City Council - Special Meeting

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the May 6th, 2026 special meeting at the Larkspur City Council. I'm Mayor Stephanie Andre, and I'm going to call the meeting to order. Can I get a roll call, please? Council Member Pando.

I'm here.

Council Member Margulies. I'm here.

Council Member Way?

Here. Here, Andre. Here. Thank you. All right, so we're going to head right into our business item for the special meeting, which is consideration of a request to allow dogs to be off-leash at Niven Park. Mr. City Manager, do you want to give a staff report, or is Mr. Stone going to give a staff report?

It's me.

Okay, great.

All right, so council members, we're here this evening to hold this hearing to discuss the request that the council received to consider allowing dogs to be off leash in the park. So that's our purpose this evening. What you're doing tonight is if you're inclined to take action, the action would be to identify the area that you think should be designated a dog park at Niven and adopt the resolution to that effect. Before I start to go through my analysis, I wanted to clarify, and I mentioned this later in the report, we provided you with one resolution based on our analysis. You can take a different action. We would take that as direction in this evening, and we'd clean it up and bring you a resolution on the consent calendar at the next meeting. That's something we sometimes do. That wouldn't slow us down.

I know.

That won't slow us down if we do that. I'm going to try to project best I can. So apparently we didn't realize we didn't have microphones available. So I apologize. Okay. So in the report, I'm just going to sort of go over key points in the report. Staff went through an analysis looking at Niven Park and trying to think about the perspective of different park patrons who would come and how they would experience the park if dogs were allowed to be off-leash. So the first question we asked ourselves was if there's going to be an unfenced dog park, which is the request, what should that look like? The actual request that you got was for a particular portion of the park, not the entire park. We started to think about the perspective of different patrons and particularly the patrons we talk about in the park who may have concerns about being around off leash dogs. And when we think about the use of the park and the assignment of rules to the park, we're trying to think about how to be clear with the public about the experience that they're going to have at the park. And if we make any portion of the park off leash for dogs without fencing that area of the park in, we're not really able to guarantee to any other patron of the park that they won't come into an encounter with an off-leash dog. So given that perspective and given the desire to have the rules be as clear as possible, staff is recommending that if you want there to be off-leash dogs at Niven, you just designate the entire area of Niven Park as being a dog park with the exception of anything that's fenced in like Alex's playground. We think that would be the clearest thing for any patron to make a decision about whether they feel comfortable being in Niven Park. Secondly, in past discussions about dogs being off-leash, and even I think from some of your speakers who came to public comment when this issue first arose, was a question of whether you might set a time limit for when dogs should be off-leash. Our police asked that we not do that because they've had experience trying to deal with that situation in San Anselmo, and they find that they actually tend to get a lot of calls around the transition time from off leash to leash. And that's really not the best use of police resources. So we would recommend you not establish a time limit for whatever designation you come up with. We put out the option. This isn't what the folks who turned in the petition requested, but we did put out the option to the council to talk about tonight, which is there are essentially two large grass areas in Niven Park. And the council could certainly consider whether the solution to allowing other patrons to experience the status quo, that is to not encounter an off-leash dog, is to fence in a portion of the park and designate that as a dog park. And the two scenarios, we just proposed fencing an entire area and gave you rough estimates. But the rule of thumb is it's about $100 per linear foot to install it fits. Other considerations that you'll find talked about in the staff report, I'm not going to spend time on them in my presentation. We did address some folks are worried the city takes on liability by creating unfenced off-leash docked park areas. We do not believe that to be the case. I did want to remind the council there are two significant residential neighborhoods right adjacent to the park. And as we talk about in the staff report, there may be considerations there in terms of the interaction of off-leash dogs with private property adjacent to the park. And then lastly, I do think the council needs to consider that it's probably setting a precedent, and we are aware that there are other neighborhoods in town that might come with similar requests if an off-leash dog park is established in Niven Park. We've provided you, as I said, with the resolution that encompasses our analysis and would designate the entire park as an off-leash dog park. We've suggested a pilot period of one year to see how it's working so you'd be able to revisit the decision one year from today if you were to adopt that resolution. As I indicated, this is an open discussion for you and decision you can designate something totally different and then we would just write that up in a resolution for you. And then I just thought I'd leave up on the screen. That's the diagram and the staff report at the back of the staff report that shows sort of the two maximum fenced areas that you could create that staff identified. This is a diagram we had from our Alex's playground work. So it doesn't quite go all the way to the edge of the park on the south side there. For reference point, what you're seeing on the left of the screen is generally north, and what you're seeing on the right screen is generally south. The other thing is that we also pointed out in the report there may be folks who are okay with there being off-leash dogs in Niven Park, but have concerns about off-leash dogs interacting with children, and one of the options the council may want to talk about is whether an appropriate thing to do is to fence in the play area that's in kind of the middle to southern middle part of the park so we've provided you with information about that that's on that diagram too and then i think there are two printouts of aerials of the park that people can grab if they want to point to things as they talk with you council so they're in the sides of the room they're very lightweight so feel free folks if you want to use that to illustrate something But now Madam Mayor, I turn it back to you for questions.

Great. Thank you for the staff report. I'll open up to council first to ask any questions of the city manager. Yes.

First of all, recognizing we don't have microphones. If at any time people in the back can't hear, just raise your hand or something. We'll do our best to project. It may be an ongoing issue. So just you have to remind us every now and then. um first question is uh one of the diagrams that you showed uh has Niven Park uh which is attached to a path a multi-use path my understanding is the multi-use path is a no uh dogs have to be under their owner's control but not a leash required path and I just wanted to clarify That's not what we are talking about tonight. So even if we decide we want leashes on dogs in Niven Park, it's not going to affect that multi-use path. Is that accurate?

That's correct. The path is the 90-something percent of that path is owned and maintained by the County of Marin. And the County of Marin allows off-leash dogs on its paths. The small portion that the city owns and maintains, we have a longstanding agreement with the county that we would treat it as if it were part of the county path. So we are not discussing the path in any way tonight. And the county's off-leash rules apply on the path.

OK. Thank you for clarifying that. My second question is, I have been a resident of Greenwood Gray for 15-plus years. I don't call this being an issue. And it seemed to be become an issue when there was some enforcement measures, which then, and I'm trying to understand the history. Were there complaints which triggered the enforcement? Is that how we ended up here today?

Yes. So the city and central and police for this type of issue, we don't patrol for it. It's completely a complaint driven issue. And so the police chose to do an enforcement action based on complaint. Thank you.

So I'll follow up on the Central Marin Police question. So Central Marin Police serves three jurisdictions, Larkspur, Coronadera, and San Anselmo. And what we've tried to do historically is be consistent in the application of our ordinances between those three towns. Not always, but for uniformity for enforcement responsibilities of law enforcement. Do any of those other two jurisdictions have a public park that has off-leash dog permitted that we know of?

Yes.

Okay.

San Anselmo allows dogs off-leash in the mornings in, I believe it's Memorial Park, but in one of their parks. I think it's Memorial Park.

So that's the reference that Central Maryland Police have issues with The timing, because the timing, having a specific timeframe made it difficult for them to engage in the proper enforcement.

Having a specific timeframe has resulted in when the time turns over. I don't know if it's at nine o'clock in the morning, they get a lot of calls at nine o'clock. Why aren't you here enforcing the rule?

And that's you. And Corbin era has no off leash area except for their enclosed dog park, which is in their town park, and we have an enclosed dog park, Piper Park, but those are the only two off-leash areas that I'm familiar with.

I don't know if San Anselmo has a fenced-in dog park. They do. I don't know that. Yeah, in Wrightville. Okay, so that would be another area in their jurisdiction.

Yeah. Sorry, any other questions? I'm getting through this cold, but having to yell is going to make it harder on me. Not at this point. Okay, great.

Any other questions? Well, yeah, I just want to say for full public disclosure that I need to report that there was a petition that was circulated in the neighborhood. That petition was signed by my husband as Mike and Sarah Margulies with my email address added. I have yet to make up my mind on this discussion. I would like to remain part of the public conversation. and have reviewed all of the public comment. And so I just want everybody in the public to understand that I did not sign the petition. And I am still very much open to hearing what the public wants to say and would like to remain part of the conversation. I also live in Cape Marin. And I have two dogs. I currently walk my dogs on leash always because that is the law. Actually, they could be off leash on the path, but I happen to have one dog that can be aggressive. So I keep her on leash always. I'd like to address what Scott said. Just wait one minute. I'm sorry. Yeah, we're going to open up for public comments. So having said that, I do want to ask city manager, you mentioned that we own some land that we share with the county.

A very small portion of the county path is technically within the city of Larkspur. And we have an agreement with the county that we will maintain the portion that's in the city. But As part of that agreement, we agreed that the county's rules would apply on that path. Because otherwise, you'd have this tiny little piece of what the public perceives as the county's path.

Right.

Having a totally different set of rules. And we felt that, I should say we, this is an agreement that's from like 40 years ago.

Okay.

That the county rules would apply for the entirety of the path. So such a tiny piece of the path was in the city.

I see. So it's just a piece of the path. A very small piece of the path. Okay. So the actual piece of land that extends beyond the butterfly garden is county-owned land?

No, that's city land.

That is city land. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Okay.

All right, so right now then, what we are going to do is we're going to opening up for public comments. And just given the number of people who wish to comment, can I just see a show of hands of how many people wish to comment? Okay, so we normally give three minutes. I'm going to ask people maybe to keep your comments to two minutes, if that's okay, just so we get through everyone's comments. We do want to hear from everyone who wishes to speak. So we're going to have public comments, and then what happens is we close public comment, and then we're going to bring it back so that council can deliberate. So that's the process. And so this is public comment time, but I will ask that when we close public comment and it comes back to council, that that's our time to discuss among ourselves what we want to do. All right, so we'll open up for public comment. Is it Allison? Do people just stand up here or how do you know? I'm sorry, I didn't see the podium. OK, so if people could line up at the podium or come to the podium if you don't have a public comment.

What was your question?

Uh.

Okay, I have the timer here. So we're going to do a timer. It's two minutes. And if you could please state your name and what neighborhood you're from or if you're at Larkspur or outside of Larkspur, that would be great.

Before you start, I just want to say if anybody has trouble getting up and going to the podium and they need to talk from where they are, that's acceptable as well.

Great. All right. Thank you. Yes.

All right. Good evening. Mayor, Honorable Mayor, Council Members, ladies and gentlemen. It was indeed a very pleasant surprise to see the city put together for providing this. Thank you very much to the city manager and whoever else worked on this. Much appreciated. My comments are as follows. This is not a broad policy change. It's a very targeted, low-risk pilot to solve a specific, very local problem. So the oval was functioning as a community space. It brought people together, especially seniors, and created a daily rhythm of connection, activity, and informal stewardship. Since enforcement intensified, this space is actively, decisively done. What was once a vibrant gathering place now sits largely upon use. We're not asking you to take the risk. We're requesting you to test the solution that has been proposed. This is exactly the kind of situation where a pilot program makes sense, when there's a strong community interest in the history of successful informal use and care about to evaluate the outcomes. There is a strong community support, a condition as we all recognize as signed and delivered. At the public quarters, it is all about balance, making rules that are needed while allowing flexibility where it clearly works. And more importantly, enabling public spaces to actually serve the people they are intended for. Let's approve the trial. Let's evaluate them together. Let's bring the oval back to life and the rest of the park. So be the choice in a way that is respectful, responsible, and community driven. Because ultimately this isn't about policy. It's about people. It's about restoring a simple, everyday place where neighbors connect, seniors gather, and the community actually happens. So thank you very much to the council for sponsoring this. We very much appreciate it.

Yes, one minute. We'll bring that up. Yeah, we'll bring that up. I would just leave it there. Hi, friends and neighbors. I'm Tom Nord, and I live in Cape Verde. In fact, I'm going to show you where I live, right here, because I'm sort of like the key stakeholder of the impact of what happens at this park. So I've been there over 30 years, and I know, I mean, it's an amazing place to live. We have these two developments here, and there's town here. Growth Team, Growth Team, Actually, what is this generated in this part actually sort of. Growth Team, it's bigger okay so from my perspective. Growth Team, Like to have the Council, thank you just on the dog park but overall use of. Growth Team, One of the challenges has been. Growth Team, Only a few minutes, but there's been Google buses that would park here, I have to drop off four o'clock in the morning, either just running I mean it was like it's in my head okay so that's one thing. on and off dog behaviors and the dynamic between dogs that are on leash and off leash can be, it can get riled up and it riles up the owners. And so it can get pretty loud and stuff. And I have one extreme example was a woman set up a, one of the agility courses we're doing and came out, you know, like six o'clock in the morning, But what I think of the suggestions, I believe that this area here, whether fast or not, would be fantastic for the off-leash because I think the sand would condensate more over the water and allow all the socialization, all that good stuff to happen. I really, even this, I'm would be very disappointed if that was fenced in or allowed to be completely off-leash because I've experienced the off-leash behaviors for years and years. So I guess I'll stop there.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

I didn't really prepare for the talk for this, but I live in Cape Moran and our house backs onto the park. And I have a dog. So it's a small dog. And I also have kids. I've been living there for 13 years. I think that we have enough area along the walkway. And also there's area from here, there is a pathway that goes both directions. And then over here where there's a butterfly garden, there is an area where we can play It's away from the houses where people live. And then the fact that the entire walkway, I can walk with the dog and then there are some other green areas. I'm happy with that. And I do feel that having a sticky off-leash dog can have some issues with people living there because of the noise. There's one because some different dogs have different smells. The other thing is off-leash, some dogs are big. And we don't know if every dog is going to behave. Most of them, I interact with a lot of the dogs because I do work there. And I feel bad actually talking against it. But I do feel that having all dogs in the smaller area, definitely not the whole area, because there is a lot of kids there. Even this area, because they can easily develop. There's nothing around them. having any kind of closure to make the area look ugly, like it doesn't look as good as it used to look. I think for the people who live there in the neighborhood, I think it's for them, it's nice. And also for the kids and smaller dogs, initially bigger dogs, if they're not making it. So I would say let's use the rest of the area. It's really nice that everybody can meet. I'd love to meet everybody also.

thank you very much for your comment hi i'm corey superstein my wife and i have lived in cape moraine for 33 years we raised our two children in the community and we've got a few dogs and for over three decades uh the leash rule requirements has only rarely been where people would come out and say, we want to let you know that we might start getting tickets when we do playground, for example. But there was a status quo. There was almost a compact that the space could be used and shared by families, by children, by dog owners who have their dogs both on leash and off leash. And the community of people who gather there regularly in the morning and in the afternoon have the opportunity to get to know one another, which is not something that happens when you take your dog along the county path. It's a very different type of experience. I was surprised at just how deeply affected I was by the loss of this gathering, by the loss of this community, especially in a time when community and connection is so important. All I would like is a return to the status quo. I wouldn't call it a dog park. We have been able to manage, particularly when we know what the complaints are, and in this case, nobody came out to give us any idea why all of a sudden community officers were destroying our community by coming out twice a day and just handing out $192 tickets. $250. HAB-Masyn Moyer- pay that it happened literally overnight and without any more and because. HAB-Masyn Moyer- damage. HAB-Masyn Moyer- So my my hope is that.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Can I ask you to finish i'm sorry.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- My hope is that the Community of this Council can just return to the status quo. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Thank you very much.

Hi, my name is Denise Rocha, and I live in the townhomes right by Niven Park. It's a great park. It really is. First, I want to thank the City Council and all of you for doing the work. I'm super impressed. I've never seen anything like it, so thank you for taking it seriously. I think Corey said better than I can how important the park is to all of us. It really does provide a community at a time when so many people feel isolated. and bonds, and it creates a safer environment. We check up on neighbors. We know what's going on. We know when there are issues. And I think the dog owners are good, kind, responsible people. If there are problems, we try and manage them. And I've seen them manage many times. If there are issues, as Corey said, my hope is that what we can do working with you is get some kind of feedback mechanism so that we know if we don't even know if there are issues There are issues, but they are. Maybe we can work out a way as a community so that we know what the issues are. We try and deal with them on our own, because issues come up. But if we don't know about them, we can't address them. We would like to be as proactive as possible. And I would just leave it and say, this is a community that really does care. We care about the people. We care about the community. We care about the animals. I hope we can work together to make it successful.

