City Council - Regular Meeting

Which comes in here. And then it would go over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over So I had to just take a screenshot of every slide and put it into a word document.

And just re-print it like that. I had to be like, I was like having a panic attack.

I was like, I don't see why people do that. Oh. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. How are you, Ben? We're just trying to figure out where everyone is. Okay, we're gonna get started. Hello, welcome. Welcome. Bill, hello. We're starting. I would like to

Call the regular meeting of the Ross Town Council Thursday, November 13, 2025 to order. Has the agenda been posted?

Yes, Mayor.

And are there any changes to the agenda?

No, Mayor.

Thank you. Number three, disclosure of ex parte communications on items on this agenda. Anybody have anything to disclose? Number four, open time for public expression. This is limited to three minutes per speaker on items that are not on the agenda. Yes, you need to come up to the podium, please. Make sure the microphone is on and introduce yourself.

I'm having a hard time hearing you because my hearing is not that great. Hi, I'm Howard Ortman. I've given you all a little, just a card and a contact number. I am an angel investor in an eco-friendly fire retardant that can be used in either putting out fires or preventing fires. I know you've lost your fire engine last, what, in July, and I think a good way for you to be better served, perhaps, no offense to the fire department, you know, I mean, I hope they'll, I'm glad they're here, actually, listening to this, but if instead of having a Type 1 or a large fire truck, to have a Type 5, you know, wildfire fire truck, small, truck that could carry 400 gallons of neuro shield that which is the product that i represent um you could uh roll out you know you you already have two paramedics here and they're getting medical calls but what about when they get that fire call at the lagunitas tennis club you know and the kitchen's on fire this truck could roll out get that fire put out quick And, you know, and there's no water damage because the product has seven times the power of water. So it's, you know, even though you're using a 200 foot red, you know, the red hose you see on trucks with the large reel, You could roll that out to the fire and put it out. You could be up on the second floor. And even in a fairly larger fire, of course, there are certain situations where you don't want to enter with this smaller truck. But anyway, you could... You could be well served, and water damage would be minimized for all these beautiful homes in Ross. Also, it's excellent for attacking fires and getting them out when they're young up on the hill here. You could get up past Phoenix Lake and go up the hills there, and you'd have a four-wheel drive I did make a copy of a typical Type 5 fire truck that could easily get in and out of your existing ports and bays that are here. And just as I was talking to Bob Herps today, and he's the one who kind of got me up to date on the Save Our Station, It'd be nice to see this station. I drive by. Like I say, I'm not a citizen of Ross, but I drive by. I'd love to see this station historically preserved. And so if there's any point person wants to reach out to me where we could maybe go to Jason Weber, who is the head honcho of the Ross Valley Fire District, and maybe get a truck for you.

Okay, thank you. Your time is up. I do want to point out that Chief Dan Mahoney is now the fire chief for Ross Valley Fire, and he's sitting in the audience.

Right. Okay, yeah, I hope I didn't offend any fire guys with my ideas.

Thank you. Thank you. Mark, welcome.

Hi there.

I'm Mark Goldstein. I live at 125 Winding Way, Ross resident for 30 years. I was here about eight or 10 months ago advocating lobbying for some stop signs on Canyon Road, heading down, heading up, and one on Winding Way at the far end. I don't need to tell you that cars are racing through non-stop. They roll right through the stop signs. They come flying down Canyon. They go flying up Canyon. We've got kids riding their electric bikes right down the middle of Laurel Grove and for whatever the cost is to put three stop signs up. I can't, given how much money was spent building that nice walkway down Laurel Grove, it just makes perfect sense to put three stop signs up. And I'm not sure what the process is. You know, eight to 10 months ago, I spoke with Rich. It seems like nothing has taken place. So if someone can tell me what the process is or how I can advocate more effectively, I would appreciate it.

Thank you, Mark. I think it'd be great if you would touch base with Chief Pata. He's in the back. OK. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Hello.

Good evening. My name is Robert Archer. I'm a Ross resident. And I'm here to speak about the Marin IJ a four-part investigation into the MCE financial losses, management performance, and the executive board relationship. I recommend that the Ross Council endorse the standing finance committee concept and that the Ross representative vote accordingly. My background, I'm an economist by training. I spent 25 plus years on electricity sector reform and regulatory development in Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and South and Southeast Asia. In Marin, I've been involved for about 12 years with the Marin Conservation League and nationally in the Citizens' Climate Lobby. I'd like to just mention five selected issues that came out of that investigative process. First is that electricity rates are increasing, while renewable energy costs are decreasing. Second, financial losses are occurring. There's a question of whether the fiduciary responsibility of the board is being met. Third, there's an asymmetry of information, as economists call it. There are MCE constraints on information to the board and public. And fourth, there's board capture by management, a common, well-studied organizational characteristic found in many organizations. And last, the explanations we are getting from management that the energy sector is so complex and can't be understood simply are not meeting the need. So in my view, what is needed is the establishment of this standing finance committee outside the executive board. It would be a smaller committee, dedicated expertise, greater transparency, and would report to the executive committee and the board. Alternatives within the executive committee are unlikely to change the opacity management capture culture and accountability. So I recommend that the council endorsed this concept of standing finance committee and that Ross representative vote accordingly. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for your comment. I'd let you know the board meeting is next week, November 20th, and encourage you to attend the MCE board meeting and share your comments there.

Hi, Barbara.

Barbara Call, 8 Railroad Drive. I think the last time I spoke to you, I was very passionate about the defense of the fire department. And I don't want you to feel that I'm not appreciative, I and others, of the public service you guys perform in being council members and giving of your time to try and protect and preserve this town. But not when what you're doing is going to be a detriment to the town and i think that the plan to get rid of our fire department and delay the emergency response system time is a very bad one particularly when there are other plans available which some of you don't even want to look at ross is not a poor town ross can afford a fire department the median income in ross is about 250 000 I mean, Sleepy Hollow has a fire department. You may have never seen it, but they have one. It's not as good as ours, but they have one. In addition to the fact that we can afford one, this is not a time when we should be diminishing fire response. We should be improving fire response. And with regards to emergency response times, 25% of the citizens in Ross are what you call seniors. Seniors need faster response time, when a difference between five minutes and 10 minutes could mean the difference between life and death. So to reduce the response time is irresponsible on your part. With regard to the structure itself, A sophisticated, educated town would not destroy an historic building like our firehouse. Our firehouse is an historic building. It should be nurtured and refurbished, not destroyed. So I know at one point someone said, oh, Ross doesn't need a fire department because we don't have fires. And as we're coming up on the anniversary of the Palisades fire, I don't imagine anyone in that community would have thought that we would have such a huge destruction. The Palisades fire destroyed over 18,000 structures. It was started by an arson who actually started the Lockman Fire, which then wasn't extinguished properly, so it became the Palisades Fire. And certainly you remember the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, where the whole town was destroyed. I doubt anyone there would have believed such a thing could have happened. It was caused by a faulty PG&E power line. So this is not the time to reduce our fire protection. This is the time for you as Council members to do your job, to do the best you can for Ross and look at alternative plans, not just go forward with some plan that was formulated during COVID. Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Barbara. I do want to mention to you that on December 11th at our next council meeting, Barbara, I do want to mention that at our next council meeting on December 11th, Chief Mahoney will be here presenting response time information since the fire station closed on July 1st. So I encourage you to attend that meeting.

Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else for public comment? Okay, number five, town council to receive presentation of the AARP plaque for Age-Friendly Ross. Maureen and Diane. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, council members, staff, and members of the Ross community. Tonight, we celebrate a special milestone, the completion of the Town of Ross' AARP age-friendly cycle, marked by the presentation of this commemorative plaque. Take it away, Vanna. You show that. Hang on.

And photos.

Okay, so I got carried away and then I have to find my place. Ross earned the AARP Age Friendly designation in 2018 and was formalized in 2019 by an AARP representative at the October 2019 Town Council meeting. They came here and made that. What does it mean to be an age-friendly community? As an age-friendly community, we are part of a remarkable global movement, the Age-Friendly Cities and Communities Program, which was launched by the World Health Organization in 2007. The WHO recognized that aging well depends not just on health care, but on the environments in which we live, work, and connect with others. Through a countywide survey conducted by the County of Marin in 2019, Ross residents aged 60 and over helped identify our community's key needs. They told us we needed more activities for older adults, stronger emergency preparedness, accessible sidewalks and public spaces, better transportation, and easier access to health resources. Those needs were compiled into a 21-24 action plan, and in 2020, the Town of Ross launched the Age-Friendly Task Force to develop and be guided by a four-year action plan based on these needs. With the task force generated plan as a guide and working with our town partners, we have made great progress. The task force meets regularly, is part of the Ross Leadership Council, and is supported with annual funding by You the Town. Utilizing these resources, we've improved Ross Commons, adding senior-friendly benches and planning enhancements to make outdoor spaces and activities accessible and welcoming for our seniors. We've expanded social participation, offering Tai Chi and yoga classes, quarterly breakfasts with guest speakers, and annual Valentine luncheon which honors older residents. Those speakers all respond to needs that seniors have expressed that they have. Communication has also been strengthened. We now include age-friendly updates in our newsletter, distribute flyers and postcards, and maintain a dedicated information area at the Ross Post Office, which we all know is the central hub for all residents. Emergency preparedness has been a priority. The task force contributed to the town's emergency plans, hosted wildfire preparedness events, and participated in a successful evacuation exercise. Our success has been made possible through strong community partnerships, and this I think is really key to who we are as a town. It includes the Ross Property Owners Association, Branson and Ross Schools, our business community, Cedars, the Brent Art and Garden Center, and others. This is a group effort. And we thank the staff and all of you for your participation in helping us. Task force members bring dedication and energy. One of our founders now serves on the town council. We proudly participate in community events, including the 4th of July parade carrying our age-friendly banner. We look at all Ross-sponsored activities through an age-friendly lens and make recommendations to the council and other organizations on ways to involve seniors. Today, over 25% of our residents are over the age of 60, and that number will continue to grow. Age friendly initiative strengthen social connections promote safety and health and make Ross a more accessible welcoming and inclusive community. Looking ahead, we will conduct another needs assessment expand intergenerational activities continue our quarterly breakfasts with speakers. and Valentine's Luncheon open to all seniors age 60 plus in Ross, maintain emergency preparedness education and exercises, and ensure that our commons and sidewalks remain safe and age-friendly. Our goal is clear. We want Ross to be a leader in healthy and active agency. a community a community where older adults are valued supported and fully engaged and where everyone benefits from a stronger and more connected town congratulations to the town of ross on this very meaningful accomplishment thank you diane

I just want to recognize there are a number of age-friendly task force members here. Would they be willing to please stand up?

Come on, don't be shy, don't be shy.

Thank you everyone for all your great work and Terry for leading the charge, the initiation. It's wonderful. Number six is the mayor's report. That's me. I want to update residents about recent developments regarding town facilities issues and let everyone know about related upcoming agenda items which will be heard during our January 8th 2026 regular Council meeting on October 2 friends of the Ross firehouse or fourth as we call them submitted signatures to support the its ballot major. triggering a 30 day period for the town to verify the signatures on October 6 the town Council authorized the town manager to prepare an elections code report. To provide the town council and voters with independent and objective information on the potential impacts of the ballot initiative. Including the fiscal impacts short term and long term land use consistency with the town's general plan housing element and civic Center facilities master plan and service delivery and operational feasibility on October 8. the town's attorney wrote to Forbes attorney identifying grounds that call into question whether the ballot initiative is beyond the voters power of initiative and that there may be basis for a potential determination that the ballot initiative does not belong on a ballot or a potential determination that the ballot initiative is unenforced, unenforceable and invalid if ultimately the signatures were verified and the ballot initiative passed on October 14. The Town and FORF agreed to toll the 30-day signature verification period until February 3, 2026, and with the goal of enhancing public participation and informed decision-making, agreed to hold a meeting to hear presentations about the Town's Elections Code report and FORF's proposals related to its initiative. For example, potential rehabilitation of the town's fire station and construction of a new town civic center, including capital, maintenance and or operational costs with or without a fire station. The town will circulate the town's election code report and force materials before the January 8 meeting. Ross School was recently ranked in the top 10 public elementary and middle schools in all of California out of more than 7,000 schools. Ross School was the only elementary school in Northern California on the list, and there was only one other middle school in Northern California on the list. Ross School earned an overall grade of A+, reflecting excellence in academics, resources, extracurriculars, and more. Congratulations to dedicated Ross School Superintendent David Rice, principals, teachers, staff, trustees, the PTO, parents, and students. This exceptional achievement is also due in part to our community's continued generous support of Ross School's facilities through its its bond and the parcel tax which residents overwhelmingly renewed in 2022. We can all take pride in this outstanding achievement. Halloween was another huge success for trick-or-treaters thanks to so many creative and spirited residents throughout town who festively decorated their homes and gave out tons of candy. On Shady Lane alone, the town welcomed what seemed to be thousands of kids and their parents. Special thanks to Ross Police Chief Pata, officers, and town manager Johnson for assisting children and their parents continuing this wonderful Ross tradition. I hope you and your family will participate in the town's annual Turkey Trot Saturday morning, November 15th. I look forward to cheering everyone on. And that afternoon, more than a dozen Ross merchants will participate in the Autumn Showcase from 3 to 5 p.m., organized and sponsored by the Ross Property Owners Association. This is a perfect time to start your holiday shopping, and please consider shopping and dining in downtown Ross throughout the entire year. Finally, I sincerely wish you and your families a very happy and healthy Thanksgiving. Council Committee and Liaison Reports.

