Town Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I'm calling to order the Town of Fairfax Town Council meeting. Today is Wednesday, August 5th. And I'd like to call to order. Do you want to do a roll call, please?

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

Here.

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

I'm here. And will you join me for the Pledge of Allegiance, please?

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

Thank you. Okay, we had a closed meeting that we began at 4.15 this afternoon, and there were no findings or nothing to report out. Is that correct, Janet? Okay. So before we approve the agenda, I'm thinking we want to make a tweak, which would be to put the presentation celebrating Linda Neal with a proclamation for her before public expression, before open time.

I'll make that motion.

I'll second. All in favor?

Aye. And nays?

Aye. Hearing none, motion passes. Okay, moving on, I'll read the land acknowledgement. The town council acknowledges that we are located on the unceded ancestral lands of the Coast Miwok people of present-day Marin County. We honor with gratitude the land itself and all of its ancestors, past, present, and emerging. Meeting protocol, the mayor or presiding officer shall maintain order at all council meetings. Council members share responsibility for modeling respectful professional conduct to effectively facilitate the meeting and encourage meaningful civic participation. All participants, including council members, staff, members of the public, and remote attendees are expected to engage respectfully. Profane language, personal attacks, ridicule of character or motives, and discriminatory or harassing conduct are not permitted. To ensure all voices can be heard, disruptive behavior, including shouting, repeated interruptions, et cetera, is not permitted during public comment or council deliberations. Participants are asked to silence their electronic devices. The mayor presiding officer may issue a reminder or warning to address disruptions. Meetings will adjourn no later than 11 p.m. And at approximately 9.30 p.m., the council will review the agenda to determine which remaining items may be continued. So with that, we shall proceed. Town manager's report, please.

Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to give some construction updates on our roadways.

A little bit louder, please. How's this?

A little better. Is this better?

Okay, thank you. We are currently approximately half of the way through the town's project on Park Road, the stormwater improvements and paving project. And that is still scheduled to be completed by the end of September. Okay. So you may have seen that construction work happening. The Ross Valley Sanitary District project is wrapping up on the Park Road section and will continue on Merwin for the next few more weeks. The schedule for the downtown section on Broadway is being adjusted and updates will be available as details become available. So I'll bring that back to a future meeting. And we also use the newsletter for updates on that. And we do have links to the project page on our newsletter. The West Bray and Lima Road areas are scheduled to start in early September, and the Oak Road area will be completed by the end of February. And then... The Marin water project that I know everyone has been looking at is on hold and there's currently no estimate of when it will restart. So just letting you know that once the Ross Valley sanitary district project is. Back in downtown, the work may require one-way traffic on Broadway near the Bolinas intersection and possibly a closure near Bank Street. With traffic detoured through nearby residential streets or onto Sir Francis Drake, we have informed the contractor that if traffic congestion compromises emergency vehicle access, work would have to be suspended until an acceptable alternative is implemented. And one option currently under consideration is performing that portion of the work during nighttime hours. And of course, that comes with other challenges. being considered. Fire Station 21's remodel is underway. Firefighters are currently living in the temporary quarters at the community center. More information on that later in our discussion tonight. Council met, as you just mentioned, in closed session earlier tonight to discuss labor negotiations negotiations with SEIU. So that process is ongoing. And then I wanted to give you a little preview for the September 2nd council meeting. Topics will include a badge pinning ceremony for the police department, newer employees, and people who've been promoted. Very proud of that. A presentation from the Marin Emergency Services on the Marin Emergency Operations Plan. I know that's of interest for folks. And then possibly a presentation on the town's fleet electrification plan that we've been working on.

You're saying all three of those will be on the September agenda? Yes.

That's the plan, of course, subject to discussion with the mayor and vice mayor. And so I'll take any questions if you have or just move along.

Just a question that may be for Kristen, but school's going to start in about a week and a half. And I know the plan is to do slurry on Glen Drive. That is White Hill School. Plenty of parents to drop off, pick up. Are we planning on doing the slurry before school starts?

I know that was the original plan, but I do need to follow up with San Anselmo about the schedule of the project.

Yeah, I think it's going to be very difficult and we'll get a lot of complaints if school has already started. So just to the extent that you can work around that, that'd be great.

Were you finished, Heather? I think Council Member Blash has a question.

Okay, go ahead, Lisa. Okay, everyone's asking about this. I'm sure we probably don't know, but do we know why Marin Water hasn't restarted? I do.

They're still waiting to hear back from the rancheria, the Graton, as far as where they can appropriately place the artifacts in the watershed. So they're having a lot of discussions for that.

Thank you.

And Heather, did you mention the Cascade Canyon Bridge project?

No, Mayor, I did not. But Marin Parks is starting that project, building the bridges there for people to use the trails. And we have a link on our website and in our newsletters to their project page.

Great. And a lot of this information is provided in the newsletter. So if you're not subscribed, I highly recommend that you do that. Um, okay. Future agenda items. I have a handful. I also have a couple of announcements, but I will go down the line and ask if any of my colleagues have future agenda topics. Go ahead.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. Schools are getting ready to start here, and a number of the cities and towns in Marin are lowering speed limits by schools down to 15 miles an hour, and I'm just wondering at what point will we be doing that? The state law gives us until 2031 to post 15-mile-an-hour speed limits in school zones, but if we don't get it done by the

2031 the state's going to come in and do it for us so i'm just wondering how do we have it on a schedule to try to we've got so every time we talk about the relationship or the relevance with the um bicycle pedestrian advisory commission and i thought i don't know i think that project is delayed but when is that going to be on the agenda

Yeah, we have that scheduled to come back to the council in October. So that's our plan. And Vice Mayor Egger, you did give us a list of streets that you thought would be good candidates for lowering speed limits. And that did get communicated to the Bicycle Pedestrian Committee as well. And then the committee is working with the city consultant to prepare the final report. And then that report would come to the council.

And I did want to mention that Manor is already in process of slowing their speed limits because that's in the county's jurisdiction and the county's doing it there for the school.

So as far as the state law dealing with speed limits in school locations, Ross Valley Charter School is on the St. Rita's property, and that's going to have to go to 15 miles an hour there. We have a school crossing also right there between the church and the library. White Hill School, it's the middle school, and their playing fields, Lefty Gomez Fields, it's all school frontage property. And to my knowledge, that's going to have to be posted 50 miles an hour also, that section through there. And I don't know if the bicycle pedestrian committee is looking at school property Zones and 15 mile an hour limits, but we have to deal with it pretty soon because school is about to start.

That's all been included and I forwarded them all of your street segments and have asked that it be included in the report so that we all have it in front of us to act on.

okay so i know jeff is here too so i i've i've asked for you of staff like i'm very much hoping and expecting this to be covered in the recommendation or the proposal that comes from bpac oh that'll be in october that'll be almost a year and a half from when they started but i don't know i mean i don't know that steph has the lead time to do anything sooner Anything else? Okay. Any other future agenda topics? Okay. I have a couple, and then we will proceed. So the first is, so Mina Kim, who leads the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce, met with town manager abrams and myself and planning director jeff weisinger and chief rico tabaranza was there and i think uh christine foster was there as well we were talking about you know she's doing a lot of downtown um events to create more vibrancy and vitality. And there's a problem with lead time to, for small businesses or even in our town owned properties to like host an event with enough lead time. Our, our processes requires like two plus months to go through the planning commission. And it also costs $2,000 and it's really not, effective or efficient or fair. And so we had a meeting. It's really complex. I think all of us would love to just have some turnkey solution, but we certainly didn't come up with it in that meeting. So I would like to request a discussion on that. We need a solution so that our downtown businesses and MENA can develop a concept and be able to execute on it within 60, 90 days. So it seems reasonable to me. Does anybody have any questions or is this something that we can ask the Planning Commission to focus on?

I would suggest that you at the next Planning Commission meeting have Jeff discuss it with them first because that will also be before our next meeting and

Okay. My concern with that is that there's a lot, they already have a pretty long list of things they're trying to tackle that haven't come back to council yet, including like dark sky, you know, all sorts of things, right? So you want to, I mean, do it, what is the protocol? I guess that's what I need to know. Like, can it come here or does it need to go to planning commission?

Mayor, I think we would need to determine all of the code sections that would need to be changed and then whether those have to go through the Planning Commission because they're zoning, which I don't believe they're mostly zoning. I would have to confer with our attorney. Right, because zoning has to go through planning before it comes to the council. And then we could come back with a plan of how we would fix those. But it will take a little time, unfortunately.

Okay. I would be interested in starting the process. I'd just like to, you know, if it makes sense to do so, just because I know they're concerned and they want to put on a lot of events. So it would be interesting to get it going.

Mike is having some comments that I can't hear. So will you turn your mic on? Oh, I'm sorry.

I think we should be able to bring things to the council when the council member asked for it for that. I think things get stuck in these committees and it takes too long to get something done.

Go ahead, Mayor, if you don't mind. Again, I'll be corrected if I'm wrong by the attorney, but the council could make a direct referral on some action, but we need to make sure we have all of the sections detailed out and then also that zoning, if it's a zoning issue, that really does have to go through planning first. Okay.

All right. Janet, I'm going to get with you on how we can streamline this. It sounds like, I mean, it sounds like it could take a year and I'm really trying to help Mina do a good job, which we all want her to be able to do, right? All of us are, I think, aligned on that.

If you're talking about code changes and you're talking about changes to the zoning code, It's state mandated. It's required by law that they go through the planning commission first and they have a recommendation to the council. And things like we can't notice an item like that for council until after the planning commission has taken action and it's a 10-day notice. I mean, those are the things that are built in that take time. And there's nothing we can do to shorten that legally. Okay. Okay.

All right, more to come on that, Shirley. I also wanted to... announced to the community, if you're not already aware. So a lot of discussion and announcements have come out of Ross Valley Sanitation District, as well as Central Marin Sanitation Agency. Recently, CMSA voted to increase our quarterly treatment costs by 50%. And that's on top of recent findings that for the past 12 years, Ross Valley residents have been overcharged. And so they are looking for a solution related to being overcharged for over a decade. It sounds like it's going to mediation. But this council does not have a liaison to the Ross Valley Sanitation District. And I really think we need more transparency and more engagement with both of those agencies. It could on the low end, it would be a couple hundred dollars credit or due to a Fairfax household. So the upside or the downside. The top end could be thousands of dollars because we have so much more stormwater in our area. So I would like this council to support two things. One, a presentation, invite Ross Valley Sanitation District, the general manager, Stephen Moore, to present on all of the above. And number two, I'd like to see a designated person on our council to stay connected to what's happening. so i don't know if that's a separate action item to support or deny a liaison but i personally feel it's really important right now and it could be a temporary thing but i mean the way i learned about it was you know because i have relationships but i tend to think most of the community is not aware

I'm speaking first to the idea of having a presentation from Steve Moore, the GM for Ross Valley Sanitation District. I'm happy to reach out to him and arrange that.

OK, great. Thank you. Any thoughts about the liaison? Are we OK with getting that on the agenda for.

I would like to know more of what that looks like. It seems it's not like sitting on, you know, the TAM board or the fire board. It's like what we would send, sign a council member to.

I mean, I'm the liaison for the Ross Valley school district. You stay. Okay. So you want to have a. Develop those relationships. You read the packets, you know, you.

Okay. So you want to, you just want to.

Accountable for what's going on.

A designated liaison for RPSD as like, like what we rotate every year type of thing.

Yeah. Yeah. But we don't have it today. And maybe it's a temporary thing. But I think for the next six months or so, we need more oversight.

So I would suggest that we put it on as an agenda item. And I'm just going to throw this out there. Frank, don't kill me. But given that you were on the Ross Valley Sanitary District for a number of years, you might be a great person for that. You know the system. Yeah.

Can we appoint Frank right now?