Hi there. I'm Mike Margulies. I'm the one that signed my wife's name. I felt like it would be remiss if I didn't at least say, like, come clean on that and also say a few words. I know many of the people in this room. I also, like Sarah, I have two dogs who live in Cape Marin. We do walk our dogs on leash, but I have no objection to off-leash dogs. I'm not into fences. I don't think that we should have fences. I don't think that'll improve the park experience. If there's a way to restrict off-leash dog use, throw the ball and stuff to a particular area, that's important. I think that's a great idea. There are some dog owners that are less conscientious than others. I don't know how to deal with that issue. I'm afraid there might be some moral hazard in promoting an off-leash dog park. to folks outside of our neighborhood, outside of our community, or to invite more people to sort of like not pay attention to their dogs, which I think is an issue. But on the whole, I'm in favor of promoting off-leash, the existence of an off-leash dog park. I agree with Denise that, or whoever it was, I'm sorry, I don't want it to be like known as a dog I really don't, I don't think that that's something that we should advertise or evangelize because I like the intimate nature of our community and our neighborhood and the sort of the finite nature of the dog owners and the dog community here. So, thanks. Thank you.

Denise, would you like to go over to the board? Because I want to point out something. I'm Dana White. I'm Troll Fisher. And then there's a big sunny age away for three years. 30 years at the parkside school. The other one over there. Just right below the oval is that path that we were talking about the other side of the street. I'm sorry. The map. I'm sorry. Wow. Okay. There we go. Much better. It's kind of dangerous depending on the hour you go there. Although a lot of us now are avoiding walking our dogs off leash in the mobile or the other places, we're forced to go on the path. Some of the owners here, maybe those of you who live there, have been on that path at times when the bikes come screaming by. Generally, when the ferry comes in or leaves in the morning, it's a different story. So far, I have not seen a dog-bike interaction yet, but boy, I've seen some close calls. Lastly, just a few more things. Six-year-old Golden, whose objective in life is to play fetch. And I just love it that when we can't get into the little oval, then I'm forced to go along that pathway. So I got to look this way, our bike's coming, this way, our bike's coming, then I can throw it. So there's a real need now to say, okay, well, let's get off the path and make it back to the oval. I think that would be really helpful. Anyway, as far as the draft report, the staff report goes, I think that's really dynamite stuff. I also would... I'm not so clear about the need for a fence because that kind of makes it a dark part. Maybe we start off without a fence and see how it goes and then figure out a fence would be my thought. Anyway, lastly, I told you to start with this, but a long time ago when I had dark there, I was on the Court of Merit Planning Commission for a long time. And I really respect the time you guys have the staff effort you're putting in here tonight. I've been through all of this a lot, and the late night meetings used to really drive me crazy. I hope tonight isn't that late, but thank you very much.

Hi, I'm Elaine Foreman, and unlike a lot of people, I have not lived here for 30 years, and I live up the hill. And I would say, as somebody who lives at the top of the hill, it's really hard to form community at the top of the hill. You don't have people standing around on your hill just like this. And so I do consider Niven to be my part as much as the people who live surrounding it. And both I and my dog have found community. And when we're away, we both miss people that we see in the morning and the evening. And so I am very appreciative of the fact that you are thoughtfully considering this and think the idea of doing this as pilot is a great one because it doesn't set the stone forever. You can see how it goes. So I thank you for your time with us.

Thank you. Hi there. My name is David Jaffe. I've been here for many decades and I see a lot of familiar faces. Niven brings us together. It's a communal place. Having a large breed dog means that my animal needs to run and currently using the multi-use path is not a good option. I've seen close calls, someone else has said, it's crowded and also dogs have gotten injured recently. So we try to avoid that. There are places to go in and around Niven, but it's inconsistent in terms of signage as well as the central police not entirely knowing which plots of grass are to be allowed and which ones aren't. For example, this one here is a tap. This is what the old playground is, and we're not sure. Is that part of Niven or is that pomos because the grass dips in? So we're not even sure. So I'm so grateful that you're doing the hard work of pulling this all together, but finding something consistent, finding something that's coherent, and finding compromise is what we're asking for. Both sides have it. plenty to offer. But I just want to get one more thing if I can unlock my phone. It is I do agree fences time limits. Let's use this as a pilot program. And the last thing is perhaps a Niven dog park ambassador, where there's a number of us here who as long as it doesn't go to our heads, we would love to help nudge the humans to do what's right. And we already do so. We already try to just model good behavior, pick up dog poop that's not our own, gentle reminders here and there. So maybe factor that in if there's some way, because I heard also, how do we have some feedback? If there's a number of people, and I could nominate a few right now, that would be wonderful too. Dog ambassador. Thank you. You're welcome.

Hi, my name is Julie Blake. I live at Gregston Circle for 30 years. Here we go again. I'm not a dog owner, but I have always loved seeing the dogs at the social hour. My grandchildren, more or less, grew up there 17 and 15. They would make a beeline for the little playground over there all the time. Never have them attack my dog, hurt my dog, or anything else that And they did not have a fence around it either. It was just a place where kids run over and they were all playing there. And the dogs just fit right in. In the morning, I wake up, I was right on it. And if they hear the dogs playing, I'm like, what happened to the dogs? I was mystified. I went out at night, it's like a vacant lot. Where is anybody? I was horrified. Did I not get a message? And somebody said, oh, they're giving out tickets.

We're not allowed to have the dogs there.

After 30 years? What? Since when? I mean, I just couldn't believe it. There was no real notice about it. There wasn't any new sign for that. It was just like, bam, dead, gone. And I mourned it. And I don't, like I say, I don't even own my own dog. It's just not the purpose of that space was built to accommodate all of us and to become and have fun, have a little social hour. So what's the purpose of that big, rassy, empty place now? What is the purpose of it? Hello, my name is Sherry St. John.

And like others, I'm a neighbor and I take her in. My backyard is right next door to Tom Miller's. So my gate opens up right where the white spot is there. And I also have a large breed dog who can be overly friendly, as my neighbors all know. So he definitely stays on leash when we walk. Although he loves to run along the creek portion off that multi-use path that way down by the creek carrying the biggest log he could possibly find. He's the greatest boy in the world. Many of you have probably seen him. I just wanted to add one thing which was, first of all, I very much appreciate the presentation and saw the signage in the park coming. The one thing I was surprised and a little bit dismayed is the consideration for the fences in the sense of, or I realize it's involved just a fence area. And that community park is open space and being able to wander through. And there was a consideration, oh gosh, 10, 15 years ago when we were looking for a Larkspur dog path. I'm sorry, Larkspur dog path. part of designating part of this area. And I know the neighbors kind of on both sides were really concerned about that. In a large part because of losing that large, grassy community space where you can watch kids throw Frisbees and, you know, people are walking through and literally I was just walking through with my dog around this kind of figure eight before the meeting. So I appreciate, you know, the proposal for perhaps a pilot period, I would ask if there's consideration though for a fenced area that that would be given a lot of due consideration because I think it would really change the entire nature of that park.

And what other people have spoken about, about that community gathering place.

The one exception is potentially a low-mode fence just to, you know, keep that smaller playground safe would make sense. But a large dog fence, I think, would completely change the nature of our community park. Thank you very much. Thank you.

And I've been living in the community for 20 years. We've had a dog as long as we've lived here. And we just got our third standard poodle, who's three, today. And anyway, the point is, And we chose to get another dog because of the quality of life that the dog offers. It keeps us moving. It keeps us active. And this dog is social. It's our only social poodle because the other two are rescues. She's from a breeder and she loves friends. It's the only way she's satisfied. So at night we would go down and she embrace all these wonderful puppy dogs at the same age and she has friends and she's fulfilled and I can hike her seven, eight miles but I won't scratch that itch. My dog needs to run and she needs to play and she needs dog friends. And quality of life is having a furry love in our house and we dote on her and she brings us joy. And meeting this community with all of their dogs has enriched our lives. We have a new pack of friends and the quality of life that we look forward to. And it's a real bummer. I agree, the fence would ruin the whole vibe. The beauty of where we live is not being enclosed. And I think just that freedom to watch the dogs. And I know that we are also conscientious of seeing young kids who are playing sports. We will gladly move up the field and give them that. And we are not like this is ours. And that's the way it is. It's really about looking out for all. And that's the beauty of this community.

Hello, friends and neighbors. And thank you again to the council. I'm not going to repeat everything that everybody else has said. I'm going to try to just hit a couple of bullet points. My name is Rob Hanson. I bought my home here in Cape Marin largely because of how dog-friendly the area was and how important this kind of community is. I'm also a small business owner in Larkspur and Bonner Shopping Center. And I own a dog. Multi-use, and let's just, I so encourage you guys to try a one-year trial period where we change the current law and allow dogs off-leash. And in the spirit of the multi-use space that Niven is known as, As everybody else has just said, let's not make it a dog park. Let's not make it a people-only park either. Let's allow multi-use space, like multi-use paths, but for the space. I also want to encourage, or let me phrase this differently, I'd like to discourage the idea of penalizing dog owners, using a law as a threat, basically, when someone's complaining. If there's a complaint, please tell us what it is. You know, we hear rumors. I don't know what the reality is. The city manager said that the police responded to complaints, but we don't know what those complaints are. I'm guessing they weren't, I see dogs without leash. I'm guessing from the rumors we've heard is that people don't like being woken up at 6.30 in the morning. Dogs are barking too much. Let's enforce those noise rules and let's have ambassadors, I nominate today, Let's have ambassadors who can, in a friendly way, approach the loud dogs and the dog's owners and fix the problem that exists rather than coming with a heavy hand and cause the whole community to be so disrupted. Thank you for your attention. And like everybody else has said, it's amazing that you guys are putting this much effort into this problem. It is a serious problem and much appreciated.

Hi, everybody. I'm Ruth Asuma. I live in Drake Street Circle. I haven't been home there for a while. But I am a non-dog owner. And this part is very important to me. I would love a dog. I just can't help it. So it's important for me to be able to walk down there to observe and be part of the community, even though I don't have a dog. And I sense that feeling as soon as you walk into that space. And thank you for the time you've put into all of this. It's been fabulous. And I like the part about the pilot program. I think that's a great idea. And the ambassador. I think that's fabulous. So thank you. Thank you. All right. Is there anyone else we'd like to speak?

Okay, thank you very much for your comments. We'll close public comment time now, and we're going to bring it back to council.

I'm sorry?

Oh, do we have any comments online? I'm sorry. Good question. Thank you.

For any raisings in our Zoom audience, there's no public comment.

Okay. All right, so we'll close public comment, and then we will bring it back to council, and this is our time to deliberate after having heard the public comments. We've read the staff report. We've also read all the comment letters that have come in on this specific topic. So I'll open it up now for comments, discussion from council members. Anybody want to start?

Yeah, I just apologize for being late. I was at the SMART meeting. A couple of questions, and if I missed it, excuse me. So one of the things that came up The last time we did this was the concern about wildlife around the water. Have we had any reports or any indication that there might be problems with wildlife or anything near the watershed?

I think you're referring to the discussions that occurred around Piper Park. The marsh around Piper Park is considered animal habitat. It's protected. That's not the case for Namibon Park.

And as far as you know, the Central Marin police, you know, going back as far as we can, five years, 10 years, you know, my number one concern is safety. You know, I think the community, you know, benefit of having dogs is abundantly clear from all the public comment. But, you know, someone getting, you know, sort of bumped over, somebody getting bit. Is there, have there been any reports in the last five or 10 years?

I haven't asked for that data, so I don't have the answer to the question.

That's it for now.

First of all, I want to thank everybody for coming out here. This is a community issue, and it really helps us to hear from the community. I want to thank everybody who wrote letters and emails as well. That helps inform us of how people are feeling. and so we can serve our community, which is our job. The way, I'll just kind of lay out the way I'm seeing this right now. There are two sides, and I know we have one side represented more than the other tonight, but there are two sides with two different points. And what we are trying to do is help everybody, have a compromise that's going to work for everybody. So what I see as one side, which is the people with the off-leash perspective, is community. We want to be able to go and have our dogs play and use the park the way it has been. I get it. From the people who are against that, the issues that I have gotten, not just from tonight, but from the emails and the letters that were written, I have the issue of bad actors. There are people who are causing problems, whether their dogs are not under control, They're coming out at six o'clock in the morning and waking people up, the bad actor issue. We do not have the resources as a small city to have police officers patrolling that area. The idea of an ambassador, some group from the park that helps deal with these issues is a phenomenal idea in my opinion. Right. If we can work something out where there are people that live there, that there's a process by which people can, you know, say, hey, there's a problem. You have an ambassador, you know, could you help me deal with this? And if you need to come to the city, you know, well, obviously we're there, but then. It prevents us from having to have a full-time person, you know, enforcing dog disputes. We just don't have the ability to do that. So I love that idea. So thank you for that. And hopefully we can figure out a way to do that. The other issue which I heard, which I think is also a relatively real concern, is if we shout, hey, we're a dog park, We're going to have everybody come storm the dog park with dogs from everywhere. And that is going to ruin both sides of this. It'll ruin the community field and also the people who are afraid of the bad actors because you're just bringing everybody. So I guess a question I have for staff, if hypothetically we wanted to continue this issue and maybe put it on a consent calendar and a future agenda. Is that something that could possibly be done to avoid the negative ramifications of a big announcement, if that makes sense?

I'm not sure I understand the question very well.

Sorry. I'm purposely trying to be a little vague, but I'll just let it calm down. Hypothetically, right? if instead of having something where we say, okay, dogs off leash are okay at this park, if there is a way we can not make an official decision today and then maybe in the future, put that on the consent calendar and have it go through without the fanfare and the attention, that that might solve problem number two of having people from all over Moran go to check out the new dog park, you know, that type of situation. Is that possible?

I think if you take any sort of vote as a group of five, that's a decision. And so I would encourage you not to get it. I'm not sure we gain enough with your suggestions.

Okay, so I am going to then open that question up if people, and obviously if you have a different perspective, you don't need to address that, but if you have a perspective of we may be able to solve everybody's issues by having an off-leash policy, but would like to avoid the ramifications of some big announcement. Again, I don't know if anybody's actually listening to this right now. If it's a big announcement, it's going to matter, you know, but.

Yeah, I hear what you're saying. I think, I think what we can do, because right now I think we can just remove some signs, right? I mean, I think at some point in time, if we decide to go down this path, I mean, the county path is off leash and there are a few signs and there's not a whole lot of fanfare and people know what the rule is and they just kind of, It is what it is. And so I think, again, I agree with you. I don't think we have to promote this as a big dog park, you know, office dog park. And we can just say, look, we're going to do some signs where we place a couple of signs that says, you know, dogs must be under voice control, you know, and maybe we could attach some other small rules around that. But I absolutely hear what you're saying. Like, we don't want, you know, we don't, I don't think we need to be promoting this, you know, at the city manager newsletter or on, you know, it's just, we're just going to, we can, we can just subtly change the rules if that's the way we decide to go.

Yeah.

So I'm going to take a counter argument to that. One of the things we have to do in this role is is as public policymakers, we have to balance as best as we can the needs of the entire community who utilize the public space that we all pay for and we all are part of the public space. And Nivid Park is a public park that's utilized by the entire community, not just the residents who live adjacent to the park, et cetera. And it's also used not just by people who own dogs. It's used by seniors. It's used by people with mobility challenges. It's used by a lot of kids. It's used by a lot of other people who have the right to utilize a public space in a public park. And we have to recognize that our role is to make sure we're making a decision that is not favoring one use by others, I believe, at the opportunity to diminish the use by others. And our primary need is to look at the health and safety of the community in our public spaces and not just People who might step on dog poop, but the people who work for us, who are our public employees, who do the yard maintenance, who mow the lawn, who do all of those things. And so even though this room is dominated now by people with dogs, they can still have a dog in that park. It just can't be off leash. And we have 18 parks in Larkspur. This is 17 parks?

Yeah, whatever.