So I'm the representative, current representative to MCE and I'm going to defer a more detailed report for the council until after our November 20th meeting when we'll be taking up the issue of whether to establish an independent finance committee for MCE or the alternative proposal is to have the executive committee be renamed the executive and finance committee and take a deep dive into financial issues on a quarterly basis. And based on what I've heard so far, I favor the independent committee. Of course, as members of the board, we're counseled not to prejudge issues until we've heard from everyone, the public, staff, other members. But for whatever it's worth, that's my inclination now. So I'll have a fuller report on that. The September meeting was a very long one and we went into financial results, very complex, but basically there was a lot of concern about budgeting, the difference between the budget and the actual performance and some losses. There have been losses over the years, but several members who are more attuned to the financial picture were very concerned about this. So we'll be talking about this a lot more at the next meeting, and then in December I can give you a fuller report. Thank you.

the Transportation Authority of Marin. So in light of the controversy regarding the long traffic delays on 101, the Marin-Sonoma Narrows, the Transportation Authority of Marin and the Sonoma County Transportation and Climate Authorities have written a joint letter to Caltrans urging Caltrans to Number one, not wait six months or longer to come up with some changes. Number two, to change the hours to a shorter duration that makes sense to ease congestion and yet still support the high occupancy vehicle lanes. So they're looking at 6 to 9 a.m. in the morning. As opposed to five and three to 630 in the afternoon and also in the letter, it says they want to ensure that any mitigation efforts. Do not increase the impact on local streets and roads, which is actually happening right now because of the congestion on the quarter so that's the news from tam. Anyone else.

Okay. Number eight, staff and community reports. Ross Property Owners Association. Diane, is that you? Marcia, anybody? I did it last time, didn't I? Let me do it again.

I think we switched them around, and I'm not sure that anybody knew for sure what it was supposed to be.

Well... I know I was there you guys are doing great maybe more.

Maybe a detailed report in December, would be great Okay, thank you yeah just maybe reminded there's the Turkey trot this Saturday yeah just want to make sure and beautiful holiday let's.

Thank you yeah anyway. Krista, town manager report.

Thank you. Good evening, mayor and council members. The town of Ross's third annual Turkey Trot race is scheduled for tomorrow. I mean, not tomorrow, Saturday. Starting on Ross School's blacktop, there will be a 10K, a 5K, a one mile, and the always fun toddler dash. Please register at RossTurkeyTrot.com. The event is family friendly. dressing up is encouraged with awards given you might recall that my sister and I won an award last year and we are really geared up to win again And we've upped our game in a big way, so we'll see. I'll give you an update at the next meeting. I'm pleased to report that Ross weathered the morning storm well, largely due to prevention and response efforts. of anthony alcoser and zach baker in our public works department so big thanks to them we also um our public works director set out a um an e-blast ross residence uh in the last couple of weeks just to remind ross residents of of the importance of preparing their properties for storms and the sandbags that they can the sand that they can put in their sandbags and place out and also some resources for them. So hopefully our residents will take note of those. And then lastly, big thanks to our police chief Pata who represented the town at last week's winter preparedness workshop, which was held at the county's Office of Emergency Management last week. So thank you.

Thank you. Number.

Sorry, I have questions for the town manager. City Council Chambers, I had sent you an email just about our outstanding items that are that we're supposed to be agenda is, is there a running list of those or how do we know how they're being dealt with yeah I.

City Council Chambers, I was out in the early part of this week and i'm about halfway through my response to you, but um. That's a good idea. I keep a very informal list, but I can certainly work with our town clerk, Cindy Martell, to come up with something that is a little more spiffy, and I can send it to the council on a regular basis. So I can do that. And then I don't have your email in front of you, but i do know that now that we are not going to be presenting our election code report to the council on december 11th that's freed up a little bit of room on the agenda so i am working closely with our public works director to bring something forward um regarding the ross common that was i think requested just at the last meeting by mayor pro tem robbins and council member salter We also, as the mayor alluded to, Councilmember Dowling had requested response times from our fire chief, Dan Mahoney. That'll also be on December 11th, and Yes, and I'm working on bringing forward also on that date an update just on what we've been doing on our implementation of the Facilities Master Plan. You may recall we did our first one in September, so I'd like to at least in this initial stages do it at least every three months to give, I've been sending you some email updates, but this will be a little bit more formal at the Council meeting.

so that's kind of what we've got looking at our december meeting and then um our january meeting is going to be devoted uh to the um the fourth presentation and then the council's 9192 report thank you yeah maybe we should just keep a running list that of just because i know we sometimes we bring things up and we can't keep track of it and then we just circulate it and however they're getting slotted in at least we just have some visibility sure thanks

Thank you. Number nine is the consent agenda, items A through F. Does any member of the council wish to pull anything from the consent agenda?

Item C, please.

C, OK. Does any member of the public wish to pull something from the consent agenda? Can we take public comment on items A, B, D, E, and F? Is there any public comment on those items? Cindy, anybody online with public comment?

There are no raised hands online, Mayor.

Okay, so we'll bring it back, and could we please have a motion to approve? I move we approve the A, B, D, and F, E, F. A, B, D, E, and F, great. Is there a second?

Second. Mayor McMillan? Aye. Council Member Dowling? Aye. Council Member Kircher?

Aye.

Council Member Salter?

Aye.

Mayor Pro Tem Robbins? Aye. With a vote of five, the motion passes. Thank you.

Item 9C, Matt.

Yes, I just we I think we should try to bring the financial statements up in public session. I hate I know we have always a big agenda, but especially now that we have a new town treasurer, maybe we can just just briefly go over the highlights. I know it's in the staff report, but it's always nice to to hear how well the town is doing and that yet again, we have another surplus. So just if you wouldn't mind just going over the I know that a lot of it's

one quarter so one quarter is just one quarter and things can move but it's nice to just check in and let the town know and anybody watches this online how we're doing sure um so the item before you tonight is uh you're asked to review and accept the fiscal year 25 26 first quarter three month financial summer report so this covers um july august and september of 2025. The report shows operating revenues are $19,000 over year-to-date budget and expenses $178,000 under year-to-date budget, resulting in a net $197,000 positive variance. As Councilmember Salter introduced there, is that the variance is not predictive of year-end results, primarily due to building and planning revenue. and spending not occurring evenly throughout the year and the timing of other expenditures. So it's hard to tell from this first month. Last month, if you recall, I brought forward the year end for last year and that had a lot more definitive information for you. The operating revenues over year to date is not substantive, but the operating fund expenses are under budget. This is primarily due, right now we have a vacancy in the planning and building department because our senior building inspector position has been vacant since May, and we've been able to conduct the inspections through a contractor But it's contributing to that savings so far. Then, of course, there's a lot of work that the inspector that we have isn't able to do. He does inspections, not some of the other work that needs to be done. So that's being picked up by the other staff members in the planning and building department. Our police department expenditures are coming in a little bit under as well. And it's just really mainly it's too early in the year to...

to have any more information about this so that's it any any questions so just one question is on the the fire department i know we were supposed to have um savings from is that on track just as i mean as we started the first quarter in terms of the savings that you put into the budget you

City Council Chambers, yeah I mean they've already given us the savings, so we have an annual amount that our share of the Ross valley department fire department expenses we have our share. City Council Chambers, And that's divided up into 12 payments, and so our payments are lower because our share our our total expenses lower so we've already been our Member share has already been adjusted to reflect that savings.

OK, so they come up with their budget, and then everybody pays into it based on their budget for the year.

Their board approves their annual budget just like the council does here. And then that is divvied up amongst the form members. And our share has already received its adjustment. And then this coming spring, spring or sometime this coming year, the fire chief will work with the fire board to look at adjusting the shares but that is that would need board action and that's going to be happening this spring and i'm chief mahoney is here this evening and i'm sure he'd be happy to speak about that if necessary

yeah i maybe um for the meeting in january it might be helpful to understand some of these uh dynamics because the public obviously would doesn't understand we actually are getting some savings from this and being significant yeah so being able to sort of quantify that so people understand that there there is a lower service level but there's also a lower cost okay thank you

City Council Chambers, And I would disagree about the lower service level there's lower cost, but I think the service level is the same or better.

City Council Chambers, How can you say that when we don't have this we only have three stations that have for. City Council Chambers, Okay, well, then she's giving an opinion that wasn't asked for.

City Council Chambers, i'm responding to your opinion matt Okay, is there any public comment on item number C. um seeing there's no raised hands online there thank you we'll bring it back for um a vote on um 9c do we need a motion we need a motion okay i make a motion that we approve uh c second

Mayor McMillan. Aye. Council Member Dowling. Aye. Council Member Kircher.

Aye.

Council Member Salter.

Aye.

Mayor Pro Tem Robbins. Aye. With a vote of five, the motion passes.

Thank you. Item number 10, town council consideration to accept the investment report for the three-month period ended September 30, 2025. Town Manager Johnson.

Thank you, Mayor. The item before you this evening is the quarterly investment report for the period ending September 30th. The council is asked to review and accept the report this evening. The town's newly appointed treasurer, Jeffrey... Jeffrey Kuhn is here this evening to answer questions the Council may have of him. And the Town's new investment broker, Aaron Bonk, is also participating this evening via Zoom. Aaron is a Vice President with Time Value Investments, Inc. And Aaron will have a few comments to add after I complete my brief verbal report this evening. The Town of Ross investment policy that was approved by the Town Council last July 11th, it's reviewed and approved every year by the Council, that policy requires the provision of a quarterly investment report to the Town Council. Current investments are consistent with this investment policy and are allowable under current California law. Investments are selected to meet the following objectives listed in priority order, safety, liquidity, and yield. Sufficient liquidity exists to fund operating and capital project requirements for the next 12 months. The town's investments are held in two main accounts. The first is the Local Agency Investment Fund, also known as LAIF, and is operated by the California State Treasurer's Office. LAIF investment income for all funds in the first quarter was $226,000, which is substantial. The reported returns for the LAIF funds are 4.34% for the first quarter. and within this pa during this past quarter first quarter the town as directed by the council we transferred we started up a new investment account with time value investments inc on september 10th the town of ross transferred 10 million dollars from lafe the Leif account, to a US bank investment account. The fair market value of this investment as of September 30th is $9.933 million, which is $67,000 less than the original investment. the decrease represents 14.6 000 in accrued interest and 52.1 000 in unrealized losses accrued interest that the town paid on its bond purchases will come back to the town when those bonds make their next interest payments Unrealized gains and losses will remain on paper only and the securities will mature at par value on the maturity date as long as the town holds all securities until maturity date. Our treasurer did provide me with a listing, a summary of the holdings in the U.S. Bank investment account that I would like to hand out to the council. It was not included in your agenda report. but at our treasurer's suggestion, we'll start including this in the quarterly investment report. So I will hand those out while our town clerk, Cindy, can promote Aaron Bonk to speak. He might have a few comments for us.

He came through his phone, so I can only allow him to speak and promote him. Oh, that's my bad. Yeah.

Krista, could we put that on the website also? Yeah, sure. Thank you.

You have to go to the mic so that people can hear you online.

