[8:11] Good evening everyone. Welcome to the
regular meeting of the Sanfell City
[8:15] Council. Today is Monday, July 20th,
2026. I'll request the city clerk to
[8:19] call the role.
>> Council member Bushy,
[8:22] » present.
>> Council member Hill,
[8:23] » present.
>> Vice Mayor Curts,
[8:24] » present.
>> Council member Yeden Scaladia is absent.
[8:27] Mayor Kate,
>> present. Thank you. So, good evening
[8:31] everyone and welcome. Thank you for
joining us tonight. Whether you're here
[8:34] in the chambers or watching online or
later commenting online, we appreciate
[8:39] your engagement in our community. At the
end of tonight's meeting, I will be
[8:43] adjourning it in honor and memory of
Esther Burn, who's a former city clerk
[8:47] for the city of Sanfell. I don't know if
you'll all still be here at the end of
[8:50] the meeting, but I did want to note that
we like to start our meeting by thanking
[8:55] all of our city employees. Every day
across every department, they work hard
[9:00] to serve our community. I want to
highlight that Sanfal Fire Department
[9:04] recently received the American Heart
Association missions lifeline EMS
[9:10] emergency medical service gold
achievement award for its commitment to
[9:14] offering rapid and researchbased care to
people experiencing the most severe form
[9:18] of heart attacks and strokes ultimately
saving lives. As a majority of the calls
[9:23] that we know that are received by our
fire department do involve a medical
[9:27] issue. Thank you to the fire department
for receiving this as it clearly
[9:31] demonstrates your commitment, ongoing
commitment to providing a high level of
[9:35] service to all of our residents.
So this evening, as many of you may
[9:40] know, there's been a recent change in
state law regarding public participation
[9:43] at local government meetings. Beginning
tonight, we'll once again accept public
[9:47] comment from individuals participating
by telephone. Public comment is one of
[9:52] the most important parts of local
government and it gives residents and
[9:55] community members the opportunity to
share their experiences, perspectives,
[9:59] and ideas directly with the council and
with the community. I also want to
[10:03] acknowledge something important. The
First Amendment provides broad
[10:07] protections for speech, including speech
that many people may find offensive or
[10:13] hurtful. While there are legal limits on
certain types of speech, there's
[10:18] generally no lawful basis for the city
to prohibit protected speech simply
[10:23] because it's offensive. That said, my
hope and my expectation is that everyone
[10:30] who chooses to participate will help
foster a respectful and welcoming
[10:33] environment. We can disagree
passionately on issues before the
[10:37] council while still treating each other
with dignity and respect. Productive
[10:43] public dialogue strengthens our
community and while harmful or hateful
[10:47] comments discourage participation and
undermine the civic engagement we all
[10:52] value. So, thank you in advance for
making our public comment process one
[10:57] that reflects the very best of our
community.
[11:01] We also include a land acknowledgement
as part of our opening. This statement
[11:05] complements the ongoing collaboration
and work we do with the tribe. We thank
[11:09] the original caretakers of this land.
Sanfell is traditionally home to the
[11:12] Coast Miwok people, many of whom today
are tribal citizens of the Federated
[11:17] Indians of Great Rancheria. And we honor
their continuing involvement in
[11:21] stewardship practices that benefit us
benefit us all. Thank you for being
[11:25] here. I'll now turn it over to the city
clerk to share how the public can
[11:28] participate in tonight's meeting.
>> Thank you, Mayor Kate. And before I
[11:31] start, I'm actually going to pass it
over to city attorney Robert Epstein to
[11:34] report out on closed session from June
29th.
[11:36] » Thank you, Madam Clerk. Mayor Kate, the
council met in a special close session
[11:41] on June 29th and uh we haven't met since
then because we did not have a first
[11:47] meeting in July and so this is the first
opportunity to report out of that closed
[11:52] session and my report is as follows. No
reportable action was taken in the
[11:57] closed session on June 29th.
>> Thank you. And now turn to city clerk.
[12:02] » Thank you, Mayor Kate. Tonight's meeting
is being recorded and streamed live on
[12:05] YouTube for members of the public
wishing to provide public comment. You
[12:08] can participate in person through Zoom
webinar or by telephone. If you're
[12:12] joining by phone, you can call 669-444
[12:17] 9171 and enter the webinar ID
860-619-5675
[12:23] pound. When you wish to provide public
comment, you can press star9 to raise
[12:26] your hand. When it's your turn to speak,
you will hear a prompt that's asking you
[12:30] to press star six to unmute yourself.
And if you're joining through Zoom, you
[12:33] can use the raise hand feature when you
wish to speak. The host will call on you
[12:36] and prompt and prompt you to unmute as
well. If you're commenting in person,
[12:40] you can form a line at the podium once
Kate invites public comment. You'll have
[12:43] two minutes to provide comments.
Displayed on the podium and the
[12:47] projector is a timer to help you stay
within your two-minute time frame. At
[12:50] the conclusion of two minutes, your
microphone will be muted so we may hear
[12:53] from the next speaker. You're invited,
though not required, to introduce
[12:56] yourself and say what part of Centerfell
you live in or if you're joining us from
[12:59] outside of Centerfell.
And if you experience any technical
[13:03] difficulties during the meeting, you can
contact me at city.clerk
[13:06] cityofanfell.org.
Thank you.
[13:09] » Thank you. So, we have public open time
for public expression at both the
[13:13] beginning of the meeting and at the end
of the meeting. At the beginning, we
[13:16] take two to three people uh that are in
the chambers and we'll check and see if
[13:19] folks are online. So, I'm going to open
up this portion of the public comment.
[13:24] You're welcome, but not required to
state your name and what part of Sanfell
[13:27] you live in. And as I just stated, we
welcome a diversity of viewpoints and
[13:30] respectful disagreement. Help us
maintain a welcoming environment by
[13:34] refraining from hateful or discriminary
discriminatory remarks. Go ahead.
[13:43] » Testing. There we go. Good evening,
council mayor. My name is Jared Mum. I
[13:47] am a local electrician and um I'm here
tonight to just highlight the uh the
[13:53] amount of housing that Centerfell is
looking at building here in the next few
[13:56] years. It's exciting, right? I'm when I
look around at your website, I'm seeing
[13:59] thousands of units. And when we talk
about that, when we show that to people,
[14:03] they're they're really excited for the
opportunity to have more places to live,
[14:06] more uh projects to build here in the
area. Housing is obviously a major issue
[14:10] throughout all of California, Marine
County, and also here in Centerfell. Um
[14:15] if these projects go union, it'll mean
opportunities for local workers, right?
[14:21] Folks that live here and nearby in the
area. It'll mean more opportunities for
[14:27] young folks that are looking to get into
an apprenticeship program and start a
[14:31] future for themselves, right? Can't tell
you how many people we meet from, you
[14:36] know, all over the North Bay that are
just looking for an opportunity. People
[14:39] that have plenty of experience working
for a living, right? Showing up um
[14:44] putting on a pair of boots, going
someplace every single day and and
[14:47] working really really hard and not
really having much to show for it at the
[14:53] end of the day, right? We like to say
that you're supposed to be working for a
[14:56] living, not just working for the heck of
it. Right? If these projects go union,
[14:59] it's going to mean that there's
opportunities for people to get into a
[15:02] training program, learn a trade, learn
how to feed themselves, feed their
[15:06] families, hopefully own one of these
homes that they're building. So, um,
[15:10] again, just exciting times and, um,
looking forward for the future. Thank
[15:14] you.
[15:20] That was awesome, huh? Uh John
McIntigert and uh I am uh lucky enough
[15:25] to serve the uh women and men of IBW
local 551 as their business manager and
[15:31] that's the electrical union in this
area. We um like to say from the Golden
[15:34] Gate to the Oregon State and um what
what does that mean to be in the union
[15:39] at all? You know, people wonder is that
in San Francisco? No, no, we actually
[15:43] have the unions here too. And if you're
lucky enough to make it into one of the
[15:47] union construction uh programs, then
you're going to have health care. You're
[15:52] going to have a pension. Um and the
health care is going to take care of you
[15:55] and your family, not just yourself. It's
not going to cost you anymore if you
[15:58] have one kid or six kids. The pension
will be there at the end of your work
[16:02] days, you know, when you're done. And
not at an age that you're too old to
[16:06] enjoy your pension. No, it'll be there
at an age that you can still swing a
[16:09] golf club and lift up your grandkids and
or go see them, you know, and enjoy
[16:13] yourself. But that's the whole intent,
right? Work for a while and then the
[16:17] last third of your life then hopefully
you're doing you're living that kind of
[16:20] life, a grandparent life. And I kind of
looking forward to that myself. So how
[16:24] does somebody get into the program? How
does somebody get into the building
[16:27] trades and why would they? And who are
these folks? Right now we're at all of
[16:30] your job fairs. We go to Centerfell
High. We go to Terinda High. We show up
[16:34] there. We have people on staff that
that's their job to show up and speak to
[16:38] any young individual that wants to be in
the in the building trades. And these
[16:41] are the folks that don't want to, you
know, go to college. And when college is
[16:45] being pushed down a lot of kids' throats
these days, they're saying, "Well, what
[16:48] about me? What's your option for me?"
And if we don't have an answer for that,
[16:51] then you're dealing with the psyche of
the young folks. Then what am I supposed
[16:55] to do? So when we show up there, we say,
"No, no, no. You're special, too. You're
[16:59] brilliant at something. We're going to
find out what that something is. Are you
[17:02] mechanically minded? Let's try and get
you into the building trades. Let's get
[17:06] you into an apprentichip that you just
heard about. And let's give you the
[17:09] opportunity to also to have the life
that you hope for yourself that we all
[17:13] hope for our kids, right? We want them
to be successful. They can be and in the
[17:17] building trades, we're waiting for them.
So, thank you very much.
[17:25] » Good evening. My name is Kevin Collins.
I moved to Sanfell 5 years ago from
[17:30] Santa Cruz County and there and
ironically I'm a retired general
[17:36] contractor
and in Santa Cruz County I was involved
[17:40] in zoning law issues related to land use
and uh building height, parking
[17:47] availability and so forth. And I've been
in increasingly alarmed by the proposals
[17:54] in Sanfell for 17story highrises jammed
into freeway exits and clogged
[18:00] situations. And I'm here to uh urge your
city and the
[18:08] Marin County Council of Mayors and
Council members to uh confront this
[18:15] situation. I looked I was doing some web
research today. I found a Yimba law.
[18:22] They have eight active lawsuits. One
against Salelo, two San Francisco, one
[18:28] against the governor for daring to limit
development in the Los Angeles burn
[18:32] areas. Certino, Los Angeles, Roondo
Beach, and Santa Clara. There has to be
[18:38] a commensurate response to this. The
chaos in Sacramento is not going to sort
[18:44] out this in any reasonable way. It's
people are poking at circumstances like
[18:50] the builder's remedy for example which
completely undermines local zoning
[18:54] authority as do several other laws
passed and uh
[19:01] everyone cannot live in California. It
is difficult to move here. It took me
[19:06] three attempts to move to San Francisco
because it's expensive and it always has
[19:13] been and it always will be because it's
desirable until it isn't. Thank you.
[19:22] » Thank you. And I'll take one more public
comment in the chambers. Go ahead and
[19:24] then we'll go online.
>> Hello. Um
[19:28] » pull down the microphone so we can hear
you better. There you are.
[19:31] My name is Patricia Ree, Patty Ree, and
I've lived in Gersell Park since 2009.
[19:39] I'm here today because I'm concerned
about the possible loss of the B Street
[19:43] Safeway uh due to the Mil Creek project,
and I I realize, of course, that it is
[19:49] still in its presubmission state. Um I'm
not here to talk about parking or
[19:56] traffic. Uh, I am here to talk about the
importance of a local grocery store that
[20:04] people can actually walk to and ride
their bikes to without having to get in
[20:08] their car all the time and drive. Um,
I would ask I have two asks. One of them
[20:16] is that this topic get added to the next
month's agenda because I know that you
[20:21] can't really speak to open comments. Uh
the second question would be that I
[20:27] would ask that Mr. Hill specifically
since I understand that you are uh
[20:33] specifically
um responsible for district 2 and that
[20:38] includes Gersell Park. I believe that's
my understanding. I would like you to
[20:43] get specifically involved with this and
actually engage and represent the the
[20:50] residents of Gersel Park and West End
and Picnic Area which are also affected.
[20:57] And that's all I have to say.
>> Thank you. And I'll just clarify that
[21:01] all of us including council member Micah
who's not here we represent we represent
[21:05] all of San Rafale each of us. So, we
might be elected by district, but I just
[21:09] want to clarify we always think of the
city holistically.
[21:13] » That's great. Thank you for that. And I
would love to have a point person.
[21:16] » Thank you.
>> Thanks.
[21:18] » Is there anyone online that would like
to provide public comment on anything
[21:21] not on tonight's agenda?
>> Thank you. Just again, if you wish to
[21:25] provide comments online, you can use the
raise hand feature or you can press star
[21:29] 9 to raise your hand. I see one hand
raised.
[21:36] Hello, mayor and council members. My
name is Josie Quimby and I'm an intern
[21:40] from 350 Marin, but I've also been a
resident of San Rafale for the past 19
[21:46] years. I'm speaking today to thank the
council in making our city more
[21:50] sustainable, but also encouraging the
city to continue working towards climate
[21:54] action. As someone who is born and
raised in Sanfell, I can assure you that
[21:58] the environment in our local community
is very valuable to us, especially the
[22:03] youth. Young people in Sanfell are
highly concerned about the fast
[22:08] approaching climate crisis. From sea
level rise to increased chances of
[22:12] forest fires and extreme temperatures as
a coastal community, San Rafell faces
[22:16] real risk from sea level r from rising
sea levels and extreme weather events.
[22:21] Investing in naturebased and resilient
infrastructure today saves lives,
[22:26] protects habitats, and prevents costly
repairs down the road. I hope you all
[22:31] continue to think about our climate and
the environment down the road for our
[22:35] city. Thank you for your continued
efforts in creating a sustainable future
[22:38] for all Sanfell residents.
[22:43] » I see no other hands raised, but I'll
give everyone a moment to use star9 to
[22:46] raise their hand or use the raise hand
feature.
[22:51] I see no more public comment.
>> Thank you. I will close the open time
[22:54] for public expression. Again, there'll
be some more at the end of the meeting.
[22:57] We'll go to the next item, which is city
manager and council member reports. I
[23:01] will return to interim city manager Paul
Nasio.
[23:05] » Thank you, uh, Madame Mayor, members of
the council. Just a couple of items to
[23:09] share. Um couple events that are uh
coming up uh in the next week or so. Uh
[23:16] starting with later this week, July 25th
is the um amazingly popular Touch a
[23:21] Truck event that is going to be
happening at uh Sanfell High School at
[23:25] the Third Street parking lot. That will
be on July 25th uh from 10:00 a.m. to
[23:30] noon. Also, um,
uh, in the first week of August, again,
[23:36] we won't be having our council meeting
first, uh, Monday, but August 4th is
[23:40] the, uh, national night out event, which
is, um, again, an opportunity to help
[23:48] promote our police community, uh,
relationships really at a neighborhood
[23:51] level. There'll be a host of
neighborhoods that will be hosting uh,
[23:55] special events. Um, and we'll be
providing additional information to the
[23:59] council. Uh and there's information on
our website uh regarding that event.
[24:03] Again, it's August 4th uh from 6 pm to
8:00 pm. Uh if anyone is interested in
[24:09] holding an event, uh there is a
registration form on the city's website.
[24:13] Um and again, police um fire personnel,
elected officials, and number of city
[24:18] staff will be um visiting some uh those
uh events throughout the evening. Um
[24:26] uh we announced this periodically but um
and there was an event uh two Fridays
[24:31] ago at the San Rafale Theater, but city
continues to be very excited about the
[24:36] um ongoing uh development and growth of
our public art program and specifically
[24:41] um there was an event to celebrate the
um uh four of the murals that have been
[24:47] part of that public art um event
specifically on the Sea Street uh garage
[24:53] on Third Street. Um again, we had the
statue at the B Street Community Center
[24:59] uh murals at the city plaza uh fountain
as well as on Second Street. And uh we
[25:05] will soon be announcing I think the date
might argue uh for uh art installation
[25:11] here at city hall. And so we um like to
promote uh that the really wonderful
[25:15] events and the artists that are behind
them. Very interesting stories. I think
[25:19] the last thing I'll I'll add is a we did
get a notification from um state
[25:25] department of transportation aka Calrans
regarding uh preventive maintenance work
[25:31] that is being done on um highway 101 uh
through San Rafale both the freeway
[25:38] itself um some lane work as well as
several onramps on and off ramps and so
[25:46] um this work is going to be done
starting uh this evening, Monday, July
[25:51] 20th, going through Saturday, July 25th.
Um uh the areas that are being worked on
[25:58] that are in the northbound 101
direction. Those will those areas will
[26:03] be closed from uh 1000 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.
So, it's overnight work and there'll be
[26:08] signage, but we're urging folks to just
be aware of um impacts of lane closures.
[26:14] Um southbound closures will occur um
same date period from u 8:00 pm I'm
[26:22] sorry. Yeah 800 p.m. to 5:00 am. Um more
detail on the schedule for the different
[26:26] ramps, but I won't go into that at this
time. But thank you.
[26:31] » Thank you. I'll turn to my colleagues
for their reports. Uh Vice Mayor.
[26:35] » Sure. Um
>> wait, you're not on.
[26:37] » Oh, sorry.
>> Out of practice. Uh I just want to add
[26:41] on to the comment about the public art
event. Uh huge shout out to San Rafale
[26:46] Chamber uh downtown program and Stacy
Lman who worked on it for a really
[26:51] really long time for San Rafale. Um it
was great. And I'd also like to
[26:57] highlight the new branding and the
tagline is look around. Um which I
[27:02] thought was a really nice nice addition
to the whole program.
[27:06] Um HPSC, Homeless Policy Steering
Committee, recently passed a new um
[27:14] resolution as part of our older adult
committee. Um and that resolution um
[27:21] gives direction to the broader HPSC
group to do a needs assessment
[27:28] specifically for older adults around
homelessness. Um and a study we're going
[27:33] to be using community solutions
uh group to help with that and use their
[27:38] toolkit which is what was originally
done for homeless. Um and so we're going
[27:43] to be focusing on older adults and then
do a report back by May 2027.
[27:49] So more to come on that one just to
follow it. Um I attended San Rafll's age
[27:54] friendly um advocate program and they
really are shifting their attention to
[27:59] advocating for older adults. The Marin
Wildfire uh Prevention Authority board
[28:05] meeting was last week. I attended with
Council Member Hill the Junth
[28:11] celebration which now seems like eons
ago but in June and I believe that's it.
[28:18] Thank you.
>> Thank you uh Council Member Hill.
[28:22] » Thank you, Mayor. Um I am going way back
because we did not give council reports
[28:26] at the meeting on June 15th. This goes
really far back. Uh, I attended a
[28:31] meeting on June 2nd, the Measure Peace
Subcommittee, also known as the New
[28:35] Library and Community Center at Albert
Park. The survey is still open, folks.
[28:40] So, please consider uh going online and
going to the survey. It's at city of
[28:45] samfell.org/albertarklcc.
[28:49] On Tuesday, June 9th, I attended the
finance subcommittee meeting which
[28:54] covered budget and master fee schedule
which was uh ultimately considered at
[28:58] the agenda on June 15th. On Saturday,
June 13th, I attended the 47th annual
[29:04] Fairfax Festival Parade. Uh got to walk
in the front with the the council uh
[29:09] town council of Fairfax. It was a
wonderful event. And the final meeting
[29:14] of the year for Marin County Council of
Mayors and Council members uh was held
[29:19] on June 24th um during which the
incoming president Gay Paulson of
[29:25] Larkpur um was at least nominated and
will be voted in uh potentially at the
[29:29] next meeting and vice mayor or vice
president Shantel Walker of Sanelma is
[29:35] being considered for vice president.
That's my report. Thank you, Council
[29:39] Member Bushie.
>> On Julyh 17th, along with Mayor Mayor, I
[29:46] attended the San Rafll sanitation board
meeting that um was a was interesting in
[29:54] that there are not one but two different
um consolidation um steps on the agenda.
[29:59] One was for the operational
consolidation well underway with um the
[30:03] CMSA and the other was for a broader um
consolidation study to be funded jointly
[30:10] by all members of the JPA that would
include the Sanfell sanitation um
[30:16] sanitation agency, the Ross Valley
sanitation agency uh um the city of
[30:22] Porto Madera which is sanit sanitary
district 2. all of the members um
[30:28] together to working on a major
consolidation proposal and hiring a
[30:33] consultant to work with LAFCO on that
effort. So big news in the consolidation
[30:38] front um at Sanfell Sanitation. On July
13th, I attended a meeting of Marin
[30:45] Transit. Um big news there too. Um the
good news first um the roll out of the
[30:52] mascot study that has um that is being
implemented is going well and some of
[30:58] the first data points are starting to
come back. Um and one is that transfers
[31:03] are up 45%. Um so very excited um about
the implementation of um of that phase
[31:12] of mascot. Um we're some of us are
secretly hoping that this will lay the
[31:16] groundwork for a mascot too for even
more um efficiencies and integration of
[31:21] the um the transportation organizations.
Also importantly at Marin Transit uh
[31:28] they are fully implementing the um
Clipper card only transfer. Um, that
[31:36] means that people who pay cash will no
longer be getting the the little paper
[31:41] transfers that allows them to get on
other um other transportation providers.
[31:47] There's a we've set the public hearing
for September 14th on this measure. The
[31:53] um purpose is to um help our customers
get on Clipper where the cost is lower
[32:00] um and they will qualify for um
transfers for $2.85 85 which gets you on
[32:05] um on smart and gets you a long ways. So
um September 14th, a hearing on that big
[32:12] change coming um in January of of next
year for transfers on um Marin Transit.
[32:20] And finally, uh, last Saturday, I
attended the memorial mass, um, for
[32:25] Esther Burn along with her successor,
um, uh, city clerk and the city
[32:31] attorney, and a very sizable contingent
of current and former, um, employees of,
[32:38] uh, the city of San Rafale. We met her
sister, Esther's four sons, and we heard
[32:44] a poem read by her griefstricken
husband. He read it in Irish and it was
[32:51] a poem about the anguish of grief. So it
was a very moving um service and um and
[32:58] um reception.
That's it.
[33:01] » Thank you, council member. I just have
three meetings to report out on. Um I
[33:06] recently met along with assistant city
manager Angela Robinson Pinon. We met
[33:09] with the Federated Indians of Great
Rancheria. You heard the land
[33:12] acknowledgement at the beginning and we
do connect with them periodically. So,
[33:15] we went up there and had a good meeting
with and discussing um various issues
[33:20] that are um important to both our agency
as well as theirs. As you know, I'm your
[33:25] representative on SMART, the Sonoma
Marin Area Rapid Rail Transit. We had
[33:31] our meeting. We had some um updates to
the budget. We also received the same
[33:36] mascots uh that council member Bushy
just referred to update. Um and in
[33:41] addition, I'd like to share some of the
writership numbers. So in June there
[33:44] were 150,000 riders. There's now been
three monthly records in a row in terms
[33:49] of riderships. Fiscal year 26, which of
course is now concluded, there was 1.47
[33:57] million riders. We're hoping to get to
1.5, but we're happy to be well over 1
[34:01] million. And that equals over 29 million
passenger miles. The average weekday
[34:06] ridership saw a 21 increase over the
prior year. And the Marine County Fair,
[34:11] as you many of you took advantage of,
there was free transit on Bin Transit
[34:15] and SMART and it provided nearly SMART
specifically provided nearly 12,000 free
[34:21] rides during the fair day. So that took
a lot of cars off and when you go to the
[34:25] fair, if you've had to deal with the
parking, you know how fantastic it is to
[34:28] have the train and to be able to walk.
And then finally, TAM, the
[34:32] transportation authority of Marin, uh,
our last month's meeting. First, we
[34:36] celebrated the completion of the
Freighus roundabout. So, hopefully
[34:39] you've been through it. And I know we
say that Americans can't handle
[34:42] roundabouts, but we can, and they're
great and they're safer. So, we've
[34:46] gotten great feedback from that. Uh, in
addition, a reminder that Marine Transit
[34:50] still is offering free summer rides for
youth uh, under 18. That was a part of
[34:55] the general manager's report. Um we
during the meeting in addition we talked
[35:00] about the marine transit allocation.
Marine transit is funded through dollars
[35:04] uh that flow through TAM. So we heard a
presentation from Marine Transit. And
[35:08] I'll end on a high note which is sharing
that there is a grant that TAM has
[35:13] received and is utilizing for $544,000
which is to study school access safety
[35:19] action plan. So that is how do we look
at a more granular level um around
[35:24] pedestrian bike uh car interactions that
are close to schools. So when we're
[35:29] looking at improving infra
infrastructure throughout the community
[35:33] especially prioritizing those ones
closer to schools. So we just had an
[35:37] update when that report is finalized I
will be sure to let the community know
[35:41] so they'll be able to look at it. So as
always thank you city manager. Thank you
[35:46] to my colleagues for what they do um
between the meetings that we have. But
[35:50] before we move on to the consent agenda,
we do provide the opportunity for the
[35:54] community to comment on any of the
reports that they just heard. So if you
[35:58] have a comment on what you just heard,
now is your opportunity to do so.
[36:04] I don't see anyone in the room. Is there
anyone online that would like to comment
[36:07] on these reports?
>> I see one hand raised.
[36:12] » Thank you. And as always, you're
welcome, but not required to state your
[36:15] name and what part of Sanfell you live
in. And we uh welcome a diversity of
[36:19] viewpoints and help us maintain a
welcoming environment.
[36:24] » Go right ahead.
>> Hi, Mayor Kate
[36:28] is Susan Gilbert. I am a resident of
downtown San Rafale. I deeply appreciate
[36:36] your advocacy on behalf of SMART, which
makes it easier for all of us who
[36:42] appreciate public transit to be able to
get from here to there safely and
[36:48] conveniently. And now in my 65th year
freely, so I have deep appreciation for
[36:54] that. Um I have had a discussion with
the police department and they have
[36:59] agreed to provide more oversight for the
safety of the passengers who are on the
[37:06] paid platform
of the um smart train. Uh there is a
[37:12] group of men ranging in age from 20 to
60 years old who frequent that area uh
[37:18] drinking, drugging, perhaps selling
drugs, though I cannot confirm that. and
[37:25] it creates a feeling of lack of safety.
