City Council - Regular Meeting

We ready? All right. Fantastic. Welcome, everyone. Today is Monday, June 1st. This is a regular meeting at the San Rafael City Council. Request the city clerk to call the roll. Council Member Bushey. Present. Council Member Hill. Present. Vice Mayor Kurtz. Present. Council Member Yarenz-Gladi. Present. Mayor Cate. Present, thank you. Good evening everyone and welcome and thank you for joining us tonight whether you're here in the council chambers or watching online. We appreciate your participation and engagement in the community. We also appreciate those who came out to participate in the pride flag raising that we just held prior to this meeting. Before we begin or at the start of every meeting, I'd like to thank our city employees. Every day, across every department, they work hard to serve our community and to keep San Rafael running so smoothly. Tonight, we have the opportunity to recognize the Q1 employee and team of the quarter whose work reflects the very best of public service. They already know this because they were honored two weeks ago. Our employee of the quarter is Lynette Starnes. She's a community service officer with the San Rafael Police Department. Lynette has dedicated more than 30 years to the city of San Rafael and has spent over 15 years coordinating training for the police department. Her work ensures that employees receive the training they need to serve our community, while also being a thoughtful steward of public resources. Colleagues describe her as knowledgeable, approachable, and deeply committed to helping others succeed. Congratulations Lynette, and thank you for your outstanding service to San Rafael. In addition, we honored our team of the quarter, and that is the San Rafael Police Communications Dispatcher Team. It's supervised by Alexis Nielsen and includes Lead Communications Dispatcher Liz Pez, along with Anna Fulgado, Saskia Van Buren, Natasha Kennerly, Miranda Martinez, Caitlin Copenhaver, Paige Graham, Vanessa Carrillo, Marissa Carney, Laurie Hendricks, Peggy Rouge, Andora Lee, and Charles Taylor. This team serves as a critical link between the public and our first responders. It's a team and the people that you talk to when and if you need to call 911. They handle emergencies with professionalism, calm, and precision. They support one another, adapt to changing circumstances, and help ensure that our officers and emergency personnel can respond safely and effectively when needed. Their work is often unseen, but its impact is felt every day throughout San Rafael. Congratulations to the entire communications dispatcher team, and thank you for your essential role you play in keeping our community safe. Moving on, reminder that tomorrow is the last day to vote in the June election. Be sure to turn in your ballot if you haven't already, as our democracy depends on citizen participation. We'd like to include as part of the opening a land acknowledgement. This statement compliments the ongoing collaboration of work we do with the tribe. We thank the original caretakers of this land. San Rafael is traditionally home to the Coast Miwok people, many of whom today are tribal citizens of the Federated Indians of Great and Rancheria. And we honor their continuing involvement in stewardship practices that benefit us all. Thank you all for being here. We have a packed agenda. And I'll turn it over to the city clerk to share how the public can participate in tonight's meeting.

Thank you, Mayor Kate. Before we begin, I'd like to announce that tonight's meeting will include Spanish language simultaneous and consecutive interpretation provided by qualified certified interpreters for agenda item 4A related to sea level rise feasibility study. If you're watching on Zoom, you can join the Spanish channel. by clicking the interpretation icon on the toolbar. And if you're attending in person and you don't have access to Zoom meeting from your phone, you can come see me and I can get you set up with our translation devices. As a reminder, we ask that everyone participating tonight for that agenda item, and I'll make a reminder again before the sea level rise item to speak slowly so that our interpreters can effectively express your comments. Tonight's meeting is being recorded and streamed live to YouTube for members of the public. Wishing to provide public comments displayed on the podium and the projector is a timer to help you stay within your two-minute time frame. You're invited, though not required, to introduce yourself and say what part of Centerfell you're in or if you're from outside of Centerfell. We also offer closed captioning for this meeting on Zoom. You can select the live transcript button on Zoom to enable that feature, and viewers may request a reasonable accommodation to provide public comments virtually. For more information about that or if you're experiencing any technical difficulties, you can email me at city.clerk at cityofcenterfell.org. Thank you.

Thank you. We have two opportunities for open time for public expression. We have 10 minutes at the beginning of the meeting and then all the time that's needed at the very end of the meeting. A few folks have provided comment cards. I won't be able to get through all of these because it is 10 minutes worth, but we'll go ahead and get through the few or five of them that we can. So Claire Taylor, if you'd like to provide comments, and again, this is any comment, Any comments on topics not on tonight's agenda? If it's on an agenda item, we prefer that you hold it till that item. Go ahead.

I'm here to speak on the proposed lighting on Starkweather Path.

Based on, and I am Claire Taylor, thank you, from Spinnaker Point.

Based on the lighting survey results, the message from our community is clear. San Rafael residents overwhelmingly value the preservation of a natural shoreline over unnecessary artificial lighting. Most residents use the path during daylight hours for nature and exercise, with many stating that adding lights would not change their usage. IN OTHER WORDS, THERE IS NO PUBLIC BENEFIT TO JUSTIFY THE FINANCIAL AND ECOLOGICAL COST. WE DO SUPPORT THE CANAL NEIGHBORHOOD ACTIVE TRANSPORTATION LIGHTING PROJECT OVERALL. OUR CONCERN SPECIFICALLY IS WITH THE PROPOSED LIGHTING ALONG THE JEAN AND JOHN STARKWEATHER SHORELINE PARK. We are urging the City Council to approve the exclusion of the Starkweather Shoreline Park segment from the proposed lighting plan. The Starkweather Shoreline Park is officially closed from sunset to sunrise, and the city has indicated that it has no plans to change that policy. ADDITIONALLY, RESIDENTS ARE DEEPLY CONCERNED THAT THE PROPOSED LIGHTING FOR A VARIETY OF REASONS. PERMANENT NIGHTTIME LIGHTING DOES NOT PROVIDE A DEMONSTRATED PUBLIC SAFETY BENEFIT AND INSTEAD INTRODUCES SUBSTANTIAL ENVIRONMENTAL AND COMMUNITY IMPACTS, INCLUDING Conflict with the 1989 master plan goal to protect, maintain, and support the existing diversity of wildlife habitats and species native to San Francisco Bay. Negative impact to an ecologically sensitive shoreline that is home to two federally protected threatened species. Thank you, if you could wrap up.

If you could wrap up so there's time for others to speak.

There is no permit from the Bay Conservation BCDC. There hasn't been adequate and meaningful opportunity for comments from those directly impacted. And as of today, more than 260 people have signed a proposal to oppose.

OK. Susan Levine. And then after Susan. Mayor Cory Sias and then Reba Rivas.

Good evening, Mayor Cullen and members of the City Council. My name is Susan Levine and I live in Bay Point Lagoons. As our elected leaders, you often speak about collaboration, transparency, and inclusion. We share those values and strive to be responsible residents and stewards of our community. IN RETURN, WE HOPE TO SEE THOSE SAME PRINCIPLES REFLECTED IN CITY DECISION MAKING. UNFORTUNATELY, MANY RESIDENTS DIRECTLY AFFECTED BY THE PROPOSED DARK WEATHER PATH LIGHTING HAVE NOT FELT INCLUDED IN THE PROCESS THAT BEGAN IN 2022. Instead, we have found ourselves struggling to obtain clear answers and meaningful participation in decisions that will affect our neighborhoods, our environment, and our quality of life. As a result, residents have had to spend countless hours organizing, conducting outreach, researching impacts, and identifying alternatives, all in an effort to have our voices heard and to challenge assumptions that make no sense. we do not want to be in an adversarial position with the city yet we feel compelled to advocate not only for ourselves but also for the wildlife that will permanently be affected by this decision we have yet to see evidence demonstrating a need for permanent lighting along a special use shoreline path that is closed at night at the same time the city's own survey found that the path is used primarily for recreation walking and enjoying nature AND THAT RESPONDENTS ACROSS ALL NEIGHBORHOODS EXPRESS CONCERN ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS FROM LIGHTING. I WANT TO EMPHASIZE THAT WE SUPPORT THE CANAL NEIGHBORHOOD ACTIVE TRANSPORTATION LIGHTING PROJECT. OUR REQUEST IS SIMPLY THAT THE LIGHTING COMPONENT PROPOSED FOR THE STARK WEATHER PATH BE REMOVED. PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO FULLY EVALUATE THE ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES AND CONSIDER LESS INTRUSIVE SOLUTIONS BEFORE MAKING A DECISION THAT WILL PERMANENTLY Corey Sias.

Good evening, I'm Corey Sias and I live on Bedford Cove in Spinnaker. This is about, obviously, the lighting on the Starkweather Path. I like it on record that I wholeheartedly support more lighting in the Canal District because there are human beings that live there and operate there for 24-7. On the other hand, I'm definitely opposed to lighting on the Starkweather Path. Others are stating environmental issues that are affecting this, and I support that, but I also address another issue here. We've been told that this lighting is to make that path safer at night. I am unclear as to why the path is not safe now, and this is why. I've lived in my house for almost 30 years on Bedford Cove facing the path. Katie knows it. You've been to my house. I can clearly count on one hand the number of incidents that have taken place on that path at night. Clearly, I must be correct because I've asked the city twice to send me any evidence of incidents that have happened in the last 30 years on that path at night, and I have not received any response, so I'm going to assume that there aren't any incidents that happen at night on that path. Also, the residents in Spinnaker and in Bay Point have met numerous times with the city to discuss issues that we have. And parking and speeding and algae in the lagoon have come up. Never has anybody in our communities expressed concerns about the safety of the path at night and asking to have lighting added. Never. And trust me, if they were upset, they would tell you, right? So anyway, so why haven't there been major safety issues on this path? Because I don't think there are. The first is the path, Starkweather Path is, by city ordinance, is blocked from public use from dusk to dawn. There's no one there. And also the reason why is because there are no lights there. We're not inviting people to walk on that path. So if lighting was installed, it would basically attract people to walk on the path and it could cause a lot of unnecessary problems and safety issues, which we don't have right now. So I close by asking you to please take the money you were going to invest in this wasteful project and instead invest in better infrastructure in the canal. We don't need this lighting. Thank you. Reva Revis.

And then after Reva will be Mark Fellows, and that will conclude then the open time at the beginning of the meeting. Go ahead.

Good evening, my name is Reva Revis, and I live in Spinnaker Point on Hingham Cove. Good evening, mayor, council, members, and city staff. I'm a new resident and homeowner in Spinnaker Point. I recently relocated here from Los Angeles with my husband and college-aged daughter. We specifically chose San Rafael because of Marin's longstanding reputation for prioritizing the environment and wildlife. I invested in a home where I believe this community takes immense pride in preserving its natural beauty, a contrast to what I left behind in Los Angeles. I was shocked to learn that there are not one but two major projects proposed that would drastically alter the Starkweather path. at what point do we acknowledge that these almost simultaneous projects, the lighting and the art project, are simply too much for a sensitive habitat? There has been a claim that the lights are a transportation necessity, particularly for our neighbors in the canal. However, your own survey results tell a different story. The top two reasons that canal residents use the path are recreation and enjoying nature, the exact same primary reasons cited by other neighborhoods. And the claim that residents are routinely walking from Target after 10 p.m. is not supported by the data as well. This is a passive use park that is officially closed after dark, something that other speakers here tonight have talked about. And adding permanent lighting that's gone all night long is going to impact people and then also threaten species. Artificial light is not neutral. It disrupts the very wildlife cycles that make the shoreline special. Thank you.

And Mark Fallows.

Hi, good evening. I'm Mayor Kate and the members of the Council. My name's Mark Fellows and I'm a San Rafael resident living near, on obviously the Starkweather Path on Bedford Cove, facing it. First of all, thank you to the Council. It's done really great work strengthening the city's infrastructure. We've attended a lot of meetings, we've heard what you're doing and really supportive of most of it. It's making a place more liveable and it doesn't go unnoticed. But that's exactly why I'm here tonight. because we believe that the same care should go in to guide the decisions on the lighting of the path that you can already I'm not going to repeat what everyone else has said but I'll be direct the neighbours really do have deep concerns and we spent a lot of time organising and planning and to try and work with you to find a better solution and a better use of the the funds that you've raised through the grants as you know the path runs along the marsh as you all know it is a critical habitat Your own interpretive signage celebrates that fact, that the shorebird populations are in deep decline and decades of research show that artificial light does have an impact on these species. So the one thing we just can't reconcile is that you've got Grant, you've got municipal code section 1920-090 that says it's closed from sunset to sunrise. But installing the lights would be against your own ordinance, and no one's permitted to use it after dark, so why would you be spending this grant money to illuminate a sensitive environment? So before you move forward, I respectfully ask you to answer two questions. One, was the US Fish and Wildlife Service consulted on this? And two, why was the environmental review under CEQA given specifically for this to assess the nighttime lighting on the path and its impact on this critical habitat exempted. Why? When there's very clear directions around it. So we just want answers on that. No one's given us answers. So if you could kindly give us that. And we've also got a ton of really enthusiastic creative people in the community that want to help with things like the parking. I've got a meeting with someone on that tomorrow. And I had a meeting today about homelessness and people want to help. This is called participative democracy. Thank you.

Thank you. So as it's item that's not agendized, there's no direct answering to the questions, but do email and we will follow up. And I'm hoping you all stay because sea level rise is on our agenda this evening, and many of you are in a neighborhood that would be impacted. So hopefully you'll be able to stay for that. We will continue public expression to the end of the meeting. If you had something else you wanted to add, we will pick that up at the end. Now we'll move along to the city manager and council member reports. I'll turn to interim city manager Paul Navazio.

Great. Thank you, Madam Mayor, members of the council, and the public. The mayor already highlighted tomorrow being election day. Just a reminder that voting centers are open until 8 p.m. tomorrow evening. I urge everybody eligible to turn out and vote. The city is also currently conducting a survey seeking broad community input on the new Albert Park Library and Community Center, and the survey is accessible through the city website, so we encourage folks to provide their feedback via the survey. I also ask to highlight the Terralinda Pool is open for the season and season passes are now available that will cover use of the facility through the middle of September. And residents are also encouraged to visit the website for more information regarding some of the amazing programming and special events held at the Terralinda Pool. I want to highlight one. event, in particular, a week from today, Monday, June 8th, is on a quarterly basis, the Seeds of Hope Luncheon will be taking place at Albert Borough Community Center. This is held roughly quarterly, but it brings together over 20 support service providers that provide assistance to those experiencing homelessness. And so we want to just encourage both folks that may be in need as well as community members to learn more about the services being provided and how to access them. There are probably too many upcoming council subcommittee and advisory committee meetings to mention over the next two weeks. I will note that This Thursday, the City Council will be conducting a part two of its study session on housing, both on affordable housing and some of the housing policy. This follows up on an earlier study session that was held, I believe, in February, and we'll be continuing that this Thursday starting here at 5 p.m. And I think I'll leave it at that. Otherwise, I'll be excluding other meetings. Thank you.

Thank you so much. I'll turn to my colleagues. Vice Mayor Kurtz, any report out?

Just have two items. We had the Homeless Subcommittee that Mayor Kate and I chaired and participated in the Priority Services Setting Committee with the county. We had reviewed that information here at the council, and then it goes back to the full group for additional allocations for other different programs across the county. That's it. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Bushy.

Thank you. Last week I attended the meeting of the Central Marin Sanitation Agency. It was a special meeting. The narrow topic was the budget, a slight budget adjustment, but the more important part was a closed session regarding some anticipated litigation. Well, I can't go into the details. We gave direction to our general counsel and we are hopeful for an amicable resolution of the matter. Next, on Tuesday, I was delighted to substitute for the mayor at the Transportation Authority of Marin. That meeting was very celebratory. The Crossing Guard of the Year was present, was honored, and we also honored Gwen Froh and Wendy Callens, who are very active in the Safe Routes schools. They are retiring from that role. And the rest of the meeting was largely routine budgetary matters, although there are several opportunities for funding for the city that I'm sure our public works program is very well informed about. And then this morning was the Marin Transit Authority. Along with Council Member Lorenz-Gaudi, we met this morning and that meeting meeting had two items that were very important to San Rafael. The first is the adoption of the budget for this upcoming fiscal year. It's being described as being an inflection point. It's the first time that the budget is balanced by digging into the reserves. It is anticipated that there will be further budgetary actions required in the future to balance the budget and that there is a looming fiscal cliff, as they're describing. In addition, the primary bus provider for Marin Transit, Golden Gate Transit, they contract with Marin Transit to provide the local bus service. It is expected that that contract will be experiencing cost increases which will further exacerbate this, the budgetary issues at Marin Transit. Leading to a question that many have been asking is, Why do we have two fixed route bus service providers in Marin County? So perhaps there will be some efficiency proposals coming forward regarding those two. The other significant item on the agenda for San Rafael was we adopted the design contract for 1075 Francisco Boulevard East. The important component of that is that surcharging the site is scheduled to start later this month. That's truckloads of dirt being brought in. There are many, many truckloads coming. They are working with our public works program to get their permits and to be organized, but there will be a lot of truck traffic in that neighborhood as part of that surcharging of that site, which is going to be happening over the summer.

That's it. Thank you. Council Member Urens Gulati.

Yes, thank you. And I will follow up, add to the meeting that we attended this morning. The new design firm is incorporating the mid-design phase parallel to the engagement with the community. So that phase is going to go until like fall. So we just want to make sure that that the community is really involved with all the design that is going to happen for the building. So thank you for the other part of the update. Thank you so much. I attended on May 21st the MC Clean Energy Board meeting. I represent the city of San Rafael. It was highlighted some of the achievements in energy efficiency, affordability programs, and the community outreach. including a campaign called Spring Good Energy Campaign and Earth Month events. And today we had, at noon, we had the MC Executive Committee meeting, and we were going through some of the website and how to find people all the board meetings that they are happening and all the different committees. So if you go to mcecleanenergy.org forward slash board dash meetings, you can find when the meetings are going to happen and also all the archive, including videos, which I find very, very useful in terms to be transparent with the community. Also today, there's going to be right now two opportunities for engagement around procurement. The first one is going to be on June 24th from 4.30 to 6.30 and the second one is going to be on July 1st from 4.30 to 5.30 and there's going to be more opportunities in the near future but these are two that they are almost confirmed for people that they can participate. Okay, I'm jumping a little bit, let's see. I attended on May 28th the Canal Promise Neighborhood Steering Committee meeting, and this is a collective effort of residents, schools, nonprofits, businesses, and local government working together to ensure that every child in the canal is on a path to economic mobility and thrives from cradle to career. So right now the team is focusing on college and career readiness and also on early learning development. So it's really nice to see so many people involved trying to elevate our youth and the families in the canal. On May 29, I attended the Marine Sea Level Rise Bay Wave Committee meeting. This is the county coming together, bringing all the different municipalities to talk about sea level rise. And they introduced the new Chief Climate Officer, Dr. Nadia Sitaram. And we also had different updates, including some of the Bayside applications for municipalities and the coastal application for the county. But one of the exciting parts is that there is a resilience district incubator between a grant that we have received between the city, the county, and Coastal Quest. This is not a monetary grant, but only a few communities were selected, and we were one of them, and they provide technical assistance. So I'm sure that our expert between Coralville, Bitov and Kate Hageman, we have our next C-Level Rights Subcommittee meeting on June 10th. Everybody is invited, and I'm sure that she will speak a little bit around that. And also we included our City of San Rafael sea level rise feasibility study on that meeting. And then finally, just before this meeting, I attended Canal Alliance. They have a new vision for the Canal Football Club, which is super exciting. Again, the room was full of partners, non-profits, businesses, the school district, the City of San Rafael. We have our new beautiful pick a weed. that is free for this organization to organize soccer training and matches. So they have a vision partnering with four different schools where we are really going to elevate a lot of the kids that they want to play to make sure that they have the opportunities. And as, I don't know if you know this, but if you want to play select soccer in Marion County, I think right now it's $5,000 a year. So a lot of kids cannot do that. So anyway, so that was super exciting. And that's my report.

Thank you. Council Member Hill.

Thank you, Mayor Kate. Last Wednesday, May 27th, I represented the city at the Marin County Council of Mayors and Councilmembers, which was held at Homeward Bound in Novato, where they are approaching functional zero for veterans experiencing homelessness, which is a very major achievement and the result of Housing First with wraparound services. So it was very gratifying to see that take place there. Also that evening was a panel discussion on supporting and serving our older adult communities. The one takeaway that I would want to mention to the community is that a grant was provided where the lead author is a doctor at UC Berkeley, Dr. Perrone, who will be looking at all of the older adults in Marin to determine different journeys that may lead to either homelessness or the brink of homelessness to really make certain that The community and elected officials can really understand the problem. It'll take about a year to complete the study, but that will give us really firm understanding of the need so that we can seek different strategies for funding. And that is my report. Thank you.

Thank you. And I'll close by what I attended on behalf of the city of San Rafael. First is the San Rafael Sanitation District. We held our meeting, and if you attended the council meeting two weeks ago, we approved at that meeting the city district separation agreement. And at the district meeting, that same separation agreement was approved. So that formalizes the separation of both the city and the district so that the district can continue its operational consolidation with CMSA, the Central Marin Sanitation Agency. In addition, I'm your representative on SMART, which is Sonoma-Marin Area Rapid Transit. We had a report out from our general manager. Recently, there was a program that was implemented called MASCOTS. And I apologize, I can't remember what that acronym stands for. But what the MASCOT program is, is it coordinates all the different transit opportunities or that folks would use if they were moving through the North Bay or out to the East Bay. So things are timed better, and it's the right amount of service that is warranted by the need. And what they've seen since it was adopted in just the last couple months, the service is up 19% and ridership is up 20%, which shows when you are able to link transit trips It makes it easier that people will actually come and use it. So that is great news. SMART continues to have record-breaking numbers. The goal was this past fiscal year, which ends shortly, the goal of the district was to reach 1.4 million riders. As of our meeting two weeks ago, we're already at 1.27 million total rides. Again, the ridership continues to increase. We had an update on the Healdsburg extension. And in addition, we reviewed draft budget. It is budget season, so all the districts and all the groups are looking at budget, and SMART was no different in that we looked at ours. And then a reminder, if you are a smart rider, traditionally you have gotten alerts about smart change, if there's any change, if they're running late through Nixle. Those notifications are now going to come through an app, and it's called Transit App. pretty straightforward. So if you are, and actually, just so you know, that's not just for smart. The transit app actually works for Golden Gate buses, for really any transit that you might be taking throughout the area. So definitely download that. And then finally, I represented in... As the Vice Mayor was out of town at the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority meeting a couple weeks ago, we approved the budget as well as the work plan. And what's so special about the MWPA is it's a county-wide approach to how do we make ourselves more resilient in the face of wildfire prevention. And at the same time, have flexibility that reflects our needs here in San Rafael. And both the budget and the work plan do that. Thank you all as always. I feel it's important for the community to hear not only what goes on between meetings, but to hear about if there's something that you heard that a council member was attending that you might be interested in. Now you know how to get more information on what's been going on in those agencies. So thank you as always. We do take public comment on both the city manager and council member reports. So if you heard something that you wanted to offer comments on, now is your opportunity to do so. YOU ARE WELCOME BUT NOT REQUIRED TO SAY YOUR NAME AND WHAT PART OF SAN RAFALE YOU LIVE IN.