We have a lot of parks in Marksburg. The consistency for making the ability for them to be used by all patrons is something I think we need to, as public policymakers, we need to value because we've done this debate in Piper Park. We've done this debate in Piper Park because we had a lot of complaints, um, of our maintenance workers having to dig through dog poop because let's face it, there are a lot of conscientious dog owners and there are a lot of really bad dog owners. There's both. And so as policymakers, we have to take into account both of those kind of people who are not going to be generously responsible. And I know the minute if we allow off-leash dogs in Niven Park, School park is next. They're already asking to take dogs off leash in another park. And what is that long-term effect going to be for the use by all patrons of our parks? And I just think it doesn't provide the balance that we need to do. What I'm seeing here is there is a lot of land around here in which dogs, if they need to run and carry big sticks and they need to be chasing balls, there is a lot of land around here. I understand there's a bike path and e-bikes with kids, but that's a whole nother goddamn story. But that's where the tug of war and the balance has to be. We have to decide. And it's not hard. It's not easy to do this. I mean, We're trying to make sure, because often what happens is the people who are passionate about an issue show up, but the people who are afraid of dogs, who are disturbed by dogs, who can't come to the park because they can't bring their kids because their kid is afraid of a dog, we don't hear them either. So we need to listen to both of those. I completely do not like the idea of fencing in that entire park. And fencing in that entire park would completely eliminate the vibe and the use of this park. We have a beautiful dog park just across the creek. I understand it's not as convenient as convenient for you all here. And I understand the community part, but the community park can still exist with the dog on a leash. So I'm sorry, that's where I'm standing in this. And I don't have a dog, two cats, but I also just want to close by saying these are public policy decisions that this council makes who really cares about this community and cares about this town. If you want to help make these decisions, I'm retiring.

So you all step up.

Step up and sit in these roles. Sit in these roles on the Park and Rec Commission who has to listen to these complaints. We have a Park and Rec Commissioner in the back. step up and commit yourself to making these decisions. And there may be a different decision you'll make and go for it. I mean, this is really why Larkspur and Greenbrae are great places to live is because people step up to try to make these hard decisions. And so you all do it too. Park and Rec is a great opportunity because you'll be making these policy decisions from the first go. So there's my speech.

So can I ask you a quick question? I mean, so what are your thoughts of just allowing the smaller, well, it's not on the screen, but the smaller piece that's towards the creek, allowing off-leash logs there? And because that was also an idea that came up. What are your thoughts on that?

What I understand is that's an off-leash area past Butterfly Garden that everybody's talking about. No, can you put up the, okay, so to the right of that little circle there. Allow me. The old playground.

Allow me.

Okay.

That area. This is the oval we're talking about.

Right, so.

Right now it is leashed, unleashed, must be unleashed.

The whole park is unleashed.

The whole park is unleashed. Exactly. The path here is voice control. Yes. This is where the crazy bikers are. Right, right. Okay, this little piece here is owned and maintained by Kate Moran. This little piece here is owned and maintained by Drake's Landing. This little piece here we think is city, but we're not sure. This little piece we think is city, but we're not sure. All we know is this is city, the little park is a city, and this is city.

So cross the bike path in the area that's by the creek.

This is city.

No, in the area that's past the creek that this lovely lady talked about earlier who said.

No, next to the butterfly.

mormon that's off leash that he said but there are no signs that say that area is owned by the city it is not considered by the city to be part of the park so it's it's um because it's not part of the park right correct well it's right there why don't people go over there well they need to have dogs okay anyways that's my question is would you be okay designating

that smaller area there as off leash or not?

Are you just... No, I think status quo is what we have to do. Okay. All right. Okay, Sarah.

Well, thank you all for coming out and sharing your thoughts on this. Having read all of the public comment, I will say we are seeing a large group of people who are in favor of this, both dog owners and not dog owners. and a much smaller group in opposition. You know, somebody who is out there regularly walking my dogs on leash. I'm often the one who has to say, can my dog say hello to you? Because my dog is overly friendly. I was there today with a neighbor and a little girl wanted to pet her dog and she had to tell the little girl, please stop petting my dog now. So I have never seen any real issues with children and dogs. In fact, for me, it's always been a very positive experience between children and dogs. I often am picking up other people's dog shit. I do that because I want to preserve the park and keep it clean. And I hope that if one day I'm not looking, well, my dogs are off leash, so that's not usually the case. But sometimes when people aren't looking, this happens. I like the idea of having a space for the dogs to be able to catch balls and run, and it's not safe to do it on the path. I would love to consider that area by the butterfly garden. as an area for that. It could use some improvements. It's not very conducive to sitting, whereas this area is more conducive to sitting. Having said that, if somebody's throwing the ball for their dog, they're not sitting. So it's, you know, I think I would also sort of like to return to the status quo, which is We haven't had a problem there for 30 years until somebody called in and made a complaint. And I do love the idea of having an ambassador. I've heard several people support that idea. How can we come together as a community and serve our community to try to find a solution that works for everybody? I understand, you know, do we know was the complaint about dogs being off leash or was it about noise or can we do that?

If you'd like, I would be happy to address that so there's no more rumors. The police are audited. The issuance of citations are audited. A police officer could be disciplined or potentially lose their job if they came out and did a citation action on a complaint that wasn't related. So I wanted to spell any myth that they got a complaint for something else and then showed up and enforced for a different reason. The complaint was because there was dogs off leash. And I think it had reached a point where enough complaints have been coming in periodically that the police made a decision that an enforcement action was necessary to remind folks what law is.

Thank you for that clarification.

Can I address one other thing while I just... The area that we don't really consider part of the park is down by the water. I would be hesitant that you get into a discussion about doing anything with it. I'm going to say there's at least five regulatory agencies that have a say in doing anything with that piece of property. The public works director is probably laughing. It's probably like 11 agencies. It's not worth the cost and headache to try to officially do anything at this point in time with the regulatory schemes around the creek.

Okay, thank you. So based on what I'm hearing from the public, I would be in favor of allowing dogs to be off leash in that small area or finding a solution to have a pilot program to test it. and to potentially work with some of the local patrons of the park, dog owners, and non-dog owners to be ambassadors to help us understand whether or not just keeping that area as off-leash is actually a realistic approach. Because dogs, when they're running, they're not like, oh, I can't run beyond this area. So, you know, owners will have to be very conscientious about keeping them on the grass, that small area. And I'm not sure how well that would work out. Also, potentially fencing in the small playground area, which was suggested. I don't like the idea of putting any fences in the park. I like the free-flowing aspect of it. but people seem to be concerned about children and the safety of children. You know, I don't allow my dogs to go into that area, and I don't ever really see dogs in that playground area, but maybe that's something we would want to consider.

Okay. All right, well, first of all, I want to thank everyone for your comments. Oh, do you want to go ahead?

Okay, go ahead. So, yeah, just to, I think, My fellow council members have said most of what I want to say, but just to weigh in briefly, I'm not a dog owner. I have a four-year-old and eight-year-old. We come to Niven Park a lot. And as I said before, safety is number one priority for me. I think the fact is, my assumption is that this park is de facto an off-leash. There's some responsible people, but it's been de facto off-leash. So You know, the second concern is hygiene or maintenance of the grounds or noise. The way it was and the way it would be under this pilot to me are probably going to be identical. So, and the safety concern I have as a manager, you know, I am concerned about bites and body slams. I have little kids. I think one of the, you know, good features of the new park with, you know, with the small fenced areas is if my kids are in the fenced area, HAB-Jacques Juilland, I know they're safe so it's almost like we're not. HAB-Jacques Juilland, Fencing and kids. HAB-Jacques Juilland, And so, you know addresses that concern for me personally looking over public comment, you know I saw 14 comments and it was pretty evenly split six four six against and two were pretty neutral. HAB-Jacques Juilland, And, and I think the point that Council member candle raised is pretty real in rocky memorial park and petaluma. they opened the policy and it was a big magnet effect. So a lot of people did come. And I think that's something we need to think about. I would personally say, I'm also, I think all of us are unanimous, we don't want another fence. That's not the point. Part of this, and I love the idea of an ambassador, part of what precipitated all this was because we're in a system where the police respond to complaints. We can't take that away unless we change this policy, which is why we're here. um, the, the way it was enforced kind of changed the tenor and the direction this whole debate. So that's, that's a separate issue, but I, I'm in two things come to mind for me personally, I almost feel like I'd want a shorter period because I really want to be sensitive to the people that council member way talk to. There are people who are afraid and uncomfortable and they're not here tonight and there's plenty of them and we're here to serve everybody. So I think if, this really could go well. And my personal belief, even with small kids as it would, I think that six months would be a time to determine that. The other is we did deliberate this in Piper for an early morning period. And I think that's a time when kids are going to school and it's sort of like we're really sharing now. We're not saying it's all dogs or it's all humans. We say it's for that limited time period. The staff objection is that's not enforceable. I think my earlier points enforcement was more of the problem. You know, we really, you know, we want to do something where the community knows that we set a rule that there's a morning hour where this is allowed and it's piloted for a short period of time. And we really want to give everybody some, you know, some benefit here, some sense of compromise. So I know, I know that complicates matters a little bit, but I prefer the morning hours and Petaluma did try that and it stopped the magnet effect. People are not going to come here just to walk their dog at 8 to 10 or whatever it is. So it sort of stems that. It stems the concerns. It creates a better balance. And I think the status quo, which some are advocating, I think it's worth an experiment. I think the community has voiced this all over. If other communities want to try this, other parks, we have 11, then so be it. But I think this is the most moderate measure that I think could satisfy a lot of people.

Okay. So, all right. So first of all, I want to thank everyone for coming to this meeting, for all your public comments, for your letters and your emails. It's been extremely helpful to us. Before I get into my own personal views, I mean, I'm going to try and summarize, you know, kind of what I heard. I think, you know, one of the, well, three issues in terms of um, allowing off-beach dogs. One was noise, um, two, you know, were bad actors, um, and three, safety of younger kids or other people, other patrons who might be, who want to use the park. Um, and then on the other side, um, you know, I heard a lot about the sense of community, um, where it was healthy for both humans and dogs to socialize and have a place to gather and certainly recognize that our public parks are for, as Council Member Way said, for everyone. So I think that includes dog owners and our dogs and also our families with young kids and so forth. So we are trying to serve our community our community, which many members of our community. I'm going to hit the easier thing. So no fences. I think we're going to check that off the list. No fences. It feels like the path is currently very busy with multiple uses. So that did not feel like it was the best option for people to gather and exercise their dogs off leash. And I do also appreciate the suggestion of an ambassador program because I do feel that that is also something where, how do we self-police with the bad actor issue? And my experience has been that most dog owners, and the other part of this is I don't like to, devise policy for the least common denominator. So I like to assume that most people are responsible and that if we do have issues, we try and address the issues rather than a strict prohibition on a certain activity where the majority of people are probably likely responsible actors and will pick up their dogs, be respectful of neighbors. And my experience has been also, dog owners need to carry a leash so that if there are problems with dogs, with other people, with seniors, the dog needs to be put on leash. So I also think that we can perhaps devise some common sense rules without getting too, we don't want a long set of rules, but maybe there should be some common sense rules where if we are going to allow dogs off leash, it's pick up after your dog, You must carry a leash and you must leash your dog if there are issues between your dog and another dog or a human. And I do also really like the ambassador idea. And I also like the idea that this is a pilot program so that we can evaluate and reassess how things are going. I do also think that it has been a de facto kind of gathering area already. And so I do think that we are going to change the rules, that it's not just a huge announcement, but that it's a pilot program. We're going to try it out. And hopefully that doesn't create a huge, I don't know, influx of people. So that's kind of where I am. I'm willing to embark on this experiment just to see how it will work. because I do feel that it does cause problems that if we are creating rules on a strict prohibition, it's really hard for our police to, you know, come because the rule is very strict. It says dogs on leash. And so what I've heard is, you know, someone has their dog off leash, but the dogs would not do anything, maybe just sitting there, but they've gotten a ticket, which I don't think is the spirit of the law when we're saying You know, we don't want dogs off leash. I mean, it's really to control the bad actor problem. But again, I feel that that having a law like that really sort of speaks to everybody, you know, having a behavior that's sort of the least common denominator. I would prefer to think that most of us are going to be responsible, that many of us have grandkids or kids and we would not want to endanger anybody's kids or grandkids, you know, with off-leash dogs.

So I don't know. So that's kind of, yeah. You mentioned a pilot program. What are you proposing as a pilot program? Because there's a lot of different options here.

Yeah. So, I mean, I would propose a pilot program. I like the 12-month option, but we can discuss the length. And I think that we could maybe discuss the smaller area next to the bike path. as a private program to see how that works. Unfenced, unfenced, right? Yes.

Okay. One of the things I love about Beyond City Council is that we can disagree respectfully. I would just like to voice some opinions. The first is I have heard several times that safety is the most important thing. If I am going to be realistic, if I go down to that park, The safety issue is on the path. It's the bike zipping down. It's just chaos sometimes on that path. I never feel a safety issue in Niven Park. You know, the dogs are running, they're playing. I don't see that as a safety issue, you know, from my perspective. The second thing I've heard is, well, the dogs can run around down by the butterfly garden. I've been down there. It's muck everywhere. You know, you can't, it's just not realistic. You know, it's just, it's, it's marshy area, you know? So listening to what I've heard from staff, I think it would be a mistake to do time limits, even though I know you have proposed it as it is worth someplace else. What I have heard from staff is that it ends up taking a lot of staff time because it ends at nine o'clock at nine Oh five. Hey, there's dogs still running around and it becomes an issue. So I'd probably rather not go into that area. I probably would rather not divide the park and say only this park, but not this park because you're going to have the same issues. There's going to be a dog. He's going to step over a line and then, you know, whatever it is. I mean, it just doesn't make sense. I agree with Council Member Paulson, six months. I think would be enough time for us to figure out if this is working or not. So I would propose as a pilot program, a six month pilot program, we set up an ambassador program where we let the community, I don't know how, you guys can decide how you want to elect people or appoint people, whatever you want to do. You will let the city know who those ambassadors are. You guys are going to handle the problems. If something comes up that you can't handle, you can contact the city and obviously we'll help you. But that's going to be the first stop for issues. And we removed the leash requirement quietly for a six-month pilot program without times or designations.

So the entire park?

Yes. That's my suggestion.

Okay, so we have a motion and i don't know if it's a motion we have an idea on the table for discussion and so thank you for putting that forward um all right so any thoughts on can you okay so can you so six month pilot program no designation so all of niven park would be off leash and we would have an ambassador program that would help police that yes okay so okay i think we need to have our city staff weigh in on what an ambassador program is and whether there are

HAB-Juliette Boone, implications for our staff to monitor that whether it's a legal situation if we authorize people and give them authority to create. HAB-Juliette Boone, Some enforcement I we don't have an ambassador program of any sort that i'm aware of in our city, so I think they need to weigh in on that. HAB-Juliette Boone, I don't know what that would look like if they want if Community wants to create an informal one. That's something different than a formal program, and I think they need to weigh in on that for us. There was another thought I had, but that's an important part. I think I need to hear about that.

I do have a suggestion, because I agree with Councilmember Way that I don't think there's a way to create a regulatory scheme where we've empowered people who effectively aren't deputized by the law to do enforcement. or to decide not to do enforcement, which is a decision that law enforcement and code enforcement are entitled to do. My suggestion would be we post a bulletin board and the community can put whatever they want on the bulletin board and say, please don't call the police, call Joe. I'm okay with that. And hopefully that works and people get at the neighborhood level. I think we could do that for the community.

And would we be able to do an advisory board, you know, where we just have a board of people in the community that come report to us, you know, whatever, whether it's through email or we have a meeting every three months and they come to city council meeting and give us a report about how things are going.

I mean, it's always commission. That's correct. Commission is.

It's always your right as a council to create whether it's permanent or temporary advisory groups. That's always your right. I think that's kind of two separate questions, right? I heard we would prefer that the community get the complaint before the city or the police get the complaint. And I think that has to be generally more informal. And that's why I was suggesting the city could put a bulletin board in the park particularly in the circle that you're saying is the concentrated area, that the community can then put things on saying, we have an ambassador program, please call or email or text so-and-so before you call the police, right? But once that call comes to the police or comes to our code enforcement line, we have to make a decision about what to do based on what the law says. And so that's why I don't know how to insert somebody into that part of it.

So just to clarify, if the law is, you know, we say there's no leash required and somebody calls and says, hey, a dog's off leash, that's not a legal violation. If there's a noise ordinance violation, yeah, I mean, that's legitimate if it's a legitimate noise violation. But I think if there's a problem that doesn't reach the level of a legal issue where you call code enforcement, It would give an option to say, hey, I'm being woken up at seven in the morning. And they can put something on the bulletin board and talk to the ambassador about that. I don't think code enforcement is going to do something about that unless it violates the noise ordinance.

