City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening everybody. I've got 6 PM on April 20th. All council members are present except for Mayor Prom Christine Cleland McGrath. Would you please join me in the uh 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 everybody. We have a lot of announcements and committee reports tonight, so we'll try to move forward through them as quickly as we can. Mayor Walters.

Miss Molton. I'd like to make a motion to excuse Miss Clea McGrath. Second

motion and second to uh excuse Miss Cle McGrath's absence. If there's no objection hearing none, uh that motion is approved and the absence is excused. Okay, back to our order of business. Uh announcements and committee reports. Uh first of all, Earth Day is this Wednesday, April 22nd. There are three downtown events you might want to be aware of. The luminary parade is Friday at 8:00 p.m. The street fair is Saturday from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. And then the procession of the species is Saturday at 6 p.m. Next year when we put up this slide, we will have an excellent photo of the Earth Day events. And we we should have grabbed one uh uh for this year's slide because uh it really is quite the special occasion. Next slide, please. We do want to recognize our interim engineering supervisor Jeff Belramini who competed in and completed allegedly he allegedly completed do we have confirmation of that uh the 130th Boston Marathon today. I have no question that he made it all the way to the end. The Senior Activity Center has a couple of uh significant events coming up on Wednesday, April 22nd. a a session on advanced care planning which ensures your goals, values, and preferences are known not only at the end of life, but if you are unable to communicate due to illness or injury, that event is free, but registration is required. On April 29th, there's a session on hearing loss and you uh that's simply an informative talk and that event is free. And then on May 7th, Thursday, there is a mother's day lunchon. Registration is required. There's a fee of $5 to7 and of course it's in celebration of mothers and all the important women in our lives. You can learn more about all these events at the senior activity center at anacortiswah.gov556.

Uh parks and recreation wants to highlight that there are a couple of events coming up uh that are significant. Kids Fishing Day at Heart Lake is May 30, starts at 7 a.m. and then Bark in the Park is June 13, uh, starts at 10:00 a.m., and that's at Stovvic Park. Anacortiswah.gov/490 has more information about those events. Uh, the museum uh, wants to highlight on April 23rd, this Thursday, there is a Samish singing and drumming group. Um, it's a night of sharing the songs and music that are traditional to the Samish Indian nation. And also there are Samish instruments and music related photographs on display at the Music of Anacortis exhibit. Anacortiswah.gov/333 has got more information about these events. The library has a couple of uh significant events coming up and they are giving us a presentation later on in this meeting as well. On May one, the 4th annual Jazz Walk. Um, as you may know, we have an endowment uh related to jazz. So, the Jazz Walk starting in Oldtown, we'll have great jazz at six local venues with six different artists. There's jazz for everybody. May 6th, we'll have the library trivia night at the library itself. Uh, bring your team and compete for the trivia crown. starts at 6:00 p.m. On May 8th, children's book week story time with Cammy Bratton, 10:45 and 11:30 a.m. On May 20th, there's an after hours book fair. Uh that starts at 6 p.m. at the library, and that is a grown-up event for ages 18th and up. I don't I don't know what what's happening there that um is so grown up, but uh I guess you'll find out if you attend that event. And then May 25th through 30th is children's programming break. There will be no children's programs that week and that's the week of Memorial Day. For more information, anacordoswis.gov220.

Another reminder that the Gimis ferry is going to be out for maintenance uh May 4 through 17th. The county operates this ferry and the county will be pro providing passenger only service um beginning on May 4th at 6:30 a.m. Uh we are in charge of the parking rules and we are not modifying parking rules or suspending any parking rules during that time. Everyone should be aware that parallel parking is the default form of parking unless otherwise marked in Anacortis and uh it is the form of parking that is allowed and permitted on sixth and 7th streets and that will be enforced. There's more information at anacortiswah.gov/2073 with a list of common parking um errors. Uh we've definitely heard a lot of feedback on ebikes and e- motorcycles and so we want to let the community know that we are working on ordinance updates and public education to ensure the safety of both uh riders and pedestrians. You'll see progress on that in the coming weeks. Uh fairly significant increases in fuel prices are costing us quite a bit of money. Um, in February, our fuel costs were $8,000 lower um than last month. That's a 28% increase, and we expect that to increase again this month. So, we are encouraging all staff to reduce idling and consider trip reductions. Uh, of course that's a great thing for everybody to do, but we need to make the community aware that we are facing this challenge and it is expected to get worse a lot sooner than it will get better. Um, as we have talked about a couple of times, the police department uh offers safe disposal of firearms and other weapons. You can call APD at

360428-3211. Uh the state law requires safe storage of firearms. So if you're unable to store firearms safely or if you've inherited or otherwise obtained firearms you don't want anymore, let's take care of them. Uh call APD and they will take care of them for you. Next slide. At our last uh disposal of firearms on April 15th last week, uh APD was able to dispose well public works was able to dispose of four APD six handguns, seven long guns, uh five knives or machetes, some kind of edged weapon, and six other weapons for a total of 24 different weapons. And about half of each of those categories were uh weapons that were obtained u through voluntary uh dispossession, people that didn't want them anymore. We're making some progress. It's important to keep going. Now, council, uh, we've got a list of committee reports on the agenda. I'll go ahead and start with economic development.

May Walters, Mr. Young, uh, economic development committee met uh, last week and I believe it was the 14th. It was myself, um, Luke Courier, uh, and Christine Cle McGrath as well as the staff. It was a great meeting as always. Um I think we're lucky to have the people we do serving on the committee and um we had there also at the meeting was um downtown uh Jordan with um downtown Alliance Meredith from the um um creative district.

Okay, good. Thank you. from the arts district. Uh we also had um uh Jessica from the um chamber, Christian Keltz from the Scadget Tourism Bureau, uh Christy from the port, and uh others. But the main point of that meeting was to come together so we can figure out how we're going to one utilize the opportunity we have for um the FIFA activities as well as the 2 million people that we have said any number of times that take the ferry going to the Sanan Islands. And so we've came up with a wonderful plan. All of the participants are bringing pieces of um their strategy to the table and um what we're going to do is have some signage hopefully out at the um out there near the ferry terminal and it'll be a chance for people to put their head in and get a QR code and and you know website maybe and you know tell them about everything that's happening in our city and create the opportunity for them to come back. It's a lot of wonderful discussion and the amazing part was that all of the stakeholders that we had at that initial meeting were all exuberant about the possibility. We agreed that this is a great and lowhanging fruit for us as a city and you know at that point um you know trying to encourage people to come back spend their money or remember us. But each of those places, downtown, uh the creative district or the um the tourism are all working in concert for the greater good of Anacortis. And so the beautiful part about it was we had all of those stakeholders at the table. We were agreeing on a strategy. We have

a plan forward. I think installation we're hoping is June 1st and everybody's taking a part of the chamber QR codes because they do geoloccating and so many other wonderful things. Christristen Kelts and Scadget Tourism does a deep dive into who and what and how we get there. And so all of those are acting in sync with one another. They're not acting as soloed items. And so, you know, our goal is really to not only um help Anacortis, but it will also um link to other pieces of the valley that's happening. And that's the thing that we've always been working for. So, it's incredibly positive. We've got some great people at the table willing to stand and do what we need to do for our city. So, I'm very much proud of that. Anything you want to add, Luke?

All right. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Young. Uh, housing affordability, community services and planning. Mayor Walters, Miss Molton,

the hacks committee met last Tuesday. Council members Courier Young and myself. And as usual, we had some guests that are involved in service organizations. For example, we met or he was new to me, but the interim executive director of the Anacortis Housing Authority, Brian Carroll, attended in person. And so we learned a bit about his history as the CE being being the CEO of Secret Harbor for 21 years and who also worked diligently on the state's child welfare policy. So he's been involved in these issues for years and he is generous enough to come out of retirement for a short period of time as the search continues for a permanent executive director of the housing authority. We talked a little bit about their $1 million chip grant that they received and that's connecting housing to infrastructure program from the state and a lot of that will help with um the so the utility hookups we wave the city waves 80% of the of the hookup charges and also um impact fees we wave for affordable housing. So, a lot of money will be generated. I kind of lost track here with my notes, but $600,000 will help with infrastructure and then some of that will also go to storm water improvements in that block. There will be 27 units. Um, and this grant is mainly for the design and build of the the designing of the building. Sorry, my notes are a mess. Um, and there will be 15 one-bedroom apartments, nine studios, three two-bedrooms, and

two of those will be um ADA accessible. And those apartments will be available to people making at the most 60% of the area median income. It'll be three floors of residential and then commercial on the ground floor. So, what else did we talk about? Oh, another thing that came up is Habitat for Humanity thought they had all of their units filled here in town, but it turned out um two did not. Two of the people they expected to qualify unfortunately did not. So, there are still two openings at the Habitat for Humanity Town Homes on 29th Street across from store across from um that park. Um, so yeah, so if you know of anyone, um, please send them to the Habitat for Humanity Scadget website. And I feel like with all that I might have still forgotten something. Anything else to add? Okay. Thank you, Mayor Walters.

Mr. Fantini.

Um, I just have a quick question. Um, a while ago, like a long while ago, we had talked about like the ADUs and everything, people building ADUs and Anacortis. And um, I I think that it had come up about whether or not we as a city would look at doing like plugandplay where maybe we had a couple designs that and that conversation seemed to kind of not go a lot of places um, for whatever reasons. But um this weekend I was walking to my neighborhood and I saw uh an ADU that's being built. And I stopped to talk to the neighbor and he was telling me about it. He wants to age in place and so he's going to be renting to somebody that is into that and maybe helping him with some errands and and things like that which is awesome. And then the other neighbor is neighbors often gather and talk about was like you know I could do something like that. And the guy was like well you know your lot is like exactly like mine. You could probably do this. and she was like, "Well, how about you to, you know, can I borrow your plans?" And I'm just wondering if that conversation will ever come around again because I think there could be some opportunity as we're looking to provide more housing for people. It seems like there's a real interest now and people building these ADUs kind of back off of alleys. And I'm just curious if that conversation is dead or could come back up again. Maybe something for the hacks committee to discuss.

I think it could come back. Oh, I'm sorry. Mayor, did you have something? Yes. Okay.

Uh, yeah. I conversations are never dead. Uh, I think that the conclusion at the time though was that the stock plans were not really the bottleneck in construction of ADUs. Frequently the problem is infrastructure setbacks, you know, some other sightspecific constraint rather than the stock plans. and some jurisdictions have put a lot of time into the stock plans, not necessarily gotten the value out of it. However, there's a a relatively simple alternative, which is certification of some plans somebody else wants to produce. So, if an architect's got an ADU plan, we could certify that and if you always use that one uh until the building code changes and then it needs to get reertified, then we could do that re-review really quickly. So, it's an alternative method of getting at the same thing. Doesn't solve those other problems, though. Thanks.

Uh, was that then everything on hacks planning? Yes. Uh, public safety. Mayor Walters. Miss Malta.