GOOD EVENING. MY QUESTION HAS TO DO WITH A STATEMENT ABOUT AN INFLECTION POINT WHERE THE CITY IS SPENDING MORE MONEY THAN THEY ARE TAKING IN AND I'M WONDERING IF THERE IS SOME process that you go through to say the services that we're providing exceed our capacity and we're going to have to rearrange what services we provide or what expenses that we're going to take on because of this difference between what is available and what is required.

Thank you, and I'll clarify, that comment was around Marin Transit and not the city of San Rafael. So that is through the Marin Transit. But you can reach out to Council Member Bushey and she can connect you with the general manager. Just wanted to clarify. Yep, go ahead.

GOOD EVENING. I JUST WANTED TO SAY ABOUT PUBLIC TRANSPORT THAT I ATTENDED A CONFERENCE IN SAN FRANCISCO THIS WEEK AT UNION SQUARE. I DECIDED TO TAKE PUBLIC TRANSIT. It took 37 minutes from San Rafael to downtown to Union Square in San Francisco. And as a senior, it cost me $4.50. So I'm just encouraging people. Also, of course, on SMART, the train is free for seniors and students. So I was deeply impressed. And I want to thank all of you for working with the transit. Thank you.

Any other comments on the reports? As always, you're welcome to say your name and what part of San Rafael, though not required.

I'm Mark Fallows again. I just had a question about, I don't know if it falls under the transit, but at one of the meetings I'd attended before, someone talked about the bridge that was going to be put over the canal. Is that still going ahead? Because it would be really useful for people going from where we are near Starkweather Path across to get to places like Whole Foods and even onto China Camp. I just wondered if anyone could give us a progress report on that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So I recommend that you stay for the work plan portion of tonight's agenda because that will be talked about. This is great. You guys are going to be here all night with us. Okay. Any other comments on the reports? Not seeing any. I'm going to close the public comment and bring it back to the consent calendar. Any items to be pulled? Looking to my right. Okay, not seeing any. I will open up the public comment on this. The consent agenda has 2A through 2G. If you'd like to comment, we appreciate knowing which item you are commenting on. Open the public comment. I don't see anyone who wants a public comment on the public, on the consent agenda. So I will close the public comment and bring it back for a motion, please.

I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda. Second.

Moved and seconded.

Roll call, please. Council Member Bushey. Aye. Council Member Hill.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Kurtz. Aye. Council Member Eden Scalati. Aye. Mayor Kate.

Aye. That motion carries 5-0. Thank you. We have a public hearing this evening, a couple of them, and the first is a zoning code amendment to add clarifying language and simplify existing zoning regulations. I see Margaret Cavanaugh-Lynch joining us. Welcome.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the City Council. I am Margaret Cavanaugh-Lynch, your Planning Manager. The first of the two items you just introduced for us is our zoning code update. I just wanna pull up in my report here. Through the daily use of San Rafael Municipal Code Title 14, city staff have identified various areas in need of clarification. These areas include minor errors, omissions, internal inconsistencies, as well as code sections that are obsolete or in need of revision to improve their use and understanding. To this end, staff drafted the first of several collections of zoning ordinance amendments to address these issues, including in this report updated definitions as well as changes to the appeals section. On March 10th, 2026, staff held a study session and presented the first series of amendments to the Planning Commission. Following a robust discussion, staff received feedback on the initial proposed amendments. Staff then incorporated this feedback into the updated report and came back on April 14th, 2026. The Planning Commission then reviewed the updated amendments in the report and voted unanimously to recommend to the city council that they approve the ordinance as forwarded. Included in your staff report is a list of recommended zoning code amendments for city council's consideration. Staff notes that during the agenda review for this council item, the city attorney's office identified some implementation issues with the recommendations presented to the planning commission which could impact the further actions of the council and recommended staff further evaluate those impacts before introduction. That was specifically Appeal Section 14-28-010, which does not appear in your packet. In addition, during the course of the agenda review, the Attorney's Office added value, honestly, by making a few minor modifications to improve clarity, and those subsections are noted in your staff report. These types of modifications are part of a larger task identified by the City Council's three-year strategic plan, Goal A4, streamline and modernize the city's land use regulatory framework to facilitate development and growth. And more specifically, A42, update the citywide zoning ordinance to align with General Plan 2040. Staff recommends that the City Council introduce the ordinance, approving the amendment to the standard zoning code, and waive further reading, and refer to it by title only. I'm here with any questions you might have regarding that report.

Thank you.

Director Hinkle, did you want to add something? Yes, thank you.

If I could just add apologies for being delayed. One thing I want to really call out is really the need for us to kind of continuously update our code provisions, and really this is what this is tonight. Fairly minor, what we believe staff is minor provisions clarifications, modifications to our code, and particularly for interpretation. So if you look across the board, there's a couple process ends, definitions of a corner lot, things that we just needed to have better clarity, particularly when we're interpreting things, and this is what this is. We actually anticipate bringing forward modifications to our code from this point forward as we clean up different pieces. And we actually are dedicating city long-range planning staff, in this case it's Manager Cavanaugh-Lynch, to support that end. These are areas that we've, for times, just have not invested into and we really do need to. So really this is a reflection kind of the council goals and priorities to, as we kind of called out, modify and bring forth changes to our codes that meet current modern development and interpretations. So that's what tonight's item is tonight. Thank you.

Thank you. And the staff report is very clear in terms of the underlying, what was added, what was deleted. So thank you for an excellent report. I'll see if there are any questions. Council Member Hill, go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Margaret, for that report and for the follow-up, Director Hinkle. Just as an overall taking a step back from this, would you testify that these are pretty standard updates that municipalities around the state of California typically do on a regular basis.

Absolutely. That's what we are trying to catch to the industry standard in some areas. And in addition, we're always trying to make it more user-friendly so folks can read something and understand what we're talking about when they're trying to put their new fence in. So industry standard plus is what we're shooting for.

Thank you. When I was reading through some of them, because the definition seemed pretty self-evident to me, would you say that some of it was informed that by over the years, someone might come to the counter and say, hey, this is ambiguous? And someone would take a note and say, OK, we'll just pull this forward until the next time we do an update, is my speculation.

Quite candidly, yes, sir. I will tell you that every member of your planning staff has a list, and we actually have it assembled in a Word doc, but that's not what we meant to say. That's not clear. How do we make this easier and more straightforward when possible?

So maybe in a word this is a clarification update. Maybe.

This round is yes and this was also to start this process forward as Director Hinkle mentioned. We have been focusing on development projects and working on general plans and specific plans and precise plans. Right now we're trying to go back and update the language to make everything kind of work comprehensively together. So that's, you'll be seeing a series of these. This was the first round and it was meant to be non-controversial, the point being the planning commission is going to have a study session and your planning commission is really intelligent and had a lot of comments and questions and So we go twice and then we come to you. So hopefully it's vetted and if there are controversies going forward, they'll identify what controversies there are and share their opinions with you on that topic.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any additional questions? Not seeing any additional questions, I'll open up the public comment. If you'd like to add your thoughts or have questions on this item, now is your opportunity. Not seeing anyone, I'll close a public comment and bring it back. I don't know if we have additional comments, but I'll just say thank you to the Planning Commission for all the work that they did. I was glad you mentioned that. They did the heavy lifting on this and they got in really deep in the nuts and bolts on it. So I just wanted to make sure that that was acknowledged. So unless there's additional comments, I would entertain a motion on this item, please. I'm happy to raise the motion.

Introduce the ordinance, waive further reading, and refer to it by title only.

Second.

Moved and seconded. Roll call, please.

Council Member Bushy. Aye. Council Member Hill.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Kurtz. Aye. Council Member Yadon-Skaladi. Aye. Mayor Kate.

Aye. That motion carries 5-0. The city clerk could read the title of the ordinance, please.

An ordinance of the City of Centerfell amending the Centerfell Zoning Ordinance, Centerfell Municipal Code Title 14, Division 1, General Provisions Chapter 14.03, Definition Section 14.03.030, Definitions as well as Division V Administrative Regulations. so five potentially, Chapter 14.28, Sections 14.28.010-14.28.080, and finding that this action is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act, CEQA, under CEQA Guidelines, Section 15061 .

Thank you. Thank you, Manager Cavanaugh-Lynch. We have another item. Maybe you're here for the next one. It's in the same theme. This is an amendment to the General Plan Safety and Resilience Element. I will turn it over to you.

Good evening again, Madam Mayor. Back on September 29th, 2006, the governor of California signed Assembly Bill 2140, which allowed cities to be considered for additional state cost share opportunities on public assistance projects by adopting the Federal Emergency Management Act approved local hazards mitigation plans into their safety element of the general plan. AB 2140 is not a required compliance law. However, when we are compliant, we are eligible for an additional 6.25% local share funded by the state, essentially covering the entire local share cost for eligible public assistance projects in future project, excuse me, in future for disaster relief. An example of public assistance projects may include debris removal in the immediate aftermath of a disaster or permanent work such as road or bridge rehabilitation. The City Council established the City of San Rafael's current general plan in 2021. Subsequently, in 2024, the City Council adopted the 2024 Marin County Multi-Jurisdictional Local Hazard Mitigation Plan, which included the City of San Rafael's annex. So to ensure that the AB 2140 compliance continues and to maximize state funding opportunities, staff working with the fire department drafted a minor text amendment to the general plan's 2040 safety and resilience element to reflect that new current multi-jurisdictional local hazard mitigation plan. This task is part of the larger effort of the community economic development department to again update our city's policy documents such as a general plan so they remain current. On March 10th, 2026, the staff again held a study session on this item with the Planning Commission and subsequently we met again on April 14th and at that meeting, the Planning Commission reviewed the amendment and voted unanimously to recommend it for approval back to the City Council. In summary, to continue to comply with AB 2140 and maximize the city's eligibility for state funding, staff recommends that the city add the text amendments included in your staff report. There will be times when I will have a PowerPoint and I will read those to you. This just felt like it would be torturous to do that to you on a very straightforward document. So we'll come back with more details if ever you wish to have them. The proposed amendment is consistent with General Plan 2040 in that the safety and resilience element does require updating documents as they become available. approved and certified in addition approval of the proposed amendment is consistent with priority area c sustainability and resilience of the city's three-year strategic plan in that it makes the city eligible for funding necessary to recover when disaster from a disaster or to mitigate against other hazards. Staff recommends that the City Council approve the resolution adopting the amendment to the safety and resilience element of the General Plan 2040 and continue to meet its goals of AB2040 based on the findings included in your report. Again, I'm here for any questions you might have.

Thank you, and I would just ask, so the spirit of the general plan is the same, and this is just actually clarifying the exact wording so that spirit can manifest if we were unfortunately to have a natural disaster or something like that. So we're not changing the policy or an approach. It's more clarifying in order to meet the state law.

Yeah, that's correct. And through the fire department, when we updated our mitigation hazard plan, this was an identified area that required an update. Also, it triggered the general plan amendment, which is typically, general plan amendments are a big deal in terms of process and timing. So we did target it for our next general, we didn't have a next update, so this was simply the only general plan amendment we had. So then we scheduled it and brought it forward. So this is what's before you tonight. A lot of work to add a couple of clarification language, but then what it does ultimately do is make us have a compliant general plan to the safety mitigation hazard plan that the fire department's been supporting, so.

Fantastic. Thank you. Any additional questions? Any questions over here? Council Member Hill, go ahead.

This is more for you to entertain a counterfactual, which is that if we were not to pass it, we would not be eligible for 6.25% funding on the other side of a catastrophe. We wouldn't be able to be entitled to that to apply for it.

Depends. That's why we're trying to eliminate the language and the ambiguity of what you did and didn't do. So this makes it very clear.

Thank you. I want to be clear.

Thank you. I don't see any additional questions. I'll open the public comment on this item. If you would like to comment, now is your opportunity. I don't see any public comment. I will close the public comment. And again, thank you. Even though, as you said, it's very straightforward text, these could have significant implications should we so need it. So unless there are other additional comments, I would entertain a motion on this item as well.

Move that we approve a resolution adopting an amendment to the safety and resilience element of the general plan 2040 to continue to meet the goals of assembly bill AB 2140 based on the findings included in the staff report and finding that this action is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act CEQA under CEQA guidelines section 15378A and 15061B3.

And I'll second. Moved and seconded. Roll call, please.

Council Member Bushy. Aye. Council Member Hill.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Kurtz. Aye. Council Member Yadon-Scolati. Aye. Mayor Kate.

Aye. That motion carries 5-0. Thank you so much. We're moving on to other agenda items. And I'm going to start to speak more slowly as this item is also being interpreted in Spanish. This is the Sea Level Rise Feasibility Study. We will be hearing and receiving a presentation. I see Kate Hagerman is joining us. And when we're ready, Madam City Clerk, are we good to? Okay. Okay. Wait, get your mic going on, there we go. Okay, thank you all.

I think we're good and I'll just double check that this is displaying for others. We have a slide deck here. Oh, sorry, Lindsay. Yeah. Okay, thank you all. I'm going to give a presentation about a recent study that we completed on the feasibility of different adaptation options for dealing with the rising flood risk that we have. I'm tonight just giving a very short, as short as I can make it, overview of what we've learned with the intention that this is part one, an introduction, and then we'll have longer discussion at the August 17th city council meeting. So I'll present briefly what we've learned in this study. I mentioned that we sometimes talk about sea level rise as 2100 and climate change, but really for San Rafael, there's an existing flood risk and that flood risk is already present. We saw it during the high tides in January, Many of our streets and other areas are lower than the bay. And so when the bay is high, we see the salt water enter the city. And so no more sea level rise is needed, really, for San Rafael to have the flood risk. And if we have a storm this winter, there is a risk of a more severe flooding. So just with that caveat, I'll say this is really a present issue. Really briefly, over the last few years, we've worked with several partners, Canal Alliance, the Multicultural Center, Berkeley, the county, members of the community who are in the audience now who have donated hours and hours of their time to a significant effort to work with our community educate our community, and I'm really grateful to all of the staff and volunteers and others who have been part of over 150 events, radio programs, just a tremendous effort. Throughout all of that engagement, we've heard certain themes which we tried to distill down into guiding principles. Overwhelmingly we hear concern about preventing displacement about keeping people safe as well as these other themes here I'll just briefly touch upon what we're talking about now is Long-term dealing with these issues takes a long time, but there's also as you mentioned a flood risk now so if you remember last March we were here and the community members expressed a their priorities for taking action in the short term. Around these four themes, emergency preparedness, keeping our existing residents and businesses safe and in place, when we build or rebuild, doing so in a safe way that accounts for the flood risk, and then maintaining our commitment to climate justice. Without shortchanging this too much, there is a lot of work happening on these four themes. And since we don't have time, I'll gloss over that tonight, but happy to elaborate on it more. With the short amount of time that we have, the focus is really on zooming out and looking at the study and what we've learned. The recent high tides that we had this winter help illustrate some of the main points in that study. Just to touch upon one, San Rafael is vulnerable to flooding because the land is low, the land is sinking, and what we have on the shoreline right now is very informal. This is perhaps one of our worst examples, but what separates the boats that are floating in the canal in this picture from my car is just that pile of debris. It's not a flood barrier, it wasn't designed by an engineer, it's not inspected, it's not maintained, it's private property, it's in no way waterproof or watertight. So when we had the high tides in January, saltwater floods that area, flows through that area and then onto the street and into the right of way. This is one of only three ways in and out of this whole neighborhood. And so this flooding impeded people trying to get in and out of the neighborhood. We have lots of other examples. Again, for the short time that we have, I'm going to gloss over them. But one of the other challenges is that some of these points where the bay was entering the city are actually underneath a number of private buildings. So this is an example. We have a lot of these buildings that are half on land, half on the water. So for this pink one, you can see the bay is just below the floorboards on a sunny day. And so in January, when we had the high tides, excuse me, the salt water flows underneath the building and then onto, in this case, Point San Pedro Road. So we think about how to address and stop that flooding is very challenging given the conditions. In some cases, the water that's pooling there is deep enough to affect flooding, and in this case, we had some public safety resources there to help deal with the traffic and disruption. But in the canal and in other places where the flooding was deep, there was a lot of damage to cars with their exposure to that saltwater. And so, you know, for some of our residents, also they had saltwater enter their apartments. Fortunately, it was just a few, but for the few that that happened to, you know, it has a huge impact on them. So we have that seeing the flood risks and the flood impacts for our community. The current study builds upon several prior studies. So in the late 80s, the Army Corps did a study in this area and identified that there was a flood risk and that action needed to be taken. In 2018, there was Resilient by Design, which also underscored the impact to the jobs and to the business revenue, which are the green dots. on this slide. Tam has done a similar study also underscoring the vulnerability of the transportation assets in addition to our community assets. And then, so the study that we've just completed with Moffitt and Nickel, Wagner and Ball, and a number of other experts pulled that information forward but looked at what can we do to adapt? How feasible are different adaptation options? So their study zoomed in on central San Rafael, so sort of, in a sense, kind of a coastal watershed between Point San Quentin and Point San Pedro, but really focusing on the area that's shown here in purple, which they labeled the basin, but that's the area that's lower than our high tides. So that includes 580, Bret Hart, Anderson, and other areas behind the highway, in addition to the canal neighborhood and parts of Bay Point and Spinnaker. So this is a bowl-shaped area, which is hard to picture. What does it mean when the land is lower than the bay? So this video might help illustrate. You can see the boats in the background are floating higher than that car. And so were it not for that barrier between them, the whole road would be flooded in that area. This is one spot where it's kind of easy to stand at the shoreline and see that you're lower than the bay. But that condition extends all the way back into Bret Hart and other places where it's almost impossible to know that unless you're looking at a land survey. So the consultants focused on this bowl-shaped area, which is most of southeast San Rafael. We're really prioritizing that. Their scope was not to pick a recommended path forward. What they did was look at different alternatives. So by and large these are, they looked at three main alternatives. By and large these are Building on those previous studies are very traditional approaches to managing flood risk. A network of levees, gates, pumps, barriers that are used throughout the world and throughout California. And so it's a very standard approach that they study here. In addition to those three alternatives, because of the safety risks and the timing risks, they also recommended a suite of what they called initial actions to buy time and to improve safety. And all of this was compared to a no action scenario. Obviously, no one desires that scenario, but just as a baseline of comparison. And when we seek funding and other things, it's always required to draw that comparison. For each of those alternatives, they looked at them through against nine different criteria. And we don't have time to go into that, but I'll just gloss over it briefly to say for each of these options, they looked at how well will they protect us from flooding. How effective will they be? How long will they last? How much space do they need? Could we get permits? How many owners would be affected? What are the benefits in terms of housing, the environment, and cost? And so for each of these alternatives, they looked at them through these nine lenses. And there are meaningful differences, but again, given our time, I'm just going to speak mostly about the commonalities across all of these options. The most important takeaway for me personally is that in the case of San Rafael, there is a more limited window of action. Because there already is a high flood risk and the ground is sinking and the sea is rising, there's essentially a 25 year window of time to take action before the type of flooding we saw in January becomes so frequent. that it's difficult to go about normal business in that area. The unfortunate other side of the coin is that with that 25-year window to act, the consultants also looked at how long would it typically take to construct projects like this, building in all the things that gain permission, getting the real estate, getting the permits, doing the design, etc. And the timeline for a project of this size in California is about 20, 30, 40 years. It's pretty similar across all of the alternatives. Some could be faster and some could be slower. One of the main variables though is that, let me also mention that TAM did a very similar exercise with different consultants and different methods and landed in a similar place. Basically we need to start acting now in order to sort of stay ahead of that chronic flooding. One of the main variables, one of the main reasons why it may take quite a bit longer than we would all like for action to happen is that the shoreline by and large is in private ownership. The south side of the canal is owned by more than 100 private properties. And so any action in that space requires some degree of coordination or consent with all of those individual property owners. So just to take a beloved example, Canal Alliance is a cherished space and a really vital service to the community. It's one physical example of this condition that we have again and again along the canal, where the building itself is half over the canal and half on land. So the shoreline is actually underneath the building itself, that sort of yellow dotted line. So any type of flood protection, whether it's a wall, a levee, a marsh, any sort of protection is gonna require a certain amount of space. And so in this case, just as an example, to get that space either puts you working in the water, which brings a set of complications, or working on the land, which brings a different set of complications. And so for all of the shoreline here, we sort of have to consider that. Of course, other spaces also are people's homes or businesses. A lot of our residents live in buildings like this. The other sort of commonality across all alternatives are very expensive. And that is not unique to San Rafael or California. One of the challenges I would just say is that right now no agency is responsible for providing coastal flood protection. So if the city, the county, the state, a new district assumes that responsibility, it's a very meaningful step up in responsibility and resources that would be needed to provide that service, provide that protection. There's both an upfront cost, which is large, but more importantly, there's an ongoing maintenance and operations cost. You need specialized services. staff, you need to be able to maintain and repair the equipment, the levees, the pump stations in order to keep people safe. That needs to happen in perpetuity. Otherwise, you could find yourself in a less safe situation. So that's a really key part here, and the consultants estimated that's around a substantial amount of money for annual O&M. Again, not to get in the weeds, but there are some differences between the alternatives across these measures most meaningfully. With the alternative that involves a gate, they opine that this could be a difficult one to permit. And so there are other distinctions between them, but just using that as an example. Each one of the alternatives has advantages, disadvantages, but meaningful sort of feasibility, logistical considerations. So whether it's on the cost side or the property complexity. Unfortunately, one of the challenges that's common to all of them is that there's a risk of impacting housing and displacement. The worst case scenario is not acting. A large flood would lead to a substantial loss of housing and the potential safety risk, so that's the most important to avoid. But across all of these proactive actions, there's also a risk of displacement. So it's really important, in my opinion, to keep that at the forefront and think proactively about what can be done knowing this context to minimize the displacement risk as much as possible. So the consultants outline these timelines, kind of the uphill road to get there, but they also outline initial actions with the intention to buy time and to focus on safety. And so that's really helpful to have that list and those recommendations. I just would flag that still to take two examples, maintaining and upgrading the existing pump stations and reinforcing the bayfront levee. Those are really essential. for just maintaining the status quo, for just maintaining safety, and they still are to the scale of 50 to 100 million, so they represent also a big need for focus, let's say, in order to sort of keep that in place, but there are initial actions that we can take while these larger questions are being considered. I would also just on the positive side emphasize that without any new resources with staff time, we are focusing on things we can do now. We can implement many of the great policies in the general plan, continue our engagement, and then explore funding and financing both through the incubator program, looking formally at financing opportunities, and then trying to seek grant funding as much as possible. And we did get good news recently that we just recently got a likely award from FEMA, which is also crazy in these times. So we're very grateful for that. those opportunities when they do come. So we are trying to work as hard as we can to get the funding that is available, but obviously new resources are needed to really address it at scale. I will just end on a little happier note and to also say that we're going to come back in August with more time for discussion, for questions, to let this settle and percolate. We have a lot of resources, videos, and things like that, but we're available to meet one-on-one and talk about it in more detail, how it affects each district and the different implications with space and time. Let me stop there.