I'm new at this, Matt. What you're receiving was from yesterday. And it shows each of the positions in the U.S. bank portfolio. And it is ranked in order of their maturity date. The very first maturity is in March. I believe it's in March, yep. And that's a million dollars of treasuries. The next maturity as you fall down, this is basically the one, two, three, four, five, fifth, sixth column from the left. The next one is in September. and then we switch into 2027 and so on. So the latest maturity is at the bottom, which is in April of 19, pardon me, in September of 2030. Does everybody see that? Okay. So as these things mature, and Matt knows this stuff from his career too, Any variances get disappeared because they all mature at par. So we're doing quite well. And LAFE has, did we have any LAFE data? It's about 12.3 million, 12.2 million that's in the fund right now. Yeah, although we recently transferred a half million dollars to... to Wells Fargo for payroll and all that other kind of stuff. So round numbers, we're sitting on 22 and a half million. So I think we're okay. Any other questions?

Is Aaron able to speak?

I'm trying to unmute him. He's not unmuting.

Mayor Mrakas, So is this helpful, I mean we can generate this stuff pretty quickly, I was just going to suggest that maybe we should have a quarterly investment report generated that just shows the sort of performance. Mayor Mrakas, You know trailing performance for the year and the quarter and then what the current yield is on the portfolio and the holdings just errands probably has a standard package that they. for all their clients. This is one example. Exactly. And the only question I had for him is if there is a benchmark associated with this portfolio that he's managing. I'll find out.

The loss, the unrealized loss. is due to fluctuation in the value of the bonds currently and others marked to market?

Yeah.

Okay. So if we hold them to par, then we're not going to lose anything. And they're all apparently relatively short term.

We'd be having a much more volatile conversation if these, pardon me, we'd be having a much more volatile conversation if this portfolio was 10 or 20 or 30 years out, but it's not.

Yeah. Okay, thanks.

Erin Bonk is available now on the phone.

Apologies, everyone. I had called in originally and was having some difficulty. Can everyone hear me now?

Yes, we can hear you. Thank you, Erin.

Okay, perfect. I apologize. I was hoping to be able to do this in a more formal way, but life got in the way a bit this evening. So apologies for the technical difficulties there.

So Aaron saying it would be helpful and maybe not for now, but just going forward since it's new is maybe a quarterly package that has the standard performance metrics and. The yield on the portfolio and then whatever benchmark you're using so we can just compare the performance to the benchmark.

Yeah, I can certainly put something together like that. We might want to have a discussion on the benchmark topic just to figure out what exactly we think will make sense. Just because by nature, public entity portfolios tend to be a bit trickier to benchmark because they tend to vary a bit, but that is something I'd certainly be happy to discuss with everyone so we can make sure we figure out an appropriate benchmark and everyone understands what we're looking at there and why there may be some variants that we'll see over time. But yes, that is certainly something that I can look to do for the next quarterly investment presentation.

Krista, is that something that we need to do at a finance committee meeting with Erin?

We could certainly have, we need to schedule one anyways. We could certainly see if Erin and our treasurer can participate in that meeting and talk about this benchmarking topic.

Perfect. Thank you. Is that okay, Matt?

Yeah, I think it would be great. We can, Erin, because we can dive in there and it's a smaller group. Mayor Mrakas, And I got that Thank you i'm very glad you're on board very excited that we're doing this, I think it's it's something that's going to help the town. Mayor Mrakas, Over the long term, and so I appreciate that the heavy lift and excited to work with you guys on the Finance Committee to refine you know the reporting and discussion items happy to do it. Thank you.

Yes, and we're very excited to be working with the town. You know, it's great to get everything in place and be able to get the portfolio invested back in September. You know, just a couple of quick things I'll note and then would be happy to take any further questions. that anyone has. As Krista mentioned in her opening remarks, we will see market value fluctuations. And I think there was some discussion of that when I had to switch from the phone call to Zoom to make sure I got on here. So I might have missed some of this. I believe Treasurer Kuhn was speaking as well. But We'll see fluctuations over time in the market value of the portfolio, but we never want to be too excited about gains we see or get too concerned or upset about losses. As long as the town continues to hold securities until maturity, as is planned, everything will mature whole and those losses or gains will stay purely on paper and unrealized. In the event, however, that the town did need to access any of those funds that have been invested out longer term, we have also structured the portfolio in a way to minimize the risk of having to sell a security early and realize a loss on it. That's not to say we can completely obviate that risk or get around that risk completely, but... In structuring the portfolio in a laddered manner with regular maturities about every six months or so, that can also help provide some insulation against that risk if we did hit a point where the city needed to pull a portion, even a significant portion, of the funds that are in the portfolio out for some other purpose. The way that we structured and built the portfolio out will help minimize the risk that you would actually have to take a true loss on selling a security early. But again, the hope is that the town's financial condition will stay in good shape and this portfolio will be allowed to just sit in the corner, do its thing, generate regular interest for the city and help provide diversification for the town's investments. And I think we're already seeing where that diversification is going to come in handy really just in the last couple of months since the beginning of September when the portfolio was rolled out. Since that period, the Federal Reserve has cut Their short-term benchmark rate that they set a couple of times, that has already started to pull the LAFE rate down. So had all of the funds, the $10 million or so that was pulled out of LAFE to go into the longer-term portfolio, had that stayed in LAFE, it would already be earning a lower rate of return than it had been. Instead, those funds are invested into fixed income securities that were locked in as of the investment date with set yields for a set period of time. And those securities will continue to generate that interest regardless of what happens in the market, regardless of what the Fed may do, where LACE yield may head. The longer term portfolio will help provide some stability and predictability for a portion of the town's investments to make sure that you're not completely exposed to the ups and downs we can see, especially in times of volatility in both the economy and the markets. which it feels as though we may be headed towards here. And we're certainly seeing some of that volatility with those recent Fed cuts pulling short-term interest rates down. But this portfolio and the town's investments overall, I think are really well positioned to weather whatever may come in the coming years with the interest rate environment, the investments being well diversified, I think will put the town in a really good position going forward.

In other words, this is a long way of saying this is a high quality problem.

Thank you for that concision. Any other questions? No. OK. Any comment from the public? And we are supposed to accept the investment report? Do we vote on it, Ben? So we need a motion to accept and a second.

I move that we accept the investment report.

I'll second it.

Mayor McMillan? Aye. Councilmember Dowling? Aye. Councilmember Kirchherr?

Aye.

Councilmember Salter? No. Mayor Pro Tem Robbins? Aye. With a vote of five, the motion passes. Thank you, Erin.

We'll be in touch.

Thank you so much.

Item number 11. is the Town Council consideration of the introduction and first reading of Ordinance 735, waive further reading of the ordinance and refer to it only by title, an ordinance of the Town of Ross amending Chapter 6.18, Smoking Regulations, Section 6.18020-030-065, of the Ross Municipal Code to ban the sale of all tobacco products in the town of Ross. Roberta.

Good evening, Mayor McMillan and council members. Tonight I'm here to introduce ordinance number 735, which proposes amendments to chapter 6.18 of the Ross Municipal Code smoking regulations. To enact a full prohibition of the sale of tobacco products within the town of Ross, this ordinance builds upon Ross's longstanding commitment to public health and safety. Since 1989, the town has been a leader in restricting smoking in public spaces, and subsequent ordinances in 2007, 2017, and 2019 have expanded on those protections, including a ban on flavored tobacco products. The proposed amendment is a direct response to a compelling presentation made to the council by the Youth Advocacy Committee of Branson School. These students highlighted the ongoing health harms of nicotine use, particularly among youth, and urge the town to take decisive action ordinance number 735 does just that it would prohibit the sale offer or distribution of all tobacco products as defined in the chapter within the town limits it would also eliminate the possibility of issuing tobacco retail licenses in ross and it would remove existing code provisions related to to tobacco sale signage and conditional use requirements importantly there are currently no tobacco retailers operating in the town comparable ordinances have been successfully adopted in other cities in california and most recently in tiburon This affirms your authority to regulate tobacco sales as a public health measure. And so tonight's action is for the council to consider the introduction and first reading of ordinance number 735. Wave further reading and refer to it by title only. Thank you, and I'm here for any questions. Council questions? Matt.

So Roberta, I'm wondering, we already have a regulations on the books that regulate this and also prohibit the sale to minors and any tobacco related products that are flavored, etc. Can you just walk through what we have on the books existing?

Sure. So there is a red line of Chapter 6.18. So while flavored tobacco products were already prohibited, that ordinance did not necessarily prohibit the sales of tobacco products in the town. So what this ordinance amendment does is prohibit the sales and licensing of any tobacco products.

Sorry, my question is, what do we currently have on the books if we didn't do this? What exists today?

Exhibit A is Chapter 6.18, so you'll see the red line there. Again, the change is really prohibiting all tobacco product sales. Currently on the books, it's just the prohibition of flavored tobacco. So presumably, if someone came, they could ask for a use permit from the council. to sell tobacco products as it stands.

Okay, sorry, I was trying to understand the red line. So it's flavored tobacco. There is no vending machines allowed, right?

No.

Yeah, so I just I want to know if we don't do this. First of all, we have no retailers, correct. But then we have existing pretty strict regulations already. Yes, that's that's all I wanted to point out. We have quite a bit already. Okay, thank you.

Any other council questions? Public comment on this item? Would anyone like to speak?

Hello, Ross Town Council members. My name is Daniela Contreras. I am a high school senior and a resident of Marin County. I am speaking today to share with you my total support for the approval of a local policy in Ross that will prevent the sale of tobacco and nicotine products overall. The goal of this policy is to protect the health and well-being of residents, specifically when it comes to big tobacco target communities. The tobacco industry is a multi-billion dollar industry that knowingly targets minority groups, such as people of color and low-income neighborhoods. Big tobacco has been targeting vulnerable communities with aggressive advertising on billboards, at public events, in retail outlets, and through discount coupons. Tobacco use is the number one cause of preventable death among black Americans, claiming 45,000 black lives every year. Nicotine use not only affects adults in these communities, but also younger children who are surrounded by secondhand smoke, and family members who have normalized the use of tobacco. I have witnessed middle schoolers becoming victims of big tobacco, and I am worried for my own family members who are younger than me and will likely experience the targeting as they grow older. I don't want any generation to serve as replacement smokers for an industry that sells deadly products. It is our responsibility to ensure that the tobacco industry doesn't have the opportunity to invade Ross. Thank you for your time and your work, and that's it. Thank you.

Hello members of the Ross Town Council. My name is Andrew and I'm a student at Redwood High School. As someone who's grown up in Marin, I've seen firsthand how common vaping has become among teens in our community. It feels like almost everyone you know vapes or someone you know vapes. A lot of people started without realizing how addictive vapes can actually be. And that's why I support the proposal to ban the sale of all commercial tobacco and nicotine products in Ross. Making these products harder to get sends a clear message that our community cares about keeping kids healthy and informed. When local stores sell vape products, it normalizes something that's actually really harmful, especially for people my age who are still figuring things out. Local tobacco stores are just portals for a larger industry that has, for decades, targeted kids and profited from addiction. I don't want Ross to be a place where this dangerous industry can take hold. A ban like this won't fix everything overnight, but it's a strong step in the right direction. It shows that Ross is willing to put the health of young people before the profits of nicotine companies. As students, we notice what's available around us and what the adults in our towns choose to support. Thank you for choosing to support this policy.

Thank you.

