City Council - Regular Meeting

There we go.

Testing one, two. Testing one, two, three.

recording in progress so i'm going to ask that everyone just sit tight for a little bit longer we have new technology in here that has worked perfectly over the last three days and as of about an hour ago we only have one camera that is working so we're going to try to we the tech team is going to try to fix that so sit tight for about five more minutes and then we'll get started thank you Good evening, everyone. We're going to go ahead and get started utilizing the technology that is working today. So welcome. Today is Monday, April 6. This is a regular meeting at the San Rafael City Council. I request the city clerk to call the roll, please.

Council Bushy, Council Member Bushy is absent. Council Member Hill is absent. Vice Mayor Kurtz? Present. Council Member Yadans-Gulati? Present. Mayor Kate?

Present. Thank you. We met in closed session prior, and I'll invite the city attorney to report out.

Thank you, Mayor Kate. No reportable action was taken in closed session.

thank you is your mic on which is kind of hard to hear okay uh no reportable action was taken in closed session thank you well good evening everyone and welcome whether you're here in person or joining us online we appreciate your communication sam rafael i always like to start by thanking our city staff every day these professionals enable our city to run so smoothly Everything from cleaning storm drains to preparing for council meetings. We're grateful for their responsiveness and dedication. So it's spring. And a quick reminder, if you're noticing potholes, they seem to spring up just like weeds spring up during the spring. Go ahead and report any of those issues through See, Click, Fix. You can access it right on the city website. It's the most direct way to let city staff know about issues. And it's the same portal that City Council Chambers, The three the five of us use so see click fix, in addition, we continue to work to get folks even more engaged on all the different topics, so if you don't already subscribe to the snapshot I. City Council Chambers, I would suggest that you do that as well that's our city manager he newsletter comes out twice a month. It talks about what will be at the council meeting, what decisions have been made, other issues that are going on in the city. So it's a great place to start to get information. And from there, you can also go to the website if you have a particular issue or initiative that you're interested in. The website is very, very robust and has lots of information. So we always want to just continue to work on getting the facts out there. Social media is one venue. But the best venue is the website or engaging in meetings like this one. So thank you for being here. And before we get started, I'd like to include a land acknowledgement as part of our meeting. And this statement complements the ongoing collaboration and work we do with the tribe. This is the statement. We thank the original caretakers of this land. San Rafael is traditionally home to the Coast Miwok people, many of whom today are tribal citizens of the Federated Indians of Great Rancheria. And we honor their continuing involvement in stewardship practices that benefit us all. Thank you for being here. We have a great agenda and I'll turn it over to the city clerk to share how the public can participate this evening.

Thank you, Mayor Kate. Tonight's meeting is being recorded and streamed live to YouTube. For members of the public wishing to provide public comment, displayed on the podium and the projector is a timer to help you stay within your two-minute timeframe. You're invited, though not required, to introduce yourself and say what part of Centerfell you live in or if you're from outside of Centerfell. Viewers may request a reasonable accommodation to provide public comments virtually. For more information about that or if you're experiencing any technical difficulties, you can email me at city.clerk at cityofcenterfell.org.

Thank you, we have open time for public expression, both at the beginning of the meeting for 10 minutes and then any folks that don't get a chance to talk, we will have additional open time for public expression at the end of the meeting, this is for anything that's not on tonight's agenda, so if you'd like to address the Council now is your opportunity to do so. And you're welcome, but not required to say your name and what part of San Rafael you live in.

Hello, my name is Wayne Rayburn. I live in San Rafael Meadows. Hello, Mayor, members, staff.

I'm sorry, can you hold on one second? It doesn't sound like it's on. Or maybe... Testing. Okay. Why don't you start over and just... Not close enough? Yeah, why don't you get a little closer just so the recording can pick it up. Thank you, sir. Wait, yep. It's just all the technology this evening. Okay, there we go.

Can you hear me now? Okay. Okay. Hello, Mayor, council members, staff. My name is Wayne Rayburn. I live at San Rafael Meadows. The city of Milpitas is in the process of giving residents free wireless doorbell cameras to deter crime, help police gather video evidence, according to a report by the Milpitas Beach. The Milpitas City Council allocated $60,000 for the program to distribute one per household by the Milpitas Police Department on the first-come, first-served basis. The city council now approved the program on March 17, 2026. Officials selected a plan giving residents free cameras with no required subscription and at least 50 to 90 days of storage data. I'll quote the city member, Evelyn Chu. Public safety is our top priority, and this door camera initiative is about strengthening crime prevented right where it matters most, at home. By equipping residents with tools and partners closely with the Milpitas Police Department, we're building a stronger community connection between our community and law enforcement and help deter crime and protect our neighborhoods, end of quote. And now, if you, our city council members, feel the same about our safety as Milpitas does about theirs, you should approve a similar program. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else have any other comments? Not seeing right now. As I said, there is additional open time for public expression at the end of the meeting. We'll move into the city manager and council member reports. I will turn to city manager Navazio.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, members of the council. A few items to share this evening. First is work has started on our Lincoln Avenue crosswalk improvement project. Construction will be ongoing through this month and into May. There's temporary parking and traffic set up and some traffic disruptions may be encountered during the constructions. The areas that are being worked on is Lincoln Avenue and Wilson Court and Lincoln Avenue and Brookdale Avenue. Improvements include flashing pedestrian and crossing lights at both intersections, upgraded curb ramps, et cetera. So there'll be a little disruption during that, but work is underway. Just a couple of events that are coming up. projecting forward to next week we do have a finance subcommittee meeting on tuesday april 14th at 10 a.m upstairs in our third floor conference room and the police advisory and accountability committee is meeting wednesday the 15th at 6 p.m two other events uh red cross blood drive on wednesday april 15th from 9 to 2 p.m at the b street community center and And then finally, the city will be participating and cooperating in a downtown cleanup day with downtown businesses and neighbors. And we're also inviting volunteers to join the festivities. This will be on April 22nd from 10 to noon. Gathering will be at City Plaza at 1004th Street. and all volunteers will be getting some free gelato for your help in pitching in. Last thing I'll note is, folks may have noticed, but over the next roughly two weeks, there's a window of weather permitting where we will be doing prescribed burns. San Rafael, I believe, today, there was some burning up there, also planned for tomorrow. not necessarily every day, but over the next 13 days. So you can sign up for Alert Marin's prescribed burning notifications to be notified for the schedule of those events. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll turn to my colleagues. Vice Mayor Kurtz.

I have the honor of reading at Bahia Vista. which was great for first and second graders and then I got totally upstand by the fire department who also came to read and kids had no interest at that point so. Which was great they did a really fantastic job and so that was every year it's a great opportunity attended the mw PA marine wildfire prevention authority board meeting and exec meeting, it is a really important time right now because we're looking at the work plan and the. budget for next year, so those recordings are available online on Marin wildfire site. And you can look at those meetings, as well as the operations committee meeting and encourage everyone to do that, as that is a huge amount of funding that goes into supporting the work that we need to do to prepare for wildfire. City Council Chambers, The cow cities policy meeting on Community services, where we were working on the. City Council Chambers, policy for cow cities around older adults and actually we change the name from seniors to older adults, and I believe we're going to get the term ageism worked into the action into the statement so that has to be approved still by the board, but that will be coming. I spoke at the San Rafael Federation of Neighborhoods, and Mayor Kate and I met with the exec team from Kaiser to hear about some of their new updates that are coming up. That's it.

Thank you. Council Member Irenz-Giletti.

Thank you, Mayor. I also was able to read to kids from third graders. I read at San Pedro School, three classes, and it was amazing. I was able to read in Spanish because everybody spoke Spanish. So it was super fun. And then we had some math because there were a lot of personal questions, including how old I was or like what was the year that I was born. So we started doing some math if we're in 2026. So anyway, really good at math, too. So it was amazing. I had a great time. I also attended the Cal City's Environmental Quality Policy Committee a couple of weeks ago. We received an overview of the California Global Biodiversity Alliance with the goal to advance biodiversity and climate resilience statewide. which might really influence our planning, our local planning. The committee also took action on several bills, especially AB 1642 on wildfire contamination standards and other measures addressing environmental regulation and public safety. We are really pushing for There are several bills around emergency response, and we are pushing not only today for wildfire, but also for other catastrophes like earthquakes or flooding. So I will continue looking at these, tracking these proposals to make sure that our city is represented. Last week, I attended the San Rafael Chamber of Commerce East San Rafael Working Group meeting. We have our very own Kate Hageman presenting our two-year study on sea level rise, which is so important for our neighbors and our businesses. And I had the pleasure to actually, our acting city manager, Paul, was with us, so it was great to introduce him to our businesses as well. And of course, Corey Vitoff was When it's in attendance as well, this morning I attended the marine transit monthly meeting the highlight is our presentation from both as a canal, which is a group of leaders. part of our kind of alliance, they have that like an eight week training on what it is the experience of the different users of of the transit, so they have a study. around from the the new bus center that is going to be built in there to they had a couple of days where they drove the buses and they are we are introducing the new mascot program combination marine transit with Other agencies as well transportation authority of marine smart golden gate transit, so it was great for them to have that experience and we will continue from our in transit working with them to see how we can continue improving our services so that was very interesting. And then after that one, I had an MC Clean Energy Executive Committee meeting. So this Monday. Thank you. Yes.

Thank you. I have a couple items to report out on the San Rafael Sanitation Sanitation District met last week as long as Council Member Bushy was also there. We discussed Bayside Acres, which is removing pipes that are too close to the bay and bringing them back into a place that works for BCDC. So phase three on that. In addition, we are doing the next step of relocating district employees to the CMSA, the Central Marin Sanitation Agency site. So we approved a relocation contract for that. In addition, the Economic Development and Housing Subcommittee met. Council Member Hill was a part of that conversation. We had a fantastic discussion around the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. There'll be further discussions both here on the dais as well as when we have our next housing study session as that is a key issue. On these meetings, by the way, the subcommittees are all recorded and you can watch them online later. In addition, we talked about our special event sponsorship policy. And we also had an update on the Southeast Summerfell specific plan, which is being undertaken with $790,000 from Rent Metropolitan Transit Commission, MTC. Right now, the listening sessions are starting as to what that plan would eventually be like. So stay tuned for more information on that. And finally, we had an excellent presentation by the Marin Small Business Development Center, otherwise known as SBDC. If you are a small business owner, this is a fantastic resource for both technical advice as well as anything that your business might encounter. So do check them out online. Last week, the TAM Board met, Transportation Authority of Marin, and our entire agenda will be coming here, not the entire agenda, but a piece of it will be coming here, in that we discussed the Measure AA expenditure plan. It was approved by the TAM Board, and as part of changing the allocation, it has to be approved by over 50% of all the cities and towns. So we will be hearing that at either our next meeting or the first meeting in May. So it is coming up. We had a great discussion at that TAM board, and I'm confident that all the cities and towns will agree, hopefully, with the reallocation of adding a little bit more money to support crossing guards. Council Member Miker already mentioned about mascots. That was talked about at SMART, which is the Sonoma-Moran Area Rapid Transit. Mascots is a coordination of all the transit systems. Moran Transit, Golden Gate Transit, and SMART. So Moran IJ actually had an excellent article about it this morning. Service is gonna increase at Smart by 16%. There'll be more morning transit trips, midday and after work, and they're working to connect even tighter with local transit. So it's a regional effort to have transit serve users as best as possible. City Council Chambers, Two more things to mention I attended as well as Council member bushy and Council member hill the retirement last week of Captain mcgallery. City Council Chambers, who had served the city of San Rafael for 33 years and it was fantastic, it was a great turnout and honoring a true public service professional who'll be missed and we wish them all the best and next chapter. And then finally, I think all the Neighborhood Association meetings are being scheduled, because I was able to speak at Fairhills, a Rotary meeting, Jewish Family Services, and I have a couple more coming up. So if you're part of a Neighborhood Association, would like any of us to come and speak to you, do reach out, because that's a great way to get additional information. So thank you, as always, for all the work that you're doing. I will now open it up to the public. If there's any comments that you would like to make on the city manager and council member reports, now is your opportunity. Okay, not seeing any. I'll go to the consent calendar. I'm sorry, is the sound, the sound seems weird to me. I don't know if it seems weird to you guys. It seems fine. It seems, it's really echoey for us. It's not echoey, it's not echoey for you all out there? There is a slight echo. You're not crazy, we're going to fix that. Okay, I'm just gonna ignore that, but I want you to all know that we recognize there's an echo in here.

