**NEWS Update, 6/4/2023

This is important……

WHAT WERE THE THREE LAWYERS THINKING?

The three lawyers on the Sausalito City Council killed a major opportunity at a May 23rd meeting. This action could very well mean that very soon you’ll have no say whatsoever about what can be built in your neighborhood – including how big it could be.

The opportunity they rejected was the offer of a professionally run, cost effective process to create (with community involvement) a plan for the Marinship. Mayor Blaustein and Vice Mayor Sobieski saw the merit and wisdom of this approach and voted for it; the three lawyers voted “No.”.

Council member Hoffman announced in a newsletter before the meeting she was not inclined to vote for the opportunity and asked no questions during the presentation.

Council member Cox appeared concerned that the plan would somehow eclipse Sausalito’s recently approved Housing Element Plan so she voted “no” on the plan. The reality is that a Housing Element Plan is like a list of ingredients while the proposed Marinship plan would be akin to instructions on how to bake the cake.

We frankly have no idea why Council member Kellman voted “no, with respect”. Respect is wonderful but the vote still killed the deal.

What is at stake here?

Sausalito recently obtained State approval of the City Housing Element Plan. Good job!

BUT the plan commits the City to provide for “realistic development capacity” by others of 724 housing units by the end of 2031. Yikes, that’s a 17% increase in the number of Sausalito units in eight years. The City Housing Element also designates the north end of the Marinship as a site for new housing.

The Marinship proposal would have likely created clear evidence of housing capacity in the near term – under community control and ultimate Council approval-- but it was rejected. One of the hollow and shot-sighted criticisms of the proposal was it did not address the entire city.

Also at stake is the notion, mentioned above and held by the three, that the ENTIRE CITY needs “Master Planning”. Do YOU want a big box master planner to re-design all of Sausalito?

In our opinion, each area of Sausalito has its own subtle differences and requires special attention, not the top-down, cookie cutter approach of many government planners.

Clearly the three lawyer-council members felt no sense of urgency about the Housing Element number as they, after rejecting the Marinship proposal, essentially kicked the can down the road.

They called for the preparation of a Request for Proposals (RFP) for a “planning group.” Below is an excerpt from Council member Hoffman’s newsletter:

“My take is that if Sausalito goes forward with a Master Plan, it should be city-wide, and build on the substantial information and community-wide input gathered as part of the General Plan update and the 2023 Housing Element, two monumental efforts. The focus should be under the Community Development Department and Planning Commission for further vetting and definition of the scope for a Sausalito Master Plan effort with a report in the fall of 2023 to the City Council on the path forward.”

All due respect, but the above proposal sounds like bureaucrat-ese at its finest. The State is looking for action. Ask the residents of San Francisco’s Sunset District.

Such RFP Requests take considerable time to prepare, and the City Attorney said he could not get to it for four months.

It seems a little silly to go through this bureaucratic charade since, when the City issued a much simpler Request for Information last summer, only one group responded --the local group the Council just rejected. It took the Council nine months to review this proposal before turning it down.

Would this approach demonstrate “action” by the Council, in Sacramento’s eyes? The City has promised housing on several City owned sites, as well as in the Marinship – in two years, when Sacramento looks as Sausalito’s progress, the inception of a town wide “master plan” effort is unlikely to pass the smell test.

Given the lack of interest in the “planning” community, which groups are going to suddenly appear and spend the money to respond to the City’s RFP this time around? And please no more conflict of interest contracts! Any design group which has already (1) made a “master plan” proposal, e.g. Imagine Sausalito, etc., or (2) has made any design proposal before the Planning Commission or the City Council in the last ten (10) years should be disqualified from submitting. 

What’s the likely result? The City will come up empty in two-three years, with no ability to demonstrate a good possibility of realistic development capacity. The State will not be happy – and the consequences may easily be the imposition of the “Builders Remedy” rule, despite the approved Housing Element, by which builder’s dictate what can be built on a site, whoever and wherever they may be.

YOU READY FOR THIS? 

Ask the residents of San Francisco’s Sunset District. This is no joke – it is a 50 story 589’ tall proposal by a Nevada developer who has a portfolio of skyscraper

Is this the Future of Sausalito?

THIS IS SERIOUS!  

