Town Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, good evening and welcome. We are calling to order the Town of Fairfax Town Council regular meeting. Today is Wednesday, July 1st. We are here in the Women's Club. And Christine, could you please take a roll call?

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

Here.

Council Member Kohler. Here. Vice Mayor Ager. Here. Mayor Hellman.

I am here. And can I get a motion to approve the agenda, please?

So moved. I'll second. Motion from Council Member Blash and a second from Council Member Kohler. Council Member Blash.

Yes.

Council Member Garangeli.

Yes.

Council Member Kohler. Yes. Vice Mayor Ager. Aye. Mayor Hellman. Aye. I'm here.

Thank you. Yes. Sorry, I'm a little confused on this. Just as I'm going to ask that we all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

States of America and to the Republic, which it stands one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

We just had a closed session and I don't believe there was anything reportable. A town attorney is nodding her head, so there's no reportable items. And we did have public comment, which will be captured in the minutes downstream. Moving on to the land acknowledgement, the Fairfax Town Council acknowledges that we are located on the unceded 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. Meeting protocol, the mayor or presiding officer shall maintain order at all town council meetings. 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 or character of motives and discriminatory or harassing conduct are not permitted and these standards apply equally to all viewpoints and forms of participation to ensure all voices can be heard disrupted behavior including shouting repeating interruptions clapping booing etc anything that interferes with the orderly conduct of the meeting is not permitted during public comment or council deliberations Applause is appropriate for ceremonial and celebratory items. Participants are asked to now silence their electronic devices. Thank you. Meetings will adjourn no later than 11 p.m. At approximately 9.30 p.m., the Council will review the agenda to determine which items may be continued. Okay, we are now, I've already reported out on the closed session and I'm moving on to the announcements section. I do have a couple of announcements. Does anybody have announcements they wanna talk about? Mike, did you raise your hand? Liesl, do you have any? Okay, one minute. Sorry, one second. All right, I can't find the message, so I will punch that too later. Town manager report, Heather.

Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to let you know that I attended a safety briefing on the 4th of July. Fireworks will be emanating from the Golden Gate Bridge this year, so expect traffic delays in the afternoon and evening of July 4th in Southern Marin. And also, please remind others that home fireworks are not allowed in Marin due to fire danger. We just had a closed session. Labor negotiations regarding SEIU have begun, and the council met in closed session earlier tonight to discuss SEIU's initial negotiations. written proposals. Regarding construction on our roadways, we currently have the town's Park Road stormwater improvements and paving scheduled to be completed by the end of September. The Ross Valley Sanitary District project downtown on Broadway is scheduled to be complete by mid-August. The Merwin and Spruce Road section is being coordinated with the Park Road paving. And the Oak Manor, West Bray, and Olema Road areas are scheduled to be completed by the end of February 2027. The Marin Water Project is scheduled to resume on July 13th. and be ended by the end of November approximately. And the water, Marin Water will come back for an additional presentation of their timeline. The downtown section of that project is likely to be under construction in early September. To date, traffic control has been manageable. The primary issue has been complaints about extended waiting times on Bolinas Road while the Marin Water Project was active. Contractors have been directed to post no parking restrictions only in areas where they are actively working rather than imposing blanket parking restrictions throughout the entire project area. The next phase of the Ross Valley Sanitary District project will require one-way traffic on Broadway near School Street Plaza with traffic... In the opposite direction, detoured through nearby streets, nearby residential streets, we have informed the contractor that if the traffic congestion compromises emergency vehicle access, then work would be suspended until an acceptable alternative could be implemented. And one option currently being considered is performing that portion of the work during nighttime hours. And of course, then the question is, Will it be so noisy that that will also be an issue? And then I wanted to update you on the park rule signs. I know that's something of great interest. Those have been posted around Perry Park, the basketball court, ball field, Bolinas Park, Doc Egger, and the wall property entrances on the road. Signs will also be installed in the next couple of weeks at the Gloria Duncan Reserve, which is off of Olema Road. and the Frank Lawrence Park, which is closed circle. And then I wanted to mention that on June 22nd, so just recently the tree committee discussed potential updates to the tree ordinance. So that'll be a future agenda item for the council. And Fire Station 21's remodeling project is definitely underway. We just identified some additional required repairs, and so we can expect those to come back to the Council at a future meeting. And then lastly, I wanted to remind everyone that we are planning a special meeting for July 22nd, and the following topics will be covered. Certifying the June election in which Fairfax approved the sales tax. Naming the town's 100-acre open space, currently called the Wall Property. town facilities condition assessment, police department taser and laser, excuse me, license plate reader policy, and an update on the short-term rental program. So a lot of meaty topics for just a couple of weeks from now.

A lot going on. Thank you once again. In that, in your early part of your update, did you confirm the start date of the Bolinas Pipeline?

Yes. So the Bolinas road project for Marin water is currently scheduled to start on July 13th.

So 13th, it moved from the 6th. It did. Okay. So really important to stay on top of these. projects and we're going to be the the website of marine waters will be updated regularly and we'll provide updates in our newsletter so there's a lot going on needless to say um did you have a question further

Yeah, just one question regarding the park signs. I didn't hear you mention Jolly Hill. So Jolly Hill is right behind Bennett House, and there have been people camping, and it's a fire hazard. The Open Space Committee often does broom pulls there. So let's make sure we get a sign or two there, please.

Yes, thank you. Yeah. And I'm just going to quickly go through a couple of announcements that I found my email notes. So I wanted to thank everyone for involved with a very, very successful Fairfax festival, including staff, many of whom I see sitting in the front row. It was amazing as always. And, um, I just think it's a wonderful event that brings the community together. So thank you. And next Wednesday at the farmers market, I will have a mayor's table. So the community is welcome to pop by, ask a question, have conversation, whatever is on your mind. And just to piggyback on the tree committee meeting last week, I attended and want to thank the town arborist, Ray Moritz, and the committee for supporting the work that is anticipated in this corner, in the perimeter of the Women's Club. We will be envisioning and working on a design for a memorial garden for the four local teens who perished last April. And then in my monthly reports, you'll see some information. And we provided in the newsletter as well, the California Department of Insurance. So Fairfax has a very, very high rate of cancellation, house insurance, fire insurance, as you know, Vice Mayor. And the state approached us with some information related to that. And there's new carriers coming back into the market due to legislation and other updates. And so I just wanted to point the community to that information, which is in the newsletter. There is webinars. So there's if you've been canceled and you're on the Fair Act plan, which we have a high density of Residents on the fair act, which is very expensive and not very good. Please know that there's other carriers coming back to Fairfax and there's information on the website and in the newsletter related to that. So that those are the announcements that I wanted to make, and we can get back to the agenda. We are now at future agenda topics. And I know Council Member Blaschew had something.

Yeah, I'd like to request that we put on the agenda a presentation from our consultant on our current pavement condition index, which I believe has been updated or is in the process of being updated with information about how it's changed since the last time we reviewed. our pavement conditions, and also with a current estimate about how much money it would take to bring it up to a reasonable standard. We had an estimate a few years back, and I think we need to revisit that. Thank you.

Uh, are we in favor of that? We are. I am. I'm seeing nods. Okay. Thank you. That was one item.

Yeah.

Okay. Anything else?

I'm going to wait on it. Um, go ahead. I want to hear from vice mayor. Go ahead.

Sure. You know, I've been tracking our legal costs, and I was reading the IJ the other day, and I see that Napa hired an attorney from the Marin County Counsel's Office for full-time city attorney for Napa, and the pay is $266,000 a year. With our legal cost, our town attorney is probably, it's going to be over 300,000 by the time the year is out. So I'd like to see a discussion of the town council as to whether or not the opportunity is here for the town to have a full-time staff person be town attorney. There's certain advantages to doing that. And we've never really talked about having a full-time staff person, be town attorney. And so I'd like to have that discussion.

May I add some additional information to that, Madam Mayor? You may. I am very familiar with that position. There are also four attorneys under that lead city attorney. So the office in its entirety is five attorneys and a secretary. That's where the true cost comes in.

That's a large city, though.

Yes, but OK.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. I'm not in favor of that. We looked at this. We've looked at this many times. We know we're paying below market rate. We had to hire legal resources for the fire department. We know what all the other attorneys are paying are being paid in the county. And Jenna is being paid far less than any of them. So I'm not in favor of that. I think we're getting a great deal. Frankly, what's driving up the costs are all the litigations. We have like seven active litigations. litigations and a lot of frivolous ones at that.

I'm not in favor of that at this time.

I am in favor of reviewing it, yes.

Just take a look at it. Our total legal costs are going to be well over a million dollars this year. It's not just our town attorney, but we've got BB&K also. So far, we've paid them $648,000. So we're putting an awful lot of money out for legal. And having a full-time staff person would be really helpful for our short staff here.

Lisa, we need to, we have two and two.

Okay. I mean, I think that I'm not interested in it just because we've already reviewed why we have the setup we have now and why we have the legal costs we have now.

Okay. Thank you. Anyone else have a future agenda topic? Okay. Moving on. open time for public expression is now and these are items uh this is the time for the public to address the council on matters not listed on the agenda each speaker is allowed two minutes to speak the council may not take action or discuss items that are not on the agenda as restricted by state law if there are more than If there are more speakers after 30 minutes and the time now is 6.49, open time will continue at the end of the agenda. Please.

Hello. Welcome.

Now is better. My name is Salvador Marroquin. I'm an SEIU 1021 field representative for the workers in the town. I'm here to reach out to the council just to make them aware that what we are looking into the upcoming contract is fairness for these workers. We expect that the town will do the right thing for these workers. And just to give you a little bit of information, the cost for what we are asking, and I just make the connection what you were referring about, how much your legal costs are. For the first year for these workers, for five workers, it's only $48,600 that we are asking for an increase in wages. So if you were comparing with NAPA, I think I hear, Also, if the town has to borrow personal rules for other towns to bring to this town, I think it's a way to save money. I agree to that. But unfortunately, we are not paying a market rate for these workers, so we want to make sure that The talent of knowledge that and then to do the right that's what I keep saying they do the right thing for these workers and we are also looking for a three years contract that will deliver justice for this worker, thank you.

Thank you. you've got a scroll nice.

Good evening.

Good evening. I'm Rudy Contradi, town of Fairfax resident and public work employee for the last 39 years. And this is a first for me coming before our council with a union representation. We are asking for fair wage. At this point, we are below low income and have been for years. All the while, I've watched consultants and lawyer fees drain our town funds, leaving Fairfax Public Works the lowest paid municipality in Marin County. We would like to be prioritized. It is our turn. We have earned it. Fairfax Public Works is well loved by our community and our merchants because we are who they come to in time of need and we always deliver year round. It's our job. I know this town like the back of my hand, so we are here today to give you the opportunity to do the right thing. Get us closer to livable wage. I look forward to continue serving my town that I know and love. Thanks for your time and consideration.

Thank you, Rudy. Hi, Susan.

Good evening, everyone. I'm Susan Waters, the administrative assistant for the town. It'll be 20 years at the end of August. So I just wanted to thank you all for giving us the opportunity to serve the community of Fairfax. We appreciate your consideration to our request for a three-year contract. The Department of Public Works receives daily requests for services via telephone, email, website, and in-person requests at Town Hall. Our team works professionally and efficiently to assist the neighbors and attend to daily priorities for the Town.

we appreciate your support and the financial backing to enable us to continue to live and work in the community thank you all thank you susan good evening hello my name is john freeman i've been here for 10 and a half years on the public works and i sentiment as rudy spoke that we are definitely being underpaid the living wage is very difficult to keep up with try to live with and To try to get closer to that would be a very important step for us financially to be able to stay and work at this town. Some of these folks are even talking about second jobs at this point, and that should never happen at this point. The amount of work that this Public Works does, from parks to roads to street painting, drains, fallen trees, fish ponds, wall property now, all kinds of stuff like that, we're constantly expanding with less people. That's something we always have to consider. Not to mention, excuse me, that the amount of drivers texting is 30% on the roads now. Three out of 10. If I could give you half a dozen times, we had to jump out of the cone zone just to avoid cars. It's deadly. So please keep that in consideration. It's a very dangerous job. And hopefully we can retire with some dignity. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Hello. I've been on public work since January of 24. And I know that everybody, we're all concerned about numbers that are involved and costs. And I just wanted to bring the light that, you know, with us performing construction activities and rebuilding of uh, roadway surfaces, bridge surfaces are beautiful Redwood stage where now they're performing and rehearsing Shakespeare. You know, these are all liabilities that were on the town and over the town's head and well, Let's just break a number down for you real quick. So with regards to Meadoway Bridge, if you were to have a contractor come in and take care of that at prevailing wage, total cost without the materials is upwards of $20,900. Now, take a look at what we did it for with one week's labor with only one and a half of us. That equates to just about... $2,000 on our wages. So a savings of 18,900. So when we're talking about $48,000 for five workers for one year, let that sink in, just let that sink in. And that's one of the many projects that we have performed. The week before Fairfax Festival happened, we rebuilt the stairs to the pavilion, made that entirely safe for anybody to go up and down on the stairs. And as you all know and have gone up and down those stairs, they were horrible. And now they're great. So please take it into consideration when you're going over these numbers and what we're asking, it's next to nothing. And the mere fact that we're below poverty level, like low income, that's, I mean, it's pretty sad and it's pretty telling as to how we are thought of in our eyes when we look up and we get pushed back on the numbers. So please do the right thing. We'd really love a raise and we'd really like to continue working for Fairfax because as it's been mentioned, we might have to get second jobs.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Taylor Millar, and I started work here as a maintenance worker one just six months ago. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to our comments tonight. I'm proud to stand here alongside my coworkers because, you know, wearing this union purple We believe in supporting one another and advancing for a contract that reflects the value of the work we do for the town of Fairfax. Like my coworkers, I love serving this community. We maintain the streets, parks, facilities, and infrastructure that residents rely on daily. Much of our work happens behind the scenes, but it has a direct impact on the quality of life in Fairfax. Despite that, my position currently pays more than 11% below the average salary for equivalent position in the rest of the county of Marin. I'm fortunate to be able to live with the support of my parents and pay below market rent. Without that, I honestly don't think I could afford to continue living and working in the community I serve. We're asking for a fair three-year contract with a reliable cost of living adjustment. We want Fairfax to be able to retain skilled, dedicated public workers and not have to look elsewhere for work, something I regret to say I have been doing. Investing in your employees is an investment in the service that every resident depends on. Thank you again for your time, for listening, and for considering the value that our public works team brings to this town every single day.

Thank you, Taylor.

