Town Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, good evening. Today is Wednesday, February 4th, and I'm calling to order the town of Fairfax regular meeting, our February regular meeting. And Christine, could you do a roll call, please?

Yes, Mayor. Council Member Blash. Here. Council Member Ghirangeli. Here.

Here. Here.

Councilmember Kohler. Yeah. Vice Mayor Ager. Mayor Hellman. I'm here. Thank you.

And if it pleases you to join us, please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Okay. Oh, yes. Okay, so we're now going to say Pledge of Allegiance. Pledge of 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.

Okay. I'd like to make a motion to approve the agenda. That's next. Second.

Second.

We have a motion from Council Member Kohler to approve the agenda and a second from Council Member Garangeli. Council Member Blash. Aye. Council Member Garangeli.

Aye.

Council Member Kohler. Aye. Vice Mayor Egger. Mayor Hellman. Yes.

Thank you. I will now read the land acknowledgement. The town of Fairfax acknowledges that we are located on the unseated ancestral lands of the Coast Miwok people of present-day Marin County. We honor with gratitude the land itself and all of its ancestors, past, present, and emerging.

I'm sorry, your phone.

Meeting protocol, the mayor or presiding officer shall maintain order. Christine, is this the new decorum? It is. Okay. Shall maintain order at the town council meeting council members share responsibility for modeling respectful professional conduct to effectively facilitate the meeting and encourage meaningful civic participation all participants including council members staff members of the public and Remote attendees are expected to engage respectfully profane language personal attacks ridicule of character and or motives and discriminatory or harassing conduct are not permitted. These standards apply equally to all the points and forms of participation. To ensure all voices can be heard, disruptive behavior, including shouting, repeated interruptions, clapping, et cetera, Any actions that interfere with the orderly conduct of the meeting is not permitted during public comment or council deliberations. Applause is appropriate for ceremonial or celebratory items. Participants are asked to silence their electronic devices. I think I just heard one up here. So if my colleagues could please make sure their devices are turned off, that would be appreciated. And meetings will adjourn no later than 11 PM at approximately 9 30 PM. The council will review the agenda and to determine which remaining items may be continued. so we are now at the announcements section we have an open position assistant associate planner that the role is open right now and what's the uh date to apply by um last deadline is march 16th i believe i have that on my um manager's report as well so much much needed role. If you have any questions about this position, please reach out to Heather. Thank you.

Heather, do you want to go ahead? Sorry, Mayor. I misspoke earlier. It's February 16th. February 16th. Yes, that's Monday. Thank you. Next.

A week from Monday. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Do you want to give your manager's report?

Yes, I'm ready. Thank you. I wanted to give you a business license update. Last month, I reported on the town's new online business registration system. We're proud to update you on our progress. In January 2026, using the new online system, the town received over $34,000 in revenue. There were 220 paid licenses. And as of today, that's up to 260. And comparing that with last January 2025, the town had processed 127 business licenses and generated just under $18,000. So these early results point to significant improvement. Both in participation and revenue collection and demonstrate the benefits of a more streamlined, accessible licensing process, both for business and staff. So we're very proud of that. I also wanted to mention the fire station 21 remodel update. In addition to the item you'll see on consent later tonight. um the finance department and recreation staff have moved this week from the community center over to the rental house across the street making way for the firefighters to live temporarily in the community center and i want to especially thank the public works director kristen arnold who's been spearheading that planning that and moving that as well as her staff um on the DPW crew, the clerk's office for assisting with cleaning out piles of old paperwork and arranging for appropriate technology in those temporary offices, and of course the finance and recreation staff for their willingness to move. This is saving us over a hundred thousand dollars which will be needed to repair the leaking roof at the fire station. So the station remodel as well as road and bridge projects will be and routine projects will be keeping the public works director very busy throughout the year. um, 2026. Um, you mentioned the current planning staff opening, um, and, uh, Kara Spencer retired from the town's planning department in January. And we want to thank her for her many years of service. Um, and, uh, as you mentioned, the, um, The position is on our website and is open at least through February 16th. So encourage anyone who's listening, who's qualified to apply. I wanted to remind everyone that the council's annual strategic planning retreat is scheduled for February 13th. That's basically a full day meeting and the public is welcome to attend. Following that strategic planning workshop, The town's budget process will begin in earnest. The audit and mid-year budget reports, we're anticipating bringing those to the March meeting, so that's something important to look forward to. And then last meeting, I mentioned the Marin Water Project on Bolinas. And we will be having a presentation from Marin Water on the project in the March meeting. And they are planning to begin that project in April. So some big changes, at least temporarily, on Bolinas. And there'll be more information at the March meeting. And then also on the list from the future agenda items, formula business update. The Planning Commission did have a study session on the formula business ordinance update, and they will be having a public hearing. later this month, and then after the Planning Commission has done their deliberations and made a recommendation, then it will come to the Council for consideration. And the Chamber of Commerce, we've talked about that with them, as well as the MMWD project. And then lastly, I wanted to follow up on another future agenda item, the dark sky ordinance update. The planning commission has held a study session for that. And the planning commission asked for a opportunity to hear from the public works director about the public streetlights, which would not be part of an ordinance, but could be part of a town policy. And so we'll schedule that meeting and then final recommendation can come to the council after that. So that ends my report. And if you have any questions, please let me know.

We still have an opening on the planning commission.

Yes, we still have an opening on the Planning Commission. So for March, you could be having an earlier start to the meeting in order to do interviews for the Planning Commissioner and also interviews potentially for artists in residence.

And Commissioner on Aging, we have a vacancy there, and I'm hoping we put it in the newsletter again.

Yes, it was in the newsletter this Tuesday, and I believe before that as well. And I don't have the status today of what the applications have been, but I can get back to you on that.

Thank you. I have a comment, question. Okay. At our strategic planning meeting, I'll be listening, of course, and be making recommendations. So I think before we recruit another employee, I think we should have the strategic planning meeting first. Because as you know, we've talked about it, I think we're overstaffed at town hall. I've said this for two years now, and I want to talk about it at the strategic meeting. Okay?

Sounds good. We'll do. Moving on to... Janet, we're not having public comment on these items, correct?

This is the town manager's report, and she's reporting to you.

Okay. Moving on to future agenda items, we have... I think this whole council is aware through staff meetings, one-on-ones and so forth, that our Measure C, our local sales tax, expires next spring. And we have a decision to make related to that. So I anticipate that there's several options. Among them would be to put, if we were to pursue renewing it, a June ballot or a November ballot. There's several different flavors of how that might work. The June ballot would Be the deadline would be March 6, though. We don't have a lot of time. So I anticipate having to call a special meeting related to that in late February. So stay tuned for that. I also have been talking to staff, primarily the town manager and the chief about. um how and if we are doing all we can to protect our community right now in light of all the horrific incidents in minneapolis and in detention centers um so i will be um recommending a resolution that summarizes a lot of the protections that are already in place, but they're all centralized in one place. And I'd also like to explore prohibiting the use of public property for staging or operations from from ice. So expect that on the agenda in the future as well. Unless anybody objects to either of those. Either Measure C or the resolution I just mentioned?

Okay.

Okay. I'm not hearing any. Go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor. Most California cities have brought back their employees full time. They're not working from home anymore. And with our staff being so short, I think we need to have our staff all working in town hall or at the extension. That would allow... More camaraderie with the workforce at Town Hall and also be available for the public. I think, you know, the COVID issues are over and it's time to return everyone to Town Hall. That's number one.

Is that an agenda item you want?

Well, I don't know if we would discuss it at our at the. retreat or the budget sounds like a retreat item yeah i i'm asking that that we i was asking for an agenda item to talk about directing all employees to come back to work you know at town hall or at the extension um so however that you think that might i'm in

I'll just say I'm in favor of discussing it at the retreat. I'm not in favor. We have a lot of business to attend to in these meetings, and I, for one, know how valuable that is as a benefit to working parents. It's very, very hard to recruit in the town of Fairfax for a number of reasons, and that's a benefit that people really, really enjoy. So it has to do with staff retention and staff satisfaction, and that's something I'm personally...

Well, this 482 cities in California and Fairfax is one of the few that allows employees to not work full time in the offices. So I think it's an issue that we've got to deal with fairly quickly.

I'm happy to talk about it in the retreat. I'm just going to mention that my class of worker at UCSF just unionized over this issue. So it's a big issue for working people all over the state. And a lot of people are really worked up about losing that as a benefit.

Well, perhaps if we had our employees all working at home, we would have come close to missing a deadline.

It's going beyond. It's not on the agenda. Okay. So we are...

I have one more thing I wanted to add.

So do we... Sorry, Mike. Just one second. We need to decide on whether we're going to have that discussion at the retreat or...

I think it's fine to discuss it at the retreat. Okay.

Go ahead, Mike.

Agreed. Yeah. Um, with all the work we're going to be doing on Bolinas road, I think that we need to, um, make sure that we have a good plan. Number one, let the public know and the merchants know, but also that everyone's working in harmony, um, all the utilities and all that. So we don't have to do it more than once in case we're going to, you know, I've seen it before. They dig something up and then one municipality, then, Oh, here comes the next guy. They dig it up again and also want to make sure that they're going to take care of the work, that they complete the work. Once they dig something up and lay a pipe down, that they resurface the roads and not just half the road. Because you've got to make them both match. So the entire road across Bolinas. Even if they only work on one half, they should fix the entire road. Anyway, that's what I'd like to make sure that we be back.

It pops up today to repair... repair the side of the road that they've done the work on. It's not policy to do the whole road.

So is that what you're asking to put on the, I'm asking to make sure that they do as much as possible to make sure that they don't, you know, by the way, it was been mentioned to me by staff that there's tons of work being done past our town limits. Big, big trucks are going down Bolinas road and, They're doing a lot of damage to the road, and we should be studying this. We should be talking about it at a council meeting, the next one. I'd like to put it on the agenda, where we study where we can get compensated for the heavy trucks that come through our town, the work that we've done, the utilities. There's a lot of work that was done up on Bolinas Road and passed by the county. Anyway, that's what I want to agendize so we can talk about it.

So we collect a tax from We don't always. Go ahead.

If I might suggest, to me, this sounds like two items. One is an item which is planned for March 4th to have MMWD present the project, what they'll be doing, who's going to be doing it, what the timelines are, et cetera. And that'll give the merchants, the residents, everyone a chance to hear that information and have some interaction with MMWD who is doing the project. And then I also heard you say, Mike, that you would like to look at the policies for repairing and pavement whenever there's work being done either in town or work trucks are going through town. Those are sort of two different things, but we could certainly bring an item to look at our policies there. But again, That's a pretty big topic. And I would start with the MMWD project today.

Or maybe we could ask Michael to put together what we've collected from various utilities related to, I mean, MMWD, for example, was doing the huge project all last year.

I would start with the policy because there are some things that a town can do and there are some things that are restricted by the California vehicle code. And so we want to make sure that we understand what we can and can't collect.

Is is that something that would be good for the budget? I mean, I just want to I don't want to talk about this too much because it's not agenda item. But, you know, when the county was doing the work at Sunnyside, they had heavy equipment that was ruining Sir Francis Drake. i asked when they came to us to have flood zone 9 pay for that that was a hard no so mike is raising the issue of them doing work on bolinas road they're going to have heavy equipment that will be impacting our roads we know from our man with the pavement that this heavy equipment is 15 times the weight of a car so i think it's something we can probably talk about at the budget workshop and maybe it's part of the fee discussion i don't know but um it is a good point yeah i like that idea of um tucking it onto the um budget workshop but really digging in and understanding what

the policy is, but in what we have and have not been collecting. Okay. Does that work for you, Mike?