No, we can't. Let's try to put that on the September agenda if possible. Sorry, everyone. I am going to move right along. There was one other thing that I had. As far as announcements, we have Bingo Night on the 14th. We have Sidewalk CPR on the 15th in Bolinas Park. We have the Townwide Picnic on August 30th. And we have the ribbon cutting for LaFleur this Saturday at 10 a.m. So with that, I think we're ready for open time for public express. Oh, that's right. We changed it. Linda, this is your time. This is the good part of the meeting. There's lots of good parts. So our dear, dear, dear Linda Neal. has announced her retirement. And when was your last date? July 6th.

Okay.

Well, I'm really honored to be presenting this to you this evening, Linda. This is a proclamation in recognition of honoring Linda Neal for 40 years of service. Whereas Linda Neal is a principal planner extraordinaire, having devoted more than 40 years of her career to the people of the town of Fairfax. And whereas Linda moved to San Rafael at the age of two, Graduated from San Rafael High School in 1979 and from the University of California, Davis in 1983 and began her planning career with Yolo County before being hired by the town of Fairfax as assistant planner on July 7th, 1986. And she never left. And since childhood, Linda has had a gift for making people feel welcome. As far back as 1968, a young newcomers family arriving from New York with no friends in the neighborhood found themselves put at ease by a quick witted girl with a marvelous laugh. The same warmth she would later bring to guiding residents through what can often be a complex, unforgiving planning process. And whereas Linda's arrival at Town Hall followed one of town manager Charles Kate's earliest and best hiring decisions, appointing a bright young graduate of UC Davis to the town planning department. And the rest, as they say, is history. And Linda knows more about the planning and zoning sections of Fairfax Town Code in her little finger than most learn after studying it for years and understands the town codes, ordinances, and history better than anyone else. And Linda has always brought a factual, straightforward, no-nonsense approach and an exceptional work ethic to her service. Often the first to arrive, always available to the public and tackling every task with impeccable care. And whereas known throughout town as approachable and fair, Linda built strong relationships across every department and worked patiently alongside residents coming before the planning commission to help shape projects that could win approval. And whereas when called upon, Linda stepped forward to serve as the town's interim planning director, A role she took on bravely and performed with distinction. And throughout her tenure, she has been quite simply the institutional memory of the town. Even if a flood were to wash the old paper records down the creek, Linda would still remember the history of seemingly every parcel in Fairfax and the countless planning commission packets she prepared over the years. would stand taller than the Redwoods, if stacked, would stand taller than the Redwoods. And whereas across four decades, Linda has been the one constant at Town Hall as colleagues came and went, working alongside eight town administrators and managers, 11 planning directors, eight public work directors, and six town clerks and deputy clerks, five building officials, five police chiefs and six front counter administrative assistants. And while she told her sorry and while she and while some told her she was crazy to stay so long, the truth is simply that she is a happy person who genuinely loves the town of Fairfax. And whereas Linda is a consummate professional and an institution in Fairfax, a wonderful person with a great sense of humor and always ready laugh and a gift for the entertaining bit of Fairfax color drawn from her decades in town, a warm and easy manner and a smiling face. that all who visited the front counter came to know. And whereas Linda lovingly cared for the town cat root beer for years, taking him to the vet, feeding him well and playing with him daily as he lolled about on her desk in a cushioned box by day and hunted by night, dearly loved by all. And whereas Linda took over the care and feeding of the koi and the large goldfish in the little pond in front of town hall, tending to them faithfully and leaving us to wonder who will care for them next. And whereas Linda has cherished the small, welcoming charisma of Fairfax and its interesting residents, the fantastic hikes to be had on a one hour lunch break and crossing the creek to come back to sorry and crossing the creek to come face to face with owls, raccoons, deer and fawns while entering through the town hall back door, along with small kindnesses like police dispatcher Vanessa's smile at a gift of homegrown tomatoes and finding meaning in public service, even when the work is exhausting and can feel thankless because serving the public is its own reward. And whereas beyond Town Hall, Linda treasures her family and delights in spending time with them and is known to enjoy Marin County Fair and its carnival rides. And whereas Linda's commitment, knowledge, and service have left a lasting impact on our community, and she will be dearly missed by staff, the town council, planning commissioners, and the many, many residents and applicants who had the good fortune to work with her. And whereas it is now time for Linda to move on to her well-deserved retirement. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that in acknowledgement of more than 40 years of hard work, dedication and tremendous service to Fairfax and the larger community, the town council of the town of Fairfax extends its deepest gratitude, appreciation and admiration to Linda Neal. And be it further proclaimed that the town of Fairfax is in a far better place because Linda Neal came to work as our planner in 1986. And that August 5th, 2026 is hereby proclaimed Linda Neal day in the town of Fairfax.

We love you, Linda. Do you want to say a few words? Do you want to say a few words? We'd love to you to say a few words. Yeah, they have a picture. Yeah, I will.

I have to get real close. Okay, I've never used one of these. I always have the ones that are hooked up. So as the rezzo said, I did start coming to Fairfax when I was two because my parents loved hiking in the lakes above Fairfax. So the first time I was in a baby backpack at the age of two, right? Then one of my other favorite memories is going to the Sleeping Lady Cafe, which was a great music venue right by the car repair place. And we were so stupid, all these high school kids. We park at the park right by the car place. We crack open our beers and we hear this little tap, tap, tap, and this hand's going like this. And a Fairfax police officer told us right by a town hall. get out of the car, ladies, and pour out your beer, right? And we're all going to be arrested, freaking out. He says, lock the door, go to the cafe, and remember, drinking and driving is dangerous.

So that was my high school in Fairfax, right?

High school time. And then, of course, when my dad got to be 102, we still were bringing him to the lakes because he loved going there. And so I've been coming to Fairfax for a long, long time, almost my whole life. And I'm going to miss everybody. Thanks for having me, though.

I know that all of us have comments and then we'll take public comment as well. It sounds like Heather's giving a little parting gift.

No, but don't drop it. So we started a tradition a few years ago here in Fairfax of giving a handmade platter from a local artist with the retirees information on it and artist rendering of the town seal. So that's what's inside. Thank you, Linda.

Very nice. Who wants to speak first? Okay.

Deep breath, Babs. Be brief? Okay. OK, I just want to say one thing before I start that Linda told me that she ate her first taco as a little girl at Michael McIntosh's house. So I remember that. I just want to say, Linda, you've been such a fountain of knowledge and I can't believe you're gone. Yeah. And I think Mark is still processing it, too. We all are. But I just want to say you've been just an amazing, you know, encyclopedia for all of us. Just going to you when we have questions. You seem to know everything. And we love that, and hopefully some people absorb that in your last three months. I also want to say you've been a dear friend to me and to my wonderful cat, Michelle, who misses you dearly. Michelle takes care of Linda when I'm away. And just Linda, you've just been such a wonderful employee and 40 plus years. It's closer to 41 years. So thank you for all your contributions to our town. We will miss you dearly. Thank you.

Well, I'll speak. You want to go?

This was a while back before I was elected to the town council. And when was that? 2024. And I was at a planning commission meeting and you know, we're going to miss most about Linda not being here. It's her institutional memory. We may have to hire her back under, under contract and bring her in from time to time to, to go through our records and help us out. But I was at a plant, you know, it's being that person, she was really the planning director, whatever you want to call it, she was the planning director, and had to make some really tough decisions. Sometimes we would red tag someone for zoning violations. So I was in the audience, this was a few years ago out here, and there's an applicant who's really upset. He was red tagged, as is up on Wood Lane. And he had permits to build a lot of stuff. but he was just going off building his own thing that he wanted. He wasn't following his plans, and so he got red-tagged. So he's ranting and raving here at the meeting, telling about how terrible it is dealing with Fairfax. He said, between Linda Neal and Frank Ager, it's really tough around here. Oh, my gosh. So here was Linda and Frank. We were in the same bag. How about that? Anyway, Linda, thank you so very much. We're just going to miss you, too.

I'll just say something quick. I didn't get to work with you as much as I would have liked to, but I so enjoyed your spirit in the office and your sort of can-do attitude. And I just remember we were trying to tour some possible open space acquisitions, and it's like you totally knew the area, you knew all the neighbors, and you were like, let's just crawl down that bank and into the creek and through the water. And I just was like, yeah, let's do it. This is awesome. I can't believe we have a town employee who's just like... can do this. So anyway, you're just appreciated for, you know, like people said, both your institutional knowledge, but I just think also you just like a spirit of adventure. So it was really nice.

Yeah. Fairfax. One of the luckiest days for Fairfax is when Linda Neal started that job. And I've always pictured Linda, People who work for Fairfax are people who also know our community really well, like Linda did. Not only was she great in Town Hall, but she knew so many people outside of Town Hall. She was literally friends with so many people. And I think that is a quality that you just can't find these days. And I think you're irreplaceable. And I appreciate all the times you told me I was doing something wrong. But all that aside, congratulations. And it's well-deserved. And I hope to see you around. Thank you.

You're such a lovely human being. And I'm just so really appreciative of getting to know you these past few years. And even with all of the, you know, the craziness that the town experiences, you just stay the course and you're very positive. And the times that I've gone out to you on sites have just been, I mean, what you contain is just brilliant. And it's, the word is absolutely, you are irreplaceable. It's a huge loss. But I'm also really, really happy for you. And I also want to just name the fact that, you know, early in my tenure on the council, you really to me showed a lot of leadership that I learned from in terms of, you know, when you presented something and if I didn't necessarily vote in alignment with your recommendation. You, you know, didn't take it personally. I was like worried that it would hurt our relationship and it was never like that. It was very, very professional. And I just really admire that about you because I know you put in so much energy and time and care into your work. your work. And I'm going to miss you dearly. Just walking around. I remember the first time I saw you walking up Manor Hill. I'm like, are you, are you like, what are you doing? Why are you walking up scenic? It's so hot. And you're like, no, no, I like, I like to do that. So I just think it's I think you're wonderful and beautiful. And I also wanted to thank all the people who contributed to the proclamation, namely Mimi Newton, who's a big fan of yours, as I'm sure you know. And with that, we will open the public comment. This is a public comment on the Linda Neal proclamation.

So some of this has been said already, but Linda has spent 40 years serving this community, 40 years, sorry, 40 years Knowing the history and mapping of the town during that time, she has no doubt walked every road, looked at every parcel more than once. That 40 years also includes volunteer service to the community. When Fairfax had a vibrant volunteer organization, she volunteered on the First Creek cleanup effort, and there are pictures. Her love of the community included taking care of the fish out in the pond in front of the town hall as well as sharing her office space with the town's rodent control officer. I recently spoke with an individual that had a business in town many years ago and still remembers the help that Linda provided her when she opened her business. Linda believes strongly in customer service. So I want to congratulate Linda on her retirement and acknowledge all we have lost with her retirement.

I don't have anything too helpful to add, but. Hi, Linda. I just wanted to let you guys know that I'm going to be Linda's campaign manager and now she can be on town council.

I'd like to start by saying, Stephanie, thank you very much for the lovely proclamation. She is certainly worthy of all the praise that you brought forth tonight, and I personally really appreciate it. Obviously, I've known Linda for a long time, and I've known her as little kids, you know, playing with snakes and everything else. And all I can say is we'll certainly miss her. I hope when our town reviews pensions and everything else, she is the person that's worthy of the largest pensions ever. that we can give to our employees. She's been here for everybody. She's been consistent. She's a lovely person. And even if she retires, I'm sure she'll still be back here to help us. So to everybody, thank you very much for the compliments you've given her tonight.

Okay. Well, this event... Kind of got me all poetic. Okay. I decided I would read a limerick I have written for you. In Fairfax, there toiled a planner named Neil, processing projects with an odd kind of zeal. She was nice with advice. You'd go back for it twice. That was just how good she made everyone feel. Um, I also wrote you an ode, which is a little longer and I, the town had it framed for you. So I'm going to give you my ode as well. And there was a haiku, but that's far too long a time to get into the haiku too.

There you go.

