canceling that but i know that like the amount of kids fluctuates that so it's it's interesting to me that this could even be broken down this way so i'm like how do the numbers change as kids change so there's clearly a break even right that's 12 10 do we know

That's not a fee that we had Matrix do a cost analysis on, so I'm not sure why it has that $9 under total cost.

So that was part of... Per hour, right. It should have been just the current fee and the recommended fee, not necessarily the cost. So the cost column should have been blank.

So what is the... So the current fee is obviously inaccurate and recommended fee. So do we have a number for that?

We have our own internal spreadsheet that we've used to analyze the cost to operate the program against revenues. So I'm happy to share that after this meeting.

It'd be good to know if we're proposing for that. It'd be good for the council to know if we're proposing for that to go up as part of this whole initiative and by how much. Yeah. Okay, and then last one is on. Sorry, fighting with the packet. Okay. Okay. I wonder why when we get to later items that are in this sort of blue spreadsheet that has like old item number, new item number, fee name, unit, current fee, that Why it doesn't have like current price. It just has total cost and recommended fee. It doesn't have any of the existing costs like the prior ones had. So we could see how things are jumping around. And I just wonder why that information is not there.

You're looking at the old, your old packet.

I'm in my old packet, but it's like this. Looking on the spreadsheet. Is this this new one that they have in front of?

So because the study was looking at.

Oh, this must have got brought up at last meeting because now you have current fee here. Yeah.

BECAUSE THE STUDY WAS LOOKING JUST AT THE CURRENT COSTS. SO WE WOULDN'T HAVE AS THOROUGH OF THAT INFORMATION FOR THE PRIOR FEES. SO IT SHOULD ONLY BE UNIT, CURRENT FEE, TOTAL COST, RECOMMENDED FEE, AND THEN THE FEE TYPE.

OKAY, SO WHAT PAGE IN HERE IS PARKING USE PERMIT? MODIFICATION.

I would need the number of the...

It's listed...

Does it have a number by it?

Yeah, let me see. Okay, hold on.

BP something.

Says... P13 and then P2F.

What's the page number from Matrix?

I'm using my last packet. I'm using last week's packet or last time's packet. That's my problem.

If you're looking at the spreadsheet, the large one, it's on page 7 of 27.

Okay, that'll work. 7 of, thank you, call me.

7 of 27 are permits. All the P13, P12.

P13. Okay, it has the original price here. Okay, because in last packet, it didn't have current fee. It only had total cost and recommended fee.

The last packet was, it was a two-page for each fee, whereas this that you're looking, yeah, so you would have to flip over, and so some columns were repeated in order to identify the remaining columns. Okay. So what you have tonight on the ledger size, everything on one page to simplify everything.

Perfect, perfect. Okay, those are all my questions. Okay. Okay. Council Member Lentz, you're up. All right.

All right, yeah, thank you for the report. So the last time we updated was 2002, correct?

Correct. Okay. The last time there was a study, yes.

A study, okay. ALL RIGHT. THE LAST TIME WE DID A STUDY WAS 2002, BUT WE'VE BEEN MAKING ADJUSTMENTS TO THE FEES.

ANNUALLY.

ANNUALLY. OKAY. SO, YEAH, I THINK THAT'S REALLY IMPORTANT TO CLARIFY. IT MAKES IT SOUND LIKE WE HAVEN'T UPDATED OUR FEES IN DECADES. SO, YOU KNOW, IT SAYS THAT THERE'S A 292,000 APPROXIMATE like under-recovering amount. What page are you in? This is page two of the Matrix Consulting Group report. So of that 292, what percentage of it is construction related, whether it's permits or, you know, just planning issues?

I can't answer that. I'd have to dig deeper and work with the consultant and with Julia's group.

I mean, just eyeballing it, it seems like most of it is in that kind of realm, either through public works or the planning department.

Well, these would all be planning for that page, for the two, page two.

Yes, that one right there. Okay, so, yeah, so building, yeah, so, I mean, that's, yeah, I want to know what it is for the total under receiving. Comparing that to, say, park and rec or other areas where we do charge fees. I was kind of curious to know what that difference is. And then, you know, there's... You know, we don't want to discourage people from doing the electrical work or replacing their water heater and doing things like that. So in the recommendations, are those issues considered?

They were considered as the subcommittee was looking at the proposed schedule. However, we didn't look at every single line in discussion, but there are areas where there may be significant jumps because of the element to recover cost. And so tonight is really up to the council in the sense where If the policy or the philosophy is going to be fee recovery for all of them, or if there will be additional opportunity if you want to either look at how the cost can be reduced as far as procedurally, which some of the areas require multiple layers of approvals and reviews, increasing costs. AND SO IT WOULD MEAN THAT THERE WOULD NEED TO BE SOME KIND OF AUTHORITY GIVEN TO DIFFERENT BODIES FOR APPROVAL BEFORE IT WOULD GO, LET'S SAY, TO A PLANNING COMMISSION, EXCEPTION-BASED TYPE REVIEWS. And then the other area is, well, the cost is going to be the cost, so maybe we need to, the city should consider subsidizing a portion of these, similar to how it makes those decisions for park and rec. So those are options that the council has before tonight.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I'm glad that you brought that up because that is where I'm going or where I'm trying to get to is, YOU KNOW, I MEAN, THIS DOCUMENT IS EXTREMELY COMPLEX AND, YOU KNOW, I DEFINITELY DON'T HAVE THE EXPERTISE TO, LIKE, GO SO DEEP INTO THE WEEDS. BUT I DO KNOW THAT IF, YOU KNOW, IF YOU'RE A LARGE CORPORATION OR, YOU KNOW, THE HOUSE OVER A MILLION DOLLARS TO BUILD. OBVIOUSLY, PEOPLE HAVE MONEY TO COVER THE COST THAT THE CITY IS PUTTING OUT TO PROCESS THEIR APPLICATION. BUT YOU DON'T WANT TO DISCOURAGE JUST THE REGULAR HOMEOWNER FROM DOING THINGS THAT IMPROVE THE SAFETY OF THEIR HOME, IMPROVE THE SAFETY OF THEIR COMMUNITY. Yeah, you know, maybe that's a discussion. You know, it could be. I'm just trying to understand, you know, like how this was put together.

I'd be happy to address that when we get into discussion, and I think the mayor also could add a little insight to where our thought processes went. Yeah, okay.

I think that's great. OK, SO GETTING TO FINANCE AND LOOKING AT THE UTILITY BILL, WATER AND SERVICE CONNECTION, PROCESSING IS AT $20, THE CURRENT FEE AND THE TOTAL COST IS $217. IS THAT JUST, IS IT THAT, IS IT BASED ON THAT BECAUSE

Yeah, what I'm just sure what so there's several several layers of Who has to go out to do some of the work? whether Whether it's opening turning things on, turning things off, depending on what the fee is, it could increase the layer and the number of people involved in order to complete the service. So that can help, or that could contribute to the increase in the cost.

Okay. Yeah, because I mean, just I know this doesn't give the total amount, but it is fairly expensive to set up a water service at a home, isn't it?

It can be. Yeah.

Okay. Then on page 21 of the matrix consulting group, and that's the page number. I'll just use that page number. So under the standby engine company, the first hour and then the additional half hour after that, YEAH, SO THERE'S A DECENT AMOUNT OF UNDERRECEIVING. SO DID THE FIRE CHIEF PROVIDE FEEDBACK ON

some of these fees and did they give recommendations not necessarily the fire chief but there were representatives from the from each department management from each department that were ultimately responsible for helping identify and review the underlying cost for each of the fees and making recommendations on some the reasonableness of the fees

Okay. And then on page 24, under the marina, the application fee, so the current fee is 25 bucks. The total cost says 474. So why is there such a big gap there? Why would an application fee be? Why would it cost the city so much to process?

Again, depending on whether the process that is entailed, how many people are involved, or if there are any credit checks that have to be done, or those types of reviews, that all adds to the application process.

address that, too. Well, that is a question, if you want to jump into it.

If you'd like me to address it, I certainly will at this point. We did ask the Harbormaster about that fee and the application fee that was $25 when it's costing us over 500 to process it. And besides doing the general application reviewing credit, They also have to do a boat inspection. They have to go climb down and make sure that the toilets aren't leaking, that they've got to get insurance information from the different insurance companies. They've got to get a certificate of liability from that insurance company. There's a lot of things they have to do in order to process that application. When we went back to him with questions about why he was not recommending recovering the full amount, he felt that it really would not be an approachable amount for most people looking to come into the marina to pay the full cost of what all the overhead and all the work behind the scenes that needed to be done. So he made a recommendation of a lower fee that we wouldn't be recovering all of the cost so that it wasn't such an imposition to that particular boat owner when they're coming in. So in that case, all these fees, staff had asked the department heads what they felt about the fees in general. They came back with their recommendation whether we should charge the full amount or we should continue to subsidize part of that fee. And we did that with planning fees such as a water heater. swim lessons, all sorts of things that we went to the individual department heads and asked for their feedback on items X, Y, Z. And they came back with their recommendation of why they felt the fee needed to be increased to the full amount or they felt that the city could absorb some of the fee because it was not normally charged in park and rec. Very few of the fees did we bring it up to what it really costs us because we assumed that many of the citizens expect a certain amount of service for what they pay in their property taxes and the other fees or other incomes that the city gets, that it wasn't, we were in a money-making, business. We're a service business. And so we didn't expect to have full recovery or make a profit on anything. And in fact, many things we have to take a loss on because state law limits on how much we can charge for certain things. So even if it costs us $500, state law may say we can only charge $50. So there's some things that we had no choice in whether we raised the fee or not. And there were things that we did have choices and chose whether it was the department head or us as subcommittee members had a choice on whether that fee should be implemented to what it costs to provide that service. So, I mean, on most of these, you know, that stick out like a sore thumb, like the Harbormaster, the application fee or the senior lunches. And senior lunches was the first topic we talked about when we looked at this fee schedule. It's like, why is it so high? What are we spending? And then also when they did the comparison of other cities, It's interesting because some of the cities we were very close to had done a fee study three or four years ago. Some cities that we were way above or way below had not done one. So it really depends on how current other cities are on their fee schedule doing this major study that took a year to do and how often they've updated Also, some cities would charge, when stuck out, was for contractor fees. They may have a lot of fees that are low for business license and fees, but then they charge it on the contracting side, so if someone wants to come in and build something for their business, that's where they're making the money. On the impact fees. not on impact fees, but anyway. So there's different ways to get your revenue in balance, and different cities have taken different tacks, and that's why we don't always look the same as other cities in how they're charging their fees, because they're doing it a different way.

Yeah. No, thank you. Thank you for that. That was really helpful. You know, when you look at the charge later in the document, I mean, there's the light blue area where what our costs are, but we don't have that for the other cities because we don't know what's in their budgets. We don't know how much they're subsidizing. All we know is what they're charging.

Right.

So, of course, you can assume that they're probably doing the same thing. To what degree, of course, we don't know.

And we don't know to what degree they know what they're subsidizing. And that's really what this study did. Was this brought to the attention of us and staff to see what we were subsidizing and to what degree and what we should continue to and what the person who's using that service should be paying for?

Correct. All right, last question, Madam Mayor. And that's on page 48. And Council Member O'Connell, thank you so much for answering that question. That was great. SO UNDER THE VARIOUS JURISDICTIONS, SO TABLE 22 HAS A RANKING OF JURISDICTIONS BY CITYWIDE TOTAL BUDGET. OURS IS 28 MILLION. MILBRE'S IS 40 MILLION. AND THEN TABLE 23 IS RANKING OF JURISDICTIONS BY FTE. SO, WHEREAS MILBRE HAS 105 AND BRITISPAN HAS 145, AND THEN THE THE SENTENCE BELOW SAYS, COMPARED TO THE SURVEYED JURISDICTIONS, THE CITY OF BRISBAYNE RANKS AT THE BOTTOM IN TERMS OF POPULATION AND BUDGET, BUT RANKS AS THE SECOND LOWEST WHEN IT COMES TO STAFFING. SO I'M ASSUMING THAT THE FTE TABLE IS BASED ON STAFFING, AND SO MILBRE HAS LESS? YEAH, SO I'M JUST KIND OF CURIOUS ABOUT THAT. IS THAT PER?

FULL-TIME EMPLOYEES.

FULL-TIME EMPLOYEES.

FULL-TIME EQUIVALENT.

EQUIVALENT. OKAY, SO BRUCE VEIN HAS MORE EVEN THOUGH IT TAKES IN $12 MILLION APPROXIMATELY LESS AND HAS A POPULATION OF 19,000 APPROXIMATELY FEWER PEOPLE.

We also have to consider that some cities also outsource several of their services. And then we are a full service city where some of these other cities, especially their safety, are probably the biggest departments that have been outsourced.

Okay. Got it. Got it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that. Okay. That's it, Madam Mayor. Okay.

So, Councilmember O'Connell, thank you very much. I don't know if you have more to add as questions, because I think you have more answers.

I don't have any questions on this, so I'm happy to go into public or discussion or however you want to do it.

Okay, I just wanted to add one thing to everything that you said. When we poured through this, there's literally... probably a thousand line items. And we asked questions on almost everything. And the department heads, I have to thank you all for your patience with us because we did ask hard questions. But one thing I would add is that sometimes one of the major concerns was safety. So when we look at something like replacing a gas water heater, we didn't want to raise things. We want people to get the permit because that's a life safety. Swimming lessons, the importance for kids to learn how to swim. And certain parks and rec things. senior aquatics there's so many people depend on that so we were we were trying to use a balance and as council member o'connell said in our meetings you all might disagree but we had to start somewhere and we tried to be reasonable and judicious about how we did it but the public may have another insight that we never thought of and you're dying to say something so WE ARE GOING TO NOW OPEN THE PUBLIC HEARING, AND I WANT TO KNOW WHO WOULD LIKE TO ADDRESS THIS TOPIC FIRST. DO I SEE A HAND ANYWHERE?

THERE'S ONE ONLINE RIGHT HERE.

PUBLIC COMMENT FROM EMILY. EMILY. GOOD. WE HAVE SOMEONE. EMILY, PLEASE GO AHEAD.

GO AHEAD, EMILY.

Emily, go ahead. You have to unmute.

It looks like her audio is not working on her end. Okay.

Anything else we can do for Emily technically?

Emily, do you want to go ahead and just type on the chat?

We have anything there? No? Okay. Emily, we're seeing you mute. and unmute yourself, but we can't hear you at all, unfortunately. If you're on your computer, you may have the microphone on your computer turned off, and you need to turn the audio on on your computer. No. OK.

They use the chat if they're just an attendee. Can attendees utilize the chat? So maybe that might be. Do we need to promote to panelist? Maybe that's the problem. And then just put back to attendee.

Let's see. I'm allowing everyone to chat now, so if she wants to type it in, she's allowed to chat.

OK. OK.

Do we see anything in chat yet? We'll keep an eye out. Okay.

There's no other hands raised, Madam Mayor.

Okay. And nobody here wants to say anything about this. Okay. All right. Can I get a first and second then to close the public hearing?

I make a motion.

Second. All in favor?

Aye.

Anyone opposed? No? All right.

Council discussion.

Let's start with Councilmember O'Connell.

Well, the subcommittee spent a lot of time with the staff going over these recommendations. It was very eye-opening because we, the consultants didn't look at just the time staff puts into things. It took all the weighted time things that go into providing this service into account when some of the permits are gonna need to go to the Planning Commission. It took into account not just the staff report time, but the support, the commissioner's time, All these different things that really.

Mailing, you have to mail to.

You know, the notifications to the other property owners, adjacent property owners. So lots of stuff goes into what looks like a simple task. And it's not always obvious, which is why we had the consultant that spent all the time doing these reviews and finding out what it really costs us to operate and to provide services. And they did such an amazing job and thought of all these things that go into the process that you wouldn't necessarily think of. So I'm good with the recommendations that that we came up with between the subcommittee and staff, and I would propose moving forward with it as it stands. But again, I think that the biggest things that we weighed were in the park and rec kind of departments also, where we didn't want to overburden what we were charging for things to people wanting to utilize our park and rec facilities. And so I think that still has the most of the subsidized that we do, the subsidies. A lot were in park and rec. But again, I think that that's where we want to be as a city. We don't want to be trying to price ourselves out and force other people to go to other cities to obtain park and rec. But we also need to have a certain amount of recovery for certain services. So I think we did a pretty balanced approach overall. And so that's... about where I stand on it.

All right. Madam Mayor, I'm sorry. Would you like to close the public hearing?

We did. We did.

Or would you like to give more time to Emily? She's raising her hand.

Is she back? She's back with her raised hand.

You want to try one more time?

Give it a try?

Emily, go ahead.

All right.

Okay, Emily.

