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Segment 1

Okay, so I'm going to use my projecting voice today because we do not have the mic system.
So I'm very sorry.
You're going to have to hear me yell and I apologize.
I hope folks at home, this is not deafening to you.
So council members that are here in person, we will not have microphones, so you'll just need to speak up.
Okay.
Okay, so I think we've finished the roll, although we have some additional council members here.
So we are moving on to the action calendar.
Today we have some public hearings that are carried over from the previous meeting.
We have already opened the public hearing for all of these.
So we will start with the first item, which is the fire permit and inspection fee schedule.
My understanding is that we don't have a presentation for this, but the staff here are available to answer any questions.
So in that case, I will see if there is any public comments on the first item.
We can't hear.
You can't hear? No.
Let's try the..
Can you read the captions? No.
No.
No.
Not at all.
All right.
Is it possible that you all stand up when you're talking? We'll work it out.
Thank you.
Not only for what is speaking, but..
We'll go ahead and see if it works.
That works.
So I don't know if it's going to be a solution to stand every time, because that would basically..
I mean, I don't mind standing, but that means I'll probably be standing the entire meeting.
So..
We can't hear.
I understand that.
You can also move forward to the front of the room.
Okay.
I'm going to accommodate the public, right? Yeah.
Give us a minute.
Hold on.
Okay.
I'm going to move forward to the front of the room.
I'm going to move forward to the front of the room.
Okay.
Okay.
I'm going to move forward to the front of the room.
Okay.
All right.
Sure.
All right.
All right.
Okay.
Was I recording off? I'm sorry.
You can't address the public council right now.
So, okay.
Where are we? Any other questions from council members? Okay.
Is there a motion to close the public hearing? So moved.
Second.
Okay.
To close the public hearing, Council Member Kisarwani? Yes.
Kaplan? Yes.
Bartlett? Yes.
Traigub? Aye.
O'Keefe? Yes.
Blackabay? Yes.
Lunapara? Yes.
Humbert? Yes.
And Mayor Ishii? Yes.
Okay.
Comments from Council Member Traigub? For some time now, admittedly, I've had mixed feelings about this program.
On the one hand, whenever we had a new project on the ZAB that was a multifamily project, this is one of the few things that we could tell the neighbors.
Well, new residents will not be eligible for preferential parking, and that is a condition.
On the other hand, as we have just unearthed or, you know, have known for some time, there are some inequities in this program.
There are some inequities between those who are able to own property and those who cannot but still don't have access to off-street parking.
I would be interested in a deeper dive on this and want to co-sign Council Member Kasperwani's suggestions looking at a graduated fee for additional vehicles with an eye towards these threshold cases to ensure that we don't exacerbate the inequities in doing so.
And more to the point, our office is contemplating opportunities for efficiencies that are able to supplement the work that existing staff and departments are doing in a way that will get programs like these towards cost neutrality.
But with all that being said, I move this item.
Second.
Are there other Council Member comments? Okay.
Clerk, can you take the roll, please? Okay.
Council Member Kasperwani? Yes.
Kaplan? Yes.
Bartlett? Yes.
Trigub? Aye.
O'Keefe? Yes.
Blackabay? Yes.
Lunapara? Yes.
Humber? Yes.
Okay.
Motion carries.
Okay.
Very good.
All right.
So we are moving on to the fourth item, which is the selected marina fee increases.
Just so folks understand, before you stand up, you might want to know that we've already opened the public hearing.
We're going to have a presentation from staff, then we'll take public comments, then Council questions, and then we'll close the public hearing before we have deliberations and then take our final vote.
So just so folks understand what the flow looks like.
Okay.
We're going to start with our presentation from Parks.
Good evening.
Your mic might not be on.
How about now? There we go.
Yes.
Very good.
Thank you.
Good evening, Mayor and Council.
We've got a brief presentation.
Mark, are you at the helm there? Okay.
Okay.
I'm Scott Ferris, Director of Parks, Recreation, and Waterfront, and with me is Christina Erickson.
She's the Deputy Director of PRW.
And so we've got about an eight or nine slide presentation and some information, and then we're here to answer questions.
So next slide, Mark.
So I just want to kind of go over a little history where we are with our Marina Fund, which is the fiscal agent that handles everything in the waterfront.
We were running at about a million dollar deficit in the last year or two.
It has slowly grown and had fluctuated.
We've been running in the red essentially since 2008 and maybe even before that.
But it was up to a million dollars, our structural deficits, for a variety of reasons that we've talked about here before.
And then we had the parks tax increase in Measure Y in November of 2024, which essentially at that time solved our deficit.
It allowed us to cost shift $1.5 million of waterfront expenditures to the parks tax where we were maintaining landscaping.
And then we heard from the Doubletree that in late April that they were not going to be able to pay their FY25 rent, about half of it, and so that they were unable to pay the $700,000.
It's what's on the screen there.
And so we, knowing that, we made some emergency adjustments in our FY25 budget.
And now we are projecting a deficit in FY26 at $1.3 million, which is the full payment we expect from the Doubletree.
So we've kind of had a rollercoaster ride in the last year for the Marina Fund.
Next slide.
So these are the adjustments we made to deal with that $700,000.
We had some remaining fund balance that we used to cover that.
We also postponed the South Cove e-stock repair.
We reduced waterfront security by 50%.
We cut a lot of our non-critical expenses, including our marketing budget, which is fairly sizable.
We cut all hourly staff in the Marina.
We adjusted career staff hours, so they were covering additional weeknights and weekends.
We reduced overtime for career staff.
And we've delayed several minor maintenance projects to FY26.
At last, we had another $50,000 we needed to cover in the FY25 gap, and so we've delayed a couple projects to FY26 in order to kind of finish in the black in FY25.
Next slide, Mark.
So potential adjustments, if we don't pick up the $1.3 million, are on the screen here.
Further CIP rejections, reductions in maintenance, security reductions, cuts to all non-critical expenses, workforce impact, proposed fees, which we're talking about some of them tonight.
And we're also, you know, we're talking about, I think you'll see here, about $280,000 worth of proposed fees.
We're working, we've got a group together working on establishing other revenues, potential fees that we could input at the start of the next calendar year.
And so we're doing that now.
We plan to go to our commission in October or November and come back to Council in December, maybe January, and talk about those fees.
But we're hoping to add another $250,000 to $300,000 to that total of fees.
A $1.3 million deficit is significant.
And the Marina Fund is, we're talking about a $7 million operational fund.
That's a large percentage of our operations.
And so making that cut is going to be very significant.
And we know that there's not a whole lot of general fund to bail us out.
So we're looking at all avenues, and this is kind of the start of that.
Next slide.
So this is the funds that we're proposing.
These are the fees that we're proposing here.
We have a waterfront parking fee, which we'll get into more detail in a second about.
We have a waterfront rental area fee, an organized group fee, a commercial business fee, and an adventure playground fee, which you approved on last Tuesday.
And the total projected gross revenue for all these five fees are $286,000.
I think that's a number that's below, $288,000.
And one of the reasons why we propose these fees initially is because we can do these with existing resources, with existing staff, so that they can be done fairly easily.
Mark, next slide.
So just talking about the parking fee, we're proposing a $1 an hour fee or a $6 a day fee or $500 a year fee at three lots, all in the South Cove, South Cove East, South Cove West, and JK parking lot.
And as you see, there is over 2,200 parking stalls in the waterfront.
Over 1,000 are currently free public parking stalls.
Next slide, Mark.