Yeah. So to speak to that for a second, I can't actually, I haven't read the noise ordinance verbatim in its entirety quite a while, but I don't actually see how a dog barking actually violates the noise ordinance, meaning the law where we can go out and issue a citation. Dogs barking incessantly is a nuisance. And under the nuisance laws, it actually, our code is designed so that a civil suit can occur because a nuisance is occurring. It's not an enforcement where a citation is issued. For all you dog owners, you don't need to worry about the police ever, they shouldn't be ever out there because your dog's barking, other than to tell your neighbor they could sue you under a nuisance rule. So, you know, that's how I understand the law to be about dogs barking.

Yeah. I mean, I just want to say, I think, you know, the ambassador program is not so much about enforcing the law because we have police to enforce the law. I think this program is probably more informal to deal with problems like not picking up your poop or the dog's poop. Yeah, right. So, you know, I think this is more of a, like I said, a self-policing thing where there are dog owners that aren't being responsible. You see the behavior and it's hopefully immediate because to be honest, by the time the police get out there, the other problem is the person's gone, the dog's gone. Right. there really isn't any enforcement anyways. And then some other hapless person gets a ticket because they're there instead of the person who was causing the problem. I mean, that's, you know, that's, so I think- They have to give you a tool to communicate. Right. So I think, you know, the ambassador program, I would just say is probably, you know, look, if we all want, if the community wants this program to succeed, the pilot program to succeed, I think there needs to be some, you know, self, regulation or self-policing. And I think that's kind of where I'm going with this. Otherwise, you know, in six months or 12 months, we're back here and we can have all sorts of complaints. So I think for the success of the pilot, I would just recommend that dog owners are responsible and that, you know, just exercise common sense.

So my question about your concept of a pilot program, what would be your matrix in which you evaluated after six months or one year? What would be What would be the matrix in which an evaluation of a pilot program would be a success or not a success?

Yeah, I think if we got complaints about dog bites, dog fights, you know, injuries, I think if we have some real serious problems, I think that needs to be raised immediately. But if it's just people out, you know, having a glass of wine and having their dogs run around, I don't necessarily have an issue with that. But, you know, if it's If we start to get some very serious problems, I think that we definitely need to evaluate the program, in my opinion. Yes.

Just a couple of things. So I think these are great points. And I see three points on the table. One is we have a staff report and a potential motion. And as I see it, we're moving. What's been posted publicly is to try this for 12 months with all the details that are in the WHEREAS clause. What I'm hearing from Council Member Kandel and I kind of endorse is that we shorten it to six months. I think, you know, I'll back down on the early morning thing. You know, I think that that may be over complicated. But that's point number one. We have something we could pass tonight. I do want to say that Livermore has a formal neighborhood dark ambassador program. And I have it on my laptop. It's four pages. I'm sure staff can look it up. So they've done it. It's cited as very successful. To your point, Mayor, I think Part of why we're here, and this is such an encouraging assembly of disagreements, is I think that the success of it depends on its staying grassroots. And if you guys really care about this and you want this, they do it. Bark in the Park is San Jose's model. And then Livermore has the Neighborhood Park Ambassador Program. The people who wear a vest, they have that. My point number two is that's outside of tonight's discussion. I don't think we're passing a motion to make that happen. I think if you make that happen, it's more likely to succeed. So that's point three. I think, Catherine, that was in my mind all along. How do we evaluate this? Are we just kicking a can down the road? And my gut feeling is yes, because we're going to have the same six public comments, four six public comments again, two, and there's no clear win here. So what I'd like to say is that, you know, I'm willing to explore this. I think this has come up so many times, you know, my sense of public safety and everything we have is that this could work. You know, people really need to bear that onus and acknowledge the risks that some people might come from outside. We might have some bad actors, but if in fact the, you know, neighborhood, and you could coordinate this through the park, that's how they do it in Livermore. It's through the parks, through the park and recs department. And if that can be, sponsored and it's not an author authorization but it is something that can be very real in in you know creating that communication and grassroots to keep the park really the community we want it to be so so i think you know but sorry back to the third point which is the hardest i don't know that we have a good way to measure this but i would say that you know we've had years and years of this status quo which is sort of de facto off leash and if we can get to a point where there's an equilibrium, where the people who are a little bit uncomfortable publicly feel that they've been listened to and their concerns are addressed. Those of you in the room who are mostly poor feel the same way, and the police and staff are burdened with a lot of, you know, let's go back to another meeting. That's a success. If not, I would vote. We just, we do enforce the law. You know, we just go back to the status quo, which is, I think, what you want to do tonight.

So who wants to put together a motion?

Yeah. I'm happy. I don't know if we're done, but I'm happy to move this. HAB-Masyn Moyer- So what do you mean, so I would move the staff recommendation with the modification that it's six months instead of 12 months.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- But the staff recommendation in the resolution is the entire park. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Yes, as opposed to the small.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- That that's that's. HAB-Masyn Moyer- That would be my preference, I think, for all the reasons of the complexity subdivision like. Oh, you're on this side of the line in the sand. I'd rather avoid that.

I would second that motion. And I would just like to tell the public, this does not have an ambassador plan in it. We are leaving that up to you. And I think Council Member Paulson said it very well. If you want this to succeed, I recommend that do it in a way so that there are not complaints. So in six months, we don't have a bunch of people coming back and saying that there were issues. So I would, if you made that motion, I would second that motion.

Okay, great. So Madam Clerk, can we get a roll call? Or do we need a roll call? Okay. All right. So we have a motion and a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

Yes. No.

Okay. Any abstentions?

Great.

Thank you. All right.

Well, thank you very much.

Thank you. Yes.

All right. So we are going to adjourn the special meeting.

Yeah. Yeah. We're going to get people. Yeah.

Great.

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the regular meeting of the Larkspur City Council. It's Wednesday, May 6, 2026. The time is 7.10 p.m. We'll call the meeting to order. Madam Clerk, can we get a roll call, please? Council Member Kando.

I'm here.

Council Member Margulies. Here.

Council Member Way.

Here. Vice Mayor Paulson. Here. Mayor Andrzej.

Here. Here. If you can join us, please rise. We have a flag. Join us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Someone had one on their lapel. Can we get a flag? All right.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. All right, so we'll move to public comment time. If there are any members of the public who wish to address the city council regarding items that are not on tonight's agenda, please feel free to come forward. You'll have three minutes. All right, seeing no public comment in the chambers. Madam Clerk, do we have any public comment online? I'm looking for any raised hands over to the audience. And there's no public comment. Okay, great. We'll close public comment. We'll now move on to presentations of which there are none. And we will move to approve the consent calendar. Would anyone like to move the consent calendar?

Sure. I will move the consent calendar.

Great. Seconded by Council Member Way. All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? Great. Consent calendar passes. And now we'll move to City Manager's report.

Just a few items, Madam Mayor. First, as the council and members of the community, some members of the community are aware, the Park Direct Commission wrestled with the issue of pickleball and tennis coexisting in Piper Park. And they animated a portion of the court using community, I guess would be the way to say it. So to try to... have a conversation and take the energy down a little bit so we can sort things out. I've established a working group and there's a post on our homepage of how to apply for the working group. Applications are due by next Monday. So if folks are interested, you do have to test. It's not a complicated application, but we're assuming you should play pickleball or tennis at Piper Park. So please, that's who we want to actually come join the conversation. Secondly, we have growing interest in what are we doing with the community rooms at the library? Staff is currently still working with some of our partner organizations to test out our systems. The council will recall that we invested a lot of money to put in a system that ultimately will allow users who are authorized to access the building themselves in hours when staff's not available. And that makes those community rooms available for many more hours than when the library is functioning. We're learning what works and doesn't work with our groups. And we're really appreciative of the fact of being tolerant. We picked this testing period because we knew our partner agencies would be a little more understanding when things didn't quite work the first time around. We are planning on bringing in the first meeting in June, a discussion for you about what the guidelines and policies for use of the room, access of the room should be. whether or not there'll be a rental fee, that sort of thing. So we'll be bringing that as an item to you on June 3rd. And with that, I'll turn it back to you, Madeline.

Great, thank you. All right, I'll open it up to council members for anybody have a moral report that they'd like to give.

Just briefly, I was at the SMART meeting and again, the ridership is really encouraging. They've had their record day, I think 7,000 people rode on one day and Generally the trending, we just passed mascots and I highly encourage, you know, the council and anyone in the audience to install the app for just to see, you know, if somebody were to use public transport only, like say you wanted to get to the ball game using the ferry and the smart train, you know, how coordinated that is in the lining up the buses, the shuttles and so forth. So it seems to be working as far as ridership goes. I think it's really important for a lot of the, you know, members of the community who are really trying to create access And yeah, and we're in budget season as well. So I'll be reporting just very briefly on things that may matter to our community because we really are, you know, unique in Marin. We're, you know, probably the transportation hub having the smart and the ferry and the buses and so forth. So, you know, we're not the biggest city, but we're probably one of the most transportation-oriented ones. Great.

Thank you. Yes, come on away. Saturday, I went to the Marin wildfire preparedness public forum, which was at the Embassy Suites on Saturday morning. So, you know, I'm on the Marin wildfire representing us. Took over from Gabe's esteemed role there. There was probably a couple of hundred people. It was a whole presentation of what's going to happen next with launching a renewal of this tax, which is a 10-year tax. But I would encourage everybody to look at the Marine Wildfire website. They've been really working hard at trying to get their dashboard up and running. And you can look specifically at where your neighborhood is, et cetera, and what vegetation management has been done, what they've spent the money on in the last five years. The second part is that inspections of homes is happening again. I just had mine inspected. In Central Marin Fire, we'll be going neighborhood by neighborhood. So keep an eye out for, in your mail, whether your neighborhood's going to be coming up.

Great, thank you. Anything else? No? Okay. Councilman Hankel? Nothing. Councilman Carter-Reese? Nothing.

All right. Well, I just want to make a quick announcement. You may have seen the communications go out about a potential farmer's market coming to downtown Larkspur. I'm very excited about this. I've been working with a couple of vendors. It's going to happen in the parking lot in front of the American Legion. We will not be closing off the entire parking lot. It's just two rows of parking so cars can still park and get in and out of that parking lot. There's been a ton of support for this. And I've also had different vendors reach out. So I think the community is very excited. I am hoping that we can come get everything together so that we can launch sometime in June to take advantage of all the peak season produce that's coming in. So it's very exciting. So stay tuned. And if you haven't taken the community survey, I highly encourage people to take the community survey just so you can let us know what days of the week and what type of produce and goods that you you would be most uh likely to shop for at this farmer's market thank you okay um all right so with that we will move on to um public hearings and this and it's going to be status of vacant positions as required by ab2561 we get a staff report

Shannon O' Yeah, great. Thank you. Shannon O' Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the City Council, members of the community. My name is Shannon O'Hare and I'm the Assistant City Manager for the City of Larkspur. I'll keep this brief because we have quite a bit of business to conduct for the rest of this evening. Tonight I am presenting the 2026 report on the City's progress regarding Assembly Bill 2561. As a reminder, for those who might not be following along on this item, AB 2561 is a state mandate that requires local government agencies to provide annual updates on their efforts to fill vacant positions in their organizations in the form of a public hearing. So here we are tonight. To comply with this requirement, here's a brief update of the city's current staffing and recruitment efforts. On the vacancy status, right now we have three openings in our organization. We have 33 full-time equivalent positions. All three of these openings are in the Larkspur Municipal Employees Association's unit, which just means that they all happen to be in our representative unit. That's a requirement of this bill is that we call that out. These are the only openings we have at the moment, and we're actively recruiting for all of these positions, and we anticipate to have these roles filled in the summer and fall of 2026. In terms of recruitment and retention strategies, we have two of our notes to report out from this past fiscal year. The first is that in late 2025, early 2026, The city ratified a new memorandum of understanding with the Larkspur Municipal Employees Association, which is a representative group again, and implemented updates to the outline of the salaries and benefits for the management unit. Both of these agreements provide compensation adjustments that improve our market competitiveness in the region. And the second thing to note is that we've also modernized our recruitment branding with enhanced graphic design and targeted marketing strategies to attract top talent in the field. On the flip side, in terms of challenges the city faces to recruitment and retention, the high cost of living in Marin, limited housing inventory, and lengthy commutes for many of our employees remains an ongoing challenge for us. We're not alone in this. This is faced by all of our neighbors in the public sector, as well as many private sector employers as well. It's not unique to Larkspur. And that's the conclusion of the oral staff report. I'm happy to answer any questions the council may have. We can open up the public hearing for any questions or comments from the community.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

All right. Any questions from council members? Seeing none. All right. I'll open it up for public comment. Anybody have any questions or public comment on this item? Seeing none in the chamber, Madam Clerk, any comments on this?

There's no public comment.

Okay, great. We'll close public comment, bring it back to council. Any other questions? discussion or questions. Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, so now we'll move on to preliminary fiscal year 2026-2027 budget. We're going to have budget presentations by city staff.

We have to change the order. I want to start with the library. Damon, you're going to be first. Join us. so madam mayor council members uh it's been our practice for many years now to spread our budget process over four to five meetings so that we can take it in chunks and not have an exhausting day of budget analysis as part of our process we like to do department presentations that remind ourselves what we're trying to accomplish for the community because at the end of the day We're stewards of quality of life, and our goal is to deliver the highest service levels, the highest quality of service that we can with the resources available to us. This year, I challenged the department heads to work with me to do an exercise that some of you saw an earlier version of, which was to take a qualitative look qualitative analysis of their department and the service levels that they provide and give you a sense of where they feel their department lands on a scale. And then to give you some descriptors so you can kind of understand the way they think about services in their department. And we think this exercise is valuable because we still remain in a very uncertain economy and we're still trying to keep everything running at a good level. And so this gives you a sense of what would it take to buy up a little bit to get more service? Or am I okay with maybe scaling down in a particular area because I want to free up resources for something else? And that is your challenge when you deal with budgets. So this is meant tonight to give you a sense of what each of the departments listed things in terms of what we're doing now and what we could do with more resources. I'll preface this resources for us is our people. It's pretty much people. Most of what we do in the city itself requires just having more bodies, more brain power to make it happen. The other thing that we wanted to do is talk a little bit with you in these presentations about mandates because Sometimes we lose perspective or we need a good reminder of what we actually are required to do. And everything has mandates. So the community service departments are going to go first tonight. And there is no law that says you have to have a library. And there's no law that says you have to have a recreation department. So there's no legal mandate. But there's a societal mandate that you would provide community services. And so we're fulfilling sort of an expectation of the community, even if it's not a legal mandate. The other departments are going to talk a little bit about the actual challenges of remaining compliant with the law, because a lot of what the other departments deal with on a day-to-day basis is allocating resources to compliance. But I do want to also say before we get started, once you decide you have a library, And once you decide you have a recreation department, you actually do then create legal mandates. So they are all required to be responders in the case that they observe child abuse. If they have any suspicion of losses, they're mandated to report that so that it can be looked into. And there's a whole host of laws around here. There are other rules and mandates that they have to follow because we've decided to provide this service. I didn't happen to emphasize that for the community services tonight, but I wanted to just generally make you aware of it. So we're going to tag team. I'm going to just open up and explain the exercise. And then Damon's going to then take over and he's going to talk about how he thinks about his department, where he thinks he is on these different scales. And then he'll finish with a discussion about his accomplishments in the current fiscal year and goals for the next fiscal year. so that you have more information when we get into the numbers. And as a reminder, we will dive into preliminary numbers as part of your next meeting. Great. So you have a printout, hopefully, at the dais for all of these presentations. And they all have this table. And this is the table that I presented to the department heads that we were going to use this five descriptor scale to think about service levels. And I looked at different industry resources, public and private, who kind of go through these types of exercises. So I provided some verbiage about what we would expect in sort of a general sense for each of these different levels. Again, this is all qualitative. This is all meant to be art. We didn't do this exercise to create quantitative comparisons between our departments or between other organizations. Okay, so I'm going to pass this to Damon, who's going to talk a little bit about what he would consider, for example, an ideal library operation.

