City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, hello everyone i'm calling the regular meeting of the Ross town Council Thursday August 13 2026 to order. town manager Johnson has the agenda been posted.

Yes, Mayor, it has. And staff is requesting a slight change to the agenda. We'd like to move the third design review item, which is number 17, regarding 18 Sir Francis Drake. We'd like to move it up to after 9B. So it would be the third design review item in a row. Some things have been worked out, so we think it can go through pretty quickly.

Great. Does anyone have any objection to that? Okay, thank you. Disclosure of ex parte communications on items where the Town Council acts in an adjudicatory or quasi-judicial capacity. Anything to disclose? Hi Bill.

Yes, hi Julie.

Number four, open time for public expression. This is limited to three minutes per speaker on Wait, do I need to ask Bill where he is and why he's not here? No? Okay, great.

Yes, should I make a statement? I'm in Seattle. That's why I'm not attending. I am at 441 University Street, Seattle, which is a Fairmont Olympic Hotel. And I am in room 358, and there is no one here with me.

Thank you, Bill. So we'll be calling you. We'll call for the votes. All right, number four, open time for public expression. This is limited to three minutes per speaker on items not on the agenda. Anyone in the chamber for public comment?

Dear Mayor and McMillan and Ross Town Council members. First of all, please agendize forced restitution to the town of Ross over its failed, flawed and ultimately withdrawn ballot initiative. I am speaking tonight to address a grave concern regarding the integrity of our upcoming town elections. The Friends of Ross Firehouse, FORF, originally established as a ballot measure committee, has transitioned into a political machine that is leveraging its resources to provide an unfair advantage to two specific candidates, Bob Hertz and Paul Roessler. The toothpaste is out of the tube, so to speak. FORF has utilized its mass mailing list, a list compiled from residents who signed a petition or donated to save our local fire station. to now and for the next 80 plus days, broadcasting endorsements from Mr. Herbst and Mr. Roessler. This email list was not obtained through legitimate campaign purchase. It was harvested under the guise of a single issue civic initiative. As a donor myself, I can state clearly that my contribution was intended to support public safety, not for political engineering. Because Mr. Herbst serves as president of FORF, he and Mr. Rossler have exclusive access to this database of engaged voters. Other candidates in the race do not have the same access, creating a fundamentally unlevel playing field. This use of specialized voter data without the explicit consent of our citizens on the list and without parity for other candidates undermines the democratic process in Ross. I ask the Council to consider the following points regarding the situation. First, potential campaign finance violations. The Council should inquire whether the mass communications constitute a coordinated campaign contribution to the Herbst and Roessler campaigns rather than an independent expenditure. Transparency and data acquisition. There must be a full public disclosure regarding how Forth's email list was acquired and compiled, and whether its use for candidate advocacy complies with the FPPC mass electronic and disclosure rules. Finally, restoration of fairness. We need to understand who authorized, wrote, and distributed these endorsement emails, and whether these two candidates participated in those decisions, as this changes the legal characterization of the organization's spending. The residents of Ross deserve an election this November that is transparent and fair. As Ross citizens, we did not provide our contact information to a ballot measure committee so they could be weaponized by force officers for their own political gain. I urge the council and town attorney to investigate these discrepancies to ensure our local governments remains accountable to the facts and its citizenry, and therefore allow the other two candidates similar access to town-wide email list. Michael Rosenbaum, 14 Madrona Avenue.

Thank you. Anyone else? Hello.

Hello.

We'll see if I'm doing it right. Did I do good this time? I'll even introduce myself. I'm Diane Redden, 39 Willow Avenue. Good evening, everyone. And I just want to say that we had an age-friendly meeting here this afternoon or this morning, really. And we talked about the intercom system and we're all for it and you know here here and we have a couple things planned going forward for age friendly, but what we're trying to do is get the word out to Kent field. and invite them into our age-friendly group. And if anybody has any brilliant ideas on how to do that, I would love to hear. Because the post office there is not open until 10 o'clock in the morning. And not very many people use that post office. It's not like ours. So besides Woodland Market, I do not have any way to get ahold of those people.

Thank you. Anyone else in the chamber? Mayor Mrakas, Anyone online zach no one online mayor. Mayor Mrakas, Thank you, so the mayor's report. Mayor Mrakas, We had a special Council meeting on August four to first retain cancer architects who prepared the citizens advisory committee's gorgeous conceptual concept presented April 29. Mayor Mrakas, Earlier this week staff had a kickoff meeting with cancer to begin the process of amending the facilities master plan. and developing other information, including costs. The goal is to complete this by late October to allow for a general obligation bond election in 2027. We will be holding frequent council meetings to inform the public, gather public comment and make decisions. At that meeting, we also accepted the withdrawal of the fourth initiative from the November 3rd, 2026 ballot that would have compelled the town to have an operating fire station within town limits with no associated funding. Finally, we approved and signed the ballot argument to renew the Ross Valley Paramedic Authority parcel tax, which will be called Measure U, starting in fiscal year 27-28 at $107.50 per year, adjusted up to $4 per year for four years. On July 27, there was a small vegetation fire in Mill Valley between Hillside Avenue and the Blythedale Ridge called the Hillside Fire. It was contained quickly at 1.5 acres due to fast emergency responses and effective vegetation management in the area. There were robust responses from 11 fire engines, including from Southern Marin Fire, Marin County Fire, two Tamalpais fire crews, and CAL Fire, along with mutual aid from Tiburon and Central Marin Fire, three battalion chiefs, Four aircraft, one Cal Fire Air attack plane from Santa Rosa serving as the air traffic controller, two Cal Fire Air tankers, one from Santa Rosa and one from Mendocino, making one drop of fire retardant. The PG&E funded firefighting Blackhawk helicopter stationed at Nosfield in Novato arriving seven minutes after dispatch and making seven water drops sourced from Corte Madera and Phoenix Lake. A transport dozer carrying a bulldozer, two water tenders each carrying 2,000 to 2,500 gallons of water, Mill Valley police, and one paramedic ambulance. City Council Chambers, The fire moved at a slow rate of spread through vegetation that had been treated by southern marine fire and the marine wildfire prevention authority. City Council Chambers, Southern marine fire believes the fire break work and other preventative measures in the area over the past several years, help limit the fire spread and then I have a link to a note from southern marine fire about other preparation that they did. back to school it's hard to believe that summer is ending and school is already starting Ross school begins next week on August 19 and Branson classes began on August 24. finally live on the comments thanks to RPOA and the town will be next Friday August 21st with Super Diamond a Neil Diamond tribute band come here sweet Caroline and other classic Neil Diamond hits Council Committee and Liaison Reports.

Just a report from the post office today. The most, the main concern that I heard was a concern about the number of vehicles in the street when there are building projects, and specifically there were two building projects in this one neighborhood, the neighborhood of Ames, and a request that when we issue permits that we pay attention to conditions for parking. I think that still doesn't help if you have three cement trucks at one time, but we can do our best trying to make sure there's a parking and construction plan.

Anybody else? Bill, do you have anything?

No, I don't, Julie. Okay.

Staff and community reports. Ross Property Owners Association.

Good evening. My name is Peter Solar. I live at 15 West Road here in Ross, and I'm representing RPOA tonight. This is just to give an update for the month. First and foremost, I want to thank you for the contribution of $25,500. from the town. That was submitted in July and it's already been cashed. We appreciate it, obviously. As you mentioned, we are hosting a Live on the Commons event on the 21st of August. The entertainment will be Super Diamond, which is a Neil Diamond cover band. There will be food trucks and activities for kids and also the obviously all the restaurants that are in the area benefit from this. So they're super excited. We are we're hosting a candidates night coming up. We're in the process of trying to find a venue and a zoom coordinator. This will happen sometime in October. So more to come on that. You may notice when you go to the Ross Post Office, we have new lights. And we think that's been a... We get a lot of compliments so far, and we're really appreciative of that. We're looking at potentially either fixing up the lights in the back or potentially replacing those. So we're in the process of figuring out what's the best solution there. We'll get back to you on that. There's also an age-friendly... tour of Bucks Institute on September 22nd coming up and then the last couple things we did Ross Auxiliary just announced two new co-presidents Gabrielle Gantis and Taylor Porter and then the last thing is obviously the flowers that are on near the common City Council Chambers, they're doing great and we're continuing to watering those and maintaining all that all the plants that are in that area so that's it, thank you.

City Council Chambers, Great Thank you and I understand you had a meeting Monday i'm sorry I missed it, I did not receive an email or or the agenda so i'm sorry I wasn't there.

City Council Chambers, There was a meeting today.

City Council Chambers, Monday night. City Council Chambers, yeah Thank you. City Council Chambers, To manager Johnson.

Thank you. Good evening Mayor and Council Members. I'd like to welcome back our Recreation Manager Maureen Borthwick from Family Leave. She is zooming into the meeting tonight from her home. And I'd also like to give a big thank you to our two other rec employees who really gave it their all and held down the fort. So that would include Recreation Clerk Mallory Barron who doubled her hours in order to assist the recreation department and the town continue to provide excellent customer service to residents. And I'd like to give a big thank you to Wyatt Mann who so ably served as interim rec manager since last April and through a very busy time of the year for programming and events for the department. Wyatt is here this evening and I hope we can all congratulate him and thank him for a job well done. In other staffing news, yes, the dreaded day arrived, and our esteemed Public Works Director, Rich Simenich, left us for retirement. On day 10, we are surviving, but definitely feel his absence. Thankfully, our Civic Center project manager, David Kelly, agreed to fill in as interim director and we were able to hire a knowledgeable consultant, John Moe, to handle the town engineer functions, that portion of the director position. This week our town clerk zach and I started a robust recruitment process with a professional HR firm, which will hopefully fingers crossed result in interviews in mid October, so we are going to have this interim period where we're just all. doing our best to work together as a team to address resident issues and also prepare for what is projected to be a very wet winter. And that also includes Anthony and Zach, our other Zach, in the Public Works Department to prepare for the rainy season. from the police department as the mayor mentioned raw school starts on Tuesday with Branson school soon after and we would like to remind the community to remember to share the road with bicyclists and children walking to school Ross PD officers will be enforcing traffic laws please plan ahead and give yourself plenty of time if your child rides a bike to school please have a conversation about following the rules of the road The filing period closed yesterday for residents wishing to run for election to the town council. There are four candidates. The advisory design review group meeting this month will be held on Tuesday, August 25th at 6 p.m. in the council chambers. That's a change of their usual time and it's to allow for a quorum so they can meet. And speaking of quorum, we will have an absence on a vacancy on the ADR, and the Ross Council is seeking a volunteer to fill one opening on ADR for a three-year term. Serving on the ADR is a unique experience. to make a positive contribution to the design and appearance of the community and help neighbors come together on development issues. The application is available online and the due date to apply has been extended to August 24th. we would like to thank the current adr members that have worked to make the adr group a helpful forum for providing staff applicants and the town council with feedback during the development review process mark krishnett the chair he's the outgoing member joey buckingham mark fritz stephen sutro and laura duer we give them big thanks for all their work they do throughout the year and i'm just finally i'm going to be going back and forth between my office and zooming in i have a cough and i don't want to be any more distracting to the council so that's what don't be alarmed i'll be coming back in and that's it thank you for the opportunity to report thank you consent agenda does any member of the public wish to remove any item from the consent agenda anybody online

No one online, Mayor.

Any council member want to remove something? OK. Could we please have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

I'll move that we can approve the consent calendar. Second.

Motion by Councilmember Dowling, second by Mayor Pro Tem Robbins. Yes. Mayor McMillan?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Robbins? Yes. Councilmember Kircher? Yes. Councilmember Dowling. Yes. Councilmember Salter. Yes. Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you. We are moving on to the public hearing on planning projects. 92 Glenwood Avenue design review nonconformity permit and demolition permit and town council consideration of adoption of resolution number 2645 approving the project subject to conditions. Roberta. Alex.

Good evening Mayor and Council members. Tonight the applicant at 92 Glenwood Avenue is requesting Town Council's consideration for designer view and a demolition permit. The project is proposing to replace the existing stucco with cedar shingles throughout the exterior of the house. During the meeting at the ADR meeting July 21st, all the AD members were in support of the project. And staff request that the town council consider adopting resolution 2645, approving design review and a demolition permit.

Questions from council? No. Bill went away. Bill, are you still there?

He's still online, Mayor. He is his cameras just off.

Okay, great. All right. Does anyone from the public wish to make a statement? Anyone online? Does the applicant wish to make any statement? Then we'll bring it back for discussion and emotion, please.

So just add a comment. We got a letter about the shingles. But the the owner showed me the shingles they have their their cal fire approved and they have some special backing. So I think that it's fine to go ahead with this.

Yeah, Roberta, did you want to add anything to that? That's correct. It's CAL FIRE and will be approved. So in terms of if you see the shingles, what you're really want to look at is the assembly. There should be other fire resistant backings connected to that siding that way if the shingles burn off, there is something that stops burning.

Great. Any further discussion?

I move we approve resolution 2645. I'll second.

Motion by Mayor Pro Tem Robbins, second by Council Member Dowling. Mayor McMillan?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Robbins? Yes. Council Member Kircher? Yes. Council Member Dowling? Yes. Council Member Salter? Yes. Motion passes unanimously.

And we're moving on to 98 Laurel grove avenue design review and nonconformity permit and town council consideration of adoption of resolution number 2646 approving the project, subject to conditions.

Good evening, Mayor council members tonight the applicant at 98 lower growth is requesting town councils consideration for design review and a nonconformity permits. The project is proposing to expand the existing guest house by 396 square feet, increasing the total floor area for that guest house from 385 square feet to 781 square feet. The project also includes a new trellis, a patio, and retaining walls. At the ADR meeting on July 21st, all the ADR members were in support of the project since the project is not exacerbating the existing nonconformity. Staff request that the town council consider adopting resolution 2646 approving design review and a nonconformity permit. Thank you.

Councillor Schell, member questions. Any comment from the public on this item? Does the applicant wish to make a statement? You certainly don't have to. Thank you. We like that. Okay. We'll bring it back for any further discussion or a motion.

I move that we adopt resolution number 2646. Second.

Motion by Council Member Dowling. Second by Mayor Pro Tem Robbins. Mayor McMillan.

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Robbins. Yes. Council Member Kircher. Yes. Council Member Dowling. Yes. Councilmember Salter? Yes. Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you. Now we're moving on to 17A, which we're taking a little bit out of order. which is 18 Sir Francis Drake Boulevard design review nonconformity permit demolition permit and a variance and town council consideration of adoption of resolution number 2644 approving the project subject to conditions.

Mayor council members tonight the applicant and owner 18 Sir Francis Drake is requesting town council's consideration for design review a demolition permit a nonconformity permit and a variance The project is proposing to renovate the existing residence by replacing the existing siding with horizontal cedar siding with also stone veneer base. Additional site improvements include reconfiguring and reduction of a swimming pool, the relocation of equipment, construction of a new patio and a new gravel driveway. at the adr meeting on june 16th ddr members were in support of the project with minor modifications the members recommended that the patio be located five feet from the side property line to use a darker base material and also more of a natural color palette the applicant revised the plans accordingly and also the members also supported the pool equipment's relocation because of the proximity to sir francis drake staff request that the Council consider adopting Resolution 2644, approving designer view, a nonconformity permit, a demolition permit, and a variance.

Questions, Councilmembers? Any public comment on this item?

My name is Mark Converse. I'm a neighbor to 18 Sir Francis Drake. I just want to clarify, and I talked to Alex, that was the item on the design review was a three-unit building, and that's been rescinded to a two-unit building. I just want to confirm that's the case for public record, right?

That's correct.

Okay. And then the other improvements, like there's going to be other stuff done, as we discussed, that'll be further permits, right? For instance, excavation permits and those kind of things, right? Because there's some other, like for instance, there's not been a geotext survey done, and that would be part of the building permits. Is that correct?

That would be submitted during the building permits.

Okay. All right. That's it. We support the project. It's well overdue.

Thank you. Do you want to state your name?

Mark Converse, and I live at 16 Sir Francis Street.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Any other public comment? Does the applicant wish to make a statement? Are they online? Ross, it's Ross McKenna.

Yes. Ross or Studio J. I'll let both of you talk.

Hi, can anyone hear me? This is Richard from Studio J Architecture.

Yeah, hi, we hear you.

Okay, great. Hi. Nothing really to add other than confirming the conditions of approval for the flat roof for the neighbor on the other side. Otherwise, I think if everyone approves the project, we'd like to move forward. And that's all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, well, we'll move it back to council for any discussion or a motion.

Well, I move that we adopt resolution number 2644. Second.

Motion by Councilmember Dowling, second by Mayor Pro Tem Robbins. Mayor McMillan?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Robbins?

Yes.

Councilmember Kircher? Yes. Councilmember Dowling?

Yes.

Councilmember Salter?

Yes.

Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you. Now we're moving to the administrative agenda. Item number 10. Town Council to receive a presentation from Team CivX regarding the planning, evaluation, public information, and community engagement process associated with potential local revenue measures and discuss how these services may assist the town as it continues evaluating potential financing options for implementation of the Ross Civic Center facilities master plan and related municipal capital improvements. Krista.

Thank you, Mayor. The item before you this evening is we are continuing our council education series related to the town's civic center redevelopment project. You may recall that on April 2nd, the council received a presentation from Fieldman Rollup, the town's municipal financial advisor, regarding the town's financial condition, budget outlook, and capacity to support debt service associated with implementation of the facilities master plan. And then on July 9th, the council received a presentation regarding alternative project delivery and procurement methods for implementation of the Ross Civic Center project, and also discussed the town's priorities regarding project delivery, procurement, schedule, cost certainty, and risk allocation. In the third part of this educational series, Joy Kummer, partner with a firm called Team Civics, will give the council a presentation providing an initial overview of the feasibility and process for a potential local funding measure, including the available election timing, key strategic considerations, and recommended next steps and decision points. Thank you. uh oh there we go i'm so sorry excuse me joy let's just give us could you just give us a second to make sure we get your oh yes it'll take a moment

Me.

