City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you all for coming to tonight's City Council meeting, first one of June. Welcome. Thank you all for coming. May you please stand and rise and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Raylan, will you please do roll call? Yes. Heather Watland? Here. Rob Toyer?

Here.

Yvonne Gallardo-Van Ornam? Here. Nathan Senf? Here. Tim Abrahamson?

Present.

Leisha Nobeck is excused and Michelle Blythe is excused. Thank you.

At this time, are there any questions, concerns, deletions or corrections that we need to do to the agenda? None seen, none heard. I'll take a motion.

Make a motion to approve the agenda. Second.

Question. All in favor?

Aye.

Thank you. Tonight we have the honor of recognizing and presenting an award to Alan Ice. Tonight, we recognize and thank Alan Ice for his 24 years of dedicated service on the Arlington Cemetery Board. Alan's work has helped preserve a place of deep meaning for our community, a place of remembrance, respect, and history. His steady leadership and thoughtful service over more than two decades have made a lasting difference for the city of Arlington and for the families we serve. The cemetery connects us to those who came before us and reminds us of our responsibility to treat the legacy with dignity. Allen understood that responsibility well. Through his years on the cemetery board, he helped ensure that this important work was carried out with thoughtfulness, compassion, and integrity. Public service is not always visible, but it is always important. Allen has shown a strong commitment to this community through his time, care, and integrity. On behalf of the city of Arlington, thank you, Allen, for your 24 years of service. We are grateful for all you have done, and we wish you the very best in the future.

Yes, any, yes.

Go ahead. Yeah.

By themselves? With the board? Who do they want it with?

It's OK.

It's a big deal. It's OK. Can the council get in there with them? Yeah. Thank you. Tonight we also have the Sno-Isle Library updating us on their programs and services. Can I please have Eric and Erica join us at the mic? And please make sure that the light is green and on and that you use it so everybody can hear you. Thank you.

Okay, it's on, it's green, hopefully you can hear me. Can you hear me? Okay, all right, great. Thank you council members very much for having us tonight. I'm Eric Howard. I'm the executive director for Sno-Isle Libraries. And I am very lucky also to have your community library manager, Erica Brown with us. And she's gonna talk a little bit too about what's going on at your local library here. And the reason why I'm here is there's twofold. One, We are kicking off our strategic plan. So we're really trying to learn what the changing needs of all of our communities are and what we can do differently. I believe we're doing a great job, but I always believe we can improve. And the only way we do that is when we get together with our community and listen to all of you and find out what's going on in the community. So we are working on that. And you'll see surveys going out. You can come to the library. You can always talk to our managers and our librarians and give them your feedback directly as well. And then we will incorporate that. And then we come back in the fall and we present everything that we have learned from that experience. And so I just thought I would take you through a quick snapshot of everything that Sno-Isle Libraries does. So we're 23 libraries. We are in both Snohomish County and in Island County. We also have an extensive bookmobile service. So we serve over 300 childcare centers in addition to senior centers as well. And then we also go out into communities that aren't very close to libraries so that we can provide the services there as well. And in addition to that, we're also online through many different services. So you can download e-books, you can download movies, and much more. You can even participate in programs online with us as well. But we run around 3,000 programs a year throughout the 23 libraries. These are some of our big focus areas. And when you think about that age group of zero to three, when we talk about early learning, the schools really concentrate on those four year olds to the 12th graders. There's no real government agency that focuses on that critically important age when the brain is developing so rapidly, zero to three, other than the public library. And something, a little known fact, through the state, the public libraries in Washington help credential daycare workers. And we do that for free. We also support them in quite a number of other ways. So we are super engaged with the early learning. But we do much, much more than that, as you probably know. So we do everything from helping people find jobs, writing their resumes, giving them workshops on how to start a small business. We provide lots of digital literacy and access. And then, of course, our books and our wonderful staff as well. Just giving you the framework for where we are and what we're doing in 2026, we have three major capital projects. In the fall, we're going to be opening a brand new library in Lake Stevens. It's right behind the Target in Lake Stevens. It's a beautiful building. It's two stories. Just to nerd out on you a little bit, The larger our libraries are, the more books we can hold. So if you're up in Darrington or you're on Clinton, on Whidbey, you benefit because that means there's more books in the system. So when you can't find the book in your library and you go online and order it, we'll get it to you there in just a couple days, if not sooner, because our collection is building as we build those bigger libraries. And speaking of libraries and building new libraries and remodeling, the other priority that we have for 2026 is to begin the permitting process to redo the Arlington Library. The Arlington Library is the only library in the whole system that does not have air conditioning. And so the board made it a priority so that we focus on that and get that done. So the permitting process will begin in 2026, construction will begin in 2027. One of the other areas of focus is we are at the end of our life for our 2018 levy. We have gone out farther because of some of these deferred maintenance issues that we've deferred. That's allowed us to save some money. So we were able to extend it longer than we promised we would. So that's a good thing. We're very good stewards with our funding, but we are at the end of it. So in August, we go back out for the levy restoration to what the rate was back in 2018. You can find out more information here. The board has made Arlington a priority regardless win or lose, but what the passage of the levy would allow us to do is two critical things. It affects the scale of the project. So we can enhance the project, make it so that it's much more flexible for the community, And the second most important thing is the levy is really about operations, so it allows us to leave the lights on. So if we're not successful with the levy, that does mean a reduction in hours and in services. And that's just the way the library is funded. But you can find out more there. And I think that's the end of my slides. I'm going to turn it over to you. Thanks, Erica.