Yes.

Okay.

I'm happy with that, too.

Thanks. I had one more item. Okay. It's something I've been thinking about for a number of years. When Fairfax installed the streetlights from Pacheco down to Pastore on Center Boulevard... They ordered the wrong size poles. They ordered 30-foot poles, and those are supposed to be 14-foot poles. So what happens at nighttime is it doesn't light up Center Boulevard at all. We've got two public crossings down there, and the streetlights are above the trees, above the buildings, and they're not shining, getting any light in the sidewalk areas of the street crossings. And I would just like to see us – Get an estimate of the cost to have the pole reduced from 30 feet to 40 feet. Keep the same pole. Keep it there. But it would be to cut it down to 14 feet and then restring it and take the top off and put it on the lower end to reduce the cost. But we need to get better lighting for our downtown area when pedestrians are walking. That's all. I think our staff could get us some cost estimates for that.

I think that that's way before I was on the council. That was a council a long time ago. But I don't know, Frank, do we need this agenda item or do you want to just get the information?

Well, if we could get the information, I can't do it. And then figure out. But our public works director could get some estimates for one poll, see how much it would cost to cut it from 30 to 14 and put the top down to the other side. And then we could make some decisions. Then we could decide.

I'm sure we can do that.

Okay.

All right. I heard measure C, a resolution related to protecting community. Those will be on future agenda items. I heard a couple of items for the budget workshop and the retreat. Heather, did you capture all those?

Yes, I took notes.

Great. All right, we are moving on to the presentation. We have a presentation from, I'm sorry, I don't know the end of it. Is it Mike? Mike, are you giving it?

We have someone here today, right? Mike is going to give the presentation and then we have the actuarial on Zoom if there are questions.

Okay. Okay. This is related to government accounting standards, board statement 75, which requires public agencies to report on the cost of other post-implement benefits, OPEB, such as medical prescription drug, dental, vision, life insurance, et cetera. Mr. Vivret, please take it away.

Thank you, Mayor. The item that we're talking about tonight is about the GASB 75 report that we do every year. This report has been required because at some point way back, probably a dozen years ago, the GASB board determined that there was liabilities out there that towns and cities and public entities were not showing on their balance sheet. And that had to do with the future liability of other people uh post employment benefits which is opeb in in an acronym uh on the balance sheet that the town has we show a liability of about 1.9 million dollars for the future cost of um of uh post employee benefits for uh the town employees this report is done annually in order to provide the number for the auditors to put onto the balance sheet so that we have an accurate number each year. It's done through an actuarial analysis where they go in and figure out who's on the plan, when they're likely to retire, what the future cost of medical insurance might be as you go down through the years. what the discount rate is of the investments that the town has in order to cover this, and the actuarial life that people have as far as living longer or whatever. And so what this report does is figure out actuarially what the value of the liability is each year. We provide OPEB, other post-employee benefits, in a couple of different ways. One is through participation in the California Public Employee Medical Hospital Care Act, which is called PEMCSH for short, which means that people who are on CalPERS and are having medical benefits, when they retire, they'll get a slight discount on what that medical premium is. And that's a PEMSHA payment that the town makes towards the amount of insurance that the employee has each month. The second way is through our MOUs with the police, with SEIU, with management. And those benefits were set up to be a percentage of the insurance payment based on how long the employee worked. for the town. So as an example, if somebody retired after 10 years and the management, they might pay 50% of the base price of medical insurance. Whereas somebody who might had worked 20 years or 25 years, depending on the MOU, These are all detailed, incidentally, in the Gatsby 75 report as far as what each of the union contracts says. But somebody who works for 25 years might get 100% of the single employee Kaiser premium. So these benefits were radically reduced in 2013. We basically discontinued the plan for new employees and set up a third option, which was basically that the town contributes towards a health savings plan, retirement health savings plan. And so those benefits are not figured in actuarially because whatever the person has in their account is what they can use for their insurance. That amount gets used up. There's no future liability to the town. So that's not considered to be a liability to the town once an employee has retired. So this is just measuring the value, the liability of the PEMCHA, the health insurance program. discount that the employees have and the MOU benefits that are retired for employees who have been working before 2013. So the next slide, please. Okay, let me get to that one myself. So basically, the process that the actuary goes through in order to figure out what the liability is, is they take they take a valuation of what the demographics and the health care cost trends are. They figure out the turnover of employees, mortality, disability, retirement patterns, and health care inflation. And they apply a discount rate to this to come up with what the actuarial accrued liability is. These are all terms that are defined in GASB 75, and every city that goes through a valuation like this uses the same terminology so that they can be compared across the board. And honest, it is very confusing to the average person to look at this and know what these acronyms mean, but I'm going to try to put it into simple terms. Basically, what they do is they, through all these actuarial methods, figure out what the liability is going to be. And then they go in and look at what the assets that the town has to help offset that and come up with a recommended amount that the town might contribute each year in order to be able to make the equation balance. Our goal usually is to try to fund about 80%. what the liability is going to be That's that's a good place to be so anyway, we've had an actuarial analysis here that has gone through and calculated what the Liability is and what the assets that we've got and the difference comes that they come up with is the unfunded actuarial accrued liability So If there's a chart in the report that shows since 2017 what the difference has been between this liability and the assets that we have to be able to cover it. Back in 2017, we had Assets that we had set aside. We have an account at PERS called a CERBT, which is a California, it's a benefit trust that we put money into. Typically, we put in $150,000 a year or so. This money is invested and the investment earnings on it add to the value of the assets that we've got to be set aside for retiree health. It can only be used for this. We can't use it for any other purpose. Once we've put the money into CERBT, it can only be used for retiree health payments. 2017 we had 31 percent of our liability in these assets and over the years as we've progressed it's gotten steadily higher the liability will vary from year to year depending on what kind of assumptions change during the period and our assets may change also depending on what the performance of the assets of the holdings in that fund are the good news that i have to report as of this report that we have we have funded 104 percent of the liability that's on the books so if you look at the books when we have our audit issued for 2025 it'll show a liability of about 1.9 million dollars for future retirement benefits. And it'll also show that we have assets in the assets column of about $2 million. So we have funded, as of this year, 104% of the liability that we've got. Part of this is due to the fact that the stock market is doing pretty good and that certain factors having to do with the employees have been favorable and haven't changed much or have changed in our favor. So... That's something that may change each year. Next year, if the discount... The report shows that, as an example, if the discount rate changes 0.5%, that the liability may go up. Other factors may go up or down depending on what the actuary says. So this isn't a permanent condition, but it's a good position to be in. So...

Michael, are you taking questions at the end or as you go?

We have the actuary online. I believe she's there to be able to answer anything that's technical. I'm happy to answer anything that's layman. What is your preference? Do you want to get through the presentation? I think we have one last slide in the presentation. And basically, the report that we've got shows that we have met all the reporting requirements, that the OPEB liability, which flows in, it shows what the liability that is going to flow into our audit statement for this year. I might mention that this report was prepared by a company that's well known in the field for doing these kind of actuary studies, Nicolet Consulting. And with that, I'd like to open it up to your questions.

I have several questions, but I'll let my colleagues go first. Council Member Blash, just curious.

So you see a real change in the pattern when you look at that chart. And now I flipped past the page, so I'm not sure what year, but around 2021. And so how much of the change in that pattern over the course of this chart is related to just luck and how much is it related to the town planning carefully around this type of payments towards benefits?

The liability that we have is we have a plan of funding as we go along. We have kind of a combination of pay as you go and setting aside money for future benefits. So the current benefits that we have as far as retiree health payments, we make out of our current budget. We haven't touched the amounts that we've set aside for future expenses. in addition uh based on uh recommendations in the past we put between a hundred or a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year aside in this cerbt fund uh so hopefully uh You know, the liabilities don't shoot up in the future. They shouldn't because we don't have – we've cut off the plan as far as new participants. So the growth of the liability is likely to be steady because it's really only based on the – primarily on the cost of health insurance and mortality tables as far as the length of time that people will live.

Does anyone else have questions?

I just want to comment that Bruce Ackerman a few years ago participated in Marin Mayor's and Councilmember's study of OPEB across all the cities and also pensions. And at that time, which I think was around 2021, Fairfax was doing great. So I think our planning, it's not all luck and it's not all the stock market. It's how we plan to try to shoot for 80%, which gets us in a good place. Thank you. Thanks for the presentation, Mike.

I have a few questions. What is the relationship, knowing that interest rates are starting to go up, what might that do to the discount rate?

I'd like to bring Tina, the person who actually put together the report, She's online, and I'd love to be able to introduce her to you, and she might be best situated to answer that question.

Great. Welcome, Tina. Thank you for being here.

Is she on?

Tina, if you're speaking, we can't hear you. I can see you're unmuted, though.

And, Mike, while we get her on, I have more questions. So we now, all our employees, our staff, our pay-as-you-go model, right?

The amount that the – it's a combination. We are – set with this year's budget to contribute $150,000 to the plan. We could, if we decided to, in light of the level of assets to liability, we could decide to defer that kind of a payment. We have budgeted in this year's budget the current liability for the monthly checks that we send to our current retirees. Is that your question?

Not really, but it was helpful. So you're saying the $150,000, are you talking about for fiscal year 24, 25? 25, 26. This current fiscal year, we've budgeted $150,000.

Okay, so we can have some discussion whether that is the right amount given the fact that we're at 104%. Is Tina with us now?

No, we can see her, but we cannot hear her. So I'm just sending an email.

Oh, okay. The 80%, is that an industry standard? Do any jurisdiction actually like? Have that as a policy, kind of like a reserve policy, for example, or is that just how did you arrive at 80%?

I think that would vary from agency to agency depending on their ability to be able to pay that remaining 20%. Mm-hmm.

And what would be the, are you planning to come to the budget workshop with what the, if we were, if we're targeting that 80%, what the reduction in the payment would be?

Yeah, keeping in mind that, you know, as inflation drops, if discount rate drops, the liability could exceed the assets at that point. But, you know, those kinds of things, we can't tell at this point what's going to happen with it. That's partly why you want to keep 80% is because things happen both directions and you want to have a good base in there for... Yeah, but what I'm saying is going into the next year, we're at 104, and if our target is 80...

We shouldn't be paying the same amount.

Okay. Tina, are you on now?

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you now.

That's wonderful. You can't see me, so I'm sorry about that. Okay.

Have you been listening?

Of course, 100%. Yeah, I didn't. I won't bore you with the technicalities. Regarding the discount rate question, as Michael, you did a very eloquent job of explaining this. As your discount rate goes up, your liability goes down. That's it's it's reverse and proportional. There are some things that can increase your liability in the upcoming years. And we take this into account into our calculations. One is that sometimes the trend on your medical rates that you folks are offering or that through CalPERS are increasing slightly more than our assumption. We captured in the first year, but sometimes they don't settle down in the way we had we hope or that we assume. And I'm sure you have the 2026 rates for CalPERS Region 1, and you've noticed that they've gone up slightly. They've gone up in double digits in some coverages. That will increase your liability. I believe there was another question about, will the liability maintain? And because of the benefit structure after 2013, where participants really get the Pemka minimum contribution that the town pays. All of those pre-2013 employees are going to be retiring and their liabilities will start to, they'll be more realized, if you will, and that will start to even out. And after that happens, once everybody turns over 65 and becomes part of Medicare, then those premiums decrease dramatically.

Okay. And did you have a response on the, is there any relationship with interest rates as interest rates go up? What does that do to the discount?

