City Council - Regular Meeting

Um, Francancy here.

and keep dipping into the general fund or continue to cut away at other services. Um, EMS should be a standalone utility and cover its costs. Uh the city has unfortunately too frequently too often just been to kick the can down the road and hope for better times. Um we can't continue to do that. We need to have sensible um uh budgeting and and um income and expenses and we need to cover our cost now. So let's pull the bandage off. Let it rip it off. It's going to hurt. I'm sorry for those people who are going to be impacted negatively. I know it will hurt uh low income and people on a tight budget um and a fixed income, but then hopefully in years to come uh the city can just kind of keep things increased on a very nominal basis as they should annually increase. Just a few dollars here or there, not 30 or $40 a month. But I don't know. I think the council should go ahead and pass the uh proposed EMS tax rate increase at the full amount and get it over with. Get it done. So, thank you. Thank you. Are there any other public comments? All right. So we'll move on to council president with the consent agend's consent agenda which includes the minutes from the January 28th meeting the account payable and payable second motion has been made and seconded. Is there any thoughts or discussion on this? Seeing none in favor

oppos. All right. Thank you. Right. Uh for the mayor report, I just wanted to let you know um I today I was at the uh AWC conference in Olympia where the mayor is the CEO. It's kind of an eye openener and I um have lots of great ideas. I need to come back and talk over this in the council and Ruth. Um uh yesterday was at the Port of Grace Harbor um uh point in time sats a business park and council president of Swirl was there also representing the city and um our board's doing great things and always been doing great things. They're doing a great job. The government board expansions come along wonderfully really excited. Um and then um yesterday I was at the the Harbor Transit Board and I'm I'm on that board. Um so we're right now going through all our policies and and um a few each at each meeting and um one of them was our code of conduct and we're come through the city here because it deals with the city also. So, um just a process that they do every every month we review a few a few ordinance or our policies and see what we can what needs to be adjusted. That's all I have for my report. Um council reports and start off with our student representative.

All right. Um over the past weekend, our high school cheer placed third at state, beating a national champion team. Not only did we beat a national champion cheer team, we also scored 82.3, which is the highest average high school cheer has ever scored. And that places us 11 points behind the current world champions. Also, we are sending over 20 students to sing at the Washington Music Educators Conference Choir concert, um, which only features three to four Washington schools. And on Monday the 16th, I'll be attending the Just Leadership Conference at Aberine High School where schools from all over the state plan to attend this conference. Right. Thank you. Are there any other council reports? Well,

I took part in the real estate uh committee. Um I also attended the second.

Okay. the uh Southwest Regional Transportation Planning Organization. Um that was it. I don't have too much reporting.

President,

another lengthy one for you guys. Again, this this council meeting, I've been tasked by the mayor to fill any empty council seats for city committees, spanning boards for outside agencies. uh emails were sent out to each of you. So far, it looks like we've covered our bases. I'm still just looking for someone to step up for the parks board. If that's something you're interested in, please come chat with me after the meeting. I did attend the parks board meeting just last week. Uh so far, good things for this year. We've repaired fences at Finch Park. We're also painting those bathrooms with graffiti proof paints. Uh we installed a new spigot at Garly Park for the dogs to have some water. and the mobile surveillance unit has been moved to Morrison Park. I met with the chair of the economic development advisory committee to get an idea of what they've been working on. They've narrowed down their core priorities and the research process has been delegated to members of the committee. Last Friday, I sat in on Greater Grace Harbor's legislative affairs briefing on Friday morning. I asked Representative Walsh what momentum House Bill 2489 has up on the hill. He and Greater Grace members has shared that if the bill is presented on the floor in the coming weeks, it is not likely that it will pass. I'll continue to stay up to date on its progression until the end of the legislative session. I also attended the real estate review committee, the police pension board meetings on Monday. Yesterday, I attended the Port of Grace Harbor annual business report on Tuesday. As the mayor mentioned, we are celebrating 115 years of having a board here at Grace Harbor, which is definitely something to be recognized, as well as the fact that they were awarded port of the year last year for 2025. Lastly, I printed out the mission, vision, and goals, which includes the council priorities for each of you. I just wanted you to all have them readily available so that while you're thinking about things you may want to work on

this year, you can find a priority that it aligns with. That's all for me. Thank you. Thank you, counselor. We'll move on to staff reports with administrator plans. Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to report out to all of you the fourth quarter metrics for 2025. This is our final metrics of the year. Um, and I'll do a summary after each um section. sharing this.

