City Council - Regular Meeting

right after that a bit of agenda review first of all though i propose council that we move item 6a to be new item 7b and that we insert an executive session for 42 30 110 1g as 7a is there a motion to that effect so moved Is there a second?

Second.

All right. There's a motion and a second to insert two new items, 7A, exec session for purposes of evaluating an applicant for public employment, and 7B, which will be the new 6A, fire chief confirmation. Any discussion on that motion? All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Those opposed, say no. The ayes have it, and that motion is approved. The agenda is amended. Our next item is, well, our announcements. So number one, 4th of July Parade Award winners. Thank you all for being here tonight. I'm very pleased to say that we had a remarkably successful 4th of July. We had a remarkably successful 4th of July parade, even though there was no flyover. As it turns out, the Navy is busy doing other things. I want to announce, first of all, our tied for third place winners for best float in the 4th of July parade. Tied for third place, Blue Kingdom Tours and the Anacortes Lions Club. Do we have representatives? Oh, come on up. So I see in the absence of a portable mic, I'm going to be doing a lot of popping up and down here. Anyone from Blue Kingdom Tours also tied for third place? Okay. All right. Second place, at long last, the Salish Sea School.

Mayor Walters, I hope you would mention that one of our own was a merman too.

Yes, our stormwater manager is moonlighting on us. All right, and first place for best float, Cabo Gantes del Northwest. The horses. All right, our other category is Best Marching Group. And tied for third place, we have Soroptimus and Orrs. second place for best marching group anacortes noon rotary club all right uh jordan mr fantini and i will accept the certificate on behalf of the road thank you And finally, first place for best marching group, the Twisted Pixies.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you everybody. We should do more hugs at city council meetings. Maybe, maybe we'll start tonight. All right, thank you all for your participation in the 4th of July, whether you were just an observer of the parade or whether you were on the street, did a great job. It's a good thing because it was the 250th birthday. Sylvia, is there anything else left for us to do or is the 4th of July officially now over?

Thank you.

And thank you to our judges who did this work. All right. We'll progress on our agenda. If anybody doesn't want to stay around for the next two and a half hours, you can feel free to jump up whenever you would like. OK. Now if staff let the announcement back on the screen. All right. First of all, we do have some openings on the City Arts Commission, the City's Library Board of Trustees, and the Anacortes Housing Authority Board of Commissioners. If you are interested in any one of these, you can feel free to give my office a call. If you would like to apply, you can navigate to anacorteswa.gov slash 1306 and submit an application. It is important. We use... you and your free volunteer labor to do a lot of work for us here at the city so if you're interested in any of those please check those out don't hesitate to ask questions if you're not sure you would be the right fit uh august 6th national night out returns to storvik park uh this is a fun police department event you don't get to say that that often 6 to 8 p.m storvik park tuesday august 6. see you there We now have some committee reports from some city council committees. We'll start with Fiber and IT. Mayor Walters. Mr. Fantini.

Fiber and IT did not meet this week.

Okay. Well, that dispenses with that one. And now the list has been taken away. The Housing Affordability Committee also did not meet. Port City Liaison Committee. How about that one?

Mayor Walters? Ms. Cleland-McGrath. Thank you. So Port and City met on July 7th. It was a pretty quick meeting. We discussed a little bit about the fact that our new addition to the Depot Plaza has been a real success. It's beautiful. And possibly working the Port and the City to add another event next summer that would complement the existing events that are occurring throughout the week. so making sure that that makes that works together uh we got a little bit of a update on the port putting out their request for proposals for a hotel i believe the anna course american did a nice article about it so go there for more information and that will be where the temporary dog park is currently it was always going to be temporary and will hopefully partner well with the event center that we're working on, that we should have a good update for you in the near future, and then the gathering plaza that will be next to it. We talked a bit about the Northwest Basin development and kind of what the port's goals are moving forward over the next year. And then about... Pier 61 and maybe doing some planning grants with support. We didn't have a ton of discussion. The mayor was out of town and I think I was the only council member there. So we just got a nice kind of brief update. So thank you.

Thank you. Are there any council committee meetings that we missed?

Mayor Walters, just a follow up question for the Port City Liaison Committee. I know that, you know, again, I'm always impressed by the city and ports continue work together. It really is a great relationship. I'm just wanting to take the moment to continue to advocate that as we move forward with the designs and moving forward with the events in the space for the discussion that we are also remember the multicultural history of this land. And that is important to have a nod, especially here. And I just want to make sure that we keep that in part of our look forward in what we will create and use.

Thank you, Mr. Young. And you did raise that with the Samish Indian Nation at our most recent quarterly meeting.

Mayor Walters. Go ahead and Mr. yeah, I just to that point, it would be great to get an update for city council as to the progress of the event center. I, I haven't heard anything since I've been on council. I know a lot's going on, but it'd be wonderful. Just even if it's a short update, that'd be fantastic.

uh we can provide that to you uh you can also check uh you and um any member of the public can check out our web page at anacorteswa.gov slash projects for their current status but we should have some news to report uh very shortly here a good hook for a presentation uh all right any other Council announcements Mayor Walters Ms Hunt

I just wanted to offer a big thank you to all the staff who made Kids Are Best Fest such a lot of fun for lots of people on Saturday at Storvick Park. Dustin South, I think, headed that one up for Parks Department. Fantastic job. But many city departments were there. Public Works was there with equipment of big sizes and little sizes. And library was there. And the fire department was there. So it was a lot of fun for everybody. Thank you.

Thank you. Any others? okay that concludes that section of the agenda move on now to item four which is public comment we have a number of people signed up for public comment i will ask you to come to the podium i'll also give the name of the next person so that you can know that you're on deck you'll have three minutes please watch the colored timer that sits on the podium you'll need to state your name and then where you live city and at least neighborhood. So let's get started. Our first up is Martha Schoenthal, and the next person who will be on deck is Dale Kimber.

Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes. Thank you for the opportunity to provide some public comment. I'm here in support this evening of the appointment of Mannix McDonald as our fire chief. Oh, I live at 4712 Schooner Drive here in Anacortes. I am Mannix's next door neighbor. Um, he is a, he is probably one of the best neighbors I have ever had. He is a kind and generous human being. I have grilled him many times on many different aspects of the, uh, Anacortes fire department. He has always answered professionally. He has been patient and he has answered with grace. He carries himself with the gravitas due to this position. I believe he is a natural born leader. We are lucky to have a candidate of his caliber interested in this position. Recent sensational media posts do not tell the story, the full story, and are simply these types of sensational media posts are not a good look for Anna Cordes. Again, I support the appointment of Mannix. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much.

I should have also mentioned that we do not allow applause or other expressions of disapproval except during the announcements. So next up is Dale Kimber and on deck will be Dean Shelton.

Good evening, council. My name is Dale Kimber and I live in Anacortes. That means when my family calls 911, it's this department's medic who shows up at my door. The chief you confirmed tonight sets their standards. Tonight, this council votes on our next chief. In 2018, a man named Bradley Ginn Sr. died. His body was placed on a fire station floor and 11 employees lined up and took turns pushing a breathing tube down his throat 15 times for practice. No consent from his family. Two of the 11 weren't even paramedics. They were office workers. That department's medical services at the time was ran by a man named Mannix McDonald. Bellingham's own fire chief looked at that file and made a recommendation. One word, terminate. Mr. McDonald resigned before it could happen. Four days later, he asked for his job back. Bellingham said no. And right now, that same man is Anacortes' assistant chief. He's been running this department since Chief Harris left in March. Mannix McDonald may be liked by his friends and family, but the question isn't whether he's liked in Anacortes. The question is if the entire council read the Bellingham file. Bellingham said no to this man. Tonight, seven of you might say yes. Before this meeting started, the council sat in a closed session. The public assent agenda says, word for word, evaluating qualifications of an applicant for public employment. 30 minutes later is a fire chief vote. So I'm asking, was that session about this vote? And does anything said behind that door ever reach the public? A few more questions I want on record. How many people applied for this job? Was there a real interview process? And did anyone with real fire service experience review this file and say it was a good hire? Remember this when you vote. This is your vote, not the mayor's. But if it ties, the mayor breaks it for his own pick. So if you sit this one out, that's as good as a yes, whether you meant it or not. If this hire is as good as we're being told, it will survive daylight. Table this vote until those questions are answered on record. And if the important questions are not answered, vote no. This town deserves the truth before the vote, not after. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Dean Shelton, followed by Kathy Pittis.

Good evening, Council. My name is Dean Shelton. I reside at 1411 16th Street. I'm here tonight Just can't believe what I just heard. But anyway, I'm here tonight to speak on the confirmation of Fire Chief Mannix McDonald. A little history about me. I've had the privilege of serving in the fire service for over 30 years. I started as a firefighter paramedic and retired as the chief of EMS for the Marysville Fire District. I also have the great privilege of also representing over 10,000 firefighters in the state of Washington that cover from the north to the south to the east to the west in jurisdictions as big as Seattle to as small as the San Juan Islands. I also have the great privilege of representing workers across this state as a vice president of the Washington State Labor Council, representing over 650,000 workers, many of which reside in this community, working in industries from electrical workers to refinery workers to public workers. firefighters farm workers why is that important because i think i have the credentials and the criteria and the experience to speak on behalf of an appointment for a person who probably is the most qualified fire chief in the history of the anacortes fire department in my career i have participated in countless promotional processes which you did have In this promotional process, rarely do I see a candidate who possesses all those things that Chief McDonald does. He has skills, he has knowledge, and his experience is second to none. Chief McDonald is qualified for this position, he's experienced, and he has shown that he can serve this community as the assistant chief for the last four years. I have personally known Chief McDonald for over 20 years, and I stand before you without hesitation that few candidates possess the level of integrity of a Mannix McDonald. Chief McDonald should be here tonight to be confirmed as a formality, a confirmation based on his work and not political games being played between elected officials. You are all elected to represent, and although entitled to personal beliefs and opinions, Chief McDonnell went through the established process and at the end was the candidate who scored the highest and met the requirements necessary to serve our community. The motive to character assassinate this man over the last few days is disgraceful and not what's best for our community. The timing of a hit piece video is suspect and smells of backdoor dealings. I want to be clear, this video is far from being accurate. nor is the resurfacing of a stale clickbait story relevant to Chief McDonald's appointment or confirmation here tonight. Chief McDonald has served this community as the assistant chief honorably and will continue to serve at the highest level in his new role as the fire chief of the Anacortes Fire Department. I implore you tonight to do the right thing and confirm Mannix McDonald as the next fire chief of the Anacortes Fire Department. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker is Kathy Pittis, followed by Brian Wetscher.

Kathy Pettis, 3931 A Avenue. Thank you for your service. I'm going to read this because I have a full three minutes. So three years ago, I had the privilege of serving as one of the chairs for the Yes for Safety Proposition 1 Levee Lid Lift. Long before that, I developed strong ties with the Anne of Cross Fire Department and with fire and EMS agencies throughout our neighboring counties, three of them, Eastern Washington and Oregon. when i can commit to something i stay engaged i continue to take a keen interest in this progress and following this community's investment i expect to do that for many years so that's a warning you're stuck with me for quite a while so what i have seen under chief mcdonald's leadership is measurable progress those improvements aren't just numbers on a report They translate into better outcomes for patients and ultimately better outcomes for my family, my neighbors, and our community. I have seen EMS services become more effective, improving the ability to save lives. I have seen equipment, training, and operational procedures standardized and modernized. I have seen quality assurance programs implemented and consistently followed. They are meaningful, lasting improvements. We also know we are operating in an incredibly challenging recruiting environment, especially with the ongoing paramedic shortage across the Pacific Northwest. I actually spoke with an applicant who specifically saw employment here because they wanted to train under Chief McDonald's leadership and professionalism. That says a great deal about his reputation, what he built and the caliber of leader he is. I've also had the opportunity to hear Chief McDonald speak about transparency, collaboration and partnerships. I watched him advocate through Skagit EMS to bring additional resources into our community. Most importantly, I've heard his vision eyeball to eyeball for the future of this department he combines fiscal responsibility with genuine compassion for this community and he has demonstrated both consistently over the past four years okay to be completely accurate he's two months shy of four years but like many of you i've seen criticism circulating social media regarding this confirmation Public service invites differing opinions, but I do not suffer fools, and I see a bad actor in this situation, and I encourage you to base your decision on facts, performance, and demonstrated leadership right here in Anacortes, not on noise or those seeking self-promotion. Don't be the bad actor, and don't give bad actors voice. Look to the endorsements and confidence he has earned from members of this department, your department, from the previous chief, from our recently retired and highly respected community paramedic. Those voices reflect firsthand experience with his leadership and his commitment to this organization. By confirming Chief McDonald, you'll be giving our firefighters and paramedics the leadership they need to continue to deliver exceptional service and more important, saving lives. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Brian Wetscher, followed by Scott Ely.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council. My name is Brian Wetscher, and I live right next to the Forest Lands. And as a representative of the Anacortes Community Forest Lands Forest Advisory Board, I would like to ask a question of the council, not about this fire chief, but about the process of approving a fire chief with a particular emphasis on the largest piece of property that the city owns, the ACFL. And combining that with Washington Park, we have a tremendous amount of wildlands fire protection necessity. I want to ask the council, how much consideration of wildland certification and wildlands fire protection training went into your consideration of this or any particular candidate for the fire chief? And if it wasn't a priority, I would hope that you will bring it to the fire chief, whoever they be, as a priority that he and or she would be certified himself or herself and have as many fire officers on duty as possible. I know we have a good backup system with the DNR, but that's after we have a fire started. And I would like to make sure that the major property that we have in the city of Anacortes is well represented in our fire protection program as a wildlands fire protection, basically brain trust, so that we know how to do it and where to do it and we have the equipment to do it when it starts. Thank you.

