City Council - Regular Meeting

Uh good evening everybody. Uh per usual I have 6:01 p.m. and we are ready to start our meeting of uh May 11th. Would you please all join me in the pledge of

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. All right. Well, that was a little bit rough, but we all came together at the end. So, uh I recognize that all city council members are present and we have a quorum. Uh we have a couple of announcements to make tonight. Uh first of all, I want to recognize that uh former council member Bill Turner has passed away. Uh Mr. Turner served on this council for eight years from 2006 through 2014 and also contributed to our community in any number of additional ways, including most recently uh with his contributions toward a gazebo at the dog park. Uh we express our condolences to his family. Uh next, I want to say a couple of words about our fiber internet service. Over the past couple of weeks now, staff have been troubleshooting a particularly thorny problem affecting one of our optical line terminals, which is the piece of equipment that serves the fiber to uh downtown Oldtown and generally the area east of Anna Copper. The other areas of town, the two other uh optical line terminals were not affected by this problem. But this problem resulted in some significant latency at some times of day for some customers in the affected area with more significant disruptions in the last couple of days. Uh fiber staff worked long hours and late nights resolving this problem. The good news is that as of Sunday morning at 3:00 a.m. we believe we have resolved the problem for now. And uh if it still affects any customers, they largely can resolve it by rebooting their fiber equipment. And for help with that, they can contact the fiber office. The bad news is that Saturday was a particularly rough day

for many downtown businesses who were all affected by a single failed line card in this piece of equipment. My expectation, and I think council's expectation, is an even higher level of service for our fiber network. We should be achieving four to five nines of uptime, which in fact we did achieve in the nine months prior to this incident. So, we are going to order more replacement hardware for further redundancy. and I've directed that replacement hardware orders bypass our normal processes and be expedited as quickly as humanly possible so that this problem does not recur. We are also going to substantially improve our communications including across all departments but also with fiber and our technical support offerings. I've personally debriefed this situation with staff and we'll also be working through it in depth with the council fiber committee. We understand that internet service is a critical system for our users and essential for our businesses and that's why we offer this service here at the city. On behalf of all of us at the city of Anacortis, I apologize for the service disruption and the outage and we will do better going forward. We have uh one committee report tonight and that's from the housing affordability and community services and planning committee. Who has that report?

I do. Mayor Molton.

Um thank you. The we met as the h the planning committee today at five council members Courier Young and myself and planning director John Coleman and planning manager Libby Grage and we found out that the shoreline master program update is coming back to us after about a four-year hiatus. We were almost there in 2022 um but didn't quite get it over the finish line. So it is currently being presented to the planning commission including at their meeting tomorrow night and um they're following that it will the updated public participation plan will come to council after it's goes to planning commission. There will be an open house about the shoreline master program update at a planning commission meeting the second Tuesday of June. And there will also be a public hearing. So plenty of opportunities to get involved with that. And we talked about the importance the shoreline management act that's statewide um really emphasizes public access to the shoreline as well as business access for water dependent businesses and how vital that is to our our state and our economy. So those are two really big pieces of it. We also talked about the critical areas update and that will be happening at the same time as the shoreline master program update and should be finished by the end of the year. Some of that work will inform the shoreline master program. So that is coming along at the same time. So we have everything tied up in a nice little package and staff is going to ask council to hire a consultant to ensure that our shoreline manage master program and meets the and the critical areas ordinance meet the

best available science. Um and so we're they'll be coming to us to ask for that for some that will cost some money. So, we'll be talking about that at council. And we also have a we have state requirements to meet as well with the critical areas ordinance and the shoreline master program. I think that's probably obvious, but um yeah, that's it. Thanks.

Thank you. Uh we'll move on at this point to public comment unless anyone else has any announcements. Nope. Okay. Uh all right. No one was signed up for public comment. Does anyone in the audience want to make a public comment at this point? Nope. Anybody online? Nope. All right. We'll move on then to our consent agenda. Three items on the consent agenda. Council. Mayor Walters. Mr. McDougall. I move approval of the consent agenda. Items A through C.

All right. We have a motion and a second. Thank you. Uh to approve the consent agenda. No request to pull anything. We'll approve it then uh uh as a whole. So all those in favor say I. I. All those opposed say no. The eyes have it and the consent agenda is approved. Our first item of other business tonight is an update from our Anacortis Arts Commission. Mr. Lunsford,

Mayor Walters, Council Member, folks in the audience. Um pleased to have the uh couple members of the arts commission with you here tonight. We have Mr. Todd Young and Miss Cammy Bratton and they're going to tell you a little bit about what we have been doing. Anacortis has had an arts commission since about 2005 since that was approved by city council. It's very noteworthy since I believe our neighbors to the east and Cedar Willy have recently undone their arts commission. And so we're proud to present the commission in its work to you and support arts in the community in general. So without further ado, I'll invite the commission members up to speak to you. All right. Thank you. Please feel free to adjust the microphone so that you're heard well.

John's too tall. Um, okay. Thank you very much. We'll keep it brief. And I know you know what the arts commission does, but I've been on for a couple years now and I'm very uh proud about that. Cammy's going to tell you uh she's going to point out some things on the ground. Um, one thing that I'm very excited about is that when I joined the commission a couple years ago, every member was a visual artist or that was their focus. And I come from the music world and um have been able to slowly, you know, how things move sometimes, but have slowly been able to help the commission broaden maybe their view of what constitutes art. And I would point out that Cammy, when she joined, she's also from neither of those worlds. She's from the literary world. She's a writer. And there are some interesting things that we're working on and we will kind of come back to that. We'll talk to you another time about that or John or Mr. Lunsford will bring that up to you. But um we have been hard at work and uh I think with that Cammy can step up.