So again, this is from the fourth quarters. like the next staff for providing me these metrics and um I'll start off by like I usually do by going over the city's mission uh which is to serve with transparency and integrity provide dependable services and public safety to honor our history and be stewards of our natural cultural and economic resources. Our vision for the city of Aberine is created by all of you as the as the metropolitan hub for the coastal region. Aberine is a happy, safe, healthy, thriving community with clean air and durable spaces where people want to live, work and play. Um the council identified um six areas that we worked out of and that was workforce engagement and development, vibrant safe and healthy communities, fiscal responsibility, economic development, infrastructure investment and communication and outreach. Thank you to council president swore for giving you the vision, mission and the goals that were created. Um that's what all of these are based off of. And so the first section that we worked with is workforce engagement and outreach. Um for the four fourth quarter we met um safety meetings and training our monthly and quarterly schedules and we also increase compliance for necessary training. Um both of those goals were met. Um staff attended so a ra a summary of this last year. um staff attended all types of training in 2025 to enrich their skills and ensure that we're meeting industry standards with our organizational practices. That's very important for us to make sure that we know what's going on not only um from a practice perspective but also from a legal perspective to understand if any laws have changed. Staff have done a great job attending train required trainings due to the budget. There are

still restrictions in place for the types of training staff can attend. one of the more one of the those types of research moves with any out of state training are not allowed this year. Um we'll be implementing a succession planning program. HR director Danny Smith will be working that will include a mentorship program. So as we have more and more staff that are retiring, we will allow those staff members to kind of work one-on-one with other staff members who may be interested in um pursuing a career in that in their particular field. Vibrant, safe and healthy community um is our next area focus that involves economic development, neighborhood connections, public safety and revitalization. Um we had 300 our goal was to do 300 business inspections. That's was a particular goal for the fire department. That goal was not met this year. We only had we only were able to do about 108. And I'll give you a reason why when I do the summary wrap up. um an increase. We wanted also wanted to see an increase of residents served for our parks and recreation programming. A slight decrease in the fourth quarter. Um we had an increase in women's sports at the beginning of the year and so around the fourth quarter things started to drop off. I don't know. Um started to drop off or remain the same. Our cornhole leagues kind of remained the same. We did in we did include a new league, a wooden bat softball league. Um so that had about five teams. So hopefully hopefully this next year that also will gain some um increased interest from the community. Um public safety we uh one of the metrics was to maintain the highest um offense clearance rate in Grace Harbor. Um we had uh the new data for this information will be available on July 1st. We also wanted to see an increase in DUI and drug enforcement. Um for the

fourth quarter we had 122 DUI arrests as well as 29 drug arrest and the percentage of radars percentage of speed radar signs that reduce the average vehicle speed. Um we are meeting that goal. I think I had also stated that we will be um installing a new radar sign um in Cosmopolis as well as repairing signs um replacing signs if we haven't already replaced them over on East Street. There were some signs that weren't functioning correctly. So we replace those as well. Um crime reduction that was um prior than the prior year for the fourth quarter um and for the year we were down 11%. um which is the IRA. I I will give you these numbers but Chief Green will provide a full report to all of you in April. This one

sooner than that.

Oh, okay. Um so he will have all the metrics um in there and I think some of the numbers are really positive from what we're seeing so far. Um for fire uh response times um our goal was uh 80 seconds and we are not meeting that goal. We have not met that goal this year, although we have decreased it. Um, we're still at 173 second response time. Training hours, our goal was 10 hours per month per firefighter. We were exceeding that goal in the fourth quarter at 18 hours and 72 or 18 approximately almost 19 hours per firefighter. Um, our turnout time for EMS dispatch, our goal was 60 seconds. We're not meeting that goal. We're still at 143 seconds. And public safety, community satisfaction, we will launch a new survey in 2026. So, just a wrap up of uh 2025 for vibrant, safe, and healthy communities. Our fire department exceeded training time in the fourth quarter, which is very positive. Um Chief Bowling explained that they've detected some issues with the data that's reported from uh E911. So they'll be working with them to determine where those discrepancies may be because they are impacting our our the measure the measurement of our response time. Um the fire department also did not meet its infection rate. The goal was 300 and we were able to complete 108. Um and this is due to training and we also provide classes classes for services. So in 2026, uh, Chief Balding reassured me that there will be a focus on inspections. The police department again was number one for offense offense clearance rate in the county. 214 DUI arrests um total in total for 2025, which is up 6% over the last over the average last 5 years

