City Council - Regular Meeting

How can I do?

Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. I have 6.02 p.m. for our 6 o'clock meeting, so let's get started, shall we? It is Tuesday, September 8th, and I'm calling this meeting of the City Council to order. We've got six City Council members up here. Do we have anybody online?

Hello, Mr. Mayor Walters. Council Member McDougall is online.

Perfect. Thank you, Mr. McDougall. All right. Would you all please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, thank you. We have some announcements and committee reports this evening, and our first is an announcement of an award. that we received, the city did, for our wastewater treatment plant. So I'd invite our wastewater treatment plant operator, manager, and also public works director up to the podium. I will read the letter that we received from the Department of Ecology. Dated July 6th. Dear Mayor Walters, congratulations. The Anacortes Wastewater Treatment Plant is receiving the 2025, quote, Wastewater Treatment Plant Outstanding Performance Award of approximately 300 wastewater treatment plants statewide. Ours, yours, was among the top wastewater treatment plant operations in 2025. Ecology evaluates specific domestic wastewater treatment plan information for individual permit compliance. Your plant, our plant, is one of the top performers for regularly meeting permit criteria, conducting monitoring, and reporting data. Ecology acknowledges the exceptional level of effort required to protect water quality and provide this critical service to the communities you serve. Dedicated and proficient operators are essential to successful plant operations. and to protecting the health of Washington's waters. Thank you for your continued commitment to excellence. Signed, John Kenning, PhD, Water Quality Program Manager at the Department of Ecology. And thank you and our other wastewater treatment plant operators for your commitment to excellence. Council members, do you have any questions about the wastewater treatment plant process? Because now's not the time.

All right. Thank you. We do have an award, though.

Let's take a photo real quick. All right, thank you. It is nice to receive congratulations from the regulatory authorities. So let's move on. 12th and commercial, everybody's favorite project. If you have not driven through it yet, you may notice the next time you do that the speed table on the south side of the 11th and commercial intersection was adjusted. More gradual transition now. There is a rise when you go into that intersection, but it's smoother. All four of the new signal pole foundations were installed. They had to be drilled 25 feet deep. Electrical work this week includes pulling wire for the ADA buttons. And then the plan for next week includes installing the vertical portion of the new signals and the associated electrical work. And I assume that at that point then there will be a pause. Yes, nope, no, we'll continue. But we don't have approval of our electrical cabinet yet, right? Yes, because that would be big, big announcement if we did. So the new signals won't be turned on yet, but we await further information about that. Okay, some other announcements. We have scheduled a budget open house. So that is now September 30th at 5 p.m. Again, if you go to anacorteswa.gov slash the budget, you'll find information about the way we organize the budget. Eventually, you will find information about the proposed 2027 budget, but we're not quite there yet. You'll find our budget calendar. You'll find information about the various taxes you pay and the revenues we receive. And you'll find information about the capital facilities plan, which will be the first part of the budget process that Council really will dig into later this month. We have provided three ways to submit feedback and participate in the budget process. The first is via an online form. We would like you to submit information via that form. You can also email, but if you use the form, we'll solicit information on the various questions. And then it will all go into one place and we won't be checking. We won't be chasing emails. We then have this budget open house that I mentioned scheduled for September 30th. That's a Wednesday from 5 to 7 p.m. And it is sort of a drop in event. So you can drop in in that window. We'll have a little bit of presentation at the beginning. And then there will be the required public hearings. So there's public hearing on revenue scheduled for October 12, and then a public hearing on the budget and the capital facilities plan together scheduled for November 16, with an expectation that probably Council adopts the final budget and the CFP, the capital facilities plan, by the end of November. We had a successful Open Streets event. It was really a great event. most successful Open Streets event that I've been to in the last, I think, 14 years of Open Streets. Is that right? There were 55 bike helmets distributed between the police and fire departments. So we are very encouraged by that number. There are always more helmets available if kids need a helmet. It is also required now under our changes to our bike and e-bike code. So we really want to get kids under... age 18 into a helmet and costs should not stop you. We will get you a helmet if you need one. So let us know. And thanks very much to the police and fire and everybody else, including Council Member Hunt, who helped pull that off. Residential cleanup day is coming Saturday, September 19th at 9 a.m. Last until noon. You can stop by the operations facility at the top of D Avenue. Bring your residential garbage, your yard waste, and proof of residency, including your utility bill would be great. And you can dispose of that at no charge. I will be at the Rockfish Grill in the Beer Garden on Thursday, September 24th from 5 to 7 p.m. We do these events where you can stop in and chat with the mayor. Some of the people in the audience today were at my event at the Senior Center. This is like that, but with beer. So feel free, Thursday, September 24th, 5 to 7 p.m. RSVP not required. The city is participating in Fidalgo Bay Day. It is a free, fun-filled day of learning with discovery stations, a touch tank, and plenty of kid-friendly crafts and activities. It's at Fidalgo Bay Resort, down off Fidalgo Bay Road, and it's Saturday, September 26th, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. You can find more of these events, the ones that the city sponsors at least, at our website, anacorteswa.gov slash calendars. And if you will indulge me a moment, this day, September 8th, in 1966, the original Star Trek series debuted on NBC in the United States. It was actually two days earlier in Canada. But it launched a 60-year franchise that portrayed a hopeful vision of the future, one where poverty, on Earth at least, was eliminated, one that celebrates infinite diversity and infinite combinations, one that told stories through allegory and metaphor. about current events. Back then it was about 1960s racial tensions. It was about the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 90s, about the threat of global climate change after that. So when we talk about all of the problems that we face today, I think we could all use a little bit of hope for the future. Among other things, go watch a Star Trek episode. So to all those that celebrate, live long and prosper. It will be Star Trek day today, but maybe it's Star Trek month all month. All right, thank you. We have some committee reports starting with the Fiber IT Committee.

Mayor Walters.

Mr. McDougall.

I'll keep it quick because I'm driving. Fiber Committee met last week. It was myself and Director of IT Systems, Mr. Cervantes, and Director of Fiber, Mr. Lemberg. On the IT side, we briefly discussed an update on the Tyler ERP system network Migration integration, the general ledger is largely done and they've moved on like they've pivoted to starting to move utility billing over second main item that we discussed was there's upcoming criminal justice system like information security or information systems security audit. And this is kind of a regular audit where they go in and just ensure that we're compliant with certain best practices around keeping case data, personal information, that sort of thing, held securely, encrypted in transit, that sort of thing. On the fiber side, key update is we're running about $60,000 to $70,000 ahead of original revenue forecast for the year. And that's largely due to a larger percentage of gigabit customers increasing. than forecast so that's good news uh and then the second item and a big shout out big thank you to the fiber team for doing this uh successful olt migration happened uh the weekend before this before labor day weekend so another you know late night maintenance window thanks to the team for getting that done and that's what i have thank you mr mcdougall

Our next listed report is from the Finance Committee. Who has that report?

Mayor Walters.

Ms. Hunt.

So Ms. Clinton-McGrath and Ms. Moulton were both unavailable for our regularly scheduled committee meeting on August 27th, but I did meet with Mr. Hoagland and Ms. Peck and Mayor Walters to review the budget policies that are being presented to us tonight as Resolution 3226. We in the committee collectively made some revisions, and I believe that that is the version that's being presented to full council tonight. I can't speak for the rest of the committee, because I was the only one there, but I do believe that the policy under consideration tonight reflects the intent of Ordinance 4003, which was the ordinance that set some finance policy, budget policies. And we will also be asked to rescind that ordinance next on the agenda. So I also briefly reviewed drafts of a couple of housekeeping ordinances, 5036 and 5037, which also appear on tonight's agenda. And again, I can't speak for the committee, but I do support updating the code to get rid of things that no longer apply. That's all I have.

Mayor Walters.

Thank you, Ms. Hunt. Ms. Colleen McGrath.

