City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Well, good evening to our sole person out in the crowd. Welcome to our City Council meeting on the 3rd of June, 2026. And we are starting at 6.05 according to the wall clock. And with that, I'd like to ask that we stand as you may be able to and ask for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

Now at this point, I'd like to ask for a roll call, please.

Council Member Farrar-Rivas? Here. Council Member Ding?

Here.

Council Member Gurney?

yes vice mayor low mayor Wellander yes thank you very good there is nothing to report regarding our closed session and so at this point I'm looking at the dice for approval of the agenda move to approve second second further discussion none this would be a vocal one all those in favor say aye aye opposed We accept the agenda as written. At this time, we're going to slip right into comments from the public. This will be an opportunity for anyone that wishes to step forward to the podium and speak on items that are not currently appearing on the agenda, but items that fall within our subject matter jurisdiction. And you'd have up to two minutes. And at this point, if you would just simply come forward, state your name, and you are welcome. OK. I think with that, we'll close that and move on to meeting dedications. Do we have a meeting dedication? We have no meeting dedication. So with that, we're going to then slip right into council members' reports and comments. And let me start with Ms. Lowe, please.

Thank you. This afternoon was a LAFCO meeting. primary focus of it was to look at the draft policy regarding what they call ducks which are areas that are are more poverty designated areas designated I forget what the acronym is but it's it's all They're identified by census tracts in underserved communities. Thank you. Thank you. It's been a long day. So anyway, the policy, the first time we looked at it, they had, it was specifically only for census. This time it was more broadly open so that it include other recognized measures of income because in some cases people were loath to answer questions to census takers and yet there were obviously communities affected by this. The other thing was we got rid of barriers caused by freeways in our previous discussion. We're specifically looking at southern Santa Rosa area, Moreland in specific, that there's a big freeway down the middle and does that divide it, in which case it's not, so we got rid of that because the people there, even though they're divided by a freeway, they're one school district, they shop together and there were other evidence that they really were a united community. So there were a lot of people in the audience who made comments regarding the fact that they're not getting service there and it's been going on for many years and we don't want to have a policy that's so restrictive that they would never qualify for annexation should a project develop in the area. But it was also brought up that it was still within our purview to annex them even if they didn't fall into this category. Anyway, it was a very lively discussion. The people there, I think, left feeling that we heard them and that the draft policy will come back to us and I'm sure will be adopted. Thank you.

Very good. Thank you. Councilman Gurney.

nothing to report other than last night at the farmers market I'd like to compliment the police chief for demonstrating or having out there for viewing to the public a new barricade system that they're deploying and and I think people will find them interesting and we'll try to not run into them very good I'm gonna continue over to my left cuts Monday Thank You Mia

On May 21st, I was attending Zero Waste Sonoma. This meeting is a very important meeting because this is the annual review on the projects. So we received the presentation, very comprehensive, and also educational. They break into four different and the cost center. First is organics, that means compost, and to be compliant with SB 1383. The second catalog, that is the zero the waste to provide reach out and education and monitoring and reporting in the system. And another category is HHW, that is household hazards and waste cost center. And we're going to focus on model oil and filter and recycling and also that is the e-waste recycles as well. And what impresses me a lot, everything, price is going up and 11 years ago, and one pound in e-waste treatment fee, just only 11 cents, but right now, it's 40 cents for one pound. And we asked agency pay specific attention on the price and the control, and for sure, when we provide quality service to the residents, and we were not running in deficit. That is my report. Thank you.

Very good. Thank you.

Yes. So I think many of us, I think, I'm not sure if you were there, Jack, but I think the rest of us were there for the Transcendence ribbon cutting on May 21st. So we were all there to welcome back Transcendence. And their new, this was specifically in Field of Dreams and the new direction of the stage and the location where that would be. So that was great. And then I attended, of course, Memorial Day on May 25th at the Veterans Cemetery, which was really, really inspiring. And Bucky, and I'm going to forget Bucky's last name. Peterson. Peterson told just a really moving story about how he was named Bucky. I won't go through the story, but it was really moving. And then, of course, we're all at the Budget Center. Unfortunately, on Memorial Day, I got chilled and kind of cold, so I really wanted to go to the graduation on Thursday night at Creekside and was unfortunately unable to go. Sorry to have missed it. I'm sure Brandon was there to represent us. And then also, many of us were also in attendance. Ron and Sandra, Councilwoman Lowe and Mayor Wellender. Yeah, that's the, oh, Vice Mayor, thank you. One of these days I'll get it right. That day we can all go out for a drink afterwards. But so attended the, at the community center, the dropping of the pride flags, which was also a really lovely event and attended by many people. Thank you, that's it.

VERY GOOD. WELL, THANK YOU. YOU JUST CUT MY LIST FROM 11 TO 7, SO I APPRECIATE THAT. I WILL NOT REPEAT ANYTHING ON THAT SINCE. ON THE 27TH, I HAD A CHANCE TO ATTEND THE SONOMA VALLEY COMMUNITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE, AND THE KEYNOTE SPEAKER WAS A GENTLEMAN BY THE NAME OF SCOTT ORR, WHO WAS THE NEW HEAD OF PERMIT SONOMA. and he gave just some perspective as far as some of the ongoing changes that are taking place. I was quite encouraged that I believe they're going to be continuing what we have worked hard here, and that is to put forth more of a spirit of collaboration in with those that design and build and those that review and ultimately give the permits. I appreciated that short talk. On the 28th, I had the opportunity not to embarrass myself too much by throwing out the first pitch at the Stompers game. I believe that I was told that my strike was clocked at 37 miles an hour. That's not very good for those that aren't aware of speed with a baseball. On Friday, the 29th, there was a ribbon cutting out of the Fairmont Hotel, and in the spirit of unification, I'm encouraging everybody now to take in their music series, which is on Fridays in the Guam area, in which they have a fairly intimate crowd and a band to entertain. Then on Sunday, I had the opportunity to attend the FUNDRAISER FOR THE SONOMA FAMILY MEALS OR WHAT USED TO BE THE UNITY KITCHEN. IT WAS OUT AT THE CORNERSTONE. I'M VERY PROUD THAT WE AS A CITY SUPPORT THAT PROVIDER UP VALLEY. AND AGAIN, IT'S ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY FOR US TO REACH OUT WITH EFFORT TO UNIFY OUR SPRINGS AREA. And then there was also a ribbon cutting on Monday for Sam's General Store. And I'm happy to say that he kind of fumbled with a couple of first two openings in that other valley to the east, but he now has got it dialed in and it's a delightful new coffee shop and I'm happy to see a vacant space filled. And I'm going to just pick up on Mr. Gurney's comment about the farmer's market. I'm delighted this year that we actually have a few more actually produce vendors. It makes me feel a little bit more comfortable keeping the word farmer's market. And we did have a good crowd, and I would just continue to don't buy your zucchinis at Safeway and Sonoma Market, but go to the Patch or anyone else.

with that that wraps up my comments and then i will turn the mic over to our interim city manager please give us an update thank you mayor and council as was mentioned it's pride month so i just wanted to mention a couple of things that are happening as you know city hall is illuminated with rainbow lighting and the pride flag is displayed proudly in front of city hall so we're encouraging everybody to attend the festival on sunday sonoma valley pride also has a whole weekend of events that you can find on their website they're making this the largest plaza festival to date with a larger stage expanded event footprint which is free and family friendly also free on sunday this sunday it kicks off sonoma splash's free community day These are free swim days offered on the first Sunday of the month, May through September, which are partially supported by the city. Pools at Sonoma Valley High School campus, and there's more information on the city's website. Also, a really big, exciting announcement. We have the first ever recreation guide coming out at the end of this week, and it is absolutely beautiful and robust and comprehensive, and Dave Janz, director of parks and rec and his team have done an incredible job putting this together it's going to be a great communication piece for the community to see like comprehensively what are all the opportunities not just city sponsored but otherwise so be on the lookout for that and that will be posted to the website as well also coming this Sunday is a kickoff of the Sonoma Sunday's concert series at the Plaza amphitheater presented by music in place in partnership with the city the free concert series will bring live music to the closet each Sunday through October It'll be a lively salsa music this Sunday. Also, Transcendence, if you saw walking in, we're excited to see the stage taking shape outside at Field of Dreams as Transcendence Theatre Company prepares to launch its 2026 Broadway Under the Stars season. This year's opening production, Ain't Too Proud, The Life and Times of the Temptations, sounds super fun, is starting on June 12th. Uh, also a fun event on June 13th, the flag celebration and chicken barbecue, which is next Saturday. The native sons of the golden west will hold a 63rd annual bear flag celebration and chicken barbecue on the Sonoma plaza. It starts at 11 with the ceremony, the bear flag monument at 11, the barbecue from noon to four and live music at one 30. Um, just another announcement about, uh, district elections and some tools the city has put together online. There's a city council district searchable. map tool online where you can go in and put your address into the search bar and you can figure out what council district you live in as we prepare to begin district elections in november of 2026. um let's see oh so and also communications going out about that to residents we will be sending out postcards to all sonoma residents informing them of the filing period for those who may wish to run for council and you also need to know what district you're in to know whether you can run for council for November of 2026. There will be inserts in the water bill sent out as well. And that's it for that. I also wanted to mention that next council meeting, June the 17th, is when we'll hear the proposed 26-27 fiscal year budget. And the budget hearing will be the next council meeting. And then forecasting there will not be a council meeting on July the 1st.

