City Council - Special Meeting

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the Wednesday, April 15th, 2026 special meeting of the Larkspur City Council. Can I get a roll call, please?

Council Member Kando?

I am here.

Council Member Margulies? Here. Council Member Way? Here. Vice Mayor Paulson? Here. Mayor Andre?

Here. All right. And before we go into our business item, I just want to make an announcement that the code enforcement hearing that was scheduled for tonight is going to be continued until May 20th. And so if there's anyone here in the chambers or online for the code enforcement hearing, I just want to let you know that we will be having that hearing on May 20th. Thank you. Okay, so we'll go into business items, which is a recommendation from participants in the Climate Action Forum to elevate five action items to priority status for 2026. Are we going to have a presentation or a report from Council Member Margulies?

I am just going to say a few words, and I'm really pleased to report that on the one-year anniversary of our Climate Action Forum's first meeting, so today is approximately one year from the first meeting we had, and as the Council liaison to CAF, The collaborative efforts and hard work of residents, business owners, and climate activists has resulted in a recommendation to council this evening. CAF is putting forward five priority areas, EV charging, building electrification, equipment electrification, vehicle electrification, and public outreach. In addition to corresponding actions to accelerate Larkspur toward the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions per our Climate Action Plan 2030, which was adopted by Council as a resolution declaring a climate emergency in 2021, CAF recommends City Council endorses these priorities and further directs staff to review the priorities and actions and report back to Council with a brief status statement for each action, as well as any recommendations with a focus on implementation and metrics. So attached to the agenda, there are two documents, Microsoft Word document, which is going to serve as a living document and therefore may be edited, updated, and reinterpreted as new information becomes available or situations change. There's also an Excel spreadsheet, which contains exactly the same information, which is the five priorities. The categories of the priorities and then the corresponding actions, but it does not contain the context information or the next steps summary included in the word document so. The spreadsheet has really been provided as it may be easier for staff to track changes in that format. So these five priorities are listed on the Microsoft Word document. I was not planning to go into each priority, but suffice it to say that what our focus is on these categories are what we believe to be the biggest culprits for greenhouse gas emissions. There are over 200 actions listed in in the climate action plan, and then there are also further actions for building electrification and EV acceleration, both provided by the county. So what the group has done is tried to take a smaller, aggregate those actions and really hone in on a list of priorities and the corresponding actions to go along with those priorities to really net it out where we think we can make the most impact in the shortest amount of time. And so the CAF is recommending to council to endorse these priorities and direct staff to work on it for the fiscal year 26-27. So that's my little spiel. Anybody have questions?

I have a question.

Yes.

So I may be in the minority in this, and I endorse 90% of what's in here. My concern is the one or two lines that... seem to be suggesting that we recommend that staff require people to do things that would be costly for them. And the two I have in mind are requiring people to change over to electric appliances and requiring people to get rid of like the gas

leaf blower type things requiring them to be electric.

I'm in favor of everything else on here, the education, having more charging stations, encouraging people to do these things. I'm not ready to require people to do that unless we are at a place where we are willing to supplement them and say, hey, you have to do this and we're going to pick up the tab. And I don't think we're ready to do that. So other than those two lines on this page, I would be in favor of everything else on here.

Thank you, Scott. So these, again, are specific actions that we're suggesting. We are waiting for staff to go back and provide some progress updates in addition to recommendations on the ones that they believe would be easiest and most expedient to implement with also the ability to provide some metrics. So as I did mention, this is a working document. And we will plan to be updating it based on some of the staff's feedback. And the building electrification is the one I think that you're talking about, which it says to adopt and enforce advanced green building and electrification reach codes that require or strongly encourage. So there is only encourage.

I don't mind.

It's not just require. I know installation of heat pump, water and space heaters and induction cooking. So there is definitely some wiggle room around that. And then the other one with regards to the equipment electrification. It would require the city to update our existing policy. We have actually municipal code that does not allow residents to use gas-powered leaf blowers. What I think CAF would like to see happen is to bring our... ordinance in alignment with neighboring jurisdictions. And so we have a little bit more leeway and flexibility in ours and that we allow for multifamily commercial and municipal parks. So I think that it would also be a benefit from an enforcement standpoint. If we were aligned, it would be easier for enforcement to Certainly better for the people using the machines, too, from a public health standpoint. But yeah, again, it would be an update to an existing ordinance that's on the books.

Okay, so I guess I have a question. I mean, in endorsing these priorities, I mean, there are a number of things on here that I think, like, for instance, changing the code. I mean, that requires additional council meetings and we're not doing that here tonight, right? So this is simply just, and I appreciate your point of view, Scott, and I think we should have that discussion, but I don't think we're, these are just sort of like high level priorities that At some point, staff will bring to council for discussion. Is that kind of the way I'm interpreting these documents?

That's correct. Yes. The idea is that CAF has netted out these five top priorities, would like to have council endorse the priorities and give direction to staff to go back to review the progress and where we're at on these priorities. Some of them are already discussed. in motion and happening as we speak. And then to make recommendations on areas that they believe are achievable and the metrics that how they might achieve those areas and come back and report back to council as well as Climate Action Forum.

So I guess, Scott, are you saying you want to just take these off the priority list, these specific items, or what's your view?

My view is, my understanding is we are basically instructing staff to do certain things, look into certain things. And I'm just saying from my perspective, I would like to have staff look into and move forward with these other things. I don't I don't feel it's necessary for staff to come back with an ordinance requiring people to do the two things that I mentioned. Everything else I'm happy with. But if staff did come back with that, I probably would vote against it. So I'm just giving a heads up that that's my feeling as of right now. Okay. If staff wants to come back with it, it's fine. Again, it's the five of us. I'm just voicing my thoughts on it.

Great. Yes. City Manager Schwartz.

If it's helpful, I want to remind the council that as Council Member Margulies alluded to, you've adopted the three documents that all of this is being drawn out of. And some of the language in the specific actions is an attempt to sort of consolidate broader language that's in the documents you adopted. Staff definitely understands that. what we can do versus what we need to bring to council. And several of these things, as you've correctly identified, are going to require public debate, discussion, and consideration. I've also been one of the staff people attending some of the CAF meetings, and I've been very clear with the forum members We're going to work on all these things, and we agree. You've adopted them as goals, and we've agreed these actions warrant consideration. But one of our responsibilities is to weigh them against every other policy consideration that the five of you have adopted in every area of city operations. And so we have to allocate our resources accordingly. So we're conscious and sensitive to that. So I do want to assure the council staff's going to put this in the context of what is achievable for us. I think... What's really valuable that the CAF's asking you to do is to say, among the 200 policy goals that these three documents contain, here are the five categories that seem like the ones we ought to spend next year working on. And your staff supports that.