Thank you. You know, we had one other item come up that was flowed through the Finance Committee in the last week. Typically, legal doesn't have their own committee, so I think it was brought to our attention. So I just wanted to update the rest of council. On August 25th, the city received or was served with two new lawsuits filed with Skagit County Superior Court by Ian Muntz. The first one is regarding the 2025 update of the city's comprehensive plan and development regulations. As you can recall, Mr. Muntz appealed the comp plan and development regulations to the Growth Management Hearings Board. The board denied his appeal on all the issues and entered an order in the city's favor on August 3rd. So Mr. Muntz has decided to appeal this to the board's, appeal the board's order to the Superior Court. I just think it's important for us to know. The other, the second lawsuit, concerns the city's stormwater master plan. And again, Mr. Muntz appealed that plan to the growth management hearings board. The city filed a motion to dismiss that appeal. The board granted the motion, that motion and entered an order of dismissal on July 31st of this year. And Mr. Muntz has appealed that order again in superior court. So the, the purpose of just bringing this to every the council's attention is that these appeals are going to require significant amounts of staff time and may require the use of general funds for outside council so as we're working in the budget season i think we need to be aware of this unknown and that is all thank you miss cleland mcgrath

Our next item is report from the housing affordability and community services and planning committee. I think housing affordability did not meet. Did the committee meet for the purpose of the planning committee? No. Okay. All right. So we can skip that one. Public works committee. Anybody's good. Mr. Walters.

The Public Works Committee met just before this meeting. Sorry, I'm looking for my notes real quick. Some of the things that we discussed, I will have a visual aid somewhere. So there are about 3,000 folks that are going to be getting this little mailer right here. You may remember quite some time ago, we got a presentation about some of the old pipe. that are in Anacortes. Now, these are specifically about construction that predates 1986. So anything after 1986 is not affected by this, because obviously there were regulations by then. But for those before 1986, a lot of work has gone into identifying potential for galvanized pipes. And out of, I think, just under 20,000, we have about 3,000 residents. I was like, oh, no, galvanized pipes. But then I asked the question of, well, this is water, so we should be very concerned if 3,000 people haven't responded. But of the almost 20,000 people that have been contacted, have gone through, we haven't found any issues yet. which is great to hear, but I would still encourage those other 3,000 people, of which I am one of, who get this thing, this mailer, to call so that we can make sure that we're helping you make sure your pipes are good too. Also, we got some updates on some stormwater projects. So you might remember not so long ago, there was some super crazy flooding that happened up on West Fifth Street between Kansas and Illinois that was eroding, starting to erode some of the road there and all of that. We are going to be having a contractor and contracting out having that storm drain actually piped because it's been determined that all the issues that have been caused in that that one little stretch of land or piping could have all been prevented if there would have been a pipe there. So that's all going to get piped, which is great. And it'll also help protect the road as we try to get more movement on Kansas as a whole. Also, there's another stormwater issue up in the Yorkshire area. where we're going to be doing a stormwater repair there as well. And that's going to be something that's going to be able to be done in house. Where is the money coming from this from? Because one of the questions I had in there was like, wait a minute, neither of these projects are on the CFP. So how are they getting done? You might remember there was a significant amount of savings we received from a project that we did not have to complete because the port was going to be completing a significant amount of that work. So we banked most of that money, and then now some of that money is going to be used for these emergency repairs because these are two of the worst stormwater issues in Anacortes. So that's great to hear. And then we also got an update on the Safer Street grant. You will remember this as by the tennis courts between M Avenue and J Avenue on 22nd. We're still waiting to hear back on if we get that grant. and we should by november so we should get an update on that in november in november thank you uh anything to add yeah i'm sure i missed something no mayor walters thank you mr mantini miss glue mcgrath

You did a great job. I just kind of wanted to round out that first issue of the water. So this mailer that's coming out now, people have received mailers prior to this. This all came out of Flint, Michigan, and the water issues there. The EPA, starting in 2023, started actually providing guidance to all water utilities about how to address the unknown of possible lead in pipes. So in 2023, they had us do some work. 2025, we did a significant chunk of work. Now in 2026, they're expecting us to all of those unknown pipes that have not been identified to go and identify those. So what happens is we would like property owners or homeowners to contact the water department. The it's demarked by the water meter and they will look at both sides. So from the water meter into where it enters the home is a responsibility of the homeowner, but they will be able to tell you if that there are issues and we'll let you know that. And then it would be the property owner's responsibility. Anything between the water meter and the street will would, if there are any issues, the city will handle, the water department of the city will handle that and will be addressed immediately. So it's important if you receive one of those mailers to contact the city so that the water department can come out and find, most likely find no issue, but be able to document that so that it can be then submitted to the federal government EPA. So just to, that's why it's important to follow up.

Mayor Walters?

Mr. Young.

No, I just want to follow up on from Mr. Fantini and Ms. Cleveland-McGrath. It's interesting that I really appreciate the detailed explanation for what's taken place. And the reason for that is that I've had any number of calls, not a lot, from some of our senior citizens who received that. They've not responded. And they were a little cautious about... the city getting in their business, quote unquote. And so now I have a better understanding to be able to explain it because they charged me with coming up and finding out what has taken place. And now I feel amply prepared to go in and have that conversation with them. So thank you very much for that.

Mayor Walters.

Ms. Hunt.

Since this is a theme that we're all going to speak on tonight, I will say that I am one of those who has a house significantly older than 1986, and I have ignored that mailer every year. And today, I did call the Water Department and got on the list. They're going to come check my pipe. I also verified with Mr. Christensen that that if they identify that your pipe might be one that has lead in it, you are not obligated as the homeowner to replace your pipe. We need to tell EPA, but you don't have to replace your pipe. And the city can also give you some suggestions of how to minimize exposure. So please don't put off being inspected. It does no harm to you.

Thank you all. I assume we're all done with that one. Let's go on then to the Economic Development Committee report. Mr. Young.

The Economic Development Committee met today at 11 o'clock. It was Councilwoman Cleland McGrath, Councilman Currier, myself, and Ms. Snyder from the staff. And we had, you know, two or three presentations, one by Kristen Kels, which is, you know, Magic Skagit, Skagit Tourism, as well as two of the other ladies of businesses. But the impact was extraordinary we it was so encouraging hearing all of the things that's being coordinated together in Skagit county symbionically working together for the greater good of what we're trying to do the data that's being come coming forward has been exceptional because it gives us something that we can target and look at and then try to figure out what we want to do with it And but, you know, it was an extraordinary meeting and lots of things that are starting to happen to one, not only increase revenues, but to tourism. Three, you know, the things that we want to have here and realizing they're important. So what I'm going to do at this point is turn it over to Miss Cleveland McGrath for her to go into some of the details. You OK with that?

Sure.

All right. Thank you.

So, yeah, we had Kristen Keltz there. We had Tarika Ginther from Deception Pass Tours. And then Aaron Glass is the executive director of the Pacific Whale Watch Association. So, Tarika and Aaron are both on one of the committees with Skagit Tourism. The Skagit County and Skagit Tourism received a grant from the state. One entity receives it every year. They received it in 2025. That allowed them to have a consultant come in, paid for by the state, and kind of come up with... be able to identify the strengths and weaknesses and where there's potential growth for tourism within a county or within an area. So that was a really amazing opportunity, the fact that Skagit County was chosen. And they talked about it's really just focused on rural tourism support programs. So out of that, they came up with a number of areas to focus on, outdoor recreation, food and fun. Farm, arts, culture, and heritage, and then sports tourism. So they've then, since then, developed committees to do a further deep dive. So we were able to meet with the Outdoor Recreation Committee and what they have kind of gathered information so far. They still have another year and a half of work to do. But they really did a deep dive into the benefit of whale watching was kind of their focus at this meeting. And it was pretty incredible information. The number of guests that are served within Anacortes, we've got six whale-watching businesses that work out of Anacortes. That means on shoulder seasons, there's 300 to 400 guests per day who go whale-watching in these groups. In the summer, when they're doing two sessions a day, it gets up to 1,000 guests. They are very careful. Washington State's one of the few with BC that has really strict guidelines of maintaining distance from pods so that the boat traffic does not affect local whales. This does not exist in Oregon or California, so it was kind of exciting to hear that. But the amount of folks, they got into a deep dive of, you know, the number of three and a half days is the usual stay. People come from all over. They may or may not spend the night here. One of the challenges is they get off a boat at 8 p.m. and there are very few restaurants open at 8 p.m. So they're starting to do that first phase of a deep dive of how do we keep – The benefit of whale watching, which I think some of us see the boats but don't realize the huge impact of the economic value. And I want to say it was close. Yeah, I don't want to talk out of turn, but it was pretty incredible, 60,000 guests for 2026 alone. So it was, they talked about challenges with infrastructure and public awareness, but just one more component of economic development and how folks see Anacortes and interact with Anacortes and where there's potential growth. So does that sound fair?