So currently we have of those 2,200 and I think it's 2,219, 1,322 are free public spaces before the establishment of fees in those three lots and after there would be just over 1,048.
And so we've kind of done a table, a couple different tables on a circle graph there to kind of display what's free and what people pay for, where's lease parking, and where is free boater parking for the brothers.
Next slide.
So this is our net revenue estimate for the parking fee only.
So we anticipate if the fee passes tonight that we will be up and ready to go January 1, and that we would take in about $91,000 in FY26, and our expenses, which would include the infrastructure to establish the parking fees and the operations would total to $47,000 for infrastructure and a little over almost $6,500 for operations, and we'd have a net revenue gain of $37,000 approximately in the first year.
In the second year, obviously with the infrastructure in place and a full year of charging, our net gain has dramatically increased almost to $170,000.
And just some of the assumptions we made were really conservative, and I just want to point out our revenue is based on a model that we collect $500 a day out of those 274 spaces, and that means they're only occupied and we're getting payment for 1.8 hours a day in each parking spot.
And so our numbers show us that actually it's probably going to be greater than that, but we wanted to be conservative with our estimate.
All revenue will go directly into the Marina Fund, and our infrastructure costs are, you know, one-time costs for pay stations that are solar-powered.
And next slide.
I think that's it, actually.
So we're here to answer any questions.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Appreciate it.
I'd like to take public comments on this matter.
Is there public comment on item number four, which is the selected Marina fee increases? And you can just come up when you're..
Yeah, you'll each have one minute, because I think there are many folks here to speak.
And just go ahead and move the mic up so that it's appropriate for your height.
Thank you.
Berkeley doesn't lack the authority to collect what's owed to keep the Marina Fund solvent.
It lacks the will.
Under its lease with the Hilton Doubletree, which owes $700,000 in unpaid rent and fees, the city could send a demand letter today, file a breach of contract suit tomorrow, obtain a judgment within months, and begin collecting soon after, restoring the needed revenue far more effectively without betraying our trust.
Charging working and middle-class families six bucks on an afternoon each to park near a public parking picnic area isn't progressive.
It's regressive, petty, and alienating.
Residents have already stepped up through bond measures for our parks.
If this council won't enforce a lease with a major corporate tenant, then what exactly are you here to do? Failure to act sends a clear message that the public picks up the tab for big businesses' lack of accountability.
And under your watch..
Thank you.
Thanks for your public comment.
Hello.
I'm Paul Kamian, and I have an op-ed in Berkeleyside, which I would like to refer everyone to.
I would like to see the parking fees passed as proposed.
In fact, I dare the council to pass the parking fees as proposed, because it's going to go down in flames, and it's going to be an embarrassment to every council member who votes for it.
The numbers simply don't work.
Even the revised numbers that we're hearing for the first time.
Scott and his usual M.O.
What I would like to speak against is the proposed $5,000 fee for organizations, specifically the Dragon Boat Club and the Cal-Singling Club.
Speaking only for the Dragon Boat Club, yes, we could afford $5,000 a year, but there's an unwritten, unspoken agreement that in return for our use of some otherwise unmarketable dock space, we have an obligation for public service and community outreach.
And when we need volunteers to serve the thousands of people..
Thank you, Paul.
I'm sorry.
Your time is up, Paul.
Okay.
Thank you.
Please read my op-ed.
Thanks.
I read your op-ed.
Thank you.
Hello, council members and mayor.
When I was a mother of young children, I could take my children to the adventure playground there, and I could have them play there, and it was free.
And now families with children that have not the high incomes that you guys probably command cannot do this anymore.
It's really, really, really despicable.
And the parking fee will add to this, so that even going there and have the kite flying will not be able anymore without a cost.
And you dare say that you just don't do anything about the 700,000 that are owed to you, but you can take it from the people that are more or less powerless because you ignore even what we say here.
You just do what you want here.
It's really arrogant.
It's not inclusive anymore.
You're exclusive.
You are not including people.
You are just making it an exclusive place for rich people here.
This is not the Berkeley that I moved to.
And you should really rethink this.
If I had to pay you, I would pay only one person.
That is him over there, because he engages at least.
Thank you.
And the other one should sit there.
Thank you for your public comment.
One comment I want to make is just to please not speak disparagingly of our staff.
They work really hard.
And also, just so folks know that during public comment period, we don't typically respond immediately, but many times we do respond to your comments during our comment period.
So apologies if it seems like we're not paying attention, but we really are listening and I'm taking notes right now.
So go ahead.
Okay.
I'm no expert on city finances, but it's really hard to ignore the burden of user fees, parking fees, et cetera, favored by city government reliably fall heaviest on those least able to afford them.
I don't expect anyone here to actually listen, but don't think that nobody is noticing.
We need to find and work for a better way, because this drip, drip, drip of regressive taxation works for nobody except the very affluent.
Thank you.
Carla Woodworth, and I like to give my minute to Jim McGrath.
Okay.
Is it okay with those two folks if he skips you? Yeah.
Are you also giving your minute? You only have one minute.
So you know that you're giving your full time? No, no.
I know you do, sir, but the woman in the front, you only have one minute.
So you'll give it to him.
Okay.
So then you will have four minutes total.
Thank you.
He can only have four minutes.
So it's okay.
You can keep your minute.
Okay.
Go ahead.
Go ahead, Jim.
Is this on? Yeah.
Okay.
My name is Jim McGrath.
I'm a trustee of the state of Berkeley.
Berkeley does not have unlimited discretion over filled lands.
Can you put it closer to your mouth, though? Yeah.
Rather, it holds these lands in trust for the benefit of all the public.
It holds them subject to grants and permits that are intended to implement the constitutional provision that access to the navigable waters of this state shall always be attainable for the people thereof.
I've been a trustee protecting these lands for over 50 years, longer than some of you have been alive.
Berkeley is subject to oversight, particularly on the lands that were filled under a BCDC permit to create a permanent recreational resource and are still under their jurisdiction.
Last week, I received this email from BCDC, which retains jurisdiction.
Quote, I reiterated that parking fees are generally not consistent with our public access policies and that staff have reservations over the proposal.
Close quotes.
As have hundreds of people who have expressed their opposition.
When I was in high school, there was a song written by John Sebastian, Do You Believe in Magic? Indeed, the shorelines in our state, protected by this constitutional language, are magic.
People are drawn to them for many different reasons, and Berkeley is responsible to provide access for all of them, not just those that can pay.
That's part of the responsibility of being a trustee.
The volunteers at Cal Sailing Club, the Pegasus Foundation, and the Blue Water Foundation, who all come from far away to take children out on the bay so they can experience that magic, they understand the magic.
The children I saw yesterday at one of the many summer camps in the marina are learning about the magic.
This is paid for, of course, by the marina fund.
The voters, in their approval of Measure F, T1, and Measure Y, understand the magic and the importance of fixing our dilapidated parks and maintaining them, and they voted overwhelmingly to do so.
They understand the magic.
In these times, you need to protect what little magic we have left.
Now, I want to talk a little bit about the cost estimates.
They're just not, they just don't make sense.
Of the three lots that are proposed for parking, there's only 274 spaces.
To generate $182,000, they would have to be occupied 30% of the time, 30% of the days of the year at $6 a day.
But, of course, we know and our concern is that those fees will drive people away.
Now, we don't think you've done enough information gathering on what actual parking is, but it's nowhere near 30%.
You're not going to get those fees.
And it's going to drive people away.