Great. Thank you for that clarification. Anyone else have any questions or comments? All right. Should I open this up to public comment? I'll open this up for public comment. Please come forward.

Well, good evening, everyone. David Muller, I live here in Larkspur. And I just have a couple of comments on this. First, Sarah, you did a great job of presenting that. The CAF has been in place for a year, and I think it's done some really good work. You'll recall, how were we going to format? What was it going to look like? I think it's proven to be very effective. And Sarah has done a great job as liaison. I don't know how frequently you're going to review that role, but I would say keep her on. She's doing a great job. So early on, a lot of the CAF's work was around sustainability measures for the new library. And we came back with a bunch of recommendations on that. We then were working on a dashboard to be able to track progress on the climate action plan. And what we realized it's been alluded to, there were just way too many items in the climate action plan. And so the whole idea was to neck that down to a few plus, and Dan's referred to this, but specifically there's been two other major documents developed since Larkspur did its climate action plan, the Marin countywide building electrification roadmap and the Marin countywide EV acceleration strategy. So part of what we've done here is to mine the best actions out of all those and it kind of updates Larkspur's cap in that way. And that's what you're seeing now is what came up to the top. And as far as the endorsement, CAF feels really good about this list. We think we've done a good job of mining those three sources. I want to emphasize the idea is this is for fiscal year 26, 27. And the idea is this can feed right into the budget planning process. Do some of these actions we've identified require some sort of budget to move them ahead? What a great time to bring this up and have that be considered as part of the budget planning. The last thing I wanted to say is that the jurisdictions that do have formal either sustainability commissions or climate committees, something like that, almost all of them produce something that is a recommendation to the council as priority actions for each fiscal year. So this is not... um you know unusual to bring something like this forward and it shows that the calf model of how to do this i think actually has worked better than what i've heard from all the climate commissions because they're very constrained by brown act and so on and uh I guess the one other thing I do want to say, it has been very helpful to have both Dan and Julian attend some of the CAF meetings as well as Sarah, obviously, all of them, because I think it's given a good connection between staff and the community and established exactly that dialogue and collaboration that we were all looking for. I would urge that you endorse, you know, it's not a formal, it's not a resolution or anything, but to endorse and direct staff to go ahead and start refining this. Thank you.

Great. Thank you for your comments. Is there anyone else in the chamber who wants to make a public comment? Great. Katie.

I'll be very brief. I just wanted to introduce myself. I'm Katie Straub Hutton. I'm a relatively new resident of Larkspur. Very happy to be addressing the council. And I'm a very proud member of CAF. And so I would just echo a lot of what David said. And from my personal perspective, as a newcomer to the city and also as a passionate climate activist myself, I think seeing the city and staff take actions to prioritize what was a list of 200 action items, which before getting to know CAF, I went online and tried to see what slurks were doing and loved to see the climate action plan, but had a really hard time understanding what our progress was just as a citizen, given how many actions we had teed up from the county. So just wanted to echo that I think as a member of CAF, but also as a city resident, being able to track fewer items and see them reach the completion mark is just really encouraging and helps us I think, provide confidence for the wider community that we're getting all the great work done that we'd like to. So just again, echoing, thank you for considering endorsing this. I think a lot of members of CAF and the wider community would love to see that progress. So thanks.

Great. Thank you. All right. Anyone else in the chambers? All right. And we'll move online to see if there are any public comments online.

Our first speaker is caller 1402.

James Holmes-Larkspur. I would like to echo Councilmember Kandel's expression of concern with respect to the possible impact of electrification requirements. As a senior citizen owner of several old houses and two old houses, with old electricity panels and with heaters in places which couldn't be changed out with heat pumps and with water heaters in water heater closets and other appliances and so on. Any kind of requirement would be a huge burden to me and I'm sure to others similarly situated, and I would hope that... that we wouldn't be in a position where senior citizens are hoping to die before their appliances give out because of the impact of electrification requirements. So I would just like for the council and staff to be aware of these concerns, as well as there are legal restraints relating to appliance use. electrification requirements and proposed exceptions, which I think are being considered at the Air Resources Board. And in any event, I think staff and the council should be fully aware of the potential vast burdens of requirements with respect to appliance replacement. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Holmes. Anyone else online?

Additional raise hands. There's no further public comment.

Great. Thank you. All right. So we'll bring it back to council for further discussion or questions. I mean, I certainly heard the public comments and the concerns. And hopefully when we bring this item back to council, we can devise or write the policies in a way that really takes into account some of these public comments.

Okay.

Great. All right. So do we need a formal motion or is this a...

Kind of left it to your discretion, and it wrote in a way if you wanted to have a vote to endorse it, or if you just wanted to do it by sort of head nodding acclamation, either way is fine.

Was there something else you wanted to say, Council Member Kandel?

No, I thought we were going to vote. I was just ready to make a motion if you wanted to.

Sure, I will take a motion if you want to make a motion.

I'll take a motion to endorse this. And just the record has my concerns. But having made that record, I am happy to make a motion to endorse. Second.

Second. Great. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Any abstentions? Great. Motion passes.

Thank you.

All right. So now we will close the special meeting of the Larkspur City Council and adjourn to the regular meeting of the Larkspur City Council. And it's 6.50 p.m. on Wednesday, April 15th, 2026. Can I get a roll call, please?

Council Member Kandell? Still here.

I'm here.

Here. Mayor Andre.

Here. And if you're able, please stand and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance. All right. Before we proceed with the rest of the agenda, I just want to make an announcement that we are going to be continuing the hearing for code enforcement to our May 20th council meeting. So if you are here for that, just know that all the cases for code enforcement will be heard at our May 20th council meeting. Thank you. All right, so this is now the time for public comment for matters that are not on the agenda tonight. Is there anyone in the chamber who would like to make a public comment? Yes, Mr. Moeller.