and 151 arrests in total for 2025. We had 149 in 2024. The next area is fiscal responsibility. That encompasses employee accountability, employee health and wellness, strengthening our finances and our policies. For employee accountability, uh we are meeting all of our goals, ensuring that our accounts payable is 95% accurate, our time sheets are 95% or more accurate, and um our accounts payable are paid within 30 days. I will give kudos to public works who made some key processes changes in the last um year which helped improve improve our time frame of which we we send out our payments um for business licensing um because it's the end of the quarter uh we came in at 691 um of our businesses are not in compliance with um with uh filing their quarterly taxes. That's kind of typical. Most of those businesses are um report zero for any kind of um income that they've received. So they kind of take their time reporting their taxes. So the second quarter we should see or excuse me the first quarter of this year hopefully we'll see an an increase in that compliance number. We had 48 new business applications in the in the fourth quarter. 40 of those have been approved. zero of them, none of them have been closed and um eight of those are still pending licenses. Our utility um bill customer payment compliance is one of the best that I've ever seen. We are at 99% um compliance. Um processing our EMS bills within 3 weeks of an incident. for exceeding that goal at about at at 10 days increase our leverage for funding per year. Uh we

continue to lobby for levy funding and any kind of funding and working with our legislators to ensure that our projects are are going to continue to be funded um and increase the number of grant applications. Um, it was stated in the third quarter that the parks department would be applying for the T-Mobile grant for North End Park Improvements. And I found I discovered that the T-Mobile grant had not been applied for. That is a grant that's open quarterly. So, my hope is that we'll apply for that at the next quarterly opening. The next um focus area of focus is economic development. When it comes to um permits, we issued um or excuse me, community development issued 315 permits. 10 of them are ready for payment, meaning that they're still waiting on people to pay for them. Um we completed 11 11 permits were issued six of them were applicant delayed projects delayed with other partners for review were pre and ready for payment within 30 days are 14. So um they have done a really good job getting the permits out as quickly as possible. Um, other aspects of economic development, we wanted to make sure we were 100% complete on all of our inspections. Our building official conducted in the fourth quarter 251 inspections. Our building specialist completed 163 inspections. She also completed 66 rental program inspections and our electrical team did um completed 261 inspections. The goal the summary for our econom this aspect of economic development was that our goals were met or exceeded in most of

these areas. We um issued over 1500 permits in under 30 days in for the year. We also um conducted over 1,500 inspections just by the building official alone. 199 rental properties were inspected this last year and our electrical team conducted um nearly 1,400 electrical inspections. Those are great numbers from such a small team and from such a a small city like ourselves. Um the next area was infrastructure investment. We wanted to make sure that we're investing in our infrastructure. Um, our GIS data, we are meeting the goal of um, the field crew inputting any kind of GIS information within 30 days. Our catch basin inspections, we did not meet the goal in the fourth Oh, I'm sorry. We did not meet the goal in the fourth quarter um because the vacuum truck was out of service for two months. Um again that would that's also includes not only the inspection of those catch basins but also the cleaning of those catch basins our outfall inspection and maintenance and our elicit discharge detection and elimination. All of those were all of those goals were met. Um when it comes to hydrant we we met all of these goals. That's hydrant flushing, valve exercising, um updating our sewer system on on GIS, compliance with MPDES discharge permits, and um and with whether it's normal average flow or high flow, we met those goals all around. Big kudos to the public works team investing in and replacing um and repairing street related infrastructure. We've met all of our goals. Um, we met

our goals for the fourth quarter with our street sweeper back in um, in action, but overall over the year because it was out for about three months, we we won't be meeting that goal. Um, small mainline replacement, 750 lineal feet, we replaced that. Water leaks, 100% repaired those within within 24 hours. Hydrant replacements, uh, we met that goal. H um hydrant vegetation maintenance met that goal as well as domestic water main lines um vegetation maintenance. Um, we Oh, excuse me. We also met the goal of replacing our annual valve our valves annually. Um, any mainline blockages, broken sewer lines, um, uh, lineal feet of sewer pip pipe replacement, we we aimed for 200. We exceeded that. And then manhole inspections, we've met that goal as well. So this year, um, our goals were met early on in the year, spring and summer. the seasons we tend to get a lot of work done because the weather because of the drier weather. Um our streets like I had stated our street sweeper hours were not met for the year because it was out of service for 3 months. Um as well as the annual goal for catch basin inspection and cleaning u because uh the excuse me the vector was out of service for the last quarter. Um and but our public works crew met their goal of replacing um you know 200 lineal feet of sewer mainline and they replaced 1,500. Um communication and outreach is our last area of focus. Uh and that covers communications, employee accountability, neighborhood connections, partnerships and public safety revitalization. um citizen action request. Thanks to the leadership of Britain group and the