No, the only thing I would add to that, and thank you very much, Christine takes detailed notes in her nuanced side of digging deep. I think that one of the statements was that the economic impact in Washington state was around $200 million. And Anacortes having six of those businesses that are operating, it really did help us look at the focus of really what's taking place. And it also spoke to the opportunity we have here in Anacortes. And so I'm always encouraged by... some of the data that we're getting to support some of the things that we're doing as we begin to move forward. Luke, anything you want to add? All right, thank you. Thank you, Christine.

Mayor Walters.

Mr. Fantini.

Yeah, I'm actually super interested. So like the... So it was the outdoor committee that was kind of, so like when they're talking about sports tourism, are they talking about like people who come, like for instance, if you had, well, I guess what I think about is I think about like, The pool, for example, right, we have the pool here, we have a bunch of people who want to do pickleball, a bunch of people that want to rec center and all that. But like, if we have like a big pool, for example, we could get like, regional meets to come here. Is that kind of what they're saying that sports tourism is?

Yes, but it also could be for soccer and other things. So this rural tourism grant, there's four major categories. Outdoor recreation, which is kind of what we were focused on today. Food and farm, arts, culture, and heritage, and then sports tourism. Wow. Those are different committees. Our committee was that or the committee that was meeting with us was outdoor recreation. So I don't know how far along they've gotten into the sports tourism. It's whether or not they would. I mean, I know there's a lot of soccer fields along I-5 in Burlington, but I can't speak to that. What I can speak to is that what they're working in outdoor recreation in this last six months is they are trying to identify unique Skagit County experiences. So whale watching is one of them. That's kind of on our side of the county. Hiking is another. And that... just since we're having a long conversation about this, talking about that's more Marble Mount area, connecting trails, having shuttles into the North Cascades, because that's a real challenge that folks can't, you know, place cars and get off a trail. So that's an opportunity for growth, kind of East County more. Biking. So this is the scenic bike way is from Highway 10. My dad had a bike shop. They would fly in and start at Anna Quarter Cyclery and ride across the country east, possibly working on developing that further. And then birding is really popular if you're a millennial, especially. It's quite exciting. So those were the things that they're working on currently. Then the next phase of that same outdoor recreation committee, which they have not, sounds like they haven't started on, is recreational boating. Um, uh, fishing. So fishing guides, things like that, yacht charters, where are you doing bare boat yacht charters and then kayaking. So that's kind of phase two. So we invited them, we told them, please come back. Um, when you have an update in six months or a year.

So I have like several more questions now, but I don't want to derail the meeting. I guess I'm also, because I also was wondering how they're doing about Canada and whatnot. But my question would be, I have heard, how do we get like more of a conversation happening between all of us around economic development? Because I've heard Anthony bring it up several times that we need to have some kind of work session where we bring stakeholders to the table. And I feel like the Economic Development Committee has done a really good job of bringing things forward that I'm really ready to have a bigger conversation about. So what could we do? And I'm certainly not suggesting like next week or necessarily even next month, but what would be like a next action item step that we could take right now to make that happen?

Mayor Walters?

Mr. Young, I'll call on you in just a second. But the one thing I would offer is that not all that has to happen in a city council meeting. Mr. Young.

Now, I just want to follow up. Those are great questions, and you're absolutely right. One of the things that, like I said when I was beginning this conversation, is that we are so encouraged by what's happening with scattered tourism. And that's really all of scattered, whether that's La Conner, whether that's Marble Mount, Concrete, whether that's Burlington, Mount Vernon. Each of those cities have a strength. And I think... Miss Cleveland McGrath was mentioning Marble Mount and hiking being a big part about that. What's happening as scattered tourism truly gets its footing because it's really been beginning to dig deep, forming those committees so that we can look hard at what's there, what we can do, and then how we want to do it. Part of the thing that I find fascinating is that they are having meetings throughout in each of those respective issues. The goal is to find out what works, what are the big things, and then go after those and then go out from there. It's still so early in the process, but to the point that you're making, you're absolutely right. The thing that I like about what we're doing, not only in Skagit, But here in Anacortes, I like to separate that just a little bit, is that that's one of the reasons why we formed the committee. That's one of the reasons why we have the people we do. And that's one of the discussions that you hear us month after month talking about what we hope to find out. Now, the benefit of having Skagit tourism, and it's sort of that old adage about the whole ship gets lifted. And what's encouraging about what we have right now with the people that we have is that they are just getting their sea legs and they're meeting. And it's going on. Like I said, today's meeting was extraordinary. I was impressed by what I was hearing, all of the other components, and how that works not only with Anacortes, but how that works with all of Skagit. Again, Anacortes has a unique advantage that most cities don't have. We have 2 million people coming through here every single year, traveling to the San Juan Islands. A lot of cities wish they had that. The question becomes, how do we tap that? And the Economic Development Committee is already beginning to have conversations about that. I've met personally with the Chamber I met personally with the Port of Anacortes and several other stakeholders. How do we tap that? And that will be forthcoming. So to the point that you're making, it is forthcoming. And I appreciate you continuing to bring it up. You know, it's a lot happening. I hope I answered your question.

Anything else on that one? Oh, yep. Go ahead.

Yeah. I just like sitting on the committee. I think it would be valuable from a revenue generation lens to have a broader conversation on council at some point. I do as a work session and where we fit. I mean, we're going to focus a lot on cuts and expenses and things like that, but there is some exciting stuff coming through this. And I would love the perspective of everybody on council in that regard. So I just don't know when the timing would be for that, but I would love to hear everybody's perspective and it would help everybody give us information as a committee, you know, with the full council support, maybe different ideas as to how we as a committee can work towards supporting some of these local agencies doing great work. So, yeah.

Thank you, Mr. Currier. Our last committee report is from the Port City Liaison Committee. Who's got that one?

Mayor Walters.

Mr. Mantini.

The Port City Liaison Committee. Shouldn't take that chocolate just now. Matt at 830 a.m. on Tuesday, September 1st. We had a lot of updates. I'm going to keep this one brief because there's been a lot of reporting, you know, and so we've talked about a lot of issues going on. They did. We are excited that the. The RFP for the hotel did close, and so they're in the process of reviewing submissions for that. So we'll hopefully have some more information on that soon. Also, the Alaska legislature is going to be doing a visit here coming up, and we're really excited for the port to showcase sort of what we have happening in our northwest economic region as far as that goes. So that'll be a great opportunity. Opportunity to share ideas there. We also got some updates on the 9th street vacation as well as the event facility. I know the mayor's mentioned that we've got. A public meeting coming up on October 5th, which will be great for that. Also, the city review of the event city event facility, so permits have been been submitted or initial permits have been submitted for the event facility. So that's all out there now. We also got an update on the Anacortes Housing Authority and what's going on down at the Olsen building. Obviously, they're going to be moving forward with demolition of that area, and we don't have any dates or anything on that yet. Also, they did have a new project manager that was hired at the port.

um and we got some updates on the altair americus uh park improvements as well and i did not take my notes did not save or i would have had more details so i apologize for that thank you mr mantini council do you have any other announcements and it's okay to say no all right uh we'll move on to our next agenda item which is public comment i had no one signed up in advance do we have anyone who would like to offer public comment from the floor And you'd tell me if I had anybody online. Okay. All right, thank you. We'll move on then to the consent agenda. We do have quite a few items on the consent agenda tonight. Council, I'd entertain a motion to approve or request to pull any items.