Hello, Council. David Mahler. I live here in Larkspur. So I want to bring your attention to a matter because it's a great time to be thinking about this before action is needed. So I bet everybody at the Diaz and staff saw in this morning's IJ the latest proposal for high-rise multifamily dwelling building in San Rafael. This one, 24 floors. Everyone was aghast within the last year when there was a 17-story proposed. There's been a number of 13 and eight-story buildings. And I have to tell you, you know, I'm active on climate work throughout the county. And when these guys proposed these buildings, my countywide group goes and works with the developers to try and make sure they're going to go all electric and to make sure that they have adequate EV and e-bike charging facilities. So I've been going to these hearings and stuff, meeting the developers. And one thing that has become very clear is all these developers are using the state's density bonus laws to waive any local requirements they wish to. And there's been a lot of public outcry about this, especially in San Rafael. There's been legal challenges and so on. And I just want to make sure that this council and this staff is clear that There is almost nothing that a local jurisdiction can do to enforce any local ordinances against a developer, or I shouldn't say against, but in the context of a proposed development, if the developer proposes enough low-income and mid-income housing to meet the state's density bonus requirements. So when we think about things like the Safeway site, No, Mount Tam Racquet Club recently changed hands. I'm telling you, there is nothing to keep a developer from buying the Safeway site and coming in proposing to put up a 15-story building. I'm just telling you, there's nothing... that developer can request waivers of every single local ordinance that would prevent that. And they'll get it. This happened in Corte Madera with the 240 Tamil Vista development. It's only six floors. There's no reason it couldn't be 15 or 20 floors. So I'm bringing this up to council and staff because it would be a good idea, in my opinion, for council and staff to be thinking about this in advance of some developer coming in and laying out their proposal. Because once that's on the table and they claim state density bonus, there's really almost nothing you can do. So I don't know what you might be able to do. Is it some sort of, you know, maybe there's something in the historic designation, something that goes beyond just the local jurisdictions requirements. Because they can waive any requirement of the local jurisdiction. So, you know, is it adequacy of services? You know, is it impact fees? But it's not about building things. It's not about, oh, we have a height limit of this. It's not about you have to have so many parking spaces. It's not about you have to have so much EV charging and e-bike charging. They can waive all of that. So I just wanted to bring it up. To my knowledge, there's nobody out there right now. I haven't heard about anything. But I just want you to be aware that once somebody comes in, if they do, and lay something like that on the table, there's very little you can do at that point. Because then you're in a defensive mode. And one of the hearings I was at at the San Rafael Planning Commissioners, The developer's attorney literally looked at the planning commission and said, I just want to inform you, there is nothing you can do. We're requesting these waivers. There is nothing you can do. And one of the planning commissioners looked at him and said, I don't need to be reminded of that. It was a pretty hostile exchange. But I just wanted to bring it up. It hasn't happened yet. Nothing to stop it from happening. All right. Thank you. Great. Thank you, David.

All right. Anyone else in the chamber with public comments? Any online? Great. Thank you. All right. So we move to presentations, of which there are none. And now approval of the consent calendar. Is there any council member or member of the public who wants to remove an item from the consent calendar for discussion? None? Okay. Can I get a motion to approve the consent calendar?

So moved.

I'll second. Great. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstained? Great. Consent calendar passes. We move on to city manager's oral report.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, council members. Two things. First, logistically, for your May 6th meeting, we'll be posting this as a formal announcement, I think, by the end of the week. But your May 6th meeting will take place at the community room in Drake's Landing. Okay. in Greenbrae, and it's going to start at 5.30, and the purpose of that is so that the council can conduct a meeting in proximity of Niven Park, and the council is going to discuss the request that was made at one of your previous meetings to authorize off-leash dogs in Niven Park. So 5.30, May 6th, the meeting will be in Greenbrae at the 300 building in Drake's Landing. Also, I just wanted to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank our maintenance crew. This has been a really strange three, four weeks of weather. We've had harsh winter conditions, followed by spring conditions, followed by summer conditions, and back to winter conditions. So if your own property is like all the city property, your weeds have exploded everywhere. And I want to acknowledge that our crews actually have agreed to work overtime and are just out there trying to hit this in a methodical way. I know people are a little frustrated. We get calls. We're getting emails. wanting the median by their house to be dealt with. I want to assure everybody we actually have a plan and a system and we prioritize areas that have potential risk for flash fires and things like that. So the groups out there, we're going to get to everything. We appreciate your patience. And if you haven't seen improvement in another month, definitely reach out to us and we'll come take a look. But that'll turn it back to you, Madam Mayor.

Great. Thank you. All right. Now we move on to council members. Do any council members have reports?

Sure. I'll go quickly. Thanks. So today was the SMART meeting. And just to run the stats, we have in March, we had 124,000 riders and 110,000 people are using the paths in that month today. Roughly 4,500 approaching 5,000 daily. So the ridership continues to grow year over year. And there are some talks about expanding services, especially the Connect shuttle, which goes between the ferry and some of the shopping centers. So I'm really asking questions at the meetings to see if we can get Bonaire served and some of the others. There is also a really big court win. They had been challenged by some, you know, out of state attorney group to consider that the area, you know, around the rails was, you know, they had no right to put, you know, the railways and Smart Train had no right to put additional pathways. There are four projects that they want to do to continue extending bikes and walking paths. And Smart won that court case. And so now it's been appealed, but they're, you know, looking to start building those paths. So that was, you know, one of the legal challenges. And then just as an event, there's a bike to wherever on May 14th. So if you're interested, marinbike.org. And it's a great, you know, a great way to, you know... get that sort of community participation, you know, good alternative mode. One other announcement is a little bit retro here, but we just voted through 4.7 on our consent calendar, and I just wanted to comment on it. I was going to pull it, but, you know, I think you guys did your reading, but just maybe for the public, this is from Tam, and it was on, you know, Measure AA, And just a couple notes is we have a budget. And what this consent item did was only look at 5% of that budget. So it wasn't radically modifying things. And it primarily, you know, from my perspective, strengthened the crossing guard program, which is something that I continually see in need. We have about 100 plus crossing guards that's been, you know, reduced to about 95. And Even personally, I bike my daughter, my son every day, and someone was recently hit on Tamalpais, and now they've put additional people there. So I do see the need for it, having been hit by a car myself with my daughter on it. And then it's also working on the Reimagine Roadways program, which, again, it's 5% of the total funding. So I thought about it. I looked at the pros and cons, but I believe it was something that will benefit Larkspur, and we passed it as a group. So anyway, that's my report.

Great. Thank you. Anyone else?

Not really a report. I'll call it a report so I can say it now. David, thank you for bringing that up. I don't know if I have thanked everyone for the library opening. which was phenomenal and took a lot of staff time and effort, and it just came off incredibly. If I did thank staff, I didn't thank them enough. So I just want to put out again that everything went so flawlessly. It was great. Having said that, standing at the new library, looking at the Luckys... got us thinking about what your next project would be. So I don't know if it would be appropriate now just to ask to put on a future agenda or to have, you know, we were talking about having a second retreat where we can brainstorm possible future uses for this and hopefully sooner rather than later as they're, you know, in order to prevent any other uses from coming along. Thank you for.

I'll wait and I can talk to the mayor offline about how that would look. I do want to take this opportunity, though, to remind the council it's private property. And there are taking laws and we have to be very careful about playing SimCity with private property. So we do want to make sure the public remembers that.

Great. I love SimCity, by the way. All right.