Thank you. Last person signed up is Scott Ely.

My name is Scott Ely, and I live in Skyline Ward 3, and I'm very proud to be an Anacortes firefighter. I'm standing here frustrated because confirming Mannix McDonald for Fire Chief shouldn't be a question. Chief McDonald is the right person to lead the Anacortes Fire Department, and I think the number of people here that are supporting him is a testament to that. Since 2021, Mannix has led this department with honesty, integrity, and trust. Under his leadership and experience, our EMS capabilities have reached a level of professionalism that puts us among the best in the region. It's the department that you want showing up when you have a time of need. And he has earned something special, which is the genuine support of the firefighters and the staff that work under him every day. Let's be clear, a vote for Mannix is a vote for this community. A vote against him is a vote against the best interests of public safety. I know there's a 2018 incident that's been raised. It's easy to post things on social media. It's harder to actually do the work to understand. That incident was reviewed by the City of Bellingham and the State EMS Department of Health. It reflected a practice that was very common at the time in most departments. And like most things, it looks different in hindsight. However, the response to it changed policy and practices statewide in many departments. And here's what mattered most. Mannix didn't deflect responsibility for a decision that a duty crew had made. It wasn't his decision. He wasn't there. He owned it. He turned it into a moment of growth for that department. And it's not a liability. That's the kind of leadership that you should want in a chief. Let me say this plainly and let it be on record. I question the motivation and question the hidden agenda of anyone on this council who won't confirm the most qualified and dedicated candidate for this job. If you had concerns, you had every opportunity to raise them before tonight. You had an open door to this department and its staff. Showing up now at the 11th hour isn't due diligence. It's the absence of it. A no vote tonight is political theater. And it comes at the expense of the people who serve this city like myself and the people that we serve every single day. So I'm asking you to be on the right side of this and support your fire department. Vote yes to confirm Manist McDonald as fire chief. Thank you.

Thank you, we have no other people signed up for public comment is there anyone else who would like to offer public comment at this point, why don't you come up first and then you anyone else. Okay. Oh, sorry. And so then 123. Got it. Okay. And then we'll cut it off.

Oh, my name is Betsy Braun and I live at 3618 Oaks Avenue. I'm here to speak in favor of the hiring of Mannix McDonald. I see a very important point of law here. that I think we all should be aware of. Cities and fire departments are run by laws, policies, and procedures. It is the responsibility of city employees to follow the laws and policies in effect at the time and to not choose which policies they follow or ignore. Mr. McDonald was doing his job, and following the training policies that were in effect at the time the training session of concern occurred, he should not be disparaged or trolled for doing his job. Sadly, our sensationalist social media too often demands a human sacrifice. The focus is inappropriately on blame instead of needed policy change. He is the best candidate by far. You should hire him. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, Council. Go ahead. My name is Q. Oliver. I live at 11711 Hummingbird Lane here in Anacortes. I've worked for three fire chiefs, three Anacortes fire chiefs in my 21-year fire service career and three interim fire chiefs. I've never had anything close to the confidence in any of their ability to fill the role of fire chief, especially Anacortes fire chief that I have in Chief McDonald. Not even close. I've worked with Chief McDonald for four years and I've known him much longer. In that time, I found him to be a man of impeccable moral and ethical character. He can be relied on to put the needs and interests of the Anacortes community in the Anacortes Fire Department above his own needs. He's proven himself to be a leader who has earned the trust and respect the members of the fire department up and down the ranks. He's respected as a fire service and EMS services delivery leader throughout the county and the region. Anacortes is safer and its fire department is better able to meet the needs of the community as a direct result of Chief McDonald's efforts and leadership. I'm shocked and dismayed have heard that there may be one or more city council members with sufficient concerns about chief mcdonald's ability or suitability for the position of fire chief to cause them to potentially cast a no vote tonight on his confirmation without taking the obvious step of asking a question any question to anyone who has worked directly with or under chief mcdonald I appreciate the yes votes of each of the council members tonight in confirming Chief McDonald as our next fire chief. I'm excited to work for him and he's excited to work for you all and the citizens of Anacortes. A yes vote for Chief McDonald is an act of support for this department and this community. I thank you for your time and for your diligence.

Thank you, okay, and the last one.

Good evening, Council and Mayor. My name is Richard Higgins. My family and I have lived in Anacortes for the past five years. Could you get a little closer to the mic, please? For the past five years. And we live in the Skyline neighborhood, Ward 3. My family and I are here tonight to ask you to confirm the appointment of Assistant Chief Mannix MacDonald to the position of Fire Chief for the City of Anacortes. In light of recent social media campaigns against Chief MacDonald, I felt compelled to give my testimony to you tonight in support of his appointment to be our next Fire Chief. My recommendation for this appointment comes from my personal experience working directly with the men and women of the Anacortes Fire Department, as well as from the perspective of a business leader and community member. I believe I am uniquely qualified to give context to this appointment. Four years ago, I joined the AFD as a volunteer firefighter EMT. I felt this was an excellent opportunity to serve and connect with the community my family and I decided to be a part of. I had no idea what an impact this would have on my life, and I'm honored to have been able to do this. I have found the men and the women of the Anacortes Fire Department represent the best of us. These are individuals we trust with our safety and our security. These are the men and women that will be there for us on our family's worst days. They will bravely respond to whatever crisis we could experience and quietly return to the station without expectation of recognition or gratitude. I believe the vast majority of our city understands this and is grateful for their service. The mantra commonly heard in the fire service and specifically AFD is mediocrity will not be tolerated in anything they do. From mopping out the engine bays to responding to critical incidents, they will always bring their best. You see, compromise just doesn't work for this team. The members of the fire department carry out their sworn oath and commitment to our community with the utmost integrity and have earned this trust of us and our families by maintaining the highest standards for themselves as well as each other. These are highly trained and extremely professional individuals. You may ask yourself, what does this have to do with the decision to appoint Mannix McDonald to the position of fire chief? The answer is simple. Look around here tonight. The men and women, the rank and file, the Antiquitous Fire Department are here tonight to lend their support for this appointment. This alone speaks volumes into the character and leadership of Assistant Chief McDonald. Trust and confidence are not handed out freely in the fire service. You have to earn it. Chief McDonald has had to earn this trust over the past four years while leading these men and women. They respect him. They trust him to provide the firm leadership. And he will uphold the highest standards and expectations of this organization to preserve the legacy of community trust and confidence. I can tell you unequivocally that neither myself or the members of this department you see here tonight would be here if we felt that Mannix McDonald did not deserve this appointment. In closing, I will submit to you, Mayor and council members, that you have a duty and responsibility to hire the best, to raise the bar with each new hire you affirm. You are well positioned tonight to raise that bar when you decide to appoint Chief Mannix McDonald as the new Anacortes Fire Chief. I appreciate your time. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. I'll go ahead at this point and close the public comment period. Thank you all for your comments. Our next item of business is the consent agenda. We have three items on that consent agenda. Council.

Mayor Walters.

Ms. Hunt.

I move to approve consent agenda items 5A through C. Second.

motion a second to approve all the items on the consent agenda no discussion is in order on the consent agenda if no one wants to pull any items hearing none i'll proceed to a vote all those in favor of approving the consent agenda say aye aye all those approved say no the eyes have it consent agenda is approved thank you council our next item is 6b presentation of our final downtown streetscapes plan which i know you are all here

our planning director mr john coleman will start us off good evening mayor council members of the public thank you my name is john coleman the director of planning community and economic development and tonight uh i have for you a presentation from first 40 feet our consultant on our downtown streetscapes project that this council approved a contract for about a year ago and after a close to a year of public engagement and and rounds of uh back and forth looking uh information provided to the consultant they have their final plan available to you uh to the public it is on our website on under the the project page it's also in tonight's packet all several hundred pages of it so hopefully everybody had a chance to go through it and its appendices um So what I'd like to do tonight is turn it over to Jason Graff, who is with First 40 Feet, who's the principal in charge of this project. And so he's going to give a presentation and then be available for questions. And we'll go from there. So hopefully, Mr. Graff is there.

Yes, I am here. Hello, everyone. Thank you. Yeah, thanks, John. I'm really excited to be speaking with you all from Portland, Oregon. I will acknowledge also that the West Basin Project's request for proposal for the hotel site has also reached Portland, Oregon. So I know there's a number of developers looking at that opportunity. It's really, really excited to see the event center in that project area redeveloped. So I just thought I'd throw that in there as a little tidbit. I'm going to go ahead and share my screen, which is going to set up a presentation for the group here.

Thank you for being here tonight, Jason. When you get started, would you speak just a little bit closer to the mic?

Yes, I will. I can increase the volume as well. So let me know if my voice is working a little better at this point.

I think we're okay. Okay, great.

