City Council - Special Meeting

Okay, hello everyone. I am calling the special meeting of the Ross Town Council for Wednesday, August 26 to order. Town Manager Johnson, has the agenda been posted and are there any changes?

Yes, Mayor, it has been posted. No, there are not changes. Thank you.

City Council Chambers, Thank you traditionally on a special agenda we include at the beginning, public comments, but I think it makes more sense to take public comment after item number four. City Council Chambers, So the order will be the presentation by staff and Gensler Council will ask questions, then we'll take public comment, then we'll bring it back to counsel for a discussion and input on future direction. City Council Chambers, And then we will adjourn Okay, so with that I will turn it over to number four town Council to receive a presentation from gensler regarding the validated civic Center space program. City Council Chambers, confirm the proposed program and shared slash common support spaces and provide policy direction regarding planning scenarios to be included in the draft amended facilities master plan town manager Johnson.

David Kelly, our project manager, will be giving the introduction this evening. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Manager Johnson. Good evening, Mayor McMillan, Mayor Pro Tem Robbins, Honorable Council Members. I'm David Kelly, your project manager. I'd just like to take a quick opportunity to introduce the Gensler team this evening. Sitting behind me, and they're going to join here at the desk in just a moment, is our project manager, Letha Zuber. our project director, Manan Shah, and our other Gensler staff member, Jake Gelfand. All three of them will be addressing you as part of the presentation to council this evening. But before turning the presentation over to Gensler, I'd just like to take a few minutes to explain and provide a little bit of background around the purpose of tonight's meeting. and particularly in how we arrived at this point in the process and address some of the questions that I think have been raised by members of the Citizens Advisory Committee as well as members of the community. I would like to certainly acknowledge the contributions, the significant contributions of the citizens advisory committee and the work that they've contributed to over the past year they've done a tremendous amount of work in developing the civic center concept which ultimately the council adopted as part of your preferred planning alternative and gave direction to move forward to staff As Council may recall, after accepting the CAC concept as the preferred planning direction, the Council approved a professional services agreement with Gensler to prepare a facility master plan amendment. The schedule for that amendment process is 12 weeks. We are currently in week three of the process. The purpose of that plan amendment is to validate and refine the CAC concept through what I'd like to refer to as a very comprehensive planning process. Specifically, Gensler was asked to undertake a number of tasks that included starting with and what you're going to hear tonight is validation of the departmental space program. to also confirm operational requirements with town departments, and to the extent that we were able to do to discuss with our partner agencies, evaluate, you know, kind of as part of the future work, evaluate, say, opportunities and constraints. We'll talk a little bit about that today, and ultimately develop updated cost information and implementation strategies that will result in a draft amended facility plan and ultimately hopefully a final master plan that will be considered by council. Tonight's meeting, as you may recall, is one of three really special town council study sessions that were added to their scope of work to help provide for, of course, additional transparency, but also provide for council policy direction on key planning issues as we move through the process. At this stage, Gensler is presenting the validated space program. In other words, they're confirming what functions need to be accommodated before developing alternatives, showing how those functions might best fit on the civic center site. In terms of the purpose of tonight's meeting, I just want to emphasize what this meeting is and what it is not. It's not about selecting a preferred site plan. That's down the road. That'll be at one of your future study sessions. It's not deciding whether the town will or will not construct a fire station. It's not about changing the Council's direction. Instead, it's really to confirm the the validated departmental space program, particularly where there's proposed shared and common support spaces, and to provide policy direction regarding the planning assumptions that should be carried forward. We don't want to get too far along without your input. In addition, this will allow Gensler to proceed with development of conceptual blocking and stacking. Again, that's going to be the presentation to come at one of your next study sessions. The schedule as part of this will be reviewed with Council tonight. You'll see that on one of the slide decks. Those conceptual alternatives will return to Council for discussion before any recommendation is made regarding a preferred facility master plan. So I just kind of want to set the stage for the discussion this evening. I'd also like to just talk a little bit about fire station programming and address one of the questions that I think has generated considerable discussion by way of public comment. We've noted that several community members have expressed concern regarding the agenda reports reference to evaluating planning scenarios that include both a concept with out a fire station and a concept that preserves the opportunity for a future fire station. Mayor Mrakas, Again, I just want to emphasize that the evaluating planning alternatives does not predetermine council's ultimate decision in any way it's again seeking your policy direction. Mayor Mrakas, Ultimately it's it's really a standard planning practice it's intended to help you as decision makers understand the operational physical and financial implications of different approaches. before selecting a final preferred action. Ultimately, council retains the authority to determine the final facility master plan, whatever that may be. Another important point that I'd just like to share with council is you'll see tonight a fire station program and wonder how was that developed? Well, for purposes of validating the space program, Gensler did not independently establish fire station requirements. uh instead ginsler utilized the town's previous programming work that was prepared by mary mcgrath and associates which evaluated service model option that was a fire station that included three firefighters assigned to the ross valley fire department a single story building which also housed and supported two ross valley paramedic authority personnel assigned to an ambulance along with one trainee per shift so a total of six people and reserve apparatus. And again, this was all programmed in an area of approximately 700 7600 square feet. And you'll see that discussed in the presentation by Gensler tonight, using the town's previously completed planning work provided a consistent and logical starting point for validating the program, rather than creating a whole new set of assumptions about what's the square footage for a fire station. As I've noticed, the Council also received a letter from members of the CAC expressing concerns about evaluating a planning scenario without a fire station and suggesting an alternative approach for future fire service. And I think there's reference to a nearby fire facility. Specifically, the CAC suggests that a combined firefighter and paramedic facility with shared living, kitchen, and support spaces similar to the recently completed Sleepy Hollow fire station may require substantially less square footage than the standalone fire station previously programmed, evaluated by the town. As you will see from Gensler's presentation, they evaluated a facility that includes a host of shared functions, and that's part of the presentation tonight. One of the objectives of the master plan amendment is to provide the Council with sufficient information to evaluate reasonable planning alternatives before selecting a preferred direction. So again, we're not seeking that tonight, and there's a lot more to come. We are moving forward very aggressively within a aggressive timeline of twelve weeks. Again, we're only at week three, and this is opportunity for Council to check in. From a planning perspective, I believe it is appropriate for Gensler to evaluate the operational, the site planning, and cost implications of different approach, so that Council can make an informed decision based on objective analysis rather than just assumptions. It certainly doesn't commit the Council to any particular outcome. Rather, it provides additional information that may help identify opportunities for greater efficiency while preserving future options. Ultimately, tonight's objective is not to determine the final configuration of the civic center is to confirm the validated space program. Mayor Mrakas, receive the council's policy direction and provide cancer with clear direction from the Council, as they began developing conceptual planning alternatives with that i'd like to invite. Mayor Mrakas, Both Lisa zuber and Manon up to the desk and they're going to they're going to walk you through quite a bit of detailed slides and presentation on their their work to date. Mayor Mrakas, That.

Mayor Mrakas, Excuse me, Mayor and Council, I am. If I need to, I'm going to get up and leave and go in my office. So I'm not running away. I'm just going to be there so as not to distract you, okay?

Because of your cough, right? Thank you, Krista.

Thank you, David. Good evening. Is this on?

Yeah. I mean, you could sit at the table, wherever you want to be. This is fine.

We're just going to do an introduction from up here and then Jake will walk us.

You have to talk into the mic because it's being recorded.

City Council Chambers, All right, there we go yeah it didn't sound like it was on before perfect good evening, thank you for your time this evening we're very excited to be here to show. City Council Chambers, Our progress, thus far on the project to date, this is meeting one, so this is really an opportunity for us to gain your insight the collective inside of the town and the Community. on some optionality that we're beginning to explore and we'll try to do our best to share our thinking along the way and the things that have led us to some of the recommendations and decisions uh that we'll make uh liva is going to walk us through a little bit of the agenda and the information that we'll discuss and then jake will walk through some of the planning options that we'd like to get your feedback on in terms of how we can best utilize the site for the project um City Council Chambers, You know, and again, we understand that we're at the beginning here and we really kind of cherish the opportunity here to help build consensus amongst the Community on the preferred way to accommodate all the program on this site so with that either.