Okay, well, thank you. I'm Damon Bell, library director. And we can start with the ideal. This is somewhat aspirational for us. I think a big thing with libraries and the Marin generally, and what we're hearing with the new library, are open hours. And so within an ideal scenario, we would be open seven days a week with evening hours. This is more similar to Mill Valley and how LTIP operate. We'd have, I think, higher range of technological services, and we'd have a robust and sustainable collection budget. We'd also have a lot of daily programs tailored to different age groups. throughout the day so people would always be coming in and out and have something engaging for them. And then we're actively collaborating as community partners. We're talking with local organizations. We're working with schools and figuring out how we can fit in. So that's the ideal. If you go down one step a little bit to an advance, we kind of focus on hours there. You're probably going to six days a week. Online offerings, just a little less. high quality public programs, the collection budget, and just kind of a little less than the ideal, basically. Within a standard, I think when we were in the old library and that size, we were kind of operating, I think, at a standard model, what we could do and provide with resources. We're doing still story times, periodic programming, It's still positive, brief interactions at the desk, loved by the community still. You know, you're doing regular displays, central technology, and you're doing a few community collaborations that they can pop up. Now when we get into limited service, this is probably where we are if you look through the lens of our new library and our staff. Primarily because we're at five days a week, And we don't offer any evening hours. And that's, again, because of the staffing and the hours we have. It's more transactional. It's a very business-like situation. It's like, here's your book. Thank you. It's a little colder. It's reduced programs. You know, we're not doing displays. And maintenance isn't at a high level. So we're just kind of going day by day, trying to make things happen, doing the best we can. And then basic, which we're not at. This is where you get into budget cuts even more. We're open fewer days. You know, there's no programs. We're not doing any maintenance. We're not really offering anything. We're just kind of a physical building that's there. And so those are kind of the five steps here. This, Taylor, sort of summarizes staffing levels yeah so these again would be the staffing levels so ideal i think we're very very far away from if you look at um the ideal look at tiburon and mill valley's cup te um so it's adding a lot more people and again just kind of going down the rank there advanced a little less staffing than the ideal standard we have we have on call and part-time people because we're open almost all the time. So you need someone to fill in if people are on vacation, sick, whatever that is. We don't really have that now. So it's just kind of us running everything. And then go back to limited. It's insufficient staffing. People are sick. We might have to close. We did that at the old library sometimes. And then basic is even staffing shortages and really just getting by, you know, trying to make it through the day.

Can I ask a question? Sorry. Did you say that we're limited right now? Was the old library was standard?

And that's kind of a judgment call, you know, because the old library was small, community orientated, fewer people coming there. The hours could have been better at the old library. You know, at 1.10, 15 years ago, there was longer hours, but it was, you're probably, I felt like we were meeting the basic needs of the people who came there. We weren't trying to bring in new people. But we were kind of meeting what a small local branch does.

So you're saying because we're now larger, the service has now combined? Is that what you're saying?

The facility's a little bigger. The expectations are a little bit more. We're a lot more busier. So we're not able to respond as much to people. And so when you have a bigger facility, it's going to be a lot different than our current facility. So like this afternoon, it's AP time. We were full of teenagers. That never occurred in the old library. And we didn't really know that. Every seat was full. And that's kind of why this library is a little different. It's a different clientele. So a little subjective on the standard. Okay.

Yeah. Go ahead.

Just a question. Could you tell us basically what you would need to be at the different service levels? Like if we had two more employees, we'd be at this level, five more employees, we'd be at this level. Is that translatable?

Let me jump in, Dan. So yes, we didn't open the library to operate below at least a standard level. But there's a couple of things that we've talked about before. The first is We had to learn what the clientele was going to look like in the new facility. So I think one reason David struggled with this exercise is he's still learning his new clientele. I go over there frequently now to check in with him because, you know, I have to work with these Gabriellas in the back. We're trying to figure out how we might pay for more of these things. It's been really enlightening to hear from Damon, who's in there, who was never in there before, who's not comfortable. We actually have some clientele that have said, you know, this facility isn't the experience I'm looking for. And that's okay. You always know any facility, we're not gonna need everything. So we wanna get to standard. And I think that has two components to it. The quick answer to you is he needs more people. So I have to try to figure out how I can propose with him to you a budget that gets him more people. But we want to be smarter than that. So I don't want to suddenly flood the library with five new employees without knowing what it is the community wants those five new employees to actually be doing. So I anticipate bringing you a proposal to at a minimum unfreeze. There's a frozen position in the library. We would unfreeze and fund that position so that Damon can hire somebody immediately to kind of start the ball rolling on improving some of the responsiveness issues. But secondly, I think we need to commission some professional support to do targeted surveys and do some focus groups and really find out from the community, now that you've seen the new facility, now that you have expectations for that building, what are they? So that we can understand what priorities are. So we can spend our limited money smartly to really deliver an outstanding service product to match an outstanding business.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- i'm dead in years ago we talked about a collaboration with Paul middle school and the children's Librarians that are all middle school or some of the school employee library staff. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Would that be something we could factor in to see if we could offer some part time position after their their building closes.

I'm not going to say no, but there's a lot of complexities hiring part-time public employees from another organization. So we're open to all those sorts of suggestions. But again, I think the biggest return for us would be to spend the next three, four, five months really digging into, okay, community use in the building. What do you need? What do you want? What type of programming? Now that you know what the environment looks like. Because I think the Damon's point, when you were a patron of the old library, your programming expectation was different because the experience of either sitting in the council chamber or sitting in the reading room to hear a program is just a little different than those three community rooms with all that audio visual equipment and that modern delivery of a program. let alone the patios and the children's rooms. So I think now's the time to figure that out and then we'll spend wisely to get those levels up.

Yeah, and I think that, sorry, one last thing. And I think that's important too. We just described all the high school students who are taking AP classes. So we're about to hit summer.

And so let's see what happens with patrons in the summer when we're down in the student level. And I think we need a good six months to really figure out the usage.

Yes. Sorry, question. We had a meeting in the past where we made an announcement that high school students were looking for over the summer or continued as pages for the library. I got contacted by a constituent whose high school daughter was trying to find out more about that. Is there anything we can tell the community at this point about those positions and what they're supposed to do. They're interested.

It is posted. And so if you go to the city website for jobs, you'll see that there's page listing there and just fill out the application. And then probably by the end of the month, we'll reveal them and then try to find some folks. All right. Thank you. You're back. And so But like I said, even though it's just basic and standard, people do like the new facility. The new facility is really great. The outdoor, it's also a little downer there. And there's our limited star. So again, I think we could get to standard. I think it's just with people. And so I think that's kind of it with this fact. So I'll move on to the accomplishments and goals.

Sorry, just one really quick question. What are our hours now?

Right now, we're open Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday, 10 to 3. Previously, we were open 11 to 6, and we moved it 10 to 5, thinking that would be a better time for older adults, and we found we were quiet in that 5 to 6 range. So we did a little experimentation, but we have the exact same hours we carried over. So, Jerry, we're closed Sunday and Monday? Closed Sunday and Monday, yeah.

Sorry, in San Rafael, Mill Valley, I think they're open seven days, but they're not quite eight hours a day, is that right?

Well, it's kind of wide ranging to the county, but like Mill Valley is open, I'll use Court of Madera. Quarter Madera is open 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday. And then Saturday and Sunday, they're open Saturday 10 to 5 and Sunday noon to 5. No Valley just announced they're going to open on Thursdays like 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. with foundation support. So most lives, we're probably, except for the small coastal West Marin branches, we're the only five day a week. operation. Because once you go over five days, you start to need more people because the workforce works five days.

Sorry, go ahead.

Oh, sorry, just a follow-up question. I know there had been some talk with the foundation about an endowment or something that was going to help us with funding moving forward. Are there any updates on how we're doing with that?

Yeah, so I actually see the president of the Commons Foundation, president and audience. I imagine she might come to the podium at some point. But we have three groups that support us in different ways and have different resources. And I think it'll be important that we convene a meeting to understand, given their different missions and their different memberships, how they want to be partners with us going forward. I am pleased to say we are discussing with Ann Morrison, what the Commons Foundation long-term plan is, and how they can be a partner for as long as that building's open, hopefully, which is hopefully way past all our lifetimes. And I think there'll be more to come when we have our sessions in two weeks and then the final budget as to what that number, if it's gonna materialize, what that number would look like in the coming fiscal year. but I do anticipate we had a very positive conversation that some of the challenges that Damon's identified can be addressed with support from our funding partners.

So I'm hearing that's not a topic for this evening, even though the president is here, we should save that for next meeting.

I think so because we're having these offline conversations and each of the different leaders of our three funding organizations have their own boards that they need to go talk to before they can make a commitment that I can, formally present to you.

And I'll just have a quick question. Oh, sorry. I'll make a quick comment on the hours and, you know, it'd be great to have an additional day on Sunday, but also I feel like 5.00 PM really doesn't give the working set, like the opportunity to go to the library during the week. And if school is out at like three 30 for the high schoolers, I know many of them have afterschool sports and things. They don't really have a place to go to study like after, you know, after 5.00 PM. So.

would just hope that you consider extending the hours as well as adding an hour on the weekend that would be just to allow a greater a greater number a greater diversity of people to use the library so i think that speaks again to well i think we may have some staff discussion about some pilot trials of different tweaks of the hours that investment may be in getting somebody to help us pull the community because i think in the slightly more than a month that the building's been fully operational, I've had probably 50 different suggestions about what the hours ought to be at the library, right? So depending on when you wanna be there and if it's not open, that's when you want it to be open. And so- Now you have 51. So one of the purposes of that effort would be to really start to understand And then as Damon mentioned, we then would use real life data to figure out what to do going forward. So the library over the years in the old building played with the towers quite a bit because we would notice, well, we're paying people, we're paying for more staff to be in the building than patrons are in the building. And we used to sometimes be open as late as eight o'clock. And so that didn't make sense, right? You're spending money so our staff can hang out. And so we changed the hours to try to address different crowds. And then unfortunately, the five days a week is also partly the legacy of COVID. We had to scale down our staff in COVID and just trying to build back and recover that. But that's actually been goal one is to get back to six days a week. Which date is a discussion, right?

Great, thank you. I just had one question. You mentioned there was previously a position that was frozen and that you were recommending that we restaff that position. Was that position for a full librarian or what is the role of that position? Because it seems to me that perhaps we might need more of an administrative person to manage like an aspect of the community center part of the library, but not necessarily a fully staffed librarian.

So the, I'll just, the last thing first, the long-term goal is to minimize the oversight by staff of the rooms. And ideally actually, given the way we're set up, the director will probably for quite a while be the, de facto manager of that asset component. It was a librarian, but when I say I want to fund a position, it's our practice to then sit with the current director and say, okay, you know your operation. So we're going to fund this position so it's in the budget. Let's not race out and hire it until you really sit down and we think through it. What's the right position given your current situation and need? And that's a never evolving thing. So I need Damon to kind of tell me, but I will let you know from just the five or six weeks experience, I've watched the staff struggle when just one of them is sick. So there's a clear vulnerability that we just need another body to a full-time invested person who's fully trained and can manage the operation from the desk. Whether that's a librarian or some other job, that's Damon's job to kind of help me figure out.

I guess my question then is, could those people technically be at very different salary levels? When you're going to fund a position, you have to fund for a salary based on the type of role.

Yes. One of the things I would press Damon about is what's the right position to get the best bang for the buck. But I will propose funding it probably at the librarian level just so I have some capacity to make the most informed decision. That's certainly a discussion for the council if you want to fund it at a lower position. I think we can afford a librarian if that's what Damon advocates for. The deltas between his different positions are not huge. So more to come when we make that presentation.

So I think you're doing your accomplishments. So the accomplishments are more like from the library, the whole library. I think I just want to highlight one. We lost our book vendor, and they process all the books. And so what that meant is each time we get a book, it takes staff about 15 minutes to make it ready for the shelf. And so last year, it was just a big, huge change. So it wasn't a big public thing, but our staff, it was a lot of internal work. So I just wanted to highlight that. because all our staff right now are working very hard and they're great people. So I just want to give kudos. The other thing to note is our circulation grew 2.8%. Only one other library in Marin did the circulation grow. Sausalito grew 1%. All the others dipped down. So we're actually a reading, vibrant community. And that's just wonderful, but it also adds to the work a little bit. We also had 101 programs I wanted to highlight. And that's getting ready to move and everything. So that was a good year of programming. And then we worked on some staffing improvements. And then obviously the big thing was getting ready to move and prepare for the new library operation, which I think we did successfully. So those are all accomplishments more for the old library. And so the exciting part, though, is going into this new library. And we have some new goals. So the biggest goal we want to do is optimize the use of the new library facility. And part of this is just going to be in the facility talking to people, figuring out how it flows, how it goes. This didn't work well. This did work well. And so we're doing a lot of experimentation right now. So we have individual study rooms people can check out for an hour a day. And so we just optimized how that worked. And we kind of went through this didn't work. This did work. And that went well. The one thing I also would like to do, and this is if we could get more people, is strengthen community engagement through diverse programming. So we realize we can't do it all. Libraries really are evolving to developing community partnerships. And we're kind of the hub of people. So we don't want to always put on every program. We want to find people who can do programs. So for instance, we're talking about, I've talked with three different people about potential programs for older adults that they could put on. we could support figuring out if it's the right match for both of us. And so that our older adults have a community opportunity. Our children's librarian tonight went to Neil Cummings School for their literacy. So we're trying to make inroads with different groups and figuring out how we can fit inviting them in and supporting them. And so I think that's gonna be a big part of what we do during the next years, talking with groups and collaboration. And then also, since we are a little under-resourced in some ways, I want to enhance operational efficiencies and service deliveries. So there's things we can do, like encourage people to check out books by themselves. There's other ways we can have computers help us manage the room. We were doing the rooms by hand. Now people just put their phone up there. They reserve the room. They can see the schedule. We're not involved in a lot of the routine tasks. So we want to figure out how can we optimize it. It takes a little while to come up with systems. But anything that's repetitive, we want to get a system and make it optimized so we're not spending our time doing math. So those are our big three goals, I think, for this year. And just hearing what the community says about the new library and making it a welcoming place.

I'll just chime in. We are all still learning. And I've learned a lot from Damon in the last three months about libraries. I just wanted to share the other thing from what he said is we're still learning what software and technology exists to lower our staff time, lower that need to spend on staff. I've listed so many pitches over the years for software, and I have to tell you this pitch that Damon and I sat through for software to manage rooms and program attendance at a library. When it finished, I told him this is the most clear, this is the clearest, most direct and easy to understand presentation I've ever had about software. And she said, that's because this is the only piece of software we do. It runs libraries. That's all we do. And it's very impressive. And that's what Damon's talking about. We got very worried that we would need to provide some iPads or some other way for people to check out the rooms. And we're learning the new patrons They all bring their own devices. Seeing a QR code, everybody knows exactly what to do. So we probably won't even need to buy some technology that we thought we need to buy because our patrons are taking care of that need on their own. And if you don't bring technology, you go to the desk and get help. So it's not that we won't help you. Without any more questions for Damon, we're available for me.

I just had one, today's Dick Spotswood article did a shout out to us. Did you see that? I saw that, yeah. The quality of a town's library reveals much about values held by its citizenry. Larkspur's new library community center at Rose Lane near Doherty represents a civic commitment to literacy. In addition to a marvelous children's reading room, the library has a teen center where older that kids can hang out, access computers, do homework, or enjoy a book. And you're quoting in here next. I'm not going to read that part. You can read your own book. But it does shout out to the Commons Foundation and the Larkspur Library Foundation leading a public-private fundraising effort, which is creating this new building as an example of a civil society. Oh, great. Yay. Wonderful.

Thank you for sharing. And thank you, Damon. Yeah, it seems like, you know, thank you for the presentation, but also it feels, you know, you certainly bring a lot of expertise and experience from our county libraries and all of our, you know, the surrounding jurisdictions and their libraries. And so thank you for that. And hopefully we can just incorporate the best of in our new library and how we can improve efficiencies, but also improve the diversity of services to our community. I think it's really exciting. I've heard just really nonstop, actually, positive comments about our new library. It's great. And the system on the keypad works amazing.

We're almost there.