honor of the the holiday and then the following meeting in July will be on July 15th thank you thank you very much and now to our city attorney okay very good at this time we have a one presentation this would be a proclamation designating JUNE 19, 2026 IS THE JUNE 10TH DAY IN THE CITY OF SONOMA. AND IS THERE ANYONE IN THE AUDIENCE THAT WOULD LIKE TO COME FORWARD TO RECEIVE THIS PROCLAMATION? I SEE NONE. NONETHELESS, I'LL BE HAPPY TO READ IT. CITY OF SONOMA PROCLAMATION PROCLAIMING JUNE 19, 2026 IS JUNE 10TH DAY IN THE CITY OF SONOMA. Juneteenth, also known as Juneteenth Independence Day, Emancipation Day, Emancipation Celebration, and Freedom Day is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States and has been celebrated by the black community for over 150 years. And whereas on January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation declaring all enslaved people in Confederate States to be free. And however, it was not until June 19, 1865, when Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, announced the end of the Civil War and the emancipation of enslaved African Americans that freedom was realized by all. And whereas we encourage all residents of Sonoma to engage in meaningful conversations about race and history and to participate in activities that promote diversity, inclusion, and justice, including the 56th annual MLK Juneteenth Festival that will be held in Santa Rosa on June 13th, 2026. So now therefore, be it proclaimed, I, Ron Wellander, Mayor of the City of Sonoma, on behalf of the Sonoma City Council, do hereby proclaim June 19th, 2026 as Juneteenth Day in the City of Sonoma. Right now we're moving right on to the consent calendar and at this point. We're are going to be I am seeking some Comments from my fellow council members on whether or not they wish to pull any consent items Limited to now just seven point one through seven point two so with that is there any desire to pull or could I hear a motion for acceptance of

I move to approve the consent calendar.

Second. Further comment? Seeing none, roll call, please.

Council Member Ding? Aye.

Oh, I'm so sorry. Backed the train into the station. I screwed up. Now I'd like to open it up to the public for any comment. Seeing no movement, I will close public comment and bring it back to the council now for the appropriate vote.

Council Member Ding?

Aye.

Council Member Farrar-Rivas? Aye. Council Member Gurney?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Low? Aye. Mayor Wellander? Yes. Thank you. The motion carries unanimously.

All right. Moving on to our public hearing, we have a public hearing to discuss, consider, and take possible action to adopt a resolution adopting the cost allocation plan, accepting the comprehensive user fee study report, adopting a master fee schedule and finding these actions exempt from CEQA under CEQA guidelines. And that's it. So with that, I'll turn it over to our community development director for her presentation.

all right well thank you very much um mayor and council so we are excited to present all these lovely things to you tonight um we have been working on this since late of 2024. um prop d and i were project managers and um we are happy to finish this side of it and present it to you tonight i do have the consultant Courtney Ramos is on Zoom. So you're going to hear her voice. She's with Matrix Consulting. That is who we hired to help us complete the cost allocation plan, as well as that comprehensive citywide feed study that then developed that master fee schedule. And so she's going to talk about the methodology that went into those different items. And then I'm going to take it back and talk more about the fees themselves. So with that, Courtney, ready for you.

Fantastic. Well, thank you everyone for this opportunity this evening to talk about the cost allocation plan and the comprehensive citywide fee study. I want to talk a little bit tonight, go real high level about the cost allocation plan. It's an 85 page report, but I think you guys will all get into it. The general principles associated with a cost allocation plan include identification and allocation of indirect costs. So we're looking to spread the cost of support departments like finance and HR, city clerk, city attorney, those staff who really help make sure that all the other departments within the city are able to run appropriately. So that's what we want to do with the cost allocation plan. It's really important that when we allocate those costs that we do it fairly inequitably, meaning we don't want to just say we're going to send all this money to this particular fund or this particular department, but we really look at who's generating a need for those services and allocating those costs appropriately. And there's really three reasons why we do these types of studies. First and foremost, it's a GFOA best practice. That's the Government Finance Officers Association. And they talk about it's important to understand what are your indirect costs. So even if you do nothing, absolutely nothing with this plan, it gives you an understanding of how those support departments are affecting those other departments and funds. So it really gives us a good picture of where our dollars, our indirect costs are going. It can also help justify transfers to non-general fund sources. So when we're looking to kind of recover those costs if we're supporting a water fund or other utilities, to really understand what is that cost and have a documented defensible plan to justify that. And then the third reason, which kind of falls into my next slide in a minute here, but is just documenting that indirect cost for those fee-related departments. So we have building and planning and police and they all have their own budgets but those budgets only look at their direct costs right their staff their services and supplies but when we're looking to understand what does it cost to provide a service we want to understand what does it cost the entire city to provide that service and so the indirect cost plan allows us to do that it shows us that indirect cost piece that we're then able to layer elsewhere so with that I'm going to move into kind of talking a little bit about the citywide fee study and the objectives associated with that. So we provide a lot of services that we charge fees for in the city. And so what we wanted to do was, first and foremost, we want to streamline those fee structures. We want to take a look at what are the services that we're providing and are those fees accurately representing those services. So we want to get rid of anything that we're not doing anymore. If we've got new services or new requirements, new code updates that we need to adopt and put into the fee schedule. We want to make sure that it's reflective. We also kind of take a look at it from the perspective of, is it easily understandable from the applicant's perspective? So even though we're adding and condensing fees, we're also looking and saying, is the language appropriate? Can the layperson really understand what fees might be applicable when and where? We then work with staff to collect time estimates and gather that information to understand how they're providing that service. We calculate fully burdened hourly rates. We look at legal compliance. We have various different rules in California that say that we can't charge more for a service than it costs us to provide that service. And so what the study does is it actually, it lets us know what our ceiling is. It tells us what is the fully loaded, fully burdened cost of providing that service. We also take a look at comparative jurisdictions. What are your neighbors charging for those particular services so that we can understand how our costs are comparable? Although I will note that with comparative surveys, it's always important to see when was the last time they conducted a study, as I'll talk about in a little bit, Sonoma hasn't done a comprehensive study in quite some time. So if we were using you as a comparable, we would always want to caution somebody to understand that just the number that you see on a fee schedule is not always indicative or reflective of the costs that are being incurred by a jurisdiction. And then ultimately, this study results in a master fee schedule. So we get a consolidated list of all of the services that are fee related. in order for the city to kind of put that forth and put that out to the public through adoption. We go to the next slide. So dive in a little deeper on that methodology. So when we're looking at cost of service, it is essentially rate times time equals cost. But there's a little bit of nuance in there. So when we talk about time estimates, we're looking at the average staff time by position to provide a particular service. So we don't want to think about the easiest application that we've ever gotten. where all the T's are crossed and the I's are dotted. We also don't want to think about the worst application that we've ever seen that was missing a lot of information. We want to say what is typical and we want to look at that for each particular application or service type. So that's how we collect our time estimate information. When we look at fully burdened hourly rates, again, we have those salaries and benefits and productive hours of the staff who are directly working on a particular application and permit. We have the services and supplies, so we're thinking about the building that they're in, the lights that they're using, if we're using vehicles to get to and from someplace. so making sure that we understand that support cost and then also that city-wide overhead which comes from the cost allocation plan that i just talked about and again take the time estimates we multiply that by the hourly rates and that gives us the full cost associated with the service so that then is the maximum justifiable fee that can be assessed for any particular service next slide So high level kind of summary results of the study. So we looked at 483 fee line items across all city departments. This, as I kind of alluded to earlier, was really the first comprehensive citywide fee study that's been conducted. There have been studies here and there that have looked at individual departments or individual programs, but not kind of this comprehensive citywide study. We looked at creating a general plan maintenance fee. So looking at capturing costs associated with long range planning and the impacts to that, as well as updating the city's technology fee to make sure that it was reflective of current costs and technologies that the city is using. And we also converted the building fees from deposit based and valuation to be square footage and occupancy. So providing us a stronger nexus between the service that we're providing and the fee that we're charging. And so with that, we kind of come to the numbers part of this. So if we look at this overall, we looked at finance, building, planning, public works, special events, and police. Overall, the revenue that's being generated from those departments is just under $750,000, but the total cost associated with them is almost $1.8 million. So we see this deficit of about $1.1 million, meaning we're only recovering about 40% of the costs. Now, obviously, these differences range dramatically depending on the department. Finance, much smaller difference there at only $258. But building has quite a significant deficit there at almost at a little over $850,000. And so what we want to do when we're looking at fees is how do we adjust these so that they align appropriately with cost recovery goals? And so if we go to the next slide, I can talk a little bit about what those goals would be. And so if we kind of take a look, building is typically between 80 and 100%. So it's something where the city is definitely well below what we would typically see. Finance, definitely above at that 90%. Not a lot of fees there, just a handful that aren't state-set, but doing really good. Planning also at the higher end, but also that's something we would expect to see is planning was actually one of those departments that had been more recently reviewed and those fees kind of more in alignment than we see these other fees. Police doing really well with that kind of in between 20 and about 50% at that high end. Public works still a little bit low, you typically see anywhere between 80 and 100 percent, and they're at about 56 percent, and then special events doing pretty good at that high end between 20 and 50 percent again, just at about 47 percent. So again, I think what we want to do with this information is to understand what are your goals, for cost recovery, understanding where we typically see other jurisdictions and their cost recovery levels. And again, this fee study report is meant to provide you with the information to understand what is that maximum justifiable fee so that you can then determine what is appropriate from a cost recovery level. And with that, I'm going to turn it back over to Jennifer.

