City Council - Regular Meeting

Do roll call here. Tim Abrahamson. Present. Yvonne Gallardo-Van Ornam. Here. Michelle Blythe.

Here.

Leisha Nobeck. Here. Rob Toyer. Here. Heather Watland.

Here.

Nathan Sam.

Here. Mayor Vanni, I move for approval of the agenda.

Second.

Question?

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries, thank you. Okay, we'll start off tonight, item one of our workshop, the interlocal agreement with Arlington School District number 16 for a school resource officer. Paul.

Thank you, Mayor. This is kind of a housekeeping item. We do this every year. This extends our contract with the Arlington School District for the school resource officer. Excuse me. Nothing substantial has changed in the agreement since the last one that was approved. There's some red lines in there that were just language changes between the two attorneys, but really nothing substantial that changes the agreement. So I'm happy to answer any questions. Any questions? Alicia?

I just wondered, do we have a grant for this? Like, is there one to the school district?

No, the agreement with the school district is they pay the actual costs of the officer, so wages and benefits during the school year, and then we utilize an officer in the off time, like over the summer and stuff, so.

Any other questions? Yvonne?

How often do they rotate through on the SROs or is it?

Every four years with an optional, another option of a fifth year, but every four years we put a new person, generally speaking.

Great. Any other questions? None seen. Thank you, Paul. Okay, we'll move on to item two, the acceptance of Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission Officer Wellness Grant. Jonathan.

Good evening, Mayor, Council. Before you is the outline for a wellness grant from the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission. This is a grant that we applied for. As you know, the city has a wellness committee and the police department has their own wellness committee. That committee put together a proposal of items that they would like to see to create a resiliency and wellness type of room. And that room consisted of a number of items. But the center piece of that room was basically some zero-gravity chairs. There's yoga mats, some sound systems, some alpha stim lights, some diffusers and a number of other wellness type items. The grant that we put in for was accepted and for almost everything that we asked for. And so what we're seeking is just approval from the council. It was generous of the states to put in for this. We do have a room that is available. The grant total is $13,551. It will require an end-of-year amendment to the budget if we do accept the grant. But I'll stand for any questions.

Great. Thank you, Chief. Any questions? Tim?

Yeah. Love the idea, love the fact that you already laid out that you had a place to put this. The question I have, is there anything that you'll need from the city when doing your report for the grant? Because obviously it's a grant, you're going to have to report back usage data and that piece. Is there anything that's needed from the city to help monitor to get you that data?

We have to track the usage of the equipment, usage of the room. We currently had invested in a program for officer use that's tracking wellness in other areas. So we're going to utilize that program that we already are using for that purpose. This program will also send out wellness surveys to the officer as many times as we like. We're hoping to just send it out once a quarter so we can establish kind of a baseline of officer wellness in general to get kind of an overall picture of health of the department and gather some just general statistics that'll be kind of anonymized so we can report back to council on kind of general health of the department as part of an overall wellness program. You probably know that wellness is kind of a big push in our retention efforts and it's kind of been a thing that's been overlooked in in this industry, in this state for some time. And so this just kind of meets those overarching goals.

No, appreciate it. I just wanted to make sure if there was any help that you needed from the city as far as data collection, but knowing that you have a program and it's just modifying that program.

No, we appreciate that, and it's really going to be just the officers wanted the program, and we're just going to ask their help for just tracking if they're using the equipment. It can be just as simple as just, hey, how long were you in the room? What equipment did you use, and how long did you use it?

Thank you. Yvonne?

Is there, since it's one room, is there a way for anybody to go in there and have it to themselves if they need it after something happens? Or is it kind of a shared and it's meant to be shared?

It's a large room that can be shared, but it's also lockable. So it could be set up to where we could put a sign like do not disturb on it and the door can be locked. So there's some options we can work through. There's a general SOP and guidelines for the room. It is meant to be used after a critical incident time to unwind for a couple minutes. So there's some things that we'll work through. But part of using the room does come with an SOP and some guidelines. We're a small department. We generally only have three to five people on shift at a time. So we can't have all three to five people in there at the same time. So generally it's not going to be too much of a problem.

One more?

Sure.

And then is this something that can somebody come off duty and still be able to use it? Or is it meant to only be like when you're on duty?

No, if the room's available, it would be available for use. I don't expect that it would be full all the time.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Michelle?

So off duty or on duty? Correct.