The challenge is always getting the Zoom to combine with the PowerPoint. So thank you for your patience.

Okay. We'll try this again. Here we go. Again, Joy Kummer. I'm one of the partners at Team Civics. We are a communication and election strategy firm. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Oh, perfect. And we now have a presentation. I work with cities, school districts, counties and other public entities as they review the process to place a potential measure on the ballot. We look at exploring feasibility. So tonight I'm just here to talk a little bit about past election trends in the town of Ross, as well as looking forward at potential opportunities that might be available and some things to be thinking about as you consider that. So just a little bit about the facilities master planning timing. We know that you're in the process of completing the facilities master plan amendment. Looking at that project scope and the costs that are being determined and associated with that, I had an opportunity to take a look at some of the previous materials. Potential funding options that are available to help with that project. And then tonight, again, I'm just here to talk about the planning and process and election timing. So a little bit about our firm. We are one of the leaders in helping prepare and help cities pass potential tax revenue measures. We have an over 90% success rate. on all sorts of measures all around the state of California. We're often known as good team players. We sort of work well with the other existing people on your team as you're moving forward. We work with fieldmen quite often in cities around the state as they're doing the financial advisor part of it, and we're helping with the communications. Our emphasis is really on customer service and responsiveness. I come to meetings. I actually live in Oakland, so it's not a bad drive for me. We really try to pay attention. I know how ballot measures work. I know about election timing. City Council Chambers, But you know your community, so it is always a team effort that's important that we're working together, and of course we always have individual attention from each of our partners, so I would always be the point person working with your town. City Council Chambers, So I have many slides on your past elections and they're just looking at the data in different ways, so that we can glean some information about how elections have gone in the past, this is just meant to be a big picture historical. City Council Chambers, Your general overall passage rate for items in the town are at about 78% in the general election So those are your November elections in even numbered years. That passage rate is at 100%. Primary elections, 75%. You can see five of your elections were in November, two in June, two in March. They've most frequently been on the November elections. That's why we see such a higher percentage of passage rate. Overall, the other thing to consider in each of these different types of elections is your turnout. So you'll notice the first line down, we start talking about turnout. In those primary elections, so those are typically March or June elections, turnout is lower. And this is a trend we see all across California. Voters turn out in lower numbers in primary elections. In your general election turnout, we see it around 76%. Again, that's an average. Your next two bars down we're just talking about passage rate so again kind of looking at general picture over all the times in the 2022 primary there was a high passage rate of 87%. The lowest percent of a yes vote was at 60% in the 2020 primary. That, of course, was the beginning of the COVID pandemic. Lots of ballot measures struggled in that election. We saw, you know, people just very uncertain about the future. So it's not surprising that that would be the lowest yes percent turnout.

Excuse me, was that one of our ballot measures that had a 60% yes? Yes, correct. Which one was that?

I'll be going through these next, yes. So, and again, just thinking about that being the beginning of COVID, it's not surprising to see a lower yes percent. So here are all of those elections, as I promised. It was probably, you can see that one was measure F. It was a student enrollment increase. It did actually pass. It wasn't requiring a two-thirds vote, but it was the lowest yes percentage. Again, not surprising for a ballot measure on the ballot in March of 2020. As we look down this list, you can see many of them are the public safety parcel tax, the paramedic services tax, all of those renewals. And except for the 2012 it was to lower the tax, and you can see here again as we're looking at this those November elections, the turnout percent, then you see the yes percent. And then, whether or not it passed, so the only time there was the no vote that was in June 5 of 2012 and that one failed to pass. but each time otherwise they have passed.

How far back in time did you go? So we went back to 2010. Because we did have a major fail for Ross School in, what's that Elizabeth? 2006? No, 2005. It was before the flood.

May, excuse me, Joy, these are just the town measures, right? It's not the school district.

Correct. There is actually another, there are some other elections in here that are the school district's parcel tax, and we didn't include all of those.

I think the school enrollment is Branson, right?

Yep, it is.

But the 2020 60% that wasn't a town measure that was a private school measure. So it's considered the towns. Right? No, of course. But I mean, as far as like, did the town put something forward that didn't pass? It wasn't the town that put that forward.

Right. So the 2012 is the only measure that we have that. So again, we're kind of looking at those turnout trends and the yes percent. You know, the takeaway here is, I think, one of the takeaways anyway, is that the town values both public safety and paramedic services. And we can see that that is... True, because it often is renewed, except for that 2012 measure. So as we look at each one of these just a little bit, you know, in different ways, we're looking at the yes vote, we're looking at the no vote. And again, what type of measure it was, you know, you can kind of see the data here. I'll just kind of lightly gloss over these because it's just each way of looking at that summary chart that we just did. But it's just another opportunity to see all the numbers because now you can see the total number of voters plus the total turnout each time. So right when we're looking at 2010, we can see 1,677 total voters. The turnout was 1,133, 68% turnout. If we look then at the primary measure on March 5th, 2024, you can see total voters 1743, turnout was 874, a 50% turnout. So just kind of comparing here a November election to a March election. So even though one is a paramedic and the other is public safety, we're still just looking at two different election dates to see how the turnout changes. And on the next slide, we're looking at a November election versus June election. So again, just taking a look at the turnout, you know, you can see your yes vote, your no votes are fairly similar. The June saw a slightly higher yes vote. But as we look down at the turnout, we can see total number of voters voting in the election, pretty similar at about 1,600 voters. But the November election, a slightly higher turnout as it reached over 1,000 voters, turning out at 65%. Again, June, 892, 53%. And then finally here just another you know public safety public safety, both of these are no November elections. The 2016 election was a presidential the 2012 election also a presidential and again, you can see, this is where you enjoy your highest turnouts so each time we're just kind of looking. how do these elections compare to each other and how does turnout compare? Because when we're thinking about putting a potential measure on the ballot, one of the things that you want to understand is, is it doing better when it's on a ballot with lots of other things as these November ballots are, right? Every time we have a presidential year, just even a gubernatorial year like this year, We see many more things on the ballot, many state measures, many county measures, many school measures, but we still enjoy a large turnout. So although we may not control the conversation, voters are turning out to vote on the measures and we're seeing that it's not impacting at least these public safety measures. You're still able to have a conversation and be heard and these measures are doing well in those November elections. But if I go back one slide, you can see again, City Council Chambers, Like the primary measures we're just seeing lower turnout so you might be not there might not be as many things on the ballot in that primary election, but voters just aren't being compelled to turn out, even though it's still issue that is important to the town so. Okay, so here we go just turn out over time again just another way to look at it all and be able to kind of see that turnout trend. So we've put the measures in there from 2010 to 2024 you can see your high major turnout was major K in 2016 that's when the highest number of voters turned out these later election years we just haven't seen the same turnout so. Again, those are primary elections, those last three that we're seeing, the F, the I, and the E, and you can see how much lower the turnout is in those primary elections. So then we take a look at also the passage rate for each of those elections. And you can see it's actually pretty consistent. You know, we have a little bit of a low drop there in that June 5th of 2012. We have a little bit of a low drop in March of 2020. Both of those, you know, that's the pandemic. So you would expect that. But otherwise, you've enjoyed a pretty consistent yes vote, except for those dips. And so finally, one last way to look at it. Many people see different data differently. So I'm trying to provide an overall view so that you can just see different ways of looking at this. So again, the yellow dots are the primary elections, the blue dots are the general elections, those being the November elections. And again, except for those two elections where we saw a dip in both voter turnout, we're also seeing those measures kind of down there in the lower end of percentage passage, or percentage yes, not passage. Because again, the one measure did pass, the student enrollment, It's just that it didn't require two thirds. So one of the takeaways that, again, I have about this is that when we're looking at these elections, One consideration you have when you're looking at all of the data aggregately is mostly these public safety measures, both of them, the paramedic services and the public safety one, have enjoyed success regardless of voter turnout. So it didn't matter whether we had high voter turnout or low voter turnout. It's just a service that people care about. And so we were able to have a good conversation and people understood the need of it. I think as you're switching gears and looking at a different subject, there are a lot of things to think about. And so the rest of the slides, I just kind of want to go through that and pull that apart because we're no longer talking about public safety. We're talking about public buildings and people have different emotional attachments to each of those items. And it's worthwhile to consider that as you're looking at what, you know, what to do next and what type of measure to put on the ballot. So when you're looking at election timing and you're considering that as part of the process, the factors beside a primary election or a general election are the measure type, which is what I just explained, public trust. That's always important when a public entity is looking to put a ballot measure on the ballot. We see the more trust people have in that public entity, the more likely they are to be successful. tax amount. It's no surprise that here in California we're seeing a lot of tax sensitivity recently, regardless of what type of measure it is. We've been doing surveys all over the state, and I will say it is the number one issue I have seen this past year that has come up in the minds of California voters is this tax sensitivity. City Council Chambers, A lot of that is because of the economy, people are feeling inflation in a way that they just haven't felt it before, and I work in a lot of communities that are similar small and. City Council Chambers, You know, similar demographics, as the town of Ross and it doesn't matter where you are in California, everyone is sort of feeling this. when you're thinking about it also another thing to consider is will there be potential opposition do we have everybody around the table is everybody having a good conversation or will there be opposition for a potential geo bond on the on the ballot it would be a two-thirds measure so right in order to be successful those measures require a lot of consensus they often fail When they have a minimal amount of opposition. And then the ability to form and have an independent campaign committee, the town can always provide public information and talk about the process. Just as you're planning to be doing is you're moving forward, however, once the town makes a decision to move forward to put something on the ballot that has to be supported by an independent campaign committee. And I believe all of your previous measures have had some level of that before, which is part of the reason they were successful. So what potential election dates are available in 2027 there are four potential election dates 2027 will be an off year election. So just that alone will likely make it a lower turnout election because people are used to voting in even-numbered years and they're used to voting in November of those even-numbered years. There are pros and cons to each one of these elections. We'll go through those one by one. But just on a high level, March 2nd, May 4th, The county lists August 31st. That's very odd to me, but their dates and their calendar all line up with that August 31st. Typically, elections are the first Tuesday after the first Monday. So we would confirm that with the county. But it does appear that they have an August 31st vote by mail special election. And then, of course, there is the November 2nd, 2027 special election. So for each one of these elections, there are some pros and cons. One of the big ones is the cost consideration. You'll notice that some of these are labeled vote by mail special election and some are just labeled special election. With the requirement now of vote centers, uh that can often increase the costs for an election a standalone election especially because you're required to have a vote center open 10 days before election day and that has to be staffed by someone from the county during the open hours and that can increase costs i recently did a ballot measure and i just give this as an example for the San Marino Unified School District. So very small insular community, a little bigger than the town of Ross, but also small. They were renewing a parcel tax on the ballot. Because they were required to have vote centers open, the county billed them. Normally they had paid somewhere around 20 to $30,000 to renew their measure. They were charged over 800,000 for that election. City Council Chambers, And it took many, many back and forth for them for the county to come down from that so it's just I think really important in the planning. City Council Chambers, To understand what the county would charge for a vote by mail versus a special election. I am very cautious about that since the district had been billed that. The other things to consider is just this November. This November, because these are all 2027 election dates, you're coming on the heels of this November's election. Everyone will have heard everything about this November by the time you vote to move to place something on the ballot in 2027 should you decide to do that. This ballot will be crowded. There is a contested gubernatorial election for the first time in a long time in California. It means we're gonna have a lot of TV ads, a lot of text messaging, a lot of mail. There's also some very interesting statewide propositions that include provisions about tax measures that will get a lot of attention this November as well. And, you know, as I mentioned on a previous side, the tax sensitivity is high, so that will be interesting as that conversation happens this November. It's hard to get voters attention for education when they're focused on November. So they're focused on this November's election. It's hard to get them to think about the future when this is what they're hearing all the time. And then that voter, you know, tax fatigue. City Council Chambers, And then, lastly, you know proposition 43, which is what I just mentioned that is on the ballot talking about restricting. City Council Chambers, The potential for citizens initiatives and tax measures going forward so that's going to have a lot of conversation around it and it'll just be interesting as we move it forward. City Council Chambers, Based on how California voters decide on that, so I think it's something to watch as you're considering future ballot measures. So I just again, I promised that I would go through each one of those as a pros and cons. But here I'm taking a moment to just show what March would look like, because I think in order to understand the pros and cons of each of these elections, it's helpful to be thinking of the process and kind of the timeline that you'd be working under in order to meet a particular deadline. So I like this graphic. Because oftentimes when I'm thinking about a ballot measure, I think about the election date I'm targeting. So in this particular example, we are looking at the March, 2027 election. So from there, you have to work backwards and think, OK, this is our ultimate target. What does it look like when we work backwards from that date? The important thing here when you're looking at this is we have purposely you'll notice there are four steps, but purposely we have colored the first three arrows blue. Those are items that a public entity can do as part of their planning process. So they're blue on purpose before that blue line. City Council Chambers, Then the arrow changes color to yellow, because that is a separate process done by the independent campaign committee. City Council Chambers, So these first three arrows are the things that the town can do as part of your planning process so again as we're kind of working backwards that date right under that November 2026. In order to place a measure on the ballot, the council would have to vote 88 days before election day. At your current cycle of meetings, that likely means a November vote. So voting right after the general election in order to meet that deadline to get on the ballot for March. It would enable you to place that ballot measure on the March ballot. So everything we would be doing between now, this middle of August, through that November date is covered by those three arrows. So the first thing, you know, kind of considering is the voters, whether or not you would be interested in some sort of voter survey to understand the interests of your voters. the election timing, what date is best suited, the political landscape, and the tax rate. Those are all part of the feasibility question. Is this feasible to put on a future ballot? Then you're kind of looking at that September through November timeframe to do that awareness building. Those are those non-advocacy communications. It's part of the process that you're already building, having regular meetings about the City Council Chambers, master plan amendments talking about how you would fund that talking about potential solutions. City Council Chambers, All of that awareness building can be done using your existing communications. City Council Chambers, it's making sure that everybody internally understands the process and then also expanding that to your external audiences again building on the transparency and trust as you're moving through this process. And determining whether or not the Community is ready to move forward, because ultimately elections do cost money and if you're putting something on the ballot, you want to hope that it has a chance of success. Then the final thing just before you vote is that ballot measure development. So it is that ballot question, that important 75-word statement that appears on everyone's ballots that they ultimately vote on, the tax rate, which will be part of the ballot book, and then also ballot arguments and signers. So it's a fairly compressed but not impossible timeline. in order to prepare for a March election. And so you can imagine as we go through each of the other election dates, you're still doing these same things. It's just changing the time that we have in order to do it. So here are some considerations for each of those potential election dates. So again, I have that March date, the May date, the August date, and the November date. Each one of these, it's very likely that it will be a single issue ballot. Right there's just not much likelihood that anything else would be on the ballot so again we're probably dealing with lower turnout. But some advantages of each these elections, obviously the march and may elections earlier funding for the potential project, if it were to pass. City Council Chambers, It would allow you to do that some disadvantages for both of those is that compressed you know faster time schedule that we just saw on the previous slide. City Council Chambers, You know potential costs of a vote Center in March, because you might remember that one just said special election it didn't say mail ballot was available. City Council Chambers, And less project maturity less time to you know, have the conversation with the Community less time to make planning. Same with May. Again, May is not a time when people typically vote. So you may see even lower voter turnout in May because people just aren't expecting. And as school years are and graduations and all those things are happening, we just don't see a lot of people participating in May elections. So it's just important to kind of think about that. um August again single issue uh earlier funding um the hard thing about August elections I we have tried these many to many times in different communities I have rarely seen an August measure pass I'll be quite Frank because people are doing their last minute traveling before their kids go back to school or you know before the end of the summer it would be in my mind the the one that I would least likely recommend City Council Chambers, It is just very hard to capture voters in August November of 2027 you know, obviously, it is a longer runway. City Council Chambers, We won't know again if there would be additional costs if that would be required for a vote Center that would be something we'd have to figure out with the county. City Council Chambers, But you'd have time for more public outreach you'd have more time for problem project definition. it's possible that if anyone else was targeting an election, they'd probably be targeting that. There could be other things on that ballot. But again, I would expect it would still be a single issue, very likely. It's just if someone else was looking at a ballot, they probably would look at that. City Council Chambers, So the other thing I wanted to talk about, and I know that the town has perhaps not done a voter survey in the past, but I wanted to sort of talk a little bit about advantages and disadvantages. City Council Chambers, i've worked with towns that are even smaller than the town of Ross who have done voter surveys, so I know they can be done i've done jurisdictions that are even smaller. You know, some that have had 50 to 150 voters. You do voter surveys differently in those communities. So is it helpful? Yes. But there are some considerations, I think. What are some of those advantages? A voter survey is a scientific way to look at registered voters who are likely to vote in a particular election. So it really is meant to give you a clear idea of where people are today on the issues. And it doesn't even just have to be about The you know master plan project, you could actually ask questions about other things that are important in the Community. So there are opportunities to ask about other town priorities, so it could help you inform the process and understand what some of the cost tolerances are one town I worked with. They looked at two different types of ballot measures. This is way up north in one of the northern counties, a sea or an ocean side town. And right, they were considering both a fire measure and another general sales tax measure in order, you know, by going through the survey process. They were able to figure out what was best for their town and it actually helped them be successful after previous failures so again, sometimes it can help give you some information that you may not have. The disadvantages are you know, a professional survey firm that is not me, we don't do surveys, but I work with survey firms. Depending on the type of survey, you know the cost can be between 25 and 30,000. City Council Chambers, I think, if you are asking other questions about other town priorities, it probably helps. City Council Chambers, add value if it's a single issue survey, though it may not be as valuable that could be a disadvantage. The other disadvantage is that it would require some time to build that survey. You'd want to hire a firm, you'd want to talk to them about the questions. In our firm, I would work with you on that process if we were moving forward, but it would add some time. If we were targeting something in March, you obviously wouldn't want to field a survey in October of this year, for example. It would mean you'd have to do a survey in September. And then I'd have some questions about, you know, how, since it was done before the election in November, like, you know, voter perceptions could change. So you wouldn't actually wanna do a survey before the November election. City Council Chambers, And that's an incredibly tight timeline between then and March, so you know just concept again i'm not trying to tell you which one is better i'm just trying to provide you with information to help you make a good decision as you're considering all these options. So next steps, I promise I think I'm down to two slides. So next steps. Part of the next steps would be to bring the team together to help put together this plan. And that would be including you know, your bond council, the municipal financial advisor. We would be part of that communications and planning consultant, your architect, your cost estimator, and then of course town staff. That really is your full team as you're considering this project. The types of things that we specifically work on, we work with the team on feasibility. So is a survey right? What type of survey is right? How should we go about that? Strategic communications. City Council Chambers, In many cities i've worked on, you know town halls or worked on presentations as you go out sometimes instead of bringing people to you it's better to go where people are so how do we work those communications into those existing meetings. City Council Chambers, You know, working on that communication engagement election timing and then coordination with all the other advisors oftentimes we work to help. City Council Chambers, run the timeline and just make sure, because we do have a date that we have in mind, as I showed with the timeline. City Council Chambers, And we want to make sure that we've accomplished all the things we want to accomplish before the Council makes a decision about which direction to go and ultimately placing a major on the ballot. So here it is, I promised the last slide. So happy to answer any questions. But I think some of the things that we were hoping this would lead to discussion on is, you know, is the town interested in continuing to valuing future, future funding options? Do we feel that public outreach is appropriate? Is there any other analysis on the election timing? And you know, whether we should Our firm should be a part of that process, so these are our questions and I don't know David if you had anything else or.

it's as joy mentions one of the partners that the town would engage with respect to a bond measure would be your. City Council Chambers and we will be working with them to help assist with determining appropriate tax rates that would fund the proposed geobond measure. Okay. Questions?