We're almost ready to open it up for us. Getting a few more kinks out. But it's an impressive system. We're really pleased about it. In effect, you mentioned the school district. They've been one of our more active partners testing using the rooms in the early hours. It's been working pretty well. And they were very tolerant when they opened the doors and discovered the alarms were all going off. Not because they had set them. They were already going off. So we had to figure out what happened that day. And then I do want to emphasize we're not infallible. And we've been getting wonderful feedback from the community about, hey, have you thought about this? Or I'm a little concerned about that. Please keep those comments coming because, in fact, we were making some safety changes based on feedback we got. And, you know, we're trained and we had people are trained to look at safety issues around the building. And in a couple of these cases, just hadn't occurred to us. And we just took one public member of the public saying, did you ever think about this to go, oh, we did not. And that is a real concern. So please continue. you know, encourage people to keep telling us their feedback.

All right.

Thank you. Thank you.

All right.

All right, let's bring Nick up.

Who's next? All right, Nick.

Oh, do we need to do public comment on that?

Oh, it's up to you when you take public comment, but after each department, if you want. Sure. At least Damon.

Yeah. Is there any member of the public who would like to speak?

Yes. I mainly hear the Commons Foundation to support Damon, who's doing just a great job. It is such a beautiful building, and we are very excited to keep it vibrant and sought after. So the commons foundation is working very closely with the friends of the library. And I just wanted to know when it comes to the 6.5 million that we handed over, under 300,000 of that was from the nonprofits library, the library foundation and the friends. The rest of that money came from donors, individual donors who are very excited to have this building being built. Right now we are raising funds to keep the library hours open more so if that's possible, along with enrichment programs. We have many, many donors who want to continue giving which they are to make sure this is a vibrant, thriving library. So I just want to make sure that Damon has our back. He gave me his wishlist, met with Dan and Damon and Shannon, and we really had a great conversation. And as maybe another so we can talk about, you know, value the amount that we're giving to the library on a yearly basis, and it's all really good. So you have a lot of support to keep the library just doing its best and to support Damon and his wishlist.

I just wanted to share that. Thank you, Anne. Thank you so much. Great. Any members of the public online? There's no public online. Okay, great. All right. Then we'll move on to Recreation.

Good evening, Council. Thank you. Nick Stone, Recreation Director. And we're going to go through, we're going to use the same kind of scale that we use for the library and go through that through the eyes of recreation. So the way I see it is we have three different categories that I like to bring up what we do into programs. Programs are camps, classes, senior activities, community gardens, We run programs in two different ways. We run them with contract services. So we hire contractors to run programs. And then we also do in-house programming. In-house programming is part-time, full-time staff that run programs. And they're kind of staff-led, staff-driven, a little more hands-on, and usually training people up for those kind of programs. And then we also do events. So these are not events that other organizations are running through our departments. These are actually city events that we're putting on. So music in the park, night lights, pumpkin patch, night in the park. These kind of events are things that we do as a city. And then the other... kind of section that we go through is, is, uh, facility rentals. So we rent out a lot of facilities in Piper Park, as well as in Hallman School. And those are, um, those are renting mostly community groups. Um, and it can sometimes be kind of a scheduling nightmare when it's a bunch of little facilities, like, like picnic areas and, um, soccer fields, softball fields, kind of managing the different groups can be, um, could be a lot of work. So we're going to kind of go through and, um, discuss in an ideal department. For me, I always think, you know, I kind of got my start with camp. So I always kind of go back to camp. So in an ideal department, we have massive summer camps, we have winter camps, spring camps. These are camps that are run with in-house staff that are running these programs. This is the kind of thing where, you know, parents wake up at early in the morning and at eight o'clock, they're at the computer so that they can get their kids signed up for the summer.

These are

And we have had programs like that. And then what's nice about this is that we're working with staff to do this. We're developing staff to run these programs. One of the perks that I love about these kind of programs is that we are, the secondary programming of it is once these kids get older, they then become volunteers in the program. And then as they get a little bit older, they become staff in the program. And before they move on to whatever they're gonna do in life. So it's kind of this, cycle that goes and you don't see that in a lot of contract type programs, but it's really, really good. Now I'm getting to my age. I see, you know, these kids that I've worked with that are now having kids and it's, it's, that's kind of crazy. So this, this kind of set up to, we have programs for every, every age. We have multiple programs for seniors. We have Toddler programs, we have family type programs. It's just kind of a little bit of everything. You know, it's the summer brochure that comes out would be kind of an encyclopedia. Just really big, tons of things. Um, events would be looking at like 10 to 15 medium sized events. Um, so we're kind of running medium sized events right now between 200 and 500 people. Um, these events are really polished. Um, they look great. You walk into it and you feel, um, you feel like you don't want to miss it the next year. And, um, we're also doing a couple of, um, larger events. Those are like big scale events, think 500 people plus. And those are things that the whole community kind of knows that they need to do every year. You don't want to miss the fall festival. And funny thing about rentals in this kind of model is that the rentals actually go down because we're so busy programming our facilities that we don't really have space. We're kind of plugging in a few community rentals here and there, but really we're offering most of what the community needs in this model. And so as we move into advanced, you know, we're thinking that just on a smaller scale. So we're, you know, we're offering some combination of contract camps and in-house camps. We still have that mix of people coming in with part-time staff that are working for us. Maybe some sports leagues. We have some senior programs. Maybe there's only like two or three options though, but definitely enough for the community. We're running eight to 10 medium-sized events. So again, those, you know, two to 500 type sizes. And then we're looking at stronger partnerships for one to two larger events. We're trying to pull in some community partners in order to make it happen. And rentals are really clean at this point. So we have some openings in space. We're pulling in community service type organizations and we're renting out what we have. We have a high touch. um situation with this so we're we're getting feedback from them trying to make the rental experience better to help them succeed uh in their programming as we get into standard it's kind of um you know kind of what you think of when you think of a rec department so there's some camps um they're quality you know they're safe um you know the the numbers you're not you're not Signing up right at 8 o'clock, you know, there's always going to be a little bit of space, but it's a good thing that you can do. There's maybe one or two senior programs and same with the toddler type programs. We kind of rely more on contract staff at this point and less having the cycling through of part-time staff and volunteers. With events, we're looking at five to eight medium-sized events and looking at well run events that we heavily rely again on partners to pull these off. And then as we move into this standard version, rentals start to become more important. So we're starting to rent out more facilities to community groups and kind of picking those groups as best we can. And again, doing our best with those to make sure that they're successful. And in a limited situation, we're mostly working with contract staff. There's a few offerings, and we're trying to bring in what we can. And very little of this is within the community. We're not pulling in the part-time staff. We're not seeing as many volunteers come through the system. Events, we're doing two to three small to medium-sized events. relying heavily on volunteers and community groups. Um, sometimes with these events, you'll, you'll see, you'll, you'll go to it. It feels great. You had a good time, but there'll be some kind of, um, advice for, for, for us at the end, you know, you know, this would have been great if this, if there was a little bit more marketing or maybe if we had, um, you know, the heat lamps back here, lights, I think, in certain areas. There's just pieces that are kind of missing that get overlooked. And we're looking at a heavy focus on rentals with this and trying to maximize revenue that way. And in a basic, you know, we've been here before not too long ago. This is almost no programming. This is working with The contractors that we know that we know can kind of run and have been here for a long time. We're not really doing any events because we're so small. There's not really an opportunity to run a quality event. And when we're looking at rentals, we're kind of focusing on our, I call big ticket rentals. So those soccer groups that'll rent six months at a time that I can, that we can do a blanket reservation for and collect revenue from them. And we're not as responsive to groups that are coming to look, coming in to do like a one month program, just because it's hard to keep up with that kind of traffic. Okay, maybe. interested to see where I think we are. So I kind of feel we're, I don't feel like we're at limited right now. I feel like we're doing a pretty good job in some aspects. And I feel like we're kind of rising up to the standard level right now. So when I think about this and when I place this star, I kind of thought about our events. We're doing some really good events. I think we're getting some really good numbers. But we are getting those comments. It would be better if we had just this or just that. So I think that we're really getting close there. But on the flip side, our programming is a little bit down, and we're working to getting back up with that. I'm going to go back really quick. Staffing-wise, we look at numbers. This is kind of what it would take to get to these levels. And going through may not be familiar with these positions, but director position would be my position. Assistant director would be just below me helping to kind of coordinate activities and supervisor staff. Supervisors is actually what I started doing when we started here. So it's kind of a position that's well-versed in recreation and maybe oversees some coordinator levels. But as somebody that has been in the system and kind of understands the system for a few years. Coordinators kind of new to the position and learning how to do things and they oversee some programs and there's a learning curve of coordinators. And seasonal part-time staff, camp staff, building attendants, stuff like that. So I'm gonna go into accomplishments to the year unless there's questions here.

I just had a short one, Nick. We've had in the past public-private partnerships with Park and Rec too. I remember the Heather Gardens playground structure that was partially funded from community out at the old Serenity. They did a playground there. Do you see any opportunities for us to support more of that encouraging public-private partnership for enhancements to the park?

Do you get questions asked or are you an answer family?

Well, we do, but I want to remind you that Nick runs recreation. So his focus is on providing programming and user experience. So we would love to get more private support for what Nick's doing, but it would be to support events and programs and other uses in the park.

So that's a Julian question.

That's a Julian question on the next meeting. Got it. They fix them, we wreck them.

I got a question. Can you explain your relationship with the Chamber of Commerce when they put an event on in the park, like a battle of the bands or, you know, I don't give any role in the wine stroll. I mean, what does that relationship look like?

Yeah, perfect. So with the Chamber of Commerce, I have nothing to do with the wine stroll. They work through public works to get encroachment permits for that. For Battle of the Bands, we put together and approved a park special event policy specifically because of this event. So it's pretty much a rental. So I'm helping, you know, figure out setup and stuff like that. But this is a chamber event that's happening. So they're just like any other vendor. They're just paying for the space and they're just dealing with it. Exactly.

And we passed that policy not too long ago, like two months ago, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So, you know, I'm there to help. So I want to make sure that they're successful. If they're going to be doing, you know, an event that scale in the park, I want to make sure they're successful and things are safe. So I am hands-on in that sense, but not necessarily helping to plan it.

All right, another question. For other events that you guys put on, whether it's the music series or Easter eggs, there are lots of events that you guys do. Can you share some of the feedback, like becoming better if, so we kind of know what you need to get to the next level?

Yeah, absolutely. Everything's kind of different. So one of the things we hear a lot is, oh, I wish we had heard about it. So that's kind of like the marketing side of it. Are we really canvassing town? Commissioner Friedle and I talked earlier about getting posters in every single window downtown. So the posters are on order. um but it's those little things that are that are missed oh i wish there were um i wish we you know the egg hunt that we were able to expand into this area um when i was with dan schwartz at the um the light uh coco night where we had the uh trackless train um you know we set up this everybody game it was great um but we hadn't i hadn't thought about you know electrical boards running through the line i didn't think the line would get that long So little things like providing the light or maybe heat lamps. I think I had music going on my Bluetooth from home and whenever I would walk away to get something, it would cut off. Little things, right? So it was a success. The train was great. The lights were on. But there's little things that could be done that could make it a little bit better.

Is there anything you need from us as far as you bring signs up? Do you have a marketing budget? I'm sorry to interrupt.

I was going to mention we will ask the same people that we want to get proposals to do polling and focus groups for the library. I don't think it'll cost much more to also do it simultaneously for recreation. And I think it'll get to what you're asking. Even though I think Nick has a lot of understanding from his users, we don't know what folks would say who maybe don't get to touch Nick and tell him. on a regular basis. But I think we'll ask for solicitation to do the same because I think it'll really helpfully inform what you're talking about. I do know that Nick probably mentions to me six times a year that He really needs somebody to do some form of event planning if we're going to take that up a notch. So that's probably something we'll keep talking about. And as we figure out how to make more capacity in his budget, that's probably an early target area. Because I think every one of you has told me what we've been doing is well received. Can we do more? And we would like to do that.

I'd also just like to make one comment because Vice Mayor Paulson and I did do some interviewing of the commissioners last week. And what came up was, I think, please leverage your commissioners. I think they would like to do more. And I think some of them have ideas and they just don't know how to, what the implementation is or how to, you know, get buy-in for their ideas. And so, and Jean, you know, Jean Friedel's here and I, I would just encourage you to leverage your commissioners and they probably have connections, ideas, they probably would volunteer to help put some of this stuff, put some of these events together and some of the programming. So that's what I heard from when I was talking to the parks and rec commissioners.

Perfect. And then besides that, I would just say, yeah, come to the events. Yeah. Bring your friends. All right, so any other questions before I move on to goals and accomplishments? So this year, we hired a new recreation coordinator. So it was, it was, heard me talk that we were at kind of bare bones for a while. And that was, that was me kind of trying to keep the department going. And we were struggling with the hiring process and finding the right candidates. So Um, so we have a coordinator on board. Um, he's doing well, he's increasing programming. Um, you know, we're, um, it's nice to have somebody out there recruiting staff and our contractors and talking to them and kind of finding out what the community needs and how to help make them successful. Because I felt like I was at a point where I couldn't, um, make these people successful. I was kind of like, okay, you're on, here's the contract insurance. Go for it. And so this is kind of an opportunity for him to help people a little bit more with this.

Nick, I think we should mention one of the things Nick did with his hire is require that that employee work Tuesday to Saturday. And having a staff person for recreation in the city on a Saturday has been a big return for us in oversight and management. Small change, big return.

It's nice having eyes on the park on Saturday, and I think people are surprised sometimes when they can get help on a Saturday. One of the things that I'm most proud of, but I think it goes, I wanna say it goes unrecognized a lot, but getting the teen and tween volunteers at these events and with these programs, I think is really something that I wanna bring up. It's so cool to be at an egg hunt and have 30 kids in yellow vests that go around and they help keep the kids back behind the lines. They're talking to parents. You know, it really is its own program. It doesn't come without supervision. It's kind of another headache sometimes, but it is cool to see these kids out there and we'll put out, you know, tween programming for kids and we'll get a few signups here and there, usually smaller. Whenever I do something, that has to do with giving back or signing up. We get a ton of kids that sign up and it's kind of cool and it really speaks to this community. This year, we also expanded some of our events, made them a little bit bigger. I saw the train that was at Night Lights. I think that really added it. We were kind of struggling to put on those big events at the Night Lights events. We have the Hot Cocoa and we get a few people coming and kind of trickling in and out, but having a trackless train, I think kind of exceeded our expectations. So I think we've inadvertently created a new tradition in Larkspur. So very excited to make it even better next year. And as we spoke earlier, we implemented that policy, which I think is gonna be great to help encourage private and community groups to come out and potentially do some more events in our parks for the public. As a matter of fact, we have one of the yoga studios right down here did a trial yoga class at Niven Park in April. So it doesn't quite fall into the special events because it's not huge, but it's just nice to have these groups doing other things for the community in our parks. Going left to right, those are some volunteers from our egg hunt this last April. In the center, the train and the trees. And off to the right, kind of a cool picture of all is probably 400 kids with flashlights out in Pico Park with the Greenberry Hills behind it. A lot of fun. And so this is what I'd really like to focus on is continuing to increase our programming. So I'd like to see more registrations for a lot of these cool things that we're starting to pick up. I'd like to see us really get back into the camp world and start to offer a variety of camps that can't be missed. And I think that's gonna help us grow into the standard and maybe beyond rec department. that we can be. Increasing volunteerism is great. And want to continue to collaborate with community groups to offer new and engaging opportunities for the community. So I think with that special event policy, I can really hopefully entice people to come in and do some events with us. And we're also going to be working with Public Works this year to update the basketball courts and pathways at Greenbrae School Park. improve the fencing and dugouts at Piper Park softball fields. And actually, Girl Softball had a great presentation at the last Park and Rec Commission meeting, if you guys saw it there. Got a great group of volunteers right now and a lot of excitement heading into this year. And I'd like to resurface the tennis and pickleball courts at Piper and Centennial, and then work with DPW to get a new recreation center. at Piper, I think. I think that's going to be well received in the community. I'm excited to start programming it.

So I'm assuming the resurfacing of the pickleball tennis courts is going to be after some resolution is made of which will be pickleball. That is correct. That's the aspiration.

And there'll be an ambassador program so that everybody will get along. And they'll have vets.