87% of the money comes from the boating service, 67, I'm sorry.
Two-thirds of the money comes from the boating.
And you're going to drive some of them away, and you're going to drive some of the people who stay in Berkeley or come to Berkeley first.
And then just to reflect on today's meeting, you just approved an annual fee of $85 for pavement in front of somebody's house.
That's not public trust land.
It wasn't filled with permits.
It wasn't built with grants, $7 million or so worth, to create a public access area.
But you're talking about six times more money to use a public park.
I think you need to think about the magic.
Thank you.
Hi.
I'm Louise Rosencrantz.
Go ahead and move it closer if you can.
My name is Louise Rosencrantz.
I'm a resident in District 3.
When I came tonight, I was not aware that you had, in fact, already passed a $5 admission fee to go to Adventure Playground.
I am shocked.
I mean, I would not take one child to Adventure Playground.
I would take three or four children to Adventure Playground.
When I start multiplying that, it becomes rather high.
Not only that, I then have to park.
So now I, in order to go spend a nice afternoon with kids from my neighborhood, I would be paying a lot of money.
And so I would probably decide only to take my own kid.
That doesn't seem right.
I know.
I'll ask another person to come, and they'll take two kids.
Wait a minute.
How are we all? This doesn't make sense.
Paying $5 a child to take the time to go to Adventure Playground.
Thank you.
Is not okay.
Thanks for your comment.
Hello, council members.
I just want to riff off what Jim McGrath said about the magic of the marina.
My magic began as an 8-year-old walking in 1957, the whole length of that pier, and feeling the magic as if I was walking halfway to San Francisco.
Throughout the years, I've been a regular visitor of that pier.
Fishing as a young man.
Taking my daughters there for the first time fishing.
And I was looking forward to taking my grandchildren because it's such a magical place.
Not only for the city of Berkeley, but for this whole bay.
And somehow under your leadership.
I'm sorry.
Your time is up.
Thank you.
Thank you for your comment.
Go ahead.
Next person, you can come up.
Hello.
I'm Nadia T.
Myers, also known as Luna Nightshade LLC.
I want to talk about the marina because it's not a virtual Oculus or a pastime.
It is a real-time enjoyment.
Real fresh air that people are engaging in.
This affects the positivity and the mental faculties of everyone who comes to the marina.
And we're charging therapy.
Fresh therapy that every single person, whether they live in Berkeley or not, has a right to achieve by walking the shoreline.
So many people use that area to burn off stress.
So many of the elderly that we see here enjoy spending pastime with their children.
We are charging people.
That's what you guys are inducing.
You're charging people for health.
Also, to propose, have the Alameda County Master Gardeners help with the maintenance of horticulture.
Your time is up.
Thank you for your comment.
Thanks.
Hello, my name is Victoria Brady, and I've been involved with the Cesar Chavez Solar Calendar for about 20 years now.
I just want to make the point that the marina is like our children for us in the flatlands.
We don't have a lot of parks here in the flatlands.
It is heavily used.
It is used by a very diverse population.
And I just can't see it becoming a place that people have to pay money to park and then pay money to use facilities.
There were proposals maybe a year ago for absolutely ridiculous additions to the park to generate revenue.
This is a park.
This is why people in the flatlands voted for the park's fees.
We believe in paying more for our parks.
But not again to go to our big park.
This is a flatland people's big park.
Thank you very much.
And I hope that you don't pass.
Thank you.
My name is Christian Burke.
I work at Cal Adventures and I'm also a member at CSE.
And the space has been a real community space for me.
It's where I've built a lot of friendships.
I've built a lot of relationships.
I've built a lot of relationships.
And I know for a lot of people,.

Segment 2

I'm very excited to be here today.
I'm going to be speaking about how I think increased fees would be a real hindrance to be able to use that space for a bunch of community members, for some close friends, and then also for people who find this space to be a safe place to go relax when they're not able to find that in other spaces.
So I'm excited to be here today to talk about how we can make sure that it can remain free for the public, particularly for those who aren't able to pay.
Thank you.
I'm going to start with a question about how we can create free spaces still with this proposal.
So I just want to make sure that's clear, because I think some of the comments make it seem like there's no free parking anymore.
So I just want to make sure folks understand.
Go ahead.
I just want to make sure folks understand.
Go ahead.
And I don't feel it's equitable that a wealthy person can buy a $500 parking pass and enjoy the waterfront anytime they want, while a family with limited means who want to take their children to the playground, if they can't afford to pay, they must walk from another lot in the distance while the people with money get to park right up front.
So I understand the city's facing a budget crunch, but I believe these parking fees are going to hurt more people than the limited amount of revenue it will generate.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Mayor Ishii, council members, I'm an 11 year resident of District 7, a frequent Marina user, and until last month was the acting chair of the Community Health Commission.
I would like to also know on this proposal.
Simply put, it's bad policy.
Policy that increases revenue does not necessarily help balance a budget, if it also increases costs.
Based on today's presentation, this proposal considers a handful of the costs but ignores the potential decreases in demand if visitors choose to go to other Berkeley parks, adjacent local marinas, or simply walk a quarter mile further to free parking.
It is possible to know if this change will be net positive neutral or negative for the Marina budget.
I appreciate the budgetary concerns that the Marina fund and the city are facing, but urge you to find a functional solution.
This proposal will bring pennies from a fraction of the most dedicated Marina users to cover the Hilton spill without addressing the city's budget shortfall.
Thank you.
Good evening.
My name is Aaron Dean.
I'm on the parks commission, but speaking on my own behalf, and I'm here to ask you to honor the letter that was approved unanimously by your parks and waterfront commissioners last month.
It's a number eight in supplemental to, and it asks you to refer the matter of new parking fees back to the commission for a full public process where the commission can explore reliable ways to raise revenues.
That won't hurt access and create inequity.
For example, rents for larger boats could be increased and raise $200,000 while not hurting the occupancy rate.
I'm really concerned that there's been this narrative that the waterfront is for wealthy people and sitting on the commission for as many years as I have.
I can tell you it is not true.
In fact, the report found that one third of all the visitors of the waterfront make less than $75,000 a year.
I put that chart for you and 10% make less than $25,000 a year.
So, parking fees will reduce access and especially for the most vulnerable among us and effectively driving people away.
And thanks to find the water.
I'm sorry your time is up.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Hello.
We heard Mr.
Ferris say that he already has staff to run this program.
So, in the last item, we talked about the cost of enforcement, the labor costs.
So, does that mean that we are having our park staff spend their time enforcing parking? Is that how we're going to cover this new parking program? The numbers just don't work out.
So, that leaves me to ask, what is the real purpose of charging parking? Is this to drive away a certain group and to set us up for a wealthier group? We know that in the planned ferry, that the ferry riders, according to Huida's own surveys, are high income riders.
And so, are we doing this so that we have fees set up for the ferry riders? Is that the purpose? Thank you.
Thank you.
Hi, City Council friends, Mr.
City Manager.
I want to ask if you would vote no on proposed marina parking increases.
And like a number of speakers have alluded to, I think commensurate with the great public interest on this to not have a final vote on this tonight.
And also to consider to have a more accessible meeting at 6 o'clock.
There are a number of people here.
There would be more at a time where it is difficult for many of us to get off work to really give full input.
And both on the cost side and the revenue side, I think there's some consensus that there's doubt.
It's one thing if voting yes was a slam dunk to assure a certain amount of net revenue.
But that's questionable here.
