City Council - Regular Meeting

Hello, welcome everyone. There's not, thank you. Welcome, I'm calling the regular meeting of the Ross Town Council Thursday, January 8th, 2026 to order. Town Manager Johnson, has the agenda been posted?

Yes, Mayor, it has.

And are there any changes to the agenda?

No.

Item number three is disclosure of ex parte communications on items where the town council acts in an adjudicatory or quasi-judicial capacity. I don't think we're doing that tonight, so we can skip that. Number four is open time for public expression. This is for items that are not on tonight's agenda and it's limited to three minutes per speaker. If you could please introduce yourself before you begin speaking, that would be great.

There you go. My name's Ross Esselstyn. I'm from San Anselmo. This is a very important meeting. I'll try to make this quick. I'm a one-note whistle that has studied what's going on with flood control for 15 years. I think a lot of people know I've opposed a lot of what has been a lot of silliness. I can say about four or five months ago, I started looking at the history of how the district was created, et cetera. I'm crazy enough to read a report from 1961 that was the basis for the levees and the dredging. In 61, this report said we're gonna build levees, but they're gonna decrease in height. In 1965, the district was created, and a year later Ross joined. You've been taxed for 60 years. And they spent almost no money on the levies. And I have mentioned to the county, they should have sent, they have a big choice, the district does, which is us. Are we gonna spend millions of dollars in San Anselmo on an inch or two of flooding? Or meet our obligations from 65 and the fees we spent from 65 to fix the levies? I spoke publicly, the council has record of that, of me speaking at the Board of Supervisors twice in December. I thought it was going to take a year to get people's attention, and the sun and the moon intervened this last couple of weeks, lining up very close to the earth, and we had catastrophic flooding. Terrible things happen to wonderful people, but I think it's an incredible thing that we should spring upon to get after, take all the money that's going to be spent, and send in some of which we voted against, and use all that money to work on the levies. With that, I think we're going to see moves in that direction. I know Gabe Paulson is now head of the advisory board, and you have a member here who's very astute, and I hope the advisory board directs county staff to spend money on the levies. It's a huge, huge public...

Thank you. Anybody else for public comment? Okay, item number five is the mayor's report. I want to update residents about what's happening at Ross Recreation. The Ross Rec team continues to offer many wonderful recreational programs to residents of all ages with a very positive response from our community. Winter youth basketball started this week with more than 250 kids from grades K through four, focusing on team development and skill building. Kids Club is experiencing a resurgence, now serving 15 to 25 after school participants daily, providing families with flexible after school care. The youngest residents have many options. Wilderness Cubs brings outdoor exploration to Natalie Coffin Green Park. Ross Rec has partnered with Marin Art and Gardens Garden School to launch Happy Hive, an after-school program for ages two to four, and morning toddler and parent programs are currently being developed for new and young families. Based on parent feedback, Ross Rec is continuing to host day camps when Ross School is not in session. Ross Rec is collaborating with community partners to offer programs at Marin Art and Garden and the Ross Town Hall. Youth can enjoy after school 23 elephants mini musicals, art explorations, and little green thumbs gardening. Adults can access a weekly age-friendly social tea, mahjong, tai chi, modern bridge, and senior strength training. Ross Rec will be launching a new website, www.agefriendlyross.org, to make it easier to find events, programs, and volunteer opportunities and helpful resources. Ross Rec is organizing many other wonderful events for our community. The third annual Age-Friendly Valentine's Luncheon on Thursday, February 12th, with former Ross Mayor Beach Kuehl serving as MC, the second annual mother-child pickleball tournament in April at the Ross Pickleball Courts, and new family programs such as Tuesday Night Rec at the Ross School Gym, adult flag football, and adult volleyball. And although it seems like winter may never end, summer camp registration is just... Just around the corner, summer camp registration. To learn more about Ross Recreation and its many programs, please visit its website, www.rossrecreation.org. Number six is council committee and liaison reports. Anybody? No. SEVEN IS STAFF AND COMMUNITY REPORTS STARTING WITH THE ROSS PROPERTY OWNERS ASSOCIATION. ARE YOU GOING TO SAY SOMETHING? THE ZOOM IS MUTED.

okay should we wait krista um no our michael from marin tv has indicated that it's okay now if somebody thinks otherwise if they could let us let me know great thank you krista okay go ahead with your town manager report please okay um thank you good evening uh mayor and council members and members of the public i'd like to start just by thanking um the staff and the executive director and the board of the marin art and garden center for allowing the town to use this lovely facility And just I'll keep it short by saying our town made it through this last quite lengthy stormy days. Pretty unscathed. We did have some trees down on private property. But otherwise, I think I wanted to thank our public work staff for helping prepare the town for potential flooding. and to our public safety folks for helping out during the event. And most importantly, thank members of the community because there's a lot of work that private property owners do to prepare their property for stormy potential flooding events. So thanks, everybody. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Krista. Next is the consent agenda. There's only one item on the consent agenda, which is the, actually there's two items, meeting minutes, special meeting from the closed session on December 11, 2025, and regular meeting minutes from December 11, 2025. Does anyone have any, does anyone want to move any, either of those off the consent agenda? Does anyone from the public want to move any of those off? Okay, could we please have a motion?

I move we approve the consent agenda.

Is there a second? Sorry. I'll second.

Council Member Salter?

Aye.

Council Member Kirchherr?

Aye.

Mayor McMillan? Aye. Council Member Dowling? Aye. Mayor Pro Tem Robbins? Aye. With a vote of five, the motion passes. Thank you.

Next is the item everyone is here for, which is a discussion regarding the Ross Fire Station and Public Safety Protection Initiative. The way the agenda will work is the Friends of the Ross Firehouse will give an up to 50-minute presentation, followed by questions from council members. Then town staff and its consultants will provide a 50-minute presentation on the elections code section 9212 report, followed by 15 minutes of questions from the initiative proponent and associated initiative advocates. And then council will ask questions to the elections code report consultants. Then we will take public comment. I would like to keep public comment to two minutes, if that's at all possible. I know some of you may have scripted out your remarks to be three minutes, which is our standard. But if you could keep it to two minutes, that would be wonderful. Then we will close public comment, and the council will consider receiving the election code report and have discussion. So with that, I will turn it over to the Friends of the Ross Firehouse.

Thank you, Mayor. How do we...

Thank you.

Okay, okay. Okay, we can go to the next slide. Great, thank you. Thank you, Mayor and council members. Can you hear me? Really close, okay. We appreciate this opportunity and are grateful to be able to present the work that has been going on for the last eight months. Friends of Frost Firehouse is a grassroots community effort born out of concern over the loss of our firehouse and the town's costly plan to demolish the site. The proposed vision of a modern civic center without a firehouse is fundamentally at odds with the rural small town character that many residents value and want to preserve. The origins of Friends dates back to 2020 when the town decided to address the deteriorating public safety building. bob herbst and ed dong longtime residents and seasoned professionals in commercial real estate development and construction took the initiative to help they prepared an extensive comparative analysis of similar projects and developed a detailed data-driven budget their proposal to rehab rehabilitate the building which looks strikingly like the plan will present today was presented to the town during the original 2021 firehouse debate Unfortunately, that analysis was never seriously considered by the town. Fast forward five years. When new information about emergency response times emerged, the issue was on the agenda again in March of 2025. Bob and Ed, along with many others, were eager to engage collaboratively on potential options. However, a divided council voted three to two not to explore alternatives. Julie, Bill, and Terry voting against, and Matt and Elizabeth voting for. With the absence of any town engagement and a growing group of residents worried about the future of emergency response in Ross, Frentz was formed to independently research and evaluate viable options, including pursuing a ballot initiative so Ross residents could vote on this important issue. The effort quickly gained momentum with more than 400 residents signing on in support. Friends then engaged nationally recognized fire and public safety experts in architecture, construction, and emergency services. Joining us today is Chris Ford from BRW Architects. BRW has designed more than 375 fire stations, which have won over 100 awards. Also here are Mike Stanley and Vernon Champlin from Jensen Hughes, a global safety consulting firm with over 100 offices worldwide. Mike and Vernon are both retired fire chiefs and experts in the fire protection field. The rest of the Friends team includes Laura Conroe, a business owner with decades of experience in contracts and legal matters, and myself, Stephanie DiMarco, I spent 30 years as a founder and CEO of a global software company with offices in eight countries and more than 700 employees. In that capacity, I oversaw numerous large office construction projects. We recognize that this is a very long presentation and it's tackling a complicated topic, which is why we shared with the entire community on Tuesday our deck. And we have copies available. Hopefully everyone's gotten a hard copy tonight. We'll move quickly through the slides, focusing our remarks on the points that merit further amplification. Okay, we can click through one more. So how did we get here? It's been a long journey. Next one. So Ross joined the Ross Valley Fire Department in 2020. And while there may have been reasons for agreeing to shoulder a disproportionate share of the costs at the time, the agreement says that the cost allocation percentages can be reviewed every three years. That has never been done. Ross has been subsidizing the other towns to the tune of millions of dollars for over a decade. I'd like to turn to Mike Stanley from Jensen Hughes to tell us a little bit about how these cost sharing arrangements are typically done and how ours stacks up. Mike.

Thank you, Stephanie. Good evening, Mayor and members of Town Council. My name is Mike Stanley. I'm a senior fire and emergency services consultant for Jensen Hughes. that have a greater than three decade career in the fire service, retiring as a fire chief before transitioning into consulting. I get the opportunity to work across the United States and around the globe looking at optimization of fire service deployment in efficiency and effectiveness of fire departments around the world. So when the town of Ross joined the Ross Valley Fire Department initially, The joint powers agreement, as you well know, town council that was established that there would be a 23.37% shared fee towards the operating budget. That historically, the town of Ross has enjoyed a fire station that was staffed 24-7 within the town limits, just right across the street. That in July 1st of 2025, that... fire department, that fire station, excuse me, was shuttered, and now we have no fire engine, no firefighting crew in that station. that even with the historical perspective of the 23.37%, when we did our analysis, we looked at several factors, one of which being population. And of the four partners within the joint powers agreement, the population that Ross has only accounts for about 9.2%. So very disproportionate for the amount of population versus the fair share of the cost sharing. Another thing that we evaluated was the... Call volume, the incident volume that occurs in the town of Ross, and found that to be even lower, below that 9% at about 7%. That's very, very lopsided. The demand for service, the impact that the community has is not commensurate with the share that is allocated to them. Very uncommon to what we see in looking at similar circumstances in other fire departments around the country. That typically the methodology that is used, the formula that is used, has a direct, for shared services, that cost has a direct relationship to the population or to the incident volume. Because that's really an ideal metric for what is the true impact of that community. So with the closing of the fire station 18 in the town of Ross, you know, the town of Ross no longer enjoys a staff fire station, that there will be a slight reduction in the funds that are contributed by the town of Ross, but that still leaves the town of Ross shouldering the burden for about 21% of that overall operating budget. So now we have no fire station in the town of Ross, no firefighters, and yet we're still paying 21%. You're already paying a disproportionate amount in our opinion. And now that has been further compromised by we've had a decrease in service that is not commensurate with a decrease in funding.

Thanks, Mike. So we hear often that we can't afford to operate a firehouse. What if we just stop paying for operating other towns' firehouses? OK. So the next two slides show a town flyer that we received in 2020. And we were told that we had a choice, either spend $28 million to rebuild the fire station or $14 million to rebuild a civic center without a fire station. You can go to the next slide. Although there are fewer fire incidents, there are hundreds of medical emergencies in town every year. Residents were assured in the same flyer that response times for 85% of medical emergencies would stay the same if we moved the fire department. Next slide, please. And based on those assumptions and those costs and the response times, the council voted unanimously to close the station. And as we know now, those assumptions were flawed. The costs are now multiples higher and the response times are increasing to dangerous levels. The Ross Valley went from four stations to three, effectively weakening the entire system. Next slide, please. So after the closure of the firehouse, we've heard consistently that we don't need one, that the building can't be saved, and that we can't afford a fire station. And we respectfully, the experts and the professionals who have developed this plan, respectfully disagree. Next slide. Actually, we do need a fire station. Next slide. So residents have been told that we shouldn't worry because... Oh, I'm sorry. I went to... This one is the... I want to talk about the National Fire Protection Agency and their standards. And again, Mike, I'd like you to tell us a little bit about what this is and your involvement and your firm's involvement.

Thank you, Stephanie. The National Fire Protection Association develops consensus standards for fire protection. That ranges from... where a fire extinguisher should be, what type of buildings need sprinkler systems, to also those operational components. NFPA 1710 really is the handbook for how do you deploy fire stations, where should they be, how many fire trucks should they have there, and how many people should be staffed on it. that how they've based those findings with input from all across the country and the technical committee is through advanced research. The National Institute of Standards and Technology has done task analysis. They've done a lot of research around the development, spread, and growth of fire. that we enjoy the luxury of one of my team members is the chairperson of the NFPA 1710 committee. My colleague, Vernon Champlin, is here with me this evening as well, sits on that committee. You know, they said that sets the performance standards for the National Fire Service. And what it says is 90% of the time, we need that first arriving unit to get there in eight minutes or less. And the reasoning behind that is, if we're going to make an intervention that would save lives, most importantly, contain the fire from spreading to other structures, and to conserve property, we need to put that initial unit on scene in a very timely fashion. When we do not do that, and we consistently exceed that, we see that number the chances of survivability for that person that is trapped inside the fire plummet. We also see higher degrees of property loss, more significant amounts of dollars that are contributed to by that fire loss. The other component to that is also having an effective response force. So not only do I need that first unit there to arrive in a very short time frame, but I also need the subsequent units to arrive there so that I can muster that effective response force to have enough firefighters on scene to mitigate that emergency. I've primarily talked about the perils of fire, but it also overlaps into emergency medical services. The faster that we can put skilled providers on scene to make an intervention, the higher the percentage of outcomes and survivability that we see in our patients as well. And it's important that we evaluate that not on an average, but by the 90th percentile, because that gives a more true representation of what that performance metric actually is and is it being met. So an outlier can skew the average where that 90th percentile is a truer representation.

Great. Thanks, Mike. Next slide, please. So that eight minutes is pretty important, but we've been told that we don't need to worry because the ambulance and the paramedics are here. And people really need to understand that, yes, the ambulance is parked in Ross, but it covers a huge service area. It goes from Corte Madera. It actually goes into San Quentin, if necessary, all the way up to Sleepy Hollow. There's two ambulances. It's stretched thin and it's rarely in town. The firefighters that we used to have in Ross are all parametrics or EMTs. So they are the first responders. It's not the ambulance that we rely on for first response. So losing our fire engine and our fire station and our firefighters has certainly increased the danger in town. Next slide, please. So unsurprisingly, we're down one truck and longer travel times. The response times are moving up. Mike, maybe you can tell us a little bit about what we should think about these numbers and what we can expect in the future.

Absolutely. The provision of emergency medical services for a community is all about risk. We need to evaluate the risk profile that we have. Maybe that's we have someplace that manufactures chemicals or we have a nursing home. We evaluate all those different community risks. And then we match those risks with ways to mitigate that, appropriate ways to mitigate it. And it's incumbent upon a community to determine their risk tolerance and what their desire and expectation for service is. So undisputable that with the closing of the fire station, we lost a resource that had a very short response time. We also look at not only response times, but reliability. Reliability is, if I call 911, what's the chance that the fire engine comes out of that fire station located in the community. So historically, Ross had enjoyed a 97% reliability factor. That meant 97% of the time that there was a call in Ross, the Ross fire engine responded to it. With the closing of that station, that creates a 0% reliability moving forward. There's no chance that the Ross fire engine is going to respond to incidents inside the town of Ross. So now the closest unit comes from San Anselmo that enhance, you know, lengthen response time, but also decreases the reliability in the San Anselmo response area as well. You know, so it becomes this kind of domino effect is what we see. That's so now, like I said, undisputable that we're going to have longer response times with the closing of the station. that there has been some suggestion of, well, we would need to evaluate that for a longer time. You can evaluate that for a year, 10 years, or 100 years. If you don't change a variable, the outcome will repeat itself. The data is still going to reveal that there is an extended response time. So again, the community has to make the decision on what level of risk are they willing to take. Are we willing to exceed that eight minute response time threshold? Are we willing to double it? Are we willing to triple it? Are we willing to quadruple it? But as that mitigation methods are reduced, the risk factors increase. There's a direct relationship to that.

Thanks, Mike. Oh, I'm sorry, were you done? No, go ahead. But I was just going to say, and so if you go back to kind of what people were promised in the flyer, that times wouldn't change, we're now, you know, over 10 minutes, and that wasn't a choice that the community made, you know, to basically increase its risk. It was one that has been a surprise and not a pleasant surprise. Okay, we can go to the next slide. So we all got in our texts or emails last week about the 911 being down. And really the point here is that emergencies are unpredictable. And that's what emergency response systems have to prepare for. So what if 911 is down and both entrances to Ross are cut off by a disaster? It could be a flood, an earthquake, a fire. We could have downed trees and downed power lines. Ross effectively would be cut off and be a cul-de-sac. And both fire stations that we're relying on for our emergency response would potentially be unavailable to us. And they'd probably be very busy in their own communities. You know, we really lost something when we pulled that node, that pillar of protection for Ross. We really lost something that could come to bite us very, very badly in a key emergency. Okay, let's go to the next slide. And the ripple effects are many that if you don't invest in your emergency services. Home insurance cancellations. This is mine. It was just canceled last month. Property values. Do people want to live in a community as much if there isn't the same level of public safety that we've enjoyed in the past? And let's not forget the increase in housing stock. It's going to be incredible over the next decade. Over 1,400 units. Traffic's going to increase, and so will medical emergencies, commensurate with the population increase. These are the reasons that now is the time to invest in more emergency response, not less. And I'd now like to turn it over to Ed. He's going to talk about the building plan.

Thank you, Stephanie. Mayor, councilmembers? My name is Ed Dong. I have 50 years plus of professional real estate and construction experience, developing everything from horizontal industrial to high-rise medical facilities, public facilities. And when the question was asked, can our public safety building re be rebuilt i said absolutely yes in 2021 i worked with an architect and alton construction we surveyed completed fire stations around the bay area and we inventoried the building costs of what it would what it took to build those and deliver those And back at that time, I told the town in a testimony that we can rebuild the public safety building, including the fire, date adjusted for $13 million. And this compared to, in 2021, to the town's estimate of $28 million. Since March 2025, when we did not get an audience to revisit this, we took it upon ourselves as friends to compile a very professional, expert group of builders and designers. We sought out Chris from BRW, 375 fire stations designed, 100 awards. We talked with Bob Alton, a local contractor. He's delivered six local fire stations, very current. He's bidding fire stations as we speak, one in Stinson Valley. I'm sorry, Stinson Beach. and we went to work we visited the property uh... three times back in march two thousand twenty one we poured through the structure inside outside uh... march two thousand twenty five same thing uh... in may two thousand twenty five this is where we actually went Deep we went into the crawl space. We went into the attic. We we looked into walls. We looked at the foundations We looked at the site work. We looked at the roof and we put together a plan and a team to program programmatically design the needs for the town, so I'd like to Turn it over to the architect. Oh, yes Next light place So with that team, we said, what is Paramount to the town of Ross? And one of the, I think, Paramount points is we have an iconic fire station. The identity of Ross is our fire station, our public safety building. So underlying the design and the programming, we said we need to retain the character of this town. This has resonated in the town hall. It resonated at the post office. We need it to resonate in our new design, a rehabilitated building. So you see the image, well, the watercolor image of our beloved town fire station. uh... and by keeping the the character the footprint minimizing uh... any any remodeling on the outside uh... you know we believe that we can uh... apply for an exemption under the california environmental quality act The building is currently registered as a historic resource, and we think this is a very paramount element of our design. So we went to work with BRW Architects.

Thanks, Ed. Mayor and member of the town council, I want to thank you for having me speak today. My name is Chris Ford. I'm the principal of the San Francisco office of BRW Architects. As mentioned before, I've personally been involved in public safety design and fire station design for 40 years. As a member of BRW, we have a national presence in the fire safety and public safety world. Really proud to be a part of this team. I'm going to go over a few points after I finish my introduction. Really what I'm here to talk about, we've got a number of slides that sort of go into some various information. Really my goal tonight is to give you information about three things. My opinion and our expert's opinion, including Alton Construction, is yes, We can renovate this building and we can convert it to a operational public safety facility, police, fire, paramedic. Two. It will fit the operations of a single engine company, a paramedic service, and expand the ability of the space for the police all within the existing footprint. And I'll explain it when we get to the site plan, which would include the trailer that's going to be moved away. I work with Alton Construction. I built fire stations with Alton Construction. I've done seismic rehab with Alton Construction. I'm here to answer any questions about the validity of their review of this facility and their pricing. In building fire stations for my company, they know what's expected, how to do an essential service facility, how to make it durable, reliable, meet the operational requirements and the performance standards. So they're not here to talk tonight, but I can certainly speak on their behalf. So just a little bit about me personally as an architect practicing in this profession all these years and here in Northern California. My direct experience in seismic rehabilitation of fire stations includes Southern Marin IV. A couple years ago, Calistoga 1, I mean, 10, 12 years ago now. New stations nearby Throckmorton Ridge up on Mount Tam. I'm now working with, as Ed mentioned, we're the architects on the design for Stinson Beach. I'm working with County Marin on Hicks Valley Fire Station. And i've done a remodel of the point race fire station recently that wasn't seismic it was more Ada and exterior enclosure so enough about me let's talk about the some of our ideas for the station design so next slide. Oh go ahead and.