Thank you, Kate, and I appreciate all the work that you have done and your expertise and your working with the community. And so tonight is kind of, not kind of, it is just a top line, as you said, to percolate. I'm sure you didn't mean that as a joke, but it still made me laugh. So really for the council, any top line We will have a more in-depth conversation. I don't know if there is any approval tonight. We're just considering approving or receiving this presentation. But also for the community to understand just all that's involved and what is facing us in the years to come. So it's a both and. getting information out and opportunity for folks, of course, to give information tonight. As Council Member Irenz-Gulati already mentioned, there's the Sea Level Rise Committee. We have a subcommittee meeting and, of course, in August. So just really explaining why it's on the agenda tonight. We felt that if you heard all this in August for the first time, it'd be a little bit too much to comprehend and to maybe respond in a way as meaningful as you might want to. So that is why it was broken up for clarification. So with that, I'll turn to my colleagues for questions. Council Member Ranz-Gulati, why don't you start?

Thank you so much, Kate. We are so lucky to have you here. I don't know if people know, but she comes from Miami and has so much experience around flooding, so I feel very, very blessed to have you working with us. Can you tell me how many community meetings have you hosted where you were presenting this information?

Yeah, as a group between Canal Alliance and Multicultural Center, our steering committee, our many partners, we have had 150 events. So we estimate we've engaged 5,000 people in person and more through media. Yeah, it's a lot.

So thank you so much, and I don't have any other questions.

Okay, thank you.

Vice Mayor Kurtz.

Okay, thank you. Thank you for the update. My questions are really around, I know you've talked a lot about what the impact is within San Rafael, but I was wondering if you could also share a little bit about, have the other Marin jurisdictions signed on? Is there some collaboration coming from Marin Wildfire? We know that there wasn't any traction until everyone was working together. to get some traction, and if there's gonna be a problem in the canal, it affects the entire county. And so I wanna make sure that as we're, so there is a question there around the jurisdictions, but it's not just a San Rafael issue, and is it recognized that it's not just a San Rafael issue?

Yeah, absolutely. I think we have some good coordination around the county on this issue. I would say that the January flooding also really underscores if 101 shuts down, it affects all of us. So coordinating on the emergency management, on the transportation side, and then the county is also expanding their staffing. and has been really open to stepping into a leadership role on several of the planning efforts. One thing I'll just mention is that Caltrans is doing a study, an adaptation study for all of Marin, and that represents a great opportunity to underscore that these are not local issues. If 580 shuts down, of course, it has a huge impact. So there are a couple opportunities to highlight that even further.

And I would just add, so Bay Wave, that Council Member Urens-Gulati reported out on, that's been meeting, I mean, I was the original member of that for almost eight years, ten years. So that foundation is there.

No, I recognize that, and we hear about it, but when it gets presented, sometimes it's very easy for the other jurisdictions to then say, well, it becomes more of a San Rafael issue to solve and want to make sure that everyone's all tied into it. as we go forward. And so when you talk about, is this type of report being done in Sausalito, in Corte Madera, down along the coast, basically?

Yeah, I would say slightly differently, but yes. And every jurisdiction is going to be required to develop a regional shoreline adaptation plan, or a sub-regional shoreline adaptation plan. So we're all going through a similar planning process at the same time, too.

And as you mentioned, every initiative has a very long time span. And our short actions, do we have, are we looking at some very, very immediate how to address, so even if we have flooding that's going directly into people's homes, do we have plans to address that? Because we're gonna have probably some more, more of those type of situations happening before we have longer term solutions.

I think you're addressing the central challenge that we have in that if you think back to that pink building, the water is very close to the floorboards. If the water was an extra foot higher, it would be closer to the floor. In some cases, we have some sort of physical limitations. that make it challenging, but focusing on emergency preparedness, focusing on communication and education is definitely a priority for the city, and I know the emergency management team as well. And I think, as I know you do, if you care a lot about public safety, it's very hard to get out the word to everybody in time, and so a lot of work's going into that in a coordinated way across the county, too, to think about that ahead of the king tides. But in some cases, our ability to sandbag or keep the water out of a structure may be a little limited depending on the event.

And if those short-term needs are being addressed regionally as well as, or is the short-term need being looked at as a city, for the city to address?

Most of the short-term recommendations that the consultants provided were recommendations for the city, but some of those do involve looking explicitly at coordinating and how to perhaps coordinate at a scale that matches the need.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Hill?

Thank you Kate for the presentation. It's very prominent in the staff report that there is no agency or entity responsible for managing coastal flood risks. I know that a lot is being done to create that coordination. You mentioned that the county is going to take a lead role, but how essential is it to have a lead agency in this? Is that something that you would regard as a next step, or can we continue forward without having a lead agency?

I think that the project we've mentioned, the incubator, is a formal process where we can think about that and explore that with more time and the results hopefully by December. Because it's a really important question and important to really sit with it. I would say there are certain things that our consultant said that I would echo. Right now we have a very... public risk that's being held by individual private owners that are likely not aware that their yard is what keeps 580 dry. So that's a very unusual situation. That's not typical. New Orleans, the Netherlands, there's a public agency that provides that protection. That's a more typical condition. One of the other things I would say is that the city obviously has the ability to scale up the resources it provides in terms of pump stations and other things. looking at the scale of the need and the extent I think it is a good question to reflect on what is the best sort of way to do that and provide it in a sustainable way because many of the flood challenges that we have across the country are because it was a band-aid at one time we could make this levy a little higher so we did and then they did and then they did but it wasn't really enough for the need so that's kind of one of the things that we're trying also to be cognizant of is looking ahead and what would serve for the long term to provide public safety.

Thank you. And thank you for that. I thought it was a very informed response to that because it's not clear. I appreciate the analogies to other regions in the world that actually have dedicated agencies. So I feel like there's a hint in there that that's something we would pursue. I think just to – this is another question that I'll get to, which is, With the sheer number of stakeholders involved here, not the least of which, of course, are the residents and businesses that occupy Canal and the shoreline of San Rafael, there are so many intersecting points where grants could be pursued and should be pursued at the federal, state, among other levels. Those are the main ones that come to mind that could finance something like this. It seems essential to me that we have an agency that has leadership on this to make certain that it's coordinating all of those on behalf of the region, including San Rafael and the other municipalities. So maybe my question is coming back to, can you think of a reason why we would not pursue designating an agency, whether it's something that's new or an existing agency?

I think you've outlined there are a number of advantages to having a professional agency with a dedicated task. I think the only downsides I would say at this point are just it's helpful to consider it in a process. Let's say building enough support and also thinking about what's the right scope and scale to match. I would just maybe underscore another point is that right now the shoreline and some of the features that provide flood protection are uninspected and unmaintained. That is kind of a minimum level of improvement that would be helpful in my opinion. actually getting there and what's the right process to get there I think is probably something that requires a longer discussion on what's appropriate. I don't wanna sign the city up for something on the deck. But I think there are a lot of advantages to professionalizing a problem like this.

Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Bushee, any questions?

Just a couple. Of all the stakeholders that you've talked about, I haven't heard you mention the property owners. Do you have a formal listserv of them to communicate with them? Because they have a particular set of interests.

Yes, and we haven't done a mailing or outreach to all the property owners. We have engaged many of them individually, especially as they've been involved in the project. So in some cases, I've gone out to businesses and spoken with the business owner about their properties and I think there is also a challenge in that a lot of folks whose home is threatened by flooding are immediately concerned about how to protect their home from flooding, which is the most important issue, understandably. In this study and with my own time, we've been a little more zoomed out about how to provide flood protection for the city at a district scale. So right now we don't have on hand existing grants or resources that would support private property. That's something that could be pursued, but probably best also to think about in the context of the need. But that's certainly something we've heard a lot of residents are interested in. How do I protect my home? Are there incentives or grant programs to help me raise my home or things like that?

And so you're focusing your attention on the broader protection of the entire community, particularly the transit component of it. The numbers that you're putting up there are very large. How realistic do you think it is that a billion dollars or two will be available in a timely way? Because TikTok, we've only got 25 years before it's basically too late.

Yeah, I think there is, maybe Paul can bail me out here, I think these are big numbers. They're big numbers for cities around the world. In Miami, we are facing very big numbers as well, and it's dealt with in a different style there. I will say, against all odds, we got a FEMA grant recently, so strange things do happen. So I think that I wouldn't want to preclude that that kind of fundraising could happen. It could. I think that is really one of the most meaningful challenges is thinking about how to get from where we are to there. One of the challenges with a collective flood response that involves a barrier is that it only works once it's built. So you really have to complete the barrier for the barrier to work. And so that's one of the... main sort of considerations when deciding how to pursue. I don't know, Paul, if anyone else wants to chime in. I think there are large numbers. There's no getting around that.

Yeah, I don't know if I have any better answer. I will just share that one of the things that kind of concerns me when you're looking at sort of the sobering outlook is oftentimes the communities that have eventually received significant, particularly federal funding support, has been after the disaster and it's part of a building back. Very hard to get the attention that this issue deserves to avoid those events.

Thank you.

Thank you, and I have one other question that was prompted by what my colleagues have asked. I know Corte Madera has had an issue. They're low lying out by the town center, and I've, through BayWave, attended many presentations. And one of the issues that came up, in spite of the 150 meetings, homeowners, one of the solutions out there, anyway, is a levy that's bigger and higher. And so I'm curious if we're able to learn from Corte Madera, other jurisdictions, if that ends up being one of the tools in our toolbox. We do have a history here in San Rafael of having applied for a grant and having homeowners that were concerned about a levy being raised. And because of their opposition, San Rafael did not receive that grant. So I'm curious, how do we navigate that, which is very real? And part of the, I get it, part of the-

Yeah, I think that's really one of the hardest parts about adaptation. And I will say, in a community that I worked in previously, they rejected $90 million in grant funds because of controversy around the issue. It is really difficult to come to consensus on these really cherished places. people's homes, their favorite park. This is really one of the central challenges. And I think in certain instances, it's possible to get around it with consensus and engagement and really zooming in at a local level. And I would be hopeful that San Rafael could do that. I do think it will require a little... more than 150 meetings. We'll probably need to have more meetings. And I think that's really one of the challenges and also one of the concerning question marks on the timing. Easily, there could be a timing implication for those things, which is tricky.

Well, your example is sobering because those dollars are competitive. And if one community like San Rafael were to say no, then that money is going to go to another community. To Vice Mayor's point, it's going to go to... Court of Madera. So okay, now you can see why we've split this into two meetings. I will go ahead and open up the public comment. If you have anything that you'd like to share on this feasibility study, we are interested in what you have to say. And come on down. And you're welcome but not required to say your name and what part of San Rafael.

Okay, Corey Saez from Bedford Cove, Spinnaker. I just wanted to ask if there's any way the city could help us pull together various groups of neighborhoods that are gonna be affected by this, like San Pedro's involved, the canal, Spinnaker and Bay Point, and try to get us all together to try to get money. In other words, a bigger group of bigger spokespeople because we were Kate mentioned several homeowners that blocked the funding for a very important project. So I'm just wondering if the city could help us at all with getting together so that we are a bigger group of people speaking on this one issue.

Thank you. What I'll do is we'll make a list of all the questions and comments and then staff will answer. Thank you so much. Anyone else?

Good evening, Mary Kate, council members. My name is John Rising. I am a business owner here in San Rafael, homeowner, deep roots in the community. And where my business is, is in an affected area. It's on Kerner Boulevard, whatever. And I attended a meeting, God, I want to say it was six or seven years ago. It was called the Game of Tides. Kind of rolled out with the Game of Thrones. And my takeaway from that was that Centerfell is ill-prepared for the upcoming sea level rise. And we don't have the funds. So fast forward seven years later, here we are. I was in, it seems like a year ago, but the beginning of the year, I was down at the 700 Irwin lot where it was underwater. And I spent the next day kind of driving around, looking at all the damage at all of the commercial properties down there. auto shops and used car places and this and that. And I was really amazed at how there was no warning, like a Nixle alert or anything like that, and there were no sandbags. And I kind of feel that's partially because it's the canal, and the canal has been pushed aside for so long. And I've also been part of this committee now since its inception, and I've seen a lot of the things that the canal residents are saying that it really isn't fair. Vice Mayor, your comment about the corn madera or or something like that, those are all different scenarios, but it's all the same thing. It's going to be very expensive, to your point, billions of dollars. And that's today's money. If we talk about 10 years from now, 15 years from now, 20 years from now, we can double that. And it's just the time for action is now, but it was a year ago, 10 years ago, something like that. We've known it since the 90s that this is an issue. So I will take my answers offline.

Thank you for your comments. Anyone else.

Well, I'm a bonus matches. I'll call this a key. You're going to consider this. My number is Marina Palma is say in a voluntary a community area that cannot. It's time to come and look on the day that went to the end of the month. Yeah, but they went to the quantum Pistola. Pero este este problema is reality last in the hot room. No queremos que la la comunidad puede desaparecer. She said it was the end of us at the end of the era. La comunidad de canal, but the and their common law was estimate the end. Oh, it's a photo case. I'll join us every day. Oh, the lap. So not go much our way. Pedimos ayuda, pero nadie la ayudó. ¿Por qué? Porque San Rafael no está listo para ayudar en este caso de emergencias. Yo le pido, por favor, de que mantenga nuestra comunidad a donde está ahora, que tomen acciones pronto. Hay acciones prontas, cortas que se pueden tomar, porque esto lleva año tras año tras año, y lo que va a pasar es que las personas se van a auto desalojar no queremos eso estas personas tiene sus ninos aca and vivido aca toda su vida aqui trabajan yo les doy gracias porque ahora en ahora a comenzado estas conversaciones yo espero de corazon de corazon que cuando llegue agosto Este, ya hayan planes de una acción inmediata. Porque no hay preparación de emergencia para inundaciones. No la hay. No sé cuántas veces lo voy a venir a pedir. No la hay. No hay salida de emergencia de canal tampoco. No se sabe qué hacer. El 400 canales falta bien poquito para que el agua de verdad llegue a los apartamentos. Y también otros lugares que están enfrente del centro comunitario de Pickleweed, a donde el agua ya se mete, Thank you, and we'll have the interpreter.

Hello, and good evening, Mayor Kate. My name is Marina Palma, and I'm a member of the canal community. And honestly, I've been part of this sea level rise committee for I've lost count of how many years now. And the reality is that the community of the canal could disappear at any moment because of flooding. If you look at the video that they showed of the person with all the water in their home, we asked for help and nobody ever came. And I think it's important that we take action now. We need to have some sort of short-term action plan available for us. After years of having dealt with this, I think the people in the canal will voluntarily leave. And we don't want to do that. We've raised our kids here. We work here, some of us. And we want to be able to live here as well for the long term. So I thank you at the same time for starting this conversation. I think it's important that we continue to have this conversation and I hope that come August, we can have more deep conversations Preparedness level and have some sort of short-term action plan some things that we can do it within the community to accomplish this In the canal if you look at the 400 at the 400 canals, excuse me, they're really close to going underwater and having to deal with the flooding as well and We don't have a way to get out. I think It's really important for the community that we start this plan. So I thank you for starting this conversation and I thank you for being here tonight.

Okay, welcome.

GOOD EVENING, CITY COUNCIL. MY NAME IS MILE SMITH. I LIVE IN EASTERN SAN RAFEL. I'M A BOARD MEMBER OF SUSTAINABLE SAN RAFEL AND ALSO I HAVE BEEN TO MANY OF YOUR AMAZING EVENTS, KATE. SO FIRST OF ALL, I WANT TO THANK THE CITY FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS, YOUR COMMITMENT TO THIS, AND ALSO THE PROFESSIONALISM THAT YOU'RE TAKING THIS ISSUE, KATE. SO I FEEL VERY GRATEFUL TO BE A CITIZEN OF THIS CITY. I WOULD LOVE TO SORT OF ASK THE QUESTION, WE'RE MEETING AGAIN IN AUGUST, WHAT CAN WE DO BETWEEN NOW AND AUGUST, RIGHT? THERE IS GOING TO BE A LONGER MEETING BUT, KATE, YOU JUST PRESENTED SOME GREAT SHORT-TERM ACTIONS, SOME OF WHICH I SUSPECT ARE ON THE LOWER END OF THE COST SPECTRUM. I ALSO THINK THERE ARE EMERGENCY PLANS THAT WE COULD PROBABLY DEVELOP, SUPER LOW COST, AND I DON'T KNOW HOW LONG THOSE TAKE, BUT COULD WE GET A JUMP START ON SOME OF THOSE EMERGENCY PLANS NOW? BECAUSE IF THERE'S FLOODING IN, AGAIN, JANUARY, HOW LONG DO THOSE PLANS TAKE? HOW LONG DO WE NEED TO TRAIN FOR THOSE? ALL THOSE GOOD THINGS. THOSE ARE LOW COST INITIATIVES THAT I THINK WE CAN JUMP START, BUT LET'S NOT WAIT UNTIL But I just love the fact that you're spelling out some of the short-term opportunities. And the question is, what can we do between now and August even to get going? So I will leave it at that. But thank you very much. And I do want to also just double down on the fact that this is an equity, economic, and environmental issue. And so we've got a lot going on. I know it's complex. But let's get started on some short-term stuff. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Jessie Rowtree. I'm a San Rafael resident as well as Marin Resilience Manager at Greenbelt Alliance. I'm here to support the council receiving the plan and moving forward, as we've mentioned, making up for lost time. I want to be direct. Receiving a presentation is not enough. Climate change is outpacing our solutions. And every year or month, for that matter, we spend studying without acting is a year we fall further behind. I'm asking the council to move faster on three items. First, funding. We need to identify and pursue every available source now, federal, state, adaptation dollars, regional, private, public partnerships, including the innovation we've seen around vegetation management and wildfire. Don't wait for the study to be perfect before you start lining up the money to keep our options open. Second, honesty. Any serious flood intervention will affect existing structures, mostly for the better. Residents deserve to know what may impact their properties and their neighborhoods, and we need that transparency and community input to remain central, not as an afterthought. And big kudos, I think that's been central in all the work that you've done, as well as with Kate and Canal Alliance. Third, housing. Nearly all sea level rise solutions will create disruption and some degree of temporary displacement. Temporary displacement without a plan becomes permanent homelessness and permanent displacement of our neighbors. Sea level rise is one of the gravest climate injustice issues in our county and the people most at risk from flooding are often the same people with the fewest options when construction begins. We need to start planning relocation support and interim housing now in parallel with any flooding solution. I appreciate the city's continued leadership and ambition for making a future presentation, but please set a timeline. Let's continue to look at flooding and continue housing compensation today so our community may have a healthier climate future together. Thank you. Thank you.

Welcome.

Hola, buenas tardes. Mi nombre es Elizabeth Rodriguez. Represento a mi grupo de voces de canal. Y yo vengo aquí porque yo tengo una experiencia el día que se inundó. No pude llegar a mi trabajo durante dos horas porque tuve que esperar a que se bajaran las mareas. Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll go ahead from the interpreter.