We're hearing from many sources.
Thank you.
Hello.
My name is Claudia Kavchinska.
I am the current Vice Chair of the PRW Commission.
And as Erin before me mentioned, there is an item of a recommendation that we offer you that hopefully you're going to take serious consideration of.
And I'll just read you a little bit of it because I don't have much time.
At its May meeting, and don't forget it, this happened in May.
This is a month ago.
In its May meeting, the Commission established a subcommittee, which I'm part of, to study staff's proposal of the trial parking and user fees at the waterfront.
And to work with the staff to develop a set of comprehensive recommendations to you with the benefit of a full public hearing and input from the public.
Prior to the approval of a significant change to the waterfront, we believe it's important to hear from the public and to obtain additional information to the visitor impacts, feasibility, and profitability of the waterfront.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Please read our recommendation.
Thank you, Claudia.
Claudia, I'm sorry.
Your time is up.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay.
Are there public comment? Is there public comment online? Yes, we currently have nine, I'm sorry, 10, 11, 11 hands raised.
So this is public comment on the marina fees for people that are participating remotely.
Alana Auerbach.
Hi.
Hello again, everyone.
Hold on just a moment.
I just want to time myself here so I can see how much time I have.
Thank you.
Okay.
I really appreciated the conversation led by Brent about connecting the revenue generated from parking tickets for the RPP program to be, we should know how much that's coming in so that can certainly offset some of the expense.
How much is it going to cost to enforce the parking at the marina? We know that those parking enforcement folks are out of the police department.
I'm wondering if there's a premium cost of having our parking enforcement as part of the BPD.
Instead, I'm highly opposed to the fees at the adventure playground.
I hadn't heard about that either.
And I'm really very sad about that.
And please, no parking fees.
Enforce the contract with the DoubleTree.
Recoup the money owed to the city.
And how much was spent on June 4th of that raid of 8th and 7th? Alana, I'm sorry, your time's up.
Thank you.
Next speaker is Malu.
I'm going to vote no on the parking fees.
The whole marina is a public resource paid for by taxpayers and should remain so with access to everyone of any economic means.
Adding parking fees will ultimately harm the marina and other local economy.
I've been a sailor and come into the Berkeley Marina regularly for almost 30 years.
And I learned to sail at Cal Sailing Club.
These parking fees are targeting Cal Sailing Club.
And there aren't over a thousand other spaces because it's a half mile or more to the DoubleTree where other people could park.
And their parking overflows onto that free parking because people don't want to pay to park $20 a day there.
CSC is a low-cost, public-access, volunteer-run sailing and windsurfing facility where people learn to sail and windsurf and teach others these sports.
We're a rare gem in the sailing world, allowing anyone of any economic means and gender to learn to sail and windsurf and regularly participate in what is normally considered an elite male-dominated sport.
We also offer free sailboat rides to the public during open houses and marina events.
And you are going to harm our club.
Thank you.
I'm sorry.
Your time is up.
Thank you for your comment.
Next speaker is Randy.
Hello.
Can you hear me? Yes.
Great.
I'm an Oakland resident, and I use the waterfront in varied capacities.
But I'd like to speak from my position as a volunteer at Cal Sailing Club, where I run the windsurfing instructional program and have done so for more than two years.
So just so you know, last year I scheduled and staffed more than 130 windsurfing classes, which served about 800 students.
300 of those students were brand-new to windsurfing, and CSC taught them water safety and the basics of the sport in a safe, supervised environment.
That required about 800 instructor-volunteer hours just for that single year.
I am very concerned about the chilling effect to both student enrollment and volunteer instruction if these parking fees are adopted.
The affordability and accessibility of our windsurfing program is, as far as I'm aware, 100% unique in this country.
And my ability to staff classes will be significantly impacted if members must pay for the privilege of making the waterfront water.
Sorry.
Thank you.
Your time's up.
Next is Camille Antonori.
Yes.
Hi.
Can you hear me? Yes.
There is actually evidence to show what we already know, that this is, yes, an equity issue as well as a public service issue.
A group of us were able to obtain a report using cell phone data from Placer AI, which many public agencies and researchers use, and it shows that who visits the south area of the marina is distinct from who visits the north area.
They are on average lower income, have fewer high educational degrees, and are more nonwhite than visitors to the north part.
And I know more reports that will back this up, which we're happy to share.
This proposal is also financially irresponsible.
And listening to the previous discussion about the RPP, I'm thinking that now that's a white elephant.
It does not help save the marina.
You would ruin a place that people have been coming to for ages to just relax and hang out.
For what? And there's also a safety issue.
When someone gets hurt crossing the marina, I mean, excuse me, crossing the street from a free parking spot in the north part, like, let's say, along Marina Boulevard to the south area of the waterfront.
Thank you.
I'm sorry your time's up.
You've passed.
Thank you.
Next is Denicia Walsh.
Hello.
Hello.
Okay, hi, I'm a Berkeley resident for 20 years, and I actually use the south part of the marina, walking my dog, at least average three times.
And I've seen it in the morning, the afternoon, the evening, and those lots that you're going to start charging fees are not ever crowded.
If anything, they're crowded during some sort of events, but not many events are there, and a lot of diverse people use that.
It's easy access to the beach and also to the park where kids go.
And I'm just amazed that you're thinking of doing this.
You're going to lose money.
People are not going to park there.
Also, Adventure Playground is really, that is such, to charge $5 per kid to go there is amazing.
Listen, this is our access.
This is a beautiful place, and it feels good when you go there.
And you're just going to make less people come.
You're not going to make money on this.
You're losing money on this.
Thank you.
Next is Matthias.
Yeah, hello, can you hear me? Yes.
Yeah, hi.
My name is Matthias Husterbrock.
I grew up in Berkeley.
I went to the marina most of my life, and I still live in Berkeley, and I go to the marina often with my family and myself.
I just want to say I think that this proposal could make a small amount of money but lose an important part of the Berkeley spirit.
I feel like it's gentrifying, commodifying this amazing outdoor and even wild in many ways place, which is really important for everyone, especially considering it's free, especially in this time where people are really increasing depression and have addiction to things like social media.
I feel like having this awesome outdoor engaging place where you can be social, you can just be by yourself in all kinds of natural environments is really important and also aligned with the culture of Berkeley, a culture I grew up in, a culture I think you all are proud of and want to support.
So I think that's a big part of this.
And I also do think that less people will come if you put these parking fees in and those people are lower income people.
Thank you.
Next is Gordon Stout.
Can you hear me? Yes.
When I park in the South Cove West lot, I see on families headed for sharper, sharper Parker adventure playground.
And I worry that they would be seriously impacted by $6 parking fee.
I'm reminded of my sister, who raised her two sons in Berkeley as a single mom waitressing and working into that tank.
And our teacher.
She couldn't afford $6 parking.
And if you add that to the $5 $5 per child for adventure playground.
That's crazy.
A day at the marina would suddenly look like just a rare treat.
Please keep the marina affordable for people like my sister.
Thank you.
Thank you, Maria.
Maria, you should be able to unmute.
Hi, my name is Maria alder.
I am the co commenter of Cal sailing club.
And I'd like to add that we do pride ourselves on accessibility inclusivity, and being affordable to all members and therefore the three lots that are most adjacent to our club being charged is definitely going to affect us in a negative way as far as capacity to show up, especially when you're showing up to volunteer time and teach for free and host events for children for free, requiring a parking fee is going to negatively impact our overall community and ability to run our club.