changes that they made there, they now have been meeting the goal um which was a different tune from the first quarter. So they send out letters within the fi first five days and they log it and they are able to um get uh community issues resolved immediately. Um increase youth participation a government. um in 2026 we do have a um new student council member um so we did work through the process I think with the help of um council president swore um we I think we've improved the process now that we now have a process down for next year so that we can get that done um more immediately um increased participation in adult sports uh co volleyball again we introduced the wooden bat um softball sport we had five teams five teams joined that league. Um, but we were down a a a team with co-ed volleyball and cornhole and four on four basketball remain the same. Community education on how to hold an event. Um, we will include that in civics academy. Um, so civics academy was created um sometime in the fourth quarter. So, and that will be something that will be realized in 2026 and increased sports programming or programming for teens and seniors. Uh, for the fourth quarter that was not met, partnerships and revitalizations um revitalization increase the total maintenance labor hours for the parks and through volunteerism. I think we still struggle in this area um when it comes to like that particular goal. So, I hope for 2026 I'll revisit this. Um, but really the only volunteerism that we had in the fourth quarter were the holiday Christmas baskets. Um, we also wanted to increase the number of requests for business donations and sponsorships. We did not meet that goal not only in the fourth quarter but also

in the third quarter. And we also wanted to increase the number of festivals and events in the fourth quarter. We really overall only had two events in the fourth quarter. So um a measurement was to increase the number of festivals. So in the in the fourth quarter we had the Halloween spooktacular and Winterfest. And Winterfest kind of encompassed a lot of different activities that include the tree lighting at Seasco Park, the trolley ride, the holiday markets, um the breakfast with Santa, the gingerbread house competition. Uh Chief uh Chief Green also told me of a couple events that the police department held which was shop with the cop and the giving tree. So for 2025 um again changes to citizen action request resulted in positive changes and more accountability. Um there were really no changes to volunteer opportunities. So I think there's an opportunity in 2026 to revisit that and see how we can improve that particular metric. um the new wood softball league. Um most sports have the same numbers as last year. So I will work with the parks department to determine if there's a way that we can get more um engagement with the community and more participation. Um in 2026, uh we had this is our second year of having a student council representative. We actually expanded it now. So we have an alternate who's also present in student council meetings. And then um committee volunteerism this year also um increased tremendously with the in with the inclusion of new committees like the utility rate advisory committee and the economic development advisory committee. So my overall thoughts for 2025 was that it was a very productive year for operations. We had excellent growth. Police had excellent numbers under um

DUI and drug arrest. public works sidewalk implementation and process improvements and overall um I've heard from many of the public works uh employees that morale is up and they're very pleased um with how things are going um which I think is a testament to Rick Sanger's leadership um HR um she is a team of one and our staffing needs have been met you know she's very attentive to what staff needs ensures that they get the training they So kudos to um Director Smith for the hard work that she puts in day in and day out. Um our finance and business licensing um we're very fortunate to have uh Katie Williamson on board who's kind of took the job and ran with it and she's implemented so many improvements already. Um improvements that hold employees accountable but also hold our businesses accountable when it comes to their um taxes. Um, our fire department has made important changes and they will be making additional important changes in 2026 to meet their goals. Um, and then our parks department has made great contributions to community engagement and look forward to more um, changes coming up in 2026. Community development um, had a milestone year. Um I believe that uh director Scott reported out on the numbers, the financial numbers that came out. Um and she's just made some key hires that have really changed the way that things are done around the city and the way that we're addressing things through code enforcement. And I've just heard a lot of really positive statements, including one at several at a consortium that I attended with other cities who and um organizations from around Grace Harbor that gave kudos to and said that Aberdine is the best city to work with when it comes to the permitting process when it comes to any

new developments. That's very very positive. We she we've really turned the corner that way thanks to Director Scott's leadership. um and she's improved a lot of processes and made um made things easier for for the community to submit and and apply for permits. Um I hope that these metrics are helpful for all of you and that they help you and the community connect how we used our tax dollars and the outcomes that they provide. Um, I would say that staff overall performance was excellent through this exercise and um, it also helps us identify the areas where we do need improvement. So, I'm looking forward to any feedback that you might have. Um, so just a reminder that for 2027, we will be developing new metrics as part of the new strategic plan that all of you will be revisiting. event as well. I would like to um include more metrics on parks, economic development, park uh volunteerism and code enforcement and possibly homelessness if the city wants to entertain that, you know, that topic again. Um but that's something to think about um with in 2027. I would love to use the town halls that we have um or that we're we plan to have in 2026 and the survey, the community satisfaction survey that we plan to submit um or to launch with within the community to see what people care about, what they think we should be measuring. And um one thing that I had to be really careful about when it came to these metrics was I had to be careful not to let the metrics completely determine our our our operational outcomes and the way that the city is run. They are very good to use. They they really do help connect people to actual outcomes. But um uh you know I I was really careful not to to base all of our operational procedures on that. So I just want to say thank you. This

