HomeMy WebLinkAboutTC Min 2006-10-24
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CALL TO ORDER
TOWN COUNCIL
MINUTES
Mayor Srnith called the special meeting of the Tiburon Town Council to order at 7:00 p,m,
on Wednesday, October 24,2006, at the Bel Aire School Auditorium, 277 Karen Way, Tiburon,
California,
ROLL CALL
PRESENT: COUNCILMEMBERS:
PRESENT: EX OFFICIO:
ORAL COMMUNICATIONS
None,
PUBLIC HEARING
Berger, Fredericks, Gram, Slavitz, Smith
Town Manager Curran, Deputy Town Attorney
Curry, Director of Community Development
Anderson, Planning Manager Watrous, Planning
Consultant Lisa Newman, EIR Consultant Leonard
Charles, Town Clerk Crane Iacopi
1, Appeals of Planning Commission Decisions to Certify the Environmental Impact
Report and to Deny the Conditional Use Permit Application for Expansion of an
Existing Religious Facility and Day School - Report by Director of Community
Development Scott Anderson and Planning Consultant Lisa Newman
Address:
Assessor Parcel No.:
Applicant! Appellant:
Appellant:
Appellant:
215 Blackfield Drive
038-351-34
Congregation Kol Shofar
Tiburon Neighborhood Coalition
Greenwood Beach Homeowners Association
The hearing was transcribed by Diane M Gallagher, CSR, of American Reporting Services,
LLC.
Town Council Minutes # 21 -2006
October 24, 2006
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t. ADJOURNMENT
Mayor Smith closed the public hearing at 1:15 a,m" and adjourned the meeting to Wednesday,
November 15, 2006,
c )I<:
PAUL s~ MAYOR
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C COPI, TOWN CLERK
On November 15, 2006, the Town Council adopted the transcript of the hearing as reported by
Diane M Gallagher, CSR" American Reporting Services, LLC, with the attached errata, Copies
of the transcript are available at Town Hall,
Town Council Minutes # 21 -2006
October 24, 2006
Page 2
ERRATA SHEET
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SIGNATURE: ~d1Ll, ~(
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toWN CLERK
TOWN OF TIBURON
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STATE OF CALIFORNIA
TOWN OF TIBURON
ORIGINAL
IN RE:
CONGREGATION KOL SHOFAR APPEAL
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PUBLIC HEARING
Tiburon, California
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Reported by DIANE M. GALLAGHER, RPR
CSR No. Michigan 2191
:H.
711 Grand Avenue, Suite 120, San Rafael, CA 94901 . 800-624-8688 . 415.482-9030 Fax: 415-482-9038
AmericnnCSR@aol.col11. www.americancsr.coln
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PROCEEDINGS - 10/24/06
STATE OF CALIFORNIA
TOWN OF TIBURON
IN RE:
CONGREGATION KOL SHOFAR APPEAL
Proceedings taken in the above matter at
Bel Aire Elementary School, Multi-Purpose Room,
277 Karen Way, Tiburon, California, beginning at
7:00 p.m., on Tuesday, October 24, 2006, and
ending at 1:20 a.m. on Wednesday, October 25,
2006, before DIANE M. GALLAGHER, Certified
Shorthand Reporter, Michigan No. 2191.
AMERICAN REPORTING SERVICES (800) 624-8688
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PROCEEDINGS - 10/24/06
PRESENT:
TIBURON TOWN COUNCIL
PAUL SMITH, Mayor
THOMAS GRAM, Vice Chair
JEFF SLAVITZ, Council Member
ALICE FREDERICK, Council Member
MILES BERGER, Council Member
PEGGY CURAN, Town Manager
TOM CURRY, Deputy Town Attorney
DIANE CRANE IACOPI, CMC, Town Clerk
DANIEL M. WATROUS, Planning Manager
SCOTT ANDERSON, Director of Community Development
LISA NEWMAN, Planning Consultant
LEONARD CHARLES, EIR Consultant
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PROCEEDINGS - 10/24/06
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APPEARANCES:
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3 For Appellant Congregation Kol Shofar:
4 RAGGHIANTI FREITAS LLP
BY: GARY T. RAGGHIANTI
5 Attorney at Law
874 Fourth Street, Suite D
6 San Rafael, CA 94901-3246
415-453-9433
7 gtraggs@rflawllp.com
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RABBI LAVEY DERBY
REV. CAROL HOVIS
SUSIE COLLIVER
SCOTT HOCHSTRASSER
TIFFANY WRIGHT
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12 For Tiburon Neighborhood Coalition:
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LAW OFFICES OF STEPHAN C. VOLKER
BY: STEPHAN C. VOLKER
Attorney at Law
436 14th Street, Suite 1300
Oakland, CA 94612
510-496-0600
s volker@volkerlaw.com
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KURT KAULL
DAVID HOLDEN
TIMOTHY METZ
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20 For Greenwood Beach Homeowners Association:
21 DONALD PUTTERMAN
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PUBLIC COMMENT
SPEAKERS
Christy Seidel
Bruce Raful
Virginia Brunini
Richard Holway
Charles Epstein
Mindy Canter
Bruce Abbott
Elaine Levy
Russ Pratt
Howard Zack
Sidsel Moller
Aviva Boedecker
Don Dana
Helen Schwartz
John Nygren
Marty Zack
Edward McAuley
Ron Brown
Yvonne Thurmond
Paul Yenofsky
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Rabbi Doug Kahn
Jody Ceniceros
Ida Gelbart
John Leszczynski
Norman Traeger
Susan Goldwasser
Diane Zack
Joan Clare
Isidore Natsios
Karen Nygren
Dan Hegwer
Edward Baker
Michael Rubenstein
Richard Goldwasser
Alan Zimmerman
Lee Kranefuss
Esther Blau
Carl Smith
James Dignan
Steven Sockolov
James Carlson
Lisa Forma
Robert Julian
Brad Tardy
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PROCEEDINGS - 10/24/06
Tiburon, California - October 24-25, 2006
7:00 p.m. - 1:16 a.m.
R E COR D
MAYOR SMITH: Can you all hear me? Okay. We
will get this meeting started.
Welcome to this special meeting of the Tiburon
Town Council. May we have the roll call, please?
MS. CRANE: Yes, Mr. Mayor. Council Member
Berger.
COUNCIL MEMBER BERGER: Here.
MS. CRANE: Council Member Frederick.
COUNCIL MEMBER FREDERICK: Here.
MS. CRANE: Council Member Slavitz.
COUNCIL MEMBER SLAVITZ: Here.
MS. CRANE: Vice Chair Gram.
VICE CHAIR GRAM: Here.
MS. CRANE: Mayor Smith.
MAYOR SMITH: Here.
MS. CRANE: Let the record reflect all council
members are present.
MAYOR SMITH: Now is the time for public
comment on items that are not on tonight's agenda. Is
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PROCEEDINGS - 10/24/06
there really anybody here who would like to say anything
about things that aren't on the agenda?
Seeing none, tonight we are here to hear three
appeals related to the Kol Shofar Project.
First, Kol Shofar appealed the Planning
Commission's denial by a 4-1 vote of their CUP
application. Kol Shofar also appealed the Planning
Commission's certification of the Final EIR by a 5-0
vote based on two findings.
Second, the Tiburon Neighborhood Coalition
appealed the Planning Commission's certification of the
Final EIR, and Greenwood Beach Homeowners Association
also appealed the Planning Commission's certification of
the Final EIR.
I would like to recognize a few people who have
been instrumental in getting us to this point.
Are there any Planning Commissioners here? If
will you please stand up?
All right.' Thank you.
You know, the Planning Commission worked really
hard to pour through volumes of material, and they
applied their life experience and their skills to help
define the issues, and they expressed their independent
viewpoints in a way that makes our job easier.
And I would like to recognize John Kunzweiler,
there are,
of them.
Looks like a few
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PROCEEDINGS - 10/24/06
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the Chairman of the Planning Commission, for his skill
2 and professionalism in running the meetings and for
3 substantive input, to Dick Collins for his detailed
4 analysis and his insights that he brought from his own
5 land use experience, and to Jim Fraser, who is also here
6 tonight, and Dick Collins who expressed the heart and
7 soul of the issues presented, Al Aguirre for what I
8 think are brilliant observations that made others think,
9 and for Emmett O'Donnell for his independent thinking
10 and for standing up for his convictions.
11 I think the PC did a great job in handling this
12 matter, and we really appreciate all of your hard work.
Also, I would like to recognize the staff who
are just so experienced.
They set aside their
15 emotions, their personal opinions, and they give us the
16 empirical data, the benefit of their wisdom and
17 collective planning experience.
18 Scott Anderson and Lisa Newman have done an
19 incredible job of organizing and summarizing and
20 assembling all of the materials for this hearing and for
21 the Planning Commission hearing.
22
This is what they put together. This is my set
23 of materials for this, and, you know, they put this all
24 together, and all we had to do was read it.
r--
25 Also, I would like to thank the appellants, Kol
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Shofar, the Tiburon Neighborhood Coalition and Greenwood
Beach Homeowners Association.
You know, by and large they have cooperated and
they have acted professionally. They presented their
perspectives and they devoted a tremendous amount of
time and effort to contribute to the land use approval
process for which I think our entire town benefits.
And I also want to recognize the community as a
whole for all of the letters, the e-mails, the phone
calls, all the valuable input the community as a whole
has made in this project.
It's really an honor to be the Mayor in a
community that's so dedicated to preserving, improving
and protecting our town.
So now I want to get to some procedures that we
will apply tonight, and I basically want to welcome you
all to the intersection of our homes and religions, and
I know emotions are running high, as you might expect,
so I want you all to imagine with me, bear with me for a
minute, imagine with me that there are 5th and 6th
graders back here from Bel Aire and Del Mar, and they
are here for a civics lesson to see how local government
really works; and I want you to think about how you want
your kids to see their parents perform here in this
public setting.
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I know you all taught your kids respect and
honesty and fairness and honorable and truth, justice,
and the American way, and you know they are all watching
us. So let's all act accordingly.
You all remember Dragnet, Jack Webb, he used to
say, "Just the facts, Ma'am."
Let's leave rudeness, discrimination, hyperbole
at the door. Just the facts.
Just in terms of how the hearing will go, first
we are going to hear from Town staff. They are going to
present their staff report. Staff will respond to
questions from the Council.
Also, if the Council wants to ask questions of
the Planning Commissioners that are present, I see John
Kunzweiler is also here now, I would like to have them
have the opportunity to do that at that time.
Next Kol Shofar will present its appeal. They
will be allowed up to 45 minutes, and less would be
appreciated.
The Tiburon Neighborhood Coalition will present
next and will be allotted no less time than Kol Shofar
gets.
Greenwood Beach Homeowners Association will
present next and will be allotted an appropriate amount
of time to present its appeal.
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Greenwood Beach Homeowners Association, many of
the issues are similar to some of the issues raised by
the Tiburon Neighborhood Coalition appeal, so it's
possible their presentation could be shorter; but they
will be allowed the time necessary to present their
appeal.
I expect to take a five-minute break then. We
may take periodic breaks because we have a court
reporter here tonight who will need to take a break
every now and then to change the paper, but before
public comment I would like to take a short break.
The restrooms are out that door and to the
left, just outside of this room.
In terms of public comment, members of the
public will have a maximum of three minutes each.
Speaker cards and a timer will be used. There will be
no ceding of time to another speaker. So you get your
three minutes. You can't give them to someone else.
And we will strictly adhere to the three-minute
time limit. If you start to add this up, and you look
at the number of people in this room and start adding up
three minutes, you can see where this is all going to
go.
So, you know, have respect for your neighbors,
and I will give everybody a chance to speak and try and
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keep your comments as brief as possible.
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The Appellants will each have a rebuttal time
3 of 15 minutes. Again, less is appreciated. If you need
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it, you have it.
If you don't need it, it would be
5 great to have those be shorter.
6 At that time the Town Council will close the
7 public hearing. It's very likely, given I would expect
8 the hour at that point, that we will continue the
9 meeting to November 15th.
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If for some reason, you know, we find ourselves
11 here in the middle of the night exhausted and there
12 seems like an endless flow of people still wanting to
13 speak, I want everybody to have an opportunity to speak,
14 so if we run out of time and somehow we can't get public
15 comment done tonight, there is a possibility we would
16 have remaining public comment, not everybody coming back
17 again, but the remaining public comment on November 1,
18 so we'll just see how it goes.
19 My preference would be that we get through
20 everybody's opportunity to speak tonight.
21 With that, is there anything that anybody else
22 on the Council wants to say at this point?
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Then, I would like to turn it over to staff for
24 the staff report.
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MS. NEWMAN: Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members
of the Council, and members of the community.
My name is Lisa Newman. I am Planning
Consultant to the Town, and I would like to make a brief
staff presentation.
As the Mayor has indicated, this hearing
addresses the appeals of the Planning Commission's
action on May 31st of this year to certify the Kol
Shofar Final EIR and to deny the conditional use permit
as set forth in their Resolutions No. 2006-15 and -16.
The Mayor has reviewed the three applicants,
the appellants, and the bases of their appeals so I
won't review that.
I will just acknowledge in the staff report,
under Exhibit D, staff has prepared a detailed response
to the three appeals, and I won't go further into those
matters at this point.
The focus of the staff report is the major
unresolved issues that were identified by the Planning
Commission in Resolution 2006-16 and those are:
First, the frequency and lateness of new
weekend night-time events.
Second, the amount of on-site parking.
Third, the size of the proposed multi-purpose
room.
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And, fourth, the proposal to combine the high
holy day services into one service, and that's what I
would like to take a few minutes to describe in a little
more detail.
In the staff report we prepared a table called
Table 1 that presents a comparison of the original
project evaluated in the Draft EIR, as well as the Final
EIR Alternative 7, as it carne to be known, which
represents a reduced project that was proposed by Kol
Shofar.
And, then, finally, in the third column
modifications to Alternative 7 that were recommended
for discussion by staff.
So to go to the first issue area, the weekend,
the new weekend night-time events. The Planning
Commission identified this as an issue in relation to
consistency with neighborhood compatibility goals and
policies identified in the General Plan.
Although, the Kol Shofar reduced project
Alternative 7 decreased the number of newly proposed
night-time weekend events to 27, that consists of 12 new
Saturday events lasting until 11:00 p.m. and 15 new
Sunday night events lasting until 9:00 p.m., the
Planning Commission's resolution provides direction to
reduce the impact of these events that they would cause
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in terms of noise, light and glare, and neighborhood
compatibility.
Consistent with this direction, staff
recommends that the Council consider reducing the number
of Sunday night events from 15 to 9 and setting a time
for these events to end an hour earlier, so that they
would end at 8:00 p.m., rather than the proposal for
9:00 p.m., and, similarly, for the Saturday night events
that they would end an hour earlier as well at
10:00 p.m.
Staff has also suggested that the maximum
number of attendees at Sunday evening events be limited
to 200 rather than 250, and this is provided in Table 1.
The second issue area has to do with on-site
parking.
The Planning Commission concluded that the
proposed increase in on-site parking, the original
project, and which is also the same number in the Final
ErR Alternative 7, which is 139 spaces, and represents
an increase of 22 spaces overall is insufficient.
The zoning ordinance requirement for the
proposed multi-purpose room alone is 161 spaces, and a
minimum of 363 spaces would be required under the strict
enforcement of the ordinance for all of the various uses
at the site.
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The zoning ordinance does allow for some
reduction in the cumulative total parking required when
multiple uses of the site don't overlap, and staff has
suggested that the project increase on-site parking to
161 parking spaces. These would be not including any
number required for handicap service spaces.
Although to provide this number of increased
spaces in the plan would require some more study of the
feasibility, as well as any necessary environmental
review to determine whether there were any related
impacts with physically providing those new spaces,
staff believes that this could be accomplished through
appropriate conditions of approval and implemented as
part of the design review process.
The third issue area pertains to the size of
the multi-purpose room.
The Planning Commission identified this as an
issue in relation to consistency with neighborhood
compatibility goals and policies in the general plan,
particularly in connection with the number of on-site
parking spaces.
In relation to this, the story poles erected
after the Planning Commission hearing indicate that the
proposed footprint of the multi-purpose room extends
down slope in one area beyond the existing flat area and
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would require some additional grading and retaining
walls that were not previously understood.
Therefore, staff recommends that the footprint
of the structure be scaled back so that it does not
extend beyond the existing flat area.
In addition, staff recommends that the total
area be reduced somewhat. Table 1 indicates that a 15
percent reduction in gross square footage would yield an
8,273 square foot structure as opposed to the proposal
for 9,733 square feet.
The final issue area identified in the staff
report pertains to the high holy day services.
The conditional use permit involves the
proposed change from the existing split services held at
the high holy days that accommodate up to 800 people
presently at the earlier service and 750 people at the
later service.
The proposal to unify the services would allow
for up to 1500 people to attend this site at once.
A unified service would significantly intensify
impacts on the neighborhood, although for a shorter
period of time than the split service.
Table 1 includes a recommendation that the
existing split service schedule be maintained.
To bring this to conclusion, the Planning
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Commission, while not agreeing with all of the
conclusions reached by the EIR, nevertheless found it
adequate and prepared in accordance with state law, and
therefore recommended its certification.
The Planning Commission's decision to deny the
proposed conditional use permit application was
predicated on its belief that a conditional use of the
permit could be approved if remaining issues related to
environmental impacts, general plan, and zoning
consistency and the compatibility of the Alternative 7
project with the surrounding neighborhood could be
resolved.
Staff has provided suggestions for such
modifications as summarized in Table 1, and, as I have
just described, for consideration by the Council.
To anticipate the Council's further actions on
this project, staff's recommendation is that following
the closure of the public hearing, and after
deliberation, that the Council indicate its intention to
deny all three appeals challenging the certification of
the Final EIR and indicate its intention to partially
uphold the Kol Shofar appeal of this conditional use
permit with direction to further modify the project
through conditions of approval as generally described in
our report.
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And, finally, to direct staff to return to the
Council with appropriate resolutions for such actions.
This concludes staff's presentation, and we
would be happy to answer any questions that the Council
may have.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you, staff. Questions?
COUNCIL MEMBER SLAVITZ: Lisa, can you tell me
about the significant impacts, if any, that remain even
with the staff recommendation?
MS. NEWMAN: I think I would like to have
Leonard Charles respond.
We do have the -- I will just start off by
saying that there is the matter of the Tiburon
Boulevard/Blackfield Drive intersection, which is
identified as a significant impact for weekend
night-time events, and there is question about the
traffic safety impact related to unsafe turnarounds on
local streets, and, Leonard, do you want to comment on
that?
MR. CHARLES:
The addition of the additional
22 parking spaces would significantly reduce the chance
of turnarounds in the neighborhood, plus the reduction
in the Sunday night events.
It's become, this issue, how many parking
spaces and how many turnarounds, has become such a fine
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tooth, it's hard to say. You could say it still remains
significant or not.
We had the traffic engineers originally propose
this parking receipt program that was in the Final EIR,
which members of the Town thought was probably somewhat
unworkable, and then the traffic engineers, the same
ones who I would have to say were recommended to begin
with were asked if they thought it was feasible, and
then changed direction and said it wasn't feasible.
So it remains a little bit unknown.
I would need to have a traffic engineer here,
because this is such, you know, a fine-tooth thing, I
think we would need a traffic engineer to determine
whether the additional parking spaces that the Town has
recommended would reduce that impact significantly or
not. That I am not able to say.
COUNCIL MEMBER SLAVITZ: So you have not
utilized anyon-site parking options other than this
receipt program?
MR. CHARLES:
Not at this point.
COUNCIL MEMBER SLAVITZ:
I got an e-mail,
right now I don't know who, with the suggestion of using
parking permits. Had that been suggested at all, where
the curbs might be colored in certain areas and
residents could park there and others couldn't.
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MR. CHARLES:
We had that in the Draft EIR and
both painting the curbs and the possibility of a permit
program. That's an option that's open to the Town
still.
COUNCIL MEMBER SLAVITZ: How about off-site
parking options? I think currently they use Westminster
Presbyterian Church for off-site parking, is that
correct? Would that be continued or other sites?
MR. CHARLES:
That's part of the conditional
use permit for the high holy day events.
I can't remember if it kicks in when there's a
certain number of people on site or not, but it's
certainly treated for high holy day events, and it could
be extended to these other events.
The thing is these events now, the way they
have been cut down and how many people can be allowed to
come to them, the maximum number, there would be enough
parking spaces on the site to accommodate those.
So the only possible impact you could have,
this traffic safety impact of people not parking there
and parking on residential streets and then turning
around, say, at the top of Reedland Woods Way and coming
back down is for people who -- for whatever reason --
people who decided it was inconvenient to park in the
parking lot.
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1
You see, we are getting into areas where it's
2 pretty hard to predict exactly how many people would do
3 that and whether that would be a substantial number,
4 etc.
5
COUNCIL MEMBER SLAVITZ:
One more question.
6 Have there been any analyses about changing
7 either the entrance or the exit so that currently you
8 enter on Via Los Altos and you exit on Reedland Woods
9 Way, any discussion about perhaps enter or exit on
10 Blackfield Drive or some other location that mayor may
11 not have less impact on the neighborhood?
12
MR. CHARLES: You mean a new driveway off
"
13 Blackfield Drive? That was looked at by the engineers,
14 and because of the elevation change from Blackfield
15 Drive and the parking lot, to make it a reasonable slope
16 to get into that parking lot, it was determined not to
17 be feasible. You would have to extend virtually all of
18 the way back into the slope below the church.
19
20
COUNCIL MEMBER SLAVITZ: Thank you very much.
COUNCIL MEMBER BERGER: Before I start, I
21 would like to add my congratulations and thanks to the
22
staff.
Brilliant reports.
23 The great big books here make all of the
24 information seem extremely daunting, but the care and
r-
25 the clarity with which the reports have been prepared
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made it, even for somebody who finds this reading very
daunting indeed, I was very impressed with the quality.
Thank you again for a beautiful job.
I think all of Tiburon can be proud of this
beautiful project that the staff put together for us.
I do have a couple questions for staff.
The 250 people at night events that was talked
about, how does that square with the occupancy load of
the multi-purpose room?
Did anybody take a look at the size of the room
as designed and comparing that to the appropriate
occupancy load to know whether the 250 person occupancy
load, plus the size of the room are compatible?
MS. NEWMAN: If you are speaking about the
multi-purpose room size, it's sized to contain more than
250 people.
COUNCIL MEMBER BERGER: Under occupancy load,
how many would it accommodate? I guess it depends
whether you are having a banquet in there or a
configuration like this.
MS. NEWMAN: The application indicates the
number of seats that could be provided in the room as
well as the number of people if they were standing that
could be provided in the room, and I believe the seating
capacity is 642, if I remember correctly, and the
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standing capacity is a larger -- I don't know if I can
pick that out right this second, but I can give it to
you in a moment.
642 loose seats and 300 if it was to
be banquet style.
COUNCIL MEMBER BERGER:
Thank you very much.
I will pass on that question and I will come back to it
later.
In the Congregation Kol Shofar appeal it's
stated staff believes that Alternative 7 lowers all of
the impacts below significant level.
But I guess what you have just told me is that
it's not just Alternative 7. It was Alternative 7 plus
some additional suggested changes.
MS. NEWMAN:
Well, there's a distinction to be
made between the environmental impacts and then
potential impacts associated with General Plan policies,
zoning ordinance consistency.
COUNCIL MEMBER BERGER: But the EIR then --
Alternative 7 EIR did believe it lowered the impact
below. That's really what I wanted to say.
I am an architect. I do buildings. I deal
with the planning codes. I deal with parking numbers
all of the time in my work.
I have never had a situation in my work, per
se, where a handicap space is not counted as a space.
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The analogy would be if you had a handicap
stall in a restroom. It might be for handicapped
people, but able-bodied people can also use it.
And I wondered what the rationale would have
been, or was the meaning in your statement to say it
sounds as though we are asking for 22 spaces, plus
whatever handicap spaces are required, and I think maybe
that should be clarified to say, if this is, in fact,
your intention, along with what code would normally
state -- and then you can tell me if I am wrong -- but
code normally would state 22 spaces, some of which may
be larger to accommodate the handicap requirements,
whatever they are.
Is that what you meant to say, or 22 spaces
plus some as yet undetermined number of handicap spaces
on top?
MR. CHARLES:
Yes. Our intent was to separate
the two out. Simply, at this point we don't know
exactly how many handicapped spaces might be required.
COUNCIL MEMBER BERGER:
I guess the point is,
I will make the statement, and I am sure we will talk
about it more later, is that we may not know how many
handicap spaces. The absurd, an absurd number would say
all of them have to be handicapped, you still have the
same number, they would all be big.
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My point is handicapped people, if they are
going to attend the function, and the idea of the square
footage is to accommodate them, it might be then you
just accommodate them, whether they come handicapped or
not.
I am wondering, it seems as if that's open
ended and contrary to what I understand is normal
practice.
So it's just something worth some
consideration, maybe, to report back on next time, then,
in terms of parking standards.
The last question I had was, really, are the
standards of the CEQA preparation for the EIR to be the
detail of the General Plan, and I guess my question is,
what standards do apply?
Must the EIR meet all of the rather general
restrictions of the General Plan and what kind of
discretion does the Planning Commission have under that
situation?
Can they -- is it up to them to interpret the
General Plan, or do they, in fact, have standards other
than the General Plan that they can use?
MS. NEWMAN:
The environmental document does
take into consideration the Town's General Plan policies
and also its zoning ordinance standards, but it's not
specifically required to opine on all of the consistency
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issues.
It's really left to the Town planning staff to
identify those issues and bring those forward as part of
the planning permit process.
We did ask our EIR consultants, and it's not
always included in every EIR, but we did ask them to do
that analysis in the Draft and Final EIR and it had to
be updated because it has actually changed in between
those two documents, so that was provided; but staff
then made its own independent effort to analyze those
issues in its staff reports and present our conclusions
to the Planning Commission.
At that point the Planning Commission, you
know, as the Mayor indicated, it is an independent body,
and they have the ability to listen to staff's
recommendation, review the conclusions of the EIR,
listen to public testimony and come to their own
conclusion.
COUNCIL MEMBER BERGER: Can -- pardon me, I am
just launching into all of these because we have had a
couple of weekends and long nights to read all of this
stuff. I had all of my questions ready ahead of time.
I am jumping topic to topic.
Is it understood that the Planning Commission
can decide that a program such as parking receipts can
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satisfy a parking requirement, or must Council do this,
as there's nothing specific in our parking regulations
about parking receipts, etc.?
Maybe this is a Scott question.
MR. ANDERSON: The Commission has the
authority to make those decisions because under normal
circumstances this would have been their final decision.
Their decision was appealed. Therefore, the
Council now assumes all of the powers and authorities
that the Planning Commission would have had in reaching
a final decision.
COUNCIL MEMBER BERGER: Right. I understand
they might not have, but if they felt just because there
isn't something in the Town parking code, this is the
way you can do it, they could have if they wanted it.
They weren't precluded from doing it because it
wasn't statute. Okay.
There's a phrase I have a feeling we are going
to be hearing a lot of from everybody and that phrase is
least restrictive. We will get into why that might be
an operative phrase later on.
And I just wanted to ask, street parking,
we will get into shared parking I think later on, too,
but street parking is sometimes used in Tiburon to
figure in -- or is street parking in Tiburon sometimes
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used to figure in parking adequacy?
I am thinking here of commercial uses,
residential guests, of course they always park on the
street.
I wonder, was street parking ever considered,
any accommodation of some street parking, even some
small number of street parking, used to figure in the
parking adequacy of the synagogue application, and
would -- in fact, if we didn't use any of that street
parking to accommodate the parking adequacy of the plan,
would that be considered least restrictive or not least
restrictive?
MR. ANDERSON: I don't believe that our zoning
ordinance makes any provision for counting on the street
parking as part of a project's on-site parking
requirements.
However, I think the fact that there is some
available on-street parking nearby on the frontage of
Kol Shofar, I think the EIR included that in its
analysis as simply a place where people do park when
using the site.
COUNCIL MEMBER BERGER: Was it used in that
calculation or taken into some consideration?
MR. CHARLES:
requirement.
Not in determining parking
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As you know, the EIR was very conservative. We
determined the parking load strictly on site. We
didn't count the frontage on Blackfield or anywhere
else.
The applicant's traffic engineer in their
preliminary report, they did, but we didn't.
COUNCIL MEMBER BERGER:
It's something we
could think about if we chose to, obviously.
That ends my questions. I will have more later
on. But I thank you for your patience and your precise
answers.
MAYOR SMITH: Let me follow-up on one thing
Miles asked about.
Alternative 7, as I read, mitigated all impacts
below significant.
And then, Leonard, by the way, I forgot to
recognize our EIR consultant, Leonard Charles, who are
probably -- they do an incredible amount of hard work
and get ripped to shreds. They have to be defended.
You know, we appreciate all of the hard work, Len.
What I think I just heard is that it's unclear
whether the proposed changes that staff is making of
additional parking and reducing the multi-purpose room
size, timing of events, it's unclear to you at this
point, or hard to predict, I think you said, whether
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that would reduce town turnarounds so on, so forth, to a
less than significant level, that you would need to look
at a traffic engineering analysis or something in order
to determine that.