There we go. Good evening and thank you for inviting us here. I'm going to go through the project schedule initially. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it, but it is quite detailed. Oh, great, yes, sorry. So what we're gonna do, I actually wanna start off by going through what we're gonna discuss today and then what comes next. So today we're gonna talk about the program. Thank you, David, for the very detailed description of what we're gonna go through. We're gonna talk a little bit about the program. We've spent the last three weeks validating the program and having meetings with Krista, David, Roberta, going through the detailed program from before. And then you'll see that we have also validated back and forth with stakeholders, have provided some comments, and then we have allowed that what we get from that to then get us into what we call shared facilities which is really a great way to button up the program you have multiple public safety facilities and then you have what we call civics facilities and they can share So we were able to consolidate some of the program. So we'll go through that a little bit as well. Then we're going to go through today what we call the master plan optimization strategy. A lot of words. But really this is now we're looking at the site and how we might configure that program in different ways on the site. And Jake will go through that with you. After we leave here today, and you've made some decisions, the next steps, we're going to go through a parking and site circulation study. We also have a topo site survey that should be being performed any day now. They're going to put that site plan together, and then they're also going to establish what we call the 100-year floodplain. That will help us as a design team figure out how we're going to lay out the site, what the possibilities are. We also, the next phase that we're in, right now and we're moving into is blocking and stacking. That is where we're looking at the building more in elevation and in more three dimensional how we configure things on the site and within each building structure. So we've got what we're discussing today and what we're going to be discussing in the next few weeks. Okay, schedule. so this is a very and i apologize that this is so small but because we are working with 12 weeks we really want we every day is important and so we really have all every single day is on this schedule because we we want everyone to understand what the tasks are that we're going through uh what you see right now is um maybe a little bit crooked and those of you some of you have uh some some paper in front of you but we have um designated like you see today where you see the green arrow and i'm not sure if this works but there we go the green arrow that's where we are today um giving this presentation town council meeting we will have two more uh presentations to town council after this meeting and we also have meetings on the calendar uh the first one scheduled with cac on september 2nd at 5 pm so you can take a look at this schedule i don't want to deep dive into it because again it is 12 weeks long, but this is where we are in the process right now. Once you take a look at the schedule, you'll see a little bit of the process that we're going to go through to get to this amended master plan. Okay. I'm going to pass it on to Manon.

City Council Chambers, So, as we start the process of understanding how best to fit the program on the site, we went back to the facilities master plan program. City Council Chambers, We did not go back and redo the program ourselves, we took that information and all the hard work and the dialogue that had happened with various departments. City Council Chambers, took that spreadsheet and began to analyze it and so within that program spreadsheet there was a net square footage number of. 12,780 square feet that was indicated. We went back through with David and Krista and refined that to some degree, asked some questions, got some feedback on minor modifications. In addition, as David described, we took the Mary McGrath program for the fire department. So we included that as part of the program and we did receive some comments from the fire chief as well. We also added a 30% gross factor, so what that means is the the FMP program that was built was in net square footage so it's really the interior dimensions of rooms. we added an additional 30% to accommodate rooms like storage rooms or HVAC rooms, the thickness of walls, other things that happen, corridors, the things that are between net spaces. And so traditionally, 30% should be a good factor to then we call it grossing up the net program. So there's additional area that's required to put all these functions in a building. So we included that. And then we also spent time and we'll have another slide that will talk specifically about the strategies but looking at where within the program we could find some efficiencies between departments. And where we could begin to develop some sharing of program to help reduce the overall square footage of the program so as it stands today, the total program area that we are trying to accommodate on the site. is gross square footage. So gross square footage includes this gross factor of additional space at about 22,000 square feet. And so that's what we're trying to accommodate on site and what you'll see in our site plans as we move forward. So the way that we began to look at this shared facilities strategy, and I think today, again, we're not gonna get into City Council Chambers, You know 50 square feet here 100 square feet here there's there's a lot of detail behind all of these numbers, but we wanted to talk generally about a strategy and then how that began. City Council Chambers, To to show itself on site so there's two groupings of program that are related, but also could be seen as distinct and so. City Council Chambers, On one hand, you have a series of program that are really public safety oriented fire department, the apparatus bay the police station and paramedics. City Council Chambers, All call for a central service level of facilities all have specific special requirements and programmatic requirements associated with them. City Council Chambers, distinct from that you also have a series of administrative and civic program elements of public works, the Council chambers the administration in HR and the planning and building department. City Council Chambers, So those programs, we looked at somewhat independently of the two and and you'll see. City Council Chambers, Some optionality of how best to mix or separate these programs to provide the right operational kind of efficiency within within the towns program. City Council Chambers, Hope that makes some sense, but I think it'll make a little bit more sense as we show you the diagrams on the site, but it's just a strategy of how to think about the two different groups that you have ultimately in your Program.

All right. Thank you. So what we wanted to do is to take that program and start to apply it to the site so that we're really thinking how we can best utilize the area that we have, how we can really create a master plan, a civic master plan that feels a part of the town. So what we want to start with is just to start with the existing conditions and kind of set the stage for what we're working with. um so obviously we're looking at our full site here uh town hall where i'm standing right about there um the public safety building in the middle um and then the public works building which based on this study the assumption is that that building will be demolished um so that kind of sets the scene of where our starting point is And so here we have the first kind of layout of those spaces. And it's really the areas that we showed previously. The other component that we need to accommodate are nine affordable housing units on the site. And so you'll see in all of these diagrams that that is kind of placed in the same location that was done in the original master plan. We kind of think that that's still a really good spot for them. It makes a lot of sense. So what you see here is how the programs start to lay themselves out on the site. The town of council chambers and the town hall program stays here, and that stays in it as part of the existing building. And the baseline of really how we started to think about this is that all of these new programs or all of these other town programs are part of a singular building in the middle. And it's really the idea of keeping the existing building and doing additions to it in order to accommodate that program. And it might be a little hard to see, but you can see how that area really stacks up. So the existing area of that building is 8,400 square feet. We would need to add an additional 11,300 square feet in order to meet the overall program. And we have some pros and cons on that, right? So pros of this is that we're putting everything in one building. So it's reducing the footprint of the overall building and allowing for circulation to work really a lot easier on site, which is very important for these types of programs. The other thing that's really good about this is that there's no impact to the town hall building, right? We would be able to keep it as it is. The cons to kind of the baseline program here or the baseline strategy is that in order to add kind of more than doubling the square footage of the existing building, we're looking at potentially significant impacts, aesthetic impacts to that building. That could be in the form of having to go up potentially a third floor. It could be maybe making larger modifications to the existing building, and so it gives us a little bit of pause and we wanted to kind of think about how other ways that we might be able to approach that. The other thing this does is you know the the fire department program being brought onto site and and. maybe potentially being brought on in a future date, this kind of assumes that it would be accounted for day one. And so there's kind of less flexibility. And I think we started to look at how that might be adjusted in some of these other strategies. So the first one we want to talk about is what we call study one. So this is an adjustment to that to try and solve some of those ideas. And we call this study one, which is where all the administration program can come into a new building where the existing public works building is currently sitting. And we can kind of go through the areas again. For the town hall, the town hall program stays the same. The council chamber stays the same. The current public safety building now has the fire department, the police department, paramedics, and those shared spaces. And that would require about 5,350 square foot of addition to that building, which we think is a little bit more achievable in maintaining the existing building and the character of it. Then what this is saying is that it's actually with the strategy of adding a kind of a third building on the site, which we're calling the North Building, and that would be able to house the civic and administrative program, public works, HR, And what's really nice about that is it starts to remember when we were talking about that kind of shared space. It still takes on that strategy of using shared space to create better efficiencies on the site. So the pros of this one, again, no impact to the town hall building and the public safety and administration programs are grouped together to shared space. The cons, of course, when we have public works, depending on what's going on in the workshop, may have an acoustic issue and might need acoustic separation, which we certainly could accommodate in a new building. The other thing is that by adding this volume of building here, it starts to potentially impact site circulation, which is something we're going to study in the future. But it could be something that makes it a little bit more difficult to accommodate parking and some of the other circulation. Now, the other thing we found in this strategy that we think is really interesting is this next slide here, which is how we could kind of accomplish something with phasing. So in this phasing diagram, The first phase could really be if or before the fire department program comes on site, you can actually make modifications to the existing building and how is the administration and civic program in that renovated building. So day one, there's not necessarily a fire department on site, but you're able to make the modifications to that building that are needed and accommodate all of our program that we're looking for. And then when it comes to phase two, what happens is all of these other programs, these administration and civic programs could go to the new building and then the fire department could come into the existing building. So that gives a lot of flexibility. If the fire department wants to come on in a later date, that gives you that flexibility of doing that at a later time. But a lot of that work has already been done to improve that existing building. So the next study that we have This phasing concept can work exactly the same way. This is just looking at maybe how these programs might want to find themselves on a site in a little different way. So here what we've done is we've started to come up with the idea that maybe in addition to this building, the Town Hall building, would actually be really beneficial. And it could be where the current portable building is right now. And it could accommodate the administration, HR, planning and building and actually be potentially connected or at least close proximity to this building. So really what we're doing when we were going back to those two big bubbles, now we've really been able to collect those programs together to create those efficiencies that we're looking for. The public safety building remains the same. The same amount of additional square footage that would need to be added from the study one. So it has the fire department, police department and paramedic program. And then here we're also looking at keeping the public works kind of in the same location that they are now. And that allows for a lay down area to be adjacent to the building. You know, all the all the program that they need and space that they need. It allows for that to have a home. So the pros of this is, you know, town hall planning and building administration program. They're all co located on the on the south side of the site here. public works gets that separation. Again, we would be having to have a more constrained site by adding another building volume there, but we think that there's definitely a benefit and an opportunity to still be able to work with circulation and parking as needed. There's another potential cost impact for multiple buildings. That's something we would want to evaluate. And then also, obviously, this building has its own history that we want to maintain. And so the impact to the town hall building. If an addition is added, we'd wanna make sure we're being architecturally thoughtful.

