City Council - Regular Meeting

is on her way en route. Council Member Beckmeyer. Present. Council Member Beer. Here. Vice Mayor Wright.

Present.

And Mayor Bowles. Here. I'm going to start by reading an initial public advisement regarding public commenting. Public meetings are a limited public forum, meaning there are rules for commenting at these meetings. Comments on non-agendized items must address matters within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city And comments on agendized items must relate to that specific item. If comments do not fall into one of these categories, the city will provide you with an initial warning to stay within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city or on topic. If the warning is not followed, I will direct the city clerk to cut off the microphone. And throughout this warning system, I'll seek the assistance of the city attorney in identifying comments not related to the agenda item or not within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city. And I'll now read our land acknowledgement. Just noting that Council Member Espinosa has arrived. City Clerk?

Got it.

Okay. The City of Pacifica acknowledges that we occupy the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramatushaloni peoples, who were the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. We honor the Ramatushaloni peoples for their enduring commitment to Mother Earth. As the indigenous protectors of this land, and in accordance with their traditions, the Ramaytush Ohlone have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. We affirm their sovereign rights as First Peoples and wish to pay our respects to the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Ramaytush Ohlone peoples. And it's my turn to lead us in the salute to the flag.

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

And then just one announcement before we go into our items. This is a special meeting with just one item on the agenda. We don't have to take public comment on items not on the agenda at this meeting, but I have asked that we do so. But we're changing the order a little bit, so those will come at the end of the meeting today. So just to announce to everyone, there are cards in the back if you'd like to comment. This particular item about the sales tax measure is item number one. And otherwise, you can write not on the agenda in the subject matter slot there on your card. So our consideration this morning is a resolution of the City Council of the City of Pacifica calling and giving notice for holding a general municipal election on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2026 for submission to the qualified voters of the city, a ballot measure regarding a one cent transactions and use sales tax for general city revenue purposes and requesting San Mateo County to consolidate the city's general municipal election with the November 3rd 2026 statewide general election and to provide election services. I see Assistant City Manager Carter there who will provide the staff report. Welcome.

Good evening. I'll give a quick introduction and then Marisol will present and then Yulia. So next slide, please. Just to give an overview of tonight's discussion. We'll give a little bit of background on our fiscal realities the community priorities information on what a local transaction and use tax is and Then talk a little bit about the proposed one cent transaction and use sales tax measure provide some of the key features of the ordinance the revenue measure considerations this item is TO PLACE IT ON THE BALLOT WILL REQUIRE A TWO-THIRDS MAJORITY VOTE BY THE CITY COUNCIL, WHICH IS FOUR MEMBERS, AND THEN ONCE IT IS ON THE BALLOT, IT WILL REQUIRE A SIMPLE MAJORITY OF 50% OF THE VOTES CAST PLUS ONE BY PACIFICA VOTERS. NEXT SLIDE. TONIGHT'S ACTION, JUST TO GIVE AN OVERVIEW, TONIGHT'S COUNCIL IS NOT VOTING TO ADOPT THE TAX TONIGHT. TONIGHT'S ACTION IS TO DECIDE WHETHER TO PLACE a measure before the Pacifica voters at the November 3rd general election. I do think that, I won't read this again since it was read in the intro by the mayor, and I'll read it at the end, but really the process is such that tonight starts the process with a city council decision tonight, and then the voters will decide If it is placed on the ballot, the voters will have a chance to weigh in on it on November 3rd. And if they adopt it with 50% plus one, then we will begin implementing the measure and collecting the revenue. This action tonight is not a council action to adopt the tax, it's to place it on the ballot and give the voters the opportunity to decide if they would be willing to support it.

Next slide.

And now I'll turn it over to Marisol.

To me. Julia, sorry. Council members, I'm Julia Carter, Assistant City Manager. And before we dive into Pacifica fiscal realities, let's start with the slide just to look over where city general fund revenues come from. I'm having trouble with this clicker. Okay. So let's look at the general revenues and who pays for them. As you can see, the general fund is supported by the mix of revenue sources. Property tax is our largest revenue source at 34% or $18.4 million, and it's followed by charges for services, utility user tax, sales tax, transfer occupancy tax, and some other revenues, as you can see on the slide. And these revenues are paid by a combination of residents, businesses, property owners, visitors, as well as utility customers and our state and federal partners. So the important takeaway from the slide is that no single revenue source funds city services. It takes a balanced mix of revenues to operate the city. Let's look at what general fund revenue pay for. The general fund pays for day-to-day services residents rely on every single day. It includes the obvious services like police and fire and emergency response, but also many other services that people do not immediately think about until they need them. That includes park public works maintenance, parks, planning and permits, parks and recreation, that's your summer camps, and child care and senior services. And most importantly, that also includes staff behind the scene that keeps the city running and operating. As you all know, the city of Pacifica is a full-service city, which means that most of municipal services are delivered by our own staff. And by that means, so 70% of general fund is salaries and benefits because, again, the services are delivered by staff. In other words, the general fund is the operating budget that keeps the city running. And you will also see the percentages at the bottom of each column here, so that gives you an idea how the general fund is distributed between different functions and departments. And this also very closely aligned with what residents told us through our community surveys, what their priorities are. And you can see police and fire and emergency response will take the higher priority from the community as well. And this is also why the proposed measure is proposed as a general fund measure. The few reasons for that is because community needs to change over time, and the general fund allows for that flexibility, and it allows the city to respond to emergencies, change in priorities, and also invest in services that residents value most. not just one program or one department. It is also important to remember that major capital projects such as street reconstructions are funded through some additional sources like measure WSB1, gas tax and grants. And the city general fund primarily pays for people and day-to-day services that deliver those programs. So I'm trying to transition to the next slide, but it's a little slow. So this slide, you probably remember from our revenue generation study sessions in November, why we are here today. So again, these issues and the fiscal sustainability challenges that we are discussing today are not new for Pacifica. has had structural issues and structural deficit for a very long time. It's gone through rounds and rounds of reductions in services over the last decade or so. And the slide before you reminds us that Pacifica challenges is not just one problem. It's several challenges occurring at the same time. And you can see on the left side, we have roughly, or at least these are the numbers that were presented back in November, we needed about 15.4 million in operating needs, and that's a combination of different points. So the first block is operating deficit. Again, over the span of a decade, it ranges between $3 million to $6 million, $7 million, depending on each year's projections. We've also discussed with the Council that the City of Pacifica is understaffed and an underfunded organization, so we have lower staffing than the city of our size and the service level usually provides. To bring these aspects to the market would require another 8 million roughly, well, again, based on the latest surveys that we had. And there is also unfunded capital needs. Again, back in November, we reported the figure of 371 million. But again, as we all know, since then, we had the peer emergency. And that's another reminder that coastal conditions cost more. And also accelerate the creation of the infrastructure. And each year of delay of capital maintenance or capital projects usually adds from 8% to 10% to the capital cost in the future. So again, take away from the slide that the problem is complex and has many different layers. And Pacifica's challenges are not one dimensional. And as every complex problem, the solutions need to be also comprehensive, strategic, and multi-layered as well. So not a single solution can solve our deficit. So why does the structural deficit exist? It's not simply because, well, simply put, our cost just growing faster than our ongoing revenues. So it's not about spending more or being inefficient in operations. It's about just structural challenges, as I described in the previous slide. On the cost side, on the left, of your slide, we're experiencing many of the same pressures facing cities across California. We are not alone here. There's inflation, state and federal mandates that are piling up and increasing year after year. We are dealing with Asian infrastructure, unfunded liabilities, and also the added cost of maintaining infrastructure in coastal environment, as I mentioned earlier. And at the same time, Pacifica's revenue base is relatively limited. And I want to bring your attention to the right side, why the revenues are limited. So you can see it here. We have fewer businesses than many comparable cities of our size. We also have relatively small visitor economy compared to other coastal communities. And we have a significant sales tax leakage. And the state law limits many of the revenue tools available to the cities in general. And we have a separate slide down the road in this presentation on the VLF backfill challenges that we have also discussed in the past on multiple occasions. So the result of this structural imbalance is not because the city is spending irresponsibly, but because revenues simply have not kept pace with the growing cost of providing services. That's another slide that you probably remember from previous presentations. And again, the point of the slide is that the city should not be relying on one solution in solving fiscal challenges. And when we think about building a financially resilient future for our community, it cannot be solved by any one of these actions. So all these interrelated pieces are connected, and we should be thinking about this as multi-layered framework. And you've seen this, again, you've seen this slide before, In previous discussions, I just want to point out again that we are simultaneously working on each one of these elements. For the revenue strategies, we are working on cost allocation plan has been already updated and included in the current year's budget, but we are working on user fees and development impact fees. We periodically are doing revenue compliance audits. for major revenue sources like TOT, UT, business license, and cannabis. We work really hard across all departments to maximize state and federal grants. And today, we are evaluating revenue measure that also fits into this category. But again, that's not the only solution. We're also working on economic development piece and developing opportunity sites, including this particular site, 2212 Beach Booper, for potential future hotel development, and several other hotel development opportunities to increase the number of hospitality offerings that community can offer, what would be sufficient for the coastal community, like us, and increase the number of rooms. We recently, a few months ago, presented economic development work plan that focused on investing in our commercial corridors, filling vacancies, support business attraction and retention. And, again, economic development division is working hard on that implementation of that plan. When we move to organizational investments, that's, again, you can deliver being full service city, you can deliver high quality services without your staff and increasing or investing into recruitment and retention standards. So that's one of the priorities that we are working on and process improvements and efficiencies, including AI and technology investments and implementations of the workflows. So that's also in the works. We are working on housing development element as well. As you know, housing implementation, element implementation, mixed use and field development, expanding local customer base, and that will secure and grow development impact fees and long-term property tax revenues. And the last but not least element for this framework is community partnerships. And through that, again, we are maximizing, or at least that's our priority, to maximize our grant funding throughout all entire organization. We are exploring different special district revenue formations, and one of the projects that was funded through this current year's budget was Pedro Point Terrace Road Rehabilitation Feasibility Study. to help rehab the streets in worse conditions. We are also working with regional partners, and part of our strategic plan includes CFDs and EIFD formation and studies related to that as well. So, again, fiscal sustainability requires pursuing all of this, strategies together, not one. And I want to make sure that throughout this presentation, as we continue talking about the tax, we don't lose track that all these other pieces are in the works and will have to continue to be in the works for the next few years. With that, I want to turn it to Marisol to go a little bit deeper in the budget framework.

Good evening. Marisol Gomez, Director of Administrative Services. Nice to see you all this evening. I'll go over the next few slides to connect us back with a recap on what we just accomplished with the budget process this year for fiscal year 26-27 and provide you an update from some of the updates we've received over the last week. So, as Yulia Carter said, connecting to our fiscal sustainability was something of importance during this budget process, something we highlighted, even more so this go-around where we created service categories and we looked through every single budget line item, through every single department, through the lens of these three budget categories, service categories, mandated and public health and safety services, core essential services, discretionary services, and community enhancements. I'm not going to go through all the details of these categories as we did explain them in the budget process, but we are continuing to utilize this framework to continue to review our budget throughout the year. and as we return to you guys with any upcoming budget amendments or at mid-year progress. But doing this exercise, we did get into those line items for every department, but turned them into what does that mean for the city, what does that mean for our fiscal sustainability, and how do we connect that to the work plan and to the strategic goals. I believe it was a very important exercise that was done, and we hope we portrayed that to you all with the adoption of the 26-27 budget. But on the next slide, we do have our, you know, what's next? So we have our 26-27 budget that we balanced. Again, we reiterated in our staff reports and our PowerPoint presentations at that time that a lot of the balancing was structured around one time not structural changes, one-time policy adjustments, deferrals, limited delays in hiring. And on the left, you can see the tough decisions that you as council needed to go through. We had that list that we provided to you where every department went through their budget and provided that handful of things to reduce, services to reduce, items to reduce, and made the tough choices to say yes to a few of these in order for us to get to that balanced budget. As a reminder, we have some hiring delays to police officers, firefighters. We froze a couple maintenance worker positions. We eliminated a portion of the senior transportation services. Parks maintenance was reduced, and a couple other administrative allocations where we deferred OPEB contributions and fire equipment replacement costs. Again, those are deferrals, so they're not a structural fix. They're one time kicking the can down the road, so to speak. We reduced some of the legal services commitments. We reduced economic development budget committee and eliminated the verbatim meeting minutes. And there's other operational and service reductions that were taken. as we reviewed our budget line items and try to connect them back to what service categories made the most sense and how we provide those services. As you can see here, we're feeding into what is at risk for next year and beyond, and our city manager will jump in and explain the right side of the slide.

Thank you. Just to highlight some of the budget changes that we're experiencing right now, in this current budget, experienced and included service reductions everything from child care services to senior transportation and everywhere in between on that spectrum and it deeply affects everybody in the community and we're here tonight to ask for this measure to try to maintain what we have and to avoid even more difficult conversations beginning early next calendar year. So if you can envision ourselves, we are sort of standing on the edge of that cliff. We've exhausted all of our expense reduction remedies. We've depleted our reserves as attachment one shows that our reserves will be approaching stand levels that are outside of industry standards, which means high organizational risk next year. So it is sort of a bellwether moment for staff and for the community and for council. And if the new revenue is not materializing, if this sales tax measure does not proceed, what's at risk next year includes almost everything that we do. And at the end of that process, Pacifica will look different, not in a good way. It'll involve difficult decisions around things that are, in many ways, the beating heart of this community about what makes it truly amazing. And that includes, you know, we have a list here, but it's almost everything will be sort of on the table, including citywide staffing reductions, including public safety services and positions, the aquatics program, parks and maintenance facilities, community outreach programs, the economic development activities that are such a critical part of that puzzle that Yulia walked us through, our deferred infrastructure and our deferred roads, streets and roads. We are at a bit of a crisis point right now in terms of where we are with the budget, we can see significant stress fractures in the organization. Not to pick on public works, we have a wonderful public works department and staff, but just emblematic. We have three vacant deputy positions and a soon-to-be vacant public works director. We love hearing the waves here, and that's part of who we are, but we also have an $80 million Bieber project and a peer crisis to deal with. So the stakes are indeed high with decisions that will be made tonight and ongoing. And now I'll turn it back to Marisol to give a little more information on a current update on our budget.

So what does that tipping point mean? We always provide a long-term financial forecast that spans 10 years, so you have that. A MORE RECENT ONE UPDATED WITH OUR BUDGET ADOPTION. BUT JUST LOOKING AT THE NEXT FEW YEARS HERE, WE ALREADY HAVE SOME SUBSTANTIAL CHANGES. AS WE KNOW, THE PUBLISHED LONG-TERM FINANCIAL FORECASTS THAT WE PROVIDED IN JUNE FOR 27-28, WE HAVE ABOUT 2.3 MILLION DEFICIT. AND IN 28-29, WE'RE SHOWING A $3.8 MILLION DEFICIT. THAT'S WITH SOME OF THE ONE-TIME CHANGES THAT WE PROVIDED IN 26-27 PUT BACK INTO THE BUDGET. NOT ALL BECAUSE THERE WAS SOME THAT WERE ONGOING. BUT ONCE WE APPROVED OUR BUDGET BACK AT THE END OF JUNE, SHORTLY THEREAFTER, THE STATE DID APPROVE THE STATEWIDE BUDGET. AS WE ALL KNOW, THE STATEWIDE BUDGET DID NOT INCLUDE THE VLF BACK FILL THAT that we had accounted for in our budget. We do have that council policy decision that will backfill that amount with our general fund unassigned fund balance. However, this will be the second year that we will be doing that. The first year was not the full amount. It was only the one-thirds portion. That wasn't provided to us. However, when we're looking at the next few years, given the recent trend in not receiving that money, we have in this VLF backfill withheld line provided that reduction in there.

