City Council - Regular Meeting

got home. No turn around. Good evening everybody. I have 6:01 p.m. I am going to go ahead and call the April 13th city council meeting to order. All council members are present. So would you please join me in the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. We have some announcements tonight and then some committee reports. Uh, as you might imagine from the agenda, tonight's meeting is all about the all department quarter 1 update work session. Uh, I do want to recognize Dean Williamson who received the mayor's award of merit a couple of weeks ago. We typically do that in this room, but as it happens, we did not. Uh, we did it in the parks department, but wanted to make sure that you were all aware. Uh Dean Williamson has had many years of service to the city, including many years at Washington Park, and is very much appreciated. April 18th, Saturday, coming right up from 9 to 9 to noon at our ops facility will be the spring residential cleanup day. You do need to bring some verification of your residence in the city of Anacortis, and appliances are accepted only for an additional fee. More information at anacordiswah.gov1540. Uh last week, uh Council Member Fantini and I attended the Action Club Awards for their annual Meals on Wheels fundraiser. The Action Club raised almost $45,000 this year for Meals on Wheels. And uh in their all-time um fundraiser total, they have reached almost $260,000 raised for Meals on Wheels. So, we really congratulate and appreciate the action club who are doing such great work on behalf of our seniors. Uh it was also last week that we became aware of a particularly sophisticated fraud attempt uh against one of the city's uh permit applicants. Um this

fraud email looks very much like uh a real email. It came from uh the planning director, not from his actual address, but from an address that you might be persuaded uh is an official address. Uh so we want people to be on the lookout for those kinds of things. One easy way that you can tell that uh an email is fraud uh if it's uh purportedly coming from the city is we do not ask for payment via wire transfer, cryptocurrency, or gift card. Parks and Wreck uh is still entertaining signups for all of their summer recreation programs or actually the signups will start April 20th and then we want to make sure people are aware of kids fishing day at Hart Lake which is May 30th. More information at anacordiswah.gov/490. The community development block grant program, the annual plan for that is still coming up. Public hearing April 27th, that's the second of two public hearings. Comment period is still open. More information at anacordiswah.gov174. And the Gimis ferry will be out of service for maintenance May 4 through 17. Uh Scatter County operates this car ferry. It's not us, but we support uh the the outage in that we provide uh parking on our streets and in our neighborhoods for people that can't uh park in the sky county fairy lot. Notably this year, which follows on last year, no rules are suspended. All the existing parking rules will continue to be in effect during the par ferry parking hall out. And that means um uh importantly, that means that parallel parking is the default form of parking in our neighborhoods and on our streets. So if it's not marked for diagonal or

perpendicular parking, parallel parking is the rule. There is no part of the Oldtown area adjacent to the ferry lot that is marked for perpendicular parking. Uh so you need to park parallel. Uh Sixth Street will not be uh striped for diagonal parking. It will be parallel parking. Anacortiswah.gov/2073's got more information about um the schedule, the parking rules, and your uh compliance with those rules is appreciated. As we've mentioned here a number of times, anacorqua.gov/projects has information about all the various projects that are underway, including the one that you may have noticed on Q Avenue adjacent to Safeway. So, if you want more information about that or any issues, for example, the Gimis Ferry Hallout, you can find those at that project's website. And now council, a couple of your committee reports are on the agenda tonight. Starting with port city liaison committee. Miss Clean McGrath, I see you moving toward the microphone. Are you taking that one? All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh we had our port city liaison committee on meeting on April 7th. Uh all of our council member committee members were here, Mr. McDougall and Mr. Fantini along with staff um and the mayor and representation from the port. Uh we had kind of just a good back and forth, nothing significant details to report. Uh we did discuss um somewhat of what's going on with the port SCA the anacort the port of Anacortis and the port of Scadget and making sure that um they are in good communication uh with one another and then also how the city can also continue to be supportive and in communication with the Port of Anacortis when it comes to um uh recruiting business here, developing business here and and just general goings on. Um, we talked about a little bit about the county economic development strategy, uh, which was completed and I hadn't heard about it. I don't know if any of the other council members present was aware of that, um, strategy that had been developed. So, that was good information for us to be aware of and is on the SCOG website if anyone else would like to read it. Um, we talked a little bit about the uh Washington State Fairies and kind of what's going on with that, the challenges of permitting uh uh statewide and how we can be a be good partners to kind of support efficiency when it when it comes to permitting legislation and things like that. Um, and then we did a quick uh update of the event facility. uh just talking about, you know, what our timeline is when it comes to getting to 60% design. I think we're hoping for the end of this month. Uh and then what the port is going to be working on in

tandem for their surrounding area. Um also the big thing was the fact that we received $515,000 from the state legislature uh for the event facility. That's huge. Was unexpected. um it was not on anyone's radar before I think January 3rd when we hired um our uh lobbyists. So that was a huge accomplishment. And then also uh Representative Larson was able to assist us with getting $250,000 um of federal money. So, while we still need more, that is a good start for uh this first year and uh moving forward, we're excited to work together.

Thank you. All right. Uh do you have something to add to that one? No, I have something uh just a general question, Mr. Young.

All right. Thank you very much. I know that, you know, this has been um a wonderful process and you know, I know it's been challenging to get to where we are now, but the hope is in what we will have with this facility. One of the things that I'm hoping that we do as a a city is recognize in part of the design or part of the motif on the outside our um you know, native land. I I think that it goes so far for who we all are and what our city represents, you know, whether I'm just saying whether that's totem, whether that's a motif on the outside, but just that recognition is so important because Anacortis is the homeland and we always say these things at meetings. we recognize native land, but I think as we continue to build those wonderful relationships with the tribes and and other people of multithnicity, it's important that we um make it part of those structures. I know that the parks are doing this already um you know in others with um you know names of parks. This has been a wonderful push forward and so I just I brought it up before and I just want to continue bringing it up that as we move forward to um 60% and further design um that we don't forget about that piece of it being so critically important to who we are and you know where we want to go. That's all.

Thank you Mr. Young. Uh finance committee anybody? Mayor Walters. Miss Molton.

Thank you. Um the finance committee met last Thursday at 4 PM and it was council members Hunt Cleveland McGrath and me and um our finance director Steve Hogland. And we spent most of the time looking at a draft presentation for the city council update that's scheduled for and the public scheduled for April 20th. And so we'll have a finance update or quarterly and it was a review of the PowerPoint with some different charts that staff has been working on for um easier apprehendability of the information and that was kind of fun to see that work in progress. So we'll find all about that on next Monday. That was it.

Mayor Walters. Thank you. Mr. Mantini, quick question. Um, so when we get that update on the 20th, cuz I'm confused by timing of how all the numbers roll out. Do we think, was it discussed if we're going to have the March financials by then? So, we do well, March. Whoops. Sorry. Sorry. No, we'll have the March financials except for sales tax because we get those two months later. So, well, it'll be April, so we'll have February, but we won't quite have March yet. Thank you. You're welcome. All right. Thank you. Uh, hous affordability and planning, Miss Molton.

I I do know how to use this mic. Um, so the plan the planning committee focus to was today's meeting and tomorrow at 10 will be hacked. So, we got an update about Mayor Walters's executive order in order to streamline our permitting process and adopt the changes recommended by the study done by Matrix Consulting in 2025. So, that's well underway. A lot of internal processes have been are being worked on and have been worked on including um improving this in sort of customizing the smart gov software even further than it has been and standardizing checklists and standard operating procedures for all of staff so that it's more easily understood um by applicants and it's a little more seamless for staff as well and easy if there's any someone has to step in, it'll be easy enough to figure out what to do instead of relying on certain people for certain knowledge um sections. We talked about also a lot of that executive order is about timelines for different stages of permit review. For example, the first review of permits is going to take two weeks, and that's for things like single family residences, duplexes, and small town houses. Larger projects, of course, will take a little bit longer, but that's just one example of the permitting streamline timeline and the review, the predictability of when reviews will happen based on when the applicant turns in all the necessary information. So quarter two the planning department will continue their full court press on permitting. Um another thing that will happen is that some of the things that were sort of overseen by

public works that are more administrative in nature are going to be the responsibility of the planning department and that will also increase the streamlining of it. For example, storm water site plans. Actually, those will be reviewed by a third party, but review and processing of street and alley vacations and filling and grading permits will move from public works to be overseen more by planning because it's more administrative work and that that will also that will streamline things as well. and they the staff will also be looking at the unified fee schedule to make sure that the fees are covering the process the permitting processing and work that's being done. Um we're not going to make money on it but just to make sure that the plane department isn't isn't draining the general fund that it is being paid for the work that it is doing. And we talked briefly about the shoreline management program and our update that is been taken up by the planning commission and that's moving forward along with a critical areas ordinance which was last updated in 2021 and needs to be updated again. So those are both being worked on and I think there was one other thing. Oh, there will be there's being consideration of allowing auto and boat repair in the industrial zone and that will be discussed also by the planning commission before it comes to council pretty soon. Actually, that was a use that was allowed in the past, but with the 2019 development regulations update, we removed that the council removed that from being allowed there. And so that's being revisited because there have been those kind of businesses down there for years. And so that might have been an un

unintended consequence of the of that part of the update. Kind of a quirk in the structure of the code. Yeah.

Yes. Um Oh, and also it was um council members Courier Young, myself, and planning director John Coleman who attended the meeting. Thank you very much. And if anyone is interested in the text of the executive order on permitting, you can find that at anacordiswah.gov mayor. Uh council, any other announcements or committee reports? No. All right. Uh moving on, our next item is public comment. I uh did not receive a signup sheet, so I take it that means no one has signed up for public comment. Would anyone like to jump up at this time for public comment? No. Do we have anybody online for public comment? All right. Well, then I'll go ahead and close the public comment period. Yes. Okay. All right. Thank you. Uh, next up is our consent agenda. Three items on the consent agenda. Council

May Walters, Mr. Young. Um, in lie of unless there's um some Okay. In lie of that, I move that we approve the consent agenda. Items 5 A, B, C. Second. There is a motion and a second to approve all items on the consent agenda. No discussion is allowed on the consent agenda. So, we'll go to a vote. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda say I. I.

All those opposed say no. The eyes have it. The consent agenda is approved. All right. That brings us to our main and only item of business tonight, which is our work session and presentation from all departments um about the progress we've made in quarter 1. We have a couple of introductory slides here that if Mr. Hogland is good enough to advance to, I will give some introductory remarks. uh over the first quarter we have been doing work implementing the executive order that I uh executed on day one uh which has this framework of conservation reformationation uh we don't usually call it that and investment conserve reform invest and you'll see those themes highlighted repeatedly in the presentation tonight we're asking people to conserve money where they can to reform our processes to be more efficient and make our dollars go further and then also we are very much willing to invest money where it means that we will get more payoff going forward. We've been working on improving internal and external communications and a lot of that is on the infrastructure side setting up uh our new internet setting up new processes for improving our communications and we'll continue that work throughout the year. We've been preparing for the quarter 2 permitting sprint that uh was kicked off by the permitting executive order. We've filled uh or otherwise dealt with a couple of department head vacancies and we are preparing for the 2027 budget season uh which promises to be just as much fun as last year's budget season and beginning with capital facilities planning because that informs a whole lot of how we spend a lot of the money in in a discretionary way. So we have new capital facilities planning software that you're going to be hearing about. Um, and all of this has preoccupied a lot of our time, but each individual department has a lot of

its own successes to recite. So, we're going to go through those. I'm uh we are here in a work session format. So, council members need not call um call out to be recognized in order to ask questions. However, we have uh something like 12 presentations, 10 minutes each. So, if we hold to that, we'll be at 2 hours. Um, so what I would suggest is that council members not ask questions during the presentation unless they are short or burning or or actually both. Even if they are burning that they also be short um or you really feel like you've got to have it addressed immediately. Otherwise, if you take notes, every slide has a slide number at the bottom. So if you're taking notes on a particular slide, jot down that slide number and we can quickly return to that slide later so that we can get back to the visual that you wanted to ask a question about. Um so for instance slide four all all the presenter is going to do is type four in and hit enter and it will jump back to that slide. It's very quick to get back to that. Uh so with that introduction I think we are we are almost ready to go here. This this functional org chart is just some highle explanation of where things fit into the city. The um blue boxes are are either departments or divisions. The darker blue ones toward the top. It fiber both report directly to me. They used to be part of um administrative services uh which we sort of condensed when uh that department had left at the beginning of the year. uh otherwise these these pink boxes or purple boxes uh do not necessarily represent the precise divisions within those departments but the functions within those departments. So just a bit of reference we're not going to go go through all this for you

and that leads us to the finance department. Mr. Hogland take us away.