Public safety met on April 14th uh, with interim fire chief Manx McDonald and police chief Dave Floyd. and we talked about motorized scooters and bicycles and the chaos that ensues just about every morning around the school zones um and lack of helmets. So, we talked about potential of creating a helmet law and if that would be age determined under 16, under 18. So, that's ongoing and chief sent us uh Chief Lloyd sent us a link to the Washington Transportation Commission and what they're working on for a policy. So, we can look at that and and use that as we come up with our own rules. The APD also was submitting a grant for a community justice training center center grant to support officer wellness programs that the city doesn't currently have general fund budget capacity to support. And if the if we get the grant, it's for $69,000 and it would cover this year and next year. So, we have um we have we had one officer leave our agency last month to join Scaja County Sheriff's Office, and we have multiple candidates that are being evaluated to move through our hiring process. We have a recruit that started the training academy this week due to graduate in August and this should have him working as a solo officer before the end of the year. There is also an Arlington academy starting in August and the academy lasts 19 weeks and so any new people could go through that and that would take the 19 weeks from August till they'd be ready to um graduate. So, we did talk about the ACFL being covered by the school resource officer and how important that

is, and we might talk about that a little bit later as we look at the ACFL management plan, but there's a lot of a lot of concern by the community. Um, we have the roughly 3,500 acres and the 50 miles of trails and we have some really good rules, but we have very little enforcement. And so that is a priority for many of us. Um and then we talked about the animal the not feeding wildlife ordinance and the main focus of that should it pass is the education piece is going to be the most important and likely the most effective. So, no one's looking to like look for peanuts in your yard necessarily, but um more education and public awareness and that has been determined to help in other communities like Bellingham. We've received some excellent public comments in favor of the ordinance with um examples from Bellingham and even a flyer from the Department of Fish and Wildlife that lays out in very certain terms how detrimental feeding human food is to wildlife. Um so anyway, we have resources that we can use that have already been developed that could be really helpful to us. Um, and then for fire, we talked a little bit about overtime and the community paramedic. Um, our current one will be retiring in June. And so, um, there's a search underway for who might fill that spot and we will meet again in May and then we ran out of time, but it was a it was a really good meeting overall. Um, it was council members Clea, McGrath, Hunt, and me. So, thanks.

Thank you. And the public works committee, Mayor Walters, Mr. Pantini.

Uh, we met just before this meeting. It was myself, public works director um Logan Lee and, um, Will Ludman. Um, we talked a little bit about the 12th and Commercial Intersection, which is not finished yet, um, but will be eventually. Um, and we're just waiting on those light poles and then a couple other adjustments to come. But those lights should not be that slow forever once we get those new light poles that will help greatly. Um, also on tonight's agenda, we do have a water mane replacement contract. This is the third. Um, we do a few uh water main replacements every year. Um, we did Jura Way this year, we did Terrace Drive this year, and the one coming to us tonight is Dune Way. This is the the largest one um that we have this year by far. Um I asked a little bit about how we choose which water manes we're going to replace each year and it's based off of known problem areas. Um which since we only do a few every year, there tends to be a few every year that are known problem areas. Um we also talked about I had a question just um for them about our pavement maintenance program because as you know we as a council set aside um 1.8 8 million every year uh to do maintenance and LA on um pavement maintenance improvement on our roads. Last year we had foregone that because we were trying to uh funnel it all towards south commercial which we're no longer doing. So um just kind of curious what we're going to do with those funds and probably something we should talk about as a council. I know last time we really were um wanting to make sure those funds were held for South Commercial. Maybe we don't want to do that anymore. Maybe we do, but probably something um that we should we should talk about. Uh the mayor alluded earlier to I was not surprised but a little

stunned to see $8,000 more a month in fuel. That's something we should definitely be aware of and we talked about a little bit. Um, you might have seen the mayor sent out, I think it was end of last week, the fleet review that was put together as part of his executive order and there'll be a presentation coming to us on council pretty soon about that. But we all have that now. If you have any questions, please direct them to um, Mr. Ludman so that he can include that in his presentation. We also talked about um adding to the existing code some rideofway code. Um so right now homeowners are currently responsible for maintaining um the right-of-way area around their home mowing the grass that kind of thing mostly trees that might fall. Um but that is not currently enshrined in our code and MRSC as well as most other cities um have suggested this as well as have that in their code uh as kind of a protection for us as a city. So that's something that we should be looking to coming to us at council pretty soon. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any other announcements or other committee reports? Mayor Walters.

Miss Hunt. This is not a committee report, but speaking as a member of the museum committee, I did want to give a shout out to the organizations that pulled together the Anacortis historic tours for this summer. I was lucky enough to get a ticket on that boat ride over Saturday evening. So, for three hours, you circumn the entirety of Fedo Island. Um, and there are some wonderful slides and narration by our museum director and curator, Beck Ivy. Um, the treasurer, Eric Peterson, the treasurer of the museum foundation was there and Leslie Eastwood from the Samish Nation was there. So, we got three hours of human and natural history about Pidalgo and Guamus. Fantastic trip. I'm not doing a shameless plug because I think the other two tours are already sold out for the summer, but it's also a great model because tourists and locals get to go. supports Island Adventures, a local business, supports our museum foundation and our museum, and some sales tax comes into the general fund. So, great idea. Thank you. And my sense definitely is that there is a lot more demand than there is supply on that tour. All right. If there are no other committee reports or announcements, I have a proclamation for Arbor Day 2026, which I will read. Whereas Arbor means tree in Latin. Whereas Arbor Day is a special day that has been set aside for planting and caring for trees. Whereas all 50 states and countries throughout the world celebrate this holiday every spring to teach children the important of forestry. Whereas Anacortis has been recognized by the National Arbor Day Foundation as a tree city USA for the 24th consecutive year. And whereas the tree planting this year will be held at

the Anacortis Community Garden at 10:00 a.m. on Friday, April 24th. Now therefore, I, Ryan Walters, mayor of the city of Anacortis, hereby proclaim Friday, April 24th, 2026 as our celebration of Arbor Day in Anacortis and encourage our citizens to plant trees, thus leaving a legacy for present and future generations. Thank you. Hope to see you out there on Friday. Mayor Walters, Miss Molton, just to clarify, the community garden, is that behind where the bowling alley used to be? Yeah. Okay. Thanks.

We don't we don't mention the bowling alley, but uh yeah, 29th Street. Uh all right. Uh that brings us to uh item four on the agenda, which is public comment. I have one person signed up for public comment, so you get to go first. Uh Tim Schmidt. come on up to the microphone and adjust the microphone uh to your liking and tell us your name and the neighborhood you live in. Uh my name is Tim Schmidt and I live just a few blocks from the hospital, south of the hospital. Perfect. You have three minutes. Thank you.

Thank you. Um I'm wearing a mask because I have a relative who's gotten a bone marrow transplant. I'm not ill. I want to thank all of you for being here and doing the hard work. My subject that I wanted to bring up, and I apologize because I didn't realize this was already on a future agenda, is ebikes and e- motorcycles. Uh, right now if I wanted to ride an off-road e- motorcycle with 52 years of a driver's license and a motorcycle endorsement in Washington state, according to my research, RCW46617575, it would be illegal for me to do so despite having a license and a motorcycle endorsement for that long a period of time. There are three types of ebikes as you probably know. There's the pedal assist class one 20 m an hour. Class 2 pedal assist with a throttle up to 20 m an hour. Pedal assist type three. Class 3 may or may not have a throttle. Could go up to 28 mph. All three of these have a 750 watt maximum power. I did a little cursory search online. Once I did, I was bombarded with advertisements. An SQ motorcycle has 6,500 watts of power and goes 53 miles hour. A Nova X has 4,000 watts and goes 46 miles per hour. And a happy run motor e motorcycle has 6,000 watts and can go 50 mph.

All of these do not have pedals. That is not necessarily the first classification of an e- motorcycle. By Washington state statute, an e- motorcycle is anything over 750 watts. I don't think I have to tell you what's going on at the middle school when they let out. This fall before I left for a trip, I went to the police station and I told them my concerns and I was unable to persuade them to go across the street to check this out. Somebody's going to get hurt. Somebody's going to get killed with the way these young boys, typically boys, are writing these things. They go too fast. They have no blinkers. They have no insurance. They have no registration. They have no valid driver's license. They have no motorcycle endorsement. So, I leave it to you to do the hard work. And I appreciate what you guys are doing. Uh, I hope it's successfully we can keep people safe in our town.

Thank you. Are there any other public comments for the general public comment section? Come on up.

You know the drill. Linda Martin, ward three.

Thank you. Last week's uh council meeting with all the department heads was enlightening and an excellent way to keep the public informed while providing the council an opportunity for oversight. I appreciated the conserve, reform, and invest theme throughout the presentations and particularly like seeing the uniformity of financial statements. It's clear we have talented and capable people overseeing the business of the city. Now, a quick word about the financial status of the city. As explained in the various financial reports, we were shown last week a total of 18 budgets representing 12 departments. While you were focused on the first quarter status of spending related to the budget and rightly so as a taxpayer, I was more interested in the total budget amounts, particularly since we've been told repeatedly that the city is facing huge financial challenges. Using 2024 actual spending as a baseline, I was somewhat surprised to see that of the 12 departments, seven listed significant budget increases for 2026, one listed a significant decrease and four were basically status quo. For example, even after adjusting for the 700,000 interfund transfer, the finance department shows a budget increase of over 22%. Similarly, HR is budgeting for an increase of 26%. I can give you specifics for each department, and I urge you to go back and check my numbers. Overall, the budget is almost 7% higher than last year and a mere 3% decrease from 2024. As a citizen and taxpayer, I expect the

most the utmost truth and transparency from my city's leaders. The department reports are a good start. Now, perhaps a shift in the city's financial messaging would be in order. Instead of repeating that we are facing unprecedented financial challenges, it might be more accurate based on the data to report that the city is experiencing shifting department priorities. One specific item that was not mentioned in the presentation was the planned community park on West 6th Street. It was approximately a year and a half ago that I presented a petition petition to the city signed by 143 neighbors asking the city to fulfill the promise of a park that some neighbors say has been promised for over 20 years. I know that this park is on the city's project page, but as accomplishments were listed last week and specifically as long range plans were explained, there was not one mention of the promised park. The message is that the citizens petition is not that important, that the park is at best an afterthought, and actually not even that since it wasn't even listed as a future project. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Anyone else for public comment? Anyone online? No. All right. Thank you. We'll move on now to our consent agenda. Council, there are eight items on the consent agenda. Is there a motion to approve? Mayor Walters. Mr. McDougall, I move approval of the consent agenda items as presented. Second. Motion a second to approve the consent agenda in its entirety. Any request to pull any items? No. There. No discussion allowed on the consent agenda. So, if all those in favor would say I.