Okay.

It's okay, I'm gonna ignore that, okay. We'll move to the consent calendar. Are there any items that the council would like to hold from the consent agenda?

No.

Okay, not seeing any. I will open a public comment on the consent agenda. This is items 2A through 2H. If you'd like to comment, now is your opportunity. And you're invited but not required to say your name. Oh, do you want to go? Well, either one. Either one. Let's see if that one's on.

Is this okay? I have a big mouth.

I don't think that one's on, so give it...

Okay, yeah, there we go. Hi council members and Mayor Kate. Nice to be here again. We were here a couple of weeks ago. And I'm here to comment in particular on the IPM work that we've been talking about again. I'm part of a group that we named back in the early 2000s, Safe and Healthy San Rafael. And we wanted to help educate the community And we found it incredibly gratifying working with the city at that time to help create the original policy for IPM. And I'm proud to have been a part of that and happy to be back now and finding that San Rafael has that same spirit of collaboration, which is wonderful. So a group of us who are San Rafael Revival, Safe and Healthy San Rafael Revival, met with April Miller and Aaron Tubbs. And out of their incredibly busy schedule, they carved out some time to meet with us and hear our input on the IPM policy that was being proposed. And we're very grateful for that. In particular, I can say my I live, by the way, in San Rafael, just up on Laurel Place, and I'm sure you all know where that is. So I walk a lot up the hill on Robert Dollar and down through Boyd Park, and there are parts of open space, and I am thrilled to say that I think we're gonna continue with what was my goal before, which was to feel safer on city property because of the the consideration in spraying and applying pesticides than I do in my own neighborhood. And what I would love to see, my vision, would be for San Rafael to be a beacon for the county and also in a way educate and make others curious who could then make us feel safe walking city streets too because residences don't spray as much and that sort of thing. So thank you all. And thank you for doing all that you do. And thank you, April and Erin, for all they're doing. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Rika Gopinath. I live here in San Rafael. I'm very happy to be here and also want to thank Council Member Rachel Kurtz for pulling from the consent calendar and really thank you very much to staff, April Miller and Aaron Tubbs. We had a super productive meeting and just want to call out two things. We really appreciate the chance to share both some context and history about the policy but also we're lucky because we have myself, like I live here, this is my home and I get to work on this stuff in my day job nationally. And so we're really fortunate that staff was willing to sit down with us and we were all up about the same thing, making sure that staff has the resources to do the work they need to do safely for the public good. And I wanna highlight just two things. First to especially thank staff the changes and feedback they heard and changes they made that are before you tonight, but especially to call out the addition of sharing information with the public through an annual meeting. And I think that is fantastic. It's a best practice that we recommend in my day job with public transparency, accountability, and it offers staff an opportunity, which they actually, Erin actually articulated the importance of being able to engage with the community. The last thing I want to call out is that I really hope, we support this revision, but I really hope it marks the beginning and not the end of the evolution of this policy. So I hope that it can come into the next work plan because we have lots of resources and more ideas about how to bring best practices into this policy, especially hearing and knowing the city of San Rafael cares about biodiversity and sustainability. IPM policies and practices can be the way to take action for the city's sustainability by not only removing pesticides, but actually leaning into nature-based solutions. And so I'm excited to continue that work and just come here with deep gratitude for staff and council.

Thank you, Rika.

Good evening, Debbie Ruffell. I live in Terralinda. I've run IPM programs across the state and was also working with Kramer on the formation of this policy. So I feel very connected to it and very proud of this city for its leadership on reducing the use of pesticides. I also wanna call, there's one change that was put into the policy based on our conversation, and I want to reiterate what Rika said about the importance to me as a resident, and that is the potential to have an annual update for the public. Because right now, the only way to find out what is used on city property is to send Aaron an email, and then he makes PDFs of all the different applications. It's incredibly time consuming for him. what other cities do is they post on a website that is very labor intensive for staff so we came up with what we thought was a clever solution to honor transparency by having an annual public meeting perhaps corey bid off would allow us to take part of his agenda it is consistent with our sustainability mission where the public is invited to have a conversation about pesticide use staff are able to explain where they've had to use it where they haven't where resources have gotten in the way, and where they need the public help. So to me, that is a very exciting addition that is before you. I support you approving the resolution, and I want to reiterate my gratitude for staff's ability to work with us. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments on the consent agenda? Okay, not seeing any. I will bring it back to the council for a motion on this item.

I'll move to approve the consent agenda. I'll second.

Moved and seconded. Roll call, please.

Vice Mayor Kurtz.

Yes.

Sorry. Council Member Irenz-Gilotti.

Aye.

Mayor Kate.

Aye. That motion carries 3-0. Thank you. Our first agenda item this evening is the Economic Development Strategic Plan Update. And I see Stacey Lauman and Director Hinkle coming down. Welcome.

Madam Mayor and Council, as staff prepares, Mayor Cate alluded to, this presentation was provided at the Economic Development Housing Subcommittee a couple weeks ago, and I appreciate the feedback and the ability to present the subcommittee, and we're here tonight to share some exciting information and updates with the full Council and the public in this forum.

So, good evening, Mayor Cate and Council Members. Micah Hinkle, Community Economic Development Director. I'm joined here with Stacey Lauman. And this is your Economic Development Team. So, we're happy to present that item before at the Economic Development Subcommittee, but really this is the highlight end for Council. And we'll take it from here.

Okay, good evening again, my name is Stacy lowman and the economic development program manager here with the city of San Rafael it's my pleasure to share with you today our annual report of the. Economic Development Street your strategic plan for the city of San Rafael the strategic plan was adopted by your Council in May 2023 it's a five year plan so it's to cover the years of 2023 to 2028. The Council identified eight strategy area, or seven strategy areas are listed here, business support and development support, downtown imagination, infrastructure financing different districts, or some type of financing tools for the City of San Rafael. Strengthening local partnerships attracting high tech industry uses outreach to businesses and workforce development programs so within those seven areas, there are 31 program tasks and you'll see in the chart on the right, how the tasks were organized by implementation years one through five. City Council Chambers, We worked over the last year to make sure that the highest priority items and the economic development strategic plan were integrated into your recently adopted three years strategic plan for the city of San Rafael so you'll see some most of these. City Council Chambers, High priority items in work plan area, a which is economic and neighborhood vitality and work plan area F, which is high performing government. So this is just to give you a snapshot of where we are in terms of progress of the 31 task items we've made really significant progress and implementing and also working toward implementing most of those items you'll see. There are three categories implementing developing and not started so implementing means those projects that we have fully. City Council Chambers, implemented and are working on developing is that we are, we are possibly not funded or possibly working toward the the implementation plan putting things in thing putting things in motion to put those programs forward. Of the seven focus areas down below, you'll see several areas we are fully implementing and several areas we've moved toward progress, and then there are a couple areas where we have made less progress toward implementing. So, I would say primarily we've been focusing on two areas. One of them is business support and outreach, really connecting with the business community, connecting with the development community to make sure that we're implementing what we're calling the San Rafael Go program. That's our concierge style service to help businesses, developers, folks that are interested in doing business or staying in business here in San Rafael. We want to help them navigate through our internal city processes so that they can make good business decisions and move forward with their businesses. City Council Chambers, And the areas that we've made less progress are in attracting high tech industrial uses i'll mention that Micah may talk a little bit later, but. City Council Chambers, upcoming we're going to be working on a southeast San Rafael specific plan that will really focus on what is the vision for southeast San Rafael. City Council Chambers, And the majority of our industrial lands are in southeast San Rafael so we've held off. City Council Chambers, on implementing those programs until we have a good idea of where we'd like to go in terms of vision for that area of the city. City Council Chambers, And then the other area where we've paused some progress is on identifying resources to create a financing tool to support things like infrastructure things like sea level rise long term financial considerations. Here i'll just miss them a list some of the major accomplishments, and this is not include you know inclusive of everything we've been doing, but, as I mentioned before the San Rafael go program is something that we're really trying to. identify within the Community as San Rafael staff are here to be your resource, let us work with you to make sure and access the city's resources together. So we're doing that through a broker outreach through business outreach and we also have had significant numbers of major developers contract contact us to help identify their questions early so that they can come to the city with a more complete development application. We made some major changes to the cannabis program, particularly we made a fee reduction for retail delivery businesses so that they could overcome some financial hurdles in that industry, and that's a two-year fee reduction for those businesses. We also implemented a two-year fee reduction for streeteries. You may recall that we had several streeteries that were having trouble coming into compliance with our city permitting program. City Council Chambers, we've refined our permitting process, both for street areas that are in the drive lane, as well as outdoor dining, which is on sidewalks. City Council Chambers, And we have a new permit application for that this integrated into our open gov permit system, and we also offered a two year reduction in fees for restaurants that would like to implement a street re. My colleagues worked very hard to establish a mobile vending ordinance to help navigate the challenges of folks that are trying to be entrepreneurs in the Community and also making sure that we have health and safety requirements. adhere to while providing food and food and beverage on street. i've also worked closely with the downtown San Rafael arts district, which is a collaboration of nonprofit arts organizations to implement a three year grant from the California arts Council. So recently, you may have seen a mural on a private property that went up on the side of Metta yoga on seahorse street at fourth street. That project was funded in part by our grant from the California arts Council and this Wednesday, you also see a first sculpture of the five piece public art program that will be. temporarily installed at the B street Community Center before it's moved sometime in the fall to its future location proposed at the east or western gateway of downtown four street. City Council Chambers, We were also able to work with our colleagues in the police department to transfer administration of our events program to the Community and economic development department. City Council Chambers, And lastly i'll say that we've been doing some economic analysis and really evaluating how we receive revenue to the city through a sales tax analysis, we. invited our colleagues at hdl to provide a presentation to the economic development subcommittee around sales tax and that as mayor kate had mentioned earlier is available online for viewing if anyone's interested in that City Council Chambers, I want to mention that this is this has been 2025 has been a catalytic year for development as of December January. City Council Chambers, We had 18 major projects that had come through our planning department representing a just a staggering amount of new development proposed in the city, primarily residential housing development. So developers are investing millions, hundreds of millions of dollars in our city, and I think that's a, City Council Chambers, source of pride, perhaps for the Community, and particularly for those that are interested in providing housing at all levels of. City Council Chambers, income and need in the city, I think, especially the number of units that are proposed for downtown San Rafael currently they're sitting at around 1000 units will really change who can live downtown and what access folks have to the retail activities on the four streets. A couple of examples are here, the first one is 800 mission street that's been occupied for some time now it's owned by ages living and it provides 101. Housing it opened in August 25 and I bring this up to you, because I wanted to just mention that the development of that property. represents a 300% increase in property tax. So that kind of development brings investment into our community in many ways. It provides jobs, construction jobs, ongoing jobs, and also property tax revenue. The next project I want to mention is 930 Irwin Street. It's being developed. The property name is going to be Modera. It will provide 210 apartments, family apartments, kind of a luxury range generally with some inclusionary units as well. That project broke ground in 2025 and the anticipated opening is in 2028. Folks will see a lot of construction happening now along Irwin Street with that project. Again that's a good example of how we worked with the developer through the San Rafael go program the developer came to us very early asked what what it needed what they needed to do to develop in San Rafael. How to ask the right questions and we tried to guide them as much as possible through their pre development process, so we would have a really smooth construction and development process in our process in in the pipeline.