So commensurate with bringing BRW on board, we asked ourselves, well, we've been questioned whether the building is seismically and structurally sound. We've seen letters in opposition of that. So we brought in a structural engineer. that poured through, again, every square inch and every volume of that building, looked at foundations, crawled in the crawlspace, attic, looked at the exterior, you know, stem walls, looked at the site. Was there any subsidence? Was there any cracking? and the structures in their conclusion was that this building is absolutely a candidate for rehabilitation uh seismically uh designable and uh as as standing seismically sound there's no deformation or any no def deficiencies in the structural walls nor in the in the in the structural members the wood members the attic the sound there there's no sagging in the roof And conclusion is that it could be sizably upgraded as a perfect candidate. Chris.

Thanks, Ed. Let's look at the next slide, which is really zooming out. Before we drill into the floor plan that we've developed as a potential solution for the rehabilitation of the fire station. So this is the overall site plan. There in the middle is the floor plan that we're going to look at in more detail. But we've also just put in the boxes that were from the master plan just to give it the right scale. Those are the same boxes that have shown up in the balance of the master plan. We didn't really take it any further. We're just showing that it fits while we're on the site plan. We also are keeping the general circulation of the type one engine. If we remove that shed that used to be behind the third bay, We've got to drive through, which is industry standard. That's the way the trucks have been going. That's the way where you think they can keep going through the app bay and then exit back out on Sir Francis Drake. I know that the other master plan talked about getting streets to line up and moving driveways and taking down trees. We're saying if we can rehabilitate this building in its place, keep the same footprint once we get rid of the shed and the trailer. that um it's ready for any other master plan ideas we haven't caused any of them to leave we're just focused on the station so again an overview the blue on the left is space allocated for police the green sort of in the middle in that l shape is fire we have a courtyard and a shared entry a shared lobby i think one lobby is fine for Turn to the left, you go to police. Turn to the right, you go to fire and paramedic. That's one of the ways we're able to fit everything is if we can share a lobby. The other element that's shared is on the far right, which would be fitness. We don't need separate fitness for police and separate fitness for paramedic and the fire. Let's share. The fire has a door directly into the fitness. We'll see that on the floor plan. And that makes sense for the response time. and it'll show on the plan some doors towards Sir Francis Drake. That would be for everybody else, which could include town staff. Let's build it once and share. Next slide. So architecturally, again, we've measured, we've modeled, we've looked at the original plans, we've looked at some of the rather problematic additions that filled in some of the courtyard space. That's the upper slide. You can see that on the far right, that's where the housing trailer was or is now. And if we say, well, if we're going to add space, that's the fitness area. Let's keep it within the footprint of the trailer. And if we then convert the original apparatus bay facing Sir Francis Drake, into that lobby, make it all ADA compliant. There's four different levels of floor. Let's get all that settled out. Let's get a common floor area. Let's stitch it all together. It's going to help with the ADA. It's going to help with the flow. It's going to help with the response time. We're not out to make a big statement with the architecture. Mission Revival. We do think it's a great idea to open up a courtyard on that right hand side so that we can get back to that look of the the wings that John White had envisioned where we've got that strong center and then those open air wings to the right and left. Um, that's a look, uh, next slide is from up in the air again, just to, you know, again, we've modeled, we've measured. We've got it all to scale. Uh, then the gray on the right would be new. No, no trees coming down. That's the trailers already there. So we would build a new part of the building there. We do some infill and then the addition upstairs. It's a little, yeah, a little hard to see. That's really just kind of. easy, easy addition to expand the what I'll show you is the bedroom and locker room and bathrooms for the firefighters upstairs. So if we extend that ridgeline a little bit, again, not touching the footprint, not expanding the size of the base of the building. We got it all to fit. Next slide. Some questions have come up about FEMA. So the blue diagonal and upper right, the App Bay is 0.9 feet into or below the 100-year flood zone. And so that last little corner is in the flood zone at a 100-year event. What we're showing here and it's in the packet is a couple of flood mitigation measures to avoid the situation like the photo there of the Fairfax 11 is if there is a flood anticipated that the engines and engine and paramedic in the app they can be pre deployed. out front above the flood and facing sir francis drake the balance of the station living office all of the police all of the turnout gear utility is all well above the flood zone because that's four feet higher and all put together Once the engines are moved out, engine and paramedic moved out and pre-deployed, the option is to put in a barrier. The apparatus bay wouldn't be usable during the flood, but the barrier would be there to help to speed up recovery and put it back into service as soon as the event is cleared. So I know that might come up in some of the questions. This is just a few different ideas on a mitigation strategy that we're anticipating. And we think that sort of naturally fall into having it above the flood zone and avoid having the entire station flooded, which can happen elsewhere.

Next.

So floor plan, let's just, again, police on the left, plus the police has some office space and report writing space on the second floor. There in the blue is the shared lobby. To the right of the lobby is a courtyard. That could be for visitors, for school tours, somewhere to gather people out of the driveway before they take the tour or visit somebody in the station. At the very top is the app bay, as we've talked about. That inner space there between the entrance, that's all what we call the warm zone. So that's PPE, extractor, SCBA, hand tools. everything you need to respond on a call directly to the right of that is some maybe outdoor eating area then all of that lower right is office firefighter kitchen and dining and what they call the day room, which is the training and TV. And then in the blue, that's the shared fitness. Again, there's doors straight into the response for the firefighters, or there's doors facing Sir Francis Drake to be used by the rest of the town staff. Upstairs, it's accessed through the elevator, so we've got an accessible restroom, accessible bedroom, some space for police and their administrative needs. And then towards the back is a series of individual bedrooms or shared bunk rooms. It's really up to, you know, we'll get into the details, but with the expansion of that upper floor at that ridge, we've got it all to fit on that up for three firefighters and two paramedics. Yeah, so with the elevator being in the very center, we can hide it, not impact the roof. As Ed was saying, the roof is fine. Let's keep it intact so we get an elevator, a new stair. That makes that second floor fully accessible. And the combination of connecting the different levels on the lower floor, again, taking out all those ups and downs from the original, And then the adding of the elevator for the second floor, we're fully ADA compliant, or will be fully ADA compliant.

Just to add, this is all one level now, where right now you have to go down. Up and down. This is all one level above floodplain.

Thanks, Ed. Next slide. There's been some questions about, I think, when you look at the station now and see that that right hand side is quote abandoned it's been empty like how in the world can we you know remodel renovate this but we're taking it down to stud we're starting over we're used keeping the shell it's all um can be intact but once we rearrange these rooms those big red arrows that's your primary response from office, from fitness, from day room. That light red area in the middle, that's the grab and go. Get your gear, get what you need, your handhelds, your tools, and then you're out to the Apparatus Bay. Upstairs, it's pretty simple, just a hallway down the middle and down the stairs, and you're right on your way halfway down to the call. So it is a change. It's some rearranging. We're keeping the shell intact, but it works. Thanks. So again, just to recap, and if everybody's got the hard copy, just to put some names on some of these terms, again, fitness, we know what that is, day room, kitchen, dining, the offices, utility and cleanup, just a recap of the different zones and how we could fit a single company engine and a paramedic. And I'm looking forward to, after the rest of the presentation, answering any questions. That's it.

Next slide, please. Mayor and council members, thank you for having us tonight. We appreciate the opportunity. I'm Bob Herbst. I actually live right across the street from the firehouse. I've been doing commercial real estate development and construction in Marin County for over 30 years now. Commercial, industrial, recreational. I have extensive experience with SQL and EIRs. I did a sports center, 85,000 square foot sports center at Santa Fe Airport recently. That took me six years and $1.1 million. So my comments to you on CEQA and EIRs tonight come from some painful experience. Can Ross afford a fire station? Ed's going to give you some more details from the Alton construction bid. The point I wanted to make here is that our sister towns and cities in the Ross Valley Fire Department managing to afford a fire station. So how is it possible that Ross can't? Next slide, please. By the way, they're both rehabbing their fire stations as we speak, and they're both in the same flood zone that Ross is in, the 100-year flood zone. Chris showed you a photo from the last big flood of the Fairfax Fire Station underwater, and there's similar photos of the San Anselmo Fire Station underwater. So We shouldn't fail to save this incredible historic building that we have in Ross, this cultural treasure, because it's in a flood zone, because everybody in the Ross Valley is in a flood zone. With that, I'll turn it back to Ed.

Next slide, please. Thank you. working with the the design working with the alton construction team we believe we can deliver the rehabilitated public safety building including the firehouse for eleven million dollars uh... now i've heard a comment well the old bid it looks like uh... was written on the back of a napkin well absolutely because i was a cover page summary of all the work they did But breaking it down, they've identified general conditions, a 14-month build-out schedule, all personnel to take it through from demolition, abatement, reconstruction, and finishing delivery. We've included a power upgrade. So we have upgraded the master electrical service. we uh... alton uh... looked at the demo again during our walk through as they walk through every square inch of that building and they determined uh... in all the demolition scope they looked uh... at uh... uh... what needed to be uh... removed, what needed to be abated, and the approach is to, again, take everything out on the interior, leaving only the exterior studs and keeping the exterior stucco as well. We feel the age, the patina, the character of the existing stucco would be hard to replicate, and we think that adds to the beauty and the character of the existing town fire station. So the roof is in very good condition. No sagging, no dipping. Roof will be retained. The seismic aspect, again, Alton has worked with BRW and all of the structural engineers in their other projects, absolutely included seismic upgrades that would include moment frames, tie-downs, attachments, anchor bolts, They looked at the BRW plan for the remodel. They've taken off quantities and estimated wall building, mechanical, plumbing, electrical, new foundations. So this is all being figured in to come up with their hard cost number of $8 million, $9 million. We add in some site costs. Now, since we're not demolishing a lot of the site. This number includes some improvements in the parking area. We're going to raise the generator pad, the trash enclosure out of the flood control. I mean, the flood zone, you know, Odds and ends, we have a proposal right now for design, complete design, mechanical, plumbing, electrical, structural for the development. We have a construction oversight administration proposal. We have a market rate for construction management. We believe we can deliver this rehabilitated public safety building, including fire, for $11.2 million in today's dollars. That's $1,486 a square foot.

So we can afford to build it. Thank you, Ed. Can we afford to operate it? Ross is currently paying $2.7 million to Ross Valley Fire District. As Mike Jensen said, that represents a very unfair share given our low population and low incidence relative to the other towns. Jensen Hughes' report includes an operating cost to reopen our fire station with three firefighters on the engine at an annual cost of $2.6 million, so less than what we're already paying today to Ross Valley Fire Department. You'll hear later from CityGate and their report that... They have an estimate of $3.4 to $5 million to run our firehouse. But if we just look at the Central Marin Fire Department budget, they have four firehouses. They each contribute $3.2 million a year. So if Central Marin, our neighboring fire district, can run four firehouses for $3.2 million a year, we certainly can. And even if we had to pay a full 25%, which is unfair, we can afford it. Next slide. Just looking at our pro farmer share, even if we stay with Ross Valley Fire Department again at a more fair share, we'll be able to afford the cost of our firehouse. Next slide. Um, let's look at the alternative, what the town's current, uh, civic center campus plan. I mean, first of all, why does a town of Ross with 2,300 people Mayberry need a civic center campus? That would be our first question. Um, that plan is primarily office space. Um, it has a paramedic facility as well. Um, next slide. We were told that that plan would cost $14.6 million in 2020. By 2023, that plan had gone up to $21 million. Today, the town has an estimate for 2026 of $25 million. By the time it would be built in 2030, it's up to $30 million. Next slide. I'd just like to point your attention to the cost breakdown on the side, 25 million. Five million of that is overhead cost for design fees and construction management fees for consultants. $7.7 million of that is site work, and that's because the plan tears everything down and rips the entire campus apart other than the town hall building. Firehouse is gone. Public works building is gone. Planning department is gone. All asphalt is gone. All concrete is gone. All landscaping is gone. Our plan retains all of that. $6 million of this is for public safety. So of the $25 million, only $6 million goes to public safety. Next slide. Can we afford this plan? Honestly, I haven't talked to anybody in Ross that wants to pay $25 million for a mostly office building for 18 town employees. It's $1.4 million for employees that are based at Town Hall. It's going to require a huge new bond, at least a $50 million bond. That's $11 million of interest. It's going to add $1,000 a year to everybody's property taxes. Those costs don't even include CEQA costs, as I mentioned. This is going to be a minimum two-year CEQA EIR with all this work that the town's proposing next to the creek. Easily a million dollars. By the time we're done with it, it's going to be a $40 million project. That's $50,000 per Ross household. And it's going to require a two-thirds Ross vote, which just doesn't seem reasonable to expect. Then the question is, well, what's the plan if it doesn't pass? Is there a plan? I'll turn that back to Ed. Next slide.

Just quickly, we did look at the entire town plan comprised of the fire station, police, paramedic, and the public safety building, along with all the other components of town hall, administration, public works, council chambers. So, as I said, we could build the public safety building for 11-2, and I've just carried over, we've just carried over the same construction budget the town did. So if we were just to tackle phase one of the fire station, we can build it for 11-2, and we can work in various phases with the town to continue to build out the rest of the town campus. But in the end, even using the town's, you know, we're at 17 million total town master plan build out versus a 20, I can't see my arm, 20, 25. So I think the key here is that with $11 million development budget, we can phase this. Stephanie.

Great. Thanks, Ed. I'll bring us home here. Thanks, everybody, for hanging with us. So next slide. We truly believe that this plan is credible, it's cost effective, and it's a powerful alternative to the town's plan. And as Ed said, it can be phased. And the town has saved $12 million for this project. So the fire safety building can be built for $11 million. And as you see here, the plan meets all of the town's program requirements. And another important difference is this project could start right away. No years of CEQA review and the accompanying consulting costs, which alone could be a million dollars. No town vote and no bond measure. No extra costs to residents. And importantly, no more kicking the can down the road. This has gone on too long. We need to stop analyzing and get this done. Next slide. Actually, two slides, one more. So bringing us home here, In conclusion, we're very hopeful that the three council members will see the wisdom of this plan. The building, in our opinion, is a no-brainer because of how the master plan budget has exploded. No one wants to pay $10 million more for a civic center without a firehouse. And we fully recognize that now we've lost our firefighters. There is work, hard work to be done to bring them back, but it's a solvable problem. And there are motivated, creative, resourceful people who want to help. And if we don't do this now, Ross will have lost the opportunity to have a local fire station and have control over our town's emergency response forever. Julie, Bill, Terry, you owe it to future generations not to make that mistake. Thank you. And I'd like to end with just on the screen, if you go back one slide, we received this testimonial from Bruce Selfridge, who's a 37-year Ross fire captain. And it really choked me up. You know, he starts out saying that he prays that our group is successful. And he's very concerned about the future of the town and believes that Ross is safer with a firehouse. And thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Stephanie and team. Thank you. Now we will take questions from council to Stephanie and her team. Who would like to go first?

I have a question. Just to clarify, the fourth plan does include all of the essential elements that are in the current facilities master plan. Is that correct?

The floor plan of the public safety facility includes all of the program elements that were in the master plan developed. The twist is that we're combining a lobby and we're combining the fitness, and that's how we get it to work. It's all there.

Thank you.

Could you explain a little bit about the legal and technical basis for fourth suggestions that CEQA review could be avoided or significantly streamlined?

I can take that. So there's an exemption for rehabilitation of historic structures in California under CEQA. This project, because it stays within the existing footprint of the building, retains the exterior facade of the building, would qualify, we believe, for that exemption. We have retained SSL Law Firm, which is a CEQA expert law firm, to review the plan, and they've provided a letter to the town on this topic. um so as opposed to the civic center campus plan which again you know rips everything apart right up to the creek bank and we have uh cut steelhead trout in the creek which is a federally threatened species there'll be a ton of mitigation required for that plan our plan leaves all the existing paving and parking alone stays within our existing footprints doesn't create any new impervious surfaces and by virtue of all those factors it qualifies for a sequel exemption

Um, I'm just wondering if you'd use that flood mitigation, if those options have been employed at other fire stations in floodplains.

I used to practice in San Luis Obispo, California, and the entire downtown is in the flood zone. So we've done a lot of, I've done four fire stations in that region. None of the fire stations were actually in the flood zone, but we've done commercial and industrial buildings where you had to have those gates um nearby stored and then you have these details where they can slide the gates in to protect it it is unique to have the existing fire station addition done some years ago that put those apparatus bay 0.9 feet inside the 100-year flood zone we're proposing that we not change that and the mitigation measures in combination with the pre-deployment and keeping the balance everything what dare I say the important stuff out of the water and get the engines up onto the onto the street above from my experience in commercial and I know Bob's done the same with some of his properties The flood mitigation measure at the apparatus bay is mostly to keep the mud out, for lack of better terms, so that it can be back in service as soon as possible. The gates that we showed, that picture there, that's actually quite an interesting system where it's that L shape where the weight of the water is actually holding the water back. And it can be done with very little impact on the existing building. It's really just a system you have ready to put in place if you see it coming.

And I didn't see in your written report that was submitted last week whether or not the project for the fire and paramedic would be an ESA facility. It seems like in your slide deck you're saying that it is. I just want to make sure that it is.

Sure, yeah, that's a great question. So the Essential Service Act is a couple of... You turn me on. The most significant as an architect and working with the structural engineer with the Essential Services Act, it's called the importance factor. It's the lateral stability and resistance of the building. So long story short, when you have an essential service facility, in addition to the redundant communication, the redundant power, systems, you have to have what's called a 1.5 importance factor for the seismic resistance. So it's 50% stronger laterally. Now, that doesn't mean it's earthquake proof. That is possible, but it's not very normal with a fire station. The criteria is, is it readily usable after an event? In other words, do the doors still work? Can the engines get in? Can the engines get out? Maybe some things, you know, get rattled a little bit, but it's ready to be occupied immediately after an event. And that's the Central Service Act, California Title 24.

And the Alton construction bid includes all the seismic upgrades.

Yeah, one of the projects that I did with Bob and his team just finished a couple of years ago was the Belvedere Tiburon library expansion and remodel. And that had not significant, but it had some seismic rehabilitation to that existing library before we added on to it. and then um i didn't do it with alton but we did the seismic rehabilitation for southern marine four that had a portal frame on the outside face because it was so easy to do this one we would put the portal frame which is a moment frame to resist the lateral inside the app base so that you don't see it from the street. But Alton knows that we went over with his team. And he's read the structural reports, which mentioned that same system. So yes, it's covered.

And would it be possible to get the whole Alton construction report that you referred to? That's behind the cocktail napkin?

We can we can get that.

Yeah.

Yes, first of all, thank you very much for the presentation. Appreciate all the work that went into it. Some questions about the Alten. The Alten, what you referred to, Ed, I think is back of the napkin. But with both that presentation and whatever the backup is, what is the contingency, the built-in contingency? I saw design contingency. I assume in case there are variations in the design that has been presented so far to Alton?

Alton does carry, I think it's a 10% contingency. Absolutely.

They do. And do you think that's adequate?

Uh, the, the, the program has been designed and they've looked, walked through the building. They, uh, they have studied what's required on the foundation side. Uh, they worked with, uh, you know, BRW instructional engineers on, on the moment frame, what they need. So yes, I believe at this point that contingency is adequate.

And are there cost escalation? Is Alta making any or has it made any cost escalation assumptions similar to what was in the town's report?

I'll take that one. no because because this project is exempt from sequa and it's the fire department has already moved out we could be ready to be under construction in six months so we don't we don't we and they have the budget we have 12 million bucks we can get going we don't need to worry about cost escalations that's one of the great things about doing it this way

But assuming there were some delays, for example, lawsuits, other complications that are unanticipated but possible, let's say this doesn't get started in six months. It doesn't get started until next year.

Well, I think you can use whatever cost escalations you've used for the $25 million project. I don't think we're claiming any different cost escalator. Everybody's subject to the same pricing. So what?

You're saying that's realistic?

I think you guys are showing in your reports and your consumer reports an 18% cost increase since 2023. Right. So our Alton numbers are current today, so they wouldn't be subject to that 18%. But I think your report then assumes 4% a year after that. I think that's reasonable. And Chris is nodding his head. We're all subject to increases in construction over time. It's one of the reasons why let's do it now.

I think the McGrath report in both cases indicated 5%. So we could all look at an escalation. But the prices are 2026 prices. All right.

So speaking of CEQA, the overall project, the one that concept B embraces, is, of course, not just the public safety building. But it also contemplates movement and reconstruction, essentially, of the public works building and yard, as well as the office administrative offices. then is that something that you think would also be exempt from CEQA, or would that have to go through, in your opinion, the CEQA process?

So I'll take it to start, and maybe Chris and others can add in. We purposely located in Chris's block plan. I forget which slide it was. It was his first overall site plan slide. We purposely located the new public works facility in the same location as the existing public works building, and the planning finance building in the same place where the current planning trailer is, again, to avoid creating new impervious services, because that's certainly one issue, especially in close proximity to Corte Madera Creek with federally threatened species. I think that's harder. I'm not going to say that adding those two new buildings to add the admin space over time in a phase two would be CEQA exempt. That might require CEQA review.

I'm sorry, Bob, I'm not sure I understood you. Are you saying, because it wasn't clear to me from looking at the diagrams, and you and I met a couple of weeks ago, where exactly the existing public works functions would be relocated to, given that we are planning on building nine affordable housing units?

Right. Yeah, keep going. Okay, so here. So on the right, that's the exact same footprint in concept B for the affordable housing units that the town has set aside. Again, your concept B plan does not contemplate any actual construction in that location. You're setting it aside to meet a bag housing requirements. Um, so it's not part of the, uh, civic center master plan per se, in terms of any sequel review, whatever developer you bring in affordable housing developer to build, that's going to have to do whatever secret review they do. Then the purple building next door is our proposed new public works building. It's located in the same location as the existing public works building. And then if you swing to the left above the town hall, that's purposely located in the same footprint as your existing planning building modular facility. Again, by using the same footprint, you're avoiding creating any new impervious surfaces, which helps you avoid having to create any new grading and drainage, avoids creating new flow into the creeks that now under C3 water standards have much more stringent requirements for treatment than when these facilities were originally built. That's where we how we see phase two working to get the town the additional new admin space that they desire.