Mayor Walters.

Ms. Hunt.

I move to approve the consent agenda as presented. Second.

Okay, there's a motion to approve the consent agenda. No discussion is allowed on the consent agenda. Is there any call to remove any items? Hearing none, we'll proceed to a vote. All those in favor of the consent agenda say aye. All those opposed say no. The ayes have it and the consent agenda is approved. Moving on to other business. Our first item, and thank you for bearing with us, is a confirmation of an appointment to the Library Board of Trustees and our library director, Mr Ogle will present this item. All right.

Good evening, Mayor and members of council and audience. So the Library Board of Trustees has a vacancy vacated by Alethea Fleming, who I'd like to take a moment to thank you for your years and years of service. Thank you so much. Incredible asset. All right. Mayor and I interviewed a candidate last week, Amanda Baltazar, who is a wonderful candidate and the board approves as well. I've known her for years, come to the library with her kiddo who's no longer a kiddo. And she's been involved in a ton of library programs. She's currently on the genre committee. She has an extensive background in journalism. She's a business owner here in town. She'll be an incredible library advocate and library board of trustees member. So I would like to recommend her for confirmation tonight. Do you want me to have her to the podium there?

Oh, yes. If you would like to say a few words, now would be a great time.

Thank you very much.

well thank you for my appointment uh onto the board of trustees um i haven't prepared anything so i don't really have anything to say but i look forward to advocating for our library which is a great resource for this town thank you may not be obvious but we do value brevity here at the city council meetings uh all right so council we're asking for uh confirmation via the approval of this resolution do you have any questions or mr career

Move to approve Resolution 3227, confirm the Mayor's appointment of Amanda Baldazar to the Library Board of Trustees.

Second. All right. We have a motion and a second to approve the resolution confirming the appointment. Any comments or questions? No discussion. Hearing none, we'll proceed to the vote. All those in favor of Resolution 3227, confirming the appointment to the Library Board of Trustees, say aye.

Aye.

All opposed say no. The ayes have it. Motion is approved and the resolution is approved. Thank you. All right, our next item of other business is a contract award for 12th Street and K Avenue for intersection improvements. And our public works director, Mr. Logan Lee will present this item.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, and members of the public. Tonight, I bring forward a contract in the amount of $259,000 with Kimley Horn Associates to perform the engineering design of the 12th and K Avenue intersection improvements. So, as a reminder, this project is going to be located at the intersection of 12th and K, which is there on state route 20 spur. And there's a little aerial image of the current existing conditions at, uh, at 12 K. And so some background on the background on the project currently is a 2 way stop control intersection. And under the transportation element of the comprehensive plan, it was projected that within 30 years that this will be a failing level of service intersection. Providing an upgraded level of service supports future growth and development. Every significant development in the city requires a traffic impact analysis. And if you're developing an area within or nearby a failing intersection, It causes issues with being able to do that development, so this will improve that ability to keep developing and keep improving permits. It also improves pedestrian and vehicle safety. And for those reasons, the city was given a surface transportation block grant valued at $224,000. This does require a 13.5% match from the city. It's a federal grant administered by Federal Highways. We're happy to have it. And so kind of the funding and project plan for the future, this contract with Kimley Horn will get us to 30% design with a significant portion of the contract for the planning stage of the project. We have to determine what is the feasible solution to increase the level of service at this intersection. And there's some specifics. So we have a $35,000 match for this contract. The next steps will be upon completing the planning and initial phase preliminary design. We will seek additional funding to reach 100% design and additional funding for the construction phase. We're expecting those grants to also require a match. The expected cost for the complete design and construction is really dependent on what the determined solution for future design is at that intersection. And we are not planning on proceeding with the project unless we secure more grant funding. And just so you know, we have 10 years to complete construction on this project per the permit guidelines. So we do have some time to continue to secure funding. So I also just wanted to add a little bit more context on why the city utilizes consultants, especially for projects like this. It really provides us accessibility to specialized expertise. It's not feasible for the city to employ technical experts in all these various disciplines. In this case, we have a federal grant with extremely rigid requirements and technical expertise required to coordinate with WSDOT to work on a state highway and to address these traffic issues really gives the city, it's really financially more feasible for the city to contract out this work rather than adding permanent staff when these projects don't come up very often. It also allows us to leverage economies of scale. Consultants are equipped and have the technology equipment to provide the expertise and the work that we need to execute these projects at a much lower rate than us purchasing or hiring additional staff. And like I said, specifically for federal grant projects, they're very involved and we do not have the staff capacity to handle projects of this scale while keeping up with our existing duties. And it also just allows us to execute projects quicker and on time. And so with that, I'm going to introduce Brad Lincoln with Kimley Horn to walk through some of the ways that he's there, him and his fellow consultants are going to work through the planning phases of this project. And he's also going to be available for any questions at the end. So that Brad.