We also did not practice this together. As Eric said, I'm Erica. I am the branch manager at the Arlington Library here in beautiful downtown Arlington. The Arlington Library, we support our local community in many different ways. It's a place where kids can learn to read, teens can hang out after school, and it's a community hub where people can get support from our expert librarians, launch a job search, and connect with others. In 2025, we had 75,000 visitors throughout the year with 98,000 material checkouts and renewals. So for a community of our size, that is fantastic. So thank you guys all for supporting and using the library. We love to see people spark joy in the library every day. In the Arlington Library, I don't know if you guys have heard, we were recently able to do a small remodel of our teen area. You can see some pictures up here. We have some days upwards of 60 teens in the library after school, especially if the weather's not great. So we needed a little bit more room, and this is kind of like a teaser before our remodel to help us with that. We've added new technology, including a Switch 2, which the teens have greatly enjoyed. And sometimes there is a little bit of conflict between the adults and the teens, because we love our teens, but they can be a little bit rambunctious. But the general consensus of our community is that they're very happy and excited and love that there's a place where teens can go after school that's a safe place for them. Through our work, we've been able to collaborate with the Arlington Food Bank, provide snacks for teens and children in the library, and to date, we've handed out 1,500 snacks to our community for this year, which is really exciting. Every day I get to see our community connecting with the library during storytime programs or in the case of two of our regulars coming in every Wednesday to stay connected after a personal loss for both of them and to keep their families together and connected every day. I love that I get to see this every day and be connected with the community and I love hearing from everyone in this room and our community at large. So please come into the library and come and say hi. I'd love to hear your feedback and I love connecting with you and love to continue connecting with you in the future.

Thanks Erica. So we're happy to take any questions that you may have.

I have a comment. I just want to say thank you for everything you do. When my kids were little, we used to come out to story time all the time. And then it was an excuse to go out to Camino when the new Camino library opened and then visiting Darrington. So like we got to travel around and you gave us a place to go. So we really appreciate that and all the hard work that you've put into the community. But I'm excited to see what's going to happen with Arlington and our new library.

Thank you very much.

Can the audience ask questions?

Anybody in the audience? Is that okay? No? No, now the audience can't ask questions. Sorry.

We are happy to take questions at the library. We have to follow the rules of the council, but you are more than welcome to come to the library and talk to us individually. We'd love to get your feedback.

I would absolutely love to talk to you. So please come in and say hi and ask for Erica. I will come out and meet you.

Thank you both for coming up.

Thank you.

At this time, we will open the public comment period. Public comment is an important part of local government and provides residents an opportunity to share their perspectives with council. We ask that speakers state their name for the record and keep their comments respectful and relevant to city business. Each speaker will be allotted up to three minutes to address the council. In accordance with council rules, the total public comment period will be limited to 30 minutes. Depending on the number of speakers, we may ask participants to be mindful of their time so that as many voices as possible can be heard. While the Council may not respond directly to the comments this evening, we do listen carefully and appreciate your participation and engagement in our community. The comment period is now open. Can Michelle Stout please come up to the mic?

