City Council - Special Meeting

Why is he there?

It says post is

All right.

Should we do a test? Matt, can you hear us?

Yes, I can hear you.

Okay, great. Bill, can you hear us?

Yes, I can.

Okay. Oh, God, Matt, you're presiding over a huge...

conference room.

Welcome, everyone. We are at the special meeting of the Ross town council Wednesday, May 6 2026. We have two council members who are appearing via zoom. If you could each say your name and and your location and just confirm that you have posted the agenda at your location, that would be really helpful. Bill, why don't you go first?

Yes, I'm at the Orlando Hyatt Regency Airport Hotel and I have posted the agenda and there is no one else present with me.

Thank you, Matt.

Hi, I'm at Matthew Salter at One Market Street in San Francisco. I posted the agenda and there is no one else presently with me.

City Council Chambers, Thank you both and Ben stock our normal town attorney our customary town attorney is not here today so Miriam if you could please introduce yourself as Ben hi everyone i'm Miriam Sleeman i'm here from the town attorney's office welcome okay so i'm. City Council Chambers, let's see, are there any. City Council Chambers, Changes to the agenda. City Council Chambers, No mayor. And the agenda has been posted?

Yes. Can I ask about a change?

Okay.

So yesterday we received a letter from Bob Herbst on behalf of Jeff and the Ad Hoc Advisory Group, and they asked us to talk about four things at today's meeting, and two of them are on the agenda, but two aren't, and I'm asking if we can add those other two to today's agenda. One is to discuss authorizing $100,000 for as-built drawings and other necessities for the project to move forward, and the other is to consider appointing an ad hoc advisory committee to fill the role of unpaid owner's representative. And so those aren't on our agenda, but they were requested to be on yesterday. Can those be added?

No, they cannot. The agenda had to be posted 24 hours in advance and the agenda has to have agenda titles that are descriptive of the action the council is considering.

So if these are critical, I guess we'd have another special meeting to discuss it, but not today, is that it? That's correct.

all right um public comment and this is for matters krista correct me if i'm wrong this is for matters not on the agenda limited no this is for matter matters on the agenda only on a special meeting agenda and i certainly defer to our town attorney but i've been told in the past that the items are on a special meeting agenda that the public this is the time for public comment of course it's up to the mayor on how you want to proceed

Yeah. I agree. I think, yeah, it's about what's on the agenda here.

Okay, I would rather do the public comment after each of the items instead of collectively lumped together. Okay, so we will not have any public comment right now. We will move on to number four, which is town council to consider adoption of resolution number 2623, directing the town manager to initiate preparation of an amendment to the town's facilities master plan to incorporate the citizens advisory committee concept as a preferred alternative to concept B, subject to further technical, operational, and financial analysis. Town manager Johnson.

Thank you, Mayor. David Kelly, our project manager for this project, is here this afternoon and can give us a brief presentation to the council for this item. Thank you, David.