Yeah. Uh we love both Todd and I love that Anacortis has a robust arts uh dedication. Obviously, the Artsfest does a lot of that, but in town, uh, we've the commission has really become something that is a a conversation around broadly what is art and why is it important to our community, the way we gather, the way that we express ourselves as community members, and obviously how we bring people from out of town to come to Anacortis, which is known as an artist community. Um, some of the events that we've had in addition to placing art are some paint your grandma events where kids paint a grandparent or caregiver. Uh, Washington Park, we always have a a site where people can take pictures. We've done events at booths at different street fairs throughout the summer. We've done uh popup educational experiences for people of all ages. is and we're in the process of um pulling together a better roster of the many artists that we have who would like to teach the people in our community and what kind of avenues we can you know we can build out for them. Um prior to my joining the commission uh there's tons of public art. There's I think something like 57 um different pieces of public art. Uh last summer we I put together a uh scavenger hunt that you can win, you know, you can win a little uh sticker if you find all of the the pieces. And it was so fun for myself and my kids and everyone else that I've told to go do it because there is so much art hidden in places that you wouldn't even realize.

Um Um are are you suggesting that the the bird's nest sculpture is hidden? No, we we are working on starting the conversation about uh trimming the trees.

Oh, I see. Yes. Um it's been great working with the arts fest uh who has a broader view of that uh visual art and sculpture and in murals. Um and it's something that we've had long conversations about how do we get people to know that there's so much public art out there. the scavenger hunt. We uh the the team put together this interactive public art map uh that I'd recommend all council members to uh take a look at. It's it has a a pin every single place where there's public art with information about the artist, when it was established, the history of the art piece. Um and it's really beautifully documented and makes it really easy to find and to tell people about. Todd,

thank you. Um, so I'm just going to point out to you a couple of the things that are going on currently. The 98221 gallery, you all know about that. And we'll be changing over uh with the next art walk June 5th. Um, as an aside, over the last couple years, that is one of the first places we were able to add a little music in and it kind of brought a little ambiance and helped a few people come and it's always well attended. And I'm proud to say that we had our biggest round of sales this past round when the winter it it was really amazing. And um so we're really proud of that and that'll obviously continue on. um the Madrona Grove. We are looking to um purchase another piece of art and put that out there. And we're going there are some discussions about how to make that a little mini festival and maybe the Anacortis music project will be somewhat involved. Some of you know, but I'm involved with that also. And so there's a lot of coordination there. And so we might try to make that a bigger event all in uh furtherance of trying to bring more eyes and bring more art at the same time. Um piano cordis. This is one of our favorite ones. It is always very very helpful that uh the park staff gets things where they need to be and um everybody seems to love it. it uh it's a it's a transitional kind of thing, but it sits out there as long as the weather will allow it to. And last year, one of them got purchased. Was that right? Or was that a little far a little further back, but that happens sometimes, too. But it's really fun for the community and it's it's uh happening. So, I think that we have a new commissioner uh or a

new member of the commission who's going to be coming up before you here in just a second and that'll bring us up to seven. And I think the last thing I would like to leave you with and John kind of started with this, but is we all know that there have been tough times financially and you guys had to make decisions and some of those affected us too. But I'm glad that you still support. I know you support in general, but there you haven't cut us completely. That can happen. There was an example of that as was alluded to earlier and we really believe it's valuable. I know you do, too. So, I'm not worried about that happening. So, thank you for your attention.

Well, thank you. Uh, we'll get to maybe some questions uh in just a second. I do want to announce that um I have appointed Miss Joanie Schwarz to the Arts Commission. That's a an appointment that doesn't require council confirmation. It's already effective. So, welcome aboard. Uh and then for our next item after we conclude this one, we'll talk about the composition of the commission and adoption of the ordinance. Um council, do you have any questions or comments? Mr. Young.

Uh thank you, Mayor Walters. Um just really um a compliment. I always like a compliment in the sense of the amount of work that's being done and you know for a city of our size I I think we um punch above our weight and you know I think as we began our discussions of the trees that has grown around the nest.

Okay, that was just a little joke but um but you really the art that we see in our community and around is noticed. It really is noticed and it differentiates us in so many ways from other small towns, you know, and so when I say punching above our weight, it's such a high compliment to the work that people like you do as well as the city and partnerships that we have out and about in order to create that artist environment. Uh, I'm going to toss one thing out there. I know you got a million things on your plate and you know, if you want to make me happy, bring me to a brainstorming session. Okay? I'm very happy at that. Okay.

There was someone that's they were talking about those 12 gnomes or those that across um Washington State these big the big trolls. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would love to get a

Okay. Good. Good. Good. Good. So if you ever decide that we're going to push to do something because I was surprised to hear about a number of people who relish the idea of having gone to all of them and found them, you know, and so I I think they had just visited the one on Vashan Island and I just thought it was an amazing thing. But anyway, but just I'm very much an advocate of art, street art, building art, and I love the fact that our museum also tie in those pieces as a self-guided tour. you know, I think as we move forward with um you know, the under the the um this mayor and putting out um word of how in what we're doing as a city in sort of a concentrated fashion, I I think that we would benefit even more, but I'm very much supportive and u will always be both personally as well as sitting on this panel. Thank you.

Thank you. One one comment on that is that it is a uh continuing discussion within the commission of how to get more eyes on what is happening. And you know, marketing isn't the sexiest conversation when you're talking about art, but we have to do that because Anacortis does have a very uh special reputation as an art community. And not to repeat myself too much, but not just visual art. We have a lot of visual art and we should certainly continue that. But we have such a rich musical history here that goes back so long. I mean, this thing that the other Mr. Lunsburg just did at the that's still up at the museum really chronicles a lot of that. And um so we we plan to continue that direction and to include more

all kinds. Yeah. Mayor Walters, Mr. Fantini, hi. Thank you both for the the work that you're doing. Um, I have a question. We So, we have done a lot of conversations around kind of the downtown plan that's coming with the downtown Anacortis Alliance. I'm curious, have you had any conversations with them yet about being involved kind of in some of those? We have discussions.