Yep.

Just a couple of more points on cost. One of the benefits of splitting the administrative program out of the public safety building is that you're not then having to put the essential service additional structural requirements on that building. So that building's less expensive to build and you're not spending that enhanced structure on a larger building. So that's one of the benefits of pulling that program out. The other thing that this phasing strategy allows us to do is to spend a little bit more time right sizing the size of the fire department I know there's some debate about whether this needs to be a smaller station or a larger station. And so, as you think about phasing you're accommodating the administrative functions in the building on day one, as you right size the program you can build the right size of. City Council Chambers, Next building based on where the fire department ends up in terms of their total program and needs in that building, so you can scale, the size of that second second building based on this.

City Council Chambers, And so I think this is just a summary of the strategies, so the baseline strategy where all public safety and administration building in admin program in one building. City Council Chambers, And then the two other options, where we pull the admin civic program off to either an addition or to another building. The last site plan we wanted to show was the potential of what would happen if there was no firehouse program on the site. So here, what we would recommend is, again, keeping the town hall and keeping that program as it is, and then being able to locate all of the admin and civic program along with paramedics and police. in the public safety building. That would require slightly, I believe a slightly larger addition to the gross floor area, but still something that we think would be manageable. And then here again, we're showing the public works program being part of its own separate building. And so I think the last slide is just a summary of all of, or the, sorry, it does not include the baseline. We kind of are recommending maybe we move away from the baseline option and look at study one or study two, and then also the site plan without the fire department.

Yeah, or I think if we wanna pursue the baseline option, we have to think about ways to reduce the total amount of program in the building. I think that's fundamentally, there's a lot of program in the 22,000 square feet to fit via an addition on the existing building, so. City Council Chambers, I think that's that's the end of our presentation and go ahead.

City Council Chambers, yeah and so we're available for questions.

City Council Chambers, Thank you, that was really helpful. City Council Chambers, I just have one question to start out. City Council Chambers, If all the services were in the same building what kind of magnitude would the cost be to make the I assume it with the whole building would have to be an essential services act building. City Council Chambers, What kind of magnitude, are you talking about cost wise just a general.

City Council Chambers, that's a it's that's a difficult question I think to answer, I think we have to what we don't have is a great solution for how we would exactly accommodate all the program in the building because. You'd either go up to a third story, which is possible, or you could extend the building horizontally, but that's beginning to impact our ability to have circulation, or it would come all the way out to the street, which we also don't, we wanna maintain the historic facade and the character of that architecture there. And so I think once we determined how to do that, we could get to a better, understanding, but you know, an essential service building can be 30 to 40% more expensive because of the enhanced seismic requirements of foundation. And then when you're talking about renovating a building, it gets more expensive because you're doing more difficult foundation work in an existing building. So it's a significant cost premium, I think, on the additional space. And if you go to a third story or something, then City Council Chambers, Your seismic becomes that much harder because you're more vertical with the construction so it's it's a significant order of magnitude.

City Council Chambers, Other questions.

City Council Chambers, I didn't understand you said something about reverting to the baseline program what what is baseline I don't see baseline here yeah.

Good. Oh, so the baseline is essentially I think where we all started the thought process with the project which is the AC plan is the baseline. The CAC plan did not have the same sized fire department program in the, so this is it's a modification of the CAC it's, it's taking the full program that we developed and putting it all into one building yeah which is an expansion of the CAC program.

and so but that that baseline is not an option the baseline is not an op well again the baseline is an option um it's it's one that we feel is more difficult unless we reduce the program and you know i i know at one point it seemed like a lot of the program it was everyone's wish list but maybe it could be reduced is is that a possibility to reduce some things to make it fit

City Council Chambers, It is a possibility to reduce program, I think that that again, we did not do departmental interviews and have the direct conversations with the various departments and so we're relying on the information of that work that was done previously. City Council Chambers, And so you know the nuance of trying to reduce all that program is something that I think we'll have to we would have to dig into.

City Council Chambers, And then the. City Council Chambers, Study one. is doesn't have a fire station up front it phases the buildings in is that correct.

Study one does have a fire station fire stations is in the public safety building it gives you the opportunity to in the phasing plan build all the requirements for the fire station. If it's not funded yet and fire department's not on site yet, then you can keep all the administrative functions inside that building. It'll fit. And then when that funding is secured, then you can move, build the second building and move all that program out and then accommodate the fire department in the building that's already built and constructed. So you're not doing a second round of renovation.

So there's space, but it's not actually intended to be used as a fire station until a whole separate phase.

Correct.

Okay. And then study two is the one where you've added administration to the current town hall, and then kept all of the public works in the existing building. We're recommending rebuilding public works, but all of the public safety.

Correct. Correct. It's a variant of the same idea, which is the public safety sits in the existing building and you either put the administrative functions adjacent to this property or on top of a public works building on the north end of the site. And this also allows you a phasing strategy, the same phasing opportunity in terms of renovating the public safety building, including the administrative space, Mayor Mrakas, And then determining if if the fire station funding and all of that occurs, then you build the administrative building when that's secured and you can move fire in.

Mayor Mrakas, So i'm not quite sure why, why are we talking about phasing isn't it less expensive to build everything up front all at once.

City Council Chambers, It is less expensive to build everything all up at all at once absolutely. City Council Chambers, We were asked to look at phasing as as part of the options for the for the project. City Council Chambers, You know, our understanding is just that this that there's some uncertainty around the fire department, but again, you, you know. City Council Chambers, you'll know that better than my myself, thank you yeah yeah.

It seems like one of the questions here is just how much space would be required for the fire department. At what point is that considered and what would the process be to consider that and is that a question that comes back to the council at some point?

it's a really good question um i think david tried to address a little bit at the beginning that we have we were given the prior uh mary mcgrath who's a an architect that that does do fire stations had developed a program that was reviewed by the fire chief And so we were given that as the desire for this station. Now, there are other models for fire service. And I think if you wanted to shrink this, this would be really an operational dialogue with the fire department in terms of how they plan on using this, what specific requirements they would have in that alternate model of service. And then once we determine that, then you can reduce the station. So there are other models of fire service.

But is that a discussion that would be between your firm and the fire department? Absolutely could be.

Yeah I've done half a dozen fire stations so yeah absolutely could help.

I was just I'm curious how different is this going to look from the uh beautiful design that all of us loved several months ago? How different will this look?

I mean, I think in these studies study one and study to the public safety building it in and its amount of addition is very similar to the amount of addition at the CAC presented The variation here is that we're looking at additions to other parts of the site. You know, the way that we would treat in addition to the town hall building would be very respectful of the architecture as well. That would be a single story addition. It could certainly fit within the same style of architecture and I think would actually be a compliment to the building. Same thing could happen with the Public Works building as well.

I have another question and that is the building to the right for the housing, you've pushed it off to the very edge. Is that going to be a problem?

So we've been, we are trying to keep the setbacks as required when dealing with multifamily housing. Right now that's kind of an additional part of the, it's not actually part of our program right now. And so what that's been sized is about for the nine units that are required.

and we we we did move it over as you know um and that's really to allow for the public works and the and program in the yard to remain essentially where it is we we sort of believe given its use in nature that that's a good location on site for that program and so to keep it there sort of pushes the the housing over i think you know as we study this further we can make sure that that that can remain an independent parcel for somebody to develop in the future which i know is the intent

Mayor Mrakas, Does the this spacing does this give you some concern about entry into the area parking into the area you've got more. Mayor Mrakas, land use so there's less is that a problem is that.