Yeah. Um, let me go full screen here. Thanks for your patience. Look at that. Okay. Hopefully you're seeing the breadth of the screen. Yes, I think I've seen it. We are slowly. I'm here to I was here with you all in March and we went through the plan elements, which was kind of the meat of the downtown streetscape plan. And this is really the final show to really illustrate the schedule. the key projects that some of which have already been initiated, others that are in the queue to be initiated. But this is a great way to, I think, tie and wrap up that bow around a project that as John mentioned is about a year in its progress and so thank you for having me tonight welcome and appreciate your time mayor and council we're going to go through briefly just the the table of contents and then we're going to kind of walk through the meat of what we're going to call the action plan matrix and those are the projects that are really intended to come out of this approximately year-long effort love to have some time to for brief discussion if that works for you all as city council Any questions you might have or just comments in general about the process. This is the document that has been forwarded to you all. There are a number of chapters here. We certainly identified the process of the introduction. We talked early on in the project about the vision and big ideas. That's really what I came back with. to you with those big ideas for strengthening commercial avenues, the core of downtown. And within that, there's a number of elements then that contribute to those big ideas. Streetscape enhancements, a chapter on each element of that. Streetscape management, which is really important, not only safe access up and down the sidewalks, but managing things like parklets, contributing to storefront enhancement programs. Those are a part of the streetscape management. Parking as well, looking at opportunities to enhance the efficiency of existing space and thinking about management opportunities over time. Public gathering is a central feature that we heard from the community. We had a number of discussions with businesses about how we might execute public gathering and downtown, but that is a really big indicator of success. There was a lot of support from the community around those elements. We'll touch on those a little bit. The idea of the downtown loop as we think about commercial avenue is sort of the heart of downtown there. a number of activities and draws that bring us into the downtown area, whether it's the marina, whether it's the active port to the north, the waterfront, your downtown library, the depot, the new events center, all these things contribute to what we call the downtown experience. And the downtown loop then looks to really find ways to connect both residents and visitors who come into downtown to this whole plethora of things that are happening within a five-minute walk to the left, a five-minute walk to the right, up and down Commercial Avenue. So there's really some added value in thinking about connecting these great assets downtown. And then finally, the Streetscape Action Plan sets up a menu of projects that can be done over a period of time. So the project was really set within these frames of why are we here? Why are we focused on Commercial Avenue? We learned about what people really value in that space up and down between 10th and 3rd along Commercial Avenue, what's important about the downtown in general, who the important parties are and partnerships. And we established then a vision and guiding principles of how we can then look for opportunities to improve the experience of commercial avenue how can we connect to these other great assets close by and we then explored a number of big ideas that's the kind of what what are the things that we might be able to invigorate what are the things we might be able to organize what are some of the issues we might be able to address that comes into the big ideas and then the how really gets into those key projects that then project us forward into the future, engaging a lot of opportunities for enhancements along Commercial Avenue, many of which are not built projects, but are demonstrations and ways to explore opportunities before major capital investments become a part of future investment in downtown. So this is really a great exploration And it gives us some tangible opportunities to test a number of things to prove out whether these concepts are really they have meat and they can be effective to support the downtown. Our process has been built around engagement, primarily with city as the project manager, but also the Downtown Anacortes Alliance who were lock and sync with us throughout the project. That includes the Creative Art District as well. Staff across departments have contributed as well as the port. So we had a number of meetings up front, both biweekly between the city and our downtown Anacortes Alliance partner. We've had opportunities to engage in open streets, which really sets the stage for how Commercial Avenue really fits into the values of the downtown. We had a couple of community workshops, first trying to explore what the challenges and opportunities were. That was in October. We followed that in January with a number of big ideas and things that we might consider as a community. Those workshops were in-person at City Hall. We had really good turnout in the first, we had even better turnout in the second, and we did a number of surveys within about a month period for each one of those key milestones and got a lot of feedback from the community. about what they'd like to see on Commercial Avenue. We had a number of focus groups and you see those sort of highlighted at the bottom. Both your partners in terms of the port, Samish Council, you see it, the Creative Arts District, Friends of Anacortes. We really tried to reach out to as broad spectrum of those folks who really have stake in the game on Commercial Avenue as well as the general public. We'll see some of the numbers in terms of how the public was able to and the number of people who contributed to ideas, either for, sometimes against. There's never consensus, but we've been really excited about the turnout here. This is our 2nd council work session with you. So I guess you could bump that number 60 up to 61. The numbers you're looking at here. Really respond to just the 2nd, the 2nd workshop, which was the, the big idea is talking about strategic improvements to commercial Avenue in the loop ideas of the cross town connection and other elements. And we really heard a lot primarily from residents. I mean, there was a strong resident voice, and I think there was a smaller, but important business and property owner presence. And the has also been a strong liaison for the business perspective on commercial Avenue. But I think it speaks volumes to your community and the number of responses in particular that we received on on the survey. And I think in. In general, the observation is participants were supported more so in the community events, but I think some of that resonated across the longer surveys. And there was general alignment around the vision and guiding principles, so strengthening commercial avenues of the heart, improving walkability and pedestrian comfort. Celebrating historic character and maritime identity, enhancing safety and accessibility, supporting downtown businesses, improving lighting aesthetics and public spaces. So that pretty much Uniform got support. Streetscape enhancements as well, in particular lighting. Public art, creating a kit of parts of streetscape furnishings down the road. Parklet improvements, boy, you're either for or against on that, but we got a lot of great feedback on the parklets. Then creating gathering spaces really was a central theme that tended to be as supported from the broadest group of the community, not only from the student level when we met to the high school, but the public in general. I think if there's an overall takeaway, I've just mentioned some of the consensus items, but there was some division in terms of street plazas, which was an idea of taking a portion of a side street off of Commercial Avenue and closing that to through traffic and creating an outdoor gathering space. I think what a lot of communities like to call sort of the experience of a downtown living room, that opportunity to navigate up and down Commercial Avenue, but have a central point where you can just kind of hang out. It might be to meet a friend before you come downtown. It might be something you do after lunch or shopping, but these do tend to create a lot of value in downtown areas. And as we explored a couple of locations, one at 5th, one at 7th, we learned that there was really some Divergent views on how successful that can be. So, but we did land on 5th street as a potential opportunity to explore. And so I think the good news is, is, hey, you talk to people not everyone's in favor, but you keep continuing to have the conversation and hopefully good things can come out of that. And I think we've seen that in this process. So the document then tries to translate these big ideas into action, giving some meat to each one of the key elements around streetscape enhancements, management. You see that across the board here. You get some of the details of what was entailed, what was explored in the process, and then what are the outcomes that are the recommendations which are in this action plan matrix. So hopefully the document gives you the full arc and story of the process, not that everyone is going to read 110 pages. So sometimes it's good to start at page, let's say, one through four, and then jump all the way to page 98 or 100 to see what the outcomes are. And those outcomes then landed on what we call the Downtown Streetscapes Action Plan. Those key categories that you see, one through five, streetscape enhancements, management, how do we keep the sidewalks in good shape, how do we make sure the parklets are managed and distributed in a thoughtful way so that parking is not necessarily denigrated. We also want to think about it isn't just the street, but it's the room that the edges create, so those storefronts and continued improvements in the storefronts is really central to the success of Commercial Avenue as a destination. Parking strategy, we looked at a number of alternatives, but we ultimately landed on some additional study. I do apologize. Sometimes people hate when they get a plan and all the plan says, do another plan. But in the instance of parking, there's a bit of that. Public gathering and activation, I'll go through each one of the action items for that. The downtown loop, as I mentioned, and the Crosstown connection and the Tommy Thompson Trail are also important considerations. In the streetscape enhancements, the key actions that we're we're talking about moving forward is an intersection demonstration project and so what that entails is working with the community the creative arts district to do a demonstration project where we create what are called curb extensions this image that you see in front of you is you know is is an elaborate uh a future snapshot of what type of space we might be able to create at the intersections up and down Commercial Avenue. Now, will this happen over the whole 10 block area or will it happen in a unique segment, let's say between fifth and seventh, that's to be determined. But we have identified what it would take to implement a demonstration project in coordination with citizens of the community as well as the Creative Arts District. And so we're excited about that as a future demonstration project. The Downtown Anacortes Alliance is taking the lead on downtown streetscapes and what we called a kit of parts. You have some key elements that you distribute up and down the street, such as bike racks, things such as the trash cans, which everyone absolutely loves. You've had some kiosk signage that you've been working through with the Creative Arts District and the kit of parts really says, hey, maybe we can set a standard for a modular kit where we can have benches that might coordinate with planters as you see here in the image in front of us and then give recommendations on how those may be populated up and down the street and in the curb extensions. Over time, so this is that's an evolution piece. It doesn't all happen at once. The downtown kiosk and information hub design is something the creative arts district is looking to land on. So we provide some recommendations on locations and design of that ultimate kiosk. And then downtown lighting is. is another piece of the streetscape enhancements it's already in motion so jordan with the downtown anacortes alliance staff from public works went to snohomish they do some really amazing stuff there and so they've learned a lot on their approach which is outlining the edge of buildings with lighting incorporating lighting and trees and other other strategies and so that that work is going to start i think is one of the first projects coming out of this effort You'll see also that our Our partners here are generally the city, the Downtown Anacortes, and the Creative Arts District. In some instances, one will lead over the other, typically around regulatory considerations. Those will be led by the city, but some of those then will be studied over time to check for concurrency, things such as the parklets, the use of parklets. Are they being used? Are they not? That'll be a partnership with the Downtown Anacortes Alliance. and working with the city and the city would administer then continue to administer permitting and locating of of those parklets. The city has already, staff have already been out looking at some of the issues that we learned about early on, which is, do we have enough room and space on these sidewalks for everyone to kind of do what they want to do? And there are some instances where there's just a number, there's instances of, let's say, competition on the street and how we use that. And it's important that we create that clear sort of five-foot zone where we can navigate as we move up and down the street, as well as we have the opportunity to linger and hang out. Those are all important and equal considerations. And so staff have been identifying where there might be some issue areas and then working to keep accessibility really at the forefront. So that's really great. The other piece is as we compete for space, there's some old school regulations that are really lingering. The outdoor seating around alcohol, for instance, used to require the railing that you see here in the image on the right that no longer is a state. Mandate through the liquor commission, and so there's an opportunity for the city to. adjust that requirement and so that image you see up above, cities are already moving away, allowing this removal of these barriers using emblems and other sort of low impact things that maintain accessibility at the same time still allow for permitting and designation of portions of the sidewalk for things like outdoor dining that are alcohol related.

The other is we've given

new sort of regulatory meet around the parklet design and management standards. So that is a separate appendix to this document, but there's detail on how you might establish that formal program. There's a two tiers what we're calling for those folks who just want to place a parklet up against the curb. That's one tier. There's a second tier if you want to build those elevated, those covered spaces over the parklets and maybe some new standards then for the design of those overhead structures because what we learned throughout the project is those tend to be a barrier visually to Storefronts, so the parklet design and management standards, I think uniformly, there's a desire to to implement a program like that. So city staff would generally lead that effort. The facade grant program, as I mentioned, the edges are so important. as well as the surface that we all hang out on on Commercial Avenue. The Downtown Anacortes Alliance today uses grants and they do administer the facade grant program. And this is something we've been working with a number of communities. Battleground is one in particular who just recently allocated $50,000 to support a facade grant program in their old town and we then put some recommendation in the appendix here that maybe some monetary support from the city on top of the grants that the DAA is already applying for that we can then build a really good robust incentive program around strengthening the edges because it is so important and the quality of your edges are already so high that it felt like a really important thing to expand and strengthen. And then finally, wayfinding and signage, that's an opportunity to build continuity on sort of directing people to parking, directing people to businesses on Commercial Avenue, but also expanding and thinking about the downtown loop as an opportunity for that wayfinding and signage program so that folks really know how to navigate in the downtown. The parking strategy, as I mentioned, that was a plan to do a little more planning. So there's been some initial work around one-way traffic study, this is conduct two-way traffic study, it should say one-way, in that by creating one-way streets on your east-west intersecting streets to Commercial Avenue, there may be an opportunity, for instance, to add angle parking on both sides. I think that has to be weighed against the ease of access in downtowns. Two-way, one-way streets tend to cause a little bit of confusion. There's out of direction to get to businesses. And so there's, you know, sort of the trade-offs that are necessary to understand is a little bit of out of direction traffic really. Maybe that is the benefit because you get a little more parking in the downtown. Ultimately, you can really meet your parking need by creating public parking areas, i.e. parking lots or designated areas where you can have a number of parking spaces in good locations where you can have your customers and folks coming to downtown park once, do a little bit of walking together. and come back. But that's going to need some additional study, I think, to determine the capacity for that. Management always plays a role too in terms of whether you want to start getting into timed parking so you can increase turnover. There's always great education opportunities in particular around businesses and employees to try and get them in locations that free up those spaces in front of businesses. So there's a little bit of work to do on the parking front. Public gathering and activation is one of the most exciting pieces and I mentioned a little bit about 5th Street and 7th Street. We looked at some space on some side streets to Commercial Avenue in particular areas where you already have a lot of pedestrian activity that tends to be around food and beverage and retail uses and 5th and 7th just have so much energy going on in terms of foot traffic. that those felt like really good areas to test a street plaza, which says, hey, let's take a portion of a side street and let's close that off to traffic. We looked at a number of examples of communities that have done that. Walla Walla in Washington is a great example that went from a demonstration to a permanent half block closure in their downtown. Farida, California is another opportunity we looked at, but we had a chance to talk to businesses directly at Fifth Street and at Seventh Street about this idea. And I think what we learned at Seventh Street in particular, that the need for parking, you know, really overpowered the necessity for creating a public space in that location. And that was, you know, generally uniform from a number of businesses who would be directly impacted by that. There were some who really loved the idea of it, but certainly understood the impact on their business friends and neighbors. Seventh Street came off the table. At Fifth Street, we also had some similar issues because some businesses have already lost parking due to parklets on Commercial Avenue. This was going to take some additional parking off on the side street. But what we did find is there a lot of positive energy for the street plaza concept at 5th, maybe not on the west side where we, or the north side where we had initially started, but on the other side next to the hotel. We've had conversations with the post office to understand truck movement and a variety of different things. I think we have an opportunity in a particular area to explore the Fifth Street Plaza. The Downtown Anacortes Alliance in coordination with the city is going to create a working group to explore that opportunity at Fifth Street. I think it's really something worth doing. I'm excited to hear how Jordan progresses with that. In the end, it took a little bit of work, but I think there is some positive momentum for the 5th Street Plaza, and I've seen it in a number of cities be extremely, extremely successful. So it's at least worth a try. The other project at 10th and Commercial Avenue, folks have been calling it the pit so long. I started calling it that myself, but that's the vacant lot down at 10th and Commercial Avenue. That may be an opportunity if the city had deep pockets to explore that site either through acquisition or through temporary demonstrations. And so we listed some opportunities to consider around that property itself. The Heart of Anacortes, we really explored, hey, how can that space be used on a day-to-day basis as well as to continue to support the events that already occur at the Heart of Anacortes? So we have some guidance on that as well. And we know some of those activities are already moving over toward the Maritime Plaza space. And so it's great to to see that these activities are finding multiple homes around the community. But the heart of Anacortes still plays a vital role up at 4th Street, and I think there's opportunities to continue to have that be a great public space that contributes to Commercial Avenue. the last piece then of public gathering and activation is really about this idea of activation and storytelling what that means is there's opportunities in communities to do what we call gaming in in a downtown where you create an activity that is initiated through a qr code that's on a sign or embedded in the pavement and that qr code then can lead you into a number of activities. It could be searching for historical elements in the downtown. It could be counting and measuring murals. It can build off the story maps that a number of organizations in the community have already established. We know that the mural program is so robust in downtown. The activation piece also really daylighted from our conversations at the high school and a number of folks who said, hey, I'd love for a little more things going on downtown that kind of fit our demographic. And I think activation was one of those things that we heard from the student population. And the other was, God, we'd love just a place to hang out without having to buy stuff. So the Fifth Street Plaza kind of fit that goal of creating some hangout space along Commercial Avenue. And so you see then, Those end up being the key public gathering actions in the project. The downtown loop, this is just to get you sort of oriented. Commercial Avenue is running left and right here. Those blue buildings are sort of anchored on Commercial Avenue. And the downtown loop really came out of the idea of like, you've got the depot, You've got the public market. It's a going concern on 7th Street. It's just two blocks off of Commercial Avenue. Causland Park's already an existing asset. It's programmed with movie nights and a variety of different things. The Anacortes Library is kind of on everyone's radar. It's almost as much as the post office in terms of a place that you might go on a much more regular basis. the library, the Anacortes Museum, the Anacortes Community Theater. You get a sort of nexus of activity that's happening just off of Commercial Avenue. At the same time, the event center is just going to bring a whole new thing to what the marina already offers. I mean, the marina is an attractor in itself, much as Depot Market is. And so with the increase in investment around Depot Market, with the Maritime Plaza, with the evolution of the West Basin Project, where the event center comes online and the public plaza that is envisioned at 9th. This loop then really becomes an opportunity to expand the experience of downtown by linking to these great assets. And the mural program can be extended into that. The streetscape furnishings that are being recommended along Commercial Avenue can also be implemented on 7th and M9th. an R as well as wayfinding. So we'd love to see the loop sort of folded in to the enhancements, similarity to the enhancements that are on Commercial Avenue. Lighting can also play a role on those key streets as well. They just create something simple and intuitive and easy for folks to understand, hey, that's an important street. Wow, something great is happening down there. Let's go check it out and let's make it part of the downtown experience.

You've done a lot of investment on Commercial Avenue.