And is there in these plans, is there some area that could be designated or as designated as a secure area for parking of police vehicles?

You know, it's interesting because that was one of the issues in the concept B that I kind of scratched my head at. I live across the street from the town hall and the public safety facility, as I said. And there's no secured parking for police vehicles currently. I never asked Chief Pata this question, but I'm pretty sure that he would tell you that he could get by without that.

All right. Thank you very much.

I know you may have touched on this, but given that there's insufficient funds now in the town's budget, how will the significant initial capital expense be handled and the ongoing in perpetuity operations expense be funded?

Terry, I'm really sorry, I didn't quite get that question. Could you repeat it?

So given given that there's insufficient funds in this town's budget now, how will how will you be able to afford how can we afford the initial capital costs for doing the renovation, rehab and the ongoing sort of in perpetuity operational expenses? How will they be funded? What are your recommendations?

Yeah. So is that I spoke of in his part of the presentation. Our understanding is that the town has $12 million saved in their capital improvements fund. By the way, great job. You guys deserve a lot of credit for that. That is sufficient to build this $11 million public safety renovation. Regarding operational costs, we're paying $2.7 million to Ross Valley Fire District right now. We will have to renegotiate a new deal with them to reopen our firehouse. We'll see where that goes. We have other options. Central Marine Fire Department could be another agency that we could join, Marine Fire Department, potentially Kent Field. In any case, we already have a large budget that we're paying ongoing operating costs, $2.7 million, even if we increase it to what Central Marine pays for each of their firehouses, $3.2 million. That's still something that Ross can afford, and I think Ross taxpayers would support. I certainly would.

And I would just add that the two issues are separable. I mean, you can rehabilitate the building and then work on trying to bring the firemen back, which is it's a body of work and the building won't be ready right away. But they are they aren't. You don't have to conflate the two issues. We can rehabilitate the building and have the option of bringing the firefighters back.

Yeah. And I would further that. And I mentioned this to Bill. We met a few weeks ago and reviewed this plan together. One option is to leave the fire department portion of this plan in an open state condition while we try to negotiate a new agreement to bring our firemen back. And if we're unsuccessful, Turn it into public workspaces. There's more than 2,500 square feet of space there. We could house our public works department in there. And by the way, concept B plan has, by the time you add in all the overhead and including their allocation for site costs, that's $4 million for 2,500 square feet that we've got allocated for public works. So we could house the public works department in the fire department space if we were unsuccessful negotiating an acceptable ongoing operating agreement for the firehouse.

The town, as you mentioned, has saved $12 million over the past decade or so, and that's really good stewardship, but then more revenue is coming in than we've needed to pay out. So if that continues, I know you don't know the town's budget, but does that mean that perhaps the town will continue to have a surplus each year of close to $1 million, and might that be used if we need more money to help staff a fire engine in the future? Sure.

Um, Elizabeth, you know, the town's budget a lot better than we do. I think, um, again, great job that you guys are running a $1 million surplus. That's kudos to you. Um, that's, that's good stewardship and management of our taxpayer dollars. And so absolutely. If we need to, let's use it to make ourselves more safe and bring our firefighters back.

And I would say that there's a lot of options and we haven't spent undue time and resources coming up with a definitive answer because, quite frankly, we can't negotiate these agreements with people. But I think there's a lot of optionality and there's a lot of obvious interest from the community to have our fire station back. So I think people working together and there are a lot of interesting conversations creative financial minds in this town that probably could figure out how to fund our firehouse and operate our firehouse going forward.

I just have a couple more questions. Oh, I'm sorry, Matt. Go ahead.

So first of all, I think that if we could give awards for citizens of the year or decade, it would go to this group.

Bye.

I have sat up here and had to hear that this group was a bunch of small amateurs, that this group had hired random people from Colorado to do analysis. I have heard belittling of this group. And I just want to say thank you as a resident, not as a council member, but as a father of two small children that you've come together to save this town from itself. Thank you. you I think the quality of this material and this team you've assembled is far better than I have seen the entire time I've been on this council. This is just a first rate presentation, first rate consultants, first rate advice. And I only wish that we had listened to this group back in 2020. And I'm just so glad that you've come forward and thank you. Just in terms of questions, if you could just turn to the slide 13. I want to understand from your safety consultants at Jensen Hughes. We had our fire chief come before us in December with these new revised numbers. So what I'd like to know from Jensen Hughes is, we were told from CityGate in their report, 7 minutes 30 is the right time is best practice. NFPA, it looks like, says 8 minutes. What how you know, I think what I got a lot of questions about is what does this mean now that the times are 11 minutes and 14 minutes? What does that mean? Like when you were a fire chief, would you be proud of these numbers? Is this like how how how do you sort of calibrate where we should be as a community? Now, I know you say it's risk is dependent on what the community wants, but you were a fire chief. What were the times in your community? I mean, nobody's going to ever hit the perfect best practice. How should we think about these times in relation to when you were a fire chief or what NFPA based on consensus believes?

That's a great question. Excuse me, council member. That's. There is an established best practice. That's what the NFPA standard indicates, is that eight-minute response time. And what these longer response times amount to is what I alluded to earlier. The fire doubles in size and intensity every five minutes. So if we're going from a five-minute response time to a 10-minute to a 15-minute, that fire has reached a much more advanced stage. It's spread throughout a building. further compromised occupants of the building to the degree that they probably will not survive that event and that minimizes the chance that search and rescue can make that immediate intervention of removing them from that smoke filled environment or that fire extinguishment efforts can occur. Same goes for someone in cardiac arrest. that you start to get into the realm in that four to six minute window where biological death is occurring. So those interventions are not being made. The chances of cardiac resuscitation efforts working are very low. And we don't always have to take it to the extreme of a cardiac arrest. It might be somebody that's having a heart attack. It might be someone that's having a stroke. That time is tissue. that either they will not survive that event or they will suffer permanent debilitating injuries that will change their lives and the lives of their loved ones. And that's why that standard exists. You are correct. I did say earlier it's about a community's risk tolerance, that in the agencies I've worked for throughout my career, the agencies that I've led, that my community would not tolerate response times at this level. And I very deliberately worked for those communities for that reason. So for my personal experience, my personal beliefs and my professional experience and professional beliefs that I was not willing to work for an organization, willing to work in a community that did not have a higher level of protection through that more rapid response time and through that coverage that we talked about and that the NFPA 1710 discusses.

Okay. And then one follow-up question to that is we've been hearing a lot about, oh, Marin County might be moving towards this different dispatch model. And the dispatch model we've been told about is the closest fire engine would come to whatever incident is being called. So 911, then they would use a new system. Clearly, the system's not up and running yet because these numbers are terrible. But, you know, I think that I heard or you talked about you've seen that system done elsewhere. And I'm just curious what you could see as a benefit potentially from that or a consideration for the community.

Yeah, correct. So the system you're talking about is known as AVL dispatching or closest units dispatching. The AVL standing for automatic vehicle location. Much like Uber utilizes that same technology. An incident comes in, the computer in the dispatch center matches the closest available unit to that incident. All indications are from our interviews that that will likely take place in Q1 of this year. That What has to be understood around that, though, is there's parameters within that dispatching system. So it is not going to be implemented for every call. It's only going to be implemented for the highest level of calls, which would be a confirmed structure fire or person in cardiac arrest. That that is not being implemented. Our understanding from interviewing the local fire chiefs that the first attempt at putting this online and putting that AVL dispatching system in place is going to be just for those highest level acuity of calls.

Thank you.

I just want to clarify a few things with regard to response times. I believe that when you were initially discussing response times, you mentioned that with regard to the fire engine response, it was 10 minutes and 56 seconds. And that's consistent with what we heard in a presentation last month. But I believe you also said that for ambulance, it was 9 minutes and 52 seconds. But this slide that we're looking at now shows the 1056, but it shows 1402, which is correct. And perhaps my recollection isn't correct, but I'd just like to clear this up.

I can answer that. Those come straight from Chief Mahoney's report to the town council roughly two weeks ago on the response time since the closure of the Ross Firehouse. So the 1402 is the paramedic ambulance response time to Ross since we closed the firehouse.

And is it a further question? It's true, isn't it, that those figures are based on a four-month period, namely July 1st through October 31st? Right.

From watching Chief Mahoney's presentation, that's my understanding of how he calculated those numbers was that they were from July 1st to October 31st.

Would you agree with the characterization or the statement that A report based on a relatively small number of incidents over a very short period of time for general purposes is not statistically significant because you can expect variation over the period of a year or longer.

Yeah, absolutely. Great question. And I alluded to this a little earlier about talking about changing variables. that if we talk in the grander, broader world of probability and statistics, normally you do desire a larger data set. But as I indicated, if you don't change the variables, the data set will not change. The location of Fire Station 19 is not going to change. At this point, Station 18 will not be staffed. So you're going to keep seeing these same outcomes. Depending on the call volume and growth over time that the San Anselmo or the other response areas may develop, it may get worse. Because if the station 19 gets busier, now you have to have the next station come. But I would have no expectation that over time these numbers would improve. that you're not going to buy a faster fire truck, unless you're going to move station 19 closer to the town of Ross, the variables are independent. So the outcomes will not change.

And I would also point out that city gates 2019 report to the town predicted a minimum two minute increase in fire response times were you to close the Ross firehouse. So unfortunately, their prediction has come to pass in spades.

With respect to your statements about cardiac arrest and, well, let's take cardiac arrest. Isn't the eight-minute standard irrelevant for cardiac arrest? Doesn't somebody have to do something within about two minutes?

That's a great question, and you do bring up an excellent point. The faster that we can begin compressions on a person in cardiac arrest, the more likely they'll be resuscitated. It is a diminishing scale or diminishing return the longer that interventions are not made. So you are correct, sir, that in those first one to two minutes, we want somebody doing bystander CPR. But that's a basic life support intervention that we need to start making advanced life support interventions from trained rescuers. So it's what's called a chain of survival. So we need the bystander to do their part, but we need that trained rescuer to get there to offer those advanced life support solutions as well. to increase that patient survivability. So it has to work in tandem. So I wouldn't say that that number is irrelevant. It's getting the whole team assembled in that given amount of time, if that makes sense.

All right, thank you.

Can I just ask one follow up on the fire stuff? Just one last thing. You know, you talked about speed, which matters, but also I'm curious about the the strength of force or I forget the actual word of the number of firemen that can show up. Can you talk about the loss of the station as is affecting the force, the size of the force?

NFPA 1710 speaks to an effective response force. So that's, again, not only being there fast, but being there with trained, equipped people to do the tasks. And like I said, there's been many, many, many pages of documented research that has been done to it. qualify and quantify those tasks that need to occur and in what time frame and how many people it takes to to complete that task so for a single family dwelling a house fire you want an effective response force there of 17 firefighters so right now the ross valley fire department has an effective response force of nine firefighters that are coming from that department if you were to add another station back in and now had 12 you would have more apparatus and personnel getting there in that shorter amount of timeframe with the balance being made up of those other five firefighters being made up from a mutual aid agency. Right now you're dependent when you only have nine show up that you're dependent on a mutual aid agency to bring the other eight, you know, so it's extending that period of time that you're getting that effective response force on scene.

Any other questions? I'm just wondering where you're putting the, back to really basic layout stuff, where you're putting the Public Works corporate yard on your map? I didn't see that.

yeah we put the public works box pretty close to where it was in the master plan we really didn't dig into how, I don't think we even, you know, the details of how Public Works does what they do. I mean, I know they store a bunch of stuff off in the right hand now.

That's- Right, the corporation. We just followed the town master plan block. locations and you know we we believe that we in the town could could find you know probably at the rear a corporation yard that works again we didn't create the block and sizing we followed the town master plan

Yeah, the town master plan has the public works shifted much more internally, and there's an associated public works yard attached to the public works building that's closer to the internal area. I'm just wondering about the, on your diagram, you have only a left-hand turn, Officer Francis Drake, into the driveway. What happens when a fire truck is coming from San Anselmo? Can they make that turn into the driveway, that right-hand turn?

Yeah, that would be designed so that they could make that right-hand turn. Again, a Type 1. The app bay is not built for a tiller or an aerial truck, but a Type 1 or paramedic. The general rule, and again, local or NFPA, 40-foot inside radius, 14-foot clear, 60,000 pounds. That's the criteria we look at when we do our turn templates and what we've shown.

And then another little technical question. It looks like you have, I don't know, 15 parking spots on the map. I think we currently have about 25 or 30. And the facilities master plan has about 40. It seems like all the parking spots are going to be occupied by staff or paramedics or firefighters or etc. I'm just wondering if you feel like the number of parking spots would be adequate given the number of functions that would be happening on the site.

From a design standpoint, and I could get, if anybody else wants to join in, we just took an absolutely lightest touch possible, minimum impact to the site. We really just, we took the topo file from the town and kept all of the parking that was there. Because all of our work is inside the footprint of the existing building. So whatever parking is there, our plan isn't changing it. Everything is in the same footprint. What's there now would stay. That makes sense to you guys? Yeah. Yeah. It really didn't add parking.

It's all there. Our efforts to save the fire station was to rehabilitate the fire station. The secondary task was, you know, can we develop the town campus, which would include, I think, more site review and parking and circulation.

Is the sleeping adequate for the number of fire and paramedics? And would it account for men and women who are paramedics and fire people?

Yes. With the exception of a couple of agencies that I've worked for in the past, the current standard is, well, now it's much more common to have individual restrooms, gender-neutral restrooms like your house. Men, women, singles. Those are accessible on the second floor. Not the entire upper floor is accessible. We've got those steps, but we have a gender-neutral ADA restroom accessible from the elevator on the second floor. We have a single sleeping room there on the second floor, again, fully accessible. That covers the life facilitation requirements of the ADA. A few steps up towards the back would be could be individual bedrooms. It could be two people per room with a divider wall. Those details, the space is there. We're confident that we can work with representatives of the fire department to come up with their particular style of how they do it. Once I start assuming that They want the lockers here. Some want the lockers in the bedroom. Some want individual lockers. Everybody's a little bit different, and that would be, as Ed was talking about, the next step in moving forward and fine-tuning that. We've got the growth space allocated. I'm confident we can make it work.

Okay, because it would be more than just firefighters. It would also be paramedics. Paramedics, yeah, all five.

Okay. I wanted to make it clear you develop this plan without any help from the town is that correct.

We just we well we we walked the police side with the chief her little bit there and then just went off of the numbers that were in the master plan. And then my experience in what it takes to do a 5 person.

Yeah, no, I just say that because I think a lot of these questions are being asked of you that, you know, normally if we were developing a project, you would have dialogue and you would have a town that's willing to work with you and give you answers and information so you could develop a better plan. And so my hope is that this council votes that way so that the town staff and your professionals can actually work together to answer these questions and develop a plan that works for the people that are going to live and work in these buildings. But I think to ask these questions of you seems terribly unfair because you've had to work in isolation and had very little help or discussions with the town staff. So I hope that the future you will work in concert together and be able to answer these questions and come up with a plan that works for everybody, because I think you've laid the broad strokes that makes it very clear we can do this.

And Matt, we kind of ran out of time on our 50 minutes there. We wanted to end with our offer to the town, which is to form a working group of real estate professionals. Myself and Ed are willing to be on that working group as volunteers. Jeff Koblach and his partner, Rich Hall from Magnum Real Estate, are willing to be on that committee as well.

and work together with uh town council and town staff uh i'm moving this plan forward as quickly as possible thank you for that offer um i think the next i think are there any more questions um thank you very much for being here we really appreciate it it was very informative and really well done um Let's see. Next is the town staff and consultants provide a 50-minute presentation on the elections code section 9212 report.

Mayor, can we have a break?

Yes, we'll take a five-minute break. Can everyone take their seats, please? I'd like to get started. Can everyone please take their seats? We want to get started. Hello. Can you please take your seats? Thank you. Okay. We're going to get started and resume. We're going to get started with the meeting. Please take your seats. Thank you. Okay, now we are having the town staff and consultants provide a 50 minute presentation on the elections code section 9212 report. And this will be followed by 15 minutes of questions from the initiative proponent and associated initiative advocates, followed by questions from council. Krista Johnson, I'm turning over to Krista Johnson, town manager.

Good evening, mayor and council members. I want to thank the fourth group for their presentation to the town council this evening. Next up, the item before you this evening for action is a recommendation to adopt resolution number 2544 receiving the elections code section 9212 report. The election code report was prepared by the following team. RSG is a community development consulting firm. They served as the lead analyst and the project manager. This evening, Suzy Kim is here this evening and she will be following me and giving the rest of the presentation. We also had City Gate Associates, which is the technical lead for fire staffing and operation modeling. And with us this evening is Stu Gary from City Gate Associates sitting next to Susie. We also have architect Mary McGrath. She is participating on Zoom this evening. She was our planning and design firm and gave us an estimated costs related to building a new fire station. We also have the KPA Group, which is a structural and architectural design firm provided a facility analysis and cost assumptions. KPA Group also prepared the facilities master plan that the town council adopted in 2023. Paul Powers and Matt Evans from the KPA Group are here this evening. They're sitting in the first row behind me. In addition to our consultants, senior town staff, we're also an important part of this team. We have David Kelly, who is our project manager at the end of the table. We have our public works director, Richard Simonich, planning and building director, Roberta Feliciano, our police chief, Pata, fire chief Mahoney. And of course, our town attorney, Ben Stock, was also part of a part of our team. So thank you. Next slide. So real quickly, background. In March of 2021, the council directed the closure of the Ross Fire Station, effective last July. In June, Friends of the Ross Firehouse, which we call FORF, submitted a petition for a ballot initiative requiring the town to maintain an operational fire station within Ross. Just this past October, the town council adopted Resolution 2542, ordering the preparation of a report pursuant to California Elections Code 9212. That is what is before you this evening. About the station closure, just wanted to say a few things. The decision to close the fire station was based on numerous considerations. Public safety personnel considered the station functionally and structurally obsolete. with significant structural deficiencies and other issues, including noncompliance with the Essential Services Act. Property assessments, multiple property assessments, concluded that rehabilitating the station was infeasible due to seismic, spatial, regulatory, operational, and site constraints. It was also determined that rehabilitation would be cost prohibitive and would cost more than new construction. Studies also determined that an engine was no longer critically needed in Ross due to the adjacent fire stations and our membership in the Ross Valley Fire Department. A few pictures, we'll go through them real quickly. This is a station that has undergone significant flooding throughout the century it has been in existence. This is a photograph from 2005. Next slide, please. And these are recent photographs, damage due to water intrusion. Next slide. We have to use plastic sheeting whenever there is any chance of rain to protect all of our information technology servers and the main electrical equipment. Significant exterior deterioration, cracking on interior wall, rot in the wood ceiling, and deterioration of flashing and sealants, cracked roof tiles. I think that was the last one. And I'm going to be handing it over to Ms. Kim.

Good evening. My name is Suzy Kim. I'm a director with RSG. We are a community development consulting firm that was founded in 1979. I personally have been with the firm for 20 years and have worked with over 90 jurisdictions throughout California on matters regarding fiscal health as well as community development. So thank you for having me tonight. So as previously mentioned, FORF submitted a petition for a ballot initiative in June of 2025. If approved by the voters, the initiative would require the town to maintain an operational fire station within Ross at 2024 staffing levels. So 2024 staffing levels means at least one active fire engine, one reserve engine, and at least two active firefighters. The initiative declares a priority to rehabilitate or reconstruct the station, and it identifies factors to consider in determining whether it's practical to utilize the existing structure. So this includes costs, the time necessary to complete rehabilitation, and whether the existing structure is physically capable of being rehabilitated to comply with current public safety facility requirements.

Next slide, please.