Okay. Well, I'm glad we did not promote her to a panel. Yes. All right. Mayor Pro Tem Davis, discussion. Yes. So for those that don't know, I'm in the middle of a big remodel. I bought my first house. It really should have been a tear down, but we don't have that kind of budget. So we're working with what we have, which means I've spent a lot of time in clarity, and I've submitted a lot of permits, and I've spoken to building extensively, to planning extensively. I'm a newbie to this, so I have no idea how this process works, but I have a, this is important to give a little background. I have a very dilapidated carport. It's an eyesore. It's deteriorating and I wanted to remove it. And part of that, THAT PROCESS HAS TO GO BEFORE THE PLANNING COMMISSION BECAUSE THE CODE SAYS THAT YOU NEED TO HAVE A COVERED PARKING SPACE. SO I WOULD BE REMOVING MY COVERED PARKING SPACE. EVEN THOUGH THE PARKING ON MY PROPERTY IS UNCHANGING, MY PROPERTY CAN ONLY PARK ONE VEHICLE. SO I'D BE TRADING A COVERED FOR UNCOVERED. OKAY. SO I PAID $13.76, WHICH IS MORE THAN ALL MY permits basically combined, which I've gotten a permit, you know, for probably anything in a remodel, I've gotten it. And the proposed new permit is $7,089. And I'll tell you right now, I would not pay that. I would knock that thing down and hope nobody noticed.

Very honest of you.

IT IS VERY HONEST. AND YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THAT THIS IS COMING FROM ME, WHO'S ON THE COUNCIL, WHO'S A RULE FOLLOWER, WHO REALLY CARES ABOUT FOLLOWING THE RULES, BEING GOOD TO MY NEIGHBORS, AND IF ANYONE IS GOING TO PULL A PERMIT, IT'S GOING TO BE ME. SO I DO THINK... COULD YOU TELL US WHAT PAGE YOU'RE ON WITH THAT? I'M ON 7. Seven okay, I'd like yeah, and so you know that's something that affects neighbors right parking when you're going before the Planning Commission You're trying to change the parking that does that could have an impact mine doesn't really impact the neighbors, but it could The Planning Commission took five minutes To deliberate it was very clearly an easy. Yes I think staff could have very easily made that determination and So my concern here is what Cliff was getting at earlier is that some of these increases are so exorbitant that as somebody, you know, first-time homeowner, really any homeowner, to be honest with you, is going to look at some of these fees and say, forget it. Applying for a permit, it adds a significant It adds a lot of time to your timeline. I had, one of my permits was like three months of going back and forth. And it adds money. This adds significant amount of money. And so I think what we're gonna start to see is a change in behavior. And people who may have been inclined to get a permit won't. And so with something like a parking that impacts others, do we want to encourage the max amount of cost recovery? Or do we want to encourage that these things have oversight from the city, that this work is done properly, that the planning commission can weigh in, or at least planning staff can weigh in, that neighbors are notified. And so I'm concerned about how dramatic some of these increases are. And I think one of the ways that you could keep the prices lower for things that maybe do have to go to the Planning Commission, there might be certain things that you could give staff some, you could let them make a determining decision THAT YOU LET THEM DECIDE, AND IF SOMEBODY DIDN'T LIKE THE DECISION, THEY COULD APPEAL TO THE PLANNING COMMISSION, AND THAT WOULD BE MAYBE ALTERING KIND OF WHAT THE PLANNING COMMISSION LOOKS AT, BUT IT WOULD BE A WAY TO KEEP THE COST DOWN. ALTERNATIVELY, YOU COULD CONTINUE TO SUBSIDIZE AT A CERTAIN RATE. I THINK WE COULD EVENTUALLY SEE THAT ALMOST THE AMOUNT THAT WE'RE GETTING FROM PLANNING IS GOING DOWN IF ENOUGH PEOPLE ARE LOOKING AT THE FEE AND SAYING, OH, FORGET THIS. I'M JUST NOT GOING TO PAY IT. SO I REALLY WANT US TO THINK ABOUT WHAT THE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES ARE. AND I KNOW TERRY AND COLLEEN, YOU SPENT SO MUCH TIME. THIS IS A REALLY EXHAUSTIVE PROCESS THAT YOU DID. BUT AS SOMEBODY WHO'S PAID THESE FEES RECENTLY, It would just, it's just an infeasible amount.

Well, so in response to that, I think that your situation, you're on a very small lot, it's, I don't even think your carport is a structure, it's a bolt together metal thing that, I wouldn't even call it a structure.

City calls it a structure.

It's a canopy. I mean, I don't know how else you'd put it, but it's not anything that was built with the house. It wasn't anything that... I'm not even sure it's attached to your house. It's just a... It's like a little... canopy thing. But besides that, I think that the parking and non-conforming parking can be very impactful to a neighborhood when people are increasing the size of their home. They're adding ADUs. They are adding, you know, they're taking their garages and making them into a livable unit. And so, you know, when those things, whether you have it as an administrative action where the zoning administrator, I think that's what we term it normally when we have planning make a decision unilaterally on a permit, is zoning administration where they look at it and they can make a decision. They've given the lead way. to do it, but I think when you get into people who are lot-splitting and they're building a bigger house and they're adding to their footprint and they're changing all these other things, parking becomes a real issue. And so this one permit, and granted, when we looked at these permits, we took the average of removing a non-conforming or whatever this permit is, that's the average it may take. And that could be where it's very simple, like yours might have been. But you said you spoke to everybody at length. You probably spent three, four, five, 10 hours on the phone talking to people. And at whatever dollar amount that costs them, to discuss it with you is what was looked at at this fee level, and yours was probably the simpler of all those. So it is possible that there's some other way that there could be a separate fee. We could add in a line item for a fee where you're just removing a unusable structure. So I think there's a way to maybe make it more, cost effective for the simple ones, where it doesn't have to go to Planning Commission, but I think that we were so, in the past there's been so much contention about parking and allowing parking or not allowing parking and whether people have off street parking, that it made it where we need to be really on these permits very methodical on making sure that it wasn't going to hurt someone else. And that's where those costs have gone up because of that. So, I mean, I don't know if we want to look at that particular thing, but I do get where you're coming from that you wouldn't have done the right thing necessarily because of the cost.

Well, and also you have to look at the – if somebody were to have noticed and reported, right, 10x on 7,000, now the city is coming after me for $70,000 potentially over this – No value carport. And so, I mean, but it's not just that. I use my own experience in the context, I'm not talking about this one fee. I'm talking about a lot of the fees here. Like just a design permit for remodeling existing structures. People do remodels of existing structures all the time. It's going from 2,000 to $12,100. It's just such a, I think it's just too big of a pill. in comparison to what it is now. And I know that it's like rent control, right? People are accustomed to paying a certain price. And then when you try to bring them up to market rate, it's an unlivable amount. It's an untenable amount for them to pay because they've been accustomed to paying less. This is a little bit different because it's not like these kinds of fees are fees people are paying all the time. But I think that they're high enough. This is 6X. So they're high enough that I think it's going to yield more behavior. It's going to yield bad behavior, essentially. And is that worth it?

Could I just maybe ask, is it worthwhile? Councilmember Davis, if we asked, I think Julia's online, to comment, because sometimes when we asked planning, because planning does have some fee jumps, and when we looked at what they indicate their costs are, and they had to explain to us the number of different people a task would have to go through. And what those costs then became in overhead hours, employee costs, paperwork, publishing, all of that. And that's all we had to go by. But I think Councilmember O'Connell probably addressed the other end of saying you were probably the simplest where some people, that same task could be very complicated. But I also completely understand where you're coming from in saying it's a big job.

It's important to note for the public too, I've already applied for all my permits. So I don't want it to look like it's like, oh, I see this permit over here. I'm going to have to pay and I know it's going to be more. I've already paid all mine. I'm already moved to the process. I'm almost done. So I'm really saying, I'm really coming up with these points as somebody who's been through this, realizes how difficult of a process it is to remodel a house and just how stressful it is and expensive and just thinking about our residents and wanting to keep them in mind and make sure that we strike a balance. Okay.

Do we have Julia still online? Julia, could you maybe just give us a little bit of guidance? You heard the conversation here.

Sure. Well, for one, I don't know if this is helpful, but I just want to alert the council to the fact that we don't require design permits for construction or modification of single family homes. or ADUs or generic ADUs or duplexes. So I just want to clarify that design permits in general are limited in scope. But yeah, just overall hearing that concern, you know, I think this is a valid thing for Council to consider whether there are different strategies and approaches that Council wants to take to the way fees are assessed for certain planning applications. You know, like has been stated, you know, the fee, the true cost fee is an average cost looking at a variety of complexity of different kinds of projects, right? That we have to kind of hit a sweet spot so that when we charge a fee, we are recovering the cost of, you know, a typical kind of permit that's going to land in the middle of simple and complex. So I have nothing really more to add to that. I think, you know, responding to what Senate Councilmember Davis' suggestions were, you know, there are a lot of avenues Council could explore if they were interested of, you know, are we considering creating classifications of like minor use permits that perhaps have a different process or procedure that is a less costly one? And, you know, that's definitely something to consider. So, yeah, I don't know, Madam Mayor, if there's any other specific things you want me to advise on, but I'm happy to help if council is interested to kind of think through different approaches to take if full cost recovery is perhaps not desired for all permits.

So if I can just ask, just based on the conversation, if there was a way on a design review to have level one, two, or three, So that's something that's very simple for a very small house. You would charge one fee. Middle range and then maybe there's something that's very complex and it's got more technical features that are going to require more time with a planner. Is there a way or would that be possible to assign different levels to some of these fees?

Yeah, I think it's possible. We would probably want to look at it in a bit more detail, right? Because obviously the way our fee structure is structured now, it's a, this is the permit. And it's kind of irrespective, you know, some differences between residential versus commercial. But yeah, so that's definitely something we could look into more. And again, we wouldn't impose any design permit requirements on single family.

most part okay so i i think are there any other questions for julie as long as we well i'm glad you brought that up madam mayor because i think that that is where this needs to go when you you just go through the document and you look at all the all the areas where we're in in regards to building There's the current fee, there's the total cost, and for almost all of them, the recommended fee is the total cost. So if you're doing something like your home, Madison, where you're that the new homeowner and you're trying to fix up the fixture upper and trying to make it livable, or someone wants to do a remodel on their bathroom. You know, you've done some remodels, Madam Mayor, and just, you know, getting stuck with a huge fee uh, from the city, you know, that, that might just put you out of budget and you might not be able to do it. And we don't want to, to put people in that position. I understand the importance of trying to recoup costs that, that makes sense. And I think like you were, you're going perhaps having some kind of level where, I don't know, maybe it's based on budget. Um, WHERE THE FEE IS THIS, AND THEN A MIDDLE BUDGET IS A HIGHER FEE, AND THEN IF YOU EXCEED YOUR CONSTRUCTION COSTS OVER A CERTAIN AMOUNT, THEN YOU PAY THE TOLL COST. So I'm just, you know, if that is where you were kind of going, Madam Mayor, and Julia, if you think that's possible, that's not a huge undertaking for staff to do, to me, that seems appropriate.

I know we closed the public hearing, but do we want to take a question?

Wait, can we finish up with discussion? I'm a little confused on what was going on right now.

Council Member O'Connell, you had a question.

I wanted to say that I believe talking to the person who did this study, if we enact these fees, they gave us a range of what the maximum we could because we had to have a nexus on why we were increasing any fees. We can always lower them. We can't go any higher than what this fee study said was legitimate. But we can always lower them. Thank you. And make them less and subsidize more. And I'm just going to throw that out there and then I'll let any other questions happen.

We're still in discussion, yes?

Yes. Council Member Kern, are you ready?

Waiting for you to call on me, yes.

Council Member Kern.

Yes, thank you.

Please.

Again, we're a service. We're not a business. So we're out there to provide a service as a government. So if you wanted to compare us to a business, you could look at maybe insurance, financial services, banking, even a haircut. WHERE IT'S A SERVICE AND THE ONLY WAY THAT YOU CAN BACK INTO YOUR COSTING IS THROUGH ACTIVITY-BASED COSTING, WHICH IS THE EXERCISE THAT MATRIX HAS DONE HERE. WE DON'T HAVE A PRODUCT. WE DON'T MAKE POTATO CHIPS OR CARS OR ANYTHING THAT WE CAN FULLY LOAD LIKE A STANDARD WIDGET. So by doing so, and I'm not on the subcommittee and I didn't participate in the reporting and I'm not friends with the people over at Matrix, but what they did is they did an estimate here and they said, this is what it's costing the city based upon interviews and based upon time spent. And then to validate that that was somewhat proper, they went out and did benchmarking against other cities. I know I called out Daly City earlier, but they did do the benchmarking. So now they're saying, this is what it's costing Grisbane and this is what our neighboring cities are charging. So they've done the study, they've done the validation. Now, to Council Member O'Connell's point, we can lower these fees at any point in time. I'm a huge fan of testing, and if our compliance officer is saying, oh my gosh, I am getting reports of people violating and not pulling permits and doing all of this, then we know that there's a problem here. So I am in a fan of adopting this new fee structure because we can revisit it at any time and say, gee whiz, 1,300 to seven grand is too absurd and people are not adhering to the law. They're not pulling the permits. We need to take a look at this. So that's where I'm at. I just wanted to get that out there. Thank you.

Okay. Mayor Pro Tem Davis. While I was buying a house, I was going to a lot of open houses. And in that process, I was calling the city about a lot of houses that I was seeing that had a finished basement or this or that. I was looking at a lot of disclosure packets. Many of them have unpermitted work. Almost all of them that I looked at had unpermitted work. So I totally get to your point. Like if we start finding out, you know, then that's maybe showing it's illuminating a story for us, but there's so much that we won't find out because a lot of stuff is happening inside your house or in your backyard where if your neighbor is not calling on you, right? I think that there's a lot of work that will go under the radar that we'll never know about. And yeah, I still think that this could be a problem and I think if anything what we might notice that could be that nexus is if you're seeing, if you're graphing it out and you're seeing, okay, this year we had this many permits for this and planning has been taking in, has processed this many applications and all of a sudden applications have dropped by 30% and we could see the applications that have gone up significantly in price, those have gone down. I think maybe that's a way that you could do it. You could tell. versus hearing about people that are doing work without permits. And then that puts staff in a really difficult position, I think, because you can charge them up to 10 times. And let's say someone caught me and I said, well, I just can't afford $7,000. Then it puts staff in this position to decide, are they going to charge me $70,000 for this? Are they going to charge me a...

$2,000 penalty.

I don't know if we want to put our staff in that position to do that maybe more often than they've had to.

So when you think of a kitchen remodel, an average kitchen remodel being over $100,000, and I know that's or a bathroom remodel that's probably close to $100,000 if you're doing a real bathroom nowadays, you know, plumbing and electric. You know, a $7,000 fee, now I'm just pulling out your carport fee, on a half a million dollar remodel is not... a huge amount in the overall picture. You know, that can be the price of a refrigerator nowadays. People pay that for refrigerators. I'm the basement shopper, so I'm not going to do that. But, you know, I mean, so you've got to look at it in the picture and the you know, if they pull the fees and they're doing it properly, and it's all legal-legal, when they have that equity in that house and they can pass it on when they sell it.

So I haven't said anything. I'm just going to make a comment. did extensive years and years too many years of remodeling and still not done and i appreciated what you said mayor pro tem davis about the number of people that don't get permits because you're legally in california supposed to have permits on everything and If you sell it, you're obligated to disclose anything that was not permitted or signed off. It has to be signed off. And some people get the permit and don't get it signed off. But I've always been amazed at watching neighbors. Some of the things, the permits that are really cheap. replacing a water heater and they don't get a permit. Some people, if we lowered what is a current cost of the fees, they still wouldn't get a permit because they're going to balk at $500. They're going to balk at $150. They're determined, if I can get away with it, I'm not going to get the permit. And I'm not trying to discount what you're saying. Please don't take it that way. But I think that we've got people who consider the permit the cost to doing business because they're going to sell the home They're going to verify I did everything legally and it's safe. And there are other people who go, if I get caught, I get caught, and if I don't, I don't. So I don't know where the middle ground is on this. The only thing that I could see would be if we asked community development planning to go back and make some tiers on some of these, but then we're not passing this tonight. And I do... We had one request. Let's allow one public comment.

Can I just ask a question?

Oh, oh, oh, I missed that. Madam Mayor, can I just ask a quick question? Sure.

So I'm curious, and I don't know if this is for you, Carolina, or for Courtney, but, you know, on, you know, starting on page 138 or... PAGE 50 OF THE MATRIX CONSULTING GROUP. SO IT GOES INTO THE VARIOUS COMPARISONS WITH THE VARIOUS CITIES, AND THERE'S A GOLD LINE THAT SAYS THE AVERAGE. SO BASED UPON THE INFORMATION THAT'S ON THIS SHEET, WHEN WE'RE LOOKING AT TOTAL COST RECOVERY, WHICH IS RECOMMENDED FOR MOST OF THESE THINGS, Is that, are we looking at an average, or would you say now we're above the average, or are we still below the average?

So I think depending on the scenario, I'll use the re-roof as the example. I think that's the first one.

I'm looking at that one.

Yeah. OK. So the gold bar is the average. The light blue is your full cost. So your full cost of setting your fee at full cost would be well below the average of those other jurisdictions. Conversely, right, if we look at the water heater, the water heater, you would be above the average and you'd be, it looks like, about in line with Emeryville, a little bit higher than some other jurisdictions. So that's kind of the way to look at that. If the fee, if the chart, you know, and the fee that you're proposing is full cost, that would be kind of the way to look at that. I'd also like to note too that not everybody chooses not to get a permit because of the fee. And I think a water heater is a really good example of that, where a lot of times there's a lot of people that don't understand what I do. And so when I'm having conversations with people and I go, oh, you know, like if you need a water heater, you need to get your bathroom remodeled. And I think people understand a bathroom remodel. OK, that seems like a big enough project. But even then, a lot of people don't see that. They don't show that that part of the process on HGTV. So there's a lot of people that don't understand that permits are part of the process and part of the price. And so I think it's a little, you know, I just want to be careful that when we talk about people not getting permits, it's not just because they're trying to kind of skirt the process or not pay fees. Sometimes it's because they don't know that's part of the process.