So we'll talk offline about agendizing that for a future meeting. Great. Thank you. all right so we are finished with council members reports and now we will go to our public hearing which is amending the fee schedule of the city of larkspur great miss gabrielle

Hi, I'm Amelia Gabrielle, Administrative Services Director with the City of Larkspur. So this agenda item is about amending the fee schedule for the City of Larkspur. The attached resolution contains an updated schedule of user fees effective July 1st, 2026. Clear Source Financial Consulting was hired to prepare the amended fee schedule. And we have them online. He's available to make a presentation. So his name is David Schroeder. And so we can have him start the presentation. Thank you.

Great. Welcome, Mr. Schroeder. I hope I've got your name right.

nailed it uh hopefully you can hear me well uh good evening mayor and members of the city council thank you for allowing me to speak with you this evening as ms gabriel mentioned my name is david schroeder i'm here with clear source and we've assisted the city with the update of its user and regulatory fees for the better part of a decade now we perform similar work for communities throughout the state the item before you this evening as ms gabriel mentioned is the annual fee schedule update So city staff reviews and updates the schedule, the fee schedule on an annual basis. This is part of the city's normal course of operations and part of your annual budget development preparation. So typically you conduct a comprehensive fee study every three to five years. And in between those years, fees are adjusted to align with regional cost inflation. And you might also make some other minor refinements to the schedule. And this is what you're reviewing this evening. So why do cities throughout the state perform similar updates? The number one reason is to ensure compliance with legal requirements. We want to ensure that fees don't exceed the estimated and reasonable cost of service. That's the state's legal mandate. Secondly, recovering the cost of these services by definition reduces the burden on the city's general fund resources that can then be utilized for other more general services for the community. Things like public safety, public works, park maintenance, and so forth. And lastly, when we recover our cost of service, it positions the city to continue to meet the service level expectations of the community. The fees that are before you this evening are based on the fee schedule Council approved in the prior year, adjusted for the annual change in the CPI for the region. That change in CPI represents about a 2% increase from the prior year and most of the fees in the schedule are being adjusted by that amount. The intent of these adjustments is simply just to offset the inflationary pressure that you as a city face. We don't anticipate a significant fiscal impact. I believe it's about $40,000 in additional recovery of city costs. The adjustment of these fees isn't intended to expand service levels either. It's just an offset of the existing costs that you're already incurring. and finally the recommendation for council this evening is to conduct a public hearing and at the conclusion of that hearing to adopt the resolution arising the schedule fees and charges that would become effective on july 1st thank you so much for your time and attention i'm available to receive any feedback or any questions you may have great thank you mr schroeder all right i'll open up to council anybody on council have any questions yes

Hi, Mr. Schroeder. I just was curious about two things. Could you describe to me what the accessibility hardship review is? It's item 20, simple and complex, two different ones.

I think that would be a question for staff.

Oh, okay. I'm curious as to what accessibility hardship review is.

Okay. We, we from time to time get individuals who under the Americans with Disabilities Act have a disability and they need a modification done to their property. And I believe that is the, there's two things related to that. There's one reasonable accommodation, which is a process for that. And the other would be if there's some, some kind of need for us to do a special review that would be outside of a building permit and

Okay, so that would be, for example, let's say somebody needs to put in a wheelchair accessible shower.

It would be more than that. It would be like something that would trigger a permit, but we'd have to do some kind of additional review. But this is a continuation of what's already in the schedule. Yeah, I just was curious. Yeah. For a reasonable accommodation, we generally don't charge. It really just depends on what the level of review is. And this is like if it actually required some more plan check review.

Okay. The other one that I'm curious about is what triggers an archaeological review?

Ah, that would be something under the California Environmental Quality Act. So when you do a project and you trigger that, you would have to do what's called a phase one cultural resources report, which is also included with archaeological. And so sometimes... There's some costs related to that with a project. Are you referring to the planning fee schedule?

Yeah, the one that, number 27, archaeological investigation permit.

Right. So in that instance, sometimes we have grading and we find remains. Remains, okay. And there's a staff cost attached to that.

So that triggers, so a trigger would be finding remains or finding some artifact.

Right. And it's a deposit, so we would only bill you for the actual time.

it doesn't happen very often but it can yeah thanks great all right anyone else have any questions on the fees okay seeing none um i'll open up to public comments any public comments in the chamber seeing none i'll open it to public comments online no public comments all right we'll bring you back here for discussion Anybody want to raise any concerns or items for discussion?

No. Makes sense.

No? Okay. All the costs go up.

What's that? All the costs are always going up in life every year. Yes.

All right. Well, then, can I get a motion?

I'll make a motion.

Great.

To pass this item. Second motion.

Wonderful. All right. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? Great. Motion passes. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Amelia and Mr. Schroeder for joining us. My pleasure. Thank you. And Mr. Mogenson for answering questions. Thank you. Okay. All right. So that moves us on to... Let's see. So we are... going to be, let's see, talking about the, okay, so we need a motion to continue the code enforcement discussion to May 20, 2026. So can I get a motion to continue that discussion to May 20, 2026?

Yeah, I'm happy to make a motion to continue the code enforcement discussion to May 20th. Okay, great.

Second that motion.

Great.

All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstained? Great. Motion passes. So we will have that hearing on May 20th. And that brings us to business items, which is Larkspur Library at the Commons Budget Amendment. Mr. Skinner, can we get a staff report? Thank you.