Yeah, I mean, that's something that's ongoing. I've been to some of their meetings uh also with the folks at the visitor center about who who needs what and who's benefiting and who's paying for and uh what happens after those first 40 feet. Um but yeah, absolutely. It's something that little by little I feel like we're all connecting with each other around the areas of common interest.

Okay. Thanks. And I also wanted to say I appreciate the push to include more of the performing arts um along with the art commission. We do have a phenomenal fine art community um here in Anacortis, but there's there's some other things going on here, too. So, I do I do appreciate um that push. And then my other my last question was um did the luminary parade that kind of and the procession of species? I feel like did that start in the art commission? It really did not. Okay.

It did not. um some of us were personally involved and such but um no it didn't come out of us a year ago though I've forgotten her name but the lady who really uh spearheads the luminary came and talked with us and we gave her a little support but around the around the edges. Okay. But that's that doesn't go through us. Great. Thank you. Anyone else? council. Okay. So, our next item is the arts commission ordinance. So, we'll want you to stick around to potentially provide input to that, but I think Mr. Lensford is going to summarize that for council.

Thank you very much for coming here tonight.

Nope. So the arts commission ordinance uh was adopted many years ago but never codified into the code. Um which is desirable because then you can find it. So uh now is a great chance to readt it, reaffirm uh our commitment to the arts commission, potentially make any changes we might want to make, uh but get it into the code so that it lives alongside where all of our other uh boards and commissions live.

Thank you, Mayor Walters, and thank you to Miss Bratton and Mr. Young for their presentation. They were too, excuse me, too modest. I think they're the com commission has done a great job working with the festival and are working on a plan for next spring to bring youth art back to the four and try to work with the downtown alliance and the creative district to do that in the downtown core showing some of the art in the windows. So that's a ongoing collaboration that they're doing with the festival and the downtown alliance and the creative district. So look forward to that in the springtime. It's to replace what used to happen at the depot. If you enjoyed like seeing a full wall of Abraham Lincoln with like cotton and eyeballs and things like that, that's going to happen again. But downtown. Okay. Uh the commission ordinance 5030. So we uh like I said, the commission was created by council in 2005 and um there were some been some changes over the years and I wanted to kind of bring up some of the highlights to you. So what we're looking at now is keeping many of the elements you see have that have existed for the past 21 years and making a change or some ideas for change for you to consider. Um right now we have a uh we have about we have um the original ordinance said seven to nine members which was confusing. We changed that in this one to seven. Uh but an idea was brought up to make the student a voting member. And if you did that, that would make eight members. So that's something to consider as you look at this ordinance. So seven voting or if the student voted, it'd be eight

or the student could be optional or you know there's many options here for council.

Correct. Correct. Correct. Right. So that was one thing that we've discussed in this plan. Another is the municipal arts fund. So when I think it was created, it was envisioned that you would have a fund within the uh um Mr. Hogan's perview that was created for municipal arts. Um that has changed a little bit and we have housed that money in the parks and recreation fund fund 101. And as Mr. Young alluded to, we've you use that money throughout time to do projects. If the sales of art come in, they come to that fund. But we have housed that in 101. Correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Hogland. And that's the parks and recreation fund. And then have just kept a separate balance sheet of what is in there. It's roughly about $15,000 that has been raised and held in there. So, um the city, you know, uh through the generosity of um budgets, legal department helps us quite a bit with the contracts for the art that comes and goes here or rather um outside in the public art and at the Madrona Grove. Um they help us with the contracts around how to get that in place. Uh insurance is done as well through the city budget and our staff, as Mr. Young alluded to, moves the art around and helps to place the art. So the city gives outside of the municipal fund. But a question for you is how you'd like that that municipal arts fund to to look to represent. Would you like us to keep doing the way we have been or something different? That would be up to you for consideration.

The the reason for this uh is and you don't see the change in your packet. Mr. Hogland hadn't looked at the ordinance, but we don't have we don't call out these individual funds in our fund structure. And there are other references I think in the code to funds that don't actually exist in the fund structure. So, um, if we had some different language other than fund, uh, it would still be a lowercase F fund, but not a capital F fund. Miss Hunt, you want to say something?

I just wondered if we could set it up so that there would be an obvious place for donors who wanted to leave up a quest for public art to do that. And we have other funds that our capital F funds I think that do that like forest endowment fund. So, I don't know what the correct mechanics are, but I'd like to make sure we have an opportunity, an easy way for people to do that. And this just came up today, so you know, staff might brainstorm in the next couple days for replacement language.

And the city has done a nice job again with help from the legal department and Mr. Hogan's department to um if people want to donate art, we've accepted many pieces that you see like one in front of Burton's that was shown on the previous slide by Miss Bratton, the the new eyes, the owls. People have done that time and again to provide the art. And so there's ways we can accept it, but aquest is something we've not had yet. Miss Hunt. I'm at the end. Mayor Walters,

Mr. Fantini. Um, if we do put it in a separate fund, does that like you know how sort of uh not sort of, but you know how like the water refund fund is restricted and can be only used for that. Is that similar to kind of how we're saying it won't be in the 101 fund anymore? It'll be just specifically allocated for just this specific use, Mr. Mayor. Uh, yeah, that's exactly right. So, that's the intent of putting a fund, an accounting fund together like that. It gives you way more visibility, more transparency and um it would be um clearly restricted to the um the establishing ordinance that put the fund in place.