Thank you mayor members of the council members of the audience. So I wanted to give a quick update what we've been doing first quarter so far. So generally the finance department year department's year centers around three primary activities and that's the annual report preparation the annual budget preparation with the CFP we are required to update the CFP every two years however generally we require we um update the CFP every year the capital facilities plan and then the annual audit by the state auditor's office there's ideally these would run concurrently or sequentially. Um, but there is quite a bit of overlap and this year some of you know uh has been a little bit challenging. We are still working with the state auditor's office to get the fiscal year 24 audit finalized. Um, I believe a exit conference invitation went out just today to uh council members. In addition to um the annual audit, right now we're in the um midst of preparing the 2025 annual report. There's um a variety of reconciliations and things that that need to be done before we can print the financial statements or the annual report in total. The annual report because the city manicortis reports on a gap basis generally accepted accounting principles. It's full set set of financial statements with footnotes, supporting schedules, and required supplementary information, uh, affectionately known as RSI. It's important information though, we do have users that rely on our data, uh, for example, rating agencies, uh, for continued ratings of the city's bonds that, uh, continue to be bought and sold on the secondary market. Uh also in first quarter we found the planet software. Miss Hunt mentioned this a

week or two back in her last report of finance committee and this will come into play um in a in a large way when we do the capital facilities plan update. Also the ERP implementation replacing our current Tyler Eden system. It's with another Tyler system called EERP. Uh the process so far has been a number of full day sessions with uh Rhonda Pek. She's um leading that implementation process uh along with the subject matter experts in some of the areas that have been reviewed so far. So the intent is to have the system live July 1 and we'll start using that for fiscal year 27. Another thing we've been working on is trying to procure data from the department of revenue. Uh we want to be able to do um serious analysis on what a BNO tax would look like and it requires access to additional data that we currently do not have. Um we have just within the last couple of weeks finally got forms that we needed from do submitted those forms and now we're waiting to hear back for next steps. So in attention to Mayor Walter's executive order, we've been looking at opportunities to conserve our own budget. So in addition to losing an accounting tech through the 26 budget process, we've eliminated subscriptions that we've typically held on to uh for example the Wall Street Journal, the Kiplinger letter, things of that nature. Um and we've also curtailed in-person training pretty considerably. Um, we have also revamped the budget adjustment request. So, this is a process that we looked at some years ago. We reinitiated and improved that process in laserfish and now have actually released that updated

BAR form, the budget adjustment request form. This is important um particularly so we can actually remove those cost savings that we have found through the budget through for example attrition gains. Uh we can uh have those budget adjustment forms come into the finance department get added to our quarterly budget amendment that comes to council and we won't lose that information. Um what's next for us in the conserve area? deep dive into the expense trends across the city. This is something the mayor touched on briefly in his state of the city, but we'll have more to come on that when we have our future finance updates on the reform category. So, we've um had to review our processes. We've been reviewing our processes to increase efficiencies, but also with the loss of that FTE. We've had to be creative about our coverage in the finance department, and that has resulted in a 2-hour closure of the cashiers window every day from noon to 2:00 p.m. Uh we're also expecting that we'll have additional efficiencies in our new ERP system that'll be coming later um in the year and in the and in the coming year once that that process or those uh I'm sorry once that system is in place and those processes can be better evaluated. Another goal is how we share information. As mentioned, uh we have implemented the budget adjustment form in laserfish. Um and we are also increase or u reviewing the u quarterly updates that will be coming to council starting uh in a week

from from now. Additionally, in order to increase um better improve our communication and transparency, the codified or the fee schedule unified fee schedule will be codified as well. the investment category. We've been um continue to monitor spending across all departments um identify other revenue streams as one of our primary goals. So what we've delivered so far um the 2026 budget reporting tool. So that's been shared with um department heads and managers through uh through SharePoint. It's and you'll see a screenshot of that here in the next uh the next slide. But it's very user friendly and an easy way now that everybody has access to that same budget actual information to more easily monitor their budgets. And again, we're also expecting to see more of those tools as we implement EERP. So, one of uh the most important goals here is identifying other revenue streams and we um worked with the city's operations department to um do the analysis on the city's fleet and then as mentioned continue to work with uh work on getting the revenue information from do to do that analysis of a city BNO tax quickly. The finance department budget overall. You can see the the way the columns are lined out here. This first column, the light blue is 24 actuals. The next column is in blue, light blue

is 25 actuals. And then the next column with the dark blue percentages is the percent of budget spent so far this year in the 26 budget. Next column is the remaining budget and then that light green column is the 2026 adopted budget. So, and then the last column there is how much has actually been spent. So, pointing out that the overall spend rate at 12% for the finance department, it's really skewed because of this inter fund loan down here under miscellaneous internal $700,000 item. That's the in um the inter fund transfer from the general fund to the parks fund for the skate park uh restroom project. That's um the finance department is where those interfund transfer bars numbers reside. Uh everything is pretty much tracking as we would expect. Other than that, um, when you look at professional services at a 3% spend rate, we're getting our invoices from Tyler for the ERP implementation on a quarterly basis. So, that'll change after we get that first invoice. And this, I'll point this out, salary and wages at 26%, very slightly over budget. When we put the budget in place last year, we had a new utility billing clerk who was still in her probationary period. Once that billing position uh finishes the probationary period, it gets moved to a lead position. And I believe that's why that's off. I overlooked that element of the salary and wages budget. So it's uh slightly over budget at this point through first quarter.

All right. Good evening, mayor, council, members of the audience. I'm here to present quarter 1 updates for the human resources department. Human resources supports the full employee life cycle across the organization. Our department is composed of myself, HR director, and one HR generalist serving 295 employees citywide or 247.75 full-time equivalents. We provide support across key areas including compensation, benefits and employee relations as well as recruitment, performance management, safety and training. In addition, we oversee compliance, risk management, and specialized programs such as civil service and LEP administration for police and fire retirees. Ultimately, our role is to support both our workforce and the organization from hire through retirement. As for our quarter 1 accomplishments, we successfully negotiated two major labor agreements. Teamsters um and IAFF both for 2026 to 2028. We also earned the Well City designation which will give us a 2% medical premium discount, excuse me, in 2027. On the public safety side, we made good progress in fire by hiring two paramedics and two EMTs with three of those positions supported by the safer grant. We also continued interviewing for police to maintain a current eligibility list. We also have an opening right now. So we we will be pulling from that list. We also organized and launched police and fire promotional testing which happens every two years including scheduling, written exams and upcoming assessment centers. Um looking ahead uh to the remainder of 2026, we have several key priorities. A major focus will be recruiting and filling the vacant fire chief position along with completing police guild arbitration and contract negotiations. We will also continue progress on digitizing personnel files and

transitioning benefit information into SharePoint to improve organization and accessibility. In addition, we'll implement our 2026 personnel policies, monitor retention and turnover trends, and roll out the AWC online benefits portal. Um, our open enrollment begins November 1st, and we're also preparing to add an HR staffing in 2027 once the retro program contract has ended. Looking at our near-term goals over the next 1 to three years, uh a big focus will be the ERP implementation. Um with the HR module rolling out starting in 2027, we'll also be updating personnel policies to reflect recent state and federal law changes and improving how we track medical leave like FMLA and PFML. Another priority is redesigning our performance evaluations to be more competency based and continuing to monitor frozen positions and budget savings. Um, so overall, uh, this is about improving systems and staying compliant and being more strategic with our workforce. Looking at our long-term goals, the focus is really on modernization and sustainability. Uh, we want to automate more HR processes. That's like onboarding, orientation, and benefits enrollment. Um, this will be implemented through the ERP system and fully digitize and organize all of our personnel files. There's also a strong focus on retention, including tracking turnover and exit feedback with a goal of reducing voluntary turnover by about 2% from our current baseline, um, which is 6.83% for 2025. We'll continue expanding mental health and wellness initiatives and invest more in supervisor training, especially around documentation, performance management, employee relations. And lastly, we'll be focused on building stronger workforce and succession planning um while continuing to ensure

we stay compliant with all the employment laws. Um right now for our budget, spending is coming in um right where it needs to be. Um most of our major expenses are going to be happening toward the end of the year. That is promotional testing which is happening right now. So that will come through probably in a couple months. you'll see that hit our budget as well as police arbitration which hopefully will be scheduled at the end of this year, hopefully sooner. And then overall everything is pacing as expected and the budget remains on track. Okay. Uh I am excited to share with you all what legal's been doing quarter 1. So to get started just a general overview which I won't go through but the big buckets of uh work that the legal department covers from contracts to claims to managing outside counsel to dealing with public records prosecution. So we have a a broad range of things that we cover. recent accomplishments and things of note. Uh I wanted to mention that there was a 16% increase in contracts and modifications in 2025. So we last year had over 500 contracts and modifications. And we've worked hard over the past few years to improve our language around data security and have been able to be more and more successful as time goes on in protecting that that language and contracts to make sure that the public's information is secure. Uh first quarter we were we were successful in defending the city against a SEPA appeal of a determination of non-significance for

ordinance 4092. Uh we also just last week settled a growth management hearings board appeal of a shoreline master program. Uh working closely with parks uh we successfully negotiated a PSSE lease uh for the the summit of Mount Erie that led to some additional income for the city. and we've worked uh with the port to coordinate uh a number of property transfers including a vacation uh to support their west basin development and that work still goes on. So, uh, kind of breaking down based on the executive order buckets, uh, in terms of conservation, one of the biggest things that we have control over in the legal department's budget is using outside counsel. And so, we have handled all of the growth management hearings, board appeals that we've had in house. So, we've we've not spent any money on outside counsel from the general fund. Uh in terms of outside outside counsel for utilities questions because there are questions that come up um I've tried very hard to make sure that we limit those questions to the utilities that are funded by rates. Um in terms of there's not there's not a lot of uh flex in our budget but we but we have tried to conserve where we can. Um staff training is really important in the legal department as laws and things change and we've really made a focus on finding lowcost or free training and staff have been successful in doing that and have gone to a number of training opportunities that that have been at no cost. Um we've made the decision to delay uh supply and training purchases where we can. Um, two examples are, uh, I often go to the conference for the Washington State Association of Municipal Attorneys, and I've decided to to push that off for this year. Um, it's

several days, it's out of the area, so we're going to conserve those costs, and we've talked about sending Greg to a laser fish conference, Mr. Franc, and we've decided that we're not going to do that this year. So, we'll we'll hope for a rosier financial picture in the future to resume those types of training activities. Uh we also have looked at docysine which some of you may be familiar with but many people may not be. It's a platform that we use to allow for electronic signature and it's what we use for all of our contracts. We have to date used it for resolutions and ordinances that council approves but strictly not necessary to to do it for ordinances and resolutions. So we've decided to pull back on that to save a little bit of money there. In terms of reforming, uh there's been a a lot of work that's been done in the laser fish forms realm and big thank you to Mr. France who is our laser fish guru. Uh but we've tried to streamline some of our processes. Uh a one of the big ones is uh contract approvals. So all of those 500 plus contracts have to go through a laser fish form process where they're reviewed and approved. and and we've updated that process to allow for simultaneous review so that they don't get stuck in somebody's inbox, which will hopefully allow us to be more efficient with contract turnover. Uh we also have removed some redundant contract approvals and we've made some improvements to the grants laserfish process. Uh in terms of public records, uh we've been working on building a public records uh request form in Laserfish rather than the form that currently exists in Civic Plus, which will allow us to better track the requests and our responses. Uh in terms of investing, uh one I'm I'm really excited about is uh related to

bidding. Um, so currently what we when we have a a project where we have an invitation to bid, uh, interested parties submit written sealed bids in an envelope and we have an opening with a meeting and people are doing math and we're getting all kinds of forms. Uh, but there are platforms that allow for that process to happen online. And so we've been looking into that and have identified that it has the potential to really save the city some money in a couple of ways. Uh first of all, uh we did a a look at the invitations to bid that we did last year. There were 16 of them and I think we spent a total of 144 staff hours. So, you know, significant money when you look at staff time in real dollars. Um, but the but the bigger potential saving is bidding errors. So, we had a project this last year where the low bidder filled out the wrong form and so we were legally unable to accept their bid and had to award the contract to the next highest bidder which was an increase of $36,957. So, the nice thing about these online bidding platforms is that they won't allow somebody to submit a bid on an incorrect form or if they don't have all of the requirements. And uh that just happened to be a really timely and clear example of why this is helpful. But we often have errors in bids or the math isn't done correctly or we don't have all of the forms. And this will help uh this will help contractors know what they need to do and it will and it will be more efficient with staff time. So, we're looking forward to that. The cost of that platform is approximately $7,000. Uh which we we also have looked at how the invitations to bid were sort of divided between the general fund and the

utilities. And the funding for that is going to be a third general fund roughly a third water and a third wastewater. So, mostly funded by the utilities. The ongoing costs for that will be about $6,000 a year, but we think it's going to be really efficient. So, uh, and then another area where we're investing is, uh, we're making some updates to Laserfish and the way that Laserfish, uh, does records management for us. Uh so right now all of our records management rules live in folders that are in the metaphorical digital basement and there is an opportunity to upgrade so that the retention periods will be tracked by the document instead of digital basement folders. And this is going to allow us to be more proactive about uh disposing of records at the end of their retention period. um making sure that we're updating the retention schedules as the Washington legislature updates things and will allow us to be more efficient. So, we're excited about those changes. So, the remainder of 2026, we plan to fill uh the the now vacant legal assistant position. Uh we also have awarded an unpaid summer internship to an intern who's going to come and help us um who's excited to learn about the legal department and and help us out. Uh again, we're going to complete the transition to transparent records management and laserfish. Uh we are working with the public records committee and the IT department to update document storage protocols. We plan on on resolving to the extent that we can the uh pending growth management hearings board cases without the need for outside counsel. And while there will be many code updates coming up, some of the big ones are an update to the code regarding grants processes

and uh and a complete update of title 13, which is our utilities. In terms of budget, um I failed to change commentary on budget pacing, so you get my oral commentary on budget pacing here, but we're right on track. Um you can see that the overall utilization is 23%. As I said, there's a lot of stuff in the legal department that we don't have control over. Salaries are what they are. Um, benefits are what they are. Those are at 25%. Inter inner fund um percentages are at 25%. Um, our professional services is at 19%. Uh, professional services is where we pay the city prosecutor out of. So, um, that's a little bit low, but that's kind of where we would want that to be. And then you can see supplies. We have we've we've been very careful with our supplies budget and our travel and training budget. So that is it for me. Thank you.

Darcy, if you could stay up there. Yes. Um Jose Cervantes is our uh IT manager, but he's unable to be here tonight. So I'm going to give you his slides. I need you to advance the slides for me.

I'd be happy to do that. Uh so a recurring theme in the IT department is some of the stuff that Darcy uh touched on in the legal department. We are working to improve our efficiencies with our um software um and other tech. So one of those is transitioning the cell phones from AT&T to Verizon. Uh as a result of the transition, you know, they give you those offers of free phones. We were able to take advantage of that, too, for several hundred of them. and uh we're saving a significant amount of money annually as a result of that transition. It was a lot of work for the IT department and a lot of work for other staff. Uh however, we successfully mostly are we're close to 100% on that transition. All the phones have been swapped out and I think some of the mobile data terminals uh still may be required to be done. Uh it has also been supporting the ERP transition in the finance department. Uh and importantly, um it is working on some revisions to our Microsoft contract. Uh you might have seen that was on the agenda. I think it was last week or the week before we pulled it. Uh but it'll be back next week uh working out some additional details on that. That was on your agenda as a one-year agreement, but if we sign a three-year agreement, we can lock in that pricing. So, that's highly desirable. So, we pulled it to change it from one year to three. Uh but you're also going to see some uh edits to prepare for the transition of our telephone system from Ring Central to Teams. Uh it is still evaluating that. So that's not a for sure thing yet. But uh with the new contract, we'll be able to um fully evaluate that on 10 systems and then potentially roll it out to staff. If we do roll it out to all staff, we will be saving several thousand a month just by converting the phone system. Uh and then we will also

be looking at uh integrating our security software with uh Microsoft Defender instead of a separate security program. And if we do that, that will uh also help us save more money per month. It is continuing to conduct uh weekly public IP scans. This is part of their vulnerability management uh sweep. And then they do monthly web application assessments in partnership with CISA, which you can all look up on your own if you want to know what that means. Uh multifactor authentication, I know that one, uh is now fully deployed for 100% of city staff. So that is certainly good news and well well um needed. And uh a lot of what it works on a regular basis is security focused, especially right now given current geopolitical traffic risks. Um but they also are conducting quarterly disaster recovery testing and as part of those um geopolitical risks they have intensified monitoring for high impact environments specifically SCADA the the utilities. You might have read in the news some um places other than here that have had difficulty with foreign agents hacking into utility systems. So we are trying to stay up as much as we can on that giving that really high priority. and they're looking at uh uh a new VPN system that would enable them to provide access to outside vendors for so for instance our SCADA consultant um while not providing them more access than they need. Uh it also expanded our server capacity substantially because uh we are consuming it uh with records and that's uh something related to what Darcy talked about. our records committee will be meeting to try to work on some protocols so that we can generate fewer records, fewer copies of records and