So what if I'm just going to throw something out to Courtney and you all let me know what you think. What if the Council decided to say, you know, we're going to either move our fee to the average, or whichever is less, we'll keep it at our recovery cost. What about that, Courtney?

I mean, it's certainly something you can do. I mean, I think the other important thing to keep in mind is like we were talking about the harbor permit earlier, right? Where it's $20 now, we know it's costing you almost $500. the proposal is to only raise it to 25. So I think to remember too that some of these things that you're seeing as current costs, those were never your true costs to begin with, even back in 2002. And I think really it just comes down to What are you comfortable subsidizing?

Exactly. And, you know, I should have, let me clarify. The things in park and rec and, you know, other areas outside of the building process, I like those recommendations of SUBSIDIZING. AND I WOULDN'T CHANGE ANY OF THOSE FEES THAT THE SUBCOMMITTEE RECOMMENDED SUBSIDIZING. SO THOSE I THINK ARE GOOD. IT'S SOME OF THESE OTHER FEES THAT HAVE GONE UP SIGNIFICANTLY. So trying to find some kind of middle ground, kind of like where you're coming from, Frank. You're saying, hey, we don't know how this is going to turn out. Why don't we just do it? And if we get a bunch of complaints, we can always lower it. Maybe not go all the way to total recovery, but do something that's in the average. Or if it's below average, okay, then let's do total recovery. JUST THROWING IT OUT THERE ON, JUST ON, IN THAT PARTICULAR ROUND.

DO YOU MIND IF I APPLY YOUR FORMULA THAT YOU JUST EXPLAINED TO THE REROOFING PERMIT, WHICH IS THE NUMBER ONE, OR THE FIRST EXAMPLE IN THE PACKET? IT'S ON PAGE 139 OF 298. SO, CLIFF, WHAT I'M HEARING YOU SAY IS BRISTBAIN'S CURRENT, AND BY THE WAY, I DON'T HAVE THE ACTUAL FEES IN FRONT OF ME, THIS IS A CHART, BUT IT LOOKS LIKE BRISTBAIN'S CURRENT FEE TO DO A REROOF ON YOUR HOUSE IS $100. OUR TOTAL COST TO DO THE PERMIT IS $175. AND THE AVERAGE AMONG OUR SISTER CITIES IS $500. SO IN THIS PARTICULAR EXAMPLE, YOU WOULD SAY WE'RE GOING TO MOVE IT TO THE AVERAGE AND MAKE IT $500. NO.

SO I'M GLAD YOU HAVE THIS PAGE UP. SO FOR THE REROOFING AND FOR THE WATER HEATER. SO FOR THE REROOFING, IT WOULD BE $175. For the water heater, our costs exceed the average. So then that would come down.

You're saying the reverse.

So you do both, right? If recovery is below the average, go for recovery. If recovery is above the average, stick to the average. And then that would lower it, kind of addressing some of the things that you're talking about, Madison. Keeping those costs down is probably still going to be excessive. And, you know, maybe we see what those numbers are and maybe we continue to come down a little bit lower.

Yeah. One question, though, for Courtney quickly. Have you heard of any other municipalities doing something like this? Based upon just the recent example that we just talked through.

I would say there are a lot of municipalities that that wish to be in the middle of the pack. And so they will look and see what is what are my neighbors charging? And I want to be right in the middle of that. There are some that say, you know what, we want to be the lowest person out there. And that's how they set their fees. So a lot of jurisdictions look at it a lot of different ways. I do want to just point out, though, that we did not compare every single fee. So given your proposal or the proposal, not your specific proposal would require if you wanted to do that would require a much more intensive comparison. to try and find apples to apples comparisons for all of these fees. Because different jurisdictions, sometimes you call them different things, or somebody's on valuation, somebody else is on square footage. So it's not always easy to find those comparisons. while the proposal makes sense, implementation of that and finding the data for that would be complicated. Can I make a suggestion? Sure.

Since it seems like I'm the one that's really caught up on this. I like the idea of tiers. I feel like it could get complicated for staff to figure out who falls in tier one, two, three. Maybe we could, maybe you could noodle on that. I really want, I think it really should be focused on like, we want everyone to get permits for everything. But I think there are some permits that maybe rise to the top of seriousness. And, you know, somebody is doing subdivision work, specific plan work, those things, they're coming. They're coming to you. They're not doing those things without coming to you. Building a house, no one's just building a house without coming to the city. So some of these things... YOU CAN TELL THAT IT'S REQUIRING A LOT OF UPFRONT CAPITAL. WE'RE NOT WORRIED ABOUT THOSE PEOPLE. AT LEAST I'M NOT RIGHT NOW IN THIS DISCUSSION. I'M WORRIED ABOUT The average homeowner who wants to improve their property, we want people to improve their property. Their property taxes go up. It's good for us. It's good for the schools. We want to have oversight. And it's good for the neighborhood. When someone takes a dilapidated property and enhances it, all the neighbors benefit. So I would love for staff to maybe look at the permits that, like parking, that's a perfect one. Because THAT COULD POTENTIALLY IMPACT A LOT OF NEIGHBORS. I WOULD ASSUME THAT WOULD BE SOMETHING THAT NEIGHBORS WANT TO BE NOTIFIED ABOUT AND THE CITY WANTS TO BE INVOLVED IN. MAYBE IN THOSE INSTANCES YOU WOULD HAVE SOME KIND OF TIERED STRUCTURE SO THAT YOU'RE REALLY ENCOURAGING PEOPLE TO COME TO THE CITY. Yeah, it's not always price that's going to impact. For me, that jump in price, it totally would. But it also is the time to go and submit an application and move through Clarity and pay the thing and submit and do the designs and then get comments. Sometimes you're going back and forth on comments several times and it takes every time you're getting a comment, it could be up to another 30 days. So sometimes it's just the process of dealing with the city. that is part of it. And so if the process takes a lot of time, plus it's really expensive, you're just stacking up the reasons why somebody is not gonna engage with us. So I think if the council is comfortable with that, I'd love to see just some feedback from staff about if you could pull out some of these, maybe come up with some tiers. And I'm not saying for every fee should have a tier reroof, That's simple, straightforward. But some other things are a little bit more complicated. Do you think that that's something that you could even do?

So it's my understanding, and I think what's going to happen if we start making new categories, we are granted if they're lower. we may not need to go back and do another fee study. If they're higher, we would need to go back and do a new fee study to make sure that we're not out of compliance with state law.

I don't want any fees going up.

As far as the comment to make us middle of the road on everything with everybody else, and That would, in many cases, that would mean that the city of Brisbane, the residents of Brisbane, who are paying their property taxes, who are paying their revenue, are going to be subsidizing everybody else. Subsidizing the people that are doing work on their homes, or pulling a permit for signs, or going to swim classes. It changes who is bearing the responsibility for that. And when we look at, there's another variance here that's in that same price range of the parking variance, and that's variance to code provisions for remodels. And that's going with heights and It does take $7,000 of staff time to go through when someone says, well, I'm going to go up another two stories and I'm not allowed to go up two stories. I'm only allowed to go up one and a half stories. It's going to block the view. It's going to shade somebody else's solar structure. It's going to mean taking out some trees that are, you know, heritage trees. And all those things need to be reviewed by the city. And I don't think we should be looking at oh, well, we need to make everything easy for people. I think we need to be in reality and get our fees, and I don't think that we should be just trying to be middle of the road to do that. I think we need to really get what it's costing. Most of these fees that are on this sheet are for businesses, they're for large-scale development, There's so many things that are really important to bring up to what it really costs us so that if and when big projects come in here, we get what it costs us to process those.

So I have a question then also to ask. When we compare to the other cities on these graphs, and I don't remember the answer, whether we verified that all these other cities had recently brought their fees up to be current, or whether some of their fees could be 10, 20 years old as well, and to try to meet their average is maybe not a good idea, because maybe they're behind the curve in raising fees, and then we're kind of kicking ourselves.

Well, you know, I mean, Yes, I can hear where you're coming from there. I mean, it comes down to the sticker shock. And really, when you look at some of these things, when it's $1,000 and now it's $7,000, or it was a couple thousand dollars, and now it's over $10,000. No matter how we slice it, we are proposing to raise what currently exists and to where we find that that I guess that balance and you know to me the to me the height is the cost whatever the cost or that shit right that has to that's what state law says you can't go above that so um But do we have to max it out in these areas? And I hear what you're saying, Terry. There are a lot of other impacts that happen. It isn't just the person that's just adding the extra story. You're having an impact on your neighbor. We have a tree ordinance and that could degrade the, the canopy that we have in the town, all those impacts, they cost something. So it's, again, how do we find a balance that isn't excessive? And to me, when I look at some of these costs, they just seem excessive to me. That's just, and maybe that's a gut thing that I'm experiencing, maybe it's more emotional than just looking at reality. But I feel that I hope that we can find some kind of common ground.

I have a suggestion. We close the public hearing. I'm going to reopen it because we didn't have many takers last time. But I think that maybe based on this conversation, a little input from the public would be warranted. So let's start with Mr. Cunningham. Come on up here. Tell us what's on your mind. Give us some input.

Okay, it's complicated. Emmett Cunningham, Brisbane resident. Two things here. First and foremost, there's two parts. One is getting something done quickly, and the second one is making sure you're pricing it right. The first one, in the particular case from Council Member Davis, I was actually at her property. I leaned on her, I don't know what I want to call it. Canopy? I'll call it a structure. It's dangerous. she couldn't get that thing taken down in a few weeks i kid you not it wouldn't have taken more than me leaning on it a little bit more and it would have fallen down and be dangerous now if the city council wants to sit back and stop that from happening for a couple months there's a liability component for the city there because the city is stopping her from actually making that property safe even though she's asking to so the short answer there is there's this chunk of structure that costs I don't know, it's not worth anything. I think anybody who's seen it knows it's not worth anything. There's a $7,000 fee for removing of this thing. And because of various rules, there needs to be an ability to streamline it and go through it quickly and be able to take it down to make the property safe, even for the contractor to work on. I walked in there, put my hand on it, and I wasn't even leaning on it. It just swayed three inches. And I'm like, oh, this is dangerous. The second one is trying to get the right price. A percentage of the cost of the actual replacement of the value of the thing that you're putting in should be something simple. It should be easy to calculate. I think I was the person, I may have been one of the roofs that you were talking about. In fact, I might have been the roof you were talking about. I replaced a roof on a property. We opened it up. We didn't know what it was going to cost us. Why? It's a simple roof replacement. There's no such thing as a simple roof replacement in Brisbane. Anybody who's lived here knows that. We opened it up. There were five layers of roofing. Pardon me, I'm going to go over. I'm trying to be quick. There were five layers of roofing. They had to be removed. Once we got to the bottom, we realized that it's got 3 1⁄8 inch 3-ply plywood, nowhere near anything that we want on a roof. Oh, and then it's got a stringer that's a one by six. Once again, nowhere, anything near. Did I have any clue what the costs were going to be? Could you have possibly given me a good estimate of what it was going to be to a fee for that? The answer is no. Why? Because I didn't know what it was going to cost until I opened it up. So I'm going to ask you, and by the way, Scarlett was fantastic on this whole process. I'm going to say that again and again. Thank you. I had no idea what it was going to cost to do it, and Scarlett was updating this thing repeatedly as we kept on finding new things because it was going to just take more and more. So one, separate these two problems. Figure out how to make it possible to fix safety-level problems quickly. That's a simple thing. The second one is find a nice way to do a structure, a replacement price. We don't have to make money on it. Economics will pay us back. We'll get more money because the property values go up, the property taxes go up, the state will give us more money, and our schools will get better. We don't have to make money on it directly. We can make money on it indirectly. If you've had an economics class, you'll understand that. Thank you. Sorry it took so long.

Next. Come on up here.

I hate public speaking.

We don't bite. Go ahead. No, I just don't like it. And I came here more for parks, but this conversation upset me a great deal. I'm a homeowner, and I have the great pleasure of living across the street from Madison and looking down on this thing. And I just think a big gust of wind ought to come up, and it'll just fly away because it's really unstable. And so I do think you have a great idea. There's some things that just need to be taken care of, and there's a different level of cost and urgency that should be considered in probably even the permitting process. Aside from that, I think kind of consistent with what you were saying, Cliff, and I just want to endorse this, I think I understand that the proposal is a six-fold across-the-board increase. Is that what I heard?

No, no, no. No, no, no. Not at all.

How much? What is...

There isn't an across the board.

All the fees are different. Different increases.

So where did I hear six-fold?

Design permit fee.

Okay. You guys, that's, I mean, that's like asking somebody who's used to paying $4 a gallon for gas to pay $24 and then saying to be okay with that because we're going to just try it and see if people will tolerate it. And I'm telling you, I'll just be the first person to be the person complaining, no way. And so that's just not, some of those, a six-fold increase in something in a single jump is just not something that is, in my mind, reasonable to ask people to tolerate. And I don't know how fast you need to rejigger money to cover the things that you're trying to cover but to try to do it too fast is just i think asking too much of your citizens um i'm lucky i feel lucky to be a homeowner but i mean we can only support so much um before it just it just becomes too much like it's it's it's expensive to own a home and to have it be a place where you're proud to bring guests in and my home's very simple And so anyway, thank you for letting me speak Byron come on up here Byron private resident

I've been hearing a sort of a common thread here and I'm gonna sort of just come out and say what I think a lot of people are dancing around. And that is that at some point we don't need a super cumbersome labor filled hours of city staff time process for some of these smaller contracts. I know there's, Courtney was saying there's some process involved there where single family homes don't get applied. And there was some mention of it with the three tiered system. and there is some mention on a streamlined process, but at some point, there's a reason people say that government is overly cumbersome and it costs more money than the private sector, and it's because we undermine the authority of our city professionals. And so if we just put a little bit more trust in our city professionals who are running these contracts through, and they can expedite that process with just a little bit more leeway and the ability to make a call without being questioned or undermined. Ultimately, contracts like this or fees like this benefit large developers. If you look at examples all over the world, especially with international companies that go into other countries, they endorse fees like this because it is good for big business and smothers out individual companies, individual businesses, individual property owners. and so there's very simple solutions you know through economics i think you left already um and through how to make how to fix government issues and who who benefits from these government issues and who is hurt by these government issues thank you for your time okay any other takers oh okay um i think she had okay barb

Barbara Ebel, long time Brisbane resident. I've built a house in this city and I would like to thank Julia and Amy Listman for dragging me through that process. I think they probably earned their wages. And I just want to kind of talk as a taxpayer here. You know, the average tax rate in San Mikeo County is about 35, 40 percent. if you guys are getting full recovery on these services, then I'm wondering do I still have to pay taxes? Because it seems like if I'm paying the full cost and the fees, I shouldn't need to pay my taxes too. Maybe not. Yeah, so that's just a thought as a taxpayer and a homeowner that I feel like I'm getting poised to pay for everything twice. I think the real thing we need to focus on is how to make this process less cumbersome and more efficient. Because then you don't have to raise these fees. You know, if we can use AI, if we can use other kinds of processes to streamline this for the homeowners, you shorten the time, you lessen the cost. And then you lessen the level of adversity that you're bringing into this process. So I think the real focus needs to be on changing the process less than raising the fees. I did a whole series of recommendations that I presented to the planning commission post our project and I'm thinking maybe it's a good time for me to resend those. Thank you very much. Michelle.

Michelle Salmon, Brisbane resident. I did look at the study and talked about it and thought about it. And tomorrow's Juneteenth. It's a holiday. City will be closed. How many holidays does the staffer get? How many days off? How many, you know, I mean, you start to think about it and we're looking at two things. How much it costs the city to But maybe we should think about how we can lower the costs. And so it goes both ways. I mean, for years people have complained about how much city employees make and all the benefits and everything like that. Well, I think our city employees are pretty valuable. But to be charged at that level, I mean, there are a lot of older homes in Brisbane that require maintenance. And now that I'm retired, I mean, I waited as long as I could to retire because it's so expensive. I can't afford to do anything on my house. You know, and you add permit fees that are exorbitant, and you start to not take care of safety issues like the car part, which I thought was kind of charming, but it's not. You might get $4 in scrap metal for it. But I see other things when I walk around town, safety issues, that someone's not going to repair, especially if they're retired and don't have the money to even get it repaired, let alone pay all these permit fees. And once you're on a fixed income, it's a whole different story. And Brisbane has houses, our house is almost 100 years old. It was started in 1929. And it's full of Walterisms from the last owner. God knows the things he did. But I'm finding them as I go along. And so it is hard. It's a hard thing. And so I understand the cost recovery. And I went through the formulas and I looked at stuff and I understand we're subsidizing. Well, my taxes are subsidizing childcare and schools. I don't have any kids, you know. And recreational activities. I finally started using the pool after it was there for years and years and years. So I just think we really need to look at it holistically as a... a community and it's one thing to compare us to other towns like you talked about Millbrae where they don't have as many employees They farm it out to the sheriff's department, whereas we have our fabulous police department. So it's give and take. But when you make it so onerous that longtime residents or people who own individual houses that need work cannot do it because it is exorbitant. It becomes exorbitant. So maybe we need to streamline some stuff and rethink this. So thank you for your time. and all the work you did on it. There was a lot of work. It was impressive. But some of the conclusions are not quite right. Anybody else? Come on up here, Julie.