Thank you for having me. I am Brad Lincoln with Kimley Horne & Associates. I have a short presentation, but I also am willing to answer any questions you have about this process works um so as mr lee mentioned this is a federally funded project um and so that has some very specific requirements and that's essentially boils down to the national environmental policy act which is like the state environmental policy act but obviously much bigger. And so we have to meet those requirements. And then it's subject to WSDOT guidance on how the contract is administered and how the process goes. So that's very high level. I would suggest if you have questions along the way, this presentation isn't very long, but I'm happy to stop in the middle. I talked about it here at the beginning, but a couple of key considerations are there's watchdog coordination that has to happen. There's the NEPA process. A very big part of this is stakeholder engagement. We've had the benefit of working on a couple of projects in the city, and we've enjoyed it. The city has a very... Robust public engagement, and I appreciate that. And so part of this is making sure that stakeholders understand the wise and the wares of what we're doing and then design. And so. Like I said, I touched on a couple of those pieces a little bit. And we'll go in a little bit more detail. So WSDOT has what's called the Intersection Control Evaluation Process. That's ICE. And it's a very specific process on how the preferred alternative is determined for an intersection along a state route. And so this being part of SR20, we have to follow those processes on how we determine What to put out there, obviously, I shouldn't say obviously, but I think as a traffic engineer, I have a good idea of what could potentially go out there. But even with that and 20 years of experience, I still have to go through this ice process so that and it's a couple of things. One is. For the public, they understand how a decision was made. For a city or a jurisdiction, you understand what you're going to get from a cost standpoint and from an impact standpoint. If I'm one of the neighbors that lives in that corner, I want to know that process or what portion of my yard might have to be taken or what other – impacts are there going to be? So that process goes through all of that. We identify the need, we look at alternatives, we look at operations, we look at safety, and then ultimately a selection is made from those different criteria. And as I talked about earlier, part of that, a big part of that is community engagement. And we appreciate that and embrace that. And so with that, I have a couple of things, but are there any questions? So I'll just give a little bit of background. When the RFQ came out, it was based on, like Mr. Lee talked about, it was based on what was in the comprehensive plan, and this intersection was identified as an intersection that was failing. And so the grant was obtained, and the process started as far as And so when we put our response to the RFQ together, we identified three kind of high-level potential alternatives. It's important to note that WSDOT, their policy is roundabout first. Good, bad, or indifferent, that's their policy. So that's one of the alternatives we looked at. And when we think about this intersection control evaluation process, not to say that these six criteria are the only criteria, but these are, I think, the six criteria we thought about that were probably most important to this project. One is, could it be approved by WSDOT? As a roundabout, that's pretty easy to approve by WSDOT. I'll circle back to NEPA. But roundabouts aren't necessarily cheap. They are good from a safety standpoint. They are good from an operations standpoint. They are a little bit bigger. So there's a constructability issue. There are some utilities in the area, both underground and overhead. And so we rank these green. Green would be good. Yellow is not on here, would be mediocre. Red would be quote-unquote bad. I wouldn't say that that's bad. But we identified the NEPA process here as being red because it's going to extend the NEPA process. And that extension means a couple of things. One, it's going to take longer to get to whatever the design is, and it's going to cost a little bit more. So that's why it was red for this. Another option that we looked at is, can we signalize the intersection? Signals are something that can get approved by WSDOT. They're a little cheaper than a roundabout, but not obviously the cheapest, because you're putting in facilities, as we talked about earlier, or you talked about earlier with the 12th and Commercial. They have some safety benefits, but not the safest option. Operationally, vehicles can get through there. But again, with constructability on the east side of the intersection, there are power lines, overhead power lines that run north-south. Putting in signals, those two don't always work well together. So We're having to think about the constructability issues of that. Again, that NEPA process gets extended, and in the end, I'll come back and circle back on that. Another alternative that we looked at is what happens if we just restrict turning movements. The driving factor for why this intersection was failing was northbound left turns going from 12th Street on to Commercial, so northbound on 12th, turning left to go westbound on 12th. SR20. So we looked at what happens if we just move those. That might have a challenge from WSDOT because that's going to require some raised medians most likely, and so is WSDOT willing to take that on from a maintenance standpoint? From a NEPA standpoint, that would be the easiest. Like I said, I'll come back to that. From a cost standpoint, it was the cheapest of the three. There's some safety. It's not as safe, but there's still some safety improvements that could be done. An operation, from the operations standpoint, we need to think about what happens when those trips go to a different intersection. And then from a constructability standpoint, it was the easiest. I bring up NEPA because there's a lot to it. But if I boil it down, the thing that we are most concerned with is that if we add 5,000 square feet of impervious area, which sounds like a lot, right? That's a pretty good lot size if you're coming from an urbanized area. But it goes really quick when we're thinking about an intersection. If we go over that threshold, that gets us into the much bigger NEPA process. If we can stay within the bounds of the current paved area and not add any impervious, that gets us through a much quicker NEPA process. And again, that means a savings of time and money for the city. So we looked at these three alternatives. To be clear, these are not the only three alternatives. Part of the ICE process is coordination with WSDOT. And so WSDOT owning the facility, they have a great amount of say on what does or does not get built and what we do or do not have to analyze. So there could be other alternatives, but we saw these as the three most likely alternatives that could address the issue. I will note, and I don't mean to dwell on this one because I think this is the preferred one. I just want to dwell on it because I think it's the one that has a lot of moving parts to it. We did do some preliminary analysis on what happens when we move those left turns to another intersection. I think there's some potential there. We need to do some more. But that is a high level on what we would be doing as part of this project. And ultimately, the goal would be coming up with a preferred alternative. Like I said, I've had the privilege of working with the city for a while. I think our goal would be to make sure that, one, whatever that preferred alternative is something that is safe and works well for the city. And if we can do that and find something that can be built as effectively as possible, I would put it, meaning time and money, then that would be the goal of this project for us. So if you have any questions, I am happy.

Thank you. Just to reiterate the point, all those factors are not equally weighted, right? Correct. Because there is no dollars available at the moment, so...

Uh, correct. This was a, uh, which one would be the most expensive? We just, um, went from green, yellow to red, like a signal.

Yeah. I understand. Uh, counsel, do you have any questions?

Mayor Walters.

Ms. Moulton.

Thank you. Thank you for this presentation. I live right around the corner from this intersection, and it is a tricky one most times of day. And I'm wondering, with your experience, obviously, you've had a lot of interaction with WSDOT and their processes and preferences. Are these conversations that can happen early on or have they happened already with WSDOT before we even move any? Is that part of the initial process?

Yes, this is, when we put together the schedule, that is something that happens very early on in the schedule. There's a lot of, sometimes projects move, you do one thing at a time. What we were proposing to do was to do a couple of multiple things at a time. Like I said, we, when we put the RFQ together, we collected some data, our own costs, did some analysis, our own time to try and understand what were the feasible options here, or at least some feasible options. And I think that was, we did that a couple of things. One, it kind of got us further ahead if we were lucky enough to win, which we were. It got us further ahead in the process, right? It's less that we had to do. But two, it also kind of gave us an idea of like, where could we be going with this? And then once we start those conversations with WSDOT, we're ahead of the game, right? So yes, early on, we'd be talking with WSDOT.

Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. I mean, just looking at how, I mean, there's so much to it. I don't think, I mean, I'm glad you're doing the process because all of those alternatives look pretty tricky to execute.

They all have varying degrees of trickiness, as you put it. Yes.

Mayor Walters.

Ms. Colleen McGrath.

Thank you. So my first question is, I'm assuming that you have the expertise to kind of know what watchdog prefers beyond just that they always want roundabouts um so that that's my first just confirmed that that is my assumption is correct that you have you'll save us some time as a consultant versus us trying to do it ourselves um and then the second does does it ever just come down to the fact and i bring this up because of 12th and commercial how we ended up going back to uh um light at that intersection At some point, do we do all this work and then determine that as is, is the best option moving forward? Not in a bad way, but because we have a liability here because it is a failing intersection. But at what point do we say like, it's a failing intersection? It is what it is.

Um, I think the general answer to that is we would, the goal of this project would be to identify the preferred alternative. It also includes a portion of it includes depending on what that alternative is, the amount of design that we can do to make sure that it's a feasible alternative. And so that was kind of the other piece that we were looking at is that there are a lot of ways that we can design something to fit within that, um, footprint that's already there but it becomes a feasibility and there are a lot of discussions that go into wash with wash dot about this there i listed six on here and to uh mayor walters point they're not all weighted the same and there are a lot of things to consider so um i think the general answer is yes and that's part of what we would be trying to do is find an alternative that works for the city works for wash dot and works for the stakeholders

And my final comment is just that I don't know if it was your initiative or our directors, but I appreciate the fact that you're here and having this presentation. We typically don't get this from a consultant beforehand. We don't see you until you've made your pretty package and finished it. So it's really helpful to have this kind of dialogue early on. So thank you for coming this evening.

Of course, you're welcome.

Mayor Walters.

Ms. Hunt.

As another neighbor of this intersection, two questions. One, is the 5,000 square foot permeable surface NEPA trigger that you mentioned, is there a way around some of that requirement if you have permeable asphalt? Or they're just saying any new asphalt triggers that extended NEPA review?

Uh, you have reached right in the gray area of my expertise. I'm not NEPA official, but I do, I would, I can try and get you an answer on that. Um, I don't know the specific answer.

Presumably that will be answered in the course of evaluating.

Correct.

The other question is if we were to put lights there, there's another light at M two blocks away. It's already a nightmare to get across 12. Can we time those lights so that if you make one, you make the next one? We don't.

That is a possibility, yes.

Okay.

Yeah.

And that's part of the analysis?

Yes, it would be. So one of the reasons why, if we go back, why we had the red X here next to NEPA and the signal is that we anticipate that we would have to add a left turn lane on the west side of the intersection. Sometimes the design doesn't – it can have – I think was the term that was used before when you have a different lane configurations on the different sides. And so the concern would be that if we put in a signal, we would also need to make sure that we're having a left turn lane. And then that would add more than the 5,000 square feet. As far as impervious surface on the street, I think that would, I don't know that I've seen that here in the state. It's usually more on sidewalks, parking lots, those kinds of things. Yeah.

Thank you.

Mayor Walters. Ms. Fantini.

Thank you for the presentation. And I want to agree with the sentiment here that it's nice to get brought in at this part of the process. So thank you for that. A couple of questions. You had brought up one. I look at these and they're all very different and different. a lot of change and whatnot. But if we change this intersection, what I'm worried about is people in Anacortes are great at adapting, right? And what I'm really worried about is we're going to do this to this intersection and create a whole nother problem at a different intersection if we do it. Not if we necessarily rebuild and change the intersection, but if we do something big and different, people just aren't going to use it. They're going to go a different way. It's not that hard to just jet out and So I just am curious about if there's any thought, if you see that ever, and if there's any thought into that.