All right. Thank you, Courtney. Yeah. All right. So one of the questions that came up when we had a finance committee meeting that we went to in March to first discuss these fee options and how do we want to approach these was around where are our sources of income currently for our general fund? So if we think about these fees that we charge, it's a source of revenue for our general fund. And so these are highlighted in those boxes. These are not exact numbers. There are other items that feed these line items, but it's about relative to what we have stated. um in those prior slides um from 20 that was been fiscal year 24 this is from fiscal year 25 26. so again sources of revenue when we charge these fees they go into these two line items for the city and then When we actually charge them, they're charged in multiple departments. So it could be a planning charge or a building charge. So this kind of shows where all the departments that are charging fees currently. We actually charge fees for fire. That is not part of this study because the City Council has already adopted the fire fees and those are increased every year based on CPI. But this is just an example of all those fees are being charged by all these departments to provide services to our community. So now I'm going to talk about the results of that study. So the first is the general plan maintenance fee that's being recommended is 23%. This cost is based on the general plan and housing element cost to the city. So again, a housing element has to be done every eight years. The general plan is about every 20. So that cost was put annualized. And then what does that look like when applied to a major building permit? And that's how we get a 23% rate. So our annual building cost is around $462,000. So that's what it's applied to. This would not apply to any standalone permit, such as like a water heater, a re-roof, a pool, those types of things. It's really just new construction, major remodels. And I'm gonna show you examples of how it's applied in a few slides. Technology fee, again, same idea. What are all of our different software systems and technology that we're currently using? How much does that cost the city? And then how much does it cost for all permitting? How much do we get? It's 1.8, so that's 8%. In the administrative fee section, so we have specific service areas, and that fee study was divided amongst those different service areas. So the first being administrative. This is going to be mostly around the city clerk services that they provide. So we have items called like an agenda packet subscription. We've got media duplications. We also do tobacco retailer licenses. We did request some new fees around having wedding filing, city council chamber rentals, also providing notary services. We are seeing, like was stated earlier by Courtney, that we have an annual cost recovery of about 90%, but our appeal fee is kind of where we see the most deficit. For police, these fees are collected by the sheriff's office, but they're administered by our city, which is dog licensing, impounding, and our residential parking permits. So our annual cost recovery is around 50%. And mostly this is because we have reduced the fees for senior citizens to get dog licensing. So those fees are seen as about $40 per license. Building is obviously where we saw the biggest, probably, change with an annual cost recovery of only 25%. And we see a lot of changes that we've done. And the biggest one being that we have changed from a valuation format. So we currently look at what is the value of that construction. So if you're doing a lot of improvements, your value may be a lot higher. instead of based on a square footage we also were counting literally the number of outlets that are going into a building there's a lot of aspects linear feet of electrical so in this case we're saying let's just take it back do it based on square footage and the occupancy type and that is actually going to be based on the number of inspections that are going to be required so basically that's what we're charging for how many inspections does it take to do a certain square footage building The, I'm gonna go through an example of some of the other changes that we've done. So we've created more flat fees so that we're not having to take in funds and then issue checks or ask for more money later. So we've started doing more flat fees. We've also, as you know, previously we've been streamlining a lot of permits and created express permits. So these are new types of permits that we've put into the system. for our fees. So an example of this would be this heat pump. So before it was around $290. Under our new fee, we're looking at $347. So we used to charge a tech fee that was varied. And it depended on the type of permit that you were getting. So if you see that third line, it says $48. That's how much we used to charge or currently charge. The proposal is to just do 8% of whatever that actual permit fee is. And so in this case, it would be $23. So tech fees are now being assessed based on that value of that permit fee. So it'll go up and down based on that cost. Another example is the demolition of a single family home. Again, a new just flat fee. This one does increase a little bit more and that is the big changes you're going to see around the planning check fee and a building check fee. These are real examples of permits that we have issued that I took for our current fee understanding. so the other change that you'll see is a building plan check fee is going to be a percentage of that flat permit fee and then our plan check fee is going to be also a percentage of that flat permit fee instead of staff having to track how much time they're actually spending on all those permits so this is a new way to simplify that and so this one you'll see an increase of about 854 dollars Same with the pool, same approach. Again, it's based on the number of inspections for that flat permit fee. And this one, you do see a larger increase of $2,500 for a new pool. And then for an ADU, we looked at all the fees that would go into this as well. This one is your first example where you see a new fee based on the actual square footage. So when we're looking at how do we calculate that, we're going to look at the square footage of that ADU for a residential structure. And that's what's going to give us that number currently for $3,293. And then again, we're going to tack on some plan check fees for planning and for building. So in this case, we're seeing an increase of about $4,000 for that fee. planning these are going to be our entitlement procedures and we did as noted by Courtney, we did a fee study for planning about five years ago. And we have changed some of our processes, again, to streamline. So it's not needing as much planning time to go into it. So some of those fees have lowered. And then some fees, we are changing to make them flat fees. Again, so we are not required to track our time, ask for more money later, or give checks back later. So planning has a cost recovery of around 80%, and the largest under recovery currently for planning department is the design review major fee, which we would be increasing around $1,500. An example of a fee type would be a sign. These we do quite often. Currently, we ask for a deposit of $390. It usually costs more, so we're asking for money before we actually give them their permit, and it costs currently $887 for this one specific example. And then we have the proposed fee of just doing a flat fee of $1,612. This is an example of one that would actually have to go to Planning Commission for approval, so not an administrative. So when you see that public notice fee, this includes our cost of having to print all the material, mail all the material, the cost for the paper, et cetera. That's why that cost has almost doubled. I'm going to give an example of a single family home all the way through so you can see a total amount of what that change looks like. So for this example, this house needed a variance. And so it needed an entitlement from the planning commission. And the difference in that cost based on our new hourly rate of $274 is what's being proposed. Prior, it was $170 an hour. is going to basically increase that cost to have around $1,536. When we do a variance, we are going to ask for a deposit because some variances are going to be more difficult to process and other ones are going to be easier to process. And so we want to have that variation in that case. As far as building permit goes, this is how much that building permit fee would be. So currently for this size house, which is around 2,000 for a new single family home, $10,000 was what was charged for a building permit fee. The increase would be to 14,660, so around 4,500 change. In blue, you see an affordable housing in lieu fee. This was adopted but never implemented in 2023. And I'm just showing this as an example of these fees we're going to discuss later this year. We're re-analyzing that affordable housing in lieu fee because it's going to be based on what our inclusionary ordinance amount is. And so I'm just putting this in for reference purposes, but we will not be charging it right now, but I want you to see how it affects a building permit.

And then, Jennifer, can I ask you a quick question on that one, just while we're there? So this is, if someone's building one home, there would not be an in lieu fee?

No, that is the in lieu fee for one home.

Oh, so you have to do, I thought it was only for four units.

No, it's for anything less than five. So four or less pays a fee. Five or more builds it or pays a fee.

All right. OK. Thank you. Thanks for the clarification.

Much bigger fee.