But I thought Alternative 7 already said that
those impacts were mitigated below significant, and I
also want to know whether you have had a chance to look
at Robert Harrison's most recent traffic counts
provided, the date of September 12, and they were
additional traffic counts relating to the
Blackfield/Tiburon Boulevard intersection.
Do you have any thoughts about what impact
those new counts may have on the question of whether or
not that's a significant impact?
MR. LEONARD:
Let me have five minutes to look
back through my -- I think you are correct -- but I just
want to make sure that I don't give an inaccurate
answer.
MAYOR SMITH:
Fine.
We will come back to
you.
Any other questions for staff?
COUNCIL MEMBER FREDERICK:
I think I am
getting a little confused here.
It was my understanding that at some point, and
I think it was Alternative 7 was eventually decided in
one of the documents because some of the mitigations
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were not feasible, to not reduce the impacts to not
significant.
Have I lost the time line here? Is that the
question that's being asked?
MR. ANDERSON: I am not quite sure that's what
he's looking at.
What I can tell you is that the Planning
Commission found that certain of the mitigation measures
that had been included with that Alternative 7 project
were not feasible.
So when they made their decision, they decided
that there was still a significant and an unavoidable
noise impact, a significant and unavoidable traffic
safety impact due to the unsafe turnarounds, and a
significant and unavoidable amount of light and glare
impact.
So those three were still out there remaining
at the end of the Planning Commission's decision.
MAYOR SMITH: And that was the Planning
Commission's determination, as opposed to what was in
the EIR.
And that was my question. What was the EIR's
determination on whether there were any significant
impacts remaining, and then is there any change in that
opinion as a result of the proposals in the staff report
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to reduce parking, multi-purpose room, and the new
traffic count from Robert Harrison regarding Tiburon
Boulevard/Blackfield Drive?
MR. LEONARD: The Alternative 7, which was
post Final EIR, and addendum, it assumed the mitigation
measures that were in the Final EIR, which included the
parking receipt program.
The parking receipt program was then determined
not to be feasible.
So you are correct, we concluded that
Alternative 7 would reduce all impacts to less than
significant level.
But now it doesn't include the parking receipt
program, but it does include 22 new additional parking
spaces, and we haven't had a traffic engineer say yea or
nay on that.
And, again,
MAYOR SMITH:
I don't know. I just don't know.
And what about the Robert
Harrison on the Tiburon Boulevard/Blackfield Drive
counts, did you get a chance to look at those?
MR. ANDERSON: We are just finishing up on the
whole parking receipt mitigation.
The Town asked Crane to go back at the end of
this process, since they had never really looked at the
final Alternative 7 write-up and we asked them to go
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back and look at that and look at all of the mitigations
that had been put forth both in the EIR and Alternative
7, the ones that staff had developed, since we had
concluded ourselves that parking mitigation plan with
the receipts was probably not feasible.
So we asked Crane to go back and take a look at
all of the mitigations that had been put forth so far.
Their conclusion was that the Planning
Commission was basically right, and none of the
mitigations would reduce that unsafe turnaround to an
insignificant level.
We have not asked them to look any further and
suggest whether there are mitigations that they believe
would achieve a less than significant level.
In terms of the Harrison traffic counts, I
think what you are seeing is that you are seeing some
newer additional counts that were done, which seem to
appear to contradict the EIR's conclusion that there was
enough volume making that left turn that it would cause
problems at that intersection.
At this point you basically have experts who
disagree. You have one expert saying it will impact
significantly. It's going to need mitigation.
You have another expert saying, no, I don't
find that when I do my counts.
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MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Any other
questions? Any questions for any of the Planning
Commissioners?
COUNCIL MEMBER SLAVITZ:
One more.
I am a little confused, Scott. So you are
saying that more study is needed to see if by removing
the traffic receipt program, the parking receipt
program, we need to see now if this additional parking
still reduces the impact for the unsafe turnarounds? Is
that right?
I guess my question is, where does this happen?
We are in an appeal, but it sounds like you
need more information. I am wondering when that
happens?
MR. ANDERSON: Well, at this point you still
have an unmitigated impact according to that expert, so
the Council has several options.
It can either come up with some mitigations
that it finds will result in a less than significant
impact, or it can also override that particular impact
in the project, in spite of --
COUNCIL MEMBER SLAVITZ:
But there is no time
for the engineer to go out there and do a study and tell
us anything at this point?
MR. ANDERSON: It depends.
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COUNCIL MEMBER 5LAVITZ: Okay.
COUNCIL MEMBER BERGER: I'm sorry, I actually
have a couple more questions I want to direct to Mr.
Charles that I have marked as staff.
One of my questions was something that was
mentioned in some of the appeals that the EIR relies on
post-approval mitigations, which, if any, that you can
identify, or was it just sort of like which parking lot
might be used for the shuttle, that kind of thing?
What post-approval mitigations do you know that
the EIR relied on, if any?
MR. LEONARD: There isn't any -- that argument
is based on the fact that you can't have a mitigation
measure that says you will do a study, and then after
you do a study will determine what the mitigation shall
be. In fact, the mitigation measures in the EIR set
very explicit performance standards that must be met.
So, for example, when you talk about the need
to have an underground storage retention basin for
run-off, it very explicitly states what performance
measures have to be met.
It doesn't say how that exactly is going to be
done because that's a design level, so if you look
through the Final EIR, each one of the claims by various
people who stated that and described how those
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performance standards are being met, and they're not
quote/unquote --
COUNCIL MEMBER BERGER: Got you. It's a
performance standard, not a design, and the design will
meet the performance standard and that will be up to the
building department.
I noticed something in the documentation, they
talk about the criteria or qualifications for dual use
parking. What are those criteria, and does the
sanctuary/multi-purpose room, does it apply, how does it
match up to some of those qualifications criteria?
MS. NEWMAN: The dual, the thing that we were
trying to distinguish in the staff analysis is the
overlapping uses on the site. So we did an analysis in
the prior staff report, and this was based on
information provided by the Applicant about the variety
of services and events that are held currently and newly
proposed events at Kol Shofar, what rooms they occupy,
and how they overlap or don't overlap on the site, and
that informs the number of parking spaces that could be
required under the zoning ordinance.
COUNCIL MEMBER BERGER: We will get into this
in more detail as we listen to the presentations from
the Applicants and the Appellants, but so it's clear
that if it's the Berger bar mitzvah, and the
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Berger/Ecker bar mitzvah, blowout bash, it's, generally
speaking, the same people that are going to be going to
two, where it's both of them, whereas if it's two
completely unrelated, one using the multi-purpose room,
one using the sanctuary, you might not be able to count
on the shared use of the parking.
MS. NEWMAN: I think that's correct. For
example, if the school were in session and you were
having a bar mitzvah, you would have overlapping uses,
and if that was a regular planned occurrence, then we
would want to build that into our parking demand
estimate.
COUNCIL MEMBER BERGER: Perhaps, then, I will
just toss it out for those making the presentations
later on, that I would be real interested to know, I'm
not really so much worried about the school, the kids
are too small to drive, generally speaking.
I am interested in knowing about the use of the
biggest rooms, you know, the sanctuary and the
multi-purpose room, to what extent can we, might we
tailor our thoughts about parking and that's the double
uses -- a double use to that -- to those kinds of uses,
and maybe we can find some understanding how often or
how infrequently that might happen.
That's it. That was my last question. Thank
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you.
MAYOR SMITH: Okay. Anybody else? Anybody
want to ask any questions of the Planning Commissioners?
I wanted to give you an opportunity to ask
questions of them so they don't have to stay here longer
than they need to; but hearing none for the moment, we
are now approximately 15 minutes behind my estimated
schedule for the meeting.
So I think we ought to go ahead with Kol
Shofar's presentation. Are you ready?
MR. RAGGHIANTI: I am. One of the things I
wanted to make a request for is that the lighting be
brought down at an appropriate point so a PowerPoint can
be shown.
MAYOR SMITH: Are you going to be referring to
that as you go through your whole...
MR. RAGGHIANTI: I am not, but others will.
MAYOR SMITH: I will offer the opportunity to
the Council members to roam around the room here and be
able to see.
It's now 7:44.
*
*
*
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MR. RAGGHIANTI: Good evening, Mr. Mayor, and
Members of the Council. My name is Gary Ragghianti,
for the court reporter, and I will give you a card
later.
Members of the Council, I represent Kol Shofar,
and I want to say that I appreciate the remarks of the
Mayor in connection with civility. We will be civil.
We sometimes can be forceful when we speak, but I will
attempt to confine myself to the facts.
We have important issues that we believe should
be discussed tonight, but the primary one is very
simple, and that is whether or not there's substantial
evidence in the record of these proceedings to support
the denial that the Planning Commission acted on in this
particular case.
We feel very strongly that there is not
substantial evidence to support that.
Our goal tonight is to take you through our
presentation in an efficient way.
We will be presenting the Senior Rabbi Lavey
Derby; our architect, Susie Colliver; our planner, Scott
Hochstrasser, and, briefly, Tiffany Wright on the CEQA
issues you have just been debating, and I may say
something in between, so that by the time they are
through, hopefully I won't have too much to say.
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I have six points that I want to raise, and I
will just briefly go through them with you now. I will
be speaking to them in between the presentations of
these people.
One is the history of the changes to the
initial application that has been made by my client in
response to neighbors, staff and consultants.
Next is the history of the attempts that the
congregation has made to engage the opponents in what we
hoped were substantive discussions concerning the
application we were making in an attempt to resolve
issues of dispute.
The third is the one I have already mentioned,
and that is in our judgment the absence of any real
world, verifiable in the record evidence of remaining
adverse impacts flowing from this project that could in
any way support a denial.
The studies performed here, I will list them
after the presentation and the experts who wrote them,
have provided you with an overwhelming amount of data, I
respectfully submit much more than is reasonably
necessary to act on this application.
I want to remark later about the comparison
between the only other religious organization that has
had a use permit reviewed in this Town, that is St.
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Hilary's, because I do think, if one takes away the
weekend events from the discussion that we will be
having, there is a remarkable similarity between the
two, and I will review that carefully with you.
And, finally, the issue that I suppose the
television cameras are all here for, and the issue that
the Mayor briefly touched on, which is the collision, if
you will, between the land use policy and the core
constitutional issues which have to do with religious
freedom and the expression of one's religion.
The first witness, or I should say, the first
speaker I wish to present is the Senior Rabbi of the
Congregation Kol Shofar and its spiritual leader, Lavey
Derby.
RABBI DERBY: Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members
of the Council. My name is Rabbi Lavey Derby. I am the
Senior Rabbi and spiritual leader and sole religious
authority of Congregation Kol Shofar.
I have been a rabbi for 30 years and a
congregational rabbi leading the Congregation Kol Shofar
for 15 years.
I am a graduate of the Jewish Theological
Seminary and the Rabbinical Training Institution of the
Conservative Movement, where I won awards for Jewish
law, Jewish codes and understanding of Jewish tradition.
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For the last 30 years, I might say much
longer, it has been my life's work, my passion to create
Jewish life, to bring people who are Jews and any other
people who are interested to understand the beauty, the
meaningful life that is available within Jewish
religious tradition, as well as to work with other
religious traditions to create communities that are good
and ethical, and which care about the betterment of
society.
I believe that what drives me is the notion
that people who come together in community tend to live
a more meaningful life than those who live in isolation.
The creation of Jewish community is the soul
technique that we have at our disposal to create a
vibrant Jewish life so that the Jewish people may
continue and that our faith and our peoplehood and our
culture may thrive.
You may be aware of the fact that some decade
ago, maybe 12 years ago, the Dali Lama invited a whole
variety of Jewish leaders, 10 or 12 Jewish leaders to
India to meet with him to talk about the condition of
Tibetan Buddhists in exile, and he wanted to know from
these Jewish spiritual leaders, What is the secret of
the Jewish people that we have been able to survive for
2000 years in exile?
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And the single answer that made the most sense
to him was community.
We are a people who know how to build
community.
That is what a synagogue is, a community, a
house of community.
Our mission is to celebrate Jewish life, sacred
moments, festivals, to worship God, and to educate
ourselves and our children in the ways of our faith.
We are a community.
What brings us here this evening is the issue
of a redesign and a modest expansion of our facility,
and that is what takes up all of those papers that the
Mayor referred to sitting behind him.
But I believe that there's a broader issue at
stake here, and the broader issue is really about the
place and role of religious institutions in towns like
ours and in neighborhoods like ours.
Kol Shofar is not a homeowner. We are not
building a commercial enterprise. We do not aspire to
be a tennis club. We are not even building a basketball
court.
What we are building is a vibrant faith
community, and because this is a broad issue, it affects
not only me and my religious community, it affects
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religious communities throughout Marin; in fact,
throughout California; in fact, throughout the country.
Consequently, I want to let you know how deeply
honored and how important it is to me that my community
is joined this evening by clergy and religious lay
leaders from throughout the Marin community.
Not only that, a National Conference of the
Industrial Areas Foundation, hosting over 75, between 75
to 100 religious clergy men and women, religious lay
leaders, civic leaders, union leaders have abandoned
their particular schedules so that they might be here
this evening in support of our cause, and with your
permission, I would ask all of you who here as clergy
and leaders of the IAF conference to rise and be
recognized.
(Applause. )
I want to point out that these are people from
Marin County, Los Angeles, and from San Antonio, other
places in Texas, and across the country and throughout
the state who have taken their time to be here in
support not only of our cause but the cause of the
necessity for towns and communities to understand the
importance of religious institutions and what goodness
they bring to any neighborhood in which they can be
found.
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I know that the question which has been debated
for the last two and-a-half years is why we need to
redesign and rebuild our facility?
The answer is simple. Because our building is
decrepid, our space is inappropriate, at best, and it is
woefully inadequate to hold the programming we have been
conducting in that space for the past 10 years or more.
Many of you who have visited our building, I
will remind you, have also commented on the decrepid
space and its inadequacy.
I would like to let you know what is going to
take place in the space, for lack of a better term, a
multi-purpose space.
Here is what will take place in that space.
Four separate worship services Saturdays and
Sundays, religious in nature.
Communal meals, sacramental in nature,
including shabbat dinners, lunches following weekly
shabbat services, Passover seders, a Yon Kapur break the
fast, all of them religious in nature.
Holiday celebrations, for Hanukkah, The Purim,
and Israel Independence Day, which in the conservative
movement is a religious holiday.
All of them religious
in nature.
Weekly hot meals served to the homeless of
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southern Marin in conjunction with the other churches
and religious institutions in Marin. Religious in
nature.
Religious school classes and religious school
assemblies. Religious education in nature.
Adult education classes and special lectures.
Religious education.
Over 20 different programs will be housed in
the multi-purpose room, all of which currently take
place and have continued to take place in our community
without complaint in a space that is inappropriate and
not conducive to learning and religious celebration.
Many of these take place concurrently, although
I need to tell you that the likelihood of bar mitzvahs
being scheduled at the same time religious school is in
session is about a snowball's worth in hell.
They take place and are relegated in small
rooms that have no natural light or ventilation. This
was a building that was, in fact, built by architects at
the behest of the Town of Tiburon to become a school. I
don't know who designed it.
This, in fact, is no way for children or adults
to learn or to pray.
I would like to ask you, or caution you, not to
rely too heavily on the information you received from
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Professor Hamilton.
Professor Hamilton is not a rabbi.
She is not
a Conservative Jew, and she is most certainly not the
rabbi of my synagogue.
As such, her information would be irrelevant,
but it is uninformed to begin with, and I would be happy
to produce documentation to counter any of her arguments
from the president of the Hebrew Union College, and the
chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the
leaders of the reformed and conservative movement who
would be happy to give you information about what
constitutes religious activity and what, in fact, does
not.
Now, I know that this is difficult for people
to understand. We are a religious community, and what
we want to do is celebrate our religion. What we want
to do is teach people about our religion. What we want
to do is be a vibrant religious community within the
neighborhood of Tiburon, within our town, for the
betterment of our entire town and our entire community.
I have to tell you, I have struggled to figure
out how this could be denied. I have struggled to
figure this out. And the only possible reason that I
can come up with to explain why this project would be
denied or even cut beyond our need is simply because
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there are many people who have the desire to keep people
away from Kol Shofar.
I have listened to this discussion now for two
years. I have read the same materials that you read. I
have read the same letters, and this is what I hear
people are saying: what I hear people saying is too
many people come to the synagogue. Too many people come
to the synagogue. We don't want that many people coming
to the synagogue. That's what they seem to be saying.
To deny Jews, or people of any faith, people of
faith, the right to come to a synagogue or church, to
worship God, to educate themselves in the ways of our
religion and their children and the ways of our faith,
to celebrate our festivals and our sacred moments.
Is it possible that you would act in such a way
as to prevent people from attending the synagogue of
their choice? To say, I am sorry, that's a nice
synagogue, but you can't go there. You can't go there.
I can't believe actually such a thing
ultimately is possible.
I want to tell you that this process has caused
me some difficulty as a spiritual leader. As a
spiritual leader, I really believe in the mandates of
our Torah, and we said it first: To love our neighbors
as ourselves.
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And I entered into this process with the belief
that when two parties find themselves in a conflict, the
best thing for them to do is to sit down, share their
needs and thoughts and find a compromised position.
I want to let you know, Mr. Mayor, and Members
of the Council that I, personally, on four or five
different occasions met personally face to face in
discussion with members of our community, the Tiburon
Neighborhood Coalition and with our neighbors.
I, and others, offered a number of compromised
suggestions, as the record of the Planning Commission
will show.
Never once did the Tiburon Neighborhood
Coalition make an offer of compromise or even make a
positive suggestion to me or any leadership of my
community.
In the absence of any negotiating partner, that
is why we have come to you as the Town Council to
discuss this matter in full view so that you might in
your wisdom make a judgment on this, because you are the
responsible party, ultimately, and the lack of any real
negotiation possible with people who won't talk with us.
I want to introduce to you the Reverend Carol
Hovis, who is the Executive Director of the Marin
Interfaith Council, and she is here to speak briefly
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about her perspective.
REVEREND HOVIS: Thank you. Thank you, Mayor,
and Members of the Tiburon City Council.
I am here for four reasons: one is I am here
because I am a religious leader. I am a Presbyterian
minister, I have been so for more than 16 years and take
seriously the role, not only the role of religious
institutions, but public and civic institutions in our
lives together.
I am here for a second reason, as the Executive
Director of the Marin Interfaith Council.
Thirdly, I am here as a colleague and a friend
in solidarity with Congregation Kol Shofar.
And, fourthly, I am here because I am a Marin
resident and a property owner here in Marin.
So just a few details about each of those
reasons.
First of all, I want to say, I was at the May
meeting of the Planning Commission, the very long one
that went until midnight, and I was really listening to
the perspectives of the residents and the owners who
were at this point against the expansion and the
renovation of Congregation Kol Shofar, trying to
understand their perspectives and what their interests
are, and why they have the perspective that they do.
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And the one conclusion I could come up with was
really, in a sense, a lack of understanding, maybe a
stereotype about what religious institutions are about.
And so I want to share with you that, for me,
one of the quotes in the Chronicle article from
yesterday that talked about that the plan for
Congregation Kol Shofar is not compatible with a
residential area, and I found that actually very
confusing.
I grew up in an upper middle class suburb of
Rockville, Maryland, where the school and the community
pool, and the United Methodist Church and the Roman
Catholic Church, and then the Jewish Community Center
down the street were the anchors of our neighborhood.
And one particular story I remember is that in
sixth grade we had a boy and a girl twins, Josh and
Susan, arrive at our school recently orphaned because
their parents had been killed in an automobile accident
in New York City.
They were taken in by their cousins,
their aunt and uncle, and they were now new members of
our sixth grade class. We were told that as a way of
welcoming them into the class of my public elementary
school.
Two years later, many of us celebrated their
bar and bat mitzvah together at their local synagogue.
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What I learned from that experience, as I
reflect back on it, was the powerful role of the school,
of the synagogue, of our community public institutions
in forming our lives.
And what the Mayor, what you said tonight about
civility, I so appreciated your comment about the
students. If we had 5th and 6th graders here tonight, I
would want them to understand the role of these public
institutions in forming the fabric of our society.
Secondly, I am the Executive Director of the
Marin Interfaith Council.
Congregation Kol Shofar is a member,
Westminster Tiburon is a member, Shepard of the Hills
Lutheran is a member, Community Congregational Church of
Tiburon is a member, as well as Green Gulch Farm, the
Dantis (sic) Society, as well as St. Raphael's Catholic
Church in San Rafael. There are more than 50 religious
congregations that are members of the Interfaith
Council.
There are more than 12 to 15 nonprofits that
are members of the Interfaith Council, including
Dominican University, and the local union FCIU, and we
have more than 70 individual contributing members to the
Marin Interfaith Council, many of whom are here tonight.
Thirdly, I am a colleague of the rabbi's, Lavey
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and Chai, as well as Michael Sachstol1er (sic), their
program director, and so my closest friends, Joan and
Steven, are part of the Kol Shofar community, and Kol
Shofar has not only been a leading congregation in the
Marin Interfaith Council, but for four years has been
the lead congregation of all congregations in an effort
to organize in Marin, called the Marin Organizing
Committee, and that's many of the people who you saw
stand tonight.
And last month I attended the Rosh Hashana
services, the first Friday night at Kol Shofar, and I
was very moved that that night, instead of having Rabbi
Lavey Derby give the sermon, he asked three individuals
to speak. Two of them were synagogue members and the
third person who spoke was a member and a resident of
the canal neighborhood.
She came and spoke in Spanish, and she shared
her experiences as an immigrant, a single mother raising
two children who were present that night at Kol Shofar.
What was moving to me was their interaction in
the community. This wasn't just about a Jewish
community coming together, but this was about
connections and relationships in the greater community,
and what was particularly moving, and I, as a non Jew
that night, became even more appreciative of not only
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the Jewish experience but the connections with the
Latino experience and every other immigrant's
experience.
Fourthly, I am a Marin resident, and just this
summer for the first time -- I moved here nine years ago
from the East Coast -- and never thought I would be a
property owner in Marin as a religious leader on my
salary.
I had the opportunity to buy a condominium, a
new condominium on, I believe, probably the most
hotly-contested real estate on the 101 corridor. I am
right on the St. Vincent's Silvera ranch land, beautiful
view right now, and the St. Vincent School for Boys is
out my patio.
I am told I should be finished.
I have thought long and hard on what would I
feel like, as a property owner, on what would happen to
that land. I would not be happy with a Wal-Mart or a
huge business corporate building going up. There would
be some things I would have some problem with.
But when I think about our public institutions,
about churches and schools and synagogues and mosques,
and the issue around noise and parking, to me, these are
things that can be negotiated and compromised, and
that's what I want our children to learn. How do these
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political people come together and negotiate?
You know, there will be times when there will
be noise. I would rather hear the noise of children and
families celebrating than a lot of other examples I
could come up with. Thank you.
(Applause. )
MR. RAGGHIANTI: The Congregation has had the
privilege of working with experienced and talented
architects from the very beginning. Susan Colliver
will present the PowerPoint and then will be followed
by Scott Hochstrasser.
MAYOR SMITH: Okay. Can we dim the lights?
Anybody.
MS. COLLIVER: Good evening, Mayor Smith,
Council members, Town staff and members of the
community. I am Susie Colliver with the firm of Herman
& Colliver Architecture.
We have been working with Kol Shofar since 2003
in an effort to develop a way to develop the usability
of the former middle school, which has served as their
synagogue for 22 years.
We were selected by the Congregation due to our
prior experience in synagogue planning and design.
In fact, we have worked with nine other
synagogues in Northern California over the past 13 years
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on similar improvement programs. Many have been located
in the midst of suburban residential neighborhoods, not
unlike this one. All of them have enhanced the
neighborhoods in which they were situated due to the
careful site planning and landscape improvements, which
have been an integral component of our efforts. Many
have received design awards.
Not once have we heard, upon completion of one
of our synagogue projects, that there was a diminution
of the quality of life or a drop in property values due
to the renewal of the facilities we designed. On the
contrary.
As is the case with Kol Shofar, each was
located in a structure which no longer met the needs of
its existing congregates.
In every case the building projects were
undertaken in an effort to transform lackluster
environment into truly sacred space, which is the
driving force in this proposal as well.
We developed four distinct site plan approaches
and settled on the plan submitted to the Town of Tiburon
because it most fully met the needs of the congregation
and the concerns of the neighborhood as they were
articulated in the several community outreach meetings.
Allow me to briefly describe the plan to you.
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Here is Blackfield Drive. Here is Reedland
Woods Way, and here is Via Los Altos.
The areas in grey are the parking lots. Those
in blue are the existing buildings on the site. Those
in orange and pink are the proposed new construction,
the school -- I am sorry -- the school right here, and
here, and the multi-purpose space here, which the pink
part is the multi-purpose room itself.
Interestingly, when the site was originally
developed in the late '60s as the Reedland Woods Middle
School, only the first phase of the planned construction
was built.
An additional 37,000 square feet were planned
and approved as shown in the dashed lines on this
original plan.
Had the site remained a school, it would have
encompassed a total of 78,840 square feet.
What Kol Shofar is proposing as a total build-
out is 51,640 square feet or 27,000 square feet less
than if it had remained a school.
As the multi-purpose room seems to be the part
of the plan which has generated the most confusion,
allow me to describe it more fully.
Here it is shown in relationship to the
existing building. In this detail you can see how the
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multi-purpose room itself is approximately half the
square footage of the proposed expansion, the
multi-purpose room being the pink part.
The remainder is the lobby, the kitchen,
restrooms, storage and a service hallway.
As you will note, the multi-purpose room is
divisible by folding walls into three sections. That is
this.
This room will be used every day of the week
for a wide variety of religious and educational purposes
as laid out by the Rabbi earlier.
If the multi-purpose room were to shrink, we
would not be able to accommodate the three program
phases which the congregation desperately needs to
conduct its ongoing programs.
This chart details the specific space
allocations, we show, in an effort to relieve some
confusion about whether the multi-purpose room is 9700
square feet or, in fact, as we have been describing it,
4500 square feet.
Neighbors have concerns about the physical use
of the site as well as the intensity of use. I will
address the physical issues and the proposed
mitigations.
They are: traffic circulation, insufficient
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parking, intrusion of light and noise at night.
We have closed the road leading into the site
directly from Reedland Woods Way. You may recall that
there's presently a road at this point, having heard
that it was considered a hazard to children playing in
the cul-de-sac.
All traffic will enter the site from Via Los
Altos, right here, which is the sleepiest of the
surrounding streets and the one with the fewest
residences facing onto it.
A new parking area with 39 spaces in this part
of the site is to be constructed along a new driveway
link, right here on site, which is entirely internal to
the site and significantly further away from adjacent
residences, which are over here, than is the current
drive at the north of the site.
This new drive makes dropoff for children in
this turnaround right here and for the elderly and
disabled far more accessible than in the past.
Parking for communal institutions is often a
problem, as it is in every aspect of the lives of those
of us who live in large metropolitan areas.
There are currently 117 spaces on site. I am
sorry, here, a few informal ones here, and here.
We have managed to add an additional 22 parking
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spaces on this very difficult and hilly site, bringing
the total on-site parking spaces up to 139, and for
those who care to take a look at the model, which is
here in the front of the room, you can see how
tremendously steep most of the 7-acre site is.
Now, as for the intrusion of light at night,
presently there are globe lamps throughout this parking
area.
All existing globe lights affix to poles which
spray light in 360 degrees are slated to be replaced by
directional lamps, such as these, which allow light to
be cast down only, and then only in a small controlled
pool of illumination.
The new stairs and parking area here and here
and here are to be lit with lower than waist-high
bollards, you can see here, which also direct light only
downwards.
New planting is to be added to the site, and
new earth berms are to be built, you can see that here,
to be built up along the north property line to greatly
decrease the amount of headlight intrusion into homes on
Reedland Woods Way.
The skylights
sorry, next slide. Sorry, we
have already passed this.
The skylights will all have mechanically
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operated blackout shades over them to prevent light
spillage from the building itself at night.
Having looked at the site from everywhere in
the neighborhood from which it can be seen, we have
placed new site improvements, including the
multi-purpose room and the four replacement classrooms
in those positions on the land for which they have the
least impact on nearby properties, as diagramed in these
slides, and as can be appreciated from trying to see the
story poles presently erected which, in truth, are hard
to view from most parts of the area.
That concludes my portion of the talk, and I
thank you very much for your attention.
(Applause. )
MR. HOCHSTRASSER: Mr. Mayor and Members of the
Council, my name is Scott Hochstrasser. I am a land use
planner and an environmental planning consultant.
I want to talk first very quickly about the
7-acre site in context with the neighborhood.
It shows very clearly that the buildings on the
property today are clustered pretty much in the middle
of the property, over 450 to 500 feet away from the
closest residence.
Next slide, please. The additions are designed
to be distant from the existing residence and are
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clustered with existing building.
The Kol Shofar project is a green building
plan, preserves, protects and recycles the existing
building and facilities.
Landscape. Next slide, please.
Here is a building overview.