I. I I.

All those opposed say no. The eyes have it. The consent agenda is approved. That brings us on to other business. Our first item of other business is order ordinance 5026 prohibiting the feeding of wild animals. And this is the second read of this item. City attorney Darcy Swatnam will present. Thank you, Mayor Walters and members of council, members of the audience. So, tonight I am presenting the second read of ordinance 5026 which prohibits feeding wild animals. We last looked at this ordinance on April 6th. And just to review, the key provisions are this of this ordinance are that it creates a new chapter in title six addressing the feeding of wild animals. Uh because of issues related to public health concerns about diseases, impacts on diet, decreased diversion to humans, and increased death of animals due to traffic collisions. Uh the only change that was made to the draft after reviewing last time's discussion and comment from the public was adding squirrels into the definition of wild animals. So the definition now uh includes deer, raccoons, seagulls, pigeons, and squirrels. Uh so again, the ordinance as as uh proposed prohibits intentionally feeding wild animals or making food available. There's a presumption of violation if food is left out on the ground, but it does not apply to bird feeders, including hummingbird feeders or stuff that falls off of trees or plants in your garden. Uh again, the penalties for a first violation, it's a class 4 civil infraction, which is a $25 fine. Uh

second and subsequent violations would be a class three civil infraction, which is a $50 fine. I'm happy to answer any questions or turn it over to the public to comment. And importantly, as one pointed out, WFW has already made it illegal to feed deer, but this provides us an enforcement mechanism for that locally. Correct. Uh, council, uh, before we open for public comment, do you have any questions for Darcy or APD or anybody else? Walters, Mr. Young?

No. I just wanted to acknowledge that there were a number of emails received in discussions um both pro and against and uh I just wanted to acknowledge those. I do think that when we look at the challenge that we have uh the uniqueness of our island and you know naturally we have people that love um animals in so many ways but I do believe this is a good ordinance for us for the majority of this city and this town. So, I just wanted to acknowledge the people that sent opposing views and wanted them to know that they were read, understood, and um um and but I still think this is for the greater good of the city. Thank you.

Okay. Any additional questions? No. Uh council, would you like to open it to public comment? Yes. Yes. Uh, is there anyone interested in providing public comment on this ordinance? Seeing none, do we have anybody online? No. Okay. All right. No public comment. Uh, councel Mayor Walters. Mr. Fantini.

Um, I just wanted to point out two things. One, I think what Miss Molton said earlier in her committee report is really the key to this ordinance, and that is education, education, education. You know, I think it's very easy when we're in budget times for everybody to think, oh, they're doing all this stuff to raise money, to raise money, to raise money. That's for me, that's not my motivation in voting for this. It's because I've taken the time to educate myself on not only what it does to us as our our little society, but also what it does to the animals when they get unexpected feeding. So, I just think that's really should be, as Miss Molton said, our our focus on this. The other thing that I wanted to point out is there's something later on the agenda tonight. Um the ACFL uh forest management plan and feeding it the trail heads is actually something that has been flagged as a behavior issue in the forest plan comments. So, I think there's it's kind of nice that there's a connection between that forest plan and some of the comments that we're being asked to do and us doing potentially um doing something that that addresses some of the comments in that plan. So, anyway, thank you.

Uh point is well taken and unfortunately, fortunately, we don't um make a lot of money on civil infractions. Mayor Walters. Mr. Pantini. If there's no other comments or discussion, um I move approval of the ordinance as presented. Second.

I have a motion and a second to approve ordinance 5026 as presented. Is there further discussion? If there is no further discussion, I'll call for a vote. The vote is on the motion to approve ordinance 5026 as presented. All those in favor? No, no, no, no. I caught myself. Uh, Miss Pek will call a roll call vote because this is an ordinance. Mr. McDougall, yes. Mr. Fantini, I. Miss Hunt, yes. Mr. Courier, yes. Mr. Young, yes. Miss Molton, yes. Yeses are six, nays are zero.

Sounds like the yeses have it. The ordinance is approved. Miss Wetman, will you take us on to the next ordinance?

Absolutely. Uh, so thank you. The next ordinance on the agenda for tonight is ordinance 5027, which prohibits virtual currency kiosks. This ordinance was also last considered at the April 6th city council meeting, and so tonight is a second read, uh, subject to action if council decides to move forward. And I want to mention that the draft that's in the packet has not been changed since the last time it was presented, but I got a little more information on one of the questions that came up. So, as a review from last time, this ordinance would create a new chapter in the Anacortis Municipal Code regard regarding virtual currency kiosks. And it would it would uh the virtual currency that are sold at these kiosks are things like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Zcash, and others. Uh I did check uh Mr. McDougall had a question about whether the definition of virtual currency in the ordinance would include NFTTS or nonfgeible tokens. It would not include non-f fungeible tokens because those are not viewed as a currency under the definition. there's something that gets acquired with currency. Uh so then the next question is could those be transacted at these kiosks and uh according to the interweb I am by no means an expert. Uh generally the kiosks don't sell NFTts but it's theoretically possible that that could happen at some point in the future. Uh so you know I wasn't sure exactly if council wanted to make any changes to the ordinance because of that. seems ba like based on what I could learn from the industry that maybe that's not necessary but but a good thing to keep an eye on and if it seems like that's something that's happening then we could certainly come back and amend the ordinance to address those issues as well.

Well and importantly a kiosk that sold currency and NFTs would be prohibited under the ordinance.

Correct. That it would have to be something new that only sold NFTts. So, uh, so to review, the ordinance would make it unlawful to host, allow, operate, permit, locate, or place one of these virtual currency kiosks within the city of Anacortis. The two kiosks that currently are in place at the grocery stores will have to be removed within 60 days of the ordinance. And as we talked about last time, this doesn't restrict people's ability to um, buy or sell virtual currency. It's just these ATM like stations in public places that that would be prohibited. So, the penalties for this one include uh anyone violating the ordinance uh would be subject to a class one civil infraction. Civil penalties of $500 a day. If, for example, there was one of these kiosks in a business and that business permitted that to happen, uh they could be facing penalties of up to $500 a day. in addition to loss of city uh business license if the operators were found in violation of the chapter. So with that staff recommends approval. I'm happy to answer any questions or turn it over for public comment.

Mayor Walters, Miss Molton. Thanks. Thank you, Miss Swetnam. And what will be the method of informing the two businesses that currently host these kiosks? We'll have to we'll have to talk with the mayor about how we would like to approach that and talk to Chief Floyd, but probably reaching out to them and uh you know in in writing and letting them know as soon as possible so that they can they can work towards compliance. Okay, great. And these are places that also have you can dump your coffee can full of change into them and that will still be allowed.

That won't be prohibited by the ordinance. I I'm not aware of the current kiosks whether they have both functionalities, but so that that will be up to the operators and whoever owns those kiosks to make sure that they comply within the time frame. We understand those are modules that can be turned off.

Okay. Okay, good. That's helpful. Um, thank you. Yeah. And I would of course suggest the sooner the better because 60 days might come around fast and who knows what their contract is with the I mean I don't want to cause any one undue harm financial or otherwise. Um if we can if it can certainly if it can be avoided. So yeah. Thanks. Sure. We'll work on notifying people as soon as possible. Mayor Walters.

Mr. Vantini. I just want to confirm. Um, so just so I'm understanding, if you want to trade cryptocurrency in home, at your computer, or on your phone, in the park, you can still trade cryptocurrency. We are not outlawing the trading of cryptocurrency in Anacortis, Facebook. We're just just the kiosks. Correct. I'm not sure we could do that. So, thank you, Mil Walters. Mr. young. Um, short of any other comments, public comment, you want We We have an asterisk on this item, so I'll take public comment uh at some point, but you can make a motion if you want.

Well, yes. I make a motion that um adopt ordinance 5027 creating chapter 5.42 42 of the Anacortis Municipal Code to prohibit virtual currency kiosks within the city of Anacortis.

Second. I have a motion and a second to approve ordinance 5027 prohibiting virtual currency kiosks as presented. Any other discussion or questions for the city attorney on that? Uh let us go to the public. Uh would anyone like to offer public comment on this proposed ordinance? No. Anybody online? No. Okay. No public comment. Uh, council, if you still have no discussion, no further questions. Mayor Walters,

I'd just like to pause once more and thank um Mr. Maul for bringing this to our attention. Um, and thank legal for getting it put into place so quickly. Thank you. Yes.

Agreed, Mr. Young. No, I just you know where we are now as a society with the proliferation of online betting gam you know just so many methods of um doing whatever it is that we want. We also have a proliferation of crime happening. You know scams at every single turn. you know, the legitimacy of things that you once thought were sacred are no longer sacred at this point. You know, with AI able to recreate faces, voices, and so many things, it is a hard task that we as a society have to mount up and continue our push forward. So, I'm very thankful for bringing this forward and I'm thankful for um you know, our attorney as well as the city for having the gall, I'll use that word for lack of another one to um decide that we're going to push back and I think it's a beautiful thing.

Thank you, Mr. Young. Anyone else? There's no further discussion. I'll call for the vote. Hearing none, the vote is on the motion to approve ordinance 5027 prohibiting virtual currency kiosk as presented. This is an ordinance, so we will take a roll call vote. Mr. Fantini, yes. Miss Hunt, yes. Mr. Courier, yes. Mr. Young, yes. Miss Molton, yes. Mr. McDougall, yes.

Uh, the yays are six, nays are zero. Sounds like the yays have it and the ordinance is approved and I will sign it. Thank you all for your work on that. Our next item is our first quarter library update. Our library director uh Mr. Fogle was unable to be with us last week but he is here tonight. Right. I have to find my slide here. Where am I? I don't appear to be on the desktop here.

I also do not see it on the desktop. Not ated earlier. Thank you. Off to a great start here. Well, you know what? We are going to keep extending your time until you get your slides. Thanks. So, you have your full 10 minutes.

Great. Yeah, sorry to miss last week. Um, my had a great family vacation, but my son and I came home with a stomach bug. I was in no shape to present. So, thanks for having me here tonight. Um, and uh, might as well start off by thanking Trish Wilson, librarian Trish Wilson, for helping me put together the slides we were going to co-present tonight, but um, you're stuck with me tonight and hopefully she'll be involved in future updates. So, I'm stalling here. Um, Yeah. Okay. Mayor part partial credit for putting together the slides. Full credit for getting them onto that piece.

There you go. Wow. That's molton. Um I just wanted to thank Miss Wilson since she's here. Um I go to a fair amount of Wednesday night events at the library, whether they're historical talks or humanities Washington presentations or craft nights. Um, and Trish is pretty much all always there and making them happen and very gracious host and they're really good opportunities for community members to get together in a casual way to learn something or make something including new friends which I have made at a craft night. So, um, I just wanted to thank her for that since we have a little lull in the proceedings. Walters,

Mr. Young, uh, Miss Molton. Yeah, your talents are expanding. I'm looking forward to seeing some of your crafts. Well, I don't really like having this much dead air. Uh,

I could certainly start start without the slides if that would be helpful. If you would if you would like or we can continue to wait. We can paper copy here. Old school paper. We can take a recess if we need. Whatever you prefer. We're almost there. Oh, we got the thumb drive out. We're on our way here.

Thank you, Rhonda. and it's 200 slides of everybody else's uh presentation as well. Yes, it is.

I'm gonna be redoing everybody's tonight. So, that'll I'll be going through the whole thing. do this. Almost there.

There you go, sir.