Thank you, Town Manager Johnson. And good afternoon. Beautiful sunny day. David Kelly, I am your project manager for the facilities master plan, and i'm going to start just picking a little bit of background and overview, and how we got to this agenda item today, some of which I know you've heard before back in June of two thousand and twenty three. The Council adopted what we refer to as the Ross Civic Center Facilities Master Plan, and it's a bound document that was prepared by KPA that included quite a bit of analysis of the Civic Center site, did a technical evaluation and program evaluation for all of the Town's operations. And as part of that, there was a community engagement or a public engagement process. Ultimately, the plan establishes a long-term framework for modernization of the town's civic facilities, including here, right here, Town Hall, some of which you've already undertaken, both police and public safety functions, public works as well. And as part of the facility master plan, the council identified affordable housing on the north portion of the property. The council ultimately reviewed multiple options. There were really three concepts that were reviewed by council, concepts A, B, and C, and the council settled on concept B and adopted that as your preferred alternative out of the three. That concept did not include the, The fire station or fire station 18 it you know relied on on really demolition of the the public safety building that house both police and fire and was largely focused on construction of new civic facilities so fast forward. to June of last year, and in response to the demolition and ultimately termination of fire services from the Civic Center site, the Friends of the Ross Firehouse, which I'll refer to as FORF, submitted a petition to really accomplish two things. One is to maintain an operational fire station within town limits, and also to prioritize rehabilitation or reconstruction of a Fire Station 18 here at the Civic Center. at your February 12th meeting this year. Council voted to place the fourth initiative on the November 3rd ballot. I think Town Attorney Miriam Slyman was here for that meeting. And at this, at the following meeting uh or excuse me at the same meeting uh residents including uh the town treasurer expressed interest in forming what was referred to as a citizens advisory committee and I think the intent was for them to uh do an analysis and study the idea of uh you know, exploring reuse of the existing public safety building. There was, you know, just opportunity kind of baked into historic rehabilitation of the existing building. The Citizens Advisory Committee, which I'll refer to as the CAC, subsequently developed and presented an alternative concept to Council that was last week on April 29th. And following that presentation, I think there was generally, if I can say it correctly, unanimous support for further evaluating the CAC's concepts as a prevention, City Council Chambers L' Potential preferred alternative to concept be, and so that it would be kind of the priority in terms of. City Council Chambers L' How it's integrated into the facility master plan what I do want to touch on is just kind of some kind of four key differences between the the cax concept and the existing concept be. And the four key differences we'll talk about are building, site, program, and ultimately cost considerations. Starting with the building, the CAPS concept really emphasizes historic preservation and rehabilitation. It does also envision some new construction as part of adding to the existing structure. But in essence, integration of civic services within that existing rehabilitated and preserved structure. compare that to Concept B. Concept B really emphasized primarily new construction, new civic facilities based on kind of a coordinated campus redevelopment. And that's shown on the Facility Master Plan Concept B. You see that with the different uses on the site plan. In terms of the site planning, the CAT concept primarily focuses really on the building configuration and what it looks like. And there was some great design concept that was presented to council and showed how kind of functionally the civic uses are consolidated into that one building. Mayor Mrakas, What what I think was missing, at least from my perspective, were were some elements, and I think the the CAC admitted that it, you know there are still some some elements to be. Mayor Mrakas, further evaluated consider, including site circulation, how would, for instance, public safety vehicles access. the apparatus base, where would the public works workstations in equipment storage be located, as well as what what underground utilities need to are envisioned to be replaced. And just for reference, I think the the adopted facilities master plan really envisions replacement of most all the underground infrastructure that serves the buildings in part because of the age of the structures. And if you're going to make a large investment in new buildings, it makes sense to replace, you know, the water lines and the sanitary sewer lines. And it's part of that. It also includes the underground project for electric utilities council has as authorized. By comparison again, concept B includes is really a more fully developed site plan that addressed and included those elements. In terms of organization, again, the CAT concept consolidated all of the town's civic functions really within one kind of large civic building and integrated, and there's an integration of those uses and use of shared space, whereas concept B, again, relies on a more distributed space amongst various facilities within the Civic Center site. One of the other key differences is cost considerations. The Citizens Advisory Committee did present some preliminary cost estimates that were prepared by construction professionals. I think it was a great effort to include with their presentation. But I think given still the concept in nature or the conceptual nature of the plan, those cost elements still need refinement. whereas the facility master plan, you know, again, reflected more broader and integrated project scope. So with that, if the town council wishes to move forward with the assistance advisory concept as it was presented, and I think there's strong interest in doing so, it's recommended that the current adopted facilities master plan be amended. Amendment of the facility master plan would achieve a couple of things. First of which, it would update the town's preferred development concept, again, from concept B to what the assistance advisory committee presented. it would establish a revised space program for each of the town departments. Remember during the presentation last week by the CAC, the space allocation is something that really needs to be done more refined within the schematic design process. And so that's where you usually kind of update and finalize the space program. Of course, as part of that, and especially when you start looking at tenant improvements, you update the preliminary cost estimates. Ultimately, the goal is to support a final project description that will inform the environmental review process. It will become the basis for a project description in the environmental document so that the environmental impacts can be accurately described and disclosed and mitigated to the extent that there's any significant impacts. So it's important to say at this point that amendment of the facilities master plan does not necessarily constitute a final project approval or authorization of construction. That's something that's gonna, it's currently proposed to come forward by way of a first step of retaining an architect. And we're gonna talk a little bit about how we want how we recommend the council approach that with review of the SOQs at the next agenda item. To support this effort, the town has released an RFQ for architectural engineering services. We received 10 statements of qualifications, all from very high-qualified firms, most of which have expertise in civic facilities. Some, their expertise focuses on On historic preservation or campus planning or other types of municipal implementation projects. So we believe that the selected consultant team will play a critical role in kind of the next steps, ultimately amending the Board of Trustees Meeting in person. And then, of course, updating the cost estimates that go along with it. Just in closing, the cat proposal really does represent a very meaningful and constructive contribution to the civic center planning process. It's certainly identified that there's strong community interest in historic preservation in a compact civic design that was reflected in their proposal. At the same time, we believe additional work is necessary to ensure that the revised preferred alternative by way of the tax proposal meets the operational requirements of the town addresses, I think very importantly, the site and infrastructure needs to serve. Really, when you think of a building of this nature, it's the next 50 to 100 plus years. City Council Chambers, So you want to make sure we get it right and ultimately is feasible over the long term for implementation. City Council Chambers, The proposed actions before Council provide a framework for advancing that work, I think, in a thoughtful transparent technically informed manner. City Council Chambers, Well, while preserving some of your key policy objectives and recognizing that one of the key elements of your facilities master plan. is providing a site for affordable housing to meet the town's housing goals. So that really closes or completes the presentation of the agenda item before you. There is a resolution in your packet for your consideration and staff does recommend adoption of the resolution subject to any amendments by council.

Thank you, David. Questions from council members?

And maybe this is more of a discussion, but maybe Chris, you could answer. I wasn't clear why there were three additional resolutions added to the document that Julia and I were looking at yesterday or day before yesterday. It almost seemed like it's like adding roadblocks to things. I mean, I think we all agree. You added one that said subject to further technical operational financial analysis. Of course, it's not a final plan, but then there was like a list of specific things. I don't know if we need to be that specific. And the third had to do with advancing the town's objective policy objective. Of course we agree with that, but I wondered it was such a vague statement, the town's adopted policy objectives, that maybe we would reword it, advance the town's adopted policy objective of including compliance with state housing, because that's the objective we're trying to meet. The way it's worded is sort of so open, I'm not sure what all the other objectives are, but if we're putting it in a resolution, I think we should either be very specific or not put it in. So I guess the question, that was kind of long, Why is all this other stuff in there? Because it seemed to me that the point of this resolution was to affirm that the council is in support of the citizens plan and that we should move forward with it. But this has a lot of other things. So that's the question.

So I was not part of the first drafting of this resolution. So when I was provided with an opportunity to review it, and it was not sufficient, in my opinion, from staff. um so when i reviewed it with my team and it was with david kelly because frankly that's all we had time to do since this meeting was scheduled and everything had to be posted yesterday no later than 2 p.m so um that's the reason for the difference you know two members of the town council really shouldn't have been um drafting accounts you know it's it's it's something that the whole council reviews at the same time and provides input in a transparent public setting. So that's the reason for the addition is for me it was an addition because I wasn't the one who drafted it to begin with. The committee's materials that they placed into the agenda packet for last week's meeting, the Citizens Committee, does not mention housing. There's not a single reference to housing in there. And I believe that that is their intent. I've had many, many discussions with them, but it wasn't in there. And so as you are all aware of with the adoption of the sixth cycle of the housing element, we are required to include housing on the site so that's why we really feel like it's important I you know we'll leave it up to the council in your discussion to talk about what you want to include or not include or edit from this document but it's important that is that it's very important that that part include okay so did you have another one so the and then the second the second now therefore be it resolved is more specificity on the first one because we think it's important and and as the town attorney wrote all the whereases I believe in the beginning it's important to have this is this is going to be this is a piece of legislation that unless the council rescinds it someday is going to be in there forever and the specificity is the specificity is important because people are going to be able to pull this up and say, this is what the council agreed on. So I think it's very useful to be specific.