Much bigger fee, yes. All right. So then another part of this is the solar. So we require solar permits for all new single-family homes. This one's going to increase just a little bit. It's really not changing a lot for solar. And then fire is just changing slightly and that's only because we do charge a little bit of building time because we do have to touch it. So it's only a half an hour and because our hourly rate went up, therefore that impact to that fee is based on that. And then this is the difference altogether. With the planning entitlement, the building permit solar and fire sprinkler for this single family home was around $14,000. The proposed fee would increase it to about $21,000. So a little over $6,000 increase with the new fees. So that's planning and building. The next is public works. We do charge some service fees in the public works department. They have an annual cost recovery of about 56%. Encroachment permits are where you see most of their charges. And they do also see the biggest deficit because of the current fee charge for an encroachment permit fee major. So other changes that you'll see are for like the minor encroachment permit also will go up and then a tree removal permit will go up. This is an example of that major encroachment permit fee. So when somebody does a permit valuation of a certain amount, they are required to either install a new sidewalk or make improvements to that sidewalk or improve their driveway apron. And based on that, we still require them to get an encroachment permit. That encroachment permit currently is about $489. The new fee would be just under $1,000. So this is where some of that cost recovery would occur. Utilities, just wanted to specify, it does not affect our water rates, but it does affect any fees for any testing or utility crews going out. Um, so the notable charges in this, um, utilities area is the backflow testing is going to rise. The hydrant meter deposit actually is going to decrease. Um, and then the utility crew charges are, um, been adjusted to reflect a new base rate. Um, they usually go out for three hours and then any additional hour will be charged. And then I am going to hand it off to Dave Jantz, who's going to talk about special events and cemeteries.

Thank you, Jennifer. Good evening, Council. Good evening, Mayor. I'm going to run you through the special events and cemeteries section. So just to start with special events, a quick overview of some of the changes that you'll see. So one thing that we did is this based on both the results of the study, but also community feedback and ways for us to streamline services and meet the demands that we've heard from the community. So you'll see additions of rental rates for other parks. And so this is intended for families that would like to have a picnic in other locations outside of the plaza. Currently, our fees are very specific to the plaza area. So this allows us to expand should we want to. It doesn't mean we have to immediately overnight start allowing picnics and or events in other locations, but gives us the ability to meet that need if that's the direction the community and the council wants. so choose us we've also added in a picnic table rental and so what you see at the plaza quite frequently is people will come out at five or six and six a.m to reserve their space by putting their their tablecloth down and so we're trying to do is give an avenue for community members who want to have a small family gathering not necessarily a large event a vehicle to do that so there's a very approachable rate and we think in there so that people can reserve a small space because that's a demand and a need that we've heard. But we also will balance that to make sure that we still have a high number of tables that are open for a first come first serve basis. We've added additional items for smaller events. Again, we had kind of two buckets for things to land in before either small events, large events. And what we're finding is there's a lot of events that fall somewhere in between. So just providing more flexibility to meet the actual events that are coming forward to us. And then a big, big effort of this, as Courtney alluded to, was to add some consistency. As I run through the examples, you'll see the reasons behind that. But we had a lot of flat fees and no two events are similar in nature. And so to put a flat fee on an event, even though maybe the same amount of time or same area, they're gonna have different usages, different impacts. And so moving as much as possible to hourly rates versus flat rates, I think will meet more of the demand on the public space, as well as impact our applicants more accurately than just providing a flat fee. Across the board, we also added some other minor single events. I use the light post banner storage as an example with a few one off fees that we think will be a benefit to community members. But we want to make sure we're recouping our costs accordingly. So the most significant increase you're going to see and you'll see these in the examples is in the rental rate section. And so this is based on square footage as well as market rate, which the consultant put together. So that's where you'll see the most significant jump. So I'll show you a few tables of that in just a few moments. As I mentioned before, this was previously a flat fee dependent on no matter how many hours you use it, whether you use it for an hour or eight hours, you were charged this flat fee rate. And so you'll see this large jump in an hourly rate. In order to make sure that our community spaces are accessible and used and available for our residents, as well as the community benefit that our local nonprofits bring for putting on free events for the community, what staff is proposing is a 25% discount for residents and a 50% discount for local nonprofits. So what I'd like to do is run you through a few different scenarios. I will not go through this line by line, but just wanted to give you an example of existing events that are happening within the last year of current fees and what the proposed new fees looks like. So this is what Authors on the Plaza just took place a few weeks ago. This is a nonprofit event. So that left-hand column is what they were charged this year. 2649 is their total permit fees. If you go down to about the third line item, you'll see that rental fee, you'll see it jump by $736. And again, that's because we're moving from the flat fee to a more accurate hourly rate that also captures really what the market rate is for that rental space. If you were to take those proposed new fees, their new bottom line without any discount would be $4,345. we're proposing a 50 percent discount, which puts them actually slightly below where they are, but in line with our current cost recovery model. I'm going to show you one more non-profit just to show you the variance in the two. Again, we've had multiple car shows on the plaza over the years, so this is using the model of the most recent Porsches on the plaza. And again, same methodology there, same level of tables. This one you'll see because of the increase in the rental fees using the horseshoe rather than a quadrant of the plaza, this one's actually is gonna end up slightly more expensive, but again, in line with where they are with only a $346 increase if we were to apply that proposed discount. And again, this test discounts intended to be for local nonprofits that are providing free events for the community. Here's an example of a private resident event. So this, in theory, would be a small wedding. And so under the previous fees, we didn't have a specific fee for weddings. And so we do now have that built in. That's something that we've heard from the community, from the council, that there's an interest in providing that opportunity, looking at opportunities for revenue. So under the new fee structure, again, with that 25% discount, you're seeing an increase of only about $216. But if someone were to come in from, say, outside of the community, we'd certainly welcome them. They're going to pay that traditional market rate, which is that $1,295, which is second from the bottom. Want to switch over to for-profit events? This is where you're going to see the biggest increase, the biggest impact to the fees. So currently, the city hosts a grand total of one major for-profit event. That doesn't mean we may not see more applications coming in. That doesn't mean we haven't had more in the past. We want to make sure that we had the fee structure set up in place for that. But again, you're going to see that largest fee increase is because of the rental fees, and this one will be the most dramatic. So the event that we're using as the example, this is the half marathon and the Rose 5K that's coming up here in a few weeks. Under the current special events policy, 10% of that entity's gross revenues are to be donated back to nonprofits, local nonprofit of their choosing. So I'm bringing that up as you'll see that as a potential lever that the council has if they want to take a look at the fees in a bit more detail. One thing that we're looking at is we want to make sure that we're balancing, recouping all of our appropriate costs, charging entities appropriately, but making sure that we're keeping in mind the benefit that certain events bring to our community. And for this event and all of them, what I think we have the opportunity to do is as we move away from those flat fees into the hourly rates, is I think between staff and the applicants, we do have the opportunity to be a lot more efficient in how we reserve spaces. For example, if it's a flat fee, an applicant may come and say, I'm going to use all these spaces for the full eight hours, or in this case for three days, when in reality, they may actually only be using them for smaller amounts of time. and so by charging that hourly rate we may be able to get it a little bit closer to what the actual usage is so here is the example of a for-profit event again this is using the half marathon as an example again line item number four the rental fees again this three-day event but this this event would be jumping from six thousand dollars in fees to thirty six thousand dollars in fees so that's going to be your your big increase. So if you take that down to the bottom line, you're looking at a new fee structure of about an additional $34,000 that this entity would intake under the new fee structure. Again, I put that line item down there at the bottom. This entity, by way of the policy, is requested to donate 10%, in this instance, approximately $100,000 to nonprofits. So that is something that we can look at as we move through opportunities for the fees. under the special events policy the events that are listed on the screen a whole host of them these are events that by policy their fees are waived as part of the existing structure so these are long-standing traditions in the community they would continue to be covered under that that policy as well so they would not be impacted in the same way as we would see other events coming in moving on to cemeteries a clear distinction here is the fee study only captured rates, cemetery fees that were staff-related costs. And what I mean by that is when our staff are involved with opening, closing, when they're directly providing burial services. When there's something called property internment rights, we'll see PIR mentioned through here, those fees we have the ability to charge based on market rate. And so this is following what Courtney was mentioning, Proposition 218 and 26. Again, that's specific to recouping costs that are for staff-related costs. property internment rights, we have a little bit more flexibility. So we've been working with our cemeteries consultant to put forward what we think are the best recommended fees in those areas. And so those property internment rights include your base price, which that's the price of the actual internment rights, plus a contribution to the endowment fund, which that's 30% of the base price, as well as any administrative fees. So a few changes to the fee schedule. Staff is proposing to not charge for child internment property, so child burials, specific to Sonoma Valley residents. What you'll see is, and I'll walk you through a couple of scenarios, new column barrier fees, these are for the new inventory you've added, are actually priced lower, but that is intended to increase So it may seem counterintuitive at first if we're trying to increase revenue, but we think that will actually help with sales. And the biggest jump in fees you're going to see are with private estate lots and determined fees. So two examples for you, just want a quick distinction. We have what we call pre-needs and at-needs. So looking at pre-needs, this is when someone comes in and purchases Their property interment rights, essentially their right to bury in a space. So they're coming in to purchase that in advance. So that has nothing to do with staff fees on site, just administrative fees. So these are essentially what you're closer to your base price, your contribution to the endowment fund and administrative fees. Again, your biggest jump is going to be in those private estate lots. And you'll see a few where we slightly decreased price again to increase, hopefully increase sales. And the other example, similar table, but a distinction here. These are the at need. And so this is when someone, family member, individual comes in and they need to purchase something and go through the full process. So this is the full price of including your pre-need fees plus your opening and closing costs. So this is start to finish. what these look like. And again, you're going to see similar increases and decreases in that most are getting a slight increase, but our new inventory we've priced slightly lower to increase sales. And with that, happy to pause if there's any brief questions. Otherwise, I'll turn it back over to Director Gates.