Hi, Julie Sims, and I'm a resident of Brisbane. And I just first wanted to say thank you for all the work that went into this. I did actually look at it and I really zeroed in on the parks and rec portion and the fees, which I thought were very thoughtful. So thank you. And the other thing I will just say, adding to what you've heard is the concept of abundance by Ezra Klein has been on my mind and fees and bureaucracy that causes, that has unintended consequences basically, where suddenly it's, you know, the example where you, you might have spent 10 hours Madison and you're pretty connected trying to figure things out at city hall and we're paying for someone's time. I think everyone's in this situation and I don't think it's a problem with our city or our city staff, but if we could become the city that is able to cut through bureaucracy and keep fees lower because of that, that would be a pretty awesome one for us. Thank you.

Okay. Anybody else?

Quick one. Water heaters were brought up last time, and the problem with water heaters is they pick the most inopportune times to go out. Or heaters. I had a heater go out December 22nd. If I had to make a request for a permit to replace the heater, it probably wouldn't have gotten done until mid-January, late January. Needless to say, I called the guy that built it down the street. He actually put it in. This was back in 2001. And we went into the city a couple days after the new year when it opened up again and put the thing in. At the current situation, I would have been fine. Let's see, what would the permit cost for a new heater plus 10 times 10? That doesn't seem very sane. My point is there's certain situations where you just can't live without the item in question, like a water heater or a furnace on December 22nd. You might figure out a way to not penalize somebody for not going through the city when they're closed. Just saying. Thanks.

Do we have a city clerk, anybody online wishing to speak?

No hands raised, Madam Mayor. Okay.

Motion to close public hearing, please.

So moved. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? No. Okay. I was just going to make a suggestion. It doesn't sound like this is going to fly tonight. It also sounds like the fees that are problematic have to do with permits and planning, not Parks and Rec, not other areas, the marina. It's really all of these permits under the planning department. So perhaps maybe the subcommittee could convene with staff again and have some discussions about this. I just don't think this is going to go well.

So if I may, I am absolutely shocked that this went the way it did and that there is so much pushback from the public, but also from the council when we already had a meeting on this.

I wasn't there. I would have said all that then. I know you weren't there.

That's okay. And I get the feeling that, and I agree, it's not going to pass tonight and we can come back and look at it. But it sounds to me that, you know, everybody is happy with subsidizing park and rack and all that. But the one department that is losing the most money, that we spend the most of non-recoverable fees on, we want to wipe that off the board and not have that happen. And I think that's just wrong, and I'm sorry that I feel that's wrong, but that's where we have, you know, planning, they need to go out, they need to look at the property, they need to do additional checks. We sublet a lot of our planning to offsite people because we don't have enough people to do all the things that are required. You know, and I'm just really disappointed that We're focusing on a couple items to bring the whole system down and say, well, you know, we've discussed in this group whether AI would change the amount it costs us to do things. And it doesn't. We have discussed reducing, you know, to reduce the cost, we would have to reduce the people that go out and check and make sure the work's being done right. We would have to reduce, you know, the expertise that goes into all these permits. And sure, we can start subsidizing everything. But this whole exercise was to bring our costs up to where they need to be for a reality check so that we can keep subsidizing the fun stuff that people want subsidized. Because we can't subsidize it all.

Madam Mayor. Yeah, okay. Well, if I may, sorry, Mr. City Manager. I hear what you're saying, Terry. And I don't think the council is giving directions. It's like, okay, just go back to the way it currently is, right? We know we need to make changes. We're just addressing things, you know, where the current fee is $1,300, total cost is $7,400, and the recommended fee is $7,400. There's a lot of that. And I appreciate your recommendation, Madam Mayor, that taking the feedback from the council and the public is important and that you go back to the subcommittee and work with staff. And I think that you'll come back with a product that will be much more palatable. And the goal is to pass something and get our fees up to where they need to be in 2026.

I think a tiered system also takes into consideration how much time staff thinks that that permit will require. If they look at something, staff looked at mine and said, I mean, this is a slam dunk. I don't see how the planning commission could see it any differently. It's the, we think this is going to be nice and smooth. So, you know, there are some things where they can take a look and say, this is easy. Also, this is like right. The average, right. So if we had a tiered system, that would take into consideration that some permits require a lot more and some require a lot less, and you're still recovering, I think, a good percentage of whatever it's costing, but you're not making it so that somebody who has something that's very simple that's not costing that much staff time is paying the same. It's more equitable than somebody who needs a lot more interaction with staff and a lot more back and forth. So... Yeah. I mean, I think like so many of these fees, like in page one on exhibit a bumping up, you know, if it's 800 to 2000, all those tiers, all those numbers make sense to me. Most of these numbers in here make sense to me. I'm not even talking about ones where it's big developers and people with tons of money. I'm talking about a few fees in here that we really want to have oversight on that affect the average homeowner. who's doing a normal remodel or neighbors nearby that are gonna be affected that need to know and that it may cause behavior that doesn't bring this forward to everyone's attention. So I'm just talking about a few things in here that I hope that I gave one example because it's my personal example. But I'm just asking staff to call out a few more of those things. You can see there's certain sections in here where there's really big jumps. And to just come back, can we adopt everything else? And just have staff come back with just that section, like Mayor Mackin seems to be suggesting, maybe. Is it possible to adopt all the other fees? And I know you need that for the budget. And let's be real. we're gonna we're making more money. We're increasing a bunch of fees in a lot of places. We're making more money no matter what. And

let's can we do that through the chair i'd like to i'm sorry i do want to make a point that i think would be helpful for this conversation um we speaking with mark if there are fees that you're comfortable with tonight you can direct us to adopt those and we can move forward and then limit the conversation to specific parts but keep the other pieces moving along actually the second point i wanted to make too is i think on a number julie made this point earlier and a number of the issues under permits such as design permits and a few of these other areas that we've had some concerns. Again, they do not apply to the vast majority of projects in central Brisbane. So they're going to apply to larger projects. But what I'm hearing, and if this is useful, we can take the portions that the council has the most concerns about, which sounds like it's mostly in planning permits, get some direction on the rest of them. And if the council is comfortable with moving forward on that, then we can bring back the other piece. It would probably take us through the summer, and we'd bring it back in the fall. Thank you.

Council Member Kern, we haven't heard from you.

You're correct. So I am kind of with Council Member O'Connell on this. This is the second time this has come before the council now. So we've had two lengthy conversations. We're at two hours and two minutes just on this topic alone. So I feel like we've put a tremendous amount of faith into our staff, we've put a tremendous amount of faith into Matrix and their process, and we've put a tremendous amount of faith into Councilmember O'Connell and Mayor Mackin to take a hard look at this. I'm also hearing a lot of feedback here tonight. I disagree with you, Council Member O'Connell. I think I can count to three, and I think there's a three-two vote sitting right here right now today. But I also think that if we as a council, and I don't have my next meeting until 1.30 p.m. tomorrow, so I'm good to go with some caffeine all night long. We can go through each one of these at the blue level, high-level blue level, and say we're accepting this tonight and moving it forward, and then we can send some back. I am okay with a tiered system so long as it's fact and not feeling based. So if staff believes that they can come back and say small, medium, and large equates to a dollar amount, a square footage amount, a level of effort where there's some science behind the tier, I can get behind that. Feelings, no. So I'm recommending us go through this document here tonight. This was provided. And we go through and we say we're good, not good as a council by line item. So we move something forward tonight.

Okay. Would Matrix need to vet those tiers to say that, like, oh, yeah, it does cost that or it doesn't cost that? Because we can't charge more than it costs, right?

Technically, yes, you would want, if you create tiers, you would want to go back and revisit because we can't just say it's 20% less than the base, right? We'd want to say what is the tier and what is the level of effort associated with that tier? So you would want to do a new analysis for that.

We were provided a framework on how to go about those cost analysis.

So we have some decisions to make. So I'm hearing we go through everything line item, and I can tell you from Councilmember O'Connell and I doing that, how many hours and how many meetings did we have doing that?

I think it makes a difference. I mean, we had several meetings and many conversations. I think that until we get to the planning portion, most of them are probably going to fly not a problem. Yes. Because most, I mean, and I think if staff is willing to sit through us while we do that, we should.

I think the public is here for parcel R, which is still rather far down on our agenda, and I want to be cognizant that it's already 830. We have several things on the agenda.

But we really need to get, staff really wants this to get finalized so we can adjust our budget and see what's gonna be really happening. And I don't think we can put it off much longer if it's gonna be part of our budget agreement.

I fully agree with that.

But I think we should move forward and at least go through where I don't see any issues and get those on the table. And I don't think we need to look at really how much things went up. We haven't changed these fees in 24 years so councilmember O'Connell.

Are you suggesting that we go through? Take that that the bulk of them are fine and just go through the ones that are planning I think we should go through on page 1 of 27 and say anybody have a problem with these fees You mean to go through every page well I don't know because we've got 27 pages of line items.

Is there an easier way to break it down?

We also have it divided by department, the fees of that nature. We try to segregate some of the page breaks that way, if that would help as well.

I think that that would. I think that would, Carolina. What are our categories?

So you have building and planning, which are two different sections. Okay, and then if you go into... Page 12. Oh, I see by the initials. Yeah.

The initials here, yeah.

Right, the letters.

Then there's Marina on page starting 12 and so forth and so on that we separated the breakouts for you. Try to.

Okay, so I need to know counsel's pleasure. What would you like to do?

I mean, part of it is like I'm looking for a staff weigh-in. So I could say personally like, oh, no, I'm not comfortable with that. But I'm asking for staff to look at these and be like, you know, I pulled one out that I said a design, you know, design permit for a remodel. Look, it's $2,000. Now it's $12,000. Whoa. And staff says, no, most people are, most homeowners are never going to get that. Okay. That satisfies that. So I'm talking about five pages in this whole document that give me concern. We can adopt everything else right now, which will impact a lot of the budget. We'll make a lot more money right away. I'm just asking for staff to look and look at these that have significant increases and come back and say, like, what impacts the average homeowner? What do we really want to have oversight on? Like I said, if it's a big developer, they're coming in, they're going to get all the permits. I'm talking about the stuff that could fly under the radar that we really want to have eyes on. That's an input from staff. And then maybe we could do a tier. Maybe we could just have some kind of middle ground. I'm only talking about five pages, but I think for us to go line by line is going to be... we're gonna be putting the public through a lot that's really here for another item. And we're not gonna be fresh enough to do the rest of our meeting.

Can you make a recommendation on the specific five pages?

Yes, seven through 11.

Through the chair, the community development director and I have been communicating. We're very happy to move forward if that's the recommendation of the council.

So that would be we approve all the fees except for those that are designated with the letter P. That was kind of where we were five, ten minutes ago. And Councilmember Lentz, yes, no?

So everything but the planning fees? RIGHT.

YOU'RE RIGHT. IN THOSE AREAS THAT IS WHERE THE SIGNIFICANT, YOU KNOW, COST INCREASES ARE, THERE ARE A BUNCH OF NEW FEES, RIGHT, AND THEY HAVEN'T BEEN VETTED THAT STILL ARE WITH SOMEONE BUILDING A HOME OR DOING SOME REMODEL.

What are you saying? Could you clarify that? I'm not sure if I follow.

Yeah, so just, you know, Council Member Davis said, you know, starting at seven, but if you look at six, right, so it's talking about furnace replacement for single-family residents. You know, I mean, there's just, you know, there's a lot of them there.

They seem rather nominal, though, there.

You know, it is, right? At least that's what it appears. And then, you know, on page five, It talks about the inspection fees and some of these other areas that could impact a single-family homeowner in their remodel. I agree with you, Madison, about the... The permit, getting the cost recovery at what it is for large scale developers totally makes sense. And having the tiered system for smaller single family homeowner should be part of some kind of system.

If I may, if we're gonna do a tiered system, we have to do another study.

And remember, some of these fees, when you look at them as being high, if you're a commercial business and you need an inspection, that inspection cost is nothing to them. Nothing to them. Exactly. So we have the difficulty of a huge project and a major inspection versus a small homeowner. So I don't know if we legally can do residential versus commercial fees. That sounds like that might be problematic in terms of what the state would allow us to do, but that's also what we're dealing with.

Yeah. You know, I liked what you were saying, Frank. I mean, if you could apply some science to it, whether it's square footage or, you know, a dollar amount, just like, you know, like with public art fee is based upon the amount of construction costs and that's what someone pays. So, you know, if we had something like that, to me, that makes sense. Just getting back to your situation, Madison, you have a certain cost to remove that carport thing, and I'm sure it probably didn't cost very much money to replace it. The permit, if you were to get the permit SAY, A MONTH FROM NOW AND WE APPROVE THIS FEE, THEN YOU WOULD BE PAYING SIGNIFICANTLY MORE THAN THE COST TO PAIR IT DOWN. SO THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. WHY WOULD WE DO THAT TO PEOPLE? I HEAR WHAT YOU'RE ALL SAYING. YOU WANT TO MOVE ON, AND I DEFINITELY WANT TO MOVE ON, TOO. HOW CONFIDENT ARE WE WITH THE 7 TO 11? IF YOU LOOKED AT THIS, MADISON, AND YOU THINK THAT that is the spot that we should have staff come back on.

Maybe staff can just come back and highlight. We could be talking about like 10 fees here, you guys. And maybe staff can just highlight the fees and we can decide how we want to deal with them. If we don't want to do another, to evaluate tiers, and tiers kind of sounds like a hardship for staff anyway, we may just want to say, okay, this one we're going to do somewhere in the middle. This one we're going to do this way. We might just be looking at... Like maybe staff can just make some suggestions and so that we can move this along, but.

These are staff suggestions between the subcommittee. So I think that staff's gonna need more direction on what you want them to give direction on because this is the staff recommended amount.

I think I've been pretty clear, which is the work that's done by an average homeowner not a big developer, that we really wanna have, that's important for us to have oversight on. And we might say it's important for us to have oversight on everything, but like, you know, you could probably figure out how to rank it. I'm just asking in this, there are some, and the ones that are significant, right? Like I'm not talking about going from, I'm not talking about going from something that's like just a nominal jump, right? Okay. Community development technician. Hold on. Let me find a fee that's like not that bad. Okay. So on page 9, it says tentative subdivision map and condominium plans with five or more lots slash units. $275 is going to $285. I'm not talking about that kind of fee. I'm talking about a fee that's multiple times 6x, 5x, 4x, 7x. There are fees that are a significant jump. I'm just asking. If we can look at the ones that are really targeted at the average homeowner, can we just identify them and talk about them?

I'm going to make a recommendation that we send this back to the subcommittee to work with staff. We will ask them questions. We will ask them for clarifications. They can talk with us. We can ask them questions. they can produce a staff report to come back. But to move the rest of these fees along, that we adopt the Master Fee Study all except for the planning fees. And should we decide to reduce any others, as Councilmember Kern said, we could. But we need to move these along for our budget, the rest of them. And I didn't hear much objection to anything else. So I understand the concerns about the planning fees. But I think that that's not something we're going to resolve tonight. And I don't know that we would resolve it in a council meeting. I think we could make some mileage on it with the subcommittee starting and then a staff report where everybody on the council could read that staff report. ABOUT PLANNING FEES. AND THAT MIGHT MOVE THE NEEDLE A LITTLE BIT. ARE YOU LOOKING FOR A MOTION? I'M LOOKING FOR A MOTION. I'LL MAKE THAT MOTION.

I'M GOOD WITH THAT. SO THE MOTION IS WE'RE APPROVING ALL FEES IN THIS DOCUMENT AS PRESENTED BY OUR SUBCOMMITTEE AND STAFF WITH THE EXCEPTION OF PERMITS. PERMITS ARE OLD ITEM NUMBERS STARTING WITH THE LETTER P. CORRECT.

AND IS THERE A SECOND?

I'LL SECOND THAT.

ALL IN FAVOR? AYE. ANYONE OPPOSED? NO. MOTION CARRIES. Madam Mayor, can we take a five-minute break? We could. Let's do that. Thank you.

No break still tomorrow.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

¶¶ Thank you. © transcript Emily Beynon . . . . .

Thank you. Thank you. © transcript Emily Beynon

so so

Thank you.

We're going to recommend removing item M. This is about open space element and continuing that to another meeting. And we will also Move item O, which is adopt parcel R, park development plan, and we will deal with that before item N, because we have members of the public here, I think, want to address that, but I will need a motion.

I'll make a motion to remove item M and move item O, new business, in front of item N, old business.

Okay, and a second?

Second.

All in favor?