Hello, Mayor and council members. My name is Isaac and I am a high school student here in Marin County. I'm here today to talk about how nicotine is harming youth in our schools and to ask you to support the policy in Ross that would prevent the sale of tobacco and nicotine products. Nicotine use have become very common among students in my school and at many others. It is something we encounter every day, even if we're the ones not using it. Bathrooms that were once normal parts of school life have turned into places where students go to vape. These products are designed to be easy to hide in use, and they've been intentionally marketed towards teens. As a result, more and more students are becoming addicted, missing class, and struggling to focus. I believe we all need to raise awareness and take steps to stop this growing problem. By considering this policy, you, the council, are showing students like me that it is possible to stand up to an industry that has been targeting youth for decades, young people for decades. Thank you for listening.

future of our community, our youth in our community. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. My name is Jeremiah Mott. I'm a professor at the University of California, San Francisco. I've been conducting research on the tobacco industry's efforts to addict young people and cause environmental damage for about 30 years. And I want to just tell you that what these young people are saying to you is a call for action not to allow Ross to remain vulnerable to having tobacco retailers set up shop here. And although the flavor ban is in place, we know from experience within Marin County and across the state that many of the tobacco retailers still are unscrupulous and sell highly addictive flavored products. And I want to point out to you in particular a letter that you received from a Community similar to yours, which is del Mar in North San Diego county where they had no tobacco retailers and then were stunned to find out that a retailer started to set up shop. and they've gone in and done surveillance in that store and found that that retailer is selling high-end premium cigars, they're selling pipe tobacco, and they're also selling some of the flavored products that are actually banned. So this is a serious matter, not only because of what you will say to your community in a practical sense to end the possibility of these kind of companies becoming established here, but also it sends a very important symbolic message because this would be the fourth jurisdiction in the United States to pass such a ban, and that's part of what is called the endgame movement. California as a state has a goal to end the tobacco epidemic and end tobacco industry influence across the entire state by 2035. That's a California Department of Public Health goal. So you by taking this step tonight would actually contribute to the advancement of the end game, which means ending the industry's influence. And I want to remind you that nicotine is a neurotoxin that was used for 100 years to kill rats. It's an extremely dangerous chemical. It's regulated by the US EPA. And the use of these products causes environmental contamination here in Ross. Cigarette butts are the most littered item worldwide, and they leach nicotine and all kinds of toxic heavy metals like arsenic. And the newer products that the companies are producing, like this, that young people are telling you about, that's a vape that has 7,500 puffs, which is the equivalent of 500 cigarettes. That's 25 packs of tobacco packed into that device. And these are sold all over the place. These are nicotine pouches that they've been telling you about. You're probably familiar with Xen in particular, which is surged in use. And we find these all over Moraine County, and they're plastic, they're synthetic fiber, and they leach nicotine. And many of these products ignite wildfires as well. So thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else in the chambers for public comment?

Good evening, council members. My name is Pamela Granger, and I'm the co-chair of Tobacco Free Sonoma County. When I was here the first time, I commented and I haven't changed my opinion that this is the most beautiful city or town council chamber I have ever seen. Really, it's a class amongst all. As you've heard tonight, i've been we haven't heard that i've been following the tobacco industry i worked for the american lung association for 16 years now i volunteered to do what i used to get paid for and following the attitudes of marina county what i've noticed is that you're more apt to want tomatoes cheaper than cigarettes cheaper you have a chance to tonight to uh to help us in our goal to vision a world without the tobacco industry. And it's happening. The fact that this is an industry that relies on addiction, I mean, that's their business plan. And somehow I think probably you're not sitting at home around the dinner table saying, you know, let's see, what kind of business could we bring in that could possibly, hmm, kill people or make them sick or maybe would start fires or well maybe it would be toxic hmm She our kids probably might be interested, I cannot imagine that that's what you do I think they're sitting around and you're thinking, how can we improve an environment it's one of your goals, I noticed in your town. plans and I have complete confidence that that you'll help us get where we want to be and that's a world without big tobacco Thank you so much, you.

Anyone else in the chamber? Anyone online, Cindy?

Yes, Mayor. One moment. Sol Sisco, please.

Hello. Good evening, Mayor and council members. My name is Jasmine and I'm here on behalf of the National Association of Tobacco Outlets, which represents small business owners and retailers across California. While we understand and respect the town of Ross' desire to promote public health, this proposed ordinance is unnecessary and premature. Currently, there are no tobacco retailers in Ross, which means this ordinance seeks to solve a problem that simply does not exist. Passing a ban now sends the wrong message to future entrepreneurs, suggesting the town is willing to restrict businesses based on hypothetical concerns rather than actual issues. It also limits future economic opportunity. Small retailers like convenience stores or markets rely on a mix of products to stay open. Removing a lawful product category before a single store has even opened eliminates a potential revenue stream that could support a future local business. And importantly, the main youth concern today is vaping, not traditional tobacco. California has already banned flavored vapes, the products most associated with youth use, the stronger protections we already have in place as at the state level. If the goal is youth prevention, Ross would be better served by focusing on education, parent engagement, and enforcing existing laws should a retailer ever open here. For these reasons, we respectfully urge the council to reconsider this ordinance. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you. Anybody else, Cindy?

There are no more raised hands on line, Mayor.

So let's bring it back for discussion or emotion.

I want to sincerely thank all the students and their supporters and all the emails that we received for asking the town of Ross to ban the sale of tobacco products in this town. It's it is a very well organized effort. Mayor Mrakas, And it sends a strong message about the importance of the health of young people in Ross and the residents of Ross I fully support ordinance 735.

Mayor Mrakas, So I don't I don't know that anybody here. Mayor Mrakas, doesn't think tobacco is dangerous or doesn't think alcohol is dangerous for that matter. But it's very serious when we have to think about banning anything. And we've gone down this path thinking about banning pickleball, for example. Sometimes things are legal, and we may not like them. But we as a government have to make sure we're representing all people everywhere throughout time. And when we decide to ban something, it's a very serious matter. And so when I was looking at the code, that's why I asked you, Roberta, is right now it's unlawful for any retailer, individual or entity to sell or offer for sale any tobacco products within town limits without first obtaining and maintaining a valid tobacco retailer's license from the town. So in order to be able to sell, which we have none, you have to obtain a license from the town and from the council. And we can always decline that on a case-by-case basis. But I would posit that there might be a business down the road. Maybe it's a cigar shop. Maybe it's something that's catering to the older population that that likes to smoke cigars and they're totally legal. There's nothing illegal about smoking a cigar. Maybe someone wants to open up like a fancy humidor shop. And I don't want to ban completely what may or may not be, especially when we have already on the books, the discretion to whether to accept or not accept. So unlike we heard about the Del Mar, oh, retailers just can open up. They can't in Ross. You have to obtain a license first. So I really ask the council to think about that because it's a feel good measure, like we just had the e-bike come through. It's feel good measure, but what does it really do in practice? And will future councils have to take up this issue if somebody wanted to open up a shop down the road because we were so punitive to ban something outright? So really think about what a ban means and what we're forcing the future generations to have to do. Thank you.

Anyone else want to speak to this?

I think those are very good points, Matt. I respect and applaud the students' activism that tobacco is addicting and it causes health issues, life-threatening health issues. I support the ordinance. I think it's an important statement, but I don't think we should overstate our impact tonight. There shouldn't be Endless rounds of congratulations for banning tobacco sales in Ross. Our tiny town doesn't even have tobacco sales, so we're not actually banning anything, at least at this point. And in the future, it's highly unlikely that anyone would want to sell tobacco here, with maybe the exception of what you're pointing out, a cigar shop. Unfortunately, bans won't do much to decrease tobacco use. Tobacco will still be available, like alcohol during prohibition. I hope that the students will also focus on education to discourage not just the use of tobacco products, but also the use of alcohol and drugs, which are widely used by teens. The impact of banning tobacco sales here, and it's a minimal impact, the impact could be greatly increased if an education component is part of the student's project.

Bill, did you want to say anything?

i don't really have much to add to the conversation i had really considered the point matt made but um i i i you know it's a while acknowledging the validity of what matt said i'm going to come down on the side of voting for this i i do think it's a symbolic gesture but i think it's an important gesture to our youth, really. I think these products are, tobacco products are very harmful. And so I will support it.

Yeah, and I agree. It is symbolic and I think it's important to go forward and make this as difficult as possible for youth and to City Council Chambers, To rely on these products and get sucked in, so I think we can be proud and join with tiburon and other jurisdictions across the state and be a leader. City Council Chambers, and go forward so maybe we could have a motion on this, I think everyone's spoken Terry did you want to say you already said something. City Council Chambers, Can we have a motion.

I make the motion that we accept ordinance number 735 is that right no.

No it's in the recommendation, you have to introduce the first read and read out the ordinance so if you want to move the. provision that's in our recommendation that would be what the motion would look like.

to read the entire thing that says wave further reading okay to accept ordinance number 735 wave further reading of the ordinance and refer to it by title only an ordinance of the town of ross amending chapter 6.18 smoking regulations section 618 020 618-030, 618-065, and 618.070 of the Ross Municipal Code, RMC, to ban the sale of all tobacco products in the town of Ross.

We need a second, right? Can someone second? Thank you. Cindy.

Mayor McMillan.

Aye.

Councilmember Dowling. Aye. Councilmember Kirchherr. Aye. Councilmember Salter.

No.

Mayor Pro Tem Robbins. Aye. With a vote of four to one, the motion passes.

And I just want to echo Councilmember Dowling's thanks to all the youth who spearheaded this and work tirelessly to bring this to the town of Ross so thank you. Number 12 is the town council to receive a presentation from the floodplain administrator regarding national flood insurance program assessment of flood risk and the resources and measures to reduce flood risk for properties within the 100 year. special blood hazard areas in the town of Ross. We'll wait for the room to clear. Okay, Rich, go ahead with item number 12.

All right, thank you, Mayor McMillan and members of the town council. Tonight, Rich Semenich, floodplain administrator for the town of Ross. I'm going to have a presentation. regarding the National Flood Insurance Program assessment of flood risk and the resources and measures to reduce flood risk for properties within the Town of Ross Special Flood Hazard Area. This is a presentation about the Town of Ross residents, the resources currently available to the Town of Ross residents, Some capital projects that are being done by the town of Ross. This is not a discussion about the Marin County flood control projects, this San Anselmo flood risk reduction project. This is not a discussion about the Cordo Madera Creek flood risk management project. Again, this is an informative presentation for the Town Council and for the residents of Ross, and I'm going to follow up with an article in the Ross Review coming up early next week to kind of go over what I talked about and also provide some information available to residents that the floodplain administrator can offer to them for free. As they try to assess flood risk within within their property within the town of Ross So the presentation outlined tonight the National Flood Insurance Program timeline for Ross how we entered the the program and and where we are now We'll talk about FEMA flood insurance maps and studies their purpose and benefit Overview of the flooding dynamics in Ross. This is gonna be a very visual presentation, so hopefully everybody who's able to see the screen will be able to, and the town can make this presentation available as well. We're also gonna talk about the Town of Ross capital projects that are being implemented to reduce flood risk within the town. That being the current Bolinas Avenue drainage improvement project and the Winship Bridge replacement project. And finally, what can we do to get ready because we will flood again? So the National Flood Insurance Program timeline, back in 1968, the NFIP was formed under the National Flood Insurance Act of 1968. Six years later, Ross joins the National Flood Insurance Program, which allows us to, or property owners to obtain flood insurance through the National Flood Insurance Program. 1976, Ross first appears on first flood insurance maps become available where Ross is shown with its special flood hazard areas. And in 1979, the initial flood insurance studies identify specific flooding sources in Ross and they get a little bit more, those flood insurance studies get a little bit more detailed about the flood risk and flood dynamics within Ross. In 2009 there was an additional flood insurance study update where some properties in Ross were added to the special flood hazard area they actually received letters from FEMA that says well now you are in a flood hazard area due to changes. done to the flood insurance maps and you are there's a mandatory requirement for flood insurance that may come from your your lender. In 2014, the flood insurance study update became available and the regulatory floodways were identified in the town of Ross. They did exist before in some communities in Marin County, but it wasn't until 2014 that the regulatory floodways appeared within the flood insurance studies and then on the flood insurance maps. And with that additional flood insurance study update, some more properties were added and some were actually removed from the special flood hazard area. This shows the dynamics of as FEMA continues to develop their flood insurance mapping, some parcels will be identified as now being within the special flood hazard area and some parcels being removed. And then in 26 and 27, there were additional minor updates to that 2014 flood insurance study. These are excellent studies that show flood profiles for the Corridor Madera Creek, San Anselmo Creek floodway, and also the overland floodways that will flood Shady Lane, Bolinas Avenue, and then further south will actually flood flood, Ross Common, Poplar, and into Kentfield. Those streets, as dry and safe as they look now, are actually designated regulatory floodways. So a little bit about the importance of having the FEMA flood insurance maps and studies. They identify the flood-prone areas, these special flood hazard areas. They support floodplain management. Local governments like Ross use them to develop codes and land use regulations that reduce the flood damage. And you've seen more than a few times we've brought the flood protection ordinance to council for minor amendments and changes to increase the flood protection for new and substantial remodels within the town. Lenders use the maps to decide whether flood insurance is mandatory, of course, for properties in high-risk zones. They're used to inform property owners and buyers and help them understand their own flood risks and make informed decisions about purchasing insurance or purchasing the property. And builders and developers use them to plan safe and compliant projects and avoid the high-risk areas within a project. within Ross. So this is kind of the visual portion of the presentation showing the flood dynamics in Ross. So What you see up here, this is Ross, San Anselmo up here, Kent Field down here to the south. Corte Madera Creek runs along here, turns into the San Anselmo Creek after the confluence with Ross Creek goes up into there. Just barely see it. But then we have a second floodway that comes in here down San Anselmo Avenue and enters into Shady Lane. The origin of this flooding is as everybody should know by now is the overflow from building bridge to during high flood rates, then these two flood ways combine and into until they get back down to near the fire station here. and about 2 Sylvan Lane. They separate again. The one floodway stays within the channel and the other floodway continues down Ross Common and Kent Boulevard. So during initial flood event, the Corte Madera Creek, San Anselmo Creek starts filling with water running through town. When it reaches a certain point of Extended flows, you'll see the floodwaters go overbank at Building Bridge 2 in the San Anselmo. And that causes this second floodway that comes down San Anselmo Avenue, takes a right on Bolinas and a left on Shady. This is actually, this is the high velocity portion of the flood. While this is coming through town, it's spreading out. You can see in this light blue area that's the flood is extending out into this area, but this is a high velocity regulatory floodway. delineation. And so, as these two. floodways combine. At the Ross creek confluence. That additional, the combination of those two floodwaters will cause the overbank down here at approximately two Sylvan Lane. The water continues in this corner near a quick floodway into the concrete channel, but that new overbank comes down into Ross Common and Poplar and Kent Boulevard, or Kent Avenue. So we're going to look a little bit closer at what happens down here in the Ross Common area. So this is a diagram, Sir Francis Drake Boulevard here, Lagunitas here. Here's Town Hall where we are tonight. And this is a better view of these regulatory floodways in yellow and the extent of the 100-year flooding in blue. So what's happening here in the net and the flood insurance study FEMA studies when these flood ways split female will study this flood way and run profiles and analysis on it and then they'll also analyze the flood way in the channel. The problem with the. The one view modeling that fema uses is you see this blue line that's the boundary between this, the study going on here, the flooding on in Ross common and the flooding in the channel. And the issue is the difference along this blue line is there, the flight is one foot higher. On the Ross common side of this location it's three feet higher here four feet higher here so visually you have this. Moses Cecil be the mills separation of the Red Sea, where you have this wall of water so it's. that's the limitation is. The 2D model would allow this to flow dynamically and connect, and you'd see probably a more realistic representation of the flooding. But what actually happens is the flooding that had separated and come down popular in Ross Common, will flow back into the channel. The difference in flood elevations will cause the flooding to overflow back into the channel. Really no issues there. It just kind of highlights some of the limitations of the 1D modeling. We'll look at the flood dynamics here to the north part of Ross where flooding enters. Ross. And so this is Bolinas Avenue here, Sir Francis Drake and San Anselmo Avenue here. This is the church parking lot right there at the corner. And you see the yellow regulatory floodways and the blue extent of the 100 year flood all the way out into here. So again, we have this City Council Chambers, The separation of these two floodways the hydraulics done on this floodway and the hydraulics done on this floodway and this blue line is kind of is the boundary between these two floodways well. City Council Chambers, And this is something I don't think the county. City Council Chambers, was able to convey very well in their in their process, but the. depth of the the difference between the depth of water on this floodway and then this floodway it's actually three feet higher here three feet higher here two foot higher here this water has. nowhere to go. But flowing into the front yards of these residences, and this is the really the only location in Ross where you have this the water that's coming from the overflow and building bridge to down into here that's actually coming into the front yards of these properties, and this is a. Growth Team, These properties are it's 86 Sir Francis Drake all the way down to 78 Sir Francis straight so while there's a lot of attention being given to the flooding and quarter meter creek. Growth Team, Actually anecdotal conversations with the previous owner of 86 or Francis straight I asked the property owner well did you ever flood during the. the 2005 storm, he said, yeah, I flooded through my garage. So he did not flood from Court of Madera Creek. He flooded from the water crossing over Sir Francis Drake Boulevard in this low area into his garage. That's the primary source of flooding on these four or five properties here between Winship Avenue and Sir Francis Drake Bridge.