How's that? Thank you council members. My name is Michelle Stout and I live in the Arlington area. I first I want you to know that I'm not anti growth, but for a sustainable growth that considers not just economic factors, but environmental factors and quality of life as well. We know the Amazon Fulfillment Center, which you don't want to hear about, at 2.9 million square feet, drawing 5.2 megawatts daily, was not brought in under the most transparent of circumstances. Suffice it to say, you wonder why the public is suspicious of Project Cascade, one-third of the size but using almost half again, 9.5 megawatts, the energy, when Amazon is using the same playbook as the Roxy Project. Only the stakes are much higher. Have you asked why Amazon needs another processing facility a mile down the road, having recently laid off 30,000 workers with more to come? You keep repeating that this is not a data center and how it differs from a typical data center. Amazon has taken 1 million square foot warehouses around the country and built in medium-sized data centers. These medium-sized centers require millions of gallons of water a day and can hold up to 3 million servers and are guaranteed power 24-7 by their contracts. When our region is in the fourth year of drought, snow melts are abysmal and fuel is sky high. We only produce 8% of our max of our energy locally. What energy Bonneville doesn't provide by hydropower will be fossil fuels, adding to cost, carbon load, and climate change. More drought. When water and power supplies drop below what community needs, who will you put first? Why would the council go along with placing a facility of this size, 1.2 million square feet of impervious surface, anywhere near a refurbished, rerouted twice salmon habitat that is costing the Tulalip, BNSF, and Washington State millions and is still not completed? This site is 114 acres. It has crucial wetlands and a high water table. Add in all the additional traffic and you are introducing into storm runoff more compound 6PDD, quinone. It's a compound that limits the breakdown of rubber and tires, but is deadly to coho salmon at extremely low concentrations. We want a community where families can make a living wage at full-time jobs, not two or three jobs. have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink, not high energy or high water bills, environmental deterioration and part-time jobs. Be the stewards you purport to be. We need an ordinance to ban large load data centers and large load warehouses of all sizes. The only people that will benefit from these installations will be Amazon and the people they paid to pave the way. Thank you.

Julie Winchell, are you here?

Knowing that Amazon will occupy the Project Cascade warehouse has left me wondering, why would a warehouse less than half the size of Amazon's Arlington Distribution Center need almost twice the amount of electricity? So I researched the history of Project Cascade and found some interesting facts. I watched the recording of an Arlington Planning Commission meeting held virtually on August 25, 2020, in the midst of the COVID pandemic. At that meeting, David Toyer, the president of Toyer Strategic Advisors, presented an urgent request for rezones on two parcels of land using an emergency docket. Normally, those rezone requests would have not been allowed until January 2021. One parcel was the National Foods parcel where the current Amazon Distribution Center now sits. The other parcel was the one we now know as Project Cascade. It's interesting that both of these emergency rezones were presented by David Toyer, both were developed by Panettone, and both will be occupied by Amazon. Three current council members voted for these two emergency re-zones, Yvonne Guiardo Van Orman, who at that time served on the Planning Commission, and Mayor Vanney and Councilmember Michelle Blythe, who both served on the City Council at that time. Also, according to the Everett Herald, David Toyer is Councilman Toyer's cousin. What was the rush on the Project Cascade re-zone? Let's hope that Project Cascade isn't shrouded by as much secrecy as the Amazon Roxy project was. Project Cascade is also strangely similar to a recent situation in Andover Township, New Jersey. In July 2024, the Township Committee created an economic development zone similar to our CIC. That same year, their Township Committee approved a plan for a 640,000 square foot warehouse. Later, unbeknownst to the people of Andover Township, the developer approached the township committee about building a data center instead of warehouse on that parcel. In September 2025, the committee complied with the developer's request and amended the zoning to add data centers as a permitted use. and just recently on April 16th of this year again complied and amended it to permit two-story data centers. Then the community finally discovered that the committee had laid the groundwork for a data center and the next three committee meetings were at standing room only capacity. Due to the community's outrage, by May 12th, the committee had proposed an ordinance banning data centers and repealing all the previous amendments. Then on May 28th, that ordinance was passed. We don't want to see this scenario played out again here in Arlington. Arlington should follow Andover Township's lead and pass an ordinance banning medium and large-sized data centers now before Amazon approaches your planning department about converting their planned warehouse to a data center. Here are copies of Andover's ordinance for your consideration. And thanks for listening to my comments.