It really is the heart and core, not only of the destination for people, but one of the best places to just walk and bike. Open Streets has really daylighted the value of when you create these opportunities for folks to walk and bike in the downtown. And so Commercial Avenue is kind of that north-south spine, and it really feels like an opportunity to then create a really strong access to that along Sixth Street so we can connect Rotary Park to Kiwanis Park across town. And you've already done work in investing on Sixth Street near the Guemist Ferry. And the idea is then extending some of those improvements further to the east as we get into downtown. That design changes a bit. But then also look for opportunities to extend that past the public market to connect then to the marina And, um, rotary park, that's really the big idea for the crosstown connection. And so the plan creates a little more detail on how that might be executed over time. And then finally, the Tommy Thompson trail, which is just a beloved trail. Amazing starting from the South, working its way up to 11th. With the West Basin project, we know that Tommy Thompson will be improved then up to 9th. Both Johns, John at the Port, John at the Community Development Department, have been working together on how Tommy Thompson could then navigate down 9th Street. And then the idea is to connect that to R. and work its way up our past the public market and connect to 6th Street. So you now have this great trail network that extends into the marina, extends up to 6th, and then can cross and interact with commercial avenues. So it really feels like an excellent complement, north, south, east, west connection into downtown. The action plan then takes each of these 21 projects and tries to allot them over, let's say, a five year time frame. And we've tried to couch projects in terms of, you know, early actions that kind of unlock multiple improvements are really kind of necessary for the street to function well, necessary to get things going in terms of improving intersections and safety and creating gathering opportunities at intersections. So some of them are high priority. Some are really catalytic. They're going to do something almost like flicking a switch, no pun intended, but the lighting strategy really does offer that. The work that the downtown Anticortis Alliance has already done to try and enhance that I think is going to show dividends to folks really soon and in a really impactful way. Catalyst projects play that impact role. Then we have some medium priority projects which are necessary to get started. They might take a little bit of time to evolve and they're not necessarily on a rushed timeline. And some projects are going to just take longer to enlist and to execute. One of those, for instance, is public restrooms. Obviously, it's important that the restrooms at the Chamber of Commerce be fully functioning, but this idea of Portland Loos, which are They're permanent, but they're a real easy way to create public restrooms and locations in a variety of different locations. And so we've given some guidance on that as well. In any case, we've tried to give a menu of a variety of different projects that can evolve over time and so this list then is for the DAA who's going to do a lot of the work on this as well as the city and additional partners such as the port the creative arts district through activation there's been some opportunity also to work with the Samish tribe Indian nation as well so I think there's a lot of opportunity to expand our partners but we've got some key lead folks who are going to initiate a lot of these projects and so what we've done then is broken down Based on those year increments, so here's the short term list of projects. So you see the action, there's a description of what that entails. We've tried to highlight its value in terms of high or catalytic in terms of priority, who the lead, who the partners are, potential funding sources. and then timing on those. We continue to do that through the first two years, but then up to one through three into that five-year time frame and maybe five-year plus. I think the great news is these projects do not all have to happen at once. A lot of it has to do with capacity. We've tried to tailor early wins and early opportunities to you know, those partners who have the capacity to do that. Most of these, you know, start off as not major financial contributions. And we were told that that needs to be a part of this action plan. And so we're hopefully we hit the mark on those projects and when they might be executed within that five-year timeframe. It's also important that we be able to measure progress and success. There's a lot of effort going into a number of different things, and we should be establishing ways to check in and see how we're progressing and establish ways where we can measure what's happening before we've implemented a project and how well is that performed? So we've tried to offer here then some measuring progress and success around these categories, implementation, hey, how well are we doing on the actual planned projects? Is that leveraging additional downtown activity? Are we seeing investments in storefronts, for instance, due to the facade grant program? Are some of these crossing improvements, i.e. even demonstrations, you know, yielding positive results. And, you know, are we seeing more people downtown? The idea of the public spaces is really, does this work? Does creating additional space for people to hang out at an intersection or hang out at a street plaza, is that really delivering on the promise of consultants like myself or others who are spouting things out? And this is an opportunity then to yearly sort of do check-ins, an opportunity for the downtown association, the city to come back to city council, and show truth to concept. We have a little bit more detail around the key projects that might come out of this, the intersection demonstration projects, the Fifth Street Plaza, if we can get to that, activation opportunity, and then also the downtown loop. and crosstown connections. So that gives us a list of things to do, ways to measure it, and then hopefully be able to yearly report back on what we're hoping is a number of success stories. And so, you know me, fire hose out to you all. I want to pause and open it up for discussion. And I can stop sharing.

No, you can leave the slides up just in case people want to refer to individual slides. This item is also listed as open for public comment. So we might take public comment on the slides as well or on your presentation generally as well. Counsel, do you want to engage in discussion or questions now or do you want to open it up for comment? I hear comment. Comment. All right. So if anyone would like to comment on the presentation as you've seen, come on right up. I think you know the drill. We got a new, longer microphone, though, so adjust it.

Ward McKenzie, I'm here as the chairperson for the Downtown Anacortes Alliance. I live here in Anacortes. I just wanted to point out that this is the culmination of five years of work that we've been doing to help the city we started the downtown alliance with the idea of creating a great downtown and make sure that it was robust and met the needs of the other residents and brought visitors in and made this a great place there were two things that needed to happen and they were the what to do and how to do it we're very fortunate that the main street organization had a great model for how to do this kind of work but more importantly the question of what to do was already halfway decided before we even started the city and the citizens had done a great job with the comprehensive plan that within it had so many pieces of the vision and goal about what the downtown could and should be that all we had to do was say these are the goals how are we going to make it happen the big the big driving force that we had that we were interested in having was this exact outcome a downtown plan that turned the goals and the vision into projects and outcomes So I really want to thank the council, the mayor, and the director of planning for the commitment, the vision, and the support to make this happen. Thank you.

Thank you. I think I speak for all of us council members up here when we say that we are very appreciative of you for starting the Downtown Alliance and for the work the Downtown Alliance is doing today. is there anyone else who would like to comment on any item on this plan or the presentation mr wetcher

Mr. Mayor, council members, Brian Wetscher, 2407 Forest Park Lane. I commend everyone on the tremendous amount of work that they've accomplished here, but this is a ton of information to digest. And my question is, will this presentation that we've just seen in its format be available on the city website? hopefully for everyone to digest since it's a lot to read on a screen at one time. Thank you.

Any other comments about the presentation? Come on up. And while you're on your way to the podium, I just point out that at anacorteswa.gov slash projects, you can find out about all of our projects, including this one. And the full document and its appendices are online now. If this presentation isn't on there, we'll put it up.

Hi, I'm Elizabeth Freeland. I just had a question about restrooms, if that was something that would be part of the plan.

Is that your question?

Yes.

Okay. All right. Thank you. We'll address it. Anybody else? Okay. Jason, can you tell us a little bit more about restrooms? You briefly went by them here.

Yeah, I actually have something queued up that at least can show you a little bit of what we're talking about in terms of that. So if you give me one second, I'm just bouncing back to the other plan, and I will stop share and then reshare. There's only 100 pages I have to sort through, so that's pretty quick.

Joking.

Oh, here we go.

As I'm up here drinking this can of water, I'm starting to think more about restrooms as well.

Second.

Oops. You're making me laugh, and it's not helping here. Okay. I should be able to see that here.

Let's get it full screen.

Three, two, one, and there it is. I mentioned earlier about the public restrooms at the chamber, which is really important that it's centrally located. This is a product called the Portland Loo. The city you're looking at here is Grants Pass in Oregon, so it's on the Rogue River. pretty close to California. The port and loos take up not a ton of space. They are extremely easy to clean. There's some privacy, but there's also enough that it doesn't become a problem area in a downtown location. And so we've given some information in terms of costing and size of this type of facility, but this may be an opportunity for you all to acquire these over time. You can see the price tag. They're not particularly inexpensive, but once they're in the ground, they tend to perform really well. Now, we know with open streets, there's opportunities to do porta-potties and temporary opportunities, but we think this is something that's new and can be introduced into some key locations. either on Commercial Avenue, just off Commercial Avenue, within the downtown loop. So let me know if I can provide any more information about public restrooms.

All right. Does anyone else have any questions or comments on the document or the presentation? All right. Council, you are not asked to approve the plan. The plan speaks for itself. The objective here, although The objective was not just the document itself, it was also the process, as a couple people have spoken to. It's not just the destination, it's the journey. We'll let action items come forward sort of organically from the document and move them forward that way, although anything that requires some regulatory function or spending money will come to council for approval. I do want to temper expectations. There is no money to acquire that pit at 10th and Commercial for a surface parking lot. It would be extraordinarily expensive per stall at the price it's advertised. But we have gotten started on just a couple of things, including restoring some sidewalk along 7th Street. and we're talking about adding signage at the depot so that you can see that it exists from commercial avenue along 7th street getting people walking along 7th as part of that downtown loop and of course the big challenge project on 7th is uh preservation of the eagles building which city doesn't really have a role in at the moment but um let's see happen council do you have any comments

Mayor Walters? Thank you very much. As always, it's such a great opportunity idea i think in order to achieve the things that we're hoping for it requires ideas and brainstorming to be able to push forward it just doesn't happen on its own one of the beautiful things about what we have are the strengths of anacortes you know we have wonderful people we have a tremendous forest land we have so many things going for us and just the other day we had the orchards wells coming downtown now wasn't that a fabulous thing one of the being a b school person i look at the economic side of how do we get there and some of the things that are necessary in order to bring these things to fruition And given that where we are economically as a city, as the country is, we're having to reevaluate where we are, how we get there, what resources are available and make those tough decisions about priorities. And I'm sure the mayor had said it any number of times when he talks about where we are as a city, talk about the lack of resources in order to push things forward and some things forward. But in a case like this with so much inertia, so much wonderful people, so many talents, there are avenues for us to move forward. and i'm looking forward to that the economic development committee is also looking very closely at how we can partner how we can find additional resources motivate and there's been some extraordinary things that were done the lettering project down at the ferry terminal uh the two million people that come through on the um summer months those are also opportunities too And many of them view the city as the through place, the fairy town. And most times in being destination driven, they don't have the luxury of the extra day baked into their schedule to come downtown and spend money. And that's why it's also important that we as citizens here also come downtown, spend our resources, encourage other people to come. One of the holes that I think or the opportunities that I think is there for all of us, and I'm hoping and I'm deliberately bringing it forward and will continue to do so, is that there are numbers of grants and dollars out there. Most of the time when you have limited resources, limited staff, there is a limit to what you can do. But I do think that if we could somehow find a way to look deeper into those opportunities, philanthropy, the grant dollars that are there. There's a repository, a library in Bellingham, right by the main theater. That's the foundational database of foundation money. But again, for a city like ours for downtown development, that's doing extraordinary thing for the creative district and all the stakeholders and partners who will be able to do that. So what I'm hoping we can coordinate on. and help one another begin to do even more of that hard work research to find those opportunities and then collectively go after it. I love what we're seeing. I think it's absolutely stunning. I think it will benefit our city. the one thing that i think that we need to also find a way to provide is that resource to search out those opportunities and bring it forward for all of us that are hungry in order to bring it into fruition so thank you thank you mr young welcome here welcome uh mr kerr and then mr fantini

I just want to say, thank you for putting this together. I know it's a work that has been in process for a long time and it's nice to have a menu of items. Some of them very low cost. Some of them obviously are more expensive to work with. I think just a couple of comments to Anthony's point. I think it would be great to continue to go down the path of grant writing and trying to tap into more resources where there's money available for communities that are emphasizing downtown. I also think it would be a great opportunity, again, for a work session with council. These formats for us are really difficult to communicate back and forth to each other. Executive sessions are really limited. Committees, we can't really report back out. Public doesn't always see that, but we can't just have open dialogue. And so that may be a way that we can discuss this and kind of come up with some plans to move forward or maybe assign different work to different committees and then come back to the whole council. But from a practical standpoint, I think there's a couple of things like that that would need to take place so that we can actually continue to move forward on these ideas as opposed to just think this is an amazing document and then struggle to implement. So just a couple of thoughts.

Yeah. Yeah. I was first very put off by the 700 page packet until I got to look at this presentation. I mean, this is why we get into public service because we want to make our community better. We want to make our community prettier. We want it to be a place that we want to live in and see every day. and i went through these pictures of what could be and yeah there are some things that i'm like maybe not quite veronica there was a lot of stuff in there that is doable there are there are actionable items i thought the chart that you gave off and the things that we can do right now the things that may be five years away I think that's great. And I also want to echo what I just heard Mr. Currier say. I think this is a good opportunity for us. We've talked about grant writing before. We've talked about the potential of maybe even exploring getting a grant writer to go out for other grants. I think this is the kind of project that makes it worth exploring. And so I would be very interested in seeing what we can fish for as far as funding for some of these projects. And I also want to say just personally to Ward, I remember the first time that you guys were out there at the tree lighting and you had your little glow sticks. Okay. And I'm telling you right now, I thought to myself, who are these people with the glow sticks? And now we have this. It's amazing. Thank you.

Council, anybody else?

Mayor Walters.

Ms. Colleen McGrath.

Thank you. So when I look at this document, I think it's well done. It allows us, the public, to be able to imagine what is possible and actually be able to point to something with some tangible ideas and goals. So thank you, First 40 Feet and Mr. Graff, for working on this project with and coming up so many times and working with a number of community groups and the public multiple times um to me this document really will function similarly to the document we had for um our housing action plan where we really need to at a committee level and with the public some of the the service provider that service providers but the downtown and of course alliance the creative district the chamber of commerce uh maybe schedule tourism really partner with them and identify which which goals make the most sense to move forward with bathrooms are always a big one making sure that we figure out and articulate how we want to use parklets moving forward i think they're a fantastic addition when they're working when they're not then they are taking a parking space um i think that the parking uh discussion and possibly exploring doing some of the east-west streets being one direction, which possibly could allow for 45-degree angle parking, which would increase parking on the street but would not necessarily make us remove available parcels for businesses and retail. What other things do I want to mention about this? I'm not really excited about the public gathering. I think we heard about the Fifth Street and the neighboring business owners were less inclined. I think that we should really try to focus on maximizing and utilizing the various existing gathering spaces we have, and also look for creative ways for underutilized spaces to gather different numbers of folks. The other thing that we've talked about on a smaller scale, maybe at a committee level with DAA and Creative District, is making sure that we're engaging with our business owners and our property owners Each block is slightly different. The east side versus the west side of each block is slightly different. And I think we need to embrace that character. We don't need each block to look the same, but we need to make sure that we have a good working relationship, that we can bring ideas to those folks and mentor them through. And while I love the idea of the city being ongoing supporter, we don't have a ton of money. So we are going to really have to rely on our partners with the downtown and of course, with the creative district and with the Chamber of Commerce to execute and fund these really exciting projects. So thank you all for being here. And I'm excited to see some of this work come to fruition.