Will there be questions and then public comment and then we'll discuss? Right. So one question, what is the date of the May election?

Yes, so I believe it was May 4th. Yes, I'm happy to go back to.

So that actually wouldn't, I mean, it might not affect, you mentioned college and things like that, but people vote a month ahead. So it may not be as late as it sounded if it's May 4th.

Yes, this is true. It's just not a normal time that people would vote. So you're dealing with an election that almost no one votes in.

And then what you said there could be a cost for voters centers in March. What do you estimate the county would charge our town if we have that on the ballot for a voter center?

We don't I don't know at this time. Again, the cost where I find the cost exists is the fact that they have to fund a paid position. for all 10 days that someone is there while the vote center is open. So that's what happened in our small community in San Marino. They actually had to pay for the cost of the vote center. And that, I mean, it was huge.

But you said 10 days was $800,000?

Remarkably, it was six. Well, that when they gave us a breakdown, it was 600,000. For that piece of it. Yes, it just can be.

We just don't know, we would have a way to get closer to that as we're trying to do this. I mean, to me, that's a deal breaker. Like, I don't Yeah.

And again, the county here may deal with it differently. I don't want to I just was providing an illustrative example. You know, we would communicate with the county to determine what that might actually look like to give you a better idea and i'm sorry chris

That's okay. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem Robbins, for the question. I asked this of our county election office, what would be, and they usually provide us a range. And if I recall, the high end of the range would be about $25,000 total. But this is a good cautionary tale that Joy provides, that we would want to make sure that the county is, we don't want a surprise like that. 25 would include the voter station? I asked him, our council is looking into doing an item on a special election in 2027. Can you give me an estimate of how much it would cost the town of Ross to do this? And he said he gave me a low end and he gave me a high end. He didn't particularly say voter vote centers, but he said the high end, based on our registered voters, was about 25,000. And so I said, wow, so the worst case scenario is 25,000? And he said yes. But I would very much like to, and that was, I have an email to that effect, but I would very much would want to confirm that now that we have this cautionary tale. And I think a lot, too, depends on what other jurisdictions If somebody else, you know, we get to split the cost. If somebody else, another jurisdiction has a measure on the ballot.

Wasn't there something, some other town or someone putting something on the March ballot already? I thought I read something about something on the March ballot. Okay. Okay.

no and again i my concern is that they specifically designate special election versus vote by mail special election on the county website so it's just it's just worth verifying because you wouldn't want to be surprised of course okay thank you um could you just briefly talk a little bit about ballot measure 43. Proposition 43 yes, yes. So this is. This is the business roundtables measure. They are. For years there has been much discussion about the Upland decision which allowed citizens initiative measures to go on the ballot and pass by 50% plus one. many of the taxpayer groups have felt thwarted by this. And so they have been trying to unwind it many different ways over several election cycles. And in this last election cycle, they did collect enough signatures to get their measure on the ballot, which essentially would undo the ability to do this citizens initiative and get something on the ballot and get it passed by 50% plus one. It would then require that two thirds. Yes. And when you read it, it reads very much like, you know, protecting taxpayers. City Council Chambers, And so, there is there has been a lot of polling about it, the governor's office at one point tried to negotiate to get it off the ballot. City Council Chambers, That did not work, it will be on the ballot and there will be a lot of discussion about taxes, this November or October, thank you.

City Council Chambers, So I had a question about the surveying does the survey.

exercise inform how the ballot measure would be structured it does yes so you put the you actually would test the 75 word language you can also test different tax rates to help understand whether there is sensitivity to a particular dollar amount you can you can ask about different town priorities right know lighting streets other things that are important it doesn't have to be this single issue but you ultimately are trying to understand how voters feel about the particular issue and how broad of a survey would it be if we have 1600 voters like 200 people uh it probably would be 200 yes and that affects the margin of error a standard survey For most jurisdictions, like no matter how big is 400 that gives you a 5% margin of error it's like 4.7 with a 95% confidence level at 200 it tends to be like an 8% margin of error at a 95% confidence level, but. We do that quite a bit actually. It I I often have surveys that come back with 200 or so sample size and. City Council Chambers, it's still very valid. City Council Chambers, I still get very strong results that help with the planning of a particular measure.

City Council Chambers, Could you go back to your slide where you had the three blue arrows and then the the yellow arrow. City Council Chambers, Yes mark i'm just wondering krista if you could give some feedback about all the stuff that would need to happen between now under those blue arrows.

um leading up to when we would decide on putting something on the ballot uh the the phrase that pops out at me and immediately is tax rate so under item number one um know we have to have a project to have the most accurate cost estimate and um right now we're going through an amendment process to do that so and there's some some elements there of the cac plan that are you know we need we need to know what the project is going to be to describe the process so That's an important part of number one. And then it looks like we can refine it in step number three. So it can be refined. But that's my question is how can we start with feasibility without knowing what the project is? Maybe Joy has some other comments of your experience with other communities.

yeah i mean obviously as you're going through it when i think about your previous measures that have enjoyed a lot of success again i think they are centered on priorities that are important to californians right public safety paramedic services many other jurisdictions anchor their public finance measures on those things right And public entity bond measures are different because they're focused on buildings, not services. And it's just a different emotional conversation. And so it requires a lot of community engagement. It requires, and again, not that these things never pass. Libraries have been built. Many things have been done through these measures. It is because a community had a transparent open process where there was a lot of conversation and there was time to plan. So I think that is critical and not saying that you haven't already done that, but that would be my word of caution as you're moving forward is just think about

because it's always hard to recover from a loss it's not impossible but you know it is hard to recover from a loss and then come back and be right back on a ballot again but aren't aren't we mischaracterizing this election you're saying it's public buildings but it has a very strong public safety component the gensler plan included the option for a fire station and I think that it's that option that will generate support, widespread support, and it is seen as a public, by many people, it is seen as a public safety election, and that should benefit us, I would think.

It can. Again, I've seen ballot measures, sometimes people identify, and again, I recognize that there is a great interest in a fire station here in the town, and that alone could generate interest, so I'm not City Council Chambers, Disregarding that but buildings are still buildings and services are still services and I just you know see time and time again. City Council Chambers, The more time you have for an open and transparent discussion with the Community about it, the better your project is and the better the project is the more willing people are because ultimately you're asking them to reach into their pockets and help pay for it. And so right there just it's just part of the process to get their engagement and buy in.

So in in our town, we have a contested Council election in November and very much this project is the core of the contested election. What you know your timeline is that in November, right after that election we're supposed to be filing for this bond measure. City Council Chambers, Any thoughts about that.

City Council Chambers, Well it's a very compressed and tight timeline and I think you'd be trying to put it for a march election you'd be trying to put something on the ballot after again I worry a bit about voter fatigue I worry a bit about the uncertainty you don't know what the makeup of your Council will be like. City Council Chambers, Those are all questions that. in my mind you would be better served getting past this November election ultimately again you know your town I you know I'm trying to bring ways to think about this but it seems like a very difficult time to put something on the ballot after this November election okay you know I agree completely I I mean I don't know if you know that we have saved like 20 million dollars you know so

Mayor Mrakas, it's not that we need the funds immediately there's not an immediate rush for the funding it's 13.7 okay, but we have in reserves, the town is sitting on $20 million well no 13.7 is reserved for the facility project.

Mayor Mrakas, Also, I think, to get the new people, the people who win the Council election to get them seated. City Council Chambers, At the Council, I think it requires at least 30 days to verify the voter count so they probably wouldn't even be seated until after the time that we would need to.

approve right yes because it's 30 days from election day why would that why would that matter because this council unanimously approved moving forward with the building and every candidate that i'm aware of who's running is absolutely committed to getting this building built so i feel like if there's a transition on the council the goal of the building should just move forward so i don't i don't see that november is a make or break date um i mean if there are issues needing more definition of the project then my question would be well can we ask gensler to speed up some of their designs so we so we have the definite as much project you know as much information as we need um but but i don't i I don't see November as a make or break time, because I feel like there's widespread interest in this. This council has approved it, and everyone who's running wants to do it. So I don't think I understand why November matters. To me, it seems like it only matters because we need a better, well-defined project, but why not ask Insler to move forward? Don't we need the money fast?

City Council Chambers, I thought we needed the money sooner rather than later, I mean there's economies of scale of doing everything all at once, but it's not points out, we have all this money, so there could be a potential to phase things and slow things down if if we if we want to do that. City Council Chambers, And I also think you know it depends, the lens is going to be different depending upon who is sitting here and they're going to have. you know, different group edits on the ballot language. And there's going to be, I agree that every candidate supports the building, but I think each person sitting here will bring different perspectives to what we're doing. So I don't know about the timing. I think it's challenging.

But we could have group edits. Are we still in questions? We're in questions. Point of order.

Thank you. Krista?

May I ask a question of a consultant? Joy, you've commented that the November date is usually a better turnout. Do you differentiate between November of an off year and November of an even year?

So your best voter turnout will always be in an even year. Always. It's just when people are used to voting. It doesn't mean that, and again, if I just, you know, scatter back here, you know, and we just look at turnout, right? So you can see these turnouts in different elections. And you can see, you know, in March and June, The turnout is so much lower, even in an even numbered year and you'll notice that you don't have an odd year election. Because we just are not trained to vote in off years so it's hard for me to believe that you would it's not impossible again, sometimes we exceed voter expectations, through a tremendous advocacy campaign. I'm talking knocking on doors, getting out. But even your primary elections here are barely getting over 50%. And that's in an even-numbered year. So I understand the need to want to be on the ballot sooner because it would help bring project funds earlier. But I do think your turnout in an odd year is always going to be a challenge. So no matter which date you choose, turnout will be a piece of that.

But why would we worry about turnout? When we look at this, it looks like regardless of the time, regardless of the turnout, we have very generous passing margins. So why shouldn't we just be looking at what percentage approves of the ballot measure? And if we have not a very big turnout, but we have a very generous passing margin, isn't that all that matters? Why do we care about turnout? I'm not sure that I agree with it. We're supposed to be focusing on turnout because it seems like, you know, isn't that correct that Even with low turnouts, and forget the 2012 and 2020, with low turnouts, the ballot measures passed handily. Isn't that what that shows?

To me, it shows that people care deeply about public safety and paramedic services. So I think the correlation is tougher between the yes vote and the turnout. So I don't disagree that you might have low turnout in a March election and be successful, but we just don't have data that shows that right now. We have data that shows that voters turn out lower in the elect that are not November. And we also see that voters greatly value public safety and paramedic services.

And those elections are for like $1,000 parcel tax for public safety, or they're for a renewal of our paramedic tax, which is like $90 to $100. So this is going to be a really different magnitude of impact for the residents. And I'm wondering if you have any data where other similarly situated

jurisdictions put something on a ballot on an odd year for a general obligation bond and similarly situated and what was their experience and maybe we can glean something from that i'm happy to look back it's a very rare case that we see that and i i will do some more research to see if i see that um it's it's because oftentimes when people are doing their toughest measures they looked for better voter turnout When your turnout is lower, you don't enjoy some of the benefits of a higher turnout election.

We have been criticized in the past for putting a measure on a special ballot by a taxpayer group, and we had to rescind. the parcel tax renewal and move it to a regular election. And on their website, they say they oppose any special election period. So that's something that we need to be aware of. Any other, Krista?

I think, Joy, is it correct that parcel taxes and sales tax measures need to be in the general election?

So, yes, general sales tax measures have to be on the ballot when council members are on the ballot.

But not parcel taxes.

Parcel taxes. So geo bond measures are very particular. Those can go on an odd year election. I believe parcel taxes are also required to be on a regularly scheduled election.

So that could explain some of the history here, that these are all partial taxes, not, and I was also curious about that issue of, well, the fact that the town hasn't had the experience of a GO bond.

City Council Chambers, yeah I think it's it is an interesting question because you're talking about a path personal tax, which is a flat rate tax versus a GEO bond, which is of course a rate assessed on 100,000. City Council Chambers, per or excuse me it's a flat rate or it's it's a dollar amount based on per 100,000 of assessed valuation so, for example, $25 per 100 of assessed valuation and if a home is assessed at a million dollars, then right there. paying 10 times the $25. So it does have a different emotional appeal feel to people. Again, a project can also be very emotional. To the Mayor Pro Tem's point, many people care about this. It is an issue that people are passionate about. I don't deny that. I'm just saying people also feel very passionately about taxes right now too.

So just to distill it down, this has been a really interesting discussion, so thank you. And thank you, Krista, for putting this on the agenda. Your best advice for pretty much generic advice is being on a November election during an even year is the best chance to get things done because the voter turnout is the best. And then it just goes down from there if you can't be on an even year November.

I mean, actually, I would say my advice is give yourself time to do a feasibility study to have an open and transparent process with your voters. I think that is your best chance of success. I think it's possible to pass a measure in an odd election year. It's not impossible to do that. But voters will Mayor Mrakas, struggle to support a major that they feel is not well thought out.

Mayor Mrakas, And yeah i'm just asking about timing that's it.

Mayor Mrakas, you're your biggest voter participation will be in November of 2028. Mayor Mrakas, It doesn't mean that single issues about me. Mayor Mrakas, Thank you.

Mayor Mrakas, hey bill, do you have any questions.

Hearing none, we will go to- Sorry, I had my audio off, so I wouldn't disturb anyone. No, I don't. I appreciate it. All the questions I would have asked have been asked by the council members, so thank you.

OK. Public comment. Mr. Kuhn.

Thank you. Joy, my name is Jeff Kuhn. I'm the town treasurer. So I'm the guy who owns this problem.

Nice to meet you.

You too. Thank you for coming. Basically, all the data you've related and dealt with has been a parcel tax. And of course, that's not how general obligation bonds work. Nor do we have the ability or the opportunity to delay this past 2027. It's going to happen in 2027. So as you pointed out just a few minutes ago, the tax is based on the assessed value of the homes. There are some extremely valuable homes here in Ross. So the spread between high and low is a huge difference. High and low tax, that's what I meant. So with all, pardon me, with all of that in mind, Does any of that change, how would you. Would your presentation have been different if you knew that this is the only option we have a general obligation but.

uh so so i presented the data knowing that and presented the data knowing that the 2027 elections were the options that you were exploring so um yes and my i guess if i were to fall on an ultimate recommendation i would say planning for enough time for community engagement is what's going to increase your chances of success and help you define the project

There's no question about it, but we're probably going to be the only issue on a ballot.

In 2027, yes. That's right. I agree.

That's the point. Thank you. Any questions from you folks about what I just said? No? Okay. Thanks, Joy.

Yeah. Let's see if there's any other public comment first. Anybody online, Zach?

No one online, Mayor. Okay.

Go ahead, Terry.

So, Joy, in your opinion, Is March too soon? In your opinion, given that we need to plan for community engagement is March too soon for success.

If we didn't have this November and the propositions on the ballot, I would say maybe there was an opportunity to have good community engagement. But I am concerned about the tone and tenor of this November's election and the ability to have a quality conversation with voters in that time period, considering when you would have to vote to place this on the ballot. So it does feel compressed to me. I never say anything's impossible, but it does feel compressed to me.

May, a better option?