I'll just add, like, along these processes, that's the kind of first stop with the city, right, on the GO program, but it continues through every single department throughout the development review process and even to the construction phase. We continue to work with them on there's multiple issues get identified and how to work with that. Like they, you know, Modera and specifically how to work through some of the utility issues. So we've been working with them, even though it's not our issue, but it's an issue in order to then get them to be developed or pulled a permit. So this is kind of that example of the concierge level services supporting that development to ultimately get it done because this is what it takes to actually deliver some of these projects stuff that's outside of our purview or control but we also connect them and support them and and strategize with them how to be successful in these items but also build better working relationships with all our development partners as they're new projects to us they're also new projects to them so it's really kind of bringing them on board on how we actually do these things and how we proceed with the development so

City Council Chambers, Thank you Micah and I would say that's true of 703 third street that project is not under construction, yet, but a great example of. City Council Chambers, Collaboration is working with our colleagues in department of public works and understanding some of the bike and ped transit lanes that are going to be coming. City Council Chambers, On that street in the future that needed to be accommodated in a design very early so making sure that those connections were made and information that was not readily available to a developer, we were able to connect. The developer and make sure that they took those plans into consideration, so they didn't waste time essentially for their own development purposes. City Council Chambers, I will mention that. City Council Chambers, Our department hosts a in an online interactive web tool called the major major projects page where someone can go on to a interactive map and click on a location they'll. City Council Chambers, see a picture of the building that is proposed and then, if they click through that they can access all the plans that are public information that the city's received in terms of those development proposals. In terms of retail, there has been a lot of activity in this realm also, particularly I'll talk about some national brands that have joined us in San Rafael and also some local folks that have brought their brands here or expanded their brands. So in terms of national brands, as you may be aware, our auto industry is extremely strong and we were happy to have Polestar join the family of dealerships in our East San Rafael area. We were able to retenant some other sort of strip mall area, big box stores with Five Below off of Anderson area. Wingstop and Little Caesars also came into the Marin Square shopping center area. and in terms of local brands we've seen a lot of activity on fourth street as you may be aware the burren house has been very active and well received by the community burn live is a entertainment venue that's being developed next door to the house or the pub We have several new pizzerias that are coming or have come to San Rafael. Freewheel Brewery is also very active now. And another brewery, Hidden Splendor, is also coming into the former stateroom space. Freewheel Brewery, again, another example of the GO program where that brewer was interested in opening a beer-only space and wondering how they could do that and also activate the existing streetery that had some permitting issues. So we worked with them. to make sure that they could get their licensing and their permitting up and running in a in a timely manner. So now let's talk a little bit about data and indicators so some of the ways we track progress in the city is through total taxable sales through assessed value of properties and tourism. So this first slide is talking a little bit about taxable sales and the chart will show you that over time generally taxable sales have been increasing. Unfortunately, we don't have 2025 data on this chart, but you will see that as of 2024 when we made this information. the indicators point to increasing sales. And I will remind folks also that we do receive tax revenue, both from brick and mortar sales tax, but also from a pool of tax that comes to us from online sales. But this is a great reminder that we are a small business city, and we are a small business city that employs people and also supports local business. So I'd encourage everyone to remember to shop local, particularly as early May is small business week coming up. The lower chart here is a representation of what types of sectors City Council Chambers, generate the greatest sales tax and they have the greatest overall sales volume so you'll see here that we are as a city dominated primarily by motor vehicles and motor vehicle parts, followed by. City Council Chambers, Other outlets, but primarily followed by building materials garden equipment those kinds of things, so we have a lot of construction in the city and a lot of vehicle sales that really carry us so we want to make sure. that when we're talking about business retention in the future and economic vitality, we want to make sure that we're supporting those businesses and paying attention to them so that they can thrive moving forward.

I'll just add, you know, that's one of those key sectors that we really do target and support for business retention and support. But if you look at the other sectors, it really gives us a lot of avenue or areas to like, there's a lot of opportunity there. So a lot of it really for me is about space opportunity and that like targeting those type of businesses or that we're looking for in this community to provide goods and services is, does the city offer the right spaces for them? So that's really some of the goal we look at some of these redevelopment opportunities are the types of businesses we're targeting is that we offer the type of space that be interested in. If we look at some of our vacancies, we have a lot of large scale pieces like there are big box pieces, old movie theaters like those are really those opportunities for us to read, I guess, reposition ourselves for. what people are looking for today, different kinds of developments, maybe a mixed user, you know, specific, I like to look for regional retail sales. So there's other pieces we kind of target ourselves and look at, and we have limited opportunities. There's only so much commercial land asset and industrial land asset in the city. So really when we'd make those trade-offs for housing or other, we do have to be thoughtful about how we do those things.

The next key performance indicator is property value, and so we found that over year to year the overall taxable value of all types of our property in San Rafael increased by 3.3%. And when we dug into that a little bit more, we found that commercial properties, which includes retail and a range of commercial activities, that grew in 23 to 24 by 5.7%, and industrial properties grew in value by 4.2%. I do think that those things will change a little bit after when we look at our data from next year, because there have been some significant things that have moved, particularly at North gate, particularly with a few other coming properties that have a lot of square footage that have turned over recently.

And when I look at charts like this, they're relatively flat. You kind of look at really the opportunity on growth and like even look at the industrial asset at 4.1% vacancy and occupancy. This is actually an area that's been over the past, I'd say decade, one of the strongest industries in the Bay Area. And we just really have never really made moves into that industry or supported new building stock or a kind of modern industrial, maybe smaller, more boutique production. Like, there are those opportunities for this community, and that's why I am excited. We kind of look at the Southeast Centerfield specific plan, looking at that as a model to actually how to get investment within those. Because not only is it just the space itself, but it's really the opportunity to attract those businesses and employment. It's that balance we're always looking for. It's not just housing, it's also employment. And those do offer good quality jobs. So that really is an opportunity for us to continue to kind of work towards and target for our limited resources.

And on the right side you'll see we pulled a little bit of data on commercial vacancy rates as well, I think this will change also. Next year, but i'd like to point out a couple things, and that is for the retail vacancy that really are the occupancy rates are primarily in our kind of commercial strip mall areas in sort of commercial. like areas that are single owner investor type situations. So small, very small, fourth street, individual owner, small land holder, those vacancies seem to be a little bit higher than some of our more commercial corridor areas. Office vacancy continues to be high. And that's no surprise, giving the post-COVID remove, you know, the resulting loss of occupancy of office.

And then in kind of response on that office change, and this has really been kind of one of the bread and butter industries for San Rafael, the job creators has really been our office market. And with the change in work habits, remote work, and just really the office spaces that people look for, we've also started to see those office assets change hands. They're either put on the market and sold for other uses, like 4040 Civic Center is actually a good example of that. office building being converted to residential, I do anticipate other office assets coming in with similar requests.

And the last indicator that we'll talk about is tourism, and I think this is an indication of downtime vibrancy Community activity cultural economy. So we have a transit occupancy tax for all hotel stays and that's pegged at 10% of a stay so in 2025 the city's revenue from the to T was $3.5 million and that's pretty consistent over the last several years. We also have Marin County Tourism Business Improvement District, and that charges a 2% assessment of gross receipts on all hotel stays, and that goes to the Marin County Convention and Tourism Board. And in 2024, I'll just note that the CVB revenue generated from San Rafael was about $736,000. which is about 43% of the CVB's total revenue. So San Rafael does play a significant part in the hotel revenue generation of the County of Marin. So looking forward into the next fiscal year, I'll just mention a few of these programs that we'll continue to expand upon, the San Rafael Go program I mentioned previously. The next thing we're doing is increased marketing. I'm working with a couple different colleagues in the cultural economy space. I'm also working with my colleagues at the Downtown Business Improvement District, at the Chamber of Commerce, looking at ways to really boost awareness of San Rafael, We've also had a conversation with the Marin County CBB to see where San Rafael sits in terms of their visitation marketing and promotions. we've been talking about potential funding models and looking at how San Rafael could generate revenue or generate interest and and opportunity through tourism and creative marketing. With resource collaboration, we've been really working closely with the Chamber of Commerce. We have an agreement with them this year to help ask them to promote the GO program through their businesses and activities, and also working with other community organizations like the Canal Alliance at looking at things like opportunity zones as we come into the possibility of identifying an opportunity zone 2.0. City Council Chambers, And i'm glad to say that our department of public works and city manager's office had been working hard on updating the second and erwin. City Council Chambers, gateway here in the city of San Rafael so if folks notice the area on the central San Rafael off ramp northbound where we have flags and a marquee sign those will be updated pretty soon with new landscaping and a fresh new look for the city so that's exciting. In addition to that, as I mentioned earlier we're working on arts programming and closing out a really large grant from the California arts Council with the public art program. And some other arts activations that are happening there as well, I also mentioned that our colleagues in library and recreation. put on a lot of really fun particularly summer activities so we're working in collaboration to do some marketing and promotions around activities with the library and recreation department as well.

So also looking forward on key initiatives, particularly for the development pipeline is really starting to see some of these buildings go vertical. Some of those large scale, like ribbon cutting, we have a couple of different ceremonial events that come off. They really kick off these large scale investments. Some of these projects are gonna be multi-year for construction, but You know, these are $200 million in investments on a single development project site were significant for us in really kind of driving really the council's vision for more density and housing within the downtown, but other parts of the city too, like Northgate. The grocery store get for Northgate is significant. We are fast tracking that, working forward to get that one moving as quick as we can and developing the team to deliver it. So really, that's really our hope from this. One thing it's kind of the most challenging thing to do in the community, particularly for economic development, is kind of build that groundswell of excitement. and i see all the parts and pieces of things that the city has done and completed our staff the type of development activity now it's the opportunity to deliver those items that excitement is is going to continue to grow upon itself but we really do need to make those physical changes and that's where a lot of our time and effort i've been working on the systems to get those in place so i really just want to call those things out to say this this is that opportunity this is the year i think we start to see that physical change happen for santa fe

Thank you for listening. I'm happy to take any questions.