Okay. Thank you. I think the thinking is though we have not been doing that along the way already and the small amounts of money that are in there don't really warrant having a separate capital F uh fund,

right? Yeah. We've tried to honor the ordinance by keeping it separate and unique within our fund and spending it and talking to the commission about it. When times are lean, we have fewer conversations, but when we have more, then we try to find ways to do it. Um, this is a very good working commission that you have. They do a lot of sweat equity into um the art scene and on behalf of the city. Yeah. No, I I I I think it's also very important that we acknowledge the again the amount of work that's gone by so many individuals in this community to make the arts what it is. You know, whether that means, you know, the resources that we have, the limited resources, and yet we still create wonderful opportunities for people to love what we do here in Anacortis. And I I think sometimes when we're in the middle of trying to figure out how we proceed that sometimes it's also important to just say thanks for the work that's being done already. You know, sometimes it can almost seem thankless, you know, even though you're doing a good deed. It's almost like public service. Some days you win, some days you're the windshield, some days you're the bug. Okay. So, you know, but in this case, I I wanted to take the opportunity again, you know, John, to say thank you for the work that you and your department do to try to help our town be in the best possible light through the governance that you have control over and as you execute the wishes of council as well as the mayor's office and the city. And I just think it's important. So, thank you.

Thank you. Mayor Walters, Mr. Creer, if we wanted to um take a closer look at what Council Member Hunt suggested, do we need to then just request more time for review or do we go ahead and approve it as is or does that include it? Oh, I think we're not suggesting you approve it tonight. Okay. Uh because um I mean it's non-regulatory, so I mean you could, but this would be your chance to improve it before before doing that. Thank you, Mayor Walters. Miss McGrath.

Um, reading through the arts uh ordinance makes a lot of it makes sense. I'm just kind of curious um the arts commission working with the downtown Anacortis Alliance and then also the creative district. Um, you know, go and visit other cities, you see that they've got kind of consistency when it comes to pedestals for art and rotation of those things, rotation of artwork that's either on loan or has been acquired. I'm just kind of curious if that is the if the commission has some goals or I want to use um strategic plan, but are there some goals of the commission currently um that you guys would like to work on? either it's oomphing up kind of our permanent installations at the Madrona Grove or doing some identifying locations throughout the downtown where we could have more artwork. Um I just kind of curious if there's some of that discussion happening. And then also I should know this, but do we have a line item budget amount each year for the arts commission or is it really just based on sales and donations?

You do. It's um been about between two and 3,000 a year. So we're not so not enough to acquire any large any pieces of art, but just keep things going. Correct. So if there was a desire or something was offered, oftentimes a private donor will step forward as been usually the case. If there was something offered to the city, I would bring it to the mayor's office and we discuss adjusting, you know, uh a budget amendment or whatever it was to to do that. um because there's more than that annual amount in the uh line item

in the in Yes. Correct. Correct. So um the um I think that I'll let these two speak if they'd like to, but they've been focusing on um trying to uh reinvigorate our relationship with the festival, hence the youth art idea, and then bringing different kinds of art to the four like they talked about. I'll let them talk about it.

Yeah. Specific goals. I mean, we absolutely we um have a list of I have a notebook with 40 places that are like here's places we could put public art and here's a list of uh artists we have in our community or people who have submitted to 98221 gallery or um and a lot of it really is just a matter of finding that cross-section of what can we afford, how can we place it in the world of public art, murals are something that we've talked a lot about. Um, we've had muralists propose things that we've had to coordinate with the Bill Mitchell folks. And there's I think one of the biggest challenges honestly is that we have a lot of entities who love art and who want art to be everywhere and different strengths. Everyone has different strengths. The downtown folks obviously are really focused here. The creative district, it's they're overlap. Artsfest broadly anyway, everybody that kind of cares about different things in a different way. And I think that means that some groups are better suited to certain projects. And we've had conversations more recently about like how do we make sure that we're not duplicating efforts um and making sure that we as the city the entity that isn't dependent on grants and is not going to be falling apart dep you you can count on city uh commitment in a different way than you can nonprofit commitment. um how do we make sure to steward that with public funds? So, yeah, absolutely. We have that list with some specific goals that are kind of loosely being aligned. And then like Todd said, we've talked a lot about how do we make performing art, literary art. Um we've talked more about events that are coming up in the next year. John mentioned the youth art event downtown that would be in collaboration with the uh downtown association and the the artsfest. Um we've had litwalk conversations. So a lot of it is like all the ideas and

which ones move forward is a matter of funding timing and who says yes. I guess add

I think Cammy covered a lot of it. The one thing I would say specifically to strategic planning as you put it there is we are working through the correct channels working with the city attorney right now on uh a specific idea that you know we will be bringing to you or however this exactly is going to going to happen where it gets to you and gets approved and such and such but we um we do have plans and we have particular things that are in motion. I think it's been a learning experience for me and I certainly don't mean anything by this besides the fact of it of you know things can go slower when you're meeting once a month and you're you know for an hour and then you have whatever the bureaucracy needs to do to make sure that everything's done exactly as it should. But then once it's in, it's in. And um so yeah, it's really exciting. It's been learning. It's been a learning process, but we we do have plans. So,

well, well, now I'm intrigued. I I'll have to ask what the secret is. It's called voice and verse. It's an idea to bring uh lit either poetry or songwriting or something to the community in a way that can be delivered in a performance or an exhibition of sort. And so, we're trying to figure out how to do that and how we as a city can get behind and do that. So, like Mr. Young said, "Sometimes we're slow to get there, but once we get there, it's locked in." So, we just have to make sure we clear all the hurdles and do things appropriately, and that's the secret. So, there there you go. Okay. Well, is that right, Mr. A little antilimactic? Fair, but all right, Mr. McDonald.

Um, thank you. I thank you both for the presentation and for answering the questions. Fantastic. Uh, I love the idea of including a uh a student in the commission and I was actually wondering would it make sense to have that could it be two students that are non- voting members? I know from the perspective of when when we've had students up here and addressing the council, especially if it's like outside of public comment, like oftentimes having basically your uh another student with with them just creates like makes the adults less scary.