Good evening, council members. My name is Travis Balzerini. I'm the SIU 1021 regional vice president. I'm here today to speak on behalf of these employees who've actually done a better job than I could at describing what they do and the value they bring to this community. frankly, criminal that they are paid this low that they are begging you for raises. And most of them can't live in this community without their parents' help. We ask that you please consider the value they bring and pay them accordingly. I will also remind you that we were partners on Measure J, which recently passed, and we're happy to partner with you going forward, but we need our employees taken care of. So please consider that. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Mina with the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce. I would also like to give my support to the Public Works team. I think that they're very dedicated to Fairfax. They do their best. They show up every day. They do what they say they're going to do. The stairs at the pavilion are amazing. I mean, I'm so grateful that we have them. But I wanted to talk about construction. we have a lot of construction projects going on right now and i just wanted to i just heard that marin water is going to start on the 13th and go through the end of november and i would respectfully like them to reconsider the end of november we're already having to deal with a lot of shopping disruption and with the ross valley sanitary district project also i see a lot of spaces that aren't being used so like just be really mindful that every space is an economic factor, right? Like every parking space in town. So I would just like everyone to be more mindful and communicate more. I haven't heard from the sanitary district yet, so I need to follow up with them, but thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Rick Hamer, downtown Fairfax. I also think it's something that us in the town support that our public works people are getting paid a competitive wage compared to the rest of the county. You know, this idea that Fairfax is cheaper to live in than the rest of the county, I think is not really accurate. But the real reason I'm up here is to thank the town and the chamber for having a great Fairfax festival this year. I think it was a lot of fun, saw a lot of good people that were wearing their happy faces and I think that that's a really good thing that makes this town special. What I wish I didn't see was how many people in the parade were no-shows and about how there were just large gaps in the parade. So, you know, in other words, the parade was not marching at the same pace. But the Fairfax Festival is a very important tradition. We should retain a lot of enthusiasm and support for our traditions. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Good evening, Mayor and council members, Todd Greenberg, downtown Fairfax. number of items. First, it's great to see some of our staff members here and I support our staff members and the community is very appreciative of them. I would encourage you to ask your town manager to provide a comprehensive report on the comparable salaries that similar positions are being paid throughout the county so that you can make an educated and transparent decision. And that should be done proactively, as should a comparative study of what it costs different towns in Marin County for legal services. I'll tell you, I just did a quick search on Google and And with a $23.8 million budget, which is approximately $7 million greater than Fairfax's in San Anselmo, their total for 2026, 2027 in their budget is $476,000 annually for legal. We're going to be over a million dollars. We have a lot of lawsuits, none of which, Councilwoman Blasch, are a result of me. So I resent and ask you to take back your prior comment and aspersion that I was in summary responsible for the lion's share or anyone else that's doing PRAs, which are legally allowed, of the town's legal bills. Please correct the record. Please do an RFP for legal services so that we have a competitive bid. Don't make it 11 years like we had to wait for a auditor to be re-examined. Aside from that, Barbara Kohler, Councilman Kohler, you owe me an apology.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Mark Bell, Fairfax. I gave most of my comments about the Public Works crew before the closed session. But briefly, what I stated was low income in Marin is now 117,700 a year. According to the records, I believe Mr. Contradi's position pays 85,000 after almost 40 years of service. It's a lot of difference. It's almost 30,000. It's over 30,000 a year. Plus, these are the people who are out when there are storms. They're the ones who are keeping roads from flooding. They're subject to limbs falling off of trees, power wires coming down. It's hazardous. And the hazard pay should be something more than a thank you a few weeks later. One other thing I want to bring up while I have some time. According to the meeting protocol, profane language, personal attacks, ridicule of character or motives, et cetera, are not permitted. Mr. Greenberg brought up a petition at the last regular meeting, and I wouldn't exactly... say that this was followed. We had quite a personal attack. I just rewatched Council Member Kohler's comments where she basically said they were homophobic or gaslighting an issue. It's like pouring gasoline on a fire. I think the general idea is good. I think that the various groups who've made up who make up the history and contributed to the history of Fairfax is a great idea. A different month, the implementation is where there needs to be a change. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any hands on Zoom?

We have three raised hands on Zoom. The first speaker is Cindy, followed by a caller with a phone number ending in

9869 cindy you are unmuted you may now unmute yourself hi cindy ross long time fairfax resident and i can't believe i have to bring this up again but i do want to ask the town council and town officials to please do something about the off gassing coming from the laundromat at fairfax plaza It's created some terrible health problems for me. A number of neighbors have complained about it, although I happen to, unfortunately, be the closest in proximity, and you just really need to do something about it. I shouldn't have to bring it up at every meeting or, you know, for so many years. Please do something about it, or I am going to look into taking legal action. And I would like to remind you to please take care of your citizens. But also, listening to the Public Works folks that are here tonight, I want to remind you to please take care of the workers also. They deserve a raise. They are really, really awesome. I want to especially give a shout out to Rudy. I just think he's just an amazing person and works really, really hard. And, you know, just take care of your citizens and take care of your workers. Thank you.

Thank you. The next speaker is caller ending in 9869. You are unmuted. You may now unmute yourself.

Hi, thank you, everyone. My name is Chris and I live in Fairfax. I'm in full support of the workers and the public workers raised and bringing them up even closer to a living wage. We're very much appreciative to them. And they should be paid more. They do such great work for our community. Thank you. That's it.

Thank you. The next speaker is PJ, followed by Ricky. PJ, you are unmuted. You may now unmute yourself.

Thank you. Also calling in to support increased wages for all of the town's employees. Everybody who spoke there tonight, definitely appreciative of all of the work that they do. I always maintain that one of the best things governments can do is paying people to help other people. Somebody to be able to have a job doing that is incredible, but not if they are woefully underpaid um i i hope you know it's we've seen to have only support for this um that the community members also understand that the way we get enough money to provide these wages is by mostly tax revenue and i hope everybody who's in support of paying these workers a livable wage or at least getting as close as we can is also in support of increasing revenue to the town by taxes or by legalizing unpermitted units, things like that. And just one final note, you know, anytime we cut jobs that is putting more work on all of the workers remaining so you know in addition to increasing the wages for all the workers there i'd also urge this council to not consider reducing the amount of staff in the town because the same amount or more work is still going to need to get done and we're just going to be asking our workers to do more um than they already should be doing. We've got a lot of extremely long tenured workers and retaining their experience and expertise is something extremely valuable. Thank you.

Thank you. The next speaker is Ricky. Ricky, you are unmuted. You may now unmute yourself.

Good evening, Council. This is Richard. I know that there's like a lot of things going on and resources are challenged and it's very, very difficult. And it feels sometimes like a kind of nuisance issue and it's only affecting one or two or three neighbors. But I, too, want to echo Sidney Ross's concerns about the ongoing issue with the toxic waste. fumes that come from the laundromat. And I just had an episode, again, of I've had many over the years, stepping outside at Good Earth with a coffee just to sit down on a lovely, you know, afternoon. And it was so intense, I had to go back inside. And I wrote about it on Facebook, and other people have chimed in, it's been an ongoing discussion. And so I I understand that we can't legislate what products people are going to use and how a laundromat can run. But has anyone ever spoken to the owners or whoever runs the place just to even discuss whether there's ever been even a little exploration of whether there's any funding? filters or something with the way the ducts work or the vents there? Not something that would be a half a million dollar modification, but is there something somebody might have a little expertise in remediation with fumes or whatever that could you know contain it in some way a couple people on the facebook chat chimed in about uh things that where there are things of filters of some sort and things like that so i would just say in the million and one things that are on your list and all the things they have to do if if the owners of the laundromat could be contacted and just Let them know that there are neighbors that have concerns and without creating an undue burden on the business, if something could could be at least looked into and get some cooperation, that would be really appreciated. Thank you.

There are no more speakers on Zoom.

OK, thank you. Could we have a staff member respond to Mr. Applebaum about the exhaustive efforts that we have done? Yes, absolutely. I have a lot of details to share. Thank you. okay closing public comment and we are on to the regular agenda this is uh the item one is to adopt resolutions calling for the november 3rd 2026 municipal election um we have a resolution 2026-23 calling for a general municipal election to be held on november 3rd Twenty twenty six for the election of certain officers requesting the Marin Board of Supervisors to consolidate the general municipal election with the statewide general election to be conducted on that same date and setting rules and deadlines for candidates statements. And Christine, or is it Janet, who will be presenting?

I'll start. So the next general municipal election will be November 3rd, 2026. This is a standard staff report and resolution consolidating with the county, setting rules for arguments and rebuttals and candidate statements and whatnot. There's nothing exciting in here. This year up for election on our ballot will be two council member seats, the town clerk and the town treasurer, which are reflected in the staff report and resolution. So if anybody has any questions, Janet and I would be happy to answer them.

I have no questions. Any questions from the dais? Okay, seeing none, let's open public comment. Oh, we have to go to public comment, sorry. No problem. Seeing no people stepping forward in the room, any hands? Okay, closing public comment, and I will entertain a motion. Okay, I'll move. Did you need to say something?

I was just going to make a comment on the agenda item.

Oh, we're on item number one.

Yeah, right. On item number one, I was going to comment. You know, the agenda came out and it's and it says. I'm not you're not on item you're on. Are you on item one? Right. Regular agenda calling for the November election. We should have had right in the agenda for folks who don't read the staff, don't get the staff report or read them. They should know that there are two council seats up and the manager and the and the treasurer seat and the town clerk seat. If it shows up on the agenda because folks get the agendas, but they don't get the whole packet unless they actually go looking. So I think in the name of transparency, we ought to include more information on the agenda itself. So folks know what's going on. That's all.

Okay, noted. Can we get a motion? Sure. I move that we adopt Resolution 202623, calling for a general municipal election to be held on November 3rd, 2026, for the election of certain officers, requesting the Marin County Board of Supervisors to consolidate the general municipal election with the statewide general election to be conducted on that same date and setting rules and deadlines for candidate statements.

A second, we have a motion from council member Blash and a second from council member Kohler council member Blash. Yes. Council member Garen Kelly.

Yes.

Council member Kohler. Yes. Vice mayor anger. Hi, mayor Hellman.

Yes.

Motion carries.

All right, moving on to item number 2, Ross Valley paramedic authority, joint powers authority agreement amendment. approve the Ross Valley Paramedic Authority amended and restated joint powers agreement and adopt a resolution authorizing the town manager to execute set agreement. And I believe we have Chief Mahoney on the Zoom who is presenting this one.

Yes, you do. Good evening, Council. And I have created a slide presentation that will briefly touch on some of the key points of the staff reports. And after my presentation, I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Great. Thank you for joining us this evening. Give me just a second, Dan. I'm pulling up your presentation.

All right.

While she's pulling that up, I want to note that we have a supplement for this item.

Chief, we're having a little bit of technical difficulty. It'll just take a minute more. If you wanted to get started, that's okay too.

Yeah, if the council wouldn't mind, I do have some key points here that I could go ahead and get started with. And if the slide presentation comes up, we'll go ahead and pick it up from there. But I want to give a little bit of background and introduction to the new reinstated JPA. The original JPA agreement was created in 1982. It was about a page and a half. In March of 2024, the board requested an outside vendor by the name of CityGate to complete a comprehensive report regarding the RVPA's governance, financial structures, and deployment. Okay, this is the tax measure one. I'm going to go ahead and continue on.

Just keep talking.

Yep. In November of 2024, the board heard the findings of the CityGate report, and the board unanimously directed staff to return with an updated JPA agreement that would centralize finances and operations. The new amended restated agreement is compliant with the JPA Act. It implements board's decision to centralize the operations in the fiscal process. A little bit about the governance and the administration. The governance has virtually stayed the same as when the JPA was created. It's an eight member board appointed by member agency governing bodies. We did write in some different voting criteria. Certain decisions require a two thirds vote of the RVPA board. Such decisions are expenditures over 3% of the operating budget, decisions to remove a member from the JPA, increasing the total annual expenditure budget after the annual operating budget is adopted, and any type of termination of agreement. Fiscal structure funding in return of net operating surplus, the fiscal year remains the same. It's July 1 through June 30, so there's no change. The funding remains the same. The RVPA is funded through parcel tax and transport revenues of member agencies. The goal is to have equalized tax rates in cycle among all jurisdictions at the end of the proposed next tax cycle, which is my next presentation. The tax rate is based on projected costs that can be lowered if the costs go down. So you'll see in the next presentation, there's an up to amount. If the tax fails for one of our member agencies, they will need to bring it back to the next tax ballot. And if it fails two consecutive times, then the directors will meet in good faith to determine how to proceed further. So this is a new addition to the JPA. We also outlined the treasurer's responsibilities. The treasurer determines net operating surplus at the end of each fiscal year. Membership in JPA, new membership. If somebody would like to be a new member of the JPA, there'd be a two-thirds vote of the RVPA board to recommend that the member join the RVPA. But the member first must pass a tax. So obviously, they must have a way to pay into the RVPA. It also outlines withdrawal. So if a member would like to withdraw from the JPA, they'll need to give a two-year notice. Okay, perfect. We are on legal protections. All right. So a number of legal protections were included in the new JPA. The RVPA debts are not the debts of the individual member agencies. The RVPA agrees to identify, defend, and hold harmless members for claims arising out of the actions of anybody in the RVPA. These performing activities for RVPA maintain their immunities from their home jurisdictions. So I created this slide just for the importance of transparency to make sure that there was an understanding of the process of the last year and a half to two years and how we really reached out to a lot of different people to get input. The RVPA board had a number of presentations and had input into this proposed JPA. All the town managers and the district representatives were able to provide input into the JPA along with member agencies, respective councils or general councils. And also there are four fire chiefs that are part of the RVPA and both of the four fire chiefs also had input. So the recommendation is a staff recommends that the town council approve the Ross Valley Paramedic Authority amended restated joint powers agreement and adopt a resolution authorizing the town manager to execute said agreement. That's the end of my report and I'm open for any questions.

Great. Thank you, Chief. Any questions from the dice?

Go ahead, Barbara. Thank you, Chief. I have two questions. One is, at least my reading of the JPA agreement says that a member agency may be removed from our VPA upon the two-thirds vote of the board at a public meeting. And one of the reasons is the failure of the member agency's voters. pass the tax obviously it takes a vote but it looks like that's a for sure kind of reason so you mentioned something about they'll decide

Well, yeah, I think that's worst case scenario on what the ultimate decision is. I mean, this is a longstanding JPA. I think there could be some other alternative options out there to help support that member agency in trying to pass it again or look at some alternative methods. But we really depend on everybody who's part of the JPA to pay into it. And if a member isn't paying into the JPA, we're going to have to look at some different and innovative ways to try to supplement that. Or, you know, ultimately, if the board decides that, you know, if that member agency can't fund the JPA, then, you know, they can decide at a two-thirds vote to vote a member out.

Okay. And then thank you. And then the second question is, and perhaps you don't know this because RVPA has been around a long time. I've always wondered why Corte Madera has a different tax rate. I know part of the JPA agreement is to get them up to par in about four years, but do you know why they had a different tax rate?

So back in 1999, I was a live man. Okay. Back in 1999, there were negotiations that were done with the city of Corte Madera and the deployment of a second ambulance, which we still have now based in Corte Madera. And some of the agreement back then, 20, 27 years ago, was that Corte Madera would pay less in taxes. I have reached out to try to find out the history behind that. I haven't been able to. But I think part of this study, it was recognized that all member agencies are getting the same service and should be paying the same amount. So that is the intent of this next tax cycle is to bring everybody up almost equal within 25 cents, almost equally to what everybody. So everybody's paying the same.

Thank you, Chief.

A question, Mayor?

Go ahead, Vice Mayor.

Sure. Chief, in reading this packet, the ordinance itself says this year will start at 107.50 for fiscal year 27-28. It goes to the fourth year, it says 119.50 in the ordinance. And then when you look at the ballot question, the ballot question says over four years at a rate of up to one Oh seven 50.

Excuse me. There are actually three Ross Valley paramedic items on this agenda. And we're just on the first one, which is just the JPA.

We're talking about agenda item two. And I think you're on.

Oh, I'm on three. I'm on three.

Yeah. So just save that for the next one. Or did you have a question on this one?

Well, I don't know. So there were different numbers in number two, I think. Where did I see them? Oh, it's on the consent calendar. There's different numbers again. So when we get the consent calendar, all that.

Open public comment on agenda item two. Seeing none, any hands raised? Okay, closing public item. Closing public comment on item two. I don't have any questions. Really appreciate you being here. I think you're on vacation, so thank you for your time. I know we have a couple more to get through.

I'm happy to make a motion, but I also want to answer something that Vice Mayor brought up. Thank you. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I know Council Member Blasch is the rep. I was very confused because the numbers kept changing as well, and that's one of the reasons why we got the supplement, because the Exhibit A that was attached to the staff report had different numbers in it. So the supplement... uh i think clears that up so um just and councilmember blush go ahead okay thank you

I just wanted to say thanks to our chief and to all of the fire and paramedic staff, the consultants, and the rest of our board members for working so diligently on improving the efficiency and transparency of the JPA. I think this started out as a request for just a study looking at deployment and where would be the best place to have an ambulance station, and it sort of morphed into this sort of better government move at the same time. And I just have to say, having been involved in this, it's been an amazing process. And it's been just really heartening to see people work so hard at trying to make things better. So I'm grateful to everybody who was involved.

Thank you. So I'll make a motion that the Town Council approve the Ross Valley Paramedic Authority amended and restated joint powers agreement and adopt a resolution authorizing the town manager to execute said agreement using the supplement, which is a revised Exhibit A.

Second.

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

Yes.

Council Member Kohler. Vice Mayor Agar.

Aye.

Mayor Hellman. Yes. Motion carries.

Terrific. Thank you. All right. Moving on to item three. This is a resolution calling for an election for the passage of the Ross Valley Paramedic Authority four year special parcel tax for the tax cycle 2027 through 2031.

Okay, thank you. And here's your presentation. I have another short presentation here, and then I'll be open to any questions. And feel free to stop me during the presentation if you have any questions. So this presentation here is for the renewal of the RVPA tax. The next tax cycle and timeline, the parcel tax funds about 50% of the RVPA operations. The other half is funded through transport revenues. The next tax cycle spans July 1st, 2027 to June 30th, 2031. To guarantee funding, member agencies must seek voter approval to renewal their tax measure at the November 2026 elections. Tax rates, so what is the methodology behind how we came up with the tax rates for this cycle? The tax rates were established based on today's projections for the next four years. As we know, whenever we're trying to project um costs there's always some uncertainties so uh one of the biggest uncertainties we have now is the changes to medicare and medical uh potential decreases in transport revenues which are the revenues that we receive from actually transporting a patient to the hospital Some other uncertainties are changes in structure or cost of service provision. So our paramedics have MOUs and the costs of salary increases and things of that nature were forecasted, but there is somewhat of some uncertainty in there. And then last but not least, which is kind of an uncertainty for everything is inflation and other typical cost pressures. So for this reason, we chose on an up to $4 increase per year. If the cost projections change, tax rates can be lowered. So they can't obviously go higher than $4, but they can be lowered. In any one year of the tax cycle, upon recommendation from the board, So taxes, how are the taxes gonna be applied? There'll be a flat tax rate that'll be applied to residential units. So for instance, starting in fiscal year 27, 28, you'll see a cost of $107 and 50 cents. For developed non-residential properties, the proposed tax rate will change the square footage calculations from 1,500 square feet to 1,000 square feet to match Corte Madera's curtain threshold. So for example, for this 2728 tax cycle, if the tax passes, a 2,000 square foot non-residential area would pay $215 a year. Recommendation is that the council adopt resolution 26 or excuse me, resolution 2026-24 calling for an election for an increase in extension of the Ross Valley Paramedic Authority four-year special tax for 2027 through 2031 in requesting the Marin County Board of Supervisors consolidate election with the statewide general election. End of report and I'm open for any questions.

I'm just curious if you've gotten any indication of resistance or opposition from organizations that are anti-tax.

Not that I'm aware of. We're looking, based on the current tax and based on the recommended up to $4, we're looking at $4 more a year, possibly. We're anticipating actually lower than that.

Any other questions.

So I'm just reading page 3 of 12. And it shows the ballot question. And I don't think you might go up to $107.50. That's over the four years. But then another page says it goes to one 1950.

Janet, you need to be on the mic. Yeah, that's what I'm going to do.

So it says for four years at a rate of up to $107.50 for residential living unit or 1,000 square feet of developed non-residential property adjusted by up to $4 a year. So each fiscal year it can go up up to $4. That's why you see the chart in the ordinance that has $4 added for each fiscal year. Do you see that?

If I may add, just for clarification, it's my understanding, and the chief can correct me if I'm wrong, but it is the intention of our VPA to go up to $4 the first year and $3.50 every year following for the entire four-year cycle.

So that's reflected in the supplement, right? The first year at $4 and then every year thereafter at about $3.50? That's correct. Okay.

So this figure says $107.50. Is that wrong?

That's correct. That's the $4. And then the $3.50 is under $4. But the ballot language, because of the word limit on the ballot language, they could only say up to $4 and not clarify the $3.50 in the following years.

You couldn't get that much detail in there because it's a 75-word limit. Right. And so you had to say up to $4 when it could be $3.50. Do you know what I mean?

It's not going to remain at $107.50.

No, $107.50 is for next year, the next fiscal year. And then it can go up to $4. Maybe it's only going to go $3.50, but 75-word limit on the ballot question, that's what you are stuck with, the way you explain it.

It's just kind of confusing for someone who's going to go down to vote. They're going to say, well, I'm going to pay up to $107.50, and then four years from now, they'll be paying up to $107.50. They'll be paying maybe $119.50.

Frank, it says in the ballot question $107.50 per resident, blah, blah, blah, adjusted by up to $4 a year. So you have to read on in the ballot language. It goes on to say adjusted by up to $4 a year.

Shouldn't it say not to exceed at some point? I mean...

I don't know, but I'm just saying.

Well, it is not to exceed $4, but you can't put the actual amount because it depends on what your square footage is, right?

Okay, so if it starts at $107.50, is that going to be the second year or this year? That's 2027.

26, 27, 27, 28. 27, 28. 27, 28.

Okay, not this coming year. The next year.

That's correct.

That's the first year of the agreement then.

Yeah, it's on a general election for November, so it's the year after that.

Okay. And then it says it's going to go up to $4 a year. If it was four years at $4 a year, would it be $16 up?

So if you look in the ordinance that's attached as an exhibit, it'll give you those figures, 107.50, 111.50, 115.50, and 119.50.

That's how I'm looking at those numbers. You know, on page 9 of 12, it shows the numbers.

Page 9 of 12, yes, that's in the ordinance.

And the fourth year goes to...

There wasn't room within the character limitations of the ballot statement, right? So that's rather than put all of this in there, at no point does it exceed $4. So they're saying up to $4 year over year, right? Does that make sense?

I'm just looking at these numbers. It can go as high as $119.50 at the end of the fourth year.

It could be so. Starting next year, it's $4 a year for four years.

That's not really fair in the way the ballot is listed. Is it?

I don't want to speak for the chief vice mayor, but I believe the limitation of 75 words in the ballot measure is... You know, it's just constraint.

That's all I can put in there.

Yes, that's right.

And if I may add a little bit more to it. So the first year is projected to be $4. In the three ensuing years, is projected to be at $3.50, which will then equalize us with Corte Madera, because that's one of the other goals we had at the end of the tax cycle was to be equal with Corte Madera and their tax that they're going to have to tax, which is a little bit different um then then what's being proposed tonight because obviously they were paying a bit less so their their their tax increase is going to be a couple dollars more than ours a year that's the item that's on a consent calendar later on right um no to clarify the consent calendar item is for this fiscal year and uh so it um

You know, it's July 1 now, and it's starting this fiscal year. So it's just the normal tax rate update that we do every year that you've done last year, for example, on the previously approved ballot measure for our VPA. Does that clarify?

Okay.

All right. I'm going to open it up to public.

They're going to think that's going to be $107.50. Okay.

I'm going to open public comment on this item.

Hi, Todd Greenberg. Chief, as you know, I'm a supporter of the fire department and the police department. and I'm disappointed in how the town council brings things forth. I'm not sure if they provided any guidance. I know two of the members sit on the fire board, so I'm guessing that their thinking pervades some of this, but I'm not privy to what the decision-making process was. Mayor Hellman asked earlier, Mayor Hellman sits on the board, last I knew,

I do not sit on the paramedic authority board.

Okay, fire board. Anyway, the question is that the mayor asked whether or not any tax advocacy or expert advice groups were consulted for this. And I want to ask whether there's still time for them to be consulted. What is the deadline before this town council would have to approve this? Is there still time for the paramedic authority to consult with either the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association or Coalition of Sensible Taxpayers so that they might get their input on how to best achieve the desired result could the town council or the town attorney or the fire chief answer that please next speaker

Are there any hands on the Zoom? Okay. Closing public comment. And any other comments?

Go ahead, Council Member Glash. So I just want to say that there may be some confusion here. I believe this was prepared by Chief Mahoney, right? So Council Member Kohler and Council Member Hellman, to my understanding, said on the fire board this was not

by or for the fire board.

This is prepared by the Ross Valley Paramedic Authority. So just to clear that up. So we're talking about the Ross Valley Paramedic Authority, which is a separate JPA. And I believe that tonight is the last night that we have. No, that's for the one on the consent calendar. So this is not the last night, right?

Yes, just to add a little clarity, Council Member Blash. So it's my understanding that all of the other JPA members have approved both of the items that you've heard presented today. And Fairfax is the last one. So ideally, the council would take action tonight.

So it's not like there's extra time for somehow the ballot measure is going to go back to the drawing board because the Ross Valley Paramedic Authority talked to Cost and Howard Jarvis and changed their minds. There's no time for that at this point. It seems like it's not correct, Chief Mahoney. Like there's not going to be.

Yeah, and just a small correction there. The town of Ross is bringing this to their board again on the 7th. I didn't hear any opposition on the actual cost of the tax. They just had a question that they wanted to clarify with something else. So I fully anticipate on it passing with the town of Ross July 7th. And then I believe the county of Marin will be passing theirs tomorrow. shortly. So all of the other six member agencies have or five member agencies have have passed the tax.

Okay, great. But we've not had pushback in the past on this tax, which comes up every four years and has for a long time, right?

Not that I'm aware of, I believe, and don't take my word for this, but I believe once over the almost 40 years, one agency didn't pass the tax and it went out again and passed the tax the next time. uh very successful as you can see you know the cost increase of uh a a fairly acceptable rate of of four dollars a year for um for the next four year up to four dollars a year for the next four years sixteen dollars in four years is um is is something we take pride in is something we take pride in um there was a lot of time and energy put into into making sure we keep the cost the the costs down

I think anybody who has experienced our paramedic services know they're really top-notch. At our last meeting, we had a survivor story from someone who had basically had his life saved by our paramedics, and I just think it's a really important service. Yes, we all do.

Go ahead, Councilmember Geringelli.

Percentage-wise, Chief, what does that come out to? I was just going to do it on my own. Percentage-wise? Is that about 2.5%? What's the increase?

I believe it's about 2.9%.

And that's in the supplement, I believe?

Yeah, in the supplement. First year, 2.9%. Second year, which we're anticipating it to be $3.50. Yeah. 2.79%, the third year, 2.70%, and in the fourth year, 2.62%. Thank you.

so i'm ready to make a motion and i would also say that it was corta madera several years ago that failed to pass the tax and they put it on again and it did pass so i i worked with firefighters several years back on this so i would say staff recommends that the council adopt resolution 2026 dash 24 calling for an election for an increase and extension of the ross valley paramedic authority rvpa four-year special parcel tax for 2027 2031 and requesting the marin county board of supervisors consolidate the election with the statewide general election second

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

Yes.

Council Member Kohler. Yes. Vice Mayor Ager.

Aye.

Mayor Hellman. Yes. Motion carries.

Terrific. Moving right along to item. Thank you, Chief. You're going to sign off now, right?

Thank you. Yes. Thank you.

Take care. Item number four is initial study and mitigated negative declaration for Creek Road Bridge. This is a public hearing and adopt a resolution adopting the California Environmental Quality Act CEQA final initial study and mitigated negative declaration. also known as an ISMND, and mitigation monitoring and reporting program for the proposed Creek Road Bridge seismic rehabilitation project and approved project. I see Kristen Arnold is here, or she was. She's right here. Oh, there you are. Welcome. Thanks for being here.

I know. Christine's just getting the presentation pulled up. Oh, okay.

Okay.

I'll do the introduction slide. Well, they're getting pulled up. So I'm Kristin Arnold, Public Works. I'll give the presentation for this item tonight. We also have Liv Niederer from WRA, who's our environmental consultant on the project.

And then Janet. Okay, okay.

Okay, so okay. So Creek Road Bridge is located on Creek Road in Fairfax. It was built in 1929 and did have some major repairs around 2006. The primary issue facing the bridge right now is seismic vulnerability. Studies determined that the deck is not adequately anchored to the supporting structure and could fail catastrophically during a major earthquake. This project focuses on retrofitting the existing bridge to prevent a catastrophic collapse during a major earthquake. To provide more details about the construction work itself, seismic anchors will be installed for the bridge deck. Columns and beams will be retrofitted for seismic stability. Concrete patchwork will occur, and expansion joints will be repaired. So every CEQA process starts with a project. Once the project scope is defined, the town begins environmental review under California Environmental Quality Act. Some projects are exempt from CEQA. And if a project is not exempt, for example, if work occurs in a sensitive area like a creek under a bridge, the town prepares an initial study. The initial study looks at how the project could affect the environment and determines the appropriate level of review. So either a mitigated negative declaration or an environmental impact report. For Creek Road Bridge project, the initial study found that while the project may result in environmental impacts, those impacts can be reduced to less than significant levels with mitigation measures. Based on this analysis, preparation of a mitigated negative declaration was determined to be the appropriate level of environmental review under CEQA. The initial study determined the project may result in environmental impacts in the categories listed here. The ISMND determined that all environmental impacts can be mitigated to less than significant levels with mitigation measures in place. The IMSND includes a mitigation monitoring and reporting program specific to the Creek Road Bridge project to ensure environmental impacts are mitigated during construction. And a helpful example of a mitigation measure is when Work occurs within the creek. It shall be conducted during the dry season June 1st through October 15th to avoid disrupting fish migration cycles. One of the important pieces of the CEQA process is providing the public an opportunity to review and comment on the process before it's complete. The draft ISMND was circulated for a 30-day public review period. Letters were sent to residents who were most impacted by this project, and a notice was advertised in the Marin IJ. Staff received no public comments during the review period. However, there were some clerical errors that were fixing in the final report that were pointed out by Council Member Kohler through her review. To close this out, our conclusion from the environmental review process is that all potentially significant impacts can be mitigated to a less than significant level, and there's no substantial evidence that the project will result in significant environmental impacts with mitigation in place. So with this, staff recommends adopting the ISMND and the MMRP and approving the project. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you, Kristen.

Vice Mayor, do you have any questions?

I do have, you know, I've read this whole packet and it says that it's going to be, the work's going to take place during the dry season. I'm not sure when they're actually going to get in there and do this work. Right now it's July and the creek is running. Are they going to somehow bypass that creek? What are they going to do with that creek? I'm asking WRA, not necessarily you.

Yeah, I can help. I can answer that question. So the project... which is required by mitigation measure, would use a creek diversion system. So if there is water in the creek, and even if there wasn't, just in case, because it's required by the applicable permits, prior to any work within the creek, a stream diversion system would be put in place to make sure that water is not flowing through the work area and that fish cannot enter the work area while there is work being done in the creek bed. And that would be removed prior to the conclusion of construction work.

I just went down the creek today. It's running pretty good. So do we have a time when they think they're going to get in and do this project?

So the plan is to construct during the dry season. So that is from June 1st or June-ish to October. And that's when that stream diversion system would be in place. And the purpose of that is to ensure that there isn't water going through the work area. So even if there is water flowing in the creek, it would be diverted and out around the work area.

Do you want to describe what that means, diverted?

Yeah. So it basically means that a cofferdam would be installed upstream of the work area. So that would prevent the water from entering the specific portion where there would be equipment and work in the The work in the creek and then water is usually diverted through a pipe or some other means to go around and then continue on downstream. And then the copper dam is removed following completion of the work.

The report also says that the bridge is not a historic bridge, but it's going to be 100 years old in three years. What defines a historic bridge in Fairfax?

So there's different requirements, usually historic listing. It has to be considered historic for listing on the California Register or the National Register of Historic Resources. There's different criteria that apply. Its structure does have to be of a certain age, which the structure is quite old. But it's not only that. There are other criteria, such as being associated with important persons or an important time in history, being a specific type of craftsmanship that's historically significant. So this bridge was not found to be eligible for listing on the National or California Register in accordance with the applicable criterion. even though it is old, as you mentioned.

It says that the bridge is going to be closed. How will we access Forest Terrace, Forest Avenue, Creek Road for emergency services? And on the other side of the coin is, how would they evacuate? Are we going to have notices go to all the residents telling them how they have to evacuate should there be a wildland fire coming through that property, coming through those homes there?

Yeah, the work area would be closed. So the ISMND does include a mitigation measure regarding transportation and circulation that requires a traffic control plan. So that would be implemented throughout project construction. And as part of that mitigation measure, It does require the town to coordinate with local emergency services such as police and fire departments to make sure that they're aware of the bridge closure and that they're prepared and have alternate routes identified in case they need to access those properties.

Will we notify the residents of the area that the bridge is going to be closed? They wake up one morning with a sign saying bridge closed.

We already notified them, so presumably we could...

Yes, more as the project moves closer towards final design and bidding the project, and then actually into construction, more public noticing will be going out about closures and reroutes and that kind of stuff.

So as far as the creek itself, has WRA identified steelhead in that area of the creek at all?

There are steelheads. that are known to be present within this creek. Yes.

So the project... Did you just say there's no steelhead or there are steelhead? There are.

Yeah. So in this portion of the creek, there are steelhead, not that necessarily we've observed, but that's the purpose of, well, part of the purpose of doing the creek diversion system. And as another mitigation measure for the project, the project is required to implement a fish salvage and rescue plan prior to any project work. And that is also part of the applicable National Marine Fisheries Service permit. So that's a required permit condition and also part of the CEQA mitigation measures and MMRP.

Do you know that over 400 steelhead fry were rescued from above that bridge and moved further downstream this year?

I did not know that.

That's a fact.

That's amazing.

You know, everyone seems to think there's hardly any steelhead left at that creek, but there were 400 rescued this year alone. People have been rescuing steelhead up there for years and moving them downstream. So I'm just concerned that there may be steelhead, you know, listed species in that creek. I looked at the creek today. It's running pretty good.

Yeah. The initial study does acknowledge that there are steelhead there and includes the necessary mitigation measures to protect them.

To protect them. Great. Okay. Council member Gerengeli.

Yeah, Christian, I was curious, when did this retrofitting process start, if you know?

I think I would need to double check that because I'm worried that the gear I'm thinking of may be from another bridge.

I'll say it a different way. I was told, and this is why I was wondering if anyone here knows, that this process started in 2013. Is that remotely possible?

I think so. Um, I just would want to double check that they all started that. Okay.

It was like late 2013, early 2014 that all the bridges work started.

Let's fix them. Thank you.

I'm going to open the public comment or the open the public hearing rather. Seeing no one in the room. Is there any hands raised? Okay. Closing the public hearing. Any other comments for our guest or for director of public works?

I just want to say, I read the entire document and provided a couple of corrections or edits, but I want to say this is, is an excellent document. It was clear there's steelhead in that creek. The mitigation monitoring is really excellent. The measures to prevent those impacts are great. So I would like to make a motion. that we adopt the resolution adopting the California Environmental Quality Act CEQA final initial study and mitigated negative declaration IS slash MND and mitigation monitoring and reporting program MMRP for the proposed Creek Road Bridge seismic rehabilitation project and approve the project.

I'll second that. And also thank you for the excellent description of mitigation measures, which are very interesting.

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

Yes.

Council Member Kohler? Yes. Vice Mayor Ager?

Aye.

Mayor Hellman?

Yes.

Motion carries.

Yes. Good idea. We're going to take a quick break. The council has been basically in session since 5.30. So we're going to take a quick break. We'll reconvene at 8.15. Okay, we are back. Thank you for your patience. We are on item number five, which is 61 Bolinas Road cannabis application. Application for cannabis business permit for a medical cannabis storefront retailer at 61 Bolinas Road. Who is providing the presentation?

I'll be starting off on that presentation there.

Hi, Jeff.

Hi. So let me get a PowerPoint underway here. What's up? OK. OK. So thank you, Mayor Hellman, Vice Mayor Egger, and council members. This is a kind of a short presentation just to kind of frame the staff recommendation for this evening. And then after I'm done, we're willing to answer any questions that you may have.

Speak a little more into the mic. Thank you.

There we go. So this is to consider a cannabis business application at 61 Bolinas. And it's designated by kind of the red mark on this map. You can see Bolinas Road and Elsie Lane going through there. So, as far as the process goes, it's fairly straightforward. Um, the town opened the application process. And during the application process on February 23rd, we received an application and only 1 application for a cannabis business. Um, from, um, or the rent alliance. for 61 Bolinas. So the application has three phases of which we've got through two already. The first is application submission and initial review. And so this is kind of a bullet listing of what's required there. Business and organizational details, business plan, including financial capacity and operational procedures, security and safety plans, proof of compliance with California state licensing, traffic and site plans, fees and deposits. We also required that a traffic study be completed and that was completed. Then the second step of the of the process is planning commission review and scoring. And so the planning commission did hear this item a couple of months ago and scored it with a score of 83. And so now we're up to phase. three, which is the town council final scoring and permit issuance. However, as indicated by the red line, we have a little bit of a decision point in the process. And that is because... I don't know if my slide's not... Oh, there we go. So the town code has three disqualifying issues related to cannabis businesses. The first is the location of 61 Bolinas is within 600 feet of a youth center. And the youth center in question is called the Pavilion, as you're all aware. It's 209 feet to the Pavilion property line, about 300 feet to the Pavilion building. And the Pavilion qualifies as a youth center. We did a little additional analysis and determined that about 75% of the time it's used for children events and the other 25% of the time It's used for more adult events. So under our definition in the town code, this qualifies as a youth center. The second disqualifying issue is that it's within 300 feet of a daycare. It's 243 feet from the first Friends preschool. This meets the definition of a daycare center. It has up to 24 children each day, and so it qualifies as a daycare center under the town code. Also, the third disqualifying event is that the business has no on-site parking. Four parking spaces are required under the town code. And so just to go into those in a little bit more detail, This is a map that indicates the location of the side ends from property line to property line is how it's defined in the code. So there you can see the red mark that designates 61 Bolinas, the 209 feet to the property line of the pavilion property, and then the 243 between the property line of 61 Bolinas and the First Friends Daycare Center property. So the parking requirement is under Town Code Section 17.110-040-D1A. And for medical use storefront retailers, it requires three onsite spaces for the first 500 square feet, and then one space for each additional 500 square feet. So you would end up with four onsite spaces for a square footage of 1,150 square foot building. So... A question that has come up is, you know, why can't a variance be issued for any of these? And this is not available in this case. And the main reason there is we cannot make the findings for all of those variances. The state government code, section 65906, has the criteria for a variance. And I just summarized these just real briefly in yellow on the right side. Essentially, you can only issue a variance if there are special circumstances. And examples of this would be if the property is in a regular shape. We actually have variances all the time on the residential side of the equation in Fairfax because we have a lot of strange-shaped parcels and a lot of steep sites. So if there's topographical constraints or... uh constraints due to a water course or something that's just really unusual and cannot meet the requirements under the zoning ordinance then that would be a reason for a variance because that would be a special circumstance there's no special circumstances in this case Another finding that you are required to make in order to issue a variance is that it can't be considered a grant of special privilege. You can't kind of pick and choose winners. Everybody has to be treated the same equally under the code. Also, the land use must be permitted. In this case, it's a permitted use. That third one doesn't apply in this case. And so we translate that state government code into our zoning ordinance. And so this is our section of the zoning code under variance. And that's section 17.028.070. And we have similar findings that need to be made, just reworded a little bit differently. Again, there's that special circumstances finding that's required. It cannot grant a special privilege. that's in there as well. And also the third one is if you were to have a strict application of the title, would it create an unreasonable hardship on this particular applicant? That'd be a third finding we'd be required to make. And then the fourth finding we're required to make is the granting of a variance would not be detrimental to the public. So What we are recommending tonight is to conduct a public hearing and then provide direction on one of the following options. First would be just to deny the application outright, and we've prepared a resolution if you want to go that direction. Or the other alternative would be to continue the application, direct staff to revise the Fairfax Town Code, which would essentially eliminate the need for the variances, which would be the reason to do that. And what you would do and what we would bring back to you in that case, we would bring back to you code amendments that would eliminate or reduce the required distances from sensitive uses. And we would also eliminate or change the parking requirement. So it would either not apply or potentially not apply in the town center or not apply to specific land uses. So one thing that we would like to hear is if we want to talk about the second one is we would like to hear also some ideas from the town council about what changes to the code they'd be willing to consider if we did bring it back. That'd be helpful. And so with that, we are available for... Janet might want to add something before we go to questions.

I do want to add something, please. I've also heard a lot of discussion about the other cannabis business permit that was granted last September to LaFleur. and that there was a waiver given to the requirement for it not to be next to a tutoring center or near within the specified distance of a tutoring center. And I want to be very clear about the fact that that is a distinguishable case because staff had already determined that that tutoring center was defunct, that it was not operating and it no longer met the requirements of the definition in the town code. And so while we came to the council, the owner of that business came and was quite adamant that she was in fact still operating, although provided no evidence to that. So the major reason why LaFleur was granted approval is because the tutoring center was determined to be no longer in operation and therefore did not meet the requirement, the definition in the code for a tutoring center. And we did use the word waiver because waiving the requirement because because of the owners coming at the last minute and making that argument without any evidence, we felt that that would be better reflective of what the council was doing there. But the two choices here are because this application is, would have been turned down upon submittal because it violates two of the distance requirements in the code and it also doesn't have any on-site parking and four spaces are required by the code so any one of those three things is by itself disqualifying And yet, because all of the ordinances were written in 2019, they were passed in 2019, seven years ago, I thought we might want to have a check-in with the council to see if the council is still... Thinks that the distances from sensitive uses are important if there's anything the Council would want to change about that. And so that's why we brought this forward. In this format, I think the better analogy that people could make. um to what we're proposing here tonight is something the council has done before and it's a change to the code the last time miss shaw came before us she wanted permission to go into an area where she wasn't permitted because of distance from sensitive uses on sir francis drake and the council decided to change the code to allow that location to be permitted Now, that turned out to be something that didn't work out for Marin Alliance. And so we repealed those sections of the code. But changing the code is something that really needs to happen in order to deviate from what is there currently, what's in statute right now. I'm happy to answer any questions.

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but we made a special change to the code specific for Miss Shaw back in whatever it was, 2024, for the Sir Francis Drake location. What you're talking about now is making changes to the cannabis code, not specific for Ms. Shaw, but for anyone in the future, should the council want to revisit that code that was in 2019? That's correct. Okay, so it's different.

but it's a change to the code i know but we made a special circumstance yes which was unusual that we haven't done for anyone else correct okay um i know there's a lot of public uh here today i think we have 30 or 40 folks on the zoom definitely want to hear from the community um so right now we're taking questions from the council Any comments you have, please hold them till after we listen to the public. So if anyone has clarifying questions for Jeff, Heather, Janet, I don't know if Linda's on, but... Now is the time, and then we'll have time later to deliberate. So go ahead, Council Member Blash.

Yeah, so questions I have are just what would the reopening the ordinance process look like? Like if we reopened it, would it address just the buffers and the parking areas, or could it be like anything goes? Could it be like we want to have recreational shopfront cannabis? Like what kinds of things would happen, and how long would that process take, or what would that process look like? Okay.

So that depends really on what you want to do. If you want to do something that just addresses the deficiencies in this application, it could be just a few months. But if you want to reopen and have public discussions about a host of other issues, it could take longer. Anything we do to 5.56 does not require that it go, this is chapter 5.56 of the code, does not require that it go back to the planning commission. But anything we do to chapter 17.110 in the zoning code does require that we go back to the planning commission. And so for recommendation to council, it would eventually come to council, but That is a process that, as everybody has said on numerous occasions about the finalizing of it in 2019, it took what, 22 meetings or something like that to get to that point. So you can see how long it could take.

Okay. So that just to give some context there, if we just made the changes to the buffer areas in the parking, it would be a few months. If we made other changes that were more substantial even than that, it would take longer?

Yes, it could take quite a bit longer. Okay. If you have a very focused request for changes, we'll make them. We'll go to the planning commission and then bring it back up to council.

And those changes would have to apply to every business from here on in that applies for, it can't be just for one business. Well, not for existing, but for any new business. Right. Okay. And then the other question I have is, are there any other locations in town where a cannabis dispensary could legally set up at this point?

That requires that we do maps at the time the application is received. And I recall that in 19, there were very few places. So given when you draw circles from all the sensitive uses, whatever is in place at that time, it changes. That is something that is dynamic. It's not static. And so I'm sure there could be other places. There were in 19, but whether or not those places are available for rent or purchase, I don't know. Or whether the building owner is supportive. We know there's cases of that where they disallow, right?

Absolutely. Okay. Anything else, Gleasel? Okay, questions, Vice Mayor?

Questions only? Just a couple of quick questions. On the issue of parking, when you look at the businesses on Bolinas Road, very few have on-site parking. are we going to start requiring on-site parking for every business that changes hands on Bolinas Road, number one?

No, we're not. What is the question about the application and the agenda item?

Well, I just read the staff report.

Let me help you with that. So this is under the cannabis application, but I will note that the underlying zoning also requires that same amount of parking. So I understand there's an issue with that. But this is under the cannabis rules, not under the underlying zoning rules.

So the previous Marin Alliance of Medical Marijuana was located at School Street Plaza, 100 feet from the Little League ball fields.

How did that happen? It was in when we did these codes in 19. That's been around since before 2000, remember? You were here.

So I see there's no police report. Was there any police issues with the previous location?

I did a full analysis of the entire history of Marin Alliance at the School Street site back when we were doing the Sir Francis Drake issue. And there were issues. I believe it was in 2000. There were a long list of conditional use permit requirements. conditions on a conditional use permit, and the Planning Commission at that time actually revoked their CUP. It went up on appeal to council, and you were sitting on council, as was Mr. Ghirangeli, and you gave back the CUP to Marin Alliance.

So when Fairfax, a previous council, upzoned School Street Plaza for the project that's now going through a process, or I guess completed the process... That, in effect, forced the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana out of that location.

It was the decision of the property owner to redevelop that property.

Okay, but Fairfax approved, you know, that.

It was still the decision of the property owner to redevelop that property.

Fairfax had to approve it. I'm not saying we, we, but I mean, Fairfax had to approve that development. So, in effect, we're kind of culpable to having shut down the previous business to a degree.

That was a decision of the previous property owner, Frank. It really was.

The property owner didn't approve that project.

The property owner is the one who decided to redevelop that. Are you done? Okay.

Mike, do you have any questions?

I just want to go back to Frank's last point. Okay. Because I don't know the answer to this. But the property owner decided to develop the property into that eight-story monstrosity that's about to happen. But that was because it was rezoned. That's the question. The property was rezoned, so he took advantage of the rezoning.

I can't speak to his state of mind or his reasoning for doing anything, but it was allowed.

Is that what you're asking? So prior to some decision that was made about that building being allowed, did he have the right to build an eight-story building there before?

No.

It was rezoned, right? That's fine. You can say it.

Go ahead. All I'm trying to make sure you understand is it was the decision of the property owner to redevelop.

Before the property was rezoned, everybody at that center had housing. Some of them lived there and also had a business district. The minute – and I'm not blaming the owner. I would have done the same thing possibly, although I actually turned it down in two different places. But in the meantime, on that location, he didn't decide without it being rezoned. He had no choice but to keep it the way it was pretty much. Until one day in recent times, the property was rezoned and it forced everybody out of that center, including Lynette, after 30 years of being there. And that's why we tried to accommodate her in her last visit when it didn't work out. So let's be clear. She was kicked out of the property because the town of Fairfax rezoned it. And here we are. That's why we're here tonight.

I think that's perfectly fair. And I will just add to that. The town of Fairfax rezoned it in response to the property owner asking to develop it. We didn't just rezone it. No, we didn't. You can't put a piece of property on the site inventory list without their consent. And they proactively came to us. Am I right?

No, you're wrong. Four main sites were upzoned in downtown Fairfax, brought out. This whole thing was done behind closed doors. No public hearing, no environmental impact report, and no appeal to this town council.

Actually, there was an EIR, but I would just say this. Can we move on to this actual application? Yeah, do it. Okay.

I have several questions. Do you want to go first?

I just have one quick question. When Council Member Blash was asking about whether or not you'd have to go to the Planning Commission, she mentioned parking. At least based on my information, if you were to change the parking requirements, that's actually under Chapter 17. So it would, but you had agreed when you said it wouldn't have to go to the Planning Commission. So it would if you were to change the parking requirements.

Right, all three of these things are in 17. Okay, well, she asked, and you said you wouldn't. No, no, I said it would.

I'm sorry.

Okay, I misheard you.

Thank you.

All right, I'm good.

Okay, one of the questions that I have, and I'm looking forward to Ms. Shah, I think we're going to allow her to speak, or I'm happy to hear her speak on this. on behalf of the application pending. So, the requirements on applicants is that they must provide business and organizational details, proof of ownership or authorization from the property owner, a business plan including financial capacity and operational procedures, security and safety plans, proof of compliance with California state licensing, traffic and site plans, fees and deposits. So Jeff, you and your staff manage this process. Is the application complete? Do we have all of those items?

We determined the application to be complete, although we can't attest to the quality of what was submitted. That's kind of the point of the scoring process.

And was the application signed?

No, it was not signed.

So how is that a completed application?

Well, that's something that we missed.

I can recall having several conversations with Linda Neal and there was attempt to get more information and more information and have the application completed and signed. And there was never a response that was negative. It was just never, never happened.

Okay. And in the realm of financial capacity, just for the sake of the public that doesn't have the packet in front of them, what was provided for financial capacity?

Well, at one point there was a Zillow, a printout of a Zillow listing for Lynette's personal residence, an estimate of value for that.

What are we to infer that she's going to sell the house?

I have no idea. That is what she provided.

Anything else?

This is, no. I mean, everything we have is provided in this packet. Everything we got from her.

Well, we got new information today, which is what I'm going to ask about.

We did. There appear to be a number of tax liens on both personal to Ms. Shaw as well as on the business.

And so how many, what did we learn? What liens did we learn? It's like upwards of $900,000 in liens.

Yes, there's a substantial number of liens. We also learned there's a payment plan in place and that payments are being made at least on the local ones.

There's local, state, and federal liens. Is that right? And the payment plan, hang on a second. I think it's on the state. Not on the local. The payment plans are on what?

Yes, on the state one is what we understand. We have no information about the federal ones yet.

And the information that is publicly accessible and provided online are all these liens. This is the information that we have. So liens are not published if they are not active. So if she's made payments and closed them out, they wouldn't be listed. Is that right? Right. Okay, so... To the best of our knowledge, over $900,000 in liens. And we have a Zillow printout of the value of her home. Do we have any credit lines or loans provided, Jeff? No. No? Okay. Okay. All right.

I have a question.

Go ahead.

I think it's important. On the scoring. Okay. So coming into the meeting, I didn't see, maybe it's in the packet. If it's not, I apologize, but I didn't, I looked for it. The planning commission approved this or not approved it.

The planning commission does a preliminary scoring and they did give it a preliminary score of 83. 80 is the,

The number, but she scored an 83.

Yes.

Okay. And so when we had the last person apply, they also scored there.

They were scored there as well. I don't recall what it was.

But the question is... Council does the final scoring. I know that, right. But I remember that we talked about the scoring at the last application. And I think it was in the packet. Why isn't this...

It is. It is. There's a resolution from the planning commission is in there.

That's what I, sorry about that. I tried. I looked, I thought I looked, I guess I missed. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay.

Yeah. Well, I'll pull it up for you. It's, it's in here. I want to refer to it as well. I think for now I do, I am going to have questions for Ms. Shaw. I presume she's going to be presenting. Is that the plan?

Yes, she is. She is able to if she wants to.

Okay, I see. Michelle, are you ready to come forward? Okay, great.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Good evening.

This has been a long journey. And I worked very hard in this community. I've worked with over, excuse me, worked with over 30,000 individuals from Marin County, at least over the last 30 years, maybe more than that. My focus and my goal is now to only do medical because this is what our community needs is the knowledge and the medical support that we can provide that is unique and actually very historic. I've spent over 30 years and become one of the foremost educators and most knowledgeable on what medical cannabis can do for innumerable illnesses. I've had my hands on so many patients and had great success with some and softer landings for others. I've worked very hard and will continue to work for the community. My goal is to have a community resource for the seniors in this community. Cause that's why the location is important because it's easy to get to. They're not drivers. I mean, half my sales were gummies to the, you know, and so this is not going to be a party house. This is a, a sincere resource for the community. And that's really what I've always wanted to do is just continue to work with the patients and to, spread this knowledge that i've learned through many many many years of hard work and and crises counseling and family counseling and the knowledge that we have is unique and long-standing and this is what we have to offer to this community that's my That's my hope, and I believe there's a lot of misunderstanding. This thing with the liens, we're not in trouble with the state. We're not in trouble. There was a letter we sent. Did you see the letter from my tax attorney? Did you see that?

Ms. Shadow, we need evidence. I mean, this is public record, these listings of liens. Yeah, and it's incorrect. I mean, there's 13 pages of individual liens. You're saying it's all incorrect?

No, it's not all incorrect, but we are working. Did you see the letter from my tax attorney today? It explains what we're doing.

I mean, we've got a lot of emails, but...

It explains what we're doing. It explains that the CDTFA, I'm not in trouble with them, and that lien should be removed. And it's not quite common with public records after you resolve a case. They don't catch up with the public records.

So what is the total amount of liens outstanding between local, state, and feds? local states and feds.

The county, the state, and the fed. I don't owe the county or the town anything. That's all been paid. The CDTFA, I don't have a lien from the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, which is the entity that takes the sales taxes and disperses it to the towns and the counties. So if it says there's a lien for that, that's not true. That hasn't been wiped from the records.

So in your mind, how much are you in debt?

To the state of California, I have $80,000. And the feds? The feds were still negotiating for an offering. What do they think you owe them?

$250,000. So you're saying that the evidence that we have, there's a gap of like $700,000? It's out of date and it's not accurate. Well, it's today. Right, it's out of date. Okay, continue. Okay.

Where in the ordinance does it say that you have to investigate taxes?

It's financial capacity. So in your mind, how did you present financial capacity?

What is your financial capacity? My financial capacity is I have over $700,000 in equity in my home. And I have it set up to do a home equity loan. You got approved for the loan? I haven't pulled the trigger on it yet because if I have a business to invest in and to clear my... I want to clear all the taxes.

But if you have $700,000, $900,000, whatever the number is in debt, you think you're going to get a home equity loan on a house that you have $800,000? $900,000 in debt.

I'm not. That's not accurate. It's not surprising when the public records are inaccurate for stuff like this. I'm all set up to get a home equity loan. I didn't pull the trigger until I have permission to move forward with my dispensary.

You're set up to apply, but you haven't gotten approved.

I didn't. I'm set up. I'm already applied, but I told them to stop and not go through this until we settle here understood okay and i'm going to clear all that up and i'll have money left over to do the renovation and how much do you estimate would be renovation costs the renovation is actually the building is in very good shape and the plan that was approved by the planning commission they they like the the inner wall we have a reception room And then we have a security door and then someone can go through the security door into the back. And so nobody that comes into the front waiting room can get through without proper ID.

And how much do you estimate that security room and the secure location for the inventory? How much do you estimate that? $25,000. $25,000? Mm-hmm. What is the security room that has the inventory? What is that made of?

There's a vault in the back. In the back of the general store is a storeroom.

And what are the materials you're going to use? Under $25,000, how are you going to secure that?

I'm not the project manager.

Why are you asking me these questions? Is there someone else we should be asking?

The estimate I had to install the wall and put in the security doors is three security doors. I have all the equipment. I have all the cameras. I have everything. For under $25,000. Right. It doesn't need that much renovation because the building is in great shape.

Mm-hmm.

It's got a back room. It only has one door into the back room for the vault, like what they prefer. We put a security door there. We put a security door on the side and a security door on the inner wall. And cameras. It's not that expensive. You don't have to renovate anything with the building. You just have to add an interior non-load-bearing wall.

Does anyone else have questions for Michelle? I'd like to hear the end of your presentation. Yes, thank you. If you don't mind. Okay.

I had, I brought some of my people with me to speak. Would you like to have part of your presentation that you'd like to hear?

Are they your employees or are they your customers? I mean, if they're customers, they can be public comment, but if they're going to be. My attorneys.

Pardon me? People, my lawyer friends who are here.

If it's pertinent and relevant to the application. Yes. Otherwise, if they're like people that want to just support you, then that's public comment. If it's pertinent to the application.

Larry. It's great. This is Greg Anton. He's the attorney that we fought the feds for 19 years for my license.

Yeah, we know.

Thank you. This is the attorney that beat the feds for everybody in the nation. So they stopped the raids nationwide because of the Shah decision.

Hi. Thanks, everybody, for all your time.

Can you speak into the mic and say your name? Because I didn't hear it before.

Greg Anton, A-N-T-O-N. Okay. I've represented Lynette for about 30 years. And I've done cannabis dispensary representation for about 30 years or more. I wish all my clients... were as pristine as Lynette in the history of her work. She first approached me because, and she gave me all these numbers about incidents of breast cancer in Marin County, and she wanted to do something about it. And she had a bunch of information about how medical marijuana could help people with breast cancer. She's been working here for 30 years with a stellar record, working with the police, working with the patients and the community. I understand all these requirements. A lot of the requirements, if not all the requirements, are on the subject of impact to the community. is does medical marijuana dispensary have a negative impact to the community? There's a lot of misinformation about that. Just to put things in perspective, there's a dispensary near where I live in Sonoma County that sells hard narcotics, guns, and liquor, and it's called Walmart, and children are allowed to go in there. And there's not a big bunch of crime around the Walmarts. this fear of marijuana, I think is misplaced. So if I can ask, excuse me, if I can answer anybody's questions about the legal status of Lynette's situation with the federal government, the state government, or the municipal government, I'm here to just support her. I have one question.

Out of the money that is owed with the taxes, how much of it is our fines?

I think it's quite a bit of our penalties.

Rachel Gillette, the attorney, is about 60%.

Lynette, you need to speak into the mic because we're being recorded. And I know you're not feeling well, but we want to record you, please.

65% to 70% of the bill is in fines. Because I'm still not allowed. to hopefully this is change the schedule three, but I was not allowed to have business banking. And there was because I was sending in money orders and to pay all these bills. They counted that as not being adequate. It was 10% higher. And then because of the mail, even though I sent it in on time, it was considered late. And so the penalties and the late fees about 65 to 70% of the bill, which my attorney, Rachel Gillette is currently negotiating for relief from that.

If I could just make one suggestion, to the town. One alternative, a pragmatic alternative would be let Lynette get her business settled, her tax business resolved to the satisfaction of the town and then address the other issues.

Thank you. So can we hear from your next attorney? I believe it's Mr. Bragman.

I guess you brought quite a lawyer crew with you, Lynette.

She's got a lot of support in the legal community, including mine. I actually represented her back in 2000, which was referenced by Janet. And that actually had... Speak louder than on mic, please. Okay. I actually represented Lynette back in 2000. which was referenced by Janet. And it was really an issue of keeping the medical records of patients. And we resolved it by implementing a novel identification for patients. And with the cooperation and support of the town council, we implemented it. It was a success. And she operated pretty flawlessly for the next 25 years until she was zoned out of her premises by the rezoning of School Street. And another connection I've had with this is I represented Fred Azazi. Fred was also crushed by federal regulation and threatened. And after the TRO was lifted, I went into federal court on the coattails of that case and got the TRO lifted against Fred Azazi, who continued to rent to Lynette for the next 15 years. As far as her tax debt is concerned, I did send a letter from her tax attorney to town council, to your attorney, I should say, and I'd like to submit that to the town clerk. And it explains, really, The the three different tax authorities that are at issue She's got a payment plan with the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration She's current they debit her account every month. That's what she needs to get a seller's permit That's what she needs to get a cannabis permit from the state. So I think she's clear in that regard mayor Hellman's concerns about her financial condition and You know, it is a tough business. A lot of cannabis operators got slammed with taxes because all their business deductions were determined not to be valid by IRS back in the bad old days when cannabis was completely prohibited. And it's changed. And my suggestion would be for you to consider looking... relooking at the zone of prohibition, whatever you want to call it, because that's really anachronistic. You've got five bars within the same area. So what are we talking about here? There's signage restrictions on this business. It's not going to have some neon glowing sign to attract kids. This would be a medical dispensary only. And last comment I have really is, you know, Lynette is a pretty unique case. She's really been a legacy business and she was zoned out by sort of a historic change in the town of Fairfax. And there's an old saying, you know, you save one person, you save the world. And I think in this instance, She deserves a second look, and she deserves your consideration and the consideration of the community.

Anyone else going to speak on the application, focus on the application? That would be great. Otherwise, public comment will definitely suffice. Not yet. I still have questions.

You have some more questions?

No, no, I still have questions about the application, but if you wanted to have your full presentation.

Sure, because this is one of the patients who .

Okay, that's a public comment. That's not part of the application. Lynette, do you have anyone else to speak about the actual application?

If you're referring to her finances, I'd like to share the experiences of the industry and the finances.

That can be a public comment. Thank you. Lynette, I just have another question about the security plan and the security guard. Could you just explain? It's in the plan. It was all submitted. Well, I know, but not everybody has a packet in front of them. So could you just detail for the public what that entails, the hours they work, where do they stand, all of that?

According to the California state law, we have to have a security guard license guard card from the time we open to the time we close. The security guard will be standing inside the facility in the waiting room by the secure door to check IDs before they are let into the back behind the door where the dispensary is. So there isn't anybody standing in the street.

Nobody's standing in the street. No. The windows are intended to be blacked out, so there's no visual of that. And they're armed, right? Yeah.

We used to have an armed guard at night because of the homeless camp. We had a lot of weirdos coming up from the homeless camp before we closed down. We don't need an armed guard when there's no homeless camp there bothering people. That was a big problem at Skull Street.

So you're not intending to have an armed guard? No. And that's not a requirement?

No, it's not a requirement. It's a requirement to have somebody there with a guard card from the time we open to the time we close. Our security people will be inside in the waiting room by the security door to let people in who qualify to go into the dispensary who are medical patients.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Okay, go ahead. I guess I'm just, it's more towards our staff. I mean, at this point, we're not grading or scoring the application. We're deciding whether or not It seems like the options that were laid out to us were whether to deny the application or reopen the code.

We are the final scoring body, which was presented earlier.

Okay, but I thought we had a little gap in between us and scoring this application, which was whether or not we would just out and out deny it or reopen the code so that it could be a compliant application. So that's what I'm confused about.

There are three issues that have to be decided before going to the merits of the application. And you can discuss the application all you want, but those three issues are... ones that you have to come to terms with because it is in violation of two distance requirements and doesn't have any parking. So any one of those three is all by itself disqualifying for this application unless the code is changed.

So right now, I mean, it's interesting to hear some of the details, but it seems like the decision is just between those two options.

Well, that's at least an initial decision that has to be made, yes. Go ahead, Mike.

Okay, so Jeff, when you were giving your presentation, there was a section of your presentation towards the end about considerations that we could have as a council, and that would be if Lynette can prove a hardship. And it's my thought, anyway, that there was a hardship there that was bestowed upon Lynette when the town, probably because they were forced into it, but still had to rezone the property. And then the owner of the property said, yeah, I'm going to build a big building and kick everybody out. So she's, she suffered a hardship. She lost her business of 30 years and she, After you confer with the lawyer, you can answer the question. But the answer is, can you go back to that hardship section? I want to understand the definition of hardship because I think this is, to me, that's a definition of a hardship.

Okay. Let me help you with that. It's a variance.

Let's put it up on the screen if you can.

It's a variance we're talking about, and one of the requirements for a variance is that there is some unique aspect to the property that causes a hardship. If the law is applied to that property, then there is some aspect of the property that causes a hardship, and that can't be found here.

If you have nothing else to present, I'm going to open the public comment.

The conditional use permit is considered a piece of property legally.

Janet, you're not on the mic. Sorry. This is not a conditional use permit. This is a cannabis business application permit. It is not a conditional use permit. It does not run with the land.

Well, I want to ask the attorney. It says there the strict application of this file would result in excessive or unreasonable hardship. So the strict application of this that's before us today, because it can't be followed by the strictness of the application, it would... It falls under hardship, excessive hardship.

But look up there. It says all of the following findings must be made in order to grant a variance. Special circumstances applicable to the property, including size, shape, topography, location of surroundings. So the strict application of the law will deprive the applicant of privileges enjoyed by other property owners in the vicinity and under identical zoning classification. So all of these things have to be met, and it's talking about a condition of the property that causes a hardship, not financial hardship or anything else.

Not the fact that we forced her out of business?

Not the fact.

That's not the hardship? Not the fact. I'm just curious.

Decided to redevelop.

Okay. We're going to open up. I just have one last question. Were you made aware that you didn't sign the application? What happened there?

I don't understand that. I'm sure I signed the application.

No, you didn't. It's in the package and there's no signature.

My understanding is that staff reached out to you and the attorneys. It concerns me on a number of fronts, but you don't have any response to that?

I don't have any response to that because I'm sure I signed the application. I don't know what happened. And I'm sure I signed it.

Well, it's not signed. So, okay. I'm going to open the public comment. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Leland Cole. I'm a resident here in Marin. I've lived in Novato and Tiburon and Sausalito over the 30 or some years that the Alliance has been open. And I want you to know that it was the only source for patients who are needy and couldn't afford the proper match to their condition, couldn't get anything from any of the other sources except the Marin Alliance. And for all those decades, I can tell you that myself and other patients could not afford the medicines they needed to even take other medicines that they needed. Got them through Shaw's Marin Alliance. And since it has been closed, there's been no resource available. in the county at all for a compassionate giveaway to patients that can't afford their meds, be they edibles or smokeables or creams or whatever they are. And so all this time, there's been additional suffering. And as soon as the Marin Alliance would reopen for medical patients, I'm sure that the Compassion Program would resume. And it's a shame that it's not operating in the entire county of Marin because of the closure that happened here in Fairfax. I thank you for your time.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Thank you. They can hear me, right? Okay. My name is Mark Thompson. I have lived in Fairfax for 20 years. My son's mothers and I decided to move here because they were firefighters and they thought Fairfax was the best place in the Bay Area to raise a child. And they are right. Our 19-year-old son is now going to be a paramedic and a firefighter. That's how I got here.

I just want to ask folks that are talking, please don't. Thank you. It's not fair to people that are speaking. Thank you. Sorry. Yeah.

Just to give you a sense of who I am, and I'm 72. All right. I am a chronic pain patient. I have chronic, irretractable osteoarthritis at every segment of my spine. I am six inches shorter than I used to be, and I have seven prosthetic joints. The only medication that will help me is marijuana, unless all the doctors are willing to give me oxycodone. Have you heard of it and all that other stuff? And I refuse to take it because a lot of people just like me find that it's the only thing we can take without getting addicted to it. And I'm not doing it in front of people or anything. What I found six years ago when I came to Fairfax, not when I came to Fairfax, but when I decided I would be more of a neighbor and I found this place, ran into so many people that have the same problem I do. And I would urge you to speak to your medical doctors, because it is the truth. OK? That's one of the reasons why I'm here. The second reason, I know I don't have that much time left, but if I could be a lawyer, I would. But I'm not. I have a lot of education, which just means I like to learn. And I have. basically four degrees in anthropology, sociocultural anthropology, linguistics, and archaeology. And I'm going to give you a little... Well, I'm going to put this list for you. There are 20 things in Fairfax that mean it is a historic place. And this dispensary is the last one. It goes all the way back to prohibition. Thank you. Please write to us.

You're welcome to write to us. Next speaker. Yeah, please. Please do email to us. Thank you so much.

Hi, I'm Morgan Hall at 10 Walsh Lane here in town, and I'm also the owner of the property next door to 61 Bolinas Road. I've owned it for 25 years. My office also, well, my office used to be at Plaza Street there, School Street Plaza, and for 12 years, and then I was booted out by... Azazi or both the owners there so they could realize their greed. Um, I'm, uh, my concerns about the dispensary, which I don't feel belongs downtown after doing with parking and the compatibility of the dispensary, uh, The nature of the parking at the dispensary when I was at School Street Plaza, I observed, because my office was right across the parking lot, was one where people would come in frequently, go in for 10 or 15 minutes, And then come back out and go away. And parking there was not an issue because it was a large parking lot. However, on Bolinas Road, it's a different situation. You can't just come in and park 10 or 15 minutes. So parking there is going to be a problem. There's going to be double parking. driveways blocked. Also, the problem I see is a certain compatibility of a dispensary in terms of what its product is, and I feel it would be detrimental to the other businesses nearby. Not only for the reason that parking will be a problem, but the product that the other businesses... Okay.

Thank you. Yeah, the volume on that is a lot. Did you turn it down? Oh, is it Damien? I don't remember it being an issue before. Okay, please. Thank you.

Hello, counsel. My name is Steph Hardy. I'm a business owner and resident of Fairfax. First, I want to acknowledge Lynette Shaw and her long history of contribution to cannabis policy in Fairfax. My comments are not personal and not about opposition to cannabis. I'm speaking about process, consistency, and the integrity of the town's standards. The cannabis ordinance was not written casually. It was developed over more than 20 public meetings and extensive community input, reflecting careful consideration of how these standards apply to our community. Bolinas Road already functions with limited and uneven parking capacity. The corridor operates under constraints that affect how different uses impact parking demand, especially between quick turnover users and destination type uses that concentrate demand. Based on the ordinance as adopted and the documented constraints of this site, particularly parking, the project does not meet the requirements of the current code. For that reason, I believe the consistent application of the code is to deny the application as submitted rather than create exceptions for a single project outside of a broader policy review. I also ask that the town ensure the public record is clear regarding references to significant outstanding tax obligation related to past operations reported here tonight as nearing approximately $1 million. And that only documentation or resolution to those matters is fully verified before the discretionary approvals are considered. My intention is simply to support transparency, fairness, and consistent application of the rules. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Good evening. My name is Holly Brandborg, and I'm the owner of Fox and Stone Salon. located directly across the street from the proposed dispensary at 61 Bolinas Road. I want to begin by saying that my concern is not about whether cannabis business belong in Fairfax. It's about whether this particular location is the right place for one of only two dispensaries our town will allow. The heart of downtown Fairfax is the center of our community. It's where families gather, children play, community events take place, and people visit Bolinas Park, youth programs, childcare facilities, and our local businesses. It truly is the front porch of Fairfax. As a business owner, I welcome clients into downtown every day. One of the things I hear over and over is how much they love Fairfax's charm, walkability, and family-friendly atmosphere. Many of them spend time shopping, getting coffee, meeting friends, or enjoying the park before or after their appointments. That sense of community is part of what makes downtown so special. My understanding is that approving this application will require exceptions to several existing town standards, including the youth center buffer, daycare buffer, and parking requirements. Those standards were put in place thoughtfully, and I don't believe they should be waived lightly. I'm also concerned about parking. Our downtown already struggles with limited parking and every business depends on those spaces turning over throughout the day. Adding another high traffic business without dedicated parking will only increase the challenge. Finally, because Fairfax will only allow two dispensaries, approving this location means losing the opportunity to consider another site that may better meet our town's standards and create fewer conflicts in the center of our downtown. I respectfully ask the council to uphold the standards our community has already established and deny the application for 61 Bolinas Road. This isn't about opposing cannabis. It's about choosing the right location and preserving the character of the heart of our downtown Fairfax. Thank you for your time, your service, and your thoughtful consideration.

Thank you. Next speaker. Hi, good evening, everybody. Thank you, council members. My name is Kaz Begley. I am both a business owner for 15 years on this very block, downtown Fairfax. I'm in my third location on this block. So I like to consider that I know the block quite intimately. I also, for the last 10 years, live in the same location. And I walked from my front door, or the door of my home, my building, to the outside of Lynette's on my way here, and it was 62 steps. So I'd like to take a very intimate approach to how this is going to feel for me, business-wise, and for my business neighbors, because I look around and I can see five of my business neighbors right here in this room. It's important for us to come together and feel like we're representing each other in the way that we want our town and our businesses represented. As far as parking goes, I have probably the only, in my location, probably the only off-street parking on that entire block. And tonight, Wednesday night, Farmer's Market, it is incredibly difficult to get in and out of and maneuver, and often if I leave, I cannot retain my parking space. Other evenings, Thursday evenings, Friday evenings, when there's events in town, everybody tends to come to the lot to look for additional parking. It's not public parking, it's private parking. And we will be greatly impacted even more so than we are now from various events that happen by having a business that has so much quick turnover. I don't look forward to that at all. I do want to say thank you Lynette for everything that you've done in the industry. I admire the work, the effort, and I do wish to see Lynette excel in her business. I just hope it's in a different location. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Lisa Tabb, and I am a mother of two kids that I raised in Fairfax, are young adults now. And I also produce movies about screen time and mental health and youth. And I've spent the last more than a decade working on those issues. And one of the films is about vaping, drugs, and alcohol in the digital age. And so through all of my work, the work is based not only in stories, it's also based in science. We've looked at a lot of studies and stay up on that. And there's plenty of evidence. I'm worried about youth. And I understand that this is not a business for youth. I also... understand. I also have seen through the two decades, more than two decades that I've lived in Fairfax, that it certainly is helpful for people, I believe, in medical marijuana, for people that for its uses and for healing and for comfort. But the reality is the number of people that I know that used the medical marijuana dispensary for all those years that were not using it for that. And the parents that were where it was a part of the culture and then part of the norming of it for kids. And there's plenty of evidence that it deeply affects the developing brain of our kids. And there's a crisis in mental health. And this is part of it. And there's lots of studies now around psychosis. We're not talking about adults. And the other thing I want to say is that I learned that when my kids went to high school, I learned maybe by, all right, the DDs are allowed to be stoned. And that is in kid culture. So it's part of our culture.

DD, it stands for designated driver for those who don't know. Thank you.

Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Kelsey Fernandez. I am speaking tonight as a local community member, but I also specialize in underage substance use prevention. Please maintain the buffer zones. We have decades of evidence from alcohol and tobacco and now eight years of commercial cannabis research that show a predictable pattern where retail stores are closer to where children live and learn, youth use goes up. Hundreds of studies show this for alcohol and tobacco, and the recent research on cannabis in California shows the same. Communities with no storefronts had less teen use and less harms associated with use. Tobacco, alcohol, and cannabis all have age limits. The question isn't about retailers selling to minors, at least not knowingly so. The harm comes from the environment a storefront creates. Greater availability, easier access through older peers, visual cues, normalization, and marketing all come together to make youth use more likely. I've heard people say that alcohol and tobacco are worse and that downtown retailers already sell them. All three substances harm youth. With cannabis, the previous council took the opportunity to take measures to mitigate those harms. Education and caring adults are essential, but they cannot stand alone. Policy is what protects every child, and buffer zones are a key strategy in that policy, reducing exposure where children gather. I hope together you will make your decision based on the facts that have been shared and based on what is in the best interest of the youngest and most vulnerable members of this community. Thank you for your service.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hello. I'm Henry Jackson. I'm a student at Archie Williams High School. At least I'm going into senior year, that is. That's not really relevant, though. I can say definitely without a doubt that at my school personally – this is going to be a little bit divorced from the rest of the topics – there is definitely a drug culture. I've had people offer me stuff, whether it was joking or not. But I can definitely tell that there are people who actually take this. Now, I'm not going to make any boogeyman up about marijuana. I myself – Have not personally used it, but I know a lot of people who have. Give me a minute. I just, I'm not sure that it's the wisest decision to keep this location where it is. And from something I've heard earlier, tell me if I misheard. There are likely other options. Either I heard there weren't any or there were. They seem to be a little bit contradictory. I have no questions. I definitely think that Ms. Shaw has a lot of integrity. But the problem is I'm not coming up with the idea that they're selling it to children. Because more often than not, in high school, we take a lot of studies about youth drug use and that kind of stuff. And studies show that a lot of the time where students get those kinds of drugs from is is from either their family or friends or guardians, whether knowingly or unknowingly. And it's easy to kind of put on the idea that, oh, if they have an idea and they purchase it, then they're likely going to use it for themselves. But there is always the off chance that children are going to get into that kind of stuff. And it's... I mean, cannabis, what is it marked as? It's a hallucinogen, it's a depressor, and it's an upper as well. It's all three of those things. There's a combination of several different kinds of drugs on campus, and I don't think the introduction to this would be any better, considering how close it is to a lot of spaces where kids tend to congregate. So, thanks.

Thank you. Next speaker.

My name is Darman Clement. I grew up in West Marin, graduated, formerly known Drake High School, 93. I feel called to speak about the financial comments. The cannabis industry has been very trying. I've worked for corporate companies in Florida, Tennessee, Puerto Rico, helping them with licensing. The only one that get through this whole highly regulated system They have big bank accounts, $5 million, $10 million, $15 million. So part of Lynette's opportunity is she's a small business. There are not many left. LeFleur, I would put him in the category of a big business. So to put her financial personal situation as a condition feels very unfair. The issue of parking, that too. That's a big issue, and I'm on both sides of that. The issue of public safety, it's highly regulated. There's a security guard who cards every person. The truth is that this industry is so dysfunctional that people can sell on the streets at a cheaper amount than in the store. So this would help provide child safety, public safety. Having two is enough. You shouldn't have six. If Lynette doesn't have an opportunity, I feel it would just be another big business where that money does not stay in the community, where it's not medical cannabis, where they're for profit. Maybe the location is not the right one, but if there should be a group effort by the council to provide a location for her, because... The truth is the one where she was at was pretty good. It was out of sight. You had to find it. So it's unfortunate she's in this situation. And I feel like we should support it.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Good evening. My name is Bridget Clark. I grew up in Fairfax and I've been at this for a while because I'm a mental health advocate having a family member that I support with severe mental illness. and i have two kids i've seen what goes on and continue to and um really um appreciate the time that fairfax has put into making this and creating the ordinance and i was at every single meeting over the years of those 20 meetings um so i appreciate what went into it and i believe it's really a disservice if we don't uphold the amount of community collective action that went into those meetings. I will be truly disappointed because those buffer zones were really thought out and And cannabis is accessible. I can say for myself, delivery is fast and easy. It's not, you know, environmental prevention is the most important thing for our youth because since 2019, when you did the ordinance, a lot more studies have come out of which, you know, some of the things that I am concerned about are, like the safety as a cyclist. 53% of people who use cannabis use it within the first hour, and this was a study that I mentioned, but I just think it's important to note is AAA did a study in 2025, and cannabis users self-reported that they drive after cannabis use. 53% drove within an hour of use. As a cyclist, that really concerns me. And I want to keep this town as safe as possible. And I think you've done a great job with creating these buffer zones. And I hope you won't make a special privilege just for one business is the crux of what I wanted to say. There are other studies from Kaiser in Northern California that you might want to know about. I could share with you later. Thanks.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Don Carney, Fairfax resident, 50 years. You all know where I stand around dope and kids. I've gone to 40 memorials for kids who all started with marijuana and decided to have more fun than they could handle with other drugs. This is a question about democracy. This is a question about democracy. Lynette walked in to a position that she knew, and everybody advising her should have told her, that's a crazy place to go if this is what you want to do. She created her own problem by putting her butt there. And now she wants favoritism when we spent 24 meetings coming and practicing democracy? And now you're just going to flip it over? Because she had a raw deal, lots of people got raw deals. You can't save them all. And if you got a raw deal, you don't walk in to a location where you can't function from jump. And you got to go through this and make people show up and say, hey, what the hell were you thinking when you went there?

Hello.

Hello. I'm Ray Bukowski, 20-year Fairfax resident.

I've been working downtown, running a business in Fairfax for 20 years. So when it comes to downtown Fairfax, I think I'm an expert. I've... I agree with almost everything I've heard tonight. So I'm not going to reiterate a lot of that stuff. A couple of things come to mind though. A is that I've talked to a lot of people that were nervous to come and speak because of the decisiveness of the rental laws of the recall. Several of them said, I don't want to put myself in harm's way. So there's people behind us, behind me and what we think that one didn't want to show up here. Um, a couple other things about, um, I agree with Lynette. She's done a great job in the past. We met all before she signed a lease there. Uh, Kaz, a bunch of us met with her and she asked our opinion before she did anything. And it was a risk. I, I, many, many people said no, they didn't agree with her going in there. So she knew what she was doing before she took the lease on the building.

Um, What else can I tell you?

As far as the guard, I keep getting mixed messages whether the guard's going to be armed or not. One question comes to mind being downtown, if I have a guard there or not, and it's extremely high cash, high volume business, is somebody going to rip the place off or drive down the street and run somebody over if nobody's protecting the money and the inventory? Yeah. And we're a family-oriented and pedestrian family district. I hear it every day. I talk to people every single day in downtown Fairfax. I'm not against selling pot, but this is completely the wrong location to do it, hands down. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hi, Todd Greenberg, downtown Fairfax. I'm a neighbor, too. I think there is some hostility evidenced by the mayor that makes me question whether or not Lynette is going to get due process if she votes on this tonight. I'd ask that she recuse herself from voting. That was pretty evident by the questioning. Aside from that, I've heard also, and I question this, whether it's legal or not, that certain members of the community were contacted by the mayor privately prior to this meeting, asking them to make comments. It was not sent out to every member nearby. Neighbors did not receive that. I did not receive a solicitation from the mayor to write in. I think if anyone listens to my comments, they'll find out, if they observe them, that I seek fairness in Fairfax, which we don't get. I'm not particularly in favor or particularly against Ms. Shaw's application. I object to the process not being fair. I object to your continuing to bring Fairfax into more litigation. Our town attorney and the town's legal costs are on track to be 25% over the budgeted amount. And they are going to total $1.6 million if one... incurs those expenses at the continued rate that is published in the financial reports that we are receiving. That's on a cash basis, not on a crude basis. For that reason, I want to offer an alternative. May I finish that or not?

You may not. Thank you.

Next speaker, please. Hi, I mean, I'm coming to you as a resident at almost 20 year resident mother of 2. the chamber is not taking a position on this application. I want to be very clear, but I have heard a lot from the businesses closest to the proposed location on. And so I just wanted to share that information. But before I do that, I wanted to acknowledge Lynette Shaw. And I've had the opportunity to get to know her and Lou while they operated the general store. She's made a significant contribution to Fairfax over many decades. And I recognize the time and effort and investment she's made in this application. Over the last few days, I reached out to 35 businesses along Bolinas Road. because they're most directly affected by this proposal. 25 shared their position, eight declined or were unavailable. There's a lot of people out of town, out of the country, First Friends owner included. And among those who shared a position, 17 were opposed to the location. They had many concerns about parking and four were neutral and four were supportive. So this is not a scientific survey. I recognize that I did not hear from every business in town on Bolinas and undoubtedly supporters that I did not get a chance to speak with. But my intent was just to share how the businesses closest to the site were feeling. Many people also made the point of separating the applicant from the location. They heard a lot of respect for Lynette and appreciation for history in Fairfax. But this location is the community central gathering place and the most family oriented part of town. And whatever happens tonight, I hope we continue to value that history that she's brought to Fairfax and support her success within our community. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other people in the room want to speak? Okay. Seeing none. And Christine, is there any hands raised?

We have about six hands raised on Zoom right now for people to speak.

If you want to speak and you're on the Zoom, now is the time to raise your hand. And we're going to stop after. So how many hands are there now?

Now there are seven.

Okay. So we have seven hands. Eight. Eight. Okay. We have eight speakers. Thank you.

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

Hi, Cindy Ross again. I have so many things I want to say. I hope I can fit them in in the two minutes I'm allotted. But the bottom line is my main concern about the location or about the application being for 61 Bolinas is the parking. So from that alone, I'm tempted to say please deny the application, but I have to say that as I'm listening and I participated by Zoom in some of the process of when the floor was approved and some of the other meetings in the past where Lynette has spoken, and I have to say that I am really, really, really appalled. at the amount of bias and how I feel like Lynette has been raked through the coals. I want to make very, very clear, my main concern is the parking. I think that this is the wrong location for the dispensary. But I absolutely unequivocally would like to see Lynette be able to continue her business. I'm disgusted that she was kicked out of School Street Plaza. Personally, I think that one of the things, you know, if we were going to go ahead and get School Street developed, one of the provisions should have been that it had to come with, you know, with the Marin Alliance, that they could not disturb that after 30 years. um anyway i would like to encourage lynette to find another location and unfortunately you know i don't think 61 bolinas is the right one but i would really like to see better treatment and i'd like to see the business continue thank you thank you next speaker the next speaker is patrice followed by karen patrice you are unmuted you may now unmute yourself

We can't hear you. You might need to take yourself off mute.

Patrice, you're unmuted on our side, so you just need to unmute your own computer. We can come back to Patrice. Karen, followed by PJ. Karen, you are unmuted. You may now unmute yourself. Oh, great.

Thank you for taking this. I can't speak to the permit process. I am a little surprised that there's, I understand the parking issue, but I wonder, are other businesses required to have also parking? Just kind of curious about that. I don't want that to be onerous to this particular business. I would hate for us to demonize the business, the application. The Marin Alliance really is part of our historic legacy in Fairfax, needs to be on the register, the historic register of the United States. And I hope very much that we find a way in Fairfax to value her contribution and continue it. And that's what I have to say. Thank you.

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

Hey, thank you. PJ speaking solely as an individual on my own behalf. You know, I think this town certainly has capacity for another cannabis business. And, you know, it, certainly needs the revenue from having, um, active businesses. Um, but you know, it seemed, I think it's significant that the length of the process to get the, the current ordinance in place at 23 meetings and, and all of this. And, um, you know, and hearing some of the questions about the zoning that was required by HCD. I know the School Street Plaza site counted for like a quarter of our arena numbers. So, you know, I don't know where else that would have gone, but I know that, you know, Lynette's business did not have to be booted out, you know, if the group had not repealed the eviction ordinances. The site owner, despite having the zoning changed, without notice, and for the residents and other people evicted, they would have to provide transitional support and compensation. And so just timing-wise, hearing that the whole process could take many, many, many months, I am Curious why the group that funded the ballot measure to repeal the eviction ordinances aren't doing a ballot measure to amend the cannabis ordinance to change the zone distances or whatever the issues are. And getting that on November seems like that would be the simplest process, and we would not keep Dedicated Town Resources for one out of many of its businesses. Thanks.

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

Hi, thank you. So my feeling is that this discussion is not about whether the town supports or opposes cannabis businesses. I really feel that this is about whether the town will enforce its own laws fairly and consistently. And the code that we have now exists to protect our community. And it was created after very careful public consideration. And it reflects years of thoughtful discussion and balancing competing interests. So since this application doesn't really meet these deliberately balanced regulations, I really feel that the only fair and defensible decision is to deny it. So because I think that it's important that Fairfax rules should apply equally to every applicant. So I hope that you protect the integrity of the permitting process and that you deny the application. Thank you.

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

Hi. I just want to say that I think given the time and effort that was put in to create these ordinances, it simply doesn't make sense to play favoritism. If we would not ignore these ordinances for a different individual, then we shouldn't do it for just one specific person. That doesn't make sense. If people feel passionately about it, I do think that Making an effort to put it to ballot initiative would make the most sense and see what the whole town has to say about it. If there's that much disagreement about how these ordinances were created, even though there was so much time and effort put into them. But it just doesn't make sense to play favoritism when there are rules in place.

Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker.

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

Thank you. Yes, I agree with the majority of comments indicating that this isn't really an issue about marijuana or medical cannabis and acknowledging legacy and all the important contributions and all of that. And then all the things about the 23 meeting. I'm in sync with all of that. What I want to speak to is that one of the council members earlier tonight was constructing a narrative that was sort of setting it up that somehow a hardship was created and it was. by, you know, it felt to me like it was implying that there was sort of some nefarious goings on and it's the town's fault this happened and that they owe her something. I disagree with that narrative. I think the facts around that are much more complex and I needed to speak to that. Another citizen spoke up and was challenging integrity and fairness and I absolutely disagree. I think the mayor is doing a fantastic job. I was very impressed with the thoroughness. You know, if we're a complicated business with a complicated permit, a complicated situation, and wanting to really understand what is the financial elements that are going on here. So we do not all agree with each other in this town about what's going on and where biases actually lie. So I want to thank, I'd like to believe that this council will be fair and impartial and do their best job. Thank you.

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

Madam Mayor, Council, staff, thank you very much for your time and your devotion to the City of Fairfax and this complicated issue that no longer needs to be complicated. And I'm going to agree with Mr. Greenberg, who was there before, and I am not a Fairfax person. but I am a Marin member, and I've watched some orchestration here that I'm really, I agree that the mayor should recuse herself, and I think the city council should put up a vote to look at the variance. Let's look at the three issues. One, preschool kids, maybe under five, how are they going to go into a medical cannabis dispensary? and purchase the product. Two, parking is an issue everywhere on Bolinas. Ask anyone. You have to turn on the parking ferry to find a parking spot on Bolinas Avenue. So three, I'm going to ask that you please use fairness and vote in favor of the Rent Alliance and the variance that she deserves to continue her legacy versus corporate cannabis. Good night.

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

Hi, Kathy Flores. This will be quick. I don't remember the woman who spoke, but I'd like to know if other businesses on Bolinas require parking permits. And I like what this gentleman just said who just spoke. I don't remember his name. And the other thing regarding parking, if it's such a problem, which I know it is, I'm lucky enough I get to walk from where I live. But maybe we get rid of the parklets. And I think there's quite a few parking spaces that could be used. Maybe, I don't know. I never really counted there, but I think that might be a possibility to think about that. That's it. Thanks.

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

Hi there, good evening. David Finan, 18 year educator in the community. I live in Sleepy Hollow, so I'm not a Fairfax resident, but I am a member of the community and I just want to encourage the Council to uphold the ordinances that Many people worked long and hard to put in place. Community norms matter. I want to certainly show respect to Lynette and her lifelong dedication to people that need marijuana for health reasons, but I don't think it's the right location. And it's certainly something that flies in the face of the town of Fairfax's ordinances. Thank you.

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

Good evening, Mayor and Council Rick Hamer, former resident of School Street Plaza, former neighbor of Marin Medical Alliance. And it was known all along that the redevelopment of School Street Plaza would result in the displacement of an almost impossible legacy business of Marin Medical Alliance. There is little doubt in this particular hearing that one of the options that is probably leading is that 61 Bolinas is not a suitable relocation. In fact, there is no suitable relocation. And the onus of this is on School Street LLC and Mill Creek Development. We are We should not let them get off the hook for trying to acquire and redevelop a property when they knew and they did know that this is something that needed to be addressed before they proposed what they were going to propose. And they need to accommodate this commercial business that had no other options. And in the meantime, the town could could provide some type of temporary accommodation. But the fact is that Marin Medical Alliance was dug in and has a long history at School Street Plaza and should remain there when this is all done and the redevelopment occurs, if it does occur. Thank you.

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

Thank you. I'm just a little surprised that you're even holding this meeting this evening if the application itself had not been signed when submitted. But really the visual that I'd like to leave you with this evening is this, Town Council. Imagine yourself standing in the park. It's either a bright day or maybe close to the evening. What you're doing is you're losing a storefront. And you're eliminating the public from a storefront in the downtown commercial area. And I'm not sure that that is in the ultimate best interest of the town. So I'd just like to leave you with that. So ultimately, it would be for medicinal marijuana cardholders. And those are the only people that would be going in and out of what was formerly a general store for decades. Thank you.

The next speaker is Patrice. Patrice, you are unmuted. You may now unmute yourself.

Patrice, can you hear us?

I can hear you.

Okay, yes. Okay, go ahead. We can hear you now.

I don't even know why this meeting is happening. Lynette is a pioneer in the cannabis industry. She is the first. Fairfax gave her the first licensed dispensary in the United States of America. That's not, like, up for discussion. But I'm really upset about the parking. Like, look at Sorella. Look at Naves. Look at everything on Valencia Road. Like, no one has parking. I just don't understand. And the variances of children, seriously, guys, I used to buy cannabis at Lynette's spot, and they carded me every single time. So a five-year-old is not going to buy cannabis. They're just not going to get it. That's how Lynette works. She follows the law. And she's across the street from the police station. Like, guys, come on, come on. Like somebody here is out to get her and it's just not fair. She also, in any other county in America, she would be an equity person. You guys don't do equity, but you know what? She went to jail for this. It's not legal. That's all I have to say.

There are no more speakers. Okay. Closing public comment. I'm going to address a couple of things. So I really understand this is far, but before I was on the council, I understand all the time and energy that went into putting these policies together, 23 meetings. And when I knew this was going to be on our agenda and I know how controversial this was in the past, what it is, and we weren't hearing from the public on this matter. So I did a next door post and it generated a lot of comments. I asked people as objectively as I could, because I genuinely don't know where the community stands on this. These These policies were developed a long time ago. The landscape has changed. Our community is changing all the time with new residents coming in. So I specifically asked for input. And another thing I did was, um, Mina, who's here this evening and spoke, she heads up our local chamber. I knew she was going to be talking to the business community, and I asked her, if anyone wants to talk to me, you are welcome to give them my phone number. So I heard a comment tonight that I was, like, begging people or something. I... Regularly published my email and my cell phone number. I want to be accessible to the public and I very much solicited Public feedback because I wanted to get a temperature check from the community on this Because the as I said the landscape has changed you go to New York you go to Oregon you go to Colorado Oregon it's all it's you know, it's out there. So I I also wanted to just name that we went to extraordinary lengths to accommodate Lynette at the Sir Francis Drake location to the extent where we literally changed the code and put that address in the code. It was extraordinary. And I see you nodding your head. And we were unanimous on that. That didn't work out. So no one's demonizing you. I, in that meeting where we, where we supported you, I said, you're a phenomenal leader in the space, a pioneer. There's no bias against you. I do have concerns. I'm just going to name them that when you went into 61 Bolinas, you met with the business community and they shared, they were concerned that you were going to do cannabis. And you said you were not intending to do that. And so there was a trust issue established at that point. I just want to name that. And the building, 61 Bolinas, is surrounded by three single moms who did not feel comfortable speaking this evening, but called me and I had long conversations with them. And so I want to name that, too. It doesn't sound to me like you have the support of the businesses who want they support each other. They want the downtown, you know, economy to thrive. Everybody wants that. But it doesn't sound to me. like you have the support. So I just wanted to name that. We did get, in response to the next door post, we did get quite a bit of feedback just for folks if you're interested. And again, not scientific, but we did get 27 oppositional notes and 16 in support. of the application. So just wanted to share that. So I'm going to just take, offer my stance that due to the three named violations of our local code at the 61 Bolinas location is not viable. But on top of that, the application is both incomplete flawed and i find that deeply troubling and problematic including the fact that it was never signed so it could be tossed out the door for that reason alone um so i'm that's that's where i stand i will be voting no and i'm open to hearing anybody else's comments okay i'll comment i just wrote a lot of took notes on everything everybody said

from the phone to the podium. Um, but, uh, just a few of the pros and cons or highlights I got out of it was, um, the planning commission scored an 83 on the application. Um, all they came up tonight apparently didn't come up then there's that, uh, we had a CBD store, uh, Next to 61 Bolinas Road and across the street, we had a big old pipe shop for 50 years. So the idea that the kids, whatever, you know, there they are. There's some things that were on Bolinas Road. The former location was next to the ball field. Way more kids were at the ball field than they are downtown. One nice young man from Archie Williams mentioned that kids have options. They get the stuff from somewhere else. There's that. I had four boys that went to Drake High, and the emphasis was on high, believe me. Mom and Pop... Good point. I thought about it myself. We're small business people here in Fairfax. Everyone on Bolinas Road and Broadway, we're all small business people. We work on a shoestring in mom and pop versus the giant corporations. That's what we have today. I'm not against it. That used to be Domino's Pizza until, quite frankly, Ghirangeli's Pizza opened up in 1985 and Domino's left. But anyway, 2019... And this is very ironic. Think about this one, guys. Everyone was referring to all the time spent on the rules for a pot place. In Marin County, there's no other storefronts. But in Fairfax, ironically enough, considering tonight and what's been going on, we made an ordinance literally to add a second storefront. Because... Lynette was already in business. So Fairfax, who sold against pot or the location, to be more fair, I suppose, still allowed not just one pot store, but two. There you go. That's ironic in my mind. Also ironic, 80 to 90% of Fairfax, I believe that's the number, rough, I think the whole state was the same, voted to legalize cannabis. There you go. And I'm not saying it was a... conspiracy theory to the nice guy that called in earlier. But we absolutely rezoned School Street Plaza. You can't say we didn't. We did. And it affected many people and businesses in that district. So that's all true. And someone also said, well, really, there aren't that many locations to relocate Lynette's store. She tried to put it down there in that other place near Sir Francis Drake. And that fell through, a lot of bad things happened. I've, being a very small business guy myself, many, you know, Fairfax, I just like to support the small business person. Many people, and the other thing that's very noteworthy, many people here tonight and on the phone, absolutely, they hate the location, no doubt. I understand that. But the good news is they love Lynette. That's quite a dilemma to be in. You love the person, but we're not putting our hand out to help her. And I don't really think it's going to have the big voodoo effect that's on our businesses downtown. But I do think also, and one of Lynette's spokespeople, the gentleman with the hat right there, said something to the effect, let us fix up some, let's get our taxes in order. Let's get in a better situation to come back to you. And I love Lynette too, by the way. But I do think that we need to make sure that we've exhausted all avenues of the right location. And I think if I was advising Lynette, I would be saying, let's get the business part of it in order. Let's make sure that you could pay those taxes. It was recommended by your own representative there. to let's get some things straightened out and maybe then come back. I'm not really sure, but, um, So, you know, on one hand, I want to support it, just like many of you do. On the other hand, I think that it would be better for this town if Lynette got everything in order, like the gentleman suggested. Not my suggestion, his, but I agreed with it, by the way. And I think that we should take a little bit of a U-turn because I don't think you're quite ready to do it. I will support this 100%. And I also want everyone in this room to think about If you were in the situation where that was your business up there and you had done it for 30 years, you know, the old walk in my shoes kind of thing. That's what happened to Lynette. And she is so devoted to what she's doing. And I was on the first council along with Mr. Edgar Frank, my buddy Frank. We weren't buddies back then, but we are now. And but we still came together on that issue. We were the first town, I believe, in all of California. I'm not really sure if that's true or not, that allowed this pot store to And I don't think that we did ourselves a disservice on that. So I am definitely want to support Lynette. I want you to consider what I just said and what your representative said there. Think about that. And that's where I'm at right now. Thank you.

Thank you. Janet, did you need to say something? You were looking...

no when you when everybody has their their comments made i i don't know okay who wants to go next okay vice mayor go ahead yes thank you thank you mayor it's an interesting dilemma that we created for ourselves here um this is not an application for recreational cannabis It's an application for a drugstore. What would happen if CVS came to Fairfax and said, we want to open up a drugstore downtown on Bolinas Road? We'd go, oh, no, we can't handle the traffic down there. It seems we can handle 1,750 brand-new car trips per day with School Street Plaza, but we're worried about traffic for a small drugstore? I'm thinking of a suggestion and I'm not quite sure how to how to write it out. But I'm thinking of something like a one year trial period. and require it to come back again to the town council one year from now with a report from our Fairfax Police Department, report from our Merchants Association, and let's find out if it's really that bad of a deal for the town. You know, I just don't want to walk away tonight and say, sorry, it's over. So I'm not sure how to verbalize that kind of a condition. You know, I wasn't part of writing that ordinance, so I'm looking at it a little bit differently. Anyway, that's some quick thoughts from myself.

Okay, thank you. Council Member Blush?

Okay. I do have a couple of questions that I'll ask probably at the end. You know, I do want to say that I understand that the Alliance lost its prior location really through no fault of its own. And I wanted to note that a lot of good people have lost their rentals or what have you lately due to no fault of their own. And, you know, we don't have just cause evictions anymore for residents, residential or commercial renters and, you know, And property owners really do have free reign to do what they see fit with their buildings to a certain extent. So that's been unfortunate for a lot of people. And I'm not really hearing that that is also the case for a number of really long-term renters that have lost their homes recently. I think we all recognize that Lynette is a treasure and that she has a really, I mean, I've been impressed by reading the application and listening to people. She has a big following who really loves her and feels like, her services are something that supported them over the years. So I do want to really respect that. And then I just want to say also that, you know, while I've heard from a lot of people that think our laws are stupid or they don't understand why they make sense, they were developed over 23 meetings with residents and they reflect a compromise on the location and the conduct of retail cannabis in Fairfax. I just feel like to ignore those laws right now would be a real slap in the face to the scores of residents who took part in those meetings. So I kind of agree with Don Carney about honoring the democratic process that we went through. I watched it. I was not on the council. I kind of thought, oh, my God, I don't want to be on a council that has to go through that many meetings. So it was a big deal that people went through. I also feel very concerned that giving special privileges to some residents and not others because of a personal relationship or their length of tenure in a town is a real hallmark of corruption, and we don't want that. So it's going to be a real quandary for us to how to recognize the specialness of this you know, landmark institution, but at the same time apply our laws fairly. I did want to note that I voted for allowing the other dispensary because it had a virtually flawless application and it appeared to be in no buffer zones. And, you know, I was concerned about some of our prior actions, you know, changing our code for one specific business, because I think that that is very problematic, even though we recognize that that's a special business. So I just feel like the law needs to apply evenly. I'm concerned that it seems like there are few, if any, other areas in town where a cannabis dispensary could legally relocate. So that continues to cause me a little bit of concern. But I'm also very concerned about the idea that We would reopen this ordinance and that it would be a long drawn-out horrible process that would probably end up coming to the same conclusion again, so I'm really interested in you know continuing to hear what other council members have to say because I would personally love to hear you know if we feel like demographics have changed this much and that we would change our laws that were so hard fought. What do we do? A scientific survey to really get an idea of what the town really thinks now, where we have a sample that could be projected to population and we could be 100% sure or close to 100% sure that We understood what the public really felt about this. Is this something that should go on the ballot? I don't know, but I just feel like right now I am concerned about throwing away the process that we went through that took so long. Thank you. Go ahead.

Well, some of you may know that I'm the only one left standing from all those wonderful meetings. And I want to say that even before those 23 meetings, before Prop 60, and Don Carney, of course, is before Prop 64 passed, and the passage was the highest in Marin, in Fairfax was 77%. We had Many many meetings on medical and I was part of that as well And I didn't like everything that happened with the buffer zones and some of the requirements But I think after so many meetings in the democratic process We did come together was with something that clearly is not perfect but we tried the best we could and So I also want to say that in the past, I've tried to help Lynette. Lynette never had to go through this process, rightly so, because she was grandfathered in because she was existing. But I will say at one point there were some financial troubles because a lot of medical dispensaries switched to recreational where they could and medical was not as financially viable. So at that time, and that was, I believe, back in 2019 I was mayor and I asked specifically that we put something specific in the code for Lynette to allow her to do recreational delivery to give her the ability to provide more revenue for herself and that was a special dispensation we did for Lynette which some other councils wouldn't have done. And I think that was useful for a few years. And I know she's not interested in doing that at this time. And then back in 2024, and it's already been discussed, we did another special step for Lynette. And understanding that she lost her business in School Street Plaza, The owner has every right to sell that property, to do what he wants with it, and that's what happened. Other people lost their homes as well that were doing live work and other things there. So what we did was we did another special dispensation, never asking Ms. Shaw to go through this application process that we're trying to do now, and provided a special code just for Ms. Shaw to be able to go into that location in Sir Francis Drake. Sorry it didn't work out. It's not our fault that it didn't work out. And I understand when Ms. Shaw went and decided to do the general store at 61 Bolinas, and I think the mayor's already said this, a lot of the businesses were concerned that it would be cannabis, and they were told no, it wouldn't be. So that's a concern. And I also want to say for some folks who've written in saying, You need the money. Well, medical cannabis has no sales tax on it. Rightly so. It's a medical product. Recreational does. So we're not expecting any revenue out of this business. There's excise tax, Lynette. There is no sales tax. Excise tax goes to the state. We do not get that, okay? That's a difference. But I will also say it's time to create a level playing field. We had other folks who went through the application process. Element 7 was denied. They went through the application process. LaFleur went through the application process. And we have asked Ms. Shaw to go through the application process. And I'm not sure how the Planning Commission was able to score that application because In looking at what I saw in this package, it wasn't clear to me a lot of information. The first thing I noticed is the application wasn't signed. It needs to be signed under penalty of perjury that everything is true and correct. And I understand in asking staff that they asked several times. To me, that's, you know, a no-go. Don't pass go. And that should have been signed. But as I look through the other things and I saw the information on the liens, I thought, and a Zillow printout on what her house, what Ms. Shaw's house is worth, It doesn't say that there's a financial wherewithal to do this business. It's not cheap, and she knows better than I. It's an expensive business to be in, doing the repairs, and I know you said the building's in great shape. I just know a really old building, sometimes you get into something that seems really simple, and all of a sudden you're changing the wiring. I don't know how old that building is, but it's pretty old. So I would just say... We've heard a lot about the location, and I also think the difference is I think people would be stopping and going, I'm just going to run in and show my medical card and get what I want. Bolinas Road is pretty darn skinny, and we can't have people double parking or just going in the red, going in a driveway. maybe that wouldn't happen. But I sort of see that as a potential. People just thinking, oh, I'll just drop in real quick. And so parking is a huge problem. And the location, the location is not right. And I don't agree with Vice Mayor Egger that there is no ability to grant special privilege here. That's what it would be. I think we've done that. We've bent over backwards to assist. My feeling is I'm not opposed to opening those rules and looking at them again. Although I have to be honest, I'm not sure that I have the stamina to sit through 15, 20 meetings again. I could potentially, but, and maybe it would be less. But again, We need to deny this application, no hard feelings, no personal animosity, it's really just not the right location and I think we need to deny the application also on the fact that regardless of what the planning director said, we are the final scoring and we're not scoring us but when I look through that application, I feel things are missing operational details there's some information there but it's not all there and so I would rather move forward and deny the application and potentially if my colleagues agree go back and start the process of looking at the rules that were done seven years ago and say Do we want to revisit those, take it to the Planning Commission for early discussions, maybe a study session to see where it would go? But right now, I think the best pass is there are some other locations in town. Not easy, not many, that's for sure. And I would suggest if Ms. Shaw really is interested in pursuing another application, at a different location, check around. But if not, waiting through, if we decide to open that process and looking at the rules, I would say deny the application and give you an opportunity, as your colleague said, to get things straightened out with the financial issues, get things straightened out with some of the other pieces that were missing, and resubmit an application at a later date.

Mayor, I have a suggestion.

Yeah, I have one comment to make that's relevant to what she just said as far as the level playing field. I've failed to mention this earlier in my comments. I'm also very concerned about the liability here. you could have businesses out there. Should this application get approved when there's three very clear black and white violations of the local law, you could have cannabis businesses out there saying, Hey, wait a minute. Had I known that the town would, you know, I would have applied for that location and I've zero appetite for that liability. And so I hope vice mayor, you take that under consideration before you vote. Go ahead, Mike.

Okay, thank you. Well, first of all, it's not signed, so I don't know how we can even approve it. That's not my point. My point is this, is that you should take the advice of your advisors, get your finance part of it in shape with the taxes or whatever else is involved. Come back. I mean, just... Someone said something, why are we even hearing this if it's not signed, which is unbelievable, but it was true. And reconsider your financing, reconsider your plan. I want to support you, but it's not even just the location we're talking about. There's a lot of significant factors in business that that there's issues on um and so i would say that come back when you have that figured out your finances your taxes and um you know maybe you can figure i don't know if that location could ever work that's why i don't even want to vote on it tonight i'd rather just say it's not even a it's not really an application if you haven't signed it i say we don't vote on anything and you come back with a better plan that's what i would do

Okay, I'm going to entertain a motion for anyone that wants to make one.

If I may?

Oh, go ahead.

If you look in the staff report, it talks about if you take this option, that there will be a resolution of denial provided by the town attorney. So I have that resolution. And that's what you need to adopt if you want to deny this application.

Meaning you need us to like read it, read the whole resolution. We're going to pass it out.

Okay. I've got one.

So I'll make a motion, but, and then if with the condition that we have a resolution.

It's right. It's coming to you. Okay. So can you just wait, take a few minutes and let's yes. Give one to the applicant, please.

Is there one to put out on the... Yes, there are plenty.

Outside to the public and to the applicant and to the council.

She brought it.

I frequently prepare resolutions, Mike, before so that I can be prepared for this. That's why it states it in the staff report. Mike, I'd also like to address your question about why the planning commission didn't address these issues. These issues, the distance requirements and the parking are the purview of the council only, not the planning commission.

So I'll go ahead and make the motion and maybe we should take a second and read the resolution. Yes. Let's do that before I do.

Thank you.

All right. I'll make a motion. I think we should do this in two things. To deny the application via adoption of the resolution that was just provided that each of the council members have. There's copies on the safe as well as the applicant. The adoption of a resolution of denial to be provided by the town attorney is That's the first piece. Does anyone want to second that? I'll second.

We have a motion from Councilmember Kohler and a second from Mayor Hellman. Councilmember Blash? Oh, okay. With sorrow, yes. Council Member Garangeli.

Abstain. I'm going to make a comment. I did this about my 10th year on the council. When you add them up, I've never seen something like this produced at the end of anything. So I can't be part of this. I suggested what I suggested, Lynette, and we'll leave it there. But I abstain from this vote.

Council Member Kohler. Yes. Yes.

vice mayor agar no mayor hellman yes okay so then i think i'm not sure um i guess this is not a motion necessarily i'm not sure we ought to have a brief discussion on whether or not we want to direct staff

to draft revisions to the fairfax town code and go through that process of reopening looking at the buffer zones considering i just yeah can i just set some expectations around that so yeah i want to hear from the council i want to hear from everybody if we want to do that but i just this is a really big issue and we've got an election in november and i don't think any policies of this magnitude should be altered Before an election and, you know, you're going to have to have study sessions, at least two or three, I would think planning commission meetings. Right. That puts us very close to the election. So I'm just going to say that, you know, I don't want to there's going to be no. If we're going to open up the code, there's a lot to look at. And I'm open to changes. I'm just saying, like, this is not going to be a streamlined, let's just tweak X, Y, Z. Like, that is not what's going to happen. We're going to go back to the 20 meetings or whatever it was, and it's going to be a very, very long process.

I guess I just want to say, after listening to you and thinking this over, And hearing what folks had to say, I don't think this is the time to reopen that. We have so much on our plate, so much coming up. I just think it's not the time.

I also just want to make a pitch that if this is really important to you and you'd love to see this reopened in the future, run for council to open seats right now.