And I think that that's a great question, Vice Mayor. And I think at least the A couple of the be be it further resolved recitals that you inquired for about were addressed in subsequent revisions that were recommended by to the resolution recommended by the the town attorney specifically referencing the section 3 and section 5, and I think that that makes a lot of sense, because it makes it very clear. that the concept that was submitted by the Citizens Advisory Committee isn't a standalone facilities master plan. There's the other elements of the plan that basically will be retained in its existing language. And the work by the Citizens Advisory Committee concept would be integrated into the Facilities Master Plan with those particular sections. A concept three, which has the, excuse me, the section three, which is the space program that would be, you know, could become almost like a new concept D, which would be, as Council has expressed, you know, could be your preferred alternative. You still then have those other alternatives as outlined in the plan. But this would be a new one. So it'd be in addition to that. And then, of course, the updated cost estimates would replace section five or update section five. So again, thinking of this as a kind of a historical reference, it helps to have that language, as the town manager said, it's legislation. So you'll have a good reference source City Council Chambers, That it shows the trail of how this cat proposal will make its way into and become part of an amended facilities plan.

City Council Chambers, Maybe during public comment that the committee members can mention if they're okay with that you know if that makes sense to have that level of detail.

City Council Chambers, I just had a question on there doesn't appear to be a reference to what we're doing in this building and maybe we should have a reference in the resolution. City Council Chambers, You know we're not ripping this building down we're just doing minor cosmetic and acoustic improvements something to think about.

City Council Chambers, And I think I think that that supports the idea of amending the facilities master plan, because the facilities master plan does reference improvements to town hall, and so the intent wouldn't be to. City Council Chambers, You know, throw those out or eliminate those this, it would be become integrated again with this concept D proposal, but I think your idea of again referencing it in the resolution makes a lot of sense.

And if I just might add so they're in their other parts that are in the facilities master plan that weren't are not in the committee's because they're there's is not a plan. It's a conceptual design. So for example, it doesn't talk about all the sidewalk frontage to Sir Francis Drake that's in the master plan. And there's the you know, the courtyard and the secured parking so So those are all in the plan, but then you have another concept. So it could be concept D, which has another design concept. And then the council would identify, after you've done your evaluation, the council could say, OK, we've received the additional information, and we choose to go with D. We're changing from B to D.

Yeah, it's a simple process question. So the RFQ was released and we have 10 architectural firms that have responded. Do we do we put out an RFP? Is that part of the process?

That's that's a a very material question. Council member Dowling, and I think that is normally the process of selecting an architect. You do in a 2 phase process. One is you. We which we started with phase one, which was release of an rfq and receive receipt of statements of qualifications, and then often the process is to select the top two or three or four, and have them submit a detailed proposal. So that's one option. One another option is to Board of Trustees Meeting? So it kind of there's two potential alternatives there in my perspective. It's really, you know, if you want to get three firms provide three competitive proposals, for example, or three proposals to look at how they might approach this design concept that's been presented by. That certainly could be. That could be the process. But that's part of I think the next step is to review those proposals and decide if you want to go to that next phase of asking for of a detailed proposals because it's a lot of work for those firms to to put all the work into the proposals you remember we're going to ask for. To include a cost proposal, and so you know the firms have to put together a very detailed budget as part of that effort and. And that's very good because it requires everybody to sharpen their pencils and really look at their perspective on how they want to approach the project but but you can go straight to asking one firm to submit a proposal thank you

Thank you. I'd just like to add that the twist here is that, you know, usually you have your facilities master plan and then you get the architects propose what the program is. And that's kind of the twist here is that we need to amend the facilities master plan because that's going to be a big difference, is that if there's now square footage and all the tenant improvements, everything that needs to be done for a fire station in it, that's going to change how they propose, right? The architects are going to also be saying, it's going to take us so many hours to do this, so many hours to do this. Well, if we're adding in another very important substantial element into this plan, that's going to add on to the hour. So they have to know what it is the project is so that they can propose on it. And it's very similar, and David mentioned the environmental, we're not going to be able to start our environmental process, or it's going to be difficult to really start it in earnest, we might be able to do some things without knowing what the project is what we have to have a project description. And that would be the facilities master plan. Yeah.

Great. So go ahead. Matt has his hand up.

Yeah, I just, I want to make sure we're staying on this agenda item, which is just specifically about what we're, you know, referring about the amendment to the facilities master plan and i and my comment is my question is just about that this is just to propose that we prefer this concept and to direct staff to potentially make an amendment down the road is that correct

I think the direction is to, as the title of the item is, is included in the general report is really to initiate preparation of an amendment to the town's facilities master plan.

So yeah, so it's not an amendment itself.

Not not tonight. No, it must be initiate the process. That is correct.

Yeah, so I just I think all these comments are sort of not relevant because all this isn't the amendment. This is just directing the staff to work on an amendment to the facilities master plan that we all agree. We want to go in this direction. That's really all that's before us today.

Bill, do you have any questions? You're muted.

Okay, now can you hear me?

Yes.

You probably can't see me. But we can hear you. Okay. I'm having a lot of technical difficulties with the hotel Wi-Fi and so forth, so I'm using my iPhone. And anyway, I just, yeah, I agree. This is about directing the staff to proceed with coming up with an amendment. And I think we should probably focus just on that aspect of this.

I think those are good clarifications, Matt and Bill, so thank you. Elizabeth has another question.

It's on the topic of amendments. So that initial draft that Ben had showed us actually said that this would be the amendment. And I realize this isn't the final draft, but this is what he sent us. It says, the council does hereby amend the facilities master plan to make reference to the City's Advisory Committee concept as the preferred concept rather than concept B. And that's actually what I thought the sense of the last week's meeting is, but this current resolution, as we were talking about, only says that we want to initiate an amendment. And so my question is, why wouldn't this just be the initial amendment rather than initiating an amendment?

I think to your question, Vice Mayor, is because we don't have a complete A plan before you for approval usually an amended plan means you've got a complete document to that shows you the complete layout of the civic center as the current master plan does, I think, and it. from the conversations I've had with the town manager, I know she wants to move forward post-haste and getting the architect on board. And I think that's the goal, assuming council really indicates her support today for moving forward is to work post-haste to make the necessary amendments to reflect the plan that the Citizens Advisory Committee makes so that we can come back with a new document that would be complete and show uh both the uh completed uh alternative uh you know if we want to call it alternative d um the the tax proposal with with with costs and and to bring that as a complete document for for your adoption and the intent would be to have the architectural firm that we submit i mean i think it's actually could work fairly ideal because They're going to be reviewing the space program, and they're going to be updating that, again, recognizing that what the CAC presented was concept, you know, finalizing that and showing what that looks like on a final exhibit with updated cost estimates, which we then ask council to adopt as part of a final amended plan.