Hello. My name is Elizabeth Rodriguez and I'm part of the voices of canal group. And I was one of the people that was affected during the flooding. I was not able to go to work for about two hours because I had to wait for the tides to go down. And many other communities or part of the community in the canal were affected on this day because of the flooding as well. And my son actually said something very funny. He said, today we're not going to be driving. We're going to be paddling a boat. And I thought it was kind of funny, but this could very well be the case in the future if we don't take action now. maybe in years to come. And I think it's important that we take action. We start thinking positively of changes that we can make to help reduce flooding risks and the dangers involved with it. And I guess as a committee or community, we can decide and come up with ideas of what you think will work, where we should go to for help, for example, where to acquire sandbags and what else could be helpful and useful to us as well. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, good evening. I'm Carly Finkel. I'm the senior policy manager at Canal Alliance. And yeah, happy to be here tonight with community members and for our partnership with Kate and the city over the last few years. And I know that the challenge of flooding and sea level rise in San Rafael is extremely overwhelming and thinking about what kinds of billions of dollars and infrastructure projects over decades can be very overwhelming, and they all have huge downsides, and it's really hard to find something that you want to say yes to. But I think that there are many, many things that we can start saying yes to in small ways to move us towards being able to make some of those big long-term decisions. And Zilberize is such an existential challenge for this city that it touches so many different projects, many of which are already ongoing. The city's acquisition of 620 Canal Street and being able to hopefully turn that into a park. But also that is a waterfront site that now is under public control and ownership. and could be the site of a pedestrian bridge to create another evacuation route out of the community and so many projects that aren't necessarily approached or thought of or started as sea level rise adaptation projects really fit into this big puzzle and picture and the opportunity zone urgency ordinance that you all approved a few years ago that expires at the end of this year and we appreciate that the city is looking at updating the just cause ordinance. And when we're thinking about how do we prevent displacement and unfair evictions, that's part of this puzzle for sea level rise too. And how can we do that in a way that addresses the existing housing crisis, but also prepares us for the climate crisis. And those things are there. It's just so intertwined that I think this is something we have to be tackling from all sides at once. So really appreciate your leadership and we're definitely going to need it.

good evening council people i'm bill carney also with sustainable san marcel and i'm looking forward to a really serious and sobering community-wide discussion around this huge issue as rapidly as we can can get it done I wanted to just add a couple of additional perspectives to the ones that were noted in the letters that we shared with you earlier today. One is I was really glad to see nature-based opportunities included in the feasibility study. It's so important that we align ourselves with nature, and in this case, on a huge scale. And there are opportunities. Salt marshes were one that was discussed in the report at some length. They can buffer improvements on the shoreline by breaking up the wave action. And they also sequester a great deal of carbon. So they can both prepare us for climate impacts at the same time helping to reduce the atmospheric carbon that's driving climate change. We need to find that sort of solution. Secondly, this is also an urban design and economic development opportunity. I think we need to look at this as shoreline improvements of the scale that we're talking about as really opening the door to having a more vibrant shoreline. And yeah, so I think that's a perspective we need to bring to it. Time is critical. We've heard about urgency tonight, and that's certainly needed. But we also need to think as we come up with solutions on really a geologic time scale. I mean, we're dealing with the changes to the planet. We're causing changes to the planet and to the climate. that are on that sort of scale line. So what level of water are we planning for? And what level of atmospheric carbon is that based on? And that should be a base stone as we enter into this discussion. Thanks very much. Thank you.

CLAIRE TAYLOR.

I WAS PRIVILEGED ALSO TO BE ON THE SEA LEVEL RISE STEERING COMMITTEE AND I WANT TO APPRECIATE THE TREMENDOUS AMOUNT OF WORK THAT KATE AND CARLY AND ALL THE OTHER MEMBERS HAVE DONE, THE CARING AND THE COMMITMENT. AND IT'S BEEN AN HONOR TO BE ON THAT COMMITTEE. And I just want to say for myself that sea level rise, we know this. It's not going to go away. And we have to own it. And we have to do something. And I'm not going to tell you what I think we should do, but all I want to say is that no change happens unless somebody steps forward. And I just want to encourage you as the city council to be the people who start the change. That's it. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments on this item? Not seeing any this evening. We do look forward to more comments. Oh, I'm sorry. Welcome here, pull down the microphone. There you go, awesome.

Buenas noches, soy Carlos, Voces del Canal, Canal Alliance. Estoy acá hablando en el nombre de los vecinos del canal. Hoy estoy aquí para pedirles que tomen medidas urgentes y decisivas frente a la amenaza del aumento del nivel del mar. Las tormentas provocan desbordes de aguas saladas, afectando calles, negocios y nuestra red de drenaje.

Thank you. We'll have the interpreter.

Good evening. My name is Carlos. I'm here on behalf of Voices of Canal Alliance and I'm representing just community members and everyone within. Just saying that I hope we're able to take action because the threat of sea level rise is real and this is endangering our streets, our livelihood, our drainage, our Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you to our interpreter. Let's see if there's anyone else who would like to comment.

I'm Noah Bugbee. I'm a junior at Archie Williams High School. And I just had a question about the land elevation possibility. From my understanding, and it was in green for co-developments, that's the only one with a possible return on investment. So I'm just curious if it's being considered on how we can use that possible increase in property value to help fund that project, if that project's still being considered. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments? Okay, I was going too quick before. I don't see anyone else, so I will close the public comment. We'll keep our interpreter on until the agenda item has been completed. So there was lots of fantastic input. And I know you saw community members with whom you've been working. But there were some specific questions in there. The one we just heard about financing mechanisms in terms of property value. So maybe that's something the incubator will speak to. But if you could talk about that. What can be done now? Are there emergency plans? sandbags in Nixle? And then how can the city help convene broader groups?

Yeah, well, thank you. And I want to just say again, a big thank you. I know many in this room have logged hundreds of hours on this issue and really appreciate you all staying involved and helping It's really appreciated. So I would just more straightforwardly on the third alternative about raising the land that is still under consideration. That is one of the benefits of that is a potential for redevelopment and potential revenue there. So yes, that option is still on the table. I would also say that really across the board, We're at a phase of keeping options on the table, I would say, overwhelmingly, and not at a phase yet of saying yes or no to those ideas. It's still an open conversation, and also for community members who are listening and think, well, I have another idea. Is that considered? It's still very open to other ideas. It's by no means the only three alternatives. So I just want to emphasize that. I'd just say that on the issue of evacuation and emergency plans, this is something that absolutely from January we saw areas for meaningful improvement. A lot of work has happened on that. More work can happen. I'll just preview that our highest tides are expected at Christmas Eve, Christmas, so that was one of the other complications is that they fall on a holiday. It can be a little more disruptive, but we know that in advance. You know, it's only June 1st, so we can plan for that. And I think there's a lot of improvement that we can work towards in that regard, including sandbags were placed at Pickleweed Park and hopefully we'll work with emergency management on things like that in the future. I mentioned on the nature base the Tiscornia Marsh project is an opportunity for using nature as part of the response and that has received some good encouragement in terms of funding so we're hopeful and we're supporting that moving forward. And there is much more that needs to be done in terms of raising awareness about the issue and helping to sort of bring attention and then hopefully support and financial support. So anyone who is interested in that coming together, we certainly want to support that. And I just underscore, we are really trying to pursue as many grants as we can. So just for folks that asked about the sort of immediate actions, we are working at the staff level, looking at funding opportunities. Typically they're competitive. Sometimes they take two years before they call you back. But we try and keep focused on that, not waiting for sort of the perfect moment or the master plan. Anything I forgot?

So what also people, what can they do now? If you were to say what can folks who are hearing about this, what can they do now? And then how are we going to continue to convene these broader groups if they haven't gone to one of the other 150 meetings? And as you said, going to be many, many hundred more. But how do you bring people in?

On our website, we have information and also a way to sign up to be in the loop and receive updates. So that would be a first step. I would say in terms of immediate things you can do for your family, also signing up for emergency alerts and making sure that you're getting notifications about storms and flooding. I think also for folks that are concerned about their property or, you know, we're happy to help point people towards flooding. more detailed resources about the vulnerability maybe of their building or who have questions about how this affects them. We're happy to help with that kind of information. And I think we are, the Nuestro Canal Nuestro Futuro is an ongoing initiative that Canal Alliance is leading. That's one opportunity for residents in that neighborhood to get involved. But I would say at this phase, probably signing up for the city's sea level rise newsletter and staying in the loop that way would be the best way to ensure that if someone's interested in getting involved, they'll hear about it. We also have an open survey where people are welcome to submit their concerns and comments right now. That's also on our website.

Fantastic. I'll turn to my colleagues for short comments, being that we're going to have an extensive conversation in August. Go ahead, Vice Mayor.

Great. Thank you to Kate, Canal Alliance, the community to come out and speak on this topic. It's super important. San Rafael absolutely needs to be a strong advocate, but I'd say right now we also need to be a strong advocate for a lead agency and for regional coordination. If we even tripled our budget, it would not be enough. And that means not doing anything else in the city to just address sea level rise. So I don't think, as a city, I think we need to be very clear what we can do and what we can't do and where we can make the most impact and influence. And I think talking again about if the canal region is impacted the entire, Marin County is going to be impacted. Um, and we know that. So I think that's very important. Um, Kate, you had mentioned that two reports were done, um, and they came up with very similar type of findings. This is mo for Marin County. We do lots and lots of studies and reports. And so I think if anyone hears of more reports going on, we probably need to raise a flag and say is it really needed? Do we already have that information? So I would just caution on that. We definitely need to find more money. And then I think where we can actually do hands-on work and where I think we can prioritize is that real high benefit work that we can do, low risk, high benefit around emergency preparedness and community preparedness and what we can do in that space. And I know Director Quinn Gardner with Emergency Management, this is one of her top items that she's been working on for a while. So I'm really appreciative of that work, and we need to continue to get the word out with the community. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Micah.

Yes, thank you. Thank you so much for presenting the report. Again, Kate and Corey, I mean, you're amazing. I'm always amazed with the level of work that you do, but also the partners that you have engaged with. I mean, we have UC Berkeley working with us right now. the county, we have funders. It's very frustrating to know that we do have sea level rise in our community. And I want to fix it like tomorrow, like yesterday. And just understanding that to me, based on the presentation, There is no one perfect solution. So I think we all agree on the issue is how we are going to approach it. And also knowing that it's going to cost a lot of money whatever we do, but not doing anything is going to be so much more expensive and not just financially. So I'm on the Cal Cities Committee where we get together for environmental quality. And so we talk about what are the top priorities for our committee. And our top priority is fires. It's a fire in California. So there is a lot of conversations and legislations around how can we support So I think the advocacy from the coastal cities on sea level rise and how we can be, have like a stronger voice so more funds can be designated for that. At the federal level, you know, where we are right now, so, but I really applaud your efforts because engaging with FEMA is a big step, so that's great. I know we have conversations where in the lands, last king tide, having like some bags available where people are, because they are not going to be able to drive to a different location, and making sure that everybody knows. King tide, we know that it's coming, so that's something that we can advertise. There are other... maybe storms or other emergencies that we might not be able to know, but this one we know, making sure that people move their cars from the areas where they are going to be flooded. I know that there are like initiatives where we are trying to also engage with private funders, community foundation, and I think there was like two households affected by the last king tide that I think there was some support. Having your house flooded is not just like you just dried and you're done. I mean, you destroyed that apartment and you need to spend a lot of money remodeling. Flood insurance is another issue, again, at the state level. So there are so many different components that I think we definitely have to do a lot of the advocacy at the state level. Really appreciate the community here, the community that has been working for years, and see how we can to go and advocate again at that level. Anything else? Sorry. I think somebody mentioned housing relocation is something that is definitely coming as well and how we can support that. I heard that the state was funding an initiative where they were going to build new houses and move people from the flooding area and then transform that into a nature reserve for sea level rise. Now, I would like to see how much money the state will be putting for new housing to do that. But, you know, again, I think being open for anything is great. So thank you so much. And, yes, definitely to be continued. But thank you, everybody who's here and everybody who is participating. And we need to engage with everybody. This is, you know, thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Hill. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Kate, for giving us clear messaging around this and even some nuanced messaging as well. I know I thank you for entertaining and indulging my questions around really, I think, strategic questions around how do we get to an outcome faster. It occurs to me that as I look out at the audience and folks who showed up from Green Build Alliance, from Canal Alliance, from Voces del Canal, from local businesses and even just community members who want to be heard, those voices are heard. I am eager to make certain that we find our way forward, whether it has to do with establishing an agency as the lead, It also occurred to me too that from the city manager's testimony that regrettably oftentimes it requires major incidents in order to receive the funding after the fact. I think our goal here should be to try to find ways to non-regrettable moments to get funding in advance. So obviously I want to make certain we're in position to make those requests for money get to the front of the line if we can. I also think that as regrettable as it was that we did have an incident not all that long ago, that it was a wake-up call. It did get the attention from our upper electeds, including Congressman Huffman, who did come to tour Marin on the other side of it. I hope we can continue to build on that. Also, I appreciated the comments from Bill Carney regarding to Scornia Marsh. That is something that has been going on from the Audubon Society for many years. It is millions of dollars in and still in the middle of implementation. I know the more recent update is that they're contending with some transmission tower infrastructure that they're working through with PG&E at the moment. But I am eager to make certain that we can find our way towards non-aggregable moments in the future. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Bushy.

I have two comments. One is lighthearted but in short, on a short term basis and the other is longer term. I'll start with the more fun one. The public safety element of King Tides is obvious. It's scheduled. You know right now, Christmas Eve, that that's when it's going to happen. Wouldn't it be great? Sandbags from Santa. But that's an example of practical right now things that we can do that has an educational component because we know when this is going to happen. This is not a surprise. So that's my lighthearted idea, but it's just an example of the type of thinking that our residents and our businesses want right now, things that can make a difference. Switching to the less fun topic and focusing on your high-level presentation and high-level comment back, I take one word out of your title, feasibility. That is the word. Coming up with the greatest solution that's beautiful and meets all of your eight listed items, if it requires taking 150 property owners' property and completely changing everything, that's not feasible. So I encourage you to focus on feasibility. What can we realistically do? And we all know from public infrastructure, 25 years is not a long time. To do something like this, we are on the clock here. So feasibility in that timeline is a big challenge. But we've got to come forward with some sort of a proposal and get beyond cataloging the issue. Because I think we've done that. And you've done a brilliant job of cataloging it. But now we've got to move to the feasibility stage. Thank you.

Thank you, and I'll just add my comments. So again, thank you to the community that came out tonight, who've come out other nights, who have been talking about this issue for over a decade. Kate, as always, for your leadership, and Corey as well. And this is not just a Semerfel issue. I hope what people take away from this San Rafael is having these conversations because we want to be a part of the broader solution. And we cannot do this alone. That's just simply not possible. So working with our counterparts in Marin County, they've recently hired, as Council Member Micah reported out in her council report during Bay Wave, they actually now have a point person that will be looking at that. So Marin is starting to look at that. At the state level, I have been involved in the BCDC, the Bay Conservation Development Council, core, an elected official committee that has come together to talk about those regional shoreline adaptation plans that are required by all the jurisdictions that are around San Francisco Bay. Again, we're not the only jurisdiction having these conversations, having these sobering conversations, recognizing the dollars involved, and of course the federal federal government. We need to have them show up. Congratulations on those FEMA dollars. That is huge. It shows that we do have a compelling case here and a lot of that is because of the community willingness to come together and support proposed solutions. I do want to end the climate resilience incubator is huge for looking at those potential funding opportunities that would be available to our jurisdiction. And I did briefly want to touch on the studies. Those studies are neat. There's one big study that was done by TAM, the Transportation Authority of Marin. It is a phenomenal study. You can go look it up. It has by each jurisdiction. And so we were also doing our own as a collaborative with all of the folks that you saw their logos on the slide. TAM did theirs as well because TAM has one of their objectives was to protect infrastructure. So that's why TAM did those. two studies and the fact that they correlate is important. In addition, there's another study being made at the state level and it's important that Caltrans does this study because the way that funding flows is those agencies need to have done the study and to be compelled to provide those funds. Caltrans, TAM is working with Caltrans. My goal, and I've met with Kate on this and Corey recently, as well as with TAM staff, how do we ensure that Caltrans thinks beyond just their own infrastructure? And that is something that right now, and you had said during your presentation, keeping all options on the table. So I'm reaching out to Caltrans to see if we can support that mentality. And by having all those options on the table, then we have all the information, as Council Member Bushy said, it's well cataloged. But some agencies need to catalog it through their own processes in order to have those funding and additional policies to flow. So I'm confident that we are going to continue to move forward. And I will also underscore what was already said on the dias from the community. For the short term, we know what's going to happen. We have ice bags. I don't know if it's... Santa for sandbags, but something equally impactful so people know what to do and that dovetails with ensuring that Nixle or whatever the emergency broadcast system is that people are signed up. So thank you. We look forward to the August meeting. We know it will be robust and as always sign up for the email if you would like to know about the meetings that are going on. So I will ask Council Member Mica if you would like to make a motion on this item.

I would love to, thank you. I make a motion to receive a presentation on the city's sea level rise feasibility study.

Second.

Moved and seconded. Roll call, please.

Council Member Bushy. Aye. Council Member Hill.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Kurtz. Aye. Council Member Yadenskaladi?

Aye.

Mayor Kate?

Aye. That motion carries 5-0. And again, thank you to our interpreters who were here this evening. Before we turn to our last two agenda items, we will take a break. I think the next ones are also meeting, so we will recess for 10 minutes. Thank you.

Thank you.

um um

Okay, welcome back everyone. Thank you for that short recess. It's a lot of sitting when we have a big agenda packet. So the next item on this evening's agenda is the Brown Act updates and teleconferencing provisions. And I'll turn it to our city clerk.

Give me one moment.

It's not just me.