So, uh, I want to thank Linda, um, Missing from the proclamation are the dozens of town council members who you've put up with over the last 40 years. So and I, for one, really appreciated it both as a member of the council and also as a resident, because we did a couple of building projects that you helped us with and, you know, treated us fairly and work with us and just, you know. So she is really irreplaceable because she not only knows the codes, but she helped write the codes and implement the codes. So you're really irreplaceable. And on a more serious note, with the new state housing mandate, many of the characteristics of Fairfax, the planning and zoning characteristics are going to be overridden and have been overridden by the state. So some of the work that she's done that's helped create Fairfax, the physical environment in Fairfax, you know, this may be the fork in the road when you leave. But one thing is when you walk through town, I hope you appreciate the look and the feel of the town as we all should. So thanks. Thanks again, Linda. And I'll see you around. Thank you.

Hi, Mayor and Council. Hi, Linda.

I came down here tonight to speak in support of the proclamation, which is obviously going to be unanimous, and to thank Linda for being a great colleague, former colleague. A great, as a resident, you've been great keeping our town where it should be. Linda's a lot of fun. We laughed a lot together. Many laughs. Linda's also an amazing gardener and has a magic lemon tree. That's Gary. Okay. Thank you, Gary. Okay. Yeah. And that's the hard part. And anyway, I just, I don't know what you guys are going to do without Linda, actually. Congratulations.

It was about 25 years ago I got myself set up by practice as an architect on Bolinas Road. And one day shortly thereafter, I went over to the planning department to introduce myself. And I met Linda and described what I had in mind. And Linda looked at me and said, oh, you're the person that set up an office on the ground floor. which flies in the face of a very obscure section of the code, which... And when I tried to resolve that, it involved the variants, and at that time, you couldn't get variances in downtown Fairfax. So we had to go through a few changes there. But anyway, there was another thing that very few people know about in this town is... There was a period, I don't know if it was two or three years, when there was no planning director, and Linda was left with the task of trying to make a call on all these various problems that came up. And few people know that she really relied upon this monkey to make a lot of the decisions for the planning department. And often, you would have to state your case, and then she would throw the monkey at you, and the monkey would express its feeling. Now, the monkey's got a little hole. I don't know if you can hear it, but she'd go like this.

Yeah.

Hold on. So I would just say, no, no, it's yours to play. Yes. There are two of them. She wanted to get two opinions on everything. So she had two monkeys, one of her own and that one. In any event... It all seems to have worked out pretty well. And I've really had quite a meaningful relationship with Linda and the town. Should be very thankful for having all of her efforts for so many years.

Thank you. Next speaker.

I have had the opportunity to walk into Linda's office both as a member of the Tree Committee with questions about plans and also as a resident with questions about projects. And she has always been welcoming with a big smile. And I'll never forget the wall of folders opposite her desk. And if I asked her something in history, she reached out. She knows exactly which folder to pick out. I think not only has she been through many planning directors, but she's really trained planning directors. And she is the person at planning commission meetings. If members of the commission are going in a direction that's not according to code, the person who brings them back and knows the code. So I don't know what we're going to do without you, but I'll certainly miss you.

Linda, there are some people that you have to say goodbye to. And if you don't get to say goodbye, it just seems like the passage is incomplete. And when I found out that Linda's last day was when it was, I was compelled to be here because I could not leave the path that Linda and I have shared in Fairfax and what Linda has done for Fairfax without thanking her and saying goodbye. Thank you. You're going to be a tough act to follow. Thank you.

Indeed, you are loved, Linda. Is there any hands raised? We have one raised hand on Zoom. Mina, you are unmuted. You may now unmute yourself. Hi, can you hear me? Yes.

I also wanted to say something and recognize Linda Neal on her retirement. Listening to everyone's stories tonight, it's clear just how many lives she's touched over these last 40 years. Linda's truly been a part of the fabric of Fairfax for decades. 40 years of service is remarkable, and with that comes an incredible amount of institutional knowledge that simply can't be replaced. From the Chamber's perspective, Linda was always helpful. She knew the town processes inside and out. And while she was a careful steward of the rules, she was also someone you could call, ask questions, and count on to help you understand how to get things done the right way. I can't tell you how many businesses have commended Linda on her professionalism, consistency, and dedication. And I know that she's had a positive impact on businesses. anyone she's probably come in contact with residents businesses staff volunteers me on behalf of the fairfax chamber of commerce and the wider business community thank you linda so much for your decades of service to fairfax we wish you all the best in your retirement and hope to see you around town thank you we have one we have one more raised hand on zoom mark mark you are unmuted you may now unmute yourself

Can you hear me?

Yes.

I just want to say it's been a wonderful 20 years working with Linda. I miss her greatly. And, you know, whenever I had some horrible dilemma that would come up, I'd always say, hey, you know, what do I do? What do I do? And one example was, you know, I get items from Amazon every once in a while. I got this Amazon box and it was on my desk. So I open it up. And it's a bra and panties. And it's to one of our coworkers, one of our gentlemen coworkers. I said, Linda, what do I do? What do I do? I don't know what to do with this. And she was calm and she said, we'll just tape it up, put it on their desk when they're not looking. We don't say anything. They won't say anything. Anyway, thank you so much for a wonderful 20 years, Linda.

Oh, my God. Okay. Are we going to take a break?

Should we take a break?

Yeah, we're going to take a five-minute break so we can all give hugs and there's cookies and celebrating. What time is it? We're going to reconvene in five minutes, but I think all of us want to say it. Farewell. Okay. Okay. Get your goodies and take a seat. We're going to resume we've got a couple of big items and i want to be in bed by what's what's the bet 9 30

Okay, well, that was really wonderful. And there's still some treats and some coffee. We are now moving on to open time for public expression. And this is the time for the public to address the council and matters not on the agenda. Each speaker is limited to two minutes. The council cannot take action or discuss items that are not on the agenda as restricted by state law. If there are more speakers after 30 minutes, open time will continue at the end of the agenda. Okay, let's try to keep the chatter to a minimum. And with that, first speaker, thank you.

Good evening. I'm Michael Ardito, resident of Fairfax since birth in 1953. I'm here tonight to announce that the last weekend of August, the community will be celebrating the 75th anniversary Diamond Jubilee of our public high school since 1951. Sir Francis Drake, now Archie Williams. As a proud Drake graduate when Archie Williams was my alphabet teacher and track coach and a substitute teacher at the high school since 2017, this year I'm one of the people working diligently to help bring our community together to celebrate the school's milestone. The last Friday of August will be the golf tournament, and that night, school alumni music performers will be at various venues in the Ross and San Geronimo Valleys. On Sunday afternoon, August 30th, there will be a Day on the Green picnic on campus with music. There will be historical displays in the student center, speaker presentations, and celebration cupcakes and ice cream while supplies last. Vintage Drake pirate athletic wear, that we rescued from the school's athletic field house before demolition will be available on campus the last weekend of the month. The hundreds and hundreds of athletic clothing are worth thousands upon thousands of dollars. In lieu of a small donation for the athletic wear, people can receive items for free by participating later this month in the Passport Puzzle Program. Large green capital letters will be in storefront or restaurant windows in Fairfax and San Samuel, similar to the annual hunt for the Fairfax Art Walk. Please look for the green diamond emblem. The weekend will culminate on Monday night, August 31st, with the second annual Drake Archie Williams Athletic Hall of Fame dinner at Deer Park Villa. Everyone can participate the last weekend of August by wearing the school colors of green with white or black. As clues for the puzzle, next Thursday, August 13th, the new California Historical Landmark Park for Drake and the Golden Hinds Landing in 1579 will be dedicated to Lima. This Sunday, August 9th, is the ninth anniversary of Archie Williams winning the Olympic gold medal in 1936. Thank you.

Wonderful. Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Yes, my name is Steve Wasserman. I live at 1 Meadow Way. I'm here to talk about my concern regarding the Meadow Way bridge utilities. Nancy and I agreed to a temporary easement agreement back in March. This July, your attorneys provided us with a new revised agreement after PG&E asked for and got revisions. We requested what PG&E's revisions were, but haven't gotten a response. We added two sentences to protect our property, our pool area, and solar panels. I don't trust PG&E. I understand that all the utility lines are to be placed underground permanently. We've had numerous meetings at the bridge with representatives from the town and utilities, and that's what we've been told. We put in solar panels in October of 2015 to do our part for climate change. In April 2018, PG&E, without notice to us, tried to put a 60-foot utility pole, which would have blocked our panels. That's picture one, and it shows our house, and it shows where their pole would have been. It took a year to get an anchor placed across Cascade. Just because PG&E says something doesn't mean it's true. In July, this last July, PG&E, without again notice, put a taller utility pole on the north side of the Meadoway Bridge. and added a transformer type item. Picture two is the old pole and the new pole. You can see how tall it is. Picture three shows this transformer type item. I'm sure that down the line, PG&E will say that the utility wires have to be put back up, not underground because of this new pole. We have advised PG&E numerous times that it is silly and a waste of money to put new poles up when all the utilities are going to be going underground. You have seen TV ads with the woman of CEO of PG&E saying that they want to put them underground because it's a fire hazard. And Cascade Canyon is a fire hazard. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Nancy Wasserman. I'm a Fairfax resident who's lived on Meadoway for 41 years and on Cascade for seven for a total of 48 years in Cascades. And I've never talked to the council before. This is my first time. I would like to speak also about the Meadoway Bridge a little bit different from what Steve was talking about. With environmental studies starting in 2013 and design changes and negotiations along the way, we still have no bridge. I live at the edge of the bridge and hear every car that crosses it. I have huge concerns for my neighbors and emergency vehicles driving over it. The Canyon Bridge went up in a month. The Bicycle Coalition, as you mentioned earlier, is beginning the Elliott Preserve Bridges after one year of planning, and we still don't have a bridge. They have fishing game and environmental issues, just as we do. PG&E promised that with the bridge, our utility wires would go underground permanently. Now they are reneging and reversing their position. We have agreed to everything up until now. I urge the town council to stand up for our neighborhood welfare and fight on our behalf for fire safety. for a swifter resolution to the bridge issues with PG&E and get this bridge project completed before another rainy season passes. It is shameful that PG&E appears to have the last word on this project and the Fairfax City Council does not. Thank you.

Sierra Salen, I have a slogan for Fairfax. Let's change Fairfax. And perhaps we can add something to the end of it for the better or for the worse. I saw a line of cars stretching from the Fairfax Community Church to St. Rita's on Saturday morning for the food bank. I wonder why that's getting longer, especially with all the affordable housing that we're building in Marin. I talk to people and ask them, people that have been here a long time that live here, they're locals, many of which grew up here, how much they make a year working at the Good Earth or pretty much any business in town or lots of other businesses. And most of the people in the locals that work in any local businesses make well under $50,000 a year. Think about that. We're building housing pegged at $120,000 a year. We're getting two extra stories of bonus, bonus, bonus, extra bonus units at $120,000 a year. Who's that serving? It's not serving anybody that lives here, that is here, that's from here, that works here. Let's change Fairfax, right? That building is going to change Fairfax. I don't think it's going to be for the better. I'm willing to chain myself to the equipment. I'm willing to have my car break during rush hour on Sir Francis Drake or Center, and maybe everybody else's cars will break on Center too during rush hours. We've got a traffic problem. We've got a water problem. We've got lots of problems. We don't have any solutions that were actually our solutions. Affordable housing for $120,000 is not a solution. It's kicking the can down the road and making things worse. um i've got 14 seconds left what are we doing for the environments to make things better and yes i do feel like a hypocrite because i just went out and bought a new refrigerator rather than fixing one that was 22 years old and i wish that things were made so that we could repair them thank you

Not as tall. Deborah Benson, Cascade Drive. I would like to speak to the council about getting along. I attended last council meeting via Zoom and some of what I saw with council members being cut off and then breaks and interactions was really kind of appalling. I don't know if you guys remember Diane Huffman, but she was a person who was involved in town politics. And I remember her saying once, we did get three minutes to talk and you guys sit up there and you go on and on and on. Sometimes that's the way to reach consensus. Sometimes it's going to be a little bit off topic, sometimes not. I know you have to stick to the agenda and what's on the agenda. But I would like to see some of the spirit that we just saw between all five of you in regards to our dear person who's leaving extend to your everyday interactions with each other. I'd like to see a line of smoothness going between all of you instead of a line of fractiousness. It used to be a lot friendlier here with each other and with the council and the people. And I'm not up there. It's a difficult job, but I'd like you guys to work on that. Thank you.