Fantastic presentation. I'll see if there's some questions. Vice Mayor, go ahead.

I have a couple of questions. Thank you. Great report, and I actually did have an opportunity to watch the Economic Subcommittee video, so a lot was answered there, but I do want to bring up a couple of questions. Understandably, there's a lot of focus between downtown City Council Chambers, And he San Rafael from a on the commercial side, but you talk about the the corridor right the highway quarter and there's North East San Rafael. City Council Chambers, And i'm wondering if there's been additional conversation or focus around that strategy for that particular area at this point.

That area is identified in the economic strategic plan itself as really the ones catalyst, really the movie theater site. We're going to look at northeast San Rafael. I do think there is opportunity for that for both the office complex along with the movie theater site, but there has not been a specific vision established really for that kind of corridor end. I do think there's opportunity, and this really is part of the driver of one of the council-specific items, which is implementation of the Northgate PDA grant, or a Northgate-specific plan that's targeted within the area, City Council Chambers, I do see that as a build off from that like solve this piece, and then you can expand that vision off to the other portions but it's to be determined in terms of time that Northgate plan cover the northeast side, or would it be the other the east side of the freeway. yeah unfortunately the that scope of that area is really specific to the PDA so really that opportunity to expand that scope would be something that the city would have to consider potentially counsel one of our next work program items to expand that boundary into the other portions off of Redwood Highway there's a lot of opportunity within that area but I think it's also kind of imperative we also look at the industrial uh playoff of Mitchell that whole back in the area that's why i do think that industrial vision is so critical as we start to lay those those greater plans out um so smith ranch road is one one portion of it that has opportunity but i also think the industrial lands off of uh right that's what's not being utilized today it's very very stark

And another question I have is around I get asked all the time, because we see the signage that's up around the businesses on fourth street it's coming it's coming it's coming. Can you speak to why some some businesses are able to move faster than others and where is that delay, how are those delays, you know addressed.

I think one thing I've really this is just my experience working with various you know industry types within economic development one of the hardest ones is actually restaurants. Restaurant investment given the county health departments and you know the provisions may be the grease interceptors they're very technical needs so sometimes those delays get expanded on. What I will say, though, is a lot of our building stock actually has been some of the problem. We've had a much older building stock that has not been invested into some time. So when there is a significant investment of a new restaurant or a new commercial kitchen, a lot of those costs are borne onto the tenant. And it's an added layer of time and complexity. So I do think if there is an opportunity to explore different programs, it would be probably ones that are eatery-driven, you know, food and beverage, just because of the complexities within those things. Plus you also look at all the regulatory agencies that actually touch those. So if you have alcohol, you're also dealing with alcohol beverage control. So there's multiple things that a lot of times you know that's the hard part when i look at restaurants the excitement they have driven we want to open ready to go and okay let's take the list of things we need to check off in order to do that and um and we're starting to see that but we are helping maneuver through that and it's really been some support of the go program and even our partnership like the small partnership with the mobile food vending with the counties open up different doors or avenues we have So it's continuing to build upon those but as we kind of project out on kind of future task items as we check off some of these work program items, I do think like a type of food program support because that is primarily what you can't buy on the internet. So and we're starting to see more and more of that type of activity here.

And I know the county is looking at theirs as well to try to accelerate their process in terms of how to move some of those pieces forward faster as well?

Yes, yes.

Okay, good. And then in the 2026, 27 planning thoughts, cannabis wasn't there. It was there for 25, 26, and we did adjust that. That's a significant piece of revenue that many of our neighboring jurisdictions are increasingly taking advantage of in terms of revenue. Is there further consideration at this point?

i think it's still one of those items that's worked through on the work program i think we did actually resource-wise push that but i do think there's opportunities as we keep looking at revenue opportunities the real question though i think we have to balance off is retail because really the question that's being posed into the city is retail cannabis appropriate that really becomes a larger scale policy question also location one one area that i think we always kind of grapple with is okay where So there is a balance to this that I think is a little tougher question to kind of tackle, but I do think it is gonna be one of those targeted work program items to say, okay, prioritization wise, where does this land within the resources that we have?

Can you, from that perspective, can you, from your expertise and your understanding of what's happening in neighboring jurisdictions, are we leaving revenue on the table?

From just my rough view of it, it's really an exchange. We also have to recognize a lot of the revenues done by delivery, which we already have. So does the model adjust where the retail actually takes away some of the delivery standpoint? So those are still kind of questions that I have. um on that kind of model about bringing in brick and mortar uh retail uh of cannabis in here what happens to the delivery market which is actually somewhat strong for us even though the regulated market's challenging uh just given a slew of factors but that's one of those things i think we just need to analyze a little deeper

Vice Mayor, if I could just add, I guess anecdotally, potentially revenue, any business that might be an opportunity has a revenue potential. There's also costs associated with administration and oversight of the program. So we're always looking for net revenue in these opportunities. But that is an area that has come up a couple of times in discussion, particularly at the subcommittee. So we have it on our radar. Our current cannabis tax revenue does not even cover our cost of administering our current licenses, so it's a broader conversation than just is there another business opportunity there that could generate revenue. It's a larger conversation.

Thank you. And then I'd say if they're, you know, looking at the next six to 12 months, what would you say would be the top two to three changes that you'd want to see right now If we are looking at trying to you know attraction retention speed to opening what are the what are the top two to three that we need to look at.

Well, I think for speed to opening is continuing to work with our businesses and help them through the regulatory processes. Absolutely. And then I think we'll look to the work plan to continue to do what we have been assigned to do in terms of marketing communications and supporting businesses. Do you have anything to add?

Yeah, it's one of the other areas that are actually not within economic development that are economic development related, which is some of the building and permitting process improvements. Really, our launch of the new OpenGov platform, there's been significant investment made on this stuff to actually help Speed up the process from that, or at least identify people like what you need to do and how you need to do it. So that's really been a lot of our efforts. So, like, for me, implementing some of those programmatic changes, and these are long standing issues. The last time we did a permit backbone replacement was like almost 30 years ago. So we just launched that last couple of months. So we're still working through some of the growing pains from that, but positive feedback thus far, but it's still more refinement and work to do to finish up that project. I think that's one of the key areas we're focused on.

I might add one more area that tangentially related to economic development, but certainly related to some of the metrics. the ed subcommittee a couple of meetings ago heard a presentation from hdl on sales tax and sales tax opportunities i've recently been made aware of some efforts through the city manager's department the league of cities where there's a proposal being developed to look at the allocation of sales tax related to e-commerce and particularly out of state e-commerce businesses which currently those sales tax dollars go through the county pool and get allocated across the county pool through the arcane formulas and at least the proposal that we haven't analyzed yet but would be to for that those sales tax dollars to be split so that half of it might go to the county pool but at least half of it goes to the jurisdiction where the products are delivered, which would just formulaically likely benefit San Rafael in terms of the allocation of those dollars, and we'll just be tracking that should it turn into a legislative proposal that we could use some help getting through.

Great, thank you. That's it for me.

Thank you. Council Member Micah.

Great Thank you so much, a fantastic presentation really helpful and if there is anything that we can do for advocacy to make sure that the legislation comes to place. I will be very supportive so so since we were talking about like I guess businesses downtown and I guess some of the vacancies and I think Stacy you mentioned how there are like a small businesses and I know that so many of so many. Oh, the business owners, they rather keep it empty than actually renting it sometimes unless they meet their very high rental prices. So I was wondering, I know that there are some municipalities, I think in San Francisco, where if it's empty for like six months or more, they have to pay a fee. So I'm curious to see if that's something that we could contemplate in the near future just to help. or if there is any type of incentive for business owners to rent their spaces. Yeah.

I think we can definitely take that under advisement or opportunities. We always look at the balance of carrots and sticks, right? So I've been a part of a couple of communities that have adopted that, but then kind of to Acting City Manager Navazio's point about program administration and costs. Sometimes it doesn't get the return you're looking for. So sometimes it might be more of the active incentives to actually get them to lease their spaces. A lot of times what we find are those spaces are just, they're really large spaces. We have historic buildings, different mercantile, like it had a different era of need. It's 5,000 square feet, we only need 500. So it's just understanding the modern day retail, but then what do we do with these other spaces, how to break them up differently? I do think we're going to get more and more opportunity. But one thing I'm actually excited about really is trying to bring in some of the new households, like the new development we talk about for households has a different demographic, a different need. This 24-7 kind of downtown that we've always kind of pursued, I think is we're on the doorstep of trying to put pursuing that even greater with new households. But as I said, I do think San Rafael has a lot of strengths in a lot of areas and we continue to do that. So like one of our biggest efforts really business retention, keep who you got, support them and keep them operating and then try to work on filling those other vacant spaces with those different property owners. And that really has been kind of our model so far. It's been working, but still more to come. But a lot of times it's those building needs. We talk about the older building stock. It's really the conditions of the buildings are so much investment required. And a lot of times those property owners are not willing to make that level of investment.

Thank you. And I do have experience when I open my restaurant back in the day, so I know about the buildings. So do we know how, I know that we always say like in the East San Rafael businesses, they bring like over 60% of the revenue for the city. Do you have the number for this year? For two thousand and twenty five.

Yeah, no, we could definitely follow up and provide that that detail. But one thing I always like to do is is recognize that I totally granted, you know, East Center fell in terms of our auto dealerships and Home Depot. What do you kind of carve some of those pieces off? You kind of have a better story about neighborhood wise. What else is supporting there in those businesses? So just understanding the kind of one to one. targeted end you know um along with home depot and target and those those are kind of the mainstays um core businesses for really marin that's really the the bread butter marin that those basic goods and services are providing marin um but then for on the neighborhood level what else is missing and i think it's one of the that's more of the data analysis we're starting to dive into from a neighborhood specific area like what else is missing here what else do we not have then we can start to do some of those active outreaches to try to fill some of those voids at least from the neighborhood perspective great thank you yeah i know that in talking to the businesses from a san rafael they always love to

know the number and they are very proud of it so yes um the other question I have um I guess this is like more like long term but as we are looking at how people are purchasing cars now um how our gas stations they might transform into something different um as we are looking to the future have we work at all into some vision of How much how the revenue is going to look differently, I guess.

Yes, the southeast centerfield specific plan is one of the key kickoff starts for that and really talking about what what is this community vision over time? One thing I've been a part of a couple of different communities that have either converted or changed their auto row. um one that are really hard to replace the revenue and job creation but one thing is nice though is the level of investment on those properties because it's usually one building in an open lot the how quickly things can assemble the large scale assembled parcels so having at least a secondary vision of what happens to auto after it leaves is kind of a key piece so I think that's one thing that I think we can start to evaluate as part of the East Santa Fe specific plan of What is the ultimate vision for these areas in industrial reuse? What parts should be industrial? Which ones are more residential interface? Also, what it requires actually meet some of the infrastructure requirements. So that's really the struggle. I think we're going to evaluate when we start looking at that plan. But right now, at least from a revenue perspective, from where we're at and what we're doing is. We try to support what we have, and this is how and why people shop today. Over time, I don't disagree, things will change, but then being prepared for what that looks like, but not actually waiting for that shoe to drop. Because I do think the auto industry has been told multiple times they're dead, but they continue to thrive and reinvent themselves because people love their cars.