The parking lot improvements, as you have heard
from Susie's presentation, include 22 new parking spaces
on site, new turnaround, dropoff and ADA and fire
access, lighting improvements to reduce glare, and
landscape improvements, including berms, fencing, trees
and shrubs, and those berms, fencing, trees and shrubs
are recommendations that come from independent experts
that suggest those improvements for not only enhancing
the aesthetic beauty of the site, but also reducing
noise impacts from the parking lot use.
MAYOR SMITH: Scott, just to let you know you
are at the 10-minute mark.
MR. HOCHSTRASSER: Thank you. Next I want to
talk or discuss about how the Kol Shofar plan was
developed.
The actual facts of the application chronology
tell quite a different story than what your staff
reports.
Kol Shofar's efforts in 1996 to take cars off
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the street included a plan for a new parking lot.
The Town approved that plan for up to 80 spaces
and the neighbors sued.
Next slide, please. Kol Shofar got the message
very clearly that making improvements to the property
had to be done in a comprehensive way, but before they
proceeded with the comprehensive master plan they
actually prepared, they actually looked at several sites
in Marin County for a couple years in considering
possible relocation of the facility.
Next slide, please. Kol Shofar basically
developed a master plan and held publically-noticed
neighborhood meetings and received feedback from those
neighbors and responded.
They responded by -- next slide, please --
parking lot modifications, relocation of buildings,
moving of classrooms, and a landscape plan was
developed, fencing and proposed lighting improvements
for down lighting to reduce light and glare.
Next slide, please. Kol Shofar engaged noise,
traffic and parking experts and made further plan
revisions and the Town application was filed in April
2004. The plan was modified further.
When the Draft EIR was presented in June 2005,
that EIR actually offered two different opportunities:
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one to reduce use, as opposed to modifying building
plans, Kol Shofar reduced use. They proposed
voluntarily to reduce the Saturday events to 27 and
reduce the attendance of the maximum from 300 to 275 for
weekend events.
February, March, April. The Final EIR came out
in February of 2006. March 2006 there was an Errata to
the FEIR because Kol Shofar voluntarily again modified
their use claim.
Kol Shofar voluntarily modified the plan to
reduce Saturday events again, to reduce attendance
maximum from 275 to 250 and modify the parking lot use
and circulation to reduce impacts on the turnarounds and
the neighborhood parking.
Based on the discussion of their action, the
Planning Commission appears to have viewed the
conditional use permit that was proposed as sort of the
starting point.
The staff reported to you in your application,
or in your report tonight, that the staff and the
Planning Commission believe that Kol Shofar's
Alternative 7 was a starting point for which they could
require and haggle over for further concessions under
threat of permit denial.
To suggest, as tonight's staff report does,
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that Kol Shofar has been uncooperative because it
insisted on a decision to which it's legally entitled to
fair and timely due process is a gross affront to the
principles and reasons of fairness.
Kol Shofar waited for two full years for a
hearing on the merits of the proposals.
In the meantime, a tremendous sum of money was
spent and the plan was modified, as I showed you
earlier.
Moreover, Kol Shofar didn't wait for the
Planning Commission or the staff to ask for
modifications. They made those modifications and those
changes in the plan voluntarily.
By the time the project reached the Planning
Commission, it had been substantially modified. By the
time the project finally received a hearing on the
merits, the Planning Commission meeting, it had been
substantially modified several times, in fact, in
response to concerns expressed by neighbors.
Yet with every modification, the neighbors
simply pulled the goal post back another 10 yards and
loudly insisted that still more reduction and changes
were needed and necessary.
In summary, the Project Alternative 7 is the
project that modifies or the final modification
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Alternative 7 basically reduced all of the environmental
impacts to less than significant, as you heard from the
testimony from your own independent consultants, and
creates a project that is absolutely consistent with the
General Plan and with the zoning standards.
The building heights and the setbacks and all
the standards of that district R 01 residential district
are met by Kol Shofar's plan.
You heard tonight the staff recommend basically
four different additional changes to the plan:
Weekend night-time events. The caps have
already been proposed by Kol Shofar, and these address
those things that the staff raised.
Kol Shofar responded to the issues in the EIR
and modified the project to reduce noise, traffic,
parking impacts to less than significant.
The on-site parking alternative is consistent
with the findings of the EIR, the conservative findings
of the EIR that did not count all of the on-street
parking that has been used for 20 years in this
neighborhood.
Moreover, the reduction in use reduced
significantly the traffic and the potential turnarounds.
In fact, it's important to note that the
traffic safety issue of turnarounds is based on some
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facts from a study between 6:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. in
October '75 where more than 700 people attended a
service at the facility, and there were six turnarounds
observed in that time.
If that's a significant impact, I think we have
that allover your town.
MAYOR SMITH: Just under five minutes.
MR. HOCHSTRASSER: Size and capacity for the
MPR, staff now recommends a reduction and they now have
mentioned to you tonight a reduction of 15 percent of
the building size.
What they didn't mention to you is the
reduction they are recommending is a reduction in 182
seats, not just reducing the size of the building, but
reducing the use of the building substantially.
In conclusion, Kol Shofar has acted diligently,
repeatedly, and in good faith to respond to the
legitimate needs of the neighbors and to address the
potential impacts of the project identified in the many
voluminous studies with respect to its proposal.
When faced with coercive demands of the
Planning Commission to reduce the scope of this proposal
beyond the point at which it would satisfy the
religiously motivated objectives of the congregation,
Kol Shofar can do little more than insist on the right
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to a fair decision.
Instead, the Planning Commission made good on
its threat to deny the conditional use permit even in
the face of the staff recommendations supporting
approval.
Please read your April 24th report.
Alternative 7 response to the issues raised by
EIR renders the project consistent with the General
Plan, and reduces noise, traffic and parking to less
than significant.
Next slide, please. Congregation Kol Shofar's
proposal has been substantially modified in response to
neighborhood concerns.
The Final EIR shows that full mitigation has
been achieved including, the last slide, please, the
significant issue you hear over and over: noise.
I would like to introduce Tiffany Wright, our
CEQA consultant.
MS. WRIGHT: Good evening. My name is Tiffany
Wright. I am with the law firm of Remy,
Manley, and my firm specializes in CEQA.
authority on CEQA.
Kol Shofar brought us in to advise them on the
EIR and make sure that it meets the highest standards
that CEQA has. And I have no doubt this EIR and the
Thomas, Moose &
We are an
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record before you would withstand a judicial scrutiny.
I just want to address two quick points:
We appealed the certification of the EIR on two
issues, and that was the determination that turnaround
impacts could be significant and the issue of the
significant impact at the intersection of Tiburon
Boulevard and Blackfield Drive.
Regarding the turnaround, the staff report or
the Final EIR concluded that this impact could be
reduced to a less than significant level either by
increasing parking or by capping the number of attendees
at events.
Kol Shofar has done that. They have reduced
the number of attendees at events to 250 people.
Therefore, the EIR concluded there would be adequate
parking and therefore the impact should be labeled as
less than significant.
On the intersection issue, we have always
argued that the intersection should be labeled less than
significant. With the reduction in the frequency of
events and the attendees at events, that statement is
even more true.
But to back the claim up, we had Robert
Harrison conduct additional traffic counts at the
intersection over three different Saturdays, and then he
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modeled those, used that information to model impacts,
and the result is that there would never be a backup at
that left turn cue with the project even in the
cumulative condition.
We believe the impact should be considered less
than significant, and I believe staff raised this for
your consideration as well. Thank you.
(Applause. )
MR. RAGGHIANTI:
I don't know how much time is
left .
MAYOR SMITH: Mayor. The reporter is running
out of paper any time here. So to the extent you need
more than a minute, it looks like we'll need to break.
MR. RAGGHIANTI: Let me just do this, if I
may, I would just put into the record a chart we brought
here on the easel that shows the conditional use permits
for both religious and commercial operations in the Town
of Tiburon and in comparison as to various conditions
that appear there, and I would like to just offer it
into the record and provide each member of the Council a
copy of it.
I will take up the Mayor on his invitation to
wait for rebuttal, but I just have a question, does
rebuttal follow the presentation?
MAYOR SMITH: It follows public comment, and we
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are going to see if anybody has any questions for your
group here in a second, but I think the court reporter
is about out of paper, is that right? So why don't we
let her change paper right now.
We will take a break now and then we will go to
that. We will take a break for about five minutes so
everyone can stand up and stretch your legs a little
bit, but don't go far.
(Break taken from 8:30 p.m. to 8:37 p.m.)
MAYOR SMITH: Take your seats, if you will,
please. While we are waiting for Miles and Jeff, my
understanding is that the Cardinals are up 5 - O.
All right. We are going to give Kol Shofar an
extra five minutes to finish up. They have not had a
chance to discuss RLUIPA and some time was taken up by
the interfaith speaker.
That means that TNC will get the same time, a
maximum of five minutes, and it is 8:37.
MR. RAGGHIANTI: Six letters have been written
with regard to RLUIPA, the Religious Land Use and
Institutionalized Persons Act.
I wrote the first one in September of this
year. It was 13 pages long and my attempt was to
educate the staff and the Town to the applicability of
this federal statute.
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Now, some may disagree with its applicability.
So be it.
But it is the job of an advocate to protect the
interests of his clients, and I thought that the letter
adequately indicated that there had been other cases
litigated in other parts of the country that might be of
interest to the Town in connection with what I consider
to be one of the fundamental issues involved in this
case, and that is that I represent the congregation of
conservative Jews who wish to expand their house of
worship to accommodate their growing number and also to
contain a more suitable place for the conduct of their
worship.
I am not going to repeat everything that is in
the letters, because I am going to assume that you read
them, or you chose not to read them; but I am going to
say that this, in my opinion, is a serious issue, one
that cannot be simply dismissed as the rantings of a
lawyer who is standing at a microphone representing the
interests of a client.
There was a predecessor statute to RLUIPA,
which was declared unconstitutional and then fixed in
this legislation by an unbelievable combination of
people you would never expect to come together, Orin
Hatch and Ted Kennedy.
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I think that it was pretty clear from the cases
that we have cited that in other jurisdictions there
have been tremendous amounts of money spent trying to
unwind the collision between land use policies,
development policies, general plans and religious
freedoms; or, put another way, does it make any
rdifference at all that this application is being brought
to you tonight by a religious institution, or ought you
to simply dismiss that?
I suggest, respectfully, that you ought not to
dismiss it, and that you do so at your own risk.
Now, if there's someone on the Council that
knows RLUIPA better than me, let him or her speak.
But we have nationally-recognized individuals
who are in the midst of a debate now over who is right.
The issue tonight is not who is right.
The issue as fiduciaries, in my opinion, is
just the same as in the private sector when business
decisions are made.
What are we to do about this issue? Are we
free to simply do what we want to do without taking it
into account? I respectfully suggest that you, again,
do that at your risk.
There are three things that RLUIPA involves:
One is an individualized assessment, legal
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words for discretionary land use entitlements that
involve ad hoc determinations, such as this conditional
use permit.
Secondly, a substantial burden on a religious
exercise on a religious institution, in this case the
congregation, unless that is done in the furtherance of
a compelling government interest, and even then is the
least restrictive way of accomplishing that.
In this case, I think it's clear, beyond any
legitimate debate, that this congregation is seeking
simply to expand its facilities because it needs to do
so to accommodate the free and unfettered expression of
its worship.
It is not selling anything. It is not
advertising. It is simply asking to expand so that it
can accommodate the tenets of its religion and the
practice of its faith.
MAYOR SMITH: Time is up.
MR. RAGGHIANTI: Okay. That's what it's about.
It's difficult to do this this way, but I will say this
in conclusion:
RLUIPA is something that I believe you ought to
pay attention to, not because I say you should, but
because when you read the cases, there's an issue here
that in my opinion is quite relevant to the application
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that's being made.
Thank you for the time.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you.
(Applause. )
MAYOR SMITH: I am going to request that you
refrain from the applause. We will just be here that
much later this evening.
Questions for counsel from Kol Shofar?
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: Gary, do you want to
come back up?
I don't think anyone on the council is saying
"let's ignore RLUIPA." I think on the Council we are
trying to figure out what the heck it is.
We have become somewhat versed in it, having
read your initial letter, the Becket Fund's letter, Ms.
Hamilton's letter, and I see there's another letter and
having read some of the cases myself, but I guess what I
would like to ask you is some of the positions that you
are taking on interpretations because I think that gives
us a way to then take off from that point and better
analyze.
And I guess the first question is do parking or
noise or glare or traffic impacts, taken altogether, or
individually, constitute compelling interests under
RLUIPA which can be regulated by the Town?
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Is it your position that altogether they can,
individually they can, or, no, we cannot?
MR. RAGGHIANTI: The case today which responds
to Miss Hamilton's letter raises this very point.
There has never been a single federal case that
has ever determined that traffic, as an example, is a
sufficiently compelling governmental interest to trump
the RLUIPA legislation or the constitutional freedom
sought to be protected.
There's a section in the letter received today
that quotes the opinion of the case in Westchester
County that addresses this point.
Having said that, I don't argue that those
issues cannot be taken into account. They should be
taken into account.
We don't argue that RLUIPA trumps every single
land use policy that the Town of Tiburon has.
We simply indicate that when the collision
occurs, that care must be taken with the religious
institution not to impose by a regulation a substantial
burden on the exercise of their faith.
For example, in this case, when you read the
Environmental Impact Report, when you look at the
studies that have been conducted, when you look at the
visual studies, and traffic studies and noise studies,
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and all of the other ones, if you believe that the
record suggests that they have been reduced to a level
of insignificance, what other possible reason could
there be to reduce the size of the MPR?
That's the problem with RLUIPA.
Why is the size of the MPR an issue?
I will tell you what the record in my opinion
suggests and why there's danger here.
The size of the MPR has nothing to do with
traffic or light or noise. It simply creates a
suspicion, unfounded, that more people will come; and
the evidence that you have is that taking all of the
other conditions of approval into account, and the
mitigations that the congregation has already indicated,
that won't happen.
So I look at it as saying, we know from these
experts that there's never been a Federal Court that has
said traffic rises to the level of being so compelling
that that's the answer, that it trumps all of the land
use issues of RLUIPA.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: What about adequacy of
parking?
MR. RAGGHIANTI:
I think that's a legitimate
concern.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: So what you are saying is
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that these issues have not been considered in case law
and that we would be, we would be risking a case of
first impression. We could be the one, the poster child
that goes all of the way up to the Supreme Court.
MR. RAGGHIANTI: Well, I don't know whether it
goes to the Supreme Court.
I think that the danger in this case is very
simply put this way: if we get sued by the neighbors,
we are going to have to pay for it.
If you get sued by us, you are paying for it,
and they know that. And that's the danger. The danger
has nothing to do with who is right.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: We are sort of
getting... I have a couple other questions.
Do conditions that have already been accepted
by the Applicant, vis-a-vis their existing and previous
CUPs, still apply in light of RLUIPA?
MR. RAGGHIANTI: I think they do. I think
that we have never said that they don't.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: No, I am not saying you
did or didn't. I am trying to understand your position
so I can come to some opinion on RLUIPA and what its
import is here.
MR. RAGGHIANTI: I believe that the previous
conditional use permits are final and impose conditions
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on the operation which we are not contesting.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM:
Does the limitation on
event hours, and we are talking Friday, Saturday,
Sunday, constitute a compelling interest under RLUIPA?
MR. RAGGHIANTI: Well, you raise an interesting
issue.
Let me answer honestly. I don't know.
I will tell you why it's hard to answer. If I
ask the Rabbi to come up and he says certain religious
events can't start until 8:00 p.m. certain months of the
year, and we have to be finished at 8:00 p.m., what do
you think the answer to that question will be?
I think it is that you are not permitting me to
practice my faith, and that's just this conservative
Judaism expression, but I have run into this in my
discussions with them.
There are certain days of the year and certain
times in their liturgy where they can't start until it's
dark.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM:
Next question.
Are
celebratory parties after bar mitzvahs, bat mitzvahs,
and weddings life-cycle events?
MR. RAGGHIANTI:
Well, I will give you my
Italian-Irish-Catholic answer.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM:
This is under the Jewish
interpretation.
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MR. RAGGHIANTI:
the Rabbi.
RABBI DERBY: Gary is eminently qualified to
answer that question, but to answer you more
specifically, let me offer this quote to you that comes
from the Encyclopedia Judaica, which offers a summary of
Jewish law in this regard, and when I say Jewish law, I
mean Jewish ritual and religious law codified between
the Sixth Century, C.E., which is in the Christian
world, A.D., and about the 1600s in the final
compilation known as the Code of Jewish Law.
"The Talmud distinguishes between two
categories of festive meals: (1) feasts of a
nonreligious nature; and, (2), se'udah shel mitzvah,
banquets held in connection with religious acts, such as
weddings and circumcisions, etc., participation in which
is regarded as a religious duty:
To this category of se'udah shel mitzvah,
religious meals belong.
The three meals a person is obliged to eat
every Sabbath.
Meals on holidays and festivals.
The Passover meal at the seder.
Let me cede the microphone to
The Purim dinner.
The circumcision banquet, the meal of a pidyon
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ha-ben, the ceremony known as the redemption of the
firstborn; the festive meal on the occasion of a bar and
bat mitzvah, and betrothal and wedding meals."
So the answer of the Jewish tradition, yes,
celebratory meals are a religious duty and an obligation
and a sacrament of our faith.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: So to follow up, does Kol
Shofar deem these celebratory parties -- does Kol Shofar
deem these celebratory parties to be religious in nature
and therefore protected under RLUIPA?
RABBI DERBY: I would answer, I would tell you
that I think the answer to the first part of your
question is correct, yes, they are religious parties.
I understand that this is difficult for people
who are perhaps not Jewish or of a secular nature, which
is, of course, their right to understand.
It's particularly complicated to understand
this in an era in which in Marin, for example, there is
an onslaught of non-Jewish kids turning 13 and have what
is now called a faux mitzvah, which is an opportunity
for a big blowout. My teenage daughter attends a lot of
them these days.
But the truth is in conservative Judaism, and
in religious Judaism, a bar/bat mitzvah and the meals,
and the wedding celebration and the meals are part of
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the religious obligation of our people. I am commanded
to participate.
MR. RAGGHIANTI: He answered the second part,
Mr. Gram, because it's a very good question, maybe, and
I think that's the real risk with regard to RLUIPA.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: Okay. I have other
questions but of other members of their team.
MAYOR SMITH: Fire away.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: I guess, Rabbi, you can
maybe answer this for me, or whoever.
Does Kol Shofar intend to renew its lease with
the Ring Mountain School? Should we assume that they
are going to stay there with their hundred students? I
understand their lease is up in a year or so.
RABBI DERBY: I believe the answer is yes.
You would have to ask the president of our board. I
believe the answer is yes. We have had no conversation
about not renewing the lease.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM:
A question to your
architect. Suzan, where are you?
Have you in your planning considered how you
are going to contain noise from escaping from the
celebration functions, and those that would be held in
the multi-use/multi-purpose room?
MS. COLLIVER: Yes. We engaged the services of
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Charles M. Salter & Associates, one of the preeminent
acoustic engineers in the country, to assist us both
with mitigating noise from parking, the parking area, as
well as from the interior of the buildings, and having
worked with Charles and his team over the last 25 years,
with great success, we have every confidence that he,
along with Lee, will be able to develop the details
needed to make the sound remain within the building and
not escape, and I think we can do that with double sets
of doors, so you exit one space, enter a mid zone, a mud
room kind of space, and then beyond into the outside.
So we are convinced that we can significantly
mitigate sound.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: So you are thinking about
it.
MS. COLLIVER: Completely.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: I have an understanding,
but I would like you to confirm it, if you would, that
celebrations and events that would be conducted at the,
at any of the synagogue facilities are for members only
and will not, there won't be member-sponsored events
where outsiders would have the right. I thought I have
heard that and read that.
MR. RAGGHIANTI:
You are correct. Members
only.
Yes, Mr. Gram.
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COUNCIL MEMBER FREDERICK: I need a
clarification. You mean the celebrations themselves
will be given and sponsored by the members only?
RABBI DERBY: That is correct.
COUNCIL MEMBER FREDERICK: But they will
include people who are not members?
RABBI DERBY: Only members of Kol Shofar will
be entitled to offer such a celebratory party.
COUNCIL MEMBER BERGER:
I want to ask you, and
this is just an attitude. Nobody can foretell the
future. Well, I will ask the whole question:
How many families now belong to Kol Shofar?
How do you feel, what's your attitude about a cap on the
membership at Kol Shofar?
It's done in some institutions, colleges, clubs
teams, that sort of thing.
How do you respond to the claim or the fear as
has been expressed by people that further enhancement of
the facility might put further upward pressure on
membership over time?
RABBI DERBY: Currently, I believe our
membership stands at about 586, or thereabouts,
households, is that correct? A couple of years ago we
were at 603 households. We are down about 15 or 18. I
would say about 585 or so. 572. Our Executive
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Director knows the figures better than I.
In terms of a cap on membership, I think that
would require the Town to tell us and Jews in the
community that they cannot come to our synagogue.
I would find that -- I would be aghast if
someone were to make that suggestion -- and what was,
sorry, what was the last part of your question?
COUNCIL MEMBER BERGER: What were your
feelings about the possibility, as has been expressed in
the community, I am asking, I am not predicting, but
that the enhancement of the facilities might put a lot
of pressure on additional upward membership at Kol
Shofar?
The question, of course, is one that your
facility right now, as you have stated, is completely
inadequate for the numbers of people, but if you were to
expand, as described, it might be quite adequate, but
except as the congregation becomes increasingly popular
and desirous, in five years you come back and say "our
facility is completely inadequate."
I just wanted to ask you to respond to this
kind of a question.
RABBI DERBY: Thank you, Mr. Berger, I
appreciate the clarification. I would say even with the
building of a new facility, I would say that there are
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not hundreds of thousands of conservative Jews in Marin
County who are banging down the doors to get in.
We have Friday evening services often with just
15 or 12 people, given our membership.
I don't see that there will be huge numbers who
will want to come to this synagogue because there's a
new building.
In point of fact, people want to join a
synagogue because it's a meaningful place for their own
spiritual education and a celebration of their faith,
not because it's a new building.
I don't see that that is a difficult issue.
MS. ZACK: I just want to add -- I am Diane
Zack, President of Congregation Kol Shofar -- if I could
supplement with a couple comments.
We lose members every year and we replace them
every year, and our membership numbers have hovered
around 580, 590, 600. We don't anticipate that we will
change dramatically from those numbers. We will always
lose every year. People move out of the area, and we
will replace, young families come and want to join.
We have plateaued now for several years and
that doesn't seem to be changing, and, in fact, our
plans, and this has been widely misunderstood, I
believe, by the neighborhood and the community of
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Tiburon, our plans and current architectural plans are
for our existing membership.
And if, indeed, by some miracle, which we don't
anticipate, we grow tremendously, the existing plan we
have submitted would never accommodate growth.
We are like sardines cramped in our current
space. And we plan to do in the new space what we do
now 99 percent of the time.
And I am sorry the weekend events have confused
the issue for everybody because really 99 percent of
what we do we would continue to do in new, decent
adequate Jewish space.
COUNCIL MEMBER FREDERICK: Diane, I remember
in the voluminous material I got to read in the past
week there was another question on who sponsors the
celebratory events.
If you could clarify what I think is true that
there will be no events that are sponsored by members
for a non-member friend to have a celebration. Is this
an issue?
MS. ZACK: I have never heard of that before.
No. From the inception, we stated in the original
application we would only allow the room to be rented by
members, and we wouldn't allow circumvention.
We have so few opportunities now that we have
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reduced the numbers to 12 and 15, there's not going to
be an opportunity for any of that anyway. But, no, that
is absolutely not allowed.
And I want to add, since we are on the events,
that anybody who wants a really vibrant, exciting, loud,
noisy party is never going to select our site. They are
going to rent a nightclub south of Market. We will not
be a destination for those kinds of events.
COUNCIL MEMBER SLAVITZ:
I had a question
about events.
The staff report Table 1 shows Friday night
there's 25 existing events and that 5 are proposed.
Looking over here in this Exhibit A, I see
those 25 events are probably the congregational dinners.
Do these 25 events remain, or indeed 20 go away
and you will just have 5 events?
MS. ZACK:
Before Ron gets up here, who is
more familiar with the application and the numbers, I
will tell you we have shabbat dinners on Friday night,
we have religious services Friday night.
MR. BROWN: My name is Ron Brown,
I am the
immediate past president of Kol Shofar.
The current application notes that currently
there are about 25 different Friday nights during the
current year in which the synagogue is used for
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congregational dinners of various sorts.
These are family dinners, various different
groups, maybe empty nesters will have a shabbat dinner
on a Friday, and it suggests there will be another five,
for a total of 30, another five Friday nights on which
with the new facility individual members might want to
sponsor Friday night dinners.
MS. ZACK: To clarify, again, those are
absolutely not parties.
COUNCIL MEMBER SLAVITZ: I am trying to be
clear. I want to understand the existing use and then
add in the additional. So in this case we are saying
there's 25 existing events. Everything is an event.
There's no function that happens that we are not
counting?
MS. ZACK: Friday nights only, religious
service or shabbat. We gather after shabbat services,
maybe later in the evening for o'may (sic) shabbat, we
call it.
COUNCIL MEMBER SLAVITZ:
30 possible on
and 12 are proposed.
Is
Fridays; Saturday, 5 existing,
that additive, is that 17?
MR. BROWN: Yes.
COUNCIL MEMBER SLAVITZ:
Okay.
The other
question I had, then, there are certainly some services,
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especially the high holy days where the existing on-site
parking isn't sufficient. You need to use the off-site
parking alternative.
Would you describe for me how that works and if
it works?
MR. BROWN: Yes.
There are really two
different circumstances that trigger off-site parking
under our current CUP.
One is the high holidays, which is an unusual
burden, we understand that. The neighborhood has said
that they understand it.
It's the usual burden on the community because
a large number of people are at Kol Shofar, larger than
any time of the year.
That's three days per year, and it triggers the
requirement to off-site parking and use of Westminster
Presbyterian. We use shuttles back and forth to
Westminster.
There's an additional provision under the CUP,
that when an event at Kol Shofar is expected to exceed
400 people, basically the same mechanism comes into
play, that off-site parking arrangement for off-site
parking, necessary shuttles in order to alleviate
parking problems around the synagogue.
COUNCIL MEMBER SLAVITZ:
How successful is
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that? You have seen the e-mails and photographs of the
streets packed with cars. On average, how many people
would you say park in that Westminster lot?
MR. BROWN: I think there are two different
answers to that question.
The first answer is, frankly, during the high
holidays, on those three days of the year, it's very
difficult for enough people to park off site to really
mean that there will be no cars on the streets or on Kol
Shofar.
The other answer to that question is for those
other events, now, when in the last year we have had
events that were over 400 people, that's 400, remember,
as opposed to 1000 or 1500, so it's a lesser burden,
when there have been events with over 400 people we
publicized off-site parking and publicized the shuttle,
and they have been successful.
MS. ZACK: About on-street parking, we send
out very clear and frequent communication prior to the
high holidays instructing them where they can park and
where they cannot, and I believe they were very
respectful.
In fact, you might want to confer with the
Tiburon police. The Tiburon police, they help protect
us during the high holidays, and we kept in close
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communication with them, you know, "How are we doing?
How are we doing? We were very concerned about not
burdening the neighborhood unduly.
They said it was terrific. Despite the volume,
we came in, left, we had two services Sunday, and I
believe you can confirm with them and with the Chief.
COUNCIL MEMBER SLAVITZ: Can you tell me the
capacity of the Westminster lot, how many cars?
MR. BROWN: 80 .
COUNCIL MEMBER SLAVITZ: Is that completely
occupied, filled with cars on these days?
MR. BROWN: "No", I am told. I actually have
never walked down there in the high holiday services
because I am there.
COUNCIL MEMBER SLAVITZ:
or barely used?
Any sense, half full
MR. BROWN:
It's, we believe it's half or
three-quarters. I am told half or three-quarters,
depending on time of day.
People tend -- for the high holidays, begin at
eight o'clock in the morning and extend to three o'clock
in the afternoon -- people often come late and often
leave early, despite what our Rabbi would like them to
do. So there's constant turnover of cars in the lot.
COUNCIL MEMBER SLAVITZ:
Thanks.
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MAYOR SMITH: That's the first time I ever
thought that high holy days were anything like a Lakers
game.
Are there any other questions from the Council?
Hearing none. Thank you. Then, I think we
will move on to TNC's presentation.
You are going to have 50 minutes.
We gave a little extra time to Kol Shofar.
We will give you the same amount of time. It is now
9:07.
I understand the Cardinals won 5 nothing.
Okay. I understand we have a technical
problem. We need to set up another projector. It
will be just a minute.
(Short break.)
MAYOR SMITH: Take your seats. We are going to
get started here again.
Okay. We are ready for you now at 9:16.
MR. VOLKER: Okay. Thank you very much.
*
*
*
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MR. VOLKER: Mr. Mayor, Members of the Town
Council, my name is Stephan Volker. I am a lawyer. I
represent the neighbors of the proposed Kol Shofar
Expansion Project. I am very proud to be here today on
their behalf.
Our purpose today is to try to reach a middle
ground to resolve this issue.