Next speaker.

Hi, Todd Greenberg. You know, Fairfax used to be more about peace, love, tie-dye, music, art, and community. But what many of us see, many members of this council repeatedly doing is bringing controversy to Fairfax. Now it's about tasers. automated license plate readers and approving high-rise, high-density buildings. And now you're considering unlimited, unspecified pesticide use later on at this meeting. The mayor and other members frequently condemn public speakers for what they say. They rely upon stated rules of decorum but yet they violate those stated rules of decorum. It's not equally applied. And in fact, the law allows criticism of town council members. So I suggest that you revise your rules of decorum and until you revise them, that you actually adhere to the law and you quit criticizing Bad-mouthing and publicly insulting speakers and cutting them off and cutting off town council members I suggest that you adhere to the Brown Act and that you adhere to What fire town councils adopted as the rules of order namely Roberts rules of order which the mayor consistently breaks? You need to have a vote before you adjourn a meeting abruptly and then when you adjourn the meeting you You need to return the floor to the council member who is speaking.

I certainly think Todd read the laws because he is correct. I am one of those people that were cut off last time. I think the reason I get cut off is because our mayor does not want to hear a difference of opinion. But what prompted all this was when our council member that represents different points of view, Michael Ghirangeli, got abruptly cut off, tried to interfere with his thinking, and then the meeting is adjourned. That's not correct. I've seen the same poor attitude towards council member Egger regarding hearing aids and different things, where is that allowed in any group? I would also like to say that I have found the current council to be as divisive as I have seen in the 24 years I've been coming to these meetings. Liesl has always been polite, has always represented people. She may not have the same opinion that I do, but she's always been willing to sit down and discuss that. I find the same of Michael and Frank. I would encourage the mayor to take that same behavior because I've seen our mayor stick her tongue out to people, flip people off, take papers off the desk and throw them on the ground, which is recorded. And I would appreciate if maybe she reflected upon those actions and thought of a better way to represent her town and bring forth a little continuity and welcome the value of diversity of opinions to get to a better place. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other speakers in the room? Okay, seeing none, are there any hands raised?

We have two raised hands on Zoom. The first speaker is Cindy, followed by Jodi. Cindy, you are unmuted. You may now unmute yourself.

Hi, good evening, Cindy Ross, longtime Fairfax resident. I live on Lansdale Avenue. And a couple of weeks ago or so on Nextdoor Online, I saw a thread about my street that at first I thought was kind of funny, sort of interesting, but it's given me a lot to think about. And I realized that I would like to see if we could work towards some solutions. What came up online was that Lansdale Avenue apparently has been designated a , which I've come to learn is, I think it means living street. It's an attempt to share the road. It's a program that was implemented in Holland first and several other cities in Europe to try to calm down traffic and the threat on next door was kind of interesting because not only did people most people not know that those signs were there apparently they've been there maybe 10 years but you know there was lots of speculation you know that they seemed really silly nobody knew what they meant and You know, I get the concept of trying to share the road, but on Lansdale Avenue and also on the other street that I live closest to, Pastore Avenue, it's ridiculous to put up a sign and think that it's going to make a difference. We have a road that is not wide enough for two-way traffic and parking. We have people on bicycles and in cars that don't pay attention to all the stop signs and other traffic safety. We have people that cut through the Fairfax. OK, well.

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

okay i don't see a thank you i don't see a a clock but i'll try to get this in my two minutes good evening mayor council members staff and fellow community members jody timms cascade drive just a few climate related items first many thanks to those who came out on july 24th to the fairfax climate action committee's climate future film festival that was held in the women's club we had about 50 folks Join us to watch 13 international documentary films with tabling by resilient neighborhoods and the county's sustainability staff. I think most of us in Fairfax also recently received a letter from the county's new climate and sustainability department regarding the Bay-Wren Ease program. For possible home upgrades, the letter detailed what the program covers and what it costs, a maximum of up to $2,000. It includes insulation, air and duct sealing or replacement, induction cooking, installation, etc., I took advantage of this program a while back, and I highly recommend it. On September 12th, from 1 to 4, the Reuse Alliance and the Town will host another repair fair at the library. So bring your broken appliances and gadgets to see if they can be fixed and reused. And finally, regarding the topic of dark skies, I know the Planning Commission has been mulling this over for some time, and this morning I attended a Marin Conservation League meeting and heard about their dark sky policy. As you likely know, light pollution destroys critical wildlife habitat. It wastes money and energy. It harms human health. It can actually decrease safety and security, and it robs us of our beautiful night sky. So given that writing an ordinance can take a long time, I'd love to propose that in the meantime, the council consider drafting a town resolution or proclamation with our intention to address light pollution through responsible outdoor lighting. Thank you for all you do, community members, staff, and council.

There are no more speakers on Zoom.

Okay, terrific. Thank you. You're closing.

Can I just say a couple words quick about Drake?

Yeah, let me just close open time for public expression and then quickly, go ahead.

Okay. 75th Diamond Jubilee anniversary is quite a big deal. And, uh, thank, thanks to Mike Ardita, our open space committee member for coming tonight and reminding us of that. What's going up. Um, Our daughter Lori graduated from Drake in 1978, and Archie Williams was her math teacher. So we had a connection, and I actually have a little further back connection. 70 years ago, it was in 1956, I was a senior at SI on the championship swimming team, and we came over here. and swam Drake High School in a brand new pool there. I had never been to Drake High School or seen it, but they had a brand new pool. Boy, that was something. And so we got to come over here and swim Drake High. Anyway, that's my connection to Drake. Thanks. One last quick thing. We heard our neighbors on Meadoway. It's my understanding PG&E is going to underground.

Frank.

You know, people come down and they ask us, make a comment.

But you.

I'm not. I'm not. So, Frank, I was going to I was going to say something to tell you. The PGD is going to underground from Cascade Drive to the Meadoway Tee. That's what we've been told.

Well, that's reiterating what I think what the Wassermans were saying. But I want to appreciate I want to acknowledge your concerns and I hope that we can help you get the answers you're seeking. Moving on. We are now onto the regular agenda. Item number two, pesticide ordinance exception request. Adopt a resolution authorizing an exception to the town's pesticide ordinance for targeted flea treatment beneath the temporary fire station. And we have our director of public works, Kristen Arnold here. Take it away. Thank you.

Did you promote me? Almost there.

Share, oh.

Says someone else is sharing. Almost there. There we go. Okay. Good evening i'm Chris Arnold public works i'm here to talk about an exception to the pest tonight pesticide ordinance for the temporary fire station specifically underneath the building in early. July, or I'm sorry, late July, staff was told about a flea infestation in the playground. We subsequently closed the playground while we started evaluating what our options are and what we could do about it. So our first focus was on the playground. We discovered that Animals were able to access underneath the deck area in the playground And so while we were excluding that area We found openings Into the temporary fire station, which is currently at the community center which borders the playground So we were able to block off all of those accesses For the playground, from talking with a few different agencies, we determined that an agricultural steam treatment looked like a really good option to treat the fleas in the playground. That has been completed now, and it does appear that it had a significant impact. so we'll continue monitoring and raking the sand to evaluate how the playground side is going however this leaves fleas underneath the crawl space of the temporary fire station the crawl space is um like a solid perimeter concrete foundation, so it completely circles the underneath of the building, and that is now blocked off from wildlife being able to access it. So we were reviewing the ordinance to go through our options of how do we treat underneath the building. Granular pesticides that are ground applied are allowed by the ordinance. However, they need to be watered to activate any pesticide or insecticide. And hosing down underneath a wood frame building is not an ideal situation. It can create rot and mold. And generally, you want to avoid it. We did add boric acid underneath the building. However, it's not really an effective flea treatment, especially through all stages of a flea's life cycle, and is not an effective means to control the situation that we're in. The ordinance also allows spraying nine square feet once per year, but underneath the building is roughly 1,900 square feet. And we did talk to Dominican University about steaming under the building, but it was the same situation. It adds too much water. And you may ask the question, why didn't we, you know, just use the granular pesticides anyways and just try to use a little bit of water. It's also against, like federal law prohibits using a pesticide inconsistently with its label. And granular pesticides are specifically marketed for outside landscaped areas or like a lawn area. um so the last option in the ordinance is to request council to authorize an exception when the following three conditions are present health and safety impacts no reasonable alternative and adverse town impacts so the infestation can impact the fire station staff and fleas can carry disease the ordinance compliant measures will not control the fleas beneath the building. And if we start finding their way into the fire station, there is a potential that we would need to relocate the fire station, which would increase emergency response times. After coming to this determination. Staff met with three different pest control companies and has been consulting with the county Department of Agriculture to find a recommended solution. The recommended treatment approach is to spray an insecticide and a growth regulator under the temporary fire station. To treat this infestation. It's a type of insecticide that...

I asked what a growth regulator is. Basically breaks the life cycle. Yeah.

I am not an expert in all of the pesticides, but I've been doing as much homework as I can. And so both of these products... are labeled for use in schools and other institutional buildings. They're also labeled for recreational areas, outdoors. They are labeled as safe to use around animals. And they can be used inside of homes and outside. They are California-registered products, meaning they're acceptable products to use in California. And the WSG stands for water-soluble granular. The alpine insecticide is, it has EPA-granted reduced risk status, which means that for certain pest control options, the EPA has found that there's low risk to people applying it and occupying the treated building. It's also low risk to non-target organisms and the environment. But they've also determined that it still has an effectiveness that may reduce repeated applications and help eliminate the issue. So we would do an initial application and then we'd inspect within the first week, it would likely need to be reapplied and then we would continue inspection through there to ensure that the issue has been controlled. So with that, staff recommends that the Town Council authorize an exception to Chapter 8.52 of the Fairfax Town Code to allow a licensed pest control operator to apply and reapply as necessary the California-registered flea control treatments beneath the temporary fire station in accordance with all applicable laws and product label requirements until the infestation is controlled. And I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. And I just know that this came out of left field for you and how much time and attention it's required of you on top of all the many, many DPW projects. So I'm sorry and thank you. I know I have questions, but I'm going to go down the line. Go ahead, Council Member Blash.

Yeah. So I understand that this would go under the building. It's an enclosed space. You know, like many pesticides, both of these have, I think, acute toxicity to aquatic life. And we're very near a creek. But I think the concept is the water is not going under there, right? So it's not soaking into the watershed. Should we ever take down that building or rebuild it? Does it remain? You know, if there's a life of of that product that it eventually stops being toxic or is it going to keep the soil under there problematic for the future?

So, I mean, the treatments have to be reapplied. So that means that they can't have like lingering long-term effects. Because if we do it once, that doesn't mean that nothing will ever get under the building or we won't have other pests. So that it seems like it dissipates after a certain amount of time.

I just have a couple of clarifying questions, if that's okay. So, We've gotten the playground under control. It's still essentially blocked off, quarantined, and you're checking it. You're wrecking it regularly, and you're seeing that it's working. And you might need to do more steaming, but it's working thus far, right?

I would say it's potentially under control. We saw a drastic change after the first steaming, but fleas do lay a lot of eggs every day. So until we monitor for, I would say, at least a week or two. Yeah.

Yeah, we kind of need more. But I'm kind of getting, because they, I know they, they, they, so gross, but we have to get into it. So they, they lay eggs, but they can't survive unless they eat. Correct. And so we have the whole, we have everything, we have it blocked off. And so unless like some critters are obviously can still get in there, right?

There are air vents to the crawl space. Um, and so generally what happens is when a flea loses its host, so that would be the raccoon living under the building. The fleas then move towards vibrations, um, Oh, gosh. I want to say CO2. And, like, they move towards ventilated areas is the gist of it.