I've also spoken to uh the Smart Train
[37:32] because it's their jurisdiction
primarily and Sanfell's secondarily.
[37:38] Unfortunately, SMART only has one
security officer on the entire line
[37:44] who's on duty at any given time.
I spent two years teaching English and
[37:51] working there in Japan. And you can set
your watch to the Shinkansen and the
[37:57] bullet train. They were always perfectly
clean and quiet and you could expect
[38:02] decorum and safety on the platform. I'd
love to talk with you at a time in the
[38:08] future about how we can achieve that for
the safety and comfort of us all. Thank
[38:13] you so much.
[38:17] » I see no other hands raised. We'll give
everyone a moment to press star 9 or use
[38:21] the raise hand feature.
I see another hand.
[38:24] » Thank you. I'll close a public comment.
>> Oh, there's one more. Sorry, there is
[38:27] one more hand.
And as a reminder, I will mute you at
[38:32] two minutes.
[38:36] » Hello, my name is Brenda Gayen and I'm a
resident of of San Rafale in the Gst
[38:41] Park neighborhood. I'm commenting
tonight on the proposed uh redevelopment
[38:45] of the Safeway in Gstl Park. While I
understand that the project is in very
[38:50] early stages of planning, I wanted to uh
plea with the council and city staff to
[38:57] seriously work with the developer to
maintain the Safeway or other valuable
[39:04] market for this Galile Park and
surrounding downtown area. This is an
[39:10] area where we have a number of lowincome
people, a number of elderly people that
[39:15] walk daily to and from Safeway Market.
And to take away the market in favor of
[39:21] simple residential development with no
lower story market would be a
[39:25] devastating impact to this community.
We are not against housing. We think it
[39:31] should definitely be in scale with the
neighborhood surrounding. But we also
[39:35] think that having that very very
important resource for the neighborhood
[39:39] is extremely important. It will also be
important as the recreation uh
[39:44] department is developed at the park
adjacent at Albert's Park. Um lastly, we
[39:51] would like to um work with the city
council to ensure that there's more
[39:56] parking provided for that residential
development because the Gristol Park
[40:01] neighborhood and many neighborhoods
surrounding
[40:04] um that Safeway are already at capacity
with parking. daily we have trouble
[40:09] parking individual cars for homeowners
and renters because this is an extremely
[40:14] dense neighborhood with historic homes
that do not have in many cases driveways
[40:20] or even garages. Um and so the
residential parking actually ends up a
[40:24] lot of times on the street. And so
having a limited number of parking for a
[40:30] very dense development that's proposed
would be devastating to the neighborhood
[40:35] and make life much more difficult.
And just a reminder, I'm taking public
[40:40] comment on the council member and city
manager reports. We appreciate all
[40:44] comments, but anything not on the
agenda, if you could save those comments
[40:47] till the end of the meeting, that would
be most appropriate. Is there anyone
[40:50] else that would like to comment on the
reports?
[40:52] » I see no other hands raised.
>> Okay. Thank you. I'll close the public
[40:55] comment. We'll move to the consent
agenda. Are there any items that the
[41:00] council would like to hold? Okay. the
agenda uh consent calendar. It's items A
[41:06] through R. I will open up the public
comment on the consent calendar. As
[41:13] you've heard us say, you're welcome, but
not required to say your name and what
[41:16] part of San Rafale you live in. And we
welcome diversity of viewpoints and
[41:20] thank you for helping us to maintain a
welcoming environment by refraining from
[41:24] hateful or discriminatory remarks.
>> Good evening, Daniel Alm. uh through the
[41:29] Western Neighborhood Association, I rise
before you in regards to consent to G.
[41:35] Uh I want to thank you for your
continued support and the city staff and
[41:40] council for us to continue our Weston
neighborhood picnic. This year will be
[41:45] our 23rd annual year. I really want to
put a pin in. Community events are
[41:49] really important to the fabric of our
community and your continued support of
[41:53] this helps our community feel a sense of
belonging. Thank you.
[41:57] Thank you.
[42:04] » Hello, Mayor, city council members and
staff. My name is Wayne Raburn. I live
[42:08] in San Rafale Meadows. I'd like to speak
on item 2 I, the establishment of 350
[42:14] Midel for my housing development project
subcommittee.
[42:17] Regarding the formation of the
subcommittee for 350 Maridale affordable
[42:21] housing project, we view this step as
positive in a light positive light as
[42:26] providing greater opportunity public
engagement. This should allow for
[42:30] greater transparency about the
development proposals that were
[42:34] submitted in response to the city's
request for the proposals. We hope that
[42:38] through this subcommittee, the city will
fully engage the public in the
[42:42] development selection process, allowing
us to be informed and comment on the
[42:47] developer aspects that are in the table
for cond consideration,
[42:52] such as the number of units, number of
stories, building heights, and the
[42:56] amount of parking that each development
has proposed along with the propo
[43:00] planned sequel review for the project.
These are all elements that the public
[43:05] has the right to be engaged in and we
expect expect to be able to have a say
[43:10] on how this development project unfolds
and progresses.
[43:14] We also request that the city create a
citizens advisory committee for this
[43:19] project with representatives from Sanel
Meadows Midale Road and surrounding
[43:24] neighborhoods participating in the
advisor committee. While this idea is
[43:28] not on the tonight's agenda, request
that the city form a city advisor
[43:33] committee for the mayor 350 mayorell
project in the very near future to
[43:38] coincide with the city's selection of
development team for this project. Thank
[43:42] you.
[43:51] Good evening, mayor, city council and
staff. Marian Nana for San Rafale
[43:55] Meadows
with the plan interim shelter. Oh, this
[43:59] is in regard to 2J 350 Marital interim
shelter site preparation. With the plan
[44:04] interim shelter at 350 Midale on the
agenda, I would like to take this
[44:08] opportunity to speak to the city council
and staff about the increase in homeless
[44:12] encampment activity that we have already
begun to experience in our community.
[44:17] Over the past few weeks, we have
observed the emergence of a greater
[44:20] number of homeless individuals and the
establishment of three encampments. One
[44:26] behind the public storage facility next
door to 350 Midale along the freeway. Uh
[44:32] two at the Chevron gas station on Midale
Road and three an individual car camper
[44:38] on Meridale Road adjacent to Mount
Olivet Cemetery.
[44:42] These are instances of homeless
encampment that were not there this
[44:45] winter or spring. The San Rafell Police
Department is aware of these encampments
[44:50] and they have been quick to respond to
do what they can and we do appreciate
[44:54] their quick and thoughtful response to
our concerns. But their hands are tied
[44:59] and all three encampments have remained
in place for now at least. We welcome
[45:03] the police and fire department continue
action to address these issues. These
[45:08] problems have begun before the interm
shelter at 350 Maridel has even opened
[45:12] and they're likely to only get worse. We
requested that the city council adopt a
[45:17] camping band throughout the area around
3 350 Midale just as has been adopted
[45:24] around Mahon Creek, Anderson Drive, and
City Hall. In addition, the interim
[45:29] shelter at 350 Midale should not be open
unless and until agreements with Calrans
[45:34] and Smart are finalized that will
prevent ancillary encampment from
[45:39] becoming established around 350 Midil.
Please move forward on these actions
[45:45] immediately. Thank you.
>> Anyone else?
[45:56] » Good evening. My name is Gregory Andrew
and I live in Saraphone Meadows. I'm
[46:00] here to speak on item 2J. The
authorization of a construction contract
[46:04] with Gelotti Brothers in the amount of
$1.1 million for the 350 Midale interim
[46:09] shelter site preparation.
[46:15] Thank you.
Uh for the 350 Midale site preparation
[46:19] is another example of the city council's
all too regular practice of awarding
[46:23] contracts as consent calendar items
without any prior public or even city
[46:28] council review. This is just one of six
contracts being awarded tonight through
[46:32] the consent calendar totaling a totaling
a whopping $5.7 million. So, you're
[46:39] certainly starting off the calendar year
uh with a bang. This contract and most
[46:45] of the other contracts, or at least some
of the other contracts, were not
[46:47] publicly bid and none of them went
through any public meeting prior to
[46:51] tonight's consent calendar. While it is
stated that the Gelotti contract was
[46:55] priced at cost, there is no way to know
if perhaps another company might have
[46:58] also performed the work at cost and for
a lower price. It is poor public policy
[47:03] and not in our best interest to prevent
the public from being able to first
[47:07] review and comment on how expenditures
of taxpayer dollars are being spent. The
[47:13] authorization of this construction work
is being approved prior to sequel review
[47:17] issues at 350 Midale being resolved by
the Maring County Court. And so in appre
[47:22] approving this contract, the city is
proceeding at risk of having the city's
[47:26] secret claims being overturned. The city
has claimed that there is zero
[47:30] possibility of any environmental impact
from this project on a site that has a
[47:34] tributary to Galan Galinus Creek and a
secondary drainage, both of which are
[47:38] waters of the United States and which
provide at least some habitat or may
[47:43] provide some habitat for special status
species. to claim zero possibility of
[47:47] any potential impacts to these habitats
is a dubious claim indeed. The city
[47:52] should not should withhold action on
this construction contract until the SQA
[47:56] issues are first fully resolved. Thank
you.
[48:00] » Thank you. Any other public comment on
the consent calendar?
[48:05] I don't see anyone in the chambers. Is
there anyone online that would like to
[48:08] comment on this?
>> I do see a few hands raised. Just as a
[48:13] reminder, you can use the star 9 to
raise your hand or use the raise hand
[48:16] feature and you'll be prompted to press
star six to unmute yourself.
[48:19] » And just a reminder, so it's on the
consent calendar cuz I know we are now
[48:22] adding in folks phoning in. So if you
could uh just alert the council as to
[48:26] which item that you're referring to on
the consent calendar, that would be
[48:30] helpful. Thank you.
[48:36] » Hello, Mayor and Council. This is Craig
Murray with North Center.
[48:42] I want to thank you for having this open
sessions for Zoomers and folks that call
[48:48] in. I'm calling in on item 2F
cooperation agreement with county Marin
[48:54] for grant programs. Ren Min County's
2024.4
[48:59] action plan page 34 AP50 states that Min
County has two areas of low-income and
[49:06] minority concentration. one the canal
two unincorporated rent city and states
[49:12] the county could only invest in
rehabilitation and affordable housing
[49:16] with federal dollars in these
communities. This is a result of work
[49:20] undertaken to comply with the 2010 and
2019 voluntary compliance agreements
[49:25] with HUD. I request that the city
council consider that the city as an
[49:30] entitlement city manage its own CDBG and
home funds with staff under its goals of
[49:36] the housing element and the action and
consolidated plan retain approximately
[49:41] 20% of its administration and apply
these funds to all areas of Sanfell in
[49:45] need many charter and county seat cities
manage their own entitlements
[49:52] as city continues with county management
then I request that Centerfell members
[49:56] of the priority setting committee PSC
considers other areas that are known to
[50:01] have qualifying low-inccome and minority
qualifying areas such as Sandfell's
[50:06] California Hill and 9491 and Midell Road
in 9493.
[50:12] Maryale Road supports a large population
of qualifying minority and low-income
[50:16] households as well as seniors and
children. And it has been over 50 years
[50:21] since the city has annexed area. And yet
there are large sections without
[50:25] sidewalks, safe crossings, and
improvements that can increase
[50:28] accessibility for these persons with
disabilities and usability for seniors
[50:32] and children. Thanks again.
[50:46] Hi, Mayor Kate and city council Susan
Gilbert. Again, I'm speaking to the uh
[50:53] 20 on the consent calendar, the
resolution to purchase the fireboat. I
[50:59] think this is a very important piece of
safety equipment, which I'm very
[51:04] enthusiastic about Sanfell acquiring.
Um, I could see its usefulness
[51:10] particularly considering the terrible
tragedy we suffered a couple years back
[51:16] during the canal fire. Um, and also of
course the tragedy that happened last
[51:23] week on the bay. These types of boats
can be crucial in preventing injuries or
[51:29] deaths. So, thank you so much for
considering that resolution.
[51:42] Hello, my name is Phoebe Reyes and I
live in Rafll Highlands near Sun Valley.
[51:47] Um I am calling to or chiming in to talk
about item I believe it's 3A regarding
[51:54] the um increase in transfer taxes.
>> I'm I'm going to interrupt you just so
[52:00] you know. We're happy to take your
testimony now, but we're not on that
[52:03] item. We're actually on the consent
calendar item, which is the one prior.
[52:07] So, if you wouldn't mind waiting and
calling in during that item, that would
[52:11] be really helpful.
>> Could you kindly tell me about how long?
[52:14] Um, uh, roughly. [laughter]
>> Sorry, I'm new here. Don't show up to as
[52:19] many city council meetings as I'd like
to.
[52:21] » Yes. Now, we normally don't have back
and forth like this, but this is a new
[52:24] transition. Uh, we will be hearing a
presentation by staff on item 3A. Um and
[52:30] that that and then the council member
will u ask questions and then we'll be
[52:33] open up the public comment. So it
depends on how many questions and the
[52:37] presentation probably in another half
hour or so.
[52:40] » Yeah. First I very much thank you.
[52:46] » I'm seeing no other hands raised.
>> Okay. Thank you. I'll close the public
[52:50] comment and it again um trying to be
flexible because we really do appreciate
[52:54] people calling in and it's most helpful
to have them calling in under the
[52:57] appropriate agenda item. So, uh, thank
you for all the testimony that we heard
[53:01] on the consent calendar. Um, I don't
know if there are any additional
[53:04] questions from the council. And if there
aren't any, then I would request a
[53:08] motion on this item, please.
>> I move the consent calendar.
[53:11] » Second.
>> Moved and seconded. Roll call, please.
[53:14] » Council member Bushy.
>> I.
[53:15] » Council member Hill.
>> I.
[53:16] » Vice Mayor Curts.
>> I.
[53:18] » Mayor Kate.
>> I. That motion carries 40. Thank you.
[53:21] We're moving on to our first public
hearing, which is the proposed November
[53:26] 2026 ballot measure, revenue
enhancement, real property transfer tax
[53:30] rate. I'll turn it over to our interim
city manager.
[53:54] Okay. Uh, thank you, Madame Mayor and
members of the council. has noted this
[53:58] um public hearing is to consider
um an action recommended by staff for
[54:05] the city council to adopt a resolution
that would among other things uh place
[54:12] on the November 2026
uh ballot um an ordinance that would
[54:18] amend the city's uh existing real estate
property transfer tax. Um, I'm gonna
[54:25] give a brief presentation and then
quickly get to uh council uh question
[54:30] comments and the public comment for this
item. Um again just a summary of the
[54:34] staff recommendation is um the adoption
of a resolution uh calling the municipal
[54:39] election for the purpose of submitting
to the electors a measure to modify
[54:44] Sanfell municipal code section uh
related to the real property transfer
[54:49] tax which would um if approved if placed
on the ballot by the council and
[54:54] approved by the voters would increase
real property transfer tax rate. Um, we
[54:59] would also be adding an oversight
provision consistent with um, most all
[55:03] of our other voter approved tax
measures. And then the technical part
[55:07] about uh, requesting the county of Marin
to consolidate and conduct the election.
[55:12] Uh, direction of the city attorney to
prepare an impartial analysis and
[55:16] authorizing
um, mayor and council member Bushy to
[55:20] file ballot argument andor rebuttals for
the measure. So the background on this
[55:26] uh piece is part of a ongoing discussion
that we've had in this chamber with the
[55:30] council and at council subcommittees
regarding sort of some strategic
[55:35] planning around long-term fiscal
stability and long-term fiscal
[55:40] sustainability. Um we won't rehash the
lengthy meeting we had at the end of
[55:45] June where the council adopted the
annual budget um 200 plus million dollar
[55:50] all fun budget. We did some balancing
measures, some belt tightening, did some
[55:54] budget flexibility
um to address some emerging needs. Uh
[55:59] but one of the things that we've been
attempting to highlight throughout our
[56:02] discussions uh with the council on the
city budget and fiscal um situation is
[56:09] really the um large and growing list I
would say of unfunded and unmet needs
[56:16] that we don't currently have adequate
funding uh to address. Uh the slide that
[56:22] we're sharing here actually was uh
included in our last budget presentation
[56:27] um really to give examples within uh
various categories
[56:32] um within our baseline funding which is
costs that we are going to incur
[56:37] regardless of whether or not we have
additional funding. Um some that still
[56:41] remain outstanding is um kind of a
shortfall in our um kind of equipment
[56:46] replacement and a lot of our assets when
they come up for um at the end of their
[56:51] useful life uh increasing costs related
to uh liabilities and claims and that
[56:56] whole area which we will hopefully have
some time for some more detailed
[57:00] discussions in the coming uh months. um
at or near the top of the list
[57:05] continually um and it's highlighted by
the council is our infrastructure uh
[57:10] funding needs. Um we are continuing to
advance you know our capital program
[57:17] with um limited available funding a for
maintenance and prevented maintenance.
[57:23] Most of the projects that end up funded
in the capital plan are as a result of
[57:27] one-time funding and grants that we're
able to secure. Um but there was an item
[57:32] actually approved I believe on the
consent calendar a few minutes ago. Our
[57:36] annual uh payment maintenance program
um about a million three million five a
[57:41] year goes into that. We are between two
and a half and $3 million a year short
[57:45] of being able to fund our ongoing street
pavement maintenance program at a level
[57:51] required to actually maintain current
conditions, let alone improve them. and
[57:57] um you know arguably absent um either
additional funding or rep prioritization
[58:02] of funding in that area, we will
continue likely to see a decline in our
[58:07] um roadway conditions. Um also on that
list is sidewalks, storm drain
[58:12] improvements. Uh we have a park um
capital plan um park maintenance plan.
[58:18] We've identified about $10 million worth
of um funding needs over the next 10
[58:23] years, separate and distinct from the
demands on our park infrastructure
[58:28] related to new development, which was
somewhat addressed by council's recent
[58:33] actions related to the um park impact
fee. But in terms of just baseline
[58:38] maintenance and replacement costs for
our current service levels, that's an
[58:41] area unfunded need. um public safety. Uh
kind of well not top of the list but
[58:48] among the top of the list is um ongoing
uh funding to be able to sustain if not
[58:55] expand our safe team. um alternative
response to some of the calls for
[59:01] service related to our unhoused
population or any individuals in crisis
[59:05] that um um need uh a response that
doesn't necessarily require um sworn law
[59:12] enforcement or our fire and paramedic um
staff. Uh we can have a long
[59:17] conversation and we will eventually on
sort of public staffing uh going forward
[59:21] as we continue to see increased calls
for service uh changing demographics and
[59:27] um just continued uh pursuit of best
practices in the area fire and EMS. Um
[59:34] and then we've added some other areas on
this list. Again, this was also included
[59:37] in the budget document and in the staff
report. There's a little more extensive
[59:41] discussion of all of these. Um, I want
to bring this slide back to the council,
[59:46] which is another,
um, I guess piece of information that
[59:52] speaks, I believe, to uh, the context
for the need to at least look at other
[59:58] revenue sources. And this is looking at
um, of the property tax that is paid by
[1:00:07] all property owners who own property in
the city of San Rafale. Um and this is
[1:00:12] the 1% constitutional state um property
tax um rate of 1%. Um city of San Rafll
[1:00:22] near the kind of center right of this
chart uh we retain uh 12.2%
[1:00:27] of every dollar that is collected. Um,
and this chart basically shows um our
[1:00:33] allocation uh in comparison to the
amount of property tax that's retained
[1:00:38] by other uh Marin County cities and
towns and also on the blue bars um how
[1:00:46] much of that u property tax paid in each
jurisdiction actually goes to Marin
[1:00:52] County. So just to be clear for San
Rafll we retain 12.2% 2% uh county marin
[1:00:59] retains 19.2%.
Um
[1:01:04] we are um I would say well below the
average if you do a straight numerical
[1:01:08] average would be uh in excess of 16%.
But this is just it's just a a fact of
[1:01:15] um how our dollars are allocated. And
without arguing good, bad or
[1:01:20] indifferent, um being on the lower end
of the scale while at the same time
[1:01:25] being a fullervice city where we run our
own police department, our own fire
[1:01:30] department, have our own library that
not all the cities on this chart um have
[1:01:34] responsibility for. Um while on the one
hand we can compare our financial
[1:01:40] situation, our taxes to other cities and
towns in Marin County, we all are
[1:01:45] dealing with a different um deck of
cards, if you will, that we've been
[1:01:49] dealt with. So we're trying to do the
best we can with the resources we have.
[1:01:52] Um but this is one of the reasons why um
the city has relied on and continues to
[1:01:58] rely on um additional funding sources
such as um you know voter approved sales
[1:02:04] tax measures, library tax measure, the
paramedic tax measure. It's to bridge
[1:02:10] the gap between the service level and
service level demands, the cost to
[1:02:14] deliver those services and the revenues
that we would be receiving kind of on
[1:02:18] the natural uh to support those. and we
can talk more about that. So this is
[1:02:23] just lays a little bit of the context.
Um this is not our first discussion um
[1:02:29] in these chambers regarding ballot
measures in general and specifically um
[1:02:34] options for November ballot. Um we
included um this discussion both in a uh
[1:02:43] agenda item we did last February
regarding long-term fiscal
[1:02:46] sustainability and strategies. We also
uh discussed it in the context of both
[1:02:51] the proposed and the adopted budget um
when it was presented as well as at the
[1:02:55] subcommittee. And this just summarizes
that um you know going into tonight's
[1:03:02] recommendation uh staff uh had continued
to look at the options potentially
[1:03:07] available to the city. Kind of narrowed
our analysis down to two uh potential I
[1:03:14] would say viable options for the
November ballot. Uh the first one being
[1:03:19] uh what we're coming back to and
recommending which is looking at
[1:03:22] increasing the property transfer tax.
Current tax rate is um $2 per thousand
[1:03:29] uh or effective tax rate of 0.2%.
Um, and an increase to a uh 1% which is
[1:03:37] $10 per thousand or 1% uh would generate
an additional $6 million per year, which
[1:03:44] um is um not the beall and endall, but
would make arguably a significant
[1:03:50] contribution towards addressing at least
some of the highest priority needs um on
[1:03:54] our unfunded needless and significantly
as a general purpose tax. Um, in order
[1:04:00] for this to be enacted, it would require
a majority vote, 50% plus one of the um
[1:04:08] um voters that would be uh participating
in that election. Uh we've also had been
[1:04:14] looking at and continue to explore um an
alternative which would be a public
[1:04:21] safety parcel tax. Uh which would be um
as proposed a or contemplated uh a tax
[1:04:30] on a square footage of building
improvements for all properties within
[1:04:35] uh the city. Um
the what we were looking at was a rate
[1:04:41] that would generate about $3 million per
year. Uh this is about half of what the
[1:04:45] measure P uh parcel tax that was
approved in November 2024
[1:04:51] via a citizens initiative. Um
um and so this has a different um
[1:04:58] obviously
effective
[1:05:01] net tax depending on uh the size of the
property and the size of the structure.
[1:05:06] Um with some property owners having some
significant uh tax bills as a result. Um
[1:05:11] but also a as a special tax for this to
be enacted it would require a twothirds
[1:05:17] vote of the um electors participating in
the in the November election. Um we
[1:05:24] shared also with the council um last
month um sort of uh some scenarios of
[1:05:31] how either a uh revenue from a property
transfer tax um as suggested um that
[1:05:39] would generate $6 million, how that
could be allocated. um essentially
[1:05:44] between infrastructure
improvement needs and uh public safety
[1:05:48] needs and how we might uh potentially
propose a public safety parcel tax were
[1:05:54] we to proceed um uh with that albeit at
a uh reduced overall dollar amount but
[1:06:00] potentially a little bit more uh funding
for public safety because of its
[1:06:05] dedicated nature. So, um, from that I
want to, um, move forward to since this
[1:06:12] was presented to the council and we
signaled this, um, at the time, uh, the
[1:06:16] city did conduct a survey, a poll of,
um, likely voters in the November 2026
[1:06:25] election. I will note as I go through
these slides that um Curtis Bellow from
[1:06:31] the polling firm of FM3 is uh joining us
um online this evening and is available
[1:06:36] to answer any questions that uh may come
up on either the information presented
[1:06:41] here or anything else related to uh the
survey but went through the um
[1:06:47] methodology uh for their survey. Um, I'm
not a survey expert, but this was a
[1:06:53] effectively a split poll where everybody
received certain questions and then the
[1:06:57] poll was split to test these two
alternatives um in in the sample. And um
[1:07:05] b just going to share highlights of of
those results that um um both a public
[1:07:12] safety parcel tax and a property
transfer tax received um initial
[1:07:18] support. uh just when asked sort of cold
the question would you be likely to
[1:07:24] support um either of these measures? Um
and what how these slides show is the
[1:07:31] definitely yes and the probably yes um
right around 50 51% uh for both measures
[1:07:38] and similarly um probably no definitely
no uh about a little over a third of the
[1:07:45] respondents. Um um the definitely nos
are important because those are unlikely
[1:07:51] to sort of change their opinion over the
course of um between now and November.