So Ross hired this consultant team to prepare a California Elections Code section 9212 report. The intent of the law is to help town staff, leadership, and the public better understand the impacts of the initiative to the town. Percent to the elections code, the report considers several impacts, which are shown here. So fiscal impacts, the impact on the internal consistency with town plans and policies, including the general plans, specific plans, and the housing element. Impact on the use of land, including the availability and location of housing, and the ability of the town to meet its state mandated regional housing needs. impact on funding for infrastructure of all types, impact on the community's ability to attract and retain businesses and employment, and impact on developed areas designated for revitalization. According to the law, the report is due no later than 30 days after the elections official certifies the sufficiency of the petition to town council. However, the town and fourth have negotiated an agreement to allow sufficient time to prepare this report. Next slide, please. So these are the major findings from the report that has been prepared, and we'll present more information about each of these points tonight. But the main findings are that the initiative would require the construction of a new fire station since rehabilitation of the existing structure is infeasible. It would necessitate the relocation of an existing public use to accommodate a new fire station at the Civic Center. It would cost the town between 25.6 and 35.7 million in one-time expenses, and we will explain that this does include more than just construction costs. It would cost the town between 3.4 and 5 million in additional annual operating expenses starting in year one and escalating in the future. and it would generate additional interest costs if debt is incurred to fund construction. And I'll pass it to Stu Gary with CityGate.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the Town Council. Pleasure to be with you yet again, and members of the audience in the community. I wish a lot more of my clients would have this level of public engagement over fire and safety services. Stuart Gary, Public Safety Principal for CityGate Associates. The legalities of this report, I want to make clear at the beginning, are within the confines of an election report. It is not a Fire Services Master Plan and is not a wide-ranging choice of options of everything under the sun. Next slide, please, or excuse me, first slide. We looked at two operational feasible staffing models. Number one, The least expensive staffing model was to restore a level of staffing through the Ross Valley Fire Department at three-person engine company because that is now the standard in the Ross Valley Fire Department. We also looked then at divorce from the Ross Valley Fire Department as an option and an independent one-station fire department with the requisite command and overhead and support functions to operate a one-station independent fire department. The models, as I just said, assumed staffing with three firefighters. We also assumed, in addition to the RVPA ambulance that you've recently negotiated to maintain in the town with the RVPA, that the space would be needed for fire apparatus, crew, and if you went a separate department space for headquarters team offices and vehicles. We then looked at detailed expenses. We based on the personnel expenses and operating expenses I'm about to go into. We received line item budget detail from RVPA. That is your provider today. We didn't have to use aggregated averages or benefit rules of the thumb. These are hard numbers. City Gates finance team and myself vetted and peer reviewed your RVPA operating costs at literally 100 line items of detail. So what follows is based on both adding personnel under the RVPA umbrella or adding enough personnel to operate a separate fire department. Next slide, please. Option number one, the staffing is the most straightforward approach, as I just said. The benefit to that is also no new employers or headquarters staffing costs. You don't need an independent command training oversight team. You don't have city hall personnel finance legal overhead expenses to run a payroll and operate a safety service. Much deeper bench strength for staffing to maintain daily minimum staffing with vacation, sick leave, injury leave, etc. Want to remind the audience in option one that that single engine crew still needs multi-unit support and backup. Has to be part of something larger to maintain that effective total weight of attack is the term when you need multiple people quickly to handle a very serious incident. And multiple people means more than one unit. Option two, the independent fire department is costlier. Well, I just said you need an independent overhead team. The costs I'm about to present do not include any additional city hall burden in terms of general management oversight. We've kept it strictly to fire service costing. You'd have a slightly longer startup time to hire the full staff independently, including overhead command. I've mentioned headquarters personnel for management training, fire prevention, quality assurance, oversight. You would have to replace, repurchase reserve apparatus and staff vehicles in addition to a frontline engine. and you would not necessarily have no-cost, no-cost multi-unit support from others. Within the confines of this report, we can't, on your behalf, nor could all of you in this setting, go renegotiate a different deal for multi-unit support with your current fire services provider. So we had to take the straight add more personnel approach within your current fire provider or create a separate fire department, and what would that cost? We also not believe contracting with another fire district is highly unlikely given the LAFCO statutes. So in the mid-teens, after the city of San Bernardino bankruptcy, California placed into the LAFCO statutes the law that any separation of fire services that affects employment, change of ownership of a fire department, the final say is LAFCO, not the local city council, not the board of supervisors. It's LAFCO. So you have two feasible pathways. Re-employ personnel within your current fire department or separate yourselves from the fire department and create an independent department. Yes, you might contract with others. Contracting with others means divorcing from RV fire could fiscally destabilize them. That's exactly why the LAFCO law was designed, to prevent fiscal destabilization. So LAFCO would decide if it would allow you to contract to another entity at the cost expense of destabilizing the other entity. It's complicated. And there isn't a person in the state, because these are so rare, that could guarantee you an outcome, good or negative, from LAFCO. We're just laying out the facts. The law requires LAFCO review if you separate and try to contract with another. Next slide, please. So for adding firefighters within your current department, we require 10 personnel. That's three per shift, total of nine, with one float. Let's give PowerPoint a minute here. You know what's not showing is the graphic.

Is it?

I'll defer to the chair for a moment. The PowerPoint is, for this moment, not showing a table of costs. If you'd like to take a brief recess and allow us to reload and fix the file, we can. Or I can just read the main numbers off to you. They're numbers out of the published report. They're not different numbers. So I'm happy to summarize verbally if it's the pleasure of the chair.

We'll just wait for you to get it fixed. It shouldn't take very long.

Do you want to clear on Zoom? And we're back. And we can blame Adobe PDF for not wanting to display a cost table. But Microsoft and PowerPoint is going to do its job hopefully just fine. So we'll go back to full screen presenter mode and accelerate to the slides. Okay, next. Thank you. Hold here. Little fuzzy as it projects, but let's go through the cost categories for re-employing personnel through the existing fire department. And we have salaries and benefits, salaries and benefits for line staff, fire management command staff, other compensation, that special compensation, long story short, besides just base salary. Maintenance and operating tool equipment, supplies, et cetera, fuel, oil, tires. equaling total operating costs for 10 new employees within the RVPA with their shared overhead charges for chief incident command staff, $3.4 million a year. Your startup costs in year one would be for apparatus 1.5 million. That's basically the new fire engine. Today's obscene market costs. And yes, I said the word obscene post COVID. It is what it is. Startup costs in terms of personnel, 562,000 rounded off. That's a protective equipment, hiring, training, just startup soft costs for personnel. So your total startup cost in year one would be 2.5. That means your cash outlay in year one is in a cash sense is 5.5 million. We have to assume pending some negotiation with the JPA that the JPA could say, possibly, Well, you're paying for the multi-engine support already. You paid for us to extend the umbrella. It's a local choice issue for you to staff above what we're staffing. Therefore, the entire burden's on you. If that path were to be successful, then you'd pay 5.4. Excuse me, I'm going to back up. You're going to pay 3.4 in new personnel expenses and pay the 2.6-ish to the JPA for a total payment to the JPA. Your fire service costs thus in year one without the one-time startup cost would be $6.1 million. Next slide, please. So if you were to separate the department, you need 16 personnel, roughly the same number of line personnel, fire chief, three battalion chiefs for 24-7 incident command. You need 24-7 qualified certified incident command under the OSHA and safety laws, the state of California and the federal government. and you need the fire chief, et cetera, and a fire prevention officer. So again, line staff salaries a little higher, $2.1 million, salaries and benefits, other compensation. Almost the same maintenance and operating numbers, slightly higher. Operating costs, year one, $5 million and change. Slightly higher apparatus startup cost due to buying a couple of command chiefs vehicles. Total startup cost 2.3. So your cash outflow in year one is 7.3 plus an existing JPA payment. If you take just the annual operating cost in year one plus the JPA payment, you're now at 7.7 million annual operating cost year one. Next slide, please. City Gates finance team, we also then prepared a slide just to make it easy for the reader in the 2912 report. You say, well, what's the actual dollar difference between the columns? Save me flipping back and forth. This is just the delta between the shared services model and the independent single station fire department model. Again, startup costs, et cetera. And there's a delta there that with operations and startup costs in year one, the independent option is slightly more expensive by $1.7 million. So there's a difference. I'm not going to label it as catastrophic or benign. There just is a difference because you're operating an independent agency. Next, please. So then city gate finance team and myself took both option costs, And over 10 years, made you some 10-year rollout numbers, which we feel are in compliance with the 2912 report. It's not year one, but what's the hit over time? To the town's budget and the town's choices on what it wants to spend its money on, which is why I believe, at least professionally, the 2912 report was designed, is to lay out all of the facts for an informed policy debate and choice. Option one, so over 10 years, staying with today's status quo payment, not restoring the staffing, assuming a 4% discount rate year over year, by year 10, your payment today accelerates to $32 million and change. Option one, adding staffing in 10 years, increases that to $43 million and change. Given the town payment to Ross Valley today at 2.6, your total year one payment was 8.26, and that rises. And then the most expensive option by year 10, if you believe the 4% run out number, is 62.8 million. So you'd have to project your entire general fund expenses and revenues to year 10 and say, when we end up, what's everything cost us? I'm not saying fire is the only thing. Why the 4% discount rate is actually conservative, especially prior to COVID, it's now actually a little worse. CityGate's experience and fire service costing model Basically, since before the year 2000, historically, fire, at least in the state of California and the western states, fire inflates at twice the rate of inflation. I didn't stutter. Twice the rate of inflation is typically the cost increase for cost of equipment, wages, and benefits. It's worse since COVID on the apparatus and construction side. It's also worse because of the rising healthcare crisis in America and what you as employers are paying for health insurance and pension costs. It's just gotten to be extremely cost prohibitive to add line personnel staff. Next, please. And we're on capital. Thank you.

Yes, and from here, we have Mary McGrath from Mary McGrath Architects joining us on Zoom to present these slides.

Hi, good evening. We've had the opportunity to review and work with CityGate on identifying space needs that would need to provide a fire station that complies with his staffing model. So we've developed space needs outlines for both service options. A new fire station with personnel, five personnel, and a fire engine and then the ambulance and then the service option two which is a headquarters type fire station with a fire chief and fire prevention and battalion chiefs next slide please so under the service option one it's a two company station we have the fire engine with three per shift we have the ambulance with two per shift and then a uh six person at trainee space that is a standard practice in the development of a fire station. So there's six on duty at any one time, and then the assigned personnel would be 18. So essentially you're designing a fire station to house 18 people only for storage reasons. So we can go to the next slide. So we did a one-story station for a two company with all of the standard spaces needed in a fire station. And the square footage requirement for that is 7,602 square feet. Two apparatus bays, offices, living quarters, and the utility and circulation support required. Next slide, please. The second service option two involves providing administrative staff, fire chief, battalion chief, a fire marshal and administrative support. The living quarters grow by one person as the battalion chief spends the night in the fire station. So there's seven on duty personnel that the station is sized for with 21 are required for storage. Next slide, please. So the command staff would include a fire chief, again, battalion chief, fire marshal, and administrative staff. The total square footage, and we've done this as a two-story station, so the added vertical circulation is 10,145 square feet. And we've developed cost models for each of these options. And the cost models are very comprehensive in that you have construction cost per square foot numbers, you have design contingencies, you have escalation, you have 10% construction contingencies. So they take the basic cost per square foot and plan for contingencies. Same with design and related fees, and same with administrative permit and bidding costs. This is all of the costs to build a new fire station. Next, this is the service option two. Obviously, it's higher, it's a bigger station, and it's at $28 million total cost. Next slide. Our firm was involved in 2020 in looking at the existing facility, and we still believe it's not cost effective to renovate this facility and meet the programmatic needs cost effectively of both the police and the fire station. There's a lot of work that would be spent rewiring, mitigating mold. seismic upgrades without getting the functional and operational needs met of both departments. The flood zone adds a whole level of management and cost and long-term maintenance to the operation of the fire station. If you have an opportunity to build out of the flood zone, which is easily done on this site, I think that that would be advisable. Next slide. This is difficult to read, but I wanted to show you that the costs per square foot that are historic, that these are costs for built projects developed from bidding numbers. for projects starting back in Menlo Park Station in 2016, all the way up through stations that were built in 23. And then if you go to the next slide, these are stations that were done that are in the planning stages. And I have one highlighted. This is for the Marin County San Jeronimo Station, which is out to design and construction design right now and RFP, and they are budgeting $1,309 per square foot just for the building. So you can see in the column on the far right, these are design budgets for fire stations that are backed up by the historic data on the previous slide. And just as an aside, on the previous slide, many of these fire stations were built by Alton Construction, San Rafael 5257, San Francisco Fire Station. So I think there's some, these are the real construction costs for those projects. We can go forward. Okay, I think I'm gonna turn it over to KPA.

Thank you, Mary. I'll present this slide. So if the station remains, it would conflict with the facility's master plan. Concept B lacks sufficient area for a compliant fire station, as Mary just outlined. So that means one of the planned uses, which would include police, public works, or the administrative building, which includes planning, would need to be relocated. The site has environmental limitations. So the creek setback restricts buildable area and construction access, and existing drainage utilities and topography limit feasible reconfiguration options. Also, there are operational and site planning impacts. Fire apparatus access and emergency circulation require redesign, and police, public works, or administration may require off-site relocation, as previously mentioned. So we looked at potential relocation costs to move police public works or administrative services off site if the fire station were to remain. Relocation costs range from $894,000 to $6 million. The housing that's planned for the site cannot be moved because the state requires the town's housing element to provide nine housing units on a town-owned site. The only other alternative for a town-owned site is the post office, which is not practical to replace with housing. Gross relocation costs are estimated at $2.8 million to $9.1 million, depending on the use that's moved off-site. This includes estimated land acquisition and construction costs. Land acquisition costs are estimated based on recent commercial transactions within a two-mile radius of the town. They range from $894,000 to $6 million based on the square footage needs of each use, which are detailed here. Construction costs are estimated to range from 1.9 million to 4.4 million for these uses. However, the net relocation cost is limited to land acquisition since these uses would be constructed regardless. I'd also like to note that there is a lack of available vacant land in the town to relocate one of these uses offsite. There are currently no vacant parcels of land available for sale in the town. And if that continues to be the case, then the town may need to negotiate with land owners in the future to purchase property that is not listed for sale. And this could lead to additional costs that are not contemplated here. because state law requires relocation benefits to be paid if it requires a building to relocate existing tenants under certain conditions. Next slide, please. So to summarize total costs, which were presented earlier, passage of the initiative could result in total one-time costs ranging from 25.6 to 37.5 million. This slide presents a low and high range considering the two scenarios that CityGate covered earlier. So as a reminder, the low scenario assumes contracting with Ross Valley Fire Department, and the high scenario assumes establishing an independent fire department. So station construction costs would range from 21.7 million to 28.3 million with these two scenarios as Mary detailed earlier. And startup costs to acquire a fire engine related equipment and hiring additional personnel range from 2.2 to 2.3 million as detailed by CityGate. And the town would also incur additional financing costs that are not reflected here. For example, if the town issues bonds to finance construction of the fire station, it would incur additional interest payments and bond cost of issuance. So KPA has estimated costs to update the facilities master plan to include the station and relocate another plan to use. Both scenarios would cost the same at approximately $38,000. And as I just reviewed relocation, to relocate either police, public works or administrative services to another site would range from approximately $894,000 to $6 million. And then lastly, the town would also incur additional staff time and costs associated to oversee efforts to constructing a new fire station and relocating an existing use offsite. This includes overseeing property acquisition in order to relocate an existing use, facility construction, updating the facilities master plan, as well as renegotiating the Ross Valley Fire Department JPA agreement. The higher range here reflects also amending the housing element where housing to be moved off site. However, that is unlikely. Next slide, please. So passage of the initiative would result in annual operating costs ranging from 3.4 million to 5 million starting in year one, which CityGate detailed earlier. And then the total costs over 10 years would range from 43.3 million to 62.8 million. And then these costs would continue to escalate each year. The initiative would remain consistent with the general plan. However, it would conflict with the facilities master plan. Regarding the general plan, a fire station at the Civic Center aligns with the designated land use and zoning. And then the housing element requires building nine housing units at the Civic Center, which remains possible as long as a different use plan for the facilities master plan is relocated offsite. However, the initiative is inconsistent with the facilities master plan because the Civic Center cannot accommodate a fire station without relocating either police, public works, or administration services to an alternate location. So this would require significant revisions to the facilities master plan. Additionally, a fire station could reduce available land for parking or complicate street light realignment efforts as currently planned. And if a vacant site is used to accommodate one of the relocated uses that could reduce available land for housing elsewhere in the city. Currently, all of the vacant parcels within Ross are zoned for housing. Yeah, passage of the initiative would require the town to issue debt to fund construction. And this would impose additional interest costs. It will also require an increase to the public safety tax to fund ongoing operating costs. A third option is to approve budget transfers from either the operating fund, emergency fund, or facilities and equipment fund to raise revenue. While this is possible, these transfers would be insufficient. The town currently holds 5.1 million in operating fund reserves and 1.5 million in its emergency fund. So even if the town committed both of these funds entirely to the station, that would fund less than a quarter of the station's total construction costs. Currently, the town imposes a public safety tax to fund fire and police services. And the program imposes an annual levy of approximately $1,200 per parcel. And that raises approximately $1 million per year. So the town could seek to increase the levy in order to offset the costs with operating fire station. And the estimated increase necessary would be $5,400 under option one and approximately $7,200 under option two per year. So this could exceed taxpayers' willingness to pay based on the steep increase. So given the scale of the project, the town would be required to issue a form of public debt to finance station construction. Options would include certificates of participation, a general obligation bond, or a community facilities district through a Mellow Roos bond. Certificates of participation are a type of bond that may be issued without an election. It would place long-term repayment obligations on the town's general fund, and it would require designated municipal facilities as collateral. General obligation bonds and the LaRue's bonds impose special taxes, and they require two-thirds voter approval. At the local level, general obligation bonds levy a property tax on all taxable parcels that fund public facilities with long, useful lives, which include fire stations. And the Mello-Rusak authorizes local governments to form community facilities districts, which levy a special tax on properties within a specific geography to fund public improvements. A local government can use CFD revenues to issue bonds or cover costs on a pay-as-you-go basis. Next slide, please. There are some risks and unknowns associated with this analysis. So costs are volatile and could escalate by the time construction of a new station were to commence. And as previously mentioned, financing would add additional costs for interest and cost of issuance. um and lastly the town's departure from the ross valley fire department jpa or restructuring would require negotiation and approval by member agencies so that is a factor that has some unknowns that the town cannot control for and now i'll turn it over to krista thank you

Thank you, Susie. And so just again, a reminder that the item before you tonight, the action that we are requesting is that town council consider adoption of resolution 2544 receiving the elections code 9212 report. Thank you for the opportunity to provide this presentation and thank you to the team.

Thank you very much. Next is the four representatives get 15 minutes to ask the town and its consultants any questions.

Hello. I'll start. Mary, thank you for your report. Are you familiar with BRW Architects and Alten Construction? Where is Mary? Oh, she's on Zoom.

I'm here. Yeah, I'm remote here. Actually, full disclosure, Chris and I worked together for 10 years and both cut our teeth. Hi, Chris. in Fire Station Design together, working for RRM Design Group starting in the 90s. So I'm very familiar with BRW and their work and tremendous amount of respect for Chris. And Bob and I, we are companies just completed a couple years ago three new two new fire stations and a public safety facility for the city of San Rafael so I'm very familiar with all the construction as well great so you you consider them to be well qualified in public safety facility design and construction then yeah

Great.

That doesn't mean I agree with their proposal, but yes.

I didn't ask you that question. Well, it's not... You mentioned that you determined that renovation was infeasible. You mentioned there were rewiring issues, mold issues, and seismic issues. Were there other issues?

Well, in reviewing the FARC, you want me to go through their plan? I can. You're going to spend $11 million and not meet basic fire programmatic issues and police programmatic issues.

But didn't Chris just testify earlier tonight that he can meet all ESA, ADA, seismic circulation, all modern codes for a public safety facility?

He said that, but I think I respectfully disagree that that plan does that.

Yet you began by saying that you have a lot of respect for BRW and Alton. Regarding floodproofing, you mentioned that there's cost and maintenance involved in floodproofing the apparatus bay, but you indicated that floodproofing is possible, correct? Correct.

Possible, but absolutely not desired. The burden you're putting on the fire department is tremendous, and it takes quite a bit of negotiating with FEMA. It was done in San Rafael, but they had no other choice.

Sure, but we've operated this fire station with this apparatus bay since 1995, which has included two 100-year floods. And I'm unaware of any impacts on public safety due to the current apparatus bay. Thank you. That's all my questions, Mary, for you. Stu? Thank you for all your CityGate reports. You guys have really opened our eyes in terms of the public safety impacts of closing our firehouse. I don't think any of us really had a good sense of that, and I personally learned about it from the CityGate reports. Were you involved in the 2019 and 2025, 23 reports to the town?

23, 25, no, other than through the Ross Valley EMS JPA. I've been doing work for them. I was the lead consultant and sat across the street in the council chambers in 2018 when the future of the fire company was first floated. And I think, I don't know how many of you, one, two, maybe half a dozen of you were in the room that night. And we presented the standards of response cover fire master plan for the Joint Fire Department. And the question came up about the long-term viability of the Ross staffed engine company. Because Ross was just beginning, my recollection, to wrestle with what to do with the facility, the site, etc., etc. So, in 2018, there was no master plan. There was no cemented vision. It was, what do we do, what options do we have going forward?

Thank you. Stu, are you familiar with Jensen Hughes?

Not only by reading on the internet. We've never bid against them or worked with them.

Do you consider them to be a well-qualified peer?

They have a large book of business, and I have no reason to say no.

Thank you. You mentioned LAFCO. Are there any circumstances where switching fire districts, for example, if we were to switch from Ross Valley Fire District to Central Marin Fire District, are there any circumstances where switching is exempt from LAFCO review?

Most current LAFCO director and legal opinions around the state, and it's seldom used, the answer would be no. The statute, this particular statute runs a page and a half and is stridently clear on preventing re-contracting of fire services such that it destabilizes one of the agencies. And by the way, destabilizing could be the receiving agency who isn't given enough money in annexation to pay its future bills. So the destabilizing equation flows both ways. Both agencies have to be left better off. So could you do it? Technically, yes. It would require an application to LAFCO, and it would require approval by LAFCO, and you'd have to have two governing bodies agreeing to the restructuring, both the sending and receiving agency.

So I'm reading government code section 56134. It says for the purposes of this section, fire protection contract means a contract or agreement for the exercise of newer extended fire protection services outside of public agencies, jurisdictional boundaries. except those contracts entered into pursuant to section 4143 and 4144 that does either of the following, transfers responsibility for providing services in more than 25% of the area within the jurisdictional boundary of any public agency. So according to the code, by the terms of the actual government code 56134, If less than 25% of Ross Valley Fire District service boundaries are affected by Ross Valley's change to Central Marin, it would be exempt from LAF code. That's what the government code says. Are you not familiar with that provision?

Well, I'm familiar with the provision, but it applies to independent fire districts with directly elected boards of directors. The term fire district is just that, an independent fire district. You're part of a joint powers authority shared services partnership of multiple agencies, not a fire district. And the city legal counsel can jump in here. Don't put me out over the top front of my skis. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm very familiar with LAFCO, do a lot of work. In fact, currently I'm wearing LAFCO as a client for another pair of agencies in this county. You're not a fire district. You're a shared services partnership fire department.