I think it gives you more time because if you're thinking about when you would have to vote to put that on the ballot, it actually is, I had it in the presentation, but it actually is after that November election. It does give you a little bit more time. Okay. So I want to say it's in January.

Any further discussion? Yes, Elizabeth.

So I think that it's really important that this go on the ballot soon because I think there's a lot of momentum with the April 29 presentation, the reception of the Gensler project, hiring Gensler. You know, March versus May isn't that different. I think later than May would be, could torpedo the whole project. I think we could lose interest. I think people could say, you know, why aren't you moving forward? We thought you had all this in line. We thought you had unanimous agreement. And I think we could lose momentum and lose votes if we don't act quickly. I mean, March or May, I think they're both fine. You're right about public engagement, though we have many meetings coming up right now, and the meetings are planning meetings about the building, but they will serve as engaging the public so that when we do talk about what the tax will be, everyone will know already what we're talking about. So I don't think public engagement will be that difficult. I do think you mentioned public trust. Public trust is hugely important. The 2012 parcel tax that failed, there were a lot of town politics and a lot of people were unhappy, and they basically said no. And then four years later, when we did another tax, things had changed, the tone of the town had changed, and that passed handily. So we do want to be sure that we're moving carefully and that we're including people and that there's trust. Let's see. I do, you know, there was a mention that, well, we have some money so we could phase this. I think that we will lose ground if we phase this. I think that if we start building, I think we lose, maybe we get a paramedic station, but we lose the rest of the building. People are going to say, well, why vote for anything? You know, we're partway there. I don't really care. Whereas this is a package deal. The whole beautiful building, and it's gorgeous, plus the possibility of a fire station, i think that that will generate a lot of votes and i think if we split this up i don't quite know who's going to vote for the you know the lower tax later on i i don't i think this is better all at once um and i don't think people want to drag out the project um see any other comments here um Oh, well, we'll have to talk about this. Julia mentioned, like, will it be a problem with costs if we have it, you know, at a non-regular election? I think given our building needs, given the interest in getting the paramedic facility done on time, I don't think we have a lot of choice. I don't think cost is going to say, oh no, you can't do it now because we have timelines that tell us that we have to. So I don't think that will be a problem. And then you mentioned surveys. So here I... I really don't think that the town should be doing surveys. I think that especially people are going to look at the cost and say, why are we spending $30,000 for a survey? People are going to look at, it's kind of like the slickness of it, that we're sort of polling people. And I think when you have a big district, so the high school district that includes Mill Valley, it includes San Anselmo, Fairfax, the whole area, all of southern Marin. I think that it's reasonable for them to try to get a sense of what do their voters think, what will they approve. We've got not a lot of voters. Everybody goes to the post office almost every day. I think we have a very good feel for what people are saying, what they're thinking, what they will vote for. And I think it would harm us more than help us to do a survey because I think it will be seen as know well the town's hiring a consultant and they're spending a lot of money and should they really be spending money on on yet another consultant because we already have a lot of consultants on this project and certainly in the last i mean 30 years that i know of there hasn't been a political consultant doing a survey that we did one you know an in-house one about the fire station but there's something about a political survey that in my opinion doesn't feel right for this town. And I don't think the cost will be well received. So those are my thoughts.

Okay. I'm sort of piggybacking on you, Elizabeth. I actually think trust is a very important and a critical issue. And I think it's going to take time. And I think we need to put the time into working with the community. I think phase-in is possible. I think we have a big commitment to make sure that we rebuild the paramedic facility. We've got to do it. And if it meant we phased in so we got that piece done in time to meet our obligation, I think that's not a bad thing to do. So I wouldn't rule out phasing in. in this project. It may end up costing us a little more money to do it, but I think if it was a way for us to also honor our obligation to the paramedics, I think it's worth it. And as for a survey, I was sort of on the fence, but I think the survey would give us a little more information than we currently have now. And I actually would be curious as to the results of that survey. about where people are with the Civic Center and why they want that Civic Center and why it would be important to them. So I think it's worth the money, but I worry about the time. So there we go.

Well, I would say the first thing is that we act as if the Civic Center is going to actually like, we're going to design this plan and they're going to start shoveling. We have so much time because we don't even have a plan yet and I can't even imagine going to the voters in March or May because we we you know we we're at the beginning stages of this process and then there'll be an environmental study and just seeing what's going on with our um Bolina storm drain where they discovered Indian remains and it's slowing the project so there's just a lot of time I think We're excited, which is great, and we all want to do this, but there is time. And we have thankfully saved 13 million in the capital projects. We also have 7 million of extra reserves. We have a lot of cash sitting on hand. So it's not that we couldn't spend money on the project and continue to move it forward. We have the money. We're so fortunate to have the money. The bond is really going to the public to get their blessing that this is the right course. We will know that in November because we have an election for a new council. The survey is fine. I love hearing from the people, but we will hear from them in November. There'll be a campaign and there's four candidates for two positions. And so we will actually hear what the candidates say and what the people want and I think that's going to be telling for what sort of project they really are supporting. And so once that is done, then I think, and you have a new council seated, then you can start building the trust and the outreach for why this project matters and what you want to build. So I don't think this needs to be decided tonight. I think the presentation is very informative, but I don't see any hurry to rush to try to pass a bond measure. I think a bond measure is going to fail because there's been so much information out in the public on both sides, and this issue has been very contentious. it's almost better to wait and hopefully let this November pass and let the people speak and let the town and the sort of opposition fade away because the opposition is there. We just, we don't have a set project even to even think about at this point or vote on or send to our voters. And certainly we won't have the clarity we need in November.

Bill, comments.

Well, I, You know, I've listened carefully to the presentation. I think it's a lot of interesting information. And it's a lot to think about and a lot to process. But I will say overall, I think that... I'm beginning to think getting something passed in March would be very difficult to get to do all the things we need to do and let this project, well, I think the term was mature a bit more. We're moving ahead as quickly as we can, but... There's so much that would have to happen in that timeframe. The other thing that really impressed me about the presentation was the fact that there are a lot of ballot measures on the November ballot that do involve taxes and ancillary considerations. And there may be a bit of public Well, I don't know, a residue from that that may complicate what we're trying to do. On the other hand, this idea of just mail-in only elections in May or August, I'm not so sure about that one. That would be low turnout, particularly August. So anyway, my thoughts, again, I would need some time to think about this, but those are my impressions.

Yeah, and my... Julie, can I ask you a question first? After everyone speaks, can we share comments about comments? Just offer a few additional comments about what each of us said, because we're listening to each other's comments and thinking about what we said. As long as we don't have to have comments.

I'm sorry, we don't need to decide anything. This is a no-action item.

I just want to make that clear. Yeah, and that was going to be my question, Krista. When do we... I mean there's that chart with those three you know blue arrows and then the yellow arrow that chart really kind of scared me because there's so much that has to happen between now and May, March. So what are we doing here tonight?

So this item is on the agenda just as a presentation and an education and opportunity for you to ask questions which you have. Keeping in mind, though, that chart that you just described is, you know, what I've heard from the Council these past months of regular meetings and special meetings and late additions to the meetings has been we've got to do this because it has to be on the March agenda, March agenda, March agenda. I mean, really, that's what the Council has been saying loud and clear over and over and over again. So when I look at that chart and it says, you know, if we want to be doing, if the council wants to, I didn't hear what council member Kirchherr, what his thoughts are about surveying. But if the consensus of the council is there's an interest in surveying, we need to be doing that now. And I need to be bringing back to the council a proposal to do surveying and having done it with the council subcommittee in a previous employment, putting together the survey can be very, it took many subcommittee meetings and part of it was because the council wanted to utilize the survey instrument to ask other questions like do people want to have a no smoking ban? So it could grow, right? So doing a survey is a project itself. So doing the project along with all the other things, and then remember, we are already in week one of a 12-week amendment process. I'm very concerned about our ability to do all that. And I would need to be working with Joy and our team on a survey like now to bring it back to the council on September 10th. so that that's i i'm interested in direction on that particular topic but again i'm not sure how much direction you can give me tonight um i would have to look to the turn on tony for that could i comment on the the survey i didn't as town manager mentioned i didn't didn't say anything about that um did you hear me yeah go ahead bill it's okay all right

You know, we did a survey with regard to the closing of the firehouse And there's been so much controversy about that survey. Was it complete enough? Did we have a big enough sample? And that was something just the town manager put together, as I recall, but we were talking about it until fairly recently. So as Krista said, I mean, this is something that takes some time to do, and it would take some time to get agreement if there was agreement on how it was phrased, because you do want the answers to be meaningful. And so I think, you know, particularly in a compressed timeframe, I don't see the survey as being that doable or that helpful. It might be a distraction from other things. Our focus on making decisions as this goes along about what the Gensler firm is doing.

That's all. Yeah, I agree with you, Bill. I mean, I feel like all of this, it's helpful to have some information. What does March look like? What does May look like? But I think, I feel like we're starting to stray away from, you know, the the Gensler CAC plan that we heard about in April that was a really good plan that we all wanted to move forward on. And I get that this is about the steps to move forward, but I think we have to be careful we don't make so many steps that we're losing the momentum that we had on April 29. I have one question. I thought it wasn't even possible to phase because it's a big building. Can I ask, Dan, how would that work? Can this be phased and still get the same building? I thought that the earlier concept E was phasable, but I thought that this one wasn't. So that's a question. Can Dan answer?

I would like to take a stab at that. OK. So the scope of work for our consultant team, Gensler, includes evaluation of phasing. So that issue is going to be evaluated during this plan amendment process.

Can I ask Dan his opinion?

Well, I'm saying Dan is not part of the Gensler project team. So I can tell you that the Gensler project team has assured me, and it's in their scope of work, it was in the request for proposals, and it is in their contract to perform that.

Okay. Um, then back to the, just your comments about November of the election that there'll be a, you know, we, we need to see where we're going. Again, maybe I'm more optimistic, but I feel like there's a great deal of support for this, for moving forward with this, whatever the steps are, and that there's not any change in November because there's not a single candidate who doesn't agree that we should move forward with this. So I don't see that this is, I mean, there may be some issues about how focused are you on building a fire station, but that's not really the building plan. The building plan is to get this built. So I don't see that November is a turning point. I think the turning point was April with the very beautiful Gensler CAC plan and that we should stay on track with that and not take too many steps to get it going.

I think I would like to have like a critical path schedule of November of 2027 august may and march and all the stuff that needs to happen to lead up to each of those dates to see you know this is a huge component of all of that but there's so many other lines like you know the environmental stuff the the description of the project um the cost estimates City Council Chambers, The bond Council, I mean it's just layers and layers of complexity, and so I think it would help me I don't know if it would help other people, but I think it would help to what Richard Hannah said. City Council Chambers, A few weeks ago, take the end date and now unfortunately there's like four and dates and move back and see you know, is it feasible, is it feasible to get to a march election date. That chart scares me. Is it feasible to get to a May 4th election date? Hopefully it is. I don't think we want to be in a position where we're spending money that we may not have. I think that we need to have certainty with having a bond passed if we're going to do the whole project. If we're going to phase it, then we can dip into that 13.9 or whatever it is. But I think... City Council Chambers, Maybe start at the end and kind of move back in terms of the election and and then there's the penultimate date of the you know the January 1 2029 delivery of the paramedic facility, I mean that's that's the key that's, the most important thing. City Council Chambers, And I don't know if we have capacity within. City Council Chambers, If David could help do that, I think that would be helpful and then, are we going to bring this matter back in a month or two to continue discussing or how, how do we move forward from here.

Well, what I'm hearing this evening, there's not consensus of the council to go forward with a survey. So that's good direction for me, at least at this time. So that's good direction for me. And I've engaged the services of Joy's firm to help us with this. And it's a monthly fee. So we pay, we use it. I could call her every day. She could come to meetings here every day if we needed it, right? So we need to be moving forward. I mean, we have a deadline today. Our first deadline with Gensler, our contract started a week ago. Our first deadline, staff deadline, was today. And so we need to be moving forward. this forward to meet that 12-week. And for me, it's the most important thing are the council decisions that are going to have to take place. That is what is driving, is going to drive this project. Are you going to be able to make decisions to provide direction to your staff team and your consultant team? Not much. So as for this, we have an agreement with Joy and her firm, and we will continue. David and I have a meeting scheduled, and we'll probably be including Joy with our municipal financial advisor. It would be good to have more feedback. I hadn't heard from Councilmember Salter that he was not as much of an emphatic about that March about doing a march battle so i think that alone was really useful for me and our team to hear that maybe there's some little more flexibility in that march date so the good news is we have meetings with the council every two weeks so we can bring something back yippee that's good news for you

Okay, any, Terry?

I just wanted to say, for me, I don't want anything to derail the staff over the next 12 weeks. The next 12 weeks are really important. We've got a contract, we've got work we have to do. Gensler has got work they have to do. That should be our top priority. And fitting in the work with Joy is great, but it can't derail those 12 weeks of the work that has to be done.

I think the most important thing is that we can pass the bond measure right so that, in order to pass the bond measure. We need a fully baked plan that everyone is behind that the Community understands and supports and that we can get the engagement with. we're nowhere near that we it's impossible at this moment, even to contemplate that at this moment at this juncture. So I think we just need to be realistic that trying to push for something that doesn't exist is not going to make it all of a sudden exist. we are all excited about the project and moving forward and it's very the the we're meeting every week for 12 weeks so it's not that we're not moving forward but with the idea of a political process is to get it passed we need to get 66 percent how do we get that and I would that is what you need to work on is we now have enough information to sell the public that we've the community we've all come together and we have a great plan we're just not there yet

And I'll just add, and maybe I shouldn't, but I will, but I think the public trust component is huge. And I think there's aspects of the community that are pretty divided right now. And I think the November 3rd election is just gonna divide the community even more. So I think knowing that and having something on the heels of a pretty divisive town council election is probably not great timing. And Elizabeth and I worked on a school bond measure that failed in, I think it was 2004. And it just took a tiny, tiny bit of opponents to derail that. And it wasn't many and, you know, we had drunk the Kool-Aid, but we really thought it was going to pass and it didn't. We got 59%. And it took a long time for the community to heal and pivot and readdress those needs. We had a silver lining with a flood, so that helped. But we don't want to do this twice. We have to do it well and successfully one time. So yeah.

Excuse me, Mayor. I'm sorry. I didn't catch. Were you interested in the survey now?

Oh, I didn't opine about that. I thought I was getting away with not opining.

Well, I was looking at my notes here, and I have two yeses and two nos.

I think if the survey helps inform the ballot language for the general obligation bond, then I would be more inclined to do that. City Council Chambers, But I think the timing of the survey would be important, I think there would need to be distance, you know I hadn't appreciated all these other things that are going to be going on the November ballot and the voter fatigue and. City Council Chambers, People are going to be sick of dealing with elections for a while, and these issues, so I think the timing of the survey would be important.

City Council Chambers, Okay, so we can bring we can something the Council can continue to to discuss as we go further along on this process.

Ballot language isn't that hard. I mean, we'll want to work together on ballot language and the ballot argument, but I don't see that as something that we need a survey for. I guess I don't quite understand how a survey helps us pass the bond. I see where trust and information, one-on-one outreach, helps us pass the bond measure. I don't quite see how a survey does.

But I already came out saying that's not my position. Well, we don't have to decide tonight. And this was really, really helpful. So thank you very much for organizing and for being here. Really illuminating. Thank you. Okay, now we are moving on to item number 11, Town Council to receive a presentation, provide direction to staff on the scope and priorities for the general plan update, and consider authorizing staff to initiate a request for proposal, RFP, for consultant services to assist with the general plan update. Roberta.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members. So if you recall, in the August 2025 meeting last year, I presented a similar item. It's really just a presentation to let you know that the current general plan is past its horizon. It was adopted in 2007. And it had a horizon to 2025, which was last year. But having said that, you know, there really is no penalty per se for having an expired general plan, other than there could be certain state grant funding that we might not be eligible for. And really, a lot of that funding is related to the housing element and a lot of Housing efforts. That was the last grant we received, which did go towards the housing element update. And so some of the options as laid out last year is just doing a technical update and refresh of the general plan. The RFP could outline that. It sounded like during the housing element community outreach, there was some interest in possible historic resources and coming up with a inventory and historic context statement for some of the Historic properties in the town. That's an option. Let's see. Another option that was important to the council and the community members is updating and analyzing a new land use for smaller non-conforming lots. like the ones along Bolinas and Poplar Avenue. That's something we could add to the general plan update. And then, of course, you can do a very extensive general plan update, which would include additional elements, extensive outreach. The good news is that the town has in the general plan fund over $600,000. So we do have the money City Council Chambers, For any of these options, should the Council decide that you do want to go ahead and proceed with the rfp and starting the general general plan update process and i'm happy to answer any questions and also just get your feedback and direction. Questions Terry.

So, Roberta, could this be put off until 2027?

Do we have to do anything about it right now? We've got a lot on our plate for the next 12 weeks.

Yes.

Can we just say we'll get to it in 2027?

I would love nothing more. I mean, there is a lot on all of our plate. It's Rich's first week gone, so right, people are going, who's gonna do this survey and who's gonna look at this drainage? And so I'm going John Moe, right? I'm also talking to the interim town engineer. We did have our first kickoff meeting with Gensler and today we did have some homework that was due. So yes, there are certainly a lot of priorities that I would say are probably above this.

I have had the same question. There are no consequences if we put it off. I think we should. Okay, thanks.

Robert I'm wondering if you do you know what the status is of the public works director position is other people were interviewing I'm just curious what the status is I believe krista provided an update on that so they did hire it at the town is getting a recruitment firm and I believe interviews would be in October so hopefully some time around there but you know for the next couple of months. We do have David as our interim public works director. And then we do have a consultant who's our interim town engineer. And that's how we've been working through or filling that vacancy for the time being. That's not to say that people still aren't coming in or talking to me and taking up my time because they know I'm there and they've talked to me before. I'm familiar.