I just want to, there's a bunch of new people in the room. Could you just take a step back and explain what VLF is and why we get the money this way compared to what other cities get?

So the vehicle in lieu mechanism is a mechanism that comes from the allocation from the state after the basic aid and non-basic aid school system submits its information through the property tax allocation. And there's a very complicated mechanism. But that is money that's provided to a lot of counties and their cities and the whole state of California. However, there are three counties in the state of California, San Mateo County being one of them, where all of our cities, all 13 cities in the county are affected by this mechanism of allocation in a negative way, since it depends on how many basic aid and non-basic aid schools are in your city or in the county, that would affect the allocation mechanism. And because that number is, lower and out in those three counties the mechanism payment mechanism from the state is basically there's There's a it goes back to the state to pay us for the difference and the state has been withholding that revenue as Residents may recall earlier this year the city did join a lawsuit with other cities in the county and the other two counties to negotiate receiving those funds. Since we didn't receive those funds and we were, you know, promised a working committee to try to come up with a permanent solution, which has not, you know, come to fruition yet. That's a long process. Right now we're still not receiving any of the money that was withheld. So that mechanism is a really complicated process and over the last handful of years is when that mechanism started working against us instead of for us in the three counties in the state of California. I believe when this was first initiated, no one first saw this problem arising, and it wasn't until I believe the last five years that this has become problematic. With that withholding of funds from the state, that's totally outside of Pacifico's local control, even though we're doing our best efforts to make sure we provide the county and the state with all the detrimental effects of this money being withheld. In the next few years, you see there's 2.8 million and 3.9 million, based off the county's estimates, that we will not be receiving or in jeopardy of being received. The second portion of this, unfortunately, is an update we received last week from the county. So as of July 24th, we were told that there are two less non-basic aid schools in our county, which directly means Pacifica will receive about $2 million less in our VLF allocation going forward. We just received this information and we're working with the county. They might be able to break up this amount, but they said we should estimate this reduction in VLF revenue going forward. So that's unfortunate news that we just received. With those two items, if you compound those against our deficit numbers that we were provided to you guys in June 2026, we're looking at $7 million and $9.8 million deficit over the next two years. So that is the recent update that we wanted to provide to you. We'll move on to the next portion of the slides. Thank you.

Just through the mayor. For the public, sort of the way we think of it is these VLF funds are funds that go to every county in the state except for three, including us, and the state takes the ones that would come to us and spends them elsewhere. So Marisol's explanation was perfect, but there's also just an element of the state takes funds that should come to us and spends them elsewhere, so we're a net contributor, and the county's been leading an advocacy effort to try to bring as much if not all of this funding back. Next slide. I'll give a bit of an overview about the community engagement and communication that has occurred on this. The city council and staff have been working on this for quite some time and notably there were several, there were two study sessions in November where it was outlined the strategies, the near-term and medium-term strategies, including looking at multiple revenue options. And there was direction for staff to further explore a potential parcel tax and a TUT or sales tax option. Between April and June of this year, there were multiple council meetings where they, where we presented and reviewed the 10-year revenue and expenditure forecast and projected structural deficit. and the balance this year's budget with one-time measures that were exceedingly difficult. And right now we're estimating that with the new information, you know, our shortfall averages maybe 4.9 million a year in future years. So we're sort of taking on water faster than we can bail it with this new VLF takeaway. During this time as well, it was important for Council to hear from the community, so we initiated collectively the community conversations, and we did two community surveys on city priorities and revenue options, one in February and one in June, and then also did an ongoing and continuous Pacifica Discussion 2026 Community Engagement Initiative, We did flash vote surveys during the budget process. We did outreach through Connect with Pacifica, the city website, social media, stakeholder meetings, and budget presentations. And then we did also get multiple comments from Pacifica residents via ongoing online survey on revenue options. One of the notable factors is that we did a survey in February on baseline communications. Council direction to look at parcel tax and a TUT. And at that time, it indicated that the sales tax was viable. And then we did another survey in June. And the results are provided here. But it was 66% support of likely voters in Pacifica. And then when negative comments were added, push-pull questions, support dropped down to 61%. So from that survey in June, it's a very strong showing of likely voters in Pacifica that there's a very strong desire to continue to maintain the public services that are so critical to safety and the quality of life. And that was reaffirmed through that June poll. Through this process, residents have identified the following city service priorities. One is maintaining public safety services, maintaining 911, police, fire, and emergency medical response times, attracting and retaining experienced medical responders, preventing further deterioration of streets and roads by paving those in the worst conditions, and then qualifying for matching funds from federal and state governments. Just to drive this home a little bit, we looked at some recent information looking at the CAFRs, which is the regulatory document that each city must provide their financial report for comparable sized cities that have their own police force. And we looked at the number of total police staff per thousand residents. And we looked at Pacifica, Belmont, San Bruno, East Palo Alto, Burlingame, and Menlo Park. And those are all roughly comparable with population. And among those, and these are from the 2025 CAFRs, Pacifica had 1.16 police staff per thousand residents. And the average among those, or the median, is 1.69. but we have among the lowest for our population for police staffing. And this is just indicative of some of these ongoing concerns and what we're really striving to protect and ultimately improve here in Pacifica. Another topic is our streets and roads. We do have, unfortunately, we do have among the worst roads in the Bay Area. based on pavement condition index. 28% of the city streets are rated good and 27% are rated as failed and very poor. We have a backlog of about at least 84 million in needed street and road repair maintenance. And one third of Pacific streets will be rated as failed to very poor in five years. And these roads are more than just asphalt and curb. They are in some ways the lifeblood of our transportation and infrastructure network. They also, when they deteriorate, they present significant risks to motorists, but also pedestrians and bicyclists. And also, when they deteriorate too far, they present a risk to our underlying infrastructure in the streets. Next slide. One of the items that came up was our fire stations. We have two fire stations, and currently we have no dedicated space for firefighters returning from calls to decontaminate and store personal protection equipment, which allows them to rinse off, to clear off the carcinogens that may be on their equipment after dealing with a fire. And we'd like to be able to provide those facilities to help keep them safe. after they protect our homes and businesses. Now I'll turn it over to Yulia for an overview on local sales tax.

YULIA KRASNOVA- Back to me. So now as we discuss specific fiscal realities and community priorities, I would like to spend a few minutes in the next several slides actually explaining how the local transaction and use tax actually works. There are a lot of misconceptions about this tax, particularly what it applies to or who pays for this and how the revenues are allocated. So this section hopefully will provide some clarity for this. So on the slide, you can see that on top left corner, so the city receives its regular Bradley Burns 1% sales tax. And it is allocated to the place of sale. where the sale occurs. The Bradley Burns tax generates approximately 3.1 million per year in general fund revenues for the city. And down below in green, you can see the difference between the Bradley Burns sales tax and local transaction use tax. In other words, the TUT tax applies to place of delivery of goods. or use of goods. So it's located where goods are actually delivered or used. And because of that, it captures some of the categories here that usually would be missed in Pacifica on the regular Bradley Burns sales tax. We are talking about online purchases, appliances, furniture stores elsewhere. and construction materials as well as vehicle registrations. So this is why proposed one cent tax is projected to generate about five million per year as opposed to 3.1 million in Bradley Burns. And down on the right side, you can see how the rate will change if this measure were to be approved. So the current rate is 9.875%, and it's proposed to go up to 10.875. So in other words, it adds one cent to UT. Yulia, I have a question. So you mentioned...

You mentioned all of these items that will be taxed. So how about if someone is buying a house?

I will have that slide later. Just be patient. One more. Give me a couple of minutes. So the next slide actually shows where the sales tax revenues are going. And that's another misconception. So most people... Some people think that the city receives the entire sales tax revenues to the general fund. It's really not the case. So you can see here on the slide only 1.5 cents stay in Pacifica. That's Pacifica local portion. And that's exactly what you saw in the previous slide, 1 cent Bradley Burns and the half cent of Measure Y revenues. The maturity of the sales tax stays with the state or in the county. And it helps fund state programs as well as some county programs related to safety transportation and other countywide purposes. So it's important to realize that the proposed measure actually increased one cent, one and a half cent that we have currently to 2.5 cents if this measure were to pass. And the next slide actually answers your question. So what is and what is not taxable? So like existing sales tax, Bradley Burns tax, TUT applies only to taxable purchases established under California law. So everyday taxable goods like clothing, electronics, furniture, you can see everything in green. So all of these items will be taxable just the same way as the regular sales tax is taxable. But even more categories. that are going to be not exempt from taxation. And you can see it on the right side or on the red portion. And one thing I wanted to point out that the city does not decide those exemptions. They established under the state law. And I want to say that California has one of the most, I guess, generous exemption structures in the nation compared to some other states. Hawaii comes to mind where 94% of goods are taxable, or 53% in Washington, and this number is only 19.3% in California. So you can see all these exemptions apply, like your groceries, your prescription medications, your house, property purchases, utilities, any professional services like medical, dental, or legal services, none of this is taxable under the state law. as well as digital projects like downloadable music, e-books, and of course, you probably know that some of the sales to U.S. or federal government as well. So for most households, many of the immediate needs and routine expenses would not be subject to this tax.

Julia, but I'm saying... Okay, it's not that somebody's going to come and tax me because I own a property, but what happens if I'm selling the property?

That's my question, okay? The sales tax does not apply to the real estate. It doesn't apply to, okay. And the next slide, again, it's maybe a little bit repetitive information, but it would be helpful for the public. So it gives you several examples. Transaction tax applies to place of registration if you buy a car. And the 1% Bradley Burns tax goes actually to the dealership where you buy the car. So if you buy a car in Daly City, so Daly City gets 1%, but the TUT portion will go to Pacifica. And transaction tax applies to anything delivered into the district, so in our city in this case, no matter where it comes from, from the nation or elsewhere. And it does not apply to anything shipped out of the city. And transaction tax applies to all of the over-the-counter transactions for those eligible goods. And we can go to...

When you finish with this slide, I have a question.

Okay. Well, I can move on to the next slide unless you have a question about this slide. Can I ask now?

Yes, of course. My question is that how do you track the sale tax? I have some people asking. They want to know if the city of Pacifica is tracking them when they purchase anything. So that's the question. How does the city track transactions from the public?

The city does not track the transactions. So the allocation happens by the state. Again, it's a state agency. CDTFA collects the tax and distributes it to the city. But what we do have locally, we contract with the HDL that does audits of those allocations. And periodically, from time to time, They may flag some of the allocations, the mismatches, like something went to the county pool and was supposed to be in the Pacifica pool and vice versa. So they help us with this tracking. And at the local level, every business is responsible reporting the sales tax to the state. And the next slide. So now we are actually going to talk about the measure itself. And this slide before you shows the ballot language. If approved by the council tonight, this is the questions that voters would see on November ballot. It summarizes the intended public purpose, again, of the measure, estimates annual revenues of approximately $5 million, as we discussed already. and includes commitments to local control. Again, we talked about the portion of this tax will stay in Pacifica, so the city and specifically the council as policy makers will be in full control in allocating these funds. And it will be subject to independent annual audit, like we'll be required to do annual audit every, every year, and as we mentioned in the beginning of the presentation, it requires supermajority vote by the Council for members to place it on the ballot, and simple majority, 50% plus one, for the voters to pass. Next slide. And the ordinance that is in your packet contains four major elements, right? So the first step, if the TUT tax is imposed, then we will contract with the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration. So that's the agency I was referring to earlier, CDTFA. And the state law, again, requires full collection administration of the tax. The start date of the collection will be determined in accordance with the state law and some of the implementation requirements following approval. And as we, again, had it in previous slides, the proceeds from this tax will be deposited in the general fund subject to regular audit requirements of general fund. Next slide. So here I just want to highlight that Pacifica is not unique in considering local revenue measures. The challenges that we're experiencing are also not unique. So many cities around us have their own unique fiscal challenges. And on this slide you can see what San Mateo County cities already placed on the November ballot. The first two, San Carlos and San Mateo, going with the transaction use tax like us, but a slightly different calculation. And we, again, back to the previous slide when I was talking about revenue base and commercial base of those series, you can see that even half a cent of the TUT in St. Carlos generates more than one cent in Pacifica. So that's the projected annual revenues. Brisbane is going with the business license tax modernization. Burlingame is going to test the transit occupancy tax increase. East Palau is proposing $125 million infrastructure bond measure. Portola Valley is restructuring to this charter city and also imposing property transfer tax. And San Bruno is also placing the business license tax on the ballot. Next slide. And one final item worth mentioning is Senate Bill 762. Pacific is one of 13 jurisdictions statewide that is included in this bill that seek an additional flexibility provided through this legislation. The bill has now passed both houses of the legislature and waiting for governor's signature. You can see on the left side what other cities are in this bill, not close to us, plus four additional counties in Southern California and a little bit out of Bay Area. And again, once or if the governor signs, we will be able to enact the measure if it's approved by the voters and move to the implementation. And the next slide. So that slide summarizes what happens after tonight. If the council approves placing the measure on the ballot, staff will submit the measure to San Mateo County by its statutory deadline. So that's August 7th. And the ballot arguments and the impartial analysis will follow over the next several days. And then finally, on November 3rd, Pacifica voters will be able to decide whether to support the measure or not. And if approved, implementation will occur shortly after the election certification, according to the state law again. So there will be a number of steps to take to make sure it's in place and implemented. And again, the key point of tonight's section, that we are not asking you to impose a tax. We just ask you to allow the community to make that decision. The next slide, I want to turn it to our city manager with the recommendation slide.

Thank you. I would like to return to our recommendation. Staff recommendation is to adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Pacifica calling and giving notice for holding a general municipal election on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2026 for submission to the qualified voters of the city a ballot measure regarding a one percent, one cent transaction and use sales tax for general city revenue purposes and requesting San Mateo County to consolidate the city's general municipal election with the November 3rd, 2026 statewide general election and to provide election services. The decision is before the council. As was mentioned, this does not raise taxes. This presents the community with a chance to weigh in And current indications from the survey in June indicates very strong support for Pacifica's financial sustainability and strong support among likely voters for the recommended one cent sales tax. And tonight, if the decision is made to place it on the ballot, then it moves forward to November the 3rd, and it is entirely in the hands of the Pacifica voters to make that decision. And that concludes our presentation, and we're available for questions.

Okay. Thank you so much for that. I'm going to ask you all to use your lights, if you don't mind, today. So right now, before public comment, we're just asking any clarifying questions. We're not deliberating on anything. So just if there's something you didn't understand or would like a little bit more information. Well, I... Okay, use your microphone again, please.

I don't necessarily have questions. I do have things that I would like to raise concern about.

Okay, you should wait then until after public comment.

Okay. Do you want me to turn it off? Well, I'm going to turn it on back on.

That's fine, but do you have a question right now? This is for questions.

Okay, I do. Okay, Mike, I have a few questions. So I wanted to, I don't see that we have a sunset date on this proposal, and I feel like... No, no, no, don't feel like, that's deliberation.

So you can just ask, do we have a sunset date?

Christine, don't tell me what to say.

No, I need to manage the meeting or else we're out of order legally. I'm sorry, but I do.

So I cannot give... You can't give your opinion.

You're just asking a question. The other thing is... Well, I don't have questions. I have...

Okay, we'll save you for before, yeah, or after. Okay. Place me right.

Yes, out of respect for the presenters, I'd like to reserve the majority of my questions for after public comment. I did have one process-oriented question prior to, well, actually two process-oriented questions prior to public comment that I would like to ask. The first one is, in terms of the 300 words that would appear on the ballot, who would be responsible for putting that together? Is that a product of an ad hoc of the committee? Is it in collaboration with staff, or is it presented by staff?

Are you asking about the ballot arguments or the ballot measure language?

There was a slide that mentioned 300 words that were allowed.

I believe he's asking about the ballot arguments.