Rich, sorry to interrupt, but with the drainage project you're working on, in Bolinas Avenue, will that help this at all?

Yes, and I will get to that. So here we are. So capital projects in Ross. So what are we doing in Ross with our drainage fund and with the help of the Highway Bridge program to alleviate some of this flooding? So, yes, we did phase one of the Bolinas drainage improvements and the upcoming phase two we've taken this area which floods at about a four or five year interval. The roadway would fill with water and start sheet flowing across these properties here. So this would fill up with water. So what the phase one and two projects will do is get this area drained and cleared in the early parts of a flood event. And As the, let's say in a large event, the rivers, the creek is filling up. We got overbank at Building Bridge 2. It starts coming down San Anselmo Avenue. The intent here is that this is going to be a lot more drier than it was in 2005, where we had, where this floods again at a five-year interval. Well, now with phase two, we're going to bring this up to a 10-year level of of flood protection. And that's significant. A hundred year storm is not 10 times bigger than a 10 year storm. It's barely two times bigger. So the intent of these improvements is to provide some level of at least early flood protection for the major events. This is kind of a graphic of what I just talked about. You've got the floodway, the floodwaters coming down San Anselmo Avenue. And this area is cleared out and we're hoping to greatly reduce the flow coming down Shady Lane, which eventually rejoins the channel at the confluence with Ross Creek. Next, we have the windshield bridge replacement project, so the windshield bridge replacement project has long been identified as a as a constriction to the channel and what it actually does what does happen. Is that, as the large flows build up the water builds up the backwater builds up. behind the Winship Bridge up towards Barber. Of course, the water's flowing this way from north to south towards San Francisco Bay. The constriction causes this water to build up, and some of the modeling shows it's rather significant. Two to three feet of backwater starts building up. The good thing about this part of the channel, if you stood on Winship Bridge and looked to the north, it's a very deep channel. There's no overbank. City Council Chambers, Anybody who's lived in this area for many, many years will tell you it we've never had overbank flooding on the on the windshield bridge it's extremely important concept because. City Council Chambers, Once you replace the windshield bridge and you've you've opened up the. City Council Chambers, You opened up the opening. You're not actually increasing the flow by opening up the opening. What you're doing is, in the existing condition, you've got this backwater effect. You've got, let's say, 5,000 CFS. I'm just using that number. It's not the actual number. where this starts building up back towards Barber Avenue Bridge. But the hydrostatic pressure forces the water through this constriction. High velocity causes scour. That's a problem. But it's a continuity equation. 5,000 CFS in equals 5,000 CFS out. So we have a no rise situation, which has been analyzed. It's conditional based on how we design the windshield bridge replacement of the channel bottom, but we will have a no-rise situation. So contrary to saying, hey, you're opening up the windshield bridge and that's going to cause flooding downstream, well, that's not how it happens. We're just reducing the backwater and slowing down the water through the bridge. So there should be no increase in water surface elevation due to the construction of windshield bridge. So what can we do to prepare here? So if you own a home in the special flood hazard area, contact your floodplain administrator for assistance with identifying flood risk at your address or locating flood risk reduction and flood insurance resources. I can provide all of that stuff as floodplain administered. And purchase a flood insurance policy. It's extremely important. That's the main message I want to get through. to property owners. Even if you don't have a lender, I highly recommend, the town highly recommends that you obtain a flood insurance policy for your property. If you want to build a new house or remodel your home in a special flood hazard area, contact the building department and the flood plate administrator, understand the restrictions and limitations codified in the Ross Building Code. If you're looking to buy a home in the special flood hazard area, same as above, contact the building department and the floodplain administrator, and purchase flood insurance. Most flood insurance policy premiums in ROS are eligible for a 10% reduction in premium costs, thanks to our continued involvement in FEMA's Community Rating Service, or the CRS program. That concludes my presentation, and I'm here to answer questions, if you have them.

Questions. Bill.

Rich, how does this change if building bridge number two is removed? What was the question? How do these dynamics change if building bridge number two is removed? You showed a split because of building bridge number two overflowing in San Anselmo.

Yes.

Coming down San Anselmo Avenue.

Yeah, great question. So what I was trying to emphasize is the highest flood risk to Northern Ross is from the overflow overbank at building bridge 2. it uh it will come down shady lane and it will cross over shady lane and and hit the front yards of those houses that are fronting along the the creek so that's my message is that that's the primary source of flooding in in northern ross is the overbank at building bridge 2.

So I just have a more it's like a more theoretical question. I know I watched something on like I think it was New Hampshire, Vermont, some of these areas that are very, very prone to flooding where it reminds me of the urban wildlife interface with the fires where areas that were always, you know, naturally occurring creeks and river beds been overdeveloped. And as a result, you know, these floods in people's homes get destroyed. As a town, and you know, how do, I've seen other towns from this information as sort of trying to bring the land back to its natural setting. And I know that's, you know, an impossibility, but are there ways as a town, and maybe this is more of like a general plan when we tackle that, where we can think about sort of, you grandfather properties in, but if they have to be redone, we don't allow more development there in the future or is is there a way that the town can create sort of guidelines to restore the creek and restore the natural way that it should be so that the creek can flow and the creek can overflow because that's the way it's supposed to be but it won't impact homes if we don't build in those areas and it's just more of a general question but I wonder if it's something long term we can try to think about and incorporate into our sort of vision of what we want the town to look like because like you said it's going to flood it's supposed to flood but how can we better organize the town and zone the town so that we don't keep building in areas we shouldn't be well that um the National flood insurance program um uh actually uh promotes

or encourages communities to add even more building restrictions just in the special flood hazard area. You can't build restrictions within the City Council Chambers, Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. it's completely within the realm of the National Flood Insurance Program and FEMA to revise a community's floodplain ordinance to further restrict the development within the special flood hazard area. Say, you know, you have to raise it two feet or no, you cannot increase your footprint. I mean, you can get, you can get pretty restrictive on it. You know, then of course, without getting into it, there's pluses and minuses involved in that sort of thing. um something that was proposed to the town a few years back was the removal of a portion of the concrete channel within frederick allen park that actually was designed to be to provide some retention and holding and actually did theoretically reduce the flood risk in on ross common and the businesses that front along ross common unfortunately that did not go through, but that would have provided sort of a natural setting, a riparian corridor for, you know, more, it had many benefits, but it also had certain drawbacks as far as removing heritage trees and things like that. So it's kind of a balanced act that it's one of the reasons why I'm presenting this to council tonight is to give you a little bit more tools to be able to evaluate where the actual flood risks are City Council Chambers, and. City Council Chambers, Consider these projects as they come forward, you know what, what are you, what are you valuing flood risk or you're you know, keeping things as they are or or or whatever that's kind of the purpose of tonight's.

And Rich, is the town's policy of reducing or lessening the impact of imperviousness surfaces on development applications, is that part of this initiative?

Yes, very much so. That was the purpose of, you know, where... City Council Chambers, Where to start is the individual construction, so because I I I hear a lot I used to hear a lot when I first started working here, I said. City Council Chambers, You know my backyard floods, because that guy built, you know as big patio you know uphill for me and and you know that got me thinking that you know you got to start somewhere so reducing. City Council Chambers, impervious surfaces and and if you're going to increase them, then run them through something that by a buyer retention that allows it to filter back in. Those that's an important policy that that I was very happy that that council helped move that forward and

I was just going to say, you know, we know at some point we'll lose you. And I think I know we did delay the general plan update, but like we have the hillside lot ordinance and we I feel like we should have some sort of vision of how to restore or improve the creek as a sort of guiding principles. So these little measures, these measures are great, but I feel like that's something that is missing, which is the vision of what the creek should and can be City Council Chambers, If we restored it and we sort of tried to create policies that steer away from development around it and it's just a long term goal. City Council Chambers, And I appreciate you always bringing this up and helping us develop the drainage and really thinking about the flooding and here we are another atmospheric river is hitting. City Council Chambers, So I appreciate that I just hope at some point, we can create more of a sort of guiding light, the way that we're doing the climate plan, or you know the flood deserves the same site sort of attention.

City Council Chambers, And we also have the drainage master plan, yes. City Council Chambers, which the Council adopted three years ago is that correct.

City Council Chambers, Yes, the drainage master plan identifies several several locations of our existing infrastructure that's starting to fail and that's important for the. City Council Chambers, Both a nuisance flooding and keeping that again the floodwaters down at as the larger events come through so. City Council Chambers, All of that's very important.

Any other Council questions? Bill?