The discount rate typically follows. Okay. The discount rate, I'll give you a quick one minute sidebar on that. Your discount rate is determined by the service strategy one to which the town is invested. Currently, CalPERS, and you can get this on their website, CalPERS is Strategy 1, has a long-term rate of return expected of 6.4%. And that's a combination of the various things that Strategy 1 is invested in. And you'll find that in our report. How those... equities and incomes and whatnot, how those perform directly affects the long-term discount rate for strategy one. Because the town is so well-funded, we are allowed, we do this modeling and we're allowed to use the full discount rate versus the 20-year municipal bond, should you not have assets or should you not have a funding plan, you would not be allowed to use the full discount rate and your liabilities would be much higher. And that's part of the reason your liabilities were higher in the past is because you had a lower discount rate.

Thank you. Any other questions for Tina?

Okay, go ahead. This is a general question. I've got two specific ones. We just had a planner retire, and she had worked for us for seven years. Does Fairfax pay 100% of the post-retirement benefits for that employee, or do previous employers pay a share of those post-retirement benefits? That's one question. And then on page 6 of 31, I was looking at the actuarial benefits, accrued liability um and we pay we it costs us more for retirees than it does for current employees current employees are 926 154 that was i guess the liability in 2024 and retire retirees was one million eight thousand hundred twenty nine dollars so i the the question is um That report was based on 35 employees, and we now have 38 employees. So is that going to change with the next? When do we look at next year again? We'll see these numbers. So I'm wondering, will our costs go up? That's one. Then on page 18 of 31, it lists, it says recognized deferred outflow. Okay. Of of of resources fiscal year ending June 30th, and I guess it's June 30th, 2025. And when you add up twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven, twenty eight and twenty nine, it comes to four hundred eighty five thousand six hundred twenty eight dollars. Now, does that is that spread with each year? Each year, if we put in one hundred fifty thousand, that's that's how we arrived at the four hundred. 185,000? Do we make it up each year? That's the question.

Yeah, that's a lot. These are great questions. Let me first address the liability split between actives and retirees. You're correct. The retirees do carry a lot of more of the liability. And a lot of that is because the promise is bigger. They fall into that gap. 100%, depending on MOU and years of service, the town is paying a greater portion of their premium. Whereas the actives, you probably don't have a lot of actives that were hired prior to 2013. If I look at the age and service chart, 2013. Yeah, most of your actives were hired in the last 10 years. As far as will it go up next year, that depends on a lot of things. Like Michael explained, we have the assumptions. If CalPERS changes their decrement assumptions, we follow suit because you're in a CalPERS plan. If premiums go up, that could be an increase in liability. Your demographic experience changes. may or may not affect it. And we measure that separately. Next year is what we call a full valuation. So we'll collect a whole new census data. And the first thing we do is we see how did the population increase or decrease the liability simply by the movement of people, the retiring, the quitting, the anything that can happen to a person between the last full measurement date. So that will have an effect on it. You said you've increased about three people. My guess is those three people are, they would fall into the 5% PEMCA.

There was one more about the employee that worked for us seven years. And I think based on what Mike said, there is no OPEB liability with her. Is that correct, Mike?

We're not really allowed to comment on specific employees.

But she was hired after 2013.

There is liability for folks hired after 2013 because the town is making that minimum PIMCA contribution on their behalf. I think it's $161 a month. So there's that explicit liability. And if a retiree chooses to be covered, even though they pay the remaining of the premium, the full premium minus the PEMCA minimum, there's what we call an implicit subsidy. And that's because the retirees are paying an active premium amount. The premiums are based on the entire active population. If you based premiums on a retiree population, the premiums would be much higher. So we have to measure that difference. And that is a subsidy that the town must recognize in your ACFER. it's implicit, you're not writing a check for it, but it is there. Does that make sense?

That's kind of a... Well, if I may, so say an employee comes to work for us after working 15 years at another agency, that other agency has been paying into their post-retirement benefits all along, but that stays with that agency. It doesn't help this agency with their retirees who maybe spent 15 years with another PERS agency and seven years with us. Is that correct?

Yes.

tina i can help on this one okay thank you so uh the contracts determine uh whether we're going to allow time served in other cities uh the police contract originally did that uh we're not really and we haven't been hiring people who have long experience at other agencies whatever they've got as far as post-employee benefits doesn't affect us at all. It's not transferable like PERS is, that you can carry forward those kind of benefits and increase your benefit. It used to be with the POA contract that if somebody came over from another agency, that their time over there counted towards whether they would, you know, what percentage of employee of the health insurance payment we would make.

Frank, I just want to point out, so I worked for the state over 30 years, 20 years, something like that. And so when I went to the Air District, my OPEB with the state, gone. So only what I get is the Bay Area Air Quality Management District just pays me. The state pays nothing into my OPEB. So it, like Mike says, it depends on the contract, but that was what my situation was. If that's helpful.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Michael. And thank you, Tina. I'm ready to open the public comment.

Hi, Todd Greenberg, downtown Fairfax.

Do you have the timer? Thank you. Go ahead.

Hi, Todd Greenberg, downtown Fairfax. Nice report. I'd like to offer a few helpful suggestions and ask some questions. Charts, graphical representations of what would happen at different interest rates and in different circumstances would be helpful. rather than some people who get lost in numbers or can't juggle so many different numbers here. That would make it easier for many to understand. The finance director, Mr. Vivret, indicated that this was based on the town's balance sheet. I'd like to ask whether or not the town's balance sheets are publicly available, and if so, where? And if not, that the last 20 years of the town's balance sheets be provided so that everybody can understand how this fits in context. Next, as I said, this is a good report. I don't remember seeing as detailed of a report before. How many years has this consulting group been used? And what other consulting groups have been used over time would be helpful. Then I'd like to correct the mayor's assumption or statement that interest rates are going up. Interest rates have gone down six times in a row since September 2024, totaling 1.75%. And the expectation is that interest rates will be lowered two times in 2026, 25 basis points, and it could be more. These are up to the date. information that I just downloaded from many sources. So I would like to know, the public deserves to know, if interest rates are going down, what the likely impact will be. Then one point of question. Thank you for your time.

Can I answer one of those questions?

No, we'll summarize at the end.

Okay.

Any other questions in the room? Do we have any hands on Zoom?

We have one raised hand on Zoom, Kevin. Kevin, you are unmuted. You may now unmute yourself.

Thank you. Good evening, everyone aboard, council members. This message, this is Kevin Curtis. This one is for Michael. Around this time last year, and I may fumble this a bit, but it is Super Bowl week. So, you know, happy reference to the Super Bowl. Michael, around this time last year, we had a meeting during one of the intermissions. I asked you a question earlier. about, and I'm going to botch the name of it here, it was either a pension reserve fund or the CalPERS reserve fund or something along those lines that had several hundred thousand dollars in it. And it was around the time that Mike had been asking for where can we find some money, extra money to work with. Mainly he was targeting the roads, that type of thing. But can you express if with a 104% filling of the current liabilities, if there is that fund and if those monies then are available to be transferred, say, for example, back into the general fund, thank you.

There are no more speakers on Zoom.

Okay. Did you want to take this?

To answer the most recent question, the amounts that are set aside in the CERBT fund, which is the one that we're contributing $150,000 to, and which is the main asset valuation which is used for this report, these funds can only be used for OPEB payments. They're restricted for that by the agreement that we've got with PERS when we set this plan up to begin with. So no, we can't draw on that. That said, you can use the fact that you have those funds to be able to offset other payments that we might have. As an example, you could decide not to make the payment of $150,000 a year. Also, you could decide that instead of paying the retiree health benefits out of the operating account each year, you could draw upon this fund to make your OPEB payments. So those options are available to you if you want to, but we cannot take money out of this CERBT fund to distribute for other purposes. That was question one. Todd had a question about balance sheets. Every year in the audit, one of the main exhibits in there is the balance sheet. It has the assets. It has the liabilities. Those are audited numbers. That is our balance sheet. It's each year that we have that. We don't do balance sheets periodically through the year because a balance sheet requires that we have numbers like accounts payable and accounts receivable, payroll payable. All of those numbers would need to be updated as of the date of the balance sheet, we don't do that. The interim statements that we issue don't require and there's no standard for producing a balance sheet. So the balance sheet that we use and that I'm making reference to is in the audited financial statements each year.

Can I add just so this is great discussion. This is exactly what I was hoping for is to really show the level of detail and care that is being done to make sure that Fairfax is in a stable financial situation. And then the decisions regarding what Michael said about whether you continue to fund SERP in Fairfax, future years or whether you decide to pay current expenses out of the balance those are things that we should be talking about at the budget workshop And then I would say also, I just want to make sure that everyone in the public knows that all of our audits are on our webpage. So if you go into the website for the town, you can see every one of those audits. So just wanted to make sure people had access to that.

Thank you. Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Tina. Moving on. We are now at open time for public expression, and this is the time for the public to address the council on matters not listed on the agenda. Each speaker is limited to two minutes. The council cannot take action nor discuss items that are not on the agenda. And if there are more speakers after 30 minutes, open time will continue to the end of the agenda.

Hi, I'm Michael Rosenthal, and I just wanted to thank the council for including Doug McConnell as one of the people that this meeting is dedicated to. He was an environmental hero and gave incredibly freely of his time for all kinds of charitable causes as an emcee and and in Marin and beyond. And he, on a personal level, he was responsible for a large and wonderful part of my career. I got paid to go explore the back roads with him for 15 years. So I really appreciate you doing that. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

I'm Rachel Fishbein. I am one of the volunteer Parks and Recs commissioners. And I just wanted to give a brief update from the results of the last quarter, so Q4. So first I wanted to share that we had over 4,000 attendees at our events. Some of the highlights was over 1,000 people attended our Halloween events. With the Fall in Love with Fairfax event, we had over 300 people attend. The Winter Market drew between 500 to 750 attendees. And the Hanukkah celebration had over 250 attendees. So we brought a lot of people into our community for these events. Financial highlights, our classes, our yoga classes, Qigong, brought in $8,742 in revenue. The facility rentals, birthday parties, that was $5,916. And there was two grants secured, as well as some donations, and we raised over $20,047. I want to thank our staff members, Ann and Maria, who really spearheaded a lot of these initiatives. They're the ones who truly make this all happen. And looking ahead, I wanted to share that Fairfax Festival planning is already underway. We could use some more volunteers in the ongoing planning as well as the day of. And so if there's any community members who'd like to join us for that, we'd love the support. We also have a vacancy on the Parks and Recs Commission. And so if there's anyone who would like to volunteer, we'd love to have an additional member as well. So thank you.

Great work. Thank you so much.

Todd Greenberg, I'd like to speak once again on a matter of grave public safety. That is the frequently leaking PG&E natural gas pipeline that runs along Bolinas Road that a PG&E employee told me is whip circled as needing replacement. I recently wrote to the public works manager and others on town staff, notifying them of what I believe is a need for the town to notify all of the utilities that are in proximity to the MMWD pipeline prior to commencement in March, prior to future planning, so that We don't have an explosion like recently occurred in the South Bay or previously has occurred. There have been three leaks near the potting shed in the general store in the last five years in one location and two or three other leaky repairs there and one in front of gestalt house that's been opened up two or three times this is not something i'm making up this is something that is known it's a known hazard and it's irresponsible and inefficient for the town not to be notifying other utilities Also, when one makes a PRA in this town, the town staff is not responding. It's being outsourced illegal, which is increasing cost. Why are there not adequate town records maintained to answer simple requests for what should be over-the-counter provided documents, particularly on a timely basis? Also, future agenda items, the public should have some input. Thank you.