Ballot arguments, yes. The resolution right now allows for ballot arguments. That will not be generated by staff. That will be generated by a campaign committee that may be created. but it cannot be done with city resources and it cannot be done with city staff during city staff hours.

So a campaign committee created by who?

Citizens who support the tax measure.

Okay. Thank you. I guess I can probably reserve the rest, although I was expecting to hear what an alternative was. Is that coming...

later or I only heard alternative for what I'm not sure what we can provide I can provide an alternative if you want to bring up the cliff unfortunately that is the precipice we're standing on and we did walk through some of the options if the revenue measure does not materialize I can go back So we would need to begin a budget process immediately with the beginning of the calendar year to go through really a discussion with the community on the three buckets that Marisol walked us through and sort of do a voting on where we would like to reduce first. And then we'd have to do a very painful process of highlighting how that translated into the upcoming budget and what the recommendations would be to bridge the three to $4 million deficit at least that we're facing. And that process would be iterative, but it would begin with everything being on the table. all city services other than those mandated. And we'd go through department by department and hear from the council and the community about how to bridge that fiscal gap. And at the end of that process, we don't know where we would land, but we simply don't have the reserves to continue funding at the level we have been funding. So we don't know the specifics, but we do know that it would be a different Pacifica. The cuts would be significant and the city would look different. Thank you.

I have a couple of questions. So SB 762, as I understand it, would let us, if it's approved by the governor, charge more than the maximum total sales tax rate. So what is that maximum right now? Are we at the maximum with the 9.75?

Yes, the current rate at 9.875, we are at the cap. So that measure, if passed and approved by the governor, will allow us to go over the cap for the full 1%.

Is the 9.875 the same for every city and county, or do those vary?

Through the mayor, no. If you go back to the sales tax slide, there's a 6% base, 1% on top of that, and then there are the county ones, and then each jurisdiction adds their own. So right now in this county, I think it's 11 jurisdictions are at 9.85. Just for reference, as we mentioned, San Carlos is going for sales tax as well. They are not. They're below that measure, so they did not need to be included in the SB 762. Okay. Does that help?

Yeah, I just printed a list of the top sales tax cities all over the state, and I'm up to... like 98 that are above, that are 10% and above. So I'm just wondering how many overall, I mean, there's 13 this year that are applying to go over, but are there a lot more in the state? This seems to be a growing problem, right, where municipalities aren't able to continue funding their services with the income that they're receiving.

I don't have a list of all of the ones that are over 10, but it is not uncommon. And there are quite a few in the East Bay that are. And another salient fact for us is, as was mentioned, we have retail leakage of 67%. So of the sales tax dollars that our residents spend, two-thirds of them are spent and taxed in other cities. And that, too, is a factor with how much... because we capture so little, it leads us to having also part of the argument of why this would work.

Through the chair, can I ask a follow-up to that? Sure. So the leakage in that two-thirds of those sales tax dollars that are spent in the other cities, those cities get our sales tax dollars. Is that correct?

For the most part, they do. If it is, a car is a good example. They get a portion of the car, but then a portion of the Pacifica TUT would come back to Pacifica because that is the point of registration. But if they were buying a two by four, yes. Is that right, Julia?

Yeah. And then just trying to wrap my head around like the difference between us and San Carlos. So San Carlos only has a population of 30,000 and we have like 38 something. Right, and so they're raising their tax by only a half cent, and yet they're making six million, where we're trying to raise it a whole cent and only making five. So is that because we just don't have enough retail and other businesses here that collect the tax?

Our economy is not as robust as St. Charles, yeah.

Okay, so this is a statement on what's wrong with Pacifica and why we're, you know, that's... Structural, too, right? That we have more housing and not enough businesses. Right.

And San Carlos has a big commercial corridor and innovation zone. So that's very different, again, to the community.

San Carlos has a thriving downtown. They have a much more diverse commercial sector. They have retail, larger retail. neighborhood serving retail sectors and they also may have business to business because of their thriving commercial sector with uh maybe manufacturers or biotech so it's it's hard to draw a comparison other than just to say they have a much more diverse commercial base than we do and then and then the other question i was trying to wrap myself around so five million dollars um if you divide it by say 40 000 people it's a little more than what we have but

you know, that comes out to about $125 per person per year. But it's not just our people paying these taxes either, right? It's all the visitors that are coming here to our restaurants, to our stores, et cetera, right? So anyway, just trying to come up, like what is the ballpark cost to an average Pacifican with this price increase? Would like $100 be a rough... I don't know.

It's dramatically complicated by the leakage, by the high level of leakage. So they would only pay this on the one-third that's typically spent here, with a notable exception of, say, for example, a vehicle that's purchased in Colma. I don't know where the nearest car dealer is, but Colma, that would be that one percent, one and a half, including Measure Y, would be applied to that vehicle. But the sheer amount of our leakage makes it a little difficult to calculate.

Right. And the good point is, as you mentioned, Madam Mayor, it's also contributed by the visitors who come and visit our coastal community to a large extent of it, right? So that's important.

Right. So it's not fair to say that that number is divided equally among our residents.

Exactly.

Yeah.

All right, are there, you have some questions? Council Member Bebe, please go ahead.

Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you so much for your presentation. So with Measure Y, there is a citizen oversight group, and so what will the oversight look like for this if it passes, and do we have an opportunity to create a citizen's oversight like we have with Measure Y? And Thank you for our first responders, our fire, and police who are here tonight.

Do you want to do Measure Y?

Well, I can confirm the first part of your question. Yes, we do have Assistance Oversight Committee for Measure Y, and it has its own charter and another set of eyes on how the money is spent. This particular measure, well, as you saw in the belt language, does not include that, but it's subject to public disclosure and audit procedures as we usually audit the revenues. So the way how the money are spent will be subject to council's purview, I guess. It's within the council's purview to decide every year as part of the budget process, as you do with the measure Y as well.

And so, hypothetically, if this passes and in a year, you know, we have some concerns, could we at some point create a citizen's oversight for this?

Or could we even create one tonight and say that that's something that we would like to add?

Yes, if there's a majority of the council that would like to create a citizen's advisory committee, we could, that language, you know, citizens oversight committee could be inserted into the ballot measure language and we could make that change tonight. We can't do that with all requests but I have thought about that and so I have drafted some language that could be used in the event the council wants to add an oversight committee to the ballot measure and the ordinance and if If we have a majority of the council that wants to do that, then we have language that we would recite to you and we would just modify the resolution.

Thank you. I look forward to the conversation after public comment.

Just like to follow up on that query with additional information question. Was that what was polled when you guys asked about this?

My understanding is that the concept of a Citizens Oversight Committee was polled and the polling results did not indicate that at this time that our community would want a Citizens Oversight Committee. Not to say that we couldn't do it, but the reason it was inserted into Measure Y in the original ballot measure language is because the polling results indicated that in order to pass, this community wanted a citizens oversight committee for the measure. That was not indicated by the polling results, but as I said, we can easily insert that. I have thought about that and it can happen if the council wants to make it happen.

And to reiterate Mary's question and put it in slightly plainer language, we would have the ability to add that oversight at some date uncertain in the future were the community to voice concerns.

Absolutely. It doesn't have to be in the ballot measure language in order for the council to appoint a citizen's oversight committee. That's correct.

Thank you for the clarity.

Go ahead, Myra.

I have a question about the sunset. I would like to know if it's possible to put a sunset there just because the city proposed to do other thing to raise money, and I hope we continue doing, looking for other ways to bring money to the city. And I would like to see something like that there. I know this is not a question. I'm saying if it's possible to do that.

Just ask the question if it's possible, right?

Yeah. Is that possible to do?

that might be a little more challenging because that doesn't neatly fit in the ballot measure language as it exists so we would have to the ballot measure language can only be 75 words so I would have to delete other verbiage other words in order to fit you know essentially a new sentence that said this ordinance will sunset after you know in 2020, whatever the year would be. So that would be a more difficult text amendment to make.

But that is important, though.

And if I may add to this, so the measure can be added by and ended by voters. So that's important to realize. So it's not set in stone. So the voters can end this measure in the future elections as well.

And a future council can also end it. unilaterally so there are other ways to terminate the tax even if there isn't a sunset clause in the tax but to your point unfortunately it would be difficult to add that to the ballot measure language tonight because I would have to delete other verbiage and a lot of that language is mandated by law to contain in the ballot measure language. So I don't know if we're even able tonight to determine what we could take out that isn't legally required and then substitute the language, which would essentially be a short sentence saying that this ordinance will terminate in such and such a date.

Do we have the example of the Measure Y language that did include that that we could bring up?

I don't have it. with me, but it's as simple as that. The ordinance will terminate.

It might be interesting to look at after public comment if it's easy to pull up. And just to follow up on the question, when you said the voters can terminate this, how would they go about that? A citizen's initiative. A citizen's initiative, okay.

And I also want to add, so we did some research and we looked at San Mateo County. There are 12 cities that currently have transaction use tax. And only four, including Pacifica, have a sunset measure in place. And Pacifica's sunset measure is the lowest at nine years, as you know. So some cities, like San Mateo, has 38-year sunset. And eight cities have no sunset. But again, having no sunset doesn't mean that it's forever. But it's forever. Yeah. Okay.

Through the mayor. Yeah. It's important to also note that while Measure Y does have a sunset measure, it sunsets in five and a half years.

Right.

So it's coming up pretty fast.

We're going to be short another 2.8 million in five and a half years. Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Any other? I still see some lights. Are we ready for public comment?

Yes, please.

Mayor Bowles, I suggest asking for hands to be raised for public comment on the Zoom and then noting how many hands raised and the last speaker and taking the comments on the Zoom first.

Okay. So if you're on Zoom, please take a minute to raise your hand. I'll give you a minute to do so. How many do we currently have on Zoom?

We currently have five raised hands. Okay.

There is a delay, so maybe we should give them a second.

No, I will. I was just asking. Why don't we hear the first one, and then we'll cut it off after that.

The first raised hand is for Gail and Pete Shoemaker. Okay. Go ahead, Gail or Pete.

Hello, I'm here. Can you hear me?

Yeah, hi Pete.

Hi there. Yes, as many of you might know, in January I held a public meeting about a group called Strong Towns, which is a national group helping cities to deal with this problem, which is a nationwide problem. All of the cities, and as the speaker said earlier, it's a structural problem built in basically from the the 60s suburban boom. My point is that this shortfall is not due to the mismanagement of staff or elected officials. It's a structural problem, and the only way we're going to get out of it is to pay more money. Everybody would like a tax measure that is not regressive. We know the argument about regressive tax measures, that sales tax measures are regressive. They penalize poor people more than others. That's not ideal. But the city has done its due diligence really, really well, I think, with the surveys. And they're smart and they have to get a measure that's likely to pass. And if you are supporting this measure, it doesn't mean that you don't care about poor people. Of course you do. But what it means is that you're a reasonable adult in a democracy and you realize that you have to make compromises and you cannot get everything you want. I wouldn't prefer a property tax measure that would pay... you know, have people who have more pay more, but that didn't fly. We've got to keep our city out of bankruptcy. So it's really, really important that we all come together on this measure and keep our city going and then allow us, give ourselves the time to raise the other revenue measures that we're talking about. For the council, you're elected by district, and it's really, really laudable and wonderful that you're putting, that you want to be sensitive to the needs of your district. But your first priority by your oath is to the greater good of all Pacifica. If you put the needs of your district ahead of the needs of the greater good of all Pacifica, noble as that might sound, you are not doing your job. Now, I think there is not a conflict here, though. I think in the long run, what's best for the greater good of all the citizens of Pacifica, which is keeping our city out of bankruptcy, will be what's best for your own district. So you can do a win-win situation here by supporting the tax. I know that's hard for people who are in districts that were... poor people might be affected by this tax, but we've got to be, in a democracy, you have to compromise. And I feel that the use of the word tax is a bad term. I see this as an investment in my community. Tax means a burden, but police and fire protection, good, clean streets, maintenance supports, it's not a burden, it's a benefit. I'm investing in this community because of the benefits that I get, and I'll tell you, it is one of the best investments you can make is to pay that money, because What happens in Pacifica has more direct effect on my quality of life than just about anything. So I'm 100% in for this. I will support the tax measure. I will lead a campaign. Please, let's come together. Give our new city manager and our upcoming new council members a reasonable staff and a reasonable budget to work with, and we can make Pacifica a great place. Invest in your community. Thank you.

Thank you, Pete. Okay, how many other waste hands do we have now?

We have five other raised hands. The last raised hand is Thomas Weissmiller. The next raised hand is for Mark Leach. Okay. So we'll cut it off after Thomas Weissmiller.

Okay.

Tom Leach, go ahead.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Mark Leach. I am the representative of Teamsters 856 workers that work for their city. These are the Pacific employees who are working harder to cover vacant and frozen positions. I want to say thank you first to Pete Shoemaker. I appreciate everything you said and it saves me a lot of time in my comments. Just note, organized labor is actively participating in the efforts to restore the VLF funding, including escalating our efforts to persuade all members of the state government to treat San Mateo County and our cities fairly. Team Series 856 is 100% in support of this measure. We encourage council to vote to place the measure on the ballot, and then we further pledge to do everything we can within the greater labor community to rally all workers who live and vote in the city of Pacifica and to encourage those voters to support the efforts to properly fund the city by voting yes in November. We are all in this together. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mark. The next phrase, Hannah, is for Sid Young. Go ahead, Sid.

Thank you so much. I live in Moss Beach, but I do shop in Pacifica, Daly City, and South San Francisco. I could shop in Half Moon Bay, but they did raise their sales tax due to a... you know, deficit a while back, and I don't like their traffic, so I try to avoid going down there. I do notice that you guys don't have very many big box stores. I primarily shop at Target and Trader Joe's and Costco. South San Francisco has three Costco's. You guys don't have very many big box stores and you lost your Rite Aid recently. I don't shop at Safeway. I do go to Grocery Outlet, but of course there's no tax on groceries. So I would suggest maybe trying to start up an economic development drive and try to find some more big box stores that they bring customers. And you know, maybe you don't know, there's a 71-unit affordable housing complex underway in Moss Beach that's probably going to have some more customers of lower income, but they will be shopping. And they may not want to drive and hit the traffic down to Halfman Bay either. So, you know, I don't know what the dollar store is going to do for you, but... It would have been nice if you would have tried to get a Trader Joe's in there in Lindemar. Also, we did have issues with our fire department a while back, and we ended up going with CAL FIRE. I don't want to put out any bad vibes against your union, but we saved millions of dollars by going with CAL FIRE. and we ended up with two new fire stations, one that's under construction right now. So if you get into really dire straits, that's one way to look at things. And I realize that that might put people out of work, but a lot of them, the fire department, I mean the police department and half of them, a lot of them transitioned over to the sheriff's department. And I think the same with the fire department. They transitioned to CAL FIRE. but they saved a lot of money. So that's something to think about down the road, not right away. And I do want to say I support what you have to do. You guys are in a pickle. And I do bring my business your way. I actually use your pool when I go every Thursday to the Pacifica pool. use it because of water aerobics. So I look forward to seeing you get out of your financial straits and hopefully you will put in a sunset clause. I did want to ask you.

Sorry, Sid. I'm sorry. Your time is up. But thank you. Feel free to email us the rest of your comment.

The next raised hand is for Sam Casillas. Go ahead, Sam.