That is very true, especially marine. And my last question is around the mobile vending program. I know that we are collaborating with the county. Have we seen like, and I know that we approve like, you know, specific funding to support our local residents. So have we start seeing some progress, like how many people have taken advantage of these?

So that's one where we just launched a couple of different program ends. And I'd like to, we'll probably have a followup date. That seems a great followup report back into the economic and housing subcommittee. We did put out a RFP for vendor support partnership. So I think we're continuing to negotiate from the different vendors who put in on that, but that would be actually a good one to bring back to the subcommittee for a report. And if we'd like, we can follow up with council through a memo.

Great, thank you so much. Thank you. And I just have two questions. So one is on the Marin County Tourism Board. I think I've asked this question every single time I've had the presentation over the last decade. So just to recall what the slide said, it was 2% goes to the board approximately $770,000. And that represents almost half of the money that they get. So my question to this to you all is I sure would like to have more say into where those dollars go and I don't know if that means bringing it instead of they get 2%, they get 1% and we get another 1% back here. I don't know the original agreement. I know it's been in place for a long time. And I know that other cities and towns have different agreements with the same board. So I'm curious what the plan is around that, because I don't feel confident sitting here today that the board has been helping drive our economic engine. And maybe that's unfair, but I have had presentation from them. two years ago, so I'm curious what staff is thinking in that area, because I know we like to work with our county partners, but that's a big chunk of change and we have a lot that we want to do here in San Rafael.

So that is a targeted task item within the work program, evaluation of that CVB, along with the different tax revenue, our own TOT provision at 10%. I do think there's opportunity if we want to change that ourselves, but also evaluate really this other 2% ad tax. We've had multiple conversations, at least from a staff level, evaluating kind of the approach or kind of come to the very similar conclusions to say, we'd love to see a better return to the payers who pay into it supporting San Rafael hotel operations. But I will say that, you know, acting city manager Navasio along with some of the city manager staff has connected with the county and I'll let him follow up on that.

Yeah, I'd say we concur with the Mayor's sentiment and Santa Fe is not alone in this and I'm just aware of some initial conversations amongst the cities and towns that participate. Not all of the cities, I believe, participate in the bid. As well as with the county administrator who's looking at this among other things as part of a broader reset of the countywide economic vitality plan. But we anticipate not only continuing but maybe pushing that conversation a little bit and seeing if we can get some traction and or and it's not just about the dollars but it's really also about the you know the accountability and the governance structure that supports a county-wide entity such as the visitor interim bureau really demonstrating the return on on the dollars

Thank you for having those conversations. I think the city has been very, very patient over the last five years, 10 years in this conversation. So I think at one point, maybe it would be taking some action and then they can start earning it back. I don't know what it is, but I don't know how my colleagues feel about it, but I know that council member Hill and council member is at the same thing when they've been up here. Just putting a little underline on that, and I know it is part of the work plan. There's a way we can assist those conversations, but it might be at a point where the collaboration part that we need to take action and then we'll build the collaboration around it. But okay. So I just thank you for those. I know that's a tough a sensitive conversation to have with them, but important one. And then the next question, different topic, on the public arts, so grateful for the funding that we received from the state. Do we have any sense if the state, and we know we're reading their budget constraints in the newspaper, is there any chance that the state will be providing additional dollars in years to come, or is it so hard to tell right now? Have they given any indication?

At the more recent California Arts Council meeting, there was no mention of future funding. Through this avenue.

So we because there are other cities that also are cultural districts, so we probably are all.

Yes, the CAC identified 10 additional districts about six months ago and they received $5,000 a year for two years as an award with that five, however, yes, okay. However, there was no additional award for the existing 14 districts. Okay, So it's I think we're waiting arts advocacy day is at the capital coming up next month, or actually end of this month. So I know that several of our arts collaborators are going up to advocate for. arts awareness and creative economy and additional funding for the arts.

Thank you. It'd be great to share those talking points with the council because we see our state legislators all the time and it'd be nice to have that information to put a bug in their ear too. Sure. I'm happy to forward that information to you. Thank you. Thank you. So I'd like to open it up for public comment on this item. If you have any thoughts or questions on the Economic Development Strategic Plan update, now is your opportunity. I don't see anyone coming down to address the council, so I'll close the public comment. Are there any additional questions or any comments? Go ahead, Vice Mayor.

No, I really appreciate the update it's one of those no matter what you do, we could always do more right and so it's. it's a lot of work and there's only so many things that we as a city can control. But I do think there are things that we are moving in the right direction, and we can continue moving even more so in that direction, so i'm looking forward. i'd love just to see things. open open and um especially as we're moving into the summer the summer months where we do get more people into the city um so we hear some real positive feedback around that but i really appreciate it thank you um looking forward to seeing the nut the updated numbers as well uh so thank you thank you councilmember micah

Yes, thank you again for the presentation, and I know that you are extremely busy with between housing and economic development, so it's like non-stop. I love seeing the new businesses coming into town, but also, as you mentioned, it's very important to make sure that we retain the current businesses as well. I would love to see those empty spaces filled, whatever we can do to incentive the homeowners to make a move. That would be nice. And thank you for acknowledging the importance of supporting our local businesses and shop local And there is a big difference between not only the tax revenue that we get from the stores in San Rafael versus shopping online, but also the employment and the economic vitality that they really bring. So thank you so much. Keep up the great work. We'll continue working and whatever we can do to support you. I also wanted to do a special mention. I love the plan and especially around marketing. I think social media for the city of San Rafael is working really well, especially lately. And I love to see some promotions that we can always share and make sure that we can all share it and make it available. So to encourage people to come to support our businesses. So thank you.

i'll just add my gratitude we adopted this plan almost exactly three years ago so this is only the third time we've talked about it with the community from the dais and the amount of work that you've done in those three years the mighty team of two and i know you have other staff that support but it's incredible the work that you've been able to do and having that very clear vision and plan i think we might be one of the only jurisdictions in Marin County that has an economic development plan, both short, near, and long-term, or medium and long-term, and it really will continue to set us apart. And as the Vice Mayor mentioned, the county has started on their economic strategic plan, but we're not waiting for them. I think that's the clear message here. We have not been waiting for the county. and we're never gonna wait for the county. We're gonna keep doing what's right for our businesses, both the downtown up in North San Rafael and South San Rafael, and we're doing fantastic work, and I love seeing how everything is just on the cusp when public art's gonna start opening up. We have new businesses coming in, beautification, a lot of things are gonna start coming together that have been in works for years. So thank you for all that you've done. Really exciting and I look forward to work talking with the county gets more money on that. Sorry. I just had to Put that in there one more time in case I wasn't emphatic enough With that I would appreciate Motion on this item, please.

I'll make a motion to accept the economic development strategic plan update.

I Second moved in second in roll call, please.

Mayor Kurtz. Aye.

Council Member Yatentagladi. Aye. Mayor Kate. Aye. That motion carries 3-0. Thank you so much, Micah. Thank you, Stacey. Our next item is the new main library and community center project delivery. And I did note when as we were reading this that the subcommittee is comprised of the two council members that are actually not here. So if you're also, in addition to the presentation, have any input from what the subcommittee, what's been talked about, would be helpful, I think, for the three of us, because normally they would provide that input as well. Yes. Thank you.

Totally, thank you. Mayor Kate, good evening. Members of the City Council, John Stefanski, Assistant City Manager. I'm here this evening with our Capital Project Manager, Gary Chubb, with Griffin Structures, and then On the brand new Zoom televisions we have in here, we also have Craig Hayes, who is a contract attorney with Best Best and Krieger, who is supporting us. And then also in the audience, I would be remiss if I didn't call out our amazing project team, public works director. Miller and Library Recreation Director Kufa, as well as this is the director, Craig Veramay. And so we're here this evening to provide an update on the Measure P project, the new library and community center at Albert Park, as well as discuss and get feedback regarding Our plan for a project delivery approach, and so this is a presentation like you said, mayor kate that was given to the measure piece subcommittee back in February, and it was well received. Dave Kuntz, Including staffs initial recommendation around a progressive design build approach which Gary and the team will go through in greater depth but we're looking for. Dave Kuntz, You know, to have this presentation with the remainder of the Council this evening to get the green light, so we can get the trains moving on the project so with that i'm going to hand it off over to Gary to kick off the presentation.

Thank you, John, and good evening, Mayor and members of City Council. I want to talk about tonight's discussion. We're going to briefly review where we've been over the last four months. A lot of hard work has gone into this. We're going to present delivery method evaluation options and recommendation and receive City Council direction. So what have we been up to? The last four months, we've worked very hard with city staff, Catherine's team, Measure P, and we've determined that the best solution today is a 50,000 square foot building, which is a shared building between library and community. We've allocated 32,000 square foot for outdoor program space. And the parking is something that we will determine later on. Once a design is vetted, city staff will do in a parking now. So the parking we have an allocation, an idea, but it's Tvd. We are excited at this point of the project to be focused on a community focus, flexible and multi-use facility. and community outreach will help inform the refine the program. And we have an exciting opportunity in the next 45 days to take our building program and recommendation to stakeholders and get their input, do a survey and make sure we incorporate that feedback into eventually going out and hiring a design team in the future. So what the facility will deliver, integrated civic destination. modern library services for all ages, flexible classrooms and enrichment spaces, multipurpose event venue, cultural and community programming, indoor and outdoor gathering spaces, and lifelong learning and wellness opportunities. Next slide. Through the work we've done heretofore, at this point, we've derived a target budget, which is $105 million. That's comprised of your building construction, your site improvements, your parking, escalation, which is inflation in our economy, and in our industry we've taken in consideration those uh estimates for today professional service fees furniture and special equipment and a healthy contingency makes up that 105 million now this is not the last last bite of the apple this is a got to remember we're of a five and a half year journey we're at month five so this is the best information we've gathered today to formulate a target We're gonna bring back this to council multiple times as the project progresses through the various stages in design.

Next. And if I can just add on to this slide as well, working with Gary and the team around developing what a conceptual program looks like is also factoring in what we anticipate, what our bonding capacity will be with Measure P, in addition to the revenue that the city is already receiving. And so that's where we feel at 105 million. We're in a good spot particularly with some of the contingency lines that we have here But I did want to just call that out. Thank you, John

So now we're gonna pivot to what we call delivery method. There's four factors that we like to bring forth. The decision impacts the schedule, impacts cost certainty, it defines risk allocation, and it determines team collaboration. Next slide. so in the staff report you've read the recommendation to what we call progressive design build this this particular slide tries to highlight the timeline advantages of using this delivery method we've done a deep study on your project and we have come up with a six month savings in time from using a traditional design bid bill, the old way of doing business, to utilizing a procurement method and a delivery that saves time. So for our project, your project, right now we're modeling a six-month savings. Next slide. This slide compares schedule, cost control, Rista City, and collaboration over the three study delivery methods. The first column is design-bid-build, the traditional. The second column is design-build. And the third column is what we're recommending tonight for progressive. The schedule, as you can see on this slide, it goes from longest to fastest. Progressive design build is the fastest. Cost control. Traditionally, you don't know what the project costs until you're about to break ground. You go through a public bid process. you know you're open your christmas present one day and you see what it's going to cost and now you have to make the award progressive design build flips the script it's a continuous feedback because you have all the professionals on board to go through that process risk of the city design build is the highest Design build's a moderate, and progressive design build is balanced. And in collaboration, which I personally love this delivery method over the last 15 years, the collaboration on progressive design build is the highest you can achieve, which means we're a team, we collaborate with all team members early and often. Okay, next slide. So why progressive design build? Continuous cost alignment during design. open book guarantee maximum price early in the process early contractor input reduces risk faster delivery reduces escalation that's the reduction of schedule single point of accountability that means the city is contracting with a progressive design build team for design and construction under one envelope And most importantly, the city benefits from going through the selection of that team early and it's what we call a best value.