consume less data. Um, and very notably the IT department was able to extend the hard hardware replacement um cycle on our PCs from four to 5 years, which means we didn't buy a whole year's worth of PCs. Um, and then also really notably, they were able to extend the server warranty contracts. They were able to get a third-party warranty contract on some servers, which meant we didn't have to buy those servers. So, that was tens of thousands, maybe $100,000 of savings. Uh, we will have to replace them eventually, but we didn't have to replace them this year. And I think that's the only slide except for budget. Um, and they're they're tracking they're less than 25% in all categories. Good evening, council members, Mr. Mayor, and members of the public, both physically present and virtually present online. I am Jim Lmberg. I manage the city's fiber division. We'll walk through quickly. Um, our ongoing vision, we want to make this bold and upfront, is to contribute to the city's general fund balance. Beyond that, in terms of what we do with the fiber, we are very pleased to maintain continuous internet service availability. We wish to provide the very best in-class customer service among internet service providers. We want to maintain a healthy pace of new customer installations and then provide re rewarding and fulfilling careers to the staff. I feel this is very important. What we've done so far this year is indeed we have maintained 100% availability. Although there have been issues within

homes due to any number of things. the mouse chewed through my cable and and similar sorts of things. As as a whole, we have never lost connectivity to the rest of the world from our from our network core. We are doing very well in terms of new customer installations. We are 26 ahead of where the revenue forecast said we would be at the end of March. So we've installed between January, February, and March 158 new customers, which again is 26 ahead of what the revenue forecast assumed. Our overall take rate is approx slightly over 50% there. Due to the very competent assistance of the city's public works department, we have been able to complete the back backbone construction in the area funded partially by the EDA grant. That backbone construction consists of digging a trench, placing conduit in it, backbuilling it, burying a few volts here and there. We still have to pull fiber through that conduit. We still have to do some fiber splicing, but the basic construction has been completed. So, that's a big woohoo. We have also entered into a contract for on call work for a company that specializes in aerial cable construction. Um, every once in a while, believe it or not, somebody knocks over a utility pole. It doesn't happen very often, or a dump truck forgets to lower their dump bed and drives through the city with a dump truck bed up and snags a cable here or there. And so, we do have a need from time to time for ad hoc aerial work. So, we successfully entered that contract. And then with a big woohoo to the mayor, uh he's been very helpful in uh in revising some of our fiber web pages. And uh that should not go unnoticed.

It's a very big deal. The remainder of 2026, very pleased that we are partnering with the city's senior activity center and the city library. One of our staff will be leading some tutorials that will be open to the public on what you can do with your internet, how you can stream video instead of paying some other unnamed company for your video content, you can pay somebody else a small portion of that what you used to pay and how you can use the internet to to make telephone calls and so on. We will also be continuing to update the fiber divisions uh pages on the city's uh city's uh website. Sorry, there I had a mental challenge for a moment. I've I've included just a little bit of detail there. We will continue to do new customer installations. we will receive uh once I'm able to navigate the EDA's um dungeons uh we'll be able to get the final $225,000 on that uh grant that that is due to us. We will complete and matter of fact we've completed a fair amount of backbone construction in ad hoc locals loces. These are tiny pockets throughout the city where for one reason and another we simply were unable to get the backbone infrastructure deployed as a part of any of our major project phases. we just knew that we were going to have to come back at some point. That was included in FBR's 2026 uh capital facilities plan and that that work is is actually currently underway and more or less completed. Then we also as I mentioned earlier we we reach around 50% of the city's residents and

businesses. Well, that leaves the other 50%. So, a bit later this year, we'll start fairly aggressively doing some marketing in order to reach that non lowhanging fruit, and we'll see our take rate increase even more. Our near-term goals, continue contributing positive cash to the city's general fund, find ways to market to the other half of the city that we have not yet persuaded to become our customers. We want to deploy our own in-house trouble ticket system. At present, we use an outsourced um party for that. Uh but we we want to bring that in-house for a number of reasons. In order to do it better and in order for us to own the historical trouble ticket data, we want to deploy a particular server that will allow us to more efficiently manage the several thousand IP addresses that we have at at present. um we manage them we we use them in a fairly inefficient manner and once we we deploy this additional server and it's not new hardware it's simply a virtual server that runs on hardware that the city already owns we'll be able to manage our IP addresses much more manage and use them much more efficiently we want to eventually sometime deploy the next generation of network techn technology that will allow us to deliver more than one gigabit per second of internet service. We want to market and develop new as yet undefined services. I've had a number of conversations with staff about what else the fiber division might be able to do and and we've we've had a number of conversations and honestly uh I would

emphasize that that remains as undefined. Um but we are convinced that there are other services we can offer other revenues that we can generate. We um believe it or not um I think I will retire at some time. I'm not sure when. It's that horizon is over the horizon still, but but someday it will cross the horizon and approach us. And so we we need to plan for that. Um and and that that was already alluded to in terms of of succession planning. And so we we just want to do a little bit of that. During the next several years, we will find ourselves transitioning from an operating mode of building the network and operating it to more operating the network and maintaining it. And so we'll we'll see a bit of a transition as that happens. Longer term goals. Our current gateway router that connects us to the rest of the world has been in service since 2019 and at some point it will need to be replaced. When that happens, um, it will be a part of fiber's capital facilities plan. We want to evolve our value proposition to remain bestin class. When we started this back in 2019, we had a value proposition. Um, but you know, the world is changing and companies, enterprises, endeavors that do not change with the world eventually get left behind. and we don't want to do that. You don't want me to do that. So, at some point, we'll eva evolve our value proposition in order to keep pace with the rest of the world. And as I've noted before, we'll be developing new services as the market indeed changes. With regard to the to uh the mayor's

executive order, we have postponed a $53,000 expense that was in fiber's 2026 capital facilities plan. We've uh we found a way around that. Actually, it's been the IT staff that's done that. Fiber can't take credit for that. It was it was the IT staff that did that, but the um the fibers CFP is benefiting from that for 2026. We are also we we had in our 2026 CFP $45,000 for outside plant engineering provided by another party, Noah. specifically, we will by and large avoid spending that money. And then uh in terms of reforming, we're going to focus a bit more on how we communicate with the customer base and with the community. And I've specifically noted there to improve fiber web pages, but I would expand that to generically stay say we want to up our game in terms of how we communicate investing. Well, we have completed the EDA backbone construction. We're going to be receiving that $225,000. I I don't know exactly when it will be during 2026, but I I hesitate to put an actual date on it because because it's the government. Uh no, no, it's that other government. It's not this government. Um we are continuing to uh in the ad hoc areas uh build the backbone construction. That is an investment and it will allow us to gain access to additional customers who in turn will will send us a check every month. We will continue new customer installations and get yet more checks, increase the ongoing revenue. will be standing up two dark fiber services, one

for Courtland and one for Samish Indian Nation. Um those aren't great numbers, huge numbers, several thousand dollars a year uh each. Uh but it's it's a bit of of additional revenue and and that's a very good thing. And then we we will plan in late 2026 and during 2027 a fairly aggressive marketing effort in order to reach and win new customers and again that will increase our revenue. Just a few notes about the uh fiber division's financial performance. We've delayed some of our expenditures on supplies and small tools per the mayor's executive order. Um the other improvements line is way ahead. You you see there we've spent 52% of the budget. The reason for that is that back in 2025, we had to ask ourselves as we planned the 2026 capital facilities plan, how much work will need to be done in 2026. Part of that answer was how much work will get finished in 2025. We overestimated how much work one of our contractors would complete during 2025. That work has ended up occurring during the first three months of 26. It's not unplanned work. It's just work that got moved from 25 to 26. And so that's why that number is 52% way above what you would expect to see after 25% of the year having gone by. And then the very last comment that I would make on the financial performance is you see that we spent $3,700 in the machinery and equipment line. I would simply note that that's not actually unanticipated spending. Those dollars were in fibers CFP, but they were in the other

improvements area. So they're not unplanned spending. they're just spending that actually gets um accounted in a slightly different account. On to our revenue status. Um I I apologize that this slide only represents um January and February. So um I've I've prepared a few numbers to give you a little bit better insight into Fiverr's revenue performance. During January, our actual revenues were 6.9% ahead of what we had forecasted January's revenues would be. Our February revenues were 6.8% of what we had forecasted. Our March revenues were 9.1% ahead of what our forecast had been. So in total, the January, February, and March combined revenues were 7.6% 6% ahead of what the forecast had been. So I I consider that all good news. Um and it's it's mostly due not mostly it's entirely due to the efforts of the staff that place new customers into service. The bottom line is that new customers are being put into service a bit faster than anticipated. The other part of that is that as you will remember we offer two different classes of service 100 megabits per second and one gigabit per second. As I built our revenue forecast I try to make conservative assumptions and asser and and assume more 100 megbit customers than gigabit customers. The opposite is turning out to be true. more people want gigabit service than we had anticipated and so that's a part of why we're running uh ahead of forecast. Thank you very much. Uh it is a deep privilege to

work for the city of Anacortis and I appreciate it. Good evening, Mayor Walters, city council, members of the public. I'm Chief McDonald with the fire department and I'm here to present the fire department uh first quarter uh report. You might need to get a little bit closer to the mic and feel free to adjust it.

Okay, perfect. So before I started looking ahead, I I I took the time to look back and I think some of this back in 2014, the fire department hired a consultant group, Citygate Associates, to analyze the fire department by evaluating the fire department's operations, our level of service, our administrative oversight, and they were to report back their findings. The report was presented in December of 2014 with 36 findings, 29 recommendations, including some best next steps. And those blessed next steps were to develop performance measures to improve the current level of service, increase the onduty staffing, update the policies, develop a modern training program, and address uh fire and life safety inspections. During the last 12 months, Chief Harris, Chief Burbank, and myself discussed strategic goals on how to address recommendations from the Citygate group. We considered much information and as we approached the task before uh deciding to develop, analyze, and create a series of strategic goals. Here are those goals. First one is establish an annual fire inspection program. Commercial businesses are important to Anacortis and a vital contributor to our community. Inspecting commercial businesses ties directly to the mission of public safety. We intend to create and establish performance analytics that will drive effective and efficient responses that will improve the level of service and will measure system performances. We want to also review our annual training program and confirm that our

department training meets state and national standards. This next slide is a a breakdown of the performance measures, but tonight with 10 minutes, there's no way I can get in and detail it all. But let me summarize it for you. We can schedule you another presentation later, too.

Let me summarize what this means. Time matters. Successful outcomes deteriorate with increased response times. Moving on to quarter 1 accomplishments. We develop to develop and implement a sustainable fire inspection program. We've determined that there's 1100 city of Anacortus businesses and what we elected to do was to look at those businesses, ensure that the fire department has a complete list that they are documented within our reporting program, evaluate high versus lowrisk occupancies, and simple versus complex inspections. We ended up providing staff with 200 uh fire inspections to complete each quarter. So we know that that's 800 through the first year and then move on into the second year with the the remainder of those and then determine how best to approach it there forward. Some of our considerations for electing to only address 800 this year was the the other competing interest in the fire department. We have new staff coming on and it's important that we continue to train our new staff. So competing uh time was an issue for us to just to scale it back a little bit and to do it over two years. We successfully implemented the fire uh reporting program nearest is the new fire reporting program that is a a national program. We created the performance measures for infers. Infers is the old plan and so we have to look back and see what we did in previous years and to evaluate how we improve into the future. Additional accomplishments we developed and imple implemented the battalion chief position. This provides daily

operational supervision and immediate fire ground command increasing available availability for eminent rescue. We've completed the hiring process for the open firefighter positions funded by the CFRE grant. We have received and made ready two new paramedic units and received them in January and within 30 days had them on the road uh for the the medics which is a great accomplishment for both the fire department and the shop uh making that happen. We also completed the GMT submission process. Uh I had worked on this with Melindian Fi Melinda in finance who was instrumental in completing this process. Next steps for 2026. We're going to look at our training program. We're going to am examine it. We're going to determine hey what is required? What is considered an industry standard? What is unique to Anacortis just because of our isolation away from the central uh Scadget area and what needs or must be addressed for example what as a result of the QA process we want to develop a detailed searchable document to track the expenses of our training we are providing an in-house lateral fire academy which by the way started today three new lateral firefighters joined our department Today we have to complete an annual report and we're going to complete the promotional process which uh Kendall has already mentioned. Some additional steps we wanted to develop a quality assurance program for the new nearest which is the fire reporting program. We want to develop a detailed document to track actual overtime costs and be

able to look at our expenditures and our incomes. We want to develop response time analytics for the new fire reporting program near us. We're going to continue to update department policies, an ongoing process. And we look forward to the design and the make ready of the new fireboat. And we tentatively, not tentatively, we are intending for a pre-build meeting in July or August of this year. Here's some here's some analytics. The following slides will have a few of our data analytics that we're currently using to track uh our our progress and our incidents over time. While basic in nature, we'll continue to build upon our performance measures data that will drive decision making. If I just look at this one and point out what we're looking at, the top left are the incidents and I look at the multiple points of uh data. I believe and can conf confidently say that uh this is a trend and the trend is the call volume increasing. Last year the call volume increased to 5,8 calls which we determined were 5.2% 2% increase or 246 uh incidents. This next analytic just lets us know when call comes when calls come in. Top left is by the hour of the day starting at midnight. In the center is a incident by days of the week and the bottom right is incidents by uh month. And so just an indication that calls keep coming in day and night, every day of the week, every month of the year, and our firefighters are always ready to respond to the 911

calls that come into the city of Anicortis. This next slide just uh shows uh information from the nearest report and it identifies just different call types. for example, fires, uh, EMS, rescue, hazardous conditions, service calls, and, uh, and then totals out nearly perfectly at 517. This is an EMS analytic and it details the number of patient contacts and that's important too because with fire we also have EMS and if they look at the bar graph on the left hand side you can see that the actual patient context continue to grow. What's important to us also is that we look at the level of service that we deliver. And that's the the pie chart on the right. And 59% of the time we're delivering advanced life support. And 41% of the time we're delivering basic life support. The pie chart to the bottom right is ultimately just demonstrates where we transport those patients. And a key uh analytic for us is of patient contacts we transport 60% of those patients and that is a relatively high number compared to other agencies. this this analytic we could start just geeking out on a little bit and it uh it starts to get into uh mining what we end up uh mining the fire department's responses. This overlapping or concurrent uh means the number of calls that are going on at the same time. For example, one call goes in is called and

