City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Wednesday, February 18th, 2026 regular meeting of the Larkspur City Council. It is 630 p.m. and I will call the meeting to order. And Madam Clerk, can we get a roll call?

Council Member Way?

Here.

Vice Mayor Paulson? Here. Mayor Andre?

Here. If you are able, let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. And I will open it now for public comment. This is a time for the public to come and address the City Council on any items that are not on the agenda. So if you would like to make a public comment, please approach the podium. And you have three minutes.

Ross Asselstein of San Anselmo. Yesterday and for the last year and a half, there's been two projects in the flood zone. One is in the concrete channel and one in San Anselmo. This morning, there was a press release from the district that said they were stopping all the work in the concrete channel. That was very complex work. And I think something you've seen before, I believe they got timed out on their grant. So we have one project left in the district, and that's the project in San Anselmo. And I believe that's a very complex project, and I know it's going to get timed out. And I think that will happen eventually. In March, we'll see another press release. What happens then in the math is there's about $7.8 million left to do something with. I may be relentless, but I'm absolutely committed to voicing where the money should go, and that is the title zone. I sent an email to Gabe, great guy, excellent council member, and Julian, your public works director, and said the entirety of Larkspur, Canfield, Greenbrae, and Unincorporated's problem is tidal. It's not storms. And it's going to go up by a foot. There is no map that reflects what happens with that foot rise. And it would be a very useful tool to have that. If your floodplain looks like this right now, because you have such shallow ground, that footprint is going to get bigger. And it's going to be there in 20 years. All the FEMA mapping is unrelated to storms. It's related to tides. So I hope that happens. We'll see if it happens, but it's going to be a way to motivate the community. It will scare them, but it will motivate them to do what we need to do over the next 20 years. Personally, I've been on this a long time. I put my name up to be on a countywide commission, not to do cartoons, but to take the knowledge that I do have with other people that know this much about this tiny thing and do something productive and effective and not really complex, crazy projects that get timed out with grants. So with that, thank you and have a good evening.

Thank you, Mr. Esselstyn, for your public comments. Anyone else in the chamber who would like to make a public comment? Mr. Feagin?

My name is Barry Feagin. I live in Greenbrae, and I'm Larkspur's representative on the County Commission on Aging. I was appointed about 10 months ago, and I had a charge from two commissioners, Way and Polson, to look at the issue of social isolation was the big one. The commission has just now decided to look into that issue. I've learned in 10 months that the commission's on aging's major product is agendas, minutes, and meetings. And that's why I haven't met with you before because I felt there was nothing to report on. But I didn't remember that it's a two-way street, that I really needed to spend more time with you listening to what you wanted from the commission or from the Area Agency on Aging, if they would do anything, which is questionable because I suspect the county overall is afraid of change or anything uncertain. I've certainly experienced that being on the commission. I came here originally because I didn't realize that the city of Larkspur is age-friendly certified. And I thought I would see if there was anything in the county that could help the commission do that. But personally, I am very interested in these rather big issues, such as the tide change. These are... Aging, tide change or global weather changes, inequity and inequality, and immigration or global migration. These are big issues that play out here locally, but we don't have a forum for discussing them except the adversarial model that we generally use where people argue one side or the other. So I have an interest in seeing if Larkspur would like to explore other ways of having community meetings that are less confrontational and more consensus building. Some of you know the book I've written that lays out what some other cities... mostly in Southern California are doing with this. So I'm a little bit of a loss now because my original intent has shifted. But if there's anything that you would like me to raise through the Commission on Aging or through the County Area Agency on Aging, I would like to hear that. And I'd like to know if there's any mechanism or any people here who may be interested in exploring other ways of holding public meetings other than the traditional way we have them, where people do what we're doing here, presenting to you, and you say thank you next. So that's my little report.

Yeah, Gabe and I will get back to you.

Yes, great. Thank you, Gabe.

Thank you, Mr. Fagan. And I also want you to know that Council did have a strategic retreat on Saturday, and there were topics that came up related to aging and aging in place. And so maybe Council Members Way and Paulson can follow up with you. Great. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else in the chamber? Please approach the podium. Thank you.

Hi. My name is Chris Leinhart. I'm a resident of Larkspur, and part of the committee for the Book Brigade. So I just wanted to keep everybody updated on where we stand and what's going on. Diana and I, from Friends of the Library, have been passing out these flyers and talking to all of the merchants on Magnolia. and um it's actually been really fun once people realize what we're talking about their eyes just light up and they're so willing to help and congratulate us for such a great idea and um they're enthused about of course uh extra business being around uh in the neighborhoods so um Yeah, this was the flyer that we just gave the merchants, and we will be updating this flyer as soon as we get a QR code to put on here so everyone can sign up. So we're just waiting for the... legal verbiage to put on our app for the QR code to be distributed. So we will go again and give that to the merchants to put in their windows. And I guess that's about it. The Lark Theater is so cute. He decided that once we get the official flyer, he would enlarge it and put it in his billboard there by the windows. So, yeah, it's great to see everybody's enthusiasm for it. If you have any questions, I could give you one of these. Our information is on here. You can locate. Great.

