I hope you have had a healthy and satisfying summer and are looking forward to a continuing "return to normalcy" as we head into the fall. Before everyone heads back to school and (the office?) I want provide you with a few updates on progress on some of the various items we campaigned on last fall.

Richardson Bay

I volunteered to serve as Belvedere's appointee to the Richardson Bay authority because I believed that there was an opportunity to fulfill the environmental mission of the RBRA while

protecting the health and safety of the most vulnerable members of the anchor-out community. On August 12, the RBRA approved a settlement agreement with the San Francisco Bay Area Conservation and Development Commission providing a more aggressive schedule for enforcing the RBRA's 72-hour anchoring rule and to entirely remove permanently anchored vessels from the anchorage by October, 2026. I spent four months with Supervisor Moulton Peters and RBRA staff trying to negotiate the best agreement possible. It was quite a slog as those of you who have worked with the BCDC will appreciate. While we certainly didn't get everything we had hoped for, the Agreement provides a way forward allowing us to conform the anchorage to the Richardson Bay Special Area plan while protecting vulnerable members of the anchor-out community.

Public Safety

You will recall that the events of last summer raised a number of concerns around policing. During the campaign, my focus was on creating mechanisms for producing more transparency and accountability to the BPD. I felt that we could both support our police department as well as hold it and City Council accountable to the public for maintaining Belvedere's values.

In January Mayor Campbell appointed Jim Lynch and I to an ad hoc committee to work with Chief Wu to further these goals. As a result of our work, we have instituted the following changes:

a. The Belvedere Police Department began reporting racial profiling data ("RIPA" Act Data) more than a year prior to the statutory deadline for such reporting. The public can access that data from the City's BPD webpage or here: https://datastudio.google.com/reporting/5d49286d-c2b5-4544-b922-875388799668/page/P0lkB?s=v8aNcR_3ch4

b. Chief Wu has begun reporting key performance indexes for BPD operations to City Council on a quarterly basis. Chief Wu's appearances before Council also give Council an opportunity for Council to consider BPD's policy and to conduct its oversight responsibilities.

c. The Belvedere Police Department Policy Manual has been incorporated into the Belvedere Administrative Policy Manual. This is important because Belvedere City Council is now directly responsible for BPD Policy.

Fiscal Responsibility

This spring, Belvedere's Citizen's Finance Committee appointed an ad hoc task force to address the City's pension liabilities. I assisted our "budget hawk" Sally Wilkinson on this task force along with committee members Bob McCaskill and David Walker. The task force created a number of recommendations that were accepted by the full committee and our City Council. Our recommendations included using a "putative" discount rate of 6% to budget for Belvedere's pension liabilities. Using this rate creates a larger pension liability (and a bigger pension shortfall) and surfaces the need to put money aside to fund future pension payments. In order to save for these future payments, Council adopted the task force's recommendation to set up a "Section 115 Trust Account" and contribute the funds necessary (currently approximately $300,000 per year) to eliminate the more conservatively calculated pension liability within a reasonable period of time.

There's lots more coming down the pike, especially as it relates to the seawall project. As City staff continues to develop plans for coastal resiliency, the Citizen's Finance Committee has begun work on options to finance this work.

I hope everyone will come out an enjoy Belvedere's 125th on September 4. The event is from 5 to 7:30 and will be followed by a family showing of The Princess Bride. Be sure to RSVP at: [email protected].

Be safe, and be well.

Very truly yours,

Steve