[1:07:56] Um so that's um important number but
also is the um level of undecided um
[1:08:04] opinions um in the sample. So it depends
on more information and how things are
[1:08:09] going at the time etc etc. um for the
public safety tax. Um we're showing the
[1:08:16] initial uh sort of voter sentiment and
then as these surveys do to help um
[1:08:23] really dig a little deeper, the
respondents are presented with likely
[1:08:27] arguments in favor of the measure to see
how their opinion might be um swayed or
[1:08:34] how it moves. and in this case uh for
the part public safety tax up to about
[1:08:38] 60% and then when presented with uh
sample arguments or statements in
[1:08:45] opposed or or critical of the measure
reasons not to support the measure um
[1:08:50] that what's important here to take away
is that um while there was a majority
[1:08:55] support beginning, middle, and end for
this measure, it didn't come close to um
[1:09:00] hitting the twothirds vote requirement
that would be required uh for a special
[1:09:05] tax. Um, when looking at the general
purpose uh real estate property transfer
[1:09:10] tax, again um again given the margin of
error in these samples that Curtis can
[1:09:16] speak to better than I can, right around
the required threshold um out the gate
[1:09:24] with um hearing arguments in support of
the measure and the reason why we would
[1:09:29] be advancing it. Uh it went up into the
mid uh 50% range. to to get some um bump
[1:09:35] there. Um but it's noteworthy that
arguments that were presented uh in
[1:09:41] opposition to the measure also had the
effect of reducing some of that. So the
[1:09:47] takeaway here is that uh between the two
measures uh the public safety tax
[1:09:53] doesn't really look like it has a path
towards getting a twothirds u support
[1:09:58] regardless of the effort that that may
go into that. Um and the recommendation
[1:10:04] that's before the council tonight for a
real estate transfer tax um has a
[1:10:11] potential path to uh passage and
support, but want to be clear that it by
[1:10:16] no means um falls under the you know
slam dunk these rarely do. But um it's
[1:10:23] based in part based on these results
that we're advancing uh the
[1:10:26] recommendation that's that's before you
this evening. Uh I'll just end this part
[1:10:31] of the presentation to by um
highlighting that within the survey um
[1:10:37] there were also a number of questions
aimed at both um what are the areas that
[1:10:44] the prospective voter and the community
more broadly defined um feel are
[1:10:50] important to support in a um tax measure
and a revenue measure. And this uh the
[1:10:57] far right column here adds the extremely
important and very important um those
[1:11:02] two numbers. Um and at the top of the
list um number one, not surprisingly, is
[1:11:08] maintaining our 911 emergency medical,
police, and fire response times, which
[1:11:12] is a key component of why we would be uh
putting this before the voters,
[1:11:17] preventing the deterioration of streets
and roads. Check addressing impacts of
[1:11:22] homelessness, including litter and
illegal dumping. So some of the what's
[1:11:27] interesting here is among the highest
priority needs that we've identified,
[1:11:31] they seem to also be the ones that
resonate most strongly with at least the
[1:11:36] respondents um from the survey. Um
there's a long long list below this, but
[1:11:41] I just wanted to highlight um those
areas among others. Um so again, the
[1:11:47] recommendation before the council this
evening is essentially to um pursue
[1:11:53] um asking the voters if they would be uh
supportive of increasing the real estate
[1:12:00] property transfer tax um as a general
purpose tax um again uh with a increase
[1:12:07] to a rate of of 1% that would generate
$6 million uh dollars per year. I should
[1:12:13] note that in the staff report and in the
resolution is the actual ballot language
[1:12:19] that is being proposed. I probably
remiss that I didn't cut and copy that
[1:12:23] into this, but we can uh highlight that
for sure uh before we um get to any
[1:12:29] council decision on this. Um, I wanted
to end with just a few more um kind of
[1:12:34] background and context pieces in terms
of um not so much um why we're
[1:12:41] contemplating bringing a property trans
a tax measure to the voters um but why
[1:12:47] specifically a property transfer tax.
And we did look at other tax measures
[1:12:51] including other general purpose taxes
which include um you know the transient
[1:12:57] occupancy hotel tax. Uh many cities have
utility users tax on the books that the
[1:13:02] city of San Rafll does not have. Uh the
business license tax. I would just say
[1:13:06] that the hotel tax and the business
license tax um would not be generating
[1:13:12] anything near this amount of revenue
even with um you know bringing them to
[1:13:18] arguably the maximum rate that would
even contemplate uh bringing forward.
[1:13:22] So, the property transfer tax we believe
is um at least um
[1:13:29] interested in a couple of respects.
Number one, it's a tax that we already
[1:13:33] have on the books. So, it's just
increasing existing tax. Um, number two,
[1:13:38] the tax rate is um, arguably,
you know, depending on the cities that
[1:13:45] we're comparing to, and I'm looking at
all of the cities in California that
[1:13:49] have property transfer tax, which by the
way is by state law only the purview of
[1:13:54] charter cities. So, general law cities
do not have the ability under state law
[1:13:59] to enact
um, a property transfer tax. Um but uh
[1:14:05] we shared before and we'll see on here
our current tax rate on the low end and
[1:14:10] uh significantly for cities that do have
property transfer tax, it generally
[1:14:16] provides a significantly
I would argue significantly higher share
[1:14:20] of overall general fund revenues than
the 1.5 million that we collect out of
[1:14:25] $110 million general fund budget. Um,
and so this chart does sort of compare
[1:14:31] existing property transfer tax. Um, and
I drew the line right at the the San
[1:14:36] Rafale. So you can see clearly the
cities whose have these taxes on the
[1:14:40] books that generate um um whose general
fund is more reliant on property
[1:14:45] transfer tax which from a finance
director's perspective is also appealing
[1:14:50] relative in the sense of diversifying
our tax base as opposed to going back
[1:14:55] for another sales tax increase or other
some of the other taxes. Um also uh on a
[1:15:01] per capita basis uh there are charts
about you know gross property tax
[1:15:06] revenues but those are very skewed by
sizes of city. So to normalize that,
[1:15:11] this is the property transfer tax
revenue uh on a per capita uh basis. And
[1:15:17] again, Sanfell there is on the green
line in the middle of the chart and it
[1:15:21] shows you of all the cities that have
the property transfer tax on the books,
[1:15:26] the vast majority of them are uh
generating significantly more revenue uh
[1:15:30] per capita. So, um um and then the last
chart, which um
[1:15:37] I'm going to attempt to explain just
shows really the property transfer tax
[1:15:44] rates that cities that have property
transfer tax on the books um charge. I
[1:15:49] will note um of interest that while I
have a number of cities, I think 25 26
[1:15:54] cities in the state with property
transfer taxes, this is actually sorted
[1:15:58] by county. So you'll have sort of your
Alama County, East Bay cities um off to
[1:16:05] the right. Um, and then when you get
into Elserto and Richmond, you're in
[1:16:10] Contraasa County, and then you get into
some of the Southern California counties
[1:16:14] until you get to San Rafll, which is
next to Santa Monica that has one of the
[1:16:19] highest rates. And then City County,
well, Sacramento, City County, San
[1:16:23] Francisco, and then Sanonteo, Santa
Claras, and at the far end you have
[1:16:28] Sonoma County, which is the Paluma and
Santa Rosa's um on on that. And uh this
[1:16:35] chart tries to uh display two things.
One is uh the comparative
[1:16:41] uh real estate transfer tax. Um and if
it can if it shows on the video, the
[1:16:48] sort of the purple are the cities that
just basically have a flat property
[1:16:52] transfer tax applied across all uh
transactions at that rate. Um there are
[1:16:58] several cities, maybe about six or eight
of them that have the so-called tier
[1:17:03] structure. So they'll have a certain um
tax you'll see at the bottom. Some of
[1:17:09] them, you know, anything up to 300,000
and then up to a million, one and a
[1:17:12] half, 2 million, two and a half. So some
of the, you know, these cities that may
[1:17:16] go up into the three, four, five, and
six% um only do that for their higher
[1:17:22] value, but it just shows that there's a
taring of them. Um and I would just note
[1:17:27] that with our recommendation to consider
um without a taring structure increasing
[1:17:33] our rate to 1% uh the San Rafale bar
would be up at that first line which is
[1:17:39] the 1% the horizontal line and um while
I didn't put the proposal on here you
[1:17:45] could see how it then compares sort of
with the other cities that um have the
[1:17:50] existing taxes on the books. um we have
not done a lot of research on to what
[1:17:55] extent some of these cities might also
be contemplating bringing forward
[1:17:59] additional taxes on it but um thought
that would be uh somewhat um
[1:18:05] illustrative. Um so just to wrap up our
staff recommendation uh this evening is
[1:18:11] for the council to consider and um
adoption of a resolution to call the
[1:18:17] general municipal election uh to place
the measure on the November 2026 ballot
[1:18:23] increasing the real estate property
transfer tax uh and then requesting that
[1:18:27] the county consolidate and conduct the
election. have the city attorney
[1:18:31] authority to prepare impartial analysis
and then uh mayor and council member
[1:18:36] Bushy to file arguments. So with that I
will conclude the presentation. Um happy
[1:18:43] to answer any questions you have. I said
Curtis Bellow is joining us remotely. Uh
[1:18:48] if there's any questions on sort of the
needs component, we have also staff
[1:18:53] available here at the meeting to help uh
answer any questions council might have.
[1:18:58] » Thank you. Thank you for that staff
report and as you mentioned we have
[1:19:02] talked about it in the finance
subcommittee as well but we haven't had
[1:19:06] a chance to talk about it um up here on
the dis. So I'll start with questions
[1:19:09] first. Uh vice mayor do you have any
questions?
[1:19:12] » I just have a couple of questions and
thank you for um we had followed up
[1:19:17] earlier in the day with some additional
questions but I want to share a couple
[1:19:20] of those because I think the responses
are really helpful for people to
[1:19:23] understand. Um
right now it's being proposed that the
[1:19:28] it's a general it'll be a general fund
um revenue stream and I was wondering
[1:19:35] what the thought was in terms of uh not
doing a percentage of infrastructure
[1:19:42] versus public service. Um like we have
with marine wildfire we have a lot of uh
[1:19:48] percentages and earmarked and why why
it's considered not to do that for this
[1:19:53] one.
[1:19:56] Um so I think the short answer of that
question is um while as we shared in the
[1:20:02] presentation there's definitely some
thought as to how the city would most
[1:20:07] likely um allocate the funding and um
under general purpose it's important to
[1:20:13] note that ultimately that decision is to
the city council. they are by law and by
[1:20:18] definition discretionary dollars to be
spent on whatever the council deems um
[1:20:24] appropriate. Um, you know, it is
important though when we're going to the
[1:20:27] voters seeking a tax increase to be um
as transparent as we can be as to the
[1:20:34] needs that are driving it and how this
fund uh could assist once we start um
[1:20:40] building into the actual
ordinance or ballot measure uh those
[1:20:47] carveouts or allocations then it starts
to move into the special tax category.
[1:20:53] So for instance, NWPA by its nature is a
special tax and then there's allocations
[1:20:59] and how you're using it within that. But
that's the that's the main distinction.
[1:21:03] » Yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you. Um,
is there any thought in or analysis at
[1:21:09] this point in terms of how much the tax
would generate from commercial sale
[1:21:13] versus residential?
>> Um,
[1:21:18] I will say, Vice Mayor Curts, that we
have that data. Um I don't have it at my
[1:21:24] fingertips. Um but we did look at the
last I believe 8 to 10 years of um
[1:21:33] actual real estate property transfer tax
paid in terms of the number of
[1:21:37] transactions
the value of the transactions
[1:21:41] and
I want to say that there's um
[1:21:45] residential versus commercial is
somewhere in that in distinctions in
[1:21:49] that database.
>> Okay. Thank you. Um
[1:21:52] » I will say the vast majority will be on
residential
[1:21:56] just because of the volume.
>> Yeah.
[1:21:59] Um
can you share a little bit about how
[1:22:03] this I mean it was talked about the
finance committee but other groups or
[1:22:07] areas that you've started to uh to
review the possibility of of going down
[1:22:12] this path just so it this isn't I mean
we know that this is not the first time
[1:22:16] as you had mentioned we've we've
discussed this in different forums
[1:22:20] » um publicly but have you um had an
opportunity to share at this point with
[1:22:25] others?
uh a little bit uh but I would say um
[1:22:30] other than the um the work we've done at
the staff that we brought to the fine
[1:22:35] subcommittee and the pieces that it
brought to this committee I would say
[1:22:39] that most of the engagement um with uh
select members of the community has been
[1:22:46] in response to questions or inquiries
that we have received as they've been
[1:22:51] following this uh item going through um
less So, um, frankly, in terms of, um,
[1:22:59] you know, proactive outreach, um, um,
and as you know, and as the city
[1:23:04] attorney will want me to say, um, should
the council put this on the ballot, uh,
[1:23:09] we are precluded from, um, using staff
resources, um, and city resources in a
[1:23:15] campaign advocacy, um, area, but we will
absolutely be ensuring that we're um,
[1:23:23] available to um um share information and
put out information that might be
[1:23:29] helpful to the community in deciding.
>> Great. Thank you. And the last question
[1:23:34] I have is um why was a flat 1% rate
recommended instead of a graduated
[1:23:39] structure that places more of the burden
on higher value transactions?
[1:23:44] Um yeah, that is a good question because
it was something that that was looked at
[1:23:48] and um also informed by looking at some
of the other agencies that do have those
[1:23:53] structures in place and I would say um
three
[1:24:00] kind of main reasons. Um the first one
is that um because of the concentration
[1:24:07] of the transaction really in the lower
end of that that as soon as we were to
[1:24:12] say for instance we're recommending an
increase for um properties over even say
[1:24:18] $2 million let alone three million the
amount of incremental revenue um is
[1:24:23] diluted significantly. I think um I
don't have it in front of me, but I
[1:24:28] think you know almost half of the real
estate property transfer tax comes from
[1:24:33] sales under one and a half million and
if you go up to 2 million it's it's over
[1:24:38] half if not twothirds of of the revenue.
So in our situation it gets diluted uh
[1:24:43] very quickly. Um
that is not necessarily a reason not to
[1:24:49] do it. Um, however, we also did include
in our survey some questions about
[1:24:54] whether or not doing a tiering would um
um impact uh voter sentiment, at least
[1:25:02] as um represented by the survey. And uh
that did not move the needle. In fact,
[1:25:08] when we posed questions about uh taring,
it actually lowered the support. I don't
[1:25:15] pretend to know why. Others might have
opinions on it, but there wasn't really
[1:25:18] a a compelling reason both from a
financial standpoint. Um, and the last
[1:25:23] one, which I'll shouldn't even mention,
but um, given that we are limited in law
[1:25:29] to the 75 words in the ballot question,
trying to explain a tiered
[1:25:34] tax structure
takes up most of the ballot question to
[1:25:39] begin with, and the pros and cons of of
doing that didn't pan out for us.
[1:25:43] » Great. Appreciate it. Thank you. So,
Thank you, Council Member Bushy.
[1:25:47] Questions?
>> Thank you. Um my questions um revolve
[1:25:51] around comparison of San Rafale to our
neighbors. I want to start with um early
[1:25:57] in your presentation you um showed that
San Rafale retains about 12% of property
[1:26:06] tax revenue and our neighbors in the
fine city of Mil Valley though retain
[1:26:11] twice that.
Why is that?
[1:26:20] I don't know that there's an easy answer
to that question. Um
[1:26:26] uh other than what I may have tried to
explain before that, um the property the
[1:26:35] allocation of the baseline Prop 13
property transfer tax was put in place
[1:26:42] following the passage of Prop 13 uh back
in 1979
[1:26:48] and um which is when Prop 13 was
approved by the voters in the state of
[1:26:53] California. Um and then uh the enabling
legislation was I believe AB8 which is
[1:26:59] the legislature. And so, um,
to try to make it very simple, the
[1:27:06] legislature came up with a property tax
allocation formula
[1:27:13] that was developed to with the purpose
of ensuring that any city's
[1:27:22] uh share of property tax post Prop 13
was in proportion to their proportionate
[1:27:29] share of property tax pre-prop 13. So on
a statewide basis, so if um and so what
[1:27:36] this suggests is for cities before that
could set their own property tax rates.
[1:27:40] So cities that had a quoteunquote high
property tax rate going into Prop 13 who
[1:27:46] would have been much more negatively
impacted by a statewide 1% figure. they
[1:27:52] keep more of the uh local property tax
than a city that may would have had a
[1:27:59] lower property tax rate at the time. So
all other things equal, it's the formula
[1:28:06] that um implemented Prop 13
>> in 1979
[1:28:11] » in 1979.
>> Okay. So this this happened a long time
[1:28:13] ago. This was set and we cannot change
it. That's the important
[1:28:17] » we cannot change that. The other area or
two that impacts this number over time
[1:28:23] is obviously new cities, new
incorporations. Um but for instance um
[1:28:29] when uh cities will annex um areas into
the city, then there's a tax sharing
[1:28:37] agreement that uh takes place that
they're negotiating with the county. And
[1:28:41] so if we were to annex another area of
unincorporated and negotiated a higher
[1:28:46] share than 12.2 two for that annexation
our average goes up. So that's another
[1:28:50] area where that number changes over time
as cities grow and annex. And the second
[1:28:56] one you mentioned earlier in the context
of utilities but um consolidations
[1:29:01] because all the special districts that
allocate. So some of these cities for
[1:29:04] instance that are served by fire
districts, the fire districts get a
[1:29:08] portion of that property tax. You would
think that they'd have a lower property
[1:29:11] tax share but it doesn't always pan out
that way. But if going forward we were
[1:29:16] to and we're discussing some
consolidations ourselves with Merinwood,
[1:29:19] there's the potential that we would
receive some of their property tax and
[1:29:22] this number could change through that
process.
[1:29:25] » But setting aside those like literally
adjustments around the edges. um
[1:29:29] focusing on what happened in 1979 and
where it leaves the city of San Rafll,
[1:29:35] » it leaves us disadvantaged from by a
factor of 100% compared to Mil Valley of
[1:29:42] property taxes.
>> And that that disadvantage is part of
[1:29:46] the justification for turning our
attention to other sources of revenue
[1:29:50] because if I'm correct, um San Rafel is
the only charter city in Marin County.
[1:29:55] Correct.
>> I believe so. So, we're the only city
[1:29:58] that could have a real estate transfer
fee.
[1:30:02] » Yep.
>> Okay. So, we're on our own.
[1:30:05] » Can I can I underscore that because I I
on that chart we just showed the you
[1:30:09] know the average allocation of property
tax for marine cities and towns is I
[1:30:14] think was 16.2 which is 4% more than our
12.2. That would have if we had that
[1:30:21] level it would we would be receiving
about $9.6 6 million a year in
[1:30:27] incremental property tax and I would
submit that we might not be having this
[1:30:32] conversation if we were
>> we'd be even happier if we had Mil
[1:30:35] Valley's 25%. So just putting that out
there um but comparison so that what and
[1:30:40] what's um driving this now turning our
attention to the newly proposed tax um
[1:30:46] real estate transfer tax um we have no
we have no comparators in Marin County
[1:30:52] because we're the only one that can do
this. Correct. on. So that leaves us
[1:30:56] with looking sort of across the North
Bay. In your other um chart showing all
[1:31:02] of the the different counties other than
Southern California, when we look across
[1:31:08] the North Bay,
we see that they were below 1%. We would
[1:31:14] not be we would be jumping from one of
the lowest
[1:31:21] trans um real estate transfer taxes to
one of the highest in the North Bay. Is
[1:31:26] that right?
>> Uh that would be correct.
[1:31:29] » Okay. And this is driven by our the fact
that we're taking our 0.2%
[1:31:37] tax and turning into 1% tax. It's 5x
>> of the tax rate.
[1:31:43] And
how did you select that number just for
[1:31:49] ease of mathematics?
Um
[1:31:54] well two things. It was the
you know do you
[1:32:00] propose an increase in the property
transfer tax for a $2 million
[1:32:04] incremental revenue and how does that
move the needle on the need? So it's a
[1:32:08] combination of the needs that are well
in excess of it. what would
[1:32:15] represent a meaningful
uh increment. Um, hey, we could put
[1:32:21] another couple million into streets and
roads. We can put a couple million into
[1:32:24] public safety. We could deal with some
of our parks and facilities. that would
[1:32:27] make a significant uh in and
within that larger cohort of comparisons
[1:32:36] still be within the um the range of what
um
[1:32:43] cities that have these taxes on the
books are able to generate. So, in
[1:32:47] short, to make it worth our while, we
needed to make it a significant increase
[1:32:51] to get a a a meaningful um increase in
funding for our our needed priorities
[1:32:59] because of this anomalous thing that
happened back in 1979. And the other
[1:33:03] thing I would note that is um in the
staff report and implied in the ballot
[1:33:09] question is unlike a parcel tax, unlike
a sales tax, unlike a business license
[1:33:14] tax, this is paid one time at the time
of the transaction of the sale. So it's
[1:33:19] not a tax that those who are um you know
paying the tax you know are paying on a
[1:33:27] ongoing annual basis. So there's a
distinction between how a property
[1:33:32] transfer tax functions and most other
taxes that we are able to um enact.
[1:33:38] » Great. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Council Member Hill.
[1:33:43] » Thank you, Mayor Kate. I have a few
questions. Uh when I look at the um
[1:33:48] draft ballot statement at the very
bottom, it indicates uh with annual
[1:33:54] audits and public spending disclosure.
Can you elaborate on what that would
[1:33:58] mean? I presume it meant that um at
least it involves the voter approved tax
[1:34:03] oversight committee including this as
part of its uh um oversight, but I just
[1:34:09] wanted to hear if there's any more or if
you could elaborate a little bit on how
[1:34:11] that would go to that committee.
>> Yeah, I'll speak to that and then maybe
[1:34:17] um ask Curtis if he has other Curtis
Bellow other comments on it. Um so the
[1:34:23] part of the uh ballot question that
references the ordinance change uh so
[1:34:28] right now I would say that the u our
existing property transfer tax was
[1:34:34] enacted prior to prop 218. So was
enacted by a council not by uh uh the
[1:34:43] voters. And so if this is placed before
the voters and passes, we're essentially
[1:34:49] adding the same language that we have on
um most all of our existing voter
[1:34:55] approved um
uh tax measures. Um and yes, it would uh
[1:35:02] also fall under the purview of oversight
of the voter approved tax oversight
[1:35:07] committee as currently constituted in
their charter with a bit of a caveat
[1:35:13] because as we um have shared prior with
the finance committee and we took action
[1:35:18] at the council um vote approved tax
oversight committee, you know,
[1:35:22] appropriately um flagged that for a
general purpose tax um oversight is is a
[1:35:29] little bit of a um tricky wicket because
we don't necessarily track those. We
[1:35:34] track the revenue separate. We know what
we're collecting because it goes into
[1:35:38] the general fund. Um they're generally
not set up so that we can um you know
[1:35:44] account for all the dollars that are
being spent from a general purpose tax.
[1:35:49] Um but that said um it is important to
um include an oversight component. Um
[1:35:57] the other part is obviously you know all
of our financials are subject to our you
[1:36:03] know regular annual independent audit.
uh we do reporting to the council on all
[1:36:07] of this and what Curtis might add if I'm
missing something is that um
[1:36:15] irrespective of the tax the tax rate and
the mechanism of the tax what has is
[1:36:21] consistently um important to note when
we're doing poll and what we're doing
[1:36:27] survey is to uh reassure the voters that
these are locally controlled dollars
[1:36:33] that the state can't come and take from
us at some future date. And that we are
[1:36:40] serious about um transparency in terms
of oversight and audits and reporting
[1:36:47] and
um
[1:36:50] whatever how we um allocate the dollars
in the budget and how we do this will be
[1:36:55] um an important piece of it.
>> Thank you. My next question is um
[1:37:01] regarding impacts. Um, so I can I think
everyone in the room can do this kind of
[1:37:07] math, which is if you sell a property
and the sale price is 1 million, then
[1:37:11] the tax rate for this particular tax
would be $10,000.
[1:37:16] Aside from the math,
um, can you contemplate what the impacts
[1:37:21] would be to real estate industry?
>> Um, I'm not sure if I can speak to the
[1:37:28] impacts on the real estate industry. um
if that's the question.
[1:37:32] » How about locally?
>> Yeah. No, I guess what I would what I
[1:37:35] would say and this question does come up
and um others will have their opinion
[1:37:39] and we'll see. But um I would just say
that um it's not uncommon for the real
[1:37:46] estate property transfer tax and we have
one on the books currently um is oftent
[1:37:52] times um
um the real question is is it borne by
[1:37:57] the buyer or the seller on the property.
So an argument is that it increases the
[1:38:02] cost if it's on largely on the buyer and
may um you know kind of eat into the
[1:38:10] equity that a seller might be um
otherwise getting from it. Um and I
[1:38:16] remind you we're talking about 1% of the
sales price. So, um there are scenarios
[1:38:20] out there where a property transfer tax
like many of the other fees that are
[1:38:24] associated like a real estate commission
can be uh on both sides of the ledger
[1:38:30] like split between the property owner
I'm sorry yeah the seller and the buyer
[1:38:35] that's um not uncommon um and then what
get comes into play uh at least from
[1:38:40] some personal experience although it's
been a while is that depending on the
[1:38:44] housing market right when you're in a
buyer market then um some of these costs
[1:38:51] through the negotiation between
individual buyer and seller um can be
[1:38:56] negotiated to be picked up by one side
or the other. The other extreme is in a
[1:39:01] quote unquote you know sellers market
when properties particularly residential
[1:39:05] properties are you know going over
asking price cash only and they're
[1:39:11] flying off the market. It's not uncommon
for the property transfer tax to then be
[1:39:15] um kind of
swooped up into the transaction costs.
[1:39:20] Um, and um, that's all I'm gonna say
about that.
[1:39:24] » Yeah. Well, thank you for addressing a
very broad question on the real estate
[1:39:29] industry. So I and my final questions
are are not to go through every unfunded
[1:39:34] need that you articulated but I do want
to for the sake of emphasis understand
[1:39:39] what is meant by our pavement program is
we'll will we need to increase it by 2
[1:39:45] million a year just to maintain
PCI um which is our pavement uh if you
[1:39:51] can elaborate on the initialism and then
just make certain that is it do we
[1:39:55] degrade by a half a percent a year a
percent a year I just want to understand
[1:39:58] just so that a community member can
understand
[1:40:03] how this translates into road quality.
>> So, I'm going to ask our public works
[1:40:08] director, uh, April Mi Miller to assist
on this. Um, but one thing I'll say at a
[1:40:14] very, very high level, and she can speak
more to it, is, um, you know, we talked
[1:40:20] about $2 million. I think in the staff
report we actually bumped that up to
[1:40:24] between two and a half three because I
think in like 2022 or $23 we were in the
[1:40:30] that $2 million range and let's just say
that um pavement condition index you
[1:40:36] know has you know numbers associated but
they're in you know excellent condition,
[1:40:40] good condition, fair condition and we're
at the very bottom of the um fair
[1:40:45] category and uh at our current funding
level it will continue to deteriorate.
[1:40:51] rate. The question of how much funding
is needed per our most recent reports to
[1:40:57] maintain it at the current level, let
alone bring it up um is going to be
[1:41:03] probably in excess of the $2 million.
April,
[1:41:07] » that sounds accurate. Um, yeah. So, just
to weigh in a little bit more, so since
[1:41:12] we've been we've had such a limited
budget on pavement over I mean, I've
[1:41:16] been here six years for six years on,
you know, we've been using the money to
[1:41:22] just focus on maintenance. We've been
doing slurry seals. We've been, you
[1:41:27] know, sealing cracks on roads that
typically you would grind an overlay. We
[1:41:31] just been stretching every dollar we can
to try to keep these roads just alive as
[1:41:36] long as possible. So to your question on
how fast it will go down, like we're
[1:41:42] we're trying to put as many band-aids as
we can to to keep the roads going, but
[1:41:48] it's hard to determine at what point
they'll it'll just drop. I mean, we are
[1:41:52] we have been losing like a point a year
consistently for the last five years,
[1:41:57] but it's sort of unknown since we are
doing preventative maintenance on roads.