was a successful year for all of us thanks to your support and working with us. And I've really enjoyed I know these are these presentations are pretty dry, but um they are important to report out and I hope that you got value from it just as much as we did in in tracking all of this information. So I'm open to taking any questions you might have. Uh I just have two more things to report out. The AWC conference is June 23rd through the 26th. I did reserve um three rooms. So, one room is for the mayor and I have two spaces available for any council members who may want to attend. It's a very all a lot of cities attended. It's very important. They give um a lot of important information and training there for all of you elected officials. So, it is a good way to make connections and to learn what other cities are doing and and and how they're solving problems. Maybe there's something that we could learn from them. So again, I do I'll I'll let council president kind of determine how to you know who wants to go work with all of you. And then um lastly, we had our first um civics academy class uh this last um last Thursday and it was excellent. Uh what a great group of people. They were engaged. It was fun and they learned a lot and um I they get got a little taste of of what it's like to manage a city. Um, tomorrow will be the um, finance class that will be led by finance director Katie Williamson and that will be hosted at the log pavilion. So, I'm open to any questions you might have for me regarding those topics. Thank you very much. Thank you, Administrators. Are there any director reports? He'll give a a quick update on our projects for over the year.

Yeah, we actually didn't plan. Sorry. All right. We didn't plan on, you know, going, you know, a recap of 25 and then launching into what 26 looks like. But uh it's great opportunity to dive into that. So share screen here real quick. So what we wanted to do is is as um director Sander noted uh we want to talk a little bit about what 2026 is going to look like for the public works department and our capital program. So, what we have um and I apologize, you know, the the text is tiny because there's a lot of activity that we are currently working on. I have handouts for the council members. Uh what you're seeing on the screen right now is a list of all of our projects that we're using to kind of track uh what is happening, where we're at, and where we're intending to go. So, in your in your packet that you do have, uh there's actually a fullsized one on the back so you don't have to strain your eyes. uh if if you want to go all the way back there. I had kicked around the idea of going through every single one of these projects, but I thought that you guys would like to do a home site tonight. So, we're not going to do that. We're going to hit kind of the high points here. Um but in general, in in looking at this, you can see um you know, I we've colorcoded it in three different categories. We have plannings and studies. Those are shown in light blue. We have pre-construction activity which is you know preliminary design, rightway acquisition, uh permitting, that sort of stuff that leads us into construction that's shown in pink. And then we have construction activities that are shown in green. There's a number of advertisement windows that we're also identifying that you know we need to make sure that we're hitting. Um so that at that stage likely there's going to be

an award that's going to be coming back through council. So, this is more of of just a a general awareness. Part of um what you may or may not realize is is the amount of of dollars that we're spending on capital projects. And so, um this is just a quick little snapshot of the 2026 budget specifically relating to the capital projects that we're facilitating. So, right now we have $35.66 million allocated to these capital projects and that's for 2026 alone. uh next year is is projected to be significantly more. There's a little distribution here where the majority of our spending is is in the arterial streets program. Uh that is, you know, the the bigger projects, the rail separation, the bridge, um uh the US 101 safety and Peru project. So there's a a number of transportation elements that are baked into the 105, but you'll also see, you know, there's spent at plant and for other various uh wastewater projects. approximately $5 million allocated uh in the water fund and and little over 5 and 3/4 million allocated in the storm water fund. I want to note that there is a a a chunk roughly a little over a million dollars that is allocated in the 105 fund that is being transferred from uh the the transportation benefit district. This is where it kind of gets interesting though is is when you look at the sources um the the light bulb turned on for me the other day when this right there right now you know when you look at that $35.66 million that's a lot of money that we are spending um when we talk about the the actual you know city revenues or city city dollars that are being spent on that roughly 6.7 6.8 8 million or under 20% of that that total allocation. There is, you know, quite a bit of debt service that is that is