Mark Bell, Fairfax. Just to piggyback on what Todd was saying, years ago, I don't know if it's still the case right now, but I contacted Ross Valley Sanitary and said, you know, they're doing a bunch of work in this area. Have you called them up? You know, because you guys probably use the same trench or you can probably save on road repair or whatever if you work together. And my response from them was, Oh, they should call us. That's unacceptable. And so I think we need some type of mechanism that if there's going to be major work done, that all utilities must be contacted so that the work is done at the same time. And then also, besides saving on the time, noise, cost, etc., we would have a good idea as when the work was completed as opposed to, well, the sanitation guys came through here 30 years ago. PG&E came through 20 years ago. MMWD came through 55 years ago. We'd have a baseline which we could look at for the future for future planning. That's it.

Any speakers?

We have three speakers on zoom Mina. You are the first followed by Megan Mina. You are unmuted. You may now unmute yourself.

Hi, I'm Eno, Chamber of Commerce. We have two events in February, Bingo Night on February 13th. It's been very well attended. We appreciate Park and Rec sponsorship. And then also the Soup Walk is coming up on Saturday, February 28th. And we have 15 restaurants participating and I anticipate having 18. So we're just trying to get The details finalized, but we're very excited. It's our first soup walk. Also, thank you to Park and Rec for sponsoring the event. And what Rachel said, we're doing a great job on events, and so I'm very excited to be able to bring these things to the town. And if anyone wants to participate, just reach out. We'd love to have you. Thanks.

The next speaker is Megan, followed by Cindy. Megan, you are unmuted. You may now unmute yourself.

Hi, everyone. Thank you. Please bear with my voice as I am recovering from a cold. I just wanted to make sure that everyone in the community was aware of a school board meeting that is happening on February 11th. The Ross Valley School District, which is Manor, the three San Anselmo Elementary Schools, and White Hill does not include the high schools. is the bottom 4% of funding in the entire state of California. And we have the lowest paid teachers in the entire county. We are facing a budget crisis and there is a very important meeting happening on February 11th. that it's really important that we get all community input on. So if anyone listening feels called to write to the school board with your thoughts and feelings about this, as well as attend the meeting on February 11th, that would be greatly appreciated.

The next and last speaker is Cindy. Cindy, you are unmuted. You may now unmute yourself.

Hi, this is Cindy Ross, and a part of me can't believe that I need to bring this up yet again, but I believe it was in April of last year, a group of us submitted a petition asking the town of Fairfax to enforce its noxious odors ordinance. And I'm sorry to say that we still have a problem on the east end of town from intermittent fumes coming from the laundromat at Fairfax Plaza. They reach all the way down to the east towards San Anselmo, on Lansdale Avenue. They're noticeable sometimes at Good Earth, at Java Hut, near the post office. So we're talking about blocks and blocks around. And it's really creating a very uncomfortable and unhealthy situation. And we'd really appreciate it if the town would actually take some steps to enforce its ordinance and to protect us and protect the environment. Thank you.

There are no more speakers on Zoom.

Okay, closing open time for public expression and moving on to the regular agenda. Item number one. Repeal of Fairfax Town Code Section 5.56.170, application of this article to existing medical cannabis retailer. And Section 17.110.050, adult use cannabis deliveries by certain existing medical marijuana dispensaries. and revised Section 17.100.040A, Cannabis Retail Uses, due to notice to town officials by the owner of the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, also known as MAM. That she does not own the building at 1591-1593 Sir Francis Drake Boulevard and will not be relocating to that site. And I believe our town attorney will be taking it from here.

Mayor, if I may. Yeah. So I just wanted to introduce this and then turn it over to our town attorney. So this item today is, for this item number one, is simply to repeal non-operational language that is in the code and make sure that no one who was not intended to use it can use it. I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you. Yes, we're trying to do some code cleanup here. And there are two sections that relate to the Marin Alliance facility. Back in 2019, when we had the original cannabis code, we had a special exemption. And that is no longer operative for ma'am because they are not located at the school street site. And in fact, that site, they were evicted from that site, and that gave rise to the second exemption that was done in late 24 for 1591 to 1593, Sir Francis Drake Boulevard. On that site, we required a C.U.P., And there was never any CUP application submitted. Recently, Ms. Shaw has indicated that she doesn't own the building and isn't going to relocate there. Those aren't her plans. And so we want to remove those two sections from the code. So there are two sections to repeal and one to revise to remove the past special exemptions and the current special exemption for ma'am out of the code. And I note that this is an ordinance, and so it is two readings and 30 days before it becomes effective. So the recommendation would be to waive full reading and read by title only for the three sections for that ordinance that we're doing for cleanup. I'm happy to answer any questions.

I think it's pretty clear, but I know that this is also complicated. So I don't have any questions. Does anyone on the dais have questions? No? Okay. Then I guess we open up for public comment.

Hello, Council. Larry Bragman. A couple things. Just by introduction, MAM was zoned out of its premises at School Street. It was not evicted. It left because the property was rezoned. And as far as I know, it was not evicted. It left with an agreement with the owner, with the Azazis. So when.

Pardon me. I'll give you your time. But that's not what we heard back in October and November. So.

They were not evicted, Mayor.

There was a letter that they received in July.

That's not an eviction.

Okay. If you want to mince words, they were told they'd need to leave the premises. That's not an eviction. It's mincing words.

No, it's an eviction is a legal process. And they moved by an agreement with the owner. They were zoned out of their business. And so in desperation and in trying to comply with the town code, They found the location at 1591. Second point, it was never the plan for Lynette to own that building. It was to rent the building. And I might add, there were a number of complications that arose. The lender, the bank, was not cooperative. That delayed the deal. When that happened, the lender foreclosed on that property. and took the property back with an occupant in possession, Richard Hertz. Lynette's financer managed to take the property out of foreclosure, got a loan to the bank, and things were moving ahead. We had an agreement with the occupant. that was later repudiated by the occupant who proceeded to stay in the building until he was evicted. We had to go through a legal process to get him evicted. All of these things caused delay. Delay was money. By the time we got into the property, we found... Can I continue?

A few more seconds.

My request tonight is to simply defer repeal until Lynette has a chance to go to the planning commission with her new location. If you don't, and you repeal the exemptions for this legacy business, it's going to be the final nail in the coffin for the Marin Alliance. And I think she deserves a little more consideration after 30 years of historic practice in this. Thank you, Larry.

Thank you. Any other members of the public wish to speak?

And this is Todd Greenberg. I wasn't going to speak on this, but given what I perceive and can bolster and provide facts of erroneous statements by our mayor that are being made tonight, or perhaps they're just misunderstandings that got led at the very beginning of the meeting. where she indicated that it wasn't appropriate to criticize people. I'm going to read you something from the California cities. Actually, it's slightly different. But the Brown Act allows people to make public comment based upon viewpoint or and criticize officials. acts or omissions. I could go on, but I'll stop at that to make this point. Mr. Bragman was interrupted and perhaps lost some time and chain of thought by the mayor when he was, as an attorney, informing this council that there was no eviction as was stated by the mayor. The mayor clearly does not understand what the technical definition of an eviction is and should not be misleading the public if she does not understand that and should be deferring to legal counsel. Thank you.

Can you press the button, Lynette, please? Yeah.

Good evening, Mayor Hellman, Vice Mayor Ager, members of the town council. This has been a very confusing and hard to deal with situation. I've just been advised by Mr. Bragman that I should be asking for a deferral on this repeal because it would remove the historic and, well, I've earned a lot of time here in the town. This is not the speech I was going to make. I have another speech for the second section here. But I have patients calling me every single day that want our products and our advice and our knowledge back. I've worked with thousands and thousands of patient cases over the last 30 years. And getting screwed out of my building, which I was hoping to reopen in August, in the new building, we had it all set up. And it didn't work out at all. And in fact, there was so much damage done that my investors walked away because they felt it was $200,000, $250,000 worth of damage alone by the former owner of the building. And that made it impossible to invest in the building. So if you do defer the repeal tonight, that will give me time to bring my plan down to the Planning Commission. I wasn't allowed access to the building until December 2020. I wasn't allowed into the building to do anything for seven months. Excuse me, because of the actions from the former owner. We gave him a contract to stay there permanently upstairs, and instead he locked us out for months, went through the whole court thing, damaged the building so badly it cannot be used. And I didn't figure this out until December of just a few months ago. So I have a whole other plan, which we'll talk about in the second part of this. But please defer the repeal for now. Thank you.

Eric Hamer, downtown Fairfax, and former tenant at School Street Plaza. I think most of you know that. And I just want to say that nothing about the way that School Street Plaza was done by textbook. So when they use terms like eviction or termination or whatever words they used in order to move on and to put this property up for redevelopment is like something that came out of the owner's head spontaneously without really knowing or really sticking to any textbook definition. So we say we were evicted, but we really weren't evicted. We were terminated, we had to move on. So I think that the best thing to do for Marine Alliance is to defer this. I really think that you would not hear her petition after her special legacy use has been revoked because then there's a break in the lineage And she may not get it back. So I think first hear her about relocating into another space and then eliminate the special considerations given. So and that would be best done by deferring it, like Mr. Bragman said. Thank you.

Kathy Flores, Fairfax. Good evening, Council. I'm not sure if this is the right time to speak it, but I'm here tonight in support of relocating the Marine Alliance Medical Marijuana, which successfully operated for over 25 years at School Street Plaza. Ms. Flores, that's the next item. That's what I thought. Okay.

Do we have anybody's hands on the Zoom?

We have one speaker on Zoom. Yes, Kevin. Kevin, you are unmuted. You may now unmute yourself.

Good evening. You know, I can't believe I'm saying this, Lynette, but I also have to agree and I haven't spoken to Rick that you guys probably ought to pass this with a little bit of time and not make a decision tonight. There is a storage option, non-storefront storage only option with delivery that I think might actually work at that location. I don't know if Lynette would apply those rules and follow those rules in the future, but there is that option and it is a good option for that location. I know that in the past, the town attorney has stated that they saw her just walking to the corner and doing deals, but in the future with a storage only option, something like that could work at that location with no storefront. And it sounds like maybe her livelihood is in a real predicament here. One of the other things going on that we look backward at though, is that she was always a probationary status, non-licensed. entity and those licenses have both expired right now both the uh medicinal and storefront delivery so she's in a real predicament and she's got a long long path to go in order to get re-licensed uh past those expired licenses and those can only start with an address so i you know now that you know uh if you didn't already then i'll just leave it at that good night

There are no more speakers on Zoom.

Thank you.

Okay, go ahead.

Yeah, I think a couple of things. What the mayor was referring to was what we understood. We had understood that there was an eviction. Thank you for clarifying there was something different, Mr. Bragman. And I also want to say that the conditional use permit that Ms. Shaw had at School Street Plaza was, if the development hadn't gone forward as we think it will, it doesn't matter what the rezoning was. We didn't rezone her out of it. If the development hadn't gone forward, she could have stayed there if the owner would have agreed. So that's just some clarifying facts. I think Ms. Shaw has a long history here, as we know, about 30 years. I think the staff reports it 20 years, but it was 30, right? Except for that one period where the feds... did that horrible thing to you. Five years, right? So I think the town manager has opened the application period for another cannabis location. We think we are now in a different spot. At least I feel that way. I think we're in a different spot, and it's kind of a level playing field. Mr. Kaufman went through the application period. We think you can go through the application period. And I think we've really tried to help you in the past, Ms. Shaw. What we did last December was extraordinary circumstances trying to help you through a bad spot. And I know a few years ago when there were some problems with just having a medical dispensary, I pushed that council at that time to allow you to do recreational delivery because I know that was a lifeline. So I feel that it's important... I don't know what the purpose of deferring something. This business location is not applicable. We understand that. I'm sorry for what you had to go through. And I'm sorry Mr. Hertz caused so much damage from what you said. But this location is not applicable. So we need to clean up the code. We need to get rid of this so that somebody doesn't go in there and do something that would not be your business. And I think it's time to get rid of this code and move on through the application period, which I think you're right. well-positioned to put that together. And I think it's just fair to all. I don't know if anybody else is going to apply, but you may remember that back in those 23 or so meetings, I was supportive of cannabis. The rest of the council wasn't as supportive of many of the things I pushed for. And I was supportive of you. So I think we've tried really hard to help you. And I think it's time to go through the application period. And I think you'll be treated fairly. So I think it's time for us to repeal something that's on the books that makes no sense for 1591, 1593. Thank you. I have a question. Go ahead.

