City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, I will call to order the City of Belvedere Council meeting for Monday, April the 13th, 2026. Can I get a roll call, Beth?

Council Member Cooper.

Here.

Council Member Burke.

Here.

Mayor Wilkinson.

Present.

Council Member Mark.

Here. Council Member Carapiet.

Here.

Perfect. And with that, I think we will be adjourning to a closed session.

For the record, there are no attendees.

We will reconvene our city council meeting. In relation to the closed session items, there is nothing

Can we have that?

Sorry, there's nothing to report in relation to the conference with Labour negotiator and in relation to the conference with legal counsel in relation to existing litigation. I would like to report out that the city and the owners of 339 Golden Gate Avenue have agreed to settle the pending litigation relating to the construction project at 339 Golden Gate Avenue. As part of that settlement, the owners will make a contribution to the city of $100,000, which the city will use to fund parks and open space projects in Belvedere for the public's benefit. We are pleased to have this matter settled. Thank you. Beth, do I need to do a roll call again? I don't know, we're good. Okay, so we're gonna move the agenda around a little bit and we are going to move up to the first item, the open forum. Item seven, we'll move to the beginning. And so the open forum, this is an opportunity for any member of the public to briefly address the city council on any matter that does not appear on this agenda, but that is within the city council's subject matter jurisdiction. Upon being recognized by the mayor, please limit your oral statement to no more than three minutes. Under the Brown Act, council members may not deliberate or take action on items not on tonight's agenda. Matters that may warrant a more lengthy presentation or council consideration may be placed on the agenda for further discussion at a later meeting. Can I see whether anybody wishes to make public comment? Please come up. Would you mind just stating your name and address for the record?

Sorry, thank you. Sorry, my first meeting. My name is Kathy Rojas and I live at 12 Cove in Belvedere. We are new to the community, but what we wanted to just kind of address with the city council is the pump station renovation that just became, the notice just went up this week. So it was kind of news to the community. There's a noise concern. Their generator will be at 83 decibels. That's before their enclosure, which we don't know what it would be after. That's all we've been told so far. There is a meeting tomorrow at one o'clock with everybody. Tony Rubio will be there from Sanitation 5. But our concern is it's a very industrial look. There's a big monorail going up with a pulley system over the tanks. The generator is going up in the front. We don't know what that enclosure looks like. But the monorail itself over the tanks is nine feet plus the pad. And we know they had to go with a three feet, the thema pad. So I don't know where that's going to put that if they could do a smaller pad over there or not. I'm not sure. We just got actual schematics. There was a very generic drawing that went up. But that's our concern is one, the visual impact. It's a very industrial look. It doesn't really fit into the neighborhood. I'm not sure that they're an organization that has to abide by any setbacks, any easements, any design review, anything. But we have the visual impact. There are neighbors that are just going to be sitting looking at the monolith in their backyard. So that's a concern. The noise is a concern. We also, is it possible, we don't know that they're subject to any review or design reviews, but is it possible that they are There's oversight bodies like CEQA or BCDC because they're within 100 feet of water. So is it possible that they need to be maybe reviewed by them? So right now they were there today marking. So they're ready to go. And I don't know that I kind of reached out to the town council. today to say, did anybody have any knowledge? I didn't hear that anybody had any knowledge of the project. And even if they don't have to report to the design review or anything or the building committee, There was also a thing about fitting in with the neighborhood and working with the neighbors. I think they so far have seemed to be a very pleasant group to deal with, but I don't know how set. Right now the monolith is going in where right now all they do is they back a truck in and they service the tanks that way. I asked today, Tony Rubio today, when we were on site, if there's a reason they're going for the monolith, are they really wed to it? He said, well, the truck is diesel and it's loud. And I said, well, I have to tell you, I live next door and I've not heard it once since we moved in in November. So are they really wed to that or not? Because that's like our neighbor in the back, him and his wife really are home most of the time, she's housebound and that's their view like right there. So we have some concerns about this, that it's kind of just flying by and can we make it more, can we make it more suiting to fit in with the neighborhood, make sure the noise level is quieter And we talked to Tony today, you know, they put up an eight foot fence with lattice. I'm not sure anybody really wants to see the sanitation, you know, because that's when you come into Belvedere. I mean, it's a main thoroughfare, like when you're coming into Belvedere itself. Lots of people walk by there, bike by there, everything. I think we could make it in keeping with the neighborhood. I think it's, you know, I know they probably are not something that they need to abide by all the design review and everything. I don't think that they have to. Sanitation five has indicated that they don't have to report to anybody, but in a nice way, they did it.

Kathy, do you mind just wrapping up if you don't mind, because we're a little bit past the three minutes.

Okay, yeah, I think that's kind of what we just were wondering, like, did anybody have any knowledge of this? Is there anything that we need to talk to anybody about? I mean, is it just that we just let them do what they need to do? And I mean, it's going to be there for, you know, the lifespan is 25, 30 years.

Thank you for your comment.

Okay, thank you.

Is there any other public comment? Anything online, Beth? There are no hands raised. Great. Robert, I know we don't address... Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't see you. I'm sorry. Come on up.

Mayor, members of the council, thank you very much for all you do. I want to talk about the recommendations for a full-time project manager for Mallard Point.

This is actually agendized potentially at another time. So do you mind holding your comment for that time?

Sure.

Thank you. Robert, in relation to the pump station, I know we don't directly address public comment, but is there anything you would like to pass on to the council and members of the public?

Yeah, I would just say that it's on our radar now. We'll be looking into this. And myself, Tony, who is our public works director, and Rebecca Markwick will decide whether or not there's any additional review that needs to happen. And if needed, we'll have a conversation at council at the next meeting.

Okay. And will you be attending this meeting, somebody from the city attending this meeting tomorrow?

Yes. I don't think we've had the invite yet, but we'll make sure we get on that list.

Okay. Thank you. Okay, if there's nobody else, we will close our public forum. And we will move on to item number three reports and presentations. 3A is city council reports. Does anybody any members of our city council have reports? Go ahead.

So this last month, I attended the RBRA meeting. And I wanna report that they're down to two boats that are legally anchored to stay in Richardson Bay until October of 2026. Of the two, one is actively looking for housing and is being assisted by RBRA in trying to find housing. And the other boat has agreed that they will be leaving Richardson Bay by the October date in October, the BCDC deadline. We are going to be reviewing our budget this next month in May. We've been the members of RBRA have been asked to get some feedback for our director. Next year's budget, we're going to be facing a $300,000 shortfall. due to the 2023 board's decision to guarantee housing for the first year, which includes a social worker for the individuals. The proposed budget for 2026 is going to be 3% lower than our contribution last year. So our contribution for next year is proposed at $129,893. And they proposed two budgets, one not considering the shortfall of the 300,001, considering the shortfall, our instruction was to proceed with the 2627 budget, not including the shortfall. And it probably will be coming back. The shortfall for Belvedere would add an additional 34,500 to our contribution. So the total would then become 164,393. Then in 2027, it's anticipated that that housing shortfall will total $1 million. And our contribution at that time, they're projecting would be 115,000 additional to our regular assessment. And they're projecting that estimated around now around 245,000. So the director has asked, and I know this is not an agendized item for full discussion, but just to have some guidance from the cities on how they will feel if requested to pay those additional funds for the housing. So what I'm asking is just sort of a general statement that I can go back to RBRA next month during our budget session and give them some just initial broad, nothing specific, we don't have all the details yet of how the city of Belvidere feels if they're gonna be asked for those additional contributions from our budget.

Are these mandatory fees if you're a member, if you remain a member, and is it mandatory that we remain a member of the group?

Well, I think if the majority of the board agrees that they're going to cover the additional housing cost, then that would become our responsibility. As far as the agreement, and Robert can probably speak better than I on that, but I think that at any time a member can withdraw from the board. Or the JPA, I should say.

Is every Marin jurisdiction part of that right now, like Sausalito, Mill Valley?

No, the only towns that are included are the town of Tiburon, the city of Mill Valley, Belvedere, and the county. And the county pays the biggest portion of the budget.

So Sausalito, even though it's located primarily on Richardson Bay, is not part of the JPA?

They removed themselves from the JPA and I'm not quite sure what year, but it's been a while since they removed themselves.

What I don't understand there is you're saying there'll be two people or families that they'll be providing housing for just for one year.

All the previous, yeah. So in 2023, the board decided that they were, you know, it was at a time when there was federal money out there, state money out there, and we were getting grants from the federal government and from the state. And the board felt that the RBRA could put in their budget a guarantee that when these people transition, because it is a big transition from somebody living on the water to going to land that they would make sure that, you know, they were successful in that first year. So they guaranteed the housing, any shortfall in the housing, you know, they, um, didn't get County money or the, um, that was lacking and coming in with the section eight money from the federal government. And, um, and they agreed that they would have a social worker work with these people for the first year.

But, but, I thought it was more than just one year.

Well, the housing is supposed to be forever, but RBRA just, their position was is they were going to make sure that people would get the guaranteed housing for the first year.

But therefore, if we've only got two new people, how can that be a million dollars?

Well, because they have people left over from this year that are going to be in the year.

But if they're only funded for one year, why does it become a successive year obligation?

Because you said you're talking about 27, 28 budget. That's more than it. You think it's from October of the moving October 26. And so it runs into the next fiscal year for that reason?

Well, it runs into the next fiscal year. And then the one person that's there now, let's say he doesn't get off until 2026. You know, he's going to be there and there might be... I don't know all the figures, so this is sort of a generic, but these are good questions and I can take them back and I know we need to have more answers, but I was just looking for some general broad statements on the possibility of us assuming that additional responsibility on this JPA.

My sense was it was a, um, the housing agreements had, uh, longer than one year broader commitments on assuming a level of funding that rvra would not be responsible for but we're able to facilitate that hasn't come through and my sense is that they're feeling obligated to maintaining and upholding those those housing guarantees for the broader group of individuals who have been relocated inland That was my understanding of it. I could be wrong, but that's my broad understanding of it. And so it's a compounding expenditure cost that RBA is assuming and asking their member municipalities to cover with their participation.

I can give you my opinion. We only get 20.7% of our property taxes that are paid from Belvedere residents come to the city of Belvedere and the rest of them go to many other places. I'm just not quite sure why with that small amount of revenue that we get that we've already made a commitment to RBRA. I'm not sure that we're in the business of providing housing support on a long-term basis outside of Belvedere, but it feels like that's not a small amount for our budget, I would say. You're talking about rising to nearly a quarter of a million dollars. So that would be my opinion. I'm not sure what others think.

Can we have this conversation, Andrew, or are we getting a little far afield?

I think this is probably a good time to put a pause button there and continue the discussion at a future time.

I mean, I have to say that similar one report I would have in a minute is for a similar type of expenditure plan, transit authority and Marine can send a representative to give a description and some details. Maybe RBRA can come with an agenda item in the future to describe what the specifics are and ask more formally for some guidance. That would be an appropriate way to proceed.

Okay, perfect. Does anybody else have any updates for the council?

I do. Just real quickly, as I mentioned, from a transit authority in Marin perspective, two quick things. One, we'll be seeing, I'm sure, Robert, you've already seen it, a Measure AA expenditure plan needs to be ratified by all the 10 cities and towns in Marin, which is reclassifying their dollars annually. into some new categories. I won't get into the specifics of it. But it pulls some local funding away and puts it into interchanges and reimagining roadways that cross over between different jurisdictions. So individual communities will be losing some part of their local streets and street funding, which has been mitigated to some degree because we had some outspoken representatives, thank you, Pat Carapiet, when she attended a few months ago, they've shifted it to give a one-time double payment of those Measure A funds, which is basically taking year 35 of the Measure A funding program, moving it back to this year, so that it'll pay for that shortfall going forward, which I know Tony and Helga are already planning to use for the for the for the for the sidewalk and and paving portion of the seawall project so i think that's a good opportunity there to help mitigate some of those expenditures. The second real announcement quickly is that the TAM's support of crossing guard programs across the county has been finalized and I've notified Reed Union School District as well as the Tiburon Peninsula Traffic Alliance. They're aware of this, but I just notified them of the final aspect of it. Unfortunately, we're losing three, sorry, four sites and gaining one for a net loss. They're hopefully able to mitigate that with a swap and potentially finding some budgeted way to do so. These were three losses out of 10 or 12 across the county. The state, sorry, TAM has, because of a national standards requirement, has been forced to bring two guards to places where there is a median and two sides of the street, which effectively lost six or seven sites that had guards before. And the school union district has, is the unfortunate, has the consequence of losing some sites because of that. So just that quick announcement, not the best news, but that has happened.