Thank you so much. All right. Thanks for patience here. All right. I'm Jeff Vogle, library director. Good evening, members of council, mayor Walters, members of the audience. Thanks again for your patience. So, um, I will jump right in. So, strategic goals for 2026. Um, we are working with the Anacortis Library Foundation to fund the redesign of our two main service desks to best utilize our reduced staff and have space for managers to offer ongoing support. So, this is our main service desk, which is kind of floating in the middle of the floor right now. We're going to move the back to where it belongs, where it was architecturally designed to be. Um, and we're going to make it a better desk. We're going to redesign the children's desk as well to accommodate more than one staff member. We are contracted currently with Underwood who designed our teen area. They're going to design both desks, so there'll be some continuity between the two desks. Um, we're really excited about this and this will be funded entirely by the foundation. Just to be clear, this will not I will not be coming to you asking for money. This is entirely funded by the foundation. um they've already paid for the contract with Underwood. Um number two, we will continue to assess the feasibility of joining the Scadget Library Consortium. I'll speak more to this later. And three, we will actually be working on a strategic plan. Um we did a great job with our last strategic plan. Um achieved lots of the goals on most of the goals on it, including the teen library. um but we're due for another and we have a very competent library board that can do it in-house so we don't have to um pay to have somebody help us with it and so we'll start working on that in 2026 and hopefully um implement it in 2027 so look forward to that. Um so quarter 1 library's been busy to start off the year. Um this is just a snapshot of some ways that we've been busy. So, more people coming in the door. Um, more people checking out ebooks. We are I've got to clarify this

for the mayor. We are the most visited city website after the landing page. It's true. Um, which means we're I think we're driving people to the landing page. So, um, okay.

Just to be fair, um, we're busy. Um, also teen books, more teen books being checked out. Uh, more research database searches. This is a huge increase. 58% people are researching researching things and using the library for that. Um and our program attendance is up. So just busier all around. Um we also kicked off the year with a very successful winter reading program. We collaborated with Pelican Bay books thanks to them. Um Stacy Paul, the children's librarian, again went into um every single elementary school and gave out books and these cute um reading logs that you see on the wall there. um twice as much engagement. We'll be doing all that over again for summer reading. Um looking forward to that. Our teen space is thriving. Um it's doing what we hoped it would when we designed it. Um teens are coming in. We're doing some really cool passive and active programming. Um lots of cool craft stuff. It's being used. We're super excited about it and you're going to probably keep hearing about it for the next 20 years. Um and we're also still adapting to staff reductions. So, the staff have done an incredible job adapting to major staffing cuts with limited service reductions and only temporary adjustments to open hours um temporary. We're back to regular hours. Um we'll continue to assess the long-term sustainability of what we have to offer. Some things are going to be cut. Um Hoopla was one of those things that were cut. Passport services have been reduced at the beginning of the year. I'll speak more to this later in the revenue slide. Okay, the executive order conserve, reform, invest. So conserve. So we have moved away from RFID, which was thought in the library world to be a more efficient way to process and check out books. Turns out barcodes work great and they're a lot cheaper. And so we're

moving away from RFID. We'll save at least $4,500 this year. That will be an ongoing savings. Um we've also moved away from subscription software on our selfch checks. We're using what we already have built into our library catalog. We're already paying for it. Um, and again, simplified service with just checking out materials by scanning the barcode. Uh, reform. We're shifting expenses to the foundation and friends where and when we when appropriate. I mean, we've always done this. We're just taking a look at it. We're This is just a plug to really say thank you again to the foundation and friends for really supporting um what the library has to offer to the public. So, um, and then invest the foundation funded desks I spoke about earlier, um, to make for more efficient efficient staffing. This is kind of a redundant slide I wish I could have taken out of there, but this is not the desk design yet, but again, we're excited to be working with Underwood and this is going forward and staff are excited about it, too. All right, looking forward Evergreen is so I I want to put this on your radar. So um right now Upper Scadget, Lconor, Burlington and Central Scadget Libraries have a consortium where um they are on the same library catalog. The library jargon for that is ILS. Um and so if somebody in Loner is looking for a book and they see that Burlington has it, they can put in a request and then those materials are actually being transited. Now, it's sort of like a multi-system library or or a county library system that some people are used to. Um, it's a good idea. They're guinea pigging it for us. Um, Mount Vernon and Anacortis hope to join. Um, the only problem is is there's some initial expense to this. So, we have to move to an entirely new ILS. So, that's the backend that we all work with. We'd have to relearn our jobs all over again. Um, and then it's the

front end. So the library catalog that people are used to um and kind of like the Eden project on a smaller scale we have to migrate all the data and we have to train our staff. Um there's an expense involved in that. Normally it would be an expense I'd be coming to the city and asking for um obviously this is not the best time to be doing that. I think the library foundation could be involved with the migration expenses of that, but then we have to consider the ongoing expense of um of course hosting the ILS and transiting materials. So there's a lot to be considered in this. I'm just putting this on your radar. We're thinking about when we're going to be moving towards it, whether it be 2027 or 2028. Um, if you have questions, come talk to me and I'll keep bringing updates to you all um as it as they develop. And then of course, we're looking forward to summer reading. Um, we're already planning for it. We have to plan this early. Um, we're partnering with local organizations and lo and other city departments. We're going to have a great great summer reading. We'll do our library card design um program. I see a raptor on the slide. There will not be raptors this year. There will not be animals, but there will be other very cool programs. Um, and for all ages, adult, teens, and children. So, we're super excited about that. Oh, and here we are. We're at the 2026 budget status already. Okay. Um, I must be talking fast. Uh, so we're pretty much right on track. The only line item I wanted to point out is the inventory resale line, which is at 52%, which seems a little bit off. um that's really a a front-loaded budget line. So, um a lot of our sub subscription services like Libby, magazines, um databases, we have to pay in January obviously. So, um it looks like it's off, but it's really right

where it should be. Uh utilities, I'm happy to see it's at 22%. I'm concerned about it. Um there's not a whole lot we can do there and I think we're underbudgeted. um especially when you look at last year's expenses. Um we'll sure keep an eye on that. And then revenue. Okay. So I've got a little explaining here with so the interlocal grants entitlements and others. So unfortunately that is slash was the county money um that we used to get every year. Um last year was the final year. They cut it from their budget. Unfortunately, that was money that um ranged from 15 to 18 to $20,000 over many years that I've been here um to help offset some of the non-resident expenses. So, they they don't have the budget for that and that item was left in the budget. I did a budget adjustment request that I'm hoping will go through because we will not be able to meet that revenue expectation. Um the other line on here, the passport services. So, uh, yeah, when you when you lose five people out of the gate at the beginning of the year, something's got to give. Um, passport services is a really laborintensive service. It's a good one. We're proud of it. We do a good job of it. Um, but something's got to give here. And, um, so we were not able to staff a lot of the appointments. We cut services back. Um, we're starting to get services back now. We've readjusted some um staffing so that we can accommodate Saturday passports which is really a a busy day. We are trying to shift so we can accommodate some fat um Friday appointments. Um but it's going to be tough to meet this revenue expectation. Um also we used to be the only gig in town and now the post office is doing

passports um six days a week. Um they do pictures. Um they're doing it well. Um, so we have some competition, but um, we will do absolutely the best that we can um, to meet this revenue expectation without cutting programs that I think that folks generally care more about until they need a passport, of course. Um, and I think gosh, I'm already there. I think that's all I have. Thank you, council. Uh, if you have questions, let's let's go a little easy. We only got the one department tonight. So, Mayor Walters, Miss Molton,

thank you, Mr. Vogle, for your canandor and also your creativity. The library has always been creative and resourceful and making the most of limited resources and you're being charged to do that more than ever and I think you and the staff are doing a fantastic job. So, thank you very much. The library is so much more than just books and it's really important to our whole community obviously. Um my question is about the revenue from contributions and donations that $8,320 on the second to the bottom line. Is that from the foundation?

That's actually the Underwood contract for the two two desks. So that money gets um funneled through the foundation. So the foundation, sorry I didn't I didn't put that well. So the contract was with the city. So it came out of our city budget and then it's reimbursed by the foundation and that's what you're seeing there. So Okay. And it sounds like you are expecting slash relying on more of that as the year goes on like for other things or not expecting to

um certainly for the desk project that um depending on the cost of it the foundation is committed to that project and paying for it. Um, you know, we have a budget every year with both foundation and friends to provide services. Um, so um, foundation and friends are always supporting us. Does that answer your question? Sorry. It Yes, it does. Thank you. And then the the non-resident fees is that it's at 23%. So that looks like that's expected to be close to Yeah, that looks that looks right on track. So yeah, this is what we collect when folks that live outside the city city limits have to pay for library cards. So, that's the non-resident fees and um it looks to be right on track.

Okay, great. Thank you. Yeah, Mayor Walters, Mr. Mantini,

um I had a question about passports. So, um you mentioned that you've kind of adjusted staffing and the passport program and everything. I look at the I look at the revenue number here of, you know, $18,620. Why yes, we love to have all revenue. Are you finding it um I I I don't know. Do do we find it difficult to move staffing to accommodate for that? Like would you do we have to have the passport portion opened? Do you think that like it would be better to not staff the passport and have the hours more just focused on core library functions? Yeah, I should have mentioned that we will definitely be reassessing whether we're going to offer this service at all next year. I mean, we certainly will re reduce the expect revenue expectation if we do. Um, you know, again, it's it's always hard because the staff of of course are really proud of what they do and and what they offer, but it's like I said before, it's labor intensive. So you got to move people into availability for appointments and then other people have to shift in to fill that blank. So and it's not just the appointments, it's the questions and calls that we get to support the service. Um you know having said that it brings some people into the library that may have never been in the library and it's also a really great place to you know come in and get your kids passports because they have this beautiful space that they can be in. Um, but I am starting to wonder whether it's a service we really need to provide, especially with the post office um, doing a a good job of it. So, we'll definitely assess that next year. The other thing I just wanted to mention, and I know there have been similar sentiments expressed up here, um, this the job that your staff is doing at the

library and have done over the last five, six months has been absolutely remarkable.

Agreed. And I I say that because my kids, you know, um they go in there and they don't see a disruption of service. And I think that that is a huge credit to the people that you have working there, to your leadership, and what they are able to provide for our community because they've been given less and they're doing more with it. And I think that they all should be commended because you don't I know you I know there's a huge struggle for you guys uh you folks behind the scenes obviously but it's not showing to the public and and I think that's just a testament to to you and your staff.

Thank you so much. Yeah, I agree. Walters, Mr. Young. No, I just wanted to tag on to the tail end of what you said. um you know the reality of where we are as economically as a country, as a city, as you know, just all of the ins and outs of where we're going. The truth is as you this comes up to make the evaluation of whether or not you will continue the passport and naturalization services. You know, again, the post office is currently doing part of that, but we're not even sure if the post office is going to be there.

I mean, you know, the uncertainty of where we are right now. And and the only reason why I thought that was important to bring it up is that, you know, uh there's always been well there's been a push to privatize the post office. the post office has made some significant changes and continuing to make additional changes in service in you know the people doing what all those things. So I I know you and the team have got a lot of thought to put out there but I just thought it was important that um we mentioned to the public and remind the public that you know the post office and the postal service in my opinion is a bit unstable at the present moment of trying to figure out whether we'll have it, what interation it might be in, might not be in. And um so I you know I appreciate the service that we have but you know economically it may or may not be something that can continue but at the end of the day where we are at now with um agency changes at the federal level it it does kind of create a quagmire I think and um you know and in to um Mr. Fantini's point is the amount of work that's being done by the library is admirable and appreciated and um so thank you.

I just want thank you so much. I want to reiterate that we are committed to providing passport services through the year um and doing it well and and we'll recess toward the the end of the year. So yeah.