[1:42:04] So, you can't really tell how bad the
underlying condition is on the road. We
[1:42:08] know what it is because we knew what it
was before we did the pavement
[1:42:12] maintenance, but we are stretching our
dollars to the maximum right now and
[1:42:17] it's it has been successful over the
last few years.
[1:42:21] » Got it. And not to um try to create fair
uncertainty depth, but what I'm hearing
[1:42:24] you say is that there could actually be
underlying literally underlying problems
[1:42:28] with the with the substructure and
things that may not be seen that
[1:42:32] patching may be able to alleviate for a
season, but that there could be major
[1:42:36] problems where a road could fail and
have to do emergency repaving.
[1:42:42] » Uh potentially, yes. Usually it just
gets it starts to deteriorate more and
[1:42:46] more. Um
yeah, quicker. So typically like if a
[1:42:50] road was more in the good condition, we
would slurry seal it every seven to 10
[1:42:55] years. These roads that we're slurrying
are in the poor condition, we should
[1:42:59] probably be slur if we're going to
slurry them to keep them alive, we'd do
[1:43:01] it like every three years. We don't have
the money to do that. So we're still
[1:43:04] trying to do in that 7 to 10 year mark,
but yeah, the the roads are continuing
[1:43:08] to get worse and worse in that
underlying condition.
[1:43:11] » Thank you, Director Miller. And can I
can I add one more thing to that that I
[1:43:15] think we shared in one of the CIP is
that you know the the goal is to do all
[1:43:19] the maintenance you can do to avoid the
reconstruction of the road which happens
[1:43:23] eventually at a much more significant
cost. So there's you know how
[1:43:28] aggressively can we maintain
um what you're trying to avoid is having
[1:43:34] to get into the major reconstruction
which uh this funding would not
[1:43:39] be enough to support.
>> Okay. Thank you. And as I said, I would
[1:43:44] not uh inventory all of our unfunded
needs, but there is one other which is
[1:43:47] the safe team uh $750,000 a year that we
cannot that we don't have a plan for
[1:43:53] beyond this year. Can you just confirm
that what the safety does and what would
[1:43:58] happen what could happen if we can't
fund it?
[1:44:02] Um again I will ask um police chief uh
Spiller to assist with this but yes as
[1:44:09] the council is aware uh we have been
able to maintain what was initially a
[1:44:14] pilot program through some one-time
funding. Uh, credit to the department
[1:44:19] and Chief Biller's uh, staff for
identifying some grant funding that we
[1:44:24] were able to um, uh, receive that as you
noted, we have secure funding for the
[1:44:31] current level of service through the
current fiscal year, maybe a couple of
[1:44:35] months through the current contract, and
then we're going to continue to be
[1:44:39] looking for um, how to keep this
together. And um what uh the reason why
[1:44:45] this is on this list is not only um a
candidate for
[1:44:51] stable recurring annual funding, but
potentially also funding source to meet
[1:44:56] the um demands and potentially
increasing the days and hours of
[1:45:01] operation of the safe team. Chief,
>> that was perfect. I couldn't have said
[1:45:05] anything better. Uh so as the council's
aware, you know, we had a very
[1:45:09] successful three-year pilot of the safe
team. Um and at the conclusion of the
[1:45:13] three-year pilot, we extended that
contract to coincide with the fiscal
[1:45:17] year and then did a one-year extension.
So at the completion of this fiscal
[1:45:21] year, the safe team won't be funded.
There's no permanent funding solution
[1:45:26] for the safe team. So absent this, the
manager and I will be scouring
[1:45:31] opportunities and additional grant
opportunities and other philanthrop
[1:45:35] philanthropic opportunities to uh offset
the expenditure and that's based on the
[1:45:41] current deployment of a two-person team
12 hours a day or excuse me yes 12 hours
[1:45:47] a day every day of the calendar year.
There has been question from the
[1:45:51] community uh from community groups and
even council members what are the
[1:45:56] opportunities to expand the program. So
uh that will be a part of what um we
[1:46:02] could potentially leverage this
additional revenue for.
[1:46:06] » Thank you chief. Those are my questions.
Thank you.
[1:46:09] » Thank you. I just have one um hopefully
easy question. So this is already on the
[1:46:14] books and you mentioned in answering
council member Hill's question about uh
[1:46:20] why it is going to the voters. So that
original 2% was done by the council but
[1:46:26] not this council and I don't see
anywhere in the staff report when this
[1:46:29] was originally
we we've already agreed to do this in
[1:46:34] this community. This is not a brand new
tax. It's an increas increasing one that
[1:46:39] already exists. So, I don't recall. I
don't know if Council Bushy recalls. So,
[1:46:44] it wasn't in the last 20 years when
we've been here. [laughter]
[1:46:48] Um, but I'm curious you and and I'm um
Oh, I see it. City attorney, deputy city
[1:46:56] attorney arriving and then you mentioned
218. Why is it that the council can't
[1:47:01] make the decision from the dis and why
do we need to go to the voters? I
[1:47:05] believe that the original ordinance was
adopted in 1990 1991.
[1:47:12] » Okay.
>> Sometime around that
[1:47:13] » by the council at that point
>> by the council prop it's like a
[1:47:18] municipal history lesson. Prop 218
came in 19
[1:47:25] 97 98.
>> Okay. which said that for these specific
[1:47:30] types of taxes, they need to go to the
voters and cannot be done through
[1:47:34] council resolution.
>> It didn't specify real estate transfer
[1:47:38] tax, but the type of um revenue
generation now requires a voter
[1:47:46] approval.
>> Can I add that Prop 218 did two things?
[1:47:49] It required that um any and all taxes
require voter approval and it also
[1:47:56] stipulated that special taxes require a
twothirds vote.
[1:48:01] » Okay.
>> Yeah.
[1:48:03] » See, yeah, we're everybody's going to
try.
[1:48:05] » We did a little bit of history um
background research on this. So,
[1:48:08] ordinance 1303 was adopted by the city
council in 1978 and then subsequently in
[1:48:13] 1990, ordinance 1595 was adopted by the
city council and then about a week later
[1:48:18] there was an urgency ordinance that
amended that slightly um in 1990.
[1:48:23] » Okay. So, if they had done a 1% then we
probably wouldn't be having this
[1:48:26] conversation. So, right because there
was no retro of reducing it to another
[1:48:31] number. So that that chart that you
showed, those were all cities and towns
[1:48:36] that back before Prop 218 increased it
to those numbers. Okay. Just again, it's
[1:48:42] a lot of context and and to understand
why um we have an opportunity that other
[1:48:47] cities and towns might not have. Okay. I
don't see any questions right now. We've
[1:48:51] asked a bunch and I know that the public
would like to weigh in. Um so I'm going
[1:48:56] to go ahead and open up the public
comment for this item. If you are in the
[1:49:00] room and would like to comment, uh, we'd
love to hear from you. And just a
[1:49:04] reminder, we'd like to know what part of
Sanfell, if you do live in Sanell, what
[1:49:07] part you live in. You're not required to
say your name, but we would welcome
[1:49:11] hearing it. And we are maintaining a
welcoming environment by refraining from
[1:49:15] hateful or discriminatory remarks.
Welcome.
[1:49:18] » Hi. Good [clears throat] evening, um,
mayor and members of the city council.
[1:49:22] My name is Jen Feifer. I grew up in
Sanfell, own a home in this community,
[1:49:26] and I've spent more than 25 years in
Marin real estate. Tonight, I'm speaking
[1:49:31] speaking on behalf of all homeowners. I
want to be fair. The city has real
[1:49:36] needs. Aging streets, storm drains, and
the pressure of emergency response. Um,
[1:49:41] it's not imaginary and I respect
[clears throat] the work you do to
[1:49:44] manage it all. Um, I appreciate you
reaching out to us, the community, um,
[1:49:50] before you place re the revenue measure
um, before the voters, but I'm here to
[1:49:55] say no to this idea that you've
proposed. Today, when a resident sells a
[1:50:01] home, the city transfer tax is $2 per
thousand. This measure makes it $10,
[1:50:07] which is five times higher on a typical
Sanfale home. That's about $10,000 more
[1:50:13] taken at the closing table. and it's
permanent with no sunset. I have a
[1:50:18] listing now closing this Friday for $3.3
million and the trustees are paying
[1:50:23] 6,000 in city transfer taxes. If this
were to pass, they would pay $30,000
[1:50:30] just for the city transfer tax. That
doesn't include the county. So, you want
[1:50:35] to come to my listing appointments with
me and try to explain this? Um, I'm
[1:50:39] going to condense this, but I'll email
it to you. [snorts] Um,
[1:50:45] I think all residents should pay for 911
response times and storm drainage su
[1:50:51] systems and flooding and addressing the
impacts of the homelessness and street
[1:50:57] and road maintenance and maintaining
self safe places for kids to play. I
[1:51:02] agree with all that, but I think
everybody should pay for it. You're
[1:51:05] proposing that one household at one very
hard moment in time should pay the
[1:51:12] senior who is finally right sizing or
downsizing or moving to assisted living
[1:51:17] where they're going to have to pay pay
tens of thousands of dollars
[1:51:21] » before um
>> sorry you got muted at the two minutes
[1:51:26] so no so so thank you for your comments
and yes I will email you. Thanks so
[1:51:31] much.
[1:51:38] Good evening. Can pull that down.
>> Good evening. Hi, my name is Sandra Del
[1:51:43] Regno and I live in Rafll Meadows in San
Rafll. And I am against this tax for a
[1:51:50] couple of reasons. Number one, because
to sell a house, it will in it will have
[1:51:57] to increase the value
because you know, you want to get so
[1:52:02] much money for your house. You've spent
money, you fixed your house up, you're
[1:52:06] going to add it to the cost. This over
the last couple of years, everyone's
[1:52:12] talking about the high cost of housing.
This will just increase the cost of
[1:52:17] housing.
And what no one's addressing is all the
[1:52:22] new construction. There's 1,900 units
going into Northgate. There's highrises
[1:52:29] going into San Rafale. All of those
units are going to bring revenue into
[1:52:35] the coffers of San Rafale.
That's significant money you're going to
[1:52:40] get get. You're not addressing all the
extra money that you're going to be
[1:52:45] getting from all the new construction
and all the new housing. I'm against
[1:52:49] this specific tax. Thank you.
[1:52:55] » Anyone else like to comment on this item
in the chambers?
[1:53:04] » Hi. Uh my name is Noah Bugby. I'm a
rising senior at Archie Williams. I was
[1:53:08] not planning on speaking, but something
I've heard a lot through my time living
[1:53:12] in San Rafel is that we have an
increasingly
[1:53:16] aging population, most of whom are the
people that own the homes. And basic
[1:53:21] economics says that this will
deincentivize selling your home or jag
[1:53:25] up the price, making it harder for the
younger residents that we desperately
[1:53:28] need to come in. So, I'm just curious if
the effects of that have been studied
[1:53:33] when we need a younger population. Thank
you. Any
[1:53:40] other comments in the chambers?
[1:53:45] Okay, I don't see anyone in the room. Is
there anyone online that would like to
[1:53:50] provide comments?
>> There are some hands raised. Just as a
[1:53:53] reminder, you can raise your hand using
star9 if you're calling in or you can
[1:53:56] use the raise hand feature on Zoom. And
uh I will be muting you at two minutes.
[1:54:01] I do see a few hands raised.
[1:54:08] Hi, my name is Phoebe Reyes. I live in
San Rafale in the Sun Valley
[1:54:11] neighborhood. I'm going to keep it
brief, but uh I um also work as a
[1:54:16] realtor and I highlight everything that
Jen was saying. Jen Feifer, who was the
[1:54:19] first to speak at the podium. Um it is
incredibly difficult to buy a house in
[1:54:25] Marin County. And I hear everything that
you're saying in terms of, oh, yes, all
[1:54:28] these fees are negotiable, but with the
years of experience I've had selling
[1:54:33] houses, I can promise you that these
costs are going to be uh the sellers
[1:54:38] will bear these transfer tax costs 99%
of the time. Um, it is already so
[1:54:44] expensive for sellers to even consider
selling the house. Yes, they're going to
[1:54:49] make some money, but I have a client
who's selling right now, and the only
[1:54:52] reason he's selling in San Rafale is
because he has to pay for $18,000 worth
[1:54:57] of um care for, you know, he's got
$8,000 for his wife for memory care plus
[1:55:02] the thousands of dollars he has to go
into for assisted living. And so when
[1:55:06] you look at these
transfer taxes, San Rafale is the only
[1:55:11] city in Marin County that offers these.
And I could see how you think it's a
[1:55:15] benefit in, you know, certain financial
aspects. I I appreciate everything that
[1:55:19] you put together, but really you you the
city council is approving so many new
[1:55:23] housing units. It's ridiculous. And then
to add the cost of like to add this
[1:55:30] extra transfer tax is I think you can
raise taxes or
[1:55:35] see these costs borne o over people who
are not just the sellers. You know,
[1:55:41] everyone's going to benefit from these
who live in San Rafale. And you know,
[1:55:44] from the from the community perspective,
getting buyers into San Rafale, they
[1:55:49] want Southern Marin. So, we need to have
incentives to benefit San Rafale. And
[1:55:54] that I don't think the transfer taxes is
the right answer. I think if we allow
[1:55:58] more businesses in downtown, make it
easier for things to open, we have lots
[1:56:02] of vacancies downtown, let's make it
easier for small businesses. I do not
[1:56:05] agree with this transfer tax increase.
Uh especially not at
[1:56:16] Hi. Good evening,
Mayor Kate. Good evening. And city
[1:56:21] council chief spiller, city general
manager. Um, I very much appreciate the
[1:56:29] aspect of this resolution that would pay
for the maintenance for the safe team.
[1:56:37] Uh, I deeply appreciate the Sanfell
Police Department and the work that I
[1:56:42] that they do in the downtown
neighborhood in which I live and the
[1:56:47] safe team which provides a different
type of support in particular for those
[1:56:53] who have mental health issues that can
compromise the safety of those who live
[1:56:59] in the neighborhood. Um, [clears throat]
also I was a little surprised by the
[1:57:05] survey results which said that uh many
of the respondents didn't think that
[1:57:12] safety and patrolling was an issue. But
then again um the the main issues happen
[1:57:20] in downtown San Rafale and only 2 to
3,000 of us live here. The other 57,000
[1:57:26] do live in the outskirts. So that
probably makes sense. So I just wanted
[1:57:32] to say
thank you very much for those of you who
[1:57:36] are in support of this resolution. I
feel deeply grateful for both um the
[1:57:43] safe team, the Sanfell PD for the hard
work they're doing and I appreciate the
[1:57:50] city council and the mayor's work as
well.
[1:58:04] Hi, this is Victoria Dwit and uh I'm
opposed to this increase in tax. Um, it
[1:58:11] might be worth noting that the UCLA
Center for Regional Policy Studies has
[1:58:16] cited unintended consequences resulting
from high property transfer tax,
[1:58:22] including
reduced turnover of higher price
[1:58:26] properties, which reduces property tax.
It impedes building new housing or
[1:58:32] improving struggling commercial property
where property tax revenue could be
[1:58:37] increased. It can slow revitalization
efforts and it reduces housing
[1:58:42] affordability. Another note is that
there's my understanding it's a state
[1:58:47] law
that cities and counties can charge $110
[1:58:53] per thousand for property transfer tax
which is what every other city and the
[1:58:59] county does in Marin. It's only because
Sanrell is a charter city that they can
[1:59:05] adopt an additional amount on top of the
$110.
[1:59:11] So the 1%, it's not just 1%, it's the 1%
plus 110 cents per thousand. Um,
[1:59:19] I think the increase is excessive and
ill- advised and I suggest the city do a
[1:59:24] more thorough assessment of other
sources of revenue. Even it means if it
[1:59:28] means that you get it from several
sources rather than just going for the
[1:59:32] big bang of, oh, let's just hit the
property transfer tax. We get $6
[1:59:37] million. Let's go for that. Um, I
suggest doing an overall assessment of
[1:59:42] all revenue. Thank you.
[1:59:53] Good evening. My name is Grace Scarity.
I live in Terinda and I am very much
[1:59:59] opposed to this text. I also um sent an
email a little bit late uh today, but
[2:00:08] you'll see it in the record. Um I think
the city needs to do a lot more um
[2:00:18] statistical analysis and research
um regarding what other cities are
[2:00:24] doing. Um
as uh Victoria Dwit just mentioned uh we
[2:00:32] have an already excessive uh charge in
San Rafale. Um, and all the alternatives
[2:00:39] just seem to be uh increased taxes,
increased taxes. What about savings? And
[2:00:45] what about joining with other cities? I
mean, why do we have to have all our own
[2:00:52] services and everything? Um, it's it's
just mind-boggling to me. Um the J had a
[2:01:00] very good opinion article recently about
that and u the consolidation of services
[2:01:07] and how much uh savings that would lead.
But then of course um cities uh lose
[2:01:15] city employees lose very well- paid jobs
and uh everyone else loses power and
[2:01:22] they're fifing them. So, uh I urge you
to look at other savings opportunities
[2:01:30] uh or even other
uh incremental opportunities that are
[2:01:36] not always about taxing and taxing the
residents. And you may want to think
[2:01:43] about increasing taxes on all these
housing developments that are going up
[2:01:49] and having them take care of the roads
much more. Thank you.
[2:02:02] » Hi. Hi there. My name is Chris Backer
and I'm a resident in downtown San
[2:02:06] Rafale. Um, Council Member Eli Hill is
my member and I also am a realtor, been
[2:02:12] practicing here for 13 years. And I just
wanted to comment that um, a couple of
[2:02:16] things that I've noticed when when the
commentary relates to these this money
[2:02:22] going to the general fund and not having
an active way of tracking where the
[2:02:26] money goes. That's concerning to me on
multiple levels because we often look at
[2:02:31] Sanfal being a place that already has a
tax on the books. And when we've talked
[2:02:36] to the city in various in uh instances
about maybe talking about a transfer
[2:02:41] tax, the response is not really you
haven't been able to track the money a
[2:02:46] lot. So now they're coming back, you're
coming back for a 5x on that number and
[2:02:50] the tracking isn't really there is
pretty concerning even with citizen
[2:02:54] oversight. I also want to echo some of
the other comments about maybe we should
[2:02:59] all bear this together because if you're
just relying on a couple of transfers of
[2:03:03] real property, it's just we're not
really in it together. And I I really
[2:03:07] applaud all the council here for asking
really great questions and being
[2:03:11] intelligent on this. So, I don't really
want to belabor that point cuz I think
[2:03:14] you are looking at this very
holistically and just going at a small
[2:03:19] group of people just doesn't seem like a
very intelligent way to try to fund, you
[2:03:25] know, the services. And then lastly, you
was brought up earlier about the elderly
[2:03:29] population. A lot of people who are
selling, I'm working with someone right
[2:03:32] now. I have to sit there and talk to
them about what the current rate is and
[2:03:35] how much money that is. Um, and then I
explain to them that there's a city
[2:03:40] resale report and they say, "What's
that?" And I say, "Well, you pay the
[2:03:43] city $363 to come in and look at what
you've done to your house." And then
[2:03:47] that adds up to more permit fees. And
now I have to talk to them about quad
[2:03:53] quintupling their transfer tax. It
starts to add up and that's why people
[2:03:57] actually aren't moving when those are
the population we need to get out of
[2:04:01] their homes. Thank you for your
consideration.
[2:04:08] I see no more hands raised, but I'll
give everyone just a moment. Okay.
[2:04:12] » Okay. I do see another hand.
>> Oh, okay.
[2:04:15] » I see two names on here. If there are
two people in the same space and you
[2:04:19] both want to provide comment, please let
us know so I don't mute you.
[2:04:33] You can press star six to unmute.
[2:04:43] » Brian,
>> sorry I was muted. Can you hear me now?
[2:04:48] » Yes.
>> Hi, uh, Brian Walsh, West End. I agree
[2:04:51] with all the comments made and I would
appreciate it if you do put this to a
[2:04:54] vote so you can hear what the rest of
the community has to say on this and I
[2:04:57] oppose it. Thank you very much.
[2:05:04] » I see no other hand raised. This is the
last call.
[2:05:10] » I see no hand raised.
>> Okay. Thank you. We'll close the public
[2:05:13] comment on this item. uh we received
some great input but I heard two
[2:05:17] questions that I think are worth
commenting or uh providing information
[2:05:20] on. One is uh and it kind of goes to the
industry conversation but the effect on
[2:05:26] any new homeowners um and then the
second one was housing units are coming
[2:05:31] online and there was in inference or
implication that there'll be lots of
[2:05:36] money coming with that those units as
well. So maybe you could speak to that.
[2:05:43] » Okay. Um so I'll try to address the
questions related to that second uh
[2:05:49] question which is
um
[2:05:53] sense that we're not taking into account
all the new housing and the revenue
[2:05:59] that's going to come from that. Um, so
this actually gets to that conversation
[2:06:05] we were talking about, which is how much
revenue does the city actually receive
[2:06:11] from um any new development? Now,
granted, there's property tax and if
[2:06:15] there's commercial industrial, there's
sales tax multipliers. But in general,
[2:06:21] um, for most cities in California and
for our quote unquote low property tax
[2:06:27] cities in that 12% range, um, generally
speaking, the cost to provide the, um,
[2:06:36] services that the new uh, development
brings in terms of population and folks
[2:06:43] to the city. um generally does not
actually cover the incremental costs. So
[2:06:49] I would just say simply that for the
most part when we're looking at new
[2:06:55] development and we're looking at impact
fees so that they're paying their fair
[2:06:59] share, we're looking at potentially
establishing uh financing districts so
[2:07:04] that new developments generate
additional revenue. Um, it's not to
[2:07:09] cover the deficiencies and the gaps that
we have in our current
[2:07:15] budget math to deal with the uh costs
and the service demands of our existing
[2:07:20] population. We're challenged to just try
to help make sure that new development
[2:07:27] doesn't make that problem worse by
covering their cost. And happy to have
[2:07:34] we'll probably have more conversations
about it. The exception to that is, you
[2:07:38] know, retail, um, at least back in the
day. But retail generally generates more
[2:07:44] revenue than the cost. Um, but for, um,
housing, unless you're looking at three,
[2:07:52] four, five million
um, housing units, that revenue isn't
[2:07:57] going to cover the cost of services,
affordable housing, significant uh,
[2:08:01] funding gaps. And so I would just submit
that looking to development and revenue
[2:08:08] from new development to help address
some of these core areas of underfunding
[2:08:13] is not um realistic or even even
possible.
[2:08:19] Um
>> I don't know if you want to take a stab
[2:08:22] at the effect on new homeowners, but I I
I will say that we did receive a letter
[2:08:26] from the Marin um Association of
Realators that also made a similar
[2:08:30] assertion. So, I definitely think
industry um philosophy or approach uh
[2:08:37] does say that there can be a negative
impact. So, I'll just leave it at that
[2:08:41] » and I I wouldn't dispute that and there
are folks that understand that better. I
[2:08:44] would just say that there are lots of
costs associated with the purchase and
[2:08:48] the sale of the property just like
there's a lot of costs on developers and
[2:08:52] so you know I'm not surprised by you
know developers that are saying our fees
[2:08:57] are making projects infeasible and that
any tax on the real estate makes the you
[2:09:02] know transaction more challenging but um
there's a lot that goes into that. Um, I
[2:09:10] would say, and I'm going to probably get
in trouble for saying this, but I'm
[2:09:13] going to say that because folks who live
here love living here, and there are
[2:09:17] folks that are, you know, would love to
be able to relocate to San Rafale. Um,
[2:09:22] part of the reason, um, why our property
values are where they're at and what the
[2:09:28] market demands for properties is because
of the quality of life and the level of
[2:09:33] service that we can provide in this
community. And so there is a at least a
[2:09:37] connection between our ability to
maintain that um actually supports
[2:09:41] ongoing um value in ownership in the
community.
[2:09:46] » Thank you for that. Um any additional
questions? Do you have a question, Vice
[2:09:51] Mayor?
>> No, but I also heard the question around
[2:09:55] other options for revenue generation.
[2:10:03] Um yes, I heard that too. Um so a
comment that I would make on that is um
[2:10:09] kind of yes and yes, which is um by no
stretch would uh any semblance of
[2:10:17] revenue that would be generated by this
um solve the city's financial problems.
[2:10:24] Uh, I will say that we're not looking at
this to deal with our short-term budget
[2:10:28] structural um that operating deficits
because that we have to address. This is
[2:10:33] really where are there areas that we
need to be putting more dollars in. Um,
[2:10:38] so it's going to be a combination of
revenue measures and I would submit um
[2:10:44] that uh a property transfer tax increase
would be one of the potential uh revenue
[2:10:51] areas. We've been discussing and looking
at others including um maybe trying to
[2:10:55] get back a little bit more of the um
hotel assessment that is being levied on
[2:11:01] visitors into the city so that the city
could retain some of that. But um I'm
[2:11:06] glad you reminded me what's what's
really important is that not only is one
[2:11:12] revenue measure not the beall endall
solution because we have to look at all
[2:11:17] of them, but I would submit that just
revenue enhancements isn't the answer.
[2:11:22] It can't be because we're never going to
be out of trying to um keep up with the
[2:11:28] costs and the demands for services by
just natural revenue growth are always
[2:11:34] going back to the voters. It's a
combination of um being strategic about
[2:11:39] the appropriate revenues to generate.
It's about what services and what
[2:11:44] service levels we can and can't afford.
And there's some tradeoffs there. And in
[2:11:48] some jurisdictions, knock on wood,
there's actually a discussion about what
[2:11:52] services we can and can't provide. Um,
and so, um, managing costs,
[2:11:59] ensuring that the money we have is spent
on the most important things, and then
[2:12:05] trying to maximize and diversify the
revenue that we do bring to that
[2:12:08] conversation is just one part of the
long-term sustainable financial picture
[2:12:15] for any city. Any
additional questions from the council?
[2:12:22] So, um, I'll open up to comment and just
to have you clarify that the action
[2:12:26] before the city council is to whether or
not to put it before the voters so they
[2:12:30] can weigh in on this issue. So, that's
the action.
[2:12:35] » That is correct.