Yeah. Bill, do you have any questions?

No, thank you.

Okay. Public comment on this item? Anybody online?

No one online, Mayor.

Okay. I'll just start. I agree that I don't think we should be doing this now. We can revisit in August of 2027. That's probably not going to be a great time either, frankly. But City Council Chambers, The The other thing I just noted was just to do the technical update was $400,000 and then these adders are like another hundred so you get to 500 and then to do the comprehensive is 600 so it doesn't make sense to me not to do the comprehensive once we're ready to do the comprehensive I remember from when we did this 2025 years ago, it was an extensive. process that took about a year and a half with tons of meetings and workshops and building consensus. And so it's, it's a, it's really involved for the community, as well as the consultant. So I'm all for continuing and doing this later.

Me too.

I mean nobody ever wants to do these things so I think whenever it comes back it's going to be a big project I I totally agree with that the issue is that I think the number one issue I get and I think a lot of people my age are building is the red tape is the the variances is the process to get stuff built in town is very very cumbersome and expensive and um you know I Mayor Mrakas, it's something we have to address, and you know all these projects it's so interesting when it comes here three three projects. Mayor Mrakas, I don't think anyone asked a single question and we all just voted them through and I actually really appreciate that about this Council is that we very rarely debate, a lot of the projects and the ADR does a very good job. City Council Chambers, But we have to streamline these processes for our residents, that is the number one complaint I get over and over and they're like I didn't I thought the town was so great until I decided to build something. City Council Chambers, And then I think at the table today Elizabeth heard complaints about the trucks and the parking and there's just things about living in the town, we need to address. and this is the place to do that and and and so I I really feel like at some point maybe it's not today deciding this so I'm okay I actually think I would wait till after November so we the council is formed but it's something we can't just keep kicking down the road because we're really doing a disservice to the residents by not addressing how the town functions and what our vision is can I comment I I do think

this upcoming year we'll be asking people to weigh in on the building and on the bond measure. And so I think it's confusing to have them weigh in on something else. I do agree there are differences of opinion about building, but at the same time you hear about the building issues. Mayor Mrakas, hear about people who want to keep this a lovely charming small town, so I think that'll be an interesting discussion to kind of balance people want to build with balance with the character of the town. Mayor Mrakas, But I don't think that we're ready to have that discussion, right now, I think it everything should be focused on the building and the bond measure so that we try to get unity around that and no not disunity around something else.

Mayor Mrakas, Well, do you have any comments.

No, I'm listening to all of this, other than that I think this is something that we could deal with next year. That resonates. We really have our hands full right now.

Okay. We don't need a vote on this, right? Great. Okay. Moving on to number 12. Thank you, Roberta. Town Council to consider introduction of ordinance number 738 to amend the Town of Ross Municipal Code to allow for different project delivery methods.

David. Good evening, Mayor McMillan, Mayor Pro Ten Robbins, honorable council members. I'm David Kelly. I'm your interim public works director and project manager. The item before you this evening is first reading of ordinance number 738. Ordinance number 738 would amend section 2.4, or excuse me, chapter 2.4 of the municipal code. This ordinance is a reflection of the direction received from Council at your July 9th meeting in which you received a presentation by staff and Griffin structures regarding alternative procurement methods. which included the traditional design bid build, but additional procurement methods, including a design build and progressive design build. And at that Council meeting we shared, staff shared with you that by a simple amendment of your ordinance, it could enable Council to authorize the use of design build and progressive design build. So with the town attorney's assistance, an ordinance was drafted that would amend the code to provide the council the opportunity to utilize those alternative procurement methods. Included in your packet is a copy of the draft ordinance. And tonight, this is a hearing to conduct the first reading of that ordinance. Again, the ordinance was drafted by your town attorney's office, but staff is here to entertain any questions as I'm sure as your town attorney has.

Questions? Anybody? Any public comment on this?

No one online, Mayor.

Great. So we'll bring it back for a motion.

I move we adopt ordinance 738.

Oh, do I have to read it?

Oh, I see. So I move that we receive the first reading of ordinance 738.

I'll second.

Motion by Mayor Pro Tem Robbins, second by Councilmember Dowling. Mayor McMillan?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Robbins? Yes. Councilmember Kircher? Yes. Councilmember Dowling? Yes. Councilmember Salter? Yes. Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you. Item number 13. Thank you, David. Town Council to consider approving the Town of Ross response to the Marin County Civil Grand Jury Report entitled Better Service at Lower Cost, Optimizing Essential Services for the Future of Marin. Zach.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members. For the record, my name is Zach Kobach de Leon, and I am the Town Clerk and Senior Management Analyst. Agenda item number 13 is in regard to the Town's formal response to the 2025-2026 Marin Civil Grand Jury Report, Better Service at Lower Cost, Optimizing Essential Services for the Future of Marin. The report looks at more than 50 special districts in Marin County that provide services like fire, water, sanitation, and refuse. It concludes that their fragmented structure creates duplicated administration uneven service and fees and limited capacity for long term investment. It calls on district boards working with the county to pursue collaboration shared services and where appropriate consolidation. The report includes seven findings and nine recommendations under state law, the town is required to respond to all nine nine of them within 90 days, the deadline for which is September 9 2026. The town's draft response is included in your agenda packet. In the draft responses, the town agrees with findings F1 through F6 and partially disagrees with F7. Our partial disagreement is narrow. We agree that proactive reform is preferable to crisis-driven change, but we don't accept that the crisis intervention is the likely default outcome. Many districts, including those in the Ross Valley, continue to deliver reliable service and can pursue collaboration on a measured timeline. Pace and sequencing appropriately remain matters of local judgment. On the recommendations all 9 are directed to either the board of supervisors or to the governing boards of independently govern special districts as a general law town Ross has no authority to implement any of them. So the town's draft responses to our 9 are one through our 9 are that they are not applicable to the town while noting our support for the report schools. Staff recommends that Council approve the responses and authorize the mayor to sign the response form I'm happy to answer any questions.

Questions? Public comment?

No one online, Mayor.

Great. Motion? Yep.

So I think it's important. Thank you for drafting this. In the report, there was language about the debate we're having about our fire station that was sent out to the public. And I think it's important we address that in our response. So I have, I have language that I'd like to suggest to add to the document, which is that Ross is a member of the Ross Valley Fire Department, neither the town nor its residents have advocated for a standalone fire station. And number two, the debate has centered on whether to reopen the Ross fire station to restore emergency medical and fire response times that meet accepted industry standards.

Are we allowed to do that if it's not a question that the grand jury is asking us to respond to?

I'm happy to answer that question. So the response to grand jury is very as prescribed by the penal code of the format that's before you tonight. So you can certainly look at these findings and make if there's a finding in there that's drafted that you want to address some of those comments to it have to be within that context of the findings that the town clerk has provided as as the draft. But there's not some sort of introduction or other area where you you come up with a statement of It's you have to respond to the findings and respond to the recommendations.

Okay. Well, I'm sure we can attach it to one of the findings because for some it's about having a standalone entity versus being part of a larger service area. I mean, that's basically even a finding one. The current fragmented structure of special districts results in unnecessary duplication of administrative services and operational efficiencies. We totally agree, which is why we're members of the Ross Valley Fire Department. So I actually don't know why there's any objection to this because we're actually already a part of the fire district. Our fire is part of the fire district.

City Council Chambers, Maybe if it's better for five it says service and pricing inequities currently exist across men may increase of consolidation and functional collaboration to not accelerate. City Council Chambers, And your point is that we're not opposing collaborate we're not opposing consolidation we're not moving towards our own private station.

City Council Chambers, Correct I mean we can attach it to any one of these, but because the grand jury miss stated. what what the town is doing and nobody has advocated for that um we i wanted in the in our response i mean it needs to be clarified especially because it was broadcast to the the community actually i did not broadcast erroneous information to the community i simply quoted verbatim what the grand jury report said and i happen to have the quote right here

City Council Chambers, Which is the grand jury said the fourth rationale is a textbook case of misguided civic engagement at odds with effective services today. City Council Chambers, Modern efficiency depends on shared regional services not maintaining standalone structures note, it does not say department, it says standalone structures for symbolic reasons building for yesterday. The grand jury characterizes force arguments as emotional resistance to modernization driven by small groups of residents who lobby for outdated solutions that are not based on current and future needs. So I would oppose your character.

So the quote continues. Ross risk profile has also changed stronger building standards. Staffing a standalone station is easy to demand, but difficult to sustain, according to local. So we're talking about a standalone station. versus being a part of we're already part of the Ross Valley Fire Department. So I don't I mean, Julie, if you really want to go that we could talk about the police, we have our own police force, do you believe we should be getting closing our police station as well, and just relying on, you know, centralized police force. So this is a we can take it any direction you'd like you brought this into the public fold, and I would like it clarified.

All I did was quote what the grand jury report said verbatim. That's all I did.

And they misrepresented what this argument's about. And so I think we absolutely should clarify it for the public because that has not been one piece of information and the friends of the ross firehouse have also clarified that they were part of the ross and they sent a a correction to the town so i don't know why you find this other than unless you want to let's reopen the talk about police station and what you what what does that's a non-sequitur it's it's the same we're not we're not talking we're not talking about that i think it's i mean if you if there's a role for putting in uh you know that that ross isn't focusing on a standalone station

in one of these findings, I'm not opposed to that because Ross isn't focusing on a standalone station, but I don't, I'm not quite sure which finding it goes to. I'm not sure there's a, you're not gonna go for it.

No, I'm sorry, Elizabeth.

No, no, I'm just saying I can see that you wouldn't want to put it in anyway.

Yes, it doesn't answer, it's not, it doesn't fit into the, I mean, there's so, these grand jury, when you're asked to respond, it's, It's sort of black and white. You can't add your own sort of

other agendas to it so does anyone besides matt want to add this uh language something about that ross isn't focusing on a standalone station under maybe f5 but i don't know that we have three votes for that but that's that's what i would i would be okay with that because it's it's it is sort of relevant they're talking about consolidation and they kind of made it sound like ross is working on a standalone station which isn't the goal so But let's see what people think.

Well, the language says standalone structure.

It says standalone station, staffing a standalone station.

Subsequent to the standalone structure, Matt. It's focused on standalone structure. So I would be opposed to adding anything that's not relevant to the responses that Zach already drafted. So let's hear from Bill. Poor Bill.

Yeah, I mean, I hear your point, Matt, but I think, you know, we should just focus on a specific findings and recommendations, as opposed to what else is in the report. So no, I would not be in favor of adding this, although I do take your point.

Okay. The council has spoken.

Do we need to make a motion to approve this?

Yes.

Can someone make a motion, please?

Um, I move that the council approved the town of Ross's response to the Marin County grand jury report and authorizes the mayor to sign the response form.

Is there a second?

I'll second motion by council member Dowling, second by Mayor McMillan. Mayor McMillan.

Aye.

Mayor Pro Tem Robbins.

No.

Council Member Kirchherr.

Aye.

Council Member Dowling.

Aye.

Council Member Salter.

No.

Motion passes 3-2.

Okay, number 14. Town Council to consider approving the Town of Ross response to the Marin County civil grand jury report entitled mce Marin clean energy, a series of missteps highlight need for governance changes sack.

Good evening mayor and Council members again agenda number 14 is in regards to the town's formal response to the civil grand jury report. MCE, Marin Clean Energy, a series of missteps highlight need for governance changes. MCE is a joint powers authority of 38 member agencies across four counties, which include the town of Ross. It's California's first community choice aggregator, CCA, and one of the largest, serving more than 1.5 million customers. As a CCA, MCE handles electricity generation, while PG&E still handles transmission, distribution, and billing. The report is critical of the agency's governance practices. The report includes 14 findings and 13 recommendations. MCE must respond to all of them. Marin cities and towns, including Ross, are required to respond to just two findings and two recommendations, F4 and F5, and R5 and R6, respectively. On the findings, the town agrees with both. F4 recognizes that MCE is a large and complex agency and that board members who are local elected officials have understandably limited expertise in energy markets and utility finance. F5 recognizes that board members face competing demands on their time, which has affected attendance. On that point, I'll note that Ross has made a consistent effort to be represented, including sending an alternate when our primary representative is unavailable. On the recommendations, the town agrees with R5, which calls for a process ensuring the board member or an alternate commits to attending each meeting. The town partially agrees with R6, which calls for prioritizing appointees with the most extensive financial and energy expertise. We support the goal, but for a small jurisdiction like Ross with a five-member council, it isn't always realistic to have a member with that specialized background. Our position is that expertise is important but should be weighed alongside attendance, availability, institutional knowledge, and the ability to serve consistently, rather than being the overriding factor. For context, MCE's executive committee voted in July to form an ad hoc committee to draft the agency's own response, which goes to its full board on August 20th. However, the town's response deadline is September 14, 2026. Staff recommends the council approve the response and authorize the mayor to sign. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Questions? Public comment?

No one online, Mayor.

Thank you. Bring it back for discussion or a motion.

So I have an issue with R6. I think that we should be prioritizing, you know, financial and energy expertise. And we do not have to appoint a council member to serve on the board. It could be a resident. It could be anyone. And I do think that given that I and the council member who has the most financial expertise being a CFA charter holder, and I was removed from the position for talking about the corruption that was basically coming out in this report, we should say something about that. Because I don't understand why the person with the most financial expertise that was asking all the questions that ended up being completely validated was removed.

I don't want to get into that, Matt. We already discussed that when I removed you, and I don't want to get into that. City Council Chambers, But I will say very briefly that you were not removed because the questions you were being you were asking you were removed because I received complaints from four other board members about your behavior.

City Council Chambers, which are you, which were never publicly disclosed and we had I think five different board members. City Council Chambers, submit public letters of support the mayor ability or the mayor of larkspur who ended up. All the things that I talked about were actually in this grand jury report. Everything that I was working on that you chose to hide the corruption by removing me and silencing me needs to be addressed in this R6 because why would you replace the person who was actually advocating for the reforms?

Ben.

City Council Chambers, City Council Chambers, could we have a point of order here, please point borders that is the agenda item yeah we don't address individual Council members in a finding to a grand jury yeah I understand you have a dispute with the mayor about what led up to your you know being. City Council Chambers, City Council Chambers, taken off the board but we're focusing right now on the language of our six and whether or not you partially disagree or whether the Council thinks we should partially agree or agree.

Mayor Mrakas, Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. to handle these very complicated questions about the energy market. So why would we not prioritize people who have expertise in energy and financial matters? That makes no sense to me.

It's my understanding that in order to be the liaison to the MCE board, you have to be an elected official. So I think that the finding recognizes that limitation i know that mce is going through a very large governance workshop right now and there'll probably be some consolidation of board pieces maybe they'll change the rule that you have to be an elected official to get people who are more qualified to serve on the board i don't know but right now i think you know there's there's a big limitation in the way the bylaws work for that organization So I think that's why we say it's a worthwhile goal, but our hands are tied. It has to be a council member.

But why wouldn't we prioritize energy and financial expertise? That's all the language says, prioritize. It doesn't say you have to.

So that would be my point. It says we partially disagree. All this says is that People should reassess appointments to prioritize those with financial and energy expertise. That seems fine. So I don't know why we say partially disagree. I would say I agree because it's only prioritized and we may well have other reasons why our most financially expert person shouldn't be on the board. Maybe there's continuity or something. But I think our six should be agree and not partially disagree. It doesn't change anything for us. It's just a recommendation to prioritize expertise. And we can try. It doesn't say you have to. So that's because it says should reassess and prioritize. So it's very, I think it gives each council the ability to choose whoever they want, but just with an eye to keeping, with an eye to focusing on expertise. So I would say my opinion is this should be an agree, just a straight out agree.

City Council Chambers and City Council Chambers and City Council Chambers and City Council Chambers and City Council Chambers and City Council Chambers and City Council Chambers and City Council Chambers and City Council Chambers and City Council Chambers and

i thought but it will be because we have a new council in november so of course they'll be reassessed i thought since they didn't say shall we didn't have to i thought should was sort of gave you some wiggle room um i mean that's what the lawyers always say like shall shall is required and so does is room so i i mean if we do disagree i think it should be partially disagree we will focus on our appointments in the future but you know so that we can get away from that december 31 2026 issue but otherwise i think it's the degree so do you think we can't say agree because it says we should partially disagree you can say agree or you can say partially uh you'd have to partially disagree there's no partially agree in the penal code okay so i think if you wanted to clarify that you're going to do it

at our time frame, then you could say partially disagree. The criteria is something we're interested in abiding by. The timeline is going to be based on our when we do our appointment process.

So we say so partially disagree. And the only comment is we we don't we're not sure that we will be getting to this by December 31.

We're just we're going to have a new mayor and a new council. I know. But so it will happen as a normal course of our process.

I don't think we should be tied to a timeline.

You're not tied. It says it literally says should.

should reassess by december 31st you should it doesn't mean you have i think ben is saying if we say agree it looks like we're agreeing to do this so why not say partially disagree we agree with uh reassessing but we don't agree with the timeline or we agree with the prioritization i mean you could say we agree with the prioritization Sure. I mean, that's fine too. We agree with the prioritization, but we don't agree with the timeline. And that's the extent of it.

And that way we do agree overall with the statement.

We just don't want to be committed to doing this, you know, come December. I don't know. That would be what I would, that would be my response. What do you all think?

I'm actually fine with the wording as it is. So you what, I'm fine. I'm fine with the wording as it is here.

Okay, back to you, Bill, again.