Council, anything else?

Mayor Walters, Ms. Bolton. Thank you. I think it's a good plan with a lot of great ideas. I'm not going to repeat the things that have already been said that I agree with. But one of the easy things that we can do now that has come up is turn the benches that already exist to face the street and the cars that are parked in front of him. So I would love to start with that. And I think it's almost free. If we have our staff do it. And I look forward to ongoing engagement also, yes, with the owners of the buildings and the business owners. And I look forward to moving forward with some of these things and council work session to do the same. Thanks.

Mayor Walters? Yes, Hunt.

I want to thank everybody and the tons of people who participated in the survey and the in-person meetings. But there are still a bunch of people in town who probably haven't seen any of these ideas yet. And I want to challenge everybody who's watching at home, everybody who's here, share this presentation now with somebody who hasn't seen it, because I'd really like to see what ideas percolate and catch the attention of folks. Maybe that helps drive where we start.

So spread the word.

Thank you. All right. Mr. Coleman or Mr. Graff, do you have any final thoughts for us?

I want to thank you all, counsel. Just hearing how proactive and opportunities that you're seeing here I think is absolutely fantastic. Jordan and I, Jordan with the Downtown Anacortes Alliance, this is the first start. This is just laying something out on the table. Each improvement area, projects that come on, and Jordan and I have talked about this a lot, will have to encompass the businesses who are the success of all this work is going to the people that champion it, that nurture it. And when you have a curb extension in front of your business, you want to be the caretaker and the owner of that. We saw that at Fifth Street in our conversations where a number of businesses were just excited about the opportunity of that street plaza and the location that we've identified was one that they really do want to explore. I hope that even though there's been some discussion about that for a ton of good reasons, that there is potentially some forward motion there. But what I really love is hearing the city council talk about, we now have projects, we have partners, and we can start focusing our efforts toward grants, toward leveraging philanthropy, whatever it is, I'm really hopeful. I absolutely loved working in Anacortes. It's one of the best times I've had. I had never been to Anacortes before. And I just want to thank you all for giving me an opportunity to spend time with you, your residents, the community. And I certainly want to thank Jordan and John Coleman for helping steward and guide us through the process. So thank you so much for having us.

Thank you very much for your work. Mr. Coleman, you got anything else for us?

I just wanted to echo the thanks to all of the community that participated in this. You saw we had robust participation, particular thanks to the Downtown Anacortes Alliance, the Chamber of Commerce, the Creative District, And particularly the business owners and building owners in the downtown area that this means a lot to. And we want to make sure that they understand that we recognize how important this is to their livelihoods and their sense of place and what Anacortes really stands for. So just wanted to reiterate that we don't take this lightly and we're trying to do what is best in the community's interest.

All right, thank you. Mr. Vantini.

Would it be possible to, since we did get started a little earlier this evening, to request a restroom break?

Yeah, I was getting to that. Mr. Graff, thank you very much.

Thank you.

I hope to see you around. Yeah, me too. Council, it is 8 p.m. We've been at this since 5.30, so we'll take a 10-minute recess if there's no objection. All right, off we go. Thank you. Thank you. okay we are going to bring the city council meeting back to order please join me on the bench good night good night everybody not everybody okay those of you who are leaving go ahead those of you who are staying please sit down those of you who have been elected to the city council please come on up to the bench Okay, thank you. We're reconvening the City Council meeting here at 8.14 p.m. Our next item of business is our Curricular Areas Ordinance, or Curricular Areas Regulations Periodic Update Public Participation Plan. Planning Director John Coleman will introduce this item.

Good evening again, Council, Mayor, members of the public. Again, John Coleman, Director of Planning, Community, and Economic Development. Tonight we're presenting a critical areas public participation plan, and in your packet is a resolution accepting this plan. A little background on this is we're updating our critical areas regulations, which is part of the growth management requirement. It's part and parcel of the 2025 comprehensive plan and development regulation updates that we completed in December of 2025. uh there is an extension for one year to complete the critical areas regulations portion of this and so we are required to have this update completed by december 31st of 2026 and in case anybody forgets what month it is it's already July. And we've done a bit of work on this already. And we had an open house last month in June, to talk to the community about the critical areas regulations, and start an early process of people being involved in this process. Just for our understanding, our previous critical areas regulations, we completed in 2021 and continued to work on through 2022 when we passed the final resolution after some appeals, and then additional appeals Those determinations were filed and the entire appeal process was wrapped up finally in December of 2023. So not really all that long ago. As I mentioned, this is part of the Growth Management Act required updates to the critical areas regulations to protect functions and values of critical areas. So what are critical areas? Wetlands, fish and wildlife habitat areas, which are largely riparian areas associated with creeks. Frequently flooded areas, which we don't have a whole terrible lot of, even though we are a sea town. And critical aquifer recharge areas. Again, we don't have any areas that meet state statutory definition for critical aquifer recharge areas. And geologically hazardous areas, which we have steep places all over. So we do make sure that we're looking at those closely. Our critical areas regulations are found in AMC chapter 1970. So as this process is going on, we wanted to have a public participation plan like we did with our critical area, sorry, with the rest of the comprehensive plan and development regulation update. And we also have a public participation plan for our shoreline master program update process. The difference with this one is this is not a required public participation plan. We're doing this because it just is helpful for us to get the information out to the public of how we're going to communicate with people, how they can participate, what the timelines are like, what they can expect. And all of those are good things in our opinion. The, uh, the public participation plan itself went to the planning commission for review and public hearing, uh, on June 9th. And after a little bit of tweaks, the planning commission, uh, recommended approval. Those recommended that, that PPP, the public participation plan as recommended by the planning commission is in your packet associated as a attachment to the resolution. And, um, for those scoring at home, we thought we'd have a little timeline. We, in June, we had the public participation, uh, open house, uh, August and September we'll be preparing draft amendments, uh, and doing environmental review, uh, planning commission review and discussion. And then in October and November, the planning commission can have their public hearings and, uh, work on the recommendation to the city council. As a reminder, if I didn't say this enough already, the city council and the city is required to have this update done by December 31st of this year. And that is it. If you have any questions, I'm happy to address them.

Council, as you might recall from your Anacortes history, Anacortes has had sort of an up and down relationship with its critical areas regulations. Having been dragged kicking and screaming to adopt its first critical areas ordinance in the 90s, and then fighting all the way to the Supreme Court about whether we regulate critical areas and shoreline during the aughts. But now we have a critical areas ordinance that has actually been described by WDFW as a model and other jurisdictions are still trying to catch up to where we are already. And now we're gonna make that one even better. With that preface, do you have any questions? None, okay. Council, would you like to approve the Public Participation Plan so we can keep this moving? Mayor Walters? Ms. Hunt?

If there's no further discussion, or even if there is, I would move to adopt Resolution 3222, Adopting a Public Participation Plan for the Periodic Update to the Critical Areas Regulations, as presented.

Second. okay we have a motion and a second to adopt a public participation plan for the critical areas regulations update we have an asterisk on this item so i'll take public comment on it at this time anybody want to provide comment see none i trust staff would tell me if somebody were online we will move on is there any discussion council Hearing none, I'll proceed to the vote. The vote is on the motion to approve the resolution adopting a public participation plan for the periodic update to the critical areas regulations. All those in favor, say aye. All those opposed, say no. The ayes have it and the resolution is approved. Thank you, Mr. Coleman. And now we will move on to whatever Public Works has for us tonight. hopefully no emergencies. Oh, look at that.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, and members of the public. Tonight, I'm requesting that the Council ratify the declaration of emergency issued for the replacement of a critical section of Water Main that has experienced multiple failures over the past few weeks. as well as approve a contract in the amount of $309,598.97 with Summit X contractors to replace said water main. This portion of water main is located on 34th Street and extends from Commercial Avenue to M Avenue. The water main has now failed several times in a very short period. While city crews have responded quickly to each break and restored service as efficiently as possible, these repeated failures indicate that the pipeline has reached the end of its reliable service life. Continuing to make isolated repairs is no longer a practical and responsible long-term solution. Each failure has required emergency response by public works crews, disrupted water service to residents and businesses, increased the risk of damage to surrounding infrastructure, and created the potential for impacts to public health and fire protection. Every repair also weakens confidence in the remaining pipe, making additional failures increasingly likely. The declaration of emergency allows the city to move forward with replacing the failing section of water, meaning without the delays associated with standard competitive bidding process. The intent is to replace the deteriorated section of pipeline as quickly as possible, hence the emergency declaration. And also, I wanted to note that we recognize the impacts that these interruptions have had on residents and businesses in there and businesses in the area and would sincerely appreciate the community's patience and understanding as city crews have worked diligently to keep the water system running there's also a uh tonight in the budget amendment is includes funds to fund these this water main replacement and it will come it's generally done under our small mains replacement program and I'm also happy to answer any other questions that you have thanks

All right, council, this implements the emergency that I declared a couple of weeks ago. Do you have any questions or discussion? No, Walters.

Mr. Young.

Thank you.

This is, you know, I think in the description and the reason why we're needing to move forward in the declaration of the emergency is that in each of those other instances, it's cost us money each time and each time it costs. So the goal now is just to get it repaired as we look on to other things, because again, the infrastructure has been in for quite a while. And so that's the reason for this request at this point, correct?

Yes, I mean the best way to combat the additional leaks throughout the system is to replace the aging infrastructure and that's what we do with our annual AC small mains replacement program. where we allocate almost $2 million a year towards that. And this is just one section that wasn't on the radar, but as soon as it starts failing, it just, it continues to deteriorate at a rapid rate. So it's best to get it done as soon as possible.

Because what you're saying is because of just looking at the number of times that it's already failed, it's, yeah. Okay. Thank you.

And not only cost us money, but been heavily disruptive to the neighboring properties who have filed claims. still ready anybody else Mayor Walters Mr Fantini unless there's any other discussion I move approval as the motion as presented second we have a motion a second to approve the resolution ratifying the declaration of emergency and approving the contract is there any further discussion Hearing none, we'll proceed to a vote. A vote will approve the resolution and ratify the declaration of emergency. All those in favor, say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, say no. The ayes have it and the resolution is approved. Thank you, Mr. Lee. And now the main event, our ordinance replacing our motorized scooters chapter. Chief Floyd, will you introduce this item? And the city attorney is on standby as well.

good evening mayor walters members of council so tonight i have a presentation for our first read of ordinance 5032 this is the work of the public safety committee and i over numerous meetings trying to bring you the best possible first draft to work from and we anticipate there'll be some lively discussion and potential changes but we feel like we have a good starting point so with that This ordinance takes into account a variety of personal transportation devices and manages them under one code. There's more specific classifications found within this code. And it's important to note that Washington's RCW already regulates what is classified as motorcycles and mopeds, which is why you don't cover it really in depth in this ordinance. We've also helped the public to try to distinguish the difference between e-bikes, motorcycles, and mopeds. The biggest thing is motorcycles do not have pedals. Mopeds may or may not have pedals. Generally, the e-bikes will and motorized foot scooters, generally are going to have a footboard with handlebars. It may or may not have a seat. So this will also cover traffic laws. So the city is adopting by reference the negligent driving, reckless driving, and DUI statutes from the RCW and applying that to any of the motorized vehicles that are addressed herein. And also adopting or adopting to defaulting to our regulating equipment, licensing and legal operation for motorcycles and mopeds on city streets. Helmets was a big discussion point, and this ordinance will require helmet use for motorized and non-motorized personal transportation devices by anyone under the age of 18. Specifically for the non-motorized personal transportation devices, this would include your traditional non-electric bicycles, foot scooters, non-motorized skateboards. This would allow those to be used on sidewalks, bike lanes, and shared youth paths. The ordinance would exclude them on sidewalks on commercial avenue between 9th and 3rd streets. And this is because of the higher concentration of pedestrians and the presence of bike lanes available to those non motorized personal transportation devices to help avoid any conflict between people riding those devices and the pedestrians. We have some general requirements that will apply to both the motorized and the non-motorized personal transportation devices. That would include a speed limit of 15 miles an hour on multi-use trails and hard surface trails. All personal transportation devices must yield to pedestrians on sidewalks and shared use trails. Motorized and non-motorized personal transportation devices need to have a white front light and a red rear light or reflector to conform with RCW 4661-780. That's for the hours of darkness, making sure that they're visible to other motorists and helping increase the safety of individuals operating those. Both types of personal transportation devices must only carry the number of people which they're designed to carry. So for example, if you have a child seat on the back of your bicycle, that would be acceptable. If you're giving a ride to your buddy on the foot pegs on the way to school, that's not acceptable. Excluded areas, so it would be unlawful to operate motorized foot scooters or Class 3 electric-assisted bicycles on sidewalks, in city parks, except public streets, parking areas, and parking lots, which are designated for motorized vehicle use. Public trails that allow non-motorized vehicles, unless it's specifically posted. Streets with speed limit exceeding 30 miles an hour, unless there's a bicycle lane available and sidewalks, bike lanes, shared youth paths. exception to that uh as the group discussed at length the number of individuals that like to commute out to the east area this east part of the city on the thompson trail there was some discussion about an exception for class 3 electric assisted bicycles to be treated uh like mopeds and all other areas except for uh the thompson trail which we could post signage allowing such vehicles to be operated um that's something that uh we expect the full council to weigh in on and and offer some guidance but that was one of the concerns about uh placing too tight of restriction on those uh class three electrics assisted bicycles And finally, the section that everyone's been waiting for is the penalties. Violations would be a class four civil infraction with court assessments added on to that would be $52 for first offenses. Second or subsequent violations within a year would be a class three, which is $103. And we have language in the ordinance addressing conduct that constitutes violation of any rules of the road be charged to the maximum penalties allowed for such offenses. We also have a clause for the parents, for juvenile offenders. Many of these individuals that are riding in unsafe manners are riding on electric vehicles that are purchased by mom and dad, and then no further guidance is given. As I've mentioned previously with other topics, education is always our first avenue to try to address these problems and the enforcement option will be exercised in cases of egregious conduct or multiple repeat offenses. Also for such conduct, we would have under this ordinance, the ability to seize a personal transportation device used by an underage individual and hold that until it's picked up by the adult that's responsible for that person. That concludes our presentation. I'm available for any questions you may have.