>> Okay. I just want to clarify to place
[2:12:37] the question before the electorate at
the November 26 election. And just
[2:12:43] wanted to clarify because I know in all
of this and we might have started to
[2:12:46] lose that sight thinking that we are
actually taking the action to increase
[2:12:49] it or not but it would be before the
voters if it were to pass this evening
[2:12:53] to put on the ballot. Um I will start
with vice mayor your comments.
[2:12:57] » Great. Thank you. So um I have been
doing my notes and listening and and we
[2:13:02] did get quite a few letters so I
appreciate that. Um so a bit of a
[2:13:06] rhetorical question is how quickly can
we spend $6 million? and having gone
[2:13:12] through the budget process and for a
number of years. That's $6 million goes
[2:13:16] by very very quickly. Um local control
is meaningful only when it's ex
[2:13:21] exercised transparently and with public
consent and that is exactly what we're
[2:13:26] trying you know we are doing here is to
with this process to bring it forward.
[2:13:31] Um I definitely support bringing it
forward to the public for the ballot. Um
[2:13:38] the measure is expected to generate
approximately six million in new annual
[2:13:42] revenue and that really only represents
a very very small percentage of our
[2:13:46] entire budget um and of our general
fund. So the it's you know the way we're
[2:13:52] looking at it right now we have so many
critical services um between public
[2:13:58] service a police fire streets parks and
other daily operations. We want to keep
[2:14:03] those going as strong as possible and we
need to keep those going for our
[2:14:07] community. Um it's definitely not a
slush fund. Uh it's it's about really
[2:14:13] keeping um that on as well as we know we
have looming infrastructure needs.
[2:14:19] I do want to mention that we have we do
I want to make sure that everyone
[2:14:23] understands we have our San Rafll
property tax transfer and we also have a
[2:14:28] county transfer tax. But the county
transfer tax funds does not directly
[2:14:33] come to San Rafale as in within our
spending being able to manage directly.
[2:14:39] So those go for county services as well
as support of the entire community. So
[2:14:44] that this is an opportunity for us
within our toolbox of of a opportunity
[2:14:50] to raise additional revenue. Um consider
it sort of our bake sale. Um but much
[2:14:56] more important than that because it is
something that we do need the support of
[2:15:01] the voters to support us on that. Um the
staff report, thank you, really framed
[2:15:08] the need and it's been an ongoing
discussion over many many years
[2:15:13] basically of of their rising service
demands and infrastructure needs and
[2:15:19] costs that are actually outpacing
traditional revenue growth. revenue
[2:15:23] growth these days is not the, you know,
mortar, the stores, the retail, what
[2:15:28] we're seeing. It's it's really changed.
Um, and so I think that using this tool
[2:15:35] at this time and putting it to the
voters is super important. Um,
[2:15:42] and that's a local authority that we
have and it's a gift that we have uh to
[2:15:47] to address these local needs. We're
asking the voters, not the council
[2:15:51] alone, to decide whether this is the
right approach. Being a charter city
[2:15:55] gives us the ability to consider this
option. It does not eliminate
[2:15:59] accountability. There was a question
around accountability
[2:16:03] um and and that is built into the
proposed measure um to ha to ensure that
[2:16:10] that accountability is there. It still
requires voter approval, public
[2:16:14] disclosure, annual audits, and
independent oversight. Every city has to
[2:16:18] evaluate the revenue tools legally
available. Um, and San Rafll's charter
[2:16:24] gives us this option and [music] it's
our responsibility to determine whether
[2:16:27] it is fair, necessary, and accountable
and then let the voters decide. And I
[2:16:31] hope that we're able to move that
forward and and look to the voters to
[2:16:35] get their um support.
>> Thank you.
[2:16:39] » Thank you, Council Member Bushie.
>> Well, raising taxes is never popular.
[2:16:45] um it's not something we like to do. Um
however, as we discussed at Great Lakes,
[2:16:51] the unique and complicated history of
what has happened with property taxes
[2:16:58] u distinguished from this real estate
transfer tax.
[2:17:03] um have put us in a position where much
of the funds that the check that each of
[2:17:11] us write uh twice a year, very little of
it stays in San Rafale instead goes to
[2:17:17] the county, putting us at a disadvantage
um and requiring that the city of San
[2:17:22] Rafale find other ways to fund necessary
services that everyone depends on. this
[2:17:29] prop this real estate transfer tax is
one is uniquely available to San Rafll
[2:17:37] um amongst the cities although as um the
vice mayor points out the county has one
[2:17:43] as well that actually is more than um
than ours um and we we will become
[2:17:52] closely aligned um with with the county
but it will give us a another avenue
[2:17:58] venue to um bring some equalization.
That's probably a bad word to use when
[2:18:03] I'm talking about taxes, but to another
source of revenue um for our needed
[2:18:08] services um in the context of the
relatively low amount of actual property
[2:18:16] taxes that stay in San Rafale. So, for
that reason, um, and for the many many,
[2:18:23] um, hearings and public meetings that
we've been through on all of the topics
[2:18:28] in the the list of the things that our
constituents want. This is one way that
[2:18:34] we can um increase the funding available
for those um, needed projects um, and
[2:18:41] services. And so, therefore, I support
bringing this measure to the voters.
[2:18:48] Thank you, Council Member Hill.
>> Thank you, Mayor Kate. Uh, building on
[2:18:52] my colleagues uh existing comments, I
would underscore a couple of things.
[2:18:57] First, just that every letter that uh
constituents wrote in about the impacts
[2:19:02] and people's opposition to this, this
does create impact to people's
[2:19:06] livelihoods and and and does have an
impact on how people buy and sell. And
[2:19:13] that said, wait against our unfunded
needs. um as well as what I would
[2:19:19] characterize as sufficient analysis by
staff looking at other municipalities
[2:19:23] noting that the city of San Rafale is a
charter city and can uniquely take um be
[2:19:29] able to integrate this tax is something
that other municipalities have examined
[2:19:33] as well. Most recently Salo these these
this is why municipalities contemplate
[2:19:38] converting from uh general law over to a
a charter city. the property tax
[2:19:45] allocation is as has already been
elaborated upon prop 13 uh I will just
[2:19:51] say from this dis could use for some
reform beyond just this moment prop 13
[2:19:56] has a lot of impacts on the state of
California uh I know it's difficult for
[2:20:01] anybody in the assembly or senate to
consider it but from this das I hope
[2:20:05] that folks will contemplate that this is
one of the impacts of prop 13 uh I do
[2:20:10] support that this would go to the voter
for consideration based on the survey uh
[2:20:17] and the likely revenue that it would uh
generate. I also would like to to the
[2:20:23] degree possible and I appreciated your
testimony uh city manager that the voter
[2:20:28] approved tax oversight committee can't
readily and very easily say well this
[2:20:32] exact dollar went to this exact
allocation to the degree possible. I
[2:20:35] hope that there's a way that we can at
least start to create the ability for
[2:20:40] that committee to uh assess that. Thank
you.
[2:20:44] » Thank you. Great comments. um appreciate
staff for all the work that you've done
[2:20:49] and Curtis, I know you're listening
online for doing the voter polling. I
[2:20:54] appreciated seeing that slide that shows
what are the key issues and the key
[2:20:58] services that our community wants and
they've pretty much been similar over
[2:21:02] the last decade of what we want and
more. And uh the reality is we have the
[2:21:07] world that we want to live in and the
world that we do live in. And the
[2:21:10] pragmatic reality is uh we have many
unfunded needs. We tal heard talked
[2:21:16] about pavement. We talked about the safe
team. So I no one disputes that the need
[2:21:20] is there and we even heard that from the
comments uh from the public and thank
[2:21:24] you for the letters as well as folks
that called and participated today. And
[2:21:28] so what is the tool? What is the
mechanism to look at revenue
[2:21:31] enhancements? If you've been coming to
our meetings, you know that for all the
[2:21:35] the financial discussions we've been
having, we've been looking at revenue
[2:21:38] enhancements which include tax measures.
And I can assure you, we are continuing
[2:21:42] to go after all the grants that are out
there for the safe team or for uh
[2:21:47] matching grants for infrastructure
improvements. None of that's going to
[2:21:50] stop. That's all a given. And in order
to have the type of community we want
[2:21:55] with the type of love and care that we
wanted to see, um I I want to put that
[2:22:00] tradeoff before our voters because it is
a trade-off. The impact of this fee,
[2:22:04] Council Member Hill said that very well.
There is an impact and we understand it.
[2:22:08] And the trade-off is the benefit that it
brings the community. I want to see what
[2:22:12] the voters have to say uh about that and
I hope that they support it. Uh but
[2:22:16] again, that will be a conversation that
we'll have in the community. So, um
[2:22:20] thank you all. I will now uh entertain a
motion on this item, please.
[2:22:27] I'll make the motion.
[2:22:31] Uh recommended action. adopt the
resolution calling for a general
[2:22:35] municipal election on November 3rd, 2026
for the purpose of submitting to the
[2:22:39] qualified electors of the city a measure
to modify chapter 3.2 322 of the San
[2:22:46] Rafale municipal code to increase the
real property transfer tax rate and add
[2:22:50] an oversight provision. authorizing and
requesting that the county of Marin
[2:22:55] consolidate and conduct the election,
directing the city attorney to prepare
[2:22:59] an impartial analysis and authorizing
Mayor Kate and Council Member Bushy to
[2:23:03] file a valid argument and rebuttal for
the measure.
[2:23:06] » Thank you. Is there a second?
>> Second.
[2:23:08] » Moved and seconded. Roll call, please.
>> Council member Bushy,
[2:23:12] » I.
>> Council member Hill,
[2:23:13] » I.
>> Vice Mayor Curts,
[2:23:14] » I. Mayor Kate,
>> I. That motion carries 40. Thank you.
[2:23:18] The next item on our agenda this
evening, switching gears literally, is a
[2:23:23] change in speed limit on 18 Sanfell
Roadway segments.
[2:23:29] I will turn this over to staff.
[2:24:04] Good evening, city council members, um,
uh, Mayor Kate and city staff and
[2:24:09] members of the public. Uh my name is
Kelly and I'm a traffic engineering
[2:24:13] technician with the city of centerfell
department of public works. I'm joined
[2:24:16] today with our consultant for this
project, Jimmy. He is a
[2:24:21] uh transportation engineer and planner
with parametrics. Um we're here tonight
[2:24:25] to present on the change in speed limit
on 18fell roadway segments. Um so to
[2:24:32] provide a little bit of context on where
how we've gotten here. Um, so one of the
[2:24:37] objectives in the city's work plan is to
implement new traffic safety laws. And
[2:24:42] as a part of this effort, we've been
we're continuing to implement uh
[2:24:47] assembly California assembly bill 43 or
AB43 for short. Um, which gives cities
[2:24:53] the ability to reduce speed limits on
roadways as they meet the criteria set
[2:24:58] forth in AB43.
Um, so we have presented previously
[2:25:02] about a year and a half ago on this
effort. Um and as a part of that effort,
[2:25:07] we call it phase one now. Um we reduce
the speed limit in downtown San Rafll on
[2:25:12] certain roadways such as Fourth, Fifth,
Mission, and the North South Crossroads
[2:25:18] between those. Um so those all saw a
reduction in speed limit from 25 mph to
[2:25:23] 20 m hour. And this was to create a more
continuous 20 mph uh downtown Sanfel.
[2:25:30] And as we were going through this phase
one effort, we saw a lot of community
[2:25:35] input and feedback on interest in
expanding this reduction in speed limits
[2:25:39] to roadways outside of downtown Sanfell.
Um so through city or city staff
[2:25:45] evaluation and then consideration of
community input, we have put together a
[2:25:50] list of phase 2 locations that would all
see a 5 mile per hour reduction in their
[2:25:56] existing speed limits. So, I'm going to
pass it over to Jimmy who will provide a
[2:25:59] little more information on the AB43
criteria and then also the phase 2
[2:26:05] locations. Thank you.
[2:26:09] » Good evening, uh, council members, Mayor
Kate, thank you. It's an honor to
[2:26:14] present again on speed limits in San
Rafll. I know we've heard this
[2:26:18] presentation before. I do want to do
just a little bit of review of speed
[2:26:23] limits and how they come to be. We'll
talk about, as Kelly mentions, what
[2:26:27] we're now calling phase one and phase
two of this project and what some of the
[2:26:32] next steps are coming forward.
[2:26:36] Uh, if we'll remember some of what we
talked about a year and a half ago, most
[2:26:42] people are surprised to find out that
speed limits aren't necessarily set by
[2:26:48] cities. We can't prescribe what we think
is the best speed for a vehicle to
[2:26:53] travel and then set a speed limit. The
California Vehicle Code describes two
[2:26:58] situations of how speed limits can come
to be. On the left, you'll see primma
[2:27:02] fascia speed limits, which means at face
at uh bespoke speed limits are are
[2:27:09] presumed as 25 miles an hour on most
residential local streets. So, you'll
[2:27:14] see a picture on the left here of San
Rafale. On all other roadways, speed
[2:27:20] limits are set by an engineering and
traffic survey. This is a study of
[2:27:25] speeds and other roadway characteristics
that must be performed by a traffic
[2:27:29] engineer. And the way the speed limits
are determined is based on the 85th
[2:27:35] percentile speed. And another way that
we think of 85th percentile is the speed
[2:27:39] at which 15% of vehicles travel at or
above. So in essence, as per the
[2:27:45] California Vehicle Code, speed limits
have always been set by the fastest
[2:27:49] portion of drivers traveling the
roadway.
[2:27:53] This leads us to AB43. As of 2024, all
provisions of AB43 went into effect and
[2:28:00] for the first time in California.
Now, jurisdictions have to do two
[2:28:06] additional things. They can take they
have to take into account the presence
[2:28:09] of vulnerable roadway users that is
children, seniors, persons with
[2:28:14] disabilities, the unhoused when
establishing speed limits and the
[2:28:18] proximity of those users to these
roadways.
[2:28:21] Uh and importantly, AB43 now permits
jurisdictions to reduce speed limits by
[2:28:27] an additional 5 miles an hour in certain
areas if these roadways meet a number of
[2:28:33] characteristics. Uh so cities still
cannot set their own speed limits, but
[2:28:38] what AB43 provides is in some situations
an additional 5 miles an hour reduction
[2:28:44] from what would have otherwise been the
recommended speed limit.
[2:28:49] Also in 2024, Sanfell adopted its local
road safety plan. One of the
[2:28:54] recommendations from the LRSP was to
consider lowering speed limits in
[2:28:59] compliance with AB43.
The LRSP
[2:29:03] sets forth what we now call the high
collision network. And as you'll see,
[2:29:07] this network in San Rafale, where the
most crashes occur, uh is centered on
[2:29:14] downtown.
And the primary collision factor of the
[2:29:19] greatest number of crashes in San Rafale
is due to high speed.
[2:29:24] One other reason why we always take
speed limits seriously and the speed at
[2:29:30] which uh vehicles are traveling on the
roadway is because this this span
[2:29:35] between 20 and 40 miles an hour really
greatly depend greatly drives the
[2:29:41] outcome of people that are involved in
collisions. This graph shows out of
[2:29:47] pedestrians that are hit with a vehicle
traveling 20 miles an hour, there's a
[2:29:51] 10% chance that that results in a
fatality. But if that vehicle is
[2:29:55] traveling at 40 miles an hour, the
chance of fatality increases greatly to
[2:30:00] 80%. And so we take great care in
thinking about the traveled speeds
[2:30:05] within this band.
[2:30:09] As you may remember, uh, we established
a 20 mph zone largely throughout
[2:30:14] downtown about a year and a half ago,
adopted by council in February 2025.
[2:30:20] This came in conjunction with another
requirement in the California Vehicle
[2:30:24] Code to update an ENTS and update speed
limit validation every seven years.
[2:30:31] And now, as a result of uh broadly
supportive feedback, we are evaluating
[2:30:37] and presenting the results of this
further evaluation of roadways on other
[2:30:41] roadways uh other areas outside of
downtown.
[2:30:46] A quick overview on the top band here is
the timeline that phase one uh was
[2:30:53] enacted in the ordinance for downtown
speed limits in the spring of 2025. in
[2:30:59] phase two is coming alongside just
afterwards
[2:31:03] after uh the adoption of an ordinance
and installation of signage. There's a
[2:31:08] required 30-day warning period where
citations are not given yet and then
[2:31:13] after that warning period citations can
be valid. The full implementation of
[2:31:19] both phase one and two signage striping
education and evaluation phases is yet
[2:31:26] to come in the coming months.
[2:31:30] Previously, I presented a slide showing
some other Bay Area uh newsworthy
[2:31:37] moments, installation of reduced speed
limits from neighboring jurisdictions.
[2:31:42] And now, proudly, we have a picture here
of San Rafale here on Mission Avenue
[2:31:47] just adjacent to where we are tonight,
but other 20 mph signs have gone up in
[2:31:52] downtown.
And then to remind ourselves of what we
[2:31:59] have taken into account both in phase
one and in phase two of this evaluation,
[2:32:03] we've looked at the proximity of
roadways to businesses. We've looked at
[2:32:08] previously adopted speed limits over the
years, not just the current established
[2:32:13] speed limit. For each roadway evaluated,
we've done a crash history analysis.
[2:32:18] We've looked also at the presence of
vulnerable roadway users in proximity to
[2:32:23] these roadways. And we've also taken
into account
[2:32:28] future infrastructure projects, existing
infrastructure projects, as well as
[2:32:33] cclick fix, other public input, and then
done this in consultation with city
[2:32:38] staff and the police department.
So here on this map, we're here to
[2:32:43] display the draft results of phase two.
Of course, roadways outside of downtown.
[2:32:48] We've identified 18 roadway segments
that are eligible for an additional five
[2:32:54] mile an hour reduction from their
current established speed limit. And
[2:32:58] again, I want to emphasize this isn't us
going out and just choosing roadways and
[2:33:04] saying that we can set speed limits.
There is a very fixed set of criteria
[2:33:07] that roadways have to meet and match
existing measured travel speeds in order
[2:33:13] for them to be eligible for this
additional 5 mph reduction. But you'll
[2:33:18] see that they are scattered on all sides
of downtown. Less roadways meet the
[2:33:24] criteria for qualification north of
downtown. But each one of these
[2:33:28] recommended speed limits does represent
a 5 mph reduction from the existing
[2:33:33] speed limit. A full list of the speed
limits are included here on this slide
[2:33:38] and the extents from those roadway
segments upon which we're recommending
[2:33:43] them for adoption. And then finally,
we'd also like to mention we have the
[2:33:49] city has hosted a public website since
October of 2024. It does have an online
[2:33:54] input form. This phase two of public
engagement has been presented to the
[2:34:01] bicycle and pedestrian advisory
committee as well as the police advisory
[2:34:05] and accountability committee. These
draft results have been adjusted and
[2:34:10] updated to reflect input from both of
those bodies.
[2:34:16] So to talk about next steps, this um
presentation is being brought tonight.
[2:34:23] Roadways can be reduced by 5 m an hour
as per AB43 with the adoption of an
[2:34:32] ordinance or resolution. So that is also
bring being brought to council.
[2:34:38] And then going forward, the city looks
to undertake, in addition to installing
[2:34:42] signage and striping and a 30-day
warning period prior to issuing
[2:34:47] citations, uh, steps to inform and
educate the public on speed limit
[2:34:52] reductions, as well as putting a plan in
place for evaluating effectiveness of
[2:34:57] reducing speed limits themselves.
[2:35:04] With that, we'll conclude and open it up
for questions.
[2:35:07] Thank you, Kelly. Thank you, Jimmy. I'm
sure we have some questions. I'll start
[2:35:11] with the vice mayor. Go ahead.
>> Thank you. Just one quick question as
[2:35:14] around I remember years ago when I was
on the school board, there was a
[2:35:18] situation where I believe it was on
Point San Pedro, we actually the between
[2:35:23] the school district and the city
increased the speed limit. Um, and I
[2:35:27] remember there was a lot of conversation
that it just did not seem like a
[2:35:32] reasonable or rational approach. And I
was wondering if you could describe when
[2:35:36] that would happen and and if you
anticipate there would ever be a
[2:35:39] situation these days that we would
actually increase the speed limit.
[2:35:46] » Yeah, happy to address that question and
thank you for bringing this up. There is
[2:35:50] a phenomenon that is known in traffic
engineering circles called speed creep.
[2:35:56] And it's actually quite rational of a
conclusion when speed limits are set
[2:36:04] based on the fastest trunch of traveling
motorists. And when speed limits are
[2:36:09] required to be updated every seven
years, when you raise the speed limits,
[2:36:13] people then have leeway to travel
faster. the next cycle comes around and
[2:36:18] you measure speeds again and people are
traveling faster and so hence the
[2:36:22] recommended speed limit has to be
increased and that phenomena of speed
[2:36:26] creep has been recognized and was also
addressed in AB43.
[2:36:32] One of the provisions also allows
in situations where you would recommend
[2:36:38] raising the speed limit to retain the
existing speed limit. And so in the
[2:36:43] future, this difficult conversation
would have another, uh, another avenue,
[2:36:49] pun intended, to for resolution.
>> Great. Thank you. Thank you, uh, Council
[2:36:55] Member Hill. Questions?
>> Thank you, Mayor Kate.
[2:36:58] » Yes. Thank you, Jimmy, for coming back
to us. This is about a year and a half
[2:37:01] ago that we had you before us, and, uh,
I appreciate you being here again, uh,
[2:37:05] to bring in phase two. uh since we're
talking about AB 43 U and you did a
[2:37:11] great job I think explaining how we got
here but I can't tell you the number of
[2:37:15] times I go in front of the community and
they're like why can't you just lower
[2:37:18] the speed limit so I appreciate your
explanation of it. My question um is on
[2:37:24] the number of times that we have
periodically we have to do this uh ENTS
[2:37:30] uh study just to hold these um these
speeds. So it sounds like because we did
[2:37:35] phase one and phase two staggered, would
we conduct two ENTS studies in about
[2:37:41] seven years or would we do it all at one
shot maybe um so we don't have to keep
[2:37:45] redoing them over and over again
staggered?
[2:37:50] » Yeah, that's a great question. It is
easiest for cities to perform an ENTS
[2:37:55] for all roadways within their
jurisdiction all at the same time and
[2:37:59] with the same cadence. Not every city
does it that way. Um, but one of the
[2:38:03] other advantages of AB43 is the
seven-year requirement for recycling
[2:38:10] your ENTS's now has a provision where
that can be lengthened to 14 years and
[2:38:15] and so um kind of arresting the very
quick cadence was another rationale of
[2:38:23] AB43. If a speed limit is rational, then
it can stand for a longer period of
[2:38:29] time, as long as there are no other
uh triggers for re-evaluating speed
[2:38:36] limits, new developments or different
land uses that have changed the roadway
[2:38:39] characteristics. If it all remains the
same, uh that validity can be extended
[2:38:43] longer than in the past.
>> Thank you, Jimmy. Uh my other question
[2:38:47] is on enforcement. This is a question I
get from the community a lot. Um, I
[2:38:53] would appreciate and maybe it's not it's
probably not for you, Jimmy. It's
[2:38:56] probably for Oh, thank you, Chief. I see
Chief Spiller, uh, coming down from the
[2:39:00] gallery. Uh, my question as you as you
come down, Chief, is um, as we
[2:39:04] contemplate not just this, but just
generally, could you share where we are
[2:39:08] with our traffic pool and and how, uh,
traffic enforcement might be rolled out
[2:39:12] and how it operates generally?
>> Absolutely. So, we um our traffic uh
[2:39:18] officers, our designated traffic
officers are assigned to respond to
[2:39:22] community complaints as well as uh
documented areas of injury collisions.
[2:39:26] That that's the primary driver of the
designated traffic officers. All of the
[2:39:32] police officers that work a beat or have
patrol responsibilities are also able
[2:39:37] and responsible for traffic enforcement
in their geographic area. So, um, you
[2:39:43] know, when we respond to community
complaints, the traffic sergeant just
[2:39:46] assigns those complaints to the traffic
team and that team, those resources eb
[2:39:51] and flow depending on our staffing
reality. Um, and then as you all know,
[2:39:59] our work plan is very uh specifically
directed toward changing driving
[2:40:04] behavior and um um increasing traffic
safety through enforcement engineering
[2:40:12] with partnering with engineering and uh
education to the community. So, it's a
[2:40:16] multi-pronged approach. Uh but
enforcement happens both at the beat
[2:40:20] officer level, the traffic directed
traffic officer level um throughout all
[2:40:25] of the shifts 247 365.
>> That's super helpful. Thank you very
[2:40:30] much.
[2:40:33] » Council member Bushy, any questions?
>> No questions.
[2:40:36] » Okay. Um I just had one and actually the
chief already answered the question that
[2:40:40] I had because enforcement is really
critical. So thank you council member
[2:40:42] Hill for asking that. Um Jimmy, you'd
said in your presentation about the last
[2:40:48] phase or in that uh project timeline is
around effectiveness and that you would
[2:40:53] be looking at what are the metrics to
show that whether these are effective or
[2:40:57] not. Ult we're doing this because we
need to reduce our KSI which is um the
[2:41:02] acronym for people that are fatalities
are seriously injured in our community.
[2:41:06] So, I'm wondering or hoping that that
metric would actually look at those that
[2:41:14] data. Um, and I didn't hear you say
that, but we we know that that data is
[2:41:18] what drives I know we look at it at TAM
and we're the county marine ser like
[2:41:23] number one in terms of those numbers and
that's not a good thing to be number one
[2:41:26] in because it shows that we have high
incident. So, could you speak to how you
[2:41:30] would be looking at utilizing that data
with this information? I I I don't know
[2:41:35] what that looks like, but I think that
is our ultimate goal here.
[2:41:40] » Yeah, certainly the uh LRSP
does a great job of describing, let's
[2:41:46] say, a prior condition to speed limit
reductions. And one of the uh nice
[2:41:51] things about having so many roadway
segments where speed limits are
[2:41:55] recommended for reduction is that you'll
have a suite of streets where nothing
[2:42:01] was changed except for speed limits. And
you can do a before and after of crash
[2:42:06] results. Uh you can also do a before and
after of measured speeds because the
[2:42:10] next time we come around and do an ENTS,
we would take the same speed survey with
[2:42:15] the same methodology. And you can do
that for roads that receive no treatment
[2:42:21] but speed reduction. You could also
compare that to the effectiveness of
[2:42:23] roads that reduce their speed limits in
addition to other infrastructure
[2:42:27] improvements or traffic calming
measures. And so, um, I don't mean to
[2:42:31] lay out exactly what that evaluation
should include or how it will be
[2:42:36] conducted or when, but there there will
be plenty of data to be able to utilize.