I am the public works director for the city of Larkspur. Tonight we're bringing you a follow-up from an earlier year where we introduced to you a number of enhancements that we were contemplating for the new Larkspur library. As you know, the library project is And there's some minor punch list of pre-clerk still going on. But in addition to that, we had identified three enhancements, exterior enhancements that we wanted to bring back to you. A, they're a little out of the ordinary for our normal projects, and then B, so at the last uh meeting we did give you kind of a preview of these three items and some kind of budgetary report or magnitude uh numbers we received some feedback from you at that time to in some cases sharpen our pencil the franken's cost down and then also some questions so we've gone back to the design team uh i know we're circling back with you pretty much at the last meeting as well as providing you with updated costs consideration. There was a revision to the packet that included an item that was left out of the budget resolution. There's an attachment to the budget amendment resolution that is technically the budget amendment itself that That's the change. If numbers haven't changed, just put it back that we added . So as a reminder, the three enhancements that we looked at previously were enhanced paving in the east parking lot, a monument sign on the frontage, a water feature, a water fountain. And then in addition to that, seeing as we've progressed through the project now, we've gone through the opening, There's a handful of little other additions that we thought we would capture while we're talking about budget amendment to get added to the project budget at the same time. So I'll go over each one of these. We're talking about the enhanced paving. So again, we're talking about the eastern portion of the parking lot. So basically everything east of the main walkway into the building from the parking lot. and we had our landscape architects and the team develop a number of patterns that we went over last time with color concepts and then a cost estimate for this proposed improvement and again what we're looking at doing here is providing a space that can be used for more than just parking so this would allow us to have some outdoor use other than just on black asphalt so to enhance that And so we presented this to you last time. There was a slight cost increase versus what we already had in the budget. So there's a cost associated with that, what we're presenting to you tonight, the total cost of this improvement, which is an epoxy coloring and stamping of the asphalt to make it appear like a cobble surface is roughly $7,000. There's already a $50,000 allowance in the budget for this. The discussion regarding this item at the last meeting was about the actual pattern and the fact that the architects had proposed what's a random pattern. So it's two different colors of cobblestone arrangement, and it's kind of a random spattering of the different colors, which was their vision for the site. We did hear some feedback from you that we should look into perhaps a more geometric pattern or something a little bit more standard. And so I did take that back to the team. They provided their feedback that this random pattern was chosen to work with the site as a whole. Their concern, and I will show you when we're talking about geometric patterns, I've got one on the left here that's similar to ones that we may have shown you a few meetings prior where we talked about this idea of stamping and paving. The project team, including the architect and the landscape architect, feel that a geometric pattern is too busy and will take too much of the focus from the overall site. And they don't want the parking lot to be the focus. They want the whole site to work together. So that was the reasoning. They think that the random pattern works a lot better in context of the site overall. It's doable. I'm showing you a couple of examples here. The one on the left is kind of a pure geometric pattern. The one on the right is kind of a combination where they have some geometric rectangles and squares and lines, and then they have kind of like a randomness in the middle. But those colors are a little bit more contrasting. And again, their point in sharing these, they did not do a mock-up on our site plan, but they just showed these as examples of what a geometric pattern would look like. And the first question was, when you look at the site overall, your eyes are going to get drawn to this parking lot. And that's to a parking lot so again there's not really a cost difference in this so if there's a strong desire from the council to go to something more geometric we can revise the pattern but the architects team based on

Julian, can I ask a question before we go on to the next topic? If you go back one slide to what we're suggesting here, is there anything different about this than the normal paving that would be on the other side of the parking lot other than the color?

Yeah. So they actually heat the surface up. So there's some relief. So in addition to the different colors, there actually is a bit of texture to it that gives it the appearance of actually being paving stones or cobblestones versus just asphalt. So it's paint and the texture of the joint lines being depressed.

Thank you.

The next item was the monument sign, which, as you recall, we had a placeholder in the budget of $50,000 for a sign to give some information out front. And as we worked through the team, they proposed to us some options for an enhanced sign that would actually have a bigger screen and one that was able to display more information than just scrolling text. And then that proposal came with a pretty hefty price tag compared to the $50,000 placeholder that we had. In the budget, it was north of $200,000 when we were here last time. So we went back to the team and said there was general positive feedback for the sign overall, but not a whole lot for the price tag. So the architect worked together with some of the manufacturers of the components of the sign, the TV screen specifically, but also with the contractor to refine the design and get the price They managed to come up with a design that had a few compromises from the first one you saw that allow us to bring the price down. One is they've determined they can step the TV screen down one size actually, and it'll still work based on how close it is to the street. So it's a slightly smaller screen. The finished material is still proposed to match the building. So we're not gonna lose that architectural component of the sign, which is part of what the planning department review when they looked at signs. And the other thing was they were able to look at a system where the information that is transmitted to the sign is transmitted through wifi. So that saved us quite a bit of cost on trenching the data lines. by Wi-Fi. So through a combination of all of those items, they were able to get the cost down. Their latest proposal was $121,000. So it's a significant drop from the rough order of magnitude number that we presented to you last time. It's acknowledged it's still higher than what was in the budget. But again, we only had a placeholder in the budget for a very basic sign. So at a total estimated cost of $121,000, this is a 403 above what's in the adopted budget um and we have met we've got some meetings with the manufacturers screen um they've let us know that the sign is programmable it is demoable um lots of places have these signs and they program the lighting down or off at night um and things like that and This will not be showing movies. There's no moving figures on here. It's just the TV screen component of it allows us to be more flexible in that display of the message versus just text. And as I mentioned, this is going through the city's planning department, so we'll make sure that it meets all the requirements.

Great. And can I just have a quick question? Are we calling this library at the commons? Like what is the sign? It says library, but do we need at the commons? We're going to spend a lot of money on this sign. We should figure out what's the, are we calling this library at the commons? I guess is the question. What, what is the name of the library? And if we're going to, if it's going to be etched on this, All right. Maybe we should talk about through the ad hoc library committee and just come up with a name that, you know, we should.

Right. You may want to say Larkspur Library in there instead of library.

I want to say Larkspur Library. That would match the sum by planning that's on the parking lot side of the building. That's at Larkspur Library. Okay. Great.

Okay. Great. Perfect. Thank you. So, Julian, maybe I'm just old and confused right now. I thought we had the monument sign and the fountain as part of a commons donation project, or is that just part of it?

So in meeting with the donors, sorry, meeting with the foundation, there were donors that were interested in. Yes. And they made donations and a request for some of these items to be in the project. Okay. We don't specifically match that donation amount with what the improvement is based on the donations, whether they're people that donate chairs or benches. Nobody donated for Granite Creek Path. cost laws and there's money that came from the commons foundation and then there is some short okay in some areas overall and it just so happens that these are the last items that are getting added into the project and so we've already allocated the 6.5 million in commons foundation which includes okay

I get it. I was under the impression that these particular items were going to have a naming part to them because of a donation that was specific to that item, just like the donation specific to a room or something. But that was unclear. So now that makes sense.

Well, so if we do have someone who wants to put a name on the fountain or something, would the city, I mean, how would that work, I guess?

I think we hear you. We probably want to go talk with our partners at the Commons Foundation to make sure we get the answer right that you're asking. Because to Julian's point, throughout this whole process, what we came to understand, and we're not fundraisers, so we had a learning curve in working with the Commons Foundation. You know, they're raising money. Some people are giving them really large sums of money for very modest sort of put my name on this, put my name on that. Other people really want something. So they give some money. It's not quite enough. And the idea was, well, it all kind of an aggregate at the end. Who gets a name on something is the committee recommended the council a while back to defer to the Commons Foundation generally. So I'd want to go back and

check with them about that so just i would hate to find out they promised somebody that could put their name on something and a donation was made i don't want to mess that up that clears it up a little for me because sometimes it's a little um um not clear when the commons presentation about exactly where what pile it's coming from

This is, we probably didn't emphasize enough. This is it, right? After this.

Right, that's it.