Yeah.

And then when you said the officers were asking for it, so was it a survey or did people just bring it to your attention? I'm just curious how it came about.

Wellness committee got together and they, I don't know exactly how they prepared a list, but they prepared it for me in a memo and said, these are the items they wanted the most. And then that's how I wrote the grant.

Okay. Okay, any other questions? Let's see, oh, Devon.

I just want to make a comment. I just really appreciate that you took that information, really ran with it, went after a grant, and this is amazing. So thank you for putting in the effort. To the wellness team, to everybody involved that put together this work, thank you.

No, thank you. Great, thank you. Thank you, Chief. Okay, with that then, it looks like we'll move on to our third item, Ordinance Improving Amendment to Arlington Municipal Code Chapter 20.16, Permits and Land Division. Amaricia.

Thank you, Mayor Vanni. The Chapter 2016 zoning code amendments were proposed with the 2026 docket. We proposed the update to provide consistency with a few House bills and Senate bills that were passed. We also proposed text updates regarding subdivisions, but while editing the chapter, we identified additional changes including clarification permitting naming structure update to permit type thresholds and the clarification of process for a lot consolidation. Additional amendments include updates to permit thresholds to better align with the SEPA thresholds and a new section for administrative lot splits consistent with state requirements. We also included new tables to provide a clear representation of code requirements and procedures. The amendment also removes the neighborhood meeting requirement for Type 3 permits, as those permits already include public notice and a public hearing, while retaining neighborhood meetings for other types of projects where useful and practical, such as a comprehensive plan. We also received two comments from MBAC that were provided in the packet and have been addressed in the staff report that were basically just some additional discussion regarding the new regulations around subdivisions and then some questions around cottage housing. And so the responses are provided in there. Great.

Thank you. Any questions? Nathan?

So if I remember right, when I was on planning commission, cottage housing was not something that could be in the city. Was it something that's changed now for future use? Because there wasn't a whole lot that was on a table or chart. So I appreciate that it was added, but most people don't even know what that is. So it'd be nice to give our audience a little bit of a summary of what that could be or look like.

So cottage housing is currently allowed in our code. It is regulated under AMC 2044, which is actually in Planning Commission right now. We are going to be changing it a bit to clarify some of those regulations because there was a lot of information in there that was unnecessary. So we are cleaning that up in a new middle housing section, but it is currently allowed. But yes, not a lot of people do know that.

Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, thank you. Okay, we'll move on to item four, Ordinance Approving Amendments to Arlington Municipal Code Chapter 20.40, Permissible Uses. Again, Mauricia.

Thank you, Mayor Vanni. So this amendment involves revisions including updates to clarify requirements and reflect changes in state and local regulations. The amendment renames permit type references to align with the updated type one through type five permit structure and thresholds as I mentioned in 2016. and clarifies requirements where some ambiguity exists. The amendments also revise the allowable uses in specific zones as required by some new state regulations such as duplexes are proposed to be allowed in RULC. We also added that trade businesses were to be allowed in industrial zones. That one was not a state requirement, but just more of a, it made sense we needed somewhere that those types of trade businesses that'll have a lot of extra vans or work vehicles could go. And then the daycare centers, which again, that one is state regulated. Then as directed by city council, an exclusion was also added for data centers. This is in our specific exclusion exclusion section, and to be clear, it does not include IDF and MDF. Those are server rooms that are specific to the operation of a business, so if you have a data room within a permissible business, those will still be allowed to operate, but other kinds would be, the larger facilities would be excluded. Thank you.

So just quick question clarification. So that would say, for example, a hospital, their server data stuff would be allowed then?

Yes. So in the language, we made sure to explain that a room used within a permissible business. So as long as the hospital was allowed in that zone, then the room for the data would be allowed.

Great. Thanks. Any questions? Tim?

No, I really appreciate you guys putting this in there and clarifying what an MDF and an IDF are because, again, those are needed for businesses to run. Those are not servers that create, you know, the artificial intelligence that they're talking about. These are actually just data rooms or server rooms that are used to compile the data for like a hospital with their electronic medical records. So, again, I really appreciated you going through this, updating the language, and then adding this piece in there, which helps to codify that we do not have as a permissible use these AI data centers that we've been discussing lately. Thank you. Thanks.