[2:42:39] » I see Director Miller coming down
because the other part about that is
[2:42:42] when we could actually start to when
will this have been in place long enough
[2:42:46] to start to look at some behavior
change.
[2:42:49] » Yeah. something not directly involved
with AB43, but uh we actually just
[2:42:55] applied for a grant for safe streets for
all with the transportation authority of
[2:42:58] Marin in order to update the local road
safety plan. So as if we get that grant,
[2:43:04] we would actually do more studies to
analyze the collision history in the
[2:43:08] next couple years. So we would have an
updated data point, okay, from the local
[2:43:12] road safety plan. have to be strategic
on how we want to do it as a city like
[2:43:17] because if if we're doing with local
road safety plan with TAM then maybe we
[2:43:22] wait a few more years to do it on our
own with our updated ENTS.
[2:43:28] » Okay. No, that's helpful because we want
the data. We're going to get data and we
[2:43:31] want to make sure that um well that
we're looking at and analyzing it see
[2:43:36] what the effect is in the real world.
Okay. I don't see any other questions at
[2:43:40] this point. So, I will open up public
comment on this item. If you're in the
[2:43:44] chambers and would like to comment, now
is your opportunity. And you're welcome,
[2:43:47] but not required to say your name and
what part of Summerfell you live in.
[2:43:51] » Good evening again. Daniel Alm speaking
through Western Neighborhood Association
[2:43:55] board. Uh we are excited that the
Miracle Mile and Weston Avenue and
[2:43:59] Greenfield Avenue have been identified.
These are key areas within our
[2:44:02] neighborhood that our community members
have desperately wanted slower speeds
[2:44:07] on. uh pivoting and speaking through
myself as a committee member on the pack
[2:44:13] adviser and comm I would like to share
my own comments that it is a
[2:44:18] disappointment for me to that second and
third street uh meet all of the
[2:44:24] qualifications for this all but for
speed creep and the average speed and
[2:44:29] the based on the data second and third
street desperately need slowing and it's
[2:44:34] unfortunate that because of our mean
average speed. We cannot get a reduction
[2:44:39] on those two streets.
[2:44:43] » Thank you. Other comments in the
chambers?
[2:44:53] » Uh hello Kate um Mayor Mayor Kate and
city council members. My name is David
[2:44:58] Seltzer and I live on Lincoln Avenue. I
just wanted to voice my strong support
[2:45:02] for the proposed reduced speed limits
here in parts of San Rafll. As a side
[2:45:07] note, I a few weeks back I actually had
a stroke. So, I'm not currently able to
[2:45:11] drive until I get some follow-up
evaluations. So, this injury is making
[2:45:15] me especially think about children or ch
or people with disabilities that can't
[2:45:20] drive and their safety getting around
the city. So, if I stumble with my
[2:45:24] words, I'm still recovering. Hence why
I'm reading this rather than speaking
[2:45:28] off the cuff. Uh, so I live on Lincoln
Avenue and I've long felt the speed
[2:45:32] limit on the north end of the street is
too fast for such a dense residential
[2:45:37] area. We have so many families and
children living in this neighborhood. So
[2:45:41] this change in speed limit better
represents this reality and paired with
[2:45:45] those new improved pedestrian signals. I
think this is um a great improvement for
[2:45:52] pedestrian safety. Um, as we've just
seen in the presentation, we have tons
[2:45:57] of uh data that shows that the severity
of injuries and likelihood of death of
[2:46:01] pedestrians or cyclists is directly
related to car speed. Also, most of that
[2:46:06] data was uh accumulated before the
increased popularity of trucks and SUVs,
[2:46:11] which are more dangerous to pedestrians
um and the increase of destructive
[2:46:17] driving. So reducing speed limits to
offset the increased danger from drivers
[2:46:21] is so important to improve pedestrian
and cyclist safety. Um additional note I
[2:46:27] see an item about uh improved uh um oh
dear uh
[2:46:36] uh traffic calming me measures. So I'm
looking forward to that as well. Uh
[2:46:40] thank you for your time and thank you
for all your continued attention to
[2:46:44] pedestrian and bicycle safety.
>> Thank you David. We wish you a speedy
[2:46:48] recovery.
[2:46:51] Anyone else in the chambers?
I don't see anyone approaching the das.
[2:46:56] So, is there anyone online that would
like to comment on this item?
[2:46:59] » I do see a hand raised. Couple hand
raises.
[2:47:07] » U
good evening uh Mayor Kate and council
[2:47:12] members. My name is Kevin Hagerty. I'm a
board member of the point San Pedro road
[2:47:16] coalition. The coalition supports the
consistent speed limits on Point San
[2:47:21] Pedro Road. Specifically, we support the
proposed
[2:47:26] reduced speed uh limits on the section
of Point San Pedro Road between Marina
[2:47:31] Boulevard and Porttoello Drive. We hope
that this action will result in the city
[2:47:38] considering in the future speed
reductions of the rest of Point San
[2:47:42] Pedro Road.
Finally, the coalition appreciates and
[2:47:46] supports improvements the city have made
to safety on Point San Peter Road.
[2:47:54] Thank you.
[2:47:57] » Thank you. Any other on
[2:48:03] » Hi, Brian Walsh from the West End. Um,
thank you very much for meeting with all
[2:48:07] of us tonight. Thank you, Jimmy, for his
brilliant presentation. I actually took
[2:48:11] photos of your slides. Thank you so
much. And Eli, for your questions about
[2:48:16] enforcement,
which historically has been a problem
[2:48:20] getting the police to come out when we
call them about speeding or red light
[2:48:24] runners. So, I would suggest that the
board speak to Sergeant Graham and the
[2:48:28] traffic uh committee, the traffic
enforcement team to monitor these 18
[2:48:35] streets with the new speed limits and
after the 30-day warning start issuing
[2:48:40] violations. And secondly, if um April
Miller could see us, her staff uh
[2:48:46] readjust the radar boards. These are the
signs that display in real time the
[2:48:50] speed limit. They they need to be
changed for the new threshold. Um that's
[2:48:54] it. Thanks so much. I think this is a
wonderful idea for our community.
[2:49:00] » I'm seeing no other hands raised, but
I'll give everyone a moment.
[2:49:07] » I see no further public comment.
>> Thank you. I will close the public
[2:49:10] comment. We got great input, but we also
got a question also comment around
[2:49:14] second and third and maybe you could
just speak to that um why a segment
[2:49:19] might not u meet the qualifications
or that specific segment. Actually,
[2:49:26] » as the commenter had noted and as we had
presented to the pack, the traveled
[2:49:31] speeds as measured in the traffic survey
as part of the ENTS were too high to
[2:49:37] qualify for a reduction from the
existing 25 mph speed limit to 20 mph.
[2:49:43] » So, people are already speeding too much
that we can't reduce the speed limit.
[2:49:49] Yes, that is the logical conclusion of
how the CBC is currently set up to
[2:49:54] establish speed limits. Correct.
>> Yeah. I didn't want to phrase it that
[2:49:57] way, but it is a way that we all think
about it.
[2:49:59] » Yeah.
>> Okay. So, we will continue to look at
[2:50:01] infrastructure or other ways that we can
continue to reduce speeding in those
[2:50:05] areas uh if we can't have the tool of
the speed limits. Okay. Any additional
[2:50:10] questions? I don't see any. So,
>> Oh, yeah. Go ahead, Council Member Hill.
[2:50:15] » Thank you so much. What what related to
second and third, what discretion does
[2:50:20] the city of San Rafll and our traffic
engineering um folk have over the timing
[2:50:27] of lights to land exactly at the speed
limit? Uh do we have discretion to
[2:50:33] assert this this the posted speed limit
through the timing of the lights?
[2:50:46] Fakri, city traffic engineer. Um, so we
have a consultant currently which has
[2:50:52] been updating the signal timing
coordination and the speed limit is part
[2:50:57] of it. So the progression is the posted
speed limit as you also know that
[2:51:04] there's a lot of concern with
second and third. It's the main
[2:51:10] arterial. So that moving people is also
a concern. But within that speed limit
[2:51:17] so when the coordination happens that's
what so I've already informed them on
[2:51:23] also on fourth street we change it
because it was 25 mph so now progression
[2:51:29] is based on 20 m hour so if you speed
theoretically it won't help you you hit
[2:51:35] a red light but if you continue with 20
m per hour then you hit the green
[2:51:42] » thank you say
[2:51:45] Thank you. I don't see any other
questions, so I'll thank you. Say, we'll
[2:51:49] come back for comments. Uh, Vice Mayor,
go ahead.
[2:51:52] » Thank you. I mean, rarely do we have and
this is great news and we know that
[2:51:58] there'll be more uh interest in wanting
to do more streets. Uh, appreciate the
[2:52:03] objectivity around the process even
though we don't necessarily agree with
[2:52:06] the process all the time. Um, and it's
great to see this coming forward. So,
[2:52:11] thank you and I'm looking forward to the
next round of updates.
[2:52:15] » Thank you, Council Member Hill.
>> Thank you, Mayor Kate. Thank you, uh,
[2:52:20] thank you, team, uh, Jimmy and Kelly and
say, uh, for presenting and answering
[2:52:26] all of our our questions. Uh, it's
clear, well, it's clear to me when I
[2:52:31] joined the council in 2021, one of the
things that really vexed me was the fact
[2:52:36] that we did not have discretion over our
own speed limits. There was a lot of
[2:52:40] speeding going on on in our community
during the pandemic and I don't and I
[2:52:44] don't think that's unique to this
community. So I appreciate that we've
[2:52:48] built upon the passage of AB43 went into
effect in 2022 and it's taken us this
[2:52:54] long to be able to do it. Of note in
this the staff report for this was
[2:53:00] almost 400 pages long and it was that
long because the ENTS is very thorough.
[2:53:06] So I appreciate not only Jimmy U and
parametrics came in but that staff in
[2:53:11] the city has I think appropriately
invested in our community safety to
[2:53:15] ensure that we can arrive at this
moment.
[2:53:18] I would also as a opportunity in this
comment look forward to uh a point when
[2:53:25] AB 645 which allows for six pilot cities
to automated to do have automated speed
[2:53:31] enforcement in their communities. Not
the least of which is the city and
[2:53:34] county of San Francisco has seen, I
think, initial signs that that is
[2:53:38] working very well there. I hope that
that can come to our community so that
[2:53:41] um motorists uh will uh obey our our
laws and not have to wait for an officer
[2:53:48] or to uh hopefully learn not to do so uh
but obey the speed limits. These speed
[2:53:53] these speed limits are there for the
safety of our community. Thank you.
[2:53:58] » Thank you, Council Member Bushy.
I just want to contrast this to what it
[2:54:04] was like on Point San Pedro Road 10, 15,
20 years ago. It was the the chamber was
[2:54:12] full. It was massive controversy. Um
that changing the speed limit could be
[2:54:20] done, must be done, couldn't be done. It
we we went in circles. Um people
[2:54:25] complained and then we did the study and
then we had to raise it because that um
[2:54:31] then and we had to sell that that um it
created so much controversy um and took
[2:54:39] so much time um from this body and from
our staff. In contrast, um we now have
[2:54:46] new laws, um a rigorous analysis, all
400 pages, um of it, and I think
[2:54:53] community outreach as well, um and a um
a um joining of the enforcement and the
[2:55:02] public works um approach to this, the
visual friction um and some of the
[2:55:08] safety improvements that have been done
particularly on on on Point San Pedro
[2:55:12] Road to get give it more of sort of an
urban feel and not, you know, a road
[2:55:17] along the ocean that you can, um, speed
on like they do in the car commercials.
[2:55:21] Um, so, um, it's great to have this low
contourocy approach to adjusting speed
[2:55:29] limit. So, um, I'm delighted to be here,
um, to see this on this this day. So,
[2:55:36] thank you.
>> Thank you. Thank you, Kelly. Thank you,
[2:55:39] Jimmy. Thank you say and all of DPW for
bringing this forward to the council. We
[2:55:44] have committed as a body and as a
community to vision zero which is an
[2:55:47] approach of how do we using all the
tools across the board that are
[2:55:52] available to the city uh take action to
reduce fatalities and serious injury in
[2:55:58] our community to bicyclists and
pedestrians. We have already made that
[2:56:01] commitment. This is 100% following that
commitment and that policy that this
[2:56:06] body has already approved. So, uh, thank
you for taking the philosophy and
[2:56:11] putting it into action. Um, it's
fantastic and as was mentioned by the
[2:56:16] vice mayor, I think there'll be more
streets that we'll be wanting to add as
[2:56:20] we start to see how much safer it makes
for everybody to utilize our streets.
[2:56:24] So, so thank you. I would entertain a
motion on this item, please.
[2:56:30] » I'd like to make the motion.
I move to introduce the ordinance. Wave
[2:56:36] further reading and refer to it by title
only.
[2:56:39] » Second.
>> Moved and seconded. Roll call, please.
[2:56:42] » Council member Bushy.
>> I.
[2:56:43] » Council member Hill.
>> I.
[2:56:45] » Vice Mayor Curts.
>> I.
[2:56:46] » Mayor Kate.
>> I. That M motion carries 40. The city
[2:56:49] clerk could read the title of the
ordinance, please. An ordinance of the
[2:56:52] city council of the city of Centerfell
regarding speed limit changes on 18
[2:56:56] Centerfell roadway segments outside of
downtown pursuant to sections 22357 and
[2:57:01] 22358 of the California vehicle code.
Thank you. Thank you all. And in a
[2:57:06] related traffic venue, our next agenda
item is the city of Sanfal traffic
[2:57:11] calming program policy.
[2:57:21] Welcome saying.
[2:57:47] Good evening mayor and council members
and member of public. Uh my name is Sed
[2:57:53] Fakri a city traffic engineer. I started
working for the city uh on February in
[2:58:00] February 2025.
So tonight agenda is 4A traffic calming
[2:58:07] program policy which is really how to
manage speed and volume on residential
[2:58:13] streets.
[2:58:24] So the goal and intent of this policy is
to address excessive speed and volume on
[2:58:30] residential streets and to create
objective standards, definitions and
[2:58:36] thresholds for excessive speed and
volume
[2:58:40] uh and also to create an objective
process easy to follow by staff and uh
[2:58:47] by residents.
uh other Bay Area cities with similar
[2:58:53] policy. Uh most cities in the Bay Area
have similar traffic calming policies.
[2:58:59] To name a few in Marin County, city of
Larksburg, they adopted their policy uh
[2:59:06] in 2025 last year. Uh city of San Bruno
which I worked as a consultant. uh city
[2:59:13] of Berkeley, city of Mountain View which
I was city traffic engineer and city of
[2:59:19] Palo Alto. So our policy is very similar
to those in many other cities.
[2:59:28] So basically the process starts with
concerns that currently comes through
[2:59:33] cyclic fix by individuals
um which can be addressed by installing
[2:59:39] signage striping channelizer etc. These
are what we call tier one traffic
[2:59:45] calming tools which will be discussed
later in the slides. Uh so if the
[2:59:52] resident is not satisfied by tier one
approach then tier two and three starts
[2:59:57] which need community support
and basically because this requires cost
[3:00:03] of survey and measuring the speed and
volume at least for a week. So we are
[3:00:09] asking for tier two and tier three that
the community submit a petition of
[3:00:14] support which is signed by majority of
the household of the street block or
[3:00:20] blocks if they're uh applying for more
than one block. Uh petition of supports
[3:00:26] must be signed by simple majority which
is 50% plus one.
[3:00:34] Uh so the next step once we receive the
petition of support uh we will do a
[3:00:41] street in volume survey. These are a
little bit different than what Jimmy was
[3:00:47] uh doing the survey. Those are by LAR or
laser uh which the police enforce it.
[3:00:56] This is for 24hour to counting uh speed
and volume. And if the 85% of speed
[3:01:04] meets the threshold which we is in the
report then the street will be
[3:01:09] considered for traffic calming. The 85
percentile is just a threshold which
[3:01:15] means obviously 15% drive above certain
threshold and 85% drive below it. For
[3:01:25] example, if you look at the residential
street with uh say 20 uh cars per hour,
[3:01:34] we are we are looking at three cars. If
the three cars drive, which is 18 15%.
[3:01:40] And above that threshold, then the
street qualifies.
[3:01:44] So residents after the survey will be
informed of the street survey and result
[3:01:49] uh meeting the threshold and qualifying
for traffic calming or if they did not
[3:01:54] they will be informed too. uh so our
system is we are using the tier system
[3:02:01] and as I mentioned tier one is which we
are doing currently when individual
[3:02:06] request uh basically it's a warning sign
speed limit warning sign curve sign
[3:02:13] pedestrian ahead sign and and also some
striping in channelizers that we could
[3:02:19] do as part of the uh cyclic fix or tier
one option. So this doesn't require
[3:02:25] really uh submitting of petition or
anything because it doesn't really
[3:02:31] impact at least physically anybody. So
it's reallyformational and it's safety.
[3:02:38] Uh the tier two which we call it passive
traffic calming. It does require
[3:02:43] petition of support because it has to be
surveyed. It's costly. Uh the tier 2 has
[3:02:50] limited uh impact or no impact to
emergency response time. Uh
[3:02:58] some of the examples of what we
discussed tonight. It's reducing speed
[3:03:02] limit AB43 which could be applied to
some of our other street. We have to
[3:03:07] look and see uh preliminary how many of
them qualify. Just like we did for what
[3:03:15] Jimmy presented, we did a survey of C
click fix. We looked at uh
[3:03:22] uh at a do they qualify kind of
pre-qualification and then we selected
[3:03:28] all those roads. Uh the other one is
electronic speed radar signs, bulb out,
[3:03:34] narrow median, island, chokers. As I
mentioned, these measures are really not
[3:03:40] impacting um for example fire response
times to that that limit.
[3:03:47] And then tier three which we can call it
active transportation caling calming.
[3:03:53] Obviously this requires support uh
petition of support and that may impact
[3:03:59] emergency response time. So it will not
be applicable to all street. uh it
[3:04:04] includes speed humps and traffic circles
and turn restrictions and other
[3:04:11] measures. [snorts]
[3:04:14] Uh the way our policy is structured,
traffic engineers select the tool after
[3:04:20] the street qualifies petition signed and
the survey
[3:04:26] prove that it's qualifying for traffic
calming. So the traffic engineer
[3:04:31] selected tool and design and presented
to traffic advisory committee for input
[3:04:36] which include police department and fire
department planning and our street
[3:04:42] maintenance crew. Uh
after the advisory committee inputs uh
[3:04:48] we'll be having a public presentation of
the design and outreach at bicycle and
[3:04:53] pedestrian advisory committee and then
we will receive feedback from public and
[3:04:58] from BPAC and then then the final design
notification and installation.
[3:05:07] Uh after installation study, staff may
monitor results after a year of
[3:05:12] installation.
Uh may perform speed and volume survey
[3:05:16] to compare the before and after
installation data and examine the
[3:05:20] effectiveness of specific tool. Uh
mostly in literature. There are
[3:05:27] uh studies that compare before for
different tools.
[3:05:32] It always varies with the driving
population, the characteristic of a
[3:05:37] road. So it it will be good to have that
in San Rafael which may be different
[3:05:43] slightly from other cities. Uh also
these traffic calming tool that's in the
[3:05:49] policy. It's not
inclusive of everything. this our
[3:05:55] toolbox we can change it and due to
change in technology or research or
[3:06:00] studies.
[3:06:03] Uh for people who for communities or
street that they do not qualify the
[3:06:09] first time for after the survey then
they can submit resubmit petition of
[3:06:15] support two years after the notice we
sent for them not meeting the threshold
[3:06:20] or qualification. So they cannot
immediately because we will have
[3:06:25] probably other applications. So we have
that two years and also in two years
[3:06:31] give time that the condition might
change due to development or other uh
[3:06:37] effects. So they we can look at it
again.
[3:06:42] And then there's a process for removing
the city traffic engineer may remove or
[3:06:46] modify any installed traffic calming
measures for public safety reason
[3:06:51] without uh any additional action and
those public safety could come from our
[3:06:57] safety staff, fire, police, emergency
services.
[3:07:05] Uh for the recommendation, uh staff is
recommending that the council adopt the
[3:07:10] resolution approving the city of San
Rafel traffic calming program policy
[3:07:17] and then I have
questions and comments.
[3:07:22] » Thank you say for that. I will see if
there are questions. Uh vice mayor, do
[3:07:25] you have any questions?
>> I do. Um can you share a little bit more
[3:07:29] about the petition process and how that
has worked in other jurisdictions?
[3:07:36] uh petition petition process is very
similar um although it's not very
[3:07:42] defined in some cities for example city
of larks per uh they have a petition
[3:07:50] after the survey kind of uh they call it
voting but they their approval rate is
[3:07:56] 69% of the resident agreeing
uh so the variation is between simple
[3:08:03] majority to even 75%
uh community support.
[3:08:11] So for us
uh if if the street uh for example
[3:08:17] through CLI fix and we do some minor
stuff and it's not uh satisfying for
[3:08:24] residents then a a champion or somebody
from uh residence uh they can
[3:08:31] volunteer. We give him a petition
because the petition have to be designed
[3:08:36] for example that the people who sign
this petition the residents household
[3:08:43] and they agree to the process the
policy. So once if they get uh approved
[3:08:50] or or meet the criteria then the polic
policy starts. So once we receive the
[3:08:57] petition and we can check also the
petition is designed by us so they don't
[3:09:02] have to put the language with addresses
and everything. Uh one one property
[3:09:08] needs or one household needs one
signature. Uh also the policy goes into
[3:09:15] detail for example if you live on a cold
that you have to take some that section
[3:09:20] of the street then you have to sign the
petition because you don't have any any
[3:09:25] other option. Uh the reason for that is
we have to be careful who can sign it.
[3:09:30] If if you extend the block or signature
this kind of dilute the support because
[3:09:36] if you live on a street you want you see
the problem the issue and you see the
[3:09:41] speeding and petition of support comes
from people who live on that street. But
[3:09:46] if you live uh five block away or 10
block away, you probably take that
[3:09:52] section and probably you're one of the
speeders. So you can't dilute the the
[3:09:58] petition support. So once we receive the
petition and we check that it's 50% plus
[3:10:03] one and this includes multifamily units,
renters and owners and then we can see
[3:10:10] if it meets at least majority support
and then we can start the survey. We
[3:10:16] have to hire a
[3:10:20] somebody to do the survey for us a
vendor for a week. It's not very costly,
[3:10:26] but say if we do it on a two segment or
three segment, it cost a thousand per
[3:10:32] tube per per location. And then once we
determine that, then we proceed with the
[3:10:37] the rest of the policy.
>> So just to follow on with that, so do
[3:10:41] you define the universe of the the
petition signers?
[3:10:48] And and I'll just ask, you know, if you
could use
[3:10:51] Director Miller is very familiar with
this stretch of street, which is the
[3:10:56] northern part of Canyon Oak, um that has
no residents on it, but it's used
[3:11:02] probably by hundreds every day. So what
would be the I I'm having a hard time
[3:11:07] trying to understand in that type of
scenario, what would be the universe of
[3:11:12] signatures? So those are all the people
who that segment which is doesn't have
[3:11:17] any resident but the following segment
has people who take that street every
[3:11:23] day. So the definition of that street
probably falls into residential street.
[3:11:28] So all the people who live on that
segment all the way probably if they
[3:11:33] want to do it to the culdeac at the end
they can submit a petition and we could
[3:11:38] stop. So the so the universe is sort of
subjective
[3:11:43] » very
>> in terms of defining correct
[3:11:45] » the who needs to sign the petition.
>> Yeah. depending on the context. In this
[3:11:50] case, uh I [snorts] mean if you live
somewhere, if you have another route to
[3:11:56] take except that route, then you
probably
[3:12:01] I have to check to see exactly who has
to who have to take that route every day
[3:12:07] because that's the only route they can
take and then those people can vote. Uh
[3:12:12] also that stretch of a road is included
in our bicycle and pedestrian uh plan
[3:12:19] update which will come later to the
council. Uh it's one of the stretches
[3:12:24] that
yeah
[3:12:26] » bike and improvement.
>> So still working I mean I I absolutely
[3:12:31] love having an objective process. I'm
stuck on the petition piece of it and
[3:12:37] how that's going to work in practicality
and I'm wondering if there's other if
[3:12:40] you've can looked at other options aside
from that petition process to get to
[3:12:46] that same goal. So that is that's one
way of doing it and our policy is also
[3:12:51] when we do safe route to school as a
capital improvement project or we also
[3:12:56] consider that also if we tackle some of
the stretches that's in our local
[3:13:02] roadway safety plan which is a segment
and it's a residential street. We can
[3:13:07] always implement the public works take
the initiative [snorts] and we pro we
[3:13:11] will send the petition for signatures
and the staff will send if it comes from
[3:13:17] community it's probably most agencies
like the community also to work a little
[3:13:22] bit for it. So send go to the
neighborhood and and
[3:13:27] collect signature. So otherwise, if it's
a safe route to school or or local
[3:13:32] roadway safety plan that we do, then we
will take the initiative. And again,
[3:13:37] sorry, I'm I'm going to keep going on
this petition thing because it's not
[3:13:40] sitting right with me on this. It you're
asking for a physical signature. It
[3:13:44] can't be an online email response or I
just think in practicality, I'm I am
[3:13:51] really concerned that there's going to
be very few. Again, I understand the
[3:13:56] goal of it, but the practicality of
getting those signatures from people and
[3:14:01] if they're going doortodoor and asking
and knock I I I think it's limiting in
[3:14:05] terms of our community being able to
participate in that.
[3:14:10] » So far, I have seen that's the hard the
part of it and also the signature
[3:14:15] collecting.
Uh I mean we certainly can look at
[3:14:19] technology how can but how can we make
it easier but to gather all those emails
[3:14:25] is also or maybe we can send a notice
where they can send all their emails and
[3:14:32] then we gather signature through email
with the address and everything. So that
[3:14:37] there's must be a way to do easier uh
with technology.
[3:14:43] » Thank you. I'll I'll leave it to others
to ask some questions. um at this point.
[3:14:46] Thank you.
>> Thank you. Uh Council Member Hill
[3:14:49] questions.