You were reminding me of all of our debates about whether to create a more natural channel in the Frederick Allen Park area, and the Council was concerned about what that would look like for quite a few years. It's not perfect now, but it is nice. But from my standpoint, I was also skeptical as to whether the flood district would actually do it or the county would actually do it. And here we are. 2026 is right around the corner, and the fish ladder is still there. So that skepticism may have been warranted. But it would certainly be nice to have a more natural channel, but then we get into a whole different series of issues.

Well, as somebody whose house did flood in 20, what, 2005 or something, I appreciate your presentation. And I think about all of the houses along Poplar, who are, many of them have been raised since that flood. And our house was very old. It was actually built above flood level. So that's one of the things that homeowners end up having to do. um it would be nice if it could all be natural but all of that land is populated with houses now so we thought about this maybe 200 years ago we might be able to do something about it okay public comment on this item

Gerald Page, good evening. I lived on Shady Lane for 16 years. In 1982, the school bus driver was afraid to cross the flooding Ross Creek. She turned around and dropped the children at my house, which remained dry and safe through that 1982 event, 39 Shady Lane. But the February 1986 serial storms poured about 14 inches of flood water into my house. The storm killed 13 people and had recorded damages of $400 million. I think 1986 definitely should be included in the Ross flood records. The Winship Bridge replacement is a standalone project and the town of Ross is responsible for mitigating any properties impacted by the subsequent increase in water surface elevation from removal of the bridge. My questions are, was a no-rise certification for replacement of the Winship Bridge filed? If so, has that no-rise certification been rescinded? If not, what is the current status of the no-rise certification for the replacement of the windship bridge and for what model? We know there are two modeling programs, 1D and the improved hybrid 1D, 2D technology. Does the 1D modeling currently being used for CLOMER and other permits include replacement of the windship bridge? January 8th, 2024, the Ross floodplain administrator asked the flood district about a potential maximum water surface rise of 3.9 feet, which is over 10 inches higher than the three feet currently being discussed as the discrepancy between the models. I ask, was that 46.8 inches validated? And if not, what is the highest validated water surface figure for the discrepancy between the hybrid model and FEMA's 1D? And where does this maximum rise occur? I am not restricting my question to the base flood elevation, BFE. I ask about water surface elevation, which covers six flood event designations, whereas BFE defines only one.

Thank you.

Good evening. Charles Goodman, 20 Sylvan Lane. Nice to see everyone. Just to clarify on Gerald's questions, there's this 1D that the FEMA is using, but there's this 2D that Stetson rich, everybody else knows about that has higher elevations. And it just doesn't make sense to me that we know that the water level is going to be higher. It's a fact. And yet we're going forward not complaining to FEMA that there's this difference in elevation. We know we're going to flood. I mean, that just is so elementary. We can ask for all of these facts, but it's just, it's really a simple question, knowing the difference between the 1D that FEMA is using and the 2D. Okay, so that's one issue. The second question I actually have is with the Bolinas bypass, how large is that pipe? Because I'm not sure what the size of it is. Is that something that you can answer? Is that? Okay, so I would like to know how big that is because that pipe is going in below the Winship Bridge. So that actually moves more water past my house. So what you're doing is you're transferring it from the Shady Lane side to the other side. And that's a valid question. Am I going to be flooding? The other point that I just want to make is I hope everybody understands when Rich talks about these two floodways, what the two floodways are is the old right-of-way, railroad right-of-way, that went from Ross, San Anselmo, Fairfax. And that, when they built the railroad, they built it up four feet above, five feet above everything else because they didn't want the trains to flood. Well, that railroad height is what separates the two floodways. And when you have these bridges, then that's where the water starts to come out. So that's why I'm living on Sylvan Lane, which was, that was the right of way, and that was built up. So the water that's on the Shady Lane side can't get back into the creek because the creek is built up higher on the other side of this railroad right of way. So that water's never gonna get back in, and that's why we have this separation coming down Poplar. Okay. And it doesn't get back in until back down into Kenfield. It's not Ross that it's getting back into. So I just want to make sure that that's understood. Okay. Thank you.

Anybody online? Cindy, with public comment.

There are no raised hands online, Mayor.

Rich, is there anything you want to respond to from the public comment?

Yes, Mary I can respond to a few of those items if I can remember them all We did have a consultant prepare a no-rise certification or analyze the no-rise condition for the Winship Bridge replacement a couple years back. Of course, we're not even in final design of the Winship Bridge. We're still in the NEPA phase. And then we need to go through the right-of-way certification. And then we can start getting into actual final design. So we did the no-rise, sort of a conditional no-rise that we design the channel underneath the windshield bridge and slightly upstream in a certain way, we were able to reduce the friction component of the flow to obtain a no rise just downstream of the windshield bridge. So our design engineers have those design parameters, and we're going to implement those design parameters into the final design, which God willing, will be sometime in 2026. Once we have that, then we can submit the actual no-rise certification, have the discussions with FEMA to get that reviewed. So once we have the plans, we'll provide the analysis and get that approved. And I'm confident that that will happen. Speaking to Charlie's questions, it's a 42 inch storm drain line that's going to be running down Sir Francis Drake and the water that currently empties through the flap gate under the Winship Bridge. That will remain, but we're going to supplement that outfall with enough with the 42 inch line that will empty any additional floodwaters into the quarter Madeira Creek just downstream of the Sir Francis Drake Bridge. So no, we're not, it's called, the no-no is called diverting watersheds, and that's not what we're doing. We're not diverting watersheds at all. Where the water would back up into Bolinas Boulevard before it could finally drain into the Corte Madera Creek at the Winship Bridge, well, that water is going to be allowed to flow out into the Corte Madera Creek, theoretically, at The, the beginning of a large storm event where you'll be able to lean us will actually drain before the main flood way of water that comes in from a big event even passes through the area. So there's no flooding impact due to the project that we're proposing. We did, as you know, mitigated negative deck. And that was circulated. And there were no comments on that. So that's the situation there. There's no hydraulic impact, only benefit for the Bolinas strain project. As far as the railroad right-of-way, yes, that is what divides, for the most part, the floodway in the channel with the floodway that comes down Shady Lane. However, if you look closely at the topography, topographic mapping of the area, the railroad grade, it comes to grade level with the St. Anselm's Church parking lot and the level of Sir Francis Drake right in that area after Bolinas Avenue. So that allows, you know, you no longer have that railroad grade berm that does, in fact, as Charlie mentioned, does exist all the way through San Anselmo. And then as you get closer to the San San Francis Drake Bridge, you do start seeing that that railroad grade keeping those two watersheds separate. But there is that zone right around the. That's saying that sounds parking lot where that flooding will cross over into Sir Francis Drake and right into the front yards of the 86 through 86 Sir Francis Drake all the way through 94 Sir Francis Jager. those four or five parcels there. So that's all been looked at. The topography has been looked at very closely for several years before I brought this presentation. I encourage people who are making comments and assumptions and that they look at the topography and look at the flow dynamics and they'll see that what I'm presenting here tonight is really the dynamics that happened there at the intersection of Bolinas and Sir Francis Drake.

So there's one more thing they keep bringing up over and over is the 1D versus 2D maps. Can you just comment a little bit about that?

Yeah. I did identify the differences in the 2D model with the 1D model several years back when the safer EIR was coming out. And my comments were there's areas where the 2D model is three, three and a half feet higher than the FEMA 1D model. Well, that's... It happens in a location in between Barber Avenue and the Winship Bridge. It varies between one and a half feet to three feet in that area. From what I can tell, it's how the 2D model handles the backwater effect on the Winship Bridge and how the FEMA model there's a lot less impact of the backwater on the FEMA model. So once you get past the Winship Bridge, the difference is maybe a foot, foot and a half. And then actually when you get down to Francis Drake Bridge, they flip where the 2D model is lower than the FEMA model by one or two feet. And then as you travel down towards the Lagunitas Bridge, they kind of converge and they're kind of the same. Mayor Mrakas, Another thing I was trying to highlight in my presentation is that the one D model. Mayor Mrakas, doesn't show how the waters sloshing back and forth between the two watersheds that's going to cause these these profile runs at their at their peak flow events to look different to be. City Council Chambers, it's a dynamic process that, quite frankly, is really difficult to pin down because you're also looking at how do the storms come in from the Pacific what's the timing. City Council Chambers, Of these hundred year cells is 100 yourself hitting up at whites hill or is 100 yourself hitting down at Kent field, how is that all happening it's it's so dynamic and and nebulous that to try to to try to manage. City Council Chambers, Effectively, your floodplain policy on on multiple models is really non productive it's why the female models, I believe, is quite effective for our purposes for flood insurance and identifying flood risk in the town. City Council Chambers, I can't comment anymore on the 2D model, because I don't know even know the status of that at this at this point, but my observations, a few years back when I made my comments. City Council Chambers, was one small part between winship and barber which doesn't there's no overbank it goes into people's backyards but it doesn't flood their homes it's really it's a. City Council Chambers, it's true, but it's not something that Oh flood risk, you know now i'm going to flood. City Council Chambers, I don't really I don't I can't wrap my head around how a different model increases flood risk. a different model will influence your floodplain policy and management, maybe. But what we're interested in is people who are building in Ross making sound choices as far as floodplain management and flood insurance. That's our primary goal. That's my primary goal as floodplain administrator. I'm working sort of the agent of the NFIP. It's not up to me to start to really pick what model is better and what model is worse. Mayor Mrakas, I need to we need to stick with what we have and let the process develop maybe where there'll be a new flood insurance study. Mayor Mrakas, That changes everything again and and throws everybody, you know more parcels into the special flood hazard area i'll get the new letter from FEMA says you now are in the special flood hazard area, you need to get flood insurance. Mayor Mrakas, I I saw that happen when I worked at the county in 2014 we put out hundreds of letters to people that you know. Things are changing. We did a new study and things are changing. We just need to wait and see how that shakes out.

Rich, I wonder if we could get a copy of your PowerPoint, the charts in your PowerPoint. Is that something we could circulate to the council or post on the website? Yeah. Great. Thank you.

I'm sorry, Charlie. We already brought it back, so I'm sorry.

An idea to follow up with Council Member Kirchherr's request is I think it's a fantastic presentation, and I learned a lot myself, and I'd like to figure out some way working with Cindy, who handles our website, too, of actually putting a video of you speaking on the website so we can refer to it. You know it's great hopefully we'll be able to do that with our current website, if not our new one.

So we were receiving a presentation we're not voting all right Thank you rich that was great.

I just I have one comment before we leave the item. I think that I first of all, thank you for putting this on the agenda and for your presentation. There's so many people who are just worried and scared about the flooding, the removal of the bridges, and the impact that it will have to their home. the more that we can sort of bring this to light i i could not agree more like just taking this one video and putting it on the website or putting these this information before the public but what i i'm hoping and maybe us in san anselmo or all of us along there is try to push the county to do more outreach in terms of like actually holding a session like this And when they came in for the clomer, I said that to them, because we see all we see all your emails, and I want you to know we read them, we see them, we know how concerned the public is. But this is a county project, at least building bridge two is, and they don't seem to have like a forum to sort of bring all of the people together for them. People are scared to even have people come to their house and have conversations. And it just seems like it's complicated and they can do a better job. So I know you worked at the county, Rich. I just think it would be a great thing that we either, I mean, even the council, we can write a letter and say, we encourage the county, we can talk to our supervisors to just create more City Council Chambers, of a forum for this information share and utilize experts like rich to try to educate and let the public know I don't I really don't believe there's any elected official that's trying to ruin people's homes and put them in danger. City Council Chambers, But somehow the message is getting lost, and so, whatever we can do as a Council to encourage the county. to create more of a forum, I think would be really helpful, because we just keep this issue just keeps coming and coming. And I don't see anybody feeling any more comfortable with what the county is trying to do.

And I think we should be really clear that the safer project is a county project, not a town project. So there is a flood zone nine meeting, I think it's November 20, maybe at at the county Board of Supervisors. City Council Chambers, So maybe some of us should go and and attend and listen and to the extent relevant, we could make comments to. City Council Chambers, Okay, thank you rich. City Council Chambers, Number 13. City Council Chambers, Which is town Council consideration to hold a public meeting second reading and adopt ordinance number 732. to amend Chapter 14.04 of the Ross Municipal Code and adopt the 2025 edition of the California Fire Code and 2024 International Fire Code with certain local amendments and additions. This ordinance was introduced at the regular council meeting on October 9, 2025. Roberta.