Yeah. Just give it to the clerk and she will distribute to us. Wonderful.

have our information on them. So just let us know if there's any questions or we'll report back as we keep going with this, but it's coming along.

Great. Thank you so much for your update. Sure. Yeah. We look forward to the book brigade.

Yeah.

Very exciting. Great. All right. Anybody online who has a public comment? Okay, great. All right. So I will close public comment and we're going to presentations of which there are none. And now we're going to approve the consent calendar. Anybody, any of the council members want to pull any item for discussion?

No.

Okay. Can I get a motion?

So moved.

Seconded. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? Okay. Motion passes. All right. And now we'll move to the city manager's oral report.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I wanted to simply let the council and the community know, as has been reported, we've announced that the opening day for the library will be the 28th of March. I anticipate that probably next week we will start to provide more details about what's happening at what time. I do know and I'm prepared to let folks know the library, once the opening ceremony is over, the library will be open and functioning. That's the plan that day. So we're hoping folks will actually come in and check out some books. But we will have a full slate of events mid-morning and into the early afternoon and hopefully it'll be good time. And I know there are some other events, uh, around the twin cities communities that day. And I just, uh, figure folks can bounce from a, from event to event, um, and, uh, enjoy all we have to offer in the twin cities that day. That'll turn it back to you, madam mayor.

Great. Thank you for that update. Um, any of the council members have updates?

Um, I just, uh, have two things. One is, um, Got the two-page report from the Larkspur Library Board of Trustees about all the work they've done. I don't know if this is posted. Maybe it's posted on the library website. Yeah, I'll find out if it's something we usually post, but the amount of highlights of what the library board, you know, we appoint the library board members. So in the library, there is the Friends of the Library, there's the Library Foundation, and there's the Commons Foundation, but we appoint the library board members. We've had interviews with them in the last couple of years. So they give an annual printout of what they've been able to accomplish. They're really the policy setters. And I'm really pleased at how they've worked with the library director to really help create the framework for policies for our new building. And their report highlighted some of the things that they've done. And they really, I think we need to continue to engage with them about policy changes as the library evolves. we might need to find and have them work on for us. The other thing, and I know we don't have a big audience tonight, but some people watch this on YouTube later, is I am retiring in December and encouraging people in the community who are interested in learning about a role in city council and how the election process works and what you need to think about and do to reach out to me. I've met with six people now over the course of this last year who've been engaged and interested. I just met with somebody last week. So Putting it out there, you can find me on the website, but I'd be happy to spend an hour or two giving some pointers on what you need to do to learn about running for city council and really encouraging people to step up. Find me. I'll take you out to coffee.

Great. Thank you, Council Member Way, and for all your service, your many years of service. Thank you.

Council Member Possum, do you have anything? First, Catherine, I do want to thank you. No, no, no, no, no. But she kind of did that one hour coffee with me. And that's why I'm sitting here today. So yeah, definitely. And then also, I mean, Barry Fagan and Ross Asselstein, I feel like, you know, I'm working on Flood Zone 9. So I'm well aware of what he's talking about. But it's good to have such passionate people, you know, they really, you know, Regardless of where they are on the issue, they make us think and work, and I so appreciate them. I've got two little ones, both on transportation. One is, some of you may have received this book. I went to the SMART meeting today in Petaluma. and they dropped it on my desk, the great train heist. All I can say about this is the IJ article today I thought did a fairly good description. The family that I think owns Poppy Bank and a lot of land have sponsored this book. My main critique, I think it's really good to have robust debate, is a lot of the data here seems to be old. So they're bringing up ridership numbers like 3,000 or something, and we're far exceeded that. So part of what has made me believe a little bit more in SMART has been the progress. So as a matter of fact, SMART leads the Bay Area and even the nation sometimes in ridership recovery. So they've gotten up to 1.15 million riders annually. It's almost double the rate, you know, the pre-COVID before the drop-off and continue to make strides with the shuttles and with the walking paths. And they've opened a new station and they have funding for the next station. So I think this is only a limited number of copies being sent mostly to council members. So. I just thought I'd put it out there and I don't want to advocate one way or another. But I think the IJ article is a good place to look at where the facts may lay on this. And then anyway, the other thing I do, you know, think in general, you know, trying to serve the Larkspur community, reporting back to, you know, council members is, you know, what are good investments in transportation? And I've gotten some letters and we've heard about the Alto Tunnel. And I constantly debate that. Is that worth it? So just, you know, I'll only take 60 seconds on this, but I asked myself the question, the North South Greenway that we just built, was that a good investment or was that a boondoggle or a waste of money? I found a good report, the Victoria Transport Policy Institute, and their ROI calculation, you know, to summarize in a nutshell, is the bridge was about $20 million. And so the, you know, amortized cost is about $660,000 a year. O&M, you know, operations maintenance is about $400,000. So it's about $1 million is what we're paying for that bridge every year. And then they look at the ridership, and they're about $400,000. 100,000 trips or trip miles. I forget how they calculate it. And they basically look at health benefits, congestion relief, vehicle savings, and total benefits. So it's like 20 cents for health per mile, 30 cents for congestion relief. Anyway, they figure every mile that's ridden is worth $1.1. So there's actually a positive ROI on the bridge. And I thought that was interesting because often we subsidize like smart will never make money. I mean, that's what public transport is. You sometimes sink money for equity or for environment or for whatever reasons. But here it seems like if you believe this report that we're at least at the breakeven. So that's going to be my lens for looking at Alto and looking at walkways and all the things that we constantly want to fund is is you know can we really say this brings some return of investment you know that's that's worth it for the public so anyway i the it's the victoria transport policy institute um you know the numbers i can i can share with anyone and um just wanted to uh to share that with you that's all great thank you for that and um