Nathan? And this is kind of what I was hoping for, for some clarification when I talked a couple weeks ago, that it's giving us an ability to hold future places accountable for not overrunning some things or getting through things under the table and giving them, hey, this is what we want here in this city, but also negotiating to understand that we do need some facilities with a server room that needs to have location for our technology that we have in hospitals, police stations, those things that everyday use. So I do appreciate this middle ground approach that I agreed that it was needed and that helps give me the peace of mind that we follow through and then also that we give the the CIC what it was intended to have, an actual warehouse or places for us to have more jobs, but also holding them accountable so they don't go all AI. So thank you.

Thanks.

Michelle?

So I just want to make sure this doesn't exclude any business that could potentially need a data server room, whatever you want to call it, in the future in Arlington. Be it a hospital, a police station, I don't know, a retail store that might need something, right? So I want to make sure that we're not getting ourselves into a situation where we have legitimate businesses that are here and they're then not able to have their own data center or whatever we want to call it, depending on size, right?

Yeah. So us and our department are not the most technologically advanced people. So we actually spoke with Brian Terry, the IT director as well, and got some information from him. The way that he explained it to us is there's two primary types of the server rooms, the MDF and IDF. So I'm hoping I don't get this backwards, but the MDF is what we have here for the police station, which is the larger server room. That's what you get at your hospitals and your police and those types of things. And then we have an IDF at our community economic development with the airport office, which is a kind of a smaller room for the same type of thing. But yes, it is specifically stated that it can be a mechanical room accessory to an allowed business. And then we very clearly state that it's the larger facilities such as the co-locations and other AI centers and those cloud ones that we are excluding. Great.

Thank you. Any other question? Yvonne?

I'm not gonna keep beating this horse, so I'm gonna move on to a different question. I have mobile food vendors and mobile sales. I'm thinking about them and thinking about some of the complaints that I've heard lately about the pop-up food vendors. Is this in any way When you say mobile food vendors, are you specifically thinking like food trucks? And is that something we should actually have to define? Or I know there's also been complaints about pop-up flower pot plants. And so... Is that an Amy question? Sorry.

No, you're just fine. So the mobile sales is what's going to cover, say, our flower shops and other pop-up shops that happen along the sides of the road. The reason that we're changing to the language of the mobile food vendor is we're having some regulations outside of Title 20 with the... with the just regulating of them outside of normal standard business operating hours. So we're just trying to get a standardized language. So yes, the mobile food vendor is more for the food trucks. The mobile sales is more for our pop-up shops that are such as the flower shops And we will be going back through definitions further in the fall to just add any clarifications to all of these amendments we're doing that might be necessary just to help along too.

I had a question.

Thanks. Back to... back to the data center that's that's why that's why when he said I'm gonna stop I was like I should have raised my hand faster my last I just one small question so what we have here is this very similar to what a lot of the other cities are currently putting in as well for the management of the large-scale data centers?

So around here, everybody's kind of in the same boat where we're just trying to figure out how we're going to do this. Outside of this state, there are other jurisdictions that are doing it this way, but there is no standard right now. But to us, this felt as the easiest, cleanest, clearest way that if someone says... you know, hey, I want to permit a data center here. We just send them this code section. It's plain as day. There's no question as to if it's allowed or not.

Okay, and then is an ordinance is our best route with this. Is that correct, Paul?

Yeah, you're in a sense, you are approving an ordinance that makes those changes to our code. So it is an ordinance that you're approving.

Okay, thank you.

To next week. Yvonne, did you have?

Go ahead, Nathan.

And I was just gonna say for your position, because I was reading this a few weeks ago, that a lot of it comes down to our state doesn't have, our legislation doesn't have an actual roadmap, correct, for data centers. So like most other states, they may have some already talked through in their state legislations, but we actually don't have one. It was approved in the House and then denied out of committee in the Senate during this last legislative session. So that's why we have to do it the way we do it now. We're kind of each section of our state's doing it their own little way because we don't have actual guide rails or guidelines based on the state. So this is where we do have some freedom for the time being for this type of stuff. I appreciate that we actually get a say in having Olympia do it for us because they don't know all of our situation. But that's just a little history lesson, sorry. I just wanted to, but I'm correct, correct?

You're correct. We did not get any state regulations for data centers for this year.

Okay, thank you. Sorry, Yvonne. I'm not. So the state could, well, and probably eventually will, create some legislation around data centers. And so we may have to rework this or do something different in the future. Is that correct? Based on certain bills that may pass, say, two years from now or something.