Yes, exactly. They can be more assertive. Yeah. Confidence increases significantly. Well, and just from my perspective, uh, this is a creation of the city council, so it it's not bound by anything other than what you want. Why not make the student representative a voting member? I mean, why why take the the voting right away? Um, but then also, do you want to or do you want to encourage that one of the members be a student or Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of options that way. And then do you want to confirm members of the arts commission? Because currently you don't, but most of the time, most of the commissions maybe you do. Actually, maybe that's not generally true. We'd have to check to see what the average is, but

Mayor Walters, Miss Hunt. So, Mr. Lensford, does the language that's presented right now regarding a single non- voting student member, does that reflect the arts commission's recommendation or is that still a conversation that is ongoing? That's just the old practice. So, it's really up to you what you would like to see. I don't think they have any Come on up to the mic.

Um, one of the important realities is it's actually quite hard to get it. We've had a difficult time finding and retaining student representation. Um we meet at four o'clock on a Wednesday which is a competitive time in the extracurricular world. Uh and we've had rep some of the representatives who we have had in the past are to put it politely maybe more interested in the transcript uh package than participating. I think that's something we've talked about. How do you find a student who is engaged not for the look of it? Um, and can be consistently counted upon. So, I think that my thought about them being non- voting is then then it feels cons when there's a lot more turnover or lack of lack of participation. It's more consistent. Um, I don't think it it I don't feel strongly about it. If anybody felt like no, we need students to absolutely be able to vote. I think it would be fine. Um, but based on my limited experience in the last few years being on the commission, um, they're the student representative is like the most, uh, the least consistent part of the, uh, voting body.

May Walters. Yes.

No, thank you. I think there are multiple thoughts about this process, but the reality sometimes is very different. And what I appreciated about what you just said just now is ideally we would think we would love students to be lined up ready to participate, you know, always showing up, but the reality is that that's just not the truth of what we're dealing with. Um, and so, you know, in that case, I think, um, you know, just sort of having the opportunity to have students or a student is a wonderful thing. And if for whatever reason we discover later that we've got this hoorde of students waiting for their opportunity, then you come back to council or you you you talk to Mr. Lunsford and we figure out how we add those students. But I think that, you know, just from the ivory tower looking out thinking what our world should be like, what we hope we can inspire to do may contradict the reality of where we are and what we're doing. So, you know, I I I hear you loud and clear and I'm, you know, agreeing with you and I think that if that change, I'm hoping you will let us know that there's an opportunity for us to have more students and more people do different things.

And if I may, Mr. J, I think the one of the um ideas of the commission has been to get youth involved as artists in making of art. So, there's a youth involvement component all the time. It's just the representation hasn't been as consistent as as Miss Bratton has said. Thank you. Thank you, council. Any other comments or questions? Would allowing for as currently written, we don't have to have a student rep, but we can if someone has interest. Would it address Mr. McDougall's good observation to allow up to two? Sure.

Um, sometimes then you can tag team, right? um or not during your sports season do you show up but when it's not your sports season you show up right is that a possible Absolutely from our perspective in addition to the seven members I'm just throwing that out right uh in addition to the seven members up to two non- voting student members is that where we're landing and we're not limiting it to high school students explicitly correct I mean did anyone intend to that. I don't know that that was the intention, but it's of it's always been high school students that have that have represented, but it doesn't have to be necessarily.

Does anyone object to leaving it unstated and so it's an option to have a student of a different age group? One last question, Mr. Lensford, could we change the pronoun in that language? Just use their instead.

Sure. Thanks. Okay, we'll do a little bit of cleanup uh consistent with your comments tonight and we'll bring it back for adoption on consent agenda next week. Yes, sounds good. All right, thank you. Thank you for uh coming tonight. Uh congratulations, Miss Schwarz, and looking forward to more good work from the arts commission. All right. Our next item is uh the ACFL ordinance, ordinance 5029. Also, Mr. Lunsford. Mayor Walters, can I say one final thing on that subject? Uh, sure.

Thank you. Every time you said Mr. Young, I kept thinking I didn't do that. But that's the other Mr. Young. Thank you. Multiple Mr. Young's in the building tonight. Yeah. Okay. I

I didn't get confused between the two of them. Okay. And of course we need forest lands. Um this is uh what you've seen before. We made some we believe accurate changes to based on your comments from the last time I was here which was maybe last week. So in brief we have uh added a drone policy which you can see there. Um, we hope that encapsulates your comments and concerns and um, I think there are questions as to the landing issues. Uh, so the mayor helped to clean up that because we don't we don't regulate the airspace and um, that that would be based on policy under I think the parks director's specific authorization. Okay. And then the next one. Oh, and Mr. V Mr. Vokes is here. If you have any questions, he's with me as well. Um, on 1218140, uh, the best available science was added regarding herbicide application in the ACFL based on the comments, the public comments you received last week, I believe, from Mr. Wcher. Those were the major changes other than clarification Miss Hunt pointed out where we had a a typo. We corrected that. Those are the ones that I recall from your discussion. If you have any other ones, please let me know. We can clarify.

Council, any questions? Mayor Walters, Mr. Fantini, just a general question. So, with some of the changes that obviously, excuse me, that obviously will affect trail users, how do they get notified? like are we going to be changing any like is there notification of any of the changes or do you want to speak to that? Sure.

So, uh, Council Member Fentini, just to clarify, you're asking how we get the word out when we come up with new rules. Yeah. So, you know, signage is the is the classic uh method um and the one that the police appreciate the most because it helps them have something to write against. Um we also it's also required by the ordinance. What's that? The signage is also required by the ordinance. Okay. Yeah.

Um we also uh we have Derby and a lot of social media uh competency and uh we get it out that way. We have a monthly forest advisory board where we talk about all things ACFL. Um we certainly talk about it here. Uh we have the Anacortis American that that helps us get word out. Um those are the the sort of typical kinds of ways. And then you know we we don't have a giant staff but we do have people out there and uh we word of mouth. And then we also have a very successful, we're in about our seventh year of a trail ambassador program with the friends of the community forest lands. And so they are also another great source of information for folks kind of randomly showing up at trail heads council. Any other questions or discussion? motions.