I also agree that any metrics that we can use, like an ROI or some sort of analysis in terms of what are the costs and benefits of projects, large public works projects like that, I think... are really useful to help analyze whether that's a good use of public funds. I'll do a quick update on MCE. There's a board meeting tomorrow night. The board will be making a decision about potential rate cuts. And it's an important decision because this year PG&E, as of January 1st, cut its rates pretty substantially. At the same time, PG&E also increased the fees to its non-bundled customers. So it increased its fees to the CCA customers. And so when you look at it all together, the CCAs now, all in cost spaces, are more expensive than PG&E. And so the board is facing, the MCE board is facing the decision in terms of how deeply It should or can cut rates to narrow the gap between MCE's costs and PG&E's costs. And so that's going to be a pretty – I think it's going to be a pretty robust discussion. And then that will also lead into budget discussions around our energy costs. You know, where can we trim energy costs? And a lot of it, too, is overhead and personnel costs. You know, where can we find savings so that we can cut rates for our customers? And I think a lot of directors are very sensitive to the fact that, you know, this difficult time, affordability is important. is very important to our customers. And so hopefully we will be able to come to a decision on, you know, how much we want to cut rates. But for anyone who is listening, who has an opinion on this topic, please feel free to reach out to me. I am your representative on MCE. If you live in another jurisdiction, please reach out to your representative on the MCE board.

Okay, great.

Anything else? All right. So that closes the council members' oral reports, and we'll go to public hearings. And we will start with Mr. Nick Stone, our recreation director. And are we going to take these two items together or one at a time?

The way their agenda is, you should take them separately.

Take them separately. Okay. So we'll start with 7.1A, park special event fees.

Thank you. Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of City Council, Nick Stone, Recreation Director. And I have a few items for you tonight. The first one that we're going to look at is park special event fees. So last year we had an event in Piper Park, and it was kind of a new thing for us. It was a big event, and we didn't really have a lot to go with, any kind of template that we had. There was no pricing structure, and there was nothing to really work with other than a community event that we wanted to host out there. So what I bring before you tonight for this is some suggestions for fees for an event. This is a funny one, like a few of my other items that'll come up tonight. There wasn't a great template around the county that I could use for this. Everybody's kind of all over the place. So one of the ones that I pulled heavily from for this item was the Mill Valley Music Fest that happens at Friends Field in Mill Valley. That is a price that's negotiated with city council, with the chamber. From my calculations, it works out to a little over $500 an hour for the rental that they have there. Everything else is really all over the place from $50 to $200 an hour. Piper Park is a big open park. There's not a lot of infrastructure, but there's great parking out there. So I don't anticipate it being a real hotspot for a lot of events, but I think that $500 an hour is a good place to start for a large event. What that'll cover is... When we did Battle of the Dad Bands last year with the Chamber of Commerce, we rented the soccer field because that's what they were utilizing, and that was our pricing structure at the time. So they ended up using a lot more than that. And what we would do during events of that size is we would not be renting other fields out there. So I'd want to make sure that if we did an event like this, we weren't renting the other fields, but we weren't losing money. So this would cover the costs of renting the other facilities in Piper Park as well.

So, Nikki, let's say you have an event that goes from 2 to 4, 4 to 6, okay? Like a music event that goes from 4 to 6. That's $1,000 because that's two hours. But what about all the setup time? Like let's say they need to set up starting at 8 a.m. Are we going to charge for that or just for the time of the event?

So typically what you do is you charge for setup time, setup and cleanup as well. For an event like this, we can be flexible on what kind of impact it has on the park. So maybe the rental doesn't need to start at 8 a.m. The bigger impacts are going to start at, say, 1 p.m., and that's kind of where we would look to start the rental.

So when the Community Foundation does their music from 5 to 7, they would have to at least put in $1,000 for... the five to seven period of time. But if the band needs to get there at three.