then a second incident comes in and then at times a third incident comes in all within the same amount of time. So we have multiple units out on the road at the same time. If you look at the trend and I'm looking at the top left for example the number of incidents in 2025 that were going on at the same time were60 of the uh 58. The percentage of calls that overlap have continuously increased to now at 41%. That's significant and it's significant because it has a concentrated demand on our resources. This is also another role I'll for our newly implemented uh battalion chief because the battalion chief will continue to manage the status uh the status system management of our system. They'll determine if if units can break free or if they can move people around. that that will be their ongoing job throughout the day. I was sort of hoping that the time would be up by now, but uh so here here's here's our budget and uh I I guess the first thing I would look at is the utilization and I see the fire department budget at 22%. I think that's pretty good. Uh but then what what are the next things I would look for? I I want to look at what utilization numbers are higher and what does that mean? Can I turn that trend around or is it going to continue through the rest of the year? For example, I'll look at insurance here. I'll point it out. Ouch. Well, I think with a little bit of investigation, I'm assuming that our insurance renewal is a one-time an annual renewal. And unfortunately, it just happens at the the first quarter of

the year. If we look at professional services 22 27% uh this this line item is made up of multiple different contracts that provide services to us our report writing program uh our our CAD system and our CAD connections and some of those renewals are annual and some of them are uh monthly. So that's why the numbers are a little off. The taxes I'll just run on just go right on past that one. Uh here uh overtime overtime uh this is this is an an interesting line to get into and and I'd like to spend a second or two if possible with that. uh it presents at 50% uh utilization and uh so the overtime is broken down into multiple additional lines. For example, we had a cash out uh vacation for a uh previous employee that it was ended that ended up being attributed to this overtime. We have operational expenses and let me let me explain a little further. uh when we started January 1, 2026, we were one firefighter down. So what that what that means and how that translates out into cost is we had one shift with one less firefighter. Therefore, every time that firefighter was up like up on the schedule or that person would be responsible for that spot on the schedule because they were vacant, we would have to bring somebody in off duty to make up the minimum staffing and that would cost overtime. It doesn't cost overtime every time, but

sometimes it does. So there's anticipated sick leave use and I I I need to get together with finance to determine if if we have an anticipated sick leave use maybe 5% maybe 7.5% I'm I'm unsure of that but there are unanticipated sick leave uses that are extended times off for example this year we have already had three babies firefighters in the department have had babies three babies. Okay. Now, they're future little taxpayers. So, it's not there is there is a a sliver of hope in all of this, but those three fathers, there are three firefighters that are on shifts. Now, they're vacant. And so when their shifts would come up, if we don't have enough people to cover those space, then we have to bring somebody in on overtime to cover that spot to maintain our minimum staffing. We also had two medical uh extended time off and with the firefighters uh missing the same story. Occasionally we had to cover them with overtime. Training. training is another uh expense of overtime. Okay. So, we have operations training and I'll give you a few examples. Live fire training, rope rescue training, water rescue, and that's both marine and lake, uh trail rescue training. They're all multicmp trainings. So we need all of the companies together to actually uh provide this training and for them to interact together because that's how they would actually run a call. They all are working together to have to try to accomplish that on shift doesn't work

because the companies continually get called out and when they get called out that's disruptive and we can't complete the training. So we perform that training off duty. Now for example uh let me just use rope rescue. Rope rescue they have assignments that they have to complete prior to that day. Remembering how to tie knots, how to put together systems and they they complete all of that before uh the actual rope rescue drill. Couple of weeks ago, I ended up uh up at Mount Erie just to check out what these guys were doing. And uh I had gone and I'd looked over the uh that south face because that's a lot of times where we end up going to rescue people. And I couldn't see them and I walked around a little bit and couldn't find them. And so then I walked back and I happened to see the the team lead and uh and I said, "Where where are you guys?" And he says, "Well, we're over here." And so, uh, I thought, "Huh? Well, you guys always tell me that you practice where you play." So, why would you be over here? And he says, "Well, I can accomplish everything we want to do like we would do it over here on this uh south face, but this face is only 20 to 25 ft. That means I have more repetitions. That means we get more bang for our buck and I think that's that I think that is great that our staff do that. Uh EMS OTP sometimes the EMS OTP will that's the ongoing training for paramedics and EMTs. It'll be mixed. Sometime it's on duty, sometimes it's off. When it's off duty it's an overtime cost. There are other classes that the paramedics need to take uh through their

certification cycles. SLS, PALS, difficult airway, and those classes all come at a cost of overtime. So, we move on to education. The OTP program, our medics and our EMTs provide ongoing training for the other fire departments surrounding us. The fire departments that we respond to as medics. And I think that's appropriate because our medics get to see our medics and our EMT get to interact with the staff and they get to see where the weaknesses are and so they are naturally the best educators. Now that comes at a no overtime cost and is accounted for in this uh line item. However, through a separate uh educational contract with EMS, we receive reimbursement for that overtime and and that we should see in an income uh document. A second training we have is uh thoughts and this is first on the scene is high school training and uh some of our staff are coaches up at the high school and they were questioned, hey, how come the firefighters don't do the CPR training for our students? And she came back came back to the uh fire department talked to everybody and said why are we not doing this? We are the natural educators. We perform this all the time. And so we set about uh becoming educated and developing well we didn't develop but we uh ended up going to the class that was developed by Scadget EMS when our so this year was the first academic year that we've participated and we uh were able to provide training for 95 students CPR AED recovery position Epipan Narcan administration and tourniquet application This is all overtime that appears in

this line item on our budget. However, we are also reimbursed for this through scadget EMS and that should be in our income bracket. We also provide city uh all of our city employees all 220 city employees with CPR training. Included in that also is recently is the port of Anacortis. Their employees come across and participate as well. So, our firefighters and paramedics are teaching high performance CPR to both the city of Anacortis employees and to the uh Port of Anacortis employees. This comes at an overtime cost. It is represented in this line and we're not reimbured for that. So, one last comment just before I finish. You know, I look at this uh the salary and wages and I see this is the budget. I you know 1% of that is uh close to 50,000. I multiply that by two to make up the 25%. We would be able to reduce that down to close to 25%. Anyway, this uh this data field I is very new to me as in uh Friday. I saw it Friday for the first time. So I am continuing to learn about the fields and I I don't feel as if I'm qualified to uh to give a lot of information on this over the next couple of days. I will learn that and so the next time if you ask I will be able to answer your question

and and that's great. We have uh recently introduced this uh revenue tracking concept and uh this is the it is I think relatively new to all departments and so uh it's definitely going to be an area of emphasis but it's not necessarily one that everybody has spent a lot of time on so far. Yes. Thank you. Thank you Mayor Walters. Uh you need not you need not ask for permission to speak in our work session format. You may jump jump right in. Um question is is the numbers that we're getting tonight are they uh like the spend numbers is that all the way through March? Yes, it should be all the way through March. Sorry.

Except that Mr. Hogland is approaching the podium.

Sorry. Um yes. So the expenditure data is through March. The revenue data is through March with the exception of utility billing which is um January, February. Good evening, mayor, members of council, members of the audience. Uh, our presentation so exciting that the parks department did fireworks for us. So, in my opinion, the most noticeable noticeable accomplishment you'll see tonight from the police department is our staffing level as this impacts uh many other key performance indicators that you're going to see in our slides tonight. So, as of December 2025, we were staffed at 32 and that is higher than uh we have been in the history of our agency. our strategic plan accomplishments, which our strategic plan runs through 2029.

Chief, you're not advancing the slides, but I think you're Yeah, there you go. So, our strategic plan runs through 2029 and many of those items we've already accomplished. So uh our digital digital evidence tracking module which was uh highly recommended by the state auditors as well as our accreditidation inspectors. Uh I had mentioned that to you previously when that item was before you for approval for us to uh obtain. We have since uh customized our home screen and have begun training for our staff and that will be deployed uh later this year. We're also also underway with work for our 2027 accreditation inspection where we'll be evaluated on 147 different standards as they provide uh apply to be best practices in law enforcement. Our preventative efforts to steer youth away from involvement in the criminal justice system are supported by council's continued funding of our school resource program. And as you'll see in the photo there, Officer Kellington is administering uh field sobriety tests to students wearing the DUI goggles. So they have the uh feeling of being impaired and the impact of impairment on safe driving. His work also was included many presentations at the middle school, high school, uh presence at athletic events and dances to prevent any issues uh when we're hosting events with neighboring schools.

As we know, the uh Tiger Hawk challenge can become quite contentious. Our current staffing levels also are projecting uh officer Kellington's presence in the forest lands this year, which I know will be appreciated by the parks department. Uh we look forward to um being a presence in the forest lands when those are at the highest point of utilization throughout the year. Our active threat training continues. Uh we are leading the efforts in the Scadget Island County region. as the agency that has um been able to continue that progress to the next level. We're now working with our fire partners to integrate medics into our response into these uh potential dangerous situations and warm zones as we call them where there is potential for an active threat to still be occurring but allowing us to get medical aid to those individuals that need it. uh as Chief McDonald said, in those situations, minutes matter. And so getting that uh medical treatment to those individuals sooner before the threat is completely uh under control allows us to potentially save more lives. We have newly uh minted uh bike patrol training instructor which allows us to uh train new officers in bike patrol and an increased presence in the uh more densely populated areas of town, increased presence with our downtown

business owners. And we project uh those folks will be ready to go by this summer when uh our tourism season at its peak. And of course, we replaced our beloved T-Bone with a uh new very capable police dog that is already out detecting drugs. And as of last week, uh, tracked down our first, uh, wanted individual here in town, uh, that fled from our officers during an attempted, uh, arrest. And had it not been for our new K9, we've not have located that individual and gotten him off the streets. One of the things that I was tasked with as a captain when I took that position in 2018 was managing our training budget. And at that time I implemented the strategy to stretch our training money as far as we possibly could. That result in us sending instructors to be subject matter experts instead of sending multiple students off to training somewhere in King County or somewhere else in the state. And we have uh developed quite a robust stable of instructors now that are very capable pursuant to uh the mayor's executive order. Our efforts on that uh we are doubling down. We're investing in our own subject matter experts, conserving by using those in-house instructors and not having to incur travel costs, overnight pdiums, hotel costs, and saving on tuition. And because we have that capability, we are reforming how we're delivering our training to be most cost effective.

I mentioned earlier that our staffing levels impacted other key performance indic indicators and you'll see a graph that shows our self-generated calls for service through quarter 1 each of the last five years. The dramatic increase that you see this year directly correlates to the increased staffing levels that we have at least one to two officers on each shift. Uh over and above what we had previously. The increased uh self-generated calls are over and above the 911 calls for service that we're receiving from our community. These are incidents that the officer observed on their own and took the initiative to uh intervene in that situation to stop the crime from happening, to prevent the crime from happening or to uh increase the level of public safety we're able to offer. This is our self-generated traffic enforcement calls. These are all uh criminal traffic in nature. So this would include suspended drivers, DUIs, reckless driving. Taking action for these individuals increases uh safety on the roadways for motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians.

Chief, would you please when you say self-generated, uh would you sort of explain what that means? I know you're giving a lot of detail about what a self-generated. I'm not really clear on what it means self-generated. Is it that the officer sees something and goes after it exactly? Thank you.

These are these are calls for service that are assigned case numbers. When the officer calls the dispatcher on the radio and says, "I'll be stopping this vehicle that results in a DUI arrest." We're generating a case number that the officer reserved on their own. We received no 911 calls for that incident and it had not been for the officer there to witness it. We would not have been able to intervene in that in situation. So moving to our budget tables, even with line item reductions in multiple categories across our budget, our department's on pace to be at or below our budget at year end. A couple key points that I would note for you. Uh you'll see our small tools and equipment line item is at 34%. Uh that is including our upgrading for the taser platform that council approved end of last year. That was a planned expense that was budgeted. Uh we've received that equipment. We have scheduled the training and those are in process to be deployed for our staff. All the other categories across the board except for our ERNR and insurance are under budget. Those are items that are out of my control and our budget or insurance I believe is paid at the beginning of the year. So that would reflect we've already utilized 100% of that line item. Moving to our revenue coming in, uh I would point out to you that our um actual traffic infraction penalties

coming in versus the projected uh we're already at 47% of what was projected to bring in. And that is in direct correlation again to our staffing levels having the additional officers on each shift. the first quarter of 2025, we recorded 600 uh I'm sorry, 690 infractions for the year of 2025. Uh the first quarter alone of 2026, we were at 268. So we're currently on pace to be an increase of 42% over last year for the traffic infractions.

Excuse me, Chief. for uh the line for law enforcement services. Is that when we actually bill for services like for Oyster Run, things like that, or do you know what that line item that would also include? Uh if the refinery contracts with us to provide traffic control for one of their shutdowns or uh we're providing a officer to the high school football game in addition to officer Kellington. Those are usually a two officer detail. So those are build to the entity that's asking us for the presence and that's the money we're bringing in. It's certainly not something that you'd expect to go linear evenly across this the year. So that's Thank you.

Yeah. The other item that uh appears low is the money coming in from the Washington State Traffic Safety Commission. And the majority of those events are later in the year and that's our traffic safety emphasis where the state traffic safety commission is reimbursing us for any overtime costs that we put out. Many of those events, like I said, are later in the year. It's Memorial Day, Labor Day, this impaired driving emphasis, uh Halloween. uh there's impaired driving emphasis across the holidays. Uh the oyster run is one of the weekends that they target. So all of those reimbursements that we receive from the state would be into that category and the vast majority of them are in the second half of the year. That traffic infraction revenue is not an insignificant amount as budgeted, but it hell, if if you can double it and double public safety at the same time, in my mind, that's a win-win.

Agreed. So, we are not quite halfway through the slide deck. Um, you want to intermission? We'll we'll go ahead and we'll go ahead and skip the library tonight because uh library director was unable to be here and we'll catch him up next week. Uh but um I might ask everybody to pick up the pace just a little bit. Happy just a little bit all your content.