Thank you, Chief Floyd. This ordinance comes to us as a recommendation from the Public Safety Committee. Counsel, is there any member of the Public Safety Committee that would like to speak first to it? Mary Nguyen. Mayor Walters. Ms. Hunt.

Yeah, thank you very much, Chief Floyd and Ms. Bettnam for offering legal guidance and Mayor Walters also. It's nice to have lots of attorneys here.

I wouldn't say lots.

um so our goal is to keep everybody safe our young people who may not know the rules their parents may not know the rules and also to keep all of us on the sidewalks our pedestrians everybody's safe so that's our goal um we would like to be as the least restrictive we can be, but still protect everyone's safety. So I think one point of question still as Chief Floyd mentioned is, do we allow class three bicycles and motorized scooters on say the Thompson Trail, which is a commuter route, not just a recreational route? I strongly support that. But there's also the draft code would exclude those two assisted vehicles from city parks, which are not actually defined in the code. What is a park? What is a shared use trail? So we might need to do a little bit of sleuthing on that to make sure we're not having unintended consequences. And so that's another thing that we're looking for some public input on and input from the rest of council.

Mayor Walters.

Mr. Young.

Thank you. No, I very much support this. I really do. You know, I have mobility issues I'm working on, you know, as I try to eventually go for Mr. Atlas. Just kidding. Um, but, you know, but I have a motorized bike or a bike and so I'm looking to make sure I have access and people like me have access. But within reason, I wonder though, I didn't see it and maybe I missed it. Um, you know, how. I do think that when we have lots of people in areas where people are going through, like the trails or other stuff, I personally think it would be very helpful for bikes to have a little bell on it because I love when people... you know, I don't see them coming behind me and, you know, I may be in the middle of a conversation, but without that bell, I may not know that they're coming in. It creates a whole nother problem. So I would love for that to be discussed further and maybe, you know, a solution comes forward. Thank you.

Thank you, council. Any other initial comments? I'll also ask for public comment.

Mayor Walters?

Mr. Fantini.

Yeah, a couple questions. Thank you very much. I'm so excited about this. I think a lot of residents are very excited about having some kind of guidance around what we're doing for e-bikes. A couple of questions. You said that, obviously, as any good police chief would, we're going to kind of roll this out there, and we're not going to hit everybody right away with tickets. We're going to kind of monitor and... Are we going to be similar to like if I were driving and I got a warning, like a parking, like a driving warning? Are we going to be giving warnings so that there's like a central document space where we know that other officers know that somebody, oh, this kid has got, he's got five of these already.

So we do have a mechanism for that in our written warnings. The officer has discretion whether they use that or not. It'd be no different than the warnings that we issue for correction notices for parking that's in violation of the code. It's the same form.

Okay. And then another question is, you know, I have a four year old and we're right now in the process of teaching accountability. And one of the things that I'm worried about is, who's getting these tickets? Is it going to be the kids or the parents? Like, how does that? Does the ticket go to the parent? Do we give it to the kid? I mean, I said that wrong. What I mean is, obviously, we're not gonna give it, but like, who's responsible, ultimately?

That would be the parent. So for juveniles, it's would be a non traffic related issue. So For juveniles, the only exception to them being charged through superior court because they're under the age of 18 is traffic-related offenses. So if you're 16, you have a license, and you're driving recklessly, that would be charged into our municipal court because you're treated as an adult. You've got your driver's license, and you've made that agreement with the state. You're going to follow the traffic laws. This does not fall under the traffic law. related offenses. So this would not be something we would ultimately charge the juveniles with. That's why we had some language in this ordinance placing the responsibility on the parents to actually know what their children are doing and take some ownership of the actions by their kids.

Great. And then just the last thing to Ms. Hunt's point about on Thompson Trail, maybe allowing e-bikes. As we're having these conversations to all of us on council, it might be wise when we're talking about those trails to maybe send this to the parks. commission where, you know, if we're going to make a decision about what kind of things should be happening on trails, maybe giving the users an opportunity to participate in that process would be good. So thank you.

And we did include Mr. Lunsford in the preliminary meetings for this discussion. So we did get some input from the parks department for the shared use trails.

Hearing no one else jumping out right now, let's go to the public. If anyone would like to offer public comment on this ordinance, I see two hands. So we'll start with Mr. Wetter and Mary Jo, you're next.

Does my three minutes start when I get to the podium? It does. uh mayor city council brian wetcher 24 07 forest park lane i commend this ordinance in general i see that much of the off-road regulation coincides with the current acfl plan regulations uh however the acfl is a little bit more complicated because we have multi-modal including motorized motorcycles combustion engines allowed within the city forest lands i would hope that perhaps we could step back a little bit and look at the regulatory language that is in our uh forest plan and take that specifically and place that language within this ordinance as a specific reference section. So while the general applications within this ordinance apply to off-road and they do coincide with our regulations within the ACFL, I think that specific reference to the ACFL and its specific traffic regulations with the nuances of both motorcycle and type 1 e-bikes use as well as bicycles within the forest lands needs to be incorporated within this specifically so that there is clarity and ordinance protection of our regulations within the city forest lands because enforcement within the city forest lands is so very specific and so very difficult. If we just think about a motorcycle rider who strays off onto an E1 bike trail, how is that going to be enforced? And if we do not have specific language that can cover that within the ordinance, I think we are lacking a little bit of something there, and we need to we need to be aware of the nuances that the city forest lands regulations present to this ordinance although i think it would the ordinance as it is i think would in general cover us adequately i don't think that we should not reference the acfl within this because of our specific traffic regulation and needs and our enforcement needs thank you Thank you, Mr. Wecher. Ms. McArdle?

Mary Jo McArdle. I live on M Avenue and I am a pedestrian walker. I walk every day from anywhere from three miles to 15 miles all around the city. I have had some specific encounters with e-bikes on the sidewalk, but also on the Tommy Thompson Trail. So I have a problem with allowing e-bikes on the Tommy Thompson Trail if they're class three. And i'm not sure that i would recognize a class one between or a class three and i think there needs to be some sort of way either through a registration registration process or some other avenue that I can't think of at the moment where the class threes are registered and we as a public can recognize those when we're out walking. I ran into two situations on the Tommy Thompson Trail where there were motorcycle like bikes did not have pedals they had pegs and they were cruising probably 20 miles 25 miles an hour on the tommy thompson trail all the way from the beginning of the trail on 34th all the way across the trestle to march point and back and they were going really really fast and i yelled at him and said you guys are not supposed to be on this trail So I would recommend not allowing class three e-bikes on anywhere on public streets, unless they're in a bike lane, a designated bike lane and not on Tommy Thompson trail. I also didn't hear anything about how these rules and regulations are gonna be enforced. and also what is going to be the educational process to get parents and kids alike on board with these new regulations i didn't hear anything about how we're going to get this information disseminated out to the public and i think that needs to be a part of this whole plan um i think it's important that there be a consequence um to the violators and another example is i was walking down m avenue and there were three young kids probably junior high maybe even sixth graders just cruising down m avenue lickety split going much faster than 25 miles an hour and there were two cop cars that were trying to catch them And they were, one was coming down M Avenue and they saw that the kids saw him duck down an alley and came out on another street pretty soon. There were two cop cars and they were trying to corral them and they corraled all three of them coming up from N to M. And the police officer got them stopped on M, and he got out of his truck and just started yelling, off your bikes, off your bikes, off your bikes, get off your bikes right now. And it was a very forceful stop, but it got the kids' attention. So I don't know what happened, but day before yesterday on M Avenue, here go those same kids. so what is the consequence of obviously they thought you know we got our little hands slapped but they didn't there was no yeah residual okay we can't do that thank you miss mccurdle yeah is there anyone else who would like to offer public comment on this ordinance

All right, Council, you might note that in our adopted ACFL code that we just adopted several weeks back, we've got some enforceable provisions on trail use that are supposed to be designated by the Parks Department and signed consistent with the ACFL plan. I've also spoken with the new superintendent of Anacortes Schools. They plan to assist us in disseminating information about our new e-bike regulations after they are adopted and before the start of school. We do perceive a major component of the problem here to be around the middle school. They will help us emphasize that. And everywhere else in town, we're on our own. But we will make sure that whatever you adopt is properly signed, for instance, on Commercial Avenue and the downtown and on the multi-use trails. There are a couple of call outs in the document. The yellow highlight on page six is an area that the committee wanted you to be aware of. If you want to be more permissive about class three electric bikes, that would be the place to make a change. And then the blue highlight on page five, the committee doesn't think that there's necessarily a change to be made there, which just highlights the effect because the document is written in the opposite negative fashion. It's unlawful to, so where is it allowed to? That's what the blue highlight is telling you. So council, do you have further discussion about this ordinance? Do you want to make any changes or do you want us to bring it back next week as is?

Mayor Walters?

Ms. Gillian-McGrath.

Thank you for the comments from the public. One of the challenges we had when we started digging into this is the challenge of identifying Class 1, Class 2, and Class 3 e-bikes. For most folks, including people who have ridden them, it's very difficult to identify which class it is. So that was a real discussion point. I think maybe we could have some examples of each next week to show how hard it is to identify those different classes. Class 3, I think, is a lot more prevalent than folks realize. I know a number of people who'd ride Class 3 bikes, but they also ride it in a manner that is respectful and equivalent operation of a bicycle with no electronic battery component. So my personal goal when we were working on this is that we figure out how to prioritize pedestrian safety, prioritize operator safety with especially with kids under 18 with the helmet component. And then also give when there is kind of when people are operating these personal transportation devices, because there's so many different options, that the police department has the tools to cite and enforce when they are driving or operating recklessly. So I think it gets kind of into the weeds when you actually read this ordinance, but is necessary when it comes to being able to enforce, because I think that's the big thing, right? We don't want kids hurt. We don't want pedestrians hurt. being hurt. Our goal is to educate and modify behavior. It's not to hand out tickets. I'm a big proponent of being able to, if there is an underage kid screwing around to the point where they could either get in a car accident or hurt someone else or hurt themselves, allow the police department to sees is the right word, sees the device until the parents show up. Like to me, that is the most effective way. I don't want them to have something on their record, but I also think that education is important and it's easy to out of sight. You know, kids do things. I'm guilty of it, too, as a child. So So having some of those examples of what those classes look like, I think would be beneficial for the public and the rest of council. The other thing, if there are no pedals, I don't think they're allowed on the Tommy Thompson Trail. Is that correct? That's kind of where the direction was going, but we've talked about it so much. And then I have one more question after that.

That would be correct. No pedals, no Thompson Trail.

Good. And then finally, I think the three that come to mind when we're talking about whether or not Class 3 or e-bikes are allowed is heading out to Rotary Park. by Cap Sani, below Cap Sani, the Greenwich Channel Trail and the Tommy Thompson Trail. I'm inclined to allow class 1, 2, and 3 e-bikes on all of those with the caveat that they have to go under 15 miles an hour. Pedestrians have the right-of-way and they have to be in control of those those devices. I don't think we necessarily had agreement by any means at the committee level. So I bring that up for the rest of council and the public to mull over. I think that's about all I have for now.

Mayor Walters, I also wanted to add regarding the Tommy Thompson people on non motorized bikes can really haul as very quickly and dangerously and that is a problem. So, back to the safety issue, the idea is the intent is. to deter that behavior, no matter what kind of wheeled vehicle that you're on. So trying to determine again, like a class three from a class one is very difficult, but we want people to be safe. And so that's one of the reasons. And also the commuter reason is why we are, I'm personally leaning toward allowing them on a Tommy Thompson, but not on the Guemist Channel Trail as it currently exists. And if you're gonna ride your class three e-bike out to Rotary Park on that trail in a like demure fashion, I don't think you're gonna get pulled over. So, and I think that's okay. Anyway, there are some nuances to this.

Anyone else?

Mayor Walters?

Ms. Hunt.

We all, as we were drafting this, I guess we didn't explicitly state it, but we did not intend it to apply at all to the ACFL because the ACFL does have its own regulations. So would we need to perhaps alter the applicability section just to say it applies to use in the city limits, except for in the ACFL in fancier language?

Could it be helpful to clarify?

Yeah, we can certainly look at that and come back with a recommendation about whether that needs to be amended. And if so, what that should look like.

