Sausalito’s new city manager charged in waterfront break-in

The city manager of Sausalito was charged with a four-count criminal complaint Monday for an alleged break-in on the waterfront, but she avoided a felony case.

Elaine Forbes, 53, is scheduled to appear for arraignment on Tuesday morning in Marin County Superior Court. The misdemeanor charges include one count of prowling, two counts of unauthorized lodging involving two different boats and one count of petty theft of personal property.

Forbes remains in custody at the Marin County Jail.

Forbes, who lives in a floating home in unincorporated Sausalito, was arrested early Saturday morning after she was found inside a yacht at a different marina, the Sausalito Yacht Harbor.

The arrest happened two days after the Sausalito City Council met in closed session and approved a two-month leave of absence for her.

Forbes, the former director of the Port of San Francisco for nine years, started the Sausalito job on July 1.

Both the city and Forbes’ family hired crisis communications consultants after the arrest.

“Our thoughts are with Elaine and her family,” the city said Monday. “She remains on a leave of absence while we evaluate the facts surrounding the matter.”

The family’s statement said: “Elaine Forbes has devoted much of her life to public service and is widely respected by the many people who have worked with her over the years.”

“We ask that no one rush to judgment based on limited information. Elaine is experiencing a mental health crisis,” it said. “As the facts become clearer and Elaine obtains legal and healthcare counsel in the coming hours and days, we hope people will respond with compassion, patience and respect for her and her family during an extraordinarily difficult time.”

More details have emerged about the events leading to her arrest.

On Friday, a former coworker concerned about Forbes filed a missing persons report with the Marin County Sheriff’s Office. The alleged burglary happened the following morning.

Bill Aubrey, the captain of several vessels at the Sausalito Yacht Harbor, said he found Forbes aboard a client’s 75-foot cabin cruiser.

“I have a vessel that I keep in the same harbor and I happened to be on board over the weekend,” he said. “So when the horn was going off at 5:30, 5:40 in the morning, I recognized the sound. I got up and actually rode a bicycle over there, and that’s when I discovered that someone was inside the vessel — in the wheelhouse.”

“Even though she had locked all the doors, I was still able to get in and I confronted her,” Aubrey said. “Basically, I told her to get the heck off the boat, and then she looked at me and had a smile on her face, almost like she didn’t realize that anything was out of the ordinary.”

“I said, ‘Why don’t you sit down and relax for a few minutes?’” he said. “At that point, I called 911, and the Sausalito Police Department was there in less than a minute and a half.”

“The officer, I don’t recall his name, came on board, and he asked her, ‘Are you Elaine?’ And she said yes. And he said, ‘We’ve been looking for you,’” Aubrey said.

“Then he asked if I could be excused because he wanted to speak to her. I figured everything was safe and sound with him on board and with her demeanor.”

Sausalito police called the sheriff’s office and asked it to take over as a “courtesy report,” Marin County sheriff’s Sgt. Adam Schermerhorn said Monday.

Forbes, who was wearing navy blue shorts and a gray T-shirt, was given a blanket to warm up, Aubrey said. She was escorted to a patrol car, where questioning continued.

For more than two hours, police searched the cabin cruiser “and looked at everything she may have touched,” he said. They took two empty liquor bottles – Grey Goose vodka and tequila. Some glasses were on the countertop.

Forbes apparently told officers she also had been aboard a neighboring boat, Aubrey said.

Police contacted the owner, went aboard, but found “nothing was disturbed,” he said.

Forbes was taken to the Marin County Jail and booked on suspicion of burglary, a felony. The bail amount was set at $50,000.

As word of the arrest spread, calls for support emerged. Positive People for Sausalito, a community group, sent out an email in support of Forbes.

“We are terribly upset by this,” it said. “Ms. Forbes’ background as head of the Port of San Francisco is an exciting and promising background for Sausalito.”

“This is a difficult personal situation for her and a real setback for the city,” it said. “The investigation is ongoing, and out of respect for that process and privacy, we won’t speculate about how it may proceed or resolve.”

Diane Oshima, who worked under Forbes for a decade at the Port of San Francisco, was baffled by the arrest.

“I really have nothing to compare it to because it is counter to my experience and my personal relationship with Elaine,” she said. “I was very excited for Sausalito to have her as a city manager because her specific experience and career as a public government official seemed to line up so well with the needs and the issues Sausalito faced.”

“I hope people can find compassion to help resolve the situation because we all are vulnerable to some of these episodes,” she said. “This is a new event that I never would have expected to have to address.”