Actually, do those go to Raelynn and she'll pass them out? Jim? We need to get them to Raelynn and she'll pass them out. Thank you. Thank you. Jay? Jay?

Jay Lindberg. Like I said, I'm kind of new around here, and I guess I'm related to the Vannies. I've got a niece named Vanny, so it's like I got to behave in this new city that I'm living in. You know, I've been involved in a lot of developer wars, mainly in Southern California, and I saw a lot of One of the concepts that we use to describe the way it would work is politicians are cheaper than developer fees. we had to deal with an awful lot of corruption. And I guess the reason I'm telling you that is that if y'all start giving away everything to these developers, it's gonna raise a lot of red flags and people are gonna start snooping into your finances. And I don't really wanna see that again. That gets really dirty. Try to keep it clean. Make sure that every deal that you make with that ball-headed sucker, not Zuckerberg, but Bezos, you don't wanna climb in bed with that sucker, man. It's not a pretty picture when you get out in the morning. So just keep it clean. Don't pull any, deals out of the sky and don't give away the farm to these people because I found out that you're already giving them like 10 years of property taxes. And it's like just, Bezos doesn't need your money. He got rich doing this stuff. He got rich burning his employees, making sure that they don't unionize. He got rich playing with the politicians. You don't need to give away the farm. And if you do, it's going to look like you're taking bribes. And I like this city, and I don't want it to get a bad reputation. Thank you.

Thank you, Jay. Carrie?

Hi, my name is Carrie and I want to thank the Council for allowing me this time to speak. Last time I was here we were talking about data centers and you were hearing concerns from the public. And I want to thank you because the following day you put out a press release letting us know that it was going to be an Amazon operations facility. So my question for you tonight is, while doing some research about the parcel at 6600 172nd Street, I was able to find the SEPA threshold determination. Now that that's six years old, I wonder if it's the process that another determination is done, given the time that has elapsed since this, and now we have a new developer. Information was, you know, presented based on North Point's development requirements. So I'm curious about that. Also within the SEPA document, it does mention that, you know, any future site development proposals. And, you know, here we are again six years away from when this document was done. So I just wanted to come up here on record and, you know, ask the question. what's gonna happen because this information is so old. And a lot of it, for instance, air, it just mentions the dust and if a large facility going in there and especially something that demands 24 seven electricity and maybe there might be diesel generators going off and fossil fuels. I mean, was that considered six years ago? So I just wanted to make these comments today and thank you again for your time. Thank you, Carrie. And it's okay.

We can have staff respond to that question. It's a little bit more complex than just a short explanation. So I'll make sure that staff addresses that with her.

Carrie, did you get that? I just want to make sure. Okay. Thank you.

If I can get your email address, I will send you. There's more updated information than what you found online. So there's been two SEPAs, I think amended after the one that you're talking about, so I can send you those. So meet with me after I'll get your email address.

Thank you. Dwayne. Dwayne, thank you. Dwan. Thank you, Dwan. Dwan, Kenny, thank you. Sorry about that.

Okay, I'm not prepared at all. I decided what I'm going to tell you is what I did all day. My husband and I and several others stood at the intersection of 67th and 172nd and as we did about eight, nine years ago for a different reason. uh to let people know that they need to citizens of arlington need to start coming to the arlington city council meetings we were fortunate unfortunate but fortunate last week we showed up at the planning commission meeting and they misprinted the time starting at 6 30 and we showed up at 6 30 but actually it was already getting over and it was started at 6 but we were able to talk to the planning commission people outside this building and they wholeheartedly invited us to come and attend their meetings in the future and so we plan on being there tomorrow night that gets me into a little bit more what we just talked about so With the SEPA, I sent an email to the Planning Commission last week and then I got a notice back this morning saying my concern was, it's always been this concern since I lived here, Smoky Point is called Smoky Point It's not called Arlington, but it is a major part of Arlington. And Arlington is called Arlington, the Old Town. And people that live in the Smoky Point area, and I saw it firsthand today, When they move here, they call it Smokey Point. Everybody calls it Smokey Point. Some people don't even realize where the limits of Arlington are, and it's very confusing because the west side is Marysville at 172nd. The east side is Arlington until you get down to 152nd, blah, blah, blah, it could go on. It's very confusing about what is Arlington. And so I feel as a citizen that lives on the south side, Smoky Point area of Arlington, I need to educate my neighbors and tell them, you are part of Arlington. You do need to participate in the Arlington City Council meetings. Big things are happening to you and decisions are being made. And I don't think people in that area are aware of it. Here's a couple examples today. So we met this morning at about 7.30, 8.30. We passed out the flyers on 1.72. One lady, you know, everybody's busy. And one lady, I was, you know, my husband would hold the sign and I would pass the flyer and talk a little bit as they rolled down the window before the light turns green. And the lady said, oh, I'm for Amazon. I'm for all the jobs. Time. Okay. I would love to talk more.