baked into this. Uh that is roughly 27% or 9.5 million. But the one thing that really stood out was there's over $19 million in grants that we're responsible for. One of the challenges associated with that much money in grants is you know there's 17 different um you know grant loan or external funding agreements that we're responsible for. Every single month we're requesting reimbursements. There's an expectation of you know progress reporting that goes along with every single one of those. Uh so there's there's a lot of lifting that goes on behind the scenes that that um isn't exciting, isn't sexy, but at the end of the day it's providing a massive benefit to the community to the human von $20 million and and external money that that we're bringing in and executing improvements in in that. As far as the the big elements in 2026, uh we have three big projects that you see in the budget when we talk about dollars and everybody's aware of the rail separation. The wastewater treatment uh critical improvements project is another very big project. That's a a project that nobody sees, nobody hears about, uh but it's necessary to improve our wastewater treatment plant. We have a couple other projects that are coming on the tail of that as well. Uh so unfortunately the operators are going to see you know another probably three or four more years of construction activity at the plant carrier pump home station which we'll be talking a little bit about tonight. Uh that's the other the other big project. Um one thing to to note um what I did include in in the previous slide as it relates to grants last Thursday we actually secured another $1.6 million for the Farragate pump station. And so presuming that there's no major substantive changes, um we will be able to facilitate the Fargate Palm Station improvement project without any debt service, without any uh capital expenditures, you know, from the city.

So it will be 100% grant funded. So we're pretty excited about that. The top four projects as it relates to effort and I I thought it was very important to differentiate budget and effort. Uh we have external support. Um but in some cases like our US loan safety improvement project we are internalizing 100% of the construction management. Um some of you may have heard you know about the frustration we had last year with the amount of money that we were spending to provide external support and still having to provide a lot of the the light work on our end. We just decided we're going to do it this year. And so that project is going to have probably a couple thousand man hours that's going to go into facilitating the construction management as well as you guys have probably seen the teams out there already relocating water lines where new concrete is going to be going. So uh Mike and the water team have been out there for the last couple of weeks. uh we expect they're going to be out there for probably uh three or four more weeks uh to get to a point to where uh the contractor can start and and then we can go ahead and start dropping a moment. That project we are hoping to bring to council toward the next council meeting. Pioneer for field uh three is another one that is almost 100% internalized. Um the engineering team is is facilitating the design. uh the operations team is going to be doing uh probably 90% of the construction activities. So again, you know, our guys are really excited about the opportunity to to go create uh you know, the first turf field in Aberine. So, uh we're we're really looking forward to that, but it is a big pretty big lift. And then the other two two big ones from an effort standpoint is getting the rail separation and the bridge um that ring bridge across the finish line so that we can advertise towards the tail end of the year. One of the things that I I really wanted to point out uh though as it relates to

our workflow is uh this chart and I apologize I'm I'm a numbers nerd. Uh I look at this stuff and I get a kick out of it and this tells me a story. So let me just quick summarize um you know what we have going on here. The blue lines are the planning projects you know per month. The red lines are the uh pre-construction activities per month. And the green lines are the construction activities per month. And the you know line up top indicates how many total projects that we have going on at any given time. So in February right now we have 35 active projects. And what that means is that there is an expectation that all of my team members or or somebody on my team is needs to know what is happening on every single one of those projects. If there's something that comes up, we need to be able to respond. If one of you ask questions, we need to be able to respond. And it what I like to avoid is the concept of, oh, hey, let me go let me go look into that. I like to make sure that we have the answers so that we're able to respond, you know, rapidly. And that's essential when you get to construction. If there's a problem, we need to make sure that we're responding rapidly. If we're not responding rapidly, delays come into play. That increases costs. That translates to bigger impacts for for all of us. One of the things that we identified is that as we advance into the construction season this year, we're going to have 14, and this slide is actually incorrect. It's 15 active construction projects uh over the summer. Um, I can honestly tell you that in my career, I've never encountered something like that. And honestly, I hope to never encounter it again. This is going to be a massive lift. I'm not excited about it, but we are going to get through it. So, but it's but it's important to kind of raise the awareness um that where we're at is where we're at and we're going to continue put one boot in front of us and, you know, get across the finish line. That is the the desired

goal. you'll see that the total number of projects starts to die down towards the end of the year. That is um actually intentional um at the end of the year. You know, the expectation is is that we're going to be need lifting off the ground rail separation and the North Avenue Bridge, which you know, those two combined are almost $100 million total. So, those are going to be very heavy heavy lifts for Martine as well. As it relates to delivery team members, um many of you know this um many don't. So I wanted to kind of walk through it briefly. We have um you know six team members including myself uh as it relates to the engineering staff. We have Kyle our E3. We have three different E1s Kevin Gabby and andre we call them AC. We've got Trace. Those are the people that are responsible for delivering all of those projects that I that I showed you. We have to be touching all of them. just give something to a consultant and say, you know, go solve. Um, we have to take that thing across to the finish line. So, one of these people are going to be touching that project and shephering it all the way through. So, keep in mind, just doing some quick math, that's 36 projects. Each one of these people are dealing with a move six projects and that's assuming that we're not overlapping as well as dealing with all the permitting tasks and all the other things that that come to fruition uh that are that are asked of us. Sometimes we do have a lot of external support. Uh 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 different consulting firms that we're working with. Um so it's it's a challenge trying to remember everybody's name sometimes. Um u but we are also working with a lot of contractors as well. So the key piece is um 2026 what should you what should the community expect? Um, most of the construction projects when you go through that cheat sheet that I gave you, most of those projects would be quote unquote out of the way. And so, what does that mean? That means in most cases, you're not going to experience