Good evening, City Council. I realize that this is a tough issue, but every few years we are now asked to approve a higher tax because of one overarching issue. Our sales tax revenue is very limited because we have so few retail businesses. And every time a new sales tax comes up, I ask the same questions. What is the plan to grow our local businesses and bring in viable new retail businesses? I HAVE YET TO SEE A PLAN WHERE WE HOLD OUR CITY MANAGER AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR AND OUR CITY COUNCIL ACCOUNTABLE FOR MEASURABLE RESULTS OVER ANY GIVEN TIME FRAME. AND AT THE SAME TIME, OUR CITY LEADERSHIP IS ALLOWING THE CLOSURE OF THRIVING RETAIL AND ENTERTAINMENT BUSINESSES LIKE THE SEABOWL THAT ARE ALSO COMMUNITY ASSETS AND ALLOWING THEM TO BE REPLACED BY MORE HOUSING DEVELOPMENTS THAT ONLY ALLOW THE DEVELOPERS TO PROFIT. THERE IS A NEED FOR BETTER LEADERSHIP in our city that will hold themselves and staff leadership accountable to a plan that will ensure the economic vitality of our community. And that is why I am announcing that I have decided to run for city council. I make this promise to the people of Pacifica that we can do better. Thank you.

Thank you, Sam. And then last, raise hands for Thomas Weissmuller. Go ahead, Thomas.

Yes, this is Tom Weissmuller. I lived in Pacifica a long time ago. I live in the city of San Mateo now. But I just wanted to point out a couple things here. There's also a half-cent regional transit tax that's going to be on the ballot. And that one only requires a simple majority to pass. So if you pass your tax and the And the regional tax goes in, you're talking about a 1.5% increase. I've been involved a little bit with oversight committees, and typically they don't really do much except come in there and they show what was authorized and what was spent. They don't get into, you know, we're, you know, contracts properly bidded out or you know doing a they don't really do any examination all they do is show money in and money out but that can be fixed based on the way you set up your your bylaws and charter re-oversight committee and i just recommend that you do something to give it some teeth to to be effective and i also think that the sunset clause is a is a good idea thank you

Okay, and I have just three cards from the room. So Michael Wallman, followed by Dan Stegink, and then Remy Tan. And if anyone else would like to speak, please feel free to fill out a card in the back. Go ahead, Michael. Yeah, come on.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council members and staff. Michael Wallman in District 2. I looked through the proposed text that was put out for this tax, and I do have some concerns about what I saw. First of all, I'll just kind of read through what I've highlighted here. This is to fund police, fire, 911 emergency response, prioritizing paving streets in worse conditions, keep parks, beaches, and public spaces safe and maintained, and for general government use. Further down, the ordinance would deposit all the proceeds into the city's general fund. Then at the bottom, as a general tax, revenues generated by the proposed transaction and use tax would be available for any lawful municipal purpose as determined through the city's annual budget process and subject to city council appropriation. Now, what we saw from the citizens' responses to the polls was the priority was police, fire, critical infrastructure, which I will consider streets. It says nothing about parks and general government purposes. Please, please, please, please either put this in a special fund that is separate from the general fund or remove the language about anything that is not public safety and critical infrastructure. If you want this bill to pass, do not risk it by putting in fluffy stuff that people did not ask you for. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah, Dan, go ahead. Followed by Remy and then Cliff Clarence.

Thanks. My name is Dan Studding from Pacifica. Again, I tell you, it didn't feel good when I looked up and everybody gets to talk as much as they want except the first Latina council member. I don't think that was right. We've been here before. We've been here a lot. Seabold, pier, Rockaway Bridge, Linnemar Beach, the flooding in Linnemar, most polluted beach. Pacifica is not a better place than when you guys took office. February 2022, Midnight meeting. The can has been kicked down the road as far as it can be kicked down the road. Pacific is less than 24 months from a $2 million annual structural deficit and the city is only being kept afloat by American rescue funds. So what did you do? You built a $20 million civic center? It's kind of a mute point because there's zero chance this is gonna pass. You've got a community college tax. You've got a Jefferson Union tax. You've got a Pacific School District tax. You've got the largest sales tax hike in San Mateo County history. There's zero chance it's going to pass. You can march all the firefighters around Linden Bar. You can even put them in booty shorts and suspenders, and this won't pass. They deserve that 3% raise they got for passing last time. March, 2024, I got an email. The city of Pacifica will be implementing a new fourth cent sales tax for the general fund. Does anybody have any experience forming a civilian oversight committee? Please email mariozureb at pacifica.gov. Thanks, Nawa. That's a week before this tax was supposed to be implemented. The oversight committee isn't even on the agenda. I strongly disagree with this city attorney's statement that there's no room on the ballot question for additional stuff. 11 words of the 75 words are relevant to getting the tax on there. Pacifica's never looked so different. Lindemeyer's practically destroyed. You go there, you look at that beach, you guys have done no maintenance at all. Pier's destroyed. Anybody that thinks the pier can be repaired has not read that engineering report. The pier's never coming back. The idea that you're gonna hold out false hopes and try to leverage a pool, on a failed tax is just amazing. You guys should hang your heads in shame. Shame on you.

Thank you, Dan. Remy, followed by Cliff, and then Adam Leibert. This is my last question.

Thank you, Honorable City Council. I have some issues with this tax. It is regressive, as mentioned before, and the majority of, I think, the poorer people in this town live in the north side, and they're already going over the hill, and this will encourage them to go over the hill for more purchases than has already happened. I was surprised, and I was hoping that there was an analysis about how much leakage would increase with this tax. That's quite a bit, 1%. So I was disappointed not to hear any information on that. But what I would suggest is maybe have an exemption for Pacificans on this tax, so that this tax would only apply to the visitors. Right now, we have a lot of visitors, but I don't think we're taxing them adequately. So, you know, maybe this tax gets raised to 2%, but only applies for visitors, and we still get our $5 million. The other thing is, you know, I agree we should have a sunset, because, you know, if we do get the three hotels that are on the charts, that would be great, and it will increase the TOT. We do need to make sure these hotels are high quality. I remember that one, I was in city council, and that one up on the corner of Crespi and Highway 1 was approved, and everybody that was on the planning commission said that that hotel needs to be of high quality materials. Unfortunately, the building department never held them to that and the hotel is made of shoddy materials and it's falling apart, as well as the Lighthouse Hotel is falling apart. So we see in Half Moon Bay, we've got a beautiful St. Regis Four Seasons out there and the Beach Hotel, they're impeccably maintained. So we've got to go for high quality hotels and high quality restaurants and that will bring revenue back here. Thank you.

Thank you, Remy. Cliff and then Adam.

Honorable Mayor and Council, Cliff Lawrence. As I listen to what's already been said tonight, I think this is going to be a real tough lift. I came here thinking that this was going to be presented as a kind of an emergency measure, and I had a lot of sympathy for that. But I was hoping to see a sunset clause, and I didn't see it, and I know that's going to be an issue for some members of my family. You need it, and if you really need it, I think you really take the time to get that sunset clause in there. I'd like to see what's going to happen with all these ballot measures hitting at the same time. If we don't pass the transportation thing, our nearest BART stops could be closed. So it's going to have impact on us. Thank you.

Adam? And then Albert Zhang, my last question.

Hi there. My name's Adam. I live in Sharp Park. And I'm not a fan of taxes either, but I look at the structural deficit of our budget. I look at how much we've already cut. I look at the sad state of things in Pacifica. I look at how overnight the pier can go from $20 million of deferred maintenance to $60 million of deferred maintenance, right? And that's if you even rebuild it. And if you don't rebuild it, which you probably shouldn't because it's in such bad shape, if it falls into the ocean, we have to clean that up probably. And that's even more liability. The city faces just huge liabilities. And I think the question that we should all ask ourselves is, where are we going to get money to cover all the things we need to do? This is an opportunity to try to make $5 million a year. and we won't get this opportunity for another two years because this has to be done with every general election. And so if you have a better idea for where to find $5 million a year, I'm all ears. Please propose it. But if you don't, then I think this is a really important measure to pass and to at least let the citizens vote. I don't know why we have to shut it down here at city council rather than letting the people think about the town's finances and the outlook of this town's economy. So I would certainly recommend letting the citizens do it and giving them that opportunity. Thanks.

Thank you, Adam. Albert?

Hey everyone, good evening. My name is Albert. I'm a Pacifica resident. I think a lot of folks are talking about this is a structured deficit. It's not anyone's fault. I think they miss a lot of things. I'm not here tonight to talk about a budget problem. I'm here to talk about who caused it. So let's start with the numbers because they're not that complicated. So stuff told us tonight that for every dollar of the sales tax, city raises, you know, under 30% probably will belong to Pacifica. The rest, you know, goes to the state and county. But on the other end, TOT is not like this. For every dollar transit tax we received, we keep 100%. But before this council, this council sitting here, five councils, cut the short-term rental It issued a short-term rental last year, and it already hit a non-coastal zones neighborhood. Their revenue stream that was over $2 million in fees and tax was almost gone. So we saw today we have like 2.87 TOT tax. That's just an estimation. These TOT tax are going to keep going down if the ordinance is going to impact the coastal zones. in a city that has almost no other revenue basis like our city staff just said. This TOT tax is very important, but in the same time, we just threw it away last year. And don't tell anyone that nobody saw this coming. Last year when the city council voted for this ordinance, the city manager, the previous city manager said the same thing, told us cut the revenue and I will come back asking you to cut city services. Tonight, a new different city manager said exactly the same sentence, word for word, the same warning, one year apart. This is not an unforeseen consequences. This is a premise this council was told about a year before and ignored anyway. So when residents ask how Pacifica ended up starting down cut to the services, and we all rely on all, you know, cannot repair the piers, cannot do the civil project. The answer isn't that complicated and isn't the economy, isn't sacramental. It is the people who sat there, the five people who sat there on this chair and voted for it. And I will say plainly what a lot of people in this room are thinking. The mayor did not tell this community the truth about what this TOT audience would do. She told it was... She saw it as a responsible policy while sitting there, sitting on the warning that it would blow a hole in the budget, and now she wants to stand up and act surprised and raise sales tax.

Thank you, Albert. Thank you. I have a couple of follow-up questions from community questions. Oh, sorry. I'm closing public comment. Yes. That's all the cards I have. Sorry. Thanks for that procedural, um, nudge. Um, so there was a question about leakage and maybe our leakage increasing. Um, but my understanding of this tax is that it follows Pacificans where they go, right? The additional 1%.

So yeah, it indirectly addresses the leakage, um, problem because if you order a car, back on the car example, elsewhere, obviously we don't have dealerships here, with the TOT tax in place, it will follow the car to the final destination.

Or if you're going to Target and buying a bunch of paper goods or whatever. Correct, if something is delivered to your home.

That money would still come here.

And I know you're working on the short-term rental issue, but... I know when we went through our budget earlier this year, the loss was not nearly as much as what was projected when we were going through the ordinance. Can you just talk to that a little bit? And also the costs of enforcement in relation to the money that we're bringing in.

Sure. So when we originally estimated revenue losses related to TOT, we assumed that well, we've looked at current composition of STR operators, right? And we looked at the new ordinance provisions and assumed like which ones will not be qualified on the new regulations. And we did just mathematical projections. We couldn't predict how the market will react or how many violators will have or how many people will decide to turn the property around or sell or rent or whatever they want to do. So this issue is still ongoing and progressing. So we were fortunate for the city from the revenue standpoint that the losses were not as drastic. But over the course of the years, once the ordinance is fully implemented, we will continue seeing the decrease in DOT revenues. So it's just a matter of time and when it's going to happen. And it hasn't happened yet fully. And for the second part of your question on the enforcement, yes, it is a very difficult program to enforce. Again, I don't want to go into details. We have open cases that the code enforcement is working through. But, again, the enforcement, and it's not unique to Pacifica. Every single community is struggling with the same issues. That particular program is very difficult to enforce here.

So, yeah, I heard you say, and not in a public meeting, that the enforcement is actually costing us more than we're bringing in. We haven't seen that analysis.

Well, we haven't done that specific analysis. It's more of a time-consuming process, right? And it doesn't mean that we are not doing it. We are, and we are working actively on this.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I have a follow-on question on that, on the STR issue. At the present, are we implementing the increased regulations in our short-term measure ordinance in the coastal zone?

No. So we have two different sets of rules, and the ordinance is in place in non-coastal zone, and all provisions of the ordinance are in effect for non-coastal zone. For the coastal zone, we have to apply the old ordinance until it's certified by the Coastal Commission.

So it's possible that the projections that you made about the losses of revenue, not knowing at the time when exactly that Coastal Commission timing would follow through, as you stated a moment ago, could be still coming. We just haven't. It's a time delay in some ways, if I'm right, because it hasn't actually been fully implemented in the coastal zone. Is that accurate?

Right. Because we didn't know what we didn't know at the time when we did the best projections we could at that moment. Right. And I was thinking about the timing. Right.

Thank you.

Through the chair, could I ask an additional follow-up? What percentage of our STRs approximately to the nearest 10% are in the coastal zone versus not? Just a guess.

I know we are tracking it now, but I don't have it in front of me right now. So maybe we'll get back to that. Let us look it up.

Thank you.

And now, Ms. Espinoza, you may have all the time you want.

Oh, thank you. Thank you. I was going to ask if I'm going to be able to talk. Of course you are.

They needed to be careful what we said before public comment. That was the only restriction on anything that you said. You could have asked any questions you wanted. How careful do I have to be, Christine? I'm a council member. Why do I have to be careful? Can I have the city attorney please explain the rules between... council member questions and deliberations before public comment?

As the presiding chair, the chair does have the ability to direct comments. And so it's not that you don't get the opportunity to comment all that you want. It's just that she had structured council comments to be just questions initially, then let the public comment period from the public here And then now, the deliberation. So now, there's no restriction on your time to speak. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much.

Wait, wait, wait. Let me just clarify, because it's not just my doing. We shouldn't be deliberating on anything until we've heard from the public, right? Just we get the presentation, we hear public comment. We don't make our decisions until we've heard from everyone. Correct. That's my understanding about how the meeting should be done.

Correct, but sometimes deliberations do sometimes get into... question periods doesn't make the vote invalid. It just means that, you know, that's the way the council has structured the period. It doesn't mean that the vote would be invalid. It just means that the chair has the legal authority to direct how comments will be received and deliberations will be undertaken.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay. Okay. I'm going to I'm going to talk about my concerns about this next year. First, I believe that we need the money. Of course we need the money. But I'm going to talk about how many households live within property. And we have 1,799 households making only under $50,000. We also have families making 2,163, making under 75. So that is already 39%, plus 22% are making less than 100,000. With that said, I totally understand the city needs money, but what happened with these people? It seems like a very innocent 1%, but we already are at 9.75. And if you're going to buy furniture, if you're going to buy a car, especially this community had to work outside of Pacifica. So they had to have a good car, plus gas, that they had to spend to be able to live here. I have concern about that, and it doesn't mean that the city doesn't need the money. Yes, we need the money, but how about these people? How about them? It is impossible to avoid that everyone, maybe the people that has the money is gonna vote yes. But then the people who voted no, which is, well, we have 61% under 100,000. So my concern is that who is going to provide information to people so they know what they're voting? Beside that, the people were asked if they were able to vote on one penny, 1%, If they were to, for the reason that they told them, for the police, of course we want the police. Of course I want the firefighter. But my concern is that it is in the language, but then in the resolution, it says the money is going to go to the general fund. And I have concerns with that. Who is going to monitor that this money is going to solve the issue that the city is telling people that this money is going to solve. And the other thing I want this resolution to have a sunset day on it. Because if we need to work on what we're supposed to work, raise more money, then we don't need to keep taxing these people. If we get better situation, we just take these people off the hook. Because almost 11%, it is a lot. When you go to buy any luxury item, then you might need to. If you need to repair your house, you have to go to Home Depot. It's not going to be $2. It's going to be thousands of dollars. You have to pay for those. So my other thing is I would like to see also to reduce it because we, yes, maybe we can contribute with some money but not 1%. And to someone's point on the comments, they said that our city attorney told me that 70 words, we were at the max. But I think that we have 75 words to put in there. So I think put it in sunset there will be important for people. I don't want to have something there forever. So let me see if I have anything else to say before. I lost my notes, so hang in there, guys. Anyway, I think I know what I wanted to say. I would like to, if there is no way we can set buckets to put this money, actually, it is a general fund. That's the whole idea, that it cannot be put in a bucket. So if we cannot put in the bucket, I wanted to make sure that this money goes to the right place, not to the general fund alone to do whatever the city wants to do, but to the police officer for the parks that they said is gonna go to the parks, whatever. So I would like to see this money going to the places that it says it's gonna go. And I don't have any more comments or questions right now, but I might have other questions. I hope I can come back and talk. Thank you so much.