Anyone opposed no, okay moving on I Demo adopt parcel our park development plan staff report, please Good evening honorable mayor members of the council the purpose of this item before you tonight is to provide an update on the parcel our park planning effort and to request councils adoption of the park development plan AS YOU KNOW, THE CITY INITIATED A PLANNING EFFORT IN 2021 FOR OPEN SPACE IN THE PARKS AT CIRA POINT WITH THE GOAL OF CREATING A HIGH QUALITY PUBLIC SPACE WITH PASSIVE AND ACTIVE RECREATION, STRONG CONNECTIONS TO THE MARINA, BAY TRAIL AND SURROUNDING BUSINESSES AND AN EMPHASIS ON SUSTAINABILITY, ART AND RECREATION. THE CITY RETAINED CMG TO SUPPORT THIS EFFORT. THE TASK ONE DISCOVERY PROCESS INCLUDED A SITE ANALYSIS, INFRASTRUCTURE AND CONSTRAINT EVALUATION AND EXTENSIVE PUBLIC AND STAKEHOLDER OUTREACH. TASK TWO EXPLORATION DEVELOPED CONCEPTUAL ALTERNATIVES AND WAS PRESENTED TO THE COUNCIL IN MARCH OF 2023. SHORTLY AFTER THE COUNCIL DIRECTED STAFF TO CONDUCT A SEA LEVEL RISE STUDY FOR THE MARINA WHICH WAS FINALIZED IN LATE 2024. IN FEBRUARY 2025, THE CITY COUNCIL DIRECTED THE SIERRA POINT PARK COUNCIL SUBCOMMITTEE TO DEVELOP A VISION AND IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY FOR PARCEL R. THROUGHOUT THE PROCESS, THE SUBCOMMITTEE FOCUSED ON THREE CORE OBJECTIVES, UTILIZING THE DEDICATED DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT FUNDING FOR PARCEL R, DESIGNING AMENITIES ABOVE PROJECTED 100-YEAR SEA LEVEL RISE ELEVATIONS, AND CREATING A DESTINATION THAT SERVES RESIDENTS, EMPLOYEES, VISITORS, AND MARINA USERS. Over the past year, the subcommittee conducted multiple public meetings, site walks, and stakeholder discussions, engaging the boating community, Parks and Recreation Commission, city staff, and CMG to refine the park vision. In February 2026, the city directed CMG to prepare conceptual designs and cost estimates and engaged CSA to conduct a geotechnical investigation to better understand site conditions and project feasibility. Geotechnical findings reinforce the importance of utilizing existing grades, minimizing unnecessary loading, and focusing investments on durable, cost-effective amenities that can withstand future sea level rise conditions. THE CONCEPTUAL PLAN EVOLVED THROUGH SEVERAL STAGES OF REVIEW WITH THE SUBCOMMITTEE PROVIDING FEEDBACK ON 65%, 95%, AND FINAL DESIGN ITERATIONS, CULMINATING IN THE PLAN THAT WILL BE PRESENTED TO YOU THIS EVENING. THE RECOMMENDED CONCEPT REFLECTS COMMUNITY INPUT, SITE OPPORTUNITIES, BUDGET REALITIES, AND LONG-TERM OPERATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS WHILE EMPHASIZING ACCESSIBILITY, RESILIENCE, CONNECTIVITY, AND PLACEMAKING. THE PROPOSED PLAN ESTABLISHES A FRAMEWORK FOR A RESILIENT WATERFRONT PARK THAT CREATES A STRONG SENSE OF PLACE, SUPPORTS RECREATION AND COMMUNITY GATHERING AND POSITIONS THE SITE FOR PHASED IMPLEMENTATION AND LONG-TERM ACTIVATION OF THE CITY'S DISCRETION. CMG's presentation will walk the council through the conceptual design, key site considerations, cost assumptions, and the recommended framework for future implementation. With that, I'm going to go ahead and pass it over to Willett from the CMG team who are joining us virtually tonight and ask Angel to assist with putting the presentation up on the screen.

Good evening, Council Mayor. I think I can see you. Can you hear me?

We can hear you. Go ahead.

Okay, let's roll. Thank you for having us tonight. Going to go through these sections, talk about it. If you go back to the agenda, sorry. And Angel, I'll just say next and to move forward. We'll talk about existing conditions, which of course you're all very familiar with. Program design, the site design, and the appendix is in fact just a reference to the documentation we've prepared to move the project forward for you. Next. Next. You're all very familiar with the situation of the site. Notably, it is at the terminus of Sierra Point Parkway, that mound that blocks views but also provides some elevation to take in the views when you get on top of it. Next slide. The ambitions that we took away from discussing the project opportunities with the committee were really about making a public park, something specifically for the people of Brisbane. And I'm pointing this out as a contrast to the campus, the corporate campus and parks and environments that are nearby and adjacent. We want to make a place that feels like home next to it. You're all familiar with the winds. You're all familiar with kind of coming to the end of Sierra Point Parkway and seeing the backside of the mound. When you get on the mound, there's nothing to do there. It's broken around it. The paths don't go anywhere. We know that the low points get flooded from the inundation of tidal water, and there are a few trees. Some are worth keeping. We'll talk about those more in a moment. Next. There are a lot of opportunities. There are some things about it that are very cool. It is cool when you're on top of that mount and you get to look across the bay. You get to see the skyline of San Francisco, Mount Diablo, the Diablo Range. That real prospect over the water is excellent. You have a promenade somewhat established at an elevation. It's very beneficial that we'll talk about. The circulation we can build upon. We don't have to tear it out. We can expand it. And this unlocks the potential for use of the site. And obviously, we're going to get into how we activate the top of that mound right now. Next slide. Next. Thank you. So we're looking around the bay. Comfortable sites. Parcellar is about 1.6 acres. The images on the right-hand side are slightly larger generally. You may be familiar with the Redwood Playground in McLaren Park, which has a very cool play feature and picnic area and lawn. This is the most comparable in size, but these were generated to give a sense of what you could fit into that parcel or site. Broadly speaking, there are some very unique amenities that we find in some of these and some lawns and picnic primarily. Next slide. From the committee, we received this list of desires and visions and program elements, sense of place that we take to be very much about Brisbane and being on the water and being at the marina, clarity of wayfinding, observation points, of course, taking advantage of that elevation on the mound, looking across the bay, commitment to accessibility, universal access. native and regional planting, the inclusion of an amphitheater, a picnic, and play, informal play, obviously creating an environment that you want to be in with wind protection, and then cycling experiences, utility upgrades were noted, and community events. Next. So these are a series of images that are used to evoke these goals. This is our park on Treasure Island, Cityside Park. And for you, we see a similar environment, right? You're right on the water. What an incredible place to be. You don't have to do a lot to take advantage of this situation that you two have looking out across the bay. So creating a place for events. Next slide. Honoring and evoking the specifics of Brisbane, and we can get more into that, but we want the site to do that and have the identity of your town. A lot of that has to do with its very specific location on the water and the planting and the materials that we end up using. Next slide. Essentially, restoration is the wrong word because it's a landfill, but replanting that landscape with native plants that are dialed into the specifics of elevation, whether it's down where it's inundated with the tidal water, bay water, or upland. You'll see we're proposing some upland scrub as well as grassland, as well as some salt-tolerant species. Next slide. Place to gather with family and loved ones. It's slightly different than the original slide and the one that will follow in terms of larger events and gathering, but certainly a place for families. A destination, ideally, a place where people who are in town will say, hey, let's go down to the waterfront and hang out. Next slide. And then finally, and this is the last on the list, actually, from the program group in terms of creating a venue for community gathering. And we'll go straight to the plan because we believe it addresses all of these and provides for all of these things. Next slide, please. What's remarkable about this view, I think, is that you see the context broadly with San Bruno Mountain and Sierra Point Parkway coming straight down to the waterfront and bringing you to this park. This park will be transformational for the shoreline, I believe. In it, you can see the event lawn gathering space on the left-hand side. There's the picnic area on the right-hand side. Trees are creating an immersive environment for the picnic area judiciously placed to not block views but block wind. In the foreground is a promenade that would one day we anticipate become the bay trail outside of the rising sea level elevation. And on that promenade, you can see in the foreground a gathering area overlook. And then on the far left, you see hints of color where we are proposing a hammock grove. And so if you go to the next slide, we'll get into this in plan. Where you see yellow broadly, that is grassland. I'm trying to think of places around the bay, super inspired by China Camp up north near San Rafael, where the grassland and oak trees come right out of the bay edge. And the darker green is upland coastal scrub. And it's that planting that creates the frame for the places to hang out. So on the left-hand side, you see the egg shape, that's the lawn area. In this instance, we are proposing a synthetic lawn. very thoughtful about when to use synthetic turf and we think that this is a really appropriate application for its use. On the right hand side of this plan you see the picnic grove and then down at the bottom edge you see the amphitheater gathering space overlooking the marina and intersecting with the promenade. which itself is kind of a great walkway that overlooks the marina and the bay. One thing that isn't labeled on this drawing, but you can see there's a brown bar on the top side at the terminus of Sierra Point Parkway there. Thank you, Angel. And this is a great opportunity site for, we think, some kind of iconic element that's sculptural, made by an artist that is unique and specific to this site and unique and specific to Brisbane. But basically it's the marker that you've arrived. And you'll see, while we have not reduced the mound itself, we think that we're proposing a destination and that this marker at the end of the road is the invitation into that space.

Next slide.

Oh, I should mention also on the right hand side, lower right is a staircase and deck that takes you over the swale and gets you straight down to the existing Bay Trail in the interim before the sea rises. Next slide. Grading, we'll look at this in section, but the takeaway here is that we're very lightly touching the existing conditions, but we're committed to universal access. That is, every single path, except for the stairs, of course, are ADA compliant, and they're not ramps. They're sloped walks, so there are not handrails. You can also see, I should probably touch on in this image, the dark gray is asphalt. The light gray is concrete that extends your existing sidewalks. And the kind of beige would be a stabilized decomposed granite. Next slide. So the top is the section through parcel R, the existing conditions, and the bottom is a section through that same area. And both for economy and with the site conditions, we're proposing to kind of skim the existing topography and only modify it where we absolutely need to and just push the surface around. Although you can see that we're building up a little mound that I'll talk about in a second to block wind and reinforce a sense of space around that main lawn. Next slide. And then as you're all super familiar, the main promenade level and amphitheater gathering area is at elevation 17 and that gets you out in the predicted 100-year, well, the 2100 at this point, sea level rise projection, so that your investment's good for quite some time. Next slide. So I'm going to walk you through the plan real quick. Fundamentally, it consists of these rooms, the gathering lawn, the picnic grove, there's a lookout area, and then there's an event space framed by the amphitheater. And then what's called relax is where the hammocks are proposed. And again, all of these are knit together with a fully accessible pathway system that builds on what's out there today. Next slide. So this is the event one. And it's to be multipurpose. The reason that we're proposing synthetic is that gophers, dog urine, less maintenance, durability, all weather use. So there are a number of reasons in this specific location that we think it's appropriate. Where you see the number two, this is essentially an embankment that blocks wind and has people able to kind of look out over the main lawn area and enjoy it. And all of this is framed with native grasses and trees. The trees are on the windward side again to reduce the wind over the space. Next slide. Here are some images to suggest some of these conditions. So the lawn you're familiar with. The folks playing and frolicking are on artificial turf. And two is the suggestion of that sloped embankment I mentioned. And four is the grassland that would surround this environment. Next slide. Picnic Grove consists of organized around a series of pods, essentially. And these are framed to define areas for rental so that each of these little zones can be taken by families or groups of friends or what have you. And they are... Organized around the view, but they're also circled around a central play feature. This is considered, we're thinking about this as an art sculptural element and a quasi nature play piece. And we're proposing that that comes out of the art Uh, committee budget, and that would be separate from the base project costs and I'll talk more about that in a 2nd. Again, planting is framing all of this trees are primarily on the windward side to block winds and away from the views and the sidelines. Excellent. Here you see those elements. There's the upland coastal scrub planting. What I didn't mention in the plan was that at the bay edge of these open spaces, we're using riprap, which are the rocks that are seen in this image, to create and form the edges of these spaces and really define the use areas. The image in the lower left is indicative of the kind of sculptural artistic play, nature play creation that would be a centerpiece of this picnic area. And then, of course, picnic tables. Next slide. So moving down to the promenade, number four, this is a level area. It's a really ripe spot for art or some larger installation that isn't included in this plan, but there is a bench up there. But it's a very sweet spot looking out over the marina and the bay. Number one is the idea of some sort of sculptural installation that's effective as an amphitheater, a place to perch and watch events that could happen out on this broader You can see in this image the gray is the riprap that I was referring to before, helping to define the downslope side of these spaces. All of this held within the grassland that we showed an image of prior. Next, please. Some images. It's hard to find a present image of an awesome timber bleacher sculpture. As they would have to be artists created and who knows what they'll come up with, but the image here is indicative of a soul salvage eucalyptus material that we did up at the YouTube campus in San Bruno. Various treatments of the painted mural on the asphalt so while there is a large use of asphalt. We are proposing that a lot of the promenade and specifically the gathering space at the base of the amphitheater is painted, and that this too is another opportunity for local artists to come and design that really consequential feature. I mean, just imagine when you're flying over in an airplane, you'll actually see this stuff out of the window being notable. And then four, I talked about the overlook area above the amphitheater and the idea of a larger bench. That is in the price in the plan currently would be next slide please. This is the modest hammock groove there is in I think I mentioned this at the outset, there are a lot of very. cool attributes about the site. And one is that there's this little outcrop of, well, there's one palm tree over in this corner. And so in this instance, we've kind of leveraged that existing palm, added more and made it a unique space. The anticipation is that on this side, it would be easy to have food trucks come in and they would be proximate to the park and also to this hammock grove. Next image, next slide. Amex food truck, Michelle Cochran suggested that these are kept in the Barber Master's building, which seems smart and sensible, whether they're rented or just handed out.

Next slide.

I think I got Michelle's name wrong. Sorry, Michelle. So, in this slide, Everything that is sort of the vivid color and illustration of the landscape and paving is the base project, what we're calling the base project. And that is what can be delivered for the budget that you have available, we believe. Everything that is in magenta and pink is an art element. And in our discussions with the committee, those art elements would be funded by the art committee budget. And that includes this iconic arrival feature, that you see when you're driving up Sierra Point Parkway. It includes the play sculpture in the middle of the picnic grove. It includes the mural on the promenade, and it includes the sculptural amphitheater installation. And then the third element, which is phase two, is the planting and the stairs and boardwalk for the remainder of the project. Next slide. So we talked about different art opportunities and there are many, there are so many little, I think if you were to bring an artist to the site that was really into outdoor art and public art, there are so many different situations presented by this plan, so many opportunities that they'd probably be excited about what they could do. We've identified a few and of those few, through conversation with the committee, we've included four of these elements within our pricing. that we'll talk about today. Those four elements include the play feature we talked about in the middle of the picnic grove. They include that entry icon element feature sculpture. It includes the sculptural bleacher installation and includes the promenade mural. So keep in mind those four elements because they become a part of the budgeting that I'll show you in a moment. Next slide. Again, I mentioned, it's kind of hard to find anything on as it's a sound precedent of what a sculptural bleacher installation might be, but they start to whet the appetite of what someone might do. In this situation, creating seating that's fun, inviting, unique, distinctive, and place specific. Next slide. And then you're all familiar with street murals, but a ton of opportunity at the scale that we're looking at with an 18-foot promenade that expands significantly at the base of the amphitheater. Next slide. So an abrupt cut to a spreadsheet. If you look on the left-hand side, it says Element, and there are three elements here. There's the Parcel Art Base Project, there are the Parcel Art Art Elements, and there are the Parcel Art Improvements Phase 2. And as I understand it, you have a budget of $1,968,315 available to build the base project. what we're showing through the cost estimation working with cummings engineers estimators says it'll cost uh 1.8 million um for that base project and then the art elements we're looking at we're approximating um getting up to half a million five hundred and sixty thousand And I would take that with some degree of grain of salt relative to what the art committee's ambitions are and artists' opportunities are. And then the phase two improvements are shown as another 900,000. And as a kind of a context to that, or I guess a safety valve, we have a budget cushion with all of this of Exclusive of the Phase 2 improvements, we have a budget cushion of about $368,000. And that is from the fact that our base project of 1.8 is coming under your 1.9 available budget. And the cost estimation, in addition, has a 15% contingency it's carrying. So those two items give us about $368,000 as a cushion on top of... the numbers that you see here for implementation. Hope that's clear. One more time, though. There's a base project cost. It's under what you have. There's the art element, which is coming out of your art committee budget. And then there's a phase two for another day. Next slide. We see that again here. These are the same numbers. Next slide. Next slide. And so along with this work, we've also developed schematic design and bridging documents for you. So you're at the position now where you have the opportunity to simply engage a contractor through a design build process to implement the plan. The value to you of the design build process that it could potentially be cheaper and faster than doing design bid build. But you're certainly I think we've provided the material for you to move forward with design build if that is desired Which includes schematic design and the design criteria narrative basis of design next slide. I Think that's the end of this this presentation and I think we had a good process and we're really proud of the work and I think that it's a real transformation potential transformation of parcel art and

Thank you, Mr. Moss. Councilmember questions? Councilmember Lentz.