Anyone else? Any other questions? All right. Thank you, Mr. Bogle. That brings us to our next item on the agenda, which is the first quarter finance update. And Miss Pek will be presenting this this item with all new charts and graphs. All right. Thank you, mayor, council, residents that are here tonight. Oh, come on. There we go. Oh, got a little ahead of myself there. All right. I wanted to start tonight's journey of talking about where we're at on financials with a view of how we're trending for quarter 1. Uh the slide in front of you shows expenses and revenues. The boxes are expenses. The line are revenues. And the first thing I'm going to point out is we continue to be in a in a state where our monthly expenses are exceeding our monthly revenues. The chart shows 2025 2026. It's very similar story. Um we're looking at flat tax revenues this year, which is not a surprise. That's what we had planned. Even though we uh listening to the executive order that came out, we are reducing expenses Q1. Um we did reduce expenses across multiple areas across multiple teams. We're down 8%. However, it's not enough right now. Um we still do continue to see our expenses outpacing our revenues. The other thing I wanted to remind

everybody of is our tax revenues are really driven by three main tax streams. That's property, utility, and sales and use tax. Those taxes makes up 77% of our tax revenue budget. Uh and then keep in mind, property tax only goes up 1% a year. Utility tax we have a little bit of control over. And then sales and use tax is really that main driver where we really are looking to the community. We're looking to the council to help us get creative and figure out what can we do to drive some additional um sales and use tax within the city of Anacortis. This slide talks about our sales tax trend. As a reminder, sales tax is unrestricted. can be used for general operations. Um the receipts for sales tax are two months behind what we get from the state. For example, February seats are actually sales from December. We are pacing slightly ahead of the prior year by 6.9%. However, we saw a decline in March that is really at the lowest level it's been in recent years. We were we were trying to be a little bit optimistic in January and February when we saw numbers come through. Um, however, that that drop in March kind of gets us back to where we're like, well, we're going to keep our story as it is. Hopefully, we'll we'll achieve the same level um that we had last year, which is what we had planned for. We'll continue to monitor it um and hope for the best, and we'll we'll see what the uh the spring and summer months bring to us. If we look at our sales tax compared to budget, we are slightly ahead. Um, however, if you look at the the lines, the lines are looking at our budget and our actuals that are cumulative for the quarter. Um, and we're really right on plan.

Private utility tax are those taxes on the um utilities that are not city-owned. So, this is your cable TV, um, your gas, your electric. Um, these again are unrestricted, can be used for general operations. Um we had $826,000 in Q1. It's pacing down from our prior year. Um that's as expected because there was um some pretty big rate increases that went into place last year and we knew we weren't going to see those again this year. Um so we weren't surprised to see that 2.5% decline. The public utility taxes, this is the ones that are on um our city-owned utilities. Uh we did put in a an increase up to 9% with 7% historically. Again, this is an unrestricted revenue stream for us that we can use for general operations. We saw 722,000 in Q1. It's up 14 and a.5% um as expected because of the both the rate increases we did for some of the utilities. Um and then the increase to that utility tax as well. Um again, this one is pacing the plan. Um, so we're not seeing any any variations that are that are making us, you know, waiver from our current budget. Looking at real estate and excise taxes, often called REIT. Um, this is a restricted revenue stream um used primarily for um to fund general capital projects. It's a tax that's imposed on the sale or transfer of real estate or homes. Uh there was 229,000 in Q1. It's down 5% from prior year. And I'll talk a little bit about some of the drivers for REIT. Um if we look at home sales versus historical, the home sales were the same um as 2025 at 67 homes. However, the REI per sale is down. Um the indicator there

is um it's likely driven by price. um we'd have to do, you know, more more analytics to really determine that. But um if you just look at the face value of it, it's likely um the price of the homes that are being sold is less um than in prior year. Building revenues um are um driven by transactions related to folks um having construction projects within the city. um building permits issued through March is only seven, which is down nine from 2025. In this view, we think of a building permit as one for new construction. So whether that new construction be for a home, an ADU, a cottage, we don't look at um the ones for renovations um or solar or fences. Um permit revenues are trending just behind budget right now at 22%. Uh we were asked a question around our are our permits uh somewhat um cyclical? Can we can we start to see some trends based on a month? So the little bit busy chart that you see at the bottom looks at the monthly activity for the last few years.

Mr. Young, just a quick question. Sure. When you um permit revenues are trending just behind budget at 22%. That means you're saying that we're 22% behind what we were budgeting for. Um, no, we are anticipating a quarter of the budget being achieved every quarter. So, we would like to see that number be 25%. I get it. Um, so we're just slightly behind at the 22. Perfect. That answers my question.

Of course. Great question. Um, so potentially leading to that would be are do we anticipate more permits coming in other months? And so if you look at the the numbers below, we we charted out activity for permits in 24, 25, and 26. there's really not a lot of trends you can drive from it. You do see a little bit of a spike uh in uh in April and in June and in August. So, who knows? Maybe we'll see that again um which will then help drive some of those numbers up and get us to the the trend that we would hope to see, which is that 25 every quarter. Walters.

Oh, thank you. No, thank you. Um we've had a lot and I don't mean to interrupt but I just thought this part of the um your presentation always superb as always. Um part of it is you know just the idea that you know interest rates there are a lot of cause and effects that we're having right now and um and interest rates one economic climate you know um part of that is also we had some discussion by builders in our community of challenges for which I'm very clear that we're working on as a city the mayor has um moved forward with his what what was it proclamation resolution anyway executive order.

Yeah, one of those one executive order. That's what it was. But, you know, but that can begin to address some of these um things that we're trying to work through and to get because I think at one point we can be, you know, there was the challenge given the automation that we had um the struggle we had with software everything was leading up to a challenge. So my hope is that as um the mayor moves forward, the team and the staff moves forward that we will be able to calm a bit of the nerves of some of those that may have been a bit reluctant. And that's part of this anticipation. Correct.

Yeah. And I'm actually very excited to see how this executive order plays out because if you if you keep in mind this chart on the bottom, I'm going to keep close eyes on it. And um hopefully um we're going to see some really high numbers uh with our red boxes for Q2.

I understand there's some challen there's some there's some goals that are out there and I'm I'm pretty jazzed to see if those um come to fruition. And and I will add I was very um in the executive order was very um delighted to see those goals, those benchmarks uh in the um the plain path forward and uh so I wanted to give kudos to the mayor for um doing that but also to the team and the staff for being willing to try to reach it. I do think personally that it part of this whole sentiment, this collection of issues every city is facing, but I believe that these are some of the things we can directly address and begin to move this thing forward, this needed cash.

Absolutely. So hopefully there's some contractors out there listening right now and they'll get excited and look forward to engaging um through these new channels and these new processes with our planning department. So, thank you, Mayor Walters. Mr. McDougall, uh M Mr. Young's point about interconnectedness is very well taken because like if we bump up those uh those permit numbers, that ought to drive up a bunch of uh sales tax as well. Yes, it would. Thank you.

Uh yes. So, just to temper that exuberance a little bit, uh the the the numbers shown on this chart, the permit revenue can only be spent on the cost of processing the permits. So the the permit revenue itself uh certainly helps us out in affording the existence of the planning department but it doesn't help us solve uh the general revenue picture uh for the rest of the city. It does. But hopefully those contractors that get their permits will buy their supplies in town. Yes. Yes. Those secondary effects definitely help.

Yeah. Great points. All right. What else do I got for you here? Uh impact fees. So impact fees is another u restricted revenue. Um impact fees are are collected during the construction and permitting process. We have three categories of impact fees. They're uh fire, parks, and roads. Um as construction slows, our revenues decline. So as you can see, our peak was in 2022. Uh so hopefully you know as as things change of processes improves um we'll start to see some positive impact here and again it is restricted but I do feel like if you look at our revenue pictures all up holistically there are some opportunities get more construction you're buying more and hopefully they're going to buy and have things delivered here in town. So, uh lodging tax uh this is a smaller tax restricted used for tourism and marketing. It's a tax imposed on lodging rates. Um we had 87,000 in Q1. It is pacing up 20% from prior year. So, this will be one to watch. Again, um it's not a lot of money, but it does drive goodness uh for us to help um get the messages out, you know, for folks to, you know, come to Anacortis and and have fun and do great things.

We have to assume that people who are staying the night here may also be buying other things here. Wouldn't that be awesome? Yeah,

there are some great Anacorta sweatshirts in town. All right. Uh this slide is um a summary of all of our major funds for Q1. Uh this is something you know Steve's got a slightly different view of this. Um it does show you actual revenues, budget revenues, percent of revenue achieved. Budget revenue is full year. Actuals are Q1. Shows you the same view for expenses. You saw a lot of these numbers as the teams uh reviewed their financials last week. A couple of call outs that I would like to make um is our if you look at the very first line and you go to the cash column on the far right, our general fund operating cash continues to be very low. We have $2.4 million. That's operating cash there, pay current bills. Um one would hope that that number would be a lot higher. So, we'll continue to keep an eye on that. Um you'll notice if you if you're somebody who looks at what did this picture look like last year, you'll notice that our cash for 101, 102, and 103 um is down this quarter. It's being utilized um as we begin to transition those funds into our general fund. So that's that was planned. Um that's going, you know, as as we had hoped.

Mr. Um, when you mentioned that that cash balance is lower than we would like to see it, where would we like to see it? Like what do we want that number to be? Um, the Rhonda great number for my in for to make me feel comfortable. I would like to see that sitting on a regular basis operating cash at about 15 million. I'm sorry, you said about 15. So 15 as opposed to Okay. Yeah. Thank you.

So this would be less. Yeah. Uh let's see what else should I call out here. Um you can see the the I mentioned the impact fees. The balance right now for roads, parks, and fire is here. Um there are some plans for that spend. Let's see. Our parks is planning to use 165,000 of that this year. Uh they've got a a balance right now of 233. So they've got that money to spend. And then fire is currently, I'm sorry, fire is 165, parks is $75,000. Um, so we're on track to be able to support um the items in their capital plans um that they're hoping to spend those money on. And then ERNR continues to be to be strong. Um we'll continue to refurbish our fleet um as we need to uh per the new fleet plan that's that's out there for consideration. All right, another view I put together for you is on the utilities. We don't generally talk too much about the utility revenues during these conversations. I thought it would be prudent to do so. Um, again, well, actually, this is a this is a good story. Monthly revenues are exceeding expenses across all of our utilities. We'll talk a little bit about each individual one going forward. Um, this is highly contributable to our increased utility rates. And then we do have a Q1 decline in expenses um in the utilities. This is largely attributed to slower than planned capital or maybe it was planned to be not in Q1. Um so uh we'll see these these expenses. They're not they're not um bankable expenses. I guess I would say they're they're just a delay in spend. If you look at the wastewater um we did do a rate increase. I think our rate increase last year was about 6%, we're

only seeing an increase in revenue of 5%. Um, I need to do some analysis here, but our sewer rates or our wastewater rates are driven by consumption. Um, there's probably a pretty high probability then that our consumption um is down from last year. Uh, expenses are down again for for wastewater, but that is attributed to the timing of their capital spend. You'll see some spikes in 2025 looking over there. And that's because um the wastewater plant at this time last year was working on their their outfall project. So we wouldn't anticipate seeing that again this year. Storm water is a great story. Um their revenue is up from 2025 as planned with the rate increase. Um the spike in March is due to the receipt of an ecology grant. I believe that was about 120,000. Uh, and then their expenses are down from 2025 and that again is um a delay in capital. Um, there we had one project that has slipped. I'm not sure if they're going to try to do something else. I'm sure that'll come back to to council for consideration when decisions are made there. Um, but this is a great story. Um, this is going to give the storm water um and public works um director the opportunity to really look at capital requirements and investments needed for storm water. and now they're going to be able to build up some money to be able to do that work. We look at water. Water continues to be strong. Um revenues and expenses are aligned with plan and prior year. And then solid waste. Um again, revenue expenses are aligned as planned. Um don't see any any issues there. If we look at uh summary for the utilities um again water is doing well their service revenues are at 23.6 so maybe slightly behind the 25% we would like to see again water is very

consumptionbased likely consumption is down. Um sewer is at 22.7 storm water um is at 29.2. So again that's because of the rate increase. So, we didn't do a very good job of planning our our revenues there. We probably should have put those a little bit higher. Um, but all in all, that's a good story. And then solid waste is at 25% as planned. And that one was really predictable. So, Mayor Walters, Mr. Mantini,

um, in regards to the water, thank you for continuing to mention that it's consumptionbased because it is. Um, do you expect with it being like in previous years when we've had seasons of drought, um, how much does that conservation, do you see that affecting our numbers in years where we have really extreme droughts like the one we might have?