Because it is a whole different environment and it's already got really good workable regulations.

So thank you to Mr. Wetcher for bringing that up. Mayor Walters.

Ms. Moulton.

I'm just wondering if we could, is it something we could incorporate by reference? And just say, here's the ACFL rules. If you happen to go to this, but you're looking for ACF when people really want to look at code.

We could cross-reference them. We wouldn't need to incorporate them.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's basically what I meant.

But that, yes. Thank you.

We can do that.

Yeah. And those jumps will automatically be added to the code.

Mayor Walters, it also should be noted that in the ordinance, we looked at gas-powered and electric-powered vehicles being the same whether... regarding the classification that they fall into. So for example, motorcycles, whether it be gas powered or electric are still motorcycles and any motorcycle that's on the ACFL would have to follow the ACFL rules in place for motorcycles in the forest lands. They would have trail restrictions. And, uh, so there was some, uh, control measures already in place just by the definition of motorcycle use and where that's allowable, we're treating electric and gas powered being the same. I would say that for the motorcycles that are capable of top speeds under 30 miles an hour, those being classified as mopeds would also fall under the requirements for motorcycles in the ACFL.

Also, we don't want to bury the lead here because the big safety change is the helmet requirement, real helmet for all personal transportation devices. It's not a crazy rule. It's one Burlington's had for bikes for quite some time, but be new to Anacortes.

Which must have a fully fastened chin strap.

Oh, yes. You have to put it on. You can't carry it under your arm. Uh, all right. So council, we will tweak this consistent with some of the comments here and bring it back next week, probably as a regular agenda item so that you can review it and make additional changes.

If you want two weeks, I believe next week's the Q2 update.

Uh, yes. Thank you. Yeah. Um, if we could put it on consent, you will have consent next week. Do you want it on consent? bring it back we'll bring it back in two weeks okay thank you i think the public should have one more opportunity there okay to just weigh in all right uh so that dispenses with that thank you chief floyd thank you committee and wait what mr young um

I know we have, I think, two more items on our agenda tonight, and I'm hoping we can get through them. They're short. Okay, very good. All right. I was just hoping there. Everything is important. I want to be clear. All right.

Thank you, Mr. Hoagland. Would you please proceed with our very short fee schedule update?

yes thank you mayor members of the council and members of the audience this is just some quick housekeeping uh we're requesting an approval by council of the fees charged for visiting um the various museum sites uh that currently those uh fees range uh three four and five dollars i believe we want to raise each of those by two dollars um and that's the only thing on this resolution just a bit of housekeeping to get museum fees caught up to where they a little closer to where they should be they haven't been visited in i think 10 years so that one's pretty straightforward do you have uh questions on that any discussion mayor walters mr young

So that any other discussion, anyone may want to have them make a motion to approve resolution 3224, updating the unified fee schedule.

We have a motion a 2nd to approve the resolution as presented. Any discussion. Hearing none proceed to the vote. The vote is on the motion to approve the resolution, updating the unified fee schedule. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed say no. The ayes have it and the resolution is approved. The next item is slightly more complicated, but Mr. Hoagland will present that as well.

thank you mayor yes and again this is housekeeping as well generally we would do a budget amendment at the same time as a finance update however in this case we wanted to get these items amended before the department head update next week so all of the departments for the most part would have their budgets intact um so the first item here i all of these items i think will look familiar to council but the north star project uh we are budgeting 250 000 for that and we are using cash reserves of $250,000 to balance that item. However, those resources are the restricted opioid monies that will be used for that second item of $42,000 in conjunction with our Downtown Alliance partners. we've obtained a $42,000 Main Street credit. So part of our budget that was previously reliant on cash reserves, 42,000 of that can now be backed out and actually use this Main Street credit to pay for those expenditures. Next item down, WT Preston Insurance. When we do our insurance estimates for the upcoming budget year, We rely on estimates that we get from our insurance providers. In this case, the policy for the the equipment policy for the WT Preston itself was not included in that estimate because of the size of the museum budget. This turns out to be a fairly significant piece of the discretional spending of the museum budget. So we're requesting a budget amendment of $4,042 for that item. That would come out of cash reserves as well. The museum is part of the general fund. So those are general fund cash reserves. The next item here, we have the fund balance item 1st, this is 2,080,000 out of the water fund. So that's made up of 2 items that were started in 2025, but we're not completed. So we're asking for continuation of that budget into 2026. That's 160,000 dollars for the intake pump station assessment and 1.9Million for the North line repair project. So this next item is in my budget, the finance department, when we made adjustments to the budget for staffing adjustments for the 2026 budget. all of that adjustment was made in the wages line item which is this one right here so now when we look at budget actuals the wages and benefit lines are a little bit skewed because we didn't make that adjustment we put it all into wages this corrects that now the appropriate amount of benefits is being moved into the benefits line item just to make budget actual viewing more logical This next item, this is assistant finance director position for six months. So what we have done here is identified the amount of wages and the amount of benefits, we did a calculation of the amount of time that Rhonda Peck, Assistant Finance Director, is spending managing and overseeing staff that charge to the utilities and making an adjustment then to those utilities to appropriately fund that portion of her staff costs. Mayor Mrakas, Next item down it's a little bit lengthy because because several of the utilities are involved there but totals to about just over $20,000 for half a year. Mayor Mrakas, This next item 18,801 we were notified by the county that the county was not providing. uh library grants this year so we are removing those resources from the library budget so the balance of that will now fall back onto cash reserves and this last item uh mr lee talked about this a little bit earlier the emergency water line replacement 325 000 will be added into that line item so that they can continue and do their full complement of work that they had identified at the beginning of the year and as well as this additional emergency line replacement and that's it I'm happy to answer any questions you might have Council

I hear no questions. Do I hear motions?

Mayor Walters?

Mr. Fantini?

If there's no discussion, I motion.

Move.

I move we accept the motion as presented.

you move we approve the ordinance we approve the ordinance sorry okay all right motion a second to approve ordinance 5033 as presented on this item as well as the last item i was supposed to take public comment before we proceed so let's do that now anybody have comment on the budget ordinance great hopefully you didn't have comment on the fee schedule update of that two dollar shift at the museum uh although if there's no other discussion take a mo a vote on the motion all those in favor of passage of ordinance 5033 say aye aye aye all those opposed say no the oh shoot um this is an ordinance we need to take a roll call vote so i'm going to ask mr franciac to call the roll miss moulton yes mr fantini yes miss hunt yes

Mr. Currier.

Yes.

Mr. Young. Yes. Ms. Clutha McGrath.

Yes.

Mayor, the ayes are five, the nays are zero.

Sounds like the ayes have it. Start to miss some of this stuff as it gets later in the evening, but I caught myself at the last minute.

Six.

Six. Six. Sounds like the ayes still have it, though the amendment is adopted. Thank you, Council. Now, we'll go into executive session to evaluate the qualifications of an applicant for public employment per RCW 4230-110-1G. I'm just going to go ahead and say we'll be there for at least 30 minutes. We'll come back at the conclusion of the 30 minutes to let you know if we need more time. Thank you.

The time is now 935pm the Council will remain in executive session for an additional 20 minutes, thank you. The time is now 955 p.m. The council will remain in executive session another 20 minutes until 1015 p.m. Thank you.

All right. Welcome back, everybody. We are back out of executive session. In addition to council, HR Director Kendall Moyle and City Attorney Darcy Swetnam attended and Assistant Interim Fire Chief Maddox McDonald attended for a portion of it. That item being completed, we are now proceeding to item 7B, which is vote on confirmation of the fire chief appointment. And HR Director Kendall Moyle will introduce this item.

Mayor Walters?

Mr. Currier?

Can I move to postpone the vote for two weeks so we have more time? You may move, yes. I move to put this off for two weeks.

Mayor Walters?

Mr. Pantini?

I'm going to second that motion, and I will say I'm second in that motion because we're receiving new information that I believe is important and bearing to this decision. And in order to make an educated

vote I would like a little more time as well okay there's a motion in a second to postpone consideration of this item for two weeks is there further discussion on this motion Mayor Walters does that prohibit um director Moyle from giving her presentation uh yes if we postpone right now we will I think conclude and adjourn our meeting

Okay. Mayor Walters.

And the alternative, we could put it off until after she gives her presentation. Ms. Colleen McGrath.

Thank you. I would at least like to hear the presentation. I think that there's been a lot of work done. We have the public here. It's been on the agenda. We also... I think it's fair to the public to get this presentation. And at which point after the presentation and discussion happens, we can determine how to move forward.

If there is no objection, we'll set the motion aside at the moment and hear the presentation. Hearing none, Ms. Moyle, will you give the presentation, please?

Good evening, mayor, council, and members of the audience. I'd like to announce the appointment of Mannix McDonald as the city's permanent fire chief. Chief McDonald accepted the city's promotional offer following a competitive recruitment process that included external recruitment, candidate screening interviews, and a final panel interview. The final interview panel included Mayor Pro Tem Cleland McGrath, Council Member Fentini, City Department Heads, the IAFF Local Number 1537 President, City of Mount Vernon Chief Harris, and Mayor Walters. Chief McDonald has served with the City of Anacortes Fire Department since 2022 as Assistant Fire Chief and has been serving as Interim Fire Chief since April 1, 2026. he brings 28 years of fire service experience and has the endorsement of iff local number 1537. his experience leadership and demonstrated performance make him well qualified to serve as the city's fire chief and then attached is the chief mcdonald's proposed contract so okay thank you council do you have any questions of miss moyle

Hearing none, we'll pick up from the table the motion that was made previously, which was to postpone consideration of this item for two weeks. Council, is there any discussion on this motion? Mr. Young.

I just want to say, you know, I was traveling and when I came back this past weekend it was just a lot of discussion about different things. I've heard nothing in the process of the time that I've gotten to know him in the position that you've always exuded a great smile and stellar it's just a lot of stuff that came forward i needed to process tonight and i i really appreciated you coming and answering direct questions i really appreciated that and so for me i want to absorb that and and come forward in two weeks it's just a lot you know and um i know you have um As some say, the chops, I do. But there were questions that we needed to process that came out tonight and a couple of days before. There's been a lot of talk about a video. I'm so thankful I never saw a video and never heard about it. And so I got a chance to talk with you directly. And so I just... I'm advocating for the two weeks to give me a chance to process it all and also reach out to you again.

Mr. Young? Mr. Fantini, you already spoke in favor of the motion during your second, so I'm going to give this one to Ms. Cleland McGrath.

Thank you. So there's been discussion of a video. We received this information that interim chief McConnell was going to be put forward from Mayor Walters at least two weeks ago. I know one person, there was one council member who unfortunately did not get that information. The rest of us did. I take real issue with the fact that we are going to, there is a proposal to now delay confirmation or a vote for interim chief McConnell based on a Facebook video that seems to carry no weight. We heard from no one publicly written or during our public comment period this evening raising concerns other than the person who made the video. I think this is a detriment to our fire department. uh to not at least have a vote because that we also are waiting for the replacement if we also have the open if and when uh officer or sorry interim chief mcconnell is moves up to permanent chief we have a vacancy for our uh assistant chief I do not feel that this video constitutes a reason to not move forward with discussing and possibly voting this evening. This is not new information. This was information that was sensationalized by video, but the actual information was available when the previous mayor and HR director hired Assistant Chief McConnell for that position. So this is nothing new. Is it now out in the public more? Absolutely. Is it a challenge? Have we had some really difficult discussions? Will we probably have some more? Absolutely. But I think we are doing a detriment by giving so much weight to a random video that I know two council members feel were worthy of watching, but now we think it's worthy of delaying two weeks.

Mayor Walters?

i'll hear from anybody else hasn't spoken yet first and then we'll return anyone else mayor walters ms malton uh i agree with council member cleland mcgrath it's a facebook video i'm not on social media and that is one of the reasons why and i have not received any phone calls any emails from any constituents or any concerns that have been expressed to me. And I feel like we know, I know what I need to know. And if I think we all had time to do our due diligence and figure out where we stood before now, I'm in favor of voting.

Mayor Walters.

Mr. Currier.

My motion has nothing to do with the video, so thanks for speaking for me. That's not accurate. I raised my concerns several weeks ago, and we talked about an executive session. Didn't understand we were going to have an executive meeting followed immediately by a vote. So I thought we would have more time for discussion. So that's my position on it. The video, I think, is an embarrassment that that was put together. I don't think that Acting Chief McConnell deserves that. And so I just wanted to be very clear that that has nothing to do with it. But I do feel like this deserves further discussion from some of the stuff that came out. And that was what I said. And just clarifying what Ms. Cleveland-McGrath said.

Mr. Walters, Mayor Walters. It can be a little tricky, but it's McDonald, Mannix McDonald. But I'm not going to call on Mr. Younghead either because you already spoke. If Ms. Hunt wants to wave, then we'll circle back. Yes, go ahead.