Well, first I just want to thank Councilmember Kern for this long road that we've been on, you know, working with staff and you know, various folks in town, you know, people that participate and live at the marina or community members, you know, staff, I mean, council, you know, taking your feedback and staying within the box that you all recommended. And Willit, you know, for sticking with us. And we've been on this journey for a long time, too. It's been some years. You know, when I see that 100% concept plan, it's just like, wow, right? I mean, this is awesome, right? I mean, South City, they've done some nice things. Give them credit. BUT NOTHING LIKE THIS. AND THIS IS SOMETHING THAT WE'RE GOING TO BE REALLY PROUD OF AND STAYING WITHIN BUDGET. AND, YOU KNOW, I WAS TALKING WITH FRANK A LITTLE BIT ABOUT HOW WE HAD THIS TASK WITH THIS SMALL WINDOW TO GET IT DONE, TO TAKE YOUR FEEDBACK AND WORK WITH STAFF IN A MATTER OF MONTHS. AND ALSO THE PARK AND REC COMMISSION. couple of members out there, yeah, right, three members, you know, providing that feedback, and everyone was on task, everyone was on point, and yeah, I am just excited.

Did you have a question?

I don't have any questions. I mean, really, these questions are for the other council members, not on the subcommittee.

Okay. Council Member Kern.

I have no questions, but a lot to say, so thank you.

Mayor Pro Tem Davis. I have a few questions. So anyone who's spent significant time out there knows it gets very windy. And I was just curious if you thought about wind in the design and Um, you know, I noticed that there were no role like wind barriers as structures. Maybe you thought about that and how the topography is. So just if the subcommittee wants to weigh in or CMG or staff, I'd be just be curious about what role wind played in the design and considering that element.

Can we have will it weigh in on that?

Because we can start and then if the committee wants to, because you were in those same conversations, but certainly wind is driving factor of how that space is framed. Um, specifically, there are 2 features that are defining. The experience 1 is there is an earthwork that wraps the lawn. that should push wind up and over. And then the other is that the picnic grove is a grove and within trees so that those trees are buffering wind. We did discuss screens, but frankly, there is not enough budget to provide for them. I'm not sure they're totally necessary, and it's easy to add them down the road. If you think of this as a garden that you're cultivating as you inhabit it and learn it, this would be better. You can add those down the road.

My other question is under the art section, art features, that's including a sort of big welcome piece, so to speak, and then also a promenade mural. Is that what's included in $52,000? Yes. Okay. And then I'd love to talk about the turf.

Let me confirm that. I hear your question, so ask your question while I look back at that.

Yeah, because it was four art pieces that you mentioned, but only three line items.

Yeah, that caught my eye too this morning when I was reviewing this.

Anyway.

I will say that everything is in that 571. Okay. Or whatever it was.

561. The other thing you said, just briefly, you said you're, and I'm summarizing, right, but you're really careful when you suggest using artificial turf. It's not something that you suggest lightly and you kind of touched on it a little bit as to the reasons why I'd love to know more about the turf that you're suggesting we use because, um, you know, there's been a lot of studies that have come out about artificial turf, microplastics, people spending excessive time on, on them and getting the, I feel like it's an increased cancer risk from off-gassing and whatever's happening with that turf. And we're also right by the bay. And so I think just from a sensitivity, I understand turfs have come a long way. And so is there something maybe more environmentally friendly or sustainable about this turf than maybe the turf that we're accustomed to seeing? Elsewhere more like we have turf at the dog park and I'm not expecting you to be familiar with that turf But staff is familiar with that turf and maybe how might compare to what's being suggested here But more information about the turf would be helpful.

I'll give you what I can it's not specified So we have not picked a product. Okay, so I can't give you any detail on that I can agree and corroborate that Turf has advanced a long way, especially since those studies around soccer players getting cancer. It was about 15 years ago, I think. A lot of that was, I believe, associated with the tire, the chrome rubber infill. And so with the development of turf these days, now we're looking at cork infill or sand infill or a pile infill to make it stand up. I perceive that these new products are super inert and static, but I think it's a fair question about microplastics over the lifetime of the product, and I don't have an answer for that, to be honest. Okay.

And then lastly, we obviously know ground squirrels are a big problem over here. And so how would this park be protected from debilitation by ground squirrels? Or is it protected at all? Or we can expect that we are going to see some damage here from critters.

Well, that's part of the reason for proposing the artificial turf, just that it's going to be less susceptible to ground squirrels, which is the actual use area. And then my understanding is they don't like shrubs for some reason, which I don't know the answer to. But I think you can expect to see them, except for under the paving and the artificial turf area.

Okay, thanks.

Short of putting wire down everywhere, which we can't afford.

Right. Okay. Councilmember O'Connell.

Thank you. How are people going to access the bathrooms during phase one?

They will have to walk along the promenade and down to the bathrooms as they do today.

Okay, so they've got half a mile to the bathroom. And then how about the water on the site? Are we going to have water to water the plants or the DG or...

Yes, irrigation and plumbing and a drinking fountain are provided for in the estimate.

Okay, and where are we relocating the... I want to call them power, big clunky things in the venting towers that are there.

They aren't. They're being absorbed in the plan, if you will. If you look at the plan, there's a path that kind of goes around them, and they're a depression, and shrubs would be obscuring them to some degree from you.

But there'd still be access for whoever needs to get to those mechanical devices.

There's no utility moving in this plan in the landscape improvements.

Except putting in water.

Yeah.

And then on the picnic tables, benches, are those included in the cost? They've been costed?

Yes.

Okay, so they're not anticipated to be part of the art budget?

No, not at this time.

And then did you look realistically at the art budget? The public art committee here, which I served on briefly, has a goal to be fair to artists and the fees that they charge. And I think that... I'm not sure that the art that you're proposing would be feasible in the dollar amount that you're proposing. Have you looked at what our public art ordinance is and what the costs?

I'm familiar with the ordinance through its staff. I do think the budget's on the low side. I agree with you.

I think it's considerably low.

That's the caveat I put out there with working with artists and the valuation of what those opportunities really are would give you a more true number.

I mean, you've shown some really wonderful, outrageous art pieces that are probably in the hundreds of thousands of dollars each bench, multiple hundreds of thousands. So I think that while showing and that's probably more of discussion, but you're showing really top end, top of the line, and I don't think that's what the budget is showing. And then on the artificial turf, that's not just for the main lawn, that's for some of the sloped lawns also. Is that the case?

Yes.

Okay, because if you look at our dog park, we've got weeds and debris coming through it and it's really ugly. And then I think we'd also want to make sure that there's some sort of irrigation system for the DG because when the wind comes up, that DG is really going to fly. And I guess those are my only questions. I do think that It needs to have the bathroom access down to the bathrooms to where the public bathrooms are available before this park is really usable.

Okay, we're at a time we'll need a motion to extend the meeting. I don't know how much time we're going to need, 45 minutes?

Let's do an hour. I say let's do an hour. I make a motion to extend this meeting to 10.32. Okay. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? No. Okay. I do not have any questions because they were actually answered during the presentation. So let's move on to public comment. And I do have a slip here, Barbara Ebel. Sorry, I didn't mean to shock you.

Gotta wake up here.

Coming out of hibernation here, So I think it's a great project. I'm going to keep my feedback very short and concise because I think that that's all this project requires. Consider an artificial tide pool. I've seen some great ones done when we were at places in Australia. It'd be a great way to continue to activate the space and move that out into the water. I don't know if that'll fit in your budget. Maybe it'll fit in phase two since the phase two's kind of on the, the water side anyway. I would suggest maybe not using asphalt. Asphalt can get awfully hot in the sun. We're moving further into climate change. Little dogs' feet burn. If you can't get away from asphalt, there are additives that you can add to asphalt that lowers the temperature of it so that you're not creating those heat islands. I wanted to ask if the water fountain includes a water bottle filling station. I think that's a very easy thing to do. And then I have some real serious personal concerns being somewhat educated about artificial lawn. A lot of them include microcytes and I want to be careful about where they're used so that those microcytes are not washing into the bay. Not only in addition to the microplastics issue, They're laden with chemicals to prevent stuff from growing. And they're actually kind of nasty animals. But I understand why it might be the right choice in this place. Make sure whoever you're getting the lawn from has a certified buyback program so that at the end of its life it is not landfill. And my last thing is that I really personally would want to see a gazebo out there. Um, I've been told it will cost too much money, but, uh, you know, you can get one off of Amazon for like two to five grand and have staff anchor it in there really well. And I think it could be, and then if you can rent it once or twice a month, you're going to make that gazebo money back in the first year. So I think you can do a gazebo. Um, I might be wrong on that, but I believe, and that's it.

Thank you. Anyone else? Public comment. Mr. Cunningham, you had your hand up first.

Real quick, a few comments. First of all, it looks really great. Thank you for everybody that contributed to it. A little minor nit. Trees, please pick ones that don't push up the roads as happened on Marina Boulevard. The road there is pushed up over a foot. Just a note, having worked out there, I know it really well. Please also make sure that whatever items we put out there can be moved for future flexibility. It sounds like they already are, so thank you. If I'm not mistaken, there was some infrastructure problems around some water getting back into there and in that area as well as off to the right and on the left. I'm not sure how much it affects partial are directly, but I'm not clear that the infrastructure items have been actually addressed. So it's sort of like an emission possibly or maybe an oversight. I've talked with you about it, Council, Mayor Mackin, in the past. There's definitely some, what is it, the one-way gates from the marina getting water back in there, which is causing the trees to die, blah, blah, blah. I don't know if that's actually part of this problem or not, and it hasn't been explicitly addressed or said it's not a problem. Last but not least, quick observation. We were doing some traveling at Point San Pablo Harbor, and there was some art from Burning Man there that was, well, It's a pretty remote location, and it's pretty fabulous art and pretty large-scale art. Maybe it's a cost-effective way to get some fabulous art. Take a look at it. It's Point San Pablo Harbor. There's some pictures. You can find them easily, and I was stunned by those pieces. That's by the racetrack, isn't it? No. It's out in the middle of nowhere. It's... You'll have to look it up, but it's a tiny little spot. It's not even the size of Sierra Point. It's very small. And they have a little marina there that's a third of the size of Sierra Point.

Okay.

Anyone else? Yes, come on up.

Hello, I'm Lisa Greenlee. I'm a resident and a member of the Parks and Rec Committee. I'm really happy to see this plan move forward. I think the general overall thing that was presented is really good. I have a couple of suggestions. And some of these things I think that maybe we're dreaming about can be added on later. We don't have to do them in this initial phase. But if we feel like, oh, you know, down the road, we want to invest in slightly upgraded play structure or slightly upgraded, like a pump track that we've talked about, that can be added later. I just like to put those out on the table and say, I would really love to see a really fun play area for kids. I like the idea of logs and kids to play on that. But I know that families are out there on weekends. And I know that... The bike trail around there will be very well used by little bikers. And all of those things of getting kids out to play and having families a place to gather is going to be a destination for not just this town, but visitors. I see people from hotels all the time out there in the morning who are hanging out and just enjoying the space. People talk about the wind, but I'm out there every morning, and it's really enjoyable. It's a beautiful, beautiful space. Barbara mentioned a gazebo. I actually, in the city, there's a little parklet that's in Hunters Point that's brand new. And they have this wonderful arbor, which is just a patio. It's just a patio. And it's got a wood structure with just open beams, you know, nothing enclosed. And then from those beams are hung these really wonderful swings, you know, these big metal swings. And then a couple of couple of cafe tables, and it's just such a great space. So it doesn't have to be your traditional gazebo. It can be something that's a little more modern. Anyways, I'm out of time. Yeah, that's it. Thank you. Chris, you're next.

Thank you.

In reviewing the Parcel R, excuse me, I realized that my resistance to the project really had little to do with the project and that Parcel R has kind of suffered from the manner in which Michael Barnes has advocated for it, characterizing himself, it seems to me, as a David against a Goliath that he's manufactured with city government and city council. There's no need for that. I think that there are much more effective ways of advocating for projects. I hope that we could include the city's tree canopy goals within the implementation of this project. And can our public art include useful features? I know that's dangerous to do, but such as South San Francisco has done, it's already been mentioned here, they're really beautiful shaded seating areas, or as Lisa just described, they're We can be very creative about the way we use public art. And I think Barbara's already spoken about the artificial turf sufficiently. One thing I would hope that we could do to support this project is to look at the transportation and trails that would make it more accessible to the main parts of the city. Thank you. Okay. Byron?

Byron Anderson, Brisbane resident. I would like to say that as people have already mentioned, they don't like the turf. I would like to be more strong about that, that I don't know that there should be turf on the project. People are already using it with the sort of even just the wild grasses that are there. And I think just in not only the environmental issues, but turf can be unpleasant to sit on and costs a lot more. So I think it's a budgetary hindrance that also degrades the overall value, the movability, and the comfort of the project long term. As long as we're not worried about a significant flooding, as long as there's some other way to fix the flooding with other infrastructure, I think we'll be much better off with grass, since grass is already going to be used in a lot of the project. Thank you.

anyone else here want to speak okay i see a hand michelle salmon online michelle go ahead yes i attended um at least two i think three subcommittee meetings on this project and i am so looking forward to spite hill becoming parcel our park And I think that the work that CMT has done has been remarkable, especially within the constraints. Every one of the things that you're questioning was addressed in the subcommittee meetings, including the artificial turf. I'm not a big fan of artificial turf, but ground squirrels is the number one cause of cat failure. And we have a serious ground squirrel problem out at the marina. We talked about putting a a grid below the turf to keep them out, but that would require multiple maintenance issues over time because whatever grid we put there would corrode. And so as much as I don't like artificial turf, I understand the reasons. As far as the windbreaks, this has been designed that way. As far as the art projects, even the signage as you come in was shown to be like kid-friendly playground art. A lot of cuts were made that, you know, of ideas like the hammock thing, buying our own hammocks and then having people check them out from the from the from the. harbormaster and put them up and then bring them back. Saves us thousands of dollars for this brilliant idea of having a hammock. Oh my god, I would I would like go every day and hang out in a hammock. I just think that this is this is this is a very doable project that has a lot going for it right as it stands within budget. And the art is all like useful art that people can actually participate with in terms of like benches and seating and play areas. And also, There is room to expand. I mean, we could bring in even a temporary pub track for the summer, you know, and put it in one of the parking areas. It's accessible. It doesn't take away any of the parking that's already there. It doesn't take away a single parking place. Okay. I mean, this was really, really hammered out and well thought out. And I am so, I think my attitude is will it be done? Just do it. You know, uh, will it, you've done an amazing job of taking all the feedback from all the people and incorporating into a plan that is extremely doable within the budget. We might not have every T cross and every I dotted, but every single thing has a way to, um, be expanded upon. And Terry, I know you're concerned that the bathrooms are far away, but they're far away now, and their people are using them. So, you know, that would add like a million dollars to the project. I'm sorry, we don't need to do that. They can walk down to one of two, you know, it's not half a mile to the bathrooms, I swear, because I've done it. But, you know, it will put some stress on the current marina, but It's a plan that's doable and has the ability to survive a while. People asked about the trees. It's high enough that they're not in the saltwater yet. If sea level rise accelerates way beyond what we expect, that's a whole other story. But at this point, I think we're good to go. And I am in full support of this. I really am. Thank you. And Willett, thank you for your thoughtfulness and your ability to listen to all the different sides and then incorporate it into a very doable plan. And if we don't have money to paint the concrete, we'll get a volunteer group to paint the concrete and in a fabulous art form. Just open your hearts and think about all the ways that we can make this work.

Michelle, can you wrap it up? Because we're trying to move along. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else? Anyone else here? No? Okay. Public comment over council discussion. Council Member Kern.