Anything else, Jane? I just wanted to announce that I've agreed to attend the fourth annual Marin Youth Town Hall presented by the Marin County Student Elections Ambassador Program as a representative from Belvedere. It'll take place on Sunday, April 26th from two to four in the afternoon. And it's a great opportunity for any high school students interested in in how local government works to come and learn and I would encourage any of our community high school students to attend. I also attended the March be ready Belvedere meeting chaired by council member care yet. And the determination there was that the theme for the year would be shelter in place. Whereas last year, the theme was get ready to go. So a few other items were discussed. We were introduced to the portable LRAD alert siren system, which was under consideration. And we also discussed putting together a list of medical support people in our community, doctors, nurses, medical assistants, who might be willing to help out in case of a community-wide natural disaster slash emergency. So it was a lot of good things were discussed and thank you.

And we also had the opportunity to meet the new representative at the Tiburon Fire Department, Ms. Ramirez, who works with communities in emergency plans. And so we were able to make a nice connection with her. And she's on board for assisting us with anything that we need the Tiburon Fire Department for.

Okay. Do we have any public comment in relation to our city council reports? Seeing none in the audience, any online? No hands raised. Okay, great. We're going to move on to the city manager report 3B, Robert.

Yes, thanks Mayor Wilkinson. I just have a couple of quick items. I'll start off by taking a moment to announce a bit of good news. We have a new addition or soon we'll have a new addition to our city hall team. Jules Fogarty will be joining the city as our new administrative technician at the front desk. His start date will be April 27th. Jules holds a degree in economics and sustainability from UC Berkeley and brings his experience in data analysis from his work at local startup firms. He's also recently served as a member of his hometown sustainability committee. So he's familiar with government operations, which is a big bonus. I do think he's going to be a great fit. We look forward to his arrival. I do encourage members of the council and the residents to stop by City Hall again towards the end of this month to welcome Jules to Belvedere. And then regarding Mallard Point, staff continues to meet with the developer's team. The focus these last few weeks has been on the final map. A few of the larger outstanding items from the final map are the subdivision improvement agreement, the affordable housing agreement, and the regulatory agreement. These agreements are currently being reviewed by our attorneys and will be sent back to the Mallard team hopefully this week. If you've been closely following this project, then you may be aware that the tentative map is set to expire mid-May. Mallard will be submitting a letter to the city asking for an extension of the tentative map This is a process that is allowed per government code and is also in the city's municipal code as well. Once the city receives the request for the extension, the map is automatically extended for 60 days or until the applicant, the application for the extension is approved, conditionally approved or deny whichever comes first. The developer is targeting the June meeting to bring the final map to city council. Robert Meyers, The Capacity Collective, And you know we'll see how that continues with regard to the overall schedule for that project on a related note i'm also happy to report that staff intends to bring. Robert Meyers, The Capacity Collective, A board and outside project coordinator for the mallard point project this April approval of that coordinator positions on the consent calendar tonight for consent for council's consideration so that might come up again, but that's all I have for now.

Alison Lee, And does anybody have questions. Okay, go ahead.

Sorry, Robert, could you just re-explain the 60-day extension and then how that comes to the council and what you said about 30-day, 60-day, whatever comes first?

I didn't catch that. So, yeah, I'm sure Rebecca can fill in the gaps here, but from what I understand, there's in the government code and the city's municipal code, there's a section which addresses this in the Subdivision Map Act. It allows for extensions of a tentative map when an applicant submits an application for that request. The city, I don't believe, has an official application we've ever adopted. In this case, I think we're considering a memo, a letter from the Mallard team is sufficient. But there is a 60-day period, which does allow that tentative map to be extended. Rebecca, do you want to add anything on to that? Thank you.

summarize it very well. It's, you know, as Robert mentioned, per the government code, as well as in our Belvedere municipal code, essentially, once we get that, we're asking them to submit a letter to us. Um, and then that kind of essentially buys them 60 days on that tentative map. Um, And they're hopeful that within those 60 days that the final map will be before the city council.

Oh, okay. So it sounds like it comes, the tentative map decision doesn't come to the city council to determine whether I thought you said something like whether it's denied or except I missed that. I'm not talking about the final map. Right.

So if we have everything, all of the conditions of approval are met for the final map prior to that 60-day expiration, then the final map will come to the council. If the conditions of approval have not been met within those 60 days, we will also bring it to council for an extension. Okay. or we will instead bring it to council for approval of the extension.

So there's a second extension opportunity if the 60 days tolls, is that the idea?

Yes. But that's a decision then that gets made at the council level or again at the staff level?

At the council level. At the council. Our code says, actually, our municipal code says planning commission, but we figured we would just bring it to the council.

So I misunderstood what Robert said about up until it's either approved, denied, or continued. But so with a letter in absence of an application, I understand that. or they would receive a 60-day extension of the period with which they could get approval for their final map. Assuming they present, they have a final application or final, all the information, the checklist is complete, but within that 60 days, it comes to city council for approval. If it's not, you'll bring a application to further extend or further renew the tentative map for some period of time based on their needs at that point in time.

That is correct.

What discretion does the council have to, you know, approve, deny, or continue, or what?

Further guidance on that, should we be in that position?

Thank you. Can I ask one? Oh, sorry. Okay. It's on a different topic.

Okay.

A question for Rebecca, since we're on this topic, is can you give us an update on completeness in terms of Mallet Point? I know there's a lot of talk about where they are as it relates to completeness.

Yeah, so it's still considered incomplete, the project. So there's sort of different areas of the project, right? There's the bulkhead, and there's the demolition, and then there's the final map. So we're getting closer to it being sort of in, we're moving towards completeness, but there are still some sort of larger outstanding items. And Robert mentioned those three agreements. Also the relocation consultant, we're working on getting that person in contract. And that's another of the sort of larger outstanding items that need to be complete before we're moving forward with anything.

Thank you. Can I follow up on that real quick? I know, Rebecca, we spoke about this today. I would suggest that certainly you and your department or the coordinator that we're considering hiring, and this is a subject of a lot of the public comment that we've received in writing, is among other things, consolidate these checklists so that by permit, the demolition and the tentative to final map, and I don't know if the bulk has its own separate permit or not, but specific to permit, I would have a published consolidated checklist of where things stand and what's complete, what's incomplete, so that there's a comprehensive guideline for the community and also perhaps your own staff to be able to work through. I think that would be a, I know you have them behind the scenes. It would just be, I mean, I think probably good to have this individual consolidate and present as well.

So that is certainly one of our goals with this individual, as well as organizing the Mallard point. page and all of those documents sort of goes hand in hand with what you're saying.

So, yeah, I was going to say something, but should we hold that for when it comes up on the... Jane, you wanted to ask a question about something else?

Well, it's about Mallard Point, but not what's coming up tonight necessarily. So my question is where the demolition permit fits in with the final map. Is that where how does that fit in your timeline with this with the out the final map is that totally separate from the demolition permit are they connected to the between the final map and the demolition permit. Do you, do you know?

That's a good question.

I don't know. Okay. I mean, I don't think.

Well, we wouldn't issue the demolition permit until we have a final map. Okay. So I think that's all on this final map approval, right? We're not going to issue a building permit for something that we don't have a map for.

Okay. Thank you. So I do know. Yeah. That's exactly what I was curious to know. That helps. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Thanks.

Okay, I will. Yeah, there's some reverberation.

Yeah, would you mind turning your volume down? Someone has a phone on. It's echoing throughout the room, if you don't mind.

Okay, so if there is, let's see if there's any public comment on the city manager's report, but just bearing in mind that the item to discuss the construction coordinator for Malapoint is a separate item. So is there any public comment on the city manager's report? Seeing none in the room, is there anything online? There are no hands raised. Perfect. Thank you, Beth. Okay, we'll move to 3C, the police chief report. Jason, you're up.

Thank you, and good evening, Mayor Wilkinson and council members. Tonight, I am pleased to present the police department's first quarter report for 2026, During this quarter, the department handled 889 incidents, which included one part one offense, which is larceny, and two part two offenses, suspicion and fraud. They're highlighted in bold. And the remaining 886 incidents are classified as all other incidents. During this quarter, the department conducted 46 traffic stops, made three arrests, referred two cases for prosecution and assisted Tiburon on two occasions. We also received multiple citizens appreciation with zero citizen complaints. And also this quarter, we were pleased to swearing officer Tyler Preston as our newest police officer. He has since completed his field training and has been working as a solo patrol officer. During this quarter, we updated two flexible policies in alignment with a minute loss and best practices. And these updates are detailed in the staff reports. And regarding ARIPA data, officers detained 49 individuals stemming from 46 traffic violations, one suspicious activity, and two welfare checks. The perceived racial compositions consist of 27 Caucasians, 10 Hispanics, six Asians, one Pacific Islander, and five Middle Eastern or Southeast Asians. Of these 49 contacts, 46 were officer-initiated, while three were related to calls for service. In all... bpd issued 11 citations gave 35 warnings and made three arrests and during this quarter police department personnel attended in person and online training that were either mandated or for knowledge and skill enhancements and lastly as part of our community policing we always take great pride in joining and participating in community events and this includes my report and i'm available for questions do any council members have questions

Seeing none, do any members of the public have public comment in relation to this item? Seeing none, is there anything online? Mayor Wilkinson, there are no hands raised. Great. And Jason, I just wanted to make a comment that I have seen your police officers very actively out in the community. It's greatly appreciated. I've had feedback from a number of members of the community just to say thank you for that.

Thank you for your kind words. I will certainly relay that to you. And I echo that. I've heard feedback also. Fantastic. I guess that's hence the uptick in traffic violations.

I'm just hoping I'm not one of those traffic violations going forwards because it seems like that number's gone up. Is that because the police officers are more actively patrolling?

Well, it was kind of multifold. Number one is with the addition of a new officer, it made traffic enforcement a lot easier or enforcements, you know, and invisibilities, because at times we would have up to two officers out and about as opposed to one. And secondly, we are trying to identify enforcement challenges, if you will. And so this quarter, we decided to do a lot of traffic enforcements. Thank you so much.

Is this still a question? Have we closed this? We've had the public comment, but can I still ask a question? I'm just curious. I know that the county has done a, this is relating to e-bikes and helmets on kids and underage riders of e-bikes. I know the county has had a pretty sophisticated PR campaign to try to let parents aware of that and law enforcement as well. Do you stop kids under 16 without helmets, tandem riding and so forth? Because I know it's still a safety hazard. I'm just curious what our policy and our approach is with that.

Sure. Thank you for the question. Normally for us, it's hard for us to discern At times, whether someone's 16 or under, I mean, some are very obvious, but some are a little harder. So what we can do is we can stop based on probable cause. And that's usually associated with traffic violations. Or sometimes it's pretty obvious that they're riding e-bikes. We do, the short answer is yes, we do stop.

Thank you.

Okay, we are moving on to item 3D, which is a presentation from our Belvedere Tiburon Library Director, Crystal Duran.