I'm not sure that it's a problem. We certainly have concerns. The site's constrained, and so there's going to be some magic in terms of getting all the emergency vehicle circulation to work, as well as the parking program, which is rather robust to fit. And so that's a... You know solve this variable first and then attack, the second variable as well, and they'll both interface with each other, but yeah site circulation and parking will be. You know it'll be a challenge on the site, especially with the people who live in the housing to yes yeah no it's it's it won't be an easy solution, but well Okay, thank you will work, the problem.

So the first thing that I wanted to acknowledge, are you aware that we had an operational fire station working in this building? Yes. With the police and the paramedics? Yes. Okay. So what I'm finding a surprise here is that you're saying that the fire department needs 3400 square feet. And we have just reconstructed Sleepy Hollow in our department, and it's 2400 feet with 400 square feet of a shared gym. So how is it that Sleepy Hollow only needs 2000 square feet, but we need 3400? Please, Kristen.

Thank you, Council Member Salter. I can answer that question. The Sleepy Hollow station has room for three firefighters. Our facility needs to have, for fire and paramedics, we need to have three.

I'm just doing the fire square footage. There's paramedics at 1,900, 1,500 of shared, apparatus 3,100, and then the police station 3,800. What I would like to know is that, you know, sometimes if I go to buy kids and I go to the candy store and I say, how much candy do you want for Halloween or on Halloween night? You get a huge bag of candy and they want it all.

Right.

But, you know, we have to approach this practically. So I think that Sleepy Hollows and Fairfax said this is the size of the building we have. This is what we can build within it. But this plan looks like we went and took all these inputs Mayor Mrakas, From a very old study and said, oh, we have to build it this way. Mayor Mrakas, So let me ask other projects, you were working on did you interview the heads of the departments, did you work within constraints of budget and size and space, or do you just go to the department heads and then whatever square footage they they want you build.

Mayor Mrakas, it's it's a back and forth, I think the the. City Council Chambers, Departmental interviews working with the departments is always a part of a normal process and, again, I think we're stepping in and inheriting somebody else's work that has done that work, and you know we're sort of taking that. City Council Chambers, A little bit of face value to do that, I mean I don't know I think to solve this problem that you're asking it's it's a solution which is, if the goal is to work within the constraints of the existing building and find a way to accommodate fire as the baseline option.

Mayor Mrakas, Then there's a dialogue in terms of fire operations that needs to happen with the department yeah and what about police, why is, why is the fire department only 3434 hundred sure need a police station for 3800. Mayor Mrakas, And I mean if we're small town here yeah we've got to two officers on duty and the chief sometimes So why does the police station have to be 3800 feet.

City Council Chambers, yeah again you're asking questions that I understand why you're asking them, but I do think that there's. City Council Chambers, That is dialogue that can happen to say hey we'd like to squeeze the department, you know we've got constraints relative to the building, and you know, we need to reduce the program, how can we do that. City Council Chambers, and still maintain your operations right within some constraints.

City Council Chambers, And to be very crystal clear the Mary mcgrath. Mayor Mrakas, numbers you took was for a separate building correct for a standalone they were just putting those requirements here. Mayor Mrakas, Because what I think we all need to acknowledge is that everything was operating in 2025 here, we actually did it on the site in this even more constrained than what. Mayor Mrakas, You know you're saying the existing square footage is 8400 but you're saying we should move to 13,000 square feet, quite a big big additions, but we were operating with all these departments here in 2025. we did only have two people to an engine before okay so we're adding one extra person well you need sleep and so there's a bedroom but and maybe some locker space but i i just we need to be very what i want to make clear in this project i'm sorry they just handed you all these things and said just use what was previously done but the goal here is to create a beautiful facility that fits our town yeah that fits within the constraints that we have which include our budget which is not an unlimited budget And I think that's a really important consideration that seems to have been overlooked in this process.

We're doing questions right now. That is a question. That wasn't a question.

I'd like to respond to Council Member Salter. So the Council, you are the ones that directed us to have this done by the end of October. Gensler has come up with the 12 weeks. And so there are things that you're going to get out of this and things that you're not. So if you would like to have, we can add more weeks, work with Gensler to add to their scope of work so that we can delve more deeply into the programming needs, we can do that. But you're not going to get it right now on the 12-week schedule.

I I so when you said you were not asking that we yes you are no I'm I'm asking us to do the project right that's what I'm asking us to do let's not interrupt each other our rules are really clear on that this town manager had the floor when she's done you can have the floor back if the mayor recognizes you let's try to keep the order as our rules intended

So thank you, town attorney. So we can absolutely have a standalone study session with the council. We can go through. I mean, we have our police chief here. He absolutely can talk to the council about any of your questions. Why does the police department need this space? Why do you need that space? But Gensler, in their 12 weeks that the council insisted upon, This is what they did. They took what the town has already paid to have done, and this is what they're coming up with. So if the majority of the council would like to provide direction to do that, that's something that we can come back with, but it will extend the timeline.

Okay, I have one last question, which is the apparatus bays. Are you assuming we're keeping those apparatus bays that we have?

We are assuming that we're gonna modify those apparatus space.

In what way?

We haven't determined that entirely, but we do need more space in the apparatus space, so we'll probably extend them. to make them longer yeah we'll certainly need to make them longer to accommodate all the apparatus so we need to determine exactly we have the the requirements now from the departments in terms of the vehicles that'll be there and then we'll as we look at turning and how vehicles are going to move in and out of of the site we have to see which vehicles can drive through which ones can back in and determine how big of an extension we need to make to the apparatus bay but we expect it to be modified significantly sorry and can you explain why because again we had the fire trucks in there in 2025 so what i don't know what like to be honest i don't know what compromises the the various departments dealt with when they were previously in that building that's hard for me to assess and so again when we're trying to plan for a new station we're trying to um City Council Chambers, meet their operational requirements, a little bit in in a. City Council Chambers, You know you're starting a fresh and a new we didn't put a constraint lens on it, and again, we can put a constraint lens on it and say this is all we have in terms of space, how do we best utilize it. City Council Chambers, it's a slightly different approach to the to the to the question valid but that's just not how we've begun this process Okay, thank you yep.

So I'd like to just expand on that. So the current bays were built in the 90s, and the standards for fire engines and fire equipment and decontamination areas, there's been a lot of new standards that have come into place since the 90s when those bays were constructed. So Mary McGrath, who prepared, and it wasn't a long time ago, she did it in late December and presented as part of the election code report that was presented to the council on January 8th, 2026. So those, she prepared the space, the specifications according to current standards for fire stations.

but didn't sleepy sleepy hollow did not uh destroy their bays they kept their bays when they redid the uh and their their bays were from the same era and the same size so i just want to be very clear they there are actual projects going on in the ross valley fire department where they didn't demolish the bays they didn't expand the bays they kept the bays as they were and they use them today in their project. They only eliminated the residential and redid the residential because they used the constraints that they had. And so I really encourage us in this process to realize it's not an unlimited wealth of money to take everything to the best, highest standards and that we're trying to accommodate what the town needs versus what maybe some consultant thinks it should be.

And I just want to follow up on the bays and maybe this is premature. given your timeline. But have you considered whether the bays need to be elevated out of the floodplain?

We have not evaluated that yet. We are waiting for the survey and the determination where the 100 foot floodplain is. And as we look at modifying the bay, we can look at that as a potential alternative to raising them. Obviously, there is some variety of floodplain issues that we know will be present there. And so if we're able to grade the site and raise the building to deal with that, then that's something we can consider. So we need a little bit more information from the civil engineer to answer that question, which is coming.

So I know tonight is our opportunity to give you input and feedback.

Yes.

But I would like to know which of these plans, which do you think is the best one based on the assumptions that you've been using?

And we can all kind of, we haven't, but I do think that the ability to phase, oh, go ahead, Lita, you want to jump in?

Sorry, as the project manager. So what I will say is that, you know, you can ask the designer, what is our favorite? But we are just in the beginning stages of evaluating the site. What I want to make sure that everyone understands is that we do not have the topo survey yet. We do not know where the 100-year floodplain lies. And this is going to be very important. So we can give you what our favorite is. Perfect. But it could be totally different the next time we come in front of you. So just a reminder.

No, it's a good reminder. Yeah, again, I think given the program, again, we're going to start with the process that we're in the middle of right now or at the beginnings of, which is the program. And if that's the given program, my feeling is that the ability to phase the construction gives you some flexibility as you move forward. And so the options where we peel out the administrative building either to something that's combined with public works or in addition to this gives you some flexibility and allows us to um you know potentially save some money in the construction of of the the administrative building because it's not a central service and it gives you some of that flexibility now if we took a different process and were able to work to a constraint you know then then you might arrive at a different scenario because it is going to be cheaper to build it all at once And so, you know, it's an imperfect answer, I apologize. I don't know if you've got a different thought.