Okay. But so you've got the playground, then you've got the deck, and then you have the community center area. And you've you've closed off any access to below the deck. So no, but no critters can live or access that anymore. And the concern is that underneath there is an underneath the community center building is where we have to treat. Right. Right. Yes. Okay. And, but if they, I mean, by my question is by just a time, just, just by quarantining for a couple of weeks, wouldn't, would that work just because they, they don't have, they won't be able to access a host?

So generally, once the host leaves, that's when the fleas really start coming out to go search for food. So they will move towards out, they will move out from under the building. And that is when they're very likely to start finding the fire personnel that are okay.

And there and there's no evidence yet. Like the firefighters haven't seen any evidence yet. Is that true? Not yet.

Did you get some information today? I would say we need more information. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Frank, did you have a question?

Sure. Did we capture a raccoon and check it for fleas? How do we know they came from the raccoon?

I mean, we suspect... The fire personnel living in the building has seen multiple raccoons. I mean, we know there's a lot of raccoons in the area. This is not the first time we've gotten them out of different buildings. And When we were looking at some of the vents around the building to try to make sure everything was blocked off, there was a family of raccoons staring at us from right behind the building. We've also had other reports of other people seeing raccoons in the area.

So I sit on a nonprofit board, Marin's Pesticide Free Zone, and we use the Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides, and we use their material safety data sheets to determine whether or not the pesticide that's being used would have an adverse impact on people or children. Do we know the actual name of that pesticide that we could check the material safety data sheet

I did forget to print out the data sheets. I have all the label information.

Okay.

I can provide those. I do know the two insecticides that we plan to use. That's the Alpine WSG and then the Teco Pro.

I went to the Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides, and they've got a whole section managing fleas without pesticides. So there are some alternatives. I'm wondering if we've really tried everything else before going to the pesticide.

Well, I tried everything that was allowed by the ordinance. And I needed help with the infestation, so I called pest control companies. And we went through different options, but this is what they recommend to ensure that we eliminate the problem efficiently and effectively so that we don't put the fire station at risk.

I have a question.

Go ahead, Mike.

If we approve this tonight, which I will be voting for to approving it, how quick can you get to the job? When will it start?

I was hoping to have an answer for that by tonight, but the pest control company didn't get back to me today. I asked if we could set up scheduling for Thursday or Friday. Okay. But I don't know for sure if it can happen that year.

Quickly, though. Yes. Thank you.

Council member Kohler.

Yeah, I think it's more of a comment. So I had brought it.

So I'm an entomologist, have a master's degree in entomology and formally trained and all that.

And what I brought up after I read this was so pesticides don't kill the eggs. I'm not sure about steam cleaning because that's a newer thing. It's been several years, but I, that's why I asked that we'd be able to reapply because the life cycle of You don't kill the eggs and the life cycle is usually within 10 days. So you got to go back and probably reapply. And because you have a growth regulator, what that means is they can't go through the stages of life. But so if we can get those eggs as they first hatch. So that's why I had asked that we make a change to the resolution to allow us to reapply and And while I'm not a fan of pesticides, I think this is really important that we get moving on this very quickly. And we don't want to have to move those firefighters out. And we need to take care of this very quickly, as well as continuing the monitoring of the actual children's area. Thank you. Thank you for all your efforts here.

Let's open public comment.

Hi, Todd Greenberg. This building that you're concerned about is in a flood zone. The staff report identifies a legitimate concern protecting firefighters and keeping the temporary fire station operational. It also confirms that the town has already begun non-pesticide measures, including wildlife exclusion, boric acid, and steam treatment. But the public has not received adequate notice of the plan now before you. The original staff report describes a one-time limited exemption. The supplemental resolution instead authorizes the town to apply and reapply unspecified pesticide treatments until tonight during this meeting until the infestation is considered controlled. That is a material expansion and the public still does not know the product active ingredient. application method, number of treatments, safety precautions, monitoring plan, expiration date, or definition of success. I ask the council to take three clear actions tonight. First, continue the item to a later meeting rather than approving open-ended authority through a last-minute supplement. Second, direct staff to continue monitoring non-pesticide measures, including wildlife exclusion, boric acid where permitted, steam treatment, sanitation, removal or replacement of affected material where necessary, and repeated, flea checks in both the crawl space and the playground. Because flea pupae can remain protected and emerge later, monitoring over time is essential before declaring these measures unsuccessful. Third, require any future pesticide proposal to identify the exact product An active ingredient, provide the label and safety information, limit treatment to a defined area and number of applications, establish an expiration date, require Marin County inspection, and define measurable criteria for when the infestation is controlled. Only after that plan is publicly posted with adequate advance notice should the council consider a pesticide exception at a subsequent meeting. Please protect firefighters and the public, but also protect meaningful public participation and the integrity of Fairfax's pesticide ordinance.

Next speaker.

Deborah Benson, Cascade Drive. Over a week ago, I emailed town staff suggesting we try diatomaceous earth, which is a proven killer of fleas. It's a non-toxic, like a clay, a pulverized clay. that you can spread both outside and inside in a thin layer. And when the fleas crawl on it, it sucks the moisture out of them. They crack and they die. So I'm wondering... We used it. Pardon? We used it. We applied it. Yes. Oh, thank you. It didn't work.

I can't answer that question.

I thought you said we did use it.

We used brick acid. Diatomaceous earth, from how I've been reading the ordinance, is not allowed.

Oh, okay. My mistake. I understood we did use it.

It's clay. It has no insecticide in it. I'm not understanding why it wouldn't be allowed. Anyway, that's my suggestion that we try that before we use insecticides because it's proven both inside and outside. If it's going to be in the playground, it should be food grade. But if it's underneath the fire station, it could be the kind you get from the hardware store, which is less expensive. So I'd like to see us try that.

Actually, I was also going to speak about diatomaceous earth. Not sure that it would work, and I concur with Steph's understanding that it might not work in this circumstance, getting under the building, but it might work in other circumstances, such as if the firefighters wanted to put it around the baseboards inside the building to just prevent an infestation. What diatomaceous earth actually is, is it's not exactly clay. It's actually like the white cliffs of Dover are made of these microorganisms, diatoms that have a silica skeleton, as it were, on this very microscopic scale. And when that's ground up... That makes these very pointy little silica pieces, which mechanically pierce the adult insect's exoskeleton. It only works on the adults and maybe the larva, but not on the eggs, certainly. Anyway, I'm not suggesting diatomaceous earth for this application under the building, but I would suggest that, and I'm Well, I thought I had this on my phone, but I don't. I have actually emailed these suggestions. The two specific places in the ordinance that you might consider in a future agenda item modifying to allow diatomaceous earth, because I would concur it doesn't seem to allow it right now, but I think it should. The ordinance could say that it's directed not at mechanical, the things that have a mechanical action, but no chemical action. That's one thing that could be put in the ordinance. And then under exceptions, a specific exception for diatomaceous earth. So I would recommend on a future agenda item that you take that up. Thanks.

Hello. I also agree. And it's for the adult period. So when they're migrating, the diatomaceous earth actually is a good thing. And actually from breaking up the silica, it's like little knives that cut their legs and it'll kill them. In the good old days when Linda and I were in our little babysitting group and dragging our dogs home, we employed eucalyptus berries and eucalyptus oil. That's another natural product. But the reason I came up to speak is not to discourage or encourage, because I hope that everybody's looking at this, but if you allow an exemption, I would encourage you to go back to our ordinance and and come up with the criteria of why this is allowed so it's a uniform application for everybody and we don't need to address this each time. So if we have a serious infestation, our ordinance should allow other options that we can address and move forward. So that way this could be our kind of like test site of how to modify something so it doesn't just give a blanket where people can go forward and use test sites, but it gives us guardrails of how, when something might be necessary to go to a better level.

Thank you.

Good evening, council members, town staff, and community members. My name is Jake Peterson. I'm the acting fire chief for the Ross Valley Fire Department. And I am here representing all the members of the fire department. I understand everyone's concerns about using pesticides. I really do. I am concerned about it too. But my job here is to protect the firefighters that are living in that temporary quarters. and make sure that they are safe and healthy and don't get bitten by fleas. So that's why I'm here talking to everybody and doing my own bit of research. I feel like at this point, the pesticide use is the best way to go down and to use to make sure that this doesn't emphasized and get even worse and make the problem worse. And so that's what I think where we're at. I look forward to working collaboratively with the town. And I will say I've been very lucky to work with Kristen over the last year over the rebuilding of the town fire station and also the temporary quarters. And there was a lot of issues that came up and we work really well as a team. So I don't expect that to change and continue to make sure that the fleas get out and all the firefighters are safe and healthy. So with that, appreciate all your time. Thank you. And I'll be retiring in December. So this is probably my one and only council meeting I get to speak at. So thank you so much.

Thank you. Thanks for being here.

Any hands raised? We have one raised hand on Zoom. Cindy, you are unmuted. You may now unmute yourself.

Yes. Hi, Cindy Ross again. Thank you. I just wanted to say that I'm really opposed to making exceptions to the pesticide ordinance. I understand that we need to keep the fire crew safe, but we also need to keep everybody safe. And I don't have enough information right now about the pesticides that are being proposed, but as Liesl said, it's my understanding that alpine WSG is very toxic to aquatic life. It also can be harmful to pollinators. I read something very briefly that ironically said something about hazards during firefighting. As far as TecoPro, I don't know anything about it, but I understand it doesn't address adult fleas either. I would like to see if there is some way to look back into using something like diatomaceous earth. Or, I'm just putting this out there, I don't know anything about it personally, but it's my understanding that certain cat flea medications can be used for raccoons. And I'm wondering if there might be some way to maybe feed the raccoons medication that would not be harmful to them, that would help break the cycle, and would cause less toxicity overall. So anyway, I encourage you to find non-toxic, non-pesticide solutions. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker. There are no more speakers on Zoom.

Okay. Closing public comment on this item. Thank you for all who shared and to Kristen. Any other comments before we entertain a motion?

I would like to make a motion. First of all, I want to thank everyone for sharing your thoughts. And I think in the future, maybe we look at this. It looks like Council Member Blash has a comment.

I just wanted to revisit the two things. So we're already using boric acid. I've always been confused about the difference between boric acid and diatomaceous earth, but okay. So people are suggesting, I just want to put it out there, people are suggesting diatomaceous earth, and it's not something that's allowed in our pesticide ordinance, but it seems like something that could be applied under an exemption. But what are the pros and cons of using diatomaceous earth?

It will not kill the eggs. As long as it stays dry, my understanding is it can have effects on them once they hatch, but it's a slow process and it doesn't help guarantee that fleas aren't going to get inside the building. The pros is that it is a natural substance. Well, I don't know if natural is the right word, but it's not classified as a pesticide or insecticide, but it can be very dangerous to breathe it in, although weirdly you can eat it. So it's a strange product, but it is known to help control fleas. over time. And so my, my biggest concern with asking for the exception to use diatomaceous earth was that we would still be waiting weeks, and just hoping that fleas weren't going to get into the fire station.

OK, so that was one question. Boric acid apparently doesn't kill the eggs. And then we'd have sort of some of the same issue, right? Like we'd be waiting for them to hatch and then hoping that the boric acid would kill them after they hatch and they could still get in the building. And I'm assuming that's the case, right? That's it's about the same issue. It's just a different I know it's a different mechanism of killing them, but it sounds like it has the same slow.

Yeah. And there's very mixed consensus on if it actually is that effective for fleas. It will like dehydrate the larvae if they come across it or not. Actually, they may have to eat that one. And then if they come across the diatomaceous earth, that's more of like a body contact.

Okay. And then, okay. So my final thing, just because I'm listening to what people are saying and also just really curious about some of these things. This is in a flood zone. I think Mr. Greenberg was right. I mean, it sounds like we think, and I'd love more clarity on this, that the effects dissipate over time, right? So the effects of it, that's why you have to keep reapplying it. And so my main concern is that there not be some instance in which, you know, and maybe it's so little, it's not going to be that big a deal, but, you know, where we have some massive flooding, like in El Nino a year, and it like washes this all out from under the building and puts it in the creek. I don't know how concerned to be about that.