Yes.

I don't know if you want to save these to the end or...

He offered it. Let's pick him up on his offer.

I guess I'm fixated on this park bench rental because, I mean, I've been part of the mad dash at 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning to grab the table. And that's a hard habit to break with a lot of people who have been doing this for a long time. And we don't have that many tables out there. So what table do you talk about? And how do you intend to let people know they can't have them? And what is... your risk factor? I'm sorry, go ahead.

Yeah, so we would be looking at, we'd set up operational and a policy behind it, so it'd be a set number, and that would be, you know, staff would be involved with it, and that went into the fee, so staff would go out essentially the day before to put on a reserve sign. We'd start with a very small number. Again, this is, and I think we'd even have the ability to have it during certain seasons, certain days, obviously during large events, and things like a like the Tuesday market, we wouldn't open it up for reservations then. So I think it's an opportunity to meet some of the off-peak hours. And so we would take a total number of the tables and keep it to a small amount, see what the demand is, and we could increase it from there. So I think it's an opportunity to pilot this. It's something we get requests for quite a bit is for people to be able to reserve a space here and there, but we want to make sure that those that are just arriving also have an opportunity.

So this would not be for like 4th of July or Farmer's Market?

No, I think we would want to keep it clear of major special events when the parks are overly crowded. This would, I think, would be an event-free weekend or potentially in the off-season.

And then along with that, if I may, is there going to be a more user-friendly way to do this? I mean, I've heard it's very difficult to get a park permit, you know, for like birthday party or whatever. Are we doing anything to make this easier on the public in order to do this?

I think that's a big part of the intent is why we've added some of these other fees and some of the systems that would follow behind it. Right now, if you want to reserve a space, you really have to follow the special event application, the process, the fee structure, the review, and that's really built for larger events, so these single one-offs. We want to make it so someone can walk into our office, pick up the phone, call us, and we can make it happen. How about online?

you know, because pick up the phone, walk in is like really, like, Excuse me, where was my cockles? I'm sorry, except for someone's cockles over here.

We're hopeful to get to a much more streamlined. The council will be contemplating the budget in a couple of weeks. One of our asks is to move forward with a certain software that will help with its programming, scheduling, and so also give availability calendars. So if we move forward with that, that will certainly be a vehicle. In the meantime, we're looking at what existing possibilities are.

I'd say that you need to have that first, honestly. It's been really a problem. A lot of people will go to the state parks because they have a simpler way to do it to reserve because they just don't want to fill out all that paperwork. And that's why I said it's going to be, they'll stake out those tables is what they're going to do. I mean, I think this is great. I'm not against it in the slightest. I just think that it has to come with

consistently easy way you know off your phone to say oh yeah let's you know your birthday yeah let's do that you know and then I don't think people will balk at that but otherwise I think they will thank you that's a great point and thank you and one thing I'll point out some of these were intended we know they may not go live right away we want to have that fee flexibility in there but we want to make sure from an operational standpoint as you mentioned we're ready to go before we launch any of these thank you

because the trend has been started if there are any other questions regarding the topic that chance is speaking to I have just one concern is that in the great American picture parks are free historically I mean with the exception of significant gatherings reserving the amphitheater whatnot or you've got a table set up with a barbecue offset there. That I can understand where that's a legitimate fee collection opportunity. It feels a little bit, I won't say un-American, it feels a little bit counter-intuitive, but it just feels a little strange. Because historically, you go down to the park, table's available, you use the table. And granted, it's not particularly fun to see someone go down at 2 a.m. and wrap a table with one balloon from the dollar store and put a little tablecloth down. But at the same time, this idea of, let's go to the park, boom, go to the park, there's a table, use the table. So, you know,

My understanding is you can still do that, but if you want to reserve a table so that the table is available for you because you have family coming or it's a vet, then you can go in and pay to reserve a table, and there will only be a limited number of tables, and then the rest of the tables are available for you to grab at will.

And I understand it's a pilot program, and I'm just simply saying at first blush, the concept is foreign to what has transpired to date, to the best of my knowledge. And we do have, and we brag about it, that we have this national landmark. Come and see it. And oh, by the way, go online and make a reservation. Just wanted to throw it out there. So I will shut up and I'll let our development director continue.

And can I say, I mean, the only other comment I'll make is that the trend is all over the world because of the amount of visitors every city has and the impacts those visitors have on a city and the cost to those cities. I mean, there's some cities that are basically, if you want to go visit them, you have to sign up ahead of time to even go visit them and walk through the city. And unfortunately, this is a way for us to actually, I think, maintain a really high quality experience for everybody that comes here. You know, I like the idea of not having to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning and put something on a table. If I know I'm going to have a lunch down there and I want people to do it, I go, oh, good, I can pay a fee and reserve it. We're going to have our birthday party.

Yeah, OK. But I also know that this is not going to be the answer of creating a sustainable plaza, the fees. So in other words, this is not the silver bullet.

Thank you. The last thing I'll say is I think I hear and I think the intent is what we want to make sure there is a balance of opportunities here and that this fee specifically not intended to monetize the plaza per se, but to provide some level of ease for those that aren't able to be down there early, but still, from my opinion, parks are for all and should be accessible for all. So we'll make sure that that balance is incorporated.

That's a relative term, ease.

So we learned on the phone and via phone and walking. All right. So all of that prior information was the results from that master fee, or not master fee, but from the comprehensive fee study. And all those examples were fed into that master fee schedule. We gave you examples of what that is. so the big idea behind a master fee schedule is that it's for our services that benefit specific users of that service and not necessarily the general public as a whole and we are looking for our fees to offset our costs of those services that we are providing if they're not covered by those fees then that's where our general fund revenue fills those gaps The fees for our city services that we currently are using have not been updated since 2023. So we're still using those fees that we created then and that you adopted. If the master fee schedule is approved, the fees would become effective in 60 days. So in August 2nd from today. So I just want to touch on a couple of things that were touched on in the staff report and as well at the finance committee meeting. So in March and April, when we met with the finance committee, we discussed options for cost recovery. And at that meeting, it was recommended that the master fee schedule reflect 100% of full cost recovery. Except for our nonprofit special events and a resident discount for cemetery services. There are a couple other fees if you look in there Such as we maintained the dog license for seniors at a lower rate we also Incorporated the prior resolution approval for appeals being at a lower rate So those were still incorporated Anything that was over collected have been reduced. The fees have been reduced. So you'll see sometimes in that master fee schedule that difference is a negative. And then in the other aspect is a phased increase. This is an option if city council feels that there is a potential impact that's significant to the community. an increase of those to reach that full cost recovery is possible over a certain time period and that would be brought back to you if that is something that you want to consider. In addition, there is an annual fee escalator. This is highly recommended. This is why our fees are currently reflective of 2023, is because we did not adopt an escalator that could be applied every year. I stated earlier, our fire fees do have that annual escalator, which is the CPI factor, and that is what we are recommending to use as well. And so that July 1st of every year, that master fee schedule would be increased by CPI that was based on that January month. Last but not least, in lieu fees. So an in lieu fee is going to provide an option for a developer or an applicant to mitigate any kind of impact to pay a city fee in lieu. So examples of this, in our municipal code, we have three different kinds of in lieu fees, parking, trees, and public art. And Luffy's are voluntary alternative to actually providing what we're requesting. So planting a tree, providing that parking space, putting art on their site. So as I mentioned earlier, we are working on the affordable housing in Luffy update, which will be sometime this summer or fall. So we're only talking about these three today. So as far as trees go, we do have a replacement requirement for one-to-one with a 15-gallon box size. And this is specifically to development projects only. And we have a current in LUFI of $100, again, for development projects only. This does not apply to all other tree removals that are processed by the PROS Commission. We are proposing an in lieu fee of $700. If this is adopted, we will also modify our municipal code to reflect that this in lieu fee will be applicable to all tree removals. If you do not replace that tree, you will need to pay. And then that in lieu fee goes into a tree fund. And then that tree fund is going to be used to plant new trees. The next is around art. Currently in our municipal code, we say that all public projects with a valuation of $250,000 will dedicate 1% to public art, and there is no cap. um and these are costs that are associated with our general fund so if the city puts money through their general fund into a cip project that's the only one percent that's applied it's not applied to any kind of caltrans grants or things like that so the proposed in lieu fee is one percent of the project valuation for commercial and or multi-family development projects that are valued over $250,000. So that's what was studied and provided to you in that memo. The idea being that a developer or an applicant could either install the art itself or that that value of that art will be put into that fund. And it needs to be made accessible to the public. So even if it was on a multifamily project, it needs to be visible or accessible to the public. It can't be hidden in the back. So an example of that would be, let's say that they, it's a $25 million project. So it would be around $250,000. This is commonly not charged for affordable housing projects or for facilities built by nonprofits. It is kind of a hefty price tag to add on. And so it's commonly not charged. If we do adopt this 1%, we will need to amend our municipal code again to apply to more project types as well as create a policy around the application of those fees and then also build in potential exceptions for the affordable housing. And then parking the off street parking also in our municipal code allows for an in lieu parking fee, the proposed fee is $32,000, and this was based on an $8,000 cost for a parking space on a surface lot and $70,000. for a parking structure. We do not foresee actually using this fee. We want to make sure it's available in case we do need it. But at this time, we've reduced parking requirements a lot for most projects, as well as we already have taken into account our limited parking availability within the plaza. And it's really based on square footage. So unless somebody is going to add or create new structures and not provide that parking, we should not need to apply that in lieu fee. So with that, staff's recommendation is to approve the resolution that's before you. That adopts the cost allocation plan, accepts the comprehensive user fee study report, and adopts a master fee schedule subject to CEQA. I am available to answer questions. Courtney is online still to answer questions. Dave can answer questions. Mike. Everybody. We're all here.