Okay, so let me just ask you tonight, what exact feedback do you want from us?

I mean, I think this fundamental question, you know, that Councilmember Salter is asking is an important one for us to determine is whether or not we are trying to fit as much program as possible for every department in the existing public safety building with the minimal amount of modification that's reasonable, or if we're trying to accommodate the full program as it's outlined, and then if so, then which direction relative to the site, feels appropriate so that we could continue to study that because our our goal moving forward is to then take one of these models and begin to look at blocking and stacking so we take the individual program elements from the departments and begin to look at them in three dimensions as letha said so there is a next step that we're moving forward to we're studying parking and circulation all that so we need a little bit of a stable set of feedback on on what we've presented or a direction to look at an alternative approach

Okay, any, Elizabeth? Shouldn't we also be looking tonight at the question that's come up, do we really want to keep trying to put this entire full program into this site, or should we consider what tradeoffs we might make to keep everything in one building and not phase? That's not really sort of on the table right now, it seems like. You've been given a program and you're trying to fit that program into the site, but I don't think we've had a chance yet to talk about, well, if we want to keep the site more or less as it is, and it may be just as one building, a one-time construction, where could the program be trimmed to make that happen? Shouldn't that be something we're talking about tonight also? Otherwise you've kind of adopted a program that we haven't really adopted yet.

It's a good question. That is something that we should debate tonight. I don't know that we have the answer because again, that's not, was not part of what we studied is where to cut so i don't have a list of potential cuts what we did look at is departmental overlaps in terms of shared spaces so we did bring 10 of efficiency to the program that we you know that we were given in terms of of various spaces conference rooms and other things that could be shared between departments but we didn't take the approach of can we take the fire department down by 50 and take the police department down by 25 so that they can better fit within one building that that is it's an important question that's not what we um answered as we came today you know to this meeting that was not our that was not our direction um but what would it take to to address that I mean it seems to me that that's step one is is to figure out what our program is and then how does it fit

And you've been given a much bigger program than I think we have right now. And so it's not fitting. And with the council and the community haven't really talked about that yet. Understood.

Mayor Pro Tem Robbins, the scope of work for Gensler was included and attached to the staff report that went to the council. They were very clear in their scope of work that they would be using the current programming for the facility master plan and then adding in the fire station because the current facility master plan, as you know, doesn't have it. So they're doing what their scope of work requires them to do. If the majority of the council would like more effort put into this, we can do that. talking with Gensler, what would that take? How many weeks would it add to the scope of work? What would the costs be? And those kinds of things. And then I would bring back an amendment to the council for your approval. And so we can do this. We can do what you're asking. I do want to give just one note to you, is that the fire chief does not have authority from his board, from their governing body, to spend a lot of time on this. And he already indicated to me yesterday that he's put about as much time into answering questions that he feels comfortable doing without getting direction from his board. so um you know with the idea i think that the council the vision is to have ross valley fire you know kind of can do what what they had before where they have a station here and a station that's staffed um he needs to be um he needs to be a part of any discussion about the programming needs for a fire department he is the chief he needs to be part of that so that that discussion he needs to have authority from his his board just like for us you we depend on on our police chief to um we're not just going to be able to go in there and say you get 25 off you know 25 less square footage we're going to have to go through because they've been in that department for you know 100 years it does not meet standards that we are required to have for a new station. But we can do that. If the council wants us to do that, absolutely. I'll spend time with Gensler starting tomorrow and come back with it at your next council meeting in October.

I think it would be helpful to hear what community members think about where should we move. Do we make some inquiries about the program before we settle on a study plan? Or, you know, I would be interested in what community members think about this.

That's the next section, public comment. Assuming nobody has any more questions.

So with the, there was in the CAC plan, there was blocking showing different square footage for each of the departments. Did you look at that? Yes. Okay. But then you were told the direction was go with what Mary McGrath and the previous studies that were done by KPA for the square footage and not acknowledge what the CAC did. Is that correct?

Correct.

Mayor Mrakas, Okay, and then, did you look at sleepy hollow and we will wear that we just that the Ross Valley fire just did it. Mayor Mrakas, Really, you didn't look at that.

Mayor Mrakas, I mean we're aware of the project and but that was not the program that we were, we were asked to use.

Mayor Mrakas, Okay, so if we asked you to look at that and what they designed and how they fit because even without the fire chiefs yeah we know he was a part of that redo we could use what they had done there to inform what we could do here. City Council Chambers, Is that a fair yeah approach absolutely Okay, thank you.

City Council Chambers, fairfax station 21 is also undergoing a pretty significant remodel so that's probably another another place to look yeah one of the question.

City Council Chambers, Is the speaking of the base, are we talking about the same size fire engine going forward as what we have now, or is there something different.

City Council Chambers, I believe it's the same well just is there's there's not a current engine assigned here correct, these are there's you may know, assumed to be a type one it's a standard modern fire engine thanks yeah.

City Council Chambers, Okay, so we'll open it up for public comment, if you would come to the podium and announce your name and then make your public comment.

Good evening.

I'm Paul Russler, a longtime Ross resident and candidate for town council. More than 400 residents signed an initiative to restore fire operations in Ross. Forth withdrew it only after the council unanimously advanced the CAC plan, including a fully functional firehouse. Now the town is considering two different scenarios, one with no firehouse or a phase two that defers it to an uncertain future. Phase two is not a compromise. It converts a committed part of the CAC plan into an unfunded option that may never be built. Gensler is also being asked to use the earlier Mary McGrath plan developed for a much larger standalone station and carrying a dramatically higher cost than the right sized CAC or fourth plans for that matter. Start with oversized assumptions, add indefinite delay, and the firehouse is designed out and budgeted out of the project. The town manager says Gensler is merely asking whether to evaluate two scenarios. But who directed Gensler to present those choices? One eliminates the firehouse. The other defers it. Neither includes the complete CAC plan as the baseline. This is not merely program validation. It is a fundamental policy change. The Council should direct Gensler to use the complete CAC plan as the baseline, not the McGrath plan. No firehouse alternative. No separate phase two. Why is this being pushed through special meetings immediately before an election? Mayor McMillan is opposed restoring an operational fire station. Bob Herbst and I support reopening it with a financially responsible plan that minimizes the burden on taxpayers. Do not make the firehouse impossible before residents have their say. Let Ross decide with honest costs and a council that respects their vote. That is accountability. That is transparency. Thank you.

Hello, everybody. You know exactly who I am. And this is mostly for, I guess, the audience. As members of the Citizens Advisory Committee that created the town hall and community center plan that you all voted unanimously to support, we wish to express our strong objection to the current proposal to modify that plan by creating a no-firehouse option. Retaining optionality for the future return of local fire service to Ross, pardon me, to the Ross Firehouse has been and continues to be a critical component of the CAC plan without which the Friends of the Ross Firehouse and their many supporters would not have agreed in good faith to withdraw the ballot initiative requiring the town to maintain an operational firehouse.

Excuse me.