The Music in the Park series is actually a recreation program. Oh, right. Right, right, right.

Okay.

Yeah.

So if let's say it's not Music in the Park, but it's Battle of the Dad Band, let's say they have to start setting up at 8 a.m. because they're going to put bandstands and stuff out there. That brings the costs up to about $5,000. Right.

For a full day.

A full day. Yeah.

Okay. What happens now with people renting the fields for softball games or soccer games? Are they paying these rates or is that not a special event? That's a sporting event and that's something separate? Yeah.

Correct. Those are rentals of the, this, the athletic fields and that's, that's in the, the, the fee guide that we have right now. So I think the costs right now for the softball fields and the soccer fields are, I want to say about $54 an hour.

Okay. All right. Okay. And then, um, Are we only allowing – because I can see how this memo is written. We're only going to allow large events at Piper and Niven, which would make sense to me. But are we not allowing the smaller events at Piper? Because it seems like Piper is not listed under the small park events.

Correct. So small park events at Piper Park would kind of – so right now there are events that are happening out there, and I think anything under 250 – attendees would be something that could kind of fit into the picnic area, which is, which is kind of already happening. So they would be, that would be a rental of the picnic area or, you know, for a soccer tournament, it would be a rental of the soccer field. But, but I wouldn't call anything under 250, like a, like a truly a special event at such a large park.

But are we not allowing the small park events at Piper, I guess, or the smaller events?

I don't think that there's a need for the fee to apply to Piper because typically a Attendance is a less than 250 are happening like in the picnic area. So that would be a full. So we do in the fee structure have a cost for renting the entire picnic area too. So if somebody were having like a large birthday party or something like that, that would fit into that fee structure.

Okay. But it just seems like if somebody wanted to rent the soccer field, I don't know, you know, for some sort of event, less than 250 people, like, Are we just saying, no, you have to have it in the picnic area? Is that what we're saying?

No. I mean, we could look at having that fee apply to Piper as well, or they would be renting the soccer field. So it was kind of a number that we're choosing. At a soccer game, you can get upwards of 150 people playing and watching a game. So I didn't want to get into these areas where we were now charging, you know, a soccer league $300 to have a bigger tournament out there, which is what they're kind of already doing.

Okay. So I'm just trying to wrap my head around what, give me some examples of what we've had of small park events at 50 plus. I mean, during COVID, I would go take a walk in the park and there would be, you know, tents set up and everything in the picnic area. But give me some examples of what you expect for small park events.

Good. So I want to differentiate, I think, the difference between special events and, say, birthday parties and barbecues.

Good, because I'm confused.

Yeah. Yeah. So right now in the picnic area, there are every weekend that you go out there between April and October, it's packed.

It's birthday party central.

Yeah. And typically those are made of parties that are anywhere from 25 to upwards of 100 people that are... at the picnic tables, spread out into, you know, using the playground or the volleyball area. So I'm not trying to capture those kind of events in the special event policy. The small special events, what I'm looking for is I get a lot of requests for parties to happen in parks that we don't traditionally program. Right now, there's a Greenbrae Neighborhood Association that meets every year in...

School park, right?

Yeah, exactly. And we don't have a template for it. So it's just kind of something that happens that I'm, we're kind of trying to create something because every year people call and say, well, can we, you know, what can we do to have this, this party that we always have? And, and we typically get a, an encroachment permit from public works for them. It doesn't really, um, reflect what they're, they're doing there. Um, this year we had a request that didn't, didn't happen yet, but one of the local businesses at, um, In Bon Air, I wanted to have a special event at Niven Park for a couple hundred people. And policy is not in place. We weren't able to accommodate that. But we get those kind of requests a lot of the time. So I'd like to come up with something that we have that can fit things into a box, make things work.

Were you able to find policies that, like I know in Corte Madera, they have a Corte Madera resident has a different rate than a non-Corte Madera resident? Were you able to find any special event things as examples that are differentiating residents of Larkspur-Greenbrae as opposed to residents of a different area?

Yes, I do. Most cities have those. What we have in this application, this will kind of go a little bit into the policy that we'll look at a little bit later, but Based on the feedback that we got last year and hearing from commissioners, I think that people really wanted any kind of special event that happens in the parks to really be a local group. So I think that based on the policy that you're going to see after this, we're only going to be really working with local groups.

Local meaning Larkspur based?

Yeah.

Okay. Okay.

I was wondering about the 500 an hour and 300 an hour. So is that reflective of, like, cost recovery? Like, do we need, you know, what's the estimate of city staff costs for monitoring and cleanup or whatever you guys do for an event like this?

Yeah, so... The rentals, they're supposed to leave the park as they found it. So there's ideally not a whole lot of cleanup, but we do have in the policy that you'll see later, there's extra. Some events may require staff to be on there, and that would be an additional fee. Okay. This is more, as far as cost recovery, this is more reflective of the loss of revenue that we would have from other rentals that wouldn't be happening during this time.