Great. So we'll bring it back to the dais, and this is the opportunity for questions to be directed from our council.

I just want to add that we did have a finance committee to review this, and the finance committee is in concurrence with the recommendation.

That's great. Yes, please.

Thank you for your great effort from the Finance Committee. I have a question regarding special events for the favorable rate, 25% and 50% for the nonprofit. Actually, it's not you, but I didn't see when Jennifer mentioned about approval of the building permits and the planning permit and the fire permit, if any, or you didn't mention or you lost.

Only in special events are we recommending reductions for specific resident situations or for nonprofits because they provide a community benefit. The costs that are being charged in most cases for these building permits and things like that are private improvements of some sort. If there are concerns around the ability to pay the fees, staff does not have the ability to reduce fees or eliminate fees. However, city council does have that ability. An example of this is when we brought forward the hotel appeal, part of that request in that appeal was to reduce some fees. and so that is an ability that city council does have on a project by project basis so that you understand what that potential impact would be to your revenue and then also where that coverage that gap would be covered is there available revenue to help cover those costs or not so we are not recommending a reduction for any specific group At this time, if we were to reduce, we would say we would want a certain percentage cost recovery. The other reason why is there's a lot of ifs around those things. The idea behind the nonprofit was that it's a free event provided by a nonprofit to the community.

The reason I raise this sort of question is the We heard from the comments, especially for the Robert Demler, and he didn't come here today. And I know Mason Navy House needed money to remodeling, and also they concerned about, you know, design fees and permits within the city. And this is number one. Number two, also, the Depot Park Museum also have this kind of situation. They are non-profit. They definitely work for the city, work for the public and the benefits. And another thing is coming, just like a team project as well, because from the non-profit, sooner or later, will be gifted to the city, become city's assets. So under this kind of the procedures, you know, out in the city from the policy-wise can give you a little bit of a break. That is the very, very much encouraging nonprofit to continue making, you know, the public benefits for the community.

So those three examples are all city-owned properties that we provide lease agreements for those entities, right? And Director Janz and I are currently working on a policy around permitting for different improvements when they're either done by the city itself that does the improvements or a nonprofit group that then puts in those improvements. And so that's something that we are working on and taking into consideration these nonprofits that we are partnering with. And that, like you said, they are open to the community and providing a community benefit.

Thank you.

Something did occur to me as we were talking about the escalator on this annual basis. I understand using CPI, and that's probably a best practice when we're looking at these things. However, it seems to me that the CPI oftentimes does not match the increases in employee costs. And is there any thought to looking at those costs in addition to CPI to make sure that we stay current? If we just go with CPI over five years, we're probably out of whack again.

so one of the best practices to do for a master fee schedule is to reassess everything every five to seven years and part of that is because our processes change our individuals that are actually doing the work change so then their fully burdened cost also will change at times so There is a way in which we do have all of those Excel spreadsheets and can adjust things accordingly and look at those costs. Right now, I think, as you said, best practice and the easiest method is going to be a CPI increase. It's something that we can put in, like, in three years. Let's look at the big picture again as far as how much change has occurred within those three-year period for the cost of staff. Because we are looking at the max, so the fullest. Let's say a permit tech is touching this project. Maybe they're being paid at A, but we're charging at E. Does that make sense? So it's not their actual person doing it.

It's the role. Now, would this require retaining a consultant to do that work and updating that analysis?

So we would definitely want a consultant to help with the cost allocation. So how to create that fully burdened cost. So what are those indirect costs that we're attaching to it? The actual cost of staff. So if we create new permit fees and things like that, we can use the numbers that we currently have to create those new fees. So we can update that aspect of it, but I do recommend if we wanted to do the fully burden cost update that we would need assistance to do that cost allocation.

Thank you. And just lastly for Mr. Janz, so as a resident and I want to reserve a picnic table, do I get a 25% discount? You do, yes. Awesome, thank you.

Good? OK. So just to make sure I understood correctly, I think what we were talking about, if we pass a fee structure for full recovery, there will be discretion on the part of the council to review and or if some nonprofit or project came forward and said, gee, this is going to kill the project, or the nonprofit is saying, do we do have that discretion?

You do have it.

We see that as a vehicle, OK? And then, refresh my memory, I think you stated, even with our aspirational goal of cost recovery, the reality of recovering cost and minimizing the draw from the general fund, is there a target there? In other words, based upon the study and based upon our expenses, we're still drawing off the general fund for a percentage, correct?

So the cost of staff to provide a service, cost of the city to provide a specific service, that is being recommended to be fully cost recovered. That is all we can charge. We cannot charge more. So we do other work other than provide that specific service. So yes, those are going to be from the general fund revenue sources. Okay.

Very good. Thank you You had mentioned that if we pass the fee tonight that there is a 60 day Period of adoption or in that 60 period is that an opportunity for the public to come forward and say hey this this is Problematic or has that?

train left the station that left the station

So that's tonight, that's what this meeting is. Understood, understood.

Unless you decide to rescind it or repeal that resolution.

Okay.

If adopted.

I didn't memorize all of the percentages of increase for projects that were for both review, design review and or building review, but the bottom line is a lot of them are increasing significantly. I believe that we have made some progress with the community that says that we're collaborative, we want to work together and move forward. My fear is that we might be slipping back to some degree and then the old mantra that says it's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission. That'll be disappointing. So I'm trusting that when you say that they've evaluated these fees, and maybe it was there, I didn't read it, was that the communities that we're comparing to were apples to apples. We're talking comparing to Healdsburg, St. Helena, Cloverdale, maybe in terms of costs.

We have, so in the very back of that fee study are comparisons to other jurisdictions. We don't know what the details are. We don't know how many hours that they estimate that they spend. We don't know what their total cost recovery is for an individual. So we don't know those aspects of it, but we know what they currently are charging. And that's what that's based off of. So, yes, even with some of our proposed fees, we're still not even comparing to some of these other jurisdictions.

Good, good. And I'm I'm speculating that with the acceptance of these extra fees that part of our responsibility is to be with communication, transparency, efficiency, because I think the criticism that has been rendered many times is that time is money on the private sector. City doesn't care because it's not their money. And the perception on the private sector at times has been, you know, why is it taking so long? So I fully support the idea of these fees going up, and I fully support cost recovery. But I think with those increases comes a responsibility on our part for communication. Because then I do believe that if we don't, then we are going to slip back, and that's going to be disappointing in a small community like ours.

So in response to that, we are planning on doing communication outreach, everybody that's done anything in OpenGov. We did inform the building industry of these changes as well. It's going to take probably that long to update OpenGov to get that system put into place. So anybody that applies within these next 60 days is still going to be under our old fee system, and anybody that had an SB 330 project is under whatever that fee system was back then. Sure, okay.