THANK YOU. I JUST WANT TO THANK THIS CITY COUNCIL FOR DEFINING THE BOUNDARIES OF THIS PROJECT. WHEN YOU HAVE A SUCCESSFUL PROJECT, IT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE GOING IN WITH VERY CLEAR REQUIREMENTS. THIS COUNCIL PROVIDED THOSE REQUIREMENTS. SO I WANT TO THANK THIS COUNCIL FOR THAT. I WANT TO THANK CITY STAFF, JEREMY AND CHRISTINA, FOR YOUR PATIENCE AND YOUR INPUT ON THIS PROJECT. I WANT TO THANK PARK AND RECREATION STAFF, NOREEN LEAK AND NICOLE HOUNTON. YOU GUYS REALLY SPENT SOME TIME ON THIS AND REALLY WORKED HARD ON THIS. MAZ BOZERGINA, I HOPE I SAID THAT CORRECTLY, SIR. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR NOT ONLY SPENDING TIME WORKING WITH US, BUT YOU HAD SOME INFRASTRUCTURE THAT YOU WERE CONCERNED ABOUT AND YOU GOT THAT TAKEN CARE OF AS PART OF THIS PROJECT, AND IT'S BEEN INCLUDED AND ADDRESSED TONIGHT. SO THANK YOU. AND I REALLY WANT TO GIVE A SPECIAL THANKS TO THE PARK AND REC COMMISSION SUBCOMMITTEE WHO UNDERSTOOD THE ASSIGNMENT GIVEN TO THEM, AND THAT WAS COMPRISED OF TRUDY DAVIS, TOM SEWELL, AND JULIE SIMS. THEY TOOK ALL OF THE PRIMARY RESEARCH THAT HAD BEEN DONE BEFORE I JOINED THE COUNCIL THAT WAS EXISTING RESEARCH AND DATA, THEY SORTED THROUGH IT, THEY PRIORITIZED IT, AND THEY CAME BACK TO THE SUBCOMMITTEE WITH THEIR RECOMMENDATIONS, AND THAT WAS INCREDIBLY HELPFUL. I WANT TO THANK COUNCILMEMBER CLIFF LENTZ FOR ALL THE TIME HE SPENT. HE AND I SPENT MORE TIME PROBABLY OUT AT PARCELAR THAN WE'VE SPENT AT ANY OTHER PLACE, MONITORING WIND CONDITIONS, LOOKING AT CLOUD CONDITIONS, LOOKING AT SEA LEVEL RISE, ALL THOSE DIFFERENT THINGS. SO THANK YOU FOR ALL THE TIME YOU SPENT OUT THERE, CLIFF. AND LASTLY, I WANT TO THANK WILLETT FOR ALL OF HIS PATIENCE. I KNOW I PUSHED HIS BUTTONS FROM TIME TO TIME, SO THANK YOU SO MUCH. I think that as part of the requirements that this council presented, they said do not expand this project by one inch over the parcel R footprint, and there is a page in the document, I don't have it handy right now, it shows the outline. It's exactly parcel R. We've created a resilient waterfront destination at this point in time where we believe that it will be safe from sea level rise until 2100, and that's all you can do in this day and age. So if it doesn't last 74 years, maybe it lasts 72 years. Whatever it is, we've taken that into account, and I'm very proud of the group for taking that in. The other requirement was to dedicate the earmarked funds that we have from this through mitigation fees by the end of June. I am blown away that this has been done and gotten to this point by this deadline. I mean, it's almost impossible to believe. So we're here on that. And then very last and definitely not least, This really promotes a sense of community, not only for the people of Brisbane by having another park, but we spent time out talking to folks with boats and at the marina. They'll be able to use this. We're not taking away any of the parking. The people that use San Francisco Bay Trail on weekdays, weekends, anybody who's out there for purposes of getting exercise can utilize this. And last but not least, this is fantastic for our businesses out there that the employees can recreate. So with that being said, it was a lot, even for me. Thank you so much for that. Thank you everybody.

Mayor Pro Tem Davis.

I just want to echo some things as well, but really just kudos to the subcommittee for all your hard work on this. And I know that it's been a long road and I am just blown away by how, what you've been able to create and well within budget is just, I am so proud of the two of you and I'm really thankful for all the public feedback and all the work that the Parks and Recreation Commission has done on this. It really took that group effort to get this done. And there's a lot of criticism online where it's like, we're running down this deadline, and the council has been resistant to this, and we might lose all this money that we could put towards a park. And the average person would hear that and go, what are those kooks doing? And I think there's an important story here that I tell every time Parcelar is on the agenda. But we were in a place where we had a park design that would cost $52 million to build. And that's not a park that would have ever gotten built. And we sat back and some council members sat back and said, we want a park that we can actually deliver to our communities. not something that the community is longing for and feels they've been promised, this $52 million gorgeous, expansive park, and be waiting for their lifetime for it and saying, where's that park? That park was never going to come. And so that's why it's taken us so long because we asked the subcommittee to go back, look at the budget, talk to the community, get the Park and Recreation Commission involved, and deliver us a park that we could conceivably build so we could all enjoy. And that is what has happened. So I really, I just, I wanna commend all of you for that. Someone who's been on the public art committee for a long time, very familiar with how much public art costs. I would say for $52,000, you could definitely probably get some cool entryway signage. You're not gonna get a promenade mural for $52,000 for those two things. You could get a cool entryway piece. You're not also gonna get a promenade mural. Play logs to me is ultra specific. And so one thing that We have done on the public art committee, and this has been a philosophy that's run through the committee, is that you put it out in RFP and you say, I want to play a climbable structure for children. And you let the artists come back to you. with proposals. You don't want to pigeonhole it and say, we need logs. You want to leave your mind open and cast a wide net and see what proposals come back. And that way you're getting, you could get 40, 50 proposals and you're going to get fabulous things that you had never even considered. So I would say that for the play area, it should really be open-ended and we shouldn't say this is our concept and we want logs. Just leave it up to the artist to tell you what they're thinking, to come to you and then the commission can do its process and move through and we might pull three options, they might pull three options out for the community to weigh in on.

To me, that's the right approach.

The tiered seating, and I know you struggled to find pictures of artful tiered seating, and I think that's because the tiered seating to me sounds like something the city would build and you would hire an artist to come in after and paint it or do a mosaic or something, add sculptural elements on it. You would probably handle this the way that you would handle the San Benito Alvarado staircase, right? Like the city put in the infrastructure of the stairs, but the artists came in with the handrail and the mosaic. That cost us $230,000 and doesn't even include the stairs. So when you think about this public art budget, it's going to need to be enhanced or we're going to need to consider taking items out. And I think that's fair. I think the space deserves it. I think we should spend good money on this space. And I think that using the public art money is how you get this project to be fully funded. And it is an appropriate use of taking, you know, public art money and having it meet a community need like for seating that doesn't come out of the general fund or what have you. I ALSO WANT TO REMIND YOU THAT WE ALREADY HAVE AN ARTFUL BENCH PROGRAM, AND SO IT MAY MAKE SENSE INSTEAD OF TIERED SEATING TO JUST CONTINUE WITH OUR PROGRAM OF ARTFUL BENCHES HERE. I DON'T THINK THAT YOU COULD DO TIERED SEATING FOR $114,000 BY ANY MEANS. SO AGAIN, WE'RE GOING TO NEED TO HAVE MORE MONEY ADDED. I'M CONCERNED ABOUT THE TURF, BUT I'M NOT CONCERNED ENOUGH THAT I'M GOING TO hold up the project for moving forward over the turf. We need to get this done, we need to approve it, but I would love for staff to really be cognizant of what kind of turf you pick. And I think that, I mean, I would be willing to supplement this budget with money from the general fund if it meant that it's getting us the highest quality product that's as environmentally sustainable and conscious as possible. SO I THINK WE CAN TALK ABOUT THE ASK WAS COME IN WITH SOMETHING THAT IS FULLY FUNDED FROM THE MONIES THAT WE HAVE AVAILABLE THAT'S EARMARKED FOR THIS, BUT I THINK THE COUNCIL CAN CHOOSE TO SUPPLEMENT WHERE NEEDED TO DO THIS RIGHT, AND I THINK IT WOULD PROBABLY NOT TAKE THAT MUCH TO PICK A TURF THAT'S AS GOOD A TURF AS YOU CAN GET CONSIDERING THE CIRCUMSTANCES. So with those, and I think that there's much more you can do in phase two, but I think that we need to move it forward and we need to get it done. And so with those comments, I'd be happy to support this project as is. Council Member O'Connell.

Thank you. I do want to say that I think that the art subcommittee or the park subcommittee did a really good job on putting this together. I believe what's coming from the art budget is the $561,000, not just the 52. Yeah. that they're assuming the play logs and the tiered seating would be 100% art funded. And I think that's really low for what they're expecting to happen from public art. It's interesting because I really, really would not want artificial turf for the main meeting area and the slopes. It really, really bothers me and it's very close to me saying no to this project because of the artificial turf. I've heard some of the comments about what you can do to lessen the impacts. I've just never seen artificial turf that anyone uses that actually holds up or doesn't degrade terribly from sun damage. And this, if it is a well-used park, which I certainly hope it would be, is really going to be worn and it's going to need replacement more often than I think we think it's going to need same with the DG it's okay but it is something that requires quite a bit of maintenance more than you'd think just from the amount of wind and the erosion that it gets I don't know how They came up with the budget. There's no paperwork in here for the budget, the costs. There's just a dollar amount, so I don't know if you guys were privy to the budget breakdown on where that $2 million is. Other than the place structure and the logs, that's the only place. There's no dollar amounts for any building of any of this. And I'm sure that somebody has it, but it's not included in our packet anywhere. And I've never seen something come through this council that didn't almost always double in what it costs to build. And that's just the nature of the beast. But I'll listen to the rest of the comments before coming to a conclusion and I hate to be the naysayer. I mean, I really think it's great and I love it on paper. I love that it might actually be built and it might actually be as fabulous as all the smart and glossy photos make it look.

Council Member Lentz.

Well, Council Member McConnell, I'm not here to try and convince you.

Well, of course you are. No, no, no, I'm not. You should be.

No, no, actually, I'm not. But I did want to let you know that the concerns that you raise, we brought them up, too. And artificial turf was an issue for me. And I know it was for Frank, too. And so I think implementing artificial turf or not that's a decision that we make, right? Just because Willett put it in his plan, that doesn't mean that we have to do it. And I think if it was the pleasure of the council to have that be grass and see how it goes, and if it's home to 100 ground squirrels, then maybe we make a decision then. but for me, if it's the council's pleasure, I would say let's do grass instead of artificial turf. I'm gonna, Will, you jump in if I don't say it correctly, but Will has been doing this for a long time. He's worked on some major projects and he understands what the square footage is per cost and the features that we want to implement. And Frank and I were on him all the time. Well, you know the budget, you gotta stay within the box. Okay, I know it, I get it. And so, but then he built in a cushion for us. I mean, he's mindful, he's heard you all. And he understands. And so is it enough of a budget or a buffer, you know, a cushion, whatever? I guess we'll find out. You know, in phase two, it's a decent amount of money. But when you look at the rendering, most of the money is in planting. And so Frank and I are like, oh, well, that should be a volunteer project, right? Yeah. We should go to the Mission Blue Nursery, get plant material or get plant material that's aquatic, that's around the bay from some nursery. And we all know Jordan, he wants to do a volunteer project with his folks. And to me, the only cost is really gonna be that, THAT LITTLE WALKWAY THING. THERE MIGHT BE SOME ENGINEERING, AND MOZ ISN'T HERE. OH, I GUESS MOZ IS THERE. AND HE WOULD LET US KNOW THAT. BUT I THINK THE MAJORITY OF THAT PHASE TWO COST CAN BE DONE BY VOLUNTEERS. AND SO, YEAH.

AND CORPORATE VOLUNTEERS IN THE AREA.

OH, ABSOLUTELY. ABSOLUTELY.

You know, can I just comment? May I, Mayor?

Just on the turf.

Terry, I hear your concerns loud and clear, and we went through this. You know, the turf is only on 20% of the project, so let's just start there. We are not covering the entire project in turf. And it's my understanding, and Will will correct me, Ground squirrels don't love it, so that helps us manage the ground squirrels in that area. And then also, as an equally big problem out at Sierra Point, are Canadian geese. And they defecate all over everything, and it's disgusting, and dogs like to roll in it and eat it, and it's just a massive problem out at Sierra Point. They don't like artificial turf, and so... WE'VE BEEN TOLD THAT THEY WILL AVOID THE PEOPLE AREA BECAUSE OF THE TURF, AND SO...

IT'S A DETERRENT.

IT'S KIND OF A DETERRENT FOR THE CANADIAN GEESE, WHICH ARE VERY PROBLEMATIC OUT THERE. I DON'T WANT ANY HARM TO COME TO ANY GOOSES, BUT I'M JUST SAYING THAT THEY WOULD BE DETERRED FROM THE SPACE WHERE WE'RE ENCOURAGING THE PEOPLE TO HANG OUT, SO...

THE GEESE ARE ON TO SOMETHING ABOUT THE TURF.

YOU KNOW, I FORGOT ABOUT THAT REASON THAT WE TALKED ABOUT USING ARTIFICIAL TURF, AND IT WAS, YEAH, GEESE ARE... a major issue in other cities along the bay, and they like to nibble on the grass.

And then can I make one more comment? Okay. We have talked about this ad nauseum that the way that Willett, and I believe he called it rooms earlier. He used the word rooms. And as we're moving forward, and we've got a $250,000 cushion built in here, that's not a lot when it comes to construction costs. And construction costs are up through the roof 20 to 40%, right? But we could say things like, and my favorite piece is the palm hammock grove, but we could say, you know what, we're not going to do that. We can pull that out. We can pull out any of the rooms. We can pull out these features. The idea is not to come back to the council to get more money. The idea is not to come back and use any general funds. The idea is let's get this done for the money that we have. Keep it resilient. Keep it a destination. We've got some options and a few levers that we can pull here. So I'm done. I'm done.

I'm going to use one word, impressive. I think the subcommittee did a great job. Willett Moss, great job. Parks and Rec, great job. I'm not a fan of artificial turf either. The geese are just over on Gateway in South City. It's not far to Sierra Point around the water, so I get that as well. As far as keeping the costs, I think that there are enough, as you just said, Councilmember Kern, I don't need to go through the whole thing. There are enough things that can be tweaked to keep it in the budget. So, I mean, honestly, my appreciation, my compliments, keeping it on budget, on site, and really listening to all the input from the public and making it a destination place. I also was impressed that it has some wind buffer because That's a nice consideration to build into it as well. So all of this being said, and I'm watching the time because we have to, I would entertain a motion. Do you want to make it?

I'll make a motion. I'll second.

All in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed?

You just didn't let me finish, I'll say aye.

Okay, all right, motion passes. Congratulations. All right, mindful of time, with blistering speed, we move on to item N, provide direction to staff regarding potential ballot measure regarding business license tax. Staff report, please.

There is a slide deck, but it is very high level. Thank you. Madam Mayor and council members, we do have guests with us tonight, so I want to thank Eric Myers from HDL, who's online. Erica Griggs is with us tonight from Burke, Williams, and Sorenson, the city attorney's office. And then we also have Mitch Bull who's on staff as the economic vitality director who's also a prominent point on this project. So we just wanted to update the council on the ordinance based on the direction from the subcommittee. So moving to the second slide or Just as a reminder of what the business license tax model is covering, it's recommended to restructure the tax components and new methodology in calculating the business license taxes. We're recommending that it be added to the November 2026 ballot. The current methodology consists of 17 categories, so this is a measure that is simplifying the process. And we also want this methodology to be more equitable for all sizes of businesses in the city of Brisbane. We're also considering future businesses coming into the city of Brisbane and hoping that this methodology will future-proof the trending and unknown industries that come through. And we also want to remain competitive with some of our neighboring agencies. Those were some of the tasks that were tackled as we were reviewing the whole scenario of the business license models. Moving to the next slide, just to review the different models that were discussed already at the April 16th council meeting. There were three models. The first model didn't change the structure at all, it just increased the rates. The second model changed the structure some, so it really simplified the process, adding a flat fee, and then in addition to that flat fee, based off of a threshold, then another layer of the tax was added. And then the third model was basically the same as model two, except instead of one category, it kind of took the 17 and reduced it to five. So at the recommendation of subcommittee at that last meeting in April, sorry, you remember that the council selected model two. So that's what we're moving forward with. It simplified the tax structure and it supports micro businesses as well as small businesses, acknowledging that the city of Brisbane truly has a variety of businesses and we're welcoming those different sizes. Moving on to the next, we want to really make sure that the public understands what stays. what we are making quite a bit of changes, but what's staying in the proposal is the sales tax offset. So for our businesses that contribute sales tax to the city, we want to acknowledge that we're not gonna double dip. So anything that they contribute for sales taxes will be considered when calculating their business license taxes. And then we also have a variety of special lies business license tax programs that we just wanted to highlight there on the list. I'm not going to read them. They have separate ordinances, so they're not going to be touched. And then finally, the nonprofits remain exempt. MOVING ON TO THE NEXT SLIDE, ANOTHER AREA THAT IS STAYING INTACT IS THE CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT TAX. NOW, THIS IS APPLIED TO BUSINESSES FOR $10 MILLION AND OVER OF REPORTED GROSS INCOME. AND WITH THE PROPOSAL WOULD BE NOT JUST GROSS INCOME, BUT 10 million over of cost of operations, but it's very important to identify that this is actually a special business tax, so we are not proposing that this be touched at this time. If we wanted to change this rate or the methodology at all, it would require a two-thirds passage of the voting. So we're not recommending that we touch this. What we can do is just continue to review this annually, and it's based off of the CPI where it increases. And then at a later time, we can look and revisit and determine if there are any necessary changes to be made at this part of the program. Again, it simplifies the choice placed in front of the voters by not touching this.

MOVING ON.