Mike Allman.

Good afternoon. My name is Mike Almond. I'm on a homeowners association board. I'm a homeowners association board member for an HOA that's on Smoky Point Boulevard just out, just south of the old Longhorn, which is now a construction area for the Roundabout, just to give you context where I'm at. We have a problem in our neighborhood where we've got a lot of... I call them amateur race car drivers. There's a lot of speeding right down 186th Place Northeast. It's a residential road. Speed limit posted is 25. There's a lot of parallel parked cars and I'm just really afraid at some point that somebody's going to get really hurt or worse. I've called the police many times to the point where I almost, it's probably my imagination, but I feel like the 911 operator is probably rolling their eyes at me. I had an Arlington police officer call me back and suggest putting up those little Signs that say slow kids in the neighborhood kind of thing one neighbor did that. I really don't feel like it did anything The last time I interacted with an Arlington police officer He basically just said that he couldn't do anything about it because they can't sit there and loiter I get that but at the same time I feel like somebody's gonna get hurt and he suggested that I come to a City council meeting so Here I am. I guess that's what I had to say. Thank you.

Thank you, Mike. Appreciate that. That information. Gabrielle.

I grabbed the wrong paper, so I'm going to be winging it now. I'm also here to talk about Project Cascade, believe it or not. As someone who is a resident of Marysville, this project does deeply concern me. I have been... You got the right one. Thank you so much.

Okay.

After reviewing previous council meetings and workshops for both Arlington and Marysville, I am happy both cities are hearing out the community's concerns. I know I can't speak for everyone in both communities, but I would like to see the cities move forward a discussion and implementation of city ordinances that will restrict and ban medium and large-scale data centers. I'm operating under the assumption that this won't be a data center, but you know, things can happen in our future. And so we would rather be proactive, right? I would like to thank Council Member Abrahamson's proactive approach to this issue in the workshop. Many community members have shared the consequences that come with the data center being built in our community. I echo those concerns and consequences. I won't get into them tonight because everyone's done such a great job talking about it. um in terms of the warehouse i am having some concerns about the potential impact on the infrastructure i know that you guys have a transportation improvement plan and i'm just curious if that's going to be accommodating the potential 12 000 i think workers who are slated to be operating in the warehouse especially when some of those projects have been pushed back quite a bit And then what alternative plans will the city consider if there continues to be delays with the improvement project? I'm keeping it short tonight. Thank you. Thank you.

Mary. Thank you. Okay.