Good, thank you. This may have not happened because the study was done quite a while ago, but with the fee study, the numbers reflect the retaining of contractors or sub consultants in particular right now with the changes in our building department. So we're going to be going out for contracting out the building official. We're going to be contracting out plan review check. So I have the increases that we're seeing here anticipate that or did it so that once again, if our goal was for for

full recovery then it's full recovery of the reality where we currently are hopefully for just a period of time so yes in the contracts themselves with those that provide services especially around the plan check side of things the plan check service fees currently we've been charging hourly rate because that's how we charge is hourly rates but in most jurisdictions they do do a percentage the permit fee to be for plan check. And that is what our new contracts will be associated with is it'll be a one for one. So whatever that percentage is, is what they charge. And that's what we're reflecting.

Did the consultant include any post implementation recommendations on how we can kind of take a test on whether or not we're, uh, we're successful other than just the, in other words, uh, we're going forward with the aspirational goal for full-cost recovery, and are there going to be kind of checkpoints that will allow us to raise a flag and say, yep, it looks good, it looks like this is the right fit? So again, I'm just saying, is there any more post-implementation steps that we're going to be looking at to help us?

We can build those in specifically. I mean, with the budget next year, we'll be definitely looking at what the revenue changes are with these new fees, and so we'll understand from the revenue perspective. Now, as far as, let's say, the community that doesn't follow all of our meetings and things like that or our news releases, is surprised or not local, then those are the ones that we may hear from, and you may hear from, and we always have the opportunity to address even specific fees. That may be, you know, kind of what we've, you know, if we really want to incentivize, we're hearing, oh, I just don't want to do the water heater. But it's very important that people get water heater permits because it's going to explode. So we want those done, and if that's too expensive, we're hearing a lot, that's something that we can bring forward and say, we probably need to adjust.

Thank you. Other than, again, the budget, as far as the way you've developed the percentages of certain departments achieving 8%, whatever, 23%, so on, if we don't track our time, how will we know that our flat fees were... hit the right market or hit the right target?

So those. So all of our flat fees, as well as the fee for based on square footage, they're based on a certain set understanding. So what we're assuming is two plan checks for entitlements. If we go over that, we're charging an hourly rate. inspections if you fail an inspection we're gonna charge you for a re-inspection and so that inspection cost is going to be charged to you and if we do three plan checks on a building permit you're gonna get charged the hourly rate for that extra

And you may have already answered this question. I think the idea of updating the fee structure on a regular basis makes sense. And if I heard you correctly, it will be a matter of just like we have a general plan, we update the general plan, we don't start from scratch. So with this fee study, this will be the baseline that in three years or whatever, the consultant will be able evaluating it from what we had to how do we go forward.

Actually, staff, finance department, will just apply what that CPI increase, let's say it's 2.9%, to it.

But in terms of the idea, one of the criticisms that I heard was that it's been way too long for us to have done a comprehensive fee study, and we have suffered for that in terms of receivables. And I'm just saying if the next cycle comes, and say it's in three to five years, then we will be hiring a consultant, and that consultant will be... providing additional support based upon what we've been doing and then so on. Okay. I think that's it. Any more from here?

So I just have a comment in regards to thinking of ways when I was thinking about if you need a new water heater currently, you know, we're really encouraging people to use the heat pump and transition to that. And there are currently incentives that are being offered by Sonoma Clean Power for people, because eventually that's going to be a new law, that when you get a new water heater, it's going to have to be a heat pump. And so if there's a way for all of us also, you know, like as part of our service when people are talking about that, to be able to say, I don't know how we do this, but maybe we should look at that. If you do that now, if you don't wait until that law goes into effect and your water heater, let's say your water heater is 10 years old and not 15 years old, you can save money now getting a heat pump. And so just thinking of how are we also, as there's these additional permit fees, how are we also saying, being aware of incentives that are out there for people to be able to say, look, and you can also do this now, or there's an incentive out there now that if you're doing this now, maybe there's not at that time, but if there is, that there's a way for you to get a rebate on what you're doing. So I don't know. I know it's a lot to track, but it seems like it's also a service that would be great to be able to provide for people.

Well, you'll have plenty of time for additional comments when we come back. Oh, that's right. That wasn't a question.

But as to whether or not that would be possible. Sorry, that was a discussion, not a question. Yeah, the brain is not completely online tonight. It's coming online.

So please. So for the Finance Committee meetings, you actually reached out to the community of construction folks. And how many of them showed up to the meetings to discuss this?

None.

Okay. Thank you. I just wanted the council to know that we did reach out and invite people to come and comment.

Was it at Hop Monk that the gathering was supposed to be, or was it at Star's?

You know, that might have gotten more people, but no. No, we did put out... reach to try to get people um our pio sent out emails we put everything from the first meeting on the website um and we didn't have any comments specific to the fees themselves there were comments um and i think they're here today um but um it was mostly associated with the earths and luffy okay

I didn't intentionally lie, but the one that's been really on my heart a lot is one that I didn't bring up as far as the question. That has to do with the art fund. And we had a discussion earlier about it, We all, three of us, or the majority of us are really pushing that we want to have a community that has a strong art program. And it's been almost an insult the way it has been written in the past about the 1% fee for public projects with a bunch of exclusions. And if one was to track the art fund growth in the last 10 years, even longer back, it's been extremely modest. And the way it's currently set up with commercial buildings and multifamily, once again, when you think about historically what we've done in this small town of 2 and 3 quarters square miles, it's not been a lot. And so I'm advocating, at least one for discussion, the idea of can we give some consideration and stay within the parameters of state law that regardless of what permit is being pulled, that there is going to be a proportional fee associated so we can truly not just give lip service to the desire of being a strong art community that's gonna draw our community.

So I did ask the consultant a little bit more about this fee. There are a lot of cities that do apply an in lieu fee. I have worked in a couple of those. It is typically applied only to commercial projects. Multifamily is considered a commercial project. And in our discussions, it was really based on the fact that they have common areas that are available and open to the public. A single family home does not have, they have their front yard, but we typically wouldn't say put art in your front yard, because the idea behind this is that it's in lieu of actually doing the art, is that you're paying us and we're gonna put a fund together to pay for future art that will be available in a public space. So that's the idea behind it. So that's why it was specific to commercial uses.

the comment was we could try it um to single families and see if they want to put the art um no so that's but we're kind of missing the point and we're getting down to what i call the definition of in lieu and being that okay you build a single family house the the ordinance says you have to put in fifty thousand dollars with a part and if you don't then you have to give us that and we'll put elsewhere that's not what this community is trying to push this community is trying to push the development of public art where we're not always drawing upon asking for our philanthropists to pay up, pony up, do this, do that. And again, because we've kind of been behind the eight ball in the last 20, 25 years, it's like we have ground to make up. And if we're simply going to be waiting for commercial projects, unless you've been holding back from not telling me about these phenomenal jobs that are in the pipeline, then I think we're just giving lip service. And so that's where If we can sell the value of public art to our community, which again, we haven't, I don't think, put forth a dedicated effort yet, and maybe we've in some times, but I'm just simply thinking that, because I was, this was brought up over the last couple years, being on the council and i kept being told wait to the fee structure way to the fee structure study comes well it has come and it just seems quite limited in it and so i'm just asking to keep in the format of a question can we broaden that so in an aloo fee capacity i don't think so that not under the law

If we want to explore additional ways to raise funds for art, then we can probably look into that. I'm looking this way. And it'll be in a different format. Right now, this is kind of our... in lieu is our process for doing that i have not i we can do more research on other cities on how they feed their art fund other than just the in lieu fee because a lot of cities do have some hefty art funds going on but when it comes to actually charging it to the building permit i think that's why it's It's associated with an in lieu fee. It's not a tax or something else that we would apply.

Well, if I had support from at least a total of three votes, I would love to see the encouragement of what options we might have. Because again, we get excited about it. People talk about art. We say about it. And I'm just not satisfied with utility box wraps.

No, we are, I will say, I am asking people as they do their projects for murals and other things. So I've got a couple that I'm hoping for in the future.

Okay, okay, I'll go back now. Just to make sure that we're all on the same page. So you can't impose an in lieu fee unless there is a way to avoid that fee by building the thing that is legally required to be built.

So is it semantics now? And if we use something other than an in lieu, can we create a... a charge because we all value art and we need to all contribute fee.

Well, what you have to be cognizant of is that there is a nexus between the exaction and what's being required, right? So you can't compel someone to build something that is not connected at all with the impacts of what they're actually building. That's just basic constitution.

Well, in terms of impact fee. Yeah. I mean, again, we're talking in lieu, we're not talking in lieu, impact.

