The city manager of Sausalito has been arrested less than three weeks after starting the job, throwing the city into a period of potential turmoil.<\/p>\n
Elaine Christina Forbes, 53, was booked into the Marin County Jail early Saturday on suspicion of burglary, a felony. Her bail amount was set at $50,000.<\/p>\n
Forbes spent the night in jail and remained in custody Sunday morning. The booking log lists her as a San Francisco resident, but she recently moved to a floating home she bought just outside the northern city limit of Sausalito.<\/p>\n
The alleged crime happened at about 6:50 a.m. at the Sausalito Yacht Harbor along Humboldt Avenue. Authorities received a call about a burglary and found Forbes inside a yacht belonging to someone else, according to Lt. Domenick Yazzolino of the Marin County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n
Sheriff\u2019s deputies handled the preliminary investigation as a courtesy to Sausalito police, Yazzolino said. Forbes said she was having a \u201cbad morning\u201d and told officers to get off her boat, Yazzolino said.<\/p>\n
Deputies took Forbes to the county jail. The state penal code section for the offense defines burglary as entering a building or vehicle with the intent to commit a felony.<\/p>\n
The arrest follows an unusual closed session of the City Council on Thursday to discuss Forbes. After the meeting, the council issued a short statement announcing that Forbes was on administrative leave, and officials took no questions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Sausalito City Council met in closed session today and approved a leave of absence for Elaine Forbes through September 8,\u201d the statement said. \u201cAssistant City Manager Brandon Phipps is Acting City Manager and will oversee the day-to-day responsibilities of City Manager during this period. In order to respect privacy rights and employment laws, the City will not further discuss this personnel matter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayor Steven Woodside and Phipps could not be reached on Sunday. The city released a statement saying it would not comment on the allegations because of the ongoing investigation, but called the arrest \u201ca difficult development for our city staff and our community.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is anticipated the City Council will discuss next steps at its upcoming City Council meeting,\u201d it said. The council is scheduled to meet on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The council appointed Forbes as city manager in May, and she assumed the post on July 1. Her annual salary is $275,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel prepared and deeply called to serve as your city manager,\u201d Forbes said in a letter to the council at the time of her appointment. \u201cSausalito represents a natural evolution of my career and, in many ways, a homecoming.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before joining Sausalito, Forbes was the executive director at the Port of San Francisco for nine years, overseeing a staff of about 270. Forbes was raised in the Bay Area and attended Bahia Vista Elementary School and Davidson Middle School in San Rafael.<\/p>\n
Forbes replaced Chris Zapata, who held the job for five years and is now one of Marin\u2019s assistant county executives.<\/p>\n
![\"Elaine](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/MIJ-L-SAUS-MANAGER-0502-1.jpg\")
Elaine Forbes, executive director of the Port of San Francisco, speaks at an event introducing a new ferry service from the East Bay and Marin to Chase Center in San Francisco in 2019. She became city manager of Sausalito on July 1, 2026. (Karl Mondon\/Bay Area News Group)<\/p>\n
The arrest of Forbes comes as the city faces an array of pressures from without and within.<\/p>\n
Like other parts of Marin, the city is managing a surge in state-mandated housing production and development proposals of extraordinary scale. It also is trying to fortify its sea-level defenses; prepare for one November ballot measure and possibly another involving the Marinship maritime sector; and manage ongoing budget uncertainties.<\/p>\n
In June, the City Council adopted a $29.4 million placeholder budget for the 2026-2027 fiscal year that includes a $1.3 million deficit. Half of that deficit was to accommodate three new staff positions that Forbes requested: community development director, administrative aide and information technology manager.<\/p>\n
In February, an auditor found that city officials made $1.37 million in unauthorized expenditures during the prior fiscal year.\u00a0The spending, which could have been approved by City Council budget adjustments, occurred in 14 funds.<\/p>\n
The city ended that fiscal year with revenues exceeding projections by $1.5 million.<\/p>\n
During a council meeting on Feb. 17, Woodside said the unauthorized spending was \u201cnot acceptable\u201d but apparently not chronic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had three different finance directors during the period, and it\u2019s pretty clear the controls were not as rigid as they should have been,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The city manager of Sausalito has been arrested less than three weeks after starting the job, throwing the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[7,723,181,23,992,100,180,993,266,101,103,102,3624,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-404646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-california","tag-crime","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-marin-county","tag-news","tag-newsletter","tag-north-bay","tag-northern-california","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sausalito","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}