I guess that's one for the lawyers.

Sounds like you... Well, look up the fire district law under the California administrative government code.

You also testified, Stu, I'm sorry, I don't mean to be disrespectful, but you testified that there are no exceptions to that code. And I just read one. Now, whether or not RJPA applies, you could be correct. I don't know. I'm not an attorney and I don't have the familiarity with it, but I do believe that there is a potential that Ross being only 15% of Ross Valley Fire District's service area could be exempt from LAFCO. So I'll leave it there. My only final questions concern the response time information. Well, actually, our operating agreement with Ross Valley Fire District, as you've heard tonight, we pay 23.4% going down to 21% now that we've lost our firehouse of the total budget of Ross Valley Fire Department and we're only 9% of population and 7% of incidents. Do you think that's fair?

I've never been asked to study the history of how they got to that cost allocation and what the cost allocation should be today. I will tell you, and currently have other clients engaged in the state of California, literally wringing their hands and arguing over cost allocation. Why? because most of local governments are running deficit spending again and looking at an economic abyss as the cost of employment and equipment outpace local tax revenues. When that happens, agencies under fiscal stress argue for every dollar back they can get. Historically, large multi-partner agencies do use population calls for service as divisors as part of a multi-part formula. because you're paying for fire service standby capacity. You're paying for a security blanket over the ground. And whether you use it once a day or once a month, you want access to fast fire response, both at first due and multiple unit due. So most healthy formulas look at a baseline appropriation divided by number of stations, total personnel, headquarters staff, Then they divide out by population and calls for service, where more units are required in busier areas. Most of the smaller clients tend to take an easier approach nowadays to say, well, if we're only three or four stations, let's just pay a third or a fourth each, baseline, cover the ground, and then cost ratio, headquarters, or fire prevention based on units of work. For example, fire prevention units of work would be if all the inspections are in San Isilmo, Ross would pay very little on a fire prevention line item. So multi-part formulas tend to be popular, they tend to be composite. It's complicated and unfortunately there's no legal guidance anywhere. And it results in what's fair to the eye of the beholder. So you all have to get around the negotiating table and say, we have to live together. What does success look like going forward?

How would you feel if you were a Ross taxpayer under this current deal?

I would ask, how did we get to this point, and have we eroded... No, seriously. Yeah. Have we eroded the ground out from under us, and do we need to go back to the whiteboard and start over for customer service, fiscal viability? And you ask me that, also as an ex-elected city council member and an ex-school board member. I have served on the other side of the table for eight years in local government elected office during my second career as consulting. CityGate only works for the public sector. The public is our client. We are known to give you the facts down the center neutrally to make an informed policy decision. The decision is a result of the town and its elected officials interacting. Our advice would be to restudy that ratio and determine if it is fair going forward. It's an excellent on-point question. I can't sit here without studying the history and playing with different formula permutations, which I'm currently doing for other clients, what fair looks like. But let me give you an example. Three parties have different income streams. They only share three fire stations. a third, a third, a third. Two of the parties don't have near the assessed value wealth of one party. They can't pay a full third. Physically impossible, there's not enough residents, rural, can't tax themselves enough. They're all codependent because they all need three crews on serious emergencies. And they're now stuck on what does equitable income look like when we have disparate abilities to pay. It's a really hard problem to solve. And I wish I could sit here and say, I could run it on a slide rule and give you the pixie dust magic formula, but it's hard because the cost of fire services is outstripping the local taxpayer's ability to pay. And my phone's been ringing off the hook since New Year's. I've already taken on two new brownout reduction of service clients. I don't have a single client in or out of the state of California Except, too, in rapidly growing Arizona and Texas, every California municipality starting to talk about browning out fire stations again, they've got cash flow problems. What does that mean? That means that local government used a bunch of one-time funny money during COVID to balance their budget. And now that the one-time funding money's dried up, they're looking at the new cost of doing business and somewhat of a stable, not stagnant, but stable property tax or sales tax base, and they can't pay the bill. Can we move on? Can we move on, please? Yeah. What's that?

I meant browning out. What does browning out mean?

Browning out means closing a fire station temporarily some dates of the week or the month to save money. You furlough the personnel.

And the state law allows you to do that? I thought a town had to provide fire service.

No, it's California state law in the Constitution. Not law. The Constitution says, shall provide for the protection from fire. Period. You could have two kids in a wagon with a super soaker. And if you could get reelected based on that, I'm not being flip. I'm being serious. The literal sentence says, shall provide. And if you can pay the bill and get reelected, you're good. We have said on page one of every study for over a decade, you have the level of fire services you can afford, which may not be what you desire, nor what the risk quotient is. drives. You have what you can afford to pay.

Ross has very few fires. Should we just quit Ross Valley Fire District and rely on paramedic? And if we did, who comes and puts out the fire?

You can't. The town must provide for the provision of fire services.

Ed and I could be a volunteer fire department.

If you could raise and fund and equitably staff a volunteer fire department, go right ahead.

Well, you said two kids in a wagon.

And I said, if the town would accept it and if the town's leaders could get reelected. I was being obviously flippant as to an extreme. But see, that's local government's challenge. And I know you want me to move on, and if it's the will of the chair, you can have five more minutes or whatever. This is really serious, important point here. There are no federal or state law minimums on fire service adequacy in the nation. Land of the free, home of the brave, this is a local choice issue. That's why we say on page one, it is on them to decide via you, the voters, how much to afford for fire services. There are no minimum standards in the United States. The NFPA is an organization that sells model codes for profit. The Commission on Fire Accreditation International is an independent body that sells its stuff. There is no federal or state law telling this community of people how to protect itself. You all got to talk it through and figure out what you can afford to pay. Thank you.

And that's 15 minutes of questions.

Okay, thank you. Well, we'll have Council ask questions now to staff and consultants.

Okay.

Can you go back and talk a bit about how much space is really needed, say, for option one and option two for the rebuilt firehouse?

I'm going to ask Mary to help because we provide the head counts and she provides the spatial analysis. And it's a good question, and Mary, as you go, both interior space and exterior space.

Yeah. Okay. Oh, thank you for that question. This is a summary of the program that provides space for apparatus, apparatus support equipment, and then personnel equipment related to response. And so we break it up into apparatus support and apparatus bays. In this program, we have two bays, and then the support part includes things like turnout storage, workshops, medical cleanup spaces, medical storage, other functions like janitor rooms. And then the second category includes the firefighter offices. There's typically a lobby, public restroom, And what we call the station office is where they greet people. The third column is the firefighter quarters. These are sleeping accommodations, restrooms, kitchen, dining, the day rooms, and laundry room that support the living functions of the station. The next column is utilities. So we've got communication rooms, we've got janitor rooms, we've got electrical mechanical spaces. That's in that fourth category. We get a subtotal. We add a factor for structure and circulation, and that gets us to the 7,602 square feet for say a two company station that's single story. So that's that's kind of the small side of that's that's the smallest station we think that would support option option 1. And that's how we it's figured there's a detailed. drawings and square footages for all the backup of this. If you'd like to review that, the town has it.

Thank you. I'm just wondering if the square footage, is it based on sort of a fire station standards for each category?

Yeah. And it's, yes, it is. Like the day room has six chairs. So you lay out the day room so that there's six chairs and that gives you the size of the room the the dining room the kitchen the bedrooms have lockers in them so that there's three lockers and a bed in a single room so there's standards for all the layouts like on the turnout gear um say there's 16 let's see there'd be 18 people here the turnout lockers there's got to be a minimum of 18. usually we provide two or three extra so that there's some flexibility in staffing. So everything is sized based on the number of on-duty personnel and then the number total assigned to a fire station. So there's differences in that. You use both of those to size a fire station. Thank you.

Mm-hmm. So just sticking with you, Mary, all of your numbers and all of these, this is just Excel spreadsheet work. You don't have any cost bid from a construction company and you're designing this without, this is not a rehab plan. These are all as if we demolished the site and built these buildings. Is that correct?

Yeah, we were asked to provide square footage requirements for the staffing options related to the... The ballot measure. Yeah.

So it's as if we had just a blank slate and you if we were to follow all your best practices and built the station according to your specifications, this isn't based on the existing building and rehab.

No, it's not.

OK. And up until July, we were using this building that were to do police, fire and paramedics, and they were all operating in it. Is that correct?

I believe so. I've only been engaged recently in just this, the ballot measure.

Yeah, until we closed the fire station, we were operating, the fire was working in there, so was paramedics and police in the existing building.

I think town manager Johnson. I just want to say yes. So yes, that is correct.

yeah i just i want to i want to make it clear that your numbers are based on an analysis they're not based on the actual building and all of your the cost numbers are based on this analysis as well but not based on but there was no you didn't go to alton construction and get bids for these for this well and i i didn't and frankly

um using a a napkin-based construction bid number without design documents i think is a high risk there were it was their actual plans drawn by brw that they know the concept i really oh i see what you're saying you you would want to you'd want it drawn out and then they can do the bit that's My experience is that my numbers are based on actual costs from construction lots of them done by Alton and the escalation is predicted by cost estimators so and our numbers are complete they're not they're not just. a back of the napkin budget from contractor without any sort of soft costs, owner costs. I mean, those costs are significant on this type of project. There's no infrastructure for internet, for response, alerting systems in that budget.

that there's a lot of other costs. We saw there was other soft costs. I just wanted to make it clear. Yours is a desktop analysis based on a program that you've created. And I think the square footage is bigger than, let's say, the existing building that exists. And that's how we're getting much higher cost estimates.

It's a bigger building. And this doesn't even address the police aspect of it, which I think our study was focused just on what this fire station is, but there's so much more involved in this whole Civic Center site when you're just rehabbing that building. You're not addressing all of the other functions. The police program is well short, and I hope the police chief has an opportunity to talk about that.

okay and then also did you provide the estimates in 2020 that said that it was going to be 14 million to we did and it was going to be 28 million to have the fire station which the town no that i'm not sure what the 2020 numbers you're referring to oh in the town flyer it says 14 million on 28 i was told that you you you made those numbers back in 2020.

Yeah, we were involved back in then, and it was for a new station. The costs per square foot since 2020 have gone crazy, as Stu's discussed.

Okay, thank you.

Stu, I'm just wondering if you have any idea how long a LAFCO process might take?

No, you know, they don't meet monthly. You could probably get through it. I'm stepping on Jason, your LAFCO director here. Six months, maybe four months, but you've got to go through their standard application. They have a pro forma, so you've got to do the fiscal calculations, look at the fiscals of the parent agencies, assuming you get anyone to raise their hand and say yes, we'll be your new contract partners. And I won't let the other fire agencies speak for themselves. I know stridently what at least one of them will not do. So you have a limited number of partners in the valley. Typically, partners are contiguous. They touch each other. They don't have big bubbles in the center. Your partner, to get you the second or third engine necessary, drives through a different agency. You've got to have the participation of the drive-through agencies.

And are you referring to Marin County Fire, who

I'm not going to speak for Chief Weber or any of the fire chiefs. That's at council's pleasure to interrogate possible partners.

I think I read that somewhere. We're in county fire, opted out. Mary, I'm just wondering, there were five prior studies of the facility starting in the early 2000s and 2010, 2016, 2020, and then again more recently about whether or not you could rebuild, remodel the site versus build new. Are you familiar with those studies? Yes. And does anything that was said here tonight about the ability to rehab the existing facility change your mind about the need to build a new facility?

No, it doesn't. In fact, it reinforces it because in this proposal, there's... it doesn't meet the programmatic requirements of the current fire service or the police service at this site. And as was stated, it's a light touch and you get whatever fits in the box. And I don't think it solves a lot of problems that the current town of Ross departments have related to trying to fit all of their functions functionally operationally sound at this site. Just because it's worked in the past doesn't mean it's something you wanna spend 11 or $15 million just keeping in place. One example, and it's a small one, is that the proposal puts in a big new lobby with a receptionist. Well, neither department has staff to staff that receptionist desk. And so from the start, you're building a space that's just not functional for either the police or the fire department. So I think the costs from that proposal are going to escalate And especially when working with the building department to agree on the extent of ADA upgrades required by a complete reconstruction. So it didn't change my mind at all. It actually reinforced it.

And to come up with your programmatic needs, you looked at the facilities master plan requirements for the police and the fire and the paramedics. And that's how you came up with your square footage.

No, my square footage are based on, we actually did a program back in 2020 to replace the fire station. And the numbers are just our building from there based on the staffing plan presented by Stu.

Okay. Thank you.

So I have a question. So, I mean, clearly, you know, a question here is, can the facility be renovated or must it be rebuilt? It seems in the rebuilding model, a lot of the spaces are bigger. Is that correct?

That's correct. It's because you need bigger spaces to comply with ADA. There has to be door clearances. There has to be... I mean, one of the spaces is the turnout room. In the plan that was presented, there aren't enough lockers in the turnout room for the staff that would be assigned there. There's not enough personnel lockers on the second floor. There's... just inefficiencies in providing a big lobby that nobody will use. So there's the apparatus bay. You can't fit the ambulance in the bay with the workshop behind it and get a gurney in the back of the ambulance. So there's compromises constantly that are being made on the fire side. And I think on the police side, it's even more difficult to meet the program.

Though the plan that FORF proposed apparently takes care of some of the ADA requirements that you're saying aren't met if it's renovated. So how do we reconcile that difference? That's a good question.

In our report to the town, we've asked that same question is why aren't these ADA elements met in this layout? The stairs on the second floor, if you're expanding your occupancy, you have to bring the expanded area into compliance and the stairs on the second floor don't do that. The stairs from the apparatus bay to the, to the living quarters through the hot zone aren't, aren't ADA accessible. So there's a lot of, a lot of areas in the plan that I think it's, that don't meet ADA. So I, that's a big question for me is why it was done that way.

I mean, it's just, it seems that there are differences of opinion. Obviously FORF isn't going to put forward a plan that doesn't work, but obviously you feel that it doesn't work.

So, I mean, I don't quite know where we go with that, but I think an important step is to get the, um, chief building official involved to confirm. the level of conformance that will be required to ADA when you do a complete reconstruction. And also, I think there's more input that should be provided by the police department because there's big pieces of the program that don't fit in this light touch on the police side of things. There's not a secure interview room. The interview that's provided is not accessible. There isn't an armory. You know, there's just a whole list of things that the police chief could speak to on that layout.

I mean, there may need to be some compromise because I don't know that there's an interest in building the very large project that a rebuild would require. Whereas there seems to be more of an interest, at least among some people, in a renovated project that may be smaller, but may still work. I mean, again, there are different approaches, but I... I mean, I kind of think they both probably work pretty well, and it's hard to think that the plan that FORE puts forward is deficient in as many ways as you think it might be. I mean, maybe we can all work together and see where, you know, what the town needs and what plan works best. But it has to be, it has to meet code and it has to be affordable.

Yeah, I think meeting code is, and understanding the costs of meeting code is a really critical aspect of the next steps forward.

Thank you.

Would it be appropriate, Town Manager Johnson, to have Chief Pata address the police station issues?

Absolutely. And we also have some comments about initial observations about the information that was submitted by FOREF last week, too. But we're happy to have Chief Pata talk about the programming deficiencies of FOREF submittal

Excuse me, point of order. I thought we're looking at the elections report and none of this commentary is in these election reports. So I think it's irrelevant. And I don't want to waste any time talking about things that are not in these reports that we're supposed to be evaluating.

I think it's relevant because it's not in the reports, Mayor. the deficiency of the fourth report. That's not what the reports are. In Mary McGrath's report, she has much more space for a police department. Her space for a police department is about 1,000 square feet larger than what the fourth people have proposed. So I think it is relevant because it is in her report. So I would like to hear briefly from Chief Pata about his concerns.

Chief Pata will speak from the podium.

Good evening, Mayor, town manager, members of council, and my friends here, residents. So I am certainly not an expert on architecture, but I am an expert on law enforcement and police stations. I am wrapping up 41 years and 11 months of service as a police officer. Not that I'm counting. So, in fact, you have 112 days, not that I'm counting, to come after me. But anyway, listen, look, I... I've been listening and watching and, you know, I don't have a side. I want to do what's best for our town. Full disclosure, I started my career in the fire service as a dispatcher for the Santa Fe Fire Department in the 1917 fire station that ended up getting demolished for the new public safety center. My, in total disclosure, my nephew is a fire chief in a major American city. So... I have some perspective I wanted to share, and it's based upon just upon your information here. I know that you really meant to name your group Friends of the Fire and Police Station. So I'll give you a break on that. But, you know... I've been to a lot of police departments. I've worked in at least 20 different police departments in my career. Five of them were my own agency at San Rafael. I've lived through a rehabilitation project at San Rafael that back in the 1990s cost about $380,000. It was basically architectural Tetris. for lack of better words, we moved walls, we put a new fresh coat of paint on things, we bought new furniture, and we thought that would resolve our problem. And in fact, what it did was... it was nice, it was nice to get new furniture, it was nice to have new paint on the walls, but it didn't solve any of our problems. In fact, we ended up having to rent spaces throughout the city to just accommodate the police department. In fact, we had to move the detective bureau out of the police station because there was just no more room anymore. so um so when i look at like these plans you know it's exciting to see new plans um but then i see also a lot of things that are missing and maybe that's because and i don't know this for for sure but i see a lot of really fire heavy professionals here in this room and and fire heavy professionals that have put reports together i haven't really seen a lot of law enforcement and we are sharing a building or a space, or at least that's the idea, is to do that. So, let me share the good and the bad on some of my observations. My first week on the job at your police department, I noticed immediately that there was a lot of things that are missing. I also heard a lot of stories. A couple stories that I heard from the officers were that prisoners have actually tried to escape from this police station. It's because there's no secure area in this police station. We don't need cells. I understand they used to have one underneath... the old town hall, but we don't have cells. But we also don't have any secure area to do any kind of interviews, to bring people in. We have a DUI place in our patrol office, and we would arrest a person, bring them back, and process them there before we take them to the jail. Well... I've been told on two occasions prior to my arrival that prisoners have actually escaped from the police department or tried to kick their way through the doors. It's because there's just no secure area. Could that be fixed? Maybe, but I don't see it with currently how we're laid out, and I don't see it in this plan. So effective immediately when I first got here is I ordered my police staff to not arrest and bring arrested people to the police station. So what did that mean for me? Functionally, it was a disaster. We would have to borrow cell space or interview space because we couldn't interview somebody in our police station. We would go to the College of Marin. Well, they close at a certain period of time. We'd have to drive out of town with our one police officer to Fairfax to do the interview, or perhaps go to San Rafael, or just go to the jail. It's not an efficient way to do police work. It just isn't. So that was one of the first things I did when I got here. The other thing was that we just don't... It's not a safe environment to bring people in. So if I have... We do have cases where we arrest people... if we have to do an interview as recently as a couple months ago we're interviewing in the back seat of a police car handcuffed on a hard plastic seat um because we don't have a space to actually bring them in for for a custodial interview it's just not it's not you can't do police work that way i mean we've been trying and we've been making it happen but it's it's it's a disaster waiting to happen i think but Um, and you don't get a lot of cooperation when you got a guy that sits in the back seat of a patrol car, uh, on a hard plastic seat, you know, and you're trying to read him as Miranda Rice. It just doesn't work. It's not a good way to do business. Um, a couple things that I noticed in the plans, We're, you know, I have to, you're a great guy, I'm sorry, but I disagree. We need a secure area to bring in prisoners and to bring in our police cars. It's just, it's just, it's necessary. Right now, we have nowhere to bring anybody. So we would have to actually leave the town and borrow another facility to do that. So some people say, well, hey, that's Ross. How many times has that happened? Happens about four or five times a year where we need to do it. It doesn't happen every day. We're not San Rafael or we're not the Sheriff's Department. But it happens enough that it's inconvenient. And it's not a good way to do police work.

And ultimately, I don't think it's safe.

I think it's been mentioned before. This place wasn't designed to be a police department. There's no armory. There's no fire equipment, safety equipment. We've got guns. We have bullets. We have things that explode. It's all part of the whole police thing when we have to do things. We just don't have the facility, and again, not super safe. Right now, we try to keep a lot of stuff in the cars, but even then, our back lot's not secured. We have to bring all of our equipment, which is like a shopping cart full of stuff, into the police station, and we have to lock it in basically your modified bedroom closet that has a deadbolt on it. Nothing special on it, no alarms, no card key, anything. So the other, I mean, I could go on and on, but I'm just trying to highlight a few things. These are everyday things, drugs. We've had four fentanyl cases in our town since I've been here. We have no way of processing that. We have no way of safely testing for it. There's no, you know, you go to a lot of departments, you'll see they have laboratory hoods, they have special equipment because you can get poisoned by fentanyl if it gets out into the air. So right now, we don't do any of it. What we have to do is package it up, we send it to the Department of Justice, and we hope to get it to us in time for this thing to go to trial. I think a couple of our cases have been dumped because we didn't have the ability to test it, at least get a presumptive test for a filing through the DA. So these are all kinds of the things, you know, that it's not an everyday thing, but it happens enough. Fingerprinting, photographing, things that we need. When your house gets burglarized, when we come out there, we do as much as we can on scene. But there's some work that has to happen behind the scenes. And there's storage of those things. Our evidence locker, it's not compliant. I'm surprised the state hasn't come to visit. We have essentially homemade cabinets that were cut into a wall and put into our evidence room. And our evidence room was someone's bedroom closet that was being converted. So we try not to keep a lot of stuff, but we're required by law to keep some stuff. We have to until the case is adjudicated. So those guns that people turn into us, those sometimes drugs that people turn into us, valuable money, property, things like that, they all have to go into evidence, and they all have to be maintained. In fact, this is the 286-page rulebook on one office in my police station. This is just for the evidence room, and it's double-sided, boss, so I didn't waste paper. Anyway... I like where this is headed. This just needs work. There's no secure anything. Right now, even in this plan, if I have a sexual assault victim and walks in the front lobby and I go arrest the bad guy, they're going to see each other. Right now, I have to bring everybody into the one and only toilet that we have in our police station. So, you know, some rework needs to happen. But I think we're playing Tetris, and I just think that... I think the officers in the city deserve something a little bit better than what they're at right now. They're not security guards. They're police officers. They have a huge responsibility. And I just felt compelled to advocate for them. So I'm happy to answer any questions.