And so you could actually, based on past large rentals, like over 50 people, I mean, you know, we have those numbers to... kind of substantiate the fee. Cause I'm, I'm just trying, you know, my general attitude is to bring the costs down to the public as much as possible, you know, and, and, you know, just, and then I also don't want us to incur extra costs. And I don't know if this is seen as a source of revenue or it just, I'm wondering, you know, Yeah, I'm just curious if it's sort of been justified by, like you said, the opportunity cost of not being able to rent or you have a high deposit, so I imagine it's not so much in the cleanup.

Correct.

Yeah, I'd like to chime in because I want to maybe give you a different way to think about what you're wrestling with. The target of this policy is not Mr. Resident of Larkspur. This is for organizations that want to take a piece of public space out of the public use for a period of time and have exclusive use potentially doing fundraising and charging admission. So you should think about it in that context rather than you're imposing a cost on one of your neighbors. Okay. This is really targeting larger organizations and groups that want to do something in the park. And we have just learned we don't have a good way of dealing with those requests.

Okay. Okay. So if you had a Larkspur birthday party with 51 people, what would we do?

So you would rent at that, you would rent a picnic table. Yeah. Which is.

Okay. So I see. I see. Okay. And then, you know, if these are groups, are we going to have exemptions for nonprofits or any, you know, kind of like, I would imagine a business up on air, you know, doing things in the course of for-profit might be treated differently. Yeah.

Well, that's always a discussion for you to have. But again, nonprofits charge money for their events too. So keep that in mind because we all know nonprofits that are run on a shoestring and we all know nonprofits that are quite well funded.

So as an example, like Larkspur Community Foundation, sorry if I missed it in the discussion with Catherine, but if they put on one of their musical events in the summer, that's not under this policy or that is, or how does that fit in?

The music, the music events, the music in the park that we do at Piper are recreation programs that that city council is budgeted for. And so we have that. And then we had the Larkspur Community Foundation is one of the sponsors of those events. So so we in the policy that we'll look at in a little bit city budget. run events are exempt from this policy.

But that made a lot more sense to me when you explained it that way, because I just recall going to the Chamber of Commerce battle of dad's ban. And they were fencing up. Half the field was blocked off. It was inaccessible unless you bought a ticket. And it was only ticketed wristband people could enter and use that public space. So I get it. That makes more sense to me that the bigger events like that. I was a little worried, just like you were, that some of these smaller pop-up events that happen are going to be impacted, but it doesn't sound like they would be.

Okay.

Correct. Yeah. I mean, you're a very reasonable person and you have a very reasonable approach to things.

On a side note as well, you know, we rent the hall middle school gym and we do have a nonprofit rate for that one. I don't think I've ever rented to a group that wasn't a nonprofit only because everybody that comes to us looking to do events is somehow connected to a nonprofit. Yeah. So I don't know that that would be the same with large events like this, but in my experience, just about everybody that rents from us is a nonprofit.

And have we covered most of our parks here in this list? I mean, you say, and others will be considered on a case-to-case basis.

Correct. Yeah, I've kind of gone through. These are based on requests that I've received in the past that are already happening.

So, you know, like your park in your neighborhood, Heatherwood Park, I mean, that would be, I don't think you can hold 50 plus people there, but that would be a case by case basis.

Correct. You know, there may be a neighbor one day that wants to have a movie in the park there or something and we can work with that. But I wouldn't necessarily let anybody have a big event in Heatherwood. It's, you know, most of our parks aren't really set up for big events. Right.

Have we, on a side note, have we created an event like this, I mean a policy like this yet for the library in community spaces?

I know your staff's working on it.

A whole list of policies for the library. Got it.

How to rent the community rooms is something we're working through to bring you examples. Okay. Okay.

Okay, great. Any other questions? For recreation director at this point, I'll open up to a couple of public comments.

Yeah, just one more. Sure. So I'm just reading over the resolution 1126. So resolution for adopting park special events. I guess the language of this... Maybe point to me, what we're saying is this is not park or city-sponsored budgeted. Should we define exactly what a special event is? I mean, I don't know. It seems like you guys have an understanding. Maybe I'm just catching up here.

I think that's in the memo of what is a special event.

It feels a little bit, yeah, so the next item, actually two items, you're actually going to look at the special event policy that will define a special event. Okay. It almost feels a little bit backwards.

Yeah, yeah, okay. So I was just looking at 1126, but you're saying that will be clarified in the next, okay. Yes.

Okay. If there aren't any more questions, then I'll open it up to public comment. There's no one here in the chamber. Is there a public comment online?

I think Bernie Ray stands from the Zoom audience members. There's no public comment.

Okay, great. So I'll bring it back to council for discussion.

I think my questions were answered. Okay. Yeah.

Anything else? So are we recommending any changes? Are we good with the policy as it's written?