Good evening, Crystal Duran with the Belvedere Tiburon Library. Thank you, Mayor Wilkinson, council members and staff for having me tonight for the annual presentation on what is happening at the library. I want to acknowledge that you have three board members that you appoint. That's Roxanne Richards, Emily Poplowski, and Tony Hooker. And Tony Hooker is here tonight in chambers as well. So just as a general overview of the library. So our mission is to nurture curiosity, spark connections and foster lifelong learning. And we do that in a variety of ways through our programming and the services that we provide. Before we go into the fun stuff, I'll tell you some of the technical stuff though. For the fiscal year 2526, we have a budget of 3.75 million in revenue. And we use up all of those funds. We've got 18.2 FTE, which is about 13 full-time staff and 13 part-time staff. So we are well-staffed at the library. We have a very healthy reserve. The bulk of our operating costs goes to our personnel and that also includes not just salary benefits and wages, but also includes our insurance, workers' comp insurance, kind of staff development as well. Our next area where we spend some of our money is in our administrative overhead and the technology. We spend about 13% in collections and programs, which you'll learn a little bit more. And then lastly, 3% on the bond repayment. So if you'll remember in the 90s, We took out a bond to pay for the original building at 1501 to brown boulevard and we will finally pay to pay that off next fiscal year so we'll likely use that continued revenue to offset programs and services going forward. Just some library usage at a glance, so we have in the nine months past for the current fiscal year, so this is July 2025 through June i'm sorry through March 2026 we've had just over 124,000 visits. And this is on par for our annual goal that we see typically annually just over about 150 or so. We have currently 8026 card holders it's it's pretty significant number, given the population of both belvedere and to brown, these are nine for nine to a proper card holders. And that that that typically stays around the 8000 number. We've had, we've answered over 13,000 reference questions. These are questions like, you know, can I get some book recommendations or I need some help doing some research on this certain topic. And then I think also what's important to note is the Belvedere Tiburon Library has four public meeting rooms that are available. Other libraries, two other libraries in the county only have small, what look like phone booths, little pods that you can use. We're the only ones that have that infrastructure built in. And they're just high utilization from those meeting rooms and that's anything from tutoring pairs so a tutor and a child meeting after school to folks working remote taking zoom meetings during the day to folks playing bridge in the evenings. And so we've had over 3,200 room bookings for the year so far. And then the other significant note is that we've had over 17,000 attendees to our programs. Now I'm really proud to share that the Belltib Library hosts the highest number of programs of any library in Marin County. And we also have the highest business hours for any library in Marin County. So that's something to be very proud of. And I think that speaks to the resources available to us and then the staff capacity that we do have and make available locally.

Chris, while you're on the slide, can I just ask a question? Directionally, are these numbers up, flat, or down from a year ago?

Yes, so we are on par for kind of an annual baseline that we've hit so far. Yeah. Yes, so it's about 75%. It's right compared, right, the nine-month for the fiscal year. So in the library, all of our work is driven by a strategic plan and there are four goal areas within that strategic plan. This first area is to ensure that the library is a warm, welcoming space for neighbors to connect. And we live that in a few different ways. So we host large scale community events like Shakespeare in the Park, which we just hosted two weeks ago on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. And a senior fair that we are actually hosting in conjunction with the ranch. And that'll be this Friday from 10 to two at the bell tip library. I want to thank council member Cooper who was at the Shakespeare in the park event this two weekends ago. That was a great event. That was an inaugural event that we hope to host annually going forward in the springtime. Another area of focus that we've had over the last three years is expanding our library of things. So the library of things are basically all the things that you can borrow from the library that aren't books, essentially. Some of the highest items that circulate the most frequently are, believe it or not, still our laptops and hotspots. So that just speaks to the fact that not everyone has a device and not everyone has internet available to them. So they are utilizing those resources. We also, a fruit picker is something we added last year and that circulates so frequently, which is part of our sustainability work. A label maker, a mending kit, and a pressure washer. So these are all the types of things that you can borrow from the Belted Library. A few other items to note are fun things like an ice cream maker that you can borrow, karaoke machine, ukuleles. A croquet set if you've got grand babies visiting you can borrow high chair from the library as well, these are all part of our work towards. Providing things that could be reused instead of wasting instead of buying and spending money on wasteful things. And another area of work for our strategic goals are delivering responsive services to the community. So we host a weekly one-on-one tech support. This is on Mondays. We have a tech drop-in hour. This is highly utilized by community members. This is folks coming in and asking for support in how to set up their new laptop that they've purchased, how to get their email accounts connected because something's going on. you might liken it to like the Best Buy in the library world. So people can drop in with a lot of technical questions and staff provide some one-on-one support to them. It's a highly utilized service available. Another big initiative this year that's going on right now is we're working with the Reed Union School District. And this is actually in relation to legislation that passed a few years ago that mandates that all children will have a public library card by the third grade and so we're working with the district right now to enroll all of their current students with a public library card now, this is if they don't already have one and. Going forward it'll just be part of the registration process for new students coming in, but they'll be enrolled with their public library card when they enroll in the district. We are using an opt out process so that we get more participation. So right now, the period just closed where parents had to opt out and choose to not have their child receive or get enrolled with a public library card. We've had just under 30 students opt out of that process. So that's a pretty good rate for us. Another area of focus for us is that we're partnering with organizations to leverage resources. And so we partner really frequently with the Rotary Club. We co-host some programs together with the ranch, like the Senior Fair coming up, Chamber of Commerce, and the Autobahn. Another area of work is really building out our sustainability and resilience work. And in the last year, one project that we did was worked with BayREN, which is the Bay Area Regional Energy Network. They did an energy audit for us, and we also asked them in that process to look at the infrastructure needs the library would have in order to operate as a community resilience center. So what that means is right now when the power goes out, which it did, I think, what, a week or two ago, power went out in the library, just the way it did all around the peninsula. Now people come to the library assuming that we have power and we're still running, but we actually don't. And so what we've had Bayrun do is engage in this process to tell us how much solar would we need? What does a potential backup battery system look like so that we can operate for three days or 72 hours uninterrupted to provide that resilience for community members. And really the focus is on members who maybe don't have solar in their home. So folks who have limited resources, folks who are maybe in rental units. So you're really your most vulnerable members of the community would have a space when there's a climate emergency or natural disaster, they could potentially go to the library and at least have some respite there during that time. We are working with the town of Tiburon for this project and we'll be engaging this group if you haven't heard about it already. And so essentially the plan is for the town hall building and the library to be able to provide this resilience for the community and be that central location. More to come on that if you have not heard from your emergency preparedness advisory liaisons. That's a mouthful. Our last area of strategic plan focus is connecting community members to resources, expertise and opportunities. And one thing I wanna highlight with this is that we do have programs where we work with local residents. So we spotlight local talent through our local authors event. We've got a lot of talented folks who live on the peninsula. And so we host a quarterly author event where we put a call out for authors, we group them thematically, and then we host a program for them to speak to the work that they're doing. We also recently hosted an artisan fair, and this was crafters and makers from the peninsula to post their items for sale on the two-day weekend fair, essentially. The other thing that's important to note about the makerspace, which is a really innovative space in the library, is that we often see entrepreneurs who are coming into the makerspace to 3D print their prototypes. And then they shop those prototypes around with investors. And so that's a really interesting use. I think not something that we would have imagined initially when thinking about the makerspace. Other things that people are doing in the makerspace also include digitizing old old media. So if you've got old eight millimeter film or old VHS, you can digitize that at the library. They're using the sound booth, we have a sound recording booth to record their podcasts now too. And so there's just a lot of dynamic use of the library here. Just a few initiatives that are forthcoming. This year marks the end of our three-year strategic plan. So I'll be working with the board to find out what does a refresh look like going forward? How do we engage with the community to find just some more data to inform planning for the next few years? And the other part is it's part of our current plan and will likely carry over is how do we serve residents who are homebound potentially, have limited mobility, have special needs, who aren't coming to the library physically anymore? We've observationally noticed a drop off with our residents, folks who we would see regularly who just aren't coming anymore. And they'll still call and try to connect with staff. but they're not physically able to. And so there's some missed opportunity and connection that residents are seeking. And so we really feel it's an opportunity to partner likely with local safety who does the welfare checks to provide some level of service to those residents who maybe have mobility challenges. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thanks very much, Crystal. Who has questions?

I don't have any questions, but every time I hear what you're doing and go to the library or read your newsletter, I'm always just so impressed at how dynamic everything is and how really you serve so every single aspect and area in both communities of Tiburon and Belvedere. And we're just so lucky. We're just so lucky. So thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member. I'll share that with staff.

Yeah, I was going to say the same thing. I mean, here, you're doing a tremendous job and the numbers are impressive. The programming is impressive. The things that you lend out, I mean, Jane and I were like, oh, maybe we'll get the ice cream maker. It's just, it's amazing. So thank you for all you do and your team does for our community.

I think if I can add with the library things, with all those unique items that were added, those were actually all community driven. So we solicited a cohort of residents. It was about 10 members who provided input over a three month process about what are the things that you want the library to lend out. And it was all those fun things that library staff would probably never have come up with. And that's what we've added to the collection and they're popular. So it's really community driven collection.

And I just want to jump on the bandwagon and saying that crystal you're doing a fantastic job and leading our library, I think that you touch from. small little baby toddlers all the way up to, we won't go how old, but very old people who really use the library for many, many things. And I think that you touch a lot of people's, the library is touching a lot of people's lives that people didn't realize that it had the capability. And I think the foresight of our community members that push for the expansion and the idea that it would become really a community center were right and that you have taken it to the next level. And I think that we should all be very appreciative that the, I don't know what it is, the agency or the board, whatever, hired you in the position and that we're very lucky to have you. You are very much a treasure to this community. And thank you. Thank you.

Okay, Crystal, I have a question, which is, you mentioned the solar plus storage, which sounds very exciting. How does that get funded?

That's a good, that's the million dollar question. Of course.

Or maybe that's the $2.5 million question.

So what will likely happen next in terms of next steps is we will come to, I'll likely be doing a study session, I hope, with the council and with staff to figure out Is this a priority for the community? What are the needs here locally? We'll be doing this on the Tiburon side and the Belvedere side. Because it's a shared facility space with Tiburon, we'll likely have a memorandum of understanding where we'll talk about some of those mechanics. I do think we're not there at the point of the funding question yet. The town, myself, and the Bayron folks are pretty confident that there are still state

funding, I was gonna say federal, but I'm just walking that one back, but there's potentially still state funding available.

There are some climate bond funding that'll likely be coming down available for agencies to become community resilience centers. I kind of had the foresight of that coming down a few years ago, which is why I was pretty active in moving us towards this work and investing so much time into sustainability resilience. So I suspect it'll be a combination of public and private fundraising that funds the community resilience center and the infrastructure needed.

Okay. And you're working closely with MCE, presumably because a lot of those grants come through MCE? Correct.

Yeah, they will become a key partner.

Okay, perfect. And then the other question was, you'd mentioned that participation generally is sort of flat and that's consistent with your plan. Is there a longer term plan to try and grow activity in terms of number of people passing through the library or you add a level that you're comfortable with?

So we've exceeded our so that for a long time, the goal was to get back to pre pandemic levels we've now exceeded that and so it's great, I think, to your question. The two initiatives that I mentioned, which is the school student success card initiative is going to draw a new. user base and maybe isn't using the library as frequently because they might have resources on school so that student population their families, we potentially. we'll see coming into the libraries more frequently. The other piece, which is the homebound individuals, which is what I mentioned, like I said, we see folks up into their 90s and then all of a sudden they're not coming through the door anymore. And so we want to make sure we're still meeting their needs. And so another way to think about it, it's just the library beyond the walls. We don't need to have people physically coming into the library, but if we're serving them in some kind of way, I think that's meeting our goals. And so that is definitely still a priority for us.

Okay, so thank you very much. I just I know Tony's on the board. I don't know whether you wanted to make any comment at all. Oh, okay. Because I don't remember.

Yeah.