One thing I would like to underscore that's true throughout all these presentations, but particularly highlight it in Nick's case, because there's been times where in the last year or in the last two years, he's the only staff person. All your directors, all your department heads are working managers. They do analytical work. They do hands-on work. They do field work. They clean things up. that's not true in every city. And if we were running ideal, a big thing here is managers would be managers, but we don't have that luxury and that's okay. We accept that. If you come to work for Larkspur, I tell you, you're a working manager. You know, Ms. Gabrielle is the accountant while also being the finance director and wearing four other hats. So it's just what happens. But I want to acknowledge, Nick's gone through a pretty rough stretch where he hasn't even had frontline staff to support him. So now that he has somebody, I'm hoping it frees up a little more capacity for strategic planning because that's what we really need to do in REC. And then the big thing I wanted to highlight that's a distinction and what often in our world pits REC and library against one another is one's in the business of giving everything away. And recreation is supposed to try to bring in some revenue. So one of the discussions we constantly struggle with, and we might have to have that discussion this year as we watch where our finances go, is how much subsidy should exist in recreation? It's a constant question. How much money should we be charging for these programs and services that we provide through recreation? What is the right rental rate? And we struggle with that all the time. And it's a balance, not just what our community is willing to spend, but also what's appropriate when we look around at all the other communities around us. And I really want to acknowledge, particularly for Nick, that I appreciate he's had to wear about six hats within his own department this last year.

Superman Nick Jones. Thank you, Nick.

We did buy him a little electric.

I just wanted to ask if there's a way for our programs that we could really collect more data and usage data in particular so that we can make data informed decisions about where we're spending the money in the parks and rec area. I just feel like that's something that hasn't been forthcoming or we haven't had really good data to make decisions from. And if we're creating these programs and these events, it seems that we should be able to know exactly how many number of people are coming, how often the park picnic tables are getting rented, how often the courts are being used, just how can we get more information about the data of the usage. and the rentals and where can we gather that so we can try to make more data-informed decisions?

I could answer a little bit. For example, I could suspect that one thing driving your comment is the challenge of the recent uproar about pickleball and tennis. We have great data about tennis because tennis rents. We actually do have data because through charging them, we kind of understand Who's using it, when they're using it, why they're using it. We don't know if people come to just do open play. The hard part with Pickleball is we don't have that relationship. It's just an asset out there for people to use. So the only way to get data would be to pay somebody to stand out there and actually take tally. So we could do that sort of thing, but we've never planned for that or programmed it.

That cost that's for the other stuff like you know your theater program and anything anything Walker thing that we have a rental relationship with we have.

So we can start to show that all to you yeah and I i'm not sure, but could we not ask people to register to use the courts to register that they're playing and give us some basic information about you can you can in.

I would want to have that in Hall Gym as a big forum because you can get a lot of people upset. I remember a lot of people feel like our park assets are supposed to be for open play. And so, right?

And I'm not opposed to that. I'm just saying that it helps us to understand how much usage is happening, when it's happening, so that we can plan better to provide a facility and improved use of our REC facilities if people will help by giving us data when they're using it and who's using it.

I 100% agree with you, but I don't have a lot of, personally, I don't have a lot of faith in self-reported data. So if you really want to do true data-driven decision-making, it has to be managed. And so we would want, if you really want to know, we need to pay somebody to be out there for periods of time and actually count.

With modern technology, couldn't you just put a camera up there and have AI just count the number of people? Probably.

Again, we probably could do that, but we might find ourselves in a large room with a lot of angry people. Because there's a camera.

Look at one of those flat cameras. Nobody has controversy about those.

I'm not opposed to any of these. I'm just preparing you for collecting data is an exercise and we know from experience how and why we collect data energizes members of the community. So we have to be prepared and thoughtful about that.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Open up to public comment. Anybody from member, any members of the public would like to make public comment?

Anybody online?

Madam Clerk? Okay, great. Thank you. The good news is the next presentation covered a whole bunch of functions crammed together under one umbrella.

So we'll try to get through that.

So we're now going to do the administration department.

We've chosen over the years to describe the department as one umbrella, but it does cover a lot of functions. And in a lot of org charts, those would all be separated out. But we're small. And why we use this umbrella is the managers that are present today, we're a pretty tight team solving a lot of problems collaboratively. So it makes sense to treat us as one department. Um, we're also going to take you through the matrix. I'll probably try to go a little faster for you. Uh, cause I think you probably know this department a little better in a lot of respects. Um, but just to remind you and the public, so they're really, uh, I didn't include the city attorney sort off to the side, your direct employee, but within the, uh, administration department, we think of the city manager's office, the city clerk's office. And then our finance or administrative services function as kind of our three prongs of our department. And you can see there, we cover a whole host of administrative tasks through those different departments. And I'll talk a little later about different mandates that require us to do many of these things. What What I would first say, though, is if we were to open the org charts of every Marin city, the way the administration is structured is just very different because a lot of times the council does allow the manager some latitude to build an administrative structure to achieve the goals of the community in the best way the city manager feels can be done. And I'm very grateful that over the years you've allowed me to shape this operation in a way that feels very efficient. to meet the different requirements that we have and be sure that we're providing you with everything you need to make the decisions that you need. So, you know, ideally, if we're running our administration department well, we're just, everything's clicking, everything's super responsive. All our decision-making has quick turnarounds. Our communication and engagement are, you know, off the charts, highly received. Our accounting and budgeting is always clean. transparent, always very clear. All our policies are always up to date. And all the special assignments and initiatives, particularly ones coming from the council, are easy for us to take on. We have the resources. We have the capacity to take those on. Someday we'll maybe be an ideal administration. I'm proud of what we do, but I acknowledge we could always be better. In the advanced level, you're just sort of scaling it down a little bit. We're still running a well-oiled machine. Everything is clean and compliant, but maybe we're not quite as quick on our turnarounds, but everything's getting done in a public satisfied, council satisfied. You know, where we start to get into standard is where we start to say, okay, we're still fully compliant. We're doing everything we need to do, but when the council wants us to take on a new task, that's actually, a pause while we sort of sort out how in the world are we gonna give you a good product on what you want, but still get the day-to-day operations in our department done. We pull it off, but it does sometimes require us to slow down other procedures and maybe we shift some of our standards from excellence to compliance in order to move along. TAB, When we start to have a more limited operation which i'm glad to say I don't think we've ever really been in this category for administration in large for. TAB, You know where we know internally that we're getting everything done public really unclear about what in the world we're doing. TAB, And so you're just hoping for trust. and then accounting and budgeting are adequate. We haven't broken any laws, but the audits auditors are sometimes telling us we're making some mistakes and there's things we need to fix. You know, everything's compliant, but probably a little bit out of date. And so we're just constantly playing catch up. We get very reactive at that point. And a lot of the responsiveness out of the city clerk's office, particularly records just are only being done to statute at that point. And then basic you know, we're keeping the lights on as best we can, but stuff's just not getting done or not getting done to what would be a best practice or an industry standard. I gave you the sort of, for me, this is the Dan Schwartz thought process projecting the way we work in Larkspur into staffing levels. I mentioned that, you know, you could get other city managers in here. They would tell you that they have a different vision. But for me, if we were running ideal, we've got multiple high-level executives who have their assignments and they have a specialized support staff to delegate to so that everything's getting done and we have capacity to take on additional work. And as we go down the scale, we just start to lose that capacity and we drive more and more assignments into fewer and fewer people. Again, I wanna emphasize We use a working manager model, and that includes me. As you know, I still regret it, but I was your primary analyst for reg control, and I have a lot of information in my head that I'll probably never go away. But that's just the way it is. We all have to sometimes pitch in and move down the pyramid and take care of some tasks so they get done. Generally, right now, I think our staffing levels are pretty strong in the administration. But I do feel compelled to note one thing, which you hear every year from the auditor, which is we probably need another person in our finance operation to actually become fully compliant with industry standards and best practices around checks and balances. Because you'll often hear the auditor say, you have a super user, and you're not supposed to have a super user. And that's because our director has a lot of authority where if we didn't have confidence in her ethical boundaries, we don't necessarily have the systematic checks and balances that the auditor would see. Now, I will say I serve as a check and balance for that job, but the auditor is also saying the city manager probably shouldn't be because he's doing a bunch of other things. He probably should have somebody who's dedicated to this particular function. So I put us between standard and advanced, and I do think it's also a compliment to my team. They're all high achievers, and that's one of the reasons we're able to give you the output that we're giving you right now. I'm not anticipating that we're going to propose in this coming year's budget any significant adjustments to the administration. I think given our current budget outlook, We're structured the best way we could be. If our budget ever got better, I'd really want to look at that finance position. I will say one of the things that we're doing that not every city does is we actually provide financial, we provide a lot of services to other agencies. As council knows, we're the administrative support for the central police. And we do take in revenue to offset our costs to do that. We provide all their financial support, their human resources support. and all their sort of non-restricted record guidance. We get a lot of that from them too. So we do have opportunities to gain revenue. And every once in a while, I sort of look at it and say, should I try to offer that we could do business with somebody else so you can charge more money so maybe we can get you that position? We're not quite there yet, but I think the systems are are getting closer to where that could become a reality. Because there's a lot of small used entities in our region that would benefit from the way we do our finances and the way we set up our books. We do Ross Valley Paramedic Authority right now, for example. And you mentioned earlier tonight the Marine Wildfire Prevention Authority. They're moving their business to San Anselmo, which is great. I was a big supporter of of that in their extended sum as a close partner. That gives me a lot more confidence in the way those books are going to get done. So I like that some of those types of entities are increasingly looking to cities to potentially be their resource. And then that revenue will be there to build those finance functions where they ought to be. I'll take a quick pause. I went really fast because I know we still have a few more things to do tonight before I get into goals accomplishments and goals.

Any questions?

It was a lot. It hit you really fast.

How long have we been managing Central Marin Police Authority and Ross Valley Paramedic Association?

The City of Larkspur has been doing the books for both of the organizations since they started. Well, I don't know the answer for Ross Valley Paramedic. To the best of my knowledge, it goes back to probably a few years after that authority form. But Larksker's been doing payroll and books for Central and police since it was Twin Cities Police Authority. So since 1980 something.

And if I understood correctly, they pay us for that role?

We charge for our administrative support, yes.

Okay, so if we need, it sounds like that is mostly handled through our director of finance, all of those responsibilities?

Not all of them. I provide some risk management support, for example, because I'm the risk manager for Larkspur, so I do that for the police authority. I don't do that for the paramedic authority. We have an HR analyst, and then Ms. O'Hare is our HR manager, so they provide those human resources services to Center One Police. So it's not entirely Ms. Gabrielle, but she's doing the finance part of it, and the payroll. Her team's doing it.

Could you give a percentage of time that our staff spends from their, you know, 50 hour, 40 hour work week on those organizations?

I don't have it off the top of my head. I'm sure we could try to work up some numbers for you about that. Certainly our payroll person is spending probably 40% of her time on their payroll, 40% on ours and 20% on other tasks. That's my off the cuff. That might have Ms. Gabrielle shaking her head that I'm totally wrong.

I think a little bit more. So for payroll, we're spending about 60% of our time. So for the payroll. For police, yeah. 60, 65% because of the complexity of public safety. So payroll is much more than the complexity of handling payroll for the seat of our program.

And I'm sorry, are the rates the same so that if we do 60% of the work for another agency, 60% of the salary is paid by that agency, including benefits? We've never approached it that way. We could start to renegotiate.

Is it ballpark like that? What are we talking about? I mean, they're getting a good deal if it's on a percentage of salary basis. But you have to remember some other factors. For example, I'll just put it out there. I'm very happy that we are the financial stewards at Centrum Employees. That has value to Larkspur, I think. So because I have great confidence that those books are correct. And so, you know, we probably discount in part out of partnership with our agencies and also they're in other relationships. That's where they're the finance officers and So this is a long way around. We've tended to do fixed cost agreements rather than parse out and say we're going to charge hourly or we're going to allocate a particular percentage of the time. I suspect every one of those agencies, if they try to do an RFP and go buy these services on the market, they pay a lot more than what we charge. So it's certainly something we could look at. And I will say, Amelia, Ms. Gabriels, HAB-Terry Palmos- been very aggressive and last few years of upping those charges, so they have been slowly growing them to better offset our costs. HAB-Terry Palmos- I do know ross valley paramedic every five years they get in their head that we're we're a bad deal and then they. HAB-Terry Palmos- make us not to kick them to the. HAB-Terry Palmos- So. We do a lot of smaller things too, though. We do the finance authority that does the marinas dredging, for example. We manage that. We don't really charge anything more than a small overhead fee for that because that was just something the city set up that has a return because it enhances property values for Larkspur. So we've got a couple of those on the books too. so maybe I'll transition to accomplishments it's hard for me sometimes to list accomplishments for administration because the reality is if we're doing our jobs correctly we shine internally because our main clients are often the other departments and so when they shine we kind of smile because we know we played a role in making sure that they shine so I did feel like given how often Mr. Skinner got grilled by Ms. Gabrielle and me about numbers, we deserve a little credit for financial oversight of the commons project and the library project, although I will always recognize that Julian was the heavy lifter. But then a big one for us was the launching of the Climate Action Forum and the council's direction to invest more staff resources into your sustainability initiatives. So Assistant City Manager, Ms. O'Hara is a leader of that exercise for us. She has an analyst under her that supports her as she works through that work. And she partners with Council Member Margulies as the liaison to the forum. And as you know, you recently approved some more clear guidelines on the top five priorities that we should be working on. So we'll be doing that in a second. And also, we've started to improve our communication about our sustainability work and our sustainability goals. We used to do human resources by contracting in reverse. We actually housed a human resources manager in Central Room Police, and then we would pay her for advice for the city of Larkspur. We were doing that in partnership with Corte Madera and Southern Fire, and we just found four agencies was too big a spread. This last year, we transitioned human resources under Larkspur, and we're providing human resources, as I mentioned, to Larkspur and Central Point Police. So we've completely fleshed out how that division is going to work and hired an HR analyst to support Ms. O'Hare as the lead manager. And I did, for two years, wear the HR hat, so I'm the consultant once in a while. You know, we had a tough year because admin had to lend a lot of management support to community development because, as you know, we had both our main management employees in community development step down in a very short span. So we worked on bringing in our new director and new chief building official, and now we're reassigning administration resources to support them as they go through the exercise that the council's asked for, which is to really start going through our development codes and policies and assess whether there should be modified, changed, updated. So we'll be providing a lot of support to them on that. In our finance area, we implemented a remote bank deposit. And what goes along with that, a lot of security provisions to protect us from any fraud or anything like that. We implemented a fixed asset module in Triler Technology. I'm going to say we, it wasn't me. But although I did, I have to tell you what that means to me, not because I didn't have to do the computer work, is we actually had to go through hundreds and hundreds of assets that were still on the books. Some of them hadn't been cleared off the books, but they were bought 40 years ago. And just because they're still in the books, they have to be dealt with. That was a fascinating exercise for several managers in the city because we had a document that we attested we would no longer possess some of the assets. And then we've been working really hard to digitize documents and the finance documents are almost entirely digitized at this point. So it's pretty exciting. And I know the clerk's office is also working continuously on digitizing documents. So we hope to reach a point where everything's digitized and as much is publicly available as possible. And then on the goals side, as I mentioned, really would like to launch some polls and focus groups to develop a vision plan for the library. And I didn't have time to modify the slide to mention that I do think we could probably pay for recreation without a big increase in the cost to that contract. A big challenge for admin right now is to figure out how to repurpose the old library space in City Hall during this interim period while the city goes through its development of a long-term vision plan for City Hall and we get that underway. So what I'm talking about here is we have a need to consolidate office space. We've got administrative staff strewn all over the city physically, so we're going to take advantage of there being empty library office space and we're going to put the admin folks in there so that we're all in the same building and within relative shouting distance of one another. But I think it goes broader than that. We're evaluating the space right now and setting the rules around ADA access and stuff. Because there's a chance that in the short term, that could be some nice community space. That old reading room kind of looks like a meeting room to me. So we'll just kind of figure out how we do that. Our goal is for this to be on the cheap. This is not to create Taj Mahal type standards, this is maybe we can replace the carpet and pay for environmental cleanup. When they move the books, it's amazing how much dust they kicked up. There's like a brand new layer of dust everywhere in that room. So there's a lot of cleanup that needs to happen. And then, as I mentioned, we're focusing on the goals of the Climate Action, the Climate Action Forum identified in your adopted documents. And in particular, The administration is going to take the lead working in partnership with Public Works to try to figure out how to expand EV charging. That's one of the goals. And the forum's really talking a lot about how do we get EV charging opportunities closer to multifamily housing. So we're going to put a particular emphasis on that. We're going to try it. Our Tyler Technology is our comprehensive financial software. So this year, Ms. Gabrielle set a goal to really implement work on automation and reporting. We're gonna work on disbursement, content management. We wanna further digitize our transactions, design control and procedure, implement our ACH for vendor payments. So again, trying to make efficient electronic transfers, but do it in a way that's safe so we're not making ourselves vulnerable. And then lastly, we purchased, we've been purchasing for many years comprehensive human resources management software called NeoGov. It's very common. Most local governments use NeoGov. It's the Microsoft of this space, and we're not taking advantage of it. So we've set a goal. We're working with somebody who's well-versed in NeoGov right now to start to build out the modules so that we're running more efficiently in HR. There's a lot of automation that we can do there that actually make a better user experience, particularly when we onboard somebody and when they want to change the benefits, when they want to understand how their paycheck works. A lot we can do in NeoGov in conjunction with Tyler and we can really help our staff have a better experience and help the community better understand when there's job opportunities with us and how they can pursue those.