It's a question for Larry. Why would you rather defer it as opposed to this repeal? I have an idea why, but I want to know exactly why.

What I'm most concerned about is that you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You're also repealing the exemption she had for her license. So if she has to start all over again competing against well-funded outsiders that are going to come in here like Mr. Kaufman with more capital, with no history, you know, she's starting all over again in spite of the fact that she's provided 30 years of service to the community. And there really is no urgency to repeal this ordinance. Nobody can come in and use those premises. The ordinance specifically refers to Lynette Shaw and ma'am. That's not happening. So there's not going to be a mistake of somebody coming in and operating in that facility. So there's no urgency to this. And there's no reason to repeal the exemptions that allowed her legacy business to continue in this town.

Thank you. Go ahead, Janet. The only exemptions were site-specific and they do not travel with her.

Thank you. That was my question.

The only exemptions were site-specific and they do not travel with the business.

So there were special exemptions for School Street, and they don't travel. And there were special exemptions at Sir Francis Drake.

Which is why we need additional exemptions for the Sir Francis Drake location. They don't travel. And they don't travel.

I think the one he's referring to is the one at... It's okay, Larry. The one he's referring to is the one for School Street, and it was for School Street specifically. Right.

Okay. Okay. Okay, so that was one of the questions I had, and then I was a little confused with what was being asked for because it sounded almost like they were hoping to still use the Sir Francis Drake location, but it sounds like that's not the case. There's just some confusion about whether the exemption travels with the business or is specific to the site, right? Okay. Okay. All right. So it's not like we can just swap these out and say, well, you know, we're going to take this exemption with us to 61. No. Okay. Thank you. I might have more to say later, but I just wanted to clarify.

Yeah.

I just want to point out that. So back in November of 2024, you know, it was in recognition of your longstanding business and the trailblazer that you are. And we really, as a council, took sympathy. We really recognized what a crisis you were in. And you said, you know, Mr. Azazi, I've had conversations with him. Maybe I can get an extension. So my perception was that you were being evicted. And I do think it's just terminology. You had to... vacate the premises. You could no longer operate there. So whether you're asked to leave or you were evicted, you had to go. And we took extraordinary measures by changing code. We changed the code for you. We put in an address and it wasn't, we were advised against it and we did it anyway. And I just feel like for 14 months, we've been waiting for you to submit a conditional use permit. We made sure you understood it. We made sure your attorneys understood it. And it never happened. I understand that things happen and that you've had some bad luck with investors. And this is business. But I cannot support what you're asking for. It doesn't make sense. It feels like we have to get back to good policy. And currently, it's not okay to have this address and this other clause in there. We got to get rid of it. So that's where I am. And I'm ready to entertain a motion unless, Frank, you haven't spoken yet. Go ahead.

Okay. This ordinance repeals two ordinances. Is that correct?

There are two sections and one revision, yes.

One in 2019 and one in 2025.

24, early 25, yes, correct.

Okay, so I was part of the council in 2025 that approved that ordinance then, but I was not on the town council in 2019 when that ordinance was approved. Let's talk about School Street Plaza. The fact is School Street Plaza, The rezoning that took place was in violation of Fairfax Town Code. Okay. Technically, it was an illegal rezoning. Fairfax Town Code requires every resident, a property owner, I should say, within 300 feet of a property being rezoned to have a written notice sent to them. I've spoken with a number of residents in Fairfax, residents close by School Street Plaza, and close by the 12 other workforce housing overlay zone sites, and I have found no one who ever received a written notice that the property adjacent to them, whether it be a fairfax square or fairfax garage or whatever uh they never received a notice i've talked to people all over town about that to see if they ever received a notice and they did not so technically the rezoning that fairfax did did not meet the fairfax town code um i'm wondering if it's really if if the who zone is in fact legal The town attorney says in the ordinance it says it was properly noticed, so it was noticed at the women's club and the post office, I guess, and town hall. But the code, Fairfax Town Code, requires a written notice be given to every property owner within 300 feet of all of those properties. And that never happened. Thank you.

So I just have a question. So that's not what's before us tonight, right? So we can't be discussing Skull Street Plaza and zoning, et cetera, because it doesn't have to do with this particular item, except tangentially in terms of us deciding whether or not we're going to repeal these sections of the ordinance.

I'm responding to the comment that that man was evicted from School Street Plaza. What I'm saying was that illegal eviction, if that's what happened, it didn't. Thank you.

I've got something to add, Mayor. Go ahead. Okay. It wasn't that long ago that the same exact council had an objective to help relocate a business, a legacy business in Fairfax that was basically homeless. We all like to help the homeless, right? And it was caused by the rezoning. It was caused by the opportunity by the state. Blame it on the state, why not? But also what happened. And we made a commitment to help this business relocate. into a spot that could work. It was brought up that that location on Sir Francis Drake could work. That was what their hope was. When people are in dire straits, desperate times, things don't always work out. So I don't see why this council would renege on that promise. I like to keep my promises. And I think that everyone here owes it to this business. Forget her name, because some of you may not like that name, but I do. But regardless, that's a good business. She's done a lot for this community. We promised her a year ago we would help her relocate. And to renege on that tonight, it just doesn't sit right for me. Sorry, I guess I'm not the only guy with a heart up here, am I? That would be ironic, wouldn't it? Thank you.

So I think for me, the issue is not so much... It shouldn't be about the name of the person. It should be about whether or not we have a fair and reasonable code. And so... um i don't think there's anything about anyone here being heartless i think the town council has done an incredible amount of work trying to expedite a decision last year to make sure that the saint francis drake location could become a potential for this business and that didn't work out so i think that people have tried really hard And I just think right now we're looking at code that, from what I understand, us repealing it is not going to make any difference on the ability of this business to start up somewhere else. Am I correct there? Am I missing something?

That's correct.

So I'm ready to make a motion. I would... Did I do that?

I did it.

God did it.

Thank you very much. Remember to...

Your sign got a little excited.

All right. Remember to wave full reading and read by title only.

I think I've done this a few times.

It's not written in there.

That's why I'm just... Oh, okay. So I'd like to... waive full reading and read by title only to repeal Fairfax Town Code sections 5.56.170, application of this article to existing medical cannabis retailer, and 17.110.050, adult use cannabis deliveries by certain existing medical marijuana dispensaries and revised section seventeen point one one oh point zero four oh a cannabis retail uses due to notice given to town officials by the owner of the marin alliance for medical marijuana mam that she does not own the building at fifteen ninety one dash fifteen ninety three sir francis drake boulevard and will not be relocating to that site Additionally, there were prior exemptions granted to ma'am at the former school street location that are no longer applicable due to closure and redevelopment of that site that should be removed from the town code to avoid any confusion in the town's cannabis regulations.

I'll second. We have a motion from Council Member Kohler and a second from Mayor Hellman. Council Member Blash. Yes. Council Member Garangeli.

There's no need to be doing this this fast. This is not an emergency. So I'll vote no.

Council Member Kohler. Yes. Vice Mayor Egger.

Is this the ordinance that's before us tonight?

Yes, Frank.

There's no number on it.

The numbers come after.

Well, you know, one of the problems with putting a number on an ordinance after it's adopted is that It doesn't get its number until it's signed by the mayor. And if someone wants to run a referendum against one of our ordinances, this shortens the time period from 30 days to about 15 days. I don't think we should be adopting ordinances without a number on them because someone may want to challenge it. And without a number, there's no way they can challenge it. So I would separate the two. I'd be in favor of withdrawing the ordinance that we adopted in 2025, but I would allow the one in 2019 to remain into effect until we've sorted out the whole Marin Alliance issue here. Thank you. So I'll vote no.

Mayor Hellman. Yes.

Motion carries. Thanks. And maybe one of the things we can talk about at the retreat is the numbering ordinance is because vice mayor Edgar had brought this up. And I know in the past we used to include them so we could talk about the retreat.

Thank you.

Everything's going to be on that retreat.

Moving on to item two, we have a residence petition also related to cannabis business relocation by Ms. Shaw, Lynette Shaw.

Thank you, Mayor Hellman, Vice Mayor Ager, and everyone on the town council. My name is Lynette Shaw, and I've been the owner of the Red Alliance for Medical Marijuana here at Fairfax since 1997. As the owner of the first cannabis dispensary in the U.S. ever to receive a permit to sell medical marijuana, I've been caring for patients in Fairfax and throughout Marin County continuously ever since then. Many of my local patients started their medicinal cannabis journey with me and have now become good friends. They rely on me for my vast knowledge of the cannabis plant, its medicinal properties, and the top-notch curation of products available today that can best alleviate and or mitigate what people ail from. I've presented to the town council many times before, and we're not sure if everyone is aware of my story, my original tale, so to speak. I trained in San Francisco under noted political cannabis and HIV activist Dennis Perrone. For those who don't know, Dennis Perrone was one of the first advocates for medical marijuana legalization in the country. Working with Dennis, who lost his partner to HIV, I witnessed the need for access to medical marijuana. I saw it firsthand. There are many palliative effects from the plant. It can ease the pain caused by many debilitating illnesses. It can eliminate the nausea caused by many HIV meds, chemotherapy, radiation, and dozens and dozens of other illnesses. All this changed under Dennis. I worked with Dennis in 1991 in San Francisco, 1992 here in Marin, 1994 with Frank and Dennis to make the medical marijuana ordinances so that patients would not go to jail for their life-saving medication. I... All this was welcome news to the cannabis community except for people like myself who have been beaten up and taken to jail for their medicine. I'm considered an equity person now by the state of California because I did suffer violence at the drug war and went to jail for my medicine. So now as an equity person for the state, I get considerations, I get lowered fees and other stuff like that. I come to you today as a female-owned business, a legacy business, and an equity candidate seeking a cannabis business license from the town of Fairfax. I've been operating the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana Fairfax since 1997. My business came to a screeching halt when the owner of School Street Plaza, where the dispensary has been housed, forced us all to move. It wasn't a, like they said, it wasn't a real eviction, but they threatened us and they sent us a lot of, we negotiated and we were able to stay there through July of last year. We always obeyed all the rules and regulations. We were compliant with every regulation that the town had, what the state had. We passed all audits, and we never had any problems with any of the neighbors or children or the little league people didn't even know that we were there since we were so discreet. And so when the Fairfax Council approved the adult use delivery that Ms. Kohler supported at the time, I sought an additional license, and I was appointed by each entity to have all the licensure Due to the closure of School Street Plaza, I was forced to look for a building elsewhere, which we all know is a crisis medically, and still is, actually. I'm getting dozens of calls on a daily basis from patients who want and need our expertise and our curated products and our support. I don't want my business to leave this community. I love Fairfax very much, and... I thought that we had a suitable building with 1591 and the process took so long and the damage was just, there's a quarter million dollars worth of damage. You can't fix the damage and then build the business. It was just fiscally impossible. So it was a very long and sad story with that. And I haven't submitted anything because I couldn't even get into the building to do any measurements. There was no way to access the building for seven months because of the former tenant who had lost the building to foreclosure. He demanded $50,000 as an extortion bribe, and we didn't have that. And so he went to court, even though he had no longer possession of the building, and delayed it for seven months. We couldn't get into the building to see what was going on. We couldn't measure the building. We couldn't do any mapping. We couldn't do anything. And we finally got into the building in December. It was utterly wrecked and unusable inside. It was heartbreaking for us. So I'm here tonight to... ask for permission to apply for a medical-only dispensary at 61 Bolinas, where I currently have the general store. This is a much smaller version of my business, which would be more manageable. I don't want delivery. It's not financially feasible, and that's not what we do. We help people. My expertise is I've worked with thousands and thousands of patients and thousands of products. And I really know how to help people with whatever illness they have, which I didn't even know about this. I'm a musician. I didn't know about all the hundreds of illnesses I've helped treat now over the years. And people know that we are reliable, that we know what we're doing. We've curated these products that are special. And that's what people really want and need. I've had a lot of people crashing on us. I can't do anything until I have a storefront where I can have the medicine that we have carefully curated. So what I was asking for tonight was permission to apply for a medical-only dispensary at 61 Bolinas Road where I currently have the general store space. The general store has been wonderful, but in the economic realities, retail is not doing very well at all. I think the walk-in business for the patients would bring some business to downtown, but also solve problems for the local residents here who are ill. who want our products and have been suffering without us. And that's what I'm asking for tonight, is permission to relocate the medical-only business to 61 Bolinas. And I have the application prepared for months, you know, but I couldn't apply until I found out, because I was already contracted for the building on Sir Francis Drake, and I couldn't get into the building, and we finally got into the building, it was impossible to use. So I couldn't apply until that was cleared. And so we finally cleared that out because it's not usable. And so that's why I'm here now with my application ready. But I need your permission for me to apply.