No, it's just you. You just wait. See, just you. Good evening, Mayor Kate and members of the city council. My name is Lindsay Lara, and I'm the city clerk for the city of Centerfell. And tonight, I have the privilege of presenting to you some significant Brown Act updates as a result of Senate Bill 707. But I do see this. There we go. So just a quick overview of the presentation for this evening. I'm going to be going over Senate Bill 707 and the requirements to allow remote participation, as well as reviewing the technology disruption policy, the multilingual agendas and participation policy, the disruptive behavior policy. And then I'm going to go over the allowance for teleconferencing for eligible subsidiary bodies. OK. First, there was a slide before which I can now see why everyone is having an issue when I help them out with this. Because it's not letting me go backwards. Well, what I will say, page up. No? Page up. It's just delayed. So I'll just go into what the previous slide was, was just a quick little overview and kind of step back at looking at what the Brown Act is. What is the Brown Act and why is it important before I get into the statutes of Senate Bill 707? The Brown Act essentially requires that all meetings of government are open and public. That means that our doors are unlocked, anyone can walk in at any time, that whenever the city council convenes, that's held in an open session, unless there's a closed session provision in which they would be able to meet in closed session. We would be transparent. What that means is that we're posting our agendas in advance of meetings so folks in the community know that they may have an interest in what's on the agenda, and they're going to want to come and provide their public testimony, as well as being able to participate in the city council meeting. That's the biggest thing, is it's the difference between watching and then actually participating in local government. It really is kind of the cornerstone of democracy. It really allows folks, as we got to see, it was unique sitting in the city council meeting tonight knowing this agenda was coming up. It was hard to not really imagine the whole reason we have the Brown Act was the entire reason we got to hear all of that public testimony in the item before this. And also the reason that we're not able to respond to certain questions during open time when it's not on the agenda is because other people might want to also talk about that specific item. So if we got into discussion, it would be illegal. The Brown Act, open meeting laws, that kind of dictates how we as a city council and as a government operate. So Senate Bill 707 is a big modernization of the Brown Act. It's one of the biggest ones in a long, long, long time. The reason for that is because of advances in technology and increased expectations from our community for remote participation. Everyone is used to doing business this way. That's what we're used to. And then also it's making changes to language accessibility and expanding our requirement for community engagement. What this means is that effective July 1, the city council must provide two-way remote participation, allow remote public comments, adopt a technology disruption policy, and provide reasonable accommodations for translation and interpretation. See if I can get this to slide. I'm going to just restart this. Give me one second. So eligible legislative bodies. What we're used to within the Brown Act is legislative bodies. I want to make sure that this is displaying, so I'm not going to full screen mode. What we're used to in the Brown Act is known as a legislative body. That means city council or boards, commissions, and committees. It introduces a new definition, which is eligible legislative bodies. What that means, it defines it with a formula of who would qualify as an eligible legislative body. In San Rafael, our San Rafael City Council qualifies as an eligible legislative body because our population exceeds 30,000. That distinction is important because it does not require our boards, commissions, and committees to comply with these changes to SB 707. So it's just the San Rafael City Council. So the proposed public participation structure, I kind of want to talk a little bit about what that means before the meeting and then during the meeting. Before the meeting, it means we're going to be changing our agenda and the look and feel of our agendas. Our city council meeting agenda will include an agenda cover sheet, which will be really clearly providing information on how folks can participate from home or in person, as well as how folks can request translation of any agenda materials or interpretation of our city council meetings into Spanish. We'll also update our website and provide verbal instructions at the beginning and during public meetings. If anyone's having issues just like COVID with providing their comments virtually, we'll assist as best we can. For our public comment process in person or virtually, the process would be that in person speakers would speak first. followed by virtual speakers. And then after that, we would say, is there anyone else? The mayor would say, is there anyone else who would like to provide comments who has not already provided comments? And then public comment would close. The next section of these updates would be our technology disruption policy, which I'm illustrating now. However, good distinction, because that would not qualify us to have to recess. But the policy that we have, SB 707, because now we're required to allow remote participation, we have to have a policy in place for when technology fails. What do we do? We're going to have items agendized on our meetings. We have community members who are expecting to provide public comments from the comfort of their home. So how do we handle that? And the Brown Act is really clear. SB 707 is really clear on what we need to do moving forward. That process would be the moment that staff, which is most likely to be the Digital Service and Open Government Department and myself, would notice that there's some sort of a technology failure, meaning very clearly that people from home cannot hear us because of our technology issue, or we can't hear them because of our technology issue. If there's an outage in the neighborhood, or someone doesn't have internet, That would not be something that would require us to go on to recess for. It's just something that we can control and be able to fix. Once we've identified that issue, the mayor would announce that there is a technology issue. We would call a recess for up to one hour or until the technology is restored, whichever happens sooner. And during that recess, staff would attempt restoration. The outcomes that would take place from that recess would be we would either be resuming the meeting if technology is restored. That's the quickest and best option. That's what we hope for. We could adjourn the meeting, say that the meeting is almost over and we have a technology issue. We can just determine we're going to adjourn the meeting. There's no business. That's an easy decision. We may need to make the decision to adjourn the meeting because we cannot continue on without public participation virtually, or the city council could determine that we could resume the meeting even though technology has not been restored with specific findings. So if service is not restored, the reasons that we would be considering in order for us to adjourn the meeting and maybe continue it to another city council meeting night would be that there's items on the agenda that are of high public interest. There's public hearings, controversial items. We have a large number of members who are participating on Zoom. We know that people want to be participating from home and we've told them that they could. There's a significant legal risk in not continuing on with the meeting or continuing on without virtual participation. Or our tech issue is ongoing and unpredictable. We're just not seeing that this is going to get any different or change. The other option is that we can consider resuming the city council meeting, even though we are not able to restore technology. But we have to make sure that staff has done everything they can to restore access. So we've made good faith efforts to restore access to the technology issue. The agenda items are time sensitive. Maybe we have grant funding that's dependent upon the decision being made that evening. We have to do it tonight. There's limited public interest or no speakers present. It's just a kind of a small agenda evening, and it wouldn't be impactful for us to continue on without technology issues. Or delays would significantly impact city operations. In those scenarios, we would consider resuming the city council meeting. EVEN THOUGH WE DON'T HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY ANYMORE AND MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO PARTICIPATE FROM HOME. WHO IS MAKING THAT DECISION? THAT DECISION IS BEING MADE DURING THE RECESS IN COLLABORATION WITH THE CITY MANAGER, THE CITY ATTORNEY, THE MAYOR AND THE CITY CLERK. Once that decision is made, at that point we would reopen the meeting and a formal finding and a roll call vote would have to be made. So the motion would be that good faith efforts were made to restore the access to the community virtually, that public interest in resuming would outweigh the remote access and the public interest in remote access, and then we would need to clearly announce the decision to resume. The next section of the presentation is all specific to the multi-language agendas and participation policy. SB 707, and I'm going to kind of briefly go over this because San Rafael, we actually are pretty compliant with everything, almost everything that SB 707 wants us to do. Again, this is only for eligible legislative bodies, and I'm just going to kind of highlight the things that we are going to have to do because we are doing everything else. We're going to be required to translate all of our agendas into Spanish. So that will be something that we'll do. It'll have to be in compliant. We'll follow the same rules for our English agenda posting. We'll post them at the same exact time. We're not required to use a certified interpreter. We can utilize Google Translate or any sort of devices that we have, any tools that we have to translate those agendas. In addition to that, we would be required to also include a public bulletin board outside because translation is tricky and it's not always a direct translation. So if a member of the community disagrees with one of the terms that we used in Spanish, they have to have the access to be able to post their own version of that agenda outside 24-7 of City Hall. Very interesting, but we will have language on that bulletin board because we're not in control of that. We won't be monitoring that. We won't be reviewing it. Whatever you post on there is what you'll post on there. The other is expanded outreach. So I'm going to briefly go over interpretation accommodations. We go above and beyond right now whenever we've had that on our agendas for a long time. And as you saw this evening, we always make sure that we provide interpretation when it's requested. Oftentimes it's requested within the timeline we require, but we do the best that we can to make sure that everyone in our community gets to be involved and participate in local government. The expanded outreach efforts is specifically just there's a section of the code that just refers to us trying to do everything we can to reach folks who don't traditionally participate in local government or in government. So that's easy. We have a mass email notification that we send out each time a city council meeting is held. and we'll just make sure to include additional community groups and ask their permission if we can include them, of course. And then we have protections within SB 707. If we fail to contact a specific group, no one would be able to file against us for a violation of the Brown Act. There's protections for cities in the act. So I am actually gonna skip through some of those, the language requirements in the sake of time. And because we're already compliant with them, and I'm gonna move over to the disruptive behavior policy. So the purpose of this disruptive behavior policy in public meetings is really to establish some procedures for how we're planning on handling disruptions during public meetings. During COVID, we didn't really have any practice or plan on what we were going to do when something would arise. So this is kind of establishing some guidelines and procedures for us to be able to know what to do in those scenarios, but also to make sure that we're being really clear to the community about what the expectations are. We wanna balance the ability for them to have their public participation and make sure their comments are heard. We wanna make sure their First Amendment rights are being protected. But we also wanna make sure that our ability to conduct city business is being taken seriously and that we're able to do that safely and efficiently. So we've taken some proactive, as that's loading, proactive meeting security procedures. So we have webinar controls that we utilize. So when I say we, I mean the city clerk's office. We manage our webinar accounts. So when we're preparing for hybrid model of city council meetings, we have some significant controls that we're locking down just to make sure that we're combating what is commonly used as Zoom bombing that takes place at local governments across the country when COVID was going on. So things like disabling screen sharing for attendees, limiting panelists' permissions, everyone's permissions are limited, Disabling or restricting chat features. We don't have chat features at all during COVID and we won't have that starting in July 1st. And then also participant controls. So if someone wants to speak, they raise their hand. They're not able to speak unless I grant them permission to do so. And then the moment their two minutes is up, I remove their permission to speak altogether. We'd also have some meeting decorum expectations. We'd recommend reading a decorum statement at the start of each meeting. And that just kind of sets expectations and also really clarifies the consequences for disruptive behavior so people aren't caught off guard and we're not bringing it up only when things are starting to get disruptive. It's just kind of a part of our culture. I also want to say here is that with this disruption policy, SB 707 has always had and provided authority to the mayor to remove members of the public for disrupting the city council meeting. That's always been there. SB 707 expands that authority to remote meetings, to the hybrid meeting model. So I just want to be clear, this isn't new. This has always been there. We've just never really had a written policy and procedure on how we handle that. So that decorum statement and that expectation could sound something like, The statements made by individuals during this meeting do not represent the city's position. Disruptive behavior that interferes others from speaking or the orderly conduct of this meeting will not be tolerated. Individuals engaging in such behavior may be removed from the meeting. Again, we're just reinforcing, we are, oh, I didn't get a chance to, I missed a couple slides here I'm gonna go back to, but we didn't get, Let me see here. This reinforces the ability for folks to be able to participate. It's also setting expectations really clearly and early, and it's providing notice and making sure that we're providing a warning. One of the slides that got skipped here is, what counts as disruptive behavior? This is kind of the big thing, is how are we identifying what this looks like? Examples of disruptive behavior would include speaking over others or refusing to yield the floor. So after two minutes is up, if they continue on or they're screaming and shouting from the audience and making it impossible for community members to provide their public comments. The next three are really what's commonly known as Zoom bombing, but spamming the audio or chat, flooding, obscene or graphic images, and then conduct that prevents the meeting from proceeding altogether. Again, here an important note is that offensive or critical comments alone are not considered a disruption. It might not be enjoyable to hear. We might not like them. However, disruptive behavior is really something that impedes the ability for folks to be able to participate in the meeting. We wanted to also provide some information about protected speech versus a disruption. So protected speech could be anything that is a criticism of city programs, policies, departments, staff, or elected officials, profanity or offensive viewpoints, unpopular or controversial opinions. Those are all protected speech. under the First Amendment. What's not protected, however, is true threats of violence, incitement to imminent unlawful action, obscenity as defined by law, and conduct that would be disruptive to the meeting. Again, speech is not removed simply because it's offensive. It would just be considered potentially disruptive if they're not stopping screaming, but the speech itself is not considered, it's not, it is protected unless it's, excuse me, it is protected even though it may be offensive. So we have created a response procedures overview. It's a four-step process that we would be recommending. The first is that we're going to be assessing the behavior. The second is that we'd be issuing a verbal warning. The third is that we'd remove the participant if the disruption was to continue. And the fourth would be to recess the meeting if the disruption cannot be controlled. For the initial evaluation, staff, the presiding officer, the city attorney is going to be evaluating the speech. Is it protected speech? Is the conduct actually disrupting the meeting? Can the meeting continue effectively? Examples of disruption, again, is shouting over speakers, refusing to stop after the time has expired, or audio, video spamming. Step two would be the verbal warning. This is an opportunity for whoever's speaking to correct their behavior. We could say something along the lines of we welcome all viewpoints, but behavior that disrupts the meeting is not permitted. Please stop or you may be removed. That's issued by the mayor or the presiding officer. That language is not recommended. It could be any language along those lines, but the main point here is that we're offering some sort of a warning to let them know that there could be a follow-up action if they don't stop the behavior. It reinforces their ability to have their viewpoints. It provides the clear notice that we're required to give them per SB 707 or the Brown Act, and it gives the participant the opportunity to comply. Step three would be the removal of the participant. Upon direction of the mayor, I would remove any member who is virtually present. I would remove them from the webinar. And then the in-person participant would be removed by law enforcement if necessary and if directed. Step four would be to recess or suspend the meeting. If we're not able to maintain the order of the meeting or we're not able to get it back into order, we would recess the meeting at that time. What I imagine being is that there's a significant number of people who are screaming over, we just cannot regain order to the meeting. At that moment, we would recess. Or if I'm noticing from my end on the back end that we're getting bombed, I can tell almost immediately. I can tell by the behavior of the attendees, the way that they're naming their names. Once I notice that that's taking place, I'll probably recommend a recess so we could try to regain control, make sure we have a plan moving forward, and we know what's coming. Once we're able to restore the order of the meeting, we can continue on with the city council meeting. So here's some hate speech considerations. Hate speech is often constitutionally protected unless it includes true threats, incites imminent violence, or becomes materially disruptive. Our response, unless it falls into those categories, that hate speech, if it is protected, our response is to main decorum to avoid viewpoint discrimination and focus on conduct, but not the opinions that are being expressed. The separation there is if it does fall, if it's no longer protected, there's no warning opportunity here. At that moment, immediately upon direction I'm removing the member, there's no warning that needs to be issued. If they're in person, the law enforcement officer on site will be able, if they're directed, they would make sure that they remove the member. If we have to call recess, we would do so as well. So the operational roles during the disruption, who's on first? The mayor or the presiding officer, because this policy also goes forward to all of our public Round Act meetings. The mayor or the presiding officer would maintain order of the meeting, they issue the warnings, and they call recesses. The city attorney is providing legal guidance to maintain order warnings, and they're assessing First Amendment considerations. The city clerk is also the meeting host. I'm managing the webinar controls and security. I'm removing online participants upon direction from the mayor. And I'm documenting all actions they're taking and making sure that those are going to be in the minutes, that we have everything that we need in order to take that action. And law enforcement, they're assisting with the in-person removal if necessary. The last section that I will be presenting this evening is teleconferencing with regard to subsidiary advisory bodies. I want to actually take a second and go back to SB 707. Now, SB 707 was an unfunded mandate by the state of California. We're not provided any funding in order to carry out this law. We are required to do so by July 1st, and we have to do that. Teleconferencing and subsidiary advisory bodies, it's this allowance for them to meet completely remotely. Some of our boards and commissions to meet completely remotely, and it's an option of the city council and the city council's authority only. So that's not an unfunded mandate. This is a mandate by the state of California. It's an option that the city council has. It applies only to eligible subsidiary bodies, another fun brand new definition introduced by SB 707. And I'll get into that in a second. Certain advisory bodies would be able to, like I said, meet completely remotely. So that means that they would be able to be at home with their screen on, and then folks would be able to participate from home. There would still need to be a physical location in the city of Centerfell where folks could participate in person. So what is this new definition of the eligible subsidiary body? It's an advisory body that serves exclusively in an advisory role. So they're not making any final actions or decisions or findings at all. It's advisory only. They don't oversee specific and sensitive subject areas, including elections, budgets, police oversight, library materials, taxes, or spending proposals. And I should actually add a new bullet point here. also including city council subcommittee meetings, they would not be qualified as an eligible subsidiary body. Now, if the city council was interested in this moving forward, there's a few things that would need to happen. Prior to a subsidiary body being able to meet remotely, the city council would need to approve that, and then they would need to renew that decision every six months. Also, the subsidiary body must also approve that decision. They would also have to be okay with meeting as fully remote and teleconferencing. There would need to be ongoing conditions. There would need to be a physical location, as I mentioned before. One staff member would be required to be present at that location. Agendas, we always post our agendas at the physical location. But members must appear on camera unless prevented by a condition or some sort of a technical issue. Now, interaction with legislative body. This is where it gets a little complicated. Subsidiary body may request to present recommendations on anything at all to the city council. And if they made that recommendation in their meeting, the city council would be required to hold a discussion on that topic within 60 days at a regular meeting. The discussion would not be able to be held on the consent calendar, and no action could actually be taken at that first hearing. It would need to come back to a subsequent next city council meeting in order for action to be taken on that. So what that could look like is, say, one of our boards and commissions makes a recommendation that they want an entire new street resurfaced. And they made that recommendation. They thought it was important for the city council to hear that recommendation. They would put in that request during their meeting, and then we would be required to hold that within 60 days to find a way to fit that onto our city council agenda. It'd have to be an agenda item. No action would be taken that night, so basically creating two opportunities for in-person, face-to-face public participation. That's really what this is trying to solve, is that because it's completely remote, and that the members of the body aren't required to attend in person, This would be the opportunity for them to have face-to-face contact with the community and the city council. So that's kind of the workaround with how we're getting around not being face-to-face anymore. That's at least what the bill was going to be. This was initially a separate Senate bill, and it got combined with SB 707. So a little complicated. What I want to say about this staff recommendation is that I'm actually not, I do not recommend, staff does not recommend remote meetings to eligible subsidiary bodies at this time. And for a couple reasons. One is because of the public engagement considerations. That face to face contact is so important. Our boards and commissions program is such an important program that we have at the city of Centerfell. And one of the benefits that we have to that is that we get to have the city council members appoint these appointed officials to serve on these bodies and then have face-to-face contact and community engagement with our community. It's like this extra option and opportunity for community engagement that's so, so, so important. So that's one of the reasons that staff's not recommending remote meetings for eligible subsidiary bodies. But additionally, the request for recommendations to city council is really strict in adding agenda items outside of our work plan. We've worked so hard to adopt the strategic plan and this work plan that we're trying to follow. And then we don't have the staff resources available to just generate staff reports about any topic that's being recommended by subsidiary bodies. And then we'd also have to manage the subsidiary body presentation to the city council. And then on top of that, that 60-day requirement, the inability to do it on consent calendar, and then the inability to act are the reasons that staff is not recommending moving forward with that recommendation. This is an informational update, no action necessary here. On this next slide when it loads finally is that you're all familiar with the Just Cause and teleconferencing updates that happened. So there was just an increase. So if the city council meets twice per month, so instead of two times a year like it's been, that could happen five times a year. I'm informing this body of that because it's just an update and legislation that could impact you. However, I don't believe the city council has ever actually utilized this. for a regular city council meeting at least. And for other bodies, they would be able to still stay at that two times per year. So the staff recommendation this evening is to, when it loads, adopt the resolution authorizing hybrid city council meetings effective July 1st, 2026, and adopting a technology disruption policy, multilingual agendas and participation policy, and a disruptive behavior and public meetings policy to implement Senate Bill SB 707 Durazo. And I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have and close that PowerPoint.

Thank you, Madam State Clerk. And I was struck by many things, but especially the unfunded mandate, which means that in addition to all the other things that you do, you and your team do every single day, this was in addition as well as the digital services team. So I just want to underscore that our state legislators, good intentions, but I appreciate the additional work that you all have done. So we'll start with questions. Yeah, Vice Mayor, go ahead.

Two questions. First one, has there been any thought or recommendation around for those who are providing public comment online, will we be asking them to show, be visually present and control the naming?

Control the naming. So no, I do not recommend moving forward with their screens, just specifically because of the obscenity and the potential for webinar bombing. We would not be allowing any screen sharing or visual for public comment. So it would just be teleconferencing. It would just be audio.

It would just be audio.

Renaming, I have full access to rename, and I rename strategically just so I can, when I rename folks, I basically am marking which comments, which items they're talking on to make sure they don't comment twice on the same items, and I kind of follow them throughout the meeting.

Okay, great. And then on the, I had communicated a little bit on this question around other jurisdictions, is there standardization? Because we do know that there are people who comment on across the county in multiple meetings and our policy's gonna be different across the board. And then also more closely related for San Rafael City Schools, is there an opportunity that to provide the same, so San Rafael is at least aligned with San Rafael?

Yeah, so because of that eligible legislative body component, it's only us in the city of Nevada that are required to comply with SB 707 and these rules. So that said, other agencies do allow hybrid public meeting models. However, they're not required to follow the strict rules that we are now required to follow. It's also not a requirement to adopt a disruptive behavior policy. That was more of a tool for us to be able to make sure we know what's coming and we know how to handle it. I've met with the clerks of Marin County. We meet quarterly and we just started meeting monthly and so they're aware of this presentation that I'm having this evening. City of Novato is going to be doing it next week as well, but they don't currently have a disruption or disruptive behavior policy in place. As far as Centerfell City Schools, it'll be a public document and they're more than welcome to utilize it in any way they would like or if they wanted to modify it to fit their agency and their culture as they deem necessary.

Thank you, Council Member Urens-Gulati.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. Thank you so much for the presentation. Just one quick question. For the multi-languages, it says that people can request it, but there is like a provision where it says that if we feel it's going to be like, that the community are going to be interested, then we could just have interpreter. How do we define that?

Yeah, so typically, on our executive team meetings, we discuss the items that are upcoming on the agenda. And typically, if there's something that's going to be impacting a community that speaks Spanish or that is our more highly populated Spanish speaking communities, then we'll make sure that we have interpretation prepared for those meetings. However, we also want to make sure that people would be utilizing it as well. So there have been times where I've reached out to Canal Alliance and asked if folks were going to be planning on participating in our meeting. BUT IT REALLY IS ESSENTIALLY BY RECOMMENDATION OR BY REQUEST AS WE KEEP THAT AVAILABLE.

OKAY. GREAT. AND I ASSUME THAT WE HAVE SEVERAL PARTNERS, NOT JUST CANADA ALLIANCE. YEAH. OKAY. CORRECT. THANK YOU. THANK YOU.

COUNCIL MEMBER BUSHY, ANY QUESTIONS?

One quick nuts and bolts question. How is this going to unfold for us in a month? So what are we going to see when the mayor calls for off-site comments? What's going to happen?

Yeah, so starting, well, unless we hold a special meeting before July 20th, the 720 City Council meeting will be the first hybrid model. When Mayor Kate opens public comment, well, you'll notice the cheat sheet will be a little bit different. I'll have additional comments in advance, and I'll kind of let folks know how they can participate, how they can unmute, how they'll be able to raise their hand, the star nine, the star sixes, if you recall from COVID. kind of complicated for folks who are calling in and using their phone versus the actual application. But the way that that'll work is Mayor Kate will invite public comment. Everyone who's in the room will speak. And once there's no one else in the room who wants to speak, she'll ask me if there's any hands raised on the webinar. And at that point, I'll say yes or no. And I'll start managing the folks who are participating virtually and giving them the permission to speak and then removing their permission to speak. And then I'll let Mayor Kate know when there are no more speakers.

So what are we going to see on the screen?

You won't see anything on the screen but a timer and potentially their name or their phone number partially redacted.

Okay. Thank you.

Actually, I wanted to follow up on that question because we now have open time for public expression in the beginning of the meeting for 10 minutes, and then we have it at the end because it enables us to get to our business agenda. So what would that look like? I mean, my sense is, and again, if it's open to the council weighing in, is that we would take some in the room, some online, and then have the rest towards the end because we're trying to make sure that we get to our agenda.

Yes, good question. And also brings up some component of SB 707 and some new legislation. If we, as of right now, are open time for public expression, right next to it, it says dash 10 minutes. We have to remove that from the agenda because now it states in SB 707 that if we put a time amount on the agenda, we're required by law to hold it for the 10 minutes. So even if there's no one here, we would have to hold it for 10 minutes. So we're going to remove that from the agenda so it's not on there, but we'll still have the... the first open time for public expression, and then we'll have it at the end as well for continued. And then that provides the mayor the authority, which is within her right, to be able to determine how long we'll do public comment for. If she states out loud, it'll be 10 minutes of public comment at the beginning. The first five minutes would be in person. The second five minutes would be virtual. They need to be treated equally, the virtual participants and the in-person participants.

Sorry, I jumped in because I was building on that. So Council Member Hill.

That's a complication. Maybe we should just have one at the end.

Thank you, Mayor. Let's go ahead and hear Council Member Hale's question.

So yeah, this is getting into the details because I was trying to imagine this. you point out that there's a bulletin board that will need to be physically outside city hall. So I'm imagining that we're going to go procure a cork board with pins. I just want to make sure I'm understanding this correctly.

Yeah. Yeah. That's about right. Um, city clerks throughout the state are like sending each other pictures of their bulletin boards right now. Sometimes they're really nice and sometimes it's like just a, um, They're not very nice. They're just not even a cork board. It's like a thing that you could just insert, almost like a mailbox where you could insert. So I've talked to Public Works. We know that it's going to be coming, that it's going to be installed. We actually currently have a bulletin board outside. But it's locked, so folks wouldn't be able to post anything there. So it would be something right next to that, and I'm not sure how high tech or low tech that will be. There is current legislation that, well, there are groups that are trying to create legislation and bring legislation forward that would change some of the language access components of SB 707. and our most recent clerk's roundtable through the state that we were hearing about. However, we will all have already purchased our bulletin boards and or mailboxes by then, so more updates to come, but I don't know exactly what that will look like just yet. Okay.

Just as a practical matter, some of our agenda packets are 500 pages or more. So is it just one piece of paper?

Thank you so much for saying that. So by law, we're only required to translate the agenda. The packet itself is not required to be translated. Okay. That said, right now, if a member of the public requested a document within the packet to be translated, we do that. We already do that the same way we provide interpreting. But we are only required by law to every city council meeting translate the city council agenda. So that would be what they would be translating their own version of, and they would be inserting that into the bulletin board.

Thank you for clarifying. I was imagining someone trying to push a pin through 500 pages. Thank you. Thank you for that. I was noticing in the staff report, it indicates that the mayor has discretion to be able to potentially limit number of minutes per speaker, given the size of the room. But also further down in the same paragraph, it says that the mayor can also has the discretion to be able to set a time certain as well. I just wanted to see, is that a departure from current policy or is that consistent with current policy?

So that's always been an option. We've just never utilized that option. And I could do more research and get back to you. Maybe Rob actually, our city attorney might know more from other agencies.

We have used it. It's been a long time, but I can remember I think it was the meeting on the soccer facility where we had 60 or 70 people. And then, back in the day, it was three minutes, not two minutes. But I think we knocked it down to one minute just because the mayor called an audible and said, we just are never gonna get out of here unless we place a limit tonight. And the mayor always has that discretion, always has had it.