I also am a boat owner at ODOC.
So separately, as a commenter, not in my comment or hat I would like to add that coming to CSC, naturally people are going to look for the free parking right, you don't want to pay six bucks because we don't know how long we're going to be on the water so we got to pay for the whole day.
You have no idea how much time you're going to end up getting stuck with some issue.
You, your time is up.
Thank you.
Next is friends of five creeks.
Sorry Mark can you remind me how many folks are left for four people.
Thank you, friends of five creeks should be able to unmute.
Yes, my name is Susan Schwartz, I'm the head of friends of five creeks, we're a long established volunteer group, and our volunteers probably thousands of them transformed the marina, getting rid of the brush that used to block the view of the bay.
The fissiles that covered the hillside we still maintain it parks does not.
And we will not be able to get those people if they have to pay parking and be afraid of tickets, the real money that's going to come in here look at your own figures will come from tickets, and those tickets will also impact the people who come out to the marina to work off their traffic tickets, cleaning up the marina.
They are pretty low income and they don't need another ticket.
I think you know what tickets can do to people who are poor.
The people who come to the city's monthly cleanups in very important in maintaining the marina, it is not done by the staff, it's done by volunteers.
Thank you.
Sorry your time's up.
Next is Catherine.
Hello, can you hear me.
Yes.
Okay.
Hey, good evening everyone adding parking fees will hurt marina users and the local businesses, because it will come to the marina, less and spend less money and local businesses.
Hilton is owned by a billionaire, and then we shouldn't charge the poor and the middle class people to bail out a million billionaire, and I hope you will not charge fees for parking.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Next is Tony.
Good evening Tony master district number two.
I use the waterfront quite a bit but I'm speaking as a former parks commissioner, and I associate myself with the remarks made by my former chair.
And also with Susan Schwartz of friends of five creeks I think they made fine points.
My question is why these parking lots, what is it about these parking lots that were chosen for a fee, as opposed to the other ones I'm not at all clear about the reasoning for that.
Thank you very much.
Tony.
Last speakers Amanda Hickman.
Hi, I am also a Berkeley resident and frequent marina user.
And my concern and frustration is that it defies reason to suggest that existing staff can manage these operations the city has a whole parking division that handles enforcement handles appeals handles collections handle citations when people are objecting to them.
It's not just free money to collect parking.
The budget shared earlier in this meeting includes nothing for enforcement, it doesn't appear as far as I can tell to reflect any consultation with people who actually act on parking and the rest of the city.
And there's no, there's no expense whatsoever I'm sorry I'm laughing, but there's no expense whatsoever for enforcing the fees like there's, what is that what is the police budget need to be for this, the Berkeley police has time allocated to enforce police and enforce parking and the rest of the city.
How much do are we going to have to pay to enforce this parking.
Your time's up.
Thank you.
That was the final comment.
All right, thanks folks.
Thank you for your comments.
We have time for questions from Council Councilmember taplin I know this is in your district so.
Thank you very much.
I have a few questions there for Director Ferris Can you restate.
What is the current deficit.
So we're going to finish in the black in fiscal 25 barely but there was, we had to make $700,000 for the cuts, and we're anticipating a $1.3 million deficit and and beyond in fiscal 26.
Um, can you walk us through the cuts that you made.
Get back in the black this cycle.
Sure.
Paul I don't know, I mean, Mark I don't know if you can pull back up my slide.
So, um, there was some fun balance left in the marina fund.
And so a couple hundred thousand dollars, so that went into the, to the cut.
Also, we cut the, the money we had set aside to fix the South Cove stock repair, which was about 150,000 dollars.
We reduced the security service.
We have security at night that comes on around ten o'clock and we usually have two security officers.
We cut it in half to one.
We cut all part time staff.
And so, just to talk about our part time staff, when our career staff leave, our part time staff come on between the hours before security comes on on the weeknights.
And then they work on the weekends to make sure the marina is secure and report any incidences that happen.
And so we totally cut those five staff people.
We cut all marketing and noncritical expenses totaling about 40,000 dollars.
We adjusted our career staff.
We have six or seven career staff there and so they worked a more nine to five schedule.
Now they're working either later in the evenings.
We have one that works Saturdays and we've got two that work Saturdays and one that work Sundays to cover those hours where we're not having part time staff work.
And we reduced our overtime budget.
We essentially stopped all overtime for employees.
And lastly, we've eliminated two minor maintenance projects that are about to happen here at the end of the fiscal year.
Can you say what those projects were? Yeah, one was the painting the marina office.
And the other one was work on electrical work on L&M.
L&M.
I'm sorry.
O&K.
O&K.
Okay.
Yes.
Yeah.
O&M Docs.
Thank you very much.
And then, so we're projecting a deficit of 1.3.
And what are, if we don't resolve that deficit, what further adjustments might we need to make? Everything we've talked about here and a lot more.
So we're probably talking about workforce reductions for both full timers and part timers and capital project cancellations, along with all minor and major maintenance projects.
1.3 is a lot of money for the marina fund.
It's a small fund, as I said earlier.
Could you just give us a few examples of what capital projects would be cut and what maintenance would be? Sure, in FY26, in terms of minor maintenance, it's on the docket.
We're going to paint the, hopefully we'll be able to paint the main office.
We've got a fair amount of dock work that we need to do.
We are hopefully going to fund here the South Cove East dock repair.
We've got the South Cove West lot parking lot that has a little marina fund in it.
We also have D&E docks that we're replacing that have a marina fund in it.
Along with 3 or 4 other capital projects that are going down in the marina.
Would that include the seawall? Yes.
And what happens if the seawall fails? What's funded in the seawall is actually that money is funded.
I think there's some marina fund in that project, but that project's funded.
Council has funded that through design only.
If the South Cove seawall fails, then we won't be able to use any of the South Cove docks.
And so we've been using the general fund to plug the gap for the marina, the waterfront capital.
We are no longer able to do so, given the general fund structural deficit.
Is that correct? Yeah, we've been receiving general fund subsidies in one way or another since 2020.
And since we hit COVID.
And so the marina fund was the beneficiaries of many of our ARPA dollars.
And has been the beneficiaries of most lately workers' compensation, relaxed workers' compensation fees, and a variety of other general fund support that has allowed us to balance in the last few years.
And like I said earlier, with the passage of Measure Y, the parks tax increase, the $1.55 million that we're going to sign from the parks tax, we were very hopeful that the marina fund had turned the corner.
But unfortunately, with the Devil's Tree situation, we're back in a deficit situation.
And as you said, the reason why we had to make these adjustments in fiscal 25 is because there's no available general fund to bail us out.
Thank you very much.
My final question.
So the marina fund had been in the red since at least 2008.
It's had an operating deficit.
Since 2000, I became director in late 2011.
We have been, for many years, we laid off career staff, reduced capital expenditures, and did a lot of things to make the deficit kind of allow us to balance each year.
And we've just gotten to the point where we can't do that any longer because we're at the minimum in terms of staffing levels.
And we went through a period in 2016 to 2018 where we had a lot of safety issues down at the waterfront.
We still have some.
But that drove away a fair amount of boaters, and so our revenues decreased during that time.
And so the marina fund has been in trouble since, you know, at least 2008 and been in more trouble lately.
We've been working off fund balance, I think, pretty much since that time.
Thank you very much.
No further questions.
Thank you, Council Member Taplin.
Council Member Trakob.
Thank you.
I have seven questions.
For time, I'm going to ask them rapid fire.