Yes. When we were preparing to submit for the RFQ or to respond to the RFQ, I think that was one of my thoughts was that how do – first of all, it was what's causing this? Second of all is why are people choosing that route? And three would be what happens if they don't choose that route, good, bad, or indifferent? And so the easy answer to that is yes, that would be part of the process that we anticipate going through here, which is, If this turn restriction was to be the preferred alternative, where are they going? Are we just pushing the issue to a different intersection? How do we make sure that we get people making the right movements at the right location from a safety standpoint, from an operation standpoint? So there's a lot of factors there.

Okay. And then just one more. I have a question. When we come to – because, again, I've had trouble understanding as we're doing our roundabout at commercial. I've learned – non-roundabout, intersection at commercial. Sorry. Okay. I just got to ask, like, you know, the state and WSDOT, they set these rules for a lot of what I would call highways or freeways, but really residential roads through neighborhoods. And my question would be, I want to know as a council member where if we like if we see something and we're like that, this is crazy. how much option do we have to push back? You know, I know we have things in permitting, like variances in banking, we call them exceptions. Like, is there, do we get any of that with the state?

I would argue that yes. And that's part of what we would push for, or at least evaluate is that understanding the roundabout for, um, um, policy that they have. But that doesn't mean that that's the only option. And I've been in a number of situations where Roundabout hasn't been the preferred alternative for a lot of different reasons. One, it could be an environmental impact. It could be a cost impact. There's a number of different reasons why that doesn't become the preferred alternative, and that's part of the process that we have to go through. I don't want to say that we have to convince WSDOT otherwise, but we have to at least justify why that isn't the preferred alternative for this location.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Mr. Young.

No, I just... What I'm trying to absorb is need, urgency. And how does that apply to limited resources we have? Part of the discussion sometimes cities have is with opportunity dollars. And then sometimes those opportunity dollars ask, where is a problem that we can solve with those dollars? Part of what I'm looking at and having to sort of come up to speed on is looking at the intersection of K and 12 and asking myself, is it the most urgent matter for us right now, given the limited resources we have? It's sort of like, in a way, what I'm trying to prevent in my thought processes are that as we had an opportunity one time to do the roundabout at 12th and commercial. And, you know, the roundabout was only going to be so big. It was, you know, whether or not Safeway's parking lot is blocked off. And then we had those issues. And then we really realized that, The problem for us wasn't as urgent as the moment. Maybe it may come later on that we really have to deal with this. So I'm sort of having a similar question. I know it may not be yours. Your job is to look at what the issues we are bringing to you, try to figure out the best possible solutions that we have and present that. And so from a public servant standpoint, as a council member, I'm still asking myself if 12th and 13th k and 12 is really the most urgent issue for us right now i know it's a big issue it really is you know but is it the most urgent issue that demands that we spend this amount of money right now to try to figure out or is it other places we may be able to find to be able to use this money because we've got urgent issues throughout the city that kind of needs their time at bat. And so that's what I'm wrestling with. I know we can talk about a fix, but again, it's sort of like me and going shopping. Do I need that 12th pair of jeans? I don't have blue, but I've got every other color. And the question was, do I really need it at this point or do I need to buy shirts? And so that's what I will be looking at as we try to figure out, is 12th and K the most urgent matter? And if it's the only place we can spend this money, the question becomes, in spending the money, in addition to that amount of money we get, Free money, so to speak. People say that there's no such thing as free money. But free money, then what additional money do we have to spend in order to solve a problem that's lower down on our list? So that's what I'll be wrestling with.

Do you want to talk about when this intersection fails and what failing means?

Um... I'm trying to succinctly get an answer to both of those questions. It doesn't currently fail. It's going to fail. Failure in this instance means people are waiting too long. I'll put that in air quotes to make the left. I said it incorrectly previously. Apologies. To turn from K on to 12th. So that's what the failure is, is that the level of service, that's our traffic engineer speak for operations like school A through E. Worse, so E or F is failure, and it would be operating at one of those two levels here in the future. I don't have an exact year. It was in the comp plan. The comp plan analyzed existing conditions and future conditions. It didn't necessarily break down when exactly in there. But did that answer your question, Mayor Walters?

Mayor Walters?

Mr. Currier?

Yeah, and that was... Mr. Young brought up the same concern I have, and maybe it's a Mr. Lee question. Again, urgency. Given the city's financial constraints, I mean, this came from comp plan recommendations. I sat on the planning commission through the comp plan. There's a lot of aspirational stuff in that comp plan. I understand that There's grant money, but there's also a lot of costs. I think for me, it's, again, determining urgency and necessity. And if it's people waiting a little bit longer, is this the time for that? And I mean, my thought would also be if it's a problem you wanna quickly go to, as quickly as you can go to getting a resolution actually having built out and so forth, and it sounds like that's undetermined. So right now I'm just not sold on the idea that this needs to happen right now, even though, yeah, it would be great to do it. So I'm just curious to get your perspective on that and why you've brought this forward at this time.

Yeah, so this is the only projected failing intersection in the city. Um, and that's why I was placed on past CFPs and that's why we're, we're attempting to execute the project. Um, I understand priorities change as, as years go on and financial situations are different. I would say that if this, if, if, council wants to address this project now is likely the time to do it because if we don't there i would say at the we will lose the grant um likely we have had it for a while um i've obligated the money i think if we decided not to go forward with this contract that we'd probably lose the grant and may not get another opportunity. That would be the risk. I'm not moving forward as far as urgency. We're matching about $35,000 plus whatever needs to be matched on future projects. I guess that would be up to... you guys to prioritize if that's an effective use of the $35,000. I'm not sure I have the answer to that one.

So I think that's... Mayor Walters?

Thank you, Mr. Lee. I'm going to call on Ms. Cleland McGrath next.

Thank you. So I think we're kind of dancing around the real issue with this intersection, and it's because it's the intersection where all of the high school students exit the high school parking lot and then go north and take, then turn left and go west out to that end of the island. And so ultimately, you know, we talk about engineering, we talk about traffic engineering and it's all very analytical and whether it's failed or It's all very numbers and whatnot. But ultimately, this is an intersection where we have our youngest, most inexperienced drivers trying to take a left turn onto a very busy road. And for me... That is with the grant of two hundred and some thousand and a match of thirty five thousand. I think it is. This is the time to do that study, because if there is a major accident and one student from the high school or middle school or someone gets hit, this is. This is a very low dollar amount to address an intersection that has kind of an emotional component, a society component. It is easy to understand. It's not an intersection like 12th and Commercial where, yeah, I mean, there was a – a death accident there, but this is one that it's almost surprising that there has not been a more severe accident. I agree we don't have extra money to spend, but this is a large, we've received a large portion of the grant. I, we have to talk about, it's important to look at kind of the human element of vehicles and driving and safety. And this seems really important. So I'm comfortable moving this forward tonight, but I also know there's other comments to be made. And that alone of understanding our youngest drivers and most inexperienced drivers tend to be the ones who are using this once or twice a day. And there are some options here that make sense that would address that really risky left-hand turn. And that to me is more important than just the wait time. If it was only the wait time, I could be convinced to say, let's push it off. But realistically, that to me is the safety of our youngest drivers is what's really important to me.

The unstated part of your answer about the wait time was when the wait times are longer, the theory is people make riskier bets and pull out in front of other traffic. Public Works does have instruction from me to think broadly about this intersection and the solutions that might be involved here or somewhere else to resolve the level of service issue here because I am not excited about building a roundabout with money we don't have at 12th and K.