Good evening, council members and members of the audience and staff. Thank you for the opportunity to give public input tonight. My name is Mary O'Farrell, and I just have several points to bring up. Before I do, though, I would say I was out passing flyers out today, too, and had people say, oh, it's not going to be a data center, you know, because they got, they read your public information. release of information that you put online and read out in the meeting last week, but I'm concerned in your verbal and online communications of May 19th regarding Project Cascade, you give the name Easton Kraft as the economic and development manager for Amazon, but no email address or phone number for the public to contact. So If we want to get more information straight from Amazon, we need more information. Secondly, the statement that you're in, quote, the early planning stages, unquote, is relied by the whirlwind of action to get an interlocal agreement or an ILA with Marysville any day now. If there were not an impending project, I don't think there'd be this whirlwind of action. Number three, there appears to be a rush to get the land use codes updated with more, quote, flexibility, and without adding data center definitions, conditions, or regulations. Nationally, they are popping up with various descriptions, data center-ready warehouses, large-scale digital data processing, networking equipment, industrial-scale computing, and so on, all currently categorized as a, quote, warehouse. In paragraph three of your project update, you said, and I quote, the city is also providing additional information about the proposed use and how it differs from a typical data center. Using 9.5 megawatts of power, how does it differ? We would like to know. Further proof of the heightened sense of urgency by wealthy, sophisticated applicants like Amazon, The Snohomish PUD is moving up their timeline to consider large loads in Tier 2 contracts with the BPA. It was supposed to be on June 23rd, and now it's on the agenda for June 9th. So what's the hurry? Number five, I would lastly I'd like to urge the mayor and council to quickly pass an emergency ordinance to ban data centers and the like as soon as possible. In the future, the ordinance could be amended after careful study of what other jurisdictions are doing to protect their population, environment, economy, and other unforeseen negative consequences. In my experience, growth seldom, if ever, pays for growth, and I do not see how this 1.2 million square foot behemoth could possibly improve the quality of life in Arlington and surrounding areas. Thank you.

And Amanda.

Hello, I am absolutely anxious public speaker. I don't like to be out there. I am a single mother of two children. One's a freshman, one's a senior. I am a business owner. I spend five days a week working 11 hours straight, no sitting, no lunch, so I can pay my bills, so I can take care of my kids. I didn't hear about this because I have my head in the sand working as hard as I can. This is my day off. One of two. And my day off is spent doing laundry, catching up on bills, catching up on chores, anything I have to do throughout the entire week, making sure my kid is cooking cupcakes for her school, doing shopping. I didn't hear about this until I met Michelle on that corner. And I am absolutely angry. I'm furious that we are letting another company come in. Amazon has enough space. They aren't paying taxes. They just had to pay a multimillion-dollar fine in New York for all of the idling that their cars do. It is against city ordinance. They aren't following the law there. Why are they going to follow the law here? Why are they using all of our water? We are in the middle of a drought this season. If you look at the maps of what we are projected to have for weather, we are looking at complete fire season next month. Everywhere. Everywhere. There is nowhere to go. People with asthma. are not going to be able to breathe. They're not going to go outside. And we are continuing to pollute our streams, our air, for a data center that is honestly, why do we need this? They don't need 10 years of not paying taxes when I can barely afford rent. I am carrying their tax burden. I would love to buy a house. But I can't because I can't afford it. I'm a single parent of two kids working my rear end off day in and day out so that they don't have to pay taxes for 10 years and use all of our water and raise our electric. I'm furious. Please think about this.

Thank you, Erica. I'm sorry, Amanda. Again, thank you all for coming out and public speaking is important and I really appreciate everybody coming up to the mic and giving your public comment. At this time, I don't see any more speakers. Are we ready for consent agenda? Yeah. We're good, right? No, we only, yeah.

I'll move for the approval of the consent agenda.

Second. Discussion?

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye. We now have a public hearing. Moving on to new business. Today we have our presentation of the March and April financial reports by Shelby.