We have four speakers. After I introduce the
others and speak to some of the legal issues presented,
Kurt Kaull to my left, in the green shirt, will speak,
and then David Holden, to his left, and then Timothy
Metz. They all reside in the near vicinity of the
project and are familiar with its history and the
impacts on the neighborhood.
Let me emphasize that the neighbors with whom I
have spoken support religion. They support Kol Shofar
in the community. Several of them are indeed members
of that congregation.
We believe strongly in religious freedom. And
I would be the first to do what I could to assure that
it continues to flower in our country.
That's not the issue here.
The issue here is how to address and mitigate
appropriately the health and safety concerns that have
been recognized by the staff, by the EIR consultant, by
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a number of traffic engineers, by the neighbors who have
documented their concerns, and I will show you some of
the photographs that illustrate that point, and indeed
by the Planning Commission itself, which after four
hearings over a year, after reviewing literally
thousands of pages of documents, comments from
neighbors, submissions from experts, staff reports, and
environmental impact reports concluded that the project
could not be approved as it has been proposed.
The Planning Commission asked Kol Shofar,
please meet with our subcommittee so that we can work
out the issues.
Kol Shofar declined the offer and there it
stands now.
We are here to encourage Kol Shofar to reopen
the dialogue that was terminated during the Planning
Commission proceedings.
We wish to engage Kol Shofar in a constructive
dialogue to address the legitimate concerns of the
neighborhood as well as to achieve its religious and
cultural objectives, and those are objectives that the
community shares. They are a vital part of the life of
the community.
As has been alluded to by the staff, there are
four primary areas of concern:
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Traffic safety, involving primarily turnarounds
on narrow, curving, residential streets where visibility
is hampered, where many young children play in the
driveways, where cars turn around on the sidewalks and
across the driveways where turnarounds occur, and they
bicycle on the streets.
Small children aren't particularly defensive by
nature. They are not looking for cars. They are small
to see. They tend to dart out from whatever they are
hiding behind, wherever they are playing, and they are
at a huge risk right now.
It's a problem that the traffic engineer for
the city acknowledged must be addressed in his opinion.
Unless it were addressed, a child could die.
That's a serious health and safety concern, one
I am sure that Kol Shofar would share, and it's that
common objective of providing an appropriate set of
conditions under which this facility can operate. That
common objective is the only way we can solve this
problem, not through litigation, not through threats of
litigation, but through our common humanity and desire
to do what's right so that all may persevere.
And that's why we are here.
Deficient parking is a huge problem. We have
pictures that will illustrate that. Even though
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off-site parking theoretically has been offered, in
fact, it has not been effective because it has simply
not been used as proposed.
We need to address that to solve the parking
deficiency.
Absent that, we will have residential streets
overwhelmed with cars. The problem here is once all of
the available street parking is consumed, the excess
cars continue to arrive, and when they can't find a
place to park, they turnaround in the street.
I have done it, we have all done it. It's
unsafe, it's unlawful, and it happens, and it's
something that needs to be addressed.
Late night noise and late night light and
glare.
The primary concern of the neighbors is Sunday
evening when their children need to get a good night's
rest for Monday school.
The proposal before the Planning Commission was
to allow late night activities until 9:00 p.m.
As a father of two sons, I am aware that that's
a bit late when they are young, and they have a lot to
get ready for for the week, and that's why we are here
today to try to solve that problem.
We are encouraged that staff has restricted the
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late night hours to 8:00 p.m. on Sunday.
That may solve the Sunday problem. We still
have an issue on Saturday night. We need to work on
that some more.
As a lawyer, it falls to me to attempt to
explain to you arcane features of a recent federal
statute. It's called RLUIPA, the Religious Land Use
and Institutionalized Persons Act.
It has been raised by the Applicant in this
case in an effort to persuade the Council that they
really don't have much choice in the matter; that
traffic, parking, noise, light and glare do not rise to
the dignity of concerns recognized in federal law. That
isn't correct.
No federal case holds that those concerns could
not support a Town's limitations on development.
No federal case holds that they will support
limitations.
One state court case that we cite, Corporation
of Bishop versus City of West Linn, an Oregon Court of
Appeal ruling in 2004 is dead on point.
It upholds a city's decision to deny a
conditional use permit for a 16,000 square foot meeting
place on a 3 1/2 acre lot because of traffic, parking,
and aesthetic concerns. Noise was mentioned as well.
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I could quote from the opinion. We cited it.
It appears in our October 3 brief. I encourage you, and
I will avert to it later, I encourage you to read that
so that you understand that this has been adjudicated.
It's an authoritative ruling because that court
reviewed all of the other federal and state decisions in
this area and concluded that whereas here the town had
identified significant health and safety issues and had
sought to mitigate them, that that was an appropriate
governmental approach; where it appeared, as here, that
the applicant would not be deprived of its exercise of
religion, but at most would be required to reapply to
seek in that case a larger parcel.
The Court held it was appropriate,
constitutional, compliant with the statute for a city to
simply deny the conditional use permit and request that
the applicant come back with a larger parcel so that the
density would be less, so that the parking would not be
as obvious on the street, so that the impacts on the
neighborhood would not be as great.
In that case you had a much smaller facility.
You had a residential neighborhood that was not as
developed as this one. It's pretty persuasive
authority.
Professor Hamilton submitted what is basically
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a lawyer's brief to the Council.
She's an expert on RLUIPA. She's the lawyer
who argued before the US Supreme Court and convinced
that court to declare unconstitutional RLUIPA's
predecessor.
A distinguished author in this particular
field, she concludes that RLUIPA is unconstitutional as
a violation of the establishment clause.
Our position is not that set in stone. Our
position is that it may. We don't know.
The high court of this land has not made that
decision. The Ninth Circuit has reserved judgment on
that issue, as it explained in the recent case of Guru
Nanak.
For purposes of the Council tonight, you must
assume the law is constitutional because it is the law
of the land. And unless and until a court, an
authoritative court determines otherwise, it's binding
on all of us. We respect that, and we want to make sure
that you comply with RLUIPA.
That said, please bear in mind RLUIPA does not
forbid what the Planning Commission has done.
To the contrary, RLUIPA upholds the authority
of local governments to make traditional land use
planning and environmental decisions.
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The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the highest
Federal Court in the west, has concluded that RLUIPA's
requirements are not implicated by land use planning
processes or in that case by CEQA.
In other words, an agency such as this town may
ask an applicant to proceed through the normal land use
planning process, to prepare the documents that are
required, to assure that those documents are adequate
and adequately address the issues that are framed.
For example, an EIR must be adequate.
It's clear if an EIR is not adequate, and you
decide it's not adequate, your decision does not
implicate RLUIPA protected values.
Likewise, if you determine that based on
substantial evidence in the record a proposal such as
this one violates planning and zoning requirements and
you have advised the applicant of your desire to work
out those issues and have basically put the ball in the
court of the applicant and the applicant declines to
play ball, you are protected.
You have done what the law requires. You have
manifested a desire to address the issues that are based
on facts in the record as authenticated by experts, or
your own staff. You have made clear your desire to play
fair, to not exclude religious institutions nor to favor
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one over another.
Those are the facts here.
You have played the game or the process fairly,
above board. For that I commend you, and you should
honor the Planning Commission's decision. It's a very
thoughtful one.
However, as I said at the outset, I don't want
this case to be decided in a court of law, and I don't
think anyone here does.
What we want is for this case to be resolved by
the Town and the neighbors and Kol Shofar in a manner
that speaks to our highest humanity, that we can reach
out to each other and solve problems, and we have in the
discussion that follows identified those problems and we
hope that we can meet Kol Shofar halfway on them.
A question has been raised in the Becket Fund
letter to the Council as to what is the city's burden?
Does the city have to demonstrate that the factors on
which the Planning Commission relied in denying this
approval are the least restrictive means of protecting a
compelling governmental interest? Not so.
That criterion doesn't even surface in this
case.
The reason is that the burden squarely falls on
Kol Shofar, the project applicant, to demonstrate that
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the conditions proposed by the Planning Commission
constitute a substantial burden on its free exercise of
religion.
The highest court in the western United States,
the Ninth Circuit, in the City of Morgan Hill case, as I
have shown on the screen, stated that for a land use
regulation to impose a substantial burden, it must be
"oppressive to a significantly great extent."
The Court added, "This means that a substantial
burden on religious exercise must impose a significantly
great restriction or onus upon such exercise."
We don't believe that has been shown here for
several reasons:
First of all, the Planning Commission
approached its tasks very comprehensively, objectively,
thoroughly. It based its request for mitigation on
reasonable health and safety concerns expressed by the
neighbors.
In response, Kol Shofar did not show that these
impacts could not be mitigated.
Kol Shofar did not show that mitigation would
substantially burden its exercise of religion. Instead,
unfortunately, Kol Shofar withdrew from the process and
declined to discuss the needed mitigations with the
Planning Commission.
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This is where the City of West Linn proves
helpful to your deliberations.
In that case the Oregon Court of Appeals
addressed the question of whether a proposed meeting
place for a religious institution should be allowed,
notwithstanding the fact that it placed unreasonable
burdens on traffic, on parking, on aesthetics, on noise
in the neighborhood.
After hearing extensive testimony and
considering the facts, the city determined that the
proposed use should not be allowed. It noted that there
were alternate locations potentially available, and that
the applicant perhaps could enlarge the property on
which it proposed to conduct the use.
The Court of Appeal upheld that approach.
It held that examination of a project's impacts
on health and safety could support denial of a permit
under RLUIPA.
It specifically rejected the contrary
contention of the applicant that RLUIPA had been
violated.
That brings us to the Ninth Circuit's ruling in
Guru Nanak. The Applicant has indicated an intent
potentially, we hope not, potentially to seek review of
the council's decision in the Ninth Circuit Court of
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Appeal.
Therefore, it's appropriate to look at the
Ninth Circuit's rulings in this area, most recently in
the Guru Nanak case.
The Guru Nanak case helps us understand where
the Court will set the boundary.
In that case the County of Sutter denied
repeated requests by a Seiks religious group to place a
small facility, 2800 square feet.
Ultimately a proposal was made to place it on a
29 acre lot in a rural area. Still the proposal was
denied.
The religious group in that case agreed to
every mitigation that had been proposed by the city,
excuse me, by the county planning staff.
The Court held they had done everything they
could to solve whatever the problems might be. There
was no basis for denying the permit.
Judge Carlton in the District Court concluded
this was a violation of RLUIPA and he was right.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed on appeal. They
were right.
Those facts aren't present here.
Here the proposed density is 80 times greater
than that which had been proposed in the Guru Nanak
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case.
Here the proposed site is surrounded by
developed residential uses.
In Guru Nanak it was out in the countryside.
Here the Applicant has not agreed to address
and resolve the mitigation issues that have been raised.
As I indicated, unfortunately Kol Shofar chose
to withdraw, despite the Planning Commission's urging
that it join with its subcommittee to work out these
issues.
So, as we see from the Guru Nanak case, here we
don't have a substantial burden on religious exercise.
Here we have an incomplete process, a process
that calls out for compromise and further effort by all
concerned.
The Becket Fund also alluded to a potential
antidiscrimination claim under RLUIPA. RLUIPA is
two-pronged.
The first prong addresses situations where a
substantial burden is placed on the exercise of
religion. As I indicated, there's no evidence of that
here.
The second prong has to do with animus toward
religious exercise or favoritism between different
religious institutions. Likewise, we don't have that
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here.
Kol Shofar has suggested that there's an
analogy to be made with the facts in the St. Hilary's
case. Your staff has correctly explained those are
very different cases.
In St. Hilary's, there were not significant
parking or traffic impacts. There were no late night
basketball games, no games on Sunday. That was why
that case could be treated differently.
I would now like to turn to some photographs
that illustrate that the issues that the neighbors have
brought up are real-life legitimate concerns of families
attempting to raise their children in safety, in peace
and in a way that will give them confidence in this
Council's due process.
This is a picture looking west up slope on Via
Los Altos. As you can see, there are two bicyclists
wearing their safety helmets, and there's a car that has
its brake lights on. It was apparently attempting a
T-turn, or turnaround, by backing into the upper parking
lot at Kol Shofar.
This picture was taken on October 1st, 2006.
The next set of pictures show conditions in
September and October of this year, likewise, the
picture on the upper left is viewing north up
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Blackfield, which has a dangerous S-curve. Again, you
see cars attempting to turn around because there's no
place to park.
The upper right shows a car turning around on
Via Los Altos at 5:43 p.m. on October 1.
On the lower left, again, another car on Via
Los Altos turning around, and to the right of that yet
another car turning around on the same day.
On the next page we have additional pictures.
On October 1st and October 2nd, showing cars turning
around, cars parked in red zones. These are safety
hazards.
The red zones are painted so that a car coming
down to a stop has visibility in both directions.
These cars pose a safety hazard. They were
parked there during a Kol Shofar event.
On the next page we have additional pictures
taken in May of this year and in September. The
significance of the September 23 date, which was the
date the pictures on the upper right, lower right, and
lower left will become evident shortly. You can see,
again, cars turning around.
More turnarounds on the same date on the next
page all on Via Los Altos.
This is where cars would be entering the
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property.
parking.
Cars turn around when they can't find
Next page. We have a picture of a family
walking along Blackfield on the curve, on the same date,
September 23, in the upper left. We see the parking on
Blackfield at the same time showing there are no
available spaces.
We see congestion in the lower left on
Blackfield, same date, and parking congestion on the
lower right, looking down Blackfield toward Karen Way.
Again, on the 23rd you can see all of the cars
parked on the local streets, nary an untaken space.
Same date within the Kol Shofar parking lot, no
space available. Cars everywhere. Cars that go into
the lot, turned around. Cars that are turning around,
back up cars behind them, cars making T-turns, and so
forth.
Okay. Now you see why September 23 is a
significant date. These are pictures of virtually
empty lots at the Westminster Presbyterian Church and
the Tiburon Baptist Church, same time, September 23,
late morning. These lots were not being utilized.
Off-site parking is required by the Town's
zoning code and for good reason. It prevents
accidents. It preserves health and safety. It's an
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excellent feature of local government and it's something
that should be honored here.
We have a problem. We can fix it. We have to
acknowledge the problem that we have. We have to make
good-faith efforts to solve it.
We can do that, but it
has to be solved.
In summary, my last aerial here shows problem
areas.
You can see on the lower left "T" stands for
T-turns. You can see where a number of the problem
areas have been identified, and this is a birds-eye view
where north is to the top and south is to the bottom.
U shows U-turn problems, R, red zone parking
issues. So you get the picture.
This is a well-documented problem.
We need to
address it.
I would like to conclude my remarks by
stressing our desire to solve this problem outside of
the courtroom.
It would be an insult to the intelligence, the
dignity, the compassion of this community to pass up an
opportunity to wrestle this monster to the ground.
We can do it. We urge Kol Shofar to meet with
the Council and its staff, to meet with the neighbors to
address and resolve the legitimate concerns that have
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been expressed by the neighborhood.
I would like now to ask Mr. Kaull, Mr. Holden
and Mr. Metz to provide a more detailed discussion of
many of these concerns. I hope you will find their
discussion illuminating. Thank you very much.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: Were these dates all
high holy day dates, September 23, October 1, October 2?
MR. VOLKER: I believe they were.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Unbelievable.
MR. VOLKER: And pertinent to that question, I
believe there was a May Day, of course, that also
illustrates some of the problem, but pertinent to that
question, when, as here, you have a serious traffic
safety issue recognized by all, is it appropriate to
exacerbate the issue?
As you may recall, since at least 1996 Kol
Shofar has reported annually to this Council that its
split service on high holy days was working.
It devised that scheme of providing for
services spread over time both in recognition of the
impact on the community and in recognition of its need
to share its limited space.
The proposal before the Council now is a single
service to double the number of congregates who would be
gathering for the high holidays from 750 or 800 to 1500.
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Again, it doesn't make sense to go backwards.
This is a problem that needs to be addressed.
Off-site parking seems to be an appropriate solution,
provided that its enforceable.
MAYOR SMITH: Kurt, you have 20 minutes.
MR. KAULL: Thanks. Thank you, Steve, Mayor,
Town Council. My name is Kurt Kaull. I live at 38 Via
Los Altos. I appreciate the opportunity to address you
this evening on behalf of the Tiburon Neighborhood
Coalition.
As you have heard, three of us will speak, Tim
Metz, David Holden, and myself on the issues that are
important to us.
The Tiburon Neighborhood Coalition is a large
group of neighbors from five neighborhood homeowner
associations, 75 financially contributing families,
almost 200 families have signed petitions in support.
The introduction of the Becket Fund into this
discussion and some of the statements they have made
about this and how those statements were made, these
numbers were actually going up as we speak and becoming
a more broad-based appeal, if you will, across town.
The first important issue that I would like to
address, we would like to address and it's more
important than ever now, is that we do support Kol
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Shofar in the neighborhood community. There are no bad
people here on either side of these aisles, and no bad
motives, and, like the Mayor said earlier, we would ask
that we all accept that assumption as we have this
discussion.
For the neighbors, this debate is not about
impeding religious freedom. It's not about, we are not
about that, trying to stop expression of religion.
This is actually an unfortunate misunderstood
discourse, I think, occurring here.
The neighbors have in the past and continue to
welcome Kol Shofar in the practice of their faith in our
neighborhood community.
I speak for myself on this, and with all due
respect, sincerely I am impressed by and sensitive to
all the Rabbi said would occur in his community.
But I'd ask the Town Council to please be
sensitive to compromises that exist in a community, and
you can't just have something because you want it and
because it makes sense for you.
It might not make sense for your neighbor and
it's okay for us to express that, and that's something
we are going to try to do here tonight. We will have
to go fast because we are short on time.
The neighborhood concern of this proposed
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project relates to neighborhood impact, intensity of
land use and the ambitious scale of the proposed
project.
We strongly believe the Planning Commission
was on the right path and identified the correct issues
in their findings and came to the correct conclusions
based on the intensity and scale of the project.
I am actually not aware of any goal posts being
moved in this discussion, and I would be interested in
engaging in that dialogue and where anybody thinks that
happened.
This project is too big.
It's overly
ambitious. That's what the Planning Commission said.
It's not fair to say that we haven't been
willing to compromise. That's not an accurate statement
of the record.
The Planning Commission wanted a compromise.
That was rejected. The Town Council's subcommittee that
was comprised wanted a compromise.
The answer was, no
thanks.
I personally have had a meeting in a person's
room in our neighborhood, in the living room, with the
Rabbi almost 18 months ago.
That was not a compromise
outreach. That was an advocacy meeting. There was not
a whole lot of feelings of "let's listen to what you
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have to say."
It's my perspective.
I was in the room.
There was a tour that occurred between several
neighbors who are not up here right now where we had a
tour with Ron. That did not actually feel like a
compromise at all. That was also an advocacy
discussion.
Then, most recently there's been a pretty
private meeting between myself and two other neighbors
with two people from leadership -- this was after the
four to one vote -- to talk about an outreach where
somebody would offer an olive branch across the aisle,
and that didn't happen either.
So what was represented earlier is actually not
accurate from our perspective.
There's nothing actually new I don't think
anybody is going to hear here.
So with that, the presentations here are
attempting to address the most meaningful neighborhood
issues. And let me go through that next slide.
The first topic we address is the Tiburon
General Plan and our neighborhood character and harmony.
We have been saying from the beginning, and we
continue to say, that what the Planning Commission
concluded, that the scope and the elements of the
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project, taken as a whole, are incompatible with the
surrounding neighborhood residential development.
Based on this, this is an important list:
noise, traffic, traffic safety, light and glare,
neighborhood character and parking impacts, and the
neighborhood disruption that comes from these impacts,
and is, therefore, inconsistent with the Tiburon General
Plan.
We have been saying this, the Planning
Commission concluded that, and this is a fact-based
conclusion in our view; and as people talk about who
wants to talk about compromise, we would ask the Rabbi
and synagogue to look at the Planning Commission
resolution 206-16, the list I just gave you, be
sensitive to those items; and if you want to engage in
good-faith discussion and compromise to talk about that,
we have been ready to have that discussion for a while.
I have been around and involved with this for
over a year and haven't felt that way.
The General Plan is in place to protect the
health safety and welfare of the Town's neighborhood
community, and we are looking to and asking the Town
Council to uphold the General Plan's intent as relates
to the specifics I just mentioned of this project and
continue to prioritize with appropriate balance, and
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that's the balance of the synagogue's issues and our
issues, that of private property rights and the rights
of home ownership of the neighbors surrounding Kol
Shofar.
In our view, the FEIR finding on the General
Plan topic was not correct, but that the Planning
Commission did come to the correct finding, namely that
the Plan is inconsistent with -- that the project is
inconsistent with the General Plan.
Next topic is noise. Again, we believe the
Planning Commission got this right, and this is really
important.
People are talking about noisy events. We
totally get the fact you can soundproof a building,
okay. It has been found by the Planning Commission
that the Town -- that the noise from events,
particularly on Saturday and Sunday evenings, will be
substantial.
This is disruptive to the quiet enjoyment of
the neighborhood.
Intensity of usage is what is at issue here on
noise.
Weekend events. On a high percentage of
weekend evenings, hours too late means that activities
with cleanup time will generate unacceptable levels of
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noise.
The Planning Commission report cited "noise and
lights from departing guests, vendors and others, people
taking out supplies, removing tables and chairs,
caterers carrying out equipment and food, people talking
outside, car and truck engines starting up, car doors
slamming and the noise spikes that will be reached to
significant levels, 65 decibels when the background
night-time noise levels are only 40 decibels are serious
noise incompatibilities for the surrounding residences
that affect school-age children, working adults and can
cause significant sleep disturbance. That's a sincere,
real health concern of the neighbors.
That's what we are talking about with noise.
This is especially compounded by the clear and
recognized bowl effect that exists in this neighborhood
location, which I know some of you have heard and I
think you understand.
Next slide, regarding hours of usage.
This is one of the highest priority issues for
the neighbors, and I feel as I am going through this
there's some hair splitting going on. That's okay.
Hopefully that will engender discussion.
But, simply stated, the proposed ending times
are too late, both in Alternative 7 and in the recent
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staff report. But we can't be clearer in our message to
the Town Council on this one.
There's a real commitment between the neighbors
regarding this.
And cleanup time is of critical importance to
neighbors.
9:00 p.m. shut down and quiet is what we are
asking for. We think that's reasonable. We are sorry
if that collides with other things.
This means 8:00 p.m. activities end, allows for
an hour for cleanup, out by 9:00 p.m. There's strong
sentiment among the neighbors for that, we think, fair
request.
Finally, we believe there's numerous consistent
Town precedence to support our strong views on this, and
when you look at the comparables, when you look across
Town, we have the most tightly-packed neighborhood
intensity, we think, of any of these comparables, more
than the TPC, St. Hilary's and more than the Belvedere
Tennis Club.
Regarding frequency of usage, l.e. the number
of events, the neighbors have been appreciative of the
reductions made over the course of this project. It's
important to say that and have that be understood.
But I just have to say also sincerely we ask,
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was that done for the neighbors, or was that done to
mitigate the EIR impacts?
Our impression, given the tenor of this
discourse I described earlier, has been that it wasn't
done because we asked for it. But it was necessary to
reach new and accepted levels of the EIR impacts.
I am not trying to be unappreciative here. I
am just sharing an honest impression that we have.
So the frequency, number of events is still too
many, especially on Saturday evenings.
We are not being intractable on that as some
have accused.
It goes to the fundamentals of the General Plan
and the basic neighborhood quiet and enjoyment and the
core reason we chose to live in Tiburon.
On growth, next slide --
MAYOR SMITH: You have about 10 minutes.
MR. KAULL: Thanks. This is an area to raise
again and address something we have been trying to get a
good handle on since the very beginning, and I will not
have time tonight to parse this like it probably needs
to be, but there's some very interesting cross-currents
from some things that were happening earlier on sides of
buildings and things like that, but we think this is a
relevant topic for the Town Council as relates to
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assessing impacts.
We feel we have gotten mixed messages from Kol
Shofar on growth. This topic impacts the expected land
use intensity and health and safety issues.
There's not a goal here or intention on our
part with any singular focus to restrict free practice
of religion as it relates to growth. Again,
neighborhood impact and intensity of usage is our
concern.
This next comment is not intended to be
offensive, and it's a fact-based observation I wanted to
make, which was institutions and businesses can grow
dramatically in a stagnant environment with proven
successful growth strategies.
The cover page in the New York Times business
section on Sunday talked about marketing and growth
strategies of churches throughout the US. It's
happening in many, many places throughout the country.
And the mention of the proven growth strategy called
synaplex (sic) makes us wonder as neighbors, sincerely,
and raises concern whether there's further growth and
intensity usage around parking, traffic, late hours,
etc. in our neighborhoods and in the immediate near-term
future that we should be thinking about and
understanding.
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The neighbors would ask the Town Council to
bring clarity to that murky picture to better understand
the potential land use and safety impacts of the
project.
By the way, we disagree on this topic, that
this topic is speculative that the staff report
contended.
With that I will turn it over to David for some
important discussion on safety issues.
MR. HOLDEN: David Holden. Thanks, Kurt.
Mayor, Members of the Town Council. My name is David
Holden. I live at 231 Blackfield Drive.
The issues of traffic turnarounds, parking and
pedestrian safety are so intertwined in Kol Shofar's
expansion request that the project cannot move forward
without a clear understanding of the problems, possible
solutions and the associated risks.
I would like to start with a discussion of
traffic.
Clearly on well-attended shabbat services,
which happen once or twice a month, there can be as many
as 40 cars parked up and down Via Los Altos, Reedland
Woods Way and Blackfield Drive.
Any time people feel that the parking in the
lot might be full, they are going to park on the street.
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It's an attractive alternative to the current parking
lot congestion.
This is more serious on high holy days, as
those who haven't or won't use the shuttle service
arrive to find the lot full, with as many as 80
additional cars on the street surrounding Kol Shofar.
As participants seek street parking, they make
unsafe and illegal T-turns, U-turns and other maneuvers
to grab a space.
These turnarounds happen again as they leave
the event, a problem exacerbated by the parking lot
traffic now leaving and entering onto Blackfield Drive.
This unsafe parking increases the dangers for
residents, and especially children, as you heard
earlier, either walking or riding bikes in the area.
Currently this is mostly a daytime problem.
The cars leaving these parking locations after
a late night event will present unacceptable risks.
This, in fact, was identified by the FEIR and
the Planning Commission, and I understand that there's
some confusion about that; but I believe the Planning
Commission was correct, as a significant, unavoidable
impact which cannot be mitigated.
Some from Kol Shofar have suggested that one
witnessed illegal turnaround is a ridiculous basis on
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which to conclude a safety hazard.
But you have seen by the pictures we have shown
and frankly by personal experience that these are not
isolated incidents.
They happen again and again, and, mind you,
everyone on both sides of this discussion is aware of
the hazards, and yet it goes on as a serious disregard
for safety.
MAYOR SMITH: Five minutes.
MR. HOLDEN: The FEIR also concluded this would
continue even if the CUP required otherwise.
We urge you, the parking issue, hence the
traffic issue must be resolved to reduce this risk as
much as possible.
An additional safety hazard exists along parts
of Via Los Altos and the upper parts of Blackfield Drive
where there are no sidewalks.
Those congregates that choose to park in those
locations are often seen walking in the streets to
access the facility.
Since the only crosswalk provided from the east
side of Blackfield Drive is down Karen Way, those
parking on Via Los Altos and Reedland Woods Way and on
Blackfield Drive routinely cross at random places in the
street creating safety risks not only to themselves but
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to the other traffic that use those streets.
Light and glare pose additional impacts on the
neighborhood surrounding Kol Shofar, and although we
have just heard they are going to use blockout screens
on the skylights, and I guess in the remodel in the
sanctuary as well, we would like to express and submit
that these are all going to be taking place at a much
later time, and that the light intrusion from headlights
in the parking area, the turnaround area are going to
exacerbate what already exists. Okay.
MR. METZ: Tim Metz. Thank you for letting me
speak tonight. I live at 50 Reedland Woods Way. I am
going to give a rapid-fire presentation. Three minutes.
This picture has been shown before, which is a
photo taken on February 27, 2004, which is not one of
the high holy days. In this photo you can see there are
65 cars parked in overflow parking areas.
Of those 65 cars, 43 of those will not fit in
the parking lot as proposed in the project today and
they are all going to be on the street.
You can see all the cars on Via Los Altos. To
get there, the cars have to go down, they have to go up
these streets, the cul-de-sacs, all of these streets
here, they have to go up to the cul-de-sac, turn around,
make an illegal T-turn or U-turn.
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Same thing on Reedland Woods Way. Those are
cars driving with the potential of impacting our
children and affecting our neighborhoods.
MAYOR SMITH: When was this taken?
MR. METZ: February 27, 2004, standard Google
satellite photo on the Web.
Next slide, please. So the neighbors are
strongly asking the Town Council to enforce the Town
parking rules. A common sense approach to the
straight-forward issue that's out here for us.
Simply stated: Please require that adequate
on-site parking matches the likely overall property
usage and size.
This is all stipulated in the ordinance and is,
as you can see the ordinance is simple: One parking
space for each 4 seats of maximum seating capacity; or
one parking spot for each 40 square feet of usable
assembly area.