Mayor Walters? Ms. Hunt. I completely agree with Ms. Cleveland-McGrath. I have seen accidents there, and I know that some of our younger drivers do not have as much patience as some of us who've been driving longer. I will also point out that, Mr. Lee, thank you for explaining the funding. The match, the $35,000 match, is real estate excise tax. It's not coming out of the general fund. I think now is the time to proceed with the design, and we have many projects that we design and we don't build right away, but then when some money becomes available, we're ready to go. And so I do support executing this tonight. Mayor Walton. Mayor Walton. Mr. Currier.

Yeah, no, I think that's what I'm looking for, though, is clarification and just more understanding. If you're saying it's urgent and you think there's a threat to our young people, of course, we'd move forward on it. But I guess that's what I'm looking for is more information on that. If it's just it's a little bit slower, it's not optimal. Maybe this isn't an optimal time to do it. But if. You as public works director feel like, yes, this is an urgent that we have this opportunity. And you pair that with safety issues with kids. Of course, I think this council would support that, or at least I would. But I think that's what I was looking to you for. And I got kind of like, well, it's kind of up to you. And that to me wasn't assault. You know, it wasn't a, you know, McGrath was selling me, but I just want to make sure you're selling me on the same idea.

Yeah, I mean, we stick to at least as an engineer, I try to stick to like tangible metrics that we can track and level of service is is one that has defined metrics. And so I try to base a lot of our decisions on that. I think safety, I would agree with Councilmember McGrath that there are there is safety concerns at that issue. That's a little bit more subjective, which is generally why I was I mean, I tried not to use that to. lead the path. But I do think, I think, uh, maybe Brad can input more if, if he sees any additional, I mean, yeah, there we, I do think there's safety, uh, Definitely in safety improvements that can be made there too. And there's concerns regarding drivers making risky turns. And then as Mayor Walters stated, that is the longer the wait time, the more you're sitting there, the more impatient, the more risky decisions you make trying to execute those turns.

And it's helpful getting a context to that. This is the one intersection that's failing. That's helpful as well.

Mayor Walters. Mr. Fantini.

Yeah. Oh, my brain just went blank because I was waiting so patiently and keeping my mouth shut like I don't normally do.

We'll circle back.

We'll circle back. So $35,000 is what we're going to pay for the design, but we are not obligated on the hook for anything. Once this is designed, we can go out there and find grant funding, and then we can decide at that point if we're going to use any additional refunds, but we're not obligating to build this.

I mean, using the grant money, the expectation is that you are constructing the project within 10 years. So there's a stipulation that if the project's not constructed or construction hasn't started within the 10th fiscal year, that you may have to pay the money back.

Okay. Mr. Young. No, I mean, to the point that it is a concerning moment, I am all in. I struggle simply because if the city's match is 35,000, I can live with that. As we look toward trying to be preventative in a smart way, two blocks down the street is a light. And so, you know, I'm still given the limited resources that we have as a city, given the urgency of other roads that are desperately in need of help in one way or another, you know, because I will be looking at the additional cost to fix it. This is about design. This is about coming up with a solution. There are costs associated with fixing it. And then for me, the urgency of, is this intersection the most advantageous thing that we need to do here with this amount of money? Yes, it's a failing intersection. But what does that mean? Does it mean that it's failing in 2035, 2036? So what I'm saying that as a council member, In looking at those resources, yes, we care about the kids. It's important. But we also care about the adults that are there. We've got two blocks down the street, there's a light. So what I'm looking for when we start talking about solutions is one, the cost that it will take us. If only $35,000 gives us this panoramic lens of solutions that we have. when we are making those decisions will be about what is the final cost associated with it and whether that means like we were having to do with the original thought of the roundabout whether or not we buy part of the land you know to it's so many other things in it so if 35 000 is all that it takes for us to begin to look at the solution and to miss her point that it doesn't mean that we go forward with it. I'm OK with that. But where I will struggle is the question of whether or not the cost, the total cost, not just the investigative costs because it's free money, the total cost when we look at it, is it the best use of our money when we have other intersections that are just as dangerous, sidewalks that need to be put into place because we have people on the street? when we begin to weigh all of those things out that's when i think we as a council need to weigh out uh is it the most advantageous use of our money for that moment and we will be organizing this project around making the decision uh up front rather than after we've already designed a big roundabout and then spent several years trying to figure it out uh

unlike the 12th and commercial project.

Yes, this is a significant portion of this contract is dedicated to the planning phase, and that's what Brad was describing. earlier, and they've been gracious enough to provide these kind of preliminary thoughts and efforts. They're not under contract, so they're technically not getting paid for that work. So as we get into this project, I'm sure that Brad and his team will come up with or scour the earth for different solutions that address this area and meet the communities and the council's wants for the project. The total cost of the project to Mr. Young's point is a bit of a moving target because we don't know what direction the project will take. So this will get us a really good start on the project, get us a ways into the design. And when you have a preliminary design approved project, that also opens us up for additional eligible grant opportunities. with different funding agencies or different grant programs. If this surface transportation block grant doesn't continue to advance forward, the general thought is that they'll continue to help fund this project throughout the duration. But having those initial steps does give us more ability to shop around the project and fund it.

That's very helpful. Thank you.

Mayor Walters, just to be clear, we but we are essentially committing to moving forward with it because or we're potentially losing the 200, the grant money down the road. If we said, oh, 10 years, we're not going to do this. And 10 years later, we're we're committing to the concept of improving the intersection, but not necessarily how or what the cost is and what's involved.

Yes. Accepting the grant money and reimbursing the grant money does come with the obligation. They don't want to just take the money and not do anything with it. Thank you.

Mayor Walters.

Small time.

I move that City Council authorize the Mayor to sign Contract C-2026-0213 with Kim Lee Horne and Associates in the amount of $259,000 to perform the design of the 12th Street and K Avenue intersection improvements. Second.

Motion and a second to approve the contract award. Is there further discussion? Hearing none, we'll proceed to a vote on the motion to approve the contract award. Mr. McDougall dropped off at 6.35 p.m. All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed say no. The ayes have it, and the contract award is approved. Thank you both.

Thanks.

All right, council. We have a number of things left on the agenda. However, the biggest thing I would I would predict the biggest thing here is the budget policies. So the very next item, the other items are relatively small comparatively. So Mr. Hoagland. All right, Mr. Hoagland is preparing to launch the presentation on the budget policies. What we opted to do here was put in front of council right now some of the budget policies that typically live in the budget book. That Council doesn't review in advance of the budget, so that you have a chance to go to first principles in terms of budget preparation before the budget is prepared. And so a lot of these are drawn from the budget book, some of them are drawn from other jurisdictions and other things that Council has asked for, for instance, the five year look ahead. sounds like looks like maybe Mr hoagland is ready to go.