I'm good with it. I appreciate that you brought it first to Park and Rec Commission in October and they reviewed it and gave you suggestions, I'm sure. I rely on that ability for them to vet it too. So appreciate that. I'm ready to approve item resolution 1126. Okay. Okay.

I just want to add that if for some reason, I mean, I know, you know, pricing is, it can be difficult because you said that you've looked and there's a, probably a wide range of fees. So if you're starting to get some feedback from the organizations, I mean, and we need to revisit this, I'm happy to do that because I think it's sort of, you know, it's, it's a, it's a tricky thing. We don't want to deter people from using it, but at the same time, you know, If costs are high and people are complaining about it, we'd like to know or I would like to know and see how we can adjust things.

I think all of our fees are always up for discussion by the council. But as a reminder, these will get folded into your annual review of fees. So every year going forward, someone would have an opportunity at that hearing to ask you to change a fee.

Okay, great. So we have a motion to...

I'll second that.

Okay, great. So all in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? Okay, motion carries. All right. So now we'll go on to 7.1B, which is Piper Park Picnic Area Bounce House Fees. Bouncy houses. I love bouncy houses.

Now I'm going to really confuse you guys.

Great.

So traditionally what we do, we rent out the tables at Piper Park for birthday parties, school gatherings. we've allowed two bounce house spots connected to certain groupings of tables. Those groupings were E and D and they were kind of close to the picnic, or I'm sorry, they were in the picnic area close to the playground. And so if you wanted to have a birthday party and you wanted to have a bounce house, you would have to rent area D or E and you would include it in the cost of your tables, get the bounce house space. and then you would call up a bounce house vendor and you would reserve a bounce house and a gas generator to power the air blower, which inflates the bounce house. The generators make a lot of noise and they cost about $150 to rent from most vendors. And that's in addition to the three to 400 you're paying for the bounce house, plus the 100 to 120 that you're paying for the picnic tables at Piper Park. So the cost for a birthday party can add up in a park. In the last couple of years, we've installed electricity out at the picnic tables. And the goal was to eventually move the bounce house electrical system to be able to plug into those picnic areas, as well as power the bands for Music in the Park. Everything that we were doing out there, you needed gas generators. And one of my more humiliating stories at a Music in the Park was when, just after intermission, the generator ran out of gas and just everything kind of just stopped. And I ran over and filled it with gas and started it again. So it was a second intermission. So we had this installed a couple of years ago and it's been great. We haven't really started using it for bounce houses yet. We attempted to, and it was just really... It was sometimes trip. And so we installed some second breakers for it. And what I would like to do is we now have a vendor that we'd like to work exclusively with that would have access to that electrical to reset those breakers when that's happening. And I'd like to have the bounce house company plug directly into that electrical. Now that would take away the need for a gas generator. So the fees that you see before you now, sorry, it's kind of straight away, are a $50 fee for a half day and a $75 fee for a full day. And that's for use of the bounce house spaces. And that would allow you the electrical use too. The great thing about these fees is that it actually saves you money because you're not having to rent the gas generator. Again, I looked for comps in the area and bounce house rentals are all over the place with city parks. So a lot of places will offer electrical for free. A lot of places will charge $25 to $50 for the bounce house spot, but not give you electrical. So this is kind of, in my opinion, the best of both worlds. So you would be working with a vendor, Again, paying $300 to $400 for whichever bounce house you want. And then you're saving the $150 for the gas generator. And you're paying the $50 to $75 for use of electrical.

So are they having to pay the gas? I'm sorry, not the gas. The electrical generator vendor for the equipment? Yeah.

So the renter would reserve tables with us, and they would pay the additional fee of $50 or $75. And then they would contact the vendor, and the vendor is going to bring out the bounce house package, which includes an air blower, but the air blower is not extra.

Okay. But they already have an electric air blower, not the gas?

The vendor does.

The vendor does?

Yes. Okay.

So they can just plug that in. I see. Okay. So they don't have to separately contract with another vendor to bring the air blower in? Correct. Okay. Got it. Okay. Sorry, I misunderstood that.

Do you have other circumstances where you have an exclusive vendor where you work only with one particular one for supplies?

Um, not for, for this kind of stuff, what we, you know, we have like a tennis, um, contractor right now that, that exclusively offers tennis.

I see. Um, sorry.

I could chime in.

Crucial things, bounce houses.

I'm laughing because I spent part of the day looking at signs about different things around parks and libraries. So, um, There's lots of crucial decisions to be made. One of the things that Nick has won me over to doing an exclusive agreement that we didn't spotlight, I'm realizing the report's kind of hard to write it all up, but One of the complaints we get are that somebody has brought in a bounce house from some random vendor with no permit or rental ticket associated with that bounce house. I suspect all of you have been out there on a Saturday and seen it being rather chaotic at times. Going with one exclusive vendor means we... Our recreation coordinator who's out there on Saturdays and even the cadets or the community service officers will know there's only that company that's allowed to be out here and these other bouncy houses need to go because they didn't pay to have the space for the bouncy house.