Yeah, so anytime we're doing code amendments, there's always a chance that it'll have to come back. There are certain code sections that you guys have probably noticed you see every year because the state changes regulations in them quite frequently. So yes, there is the potential that going forward, there could be regulations on these types of things that we have not seen yet.

Thank you.

Okay. Yvonne? Now I have three.

Okay. It was two before, now it's three. Okay, so just to reiterate, this is an ordinance. We're talking about an ordinance specifically. We are asking about things that the community's been coming to and speaking to us about, and they're getting an ordinance that we already had been discussing in the past, but now we're kind of making it stronger than it was before.

Okay.

Now, switching gears. Bringing it back. Does this help us? I don't remember if we actually talked about it in a workshop or if it was offline, but I thought there was a discussion about the pop-up food vendors and the pop-up, like, miscellaneous mobile vendors that are popping up, either they don't have business license or not licensed to the Department of Health or whatever. Is this kind of helping us enforce that they need to get off the sidewalk? Okay, thank you. That's what I couldn't remember, okay.

It's a start, but there's another ordinance coming forward to you for review that will address specifically those pop-up vendors that do not have a business license and how we address that.

Any pop-up vendor, not just specifically food.

Not specifically food, any pop-up vendor.

Second one, yeah, my last one. Oh, no, second one. Any new admin burden? Like how much are we increasing any kind of admin burden work with any of these changes that have come through?

So as far as staff load, there is nothing more. There is some consolidating and process clarifying, so that will help with the process for applications. The admin lot split, it could potentially provide more work, but there's, I mean, we're already going through unit lot subdivisions and other types of subdivisions. It's kind of expected work. And then lot consolidations, we already do. We just didn't call out by name. So that was just a clarification of process. So I don't see any change in impact to staff time or the developer's process with this. That was the one I was gonna ask about the developer too. Are we becoming harder than another city? No, we've been working really hard on clarifying and just making the process as simple as possible while still meeting all required regulations.

And then, last one. Are our permissible uses that we have, do they override anything like in an HOA? Like how we're talking about, like you know you're moving into an HOA so you have to follow their rules and it doesn't matter what the city lets us do it.

So there's separate entities from each other. There are certain state regulations that can override an HOA, but for the most part, when we're regulating things, we're regulating things based on the city, and then the HOA is to regulate their requirements outside of us.

Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? We're done with that one. Okay. Okay. We'll move on to item five, ordinance approving amendment to Arlington Municipal Code chapter 20.110, mixed-use development regulations. Again, I'm Mauricio.

Thank you, Mayor Vanni. So this one's a little simpler. The amendment involves revisions, including changing of permit types from the zoning special use conditionally used to type one, two and three, as you saw with the other code amendments and then thresholds for consistency with the changes in 2016. We also changed the way that we're regulating drive throughs in the mixed use zone. So you'll see in the permissible uses it cross it out. It's not that we're allowing them everywhere. we are going to sell regulations on them it's just going to do it differently so rather than saying drive-throughs aren't allowed in these subsections we're going to say in these areas if you have a drive-through it needs to be back away from the building or from the frontage so it can't be seen from the frontage so basically it allows for the same design when you're driving by that you would have either way but now it allows an additional uh retail use of like those restaurants or other things um that may have not otherwise been able to go in there without impacting what you see from the street or the traffic entering from primary roads. And then there was an update to a couple of the maps for consistency and what we expect to see out there. And then removal and update to definitions with consistency for the chapter. There was a lot of definitions in there that were not used anywhere in the chapter. So we just removed them and left what's actually utilized.

Thank you. Any questions? Yvonne?

We're thinking about the commercial and retail space on the first floor. If we have issues with the space that they're trying to move into and there might be a limitation on parking, do we have a way to like request that exception to remove that commercial requirement and be able to just do all residential? Or is it always just mixed use and it doesn't matter?

So right now, we do require the commercial in the frontage. However, we are going to be looking at our mixed-use regulations more in-depth this coming year and starting to evaluate some more options with those kinds of things.

Yeah.

I feel like there was more questions to that, but I'm going to stop there for now.

Any other questions? None seen. Thank you. Okay, we'll move on to our next item, Airport On-Call Engineering Professional Services Agreement. Marty?