Thank you john. So before we kind of get to the staff recommendation, I want to provide some additional context as with progressive design build, this is a newer delivery method authorized under state law and specifically with. Progressive design build state law mandates that the selected design build entity and every subcontractor at every tier has to utilize a skilled and trained workforce. That's the the term skilled and trained workforce for all work in an apprenticeable occupation. in the building and construction trades. And so with that, the city has really two ways to satisfy the requirement to meet that skill and trained workforce requirement. The first is through what's called an enforceable obligation or enforceable agreement. which is a written commitment the city enters into with the design build entity prior to selection requiring that contractor and all of their subs to comply with the skilled and trained workforce requirements. Under this obligation, the contractor has to submit to the city and then the city has to go through a process of validating on a monthly basis a report that's demonstrating their compliance, so looking at certified payroll, on ensuring that the workers who are working on the project are complying with the requirements of state law. So there is a considerable administrative burden there and that's important, we'll get to that in a second. And then there's also some legal exposure to the city, because if there is a subcontractor at whatever tier and they're falling short of meeting their thresholds for journey persons on the job, the city could then face some additional delays or potentially litigation, which is of concern. City Council Chambers, Now the second path is through what's called a project Labor agreement, these are pre hiring collective bargaining agreements that the city enters into with the. City Council Chambers, The trades, so the North Bay building construction trades Council in the northern California carpenters regional Council and the PLA establishes the uniform terms and conditions of employment for all contractors. on the project from the start. And also, as a part of it, ensures labor peace, and when properly negotiated and implemented, then is able to satisfy those requirements for the skilled and trained workforce under state law. So staff is recommending that should we proceed with the progressive design build approach, that the method in which we meet the skilled and trained workforce approach is through a project labor agreement for a number of reasons that are on this slide. The first is that there are fewer administrative requirements when compared to what's the monthly reporting requirements under the enforceable agreement. And then there's also, and this is, I think, important for complex project of our type, which is we get greater access to the skilled trades. And whenever you're doing vertical construction like this kind of projects going to require you're going to need a wide range of skilled trades to build the thing. and a project labor agreement is going to provide us with access to the full building trades hiring hall system, which will give our design build entity, the contractor that Gary was talking about, will have the broadest possible labor pool to ensure that we're able to staff and get this thing built on time. The project labor agreement itself can also include some local hire provisions. These are goals that when they're able to, the hiring halls can give San Rafael Marin North Bay residents who work in the trades the opportunity to work on a project in their town or in their community or in their region. The PLA, as I said earlier, includes what we call labor piece provisions. So there's no strikes, there's no walkouts, there's no work stoppage provisions that apply for the entire duration of the project. And then lastly, but I think this is also really important, is there's a regional alignment piece with the county of Marin. And the county of Marin, in the months preceding this presentation tonight, went through a process to determine the project delivery approach for the new fire headquarters in Marin County. And they are also using a progressive design build approach and so they've evaluated this and the county themselves elected to pursue a project Labor agreement. And so we think that that peer agency precedent is meaningful and we're also kind of doing the same analysis and coming to the same conclusion and it's very possible that we could have the same contractors. working on our project that we're working on the county's. And so there's a level of parity and economy of scale as it relates to at least meeting this skilled trade requirement. So with that, just some conclusions and next steps. So it's staff's view and recommendation that a progressive design build paired with a project labor agreement is ultimately going to provide for a higher quality project and one that may also yield a shorter timeframe to completion when compared to the other delivery methods. And this is a view that is shared not just from Gary and the Griffin team, but also our legal team at BBK who have at least shared with me anecdotally that, across the state the clients that they work for everyone is very satisfied with the progressive design build approach when compared to the traditional design bid build so this is definitely if you have a project over the threshold and state law this is what jurisdictions are looking at to utilize and so also i'll add that we're not necessarily charting unknown territory And so I'll just underscore all this. The community voted for this facility. This was a citizen's initiative. They're giving us a great deal of money to build something fantastic for our city. And so it's imperative and it's our obligation as staff to also make sure that we're delivering the best outcome for that investment. And so we believe that this is the path forward for us to be able to achieve just that. In terms of the next steps, we'll work following council direction tonight to move on kind of two parallel tracks. The first would be to begin preparing a solicitation to select the design build entity to bring qualified firms to the table. And then we'll also be starting to work around SQL review and all that fun stuff. but then the second track is around negotiating a project labor agreement, which concurrently staff would seek to negotiate a PLA for the project, but all of that would have to come back to the subcommittee and then the full council prior to anything being finalized. And so with that, that concludes my presentation, but Paul's gonna jump in.

And I'll just add to Mayor Kate's question about feedback from the subcommittee during this presentation. I would just say that As part of that subcommittee presentation, they saw a preview of this. There was a lot of focus on the description of the different alternatives. And in the subcommittee, we kind of got into, you know, there's some pros and cons that you need to weigh in it, both having to do with the trade-offs between a traditional design bid build where you may very well end up with a low bid, But when you're looking at all of the factors and looking at the best value for the project, that's part of the driving force behind staff's recommendation. We also discussed that, and it was touched on in the presentation, the staff report that there's considerations about sort of the transfer of risk through the course of our project through these different. So I just want to commend staff and the team for incorporating into the staff report some of the nuance of the discussion that doesn't just speak right to the staff recommendation, but the thinking behind evaluating the alternatives and bringing forward that recommendation.

City Council Chambers, Thank you that's really helpful so would you say that the subcommittee is in alignment with what is being presented to the Council this evening, so went through this, so this takes in their questions and comments and they were supportive of the both design build, as well as the PLA okay. City Council Chambers, that's correct okay. Yeah, no, thank you for providing that connection to that meeting. Thank you, Gary, as well. So questions, Vice Mayor, go ahead.

Just a couple of questions. First one is, I was trying to find, think about what would be my like point type of work in this, and I was looking at the San Rafael School District, because they've gone through a number of facilities, new development as well as modernization, and they use a term, alternative design build. Is alternative the same as progressive?

Yes, in the marketplace, that's one and the same. Yeah.

It sounded sort of like it.

Yep.

All right. And then on one of your slides, you said the risk is balanced. I have an idea of what that might mean, but I was wondering if you could describe what balanced risk would be.

yeah i can so in traditional delivery the city typically retains the architect the engineers all the professionals that are responsible for a full design per code and such and by doing that the city maintains that risk through course of completion and what we call errors and omissions and so with a progressive design build you're contracting now with a combination of a contractor and all the design professionals as one entity in your, what we call a risk transfer, the city is no longer responsible for those errors and omissions, because you're not contracting directly with the architect and the engineers. So that's what I mean by balanced.

Okay, great, thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Urens-Gulati, questions?

Yes, thank you. So I was just thinking because we are running like the parallel progress right where we are. Opening up right now for like our fees and you know for beats and then, at the same time, doing the. The Labor negotiations is that what I understand that what I heard right so. Can you explain that process where you haven't selected the contractor yet, but you are parallel to that you're doing Labor negotiations.

I might just clarify that we're not really doing the labor negotiations. We're negotiating how we are going to meet the requirement under the statutory requirement for progressive design build to meet the requirements that we are using trades labor for it. So it's the structure for how labor is going to be used. We're not negotiating labor agreements.

Right, OK, that makes more sense. Thank you. And I was hearing about the interest in hiring or working with local workers, laborers, and also contractors. Do we have any guidelines right now to set that up? Or are we opening? I imagine we are opening the bids for anybody who wants to apply. How are we proceeding with that? Because I have heard of some municipalities where you open the bids, and then people are bidding in there, and then the city can select the best bid and offer it to a local company. PB, Lupita D Montoya- Within 5% or whatever percentage is designed, so I don't know if we have looking to anything like that, because it is such a big project, it will be really nice to be able to designate it locally.

Yes, this is a little bit different than a traditional local bid preference in a bid contract. This is, again, we're looking for the best value of the team. State law requires that to use this process, you basically need to use union labor. And then we're proposing to work with the North Bay Trade Council to ensure how that's going to work. And in that agreement, I think the thought is that that would be the opportunity to build in sort of a local preference for the trades, but we have other folks, I think, on the call and on the team that can speak better to it.

Yeah, Craig, could you speak to... Yeah.

Yeah, I could speak to that. We're gonna turn you down. Hold on a second. Okay, hold on.

Wait, hold on a second. You're like, you're like, God, we found a microphone that works.

Could you just give us a one word test?

Hello? better better give us a few words is that better sound better much better thank you okay perfect no i know at the beginning of the meeting it sounded like it was there were some hearing issues and it sounds like i came in pretty loud there um in in the project labor agreement um and i can look we can even look to the one with county marin there's local higher excuse me, local hiring goals. So hiring out of the hall for residents of County of Marin. And so there's a real push to hire locally and also train locally. So that's the angle to make sure that there's local involvement, especially local labor. It's a little bit for construction companies, it's a little bit harder because you're going to go through the statute requires the best value process to hire a design builder. So your best avenue really for the local angle is through the PLA and for local engagement with employees and skilled trained workforce.

Okay, that's wonderful news. In terms of like, is it possible to have, I know we are, with economic development, we were talking about workforce development, internships. I don't know if this is the type of project that we could be using some of these, you know, people that they are working on doing like the workforce development right now with Marine Builders Association or some other organization, if they could be part of that. project i know you're talking about very high skilled people as well but i'm just curious to see

There is as a part of the PLA language around employing a certain number of apprentices so people who are just getting started in their careers in the trades and so. that's the most as it relates to this agreement, the best vehicle that we would have to do that, however, i've seen in these agreements elsewhere. where there have been conversations with the trades around additional workforce development initiatives. I know where I worked in the East Bay, they had one that was called the Construction Trades Workforce Initiative, CTWI, which was seeking to help bring the pipeline closer to people and getting them into those apprenticeship jobs so they could get into a career in the trades. So this provides a foundation for that.

Yeah, great. That's wonderful. My last question was around the survey for the community. Can you briefly talk a little bit more about that? Who's going to receive the survey? How are we going to reach out to different groups in the community?