I did hear one question in what you said, and thank you for all your comments. You asked who is providing the information to the voters. Was that something you were looking for an answer for in terms of?

Yes, I want to find out who is going to educate the voters. I already made a sheet of paper for Spanish people because this language is not, this is not for non-native speakers. The language is very confusing. It's not straightforward. So, and I have something for Chinese and also Tagalog, which is the majority in my community. And I want them to know what they're voting for.

Through the mayor. Thank you. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. Please go ahead.

In terms of communicating with the voters, once the council takes action to place it on the ballot, city resources are restricted to providing the ballot language and the impartial analysis. Of course, this is all a record that residents can look at as this is a public meeting. These are public documents, so they can also look at the documents leading up to this. And then if there is a, as was mentioned a little bit earlier, if there is a citizens committee that would sign on to the ballot measure or some of the other things that were mentioned in the schedule, those two could be further sources of information, but they are not city sanctioned and not involving any city resources.

Right. And city... And city council members can't talk to it either once we've voted to put it on the ballot.

And we do have a bit of information about translation.

Council Member Espinosa, as far as language translations, the county elections office translates using certified translators all election and ballot materials into simplified Chinese, Spanish, and Tagalog or Filipino. So the languages that you mentioned will be covered in all of the voter materials.

I was going to say there are threshold languages that are used for translation, but I love the question so much. And I think there are restrictions on what we can do during city time, but we're not always on city time.

Right.

So, yeah. I love the question, and I thank you for the data. It's really important data for us to understand.

Through the mayor? Yeah. May I add more information?

Absolutely.

One of the things in terms, this is for general government purposes, but as we noted in the presentation, we laid out what the general fund funds. And about 64%, almost two-thirds of the general fund is spent on police, fire, public works, and parks. That's almost two-thirds. And in terms of who would be the decision maker on the application of these funds, it is the city council ultimately. The city manager is an advisor in that sense, makes a recommendation on a budget, but ultimately it is the city council's budget to make sure that it is being prioritized appropriately. And right now in the general fund, two-thirds of it is spent on public safety, public works, and parks. In terms of the The impact on households, that is, there are several sort of important facts. One is that it is true that a sales tax is a regressive taxation measure. It is equally true that municipal service reductions typically fall hardest on low-income households. And it is that balancing act that we try to be very careful and cognizant of. But the lower-income households may not have the household incomes to be able to augment services that are cut. So the child care facilities, the public parks, the programs, whereas higher income households can often afford that on their own. So that is an important part of that balancing act.

Yeah, none of this is easy. None of it.

Vice Mayor Wright, I see your light up.

With the chair's permission, I've divided myself into questions and a more summary comment that I would like to state right prior to the final deliberations for the vote. I have a number of questions. I would be happy to limit them if it's the chair's desire.

This is our only agenda item. Please take your time. This is really important.

What is a full-service city?

A full-service city refers to a city that provides the full complement of municipal services, which includes fire, police, community development, parks and recreation, and often library and general government services and public works.

And also utilities, like sewer and treatment plant.

What is an unfunded mandate and who picks up the slack?

Where to begin? An unfunded mandate is a regulatory requirement created by a higher level of government. In this case, typically the state, I would say, has been one of the leaders, but it could be the federal government as well. And it is a requirement that necessitates investment by local governments but does not pay for it. So we have a couple of those I can give an example of. One of them is a construction project that we're building right now. We're about to break ground on its trash capture. Wonderful goal to divert all trash from flowing into the ocean by this year or last year or some nearby in terms of time. They didn't provide us with any funding for it whatsoever. And it's We could all agree it's really important, but it's also really challenging and expensive because we basically put up screens around our outfalls. That is an unfunded mandate. Another unfunded mandate could be associated with just the sheer cost of the more aggressive RHNA and housing elements, which often cost cities at least a million dollars in consultant cost and probably times two in staff cost or staff sweat and tears in council efforts.

And is that cost higher in the coastal zone than in the non-coastal zone? So is that disproportionately burdened coastal cities?

The third type, which Yulia mentioned, is just the added expense of being in a coastal zone. And that does come from more wear and tear, but there is a higher level of regulatory requirements that are... a result of the Coastal Act and the Coastal Commission. And I'm not saying, again, it's like the trash capture. The goals are often the same, but there's no funding for it at the local level.

I'm seeing some folks out there who aren't able to hear. Oh, sorry. I mean, I'm sure they can hear a little, but I don't want them to have to try so hard.

Of course. So the added regulatory burden of being in the coastal zone you know, just through my fresh eyes, probably adds 20% additional resource need, in particular in community development, but also the, and that's the regulatory side, and then there's an environmental side from being near the coast, in the mountains, right next to the San Andreas Fault, and that too adds additional resources. expenses for public works. But those are not regulatory. Those are more geological.

Can I add a follow-up question to that particular point? In addition to that housing element piece and the extra additional burden that's placed on us, is there not also an additional burden placed on us ongoing as each of the projects developed in the coastal zone also require additional scrutiny and going through a whole other additional process which requires much more staff time and much more legal time as well. Is that true or false?

It's both. If it's compliant with our coastal plan, then in theory it should move forward fairly easily, but we have yet to have that experience. And I don't mean that as a criticism of any projects or regulatory agency. But that's the goal with the coastal plan. But yes, it is an increased regulatory cost for everything we do. If we want to do amend things here on a permanent basis that other cities could do in a heartbeat, we would have to go to the Coastal Commission.

And could you refresh my memory on the promise that was made to us about VLF funds and who's stealing it?

Who's stealing it? I don't know where it goes into this. Who's keeping the money? The state government. So San Mateo County is a massive net provider of resources to the state. We're 3% of the population. We provide about 20% of the total revenue. Not all of that's VLF, but this is part of that massive transfer to subsidize other counties. So other counties get their VLF by formula automatically. and through a quirk that I don't understand, but we do not, along with Alpine and one other. Mono, I believe. Mono, who are very small and very rural, both of them. Alpine's the smallest. So that money that we otherwise would have received through VLF that every other county receives on formula other than those three, instead we have to go to the state every year and ask for it as part of a discretionary action. So when you add up our state senators and assembly members versus all of those who would net benefit from not giving us back our funds, because it stays in the state fund, it's always a struggle. And it's a systematic disconnect. And it's reaching a sort of boiling point with the county, given the magnitude at the county level and at the city level.

At the county, it's something like $158 million, I guess. I recall, before the numbers just got adjusted again.

It's dramatic for us. It's dramatic at the county.

This county money also comes to us, like to the PRC and so forth.

It's unprecedented. And will, if not changed, will have massively negative effects on the social fabric of this county, as well as our own budget. But the county is the safety net provider, and this shreds a big portion of it.

And in our presentation we just had from staff, which I'd like to compliment them on, by the way, I saw potential deficits in the $7 million, $8 million, $9 million range. What percentage of our budget is that? Just approximately.

So if you're looking just at general fund, roughly it's about 11%.

That's a big mountain to climb.

It is a huge number. So again, I want to remind the council we were looking at 2.1 million reductions this year, and it was quite significant and quite impactful on the community and yourselves.

And what does a one-time measure mean, and how many more of those do we have?

You mean cost reduction?

Yes. It means cutting the senior transportation program. It means eliminating a position for childcare, which is such a social justice issue, and we provide childcare services for working families. So to go back to my comment of often the lower income households feel the impacts of service reductions worse. It is freezing public safety positions. These are the ones we went through, where we went through the last round of belt tightening. It is reduced park maintenance. It is deferring other legal financial obligations for merely a year. That's off the top of my head. Did I miss anything?

Well, I just want to add to this. So, again, the issue is not new, right? So, we've been having budget structural issues year after year, and we've been offering different options and different solutions how we can balance the budget at a given time. So, I think at this point, the slide that we have had before you with the tipping point, I think we, and you probably can confirm it throughout the budget process, there are no more options, right? So we can't administratively balance the budget moving forward. So the changes will have to be structural. And as city manager pointed out, so in our case, unfortunately, it would mean people because we are a full-service city and we are providing most of the services in-house. So whether... The council would be considering alternative service options or reductions in services and programs. Again, it's yet to be seen, but the changes will be structural.

Okay. Through the mayor, one more thing that we've engaged in, which is not the best practice, is also drawing down our reserves to a level where it's not sustainable beyond where we are. And that puts the organization at risk. We are one of the most geologically... risky communities. And as shown in attachment one to the staff report, we're going to be in that reserve danger zone beginning next year.

And we haven't put anything in our disaster accounting fund for the last two years either, right, to build that for who knows what's coming. Super El Nino. We have some money, but that will go fast. Yeah.

Okay.

Sorry, I just wanted to also add... In the budget cycle, we talked about the other revenues that are shrinking. One of the reasons the senior transportation services went down is because earlier in the mid-year, we did have a loss of grant funding. In our budget cycle, we talked about the transportation monies that we normally have full funding for because the city of Pacifica's population decreased. We also had some shrinking in revenue allocation in that direction as well. So THERE'S OTHER REVENUE OUTSIDE OF LOCAL CONTROL THAT HAS BEEN, YOU KNOW, SHRINKING OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS, AND THE GENERAL FUND'S TAKING, ABSORBING THOSE HITS AS WELL.

WHAT PERCENTAGE OF OUR PROPERTY TAX DOES THE CITY ACTUALLY GET? JUST TO REFRESH MY MEMORY ON THAT. IT'S ABOUT 19.

ABOUT 19 CENTS ON THE DOLLAR, YEAH.

ABOUT 19 CENTS, OKAY. On the graphic that you showed with the cliff, really dramatic and stuff, when I looked at that graphic and I read the titles, I think of us as being between the top two dots. Is that a misperception?

Can you call it up?

Sarah.

Oh, Sarah.

Guide me to which slide it is? Yeah. Sorry, Vice Mayor, which slide were you referencing?

The cliff with the things falling down into the ocean.

That is slide 11.

I think it was slightly below the dot to the right of the sign pointing from the same tipping point. Is that an accurate reflection of our current position? I would say we have a chance.

If we were being a little generous there, because as you can see on the left, we were reducing the $2.1 million, right? So I would say that we were trying to frame this picture as of what we've done to this point. And so in reality, we are already a little bit below that cliff with those reductions that we made in this year's budgets.

And then on the police slide, there was a representation of number of staff per 1,000 residents. Is that sworn officers or is that total staff?

No, it's total staff.

And the same comparison is made for the others. You wouldn't happen to know the statistic for sworn staff or is there a staff member present that could give you a better idea?

I did that. The CAFRs didn't break it out. All of them didn't break it out equally. So some of them just had police. So I don't have the difference. But it represents public safety overall. The police department overall, some may have a few more non-sworn, some may have fewer. But overall, it's police services in each community.

Okay. And we all agree there's a horrible pavement index. You referenced the number of $84 million. What's that look like in five years?

I think $84 million is outdated. It's probably more right now. It doesn't get better. I would assume costs go up the way, well, inflation's running 4%, so I would assume construction costs and the inputs for road work are probably going to go up 10% a year.

So 5 times 10 is a 50% increase.

So I'm adding 8 million a year. Well, 8 million in the first year, probably 10 second.

And then to the sales tax revenue that's divided out now, what percentage goes to public transportation funding as compared to our municipal take?

Can we go back to slides?

I believe it's about 1.65%, but I could be wrong.

Slide 20. Let's see. So there are four, I believe. All right. So I can do this maybe off memory. So there's a permanent SAM trans tax. There's Measure A. There's Measure W. And then there's Measure RR for Caltrain. So four of them are permanent. Three of them are half cent, I believe. And then RR is an eighth of a cent or something like that.

But it's safe to say that currently public transportation gets more funding than we do. I'm not saying that that's a bad thing. I'm just observing.

They have more of the sales tax stack than we do.

Than the city.

Yeah. Okay. And then I have a lot of concerns about potential effects of this not passing on senior programs. Are there additional senior programs that are at jeopardy?

Additional which programs?

Senior programs. Meals on Wheels. Other senior services offered through Parks and Rec.

I would, as mentioned, I believe that if this were not to pass or were not to be placed on the ballot, we would begin a budget process early in the calendar year and everything would be on the table. But it would be a prioritization level process. So I wouldn't be able to single out any particular. We'd want to hear from the council and the community about what's the least worst maybe option.

which piece of glass to step on. Okay. That's it for my questions. I do have a rather lengthy statement when the chair is ready.

Okay. Do you have any questions, Sue?