I'm okay with the wording as it is, but I'm also okay with Elizabeth suggestion. You gotta pick bells, okay, as as it is, but we all know what we're really talking about. And it's when the new mayor and the council get around to making the appointments for the next term.

I'm sorry.

Is that clear enough? Probably not.

We didn't understand you.

I don't think, what was your recommendation, Bill?

Let's just go with what's in there. Let's just go with what's in there. I don't think we're going to have a consensus, Elizabeth, for your thing, your suggestion.

We need you, but not without you. We need you, Bill.

Okay, well, let's say we have, do we have three with what Elizabeth suggested?

Well, I agree with Elizabeth. I will agree.

Okay, then we have three.

Okay, that's good. Okay, great. Thank you, Bill. So we're changing the language to partially disagree with the time. We don't know.

We just say partially disagree with the timeline. Leave it at that.

Yeah.

Partially disagree with the timeline.

Leave it at that. Yeah. Yeah, I have one other comment that I do think financial experience is important, but it also mentions legal. So, Matt, between the two of us, I have the legal, you have the financial, but I also have financial, but not to the depth you do.

I know that.

Okay.

So are we keeping in this is a worthwhile goal when making appointments? We're getting rid of all that.

We're getting rid of all of it.

All the language. So our only language is partially disagree. We agree with the recommendation, but disagree with the timeline.

Yes. Do you agree with that, Bill?

Yes, that's fine.

Okay. Great.

So we need a motion then.

So I move that for R6 we change the wording that says partially disagree and then the text we delete what's there and we say we agree with the recommendation but disagree with the timeline.

Second. I guess I can't second.

So it's like we We agree with the recommendations with the amendment to R6, as stated.

Why don't you second it?

I can second. That could be the motion. I'm happy to make that motion.

We don't need to make it again. Elizabeth made it, and Matt, you seconded it. So just call the roll, please.

Motion by Mayor Pro Tem Robbins, second by Council Member Salter. Mayor McMillan?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Robbins?

Yes.

Council Member Kircher? Yes. Council Member Dowling? Yes. Council Member Salter? Yes. Motion passes unanimously.

Terry changes her vote.

Motion passes 4-1.

Okay. Number 15, town council to receive a report on options for town council pay and the accompanying survey of council member compensation in Marin County and provide direction to staff on whether to establish monthly compensation for members of the town council, and if so, the amount up to the applicable statutory maximum. Town Manager Johnson. Oh, Zach.

I'll be taking this one as well. Hello again, Mayor McMillan and council members. Thank you for the opportunity to present to you this evening on the subject of council member compensation. Agenda item number 15 asks the council to discuss and consider establishing compensation for members of the town council pursuant to government code section 36516. Ross council members currently serve as volunteers and receive no pay or benefits. This item would establish compensation for the first time. It is not a raise because there is no existing salary. As a general law town, Ross is subject to the state tiered salary schedule in section 36516. For our tier, towns with populations of up to 35,000 residents, the maximum compensation for council members is $950 per month. That figure comes from Senate Bill 329. Setting compensation is done by ordinance and is entirely within the council's authority. No voter approval is required as long as the amount stays below the $950 cap, but council may choose to bring this to the voters in a future election. State law also controls the timing. Compensation cannot apply to a council member during their current term. It takes effect for each member only as they begin a new term, so it would phase in a seats turnover beginning with the November 2026 election should council choose to start the program this year. For context, staff surveyed council pay across cities and towns of Marin County. The smaller towns, including Ross, Belvedere, and Tiburon, have historically not compensated council members. Several jurisdictions have recently increased council pay, with Mill Valley going to $650 a month. Other cities with a similar size population to the town of Ross have increased council compensation at $950 a month. And Novato and San Rafael have higher compensation based on their population sizes, exceeding $1,500 a month. The town of Fairfax has set their council pay at $300 per month for several years. Regarding the financial impact, the town has not included council pay in the fiscal year 26-27 budget. Because compensation is treated as wages, the town also pays employer payroll costs of roughly 10% on top of the base amount. Fully loaded, the five-member council would cost about $33,000 per year at $500 a month, about $50,000 per year at $750 per month, and about $63,000 per year at the $950 maximum per month. First year costs would be lower, as I mentioned before, because the pay phases in as terms turn over. Staff recommends that council receive this report, discuss the topic, and provide direction on whether to establish compensation, and if so, up to what amount, up to the statutory maximum. If the Council wishes to move forward, staff will return with the enabling ordinance and the necessary budget amendment. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Questions? Any public comment? I'm going to read the public comment that Charlie Goodman made at the July 9th meeting from the meeting minutes. It's on page 29. Charlie Goodman expressed concern about the possibility of compensating council members. He shared that during his 12 years on the council, he personally incurred expenses while serving because he viewed public service as a privilege and a way to give back to the community. Mr. Goodman emphasized that council members volunteer significant personal time and effort and are not motivated by financial compensation he acknowledged that some other communities provide stipends but stated that he believes ross's tradition of volunteer service is unique and that compensation would diminish the nature of the role any other public comment no one online mayor okay so we'll bring it back for a discussion this is yours matt so

It's interesting because I really think that the people who serve on the council tend to be a lot older, retired, and maybe financially secure. And I think that we do a disservice to the people who may want to run for office. Maybe they have children, maybe they're lower income, and we offer no compensation for the amount of time and effort it takes to work on this council. And while Charlie Goodman may be very financially secure and feel that he's entitled to his opinion, I think that people should serve and run for public office and not be worried that they need to pay for someone to watch their kids at night when they're coming to come to Council. At RPOA, we always struggled to get the auxiliary members to come to the meetings because they were at night and they could not pay for or find people to watch their kids. You need to think a little bit beyond just being retired and wealthy in Ross. It needs to be, we need to promote all people of all income levels to wanting to serve and run for office. And I think that many of the problems that come out of the council are myopic because there's only one view expressed on this council and it tends to be from a certain demographic. And we don't represent the demographics of Ross. And I think that to encourage that, this is one step we can take to do that.

I agree with Charlie. I think it's a privilege to serve, and I think that compensation, it's not a lot of money to begin with, but I think it somehow cheapens the role. So I would absolutely not want to start a compensation for council members. Your point about expenses, I think that's well taken. So for example, I think we already have provisions for reimbursement if there's travel or if you have to take someone out for a meal. We don't take people out for meals much, but if ever, but maybe we should expand our reimbursement policy to include a babysitter at night. I mean, I hadn't really thought of it until you mentioned that, but that might be a way of making it easier for families with younger, for people with young children to serve. I would not want us to provide compensation for council members.

Well, I agree with Elizabeth and I agree with Charlie. I think volunteering to be on the town council in Ross is a privilege and an honor. And volunteering is very noble to do that. And being reimbursed for the time, no.

Bill, thoughts?

A question for Matt. Matt, how much do you think the pay would have to be to, for example, entice more younger people to be on the council? My view always was that people were busy not just with raising children, but a lot of other things when they were younger. Later, when people are partially retired or retired, they have more time. But if we get back to the financial thing, do you have some figure in mind?

Mayor Mrakas, Oh, I think a couple hundred dollars a month is would be plenty I think it's also I mean, from my experience, you know when you go out with a constituent. Mayor Mrakas, And you don't want to let them pay for your coffee or whatever it is it just gives you a little extra that you don't feel uncomfortable paying for the constituent. But I think it would help encourage people from different demographics to know that there's some level of compensation that they can rely on because it takes a lot of time to do this job and you need to find coverage. And I think with single families, single parents, I mean, Mayor Mrakas, We can open this up it's not that it isn't a privilege and an honor to serve it's just recognizing that we have lots of different demographics and diversity. Mayor Mrakas, And the needs are different for people, so I think a couple hundred dollars a month was not going to break the bank of the town. Mayor Mrakas, And by the way, any Council member can choose to opt out, you can say I don't want the compensation, I think our President does that and he doesn't take compensation so. if you want to serve and you don't say i don't want the compensation don't take it but for the people who need it or want it it's there for them and it's a little bit extra to help them cover their expenses because there's a lot of needs look at look at the time right now it's 8 41. And if you're a single parent, I don't want you not to run for Ross town council because you're like, I'm just gonna have to spend a lot of money on childcare or other issues. I just, I really see this as an issue that is a non-issue. If you don't want the compensation, don't take it. And for the people who need it or want it, it should be available to them.

Well, I mean, it's not just the council meetings, you know, it's the other meetings we all go to and the other things we do. So, um, I'd certainly like to see more younger people on the council. I think that would be very significant, but I, I'm not sure this would, would make that much of a difference, frankly, man. But I would, I would favor something like compensation for childcare and whatnot.

Yeah.

I, I think that would be great. I just don't know whether that's something we could do. I suppose, Ben, could we do it?

Ben, can we reimbursement? Can we reimburse people for childcare?

City Council Chambers, I'd have to look at that first on our existing reimbursement policy and then under state law there's very strict guidelines about what can and can't be reimbursed under those guidelines.

City Council Chambers, I think my view is I guess i'm more of a traditionalist along with Terry and Elizabeth and Charlie and I also feel like the ad our people work just as hard as we do. City Council Chambers, And there's other committees that also work just as hard as we do so, we would kind of become a slippery slope of you know compensating and you look at the other demographics, who do not compensate and they're very similar to our demographic. And I also don't think that $200 or $300 is gonna make any kind of material difference in whether someone is gonna serve on the council or not. So I'm keeping with the status quo. That's my opinion. So it sounds like we have four who wanna continue, maybe explore reimbursement, and Matt would like compensation. That seems right. So maybe Ben, you could look into reimbursement. That's something that's feasible for childcare.

Mayor, Mayor. Yep. May I just would like to just add one part about the reimbursement is going to be difficult for staff to administer, because you get into how much is I mean, it's not for staff to decide how much you should pay your caregiver and to get receipts and most people that I know of that hire babysitters aren't aren't getting receipts themselves. And there's tax implications. It's really It's very messy. I mean, I think it would be, you could do something like where you have the compensation, try to match it to let's say you have one meeting a month and how many, you know, the average amount of hours per the meeting and then try to get an idea of how much a caregiver would cost and then use that because we also have to do payroll taxes. I mean, there's just a lot that goes into this. And I really don't want staff to have to be in the position of approving reimbursement requests for caregivers, I see that as being really problematic. It already is problematic with reimbursement for travel. And I'm glad that the council very rarely ever asks for that because it puts staff in a difficult position. Thank you for letting me give you my two cents.

So I'm convinced by Krista's comments. I also think, I mean, it isn't going to come up that often if you have young children. I mean, it's great to have different viewpoints, but typically people with young children don't run for the council because you're so busy. So I don't know that not reimbursing for childcare limits the pool of candidates. So I'm okay to just forget. pass on the reimbursement but i thought it was i thought it was a good idea matt but hearing how it would be implemented i think that we should pass on that okay it's always good to hear back from what our ideas are and how they reflect on staff work so thank you for your comments so okay

So we're ready to move on to number 16, which is discussion regarding implementation of the executed professional services agreement with Gensler for facilities master plan amendment services.

Good evening again, Mayor McMillan, Mayor Pro Tem Robbins, honorable council members. The purpose of tonight's agenda item is to discuss how the recently approved professional services agreement with Gensler is and will be implemented, specifically regarding opportunities for continued participation by both the Citizens Advisory Committee as well as other community stakeholders during preparation of this facility's master plan amendment. Mayor Mrakas, As Councils very aware, on August fourth he approved an agreement that included a scope of work with ginsburg to prepare an amendment to the town's. Mayor Mrakas, facilities master plan and that scope included a very accelerated 12 week schedule, with the objective of completing the amendment. this coming October. So why is this item before you? Following approval of the agreement, I think it was Mayor Pro Tem Robbins requested Council discuss whether members of the CAC should participate in the regular project management meetings between town staff and Gensler. I want to note that staff really carefully considered and evaluated that request. and also considered the correspondence that was submitted by a CAC member that's here this evening, Mr. Whining. The staff report that it was included with this item attempts really to accomplish 2 objectives. It's it's one to maintain and support opportunities for meaningful stakeholder participation in the process, but also to preserve and efficient project management structure that allows Gensler to complete the work on schedule. We've already found this week our schedules are all very tight. Mayor Mrakas, it's it's even difficult to schedule meetings when we're all available but we're working very diligently within that timeline to get all the work completed and get those meetings scheduled. Mayor Mrakas, One of the kind of the key distinctions that I think Council should make is the difference between. Mayor Mrakas, Project management meetings and stakeholder engagement means our kickoff meeting on Monday. Mayor Mrakas, was to discuss, you know communication protocols to discuss scheduling to discuss how we're going to get our sub consultants under contract and the work completed. how we're gonna get the site, how the team is gonna come out and conduct their site walk. So it's a lot of detailed project management work. And I don't think that that's the objective that the CAC is seeking. I think they're looking at how can they be involved in some of the other elements of the project and give council a good and positive feedback on some of the work that's being done. So really want us to highlight that the town manager has already expanded opportunities for council input by scheduling four special meetings. I think those have all been placed on your calendar. Those will provide for additional opportunities for staff to bring forward critical policy decisions for your consideration. And and as part of that that's an effort for us to, you know, engage with the community and discuss with the community, or at least allow enable the community to to hear what some of those critical policy issues are. What staff recommends, if Council wishes to expand the CAC participation, is to establish three milestone-based meetings with the CAC during preparation of the Facility Master Plan. These meetings would allow Gensler to provide key project updates, present work in progress, receive technical observations and comments. and ultimately help identify matters that could come back to council for policy direction. Again, noting council's the policy direction here. direction to Gensler regarding scope scheduled delivers deliverables and advancement of alternatives would otherwise continue to be directed through the town manager under the professional services agreement of course ultimately through policy direction provided by the council one of the things that your agenda report discusses is opportunities for broader community outreach we want to note that the assistance advisory committee is really not the only stakeholder here. Particularly with regards to the Civic Center, of course you have your internal stakeholders. You think of your police department, think of your paramedics, and we're also engaging with, had a lengthy conversation with the fire chief today. And those are critical stakeholders that need to be engaged in this process. So there's opportunities to engage with property owners, certainly your neighbors, the downtown, the Marine Art and Garden Center, and other stakeholders that you might see as appropriate, while again continuing to provide and receive public input through notice council meetings. So it's part of the professional services agreement against which basic services already include a series of project milestone in meetings. Again, you know, looking at that twelve week schedule, we've got about eight meetings included in in their in their scope of work. It's clearly identified of those two are specifically scheduled to bring those to Council, which is the administrative draft facilities master plan and ultimately the final master plan. So I think there's opportunities to with their proposal is have a total of six additional meetings, three of which would be scheduled virtually with Citizens Advisory Committee again to give them feedback and overview of current work to date, along with three additional council meetings that would provide opportunities to bring back some of the key policy issues to council on some of those meeting dates that council has already scheduled. The estimated cost for those six meetings is $17,400. And Gensler has advised that these meetings can be incorporated within the current project schedule. So that was kind of good news to hear that. You know, of course, want to caveat that that if as part of this process, and often what can happen is council can provide policy direction that may require substantial or significant revisions, and that could change the timeline that's not anticipated or expected necessarily just, you know, that's a cautionary note. Also, I think what's important is to speak a little bit regarding governance. The town council clearly established this policy. it's the town manager's responsibility to continue to administer the professional services agreement. Ultimately, Gensler's gonna provide those independent professional advice, and they're gonna send us invoices, which we're gonna review. But the CAC's role, as well as stakeholders, would be to provide valuable advisory input to the council. The structure that was identified in your agenda report It preserves accountability, preserves transparency at a relatively minor cost addition, while also providing the Council to give additional feedback that was not built into the accelerated project schedule that came before Council. So so staff is really requesting Council direction again tonight, whether the Council wishes to, you know, establish those proposed, you know, three additional meetings with the Citizens Advisory Committee, whether you would like us to build in some additional community outreach. And, you know, I want to kind of harken back to the presentation that you had earlier tonight from from joy teams. in regards to the value of that community engagement. So I think it, you know, she kind of sheds light on some of the value that that can have. And with that, you know, just want to, and address a couple of questions in advance that Council may have. You might ask, why can't CAC members simply participate in every weekly meeting? I think our answer is that those meetings really function as project management meetings. We're busy. We have an hour. It's get the work done. It's not to present information. and ask feedback. We're working to implement this critical project in a short timeline. The proposed stakeholder meetings, however, would be intended to provide meaningful opportunities for the CAC to really ask questions and give Gensler an opportunity to present some of the material that's been prepared to date. You might say, well, why only three CAC meetings? Well, we're on a twelve-week schedule. We're one week into that. We are again working diligently to complete the amendment in time, and really to kind of target what are the key deliverables, and where is that feedback going to be of most value? Some potential items might include presentation of the blocking and stacking program to kind of see how that relates, and does that fit and validate the Cac concept? uh presentation of you know the massing the site analysis and technical narratives and and maybe presentation of cost estimates so that's just my take on what my three meetings might look like there's a lot in that uh and those of course are are similarly are those items are the things that could be part of those three meetings that come come back to to council Again, you may ask, Well, why? Why include the neighbors? Why include the Marine and Art and Garden Center? Well, you know, there's a whole number of issues that this master plan amendment is going to address this as we've talked quite a bit about the building. We all love the design, I think. the CAC did a fantastic job, but there was still some work to do regarding circulation, access, how can we tie in potentially Laurel Grove? Do we have an additional access point on Lagunitas? What about construction impacts? What about sequencing? And can we maybe use the parking lot at Marin and Art Garden Center? Those are some questions that we may want to answer as we go through this process. So those are just some things for you to think about as part of this agenda item tonight. That really concludes my presentation overview. There's quite a bit in the agenda report, but happy to entertain any questions that council may have about this item.