those on a on a day-to-day basis. Um, that's not to say that all of them are going to be that that way. Uh, pump station 13, for example, over on height. Um, when we reconstruct pump station 13 on height, the people that live over that area are going to be intimately aware of that reconstruction project. unfortunately. So in most cases as you're traveling around through Avenue, you're not going to see most of these projects. The one big one is the US safety improvement project which is from the Sherless River Bridge all the way to Kazy city limits. Um that road uh we're facilitating a road diet. So, we're basically taking those two lanes uh and converting them to one lane directionally and adding bike lanes, modifying the pull belts and and adding um you know storm drainage through the area. So, there will be a lot of construction activity this summer in that area. There will be traffic impacts in that area 100% guaranteed. Then the last piece that is I wanted to make sure that we hit was that our workload, our our capacity from a permitting standpoint summer, we identified all those construction projects. Our capacity this summer will be impacted. And so please be patient. You know, if if you hear complaints about, you know, permit response time, we just talked about the metrics. One of the things that helps us is getting those in before we get to construction. So, the sooner we can get stuff in, uh, the sooner we can make sure that things are processed, our teams, you know, turning, uh, turning permits relatively quickly right now. Once we get into construction, I I can't guarantee that. So, uh, those are the key things to take away from 20 26. We're happy to answer any questions if you guys have any.

Sir, is the So, is the rail separation project and the the southwest street port or are those both going to be done at the same time? The southwest port. Are you thinking between the bridge and Kazy? No. So that that 101 project, that safety improvement project, we're starting uh hopefully here in the next month, month and a half. Um it'll be done by the end of the year.

It it'll be done by the end of the year. And the rail separation we're hoping to start and break ground uh next year and the same with the bridge. So unfortunately those two are going to happen at the same time. Any others? All righty. Thank you guys for your time. Thank you. Thanks for the great job you guys. Any other directors with reports?

Okay. Move on for a request for council action and go to finance with chair for um report. We are requesting the city council award the 2026 logging tax tax grants as presented and authorize the mayor to sign the grant agreement with each organization. This is same as before but we did the uh inner mountain foundation

second. So there's been a first and a second on this. Is there any discussion? Okay. So, there's been a motion and a first and a second. All in favor? I oppose. Thank you. Next, we have a resolution requesting city council authoring the surplus of the six Daniel defense caliber patrol parals from the police department by resolution. Second.

Been a first and a second on this request. Is there any discussion? Um I do have have a couple questions on this. Um one is the uh who would these rifles be getting sold to? Is it general public or um federal?

Okay. Um, and then just out of curiosity, I was wondering uh how moving to shorter barrels and noise suppressors create a safer um platform I guess.

Sure. So, uh, traditionally, you know, the AR rifle platform is 14 in with the 2in blaster. So, effectively 6 in. So what we're doing is taking in a 12 in barrel and then we have 4 in the suppressor. And what the suppressor does, it takes the the noise from the rifle itself u to level you to sustain it by having an actual shooting. Officers don't lose their ears. Witness don't lose. That's that's what Thank you. There any more discussion?

That's public safety with sheriff. We met earlier tonight. Um not a lot of things to discuss. We don't have any anything for the council tonight. Um except for the thing that finance had. Um we do um um for a police department, we have VIPs that contributed 159 hours during January. If we value that at $1666 an hour, that uh contribution cuts up to over $2,600 in service to the city of Aberine. They also have a vacant police officer position open. And the fire department also has two vacancies. And we learned tonight also that Grace Harbor County is having some discussions on redistricting the county to u ensure that we have better fire coverage in the whole county or fire districts and I have no actions for the council.

Okay. Thank you. The public works with chairperson. All right. Uh we met yesterday but we're trying to change our meeting times to Wednesday uh for um tonight we have four items. One is a public hearing and three reports start with the public hearing. City council shall host public hearing to receive public testimony on proposed annual project for year 2026. or second. Is there any discussion on this?

All in favor of opening public hearing opposing we close the public hearing. Thank you. Second and seconded. All in favor? I post I public hearing now close.