SO WE'RE NOT ADOPTING A RESOLUTION TONIGHT, BUT WE FELT THAT WE NEEDED TO LAY THE GROUNDWORK FOR THE ORDINANCE THAT WE'RE RECOMMENDING AND THAT'S GOING TO COME BEFORE YOU AT THE NEXT COUNCIL MEETING BECAUSE AT THAT TIME YOU WILL NEED TO MAKE A DECISION AND WHEN YOU SEE WHAT'S GOING TO COME BEFORE YOU, THERE'S GOING TO BE A LOT OF RED LINING AND WE DON'T WANT THE COUNCIL TO BE OVERWHELMED IN THE SENSE OF, YOU KNOW, JUST BY LOOKING AT IT AND TO REALLY THOROUGHLY UNDERSTAND WHY WE'RE POSING WHAT WE'RE POSING. SO AS THE STAFF AND CONSULTANTS AND LEGAL TEAM WERE REVIEWING THE ORDINANCE, it became very apparent that the current ordinance, it needed some restructuring because it identifies the business license program as a tax, as a revenue source. But because the business license is a tax, it's not a fee where you have to consider costs similar to what we discussed earlier today with the master fee program. But it's a tax that requires to go to the voters So our ordinance currently also includes procedural and regulatory components. So it adds complexity to the ordinance and it also adds additional in order to make changes to the ordinance, you'd have to go back to the voters just to make some changes to the program. So it could, some of these components that are in the current ordinance can actually be enforced through other sections of our muni code. So what we're, proposing is taking this one ordinance and splitting it into two. So again, this is recommended by HDL as they are doing the study and very aware of best practice and what they're seeing throughout the state and other agencies, not just in the state but throughout the country. And then also through our legal team advising what's best practice. So the next slide, how are we gonna break it into two? So we're moving one category that we're proposing or recommending for you to have before the voters is really defining the tax itself. So it's definitions, a lot of definitions. So what you see listed here are just examples, definitions of the business, the calculation terms. The main thing is that the calculation, itself is being restructured. The whole method is being restructured. So that's a vital part of that category. And then it's also deleting some fees that are either unused or not necessary. And so that's going to be the chunk of what you're going to see in the ordinance next, the next meeting redlined. And then that's what's going to be going to the voters then. And only then after the voters make their decision, if it passes, then we're recommending a separate ordinance that would not require voter approval, but would only be presented for the council to review and adopt. And that would handle the applications and issuance of a license, reporting, some enforcement and penalties. So it allows more flexibility in the process in the business license program. So if there's some changes that need to be made on the regulatory or PROCEDURAL SIDE THAT YOU'RE NOT TAKING THE WHOLE THING BACK TO THE VOTERS.

OKAY?

SO I WANT TO GIVE CREDIT TO ERIC AT HDL FOR THE ANALOGY THAT WAS INCLUDED IN THE STAFF REPORT REGARDING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PURPOSE OF A LICENSE PROGRAM The example was a car registration that you have to pay, and then a driver's license fee that, although it's related, they're totally separate purposes, so separate the ordinance.

Moving next.

So again, the next slide. Again, voters decide in November the structure of the tax, the definitions of the tax, the methodology, and that's a simple majority because it's a general tax. And then on the next page, if and only if that ordinance, If that passes, we don't want to be presumptuous here ahead of a voter decision. But then the second ordinance would come before the council and we would be targeting December after the election. And again, it would not require voter approval.

So it's important to make sure that the messaging, if there are any changes that need to be made, it's important that the messaging be clear that we're separating this process.

Okay, so finally the next steps. Recommend for the City Council meeting on July 16th, we're recommending that the Council approves the approach that we'd like to take to separate the ordinance, and that's what we would bring before you on the 16th. And it would be the resolution, the redline ordinance, and then the proposed ballot question that you have to have. turned into the county. Then November happens, the election, and then December 2nd is tentative if there's another ordinance update. And in between there, there are some procedural things you know, in order to get the packet ready for the election. But this is the gist of what the council has to decide on at this point. So with that, we'll take questions. We're done. And again, we have our legal team here as well.

Okay. Thank you, Carolina. Questions. Start with Council Member O'Connell.

I have no questions at this time.

Council Member Lentz.

Just one, Carolina. Thank you for the staff report. So the sales tax part, you said, I forgot, I wrote, I didn't write it down completely. So you said it's a sales tax exemption or what is it exactly?

So for the business license tax, if the business also contributes sales tax into the city, they actually will deduct that from the business license portion so that you're not paying on both. And it recognizes and acknowledges the sales tax that they're bringing in.

Okay, and so that has to be sales tax that is generated in Brisbane. So you might be someone who collects sales tax, but your point of sale is outside of Brisbane. You're going to pay the full amount. Correct. You're not going to be able to use your sales tax that you say you collected to get a deduction.

No, it's only sales tax generated within the city limits.

That goes to the city. Okay, thank you.

Council Member Kirk.

Carolina, excellent presentation. This makes a ton of sense. I'm excited to see this. You really think that you have enough time, 28 days, to get this ready for the ballot and bring it back?

yes so if if the decision is made to allow us to go with the two categories yeah it's it's really pretty much almost ready to go okay that's amazing thank you that's it great legal and and uh eric's team as well mayor pro temp davis thank you um i stepped out for a second but so i don't know if i missed this or i missed it in the staff report but is there a cap

like a maximum that a business would pay?

Yes, so currently for $10 million and over, there is a cap of, it's around 54,000, and that's the amount that would change every year. We have to revise it based off of a CPI calculation.

Okay, cool, thanks. I have no questions, so go to public comment. Do we have any members of the public wishing

comment no hands raised madam mayor okay council discussion or I'll entertain a motion I'll make a motion to move forward with staff suggestion to separate out the different categories.

I don't think we need a motion, didn't we?

Just give direction.

Just give direction, I believe.

Just staff direction. So, okay, we'll just go through and poll. Council Member Lentz, in favor?

Yes, Model 2 and the two things, so yes.

Okay. Mayor Proto? Aye. Council Member Curran?

Aye.

Council Member O'Connell?

Yes, please proceed.

Myself as well. Thank you very much. And thank you also, Erica, for your assistance on this. And Burke, all the hard work. And Mitch. And Mitch. Back there, Mitch.

Sorry. And thank you to the subcommittee, because I know that was also another glorious process. We enjoyed it.

Thank you. All right. Thank you. Next item we have, and that's watching the time. We have six minutes. Item P, city manager's report, city updates, upcoming activities.

In the spirit of keeping this short, I will just refer to one item that is coming up next, I believe it's next Thursday. June 25th will be the first public hearing for the Baylands project. We encourage everyone to come to those meetings, 6.30 in this room. Thank you.

Item Q, approved formation of a childcare ad hoc subcommittee. Staff report, please.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. At the May 21st council meeting, Councilmember Kern requested staff bring back the formation of a childcare ad hoc subcommittee. The subcommittee would align with the county's childcare blueprint, focusing on finding ways to augment childcare countywide. And the purpose of the subcommittee would also be to research, analyze, and propose potential solutions on augmenting childcare in the city. With that, I'd like to throw it off to Council Member Kern in case he has anything additional to add.

I don't have anything additional at this time. Thank you for the great staff report.

Council questions. Mayor Pro Tem Davis? I don't have any questions. Okay. Council Member Lentz?

I don't have any questions either.

Council Member O'Connell?

No questions.

And Council Member Kern, questions? No questions. And I have no questions. Do we have any, well, I guess, do we need public comment on this?

No hands raised, Madam Mayor.

Okay. So that being said, do we need discussion on this?

Do we need a motion on this, city attorney? Are we appointing the members or we're just saying we're creating a committee?

I think if we have two members that maybe are suggesting we just need to concur that we would create an ad hoc committee.

Yes, that's correct. You could create and appoint the members of the body.

Okay, so we don't necessarily need a motion. We just need to concur.

Up to, I'll defer to the mayor in terms of preference, but so long as there's not competing folks that are applying for these roles.

Okay.

Thank you.

So let me just ask, do we have two volunteers to serve on this ad hoc committee?

Yes, I'd like to do it.

Okay. And second is Mayor Protem?

I'm assuming you're also interested if you ask to form the committee.

And I applied to be on the roundtable, yes.

So we have three volunteers?

We do.

We do. Okay. Does anyone want to drop off?

Well, you know, I had been talking with Frank about actually moving forward with forming an ad hoc committee. And so, yeah, we put some time. into it and had conversations with folks in the community. And Frank had reached out to me about, do you want to be on the roundtable? And we thought, well, let's see if we can get someone from the community to be on it. Unfortunately, she couldn't make it, and Frank said, okay, I will put the time in, which I thought was really awesome. So obviously, I think Frank should be on it. But just with the amount of time that we've put into it, I would love to serve with Frank and try and implement some of the things that we talked with community members about, such as a listening session. and really focus on not just the preschool kids, but zero to two. And having daycares and learning from other cities in the county to make our early childhood development very robust and accommodating to our young families.

Mayor Proctor? Yeah, I'm happy to make a pitch for myself. Well, I am assuming that Council Member Curran couldn't talk to a third person, so I haven't been privy to any of these conversations. But I have a child of childcare age. I'm the only mother on this body. And I too have been very active in the community working through these issues. For example, today I actually partook in two meetings relative to this topic. One was a meeting between staff and parents to talk about the wait list, for Club Rec, the process of enrolling, pain points, how we could expand to serve every family that's been on the wait list. There were representatives from the school district. I was the only council member that was there. And I thought that I did a great job kind of helping to be the middleman between parents and the city and getting us to, I think, a really great point. The second meeting that I had was about the preschool. And so there's a member of our community, Carolyn, and she does forest schools. And so I know one of the biggest pain points of our preschool is that it's just a three hour program, four days a week. And one of the feedback that we got from parents was that if it was a longer program, it would attract more families and it would be able to be more sustainable for a longer period of time. And so because of the constraints of the building, kids need to be out of that building. And so that's why we've only had, you know, a three hour program, but she can do a forest school, which would allow for the program to be much longer. So there was a meeting between myself and her and staff talking about possibilities. So I think I'm the natural, I'm a natural choice to be with Frank because I actually have a little kid.

Okay, so I don't know how we resolve this. You all could discuss it, and we bring it back to another meeting.

Well, I don't think we can discuss it with each other, right?

How about this? You want to flip a coin?

Mayor, if I might, at this point, you could explore a motion as well based on which members might want to be on this committee that you're creating. If that'll help with the decision-making process.

I'm sorry, I missed what you're saying. A motion to do what?

A motion to identify proposed members of this body. And if there's a second and a vote, I think that might help with the decision-making process.

I'm not understanding that. I'm sorry.

I'll make a motion to form the committee with council members Davis and Kern.

Second. All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. Anyone opposed?

You know, if you're good with that, then. So, I mean, like, if you, you know, if you're saying aye, to having Davis be your partner on that, then I would say aye. Not to put you in this.

Okay, let's try this again. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Anyone oppose? No, okay.

Okay, good.

All right. Sorry, Glenn. Moving on.

No, no, it's all right.

We're at 1031, so now if we're to continue here, we need a motion to extend the meeting by, what, 10 minutes?

I'll make a motion to increase the meeting by 10 minutes. Okay.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? No. Okay. Recruitment update. City Clerk, update.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. For about a month, the City of Brisbane recruited community members interested in serving on the Brisbane's Complete Street Safety Committee. That's one seat available, and I received one application. And the Public Art Advisory Committee, which is between one to three seats, would shorten terms until January 2028. My office received three applications. Lastly, as of Monday, Carol Zoltowski has also resigned from the IDEA Committee, leaving a seat EXPIRING ON JANUARY 2028. SO STAFF IS PROPOSING TO SCHEDULE THE INTERVIEWS IN JULY. I CAN GO AHEAD AND POLL THE COUNCIL MEMBERS AND ALSO SEEKING DIRECTION OF WHAT TO DO IN TERMS OF RECRUITMENT FOR THOSE SEATS AND ALSO FOR THE IDEA COMMITTEE.

Okay, so you're looking for guidance on dates for interviews?

I can pull after the meeting. If that's what the council wishes to do.

I think we'd want to do that, but I think we'd also want to publicize and perhaps do a shortened for the IDEA committee so that we can open the application process. And if someone or if people come forward before we set a date, then we could also interview them at the same time.

that's the council's that makes sense makes sense suggestion okay so you have direction ingrid thank you okay future agenda items any proposed agenda items you know i i would like to make a suggestion madam mayor so um you know i've been hearing a lot from committee members

about wanting to have more of an engagement in regards to the Baylands process, you know, potentially having some kind of community workshops. I spoke with Anthony Walker about the Google Notebook LM that he had proposed on, or that he had put out on residents of Brisbane, and it was, you know, so a lot of people are using that tool. I HAD A CONVERSATION WITH STAFF AND THEN WITH MOLLY. IT WAS JUST A CONCEPT AND NOTHING'S OBVIOUSLY BEEN FINALIZED. BUT JUST WANTED TO PITCH THAT OUT THERE TO YOU IN REGARDS TO SOMETHING THAT SHE THOUGHT COULD BE PRETTY COOL. PROVIDING A WORKSHOP HERE IN THE COUNCIL CHAMBERS WHERE WE USE THE GOOGLE NOTEBOOK LM WHERE PEOPLE CAN PROVIDE QUESTIONS, RIGHT, YOU KNOW, PROMPTS TO THAT COULD THEN BE USED TO ANSWER QUESTIONS IN REGARDS TO WHETHER SOMETHING IS IN THE SPECIFIC PLAN OR IN THE DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT AND GETTING A BACK AND FORTH. SO JUST PUTTING THAT OUT THERE AND SEEING IF THAT IS SOMETHING THAT THE COUNCIL WOULD BE INTERESTED IN HAVING STAFF LOOK INTO TO HAVE A POTENTIAL. ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT A TECHNICAL WORKSHOP? An AI technical workshop? So this is something, I'm just putting it out there, something where the community can come and staff would lead that and people could ask questions. We could use the AI tool, you know, the Google Notebook, LN, I guess it's not AI, it is AI. So that then questions could be asked and then staff could be there and say, well, yeah, okay, here's where this particular item that you're interested in here's where you can find it. Because we know that these documents are just really big and they're cumbersome. So it provides an opportunity for the community to, with staff, in talking back and forth and with their other, YOU KNOW, CITIZENS, ABOUT WHAT THEY FEEL ARE IMPORTANT AND THEN GIVING US SUGGESTIONS OF WHAT WE SHOULD BE LOOKING FOR, RIGHT? I MEAN, WE WANT TO HAVE THAT FEEDBACK. SO IT IS JUST A SUGGESTION. AGAIN, PEOPLE HAVE BEEN SAYING, HEY, WE WANT TO HAVE MORE OF AN ENGAGEMENT. SO THAT WAS ONE SUGGESTION AS A COMMUNITY WORKSHOP. Just having a community workshop on Measure JJ, what does that mean? And what role does it have in how we eventually make decisions on the specific plan and the EIR? And to me, that's important. That's what people voted for. That is the direction that we should go, I feel, as a council member. And so having that engagement with the community, I think, would go a long way.

Is this a proposed agenda item? I'm not sure.

Yeah, I would say it's something for if we feel that having some kind of community workshop, then sending that to staff and staff could come back with us and say, okay, well, we could do this separate from the public hearings that the planning commission and the council would be doing.

Council, anyone? Comment? Council Member Kern.

I HAVE A LOT OF COMMENTS.

OKAY, WE'RE WATCHING THE TIME.

I UNDERSTAND WE'RE WATCHING THE TIME. SO I'M LEANING INTO MARK ON THIS ONE. MARK, I UNDERSTAND THE REQUEST TO HAVE AN ADDITIONAL WORKSHOP SO I CAN WRAP MY HEAD AROUND THAT PRETTY EASILY WITHOUT DEFINING WHAT A WORKSHOP IS. Using Notebook LM, which is a Google product, it is an AI product, I am starting to be concerned that we would be endorsing the AI support and answers that would be provided by Notebook LM. Are we prepared as a municipality to be in that position?

SO I'M NOT FAMILIAR WITH THE PROPOSED TECHNOLOGY. I HAVEN'T SEEN IT MYSELF, BUT TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION, THERE WOULD BE A CONCERN AROUND OPTICS, RIGHT? ARE THESE ANSWERS BEING GIVEN ON BEHALF OF THE CITY? IS IT THE CITY'S OFFICIAL POSITION, THINGS LIKE THAT, THAT COULD CREATE SOME CONCERN IF IT'S NOT VETTED BY CITY STAFF? THERE ARE SOME CONCERNS THERE. THANK YOU.

I HAVE A QUESTION FOR STAFF. I MEAN, GOOGLE, I DON'T KNOW IF YOU NEEDED GMAIL IF IT'S PART OF THE GOOGLE SUITE, BUT WE USE MICROSOFT. SO I DON'T KNOW IF THIS WAS EVEN, NOT EVEN A TOOL THAT STAFF IS FAMILIAR WITH OR UTILIZES OR MAYBE EVEN HAS ACCESS TO, IF IT'S, YOU KNOW, PART OF THE GOOGLE UNIVERSE THAT, YOU KNOW, GOOGLE WORKSPACE. SO I DON'T KNOW IF THERE'S SOMETHING ON OUR END THAT MAYBE IS A SIMILAR PRODUCT BUT WITHIN OUR SUITE?

THAT'S THE QUESTION. OR WOULD WE NEED LICENSING?

YES. I WOULD HAVE TO, THE CITY STAFF CURRENTLY UTILIZES CO-PILOT THROUGH THE MICROSOFT SUITE. SO THAT'S TO ANSWER THAT QUESTION. SECONDLY, WE'RE AWARE OF THE TOOL. THE TOOL HAS BEEN PROMOTED ONLINE.

NOT BY THE, HAS NOT BEEN PROMOTED BY THE CITY?

NO, NO, NO, NO. IT'S BEEN PROMOTED BY THE CREATOR. SO IT IS PUBLICLY AVAILABLE. I THINK I WAS ANSWERING ONE OF YOUR OTHER QUESTIONS.

I'm in favor of a workshop, but I couldn't say today how that should be structured and what tools should be used.

I would just comment, I would be a little leery of AI giving erroneous responses that could put us in a little bit of a jeopardy, because that happens with AI. And my other major concern is staff time, because I understand staff is really busy. And are we Are we creating an undue burden for them? And I think this is gonna need a little more input from staff. And I need a motion to extend the meeting again for another 10 minutes.

I make a motion to extend for 10 minutes.

And a second, please?

Second.