We believe it's important to keep in mind that the town hall renovation plan with or without the firehouse will require a large new bond measure of 12 to $15 million that must receive 67% of the approval of Ross voters. With taxpayer exhaustion from so many new tax measures, particularly this coming November, we believe this bond measure is highly unlikely to pass without all of us pulling together on the same oar and supporting it. Friends of the Ross Firehouse clearly will not be a supporter to a no-firehouse option. As you know, the CAC offered our volunteer services to be active participants in a working group subcommittee to help guide implementation of the CAC plan. Combined, we have over 350 years of experience in real estate design, development, construction, and finance. Dan Winey and Joe, pardon me, Joey Buckingham in particular, our talented designers who have served for many years on the town's design review committee. Our offer of volunteer assistance remains, and we truly hope you accept it as we have only the best intentions for our town, being longtime residents of Ross. We have a relatively small 2.3 acre site at the town center on which we are trying to fit many requirements, including admin, public safety, affordable housing, and so on. Very likely there will need to be prioritizations and trade-offs, particularly since we have allocated about a half an acre of the northern end of the site for a nine unit affordable housing project in order to meet the state mandated ABAG housing requirements. Probably no town department will get their full wish list in the final plan, and that's okay. We're a very small town with limited needs and budget. It's okay for our firefighters and paramedics to share a living room and kitchen space, thereby having those space requirements. It's okay for all our town employees to share conference rooms and gym space. It's okay for the police to continue parking their squad cars behind town hall in an unsecured yard, as they have done for the past 60 plus years. Maybe because of the affordable housing units, excuse me one second, the public works yard, and perhaps even some offsite parking somewhere for some of them and their equipment. As Voltaire is credited with saying, please don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Thanks, Jeff. Mayor, Council persons, I'm going to continue with the CAC letter. The CAC strongly believes that with smart planning and smart tradeoffs working together, we can achieve a beautiful vision for our town hall and community center. Note, we don't call it a civic center. We're not San Rafael. We don't have 60,000 people. We have 2,500 people. We're a small town. We need a town hall and community center. That's Dan Winey's label for it, and I think it's apropos. That town hall and community center should include a shared space for paramedics and fire, especially with retention of the existing apparatus bays that were built in 1995 with $3.5 million of private donations from Ross residents. Frankly, to consider tearing that down is a slap in the face to those residents, in my opinion. There now appears to be uncertainty about how much additional square footage will be required to allow for potential future firehouse operations. The previous master plan analyzed by the town, and we now know it's Mary McGrath's 9212 report plan, actually, contemplated a brand new standalone fire station, and that's simply not an appropriate model to use for scoping the CIC recommendation, which is a combined living space for paramedics and firefighters along with the retention of our existing apparatus bay. The CAC recommends that Gensler and town staff review the recent Sleepy Hollow fire station rebuild in order to determine the needed square footage for our town. We're another member of the Ross Valley Fire District with the exact same population as Sleepy Hollow. Why would we need more space for a firehouse than they do a firehouse that is literally just rebuilt and finished six months ago? Sleepy Hollow retained their existing apparatus bay located in the flood zone, by the way. The San Anselmo firehouse that also was just rebuilt also stayed in the flood zone. They built a completely new 2,400 square foot firefighter residence that includes a large gym. The actual living and functional space for the firefighters is only about 2,000 square feet. Since paramedics can share common area living spaces with the firefighters, it should be possible to achieve a combined firefighter-paramedic facility in our Ross Firehouse, utilizing 3,000 square feet of space or less. Another benefit, and this has been mentioned, of copying the Sleepy Hollow plan, is that this is a recent approved operational design for the Ross Valley Fire Department, so we know it works for their needs. We don't need to waste a lot of Chief Mahoney's time looking at it. He just approved an exact station for a similar town. In summary, we can do this together, guys. We urge you to reject the no-firehouse option, as it's only going to lead us back to where we started when we launched the CAC, which is a contentious divided town with no chance of passing a major bond measure to renovate and update our historic town hall and Public Safety Facility. Respectfully, members of the Raw Citizens Advisory Committee, Jeff Kuhn, myself, Dan Winey, Joey Buckingham, Jeff Koblik, Ed Dong, Tom Gaffney, and Bill Poland. Thank you.

Anyone else in the chamber for public comment? Wayne?

Hello. My name is Wayne Holter.

Push it down. Wayne Holter. And I may be, the barn door may be open so that my question is already discarded. But it seems to me that everybody is twisting themselves into knots to try to provide a fire station possibly to come back when the decision of the town residents hasn't been resolved about whether they would be in favor of paying the ongoing operational costs. Has that already been decided that you want to wait and maybe pay these extra costs in case a fire department comes back without knowing whether the residents would even

approve it approve for the parcel tax would would have to pay for it that's my question thank you anybody else in the chamber anyone online zach no one online mayor okay so we'll bring it back for um discussion

Mayor, if I can just to shed light on because the question was, has been asked about the Mary McGrath report. And if I can just maybe address that, that issue. Staff is by providing that report to Gensler, we're, we're, staff's not advocating for a standalone fire station. But what does that report do? It does similar to what your facility master plan did in terms of identifying the key program space that is necessary for a current and modern fire station to meet the health and safety standards of an operating department. It includes a number of elements that are non-existent in the current facility. For example, the apparatus bay does not include space for firefighters to remove their firefighting equipment once they return from a fire. That is a current standard. And that's, I think, what we heard from Manon in terms of would there be additional space required? That's just one example of additional space that would be necessary to construct and add to the apparatus bay to ensure the health and safety of the firefighters after they do their important work to preserve the life of our residents. There's a number of examples of that that are in Mary's report where there are those critical safety elements that are necessary again as part of a operating fire station that are not part of the station as it is here. So going forward, if you counsel was to make an investment, it would be our recommendation to look at those carefully, and I can almost guarantee you that the chief is going to say those are required for a number of reasons, including OSHA and current health and safety standards. There's just no question they can't be built without them. When you make substantial investments and improvements. And so that, again, that study was a basis for the square footage need for that space. It wasn't advocating, nor was the cost a part of, you know, we haven't even got to that stage of work yet. It was really to look at all those critical uses. What is the square footage space that's required to include those elements so that Gensler has something to look at in terms of what are the space needs for a fire station? The other element, again, to look at, and this was what was provided to Gensler, was the lease agreement with the paramedic authority. The lease agreement is very specific in terms of the square footage that's allotted to the paramedic authority. It's 2050 square feet. So that does not include any elements that are required of a fire station. So I hear the term 3,000 square feet. That would mean you got paramedics at 2,000, and you're going to fit six firefighters and shift teams in 1,000 square feet. I don't think it's operationally possible. And that's what Mary's report really addresses, is what are the space needs for a fire station? So that's why that report was provided as part of just doing the space validation. It wasn't to advocate for building a standalone station at the cost that Mary McGrath estimated. So I just wanted to explain that because I think it's helpful. It wasn't we directed Gensler to use this study. It was this is the most informative and available information from a very well-respected design architect for fire stations that did a analysis two times over five plus years, including very recently, to look at this issue in consultation with the chief as the base best information that we had available in the short time frame to be able to help inform Gensler. But what they did do as part of that work is look at all of those shared spaces that where there was opportunities for efficiencies. So that's you know, we talk about the fitness room, we talk about a shared kitchen and there's a number of other shared space elements again to try to be as efficient as possible. I can tell you Krista was very adamant with me and with Gensler to make sure we were as tight as possible with respect to square footages for all the departments as we're moving forward. And same with police. We've had multiple discussions with previous chief, Chief Potter, and the most recent chief on again looking at those square footage elements and programs that are required for the police department to meet current health and safety standards. And so that's what again informs that square footage. So it's, you know, again, many of those requirements are set forth now in the law that if you upgrade, you change, you have to include these elements. And those are, they're more than just best practices, they're really required, even though they're not existent today. So anyways, Mary just wanted to offer that perspective. And as to why the Mary McGrath study was was referenced. Okay.

discussion well uh listening to of the speakers that came up it i have a question so can i ask a question I'm going to ask the staff. So given that there's talk about the fire station in the plan or not in the plan, so what is the value of evaluating the Civic Center concept without a fire station? What's the value of doing that?

That's that's a great question Councilmember Dowling, and I think it's integral to why that was included in your agenda report. First of all, we we don't want to assume that Council has made an absolute policy direction that we are going to have a fire department. It's part of the you know something that we're going to evaluate in terms of providing Mayor Mrakas, A capital facility to support a fire station. Mayor Mrakas, But it also goes to cost factors. Mayor Mrakas, Ultimately, Council is going to consider possibly whether to put a ballot measure and it's helpful and informative to have an option where. a fire station may not be included. So you have that cost difference, that differential between what it would require a taxpayer to fund in terms of a new facility with a fire station and without. And I think it's a helpful decision point for informing the voters. So that's a key element. And again, at this stage, it's really about helping inform you're planning around site circulation and a host of other City Council Chambers, A site issues that are going to really drive us forward in different directions and it's key to have that information, so that if if you decide down the road that Council doesn't. City Council Chambers, determines that they don't want to have a fire station you you're not backtracking to restart the process so it's also about timing and whether you want to preserve that opportunity at this point in time.