I think with that amount of water, it would get very diluted. I mean, we would have, I think, much bigger problems going on.

So I'm ready to make a motion. I just want to make a comment. Diatomaceous earth, as you mentioned, is very small particulates, which can get into the alveoli of the lungs, can be very dangerous for humans. Boric acid can be dangerous for pets. So if you use boric acid in your home and you have cats or dogs, it can be very dangerous for them. So these things, even though they sound natural to us, they're not so natural and arsenic is natural and it can kill you. So I would make a motion to say adopt a resolution and the supplemental resolution authorizing an exception to the town's pesticide ordinance for targeted flea treatment beneath the temporary fire station.

Second.

I'd like to make a comment. I asked a couple of questions early on. I haven't commented yet. I work with groups and we do pesticide litigation regularly. We've gone all the way to the California Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court on pesticides. So I'm really concerned about our firefighter safety. You know, they're constantly threatened with toxics from the clothing they wear to try to wear clothing that won't burn on them to to the plastics when they enter a fire area. And I'm not sure they really want to spend a night in that fire, in that temporary fire house that's been sprayed with some kind of a pesticide. I'd rather seek an alternative. I'd come back next, I'd come back in a couple of days for another meeting if we can find an alternative. Thank you.

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

I actually can't make up my mind. Can I pass?

I think you'll abstain. All right, I'm going to abstain. Council Member Garangeli.

Yes.

Council Member Kohler. Yes. Vice Mayor Ager.

No.

Mayor Hellman. Yes. Motion carries.

Well, I thought we needed a supermajority.

Excuse me. Yes, we do. Thank you for correcting me.

You're welcome. That's unprofessional.

I wasn't sure how you vote. How did Council Member Blash vote?

She abstained. Well, I forgot about the supermajority thing. So if somebody abstains, then is it a supermajority of those who vote or you just need a supermajority of the whole council?

The super majority will be four affirmative votes.

Okay. I'm just a little, I don't know, I'm still a little concerned about this issue just because the firefighters have asked. I mean, can I change my vote?

Is it over? The firemen are actually asking for it.

So you can change your vote if we want to go through it again. Let's just go through a new vote. Okay. there'll be a new motion so i make the motion to adopt the supplemental resolution authorizing an exception to the town's pesticide ordinance for targeted flea treatment beneath the temporary fire station second second

We have a motion from Council Member Kohler and a second from Council Member Garangeli. Council Member Blash. Okay, I'm just going to say yes because the firefighters did ask for it. Council Member Garangeli.

I'm going to say yes for that same reason.

Council Member Kohler. Yes. Vice Mayor Ager.

No.

Mayor Hellman. Yes. Motion carries. Thank you.

All right, moving along to item number three. This is a micro grid concept discussion. We will be receiving a presentation on the municipal micro grid project for the town of Fairfax facilities and provide direction to staff. There is a staff report and a presentation that Bridget Whipler will be providing.

Mayor, would you mind if we take a two minute bio break while we resolve our technical difficulties? Sure.

Thank you.

Okay. Let's resume.

Okay. This is something I've been looking forward to and Bridget, please take it away.

Thank you. My name is Bridget Whitfler. I'm the Climate Action Coordinator for the Town of Fairfax. Happy to be here and thanks for... Closer to the mic?

Of course. Is this better? Cool.

My name is Bridget Whittler. Happy to be here. I'll be speaking about the conceptual municipal microgrid concept today. And to start, just the purpose of today's presentation is to provide information on solar, battery, and microgrid systems for Fairfax and what that would look like, as well as receive town council direction on how to proceed. Topics that we'll discuss today are how Fairfax can have resilient buildings, what we might do to get there, as well as the current state of our solar infrastructure and how state laws change solar incentives for batteries, as well as what conceptual microgrids would look like and next steps. So a question of why would we want to have resilient town buildings? Why are we having this conversation? So the town has experienced many outages. For example, between 2021 and 2024, there were 13 outages for an average of three and a half hours. And what that would mean for the town would be meetings like this canceled due to those outages, staff in the corp yard without safe working conditions, police department EV chargers unusable, and other conditions related to outages. benefits of resilience during those outages as well as other extreme weather events would be ensuring safety and comfort for staff and residents as well as reducing repair costs and making sure that staff are able to work during those outages and providing support for the community through resources and spaces like the pavilion and And I know that the town has done this, but provide power during outages so people can come and charge their phone or other necessities. So how might we make our buildings more functional and also reduce energy costs while we're at it? And just to make sure that everyone's on the same page, because a lot of these are words that might not come up in every day, is that a microgrid is one or more solar systems. So we have solar panels on our pavilion right now, and that would be more similar to a solar and battery system. We don't have a battery, but a one-to-one system is more like solar battery, but a microgrid system is just one or more solar panel systems connected to multiple buildings. And I'll be talking about net energy metering, and what that means is a contract with a utility, in this case PG&E, regarding how they bill us for the energy that we both produce and consume. And when I say resilience, I mostly just mean reliability and dependability during disruption. So our current system, we are under Net Energy Metering 1. And we are in this contract because we have solar panels. They were installed in 2009. And when we produce solar for our town buildings, we also produce a little excess. And when we aren't using all of that power, the grid and PG&E buys that power from us at 47, around 47 cents per kilowatt hours. And so that turns into revenue for the town that we then don't pay for the energy. So it's a great savings and incentive tool for solar. As well as, and so currently some of our town buildings, our town hall and police, as well as our fire station have backup generators, which serve as a great tool during outages. But when those fail, they are very expensive, and having different types of backup is a form of resilience. So what's going to change is that come next year, our net energy metering is going to change to, I'm going to say NEM 3. And I'll direct your focus to the bottom left of this slide. And so our solar panels, regardless of what we end up doing, either adding, not adding, whatever we do, we will change. our NEM1 contract will expire, and what that means is that this new contract, NEM3, will reduce the profit that we make on energy sold back to the grid by tenfold, or reducing it by tenfold. So instead of around 50 cents per kilowatt hours, we will be making around 5 cents per kilowatt hours. And so the energy that we are not... using will be more or less wasted and the revenue that we were making will be lost under this new contract. And so what that is incentivizing is for us to be able to store the energy that we make so it doesn't get kind of lost back to the grid because we're not making any revenue from putting it back into the grid. This is just a summary of what I was explaining under NEM1. Our excess solar is allowed to be sold back to the grid at full retail rates. And that's 20 years ago. this contract was made to incentivize solar. But now California has a lot of solar. We are very used to it. And so what they're trying to do is incentivize batteries with this new NEM3 contract. And so this favors uttering battery so that you can consume the energy that you use. So a potential microgrid would look like solar panels on roof and less reliance on grid and generators and more battery storage so that we are using the energy that we make and being able to save money on the energy that we would be buying late at night. That is usually at a higher cost because energy during the daytime is much more prolific and much at a lower cost. And in this situation, because we have solar charged batteries, if there was an outage, we would not have to rely on our generators. We could still have them there if needed, but we wouldn't be paying for this extra solar. And we would also have more energy during those outages to cover a lot of the resources that I mentioned earlier. So this potential system with batteries and updated solar comes at a good time because our pavilion roof needs replacing. And our pavilion roof has these almost 20-year-old solar panels. And while replacing the roof, it would be a convenient time to also update those panels because In the span of 20 years, solar technology has greatly improved, and we can produce a lot more energy on the space of the pavilion, if not space on whatever roof we could decide that works well for Fairfax, and produces much more energy than we are right now. And like I said, under NEM 3, we would save a lot more money by using the energy that we have. create. And while adding these batteries, they could provide backup power for our police department vehicles and future public work vehicles at cost-effective prices. And there are many precedents that support no upfront town capital options for providers that could support us in this project. So there are options that have third party providers financing projects upfront and maintaining the infrastructure. until we until the town owns it over time and different models have different timelines for how much the town would owe or and over what amount of time but it would relieve the town of that upfront cost and help the town have a little bit of safety for Any technical risk with technology of either the battery and would have some more flexibility there. And like I said, reduced utility costs, offset payments to provider, which would mean savings over time, as well as we wouldn't have to pay for expensive nighttime energy because we would produce solar powered energy during the day. So a quick summary and, um, our town services are affected by outages or public meetings, um, are affected by outages. Residents need reliable places for shelter, energy and resources. Um, currently we don't have these projects cost money and, um, we don't have the current upfront finances for that. Uh, and with NEM three, our energy bills will increase, um, because The drastic reduction of the revenue that we make through our solar energy incentivizes us to capture that energy to be able to use that another time, whether that's at nighttime or during these outages. And we cannot access certain incentives for batteries or updated solar that third-party providers can access to make it even more cost-effective project. And currently, infrastructure needs like the pavilion roof, updating our electrical panels because we are hoping to electrify more of our fleet, as well as old solar panels, all kind of combine for a potential holistic solution. And a summary of town benefits include... reliable town services, operational during outages, as well as potential community centers when the grid goes down. Like I said, potential no upfront capital costs when a third party provider funds the project and they can access those tax incentives. This also third party provider would maintain until the town ownership and long term utility costs would would ultimately be lowered and avoiding that nighttime power, like I said. And just to summarize this timing. collides with pavilion roof replacement, avoiding another retrofit if we choose to update our solar at a different time, as well as updating our electric and fleet. And if we were to update our solar panels, they would be much more efficient. at producing power so what we need from you today is that staff recommend or that council direct staff to continue pursuing a microgrid solution and what that would look like is to continue research of what these technologies might look like specifically for fairfax as well as those financing options that i mentioned um and issue an rfp rfq or ifi depending on what staff determine is the best way forward, and we would return to council with a proposal. And so what those private partners will do is develop technical and financial proposals, present financing options that minimize municipal financial risk, and quantify expected energy savings, resilience benefits, and life cycle costs. We will then present those proposals to you all. And that's all I have, and obviously here to answer any questions you have.

Great. Thank you, Bridget. I have some questions and comments, but go ahead, Barbara Culler.

Thank you, Stephanie Hellman. Just thank you, Bridget. That was really good. And thanks to folks like Bruce who've been working on this with you and others and Kristen. Just a couple of questions on the upfront financing. So I understand the idea of a third-party provider paying for potentially solar. I don't understand a third-party provider being willing to change the roof on the pavilion, which is quite expensive. And I just want to ask you if that's been discussed, but the second part is one thing I didn't understand is how does the payback work over time? Is it, I mean, I realize a lot of this is continuing to research and all that, but is there sort of a, what you've seen of how the payback works is do we pay on a monthly basis, a yearly basis or, until eventually we pay it off. So two questions for you. Thank you, Bridget.

Yeah, so your first question was about who would want to even touch the roof and pay for that, because that's expensive. And there are, and that's what we also had questions of, but there are certain third-party providers out there that are willing to include aspects of infrastructure updates in order to apply more solar and battery. And so they're initial interest in working with towns or whoever they're working with is to update solar and battery. And when clients need certain other infrastructure updates, they are willing to help cover those costs as well. Not all, but some third party providers.

Okay. And then I have a question for Kristen and then I'll ask you the second question I asked, which is, you know, with an old building, it's like one of those things where you get into change and electrical outlet and all of a sudden you're redoing the electricity. Is there a fear of the same kind of thing with the roof? Let's say we do get a third-party provider who's willing to pay for up front the roof, which is a lot of money, $800,000, maybe more. I don't know. I remember it was a lot. But anyway, and then the solar. But is there a fear that once you get into the roof, you're getting into other things that weren't anticipated? Do you see that with the pavilion? Or is it simple that once you take the roof off, you just replace the roof?

there's a risk that they could find more rot than expected. Usually how you combat that is by having, I mean, one planning for a certain amount of rot and then having contingency in the project. Okay.

All right. And going back to my second question for Bridget, how is, how does just the companies that you've talked to, how does the payback work? Is it like for 20 years? Is it like a mortgage? How does that work?