Uh so uh strate strategic goals for the museum stewardship and exhibition of collections local audience and visitor engagement staffing and programming alignment facilities capacity and enhancement projects. Um I'll say that uh our visitation was up first quarter of uh from 978 in 2025 to 1318 in 2026 attributable in part to the new music exhibit and also to increased visitation at the Maritime Heritage Center. Um we are always getting new things into the museum, new artifacts and um that's ongoing work with our museum advisory board and staff. Um, we display those online and often because we have such a a extensive online catalog, we receive new offers of donated items because people see what we're doing and they say that's where I want my Anacortis significant artifact to go to the Anacortis Museum. Um things we did in the first quarter uh were uh black history presentation. We supported international women's day exhibit panels. Um we did a marine supply tour with our preservation board and planning department staff. Um and uh we've been uh working with the port on a centennial video project for them. We hosted with the library a book event on local history. gave some talks at Kuanas working with a sign committee with the Samish Indian Nation and Parks and Port. We developed a a museum collections plan so we could prioritize our plans in the

coming years. And we began doing tours with the American cruise lines. Um and then the regular mural work and um upcoming in 2026 in the immediate uh weeks uh we are doing a historical cruise around Fidalgo Island. Um this is a benefit for our museum foundation and a good education opportunity. Uh we are doing a U Samish music event at the museum on the Thursday the 23rd at 5:00 p.m. The public is welcome and we're participating in Walkfest in May. Um later in 2026 you can see a list of things. Uh we decided and with help from legal department um to respond to requests from American Cruise Lines to open our facility and participate in their local loop to be uh trying to build that um that local loop so that people stay in town and lean into our role in the tourist industry. And um the rest of the items you can see uh in terms of conserving and reforming and investing. I show this slide of our current org chart and our org chart from last year. Uh we're conserving by working with five people on staff instead of nine as we did last year. And um we've reduced our hours uh and days somewhat so that we can align our staffing with our programming. We're um in pursuit of of the grants that we can achieve and as I mentioned um that um cruise leaning into the the cruise

line visits. So um the budget looks good. The note is that our insurance line which sticks out is pending a a budget update which will restore the insurance line balance. And um we have uh the contribut contributions and donations is related to our um museum storage and workshop building capital project which uh is currently in a planning and permit phase. So that's the end of my presentation. Thank you,

Mr. Lungford. Just one quick comment. Your Black History Month presentation was honestly one of the best that I've ever seen, not only here, but in other cities. It was superb and it referenced um in many ways the history, multithnic history of Anacortis. It was truly beautiful and it's one of the things that I think that we should show again. I think it was wonderful and uh so um thank you. I didn't get a chance to say that then but I wanted you to know that it really was one of the best I have ever seen. It was an honor to participate in that great event and I appreciated your presence there too. Forward through the library slides now.

Yeah, if you could hit 95 and press enter. Perfect. Thank you.

Evening council, members of the public, Mayor Walters. Here we go. This is what we do. Um, no toddlers were hurt in the creation of the green spaghetti beard. Uh, their guardians just outside the photo, so if they ate it, they're fine. This is what we do. Um about 120 youths participated in our sports and summer camps throughout the year. Um upcoming we have uh track and field is open for registration now. It starts next week and then all of our summer camps you can as the mayor noted you can register for those starting April 20th. Upcoming events on the 30th you can catch a gigantic trout at Hart Lake if you are a child. Um, Bark in the Park on the 13th of June and Kids are best on the 11th of July. All those are free. Uh, 4th of July this year, we're asking you to register. That's free. We just want to make sure we have a contact person so we can talk with you about the importance of keeping the children safe. They might not have the best judgment as to running out into the streets to gather things. We we want you to have good judgment and walk alongside your parade and hand things out in the bike path lanes. So registering helps us contact you to remind you of that and uh keep everything safe. And thanks again to the Port of Anacortis for helping us sponsor that Fourth of July fireworks and the Samish Nation has also donated $2,500 towards that. Goals for 2026. Maintain our level of services at our downtown parks, ACFL, senior center, recreation programs, Grand View Cemetery, and Washington Park. Work with Scadget County and area partners on sustainable meals programs for seniors after June 30th. As you know, that's when it county stopping to do that. We had some good news today that we think we have a partner going forward, but they need to meet with us and more on that later. So, that's that's good news. Um, grant applications

for ship harbor and volunteer park. uh ship Harvey, you've seen volunteer parks coming to you in a week and collaborating across departments on the A Avenue landfill as remedial investigation um work begins this spring. More on that in just a second. Long-term strategic goals providing infrastructure and opportunities for families to recreate year round. We know that we'd like a place to escape escape the gray rain in the in the wintertime for families. We're working on that. Continue offering quality recreation programs at an affordable price for the local communities. very important for us that everyone can afford to do what we offer and are grateful to the parks foundation for helping us with scholarships if families cannot make it even at our reduced prices. Find opportunities to build and maintain park infrastructure to keep up with growth and continue the buildout of the Channel Trail. Those are our long-term strategic goals. Uh as the mayor noted, Dean Williamson in his 20th year at Washington Park was awarded the mayor's award of merit and our staff is important to everything we do every day. Okay. Uh, as mentioned, I'll skip through this one, but this is the senior center. We're working on lunches throughout the year, meals on wheels, congregate meals, very important to not only group activity, but just uh feeding those who are hungry in our community. So, we have good news. We more to more about that coming to you in the future. Uh, the Forest Lands plan, can't get enough of that. It's coming to you next week. You'll get a matrix and the plan with revisions in it. I think about 176 to 79 responses with the comments that received that you'll have noting where that stuff was uh added to the plan. So you can see the matrix, the comments, the action taken and directions on where you can see that in the plan itself. So and the maritime plaza moving along nicely down at um the depot right next to the WT Preston that should be completed. You'll see hopefully um paving done there to the entrance next

week and then the pavers going in the week after that. Our goal is to open be ready for the first day of the market. Fingers crossed. A lot of depends on weather and everything but that's our goal and thanks to engineering they're helping us throughout with that project giving us great support. Colariums you'll those are above ground niches that are in place at the cemetery. Next week you'll see thanks to our help help from the legal department um ordinance to help us bring in both columbariums into the uh city and uh green burial. So we'll be having a conversation about that next week. uh Benroot skate park. Their bid uh documents are being formed right now thanks to help from legal and engineering and you should see those go out to bid soon and a contract coming back to you hopefully in May with a construction timeline this summer. Avenue landfill um the public should see some work being done on the remedial investigation work plan. So that would mean like drilling for groundwater wells. So we'll have to close the trail a day or two here and there. So, the drill rig can to get out there and drill the wells. And then you'll see sampling that shouldn't disrupt the public, but if people see that, um, we're happy to tell people about that thanks to help from public works solid waste division for helping to fund that. Uh, Hart Lake shoreline restoration. This is through a grant from the state and matching funds through the conservation easement program and private funds pro conserv conservation easement program interest earnings. So the principal remains intact, earnings are being spent from the interest and you should see us coming. We're in the gathering information critical areas and engineering and then we'll come back for permitting where the public can have a chance to comment on that. Senior center activity funding from the foundation thanks to their generosity. you'll see us moving a few offices around to make room for more classes and consolidating

the staff into a different area just to make give that room where you see Carl and Amanda now will become a classroom and that's again thanks to the generation generous donations from the foundation conserve reform invest so we are um working with organizations like the foundation and the senior center foundation to support our maintenance project expenses that's they are helping us pay for things like gravel, things like equipment that we need to use to do work in the parks because we don't have money in our budget. So, in the long term, it's not sustainable, but in the short term, it's helping us quite a bit. We're reducing our use of fertilizer is just one example. Um, we've removed one FTE from our budget, and we're collaborating with our partners, as mentioned previously, for the funding of the fireworks display. And then we are updating our forest plan with in-house staff. A lot of the work that we do across our things, our projects are all in house just to save money and and we can do it. Uh so we are looking for more grant opportunities as you'll see next week and have seen and we are increasing fees to cover the cost of our staffing places like Gravia Cemetery, Washington Park and our field use rentals in our budget. So overall in our 101 our main fund we are at 15%. Um we're on track uh maintenance as I said is coming from private donations um funds for for equipment and such um funding from our staff reserves and in the I'll call attention to the professional services line item that's at 33% right there and uh that's a lot of pass through. So say the the contract for the fireworks um uh um foundation improvements passed through there and so those will be reimbursed. The uh pay the interlocal we have with the school district will not be reimbursed. Uh revenue status we're doing pretty

good at 22 and 23% respectively and generally our highest uh quarters of revenue are quarter two and three. You know people get out and they want to do things. Quarter one's a little slower. At the cemetery, we are uh right on target for quarter 1. Uh staff there is also coming from revenue funds. And then we are at 41% at cemetery services thanks to the increases that we were able to do to take care of our um staffing costs. That's it.

One last thing. Um when I every time I see the insurance I see 100%. And it's sort of stunning but that's the reason it's 100% is that we're paying at the first part of the year for the entire year. Yeah. Thank you. Right. Yep. We'll try to deemphasize that in quarter 2's presentations. Yeah.

Good evening Mayor Council, members of the public. I'm John Coleman, director of Glenn and Community Economic Development Department. And this year, uh, this past year, we did some stuff and next year we're going to do some more stuff. Do you have any questions? I know we're trying to cut time here a little that too brief.

Droll, very droll. Uh, proceed proceed with deep into a long night, so I try to try to get the blood flowing a little here. Um, in uh, PCED, we've got I like to say we've got three and a half departments. We obviously have the planning and the building department. I think most people know what those are. We also have economic development. And then we have Stephanie that does a whole bunch of other stuff like ELAC and uh uh event planning and uh the special events I should say the community development block grant and other community services. So like that's that's kind of one and a half over in that end over there. So um and then in planning and building that they also kind of combine a little bit to to be part of our permitting center. And so uh the permitting center extends beyond even the planning and community development into uh public works and uh other departments including fire. And the reason I bring this up is uh obviously there's a little bit of a emphasis on um permitting right now. um as you've probably heard. So that's where I'm going to kind of talk mostly about in our uh in this uh 9 and a half minutes I have left. Uh so we were asked you know what are our our vision statements and and priority goals. So here you go. Customer service, edu, action. Uh that's uh that's not a typo. That's education and action all rolled into one. And uh permitting, compliance, economic development. Uh what have we been able to achieve so far this year? Largely, we've been working on our permitting process improvements. We have the permitting uh the number of permits we've received have been down and I'm going to be talking about uh some of that in in a bit here but uh we've been working on process improvements after having after doing the matrix study in 2025. So we've

been implementing the recommendations. Uh those uh that process is led by Rob Fryzinger who is our building official and kind of ad hoc ruler of the permitting department and he's been authorized to kind of work through all the departments to keep everybody moving if he sees that there's any any problems. Uh Grace is also a big part of the the permitting the planning part of that. So, they've been making updates to um to our smart cub system on our internal side, getting it all in shape and working well. And it was been a slow drawn out process. And it's a it's working really well now. So they've made enough internal improvements that we're starting to work on the external improvements such as you know user interface and how it looks how it interacts with people when they submit their permits through our smart gov portal. Uh right now we're working on checklists for various permits so it'll be very clear what people need to submit instead of just uh going through the steps that the software provides you. You'll have some kind of instructions to go along with that. We're also working on uh standard operating procedures for each uh permit type so everybody in the department knows how to uh process each permit and whose roles uh are are are who's who has a role in each of them and where that fits in. Um so some of the smaller things we've done is we've converted small permits such as re- roofs, solar, um mechanical, plumbing permits to an automated approval. So when someone submits through the smart portal, um it actually doesn't touch any staff members. These are things that don't

have plans that need to be reviewed. So, they can just submit their plans and uh and pay and they'll be issued their permit and then they'll be able to uh schedule their um their inspections. And I'd like to point out, you know, you I mentioned that permits have been down, but we've also done a lot of work and uh caught up. So, there is not a permit backlog in our office right now. So, while we're talking about uh permitting, one of the main things that we can point to is uh housing units. So, you know, we receive permits for all types of things beyond that don't include housing units, but housing units is one of the main measures that we use to see uh what's going on. Plus, we have a lot of interest in uh housing and housing affordability in this community. So, if you look here, this uh this explains this chart. There's graph I should say talks about the types of permits issued and the number of them showing them over the years and while it doesn't show the exact number um the the the uh line on the left shows the general area and you can see uh there was a high point 2122 and then things have gone way down. uh received far fewer permits uh starting 23 24 and continued into 25 and uh while I did not mention in that previous chart the numbers this one does say the number of housing units uh that we've received uh these uh these are actual issued for all of these uh it's not just permits received it's for uh issued. So those are the numbers and that looks very similar to this chart. This is spread all the way from 2006. Uh this uh so this is a similar time frame in that. So those those waves should look the same.

John, are these orange lines just averages across that time?

The the orange line that that bifurcates the page is an average. So average of roughly 79 permits per year and we're below that currently. Uh this compares Anacortis housing starts compared to the Scadget County. And you can see while there's uh not not perfectly aligned, the general um movement is the same between these two lines. This is a a really interesting. This shows interest rates inverted. So where the higher the interest rate is at the bottom and the lower the interest rate you know as you approach near zero is is at the top. So when you see that uh interest rates are high then you'll see that permits are low and that these two lines follow uh pretty with the exception of 2005 to 2007 these lines follow very similarly and that's just so this is to to indicate that uh the number of housing units that we're seeing submitted in permits uh is completely related to the number of uh or to the interest rates. Uh so that brings us uh that brings us to what uh what have what are we doing in 2026? So uh last week the mayor in his speech mentioned that he was issuing executive order that was executive order 20260 which addresses permit streamlining. I spoke to the planning uh committee today about that and uh there's lots of and the mayor mentioned it as well. That puts a an emphasis for the next three months for the planning department to be

working on improving permitting uh systems and doing certain things uh to make permitting a little easier. I don't have time to go into that in my remaining two minutes now. And so that's really one of the big pushes that we're have that's going to require kind of a sprint in our department to be working on these things. Um what is ideal timing while we're not receiving that many uh residential building permits. So hopefully we can get a lot done on that and well we fully intend to. Other things we have going on in our department is working on the uh the event facility the joint with the port and you can see uh I've tried to incorporate the the mayor's reform invest um into into each of these. So the the permit processing will we're reforming the process and it's going to take a little bit of investment to do so. So the event facility is a true investment uh in capital funds in order to create a an event facility that will then uh generate more economic activity and uh tourism in the area which is uh really important to our finance director. uh the Fidelgo Bay DNR lease area. That's also a project where we're we're expecting some reformation and possibly some well then some investment into uh the our facilities down there in order to uh recuperate more money from the people that use it and make it a better area that is uh e better to use and uh just create a more efficient system for people that are leasing areas from us in that DNR lease area. We're also uh working on coming toward towards the completion of the downtown streetscapes plan. Again, an investment where the

city's spent several tens of thousands of dollars on that plan. And so we can use that to um re do some revitalization or improvements I should say in our downtown area again to stimulate additional investment and tourism in that area. And then ongoing annual work. These are things that we're always doing. Special events, community development, block grant, lodging tax, uh, and permitting, processing, and inspections. We also this year have to in, uh, update our critical areas ordinance and our shoreline master program. Those two are going to be going with each other because there is a there is a tie between them. Uh we're also doing uh several changes uh to the AMC to improve permitting as uh again the executive order requested. Uh tomorrow the planning commission for example is going to be reviewing vehicle boat sales and repair changes to the code to make it easier to have automotive uh repair in the industrial neighborhood. And also to clarify a lot of uh the incon inconsistencies to make sure that uh in particular boat sales and boat repair are allowed in that area because they are now. And that's really what that area is intended for is. And we want to make the code crystal clear that those are allowed to remain. Uh and uh we also are uh spending a lot of uh effort helping the legal department as they defend our comprehensive plan and development regulations and uh the update from appeals as well as our uh storm water plan. Now, here's the budget part. We don't

have any surprises. We're coming in uh either below or on budget for all of our expenditures except for insurance. We're at 100% already. So, hopefully that's not 400% by the end of the year, but not really sure how that one works. And then revenue status. Building permits are you like we we were planning for a down year and but uh so we're still a little bit below. However, building permits are very cyclical. All it takes is for you know one apartment building and now we're going to be at 150%. Um so we're not really too panicked about uh how this is going. We're a little bit behind, but you know, it has been uh winter and not exactly when people are intending to build and interest rates are not going down yet. I don't know um what if they are going to or if they're going to go up. Um so to be determined and that's a little bit beyond what we can handle in our department. And that is all I have for you tonight. Um I I just want to say one more thing not not about you John uh but this is about all the department heads you know what would also be very helpful you guys are so knowledgeable about the things that you're doing and you tend to use acronyms as in any industry and in your report when you're using the acronyms at least for the first time put in parentheses behind it so we know what the acronym is it just helps us and it'll help the public and I know it comes off rolls off the tip of your tongue, but it it just would be helpful. So, if you do that, I'm happy.