Okay. So I have a couple of comments. I mean, one is I don't understand where staff got the idea that we shouldn't, that we should be looking at a no fire station option. I thought the whole point of this was there are differences of opinion. Friends presented something plausible in December and January, and then the CAC presented a plan, and the council unanimously endorsed it, supported it, and it had a fire station, and it was never decided how the operations would be funded, but the entire council agreed that this CAC plan brings the community together, works for everyone, there's an option for a fire station, and that is what Friends of the Ross Firehouse It would have been voting on in November, except that because of the town's commitment, the council's commitment to hire Gensler to look at the CAC plan, the friends rightly felt that the town is committed to moving forward with that plan. And it seems to me that town staff has been directing Gensler to look at a plan without a fire station and I mean I don't understand where that even came from because that isn't where I thought we were starting on April 29 when the entire council and you know and the entire community thought great we have a wonderful plan and there's an option for a fire station and if we can make it work we will so that's my first comment is I don't know how we even got here, but I think we need to get back to where we were with with the CAC slash Gensler plan from April and not even consider this idea of no fire station. I don't see how a bond measure will pass if we don't have a fire station included in the plan. And even if you say, well, we have money saved so we can do part of this, you need goodwill of the community to pass the next paramedic tax, the next public safety parcel tax. You can't just sort of bait and switch and say, well, we can phase this, we have the money, we don't care about the bond measure. We really need this whole building with the option of a fire station and a bond measure in the spring um the other comment is again i don't quite get how town staff got the idea that we can't trim down some elements of the program it sounds like gensler has been given a a lovely program but it's quite extensive and they were asked make this work but you can't make it work and I don't understand why we haven't looked. Before we're trying to fit in the buildings, I think we need to take a look at the program to see are there areas where we can make changes. Do we have to have a parking area for the police cars? Are there some areas that can be trimmed down? And we're being asked to choose study one, study two, based on a program that the town staff is comfortable with, but I don't know that the council or the community is because it directs this whole project in a direction that's different from where I think we all thought we were in April. I wouldn't be in favor of any phasing because again, If you phase, you will risk phasing the fire station out of existence. And I think the whole point of the CAC Gensler plan was to have the option for a fire station. It brought together the entire community. It ended the divisiveness. It seemed feasible. And now, it seems like we're tearing the whole thing apart. And I really feel like that's what town staff has directed Gensler to do, but I think that's the wrong step. So I would say, I think we should take another look at the program. If that takes more time, that's fine. And take a look at, to see what is the best way to put everything in one building, or if it's two, not to phase it.

OK. Well, I do support phasing. I think phasing in this case is particularly good. You know, we really do have to keep in mind the paramedics and making sure that that space is available by January 20, 29. So and I think phasing might help in terms of where staff work. I'm not sure how, like plant study too, I'm not sure how that's going to look and is it going to be as beautiful and will we be as proud of it as we were at that meeting several months ago when we all loved the concept. I would agree that I think it's worth looking at Sleepy Hollow and Fairfax. I think it would be worth it for Gensler's team to do that. I also think, I'm not sure why we're rushing at this point, because given at the last council meeting, there was a lot of discussion about what needs to happen by when in order to be on the ballot for some time in 2027. I think that we may have assumed that we were just going to try to rush for March, but I think if not rushing gives us more time to actually look at sort of making sure that we're really comfortable with the space, making sure that we're really comfortable with what's happening with the fire. and what he thinks is appropriate spacing. And making sure that all of our staff and particularly the police are going to be comfortable with the space. I'd say let's give ourselves a sufficient amount of time to do this. I wouldn't drag our feet, but I would give us a little more time. um to move this forward and that'll give the gensler staff more time i mean it is a tight time frame and i think that they would appreciate having a little more time too as as the staff because you're all working so very hard so let's slow it down a bit um that's it

I don't think we should have an option with no firehouse. I think the plan should be what we agreed on, including a firehouse. I'm interested in phasing as simply an alternative. If we're going to have an alternative, it should be phasing. It really depends on whether the financing is going to come together for the firehouse or not. But the CAC plan recognizes that there's really two parts to this. First is get it built, and then the second is See if the financing is there. If the financing is not there and there's an agreement, it just can't happen or it's not going to happen, then, of course, we don't just want an unused space. It would be nice to be able to use it for something else. But again, at this stage, I think it would just be a waste of time to come up with an alternative that doesn't include a firehouse. I appreciate staff's comments, but that would be my take on it. And then I do think we need to look at can this be downsized? I mean, the bigger it is, the more it's going to cost. And we know that it's going to be a challenge financing this. And certainly we do want our police department and our paramedics and our fire department, if we were to have one, to be functional and safe and effective for our staff and for the public generally. But I really think that that is something that we should add on to our contract, an evaluation of this. And it may be that some additional expertise is necessary if there's some uncertainty about this, particularly with regard to fire. We have our own expertise in-house with our police chief, but we don't have that expertise now in-house on a fire station. And I'm not clear whether Gensler has that ability on its staff. I believe that Gensler has done other work on public safety buildings. So if it has, and it has those resources, great. But I think we will need some feedback on things like new public safety regulations. I do think that we should take a close look at what other stations in the Ross Valley Fire Department have done. Presumably, they complied with current codes, too, in terms of the different elements that go into a firehouse, what's required under the modern codes, and so forth. But, you know, I definitely think that is worth doing. And I hope that's specific enough for my opinion on guidance.

I'm the mayor, you go ahead, I'll be last.

Whatever you say. I would say the first thing is this is just a total failure of leadership. The fact that we're here at this point after we had come together with a plan to include a fire station, it's every meeting is some attempt to undermine the will of the people. And the people want their fire station. There's no doubt about it, and we'll know that in November. And I don't even know who is directing the staff. To do these things, it makes no sense whatsoever when we've already said we are trying to solve this puzzle of keeping our fire station and using the current facilities. So I'm sorry to the welcome to the party to the new Gensler welcome, but this, this is already like, why are we wasting all of this time and energy? I don't know who the director is. It's certainly not me. Um, because we have been very clear that the goal was to build a capacity for the fire station and use the, with, with, within the constraints we have taking the Mary McGrath report for a single station, and then trying to push it in here. is so insane i don't know why anyone would recommend that we have again sleepy hollow and fairfax construction to look at within the fire department you don't have to go very far to see how to do this and then we also have dan winey and his team that actually already worked on the cac plan that could also provide instruction so the last meeting we talked about why aren't isn't the cac meeting with staff and being a part of this process and we're told no they shouldn't be a part of this process well you're wasting everybody's time by not using the experts who come up with this beautiful plan taking their input we don't need mary mcgrath we don't need her we've got experts right here that are willing to help that already have designed a beautiful plan and they understand how to do this so It's a complete lack of leadership. I don't know who the secret whisperer is, the saying to do this, but let me be very clear. We can rebuild this fire station. We can program this entire site. There is no doubt about it. Mary McGrath was the original person that told everybody it was 14 million to build the site, and then it'd be 28 million to add a fire station. which was it's just insanity and at the time the people who came forward and said this plan is ridiculous because let me just be clear those of us that have studied this guess what the paramedics are they're firemen and then you have firemen so you're talking about firemen and firemen sharing a kitchen sharing a gym and then sharing a little area to hang out with each other and all of a sudden you're going to double the cost to add a couple bedrooms and some lockers so you know the absurdity is We know what it takes because we have it at Sleepy Hollow and Fairfax right now. They're adding a third bedroom to add the accommodation for the extra firemen. And guess how much their project is? $2 million. Sleepy Hollow is $2.5 million. Of course Aunt Julie will shake her head. It's totally true. You guys can look it up. It's in San Anselmo records how much it costs them to do it. What this plan is, let's take the most square footage, the wish list from everybody, and build a monstrosity that we don't need for a fortune to try to undermine the fact that say, oh, well, we can't afford it. We can't afford it. Instead of looking at what is our budget, what are the needs of this community, and what can we make happen? I'm about the art of what's possible, not what's impossible. So let's stop this little game of in trying to come up with the reasons to not do something let's do it for our people because this is what they want this is what they need and we know we can do it.