Right, but what's the impact of getting a building permit? There's no impact on public art unless there's a legal requirement to put art in your front yard. So that's why an in lieu fee would be the way to do it.

With the types of projects that are limited to commercial.

And our public art fund is also there to receive requests or gifts. So it can always receive those, and that's one way to perhaps...

build that fund and then there's that provision about you know what is it like a quarter of one percent of the general fund is supposed to go into the art fund unless it's waived by the city council and that's what we've done historically and hence we have a very paltry art fund okay so i have a question though in regards to our art fund that currently is one i think it's a similar to our affordable housing fund if you donate for it you can't get a tax deductible receipt So which is the other thing, which you can't with our affordable housing fund either. So that's another thing that we need to, we've talked about working on, is how do we establish a separate non-profit to receive those funds so that people can actually get a tax deductible receipt. You can donate to it, but a tax, my understanding from property, because we went down this road quite a bit, is we as a city cannot actually deliver that receipt. And so you have to have another agency to do that. So that's another way for us to be able to do it. I think once people know that they can get a tax deductible, people could donate stocks. I mean, there's all sorts of things that they could do. you know, as long as we put those requests out there. When at the end of the year requests, this is your time to give to these funds. So anyway, but I think the thing is that we're asking for, that we all agree on, is that we would like to see, you know, and this is an off topic, I realize, but since it's within the in lieu fees, it's like we're stretching, like, you know, it's like the question is how do we, How do we actually do this better? You don't have to answer that now, but it certainly seems like we're all thinking in the same direction.

I do have one more, sorry. This will, I guess, it has to do with the tree, Inletree.

Mr. Mayor, would you mind if I just make a quick comment before we move on from public art? Because I just kind of want to wrap on the direction to staff to make sure we're clear. And I think what Jennifer and the team have presented as it relates to the in lieu fee coming back on the private commercial with an ordinance for that is what staff's recommending tonight. What I'm also hearing is a wish and direction to staff to really explore what are all the other mechanisms to increase the public art fund above and beyond this. So let's be creative and figure out how to come back with that. We've talked about doing the friends up so people can make contributions to all kinds of things to the city that they wish. and get that tax write-off. I think that's a great idea, but there are other mechanisms that we can explore right back to you.

You've listened well. Thank you. Regarding that, for clarification, I guess I would like to hear that there's consensus for that direction. Sure.

You heard the interim city manager speak back to what she had heard. Are we in agreement? Or who is of agreement will just speak up?

I'm in agreement, yes. Yes.

Yes? OK. The question I had is about the street trees and the idea of charging an encroachment fee. So I just want to make sure that based upon my, I call it a bias, my experiences of the last number of years, street tree, not planted by the owner, has to be maintained by the owner, upsets a sidewalk, Oh, by the way, owner, now you have to not only replace that sidewalk, but at your own cost, take out the tree. And oh, by the way, here's a $483 encroachment permit fee in order for you to pay money to take out that tree and to pay money to put that sidewalk in. I'd like us to at least have further discussion on that, whether it's tonight or I don't care. But that one feels like an insult to injury.

We are, Mike Berger, Director of Public Works, we are redoing the sidewalk program, and there's a consideration in there that's been discussed with the City Manager's Office about not waiving, well, waiving the fee for both the tree removal permit and the sidewalk repair encroachment permit.

Okay, great. Thank you.

But that also would need to be brought back to you.

And so that I'm going to look down both sides and see if there are any more questions. And if not, then I certainly want to open up to the public an opportunity to come forward and to share your thoughts.

I'm Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council. I'm Connie Schleilein and I am here with my gold shoes on giving it a tap because I think we're making progress and I'd like to express appreciation to the Finance Committee, to Dave Janz, Parks, because we're taking a step that's historic tonight. We're doing a course correction, and I appreciate all that you do and all the support you give the arts and the culture and history of this town. Thank you.

Hello, I'm Howard Eisen Stark. I've met some of you. I'm the current chair of the Panglai Sister Cities Committee, and as a non-profit, part of a non-profit organization, was wanting to say something about that councilmember being already brought that up and it was discussed and I'm thankful that the City Council is available to negotiate about fees because you have a couple I have a conflict of interest our group is probably going to be asking for a building permit and with all the changes in the fees and the fact that we've spent a lot of time trying to get donations for this project, any way that we can minimize the extra costs would be appreciated. So I was going to say more, but it sounds like you've addressed it, and I appreciate that. And I only want to add that maybe there needs to be more picnic tables on the plaza. Thank you.

Thank you, Howard. Anyone else? Anyone else? Don't want to cheat anybody in this crowd. Okay, we'll bring it back and close public comment. And... Now it's the opportunity for discussion.

So I will vote in favor of this. But I want to just say, sort of in line with what Connie had to say, is when people see something happening as well, I know we've made it easier to do permits and so forth. But when that happens, then these will be, you know, much better received and of course waiving the fees for the nonprofits, etc. If everything is exactly the same and they're still, you know, it's filling out forms and delays and whatever, then they're going to resent the increases. But when the increases then you know, result in, oh, I can rent a park bench or put a picnic table and, oh, it's really easy and, you know, the cemetery is looking great. I mean, when they start to see things happen, they'll understand that there's a reason for these fund increases. And so I just encourage you to make sure that all of them you know people know well as a result you know it's not just we're paying back for the work we're doing something to make it more user friendly to see more art you know to to make it you know to have more trees whatever the reason is so i just encourage us to do that as a result thank you thank you jack thank you so much yeah great work and also thank you patricia and the john

as the leading this project go through. Actually, I think compliance is most important thing, and our new plan is compliance with the GAAP and also federal grant standard. That means we build up the legal disabilities for the future. And I very much appreciate that you are using, right now we are using the formula. Hours, how much is spent? What is the rate? So it helps improve the transparency. Yeah, that is very important. Another thing is, you know, this older one already out of the data. If we keep it going on, that means our city's quality service has a question. Yeah, so that is... perfect time and also education also is important. And the good thing is our local community is very educated and also very reasonable. And I suggest, you know, have more articles on the newspaper or talk with the radio show, just talk, spread the words. And also we have the 60 days and work on that. And it's a way to demonstrate our democracy. So I fully support this, and I thank you.

Thank you, Jerry.

Now, I just want to ditto many of the things that you said. Actually, all of the things that Councilmember Ding said. But yeah, really, I can see the work that went into this, and I actually really appreciate the consultant work on this. I think the approach was very good. And everything that staff did, and Ryan's not here tonight, but also all the work that Ryan did in supporting this. And of course, our community development director and our recreation director. So thank you. I mean, it's necessary. You can't wait this long to update. fees and do this work. So we're on the right track. And it's painful right now because it's delinquent. And otherwise, it would be just a CPI increase. So I'm glad that we're here and that we're really addressing this now before there's other issues coming out of it because we haven't addressed it. So thank you all for all the work.

would love to thank staff as well this was a lot of work and I just want to point out that that we as a City Council have a fiduciary responsibility and in light of what we've experienced through the budget hearings I think we're overdue responsible in collecting the service fees that we can collect. So thank you. Thank you.

I, too, fully support the concept of 100% recovery, and in part because in looking at the report and seeing what hadn't been collected and then reflecting back on the last city council meeting where we had our budget hearing, there was very similar numbers of what we need and what we missed. So in that sense, I fully support. And again, recognizing that unlike some communities, we unfortunately just have limited pots of revenue. And I just don't see those pots significantly being added to in the near future. And yet I do know that we're going to continue to experience INCREASES IN EXPENSES. SO HAVING SAID THAT, I DO FULLY SUPPORT THE REPORT AND RECOGNIZE THE WORK. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. I MAY HAVE COMPLAINED ABOUT THE TIME, BUT I STILL THANK YOU.

SO WITH THAT, DO I HAVE A MOTION? I MOVED TO APPROVE A RESOLUTION ADOPTING THE COSTS LOCATION THE PLAN, ACCEPTING THE COMPREHENSIVE USER FEE STUDY REPORT, ADOPTING A MASTER FEE SCHEDULE, AND THEN FINDING THESE ACTIONS EXEMPT FROM CEQA UNDER THE CEQA GUIDELINES SECTION 1537A-B4 AND 152738. IS THERE A SECOND?

Is there a third? No, I'm sorry.

Discussion?

Okay. Roll call, please.

Council Member Ding?

Aye.

Council Member Farrar-Rivas? Aye. Council Member Gurney?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Lowe? Aye. Mayor Wellander? Yes. Thank you. The motion carries unanimously.

Now, moving on, we have nothing under the regular calendar. We have no second public comment period, which leads us to adjournment, and I don't want to hesitate. We're adjourned.

Thank you. MR. Thank you, Jerry.