I mean, these were very interesting and helpful comments. It's kind of like a prepared presentation, like the election report. And given that, if Forth wants, I think Forth should have a chance to ask some questions or make comments themselves, because this is like added on to the... And it's very interesting. It's helpful to hear your comments, but I just wanted to... wanted to comment. I feel they should have some... a chance to comment.

You know, interestingly, if I could just add, there had been some mention earlier about things not being fair. I come to work here five days a week. Everybody knows where to find me. Some of you have been to my office for a cup of coffee. I know I've invited a number of you to come by. I'm very available. I show up at every public event here in this town, even on my weekends. I'm very approachable, and no one has told me I can't say anything to anybody, especially now that I'm almost on the way out. Now's the time to get me.

Hello? Oh, Chris Ford, BRW Architects. Thanks, Chief. That big list. And we really started with the program from the master plan, the breakdown, put them in the spots. We did not address secure parking. I have a group of colleagues mostly out of our Dallas office that does nothing but police facilities. I focus on the fire. We sort of defaulted back to what was in the program. We'd love the opportunity to dig into the details and get it right. I think this whole group is, and again, they named it the firehouse, but it's because it's always been called the firehouse. We can get there. I'm confident. Thank you.

If I may, I want to keep what we've negotiated with the opposing counsel also for the purposes of the public who hasn't had a chance to speak yet. Let's stick with the program. Thank you, Ben. Questions to staff, and then when we're done with that, we can move on to public comment.

Thank you. I just have one quick follow-up question, Chief Potter. The fourth plan is about 1,000 square feet. less than the needs that have been identified in the facilities master plan. And I'm just wondering if you have an opinion about the reduction in space, if that's going to serve your department.

Right. So for the first time in a decade, you actually are fully staffed in your police department. So when I first started five years ago, it wasn't as big of a problem. We are bumping into each other now every day. And there's a lot of things we don't have in our building that we should have. Places to process evidence, places to process drugs, and they have to be separate. Ventilation systems that are specific so that we don't poison the public and we don't poison ourselves. There's a lot of things. How to secure firearms, weapons that we have in the building. So I would say... you know, look, I'm not going to be here, but you need to have a bigger space for your officers to do their job and to adequately do their job.

I just, am I able to make a comment? No, you're not. I'm sorry.

It's okay.

It's okay.

I have an additional question. OK. So just going back to the square footage with Mary McGrath, Fairfax and San Anselmo are currently remodeling their stations. San Anselmo's remodel is going from 3,500 to 4,300 feet. That's nowhere near the square footage you're saying that is required to be in this department. How is San Anselmo doing it for 4,300 square feet? And then also Fairfax is, I think, 3,000 square feet or so. So they're grossly below the numbers you're recommending.

So those stations do not house paramedics.

Excuse me, I'm asking the consultant.

Okay, and actually, I am in charge of the staff team, which includes the consultants. And I would like to tell you, and Mary, I certainly will ask Mary to add on to mine, but I can say right now, the paramedics are not at the other stations. We also have Chief Dan Mahoney here, who's been very involved in those remodeling projects. He can also more, to speak to that as well.

Yeah, I'm talking about just the fire station.

I was just going to add that I'm not familiar with either of those two stations and the functional requirements they have. So I think the city manager and the fire chief would be best to respond.

Yeah, so just to be clear, we're all in the same department. So the requirements are the same for our station as they would be for Fairfax or San Anselmo.

That is incorrect. They do not have paramedics, Claire.

Please do not cut me off. I am referring... No. I am referring to the program here is for a fire station. It says 5,848 square feet are required. San Anselmo's remodel is from 3,500 square feet to 4,300 square feet. Fairfax is doing a light remodel and they're about 3,000 square feet. So what I'm saying is within the Ross Valley Fire Department, we have two examples of fire stations that are far below the square footage requirements that we're saying we need to do. And that is a problem because they are operating today servicing the same community with far less square footage than we're saying that we must have. So clearly other communities have figured out how to do this with less space. That is what I would like an answer to.

Sir, can I ask you what functions, what services they're providing from those stations? Fire. Fire. Yeah, that's a broad term, but what services?

I'm sorry.

They're both fire stations.

Three-man fire crew. It's the same. We're all in one department, so we all have the same three-man fire crews.

We're not planning for just a three-man fire crew. What? What are you planning for? Three-people fire crew plus the paramedics.

I'm sorry, I thought this was for a fire station. You were saying we have to... I asked you if we demolished... You said we have to do a demo of the building and this would be a brand new fire station that would be built.

Is that not what this one story... That's correct, but we're housing not only the fire engine crew, but the paramedics.

But why wouldn't they be in their separate paramedic facility? It would be...

of silly to not know but that's what this whole exercise was if we had to rebuild a fire station you would include your paramedics in your station excuse me so this exercise our elections code report is the economic and land use impacts of the proposed of the of the ballot initiative That ballot initiative states that preferably the existing footprint of the fire station be used, be reused. The existing fire station, until last July, housed three paramedics, two paramedics and a trainee. They always have a trainee. And it had two firefighters. So that is what this whole exercise is about. That's what this report is about. So the numbers that you see, the square footage, is based on six people, whereas the Fairfax and the San Anselmo station that is located in Sleepy Hollow do not have six people there. And I would like to ask Chief Mahoney, who's been very involved in those remodel projects and understands the operations of the fire station better than anybody in this room, to please come up to the podium and answer these questions.

No, I mean, this report was supposed to be, if we added a fire station. It was not supposed to include the paramedics. If it did, then we should have a totally, I think this report is, we have to redo it. Because the idea was, if you have to build a fire station, now this group has come forward and said, let's rehab the building. Mary McGrath says, that's impossible. You have to rebuild a fire station. And if you rebuild a fire station, here's what it's gonna cost. If you're including all the paramedics and their costs, then we need a totally separate analysis. That has not come clear in any of these reports that you were including the paramedics, nor that you were including the police, because the Friends proposal also includes the police. So we need to look at the police budget and their programming requirements. This is the apples and oranges completely. And I'm really surprised because no wonder that your square footage numbers are so high because you're including paramedics in this instead of it just being a simple fire station, because every other community has a smaller fire station and it works just fine.

Matt, I think can we stick out?

I'm going to bring it back. Yeah, this is time for questions only. You're going to have a chance to have all these comments when you bring it back after you've heard public comment. But right now, it's just questions to staff. If we can please keep it focused.

Thank you.

Do we need Chief Mahoney to explain? Chief Mahoney can describe how paramedic services and fire services are provided in the Ross Valley. And it is different. I've come from other jurisdictions, and it is different. And so I think that his education would benefit Councilmember Salter and everybody in this room.

But is that part of this election report? I mean, I kind of agree with that. It feels like this report keeps expanding to our very helpful public officials, but it's not what I expected it to be.

Well, we're simply asking the questions that the council is asking. So if you want accurate answers to your questions, then I suggest we have the subject matter experts, such as Chief Mahoney, respond.

I am totally satisfied with the answer I got, which is it's including a paramedic and a fire station, which is not what this was all about. So I don't know. He didn't do this analysis. It's not in the report. I don't know what more could be added other than this report is not really answering the question. So I don't need to hear anything. He's a fire chief and he's running a department. He's not doing the remodels and he's not doing, he didn't do this analysis, which is the problem.

You did ask about Sleepy Hollow in Fairfax and he works, he's working on those.

I was asking about Mary McGrath, if she looked at those other stations that are currently being remodeled and why the square footage requirements are so different.

I'd like to move on. We have a lot of people here from the public who have been, you know, so patient since six o'clock. Are there any more questions about the elections code report? Brief question.

I'm afraid to ask a question. Okay. Could you go back to the slide that talks about the public safety tax? My question is, can we as a town pay for at least even option one? And what is it going to cost us as citizens of Ross?

So it would really need to... go to the voters if they're willing to pay for that increase in the parcel tax. Also to issue debt, the general obligation, I'm sorry, two of the bonds require two-thirds voter approval. And so this elections report really focused on identifying what the costs are. And I'd recommend a second step would be to really dig into looking at all of the financing options to finance those costs. as well as uh looking at the revenue generating capacity of the town so looking at all the the property tax revenue projections as well as others tax projections in order to have a more full picture of the town's ability to pay sorry so um in this case sort of

All things considered, we're looking at, for taxpayers, for the parcel tax, for the ongoing cost of staffing, somewhere around $5 million, $5,400 more. So each parcel would pay that in addition to what they're already paying.

Correct, yes, to cover the increased operating costs for a fire station in Ross.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, I'd like to make sure the answer to Councilmember Dowling is complete. So it was mentioned earlier by another Councilmember that, you know, that the town has been generating in the last handful of years really healthy surpluses of, and remember, pretty much our main source of revenue is property tax. So we've been getting a nice chunk every year, and that's part of the reason that the Council has been able to save up this nice savings account in the Capital Projects Fund. However, if you recall, every year during your budget process, I bring forward a five-year financial projection. And starting in this year, We are projecting, and it's included in the budget document that the council adopted last June, that that very healthy surplus is budgeted this year, this fiscal year, to shrink to $76,000. And by the time we get to 2030, the final year of the five-year, that shrinks to 7,000. So maybe... You know, these are they're they're conservative numbers. Maybe it would be great if that what we project is a little bit bigger. But I have checked in with my colleagues in cities in Marin County. No one is projecting that kind of substantial surplus that we as Marin County communities have enjoyed over these past handful of years. So That means if the council is interested in having its own fire station again, either using option one or option two that was required in our report, we are going to have to come up with the revenue. We don't as I mentioned, we do not have sales tax very much in sales tax. We don't have a utility users tax. We don't have a lot of these other forms of revenue that other cities in Marin County in California may have. So I was asked some questions about, well, what does this mean for the taxpayer? Just to operate it. We're not talking about the one-time capital cost to build a station or remodel a station or startup costs. This is really on an ongoing basis. Is this something that this community can afford? And the answer is with our existing level of revenues, we cannot take on increasing our expenses for fire service much beyond what we pay now. And so we came up with this item right now. The community has very generously supported the town. And a year ago, the community extended the public safety parcel tax for 10 years. And that parcel tax right now is $1,200, 1201.50 per parcel, goes up a little bit every year based on CPI. And that generates about a million dollars, that parcel tax. So that's what this is showing you, that if we were to have, if the council were to go with option one, which would be to essentially pay Ross Valley Fire Department for services to staff a station, that parcel tax would need to increase three and a half times. So we would have, that would increase from $1,200 to $5,400. And then option two, as Mr. Gary described, is a little more expensive. So the parcel tax would need to increase to $7,201 per parcel. per parcel. Again, that is estimated, we'd need to figure some things out, of course. But I just wanted to I was asked to give just an idea to our taxpayers, how much about that would cost. So that is just the operating, I'm not comfortable talking about how much it would cost to have a debt finance, what it would mean to the taxpayer, because there's just so many options for the council to consider when it comes to that. Okay.

Do you have anything else you want to add Krista?

We do have information prepared. We just received, you know, along with the council, the comments, the information that was submitted by the fourth group last week. And so we are able to provide more comments from our team, including our consultant team. We're prepared to do that this evening in a fairly succinct manner. But it's up to the council if you want to do that and when.

Are we still in the phase of us asking questions and then public input, and then a discussion?

Okay, maybe we should wrap this up. Matt, you have one more question?

So maybe just Stuart, it's more for Stuart, because these costs are important. And I think the one thing I just want to make sure we're, what I found very interesting was when you calculated the numbers for ongoing costs, you ended up with 2.7 million for the option one. I excluded the maintenance and operations. I'm just talking about staffing. And that's pretty close to the Jensen Hughes number, give or take. It's about $300,000 off. And I think it's this other compensation line. Yeah, that $312,000. Correct. So actually, it's pretty interesting that two independent numbers came close. So this is the crux of the matter. And I'm sorry to make it longer, but I actually think it's really important for my colleagues too. If we just say it's roughly $3 million of additional costs, We're paying roughly $3 million right now into the JPA. So we're effectively paying for what that operating cost would be, give or take. And it really comes down to what you sort of talked about is this relationship with Ross Valley Fire. Because if we leave Ross Valley Fire, and forget the LAFCO and whatever else, they'd be down $3 million. which is the exact amount that it would take to restaff the station. So this is all hypothetical, but if you were walking away, I would tell my other partners, you guys have to pay this $3 million one way or the other, because if we left, you'd have to come up with that money to pay for your three stations. And now, quite frankly, just speaking to you, we're the town with no station. So even with the LAFCO arguments, it's sort of a difficult argument to make. I can't afford my own station. It's their three stations. We don't even have one. So this is the conundrum. It's not, you added, your numbers added that 2.7. This is the existing, as if that cost is fixed. And what I'd just like you to comment on is that's a negotiation.

Absolutely. Yeah, and so that... It's a worst case add-on. Thank you. In case they were to say, we're happy with our budget and nine on duty from the current locations. If you want to go beyond the nine on duty... You pay the bill. Your comeback would be, but our extra three on duty increases system-wide protection. And from that bargaining point, you'd get to a middle ground of what additional money is directly attributable to the town. And some of that additional money benefits all their other parties.

Yeah. So thank you. I think that you can't underscore that enough. From my perspective, the department will start to see some strain because they eliminated the station. And obviously there's some strain when you only have three and used to have four. They may, you know, and the other towns may also come to the conclusion. We've got more people coming to town. We're building more and more housing. you know, the Station 19 sort of getting taxed, the traffic's bad, they may want the Ross Station back. Like, we're all under the assumption that they absolutely don't want this station reopened. They didn't make that decision, by the way. It was the Ross Town Council that closed it. So what I'd like, if you wouldn't mind, because this is such an important point, is that there could be an amicable sort of amiable discussion about, hey, we want to reopen the station because it's better for everybody. And sure, Ross is going to have to pay more, but we're already paying $3 million, right? We may say, hey, maybe we'll pay $4 million. Maybe we'll pay some of that incremental cost, but everyone benefits. So if you wouldn't mind just expanding that, because I really think it's important because everyone's relying, I think, on these parcel taxes that she was talking, as if that $2.7 million is set in stone.

Again, you could absent the 2912, which has this, unfortunately, strict set of blinders on. And instead of giving a high-low range and spending two pages talking about hypotheticals with your partner, you're paying this today, it's an unknown. And that's why, but I separated it out. Take the number without it, take the number with it, take the number half without it. That's the ongoing calculus you all have to get to until you actually negotiate. Is there an increased value to everybody in the partnership? Of course there is. None of you in this part of Marin County staff enough to put a fairly fast first alarm effective response force to keep a house fire from other than just spreading to the timber. And I'm choosing my words intently. Fire success depends on the speed and the weight of the attack. The OSHA requirements for a house fire to enter with breathing equipment mandatory for smoky conditions, right? In an environment unsuitable for human life, you have to have four on the scene. Four. Two was always insufficient. Three is slightly better for advanced medical care, auto accidents kind of things. Three can't enter a burning building with breathing equipment by themselves. They have to wait for the second unit. So even if you added 3 and got to 12, the old standard suggested 15 to 17 at a light risk, typical family home fire. The newly published 1750 that came out in the second week of December has increased the low hazard headcount to 20. Most suburban light urban departments are sending 20 plus firefighters to serious working fires. The metros, one and a half times more. So you have a fragile department. that has to get there quickly enough, hopefully, to keep small things small. Because you'll never get 15 to 20 people in time to keep a disastrous fire, the genie in the bottle.

No, thank you. So I just want to make that, that was seriously, thank you. I really appreciate you explaining that. Because I really believe in my heart that if once this, we move forward, that there will, it would be, let's work together to bring this back because it's better for everyone.

And in a way, you did work together because you restructured staffing to go from all the rigs at an insufficient two to three rigs with three. You consolidated your staffing a bit and also knowing you have cross-trained firefighter paramedics on the ambulance and the Ross station. I won't call it fire. The ambulance has been there a very long time. When we did the Ross Valley EMS JPA work, we looked at the realignment of ambulances, and the reports public, I talked to the JPA board a year ago, December, was very clear the best location for the firefighter paramedic ambulance in the west end of the Ross Valley was right here. Keep the ambulance. You've got decent response times for some EMS calls if the ambulance is in quarters or in the neighborhood. You have other response times from the remote engine, so it's back to the level of service you can afford. Should you have 15 on duty? Yeah. Can you collectively pay the bill with your partners?

Okay, thank you. I think we'd like to move to public comment right now. I guess I could ask people if they want to take a break, but I think we'd like to just keep going. So just line up on the side and please state your name. If you can, keep your remarks to two minutes. Don't repeat. If you want to say something that someone else has already said, just say, I adopt, you know, whatever the prior person said. Okay. Go ahead.

Okay.

No.

Okay, so I'm Dan Winey. I've been a Ross resident for 40 years. I served on the Architectural Review Board for 10 years, over 10 years, and as chair of Gensler Architects, which is the largest design firm in the world. We have about 6,000 people, and I'm still actively involved in the practice. It's sort of interesting to me that here we are, talking about this, and I was actually the one that did a pro bono study for the town 25 years ago. And I sat down, we formed a team, we had mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, plumbing engineers, structural engineers, myself, architects. I actually sat down with the police chief and I did the programming, sat down with the fire chief, did the programming, EMS, the whole everything. And essentially what I'm seeing right now is, in terms of what Mary and staff has presented, is exactly what we found 25 years ago. For those of you who know me, I'm a preservation architect. I am not somebody who would take lightly tearing any building down in this town that has got architectural character and integrity. But what we found was that when we got into it, yes, you could renovate it. You could renovate it, but the cost of renovation would exceed actually taking the building down. And you could rebuild that building in exactly the same way, architectural character, style and everything else. And it would actually cost less money. And this is also part of the personal experience that I've had recently. I think that the numbers I'm sorry, the architect is in here. I think the whole process that has been outlined was extremely optimistic in terms of approvals. And I think that there's no question in my mind that if we do this right, we'd have to carry a 20% to 30% contingency on this project. That's the right way to do it. I think ultimately, I guess my last comment is when we looked at the building, We did raise up the entire building. I'm not an advocate of a fire department one way or another. We looked at the entire facility and came to the conclusion that in terms of the safety, welfare for the public, and actually building a building that, quite frankly, was going to last another 50 to 100 years, and that's exactly what we need to be doing, that the building really should be completely reconstructed. So I hope to God that we actually move forward with this because I know the police department has got some really significant needs. I went through the building one last time, a couple times a few weeks ago, and I'll tell you one thing. After 25 years, it's worse than it was before. It's significantly worse than it was before. So, again, I think we could do something that's wonderful. I think it could be extraordinary in terms of the character in keeping with the city. I just think we need to move on with this project.

Thank you.

My name is Bill Poland. Turns out that this year is my 50th year in Ross. And I'm a very young man. I don't know how that worked. But tonight has been very informative in so many ways. I'm also a commercial real estate developer and have been that whole 50 years. And a number of my projects have been rehabs of historic buildings in San Francisco and elsewhere. I enjoy that. And I consider not me an expert, but getting the right people in to look at those sorts of things. I would say that I've also looked at these buildings and agree that they really need to just start from scratch. You need to go call it a day and build from and maintain the character. And the last point I really want to make that didn't come up in the presentation from Fofor is the housing element. I want everybody in this room that's a resident to realize how proud we would be of ourselves if we created the units that the state is looking for, nine units of townhomes. on this site would be a wonderful thing. Great publicity for our town, giving of ourselves. And we should do that as part of this plan. Thank you.

Madam Mayor, members of the council, it's my pleasure to be here. Steve Berto, I'm the mayor of San Anselmo. I am also the current president of the Ross Valley Fire Department Board of Directors. Consequently, I'm also a member of the Ross Valley Paramedic Authority. and a member of murid lafco and i could attest to stew's comments earlier that he is correct regarding the exemption ross would not qualify for the exemption because you were part of a jpa and not a standalone fire a fire protection district but I love the passion in the room. I love the passion around this issue. Civic engagement is alive in Ross, and that's a really awesome thing. I just wanted to be the reminder that when making these monumental decisions, You know, we have to agree upon the facts. And I've heard some things tonight that, you know, may or may not be, you know, aligned with the facts in some areas. And so I just wanted to focus on one particular aspect there, and that's on the response times, although there's a few more. I want to be respectful of your time and everybody else's. You know the friends stated in their presentation right at the beginning that you know this proposal was provided to the town council back in 2020 2021. But not seriously considered and but when new information about response times came to light last year they renewed their efforts and I just to be clear. There has been no new information regarding response time since the point where the Ross Town Council made their decision to close Station 18. In 2020 and 2021, the consultants for the Town of Ross, our staff at the Ross Valley Fire Department, consistent with the City Gate Report, stated that closing the station would result in response time increases of at least two minutes. At that time, the response time for station 18 were seven minutes and 55 seconds. Is that my timer? Oh, that's my timer. Oh. Oh, well, right now, I mean, as you heard from Chief Mahoney last month, the current response times for the town of Ross within the city limits are nine minutes and 32 seconds for fire engine response and nine minutes and 52 seconds for paramedic response. So to be clear, there has been no response time information that has changed since the point where the Ross Council made their decision. And, you know, if we're going to talk about sheriff services, San Anselmo pays 41 percent of the Ross Valley Fire Department budget. So if anybody's subsidizing anybody, we're the ones subsidizing. So we but we're super, super proud to be a part of the JPA as the president of the fire department board of directors. I could tell you that we are regardless which way you go here. We're going to be happy to serve you as long as you're a member of our department.