Good evening. Thank you, council members. So we have two monthly financial reports for you tonight. I'm going to go quickly through March because it's old data compared to April. April will be our newest month's worth, but there are a few things I'm going to highlight in the March report. First I'm going to go to our lodging tax fund. So we collect 2% on all lodging stays and this money is used to promote tourism in and around the city. At the end of March we've collected $32,000 in revenue so far for 2026 and this represents a 2% increase over April of 2025. So originally earlier in the year we were worried about this and if it would stay true to the budget. So far we are not experiencing a decline and are moving forward with our LTAC committee funding for our grant award. So we'll continue with that at the level that we had expected. Next, I'm going to highlight at the end of the March report that I've included now for you and will continue quarterly to go over the budget amendments that were already approved throughout council meetings thus far. This is to keep track of them so that you know when we come up in December that they need to be formally approved as amendments. We can just keep track that they've already been presented to you. You've already approved them, so keep them fresh in your mind. So you can take a look at the three that are on there so far. They're all from the April one of the April meetings and Now we'll move on to April And then from our April report, we're going to start with sales tax revenue. So just a reminder that sales tax revenue represents 27% of the general fund's budgeted revenues. And as of April 2026, we're experiencing a 9.5% increase compared to April of 2025. And then trends for April. April 2025 is a 15% increase over, or sorry, April 2026 is a 15% increase over 2025. No increase, no decrease compared to 2024. A 24% decline from 2023 and a 1% decline compared to 2022. So 2022 and 2023, we experienced higher levels of sales tax revenue. And then you can see the charts there. I want to go over the three largest sources of sales tax revenue for April are retail, services, and construction. And the reason that we're going to go through the different sources, you can see kind of the weighting that they make up of sales tax is just a reminder that construction sales tax is not dependable or necessarily predictable. And we use those funds for one-time things like in our capital funding for large capital projects. So first we're going to go over retail. So retail sales tax represents 50% of April's total sales tax revenue, and we're experiencing a 25% increase since 2025 in retail. There was also a retailer that was behind in payments in April and so that's probably a large amount of the increase for April or that 25% increase they've caught up and so that's why you're seeing a bigger increase there than other months. For services, this accounts for 22% of April's total and this is experiencing consistent growth or a 19% increase from 2025. Then the last category that we talked about, construction sales tax, which once again is not something that is dependable all the time like retail and services. It contributes only 13% of April's total and it's not showing any increase over April of 2025. So no increase there in construction sales tax. Next category we're gonna highlight is utility tax revenue. In April, the city received 366,000, which is right on with our average for the year, but it is a 6% decline compared to 2025. As of April, we collected over 1.55 million total. Sorry, 1.55 million for 2025. And then so far for April of 2026, we've collected 1.45 million. This is a 6% decline, which is most likely attributed to the weather. We had not as cold weather as we did last year, and so this is probably why a lot of the utilities have not been increased this year. To date, sewer, natural gas, telephone, and cable are all experiencing declines compared to last year. And then overall of our revenues in the general fund, we have received 27% of the annual budget. Usually as of this time of year, you would expect through April 25% of our revenues, but our revenues do not come in in equal increments. We don't receive all of our revenues monthly. Some of them are quarterly or twice a year like property taxes. And so that's one of the reasons why we're not at the 25% for the year. But revenues are currently 1% higher than the same time period in 2025. So we've received 6.6 million year-to-date compared to 6.5 million in 2025. Moving on to expenses. Expenses are also approximately 27% of our year-to-date budget so far. And this is 6% below where we would seasonally be throughout the year. This is 1% lower than our 2025 spending. So it's good to see that our revenues are higher and our expenses are a little lower than last year. Next fund we're gonna highlight is motor vehicle fuel tax. And so we collect a small portion of all the fuel tax that is received throughout the county. And this is 4% up compared to the same time period in 2025. And then another reminder that there is another fuel tax increase coming up on July 1st of 2026. Real estate taxes, as of the end of April, we've collected a little over $180,000 for 2026, and this represents a 30% increase compared to the same time period in 2025. I'm gonna give you an update on our audit status. We completed our 2024 audits with the Washington State Auditor's Office and held our exit conference at the beginning of May. And then we just turned in our annual report for 2025 last week and that will trigger for us to schedule our next audit for 2025 with the State Auditor's Office. So looking forward to getting that started and we'll let you know once we embark on that process. And that is all I have for you tonight. Monthly reports.

You make it sound like it was just so small and so easy. Thank you. Great details. Any questions?

So just to, because the increase for our motor vehicles tax, that's statewide. It's not just because we just decided, hey, you need more taxes. It comes from Senate Bill 5801, correct? Correct.

Yes, 5801.

Just to clarify, because we do have a lot of people in the audience today that may need some clarification, that it's not just county or city that puts these in. It does come from your elected officials in Olympia, too, sometimes.

Thank you for that clarification. Good point. Any other questions or comments? None seen. Moving on to item number two of new business, low bid award for the 67th Avenue sewer interceptor upsizing project presented by Jim Kelly.

Thank you very much, Mayor Pro Tem and council members. This item before you is a request to award bid for the 67th Avenue sewer interceptor upsizing project phase one to the certified low bidder reconstruction for the amount of $1,582,055. Any questions? Comments? Motion?

I move to award the 67th Avenue sewer interceptor upsizing project to Reese Construction and authorize the mayor to sign the contract.

Discussion?

All those in favor?

Aye.