Thank you. My next question is, and this goes into the space of disruptive behavior. Is there any mechanism that we're allowed, because once that disruptive behavior is recorded, then is it mandated to be published for the duration that it was captured?

Are you talking about the unprotected? Unprotected. I would defer to Rob.

That's a really good question that the legislation doesn't seem to guide us about. So I think we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I think to restate your question, and we may get more questions about this, we may get public comment about it, we've got the distinction that Lindsey's helpfully described between speech that we might not like, but that we must permit, versus actually disruptive speech that provides the prerogative then to limit the speaker or reject the speaker. And the concern that you're stating is if someone, engages in such behavior, we're going to have to keep a permanent record of that. Sadly, I think the bigger question is the people that don't get ejected that are engaging in really offensive speech with which we might disagree, and we will need to keep our record of that just like we do of everything else. I wanna add a comment, I don't know when was gonna be a good time to say this, but now seems like the right moment, I've said it before. When we're dealing with speech that is unpleasant, offensive, speech that wouldn't be allowable in other contexts, like speech that calls out protected classes of people, for example, that in an employment context or housing context would be viewed as, depending on what the actions are, discriminatory, the types of things that you can't do. Here in a public meeting, because of the broad First Amendment protection, such speech will often be determined to be permissible. I think it's really important in those instances, though, because I've seen situations where the reaction to a surprise like that, because it's always a terrible surprise when someone starts going off on specific people or ideas that we find offensive, that people can be sort of gobsmacked by it and just go... you know, like what do we do now? And I think all of us, all of you need to be prepared for those moments to immediately respond and say, you know, the First Amendment applies here and speech that we might disagree with is, required to be allowed, but I, the mayor or council member, whoever wants to pick up the gauntlet then, I think should immediately make clear that this speech here in this community, we abhor, we don't agree with any of these statements that this member of the community or person at the podium is making. so that everyone who's watching on the video or who's present in the room is clear about where the city stands on the speech. So silence, in my view, is not an option in response to speech like that. Thank you, City Attorney.

If I can also add to that, thank you, City Attorney. There's a couple things that that allowed me some time to think about. First is with the new AV improvements that we've made, we actually have the ability to mute in person as well. The microphone's there. We'd be able to mute so it wouldn't be on the record. So that's something that's great that we did not have access to do previously. And then also, and we'll look into it more about your original question, but it is required that we're I am keeping a record, like a very clear record of what happened. So the ability for me to be able to modify that record, I've never modified a record of a city council meeting. So I imagine I would keep that, but I'll do some more research and I'll get back to you.

Well, I think where I was going is that when I was reading my very probably poor reading of SB 707 is that it keeps using the term audio-visual two-way. So in my mind, do we have to afford visual video? We do not need to afford that.

No, we have the option. So we could, but my recommendation is that we only do audio.

I will take your recommendation.

Yes. Thank you.

Okay, I think my questions have been answered. I did, based on what City Attorney was just talking about, the protected hate speech. And unfortunately, we did get a flavor of that during COVID. And I have to say it was not folks in the chamber. So I do think of those a little differently. And what I'm And what I'm hoping to have is a statement that once the protected hate speech has finished, their hate, that I have a written, something that I say. Because what's confusing is people who are, and I can remember literally every single incident because it was terrible. One happening when we were commemorating our library personnel. Crazy. So how do we communicate to the community why they got to keep speaking? Because a bunch of people were on that Zoom who had never been to a meeting, and it was really confusing to them. So I would like us to have that one sentence, two sentences. You've said it over and over, but to have it so when they're done, you can say it right away. We're glad to work with you on that.

Yeah, and in addition, there's also a checklist at the very end of the staff report that includes kind of what we're considering, but we'll also include some verbal statements that could be included there.

And it can just be short, and hopefully I'll never, ever have to say that. And then going to the Zoom bombing, and again, it only happened a handful of times, but you're right. You talked about gobsmacked. It was more than that. It was horrific. It was the underbelly of humanity in our ears and in our community. So I think you mentioned we don't have to warn, like, cut them off. Like, can the state attorney have to cut them off? Because some of those were right on the line and we could see where it was going, and sure enough, it ended up being incredibly disruptive, threatening racial speech that I'm recalling. And so I think there was a mute, but there was a lot of, ah! So...

Who's gonna mute? I remember that incident as well, and I think it's that kind of speech that really frames the question of what's the difference between speech that's hateful versus speech that's actually disrupting a public meeting. Because if somebody for two minutes, if that's what they're gonna get on the call in, engages in really hateful commentary about a particular class of people, but they don't include some magic words like inciting people to violence, but they just do that, that's not disrupting the public meeting. That's just saying hateful things. Lindsay had the examples on one of her slides of what's actually disruptive, people that won't be quiet when the mayor tells them that their time is up, or shouting over other speakers, that kind of thing. So it's really since the, in a way, the one difference with the people on the webinar is that when their mic gets cut off, they're gone, whereas the folks here at the podium, sometimes when they speak over two minutes, they're still here and we're listening to them. So if they get their two minutes and they've said hateful things but it hasn't been disruptive, then there's no basis to cut them off. I think the problem that we're imagining that we hope we don't encounter is, you know, back to back to back, that starts lining up. And then... But the... The chair, the mayor always has the prerogative to call for a recess at any time like he did this evening. And that can sometimes sort of stick in the spokes and stop the activity because people get bored and then they move on to something else.

So on that, in terms of time limit, so much people are calling it. Again, it's awful that we're having this conversation, but it's better to be prepared. And we have many people who are saying protected hate speech In that moment, can I make the decision that we go to a one-minute public comment when we're going partway through? And does that would apply to both people in the room and people online? So two parts to that. One is, does public comment length have to be the same for online and in person? And number two, could we switch partway through a meeting if it's... for some reason were the focus that night of the trolls out there.

I'd be uncomfortable if you were doing it in the middle of one agenda item where the present speakers had gotten two minutes and then the people calling in were gonna get less. That said, in any meeting, like I said, based on the number of people in the chambers, you can call an audible, look at the clock, and decide, well, it's getting late, we're gonna cut it down to one minute per. You can do that, but you'd have to keep it even between the present speakers and the ones who are virtual. I'm reminded when I started this job that we used to begin the council meetings at 8 p.m.

Oh, we remember. If I may, too. Yes, Adam City Clerk. Yeah, as the person who's hosting the meeting, I'm constantly monitoring our attendees. And I'm glad that you mentioned it. It's really not our community members who are involved in this. It's folks who are on Reddit. And they're not our Centerfell community members who do this. So the behavior on the webinar is unique. I know what I'm looking for. I know the way that they're naming themselves are very unique. They're, you know, it's hateful. So I would be able to notice that immediately and then I would recommend a recess because in that moment I want to make sure we know what we're doing, what's our plan, where are we, and we can kind of get composure so we're not caught off guard and that, oh gosh, because it is, it could be a minute, but that minute seems like forever when you're in it. So how do we make sure that we're planned for it, we're prepared for it, and we kind of can go into it at least as professionally and prepared as possible.

Thank you. Thank you for answering those questions. I will open up the public comment on this item. If you have any thoughts or questions that you would like to share with the council, now is your opportunity. And you're welcome, but not required to say your name and what part of San Rafael.

I'm a resident of San Rafael. I'll have you know what, I don't have a bag over my head and my face hidden this evening. And I believe that every person that... Shows up here to make a comment, whether online or in person, should let us see their face so we can greet them in the grocery store or not. But if we're going to be doing electronic things, which really do destroy a democracy and the life in a public meeting, which is an organic thing, very real thing to have real people in this room. and it's a different format when you go online yeah things get crazy so i would love it if everybody has to show their face i really think we should be able to verify that truly somebody is a san rafael resident or in san rafael not you have to be detective and go see are they on reddit do they have a funny name some folks have funny names I'VE BEEN COMING TO THE CITY COUNCIL FOR 40 YEARS. THERE HAVE BEEN ROCUS AND HEATED ONES. MAJORITY VERY CIVIL. I DON'T THINK WE NEED A NEW CODE OF CONTACT HERE OR ANYTHING. I KNOW THE STATE IS PUSHING THIS ON YOU. i haven't seen it i believe a healthy democracy has outbursts has emotion has anger it's part of the process it's better to have people in here blowing off steam right here rather than rioting in the streets or or worse so yes there is a lot of anger and angst and stress in our community 50-year war on housing will do that people are stressed people are suffering people who don't even know this city council exists are having a rough time making ends meet and if they can go online and and hoot and holler at you and be anonymous they're going to be less civil make them show their faces and uh you know this is a great room and a great place for people to meet and let's encourage people to come right here thank you any other comments on this item

I don't see any other comments in the room. One of the last times I'll say that. I'll bring it back to the council, but I was struck by something, by what our community member just said. What about AI generated comments. I mean, we act like, I mean, it doesn't happen, but you literally could have AI, AI, we could have 50 AI generated comments. So does 707 talk about that?

SB 707 does not talk about that. And we would follow the same process and policy that we have here. That would be our only option.

Okay. Well, we're obviously a little bit ahead of that because that's coming. It's coming. And you could have 50 AI generated two minute things that there's no one there and we wouldn't be able to figure it out. But We will meet that when it happens. Let me turn to my colleagues for any.

Can I just comment on Mr. Butler's point? Yeah, please. I find myself agreeing with him in the sense that It really would be great to not allow anonymous speakers. I'm reminded of a meeting a long time ago, I was mentioning it to Lindsay this week, where someone actually had a mask over their head and came into the meeting and Mayor Borough demanded the person remove their mask. It was a safety and security thing in the room too. But the problem, if it hasn't been made clear, is what people do with their little cameras on their computer and the kind of things that we would not want to see. as opposed to just their face, which would identify them, they might decide to show us something other than their face that we wouldn't want to see. And so that's really where when we were doing this during COVID, we said, you know, no video.

And that's what is happening throughout agencies across the state.

Yes, we know that, unfortunately. Okay, thank you. So any short comments on this item before we move on? Vice Mayor, go ahead.

Sure, no, thank you for doing this work around this whole legislation piece. it came after so many bad situations that have happened. On the other side, it really expands that meaningful civic engagement. I mean, I know so many people who've wanted to participate and can't, whether it's older adults or caregivers, people with disability, transportation. The list goes on and on. So the reality is I think it's fantastic that we're opening it up again. And I'm super nervous again around that. And if anyone has had the opportunity to read the Marin IJ voice piece by Trustee Jenny Holden from the TAM School District, she spoke about what's happening in their chambers right now with the school boards. And it's awful. It's awful what they're experiencing. So it is still out there. And so I'm trusting our community. I mean, I think the good is gonna outshine the bad. So thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Hill.

Thank you, Mayor Cade, for my brief comment, which thank you for making sure that we're compliant with SB 707. I look forward to having more people participate in this space and exercise their First Amendment rights. Thank you.

Thank you. Any comments, Council Member Bushy?

Excellent work, as always, by our city clerk, and I share the Vice Mayor's hope for good comments.

Thank you. Council Member Micah.

Yes, thank you so much for getting us all covered. And I also tend to agree about having the camera on, but I also had experience on the school board where we saw more than we had to. So I understand that. And my hope is that we will have community members actually commenting. So we'll see. Thank you. Thank you, Madam City Clerk.

As I said at the outset, this is an unfunded mandate and enormously ironic that we are going to do this in order to have increased community participation, yet the state legislators don't have a similar meeting requirement. Just putting that out there. So I'm glad that we are continuing to lead at the local level. So with that, I would entertain a motion on this item, please.

We'll make a motion. Let's see, where are we at? Adopt a resolution authorizing hybrid city council meetings effective July 1, 2026 in adopting a technology disruption policy, multilingual agendas and participation policy, and disruptive behavior in public meetings policy to implement SB 707 Durazo.

I'll second. Moved and seconded. Roll call, please. Councilmember Bushey. Aye. Councilmember Hill.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Kurtz. Aye. Councilmember Yudan-Scolati. Aye. Mayor Kate. Aye. That motion carries 5-0. Thank you so much. The last item on our agenda this evening is the City Council Three-Year Strategic Plan Implementation Update and Performance Metrics. Changing of the guard. Welcome, Director Mooney. Welcome, Assistant City Manager Stefanski.

All right, good evening, Mayor Kate, members of the City Council. While Sean pokes around on the supercomputer here to see how our PowerPoints will fare for us, I do want to just offer a couple opening remarks on this presentation. First off, before we kick everything off, I do want to take a moment to acknowledge the tremendous amount of work that our team has accomplished over this last year and the work that it took to pull all of this together as it relates to an implementation update and year two work plan. And so I want to call out especially our director team, most of which who are still here this evening, as well as our extended leadership team. as well. That's all good. That's doing something. Anyway, so by way of background, we are wrapping up year one of our three-year strategic plan, and I want to start by just recognizing, I mean, this is a very ambitious plan, and as I was writing the talking points in the slide that's not up on the screen, what came to mind was an ambitious plan for an ambitious team. And what we're seeing with our priority areas is that we're averaging around 30% of project completion, which is tracking for a three year plan. And that's reflecting real meaningful progress and hard work. And what you see in this implementation report is really a genuine picture of the work our team is doing every day to make San Rafael a better place. uh, for every resident. Um, and this doesn't even capture the core services, um, which make a large percentage of what our team does on a daily basis. Uh, and so tonight we're going to walk through select accomplishments, uh, from the past fiscal year preview, what's starting in year two, and then, uh, share an update on our performance metrics and Lindsay's working her magic. over there. Um, we'll keep going. So, um, the city council just by, uh, background city council adopted the street, uh, the three year strategic plan in June of last year. Uh, and we adopted the first year work plans in October of 2025. We came back, in March of this year with a mid year update on the plan. And now we're bringing forward as a part of this item is the fiscal 26 seven work plan, which was developed in parallel with our budget process. So we're able to ensure that what we're committing to in this work plan is resourced from a staffing and dollar perspective. And just as a reminder, we have over 100 objectives that are either underway or are starting in this next fiscal year. So it's a great, great body of work. Priority areas, there we go, we're on track. A strategic plan is organized around seven priority areas that together reflect the full breadth of what residents care about and what the city's responsible for. And I will note that in the staff report, we had a minor error that mislabeled and left out the sustainability and resilience priority area that is just as important as the other seven. But it is reflected here on the slide. And so with that, I'm going to hand it off over to Mr. Mooney here, who's going to dive into some of our strategic plan dashboards.

And we'll go from there. Good evening, Council, and thanks for your patience with the technology. So the city created public dashboards to view progress on the three-year strategic goals and objectives. And I think it's important to note that goals by nature are ambitious, high-level, and long-term visions. And so here what we're seeing is that proximity towards completion for most of the goals and objectives in these dashboards represents our progress with specific strategies we have identified. Some of them that are more narrowly scoped may have specific objectives like completing the Albert Park Community Center that are more concrete and specific, but goals around solving homelessness won't be happening within this three-year strategic plan, but the strategies we have identified to kind of reach towards that goal will. SO, WELL, JUST KIND OF SOME MECHANICS BEHIND THE SAUSAGE MAKING OF WHAT WE'RE SEEING HERE IS THAT, YOU KNOW, WE PUT ALL OF THE WORK PLAN PROJECTS, INCLUDING MILESTONES, TO COMPLETION IN AN ONLINE PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOL, AND THEN THOSE ARE CONNECTED TO SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES, AND THEN AS STAFF COMPLETE MILESTONES ON THOSE PROJECTS, OUR PROGRESS DYNAMICALLY CHANGES. SO, FOR INSTANCE, TODAY, WE HAD TWO PRESENTATIONS, BOTH SEA LEVEL RISE AND ZONING, THAT ARE PART OF OUR STRATEGIC PLAN. So these numbers will continue to move. And as John pointed out, our first year work plan was ambitious. The hope is that as we kind of improve these tools and build that muscle for strategic planning, these tools can also assist the city council and our staff in the prioritization of projects and the allocation of resources to create focused success for our community. IN TERMS OF INSIGHTS ON THE PROGRESS AFTER YEAR ONE, ALL OUR PRIORITY AREAS SHOW A MINIMUM OF ONE-THIRD COMPLETION WITH VARYING LEVELS OF PROGRESS AND SPECIFIC GOALS. AND I JUST ENCOURAGE MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY TO VIEW ALL OF THESE. THESE ARE THE REMAINING PRIORITY AREAS RIGHT HERE. You know, and what I do want to point out that we aren't able to quantify the amount of effort that goes into each of these objectives, right? Because, you know, multi-year projects like major infrastructure are different than implementing a policy. And so, you know, we're doing our best in encouraging teams to kind of break things up into bite-sized scopes so that we can do that to some extent. Also, some of our priority areas represent a broader swath. Quality of life has a lot in it, everything from public safety to library and recreation. So I just want to highlight that on the public dashboards, you can also see more detailed objectives. Other slides, we're showing very high-level progress. But I definitely encourage members of the staff or the community who are really interested in knowing more We have provided a status update to specific projects on these items, and we're going to continue to iterate on this publicly available platform to allow members of the public to see more details into what we're doing. So along with this adoption of the strategic plan, we adopted annual work plans that include projects of those strategies, as I mentioned, to support our goals and objectives. Many of these projects are multi-year, as I said. Some will go beyond the three-year horizon. But this slide summarizes the status of those projects and the work plan. In our second year, many projects will be rolling over into the next. And as you can see, we've got, you know, 123 projects identified. An overwhelming majority are on track. We have 15% complete, and only 9% are either on hold, they haven't started. I don't think only one we saw was off track. So I'll pass it on to John to talk about some accomplishments. And what's that?

All right. So as detailed in the staff report, we want to take a moment to celebrate some key accomplishments or what I dub as the greatest hits from this last year as it relates to implementing this plan. The first is A31, deliver placemaking elements. This is our public art program, which we launched in the downtown San Rafael Arts District this year. Through that work, we've received over 1,100 survey responses. and actually have art that's in the process of being painted on the side of our parking garage, as well as the beautiful sculpture outside of B Street, Touch the Sky, which had a ribbon cutting on May 6th. And the Art Burst 2026 grant program is now underway, so that's going to fund five downtown businesses and artists to create unique community-based art projects. B21, this came up because I know Mark Fellows, who is not here, but he had asked about this, which is the San Rafael Canal crossing feasibility study. So earlier this spring, actually at the last council meeting, the city council approved the professional services agreement with Mark Thomas, who's going to be our consultant for this feasibility and design study. And so we're also continuing to pursue grant funding for both the bridge and the park components and we hope to have more to share on that in the very near future. C2-4, Sea Level Rise Adaptation Plan. This was a part of Kate's presentation this evening where she and our sustainability team were able to complete two major milestones. as it relates to our Governor's Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation, Sea Level Rise grant work, as well as community engagement, including a video series that's been shared publicly. D13, which is evaluating the camping ordinance, this went before the Homelessness Subcommittee at their last meeting in May, and this will be coming forward to the City Council at the next meeting here in June, so that will be accomplished here in this fiscal year. E11, which is to develop strategies to scale response times and services. The fire department has completed an ambulance billing analysis this year and found that we were at 100% cost recovery with revenues running about 10 to 15 above projections. We also, very excited for this, placed Ambulance 51 into service and hired six new staff for our BLS pilot unit who did 23 transports in the first month. It continues to be a huge success for the fire department. For F25, support and explore regional partnerships for efficiency, this was a big one this year where the team was able to negotiate and complete the separation agreement with the San Rafael Sanitation District, which the council approved at the last council meeting. Our public work staff have also been participating in a number of meetings with the Bridge District as well as TAM to ensure proper coordination is taking place with those agencies for their larger projects impacting our city. And then we are bringing a revised shared services agreement with the Marin Wood Community Services District to the council at this next meeting here in June. So a lot of these things are coming right in at the end of the fiscal year. And then lastly, G21, develop a community engagement program. So our community engagement staff have developed a playbook, which is a guide that was developed over more than a year of internal collaboration and community input. It's a really impressive document, and it's now on our employee website, and it includes a number of planning templates, stakeholder lists, resources organized by activity type, and the unique thing at San Rafael is that our employee website is actually available to the public, so if there are other agencies that want to go and take a look at the great work our team did on this, they can go because it's a fabulous document. So that's it in terms of our greatest hits. Now we're gonna pivot and talk about some of the new things that are starting in this upcoming fiscal year. And so this is all outlined in attachment two. to the staff report. The first one is A31, the tree ordinance revision. And so this was a project that had originally been scoped for the current fiscal year, but due to some delays due to staff shortages, it's now back on track. The LIDAR tree inventory integration has been completed. And so we have a strong data foundation to then pick up this work and move it forward. So over the next year, Staffs could be reviewing our existing policy, researching comparable jurisdictions, and working with the city attorney's office on drafting an ordinance. engaging stakeholders, including our community tree advocates who have been very engaged on this issue. And so B.3.2, asset management policy, this is kind of somewhat related to the tree ordinance, but we've completed the data migration into our software for our asset management system. And so for fiscal 27, we're going to be implementing the GIS module that will allow our staff to update our GIS layers from the field. So real-time data going in and then having that seamless integration, which is gonna be fantastic for Public Works. C3-1, evacuation readiness. So our staff are actually in the final stages of selecting a contractor to develop a evacuation plan that will include traffic volume analyses and potential traffic flow changes to increase roadway capacity. And alongside that plan, staff will also be continuing outreach, training, and drills, which we're actively working to increase our Alert Marin opt-in so more residents are able to get the updates. Timely emergency notifications, as we'll call them. D12, develop a homelessness strategic plan. This was another project that at mid-year we had said was gonna be deferred due to staff capacity. with the marydale project um you know requiring a significant focus of our staff's time once that is in a later stage up and running we're going to have the capacity to then pick this up and anticipate having it hit the ground here in the latter part of the upcoming fiscal year and hopefully have that dovetail with the efforts that are going on at the county as well Uh, E three, four. So this is the Carnegie reuse planning. So this is actually something that is required under measure P um, the ballot measure that, uh, passed, uh, to create our new library and community center. Uh, and we have to start a public process to determine what the future use of that building will be by the end of this calendar year. And so, um, Catherine and Craig and Daniel and the team are getting ready to launch that. And that'll be a public process that we're actually very excited to start because it dovetails really nicely with the planning work for the new community center as well, which we're finding F1 to citywide responsiveness and CRM discovery. I'm personally excited about this one. This is one that has been on hold due to a vacancy on Sean's team, but once that position is filled, the teams could be focusing on discovery work to identify the right platform for tracking and responding to community requests across departments, and having the platform include an agentic AI component such that we'll be able to hopefully have a faster response time for people. And as Sean will attest, I'm very much on the AI train. And I'm very excited for this one. So lastly, G34, expand DEIB training. So we have an existing DEIB training program in place. And so this is going to look to expand upon that. And so that work is planned to begin in the latter half of this fiscal year, again, with the goal of ensuring that our organization has the knowledge and the tools to continue to deliver on equitable outcomes across all of our programs and services. So with that I'll hand it off to Sean who's gonna speak to our performance measurement program and how that all relates to the strategic plan.