So when the architects are looking at this project, will they know that the council has supported the committee's plan in place of concept B or will they still be just having concept B given to them?

Yeah, based on council's direction, when staff released the RFQ, we made a number of changes to the language within the RFQ reflecting that council was actively reviewing the proposal by the citizen advisory committee and that the selected firm uh could be requested to of all things amend the plan amend the facilities plan and you know provide additional analysis of the uh City Council Chambers, The citizens advisory committee's concept, of course, at the time we didn't know you know Council was going to you know, be unanimous in their support for that alternative. City Council Chambers, But, but again, a council's direction that the necessary change those changes were made to ensure that the architects were informed that that could be part of the process. City Council Chambers, And now, given where we are, we haven't we have the town has not retained an architect yet. City Council Chambers, That will be part of that conversation right with them in terms of developing a proposal is to do that, to do that work, thank you.

City Council Chambers, Okay, any other Council questions. City Council Chambers, Okay, we will open it up to public comments. City Council Chambers, Mr rosenbaum.

Better. My name is Mike Rosenbaum, 14 Madrona Avenue. I would like to ask the council not to approve this initiation of an amendment. I hate having a gun held to my head during a negotiation. And until you can ask FORF to drop the ballot initiative, this is your Donnybrook to say no. If they want to drop the ballot initiative, then go ahead and incorporate what I consider a very incisive Citizens Advisory Committee. But until you hold your ground, you have a gun pointed to your head, they're gonna force a ballot initiative, force a firehouse. So take some pressure off yourselves. Don't initiate tonight. Make them drop the ballot initiative, bring it back up, and then pass it.

Thank you. Anyone else in the chamber for public comment? Anybody online, Zach?

Yes, we have David Peterson.

David Peterson. Hello.

hear me i don't know this is a different system than i've worked before turn up your volume and then we'll be able to hear you is that better yeah perfect thank you oh okay um i guess going along the lines that michael said you have the concept b here is currently the plan and you're going to amend it with something concept b has no fire station what you're amending it to is an option as i understand it to have a fire station as be part of it it's going to make a significant difference in the cost of construction so how are they going to bid it with that only as an option but more importantly as you leave it there as an option you are either sort of kidding yourselves or trying to kid the public that it is in fact an option And you must somewhere state that it's going to require a million and a half plus capital investment in equipment and hoses and whatever, and an ongoing forever three and a half to $4 million cost. And I don't believe that there is a place that you can find that kind of money or that the public would would go for it when they realized what it might be. So the idea somehow to maybe keep the four people happy, you leave it as an option so that they will give it up, but they wanna have it. And I think as Michael said, you have to face that issue before going forward with this concept. I love the concept by the way, I think it's great, but I think we're kidding ourselves if they're gonna, have all that square footage dedicated to having a fire station. We could use it for a lot of other purposes, some of which Chris has noted that, you know, there isn't enough square feet to do some of the things that should be in the program. That's my thoughts.

Thank you. Anybody else, Zach?

No other hands raised.

Okay. So we'll bring it back for discussion and adoption of the resolution potentially.

I have one really simple edit, which is the next to the last, be it further resolved. I would suggest that we make it clear that the adopted policy objective that we're advancing is the state housing and not leave it open-ended about who knows what policy objectives. And we can do that by just taking the S off of objective and adding the word of. So it would read, be it further resolved that the town council intends that any amendment to the facilities master plan will continue to advance the town's adopted policy objective of including compliance with state housing requirements, blah, blah, blah. And that is the point, to make sure that there's housing. So that would be a suggested edit from me.

Any other discussion? I was just gonna say, Elizabeth, you asked a question about did we agree about the detail. Mayor Mrakas, The details of the in the resolution, and I do, I think that it's important to have all of the details, as was presented by staff and. Mayor Mrakas, And I also like the idea of including the civic Center. Mayor Mrakas, Including what civic Center. Mayor Mrakas, So town hall sorry not civic Center town off this building Oh, this building.

City Council Chambers, I don't doesn't that confuse things to add town hall, I mean it's already in concept being we're going to amend concept be with this so presumably that will stay without us putting it in here.

City Council Chambers, yeah I think that's the point that matt was making with his with this good question, so I think it's implicitly in there, I think everything that's in concept be is included right just we're just not going to go through and enumerate every single thing.

And then is included in what is included in the facility's master plan?

Yes, that the master plan, the amendment to the master plan will have to implicitly address everything that's already included in concept B.

Is that is that I want I just want to make sure we don't have any misconceptions here. David, is that sounding clear to you?

Yeah, I think it's clear.

it wasn't specifically addressed in in in the concept design submitted by this is an advisory committee but i think it was it was inherent i mean we're taking i mean we we've heard you and um as council member salter mentioned you know you will be getting a new plan back it could be several times because you need to get public comment we have to have a document that's a draft document that is um shown to the available for the public for public comment and you know when we did this first one we we came it came to the council's draft several times um maybe that won't have to happen the process can be shortened up but um the council is going to have an opportunity We might want to mention the housing aspect a little more clearly in the facilities master plan too. So that might be something that we're working on as staff that we would be bringing forward to the council for your consideration and any amendment.

No, I have 1 other suggested edit.

Let me know. It's always hard when you're on zoom. So, I feel like Elizabeth or. This is just saying that all they're going to do is prepare an amendment. To the master plan, and that we prefer what the. Has put forward as sort of a guiding light, but it's not a fully big plan yet. So we can't make the amendment. So, I understand there's the be further resolved and there's a lot of sort of open ended questions, but that's fine. That's because we have, we don't have a full plan to amend right now. So, I think what. This is written is, I mean, I think honestly, Krista, if we had just stopped with just look, all we want is to give the direction to staff to prepare, prepare an amendment. that we're leaning in the direction of this new concept that's really all this is and we don't have to really wordsmith everything and get to the bottom because there's nothing to vote on and there's nothing to amend yet so i i'm fine i just think we probably could have i know why you put all this in here because you wanted to make sure hey we don't have a fully baked plan and we've got to sort of add all these elements but all we're directing you to do is create an amendment when it's ready and i think that that's fine

So then I just have one other suggestion, which is on the second. First is resolve that we consider an amendment. The second is that... The Citizens Advisory Committee concept is the preferred alternative to concept B. It says subject to further technical, operational, and financial analysis by the town. It almost sounds like if it's not an analysis that the town is pleased with, we can't go ahead. I would make that pending further technical. because we want the analysis, but it shouldn't be subject to, it should be pending. And then when the analysis is done, we're ready to see, do we think that it makes sense to make the amendment?