Questions? Okay. I understand the three meetings with the Citizens Advisory Council, those would be three one-hour online meetings. Where is there an opportunity for Marin Art and Gardens and maybe the neighbours and others to also hear what's going on and to give feedback? Where does that take place? In the town council meetings?

City Council Chambers, currently that is City Council Chambers, that there is no specific Community workshops identified in the work that's being performed by Gensler. City Council Chambers, The vision in part was to be able to broadcast to that community as part of these additional Council meetings. City Council Chambers, But if Council desired that's certainly something we could you know, try to work with Gensler to identify if we wanted to have you know, build in a Community workshop. as part of this effort, and there's value in that. But otherwise, we certainly could do that as part of a council meeting, especially if it's a special date where there's no other agenda items, through the town manager's office, invite our stakeholders to attend and participate, and specifically invite them to do that. So there's some opportunities to try to uh engage with with our stakeholders as well okay but you know given the consolidated schedule and the desire to that was something that was you know kind of set aside because the the schedule is just it's just uh so it's tight yeah do you want to

So we hear a lot of time when we're asking about items that the staff, we don't have time for this. We're small staff. These are experts who put together a plan in four months that I think the town took years to develop. Why not rely and use these amazing resources that you have at your disposal? Why not just include them in your working group?

I think Council Member Seltzer tried to answer that question. It gets to project management. It's very, there's a lot of work to do.

No, no, but they're willing to raise their hands and help. So what I don't look at, I look at this as this group is, you have at your disposal incredible volunteer experts that are highly motivated to get this project done and know it better than you. Why not just include if they're willing to be a part of the meetings and help move this project along? Why wouldn't you just want them to be a part of the group?

Well, i'll give you an example, and maybe this will shed some light on your question. One of the requests of our meeting this week was to validate the space program that was prepared previously prepared by Kpa. That is really an internal engagement process with both our police chief, our fire chief, the paramedic authority, the planning department, the town manager, the town clerk, and in in my view certainly uh i think and i'm sure in chris's view uh that's that's best handled by by staff uh you know to delegate that kind of you know internal stakeholder work to a group of outside no i'm not saying to do that okay so the whole thing is you you want to have three extra meetings and we're supposed to pay extra money for these extra meetings why not just have them part of the working group they sit in the meeting they're i'm not asking you to delegate anything that they wouldn't do but

These people might be willing to help out in other areas or have expertise and be able to handle and help with the project.

I think as we read their request, it was to ensure that their professional input is received in a timely manner before other key decisions were made so that it you're avoided having to kind of return back and you know, lose some time. And so that that's why I think the structure was developed to to address, you know, specifically, their their requests was to make sure they're prized, you know, not on a on a on a, you know, a month of one month basis at council meetings, it's their price on some of the critical updates that are made by by Gensler as part of their work, and this is really about being strategic with both their time. Gensler's time and and our time, and and and complete in completing the work. I think that's really the reflection. So you think they would slow you down. Mayor Mrakas, I think well I think there's an element of it when you have additional I think is a say too many cooks ruin the stew and you know that's only an adage, of course, but you know if we we were we were working our kickoff meeting it was we went to work very quickly i'm not sure that's a value to the CAC members. in doing this kind of working stuff. That's really, in my mind, a staff role. But where there's a lot of value is on these kind of critical, bigger picture items that, you know, like the blocking analysis, the massing, the site analysis where There's going to be opportunities for some real critical feedback and input before you advance to that next stage. And I guess we see real value in that. And, you know, it's respectful of their time. It's respectful of Gensler's time. It's respectful of staff's time.

Okay. And one other question is just in the scope, why was schematic design removed from the scope?

Well, schematic design, I think, from my perspective, I did not hear council consensus that schematic design was the direction was to include the schematic design. I know there was correspondence to that effect that there was a view that it was our intent was to develop and complete the master planning process to provide a complete plan, provide the project description so we can begin CEQA. And then very importantly, to have a cost estimate that is going to support, you know, council's desire or inform council's question is about whether to place a measure on the ballot.

Mayor Mrakas, yeah so I just to be on the schematic design point, the reason for it is to be able to come up with a good cost estimate the schematic designs are very helpful for that.

I just want to interject here is that the schematic design was not removed from the scope. It was never in there. The council, we brought forward a request for proposals. It did not include that. The council at length discussed this issue, and there was not council consensus to put schematic design into the scope of work. So it was never there. Therefore, it was not removed. So I just want to make sure you understand that Councilmember Salter. We did not remove it.

Sorry, it was in the Gensler contract, and it was removed from the Gensler contract. No, sir. From the original contract that they proposed? No, sir.

They responded to the request for proposals document that the council approved at a council meeting.

And we when we did bring the the rfp forward it's a presentation we were outlined for Council that there was opportunities to go beyond, you know, you know, completing the master plan which may be included some enhanced planning doing some more you know more detailed site work. not with the belief that it's necessarily going to give us a better cost picture it's really just going to provide you know more detailed site information uh for for council's consideration uh but council uh did not opt for that that that option that was presented so we you know that that was not included um i i kind of actually liked it just from being a But again, I'm just saying that because we did provide Council with that opportunity, and we didn't get direction to include that in the ARC. Okay, thank you.

Is it helpful that... Is it helpful to add some of that back to get better cost estimates? My understanding was that what we have now is a master plan update that doesn't move us closer to getting something on the ballot because we don't have a good enough cost estimate. So is it possible to add back some of that to get a better cost estimate?

Mayor Pro Tem, I guess I would just share with you, I think in terms of our analysis and in discussions with Griffin structures, as well as other municipal staff, other city managers that we've had this discussion with regarding how detailed do you get with your cost estimates. You know, ultimately, the gold standard is you go out to bid. And you know, sometimes if you don't have money in hand that's that's a little that's a little late. But that that there are so many uncertainties in the market regarding tariffs inflation rates. you know, material unknowns and uncertainties that even with schematic design, you're still going to have contingencies that aren't necessarily gonna guarantee you a better number at the end of the day that's gonna garner voter support. You know, a lot of when municipalities bring forward measures for geo bonds for projects and capital facilities, A big part of that is, what is the picture look like and what are the services that is going to enable you know kind of a lot of those things that that joy spoke to it there's it's not always necessarily just. City Council Chambers, exact confidence around the cost of the project and, of course, Council still has to make a decision around you know you, I think you mentioned earlier this evening comes remember Salter is the staff has. City Council Chambers, The town has this budget reserve and how do you want to factor that in in terms of. Mayor Mrakas, You know what you asked the voters for so there's there's some complexities around you know, ultimately, what your ask is of the voters and it's it's not all going to hinge on just how refined that cost estimate is going to be. Mayor Mrakas, In terms of the you know, delivering delivering the project there's there's so. City Council Chambers, What we've been told, based on expert input is having a planning level cost estimate building in appropriate contingencies is more than sufficient to to be able to go to the voters to get their support for for a geo bond.

I also have something to add to that. I think one thing we haven't talked about, but it was on an earlier agenda item, the alternative methods for contracting. The more Gensler starts designing this and doing more specific drawings, they are going to disqualify themselves from if the council later wants to do design build. That's just a fact. So with the more generic process that we're following now to get a cost estimate, they still will be able to bid in the future on a design build if the council wants to go down that road. But if Gensler starts getting very specific about what this building looks like, they can no longer bid under California state law on that design build ultimate project. So that's one of the other reasons why it's important to make sure we don't have a contract now that limits the council from using any architects in the future.

So I have another question. Why do you think this has become so controversial and such a big deal to have one or two CSC members at the what you call the project management meetings. I mean, I see it as just expertise, transparency, trust, oversight. It's not to derail the processes, not to take it longer, not to have it take longer. I just don't understand, why do you think it's become such a big deal? It seems so easy to me to say, great, let's all work together.

Mayor Pro Tem, that is such a loaded question and it's not fair to ask a staff member. First of all, I'm not even sure it really is a question. So we have come to the council, you have We brought you we have literally met with you probably 10 times in the last two and a half months with specific agenda items gotten specific direction from you attached the actual request proposals attached the contract, you have the opportunity literally. nine days ago the council was here at a special meeting you had the contract attached the complete every single page of that contract was attached to the staff report you could have you you had plenty of opportunity at that time that you directed me to execute that agreement as is, as it was attached, which I literally did. I think I signed it that night. It was executed definitely by the next day. Gensler, our project team, they immediately got to work. We had our first meeting with us, the staff, on Monday. We had, as I mentioned earlier this evening, we had homework. We have deadlines today. This is the week that we're supposed to be verifying the programming. So, and we are working very hard now that we have set up these special meetings with the council, and you've set it aside on your very busy schedule, we got to have something we need to bring forward to you. And as you recall, Mayor Pro Tem, when you and the mayor sat in with the interviews for three, the three top architect engineering firms, is that every single one of those firms their project teams mentioned that it was critical for them to be able to get this project done in this aggressive time frame it was critical that they had very fast decision making decisions made by the decision makers. And so one of the first questions this past Monday that the Gensler project team asked David and I was, okay, David, are David and Krista the decision makers on this project? And I immediately said, well, no, the council. The council is the decision makers. And you have a lot of complex, important decisions you're going to have to make. And we are going to be bringing them forward to you. We're doing it. You are the ones that put together this 12-week. I've been saying all along, it is very aggressive. So we're doing our best to meet it. I'm just going to sidestep the other issues. You do operate under a council manager form of government.

I guess one question. When there are some of the difficult tradeoffs, does the road connect to Laurel Grove? Do we have space for police parking? Some of those, how do we plan out the space? Will those be things that come to the council so we can share and the public can share opinions one way or the other or will those get decided in the project management meetings?

Um, okay. Yes, absolutely. We have been telling the council all along when you when you had your April 29 meeting and again on May 6 and again on June 24 and on June 13. These issues, we have been the ones that have been bringing forward these, highlighting these issues to the council that are issues that need to be addressed that are not in your preferred concept, which is now the CAC concept. So absolutely, David and I are not gonna be the ones that are saying, oh, let's get rid of that, or let's do this. Those are council decisions that you need to make in a public setting so that you have the opportunity to hear from the public, not just from the CAC folks, but the rest of your residents. Thank you.

Do you have any questions, Terry?

Bill, do you have any questions? Okay. Any public comment? Dan?

First of all, David, I really appreciate the consideration that you've given to the letter that I wrote. The intent of the letter was not to make things more complicated, actually. The design process, in a lot of ways, can be a way to bring people together. and to build consensus around ideas. And this project, as you guys know, is a pretty contentious project. And I think that going through the first phase of work that we did on the CAC committee, what was apparent to me was the conversations that we had, the transparency, the expression of the different viewpoints, and considering all those things and bringing them together, ultimately got us to where we wanted to be and i think the intent of of at least my letter was to continue that process that design in itself is a way to bring people together it's a way to consider different ideas it's ultimately a way to get to better outcomes it doesn't mean that we want to do project management we don't want to do project management but i think given the time constraints There are a lot of very critical decisions that are going to have to be made, I think, in real time. There are certainly major decisions that need to be brought to town council, but there's going to be a lot of other things that are going to have to happen. And I think people who understand the why behind those decisions were made and participate in those decisions will ultimately support those decisions. And so I think what you've got on the table right now actually is Good idea. I think it's a really good idea. Add two or three or whatever you think is appropriate. Meetings where you've got critical issues, you want to talk it over, you want to get input of two or three people so that when we all walk away, we go to the town, we're talking to all the other residents, we're doing everything we can to support. what's going on and saying hey yeah look at this is it we we had to do this you know make this compromise whatever it is but ultimately i think it'll get us to a better place and that's really what the intent is um on the on the drawing side of the equation it is an update of the master plan that's exactly what krista said that's what went out was a a proposal to update the master plan. What I think, and I'd like to take schematic design off the table for a second because that's an architectural term and it has got a lot of know content associated with it really what we need is a set of drawings that is going to get us closer to a construction estimate that we can hang our hat on so i think it goes it isn't necessarily a full set of what i would call schematic drawings but it does mean doing some detailed plans to make sure that the police department actually lays out properly make sure that the fire department if we're going to do it lays out property makes you properly make sure that the offices for the staff so we have the right number of offices do we have the right number of restrooms rather than just blocking the space actually doing some layouts which we would just call space planning to make sure that functionally everything works Over and above that, we do need site plans. We do need floor plans. We need elevations of the building, some sections through the building, and renderings, and an outline specification. That would get us to the point where instead of carrying, as David knows, if we have a schematic block, a set of block diagrams, we might carry 20% contingency, maybe even a 25% contingency. But if we can get it a step further and add just another layer of detail, take that down to 10%. And I think, or maybe 15% of whatever it is, whatever we agree based on the information we have that makes sense. I think from a town perspective, The other residents of the town, we want to be able to, we don't want a lot of fluff in this. We want to make sure that this is as tight as we can so that when we do bring it forward, we're bringing forward the ideas, we make sure that the ideas work, and we have a really good idea of what it's going to cost. knowing that there are variables that we can't control. So, I mean, I would be an advocate of doing a little bit more work, not a full set of schematics. It doesn't preclude doing design build, design assist, whatever we want to do downstream. That information can be used any way that we want to use it moving forward. But it gets us closer to where we need to be in terms of getting the right kind of financing package put together for this project. So that's it. And that letter was from me, not the CAC.

Just so you know. Thanks, Dan.

Good evening. Mike Rosenbaum again. I have a novel idea for the town and one I'm very disappointed that our chartered financial analyst didn't think of. And that is asking FORF to pay for the $17,400 and any ancillary costs they would like for additional meetings. They claim to have 2.1 million in pledges.

seems like a great place to come up with 17 500 for the meetings thank you any online comments no one online there okay so we'll bring it back for further discussion um i i think what you and krista have outlined in terms of adding more meetings and more public outreach is really good and really helpful um so i think that that was a great way to address the cac's concerns i'm also concerned you know if you allow the cac to participate in project management meetings then it seems like it's kind of a slippery slope you need the City Council Chambers, The police chief and the fire chief and the paramedics and you know where do you stop. City Council Chambers, So I think that the public meetings that can I I assume Council can participate in those meetings too and we'll all learn a lot I think that's a really good way to get the feedback on the big milestone issues that. City Council Chambers, Are there's going to be lots of trade offs and it's there's going to be really hard decisions that are going to have to be made. And we want the public to weigh in. We want the CAC to weigh in and help us figure out what the best decision is for the long term of the town. I want to make sure that everyone's comfortable about the planning that we're doing to make sure that we have as much confidence in the cost estimate as possible. And so I just want to be sure that everyone's happy with the level of detail in the contract I don't want to be sitting here in October, you know. City Council Chambers, scratching my head saying, well, we should have done more, this isn't this isn't enough. City Council Chambers, I think you know, we want to have as much specificity as possible, we, but we don't want to preclude Gensler from being. City Council Chambers, available to bid. City Council Chambers, In the long term project and and there are going to be tons of variables that are way beyond our control. so like are we still in a war right gas tariffs etc cost of copper um so i just think we if to the extent that we could have additional assurance perhaps from gensler that the level of work that they're going to do is adequate to have the best cost estimate possible um that that would be helpful to me

And Mayor, to your point on the cost estimation, we, as part of our review of Gensler's scope of work and certainly the other consultants, We did verify that they all have professional cost estimators on their team, and Gensler's scope does include that. And we believe that they meet their professional requisites to provide us with a cost estimate that's going to be very meaningful for councils. You know, review, it's probably going to be, you know, a lot more detailed than than what was provided in the original facilities master plan. You know, given the the type of cost estimator that's been that's, you know, Gensler has included on their team.

So I agree about the meetings. I think the more outreach, the more participation benefits everyone. It sounded like Dan was suggesting that this process include a little bit more, not so much that we don't have the option of you know, the progressive design bid, whatever, but that Gensler do a little bit more to give us, so that we would be able to do a cost with like a 15% contingency and not 25. So is that something that's reasonable to add on what small amount additional he was mentioning?

I'd like to answer this question. If the Council's priority is to have this done in 12 weeks, you need to stick to your scope of work and the agreement that has already been executed. If the consensus of the Council is to add a Little bit more, and I have greatest respect for Mr. Whiney, but that's all a little vague. Detailed planning, what exactly does that mean? How does that translate into a specific scope of work? Because remember, part of the role of your professional staff is we track the money. we make sure that before we pay a bill that the work has been done and it has been done in accordance with your contract so our scope of work is not vague it's so if the consensus of the council is this evening that you are interested in doing a little bit more than what we will need to do as staff is we will need to go back so the work is going to stop Work's going to stop on this. And then we need to go back and we need to spend time with the consultant team, come up, go back and forth. And let me tell you, getting this contract so that I could bring it back to you on August 4th was a huge lift. It's not going to happen by your next meeting in August. It's going to be maybe we could do it by September 10th, maybe. And then there's no way that you're going to get this done in the timeline. Now, if the timeline, if it doesn't matter to you anymore, and the consensus of the council is you want us to do a little bit more, then that's what we'll do. And we'll have to come back and it'll just be a delay. So then I think it would behoove you to think, is that delay, what's the value of that delay? What's it going to get for you?

But Krista, I don't agree with that. If we were working for 12 weeks and then we decided to extend the contract after the 12 weeks and add on layouts, it would just be an amendment to the contract to add more. So I don't know that we need to redo the whole thing, stop all the work, stop all the meetings. We're saying there may be a possibility down the road that we're expanding the scope as we go. And I actually think it's a disservice not to have layouts done given that there's a lot of programming that needs to be for complicated police, fire, et cetera.