I'll give you a chance to write them down.
Can you speak to how these fees being proposed compare with other marinas in the Bay Area? Can you clarify? This was based on a public comment I heard for the organized group fee.
It would be a one time $250 application fee plus $50 a day for up to 50 participants.
And could consideration be given to if this is something like a dragon boat team situation where they do volunteer work to upkeep the marina? Could an arrangement be made? Can you confirm that this is only the three lots on the south side and how that may or may not impact?.

Segment 3

Residents of Liverboards.
Can you speak to if there will be any exceptions for ADA parking? Can you speak to the enforcement mechanism? Would that need to be stepped up and by whom? And last question is on cleanups, which I have also participated in.
Could consideration be given to waiving the fees during days when there are volunteer-based cleanups or other activities? Thank you.
Okay, we're going to split those.
I'm going to take a few of those and Christine will take a few of those.
First of all, I'll take Liverboards.
Liverboards, as in all the Berkley-Sarasota parking costs, so they won't have to pay any fees no matter where they park.
ADA parking is always free.
The mechanism for enforcement is existing staff.
So we enforce at all our lots now.
And so we have, you know, there are a lot of public spaces down there, a lot of birther spaces.
We've issued 72 citations since mid-April.
And so it's going back and spending a little extra time in these lots is not a huge amount of enforcement time.
We're talking about 274 or 76 parking spots.
We're not talking about thousands.
So it's just, it's limited.
And we spend time in these lots already.
Christine, I'm going to let you take the other ones.
You asked about other fees and other marinas.
We've looked at about nine other local waterfront areas that are under the same BCDC jurisdiction that do have paid parking.
And our proposed fees are at the very low end of those.
There are some that are $5 a day, for example, but most are higher than what we're proposing.
You asked about the organized group fee and yes, that's $250 a day and $50 a day.
And I think you're asking if there could be some sort of exception or some arrangement, you know, an arrangement for very frequent users or longstanding groups could be a license arrangement, a license agreement.
And so that would be kind of outside the typical fee schedule and that could be something we look at for some of those longstanding groups.
And then let's see, you asked about.
So I just want to correct that.
It's for the waterfront rental.
The organized group fee is a one time application fee of $250.
So go ahead.
Okay.
And what is number two? Volunteer.
By the way, can we just confirm that your mic is on? Can you hear me? Okay.
Yes, that's better.
Thank you.
Sorry about that.
Okay.
And the volunteer work.
What was that question? So, yeah, if it's, you know, depending on where the volunteer work is, you know, we're talking about the 3 lots in the South Cove volunteer work.
I mean, there's, there are a lot of lots in the general area that are, they're going to remain free and be accessible.
So, if, but potentially, if they were going to come and volunteer, we could give them something that would give them a free parking pass for the day.
If it was an organized volunteer group.
Yeah, that could be part of what we did.
We've got 6 months to kind of figure out all these logistics.
Because it's going to take us 6 months to get the infrastructure up and running.
Thank you.
I'm just, I think there was 1 question you asked about confirming that there are only 3 lots on the South side.
That was 1 of your other questions.
Oh, yes.
I just want to make sure that got answered.
I'm sorry.
I didn't hear that.
Sorry.
There was a question.
Can you confirm that only 3 lots on the South side are included for fees? Yes.
Okay.
For new fees.
These are.
Yes.
Okay.
Sorry.
Just want to make sure you got that answer.
And 1048 free spaces.
And can you just confirm that includes what was formerly the His Lordships lot? Right.
Is that open? Yes, it does.
Thank you.
It's been locked for 3 years! Okay.
If you'd like to confirm.
I think I received my answer.
And I'll say more during comments.
Thank you.
Okay.
Council Member Bartlett.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
Thank you for your presentation.
1 question.
This was asked by the committee member.
Why these 3 lots? Several reasons.
1, we have in these 3 lots, which are kind of in the hub of the waterfront.
We have a lot of visitors at different times that crowd these lots.
For instance, we have a lot of charter boats that go out for fishing and crabbing and a variety of other things.
And we could have anywhere from up to 100 vehicles in these 3 lots that crowd these lots during the weekdays and the weekends.
And so it takes away parking.
So oftentimes these routes are crowded in the morning.
And if there are the use of these 3 lots, there are times where it's crowded.
And so it's accessible for it's kind of a downtown hub of the waterfront.
And so there are more people parking in this area and they're parking lots.
And so we don't have the ability to enforce on streets.
And so, for instance, we can't enforce on Spinnaker University or the Marina.
And so these are lots that we can't enforce on and are well used.
Thank you.
I'm curious.
So M-Lot and L-Lot, are these, I think I recognize the M-Lot.
These are currently uncharged? Correct.
M-Lot, L&M is primarily a birther lot.
It's open to, I believe it's open weekdays or weekdays to the public.
And we may need to adjust that as this happens, because if L&M lot fill up, we may need to make it a birther only lot.
But that's kind of the logistics we'll work through over the next few months.
OK.
And then, of course, Seawall Drive lot and Seawall Drive South.
And I know these.
OK.
Thank you.
And the hours of the parking that would be charged? It would be nine to five.
OK, thank you.
OK, I think my questions were all answered.
So does anyone else have questions? Yeah.
Council Member Blackaby.
One question.
Staff have an assumption about are most of the fees going to be paid by the people paying for all day? Or do you guys have an assumption about how that's going to work? The one hour at a time versus the people that are going to pay for all day pass? We've we've kind of mocked up a variety of scenarios and really not sure how it's how it's going to work for the five hundred dollar a year pass.
You know, you can do the math on it.
Somebody's got to come to the Marina.
I think it's 60 some odd days over a course of a year for it to be valuable.
It's far less than, you know, the year pass on a lot of our parking lots.
I think the downtown, it's it's over two thousand dollars.
A lot of our other areas, the year passes over seventeen hundred dollars.
And so it's a lot less.
And so we're hoping that a lot of people take advantage of that.
The yearly pass, as opposed to the hourly or the daily, but we're assuming that there's going to be a lot of users.
And, you know, one of the things we're exploring is, do we combine adventure playground use with the parking fee? There was a comment earlier and that, you know, if you come down and you get paid to park and or do we, you know, we will monitor.
Do we direct people going to adventure playground to another lot? So we'll have to figure out all those logistics.
Okay, thank you.
Council member O'Keefe.
Thanks.
Most of my questions were asked and entered already.
But can you clarify if this parking fee, like what are the hours that parking will be charged and will it be different on weekends? I'm not sure if that was stated.
We are planning on charging seven days a week, but we, you know, that may change.
So right now we're nine to five, seven days a week.
Okay.
Any other questions from folks? Okay.
Very good.
All right.
Is there a motion to close the public hearing? So moved.
Second.
Can you take the roll, please? Clerk? Close the public hearing.
Council member Kastorwani? Yes.
Taplin? Yes.
Bartlett? Yes.
Traiga? Aye.
O'Keefe? Yes.
Blackabay? Yes.
Lunapara? Yes.
Humbert? Yes.
And Mayor Ishii? Yes.
Okay.
Public hearing is closed.
Okay.
Comments starting with Council Member Taplin.
Thank you very much and thank you to staff and to everyone who spoke this evening.
I really empathize and understand that people have gotten really used to free parking in these lots.
I think it's important to realize that just because we haven't been charging for parking, it doesn't mean that there are not costs associated.
There are operating costs.
There are maintenance costs.
This is an enterprise fund funded by uses at the marina.