Thank you, Mayor, members of the council, members of the audience. So I put a couple of slides together that I wanted to go through before we get into the material, the resolution and actual budget policy book. So we're talking about the Anacortes Municipal Policies, the AMP, the A-M-P. And what we're proposing is that our budget policies be moved out of where they're essentially housed where they're essentially housed now is in the budget book. And so this will centralize the location of those budget policies and clarify and increase transparency on that. But so the city, just additional background, city has caught a fine. Council adopted resolutions in the Anacortes municipal policies. The AMP is for policies that council has statutory authority to adopt on its own without ordinance. The AMP provides easy and transparent access to some of the city's primary policies, makes it easier to update, and they can be viewed at anacortes.municipal.codes.amp. Okay, the budget policy is not typically reviewed by council as part of the budget process, but they are included in the city budget books. If you go to the city budget website, anacortes.gov.budget, you can see our historical budget. budget books there. And there's a lot of material in addition to the tabular finance data that you go through the actual numbers. There's a lot of verbiage there that contains many of these budget policies that we're talking about. This will also make it easier to adopt and review policies prior to the budget development, encouraging early conversation around budget principles, explain how or why the budget is developed the way it is, and gives the council ability to influence the budget up front. These are mostly should statements, not shall statements, allows council to retain flexibility over the budget. Um, policy highlights that have been incorporated. So this is going to be in chapter 3 of the 3 dash 10 to 20 spend more restrictive revenues before less restrictive revenues. I think we've talked about this in the past and some of our, our budget meetings, but it just, it makes sense to spend those more restrictive monies. um first an example of that would be if you have a road project that's eligible for impact fees reit and then general taxes you would want to spend the impact fees first it's more restrictive and harder to spend one-time revenues should be spent on one-time expenditures revenues from utilities may only be used to support those utilities. And I would point out that this policy is actually supported by a state law. And when we get into the policies themselves, you'll see that it's in part of the auditor section in Chapter 4309. One fund cannot benefit at the expense of another. Also, capital expenditures must be consistent with the CFP. So some of the highlighted changes that we have historically we have adopted the budget at the fund level including the general fund so what this and what this policy will dictate is that the general fund will actually be adopted at the department level so currently when we prepare the general fund budget the departments do have a budget within that general fund, but we don't strictly require adherence to that budget. We just monitor that at the total fund level. So this would change that and require that those general fund departments closely monitor their budgets to make sure they're within budget compliance. This also adds a five-year look ahead for both revenues and expenditures. Our current fund balance policy was adopted by ordinance. And this would be repealed because we have the same language, virtually the same language in the budget policies. We can get into that, but as a quick reminder, that fund balance policy is 17% of expenditures of our general fund tax, generally tax funded departments or funds, I'm sorry.

Unless your council froze that level, this would restore it back to the 17% level.

Yep, that's correct. Thank you. This would also include a requirement to include a list of authorized positions in the budget and constrain the mayor's ability to change that. The budget ordinance must state the approximate amount that the budget funds replacement rates in ER&R and DIS reserve accounts. So that's been an issue for us the last couple of years. This would clarify that a little bit. So those are kind of the highlights of the slide I put together. Bear with me. There was a lot of documents in tonight's packet. But this is the resolution that we drafted. To adopt the the budget policy so it's resolution 3226 resolution adopting amp chapter 3.10 for budget policies does identify here the. fund balance policy ordinance and the freezing of that policy that the mayor just mentioned. And then down attached is the policy book itself for the city budget policies. So I kind of touched on those major, what I thought were major additions and major changes to the budget. I'd be happy to... If Council has specific questions or desire on a specific area to review, or if you just prefer me to work through this entire policy, I would leave that up to Council's desire.

mayor walters mr fantini um i read through most of this pretty much all of it well the changes and um i thought it looked really good i i particularly just wanted to draw attention to the couple of changes that i really liked i didn't necessarily particularly have any to add but i like restoring the frozen fund balance is really lovely And I also really appreciate the five-year look ahead. I just think that is great.

Thank you, Mr. Fantini. Other questions, comments, discussion? Do you have a desire for Mr. Hoagland to read us the six pages? No. No.

I think all of the new aspects of the policy that you've highlighted already in your slide are things that I certainly endorse. And Mr. Fantini has also expressed support for those. I think members of the public have asked, how can we see specific departments? How can we see the library? Well, now we're going to adopt a general fund at the department level. Thank you for that. I'm very pleased with the additions. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Hunt.

Mayor Walters. Just to highlight on page three. Item three, the budget must target a fund balance and each equipment replacement reserve fund is sufficient to fund replacement of equipment by the end of its useful life as needed during the budget year. That is not specifying a percentage that we need to collect, but can you just review for the public and council what's happened over the last five years when it comes to our ER and our fund?

sure it's great question um so just briefly uh fiscal year 22 2022 was the peak of our tax revenues and they've been really flat even slightly declining since then depending on the year but virtually no no growth in sales tax property tax limited one percent utility tax has grown slightly during that same time frame so dealing with these fiscal challenges um one of the that we've done is targeted the replacement funds in both the equipment rental fund and DIS, Department of Information Services. So as part of the Interfund charges every month, the departments that use either the equipment or the computers pay into ER&R or DIS. Not only the part of the charge is to run the department, but also future replacement charges. So what we've done is started analyzing the existing balances and then future cash flows and made adjustments to those replacement funds over the last few years. So we, I think for two years, cut it down to 50%. This current year that we're in, we cut it to 0% and obviously that's not sustainable. It's not. Nobody wanted to do that, but in order to balance the budget this year, we felt that was. That was necessary, so the desire is to to get that back up obviously, and to start building those, those reserves again, but we are monitoring that again so that we, we know what those existing balances are. We can see what our cash flows are. We can see. meaning we can we can see what the demand for those replacement funds is going to be as equipment reaches its end of life we work closely with the fleet manager to actually determine which piece of equipment maybe can be held on a year or two beyond its depreciated life and which actually has to be replaced. So we do make those cash flow assessments. And I think that's what we're driving at here is to ensure even if we're reducing those amount of replacement reserves, we're not putting the fund in jeopardy for future years.

So then is it fair to say that we are no longer Are we permanently suspending the idea, the concept of doing a 50% ER and R? Is that something for a later discussion? Or is this the new method that we monitor and discuss what our needs are for the next five years? I just, I think that that is, am I not making, does that not make sense what I'm asking?

No, I think, I think it does make sense. And I, I mean, that's, I think precisely why we didn't actually put a number in there. We didn't say it shall be funded at a hundred percent because those are. Discussions that council needs to have during that budget. You know,

And so maybe this is a question for the mayor then. Is that something we expect to have that discussion before adopting the 2027 budget? Obviously, this does not include all of the utility departments because they are in a whole different area and they are still being funded for ER&R at 100%. Correct. Correct.

We have also obtained new software that will allow visibility into ER&R for both council and staff. Software that piggybacks with our capital facilities plan software. And you'll also see new proposals in the capital facilities plan to move some of our equipment into ER&R that doesn't currently live in ER&R. But I was just looking up this policy because I thought that this policy came from our existing budget book. Do you happen to recall, Mr. Hoagland? Sorry, I don't. Okay. But the question of how much we're going to fund ER&R, I think, is an open one that we'll have to have through the budget process. And the one new policy that's in here is that whatever it gets funded at has to be recital or reflected in the budget ordinance so that everybody has visibility into it. Yeah. In that, and yes, I found it. It is in the existing budget. The whatever ordinance 4003 is our it's the same language that's in this new policy. Sorry, you're up to you. Ms. Cleland-McGrath.

Thank you. Well, in that case, I make a motion to approve Resolution 3226, Creating Anacortes Municipal Policies Chapter 3.10 for Budget Policies. Second.

The motion is second to approve Resolution 3226, Adopting AMP Chapter 310 for Budget Policies. Further discussion? all right uh let's proceed to a vote on the motion then there's a motion and a second to approve resolution 3226 adopting amp chapter 310 for budget policies all those in favor say aye aye all those opposed say no The ayes have it, and the motion is approved. The corollary to this is repeal of Ordinance 4003, which had some of the same text. So that's our next item of business, Ordinance 50339, that would repeal Ordinance 4003. Do you have anything else to add to that, Mr. Altman?

No, exactly. I feel like this just becomes housekeeping to repeal this ordinance with the new budget policies in place.

Mayor Walters.

Ms. Hunt.

I move to adopt Ordinance 5039, repealing Ordinance 4003.

Second.

All right, we have a motion and a second to approve Ordinance 5037, nope, 5039, repealing Ordinance 4003. Any discussion? If not, we'll proceed to a vote on the motion. This will be a roll call vote. Mr. Franciak, would you please call the roll?

Mayor Mrakas, Mr career. Mayor Mrakas, Mr young. Mayor Mrakas, Yes, it's clear the mcgrath yes. Mayor Mrakas, The smolton. Mayor Mrakas, Yes, Mr pantini. Mayor Mrakas, I assigned. Mayor Mrakas, Yes, where the eyes are six the nays are zero with one abstention.

There it is. So tonight I am presenting Resolution 3225, Anacortes Police Services Guild Commission Employees Collective Bargaining Agreement.