Thank you very much. And Crystal, thank you for everything you do. Just hold on there for a minute. Let's see whether there's any public comment on this item. I see none in the room.

No hands raised.

Okay, perfect. Thank you very much for your time. Thanks. Thank you. Okay, we are moving on to item four, which is the consent calendar. The consent calendar consists of items that the city council considers to be routine or council has discussed previously and do not require further action. Unless any item is specifically removed by any member of the city council, the consent calendar will be adopted by one motion. Council will take public comment on all items on the consent calendar when the calendar is called. Jane, would you like to remove any items from the consent calendar?

Just a few. I would like to remove 4i, 4j, and 4k.

Does any other council member want to remove any other items? Nope.

In that case- I can move the consent calendar item 4a through 4g. Although that's premature, isn't it? I'm sorry.

Do I need to say public comment first? Yes.

I'm sorry about that. I apologize.

Is there any public comment in the room in relation to 4A through 4H? Any online? I see none. Can I get a motion to move items 4A through 4H?

Sorry. Now I will move 4A through 4H.

Second.

Can we get a vote? All in favour? Aye. Against? Motion passes. Okay, so let's move to 4i. Jane, this was you. What is your question? This is on the housing.

the RHNA numbers and the housing element. Well, first of all, I want to thank our director of planning and building Rebecca Markwick, because this was a very complicated form. And when we first got it, it was very confusing, but then some changes were made and it clarified so much that I really wanted to just pull it to thank you for that. And I, the only other question I had was that we, we did promise HCD, you know, a lot of goals, policies, programs, and that we're going to need to do. And even though they've just recently given us our authorization for this program, I, I, um, listened to a MCC MC meeting of Marine council members. And, um, they were told that that meeting that we need to begin planning for the seventh cycle as early as 2027, which is like five minutes from now. And I was just thinking, you know, how, what plans do we have to begin meeting? the current element six update and all those programs we have to do. Do you discuss this with other planners in the county? Do you have ways to get some assistance for all this?

Yeah, so there's a monthly meeting of Marin County Planning Directors that's sort of hosted by the county and we are... certainly in discussions and talking about how this next cycle the seventh cycle housing element can sort of be looked at sort of as a more county-wide approach to at least certain chapters and um sort of using our resources as a county versus you know individual cities um working on every element of the seventh cycle and to answer your question about the sixth cycle now that it's been We have our letter from HCD certifying it, that we're in substantial compliance. Now I will put together a spreadsheet and sort of go through and assess all of those programs and policies and really dig into implementing them. Okay. Which we have allocated for in the next year's budget as well. Oh, great.

Okay. Thank you, and thanks again, because I know that was a challenging report.

Let me just touch on the changes a little bit, so we say it in a public forum here. So really, primarily, you want to look at... table B, which went from the total units was at 30 and through some updates into table A2, it's now at 35. And then our, so our total remaining RENA numbers went from 130 to 125 as a result of adding some units in table A2. And you have those on the dais as well. There are some at the back as well.

Okay, does anybody have any questions relating to 4i?

I don't have a question, but can I make a comment? Sure. Just to reiterate what Rebecca has said is that this is three years into the eight-year cycle and going from... 12 permitted units in the first two years to 23 in the third year is a step in the right direction. We have a long way to go. And I think what Jane was talking about is the programs and policies that will get us there still need to be implemented. We got a late start, obviously, hence these numbers show that. But It's quite dramatic in 2026 as a staff report reported is looking promising as well. I mean, I think there's 17 or 18 projects under construction for new units and there's a pipeline of 35, 40 projects in review or have entitlements. Mallard Point isn't in these numbers at all either. So any potential development as they're entitled to would be a benefit to that as well. And my second point is just that this doesn't happen accidentally. I think there's been a strong concerted effort for years by the planning staff and the planning commission to a great degree led by Pat prior to her time here on the city council to educate and express the opportunities associated with second units for homeowners and that's yielded real results. And I think these numbers show that and I think we can look forward to a state progression, probably not, maybe not in the same step up we've seen this year, because this is really our first year of this effort while we were able to divert our efforts from the housing element formulation to actually implementation. and whether the full arena is achievable or not to be determined, but I think we'll give it a good shot. So I just wanted to thank the planning staff in particular and the planning commission really for the past three or four years, because that's been a strong effort to, like I said, educate and let people know about the opportunity for the second unit. So thank you very much.

Okay, do we have any public comment?

Oh, I'm sorry. I did have a couple of questions and I think it relates to B. So I think is the, in the acutely low, you have one deed restricted. Was that for 333 Bella Vista ADU that was approved?

I don't know. to be honest, but I can get back to you on that. I can.

Because that is because they, they, the one thing they went for was the more square footage.

Yeah. Yeah.

So, and I think that it's important for us. Oh, for us. And also to show HCD that the programs we created during our six housing cycle is working. Um, that, um, We should make notation for the properties that did deed restrict in order to get the incentive for the more square footage. And I know 333 Bella Vista was one of them. The other one is that, And I don't know how or when it's reported is 431 Golden Gate also did a moderate back in 2020. So I don't know if it got reported then or if it gets reported now because it's actually finished. I don't know how each CD looks at that.

I'm pretty sure now that you're asking me that that low is 431 Golden Gate. Golden Gate. But I'll look into it and send an email to the council.

Okay. And then the only other comment I have, I just saw that the latest updates that were done was that I think it would be nice to have like a living document that as we get these applications for like the year that you're actually almost like, daily or not daily, but weekly, monthly, whatever, you're updating an Excel that's a living document that has the information so that it's not such a big lift. It was such a huge lift in making sure we don't let anything fall through the cracks. And if we could create a live document, doesn't necessarily have to be HCD's document, but a live document and it tracks applications, you know, because ADUs, we don't know which ADUs are being approved because it just comes into you by address. So, you know, an ADU that, you know, you got an application, you approved it, the building permit was issued, it was finaled. If they took the incentive for the more square footage, so we can say that our program, Peter, you know what it is, for incentives for ADU, we were able to create in this eight cycle period, we were able to create two or three units from that incentive. So we can go back to HCD and show that the programs that we push that we knew our community would go for are being successful. And if projects come in and ask for an SB9 or there's an SB330, that we can kind of keep track of the basis of what's going on. And I think that if we could maybe get a quarterly report of how we're progressing with our housing short report saying, X amount of applications for ADUs or whatever came in. So we're kind of keeping track through the year to kind of know where we're at. And I think it's good for the community to know where we're at. The housing element is such a hot button concern these days that I think the more we have out there and show that we're really doing the best we can, because that's all we can do is the best we can. I think it's... it's a good thing. So I just want to say that, you know, the report was tremendous, and you did a great job. And I know it was a lot of work. And it was over a very complicated period. And but I'm hoping that if we do do some kind of live document that it'll be easier than having to, you know, pull our hairs out for hours. to make sure we get all the housing numbers because that's what we need to do to show HCD that we're doing our job. So thank you. Thank you.

Great idea. This shouldn't be a Rubik's, you know, a mousetrap or a Rube Goldberg that we need to invent. I mean, I'm quite confident iWorks should be able to do this. Let me track it.

We do have a spreadsheet, but it's just an old spreadsheet. I agree, I will create a new one and we will move forward in a more organized fashion. I think that's a great idea.

If you just bring it on consent every quarter, that would be helpful, I think, for us to see.

So the only thing is, is that for what Peter just said about putting it in iWorks is that we don't get to see that as a public. I mean, the iWorks, I mean, it doesn't show Well, you'd have to know that four Lagoon went in and pulled an ADU permit. I mean, who's going to know that but me and maybe my couple of neighbors that are going to know that.

But I think if members of the public, if we know every quarter, that's sufficient. So can you look into that, providing that quarterly to the council?

Yes.

Okay. Is there any public comment on 4i? Seeing none in the room. Is there any online? I see none. Great. Can I get a motion to approve 4i?

So moved. Second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Motion passes. Okay, now we're going to move to 4J. Jane, you're open again.

Okay, so 4J is the... This is related to the public... RL-130 Bayview. Hi, Nancy. So... I did go visit the area, and I noticed that the street's quite narrow there, and there are some public parking spaces on the street right in front of the fence there. And Sammy, do you have the ability to put up that RL or not, the picture? Yes. And so I've been very aware recently about what I see is the duty that we have whenever we can to widen streets. Um, mainly on Belvedere Island, but also on Corinthian if possible. And I think it's a great safety issue and a direct benefit to the community to be able to widen the roads whenever we can. So I really think that this property presents a great opportunity to work together. with this RL with the potential to widen the street at some point by changing the RL line to go along the fence line on the outside, rather than the drawing that shows the RL going to the street right now. But there was the, the homeowner is not asking to do anything outside of the fence. All the planting and hedges are on the inside of the fence, not on the street side. And so my request that I hope seems reasonable, since it wouldn't impact at all what Ms. Barber is planning on doing, would be to move to take the, if you look here, take the edge of, oops, sorry, edge of the driveway, you see that says edge of carport, and then there's the gate with the stairs. So if you take the gray line in front of the carport and just continue it straight along what's considered the fence line, you would be able to capture back around 20 to 24 inches along there, which at some point we could go ahead and widen the street without having to go back and revoke that in the future if we wanted to widen the street. So the homeowner gets exactly what they're asking for. They haven't asked to put anything out there. And I'm suggesting that as a city, we recapture that dirt right now and be able at some point to create a wider road there, which would, I think, be safer for everybody driving and be able to move the parking spaces in a teeny bit, creating a wider lane of passage. So is that something that you think, Nancy, is reasonable for you? Okay.

Can I ask a question?

Jane, are you talking about that little strip of dirt there in front of the fence? Right.

It's that little strip of dirt there is in the revocable license that picture that you gave us. And I'm just saying, move the line back to your fence. Okay?

Do you want the bench to move?

Can you get, Nancy, do you mind going to the mic? So I'm not touching your fence.

But don't our, don't our RL, don't our revocable licenses cover the area of the right of way from someone's property line outbound based on the proposed improvements. So unless this proposed improvements were to pull that back and repave it, leaving it as it is, would define their revocable license as they're proposing it, which is to do nothing with it. We would have to, I agree with you, I mean, it'd be a great opportunity to recapture it, but we would have to write into the revocable license that that area, that sliver from the fence outward to the existing curb, edge of street, is, to be approved as asphalt, arguably, at the city's discretion. It would have to say something along those lines, wouldn't it?

Why can't you just change the line? Yeah, unshade that part.

Yeah, unshade that part. I thought our licenses are the property line outward.

Sorry?

Our licenses are for the property line outward. We don't distinguish within our right-of-way, I don't believe, do we?

Yeah, we do. Oh, the only if we were to unshade that part that's in front of the what they're calling the repair existing 36 inch tall fence, then Nancy would not take on the responsibility and liability of that area, then it would be the city's responsibility.

So do you feel okay with that, Nancy?

I still, I'm confused. Um, my concern is that there is a hill on the other side of the fence and I just want to protect the parking space that's there so that nobody falls down the hill.

Right.

And so that's why I wanted, and I don't, I mean, if you want to move the fence further in the property, I'm okay with that. Um,

No, that's not being proposed. I mean, you would keep the fence as it is. The paperwork would only change. Oh, okay. The paperwork would change in the sense that that gray line, you would not, in a sense, have a license to alter, affect, modify the space in front of the fence towards the street. And the city would have the right at some point in time, should they deem it necessary, appropriate, or reasonable, to... pull it back to that line of your fence and pave it and maybe move the parking space in a little bit towards your property if they could coordinate it with the property next door, for example.

Yeah, because I agree with you. The street is very thin right there. And I mean, it would be great to move the parking space in further.

It would be great. Yeah. Thank you. Andrew, do you see any issues with what's being proposed here?

I may be a little bit outside my wheelhouse here, but I think I understand. Nancy, is that your name? I think you're saying that the little buffer, right, between the little bit of that curb and, I don't know, a foot or two before the fence, you feel like that's a safety precaution, right? So people don't get too close to the fence, right?