City Council Chambers, I think you know the Council is going to be the one who decides to adopt the amendment to the facilities master plan, so I don't really think that that's necessary. City Council Chambers, I also think that what matt saying makes a lot of sense and what we're really doing is an interim step and we'll have plenty of opportunity to. City Council Chambers, Go over all of the elements of option D or whatever we're going to call it the CAC. City Council Chambers, Option whatever when that time presents itself so i'm i'm kind of fine with how the resolution stands now.

I would like to move. Can I make one other comment?

Oh, sure. Also, Bill, if he has anything to say, I feel like before we make a motion, just in case Bill has a chance.

Yeah, Bill, do you want to? Can you hear me?

Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, no, I agree. Again, I agree with Matt. We all recognize that there is a time element here. And so we want to move ahead and hire architects and proceed looking to have something more concrete come back to us as an actual amendment to the master plan so that we can move ahead. It's fine with me.

So my only other suggestion was, should we include on this section that such analysis shall include development of a comprehensive project, all of that, should we include this analysis should be done as quickly as possible? That's certainly our intention. It's the second be it further resolved that such analysis should include, and then there's development of comprehensive project scope, fully burdened cost estimate. I mean, should we include this analysis should be done as quickly as possible.

so if you're interested you could say something like that um such analysis shall be expeditious as possible and shall include blah blah blah that's good that works for the council that sounds great certainly our intent so with that amendment and then with Elizabeth's other amendment regarding the um uh

City Council Chambers, The facilities master plan will continue to advance the town's adopted policy objective of compliance with state housing requirements.

City Council Chambers, Perhaps we can have a motion to approve the resolution as amended and make a motion that we accept the resolution number 2623 as amended second.

sorry i just wanted to friendly amendment yes so we have the sentence that starts with the town council directs the town manager to initiate an amendment to the town's facilities to support citizen advisory committee i think it is the second therefore be it further resolved we're striking subject to and replacing it with pending is that one of the amendments or no no okay so that one is not okay so then this second two will be amendment and then it just says or the project scope one, such analysis shall be expeditiously completed as, what was it, the sentence?

My suggestion to council was that be it further resolved that such analysis be as expeditious as possible and shall include development, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Great. And then the last amendment is to strike the S and say the policy objective of compliance.

Right. And I left the word including. I think you took it out, but I left including in that line. Policy objective.

I thought you were just focusing only on the state housing requirements. You wanted to delete any other.

You're saying there's only one policy objective? Mayor Pro Tem Robbins, right?

No, that this particular line references only one. It just references the state housing requirement.

So that any amendment to the facility's master plan will continue to advance the town's adopted policy objective, singular, of including compliance with state housing requirements.

I thought it was just of compliance. That's fine, too. Of compliance with state housing requirements.

Yeah, because using the word including kind of makes it sound like it's one of many. Yeah. Okay. Because you're saying, right, that's what you're saying is that this is just what you want, this resolution. Right. If you get rid of including, that's totally fine. Yeah.

Okay.

So those are just, so that's it, those two minor changes.

So everyone knows what the motion is and the amendments. Is that right?

Okay. Council Member Dowling, second by Mayor Pro Tem Robbins. Aye. All vote. Council Member Dowling.

Aye.

Council Member Kircher. Aye. Council Member Salter.

Aye.

Mayor Pro Tem Robbins. Aye.

Mayor McMillan.

Aye. Thank you.

Motion passes 5-0.

thank you and i did want to just say that this meeting was scheduled really really quickly and we really i real i can only speak for myself i really appreciate how the staff scrambled and pulled together um two agenda items and two staff reports and over the weekend and there was a lot of work that happened so thank you for doing that um And now we're moving on to number five. Town Council to consider establishing a Town Council subcommittee consisting of two council members to assist staff in the review of the Statement of Qualifications, SOQs, received in response to the Town's request for qualifications, RFQs, for architectural and engineering services and authorizing the subcommittee to provide input, and feedback to staff during the evaluation process and prior to staff returning to the full town council with a recommendation for selection. Krista.

Thank you, Mayor. David Kelly is going to give a brief presentation. Thank you.

Thank you, Town Manager. I'm just going to jump right into discussion since I think the background covered this item. Our background for the last item covered this item. As I mentioned, the town received a total of 10 statements of qualifications, all of which were from highly qualified firms. And they included really a diverse group of architectural and engineering firms that included nationally recognized firms, as well as local or regional firms or specialists in civic or campus development. and it's a reflection of their interest in working with the town of Ross, as well as that there's a competitive pool of teams out there that are willing to take on this important project. In this agenda item, staff is recommending the establishment of a council subcommittee consisting of two members of the town council to assist in the review process. The purpose of the subcommittee would be really kind of fourfold, provide policy level input to the town manager, as well as your perspective during the evaluation of the statements of qualifications. to assist staff in identifying a short list of the most qualified firms. Certainly participate in interviews if that's recommended or if they're conducted. And lastly, to provide feedback to inform staff's recommendation to council. I think if the members of council who are part of the review process can coalesce around a recommendation, it helps build council support for the selected firm. The use of a Council subcommittee at this stage in the Saq is intended to, of course, ensure transparency and Council involvement. It's a very major project. The civic center, an important project for the community, and also It helps ensure alignment between the staff evaluation and Council's priorities, and ultimately support a well-informed and efficient selection process. I think that the subcommittee would really function in an advisory capacity. uh for for a limited duration uh wouldn't take formal actions uh staff of course would continue as provided for uh in in your town's municipal code you know manage the procurement process including you know coordination of interviews preparation of staff report and recommendation for consideration by the council and ultimately preparation of a professional service agreement with the recommended firm The final selection of the firm and ultimately the approval of the agreement would be made by the full town council at a town council meeting. And that really concludes this brief agenda item. If there's any questions, I'm happy to entertain.