So if you read the staff report, you see we're pretty busy, right? But the question I think is important to ask is, are there measurable outcomes that show that the work that we're doing is actually having an impact? And that's the goal of our performance measurement program, which has been evolving over the last few years. So we've provided metrics and dashboards for each priority area on the city website. And each page includes metrics as well as a narrative that discusses why these metrics matter. and specific objectives or actions by the city that we've identified related to each metric. This year, we not only expanded the number of metrics that we're measuring, but we really wanted to make sure that we were distinguishing between the different types of data that we're using to measure the impacts of our work and also the general health of the city. And so that's an important consideration. So the contextual indicator metrics that we're calling them, they better explain the state of the city and the community. But our staff may not be able to directly influence them to go up or down or change. The hope is that the culmination of our work in our strategic plan can make an impact to indirectly influence some of these. The performance metrics are identified where we think we can actually make visible progress and measure outcomes of specific efforts by the city to reach our goals. And this year we've added more targets to them. I just want to take this opportunity to thank Sherman Pang, our data engineer, who's been working tirelessly to help make this technically feasible. And then coordinating with all of the staff to kind of validate data and help with the narrative process. And Vedika, our former product manager data insights who was working to build this framework before she left. So I want to take some time, not to look at all of them, but just some highlights here, because I think it's really important to put some sort of narrative behind this. So here's some highlights, kind of starting looking at economic development, neighborhood vitality. So here you can see an example of what these dashboards look like. And here we see indicators around taxable sales that are showing an increase. In the city, we also have another indicator on retail vacancy rate that shows 3.34%. But it's below, well below regional rates elsewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area, which are closer to 5.7 or 6%. The metric here about visitors in downtown center fell. We've had a target for a while to exceed a pre-COVID baseline of visitors downtown. This is used by, we have anonymized data from cell phones that allows us to track this. And if you were at the May Madness, you know that that number, we don't have the May number in here, but we know that that's gonna go up. So we're seeing that we're reaching that baseline. And B, at the bottom of the slide, you see those represent mobility and infrastructure. We're meeting our target rating of fair for pavement condition index. And I'm sure that you all are acutely aware of the cost of paving our streets. And I think the value of metrics like this just helps us considering resource allocation and really kind of puts into question what reasons are needed to move those needles significantly. Here, we have one of our newer metrics looking specifically at vehicle volume at 2nd and Lincoln. This is just an indicator, and these numbers help to show the sheer amount of volume that's on our major artilleries. Ideally, we can continue to look to expanding these, maybe potentially show things that we can have direct impact on, like time between things. We're still working with the public works team on how we can add more mobility metrics in this space. Can we go to the next slide? Great. Okay, so sustainability and resilience. So goals in this priority area are focused on climate adaptation, sea level rise, wildfire, and emergency preparation. Some of the highlights here, we are on target to meet our 2030 goals for greenhouse gas reduction and state mandates for composting. And our Office of Emergency Services has set an ambitious target of 10% of the population for wildfire inspections as well as emergency training. I like that we showcase this example here because I think setting targets for metrics takes political courage, right? And I think I just want to highlight that it's not a bad thing if we don't meet our targets. If we want to use data to measure outcomes, we want to do it with honesty and transparency rather than just cherry pick what we show the community. So can we move on? on quality of life, I really, I like this first one right here. The priority one calls, so this metric directly reflects progress in E.2.1, which is a goal looking to reduce emergency response times of priority one police calls. And this reduction can be contributed directly to the success of the first responder drone program, as well as operational improvements at SRPD. We've had some conversations with them looking to iterate on this to see, hey, sometimes the drone takes a minute to get to a site. So maybe we can look at both the average cost, but then also how long does it actually take a police officer or a patrol car to get to that location? Those group A offenses reflect trends in reduction in crime around the region. Now, the ambulance diversion, so this is actually one of a few sets of metrics around the SAFE, which is the Specialized Assistance for Everyone program, dedicated for mental health, addiction, homelessness, and other non-criminal, non-life-threatening service calls. Now, they've reduced, that program has resulted in a 12% reduction in response time for priority 911 calls since 2023. And the safe calls have diverted over 8.5% of PD's overall call volume to the safe team. We're going to continue to work with them. They use those metrics significantly within their team to help operations. Library and recreation metrics show just an increase in participation overall with both those library and recreation programs. And you can see visibly the impact within library there of the COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders. And the increase here reflects our goals to continue to reach those pre-COVID numbers. Let's see here. Can we go to the next slide, please? Thank you. All right housing homelessness so there's an important metric that's not shown here and that's the point in time count that was that's done every two years and was last done at the in early 2026 we don't have that number so we'll update that on the dashboard. But otherwise, we can see some highlights from the city sanctioned camping area specifically targeting pathways to housing, which include critical successes. for clients on that pathway. We're seeing we have both an increase in the number of people housed since last year and people obtaining benefits. And then related to housing development, the State Regional Housing Needs Authority, otherwise known as ARENA, they provide targets for the units constructed. And while we don't, we have a direct impact on entitlement of those, of the entitlement process. We don't have influence on whether housing is ultimately built as market factors play a primary role in the decisions to move forward with construction. So we're using the entitlement process to kind of like as our metric around RHNA, but also monitoring the amount built. And you can see that spike in 2024 reflects the North Gate Town Square. All right, we're bringing it home here. In high performing government, just these right here, these top three just show the tremendous work that the team at Public Works has been doing in responding to service requests. All service requests are over 70% responded within two weeks. And we're also seeing just increased engagement. We're gonna continue to add new engagement numbers here as we're getting more data as our communications team is continuing to expand. Next slide. Finally, in priority area G, we're updating these with 2025 figures. As I mentioned earlier, our product manager, Vedika, left recently. So we're scrambling to make sure we get everything. This one, we still see some of these numbers that you're seeing on the dashboard are still consistent. But overall, we're continuing to tread in the direction of increasing diversity in our workforce, as well as making improvements to language access and communications and engagement. These metrics and these dashboards will continue to be updated. We're looking at definitely at the mid-year cadence and annually, but the both performance measurement dashboards as well as the strategic plan dashboards will be dynamically populating over time. So we're hoping to continue to grow this program over the next three years.

All right, so that rounds out our presentation, but just in terms of next steps following City Council feedback tonight we'll move into full implementation of this 2627 work plan and All project updates and statuses will be tracked in Asana as Shawn mentioned. We're going to continue to build on making that a robust project management system for our organization and and that we'll have these public dashboards where members of the public will be able to come in and see where we're at at any given point in time as it relates to making progress on X, Y, and Z project. And we will return in early 2027. Oh my gosh. It kind of just dawned on me, 27. With a mid-year update, again, continuing this practice of providing these biannual updates to the city council as well as things that might need to be adjusted. So with that, the recommended action is just the council receive the report and provide feedback on the proposed fiscal 26-27 work plan. And with that, I'll hand it off to Paul.

Thank you, John and Sean. Just two comments I wanted to add to the presentation. Obviously, the information presented in this report represents a lot of uh... work and effort not just in preparing the information that's in here but actually doing the work and one of things that i want to keep highlighting is as we're working to uh... develop uh... robust work plans in support of the council's three-year strategic plan The work is going on sort of on two paths. One is doing the work, and then one is actually developing the tools that help monitor, track the work, and report out both internally to the council and to the public. And since this is going into year two of the three year strategic plan, I would say that there's just almost as much focus on refining the tools and how they work as it is Substantly so any comment feedback from the council and or public on whether the work being done on the tools is helpful And I'll just note anecdotally. I think I shared this although really briefly with the mayor There are lots of cities around California that have their strategic plans and they spend a lot of time on their budgets and to varying degrees are Trying to monitor and track work plans let alone performance metrics The real challenge is linking it all together and having it sort of flow and while I think it's still I wouldn't say an aspirational goal, but still clearly work to be done and The work that the city has done to date to put those foundational pieces in place and then work to actually get them to align is actually pretty exciting. And so I'm also thanking staff for all their work, the council for their guidance and leadership on the strategic plan and the work plan and look forward to continuing to build on that, because it is a really exciting part of being able to quantify the work, demonstrate progress on the work, and critically important, the impact and the cumulative impact of the work on the stuff that really matters.

Thank you, Paul, and thank you, Sean, thank you, John. So impressive, and I wasn't sure if your presentation was gonna be as comprehensive as the staff report, so I just wanted to let folks know the staff report is quite thick and goes very, very deep, so thank you for keeping it pretty top line. Doesn't mean that there might not be questions that go a little bit deeper, so we'll start with questions. Vice Mayor, any questions?

Yeah, thank you. I mean, as you know, I'm the data, geek around a lot of this stuff and Asana and everything else. It is such a transition from where we were years ago to where we are now. It's fantastic. And I know it's a huge change because I've managed project teams that have struggled to want to get to this point. So thank you for doing this. I have a question around the classification of on hold. You have on hold and then not started. And I don't know if they're being classified the same. And then so there's that part. And then how did this status of on hold come to be?

I'll speak to that. So first of all, since we have moved most of the operations into Asana, there are some stock. In order to really have the full integration with goals, objectives, projects, the status updates have some stock language. And on hold is one of them. And then we've manually changed projects that have not started. So for instance, a great case in point is the Gateway project. So we've had a lot of momentum working on the Gateway project. and then we didn't get enough bids, but we're hoping to go back out and do that in the fall. That project has had momentum. It is on hold until we actually are diverting resources. I think it's really important for our teams who are juggling so many plates to know, hey, you know what? That plate, you're going to keep juggling it, but you can put it down for a bit. And I think that's the example of when something is on hold, as opposed to something that actually just hasn't even started yet. So I think that that part, that is one component, but then as I mentioned, the dependence on the tool to link everything and then allow us to see that status at a glance. So that summary, just to provide an example, that full summary of all of the status updates, we coordinated with all of the staff who are leading those projects to provide very brief updates on things, trying to make sure that this process isn't then becoming a new drain on our staff time, because I think there's a cost-benefit analysis of time. And then, you know, once those were done, we just click one button and it exports the whole thing. And so having all of, like, relying on the tool and, you know, then that language then becomes, you know, one of the compromises.

Okay. I'll go back and look at the ones that are on hold, because that was a little bit of a question, like, how are they... being determined to be on hold, but I don't want to go into the details on that. And then the other question is exactly what you were talking about, the performance metrics. What percentage are automated metrics and how much are manual?

Well, I don't know if I can give you clear percentages, but what I can tell you about is that we have So we have integrations with a number of different systems. But then the actual pressing a button to refresh the data happens. But nobody's manually typing in for, I would say, 90% plus, 95% of it. The only case where someone's manually typing in are the areas where you see one figure where someone is telling us a number. And then that's where we're manually doing it. We're doing data exports from integrated programs, and then that is connecting directly with the tool we're using, Power BI, and then the data is refreshed. On the case of the strategic plan, that's connected directly to, I'm getting a little technical here, but that's connected directly to the Asana API. So that's very much dynamically populated.

So right now we're not seeing 2026 on many of the metrics?

Well, one of the challenges with the metrics is, you know, so we have some of them that are measuring a calendar year, right? Or some cases they're doing a month. I'd love to, like, when we put this together, I was like, I was at May Madness, and I was like, we got to get this on the dashboard. But that was the month of May, right? So, you know, so sometimes we have monthly data that we're presenting. Sometimes we have annual data. And so in the cases of annual data, if we're tracking all of them by year and it's the middle of 2026, it's hard to like do apples to apples. Does that make sense?

I think that would be sort of my question around, if at what point we're just putting a metric in and it's not really telling us the story we need to, is that something we can pull off and not track? Because there's a lot of data in there and I'm not sure we're using all the data. And if it is delayed on time or we don't have an API on it or maybe that's an opportunity to simplify.

Yeah, we'd love to take your direction on where you think there's value. And there were a lot of new metrics that were identified. And so that's why even the way the dashboards look is different, because we just had to crank through and get all that data. So for you all and for the community, it's like, what data matters? Just because we can find a number doesn't mean anything. And so getting that guidance would be helpful.

And if you ask 10 people, you'll get 20 answers. Right. So I mean, it's really, because everyone has different thoughts on it. But I'd use sort of how easy it is to capture the data. Yeah. So that's where I'm at right now. Thanks.

Thank you. Council Member Bushey, do you have any questions on this?

A couple of big ones. This is great. You're doing a fantastic job of building this. And I know it's hard when you're building because you don't know what's going to be the useful stuff. But what's your sort of strategic goal of when you think you'll have enough of a data set and metrics that you can get useful insights and conclusions from it?

So different teams are already using, like, so when we present the dashboards, you're getting kind of a big overview. It's just an opportunity for a member of the community to see what it looks, with neighborhood vitality, right? Like, in one place, you can get a snapshot of where the city of San Rafael is and a number of areas around our priority areas. Now separately though, operationally we support our teams across the city who are relying on data for performance measurement. So the illegal dumping program, right? So for instance, they can use data to measure, we're gonna pilot a program specific to target a neighborhood or an area and then use the data that we have to kind of show, did that make measurable progress? Similarly, the SAFE team looks at their data a lot to change operations, as well as the police department elsewhere. So I think there's a difference between the performance metrics program, where we're giving the council and the community a snapshot of things and where we stand right now. And then specifically where we can connect it to goals that are like, this is a goal around reducing priority one calls. Hey, did we do it? Yes. So it's demonstrably showing that. as opposed to our performance measurement like operations that are happening kind of on team levels that are maybe less visible but you might be seeing when the sea level rise team comes out or when the illegal dumping team comes out and they're showing you how they're using data to do their day-to-day work.

So some of the teams already are getting insights and conclusions and this is being super useful for them. Okay, now let's talk about the public. I was struck by tonight as members of the public showed up bringing up topics that are in the strategic plan. How do we, what's your plan to get them connected to the inquiring mind?

Right, I mean, I'm surprised they don't all just want to read staff reports. But, you know, I mean, so that's the other side. So, like, the community, that's, I mean, it's a many-headed hydra, right? Like, we have this communications work that we're trying to uplift as well, and community communications work. And engagement is a never-ending cycle of work that we're doing to try to bring people into the work that we're doing and understand it. So I would say that as we uplift that program, we're going to continue. And so right now, specific to this, I've been working with Phil, our civic engagement manager, to kind of put together some communications and some social media so we can kind of boost that. But that is always a challenge, right, is getting people interested in the work of government, unless it's directly impacting them.

Thank you. Thank you. Council Member Hill?

Thank you, Mayor Kate. Thank you, Director, for this very comprehensive report, as well as Assistant City Manager and the City Manager for your comments. And it's actually on the City Manager's comments around the challenges This non-trivial motion of taking strategy, budget, work plan, and tying it all together is the opposite of trivial. It's significant, and in many ways, although a lot of organizations attempt to do it regularly, I actually think that, in large part, many of them fail. So I am encouraged to see, even if it's through a lot of will and hard work to make it happen. But I'm curious, because it's not apparent, what are some of the learnings and corrections that might have taken on behind the scenes just out of curiosity? I can't imagine it all went smoothly in year one and a half.

So I'll start and I'll look to Paul and Sean to help pitch in on this. One of the big learnings I would say I'm walking away as we go into year two from year one is the process of developing the plan took a lot of effort and to do it in a way where you're paralleling a whole new process with an existing budget process. I would argue that when compared to this last budget process, the connection between the strategic planning effort and the budget at a real granular, granular level of like, okay, and my department, I have X dollars for this consultant to do this thing. Um, that worked so much better this time around than it did in years past. And it was just because there was a lot of, uh, there was a pretty steep learning curve is where change, this is, you know, change management. We're trying to change the way our organization does strategic planning. Um, and so that was, I think a big learning. I think Paul was able to incorporate in the initial budget instructions in the budget process. very focused direction to departments to say, here's what we have for budgeting this year and here's what's on your work plan and you're gonna come and have a meeting with us and you're going to talk through how you're going to use your resources to meet these goals. And so there was a very deliberate conversation that was happening between city manager's office, finance and the departments in a way that we weren't able to do first year because we were building the plane while we were trying to fly it and board people on and make sure we don't lose luggage, so.

Yeah, I might just add two other comments to that. I don't know if that went that smoothly, but, no, actually, there's still work to be done. I would say right off the bat that, you know, if there's a strategic, goal or objective, and we have a work plan to accomplish it, it's really easy to say, oh, here are all the steps that need to take, and we'll do this in the first quarter, we'll do this in the second quarter, this in the fourth, and then reality sets in about what's actually involved, how long and the resources that it actually takes, what we do and we don't have control over, and then the interconnection between different things that then impact what you thought was doable or possible, so there's a, like there's always an iterative reality check process built in and I think if we've done anything in the first year is getting a little bit better at being realistic and not over promising and that may look like, oh, all these work plan items are rolling over or there's fewer items being added to next year's work plan. It's really just a recognition of what it actually takes, which I think going forward may speak to the need to continue discussions about prioritization so that we're working on the most important items going forward. And then there's other more nuts and bolts piece. I think one of the first comments we had when you look at a performance objective or a work plan objective that's got three steps and we've done two of them. And it's like, oh, we're two-thirds done. Well, are we really? Because that third one is the clunker. So we want to just be, there's a big asterisk on all of this stuff about what is this data telling us and what is it really telling us? And that's something that you just have to go through and experience and learn from and We're just on the beginning steps of that journey.

Thank you for that. I tell myself stories. So one story that I tell myself is that it's more like a conceptual math problem, which is we have staff that are doing daily operations and also doing project-based work, and then we're asking them to engage with Asana and other mechanisms to report on it. It feels like it's adding more. I mean, how has staff responded? And you mentioned change management. I think that's a great term to call that, but I would imagine that it's not like dark matter. It is something we can see. It does impact our staff.

Yeah. I'll say one comment on that, but the others probably have a better answer to that. My thought on this is for all the benefits of developing the system, these tools, if it's not helpful for staff to manage the work, then it's only achieving a portion of what it really does. So to your question, Council Member Hill, I think we're still going through that, but I think some staff is figuring out, oh, this is how this can be helpful and how it's important for us and our team to track what we're doing and see where we're at and monitor progress. If it's just reporting out what we're doing, that's just work as opposed to a management tool.

Since I've been working pretty intimately with folks who are doing it, I think we're having varying degrees of adoption of the tool itself. But as people do get to see it, especially people within the director level or city manager level, to be able to see that you can see things at a snapshot, there's value there. And we're supporting folks who want to learn more about the tool and who want to leverage it. I think that one of the things that was an improvement in this process was that, as John pointed out, the previous, the spreadsheet and just like the development of that and the amount of meetings that we had to have to kind of make that happen, there was a significant suck of time to make that happen. And so the hope was that this new process at least is reducing the amount of time. So in the end, we're not forcing people to engage at this for day-to-day project management. It's simply tracking these same milestones we identified. And it really ends up becoming a tool for leadership, not just the city council, but the city manager's office and ideally directors to be able to kind of really see where they are on things and help to keep track of just the tremendous amount of stuff that we're doing. Thank you.

Thank you. Council member Irans Gulati.

Yes, thank you so much for the report, and the dashboard is so helpful, and I think how I can use it is when I get questions from some of my constituents, just like, hey, go visit here, and it gives you a great perspective. A couple of thoughts that I have is in the dashboard, sometimes you see the percentage, sometimes you see the number, and I just wonder, I'm just wondering how easy it would be to have both, where sometimes you see the number, but then it's the percentage, or like for instance, you were mentioning the number of bilingual staff members, and I wonder, okay, is that, what is the percentage, or what is the total number of employees, so we can really see the picture, so.

Yeah, thanks for that. And the way that we had developed the dashboards previously, you were looking at the data a little bit differently. And the hope is, and what will actually happen, is that we're going to continue to iterate on this. And we're doing it, we're testing it, we're seeing what's working and what can be improved. And I think that in that case, for that type of data, you can look at it this way, but if you want to see it in a different context, how can we create that flexibility? With technology, you can do almost anything with the right amount of money and the right amount of time and smart enough people. But we just have to narrow our scope. So we'll continue to iterate on those.

Yes, no, and I can tell that you keep improving, so that's amazing. With the Asana project, is there something that you've been working on this year, or is it going to be like... I imagine every time you have a new project, you just have to enter everything.

Yeah, so it really doesn't... It's not labor-intensive to do that, and the biggest... move was just building the ecosystem. The ecosystem is built. Adding a new project or adding a milestone is a very low lift. And we're here supporting the teams. And I think having that visibility really, the next step I'm hoping that you will see and roll out within the next six months or less is actually then to provide some more visibility into those specific projects that you can't see right now. You can see the percentages on goals and objectives, et cetera. But once you see that, you can actually see the amount of the list of work That'll be helpful for the community to see just what we're doing specifically. But since we've built it and teams are using it, it's less labor intensive to add more stuff.

It sounds amazing. I have used Asana before and it's a great piece of software. So I'm very happy you guys are using it. When you have the projects for 2026, 2027, are they like Q1, Q2, Q3? Yeah. Okay, so...