I'm trying to locate something that I can't put my finger on right now, which is the breakdown of the vote in Measure Y. in November of 2022, I know that when the county does a statement of the vote and certifies the elections, they do list, I believe, by precinct. And I think it's our work to take those precinct numbers and put them into our districts. The reason I was looking for it quickly is because I wanted to try to compare apples to apples. That would be measure Y, a half cent sales tax to this proposed sales tax, because they're both sales taxes. What I know and I recall, but it's already a little bit old data, and it was quite surprising to me that the voters in the north end of town I did not expect them to support the library bond measure at the level at which they did. I expected, because of their proximity to other options, right over the hill to Daly City, to South City, I figured we're not going to get their votes because they have other options. And the cost of paying for a bond may be cost prohibitive. That was my conjecture at that time. And I was, I mean, I had to do a double take when I looked at it and I realized, oh, I was wrong about that. And the voters in the north end of town very strongly supported the library bond measure. Now, that's a completely separate type of measure than a sales tax. And I was, the reason I was quickly trying to scroll through and see if I could put my finger on this is because of the comments that Councilwoman Espinoza made. and thinking about regressive taxes and thinking about the impact of a decision like this and how difficult it is. I won't say persuaded, but it was intriguing to hear the suggestion from someone in the public that we should just double down on visitors, charge them twice as much, and not charge residents. I can't, first of all, think of any practical way in which that could be accomplished. Secondly, I can't imagine there's a due process possibility of doing that. But I will say we've done that. We did that with our TOT increase. I remember at the time feeling a little like awkward, I'm going to use that word, about being among the highest in our county. With our TOT measure at 15.5% or 15%, one of the items on the list of other cities and the measures they're considering right now was San Carlos or Belmont or San Mateo or Burlingame, somebody like that going from 12% to 15%. We already did that. So often, the things that people say, you should do this and you should do that, we've unfortunately had to cross that bridge. We've heard comment, I've heard it many times, not just tonight, about the questionable decision of this council to invest money in an upgrade to our Civic Center facilities. It was utterly necessary. It was the end of the road due to health and safety issues. Our buildings had been partially shut down and bathrooms were not accessible. Offices had to be vacated due to the mold. This was a reality. We did kick it down the road as long as we possibly could. And through very creative work, we were able to bring that project in far less cost than any nearby project. for any similar Civic Center upgrade. And that's simply because we had to. In this community, we have to look for every penny. We have to scrounge. We have to delay. We have to put up with lack of service for the things that are not that important. I hear it every day. say it every day when I drive down Highway 1. I am so mad about the way our city looks. It doesn't look good. I have a friend whose husband describes the city of Pacifica, land that time forgot, when he drives down Sharp Park Road. because of the condition of the street and the way that it looks with the freeway, with the K-rail and the weeds are coming up and they're taller than the K-rail. And I bite my tongue because I know why that's true. That's true because we hold positions vacant. We don't have the staffing level in Pacifica that other cities of our size have because we can't afford it. When Greg first started saying, we can't balance our budget on the backs of our staff any longer, I was very insulted by that upstart new council member who came along and started making statements like that. Who the hell are you? And then I thought about it, and I thought about it, and I thought about it, and he's damn right. We don't pay our people what they deserve, what they need to have an appropriate life for themselves and their family. And we ask them to do one and a half jobs for the less than median pay that they deserve. But that's the Pacific away. That's what we have to do because of the functions of our percentage of retail versus residential, you know, the history of how it came to be that way. It's no point, and the city manager inspires me every time he says that. I'm not going to go back and look at what happened 10 years ago. It's tempting to do that. It's tempting at times to look at, gee, I wonder where we'd be sitting today if the project and the quarry had gone through. Would we be having this conversation today? I don't think so. But that was a decision that was made by this community. The people had the vote. And that is what I think we're facing right now. It's not good. Nobody wants to be sitting here. Nobody wants to be experiencing this. But we need to have city services. We need police, fire, 911, safety, first responders. We need to fix our roads that are worse and worse and worse and getting worse every year and less and less money coming. We already know that. Gas tax collections are down. Why? EVs. Yay for the air. Yay for Bay Area air quality management. Yay for the decisions the governor has fomented and brought forward. That's good for the climate. It's really bad for gas tax collections, and that is one of our most primary sources of road repair money. And that doesn't even touch the roads that Mary and I have been lamenting about in Rockaway, in Valimar, in Pedro Point, that don't even get the Band-Aid They don't get the cape seal and the chip seal because they're so bad they can't be repaired that way. But Measure Y, with the citizens' oversight, did repair a road. A road, people! We got it done because we could, because the funds were there, because the citizens voted that through. And so I don't want to do this. want to cut positions. I don't want to cut aquatics programs. I don't want to cut senior transportation. I don't want to do any of that. But it's the fiduciary responsibility of the city council of any general law city and any city to do what is right and what is necessary to keep the city solvent. So therefore, I support, I will be voting yes for this. I've given consideration to the idea of putting a sunset date on this. There is a sunset date on Measure Y. And when I look at packet page 13, it's in possibly tiny type. It's a ginormous spreadsheet that is our 10-year projection that Our staff spoke to, thank you, Mayor Saul, for addressing it in the presentation. But you can see, anyone can see, in 2021, no, 2031, 32, there's a line instead of $2 million. That's when Measure Y stops. So they can't do a 10-year projection with that number in there anymore. Will the citizens in the future vote to replace it? Who knows? Will the hotel come online with our beautiful 15% TOT and bring in revenue? I sure hope so. But that ain't happening in a year or two years or three years. It's going to take a while. We have to have something in place in the meantime, and this measure is $5 million. And as someone stated, we don't get another chance for two years. Okay, so where is the $10 million we would forego if this measure is not approved by the voters? I don't know. So, therefore, I'm not inclined to want to put a sunset date on this measure because there's no sunset date on the increasing costs of running the city. I'm also concerned that there's an increase in the amount of money the state is clawing back from us in the form of our VLF. I don't feel it is responsible at this point. I could be persuaded. I would like to hear everyone else's point of view on that. Because what I want is this measure to pass. Because this city needs it. That's what I have.

No, please go ahead. Go ahead. You should go next.

OK. I wish Sue Degree had spoken. She's a council member for 16 years and lifelong Pacifican. I haven't been here as long as the rest of you, but what I know from talking to people who have been here since even before we incorporated is that we knew this was a problem even then, back in 1956 or 7. It always has been. It always has been. We're a community that is mostly residential. You read that Strongtowns book, as Peter Shoemaker said, Residential doesn't pay for itself, right? And, you know, we don't have enough commercial. We used to have car dealers. They've gone away, three of them, maybe before. So we have been going downhill for years, and previous councils have been cutting the budget for years because we have to, because we have to balance the budget. You can't spend more than you have. That's a state law. Sometimes you have some extra money that you've put aside. Sometimes you get a grant. but overall, you can't spend more than you earn. We don't go into credit card debt that way, as people get to do personally. Or federally. Sorry?

Or federally.

Or federally, yeah. We've been losing, yeah, I mean, our VLF has been cut, I mean, seeing these new numbers, that's $5 million in the next year potentially anyway. That might take this whole money and we're still in the same place. But what do we do if we lose both of those $5 million that we don't have? This is my fourth year. That's my four years of going through the budget and I have really carefully looked at all of our finances and gotten backup information. No, we don't look at every single expenditure. We trust our staff to do that, but Overall, the budgets for all the different things we approve, and all the big contracts we approve, they come before us. Maybe there's a little bit more we can save if we keep sharpening our pencils. I would say that's maybe a few hundred thousand. That's not five million. We're not going to get there by doing that. To talk about our staffing a little bit, so the numbers are we're 25% less staffed than other cities. were a couple of personal stories. I went on a ride along with a young woman police officer in my first year. Six months later, she quit because it was too much overtime that she was forced to do because there's not enough people to fill those jobs. That was a huge loss. Our public works senior engineer, Roland Yep, just left. He was awesome. He was the only one who knew anything about coastal projects anymore, and he's now gone, right in the middle of our crises. And you know why? Because in a normal city, a senior engineer manages three projects. Here, he had to manage 10. And he didn't have other staff at his level that could share the load. So how is a person who has a family and young children who's expected to work long hours and make less money than they would in Brisbane where he went. You know, we can't expect people to stay. A lot of our employees love Pacifica and they're dedicated and we are so grateful for that. This is a really special place. But we're not able to keep people if this is how we manage our city. And we have been doing the work to try to bring economic development and and rethink the vision for our city over the last few years. Some of that before I got on council, like the Sharp Park specific plan that will this whole corridor go up to five stories and have more residential and more commercial below. We're still working on some of these documents. These are long-term plans that take a while to get through. It still needs to go through the Coastal Commission. We're working with this hotel developer now who's interested in this site. But all those things take three to five years And we don't have that time to wait. We don't have other pockets of money right now. I don't like raising taxes. I hear you, Myra. I know people are struggling. The cost of gas is higher than it's been. The cost of food keeps going up. The cost of goods with import taxes and other stupid things that are happening at the federal level are pinching all of us. But the thought of having to cut child care or other things that people really depend on and need or to lose more police that, I mean, like, you know, right now I think at any night we only have three officers patrolling, right, and they're alone. On my ride along that one night, I encourage everybody to do that. Anybody can sign up and do it. There was... There was a domestic violence case, and all of a sudden, all three officers had to go there for at least an hour and a half. So there was nobody else, right, that were patrolling on our streets. So we really are working with bare minimum and really asking a lot of our staff. And the services we're seeing are cut, like the weeds. I had lots of complaints about the weeds at National Night Out, too. It's like, I'm sorry, we don't have public works staff that can go out there and cut that right now. And then I think about the long-term things, the things that a good functioning city should be doing that we can't do because we don't have staff capacity because staff is working on just keeping things rolling and doesn't have the capacity to think very much beyond for future planning. It's not their fault. There just isn't time, right? So... Oh, I had a whole bunch of ideas for some of those things. Oh, it's on my other paper. Yeah, so, I mean, like we've been talking about food trucks for a long time, for example. And that would be a great thing to bring in money and gathering places for people at night. Well, we don't have an ordinance for that. It needs updating. Staff doesn't have capacity. We were told that. We're assigning it to the Economic Development Committee, hoping that they might spend a little time, and then eventually they can hand that over to staff. But that's been at least two years that we've been talking about it, but nothing's happened, right? Signage, all over. We don't have a good signage ordinance. Our tree ordinance is waiting to be updated. We can't do reach codes. Our objective design standards right now are still missing. We're about to get all these... housing development projects that are much bigger than anything we've ever seen in Pacifica five stories or more with all the density bonus laws and we have nothing that defines what those look like and Then our long-term planning for sea level rise and so forth. I mean that's on our plan to work on We were supposed to start this year But we haven't been able to because we don't have the staff and This $5 million isn't enough. This $5 million is enough to keep things going. It's still not enough to fix those problems. It's still not enough to fix our $371 million unfunded capital improvements. But it's one, as in the presentation, it's one little piece of the puzzle as we work to build hotels, as we work to redevelop here, as we work to get more fees from developers. It's just too important to pass up this opportunity, like you say, for two more years and $10 million. I don't like doing it. I don't like asking the voters, but we're asking the voters. We're not telling the voters. And I think that helps me sleep at night. And maybe there's some little things that we can improve. I'm happy to talk through some of your ideas, Myra. And I would like to see a citizen oversight committee. And I appreciated the public comment that maybe it's more than just money in, money out, but that there is a little bit more scrutiny. I'd love to hear what that might could look like and whether that needs to be all defined tonight or something that we continue working on. THAT'S A QUESTION NOW.

WE WOULD CREATE A CHARTER NOW LATER OR HOW DOES THAT WORK?

IF A CITIZENS OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE WERE ADDED TO THE BALLOT LANGUAGE, WE COULD WORK AFTER ADOPTION ON HOW COUNCIL WOULD SEE THAT COMMITTEE BEST SERVING AND ADVISING COUNCIL AND THE RESIDENTS AND THE VOTERS. SO THAT COULD OCCUR AFTER THE FACT.

BECAUSE RIGHT NOW MEASURE Y They're not looking at how the money is spent at all, right? I think it's just the money in, money out.

Money in, money out. Is that the sales tax? You're talking about just the sales tax? No, the five.

Right, for the TUT. So that's right. So the committee's role is just to confirm the auditor's information, look at whether the money was spent in accordance to what the council... directed these funds to spend, so they don't make financial decisions how the money should be spent. Okay. Right, and they wouldn't make, I mean, even with greater oversight, they wouldn't be making those decisions, but...

But they're digging into the numbers and how it's spent a little bit more.

Yeah, they definitely are. And, you know, they ask a lot of questions. We provide resources, provide previous staff reports. We provide our general ledger information, and we categorize it. You know, we hope to provide the descriptions beyond just the account line items. And we found the communication between the committee members very fruitful this past go-around. especially with a full committee. And, yeah, you know, we're just totally open to any questions they have and try to keep that going throughout the year.

Okay. That piece is super important to me, to have that community oversight and to have the opportunity to work on the charter. I think it will be good for all of us to be able to do. But I think it's very, very important.

Yeah. And I just, in terms of the sunset, I know we haven't all spoken to that issue, It's something I'm willing to consider. I think it needs to be longer than Measure Y was because it feels like that just got passed and now we're already looking at the end of it. I saw some other cities had 20 or 30 year sunsets. And again, anything can be recalled by the council or by the community as we heard earlier too. But what I also heard from a community member I met earlier this week is that sometimes even if you have something that sunsets, it tends to be easier to renew it than it is to bring something new. So that doesn't worry me quite as much if we had a good date to that. So that's something I'm willing to consider.

I would like to see a sunset there and if people feel like, okay, I'm okay with maybe a couple of years and then if people feel comfortable keeping the measure there, it's fine. But give people the opportunity to choose if they want to continue or not.

So there's been so many things I've heard tonight. A couple of the things I heard tonight were super triggering for me. One was we should hang our heads in shame. And I will never hang my head in shame for serving this community. And coming and sitting up here with our fellow human community members trying to do the very best we can to make decisions for an entire city, do we get everything right? Absolutely not. Took me four years to learn how to do this. You know, we're just regular community members coming up here to do the best we can. And so I look forward to the new leadership. This is not an easy decision. There hasn't been an easy decision we have made for the past seven and a half years. I appreciate the comments about the short-term rental. It was really hard to make those decisions. Because I really had a hard time sleeping over that. Because the community was so affected and so scared. And they came out in droves. This is affecting our community. What do we do? Right? And so there's always going to be people coming in and having opinions about one way or another, and then we are stuck with making that decision. Well, is it going to put a hole in our budget? Have we had a structural deficit this whole entire time since the city has been incorporated? Yes, we have. If I hear the words, Pacifica is a bedroom community, well, then Pacifica is going to be a bedroom community, and we're going to have a structural deficit. And this... is an opportunity for our community to vote on a tax measure. So I feel like it's my responsibility to put something forward to our community for a community-wide vote so that the community can tell us what they think is best. You know, it's my hopes that Pacifica continues to be a full-service city. You know, that protects its residents and maintains its streets and its infrastructure and invests in its parks and open spaces and preserves the city's, you know, the quality of life. When you look at the coastline, you know, you have that drone guy who's doing all that footage, right? Thank you. And it looks terrible. Because we have built on the edge of the ocean, right on the cliffs, right? So there's all these bad news, bad news about Pacifica. So it's toxic beaches and you can't have a business here and, you know, all this deficit. But what I want to turn around is for people to understand that we have a whole group of city staff that have made the absolute best that they possibly can out of lemons. Just like the 1334 thing, right? Like make lemonade out of lemons. Well, our staff have to do that every single day. And they have more lemons than anybody else. And I have gotten, it's been an honor for me to get to know our staff. and get to go out and meet with our firemen and see what they do and, you know, have relationships with our police officers and they come to our community events and they, you know, they give, give, give all the time. You know, we have the best city clerk in the whole county. She gives and gives and gives constantly. And I love telling people, just go ask Sarah because she'll know. She has the answers. She will make time for you. You know, and so I have to look at that piece very carefully. I am a staff member for a school district. I fall into one of the categories you're talking about. I'm a renter who can be priced out of my next paycheck. But this will allow me to contribute through this kind of a tax. I don't own property. So parcel tax always felt like kind of weird for me to even talk about as a renter, fully knowing that if there's a parcel tax, it'll get passed through to renters anyway. But anyway, I just want people to kind of turn things around and to try to understand the people that serve our city. It's not, oh, the city's going to take this money, the city, right? No, it is to fund the services and the people who work for our city so that we can all enjoy it. Right? And so that we can continue to keep taking care of each other. That is all we're trying to do up here. Right? That is what you're trying to do, Myra. I respect you so much for it. Thank you. Because that is what we get to do. And we get to express ourselves in any way that we see fit. And so for me, a sunset... How do we sunset what's going on in our city? I have no idea. So I would be amenable to a rather long sunset, but a sunset I could talk about. Yeah, that and then the citizens' oversight I think is very important, regardless of, you know, I know it's going to be up to the city council to pass the budgets and things, but just to have folks that have their eyes on it, that are community champions that we trust, super important. So I really want to move this forward to put it on the ballot. And again, so I am amenable to a long sunset. and to a citizen's oversight.

Okay, that's all.

Oh, wait. Cliff Lawrence, I walked right past you earlier today, and I didn't recognize you, maybe because you didn't have your drum. So, hello.

Thank you. Wow. You're a tough act to follow. Myra, what I took most was your heart. I heard empathy. I hear caring about those who have less in our community. I feel we all share that same sense of responsibility and duty to take care of those who are less fortunate than us. I hear the concern. I respect you for saying it. And thank you to our dedicated staff. I love what Mary had to say. But even more than that, there's a reason that these people do this. That's because they really freaking care. Marisol drives 8 gajillion miles. Sean is sending me emails at midnight. Michelle is texting me before 7 o'clock in the morning. Sarah is putting out agendas past 2 o'clock at night. Our police officers back there. We have less... than one police officer, sworn police officer, per thousand residents. Nobody in the county even comes close to that low a number. They work miracles on a daily basis. At night, it's my understanding that we only have two police officers on duty. What's that mean if there's two domestic violence calls? I have a hard time sleeping at night. those kind of things. We need to start addressing some of this. When we talked about the lack of salary, when I heard you mentioning people, it's not just the loss of the people and the loss of the expertise. It's part of a loss of the heart of our city. And it's the loss of institutional knowledge. People that know what makes the city tick, how it ticks, where that pipe is in the ground, where it broke last time how to address it. Fire, the same thing. You know, for years we had a plan about having three fire stations. We don't even talk about that stuff anymore. I mean, it's not even in the realm of possibility. These guys, too, do more. When I have a heart attack, I know they're going to be there with that defibrillator to save my ass. They really care. That's why they do this. That's why they get mandoed all the time. Same thing with our police officers. Public works, completely overworked. They're doing the best they can. They just don't have enough staff. If you look at those statistics and those numbers, we have so many less people. They're doing amazing work with the tools we're giving them. We're not giving them enough tools. This is an ask for more tools. We did outreach. We did polling to find out, to have the community speak. I'm happy to have that conversation about doing a sunset, doing anything, but that's not what we polled. The time for that discussion, in my mind's eye, was when we were contemplating this and giving direction on the polling data. We have pretty clear direction and a pretty clear understanding of what the public thinks the public is asking for through our outreach, through our polling. They have been clear about what their priorities are and what it is that they're willing to do to help us.