Walters, Mr. Mantini. If there's no further discussion, um I move to approve ordinance 5029 as presented. Second. We have a motion, a second to approve ordinance 5029 regarding the ACFL. Uh this item does have an asterisk, so let me uh ask for any public comment on this point at this point. Mr. Brimmans, come on up. Be sure to adjust the microphone.

Thank you, Mayor, City Council. My name is William Hooperounts. I live on K Avenue. Last week, I asked about the uh uh capital facilities plan. Uh I'm worried about that we allow the building of structures in our ACFL. And I like that point to be clarified. I asked for that the if there would be an addition to the capital's facilities plan that it could be limited to Mount Eerie and Heart Lake. Uh could you clarify if this ordinance now allows planning for structures?

Uh I think I can probably answer uh this question. the uh conservation easement contain that is imposed on most of the ACFL with very few exceptions is what's going to be the limiting factor there. Um but there are for example roads within the ACFL up to the top of Mount Erie. Um that would be a capital facility needs to be maintained uh needs to be in a plan. So there are always going to be some projects that are within the capital facilities element. The language that's in this ordinance functions as a constraint though on the parks department because it says that if you want to do anything that qualifies as a capital facilities project, it needs to get prior approval from the city council through the capital facilities plan which uh through the code requirements has to have a public hearing and public comment process.

Thank you very much for that clarification. Sure. Any other uh public comments at this point? Anybody online? Okay. All right, council. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion on the motion to approve the ordinance as presented? Hearing no discussion, I'll proceed to a vote on the ordinance. All right, Mr. Franc, would you please take the role? The motion is on uh approval of ordinance 5029. Mr. Courier, yes. Mr. Young. Yes. Miss Cleveland. Yes. Miss Molton? Yes. Mr. McDougall? Yes.

Mr. Pantini? Yes. Miss Hunt? Yes. Mayor, the eyes are seven. The nays are zero. The eyes have it and the motion is approved and the ordinance is approved. Thank you very much. Our next item is resolution 3215 uh updating the unified fee schedule. And Miss Beck is here on her day off. Hello, mayor, council, members of the audience who are here tonight. So, yes, it was my day off. It was my dad's birthday, so I spent the day hanging out with him. So, it was amazing. He's 85 today. I want council to be aware I did not force Miss Beck to come in to give this presentation. She is a volunteer here.

Yes, I am. All right, let's talk about some fees. Uh, so we have three different elements of change for tonight. We have some new fees. Um, these are related to some cemetery items that you saw. fantastic presentation last week on those. Uh we do have a couple of changes related to um some hearing examiner fees for PCED and then we have an update and some uh great changes to our engineering and development fees to simplify those. And then we are integrating some fees that were historically outside of the unified fee schedule. So we're bringing those in. Uh those are for the museum, the library, um public records requests, and the police department. So as I mentioned the new items are related to the cemetery. Uh modified green burial is now being offered as a service and we now have the columbarium niches um that are available for sale. You saw the prices or the costing that was proposed last week by the parks department for the modified green burial. Uh you'll notice that there's a footnote that's been added to the opening and closing of our regular uh cemetery service fee of 1725. And then the column varian niches are now priced at three different price points. The top two rows are 2600. The middle two rows are 2400 and the bottom row is 2200. And then there are some additional prices for the services um and the uh engraving of the on the front of the niches. If you want to see those fees in the updated unified fee schedule, those are on pages 25 and 26. Any questions on those new items before I move on? Okay. The next items are changes for planning

and engineering and development fees. The way these slides are developed, u you'll see the current fees as they're on the uh current unified fee schedule uh in the shaded area and then we have a proposed new fees uh in the clear white background area. the planning department has come up with a more robust way um to outline the different types of appeals that come through their planning process and how we're going to deal with the hearing and examiner fees that are associated with those. So, you'll see those laid out by type of appeal and we are removing the note um that was previously on this item. The engineering and development fees as they exist today are pretty messy, pretty wordy. Uh the director of of public works, uh Logan, did an amazing job of clarifying these, simplifying them. Um I think this is a great very clear fee structure for folks um to understand as they move through the processes. All right, let's talk about integrating fees. So again, these fees did not previously exist in the unified fee schedule. We're bringing them in to try to drive some synergies uh for folks who want to understand our fee structure across the city. So at the museum, we have uh free admission at the museum gallery and at the heritage center. We do have three different price points for the WT Preston. And then we've got a couple of added items around digital photo photos and utilization of the museum photos. The library has a pretty vast uh fee schedule. Uh passport fees. They do have non-resident card fees available for

purchase, photo copies and prints, and then you'll see a very long list of lost book fees. Um but again, these are pretty well spelled out for folks in the event that they do lose a book. Next we have the public public records requests. Again these costs are outlined um well u based on standard standard papers large formatting uh and then electronic and then we have fees at our Anacortis Police Department. These are primarily related to um dog impound fees, dog license fees. They have concealed weapons licenses or concealed pistol licenses um that are available at our APD front counter. And then they also offer fingerprinting services. And uh these fees changed a little bit because our uh dog impound um uh lost dog um facility is likely going to be the or is now I think actually the humane society in in Burlington.

That is correct. So um that's why you see a lot of actual costs here. Uh the restraint and the boarding fee used to be a set fee that we had negotiated or were receiving with an in town provider. Um these costs are now going to be build on an actual cost. The cost that we incur is going to be the cost that we um impose on the dog owner.