And in terms of electricity, is this the $50 or the $75? Do we know whether that covers our costs for the electricity or not?

Yeah, I've done some calculations based on the use of the, and I'm not a big electrical guy, but based on some of the use of the air blowers and a full day of running a bounce house, I think with our current rates is like upwards of $8. So I think we're well covered electrical usage.

Nick, I'm wondering, this is a minor point, but I think San Rafael maintains a vendor list, you know, so they do kind of what you're doing, but it's more than one. So I looked it up. I think they have Jumping Jacks and Primetime Interactive and Rebecca's Jolly Jumps and all that. Would it make sense to, I understand, you know, having, you know, Astro jumps is, is simpler, but would it make sense to have more than one just for, for backup or the same, you know, I, I'm just a believer that, you know, lists should have, you know, some, you know, short list should have some competition.

Yeah, so we used to have that, and it would be whoever could provide us insurance would make that list. One of my concerns right now with the electrical is that we're really giving people access to locked boxes where they can – because sometimes the – the breakers will trip. And those are under lock and key. So it's kind of one of our concerns is that I want to make sure that not everybody has a key like that. And it's kind of somebody I can trust. The bounce houses too, going through the contract with somebody and having them get their additional insurance for these contracts is sometimes they're dropping off the bounce houses, they're driving into the park to do that. So this actually makes this okay, having this contract in place.

Okay. I mean, I'll trust your judgment. I would think it would be good to have two trusted just for backup, but that's a minor point. Another also very minor point is, is there any issue, I think they drive stakes into the ground and does that ever hit our irrigation?

No, most use sandbags. We actually have it in our rules that you're not supposed to use stakes out there, but the irrigation lines are actually deep. I think that EPW guys have told me it's not really a problem and they'd rather that they just used them.

But I think you just illustrated the point. We have vendors who are not following our rules who are out there without permits, without rental fees.

Yeah. No, no. I'm for getting more control and regulating it. But again, that's fine. Okay. Thank you.

Okay, great. Any more questions? I'll open it up to public comment. Seeing no one in the chamber, any public comment online?

Okay, for anybody who stands from the Zoom audience members, there's no public comment.

Okay, great. All right, so we'll close public comment, bring it back to council. Any other changes or comments that people want to discuss?

No, I think you answered my questions.

Yeah.

I agree. I'm happy to see that we are going to go electric. I think getting rid of the gas generators I think is great for our environment, but just also the noise. So good job, Mr. Stone, for doing that. And I am in support of this.

Yeah, I'll move this motion. I'll move this resolution. 12-26. Thank you.

I'll second. Okay, great. Did you get that, Allison?

Okay.

All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Any abstentions? Okay, great. Motion carries. All right, moving along. Business items, 8.1, parks special events policy. And it looks like Director Stone has a presentation for us.

I do.

Yes. Great.

So, again, this may feel a little bit backwards because we've just done the fees for this, and now we're going to look at the policy itself. So currently there's no special event policy for, for Larkspur parks and where we've run into issues before is, is, is people want to have parties. They have ideas that they, they want to do here. And it really, it puts me in a tight bind when, when somebody asked me to have a, a few years ago, we had a dog fest in, in Piper park. And it was, it's just kind of, We have these things and it would be great if I could point to a policy and give people rules to follow. And it was great. It went really well. There were no issues, but there was a lot of angst about it and there was a lot of work to get it to that point. So by having a policy in place, we can actually kind of give people a packet of paper, a digital packet that they can look over. Um, so yeah, right now special events are held in reservable locations. We're doing, um. A lot of city sponsored events. So these are the music in the park that's happening starting again in May. We have the flashlight egg hunt, the pumpkin patch, my new favorite one. And we do the nightlights event. And this year we had the train out there. These are all city events. And then we also had Alex's playground opening over at Niven, which is an example of a different park that we actually hosted something in. And it went so well out there that it was kind of, I think people saw that and their wheels are turning about doing events in other parks. So these are the kinds of things that would be exempt from this policy. Currently out of Piper Park, we're having, you know, we have company parties that can be relatively small and then other times people want to have a party with, you know, 2,000, 3,000 employees and it doesn't really fit in the picnic area out there. So it's something that kind of needs to expand if it's something that we want to host out there. Last year, the Chamber of Commerce hosted the Battle of the Dad Bands out at Piper Park. It went really well. I think they eclipsed the 250 attendees that we'd be looking for to qualify for these events. But again, it didn't really fit into what we've done before. So we had to kind of come up with rules for them to follow. And it was kind of like, oh, composting. We have to do a trash plan and security and fencing and everything. So this is going to be nice for me to be able to point to something. And we do a lot of school fundraisers out there with Redwood Hall. It's and St. Pat's, and we've actually hosted graduations out there as well.

