City of SausalitoCandidate for City Council

COVID-19 has created unprecedented challenges for our residents and our local businesses. Equally unprecedented is the number of business closures, shutdowns and businesses boarded up that we have seen in the last few months. The City of Sausalito should be and is doing three very important things - supporting local business, encouraging our residents to support local businesses and pressuring Marin County to do a far better job with COVID-19 testing - shortening the interval between test and results and providing adequate contact tracing once tests are returned positive for the virus. It will be critical for City leadership to create and execute a plan to rebuild and recover our business community in the face of this awful pandemic. The entire community must be involved - residents and business owners alike - to attract the types of businesses that will maintain the unique character of our town and the types of businesses that our residents will be enthusiastic about supporting. We also have an opportunity to market to our surrounding Bay Area markets to attract visitors who will spend time developing a relationship with our town and who will return here again and again, staying in our hotels, dining in our restaurants, experiencing our activities and attractions and spending money in our unique retail shops. This Brand Sausalito Plan will steer our town into a more prosperous future as we recover from this pandemic-induced economic crisis.

The City of Sausalito should also be monitoring the mask mandate and actively encouraging people venturing out and into town to wear face coverings at all times and maintain social distancing. The Ambassador Program is playing a key roll in this regard - encouraging mask wearing downtown while maintaining a friendly demeanor with visitors. Chief Rohrbacher has also set the right tone with having Sausalito's Finest amicably enforcing the mask mandate without resorting to strong-arm tactics first and issuing citations precipitously. I believe Sausalito is striking the right balance between maintaining a softer approach and enforcing the mask policy.

I have served for decades in many volunteer and advisory roles in the Sausalito business community, including as Chairman of the Sausalito Chamber of Commerce and long-time member and  Chairman of the City of Sausalito's Business Advisory Committee. I started my first business in 1991 and moved that business to Sausalito in 1994 where we grew from three employees in a live/work loft on Caledonia St. to over 100 employees in the Marinship on Liberty Ship Way. I have since started and grown both additional businesses and non-profit organizations in Sausalito and am currently the owner and CEO of Seaplane Adventures at the North end of town.

Because of the Coronavirus Pandmenic, we are seeing things we have never witnessed here in Sausalito - multiple long-standing businesses boarded up, shut-down or closed for good. There are two things we must do: 1) As a community we must rally around each other and support local businesses. That means eat in our restaurants, use local services and shop in our shops. 2) As a City, we must do everything we can at the local, County and State level to promote and encourage Sausalito businesses and to protect our business community from the economic fallout of this pandemic. I believe as a resident and long-time business owner here in the community, I bring the experience, the knowledge and the passion to help build these resident/business community relationships and help steer us through these troubled waters ahead.

There are over 1,750 businesses here in Sausalito. They provide the second highest revenue line item coming into our City's budget - sales taxes account for over $3.5 million dollars (23%) of total revenue to the city and business license fees over $1.5 million (9%). Combined with transient occupancy taxes collected from our hotels ($1.8 million), this tax and fee base (total of $6.8 million) provides more dollars to our General Fund than property taxes at $5.3 million. Businesses and their health are absolutely vital to the health and well-being of the Sausalito community - there would be no city services without them! COVID-19 is already exerting a 10% reduction in tax revenue from our business sector, which is going directly to our bottom-line, forcing large cutbacks of critical city services like our wonderful Sausalito Library (-36%) and the Parks & Rec Dept. (-31%).

We ALL must get involved and help support struggling businesses and help rebuild our business community where some businesses have already failed. Our unique town and our quality of life DEPEND on all of us getting involved! Yes, this is a call to action! When you are hungry - shop local. When you are bored, try a local activity or attraction. When you have a birthday or holiday requiring a gift - buy here in town. It's up to us! ONE Sausalito! LOVE Sausalito!

It may not be widely known that business related taxes and fees in Sausalito historically account for 43% of Sausalito's general fund revenues ($10.85 million) each year:

• Sales Tax - 23% ($5.3 million)

• Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) - 11% ($1.8 million)

• Business License Fees - 9% ($1.5 million)

The next largest source of general fund revenue is property taxes at $5.3 million - 33% of Sausalito's overall budget. The business community here in Sausalito is the leading sector for providing general funds revenue to our city budget. The city budget for 2020-2021 had to be revised DOWN 10% (loss of $3.6 million) in June due to the economic downturn precipitated by the COVID-19 global pandemic. There will likely be more losses incurred in the latter half of this year. Sales tax was down 18.5%, business permit fees down 35% and TOT taxes slipped to the 6th position on overall share of revenue, down 22%. 

Because of this significant budget shortfall, the City has had to make significant adjustments to the city budget. Two departments at Sausalito City Hall have been particularly hard hit: the Sausalito City Library budget has been cut over 36% and the Parks and Recreation departmental budget has been significantly reduced by 31%. These cuts will result in a reduction of services in town, as well as starve public works and parks restoration projects of necessary funding resources.

It is absolutely imperative that Sausalito City Council, the Sausalito Chamber of Commerce, the Economic Development Advisory Committee and all of us as residents work together to create a comprehensive Sausalito Business Recovery and Rebuilding Plan and soon as possible. We must diversify our business community, develop a Tourism Management Plan, craft a Sausalito Brand and Visitor Outreach Strategic Plan, revisit ordinances that restrict businesses that might be able to consider our town and remove unnecessary obstacles to doing business here. We must promote Sausalito as the perfect community to start your business in because you will be supported by residents who will buy your products, use your services and provide a perfect place to headquarter your employees.

I have built multiple businesses in Sausalito and know intimately, the massive challenges of doing so in the best and worst of times. We now face an economic emergency and the Council needs members with the experience, creativity, and determination to craft a plan to recover and rebuild.