Well, the hill on the other side of the fence.

Right.

The fence has to be somewhere in that area.

Well, the fence wouldn't move. The fence would stay where it is.

Okay.

Right. But I think if I hear what you're saying, that just does provide a little bit of extra room just in case. So people don't get too close to the fence and the hill on the other side.

get out of his car right yeah but that's typical on the island you know sometimes you have those retaining walls and you almost side swipe the side of your car trying to get close enough to the yeah and you know and then the person has to get out before you actually park there and that's very common on the island to have to do that kind of a thing

So the liability would shift to the city if you were to redraw the line. And so, I mean, looking at this now, I have no idea of knowing how secure that edge is near the fence. So I think we would need to understand that before we took on the responsibility of it, because right now, the way the RL reads is it would be your responsibility. So for instance, if somebody were to come in closer to the fence and that were to cave in, that would be the homeowner's responsibility to fix it. Is that correct?

There's a curb there right now. So actually there is a curb out on the street before the dirt.

But if the curb gets moved in in the future because we're trying to get back space, what happens? Who's responsible for? Cars damaging the fence, for example.

I mean, I guess that would be an insurance issue, but yeah.

Andrew, what do you recommend here? Can we change this on the fly or you would rather bring this back next month or what do you recommend? And is there any urgency from the applicant's perspective?

And does Mr. Boyd have any comments as he's sitting here?

I don't, I mean, if it's really just deleting that shaded portion. Oh, sorry.

Boris, can you hear me? Yes. I guess I just, my question would be, what is the purpose of the RL being outside the fence line? If that's just a strip of dirt, is there a reason that you included it in your RL application?

That would be up to the architect. I don't know what an RL is.

It's probably just because it's the dirt and they went to where the street is. That's all.

I'm sure.

Rebecca?

I think also if she were to ever want to landscape it, right? I mean, it's just a sort of dirt area. That's probably why they included it, I'm guessing. But I think it would be fine if this is the direction the council wants to go is to look at it tonight and just say, delete the portion in front of the fence, unshade.

I think as a practical matter, no one's going to stop Nancy from landscaping that if she wants to, if the city hasn't done anything with it, even if we do remove that shading. I think it's a good forward-thinking perspective that Jane's proposing, that where we can, where it's not an obstacle to the homeowner, that we're leaving the open possibility for the city to widen streets where possible. And like everything else, if you don't do it once, you're screwing yourself up in the future because... of this license. You don't want to, you know, rogue it unnecessarily. So I would suggest we just approve this with the condition that that line gets pushed back to six inches beyond the fence, something like that. So you have a little bit of buffer.

Nancy, is that something that you're comfortable with?

So the fence stays where it is and just the line goes back to where the fence is?

Yes. In short of it, yes. Perfect. Yes.

It's not related to this. It's a broader topic.

Okay, let's open. We haven't done public comment on this item yet.

Maybe I should make my comment now.

Well, let's do a public comment and then we'll bring it back for discussion. Okay, sure. Is there any public comment in the room? Is there any public comment online? No hands raised. Okay, let's bring this back for discussion and a motion. But Kevin, I think you want to say something.

I would just suggest, I mean, I think this raises a really important point that we should at some point tackle, which is our approach to RLs in the city. So it's not about you specifically. It's just, I mean, if we want to have a policy going forward in terms of taking every opportunity when the RL comes forward, how do we want to approach that to potentially give the city the opportunity to widen the roads. We should just be consistent. So we always approach them in the same way where we're trying to do our best to reclaim land or street space for the city.

We've had an initial discussion with staff around that. So I think there's a plan to have this as a proper discussion brought back to the city council in coming months. Peter, would you like to make a motion?

Sure. To move item 4J, the revocable license at 130 Bayview Avenue, as presented with the modification of a condition that the line, the shaded portion outward of the fence on the eastern portion of the property is moved back to within six inches of the existing fence line. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Thank you. Thanks, Nancy. Okay, now we're moving on to 4K, which is the motion to approve the contract with Philip Seabrook Associates for Project and Construction Coordination Services for the Mallard Point Project. Jane, this was you that asked to pull it. Do you have questions or comments?

I thought I'd start with questions and then I have a comment later. So I know it's hard to talk about this because it's not on the agenda of where we get a presentation and people hear about it and then we ask questions. So I'm just gonna jump in and ask questions, hoping people understand that this is about us authorizing funding for the position of a project coordinator to help the community and the city throughout the process of the Mallard Point project. So that's sort of the background. And then, so a couple of questions I had were, to whom does this project coordinator report ideally?

So good question. I think that person's going to report to both myself and Rebecca Markwick.

Okay.

Yeah.

And you'll also be giving feedback, et cetera, from anything that you, or questions that you need. It'll be a give and take situation. And then how do you see public reporting? How do you expect reporting like a structure so that it comes to the city council or to the community on a regular basis? I mean, we've built in Robert reporting about Mallory Point. I'm curious about this individual.

So when Robert and I talked to a couple of different people, this was something that we discussed. And Robert reports to council right now, we thought, Robert should continue to report to council, but this person will give Robert a summary right now I give Robert a summary. So this person will take on that responsibility, it could be, you know, some months a lot more detailed some months, you know, just they're continuing to do the demolition right so There'll be that component of it. We also talked about this person having specific office hours at City Hall, like Tuesdays from 11 to 1 or something like that. We also talked about having... sort of a community meeting before we issue the building permits to, you know, go over what exactly the city's issuing the permit for, what the first steps are. So really engaging with the community, having a separate email, maybe, you know, I don't, we haven't talked about this, but a separate phone line, you know, so we can really pinpoint and narrow these Mallard specific questions to this person with Robert and I overseeing. all of it as well.

Oh, great. Actually, you stole one of my ideas, but I'm glad you got it. I'll mention it later. Okay, so I know that in reviewing the demolition permit and conditions, I was noticing that there's a couple of conditions that include working with the Belvedere Lagoon Property Owners Association. And I was wondering if you felt that this project coordinator could also work with the BLPOA to get these conditions accomplished to help to make sure that whatever BLPOA is working on, the city understands it, what the city's working on, rather than it feels a little disjointed right now. And I was hoping maybe that person could help actually coordinate the different parts of the community that are involved?

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I've certainly have talked to BLPOA. I've talked to the Mallard team. I've sort of understood, you know, the meetings that they've had. The city hasn't necessarily been involved, but I've been pretty involved with hearing the outcomes of those meetings. Okay. So I think, yeah, when this person comes on, we'll certainly debrief and say, this is where we are with BLPOA and then maybe sort of reassess, you know, what this person's role would be in that, in those meetings.

I mean, I realize you're not going to know every single thing that they're going to be doing yet because it'll, I imagine, develop as the needs arise.

Yeah.

So in thinking about the job description and expectations, I think the community has a lot of very valid expectations for this role. And certainly we've received quite a few letters that have touched on many of the different aspects. And I thought that in Mr. Seabrook's letter that he wrote to the city, that under his number one, he actually listed the suggested services that he felt were important. And I do feel that they capture a lot of what we read in letters from the community. In his number one, he said, ensure conditions of approval are adhered to, oversee demolition and preparation for development, provide monthly written updates, which we've talked about, including status, timelines, outstanding issues, et cetera. I don't have to read the whole thing. Working with utility agencies, which are a big part of this project and establishing meeting hours. So it did seem to me that he actually wrote up a really nice description, job description, so to speak. And as you mentioned earlier on, Rebecca, that you are also hopeful that the coordinator will help with organizing the permits, all the conditions that need for the permit and the website organization. So do you feel that this paragraph is something that we can all agree on going forward? We'll sort of be the baseline of what the job is? Does it seem?

Yes, I think this, I think, well, I know that this letter from him is based on the conversation that Robert and I had with him. So he took what we were asking him and summarize it here. I also think the letter that we received from Susan Klopp summarizes a lot of the aspects. It's like she was sitting in on the meeting with Robert and I. She's pretty good that way. With Eric is in her letter. So I think the combination of this plus Susan's letter, we didn't necessarily want to have a bullet point list because as you mentioned, it will probably evolve and change and we need to meet the needs of the community as well as cities.

Great. Okay. I think those are my questions. I have a little comment after.

Any other questions? So I had a question. It sort of relates to this. So what it is, is that we got the application and the city took it and then sent it back with their first incomplete letter. And John Moe at that time did this really nice chart with everything that had to be done. all the conditions, approval conditions for the demo and then the final map and everything else. And so then Mallory Point put their comments in when they came back. And then the second time he went in and said, okay, you know, I take this. No, you got to work on that. Yeah, this is good. No, that's not good. And then when we got the next one back, he didn't continue with that nice chart to see the progress. It was like a chart that showed the progress, you know, from, not much to a little bit to a little bit more. And so now it's back in Mallard Point's hands to come back to us, but it would be nice if John Moe or this new person could take that chart and continue with what has, because it's so difficult on the website, to figure out what actually is remaining and not remaining on this new incompleteness letter that came out in March because he just did a sheet and he didn't do the chart and the chart was really I felt very easy that you could go in and you could see what the progress of everything is. And if they sat there and said, Oh, you know, you have to do something with your geotech or something, then you could go and say, well, what's going on in the geotech and you could get the geotech report. So it would be nice to either have John Moe continue using his flow chart Or maybe it's time for the new person to take it over, get it up to date. And then when Mallard Point comes back, then John Moe or whoever's going to do the comments can continue on with that flow chart. Because right now it's very difficult to see exactly what's outstanding. Sometimes it's partially accepted, but not accepted. And you have to go back to that chart to see what he was talking about in the beginning. So I think that well, for myself, I'm talking, but I think for the community too, if there was just a nice continuation of that flow chart, it would help everybody know how we're making progress and what is remaining. So that was kind of my question is if John Moe or this person can take it over.

The flowchart was actually produced by the Mallard team, not John Moe. But it was they created that document. Well, they did a good job.

So let's continue with that.

So we can probably get it from them and continue and implement our comments moving forward.

yeah because it I don't know I thought it was a good way to see how they were progressing and what needed to be done so thank them for a very nice flowchart but let's continue yeah continue could that be included in the monthly update if you're going to be bringing a monthly update anyway in the report yeah okay um any other questions from council members no let's open this up for public comment please come up to the mic Please just identify yourself for the record.

My name is Tom Price. Me and my wife live at 53 Peninsula Road. We've lived on Lagoon for just short of 50 years. And this is our fourth project that we're working on right now. What I wanted to really do is just point out to the council the complexity of building on the Lagoon right now. I've built multiple buildings, probably half a million square feet of both commercial and residential. This is the most complex project I've ever been involved with. We're dealing with first the lagoon, FEMA, new regulations to it. Our home has both an ADU and a junior ADU. I think they count for two additionals. We're in a flood zone. The cost and the complexity of the engineering, the boring of everything we've done this so far, if you wanna go by and look at it sometime, you'll be amazed at the complexity of the foundation that's being put in place. And so what my point is, is to really, as we look at a project director and, program reviewer, whatever the exact title is, is to reemphasize the need for this. The developer has been very slow. We did not have an incomplete item on there. We had some comments that we needed to update, answer questions. But with over two years to still be trying to figure out a property line, it seems a little unusual to me. But that's beside the point on this it's what it is saying is that attention to detail and complexity on this is required to complete this project. As it's been approved by the city and the planning Commission is extremely complex and you need someone who's really good and really knowledgeable to look at it and make sure that it's done properly so with that I just want to say. I hope you support this. It's really important to the community and to all of us. So thank you very much.

Thank you, Tom. Jill, come on up. Again, please just identify yourself for the record.