Great call out. Thank you. Did we um did we add here uh any additional fee for the cost of driving the dog an hour round trip? Um I had a pretty lengthy conversation um with Chief Floyd um I think it was last Thursday or Friday and he has assured me that the costs that are reflected here today are the the costs that they need to make sure that their cost that that their their efforts are paid for with with the money that's set out here. Then on your previous slide, are the are there any changes to the public records request fees that we need to highlight for council? Because the the all of these weren't previously in the fee schedule,

but they were in the public records um policy, right? So, are there any changes that we need to highlight? Mayor Walters. Uh the two the two things that were added were a recommendation from the IT department and they are the last two items which are records transmitted in electronic format for use of agency equipment to send records electronically. And then also uh when records are uploaded to email, cloud-based data storage service or other means of electronic delivery. Uh the the other costs have all been part of our fee schedule, just not in the unified fee schedule that we're finding that there are more and more requests are being fulfilled electronically, which still have a significant impact and this will allow the city to recover some of those costs.

Thank you. All right. Um, any other questions? Mayor Walters, Mr. Fantini. Um, a question just two. Um, about the RO permitbased fee and going up. Is that anything that's going to affect applicants who have projects that are currently in the pipeline? And like is that how will they be notified or will it it just be about new permits that are coming in? You don't vest to fees. So, if they haven't been build, I I think they're going to get the new fee.

Awesome. And then the other question I had is around the hearing examiner fees. If you can go I I'm mixing up. Okay. So, the current fee is the 200 plus the hearing exam. Okay. Thank you. That's it. Of course. Anything else? Awesome. Walters, Miss Hunt,

we are bringing wisely some of the museum and library fees and public records request fees and I'm not proposing that we change any of those tonight, but I would like to strongly suggest that we look at those as part of the revenue budgeting this summer and have the exact conversation that Rhonda had with Chief Floyd about are we covering costs?

Yeah. And there this will be uh the most this is this is maybe the more comprehensive but um not the last time you're going to look at the uh fees. Um we do have an executive order regarding permitting that's going to pull some fees out of the code that have been in there a long time and they're going to migrate into the fee schedule and then the entire fee schedule is going to get reformatted to go up onto the code publishing website. Um, so you'll you'll be looking at these more than once this year and uh definitely in that context of 100% fee recovery. Um, which is part of I guess both executive orders that I've issued this year.

Great.

Uh, we are um scheduled to take public comment on this. So if anybody would like to provide comment, come on up. Good evening, council and may mayor. My name is Vim Hoopermans. I live at K Avenue. There's two items I'd like to address. Uh the code enforcement fee. I um I'd like to hear a clarification on that. In the past 5 years, I've filed 12 code enforcement complaints and none of them were enforced. Am I to gather from a code enforcement fee that I now have to pay and not get a code enforced? And second item I want to hear a clarification on is the hearing examiner fee. How can there not be a note if you're wrong, you're wrong, even when people pay $2,000 to tell you you're wrong.

Okay. Thank you for your comments. No answers. We don't provide answers while you're still standing at the mic. You step back a little ways. Maybe we'll give you some. Uh, Miss Peek, would you put the the appropriate slide, the relevant slide back on the screen?

Uh, Mr. Coleman, can you answer those questions about the fees?

Yes, please. Sure. So, the proposed fee for code enforcement actions is not a fee to uh to somebody who submits a code enforcement code violation notice or request for investigation. This is for uh what this fee is for is if somebody is given a co a code enforcement notice uh notice and order and they decide that they would like to appeal the city's decision that uh that appeal goes to the hearings examiner and the thousand fee is for that action. It has nothing to do with somebody who's submitting a a request for code investigation of a possible code uh code enforcement problem. Uh the other question

removal of the note

the the removal of the note of the hearing examiner. So, we used to just charge a flat fee of $200 and it was a little unclear about how much which types of fees were 200. Uh so we've gone to now these we've identified all five different types of appeals and get um and built the hearing examiner fee into them based on our estimates of how much time the hearing examiner uh how much it costs to have a hearing examiner by these various types of uh code various types of appeals instead of uh so this gives people some assurityity about how much they're going to pay when they go through the process instead of getting a bill at the end of the process saying, "Oh, by the way, you still owe us another, you know, $632.86 for hearing examiner fees." So, this is we're able to collect the money up front and the trade-off before, I think, was that the hearing examiner fees could be variable and could be very expensive and you didn't have certainty about whether you were going to have to pay a large amount or a small amount. uh but you got benefit of if the appeal is won the city will reimburse the appeal fee. On the other hand, that inspires a lot of argument back and forth about whether you won and in some cases uh appeals might be sustained in part and reversed in part and that is not addressed by a single sentence. So the revision here moves toward much more clarity and certainty about just this is the fee doesn't matter how it goes for you. Uh this is what the fee is going to be which is provides a lot more certainty and it maybe is more consistent with how it is in other contexts. We also compared these fees to other jurisdictions including Scadget County and we kept them lower than lower than the county's fees at at least.

Thank you. All right. So, this is a resolution in front of you tonight. Um, hoping hoping for a uh hoping for a motion. Mayor Walters. Miss Hunt. I move to approve resolution 3215 updating the unified feed schedule. Second. Third. Uh, motion and seconds to approve resolution 3215 updating the unified fee schedule. discussion. No discussion. If there's no discussion, I'll call for the vote. Hearing none, the motion is on resolution 3215 to approve it as presented. All those in favor say I.