And there goes fire off to a call.

Yeah. You know, and our citizens, they deserve excellence in service. They deserve everything it is that these dedicated people who care out there trying to give them to the best of their abilities with what it is that we're giving them which isn't sufficient we need help we need the public's help we need help passing this measure I have like three more pages of this but I'm feeling like I'm starting to go on and on and on and I'm starting to get a little bit blurry eyed so it's getting hard to read I want to give the people the chance to empower them to have their voice heard. I don't want to take their voice away, which is what I feel a no vote on this measure is. We are taking away the possibility for our citizens to speak to this. And so for that reason, I am very much in support of the measure as recommended by staff.

understand what everybody's saying but I'm talking about putting the sunset nobody's talking about I I want to see the sunset there and then if the public feel confident that they can move keep moving forward so give them the opportunity if we never talk about that and they don't know that they said possibility to have a sunset so they feel like okay I can help but then I Within a certain year, I can't. So they will have the opportunity to say, okay, we can move on, we can revisit it, tell them, okay, we're going to move on, and we can move on. I just want to put right things that is indefinite, that's never going to end. I don't feel comfortable voting on something like that that doesn't have an end date. Because this is putting very difficult time to strength to the community who's already paying a lot more for gas, a lot more for everything, and how are these people gonna survive? I don't understand why people don't think that this is difficult for some people. How the city can come and ask the citizen for money, but who are they gonna ask for money? If they come back here, see, we have a problem with homeless people. We're going to have more problems now, because everything is going to cost more. And nobody think about what other people are going to be suffering. I am willing to vote on it, but not lose. I need to make sure that I'm responsible, that I'm going to be making a decision that is good for my community. And if my community want to vote, fine. But I don't want to put them in something that is never going to end. I want to have a time frame so if they feel like, okay, we're done with this, then we're done with this. And the city can move forward with the other resources that they said they're going to do. I just don't want to just put everything on the community shoulder. And this is what we're doing right now, putting everything on the community shoulder, no end time. So I will suggest to do it for a couple of years and move on. If people, we build a hotel, we do whatever we want to do, but don't put these people in that situation. THIS IS GOING TO COST FOR EVERYTHING THEY BUY IN THEIR HOUSE. SO THEIR DOLLAR IS ONLY GOING TO BE 89 CENTS. SO EVERYBODY UNDERSTAND THAT. IT'S ONLY 89 CENTS. AND THEN IF WE HAVE THE MEASURE FOR THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE, AND WE HAVE THE, I THINK THE, THE BAR, IS THAT THE BAR? TRANSIT. THE SCHOOL DISTRICT. I MEAN, HOW ARE THESE PEOPLE GOING TO BE ABLE TO AFFORD ALL OF THAT? And I understand we need everything. And if it was for me, we will have all of that. But I think of the people because I live that life. I live with a minimum that I can have. And I don't want other people to do that. And when people talk and talk, they don't think of other people. Being hungry is a reality. And you see that all over the places. How long is it going to take for people to fall down so they're not going to be able to pay for rent and they're going to be on their car? We're going to have more people like that. And I understand this is only a penny. Yes, we need more people. We need all of that. But how about them? How about them? I do want to put a time frame on that. And possibly, I'm contemplating doing half a cent. We have to think of other people. It's not what we have needs. Everybody else has a need. So the least that I can ask is to put a sunset there.

And can I clarify with you? Because Mary and I were both saying we might be okay with a sunset too, but we might have different ideas about the length. So I heard you say two years. Is that? Is that all that you're willing to consider or?

Well, I'm willing to consider maybe three years, but the whole thing we can renew. If that doesn't work, just to give people the opportunity, if they get hooked into this, so they can exit. If they feel like, okay, this is not longer suitable for me. And we can go three years. It's like a million and a half. And then we can go for, you said five million. We're going to raise. And then we can go and do something else.

And Measure Y expires when? I'm sorry. That's the half.

Six years.

Then six years.

Just over five and a half years, yeah.

And that was a 10-year concept. Nine. Nine. Nine years, yeah. But that's only half a cent. It's less. People can deal with that. Well, like I said, I mean, the cost per person was about $125 per year. And that doesn't count that some of that is tourist.

But you can calculate that like that because everybody needs this difference. There might be people buying a car. There might be people buying only groceries. There might be people buying... Groceries don't count. Again, there's a bunch of things that don't count at all that don't get... Well, they might be buying whatever. So you can't say that everybody... I know. It's an average.

It's an average.

Yeah.

I also think we have to be careful with too short of a sunset because it's not going to give our city the opportunity to stabilize in any way if it's too short. And so I'm willing to talk about a sunset, but it's going to have to be like as much as measure Y or more.

Well, you guys can go ahead. So you're not willing to consider something nine years? Ten years too long.

Okay. I have a question for staff.

I believe staff was trying to... Go ahead.

Just for reference, there are 12 of these measures in the county. Eight of them have no sunset, and four of them have a sunset. One of the four is hours at nine years, and then the other three have a 30-year sunset. Ours is nine.

Ours is nine.

And the others have 30.

So Belmont has 30 years sunset, South San Francisco 30 years, and San Mateo 38 years.

Yeah. I agree with you, Mary. Two or three years isn't going to help us enough, right, to get to fixing all the other things that we're working on right now, unfortunately. But how much of it are you asking?

That is important, too, because this is 1%.

The tax is already in place, so I would have to go back and see.

Because if we're asking for half a cent, yes, I don't care, but it is 1%.

So San Mateo, I know that San Mateo is adding for the November ballot, they're adding to the transaction use tax, so they're asking for additional quarter percent with no sunset. But the measure that they do have in place for 30 years sunset. I need to go back and look what the original measure was. But everything is according to the people.

How much, I mean, people here are not making enough money. It's obvious that people are not making enough money here. So this is why you, in order to put taxes on people, why don't people figure it out how much is everybody making? Because putting this thing just like blindly, it doesn't make sense to me. So I understand the city needs money, but I don't want to put anybody at risk of losing their homes or having to move out of here or having to go homeless. And it looks like an innocent 1%, but we already are at the maximum. So our dollar is only 89 cents. I have a question.

I want to state that staff will support Council's recommendation and proceed as you are the policy decision makers here. The one point I wanted to make in addition to this, so when the polling results were put in place, this sunset was tested with the voters as ended by the voters. So that was in the polling, in the survey, and we published this result on the website. So adding the sunset... Did we poll both ways or no? to the best of my knowledge, that was the favorable result. So I don't know if it was pulled. I don't believe it was pulled on multiple different end years. So we shouldn't probably assume how the constituency would respond to different sunset dates.

What I wanted to ask is the way the measure reads the ballot language reads is that it says, a measure establishing a 1% transaction and use sales tax. Until ended by voters. Generating approximately $5 million annually until ended by voters. Meaning the voters put a measure saying we don't want to do this anymore. Am I correct? Yes. Okay. That's one clarification I wanted to make. Secondarily, I wanted to make an observation that I forget which one it was. I'm sure we can know. It's knowable. But measure K, I think it was, or one of those county measures, started out with so many years, then it increased to 30 years, then it increased to perpetuity, if I remember correctly. And I was very happy about that because the things that it covers, health, human services, childcare, the big lift, behavioral services, et cetera, are all things I support and it gave me comfort to know those funds are secure. So I think what I'm hearing is that there's interest on the part of the council in discussing some amount of a sunset date, but there's disagreement about how long of a sunset date. Is that correct? That is not correct.

What are you... Well, there were three interested in a sunset date, and then between the two of us, I think Myra wanted something shorter than Mary and I, but we haven't said a number of you.

And neither have you, Sue, so don't... Oh, I said I... You're right.

I said I wasn't in favor of it, but I would consider it because I want to get this thing in front of our voters. Right, right. So I haven't decided what I think it should be other than I think it should be longer than Measure Y. I do, too. And... knowing that Measure Y to the degree that voters don't want to renew it or whatever in 2030, 2031, that brings relief there if that half cent falls off and doesn't continue. I just feel that our finances are unstable. They've been unstable for a very long time. The prospect is not improving. costs are going up, our revenue is not. And until the hotels come online, the prospects of our revenues improving are not great. You know, there's a lot of statements made about the need for economic development and bringing a mix of businesses, but the simple fact is we're 94% residential. Is that right, Greg? Yes. And 6% business. the ability of this council or I would dare any council to shift that balance is going to be many years in the making. Many years in the making.

I know many people who have tried to get a Trader Joe's here and have not been successful.

As an example, but Trader Joe's is mostly groceries. So it's not going to help you a lot. How many kayak rental places can you have? We already have Three, two or three surfboard places. That's probably one of our more expensive retail items. We don't have car dealerships anymore. So, and we're not, you know, I know you've tried. We're not a site that people are looking to bring biotech to. We're not, we're just not that kind of light industrial. We're not Brisbane. We're not. We're not going to be. So our industry is TOT. That is it. And the money works in our favor in the sense that we get to keep it all. We heard endlessly, and it pains me every time we hear it, how much of even sales tax we don't get to keep. How much of property tax we don't get to keep. And we are the ones who have to pay the bills first. to help our community be safe. Nobody else is helping us do that. And Pacifica has been a bootstrap community. This community pulls together around things it cares about. And so we don't control all the other items that are on the ballot. That is a fact. But we do know what our needs are. So long speech. I would like to see a sunset longer than measure Y.

Can we go back to just checking on the oversight committee? Is there consensus around that, about wanting to add that?

Yes, I'm willing to.

I actually came prepared tonight to talk about what it is that we pulled, and I didn't have sufficient time to really reflect on what the implications of a sunset are, what the implications of an oversight committee are. I'm completely open to agendizing that with you, figuring out when it best fits in our calendar to bring this back, because they said very clearly that we can add that at any time.

I don't think the sunset is something we can add. The oversight, I think the language still has to be in there.

I believe she said we can terminate, as a matter of council, we can terminate the tax at any time, was what I believe that the city attorney said.

Yes. The council can choose to terminate the tax.

So that gives us complete control.

There are two ways to add the citizens' oversight, and they're not mutually exclusive. It could be added within the ballot language. And then it wouldn't have to be in the ballot language. Council could, as a matter of business, approve a resolution creating an oversight committee as well.

But to that point, I have been feverishly working to see if I can delete words and add words. Right. And I can actually do both a sunset and an oversight.

You do. Well, maybe you can show those to us. Well, I need to know the terms. Oh, but for the census, I know.

So what works best is if we get a consensus, then I can... You can work on it while we take a break. Right, because I do need to do a final word count. I don't have my computer with me, so I'm doing it manually, and I would like the clerk to work with me. So I'm hearing Greg is not interested in a census.

No, I am interested in discussing it at a future date. That's what I'm interested in.

I think it needs to be in the ballot.

I don't believe that's true.

Well, it is if you want it to be as part of this measure. It's true that you can have the same effect by doing it separately. The council has the authority to put it into the measure tonight. We can draft that, or the council can choose to, at a future council meeting, say that we are going to remove the tax at a certain date. The issue with that is that a future council could change that.

But can't we impose the oversight committee onto this tax measure at a future date?

I'm sorry?

Like, in other words... No, no. Oh, okay. Because it won't be voted on. Then we do need to talk about it tonight.

Right. The other thing is, like, if you're not going to have a sunset, you have to tell the public that we're not having a sunset. It's indefinite. So I think, for transparency, I would like to see that there.

It is there. It's in the ballot language.

Could we maybe bring up the ballot language? Just so we all have it in front of us.

So why don't we throw out a 20-year. 20-year sunset. Because anything lower than that is not going to be helpful, I don't think. Not for what we need in our city.

All right.

Do you have a thought on that, Mike?

What was the term of those other ones again from those other cities, please?

No, I'm not going to tie my community to something like that. Okay.

I'm okay with 20. And again, it's something that we can pull back ourselves, right?

Shorter than that, too.

Yeah, but it gives some stability for planning. And again, it's, I mean, that $5 million might go away with the VLF next year anyway. This isn't like we're asking for so much money that it's going to solve all of our problems. That's right. So I definitely don't want to go for lower than a cent, and it's too bad that it takes a whole cent to make up the $5 million like it doesn't do in other cities. And that's just what we need to keep working on, right, to bring in businesses and retail and other sources of funds.

I'd be willing to do 25. We're not asking people to pay a tax. We're not imposing a tax. I believe what we're asking to do is we're asking our public to have the opportunity to speak with their vote. So they will have the opportunity to judge this for themselves. Not us. We're only Offering them the opportunity as opposed to taking that opportunity to speak with their vote away from them.

That's correct. For me, I wanted to make sure that the language is clear, that they know what they're voting. People don't pay attention. And we're here, sitting on this seat, to do the right thing for them. If we just don't put everything on paper so they know, it will be impossible for them to know what they're doing. Our job is to make sure that they know what they're getting into. And I feel that We need to let them know this dollar is going to be... You're going to be paying 1% for 20 years. You're not giving them the opportunity to say, okay, let's do it for five years. At the end of the five years, if they feel comfortable, they can... go back another five years but you giving them the choice to choose in five years plenty of time so it's not do it's okay we we we have the we we can be you know everybody has their own opinion oh totally i respect you guys i have my this is what i would like to see yeah and that's it and i agree with the transparent language so i mean it has to be there

Yeah, and this is actually a little bit confusing until ended by voters.

How are the voters going to come and end it? I don't understand. This is just like a vague sentence there. How are they going to end it? Well, they've answered that by putting a referendum on the ballot.

Right, exactly. So during the citizens' initiative. And I wanted to point out today is August 5th. We have two days. And any different sunset measure other than what's listed in the ballot language hasn't been false, but tested.

No, but what's been tested is no sunset. So it seems clear that people would prefer not a forever tax, but something with a sunset to it. It's not likely that that's going to make the polling worse.

Do you guys ask them if they're going to have this forever or did you ask them for a period of time?

No, it's not forever. So that's why I think we're in disagreement here. Until ended by voter is more powerful than putting 9, 20, 30 years or whatever it is.

So how will the voter end it? Because it's not one person who's going to make that decision.

By voting, by submitting.

By voting, submitting, yeah. A sufficient initiative to...

to repeal the vote, to repeal the tax. So you collect signatures, you submit something, and then you ask the voters to vote again to repeal it.

Oh, I remember what my question was. Go ahead. Approximately, rough numbers, what is the cost of putting a measure like this on the ballot for this city at this time? I guess that's a city clerk question.

It is. We'll ask her. Just to reiterate what Yulia said, we did not poll the language with a specific sunset date, and so we're not entirely sure of the impact it would have.

Right.

So this is just a full disclosure moment for us.

Okay. 2.3K is the answer, sir.

Are you more comfortable with this than saying 20 years?

I don't have the estimated cost of the ballot measure, to place a ballot measure off the top of my head, but I can search for that.

Thank you.

If we put it there, we should take it off. We should give them a time.

And then having one...