Pretty black and white.
What does parking mean with regard to the
proposed project? There's all sorts of things to look
at.
Are there more than 700 spaces required based
on the original proposal, assuming full capacity of the
building as proposed in Alternative 7? No.
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Are there more than 600 spaces required based
on the new staff report? Probably not.
Staff report scaled down, we don't need 600
spaces there. How about close to 300 spaces, actually
299 is the exact number based on the overlapping usage
of the proposed multi-purpose room and the sanctuary.
This is a highly likely frequent scenario based
on Kol Shofar's stated intentions.
Let's take a quick look at some examples.
This is a page for reference. The survey rate
of parking is two people per car, even though planning
code is one person or 4 people per car. So the survey
is a little tougher than the planning code.
What if more people attend functions in the
future? This is something we need to address.
What if a reduced multi-purpose room is used at
the same time as the main sanctuary?
A couple scenarios: 30 percent reduction in
the multi-purpose room size from 4500 usable square feet
to 3150 usable square feet and 449 person capacity.
Combine that with the main sanctuary with the Town
zoning ordinance would still require 250 parking spaces
on site.
A 50 percent reduction in the multi-purpose
room, 2250 square feet, 2250, 321 people for theater
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style seating. That combined with main sanctuary would
still necessitate 218 parking spaces.
Next slide, please. Why is parking so
important to the neighbors?
Inadequate parking leads to:
Unsafe traffic conditions for our children.
Children are not naturally defensive. They are small
and difficult to see. They don't pay attention to where
they are going. They aren't like adults.
Turnarounds and driveways. What if a child is
hit while playing in their own driveway if someone makes
a turnaround as they are trying to find a parking spot?
This is a risk when parking is inadequate.
T-turns and U-turns in the middle of streets.
When people are T-turning and U-turning on a blind
curve, accidents can happen and injuries can occur.
What will happen if this happens?
MAYOR SMITH: One minute.
MR. METZ: Okay. Kurt will close.
MR. KAULL: The rest of this presentation, you
can look at our views on CUP enforcement CUP Creep. CUP
Creep is a very important issue for us.
We can answer any questions you have on that.
We are also quite focused on wanting to make sure what
is an event and what an activity is, that there's a
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clear definition and transparency on that and not
ambiguity.
There's a slide here you can look at on page
19.
If you have questions for us on St. Hilary's
differences, David can address that.
To close, again, with emphasis, the neighbors
support and welcome Kol Shofar in our neighborhood. We
just want a less ambitious project that fits better with
the neighborhood character and past supported practices.
Neighbors support the facility remodel.
We don't appreciate some of the threatening,
and what's felt at times like bullying attitudes and
tactics around the dialogue recently surrounding RLUIPA.
We are letting our lawyers speak on that.
And the neighborhood would ask the Town Council
also not be intimidated by that, financially or
otherwise, and to decide this appeal based on the facts
and the merits related to proper land use intensity and
citizen health, safety and welfare.
Again, the neighbors believe that the Planning
Commission arrived at the correct decision.
Thank you for your time. We tried to speak
sincerely from our hearts from the many families in
Tiburon who value home ownership and our property
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rights.
(Applause. )
MAYOR SMITH: We are going to take a quick
break before questions because the court reporter needs
to change paper. We'll take five minutes.
(Short break from 10:07 p.m. to 10:16 p.m.)
MAYOR SMITH: Please take your seats. Just an
update as to where we are going here. We have some
questions, I would expect, by the Council for the TNC
group. We then will hear from the Greenwood Beach
Homeowners Association. They have an appeal, and I
understand they will take less than 20 minutes.
We may have questions for them, and then
we will take public comment; and when we get to that, I
will explain to you how we are going to do that.
So with that, I would like to ask actually
Steve -- if you don't have a card to be a speaker you
have to have a speaker card. If you haven't done that,
over here at the table there are cards and on the back
table as well.
Steve, I have one question for you. We have
heard a lot about RLUIPA, RLUIPA cases, and we have
gotten all sorts of threatening letters about, you know,
the millions and millions of dollars from litigation and
we will be there for years.
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How many cases have come down and found a local
government having violated RLUIPA where they did a
conditional approval, as opposed to a flat denial of a
project? Do you have an answer to that?
MR. VOLKER: Very few. None on the West
Coast, I can assure you of that. No Ninth Circuit
rulings, certainly.
And what I have discovered in reviewing those
cases, which are primarily to date from the East Coast,
is that in many of those communities, the local
ordinances included provisions that were frankly
discriminatory against religious institutions, and in
some of those cases, most notably Westchester, the town
staff got it wrong as to what the traffic impacts were,
and the federal judge in that case was sharply critical
of that.
So if you look at the facts in each of those
cases, you find that there were mistakes made that
called out for correction.
That's not the case here. These cases are
decided on their facts.
So I don't think it's a serious consideration
for this Council.
I truly don't think that.
I have represented cities and counties on many
occasions.
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What I do think is incumbent on the part of the
Council is to reach out to the parties to encourage them
to solve these problems. They are solvable.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: I am not sure who you
want to answer this, but I have heard this over and
over, and I have heard Kol Shofar change in terms of
frequencies. In our meetings it came up a lot. But I
have never heard the neighbors say or answer, what are
the frequencies, Friday, Saturday and Sunday to which
you would agree, which would be acceptable to you?
In other words, you have Alternative 7. You
have the staff recommendations here. But what are
frequencies that would be acceptable to you, which
includes existing and new?
We keep talking about solving this and we can
do it, and I appreciate, Steve, your emphasizing it over
and over, but give us some indication.
MR. KAULL: I have anticipated a question from
you guys as to -- so let's go down to Table 1, what
would work. Again, I don't want to be ornery here. I
don't know if we are in a public comment period where we
are trying to give you guys insight on what we think
about these land use issues, or if we are in a
settlement discussion?
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COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: We are in a situation
MR. KAULL: I have been trying to get in a
settlement discussion. We can't get in there.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: Let me get a word in.
You presented to us your concerns.
MR. KAULL: Yes.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: And you have presented
to us your extreme desire to try to work this out and
settle it, but you can't settle something if you don't
know where the two sides are.
I know where Kol Shofar is, and I know where
our staff is, but I don't know where you guys are, and
we have had many hours of meetings and I still don't
know where you are.
MR. KAULL: Okay. One of the issues here, you
have 75 families who have contributed financially to
what we are trying to do here.
We have got about 25 of those that are really
active and putting a lot of time in that, and you get a
lot of different viewpoints.
When you are the neighbors, it's hard for one
person to speak for everybody.
I think when you are the institution, it's
easier to callose around the answer.
I am giving you my personal answer to your
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question, but I can tell you there's people that don't
agree with this. There's, like anything, there's people
that are on both sides of this.
I think we are very close.
One thing we have got, we have 25 existing
Friday events, right, that, maybe I have got this wrong,
but my understanding is those are kind of off limits.
We are talking about new events here. This is all about
new events, but we count those 25 because they matter.
All of this impact stuff we are talking about
is relevant to us.
So you do 25 plus the other 7 -- 5 --
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: Five.
MR. KAULL: And you have got -- we appreciate
what the staff did on Sundays. That showed sensitivity
to school night kids, all of those issues.
If you looked at my slides and looked at the
careful statement I put in my slides on frequency, we
need to work on Saturday is what we think.
I don't know what the right number is. I think
we are close. My personal view.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: So Sunday, the staff
have nine on Sunday, is acceptable to you, personally?
MR. KAULL: Personally? Personally, it is.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: I have been working on
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this a long time and I don't have any feel from the
neighbors, that's what I am trying to get on frequency.
MR. KAULL: I mean, this CUP Creep issue has
been a real issue for us.
I know I have had a discussion with some of you
about, you know -- Mr. Ragghianti talked about at one
point when I talk about the history here, I am not sure
it all came out.
If you look where this project started, it was
an unbelievably ambitious project. It scared the you
know what out of the neighbors, and it didn't feel very
good when we started getting together and talking about
that. It felt like a one-way street on that discussion.
There wasn't a whole lot of sensitivity, it
didn't feel like, from the neighbors around that.
And, one guy's opinion, those numbers did not
go down because anybody was doing anything real nice for
the neighbors, even though that's the way the
conversation has occurred and what you have been told.
That came down because there's no chance that
that man that sat over there was going to approve that
EIR with those number of events.
Okay. That's why it came down and we
appreciate that, okay, but that history is part of the
legacy here that I think we have been dealing with, and
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so the CUP Creep, and, you know, what the size of the
building and all of this relates to for us to, you know,
number of events.
We kind of resigned ourselves we are into --
where I was going with that was the sentiment in this
neighborhood group has been no building, right? That's
been the thing that maybe has frustrated you.
We have not wanted the building for reasons
related to where that project started, how scary that
was and what we think the potential intention, yeah,
nothing against wanting to grow and practice your
religion and express your religion, but that doesn't do
us any good with regard to these land use issues that we
are concerned about.
And so, when that's where you start, I feel
this discussion has now coalesced around -- and, again,
there's people over here that probably won't like
this -- there's going to be a building here, okay, so
the number of events is something we -- frankly, I can't
tell you with any kind of a consensus from this group
right now. Okay.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: I have Friday and I have
Sunday. What's your Saturday night frequency? Your
personal view?
MR. METZ: Let' me clarify.
Maybe Kurt was
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explaining on the number, but I think one of the
confusing points here when you ask about number of
events, there's so many factors involved here because
you could say the number of events, and if they are all
tiny, it doesn't impact as much as if there's a less,
smaller number of events, and they are all huge. So
it's really the combination of all of these number of
events, how big those events are, and how long they
last, and it's those three pillars that will impact the
answers we can give you.
Because we can't just say, nine events is okay,
if those nine events are 300 people.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: So you guys, so you can't
answer that question? What you are saying is:
Council, answer the question for you. That's what's
going to happen. We will come back here on the 15th,
and that question will be answered by the Council,
probably without input from you.
MR. METZ: It would be good to have all three
of those encompassed in one instead of separately. It's
easier to take as a bigger picture.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: They will all be dealt
with, but we are not getting input from you. I am
going to cut off my question because we are running
late.
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MAYOR SMITH: Did I read one of your slides
right, that your cut-off point for events on all three
days is eight o'clock? Number two on this chart.
MR. METZ: Cleanup. After eight o'clock with
an hour clean under.
MR. VOLKER: If I might add a point here.
It's very difficult late at night to make a decision as
a group; but if we are given two weeks, I think that we
can come up with a position that we could advocate that
would be sensitive to all of the concerns that have been
expressed.
I think it's incumbent on us to tell you what
we want.
MAYOR SMITH: That's right.
MR. VOLKER: I would like to give you my
commitment that we will work as hard as we can to get
you those numbers so that you have something to work
with.
MR. KAULL: Listen, Tom, I appreciate what you
are doing here. You want to put me on the spot. You
want to go outside and we will talk about what I
personally think, I will tell you what I personally
think when I'm not in a public forum like this where I
might get hung, that I am representing the rest of the
group, I'll give you that answer. You know that's a
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fair answer back to you on that, given what I said about
the dynamics of a neighborhood group, this many people
that feel this passionate about this topic.
I appreciate your question. I understand why
you want an answer. I will give you my answer
privately, but I will not do it right now. I hope you
respect that.
MAYOR SMITH: Jeff.
COUNCIL MEMBER SLAVITZ: My question has to do
with the off-site parking, so the picture did a good job
showing how in the current situation how the parking is
inadequate and how off-site parking is not working. As
you showed in the pictures, the lots are quite empty.
What's the mechanism you thought might make
off-site parking work better?
MR. VOLKER: I think the Town Code anticipated
that off-site parking requirements would be secured
through a lease. That hasn't been provided here.
Secondly, the conditions placed on this use
permit could require specifically that a shuttle bus
service be retained, and that participants in these
gatherings be required to use that, and when the parking
lot is full, the shuttle bus would be required to
deliver the participants.
We have talked about various ticket systems and
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permit systems, and we need to work on that to find a
way to compel what is an obvious solution here.
COUNCIL MEMBER SLAVITZ: My understanding is
what you just described is the current situation, in
that they provide shuttle buses, but people are not
parking there, and they are not using them because it's
more convenient to use the surrounding streets.
MR. VOLKER: And there's no penalty when they
don't. A properly enforced conditional use permit
would impose a penalty.
It's up to the Town, I think, working with the
community, to adopt an appropriate penalty.
If I am going to be hit with a $35 fine for
parking illegally somewhere, I take note.
So I think this is an area that offers a
multitude of solutions with a little thought, and we
would like Kol Shofar's input on that. I'm sure they
don't like the idea there's a safety hazard now.
COUNCIL MEMBER SLAVITZ: The Draft EIR parking
permit sticker that residents would need to have on
their vehicle in order to park in these painted areas
for more than an hour, is that something that the
neighbors support?
MR. VOLKER: Well, we have heard that there
are a number of wrinkles in that. Late at night it's
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hard to identify who has a sticker and who doesn't.
There have been problematic issues regarding
enforcement of the red zones, and so forth, and we don't
want to waste time now going into all of the anecdotes
about that.
But I think that we could present the Council
with a proposal that we think is worth trying on for
size.
I would like to be given an opportunity to do
that, so that we can bear our fair share of this
community burden in solving this problem.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: When would you make that
available to us?
MR. VOLKER: Within two weeks.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: That's not we are
coming back on the 15th, and we are going to make a
decision. We have to come up with recommendations
prior to that.
So for you to give those to us does not leave
Paul and myself enough time to come up with our report
and recommendations to the Council.
MR. VOLKER:
Tell me what you need and we will
do it.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: A week.
MR. VOLKER: A week. Done.
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MAYOR SMITH: Okay. Any other questions for
TNC? Okay. Thank you.
MR. VOLKER: You are welcome. Thank you.
MAYOR SMITH: That brings us to Greenwood Beach
Homeowners Association. They will have 20 minutes. I
understand they can probably do it in less and that
would be appreciated.
MR. PUTTERMAN: I will make every effort to do
that, and everybody is tired.
MAYOR SMITH: And it is 10:32.
*
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MR. PUTTERMAN: Mr. Mayor, Members of the
Council, I'm Don Putterman and I am the current
president of the Greenwood Beach Homeowners
Asssociation.
Two of my predecessors are here. Forest
Morphew, and the Morphews have been residents of
Greenwood Beach Road almost 42 years, and Bruce Abbott
is here as well. They are available to assist with any
questions.
I am a relative newcomer. I have only been on
the street since 1999.
First of all, I do have to address one of the
matters that was brought up by Rabbi Derby.
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We are a small enclave. There are 23 houses on
the street. I think many of you are familiar with it.
It's a very popular bike route.
We have the Audubon Society at the one end and
the cul-de-sac ending in Blackie's Pasture at the other
end; and, frankly, because we are a small enclave, we
tend to be forgotten at times.
Rabbi Derby spoke very eloquently about
consultation and compromise and negotiation.
I do have to clarify something, though. At no
time has anybody from Congregation Kol Shofar approached
anybody on Greenwood Beach Road about our particular
problem, what it was that concerned us, and what could
be done to resolve it. At no time.
We have been essentially treated like, quite
frankly, a small minority that could be ignored because
that's what we are.
That doesn't make us feel very good.
All right. Let me turn to the specific
substance of our appeal, which relates to the Planning
Commission's approval of the Final EIR.
Now, first of all, to state the obvious, but
which has gotten a little lost here, because counsel for
CKS did not address it, everybody here has appealed from
the approval of the EIR, including CKS.
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Now that means, in effect, the only advocates
for the Final EIR are the planning staff and the
Planning Commission which approved it.
Now, should the Town Council decide to overturn
the approval of the Final EIR, it does not need to reach
the issue of the conditional use permit.
If there's not an adequate EIR, the conditional
use permit issue moot. It is back to the drawing board.
And I will simply suggest to you that there
have been numerous good grounds put forth in the
writings that the Town has received and in the
presentations made tonight for overturning the EIR.
And if the EIR goes back to the drawing board,
to put it bluntly, that's a bucket of cold water on
everybody, and sometimes people need a bucket of cold
water to realize that they do need to sit down and
resolve matters.
Again, I apologize for stating the obvious, if
that's what it is, but I think the point needed to be
made.
Now, let me turn to our specific issue, and
that is the particular concern that we have that the EIR
has completely ignored what CKS and the Community
Development Department have previously defined as major
events, and it ostensibly treated the high holy days as
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isolated events, which according to the EIR do not cause
a substantial impact because of their infrequency.
Now, that particular brush-off of the impact of
the high holy days and that the proposed limitations on
the size of new events, the size and frequency of new
events would not require significant off-site parking is
really not an adequate reason for the EIR to have failed
to consider major events.
Now, I don't know why the EIR did not consider
major events. There's no explanation given for that
anywhere.
Now, it may have been because of an
uncomfortable knowledge that the Town's ordinance
16-5.82 expressly says Off-site parking should be within
Town limits, should be within a commercially zoned area,
should be a lease. Well, that seems to have been
ignored consistently up until now.
Needless to say, Westminster Presbyterian is
not within the Town limits. I don't believe that either
it or Tiburon Baptist Church is commercially zoned, as
was pointed out by counsel for the TNC, and, to my
knowledge, there's no lease.
Also, there's no authority for the notion that
you can set some arbitrary figure for infrequency of
major events.
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I think it's, suffice it to say that nobody
would suggest the fact that a risk, for example, that a
pedestrian-car or car-bicyclist accident which only
occurs once a year can be ignored as an impact because
of the fact that's infrequent.
I think everybody agrees that if the potential
is created for even one such accident, it's a
substantial impact that has to be mitigated.
Next, the EIR has to consider the cumulative
effect of what's happening here, and that means not
simply new events, but what will be the overall impact
including the already existing circumstances.
New events here are not isolated.
The substantial increase in space that would
occur for CKS, if the plan goes through as it is, does
not just create an opportunity for new events, it
creates the possibility, and, in fact, the likelihood,
that existing events, for example, Saturday bar mitzvah
services followed by celebration may be much larger in
attendance because the facilities will now exist.
That will allow for larger attendance.
That prospect is ignored completely by the EIR.
It's been ignored by the Draft EIR. It was ignored in
the Final EIR.
In fact, instead, the final EIR again takes the
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position that the high holy days are isolated
circumstances, and, frankly, the Applicant and the
Planning Staff are both on notice that that's not true.
These are not the only super-size events which
are going to require parking far beyond what the EIR
suggests.
I am going to direct the Council's attention to
Appendix (F) in the Draft EIR. Included in Appendix (F)
is the agreement between CKS and the Community
Development Department for January 2005, which is
entitled High Holy Days Traffic Control Measure,
executed on January 20th, 2005.
Now, that's what it's called. But what's the
second page? The second page is entitled "Major Event
Traffic Control Measures." (Non high holy day events
exceeding 400 persons.)
It expressly acknowledges both CKS's
anticipation and the Community Development Department's
anticipation that there are going to be non high holy
day events which will grossly exceed on-site parking
availability.
In fact, it actually refers to "Major Events
that are anticipated to approximate high holy days
attendance."
Let me add that because these are not new
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events, there's no limit or cap imposed on the
attendance on these proposed events. There's no limit
or cap imposed on the frequency of these events.
What else does it say, and I quote here again,
and this, again, this is in Appendix (F) to the Draft
EIR, "Major events may include very large bar/bat
mitzvahs, very well attended sabbath services,
combination sabbath services-bar/bat mitzvahs, and other
particularly highly-attended events."
Furthermore, the whole time here the Applicant,
CKS, the planning staff, and the consultants who
prepared the EIR knew that the plan for off-site parking
already included not only Westminster Presbyterian
Church, again not commercial, not inside the Town
limits, no lease, okay, but also the Tiburon Baptist
Church, not commercial, in a residential neighborhood,
and with its only access two driveways, both of which
are on Greenwood Beach Road.
The Harrison Traffic and Parking Study, which
was prepared for CKS, and dated April 2004, it's
Appendix (D) to the Draft EIR, specifically references
the two remote parking lots identified for use on the
high holy days.
Two lots, Westminster, 84 spaces, and Tiburon,
96 spaces, which also answers the question that was
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asked earlier about the number of spaces. A total of
108.
Now, on May 6th of this year, and this came up
at the May 10th Planning Commission hearing, CKS
arranged to use the parking lot at the Tiburon Baptist
Church with the shuttle.
That's for a major event. That is not for any
of the high holy days.
The recent staff report identified it as a 700-
person event.
There is no limit, again, I repeat, on the
number of such events, no limit on the number of
attendees, and no attempt to estimate how many events
such events may occur each year in addition to the high
holy days.
It is incomprehensible, given the knowledge of
staff, given the knowledge of the consultants, given the
knowledge of the Applicant, that the EIR would simply
dismiss the high holy days as having unusual attendance
and being infrequent events, when everybody knows that
major events other than the high holy days anticipating
the same attendance are expressly contemplated and have
been expressly contemplated for years.
That is a glaring, glaring deficiency in the
Environmental Impact Report.
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In other words, it ignored that the high holy
days are not the only events where particularly large
attendance could be expected.
It ignored that there's no limit. It ignores
that there's no limit, especially on attendance or
frequency, and ignores the fact that the very
substantial increase contemplated by this building has a
substantial likelihood of increasing the frequency and
attendance at such major events because the capacity
will now exist for it.
What we have here in fact, we have had a lot
of discussion, I have read all of the documentation --
new events, are we going to allow 300 people? Are we
going to allow 205, 250, 200?
Meanwhile, on existing events there is no
limitation, no discussion, no nothing, despite the fact
that these events are anticipated to pull more than 400
people, and perhaps as many as the high holy days?
That's incomprehensible. It was not proper to
ignore that. The EIR had to address that, and it's
defective for not having done so.
Now, had the EIR addressed this issue and
considered the impact of major events, as it was
required to do, it then would have had to consider
whether use of the Tiburon Baptist Church parking lot
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and a shuttle properly could be considered as
mitigation.
One leads to the other: substantial impact,
mitigation. Is this mitigation proper and available?
It did not do so.
But, if you listen to the discussions tonight,
everybody seems to be assuming that this is perfectly
okay.
It's not okay.
You cannot mitigate the potential impact of
inadequate on-site parking in one residential
neighborhood by simply dumping it into another
residential neighborhood, and that's exactly what is
occurring here.
Now, what is the burden on Greenwood Beach Road
of allowing the Tiburon Baptist Church to be used for
off-site parking?
Okay, first of all, Greenwood Beach Road is a
rural, or semi-rural street.
It has no sidewalks, it varies in width, it has
no shoulders, it has garages without driveways that are
directly on the street.
There are mostly no curbs, with a few
exceptions. Some areas have adequate street lighting.
Some do not.
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It's a cul-de-sac.
As I mentioned, the Baptist Church has its only
two driveways directly on Greenwood Beach Road. There's
no other means of entering the parking lot for the
Tiburon Baptist Church.
The street is already under enormous stress
because many people are well aware here that it is part
of a very well-known bicycle route to downtown Tiburon.
It has enormous numbers of bicyclists on the
weekends. Frankly, some of them know what they are
doing and some of them don't. Many of them ride these
bicycles down, travel at high speed, down a sloping
blind curve near the end of the street, which happens to
start where one of the driveways is for the Tiburon
Baptist Church.
We have bicyclists involved in accidents with
some regularity and we have many close calls.
We have many pedestrians. Many people walk
their dogs down to Blackie's Pasture, coming all of the
way from The Cove Apartments just past Greenwood Beach
Road.
During the week and weekends we now have a lot
of people cheating on the parking for Blackie's Pasture
by instead of coming down Greenwood Beach Road and
parking at the end of the cul-de-sac.
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It's particularly bad at certain times, such as
now, with the children's soccer leagues playing in the
McKenzie Green, which produces a huge amount of people
parking there.
And, by the way, what I know is a sensitive
subject, the give-away of part of the parking lot to
Gilotti by the Town for the undergrounding project. I
won't say any more about that because we all know about
it.
Greenwood Beach Road also already has a
significant institution on the street which generates
considerable on-street parking. The Audubon Society has
very little parking available, but, as I think everybody
here also knows, it not only has substantial events of
its own, it also rents out its grounds frequently for
private events.
The result, whether it's a private event or
Audubon society event, on many weekends we already have
cars parked up and down Greenwood Beach Road.
Now, so far as the residents are concerned, the
Audubon Society is a resident institution.
The Morphews are among the few people who I
think were there before the Audubon Society was.
The rest of us, when we moved there, we knew it
was there. Fine.
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Now, so what that means is that probably there
are occasionally nuances and annoyances. We moved
there. It's a long time resident of our street and our
neighborhood.
That is a far different situation than
importing a parking problem from another institution and
dropping it into our neighborhood; and, needless to say,
the EIR, and nobody else has ever addressed, whether
there's been any coordination by Kol Shofar with the
Audubon Society to know when events are occurring, when
the streets will be parked up, or when events are
scheduled.
So the end result is May 6, 2006, we had a
memorial service at the Audubon Society for George Hall,
who is a nationally known aviation fire-fighting
photographer, was a resident of Greenwood Beach Road,
and he passed away.
Kol Shofar had the use of the Westminster and
TBC parking lots and Greenwood Beach Road was parked
solid up and down its length.
I, and other people on the street, saw people
who had parked on Greenwood Beach Road, witnessed this,
witnessed them walking up the driveway to the Tiburon
Baptist Church, presumably to take the shuttle.
Now, should that be any surprise? No.
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The Final EIR has acknowledged, and we have
heard plenty of discussion tonight, that a considerable
number of attendees at CKS events prefer to park in the
street
MAYOR SMITH: One minute.
MR. PUTTERMAN: -- rather than to see if space
in the lot is available.
The real reason for parking on the street, of
course, people want to make a fast get-away and not get
caught up in a parking lot.
So if they can't be bothered to park in the
parking lot at CKS where there's space available and
park outside, why should they park in the parking lot at
Tiburon Baptist Church when they can park on Greenwood
Beach Road and make a fast get-away?
Bottom line, the EIR is defective for not
having considered major events, despite the fact the
planning -- the applicant, and the preparer of the EIR,
knows that major events are anticipated, knows that they
are likely to increase in frequency, and there is no
limitation on them.
For that reason, the Town Council must reverse
the Planning Commission and deny certification of the
Final EIR.
Thank you very much.
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MAYOR SMITH: Thank you.
(Applause. )
MAYOR SMITH: We just had a break a little
while ago, so unless I hear a lot whining and
complaining, we will start public comment because the
hour is late.
So we will go ahead and start public comment,
unless there are any questions from the Council for Mr.
Putterman.
Hearing none, let me tell you how I want to do
this. I will give everybody an opportunity who is
still here to speak, but I want to try to do this as
expeditiously as possible.
I have 60 cards in front of me, and at three
minutes per card, you can tell how long that will take.
So what I want to do is take about six cards at
a time. When you hear your name, I will ask you to come
up to the podium and line up.
Once we get through most of those, I will call
another set of six or seven up.
I am calling them in whatever order, quite
frankly, what I call them in.
If you are not ready, I will skip you. We will
call you back again later.
Please don't repeat what you have heard. This
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is not a competition in terms of the number of people on
each side.
We are not sitting here tallying how many
people are for or against one thing or another.
It's not a competition how many people get up
and talk.
If you have already heard your comments, and
you can come up and say, "Me, too. I agree with what
that person said," done in 10 seconds.
If you do want to speak for a significant
amount of time, you have something planned, great, just
think it out, be ready to go. I am trying to make this
as efficient as we can.
So with that, I would like to call up the first
group here, and it will take me just a second to do
that. Hang on. We have so many people to hear from.
I will ask Christy Seidel to come up, followed
by Bruce Raful, and I will get some more names for you
in a second.
MS. SEIDEL: Hi, my name is Christy Seidel and
I live at 30 Reedland Woods Way. We are located
directly across the street from Kol Shofar, and our
family will be highly impacted by the proposed
expansion.
Tonight I just want to focus primarily on the
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new member sponsored events and the proposed
intensification of the hours of use.
While Kol Shofar has made a step in the right
direction, 27 events, or a quarter of the weekends a
year, with crowds up to 250 people is still too much.
These large night-time member sponsored events,
as well as extended hours of use during the week, will
irreversibly alter our quiet residential neighborhood.
The night-time noise, disruption, light, glare
and traffic are more than an inconvenience. It affects
adults' and children's sleep alike, which, in turn,
affects the well-being of performance at work and
school, and it's a matter of health and welfare that we
are concerned about.
By limiting the hours of Friday and Saturday
nights to 9:00 p.m. including cleanup, the negative
impacts would occur at a more reasonable hour, the 9:00
p.m. curfew, as applied to other facilities that will
serve as a town standard.
The size of events should also be reduced.
Member-sponsored celebrations, which are exclusive
invitation-only parties, should be limited to 100 people
a night.
If a member chooses to have a larger venue or
later hours, the events can be held off site as they
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have been in the last 20 years.
As you noticed tonight, the Rabbi said the
religious events must be celebrated.
But if you also note, he has not specified that
they had to be celebrated on the site of the temple.
Another approach would be to encourage
afternoon member-sponsored events.
The use of the facility during daytime hours
would allow for member-sponsored parties and avoid the
night-time neighborhood disruptions that surrounding
families are so adamantly opposed to.