Thank you. So I also did not receive a single comment from any constituent having any concerns about Chief McDonnell. And I think it's in the best interest of the city at this point, because we're already down. a chief he's holding down the fort by himself to get move forward with getting a chief confirmed getting an assistant chief hired we're about to head into budget season we need to move forward and that's i'm prepared to do that tonight all right i'll go to mr fantini thank you um i want to be very clear too the video has absolutely nothing to do with me wanting to delay the vote

i signed up on city council to be a part of this council to do good things for this city i never in a million years dreamed that we would be here having to litigate and i i do want to offer an apology to assistant chief manix i think it's awful that you have to go through this public ridiculousness again i do believe that everybody everybody makes mistakes I believe that to my core I believe that everybody cannot make the same mistake again I believe that to be true I believe in Redemption for people I believe that people can be scapegoated but what I am running into right now is that i am hearing a lot of things that when i go look and ask experts other experts that don't work for the anacortes fire department that give me or aren't union representatives they give me a different answer and so why i'm not saying and i want to be really clear about this i'm not saying that what you're telling me is wrong i am not saying that what you're telling me is untrue what i am saying is i would like a little bit more time to be able to find out if the things that you just told me upstairs in that room are true and i want to believe that they are that's why i'm asking for time thank you mr mantini i remind council members to address council members during deliberations mr young um just

for clarity i am the i am one council member that didn't get any of the briefings before and so i came in with no knowledge whatsoever this past weekend i was traveling and and i came back to phone calls from people i trust to give me an opinion in this Uh, thing, and most of them, most 3 quarters of them was so glowingly positive. So, honestly, I wasn't really sure what was the hoopla and then, you know, someone was mentioning videos and I'm thinking, what are you talking about? So I had no clue. Until, you know, in reading the packet and until we got here to council tonight. and so in getting here to council tonight i had the privilege of uh asking him um some questions that i had concerns about and i believe he answered them i in a closed setting so part of me just wants that additional minute to meet with him 101 i honestly did not have a clue about what was taking place and um but there are people i trust that gave me um an absolutely glowing um opinion so you know it for me it just felt a little rushed today i don't think we lose anything by waiting two weeks and the reason for the two weeks is i understand that um you know all of council may not be here and that was the only reason i and so but again my major point is i came here tonight not really fully understanding what all of the issues were. I understood what some were saying. And then I also understood from the people I trust and respect that you were absolutely stellar. And so coming tonight, it was just the question and being able to ask those questions. And everybody has an opinion. And that was why I wanted to talk with you directly. All I'm asking is to be able to sit on it for a moment and then reach out again. That's the only thing. Um, but, you know, I don't see the urgency of an immediate answer because again, nothing's really changing. You're still going to function in that role. It just allows me a chance to ask you some additional questions. But, you know, again. you may not understand that but for me it is just very important and you know again you did allay some of the concerns but i wanted to be able to ask you some additional questions directly uh from council members who haven't participated in the second round of discussion yet is there any further discussion all right hearing none we'll proceed to

I have one small comment since no one else wanted to mention. Mr. Fantine. I would point out that we are also short one council member tonight. This seems to be an issue of interest, and we don't have a full council here.

Thank you, Mr. Fantini. Ms. Malton.

We do have a quorum. We have six out of seven. So we ordinarily conduct all our regular business as long as we have a quorum. And I would also say that based on the feedback from what we know of Assistant Chief Mannix's qualification and his history and his leadership, that I am confident about his qualifications and how he has served the city for the past four years and none of this information it might be new to us but I still I stand by voting tonight now

uh the question before us is whether to postpone consideration this item for two weeks um uh before we proceed to a vote on that would all council members be here in two weeks yes okay uh I'll be remote okay uh but I can also be remote next week too so if we want to do it next I mean I don't think there's a reason to wait two weeks if we don't need to Are you proposing to change the motion?

Mayor Walters?

Ms. Kalina-Morgoth?

I'm absolutely not proposing a change. I think that is our, as elected council members, it's our responsibility to be prepared for what is coming on the agenda. It is our duty to do our due diligence in a timely manner. And so I do think we should vote on it today.

Okay, the motion before us then remains to postpone consideration of this item for two weeks. think we've probably had enough discussion so uh we'll proceed to a vote uh vote in favor is to uh delay by two weeks uh all those in favor of the motion say aye aye all those opposed say no no no i call for a division would all those in favor raise your hand all those in favor of delay by two weeks raise your hand sorry all those opposed raise your hand Okay, it's a tie. So that leaves it up to the mayor to cast the vote, which is me.

Mayor Walters?

I think Amit now would be out of order. We're in vote. So I need to... Okay.

Point of order. Can we ask questions during a vote?

No, we cannot. I think the point of order is well taken. We need to cast a vote. And I cast a vote in the negative. So the motion fails.

Mayor Walters? Ms. Hunt.

I move to confirm the appointment of Mannix McDonald as fire chief for the city of Anacortes and authorize the mayor to sign the employment contract that has been presented. Second.

Is there discussion on the motion to approve the confirmation and the employment contract? Mayor Walters. Mr. Fantini.

I would like it noted for the record that I asked for additional time based off of new information that was received this evening. That's all.

Thank you, Mr. Fantini. Other discussion at this point? Mr. Young.

I really wish I could have the additional conversation because it's contrary to what my colleague said about preparation. Preparation doesn't always prepare you for the information that can come out in a discussion. And sometimes when you're under pressure to make a decision, you want to give it thought. I really believe you would be fantastic, but I have questions. And so therefore, that would be the reason that I would vote no, because I would only want to have another conversation with you. You allayed so much of the questions and the things just in the conversation we had. But for me, all of this was new. My prep, meaning I looked at the packet that's produced on a Wednesday. The packet that's produced on a Wednesday doesn't talk about any of the other discussions that are happening throughout the community. It doesn't. It just gives qualifications, tell why, and I agree with all of that. I have phone calls from people I care about that told me you were fantastic. But when it came down to those additional things that I just needed to ponder, what does it mean? Why? I don't have time to do that. I think that in my case, it is a disjustice to not allow me the time to do it. Now, granted, we may win with your appointment because the things that you pointed out that you would focus on were superb. But there was only one issue I had, and that sometimes is the presumption. Whether the law allows it or don't allow it, the question becomes, is it the right thing to do? Historically, from my cultural The law allowed for a lot of things that weren't ethical at the time, but everybody changes. So that's why I just wanted the additional time to talk with you, because I believe that you took away much of my trepidation and affirm the things that the people told me about. That was the only reason. And that will likely be the only reason I will say no tonight, because I want to have that conversation with you. But again, I'm but one of six on council. But my no won't be because I don't think that you're stellar. My no will be because at the end of the day, so much has been thrown into the air. And, you know, I wanted to ponder it. I just wanted to ponder it. I didn't have that run up. And so anyway, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Young. Other discussion at this point?

Mayor Walters, since we're going to be voting this evening, I would like to make a rumor of a statement.

okay why don't you hold up uh because you just made a statement but we'll come back anyone else uh mayor walters go ahead mr kerger um i'm extremely disappointed with the council from the perspective of forcing this vote at this time at night when there is some or there are some of us that needed more information that could have potentially got us to a yes yeah but if it's tonight and that's been clear then it's no and so i'm disappointed in the decision-making process that led us to this one that there wasn't enough time to vet this stuff out separate from a video has nothing to do with it but yeah to try to force this right now um it's it's very disappointing are you proposing a delay of one week uh sure i'd love to i'd love to propose a delay of one week second

There's a motion and a second for a one-week delay on the item before us.

Mayor Walters?

Ms. Moulton.

That seems like it was your motion.

You made a suggestion. I didn't make a motion.

Well, Mr. Currier did not make the motion. I mean, that seems like a point of order to me.

State your point.

That you... led him to say that he would make the motion.

Yes, the point is overruled. Thank you.

Mayor Walters.

Ms. Dillon-McGrath.

I'm a little confused. We had a motion and a second on the floor. And then there's just a new motion.

That's right. There's a motion to postpone consideration of this item for two weeks, which is still in order, despite the fact that there's one week, which is in order, despite the fact there's a motion to approve.

So it's a modification to the motion.

It's a secondary motion. Is there further discussion on the motion to postpone by one week? Hearing none, we'll take a vote on the motion to postpone consideration of this item by one week. All those in favor say aye. All those opposed say no.

No.

Okay, let's proceed to our roll call vote. The vote is on the motion to postpone consideration of this item by one week. Mr. Franciac.

Mr. Fantini. No.

Let's do it.

Ms. Hunt.

No.

Mr. Currier.

Yes.

Mr. Young.

Yes.

Ms. Cleveland-McGrath.

No.

Ms. Moulton.

No.

Mayor, the ayes are two, the nays are four.

Well, that one's pretty clear. All right, so that motion has failed. The motion before us remains to approve the confirmation. The motion in front of us is to confirm the appointment and approve the employment contract. Is there any further discussion? I think maybe I promised Mr. Fantini. We're waiting to see if anyone else in this round has comments. No, Mr. Fantini.

I'm going to just say, This is a mess. I feel bullied. I feel pressured. I feel this just feels wrong. This feels wrong. Our constituents put us up here Because they expect us to have the judgment and the standard to hold people to. I'm a really bad politician, so I probably won't see you guys here for much longer. But I will say this. there's a lot of talk in the world about standards and about having a line and not not having subjective integrity having i'm talking about myself here just to be clear not having subjective integrity and i really The first thing, I apologize in advance, the first thing that came to my mind, not when I saw the video, which I didn't watch all the way through, but when this came up as part of the hiring committee process, was there's only one time in my life where I have ever seen a dead body being attended to by firefighters and paramedics and it was when my grandpa died at home like all good italians do and i will never forget the care the love the empathy the compassion the respect that those firefighters and paramedics showed my family and my grandfather to the point where they didn't even zip the body bag up when he was leaving the house because they knew what that was going to do to our family. I never in a million years imagined that when he got on that fire truck that there might be some things that happened. And I understand practices. I do. But we're talking a lot about practices. We're talking a lot about all of this stuff. And I just, I have to say, like, wasn't it you know we hear you know manic manix was scapegoated it wasn't it wasn't him it was somebody else that shook their head and gave the permission or it was this and it was that and i'm just left at the end of the day sitting here saying i don't believe he's a bad man i believe he's a good man but i also believe That there are some mistakes that just are a deal breaker for me. it's not because i think you are a bad person it's i shouldn't talk to him i'm sorry it's not because i think the applicant is a bad person it is not because i think the applicant cannot run the department it is because i have to make a decision where do i want to feel uncomfortable right now Do I want to feel uncomfortable right here in this room where I have to look a lot of my friends and people that I care a great deal about in the face and tell them that I can't vote the way they want me to because of what is inside of me? I would never, ever, ever hold anyone. I would never criticize anybody for doing what was inside of them or making the decision for what is inside of them. I can't do it, guys.

I want to.

But there's something inside me that just can't. And I'm sorry.

Thank you, Mr. Antini. Is there other discussion at this point?

Mayor Walters.

Ms. Colleen McGrath.

Yeah, I'll be honest. I watched it a couple of times. I probably watched it four or five times and monitored comments throughout the different platforms. I think that's part of what we do. And I would love to not be on social media, but I'm a millennial and that's where we're at. uh i made sure there were people that i trust i made sure that they watched it to make sure to have a good sounding board i got one person who asked me who sent it who told me about it and said hey what's this about i had a conversation with that person that was the end of that um what we did get was 15 letters of support between when it went on the agenda and this evening on Monday night, what we did receive was letters of support from our previous chief Harris, from our retired community paramedic, Monrad, Steve Monrad, who was with our department for 25 plus years and from a fellow assistant chief Burbank when he was, who used to be with our department and work directly with, um, uh, assistant chief McConnell. I, I, I don't, I think that there is, I just want to go on record that there is significant support for this candidate's professionalism, for his candor with all of us, for his leadership over the last four years. There is never going to be a perfect candidate, but you know what we do have? We know a lot more of the skeletons in the closet than we would ever know hiring from outside. I think that the Assistant Chief McConnell, who you put forward tonight, had to go through significantly more critical eye than any other department head we've had as long as I've been on council in the last six plus seven years.

Thank you, Ms. Kalina-McGrath. Any other discussion? If not, we'll proceed to a vote. The vote is on the motion to approve the appointment of Mannix McDonald as fire chief and approve his employment contract. This will be a roll call vote. Mr. Franciak will call the roll.

Ms. Hunt.

Yes.

Mr. Currier? No. Mr. Young?

Honestly, I've got to choose the same one. i'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt i still want that conversation so i'm going to say what is it yes okay yes miss clinton mcgrath yes miss moulton yes mr fantini no where the eyes are for the nays are two

Thank you, Mr. Franciak. Thank you, Council, for the debate. Thank you, Chief McDonald, for your bearing with us. I want to say one thing. Congratulations. I want to say one thing first. You are the mayor. I'll go ahead. So we did go through a significant hiring process for this position. Chief McDonald rose to the top among all the applicants. We had council members, we had department heads, we had fire chief from another jurisdiction participate in the interview process. Chief McDonald received the endorsement of our prior chief and some other significant firefighters in the field, including names that I independently have trust in. I've independently examined the facts of the Bellingham event, and with apologies to Mr. Young, who didn't get all of his information up front, and that's my fault, I have confidence in Chief McDonald's ability to manage the fire department, and I'm looking forward to getting on with it and hiring an assistant chief and uh getting us back on track this will be the first time that i'll have a full complement of department heads in the first six months mr young you had a brief comment thank you thank you thank you you know i i really want you to know that truly um

The issue I have, I think I made that pretty clear to you. And I think we were able to understand going forward, those are things that I struggle with, but I believe in a leadership position that you can model the way for where we wanna go. And I'm looking forward to following up on that conversation. I think going forward, Those are the things that I'll be looking for in society, that part of my norm is to make sure that those inconsistencies are consistent as best as we can make it. Those are the things that I struggle with. But what I really appreciate is that the people that I know and care about saying such great things about you, I believe them. I just had that one issue in clarity of time, because again, I was sort of brought into this at the 11th hour, and I wanted time to think about it. But the council speaks. We move forward. I will celebrate what you do and look forward to it.

Thank you, Mr. Young. If there is no objection, I will adjourn our meeting. Hearing none, we are adjourned.