I have a question. Do you think that this recommendation could be given to the town council by our next regularly scheduled meeting, which is June 11th?

you know it really depends on um i already have a meeting scheduled for this coming tuesday two to four um and you know depending on what council members are um assigned to this and you know we could tweak that a little bit but my intention is to start this week to review and so um you know we're it's going to depend right on the input too of the two council members but what what you believe is is uh should we be bringing forward? We're certainly not going to be ready to bring forward on June 11th a negotiated scope of work, et cetera, et cetera. But could we narrow it down and schedule? There might be an interest of having the top couple or top three firms actually give little mini presentations to the council. That might be something that this group is interested. They think maybe the council or the community would benefit from that. this not only is going to be a you know the amount of money that this contract is going to be is going to be just a little bit less than how much you pay for fire service every year so it's the biggest expenditure of funds that the town will be making besides the fire service so I think it's possible to bring forward something. It's not going to be the contract, but it could be, you know, have the council give us, you know, are we headed in the right direction, you're leaning towards, you really like this, maybe prioritize the top two, something like that. And we might want to do a separate meeting because your June agenda is actually really heavy. And we're going to have four design review items. And those are your customers. So we're not going to be able to ask them to delay. So we could schedule a special meeting of the council, give you a little bit more time to go through if you want to have presentations by the architects. So then it becomes a matter of, is that enough time for the firms to be able to bring something.

Yeah, I realize my question was kind of unfair.

It's not unfair. It's just that we've been focused so much on all these council meetings and then focused on today. We'd like to get started and have a kickoff meeting. I've got all the submittals sitting in my office. We'd like everybody to start talking about it and what the ideas are.

Yeah, the point of my question really is that I think the community and the CAC and the council all want to move forward. as we added to the resolution already as expeditiously as possible. So other questions on this item? Elizabeth?

Um, have you thought about, um, including some members of the citizens advisory committee on this committee? Um, and I'm asking that because there's, they are more expert than any of us council members when it comes to architecture firms and engineering firms and building. And I think that it might be extremely helpful to add one or two, whoever they think would be best qualified to this committee. Also, have you had you thought about that?

Or just sorry to add to what Elizabeth was saying, why wouldn't we just refer this to them? Why create a separate council committee?

Well, maybe I can start with the question from Mayor Pro Tem and then move to Council Member Salter. The answer to your question directly is absolutely. I think there's definitely interest and you want the subject availability, the time it takes, the expertise, I think, especially someone who is has a perspective relative to the different proposals and firms and what they're gonna bring. I think in my conversations with the town manager, I think that's certainly appropriate and it's up to council if that's what's something you'd like. In terms of council member Salter's recommendation or question, I guess, it's not really a recommendation. Mayor Mrakas, It because it is such a significant contract and. Mayor Mrakas, The scope of work is focused on civic facilities, it certainly wouldn't be my recommendation not to defer that responsibility to a group of private citizens again if they have involvement. in the process in selecting. I think there should be a lot of confidence that the firm that's selected is the appropriate firm. But to defer that to a group of private assistants, albeit very dedicated group assistants, no question, raises potential concerns about conflicts of interest, which are difficult to manage when, I mean, we know, for example, that one of the members is also, his firm has submitted a proposal. And so there's concerns around potential conflicts of interest. What if the recommendation was to select the firm that City Council Chambers, Is a member of the committee well it lends itself to mistrust and, in my opinion, so that's why I would suggest that firm could very well rise to the top and be a great firm we wouldn't want that that to be a potential bias in my opinion, and having the committee select for.

And I'll offer additional sorry to be very clear. My question is, we, we are, this is just a group that's going to go through these 10 and then bring to the council potentially to choose the finalists. Maybe it's 2 or 3 people. So I wonder why we couldn't let this group of experts that are truly experts in the field sort of do this due diligence with you and the staff. It's not that they're going to be on their own. They'll work with you, and you will come down to finalists for the council to decide who to pick. Is that the process? The subcommittee is supposed to come up with a recommendation, but it's not selecting anybody.

I will please let the additional color so. First, just general brown act if another person, aside from the two Council members is appointed here, it would become a brown act body. which is just good to be aware of. As for- Do you mean if just three people are on the committee?

It's a Brown Act body. Even if only two are council members? It's a, yeah.

No, no, no, I'm saying, I'm sorry, this is all getting confusing. I am saying not to do council members. This is, this group, the citizens group is not a Brown Act entity and they are, there are no council members on it. So they are able to meet and move quickly because they are not subject to the Brown Act. That's partially the reason why I want to refer this to them.

Yeah, I think the town attorney is trying to address your comment as well as some other comments that have been made.

And then I know the conflicts questions came up. Of course, if there is someone who it works for a company that has also responded to one of the rfqs then they would certainly be disqualified from getting that work if they were also on a subcommittee that is making recommendations to the council so that is part of the consideration i think is as we had the project manager discuss and then i would in general if this question is do we delegate the council's authority to a pri you know private citizen group And there's so many laws and so many issues that you know, we would have to stay within the within the council's discretion and procurement laws, prevailing weight, like there's a lot of a lot of elements that I think would be best handled and staying within the council. Of course, if you choose to put someone into the subcommittee who has that expertise, it becomes a brown act body. And of course, it's within your discretion. But

City Council Chambers, I would yeah I would I would just add that color that there is a lot to consider and keep it with the Council, could we have to Council members appointed to the subcommittee and then give that subcommittee the ability to consult with the citizens advisory committee in general.

So it would be the two council members on the subcommittee and you are in dialogue with private citizens who have that expertise. Exactly. Yes. Great. Thank you.

Okay. And I also, sorry to continue, we can make any ad hoc committee we want and is not subject to the Brown Act. If it's an ad hoc committee that has a finite life to it. We do it in Marin Colleen Energy all the time. So I just want to make sure that you're not telling us things that we can't do. So we can create an ad hoc committee that is not subject to the Brown Act.