Thank you.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, Council Members. My name is Thomas Finn. I'm a member of the Board of Directors of the Sleepy Hollow Fire Protection District. And in that capacity, I'm the chair of the Ross Valley Paramedic Authority Board of Directors. Two quick corrections. First, item four in the presentation overview stated the question, if the towns of San Anselmo, Fairfax, and Sleepy Hollow can afford a fire station, why can't Ross? Sleepy Hollow is not a town. Sleepy Hollow is unincorporated. We're a special district, which is a unit of the state of California. But more importantly, Sleepy Hollow has never had a fire station. The fire station on Butterfield Road is within the town limits of San Anselmo and is owned by the town of San Anselmo. That's relevant because when Sleepy Hollow upgraded its membership in the Ross Valley Joint Powers Authority, Ross Valley Fire Joint Powers Authority, our lack of a fire station was considered to be a germane fact. And in fact, it was one of the motivating factors for us to join the department, but also it influenced the percentage share that we ultimately agreed to pay to become a voting member after 28 years as a non-voting member. And so the presence or lack of a presence of a fire station was very, very critical to how the negotiation over how much we would pay worked out. Now, we presented decades of data that showed on a per parcel basis or assessed value, population, calls for service, or any other metric that we thought would influence and help our position. But ultimately, we decided, as Mr. Gary described, to just split the difference, find a common middle ground and go with that. None of the statistical data that we ground through seemed to carry the day. So we struck the deal that we could under those then current circumstances. And it turned out that we are now paying, or we initially began by paying one sixth the cost. We are now paying 12.8% of the cost since Ross joined the JPA two years after we did which diluted our share. So just bear that in mind when you consider how you might approach the Ross Valley Fire JPA.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Jim Harleen. I didn't come over on the Mayflower with some of these other guys. I've only been here 15 years. But what's clear tonight is that the city had said that, look, the building's not able to be renovated. It's got mold. It's got problems. It can be renovated. It's a still... The structural outside, the foundation, the roof structure, the framing is still sound. It can be renovated. And people are talking and they're telling us it couldn't. And that's just not true. And it should be looked at. And I really I don't know the agreement with the Ross Valley fire. We've been overpaying. We're 11 percent. We've been paying 20 percent. Clearly, we haven't been get what we've been paying for. That's a negotiation that's going to have to happen at another level. But the building itself is something that should be renovated, can be renovated, and it's a matter of programming. To spend the $30 million, this is where the real estate guys that started the friends group got involved. They looked at it and said, there's got to be a more cost-effective way of doing this. And there is. To spend what's going to be $30-plus million once we get through the CEQA and all that on a new building is just wasteful. When we have a building, we can renovate. It's totally possible. It's a matter now of programming. And I highly suggest that the town council... works with these people that have put so much time and energy into this and come up with so much good information to just kind of scrape it off to the side and go on with this $30 million building that you're planning that's basically office space. It's just wasteful. So I highly suggest you form the committee they suggested, work together, and come up with a plan and programming that works inside our historic building. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Billy Buck, and I want to speak tonight as someone who spends a lot of time around our local kids, not just as a parent, but as a guest teacher, a coach, volunteer and a trusted adult in town. I'm on campus. I'm at recess. I'm on the sidelines of practices and games. And being that close to school life changes how quickly you think about public safety because you see how quickly a normal day can become an emergency. Over the past few years, I've been directly involved in three serious incidents with students. The first was a lacrosse player who collapsed without warning. We later learned she had a family history of heart issues and she didn't even know about. The fire department arrived immediately and saved her life. The second was a young boy who fainted at Ross school recess. I caught him just in time to protect his head from the cement, though he still split it open. I will never forget holding a bleeding, unconscious child and feeling pure relief when I saw the fire truck arrive quickly. In that moment, the only thing that mattered was how fast help got there. The third was a boy on his bike who was hit by a car. His bike was destroyed, and he suffered a brain injury. The fire department arrived within what felt like a minute, managing a terrifying scene and comforting a child who witnessed it all. This isn't fear. It's reality. Kids faint. Kids have seizures. Kids go into cardiac arrest. Accidents happen. And when they do, it won't matter what we debated on paper or here tonight. It will matter where responders are and how fast they can get there. That's why maintaining strong local fire and medical services centrally located and ready matters so much. I understand budgets and complexity, but this standard should be simple. Best protection, fastest response, and smart use of taxpayer dollars. I've experienced first responders turn emergencies into stories with better endings. I will always be grateful, and I want to make sure every family in our community can count on that same protection. Thank you.

Good evening, Town Council.

As a board-certified emergency medicine physician, I am concerned about increasing emergency response times in Ross. With the loss of our firefighter, EMTs, and paramedics, we have lost a critical component of our local emergency response capability. Marin County EMS is actively working to reduce time to chest compressions and defibrillation with the goal of having an AED or a defibrillator available within four minutes of every location in the county. This standard reflects well-established evidence that rapid intervention saves lives. Given this, I'm concerned that current decisions in Ross appear to move away from rather than toward these life-saving benchmarks. In cardiac arrest, every one minute delay significantly reduces the likelihood of survival and good neurological recovery. Cardiac arrest remains the leading cause of death nationally and here in Marin County. Asked response times are critical. If it is possible to renovate and preserve our fire station bay at lower cost while restoring emergency response capacity, I respectfully ask why this option would not be pursued. I urge the council to prioritize decisions that strengthen emergency response and align Ross with countywide public safety goals. Thank you for your consideration.

My name is Diane Rudden.

Maybe it's better that it's up there. I'm at 39 Willow Avenue in Ross, and I want everybody to clap for me because you're not going to like me. Okay, we are talking about public safety, but we are not talking about the people that work for our town, the administrative staff. Anybody aware of how they are working now in different areas? And yet your plan doesn't even consider these human beings is important. And I think that's appalling. I'm sorry. We have to take care of the people that work, not just the paramedics, not just, but staff. They need to be able to have a coffee pot that is available to them at all times. And I also wonder how some of the people in town are going to be able to pay the increase in the parcel tax. That is my concern. Because some of these people do not have that extra $5,000 or $7,000 a year that they can give out. And I would hate for these people to leave town because of that. Thank you.

Hello, Madam Mayor and Council. My name is Bruce Selfridge, and I grew up here in town, and I worked for the fire department for 37 years. I love this town. I'm the only ex-Ross Fire employee that will be speaking tonight, I believe. I feel the reasons and arguments for having engines stationed in Ross are clear, and they've all been addressed. I feel the issue of major floods needs to be addressed and how it pertains to having engine stations in the town of Ross. I was on duty for the major floods of 1982, 1986, and 2005. Many of you were not residents at that time. I would like to very briefly tell you the scope of the flooding in Ross. Here is a list of some of the streets with flooded homes. Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, Shady Lane, Ligonier's Road up to Willow Avenue, Fernhill Avenue, Norwood Avenue, Southwood Avenue, Ames Avenue, Allen Avenue, Sylvan Lane, Ross Commons, Poplar Avenue, Redwood Drive, Brookwood Lane, Shanley Lane, and Locust Avenue. Both churches and the school were flooded. Cars parked on the Ross Commons were floating down Kent Avenue. In 1982, many of the areas in town were inaccessible because of flooding and mud and mud slides. We ended up using the pickup truck owned by the then police chief to get around town for both police and fire calls. After 82, the town purchased a pickup, a four-wheel drive pickup for the fire department and a SUV for the police department. I would strongly recommend that you get a full-size SUV for the police department. I don't believe the cars they have can go in deep water. During those floods, we were overwhelmed with calls for assistance. Having one engine in San Selma to cover both towns won't work because it can't be in both places. The town becomes isolated, and other emergency services just cannot get in. The station, the old station never flooded. The back where the engine bays are currently, it would flood. We'd open the doors, get the engines out, the water to flow through. We'd hose it out and replace any sheet rock that got wet. I feel the town needs to put a large sign saying the station is closed. We used to get a lot of major medical aides just walking in. And it's important that residents and people on their way to the hospital know that station is closed. We've had babies born at the station.

I'm sorry, but your time was up a little while ago.

So could you please wrap it up? You need to have an engineer in town. Thank you.

I'm Paul Ressler. I've been a resident here in Ross for 27 years, live at 11 Bellagio Road up the hill here. And I want to advocate on behalf of a subset of Ross residents who don't have a say or a vote, and that's the school children here in our town. And we have several schools, just to kind of add to what Billy brought up, bless her heart, We had several schools in immediate proximity to the location of our old firehouse here. And so I'm obviously, I have two children in school, one at Ross School, one at the Ross Preschool. They go to Ross Bridges as well. We have a preschool right here in Marin Art and Garden Center. We have Branson. We have Senn and Selms. There are several schools, a lot of students. that deserve to have fast response times and EMS services. Thank you.

Madam Mayor and members of the Town Council, my name is Mike Rosenbaum, and I've resided at 14 Medorna Avenue since 1987. I'm addressing you today to present my significant objections to the proposed Ross Fire Department Fourth Initiative. My concerns are organized around three critical areas, financial sustainability, funding integrity, and project procurement. The fiscal elements for the Ross Fire Department raised serious red flags concerning long-term financial viability. An unsustainable parcel tax burden estimates from 4, via Jensen Hughes, put the annual tax costs at nearly $3 million, with approximately 835 parcels in Ross. This necessitates an annual parcel tax of almost $3,600 per parcel. Furthermore, City Gates suggests annual operating operations closer to 4.2, which inflate that tax obligation to over $5,000. The perpetual operating tax of $5,000 would be in addition to any separate parcel tax required to finance the construction of a new Ross Fire Department. A recurring annual tax of this magnitude is highly unlikely to pass a voter referendum. The town must overtly disclose and rigorously verify the full long-term financial commitment of the Ross property owners that they get well in advance of the 2026 election. Long-term solvency, I have profound doubt the force ability to secure the necessary capital for both construction, sustainable ongoing operations, especially without public evidence of unequivocal financial pledges from ultra high net worth individual individuals such as Ellison, Musk, Zuckerberg or Benioff, relocating to Ross or formally pledging or committing funds. With 400 supporters and only 125,000 has been raised for an average of $325 per fourth supporter. Furthermore, this group of 200 parcel owners is attempting to levy a perpetual tax on the other 600 property tax owners or parcel owners. This only requires a simple majority of 50% to pass, and that is unfair. Here are the other safeguards. I think all four contributions intended for the department must be placed in escrow fund before the issue is put to a vote. Thank you for hearing me. I wish I could speak longer. I have this in the loss package.

No clapping? Yeah, thank you.

Hi, my name is Tom Allen. I live at 23 Canyon Road. I can be really short. I was a commercial architect specializing in historic renovations, renovated many buildings. And my experience shows me that renovating a project is more complicated, more expensive, and more limiting than starting with your program and just building what you want. You're forced into configuration, into access, and into a lot of things that become very complicated and can be very expensive. For new projects, we would counsel our clients to have at least a 10% contingency. Renovation projects were more likely to be 18% to 20%. and we were killed with change orders all the way through because there was always an unforeseen unknown that just magically uncovered there's supposed to be a column in the wall, there's no column, now we have to start from scratch. So I would just urge the council to be very, very cautious about doing a large renovation project like this based on budget figures from very rough schematic drawings um we used to go with the can of spray paint and say remove this with a sledgehammer because we need to see that detail we couldn't just go for cracks in the wall and bolts in the floor so i drove you to be cautious thank you hi i'm laura conroe dear town council and town manager

Doris Kearns Goodwin's book on leadership in turbulent times explores four great presidents. She has written about Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, and Lyndon Johnson, and the qualities that made them effective leaders. Goodwin writes of Lincoln, Quote, Lincoln pledged that if his opinions on any subject turned out to be erroneous, he stood ready to renounce them. With this commitment, Lincoln revealed early on the qualities that would characterize his leadership for the rest of his life. A willingness to acknowledge errors and learn from his mistakes. In that spirit, I urge the town council members who have opposed to rehabilitating and keeping the fire station open to reconsider their prior assumptions and positions. The Friends of Ross Firehouse have presented a detailed, well-researched, cost-effective, viable plan to rehabilitate the station and keep a working fire station in Ross. Changing course when presented with new facts is not a sign of weakness. It is a hallmark of strong leadership. Ross residents in our homes are safer with a fire station in Ross. Please vote to adopt the Friends of Ross Firehouse's plans. A plan that saves the firehouse from demolition, avoids a costly sequence, study and litigation, and it significantly is less expensive than the town's proposal, which will require a two-thirds voter approval and is unlikely to pass. Please work with us, not against us. Renovation and rehabilitation is the only viable option. Thank you.

Hard act to follow on that one. I'm representing, I'm on a million chats, and thank you so much for having me. All the parents who are putting their kids to bed right now who couldn't make it. So I do not speak for all of us, but I do think I speak for many of us. My name is Lauren Lyon. I live at Nine Ames Avenue, and I am investing in Ross because it is such a special place. I'm doing my second gut renovation here in seven years. I've lived in four homes and I have two children and I moved here at nine months pregnant because Ross had its own facilities. I literally called my parents and said, we just finished rebuilding this house in San Francisco. and I'm leaving it because Ross has its own police and fire. And it's like where it's like maybe it's like where I want to raise my kids, where I feel like it's the last bastion of civility. And, you know, two years after we came here, the decision was was made. And I think a lot of people that kind of came to town because I think there's been a lot of turnover of young families, I didn't quite understand kind of what was at stake. I'm the mother also of a child that had a 1 in 600,000 appendicitis at 11 weeks old and almost died. And when his appendix ruptured, we called 911 and the ambulance was busy, so the firefighters came. And I will tell you that was probably the longest nine minutes of my life. And I can also tell you I have many friends who lost their homes in the Palisades, and I can tell you that they would have wished that they had an InGen. So Ross is a special place with a lot of big thinkers. I think that's why we all decided to come here. The conversations I have with people are respectful and educated and I think incredibly thoughtful. And if there's anyone that can figure out how to get an engine within the financial constraints, I think it's this group of people. And I just appreciate all of your time and all of your thoughts. And, you know, I really hope we can get there. Thank you so much.

Hi, I'm Jeff Koblik, and I live at Five Hill Road in Ross, and I've been here about 40 years. And so my dad gave me some good advice along the way. He said, take things step by step, keep your options open, and health is all that really matters at the end. So taking step by step, we have a lot of discussions here about what could happen like down the road with fire departments or this or that. But the immediate issue right now is do we rebuild or do we renovate? And that's irrespective of whether we have a fire department. So the first step is I think we ought to focus on that. And as somebody who has renovated the Good Earth grocery store in Fairfax, we recently did a renovation of a 66,000-square-foot office building in Santa Rosa. it's so much cheaper to renovate than it is to rebuild because you have existing foundations, you have existing structures, you have existing roofs, all those things you're saving money on. So in our estimation, it's always paid off, rebuild, rebuild. And I walked this building with architects, engineers, and it can be rebuilt. The photos that we showed, it's all stuff that's going to be stripped out. You strip out the walls, you get down to the studs, you keep the stuff that is good redwood, good tile, and you rebuild. And there's 7,500 square feet. How you divvy it between the fire department and the police department, You know, that can be worked out. You sit down and you work that out and how much goes to a lobby. But there's enough space there that it can be rebuilt. Number two, keep your options open. Keep that space. We've got this great space with fire bays and there's all the recliner. When I walked the property there, all the recliner chairs are still there from the fire department. They had six big recliner chairs. There's plenty of space there to do what you need to do. And Keep the option open that perhaps we can work out something financially with the fire departments, the Ross Valley Fire Department or wherever, to make it work. And technology is changing, too. You know, now there's new fire equipment. There's drones. There's sleeker, faster fire engines that could add to the whole Ras Valley to add to those types of equipment. So keep your options open. If it doesn't work out. As Bob said, let public works take it over, okay? If you can't work out something cost-effective on the farm, but don't put the cart before the horse. Let's focus in on what makes sense rebuilding. The last point is really all that counts, and that's health. And all of you have gone through health issues of loved ones or perhaps yourself. My wife and I, we lost our first son when he was six months old from SIDS, Sudden Intent and Depth Syndrome. That's something where minutes count, okay? Minutes count. I recently had a couple of friends who've just had strokes. Minutes really count. The faster you get to somebody, the better the outcome. We all know. And so that's where I leave it with me is we're paying $1,000 per person right now for fire. 2.7 million, there's 2,800 people, right? So if we double that, still we're paying $2,000 a year per person. Can't we work within those constraints? That's not a lot. How much are you paying in fire insurance for your building? How much are you paying in medical insurance? How much are you paying for concierge, for your doctor? It's just insurance. It's not a lot for a lot. And health is what counts.

All right. Good evening. My name is Tony Curtis, and I live on Hilgert Drive in Ross. When we started this process of deciding what we should do, I took place in the poll, and I actually supported keeping the firehouse. But I have to say, this proposal is not a serious proposal. When you get down to it, what are we told? You can afford it. Well, I'm here to say we can't afford it, not the way this is proposed. I take it a little personally. I was on the council for eight years. The one thing we fought every year was to have a surplus. And it hasn't really been talked about why there are surpluses. If there was an earthquake, who's going to help us? FEMA's not going to help us. They're just firing 1,000 people. I'm really proud of this town for having a reserve. And we hear about all the towns that are going into debt. We do not want to take a debt on for this project. What can we afford? We can't afford this. And I think Mr. Rosenbaum did a great job laying that out. So thank you. Can I just say one more thing, just real quickly? If this was a serious proposal, what should have been done was to create an endowment. And I'm talking about a real endowment with maybe $50 million in it. Then we would have a fund to go forward with this. But no effort was done to do that.

Madam Mayor and City Council members, my name is Michael McWilliams and I'm a resident of Ross. Whether or not the existing firehouse can be renovated or not, it should be evident to you that a significant number of the residents of this town do not support the town's facilities master plan that does not include a firehouse. It's easy to criticize some of the small details of the layout of the Friends of the Ross Fire Department proposal, but it is now time for the town to listen to the residents and work with them to develop a new facilities master plan that includes a firehouse and meets the needs of our fire, our police, our paramedics, and our town employees in Ross. I ask that you let the residents of this town have a voice and the ability to vote on the importance of having a firehouse and the high level of safety response moving forward that we moved here to have. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Joey Buckingham, and I've lived in Ross for 34 years. I had all of this prepared to say tonight. It's three pages, but I actually have learned a lot from all of these wonderful people who put their time and treasure into... making the fourth proposal and then i also learned a lot from the town's proposal and i think there's a lot of really good information here and i think what i walk away with tonight is that i think we can work together to try to bring this fire station back I think there's just a lot of good minds here, and there's a real desire to have that fire station. And I think the biggest, the most important thing is the response times. That's just been made clear tonight that that is a real problem with losing our fire station. So I know what it's like to volunteer time to the town, and I know how hard it is when you put a lot of time into it. and your decisions are questioned. I've been on the ADR for about 16 years total now. And I see a lot of these things come through. And I think there's no place for animosity between ourselves. I just think we can really work together to try to come up with a plan. And there's some really good minds here. So let's do it.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Elisa Taubman, and we've lived here for 35 years. And we moved here just after the Oakland fire in 1991. And we're very conscious about being fire safe. And the fire is coming. It's not a question of if, it's a question of when. And it will probably involve more than Ross. It'll be a conflagration that will confuse everybody and there will not be enough fire trucks so we need to have one in town because that is going to make all the difference in life safety and our homes and in addition to that we have a lot more vegetation than either oakland had or the southern california towns that burned last year so it behooves us to move on this quickly and make sure that we have enough capacity to at least stop the major loss of life and the only way to do that is to have A resident fire truck and paramedics, etc. I don't know how we got into the situation where we lost it because most of us moved here because we had these services to begin with. We deserve them. We want them. We demand them. and we can pay for them if it can be worked out in a reasonable way, which I've got to believe it can. Whether it's renovation or rebuilding, it can be worked out, and it must be worked out sooner than later. So response times, we're all aging. The town is aging, which means we need more help as we get older and accidents happen. Thank you.

Anybody else in the chamber in the Livermore room who wishes to speak? Cindy, is there anyone online? Yeah.

Hang on a second. Mr. Bell, go ahead.

Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Hi, this is Erica Bell. Sorry, I was there for the beginning of the meeting tonight and I had to head home to put my kids to bed. You know, I also, like so many of you there tonight, speak on behalf of a lot of parents who are listening in over the Zoom. And we just, you know, really, really want this fire station back. I mean, I personally had a horrible accident when I first moved to Ross. back in 2020, my four-year-old son was just playing and ended up going through an old glass window. And I mean, just, I know that the feeling of waiting for the first responders to arrive and the thought that we've kind of removed first responders from the town is, it's just, really horrifying just knowing, you know, kids play and accidents happen. So just really appreciate all of you coming together tonight to kind of talk this through. And I'm confident that we can come to a solution that will get this firehouse going again for our kids, for all of us. Thanks so much. Thank you.

Ms. Hortkorn.

That's me. Good evening. Please go ahead. Yes, I'm Katie Hortkorn at 181 Lagunitas Road. And I just, in the I'm not seconding people. I just want to say that I absolutely agree with Mike Rosenbaum. I agree also with Tony Curtis and with our architect in town who runs Gensler, the biggest architect, Dan Liney, the biggest architectural firm in the world. And if he says it can't be rebuilt, then I agree it can't be rebuilt. I think the biggest thing here is what is the cost? Because people have to know that I don't think it's going to be an extra thousand dollars. I think it's going to be an extra five thousand dollars. And I could be wrong because we don't really have numbers from. the Friends of Ross Fire Department. We sort of have numbers, but not actual numbers. And I know in their report, one of their people suggested that we have a volunteer fire department to save money. And that's pretty amazing in this day and age to have an unprofessional fire department. I don't think anybody would be too happy with that. So we need to know what the real cost is going to be. And we need to know how many people in this town are willing to pay an extra $5,000 to $7,000 in their property taxes. Thank you.