I'm going to start this and then I'm going to also ask Catherine Kufa to come down because she's been an integral part of that. So what we've been working on over the last couple of months, as Gary alluded into the presentation, Is to develop what a kind of hypothetical program for the future facility what that will be, and so we have a variety of different assumptions that we as a staff team have been making around. You know what are all the basket of amenities that a future building needs to have and then assign an assumption around the square footage and then start figuring out okay well how big of a building, can we do, and what can we get for that. The survey that's gonna be going out later this spring is one where we'll be pushing out to the entire community to test what our assumptions have been. Are there programmatic elements or things that the community members want to have in this building that we didn't include? And then we can take that back and refine the program and figure out what the total mix of spaces and rooms and the like. Do you wanna speak to kind of the outreach plan and anything I missed on the survey as well?

Yeah, I think you captured the survey pretty well. It's gonna be a very high level trying to get like, what are the community priorities and in what order? Because as we go forward, we're gonna have to decide, we're gonna be kind of trading space. Like, do we need more study rooms or do we need more meeting spaces, things like that. And we need to base that on community, what we hear from the community. So those are the kind of things we're going to also have a few questions around, like, what are the design aesthetics, but those are very early, very high level, just to kind of start getting the community thinking about it and engaged in the process. So I think the outreach strategy for that is we're going to be pushing it out through all of our, you know, our library and our recreation divisions have very extensive email lists through all of our library card holders as well as anyone who's ever signed up for any of our recreation programs so i think those are two large lists that we'll be pushing it out through social media we also are doing a summer mailer for recreation and our hope is that this survey is ready in time that we can mail it that it will be part of the mailer and pretty prominently Promoted through that so actually mailed to every resident and then yeah social media snapshot. pop up events wherever we're at we're going to have postcards and we're just being given giving them out to everyone through all of our. nonprofit organizations and we'll really be promoting it as broadly as we can. Concurrently, we're also gonna be having a meeting with our stakeholder committee. So that's the kind of seven member working group where we will be going in more detail around the draft program for the building and kind of starting that conversation with them.

I was going to add and highlight something that Catherine said, and it came up in the subcommittee again, because when you go out for the community outreach on a project like this, you have the potential to here's the wish list of everything that the community wants. And it's important that the input is sought and received in the context of kind of trade-offs in terms of the limitations of the space and the footprint, as well as budget implications. And so I think that we had a little bit of discussion at the subcommittee about kind of this idea of getting feedback through some trade-offs, like what's more important, as opposed to just open-ended, what would you like to see, because that becomes a little challenging in terms of informing the best value to meet the community's needs.

And I just want to add one thing to underscore everything we just said. This is the first bit of community engagement that we're doing, but as we go through this process and we get our design-build firm on board, there's going to be an entire whole other program of community outreach. And so I think what's exciting about at least being able to do this mailer is to get as many people to sign up on our project website. get their email so we can continue to stay, have them be engaged throughout the process and project.

And I know you do a great job. I mean, like with Pickleweed, having the community with their dots and going through the process and also I know there are a lot of opportunities moving the park and partnering maybe with the schools with their annual festival, things like that. But so that's really great news to make sure that people that they don't have access maybe to electronics, they can also. PB, Lupita D Montoya- provide feedback and Vice Mayor Kurtz was mentioning the schools, we were both serving on the school district so we're very familiar with the whist list of. PB, Lupita D Montoya- Everything that everybody wanted and then coming down to the reality of like Okay, this is the budget and let's see what we can build some but that's very exciting, so thank you so much.

Thank you. And I just have two questions. One's about time and one, the other one's about money, time and money. So the first one in the, yeah, Gary, you might wanna come back up. So in the staff report, it talks about in terms of the project timelines, everything's over 60 months. So I don't wanna get into the difference between the different three. I'm more curious, is that typical for a project of this scale? Because when I did my math, five plus years to have this from the moment the voters said yes, we want to have this to the time that they walk in the door. And it's more around managing expectations for the community.

Yes, Mayor. So the 62 months that we're targeting right now is very normal for when you get to the starting line of deciding a vision that you have, you have a funding, and once you start the programming and space allocation, it's very typical. In the construction phase right now, and this is based on assumptions, we're looking at about 26 to 27 months. Okay. Okay, of that overall time. Okay. So over the years I've been doing this, I call it like the two and two on a small job. That's usually two years to decide, design, permit and bid, and two years of building something. This is a little larger project than that. and with the with the appropriate timelines we've allocated we're comfortable that's what's going to take now of course there is opportunity to save time but we're too early in the process to bank or

assume that we can save time today so we're comfortable with the allocation as it is okay no that's helpful thank you and then the next question is about money so i appreciate the breakdown that you gave at 105 million because it wasn't in a staff report so understanding between the construction the contingency professional fees so i have two questions on this one is with the guaranteed maximum price it's not established as i understand at the beginning right that's part of the uh uncertainty or gray area let's say so do you have a range that you're giving because we're still trying to have a number right it's going to cost this so how do you talk about it I know you said 105 million but do you give a range as the project goes farther like I'm trying to just understand where we're like you know trying to figure out where that number is and again how we communicate how we understand it up here and how we communicate that to the community

it's an excellent question mayor so in this delivery method along with design build we've established a program level you know high level cost per square foot of the building at 50 000 square foot and all the other market rate um services that come with delivering this facility the next step is is to validate that from the progressive design build community what we are going to do to stay on schedule is we're going to release this rp by mid-june hopefully and in that rfp again you're not you're hiring a contractor and a design team for what we call pre-construction a runway up to when we start building it but we're going to solicit from them their opinion based on the program what they think the construction is that's a second point of validation then after we hire that team the city will collaborate and outline for that team we have a target of this Is it feasible in your opinion? So there's all these checks and balances that are going to happen along the way for cost certainty. No surprises. You don't wait nine months and figure out that you're oopsie over budget. This delivery method ensures there's constant feedback. It's a control mechanism.

Now, no, no, that's excellent. I think that's something that's really attractive about it. And again, it's how do we communicate and how do we have the ultimate transparency in a in a process that is different than the traditional one that had the downside. So in your experience, in those conversations over time, which of the categories tends to have the most volatility as it were, is it primarily just in the construction? Or does it pretty much a percentage across all the categories? It's another go up or down?

It's another great question. So in development, there's a general rule of thumb. In our case, 105 million. The sticks and bricks, the cost of the construction is always about 80% of the total budget. 78 to 82, an average of 80. the 20 is all the rest engineering furniture all the other ancillary services so to answer your question the risk is in the cost of construction okay and these days with political issues and everything else and uncertainty it's you have to you have to factor those in and you have to test those each quarter and every six months to make sure all of those assumptions are holding true and we will uh at the appropriate times always come back to this to the city council through measure p and report how we're doing what are the pressures we're saying there's going to be validation and buy-in throughout the whole process

yeah thank you thank you for explaining that um as it is a different approach i think again having folks understand including myself so thank you let me see if there's any public comment on this item if you are interested in commenting come on down you're invited but not required to say your name and what part of san rafael you live in uh ken vickinson san rafael meadows um it's i have a couple of questions about the pressing progressive design build

As I understand it, using this method requires a very hands-on owner. And the owner should have the staff and expertise to engage daily in the project. So I wanted to ask if you could explain how that part would work. And the second one is, it's on this balanced risk. Is it typical to have like a shared contingency fund for a project like this, given the the kind of uncertainties that you know the whole world faces, and I think you alluded to a little bit would it would that be normally created some kind of shared contingency fund for the risks, thank you.

Thank you any other yeah come on down.

maybe pull the microphone up just because we've been having there you go perfect uh good evening mayor vice mayor councilman uh i just wanted i'm dan mckellan with the carpenters union and i just came up tonight i wanted to thank city staff for recognizing the importance of including the carpenters union as our own entity within the recommendation action to enter into a pla negotiations for the library project It will be key for the labor force since the carpenters crafts cover about 60% of the work on any general building project. The carpenters union needs to have the ability to be a part of any negotiations that will affect our membership. We will never sign on to an agreement for terms and conditions for that our members work under if we are not in it from the beginning. Should you all choose to go with option B and direct staff to negotiate a PLA, please include in your direction to staff include the Carpenters Union as an equal party as our own representatives to the PLA. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, Council members. I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Chris Palomo. I'm the senior organizer with the North Coast States Carpenters Union at a local 751. And I just kind of want to follow up on Dan had said on how vital it is to give us the opportunity to negotiate for our members since we're a separate entity from the building trades. So I'm also the senior organizer for another local, which is 152 in Contra Costa County. a PLA that was there, we did not sign because we weren't going to be given the opportunity to negotiate for our members. And the result of that was devastating to the city because there was a general contractor on that project that was not paying prevailing wages, which if for one, if we were assigned to that PLA, we would have caught that and that wouldn't have happened. Number two, what it did is it delayed that project by 11 months. And so they had to the city had to go pull funds out of their capital reserve funds that, you know, they didn't really want to, but they had to pull it out to now because the non-union contractor upped their price by upwards of 200%. And they had to pay. There was nothing they could do. They were in a standstill. So again, I just want to emphasize on how important it is that we're part of our negotiations for our contractor. We represent not just the general contractor, but 11 apprenticeable trades underneath that. So that's anything from your concrete formwork, your metal stud drywall, wood framing, scaffold builders, millwrights, pile drivers, your acoustical ceilings, the trim and hardware, you name it, majority of the project we do. So it's vital that we are there to represent our members and the workers that are gonna be on that project. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Any other comments or questions? Don't see anyone else in the chamber. So thank you. I'll close the public comment. We had two questions by Mr. Dickinson. We can answer that and then also speak to the labor negotiation part that we just heard.

i may take a first stab at the um first first of all it is critically important that there's a active owner on top of the project and that's actually the role that in many ways griffin structures is going to provide because they're basically the owner's rep so They have been brought under contract to work with us not only through this process, but also to be on top of the project from start to finish, including the active engagement through the project along with staff. I might also um if there's anything else that you want to add on that I would just say that on the um you know if the question was should there be additional contingencies given this nature of the project um I think the answer is that as we go through this we'll want to ensure that we have the appropriate contingency However, due to the nature of this type of delivery method and some of the checks and balances that we have throughout it, that contingency line item in the budget isn't our only release valve for cost and project because it won't be until a certain part of the project. We were talking earlier about the cost estimate and tradeoffs. programmatically you know cost per square foot this came up i'll just say because it came up in the subcommittee meeting you know the cost per square foot of a commercial kitchen versus classroom space is very different so we're going to be managing the project to balance the The highest priority needs for the programmatic space, as well as the overall budget and fiscal capacity we have to drive it to a comfortable spot, and then have the contingency overlaid on top of that, as it relates primarily to construction. But also through this method, we are less likely to have change orders that stem from. errors and omissions change orders that stem from unforeseen conditions in the field, because the whole team is working on it from the get go, so I believe that when you get to that guaranteed maximum price. barring we're in a pretty good spot, if that addresses that.

yeah it does thank you for that but also i heard part of the question is that is there a shared contingency a great question and yes there is okay this is an open book process the design builder will always present their budget they'll identify a contingency and there's an opportunity to say you know let's share that contingency you know Stuff happens during construction, you might have to add a new room. There's an opportunity to use that contingency collectively and transparently. That's the most important thing of every method is open book, transparent partnerships.

And then i'll take the last question so yes, this staff intends to negotiate with both the carpenters as well as North Bay trades Council so everyone, which is what the county of Marin did for their PLA as well.