Hi, I'm Jill Barnett at Deep Peninsula Road, and I'm speaking for my husband, Andy as well. So adding the dedicated project manager for Mallard Point is the right thing to do. The complexity as Tom was saying of the project and we look forward to your affirmative vote this evening. It is critical at this time that the role emphasize completeness of the statutory requirements and coordination of the project plans. and conditions of approval, rather than simply pushing the project along. In our communications with more than 500 BRG, our 500 BRG group, a consistently expressed concern is the difficulty following the process of the project because of its complexity and incompleteness reviews. It seems a simplified, I just learned this thing, a swim lane diagram posted on the city website would make things clear and ensure that nothing is missed in proper reviews or done out of sequence. The swim lane diagram could show each step of the project, responsible Belvedere administrator or reviewer, responsible local, state, and federal agency laws, timeline and critical dates, and progress report status to completion. It's been two years since the project received design review approval. With the May tentative map expiration coming up, it's hard to understand how this project can keep moving forward when so many key issues are still incomplete. Clear communication with neighbors and residents will allay any fears and concerns. Thank you.

Thank you, Jill. So it's called a swim link? Yeah.

No. Swim lane. Swim lane. Oh, lane. It's like a flow chart, like what you were talking about. It's a critical path flow chart. What? Yeah.

It's a critical path flow chart.

Right.

Peter can do one.

Okay. Any public comment online? Mayor Wilkinson, there are no hands raised. Okay. Okay. Let's bring this back for if there's any discussion or just a motion.

I would just like to, since Rebecca mentioned that the one chart that is on the website was done by the developer. I did review it and notice that it does not contain all the conditions of approval. And so I think as we, if we were to use it, I think it needs to not just continue, but actually be expanded to include all content conditions of approval covering all departments. Because I do think that was missing. Um, so thank you, Tom and Jill. Those were wonderful comments. And, um, I want to thank everybody that took the time to write letters, especially Susan Clough, who got a shout out from Rebecca. I hope she's listening. Um, anyway, um, I think, uh, I, I obviously support this person and, um, I would also like to suggest that we organize a special meeting where Mr. Seabrook and the project coordinator are introduced to the community. And I think it would be great if we could do this sooner than later, not wait for a building permit necessarily. I think it would save a lot of time in the long run because anybody in the community could come and meet them face to face. and be able to have a discussion, ask questions. And then from there, going to the emails or visiting hours, I think I'll flow a lot more easily rather than having him have to deal with every single person one-on-one. So I am greatly appreciative that you had the thought of a community meeting and I would just recommend it early on, perhaps with others following as needed. So thank you for that.

I'm very much in support of this. And I think, I mean, as we've discussed at council on a few occasions, I think everybody is. The only suggestion I would have is, I mean, Seabrook was obviously picked for their expertise is I would go to them with the problem, not the solution. I mean, I think there's been some interesting ideas in terms of types of charts and so forth, the Mallard chart. But again, I think we should be very clear as to what it is we need and want. I would hope that they have access to best practices that are far beyond what we've seen so far. And I mean, we might come back with an even better or they'll come back with a better recommendation. But I think the needs have been outlined, I think, fairly well and go to them with the problem and ask for a solution.

Sorry, thank you. I support this absolutely as well. Just one quick comment and reading the fiscal impact in the staff report, I do understand the approach here is to find it in the existing budget for this year and allocate it for the next year. I don't know how much of next year we've planned for the fees associated with this project, the demolition and the site work associated with that, but risking Kevin's solution versus a problem. I do think that... one of the tasks this person needs to do is very accurately and very very specifically contract for or add detail to the expected cost of these projects so that we get applicable and appropriate fees up front so we don't have to do it on a retroactive basis so that would be that would be that that's the problem not the solution thank you

So and I just wanted to add that. Actually, it's our next agenda item. But I brought up something to our public director, Mr. Boyd, when he was working on the with the stabilization project, sorry. And we talked about travel time and he was able to discuss with them travel time because they come from Sonoma and that's, you can be in traffic for a long time. So I would hope that I haven't seen the contract or anything, but I would hope that the staff would try to address that travel time upfront and, in the sense of that it's not something that gets out of control that we're paying for sitting in traffic for two hours and maybe come up with, you know, normally it's wherever there's Santa Rosa, I think, you know, 45 minutes to an hour and we'll pay you X amount, you know, hour, hour and 15 minutes. And then if they, sit there in two hour traffic. We're not paying for somebody to sit in traffic because the travel time can creep up quite quickly and really put a project in over budget. So I would just add that we keep an eye on that and maybe discuss with them a way of controlling it. But I am 110% in favor of this, and I am happy it's finally being done. And I can make a motion. Go ahead. I make a motion to approve item number 4K.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Motion passes. Okay, we are moving on to item number five, which is our public hearing, 5A, discussion and adoption of a resolution updating and establishing user and regulatory fees. Olga, I believe this is your item. And we have Terry here as well. Hi, Terry.

Good evening, everybody.

Thank you and good evening, Mayor Wilkinson and council members. The item before you this evening is to present the annual update of the city's user fee schedule. On April 14, 2025, council adopted an updated schedule of user and regulatory fees. based on the results of a comprehensive cost of service study. This is an interim year update to apply authorized inflationary adjustments and to adopt, sorry, and to update some of the fees based on feedback on the current fee schedule. If approved this evening, the updated user and regulatory fee schedule will be effective on July 1st, 2026. I want to highlight a change in the name of one of the public work fees. The fee for slurry seal should be renamed to paving fee with the two categories renamed A, slurry seal and B, overlay. This new naming better describes what the fees cover. This is only an administrative update to the proposed fee schedule. And at this time, I'll turn over the presentation to Terry Madsen, President of ClearSource Financial Consulting, who will present the changes that were made as part of this year's update. And staff and Terry will be available for questions regarding the proposed fee schedule.

Well, good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. Thank you for allowing me to speak with you this evening. Just by way of orientation, City Clerk, will you open the presentation or would you like me to share my screen? I'll go ahead and share let's see if this works and if it doesn't work then we'll come back to you Do you guys see the presentation?

Yes, we do.

Okay. Well, thank you so much. I know you've had a very full agenda this evening and a lot of important topics. So I will avoid being long winded. Helga did a wonderful job orienting you. I just have, you know, about 10 slides to walk through to make sure that to reorient the city council to this topic and any interested members of the public. But just in terms of an agenda for the evening, we'll talk about background, some historical precedent that Helga described, and then we'll ask the council to consider adopting an updated fee schedule that would be effective July 1, 2026. So by way of reminder, communities derive revenue from a number of sources and typically when they receive tax revenues, they attempt to use the tax revenues to fund services that provide broad benefit, things like we would think about as community-wide benefit, and most commonly we would think of these as public work services, public safety services, park maintenance services, sort of that we all have access to at any point in time. When we provide services to a specific member of the community, a specific resident or a specific business as part of like a regulatory activity or a discretionary activity, we frequently target recovery of costs from the receiver of service so that all other residents and businesses in Belvedere wouldn't have to be paying for services. let's say my square footage addition to my home or something like that. And we use user and regulatory fees as a common mechanism for recovering our costs. And most commonly in Belvedere and in communities throughout the state, we would think of this as permit processing services, plan review services, construction inspection services, and so forth. These are services that the city provides as part of compliance with California building code, your own municipal code, and so forth. And we look to recover costs of providing those services. The world we deal with and the topic for this evening is limited to what we would consider service-based fees. So there is a human providing service on behalf of Belvedere. It's either your own in-house staff or contract service providers, but we're typically thinking of building fees, planning fees, engineering fees. We are not discussing any sort of taxes, any assessments, any utility rates, these things that sort of we think about most commonly as affecting us on a day-to-day basis. They are not a part of this evening's topic. We're strictly limited to these periodic discrete user and regulatory fees. As Helga mentioned, there was a study completed in calendar year 2025. As part of that study, the City Council adopted updated fees that were effective July 1, 2025. In the resolution that adopted those fees effective July 1, 2025, the City Council authorized annual inflationary adjustments for the years between fee studies. So this evening's action is intended to comply with the direction Council has already provided We simply want to provide the council an opportunity to review the changes and review any non-inflationary changes that might be proposed. Staff anticipates completing that sort of periodic study, you know, like we did last year, the more intensive study every three to five years. And in the interim years, you would do these inflationary adjustments with minor sort of discrete changes. So this year for 26-27, we're treating this as an interim year that should primarily be an inflationary adjustment to existing fees. prior to making that adjustment, because last year you completed your first comprehensive fee study in some time. It might've been the city's first actual comprehensive fee study, but it had been some time since you had any sort of significant update to fees. So you did identify, or we identified and presented to you some significant under recovery There were proposed fee adjustments that we anticipated would enhance cost recovery. And so just to test those outcomes, we've looked at forecast expenditures and revenues for the fiscal year 25-26 based on the information we have available to date. And we do see what we anticipated would happen is actually happening. So that's comforting information. And so we would say that we feel comfortable with the direction that you could continue these inflationary adjustments in between your fee studies. And then every three to five years, you do a formal fee study to figure out, do we need to do any sort of recalibration? How do we look from an aggregate cost recovery perspective and so forth? So the annual change to CPI for this year as outlined in the resolution is 2.18%. So the majority of fees in your fee schedule are proposed to be adjusted by 2.18%. There are a handful of other discrete changes that are intended to enhance fee schedule clarity. or more closely aligned fees to services provided. You'll see these in, you know, I believe it's a planning fee where you have historically had like a standard and a major and Rebecca's team identified there is such a thing as sort of like a minor that is easier to process and we could You know, it would be more appropriate to collect a lower fee based on the typical level of effort provided. So those are the kind of refinements that we're proposing. There are three new fees proposed. One is for a city tree pruning request. Another is for a road closure sign placement associated with an encroachment in the right of way. And then finally, the police department. It's very rare, but if you had to tow a vehicle and administer the release of that vehicle, you would have a vehicle release fee. So those are the three proposed for City Council consideration in addition to your routine inflationary updates. at the conclusion of this evening's public hearing staff recommends that the council would adopt a resolution establishing and updating user and regulatory fees these would be the fees that would be effective july 1 2026. thank you so much for your attention i'm available to receive any feedback or questions thank you terry thank you very much for that um okay let's go to city council for questions for either helga or terry hi terry thank you um two two quick questions uh

Maybe I'm mistaken about this, but it also looks like the longer term encroachment permits, those are new as well.

Oh, go ahead, Helga.

Sorry, I can answer that. Those fees were on our website, but they were not in our fee study.

So we had that in our municipal code? Those longer term, those one week, two week, three week, or two week, three week, four week?

No, they were available on our website for people to purchase.

But that was in our adopted fee schedule originally.

No. So that's why we're including them in this.

But the fact that it was on the website, it still wasn't adopted to us in a fee schedule.

Correct.

Okay. That's just, that's my question. And, and Terry, your CPI 2.18, can you just tell me what that term covered?

It's the prior year annual regional CPI. So if you looked at your regional CPI, it has, you know, let's say January, February, March, April. At the end of the CPI window, they say the annual CPI was this amount. We use the annualized number. Thank you. Yep.

I have some questions. Might be Rebecca, sorry. Can you tell me, give me an example of the difference between a exception standard and a exception minor? What kind of project?

A good example is we had a project that went through a design review exception for a landscaping project on the lagoon with some decking and landscaping. And when we went to go final it, they had planted a tree. That was not part of the approved plan and was going to require retroactive design review for this tree because it was going to be over 12 feet tall. So in our current fee schedule, it would have cost them, I think, upwards of $8,000 to have this retroactive design review fee for one tree. So we realized while we had these new fee schedules, we needed something that was just a little bit more minor in scope. And so Hence, we're here right now with something that would fall into the minor.

So it wouldn't be anything that is a maintenance kind of type thing, like a roof or painting colors?

No, painting and roofs go under exemptions.