You know I don't think this is failed leadership at all I think the staff has been working really hard with Gensler I think there's an opportunity for everyone to sharpen their pencil not just on fire. City Council Chambers, And I agree, we made a commitment, we need to have space, an option for a fire station. City Council Chambers, that's our commitment that's what we agreed to on April 29 that's what we agreed to on may 6 when we. City Council Chambers, When we did the resolution to amend the facilities master plan, so we need to abide by that agreement and you know, keep the peace in town and hopefully position. a general obligation bond to pass later. The purpose of the meeting tonight is to check in and give feedback and give Gensler an opportunity to have feedback and get feedback from the public and the council. And I think the purpose of the meeting has been served. We have looked at City Council Chambers, The presentation, we are giving feedback, I agree that we need to sharpen our pencils in terms of sleepy hollow. City Council Chambers, Which is actually station 20 in San Anselmo and. City Council Chambers, That ream remodel costs $5 million 1.5 from sleepy hollow fire protection district and 3.5 from San Anselmo and we should also look at station 21. in Fairfax and they are spending 1.6 million to remodel their kitchen and put in a couple more bedrooms. So I think that would be helpful. And I think, you know, it's like when you remodel your house, you start with a palace and then you realize there's no way you're going to be able to afford it and you sharpen your pencil and you make compromises. So I think we have to kind of make compromises all the way around. You know, I want to clarify that despite what has been said about me and my motives and circulated in emails by fellow council members, I have not had any involvement in or influence with the Gensler or the staff meetings or the staff report. I am 20% of this council. I am not the, you know, the marionette person behind the puppet. That's not me. City Council Chambers, I think the the CAC letter was really thoughtful and really excellent to help us refocus our priorities and I really commend the CAC for kind of pivoting and helping us focus on station 20 on butterfield road. City Council Chambers, And so. City Council Chambers, You know I agree with what Terry said in terms of slowing down and I I recognize that looking at station 20 and 21 that's going to take more time sharpening our pencil and looking at all the programs across everything that's going to take more time, but we had a presentation. City Council Chambers, It was still in August right krista we had a presentation in August by civics who basically said to us. If you guys try to do a March 2027 bond measure in light of this pretty divisive council election that's coming up and all the other burdens that the taxpayers are being asked to pay, it is highly unlikely that you are going to be able to pass your general obligation bond in March of 2027. The next date was May. I think we should slow stuff down. City Council Chambers, or at least put on our agenda for September let's discuss this timeline let's you know relax it a little bit let's slow it down let's not be so burdensome. City Council Chambers, The October deadline is not realistic, given that the march election is not it's not going to be successful so let's let's refine that. City Council Chambers, A little bit and and stop putting unnecessary pressure on staff and the architects. for a false deadline that we're probably not even going to meet anyway. So I don't know if that's helpful, if that's enough comments for you. Krista?

So just to summarize, so OK, so we're not going to include an option that doesn't have a fire station. We're going to spend some time, and happy to do it, to look at the Sleepy Hollow, excuse me, San Anselmo Station 20, which is called the Sleepy Hollow Station, but it's in San Anselmo. and our Fairfax station 21. And we are really glad to hear that the 12-week was, I've said all along, is not feasible. Not reasonable. So I will work with, David and I will work with Gensler to come up with another amendment to their scope of work to look more closely at the programming square footage and to look at these other two stations that have been talked about. Letha? And so I'll bring something back in your October 8th agenda for an amendment for you guys to look at. It's not going to be ready for your next council meeting. Not amendment. It won't be ready. So we will just keep on trucking along. And I think this is great. Happy to have more time to do better work.

So something that I'd like to be also included is you mentioned that the paramedics have this contract. it was all based on a completely different master plan i'm sorry i i missed that first part you said paramedics we have a a contract with them that refers to a previous master plan that we're redoing no it doesn't exist it it states and i want to correct david kelly said it was 2050 square feet the lease agreement is 2150 square feet Yeah so what I would love as a part of this is we that was based on the facility's master plan that does not exist anymore that was where they took that number from which was a separate building that wasn't a part of this shared so again we are all going to make concessions in trying to figure this out they're not contributing one dollar to the construction costs of building that paramedic facility So i'm not going to I don't want us to be beholden to some agreement that was signed about square footage of a previous master plan that doesn't exist anymore. So that's I want to be very clear, because I don't want to be oh well, we have to have this certain square footage, because that was what was agreed to that plan is out the window. So what we need to do, again, is not take the constraints that don't exist, we have a blank sheet of paper, and create a plan that works for everybody. And to not say that, oh, Mary McGrath and this. It is a new plan based on our budget, what we can do, and I really highly recommend you use the CAC, because I think they understand this, and stop trying to create this monstrosity of things that you're saying we have to do.

we it's our budget it's our town we get to decide what we want to build that is not direct you will have to agendize that for a future council discussion it would need a majority of the council to um right now you are you have a an agreement an assigned agreement let's please agendize it thank you you'll have to say that it i okay elizabeth will you join me in agendizing the paramedic lease what how much square footage we have to have well i mean i think we should

be talking often about the entire project and ensure that can include the paramedic place. I mean, I think that it's been a challenge sometimes to get the building project on the agenda and have public comment, and yet the more times we speak about it, the more public comment, the more we deliberate back and forth. I think the closer we are to getting to where the community and the Council want to go. So I think we should, I mean, we should keep having meetings, though they're difficult. We should be sure there's public input. And if, you know, Julie, you mentioned sharpening our pencils, and Bill, you mentioned downsizing, and Christy mentioned, you know, reassessing the plan. If that's all part of, if that's where we're headed, I mean, that's what this, That's what people are saying this evening. If that also includes the paramedic station, I'm not opposed to that, but I think we want to do it carefully because we did promise to build a paramedic station. We want the paramedics here, but what we're building is a beautiful station. and none of the other eight jurisdictions are paying for the ambulance, so I think that they likely will stay because we're building a beautiful facility, but if it needs some tweaks and remains functional and beautiful, I think that's probably okay. I think it should be what works for us as well as for the paramedics, and perhaps that changes a little bit because the overall plan changes, but I think we want to be careful as we discuss it.

I'm really worried about the paramedics. I'm worried about the delivery of the facility by January 1, 2029. We all sat here and watched Krista negotiate with other people. And by the time the lease was negotiated, it was on version 27. And we know that a week before the paramedic authority board was going to meet, Ken Field said, oh, will house the paramedics for a dollar. And somehow all eight members of that paramedic authority board agreed that they would stay here and pay us $75,000 a year to be here in a new facility. And I am really leery of breaching that contract and opening up those issues. I think it's less likely of a breach if we honor the space, the 2150. City Council Chambers, I think they would be reasonable i'm hoping they would be reasonable and agree to some shared services. City Council Chambers, But I think it's premature to run around and say you know, we need to renegotiate the least because there's a risk that they're going to say, listen, you guys are screwing around you don't have your act together can feel this, you know waiting in the wings. City Council Chambers, it's it's really risky I agree.

I feel like we need to agendize it, I guess, to talk about it.

I don't think Elizabeth agreed to agendize it now.

I mean, I think it should be agendized in the context of our space consideration because if there needs to be a minor tweak to the way it's laid out or to the size, I think then we go to the RVPA board and say, look, we have changed our overall plan and we'd like to make some minor changes that we think still leave a beautiful facility. I mean, I don't think that that's, if they leave because of that, I mean, they're gonna leave as soon as they move in. I mean, that doesn't make any sense that a minor change means that we've lost the paramedics. It's also important to know that, I mean, even as the fire chief points out, in most cases, engines arrive first, even when we have an ambulance right here. So yes, we want them, but they're not arriving first in most of our cases.

So you support agendizing? I do.

I'm not quite sure when, but I support agendizing.

Because to be very clear, the lease, if you read it, refers to the KPA master facilities plan. That plan doesn't exist anymore. So no matter what you may believe this lease is, it doesn't exist. That plan doesn't exist. We're changing it. So we have to obviously let them know what our new plan is and discuss it with them regardless, because that plan that references over and over doesn't exist.

We may not need much in the way it changes. I mean, maybe it's fine the way it is. It could be. I'm open to considering it. But that plan doesn't exist is the point.

I guess I would prefer to discuss the paramedic space as an agenda item as part of this overall, you know, space planning that's going on rather than putting a separate agenda item about the paramedic facility lease at this point in time. I think it's premature.

Mayor Mrakas, So I support that if we don't have a constraint saying when we come back oh well, we have to put 2150 because that's what's in the lease agreement. Mayor Mrakas, So that's that's the little chicken and the egg, then we have to agenda is it and talk about it, because I don't believe that that's what the least says the least says it's kpa. something similar to the KPA facilities master plan, which doesn't exist anymore. So we have to come up with a new plan. So we can agendize it or not. But we have to this is something that has to change.

We can't just keep it the way it is. I admonished you earlier not to interrupt and then I interrupted you. I think you're splitting hairs. I think when we have the agenda item about the facilities and we're talking about a square footage of those facilities, it's fair game within that context of that agenda item to talk about what are the constraints of that facility and whether that is a constraint and you can talk about why you think it's not. But I don't, I agree with the mayor that I think it's, we don't need to have an agenda item just on the lease in order to have- encompass that conversation as part of the facilities that you're analyzing and the trade-offs you're going to have to make.

Right, so Krista Krista said that, just to be clear, I didn't Krista said, we need to agendize this, we need to talk about this, if you change the square footage, she didn't quite say that.

But in any event, I think at the end of the day, everyone might be saying the same thing. When we have these conversations, when you're making these trade offs, there might be follow on work that has to occur after the fact, if you have as a body decided to do something, we might have to revisit the lease, we might not have to, but I think that's premature until you have the plan in front of you and you start making those trade offs.

That sounds fine to me.

What? What did you say? I said that sounds fine to me. Okay, great. Okay. I think that's great. Thank you. Any other comments since it's almost been two hours? Okay. Thank you all for being here.

So.