>> Thank you, Mayor Kate. Thank you, S for
[3:14:52] the presentation. Uh my question would
continue with the the petition. I
[3:14:58] actually think that the policy reads
well. I think the implementation with
[3:15:01] the with the uh petition
um still presents as um
[3:15:09] I I want to be optimistic that it will
produce it. So, I have a couple
[3:15:13] questions. So my questions are um and I
think but the vice mayor used the word
[3:15:19] the universe but I'm thinking of it more
in terms of a fraction of how do we
[3:15:22] establish are do you establish the
denominator by saying you're just you
[3:15:26] would draw a circle that you believe is
or the the in the area of influence
[3:15:30] maybe to to determine what the
boundaries of it and then based on that
[3:15:34] you determine the denominator of the
fraction. Is that does that sound
[3:15:38] accurate?
>> That's accurate.
[3:15:40] » Okay. And
maybe building on one of the I'm trying
[3:15:44] to imagine there are cen certainly
scenarios in our community where there
[3:15:49] are multif family units where there are
one, two, maybe three, four families
[3:15:54] that might live inside of a of a large
unit and that would they would get one
[3:15:58] vote. I'm just trying to imagine is
there a way to how do we
[3:16:04] allow for a more equitable approach to
to those types of scenarios?
[3:16:10] uh
in single family is probably easier and
[3:16:15] if they have one renter unit A and B so
they both can vote on the number of unit
[3:16:20] in the policy it's per household unit
per vote so or per signature sorry
[3:16:28] signature of support
>> uh we if there are unit officially A and
[3:16:35] B yes that should be counted
>> okay thank Yeah,
[3:16:42] » council. Um, I just had an additional
question also trying to get my head
[3:16:46] around who
who who the universe or the denominator,
[3:16:50] however you want to look at it, who are
the people that are weighing in on the
[3:16:53] petition and I I want to be clear that I
share the goal of this because it has
[3:16:57] been very haphazard and sometimes it's
the folks that know how to advocate for
[3:17:01] themselves that want speeding and they
come in. Sorry, they don't want
[3:17:04] speeding, but they want traffic calming
and then other neighbors don't want it.
[3:17:07] So I do really appreciate um having it
come from the community and I do think
[3:17:12] there is a the mechanism um we need to
have some sort of mechanism but when I'm
[3:17:16] looking at again you had your example of
a street but I'm thinking of Sper Point
[3:17:20] Drive where is a street that we put
traffic combing in and we were very
[3:17:25] excited and then there were a group of
people that didn't want to drive slower
[3:17:28] so they were not excited about it. So,
I'm looking at that street and is that
[3:17:33] when you would have all the culde-sacs,
everyone that's on Sper Point Drive up
[3:17:38] to Catalina like is that what you're
saying when you're saying people that
[3:17:40] are required to drive there because of
where they live? That would be the
[3:17:45] universe that would um need to write the
petition and be a part of it.
[3:17:51] » Yeah, that that that is the most tricky
part of the area that in my experience.
[3:17:58] So I have excluded people and they have
really passionately why I cannot sign
[3:18:04] the petition because um if you extend it
to include every possible people that
[3:18:11] there's no limit of who can sign the
petition and then it usually dilutes the
[3:18:18] vote because they want to speed they
want to go fast to work and
[3:18:22] » I agree. So you have to be very careful
careful in in the guide I have is
[3:18:28] usually when the petition comes if it's
for one block you always encourage them
[3:18:33] how about block upstream and downstream
to make it say three blocks uh three to
[3:18:38] five blocks is is best because always
you don't want to put say speed you
[3:18:43] don't want to put one you want to put
two or three because if you put one
[3:18:47] people slow and then speed up and also
the people who signed the petition so If
[3:18:53] they are taking another route, they can
take and that's another scenario where
[3:18:59] the next street might qualify. So if
they change their route, but people who
[3:19:05] are concerned is people who live on that
street. You don't want to dilute,
[3:19:11] » right? And know that makes sense. So you
stated in the beginning of your
[3:19:14] presentation, so thank you for looking
at other cities and towns. You mentioned
[3:19:17] Larks, Berkeley, there were some other
ones on there. I can't remember them
[3:19:21] now. Um, so what you've are presenting
to the city and to the community this
[3:19:27] evening is based on what has been
successful in other communities because
[3:19:32] I think because it's new to us, we're
trying to imagine how it will manifest.
[3:19:35] So I want to say these are best
practices, but you you have taken
[3:19:40] recommendations or existing programs
that have been had the outcome and
[3:19:44] that's what you're suggesting here.
>> Exactly.
[3:19:47] » Okay. and and and the studies there are
traffic calming studies in uh institute
[3:19:53] of transportation engineers and these
other cities that I mentioned some of
[3:19:58] them like larksburg is very brief like
us even less than us a policy but some
[3:20:03] of them like city of mountain view has a
thick manual so every chapter for
[3:20:08] example who can sign and
>> okay we don't want to do the thick
[3:20:12] manual approach so
>> this is this is a beginning and I I I
[3:20:16] think for this city This is the first
one,
[3:20:19] » right?
>> And and and could be studied in four or
[3:20:22] five years and when when we have
experience how many we installed them.
[3:20:27] » Yeah. No, I appreciate that that we
would want to revisit if it needs to be
[3:20:31] tweaked and and and I do appreciate we
haven't talked about the traffic calming
[3:20:34] measures that you talked about the
different tiers. 100% I agree with all
[3:20:38] of that, but I was like vice mayor a
little bit stuck on who gets to sign the
[3:20:42] petition. If there's a technology aspect
of it, great. But um I do think we need
[3:20:47] to do something. I just know how much
staff time this takes and there's been
[3:20:51] an inconsistency in applying who gets
the benefit of traffic calming and we're
[3:20:56] really working as a city to not have
that inconsistency. Do you have another
[3:21:01] question? Yeah, council member Hill. Go
ahead. I don't have any others.
[3:21:03] » Thank you, Mayor Kate. One more
question. As I was thinking through um a
[3:21:07] scenario and I appre again I think I
appreciate the order of the policy of
[3:21:12] the request submission initial review um
I was thinking of a scenario I'll make
[3:21:17] up a maybe it's a counterfactual. So
tonight we adopted the change speed
[3:21:22] limit on 18 roadways. Um now Fifth
Avenue in Sun Valley is now recommended
[3:21:28] to be 20 miles an hour. Let's say the
community gets together and they come to
[3:21:31] you and say, "We want it to be uh you
get a 50 plus one." They they ask for a
[3:21:35] 10 10 mph speed limit. I'm pretty sure
that wouldn't happen. But let's say they
[3:21:39] do that. Would would you be able to
confer with them to say, "Hey, don't
[3:21:42] submit that petition. That's not going
to pass an ENTS. There's nothing we
[3:21:46] could do to legally support that before.
>> They're not excluded." So for example,
[3:21:53] Fifth Avenue if it qualify other stuff
like it's a I know it's a route or D
[3:21:58] street it's a route for fire it's the
only route. So considering all those
[3:22:03] they're 20 m per hour and if they want
to submit for traffic cal because people
[3:22:08] drive fast. So the the thing applies to
them and the criteria. C can I clarify
[3:22:16] though people aren't requesting the type
of of trafficcoming measure just that
[3:22:20] they want trafficcoming measures.
>> So it wouldn't go down by 10 miles an
[3:22:25] hour but if there was five speed humps
on the road it might go down by 10 miles
[3:22:30] an hour just because people have to slow
down by that much but we would we would
[3:22:34] do an analysis that determined what the
appropriate
[3:22:38] » trafficcoming measure would be.
>> That is super helpful to set that
[3:22:42] expectation. So in other words, the
petition would not say we want speed
[3:22:45] bumps. It would say we need traffic
calming and you would determine what the
[3:22:49] best mechanism would be.
>> Exactly. Just for your information that
[3:22:53] we have um a grant to install traffic
calming on Fifth Avenue. So changing the
[3:22:59] speed limit wouldn't change and we are
installing near California and fifth two
[3:23:04] two radar speed signs and we're
improving that corner of California in
[3:23:10] the market uh for pedestrian and
bicycles. So we have that grant it it
[3:23:15] doesn't exclude because now they're 20 m
per hour.
[3:23:18] » That is welcome and wonderful news for
the San Sun Valley residents. Thank you.
[3:23:22] » Thank you. So not seeing any further
questions at this time. I would like to
[3:23:25] open up public comment if you would like
to comment. Now is your opportunity.
[3:23:30] You're welcome but not required to say
your name. What part of Sanell?
[3:23:33] » Daniel Almigan. Uh through the Western
Neighborhood Association board, we've
[3:23:36] always welcomed more to the toolkit. I
think this is a great idea. I appreciate
[3:23:42] the tiered system. I think for us, we
would want to understand the lift on
[3:23:48] doing a petition because it would sound
like it would probably likely fall to a
[3:23:52] neighborhood association.
And I know from our own experience on
[3:23:57] trying to do the street closure where we
have to get 100% sign off. It's an act
[3:24:03] of hurting cats and it's not easy and
it's not fun. Um, I'm a little bit
[3:24:07] concerned about the the petition process
and how that would work.
[3:24:13] Thank you. Any other comments on this
item?
[3:24:17] I don't see anyone in the chambers.
Anyone online?
[3:24:20] » I do see a hand raised. A couple hand
raised.
[3:24:28] » Hi there. Um, good evening, mayor and
council members. My name is Dave
[3:24:32] Rhodess. I'm the co-chair of WalkBike
Centerfell and a West End neighborhood
[3:24:36] resident. And uh first of all, I just
want to thank the staff for bringing
[3:24:39] forward Centerfell's first traffic
calming program. It's a significant step
[3:24:44] forward. Having a transparent process
with clear criteria is definitely much
[3:24:48] better than handling requests on an ad
hoc basis. Um but my primary concern is
[3:24:53] the neighborhood voting requirement like
many of you um on the council have
[3:24:57] expressed and others uh in the in the
chambers there. Um it's the traffic
[3:25:02] calming is fundamentally a public safety
issue. And while neighborhood neighbors
[3:25:06] should absolutely have a strong voice in
identifying the problems and shaping
[3:25:10] solutions, the decisions should
ultimately be guided by engineering
[3:25:14] analysis, speed data, crash history, and
the city's adopted policies, not by a
[3:25:18] referendum. The streets not only belong
to the people who live on them, but
[3:25:23] they're used every day by children
walking to school, people riding bikes,
[3:25:27] transit riders, visitors, and everybody
traveling through our community. We
[3:25:31] don't vote on whether or not to install
a stop sign or a crosswalk. We rely on
[3:25:35] objective criteria and professional
judgment and traffic calming should be
[3:25:40] treated the same way. So, I adopt you
tonight to adopt uh I encourage you to
[3:25:45] adopt this program tonight, but please
do direct staff to revisit the
[3:25:48] neighborhood voting requirement um and
so that the community input informs the
[3:25:53] decisions without becoming a barrier to
warranted safety improvements. I
[3:25:57] definitely think that uh staff and
neighborhood um time is a major barrier
[3:26:03] uh to making these things happen. So,
let's try to do as much as we can to get
[3:26:09] as much as um out of our staff and
neighborhood time to improve our
[3:26:12] streets. Um thank you all very much.
Thanks for considering this u this
[3:26:17] policy.
[3:26:25] Hi, Susan Gilbert again, downtown San
Rafale. I'd like to share my gratitude
[3:26:32] for the trafficcoming measures you've
implemented and intend to implement here
[3:26:36] in the future. I can appreciate that the
city traffic engineers have a complex
[3:26:42] complex task of balancing the needs of
drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians, all
[3:26:48] of whom want to get across town as fast
as humanly possible.
[3:26:53] As you know, we've had at least four
pedestrian fatalities and two cyclist
[3:26:57] fatalities in the last four years here.
And it's important to recognize that
[3:27:01] these deaths are multiffactorial.
Mostly they have to do with distracted
[3:27:07] or impaired driving and/or speeding on
the part of the driver. I'm asking
[3:27:12] drivers to have more regard for the
lives of the pedestrians and cycling
[3:27:16] neighbors. While it's wonderful that
you've lowered the speed limits around
[3:27:20] the downtown area, I'd like to see more
enforcement of the limits by the police.
[3:27:25] Some of the cars going west on third and
east on second reach speeds of up to 50
[3:27:31] miles an hour. in our residential
neighborhood, which is a 25 mile per
[3:27:37] hour zone. Please consider your
pedestrian neighbors, some of whom are
[3:27:42] old, may have poor mobility or poor
eyesight, and need more time to ambulate
[3:27:46] through a crosswalk.
I'd also like to ask police for more
[3:27:51] enforcement of scooters and ebikes who
are on the sidewalks, make making it
[3:27:56] precarious for us pedestrians.
Finally, I'd like to mention 25 years
[3:28:02] ago, I was responsible for circulating a
petition in my Oakland neighborhood to
[3:28:07] get a speed bump to prevent drug dealers
from traversing our block. I succeeded
[3:28:14] in getting the 160 signatures and it's
still there today. Thank you.
[3:28:23] » I see no other hands raised, but I'll
give everyone a moment.
[3:28:26] » Okay.
I see no more public comment.
[3:28:30] » Okay, thank you. I will close the public
comment and bring it back. Um, any other
[3:28:35] questions by the council?
>> Yeah, go ahead. Vice Mayor, I have a
[3:28:41] question in terms of amending the
resolution. It's the seventh whereas
[3:28:47] um that establishes a request in
petition process if that can be because
[3:28:53] I support everything within the
resolution aside from that petition. I
[3:28:57] don't feel like we've really defined
that the right. I think we need to think
[3:29:03] about that a little bit more of what
that would look like. And I don't know
[3:29:06] if if we're really saying there has to
be community engagement or there has to
[3:29:10] be input or there has to be um some
consensus of a defined area.
[3:29:19] But a petition to me means actually
getting those signatures.
[3:29:24] And unless we're going to give
flexibility on what that petition is,
[3:29:29] I'd like to redefine what that that ph
that whereas.
[3:29:34] » Well, let's let's uh maybe ask city
manager or director Miller to see if
[3:29:38] there's flexibility in this wording
because to change a resolution, you
[3:29:40] would have to make um a motion that
would change that and that may or may
[3:29:44] not be supported. But maybe there's
another way. What I hear is having
[3:29:47] flexibility given the input that you've
heard from the council tonight as well
[3:29:52] as the community. I Yes, thank you. Um I
just want to clarify I think there's a
[3:29:57] piece was missed from say's presentation
and the first step is for residents to
[3:30:03] submit on cclick fix and so the location
is evaluated. There could be striping
[3:30:09] there could be signage that's added.
This policies in place for people who
[3:30:13] are just want more and they're really
passionate about wanting more. Maybe
[3:30:17] it's just one person but maybe it is the
entire neighborhood. And I think that's
[3:30:21] the petition we're trying to get is the
people who want who disagree with our
[3:30:25] initial analysis on what what we think
would be done without the data and and
[3:30:31] that's where the petition comes in. So
just to clarify that piece, I wasn't
[3:30:35] sure if everybody caught that from the
comments from the public. No, I I still
[3:30:39] think that puts the um
there's there's a an advantage for
[3:30:46] somebody to be able to collect that
versus I don't think it's balanced
[3:30:52] » across the community to be able to do
that.
[3:30:54] » Okay.
>> Talking to May I add?
[3:30:57] » Yes. talking to our legal team, city
attorney office. We are working on the
[3:31:03] design of petition because we want to
put some language that they can review.
[3:31:07] For example, if I receive a clic for a
stretch of a road, we can include that
[3:31:14] in the petition, the map of the area
that they need to sign the petition. So
[3:31:20] that but we haven't really finalized the
design of petition. We thought we will
[3:31:26] leave it to staff to design it and with
city attorney review. So that also might
[3:31:31] help your concern.
>> Right. And that's what I was asking if
[3:31:34] we is there flexibility in terms of this
whereas
[3:31:41] to um evaluate that of petition process
um and really
[3:31:49] I'm not sure I'm conveying my
>> No, I think we Yeah, we got it. We hear
[3:31:52] that you have a concern about that and I
I I think really is there flexibility to
[3:31:58] um have staff incorporate the feedback
that they've heard
[3:32:03] and then maybe that may or may not be
sufficient enough. Um
[3:32:10] so
yeah, we haven't designed the petition
[3:32:13] yet. So we would definitely take the
feedback we've received today and from
[3:32:17] some of the letters that we've received
when we're designing the petition. I
[3:32:20] don't think that changes the whereas,
but we could always ask.
[3:32:24] » Okay.
>> No, that's fine. And if that's has the
[3:32:27] flexibility and maybe it goes back to
BPAC or it goes back to some others to
[3:32:31] be able to review and evaluate that that
petition process, that'd be great.
[3:32:38] » Okay. Additional comments? Yeah, Council
Member Hill.
[3:32:41] » Thank you, Mayor Kate. Just to affirm
this doesn't replace this is in addition
[3:32:45] to the city conducting it's already the
existing process which is that there is
[3:32:50] a continued examination of data there is
cclick fix this is just one more
[3:32:56] mechanism on top of the existing process
is that right
[3:32:59] » and and in addition to that this policy
will help us when we implement in our
[3:33:06] projects because we want feedback from
community if we do a safe route to
[3:33:11] school and we imple implement traffic
calming which we can according to the
[3:33:15] policy then we can also use this process
to get petition of support from the
[3:33:22] residents. So we have that outreach or
if we do something on a street where is
[3:33:27] part of the local roadway safety plan uh
high collision segment and it's on a
[3:33:34] residential street we can use the same
process it will be initiated by
[3:33:41] » Thank you.
>> Thank you. Any other comments? Council
[3:33:44] Bushy
>> quick um comments. Um I think this is a
[3:33:47] very solid version one. Um it's an
improvement over what we have sets out
[3:33:52] some standards. Um and to the extent
that the roll out brings things that are
[3:33:58] unanticipated, this policy can be can be
revised. Um I think the policy is
[3:34:04] brought forward um is an improvement and
we should adopt it and we look forward
[3:34:08] to your feedback um and the community's
feedback on how it can be improved.
[3:34:13] » Thank you. And I'll just uh close by
saying it was in the staff report, but
[3:34:17] it wasn't in your presentation that this
is a direct response to one of the goals
[3:34:21] and objectives in our three-year
strategic plan. So, this body has
[3:34:25] already stated that we want to launch
and evaluate pilot projects for traffic
[3:34:29] calming measures to improve neighborhood
safety. We do the policy up here and you
[3:34:34] guys come back with the operations and
the how-to. And this is uh what we have
[3:34:39] before us this evening. and we look
forward to seeing how it manifests with
[3:34:43] the input that you've heard and any um
modifications that might be needed after
[3:34:48] it has been um underway. But we
appreciate having an action item to a
[3:34:53] goals and objectives. Um
>> Mayor Kate,
[3:34:56] » please we we were just discussing a
potential change you might wish to
[3:35:00] consider uh that I was discussing with
the city manager because of the concern
[3:35:06] expressed about the request and petition
process.
[3:35:10] Again, the the wherehouses aren't really
operational, but we could substitute the
[3:35:14] word contemplates for establishes
on uh the uh about the eighth whereas
[3:35:22] whereas the policy establishes a
requested petition process, we could say
[3:35:25] whereas the policy contemplates
[3:35:29] just a suggestion in line with vice
mayor's concern stated
[3:35:35] » if the city attorney's office believes
that's necessary in order to have the
[3:35:38] flexibility that we want to have
inherent as the program gets designed,
[3:35:43] then I think we'd be welcome. I I worry
about words smithing, having the five of
[3:35:47] us words smmith, but so that's if if you
believe that change needs to happen to
[3:35:51] have this type of flexibility.
>> It doesn't it does not need to happen.
[3:35:54] » Okay.
>> So, it's just a suggestion to try to
[3:35:58] ameliate the concern, but I don't
believe it's required.
[3:36:01] » Okay.
>> Are you ready for a motion? Yes, I will
[3:36:05] go ahead and
>> I move that we adopt the resolution
[3:36:07] approving the city of San Rafale's
traffic calming program policy.
[3:36:12] » Second.
>> Moved and seconded. Roll call, please.
[3:36:15] » Council member Bushy.
>> Hi.
[3:36:16] » Council member Hill.
>> Hi.
[3:36:17] » Vice Mayor Curts.
>> Hi.
[3:36:19] » Mayor Kate.
>> I. That motion carries 40. Thank you for
[3:36:23] taking our input. Thank you, S, for all
your work.
[3:36:27] » Our last in our regular agenda is a
nomination of eligible census tracks for
[3:36:32] opportunity zone 2. Z.
I see Greg Miner has joined us. Welcome.
[3:36:40] » Good evening. Greg Miner with the
Community Economic Development
[3:36:45] Department. I'm going to try to pull up
a PowerPoint here.
[3:36:53] All right. Um, I'm going to walk us
through the staff report, which is going
[3:36:57] to provide an overview of what an
opportunity zone is, the opportunity
[3:37:02] zone or OZ 2.0 0 process uh that
Congress recently established as well as
[3:37:08] California's
uh portion of that process and how the
[3:37:12] city of Sanville uh fits in. And I'm
joined uh by Alexis Captain in our our
[3:37:20] housing manager.
Um so what's an opportunity zone? Uh
[3:37:24] it's a federal tax incentive program.
>> We can't see.
[3:37:27] » Oh, I'm sorry.
[3:37:32] I forgot to share.
>> It's uh
[3:37:36] » we were listening to what you were
saying. I we didn't know that we get
[3:37:38] slides too. So great. Thank you.
[laughter]
[3:37:40] » I had similar problems back in
preschool, but uh I'm working on it. Um
[3:37:47] so opportunity zones were a federal tax
program created under the first Trump
[3:37:52] administration. Uh it allows for
investors to repurpose capital gains uh
[3:37:58] into um qualified opportunity funds
which are an investment vehicle that are
[3:38:04] used to support economically distressed
areas. And depending on how long the
[3:38:09] investment is in place, it minimizes or
eliminates the tax burden. Um, and this
[3:38:14] slide lists a couple of eligible
investments such as real estate
[3:38:18] construction, uh, rehabilitation of
vacant or underutilized properties, um,
[3:38:23] infrastructure or energy related
projects or investments in operating
[3:38:27] businesses.
Um, so the first opportunity zone 1.0,
[3:38:32] the initial program established in 2017
was scheduled to sunset um, I think at
[3:38:38] the end of 2028.
However, Congress made the pro program
[3:38:43] permanent uh last year as part of that
one big beautiful bill and it also
[3:38:47] established this opportunity zone 2.0 0
process where uh IRS in the spring
[3:38:53] released the eligible census tracks
nationwide and then governors across the
[3:38:58] country have until the end of September
to nominate up to 25% of their eligible
[3:39:02] census tracks and then uh the
Treasury uh later this year will certify
[3:39:09] those nominations and then the new
opportunity zone map will be in effect
[3:39:14] for the next decade. So it's a once a
decade process moving forward.
[3:39:20] U and then within that uh California has
created its own process that's being
[3:39:24] overseen by GOBiz or the governor's
office of business and economic
[3:39:27] development. Uh so back in
uh middle of June they opened up an
[3:39:33] application process for local
jurisdictions to re make recommendations
[3:39:37] of which census tracks uh the governor
should nominate. Um there's not a it's
[3:39:43] not required that a a local
jurisdictions's elected body adopt a
[3:39:47] resolution. Um, however, it's something
that we can add during the public
[3:39:50] comment period to show um support or
direction. And then uh again at the end
[3:39:57] then there'll be a public comment period
uh August 1st and uh a deadline for the
[3:40:02] governor at the end of September.
Um the state has indicated that uh and
[3:40:10] and just for context in terms of the
number of census tracks in California um
[3:40:15] there's over 2600 eligible census
tracks. So the governor can only
[3:40:19] nominate a little over 600.
[3:40:24] Um in terms of um how the state will go
about selecting that 600 or so census
[3:40:29] tracks, they've identified a number of
priorities.
[3:40:34] Um, some of those are outside of our
control, just demographic factors such
[3:40:39] as poverty, medium family income, uh,
renter occupancy, occupancy, uh, and
[3:40:45] unemployment. But other factors are
statewide and regional economic
[3:40:49] development, uh, objectives such as
those outlined on the slide here,
[3:40:53] alignment with, uh, the state jobs first
regional plans and programs, alignment
[3:40:58] with, uh, affordable housing objectives
and regional housing needs allocation.
[3:41:03] the presence of business ready sites and
any active or planned public investment.
[3:41:09] Um so when it comes to San Rafll uh in
the the initial opportunity zone or OZ
[3:41:16] 1.0 the census tracks the two small
census tracks 1122.04
[3:41:22] and 003 were the designated tracks. In
this second uh round, the IRS has
[3:41:31] identified five potential census tracks,
including much larger census tracks such
[3:41:35] as um 1122.02, O2, which includes um the
remainder of East Sanfell and all of our
[3:41:44] our ARO dealerships, which are prime tax
generating um uh uses for the city, as
[3:41:52] well as uh areas west of 580 and a
portion of the downtown.
[3:41:58] Um these areas align with many of the
the state priorities that uh I
[3:42:04] referenced a moment ago. Um there's
currently various forms of public
[3:42:08] investment in these different areas.
Just an as an example, MTC is funding
[3:42:13] the East Sanfell specific plan that is
underway at the moment um that will help
[3:42:17] shape um opportunities and um
development pathways going forward.
[3:42:22] There are multiple housing sites as well
as busy ready site, business ready sites
[3:42:27] and there's ongoing workforce um
training programs as well in these
[3:42:30] areas.
Um, one issue that the economic
[3:42:35] development and housing subcommittee um
raised during discussion of this item
[3:42:40] was the potential for displacement of
tenants as a result of um opportunities
[3:42:45] zone related investments. Um, back in
2021 and 2024, the city took measures um
[3:42:53] to adopt anti-displacement strategies
specific to those um opportunity 1.0
[3:42:58] census tracks. Um however there isn't a
lot of data in terms of the actual
[3:43:03] impact of um OZ 1.0 investments and
partly that's a reflection on the lack
[3:43:08] of data reporting requirements during OZ
1.0. OZ 2.0 will have more reporting
[3:43:14] requirements. So we'll have a better
sense of um the impact um of opportunity
[3:43:21] zone uh investments. Um regardless of
opportunity zones, uh the city council
[3:43:27] through the housing element and the
three-year strategic plan has adopted
[3:43:30] goals directing staff to explore
anti-displacement strategies as our our
[3:43:35] housing manager knows well. Um and staff
is already um exploring
[3:43:39] anti-displacement strategies for
presentation to the city council
[3:43:43] starting with the economic development
housing subcommittee um this fall that
[3:43:47] so that will include an analysis of the
opportunity zones but more more examine
[3:43:53] anti-displacement strategies citywide.