If somebody else wants something on the property, they're paying for it, right? Although we are, we have a virtual suggestion box. So if you want to send Mr. Skinner or you want to send Mr. Hill an email, we're getting emails almost every day. I've heard we need better garbage cans.

uh you know i've heard bulletin board i've heard a couple other things so so anyway back to the presentation okay great thank you and um hasn't really uh changed other than we've gone back to uh the manufacturer and the success within the concern about want to make sure that it's The primary, from my understanding, desire for the water feature was the point waterfall noise is what was desired. And so we wanted to make sure that the noise was going to be to the expectation of the public foundation. You know, what they're asking for a fountain, donating money for a fountain to locate them. So this would go kind of in the middle of that seating area at the west end of the commentary where Grant Reed and the benches are. This is a similar fountain. This is one of, I showed you a couple of options last time. One that was kind of the base design that we had plugged in a $30,000 number floor, which would not have generated a whole lot of noise. It was basically a bubble up. And so this is kind of the next we also shared with you last time but it comes with a higher price tag. What you see above ground is basically a prop and it's steel and it's painted black so it'll match the trim on the building. What you don't see and why I included the engineering broad on the right is there's another basin that's buried underground and then it has a tray on it that's adjustable and put gravel on it and you can put that up and down and there's mechanisms There's actually a video that they sent to get it to run the extension, but I promise you it makes waterfalls sound. And the donor has been shown the video and that needs their recommendation. I'm imagining monkeys that would like to see a water turn here. And so this, it's about six foot by three foot and it'll fit in one of the planter areas. That's a tree in that rack, three areas, commercial grade. So this is, custom made to order out of steel. It's made to last. And it has some built-in accent lighting. And it has equipment built into it that help us with water cleaning. Again, this is recirculating water. So this is not taking water. It's not a big water use. We do lose some water through evaporation. So it does have to get popped up every now and then. But because it's recirculating water, we similar to a pond or a backyard. So there's a procedure, but this comes with an option to have some ozone treatment to help out, just filled into it. And so that the total estimated cost we have for this now is still a little higher than we would like to see it. This is we were able to work the architect and get the cost down on the monument sign for something that um public work staff and digital felt it was appropriate for the work we're still kind of going back and forth a little bit with the contractor on where his latest number is for this um we do have the option of um putting without the bid if we're not even come up with that um we think is um it's reasonable it's not far off but i think we can work with parts down a little bit so the kind of the top end That's what I've included in the budget. It's more of a hire than this, but my expectation is when the final change order is signed. It is a little bit more costly than a typical fountain just because of the size of it. It actually needs to sit on a concrete pad. So there's a bit of excavation. And then what you don't see in the photo that you see in the engineering product on the right, those are parts of excavation. And that lower water basin has to be dug out in the ground. So it's not just taking a pound of milk down in the front and getting it down. It's going to get installed so that it doesn't move. And so they are campaigning on it works. So roughly about a $31,000 budget is max over budget. So the first three items here on the budget amendment request are those three enhancements. The total budget request amendment for tonight is $162,054. That includes an additional $40,000 above those three items that I identified tonight. There are some other things that have come up over the last few months that have been important for commissioning. So commissioning on the building is kind of that last step that we do when the building is substantially complete. We run through the building with all the engineers, all of the Cal Green paperwork, all of the 5.4 paperwork. We make sure all the HVAC works and it does what it's supposed to. We go up on the roof, we make sure the batteries work, the solar works, we run everything through its phases. And so in the process of doing that, as well as working with Damon's team and getting ready to go through the library opening, we identified a couple of more enhancements that we wanted to add into the project. One of the biggest ones was a catwalk on the roof. So we added all the solar to the roof. I've been fond of it. It's like pipes going everywhere up on the roof. And so during the final review of that with the building inspector, we determined that we could really have some sort of ladder system and kind of a catwalk. They're building a bridge over some of those ponds. Some of that solar equipment, and the conduits that are up on the roof. So that wasn't identified in the additional design, but the team's all committed that for the servicing, that anything on the roof, the HVAC units are all up on the roof, the solar equipment's on the roof. There'll be some pre-put maintenance activities up there, and we just don't want folks stumbling around either tripping over a conduit for the solar or stepping on it and denting it. a lot of folks that are going to be out there servicing. So that was one of the ads. The other was outdoor electrical. We talked about the ribbon cutting event and having some events in the parking lot. We realized we had streetlights out in the parking lot, but there were no electrical receptacles anywhere plugging from in. So we had the contractor add electrical receptacles on all of the streetlights, which also helped in that closet space. and then also some furniture grade upgrades you notice some of the furniture had cushions on them that wasn't in the original bid and then as we worked through and David's team worked in the spaces we identified a few additional shelves and things like that in the processing room that weren't part of the initial project so those and a couple of other minor things are like a little bit more than $35,000, $36,000. So we put this out to add a round number right here after all of the little things that haven't quite come out in other items yet. So adding those four together, $162,000. As mentioned, the budget amendment that will be identified for this budget amendment question. I think that's the last slide.

Great. Thank you.

All right. Any questions?

Julian, I was there yesterday, and two of the electric car chargers still have plastic bags over them. Can you tell me what's up with that? Oh.

So we've been working on and off with a charge point. So there's eight charging heads at the library. three dual heads for a total of six heads, three dual chargers for a total of six chargers. And there's two single chargers that only have a single head. For some reason, when everything was energized and they were turned on, the two single head chargers would not come to life. And so we've been working over a couple of weeks back and forth between the electrician and charge point to try and get those to come back online. We've gone through a number of troubleshooting activities and they come online and then five minutes later they blink off again. So if we can't get them to come back online and then ChargePoint will come out here and troubleshoot them themselves. But at the moment, remotely, ChargePoint is trying to go through and make sure that our contractor has done everything on their end that they can possibly do and that there's an issue with the units and it's not the wire. So we're hoping to get those online ASAP, but

somebody getting frustrated they don't think it's working right and second um if we approve this tonight the um pavement enhancements you said had to be around 70 degree temperature wise are we if we approve this tonight are we calculating that that would start sometime this summer that would be sometime this summer um it just depends on their schedule they uh they have it in their in their queue for

go and do this. So if it was 70 degrees, if you approved this tonight and it was 70 degrees and rising next week, we should probably get to it for three or four weeks or so. Okay. For example, there's some work around the trash enclosure and there's some of the household that still have to be moved in and put along.

That process is four days, three days or a week?

I think it's basically that area they put a double coat of epoxy paint on it. a double coats of a boxy painting. Actually, I take that back. It takes a little bit longer because of the two colors. They have to do a color on and mask it off. So they did say they can actually do a color. So probably three days.

And when we block that off, will there still be patrons with accessibility needs who have wheelchair accessible area?

Wheelchair ramps and all of the EV chargers are all in the west half of the city.

Great. That's it. Any other questions?