All right. Good evening. Saving the the best for last. So, before we get too far into public works, because you do have most of the slides, I guess, still left. Uh, does anybody need a break at this point? I mean, if if any one of you needs a break, uh, we could take five minutes. one minute stretch. We're still planning to do come back in in no more than two minutes. Stand at ease.

All right. Thank you for keeping that two-minute break tomorrow more than five minutes. We are back to the department that needs no introduction. The department with more than one department within it, the public works department. Yeah. Glad everyone stretched cuz uh I got a lot to go with. No, I'm just kidding.

All right. Uh yeah, Logan Lee, public works director. Um happy to give you an update on what we've been doing here in public works. Um we have 10 divisions, 75 people. So I'm going to try to touch on each of them a a little bit and just let you know kind of what they're doing. But first, I'll show you our our department strategic goals. And of course, our our one of our main priorities is to preserve and enhance the the life the reliability and resilience of all of our uh our utilities. These are um you know uh necessary services for the entire community. So being open and transparent, providing the the services to them is is vital. And we want to be able to be transparent with the community so they know that they can re rely on us and we can provide uh water, sewer, storm water and solid waste services consistently throughout the year. And uh maybe most importantly is is enhance and develop our staff as we do have in my opinion like some of the most hardworking uh knowledgeable people that I've ever worked with and I'm I'm really I feel very fortunate to represent them in this capacity. So we have a great team. Some of the ways that we kind of track our progress on those goals is through some of our we have a quite a few key metrics. some of the highlights here of just the way we prioritize and goal and give us a little insight on, you know, where we might need to focus more, show that we're improving over year-over-year and uh just some some ambition to to keep continuing uh to improve. So, some highlights are uh like our fleet cost per mile. Our fleet does a really good job, fleet division, keeping track of all the costs that go into every repair that they do and and tracking how much we are are saving and how much we can

improve um every year. So, getting into uh each each division, starting off with maybe the most reliable division is Solid Waste. They're uh I mean, no news is good news. They they keep doing what they're doing week in week out. One of the ways that they are are trying to adhere to the mayor's executive order is by uh by altering the way they order some new totes and to save on shipping fees and just little ways that that add up to continue to save money for our our city. So, the fleet has also been focusing a lot on reducing costs on just on regular purchases they make throughout the year. uh switching different to a different tire brand has saved five to 10%. Uh also they there's another method that they can do to recap front tires on garbage trucks. The garbage trucks go through their tires really quickly and so preserving the life and and cutting down cost there is a is a is a big way and then and just different purchases buying in bulk and uh reducing the costs where they can. some of the new projects that they've done. Two new ambulances this year. Uh just some more implementation for efficiency throughout the shop, installing vacuum cleaners and pressure washers and the like. So, um also within operations, we have our street storm and sewer maintenance crews. Some of the cool projects they've been doing, finally ripping out some really nasty roots on our avenue. Uh the port was really thankful that this work was was we were finally able to get around to it. It's been a nuisance down there on our Avenue by uh by Fourth Street. They also do a ton of work. April is a month where they're really tackling sidewalk um cleanup. And so you can see some of the sidewalk some of the issues that we run into around town where just it get it gets overgrown over time and uh how much of an improvement they can make uh really quickly. also

working with WASHDOT and the school district to uh to keep the the uh signals for the different school features there on Oaks Avenue running and we also adjusted the times for when they'd be flashing to more appropriately match the uh the school hours. So, also in support of the executive order, they they've been really we've been really focusing on trying to keep a lot of work inhouse and and doing what we can to not contract out work, to not hire other people, but to to do it uh with within our own crews. And we have a really talented maintenance crew that's taking on a lot of kind of odd jobs dayto-day to to help cut down on those costs. We also have our facilities crew that does a a lot of work throughout all the the city facilities, roof repairs, new lights, uh new carpet, um more roofs on we have just we have stations all over the city that that need constant repairs. And so some of the stuff that they're also continuing to work on. Um, big one is obviously the police department HVAC system that we're they're putting a lot of effort into to keep that going on track so we can get our uh police officers some air conditioning this summer. Um, this the the falconering has uh continued to work and we're excited to keep that going as well as just some some new carpet here and there and uh keeping all the facilities looking nice. Um, again, similar to some of our other departments, facilities is working on changing the way we order parts. um bulk bulk purchases and also doing more work in is more work inhouse. And so we have again we have a lot of talent in our department and they're taking on a lot more out of the box uh work out of to to try to save money and to try to cut down on costs. So next our our storm water system they they are continually working on uh

managing the entire systems uh infrastructure. So, a lot of inspections, yearly inspections, uh that we have miles and miles of uh pipes and and structures throughout the city that they have to maintain annually. And then a big part of their job is also to maintain our municipal storm water permit. Uh keeping us out of trouble with ecology. So, there there's a lot of work in that regard. That's kind of a a good example of just all the the things that they have to pay attention to. And then as well as recording all the elicit discharges, we we have a very ambitious goal to cut down elicit discharges to zero per year. May never happen, but that's our goal. I don't know why these keep clicking forward, but um Storm Water also received $120,000 grant from ecology this year. Then they were able to put that towards our new street sweeper. and they're just uh continue to uh do public education to cut down on elicit discharges and working on some of our uh end of the year annual storm water plans um which you saw in the previous week. Our energy department focusing on all the capital projects that we have year to year uh we have very extensive capital facilities plan um and they they're off to a good start this year. some of the projects that uh they're working on right now. Q Avenue just our Q Avenue pedestrian crossing just kicked off this week or last week I sorry um some work at the water plant with our north line repair and we have some big water line replacements that will begin uh this year Jur Lane is already complete um pedestrian crossing improvements then we have two uh really large projects coming up um the combined sewer overflow at the wastewater plant I believe starts at the end of this month and then uh hopefully next winter we will start the pass lake 10-in line that goes down to Deception Pass. Uh some big accomplishments for our engineering department this year. Uh a huge one was was final acceptance on the

wastewater plant outfall project. That was a a $20 million FEMA federally funded uh project that had a ton of moving parts. Um a big shout out to Jeff Belini, our lead senior engineering tech for for bringing that project home because that was a huge endeavor. Um, some of the other projects that we hope to get kicked off soon, 12th and Commercial is coming back at the end of this month, uh, reservoir design on 29th Street, which we we uh, presented a week ago. And then we also been helping assist parks with some of their various projects. And, uh, this month we submitted two new grant applications. And then, uh, next month we'll submit two more for some for some large scale projects that we hope to do in the future. Our GIS management division keeps one of our most probably vital resources in our department running. I um I I can't say enough how important I think our GIS pro and carraph program is. It's uh it houses all the assets throughout the city and it it it's vital for all of our construction projects uh throughout the city. It's it's a really useful tool for day-to-day maintenance to long-term planning. What's happening here? Um, wastewater plant, uh, there they work hard in in every day to continue to keep that plant running. Um, some notable things that they've been doing are, uh, one cool one is the annual incinerator shutdown. So, for two weeks, they shut down the incinerator. So, there's no no bool solids are being handled. And it's a really well orchestrated event where they they do all the maintenance on the incinerator in in basically a oneweek period. So it's a they plan for it for months to make sure that everything goes off seamlessly um in the the plant's 30-year

existence that they have not had to truck out any bioolids. So it's been they've been really successful each time they do it. The other big endeavor that the the crew are working on is the uh the bios alternative analysis which we presented a few weeks back. Uh we're hoping to get some feedback on a few surveys from council members. I won't call out any names but a few you haven't done your surveys yet. Um but that that'll be another really exciting project uh that we get to we get to focus on um in the years to come about how we are going what the future of our wastewater plant is and what the future of bioolids handling is. And uh a great breakdown of just how versatile the crew at the wastewater plant is. Um they do everything from electrical work, welding, um instrument instrument technicians and uh they just do it all a lot. We also uh take great pride in our community outreach to to let people know what what goes on at that plant cuz I think it's a very underappreciated thing that that we have some hardworking people down there who do a lot to keep uh keep the plant going and it's something that a lot of people I think uh overlook um that their their plumbing continues to work well. So lastly, our our water system, uh the the water treatment plant produces 42 million gallons a year. It's a really really impressive water plant, a really complex water plant, one of the more uh complex plants in the state. uh in the the past few years uh the city has put a lot of of time and money into making the plant more resilient for uh potential climate issues which I think really came to a to a head this last December when we had record level flooding on the Scadget River. So as a reminder that our what part of what makes the water plan really unique is that it it we pull water out of the river rather than out of underground

reservoirs and the river is always changing. It's it's right on the banks of the Scadget River. And uh to kind of put it in perspective, typically when when the water plant pulls water out of the river, it's a the turbidity is about a 10 in the on the tur on this turbidity scale. So we call it 10 NTU. And during uh December during our record level flooding, it was at,00. And so not a single time during that storm did the water plant ever have to cease operations. It was it continued to work. um efficiently throughout. And I think it's a really testament to the the work that the city has done to implement just the safety features and additional work at the plant to keep it running at at peak efficiency throughout what was a a FEMA rated disaster. So, um it's it's really impressive the crew there was able to keep it going and provide water throughout. And then so also at the plant they've been continuing to work on ways that we can look ahead, save money in uh in repairing things before they become problems. Um and also making tweaks to the system. A great example of that is a slight modification to the the backwashing process. Um, I won't get into the operations too much, but you can see how just little changes can add up to millions of gallons of water saved, which can net a a nice annual savings of of up to almost $20,000. So, just continue to refine those processes to try to to try to cut expenses. Lastly, our water distribution team uh who manages all the all the pipelines, all the water lines from as soon as it from the minute it leaves the plant in Mount Vernon to all the way to Anacortis and uh the whole network through town. These are the guys that that will jump out in the middle of the night and repair your water line when something goes wrong. Um there's, you know, hundreds of miles of pipe throughout the

city that they are responsible for keeping going and they they do a great job replacing pipes, being there when things go wrong and uh and doing what they can to do preventative maintenance to keep things running. One of the big projects they were able to do at the beginning of this year was installing some uh deep wells for cathotic protection. Again, I won't get into the science of it, but it it's a if I remember right, 85 deep well 85 foot deep wells that they install to help um reduce corrosion and and ensure that the our pipelines last as long as we can and that we're protecting our investment um and achieving a reliable water source. Also, we have a uh a robust water takes a lot of maintenance. It takes a lot of time to um keep it running clean. This is drinking this is water that our whole city drinks and it's vital to the health of the city. So, we want to make sure that our water staying at top quality and um as as good as it can be and water doesn't do well when it sits stagnant. So, every year our team goes out and flushes the entire system. So, they began doing that this month. uh notices go out and it's a it's it's a big job and they they keep it going and it helps keep the water system pumping cleanly. Um they also there's a big effort to to continue to maintain and and replace some of the pressure reducing valves throughout the city. Uh our our system is rather unique because of the elevation. We have significant elevation change uh here on Fidalgo Island as well as a very uh high service pump to in in order to pump the water all the way from Mount Vernon to here. So, it creates a lot of different uh pressure variations. Uh a foot of elevation can change your your uh the pressure in your pipe by about 2.3 PSI per per foot of elevation change. So um

you you can quickly overload house plumbing if you don't have these valves in place to to separate the pressure zones so that normal house you want between 20 and 30 PSI. So you can see how that would we could without um having these red reduction valves we it would I mean it would be bad for people's plumbing system. So they're important thing to keep around. Um it really helps system out. So, finally into our uh our budgets for street construction, we uh we're on pace there. Um the travel and training uh at 56%, but again, that's a very small line item. So, that's kind of a a onetime purchase. We don't do a lot of travel and training out of there. Um our street maintenance, similar story, we're close to that 25% mark throughout. Uh a notable one is our professional services is high. There is some carryover from uh projects initiated last year as well as some um as I mentioned before we we're doing four pretty intensive grant applications currently and so we've used some outside help to make those uh applications as competitive as possible. So a lot of our professional services are kind of frontloaded in that way. Once we're done with these grant applications we that's it for the year. Um equipment rental, similar story. Uh 25% kind of throughout. Um solid waste again uh right on target um besides the insurance, but that seems to be popping up for everybody. Uh wastewater again and and uh I believe Steve mentioned that this is only for the first two months. So it's uh we we don't expect to quite see the full 25%. Um, so I believe we're on track. Also, what wastewater as well as water will fluctuate more during the higher water demand months. So, we expect to see more

uh revenue during during the summer or sorry, we're not on revenue yet. We're selling expenses. Sorry. Uh uh but it is again under 25% for for budget utilization for storm water. And then uh water, same store. We're we're sitting pretty well there. We've done a lot to to cut costs. um and and and backlog stuff. So now for the revenue, uh solid waste is a is a is pretty solid story and uh we're at we're at 25%. Um, wastewater was this is kind of where I I meant to mention it before where we're a little we're a little shy of that 25% but uh the higher water demand months will increase that revenue similar to what you'll see in water um storm water above 20% 25% doing well and then uh water of course which we're we're very close to that but as I said during the summer the where the water man peaks we'll see uh increased revenue in uh in quarter two, quarter three. So that is all I have. So thank you. I uh please forgive me for doubting how quickly you could move through the remainder of those slides. Um all right, council. I would propose that uh we group your questions together so that we can limit the amount of popping up and down at the podium that department heads might need to do. Um, and I know uh public works already left the podium, but since that's top of mind, maybe we should do public works questions first. Does anybody have any public works questions? If so, we'll shout them out.