Thank you, Mayor, Councilmembers. This is an engineering professional services agreement on call that we're requesting a mayor to authorize and execute an amendment for the professional services with Dow, our engineering firm. The existing agreement limits the annual contract to $15,000 and staff is requesting an amendment to increase the annual contract amount to $30,000, an additional $15,000, to accommodate the current and anticipated engineering service needs. The increase is necessary to cover additional engineering services that were not anticipated in the original contract amount. Services included elevation of glider, glider operating area to support airport planning and operational safety, which exceeded the airport's routine on-call engineering needs. Increasing the contract amount will allow the airport to cover these unanticipated services and continue receiving timely engineering support. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you. Any questions? Tim?

So with this increase, and I know the money usually comes out of your little pot of money piece, is there anything that you anticipate you're not gonna be able to do because of this increase?

No, this will cover any anticipated changes. This comes from the AlphaWave TaxiWave redo, and we ended up finding that we wanted to move a hold short line back because it interfered with glider operations and overflight. So this allows the engineering firm to go back and say, okay, we've got to do this and this and this, move the signage where the lines go. There's all that kind of work.

No other services will be affected? You won't have to amend any budgeting for any of the other services based off of this alone?

No. No, we've just, we've got, FAA has given us additional money to conduct the work, the change order, but this is just for the engineering portion of that.

Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, none seen. Thank you, Marty. We will go ahead and move right from there to the airport quarterly report.

Okay. So, Air Force has been busy, and kind of cover a couple things here. We talked about the the Master Plan and Obstruction Survey Project, Century West Engineering, the ones that are doing the master planning with us in coordination with airport staff. We started this project in fall of 2024, currently at 77% completion, and after some additional FAA reviews and approvals, we expect to have this project amp up pretty quickly so we're reaching the end of this thing here pretty quickly but we're kind of stagnant waiting for a few uh a few studies to come back and then we'll proceed we have an ev charger installation project that's just about complete So it's gone on forever. And we brought the proposed usage rates and everything to you guys and you approved them. So we're just coordinating final steps. It's powered up and ready to go. So we've got a fee structure now and everything. So it's officially the first. charging station city you know for for short for for uh profit um perimeter fencing project is in stage two uh project scope and design are currently being finalized following review by city staff and tenants we we had a um users group meeting last week, and they brought up some points that we wanted to bring to our engineering firm and see if we could incorporate some changes, possible changes, or if not, why not, from the design that they were working on. So we'll move forward to the bidding phase here. Construction is anticipated to begin later this year. Then again, the taxiway alpha milling and overlay project. This construction phase of the alpha taxiway mill and overlay project was completed in 2025. Airport staff are currently finalizing a change order. the portion i mentioned earlier to relocate taxiway alpha one to holding a position in response to tenant input in faa recommendations this additional work is anticipated to occur this summer it's not going to be a big deal but there are going to be a couple runway closures associated with it The airport has recently replaced its old FOD. That was called a FOD boss. This is called the Commander, FOD Commander. FOD is Foreign Object Debris. I think a couple of you guys were on the FOD walk with us. We're in the process of purchasing the FOD Commander. I think, Josh, has it arrived? Yeah, okay, it arrived to M&O. And it's a contraption that you drag behind a pickup truck and it picks up FOD. Different process than like a sweeper, and I'll get to that here. So we're excited about having a new one. The last one we had lasted about six or seven years, way, way past its expected life expectancy. The Community Aviation Revitalization Board, or CARB, electric sweeper loan, the airport staff applied for and were awarded a CARB loan for the purchase of an electric airport sweeper in the amount of $353,242. The CARB loan program is a financing tool that helps public use airports and fund eligible capital projects and equipment purchases. This sweeper's a little smaller. It allows us to get into tight confines. We still use the city sweeper, but when you use a sweeper on an airport, you have to go from metal brushes to poly brushes. There's an element of having to take all these things apart and replace the brushes just for the use at the airport. So having a sweeper of our own to be able to get out there and clean up spots right away or on a regular part of the maintenance is going to be really helpful. And it's electric, so it kind of meets our whole theme of trying to incorporate electric vehicles whenever possible. Okay. Runway 1129, our legacy determination, we've recently, well, fairly recently, we were informed that 1129, it's the crossing runway, not the main runway, would be eligible for a legacy determination. And what that means is in the last few years, the airport, we've had to pay for any maintenance or any work done for that. We don't get any FAA grant money for that. So deeming it a legacy runway, we're gonna be able to get grant money to maintain that so it won't cost, the amount of money that it costs to resurface a runway is ridiculous. And then we can clean up some parallel runway pieces of asphalt that are there that we want to turn back into grass for drainage and some other stuff. So that's, we're working also with our lighting supplier to go LED runway lights and taxiway lights in those areas as well. And they are solar powered. and so there's no putting wire in the ground and they're all operated by radio so essentially we'll have an all led field which we currently do and and it's low usage and then two runways that can be lit so night operations for the crosswind runway which creates a safer environment WSDOT, SR 531, 172nd widening project. Staff are working with WSDOT and the FAA on the project. The airport will be losing approximately three acres of land on the south side of 172nd. That's the turf farm area. However, WSDOT will be reimbursing the airport with a fair market value payment of that property. We're in the process of determining what that is now. The assessment for the purchased land was vetted by a third-party company. Additionally, the project will necessitate an upgrade to the approach lighting system. It's called a MALS system. The MALS upgrade will be funded by WSDOT. This portion of the project is scheduled to start June 15, 2026, and be completed by September 17, 2026. That's just the lighting. That is not the widening of the road. But that portion will be done. Additionally, we're in the middle of our annual hangar clean-out event, or I like to call it the garbage reallocation program, because the stuff goes into the dumpsters and guys start pulling it out and moving it around. But we do get dumpsters that are full, and so that helps us clean out. The hangers get debris out, stuff that doesn't need to be in there. We are in the process of always inspecting hangers, so we come across stuff. So we like to put that program right about the time that we're doing a bunch of hangers, so there's an incentive to get rid of the stuff and the junk that they've got in their hangers that can cause fire and any number of things. And that's going through the 14th. And then semi-lastly, the staff is saying goodbye to Jacob. He's been our intern for the last two years, and we're proud to say that he's landed a job at Payne Field. It's a highly coveted job for him, and it'll be closer for where he lives and that sort of thing. So sad to see him go, but he's landing on his feet, so that's great. We also want to introduce, we have a new operations specialist. His name is Connor Bear. He's a pilot. He brings 10 years of aviation experience to the airport team, including experience managing a fixed-base operator or operation or FBO. He knows about aircraft maintenance, fueling operations and training facilities. Neat guy. We've known him. He's been on working on the airfield for a number of years and he just he fits in famously and He's just learning some of the operational ropes, but he's he's picked it up really fast. So Yeah, any comments or questions on any of the things I talked about any questions Let's see.