Celebratory events on Sunday nights when
families are preparing for the work week and school are
clearly inappropriate.
Furthermore, all weekend night events and
activities should be finished and lights out by 7:30,
8:00 p.m., again, due to the close proximity of families
on all sides of the temple.
St. Hilary's gym closes by 7:30 week nights and
5:30 Saturdays and is closed on Sundays.
This is reasonable limits in a residential
neighborhood and should serve as a guideline for Kol
Shofar.
I ask that the Town Council uphold the General
Plan, and the Municipal Code, and encourage Kol Shofar
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to propose a facility that is compatible with its
surroundings. Thank you.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you.
MR. RAFUL: Thank you. Mr. Mayor, and Members
of the Council, my name is Bruce Raful. I have been a
member of Congregation Kol Shofar since 1998.
I was very disappointed when the meeting in
September was postponed until tonight because tonight
about an hour and five minutes ago my parents landed at
SFO after a two and-a-half month trip to Israel.
They insisted that I attend here tonight and
not pick them up at the airport because they have
trained me to be a good Jew and speak up for my
community, as Rabbi Derby talked about.
It's especially important to me, ladies and
gentlemen, because in 1944 my mother, who at the time
was living in Budapest, was deported by the Nazis and
was shipped to various concentration camps and ended up
on the Hersbruck death march.
And when she was recovering from TB in a
hospital in what's now the Czech Republic, she said to
herself that if she should survive, she would come back
to the small town where she was recuperating and she
would thank God she was able to be in this place.
Fortunately, last year she took her husband, my
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father, my younger brother and my son to that very spot,
stood in the town square and she shook her hand at the
sky and said to Hitler, "You lost and I won."
It's that kind of an attitude that made me what
I am today, and it's despicable, ladies and gentlemen,
that we are forced to be in a situation where the
sanctuary that we have simply doesn't work for us.
I have listened to the neighbors, and it's
great, and especially my friend, Kurt Kaull, who I have
spoken to on occasion, it's great, but, you know, Kurt,
you don't move in next to an airport and want the
airport to stop the noise. You have only been in the
neighborhood for four years. It's amazing the things
that you said.
So that's what I have to say, and thank you
very much.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you.
If you are wondering what I am doing here, you
know, I want to try to keep this as balanced as I can,
and so just because you came in first and loaded the
cards up on one side or another, I am trying to balance
this out a little bit so we hear from speakers from the
different perspectives, to the extent that I can do
that.
So here is the next group I want to bring up
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1
next. When you hear you name, line up and be ready to
2 speak.
3 Virginia Brunini, Marty Zack, Richard Holway,
4 Charles Epstein, Mindy Canter, Ron Berman, Bruce Abbott.
5
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Ron Berman left.
6
MAYOR SMITH: That's fine.
7
MS. BRUNINI: Thank you very much.
Earlier
8 this evening, we had quite a number more of Bel Aire
9
people here.
Some of those empty seats were filled by
10 our Bel Aire neighbors.
11 I am not the elected president of the Bel Aire
12 Homeowners Association, which is not Bel Aire
13
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Homeowners, it's Bel Aire Improvement Association, but I
14 have been, and I am representing Bel Aire just by reason
15 of my having lived here for 40 years.
16
My home is about four houses down here, five or
17 six, halfway between here and Kol Shofar.
18 Over 20 years ago we welcomed Kol Shofar into
19 our community and a conditional use permit was granted
20 with an annual review, to which none of us in Bel Aire
21 or the adjacent neighborhoods objected as the
22 congregation grew.
23 We were pleased to have them as our neighbors,
24 and we are still very pleased to have them as our
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25 neighbors.
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Now, with the unyielding attitude of Kol Shofar
to their expansion, we are finding that this is not a
planning issue, but a religious issue, per the RLUIPA
Act, about which none of us knew until a few weeks ago.
There are Jewish people in Bel Aire and in the
congregation who don't believe the expansion is
appropriate as planned, who have asked Kol Shofar to
consider this isn't about religion. It is about cars,
c-a-r-s.
120 or more cars overflowing into Bel Aire,
looking for parking places is what we are talking about,
period. That's all we are talking about.
Why can't Kol Shofar demonstrate some
principals of almost all religions, the Golden Rule, and
not do unto us what they would not want done unto them.
I doubt seriously that any of them would want
their neighborhoods so affected.
It would seem timely for Kol Shofar to show
some good neighborliness rather than threaten the Town
with financial disaster, as they pursue their RLUIPA Act
to their satisfaction.
I believe what I have said now represents very
fairly what the members of our community feel.
I would like to just interject right now, as a
former Tiburon Planning Commissioner, my own personal
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thought:
The school was not very wel1 built for even
its purpose.
My son was in the first class and it closed the
year after he graduated. I saw them fill that empty
spot with $40,000 worth of dirt.
I would think that they, even though you're so
far down the line that it's hard to even consider this,
but I would think that taking the building off and
making a building that would satisfy your needs --
MAYOR SMITH: Your time is up, Virginia.
MS. BRUNINI: -- and having underground
parking should be done. Thank you.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you, Virginia. Marty.
MARTY ZACK: Can I defer my time?
MAYOR SMITH: We'll put you further back
somewhere.
MARTY ZACK: Thank you.
MAYOR SMITH: Richard Holway.
MR. HOLWAY: Thank you. My name is Richard
Holway. I live at 42 Paseo Mirasol, which is 150 feet
from the synagogue.
I have a very simple point to make. The
topography of the neighborhood is a large bowl. It's
surrounded by Ring Mountain. It's like a big
amphitheater.
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When this building was built, we could hear
every single rivet, the sound of that rivet bouncing off
the hill.
When I was walking over here tonight, I could
hear a Great Horned Owl calling its neighbor on the
other side of Kol Shofar.
Sound carries. The thought of noise later
than 9:00 o'clock is not very appealing.
The city, it seems to me, has already made that
decision. I would hope it's retained. Thank you.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Mr. Charles Epstein.
Is he still here? Again, if I call your name, line up
here at the podium. Charles Epstein. Next in Mindy
Canter, and then Bruce Abbott.
MR. EPSTEIN: Good evening. My name is Charles
Epstein. My wife and I have been residents of Tiburon
for 39 years. Three of our children went to this
school right here. We watched Greenwood School go up
when it was a middle school and two of our children went
to that school.
When that school closed, we watched Kol Shofar
take over as a synagogue.
The point I want to make is the property on
which Kol Shofar sits has always been set aside for
public purposes, as this school site has and other
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school sites in the neighborhood or in the area.
As the utilization and need for these
institutions has increased, there has been construction
at all of these sites, and those of us who sit above Del
Mar, as I do, are watching a huge, quite a large
building go up in Del Mar. This building has been built
as has St. Hilary's.
I think those projects have been integrated
quite well into the community.
As I sat here and listened to the discussion
and to the opening talk for the lawyer -- or from the
lawyer who represents the neighbors, he talked
continually about compromise and settling the situation.
Yet, as I have listened to the presentations
and listened to the questions from the Council, I have
yet to see any compromise on the part of the neighbors,
any suggestion of any compromise.
So I think, in light of the fact that Kol
Shofar has long been here, I think has done very well in
the community, that when the decisions are made as to
how to go forward, I think the interests of the
community certainly have to be taken into account.
But I think there has to be some give and take
on both sides.
We heard quite a tough talk from Greenwood
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Beach, which certainly had no suggestion of compromise
in it. I would like to hear more compromise coming from
the neighborhood.
So I think that Kol Shofar and the neighborhood
are both entitled to a reasonable compromise, but I
think there has to be give and take on both sides.
Thank you.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you, Mr Epstein. Mindy,
you are up.
MS. CANTER: My name is Mindy Canter. I live
at 167 Blackfield Drive.
I live about 75 yards from Kol Shofar, and I've
been living there 20 years, and during large events I do
hear music, voices and noise inside my house as well as
outside.
I want to say that this is not a religious
freedom issue. This is not a spiritual freedom issue.
This issue concerns an event center unlike, the
scope which is unlike any other event center in Tiburon.
I have been to all of the meetings, and in the
beginning the center was presented to us in the
neighborhood as an event center to rent out to outside
parties five to six times a week.
The amount of traffic and noise that this would
bring in would exceed the amount of traffic and parking
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that would be in both Bel Markets. I think both Bel
Markets in Tiburon don't see 500 cars a day. We would
see more than that.
I think, if you haven't been in our
neighborhood on Halloween, I think you should come down
because, if we have a 100 cars or so that come in during
that time, there is still -- it's insane. You really
should come down this Halloween and see it.
This proposal is incompatible with our General
Plan, and I don't understand how there seems to be a
consensus here that a conditional permit is the answer.
This overrides the Planning Commission's
decision, and it overrides the findings of the EIR.
And I want to say that the EIR clearly stated
that the negative adverse impact of this proposed
project cannot the impact of traffic, noise and
parking cannot be mitigated. Cannot.
I think we need to honor the findings of the
EIR and the decision of the Planning Commission. Thank
you.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Bruce.
MR. ABBOTT: Good evening to the Town Council
members and ladies and gentlemen. My name is Bruce
Abbott and I live on Greenwood Beach Road.
I am here to emphasize what our president Don
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Putterman stated, and I would like to say that to my
knowledge he represents the consensus of the views on
Greenwood Beach Road.
The EIR is defective in that it does not -- it
fails to address the requirements of the Tiburon codes
as they apply to off-site parking.
Off-site parking is a demonstrated fact on
Greenwood Beach Road, and the requirements of our code
are that it not be allowed in a residential area, and
that it, wherever it's allowed in a commercial area it
must be of permanence in its nature to last as long as
the use itself does.
Please take note that Kol Shofar is not the
only institution, religious institution, in this Town
likely to expand.
The same would apply to Westminster. The same
would apply to Tiburon Baptist Church.
These issues are not addressed in the EIR, and
for that reason it should be sent back.
We should do this properly. We should do it
once. It would be the cheapest way to discharge this
obligation.
Please keep in mind that he who seeks to
benefit has also the burden here.
We are not, we don't feel that we should, nor
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any other neighborhood, should become the repository for
difficulties that are generated by a burden -- excuse me
-- by a benefit that befalls someone else.
Thank you so very much for your attention.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Abbott.
Elaine Levy, Russ Pratt, Howard Zack sorry
if I mispronounce this -- Sidsel Moller, Aviva
Boedecker.
MS. LEVY: Hello. My name is Elaine Levy, and
I am a member of Congregation Kol Shofar.
I feel that the reasons Kol Shofar needs to
build a new multi-purpose space in order to practice our
religious activities have not been well understood.
I would like to use my three minutes to give
you some examples of how Kol Shofar's present building
is inadequate and why we should be allowed to build the
space we had proposed that is necessary to accommodate
our current religious activities.
There has been inordinate attention to use on a
limited number of weekend evenings.
Instead, I would like to draw your attention to
some of the frequent religious uses of the multi-purpose
room that will show you why Alternative 7 is not an
overly-ambitious plan.
Here is a sampling of how Kol Shofar's present
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building places limitations on our religious practice.
On Sunday mornings there are not enough rooms
to allow the students in our religious school to gather
by age groupings to participate in age appropriate
prayer sessions that involve explanations of the
contents of the prayers and why we say them.
We wish to have sufficient space to allow a
first grader, fifth grader and seventh grader to be
grouped into separate sessions.
Also, on Sunday mornings there are not enough
rooms to allow adult education classes to be
consistently held in other than a pre-kindergarten
classroom where I have been personally distracted by the
gurgling sounds of the children's aquarium and other
aspects of the classroom.
On shabbat mornings, when we have multiple
prayer services, such as the traditional prayer service,
an alternative that includes meditation and junior
congregation of fourth through seventh graders and an
early childhood program, we do not have space that is
adequate to house these services.
Although the attendees on these shabbat
mornings will usually average, if we are lucky, about
250 people, we need more adequate, more multiple rooms
to meet our religious practice.
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This will not involve needing more parking, but
it needs more room to accommodate our religious
practice.
MAYOR SMITH: You have 30 seconds.
MS. LEVY: Oh. Basically, I was going to give
you more examples.
The last one I will give is on shabbat Friday
evenings, our present room does not allow us to invite
all of our members to have shabbat dinner together.
This is particularly sad when we try to obey
the commandment to welcome the strangers in our midst by
having shabbat dinners to welcome new neighbors.
MAYOR SMITH: That is your time. Thank you.
MR. PRATT: Members of the Council, good
evening. My name is Russ Pratt. I have been a
resident of Tiburon since 1985, and I reside at 112 Reed
Ranch Road in Tiburon.
I travel -- the first point I want to make is
regarding the traffic and congestion and all of that,
recognizing there are holidays that occur for Kol Shofar
that may create greater traffic on both Blackfield Drive
and the adjacent streets -- I drive that Blackfield
Drive every day, every morning and every evening.
That's my route to get to the freeway to get to work in
the city, and that's pretty much all year long.
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Also, I drive that because that's the easiest
access from Reed Ranch to get to the freeway during the
week, weekends, so forth.
I have heard all of the information on the EIR
and traffic, and I respect the EIR consultant.
I personally want to represent that as a
resident living up there I've never really experienced
what has been described as congestion, chaos and really
difficult circumstances driving down -- I think it's, I
can't remember the names of all of the streets -- but to
get by the synagogue going down to the stop sign at
Karen Way.
There's always traffic in the morning because
of school here and folks bringing their children to
school, but in the evenings, I have never experienced
I do see cars parked on the street -- but I have never
experienced what I perceived, what I saw when I first
walked in. It looked like there was a political
convention in Tiburon with the number of cars, but I
have never witnessed that in the four years I have lived
on Reed Ranch Road. So, that's one point I would like
to make.
Secondly, I am also a resident, I am a member
of the board of Rodef Sholom Synagogue in San Rafael, I
am also chairman of the building and grounds committee.
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As such, I have responsibility to look at the
needs of our synagogue, and part of that is studying
what goes on in the entire Bay area about the growth of
Judaism and attendance, affiliation at synagogues.
I have heard comments in the past hearings that
have been before the Planning Commission as well has
denied, there's a fear of growth as a result of the
proposed expansion.
Simply, I want to give you a different
viewpoint, not about the building itself, not about the
number of congregates that Kol Shofar has, but about the
notion of growth.
Fundamentally, every synagogue that I know of
in the Bay area, because of our needs for our own
synagogue, we try to get that information.
MAYOR SMITH: 30 seconds, Mr. Pratt.
MR. PRATT: They are really trying to sustain,
most synagogues, and I believe Kol Shofar is in that
category, they are trying to sustain facilities for
their existing population.
There's not an enormous expanse or growth in
the Jewish community affiliated with synagogues
including our own, Rodef Sholom.
So I wanted to tell you that, from a practical
point of view, as another Jew who lives in a different
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synagogue, but concerned with the same kinds of
problems. Thank you.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Howard.
MR. ZACK: Howard Zack. I reside in
Kentfield, and I am chairman or co-chairman of the new
building committee at Kol Shofar.
Two quick points:
The public record will show that at the
Planning Commission hearing there was a tacit agreement
and acknowledgment brought by the neighbors that the
high holy days were the high holy days, and, as such, a
very special time that imposed a burden on the
neighborhood, but one that they could abide with, given
the sanctity of the occasion.
It's interesting, Ms. Canter's mention of
Halloween. Indeed, it was invoked that very night at
the Planning Commission that high holidays are, like
Halloween, they both create an extraordinary
circumstance in the neighborhood; and to see the high
holidays on parade, really under x-ray, with
photographs, seems to be out of step with the spirit of
the recognition that, gee, this is an extraordinary
time, so then why is it show-cased as a point of traffic
violation when everyone commonly understands the burden
and imposition that is imposed on the neighborhood.
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Openly acknowledged that last May it was
treated quite differently than we heard tonight.
Secondly, those pictures, I can speak to this,
one of them is May 6th, which was like a solar eclipse,
it was a bar mitzvah, which featured my son twinned with
the Rabbi's daughter, and it attracted more people than
ever at any bar mitzvah in the history of Kol Shofar.
It will not happen again. Lavey has no younger
children, and my daughter is not destined to be twinned
with anyone else.
And, lastly, I would draw your attention to the
chart, which got lost over the presentation, comparing
our institutional uses to everyone else, St. Hilary's
respected, and fellow religious institutions in this
community, do not have any of the restrictions that are
being talked about for us.
Indeed, on my middle son's bar mitzvah, their
gymnasium, which often functions as a multi-purpose
room, hosted a party well until midnight as attested by
an attendee that I spoke to.
Thank you.
MAYOR SMITH:
Thank you. Sidsel Moller. Am I
getting that right? Close enough?
MS. MOLLER: It's okay. I recognize it. I am
Sidsel Moller. I lived on Greenwood Beach Road, and I
just wanted to talk about community for just a moment.
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I am a neighbor, and I am in a community too.
That is where I live and that is where we live in our
neighborhoods, and I would appreciate it if we would
think about when we want to increase our communities
that it has to take from somebody else's community in
order to do that.
We would like a community with as few cars as
possible. Please respect our feelings about our
community as well as your own. Thank you.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Aviva Boedecker.
MS. BOEDECKER: I'm Aviva Boedecker, and I am
a member of Kol Shofar. I've lived at 113 Jefferson
Drive in Tiburon for almost 20 years.
Tonight I am going to talk about the concern
that Kol Shofar is seeking to increase membership
dramatically and also about community.
In the last 20 years Tiburon has changed: the
variety store, the drug store and the gas station at the
boardwalk have closed; at the Cove, the butcher shop,
the barber, the hair dresser, the shoe repair are gone,
and we have Blockbuster instead.
Hundreds of new homes have been built resulting
in large increases in Tiburon's population; and, in
addition, many people have remodeled or increased the
square footage of existing homes.
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In my own neighborhood of Belveron West, I can
think of a dozen that have been entirely rebuilt or
substantially enlarged; but this has not brought more
people to Belveron West. Each house still holds only
one family.
All three of our public schools, as well as the
Belveron/Tiburon Child Care Center, which I used to be
the board president of, have enlarged.
Was the purpose to attract students from
throughout Marin and San Francisco? No. It was to meet
existing needs.
The library moved out of the post office, which
also meant more space and moved to its own new building
and further expansion is in the planning stages.
Is the library trying to attract hundreds of
new patrons from throughout Marin? No. It's trying to
meet existing needs.
Town Hall was built, but neither staff nor the
Town Council increased in proportion to the additional
square footage.
And we have new larger police and fire
stations.
Several local churches have been remodeled or
expanded: St. Hilary's, Westminster, Tiburon Baptist,
and, in Belvedere, St. Stephens, but I don't think they
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experienced a huge increase in membership as a result.
All these changes have benefited our community,
but no doubt have had some impact on the immediate
neighbors.
Now, Kol Shofar needs to remodel and expand its
space, not to increase membership dramatically, but to
meet current needs, just like all of the other projects.
After participating in the Tiburon community
for 20 years, by serving on boards and committees,
volunteering, working on the campaigns of certain school
boards and Town Council candidates, and making donations
to all of the local institutions, it's discouraging to
find that when my faith community needs additional space
to house our ongoing activities and religious services,
some of our neighbors have actually invited us to leave
town.
Some neighbors are so concerned about the
synagogue intruding on their peace and quiet that one
went so far as to say at a Planning Commission meeting
he would be disturbed by hearing people talking if they
walked and talked on the sidewalk in front of his home
on the way to or from the synagogue.
MAYOR SMITH: That was three minutes. Your
time is up. Thank you. Don Dana.
And the next group coming up is Helen Schwartz,
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John Nygren, Ron Brown, Yvonne Thurmond, Lou Commesso,
and Paul Yenofsky.
MR. DANA: I will be brief. I am Don Dana. I
live at 34 Paseo Mirasol. My wife and I have lived
here 26 years, and I am proud to say I was a very vocal
support of Kol Shofar when they came into the
neighborhood.
I have an observation and a request.
The observation is, we heard about the old
theory and amphitheater theory is very true. From my
suite, you can hear anything that happens at Kol Shofar.
It's just the way the amphitheater is built because you
hear the noise.
So the only way to really control this is to
control the hours of these events, and I think the City
Council is basically down that path.
And here's the request: the request is that
you very carefully define what everyone means by that.
The end of the event has to include everything,
the post-event, the cleanup, the parking lot being
empty, the lights out. Otherwise it doesn't work and
the neighbors will have to go through another hour of
cleanup noise and all kinds of things after that.
So that's it. Thank you.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Helen Schwartz.
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MS. SCHWARTZ: I grew up in Tiburon. My
family joined Kol Shofar when I was 10 years old when it
had no permanent home.
We truly were the wandering Jews. I was
married 20 years later at Kol Shofar, and my daughter
became bat mitzvahed six years ago at Kol Shofar at its
first and only permanent home in Tiburon.
My sister went to Reedland Woods in the late
1960's, just before it closed. As far as I know, not
much has been done to the building since.
My mother has lived for over 30 years on the
street just below St. Hilary's. There's a lot of
church traffic on that street at times. It makes it
hard to get in and out of the driveway at times. You
can hear the kids playing at times.
Seems to me that most people accept the extra
traffic and noise as part of having a religious
institution in their midst.
For most people what is important is that our
children are taught good values and the importance of
making this world a better place, so when the day comes
for them to be in leadership roles, they will make a
difference for the good.
This is something Kol Shofar excels at:
promoting community values, not just the synagogue
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community, but all of the communities we live and work
in.
The children at Kol Shofar, as part of their
bar/bat mitzvah curriculum, each do a community project,
such as working with the developmentally disabled,
visiting the elderly, feeding the homeless, collecting
for charities. The list is endless.
Seems to me upgrading and expanding Kol Shofar,
like with St. Hilary's, isn't going to change things
much from the way they were before.
Traffic on the streets at times, the sounds of
children at play, the congregation singing.
It seems to me that the City of Tiburon should
be proud of what Kol Shofar gives back to this community
and support its request to upgrade the existing aging
building and expand as described to this Council.
I hope that is what the Council decides.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. John.
MR. NYGREN: My name is John Nygren. I live at
22 Paseo Mirasol.
I would like to speak briefly about the current
conditional use permits, commonly called the CUP.
The CUP can only provide mitigation for traffic
safety and other problems if there's adequate
compliance, monitoring, and enforcement of the CUP
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provisions.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: We can't hear you.
MAYOR SMITH: We can hear you, but maybe they
can't.
MR. NYGREN: Unfortunately, my observations
within the last few years indicate that Kol Shofar has
not complied with many of the CUP provisions, and I have
not seen indications that the Town has tried to monitor
or enforce them.
This is the latest and most recent CUP, or the
CUP provisions, regarding the traffic measures. I can
hand these out, if you want these for review.
MAYOR SMITH: You can make it part of the
record, if you want.
MR. NYGREN: Anyway, it's already part of the
record. Anyway this, quoting this briefly:
The following traffic control measures are to
be taken for five, for all five services for the five
high holy days, except as noted.
The shuttle service shall be used during the
first -- shuttle service shall run beginning at least 30
minutes prior to start of services and end no earlier
than one hour after the end of services.
Now, the photo that I submitted in the photo
journal shows that this has not been the case.
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This was not the case on the first day of Rosh
Hashanah. I have noticed a similar pattern for many
other events.
We used the high holy days as an example
because this is when we can observe compliance with the
various provisions; and the provisions were not -- the
shuttle service, at least, was not used, if it was even
provided.
These provisions also state that trained and
knowledgeable traffic control persons stationed at the
Blackfield Drive intersection of Karen Way keep traffic
flowing on Blackfield Drive when the service is let out,
a duration of approximately 30 minutes.
In addition to that, the same for the person at
the corner of Reedland Woods Way and Blackfield Drive.
I have not seen this. I don't know if you've
seen this --
MAYOR SMITH: You have 30 seconds.
MR. NYGREN: There is a hazard there. And a
Tiburon police officer on the Kol Shofar site; however,
that police officer, to my knowledge, was never
directing traffic, helping control traffic. Thank you.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you.
MR. ZACK: Point of order. The only school
child in the room has to leave. Could you bring him
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back?
MAYOR SMITH: Okay. Marty.
MR. ZACK: Thanks, Paul.
MARTY ZACK: I am Marty Zack. I am 15 1/2
years old. I grew up in Congregation Kol Shofar.
When I was little, I used to explore the
building, when I was supposed to be in services, and it
was like my castle. I used to think that I knew all of
the secret passageways and no one else did.
Anyway, the point is that I bring a different
perspective to this table than I think anyone else in
this room because I am, I think, the youngest person in
the room.
When I think of issues like we face tonight, I
think of them not as much in the present as I do in the
future.
As a member of our religious education high
school and chapter president of our youth group, I am
part of a vibrant local Jewish community, which is a
really central part of my life.
When I hear that my community, the City of
Tiburon, which I adore, I really loved this Town for 14
years as a resident, and continue to miss it -- living
in Kentfield -- when I hear that Tiburon wants to temper
our proposed plan to rebuild, I hear that the potential
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of my future is being threatened.
As an adolescent, I think about my future
plenty, and nothing could be more important to me than
it, except for maybe one other thing, which are my
friends, family and community.
I see this project, as my spiritual leader and
dear friend Rabbi Derby does, as an investment in my
community, and to see those closest to me struggle over
something so important to them pains me far more than
the struggle to make this investment in my future and my
community.
I see the familiar faces I have grown up to
know well, the members of our congregation, struggling
regularly.
To see my parents be so frustrated with an
issue on which they only want to help both our
congregation and our neighbors frustrates me.
And, to see my mentor, my guide, my friend, and
my rabbi, agonize so deeply and so noticeably distresses
me most of all.
Never have I seen one of the strongest people I
know feel so weak and helpless.
His every attempt to resolve his internal
conflict has been deflected.
And my only conclusion can be that somewhere
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along the line something serious has occurred.
Perhaps we have lost sight of what's really
important.
MAYOR SMITH: You have 30 seconds, Marty.
MARTY ZACK: Thank you. I have complete faith
that all what both sides want here tonight is to
improve our neighborhood.
While we may have different ideas of how to do
so, we do not need to lose sight of respecting our
neighbor in the process, and thank you for giving this
kid a chance to speak.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. I am going to take
Tom Frankovich before you, Ron, just to keep things --
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Tom left.
MAYOR SMITH: Okay. How about Edward McAuley?
I am taking someone before Ron. Edward McAuley?
MR. McAULEY: Here.
MAYOR SMITH: All right.
MR. McAULEY: Mr. Mayor, ladies and gentlemen
of the Town Council, my name is Edward McAuley.
I am speaking for myself, as well as Lynn
Marcotte, who has lived in Tiburon for 43 years.
We don't support the plan as it's currently
proposed. We do support Kol Shofar offering a more
reasonable plan, one that is in harmony with the
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neighborhood, Tiburon zoning regulations, and the
Tiburon General Plan.
Specifically, we oppose this plan for the
following reasons:
Inadequate parking causing congregation members
to flood and clog the streets and surrounding
neighborhood with cars whenever there are large events.
There have been many events proposed each year.
Many have been identified that could be substantially
higher than those that occur on the regular occasions.
There are unmitigated issues of light
pollution, glare, unmitigated issues of noise,
unmitigated issues of late hours, and we would like to
say, once again, we do support Kol Shofar, but we do
also ask that they offer a more thoughtful, more
respectful, more reasonable and more workable plan to
the neighborhood. Thank you very much.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Ron.
MR. BROWN: Thank you, Paul. My name is Ron
Brown. I'm the immediate past president of Kol Shofar,
and I have been a resident of Tiburon for 12 years.
I rise to speak to one issue.
We have been repeatedly faced with the
allegation that the lack of progress in finding an
accommodation with the neighborhood is our
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responsibility.
Even tonight in one of Mr. Volker's first
slides we saw neighbors encourage Kol Shofar to open the
dialogue terminated during the Planning Commission
proceedings.
I would like to describe to you the history of
our interactions with the neighborhood.
It's our contention there's never been a
dialogue, not one to begin again, certainly.
The discussion relating to improvements for Kol
Shofar began 10 years ago when we tried to improve the
parking situation on Kol Shofar by building just a new
parking lot.
The same neighborhood that now complains about
lack of parking then complained about a parking lot,
after approval of the project by the Town Council, took
the project to court and succeeded in getting it
stopped.
Frustrated, we began a three-year search for an
alternative site in southern Marin, but that search
proved fruitless.
As a result, we set about once more to
re-examine plans for 215 Blackfield.
After developing the Preliminary Master Plan,
our very first undertaking was to contact the
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neighborhood.
We asked then, and we asked since, what would
the neighborhood, what would the neighbors propose for
the synagogue? What is their proposal?
We asked that question in 2003, in 2004, and we
asked it in 2005, and we asked it again this summer
after the Planning Commission meeting.
I was one of the people who initiated the
meeting that Mr. Kaull referred to before, where one of
my colleagues and I sat down with him and other
associates in the TNC, and we asked, again, we put down
a proposal, why don't you make one, and then perhaps we
could find a way to talk?
We received, Mr. Gram, the same answer that
night you received tonight, which is no answer at all.
In the meantime, over the course of this
project, Kol Shofar has altered its plans numerous times
to meet the concerns of the neighborhood.