I just have one. Um, so with the water slide 162, um, with the water main flushing, do we know yet if there's any kind of impact like or if there are going to be any changes because we are already expecting a drought season, low snow pack. Can they make us Can any Does any authority have the power to tell us that we can't flush our water manes or we I I I don't think anyone would tell us not to flush our water manes. I think that they if anything the department of health wants to see those those mains flushed but uh is it am I speaking the right language? Our our water system manager happens to be here. So,

right. I'm just curious like if because we're expecting quite a big drought, low snow pack, if anything in the water area, specifically the mains will be affected at all. Yeah. 10,000 cubic feet per second going down the river, then we have to give out a warning of conservation. And then if it gets lower to than 8,000 in 3 days, then we have to uh submit a requirement and most likely it would hit irrigation systems and things like that. You're right though, we would not flush. Okay. we're asking uh the the community, you know, to conserve water. We're not just going to

And I guess that was kind of what I was leading to is like I'm pretty sure we're going to be under a pretty strict conserve. So, I would be interested like I don't I have we flushed the water manes every year last year. Did we do all of them or are they on a schedule or like No, we actually just started this program. We uh got engineers to design what we actually needed to do, where we needed to pull the water from. uh how many feet per second we needed to run through the pipes. And we've kind of got a good game plan now. And with the tools and the extra staffing that we got, we can actually uh uh do a lot more focus on this UDF unidirectional flushing is what they call it. Okay, great. Thank you.

Yeah, Mayor Walters, I know I don't have to ask, but I have one more question, so you might want to come back because uh Council Member Fantini brought up the flushing. Uh every so often we'll hear complaints about discolored water coming through the pipes. Does this flushing have any connection? Can you explain that why we are going to do it? Yes, because we've got uh iron slight iron manganesees and then a little bit of alum in the pipes that kind of coats the pipes and the engineers had determined that 3 ft per second will scour the pipes enough to get the majority of it out of there.

Okay. and we haven't done it in the past because we just haven't really known what the substance was. That's helpful. And then should we be reminding if we hear uh members of the public mention about it or something? Yeah. Yeah. What should we what should they do? Just run their water? Is that going to happen for a period of time as these the flushing? Yeah. So, we're going to be putting the signs up. Okay.

And we're going to be notifying the neighborhoods. um not doortodoor typically, but in the neighborhood on the streets. And then if they see us out there flushing, what we ask them to do if they call in with a water quality complaint, then what we'll ask them to do is just run their cold water in their tub because it doesn't have a little airator screen on it, so it won't get plugged. So in their tub, biggest drain and cold water only. And it usually takes less than a minute. And it'll flush just their little one-inch line that goes to their house, their service line to the house. Is that is that a problem if you're not actively using water at the time of flushing though? No, it's not. So, it's not going to affect everybody mostly. That's correct. Yeah. Only if you're pulling at the time.

Yeah.

Yeah. May Walters um this has been absolutely um fantastic in the information we've gotten from each of the departments. I love it. I've been informed there are a plethora probably of questions that we all have for each of the departments. I would suggest to our beloved wonderful mayor that maybe next time we split this into two such that we have more time to dig a little deeper because I think at the end of the day what you guys have put forward have been a cut above. It also allows for us as council to um be able to articulate to the p public the work that we're doing as a city to not only save money but the steps that we're taking to make life better. So I would love this and just suggest that we do a little less next time. Okay. Thank you. I

was going to ask for your feedback in your one-on- ones, but uh I'll wait. I'll wait. Uh any other questions for public works though? jump in if talk about Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Oh, sorry, Caroline. This informal setting is Okay, maybe you should ask maybe you should ask permission to speak. You go ahead.

I'm just going to say just a shout out. Um, I think there, you know, it's obvious police, fire, people that come to mind that are, you know, day-to-day heroes. But I think you make a really good point. There's a lot of unsung heroes on your teams that keep things going dayto-day. And um I mentioned at another meeting recently, Marshia and I took a couple tours at at the waste treatment facility and the water treatment plant. I'm just blown away and just not only by what what's accomplished there, but I think you highlighted a lot of the versatility of the team members and what they're willing to do and they took a lot of pride in sharing that and showing that. And I just walked away from those two experiences and was just super proud of the city and the public works department. And that's just a small segment of it, but you represent a great group there. And uh I thought you highlighted that part great because yeah, might not be the flashiest um thing to talk about, but yeah, when things aren't working, my god, I think that would be we'd get more calls than on any other issue almost. So, but thank you.

Yeah, both our plants are are amazing. We have great crews there. And if you haven't, I think everyone up there has, but if you haven't, that is definitely a tour worth doing at both plants. So,

I'm just going to tag on to that a little bit and say the creativity and the resourcefulness of staff all the way around in all the departments and saving money and just being creative and resourceful is really exciting to see the results of everyone pulling together and like stepping up in a really awesome way. So, thanks to everyone. And I just wanted to call out the the fleet optimization and in general that just looks great to me because that's something that we've talked about for a long time in many different venues and that's something that I hear about from constituents as well. So at some point, not tonight, um I would I wouldn't mind having like even a little more information about what's been done there because what I see on slide number 136 is great. Um, and I would just love um more details about that as well at some point. So, I just also want to just say again, thanks to everyone for all the work you put into this and all the work you do every single day.

And so, in the next month, we're planning a presentation to council on the findings of that analysis, the fleet optimization, and department has feel free to key the slide number and hit enter when council members uh bring it up. Anything else for public works? No. All right. Uh, do we go in reverse alphabetical order? Any anything else for uh planning? Go ahead. Go ahead.

Um, I mean, you have a mic there too, but um, my question is, first of all, I'm very excited about all of the changes, the executive order, the push, the 90-day push. I think it's all great. I do have a question about um we didn't see any baseline numbers like for instance and I'm not expecting you to give those to me right now because it's off the cuff but what I would be curious to see as we're changing the permitting process and growing it is like where are we at right now? Like if some or where have we been at the past year? Like if someone comes in and they want a single family residence permit, right? What's the baseline number for that? Is that turning around in 21 days, 24 days, 27 days? Again, you don't have to I I'm just I would since we're doing such a push for improvement, it would be good to know where we're starting to see how well we improved. Do we have anything like that?

So, it's uh yes and no. The the data is not good. um meaning like it's not very clean because um as we've been making improvements to the smart gov system, it used to be just like how long did a permit take and then we've been refining it to uh how long is it we've got to the point now we're we're tracking very regularly and uh accurately how long is it you know in permitting's hands versus you know then we sent out a a review letter saying please submit additional information then how long is it in the applicant's hands before they return it to us. We didn't have good tracking of that as the system wasn't implemented. Uh but now we're getting much better numbers. So while we can get you numbers whenever we look at it we end up going well that doesn't seem right. And we go back through and we're like yeah it looks like somebody didn't you know didn't look like the number uh that time was tracked properly in those older permits. So,

but you feel like going forward we're going to have kind of an idea of how long they're each I think we're at the point where now we're able to create a baseline. Okay. And with the permit timeline ordinance that you passed a couple weeks ago, we'll also need that. Okay. Going forward. Great. Thank you. That's all I had. Anybody else with planning questions? No. How about parks questions? Quick question for parks. Um, no, you don't. It's just really about um I noticed that now we're having people to registrate register for the parade. What's slide number, Miss Chian?

Okay, that was slide number blah blah blah blah blah. Okay, you got it done. Um, but yeah, just the idea that, you know, people used to be able to just walk up and be in the parade. We no longer are doing that. Correct. Okay, you're absolutely right. And slide 99 slide 99. That's what I was about to say. Slide 99. It came to me. Um, yeah. No, so that's being pushed out throughout the city. Blah blah blah. We're asking Yes. We're asking for your help publicizing that. We're trying to get people to contact us. We need to know who they are so we can talk to them and encourage them to act safely during the parade. Most people do by and large. Right.

Just again walk down the bike path with their gifts to the community and then asking parents to help us, you know, give some candy to children. They're going to want to run and get it. So, just give it to them at the source. That's what we're asking for. And that just helps us talk to people about that. Yeah. I I think it's a wonderful thing. Thank you for pointing that out. That helps quite a bit. And it's free. Just sign up is free. Okay. Yes. My suggestion that we charge a $100 fee was rejected. Okay. Yeah.

Maybe the parade keeps getting bigger and bigger, you know, so it is pretty important to keep track. And we don't we have people from outside the city that participate in the parade who may not be familiar with it. Mr. Fantine, I spoke over you. What it No, that's okay. Um, I was just going to say maybe we don't charge for everybody, but maybe we charge for political candidates. Okay. There could be some first amendment problems with that, but thank you for the suggestion. There you go. Uh, parks, any other parks questions. I'm excited to hear more about the meals on wheels and what you got coming with that. So, I know you don't have it today, but that was encouraging at least.

All right. Library will be next week. Any questions for museum?

Yes. Um just basically uh I love the idea of that tours with American Cruise Line and the local ability. You know, I think just personally, I thought that the um uh you know, the challenge was in where it was coming in and then also the time in downtown. I think in working to coordinate with the cruise line to try to maybe even they may want to come in on a different day, but even with yours in the museums having that self- tours, I've heard great things about it. So, you know, how we market it, how we promote it will be uh um you know, I think a big part of it. And so, you know, maybe if we later at the port decide that they could come in, you know, near where the orca whale is thing, but I'm just tossing out an idea. But I love it. And also tell us about the 18th again, the fundraiser cruise. Is it still open for people that may want to sort of participate already?

Yes, it is. The April 18th cruise is uh still has space in it, whereas the June, the August is sold out and the June is almost. So, wow. And the weather is supposed to be nice on Saturday. Where would we go? Where would anyone, including myself and others, where would we go to find out about the cruise and try to get tickets? Highland Adventures website. So, Oh, okay. Got it. Thank you. Any other questions for museum? Moving on then. How about uh APD police? Any questions for police?

Absolutely. Don't make the police chief get up. Yeah, you can just take it. All right. Um Okay. Uh I just had I I think there is um an opportunity. I'm just curious on your opinion. I think that our parking code is excellent, phenomenal. Even what

the only issue I take with it is the first time offense fee of $10. I'm curious if you're finding a $10 first time offense as a deterrent for people to talk to to park there again or if you're finding it as more of a you mean I get to park here all day for $10. First of all, I don't have a slide number to put with that.

Uh that's the only one that I didn't put. Uh second of all to answer your question I I don't think that we've uh been able to contact individuals who have been cited for that type of feedback. Uh typically they are paying their fines to the court clerk's office and we don't get a lot of uh feedback on the back end. And then just a question for the mayor. If we wanted to revisit changing that could we?

Oh yes. Uh, I think that there are multiple different things that we can do with the parking code there, including have differential uh, far fines for different areas. Um, I think that that $10 fine was especially low for targeting downtown business areas, but it could be higher or lower there, higher or lower in other parts of the city. And we'll be exploring options for doing quite a bit more with parking um, for pres presentation to you as part of the 2027 budget process. So, um I think now would be a great time to be assembling ideas for potential revisions to the parking code uh to visit in the fall. Okay. Thank you,

Mayor Walters. I I know you go ahead. I was just going to start talking, but it's getting polite over here.

I know, right? Uh anyway, I I appreciate the presentation. Uh the one thing that I just wanted to um kind of uh bring up yet bring up again or bring up in another setting is the I'm really happy that there's going to be bike patrol. I'm excited to see that um in the coming months as it warms up and it gets busier. I also think that we need to do some work on um enforcement and safety when it comes to electric bikes and scooters on sidewalks and roads specifically. So hopefully that um is either a public safety committee discussion or somewhere else. But I just it's getting scary to see kids with helmets that fall off as they're crossing random streets uh and things like that. So if you have any thoughts on that or

you're you're slightly ahead of schedule. We can discuss that tomorrow at a public safety committee meeting. Perfect. Uh there's uh there's some uh revisions potentially we're looking at in the uh current code for uh motorized scooters and how we can address the concerns that you're you're talking about tonight with those revisions. Cool. I one of the things I heard the most about last year.

Yeah. And I I mean I get it. A scooter is an electric scooter and bikes are fun, but we also want people to be as safe as possible. So thank you. Just a comment, Chief Wood. I was just encouraged by the amount of self gener generated calls this year versus last year and being being staffed the way you are and just I've certainly felt more of a presence too just driving around and it's nice that you're catching stuff some stuff proactively, you know, keeping the city safer. That's uh one comment I've consistently heard uh the last six months is uh you know we're seeing police everywhere and that's uh thank you to our community that supported the public safety levy because uh that is the the reason why we have that luxury currently.

Um yeah I wanted to one of the questions I have is about challenge students. you know, we've got students that are, you know, simply struggling for one reason or another, you know, u family events um and things. So, you know, more recently, I um was asked to attend an, um a discussion about a student and what should or should not be taking place. this was a great student but you know parents I understand you know were um substance abusing but the student wasn't in this case and but you know the student was struggling at the same time brilliant student but had been dropping down and as a result going from one STEM to another you know level of of of learning and the expectation one of the things that I'm hoping that maybe we find a way I always thought that, you know, before we really penalize some students so severely that life changes for them and the trajectory that they're on really becomes clouded by the world and all the stuff that they're confronted. I would love at some point maybe we find a way for them to become volunteers maybe at the police department or one of these departments such that they get to see crime, have structure, understand what this is all about. It is momentous in the sense that it really helps students to realize that there's a hierarchy, there's structure, and that they're wonderful people trying to fight those elements rather than not getting that side of it. So, you know, and and I want to do a shout out to John. I reached out to John about one of those students that was doing extraordinarily well and he indicated that their volunteer program that they were having, it's just so good. And I told the the um grandparent who's raising the kid basically and they were just so happy

because again sometimes they didn't know what were available in the community. Although I know we put it out there but there just some families that are missing it in the cut because they're working so hard to survive. They don't have that time. So what I'm encouraging and what I appreciate is that you know maybe that may be part of some type of whatever even a ride on the scene. I just think that we can help a couple of kids, maybe not a lot, you know, but at the end of the day, I think that hope that they will get from a structure, a police structure, you know, and also just being in the middle of other people other than seeing what some parents are doing less than. I think it's so hopeful. So, I'm hoping that we can do more of that. And so, I want to say thank you to you, John, for reaching out. I know they go through all the processes of determining whether or not this person will work here or work not work there. The idea of them applying has already been um um encouraging and I've taken it personally in the sense that you know I'm trying to mentor where I can to help you know all students reach out. So I applaud you guys for that piece of what you're doing and I encourage you to expand it just a little bit. Other questions of police? No. All right, let's go on to fire. Any questions for fire? Mayor Walters. I'll say the mayor. Oh, hello, interim chief. Um, I have a question. Maybe I'm the only one up here that has it about the overtime because I see kind of a caution flag when I see that we are in March, those numbers through March and we're at

50% of our projected overtime for the year. Um, is that due to any like spec I know you talked a little bit about the training and all of that, but I assume a lot of that happens all the time. So, is this tracking like normally we would see overtime numbers? Have there been is it been increased? I know that's probably a hard question for you. It is a a very hard question for me because I've been at the helm of a week. Yeah. Or Yeah.