Actually, Nick, when you mentioned St. Pat's, you know how they sometimes use Piper for field day, right? Do they rent Piper for that or would that qualify as a special event? I don't know if they charge people for that or not, but I know it's a fundraiser.

Traditionally not charged St. Pat's or the local groups for these.

But are we going to start to then under this policy or how's...

We would have to, I think that we talked about this.

Two ways to go. One is to try to say exactly who should receive a waiver. Actually, three ways to go. Option two, waivers come to you. Option three, We have this in the Public Works Department. You gave the director discretion to waive the encroachment fee for groups that are consistent with past direction from the council. So, for example, when the bikes come through on bike-to-work day and they set up the stations, we don't charge for the encroachment permit on that kind of day because it's consistent with our policies and procedures. So you could... Ask that we amend this policy and give explicit latitude to the recreation director to work with our partners like the schools to not charge them for their events.

So is that in here? I can't remember if that was in here.

I don't think it's explicitly in there, but if you said tonight, add that to the policy, we can adopt the policy and add that in. Okay. Add that language in.

Okay. Great.

And for reference, I think right now we're working – we do a field day with Hall. We do a walk-a-thon with Hall. And we do a walk-a-thon with St. Pat's as well. So those are the events right now that are currently – And we're currently not charging. Not charging.

Okay. Okay. Yeah, maybe we should put something in here where it gives you latitude to waive fees for schools or – events where they're not charging an entrance fee to attendees. Excellent.

And so parks that we've considered for special events, Or we've been asked about. So Niven, we had a great event last year with Alex's Playground reopening. And we have had, as I said, we had a business in Bon Air that wanted to host a special event out there. They have been approached by other groups where... Kind of like, oh, this would actually be a nice small event that could happen in Niven Park. Greenbrae School Park, there's a neighborhood association that meets there. That's why this park is on this list. Neighborhood Park, people have asked about. Heatherwood Park, people have asked about. People have not asked about, but I anticipate that they might. And then again, Piper Park is where most of the... most of our special events happen and where I kind of try to push any kind of events or large camps that are happening. So this defines spaces in the park, it defines attendance qualifications, fees, and it gives me a little bit of oversight. Able to put together composting plans, security plans are... have been a concern before, and then site plan. So last year, Battle of the Dead Vance had fencing up, and that was kind of a new thing, but this would give me the discretion to figure that out. And so, yeah, if we want to get into the policy with questions.

Nick, sorry. So event organizer, I think this is the point you made on the earlier item. Organizers must be local community-based organizations being in Larkspur. Did we get any in the past years that we're not? And I guess because we are the largest park by attendance or some metric in Marin, could it be that Corte Madera would want to do something or Twin City or have we gotten San Rafael?

So we have a lot of citizens that have, you know, large parties in the picnic area that are not Larkspur residents. And that still fits into what they've done. I haven't had requests for groups to have large events out there that are not, yeah, Larkspur-based.

Yep. So I think that's one of the things where I think we start with Larkspur-based, and then if we're finding that other groups outside of Larkspur are interested, then I think maybe we can come back or give you latitude to approve or not approve those groups. All right, so I'll open up to public comment. Seeing no one in the chamber, anyone online with a public comment?

Any raised hands from the Zoom audience? There's no public comment.

Okay, great. All right. So maybe my one suggestion would be to add in here that a clause that gives the recreation director specific latitude to waive some of these fees for schools or nonprofits that aren't charging people entrance fees for attendance. So it should be okay. Yeah, with that.

Are you comfortable with that?

comfortable with that yeah thank you yeah i think we'll write it as waiver reduced because we may still want to ask for some money to offset use of electricity or yeah exactly public works staff time so we might we might pivot toward well we'd like you to pay the hourly rate of our public works person that's coming in to serve your great yeah wave or reduce

I like that language.

I would like to point out, too, when we work with those school groups, I know a lot of the custodians that work there, and so I'll actually have them go in and do the work, and the park is usually cleaner than when they found it, and the trashes are actually emptied for the weekend, which is nice.

Okay, great. Okay, that would be my only comment, but any others?

No, I think it looks good.

Okay, great.

Yeah, all right.

See, can I get a motion for Resolution 13-26?

I'll move Resolution 13-26, approving the City of Larkspur Park special event policy.

Including the amendment that was just discussed?

Including the amendment that Mayor Andre just gave.

Yeah, and I'll second that motion.

Okay, great. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Okay, any opposed? Any abstain? Okay, great. Motion passes. Great. Thank you, Director Stone, for, yes. Great work. Thank you for bringing it through Parks and Rec and now to Council. So hopefully we will get lots of good interest and lots of parties and special events out there. Looking forward to the music in the park this summer as well. That was really great. Oh, wow. Fast. Great. All right. Well, then that moves us to item nine, which is adjourn. So we will adjourn to our next regular meeting of the city council on March 4th, 2026. Thank you.