We have analyzed alternative siting to try to
take into account the issue of putting buildings as far
from surrounding homes as possible, and plans for
controlled lighting, and change the traffic patterns
proposed for our parking lots to take into account
concerns of the neighbors on Reedland Woods Way.
We changed our usage proposal over and over to
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try to answer the neighbors' concerns, proposing more
severe limitations than exist in any other institution
in Tiburon, religious or otherwise, despite our feelings
that these restrictions are unlikely to be necessary
under the provisions of RLUIPA.
We worked with members of this Council, as you
know, to try to reach an accommodation with the
neighborhood.
The process that began before the Planning
Commission and extended afterwards, this process, I
contend, failed not because of the reticence of the
synagogue to compromise but because the neighborhood
could never bring forth a proposal.
MAYOR SMITH: That's your time.
MR. BROWN: We believe we have gone the extra
mile and we ask, what else could we have done?
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you, Ron. Yvonne Thurmond.
MS. THURMOND: My name is Yvonne Thurmond. I
live at 30 Paseo Mirasol, and I have petitions to give
to you with 178 signatures collected from neighbors
surrounding Temple Kol Shofar. (Handing.)
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you.
Lou Commesso, is he here? No. Paul
Yenofsky.
MR. YENOFSKY:
Good evening. My name is Paul
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Yenofsky. I live at 40 Vista Tiburon Drive. I have
lived there for over nine years. I am Jewish. I was
raised in the conservative temple.
Currently, my family and I belong to a reformed
temple in San Francisco.
I just want to make a few comments tonight.
I wrote a letter to the Town Council indicating
that I supported compromise.
Frankly -- I'm a resident, as I said, of 40
Vista Tiburon Drive, I reviewed the staff report -- and,
frankly, I think the staff got it largely correct.
Some issues I didn't agree with, but I thought
it was a great start, well done, and a really good
attempt at compromise.
There has been a lot of talk about compromise
tonight.
Very early on representatives of the temple met
with neighbors. Kol Shofar walked away from those
negotiations and refused to talk further.
The Town Planning Commission voted 4 to 1
against Kol Shofar for a variety of very valid reasons
but offered to create an ad hoc committee to negotiate a
resolution and compromise.
The temple, through their lawyer, asked for an
up or down vote and refused to negotiate.
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The temple appealed the decision to the Town
Council. Two Town Council members started negotiations
between the neighbors and Kol Shofar. Kol Shofar
refused to negotiate and terminated those discussions.
I, as a Jew, and a member of the community,
personally invited Ron Brown, Howard Zack, a member of
the TNC, Kurt Kaull, Mike Metsavolio (sic) a member of
the Vista Tiburon Homeowners Association, who is the
president, to my house. They all accepted.
We had a four-hour meeting. I found the
meeting was pleasant, cordial, people were all very
nice; unfortunately, we reached no resolution.
My recollection of that meeting, with all due
respect to Ron, is a little bit different than Ron's, to
the extent that I don't recall any proposal being put on
the table.
Recently I approached a senior member of Kol
Shofar and asked if he had read the staff report. He
said, yes, but they just don't get it.
Then he said something that concerned me. He
said, The Town Council wants a Solomon-like solution and
sometimes there's not the Solomon-like solution.
That doesn't speak highly of compromise to me.
You know, when you live near an airport, you
expect the planes to keep flying -- Bruce is right. But
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you expect the pilots and airlines to abide by the local
zoning laws and rules and regulations of the Federal
Aviation Administration.
I am not a lawyer. One comment about RLUIPA.
MAYOR SMITH: Your time is about up.
MR. YENOFSKY: Well, rather than comment on
RLUIPA, let me just say this to Ron and Howard: I
extend my hand in friendship. I say, let's talk, let's
compromise, let's reach a resolution that is fair to
both sides.
Let's communicate with each other.
(Applause. )
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Next up is Rabbi --
well, hang on just one second. Do you need a break?
THE REPORTER: I could use a break.
MAYOR SMITH: Okay. Let's take a five-minute
break.
(Break taken from 11:45 p.m. - 11:55 a.m.)
MAYOR SMITH: We want to get started again.
The time is 11:55.
The next group, Rabbi Doug Kahn, Jody
Ceniceros, Ida Gelbart, Michael Barenbaum.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: He's not here.
MAYOR SMITH: Gerald Pisani, John--
MR. LESZCZYNSKI: Here!
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MAYOR SMITH: -- Leszczynski. Norman Traeger.
RABBI KAHN: Good evening. My name is Rabbi
Doug Kahn. I serve as Executive Director of the Jewish
Community Relations Council, which represents some 80
synagogues on public affairs issues, including
Congregation Kol Shofar.
I am a resident of Marin County and frequent
attendee of events at the synagogue.
Before I give my brief prepared comments, just
a little observation.
I have heard a lot tonight, as we all have,
about concern regarding events where you may have around
250 or 300 people that happen on a school night where
there's not enough parking, concern about lights, and
other issues; and here we are at a school, with the
lights, not enough parking, some of us having to spill
over onto the streets.
I had to make a T-turn in the parking lot.
It's almost midnight. I don't think you will get a
single complaint. It's just a little observation.
While I think that a compelling legal case has
been presented to you, I assume that you want to make a
decision based on what's good for Tiburon and its
residents on the basis of good public policy and sound
community relations.
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So I would ask you to weigh seriously the
following that has too often been left out from a
polarized discussion, which I think it never should have
come to.
So please consider in your deliberations:
That Congregation Kol Shofar is a
well-established major institution in Tiburon with
exemplary leadership and a rich tradition of caring for
the community.
But what takes place at Kol Shofar is value
added to Tiburon, affirming values of life and family,
volunteerism and faith adding to the rich mosaic that
makes Tiburon such an ideal place to live and visit.
That the people who comprise Kol Shofar include
many Tiburonites who send their children to Tiburon
schools, who get active in promoting quality education
and enhancing the schools' reputation which has, in
turn, enhanced Tiburon's desirability as a community and
who are exceptionally active in its civic life.
The congregates and visitors to Kol Shofar and
elsewhere in Marin, such as my family, inevitably
support local businesses when we pay a visit to The Cove
Shopping Center upon leaving the synagogue or head to
downtown Tiburon for strolling, shopping, or dining.
That the synagogue is the gathering place,
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often attended by people of different faith traditions
and backgrounds to celebrate our common ground and our
life-affirming values.
That just as a school, a library, a museum or
community center that has a well-established,
decades-long reputation as a law-abiding, positive,
value-added institution would be permitted, or even
encouraged to present or to meet its members needs, so
also should Congregation Kol Shofar.
The time has come, therefore, to assert the
Council's leadership and to approve the permit for
expansion because it's good public policy, good
community relations, and fair reward for Kol Shofar's
decades of confidence in the people of Tiburon as good
neighbors and fair-minded decision makers. Thank you.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Jody Ceniceros.
MS. CENICEROS: For ten years I have been a
respectful and appreciative neighbor living on Via Los
Altos just past the Kol Shofar.
I feel like no matter what number the events
are, from what I have seen, I could be naive or
inaccurate, I feel like they are about doubling the
number of events, the number of times I will be driving
by.
Sometimes I leave my house four times a day,
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with five children, two teenage drivers, three children
under the age of seven, I feel like whatever number the
events are, this is what I face when I go by the Kol
Shofar.
I feel like, oh, may I just say I don't think
the off-site parking works because I feel people think
it's inconvenient, so it's unlikely to be used.
It's too hard to prove illegal parking.
Basically, I think that, I want to say it
respectfully, but traffic noise and parking concerns are
not an impingement on religious freedom to open an
additional site; but I have no idea if that is something
that's out of the question to the Jewish community.
But I was wondering why the number of the
congregation can't be spread to perhaps northern Marin
or perhaps an additional site.
The Kol Shofar's argument that the original
building was proposed to be a much larger school, I
don't feel makes sense right now because a larger school
would just be using daytime use not evenings or
weekends.
I feel there's some concern for myself
accessing my home and the highway in a timely manner, as
I am on a 5-minute or 15-minute schedule, usually, so I
do have to slow down for every car as they slow down
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into the driveway. I have to watch out for car doors
opening into the middle of the road, especially for cars
parked on both sides of the street, narrow two lanes.
I have very large SUVs coming down at me
quickly as I am coming up the street, so we do have to
slow to a crawl during those busy times just to be
careful.
I am also worrying about possible children of
the Kol Shofar members darting out from their cars also
when my children and I do want to take a walk.
So, and as far as the noise goes, I would just
assume that hundreds of doors slamming, extra, or any
additional increases to noise and traffic, I would
agree, would be a hardship on the closer neighbors.
And that's it. Thank you very much.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. That brings us to Ida
Gelbart.
MS. GELBART: I'm Ida Gelbart. I live in
Corte Madera, and I am a member of Kol Shofar.
I am also a survivor of the Holocaust, where I
spent four years in forced labor concentration camp and
I also lost my entire family.
The Bel Aire neighbors have embarked on a path
of exclusivity which does not lead to tolerance, but
which leads to intolerance and isolationism, something
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that we in Marin County view as offensive, and that is
for us a slap to our face.
When the Bel Aire neighbors harass us for
singing loud in the synagogue and complain to the police
authorities that we are playing the radio too loud
during daytime;
When they unabashedly demand for us to move
elsewhere;
When they persist to continue to block Kol
Shofar in the building and remodeling in spite of Kol
Shofar's readiness time and time again to go to the
neighbors with compromises, we at Kol Shofar have no
other choice but to call a spade by its real name.
This is antiSemitism, pure and simple, right in
the midst of Tiburon in the Bel Aire neighborhood.
A badge of shame for Tiburon.
Of course our neighbors will be quick to deny
it, I am sure, but so did my captors.
Kol Shofar is one of only two synagogues in the
Marin area. The other synagogue is Rodef Sholom in
San Rafael.
Kol Shofar serves a large contingent of Jewish
people to go to their house of worship.
When our neighbors impede progress of Kol
Shofar, it causes a tremendous disservice and injustice
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to its congregates.
This is something obviously that we cannot and
will not tolerate, nor should anyone ask us to do so.
As you see, this injustice should be rectified
by putting an end to this ugly charade. If you don't do
anything to curtail it, it will fester and grow and
destroy and cause irreparable damage.
Indeed, it has already caused untold hours and
valuable time of Tiburon officials, when their time is
needed for other pressing issues and emergencies of all
kinds, which is just the beginning.
In spite of everything, we should live in
harmony with our neighbors while our worship house is
being rebuilt.
We respectfully request the issuance of the
long overdue permit.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Gerald Pisani.
Gerald Pisani here? No. Okay, that brings us to John
Leszczynski.
MR. LESZCZYNSKI: I will ease your pain. I
live on Karen Way. Tom looks like he needs to meditate
in the sanctuary.
I said this before the Planning Commission, and
I will just say it again. You've got to focus on the
legal capacity of the buildings.
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You have heard an awful lot about events,
number of events, number of people, hours, you know, you
got to focus on what's legal and provable, what's
enforceable, and what can be monitored. That's the
bottom line.
I am an engineer so that's the way I think.
898 people lobbying, plus a multi-purpose room,
360 cars, 140 on site, 220 looking for a place to park;
and, as you heard from the Greenwood Beach Road
representative, who did a heck of a job, they are not
going to park. I have been down that -- I have ridden
my bicycle down there. It's a nightmare.
I urge you to look at what Walnut Creek did
with St. Matthew's Lutheran Church. They got their
approval, folks, on the MND.
And with the MND, they did a parking study, a
real honest to God parking study, and they found that
they were short parking spaces.
What they did to get the permit through the
Planning Commission, they used every available spot they
had on their lot, plus they got a contract locally to
make up the excess; and, as a result, now on Saturdays
and Sundays, they now exceed the capacity, their
projected attendance.
They did it. They got it passed. You folks
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need to do that. Sorry.
What that means to me, what I think you ought
to do, we are very specific in Bel Aire, our
recommendation is, make them 360 spaces at the site.
360 spaces they are going to have 440, that means they
need 220 more.
They have the room for it. They can do it
underground if they have to. Virginia made the point.
What's wrong with that? Why can't that be done, 360
spaces? That's all I have.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Norm Traeger.
MR. TRAEGER: My name is Norman Traeger. I
live at 3700 Paradise Drive in Tiburon.
I first want to say I take my hat off to you
guys. What you do, the hours that you spend, the grief
that you put up with is to be greatly admired, and I
want to thank you. I hope that I speak for the entire
group. Thanks for your good work.
(Applause. )
What lies ahead I think Solomon would take a
pass on.
I think this thing is so complex, so difficult,
and you are going to wind up with half of the people
being happy and the other half being barely happy.
Is it a choice of land use? It is a choice of
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religious freedom? Is it something more sinister?
I've got to tell you, I am an eternal optimist
living in paradise on Paradise, and I think it's really,
it's well-meaning neighbors advocating what they feel is
right and just.
So how do you make this decision?
What you do, in my opinion, is not what's
popular, but really what's right.
You've got to look very close, you've got to
dig and test your heart and say, under the
circumstances, what's the right thing to do?
And I will tell you that we all put up with
aggravation in our daily life.
When I come off the Golden Gate at 4:30, I
would like to ban all of the cars going north, but I put
up with it. It's a piece of aggravation.
We don't -- the congregation doesn't have a
waiting list of 500 people that can't wait to get into
Kol Shofar.
The place is a mess.
So, to sustain itself, they need to improve
themselves.
There are going to be some people
inconvenienced. There's no question about it. There's
about 20 or 30 people that have a situation, but this
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place didn't spring up over night. It's been here for
22 years.
I will make it quick.
You are at a defining moment.
These issues have careened from a local issue
to a far wider stage.
What you decide will say much about what
Tiburon stands for and what our Town's core values are.
I ask you to have the courage to say yes to
this application, to say yes to Kol Shofar and its 500
members, to say to them you are welcome in our Town.
We want you to stay and prosper and to say as a
community that Tiburon's physical beauty is reflected in
our moral compass and our values.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Susan Goldwasser,
Diane Zack, Joan Clare, Isidore Natsios, Karen Nygren,
Reverend Bruce Bramlett, and Roz Jekowsky.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Jekowsky left.
MAYOR SMITH: Jekowsky left. Okay.
MS. GOLDWASSER: Hello. My name is Susan
Goldwasser. I live at 38 Paseo Mirasol. We have been
members of Kol Shofar for five years until this summer.
We support renovation of the existing facility
and having appropriate classroom space.
Our concern is for the proposed night-time use
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of the multi-purpose room.
A word about life-cycle celebrations, parties,
as they are known in the vernacular, or religious
duties, according to Rabbi Derby.
If adjacent banquet facilities were necessary
for the practice of Judaism, then every congregation
would have it, and they don't.
As neighbors, we simply do not want to have the
noise, traffic and cars parked in our streets, so Kol
Shofar can host large evening parties that can be held
elsewhere.
I have attended life-cycle celebrations all of
my life that have taken place in the afternoon. So
perhaps that might be a reasonable compromise for Kol
Shofar.
Everyone in this room lives somewhere and has
neighbors.
Mr. Mayor, Town Council members, please imagine
how you, yourself, would feel if your neighbor told you,
well, they are building a large structure and they would
be having parties until ten o'clock of more than 200
guests with amplified music, DJs, maybe alcohol would be
served and, by the way, there's inadequate parking so
the cars would be parked in front of your house, but for
only seven months of the year.
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I saw on TV the other night Mr. Ron Brown
saying that this plan would only increase the number of
cars in our neighborhood by 4,000 a year. That kind of
feels like a lot.
Suddenly it might not feel like you live in
such a great place.
I mean, who moves to the suburbs to live next
door to a reception hall?
I don't object to living next door to a house
of worship. I used to really appreciate that.
I know Kol Shofar needs adequate classrooms and
deserves a wonderful sacred space to pray. However, I
do object to using that space as a night-time event
facility.
Thank you for hearing my concerns.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Diane Zack.
MS. ZACK: Okay. I could say much, but I am
going to keep my remarks mercifully brief.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you.
MS. ZACK: You are welcome. We are in pain.
Actually, my son was correct, and he wrote those remarks
tonight actually on his own, of course, and I don't want
to get into the details of the back and forth, and I am
not a member of the core team that works actually
directly with the neighbors, but I will tell you as
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president of the board of directors, literally every
single month we grapple with the issue and we discuss
how we can further accommodate the neighbors, and we
have those conversations on a monthly basis.
And, as you know from our application and the
history that was laid out tonight, we have revised our
initial proposal considerably and repeatedly through the
last few years, and where we ended up tonight with
Alternative 7 obviously represents a major compromise
from where we started.
Actually, I am going to just speak to two
issues. I'm going to mostly speak about the
multi-purpose room reduction recommended by staff and a
little bit about the hours.
I will start with the hours. I know I have to
do this quickly. If we can't -- we are not allowed in
our faith to have weddings until after shabbat is over
on Saturday, which means that over the long period of
months now with daylight savings time it will be
operable -- nobody will have a wedding on a Saturday
night. It will be on a Sunday night.
By the way, there's been a point raised about
these celebratory events. Actually, a wedding, people
want to have their wedding in the sanctuary and then go
immediately into the facility for a banquet or
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celebration.
Most synagogues I know of have halls to
accommodate these kinds of events.
It means during all of those summer months,
and, as you know, the season is lengthened, people would
want to have their wedding on a Sunday, and it is going
to have to be an afternoon event. It's not going to be
evening, because our events are finishing so early.
This is something we are giving up clearly when the
hours are changed.
On the MPR, the reduction in size. If the MPR,
the room itself is reduced by 15 percent, the room will
only be divisible into two spaces, and not three. This
will cut down the number of alternative services to be
held. It will cut down on the number of classrooms on
Sundays and during the week when we have our religious
school program.
It will have an impact on what we can do and it
will have an impact on our kiddish lunch and it's been
explained and I will giving you some salient examples:
We right now have no room for the elderly to
sit down or for the disabled to sit or the families with
young children; and if you reduce the MPR by 15 percent,
it will eliminate 45 seats.
This is something we do now, we do every week,
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and it's critically important to us, and it will affect
us in a major way.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Joan Clare.
MS. CLARE: Hi. I was beginning to think I
would be talking to myself tonight.
I live at 146 Blackfield Drive, and correct me,
I hope I get this right, did you say tonight that it's
incumbent upon the residents to decide how many events
that are going to --
MAYOR SMITH: No. We didn't say that.
MS. CLARE: Oh, I thought you did. I was
going to say, if one event is a traffic hazard, what
difference does it make if it's one or 100?
I personally have lights coming into our
bedroom window all of the time, and I object to my drive
being used for traffic turnarounds.
And my husband has a good suggestion: if this
goes through and we have the traffic problems, maybe the
Council could give the residents permits to park on
their own street and that might alleviate some of the
problems. Thank you.
MAYOR SMITH: Isadore Natsios.
MS. NATSIOS: My name is Isadore Natsios and I
am a Greek.
I am very, very upset with this whole
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situation, you know.
I am 40 years in this area here, and I cannot
I have a disabled wife. I can't move my car out of
my driveway. I have to come off my car and try to stop
the traffic, you know, to get in my driveway or back up
my car.
I can't open my windows.
It's a disaster.
I have no problem with the Kol Shofar to stay
there. But to expand it, no way.
I feel really bad about it.
If I have to be somewhere, I have to stay home
on the weekend. I can't do this anymore.
I am a Greek. I was on the board of the Greek
community in Novato. I was singing for years.
I have no problem with the Jewish faith.
But this is ridiculous. They try to take over
the whole of Bel Aire.
I am sorry to say that. Thank you.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Karen Nygren.
MS. NYGREN: I am Karen Nygren. I am also of
the Jewish faith. I have lived in the neighborhood,
two blocks approximately from the synagogue for over 22
years now; and as many of the community knows, I have
had an intimate knowledge of this, an involvement with
this particular property for a long period of time.
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And, once again, I do appreciate all of your
time, having been and served on the Council as well, to
know what you are going through and thank you.
But this is not a religious issue.
This is a land use issue.
And one of the things is it amazes me that Kol
Shofar has repeatedly stated that they have involved the
neighborhood in a discussion and a dialogue with the
neighborhood.
They know I live in the neighborhood. Not once
out of all of these years have they ever approached me
to have any dialogue. For them to say that they have
met with the neighbors, to do that is totally false, and
I can say that there are other people who will say the
same thing that live within the neighborhood.
I want to commend the Planning Commission for
their careful analysis for the project's impact.
The Planning Commission appropriately made
their findings based on the Town Council's General Plan
policies as well as the Town's parking and zoning codes.
I have in front of me here, as you can see, the
new 2020 General Plan, and a copy of your parking and
zoning codes.
The project and the conditional use permit have
nothing to do with religion.
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This is a land use issue. It's an issue that
must be carefully considered for the health and the
safety of the residents and the children as well as the
health and safety of the congregates of Kol Shofar.
It's for the Town Council to abide by the
General Plan Zoning Code.
For an example, zoning code parking: (A),
under layout, the required parking stalls loading berths
and parking aisles may not be located on any street
right-of-way. That is right out of your zoning code.
Another one, I will not go through this, you
are supposed to minimize the traffic impacts, that's
C-(f), you are to provide adequate means of circulation
for emergency vehicles. And I can go on.
MAYOR SMITH: Thirty seconds.
MS. NYGREN: Okay. So your decision is one
that will not only set a precedent for the future
development in the Town, but possibly the county and
state and potentially our country.
It is critical that this decision is not
arbitrary but based on facts and findings and fortified
by the Town's General Plan and zoning ordinances.
To answer how many events and what type of
facilities we are willing to take, I would say the
neighborhood is at a tipping point and --
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MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Reverend Bruce
Bramlett.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: He's not here.
MAYOR SMITH: Eric Stone.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Not here.
MAYOR SMITH: Dan Hegwer. Edward Baker, you
are up next.
MR. HEGWER: Good evening. I should say at
this point in time good morning. My name is Dan
Hegwer. I am a resident of Corte Madera and a
congregate of Congregation Kol Shofar. I have been
attending Kol Shofar since 1999.
This issue is kind of personal to me because
when I first started attending Kol Shofar with my future
wife we looked at Congregation Kol Shofar and the
facility itself to determine whether we wished to be
married there.
The building itself was not suited for our
wedding. It was not aesthetically pleasing. It was not
a good feel and it wasn't going to fit.
This is also something that applies to my
children. We keep talking about the health, safety and
welfare and the values that we wish to teach our
children. Something that we have in our Jewish faith is
to heal the world and bring together everybody.
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What we find is when we teach our children,
when we raise them from a young age to be part of the
community, we teach them the values, the history and the
religious values that we have, they grow up to be better
members of the community: they volunteer, they donate
blood, they attend community meetings, no matter what
time of night and they try to participate.
The current setup at Congregation Kol Shofar is
not conducive to that environment. We have heard about
the classrooms and we have heard about the mixing of
ages, the first graders, fourth graders, and seventh
graders.
We should have age appropriate planning for
everybody, but the building as it stands currently is
not able to do so.
What I believe that really needs to happen, as
we have already done over the past couple of years, have
the dialogue in regards to this issue, we have had the
dialogue. It's time to finally make a decision.
What I ask for you to please do is consider
everybody's involvement in this project and go forward
and please allow Congregation Kol Shofar to go forward
with their permit. Thank you.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Okay. Edward Baker.
MR. BAKER: Did the Council get my package in
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the mail? Have you had a chance to read it.
MAYOR SMITH: As a matter of fact, we did get
it from you.
MR. BAKER: Did you have a chance to read it?
MAYOR SMITH: I can't remember right now.
MR. BAKER: Just a couple points that I made.
Kol Shofar is proposing activities on a Saturday or
Sunday afternoon or evening. I think the changes that
they are proposing have a very significant effect.
The effect of that on this quiet, peaceful
neighborhood will be significant.
At the moment there's only one street light on
Reedland Woods Way and one on Vista Tiburon and 91 Via
Los Altos.
The EIR concluded that car headlights could
intrude neighborhood houses and therefore potentially
significant impacts.
In particular, the elevation of the new
turnaround means headlights will be directed into upper
floor bedrooms at the time when children are trying to
get to sleep.
We disagree with the EIR's conclusion that only
three houses on Reedland Woods Way and one on Blackfield
Drive would be affected.
There are many more houses that will be in the
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direct path of headlights.
We agree with the EIR there should be a
headlight study before and like the EIR we think it's
impossible to conclude that there will not be
significant impacts unless the headlight study is
carried out.
We agree with the EIR that visual changes
caused by lighting on the project may be inconsistent
with the Town's General Plan and policies regarding the
harmony of residential neighborhoods.
That's all I really have to say. Thank you.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Helen Clawson? How
about Michael Rubenstein?
MR. RUBENSTEIN: I am still awake.
MAYOR SMITH: I'm glad somebody is.
MR. RUBENSTEIN: I am Michael Rubenstein. I
have lived on Blackfield Drive for 28 years. I have
been a member of Kol Shofar for more than 18 years.
But my first comment tonight will be as a
resident and a taxpayer of Tiburon.
I am an attorney. I've read the letters to the
Town Council from Gary Ragghianti and the Becket Fund on
behalf of Kol Shofar and by Marcy Hamilton on behalf of
the neighbors and I can say this:
RLUIPA is the law of the land. The lawyers'
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letters show that this is a hotly-contested legal issue
that can only be resolved by the federal courts after
years of extensive litigation.
Kol Shofar has a viable claim that the actions
of the Town violated its rights to religious liberty;
and if it were to sue and prevail, the Town would be
liable for millions of dollars in damages in increased
construction costs and attorneys fees.
Any judgment would have to be satisfied at the
expense of vital town services.
This is not the time for governmental bravado.
It's a time for reasonable, prudent judgment and the
responsible action is to protect the common good of the
community and to protect the Town from serious financial
liability.
I urge the Council to protect the interests of
the Town by approving Alternative 7.
Speaking on behalf of Kol Shofar, there are two
pernicious strains of comments from the opposition that
are false and require rebuttal in the strongest possible
terms.
The neighbors have attempted to paint Kol
Shofar as a intransigent, reciting the mantra that Kol
Shofar has not negotiated in good faith.
This statement is a disingenuous distortion of
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the facts as was so eloquently described by Ron Brown.
Kol Shofar asked for an up or down vote from
the Planning Commission only when they had gone as far
as they thought they could go and when further cutbacks
would eviscerate the programmatic purposes of the
project.
It's not Kol Shofar that's been intransigent,
it's the neighbors who have said nothing but "no" to Kol
Shofar's numerous compromised proposals.
The neighbors have attempted to denigrate Kol
Shofar because it's threatening the Town with a lawsuit.
Neither the right to religious liberty nor the
right to resort to the courts to enforce those rights is
illegitimate.
It is not Kol Shofar that's the bully here. It
will be the neighbors. They are enablers of town
government who are the bullies if they leave Kol Shofar
no place to turn but the courts.
In summary, the Town Council needs to do what's
right for the entire town.
Now is not the time to lead the town cavalierly
into expensive and uncertain litigation.
Now is the time to take the deal that's on the
table and move on.
Thank you.
MAYOR SMITH:
Thank you.
Richard Goldwasser.
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MR. GOLDWASSER:
My name is Richard
Goldwasser.
I have lived at 38 Paseo Mirasol for
almost 10 years.
My three children walk and carpool to Tiburon's
great public schools and have attended religious school
at Kol Shofar for the past five years.
I deeply respect and appreciate Rabbi Derby
with whom I have prayed and studied and I appreciate his
commitment to expanding Jewish life and community.
I am, however, deeply troubled by Kol Shofar's
proposed project and their history of poor engagement in
the process.
Although I was a member and a neighbor, my
repeated attempts to engage Rabbi in temple leadership
have been frustrating at best.
Over the past two decades Kol Shofar membership
has tripled to about 600 families, of which about 100 of
which live in Tiburon.
Few, however, live close enough to be impacted
by the noise, traffic, light, parking and safety issues
that have grown significantly over the years.
Tonight you are hearing from neighbors of Kol
Shofar who have remained silent over the years, not
wishing to be perceived as hostile.
The various neighborhoods, Bel Aire, Reedland
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Woods, Via Los Altos, Paseo Mirasol, each have specific
concerns about Kol Shofar's existing impact on noise,
parking, light, traffic, safety and the safety of our
children.
My concerns center around noise, which as you
heard travels from the building and the parking lots
into our home, even when the windows aren't open, and
the dangers associated with simply bicycling down
Blackfield Drive with my children trying to go to
Blackie's Pasture or The Cove when the Bar/Bat Mitzvah
attendees flood Blackfield Drive instead of the
inadequate parking lot.
The Tiburon Planning Commission rejected the
project, noting violations of the Tiburon General Plan
and parking codes under current utilization.
Imagine how bad it will be in another 20 years.
Even if membership grows slowly, at one percent a year,
there will be another 100 families by then will be
coming into this area.
Now, I respect Kol Shofar's religious and
educational mission, but I feel very strongly that Kol
Shofar must abide by the same rules as everybody else.
The Tiburon General Plan, parking codes, common
sense, and the Golden Rule tell us that parking must be
adequate; traffic flow must not endanger neighborhood
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children and adults, and noise must be limited.
Kol Shofar is not and should not be exempt from
the laws that have made Tiburon a great place to live
and worship.