We urge you to call or email one or more of these three and DEMAND they wake up and smell the coffee.  Demonstrating to the State the real likelihood of making 724 units available for development in a manner compatible with the existing fabric of Sausalito requires action NOW, by experienced, qualified, local people, not in a year by big business distant planners or the usual cronies who want to IMAGINE SAUSALITO

The City Council should climb down from their high horses and tell the Marinship proposer (CVP) that they’ve reconsidered.

**News Update, 4/1/2022

Do You Want to Open Your Wallets and Finance ANOTHER PARK???

HERE WE GO AGAIN!  The City Council is trying to (1) remove Ferry Landing parking spaces AND (2) eliminate picturesque Tracy Way and “incorporate it into Parking Lot 1.”

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The merchants need parking as evidenced by the presentation of a similar proposal which was shouted down at a public meeting several months ago. Aesthetically, Tracy Way has lovely, mature trees which should not be replaced by trees similar to those in Dunphy Park. Currently, it is one of the most beautiful streets in Sausalito. 

BUT these Council members keep coming back, this time under the guise of a Ferry landing renovation. In a presentation made to the Council on March 22nd, the plan above “is the scope of work that is currently fully funded??? and authorized for design”????? [emphasis added]

Fully funded? The only apparent funding is a $2.4 million federal grant.  The Council members claim the project has to proceed NOW because the federal grant is due to expire.  The city has sat on this grant for over five years and now it is a crisis. Here we go again —guess they plan on hitting the taxpayers’ ATM to pay for yet another unnecessary vanity project. 

No one knows how much this project would ultimately cost.  The Dunphy Park renovation budget was initially $1.8 million but ultimately cost $3.9 million. There has been no project cost analysis on this proposal, but the City Council voted to move forward with construction level plans before requesting comments from the Planning Commission, the Historic Preservation Commission, the Yacht Club or downtown businesses! 

We need to stop this proposal NOW.  The plan above is only Stage 1 of the scheme.  Stage 2 appears to create a large park with no parking at all!

And what about a forensic audit, a transparent process for a BOA Building lease, the homeless issue, the outrageous legal services agreement, the streets which are in disrepair and the infrastructure needed to accommodate 700+ additional residences???

HEY CITY COUNCIL!! 

LET’S STOP THE VANITY PROJECTS AND GET BACK TO BASICS!

If you agree, please click below and email us and we will submit aggregate responses to the Council or you can click and email them directly.

**News Update 2/2022

Demand a Forensic Audit for the City of Sausalito

We have sent out a postcard across Sausalito asking that you send an email to the Sausalito City Council demanding a third party, independent examination into the City’s finances.  On these pages, we will provide more detail regarding this independent examination and why we are seeking it.

·     The Independent Examination: The technical name for such an examination is “forensic audit.”

o  A normal audit is an official examination of accounts by an accounting firm

o  A forensic audit analyzes and investigates a certain range of transactions to determine if any bad practices or fraud has occurred.

·     Why do we need this independent examination?

o  Running out of money:  The City has been operating at a deficit for the past three years, dipping into reserves to cover the loss.  Councilmember Blaustein asked Charlie Francis that, if the City continued such deficits, it would be out of reserves in two years.  Francis responded:”… yes, two maybe three years. “

§  Does the City Council tighten its belt?  No way!

·    $2,200,000 for an old bank building which has been empty for the past eighteen months (see Bank of America Building page for an update on this questionable acquisition)

·     $750,000 for a “virtual bookkeeper” for eleven months (Charlie Francis Accounts Payable Spreadsheet)

·     $950,000 for a housing consulting group

·     $1,000,000 for the homeless situation

o  Lackadaisical Supervision: 

§  Amidst all the financial turmoil of the pandemic, the City Council’s Finance Committee only met twice in 2020 and did not supervise the Finance Department

Source: https://Finance Committee Meetings.

§  Normal Auditors, Maze & Associates, have reported lax accounting practices for the past five years (Accountants’ Report).

o  Evidence of Financial Misrepresentation:  We discovered and presented to the City Attorney Mary Wagner compelling evidence that a former City senior official made major misrepresentations to the City Council regarding the award of a $125,000 contract.  To date we are not aware of any action by the City. (The Cover Up?)

We need an independent examination into this messy situation.

END OF UPDATE