I don't know right off the top of my head, but I'm sorry TJ, that's a great question to ask. Um, you know, I the numbers that I've looked at for water, it's pretty consistent. So I, you know, folks are asked to conserve water, but at the end of the day, um, if you're somebody who wants your yard green, kind of regardless of what's going on, current trends in the world, um, you're probably going to use your your sprinkler system and make your water be or your grass be green. So, I don't know that we see too much fluctuation in drought seasons. Um but again if we start seeing some some trends here we would definitely look at and see if that would be a big driver of those trends. Thank you. Yeah.

And and that is an analysis of um observed reality not preference. Right. Yes. Exactly. All right. That's what I had for you tonight. So um any questions? Hopefully you enjoyed the little bit of a change up.

May well Mr. Young. No, just want to again compliment you on the work um the detail, the anticipation of what's needed and what's not needed and just in pre in presenting the facts. I I I appreciate that because again it's important that we be as transparent as possible and in each of the presentations and the slideshow and all the work that you know we've seen you and others do here. It's been superb in my opinion and so I really appreciate the cander and the level of um detail that you're going to. So I just didn't want to miss my chance to say thank you again for the work you do.

Thank you, Mr. Young. If there's no one else, all right, we'll go on to our next item, which is the Anacortis Community Forest Lands Plan. What? Okay. Hold on. We don't want that. We'll get there. Okay, there we go.

Mr. provokes.

Good evening, Mayor Walters, members of the council, and members of the audience. Uh we are moving on now to discuss our uh forest plan. Uh and that plan, as you well know, uh talks about the amazing and miraculous 3,000 acres of communityowned forest lands that we all get to enjoy and sometimes argue about. Um, but there's a lot of passion, as you all know, in support of those forest lands and generations that have enjoyed growing up with it. And uh, so we're going to talk a little bit more about our plan and then we're going to be here. Uh, John, obviously, Director Lensford and Darby and I are all here to answer questions that you might have throughout your discussion. Um about 3 years ago uh plus or minus uh we started the process of updating the 2021 plan which is the current plan. Um as much as Brian and Joanne probably don't uh enjoy it when I call them out publicly uh they are both here and members of your forest advisory board and they have been here for the whole ride and so I really appreciate the work they've done along with the other three members of the board. um we were here previously for a March 16th public hearing and um you hosted that and you heard from uh folks that night and you heard from some folks in writing and we're going to talk a little bit about that now. um updates uh to the 2021 plan in kind of a general summary of what we're we're looking at. Um partial closure of trail 101. We've talked about that. That's a southwest

area, a hiker only trail on the shores of Little Cranberry. Um, we've gone ahead and jumped jumped ahead of the curve and uh we've got an e- motorcycle uh policy for you recommend tonight at least for the forest lands, not for the for the city. Um, and of course we've got the ebike policy that you asked the forest board to come up with back in 2021. Um we've got a greater detail of explanation of our relationship with both fire and police with basically with public safety and how those or you know those departments enhance and protect forest lands. Uh we've included a forest health monitoring chapter that's basically the trans transition fidalgo folks. So we've got a nice inclusion of science. Um, we have some uh we have a finance page which lists some of the larger scale projects that are that are referenced or talked about as future goals. Um, of course the new format and design which Darby uh did a fantastic job of. And then as we move forward, uh we park staff are working with the mayor um on how we might be able to uh add some of our forest lands policies more to the Anacortis municipal code so that enforcement gets a little easier to figure out.

And if you could just pause there for just a second, that that effort uh began out of um public comments and a draft code submitted by Bob Barry quite a few years ago. Uh so we we really um we uh owe him some gratitude for that work and we're almost almost there with bringing that forward for codification of a bunch of pieces of the code that need need to be in the code for enforcability.

Sure. Thank you, Mayor. Um, so as I mentioned, your uh March 16th public hearing, um, you had eight uh, folks, you got public testimony from eight folks in person that night and, uh, leading up to and in the week's extension uh, that was granted by Mayor Walters, uh, 32 written comments uh, have been received um, not from 32 different people, but 32 different comments. And what we've gone ahead and done is broken those down into 179 points. Uh the good news is I'm not going to go through all 179 of those this evening.

Uh you've uh had these in your packet for a few days. It's a lot to go through. Um so obviously if you have some questions about those or what does staff response compared to action mean? um who took the liberty of summarizing the public's comments, uh that sort of thing. Uh we're happy happy to answer them. Um yeah, some plan changes uh from the public comments. Okay. And uh this is this is basically since the the hearing, the public hearing, we went ahead and made a few changes to the document just based on um some real simple thing. Nothing no sweeping policy changes. So we've clarified language in the introduction. Uh removed some of my uh flowery language from that and uh same with little cranberry. We clarified language about increased use. We clarified language regarding enhancements and what those mean. Um, we added a list of projects and approximate costs as I've mentioned. We added a sentence about education opportunities uh for wildfire. And we've clarified language about motor and electric vehicles. We've clarified types of bicycles in the trail use plan. And we've added the term fungi in the trail use plan to make it consistent with other references. uh public comments uh that also included some things that we handle typically outside of this forest plan. Uh there was uh a desire for uh increased security through the use of cameras. Um we're already doing that um throughout the parks and the forest lands. We have what do we have

six at our at our peak and these are these are wildlife cams right? This isn't we're not getting like you know these beautiful color uh streaming videos that we're sitting in our offices watching. It's typically still photos that are black and white that are hard to discern um what they are. We did um manage to stop some Beaver Dam vandalism uh along trail 106 flow where the flow from Big Beaver goes into Little Cranberry a few years ago um with the help of the police department. So they definitely pay off. They're not the golden ticket in terms of enforcement. They do help. We are using them. I just wanted to be sure you were aware of that. And as you're well aware, um the A Avenue landfill, uh that is happening outside of our forest plan. Um that is a a solid waste issue and is uh solid waste is of course funding that project. We are the land managers where that's happening. And so we will be doing our best to assist uh where we can in terms of I think in the next uh couple of months they might uh finally start dig a few test wells and there may have to be a trail closure or two. So we'd be out there managing that um integration and the relationship of the forest plan to the city's comprehensive plan. I'd like to thank Mayor Walters for helping us explain this. Um I can read these points um as well as you can. Um but basically the forest plan and the city's overarching comprehensive plan are two different documents. The forest plan operates outside of that. Certainly not in a rogue way but in a way that the the forest plan takes care of the forest and the comprehensive plan looks over the

entire city. As you can see, the parks master plan is now a part of that. So, Mayor Walters, being the professional planner that you are, is there anything you'd like to add to what I've said here?

Um, there's certainly a lot that could be said technically about uh which plans integrate into the comprehensive plan and in the past there have been other plans integrated in, but uh fewer plans is better. And that's one of the reasons why that we integrated the parks master plan into the parks element of the comp plan rather than have a separate parks master plan. But on the other hand, you don't integrate plans that don't need to be in the comp plan. And that's that's why this one um is not proposed to be part of nor is it currently part of uh the comp plan because it doesn't fulfill a GMA purpose. uh and so the comp plan can be more restricted to um that's that which is required by the growth management act. Thank you. Um here's a a couple of examples of those plan changes I mentioned since the public hearing. So if you look at the Whistle Lake area page, um you go down to the middle, you can see where mountain is crossed out and pedled is is added. We had some confusing language where we were kind of interchanging mountain and pedal bikes and uh the public helped point that out to us. And so uh we've done our best to clarify when we're talking mountain bikes, we're talking pedal bikes. You don't have to have a mountain bike to ride a pedal bike in the forest lands. Um motor vehicles. And here's where we kind of uh jumped ahead of the curve a little bit based again on public input. uh from one of our longtime ABP pack members, appropriately enough. Um but basically what we are saying when I say we, I'm talking staff and force advisory board. Uh we're going to call electric motorcycles motorcycles and we're not going to worry about the watts or the

size or anything else. They're going to be treated as motorcycles just the same way we do class 2 and class 3 ebikes in the forest land. So if you're on a class one pedal assist ebike, you're on a bicycle as far as we're concerned. If you're on a class 2 or three andor an e motorcycle, you're on a motorcycle and you're going to follow our seasonal closures and the rules uh regarding which trails are available to you and which aren't. And just so you know, it's about 15 miles of our 50 that are available for motorized use at this point. Um, with that, uh, hopefully that kind of zeros you in a little bit onto the forest plan. Like I said, we're here. There's there's a ton to discuss. Um, we're certainly not in any hurry of the years we've we've spent working on this. So, uh, whatever we can do to help, uh, support the process, uh, answer questions, um, we're happy to do that. And, uh, thank you for, you know, your willingness to sit up there and work through these issues. So, council, uh, we've spent, uh, quite a bit of time working through the comments. you've got a 12-page matrix and 12-page kind of underells it because it's pretty small font, but um uh of the comments and staff responses, if you want to make changes now or later based on those comments or based on anything else, um we can have that discussion and we can propose those changes. I give you just, you know, one example um uh comment that that staff didn't address but maybe you would be interested in. There was a comment that uh the plan by its current text doesn't recognize the value of of quiet and that opens up any any number of questions about how you might do that

and the comment didn't propose how to do it. Uh so staff didn't include it but just as an example if you wanted to include it you could make your own proposal. Um this isn't a GMA process so it isn't subject to the same rules as development regulations. You can you can make these changes when you want, but um I would ask you now to consider any questions you have of staff or suggestions that you want to make of staff and uh then we will bring it back at a again at a later date at which point you can make further suggestions. Mayor Walters, Miss Hunt,

I'm not averse to making some additional changes. if other council members feel strongly. But I would I would strongly advise that we adopt something in the next month or two because we will have APD presence in the woods this summer. And I'd really like this new ebike and motorcycle language to be enforcable when we have someone out there to enforce it. So that's one of my goals as we talk about what other changes we might want. Mayor Walters. Uh, in just a moment. And Okay. So, the the plan itself won't achieve that enforcability though. We will have to follow on with the code amendments.