And then my other question was, hold on. Oh, I have a few. So city tree pruning request fee, is that like if somebody asks for a tree to be trimmed and it's not time for trim, but they want it trimmed because it's blocking their view or something, then they have to pay for it? Or is it general maintenance? I mean, why would somebody be paying for a city tree pruning? What would be the circumstance?

I'll let Tony Boyd answer that question.

Thank you.

Can you hear me OK? There we go. Thanks for the question. So right now, it's kind of a convoluted process if anybody wants to have a city tree pruned. And it's outlined in city code. What's needed is for a person to send a letter to the city manager, who then directs staff to send letters with copies of that original letter to all the residents within 300 feet of the home, giving them the opportunity to comment. And basically, this is available to anybody, but there's been no fee attached to it in the past. So anybody can, for free, just ask for this process to be run. And it uses quite a lot of staff time and staff hours.

So you're just trying to recover your staff time. Yep, exactly. This is just to capture that. That's great. And then... Let's see, which one is this? Number? Oh, that was number 15. Number. Oh, the sign placement fee is, does somebody have to pay for the sign placement or does sorry, or, you know, if somebody comes and picks up the sign, they can put their own, you know, no parking, you know, the road closed, you know, Monday eight to noon or something.

Yes, so anytime there's a road closure, there are quite strict requirements for signage that need to go into place 72 hours before. And up until now, that requirement has been for the contractor to place those. Sometimes contractors, especially if they're coming from a long way away, that's quite difficult for them. You know, we require them to do it one way or another. That's fine. But if they if they make a mistake in where they put the signs or they have a wrong detail on a sign or so on, staff have to spend quite a bit of time kind of chasing them to get back out and adjust their their signs. If the option was available for them to just pay the city a fee to place those signs and have our crew do it ourselves, that would probably make it easier for us and we can collect a fee for it.

Okay. And then one last question. I think it might be you. Sorry. 1G is...

projects modifying city property requiring inspection what's that give me an example yeah so typical example would be a pseudo lateral replacement requiring somebody to cut into the road so right now when when a contractor takes out an encroachment permit to do that kind of work um There's nowhere on the permit that gives them the requirement of having to have an inspection. And an inspection is needed for that. Okay, great. Perfect.

Thank you.

Excuse me. Can I jump in? What is lane abandonment or lane vacations? I don't think they're going to Europe. So I just wondered, it's on page 14 and it's number six and it's under public works and it says lane abandonment. Does that mean somebody's taking over a lane? I don't know. You may not know. I sure don't know. Terry. Oh, Terry might know.

Well, I'm not sure if Tony's encounter occurs in Belvedere, but it is a common fee we see where there might be easements offered. And sometimes they think they call them Tony. They call them summary vacations or right-of-way abandonments. And so you're just giving yourself the potential to recover costs if that did ever occur in Belvedere. I'm not sure if it does occur.

We don't know what it is.

Yes, it's not likely. That's a very good question, because the only lane abandonment or vacation that I'm aware of would be by the city. Yeah.

OK, thanks. So we'll just leave it there and whatever. I just didn't know what it was.

Okay. Jane, nothing else? Kevin? I have just a couple of quick questions. The first was for Terry. Obviously, our cost recovery, given that we budgeted for nothing this year, has been pretty impressive. And I was curious in your experience whether it's I haven't been any negative behavioral effects of us increasing these fees. Is that is that typical or are we an outlier or are you surprised by the extent of our cost recovery?

I'm pleasantly surprised. You know, I always have anxiety of is what we anticipate. will happen actually going to happen and in this case it does seem like it has happened i thank the city council for um you know sort of having mercy on us last year and taking a conservative approach and waiting to see the revenue before it showed up that was what my primary concern my primary concern is anytime you have sort of significant changes you just want to make sure that this is really likely, this will actually happen in practice and that I didn't make some sort of mathematical error. This type of CPI change gives me a lot less nervousness and anxiety than last year. So thank you for sort of waiting to see the actual revenue show up. In terms of behavior modifiers or anything like that, I didn't actually expect that because we haven't seen that. What we hear from the development community is what they value most is service. They value this idea of access to your planning team, your building team, and so forth, because they're trying to move projects through the pipeline. And so I guess I was not concerned about behavior modification. I was concerned, you know, Is this math going to work? It feels like it has worked. I do think you'd be wise to, you know, every three to five years, think through this again. I noticed earlier in this meeting, Council Member Mark mentioned that maybe because of some of your efforts, to sort of encourage certain types of development, you're actually seeing the fruit of that effort. And so I think the world works in development cycles, and I don't know what cycle you're in, but I just feel like if we could look at a longer picture of time and figure out how do we stand, because I could think about, for instance, if this mallard I know nothing about Mallard Point. I just typed in on the website and saw that it's a potential for multiple units. But I would imagine when they make it to the building permit stage, the city would collect some significant building permit fee revenue. But you would also be obligating the city to conduct future plan reviews and inspections that may happen over a long window of time. So we want to think through a broad window of time versus just a couple months or a few month window of time.

That's great. And then I have a question for, I guess this is for Rebecca. When we first approved the new user fee schedule, we baked in this idea that there'd be a backdoor, meaning if sometimes fees looked excessive versus the amount of time that was actually committed that you had that option to do something different. And I was just curious how often that actually gets used.

We haven't used it. I will say that that one example I gave, they actually submitted under the old fee schedule. So we were able to use the old fee schedule instead of charging them the eight thousand dollars for that one tree. But that's the only sort of, you know, but no, no, no one's no one has said this is so much money. It used to be two thousand dollars. Now you're making me pay fifteen thousand dollars for this. a comparable project and so there was no um we haven't received any feedback and asking for that backdoor and just in terms of uh yourself sort of empirically do the fees to you sort of feel right still in terms of the hours that you spend on each of these you're tracking that to some degree yeah and for from what i can see is that that exemption fee is um you know, we spend time on these exemptions and it's amazing to see how much actual time we had previously all these years spent on exemptions and never recovered a fee. Okay. Perfect. Thank you.

Can I follow up? Sure. I imagine part of the way to figure that out, Helga, is the question of how granular your data is on cost recovery versus revenue. I mean, if it's just department head total top line, you're not going to have much detail, but if it's you know, project by project or if it's item by item or line, budget line, item by budget line, you might have to be able to see what your revenue is versus the cost of things. And if we are surpassing revenue versus cost, we're clearly charging more for that service than we do. I don't know if it is that granular, but that would be a way to, because we don't want to overcharge for the cost.

Correct. And we did look at that. We did it by revenue line item. And Terry, I don't know if you want to expand on that.

Yeah, so Council Member Mark, I think that without doing another truly comprehensive study, the data that we readily have access to is sort of like these broad account codes, like this is building permit fee revenue, this is zoning fee revenue and so forth. Every time we do a broad study, even in broad studies, I would say we have not encountered a city that maintains data at a level granular enough to sort of say, well, I can just export this data from the system and this will inform my fees going forward because we use these ideas of like the six out of 10 rule, especially when you're setting flat fees. And so we really do want to work with staff as the experts and say, okay, you know, when you process an exemption, what would typically happen? What would you be likely to encounter in terms of your initial application review and so forth? And so we do feel like technology is getting more and more robust. You have access to tracking better information, but even if you tracked you know, highly granular information, we would still go to staff and say, how do we interpret this and how can we sort of reasonably average it out? Because that's our mandate in California is estimated reasonable cost of service.

Terry, do you think the, just quick separate question, the shortfall we're seeing in public works, I'll leave technology aside because that's not such a big number, but the 60% of cost recovery that you're seeing, is that too early to tell? I mean, maybe that's a more, the slower progression that you might've anticipated more broadly in our planning building, or perhaps do you see a gap in our fees there that isn't accounting for something or isn't, recovering something more significant.

So Council Member Mark, I'm happy to answer my gut thought. I just don't want you to treat me as married to this thought, but I did see it and think what might be happening. And I haven't run it by Tony or Rebecca yet, but my suspicion is that There is public works engineering effort that happens at the planning stage. And so maybe Tony's team is providing effort. It's like in the entitlement review stage and so forth. And it might be coming in as a planning revenue rather than as an engineering revenue. And so it might be an area for cleanup in future years. My other thought was, I know that there might be some reduced encroachment permits for these very short-term encroachment permits. I think I heard that when you're trying to encourage people to move quickly through the city and get their projects done quickly. So I think there's a couple potential scenarios, but I would have to dive into them with the team. And I think they're beyond sort of this inflationary review.

Okay, let's open this with public comment. I see nobody in the room. Is there anything online? No hands are raised. Okay, so can I bring this back? And this is discussion. Can I get a motion for 5A?

No one has a comment.

I do have a comment because I'm still concerned about those longer term encroachment permits. I mean, I'm sort of having built in the city and being involved in planning and so forth. I'm curious, Tony, what you think about this? I mean, I understand this is a benefit to the city because of the revenue associated with it and it's long-term for that. But the only purpose for this is to stick a dumpster in the street or to have exclusive use of the street for deliveries for a contractor that's not really cost-conscious. I mean, do you find people wanting these long-term encroachment permits? I mean, I know we allow dumpsters on the street, but we generally, through our construction staging plan and parking and so forth, we tend to discourage that dumpster thing on the street. So what's the point of a long-term encroachment permit?

Yeah, that's a great question. And I think what precipitated the thoughts on this was a recent construction project where they have asked for a long-term encroachment permit. Three months, I believe it was.

For what purpose?

For multiple purposes, actually. So instead of returning to the city and obtaining new encroachment permits for different concrete pours, deliveries, you know, basically things related to their construction project, instead of having multiple encroachment permits, just having one that they could. And I think in this case, we arranged for them to be able to renew it either every month or every six weeks or I can't remember exactly what. But yeah, so the idea is that when that's needed, that a single encroachment permit would be sufficient.

Yeah, I see the benefit for the city. I see the benefit for the contractor or for the property owner at that point. It's a problem for the neighborhood though. I mean, what that means is that's exclusive use of that space. They can stick vehicles there. They can have ongoing construction and it doesn't, The point of a lot of the language in our encroachment permits is to minimize impact on the neighborhood and to keep it as reasonable and as limited as possible. This is sort of giving someone a blank check to just, not a blank check, but a permission to be cavalier with the congestion and the neighborhood, quite frankly. So I'm a little bit concerned about that. I don't know how the rest of the... council feels about that. I'd almost rather ask and say, come to the city for a discussion of a long-term license if you wish it or desire that that can be discussed and negotiated. I don't know if having a fee there, I don't want that to be a standard procedure. I mean, there's a fair amount of discipline. That's even why we have the half day in there. There's a fair amount of discipline in there to know you've got a day or two to do this or a week at most to do this. You know, if you've got a month long permit and a lot of people are less interested in price than they are in convenience when they're doing these projects, they're just going to get it. And they're going to have that exclusive use. They're going to put cones there. They're going to put, you know, parking vehicles. They're going to leave their lull out front. They're going to leave, you know, all the things out there that you don't necessarily want in the street.

Yeah, absolutely understood. And I can't disagree. This does really make the process easier from a staff perspective. But from your perspective, what you're saying there, I would agree that either creating more hurdles for them to you know, have to multiply, apply multiple times or restrict them in another way, have a maximum number of days per month that an encroachment permit can be used, something like that.

Terry, do you have any experience from other agencies in relation to this?

I think you are truly a unique community in relation to this.

That was said very politely, Terry.

um in many ways um i agree with peter i think so how do you want to modify this i think you only you don't have the ability to do anything beyond uh a certain like two weeks or a week or whatever it is it's like you have to come back and reapply i i mean if you just didn't have it in there which is which is it wasn't adopted by the by the by the council beforehand anyway so i think it's reasonable to to go back to that website notwithstanding uh

If someone raises the question, you can always negotiate something, I think, pretty comfortably to expand that. I don't think we have a missile code that would prevent that from happening.

But meaning you want to go up to two weeks and then strike three weeks and one month?