If you remember in the spreadsheet that we had, we were asking every department to say, what quarter are you doing this? And so I love the phrase under-promise and over-deliver, first of all. But the reality is that we can look in a crystal ball, and we can try to think about that. And it's really helpful to understand workload. Like, oh, if we can really get all of that granular data about you starting Q3, we'll look at all these things starting Q3. That's where it starts hitting a wall around how much time and effort are we putting into this and what is the return on investment of that time. And so we dialed that back in this case to just say, what fiscal year are we doing this? Because there's so many unforeseen events that we can come here and we can tell you we're going to start this in Q2. And then Q2, we're going to come and say we're going to start it in Q4. And so just to kind of say, that was one of the things time-saving devices that we implemented to just save ourselves from saying that we're gonna do something that we're not gonna be able to potentially go wrong.

I would just add, though, and correct me if I'm wrong, because I'm just jumping on this question. At the staff level, there's detailed work plan and schedules about, oh, in order to get to the city council by this date, we will be at a subcommittee on this date, which means we need to have the engagement. So it's just in the context of this report not being so granular. But there is more detail in terms of the sequence and the timing of things and when they need to happen in order to meet that. dialing back the tracking of that in the work plan document at this point, the public-facing work plan document.

Yeah, that makes sense. And is it possible when we are talking about housing, and I don't know if we have this data or not, but I saw the vacancy rates for commercial, and I thought that was very useful, especially when people say, oh my God, downtown is empty. It's like, oh, well, look at the data. So that's great. So I was thinking about the vacancy rate for residential, for like rentals. And I don't know if...

I'm sorry, for residential? Okay, yeah. We'd have to follow up with the housing team to kind of find out what that looks like and what those data sets are. But, you know... We can see, I mean, I know that there's, there are some efforts specifically, and there's some things in the goals and objectives around coordination with the county, around, like, the, you know, the apartment inventory, et cetera, the renter inventory, and I think we'd have to talk to housing about, like, what kind of data can we get, how, like, can we validate it, et cetera, and see what options we have there.

Sounds good. I'm very interested in that.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, I have a couple questions. I know we've talked a lot about the tool and the process, but I actually have some input on the work plan itself. So, and again, more to consider, because I know we're not approving the work plan per se. We did the goals and objectives, and we did the budget. So I'll just whip through these in order. So the first one, and you actually did mention it, that under the economics and neighborhood, the whole tree ordinance, I'm curious how staff would link that under G, equity, the climate justice lens. Because to have a tree ordinance, it's more than just looking at trees for our community. I think there's a climate justice angle there. And that might not just be the only example, but when there are these ones that are very linked together, how do we have the tool recognizing that it's both? Does that make sense? Okay.

It makes sense, and you're getting to something that we really grappled with when we were developing the plan, which is where do the things actually fall? Because the priority areas themselves are not distinct silos, but actually have a ton of overlap. So just because one is in priority area A or whatever doesn't mean that G does not have an applicability.

So, however, that gets just cross-referenced, and it's probably not for all of them, but that one's, to me, a pretty obvious one, because it has come up over and over. On the same vein, this is under mobility and infrastructure, so this is under our, which I fully support, traffic safety vision zero, and And through TAM and through other communities, they've been introducing more of the smart traffic signals, which I know Director Miller's working on. And we also have another item that's traffic signal upgrades. So in Miovision. So again, that's another one. If we're talking about Vision Zero as a priority for this council, we've said it is. And then how do we actually say, wow, the traffic signal Miovision needs to be connected. Again, showing that some of these Some of these meet more than one objective. Maybe that's what I'm trying to say. So how is that emphasized as opposed to a single... I don't know if Paul's about to say something or just...

Yeah, I don't know if my thought is directly related to your question, but I think it applies that there's individual work plan items that we are tracking progress on the item. And we're tracking, there may be a performance metric on how many signals we've upgraded or how many have been connected. We could debate the right metric for progress on all of those measures. The answer, I think my thought to where it all links is in the higher level objective of reducing traffic related accidents and injuries. And no one program has a direct connection to it. So that's where you get into kind of the nuance which it's the cumulative impact of advancing projects, initiatives, and programs that actually hopefully moves the needle on the bigger one. In fact, there are examples in the real world where you'll implement a program, and it does exactly what the program was supposed to do, and you haven't made a dent in sort of the larger objective. So that's sort of the linkage going up.

Yeah, no, I couldn't agree with you more. And when we're talking about specifically on the Vision Zero as you said, the cumulative impact of it all, and how do we continue? Again, I just wanna make sure that we're linking them both for all of us, for the community, so when something comes before us, let's say a MyoVision contract came before us, that it's all tied together. And I know it would be when the staff presented, but, okay, I just have to.

Mayor Kagan, really just, I think that that connects also back to just the communication side. How are we telling our story? How are we proactively telling our story, getting in front of it? It's not being told by somebody else because that's the best opportunity for us to bring those linkages together and explain kind of the bigger story of what we're doing as opposed to just a presentation at a staff report. Because this incremental progress, you're seeing a bigger picture. People who are coming here, they see the incremental thing. So that's the other work that we're trying to do.

Yeah, and again, I also want to provide this input because I know the directors are still here, having a long day. And so they can also see from the work plan what has been really speaking out, which I have noticed. The next one's on the quality of life, so there's a whole section on the police advisory accountability. MEETINGS AND TALKING ABOUT VERY SPECIFICALLY, HOW DO WE INCREASE PUBLIC PARTICIPATION IN THAT? AND AGAIN, A SUGGESTION, NOT NECESSARILY AN ANSWER NOW. IS THERE A WAY TO ROTATE THOSE MEETINGS MAYBE BEYOND CITY HALL AND HAVE THEM BE AT THE ALBORO or have them in B Street. If we're trying to do public participation, how do we put the eyes, the meanings, how do we make it more accessible? So that might be something to consider under the same quality of life mobile vending, which is also the illegal street food vending. Great what was listed in there. But I would love to have the county role. It's emphasized even more. It does have a line in there about environmental health services. Counties had an entire presentation recently at their Board of Supervisors meeting. So that county piece, when I read it, again, as we direct people here, people might not realize how much we depend on the county for a lot of that. So that jumped out at me. Under high-performing government, which rolls up, we're talking about this communications roadmap, And Cosmo Bushy asked about this, how are we getting people to know what we're doing? How are we communicating all of that? And I noticed on the metrics that snapshot, we have 9,000 subscribers, which we're a town of 60,000 plus. So to me, that's not a very big number, and probably people in this room is a good percentage. would we consider as part of the communication roadmap a very specific targeted campaign if we're using a snapshot as a vehicle how do we increase those numbers we tell people up here all the time to go to the snapshot people like what i've never heard of that like oh my god so i want us to be connecting where we're putting the information um where we're spending all our time putting the information and increasing people going there. You can tell it's 10 o'clock and I'm mixing up my work. Does that make sense, though? Because that would be something to be helpful. And then finally, I do have only one comment on the metrics because my colleagues spoke about it quite a bit. I thought it was so interesting the monthly traffic at 2nd and Lincoln and 3rd and Lincoln, so nearly a million people. I see Director Miller is nodding her head. So, of course, the automatic thing I thought of was how does this relate to PCI? the pavement condition index. So and I know for our PCI we have an algorithm or rubric that's very specific because we want everything paved all the time. But I'm hoping that frequency or the number of cars going through the intersection is part of that PCI rubric, right, to emphasize it. She's nodding her head no, but you don't have to necessarily answer right now, but those are the types of things that as we get more sophisticated, when I saw that, I'm like, oh, well, we only have X amount of money, then we sure as heck should make sure that those intersections, because we already know the amount of cars that are going through, so. So not really a question, it's just more input, because it does say input. We are approving, and you are asking for input on this, so. I'll stop there. Thank you. I will open up public comment on this item. If you would like to share anything on the tool itself or on the proposed work plan, now is your opportunity to do so. And you're invited but not required to say your name and what part of San Rafael you're from.

GOOD EVENING, MY NAME IS GREGORY ANDREW AND I'M HERE TONIGHT TO SPEAK ON THE PUBLIC PROCESS THAT THE CITY PURPOSELY AVOIDED IN ITS PURSUIT OF THE HOUSING AND HOMELESS PRIORITY OF THE STRATEGIC PLAN, A PRIORITY FOCUSED ON 350 MERRIDALE DURING 2025-2026. Through a Public Records Act request, I became aware of a 2025 work plan that we now know reveals a schedule of milestones for the interim shelter at 350 Marydale. That work plan made it clear that that the city intentionally planned to delay or avoid public engagement about the project until after 350 Marydale had been identified and selected as a site, until after the city and county had developed an agreement, until after a purchase and sale agreement had been finalized, until after funding had been secured. THESE WERE ITEMS I BELIEVE DURING CLOSED SESSION DISCUSSIONS. IT WAS ONLY AFTER ALL THOSE THINGS WERE COMPLETED THAT THE WORK PLAN ITSELF CALLED FOR CONDUCTING COMMUNITY And it is apparent to me why you would have avoided community outreach, and that was because you knew that there would be pushback on the project, and so you selectively decided to put that off. It's the old adage, act now and ask forgiveness later. AND UNFORTUNATELY, IT DOES NOT SEEM TO BE ANY INDICATION THAT THE PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT WILL BE ANY MORE WELCOME ON THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING ASPECT. THAT PROJECT THROUGH MY INTERACTIONS WITH THE ECONOMIC AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT SEEM TO NOT WELCOME OR PLAN FOR PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT. SO THANK YOU.

ANY OTHER COMMENTS ON THIS ITEM?

GOOD EVENING MAYOR, COUNCIL, AND STAFF. MARIANNE NONNESTAD FROM SAN RAFAEL MEADOWS. THE 25, 26 ACCOMPLISHMENTS MAKE NO MENTION OF THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING PROJECT. WHEN THAT PROJECT HAS SIGNIFICANTLY ADVANCED WITH RFPs ALREADY SUBMITTED TO THE CITY. IT APPEARS THE CITY WANTS TO HIDE HOW FAR ALONG THE PROJECT IS. ATTACHMENT 3 PRIORITY D11 ONLY TALKED ABOUT THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE INTERIM SHELTER PROJECT AND MAKES NO MENTION OF THE AFFORDABLE HOUSING DEVELOPMENT RFP AND CURRENT REVIEW STATUS. ATTACHMENT 1 WORK PLAN PROJECTS FOR 2627 LISTS THE 350 MERRIDELL AFFORDABLE HOUSING PROJECT BUT THEN THE OBJECTIVES SHOWN ONLY DESCRIBE THE INTERIM SHELTER PROJECT. This is a public project and we paid $6.7 million for the property. This project will have significant impacts on the Merredale neighborhood and its community. The city must communicate and allow the public to be involved with every aspect of this project. Do not repeat the same approach you took in 24-25 to exclude the public from the plans for an interim shelter and affordable housing project at 350 Merredale. All future community engagement must include complete transparency and public involvement in the affordable housing project being planned for 350 Miradel Road. Thank you.

Good evening, Council, staff, Mayor. My name is Craig Murray. I'm with Civic Center Arms in North San Rafael. And I want to speak about D13. Also, thank you for bringing up the PCI data. That's a usual item that cities review that's important. So on D 1 3 just in regards to the revised city camping ordinance the request is for the city to specifically ban camping along Marydale Road as the ban has been updated for Mahone Creek City Hall and now Anderson Drive and just a little background on Marydale DISTRICT THREE OF CITY OF SANTERFELD IS WITHIN 94901 SOUTH OF PORTOSUELO HILL AND A SMALLER PORTION NORTH OF PORTOSUELO HILL AND DISTRICT THREE IS WITHIN 94903. THIS IS NOT TERRA LINDA. FROM NOVEMBER LAST YEAR IT HAS BEEN NOW 50 YEARS SINCE THE RESIDENCE OF AN ANNEXATION WITH THE EXPECTED CITY REPRESENTATION, IMPROVEMENTS AND SERVICES. DISTRICT THREE HAS INCLUDED NEWER HOMES, USE OF highway 101 as well as the embassy suites hotel city fire station 57 and streets serving county fairgrounds and other county facilities on the west side of 101 where mary dale is are more established homes in meadows approximately 220 units not counting idus signature properties redwood village city park churches child care centers many small businesses including hardware restaurants service stations pool service recreational senior care living. This area also has a high number of income properties with tenants. This area's census track shows some income areas that are, excuse me, it's kind of dropping out, on par with notable high density area of city canal area. Merriedale Road received limited CIP dollars other than the recent stop sign for the freeway exit request. Merriedale Road paved parking as city council approved in the bike plan. Mark.

If you could wrap up your comments.

Okay, if I could grab the 30 seconds and I just- I'm sorry, it doesn't work that way.

It doesn't work that way, but I can assure you if you have it written, you can email it to the city clerk and we will all see what you wrote.

Or I could just wait until the public comment period and I'll finish my comments.

Any other comments on this item?

Bill Carney again, speaking for Sustainable San Rafael. We submitted four letters that have kind of tracked this process through over the past year, very thorough process. And we hope that those will be useful as you continue to refine this report and reporting process going forward. I wanted to comment briefly on the sustainability and resilience goal area and note that the bulk of the items in there really are about resilience or about preparing for the impacts of climate change. And at the same time, many of the greenhouse gas reduction items that lead off the section also act to help prepare for those same impacts. So there's a double benefit, if you will, from those items. EXAMPLES ARE HEAT PUMP FURNACES ARE GREAT FOR KEEPING WARM IN THE WINTER WITH CLEAN ENERGY. THEY ALSO ARE GREAT IN THE SUMMER BECAUSE THEY CAN DOUBLE AS AIR CONDITIONING AND IN THE EVENT OF HEAT WAVES COMING AT US MORE AND MORE AND POTENTIALLY MORE DANGEROUSLY. They also provide that preparation for that particular climate impact. And bidirectional charging is another example. Biomass is another example as recently reported. Street trees cool the city at the same time that they sequester in carbon and therefore reduce climate change. So the point is that the preparedness really needs to be coupled wherever possible with the reduction of greenhouse gases and I would set that as something that we need to have as an objective throughout those throughout those items in that section. Thanks.

Any other comments on this item? Not seeing any other public comment. I'll close the public comment. There was a question specifically, there was great input, why there should be more Marydale project included in either accomplishments or looking ahead. But there's been work that has been done and it wasn't reflected.

Correct. So from the time that we provided the mid-year update to now, that is when the work as relates to the affordable housing project commenced. And in the development of this plan, part of the learning of this process is the year one stuff often is going to get swept up into the year two. So it's not as clean cut that this was a year one thing and it wasn't reported. But work was done and now it's being reflected as we come for the update because it missed the last update, if that makes sense.

It does, I think the concern was, or what was being inferred is that by not mentioning it, somehow the city council isn't proud of the fact that this is adhering to the policies and the goals and objectives, that there was a not transparent action taking place. That's what I heard, I don't know what was said, but I wanna make sure that we're very transparent and that we're capturing, because we know this project is important to many people in our community for different reasons, but important. So.

But you know what I'm just going to say is kind of helping to curate the nuts and bolts of this. This is our first time doing this comprehensive of an update and people doing this alongside their jobs. There are going to be some times when some things got missed, maybe some consistencies, some areas that we want to work on. So I think that from a communications standpoint, we'll continue to make sure that when we come back next time, say, hey, Update on things that wherever it is in flight and make sure that we're not omitting any information that should be in there Fantastic.

Thank you so much. I will return to the council for any additional comments recognizing the late-hour vice mayor

We didn't really talk, I didn't really talk about very specific as you went into some details on specific items, but I would like to overall say and request for the directors to call out older adults, and if there's an opportunity to segment. So some of the items I could see being specifically addressing a segment for older adults, because we know 40% of Marin is gonna by, 2040 will be over the age of 60. And I think that we're, just as we talked about sea level rise tonight, we need to now, within a lot of our objectives and strategies, looking at a specific segment of older adults I think would be really helpful and might allow us to accomplish some of that objective before having to just put it on to hold. And then the other one is I really would support the idea of thinking about how we could put a prioritization around the objectives. Because right now everything has a weight of one. And that's a harder conversation. And we also know, I mean, I appreciate interim city managers' thought around you accomplish item one and two, but it was really, those are the low hanging fruit and not three, which is the much harder one. And so maybe we need to look at how do we prioritize some of those and the tool can allow for that. And again, but it's still work to do that. I recognize that, but I think it might, um, help us in terms of, of how do we accomplish things a little bit more differently. So, but so appreciate having this now and being able to have this level of conversation. because we haven't been able to do that before. So thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Hill.

Thank you, Mayor Kate. Thank you, Director Mooney. Thank you, Assistant City Manager Stefanski. Thank you, City Manager Navazio. And also who's not here listed is Data Engineer Pang. And then all staff that contributed to this. I remember a year ago when we were contemplating this whole process. It was already, I think, It felt more theoretical back then. And I recall from the Daya's offering that that I would hope staff could dream big and still tell us what's possible, and that if we had to reorganize, that there would be grace, and I hope people experience that, that we are proud to stand before the community and say that we did what we said we were gonna do, which is establish a strategy, fit it into a one-year work plan and a budget, and then and work through it boldly. So I appreciate that staff did that. I'm proud of the results that came out this evening. I am looking forward to how the engine continues to run and what is working and what is not. So thanks for the update and look forward to year two.

Thank you. Council Member Durant-Scolati.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. I wanted to thank you again for the report, but also for the year. I mean, the highlights that you have for all of you, everybody, honestly, all the staff members, you have accomplished so much in just one year. So I think we should all be super proud. I am very proud of all the work. that you've been implementing. And I'm excited about the new year. I'm eager to see what's going to be like, okay, what do we do, Q1, Q2, you know, into all those to get even more great things done. And, you know, I have sometimes questions about, like, specific projects, like, you actually call it, I think it was B21, but I have it in the package B12, so I don't know. but is the canal bridge feasibility study, and I know that as council members, we definitely don't implement, we just set the directions, but sometimes when I'm seeing things like you're lacking funding, whatever we can do from where we sit to support projects like that in speaking with whoever it is or at the higher level, please reach out because I would love to do that. And then my last part is on communications. I think you have done such an amazing job this year communicating, especially the social media. There are so many things that you're constantly putting out there. So I keep encouraging our community to you know, be connected because I think you make the information very accessible, very interesting, and this dashboard is amazing because sometimes I can't speak about something, but the data is the data. So, again, thank you. It's very clear, and keep on going. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Bushy.

Fantastic. Step forward. You're doing a great job. Keep up the good work.

I'll just say San Rafael really is leading here. I think the city manager alluded to that. We're trying to do something different to both align our goals and objectives to our budget. So impressive work being done by an impressive team, an impressive group of people. I love seeing, we didn't really talk about it, but the C-Click fix, number of potholes fixed, and number of response time. We all know that is like the number one email. So the fact that we can direct people there. And looking ahead, I'm a little sad that the gateway, very sad, the gateway beautification is on hold until fall. But I really liked your analogy, Sean, of that plate's just not going to spin right now, right, until we can go ahead and hopefully get more responses to that RFP. In terms of the communication, embedded in here is also the pilot program with change.org. So again, San Rafael is doing things that other cities and towns in Marin County are not doing, change.org. has reached out to us and there's just a handful of communities I think nationwide that they're working with. So great stuff to come. And on the performance metric dashboard, such a great communication tool. We're all going to be sending people to it. And what I'll close by saying is I love that it's facts and not misinformation. Unfortunately, what tends to get a lot of traction online these days is misinformation, clickbait, things like that. And so now there's an opportunity for the city to point people to facts and then it can be constructing a narrative that's actually accurate of what we're doing here. So great work, and I apologize that the hour went late, but you know us, we're gonna dig in, the community likes to hear what's going on. With that, I would entertain a motion on this item, please.

I'll make a motion to receive the report on the implementation of the City Council's three-year strategic plan through the development and tracking of annual work plans and performance metrics and provide feedback on the proposed fiscal year 2026-27 work plan. Second. Second. Moved and seconded.

Roll call, please.

Council Member Bushey. Aye. Council Member Hill. Aye. Vice Mayor Kurtz. Aye. Council Member Irenz-Gilotti.

Aye.

Mayor Kate.

Aye. That motion carries 5-0. Thank you so much. As I said at the beginning of the meeting, we have open time for public expression. This was anything that was not on tonight's agenda. If you have anything you'd like to share with the council that was not on the agenda, here's your opportunity.

Hello again, Craig Murray, Civic Center Arms North San Rafael. So just the bullet points and requests. Marydale Road paid parking as city council approved bicycle plan. So we have a large dirt strip with folks camping out there and trash dumping, alcohol drinking, et cetera. We also, part of the bike plan is a class two bike lane on Marydale Road. I'd like to see that completed. FIX THE GAPS OF NO SIDEWALKS ON EITHER SIDE OF MARYDALE ROAD. PEOPLE ARE WALKING, SENIORS, KIDS, OTHERS ARE WALKING IN THE STREETS, VERY DARK. BASIC AND REGULAR MAINTENANCE, TREE TRIMMING, E.G. SPEED LIMIT SIGNS COVERED UP, TREE LIMBS DOWN THE CAR DOOR Road marking upgrades, i.e. white line shoulders scrubbed off mainly from street sweeping, refreshed the gravel areas in the dirt parking lots, more frequent pickup of dump materials, trash, and debris. Enforcement of stolen and displaced shopping carts brought into the neighborhood. Enforcement of perpetual alcohol drinking in City Dirt Strip and Road. APPLY COMPLETE STREET METHODOLOGY ON MERRIDALE ROAD FOR ADA SAFER PASSAGE FOR CHILDREN, SENIORS, DISABLED AND CONTINUOUS SIDEWALKS AND ID AND WORK WITH COMMUNITIES TO ID AND COMPLETE MISSING SIDEWALKS. AREA LIGHTING AND UNDERGROUND AND UTILITY POLLS ARE FAILING IN THE AREA AND ENGAGE THIS DIVERSE COMMUNITY AND CITY DECISION MAKING. LOOKING FORWARD TO THE CITY'S ASSISTANCE. THANK YOU.

Any other comments this evening? Not seen any. Thank you everyone for a great meeting. This meeting is adjourned.