Mr. Young.

Thank you. No, I just wanted to um echo the comments of my colleague here, Miss Hunt. I think it's so important. There's been a lot of work to go into it. lots of wonderful comments um from people who are stakeholders in this process and um I think we've come away with something that's workable and quite honestly it's a living document you know so I think um you know that recognizing that I do uh think that we need to move forward but it doesn't preh you know identifying other things in this process. You know, we could either go to the infotesimal level and I think we'll be here to 2050 trying to get everything the way we want. I say we go with what we have any additional major changes that we need council or any of that. I think it's it will allow us to bring it back up and discuss it.

Mayor Walters,

Mr. Fantini. Um, yeah. So, I read the comments and the responses the first time as as someone that, you know, what do I want to see in the forest lands and what do I think should be there in the forest lands? But then I had to go back and read it again as a council member thinking, okay, what where did where did Mr. V go? There he is. What? Sorry, he disappeared from the podium. Um, what what in this plan, if anything, and this might have already been answered, is going to obligate any kind of future budget expenditures? Are there anything in here that is like, oh, you know, we're going to we're going to have to spend money on this because we're putting it in the plan.

So, the short answer to that is the forest plan has never been a budget driver. Um, we've taken there's been some public commentary that's been uh critical of that and thinks that the budget should be tied closer to the forest plan, but because this is a 5-year plan and the budget's an annual exercise. Um, it's never driven the budget, it certainly has created opportunities. Um, if you look at that list of uh projects that that we put in there with a price tag that I don't have the ability to quickly pull up and look at, um, it it there's nothing in if you pass the plan 5 minutes from now, there's there's nothing that obligates the city to spend a ton of money on on capital projects down the road. There's certainly things that say goals, look at this, but nothing that says, "Okay, with the passing of this plan, you just said that I can go out and build $4 million worth of capital improvements."

Thank you, Mayor Walters. Miss Moltry,

thank you. Thank you, Mr. Ves. I really appreciate the updates to the motor vehicles and the bicycle sections and I want to thank the public that has been very much involved in this process from the beginning as evidenced by the comments, the matrix, what we've heard in our emails and phone calls and meetings that we've had with individuals and I really appreciate that and I just want to reiterate that clearly staff does listen and the public has had very much a hand in this whole process. as demonstrated by some of the changes that have been made and that will continue to be done. So, I thank staff for that. We talk about budget and we talk about enforcement. I already talked about that in this meeting. Um how necessary it is. We do have 3,000 acres and 50 miles of trails. We also have one full-time person who works in the forest lands. So, that is not enough. And I understand that we are in a real budget crunch, but that is a huge part of our city and to keep us safe and to help prevent fires and to enforce these rules and also to maintain these trails that are just being used more and more by more and more people every single year that we need money for staff and we need money for maintenance because that's our infrastructure as much as anything else is. And when we talk about protecting it, that's a big part of it. So I just want to keep that in mind going forward because we are not budgeting it as it needs to be to remain functional and also safe for people, the trail maintenance and keeping people on trails and out of the 97% that is not trails. Um so I just want to continue to bring that up so we can focus on that moving forward. Um, I just I really do think it's a good plan, a good format, and again, I appreciate the work of the Forest

Advisory Board, staff, and the public to bring it to this point. I'm very grateful. Thank you. Anyone else? And we are very hopeful that the forthcoming code amendments will really facilitate the enforcement that people have asked for over and over again. Um, this is not listed as an action item and we don't have a resolution in front of us. We just have the document. So, staff will bring this back on a future agenda. Council members, if you've got any edits to the plan that you would like, uh, send those your way. Yes. Uh, to Mr. Oaks. Um, and otherwise, we'll see you back here in a week or a couple weeks or something.

Mayor Walters. Mr. Fantina, I just wanted to bring up really quick as you're deciding where to follow this on the agenda. It is almost the end of April and I think Miss Hunt's point is well taken that having this ready before the start of busy season in the forest um would be good. So I would personally like to see it sooner than later. Walters, Mayor Walters, Miss Hunter, Mr. Folks, when whatever we do adopt for ebikes and motorcycles, will we have additional signage at trail heads at parking lots explaining that to visitors?

We're So, we're kind of working on that right now a little bit. We've had when we went to the interim ebike policy a couple years ago, we we put what we thought were nice sturdy metal signs on a lot of our gates, but of course a lot of people go around the gates when they go into the forest land. So we've we've gotten some more information up on the kiosks as well. And so, yeah, I mean, you know, as you know, signage is signage and, uh, we will we will do our best to keep up with any policy changes um andor additions, but yeah, the the e- motorcycles um will need some some signage and some reminders. Well, and as we work through citywide code for motorcycles and ebikes, I think that we'll get a lot more public awareness. We will have some education. So, great.

All right. Thank you. Thank you. We'll move on to the next item which is resolution 3211 authorizing the parks department to apply for a grant from state RCO for the volunteer field turf conversion project.

Okay. It's just a parks and recreation evening. Mayor Walters, Council, and members of the audience and staff still present. Um my name is Dustin South. I work for the parks and recreation department for those of you who don't know me, but I think most of you do. Um, let me get that started there. Okay. We would like to apply for a grant through RCO, Recreation Conservation Office, uh, through the state of Washington. It's the youth athletic facilities grant. Uh, as you know, RCO has a lot of different grant programs available. This one specifically goes towards increasing or uh renovating youth athletic facilities, mainly competition facilities. So, what we're looking at um doing is is converting volunteer field, which I'll show you in a little bit, um where that's located. It's one of the baseball fields, making it from a natural surface to an artificial surface. Uh we're looking at some other funding sources um because the grant uh would provide we could we could match up to um 40% is what our normally it's 50% but we would be eligible for a 40% match uh with private donations maybe some parks foundation money. We do have a private donor that has um earmarked some money for that already and um and then we we kind of figure maybe about 1.2 2 million to to go forward in the grant and then along with those other donations and whatnot. Okay, so I talked about converting the natural playing surface to artificial. What this does is it basically doubles our use instantly. the location already has lights, so that's even a um bigger

multiplier as far as how much we can use the space, especially during those shorter months in the winter time. Um we see a lot of um demand for youth sports, uh practices, games, things like that, drop in play, some organic type stuff. um during the winter months when you know they get a little stir crazy and they don't have enough uh PE time at school or whatnot. So uh this provides that opportunity as well. The other thing that we would like to have with this project is lines permanently put in the field again for the competitive aspect of soccer, baseball, lacrosse and um have have some dedicated space for those sports which when we lost Memorial Field when the high school was renovated several years ago, we lost a field. So that had a big impact on what we had available for competitive play. It just had a trickle down effect. We we did get a a high school um football and soccer field with a track that's very nice, but it's very difficult to get on there outside of high school sports. And that's what we run into and why we would like to have this um development and future project. uh the other supporting amenities, the restrooms, the um concession stands, the press box, the uh spectator seating, that would all stay the same. It wouldn't be affected by this grant. So, here's where the site location is. If you're not familiar with where um volunteer field is, it's the last well, it's the last natural surface baseball field. Okay. Okay. There is Kuanas Meadows, which we do also use for some soccer stuff, but it's it's not a very big piece of uh of turf. Um

what we would like to do is we would like to put a soccer field and you can see that in the picture on the right hand side there is put soccer lines down. This would allow us to play some of our um U13, U14, U11, U12 age group of of teams on there competitively and uh universal lacrosse lines also put on there so that it would allow for youth lacrosse to be played on there. Probably not high school um but they already have a field. So anyway, uh and then the baseball aspect would still be in there. the orientation that that is on this slide here um would is the best fit. We worked with an architect to figure out, you know, the safe zones that we have to have. We don't want it to conflict too much with baseball. Um but we also don't want to be moving fences, whether it's the outfield fence or the foul line fences. Try to keep the cost down and use the footprint that we already have. All right. So, um, really just being a a person that's been involved in youth sports for a long time and seen them grow, it's it's a big part of what our community does, um, and provides for families and for something for kids to do. This project would also be available for adults outside of youth programs as well. The grant that we're going for is mainly for youth athletic facilities though. So, we're going to focus on that with the grant. But, I do want to let the community know that um we have a pretty robust uh drop in soccer group that if you've ever driven by Stovvic at around 7:00 in the summertime on Thursdays, you'll see a bunch of people out there playing. It's adults, it's young adults, it's maybe even some

teenagers coming out and playing. and uh this could be a space for them. Also, the ultimate frisbee group, we're always looking for uh space for them and trying to help them find space. This could be another venue for them as well to be able to do that. And um so yeah, and I'm sure there's other groups out there. When we first uh had MDD artificial turf, uh I don't know if you remember the field that was there beforehand, but it was not usable um until about June. And uh when we first put that in, we really saw a lot of organic just, you know, kids coming down there playing touch football. The cross country team at the high school would come down there and warm up and things like that. So, it really is a a boost to just general recreation when it's available and not scheduled for competitions and things like that. That's pretty much all I have. Do I have any questions?

Mayor Walters. Mr. Fantini. Um yes. I I love that area. We've I've seen it change decades and dec I remember watching my parents play co-ed softball down there as like a 10-year-old and just watch that area change. I think this is a great next step, next next evolution in that area down there. And I see I just want to confirm that I see it's $1.2 million of state funds, 750,000 of private funds and 100,000 of additional private funds. That's no city funds. Well, no, I was just confirming. Just confirming. That's okay. Just confirming. Yes. Fantastic. That's the idea. That's the idea. We love these projects. Unless you want to make a donation.

You can donate privately. There we go. Council, anyone else. Uh, this item does have an asterisk indicating we've advertised that we'll take public comment on it. Is anybody looking to provide public comment on this item? Anybody online? Nope. All right. Councel May Walters.

Mr. Young. No, I just again um tonight is a night of thanks and I just I know you've worked incredibly hard from the first day I met you and the department and you know I know um I've had a number of people working with youth sports and uh they always commend couple of challenges for what they don't have and what they could have but you guys have always always tried to accommodate everyone to make it just a pleasant spot for our youth and uh I'm thankful for that being a part of this community and and watching the work that goes into it. I know it's not always easy and I know you sometimes, you know, have to pull another rabbit out of the hat and they can look a little frail at times, but you do. And so we're thankful that and I just really wanted to say thank you.

Thank you. I uh I do feel pretty passionate about youth sports and just sports in general because I feel that it can help shape and mold young people and help teach them work ethic and and a bunch of self-discipline things like that. Mayor Walters, Mr. McDougall, no one has anything else and I love the sports. So, um I move approval of resolution 3211.

Second. We have a motion and a second to approve resolution 3211 authorizing the parks department to apply for a grant from state RCO. And we are working to bring to you all such grant approvals. It's required by RCO in this case. But um in other instances, we will have policies whereby we will either already have your authorization or we will obtain your authorization before applying for capital project grants. If there is no other discussion at this point, hearing none, I will go on to take the vote. The vote is on resolution 3211 authorizing the parks department to apply for a grant from state RCO for the volunteer field artificial turf conversion project. A yes vote is in favor. All those in favor say I.

