December 1, Agenda Item 4a. Approve Minutes of the Regular City Council Meetings of November 17
Mayor, Councilmembers,
I'm here to speak about the November 17 minutes, because what they record and what the community experienced feel like two different events.
What the minutes don't show is how overwhelming the process was. The City released more than 500 pages of material — including a Shelter Crisis Declaration, two ordinances, an $8 million grant agreement, and a real estate purchase — just 72 hours before the vote.
For most residents, that made meaningful engagement impossible.
But what troubles people even more is the emergency framing. When you declare that "immediate action" is required to protect life and health, the public expects immediate action for people at risk right now. There was none. There was no winter shelter proposal, no short-term measures, no immediate relief. Every action taken that night was about spring and beyond.
That contradiction — emergency language without emergency help — is why the public feels blindsided. And the press saw it, too. Dick Spotswood's column on Nov. 25 said plainly that the City was "moving too fast." Days later, on Nov. 29, the Marin I cartoon depicted residents being railroaded by a train labeled "Tiny Home Village Plan." That wasn't satire; it was community sentiment.
Trust comes from alignment between what the City says and what the City does. On November 17, the City said there was an emergency — but didn't act like it for the people most in danger this winter.
The minutes should reflect the true scope of that meeting: the emergency declaration, the lack of immediate relief, the back-to-back ordinances, the complexity of the actions, and the public reaction that followed.
For the sake of transparency and credibility, please amend the minutes.
Thank you.
KEN DICKiNSON
SAN RAfAEL MEADOWS
•
12/| 2025
December 1, Agenda Item 4a. Approve Minutes of the Regular City Council Meetings of November 17
Mayor, Councilmembers,
I want to speak to the November 17 minutes because those minutes will become part of the City's permanent legislative history. And the way they're written now, they don't capture the pattern that many of us saw that night.
What happened wasn't just a quick vote - it was a sequence. Five actions passed in rapid succession, all tied to 350 Merrydale: the emergency declaration, two versions of the same ordinance, the so million grant
statutes and CEO exemprians were invoked And the packedar eared as before the meeting. That process — its speed and scale - is a key part of the story, and the minutes do not reflect it.
Emergency authority was invoked for "immediate action," but the immediate action was entirely procedural. Nothing in the meeting addressed immediate winter safety for people sleeping outside right now. The emergency was used to accelerate approvals, not to address the emergency conditions described in the ordinance itself.
That's not a political point — it's a procedural one. If emergency authority is used this way once, it can be used this way again. And the public deserves a record that accurately reflects how and why it was used.
nough variousaticles
Even the Marin Independent Journal saw the pattern. Dick Spotswood's column on Nov. 25- warned the City is moving "too fast," and on Nov. 29 the IJ cartoon depicted residents being railroaded. When outside observers consistently call out the same issue — speed and process — the minutes should reflect that this was not an ordinary night.
I'm asking for amendments not to undo anything, but so that the historical record fully and accurately reflects what occurred. That's essential for transparency, and essential for • precedent.
Thank you.
Jennifer Wallace
6 December 1, Agenda Item 4a. Approve Minutes of the Regular City Council Meetings of November 17
Mayor, Councilmembers,
I'm speaking because the minutes from November 17 do not convey how significant and unusual that meeting truly was.
Five major actions were approved in rapid succession: an emergency declaration, two nearly identical ordinances, an $8 million grant, and a property acquisition. More than a dozen state codes were invoked, yet the public had just 72 hours to review the 500-plus pages of material.
But the core issue is the emergency framing. The urgency ordinance claimed immediate action was needed to protect life and health. And yet, at that meeting, no immediate winter protection was proposed for people who are outside right now. The emergency powers were used to accelerate process - not to address the very emergency the ordinance invoked.
Marin IJ columnist Dick Spotswood criticized the City for "moving too fast." The IJ cartoonist illustrated residents being railroaded. These reactions from outside observers demonstrate that the public rightly saw November 17 as an extraordinary moment - and the minutes don't reflect that.
The record must show the full context: the speed, the complexity, the emergency authority, and the absence of immediate winter measures.
Thank you.
wayne M. Raptem
Lelayu M. Rankin
3 December 1, Agenda Item 4a. Approve Minutes of the Regular City Council Meetings of November 17
Mayor, Councilmembers,
I'm speaking tonight because the draft minutes from November 17 do not reflect how that meeting felt for many of us who live here — or what was missing from the discussion.
The City declared an emergency that night, saying there was imminent danger and that immediate action was needed. But when people hear the word "emergency," they imagine immediate solutions — especially with winter approaching. They imagine beds, warming spaces, temporary options that keep people alive in the coldest months.
But none of that was introduced. Not even a placeholder. The emergency declaration did not translate into any emergency winter protection for the people living outside tonight.
Everything was about long-term plans. Everything was about next spring.
For residents, this is where trust breaks down — when the words and the actions don't match. And when 500 pages of material appear three days before the meeting, including two nearly identical ordinances, a major grant agreement, and a full property acquisition, it feels like the public isn't being included - just informed after the fact.
The Marin IJ clearly picked up on how residents felt. Dick Spotswood warned that the City was "moving too fast," and the Nov. 29 cartoon showed Merrydale neighbors being literally railroaded. That cartoon went viral locally because it capturedin one image what many of us felt: decisions on November 17 were made too quickly for the community to meaningfully participate.
The minutes should reflect that the meeting was unusual - in scale, in timing, and in the way emergency powers were invoked without emergency protections. The public deserves an accurate record of what actually happened, and how extraordinary that night really was.
Thank you.
Mariaune Nearested
SR.
7 Mayor Kate, Councilmembers,
I want to speak directly to you, Mayor, because I don't think you understand what you put our neighborhood through.
I'm not an angry or unreasonable man. I'm a good neighbor, someone who supports solutions for homelessness, someone who tries to trust local government. But the way you handled 350 Merrydale pushed me-and many others—past any reasonable limit.
From the beginning, Mayor, you blindsided us. You held a press conference with helicopters overhead, officials lined up behind you, cameras rolling—celebrating a project you had never even told the neighborhood about. That wasn't leadership. That was theater. And it foreshadowed everything that followed.
The secrecy.
The rushing.
The decisions already made in closed sessions.
We had to file an injunction just to stop you from signing the contract after the vote. And instead of listening-—or even pausing—-you pushed the judge to shut down every option we had. We didn't even get a single day to appeal. That wasn't transparency. That was power being used to silence people.
And yes, it felt authoritarian. At times it felt like a Trump-style approach—where the decision comes first, the public is an obstacle, and the process is just for show.
I want you to understand something personal: last time, I was so shaken by the tone in this room—the disrespect from the City Attorney, the feeling of being talked down to-that I could barely speak. I'm not proud of that moment. But it happened because I felt unheard and bulldozed by the people elected to represent me.
And the final blow was Councilmember Kurtz reading a prepared statement right after public comment —proving nothing we said mattered. The decision was made long before we arrived.
So Mayor Kate, T'll ask you again: Why did you do it this way? Why take a project with real potential and launch it in the most divisive, secretive, heavy-handed way possible? But now that you've forced it through, here's my call to action for you:
Give us a real voice going forward.
Not a symbolic committee.
Not a checkbox meeting.
A genuine, ongoing role in oversight, communication, and protections for our neighborhood.
You took the choice away from us at the beginning.
Don't take our voice away now.
Thank you.
FRANK MASON