Good evening, Mayor McMillan and council members. I'm here tonight just to provide a brief overview of ordinance number 732, which proposes the adoption of the 2025 California Fire Code and 2024 International Fire Code with specific local amendments tailored to the town of Ross. This ordinance represents our ongoing commitment to public safety and fire prevention. The state of California updates its fire and building codes every three years, and local jurisdictions are given 180 days to adopt these standards with any local amendments based on the town's geology, climate, and topography. So as Rob had presented in the October meeting, there are really only three new amendments. And those are to increase the required vertical clearance over fire lanes to 15 feet. Delete exception number four to ensure reliable radio consistency or radio communication inside new commercial buildings. And then to adopt Appendix D, which establishes countywide consistency for development standards and emergency response requirements. So these amendments are not only consistent with the state law, but they also reflect the unique conditions in Ross, which necessitates a higher standard for fire safety. The ordinance is exempt from CEQA. And so tonight's action is to hold the public hearing, conduct the second reading and adopt ordinance number 732. And Chief Mahoney and Rob Bastianon with Ross Valley Fire are here tonight. They're happy to answer any questions at or expand on this brief introduction. Great.

Any further questions?

I have a question. You're clarifying the specific local amendments for Ross, and I don't think I quite understood what Dee referred to.

D is the fire apparatus access roads appendix D. So it defines and lays out the dimensions of turnarounds, widths of roads and other stuff. Most of these have already been in place for many years.

Is it different for Ross than other towns?

These are everybody throughout Marin County.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

With the vegetation management plan, how do you envision, is that something that a homeowner would, they hire a consultant to help them do? I'm just wondering how it works in practice when somebody has to put that together.

Vegetation management plans are not in the FHIR code, they'll be in the WUI code. OK, but if I can answer the question for you, if they're not capable of doing it, they would hire a professional, just like any design or construction of a residence. If they're not have the abilities to do it, they can always hire the professionals. I will walk through and we have a standard on our website on how to build these and we'll work with them to get it to meet requirements.

And is there are there any sort of like I mean, it's just something to think about, like online resources where there's like I don't know, already, you know, boilerplates or templates to help the community maybe put some of these items together.

Absolutely. Our standard has samples and shows diagrams, layout. Everything is built into that standard. It's about a six page document.

Okay. And do we have that on our site, Roberta?

So when applicants apply for any planning projects, we do refer them to the VMP website that Ross Valley Fire already has. And as Rob City Council Chambers, kind of summarize that gives what they need to submit and then provides an example of what exactly the vm P should include.

City Council Chambers, Okay, if I guess I know we're revamping our website that was one of the big goals. City Council Chambers, This would be great to include maybe those on our own website just telling people hey here vegetation management plan here you go boilerplate just to help people along the process.

I just want to add that actually a best practice is because if we start having duplication and then, you know, we are a member of the Ross Valley Fire Department and we depend on them to provide this. So really a best practice is to link to them because the last thing we want to have is we forget to update ours. And then, you know, so it's really just best to link to them. I mean, of course, we can.

you know promoted and make the link you know um highlighted and all that but they're the experts not town staff on on this topic so yeah oh no no i understand i i liked what we did with adus for example where you sort of created its own little portal with lots of resources however it links is fine i just a lot of these regulations and especially as we get into more um punitive Mayor Mrakas, issues that people don't have defensible space whatnot we want to make sure we have the resources for people that are like hey it's really easy to find and do these things. Mayor Mrakas, And so, and you don't need to hire a consultant like you can. Mayor Mrakas, find it on the website here's where you go so i'm just encouraging us what like we did I thought we did a very nice job with at us is any of these bigger initiatives as we move forward trying to create easy links or easy place to find how to get there.

Mayor Mrakas, Okay, any. Any public comment on this item? Anybody online? Public comment?

No, Mayor.

OK, great. So we can bring it back for a motion.

So I move we adopt Ordinance 732.

I'll second. Mayor McMillan? Aye. Councilmember Dowling? Aye. Councilmember Kircher?

Aye.

Councilmember Salter? Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Robbins. Aye. With a vote of five, the motion passes.

Moving on to agenda item number 14, addition of chapter 14.16 to the Ross Municipal Code, adoption of the 2025 edition of the California Wildland Urban Interface Code and the 2024 International Wildland Urban Interface Code with certain local amendments and additions. Roberta.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members. So tonight, this is just a brief intro on ordinance number 733, which proposes the addition of Chapter 14.16 to the Ross Municipal Code, formally adopting the 2025 California Wildland Urban Interface Code. and the 2024 International Wildland Urban Interface Code with specific amendments. So this ordinance is a critical step in strengthening our community's resilience to wildfires. It reflects both the evolving standards set by the California Building Standards Commission and is also unique to fire risks posed by Ross's climactic, geological, and topographical conditions. Rob can provide highlights to the ordinance, but essentially the formal adoption of the WUI code will consolidate fire safety provisions previously scattered across the fire building and residential codes and puts them into one WUI code. This ordinance is the result of a collaborative effort among Marin County fire prevention officers to ensure consistency across jurisdictions while allowing for local customization. It aligns with the town's previously adopted fire codes and builds upon the existing vegetation and defensible space regulations. um similarly the ordinance is exempt from sequa and so tonight's action is for the council to hold a public hearing conduct the second reading and adopt ordinance number 733 thank you for your continued leadership and safeguarding ross against wildfires and then chief mahoney and rob bashanon are both here for any questions questions on this second reading

I just want to say sorry, I was referring to this one in the last one, so apologies.

Any public comment on this item? Anybody online?

No raised hands online, Mayor.

Okay, great. We have a motion, please.

I move to adopt ordinance number 733. Is there a second? Second.

Thank you.

Mayor McMillan. Aye. Council Member Dowling. Aye. Council Member Kircher.

Aye.

Council Member Salter.

Aye.

Mayor Pro Tem Robbins.

Aye.

With a vote of five, the motion passes.

Thank you. Now we're going to agenda item number 15. Thank you both for being here.

Thank you all.

Good night. Thank you. Adoption of ordinance number 734, adopting certain parts of Title 24 Code of Regulations with local amendments and the International Property Maintenance Code with amendments. Roberta.

good evening council mayor mcmillan and council members so similarly to the other two ordinances you heard this in your or you introduced it in your october meeting this is ordinance number 734 which proposes the adoption of the 2025 california building standards code and the 2024 international property maintenance code with local amendments as part of our tri-annual code update process This ordinance ensures that Ross remains aligned with the latest state mandated construction and safety standards while tailoring specific provisions to our climate, geology and topography as permitted under health and safety code section seventeen nine five eight point seven. So some of the key components to this ordinance which are really updates to the building code, so what we're doing is repealing and reenacting the chapters 15.04 through 15.15. And 15.2 one of the Ross municipal code to incorporate the state code updates and local amendments we're adopting 12 parts of title 24 including building residential electrical mechanical plumbing. energy building green building historical building and existing building codes so local amendments that clarify permit exemptions defining substantial remodel strengthening the sprinkler requirements. For new and remodeled structures we're deleting Chapter nine from the building code to avoid duplication, so that it now defers to. Ross valley fire departments administration of the California fire code and then we're updating roof covering standards requiring class a fire retardant materials for all new and substantially altered roofs. Especially in the movie areas and then we're also expanding ev charging infrastructure requirements under cal green and stricter water efficiency standards under the plumbing code. These updates reflect changes made by the California building standards Commission, which was published in July 1 2025 and under state law, they become effective January 1. So we want to adopt this ordinance so that our local amendments would stand. And these were also developed in coordination with regional building and fire officials to ensure consistency and clarity. The ordinance is exempt from CEQA and tonight's action is to hold the public hearing, is to conduct the public hearing, hold the second reading and adopt ordinance number 734. Thank you again for your attention and continued support of safe, sustainable building practices in Ross.

So Roberta, I sent you an email from a resident that City Council Chambers, I assume we could talk tonight so that's fine, one of them, one of the issues he brought up was this issue are 309.4 on the sprinkler system that all the systems have to be electronically supervised by a listed fire control unit, can you talk about that one item.

So Rob could probably expand on this, but I did talk to him about that. What that does is when the sprinklers go off, it alerts Ross Valley Fire. That is because sometimes the fire, the sprinklers could be, you know, in a place where there's no one there and no one knows that these sprinklers are going off. So also it alerts them of the fire or anything that they would need to know about. But that's what that alarm system is.

And then the other issue was that was brought up by this resident was more of that things would trigger the over 50% construction that would require a lot more work to be done on any particular project.

I also talked to rob about that and that's been a county standard my understanding for several years now it's part of the substantial remodel definition, which is basically that if you're remodeling 50% of the structure that then requires sprinklers.

Yeah, I mean, it was kind of technical, but it was like, maybe you're redoing your roof, but that means you're doing your whole roof, it's now over 50%. And it seemed like there were some technicalities that would require if you're doing something else, that it would then require a complete redo. So I, again, I just forwarded you their comments. But I think we have to obviously be careful that we're We want to encourage residents to do work and to improve their properties, but they may not if they're if some things are going to trigger. A lot more work for them if they do it so it's a fine line and I don't know how we balance that, but this obviously the the points he was making in the email seemed valid.

May I ask, so Roberta, just as the other fire code and the WUI code updates, are these changes, are they in alignment with other Marin County cities?

Yes.

Okay. And so do you, Council Member Salter, want the Town of Ross to have lower standards than the rest of Marin?

City Council Chambers, I mean if it, yes, if every every law is well intentioned and then you don't know what how it's going to affect, so I think we want to encourage people to build and plan. City Council Chambers, Sometimes we have unintended consequences that if Oh, that means i'm gonna have to install sprinklers and my whole you know building i'm just not going to do it. City Council Chambers, So we there's just a balance to try to figure out the best way to encourage people to upgrade their their homes, but in a way that is cost effective. City Council Chambers, So, for example, those sprinklers it's very expensive to have to do this electronic part it's just another cost. City Council Chambers, So all these items require more and more costs that people may be wary of doing, and so they may not do them and then you end up with a lot of dis repaired homes. City Council Chambers, So it's just something to be cognizant of I understand that these are laws that came down and everyone's well intentioned but it's just we should also think for our own town what works best for us that may be different than other jurisdictions.

And rob did explain that one of the goals when this was adopted was to eventually get most of the structures with sprinklers because that's really the best way to protect. lives and property from fire. And so, you know, what I would say to that is there's always the opportunity for the homeowner to do less than the 50%, then they wouldn't be required to do the sprinklers. But, you know, that's each case.

So it's actually serving to make our community safer.

Yeah.

Okay. If you did 50% and then did another 50% a few years later, does that, trigger anything? I mean, is there like a time limit?

I'm not sure how that part works.

And for the sprinklers, is there still a problem with the water department that if you put in sprinklers, you need, wasn't this like a bigger valve that you had to have from the water district that cost more money solely because of the sprinklers?

Do you remember that? And is that still a problem? I don't know if it's still a problem, but part of the fire plan review process is to see if there's enough water capacity for the sprinklers. They write an extensive comment letter during the plan review and if they need to upgrade their water supply, Ross Valley Fire includes that in their comments.

That was my understanding that everyone had to upgrade even if they didn't use much water because the sprinklers required more and then they were being charged more.

i mean that would but you want to make sure the sprinklers work if you have them right so you need enough water coming through to make this i think the solution would be that the water district shouldn't charge you for that upgrade you know because you're not really using the water yeah that's a good idea all right any um public comment on this item no one online mayor Who is online? Who is that person?

Oh, my apologies. Hi, Greg. So Greg McFann is our CSG contract building official. If anyone has any technical building code questions, Greg can respond. My apologies, Greg.

Thank you, Roberta. Thank you for being here. I don't think we have any questions. Can we bring it back then for a motion?