I don't have any questions. Does anyone else?

The only question I have is, so the application period is open, and I'm assuming when you say you have the application ready that you would submit that to the town, and then the town would go through, I'm not sure exactly what they do, but then it would go to the planning commission. So I don't think you need permission. I mean, I think it's great that you're pretty much ready to go. Is that correct? Yes.

Yes.

OK, so that sounds great. And I think how long is the application period open to?

Yeah, the application period is open now. And I did send a link to Lynette earlier and she kindly replied. So let me just pull up the due date on that. But you still have plenty of time.

Okay, but I just need to be reassured that I can apply there. March 22nd. Thank you.

Yeah, I think, you know, one of the reasons we opened the application period or we had the town manager open it is because of your interest. And I want to say, I know Mr. Bragman pointed out that there might be others applying, but I will say when we opened the application period before, we only had one apply. So it remains to be seen, but I think it's more likely that you might be the only applicant.

Yeah. I've been searching and searching for, you know, locations for ever since we got rezoned out and we had to move and we, you know, all this stuff was going on and it seems to be the only building that, that I can access that. Makes sense. It's a great building. It's in excellent shape. Wonderful landlord who supports us. And I think it would work very nicely for a medical dispensary and to help the people.

Okay, so we'll stay tuned. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any public comment on this?

My name is Dr. Christopher Neeland. I have been before this council before to speak on the benefits of medical marijuana. I'm a board certified hospice and palliative care physician, as well as board certified in family medicine. I have two board certifications. I'm not here to expound on medical marijuana and its benefits. What I'm here to do is actually just put in a plug for Lynette. And the reason being, first of all, Questions often come up, why do we need a storefront? Why does we need a brick and mortar building? And to that, I will remind you that for the longest time, this was an illegal drug. And that carries with it a stigma. And it's very difficult for some patients to... bridge that gap between the difficulty they had in reconciling using a drug previously and using a medication in this stance. Lynette and her staff are extremely helpful in ensuring that patients feel supported. They feel connected and they don't feel criminalized in getting this the way that they would if they were calling for a delivery or something, right? Medical marijuana is important to have somebody there to help you with. I'll end with a quick story about Lynette and the reason that I'm a good friend of hers. When I first went into her shop, way back, I don't know how many years it was ago, I went into her shop and there was a little sign on the desk that said, if you buy a lighter for $5, it helps fund an eighth of weed for a hospice patient. And right then I knew that she was a good person. And as far as I'm concerned, as a doctor, she's a healthcare provider. And that matters to me. So I ask you to give her every consideration possible. Thank you for your time.

Hi, Kathy Flores, Fairfax. I'm here tonight in support of relocating MAM, or the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, which successfully operated for 25 years at School Street Plaza to 61 Bolinas Avenue. As you are all aware, Ms. Shaw is a true medical treasure. She has devoted decades to caring for and treating the sick and the dying, bringing an extraordinary depth of knowledge, compassion, and integrity to her work. The proposed location at 61 Bolinas is intended solely for walk-in medical purposes to support those who need help to survive and die with dignity and grace. This is not a recreational cannabis dispensary. Throughout her many years in the medical marijuana field, Ms. Shaw has carefully made products specifically designed to meet the needs of patients living in and around Fairfax. I urge you to approve her application And so that Ms. Shaw can continue providing this critical care to our community. Thank you for your consideration.

Hi, Todd Greenberg. Regardless of whether one has personal feelings on the location, wants to revisit what current state law is there's some other considerations that a prudent common sense person and persons that have taken an oath of office and are obligated to essentially do no harm and to make a balanced consideration on behalf of everyone in Fairfax and I'm going to point out before I go on that the town of fairfax is on track once again to spend record amounts on legal this year over one million dollars one million dollars that was supposed to be indicated in a single spot as per the last town council meeting in the financial reports related to item number two on the yes i i'm getting there my point is get there soon please my point is i'd like my time back My point is that incurring additional legal, unnecessary legal bills and creating liabilities for the town for any business that has been forced to move and forced out of business by questionable legal maneuvers that this town council has previously done is taking on an increased burden that is unwise and creating more litigation and i i just think that that should be a major consideration and every dispensation should be given to any business that has been forced out of business i do have a little extra time but i'll let that go since i was interrupted by the mayor

Mort Bell Fairfax said one other point. Some people don't do well having to deal with the internet. Some people don't want delivery people showing up at their house. Some people would rather talk to somebody in person to get information on what they need. Without a storefront for medical marijuana, where are you going? I mean, I don't know how the guy is operating over where Mauro's Pizza was, but otherwise, you're driving to Cotati. How is that helping anybody? It's not helping the residents here. It's contributing to global warming, which supposedly we're against. We're going for zero emissions. Why would we shut down the opportunity to have a local business here? that obviously has proven that there's a need for in our town. Thank you.

There's one raised hand on Zoom. Patrice, you are unmuted. You may now unmute yourself.

Hi, everyone. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. So I was actually a neighbor of Lynette's dispensary. When I first moved to Fairfax from San Francisco, I believe it was eight years ago now, I lived downstairs from her. I never had any problems with people coming into the dispensary, with people smoking, cannabis outside of the dispensary. And actually I had a lot of friends who played in little league. My friend was actually the little league commissioner at the time. No problems. The problem I have tonight is with this backpedaling. Lynette needs to make money. The town needs a medical dispensary. This has been hashed out for years. I believe I was in town council meetings for two and a half years deciding on the cannabis corridors. I wrote a speech for Lynette tonight. Hopefully she can deliver it in the next agenda item. And one of the things that I stressed in that was She just wants to provide medical marijuana to patients in need. She worked with Dennis Barone. She worked with Jack Hare. They were the pioneers of the legalization of medical marijuana movement. She wants to keep that going. The first legal dispensary was Lynette's in Fairfax County. I don't really care about the mishigash going on between all the players in this. I don't have a stake in the game. I just want patients who need medical marijuana to have access in a reasonable location in Fairfax. Thank you. Thank you.

There are no more speakers on Zoom. Okay, we'll close public comment.

And I think that's it. Right. Right. So in a petition like this, there's no council action. And as it was mentioned, Lynette is welcome to fill out the application. Great.

Thank you. Moving on to item 3.

Excuse me, Mayor. We received a petition signed by 25 residents. Are we saying that we're not going to accept the petition, ignore it? I'm not sure.

When it's on your agenda, you just heard it.

Right. Well, they're asking something, right?

You don't answer it. You just let them have their say. They ask you for things. It's already been told to Ms. Shaw that she is welcome to apply.

She's asking for a green light, and the application period is open. She's welcome to apply, and she seems to understand that.

Okay, so we're supportive of the move. Is that what we're saying?

No, not necessarily. She just asked for permission to apply. She doesn't need permission. She may go ahead and apply. The application period is open.

She doesn't need permission.

There's no motion on petitions. There's no action or motion. It's not an action item. It's an item where you hear from the petitioners. They have their say. They have their time to have their say in front of you.

I have a question. Yes. The recommendation, it says, hear the petition and direct staff as appropriate. So what direction do you guys want?

So, Mike, I think the appropriate direction would be to open up the application period. And I have opened the application period. And that's what Lynette, I believe, was asking for. So I think you're there. But if you'd like to make a motion or if you'd like to direct staff to, you know, keep the application open through March 20th, that would be fine.

I would still move to redirect the planning department to keep the application open until March 20th. Is that the date?

March 22nd. March 22nd.

March 22nd. That's the motion.

Okay, I'll second that.

There is no vote on petitions.

So basically, the vice mayor is providing direction to keep...

To the staff and planning department.

Yeah. And we're all unanimous on that. So are we ready to move on to item three? I will.

Is there going to be no vote? No, we just provided direction.

Okay.

Thank you.

Holding a public hearing on vacancy reporting in compliance with AB 2561 and government code 3502.3.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to present this very quickly. This is AB2561 vacancy reporting is a new-ish California law. It took effect January 1, 2025, and it requires public agencies to hold at least one public... Could you guys take your conversations outside so the town manager can finish her report?

Thank you.

Thank you. As I was saying, one public hearing per fiscal year at least to report on workforce vacancies. So as you can imagine, this might seem more salient in a very large jurisdiction that has a number of vacancies, which they may or may not be efficient in filling. So I want to give you the town of Fairfax vacancy data. So for the most recent reporting year, which is 2025, our annual average vacancy rate was 4%. And that's actually a great improvement over last year when it was the 2024 data was 7%. So we've actually filled some positions, as you know, in PD and others. And then The law talks about a 20% threshold, and we are well below that. And it does not include those positions which are listed in the staff report, which are the council has not funded and does not intend to fill. And then the law also requires that employee labor groups be given an opportunity to present if they would like. And I did contact both of our organized labor groups and they did not want to present and That 20% threshold, if we were to get there, would require additional reporting, but we did not meet that threshold. And there's no further action required of the council. It's simply that there is this public hearing, which does not require an additional notice or other things that you might be familiar with with the public hearing associated with, say, code changes. So I'll take any questions that you may have. I think Council Member Kohler has a question.

Yeah, I have a question. On the positions not intended to be filled in the current fiscal year, you have assistant planner, and the position we have advertised is either an assistant or associate planner. So we shouldn't have that on that list in case the person is qualified. Whoever applies, the way it's written... It's depending on qualifications. Yes. So we have assistant planner listed on this.