Moving on to new business item number three, emergency declaration for repair of water treatment plant, high service pump, again by Jim Kelly.

Thank you very much, Mayor Pro Tem and council members. This item before you is a request to waive public bid requirements and contract directly with pump tech for the repair of one of the high service pumps at our water treatment plant. The high service pumps are what pumps water out of our treatment plant and into our city's distribution system. Our treatment plant relies on a minimum of two pumps running. We always have a third one as a reserve. One of the pumps stopped working about two weeks ago. We had a service contractor come in and pull it, and they believe the shaft is cracked. These pumps were replaced. In 2012, Pump Tech was the contractor that put the pumps in, so we contacted them to take it out and examine the shaft. So I'm asking to waive the bidding requirements and let us contract directly with Pump Tech so that they can repair the pump and put it back in before the high water demand season starts.

Any questions? Yes, Nathan.

I was going to say thank you very much for including pictures because I've never seen a pump shaft before in all of the different stages and how it looks. I appreciate that, but I also wanted to say I think it was last year, possibly two years ago when one also went out or you were just preparing for this one? Two years ago, we didn't have a pump. Okay, because you were preparing for...

Oh, that was Haller Well. We had a pump replaced. So that was a well pump that was replaced. Well pump number two was replaced.

Because I was going to say you were doing these things for emergency because it is our water treatment center. When one fails, we got to take care of it now. So I appreciate all of the information, the worksheet, the inspection, all of that, because that way we know that our money is being correctly spent back to the same company who put it in. So thank you. Thank you.

Good points. Thank you for bringing that up. Any other questions or comments? A motion?

Yeah, Jim, thanks again for all the detail. I want to move to adopt the resolution declaring an emergency situation exists with the water treatment plant high service pump, which authorizes the waiving of the competitive bidding requirements necessary for pump repair. Second.

Question. All those in favor?

Aye.

Motion carries. Well, that looks like that's all for new business. Any comments from council members? Tim.

I was just gonna say I went to the first, I believe it's Smoky Point Community Park's first concert in the park over the last weekend and it was full spectrum was the band and very much the oldies but goodies. I also have been a resident here my entire life. And so I've never seen a park in Smoky Point where it's so involved with the neighbors, especially on Smoky Point Boulevard. So I got to see a whole bunch of families that I've reached out to in a year or so and got to kind of look at all the different kinds of just kinds of families and different kinds of cultures and different stories and how they're sitting out there having a picnic for dinner. It was great. It was gorgeous. They sounded amazing and got to see the lovely play structure being used several times over this year by a whole bunch of happy children. So that was great. I also saw on Friday as I was passing through town, a whole bunch of elementary school students got to experience what it's like in our city police station, our fire stations, city council, city hall. They got to be great interviewers to our local officials and got to know how the cities ran. It was very interesting because I did not go to elementary school in this town, but I would have sure loved to have been part of the process of going through town for a day. but not in the classroom and seeing what businesses are like, how the small business owners run their business. They got to see how picnics are held in our park when they're getting older, they get to see the ins and outs of our city. So that was fun to see and actually observe. So that was my weekend for this weekend.

Very active, thank you, Tim.

Thank you. I just want to say thank you to the community members for coming out, talking to us. We do want to hear from you, so continue to do that. Please send in your comments. We do have our website up. We do get our emails. We do try to answer them as timely as we can, but we want to make sure that you know that we really do appreciate and are listening to you. Thank you.

I just want to say thank you. Yeah, I kind of just went out and just walked around downtown and I just, you know, I love just seeing the beautiful town that we have and the businesses and I just really appreciate all of the people that have chosen to open a small business here and maintain their small business here. So thank you to everybody. And thank you to everybody who came today to speak. I appreciate that. I love seeing all the faces here. It's really nice. And it's really important. We don't know what you want until you come and tell us. And so use your emails or come up here and use your voice. Thank you for coming. At this time, do we have any information or administrator and staff reports?

Nothing else this evening. Thank you.

I did not get a mayor's report from Mayor Don, Mayor Vanni, so I don't have anything to read about anything else. Okay. And we don't have an executive session. No, we do not. And at this moment, are we ready to reconvene or adjourn?

Motion to adjourn. Second.

Question. All those in favor? Aye. We are adjourned. Thank you all.

you