We learned from the lessons that our northern neighbors, I guess, learned so appreciate them for that additional questions or comments. Vice Mayor, go ahead with comments.

No, I'm looking forward to it as somebody who's worked under the agile process. It feels very comparable to that in a different industry. So thank you. I like it. It does work well. It really it requires having all the right people around the table all the time. I've learned that many times. So very happy to see this come forward. I like it. I do think it does work a lot faster than some of the traditional and I appreciate the back and forth and receiving, you know, continual updates around how it's moving forward. So thank you.

Thank you. Councilmember, you ran scullery.

PB, Lupita D Montoya- yeah so again, thank you so much i'm really, really excited about this project and i'm excited to be able to work with our. PB, Lupita D Montoya- Local you know employees and I can't wait to see like the concepts that design the Community engagement, this is one of the most exciting projects for our city so so thank you and keep going, thank you.

I will offer my thanks as well. This is exciting. I want to thank the subcommittee and thank you for sharing the conversation they've had. They have their work cut out for them. I'm glad that we're looking at this to assume that we're going to be building buildings the way we did 60 years ago seems really not forward thinking and literally not progressive. And so to me, I want to say it's a no-brainer because it actually is very thoughtful. And for all the reasons that you outlined, this makes sense in this day and age for projects of this size and this complexity is a fantastic alternative. And learning about the PLA, the project labor agreement, again, is another way to work with labor in a way that's transparent and i'd say fair to both the city as well as to the folks that are doing the actual build so i i really am excited to have this milestone i'm sorry that mary beth and eli aren't here to also um to to celebrate and be taking this vote in a moment so Thank you, Gary, for all that you've done. Thank you, Craig, for zooming in on high, as it were. And we look forward to more updates as we go forward. With that, I would entertain a motion. Go ahead, Vice Mayor.

I'd also like to thank the trades for being here this evening. I know it makes for a very long day. I'd like to make a motion to receive staff's analysis of alternative project delivery methods, authorize staff to proceed. with the Progressive Design Build, PDP, project delivery method and direct staff to initiate project labor agreement negotiations with the North Bay Building and Construction Trades Council and Northern California Carpenters Regional Council.

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

Vice Mayor Kurtz? Aye. Council Member Yadanz-Gulati? Aye. Mayor Kate?

Aye. That motion carries 3-0. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you. We have one more item on our agenda this evening, and that's the appointment of interim city manager. And I'm gonna turn to our city attorney.

Thank you, Mayor Kate, members of the council. This agenda item concerns the appointment of Paul Navazio's interim city manager. So I have a brief oral report and then I'll answer questions. On February 11, the city council appointed Mr. Navazio, seated immediately to my left, to serve as acting city manager to provide leadership continuity during a transition period Prior to that appointment, Mr. Navazio had been serving as the city's finance director and had been responsible for overseeing the city's fiscal operations. Now it's proposed that the city appoint Paul as interim city manager as opposed to acting city manager, which he was before. That's a common practice during a period of transition. and as I said, he was appointed acting city manager since February 11th, attended several city council meetings since then, has demonstrated his ability to lead the city and manage city operations. Also has, as the council's aware, prior experience as city manager in other locations. So I want to review in particular a compensation term and bring it to your attention as well as that of the community. The proposed contract is attached as an exhibit to the staff report, but at the top of page six, I want to note that there would be a retroactive increase in the sense that for the period February 18 through February 28, that the city would pay the interim city manager retroactively an amount equal to 15% on top of his most recent salaries. finance director that would reflect the pay differential to which he'd be entitled under city policy for working in a job outside of class but then as to the compensation set forth in the agreement for his new role as interim city manager which would simply Duplicate the compensation that was paid to the prior city manager, Missa Lilovich. That would commence as of March one, two thousand and twenty six. And I also want to note that pursuant to labor agreements that were previously negotiated, there are cost of living adjustments that are set to be implemented for the entire workforce on July 1st, and should Mr. Navazio remain in the role of interim city manager at that time, the contract provides that he would then receive the equivalent cost of living increase as that of the other employees. the rest of the agreement is pretty straightforward and similar to what you've seen in the past when the time comes to appoint a permanent city manager after the conclusion of the interim city manager period we will come back with a new agreement that will need to have some additional terms that this one doesn't have in particular it's important to note that should Mr. DeVazio conclude his service as interim city manager, and not become the permanent city manager, that's a discussion for a later day, then he would be entitled to return to his former position as finance director, and that's also memorialized in the agreement. So there's a lot, I mean, I worked on this thing, and so you'll not be surprised that it's nine pages long. And I'm glad to answer any questions you may have about it, but I'm not inclined at this moment to review each of the provisions in detail as they're all set forth.

Thank you, I'll see if there are any questions.

Any questions?

Okay, not seeing any questions from the council. I'll open up public comment on this item. If you'd like to comment, now is your opportunity.

Good evening, Mayor and council members, Ken Dickinson, Sandra Felmedos. On April 1st, the San Francisco Standard reported that San Rafael's city manager is out and a controversial homeless shelter may have pushed her out. That raises concerns, not just about one individual, but about the decisions and direction coming from you, Mayor Kane, and this council. These concerns aren't just media speculation. They are apparently based on a consultant's report from the city's own performance review, where senior staff described the 350 Merredale project as a symbol of chaos. Yet the public is being asked to accept that the city manager alone is responsible. That strains credibility. The city manager implements policy, you said it, with oversight and multiple closed session discussions on 350 Mirroredale over the months leading up to its purchase. Instead of shared accountability, this looks like a convenient and well-compensated scapegoat. The former city manager reportedly received a 471,832 resignation package and has already moved to a position with the city of Sonoma. So the questions are, who is being held accountable and where is the transparency? Meanwhile, our affected communities have received silence from all of you here. At the December 15th closed session, I request verbally and in writing that you and any interested council members meet with us to discuss the future of 350 Merredale. That request was never acknowledged or responded to. So we are left asking, where is the leadership? Where is the accountability? Where is the transparency? Before appointing an interim city manager, you need to shine some sunlight on the decisions that brought us to this point. Without that, this looks like a half million dollar cover up at a time when the city is already facing serious financial constraints. Thank you.

I feel like my mic's working. I'll just use my outside voice.

Good evening. Good evening, mayor, council members. Marianne on the start from central meadows i'm speaking to item three see i'd like to step back and focus on process tonight, you are being asked. To approve an interim city manager and move forward but there's been no clear public discussion of what comes next, or how this Council intends to move forward differently. What is the plan for selecting a permanent city manager? What criteria will be used? And importantly, what lessons have been learned from what just happened? Because hiring decisions are not just about filling a position, they're about setting expectations, defining priorities, and establishing accountability going forward. Right now, from a public perspective, it feels like the city is moving quickly to stabilize leadership without first clearly acknowledging what went wrong or how governance will improve. That creates risk, risk of repeating the same decision-making process, risk of unclear direction to staff, and risk of further eroding public trust. This is an opportunity not just to appoint an interim, but to reset, to commit to move transparent process, to clearly define roles between council and the city manager, and to ensure that major decisions like 350 Merredale are handled with clarity, coordination, and public engagement. So my request is simple before moving forward, outline the process, explain what will be done differently and make that commitment publicly, because without that, this feels less likely, less like a transition and more like a continuation of the same conditions that brought us here.

Thank you.

Any other public expression?

Hello, my name is Wayne Rayburn. Good evening, Mayor, members, staff. I want to raise a practical and urgent concern that does not appear to be addressed in the staff report or the agenda materials. The proposed interim center manager is currently serving as the city's financial director, arguably one of the most critical roles, especially given the city's current financial challenges. The agenda indicates that he will temporary step into a city manager role and then return to his position once a permanent city manager is hired. But that raises a fundamental question. Who will perform the duties of financial director and in the meantime? This is not a minor operational detail. The city has publicly acknowledged serious financial restraints and to understand it, is already operating under a freeze, a hiring freeze. at a time when careful financial oversight, forecasting, and budget management is essential, removing this person's responsibility as those functions even temporarily creates a significant gap. Would those responsibilities be reassigned internally? If so, to whom and with what level of experience and authority? Or would the City retain outside consultants potentially adding to the future costs during a financial downturn? These are not just administrative questions. They go directly to financial responsibility and governance. Before approving this appointment, I would send to council to urgently outline how the financial director's responsibility recovered and why safeguards are in place to ensure continuity and financial oversight during the transition. At a time of financial uncertainty, the city cannot afford ambiguity in financial leadership. Thank you.

Any other public comment on this item? Not seeing any, I'm gonna close the public comment. I know we heard input, and I'll turn to the city attorney to see if there's any response.

Yeah, I'm actually gonna invite Paul to respond to Mr. Rayburn's questions at the end, because he's better equipped to answer.

Yeah, I can say a few words. Thank you for the public comment. Just specific to, I believe, the last comment regarding the dual role or juggling of duties. I appreciate the notion that the fiscal management of the city remains a top priority. And I will just share, as I've shared with the council, that I think for the interim temporary duration of this agreement, I am comfortable continuing in that role. And I'll add for two particular reasons, number one being that as far as our day-to-day operations of our finance department, We are now fully staffed with very competent and capable team that has consistently done great work and does not honestly require a significant amount of management and oversight. But there will be some. The main issue is navigating the budget, the budget process, the city's path towards You know, financial stability, regardless of what comes our way. And as I have shared before, having served as a budget manager, finance manager, assistant city manager and city manager for eight years in a in another jurisdiction in all of those roles, including assistant city manager and city manager, I maintained responsibility over the budget. In fact, it's not uncommon in some potentially larger cities for the budget to actually be in the city manager's office. And so even if there was an offer for support, I would not be handing off the budget at this particular time. i would acknowledge that um again depending on the duration that might be a question that we could be revisited at some future time but for the time being um not only am i comfortable um maintaining responsibility and oversight to manage the budget process and bring the council a balanced budget um i kind of insist that i'd be allowed to do that

Thank you. City Attorney, did you want to add anything?

No. I thought Paul's answer was terrific, and I have nothing further to add. And I didn't hear anything else that would require a response. There were some comments, and the council may wish to respond.

No, thank you. I'll bring it back to the council and first express gratitude to Paul Navasio. The media is going to write what the media is going to write. And what is factual is that there was a agreed upon mutual separation with the former city manager. So that's the story beginning, middle and end. So with that, I would entertain a motion or additional comments.

No additional comments, I'm happy to make a motion. Thank you. Adopt the resolution appointing Paul Navazio as interim city manager and authorizing the mayor to execute an employment agreement with Paul Navazio.

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

Vice Mayor Kurtz. Aye.

Council Member Yadon-Zagladi.

Aye.

Mayor Kate.

Aye. That motion carries 3-0. Thank you. Interim City Manager Paul Navazio. We might just say City Manager Paul Navazio because it's a really long title otherwise. Just saying. okay before we adjourn we had open time for public expression at the beginning i guess even though it wasn't fully used i guess we have it again at the end even though it wasn't fully utilized so if anyone would like to speak now is the opportunity not seeing anyone i appreciate everyone for the meeting this evening at this meeting where's my gavel oh did we do the whole thing again okay this meeting is adjourned without the gavel