I. All those opposed say no. The eyes have it and the resolution is approved. Thank you, Mr. South. It is parks night here at the city council and our next item is ordinance 4081 which would create a new chapter in the municipal code chapter 8.14 regarding Grand View Cemetery and parks director Mr. John Lensford will present this item.

Thank you Mayor Walters. Council members um this has been a collaborative project with the legal department. Miss Swatnham is here as well and I'm just the MC. So I'm going to invite the subject matter expert, Miss Darby Jordan, up to go through the slide deck with you and we're here to ask answer any questions if you have them.

All right, so we have some new fun things at the cemetery. Um we're pretty excited about it. There's been a lot of community um requests for this, so we are finally able to offer that. And um this is just putting those um into the ordinance. So obviously it's at Grand View Cemetery. It is part of the new expansion that was opened a couple of years ago. It is in this little teardrop area and these are what are called columbariums. So they are an above ground structure that each um family can purchase a 12x 12 niche and two urns can go go inside of that. Um we have 160 of them available. They are 40 per side and they are double-sided. So um our local funeral home thinks that these are going to go quite quickly. There's been a lot of requests for them. We are also going to offer um green burials and this has become quite a hot topic lately um in the past several years and we are going to offer a modified one. Uh cemetery in Ferndale offers a true green burial. It is just an unmaintained natural field with native plants. There's no mowing, there's no fertilizing, there's no headstones or anything like that. um we do not feel that that's compatible with our cemetery. We don't have that much room. So, we are offering a modified green burial, but it is um a green true green burial is just um maybe you're wrapped in a shroud or a compostable casket and lowered and you are placed on the earth. Um ours will be essentially that. you will just have to have um a bottomless liner that will hold the integrity of the grave because it will be offered throughout the cemetery next to traditional burials. Um the other thing that this ordinance does is just clarify some um

definitions. We of course had to add colariums and green burials to those definitions, but um we uh worked all together to just make sure that all of our our definitions were accurate. Um, the one last thing that this does is um add in to the ordinance about the prohibition of dogs and horses in the cemetery. It's been a rule since the early 90s, but it never was put into city code and it is a problem. So, um, you wouldn't think that people would come and play fetch with their dog at a cemetery, but you would be surprised. Mayor Walters, Mr. Young.

Yes. just just a little bit more of an elaboration on it's been a problem. You know, I would assume that means, you know, people have not been taking care um doing the due diligence to take care of their pet and sort of leaving it for someone else. I've noticed that in other parts of the city sort of picking up and um so I'm hoping that at some future point it comes to council for us to um you know have discussions of enforcements. Correct. And you know what needs to happen. So if you were to elaborate just a little bit it would go a long way to sort of helping us.

Yeah. Well, it um we do see people leaving a mess behind. We also know that it is not exactly respectful. People come here to honor their family and their loved ones. And for someone to allow their pet to run throughout the cemetery is we don't feel is acceptable. And so by making this official, that will allow for the enforcement of, you know, making it part of the citywide code that number one, you can't be off leash, and number two, they're just not allowed in the cemetery. So, thank you. Yeah. And then, oh, sorry. Go ahead.

Just a really quick clarification. People are bringing their horses to the graveyard, though, or is that just to codify that we don't That has been the rule. Are are they ponies there? Yes. So there was there um this was written in the 90s and people would take horses as a shortcut oops shortcut through that area to avoid the curve. So that's that's what the essence is. What was it the 1990s? Okay.

Yeah. Even early 2000s there was a gal that owned a small horse that would um and a carriage that would go right through there. So yeah. So, we will be bringing um this all back to add colariums and green burials to the unified fee schedule. Um hopefully in the next week or two. I know the public has noticed them up there. We're getting a lot of phone calls asking what they are and when we're going to start selling them. So, we anticipate hopefully by the end of May to open those up for sales and um we've seen a lot of interest. So, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Mayor Walters, Miss Hunt,

I just want to thank Parks and Derby specifically for continuing to expand the offerings to meet people's demand and desires for something that's a a very personal and meaningful part of families. And so, thank you very much for meeting those those goals.

Council, any other questions before I open it up for public comment? No, we do have an asterisk indicating we'll adver we have advertised we'll take public comment. Is there anyone here who would like to provide public comment on this ordinance? Is there anyone online? No. Uh council, this is a first read of uh at least part part of it is clearly regulatory. Um what would you like to do?

Does this count as one that could come back on consent? Yes, you you can direct uh that this can come back on consent for final approval. You can wave the reading first and second reading and go directly to approval or uh you can discuss it next week or take no action. Mayor Wall, Mr. Fantini, as it is not an emergency, I would propose that we just put it on the consent agenda next week. Is consensus okay? Do we need a motion? Don't need a motion. With uh without objection, uh we will place this item on the consent agenda next week.

All right. Our penultimate item is a contract award for the 2026 Duneway waterline replacements. Public works director Logan Lee will present this item. Yeah. Good evening, uh Mayor, Council, and members of the public. Tonight I bring for you a contract in the amount of 1,28,192.96 with raw land construction and this is for the uh Duneway waterline replacement project. So the extents of the project are the the full extent of Dune Way and uh and Dover Drive out there in Skyline. And this project is part of our annual water man our small mains replacement program. And uh the main effort of this program is to replace all the asbestous cement pipes throughout the city with ductal iron. So we uh this year for 2026 were budgeted for $1.7 million. And and previously uh council has approved two other projects. That's Juraway which is now complete and terrace drive which is underway currently. Uh we're also the remaining funds we are targeting a project on Sadderly Road in the county that we are coordinating with the county and the Swenomish to um move a water line out there. The extents of the project are unknown, but that's kind of the synopsis of the rest of our our program for 2026. For this project specifically, we're doing about 4,500 feet of 8inch ductal iron pipe, 1100 um feet of duct of 6-in ductal iron, replacing some hydrants, and renewing all the services uh along Duneway and over drive. Uh that is all I have for that and I'm happy to answer any other questions.

Council, any questions? Happy to see bids coming in still pretty tight together. Nobody's leaving a whole lot on the table and uh just under the estimate. Mayor Walters, Mr. Pantini,

um I just wanted to note one other thing that we talked about in public works too that I thought is helpful for the public to know is like as we replace these water manes, there's there's there's a lot of redundancy to this system. So, um it's important to know that this that even though this is the water man for Dune Way, there is redundancy to this system. So, while they're working on it, should something bad happen, there's still plenty of water. There's still plenty of mains. There's still, you know, there's still fire protection. I don't know why we're talking about bad things happening.

Yes. Our water system is looped throughout. So, there's we people won't be in service except for the small time when we're we're replacing the sections right in front of their house and their personal uh the the service lines to their meters. Um, and as you can see in that picture on the slide, those are act that's actually a connection where we have multiple gate valves and that's how you can isolate different sections of the system to to keep everyone in service. So, Walters, Mr. Yeah.

Short of any other comments by council, uh, I move that the city council authorize the mayor to sign contract 26-093-W001 with Raw Land Construction LLC in the amount of 1,ion28,192.96 to perform the 2026 Doomway waterline replacements. Second. Second. We have a motion and a second to approve the contract as presented to do the 2026 Duneway waterline replacements.

Any further discussion? Hearing no further discussion, I'll call for the vote. The vote is on approval of the contract for the 2026 Duneway waterline replacements. All those in favor say I. I.

All those opposed say no. The eyes have it and the contract is approved. And now, last but not least, the main event, the final item on our agenda, the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement, the software upon which everything else runs. Apologies for Mr. Cervantes for making him wait to be the last person on our agenda tonight. But we did bring this back to you with a three-year term. Lock that pricing in.

Mayor Walters, uh members of the council, staff, and members of the audience. Good evening. Um I'm Jose Cervantes. Uh I as a manager for the city, and I'm here to present our Microsoft Enterprise Agreement three-year uh renewal. Um, and I'll begin with an executive uh summary. Uh, the purpose of this agreement is to request city council authorization for a three-year renewal of the city's Microsoft enterprise agreement. The key objective is to maintain access to essential productivity tools like email, office apps, teams, and critical security infrastructure. Uh recommended action is to approve the contract number 26-140-ITS-001 with SHI International Corp. for a firm fixed price of $360,000 5018. This is um over u uh three equal payments uh over three years. Uh why an enterprise agreement? Well, cost effectiveness. Um, it provides volume licensing uh with a discount uh ranging from anywhere from 15 to 45% compared to individual licenses. Uh budget predictability. It also locks in the pricing for the next uh 3 years protecting the city from annual market fluctuations. Uh also um the true annual true up will allow the city to adjust licenses licenses based on the actual staff growth or uh reductions. Um it also provides software assurance which basically gives us the rights to the latest versions of the Microsoft uh um office ops as well as uh Windows uh operating system and also uh 247 support

at uh no additional cost. Uh the core services delivered is the uh pro in productivity would be uh word, excel, powerpoint, access and outlook for city staff. Uh it also brings in collaboration tools like uh Microsoft teams that is used for internal communications as well as uh remote meetings. Um it offers cloud storage uh like one drive and sharepoint for secure document management and infrastructure. uh again it provides licenses for the uh Windows operating system. It also um makes us um compliance and uh provides uh security. as an example uh the data residency all the city data is stored in a US-based uh government segregated data centers all is within the United States and uh so that um allows to meet strict uh regulations strict sieges HIPPA requirements uh for the public sector uh it also provides security upgrades um includes advanced threat protection multifactor authentication and automated uh security patching uh strategic recommendation continuity. It uh will avoid disruption of uh daily city services, emergency response and public communication. Consolidation, it's a single integrated platform. Uh staff recommendation is recommended that city council authorize the mayor to execute the renewal agreement. Are there any questions? Mayor Walters.

Miss Hunt. So, Mr. Santes, the actual contract includes license counts for a bunch of different Microsoft products. So, are those the things that we can true up if somebody else needs Vizio next year, we can tweak that. That is correct. Uh so, we get a form to fill out um mid year and if the numbers go up, then uh we request more license. If they go down, they will reduce it at a pro rate pro rated. Thank you.

And we're continuing to look at adjustments here, especially with respect to teams. So, um, which ultimately we expect will save us money. So, we hopefully we'll see that over time. Any other council? Any other questions? You're going to get fewer questions at the end of the agenda, so there is some bonus there. Don't make a liar out of me, Mr. Pantini.

I don't I I'm sad actually because this is Mr. Cervantes's first time at council since I've been on here. And I don't have a question for him, and that's a bummer. But I would move that the city council authorize the mayor to sign contract 26-093 WTR00001 with Raw Land Construction LLC in the amount of That's the wrong one. Wonderful. I would remove that. Sorry. The city council authorized the mayor to sign contract 26140ITS00001 with SHI International Corp. in the amount of $360,518 for the 36-month Microsoft Enterprise Agreement Office 365 renewal.

Second. There's a motion and a second to approve the contract with SHI for the Microsoft uh enterprise agreement renewal. I don't anticipate additional discussion hearing none. All those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say no. The eyes have it. The motion is approved. The contract is approved and the meeting is adjourned. Thank you, Mr. Spontes. Thank you.