Right. So in the current fiscal year, we had planned in the budget to have associate planners. And so that is funded. Assistant planner is a slightly lower salary range. And so the reason... So I see your point, but those two things don't quite go together. The point of... advertising either an assistant or an associate is so that we can hire the best person at the right level for them and not overpay for someone who is more junior in there and so that is also a good point i think you had asked me earlier council member kohler about why we keep these positions even though they're not funded in the mix And that is exactly the reason so that we can be able to give some flexibility in terms of In that case, that's a job series.

I guess all I would have done is I would have done a footnote saying in case you're saying you're not hiring an assistant planner, assuming the people that apply are only of that qualification and you pick someone, it seems like a footnote would have been good.

We can certainly do that in the future, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's fine. Thank you. Okay.

A quick question, if I may. So there's eight positions there. Is that like a wish list? What's the meaning of these eight positions?

No, it's not a wish list at all. So thank you for the question. Those are positions that the council had approved at some time in the past. as a possibility to fill. They have a job description and they have a salary range. And even though in the budget we're clear that those are not positions that are funded, that we're planning on filling, the idea is that you keep those, if you will, on the back burner that they have they have salary ranges that continue to get escalated so that if the council, say in five years, decides that perhaps they they don't need one position, but they want to bring back the communications person, for example, then you would have a ready job description that you would not have to go through a whole process of approving. You would put that in the budget. We want that position. We want to bring that in. Does that help?

I have a question. I'm not sure. That's your Mike's question.

Well, I'll try. I don't know. So you're saying previous councils decided how many positions there were going to be in town or in this town? Because I know for a fact they've increased it by substantially. That was kind of the because we talked about it. And the goal of the council was to have more positions, theoretically, maybe to give better service to the community. more positions we ever had where now we need an office over here where the children's center used to be. We have multiple cubicles throughout the building where, you know, half the time I go in there, which I do say it's not that frequently, but when I do go in there, it's hard to catch people working because they're home working possibly. And it's very inefficient. No one does it anymore. And I think we're inefficient. And I think that, At the meeting that we're going to have coming up, the planning session, we need to take a good look at these positions that were created recently and, in my estimation, pare it down because we're running the town unlike the town that the residents and the businesses that are in the town have the ability to run their own homes, to run their own businesses. Somehow the town is blown up. But nothing else has. And that's why we have a shortfall in money for our streets. And that's not the only reason, but it's one reason. And it's just not what I ran on. I ran on trying to be more efficient and run within our means. And we have a lot of redundancy in our town, in our positions, more than I've ever seen, certainly from 20 years ago. And if anything, things should have got more efficient, not less efficient, with all the computers out there and all the efficiencies people find. Instead, even despite the... technology and everything, all of a sudden, we need more people to do What? I don't know. And not to mention, we're still closed on Fridays, for God's sakes. So I see no benefit to carrying these many positions, and I hope that we can change it. Because some of us recently were, not that recently, I guess, but were elected to save the town some money and redirect the money that we do have to run our town into places we need it for public safety and things like that infrastructure.

So I just, again, get a question. What's before us right now is just reviewing this vacancy report. It's not a decision about how many staff to have or whether or not we think those staff are working efficiently or should work from home or should work from an office. What's before us is simply to look at this vacancy report and see where we stand in terms of what the state requires of us in terms of reporting out. So there's no other decision here. That type of conversation we're having right now is off agenda and would probably be better suited to like, say our strategic retreat.

I will have a meeting. The one that we're talking about to do the, it wasn't even televised. So let's have a meeting where people can, whether they want to come to the meeting, which was hard. I think two people came to that meeting and because it was at a time that no one would normally come, I think a Friday morning or something. And It wasn't televised, so nobody can see it ever. So I think it should be public. Make sure it's film, please. Yeah.

And again, I think those are suggestions you might want to make when you're talking with staff or, you know, send to the mayor or something.

Stick to the agenda item. Does anyone else have any questions or comments? All right. Public comment. I'm sorry. Public hearing.

Hi, Todd Grinder. Contrary to what Councilwoman Blasch just indicated, I think these topics do deserve a public discussion by council members. This is a staff report that is missing the mark on a number of issues. Referenced herein is AB2561, which talks about retention data. Councilman Ghirangeli is talking about the costs involved to the town. Is there no recognition amongst this council about what's in the news everywhere every day now about AI cost savings and how many layoffs are happening? Why, oh why, when the town has had Five years in a row of operating deficits and is projected to have an operating deficit this year that are only met by drawing down its reserves. So it's technically, according to the Government Finance Officers Association, in structural deficit. I've checked with them. We are in structural deficit. We have had budget operating deficits only met by reserves for the past five years and are on track to do that again. Why, oh why, are we not looking at reducing or freezing any hiring? The city of Berkeley has a hiring freeze because of their significant budget deficit. Why doesn't Fairfax have a hiring freeze? Why aren't we looking for ways to save money? There's two terminations here. Are any of them from the hostile work environment that I've heard exists here in town? Has there been any investigation? What is the town manager doing to improve the work environment here in town?

Excuse me, Mark Bell, Fairfax. So I was looking at this earlier this afternoon and then says position not intended to be filled in the current fiscal year. It says building inspector. Does Mark Walker be leaving and no one's going to take his place? Or does he have a different job title? Or chief building official? PW manager, I don't know what that means. Management analysts, I don't know what they're analyzing. Assistant planner, administrative assistant. I've mentioned before that the town used to look over at UC Berkeley and get grad students to do internships here, which was an incredible cost savings. The town of Cotati cut back in some of their departments up to 45% in the past four years by hiring either part-time or doing something similar with people who were into planning. I don't see any inkling of the town staff to go out and look for savings. And it seems like we're having more people, but are we really having better service? I don't know. That's a question.

Any more? Oh.

Hi. Guy Nerinius. I'm a town employee. Public Works. I represent the, I'm the shop steward at CIU 1021 for your service union contract employees. And we're taking a vote on how this affects us as well. And we're trying to get more people for Town Hall. Public Works and what we do we are way underfunded. So before we fund more in town hall, let's go ahead and fund our own personal bank accounts because we're out there daily. fixing roads out there in the elements. I don't know. It was a no-burn day, but I witnessed 20 homes burning, and I'm breathing that in every day. So I'm here tonight to stop the overspending when it comes down to what the town hall decides versus what the actual union workers require, and that's the bare minimum, and that's a livable working wage, which we're the lowest paid in the county. Go ahead and research that. do it we're the lowest paid and we're tired of it so before a vote is made to increase numbers in town hall or anything else take a hard look at what we're doing here when it comes down to maintenance and everything else and everything that coincides with what's going on with the town whether it's planning whether it's trying to get lynette's business whatever moved I don't care. Stop the overspending. Stop the negligent decision making without proper representation. It was said that our union was contacted. Can we please have those contacts and the evidence like an email or whatever? Because I didn't receive any of that information. So enough with the voting when people aren't here. Like, I'm starting to pay a little more attention, and this is, quite frankly, unacceptable.

There are no speakers on Zoom.

Thank you. All right. Close the public hearing.

Mayor, can I just mention something? Sure. So I think Mr. Naranjas raised some good points, and I think we should talk about in the budget, about in the budget workshop, which will be stay tuned. I want to say, though, for some of the other commenters, I sit in a lot of boards and commissions, and we've had this same report recently, that's required by law and we're not in a structural deficit. I'm kind of tired of hearing that from Mr. Greenberg. And this is about where we have vacancies. That's really what it is. And so it's surprising to me that every time we try to do something that I've sat in other commissions, And it's a simple public hearing. Somehow it goes off track. But I don't think there's a motion on this item. I think it's just we received the item. Is that correct, town manager?

That's correct. And just to clarify, there's no positions being added or discussed at this time. It's simply a vacancy report, as you mentioned.

i think one of the things we may want to ask public works manager arnold at the budget for her to look at the staffing that are doing the day-to-day and is there a need to consider another position at that staff level so let's consider that i want to also say mr nerenias i used to run the wood smoke program at the bay area air quality management district And if you see people burning on no burn days, there's a number you can call to make a complaint. They do send out inspectors. It's also online. So, you know, they're not just patrolling all over, but they do send out folks. And it's bad. It's bad for your health. I get it. It's bad for a lot of people's health. So thank you for pointing that out.

May I make a comment?

Sure, and then we're going to take a break after that.

The actual biggest need in Fairfax is our public works department. Our roads, our sidewalks, our crosswalks, our lighting. Public works is just way underfunded, and it's time we pay attention and get some of this done downtown. Thank you.

Okay, we're going to take a five-minute break, and then we'll move on to consent. All right, we are back. And we are now on item four, which is the consent calendar. The council can approve all items on the consent calendar in one action. Alternatively, any council or staff member can remove items for separate discussion and voting. Public comments for consent calendar items are taken collectively, not item by item. During this period, speakers may address any item on the consent calendar with each speaker allotted up to two minutes and limited to one comment session. All right, does anybody have any clarifying questions or comments?

Yeah, I do. I had sent the clerk's office. There was a couple of changes to the minutes, and I didn't hear back if those were going to be made. One was that on the ordinance on the ADUs, the motion was based on the supplement. That was important. so i never heard back if those we can add that language in okay but i sent you those there were just a couple of small changes and i didn't hear back so i just wanted to make sure you got those and then i just want to point out on my council members assignments i must have been half asleep i just got back from mexico and my uh speakers for the marin mayors and council members got mixed up with another item but i'm sure everybody is not reading my stuff in detail so okay lizalus but okay God made my plaque fall down and no one cares. Anyway, I'm just pointing that out. Thank you.

If I could just say, so we did have a person in public open time who actually I think did comment on something that was on the agenda, which is on the consent calendar, which is the recreation agenda. quarterly report. But I do hope that we will discuss more in depth when we do our budget planning. Some of the information from the recreation report, I've been quite impressed by the growth and what they have done in terms of attendance and their grant writing. And I think it's going to be something that would be notable to discuss further when we move to that part of and the other one I just wanted to mention is that I'm very much enjoying reading the council member reports and assignments and I feel quite gratified to know what other council members are doing on behalf of the town and I encourage the public to also read that because all of us also make important decisions about things that impact this town in other boards and commissions and I think it's important for all of us to pay attention to that to make sure we're aligned with what the town really wants. And that's it.

Okay. Frank, earlier you said you wanted to pull.

Just one item. Just item A, the financial statement. Yes, please.

Okay. We're going to pull it. And then should I make a motion?

Do we need a motion to pull that? Janet, do we need a motion to pull item A? I'll make the motion. I think he can just do it. I think he just does it.

We don't do it.

We've always let him just do it.

We just pulled one, and if there's more to pull, that's fine, but if there's no more, let's do the consent calendar and then come back to that.

Okay, let's open public comment on consent on items B through J. Hi, Todd Greenberg.

It is a new year, and we have a new mayor. And as a gesture of goodwill towards the public, I would request that the mayor and this council, at least for consent calendar items, move up the amount of time from two minutes to three minutes, particularly since the prior council has previously refused all of my public comments, to the best of my knowledge, all to ever pull. consent calendar item that a council member on their own didn't ask to pull so please move up the time to three minutes is that asking that much now i'll try to continue on 4a that's going to be pulled so i'll leave that to the side 4D pertains to the town's finances too. That relates to A, so that should be conjoined with A. ABDC, what order is this? I've previously requested that the consent calendar items be numbered so they're easier referenced. That would help for the public to understand. contrary to what Councilwoman Blasch just indicated, where she thinks it's very important what's being said elsewhere in the county. Since June 17th, when I made a PRA statement, With Deputy Clerk Christine Foster, there has been no list of resolutions or ordinances provided to me or the public. How can any council member do their business without a full set of resolutions and ordinances to examine what business has been previously conducted here?