The threat to sue the Town under RLUIPA and
possibly bankrupt the central services is antiethical to
the values we want our children to learn.
We have entrusted you to uphold the laws.
Please insist that Kol Shofar not be given or not be
treated by a different standard.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Carol Saysette?
How about Al Zimmerman.
MR. ZIMMERMAN: Mayor, Members of the Town
Council, my name is Al Zimmerman. I live on Marese
Street in Tiburon. I am a member of Kol Shofar and a
member of the board and I'm going to be very brief this
morning.
I agree with almost everything Norman said,
including thanking you very much for the time and
attention and being up until 12:30 at night listening to
all of these different opinions and having to make a
very, very tough decision.
I came to the Bay area 38 years ago from the
East Coast shortly after I took an oath as an officer in
the military to protect and defend the Constitution of
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the United States.
And why do I tell you that? Because I learned
a great deal in the military.
And one of the things is how critical and
precious the rights that we have in our Constitution are
and how they affect the quality of our life every day
and what we can do with our lives and how we live our
lives.
My view is that this is an issue between the
exercise of First Amendment rights: the freedom of
religion, and the rights and concerns of people in our
community for the quality of their life and traffic and
those things.
And you have got a very, very difficult
decision to make, and I don't envy you. I happen to
believe, as you might imagine, that we should be able to
practice our religion, unfettered by unreasonable
restraints, like some of the things suggested are
unreasonable.
In addition to what Norman said tonight, or
this morning, I want to read you something, which is the
solemn oath each of you took when you became members of
this Council, which is similar to the oath I took 38
years ago.
I do solemnly swear that I will support and
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defend the Constitution of the United States and the
Constitution of the state of California against all
enemies, foreign and domestic, and I will bear true
faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United
States and the Constitution of the state of California,
and I take this obligation freely, without any mental
reservation or purpose of evasion, and I will well and
faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to
enter.
As I said, I don't envy you, and I hope when
you do your deliberations you bear in mind the oath that
you took when you took this office and take that into
consideration. Thank you very much.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Julie Jacobs.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Went home.
MAYOR SMITH: Lee Kranefuss.
MR. KRANEFUSS: Good morning. My name is Lee
Kranefuss. I live at 35 Reedland Woods Way,
immediately adjacent to Kol Shofar.
When we moved into that house, one of the
benefits was it was next to Kol Shofar. We too were
members of the temple and had planned on having our
daughter's bat mitzvah there but felt the need to drop
out after the building plans and process started
unwinding.
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Before buying our house we looked back on the
complete record from 1996, the lawsuit that occurred
then. We actually checked with temple leadership.
I have the greatest regard for Rabbi Derby and
the good works done by Kol Shofar. You have heard about
the work with the homeless, the poor, the religious
education.
None of that is in question. None of it is in
doubt or disrespectful.
However, Kol Shofar has another role here.
It has been said that your job is very
difficult.
I think your job is actually very easy here.
If you separate out the legitimate religious
use from Kol Shofar as a property owner, and you go
through the Environmental Impact Report, the staff
report, and the requirements of the Town Plan, it
becomes clear that it does not fit with the character of
a small residential neighborhood.
The issue is overall impact, and I feel that we
have now fallen into a negotiation over square footage.
I will tell you that early on when I was a
member my presumption was that I would be on sides, and
I did try to help broker some dialogue with the
neighborhood.
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It was suggested to me that as in 1996 there
was a trump card in the first amendment and we see that
being played now.
Once that trump card came out, there would not
need to be substantive dialogue or substantive
compromise.
So the question of is there compromise in the
dialogue, I do feel, as someone who has tried to
facilitate it, because I am close to it, there is not.
There has been continuing problems, and you
will see in a submission coming in a letter from me
about CUP Creep.
The question I ask you, to date there has not
been good conformance with the existing conditional use
permit.
I have written at times to defend Kol Shofar,
for example, Jewish Community High School; other times
to complain about the nonconformance of the current CUP
during the renewal period.
There's been a consistent pattern of expanding
the conditional use permit or simply ignoring the
boundaries.
I would ask any of you, which of you would,
aside from renovating the worship space, would accept a
multi-purpose room, which has already had a stated goal
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of being used many nights, weekends until late, and
accept it standing there next to your home subject to a
conditional use permit which has been very difficult to
enforce?
What teeth are in that and where will we be in
five years if that is it?
I will leave you with that.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Esther Blau.
MS. BLAU: Thank you. Mr. Mayor and Members
of the Tiburon Council, my name is Esther Blau and I
have lived in Mill Valley since 1973.
I was a registered nurse at Marin General for
24 years, and currently I am a clinical nursing
instructor with Dominican University, a volunteer at the
Ritter House Medical Clinic in San Rafael, and a
volunteer with the Marin Medical Reserve Corps.
I am addressing you this evening on the issues
of access to and egress from the temple in case of fire
or a medical or even a terrorist emergency.
In any of these unfortunate situations, it is
critical for first responders to be able to access the
premises as quickly as possible, to find the victim or
victims expeditiously, and to bring them out safely and
quickly.
Time until definitive treatment is the most
critical criteria in successful rescue.
The plan submitted by Kol Shofar would go a
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long way toward ensuring reasonable access and egress to
the facility.
The current site has numerous classrooms for
children from toddlers up to teenagers six days a week.
On religious holidays the number of adults is
several hundred.
If an incident were to occur at any time when
classes or religious services are in session, it would
be difficult for rescue personnel to get easy access to
those in need because of the crowded conditions and the
tortuous layout of the halls, corridors and steep
stairways.
This is a significant public health and safety
issue.
Many speakers tonight have spoken about
modification to the plan, and I think that that
certainly can be done.
As I approached the school building tonight, I
began to wonder, are there not issues in this facility
about noise, lights, glare, turnarounds?
Here we are at 20 minutes to 1:00 in the
morning and we have lights, we have cars that we will be
going back to, and there wil1 be noise.
What are the neighbors putting up with that's
any different from what the neighbors of Kol Shofar
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might experience?
MAYOR SMITH: Thirty seconds.
MS. BLAU: Thank you. Considering the
significant public health and safety issues, I
respectfully request this Council to grant Kol Shofar
the ability to go forward with renovation of its
facility in order to provide to this Jewish community
the constitutionally guaranteed right to worship in a
safe and comfortable environment.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Carl Smith.
MR. SMITH: Good morning, Mayor. Thank you
for allowing me this time to speak.
My name is Carl Smith. I am a member of Kol
Shofar.
I am a retired firefighter. I have worked in
this area for 15 years in Mill Valley, and my comment is
simple.
I have seen in this area that there's a lot of
fighting between, interfactional fighting, actually,
between sides trying to get stuff done, and I think it's
about time we, as a community, we, as humanity, need to
get over this "I got mine, you know, you can't have
yours" that kind of stuff.
We need to stop this inter factional fighting
among ourselves.
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We are getting at a point in time that we are
running out of time, I mean, as far as a community
because we can go into litigation right now, we are
already getting close to a point now with this RLUIPA
thing, that this can lead to a major disaster for either
our side, as a community, or for the town side; and with
all of the stuff going on financially, you know, it can
prove disastrous for emergency services, for public
services, stuff like that.
So I feel, you know, the best thing to do
right now is just, let's just get it done. Thank you.
MAYOR SMITH: James Dignan.
MR. DIGNAN: First off, I want to thank you
for allowing me to speak and for your public service.
If someone had told me a few years ago that I
would be addressing you at almost 1:00 in the morning, I
would have laughed at them. Two reasons: One, I can't
stand public speaking. The second is I go to bed
early.
However, things changed in my life a couple
years ago.
I have two young kids, a two-year-old daughter
and a one-year-old son, and that's why I live where I
live on Reedland Woods Way.
My wife, Grace, and I, we picked our location
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for atmosphere of the neighborhood, and it was a perfect
environment to raise a young family.
When we visited the neighborhood, we were
impressed with the character of the neighborhood, the
young children playing in the streets, and the care of
the neighbors took in driving through those the streets,
and paying attention to the danger that young children
could pose.
My wife and I have been dismayed during large
Kol Shofar events in the change in the characteristics
of the neighborhood and, in fact, we won't allow our
children to play in the cul-de-sac during Kol Shofar
events. We feel it's that dangerous.
Furthermore, both of our children, ages two and
one, face the property we are at 80 Reedland Woods
Way -- we are adjacent to the property.
The noise issue, while it might be an
inconvenience for some people, is a health issue for my
son and my daughter.
The reason we moved to this neighborhood,
again, was to, on the one hand, to have them enjoy
during the day playing with other children in a safe
environment, and the other, they could go to bed in a
peaceful neighborhood.
Now, living next to a massive urban structure
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generating light and noise deep into the evening -- if I
wanted that, I would have moved to Polk Street.
The reason I moved to Tiburon and moved to this
environment was for the care and safety of my family.
I urge you to take that into account and
preserve the characteristics of the neighborhood so the
community can persist in an environment where the
streets are lined with young children, not automobiles.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Steven Sockolov.
MR. SOCKOLOV: Thank you.
I am Jim's next door neighbor at 70 Reedland
Woods, and I'm also a member of Kol Shofar.
I travel a lot for my business. And I haven't
been to too many meetings and really spoken up, but I
want to speak to my neighbors, because what I have seen
and I have tried to think of a softer word, what I saw
on Yom Kippur was what I would consider a witch-hunt.
One of my neighbors I considered a friend of
mine, who has since left, said, and I think Howard
alluded to this, he said that you can, I will quote him,
he said, "You can have your Rosh Hashanah and you can
have your Yom Kippur." I took him at his word, and then
I hear about people taking photographs on these high
holy days, people putting signs on windshields, you
can't park here because it's a private street.
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I don't think it's a private street. It's not
a gated community. It's a public street.
I am sorry, a few extra cars on Rosh Hashanah
and Yom Kippur should not be that big a deal.
I would like to say that this is -- we have to
share the roads.
Jim, our street, our cul-de-sac, yes, it's for
kids, but it's also for cars. It's a street.
It's a beautiful street for kids. It's a
cul-de-sac, and it's -- cars should be allowed on the
streets too, and, yes, we get a lot of cars turning
around, not just at Kol Shofar functions or shabbat
services, but it is a pI ace where cars do turn around on
a regular basis.
So it is a street that does get used quite
extensively for kids and cars.
So that's all that I have to say.
Again, I commend you for your efforts. Real1y
appreciate it.
MAYOR SMITH:
Thank you.
Doug Davis.
Kip
Jones.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: He's left.
MAYOR SMITH: Margaret Kirby. James Carlson.
MR. CARLSON: Mr. Mayor, Commissioners. Thank
you for the opportunity to address you.
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My name is James Carlson. I don't live in
Tiburon. I don't live in Marin. I am not a member of
Kol Shofar.
I am the Executive Director of Peninsula Temple
Sholom in Burlingame, 15 miles south of San Francisco.
I am here tonight to lend my support for the
remodeling project at Kol Shofar.
I hope to add a different perspective as one
who has worked through a remodeling plan and lived
through the end result of the project.
Aside from the fact that our two synagogues
have chosen the same superior architects, there are a
number of differences and similarities between Peninsula
Temple Sholom and Kol Shofar.
Kol Shofar has approximately 600 families. We
have 780. That's 30 percent more.
Our parking lot has 123 spaces. That is less
than Kol Shofar has.
We have 1300 people at our Rosh Hashanah and
Yom Kippur services, and then they go away, and then
another 1300 come. We do back to back.
We are in a residential neighborhood on a quiet
street. We abut homes of the nature you have here in
Tiburon. They are single family that we share the same
block with.
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The children in Burlingame play with the same
amount of vigor in the streets as the children in
Tiburon. They require the same amount of sleep to do
their school work the next day.
The cars that leave our parking lot don't have
dimmer lights than the cars in Tiburon, and we don't
have problems with our neighbors.
If we did, I can assure you that the first call
would be to my desk. We don't have it.
The project that Kol Shofar is undertaking is
one that I would urge you to support because of the
change that it wil1 make and the quality of services
they del i ver.
I would be personally glad to conduct a tour of
my facility for anyone who would like to see it. Thank
you.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: Do you have a card?
MAYOR SMITH: Give me a card. Doris Symonds.
Jack Gundershein.
Lisa Forma.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Doris has gone.
Jack's
gone.
MAYOR SMITH: Lisa.
MS. FORMA: Mr. Mayor, Town Council members,
and staff members, Town Council people.
My name is Lisa Forma. I am a member of Kol
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Shofar.
I want to talk instead of 100king, the old
saying, you can't see the forest for the trees, there's
been a lot of talk about the trees tonight, and I want
to focus on the forest a little bit.
I was born in Marin County General Hospital
1953, a true Marin County native, and I used to go pet
Blackie when Blackie was a horse and not a statue, and
when there weren't any houses down there.
I have seen many newcomers make this county
their home.
I have not been very happy with the amount of
development through the decades, especially the
residential density, but that's the nature of life, it
grows.
The shades of communities change over time.
They simply must in order to accommodate the breath of
those that live in them.
The space that Kol Shofar inhabits was
specifically identified as having a value for a
community-based use. Initially, a public school.
It is reasonable to expect that the facilities
occupying this land would stay in synch with the needs
of the greater community it serves through modernization
and remodeling from time to time, in this case over 20
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years.
As you have listened to the emotion-Iadened and
positioned-based arguments tonight regarding this
appeal, I ask you to simply remember your fiduciary duty
as Council members to the community as a whole.
Part of that duty is to insure that
infrastructure keeps pace with the existing population,
and I submit to you that religious institutions are
part of that infrastructure.
Ask yourself this question: is the scope of
this project reflective of the scope of change that the
community of Tiburon has experienced in the last 20
years?
I think that most reasonable people would
answer that question yes.
So as the Town Council is entrusted to protect
the viability of Tiburon, the whole community, you must
vote to uphold the appeal of Kol Shofar. Thank you.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Robert Julian.
MR. JULIAN: Good evening, or good morning,
really, now, I guess.
My wife and I and three boys live at 41 Via San
Fernando, which is two blocks as the crow flies from the
synagogue. We have lived there for 10 years.
I have been resident of Tiburon over 20 and
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have practiced law here for 27 years and now am a senior
litigation partner in a 900 lawyer firm in San
Francisco.
My first perspective, my wife and I have
driven up Blackfield for the last 10 years. We always
loved seeing all of the cars because it tells us that on
high holy days that people are practicing their
religion, so I have never understood the parking problem
that my neighbors have mentioned.
But I understand now, based on the
presentations by both sides tonight, that there's a
serious parking problem that is not addressed adequately
by the EIR, and that impacts the project to the extent
that the project increases membership or spaces in your
parking rules.
The second perspective I have is as someone who
in the neighborhood helps put on parties every year or
so, actual1y, not every year, every two years, we are
supposed to do it, put on the party, but the rule is we
don't go past nine o'clock.
I would prefer events, not only on our street
not to go past nine o'clock, but also two blocks away
not to go past nine o'clock; and on that basis, the
neighbors to me have always been consistent. So I
think that's important.
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As far as the legal issues go, reading your
staff report, and, by the way, I think Scott Anderson
did an excellent job.
I note one of the issues on appeal is whether
or not there's any evidence at all to support the
Planning Commission's ruling, and, of course, just on
the basis of the staff report itself there's sufficient
evidence.
The mere fact that you have a substantial
neighborhood opposition and the mere fact that the
increased occupancy of the space approximates that of
the Civic Center establishes enough evidence on that,
from my perspective, to uphold the matter.
But from a more relevant and I think pro-active
approach, you know, there was a process in place to
resolve this.
All of the lawyers that I go to lunch with now
we always talk about this case. It's one that should
never have gotten this far.
What everyone says, it makes sense. They need
extra space. They need space to do it all. On the
other hand, the neighbors have legitimate concerns too.
It sounds to me -- I have not gone to any of
the meetings and have not signed anything until recently
and not funded anything, have generally supported both
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sides. I am in the center here.
I believe that the matter should go back for
more resolution.
You have got a tough job. I commend you for
it.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Skip Smith.
Based on the number of cards we have left, I
estimate we have another two hours and 15 minutes of
public comment.
I am just kidding. This is the last card.
MAYOR SMITH: Brad Tardy.
MR. TARDY: Hi, I'm Brad Tardy. I live at 257
Karen Way, less than a block from Kol Shofar.
I'm an architect with 20 years experience and I
have lived in southern Marin my entire life.
I have two children, Morgan and Austin.
Morgan is 10; Austin, 8.
My children play with all of the other children
in the neighborhood.
They cross the streets continuously, walking
back and forth from each other's houses.
One of Austin's favorite activities is to ride
his bike around the block. AIl of the kids walk and
ride their bikes to and from school.
Our neighborhood is zoned as a residential
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neighborhood, and it is -- that's exactly what it is,
it's a residential neighborhood.
I came here tonight because I would like you to
know that in my professional opinion this project wil1
have many significant impacts on my family, my home and
our neighborhood.
My strongest objection to this project is due
to its enormous size and poor reuse of existing space.
The applicant wants to add 13,395 square feet
to an already large 43,751 square foot structure.
This means the facility's total size will be
57,146 square feet; and with the addition of this 13,000
plus square feet, they propose another 22 additional
parking spaces. All of these facts are included in the
Applicant's submission.
Based on the Uniform Building Code, the
Applicant can currently allow 1,779 persons to occupy
their facility at one time.
The new occupancy load will allow for 2,698
persons to occupy the facility at one time.
In comparison, the Marin County Civic
Center auditorium can hold approximately 2200 people.
Thus, my architectural opinion, is that the
project is grossly oversized for a residential
neighborhood. It has the future potential to host far
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too many occupants and should be redesigned so the
facility is in appropriate size for the intended use,
and all parking should be restricted to on-site.
In conclusion, I believe the EIR inaccurately
takes into account the serious negative impacts on my
neighborhood.
I believe the project allows for too large of a
occupant load.
I believe our neighborhood cannot safely handle
the size of that growth.
Please deny this project as it is presented.
Thank you.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Well, that takes us
to the close of public comment, which brings us to
rebuttals.
Each appellant can take up to 15 minutes in
rebuttal, and that's a maximum. It's not like a target,
and we will start -- well, first of all, how are you
doing?
THE REPORTER:
What do you think, another 30
minutes?
MAYOR SMITH: Probably 45 minutes.
THE REPORTER: Let's keep going.
MAYOR SMITH: All right. Let's keep going, but
let's try to keep it short.
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Kol Shofar, you are up first.
MR. RAGGHIANTI: I will try and do my best to
keep it short.
Please forgive the disjointed presentation, but
I am going to go in no particular order.
I want to talk about whatever CUP Creep means
and why I think it's an important policy issue that this
Council ought to be extremely concerned about.
I think that it means that they don't trust
that those who sit in your seats in the future will be
strong enough to take action against anyone who operates
under a use permit.
And, frankly, I don't think that's a
particularly constructive tack to take.
I want to say only one other thing about this
and that is that in November of 2000 one of the members
of this Council was commenting at the end of the St.
Hilary's presentation, he said this, and I quote
verbatim from the transcript. He was talking about a
disagreement that he had with another member of the
committee, just like the committee that exists in this
case.
"Harry," I think referring to Harry Matthews,
"and I, on the one hand, had a difference of opinion on
that," talking about what someone else has cal1ed Creep.
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Continuing the quote, "I believe that in our
system of government you don't tie the hands of the
people you elect in the future. That's the way our
system works. Things change. And they have to have
the flexibility to change things the way the Town is
run, some of the aspects of the Town as time goes on.
So we did disagree on that, that we not
restrict the program by the size of the facility, but
rather we do it by the imposition of use conditions.
And both sides have to know those conditions
may be modified in the future, and I feel very strongly
that we leave that to future councils. That's why you
elect them.
Good enough then. I would respectfully
suggest, good enough for now.
Number two, one of the ways that we have looked
at this is to compare what happened to St. Hilary's, and
if you take the weekend/night events out of it, and you
look at the same transcript of those hearings in
November of 2000, and you simply substitute parish hall
for multi-purpose room, you see that the exact same
comments and the exact same concerns were expressed by
the neighbors, and yet none of the conditions which are
proposed here to be considered for imposition on the Kol
Shofar use permit were imposed there.
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And yet some of the things that were said there
were that the proposal for Kol Shofar, excuse me, for
St. Hilary's was tantamount to building a second
downtown directly above the houses of the neighbors who
presented themselves and who spoke in opposition to the
project, and I mean in opposition to the project.
But this is what St. Hilary's said to you in
2000:
Why do we need a parish hall? Remember, take
that out and put in multi-purpose room.
Well, simply put, we are taking over the old
parish hall. It becomes part of the school. We need
a parish hall because we have lots of existing parish
programs that need a very particular space that's
located next to the church.
What kind of programs? Programs like after
Mass socials, religious education, soup suppers, parish
meetings. They need to be in an appropriate facility
that suits those purposes and so does Kol Shofar.
There was concern about the ancillary uses of
the gymnasium that was permitted to be built.
I hasten to say that there's 50,000 square
feet, if my memory serves me, that was permitted to be
built and 123 parking spaces at St. Hilary's.
How did that happen?
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At the Tiburon Lodge there's 117, I believe,
parking spaces.
So I think that parking is an issue that this
Council in the past has addressed, and I think in this
instance it ought to be the subject of review of all of
the studies that have taken place before.
However, it's difficult for me, over the years
that I have been working on this project, to draw a
clear distinction between the way Tiburon permitted St.
Hilary's and what is proposed here.
There are no restrictions on what the gymnasium
can be used for, except restrictions relating to
basketball. None.
And if you go on line, as I did, you will find
that in every day this week, there's a p.m. event at the
gym. Every day this week, with the exception of this
Friday, starting at seven o'clock.
There is no restriction as to who can come, no
restriction on how many people can attend, no
restriction when it can end.
And yet no restriction in the use permit at
all.
Moreover, I think it's important you know that
one of the people from St. Hilary's e-mailed us, and I
will close my reference to St. Hilary's with this quote.
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The e-mail says this: If St. Hilary's is going
to be brought up, and we have no objection, then
everyone should be operating on the same information.
On the third page of Ms. Hamilton's letter she
states the neighborhood line that St. Hilary's gym is
limited to certain hours. What she fails to state is
that this limitation is solely related to CYO games and
practices.
There is absolutely no limitation on the use of
the gym for other events and there never has been.
In point of fact, we have other events,
fund-raisers, plays, musicals, meetings that occur
outside these time lines.
Additionally, there's no time limit on the use
of the new parish haIl, which is in constant use by many
parish and school groups, as wel1 as such civic groups
as Get Ready Town Campaign regarding disaster
preparedness.
So I think that perspective is important with
regard to how you in the past have treated the only
other religious institution which has come before you to
seek a use permit.
Let me say something else that I find -- I
don't know why but I keep thinking of the Bobby Darin
song, The Curtain's Falling, maybe it's the hour, but I
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find th~s to be remarkable.
I will try to say this in
an even tone.
Is it possible that I can come here this
evening and ask you to wait two more weeks while I
present you with a proposal, after we have been waiting
almost two and-a-half years to get here?
Is it possible that the people on my side of
the room and the neighbors, all of whom who are sincere,
really have the same idea about what happened?
Do you think that one of us is accurate and the
other one isn't on the issue of why we haven't talked to
one another?
You, who were on the committee, know what
happened. You spoke to the neighbors. You spoke to us.
Is there anybody else in this room who has made
concessions or attempts to move by reducing hours or
making other concessions, etc.?
I think that it is just, frankly, astounding
that when one of the members of the Council asks: What
is it you want? There's no answer. And that is the
fact, there is no answer, except nothing.
If there were an answer, I respectfully submit
they would have responded a year-and-a-half ago.
So I don't think that blame is a good thing to
talk about at one o'clock in the morning.
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But I want to end what I have to say by
indicating that in all of the years that I have been
doing what I have done, I don't think that I have ever
really met any group of people quite like the group of
people I represent.
And, whatever happens, I want the public record
here to reflect that it was a privilege to represent
them.
They are good people. They are the only people
that I have ever met in my business, over 36 years, who
have only one goal in mind: to pray and worship God and
make the lives of other people better for it.
So thank you for your patience. Thank you for
listening to me. I appreciate it.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Okay. That brings
us to the Tiburon Neighborhood Coalition.
You have 15 minutes. But you don't need to
take it, if you can do it in 10 minutes.
MR. VOLKER: Thank you, Mayor Smith.
A few points: The Council asked for direction
with regard to the parking requirements. They are
pretty clearly set out in the zoning code. We mentioned
this in our briefs, but just as a pleasant reminder, I
would like to refer you to Zoning Code 16-5.8.2, that
defines the criteria that must be satisfied where
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off-site parking is provided.
There are basically three requirements.
Off-site parking has to be within the city. It
has to be within a commercial zone, and it has to be
secure, either by a covenant in favor of the city, or a
lease.
It's right there in the code.
There's no discretion given to the city to
bypass that.
That might be a big step forward in solving the
parking issue here.
In addition, as we have mentioned, there are
some enforcement issues that challenge us but I think we
can tackle.
One of the public comments mentioned that this
design would promote the public health and safety. I
beg to differ.
I used to be a firefighter for the US Forest
Service. I know it's very important to gain access
around the perimeter of a building to fight a fire.
The proposed classrooms would prevent access
around the back of this building.
It's a no-brainer. It's not a very healthy
situation for public health and safety and emergency
vehicles.
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There was also a point made that this school
site was originally approved for a much larger facility,
77,000 square feet.
What was omitted from that testimony, however,
was the fact that at that time this school site was over
20 acres. I think it was perhaps 26 or 7 acres. It's
now just under 7 acres. So you can see there's a big
change there.
It's also been suggested that size really
doesn't matter. We can depend on monitoring and the
monitoring by the staff of the city as well as by the
neighbors will identify uses that weren't contemplated
when the project was approved.
In my experience, that rarely happens.
That's why courts routinely require that when
one approves a larger facility that you have to consider
the growth-inducing impact of the size itself; that it
tends to attract use. It's in the nature of the beast.
Here we are asked to approve a project that
would add more than 9,000 square feet just for one
building.
That 9,000 square feet, if you run it through
the zoning code requirements for parking spaces, yields
a pretty large number, 250 parking spaces, at the one
space for 40 square feet; 161 spaces, if you use the one
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space per four seats. And that's just one room.
If at the same time the multi-purpose room is
engaged to capacity, other facilities such as the
sanctuary are in use, then the parking requirement
becomes an even larger number.
These are simply numbers in your Planning Code
that should be followed here, and we ask that you follow
the Planning Commission's guidance, disapprove the
project as proposed, urge the parties to work on
compromise so that we can find a solution. Thank you.
MAYOR SMITH: Thank you. Greenwood Beach?
Anybody here for Greenwood Beach who wants to
do rebuttal? Apparently not.
During this hearing we received a suggestion
that maybe TNC wants to submit something to the Council
within the next week. Do you plan to do that?
MR. VOLKER: I do, yes. Thank you.
MAYOR SMITH: Based on that, what I am going to
do is I am going to close the public comment period in
this meeting subject to the receipt of whatever TNC
wants to provide in the next week.
If the TNC decides they want to provide us with
something different, something that was not presented
here for this hearing, then I think we will allow public
comment related specifically to that.
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Other than that, I will close the public
comment part of the hearing.
MR. VOLKER: Thank you, Mayor.
MR. RAGGHIANTI: One question, Mr. Mayor.
Can we comment on what's submitted?
MAYOR SMITH: I think that's exactly what we
are talking about.
MR. RAGGHIANTI:
copy of it?
MR. VOLKER: Yes, of course, it will be public
record. We would be happy to share it with all parties.
MAYOR SMITH: All right. I will consider it
In writing?
Will we get a
your responsibility, as it is public comment,
effectively to whatever they present.
MR. RAGGHIANTI: Thank you.
MAYOR SMITH: So you will copy them on it?
MR. VOLKER: Of course. Thank you.
MR. RAGGHIANTI: Thank you.
COUNCIL MEMBER GRAM: With no threats.
MAYOR SMITH: All right. With that, I believe
we have closed the public comment period, with the
exception of that item, and we will adjourn this
meeting.
COUNCIL MEMBER SLAVITZ: So moved.
MAYOR SMITH: All right.
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1 MR. WALTROUS: Until November 15th.
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2 MAYOR SMITH: Until November 15th.
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STATE OF CALIFORNIA
: ss
COUNTY OF MARIN
I, the undersigned, a Certified Shorthand
Reporter of the State of Michigan, and Notary Public of
the State of California, do hereby certify:
That the foregoing proceedings were taken
before me at the time and place herein set forth; that
any witnesses in the foregoing proceedings, prior to
testifying, were placed under oath; that a verbatim
record of the proceedings was made by me using machine
shorthand which was thereafter transcribed under my
direction; further, that the foregoing is an accurate
transcription thereof.
I further certify that I am neither financially
interested in the action nor a relative or employee of
any attorney of any of the parties.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have this date subscribed
my name.
Dated:
~ ~ dO()&
~.Il1.~
DIANE M. 'GALLAGHER, R
CSR (Mich) No. 2191
Notary Public No. 1419258 County of Marin
State of California
My commission expires: 5-20-2007
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