The City Council got off to a good start in 2023…
· It obtained timely State approval of its Housing Element, thanks to last minute heroic efforts by Council members Cox and Kellman.
o Many other cities, such as Berkeley, failed to achieve such approvals because State officials did not deem their plans to have realistic roadmaps for meeting ambitious growth targets.
o Such cites were therefore exposed to the odious “builder’s remedy” where developers can get approval for housing projects of any size (more on this later).
· The Council also “balanced” the budget for the first time since the pandemic. Forgive us for not praising this Council action more but since most council members have repeatedly demonstrated ignorance of accounting, particularly government accounting, we believe this is more a Staff accomplishment. The surplus was budgeted as $863 on a $20+ million total budget so whether the City finishes in the black is clearly touch-and-go.
…But then the City dropped the ball…
· Oh, there were several second tier achievements, such as new hires and union negotiations, but again these were primarily done by Staff.
· But, unfortunately, the Council was repeatedly distracted by shiny objects hanging from trees and completely missed the forest. You might blame this lack of focus on the relative inexperience of the Council but we’re not so forgiving.
o In 2020, the then City Council prepared a strategic plan and a draft implementation plan for 2020-2026, detailing goals and the steps to accomplish them. Two of the currently sitting council members, Cox and Hoffman, were authors of these plans but apparently forgot them or couldn’t get other members to pay attention.
o That’s too bad because the plans contained some good ideas, for example:
§ Relative to the Ferry Landing parking lot, “Maintaining existing scope in compliance with the federal grant and not allow… scope creep [emphasis added] to influence the project” [Status: Overdue and creeping]. Keep a close eye on council member Ian Sobieski, our newly appointed mayor, who has visions of major scope creep for this area.
§ “Amend Zoning Ordinance pursuant to adopted General Plan…” [Status: Not started and Overdue]
§ Major Threat to the City: State Housing Requirements. These requirements are truly a threat. The Council’s inactivity towards the Housing Element does not demonstrate the creation of a “realistic roadmap” towards housing development and raises the specter of the imposition of “Builder’s Remedy”.
· During the past summer, the Council rejected a proposal for a meaningful development plan for the Marinship area but did authorize the City Attorney to prepare a Request a Proposal (RFP) for a consultant to prepare a city-wide development plan. There’s been no mention of this RFP since and it does not appear on the latest list of “future agenda items”. We note that a similar request was made in 2022 and the only responder was the group whose Marinship plan was rejected.
· The Council’s newest ploy is to form city-funded “non-profits” using taxpayers’ money to finance their pet projects. We have the SCA (Sausalito Center for the Arts) with a lease which the City doesn’t enforce. We also have the potential Business Improvement District (BID) 50% of which will be financed by the City. Ironically, BIDs by definition pool business moneys not taxpayers monies—except in Sausalito where taxpayers are the ATM. .
Looking forward to 2024:
The Council needs to focus on the tasks that NEED doing, with accompanying penalties and risks to the town, rather than time and (our) money consuming "bright shiny objects" or vanity projects.
We residents need to keep the pressure on the Council to keep them on track.
1. No “non-profits “funded by City moneys without a taxpayers’ vote
2. Enforce the SCA lease
3. Stay within the scope of the ferry landing project and don’t reduce revenue-producing parking.
What can you do?
1. Please distribute this to your Sausalito network.
2. Contact the Council and demand they be accountable for your money.
3. Consider running for City Council.