There are no more raised hands, Mayor.

OK. OK, so we will bring it back. And I think our first order of business is to have a motion to receive the elections code report.

We haven't had a discussion yet among the council.

Okay, I'm just proposing that we do that. And then we have a discussion about various options. I'm not sure we need to have a maybe okay, we can have a brief discussion about the elections code report. I think we've had a long discussion already about the report.

But the council has not deliberated. And that's the process.

We're only receiving a report. We're not really taking action. We're taking action.

There usually is counsel deliberation.

Okay, Matt, go ahead and deliberate. Go ahead.

I'm giving all of my colleagues a chance to deliberate. If nobody has anything to say, but I think we should give our colleagues the chance to speak. Go ahead, Elizabeth. Thank you, Elizabeth.

Just a couple of things. I mean, certainly the election report was very helpful and had a lot of interesting information, I mean valuable information, but there are two things that I found problematic. One is that it falsely says that most medical calls will not be impacted by reopening the fire station because Medic 18 is remaining. But we know that Medic 18 has increased response times from what we had been told would be 750 minutes, 55 seconds. So that I don't think that the the election report accurately addresses the response times for the fire engine and for the ambulance before and after the closure. But then the other problem is that I thought the report was going to be focused on the cost of Forbes proposal. But because the report said it started out by saying that renovation is impossible, it only talked about costs of a new proposal. And so I didn't really it didn't give the information I was expecting.

Well, I'm not sure what we're doing, but I'm thinking we're just doing a sort of summary, a summary before we have the motion.

We are deliberating on receiving the Elections Code report. Oh, I don't have anything to say. I think we need to do it.

So I think this election codes report is very problematic. And I think actually if we're doing the purpose of this hearing was to there's a ballot initiative on on as a potential. And these reports were supposed to come to us with if this ballot initiative went forward, what are the impacts to the town and costs, etc. ? And I think it completely failed. And I'm really upset about it because the numbers in it are they have they totally took the option of rehabilitation off 100 percent, didn't just said it's impossible. So we're just going to put all these numbers for a fire station that has to be built that they just said includes paramedics. But that's not what the ballot initiative is about. So all of the numbers in it are almost irrelevant. We can't rely on any of the information. And we paid, I think, something like eighty five thousand dollars for this. So I find the report to be a complete waste of time, energy and money and didn't even address which is the fourth proposal, which is to rehabilitate. so on that on those elements i just find this report i i don't want to vote to accept it or receive it because i think we need to redo it it's just not accurate and it doesn't reflect the what the ballot is going to do which is the plan that they just proposed which i would much rather we spent time evaluating that plan and coming up with real numbers about what that would cost because that's what's before the voters and

I totally disagree with that characterization. I think the elections report does a great job identifying the initiative proposal. Remember, we only got Forbes detailed information last Wednesday. I think it was New Year's Eve. And You know, two of us voted, two of us, not me, but two council members opposed even seeking this report. And we need to have this report received. It provides transparency and objectivity about the implications of this proposal. at least as characterized in the initiative. And we need to receive it. So does anyone else have any other comments? Just about voting not to go ahead with it was

It was a cost issue that it was $85,000 and my vote to not go ahead with it was that that was a lot of money to spend and that I thought that the town and Forth should work together to get these cost estimates because we were all looking to hire reputable people and we should all have the same cost estimates, and I wanted it to not cost us $85,000. So I voted not to do this, not because I didn't want the estimates, but because I thought the Town and Forth should work together and not spend a fortune getting the report.

Okay, I would like to make a motion to adopt the resolution 2544, receiving the election code section 9212 report.

There a second? I can second, right? Can I second? Yes. So I'll second.

Yeah. Thank you. Council Member Salter?

No.

Council Member Kirchherr?

Yes.

Mayor McMillan? Yes. Council Member Dowling? Yes. Council Member Robbins, no. With a vote of three yeses, two noes, the motion passes.

I think we should discuss future direction now. And especially given that all of our experts are still here, I would like to hear from you about any further thoughts that you have about the fourth proposal to help enlighten us as we debate the next steps.

Certainly, Mayor. Certainly, Mayor. We've prepared just a PowerPoint to make it go faster and...

Wait, wait. Point of order. This is not on the agenda, and this is not at all... No. This is absolutely... Town Attorney, I really need your help here. This is absolutely out of order.

Action's been taken. What direction are you looking to provide as it relates to the report, which is what's on the agenda?

I think it would benefit everyone to have a bit of a conversation about all the information that we've received and the public comments and future direction.

You've got to follow the agenda. And we can talk about future items to be put on the agenda, but you just closed the motion. So you need to follow the order.

Yeah. I don't think that would be within the gamut of the Brown Act agenda.

Okay. That's too bad, because I think it's a good opportunity to get more enlightened. Okay. I mean, the agenda says close public comment and council deliberation. That was just strictly for the Elections Code report. OK.

The council deliberations only for the election code report? That's what Ben's saying.

The only agenda item on tonight is whether to adopt the report or not. If there is direction to give about other information you needed in order to adopt the report, that you can talk about. But things that are unrelated in order to help you assist adopting the report, that's what tonight's agenda item is about.

OK. So we've already adopted the report, so there's nothing left to say except to go to number 10, which is no action item. Can I just ask a question?

Yeah. You know, the email we got about how this should be run says close... That's okay. You know, these items are... These items are together as one agenda item, item nine, fourth in the elections code report. And it says on the email we got that after the presentation, there'd be a public comment, then closed public comment, and council deliberation. So to me, that meant that after public comment, the council could deliberate about how we go forward or what we think in general about the whole evening.

I think Ben's saying no.

You can certainly talk about what happened and what was said tonight. And that was part of your deliberations if you want. And you can continue that discussion now. But what you can't do is deliberate and take action on things that are not on the agenda. The only thing that was on the agenda tonight was the 9212 report. Right. The fourth proposal was just that. It was a presentation tonight. There's no action needed. There's nothing to deliberate on.

but we can offer comments about what we've heard.

Yes.

OK. I'd like to do that whenever.

Me too. Me too. OK. And I guess I would like to hear more from staff about fourth's proposal, as long as you all are here.

But that's not the agenda item, Mayor. We've heard from staff. We've heard their reports. Now it's deliberation time. Either you talk or we move on to the next item.

Ben, do you agree with that?

Yes, I do.

OK. All right, so we can deliberate. And then we will move on to item number 10. Thoughts? Bill, you've been very quiet.

You know, I mean, the issue here is we have kind of a mismatch. The report, it is true, the report is dealing with, is not addressing the rehab option because we didn't have any specifics about how that would go. And so the report says it's not feasible. Now we have new information where we have people contending it is feasible. I mean, I don't know how to fix that other than do a second election report. Or I suppose withdraw this report and do a completely new report. But I mean, is that really going to be helpful?

You already voted to receive the report.

I know. I mean, we're deliberating after we've already taken action. That's unusual. But I don't know. The town attorney seems to indicate we could.

So just to be clear, people here, everyone came because they want to know what we're going to do. So this is all procedural, which is unfortunate. But if you really what I believe we should do is form a committee to evaluate the friends proposal, take them up on it and see if what we can hammer out and work together to do that to me is is actually action.

And and And then it's going to tell me that that is not on the agenda tonight. So we can all we could. Exactly. We can all express our opinions and have it as a future agenda item. If two people hold on.

I did. I did ask. Sorry, Mayor. I did. I did ask the town attorney about this. And he said to me, no, we've already done the report part. But he said if there was consensus. not as a future item, but if there was consensus of three of us to form a committee to explore this, that we could talk about that without a formal motion and that we wouldn't have to bring it back as a future agenda item. So he can inform that, but I think that that would be worth deliberating of forming a committee.

What I said was you can get direction to direct staff to bring an item in the future for forming a committee if there's three of you to provide that direction. You can't form the committee tonight.

Sorry, we can't form the committee, but if we could give the direction to form a committee to take this and tackle that, I think that's worth talking about.

An agenda item.

No, please explain. I'm sorry. This is all procedural.

Yeah. You can give direction, if there's three of you, to ask the town manager to bring back an item in the future about forming a committee.

No, but we only need two of us for that.

for a future agenda item on this agenda right now where we're talking that's what you and i talked about earlier today that's how you would do that on this agenda item okay

So I'd just like to make a couple of very brief comments. I think there's likely not support in the community for the current Facilities Master Plan, because I think it's seen as too big, too expensive, and it doesn't have a fire station. I think that we should... I think that the suggestion to form a committee to see what can we do with the fire station and Can it be renovated? There's a good one and I would certainly support going ahead with the committee suggestion as far as I One of the speakers mentioned that there were no differences in response times from when we voted to close the station to now, so that it didn't make sense to make any changes now. But that's simply not true. In 2019, Ross's response time for the fire engine was 7.55. I don't think we had ambulance data, but we were told at the time that the ambulance, if we closed the station, the ambulance could take care of our medical calls 85% of the time in 7.55. In 2024, the CityGate study showed the call to arrival for... at 9 minutes, 52 seconds, quite a bit longer. And then the data from December 11 meeting for the first four months after the station was closed showed that the ambulance was at 14 minutes. And if you manipulated the data, which you're not supposed to do, it's still at almost 10 minutes. So that But what's different now compared to when we decided to close the station is that we closed the station thinking that we would have no impact on our medical calls, though the fire engine would take longer. But it turns out that the ambulance isn't able to come in that 7.55 period. And so either the ambulance comes much later or the fire engine comes the expected two to three minutes later. And that is a difference. And I think that's why we are where we are today is that there are longer response times. Thank you.

Well, I want to say that I'm really grateful to see so many Ross residents here this evening. I know a lot of them have left, but some of you are still here. I also want to thank the staff. I want to thank FIRST. I want to thank the Council for all the comments and the thoughtfulness that went into your comments and your ideas and your questions were really great. I think we've made some progress. I think there's still more to do. Unfortunately, this is not an easy solution. It's a complex issue, and there's no easy fix. I would agree that I think it would make sense to direct the staff to put together a working group, a small working group, that would really sort of hash through not just first proposal, but to hash through what we talked about tonight to see if we can actually come to some comfortable resolution for us to move forward. I think we've been sort of in our corners, and I think it's very helpful for us to begin talking about how can we work together for the betterment of this community? So I would support having a committee. The staff would be .

So I think that this actually was a very productive night. I mean, it was a really difficult night. And there's a lot of smart people in this town, which I think we just don't utilize enough. And I'm really glad a lot of people turned out, because it's really important who you elect and what's happening in your city. And sometimes people, I think, neglect the importance of participating. So thank you all for participating tonight. What to me is very clear is that the current facilities master plan is we're on the Titanic. There's no way that plan is going to move forward at 25 million with no fire station. We will not garner the support for that plan as it exists today. It just is dead on arrival. The Friends proposal is a very thought out and they should be commended in so much held in such regard by all of us for doing such an amazing job of flagging this and allowing us a potential off ramp from the current facilities master plan because it won't work. So we need an off ramp. We need something else. Is it their plan? I don't know, but I do know the current course we're on. We're going to hit an iceberg. And so what I love this idea of forming a committee because we can't do this every night till 11 o'clock at night with the council. And there's a lot of smart people that are willing to step up and be on this committee. And honestly, I think with all those and including our staff, I'm sorry, I know I don't say that enough, but Rich over there is retiring. This may be his last stand, but Rich could be a part of this group. You know, it's really roll up your sleeves. No, no idea is stupid. Let's come to the table and say what the community really wants is a fire station. That's very obvious. And I know we have to say, how do we afford it? Let's think about that. But first, I think Jeff's idea was really, really thoughtful. He said, let's just figure out how we build it first. and we can figure out the operations and the rest but how do we build this do we rehab do we have to really bulldoze let's get some more structural engineers out here i mean get dan winey on this like i get everybody to really say like open up those walls sledgehammer them nobody's really using the building right now so like let's look at this in a real way where we actually come towards a conclusion that is conclusive where people were like you you know nice try you really can't rehab it But I don't think we're there yet. And before we condemn the community for the rest of the ages to have no fire station, let's be damn sure we can't rehab this building and do it for cheaper. So I'm really for this committee because I think this is too big. I am so sorry we have to redo the work. I really am. I know it's been a lot of work to get here, but this decision is that important that it does require us to go back and really, really retrace our steps. It just does. And I think a committee is a perfect way to do that with our smart townspeople, with our staff and with some of the council to take this forward and find the right solution that works because the community has totally come forward and said we need to do better.

It really is pretty late. And I will just share a few thoughts that I have, because I am in this business of rebuilding projects. And I mean, here's the bottom line, okay? The chances of being able to find some way to pay for this short of a tax or somebody donating the money are vanishingly small. I'm not saying an effort can't be made. Of course it can. But I really think it ends up with a tax. So the question is, do people want to pay it? This is all about what we can afford and what people are willing to pay. You can always be safer. You can always be better if you pay more. You get a life insurance policy for a million dollars, that's great, but you can't afford it? How about $500,000? Can't afford that? How about $250,000? And I hear people say, well, we're a rich community. We can afford this. Not everybody here can, actually. Many people can. I can. But a lot of people can't. They're just hanging on. They're just getting by. And I think we need to hear from those people too. But that's what it comes down to. The fourth plan, I mean, there's a lot of details to be worked out, but it's cutting corners. It's cutting a lot of corners. We're not going to get anywhere near what was assessed to be the proper level of rehabilitation in concept B. We're just trying to fit too much into an existing space, but it could be done. It's a value question. Is it worth those trade-offs? Because this is what we're going to do. We're going to do it once, and we're not going to keep redoing it every five years. So I wish I had great solutions. I have given a lot of thought, but I'm in favor of continuing the discussion. Right. Well, a committee, okay, if people are going to start nominating me for the committee, it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second. I'm not volunteering for the committee. But if people are willing to do that and it's practical, fine. You know, sometimes we try to send things to committee realizing, you know, we're just duplicating effort. We really need to discuss it at the council level. But perhaps this is a situation where a committee would be appropriate. Right. But as I understand it, we can propose this as a future item, but to give notice to the public, actually act on it at the next or whatever next council meeting where we can put it on the calendar.

Are you finished? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm finished. Okay. I don't want to interrupt you.

Okay.

You know, I want to remind people here that Belvedere hasn't had a fire station or an ambulance since 1980. And I've read a lot of material that, you know, we're such a rich town and we're one of the richest towns in California and in the world. and we can't afford a fire station or an ambulance. Belvedere has been fine. I have friends in Belvedere. I have friends who have been on the town council. They're fine. I'm concerned about having a committee and discussing a structure when we don't understand how we're going to pay for the operating costs of a fire station going forward. So, I mean, as Stu pointed out, this is all, you know, a cost benefit analysis. How much do we want to pay? It's an insurance policy. When you started out our discussion in 2019, that is the first paragraph of what you said. How much risk is the community willing to take on and how much is the community willing to pay? So we can't just discuss. I think it would be imprudent just to discuss the facility. We don't want to rehab the facility and then we're not building it and they will come. We need to make sure someone comes. Right? Someone needs to be there if we're going to go through this exercise. If this fire station is that important and that critical and everyone's willing to pay, or at least a majority of people are willing to pay, we need to figure out the operational issues and costs as well. And I'm not confident that there is a huge opportunity to renegotiate the share that Ross pays to Ross Valley Fire. We agreed to pay that share in 2012. It was based on the fact that we had 25% of the firefighters and 25% of the facilities. And that's how... No, Sleepy Hollow doesn't have a station.

And also, this is not a point and counterpoint. Public has to be quiet. Thank you, Ben. We're going to take a recess and clear the chambers.

Well, I'll just tell you that Sleepy Hollow does not have a fire station. The station in San Anselmo is called Sleepy Hollow, but it's not in Sleepy Hollow. The other thing that we agreed to in 2012 as part of joining the JPA is that any fire reallocation of the costs has to be approved unanimously by every single member. And there's four members and each member has two members on the board. So we need eight people to approve any kind of a cost reallocation. So it's difficult. And I think it's kind of wishful thinking to think that we're gonna drop it down to 15% or even 20%, but we'll see. We also have a great deal in that currently we don't have a fire station, so we don't have to pay to maintain a fire station or rebuild a fire station. And we only have to pay 27% of the costs for San Anselmo Station 20 for their maintenance. And Fairfax and the Sleepy Hollow Station in San Anselmo are both being remodeled right now, and Fairfax is paying a ton of money, and so is San Anselmo for those remodels. So I think part of, if we're gonna do a committee thing, It can't just be about the facilities. This is a whole package. So I think part of what the staff needs to do, not to give you more work, Krista, but I think part of what the staff needs to do is identify what the scope of this committee would be. It can't just be about the facilities. And the other thing that really concerns me is We successfully, after more than 20 iterations on a long-term lease with the paramedic authority, we successfully executed a lease with the paramedic authority. But that lease requires that we get a paramedic facility built, what is it, by 2029? January 2029, it must be ready to move in. So that's the other issue that we need to... all be thinking about because that clock is ticking and by the way when we in our lease we are receiving 75 000 from the ross valley paramedic authority at the 11th hour kentfield said ah we'd love to have the paramedic authority and we'll only charge you a dollar Now the deployment study that Stu did said Ross is the best location. Half the calls go to the left, half the calls go to the right. And the paramedic authority recognized that despite the fact that they were looking at $1 versus $75,000. Plus, they get a new station and it's spec'd out to whatever they want. But in my mind, it's really, really important to keep the paramedics in town, to treat them well, to honor that commitment. Because I'm not sure how this whole fire station discussion is going to go. I think there's some insurmountable hurdles involved. I don't wanna do a plan that lasts for 10 or 20 years. I have been working on this council since I joined it in 2017 on this fire station. And my predecessor, actually starting with Gary Scales in the 1990s, rehabbed the sleeping quarters of the fire station. This can has been kicked down the road. How many years is that? Almost 40 years. So, I'm sorry, he was in the 80s. He was in the early 80s. So... Anyway, it's much, much more complicated than just the facility. That's my point. So with that, does anyone else have anything else to say?

Well, just I think we do want to... I mean, we all have our individual opinions. I think we want to especially listen to the community and see what the community thinks.

I agree with that. I think... I commend FORTH for your communications and marketing efforts. It's been amazing. But I think we need to be sure that we're getting the correct information disseminated to everyone. And I'm not sure that we have. You know, I'm trained as a lawyer. I'm not trained as a communicator. So that's something that I need to work on. But anyway, and I did want to say about the response times that people keep bringing up. You know, when Terry and I put that on the agenda, we knew it was just going to be a snapshot of a four-month period. And when you exclude the watershed, which is actually... serviced by Moraine County Fire, not Ross Valley Fire. When you exclude the watershed, the calls are under 10 minutes. And so I want people to understand it's not 11 minutes. It's not 14 minutes. We need to agree on the facts. That's something that's really important. Okay. But one thing about...

I'm not.

Julie, what you you know, what I find the most difficult about being on this council is that you say we got it. We somehow have to come to a consensus and conclusion. But you just run to your corner and you just bringing up all of the history that's gotten you to this point. And all I'm going to tell you is I came here new. Nobody, if they had a clue what was going to happen, would ever want you to close their fire station. And what everybody has seen and what you've heard every letter that came in is why on earth don't we have better fire protection? And what Stuart Gary said is like was so I guess you just didn't listen. We said, you know, you need 17 to 20 or 25 to be really an effective force. And we're down to nine people. So, you know, you just start with the basic of why would why would any community in this day and age in a very risky, fire prone area give up their fire station? And that was just a bad decision. And I think the community has come forward in spades to say it was a bad decision. They want their firemen. Like, I mean, you're just, you know, rehashing things isn't the reality. The reality is people want to have the firemen back and it's better for the entire Valley. It's not just a Ross decision. It's better for everybody to bring them back. So the question is how we do that. And so you need to start by being an elected representative of what the people want. And so what I'm going to tell you is no matter what you think or want to do, there's a ballot initiative sitting out there and the people will vote and then we'll know exactly what they want to do. And by that point, it may be all the validity that you have. All the validity you have on the costs and how we do this, it will be usurped by the people because they're telling you what they want and they're going to vote for it. I know they are. And so until you come to the realization that the $25 million Titanic you put us on is going to fail, that you will not get the two thirds vote for a bond and this ballot measure is going to pass, you've boxed your own self in. So at this moment, what you can do is form a committee and start solving the problem of bringing the firemen back. And if you don't do that, I mean, you're on the ballot in November, too. So there's a very easy way to change all of this. So you have got to get on the program that we want our firemen back and stop doing the same dance that has gotten you here.

I think we should just go back to the committee and move on.

Come on. Jeez, man.

I think there's a consensus for a committee. I think we should go there and move on.

Yeah, I really don't appreciate this degenerating into threats and so forth. That's not going to get us anywhere. And I hope we can not continue in this vein. Thank you.

And I think I would like to say that, Matt, you bring this up a lot. You talk about we're not listening to the people. Well, Ross is made up of, I don't know, a lot of people who have different opinions. And I think our job on the council is to make sure we hear from people All the people, not just the people that you're talking about.

Let them vote. Everybody. Do the ballot initiative. Let them vote.

What I'm saying is that you accuse us of not listening to the people. Terry, let me finish.

Can we just let's end this meeting? Really? I'm sorry. It's late. It's getting anywhere. It's true. All right. I move. We adjourn the meeting.

I second. Yay. Thank you, everyone, for being here.