I mean, I don't think, we've never had anything over one week in my experience. I would keep it at a week.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, to be clear, that is how it has been done to this point. I think on occasion there have been people have asked for extensions and so on. And but there's nothing to stop that from continuing.

I mean, I sort of think Gerhard would turn over his grave if he saw this, because he was he was I mean, honestly, he was very focused on minimizing impact on neighbors. So I don't.

He certainly was. Yeah.

So I think that was the intent and the focus of our conversation.

Yeah.

Permits, encroachments.

So council member Mark, what you would say is looking at the existing, the proposed fee schedule under encroachment permit, you would have category A, B, C, and G, but you would not have D, E, or F, the two week, three week, or one month.

Ideally, yes.

Ideally, yes. Yeah.

Maybe C and G. Well, re-lettered, but yes.

Yes.

It sounds like we have council agreement on that. Unless, are there any other comments or can we go to a motion? Okay, Peter, do you want to make the motion? Sure.

I'll move that we approve item 5A adoption of resolution updating and establishing various user and regulatory fees with the modification of the public works encroachment permit as discussed in this conversation.

And also, Peter, to change the name of I'm sorry, you're right. Under public works number nine to paving fee and Option A to leave that as slurry seal and option B becomes overlay.

Okay, can I get a second? All in favor? Second.

Aye. Aye.

Thank you, Terry. Terry, thank you very much for your help. I say again that you are the most valuable bang for your buck consultant that we have. You've raised enormous revenue for the city, so thank you for your guidance.

Good evening. Thank you all. Bye-bye. Good night, Terry.

Okay, we're moving to our final item, item number six, discussion and action to award the Beach Road Seawall Construction Contract to Gordon N. Ball Construction. This is Tony, I believe, for the staff report, or is that you, Robert?

That's correct. Tony's going to kick it off.

Tony, go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor. And I had written here, good evening, council members, but I guess it's a bit late for that. You are familiar with the Beach Road Stabilization Project, having received a presentation at the annual retreat in February from the city's design engineers, Stetson Engineering, providing details on the project design. And at the time of that meeting, the request for proposals for construction of the project had just been posted on February the 22nd. And since then, a procurement process has been conducted. The final step of which is this city council meeting, where staff is recommending awarding of the construction contract. The BRSP subcommittee, comprising of three members of the public and one city council liaison, Council Member Peter Mark, was appointed to oversee the project and provide a platform for public engagement. The subcommittee met on February the 26th to review the project plans and RFP details, and again on March the 25th after proposals were received to receive information and to discuss the proposals. Of the four proposals received, Gordon N. Ball Incorporated was determined to be the lowest responsive and responsible bidder, with a bid of $3,511,620. This was approximately 310,000 or 10% higher than the budgeted amount for this, the major portion of the project. To bridge the gap in funding, staff has identified four sources of funds within the existing and forecast CIP budget that can be allocated to this project. These are $125,000 from the Marin Measure AA funds. Measure AA is the county's transportation tax, an annual proportional grant allocation to the city used for transportation related infrastructure work. $33,000 from the city's road impact fee fund, which received higher than expected revenues and would be used to pay for the paving restoration portion of the project. 172,000 from the retaining wall repair CIP fund, which would be a rollover in the coming fiscal year. After the infrastructure condition assessments currently taking place are completed, a more defined retaining wall project priority is likely to take its place. And $15,000 rollover amount from the sidewalk repair CIP fund, which would be used to cover the cost of the sidewalk restoration portion of the project. This amounts to $345,000, which would cover the funding gap of 310,000 and provide 35,000 to the construction contingency, maintaining it at approximately 11% of the budgeted construction costs. These reallocations would be incorporated into the city's budget for fiscal year 26, 27. Within the project's existing allocated budget, staff has identified cost savings, such as lower than expected costs for environmental mitigation, secret analysis, and surveying and mapping. The amount of these savings will only be known in the coming months, but when they are realized, they will also be added to the contingency budgeted for this project. While this construction contract is the largest portion of the BRSP project, it should be noted that two other components of the project will be coming to council for approval at the May meeting. The first is a contract to be approved for a portion of the project construction to be completed by a different contractor. This work will be on the properties of number 16 to 30 Beach Road. It includes removal of pedestrian gangways between the sidewalk and buildings and setting up temporary utility structures to the homes for the duration of construction. The city has identified Hadley Construction for this portion of the project and is finalizing details of the scope and costs for the contract. The second will be the approval of temporary construction easements for 16 to 38 Beach Road. Staff have been working with the property owners on these agreements. In conclusion, staff and the BRSP subcommittee recommend that city council award the contract for the BRSP construction to Gordon and Ball Incorporated and authorize the city manager to sign a contract with them. And with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Are there any questions from council members?

Can I, if you don't mind, as our representative to the Beach Road Civilization Subcommittee, I just wanted to thank Robert and Tony for their work on this, as well as Destin Engineers. And I'm sorry, the gentleman from Project Manager? Adrian Foss. Adrian, Adrian, yes. But also just note that the subcommittee did look into this quite a bit, worked with Tony on the RFP and the process. And I have to say, we're quite frustrated with the legal constraints of the bidding and awarding process, which is labyrinth-like and very little agency for the client there, I have to say. But our recommendation, as Tony pointed out, was to make the recommendation to city council, but to focus on trying to... trying to find those funds within the specific beach road stabilization project and or other budgets within public works from this year or roll over years that we can identify. And then work with Stetson and the contractor to sharpen pencil as much as allowed within the contracting process to value engineer what we can within that project. I do have to say that the savings that you would hope for CEQA and engineering and project management, agree with what you're saying, but I wouldn't add that to the contingency. I would reduce the project scope on that to whatever savings you have on that. I mean, because I understand we've already gone beyond and above it. So it should be an attempt to return that to our broader budgets, as opposed to necessarily just rolling it into that project, if you understand what I mean by that. But otherwise I can recommend and support this contract.

Any other questions, Jane?

I have just one. In the alternative section, it says the city could reduce total length and related quality of sheet piles in the design for some overall savings. And was that an option that was discussed or just presented in the subcommittee?

It was discussed, and it's a fallback option, I think, is probably the best way to put it. At this point, staff believes that we are able to get the funding together to go forward with the complete project. If there are any other changes to the scope or changes in the costs, We don't know if there will be any other funds to be found. And in that case, we would probably have to reduce the scope of the work. And so that would be our next step.

But didn't you say we have to find more funding to remove the gangways and create utilities for those?

No, that has been budgeted.

Oh, that has? Okay.

Yes. Yeah.

Okay. I misunderstood.

Jane, as the committee was looking at this, we had yet to confer with, or Helga and Robert and Tony had yet to find the funds for it. So leaving that last subcommittee meeting was... we can only make this recommendation contingent upon the fact that you can find the funds within your existing budgets or within this budget. And if not, because it's important to make our window of time here to mitigate that risk, there might be some alternatives to reduce the scope. And hopefully we haven't been able to do that, but it is still a fallback should prices continue or we aren't able to make those budgets even work what these are.

Okay. And I also want to thank the staff and the subcommittee for for the work on this important infrastructure project, and I can support expending the funding for the project.

I had one quick clarifying question. Is Blue Iron a sub of, they're the sub? Yes. I thought so, but just wanted to be sure. Thank you.

Oh, yes. Thank you, Tony, for the work in the subcommittee. It's been a project long coming and I think it's time has arrived and that we need to go ahead and do the project and find the money wherever we find it and get this project done because it's as time has proved, it doesn't get cheaper with time. So I'm in full support.

And Tony, my quick question is the timeline moved at all in terms of implementation?

Not yet. There are, as I mentioned, there are a couple more moving parts. Contract has said that they haven't been awarded the contract yet, but they would be able to start at the very beginning of the window, which would be June the 1st. There may be remaining work by PG&E to be done before that. And there are two permits that are still outstanding. So if things fall into place, as we hope, then yes, the project would start on June the 1st. If not, the project window that we've given the contractor is June 1st to October 30th. And that's something that the jurisdictional agencies have the limits that they've given us. So potentially it would be moved to a later date.

And the PG&E point you made there, I mean, how much of a block could that be?

So PG&E have assured us every time we've spoken to them that they are able to do this work that they need to do. So they need to modify some of their facilities in Beach Road to allow these sheet piles to be installed. We've had progress meetings with them every two weeks for the last few months. And it seems like they're more or less on track to be able to do the work. But as we approach June the 1st, the time is getting tighter and tighter. We're meeting with them on site tomorrow. And we're going to seek their confirmation that they will finish the work by then.

OK, you sound a little nervous, but thank you.

Well, yeah. And the reason is, is they're not able to give any, you know, they're not any real assurances that it can be done. They sort of say, yeah, it looks like it should be fine kind of thing. They don't really put anything on paper or in writing. And yeah, so we're working with them as closely as possible. But yeah, I feel like I'll believe it when I see it, basically, with Virginia.

But so if, for example, this whole thing got pushed into next year because the permitting and stuff didn't come through, what does that mean in terms of the price of the quote?

That's a great question. And yeah. I think that would have to be something that we'd negotiate with the contractor. Yeah. And from speaking to Adrian, from Adrian Cornier from Fath, He's mentioned that he's been involved in these kind of negotiations before, where there's been some kind of allowance for an inflationary factor to the price. But we wouldn't be able to say until we face the situation.

And you're doing everything you can with these agencies to try and get them to do what they need to do.

Yes. Yeah, and so the two permits that are outstanding are the BCDC permit. They're having a meeting this week, Thursday, and this permit's on the agenda, so that'll be a yes or no on Thursday. The other permit is the Army Corps of Engineers, who are usually a fairly straightforward permit, I'm led to believe. But in this case, they... It seems like they've had some kind of audit of their processes and it's taking a little longer than usual for that to come through. But my understanding is that it's still a fairly straightforward process. It's just going to be a little delayed.

Okay, thank you. Public comment, Beth? Nothing. Okay, great. So let's bring this back. If there's any further discussion, does anyone want to make the motion?

I can make a motion, but before I do that, Tony, just real quick, two things I wanted to mention. I understand from our previous discussions that PG&E will be doing a fairly substantial upgrade and then preparing it for Hadley to do the connections and interconnections and so forth. But as a fallback, could you consider temp power to those residences so you don't have to delay arguably, so that they can do that after the fact. Because we've seen through all of our CTL analysis that PG&E is a wildcard you don't want to bet on. So, I mean, I would ask them, is there any sort of alternate strategy that you could do as a construction site would do with a 10 power situation during that process? Just put in the back of your mind is something when you speak with them.

Yeah, that's a great idea. And I think, yeah, we are meeting with them tomorrow. So that's something I can definitely ask. They were planning, so for them, the temp electrical service is a separate project from the joint trench work that they're doing in the street. But they plan to do it at the same time as the joint trench.

Don't let the larger project stop the necessary project of the temp power.

Right, yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think it's a great idea, yeah.

The other thing that you heard from the subcommittee was don't underestimate the complexity, perhaps, with resident notification, communication, as well as the as-built surveys of those adjacent properties. So don't kick that down the road too far because that's going to take some time and some effort, both communication and dealing with both tenants and the property owners themselves. But with that, I can make a motion to approve item 6A, the Beachfield Stabilization Project's award of a construction contract to Gordon and Ball Construction Inc. in the amount of 351620.

I'll second that. All in favor? Aye. Motion passes. And again, thank you to everyone involved. Can you just list off the volunteers on the committee so that we can thank them directly?

Yeah, absolutely. I'm sorry to put you on the spot here. Yeah, it's just that I've blanked on the name of the chair. John Tatum. John Tatum is the chair of the committee. Patrick Fedder from the Finance Committee. And Keith Pagan is the third member of the community.

And they've all done a fantastic job. Thank you very much.

Thank you to those individuals. okay i think we are done for the night thank you to my fellow council members for being um uh so detail oriented and everything it's what we need um and with that we will adjourn thank you so much