I. All those opposed say no. The eyes have it and resolution 3215 is approved. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Pek. Finally, resolution 3216 will adopt hearing examiner procedures. Council recently appointed a new hearing examiner. That hearing examiner has drafted procedures and although they were not in the packet uh starting on Wednesday, we now have copies of them. So, uh we've got little presentation on them and then we'll come back next week and ask for approval. Miss Swatnham. Thank you, M Mayor Walters, members of council, members of the audience. Uh that that introduction is about as much as I was going to say about this one. So, uh what you've got before you tonight is a resolution that would adopt the rules of procedure for the hearing examiner that were presented to us by Laminer Law. So, little bit of background. Laminer Law was appointed as the city's hearing examiner with council concurrence on April 6th. Laminer Law presented us with their adopted rules of procedure and the municipal code at section AMC23070 requires that council approve the adoption of procedural rules and it also clarifies that rules may not conflict with the Anacortis municipal code. So the organization of the rules uh includes two chapters. Chapter one is about hearings on permit application which goes through the various procedural issues that need to be addressed uh for hearing permit applications. Uh and then chapter two is the rules for appeals of administrative decisions and that lays out what the process is for for those appeals. Um we the the rules were presented to staff. We reviewed them, had some feedback and some changes just to make sure that it was consistent with our code and that's what that's what what we received the the green light on over the weekend and

and why you all got that today. So we're certainly not uh pushing to get this adopted tonight uh but would like to get it adopted quickly so that we can move forward with with some appeals and permit applications that may be coming in. Uh, and as Mayor Walters mentioned previously, as we're looking at all of this through the process of appointing a new hearing examiner and looking at procedures, there are some cleanup items that will be coming in the future on the code. Uh, and at that point, we would look at adopting these rules of procedure into the Anacortis municipal policies. Uh, but at this point we just we just need to get some procedures in place so we've got all the pieces to be able to move forward with any hearing examiner cases and I'm happy to answer any questions or take any feedback.

Yes, we are looking for incremental progress rather than perfection all at the all at the start. That's right. Mayor Walters, Miss Hunt, Miss Wittenham, uh 1.8.3 8.3 regards withdrawal of permit applications and it says that upon withdrawal of an application a refund of any costs associated with the application process shall be at the sole discretion of the city or in accordance with the AMC who at the city would have that discretionary power well it would be the director which would be the Mr. Coleman,

do we need to spell that out because city is defined in the ordinance or in the procedures? We don't want there to be question about who has to make that call. Sure. I think that's a good I think that's a good point and we could we can certainly look at some better clarity around that point. Thank you for that. So then following up uh when you get to appeal of administrative decisions there is no discussion of any refund of any fees that does that just not happen because as Mr. Coleman said you pay upfront for your appeal and that's it. Correct.

Okay. Do we need to explicitly say that there's no I don't I I mean if if council would like to include some language that says that, but if there isn't a procedure for a for a refund of a fee, the assumption is that's not on the table. That's not on the table. Correct. Yeah. Well, and most of the time that's not really in the hearing examiner's jurisdiction anyway, right? Hearing examiner doesn't have to prescribe all the rules for the permit process because we have code chapters on that. That is correct. And it may be that um when we bring back uh ordinance changes for the hearing examiner code that we just put council in charge of the procedures rather than the hearing examiner to propose them

and then they would stay more static between hearing examiners. Mayor Wal, Mr. Mantini.

Um yes. So with the fee change and now the procedural change, I'm not going to pretend I I trust your expertise, the expertise of Mr. Walters and the collective group here. Um I just have a question kind of to the point of we're going for progress versus perfection initially. So is there going to be a point in time with kind of these you know wholesale changes where we're going to come back and know that it's working or it's not working and needs to be adjusted and how easy is that process if we decide that something in these procedures is leading to an unexpected cost effect. Um, how easy is it for us to come back and change those procedures?

Good question. Uh, so I I believe that we have a provision for the hearing examiner to provide some updates to council on a periodic basis, but I haven't looked at that in a while, so I can't remember what the periodicity is of that. But I but I can certainly look into that and get you an answer to that when we come back next week. Um I think Mr. Walter's point about as we look at some code changes, maybe making council in charge of procedures might make things easier to adjust in the future from a procedural standpoint because the way the code reads right now, the hearing examiner adopts procedures and then the council approves them. So, if council says, "Boy, we don't like this particular procedure because we've been hearing some some stories from applicants or appellants that are concerning," we would need to work with the hearing examiner for them to amend their procedures and then for council to approve that change. Uh whereas if we update the code and say that council adopts those procedures, then it would be as simple as a resolution changing that process. Now, with respect to fees, the fees are adopted by council into the unified fee schedule. So, that so changing those fees would just be a resolution updating the unified fee schedule. And that's certainly something uh that we plan on paying attention to with some changes. How how is this impacting applicants and appellants? How, you know, is it impacting the numbers of appeals that we get? Are we hearing feedback that, you know, that that there are issues? We'll be paying attention to that. But if council would like, you know, in in some of our our uh department updates for for Mr. Coleman or or me to provide some some feedback on that as it happens, um we can certainly do that as well.

I think if you feel um that you that the staff would see potential problems coming and be able to bring that to our attention with the check-ins that are provided for, I would be fine with that. I just want to make sure because it is quite a change. Not a bad change necessarily, just quite a change that we're monitoring it. Yeah, fair point.

Yeah, the um annual report from uh the hearing examiner I think should inform council on some of those things, but also staff generally have the instruction to highlight things that are costing money for no reason. Um and also uh uh Miss Tottenham in my office has been generating a list of all the required annual reports to council that live throughout the code so that we can provide you with that list and then you can have the expectation of actually getting those reports. Mayor Walters, Miss Hunt,

since this first iteration was in fact provided to us by the hearing examiner with some staff suggestions for edits. Thank you for that. Is it safe to assume that many of these rules are rules that Laminer has used in other situations for other clients and have proven to be successful there?

That that was what was conveyed to me when they sent the the procedures that they that they have kind of a um maybe template is too strict of a word, but that they have some procedures. Um when they were drafting this, they indicated that they also looked at our code. Um, so I think they start with some, you know, kind of triedand-true procedures and then made sure that they aligned with what our code does. So that was my understanding that that yeah, these are the similar procedures that are used in other jurisdictions successfully. So thank you

council. Any other questions or discussion at this point? If not, we'll bring it back on consent next week, possibly with some tweaks for the discussion. Great. Okay. Thank you. Y All right. Thank you. That is our final item tonight. So, if no one has anything else, and I'm sure you don't, uh, I'll go ahead and adjourn the