I propose that we give them five years and then the city is supposed to keep working and doing something to bring some revenues. So this is not forever. This is just like, because I feel like, okay, people are going to make an effort to give the city a penny for five years because they need the money too. So they pretend that the city is going to get on their feet and they don't need the freaking dollar anymore and they can move on with their life. So that's my take. I feel like living this forever is just putting a burden on the community, and I don't want to do that to my community.

Yeah, I think we've heard that loud and clear. I think, you know, if five years is your maximum sunset, I'm not hearing consensus about that.

No, we're not. I understand that.

So the question is, do we still want a sunset of something, maybe 20, or do we prefer...

I'm sorry? I feel like 20 is like, give it five, you know, it's like...

I understand you're not happy with that number. I'm just looking at choices, right? So it sounds like we do something like 20, or if you feel more comfortable with until ended by voters, so that it's clear to them that they do have the option to end it, right?

Would it like a third of people remembering that they had to end this?

Would it be helpful if we included the language until the voters end this measure by citizen initiative?

I have to take out words. I can do the sunset language and I can do the oversight committee. I can't say independent. I can just say citizens oversight. Any additional words would be over the word count. What I'm...

Do you want to read what you have?

Yes. And then we'll see it in writing afterwards. Thank you for asking.

And then can you move your mic, please? Thank you.

So let me read it. So it would read now, Pacifica City Services measure to protect Pacifica's long-term financial stability, fund police, fire, 911 emergency response, prioritize paving streets in the worst conditions, keep parks, beaches, and public spaces safe and maintained, and for general government use, shall the City of Pacifica's measure establishing a one cent transactions and use sales tax generating approximately five million annually, and this is the change verbiage, approximately five million annually for whatever year's the council decides, with citizens' oversight and local control of funds and independent annual audits, be adopted. So I just need the number, and this will meet the word count exactly, but any additional words would take it over the count.

And through the mayor. When we were working with our consultant, they did indicate that having limits sometimes works in cross-purposes. And people felt more empowered by having until ended by the voters. And some of them, in their opinion, failed because they had limits.

Interesting. That's absolutely correct. Thank you, City Manager. And another thing, so earlier you discussed who is going to educate the public, so I think maybe that's a question to city attorney. If we could provide educational materials, what it means to the public, so just as part of the future steps, like if the language stays as it is until ended by voters, can the additional materials outside of ballot language be produced to clarify that this means citizen initiative.

Yes, you know, the city can produce informational material to explain the measure. That can happen, but it wouldn't be part of the measure.

Correct. Yeah, I wouldn't want to take out, if we added the sunset, I wouldn't want to take out until ended by voters, so we would have to find more words to cut. Okay. Because I think that is important. I mean, I hear what you're saying, that they need to know that the voters are empowered to end this, right? Right.

It's more powerful than placing it in the box of whatever number of years.

So if we didn't put for blah, blah years, the way you said, if it just said until ended by voters... By referendum? With citizens' oversight...

And local control.

And local control of funds. Wait, what about independent annual audits? With citizens' oversight, comma, local control of funds and independent annual audits.

Yes, that would work. So either until ended by voters or for 20 years if you want a sunset. And then with citizens' oversight, we'll work. So it's really up to the council. But it can't be both until ended by voters and then a sunset date. It needs to be one or the other in order to fit.

Okay.

I'd like to make one observation before the straw poll. That a vote against this is basically a vote for an 11% across the board cut to city services. Because that's the number when I asked Julia what this deficit represents as a function of percent of our budget. So that's what it means. To disempower our voters from the ability to have say in this. That's what we're seeing.

Okay. So do we... Okay. Thumbs up. Do you prefer until ended by voters or... Yeah.

Or... Could you restate that, please?

Are you asking... Are we asking... Until ended by voters versus 20-year sunset. So... Either or. So until ended by voters.

I like that better.

I mean, yeah. Yes. Because I can't see doing anything less than a 20-year sunset.

So to me, it's the same thing. Well, and I think not having until ended by voters makes it harder because they just assume that it's 20 years to your point. that it would be long.

What if we want it to be 15? They'll vote no against it. Right.

Mayor Bowles, Council Member Beckmeyer asked about cost for placing a measure on the ballot in this year's regular general election. The county elections office provided a range of costs for the election of three council members and then also for the option of election of three council members plus one measure. Given those ranges, the difference that would be for the cost of the ballot measure placement would be between $58,000 and $71,000. Given the ranges that the elections office had provided. These are just estimates and the actual cost could vary. So they provide a total low cost with a dollar amount per registered voters on the low side, and then a total dollar amount high cost with a dollar amount per registered voters on the high side.

But that is an argument to not doing this every couple of years.

That's where I was going. Right, and the cost for a special election year, which would be an odd year, would be a lot more than that.

Okay, so I heard four Anyway, I'm sorry we can't seem to make everybody happy. So you have the language with us with the oversight committee. Could you read that to us one more time? And we'll decide if we need to see it in writing or can listen carefully enough. You'd like to see it in writing? On the big screen.

And everything will be the same. I'll read it. So there's just two words that will be changed. So I'll read the whole measure, and I'll note before I read it the two-word change. Pacifica City Services measure to protect Pacifica's long-term financial stability, fund police, fire, 911 emergency response, prioritize paving streets in the worst conditions, keep parks, beaches, and public spaces safe and maintained, and for general government use. Shout the City of Pacifica's measure. establishing a 1% transaction and use sales tax generating approximately $5 million annually until ended by voters with, and then here's the change, citizens' oversight and local control of funds and independent annual audits be adopted.

Okay.

Okay.

Can I ask a question about that? Of course. Is there a ballpark rough estimate by staff on what the burden in terms of staff time and cost is in relation to an oversight committee?

It's minimal and standard practice with measures like this.

And we could presumably roll Measure Y into this with a revised?

We would look at that, look at the statutory language and see if that would be an option.

Okay. And again, we can talk more about what that citizen oversight committee's role is at a later date. Because I hear consensus that we'd like to do that and probably do more than what we're doing right now with Measure Y. Okay.

It couldn't do less than what's in the ballot measure, but council could say, here are several additional tasks we'd like you to look at. So it would be broader. And then this would be a subset of their mission, if you will.

Okay. So I heard you say you want to see it in writing before. Is that possible? Is that possible?

What?

To just see, like, Can we put it on the big screen? Just edit the slide.

Because what I think I'm hearing, Michelle, excuse me, is you're striking with public disclosure?

No, no. I'm striking public disclosure and replacing it with citizens' oversight.

So taking out two words, public disclosure, and putting in citizens' oversight.

Right. That's it. And no, I can't put it up on the screen because I don't have access to a computer. Okay.

Are you all okay?

I'm okay with that.

I started out as a no, but staff has made me feel more comfortable with it, so I can support it.

And we respect your comments and appreciate them. We do need to still have a motion. Are someone ready to make the motion? I do.

Well, and if that is the desire of the council, there are a few other amendments we need to make in the resolution and the ordinance. So I need to read those into the record.

So we should take a little break right now?

I haven't. I've been working on this.

I've been listening too.

How would I do it? Okay, amazing. So would you like me just to read the other changes? If, in fact, this one two-word change to the ballot Measure language occurs.

Could we also put it up on the screen, what is in there now, and then you can tell us the words?

I don't know that they created slides for the resolution.

But isn't it in the agenda that can just be pulled up?

Oh, if she can, that would be great. Sarah, can you do that?

For the current resolution?

Yeah, and it's like the ninth recital and the tenth recital. And if you need a minute, we could use a bathroom break. Okay. Yeah, and maybe we should use the bathroom.

I second your bathroom break.

I would appreciate a break. Okay. Thanks. Five minutes enough? You go first. Okay, so then you can come. Okay, well, should we say ten minutes?

Yes.

Ten minutes. All right. We'll come back at ten till ten.

So, Sarah, see if you can pull up the resolution on the screen. Let's order a piece.

Sarah. Great. So I understand Assistant City Manager Carter has some information that we might have missed.

Yes, I just want to state that the ballot language that was presented in the presentation earlier was tested by our community in the community surveys. And we've done two community surveys. So I see Siri Clark is pulling the first one. Well, actually, the second one. But if you can put up the February survey. And in that survey, on slide 29, it shows that the words public disclosure were tested significantly higher than community oversight. So I just wanted to bring the council's attention to this fact. And both of the surveys are on the website. So they're both on the community discussion page. I believe it's slide 29, page 29. Keep going. Keep going. Keep going.

Is that what you were talking about, Greg?

Yes. That's the survey. Keep going. Keep going. The polls. You were talking about the polls. Oh, wait.

That's a survey. Yes. I'm sorry. And this was kind of interesting by district, too. I wouldn't mind looking it up for a second.

I think it's farther down. Keep going, keep going. Right here. Yeah, right here. That slide. As you can see, public disclosure, 43% on the much more likely zone and somewhat more likely 28%. And communities oversight is only 31 and 36. Okay.

And we kept the independent audit language in. Correct.

And the concern, and I'm sorry if I'm repeating the obvious, but let me just state it for the record. The concern is with the changing in that polling for citizens oversight versus public disclosure, I think we can't be assured that the same polling results would result at the conclusion. So thank you, Assistant City Manager, for bringing that to our attention. I do think it's important that the council know that and discuss that when they're thinking about making this revision.

So it sounds like the recommendation is to keep the language as it is, to say public disclosure But we can still talk about community oversight as part of the resolution or somewhere else?

And I think that was the intent of what the language was meant to mean, which was there will be public disclosure that the council will most likely create at some point, right? There has to be some public disclosure of something.

Could you help me understand this community oversight 5% much less likely number and the implications of that for what we're currently talking about with the committee?

I don't know. Versus the original language. We would probably have to ask our consultants who are not present.

Well, that's what... I was inferring and suggesting that we go back to the original language that says public disclosure and not community oversight, but we can still talk about community oversight and the resolution as something that the council wants to do in addition to what's in the ballot language.

That's my question. Oh, okay.

So separating the two. Can we still do that? Yes, that.

Still. It won't be part of the ballot measure, but yes. Yes, absolutely.

It's very, very important to me.

That'd be part of the ballot measure.

The community oversight.

Yeah, and it can happen.

Well, that's what I wanted to hear again, because I think you did make a comment about that, that it's something the council can create or require at a later date separate from the ballot measure language by agendizing it.

We would be creating the citizen oversight committee anyway by separate action, right? That isn't created by the ballot measure language. It's just directing you to create one.

But can it be in the resolution so that this council is agreeing that we want to do that because it might be a new council that actually does the work?

Yes, we can add it as a recital. Good call, Mayor Bull.

That's what happens when you've been on the council almost four years. See?

So it would be in... It's the ninth recital, Sarah.

Well, she's looking for that. I'm very much in favor of the keep the existing language that was pulled to try to get us more certainty. And I'm absolutely in favor of making you more comfortable with creating a Citizens Oversight Committee as a separate action.

Yeah, I think that's what we're talking about now.

Oh, it's right there.

So you're just adding those two words. Is it just in one place in the resolution?

Yeah, the ballot language is just in one place in the resolution, and I would recommend one revision to the ninth recital. And I don't know, Sarah, if you can pull that up. as well. And I can read once you put to the resolution. Yes. Great. So in that recital that begins, whereas the proposed measure includes strict accountability provisions, including public spending reports and annual independent financial audits, and the council agrees to create a citizen's oversight committee, All funds must be used only in Pacifica and none can be taken by the state.

I don't know. I don't know if that's where it goes. Maybe it goes at the end.

No, it actually should be a new whereas clause after the ninth. We'll insert a new one, Sarah. It says whereas the council has agreed to create a citizen's oversight committee to independently audit revenue received from measure, whatever the measure number is. So that would just be a brand new recital.

Could I ask for a clarification?

Yes.

Where it says to be taken by the state, should we include or county?

Or the federal government.

I'm serious about that. We're getting punchy. That's a question for the assistant city manager. Is that accurate?

Hmm.

They want to include instead of just, and none can be taken by the state, to also include the county. Is it in recital number? It's on the screen.

Just to be clear what my concern is.

What's the question? The question is, do you see where it says, and none can be taken by the state? Right. He wants to also add the county or the state.

Well, the sales tax and transaction use tax is administered by the state of California, right?

I understand that, but in the unlikely event that we go bankrupt and then the county takes us over, they will take all that money from our Pacificans, and they will not necessarily share it with us, whereas if that language is in there, they cannot do that.

Are you... The language already states none can be taken by the state. That's currently in the resolution, and that just means that this money is going directly to the city of Pacifica.

Correct.

Is any of this money going to the county?

No. Okay. So, yes, we can add. None of this money are going to the county. Or the state.

So the language is good as it is. If at some point the city of Pacifica goes bankrupt, which we hope it doesn't, and the county then has to take control, yeah.

I want to make sure the money stays here.

Well, it will. This clause doesn't make it so, right? This is not going to the state, right? This is not, it's the ordinance language that, you know, the state will follow, and we have already sent the ordinance language to the state for their, you know, review. They've reviewed it. They've okayed it. So we would have to then send this new language back. So I think as the assistant city manager said...

If you're comfortable with it, I am.

Yeah. I mean, I think we should just leave it as is. Okay.

And so what happens with this new text? So I understand, like, we need to be completely finalized in two days, right? But I'm not signing this tonight because you have to print a fresh copy with the edits, right? So we just have to coordinate in the next two days. But council can vote tonight with revised language. Yes. Okay.

Thank you for the suggestion to add it to the resolution. I appreciate that.

Okay.

I think

Can we go back to the motion we need to make? And, well, we should confirm that we're going back to the original language, right?

And then if you want, I can reread the two revisions to the resolution and the ballot language so that the council doesn't have to recite it. And then you can just say.

Oh, okay.

As part of the motion, you're saying? Right, just make the motion and say, as amended by... And then let you talk.

Right.

Okay.

All right.

Prior to that, though, I would like to make another statement of just how much I appreciate what staff to help us get here, how it is that we all work together, even though we didn't agree on everything, and particularly how you handled the difficult situation. And I wanted to express my appreciation to you DIRECTLY IN PUBLIC OF HOW MUCH I APPRECIATE YOU GETTING US FROM A VERY BAD PLACE TO A BETTER PLACE, AND THANK YOU.

THANK YOU, I APPRECIATE THAT.

I SECOND.

I DIDN'T HEAR A MOTION.

NO, I WAS AGREEING. I WAS AGREEING WITH HIM.

WE NEED A MOTION.

We need a motion.

Who wants to make a motion?

I can. But what I need to know is if I'm changing anything. I'm just going to read what's here. Oh, on that one. I move that we adopt a resolution. I move adoption of the resolution of the City Council of the City of Pacifica calling and giving notice for a general municipal election on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2026 for submission to the qualified voters of the city, a ballot measure regarding a 1%, one cent, transactions and use sales tax for general city revenue purposes and requesting San Mateo County to consolidate the city's general municipal election with the November 3rd, 2026 election. statewide general election, and to provide election services.

As amended by the city attorney.

As amended by the city attorney.

And those amendments specifically are, we are including a new recital, recital 10, in the resolution that states, whereas the council has agreed to create a citizens oversight committee to independently audit and review the revenue received from the existing this sales tax measure. We will have the number later. And then a revision to the ballot language in Section 3 will state, Pacifica City Services Measure to protect Pacifica's long-term financial stability, fund police-fire 911 emergency response, prioritize paving streets in the worst conditions, keep parks, beaches, and public spaces safe and maintained, and for general government use, shall the City of Pacifica's measure establishing a one-cent transaction and new sales tax generating approximately $5 million annually until ended by the voters with citizens' oversight and local control of funds and independent annual audits be adopted. No, no, no, no, no.

We're going back to the original language.

Oh, sorry. I was right the first time. With public disclosure and local control of funds and independent annual audits be adopted. Do you want me to read that again? So moved. Okay. Second.

Please vote. Oh, my gosh.

I'm waiting for one more vote.

Am I pushing the wrong button?

I'm going to reset it. Go ahead.