Thank you Marty. Thank you Okay, we'll move on to our next I have maintenance and operations quarterly report Josh

Good evening, Council and Mayor. I'll go over this real quickly. We have staffing first on a quarterly report. We have all 15 full-time staff currently unfilled. We have all 10 seasonal positions have been also unfilled, which is great. this time of year. In March, we had one staff member obtain their CDL, which was a month-long school the city paid for, but now they're gonna work it back for so many years with the contract, which is great. In April, we have one staff member complete their new certification we have for our team, which is the Aquatics Facility Operator Certification for Washington State, and that helps us greatly with our splash pad. We've been utilizing that already and it's been a great help, actually helping with our water sampling and all that stuff with splash pad. And April, we also had one more staff member complete their backflow state certification. Department of Corrections crews, they've been really reliable last couple months. Actually, we've been picking up extra crews, and we've recently just secured roughly six more teams during the month of June, which will help with our 4th of July preparations for all the parks. For streets, a lot of potholes in March. We also finished in the spring our street sign cleaning along with some sidewalk repairs. In March, we had that big windstorm and rainstorm. A couple trees fall down in the parks and also across the roadways. In April we had a semi-annual maintenance of the alleyways and staff also did a annual street equipment trailer training and maintenance. We found a lot of discrepancies, which was nice. Always good to catch them early instead of finding problems later. So we did maintenance in all our trailers, which is actually really nice to do because it's been a while in a few of them, so good. and facilities and staff removed the CD filing cabinet, which is a large project, and they gained more square footage in their back room there. And then in May, we did our quarterly HVAC maintenance, and in June, we had a large repair we just completed for a refrigerant leak in the police department. Parks. We had recently done, we worked with a contractor to have the gazebo resurfaced. We went with a new product that was correct to where it's water-based, where we should have to clean it once a year and it should be good for 30 years, which would be great. And then in April, all the splash pad preparation goes into that, which is a lot of work for our team. um and then in may we were actually gifted two large donations of flowers from one of the local food banks salt the earth and we planted all those flowers and irrigated places in the parks throughout the city so it looks great and also we have one of our staff members who's actually resurfacing the hallow park sign as you can see in there so that'll be going up before fourth of july so it look brand new and he's done So this is in June, that's all the areas we're working on before the July 4th events. And then the airport, we had staff completed or working with, as Marty said, the EV charging station, getting auto prepared. And in May, we also had an aircraft incident. So following the incident, it was a good time for us to do an annual training and also utilize the new tug, get all our staff trained up for next time we have an incident, we're ready to go. So it's good. And then for citizen requests, pretty consistent. We've been tracking them through the iWorks program. We've been typical one to three days to respond to any of them. Actually we're pretty currently up to speed on those. So far we have 59 as of end of May. Typically we'll get a lot more during the summer months for parks and stuff, but we're still on track. Challenges we've been having. As other departments have expressed, our online billing and scheduling program we've been using since January has not been ideal, so we're looking at other new programs. This is one of the challenges we've been having. We're in communication with all the ball field leagues very closely, getting a lot of feedback, and we'll be exploring some new companies with that. Staffing to meet the demand. We have two staff out currently, or one out and another one going out in a week. for a paternity leave. They've been out for six months, or a total of six months, and the other one for three months. So it does put challenges on our team with staff out on paternity leave. One of the other things is with the budget restraints from the economy, we've been trying to limit our overtime. So with that, we're doing a lot more shift changes, which does put a demand on our team for a lot more shift changes. So during the week, we do have less staff to complete some of the larger programs and projects. But it will be helping with our budget and keeping within the numbers. That's all I have. Thank you. Any questions?