All right, we have three requests. Uh first one is requesting city council to authorize the mayor to execute each PB agreement for fair reservoir number one stabilization and budget. Once formally move that we accept this record. Thank you. It's been moved and secondly discussion on this favor of authorizing the mayor to execute the HPD grant agreement for Fairview Reservoir number one stabilized project. Um if I

I passes. Thank you. Our second report is requesting the city council to aware The third street construction contract to build and third grade and accept this report. Second. Is there any discussion on this? None. All in favor of requesting council to award the ver street construction project to Incorporated. I I post this passes. Thank you.

Thank you. Our third item is requesting city council issue a temporary stay on the grace harbor transit permissive use per associated with improving public facilities within the city's until the schedule is updated. Is there any discussion on this? Just I believe the is so it's a huge amount. Okay, all in favor.

All right. Now, we'll move on to special agenda items with council president. Uh motion for city council to adopt the proposed resolution to accept the report and recommendation from the mayor and the real estate review committee designating the property at 2704 as surplus allowing for the sale of 70 property.

Is there any discussion on this? All in favor of request the city council adopt a proposed resolution to accept the report and recommendations from the mayor and rec designating the property act 2704 as surplus and allowed to be sold. All in favor say I. I 20 2704 what? That's just a house number. It's not necessary. All favor. Thank you.

All right. Um, now we'll go back into public comments and please limit your comments to three minutes and kind start off with your name and your ward or city please.

Hi again. St. Peter board. So, it was interesting when uh um city administrator Clemens was going through all of the goals and priorities and things of the city and the council. I noticed that one of the key priorities was fiscal responsibility. And I do ask you, I think it's very it's not fiscally responsible to not increase the AMS tax. it would be fiscally responsible to cover all of those costs, cover those expenses with that tax increase now so you don't have to keep fiddling around with this in the future. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any other comment

on the tax on our uh property tax? Why is why is it here that we pay Um the way that the RC excuse sorry the way that the um RCW the law is written it is uh utility tax is the form that it takes. Some cities do apply or reach out to the voters to go for levies. Um and so that would be a levy if it was put on property tax. But the way that the RCW is written for specifically for EMS utilities is that it goes through um it's a fee. It's not a tax, but there is a difference. This is the cost of service. So um a tax is a whole other thing than where cities can use taxes for any particular fund for any particular reason where this is a this is a fee for the cost of service that the city is providing to the community. So that's why it's it's done separately because that's the way the state law dictates us to use that.

Never lived in a place before where it wasn't on the tax roll. That's why you just don't get it. That's what that's considered a levy and that's considered a tax. What we what the city is proposing is a fee. It's for the actual cost of service. No different than how you use your water or your sewer service or storm water. Those are fees. They're not considered taxes. So what is the reason that you don't put it on the vaccine any why would why would you not

because we have this is the way this first I hate when to say this but this is the direction that the city has used is for is for that it it involves you know it's just it's just the decision that the city goes with the levies as you can see in the city of Elma they voted down recently their police levy Levies get voted down very frequently and so if the city has the opportunity to use this as a tool, it will use it because it is allowed by state law. Levies typically I think they have also are capped as to how much we can we can appeal to voters to pay for. So, in the end, most likely the city would still be funding and supplementing it through our general fund and impacting our general fund um departments, which includes our police department, code enforcement, parks, and you know, in the streets and things like that. So, strategically and financially, it makes more sense to go for um to to to use the other to use the other the way other route, which was the the EMS cost of coverage. So, sorry that wasn't the best explanation, but I'm happy to speak with you after this and kind of talk to you as well and so or schedule a time to talk with you about this as well.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, Casey Morris one. Um, not that I'm going to like advocate for this position, but one thing I was curious about, council member Hutchkins brought up either last meeting or the meeting before that, um, the idea of privatizing the EMS. So, my hope is kind of for the benefit of the public and the council, maybe that could be part of the discussion coming forward, what that might look like and other options. Thank you. That's a good idea. All right. Is there any other comments? If somebody has anything for the good of the order, I'm sorry.

All All I would say for the good of the order is that the first year I joined council, I attended the AWC conference and it was very eyeopening and it really kind of helped me get get the ground underneath my feet and learn a lot more about municipal operations that are not just revolving around the city of Aberdine. So I'll send an email to all of you about more about that and you can let me know if you're interested. Yeah, it's a great opportunity to meet other people doing the same thing. That's how they to be the the first one that got to carry the African flag in many years was pretty cool in Spokane. I did not do that many conferences this summer.

I'll accept a motion. Motion to second. Second. favor. But thank you guys. Thank you guys for taking your time out of your day.