That is correct, according to our town attorney, Ben Stock. And remember, we had this discussion with the council very recently. What was that? Oh, it was when you had a discussion in February about establishing a citizens committee. you cannot the council cannot once you appoint somebody once you appoint a body it becomes subject to the brown act and that's when you had two members of the community get up and say hey we're just getting together as a group of concerned citizens this has nothing to do with the town we're meeting on our own we're not asking for staff time council representatives nobody and then therefore they were able to meet without uh in secrecy is not the word I'm looking for, but they were able to meet without being open to the to the public.

Yeah, but Krista, there's also a there's an exclusion in the Brown Act for ad hoc committees that are limited in scope and do not have that are going to sunset. And that is an alternative if we're if we have to create a subcommittee.

so if that answer isn't clear i really think we should table this till we have correct counsel because i have no interest in moving forward with creating another brown act committee that's just going to delay it i don't matt we're not talking about creating a brown act committee i think what we're talking about is having two council members to assist the staff and giving that group the ability to confer informally with the Citizens Advisory Committee and not, you know, to me, this is the best of both worlds. It's not a Brown Act Committee, but we get the benefit of all the expertise of the Citizens Advisory Committee.

So I think we're finding that sweet spot by not- Yeah, no, that's not the way it's written, Julie, unfortunately. It says to establish a subcommittee of the council. And the county attorney just said that you would have to be subject to the Brown Act, and I'm saying you do not need to.

We can add which indicating that the, that the subcommittee can confer with the citizens advisory committee. We can add that into.

No, no, no, no, no. That's not the problem. It's, it's, you have to call it an ad hoc. Subcommittee in order, it has to be called an ad hoc. It's, it's, it's a special exclusion to the brown act. 2 council members cannot serve on a committee and not be brown act unless it's an ad hoc committee. So again, if Ben, we need him back, let's table this. We need the right counsel because none of us want a Brown Act committee.

Let's let Miriam talk about this. I was clarifying that if you decide to add someone else to the committee, it becomes a Brown Act body. If we have five minutes so that I can pull up all of these rules and make sure on the ad hoc, I would love that. I would also love a Wi-Fi connection. I don't know why it's not working, so it's just really slow. But I would love five minutes to clarify and make sure that

up to speed okay let's let's make sure that there are no other questions and let's take public comment and then we'll take a break and you can come back miriam um with your with your recommendation any other bill do you have anything is that a no that's never dial into a zoom meeting with your cell phone no seriously i think i'm on now i don't have anything to add julie thank you okay thank you anybody else Okay. Any public comment on this item? Mr. Rosenbaum?

No, I'd love to get connected, too, because I have got all my documents.

Mike Rosenbaum, 14 Madrona Avenue. If you're going to do this, two town council members are fine to go on this. I think then all the council members have to come together and row in the same direction. You can't take pot shots at this subcommittee and say, I disagree with it. They can meet with the Citizens Advisory Committee. I do not believe the people on the Citizens Advisory Committee are totally impartial. So I think having two town council members are fine. But then when this decision is done, you have to take, you can't take pot shots. You can't disagree like we did on the town of Ross frequently, FAQs where you recused yourself after you spent all the time putting it together.

Any other public comment in the chamber? Anyone online?

No one online, Mayor.

Okay, so we will take a five-minute break for Miriam to do a little quick research, and we will resume at 3.16. And Miriam go ahead, so I just want to clarify that.

it's true that ad hoc subcommittees made up of the Council members less than a quorum of the Council members would not be a brown act body but government code section 54952 which defines legislative body. says that a commission, committee, board, or other body of a local agency, whether permanent or temporary, decision-making or advisory, created by charter, ordinance, resolution, or formal action of a legislative body is a legislative body. Then there is an exception for advisory committees that are composed solely of the members of the legislative body that are less than a quorum of the legislative body. That would be an exception to the Brown Act. So it's correct that a body, a committee, that has two council members would not be a Brown Act body. But that's an exception to the general rule that a committee is a Brown Act body. In this case, if this committee is made up of private citizens, it would be a Brown Act body because it doesn't fall into the exception of council members, not a quorum of the legislative body. Does that make sense? I could try again. I could try again. So the general rule is that a committee

City Council Chambers and City Council Chambers. I think we need to state the general rule. Just state in this kind of circumstance what we could do.

You could have two council members on the committee and it would not be a Brown Act body. Anything else would be a Brown Act body.

So one council member and one

but it's not solely but two two council members and the ability to consult with whomever we want is not going to be a brown act correct okay and and two committee members counts as a brown act committee because there were no council members suppose there were just uh two members of the committee right that's a brown act that would be a brown act body yes okay

so sorry i just because i have a lot of experience with this essentially we can be two council members on a committee that has a limited purpose and scope and doesn't meet regularly and it's considered the ad hoc subcommittee exception the minute that we add anybody from the public to the committee then it becomes brown act so we would have to keep the subcommittee just the two members of the council

Correct because it says composed solely of the members of the legislative body.

Now, if with to. Mayor Macmillan's point, if the 2 council members then sort of just talk to, or sort of consulted with other people outside of this, they're not members of committee. Is that permitted?

Yes.

Okay, so we could have witnesses or people come and speak to us on the subcommittee, and that would be totally exempt from the Brown Act. That's not a problem because they're not members of the committee.

Yes, you can consult.

Okay. Yeah. Okay, I think we were just waiting for Miriam's research, and now we can discuss the potential resolution and next steps. um so i would like to be on this committee um i'd be happy to be on the committee um okay anybody else interested in being on the committee i'd be i i absolutely would like to be on the committee bill are you there uh oh bill went to dinner okay well um So we need to figure out which two people should be on the committee. Oh, Bill, are you, Bill, are you interested in serving on this committee?

No, I am not.

Okay. So four out of five of us would like to be on this committee.

Um, some ways, I mean, in some ways, Julie and I aren't a bad pick because we have different opinions about this. So it's, that's always helpful to, I mean, the committee itself, the citizens advisory committee set out with people on both sides. And we could be doing the same for this. So that's not a bad approach, I think.

Yeah, I would just add that Elizabeth and I have the longest tenure. Maybe that's good. Maybe that's bad. I think in this situation, it's probably good, given all the history that we've had on the council. And, you know, I've been working since 2017 to try to rectify these facilities. So I think Elizabeth and I do have a long history of trying to get this stuff addressed.