Yeah, so it can be explained similarly to on-bill financing, which we were doing for solar, where we would pay slowly over time, depending on the model, whether that's monthly or annually. But we would pay the amount that we were saving to pay off for the solar. That's a similar model. system as some would do so slowly over time um and that's how just a few years ago we are fully owners of the solar now um and so we didn't pay for that solar up front we did it slowly over time through the savings um or like back through to PG&E of what we were saving and so There are multiple financial models. Some are called energy as a service. And so what that would mean is that we generate around $25,000 per year of energy. And that's what we make, the revenue that I was talking about for 47 cents on the kilowatt hour. And what third-party providers would ask is that what we are generating, we would then pay a small amount for their slowly over time pay the battery and solar costs through those savings. So instead of them going to PG&E, they would go to the third party provider Because we would have paid PG&E for our utility bills, but then they then instead go to third. Okay. Yeah. Does that make sense?

Yeah. I mean, I think some of the details have to be worked out, but thank you for that explanation. Appreciate it.

Yeah.

Great.

Oh, thank you. As always a great presentation. So appreciate that. I would imagine that. Barbara Kohler mentioned that the... the roof replacement, right? But I imagine that you're replacing lots of things, electrical, to handle this microgrid. I would just imagine everything has to be redone in my mind. But either way, it doesn't matter to me right now. I will be voting or recommending, along with I'm sure the rest of the council, that we keep pushing forward and see what else we can learn. Thank you.

I appreciate that.

This is questions. Questions, sure, yeah. I'm trying to figure out how old that roof is. Is it 17 years old? Do we know?

I don't have the answer to that right now. I think we could look back into the facility condition assessment and get that information out.

We recently replaced the roof. It was $42,000 for a house. Don't we have an estimate for the cost to replace that roof?

We did have a rough estimate, and it's in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. And Council Member Kohler remembered about 800,000. That's a number that I remember as well. That may be a little high because the building needs a lot of work, but it's a significant roofing job.

Will this be a Tesla battery program?

It would depend on what proposals we receive. I would assume that different providers might recommend different types of batteries. So I think that could be an option that we receive. But there's also non-lithium and solid state batteries or lithium batteries. So it would really depend on what proposals we receive. Yeah.

So at what point would it be that I'm just concerned that if we've got a huge bill to replace that roof, I don't know where the funds are going to come from. I'm supportive of the program, but three months from now, I don't want to find out we're going to put out half a million dollars on a new roof.

If I may just jump in, the concept here is that we continue exploring this option and that the hope is that the cost of replacing the roof would come under this program so that we would not, as the town, have to put a capital out immediately for that. We would use the savings to pay off the capital of the roof itself. which is needed in order to support new solar.

In other words, it would be a great, if I don't really understand the difference between an RFP and RFQ and RFI, but I know what an RFP is. So in other words, that would be the criteria that would be within the criteria that you send out to, to bid essentially. Yes. There's no capital outlay from the town.

Yes. That would be a criteria. And we could also to answer an, Another part of your question, Vice Mayor Egger, is its potential that we could specify a type, a class of battery if we have a preference. For example, if we are concerned about fire risk in a certain, like lithium ion battery is an example.

Fairfax sold bonds on some of our buildings to do some refinancing. Was the pavilion one of the buildings that bonds were sold on, put up for collateral?

That was for the refi. When we refied the pension obligations, we did use some collateral of certain town buildings. That's my recollection. Okay.

I'd be happy to check with our finance department about that. I mean, that is, in fact, the purpose of this discussion is really to just, do you want us to continue spending effort to move forward?

I'm concerned if we've already bonded the value of the building, are we going to be able to in effect, take a loan to replace the roof on that building that we don't own, really.

We can explore that. That's a good question.

Yeah, I understand.

Bridget, I have a question. So, because one thing I learned, and I've been digging into this quite a bit. So, from what you presented, if we do nothing, so NEM 1 is moving to NEM 3, no matter what, we're going to lose revenue, right? And so it really creates the circumstances for doing something and becoming more obviously resilient, but also financially resilient too, because we're going to have to, we're not going to have it. We're not going to be making as much money. It's obviously not a huge resume stream, but it will be more expensive for us if we do nothing. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. I'm just looking at my notes. And then is there in scope for this, or is this something that you're exploring as far as EV chargers?

So like I said, how the roof infrastructure would be an incentive for third-party providers to also cover the cost of that. Some providers have said that they could cover the cost of some EV chargers as well as battery and updated solar in order to help us do that. And because we are hoping to update our or we are hoping to electrify more vehicles of our fleet, we do need to look at our electric capacity and being able to plan for all of these things at once is helpful rather than updating our electricity panel.

Piecemeal.

Yeah. Two different times.

Yeah, to have a holistic plan related to that.

And there's options for certain types of batteries to be bidirectional, where electric vehicles can be charged by those batteries and vice versa, right?

Amazing. Okay. Sorry, Council Member Blash.

It's okay.

So, I mean, seeing San Anselmo has put up solar panels above their parking area, do they technically have a microgrid or are they still in process?

Yeah, because that, and like I said, the vocabulary can get muddled. So they're calling that a resilience hub. And it's just kind of a matter of branding sometimes so that those solar panels are directly powered to just the town hall. So I would define that more as just like a solar and battery project. But it's a similar concept that they are adding solar and battery that power a town building.

And are they using a vendor that is paying for the installation of those panels above the parking lot?

Their model, they used a company called Gridscape, and their financial planning, I think, looks a little bit different, where it was a little bit more of an upfront cost to the town, but that was just how they wanted to do the project. They wanted to own the infrastructure right away as... opposed to not owning it right away, but being able to pay it off over time.

Okay, because it's really interesting the different ways that we could implement. And I guess if we say go ahead, you'll go ahead and research the different ways we could implement. The other question I had is about the batteries. I know some people are really worried about different types of batteries being flammable. I have a little concern just because they'd be going into this big wood building. And it seems like Grange Halls are infamous for burning down. Anyway, there's an area where the batteries, I think, were thought to go, which is maybe the lower right corner of the building. And I'm just wondering, is there part of this deal? Is there something to rebuild the area where the batteries are stored? Because, you know, it's kind of ratty right now.

Right now, we can include in any criteria that the location of the batteries are. are in a preferable place whatever we determine that is um but i i don't know um it would i think it would just need more research and we could certainly put that as criteria of whatever we end up preferring yeah because it just seems like if we have this lovely new roof and a lovely new solar system we want to make sure that the batteries that they feed into are also somewhere that's safe totally yeah okay all right let's move to public comment on this

Good evening. Thank you, Bridget. And I just wanted to first profoundly thank staff for a lot of work in investigating this opportunity and to counsel for directing that investigation to begin. I just wanted to say, and this might help to address council member colors. The questions that there are, I see there on the larger level as being 2 reasons why this kind of opportunity is before us at this point. First of all, our actual infrastructure here, a lot of the work is already done, amazingly enough. This is kind of where this concept came from years ago, was realizing, thanks to a prior council, deciding to install solar on the pavilion that involved bringing underground wiring and conduit down to two other buildings the fire station and the police and town hall so that's all done and then a public works director at that time i believe it was kathy wilkie brought conduit all the way from the fire station through the community center and to this building it comes right back there to that corner John Tierney showed me that. That is an amazing piece of infrastructure, because if we thought about bringing underground wiring through the entire campus now with all the redwoods, we wouldn't be talking about this. So that's the first amazing opportunity. The second one is that the future that was envisioned by Kathy Wilkie, I believe it was, is now here. The industry has obviously gone through incredible challenges. growth and changes in the last 20 years. And we now it now we have reached a point at which it's a reasonable business model for a business to answer our request and be able to put something like this together.

I'm going to let you continue because you are technically part of the team working on this.

It's helpful. So, yeah, I think that it's now possible. And you know that there's solar on many, many, many, many California houses, roofs. And a lot of that was done through a similar business model on a smaller scale. Sunrun was one of the companies that would put solar on your roof and And it wouldn't cost you anything, but they actually owned the array and they shared in the savings with you. That was their business model. One little issue with that business model was they continue to own the array forever. And some people that I know are a little, that turns in a little bit of a problem that they have this array that is on their roof that they don't own. This would be what we would certainly specify as a business model in which we, after we paid it off, we would, complete ownership of it. So I'll leave it at that and just ask that council direct staff to continue pursuing this and find vendors and bring some detail back. Thank you.

Thank you.

A few points in the last one that Bruce just brought up is a very valid point. I also know people that when they have sold their home, they had a pre-existing contract and there's a lot of debate and it costs money. So I think it'd be prudent for the town once these panels go up. to actually make sure that we have a shorter buyout period that we own them. So we have the right to change, alter, go in a different direction. One, I think that microgrids for all towns, I hope, are the future because they're more efficient. You don't lose so much heat and energy in long transfer lines. But what I would encourage at the same time The employment of sulfuric acid or lithium batteries, these are tremendous fire hazards that we don't need. There are many patents right now into interstitial space of crystals, such as garnets. And what is it? The engineering department of Maryland, back in Baltimore, is run by a person from San Rafael, California, Dr. Eric Waksman. He currently holds patents in the interstitial space of garnet crystals that have a faster degradation and a faster recharge rate. So this might be an opportunity to... partnering or pairing that he'd like to see these type of patents employed, which are more fire resilient, they're safer, they're smaller, and they don't generate that same heat. So if we're going to make this correct move to the future and look at a micro grid, this might be an opportunity that we don't have to spend extra money and we can set an example. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker.

Good evening. Thank you, Bruce, and wonderful presentation, Bridget. One of the things that I thought about during this presentation was the idea of calling it a resilient hub over in San Anselmo. It would be great, of course, the way that this is presented moving forward for Fairfax. past the infrastructure issues that we saw at the last couple of meetings with that building altogether. But what I thought about was, maybe one of the ways which Fairfax can look at this is through calling it something else, like over in San Anselmo called Resiliency Hub. Maybe it can be growth related, To the housing elements and plan Bay Area 2050 or plan Bay Area 2070 and maybe some research can be done with the Association of Bay Area governments to find out. If there are any of these types of grant funding streams that could be made available for the purposes of growth in the town infrastructure as much of it is for those very purposes, thank you.

Hi, Todd Greenberg. I support exploring a municipal microgrid, and I appreciate Bridget's hard work on this, and I hope we find a way to make this happen. But decisions need to be made based on good information. The staff report leaves out important financial and liability questions unanswered. The report says the pavilion solar panels were installed in 2009, yet also says the town's 20-year NEM 1 period expires next year. Those dates do not appear to match. Before replacing or materially modifying the system, staff should produce PG&E permission to operate interconnection agreement Tariff designation and grandfather and expiration date. The council should know the value of any remaining M1 benefits before approving changes that could move the town to less favorable solar billing plan. The report mentions Fairfax is an MCE customer, but not meaningfully evaluate mce assistance council member barbara kohler represents fairfax on mce's board and chairs its executive committee i asked council member kohler to help fairfax identify and secure every available mce grant incentive technical assistance program resilience resource and compatible outside funding source before the town commits to a private financing provider the report also says the pavilion roof must be replaced but does not address the leaks or whether the Original installer, later contractors, warranties, or insurance may cover some of the costs before removing the panels. The town should preserve evidence, inspect the penetrations and flashing, review contracts and warranties, and determine whether costs can be recovered. Please require a documented NEM analysis, an MCE funding assessment, and an independent roof cause and liability investigation before proceeding. Thank you.

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

Good evening, Council. Thank you very much, Bridget, for an outstanding presentation. On behalf of the Fairfax Climate Action Committee, I just want to encourage the Council to move forward at this point. This is a direction to staff to continue to explore funding options and arrangements for the whole micro grid slash resilience hub. It will serve both purposes. Bridget has been in constant contact with us in the Fairfax Climate Action Committee every single month. We all have been thinking about this and as Bruce has said, talking about it for years and years and years. Several of us have our own little micro grids in our homes in terms of solar and battery and backup and connections. So there's no harm in moving this forward. It is a solution, one of the 10 solutions across the county for energy efficiency. And I just really encourage you to support The further investigation, everything will come back to the council with lots more discussion and debate around financial arrangements and products. But I think it's a fabulous, we're so happy to be at this point. And I really encourage you to give direction to the staff to continue to pursue these various options. Thanks so very much.