So just today, David and I were in a meeting, almost two hours going through the packet of information that the Gensler project team gave us. And our comments are due today because we know what David's going to be doing before he goes to bed tonight, is making sure he puts together the comments from all. So David and I are going through all these tables. And when Mr. Whiney mentioned an example of restrooms, We spent a considerable amount of time because what Gensler had put together only had one restroom for this building. And I was like, wait. I have more than one restroom for this building because when we have a break, there's usually more than one person that has to use the restroom. I mean, we are going through lots of detail already because we need to get this done. Gensler gives us assignments and we need to do our part. So if it was a specific thing like towards the end, if something else is needed, the contract that we have with Gensler right now, would allow us on a time and materials basis to do something you know something is specific and if it's something really specific I feel I feel more comfortable as a town manager saying okay you know it's become apparent in this process because remember This concept includes looking at reusing a building, right? There's a lot of unknowns. So maybe something does come up in this process that I could just quickly, under my purchasing authority, amend the scope of work and get done, right? But that's specific. But this whole thing about a little bit more, no, I'm not comfortable adding on such a vague scope of work. I'm going to bring that back to the council. So even if we can still do a little bit of stuff now, it's not going to be like we are charging forward right now because the council told us 12 weeks.

I did, but it's okay.

If I can add, Mayor. Can we just let the council talk for a minute? We're never going to get out of here if we can't all share our thoughts.

I think it would be advantageous to do, sorry about that. It would make sense, I mean doing space plans is not that complicated they're going to do the team is already going to be working on. block plan so they're going to have how much space, we have for the police department or office space or whatever taking that the next step to do some sketches to show. Conceptually, where do the offices go? How many offices do we have? How many bathrooms do we have? Do we have locker rooms? Do we have shared locker rooms? Where, you know, all the sort of, the next level of detail in terms of making sure that that building works is not that complicated. It isn't that complicated, but it goes a long ways to having the people who are looking at it who care about these things really understanding that it works, other than showing them a block of space for a police department is interesting because when we had the police chief here, he was saying, I need an evidence room and they need a place for two for weapons. And I need, you know, this storage and I have drug store. All those kinds of things that he was talking about is absolutely right. We got to make sure that those things are taken care of. So so all I'm saying is that and I'm speaking as an architect now, not Gensler, and that doing the space planning is not that complicated. From an architectural standpoint, we already will have as-builts of the drawings of the buildings. So doing elevations of the buildings to understand how much window area do we have? Where are the windows located? You know, are we going to have those outside decks? Or, you know, what kind of roofs do we have to repair versus, you know, new roofs or whatever it may be? The elevations of the building, just some plans of the building, a section through the building so structurally how it works goes a long ways for a cost estimator to be able to say, okay I get it right I understand you know what needs to be done versus doing block plans that's all I'm saying well you can we can do block you know we can do block plans we can do exactly what we're saying but we're going to have to carry a bigger contingency right you would have to say that I know you got to say you have to have a bigger contingency the more detail you have the better the cost estimate I'm more concerned about the constituencies out there who need to be assured that everything is working the way that they want it to work in order to support this and get the kind of community behind this to get this approved and that's really what it's like that next level of detail whatever you want to call it but enough information that they can go out there and say yeah this is it you know this works this is didn't get exactly what we wanted but this looks like it's going to work and let's move forward with it so that's Yeah, that's my two cents on it. I just don't think it's all.

Can that be added on without a project delay? Pardon me? Can that be added on without a project, without a delay?

Sure, I mean, they'd have to talk to Gensler and ask him. And I think actually the question for Gensler would be, Based on what we've asked you to do in the scope of work right now and what we've outlined, do you think it's adequate to get a construction estimate and a cost estimate that we can hang our hat on to go forward with the bond?

Okay, so that was already in the RFP. That was already in the RFP. That was in the RFP that that was a goal of this exercise. There is no one that is more concerned about making sure that this project meets our operational needs. I've said to many of you, it's not my town I don't I don't care what it looks like it I want it to meet our operational needs and I want it to be something that we can afford and is done in a fair legal manner um and so that's what I'm I you know and and when you say it's funny because I think I feel like we're saying exactly exactly but we already have this information when you use when you use the police chiefs we already have i had a conversation just this afternoon with our police chief because he said he wanted to make sure that the locker rooms are for women and men and i diligently we looked back absolutely because it's a law we have to have it so we've already done so much of that sure and sure i think the difference is krista when you take that program to a block plan it's a block of space when you take it to the next level of space planning sometimes that block of space works and sometimes it doesn't

And sometimes you got to start modifying your program to make it work, especially in a building that's going to be an adaptive reuse. It's not going to be perfect. You know, block plan and space plan is one level of detail. The next level of detail just simply gives us more information to give us a better a better cost estimate and a better sense of what the scope is. I'm not saying we can't do it with a block plan. It makes sense. You could. All I'm saying is that I guarantee you the cost estimators are going to carry a larger contingency based on a block plan than they will detailed space planning. That's all.

all of us, all of us agreed to the contract as it was written on August 4th, correct? We read it, we agreed to it.

Well, I actually had several questions about it, but was told that if we try to change it, It'll be weeks to get it going back and forth, and then it's better to start with this. And if there are anything we want to adjust, we could possibly adjust moving forward. So that's where I kind of feel like we are now with... Wait a minute, I don't want to interrupt you. Go ahead.

No, it's okay. No, it was a question that I asked. I asked the question. So yeah, I did not get that information. I read it. City Council Chambers, It made sense to me, I supported it so. City Council Chambers, I would really like us to move ahead, I keep worrying about this delay that delay, I mean this has been. City Council Chambers, we've had delays for how many years now with this. City Council Chambers, Yes, right exactly for a long time let's move forward let's. City Council Chambers, deal with the contract as it's written. uh let's add the additional six meetings that ginsler would have with the three would be with the citizens advisory group which i think is a great idea there's three more town council meetings that's thrown in my my caveat was i would trust the staff to figure out a way to make sure that those other stakeholders not just the Citizens Advisory Council, but the other stakeholders have an opportunity, whether that's at a council meeting or one of those three meetings is just for the council is set aside for other stakeholders. I want to make sure you've got the stakeholders covered and not just CAC.

So I agree with all of that, but in addition, you know, I'm swayed by Dan's comments about space planning could be useful and it isn't it it's not that hard to add on and it will give us a better sense of how well this design functions and a cost estimate and it can be added on without a delay we don't have to stop the problem we don't have to stop anything to add what it what's to describe the space planning towards the end of this 12 weeks what does that mean it won't be it's not a hard it won't take a lot of time what does that mean it won't take a lot of time it's not hard to do what does that really mean I mean, I'd ask Dan, but it sounded like it wasn't, you know, a major addition.

We'd have to hire us.

He needs to speak up there at the mic.

Well, he was saying to ask Gensler, do we think what we're doing now is adequate or should we add in space planning? Maybe that's the way to go.

City Council Chambers, So I would like to first start off with the space planning sort of not on this items on the staff report, I think we can address the space planning later like it doesn't tonight need to be. City Council Chambers, determined, while you're doing a project, you can always add things and amend them and I think. Mayor Mrakas, Krista you just said hey I want to come back to you for a big thing so let's do that at another time we have. Mayor Mrakas, tons of meetings coming up, we can decide whether we want to add space planning or not, I don't think it needs to be done tonight, the question before us tonight is how do we integrate the CAC. City Council Chambers, into this process that's really what this item is about I appreciate the offer for three meetings. City Council Chambers, I think what is clear, and the fact that we keep asking Dan to go speak at the MIC because we care what he has to say is the CAC isn't magic or some. City Council Chambers, Constituent they are the group that created this plan that we all seem to have adopted and we're sort of trying to move forward without them seems ridiculous these people are experts. Mayor Mrakas, they're willing, I mean the fact that they're just here tonight at 930 and good to see you to Mr cool. Mayor Mrakas, You know, is showing a dedication to this town that we need to really embrace I think they should be at every meeting, I think that they this group has come together with a great plan, why would we exclude them from any meeting. It just it makes no sense to me. I don't think they're going to slow you down. I think they're going to add so much value. Why would we not take it? You have literally some of these the most experts that you have in the world are sitting right in this room. So just include them in the meetings. I don't think they're going to ruin it. I actually think they're going to help make the plan work better because they've already come this far. So why would we just handcuff them? just bring them into the meetings and if they're annoying or they're doing things you just say hey thank you well uh i think you can manage a meeting very well town manager johnson two of them are running for council and you really expect that staff is going to go oh council council candidates you know i don't like what you're saying i don't like what your tone is okay i mean that's impossible first of all there's ways let me speak it is my turn is that you, you know, we're not saying you have to have all 10 members. Maybe it's two or three of them attend. I don't know. They can choose. Mayor Mrakas, No, I think it's worth a discussion with them about hey I think obviously Mr whiny is got everybody support to be there. Mayor Mrakas, Maybe it's two or three other people from that committee that want to come and meet and guess what they're busy people. Mayor Mrakas, I mean they maybe can't even attend all the meetings, maybe they send one representative I just don't know why we wouldn't include them in this process, it seems sort of. foolish like they've gotten us to this point let's like use them and then uh move forward just setting up three extra meetings doesn't seem it seems like a total waste of time and money not to just have them at the meetings as an optional attendee to provide input I just I don't get it

City Council Chambers, I think I think we're kind of beating this horse dead, it seems like there's consensus to embrace even heard from bill, well, I just let me just summarize because I think we heard from Dan. City Council Chambers, That the additional three meetings is a great solution, I mean Dan agrees with that, so I don't think we need to keep going around and around about whether the CAC or any other Members should be part of the project management staff meeting. weekly meeting i think krista came up with a really good solution to encompass the information and everyone's going to hear the information at the same time and be able to weigh in and it's ultimately the council who needs to decide um and i agree on the what with what you're saying in terms of the um the schematics or you know more detail or i i just i think from my standpoint i think it Krista, it would be great, or David, if you could just say to the Gensler people, hey, is this going to be enough? I know what's in the contract, but we don't want to be sitting here in October and having someone say, well, you know, you didn't do enough work. The contract was too limited. The contingency is too big. and we have to be flexible and nimble and that this issue i think it just is is a 15-minute conversation with the gensler people yes we have confidence in how this is going to go down or maybe we need to add a little bit a little amendment to the contract to encompass a little more detailed planning.

As I mentioned, there is already language in the existing contract which states that if we need additional services, we have that ability to do that.

That's great. I just don't want to be in, like, October 1st. Freaking out that we need this additional information, I think we should ask right now, and then, if we don't need a great if we do need it, then it can proceed in parallel with this other work that's going on, so that when we come to October 22 or whatever the date is we're ready.

So the RFP clearly stated that was the town council's goal. We asked the consultants to tell us to give us a proposal for what they thought that they needed to do to get to that point. So it's not a good negotiating strategy to go to a consultant and say, City Council Chambers, Are we paying you enough, are we giving you enough hours, how much more can we pay you so I absolutely i'm more than happy to answer ask them that question but there's also I don't think you're going to get the certainty that you're looking for a mayor, I think we're.

City Council Chambers, we're never I agree we're never going to have perfect certainty there's going to be a contingency for all the reasons that David said, in addition to you know, trying to rehab a very old building. City Council Chambers, But. And Gensler is our architect. And, you know, when I was a lawyer, if my client asked me something, I had to be ethical and I had to give an honest answer. And so I have confidence that if you ask Gensler, then they're not going to be like ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching. They're going to be like, you know... maybe we need to do a little bit more or maybe we don't and we don't want to disqualify qualify ourselves by doing schematics and not being able to you know bid for the for the penultimate project this is just a small little project i just want us to be as prepared as we possibly can maybe they'll say you know what krista this contract is perfect we're going to have so much information and our cost emitters our cost estimators are going to be perfectly satisfied and the contingency is going to be a reasonable contingent contingency that every other project is going to have we're not going to be an outlier but you know I think if people are telling us this now we we need to address this and and be nimble and you know if we need a little amendment to the contract great I mean this is the biggest project that this town has done since 1927 and You know I don't want to shoot ourselves in the foot, but I think the Council would be willing to pay more now to have more certainty later to be assured of passing a general obligation bond. and have our citizens have confidence in what we're doing so I don't think it hurts to ask the question I have full confidence that you and David can ask the right questions. And you know come back with whatever answer and maybe it's just within your spending authority and you can amend the contract.

OSBT, Karen Hollweg, it's space planning we're talking about is that what what.

OSBT, Karen Hollweg, So i'm i'm absolutely David and I can ask them more detailed questions about their cost estimate. OSBT, Karen Hollweg, I want to let the Council know though. we cannot maintain this schedule if we continue to have these fire drills by the council every week when you when we are continuously faced with all of a sudden oh my god right before the meeting we have to scout you know it's we cannot get our work done we cannot get our work done So if what happens at the next, you know, on the next meeting, if I have one or two council members are like, because you have a certain member of the public in your ear, And you want us to amend the contract, and we have to stop what we're doing, and we have to figure out, okay, what exactly do they want us to do? What does it mean? How much will it cost? Can they do it? And you have to keep in mind, it's not just us. Just this past Monday, we had an hour meeting with our Gensler project team, very important kickoff team. We spent half the time talking about doing these additional meetings half of the time and then we're one of many clients they have so the meeting was done and we couldn't even get through we couldn't get through it because all of a sudden we are completely changed because you had one community send you a letter at 7 45 on monday morning and now we're all in a roller coaster so I really urge you to let us get through this. Let Gensler do their work. Let us do what we need to do. We have assignments that we have to do, that we had a consultant here today doing laser scanning. And we have to work on getting, you know, we are obligated to do all these things.

we can't do it if we're continuously responding to council member last minute changing direction so you know I I just think that we all want the best project possible and and we all want this to succeed and if people are telling us things we we kind of have a duty to raise it so that you know the the project is successful and the bond passes City Council Chambers, And, and I really understand and appreciate you know the the scheduling and the ball juggling etc, hopefully, this won't keep happening, but. City Council Chambers, Are our all of our goals is the same, we want this building to be built to accommodate. City Council Chambers, All the functions that may or may not happen and using the beautiful design that guns are and damn whiny has proposed, so that you know there's going to be. there's gonna be bumps in the road. And we all have to be flexible. And I think you just need to have a conversation with Gensler and kick the tires a little bit. And maybe this isn't necessary, maybe it's already encompassed, but maybe it needs to be. That's all that we need to do, I think. I don't think anyone's trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. We're just trying to, do the best thing that we can. So, Bill, did you want to say anything?

Well, you know, I appreciate everybody's concern, but sometimes, you know, you can overthink things and sometimes you can spend too much time planning because everything's going to change anyway. And as we've been discussing this, I've had this sort of reflection on when I led teams of attorneys and everybody wanted to have their two cents and the client wanted me to meet with them every morning and so forth. But as the lead trial counsel, you've got to be ready to go and put witnesses on the I have some sympathy for Kristen. She's got a huge scheduling process, and I do think there's a danger of too many cooks in the kitchen here. I just think we need to get going. I like that plan of the three additional meetings, and I think we should get going. And I think that we probably will change some of our approach as we go along, as we get more feedback. But trying to plan it all in advance and anticipate it. My experience in real estate and in trial work is plans are good. You should have a plan, but you should realize that you will have a different plan when you get to the end of it. That's just the way it goes. I don't mean to sound cynical, but that's just my experience, and I do have a lot of it.

I don't think we're responding to just a community member. We're responding to literally the architect of the whole plan who has a lot of experience. I think the more we hear from everyone who's involved and has experience from town staff, town planner, architects, the better off we'll be.

yeah I mean I I'm just gonna I like it seems like everyone's on a consensus for three meetings but there's the elephant in the room is we have incredible talent led by Dan winey and they just need to be incorporated so that when they're when we have to hear from very valid concerns that aren't being incorporated in this process we're going to bring it up and I that's our duty

Well, probably the earlier things are incorporated, the better. So if we'd heard a few days ago or maybe at the day of the contract, what is it called? Space planning should be part of it. We could have thought about it. But I think, again, it takes a lot of conversation and a lot of discussion to kind of adapt as we move forward with what's a great contract and a great architect firm. But I think there will be some back and forth and changes as things come up, like Dan saying space planning is helpful. So we try to fit it in, I think. All I have to say is let's get going.

Let's get going.

I agree with that.

OK. Do we need anything? Do we need a motion? Do we need anything?

No.

We don't just do discussion. There's no motion.

I think we have enough direction.

You have enough direction?

We have enough direction to move forward. Thank you.

OK. Then we are moving to item number 18, no action items. Council correspondence. Future council items, anybody? And lastly, council member participation at the communication table at the post office on September 10. Were you a no-show today? I forgot to, I didn't do a reminder.

Well, I can't, so help me out.

You guys can tell me later if you are available on September 10th.

I should be able to do it. I'm just seeing, I should be able to do it September 10th.

Okay. The last, oh, meeting evaluation number 19. Comments?

That's what?

a little heated. And I think I would just recommend that we be careful that you're usually pretty good about reminding us of this. Don't talk over somebody else. If somebody is talking, do not let them finish. Do not talk over them. And I think we should also be pretty thoughtful about how long we each speak to.

I did think it was helpful, Julie, when, you know, we made comments and then we commented after our comments, because I think for some of these controversial issues, you want to hear what people say. You might change what you say. You might want to rebut what they say. And I think that for these issues, I think that's helpful to have some back and forth, you know, sort of a row of us and then again. But I thought that was very helpful.

Okay. Bill, do you have anything to add?

No, I don't.

Okay.

I'm sleepless in Seattle. That's why I'm kind of drooping here. Good night, everyone. Thank you.

Thank you for being online with us. Okay. All right. We're adjourned.

Thank you, everybody. Bye-bye.