Can I ask a quick question? Generally, what you and Amelia and sort of the admin department, have you guys gotten a pretty good idea of tools that you could use, automation tools? Because it's one thing to buy a big system and we're pretty small. It's another thing to go from casually using ChatGPT to really building out.

Well, we weren't going to mention AI tonight because we're still in our infancy, but we actually are... Ms. Gabrielle has volunteered to be the trainer. We actually have her enrolled right now in a class to figure out how do we constructively improve our use of technology with AI. And so I'm not talking about, we're not currently on the path where we want to say, talk to a robot, to our customer. We're talking internally that we think AI could be a tool to bring a lot more efficiencies to us. Ms. Gabriel likes to tell me one of the examples I think is really exciting for her is you can throw 10 spreadsheets at the AI engine and say, I need them consolidated into one pivot table and you get the result in a minute or two. And that's the kind of exciting stuff that we're starting to explore. One of the things we actually though are being conscious of that we've seen reports in our risk management literature is some governments jumped in pretty early and didn't realize a lot of, when you start to buy up to these higher AI engines, they start to gain access to your data and some of that data should not be going up into an AI engine. So we wanna be very careful and tread lightly as we move along this path.

Yeah, and that's great to hear. I mean, that's exactly it. I don't think we're gonna automate the workforce, You know, what I'm finding is at a department level of 30 to 50 people, having someone like her go in and see how to build out these tools is, you know, with TAM, we just passed the AI, you know, policy. And I just find that, you know, the aspiration of us getting to the ideal level of another staff member, I believe could be accomplished through this.

I think that might be true in a lot of respects, I think. That's one reason I feel like, yeah, it's probably with the exception of that checks and balance challenge, we probably are shaped perfectly for our scale. You know, it's a stupid little thing because I'm still feeling very naive about all the power that AI can bring. I mean, I am using it to ask questions and do some comparative, but I asked Copilot to take my table and I said, I need a horizontal line with five dots labeled from the first column in the table. That probably, that stupid graphic right there probably would have taken me 20 minutes to do and it did it in one minute. So just that stupid thing gave me 19 minutes of productivity. So those are the kind of small things that we all are dipping. And then without naming names, I have had to point out to some employees that AI gets things wrong. So don't let it overwrite your material without you actually proofreading it, double checking some of the facts that it's, spitting out. And then since I'm on the AI bandwagon before I let it go, Sky and I talk a lot about sort of how we're seeing AI pop up in the world. Just a message to anybody in the public who's listening, we can tell when AI wrote me now. And a warning to all my staff, Sky's pretty good at spotting when AI wrote their arguments that the city attorney's wrong. Anyway, just kind of a brand new world.

Which one do you use? I use quad.

I use quad. Yeah, and Gemini. We're expending a lot of Copilot since we are Office 365. It's integrated into the product. It's really easy. That is it, unless you have more questions for me. I feel like probably you get so much information through the year of what admin's doing for you that it's probably not as big a shot.

You're not going to go through all these last time.

Oh, I am. Yeah, don't. I wanted those published because Ms. Gabrielle worked really hard to really explain to you how many mandates her operation is subject to. She wanted to give you a sense of who she's doing it for, so she put in the table with different organizations. I did just briefly want to mention, though, just a reminder where we all come from in terms of why you have to have different employees. I'll start with myself. My position is a choice of the council. You chose to have the manager council form a government. There are cities that don't. There are cities where all the departments work for the council, and that is an option out there. I don't recommend it. I could talk to you ad nauseum why you don't want to do that. But it is a model, and I can tell you some cities that use it. The city clerk function is mandated, but who does it isn't? So in the good old days, I'm old enough that I remember this, a lot of city managers were also the city clerks, since the law said you had to appoint a city clerk. There was somebody else doing all the real work, but the clerk was often actually muted. You're required to have a treasurer. Most cities designate a finance director or an administrative service director to be the treasurer. But you probably are aware there's even a few cities in Marin where there's still an elected city treasurer.

Isn't that Fairfax?

Fairfax is one of them. Yeah. There are a few others. That was back in the day. That was a common thing. And some cities in Fairfax, as an example, still require the treasurer to sign the checks. So when they're not an employee, that can be a problem. I will tell you, I've heard anecdotes. But what you'll find if you look at administration is a lot more, it's the functions that are mandated. And then you as a council get to designate who fulfills those functions. And so... This is just a quick outline of that. And in fact, Ms. Gabrielle did that nice table. I did also enumerate with Allison's help. Our city clerk is your primary compliance officer. And she has to make sure that you, me, and the whole city complies with the laws that I have on the list. And that may look small as a list, but those are very, very time consuming. Public Records Act alone, I think probably, you know, we're getting several a week now. Pretty common. So there's just a constant churn of mandated work to be compliant with those laws. I'll spare you a long quote.

Thank you. I have a cold.

And you have a clean. But evidently, finance really is a big workforce in terms of keeping us compliant in our department. So now I'm turning it back to you.

Great. Thank you for the very thorough presentation. And my takeaway here is that we have very hardworking staff who are very efficient and very protective. So thank you very much for everything, the multiple hats and the different committees and all the different things that you all are doing on behalf of the city every day. Thank you. Any questions from council? Any member of the public who would like to make a public comment? It's all of us. Anyone online?

There's no public comment.

Okay. Well, thank you very much, city manager. We'll look forward to the budget presentations. Oh, we have other departments coming.

So we'll bring community development, and we'll bring public works. But, you know, I'll probably tell Julian to keep the department top of the minute because he also has to spend a lot of time on the CIP, and I know you enjoy taking him to the projects, so. that won't be my direction to him and minimize all the stuff they do.

All right. We look forward to those presentations next time. All right. So I'll, this is just for council to receive information. So I think we can move on to the next item, which is 8.2 alternative equivalent action requests for inclusionary housing at 1000 Drake's Landing Road. Great. Mr. Mogeson, our community services

Hi.

I'm going to try to go fast. All right. I probably should have just went up to the podium.

You should have just what?

I probably should have just went over to the podium.

Oh, no. You're on the team.

You're good.

Yeah, you're fine.

So this is what's called an alternative equivalent action request. That sounds complicated, but it's really not terribly complicated. Oops, let me go back one. So this is for the 1,000 Drake's Landing project, which is actually just right around the corner from here. It's hard to see in there, but we circled it with a little yellow arrow. The gist of it is the Planning Commission approved this entitlement. It's a 19-unit residential townhome project. It's dispersed among four buildings. They approved it on October 8th. Of the project, it was entitled under SB 330 and state density bonus law. So by providing more affordable housing, it received a couple extra units. So instead of what would normally be 17 units, they were allowed to and entitled to have 19 units. At the time, the project was a rental. It was supposed to be a four rental townhome project. And They designated four of those rental units for affordable housing, three for low income income brackets, and one reserved for the moderate income household bracket. Just kind of an overview. They also received some concessions and incentives. One of the concessions was to have the affordable housing units in the area that you can see in the map in yellow clustered together. The alternative equivalent action is a way for applicants to adjust their affordable housing requirements. It's identified in our zoning code. In this case, because the applicant is back today because they're proposing to convert the project from rental to a for sale ownership project, that was always a possibility with the entitlement. It's not something that's locked in stone with the entitlement. But when you change a project from rental to for sale, The criteria for how many affordable units and not how many, but what income brackets or affordable units are assigned to changes. And I'll touch a little bit on that. There's no change in the total number of affordable units. They're still providing four, but instead of being a four rent product, it would be an ownership product. So this would allow people who are in the income bracket to actually own a unit at a more affordable price. I've got the code requirements for rental are pretty straightforward. It doesn't really matter because they're proposing to do for sale ownership, the code says if you have a for sale ownership product, residential development, you've got 5% of the units designated for low income brackets, 5% for moderate and 10% for above moderate. And in this instance, the applicant's proposing an alternative equivalent action with a 20% moderate income for all four of the for sale ownership units. The general plan and housing element, I've protected this project to have four lower income units, either low or very low. But in our analysis, we really need affordable housing at all levels, especially deed restricted, moderate income ownership units. We have not entitled any deed restricted moderate income ownership units during this current housing cycle we're in. And so this would be the very first ownership for that income bracket. So we have no, you know, we're recommending that the council approve this alternative equivalent action for having the four units be at the moderate income level. We did not receive any public comments on the item. The applicant is here. You can speak to that. I'm happy to answer any questions.

One of the slides you have there had the Larkspur code would require, I think it said two very low and moderate or for low.

Yeah, so the for sale, I'll just go back and it's also in the packet. So if it's for rent, there's two options for applicants. They can choose option one or two for rental. But in this case, if it was a for sale ownership, they would have to change that anyway. The for sale ownership requires that 5% of the units that are designated for affordable below 5% for the moderate income bracket and 10% above moderate, which I think is like 35% AMI. So instead of having five low, five moderate, and 10 above moderate, the applicant is proposing them to be in the middle category for all four of those units, rather than having one low, one moderate, and two above moderate, it would be all four would just be moderate. Does that make, if that helps kind of clarify?

Yes. So basically the only thing we are giving up on the lower end is a single low unit. We moderate in exchange, what we're getting is two higher above moderates. Right.

So those above moderates, the two above moderates would be just moderate, which is a lower income. Thank you for explaining.

I appreciate that. My question is just procedurally because I've never done one of these before. I haven't either. Oh, good. Does it have to go back to planning commission?

It does not. We analyzed the code and determined that even though the entitlement with your planning commission, this particular type of action is specific to a council approval.

Okay. That was my question. This is the first for me on this.

And can you just let us know what is in the housing elements for the moderate income ownership units? We're going to create four here if this passes tonight, but what's our total? Do you know?

Oh, boy. I presented it in our annual housing progress report, but I can't remember off the top of my head.

But we need to create more. But this is a starting point.

It is. We strive to create as many as we can. So we do our best.

Can I ask? I haven't heard of the above moderate category. Is that a requirement that we have to have a certain number of above moderate categories? Our code identifies that category. Right. But as far as state law.

Yeah. That is not a state category. It's a local one. It's something identified in the inclusionary ordinance. But state density bonus law doesn't go above moderate.

Yeah. So basically, we're gaining units under the RENA numbers. Yes. Yes.

Should we amend our code then? If the state code doesn't have anything above moderate, we have above moderate? Is that?

All right.

We can talk about that another year. Yeah, that's another subject.

All right, never mind. We have been having some discussion about an overhaul of the inclusion agreement. It's over. Overall, for a variety of reasons.

Yes. OK. But under, OK, I understand what is being requested here. OK. Any other questions? That's where Martin was. No. OK.

It is a public hearing.

What's that?

It is a public hearing.

It is a public hearing. Okay. I will open it up for public comments. Would any member of the public like to make a comment? Okay. Anybody online?

There's no public comment online.

Okay. Great. Thanks.

All right. What's that?

I just have one request, and that is I find that this resolution, if we're going to talk about moving to pass the resolution, is a little bit tricky in the way that it's worded. I would prefer that it refers specifically to moderate income units, which is what the code talks about. But it talks about moderate level units. And I just, I find that a little bit confusing because it's not exactly what code calls for. So I would suggest that we actually have the language and the resolution match the language in our Reno and our code. And that it says moderate income units, not moderate. Yeah. Can you give it? Oh, sorry. Yeah.

It's in the recitals in the third recital or fourth recital at the end.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Oh moderate income unit for moderate level, yes, I see yeah and it's actually referred to again in another area further down. HAB-Masyn Moyer- And I don't I don't know why we we submitted or you know substituted the level language, but I feel that it would be it's inconsistent and i'd like it to actually. HAB-Masyn Moyer- reflect the language. HAB-Masyn Moyer- That was a good catch.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Okay. Can we do that city attorney?

Can we ask the city attorney, is there any reason that that's in there? No, it's just that sometimes when you're talking about this, there's an additional phrase that's often used about income levels and affordability levels. And so I think that in drafting the resolution, probably it was just bringing that concept into the phrasing for this. But I think we could just change in the one, two, three, fourth, whereas clause at the end, it could say for moderate income units and then in the now therefore be resolved paragraph, say two, four moderate income units for ownership and just take out level in those two places and you could make the motion to adopt the resolution with those two changes.

Okay.

Well, then I'll make a motion to pass the resolution with those amendments.

Can I get a second? Second. Great. All right. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstain? Okay. Motion passes. Thank you, Director Mogeson and Deputy City Attorney Woodruff. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Okay, so that brings us to sorry to stick around so.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Great Thank you.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Okay, now we're going to move to item 8.3 appointment of larkspur citizen of the year.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Just gonna let you know that was 145 and moderate. HAB-Masyn Moyer- We need a lot before we go for.

Okay, we've got more.

Great.

This is entirely your item, Madam Mayor. Okay. So I'm going to read it to you.

All right. Would anybody like to make a nomination for as large as your citizen of the year?

I have some suggestions. Okay, great. I have two suggestions. One is for a dual nomination for Diana St. James and Chris Leinhart, who were the brains and facilitators behind our boat brigade. And the second one would be for Dana Swisher, who has been already recognized as a leader in the education community and an outstanding teacher, as well as the person who is behind the refugia and creating our habitat garden and doing a lot of fundraising around that. Those were some ideas. The actual nomination for the book brigade came from a resident. She originally recommended to me Diana St. James. And Diana respectfully declined and said she couldn't take a nomination without Chris also being recognized. And she was just as much responsible and a participant in creating the book brigade. Those are just some suggestions.

I think Dana was already a couple years ago, wasn't she? We usually get a list. Will you look up Dana? I think she was. Oh, she was. But I'm not positive.

And I know Allison has a list, but I love those ideas. Yeah, those are great ideas. Anybody else have recommendations or suggestions? Okay, well, I think those are great ideas. I would be supportive, but let's have Allison check real quick.

I've got to connect to this service. Okay. No problem.

Diana did say that she would be favorable to the dual nomination and that she would hope that Chris was available to participate in the parade because she would not be. Oh no, she would not be available. Oh, let's hope Chris can.

I don't see her on the list. Okay. Okay. Okay.

It might be that you recognized her when she was teacher of the year. That might have been it. I think you might have honored her.

Yeah, I think we did a resolution or something for her. Anyway.

Okay.

All right.

I asked Claude. Who should be citizen of the year? No, who were the past 10? Oh, great.

Is it correct?

Let me see. AI, there we go. Is this the citizen of the year?

You're wrong on this question.

Don Santa doesn't even live here.

All right. So is there a reason we can't nominate all three?

There are no rules.

There are no rules to this process.

Madam Mayor, can I recommend since all three of them substantially contributed to our community this year, that that would be a fair nomination to nominate all three of them?

We can arm wrestle for this one. All right. Would someone like to second the motion? I'm out second. Great. Okay. So let's all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Any abstain? Wonderful. All right. So we will have three citizens of the year.

It's going to be a whole party.

All right. Well, wonderful. Okay. So with that, we are adjourned to our next regular meeting on Wednesday, May 20th, 2026. Yeah. Thank you.