There are no more raised hands on Zoom. Go ahead, Council Member Kohler.

Yeah, I just want to say, I think we definitely need to continue to pursue this. And just to answer Mr. Greenberg, I have connected Bruce Ackerman with MCE staff. In fact, one of our high-level managers who does the virtual power plant, lives a couple doors down from bruce so we already made those connections and bruce was my alternate and has a lot of connections so i can certainly help but this time we don't have specific grants so um thanks for your feedback and thank you guys i want to also thank dan cardoso who's been working very closely and i know others on the climate action committee kristen bridget you guys bruce has been doing this who No, I just said, let's do it.

Yeah.

Any other comments?

I'm ready to vote.

OK, I just want to say it's been an absolute thrill to be working on this. I have worked hard on this as well, and that has not been mentioned by anyone.

Thank you, Mayor.

Yeah. And it's been premature until this point to meet with MC. But I think now after this vote, it would be a good time to do that. So I would actually like to make the motion if I may. Yeah, we need to give direction to staff.

It just says receive a presentation.

Okay. Well, let's formally give, no, there's a recommendation. If you remember the last slide to give direction to staff, as far as staff will determine the recommended approach, whether it's RFI, RFP, RFQ, is that right? And then come back with a proposal set. Does that sound right?

I'm saying I think we all are in agreement on that. I could be OK. Is there any? I don't think it's a vote, right?

It's not a vote, but does anyone have any issues with that direction?

No, let's do it. OK, thank you. I'm going to find my agenda. We are moving forward and thank you, Bridget.

Thank you. Well done.

moving forward with item number four consent calendar the council can approve all items on the consent calendar in one action alternatively any council or staff member can remove items for separate discussion and voting public comments for consent calendar items are taken collectively not item by item during this period speakers may address any item on the consent calendar with each speaker allotted up to two minutes and limited to one comment section okay does anyone have any items to pull i don't but i just want to mention that there's a supplement for item 4g for g yeah we all got that all right i have two okay you have comments or do you want to pull items pull two just pull two quick it'd be quick identify them please items um

Item A, the financial statement. And item E, the minutes. Just those two.

Okay. I mean, if you have comments on the minutes, you can just send them to Christine. But do you really need to pull it?

Well, I wanted to put something in the minutes that I said that's not in the minutes. So, you know, what's the best way to do that?

Well, in the future, you could email Christine, but... Yeah, just say what you want to add there, Ed.

It's only one line, not a big deal. Say what the line is. Should I tell you now? Yeah. Okay. So on the minutes, it was on the minutes dealing with the cannabis operation on Bolinas Road, and the minutes are correct. They show the vote. It was 3-1-1 on the vote to deny. But there's comments in it for people, but my comments aren't in. I had suggested... a a a a permit for for just for one year trial to see if to see if it could work and i i would just like to have that in the minute so maybe christine can find the exact words just that that was that was all i wanted to add to the minutes okay great and then you want to pull just to pull the yes the financial quickly okay so let's

Yeah, let's pull item A, and then let's take a vote on consent minus A.

So I think we can go to public comment.

I thought we were going to vote on the... Well, we have to go to public comment on the rest of the consent. Oh, right, right, right, right. Sorry. Okay. Okay, we are taking public comment on all of consent with the exception of 4A.

Hi, good evening. Todd Greenberg commenting on the consent calendar this evening. You know, it's odd that there's so many consistently outnumbering consent calendar items that limit the public's comment to seconds per item. It's noted time and time again that the minutes are inaccurate and incomplete. I would ask this council to someone there to make a motion and reconsider and pull agenda item G, which talks about MCE and the council's response to mc the civil grand jury report on mce and the last minute supplement that apparently is penned by barbara kohler that talks about her involvement with uh receiving compensation from other entities or at least that's the way i read it so i want to know what the conflicts of interests are And I want to point this council to San Anselmo's council rotation policy that got developed over many meetings after a council member was unwilling to let go of their position. It behooves the council to rotate positions so that the council is stronger and other members are more informed. There is a lot of controversy going on at MCE and I understand that Kohler has a lot of experience. We don't want to lose that. But I also understand that she is motioned for ad hoc committees, which are not subject to the Brown Act. And it's quite a concern to me and others. And she was against a finance committee, a standing finance committee that would be transparent. Fairfax and I, as an MCE customer, deserve to know what's going on there. So I would ask that you pull that item for further public comment.

So, Mayor Hellman, I just want to say that there's a misunderstanding. I get no compensation. The discussion in Item G was that members of PG&E and other investor-owned utilities get compensation.

Okay. I have one raised hand on Zoom.

Jodi, you are unmuted. You may now unmute yourself. Okay. Good evening Council members and Mayor again. I just want to thank Bridget very much for her help and support around item H. Every year the Climate Action Committee does come up with a work plan, what we intend to try to accomplish. She helped to pull that all together. So what you have in item 8 is a report on what we set out to do last year, as well as our plan for this next year. So I just wanna encourage council members, if you have any questions or input or anything you'd like to talk with us about at the Climate Action Committee to please reach out to me in terms of our report. But thank you very much, Bridget, and also for your support. in working to set a new meeting day and time for all of us so that we can accommodate the whole committee and work with the town's schedule as well. So thanks very, very much for both of those.

Thank you.

There are no more speakers on Zoom.

Okay. Closing public comment on consent.

Can I move the consent calendar minus letter 4A?

I'll second that. All in favor?

What was that motion?

Can I do an all in favor?

Aye.

Any nays? Okay. Moving forward with consent calendar item A.

Okay, just two issues. They're pretty easy. On the disbursement report, it's page two. And about halfway down, it's the first American title company. It was paid on June 8th, 2026. We paid $75,000. And I'm just wondering why we paid first American title company $75,000 as well.

If I may, so the council voted to make a donation for the Sky Ranch Knolls. And that is the $75,000 amount that the council voted to make that donation for.

That's the escrow company that was holding it.

So that's how we made the donation. We paid all, we paid all of the title to search.

Oh, it was the escrow company that she paid into.

Yes. So when property is purchased, typically money goes into an escrow account. So we made that deposit into the escrow account for that property.

Right. Santa Salma bought the property. But is it... We paid... Our $75,000, rather than give San Anselmo $75,000, we paid an escrow account.

No, most bought the property, and there was an escrow account for the property. San Anselmo did not buy the property. It was the money went to most, and it's getting transferred, hopefully, to the county. okay but we're paying for the for the for the for the title report no we're not paying for the title report the funds for the purchase the entire purchase of sky ranch knoll was in an escrow account so our donation went into that escrow account that's where all the funds are

Oh, okay. We didn't want to check for first American title.

No, no. It's it goes. They were the escrow company.

I just read what's what's in a report, but that's the escrow company. Okay.

Thank you.

And then the other question is, you know, I, we've been tracking, uh, the, uh, the cost for, for legal and, um, We're in August now. I thought we would have a final for May and June for our legal costs, but public agency law, there's no final in there. So what we did is we kept legal under a million dollars, $974,683, but there's no charges for May and June for our town attorney. When will those charges show up as an expense for the year?

We paid in July the bill for May. We have yet to receive a bill for June.

Well, May doesn't show up here, though. I'm looking at it right now. Does May show up?

This report was issued before we got and paid the bill.

I'm looking for May. How much is May?

It was about $21,000 for May.

That says best, best at Krieger, doesn't it?

The $21,000 is not on the report.

Okay, I'm looking at the report. It says $21,954 was paid to best, best at Krieger.

That's different. Your question was whether public agency had submitted a bill and it had been paid for May and June. Yeah. We did get a bill for May and have paid it.

Okay.

How come it doesn't show? Because this report was issued last week, and now we have received the bill after this agenda item was posted. Okay. And so I know what the amount is, but this report only includes what I knew of as of when I did the report.

Okay. So when will we get a final on our legal costs for the year? When we receive the bill for June. Okay. But how come it's blank under public agency law for May?

Because we haven't received a bill. I can't predict what the amount is. I thought you said you paid May. I paid May, but not June.

You said you paid May after this period, correct?

Either in July or August. If I may, so because of the posting deadlines for a packet, we want reports before the last day that we're going to post. And so Michael prepared those reports. And let's say they were finalized on Wednesday last week, as an example, preferably actually the Wednesday before.

So I'm just wondering when we're going to see the total costs so that

Understood. So if I may just get there one step at a time. So if Michael finalized this report last week on Wednesday and we got public agency laws invoice on Friday, it is not reflected here. That's for May. We are still expecting the invoice for June. And assuming we get that before the books are completely closed, which we do assume, then you'll see the full amounts when all of the books for the recently ended fiscal year come to you.

So it's going to show up on a September report?

Typically, I do this report... on a fiscal year basis. So I can continue to finish out this report and put it in with the attorney bills if you like.

Okay. Thank you.

Question about, since we're asking, on non-departmental 715, it's $1,140,000 plus some change. Maybe in... How much of that is related to attorney bills or litigation costs?

On the report, which is a detailed report for the income statement, we show that the litigation expense for... June was $37,000, and for year-to-date was $472,000. It's under the header litigation, which is 01715892. Well, I'm looking at all of 715, non-departmental. On the detail or on the summary of the book?

Yeah, it's got healthcare, professional services, special... I'm sorry. Yeah. I don't know. It's hard to read. I can hardly see it. 8 of 17, maybe?

The second from the bottom.

No, it's not. You can't see it. It's written too lightly.

The second from the bottom says litigation.

It's Department 715, non-departmental.

Mm-hmm.

and it covers a bunch of things, insurance, for instance, special services, miscellaneous, claim settlements, litigation, other things. How many of those items that are listed are related to

litigation or attorney bills the one line that says litigation that's it is the amount that we pay for for attorneys that said there can be attorney bills that bay cities uses and bills us for for claim settlements and that sort of thing for attorneys that are uh used by bay cities to uh deal with uh settling workers comp claims and other things but those those are out of our um what falls under professional services professional services is a number of uh categories including the the uh general services bills that we pay to the county for for animal services um It covers the amount that we're paying to the Chamber of Commerce. It covers, if you look in the budget for that page, it details about a dozen different line items of detail for that category. Thank you.

Okay, opening public comment.

My name is Todd Greenberg. I, too, am very concerned about Fairfax's legal costs, which have been significantly over budget for years now. yet the council and public still do not receive complete and timely monthly reporting. The June report shows nearly $975,000 in attorney expenses for fiscal year 2025-2026, about $317,000 for, quote, general services, $470,000 for special or litigation services, nearly $188,000 charged to the Meadoway Bridge Project. The ledger also shows litigation was budgeted at $100,000 but reached approximately $473,000. Claims and settlements added almost $170,000. Even at year-end, the attorney's schedule still contains blank months for some firms and matters, so the final total may and will be higher. Why are legal bills, accrued legal costs, and budget overruns not presented to the counsel every month on a timely basis while there is still time to control spending. Government finance best practices call for regular budget to actual monitoring and prompt disclosure of significant variances. Attorney-client privilege may justify redacting sensitive descriptions, but it should not prevent disclosure of aggregate spending, vendor totals, account charges, or budget variances. Please require one consolidated monthly report showing every law firm Fund, account, and project amounts billed and accrued, the adopted budget, the variance, the projected year-end total, and who authorized spending beyond budget. The public should not learn months later that legal expenses exceeded budget by hundreds of thousands of dollars. The council needs this information before costs escalate, not after the fiscal year ends. Please. get all of the legal bills in one place and quit hiding them in uncategorized and other sections. Legal belongs in legal, clearly discernible to everybody.

Thank you.

Any other speakers? Okay, closing public comment on this item. Can I have a motion, please? I move that we accept the financials.

I'll second. All in favor?

All in favor? Aye. Any nays?

No.

Oh, we have one nay. One nay?

One no.

Mike said no. Okay.

We've got to get a handle on this litigation.

Okay, so let's move on.

Okay. We are adjourning in honor of John Sargent. And with that, good night.