Um so in terms of staff's recommendation
[3:44:00] uh since there is no limit on how many
census tracks we could recommend um
[3:44:05] we're recommending
uh all five census tracks for the
[3:44:09] state's consideration um with the pri uh
prioritization.
[3:44:14] Um the number one census track that we
recommend is the the largest census
[3:44:19] track the 1122.02 O2 um as well and
followed with the downtown census tract
[3:44:27] as these two census track provide the
strongest opportunity for investment
[3:44:31] that aligns with the city's economic
development uh housing resilience and
[3:44:35] revenue um objectives.
Um the next two census tracks staff
[3:44:41] recommends
uh for the state's consideration would
[3:44:45] be 1122.04
and 1122.03 03 the remaining uh census
[3:44:51] tracks in East Sanfell or the existing
1.0 census tracks is that would provide
[3:44:56] for a kind of a comprehensive
um economic development tool for East
[3:45:02] Sanfell and help support the policies
developed in the East Sanfell specific
[3:45:06] plan. And the last census track uh
recommended would be the furthest west
[3:45:11] 1121
um as there are opportunities for
[3:45:15] industrial and commercial land
modernization there as well.
[3:45:19] Um, so that's staff's recommendation.
Um, and we're here to answer any
[3:45:23] questions.
>> Thank you, Greg. Uh, questions, vice
[3:45:27] mayor. Any questions on this item?
>> So, we can recommend all five and the
[3:45:33] state can come back and select one.
>> Right. Okay.
[3:45:37] » Correct.
>> Yeah. Um, for all these census tracks,
[3:45:41] are they all within the city or does it
cross into the county as at all?
[3:45:50] Um, my wise colleague to my right has
confirmed that they're they're all
[3:45:54] within the city of Sarville.
>> Okay, great. All right, that's Yeah, no,
[3:45:58] it makes sense.
>> Great. Thank you. Uh, questions. Council
[3:46:01] member Bushy.
>> Um, I want to ask some questions about
[3:46:05] the uh anti-displacement.
Um, because I was here when we did those
[3:46:10] and it was an emergency. um we thought
there was going to be widespread
[3:46:13] displacement because of the very
lucrative incentives created by the
[3:46:19] opportunity zones.
So if I understand your presentation
[3:46:23] correctly, there hasn't been a lot of
use of those anti-displacement
[3:46:30] uh programs and requirements.
[3:46:38] So, um,
as Greg mentioned, we don't have great
[3:46:43] local data because of the lack of
reporting requirements. But what we do
[3:46:48] know is nationally
a little under three4ers of tracks, OZ
[3:46:54] designated tracks, saw activity and
about a quarter didn't. Um we have not
[3:47:02] we are not aware of a lot of activity in
our opportunity zone. Um I think what
[3:47:07] we're thinking about for 1.0 versus 2.0
is that we do have some other economic
[3:47:12] development strategies coming down the
line for instance the Southeast Sanfell
[3:47:17] specific plan and other plans that could
catalyze investment together with the
[3:47:24] opportunity zone. One of the things that
a lot of the um research and commentary
[3:47:29] on the opportunity zones are saying is
that often the tracks that had more
[3:47:35] activity had multiple had an opportunity
zone designation and some other um
[3:47:42] tools. And so um that is why even though
we're not aware of um a proliferation of
[3:47:52] activity in the OZ 1.0 0 in the canal
census tract. Um we didn't want to
[3:47:58] assume that there would necessarily be
no activity in 2.0 if if there were
[3:48:02] another designation with different other
local tools in place,
[3:48:06] » right? That doesn't make any sense. So
years ago in 2017, it was an emergency.
[3:48:13] Something was going bad things were
going to happen to tenants. We had to
[3:48:16] act right away. We adopted um extremely
strenuous tenant protections. I'm now
[3:48:22] hearing you tell tell me that as far as
you know there haven't they haven't been
[3:48:26] used um and they haven't created
[clears throat] any um and and there and
[3:48:31] there wasn't a real need for them. So
and that was just in the two small ones.
[3:48:37] So now we're zooming out to many more a
much a much bigger area and you're
[3:48:42] coming forward and making no
recommendations for those for the for
[3:48:48] the new areas. So my question goes back
to what are we going to do about the
[3:48:52] ones? Are we going to leave the So are
we going to have two with these these
[3:48:56] strenuous requirements and the other's
not? What's the logic behind that?
[3:49:02] » Sorry, let me just clarify. I apologize.
I didn't understand the question. So um
[3:49:06] the two emergency policies, one of them
will expire December 31st, 2026. So the
[3:49:13] 2024 emergency ordinance, no matter what
happens with the opportunity zone 2.0 0
[3:49:18] designation whether all of them get uh
designated none of them it will deci it
[3:49:24] will expire December 31st the 2021
policy which is the one that increased
[3:49:30] relocation assistance payment amounts
>> that is tied specifically to the canal
[3:49:36] opportunity zone designation that
currently exists. So if those two were
[3:49:42] to get redesated
that would survive into 2.0 No, unless
[3:49:47] the council took action. But if if those
>> only for those
[3:49:52] » Exactly.
>> Okay.
[3:49:54] So, logically, if they're necessary for
those two, are they necessary for the
[3:50:00] others? And if it sounds to me like they
haven't been used in those two. So,
[3:50:08] why so so what what are we doing here?
So, it's not that that um those policies
[3:50:17] haven't been used. I think it's that
we're saying there hasn't been
[3:50:23] a a proliferation of qualified
opportunity fund activity in the in the
[3:50:28] in the current zone that we're aware of.
Those policies have been utilized in
[3:50:33] circum certain circumstances. But I
think part of what we're saying is it
[3:50:38] makes sense to look at this in a
city-wide approach rather than only look
[3:50:43] at it in isolation with a couple of
census tracks to your point.
[3:50:49] » So your proposal then is to look at it
across the city
[3:50:54] and what are you going to do about those
two?
[3:50:57] » So council member if I may, Micah
Hinkle, community and economic
[3:51:00] development director. Uh some of these
items were covered in the um uh
[3:51:04] subcommittee meeting we had on this.
I'll try to bring up to speed on the
[3:51:07] general thoughts and approach. Um we did
adopt um tenant protection components
[3:51:13] tied to the opportunity zone which is
those two little census tracks. But the
[3:51:17] initial data in the analysis when
looking from a citywide perspective of
[3:51:21] our issues on protections really need to
be citywide. They can't just be tied to
[3:51:25] a singular opportunity zone provision or
the changes in that. So really the staff
[3:51:30] recommendation is really to separate
tenant protections and opportunity zone
[3:51:34] designations. Opportunity zone
designations were how we approached the
[3:51:38] particular problem at the time to say
here's a potential solution that defined
[3:51:42] a geographic area. But as we dug more
into the issue about displacement or
[3:51:48] concerns about displacement within the
city of Sanfell, it really is it's in
[3:51:51] multiple components of the city that's
not specifically an OZ an opportunity
[3:51:56] zone location. So we really are looking
at them as two different uh approaches.
[3:52:01] One is um uh tenant protection
approaches um through for through the
[3:52:06] entire citywide and we're prepared and
we've been researching uh
[3:52:09] recommendations to bring back to the uh
subcommittee along and ultimately to the
[3:52:13] council per the work program. There is a
secondary piece to this and really is
[3:52:18] related to the state's movement on
opportunity zone 2.0. Um we do see this
[3:52:24] opportunity zone 2.0 you know as a
economic development tool uh and really
[3:52:28] what it is it's it's tax benefits from
the federal government. So it is an
[3:52:32] important investment tool and we want to
utilize it as such and that's its
[3:52:36] original intent. Um so we are focused on
the eligible track zones that we have.
[3:52:41] Um we have actually engaged um the uh
multiple community members. We've done a
[3:52:45] couple workshop sessions on this and
actually received general support of
[3:52:49] like yeah one questions I think we
received I think we got received letters
[3:52:52] on this was okay what's the
prioritization which one is it downtown
[3:52:56] or is it east Sanfell uh a lot of
approach was make sure it's east Sanfell
[3:52:59] first with downtown and the other zones
um in that order of preference but
[3:53:04] ultimately this will become a state uh
tool that the we may get zero uh in
[3:53:10] terms of the eligibility tracks I'm
hoping that we'll get something but who
[3:53:13] knows um But that's really the approach
we're taking. Really trying to isolate
[3:53:17] the two type of questions being opposed
here. Um but opportunity zones is just a
[3:53:22] a toolbox into the economic development
tools whereas the tenant protections I
[3:53:27] think is actually something that needs
to be taken on by the city as a whole
[3:53:29] and it expands beyond the two little
census tracks uh located in the canal.
[3:53:34] » Agree with you 100%. Um economic
development sounds great. Let's do all
[3:53:38] of that. but we put them together years
ago and we either need to decide that
[3:53:44] they belong together or they don't.
Maybe that's an issue that you take up
[3:53:49] in the broader um looking at the across
the city and saying in this particular
[3:53:56] area we have them based on this
rationale that is now outdated.
[3:54:03] Um, I believe that's the the approach on
this and really just bringing forward
[3:54:06] recommendations on where where the
tenant protection should lie across the
[3:54:10] entire city and actually define
potentially a different geographic
[3:54:14] basis. You there are other other
opportunities for us to do that. That's
[3:54:17] not an OZ map um
>> anymore.
[3:54:20] » That's correct. And that's really the
concern of this. We needed to come to
[3:54:23] terms with this no matter what because
they were going to expire at the end of
[3:54:26] the year. Um so we we've already been
working on okay where is our approach
[3:54:30] for tenant protections. Uh but then the
opportunity zones period time period uh
[3:54:36] ramped up really kind of we need to take
action if we want to preserve the
[3:54:39] ability even to obtain the economic
development tools that we presented by
[3:54:42] OZ 2.0.
>> Right. So capture the benefits of OZ um
[3:54:46] 2.0 and resolve the tenant protection
issues somewhere else but separate them.
[3:54:53] » That's correct.
>> Actually cleave them apart because that
[3:54:57] was that was how it was done before. All
right. Uh, thank you.
[3:55:02] » Certainly.
>> Thank you, Council Member Hill.
[3:55:06] » Thank you, Mayor Kate. Thank you, Greg
and Alexis, for being here to present
[3:55:11] this item. This is very important to our
community. My question uh is because we
[3:55:17] can't tell investors, invest in this.
They're going to come in and they're
[3:55:22] going to invest in what they want to.
However, what I'd love to hear is does
[3:55:25] staff have any opinions on tools that we
have that would might encourage or steer
[3:55:32] towards
projects that would lead to more
[3:55:36] community benefit or toward and or
towards um our general plan.
[3:55:43] » Sure. I mean, one one opportunity that
comes to mind is the East Sanfell
[3:55:47] specific plan. That's a process where
the community and the council ultimately
[3:55:51] can,
you know, incentivize certain activity
[3:55:57] um through our our planning regulations.
So, that seems like an opportunity on
[3:56:00] the horizon. And I don't know, Alexis,
did you want to add anything? Um, one
[3:56:04] one thing I I just I omitted earlier in
the presentation to to mention that
[3:56:09] staff's recommendation is consistent
with the recommendation of the the
[3:56:13] Chamber of Commerce and East Sanfell
Working Group and Canal Alliance. and
[3:56:17] they included a letter in our packet.
>> And um my other my other question around
[3:56:24] displacement because I I know that in
the in the packet in the presentation
[3:56:29] too that um staff will come back to
subcommittee first and then the council
[3:56:34] to contemplate what those proposals
might be to for for mitigation. I I
[3:56:39] think that might go I I would suggest it
might answer a lot of what council
[3:56:44] member Bush's concerns are, which is how
do we disentangle
[3:56:48] citywide policy from OZ specific policy
for displacement. Are there any other
[3:56:52] risks other than displacement that you
would contemplate or is that the main
[3:56:55] one?
[3:57:00] » Um not that comes to mind. And I don't
know if director Henle if you want to if
[3:57:04] you have any thoughts but it ultimately
I think what we've discussed at the
[3:57:07] subcommittee level and director Henkle
mentioned is it's just an additional
[3:57:10] economic development tool. So if an
investor is considering investing in Oak
[3:57:15] in Sarafll rather uh this is this is
something that might encourage them to
[3:57:20] invest here rather than not. So it's
it's an additional tool. Um, you know,
[3:57:26] kind of to to add on to that, I agree
and I don't think there's a lot of risk
[3:57:30] outside of the displacement concerns
that were really been called out for it.
[3:57:33] It is a federal tax um benefit that's
actually applied by Congress. Um, I
[3:57:39] think for us when we look at these
items, it's overall investment actions.
[3:57:43] It's almost like a checkbox for
investors, right? You know, are you in
[3:57:46] the flood zone? Maybe, yes, no. Um, are
you uh in opportunity zone? Yes. So they
[3:57:53] go through the box of items and then
also the reality of for investors to
[3:57:57] take advantage of the tax benefits
applied by opportunity zones, you got to
[3:58:02] pretty you have to have like groups
understand qualified investments and
[3:58:05] there's a big fund pool that ties into
it. But they do exist and they actually
[3:58:09] been successful in some areas for
bringing that capital uh to play. The
[3:58:14] one area that that and I I mentioned
this in the um subcommittee. One area
[3:58:18] that I was surprised with is is the
ability that downtown was not originally
[3:58:22] on any of the initial projected maps or
locations. I actually think that's a
[3:58:27] great benefit for us because we already
have adopted plans and information. This
[3:58:31] is an area we've targeted for many years
for investment where this brings another
[3:58:35] checkbox to say why makes sense for
investment. if that brings in that
[3:58:40] housing and that um officer development
pieces we're looking for the benefits
[3:58:44] also too opportunity zones also um they
look always layered for for like tools
[3:58:49] for investments being qual and a
qualified opportunity zone may also
[3:58:54] bring some of the infrastructure dollars
and pieces we're after um based on the
[3:58:58] projects that are being presented. So
whatever we can do to add to the ability
[3:59:02] for investment to pull full benefit, I
think it's it's a value to us. But I do
[3:59:08] do agree the biggest concern of the
biggest setbacks opportunity zones and
[3:59:12] uh has been always been the displacement
concerns. That's why I think we're
[3:59:15] trying to address this the displacement
concerns more on a citywide pieces where
[3:59:19] it's not just the protections are added
only if you're in the opportunity zones
[3:59:22] because those same concerns are
throughout our community.
[3:59:26] » One concern that I have that
I imagine and I can't prove it but I'd
[3:59:31] love if staff could uh indulge walking
into this risk area that I think about
[3:59:36] which is that you know uh the happy path
is that we get investments that are
[3:59:42] completely aligned with community
benefit completely aligned with the
[3:59:45] general plan. However,
um I can also imagine that what might be
[3:59:51] more important to an investor is that it
they get a return
[3:59:56] and that may not be consistent with
community benefit and general plan. So,
[4:00:02] I guess um it doesn't have to be an
answer that says here's what we're going
[4:00:06] to do. I'm hoping that maybe if if staff
can contemplate as part of the
[4:00:10] displacement um you know the next time
we we revisit this at the subcommittee
[4:00:15] level what are ways that we can help you
know how do we create more encouragement
[4:00:20] I I appreciate you know the the specific
plan is obviously one way if there's any
[4:00:25] other lessons that are learned even if
it's not data driven I I I heard uh
[4:00:29] opportunities in 1.0 did not have data
and reporting requirements uh in a way
[4:00:34] that might inform even if it's
anecdotal, what did other communities do
[4:00:37] to try to um make it less extractive and
and more aligned with community benefit?
[4:00:44] » I think that one thing that really helps
in the process, particularly for the
[4:00:48] community engagement portions for both
the downtown and for uh Southeast
[4:00:52] Sanfell, um is the community engagement
about what we're looking for. Uh I think
[4:00:58] that's the most critical piece because a
lot of times that is the question for
[4:01:01] investors. What's the overall vision of
this community? Where is it going to go?
[4:01:05] What do I need to be successful here?
And I think those plans and that
[4:01:09] investment of our of our time and effort
really will pay off in that um total
[4:01:14] investment package. Uh particularly
what's needed to be successful. So and
[4:01:18] and that's when we look at kind of the
displacement policies or concerns
[4:01:21] related to that. we're getting that
level of investment and looks in Sanfell
[4:01:26] altogether and all parts of Sanfell. So
I think that's why we really do need to
[4:01:30] look at really what's happening to our
community in respects of displacement
[4:01:33] outside of opportunity zones. Uh and I
that's really where where we landed as
[4:01:38] staff and really kind of p pursuing that
that approach.
[4:01:41] » Thank you.
>> Thank you. I don't have any additional
[4:01:45] questions. So I'm going to open up
public comment on this item. If you'd
[4:01:49] like to comment, now is your opportunity
to do so.
[4:01:54] I don't see anyone in the room. Anyone
online like to comment?
[4:01:58] » I see no hands raised, but I'll give
everyone a second.
[4:02:01] » Okay,
>> I see no public comment.
[4:02:04] » Okay, I'll close the public comment and
bring it back. We've had in addition to
[4:02:08] those questions, there was some
commentary in there as well. Um, but I
[4:02:11] will offer the opportunity for
additional comments. Vice Mayor.
[4:02:15] » Um I'm supportive of moving forward with
recommendation of the prior and the
[4:02:20] priorization of the five additional
um or actually three additional plus the
[4:02:26] two um census tracks. I think we have to
keep an eye on the what happens to the
[4:02:34] opportunity zones. It will be
interesting to see if having them in
[4:02:38] more commercial areas will generate
something. I don't feel that we saw what
[4:02:44] we were hoping to see with the
opportunity zone. So, um, but I think
[4:02:49] we'll need to watch it carefully and I
hope the state supports the work that
[4:02:53] we're trying to do because if it works
the way it's supposed to work for the
[4:02:57] better of the community, that would be
great. If it leads to more, you know,
[4:03:04] gentrification, displacement, other
things that the the negative aspects
[4:03:07] that come along with an opportunity zone
potentially, then we need to, you know,
[4:03:12] address that as they come forward. But
right now, we're not seeing that. Um,
[4:03:17] and it would be to it we would we would
be remiss not moving forward at least to
[4:03:23] see if we can get some support from the
state to be able to work with these with
[4:03:27] these levels and these census tracks.
Thank you.
[4:03:30] » Thank you, Council Member Bushy.
>> I support the staff recommendation and
[4:03:34] be happy to move the motion um at the
appropriate time.
[4:03:37] » Thank you, Council Member Hill.
>> I will echo my council members comments
[4:03:42] and not belabor the point. I support
this um adopting the nomination of these
[4:03:48] five census tracks. I look forward to uh
the next engagement with staff on
[4:03:53] recommendations for displacement and
ways that we can guide investment if
[4:03:57] what using whatever tools we have. Thank
you.
[4:03:59] » Yeah. And thank you, Alexis and Greg,
for all the work. I I know there's a lot
[4:04:03] of work that went into bringing this to
the city and even having us consider it.
[4:04:07] Um we hope that we get selected as we
already talked about as the vice mayor
[4:04:11] mentioned the um there's a lot of
opportunity zones that can be elected or
[4:04:17] suggested and it's really up to the
governor's office. So, I'm glad we're
[4:04:19] taking this step. Um Council Member
Bushy, you said you would make the
[4:04:23] motion on this item. You are. Uh, I move
that we adopt the RA resolution in
[4:04:27] support of an application to the
California Governor's Office of Business
[4:04:30] and Economic Development, Go Biz,
recommending the nomination of census
[4:04:35] tracks 0604111
[4:04:38] 01
0604111
[4:04:43] 060411
[4:04:47] 1 22 02 0604111223
[4:04:53] and 060411122042
[4:04:58] the opportunity zone 2.0 program.
>> Well read. Is there a second?
[4:05:03] » Second.
>> Moved and seconded. Roll call, please.
[4:05:06] » Council member Bushy.
>> I.
[4:05:07] » Council member Hill.
>> I.
[4:05:08] » Vice Mayor Kurtz.
>> I. Mayor Kate.
[4:05:10] » Hi. That motion carries 40 Z. Thank you
so much. Um, as I mentioned at the
[4:05:14] beginning of the meeting, we also have
open time for public expression at the
[4:05:18] end of the meeting. If someone hasn't
already had the opportunity to say
[4:05:21] something during the meeting, now is
your opportunity. Is there anything that
[4:05:24] was not on tonight's agenda? I'll see if
there's anyone in the chambers who would
[4:05:29] like to comment. Now is your opportunity
and you're welcome, but not required to
[4:05:32] say your name and what part of Sam or
fail you're in. Welcome.
[4:05:37] » Good evening, Mayor Kate, Vice Mayor
Kurts, and members of the council. My
[4:05:42] name is Saj Dakar. I'm a 14-year-old
rising nth grader living in Fairfield,
[4:05:45] Slano County. I'm a member of the
Fairfield Youth Commission and am the
[4:05:48] founder of the National Association of
Youth Commissions. This nonprofit
[4:05:52] organization works to establish youth
commissions in cities where they're not
[4:05:55] already present, push for legislation
beneficial to youth, increase youth
[4:05:59] youth access to government, and provide
a space for youth commissions around the
[4:06:02] nation to collaborate. I'm speaking to
you this evening on a proposal that I've
[4:06:06] seen work firsthand, and it's one of the
best things that a city could do for its
[4:06:09] young people. I'm asking you to create a
youth commission in San Rell. For some
[4:06:13] context, a youth commission is a group
of young people, typically aged 14 to
[4:06:17] 25, who work to advise the city council
and mayor on topics relating to the
[4:06:20] youth. This can range from a small issue
that affects a few young people to
[4:06:24] citywide youth issues. Youth commissions
are created with the purpose of bridging
[4:06:27] the gap between the youth of a city and
a city's government. Right now, Sanfell
[4:06:32] does allow for youth to have a seat on
specific existing committees and
[4:06:36] commissions. But what San Rafell needs
is a standalone body that can tackle
[4:06:40] youth issues independently of other
commissions. A youth commission would be
[4:06:43] different from just another program in
that this isn't the city giving to the
[4:06:46] youth. It's also the youth giving to the
city. All the city needs to do is give
[4:06:50] them the chance.
This would not even be difficult to
[4:06:53] implement. All that is needed is a
resolution that would establish the
[4:06:56] commission. There would also be minimal
cost to the city since there would be no
[4:06:59] need to hire new individuals. The only
adults involved with the commission
[4:07:02] would be an adult adviser and optionally
one city council member acting as a
[4:07:07] liaison. There'd be very little
administrative costs since the only real
[4:07:10] cost would be holding a meeting.
Furthermore, through the National
[4:07:13] Association of Youth Commissions, I
would be happy to offer the city with
[4:07:16] free research on how things like costs,
appointments, and scope of work would
[4:07:19] play out. I'm requesting the city
council to direct staff to report back
[4:07:23] on potential routes the city could take
in starting a commission. I would be
[4:07:26] happy to serve as a resource for the
city during this time. Uh, I have here
[4:07:30] some QR codes that redirect to the
National Association of Youth
[4:07:32] Commission's contact page. If any member
of the council is interested, please
[4:07:36] contact me and I'll be happy to help out
in this process. Thank
[4:07:40] » Thank you. So, if you can be sure to
give your information to the city clerk,
[4:07:44] that would be fantastic.
Thank you so much and thank you for the
[4:07:48] work that you've been doing.
Any other public comment in the room?
[4:07:54] I don't see anyone else in the room.
Anyone online? I see no hands raised.
[4:07:58] It'll give everyone a moment.
>> No public comment.
[4:08:02] » Okay. I'm going to close the second
public expression time. And we have on
[4:08:06] our agenda this evening the Sanfell
Successor Agency. We have a consent
[4:08:11] calendar. Are there any items to be held
from the consent calendar? I'm looking
[4:08:15] up. I see no head shaking notes. So, I'm
going to open the public comment on the
[4:08:19] consent agenda. This is for the Sanfal
Successor Agency. Anyone in the room
[4:08:24] like to comment on the consent calendar
for the Sarafel Successor Agency? I
[4:08:29] don't see anyone in the room. Is there
anyone online?
[4:08:31] » I see no hands raised, but I'll give
everyone a moment.
[4:08:36] » I see no public comment.
>> I'll close the public comment. I request
[4:08:39] a motion on this item, please.
>> I move the consent calendar.
[4:08:43] » Second.
>> Moved and seconded. Roll call, please.
[4:08:46] » Member Bushy.
>> I.
[4:08:47] » Member Hill.
>> I.
[4:08:49] » Vice Chair Curts.
>> I.
[4:08:50] » Chairperson Kate.
>> I. That motion carries 40 Z. As I
[4:08:54] mentioned at the top of the meeting, we
are journeying tonight in honor of
[4:08:58] Esther Burn. She faithfully served the
city of Somerfell for many years as our
[4:09:03] city clerk. Esther dedicated her career
to ensuring our local government
[4:09:07] operated with integrity, transparency,
and professionalism. She served under
[4:09:12] two mayors, four city managers, and
multiple city councils, providing the
[4:09:17] steady institutional knowledge and
commitment that helped our city navigate
[4:09:22] change while always keeping the public
at the center of her work. Esther began
[4:09:27] her service to Sanfell in August 2000 as
deputy city clerk under the then city
[4:09:32] clerk Jean Lancini. She was first
elected city clerk in 2007 and was
[4:09:38] subsequently reelected twice without any
opposition. A reflection of the
[4:09:43] confidence that our community placed in
her and the respect she earned from
[4:09:46] colleagues and residents alike.
Those of us who had the privilege of
[4:09:50] working with Esther remembered her
remember her not only for her
[4:09:54] exceptional confidence but also for her
kindness. She treated everyone with
[4:09:58] warmth, patience, and respect, whether
they were first time in city hall and
[4:10:03] didn't know how to navigate something or
a longtime community leader. She had an
[4:10:08] incredible ability to make people feel
heard and welcomed. And she also ensured
[4:10:14] at that same time that the public's
business was conducted openly and with
[4:10:18] care. Esther leaves behind a lasting
legacy of public service and a standard
[4:10:23] of excellence that continues to inspire
all of us and I know inspires our city
[4:10:29] clerk today. So on behalf of the Sanfal
city council, we extend our heartfelt
[4:10:34] condolences to Esther's family and her
friends and all who had the pleasure of
[4:10:38] knowing and working with her. Sarafhel
is a better place because she spent time
[4:10:42] with us. This meeting is now adjourned
in memory of Esther.