It's been in the red since 2008.
We've had to resolve the structural deficit by laying off staff, deferring capital improvements.
And, you know, full disclosure, I am a member of the sailing club.
I am a dragon boater.
I'm in the yacht club.
I spend a lot of time at the marina.
When the e-swim dock failed, the swimmers couldn't use it.
When the docks fail, if the seawall fails, we can't use the marina.
We can't sail.
And we're in a budget crisis.
These are very painful decisions.
We've already had to charge for a venture playground.
We raised all kinds of other fees this evening.
And I've said this in the past, we can make hard choices now.
Or we can have even tougher choices made for us down the road.
I fear that there is not much more road left.
And prior councils and prior city admin has chosen to kick the can down the road.
We've subsidized parking.
We've subsidized festivals over and against the deficit.
And now the fiscal impacts, the infrastructural impacts of those practices are coming home to roost.
And it's very painful and it's very ugly.
But I cannot in good conscience leave a bigger mess for those who come after us.
So, that being said, I move adoption of the fees.
Second.
Thank you.
Council Member Trajka.
Thank you.
I wanted to thank members of the community for coming here today.
Like I think all of my colleagues, I feel very conflicted about this vote.
The marina has been a place for me to also be able to find my religion, support improvements to my own mental health.
And just, you know, be able to volunteer my time to better our beautiful community.
And this fee schedule, I will speak for myself, but I imagine my comments will be shared by others for my sentiments.
No one wants to be here.
No one wants to be in a $27 million budget deficit.
No one wants to be in a place where we are facing a fiscal cliff.
And we are between literally a rock and a hard place.
And while the decision that we are making tonight will not be popular.
And I also am very mindful of if we were to kick the scan down the road to borrow a phrase from Council Member Taplin, the outcome is going to be worse.
And I definitely don't want to see the outcome get worse.
I would like to for staff to just I want to memorialize.
You know, I appreciate your willingness to be flexible, to look at how to work with longtime community organizations to make the fee structure more a little bit more palatable.
To take into account the contributions that many individuals and groups are already making to the marina for free.
I want you to confirm you don't have to do it now that the His Lordships lot is open.
It's been open the times that I have been there, but apparently others may.
Folks, please, please.
So I would like for you to just look into it and confirm.
And.
You know, I appreciate your commitment around just all options being on the table.
I appreciate members of the community who have given alternatives we can look at, including increasing parking fees, B, E, R, T, H, I, N, G fees for larger vessels and other opportunities to avert this oncoming fiscal cliff.
And I would like for you to come back if we can schedule this, you know, between the mayor and the city manager and the department.
I would be interested in this item coming back for an evaluation, you know, following some amount of time when you get this off the ground.
I want to make sure that this is working as intended and is not leading to different outcomes than what is being intended tonight.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Council Member Bartlett.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
And, you know, this is, of course, very special to me as well.
This is where, allegedly, I hung out with Ursula K.
Le Guin when I was a little boy here at this place.
You know, again, this is something that, you know, I integrally detest regressive taxation.
I dislike fines and fees.
I really feel that people should get an omnibus service for paying taxes in general, let alone with the addition of bond measures and whatnot.
But in this instance, we are caught up in a macroeconomic sort of doom loop.
We've got the hotel not coming through for us, which is outside of our control.
And as you see is happening, the Bay Area is now the worst hotel market in the country.
What's that? Folks, please excuse me.
It is not appropriate for you to speak and interrupt.
It's Council Member Bartlett's time.
Excuse me.
I'm sorry.
You can speak afterwards to us if you have questions or send us an e-mail.
But it's Council Member Bartlett's time.
I know you're upset.
I get it.
But, you know, we are in a very intense situation that, unfortunately, will get a lot worse.
And so, you know, I'm moved by the fact that these are three lots, and there's still lots within walking distance.
So, I mean, not ideal.
I would like to see the adventure land, adventure playground be included in the price of parking.
That seems fair.
But, again, this is something that I think ultimately we may start looking at newer forms of revenue, like a Georgia's tax or something.
But, yeah, I'm going to have to support this, because without it, we just don't have an option for sustainability.
Thank you.
Council Member Humbert.
Yes, thank you.
Thank you, Madam Mayor.
And I'm going to keep my comments very short.
I want to join in the comments of Council Members Taplin, Traigub, and Bartlett.
I agree with virtually everything each one of them has said.
This is an unhappy choice.
I guess I would say, given the maritime setting, that it's not being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
It's being stuck between Scilla and Charybdis, from Greek myth, a whirlpool, and a sea monster.
But, nevertheless, it's a difficult decision, and I'm going to support this item.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Council Member Casarwani.
Thank you very much, Madam Mayor.
I know that one of the significant driving factors, as you stated in your presentation, is the loss of revenue from the Doubletree Hotel.
Can you provide more context about the situation at the Doubletree? Do you want to give me a little more? Yes.
So what revenue are we currently collecting from them? And can you also just go into a little bit more detail about the hotel market in the San Francisco Bay Area? So let me start with the latter.
So we are one of 28 major markets that they keep track of in the country in terms of hotel occupancy, and we are by far the lowest in terms of our recovery since 2019.
Our 2019 recovery rate is at 70% in the San Francisco Bay Area.
All other major markets except one is over 100% and thriving, and the San Francisco Bay Area is not.
And so we've had 11 major hotels go bankrupt or fail in San Francisco and Oakland and the greater Bay Area, and I think it's almost 1,500 rooms that has gone bankrupt, and there are more that are in receivership.
And so we, as in our market, and we are essentially the Doubletree is doing comparatively to a lot of the other major hotels, is doing really well.
They're still in business, but they are in some version of receivership, and their expenses are being controlled by the bank where they own their loan.
And so we are working with the bank and Doubletree to make sure that we get paid as soon as possible.
We've just received a check for $28,000.
It's not a whole lot, but as the Doubletree recovers and does well, we're hoping that they're going to get back to being able to pay their full loan.
So it's a difficult market, and it's not just the Berkeley market.
It's more the San Francisco Bay Area that's struggled, and so the Doubletree is caught in that group.
So we spend a lot of time talking with them and over their ownership and how this arrangement works.
They have been a great tenant, the Jensen Capital, who's the current owner of the Doubletree, and they've collaborated with a lot of different projects with us.
I don't know if you remember, but when we redid their lease, I believe in 2020, they gave us $3 million to help fix University Avenue, and that was a part of a capital contract.
And so they have collaborated and been up front about all this information and continue to work with us, and we hope that they make it at this point.
So they still are paying their T.O.T.
Transient Occupancy Tax.
Yes, and so their T.O.T.
is – they have been a major contributor to T.O.T.
in the city for many, many years.
I think our T.O.T.
budget is somewhere between $6 and $7 million, and they are the largest contributor.
So that income is still coming into the city.
So that's kind of about all I can say about the situation, but we are tracking it and spend a lot of time with our ownership group and talking about how it is that we're going to figure this thing out.
And so at this point, we have not written off any of what they owe us.
We've just deferred all their lease requirements.
And to this point, it's a little less than $700,000, but that's going to be in the next fiscal year.
They're not going to be able to pay their full lease, so we're hoping it's less than $1.3 million, but we don't know.
Okay, thank you very much, Director Ferris.
You know, I think that's very important, relevant information.
You know, as I think about this challenge, you know, the reality is, you know, this isn't like, you know, I guess a comparable example might be, you know, a tenant in an apartment unit that's not paying rent.