Yeah, I had a quick one. So the one conversation I'm recalling is when we were looking at this a couple sessions ago, the rough orders, you know, came out to I wrote down the number, but it looks like the actual prices are about $65,000 cheaper than what we had penciled out. Is that sound about right?

I think when you add the $40,000 of the ad to that last item in there, that probably pencils out. Because I think the site itself is close to $100,000 lower than what their initial rough order of magnitude was. The others are pretty close. I think the fountain is maybe $10,000 cheaper. I think the paving actually went up a little bit, the stamp paving. And then the $40,000 additional, like the catwalk,

so that's a okay but the bottom line is it's it's lower i mean i think we we had some painful discussions about the sign and everything and i actually have you know in the range it was 185 and it's gone to 121 so that's 64 and then someone up someone down but the net is is you know what we had agreed to at the back of an envelope now is 65 000 cheaper okay yeah that makes me feel better thank you

Well, I just want to say, first of all, Julian, fantastic job on the library. The library looks amazing. It's a beautiful building. And so thank you very much for your team's work and your work on all of it. And also, I want to acknowledge the city attorney and city manager's job. Our staff has done a fantastic job with the building. And on these projects, thank you for taking our feedback. I do like the parking. I was one of the ones who had, you know, thought the random pattern was a little random. But I do like this revised project. It looks good. So thank you for taking that back. And, you know, good job on working down the costs on the sign while also, you know, keeping all the functionality that we wanted and incorporating feedback from our community. So I don't really have any questions. My question is more about the roundabout. And then there's these bollards that like prevent you from going into the shopping center. Can those be removed? Yes.

So we just put them all back because they were there when the project started. We didn't really have any conversations or put any thought in whether they should be there or not. So that's a conversation we can have. We just put them back because they were there and we thought they were.

Okay. But maybe we could, I don't know. I don't know that we need to have a full discussion at count. I don't know. I don't know. I was just asking, you know, if we could remove the bollards, it might be good just for foot traffic in between the library and also the shopping center.

They were originally installed out of concern about the number of teenage drivers we were observing jackrabbiting out of the parking lot on Rose Lane. So I think if we took them out, we'd probably do some traffic counts to watch for that behavior just because that is a safety concern. It's hard with the shopping center being different. It's hard to know if we'd even see that behavior anymore. That was the original reason they were put into there.

But if I recall, they also, because for that example, but also we didn't have a roundabout. Right.

So the roundabout may also serve as a detriment.

To blow people down.

Right. Or you may have. a less experienced driver suddenly find themselves on top of the round. So, you know, it's kind of, those are things we'd probably want to observe if we took them out just to make sure. Um, but I, that that's why they're there.

Yeah. Yeah.

Um, by the way, I forgot to make a pitch during my city manager's report that I could, I make now cause it's tied to the library. Um, We have been hiring some aides as we work toward being open more. But I do know we're about to announce that we need teenagers for our library pages. So if you know teenagers who are looking for their summer that might be a job they could continue on during the next school year. It's a great opportunity to get a nice part-time job. The library is busy and we need some more hands to just kind of keep it looking nice. So I know we're about to announce and we'd love, if you know teenagers who are looking for that summer opportunity, send them our way.

Is there a minimum age that you define teenager by hiring laws?

I think they have to be able to get a work permit from the high school, and I think they have to be at least 14 to legally get a work permit. But I don't know what this school district, if they have any additional rules.

Okay, because I'm thinking of somebody, but I don't think they're that age.

I'll double check. Okay. But that's our requirement, that the school issue them a work permit. Okay.

Great. It's a great opportunity for any young people. Okay, so no more questions from council. I'll open up to public comment. Mr. Muller.

Well, I have to say I didn't expect to comment on this item, but it does seem like there should be some public input. It's not the only public left. I'm going to input. How's that? So just sort of listening to the report. Great job, Julian, on getting the cost down. But it seems to me, just a couple of thoughts. One is it sounds like there's donor expectation about the sign and the fountain. So it seems like those should go ahead for sure. It seems to me that on the... the functional items, the catwalk on the roof and stuff like that, just for building safety and functionality, that seems like a no-brainer as well. So it seems like the three of the four items are pretty locked in. It seems to me that the stamping on the pavement is sort of a nice to have thing. I didn't hear any statement about there was a donor expectation for that. So it does seem that that would be the one thing if you were looking for a budget reduction, that's the nice to have one that could be cut. But to the extent that moves ahead, I really would urge the council to go with the architect's recommendations. No one here is a professional architect. They've done a whole complex there. They've thought between the landscape architect and the architect, they thought about all the elements and how they go together. So I would really urge that you rely on their professional judgment as to what sort of a pattern and color would go with the rest of the facility. Thank you very much.

Madam Mayor.

Thank you.

Yes. Maybe just for the benefit of the public who heard the speaker. So the stamp concrete idea came out of a discussion when the council listened to the community. We had a big session and we actually moved the parking lot down to create what's now kind of that outdoor gathering space. There were people who felt there was too much parking on the property and that we needed to reduce it. And The compromise idea was that we would make the eastern half of the parking area. have a look and feel of a plaza if we were able to block it off. I can tell you right now we're under parked, but that's partly because it's new and we got a lot of people coming to the library. We won't really know what our true parking need is probably for another six months. But that was the Genesis. So Mr. Mueller's right there. That didn't come from a donor request. It came out of that conversation that happened with the community.

When you mean under-parked, do you think we have too much parking?

Right now, we have far too little.

Little, yeah. I agree. And we haven't even had an event yet.

We've had people in our staff parking. We've had lots full at peak hours. I imagine they're finding places to park. Luckily, I'm not hearing they're parking in the neighborhood, which was a big goal for us, is that they don't park in the neighborhoods. Right. But... Things will change right now. It's exciting. And people are coming a lot. And I think when the weather gets better, more people will walk and bike to the library. So that'll start to temper that demand. People will develop their use pattern. for the library when they're going to go that fits. But right now, if I go down and talk to staff, it's just nonstop enthusiasm, which is wonderful and to be expected. But right now, parking is at a premium down there. So a lot won't be closed any time soon other than when we do this work, if you commission it.

I was in the other day and talked to one of the librarians and asked how it was going. And she said, we are so busy, I go home exhausted. But at least I sleep well every night. She's like, I can't believe how many library cards we've issued.

Great. Thank you for the public comment. Are there any public comments online? Okay, great. So I'll bring it back for discussion. I think Mr. Mueller brought up a really good point about the stamping of the parking lot and also the city managers. I've been at the library a few times this past week, and there are a lot of cars parked there in the eastern half. So... Um, I don't know if we want to save on costs, but maybe we postpone, I mean, I know you asked about, you know, does this get done in the summer, but if people are using the parking lot and they're parking all over the stamped, uh, asphalt, you know, maybe should we wait and see if, you know, how many people are parking before we spend 70 or, uh, you know, spend the, uh, the $70,000 to stamp it, maybe we should just wait and just see how that shakes out. I mean, if people are going to be parking all over it, you know.