Okay. So, you know, Elizabeth and I met with this resident who, you know, has a property that's, I mean, it's a teardown. And he, it was an interesting discussion, and I just wanted to share it with you, my colleagues, that they, you know, he said, I want to redo this. It's in the town's best interest to sort of take this, it's like a shack, and try to repair it. Mayor Mrakas, But when he went to do it, he hired a contractor and started to do the work and then he was red tagged because he didn't get the permits. Mayor Mrakas, And which I said yeah well you know you need to get permits, you know that's just part of being in a town. Mayor Mrakas, But he said what he came back with, and this is just helpful for for Greg to know or just maybe the. Mayor Mrakas, The sort of list and he was a little bit lost in trying to answer the questions and he really didn't want to hire a lot of consultants. Mayor Mrakas, And and that's why I was bringing up the website issue as well as like if we know more resources, we can make but. Mayor Mrakas, The his point was, which I think is just worth bringing up to all of us is it's in the town's interest for him to do this work because it's it's it's just a dilapidated horrible structure sitting there. And we brought up hill guard as another one of those homes that sort of like in a really bad place. But he said, you know if I have to go and he was talking about all the money he's already spent. Just in design review, and you know, trying to hire consultants and do all this, that it just he's just like i'm not going to do it i'm just not gonna do the work. Mayor Mrakas, And it's sort of this catch 22 and I hadn't thought of this before, so I thought it was really helpful to hear him. Mayor Mrakas, Because I think a lot of times the projects that come before us people have huge budgets and the really big projects normally. Mayor Mrakas, But there may be residents that just don't have those sort of resources, but we still want to encourage them. to do the improvements. So I thought it was useful. Maybe Elizabeth has some comments. But it's just something to think about as we're balancing. And I know, Roberta, we talked about when the general plan was going to be redone, some list of items to try to make things easier, quicker, easy fixes, things design review keeps bringing back. But we should always be thinking about ways to make the process quicker, cheaper, and easier for the public. and this was just a reminder of of that need so i i will support them you know what's on today i just think it's something we should all think about and we have a little small town so we're lucky we don't have to do what everyone else does we can choose to do things differently if we want thank you

I would just hate to have double standards, you know, for people who can't afford it. Well, just you don't have to actually comply with all the rules. But for those who do have the money, well, then you really do have to comply with those rules. I worry about having a double standard. I think it's a good idea to have a standard. And I think that the building department can work with a resident to try to figure out what can be done within that code that's going to allow them to increase the value of their property, make it more livable, but still stay within the code.

You know, I don't think that he was asking for a double standard. It's just that... the complexities of trying to remodel something are overwhelming. And he certainly erred in not getting permits, and it's certainly important to meet code standards for safety. But looking at the hoops that he was jumping through, it was an eye-opener. Building in Ross is not for the weak, the faint of heart. It's an overwhelming process. So I agree if it can be simplified or less expensive, great. But I think we all agree that there have to be code standards and it has to be clear and it has to be the same standard for everybody.

City Council Chambers, And i'll just say when we did our remodel and that was long, long time ago, it was amazing all the stuff that we had to do. City Council Chambers, And I think we need to encourage people before they buy their property before they start on their remodel they need to have a thorough understanding. City Council Chambers, of what's going to be entailed and if that means meeting with Roberta going on the website, or you know, having a list of questions before they embark, they need to do their due diligence, because. You know, it is expensive, it is cumbersome. We're trying to make things better and safer, and everyone does need to follow the same rules. So it's really difficult when you've already purchased, you're in the middle of your project, and you're realizing all these things that need to be done. I can totally relate to that.

I would just add that my wife and I put an ADU in. to an existing space underneath our garage, we have a hillside property, and we were talking to the architect about it, and I had a figure in mind, and he said, no, it's going to be twice that. Well, it was five times that, okay? And by the time we got through dealing with everybody, and they just kept appearing, I mean, the fire department, And they wanted this and that. And then we hear from Marin Sanitary. What are you doing here? Well, you're putting in a toilet. We've got to scope all your lines. And I said, well, this house was remodeled in 2002. Aha, it's been 20 years. You've got to scope them. Well, you know, so we're scoping the antenna. We finally get the sprinkler system in. And they said, where's your alarm? I said, what do you mean? Well, you've got to have an alarm for the sprinkler system. We already have an alarm in our house. We have a sprinkler system. We need another alarm. OK, well, it's got to be monitored. OK, bay alarm, can you do it? No. So we need another alarm company. So we put it all in. And then we hear from the town that, well, you've got to have your backflow preventer checked every year and said, what's a backflow preventer? Because we had to put in a new water main. Oh yeah, we're in water. Give us $30,000. You need a new meter, you need a new main, all that. That's going to cost $30,000? Well, we'll refund whatever we don't use. I'm serious. This actually happened. So it's not for the faint of heart. And I absolutely agree. Don't even start on this until you understand all of it, not just Ross. It's not just Ross. It's the fire district. It's the rent sanitary, the water district. Everybody's got a role to play in this, and they're not all talking to each other. And they did talk to us eventually. But as I said, we kept finding out about things. And if we had known how much it would cost, I don't think we would have done it.

Maybe we'll add this as some guiding idea of what can we what what can we do to make the the process better I think that that would just be a goal nobody I'm not saying we don't do these it's like letting people know guess what you're doing just an ADU but these are all the different departments you're going to have to talk to and maybe you could just be part of when we're thinking about the big website redo but I think we we can do a better job of helping our residents understand the complexities

and what they may not be thinking about when they're embarking on this project on their project roberta doesn't the staff help out when people are going to do a remodel and sort of walk them through what the steps are so um yes but so what um council member kircher just outlined i think is fairly common only because It's not just town staff, right? It's Marin water. It's, you know, other agencies that have their requirements. So while we tell them, while we tell applicants that sometimes they're not necessarily connecting or wrapping it all together and understanding the extensive process, but it is an extensive process. Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you. Okay. So I think we need a motion to adopt. Ordinance 734. So moved. Oh, second.

You're moving. I move to adopt ordinance number 734.

Second.

Mayor McMillan? Aye. Council Member Dowling? Aye. Council Member Kircher?

Aye.

Council Member Salter?

Aye.

Mayor Pro Tem Robbins? Aye. With a vote of five, the motion passes.

Thank you. Thank you, Roberta. That is the end of the administrative agenda. No planning matters. Moving on to 16, council correspondence. I just wanted to share this really sweet thank you that we received from Alice Reeve about her 100th birthday. We gave her a water bottle. and we had a little note in the Ross review and she really appreciated it. Any other council correspondence? Future council items?

So I have two. The first is regarding Marin Clean Energy. I would like us to have an agenda item to discuss it because it's been such a big issue. And the reason I want us to talk as our own council outside of Marin Clean Energy is the way the JPA is written, everybody who moves to town is opted in automatically into Marin Clean Energy. They don't have a choice. And so many people aren't even aware that they're a member of MC and the the serious issues that have been discovered on the CEOs behavior and financial picture is very, very bleak. So I think we should have just some time to talk about how we can deal with that, whether that is having our town attorney just look at other options to not. I think the issue I want us to talk about is, can we not make people be opted in automatically or can they have a choice. of choosing at the time that they're starting their service I think that's something until the issues are resolved over there that's something we we should do and talk about on behalf of our residents.

Is anyone else having that issue on our agenda.

Does it have to be an agenda item to give people a choice? That seems like people should have a choice.

They don't have a choice. So the agenda item is to talk about what we can do.

They have a choice of opting out. It's just that you're automatically in. I think MC actually paused it because they couldn't get enough clean energy to even meet their goal.

No, no, no. You are automatically, no, you are automatically opted into light green. They can't do deep green, but you, they don't even know when they sign up. So I think we, I think we owe it to our, I mean, we had someone come and speak tonight. I mean, we owe it to the residents to discuss what we can do.

my view is that bill is our liaison to mce and bill is representing us and it sounds like the board is having a discussion about a lot of these issues that you're raising that next week so i think i would rather wait and have bill come back after that meeting and give us a report and then we can revisit that makes sense to me that makes sense i think that's so let's talk next month i mean i'm not opposed to the idea of

If Ross can give people a choice, I think that would be fine. But I'm okay to wait to talk about it just in the next month after we hear how the meeting goes. But I do think it would be helpful. I mean, I don't know that it has to be on next month because the decision about the finance committee will have been made. But I do think next month we should talk about putting some City Council Chambers, topic, and I mean that may be the only topic is that the only topic for mcv mc the opt in or an opt or opt out or you proposing that the Council talks about other issues, I mean it was just to.

City Council Chambers, provide the opportunity to talk about it, because we can't we're not allowed to talk really outside of here so. City Council Chambers, It could be to. Mayor Mrakas, opt in or opt out, it could be do we want to be a part of this jpa what do we want to do for our town. Mayor Mrakas, So i'm fine deferring it, I mean it does it just because we again, we have a long list of things that have to go on agendas it's not like it would come up next month. Mayor Mrakas, But providing the space for us to talk and the public to provide comment on on what has become an explosive issue in our county so I just want to provide that space.

Let's see what happens at the next meeting, but also there's a larger issue of restructuring MCE because of the idea that this 34-member board is unwieldy, which, frankly, I do agree with that. Dick Spotswood pointed that out. I mean, these meetings are very long. I guess I'm getting, okay, I'm sorry.

I think there's, I know, that's why we should have the item.

Yeah, but see, that's kind of down the road a bit. I think finance committee is first. Let's get something on that. And if there's a larger conversation developing, then maybe we can agendize it then.

So maybe bring it up next.

Maybe bring it up in December as an item. I just think it's premature to start.

I also worry about what kind of a staff report we would have by having this on our agenda when we have this, you know, we're a member of a JPA and they have their own governing body and committees and I'm really reluctant to start second guessing. It's kind of a slippery slope where we would be doing transportation.

Isn't it more as a council that we would direct Bill as a representative? Not that we are going to decide what MCE should be doing because we're not MCE.

I don't think we've ever had a direction to a JPA member based on council input. I'm not sure we've ever done that.

So it sounds like there's a lot to talk about. Let's just I'll hold it. Let's just hold it to next month. I think there's obviously a lot of discussion here, which is great. So let's just hear how it goes. But it sounds like there's a lot of options. We just think what I'm saying is we're a member of the JPA. We have a right to decide what we want for our town, whether it's being a part of the JPA, not being part of the JPA, making recommendations to the JPA as a member body.

I just want to say that I'm grateful that Bill represents us on this committee and that he'll bring the information back to us at the next meeting. There's a place on the agenda where you report out if you're representing Ross on a committee. So we'll hear next month.

Oh, yeah, this second item is is a follow up on. We changed the date of our elections. But we never talked about the procedures manual on when the mayorship is changing and how that rotates through. We created that as a separate. So I'd like an agenda item to just settle that what the I believe that we talked about it being referred to the government committee to come up with a plan.

All right. Well, I actually think the procedures manual doesn't need to change because this is just a one-time thing. It's never going to happen again. And I don't know if that means we need to discuss it or if you and Elizabeth can come up with a recommendation and then we can discuss it. Maybe that's the way to do it because it's a one-time thing.

I mean, we did discuss it at a meeting when you proposed... the election change, and I had said that I thought no one should be mayor for more than a year, and that we should change mid-year. And I think the discussion was, well, then let's talk later about should that happen. So I guess we should talk later, because it wouldn't really be, I guess it's not really the procedures manual, because it will be yearly come November.

Yeah, I think the manual says one-year term, so...

I mean the discussion before, I think we'd said Or I suggested, well, if you're mayor for if no one should be mayor for more than a year, and we switch after a year, if that meant that I would come in, and when I run again, if I'm elected, I would step down and do less than a year. That was the framework.

So excuse me, um, I you know, you can't really talk about this. So Matt Salter has asked for this. Is there support for that to put it on a future agenda by another council member?

Yeah, I would support

Okay, thanks. I think it might behoove us to look at how other jurisdictions have done this when they have changed their election time as well. Anybody else with any agenda items? Today I was gonna sit at the post office, but it was raining, so I will do December. If anyone would like to join me. Thank you, Terry. Meeting evaluation?

No, not much to say. Councillor Hutchison, good meeting. Councillor Hutchison, good meeting.

Councillor Hutchison, good meeting. Councillor Hutchison, good meeting. Councillor Hutchison, good meeting. Councillor Hutchison, good meeting. Councillor Hutchison, good meeting.

Councillor Hutchison, good meeting.

Councillor Hutchison, good meeting. Councillor Hutchison, good meeting.

Councillor Hutchison, good meeting. Councillor Hutchison, good meeting. Councillor Hutchison, good meeting. Councillor Hutchison, good meeting. Councillor Hutchison, good meeting. Councillor Hutchison, good meeting. Councillor Hutchison, good meeting. Councillor Hutchison, good meeting. Councillor Hutchison, good meeting. Councillor Hutchison, good meeting.

Councillor Hutchison, good meeting.

Councillor Hutchison, good meeting. Councillor Hutchison, good meeting. Councillor Hutchison, good meeting. Councillor Hutchison, good meeting. Councillor Hutchison, good meeting. Councillor Hutchison, good meeting. Councillor Hutchison, good meeting.

Councillor Hutchison, good meeting. Councillor Hutchison, good meeting.

Councillor Hutchison, good meeting. Okay. Well, we're adjourned then. Thank you.