Typically what happens is you evict that person and you find a new tenant who's going to make rent.
The problem we have here is there isn't a different hotel that we can bring in that's going to have an easier time because of the nature of this market.
That's what I'm hearing.
And so I appreciate that we're trying to work with the hotel and hope that the situation improves, and I remain committed to continuing to explore all options so that we can recover the revenue that's owed to us and receive the revenue that we're expecting moving forward.
But the reality is we have to be nimble.
We have to look at other revenue sources.
I do understand that people don't like to pay for parking.
You know, that is universally understood.
What is also universally understood is that free parking where there is a lot of demand is really not a good policy because we want to encourage as many people as possible who can get to the marina by biking.
We have a beautiful improved path.
We have a beautiful pedestrian and bike overpass bridge that I love to ride on with my son.
For people who can get there that way and avoid the parking fee, we want to encourage that.
For people who can get on the bus, I know not everybody can because some people want to bring their aquatic sports equipment with them, and it can be hard to do so on the bus.
We did get an email from somebody who wrote in who says that he does do that.
So those options, we actually want to encourage and incentivize those options.
And the reality is the way that you do that is to charge for parking.
And I appreciate Councilmember Tragoob's question about what other marinas are doing.
We have to be competitive with other marinas.
They are charging for parking.
And cities across the Bay Area are facing deficits, structural deficits, meaning expenditures are just systematically growing faster than revenues.
So we are not the only city that is considering paid parking.
The mayor of San Francisco has proposed 3,000 paid parking spots at Golden Gate Park.
So this is happening all over because the reality is free parking isn't free.
And we have to recognize that to maintain the infrastructure at these parks, it does cost money.
And so, you know, we have to do this.
But having said that, I do want to clarify some things.
There were some, you know, a lot of misinformation, frankly, on Nextdoor, and we didn't actually hear it tonight, but for those of you who may be watching or listening, I do want to clarify, this is just a parking fee for three lots, which was, as we heard in our presentation, the South Cove East lot, the South Cove West lot, and the JK lot.
So more than 1,000 spaces will remain at the marina for free.
So for folks who are saying they will no longer be able to walk along the shoreline, that's just not accurate.
You know, you can come, you can drive, you can find one of these more than 1,000 free spots and walk.
And by the way, not a single paid lot is anywhere near Cesar Chavez.
That's intentional.
We want the dog walkers and the kite flyers and families and, you know, low-income folks.
We want everybody to enjoy that area for free, and that will continue to be the case.
But these lots that are closer to the South Cove, where we have the aquatic recreational activities going on, that is where we are going to do, we are going to pilot, actually, this parking fee.
And, you know, I hope we can adapt.
And I do appreciate the concerns around paying to be close to Adventure Playground, especially if you have young kids with you, and then also paying to enter Adventure Playground.
I know you probably can't make any commitments right now, but is it possible to look at one fee, the parking fee that gets you into Adventure Playground? Yeah, go ahead.
Yeah, it's something we're looking into.
Right.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Well, okay, we're on time.
Yeah.
So, okay.
Thank you.
So I do appreciate all of that.
So I think I have made my point, and I'm ready to vote.
Thank you.
Thanks, Council Member.
Council Member Lunapara.
Thank you.
Sorry, really quick, pause.
So for folks who are coming in for the 6 p.m.
meeting, just know that we are still finishing our special meeting, which happened before, so we still have our final comments and the vote, and then we'll probably take about a 15-minute break between, so just to set expectations.
And then you should also know it's a budget meeting, so it will be kind of a later night, so just to set expectations.
Apologies.
Go ahead, Council Member Lunapara.
Thank you.
I have pretty brief comments.
I want to highlight something that several of my colleagues have said already about how we have been subsidizing parking thus far.
And when we subsidize parking, we're allowing the use of public space, our precious public space, to be used by pieces of metal that people are not using in that moment.
And so I want to, you know, almost every single time that I've been to the marina, I have not driven there.
And I know that that's true for several of my colleagues as well.
This is a charge on parking your car for $1 an hour, which is already a really cheap rate, in our public spaces.
And when we're having these conversations, I can't remember.
I can't remember.
One of my colleagues had this, that I'd rather increase the parking fees if it means we could keep Adventure Playground for free.
And this is our compromise.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Council Member O'Keefe.
Well, I wish this was the compromise, then Adventure Playground would be free.
But, you know, we're working on that.
We're working on that.
Yeah, I don't need to say much.
Most of what I wanted to say has been said.
Just highlight that, you know, given that we are in line with other marinas, there's a good precedent.
In fact, we're on the low end, I think I heard you say.
And more abstractly, cities charging for parking in their lots is not a new or weird thing.
Even Berkeley does it in other places in the city.
And given the free parking space.

Segment 4

I'd like to begin by saying that, and I'm just going to echo what folks are saying about the fact that we are in a deficit and that we're doing everything we can to work with the DoubleTree to receive the rent.
I just want to highlight that if they don't survive, we won't receive the transit occupancy tax and it's millions and millions of dollars.
So that is important and we do need that funding and I understand that this is painful for a lot of folks.
It's a big change.
I hear what folks are saying that there will be additional walking.
I also spend at least one or two days a week down at the marina and the waterfront area.
I really love it there.
I understand the magic.
I totally hear you and I also just understand what's going on here and unfortunately, it's not something we want to do.
I just want to tell you, we're not happy to be doing this.
It's really unfortunate.
I would love for all this to be free, but we're just not in that place right now.
So I am really sorry.
It's very challenging.
It's a really sad decision.
I do support the Parks Commission seeing if there are other fees that can be charged.
Certainly, I think that we do need to move forward with this one this evening.
I'm just looking for my Parks Commissioners.
There you are.
And also just to comment briefly on the adventure playground costs, which it's not on the agenda tonight since we already approved the fee, but there is a cost to running the park.
And I think that's something that folks don't always understand.
So that is why we have to charge for it because we've been offering it for free, even though we've been paying people to be there to staff it and to provide materials for the park.
And it is really unfortunate.
And one of the questions I asked at the last meeting was that if we are able to get the marina fund into a better place, can we look into eliminating that fund? And I know that that's something that our parks director is open to.
So I just want to say that this this is really it's a sad thing.
It's again, we don't want to we don't want to have to increase these fees.
But I really want to thank our staff who've looked into this and have worked really hard.
I know that this has been challenging.
And I just thank you all so much for your work.
And we have a motion on the floor.
So, clerk, if you could take the role, please.
Okay, to adopt the resolution approving new fees.
Council Member Kessarwani? Yes.
Taplin? Yes.
Bartlett? Yes.
Trigub? Aye.
O'Keefe? Yes.
Blackabay? Yes.
Lunapara? Yes.
Humbert? Yes.
And Mayor Ishii? Yes.
Okay, motion carries.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Okay, that is our final item for this evening for our special meeting.
Is there a motion to adjourn? Oh, wait.
I just yeah, that's it.
I'm sorry.
Thank you.
I clerk, could you take the role, please? Okay, to adjourn the 4 o'clock PM special meeting Councilmember Katserwani? Yes.
Kaplan? Yes.
Bartlett? Yes.
Traeger? Aye.
O'Keefe? Yes.
Blackabay? Yes.
Nopara? Yes.
Humbert? Yes.
And Mayor Ishii? Yes.
Okay, thank you everyone.
So we are going to take a 15 minute break and then we will be back for the regular meeting.
Thanks, folks.
Thank you.