So, with my previous role, I had like four line items in the budget that I managed and this was not one of them. But I I will say that we are going to look at all of our overtime expenses and we're going to look at as I I tried to line out operational ones, training ones, and and set a dollar value on them so we can examine that at the end of the year and be accountable for overtime spending. Okay. Um, I would be curious to know too just historically where we've ended on those overtime numbers for the last couple years. Well, I I look at

You don't have to give it to me right now. I I look at overtime spending for 2025 at 760,000 and and 2024 at 587,000.

I would be interested in the same thing. And but you know again just I totally understand you know when we look at staffing what prior staffing was in relation to that overtime and what we have now by staffing in relation to overtime. You know I I do think that I know you guys are working hard but I do think that we need to look harder at it and to see if the increase in staffing could have or maybe possibly should have reduced a bit of the overtime. I look forward to you being in the in the position to bring some information to us, but like um um my my colleague here, I'm interested in those numbers at some point coming back so we can discuss it. I know the mayor's just getting his arms around this elephant eating it at the whole time. But I think he's doing a good job. Don't get the big head, but I really do think he's doing a good job, but I would be interested in those numbers. One other thing too, um it does look like that the I know over the last couple years we've really shifted to do a lot of in-house training versus you know like I think uh we did a um where we had eight firefighters go through training here in Anacortis and it looks like we're definitely saving some money on that strategy. So that is good to that is really good to see. Chief, could I ask a much more prosaic question? If you go back to slide 55, I think

can you just give us a little bit more understanding of what each of those definitions of calls means? Sure. So the the 100 value are structure fires or fires related inside a structure outside of structure. Uh overpressurized ruptured explosion uh I immediately didn't find that in the in the database to uh know better what it is. Uh rescue and EMS are are EMS incidents. hazardous conditions or hazmat conditions, gas spills, uh uh and things like that.

Okay. Uh service calls or uh for example, we end up arriving on the scene and it it's not uh like it's not a fire, it's not electrical, it's some other issue that the resident was having and we resolved the issue for them. Okay.

Uh, good intent calls. The good intent calls can be anything from, for example, when a unit is cancelled, cancelled in route or cancelled at the scene. For example, when medics end up going out to different incidents and maybe there's firefighters, EMTs on scene and they uh are able to resolve the issue without them, then we'll cancel the medic.

Okay. a patient may refuse uh EMS care. Basically, somebody else has called for EMS and when the staff get in to the location with the patient, they or the person because they're not technically a patient yet, they just say, "Hey, I didn't call you and I don't want you." Uh third party calling. Uh and that's another example of third party calling. Uh drive by 911 calls. So, we are inundated with uh people that are driving past and they say, "Hey, I I think there's a there's somebody unconscious on the front yard and you know, staff get there and there's a gentleman's son and himself in his own home enjoying the hot weather." So, and and then another example of that would be arriving on scene and and determining that this is not an emergency

and it can't be resolved in other ways. the 700 the false alarms. Uh this can be um uh a false alarm would be for example an automatic fire alarm. So a fire alarm both in a commercial structure in a private residence and the staff will go in and be able to determine hey this is the alarm's going off but but there's no emergency here. Uh it could be uh you know sometimes we have inexperienced chefs that uh are hanging out at home and they start a barbecue and it gets away from them but when staff get there it's just uh flame on from a barbecue. Uh steam release. uh there could be smoke detectors chirping or uh or actually alerting and it could be as simple as it needs new battery or uh we we can't determine why this the smoke detector went off but a lot of times we'll get into how old are the smoke detectors and and we'll talk them through and typically it's a malfunctioning smoke detector and and then carbon monoxide alarms too sometimes they'll chirp sometimes they'll go off and our staff will come in. They'll come in with their equipment that reads the settings and the limits inside the house and we'll be able to advise and 900 special incidents six. I I I didn't uh pursue that one and uh yeah, that's that's generally

Thank you. That's very helpful. But all so all of those different types of calls adding up to your 5,17 18 whatever it is. Correct. Those are all included in our overlapping call stats as well. Right. Correct. Okay. So that's got to be very frustrating when you have three calls on and one of them turns out to be one of these types that isn't an emergency. Correct. Correct. And and that's again where we're going to find the the battalion chief coming in and and doing that system status management. They're they're going to be able to say, "Hey, no, divert from that call. Go here. I will come in and handle that." And he will be managing that.

Yeah. Chief, if you find that you have uh any recurring nuisance type calls, some some jurisdictions have adopted ordinances billing for those. Um not so much on the fire side I don't think but you know like automated automated alarm systems um that uh false alarm more than a certain frequency get ended up build uh for the calls. You know I I I well I hear the staff sometimes tells oh it's that place we've got to go back to that place again. Got to go back to that place again. Well put let's put that on a list to think about. Uh yeah,

that that that type of thing we might want to address. Uh I think we definitely also hear your um overtime concern. I mean, that's a real concern. I think as chief indicated, there are real reasons to overtime that can't be escaped. Uh but there's also um the real reality that we don't have any money to to cover overtime uh that isn't accounted for in the budget. And that's despite the the real re problem that uh the 26 budget is set quite a bit lower than 25 actuals. Uh so we're going to have to reconcile that. So we're going to have to work that question, see if we can reduce it some and and see how else we can pad the budget. So well more info on that for the second quarter

report. Uh I have one just a couple comments. Uh, so thank you for the presentation, especially on your short short notice of taking over all of these different line items. Um, one of the things that I'm kind of curious about, not to respond tonight, but as you start to get more comfortable in in the information, um, and if you have any, you're willing to kind of take an attempt on answering is, you know, why is there such a why is there a higher volume of patient transports than other areas? I don't know if that's just we get less calls and they're more serious calls or what, but if any insight to that would be helpful. And then also um are the overlaps have the overlap of the of calls happening for a reason? Are we having longer response times? Is it because the hospital isn't able to take patients as quickly? I I if I'm not I don't want you to answer now because I feel like all of these are opening a can of worms, but I think it's things that I um when if and when you do get any more kind of insight, we'd like to hear about. Um another item is uh I know we have the community paramedic. I didn't hear much about it today, which is fine, but always nice to hear about any kind of update um with that position. And then finally, as we start to see Medicaid cuts happening, I believe this fall um is that going to impact um our reimbursement for um trans transport transporting patients um just as another thing that when you come back next time would be interesting to have insight too.

Okay. Thank you. And uh you're on public safety committee, right? Yeah. So part of our objective here I think is for those issues which might get teased out in the committee meetings for the department has to track them and then bubble them up to our next quarterly update so that you all hear about them. Okay.

So thank you. Anybody else on fire? That sounded a little weird. Um uh fiber. Anybody have anybody have questions for fiber? That's great because just one just one thing for fiber. I'm looking forward to hearing about what you said. What are other services we can do to generate revenue at some point? I would love to hear your thoughts about that and they're still brainstorming. So, yeah, that might be a little while. Yeah. Yeah. Uh it please no questions on it. Uh legal.

Yeah. Darc, I just want to say uh thank you for all the stuff you're doing in-house. It does seem like the amount of work that your department's taking on is is a lot and and uh looks like you're Yeah. No, I'm just impressed by that.

I totally agree. I mean, you just in the eight years I've been on council, the uh the many things that you've saved us from ourselves or even the wisdom of where not to tread because you know these are the things that may happen as a result of that. Uh the the only thing that I would this is sort of for the you and the mayor. I know you guys we've talked interdep departmentally about grants and opportunity. The biggest thing that I think is a challenge ahead in the mayor and I've talked about this before is also trying to find other grant resources and sometimes that's limited in the sense that each of the department heads are already full already got things happening already trying to manage this beast of good beast and so you know I think that um pushing forward finding other avenues of finding out about grants to make it happen would be profitable by the investment.

Thank you. And uh to Mr. Kerr's point uh especially about uh land use appeals and and to Mr. Coleman's point in his presentation, I feel like there's almost not a day that goes by that we're not touching a land use appeal in some way. Um so if you sense some frustration from us about that, that's that's part of the reason why. Uh, any other questions for legal? Any questions for HR?

Yes. Um, one quick thing. I know Kendall, we spoke once about the move to reach beyond the normal methods to make sure that we're approaching um, you know, a a diverse group of um, talented people that we want to recruit. And what I appreciate about what you've done when I was on the personnel committee is that we talked about it. I knew you were implementing as much as possible as you were moving forward. So I want to say thank you for that. But I'm also looking to continue that the idea of reaching to these other departments at um you know at other universities too just to make sure that you know again we are approaching our world as our world is changing and also um our city is really um stellar in the sense of the diverse group of people come people come and you know I think one of the things that I try to do as well as all of my council members is to try to make sure that we when anybody comes to our city that they know that they're welcome, that they know that they're welcome to spend their money with us and that we, you know, if you're good, we'll keep you here. If not, the chief will deal with you. Okay, that's a little bit of a joke, but you know what I'm speaking to. Thank you.

Okay, so I guess that wasn't a question, but uh slightly. Well, she Any other questions for HR? Not a question, but I did want to thank you for emphasizing and continuing to work on staff retention because I think as we've discussed from every department here, our people are our greatest assets. They are fantastic and we want to keep we want to keep them and develop them. So, thank you for making that a priority. Yes,

we're making sure HR is resources for humans, not just treating humans as resources, which is, uh, not the tagline that Kendall adopted for her department. But, um, uh, we are also very dedicated to adding staff to the HR department, uh, which council has already authorized except contingent on that on that contract that we weren't able to terminate. So, that is on the horizon. Um, as as soon as we can find the money to uh to cover that. Sounds like no other questions for HR. Okay, we're back to the beginning. Finance and finance will also be here next week. Um although it will be Rhonda instead of Steve uh to provide the um first quarter uh revenue and expense report. So any questions for Steve though at this point about his presentation about the the work of his department?

I I have two questions, two things, Mr. Walters. One thing is um um and and this may not be appropriate to say right here right now, but I'm it's all good intending. All right. Have we ever considered the I know water rates that we are charging and I'm not speaking directly about what we are charging our um the citizenry but I'm speaking what I'm trying to address are the water rates wholesale water rates corporate water rates you know I think that the pain that we're all under meaning from the standpoint of rising costs you know the globe over right now have we ever thought about raising that just the tiniest bit they wouldn't even feel it, but it would also help us with, you know, where we can use those dollars, you know, if that's appropriate. That's just one thing. And I know we're talking about, but you don't really have to give an answer. And the second thing

I I think it might be worth answering though. So, do you want to let him do that one then come back? Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Go ahead.

Sure. Yeah. And it's a good it's a good question. So, just as a um so we we have several several segments within our water system. uh we've talked about um and as far as so we have a refinery system, regional system. So the re regional customers are wholesale customers and the city of Anacortis is one of those wholesale customers. So we we as a as a city pay the same rate as the refineries, Oak Harbor and then within our city rates then we charge that uh additional amount that we need to um to maintain our incity system and and we look at that on on an ongoing basis. We cannot um make money on the system. uh it's a it's a you know has to pay its own way but we we can't collect excess funds and once those funds are collected with into the wa into the water fund it has to be used within that water fund system

okay so you're saying you know we we we are looking at it have been looking at it and so whatever can be done will be done and but you know I also want to say to you how much I appreciate what you do you do an extraordinary job conservative Being conservative financially is everything at this point and you've led that way for us. So, thank you. Last question I have is that sometimes, you know, we've got businesses that want to come here to uh Anacort is one of the things is uh hotel occupancy. That's been a big discussion I've obviously some of my constituents have reached out to me about and how we don't necessarily have the data associated with how many rooms, you know, vacancy rates. I know we're getting el tax dollars and I was speaking about it to a a dear friend. It seemed she's a a technical wonk and so at the end of the day, you know, if we have other hotels that want to come, you know, that data that they want to know, we really don't have and it makes it a little difficult because it's a leap into the dark. I think she was suggesting that there was a way we might reverse engineer the dollars that we're getting for, you know, ELCAT and put, you know, there's a way we could reverse engineer and just sort of come up with a reasonable guesstimate which we could apply to other hotels once to come because when we have events here, um, the hotels have all gone and people are having to stay everywhere else and um, you know, I know that's both a good and a bad problem, but at the end of the day, having a better balance. So, one of the things that I'm hoping we can figure out is sort of having a guesstimate of, you know, how many rooms are occupied, how they're not, and then it'll help us on the stratus of um cost, you know, you know, we got high in and lower end. Does that make sense?

Sure. You bet. Thank you. Yeah. So, I I think we might be able to do that. However, would we be able to then share that data because wouldn't it be based on proprietary information? I mean, maybe

it may not be specific. You know, we could have numbers associated with different one, but so there's no it's almost like HIPPO data in the sense that we don't want to identify which hotel you think what I'm hoping our goal is is to find out during these times that there's a bigger vacancy that we have and or they're filled up. We got a 1% 2% vacancy. So when we speak to another potential hotel like the port's trying to consider one there are other people trying to consider that we can say look this is what we this is the information we have. I'm not sure we have that now. And from what I understood could, and I could be wrong, from what I understand that there are hotels that considered coming, but the issue was for them, they had no clue as to what we were specifically doing here in Anacortis and what that vacancy rate was. And so, you know, we wouldn't tell the business of, you know, the Majestic or any of the others. What we could just show is that there's a hole here for these events. and the the Yeah, it seems like that's something we might be able to pull off and the the port has a consultant on board so we can connect with them.

Thank you. Uh on that question, I al uh just to follow up uh Mr. Young, I also think it would be a great question for economic development committee meeting tomorrow because we'll have the Scadget Tourism Ed there. Excellent. Who may um be able to assist us with that at least countywide. Thanks. So, okay. Any other questions for finance or anybody else? Not a question, but thank you all very much. This has been incredibly informative and really appreciate the time you've put into it.

Thank you, Mr. McDougall. Uh, thank you all very much. At at council members, at your one-on- ones with me, I'll be asking you for feedback on this format. Uh, I think that this presentation will help us establish a baseline. We're going to refine the metrics. We're going to refine the strategic goals. um we can refine the format based on your feedback as well. Um this took us you know a little bit more than 3 hours and uh I don't think that that is a an extraordinary amount of time to spend for us quarterly on the depth and breadth of the departments and the services that the city offers but uh also certainly open to feedback on how we might evolve it.

So thank you all. Uh we'll go ahead and adjourn the meeting and see y'all next week.