But if it's only three or four days, I would suspect that once summer hits and you were talking about the weather getting better, there's going to be a lot less vehicles there. And when school's out, less vehicles around in total around here. But I mean, if it's a three or four day inconvenience, While it's done, I don't think that's a big deal. As long as it's accessible and people who need to drive can.

No, I mean, my point wasn't just the three or four days, but it was just if it's going to be... If people are going to be constantly working there all the time and just covering up the nice cobble pattern, is it worth spending the $70,000? Because the whole concept was... I get it. It would be...

less parking lot look like and but if people are going to be using it for parking then maybe it's not worth spending the seventy thousand dollars and or or we should wait and just see how what the usage is but i think the vision was it could be a way to sort of block off so that we could have art shows and other types of events out there i don't want to lose that opportunity to have that community gathering space to accommodate vehicles maybe that occasionally need to move somewhere else. Because the whole idea was to finish it so that, you know, the library is physically smaller than I think our ideal original vision was. But there's so much fantastic outdoor space that we could create an expansion for concerts or events or children's gatherings or something. And I don't want to lose that momentum we have.

Okay. I get your point, but I don't want to lose the momentum. Yeah, just given the public comment. Yeah.

Okay. And a few days of people having to park somewhere else should make it.

Okay. Councilmember Kendall, did you have something you want to add?

Yeah. First, I wanted to assure the public we are not going to have concerts there. No, we're not.

I didn't mean that.

I didn't choose. Second... I was a big proponent of the stamping. I don't love it. I've been out there and I think it's beautiful the way it is and I'm not sure how much it adds to stamp it. so i am i was ambivalent but i'm not i i was a big cheerleader for stamping because i had more of a vision of a pattern where it looked like uh more than a parking lot with random stamps on it so if you if you had wanted to put it over for a year i would probably be fine with that if everyone wants to stamp it i would probably be fine with that too so anyway so

Yeah, I mean, I think ambivalent is a good word. I guess I am also ambivalent now that we're here, because I think also initially I was wanted the I thought it would look, you know, neat or, you know, but I guess at this point, I'm sort of ambivalent as well. So I'm I could go either way. I'm not going to, you know, stand. I'm not going to vote down all the other things. But I'm just saying if we wanted to save money or maybe postpone for a little bit to see how much use that side of the parking lot gets used, then I'm okay with that too.

Well, we can take the alternative geometric patterns that are exampled here, just because the architect doesn't like them. If you don't like them and you like the other idea, put that forward.

Here's a picture of it. I personally like it better, but I personally agree with David that for work, I hire experts. And when I hire an expert, I don't overrule them because that's what they do for a living. So i'm not gonna you know tell these guys they're wrong and we can you know i know better and we you know that's just not gonna happen but at the same time meh you know so anyway yeah i agree with the 70 000 i agree that it's okay if we put it off for a year but if everybody else is enthusiastic about it i'm not gonna hold it up all right is she enthusiastic

I'm actually not. I think it's pretty extraneous personally. It doesn't wow me, but I also, if we are going to move forward with it, I would recommend that we do follow the architect's direction and do what they're suggesting. But frankly, as a taxpayer, I wouldn't spend $70,000 on stamping the parking lot and creating this, you know, demarcation because if there's an event going on there, I'm not paying attention to the parking lot. I'm paying attention to the art or the performance or whatever's happening. Like I'm not looking down at the ground. It's not important to me. So I'm, I'm, I, I, ambivalent, but I think this is pretty extraneous.

All right.

Council Member Paulson, do you have an opinion?

I think it's been said. I don't think it's a major issue right now.

Would the council be in favor of asking Julian to go back to the architect? And like I said, we're not going to overrule the architect, but to say if there's some... more pattern like that they feel would be a good mix and wouldn't take away from the library. If they could creatively come up with a pattern that might be more of what we're looking for. And the answer may be no, right? You know, Julian, you, you may say I've already done that and this is what they came up with. So, and that would be the end of the conversation that I guess, is that what's already happened? Yeah.

I was going to ask if I could ask a question from Mr. Skinner. Because the city attorney and I are guilty of having a side conversation over here. If we don't stamp the parking lot, is there the potential to color it? Because black tops can get hot. So is there a potential to lighten the color some? And is that saving any money or is that a big part of that cost anyway?

It's saving some of the costs. There are, I'm not sure on what that aesthetic would be. You obviously couldn't, you wouldn't really do the patterns without the, pattern than a cobblestone pattern. So if you didn't want to stamp it, but you just wanted to color it, you basically have like a big sand colored or whatever color you wanted. And I'm not sure what it would look like at that point.

It would probably make the architects cringe. Yes.

the question but you know on a 75 degree day when we had the grand opening the blacktop didn't bother me when i was out here yeah it's just another it's just a flexibility thing if you're looking at the site overall you have the long space you have the granite thing to have this other type of space it's it's not a need to have you can certainly put tables out there on the blacktop like we did with the ribbon cutting this was just part of the of it is so and i'm sure i'm going to get asked when we come back and do this later yes there's no rush in doing this now you can do this on old asphalt you just have to clean it off and do it first it'll cost more everything costs more down the road um will it be a significant amount more probably not i mean they're not already on the site they were mobilizing in to do to push it, but there is the option to come back and do that in the future. Take a look at how the parking use is, see what the need is for having to lock it up for events, and from that, decide if we want to move forward and do it at some other time. That's an option, too.

Okay. Okay. Yes, go ahead, Council Member.

Sir, I was just going to say, I vote for that.

Yeah. Yeah.

Vote for the postponing? We got a resolution, so you guys have to change it.

Yeah, so I think we have to make a motion with amendments. Let's see. Okay, does someone want to make a motion?

Before we do, does any council member have anything on any of the other things on there?

We're all good with the rest of them.

Okay. Okay.

So I will then make a motion to amend the resolution that would approve all costs except for the enhanced paving of the parking lot. Is that sufficient, Mr. City Attorney? Thank you.

I'll second.

Okay. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? Great. Motion passes. All right.

I was just going to note, so that it's all clean, we'll take that direction. We'll act. We'll put on the consent calendar as an informational item what that final number was for the next meeting.

Great. And thank you again, Mr. Skinner, for all of your work on this. Excellent. Thank you. All right. So that brings us to adjourn. All right. We're going to adjourn this meeting to Wednesday, May 6th, 2026. We will all see you then. Thank you. Have a great evening.