I was just going to say, I saw the flowers all along the trail. It was just beautiful. I was like, oh, look, these are pretty. So that was awesome to see.

Thank you. I'll pass it along. Tim?

Yeah, I was going to say, again, kudos on getting ready for the splash pad. Being on the Snohomish Board of Health, when I did my in-brief, they brought up the splash pad and how well that was run, and they really appreciated working with the team on getting it done. But they were very clear on they were the ones that helped certify it. So, you know, but I know your team does a lot of the heavy work to make sure that it's safe for our community. So, again, just appreciate the hard work that your team does. to keep those systems and services up.

Thank you.

Michelle.

It's probably great for you and for your team to see the list of all the things that you do because until you have it kind of right in front of you, you just do things as needed on a day-to-day basis. And I love seeing all the things that you do for the city. So thank you very much.

Thank you. We have actually a large whiteboard that we project out pretty much everything for our entire year. So we try to stay true to that, but yeah.

Yeah, we saw that on a tour we went on, how strategic you are about everything. So thank you so much.

Yeah, and I'd just like to echo everybody's comments about thank the entire crew. They do a great job out there. Appreciate everything they do.

Thank you. Pass on.

Okay. Thank you, Josh. Paul, do you have anything reported on tonight?

I don't think we have anything else tonight. Okay.

I just want to thank everybody for filling in last week in the absence of most of the council. But no, I appreciate it. I watched it online. It looked like you guys did an outstanding job. Any comments or reports from council members? Nathan?

I just want to say I was very stoked to see that people, even though on Saturday it was a disastrous, stormy day, people did come downtown to go to our farmer's market because the farmer's market is something that when I was little didn't always exist. see stability, and so it's been nice to see our local agritourism exploding based on having the Chamber as well as DABA, Downtown Arlington Business Association, work together to get small farmers an ability to make some money and keep themselves afloat. It really thrived even during COVID. It was like, it shot off like skyrocketed. So, and it's been great ever since. I was there at the tail end of the farmer's market when everybody was looking like they were just drenched. But hey, people came. I even listened to a brass band that was playing on the stage. And I went to the innovation center and saw a pop-up market there. But just, knowing that our city does allow for small businesses or people who may have a home business, an ability to be out there and in the public, unlike in years prior. So I just wanted to give that a little shout out that the innovation center in town does it's an old gas station but it does have great potential for small business if you're ever looking for that so i just appreciate all the the small town feel of farmers and and home uh goods that we do see you and hear you and i enjoy getting to know you so thank you alicia

I was just going to say that Friday night we had the Senior Parade, and that was amazing. And I'm going to give four specific shout-outs to M&O because they were awesome. One, Josh, first off. And then Matt, Michael, