Town Council - Special Meeting

Okay, calling to order the special meeting for the town of Fairfax. Today is Wednesday, July 22nd, 2026. It is 6 p.m. And Christine, could you please do we need to do another? Yes. Roll call, please.

Yes, Mayor. Council Member Blash here. Council Member Gearing Galley here. Council Member Kohler here. Vice Mayor Ager here. Mayor Hellman.

I'm here. And please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance.

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

I'll now read 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 officers shall maintain order at the meetings council members share responsibility for modeling respectful professional conduct to effectively facilitate the meeting and encourage meaningful civic participation to ensure all voices can be heard disruptive behavior That interferes with the orderly conduct of the meeting is not permitted during public comment or council deliberations. Applause is appropriate for ceremonial or celebratory items such as proclamations, recognitions, or welcoming remarks. If you would all silence your electronic devices, including my colleagues. the that would be the time to do that now the mayor or presiding officer may issue a reminder or warning to address disruptions disruptive behavior will result in a pause of the meeting meetings will adjourn no later than 11 p.m at approximately 9 30 the council will review the agenda to determine which remaining items may be continued And with that, we will proceed to the regular agenda. The first item is the certification of the June 2nd, 2026 election.

Thank you, Mayor. I'll be presenting this item. It's, as you just mentioned, the certification of the special election held on June 2nd, 2026, declaring the result of Measure J, an extension and an increase of the Measure C sales tax. The election results and certification from the Marin County Elections Department is included in the packet and will be included with the resolution if it is adopted tonight. It's a pretty straightforward item, but if any of you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

Any questions from the dais? Seeing none. Can I open the public comment now? And we do have Zoom going, right? Any hands raised? Okay, we'll close the public comment.

Thank you very much for having this discussion about, I guess, telling the town about the election results. But when I did see it on the agenda, I was surprised that we didn't have this same reconciliation after our last November votes. And I think it's very beneficial to community, like even when Frank and Mike were voted in office, that we publicly acknowledge this right away and thank them. Thank you.

Hi, Todd Greenberg. These results are clear, but I want to remark for those that may not be aware what these results are referring to. They include Measure J, which in my estimation remains to a trier of the fact to determine this, but involved ballot measure advocacy on the part of this town council where they use staff resources to present a false narrative to the public. That false narrative was that $1.3 million was at stake if it didn't pass in June. In fact, it could have passed in November, and it could have passed without an increase, and it could have passed without a forever extension. So the public has been misled. That's all I'd like to say.

Thank you. Closing public comment. Any comments? I'm sorry.

I was going to make a motion. BJ, you are unmuted. You may now unmute yourself.

Thank you. I just wanted to comment that I'm glad to see this pass and be certified and You know, one of the times, fortunately, where we still recognize people's democratic rights in this state when it comes to taxes requiring a simple majority vote and anything more is just fundamentally anti-democratic. Our town and everybody else's budgets are hampered significantly by the ongoing effects of Prop 13, getting up to nearly 50 years later, the fiscal catastrophe has been well documented, but also bears noting that it's significantly decreased the value of people's votes for generations upon generations, given the size of California then against now and something we should all be striving to change. Thank you.

There are no more raised hands on Zoom. Okay, officially closing public comment. And are there any comments from the dais? It looks like he wanted to make a motion.

I'm just going to make a motion to approve resolution number 2026-37, the resolution of the Town Council of the Town of Fairfax, California, reciting the fact of the special municipal election held on June 2nd, 2026, declaring the result of Measure J, extension and increase of the measure G sales tax and such other matters as provided by law. That's the motion.

In a second that this we have a motion from vice mayor agar in a second from council member blast a friendly amendment, I think there was a mistake, it was the measure see sales tax, maybe I misheard, but I thought I heard G. Oh, it is see.

Yeah, it's like, anyway, thank you. Friendly. Yeah.

Yeah. Council member flash. Yes. Council member Garen Kelly.

Yes.

Council Member Kohler.

Yes.

Vice Mayor Egger. Aye. Mayor Hellman.

Yes. Aye. My colleagues, Mayor Hellman, Council Member Blash, and Council Member Egger, for all of us working together on our own time to make this happen.

Moving on to item two, which is establishing official names for the hundred acre Fairfax property.

This is me again and I'm just going to pull up the presentation here real quick.

For those wondering, the 100-acre property is also known as the wall property. There's been a lot of work on behalf of the Fairfax Open Space Committee, as well as town staff and a host of other community members and organizations, both to acquire the property for the town, but also in this renaming effort, including a survey. And with that, Christine, who's giving the presentation? I am. Okay.

Yeah, thank you. Good evening. We're pleased to bring forward this milestone that's been almost two years in the making. The official names for the 100-acre open space we've been calling the wall property. What makes this item special tonight is how we got here. These names weren't chosen by staff. They came from residents, from the Fairfax Open Space Committee, and from the Federated Indians of the Great and Rancheria Tribe. Tonight we're presenting the final naming recommendations presented by FOSC, your council subcommittee, and the FIGR. This process started with the community. Roughly 100 name nominations came from residents at the Fairfax Festival and Eco Fest in June 2025, at the town picnic in September, and through online outreach into the fall. FOSC's ad hoc committee narrowed these down and the full committee adopted a recommended slate in December of 2025. In January, this council formed a subcommittee of Mayor Hellman and Vice Mayor Ager. Is there any way you can blow up the screen? What?

Is it on full screen?

It's not.

Sorry to interrupt you, but it just feels like it could be a little bigger. Okay, it's okay.

Let me see if I can go like this.

That's better.

Is it? I'm inside the program. That's a little bit better. That's great. Thank you. Yeah. In January, this council formed a subcommittee of Mayor Hellman and Vice Mayor Ager to refine those recommendations working with Fosk and the rest of the community. One item was intentionally left open, the proposed indigenous name for the main fire road. Fosk was clear that we should not proceed without the tribe's consent and recommendation, so in late January, the town, or more specifically, Mayor Hellman, submitted a formal inquiry to the tribe. This is kind of a big deal. FOSC had an original placeholder known as Miwok Way, but it was forwarded expressly subject to tribal approval. And rather than assume anything, we collaborated with them. And the tribe took the question, naming this main trail Miwok Way. through its own process the cultural programs manager brought it to the tribal council which engaged the cultural resources department and the sacred sites protection committee on april 28 the tribal council recommended lila yomi meaning the high place Two days later, Fosk voted unanimously to adopt it as Lille Yomi Way, and the tribe has offered to keep working with us on signage, design, spelling, and pronunciation guidance. So here is a display of all of the recommended names for the trails, features, and places on the property. The property as a whole is recommended to become known as the Fairfax Open Space Preserve. The Brightside Overlook is the bench honoring Diane Bright, given by her husband Ted. Jessica's Spiral for Jessica Green, who loved the spiral and donated $40,000 towards the acquisition of the property. Redford Ridge, honoring Robert Redford and Fairfax's own Jamie Redford, who helped rally the community's fundraising. Marinda Perch, an upper-level location, which the exact location will be finalized with FOSCA's help, and Lile Yomiwe and Most Trail. Lile Yomiwe is the tribe's gift, and Most Trail is a tribute to Marin Open Space Trust. Here's a map. which in the packet we included a larger photo of this map. I had been working with FOSS to specifically identify the locations that were known. Redford Ridge came at a later date, which is displayed on the PowerPoint presentation and not included on the map in the packet, but you can see it at the northernmost point of the property. one other change that came as a nice surprise is the estimated cost of the signage was going to be around fifteen hundred dollars and we got a more concrete quote the signage will be about five hundred dollars to purchase and we'll work with the marin county sign shop to have those signs designed and printed and placed along the property in their you know correct locations And funds for this project are earmarked and available in the budget for this year. um lastly with that we just want to give a special thanks to the to the tribe to the fairfax open space committee to the council subcommittee and to the community for all of their their hard work and time and effort to come together and create this wonderful list of names you know to put on this property that we all worked so hard to acquire

fairfax open space preserve thank you christine that's really lovely presentation um any questions from the dice yeah um so i see on the presentation it looks a little different but i would at least on the packet you just have most trail and people might think that's the word most so i would suggest it'll be marin open space trust um with most okay and then just one note jamie redford passed away several years ago he lived in shadow creek with his wife and kids he helped with sky ranch fundraising quite a bit and i'm hoping that we were able to locate his wife i'm not sure if she still lives in fairfax i think she's a teacher at marin country day school so i hope we were able to locate her so we can send her a copy of something and i think we invited the federated indians of great and rancheria to be here tonight i hope so we did um we did not receive confirmation that they would be here there are members of fosc in the crowd if we have questions for them

and to answer your previous question staff was not successful in being able to reach out to any member of the redford family but fosk might have a different response to that okay thank you yeah i have a question um is this just about naming the um yes

It's not about the cost of owning the property?

No, it's just what the council is being asked to do tonight is to adopt a resolution officially adopting the names that have been recommended by FOSC, the tribe, and the council subcommittee. And the exact specific locations, we'll work with FOSC to determine those and with the Marin County team for placement.

Great names, by the way. Thank you.

Do you have a question?

Comment?

Can we wait until after public comment? Okay, great. Let's open public comment.

Hello, council members, mayor. My name is Mark Lubomirsky. I'm on the Fairfax Open Space Committee. And I wanted to provide a little commentary and context to some of the people that donated sizable portions to to the acquisition of the wall property. Diane and Ted Bright. Ted Bright is currently a member, emeritus member of FOSC. And he served as the treasurer, I think, for a decade. And he and his wife spent a lot of time up at the wall property. And he donated a million dollars in memory of his wife, Diane. And there is an existing bench already there where the bright side overlook is going to go. Jessica Green, longtime resident advocate for the wall property as open space. She was an artist, musician, donated art, various fundraising efforts. She championed the acquisition of the wall property and her bequest. She left $40,000 for the wall property stewardship and acquisition. and she's being remembered in a place that she loved, which was Jessica's Spiral. It's located in the middle section of the Fairfax Open Space Preserve. Jamie Redford, longtime Fairfax resident, documentary filmmaker that supported environmental issues, Jamie was active in acquisition of Sky Ranch, as Barbara said, also musician. He and his band fundraised and he spoke at Fosk Film Nights. Jamie and his family were generous in their financial contribution to Open Space in Fairfax. He's being remembered and recognized for this work and passion through the naming of the portion of the Open Space Preserve, the Redford Ridge location, or the Redford Ridge Preserve. The location or the type location for that is an exposed knoll that descends down to Vista Way, San Gabriel Way. So it's a plunging ridge. It's up at the top. It's kind of a rock garden up there. You might call it a rock outcrop, but it's not. They're kind of loose rocks, but they're big rocks. And it's kind of a flat knoll. And then lastly, we can't forget Charles Wall. Charles Wall donated... or his family donated money to the acquisition of the wall property. They made a sizable donation, and at the edge of the Jessica spiral, there's a bench there, the wall bench, and it's a tribute from the children to the parents, Doris and Charles Wall. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good evening. Mike Ardito, Fairfax resident, co-secretary of the Fairfax Open Space Committee. I just wanted to echo what Councilwoman Kohler said and FOS member Mark Lewomirski said about Jamie Redford. The whole campaign to acquire Sky Ranch was over a decade ago. was actually miraculous. I communicated with Jamie several times, and I could write a chapter how miraculous everything fit together that happened. And he actually brought in people that he communicated with to make donations, and he had several fundraisers for us. So this is one way to honor Jamie Redford, as well as his father who passed just recently as well, who did a lot of environmental work. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Hi, Todd Greenberg. I'd like to thank every member of the Fairfax Open Space Committee and Barbara Kohler and Chance Katrano for their work on this. Susan Pascal Barron has long chaired the Fairfax Open Space Committee. Thank you, Susan. Michael, who just spoke, has been the secretary and diligently worked very hard for a long time. Mark's been instrumental. There were a lot of people who participated to make this happen. Thank you to every one of you.

Thank you. Next speaker. OK, seeing none, we want to know hands on Zoom. No hands on zoom. Okay.

I was trying to invite chance to come up before me.

Go ahead.

Thank you. Okay, I too would like to thank everybody involved in it because many times people are really out there doing the work and pulling the weeds and pulling the broom are not acknowledged or properly acknowledged. And for any effort of acquiring his property, it takes a great amount of people and great amount of effort. That said, When I brought up many irregularities with the acquisition of this property, the following month on a consent calendar was a letter, I believe, drafted with support from Barbara Kohler, about an indemnification requirement for the town to receive back $66,000. This was after his acknowledge that from Fairfax Open Space Trust, it was moved to Marin Open Space Trust, which we could not provide PRAs to find out how that private 503 operates. But what was concerning to me when it came out that the chairperson received almost $90,000 as a commission from this sales transaction, and then when I brought up these irregularities, because he was told they got paid approximately 3%, the town would sign a letter of indemnification to receive back the $66,000. Why would we want to indemnify a transaction against or foremost, unless we did something that we did not want disclosed. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Mayor, Council, thank you for hearing me. Chance Catrano, former mayor of the town of Fairfax and former Open Space Committee member. Just wanted to commend you all for your excellent work on this. And I'm glad to see that this is continuing to move forward. I'm in support of all the renaming efforts. I think it's just the beginning of all the stewardship and great community programming that's going to happen on this incredible piece of land. And thank you all for seeing this through. And again, just the beginning. But thank you.

Thank you so much. Any hands raised? Okay, closing public comment. Yeah, we'll start with Council Member Kohler, and then I know, Vice Mayor, you had a comment, and as do I.

Go ahead, Barbara. Yeah, a couple of things. First of all, I want to say that I'm not sure that the Wahl property would have happened if Ted Pryte hadn't called me one day when I was sitting at the hairdresser with hair dye all over my hair, when we knew that it looked like it was coming up on a bankruptcy sale. And he called me and said, Barbara, I'll donate a million dollars. And I immediately got on the phone with Max Corton, who was the director of Marin County Open Space and Parks. Told him, we got to do this. Got on the phone with Bill Long from Marin Open Space Trusts. And from there, it moved. So Ted really was pivotal in making this happen. I also want to say that I'm really grateful to working with my colleague at the time, Chance Cotrano, on making that happen as a subcommittee. That was one of the most wonderful things we got to do. There's a lot of wonderful things, but that was... I was on open space even before chance, and we always wanted the wall property, and way before me. Everybody wanted the wall property, so it's wonderful that that happened. I also want to say something, that libelous statements are not appropriate. Bill Long made no money off of that deal, and I think you need to cease before somebody really gets very angry with you, Mr. McIntosh, for making libelous statements. You've also made statements about me that are inappropriate. But I just want to celebrate. We're really happy that the Federated Indians of Great Rancheria participated. That was a wonderful day where we had a ribbon cutting and so many people came together. So I'm really pleased and want to thank Mayor Hellman and Vice Mayor Egger for working with Open Space and the community to pick out these names, which are truly wonderful. Thank you. Go ahead, Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. I had called Kyle Redford and told her what was happening this evening. And actually, I called her a few weeks ago to tell her what was happening. And she was very honored to have her husband and the father of their two children honored this way by the town of Fairfax. While this whole process was ongoing... I was instrumental in having purchased two redwood slabs, three and a half feet by five feet, three inches thick from a stud mill in Casadero and brought them down here. And they were carved at Fairfax Lumber with the names of the Brights, Ted and Diane, and then the other one has Jessica Green's name on it. And they were carved, and they're sitting in the courtyard, all completed. They're not quite exactly how it's worded here, but they recognize both Tennant and Diane Bright and Jessica Green.

Lisa, do you have anything to say? I just want to say really quickly that this has been an amazing process. And I wanted to point out that this really shows what we can do when we work together across our community to reach what seemed like an impossible goal. And there was a vast network both within and outside of Fairfax that worked to make this happen. And so I'm grateful to everybody that worked on it and grateful to have paid the tiniest of parts in trying to push this through. And I think we should all celebrate. I also want to thank Bill Long with Most who really also helped get this acquisition together. So I think we should all be very proud of ourselves.

I'm ready to make a motion. I wanted to say a few words. I would echo what Council Member Blass just said. This is a wonderful demonstration of where there's a will, there's a way. And there was so much community will and a broader community will to make this happen. And for so many years, there was so much fear and anxiety about development on this property that we in Fairfax, I think most folks held and i i just really appreciate all the dimensions of community how everybody worked together to make this happen and i really want to name the fairfax open space committee and i and i love the fact that the whole property is being you know essentially named fairfax open space preserve in recognition of how you were carrying the torch all those years all those years it was always on your agenda mean incredible incredible incredible perseverance so congratulations to you congratulations to the town congratulations to most all the council members all the staff christine this is a really beautiful presentation and um with that i will entertain a motion

I'd like to make a motion to adopt a resolution establishing the official names for the 100-acre open space, its features and its trails as set forth in this report with a change to the resolution that just says most trail. I would change that to say Marin Open Space Trust Trail. The resolution just has most. and then direct staff to proceed with the design, fabrication, and installation of identification, regulatory, and funding acknowledgement signage consistent with the adopted names.

I'll second.

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

Yes.

Council Member Kohler. Yes. Vice Mayor Ager. Aye. Mayor Hellman. Aye. Yes. All eyes.

Terrific. Moving forward to item three, which is an update on short-term rentals. There's no action on this. We are receiving essentially an update report. And I believe Jeff Feisinger is here. Yes, he is. Hello, Jeff.

Yes, the intent of this is to provide the council with a quick report, just to make sure we're headed in the right direction.

Did you get a little closer to the mic? You're kind of quiet there, Jeff.

Okay, I'm trying to share a presentation here.

Okay.

Oh, it looks like somebody else is sharing, so I have to wait for Christine. Okay, so we currently use a platform called Rentalscape or Deckard and this is a way that Airbnb, VRBO, and the other rental platforms hide the addresses of the short-term rentals intentionally so that local governments do not know where they're located. However, there is a variety of different platforms that do do kind of internet research and scraping information. to discover the addresses and then report them to us so that we can send them letters and ask them to register so that they can comply with our zoning ordinance and our tax, our TOT tax, or as we call it, our hotel users tax. So when we do discover that a short term rental is operating, they are sent kind of up to three kind of letters asking them to register. And then the next step is to kind of take additional code enforcement action. And so we've been able to do that with all of these short-term rentals. And we're kind of to a point now where we need to take probably more aggressive code enforcement action on some of the short-term rentals that have just essentially been ignoring us. But we have made some significant progress in hotel tax collection. So this is just an example here of kind of the interface and then all of the dots where short-term rentals have been discovered. Some of them are – the gray ones are kind of in the past. The red ones are more active. So anyway, these are all coded. I'm not intending to have you understand this graphic. This is just an illustration to show how the platform works. Okay. So this is an example of a screen on the Rentalscape platform. So this is one where we do not know where it's located. So it's pending identification, but we know that it's live. And it was first seen back in 2017. And they collect, when they are rented, they collect about $462 a night. So when the town council was considering regulations in the first place, we decided to take a middle road. A lot of jurisdictions, particularly in Marin, just have an outright ban where short-term rentals are not permitted anywhere. So they are not receiving any tax revenue. However, we know that short-term rentals persist throughout Marin County, despite them being not permitted. They just throw them up on the website and just permit them. And then there's no There's generally no enforcement by any of the other jurisdictions in the area, except on complaint only. And then on the other extreme, we have no regulation whatsoever, allow them everywhere. And again, we don't collect any tax revenue and we just kind of let them go. So we decided to pick a more middle ground where we have, we allow some short-term rentals and the The main limitation is that you actually have to live in the house, it has to be your permanent residence. So according to the zoning ordinance, you're only allowed to use it as short-term rental if you're like away for the weekend or for a month or for a few months, or if it's kind of an extra space in your house that you're just renting out periodically, but you actually have to be the permanent resident of the space to actually legally operate a short-term rental. And then this would allow us to also receive some revenue and hotel users tax. and engage in some active code enforcement. One of the issues that we've come across is that all of the honest people, I will say, have been forthcoming and they register, they pay their hotel users tax, And then it kind of creates this unfair balance where the people that are ignoring the town and just kind of throwing the units up there and not registering, not paying hotel tax are kind of getting away with an extra 10% in revenue because they're not paying the 10% to the town. So that's kind of one of the things we've come across, but we've partially solved that. Okay, so here's the... Oh, I just wanted to talk about this a little bit. The occupancy requirements... where, as again, if they're a permanent resident, then it's hosted, they're allowed to do it. If they're not permitted, like if it's an investor-owned property, then they're not technically allowed to operate a short-term rental in Fairfax. So the annual registration, currently we have about 15 current registrations, 22 lapsed registrations, and this is... just people that need to be mostly people that need to be reminded that they need to register every year. So there's kind of some ongoing care and feeding that we hope to be able to do on a go forward basis. And then there's 31 that are active and are not registered.

Jeff on the, on the population that you've been communicating with, please register. Are those all like legal requirements? in terms of our policy, meaning they either live onsite or?

Yeah, some of them are not. And then we ask them to, they just tell them that they're not permitted to have a short-term rental and they have to move to kind of a more of a, like if it says- So you're not asking folks to register if this is a second home and they're living in Wyoming. Yeah, they may try to register, but then they get denied and we tell them that they need to just use it as like a full-time rental. Because you can use it as a full-time rental, which is longer than 30 days. You just can't use it as a short-term rental.

Got it.

And there is kind of this rolling thing that happens where there's new listings pop up, and then they get captured by Rentalscape, and then they are sent letters encouraging them to register. Okay. So this answers your question, this slide, the enforcement activities to date. So there were 17 denials, and these are people that could not qualify under the existing zoning, mostly due to that residency requirement. Also, parking sometimes comes into it as well. Or if it's an ADU, a recently built ADU, they're not allowed to use that as a short-term rental either. But just due to staffing capacity, we really haven't been able to initiate code enforcement beyond kind of the warning letters. And we have kind of a plan to start to change that this year. So we did just enter into a collection agreement with Airbnb, which is a little bit of a game changer for us in terms of tax collection. So with this agreement, Airbnb will basically collect the hotel users tax from any host using the platform, whether they're licensed or not with the city. And then they submit that to us directly to the finance department. And at a minimum, we think this would generate more than $100,000 per year in hotel users' tax. And we are also actively pursuing... And I have to give credit to Bren McKillop, the associate planner for finding the appropriate contact with Airbnb because the challenge with both Airbnb VRBO is that they really do not want to work with local governments and they kind of want to stay in the shadows because that's kind of their business model. But when you do find the right person, it's very effective. We found a very nice person with Airbnb who was able to help us get a user's agreement in place. And we're hoping to find a similar nice person with VRBO to help us get the user's agreement in place. So we are continuing to seek that person out.

You know, Jeff, you need to speak right into the mic. People can't hear you. I can see people doing this. Okay. Thank you.

I've got my face right in here. So the problem with this particular approach with Airbnb is we still do need the registration system for short-term rentals. They submit the TOT revenue for us, but they still are not willing to give us the actual addresses for the short-term rentals. Also, some of the Airbnb short-term rentals may not be able to legally operate under our Fairfax rules. As we discussed above, they actually have to live in the house. So if they're an investor, they may be operating illegally. So we would still need to pursue code enforcement action against them. And then we also still need the hotel user tax collection system for non-Airbnb hosts. And Rentalscape has a platform where people can go in there and pay their tax directly. So this is a chart of what we've received since 2023. So the Fairfax Inn, and this is just an average, they have about $16,000 in hotel users tax every year. When we started the town portal in 2024, we... Got about 2,000, then 11,000 in 2025. And in 2026, it's going to go down a little bit just because we're going to have Airbnb start collecting the hotel users tax. So we won't get as many payments through the portal. And then we expect that to increase even more in 2027.

So, Jeff, I'm looking at the fiscal impact on the staff report, and you're saying the additional revenue would cover the cost of the monitoring software, staff limitation, enforcement activities. Is that all baked into, like, where would the net be? Like, what would be the upside?

Right now, we pay $19,000 a year for the Rentalscape software. And we think we can bring that down a little bit because we, since we have Airbnb collecting the hotel users tax, we probably don't need as their most robust system. So we can probably bring that down to, we think 15,000 starting next calendar year. So that'll run us about $15,000 a year for that. And that allows us to actually find the short-term rentals in the community. Then everything else is just how much the staffing effort is nebulous because it's like, how much effort do we want to spend on it? We've talked to other jurisdictions that have a lot more short-term rentals than us, obviously, that have three people in the finance department that only do this. It can be pretty labor intensive, especially when you get into the code enforcement. We're actually going out and trying to find people and ask them to register.

But there must be a cost benefit if they're assigning three full-time staff members. So what I'm getting is it's currently $19,000. You could probably bring it down to $15,000.

Right. And then the other $85,000 just goes into the general fund, and that could set staff time, depending on how much effort we want to spend on the code enforcement.

Okay. Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

And just a note, something to add on. Sausalito has banned them, and at least the prior town manager there several years back, Adam Pulitzer, said they were paying $150,000 a year to enforce. So they weren't just doing complaint-based. And it was quite expensive, and I don't know how effective it was, but that's what they were doing. So it can be really expensive to ban. And then try to enforce and even to enforce just a little bit. So great work. I think you also, in the staff report, you talked about Airbnb as something like 80% of ours or more.

It's like 90%. Yeah. It's almost all. Yeah.

So that's great. We'll let you continue with your presentation.

Yeah. Hopefully they don't all switch to VRBO. So anyway, so we have a strategy, we think, for code enforcement, which we think is manageable with our limited staff or no staff, as it were. But anyway, the Fairfax has two kind of prolific short-term rental hosts that have not registered. And so this chart on this page shows these top two hosts. In terms of revenue. And then there's another three that have registered. So, and these are just to use their neutral names on that come up on the on the public site because we don't want to, you know, we're not trying to out anybody using private information. But Maggie and Paul, we think just those two hosts alone will likely bring in $28,000 in hotel users tax annually. Maggie, I think, is almost exclusively on VRBO, so we wouldn't currently get that through our agreement, but Paul is on Airbnb. Okay. But we do think that we should pursue these two for code enforcement because they have both been sent three letters and have essentially ignored the town. And we also, I requested from Rentalscape, they also offer another feature where they can go back and make an estimate of how much hotel users tax would have been due over the past or is due based on rentals over the past several years. And so we can get those estimates and then we can present that to them as evidence and request past due hotel users tax for the past, when we started the program in May of 2024, I believe. So we can go back and collect that user's tax.

And do we know that these egregious examples that they are within policy, I mean, do they live on site or are they?

I'm pretty sure they live on site, yeah. Okay. Yeah, we wouldn't know that for sure until they actually tried to register and then we request ownership information and that type of thing. Yeah. Okay. So anyway, so the anticipated code enforcement would be determination of full hotel past due amounts. So I'm getting that from the Rentalscape Deckard platform. Then we would issue citations with the request for the full hotel users tax payment. And then we would just go through with continuous follow-up until resolved. And I think that it can be quite a bit of effort just to do these two hosts. So this is an example of one of the listings where you can see they're renting it out for $927 a night on Airbnb. So also just a thing to point out that was a recently Senate bill. which isn't currently on our list, our to-do list, but we could add it at some point. It's Senate Bill 346. And what it requires is it authorizes local governments to obtain host and property data to bolster enforcement from the listing platforms. Now, it's not automatic. It requires ordinance amendments. And speaking of Sausalito, they did do this recently. So they adopted an ordinance earlier this year. They ban short-term rentals, but they do require the remittance of TOT because even if you're operating illegally, you still have to pay the tax. And it also authorizes additional fines for noncompliance that are above and beyond their typical code enforcement fines. and it requires the disclosure of addresses upon request. So anyway, just Fairfax could adopt a similar ordinance in the future. So our next steps, and this is where we'd appreciate any input from the town council just to make sure we're going in the right direction. We will find that contact VRBO, And try to get an agreement similar to the one we have with Airbnb in place. We plan to initiate the code enforcement actions for those at least those two unregistered units and seeing how that goes. We might pursue additional unregistered units. And then we will work with the previously registered hosts to have them re-register. We think that a part of that is just a misunderstanding that they're required to sign up every year, not just do it once. So anyway, that's my presentation. I'm available for questions.

Okay, let's do questions only, and then we'll open public comment.

Go ahead, Council Member Blash. Okay, so I just wanted to make sure that even if they are not registered, and even if they don't register, if they're going through Airbnb, they're still going to be remitting a tax because Airbnb will get it from them and give it to us, right? So that's good. Yep. And then the other question I have is maybe, I know these are the next steps, but are there any cons to us adopting an ordinance per AB or SB 346?

No, I don't see any cons. I don't know if the town attorney has a different opinion, but I think it would be a plus because it would give you the option of doing it, of requesting the information if you needed it.

And sorry, go ahead. I'm sorry.

That's okay. There are no cons to doing it. Gaining compliance from the sites has been reported to be difficult by some other cities.

Okay, so maybe something to look into later. I just wanted to check on that. Thank you. Go ahead.

Yeah, I think we've kind of communicated a little bit about this, but where people have lapsed registrations, I think the system is sending them reminder letters, correct?

Correct, yeah.

Okay, so they've gotten three reminder letters?

No, the labs registration, they just get one reminder just kind of around the beginning of the year to remind them that they're supposed to re-register. The three letters come to new short-term rentals that are discovered, asking them to register in the first place.

Okay, so just one thing to think about is sending a different letter, which basically says, if you don't register, we're going to charge you the TOT or the hotel users tax, and we'll send it to a collection agency to get it. Is that something? Did we ever enter into agreement with the collection agencies for some of our things?

Yeah, we're pursuing that right now.

Yeah, I just think, you know, at some point, even though they take maybe a half or a third, it's something. And I think it also sends a message that we're serious, you know. So I think the lapse registrations, we definitely need to send more. I mean, I remember when we were working with the previous group, I know you guys are working with Deckard, which has this rental scape. But there were like step up letters that that group had. Obviously, that group went away. But just think about, you know, a step up letter that's a little more aggressive might be a good way to go. But I realize staffing is limited. And I want to thank Bryn for tracking down the right person for Airbnb. And I know you said VRBO is ghosting you. So maybe we can get Bryn the detective to find the right person there too. And thank Kara Spencer for all her work on short-term rentals before she left. Great. Go ahead.

Put your microphone.

Yeah. You may not be surprised by this, but I do not agree with this program. The people who are doing short-term rentals in some cases anyway, we'll put it this way. Property's never been more expensive. They're trying to offset their cost. It used to be people swapped homes sometimes. Oh, I'm going to go vacation over there. My home is open. People come in either way. Is there a need for short-term rentals? occupancy in Fairfax? We have one in. Is there a need for it? I would imagine there is. And I just wonder when is enough enough? People are paying outrageous property taxes. They need to offset the cost of their homes. And this is a little bit of an income stream. I'm not saying it to you actually i'm saying it to this council actually and i just think that you know we're worried about camera surveillance in this town that we took it off the agenda and i agree i don't want camera surveillance but i'm really this is intrusive to people's what i believe is their right to be able to do things and it's just too much it's too much and um And like you said, you know, you're barely breaking even on the job. Sausalito, which, by the way, restaurants are closing in Sausalito. Restaurants are closing throughout Marin. We need people to visit this place. We need people to go down to our merchants and support them. And so I feel like we're tax. It's like double taxation. You pay property taxes. Can you leave these poor people alone already? That's my stand on that. Thank you.

Thanks, Mike. Okay, we're going to open public comment. Yes, right now you can form a line. It looks like there's a few of you.

Todd Greenberg. I have some questions that I'd like this council to have the finance director and the planning director answer before you make a decision on this. Can you hear me?

Very loud, yes.

Okay, well, it didn't seem loud before. I'm asking for a sound check, please. All right, so how can one possibly make a decision when there's no costs outlined in this? I see software costs, staff costs being talked about, enforcement costs, and left out of the equation is legal costs. Councilwoman Kohler has just recommended sending... resident homeowners to collection agencies because of some perceived alleged tangential amount that is owed. Their credit's going to be ruined. There's going to be lawsuits about this. Do you have any concept before you make a decision how much costs are involved in this and what kind of liability you're creating for the town? versus how much revenue is actually going to be achieved? Have you ever thought about a way to make it a win-win rather than a penalty, penalty, let's spend some more money? Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker. Yeah, the little button on the base of the mic. There you go. Thank you. Hi.

Good evening. My name is Helen Marley, and I'm not here to discuss the ins and outs of how you want to handle short-term rentals. My concern is that if they're mitigating circumstances where a property should not be considered eligible to be Airbnb, there's nothing in your contract proposals that tell us how do we go about addressing that. And we are facing that condition right now. I live on a private road. There are eight houses on the road. We are responsible for the paving of the road. Of the eight houses, seven have off street parking. One house has street parking. But when we go through the purchase of houses on this road, we are all advised that there will be no more houses built on the road because one, it is a dead end street and two, the street is too small for fire departments to support additional houses, emergency vehicles, medical, everything else. So my concern is as you're drawing these regulations up, that something that we're facing now, we have no way to address our concerns because it's not covered in any of the regulations. of the statues that we can see at this point. When we do the paving, which we pay for, the number of cars, the distance from Bolinas Road, how many trips you make, all of those things are considered in developing costs for each house, and everybody has accepted that. So my biggest concern is the fire danger and any type of mandatory evacuations. There is no parking on that road. The one house is the one that's up with Airbnb, has two additional street parkings, but nobody else. The road is too narrow, so people don't park on that side of the road or either side of the road. So in developing your... regulations and your concerns and whether you should have airbnb or not airbnb but if you do have it there should be some clause or something in there that the house or the property is suitable for renting in terms of fire dangers uh... just in terms of safety without having that people like us on a very small street locked in, we can do nothing about that. So I just wanted to bring that to your attention as you are looking at how to do this, that that part, at least in some way, that if somebody has very specific concerns about a property, that they can come to you and say, these are my concerns and you can work your way through to see whether they're legitimate concerns or not.

Thank you for the feedback.

Okay. Thank you.

Next speaker.

Thank you. I think the woman before me had some very good points. I hope the council will take into consideration. And as to what Michael said, I also think those are some points that should be taken in consideration. I hope the town will look at this, that the TOT, it would be unfair if the town did not collect it. And that doesn't mean penalize and pay the attorney five times what you're going to collect. But I think it'd be unfair if somebody is using a piece of property and not paying the TOT to the town. But to Michael's point, if somebody is renting out a room in their home, trust me, that's not because they just want to have smaller space. It means that they really need the funds. They don't have the ability to maintain that house, either short-term, long-term. So they have looked at an alternative source of income so that they can protect their house. So I do agree that it would be... really crushing to come down on some of our homeowners that are renting out a room out of necessity and now here's another impact and the impacts don't come with just the tot amount they also come with all the paperwork and the filings and all those things so if the town restricted this to people that have bought another building to rent out I have buildings. I think that's more than fair. If they restrict this to somebody who's moved away and left their house behind, that's not unfair. But to somebody that's renting a room in their house or something so that they can survive and keep their house, this is draconian. This is out of place. And it's certainly not Fairfax. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Hi, my name is Kevin Day. I'm one of the neighbors with Helen. Can you hear me? Okay, thanks. So I understand the intent to keep Fairfax affordable, and I understand the short-term rentals are here to stay. They're proliferated everywhere. Glad Sausalito did something. But I think the issue that we are here to address is one of unintended consequences of the legislation as it currently stands. We appreciate that you have identified the cost-benefit ratio for short-term rentals that makes sense for the town financially on the wear and tear of the roads as well as other infrastructure. I'm not here to debate that at all. I think that in this case, we're asking to be addressed is the private street issue that Helen was talking about. Our street is now being used for commercial hotel business without our consent. We pay for our own street maintenance. The town doesn't pay for it. We pay for it. And we pay for the repaving. We pay for the signs. We put up lights ourselves. We have a good community. This is tearing us apart by having this rental on our street, short-term rental. When the only access to a property is through a private road, we think there should be legislation that excludes that or at least requires the consent of those that are maintaining the road. We ask that the town council tighten up the legislation around that, if nothing else. Thank you.

Thank you. Hi, Mallory Guytheim, Willow Avenue. I agree that people who are just trying to enhance so they can live here to give people either an AD, allow people with an ADU or to live in their house I don't think they should be punished for that. They're having enough difficulty staying here. I think people whose businesses are to rent Airbnbs only, not in their own homes, should be charged for that. But I think you have to discriminate between people who are living here, who need... who need to do this, and people who are doing it because they want extra income, because they don't really have to afford it. Because it's just not fair for people who have been able to live here because they rented an ADU or part of their home, and they should not have any consequences for that. Thank you.

I'm Karen Wilson, and I've lived in Fairfax now over 30 years, just haven't seen me around. I think a lot has been said up here. One thing that is of concern to me is that right away staff and understandably that it's your job has gone about how to make it work. But I feel like we're not dealing with all the people who don't want it to work at all. And that it's kind of skipping ahead. And I just wonder how the council and staff will address this. So everyone gets a fair shot at their, what they want to say. And another issue is, um, our safety on our road. This may sound, this is a bizarre thing. I was gone for five days. I came home, someone dug up my wisteria plant. Now I'm in no way saying that that was from the renters next door, but I'm just saying it's just one more issue to worry about all these people we don't know on our road. And I appreciate all of your hard work and thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, it's on.

Hi, my name is Rochelle Gravedore. I also live on the same private road as seven of us here. And I just want to say my husband and I moved from San Francisco. And, you know, we love the community here. All the neighbors get along. And, again, just want to read the issue is that it's a private road. It's very small. Security is an issue here. you know, getting in and out of the, our own driveways is an issue. Now we have to worry about strangers. You know, we kind of, we look out for each other, like, Hey, do you know who this is? And now we don't, we won't be able to do that. You know, Fairfax is an awesome community and, Again, we all look out for each other. But the road that we live on is very small. Liability, road maintenance, egress. We won't be able to get out if there's a fire or an emergency. There's literally one way to get in and out of this road. And these people did not talk to us at all about it. And it's concerning because they're constantly strangers and Just the road maintenance and buyer danger. And that's just what we and what they said. So thank you for your time.

Thank you. Could you turn off the microphone, please? Just push the button. Thank you so much. Are there any hands raised?

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

Hey, thank you. I'm speaking just as an individual on my own. On behalf, this is clearly so far been a policy failure. I truly don't understand the logic or the policy belief behind people opposed to enforcing this, where they just sort of invent a special treatment for this kind of business. If I owned a restaurant in town and lived above it, would I not have to pay taxes that my restaurant business generates? If it was money I needed to stay in my home, I'd be forced out. If I just started operating any business out of my home, other than a short-term rental, would... Do I be exempt from business license fees and sales tax fees if I'm selling anything? The answer is obviously no. There's no sound, coherent reason to exempt short-term rentals. And in fact, there's plenty of reasons for the opposite and the impact on rentals. Neighborhoods like you've heard from a bunch of people in person this evening, the impacts on the cost of housing for everybody else and the wear and tear on the town's utilities. We definitely should be more aggressive in enforcing this. And I question whether or not the town can simply start putting special assessment liens, you know, if you need to amend the ordinance to come up with a statutory fee or something for non-compliance that you can apply as a special assessments lien, I think that would also get compliance to increase drastically.

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

Thank you, Christine. Deborah Benson, Cascade Drive. I am of the mind of the lady who spoke a couple of people ago. I am pretty much anti-Airbnb. I think that we are being robbed of our affordable housing. New York City has pretty much stopped short-term rentals. There are towns in Europe whose entire neighborhoods are being taken over by tourist renting an Airbnb. The longtime locals are not able to be in those neighborhoods anymore. And the people who are living on the private road, that's just a microcosm of our whole town. Lack of security, fire danger. I would like to see some ordinance that really restricts Airbnbs and people still allow some window for people who need a roommate, maybe make it a 30-day rental, a two-week rental minimum to allow these people who really need some extra income. But I would like to have the people who really are against having Airbnbs have a voice in this. Thank you. That's all.

Thank you.

There are no more speakers on Zoom. Okay.

uh do i see someone in the room who wishes to speak go ahead you press the gray button um i think been a lot of good arguments here and uh i'm very sensitive the idea that people are somewhat sometimes struggling to make their ends meet and that's what they're seeing as a way to make some money but i think that and you obviously presented some very compelling numbers that the city is going to Potentially make money from this, but I think there's a lot of hidden costs that we're not accounting for. And I'm sure you've done your due diligence and whatnot, but there's always hidden costs. So you don't have enough staff to make this work currently. So you need to hire more people. Obviously, that's going to increase your costs. You're going to have to have new software, increase your costs, and who knows what other things are going to come up. So I think the net benefit to the city is. arguably zero and maybe harmful because I think it takes away from what's really special about this town. There are many towns that have done away with Airbnbs and I think there's good reason for that. And honestly, I don't think it fits in this town. It certainly doesn't fit along with this mandate of the city that we have to provide extra low income housing for people. So now we're going to be renting out these homes. And so how does that impact The short term, the long term rentals of the low income housing that you need to provide. So honestly, I think you need to rethink this decision. I think it's very poorly thought out. And I think you've put the cart before the horse and really shameful. So I'm sorry to say that, but I think it's shameful.

All right. Closing public comment. And it looks like Council Member Kohler has a comment.

Yeah, I want to say this started several years ago, and that was because a woman came to council meeting wanting to do a short-term rental and could not do it under our existing code. And it was really so she could stay in her home. And so at that time, I worked with Michelle Gardner, who was our town clerk, to develop the first ordinance and also work with a previous company with the software that I think was charging us about $15,000 a year. And we developed the first ordinance. And one of the things we were very concerned about was the balance between people renting out parts of their homes for long-term rentals. We didn't want to lose that. But there are people who don't want to do that. And for them, it's more convenient to do the short-term rentals. So that's one of the reasons why we did not allow someone who doesn't live here to buy houses or buy apartments and rent them out. Jeff came in a few years later, and we also saw that it was too rigorous what we'd done, and there were areas of town where you couldn't do it. So we made a change, and I'm not sure if Frank and Mike were on the council at that time, but we made a change to make it less rigorous. I would say... You mean less restrictive? Less restrictive, because there were areas in town that were completely blocked out. And we wanted to allow people, as we know, it's expensive to live, to have that option. But also... to ask somebody to pay the hotel user's tax, that's tacked onto the price that somebody pays. It's not coming out of the person who's renting the short-term rentals hide, as we say. They add that to it. And there's plenty of short-term rentals in Fairfax. There's plenty of short-term rentals in Sausalito where they banned them and other places where they banned them. There's plenty of them. And so what we've done is come up with a low-cost way to do this. And one of the things I think Vice Mayor Egger has been pushing for is to have an agreement, because the law changed, and now these companies are supposed to enter into agreements with jurisdictions. So 90% of our short-term rentals are Airbnbs. And I completely disagree with Council Member Ghirangali. This is not pushing people out of their homes. It's allowing those people who want to rent a room to do so or to rent a little house in the backyard. So it's given us the ability to do that. I don't think there are incredible staff costs. We're not planning on hiring a bunch of staff to deal with this program. But we want to provide something reasonable. And I also think for the folks who live on a private road, if there are, you know, one of the things we wanted to avoid was the party house kind of idea. And that's why we put a lot of limits on what we did. So we're not redoing the regulations today. We're just looking at an option of collecting the hotel users tax from those folks who haven't been paying. And so I would say if there are people in your neighborhood that are doing Airbnb or one of the other short-term rental platforms and they're creating potentially party houses or garbage or that, please call in and, you know, let us know. We have a code enforcement page and you can do that. But if that's not the issue and it's more about the private road, I think we can actually look at that and say, is there some way we can accommodate in the future, not tonight, some sort of thing where you have to get approval of your neighbors for a very small private maintained road. But that's not what we're doing tonight. So we appreciate your feedback. And so I would just say, I think this is a good step. It's also a low-cost step. I also like the... the idea of we have a couple of people who appear to be quite egregious, rather than trying to do code enforcement, which usually doesn't involve our legal counsel, it's usually code enforcement, it's a different kind of approach, is to really look at those two who have made quite a lot of money and have not paid. So I think that's a good approach to get the message out there. And if we are successful, then I think we highlight that. So we don't have scoff laws out there. We're trying to help people stay in their houses, have people have the flexibility to, if they don't want to do a long-term rental, to use this option. But we don't want our town turned into party house town, which has happened in some areas. There are some areas where there are vacant homes and they're just being used for Airbnb. That was what we precluded. So it's not perfect, but it's a way to help people as well as, okay, stop already. And so I want to say I'm the one who brought this years ago. We've amended it, tried to make it even better. And there's always improvements that we can make. Mike, would you like to speak?

I just wanted to say, first of all, I did appreciate the learning about the safety issue, something that I did not consider because I haven't heard of it. So first time I heard of it and that is always a concern. I think isolated issues like that should be, I hope they're isolated or else I think I would have heard about it before this. So that's something to think about. I think that's much different than taxing situation. Yeah. But for those who may not know too much about Fairfax, the town was literally built for visitors. 5,000 people a weekend would come into Fairfax, jump on the ferry in San Francisco, hop on a train in Sausalito, come into Fairfax. We call it the station right there, right across from Fred Lizio's in that area. And they would go to places like the Brintown Country Club. But every single – all those – that's why there's so many kind of weird small homes up in these hills. And they were filled with people who had summer homes or they were visiting and they were renting them out and stuff like that. Even Deer Park Villa was a lodge when it first opened up in 1916. And so – You know, growing up in that environment, I'm just telling you that I don't like all these regulations. I do think we can address safety issues separately. So I still stand where I stand. But that's all. So thank you. Thank you. I have comments.

Thank you. I have comments, but I'm going to wait till the end. Anything?

Sure. Thank you, Mayor. As Mike says, Fairfax has been always known as a resort, a recreational resort. musical town, and it's attracted vacationers forever. VRBO, that's Vacation Rentals by Owner, has been a major provider of short-term rentals at Fairfax. Folks in town, a lot of them, not a lot of them, but I know some of them that will rent out their home to a short-term rental to someone for a fairly decent price, and they take care of their animals when they're on vacation. So they got a couple of dogs or a couple of cats, and they're leaving for two weeks. They'll rent their house and have someone come in at a reduced price, and they take care of their animals while they're gone. And then there's the issue of boarding house versus short-term rentals. For years, there were boarding houses in Fairfax. I'm not sure how many we have today, but back in the day, 30s and 40s, there were a lot of boarding houses at Fairfax. So, you know, there's the issue of are we losing affordable housing to short-term rentals? That's something we really haven't even discussed at all. But I know up in Sonoma County, I'm in the Russia River area a lot with my day job, and... There's folks that have short term rentals and the county of Sonoma actually prohibits short term rentals in certain areas. And they find folks that, you know, five to seven thousand dollars for for doing a short term rental where Sonoma County doesn't allow it. So, boy, there's all kinds of issues here that different communities are dealing with. under the short-term rental issue. Now, the First District Court of Appeal has a decision that says if a city asks any short-term rental provider for who in their community is running short-term rental through their system and how much they're paying in rent and what fees there are, By law, they have to tell the city, yes, we have X amount. They have to give them the address, tell how much they rent for, and how much they've taken in. That's a first district court of appeal decision. So the courts have backed up cities and towns that are really concerned about the loss of affordable housing. it's a, but many cities charge 14% for a transit occupancy tax. Fairfax here, we charge 10%. It's, it's, it's a, it's, it's, it's quite a bit less than 14, but anyway, the somehow I can't remember if the 10% went on a ballot or, or it was a two thirds vote of the council or whatever. They said a 10% number on, on, on short term on transit occupancy. Um, And maybe someplace in our records, we can find out what that was.

I think Heather can tell you.

So to set the rate of attacks, you need a vote of the people. So we would if the council wants to put that on the ballot, we could do that at the next opportunity.

Right. I mean, the only way it can be raised if the town wanted to raise it from 10 to 14 percent is to put it on the ballot and let voters in Fairfax make that decision. So it's you know, we say there's 15 registered voters. There's probably close to 200 short-term rentals in town. We're not too aggressive in trying to find out where they are, I guess, but there's quite a few. Anyway, I'm not sure where this whole thing is going, but I know we are losing some affordable housing to short-term rentals.

Thank you, Frank. Go ahead, Lisa. OK. So let's see. I was just going to note that West Marin charges 14%, I believe, in TOT. And 4% of that is West Marin specific. And I think it goes specifically to affordable housing. So that's one option that a community has tried. one thing that I, you know, people are talking about how Fairfax has this history of being a resort town. We don't really have the facilities to provide that sort of resort experience anymore, for better or for worse. So I think, you know, I understand Council Member Kohler talking about how we're trying to achieve a balance because we don't, Part of the reason West Marin has had difficulty is because they feel like their community is being hollowed out by all of their smaller rentals being taken over by short-term rentals. So we're trying to reach this balance between some people saying that they can only stay in their homes if they rent out a small unit and other people saying they're not even able to have a home because everybody's renting out this smaller unit. So we're looking for sort of a balance in there. You know, sometimes Airbnb can be great if you have friends and family coming to stay and you live in a tiny house like many of us do in Fairfax, and you've got to have somewhere to put them, and we have this one little tiny inn in Fairfax. So I can see people arguing both ways. I don't think there's anything egregious about asking people to pay a 10% tax. That's great that we're pursuing options to actually collect that tax. I'm curious on how many times... Airbnb started out as something where you rented a room and a house. I don't even know if they do that very much anymore. I mean, it does happen a little bit. I've seen it when I looked for Airbnbs. But I did want to put out there that this doesn't preclude people from long-term shared housing situations. It only precludes people from using Airbnb and other types of platforms like that from the short-term 925 a night type of deals. And... I wanted to just note that there are programs in Marin like Covia Front Porch that help people, especially elderly folks who have extra rooms in their house, rent out rooms long term so that it can help them stay in their homes. So I don't think we're precluding people from staying in their homes by preventing them from renting out a room in their house. We're looking at a particular type of rental. So I'm not really concerned about that. So I just wanted to say that and I'm really happy that we are pursuing different ways of recouping that rather than having our staff run around and make themselves crazy trying to get people to comply.

Thank you. Okay, Jeff, I know you're looking for some direction. So I'm going to try to, you know, corral us into giving you that. But before I do, I just wanted to share my thoughts. So appreciate Councilmember Kohler's, you know, kind of offering the backstory on this policy. I was on the council when we, you know, modified and expanded it. And at that time, I recognized it as a pilot, you know, like we were kind of venturing into this, you know, more deeply. And there was a stated concern at the time around, is this going to cannibalize our affordable housing, you know, inventory? And to Vice Mayor Egger's point, like, I don't I don't know that we know that and I don't know how we would determine that. I really appreciate you coming today and sharing your feedback with us. It's really important and surely you're not alone. I recall a resident on Porteous coming forth two or three times to the town saying, Desperately wanting to register and they couldn't because I can't remember the reason why. But, you know, I was very sympathetic of them wanting to comply, wanting to and they couldn't. And I do think for the reasons that we've heard this evening, we should consider making some changes. And we can do that through forming a subcommittee or asking you to do some research about what's happening with our neighbors, with other counties. You know, I don't know that we really it sounds like things are changing. So I'm happy to hear from my colleagues as far as the notion of a subcommittee. But I do think that we should explore making some adjustments. um and then as far as what you sought this evening um absolutely in favor of you pursuing that additional contract and um i do think that the cost benefit is there and there's absolutely no need to hire staff um to do that at this point in time so thank you for your good work i'm glad we didn't rush through this on consent and that we had an opportunity to talk about this but um I would like to hear from anybody as far as how we might approach making some policy change considerations.

Well, Mayor, for me, you know, Fairfax has always been, I mentioned it earlier, and Mike has mentioned a resort town. In fact, Joe DiMaggio bought Marilyn Monroe. a home up in Fairfax back in the day. I think it was in the early 50s. And they were here, I think, for four or five years. And then I didn't know the person who bought it afterwards.

Okay.

Anyway, I'd like to see us try to find out just how many we actually have. I think we could have, if we have staff available to get a list of short-term rental providers and send them, have their town attorney sign a letter, you know, the town attorney can draft one letter, go to all of them saying, you know, that we're dealing with the issue. We're trying to be fair to everyone, but we need to know where they all are. And we need, you know, there must be at least a dozen short-term rental providers online. And if we send them all a letter saying, hey, we've got to find out how many we have and where they are.

Right, but we know that Airbnb and... VRBO are the biggest. They capture, what, over 80% of the market. Is that right?

He said 90% for Airbnb.

So I don't know that I'm in favor because there's so many things that staff aren't able to get to today that we've already set as a priority. So I don't know that I would be in favor of that. Even though it's a good idea, I just think we... I'm concerned about the current policy and how we might relax it or tighten it in certain areas. And if no one else thinks it's a good idea, then just... Well, I just have a question.

about what exactly it is that you're saying needs to be changed and worked on that a committee would form around. I can imagine there could be things, but I'm not sure if you had a particular idea that something's coming up tonight for you that makes you feel like we need to work on exploring it.

The safety and the private road issue. And I don't remember, Jeff, what that other issue was on Porteous. Do you recall what that matter was?

I think this was the woman who kept coming, who wanted... At one time, you couldn't do a short-term rental in our code, and she wanted to rent out a room in her house so she could help stay in her house. I would just say, just to answer the other question, one of the reasons why we have this agreement with this company, Deckard, and before that, the prior company... is because they know how many we have. They can look. They're able to do that. So I don't think there's a big question about how many there are. I think at this point, we ought to take that back, look at the policy. I don't think this is a subcommittee thing, in my opinion, for the council, and I think Just take that back and look at that, how many private roads we have. Are they small roads, et cetera? I know we have some private roads where people aren't doing what these folks are doing. They're not paving their roads. They're not doing the kinds of things that you've spoken to. But I think we ought to just have staff take that back and just look at that. Is that one issue? I mean, we just worked on this policy not too many months ago.

And just a final thing that I would be curious about if we brought back information in some way is, do we have information on the nature of the different rentals? Like how many of them are ADUs? How many of them are room and house? How many of them are somebody's house? I'm just curious how many people feel are needing to rent a room and house versus other types of rentals.

Is that data available in the reporting? Like type of rental?

uh you'd have to kind of dig through each description and kind of arrive it out of the comments if it's not if it's that kind of thing i'm not asking for i just thought maybe if you had an easy way to tabulate like what kinds of rentals we're looking at so i'm not going to push on that but i'm just curious okay jeff do you have what you need uh yes proceed okay thank you for your time and energy on this um

I'm sorry, it's not an exchange, but you're welcome to write to the council and we will respond. At least I believe I will.

I know my colleagues will too.

Moving on to item four. We are receiving an informational report on the results of the town of Fairfax facilities condition assessment, FCA. This has been pending for some time. And I know we have Kristen Arnold, our director of public works here. Thank you, Kristen. Good evening.

So in the summer of 2025, the town entered into an agreement with Bureau of Viritis to provide facility condition assessment reports. Bureau of Viritis is an architecture and engineering firm and has over 30 years of experience performing condition assessments and has completed assessments for numerous California municipalities, including the cities of Mill Valley, Sausalito, Menlo Park, and others. The purpose of the facility condition assessment was to evaluate the current physical condition of the town's facilities, identify deferred maintenance and capital needs, calculate a facility condition index for each building, and establish a data-driven foundation for future capital planning. Bureau Varitis conducted on-site assessments of all town facilities in September 2025, and final reports were delivered between October and January. This is just a first step and a first look into our facilities as a whole. The reports are not perfect. Some budget costs will be underestimated and some might be over. But it's a really helpful tool to help us prioritize and grasp an overall picture of what the town's facilities need over the next year, over the next five years and over the next 20 years. The assessments can really be summed up as this is where we are now and how we begin planning for next steps. Bureau of Varietas provided the town with three years of access to an asset calcs database. All the information and the 20 years of work items that are a result of the assessments were logged into a database so we can update costs, mark items as complete, run reports based on updates. It's a helpful asset management tool for tracking work and developing work plans. Sorry, it's a little fuzzy, but it's just. a picture of the database. The assessments included facility condition index calculations for each facility. The FCI is the industry standard metric used to assess the relative condition of a facility. A lower FCI indicates a better maintained facility, and the FCI is most useful as a comparative tool across a portfolio of facilities, helping prioritize where capital investment is most urgently needed. The table above shows the current fci and it also shows what happens if the immediate needs aren't addressed in the next few years. This gave us gives us a glimpse of how, in a few years, we could be looking at a significantly worse situation if we don't start prioritizing larger facility repairs. as i get into the immediate needs i just want to add that just because a building is in good condition doesn't mean that it doesn't have critical immediate needs and so with that i'm going to briefly run through the immediate needs for each facility the little league facility needs has about $12,000 in immediate needs. It is in good condition, but it does have some damaged siding and doors that are warping and deteriorating. The fire station needs about $100,000 worth of immediate needs, and that's to work on a leaking roof. And then the HVAC system is also at the end of its life, but it is still functioning. Town Hall also needs about $100,000 in work. The roof is the most critical aspect that needs to be worked on. It has leaked in the last year and continues to leak through the summer because of the water that's sort of built up in the membrane of the roof. It also needs an engineering report for the structure that's in the creek underneath Town Hall and then along with a new HVAC system and some structural repairs for the window eaves.

So I'm sorry to interrupt you. I just have a question. So going back to the fire station and also town hall, it's my understanding that Bridget got a grant for $100,000 to replace the HVAC in the fire station as well as town hall, no?

At least as far as I know, it's just like town hall in the police department. OK, town hall and police department.

OK. Yeah. So but then the roof on the fire station, are we fixing that as part of all this work? No.

To put it simply, it has gotten complicated, and it's something that we are working through on the project right now.

Okay. I mean, as you go through this, I mean, maybe you have a slide that talks about all the updates, but where something is going to happen, it might be good just to mention that.

Okay.

Thank you.

And then, so going forward, could you help me? So when the analysts or the engineers who do the study... what do, so I'm, I'm confused about the recommendation for an engineering report. So, so what, what prompts that recommendation?

Are they seeing something or so like, yes, let Kristen speak. Thank you. So, um, An architect that works at Bureau Varitis came to the town and was on site for three or four days. And in that three or four days, he visually inspected all of our facilities, including Including this area under the creek and so based on what he saw he Recommended because there is some deteriorating wood under there and it's clear that some movement has happened that an engineer needs to look at it and provide a full report on the Condition okay and to provide recommendations on how to address Okay, thank you okay so the women's club is in fair condition um the windows do need to either be restored or replaced um there's also some weathered siding and there is a staircase out back that is very deteriorated The corporation yard needs about $80,000 worth of work. The biggest item is the electrical system. The panel is original to the building, and it's due for replacement along with the wiring and the switches throughout the building. The HVAC units are also quite old and we can't have the upstairs AC on the same time as the downstairs. So those are due for replacement. There's also some failing retaining walls. The parking lot needs to be repaved and restriped. The flooring is due for replacement. Yeah. What is the flooring carpet? It's a mix of carpet and like concrete.

And what is that picture at the bottom there? What is that?

That's a retaining wall at the back corner of the building that is failing.

Okay.

Thank you. The community center needs about $150,000 worth of work. It was rated as poor condition. There's a retaining wall that's along the creek at the back of the building that needs further evaluation and replacement. The roof... At the time of this assessment did have more issues, but we have made the maintenance crews made repairs to this roof. So I do think it's in much better shape now. Um, and I don't think it will leak this winter. And then the ramp in front is deteriorating. It has had some work because it's now the temporary living quarters. We also addressed the fire alarm system through like the fire station remodel project. And we also have a grant to replace the drinking fountain that's on the playground side of this building. So I just, yeah, have to do the work to get the new drink. Well, it's actually, I'm sorry, it's not a drinking fountain, it's a bottle fill station. The pavilion is... is the most critical building. The roof has leaked excessively for years. We've tried to make repairs, but with the solar on there, the repairs won't, or they aren't holding, and roofers will no longer give us any kind of warranty on any repairs to the pavilion roof. um the windows are also deteriorating and then there's localized repairs that need to be made to holes in the floor we have made some stair replacements especially in the front of the pavilion where they were getting pretty weak and had gaps in them but there's exterior siding The fire alarm system is now working, but it is still due for an upgrade. And then there's just some plumbing and HVAC, just some.

And doesn't that building also totally need a new foundation and other major...

That wasn't one of the immediate needs, but it is listed as a work item for future years. So to kind of look at our portfolio as a whole, I thought it was kind of helpful to break out the pavilion just because of the high cost to work on it. And then I also took the kind of the estimated needs over the next 20 years and divided that by 20 years so we could kind of see like the ideal cost that we would be spending on maintaining the facilities each year. And so for all of the facilities, that's around 610,000, but it felt skewed because of the condition the pavilion's in. So for most of our facilities, we'd be looking at like 324,000.

So can I just ask, I mean, I think mathematically that makes a lot of sense, but I think given the condition of the pavilion, I'm not sure that you can do things piecemeal at the pavilion because there's so much problems with it that the mathematical scheme is, Looks a little promising, but I think once you get into something, you've got to replace a bunch of other stuff. I mean, I think that building is, as they said, they didn't say this word. It's a mess. And it looks like we need a significant expenditure of funds because I just don't think we can do piecemeal. Do you think that?

It depends on exactly what we're doing. I do think we can replace the roof as a standalone project. But if you start getting into replacing the windows, it could become... Well, if you're replacing the windows, can you really do that without touching the siding? So there's definitely some overlap. I do think we could do some work on the floor to... eliminate the holes um but it sort of becomes the question if we're not keeping water out of the building then does it make sense to fix the floor um but there is a fair amount of it that would make a lot of sense to do in conjunction with the pavilion can i answer the question on the um pavilion the um

Most of the work is the windows? No?

For the immediate needs, yes. And I have...

So it says here, I thought I read it, the immediate need, $1.8 million of the 2.3 were the windows. So what I said was correct. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, I've seen those windows. What are they? They're leaking, I guess. What's going on with them? Why do they need to be restored at the price of $1.17 windows at $1.8 million? I can't fathom that myself.

And that is something that I have questions about as well. Um, and kind of something that comes back to like the reports aren't perfect. Um, because it's sort of when we're looking at restoring windows for that cost, it does become a question of, does it make sense to restore them or should we replace them?

Um, but the analysis like still needs to be done on the price of these windows that came from the, um, The guy's doing the study?

Yes, it did. Are they custom size? Could that be a driver? They might be. They're also kind of historical, like wood frame windows. So if we replace them with new windows, that definitely changes the look of the building.

Yeah, I don't necessarily believe this study because that number alone doesn't make sense to me. So once you start seeing one thing wrong with something, it could mean the whole thing's bogus.

From what I've seen from our... I mean, I have physically seen... All of the roofs leaking. So I know that the report saying that our roofs need to be replaced is not bogus.

I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is the cost of what it takes to do something. And you even question the windows.

Yeah. And I mean, they, you know.

Okay. That's all I'm saying.

Yeah.

You're only as good as the information they give you. And I wouldn't trust that information. Yeah. I'll see if the roof's leaking. We didn't need a...

Kristen, you don't have to defend the numbers. They're not your numbers. You don't have to defend them, so don't. Go ahead, Heather.

Anyway, yes, we didn't need a study to tell us the roof leak, did we?

We absolutely know that the roof leaks. And so the point of this presentation, just to take a step back, is really we as an organization, as a town, need to plan and prioritize because we don't have enough money to fix all of the things. But I hate to say it, but we just heard Kristen say there are holes in the floor, there's leaking roofs in every building. We want to fix these for the town and keep those community assets available to residents forever and ever. And so the way that we do that is by first understanding really what we're up against. So, um, what are the repair needs? How do we, um, prioritize them? And then Kristen has, um, really even taken it a step further tonight by saying, um, you know, here are some ways that she envisions, um, addressing some of these needs over time. And I want to I'm hoping that we can together work together to focus on what do we, um, need to do? What do we want to do first? And, um, how do we keep these buildings serving the community forever and ever? And, um, I think it's undeniable that the, the pavilion is our largest facility. It's 9,000 square feet. Um, and, uh, It is also going to be the most costly, whether you're identifying the windows or the foundation or the roof. Right now we're in a situation where the pavilion leaks. You can see daylight through the walls. There are holes in the floor is what we heard. And the DPW crew just before the festival repaired the front steps so that no one would fall down. They rebuilt them entirely, right? Yes. Amazing. Which was wonderful. So that's the direction we want to go in.

Question for Heather and Kristen. Do we need a facility report like that to apply for grants? Do we need this type of information?

Yes, that's a very good point, is that this puts us in a position to say, here's how we've identified the needs in a very orderly manner. And then when we go for requests for funding, for example, from FEMA, then we can show that. And as we make progress towards, you know, Kristen mentioned an engineering study that would address what's happening structurally under Town Hall, which sits above the creek, then that would be the next step for potentially, you know, asking FEMA for that money. And the more progress we make towards getting to that resolution, the more attractive we are for FEMA and other funding because funders naturally want to see shovel-ready projects as much as possible. So we've already identified the priorities. We know what needs to be done. Maybe we've even designed it or preliminarily designed it so that they know that we are credibly able to make those repairs.

Thank you. Okay.

Christian, we'll let you proceed. Okay. So are you still in the middle of your? I'm not hurting you. I'm just curious where we're at because we kind of went all down this road. So thank you. Yeah. If you have more, keep going.

Yeah.

Okay, so now that we have all of this information, we can really start getting into like, what do we do with it? Where do we start? And then we can start to move into prioritizing and funding. so there were 48 immediate needs that came out of the assessment but the assessment didn't prioritize them for us so the first items we reviewed were safety concerns and those were addressed immediately And then next it made sense to start looking for the most critical items, which for me was keeping water out of the buildings. All the facilities except the Women's Club and the Little League building have leaked in the last year. And roof leaks are a major concern because they can quickly cause structural wood rot, hazardous mold growth, ruin insulation, and cause electrical hazards. So all of the top projects that need to be prioritized for now is the roof work. The condition assessment recommended replacing the roof on the pavilion, town hall, and police department building, the community center, and the fire station. i'm reviewing an alternative to for overlay options for the community center and then possibly the fire station that would come with at least a 10-year warranty possibly a 15-year warranty however the pavilion and town hall are past the point of a protective overlay and need to be replaced The good news is that we do have some funding already to go towards these projects, but we will need some additional funds. So looking at all of our funding options on kind of how we can fund general building maintenance, the general fund contributes some amount to this. Once I kind of took out some janitorial services and like supplies, like toilet paper, paper towels, that kind of stuff, we have about 45,000 in the budget. IT FROM THE GENERAL FUND. RIGHT NOW WE HAVE ABOUT $245,000 WORTH OF GRANTS TO PUT TOWARDS FACILITIES, SO THAT'S THE HVAC AT TOWN HALL, THE BOTTLE FILL STATION, AND THE STATE PARK GRANT FOR THE PAVILION ROOF. We can also take out loans like we did for the fire station project. And then bonds can also be an option.

Now is the 1.6 there, the fire station loan that we're talking about, or is that another that you're projecting? No, no, that's the fire station. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. I was just kind of trying to show some form of like what we have this year. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And then our recreational facilities have the added benefit of being able to use Measure A funding as well, which some of that is allocated towards the Women's Club this year. So for next steps, some of these are also intertwined a bit. It's not exactly we do one, then two, then three. But I'm going to continue to develop project scopes and update cost estimates. And then we can start really looking at determining how we can secure additional funding to fund some of these projects and then more long term we start looking into like how do we fold more of this work into our full capital plan and budget. And then yeah i'm happy to take more questions. Okay. So go ahead. Council member Cole.

Yeah. So several years ago, we did have a grant for the pavilion and it was less than a million dollars. It was running out and we needed many more millions. And so we didn't have the ability to do the work. So we, We turned that grant down. It was running out. And I think now, and I know I sent you these comments beforehand, and I brought this up before, through CalCities, we pay for a lobbying firm. We all do in Marin. And they have a grant writing side. And so I think it's California Public Policy Group. And we have that contact is I think we really need to. First of all, they have the networking there in Sacramento. I mean, part of the deal about getting grants is who, you know. I've written them and it's who you know and the relationships as well as they know what grants are out there. So rather than you pouring through a bunch of grants, which I've done in the past and it could take you days, it would be a really good opportunity. Now they charge for this, but... I think it's totally worth it for us to look into that because that pavilion, maybe we don't believe the costs of the windows, but we know that pavilion is going to be several million dollars. And so it sure seems like This is the opportunity. This is the time. And I believe at one point there was a discussion on the council that if we measure J past and not like we're washing money, but it's time to start spending money to really use those opportunities. So I really want to encourage us to. see if it's possible to get some kind of a grant for the pavilion. And, you know, I know that there's some issues with the micro grid that might pay for parts of it as well, if that's going to happen. But it just seems to me like this is a time. And, you know, I'm not an expert. And I know the pavilion is a wonderful old building, but Rather than restoring windows, I would consider replacing with the kind of windows that can help us with energy efficiency that are going to last rather than, I mean, I don't think it's that wavy glass anyway. It's just old windows. So anyway, I think we ought to look at what we can do and let's see if we can get some money and get moving on the pavilion because there's so much to do there. Thank you.

I don't think we've had a public comment. So if you have another question, then please go ahead. Do you have a question?

No.

Okay.

I want to take public comment. I had a question, but I just had a question. So after we hear public comment, is that something we can discuss moving forward on about whether or not we can look for a grant consulting firm?

So we did identify a small amount of money in the budget for this fiscal year, which just started July 1, to work with a grant writer. So we welcome your input on that. That's yet to come.

Because I thought that was a decision we had made. And I did want to just say that I went to a CalCities thing this year where the City of Needles, which is very tiny and out in the middle of nowhere, was raking in the dough working with grant writers. And they had built parks and had come up with, I mean, not that we maybe have the same conditions they have, but they were amazing. I mean, they were very successful in utilizing this resource. So I think public comments.

Okay, let's open public comment now on this item.

Hi, Todd Greenberg, advocating for a common sense approach. There's lots of costs here. I don't see any reference to having communicated with some of the town's public works staff in the field as to what they see as priority items. There's a 12 year old generator at town hall that the police chief has previously expressed concern over. When's that going to be replaced? Some of these items here that I suppose could be contained in monies that the town would spend. Maybe we can tax people more for them. Our climate action coordinator, that we currently pay and share with San Anselmo could probably help reduce some of these costs. I would ask rather than seeking new grants that we look for what the costs are that are recommended here for heating and cooling. And we actually see if there's some existing grant programs in place and apply for those. Do we really need to hire somebody when we're already paying staff that should be looking at these things? Why can't we save money rather than spending more money? I'll give you a couple of examples. Also, speaking of saving money and where's liability lie, this report says that most of the leaks on the roof are from the solar panel area. Well, does the people who installed the solar panels bear any responsibility for those leaks? Has anyone considered that? HVAC, I mentioned fire protection. Are there grants from the fire department for fire protection systems? Could Climate Action also provide for electrical upgrades and HVAC upgrades? What about a volunteer program? Let's bring the volunteer program back and get some of the contractors that live here allow for a tax deduction so that they can actually help the town.

Thank you.

Good evening, Council. You know, I've sat in your seat. I'm not here to tell you tonight which system in which building needs the work. That's what the staff are here for. But I am here because I've watched the same arithmetic play out on our pavement, and I know how it ends. Here's what I've learned. Deferral doesn't hold costs steady, it compounds costs. Conditions keep declining, estimates keep climbing, and every year we wait, the number we're quoting ourselves gets worse and worse. And when we finally have to act like we have with roads, like Sir Francis Drake, or Bolinas Road, we've acted on an emergency footing. No bid processes, somebody else's timeline, whatever the price was, is whatever those contractors were able to put forward on short notice. In 2024, this town missed a critical opportunity with a road bond, and since then, conditions of our roads have declined further, and repair estimates have only risen. It's not a prediction, that's just... how things go in this system. I ask you to apply that same lesson we've learned on roads to the item in front of you today. Buildings behave in the exact same way. The compounding can go one way or the other. It can be that we dramatically reduce our costs over the long term or we dramatically increase those costs. A road degrades quietly, but building failures impact our town staff and public safety personnel where they work or these town meetings where the public gets to speak with you all. If a system is allowed to fail outright, like any of our town buildings, it triggers full code compliance on buildings that will dramatically increase costs in another way. So to me, this discussion isn't really about whether we pay for this work or not or whether the estimates are bogus or not. We know that costs are going to keep rising. This conversation is really about when we're going to decide to do this and at what cost we're going to decide to do it. So please invest in our town buildings. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Thank you. I agree with Chance's overview of the fact that you really can't put it off without it costing more, and it can be dangerous. I do appreciate the facility's condition assessment. That seems like a valuable overview. And I agree with what Kristen said, that the roofs are generally a pretty high priority because a roof leak causes other problems. You've got to take care of buildings and you've got to start with the roofs, that's for sure. um i do uh agree actually with with the notion that we ought to be able if i would love to see us as a town be able to use some more volunteer labor or local labor to be able to do things like replacing the windows and i don't think that on replacing the windows on the pavilion whatever that's done that that needs to be done in a way that maintains the exact historic similarity to the existing windows. I would be in favor of getting windows from, you know, modern windows that are double-paned, and they would have to be tempered glass, but then putting them in that Using divided lights adds a little bit more cost to the windows, but it would look nicer. But that, I think, should be adequate to maintain the historic character of the pavilion. There's a lot of other thoughts I have on this, but I definitely love buildings and it's really important that we take care of them. I also will point out that a lot of good stuff has been done. For example, this building has a complete new HVAC system, water heater. I'm glad the town is addressing the buildings.

Two, I do think there's grant opportunities to help us do some of these projects and with this report in hand, I think that should help facilitate the acquisition of those grants. I hope when the town looks at the, because I see kind of a failure at the fire department building remodel. When you look at the pavilion, if you look at doing this piecemeal, you will spend a tremendous amount more money and it'll take more time. If you look at from the pavilion saying, okay, we're going to fix this up. And Barbara correctly brought up that there is a grant a long time ago when the Flying Dutchman was there that was allowed to expire. I thought that was $2.3 million. But I could be wrong. But I think that if we approach the pavilion and basically say it really needs a lot of work for fire protection, safety, electrical, roof, and windows, you could have custom vinyl windows. You wouldn't have to keep replacing them, double-paned. You could put them into the walls just with the idea, get rid of all the hazardous siding like the shingles. That's a real fire hazard. you will see all insurance companies pretty soon drop coverage for shakes on roofs, for flat roofs, which they've already started. So this would be the time to get ahead of that, but we could restore an asset and keep that asset and look at ways of generating money in the future. So I strongly encourage we look at a more complete renovation of the pavilion, do it one time and do it correctly. To Bruce's comment and Todd's comment, I think there's a lot of people in the community that would love to come here and help and be a part of that. And that's what builds communities. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any hands raised? We have one raised hand on Zoom. PJ, you are unmuted. You may now unmute yourself.

Thank you. I'll get to be briefer because Chance raised one of the points I wanted to raise. I appreciate the 3% a year, the cost breakdown for the 20 year and 10 year needs. But what I don't think this report contemplates, but that the town council definitely needs to consider is the compounding cost of waiting to do this maintenance, something that we've budgeted out for $1.7 million. Right now, even if we're budgeting it to cost that much while we're doing it over two years, three years, four years, if we wait to start two or three more years, the cost is going to be much higher to do the same work because the problem will have just worsened. You know, I think the idea of using volunteers and the sort of expertise and capabilities that the town's residents have and want to do to help is a great idea. Just lawyer brain, I guess, worrying about, you know, if something goes wrong, who is responsible? You know, is the town going to be on the hook for anything? Somebody who volunteers and says they have the expertise to do performs, are we going to require volunteers to have certificates of insurance? It just gets a lot more complicated than it sounds at first blush. But I appreciate very much and I think we should have more of these kinds of reports for town facilities like a lot of the comments from the dais have said it's a benefit to having something like this on hand when grants become available in state or federal money. It can be used by us.

There are no more speakers on Zoom. Okay, we'll close the public comment. Vice Mayor, I know you had a comment. Go ahead.

Yes, thank you. If I may, you know, I don't know who Bureau Veritas spoke to as far as coming up with the dates when these buildings were built. Do you know who they actually spoke to to determine these dates? The dates are all wrong, but I'll go ahead.

Yes. So one of the members of the maintenance crew walked around with them for the three or four days that they were on site and provided a lot of the background information. They also reviewed old as-built drawings that we have that also have dates on them. But if there are dates that seem incorrect, I'd be more than happy to adjust those and change them in the reports.

Okay. So, you know, for instance, was a Fairfax Historical Committee contacted for input on this study at all?

No, it wasn't really, at least for the background portion of the reports, it wasn't that in-depth.

Okay, so for instance, looking at the pavilion, it says the year was built 1921. To my knowledge, federal depression funds were used to build the pavilion, and that surely wasn't 1920. It was probably around 1930, I believe. But I'm sure the Fairfax Historical Society has that exact date. You know, looking at the fire station, 1972 is probably close to when it was built. It was a bond measure. And, you know, when we built it, when it was built, it was on a ballot. The town knew it was in a 100-year floodplain. The community center It says it was a church at one time, etc. Actually, it was a privately owned duplex that was owned inside all the public land around here, public buildings and public park, but a privately owned duplex. And so we bought that duplex when I was first on a town council. And we converted it to a community center. That's how it became a community center. The Women's Club, it says 1921. I'm not sure of the date. This is a Julia Morgan designed building. All of the French doors and windows were part of the design by Julia. This set of doors here was replaced sometime in the past. They're not French doors, so they don't match the rest of the doors. So any work that's done on this building needs to to conform to the original design being a Julia Morgan building. We've got to celebrate our history around here. What else is on here? Oh, again, on the town hall, at town hall and police station, You know, the town hall was extended in 1974 across the creek. And we had the architect from Sausalito design the building. And when he proposed going over Fairfax Creek, I said, Ben Allbritton was the engineer. I said, Ben, that building's going to flood. We should not build it across the creek. Ben Allbritton said, Frank, you and I will not see this town hall flood in our lifetime. I've seen it float twice in my lifetime that's 1982 2005 the fact is that building never should have gone across the creek it was approved a 3 to 2 vote. But the town council Ross parker center frank here with the 2 no votes on extending it over the creek we actually want to go up brown across the creek. So our firehouse is in the flood zone, 100-year flood zone. Women's Club is in a 100-year flood zone. We know all of that. And so somehow we're going to have to deal with it. The community center is in a flood zone, 100-year flood zone. And a retaining wall behind it is is coming apart, it needs to be replaced. So we can take the good out of this report, but the report is not too accurate as far as the age of the buildings anyway. I guess it's a start. Thank you.

Okay, who else has comments? Go ahead. Okay, so I just think this is really fabulous because it lays out a roadmap for us to plan for the future and for repairs and also just the, you know, the budgetary part is just really useful because it really helps us start thinking about, like, how are we going to get this money and how are we going to dole it out in what order? Let's see, I'm not really sure why somebody would lie about any of this. I do think that there are different costs when you try to restore a historical building to the exact design and condition that it was in when it was built versus upgrading it. People know that. That's been a real big concern when people declare something a historical building because once you have it on the historical register, it costs a lot more to fix it. You know, we have 115 year old house we recently went to replace doors and windows, and our house is 650 square feet I mean it was incredible what happened once you open that wall and you find all this stuff in there so I would expect that to happen with the pavilion times 10. It was pretty staggering. And our house isn't even governed by prevailing wage or safety issues like a town building would be. So I think we have to be just really realistic. We have to really spend money to save money or to even get money. And I don't think that Bridget, our climate coordinator, however wonderful she is at writing grants for various types of systems that help us be more environmentally sound, is going to be able to carry all of this, which is why I think that going with California Consulting or the group that works with Cal Cities would be good. Like I said, I saw two presentations about the work they did with very small cities across the state, and they were really helping them bring in amazing amounts of money. So I think we need more professional help. And I know that our staff does write for grants, it's just that they have lots of other stuff to do and they can't, you know, grant writing is a professional skill that sometimes you can really use somebody who does this, you know, pretty full time to help with. And I did want to note that, you know, to fix these facilities, you know, we don't have enough money to address these needs alone, let alone fix our roads, right? And I think it's a little bit of a fantasy that somehow you were going to pay for the buildings and the roads and everything just by, like, laying off our, you know, administrative staff and raising the salaries of frontline staff. Like, I just don't see that fixing our problems. So I think we're going to have to get really realistic about how we are going to cover the millions in road repairs on top of the millions of building repairs. So I just want to applaud you guys on doing this, on coming up with these estimates. We know they aren't going to be perfect, but they really help us make a start on assessing where we're at fiscally and what we need to raise to improve our infrastructure. And infrastructure has been really important to me since I have been first elected because it's something that's been pointed out to me as one of the most pressing needs of our community in our town thank you lisa any other comments

Okay.

Yeah, I just want to say if you want to check the accuracy of the buildings when they started, Brian Sagar and Sharon Sagar run the Fairfax Historical Society. They can probably validate or let you know what they know. So just, I mean, I think this is a good baseline. And like Liesl pointed out, you know, historical structures are,

prices can vary but anyway thank you for doing this i think this is really good to have a baseline it's going to be really helpful and we know it's not perfect um consider it received and appreciate all the um responses to our tough questions mike did you have a final thought i do just a summary um number one great report appreciate it um

but it just keeps bringing up the same thing for me. When Frank and I got here a couple of years ago, not quite a couple of years ago, but a year and a half, one of the things that we thought we should do is tighten our belts. And even though despite the fact that we take in record number of revenues in this town, thanks to the property taxes, mostly, Uh, we just never, we spend, it's just, we, we tax and we spend, we never think about setting money aside for roads. We never set money aside for buildings. It's been going on for a long time. And, um, And, you know, it's it's with the way property has gone up over the past decade and longer than that. But it's given us a windfall of money we never imagined we would ever have. But somehow. Previous policies were let's increase property. our staffing in town hall. It's a small staff to begin with, but when you increase it, it doesn't take much to increase it by 40%. And now you're spending money that you could have been putting into your roads. What did we get for that extra money and extra staff? Well, we didn't get any grant money. In fact, we couldn't even spend a million dollars of grant money that we previously had because we couldn't act on it. So we had to give it back. Bridge, the road up there by Frank's. Well, what is that called again? I forget. Meadoway Bridge. 13 years. Maybe. Is that 13 years? 13 years that the project's been working and stewing, and it's still not figured out, by the way. It's still not done. So procrastination, tightening our belts. I agree. Of course we should fix things. I'd rather add a person on to – the public works department, a worker, give the guys some fairer wages, of course, but add a person on. They built the steps. That's how you save money. Quotes that we got here are ridiculous. I'm sure they are, just based on how much that firehouse cost. That thing. You know I've been complaining about it. It's not personal. It's just my observation. Us on the outside world, we don't pay that kind of money to fix something. Somehow we tax people who... are struggling anyway to pay four times or five times more than it actually costs to build something. Somehow that's fair. It's not fair. So I've been begging this council, begging this town to tighten the belt. We asked to just discuss. We're not... accusing anybody of anything. We just wanted to discuss a better way of maybe defending ourselves or a cheaper, less expensive way of attorney bills. We have a million dollars of them this year. I'm not blaming anybody necessarily.

This is all related.

It's all related. It is not. It is 100%. We're ready to move on.

We're going to take a break and move on to consent.

I'm going to wrap up. Taking a break. Again, you did it to me. Wow. See, that's the problem is that you don't understand how it's all related. Sorry that you don't understand.

Okay. The consent calendar, the council can approve all items on the consent calendar in one action. Alternatively, any council or staff member can remove items for separate discussion and voting. Public comments for consent calendar items are taken collectively, not item by item. During this period, speakers may address any item on the consent calendar with each speaker allotted up to two minutes and limited to one comment session. Does anyone want to pull anything?

I don't. I just want to make a couple of comments. Okay. Just briefly on 6A or 5A, the resolution date is wrong. It says June 1st. It should be June 22nd. And then also just on the fee study, June, We're not there. I mean, I think the agreement looks great, but I think once we get the fee study back, I'm hoping to be on a subcommittee that reviews that document. I was mayor in 2019 when we got the last fee study in, and we went through line by line every fee, because at that point, it had been more than 10 years since we'd had a fee study, so there were a lot of big gaps. And so we did not increase all. We increased some over time, some we left as is. And I think it's been a number of years since 2019. So I think my experience will help. So in the future, when we decide on that, I'd like to be on that subcommittee. Thank you.

I'd actually like to pull item number 6C. I think we've got to talk about it a little bit.

The fee schedule. Okay. Anything else, Lisa? Okay, so we're going to pull item 5C, which is the professional services agreement for a master fee schedule. So we will hear public comments on 5A, B, and D. Public comment is open now.

I am curious as to whether or not at this meeting it was noted that an item that was originally scheduled was pulled, that was agenda item five, that's not appearing on tonight, that was for ALPRs and tasers that should go into the meeting record. And then related directly to the consent calendar, There is Disability Pride Month proclamation here. I am holding tonight's proclamation recognizing Disability Pride Month. Page two explicitly states the town is committed to supporting policies, practices, and opportunities that ensure all individuals with disabilities have equal access and an open, welcoming environment to fully participate. I'm here to ask the council to turn that commitment into immediate action. Our current administration and environmental realities directly contradict those words, creating massive barriers for our older residents, vision impaired neighbors and hearing compromised community members. First, consider tonight's agenda packet. Essential pages towards the end of the Bureau Veritas report are printed in microscopic sub eight point fonts that are completely illegible to anyone with low vision or age related visual decline. Second, if a resident cannot attend in person, They face digital hurdles. While real-time captions are available during live broadcasts, the town website fails to provide permanent searchable written transcripts afterwards and meeting videos face multi-day presentation delays. True equity requires same-day or next-day video access matched with permanent online transcripts. Delayed access is not equal access. Finally, look around this chamber. Frequently, the room lights are not even fully turned on at the beginning of these meetings unless an attendee explicitly asks. Older vision impaired and hearing compromised residents should not bear the administrative burden of asking for basic physical visibility just to read an agenda or clearly see facial expressions and read lips. Accessibility cannot be true.

Thank you.

I just want to quickly note for the meeting record that council member Gearing Galley has left the meeting.

I saw council member Gearing Galley leaving, and I believe he felt that the mayor incorrectly.

Go ahead. Can you please comment on the consent calendar? Thank you.

couple months ago and this is for the consent janet kohler made a false statement stating that the majority or the bulk or some excessive amount or something along those lines of the legal budget was because of all the pras from todd greenberg and michael mcintosh well i can show you by example i think it's been two years since she's answered any PRA that I've submitted. And she probably gets paid well for this by always referring this work out to a different law firm, which generally, since I used to do that work, there is a commission or a finder's fee. So it's probably profitable, but we don't know that publicly.

The consent calendar is what causes these...

Consent issue is what causes these issues because you aren't transparent. And when the general public wants to ask questions.

I am here to listen to your feedback on consent. I am not here for you to disparage my colleagues on the council. Okay. Meeting, taking another break.

Michael, why don't you provide comments on 5A, 5B, and 5D? That's the focus. And if you have other comments in the future that might be suitable for open time, I don't know. But these are the items that we're taking up on the consent calendar. Do you have feedback on those?

I do, on the whole process of a consent calendar.

Well, that's not what this is about. This is on these three items, and you might want to, for a change, actually follow the process.

Barbara, I'm glad that you're acting as the mayor. I'm glad that you're interrupting and interacting with the public. And I was here for the sole purpose to discuss how I would like, as in the old days, that if somebody had a question for the consent calendar, they could make a request and the council welcomely brought it forth to the public, be discussed, and it allowed the public to understand what was going on so that there wasn't a requirement. and a request for getting additional information and being thwarted by people that don't want to provide that information.

Okay, Mayor, can we go on? Because apparently we're not getting public comment on this. We can go on if we can follow the meeting.

Reopening the meeting and public comment on items 5A, B, and D.

Excellent. Okay, thank you. Yes, commenting on the consent calendar very, very briefly. Grateful for the public's work staff identifying a used light duty truck. I know there are issues with some of the current EV vehicles out there. I think there's some on the horizon that have extended beds and might be able to serve staff in the future. So hopefully we do see some EVs. I know some of our counterparts in San Anselmo use electric trucks. But Very grateful that y'all are considering a used truck to keep costs down and keep some that have a life cycle that's still a value in service. The other item, wanted to thank y'all for the Disability Pride Proclamation. The other thing that I'm hopeful for in the not-too-distant future, and I know Councilmember Blash and others are working on the bicycle pedestrian project, you know, master plan amendments and things like that. But I'd hope in the future too, that we can speak to some of the ways we actually operationalize, uh, you know, attempts to support the disabled community in Fairfax. Um, I haven't heard much in a while and I've been out of the loop for a while, forgive me, but really curious about ADA transition plan activities and stuff like that, um, to support people of all ages and abilities enjoying, uh, this lovely town. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

So I'll be very brief, and I confess that I did not know about this item until seeing it on the consent calendar. But there is, as Chance mentioned, there is on the horizon, for example, the slate is a... what seems like it's going to be a pretty affordable small pickup truck in one of its configurations. And that's something we've been looking for for a long time. And an electric is a small pickup truck. There's just nothing out there right now. They're all gigantic. And so if it's possible to hold off on purchasing a new truck for until that comes out. I mean, that's just something to look into when the slate might come out and what the condition that is. That's just something to think about. But I confess, I don't know the details. I'm just making the suggestion to think about it. Thanks.

Thank you. Any other speakers in the room? Okay, opening it. Any hands raised on Zoom? Okay, closing public comment. I too am curious. I have to believe this slate was considered in the timing of its readiness.

I don't know if Kristen's on the line, but- I can answer that question, May, if you would like. So yes, Kristen and I discussed this at length and she did go through the entire process I need to hear staff, please. Thank you. As you know, the town has electric vehicle policy, which prefers 100% electric and then goes down through the list. And so she went through that and included in the staff report are those considerations, including the vehicles that were considered their costs, availability, and suitability for the current needs of the Department of Public Works crew members. So that's how we arrived at right now. We have two disabled vehicles, disabled as in they don't run. They will not turn over and would need to have parts built to be able to operate. fix that. And so she was able to address one of those vehicles by taking a vehicle that we have and removing some hazardous equipment from it so that it could be driven. And the second one is then this used replacement which we view as a bridge towards getting to when we have that EV long bed truck full functionality.

I'd like to move the consent unless there are other questions or comments.

No, let's go.

Okay, so I'm moving that we accept the consent calendar minus item C. Well, you need a friendly amendment, which is to, with the correction to the resolution for 5A, it has the wrong date on it.

Thank you. Okay. So I move that we accept the consent calendar with the change of the date on item A.

On the resolution, and I second that. Yep. Okay. We have a motion from Council Member Blash and a second from Council Member Kohler. Council Member Blash? Yes. Council Member Kohler?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Ager? Aye. Mayor Hellman?

Yes.

All ayes. Motion carries.

Okay, moving on to item C, which is professional services agreement master fee schedule authorized the town manager to execute an agreement with government consulting partners. In an amount not to exceed 34,500 for comprehensive cost of services and cost allocation study.

Heather um so uh mayor and members of the council um as you can see this was on consent and there is um both a staff report and also you were able to see the entire proposal and everything that the company is prepared to do for us the reason that is coming to you So quickly after us receiving the proposal is that we would like to get them started as soon as possible so that, you know, it's been seven years since there were fee adjustments and it is definitely time. And rather than me sort of guess what questions you may have, if you want to let me know what your questions are, I'm happy to answer them. I can give you more detail. And we also do have the proposer on the line, and he could answer your questions as well. And his name is Brad Burgess from the company.

Go ahead, Vice Mayor.

You had a question.

Yes, I did. So I'm in support of this proposal. And I'm wondering if there is a mechanism that will allow us... an implementation of some sort between now and September when it comes back, just in case there's an application that might be impacted by the study?

It's a very good question. And that's why I wanted to bring this to you as quickly as I as I could. September is quite pushing it in terms of doing a full study, which we have to do legally. We have to document the costs for all of the, for example, permit fees. And then the council has to approve those fees or a fee less than that, which would be then triggering a subsidy through the general fund. So we aren't able to, for example, kind of look at market rates, if you will. So what is San Anselmo charge? What is, you know, Belvedere charge? Those kinds of things. The contractor can give you some ideas about that when they present. Hopefully in September, we'll get the report and have them present. But what they can't do is just sort of get a sort of it feels right number. It has to be documented based on our fully loaded staff costs or consultant costs as the case may be go ahead

you know i understand the need for speed but i really do not support the idea of just bringing it to council as a done deal the last time as i said we went through line by line to decide what made sense and rather than bringing it to council as a done deal i'm not supportive of that And so I think we ought to potentially have a special meeting in September. And I really would like to be on that subcommittee to review that, given my experience.

But I... Why are you saying it's a done deal? Because we could, I mean, they could present a recommendation and then we could like... You know how many hours it took to go through every fee?

It was a lot. I don't think you could do it on the dais.

Well, no, my point is they do the work and they come back with a recommendation. And then if we want to tweak them...

I don't, I don't think, okay, so the last fee study, it was basically, this was what it costs you to do this fee. And this is the gap. And there was no, maybe this consultant's different, but there was not a recommendation, you should charge X. We had to figure that out, knowing full well that in some of those, for example, a fee might be $10,000, that that was too big a jump. So I don't know. We should ask the consultant what he thinks.

Yeah, maybe I can start with an answer and then we can turn it over to Brad. So we did interview this consultant and one of the things that we talked about is recognizing that there may be some fees that we want to get to full cost recovery. We want them to be cost neutral to the town. An example of that might be permit fees. So there's development that might come in and we want those developers to pay the full costs of our staff processing those and reviewing them, working with them, all of that. And then there might be other fees where the council would have a policy that they don't They don't need it to be or they don't want it to be full-cost recovery. And an example that the company gave was, for example, it's very typical that recreation fees, age-friendly fees, you know, for activities... those would not be full cost recovery. So they recognize that. And then they also recognize that, um, we are starting at a deficit, if you will, which is that, um, we, uh, have, we had set fees, uh, back in 2019. Um, many, if not all of which were, um, not full cost recovery. And then in addition, seven years has elapsed and we haven't raised those fees with the exception of recreation. And so they talked about having a recommended plan for moving in the right direction without creating a shock. So my expectation was that they would present their recommendations, keeping those things in mind. And then the council would likely have some tweaks in terms of the policy. Do we want We don't want recreation, say, to be full-cost recovery. We do want building permits to be full-cost recovery over this timeframe or something of that nature. And I don't know if Brad has anything else he wants to add, but that was my vision. And then in terms of the RFP itself, I specifically had the consultants propose with costs that would keep costs as low as possible and go through this September date and have two in-person meetings. So if we need five meetings or 10 meetings, that's likely to be a change order.

Before you go to him, I just want to say you're making it sound like it's really simple, a choice between a recreation fee and a permit fee. I just want to say there are so many fees that it was not something – and we did it in one meeting before it came to the council – So it wasn't five meetings or any of that. And so there were just, there are so many fees that I think it would be very difficult to do on the dais even with recommendations, but let's hear from Brad.

Hi, this is Brad Burgess with GCP. Can you hear me?

Yes. Yes, we can hear you.

Great. Thank you. I think Heather explained the, are processed very well. And fee studies by their nature are complex and they do take time and making decisions based on the full cost of the services and then also trying to decide a subsidization policy for the town is a very important part of the fee process. So We definitely, as we were explaining to the staff, that the first part of this study is very much let's determine what the cost is and the full cost. The second part of the study is the consulting side of it, which is what should the town consider as far as setting fees? And we can provide you with best practices from literally all 58 counties, because we've worked in every county in the state and many places outside of California. To give you some some idea of what is what is considered to be best practice as far as setting fees and we run into a pretty good number of cities that don't stay up on their their fee. very low to start with and then the recommendation comes in 10x because that's what the cost is. There's a lot of sticker shock. And so we have a number of strategies for helping cities to implement in a way that is not as jarring to the community. And we certainly can go through those when the time is right. But I think ultimately setting up a fee policy in the town so that once you get this in place, this study, that there's a certain amount of time that goes by that you want to make sure that they get updated on a regular basis to maintain compliance with Prop 26 and 218. I think that's a very important thing for all jurisdictions. And let me just say one more thing. We are big fans of the general fund. And we want to make sure that the general fund in every town, city, county, doesn't matter who it is, that their general fund is as healthy and as vibrant as it can be. and the ones that are the healthiest are the ones that really understand that the fee program has to be set in a way that the developers and the people that should get charged full costs are, and that everything else is very much a council decision as far as how much you want the general fund to subsidize these other programs. I'm happy to answer any question you have.

Mayor if I may just add one other thing so part of the proposal is to give us. A database of a spreadsheet of all of our fees, so that we can continue to work on this over time so. As. You know salary rates and those kinds of things associated with them as though they change. that can be shown and that will give us the opportunity to do legitimate data-based updates in the future.

So it will be like a model, like the formulas would be in there as salaries increase and that kind of thing?

Yes. And so that way, you know, you're not constantly running against, you know, do we pay for a new study to get because we don't want it to go seven years next time. Right. Okay.

So if I may, so For instance, I have to come in and get a permit, an electrical permit, to upgrade my service to 200 amps. And that's pretty simple. The contractor's going to come down and take out a permit because my insurance company wants an upgrade for my... That's pretty simple, the cost. Suppose that I wanted to put a second story or a third story on my house. I don't, but suppose I did. That would be something else that... The town would have to figure out how much it's going to cost to have a building inspector or a town engineer look at all the plans and specs and stuff. So I'm just concerned that we're going to miss out on some cost if the situation – if we don't have in place – a current assessment of cost and fees for our staffing time expenses. If someone wants to build that second story on their house between now and September. So I guess there's no way we can cover it. Is there any way we can cover it? Something like that?

Yeah, Frank, it's an excellent point. Unfortunately, I don't think we can go any shorter than any, you know, less than September. September is really, really pushing it. But I think we can do a really good job for September. And I think we can address Councilmember Kohler's concerns and make sure that this is – a public process that can be replicated. It's not just based on this one time.

Okay, so I did have a quick question, and maybe this is more towards Councilmember Kohler. So when you were talking about doing something in a single meeting, was that the full council in a special workshop, or was that a subcommittee going through it line by line?

So, you know, maybe that we don't want to do it this way, but it was a subcommittee that sat down with the finance director, the folks doing the fee study, and the town manager going over... every fee that was proposed, where the gaps were, and then there was a decision made. Should we go to full recovery? We didn't want to shock people, you know, for example, like the simple example. But in some where we decided to phase them in over time. So it was a one-meeting deal, but it was several hours. It wasn't from the dais. Maybe it'll work to do it from the dais. Whatever you guys want to do is fine with me, but I think it'll just be quite lengthy.

So what would the time be if, indeed, we were setting up a subcommittee for this process? Would that be something we would be discussing tonight or at some other point? I'm just curious how this...

I think you could do it another point. You could have it. If you wanted to do a subcommittee, I think you could do it in August saying, and if the report isn't ready till September, you could have this. If you decide to do a subcommittee, you could do it shortly after that and then have a special meeting in the council. So we're not delaying, but you know, I'll go whatever way the rest of you want to go. It just, that's the way we worked at last time. And I'm just not sure that since there are so many fees, it would go very well. But different consultant firms and maybe they have a way of presenting it. So it's much easier to review.

Do you want to set up an ad hoc committee of two council members to meet with staff? and the consultant in this process before it comes to the council?

I think it would be then you would come with the recommendations of the consultant that might be revised somewhat by that subcommittee. And so just make it easier. But whatever way you guys want to go, I'm fine.

I would be. I would consider supporting that if it wasn't like the committee subcommittee was actively involved in the process. You're just saying at the very end.

Make some yeah, at the very end when the report is ready, then you go over it and. And then shortly after you have a special meeting of the council to go over the recommendations of the consultant with potentially changes that a subcommittee made.

Okay. I think we're deliberating. We haven't taken public comment yet. Right. Okay. Any more clarifying questions before we take public comment?

Okay, madam mayor, I'm sorry. May I add just one thing? Our esteemed town attorney has reminded me is in order for those rates to take effect, there's a 60 day noticing period. So once we have the council adopt those new rates, it will be 60 days after that, that they become effective.

Okay. But there's no race against the clock right now. There's no deadline that we have to do. There's no specific deadline. Right. Public comment is open.

Hi, Todd Greenberg. I actually believe and concur with Barbara Kohler on this. This, I think... parts of what she said anyway. This is premature and imprecise and problematic. I think you've got the cart before the horse in your rush to increase fees. You're going to allocate $34,000 plus, but you're not giving the consultant proper directions. You need to have these meetings first and identify what the priorities are to the consultant, not identify the priorities after and have change orders. It's not the way it works unless you just want to blow money. But as I understand it, on public record, this town, in order to pass Measure J, declared a fiscal emergency and then now has increased two taxes. So are we at all interested in saving money or is that just out the door? We just, after spending money and going after increasing fees because the If you just increase taxes and you increase the fees, I guess housing affordability is out the door. Is it just performative up here? All your words about low-income housing, taking care of the people who have lived here for a long time? Is there any thought about what the actual costs are on what you're doing, increasing the expenditures? I'm just really curious about that. Why not do things so that they're efficient?

Thank you. Next speaker.

since i'm still here uh good evening council uh i am glad that we're finally getting around to truing up and figuring out what the actual costs of doing business as a town are after a significant number of years so i think it's a great exercise i really appreciate the idea of an ad hoc that can just double check with finance the consultants and the town manager around, um, which, which things we need to move aggressively on and which things might feel to, to Todd's point, um, like they would be going against, uh, or it would be maybe a lot of sticker shock perhaps, and that it makes sense to phase some of those in. Um, so I think that's a great thing and glad to have that additional check on that process. Um, the other thing I was wondering, um, It was mentioned there was a 60-day sort of period before those new fees would come into effect. Just wanted to suggest perhaps maybe timing that in a way where they go into effect with the start of the calendar year, so it's not like they go into effect in December or mid-November or something, and people are like, I did something earlier this year, and now the costs have escalated, but maybe start it with Jan 1 or something. So, yeah, thanks for that work.

Thank you. Next speaker?

It's actually nice to have Chance's comments down here and give us an opportunity to hear another perspective. But I do agree with Chance. How I see all these additional fees, I first do think and agree with Chance that the town does need to know how much it costs to operate. Okay, so without that, you guys are kind of fooling around in the dark. So there's value to that. But I also think that if you're looking to recover all these fees on the back of your homeowners and your community, you're killing them. But then if your certain businesses, such as Todd brought up, like your housing providers, if you can't recover your fees, I can tell you by example, it's not cost effective. So you'll be losing more and more housing. So I think the town should look at the overburdening difficulties for some businesses, such as a housing provider that's unable to collect real expenses that keep going up and up and up when you have restrictions on what you can collect, and being able to manage and budget your town properly by knowing what these real costs are hence why I agree knowing what these real costs are, but you can't then say, aha, we're gonna use these as hammers and beat it over the head of those members of your community that can't afford it. I don't wanna act like, oh, tax the rich, and if they're a big developer, they can pay all these things. That's not really right either. And so I do hope, to Barbara's comment, that you'll spend some time and really evaluate these things line by line and try to figure out not only what's good for the town, but also what's good for the people. Because what is good for the citizens is good for the town, and what's good for the town is good for the citizens. But you've got to make it fair. Thank you.

Thank you. Any...

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Thanks just because I didn't hear. You want to mention this? I don't think really at all during the meeting when we're thinking about fees. You know, I think it was the meeting this month, but if not in June. where we had at the beginning a number of the town's public workers, public works department workers come up and talk about their need, long overdue need for compensation increase, and frankly, a substantial one. And at the time when nobody had to consider in the same breath how you pay for those folks in the room and online were very supportive. I would hope everyone is still supportive. And I think it just bears when you're considering how rapidly to increase fees and the amount needed. The amount needed also reflects the costs or should reflect the costs of paying the town's public works department workers real livable wages and ones that are competitive with neighboring jurisdictions.

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Okay, bringing it back.

So the state law is very clear. We can't make money On our fee schedule, we can cover our costs, but we can't jack up the fees to make money by charging who's ever coming before the town for whatever projects they're doing. We can't make money off the costs that are fees. It's got to be covered by our fees. Our employee costs have gone up in seven years. So we've got to get those fees up to what's legal. We can't make money off this. We're not about to make money, but we're trying to just cover our costs. That's all we're trying to do.

That is correct. Any other?

Yeah, just to say, I mean, in terms of, I think that this will be a comprehensive study that we will be looking at how we balance the needs of the community and affordability with the need to cover our costs and to cover the various things that we do here in town. And in terms of protecting our community, I did want to mention that a number of members of our community have been quite panic-stricken about whether or not our fees, especially for development, actually cover our costs because they're worried about new developments. So you actually have community members who are coming to us asking us to do a fee study and try to figure out whether we should be changing that fee study. So it's not just that something's being imposed on the community. To some extent, some members of the community actually want us to do this because they are worried about us not actually recovering our full costs.

I'm ready to make a motion, if that's okay.

I think this is a very needed thing.

It's time. So I would make a motion to authorize the town manager to execute an agreement with government consulting partners in an amount not to exceed $34,500 for comprehensive cost of services and cost allocation services study. I just also want to say their background and experience is superior.

second we have a motion from council member kohler and a second from vice mayor agar council member blash yes council member kohler yes vice mayor agar mayor hellman yes all eyes okay and then as far as the subcommittee you will worry about that later okay

We can talk about that as a future agenda topic.

An August meeting, maybe set up an ad hoc committee.

Sure. Okay, moving on. We are adjourning in memory of Marlon Washington and Charlie Cunningham. Thank you all, and have a good night. Meeting adjourned.