I think that makes sense. I would support that.

Well, I'm just going to say that we had you two work on the FAQs. And as Michael Rosenbaum just brought up, that became a big problem later. So just because the two of you have long tenure, we need the group to work together and come up with a recommendation. And I really, really fear given what happened with the FAQ process, that something like that will play out again. And I would just say to you, Julie, that you and I worked together on the finance committee and we didn't necessarily agree all the time, but we ended up picking a very strong town treasurer that I know you respect and are glad that we chose. So oftentimes people with difference of opinions can come together and make the right decision. And I personally think it's better that if the two of us, which are the strongest views on this issue, came together and came with recommendations, that all of our colleagues would know that what we're putting forth is good. And I don't want a repeat of what happened with the FAQs.

um matt i appreciate what you said i still think it makes more sense for elizabeth and julie to be the two council members and i do think there's a lot of value to the fact that they've been involved with this issue for a very long time and really understand it back in front and back all the way um so i think they would be a good team

And I also think this is very different from the FAQs. You know, the FAQs were, that's a very long document and it had a lot of facts that could be interpreted in various ways. This to me is more, you know, black and white, if you will, where we would be coming back to the council with a recommendation, and it would be this firm or that firm. It wouldn't be, you know, historical perspective or enhanced response time or anything like that. So I think it's, I hear what you're saying in terms of the FAQs, and I, you know, Regret how that evolved. But I think this is different.

So, I've just add 1 more thing, which is neither of you have real estate experience. Which I have as well. So, again, we have to, this is technical in nature. We're going to be picking somebody who's going to have to sort of design a building. And already, if it's a technical issue, which the fire station has lots of requirements as Mary McGrath made very clear, and everybody knows this. So, to program this the correct way, we need to make sure we're picking. An architect that has the expertise to design the public safety functions that we all want. And again, that is a skill set that's different than. The 2 of you have so. I hear you, I just think we can't be wrong on this and we can't the public can't go through another situation where. What comes out of this subcommittee is suspect and that people are attacking the subcommittee. I just don't know why we would do that and put ourselves in that position.

I guess the beauty of this committee is that the people from the council. they don't have to be real estate experts or architects or construction people or engineers or anything like that the beauty of how this committee is getting set up is we get to rely on these esteemed residents who've stepped forward to form this citizens advisory committee so i think i view my role on this committee as assisting and ensuring that we get this done as quickly as possible City Council Chambers, And i'm going to be relying on you know, am I, if I serve on this committee. City Council Chambers, I mean some of it is personality, some of it is, you know optimism, some of it is how quickly can they do this work, but I think we are really blessed by having this citizens advisory committee. City Council Chambers, Who has a bunch of experts, whom we can call on whenever we want. City Council Chambers, To help us, so I don't think. City Council Chambers, I don't think anyone on the Council is going to be at a disadvantage because we're certainly not any of us, none of us is a real estate, you know developer type person so krista did you want to say something.

City Council Chambers, I would thank you, I. You have not mentioned the word staff, so I just need to remind the Council that this is actually a staff role. Staff brings forward the architecture. The contract is going to be something that, and the scope of work that I work on and I bring to the Council, absolutely, Council has to improve it. It's going to be a huge amount of money. but i want to remind the council that on our staff team we have an experienced project manner we have an experienced government executive with 30 years of experience we have a planning and building director who is on the team who's an architect with a degree out of berkeley we also will have as of tomorrow we will have a professional services agreement with griffith structures who will be serving as the owner's representative who has done this kind of work with many many cities and agencies and counties in california in other words so it's um there will be a subject matter expertise and this is about choosing the architect and bringing something forward for council approval and you have to get public input

Just a question. Chris is so the recommendation will come back before all of us on the council. Correct. Absolutely. So there's always an opportunity to weigh in that

I hear you, Terry. I'm just telling you if it comes forward and then all of a sudden that this turns into, well, I don't want to pick this architect and this architect has never designed a fire station in their life, how that's going to play out and look well. It will look bad. And I think we have to understand the public scrutiny in this issue. And if it ends up being that we're picking an architect that's never designed a fire station, that's sending a bad signal to the community. So, I disagree that what we need to do is this committee should be strong and this committee should pick somebody who can do the issues that we need them to do. Otherwise don't have the subcommittee. Why don't we just take recommendations from this community as an advisory board just straight from them as opposed to putting 2 council members on it, but it will be a very terrible outcome. if the recommendation of subcommittee comes to the council and then the council doesn't agree or has a dissenting vote about who they're trying to select and that again will just divide the community mayor um can we make a decision about who's going to be attending this committee yeah okay

So, Terry, do you want to? I don't know. I would move that for the council subcommittee that the two people who represent the council be Elizabeth and Julie. It's not really on it as a vote.

Are we supposed to vote on this?

How do we do this? How do we make a decision about the two people on the council? or do we need to approve the subcommittee first?

Excuse me. It's recommended that the council establish a council subcommittee consisting of two council members to assist staff in the review of the statements of qualifications, blah, blah, blah. Two, authorize the subcommittee to provide input and feedback to staff during the evaluation process and prior to staff returning to the full town council with a recommendation for selection. So I believe, and of course, always defer to the town attorney that this would be helpful to have a vote,

I agree. So the proposal is that we do form a council subcommittee. And Terry has proposed that the two council members to assist staff in reviewing the SOQs would be Elizabeth and myself. Should we take a vote on that?

So is there a second? I'll second it. No, you proposed it.

Thank you. You were the first, right?

Fine. I move.

Second.

I'm sorry, did I catch that? So Mayor Pro Tem Robbins seconded it? Okay.

Roll call vote. Council Member Dowling? Yes. Council Member Kircher? Yes. Council Member Salter? No. Mayor Pro Tem Robbins? Yes. Mayor McMillan?

Yes.

Motion passes 4-1.

Thank you. Do we need to do number two also, the authorized subcommittee to provide input and feedback to staff? That's kind of implicit by forming the committee.

I read it to you, and I was taking the nodding head from the member that made the motion that it included both.

Okay. So that concludes our meeting, and we can adjourn at 3.33. Thank you, everyone.