Thank you. Are there any other comments on consent? Any hands raised?

We have one hand raised on Zoom. Jasmine, you are unmuted. You may now unmute yourself.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the Town Council. I'm commenting on item H. My name is Jasmine and I'm here on behalf of NATO representing neighborhood convenience stores and small retailers across California, including locally owned businesses here in Fairfax. Protecting youth and supporting responsible retailer practices is a priority we all share. Retailers take this responsibility seriously and invest in training, ID verification, and compliance systems to ensure age-restricted products are sold only to adults. Our members support strong targeted enforcement and existing laws. Our concern is that Ordinance 904 goes beyond enforcement and instead imposes a broad product ban that conflicts with existing state policy. California already has a framework for determining which tobacco and nicotine products are legal through Attorney General's Unflavored Tobacco List, which identifies products deemed lawful for the sale under state standards. When local government prohibit products that state has already determined to be legal, it creates confusions for retailers, enforcement agencies, and consumers without clear evidence that it will reduce youth use. A blanket ban does not address social sourcing or online sales, but it does disproportionately impact small, locally owned businesses that are already complying with the law. Finally, we're concerned about the lack of a meaningful engagement with the retailers that are most affected. Local businesses are stakeholders in this community and their voices deserve to be heard early and meaningfully. We respectfully urge the council to reconsider this approach and at a minimum include an exemption for the products listed in the Attorney General's unflavored tobacco list to better align with local policy with state law and avoid unnecessary harm to compliant local businesses. Thank you for your time and consideration.

There are no more speakers on Zoom.

Okay. Thank you. So I will entertain a motion.

I'll make a motion to approve the consent items B through J. I'll second.

We have a motion from Council Member Kohler and a second from Council Member Blash. Council Member Blash. Yes. Council Member Garangeli. Yes.

I have to say there's things in here that I voted against at the last meeting, so it's all stuck here in the consent calendar. So I guess I have to vote no.

Council Member Kohler? Yes. Vice Mayor Egger?

Yes.

Mayor Hellman? Yes.

Okay, moving on, we're going to look at 4A, the financial statement. Did you just want to go over your questions?

I do have a question, yes. Okay. So I've just been tracking the legal and trying to figure out where it shows up, you know, in the expenses. Well, first of all, on a revenue, revenue shows fines, and the fines we budgeted, this says we budgeted $40,000 I look at the right one here. One, two, three, four, 40,000. And we've taken in 66,000. So the question is, are those all fines from police activity like parking tickets and motor vehicle violations and DUIs, et cetera? Or are there some other fines in that 66,000 from other departments?

We do get other fines, but I don't code those to fines, okay? Most of those are from police activity, either court or parking sources. So we get checks from the county as far as the court goes, and we get parking revenues from the group that administers our parking tickets.

Sometime back, the coffee roasters was fined $5,800 for a sign that was barged in. Was that paid by any chance? Has that ever showed up in here?

No. I don't recognize that amount, no.

Okay, okay, okay.

That line item is just PD, isn't that what you just said?

Did you hear that? It's all PD. Mostly PD. All PD. Is it all PD? Yes.

I believe so, yes. Okay. There may also be fines in the miscellaneous income section. We do get some people who are issued administrative fines for having minors at a party at their house, that sort of thing. I'll usually code those to miscellaneous income.

Okay. So what I was trying to figure out was the legal. And I added up Best Best and Krieger payments, and it came up to $306,608 in some odd sense. But I don't know. I can't see where it's showing up on the expense side. I went through all of the detail on disbursement reports. and added up Best Best and Krieger, and it comes up to $306,608. But I don't know, I can't see where it shows up on the expense statement.

So the legal expenses go to three areas. First of all, there are ones that have come in that are considered to be general legal. Best Best and Krieger has about $39,000 in the general area. category, which is in the town... That's in the town attorney...

It's Janet's budget, right?

It's 121.

Janet's budget is considered to be general services. And then we do have some in there that is from Best Best Krieger for things that are in that category of general expenses. So there's about $39,000 in the in the general category for Best, Best and Krieger. Then there's also special services, which is non-departmental. There's a litigation line there for Best, Best and Krieger, or not for Best, Best and Krieger, but for all attorneys that provide special services related to litigation.

Okay, but if I pull the $39,000 out of the $306,000, it gets it down to $267,000 for Best Best at Krieger. Right. I'm not sure.

There's a third category, which is sometimes there are legal expenses that are specific to capital projects that we may be doing. Right. As an example, in December, we paid $13,000 for legal fees related to the Meadow Bridge. All of the litigation, the things that we had to do for the eminent domain transaction involved attorney fees, and so there's been expenses. We have about $123,000 of legal fees that have been charged to the Meadow Bridge project related to that.

$129,000 in legal? $123,000, yes. Mike, where is that?

What page number is that?

It's not on a page. If you look at the detail for expenses that have been for Meadow Way Bridge, those are amounts that have been each month.

The $129,000 that you just mentioned?

I have a schedule of the legal fees and where they went.

Oh, I see.

If I just add to the conversation, we're anticipating, sorry, I'll get this closer. Is that better? Just to add to the conversation, we're anticipating reimbursement from Caltrans for the Meadoway Bridge legal fees.

I'm just trying to track what I added. I just added up the payments to Best Best at Krieger at $306,000. I'm just trying to track it down and see where it's showing up. For the amount of money we're spending for legal, we could probably hire a full-time town attorney on staff.

By the way, I thought last meeting we thought we wanted anything related to legal expenses to be under, you know, the attorney category, not yet. Under legal, it's scattered throughout the...

I think what we talked about, and I may be incorrect, and I don't think you were here, Mike. I think what we talked about was we can't change it right now because we're in the middle of the budget. But for the next budget coming up, we can start putting all these legal things together, but separate out so it's more clear. So you had a commitment. Our last meeting was on a Monday. And I think you have an existing commitment. So it's not going to be as easy to figure out until we get to the new budget so we can change this, right? I know it's been complicated. I know, Mike, you've really tried to move things around and make it more simple. But what we did talk about the last meeting was try to have it all together.

One of the ways that governmental accounting is set up is you have departments and object expenses. So salary expenses is spread across a number of departments, and it goes to the department with the idea that each department has a person who's responsible for that budget. So... jeff over in planning isn't responsible for the salary expenses that public works has it it is set up in the budget so that the person who is responsible for that budget has things that are controlled that they have control over so non-departmental has litigation expenses because Somebody sues you, that's not something that necessarily can be controlled by a department head.

Okay.

And so that's why we spread it across several lines.

So maybe what we can do at the budget workshop is... I mean, I understand what you're saying, but maybe have that clear where they all are so that people like Frank, the vice mayor, can find it. But it's never going to be in one simple spot because it gets allocated to departments. And, for example, for Meadow Way, we get reimbursed from Caltrans. So if we put that somewhere else, it would be very difficult to get.

that reimbursement it doesn't mean that it can't be tracked and summarized right and that's what we that's what we really want we don't have we don't want to have to do a forensic exercise every month and pull this off of consent so

Yeah, I mean, I think we have talked for quite some time that we've all wanted to have clarity on the legal billing. And I know at one point we sort of separated out some of the costs because people were getting very confused and thinking that every penny in legal fees was going to Janet, which wasn't what was happening. I think just as people confuse what's happening in the town clerk's office to apply to maybe just one person, And I think, though, there's always been a request that there be breaking out of where the money comes from and goes. And I think one of the other requests we hear a lot is they want to know how much, you know, particular cases are costing. And I think we've all agreed that we do not get to really have a good break out of that until after that's concluded because you don't want to, you know, basically give away your legal strategy by telling people how much you're spending. But if there is some way to sort of summarize, when we talk about our budget, something more clear about the spending in a year, that would be great.

If I can just add to the conversation. So the town attorney fund, if you were to go to the town's website and click on departments and click on finance, then you'll see a button for the budget, the current budget. And on the paper, page 17, that's the town attorney. So that's the general services. And then on the paper, page 55, that's non-departmental. And it has a line for litigation, which is 892.

Well, it seems that there was a legal page where the total dollar amount spent on legal. And then on that page, there were just different categories that added up to that total expense for legal. It would be easier to track to know what's going on. I can't do have a, you put your mic on.

Sorry. Can we review this at the budget hearing?

how we may do it in the future. When we do the budget. Thank you. That's fine. There was one here like the State Water Resources Control Board, we paid $3,540. It says Canyon Road annual fee. Do we have to pay the... the water resources control board is for something out on canyon road there's an annual fee for that yes for what for what what is it well i don't know the details on it i'd be happy to give you a copy of the bill that we get once a year they give us a bill every year we've paid that yes just for canyon road

Well, I would have to show you the bill in order to know what the total is. I think Mark approves that one.

Do they call it a fee? What is that? We're paying another public agency for something that I've never heard of before.

I would suggest we do, let's get a copy of that invoice so that we can get you more information. We can do that offline, and then if it is still a question or there are other questions, we can either handle that in real time or bring it to the budget workshop.

That's fine. Bring it to the budget.

Okay. Let's take public comment on this. Item 4A, Mr. Greenberg.

Hi, Todd Greenberg, downtown Fairfax. Finance Director Vivrette was not here, as I believe Councilwoman Kohler indicated at the last meeting. And if you review the meeting tapes, you'll find that council directed staff to provide this summary that is again requested tonight. let the record reflect that Finance Director Vivret has indicated that he does keep a legal schedule of costs. So I would suggest that rather than waiting for a budget workshop, which the public hasn't been informed tonight of what the date is, that immediately Finance Director Vivette be requested to provide that schedule in full detail to this complete council and that it be made public? Is that simple enough? He maintains it. He stated he maintains it. The council has directed this request. What is so difficult about getting that answer? In the interim, let me provide you with some simple math on what is available here in tonight's statement. I'm adding up on various pages, claims, settlements, town attorney and litigation, four categories. And it's been indicated by the finance director that there are more than that. So this is a very conservative amount. I won't bore you with the actual numbers here, but we're at 110% of our annual rate and it's mid year. What does Councilwoman Kohler mean by next budget? Is that the midterm budget that gets revised? The town needs to know this. The council needs to know this in order to make wise decisions because there are no controls in place for the legal billings right now.

Thank you. One more quick question. Hold on, hold on. Any other comments on Zoom?

There are no speakers on Zoom. Okay.

I'm going to close public comment. Frank?

Just one more. So I'm on page two of 39. Which report? And the category is elections, 222, elections. And we budgeted $123,400. And we spent $6,386. there's $117,000 left in that account. Was that the estimated cost for the recall? What election was that?

When we did the budget, it was expected that there would be two elections.

Okay.

One is the recall. The other was candidates after that. That's what we budgeted.

And prior to Prop 50 being on the budget, Okay. We would have had to pay in full. So they were conservative in putting in a $60,000 for a sub. Should this recall have been successful, the town would have had to pay for another election. Does that make sense?

Okay. So we only spent $6,386. Because the state subsidized the election.

Okay. Are we ready? I will entertain a motion.

I mean, I'll make a motion. We don't need a motion for this item.

We're unanimous in receiving. Okay. Let me go back to my agenda. Thank you. Okay. I encourage everyone to look at the monthly reports from the council members. I don't know that we need to go through anything right now, unless anybody has any comments they want to highlight. So I will adjourn the meeting in memory of Bob Weir, Doug McConnell, who was mentioned earlier this evening, Lori Burrafato, and Mark Chapman. I wish you all a good evening. Meeting adjourned.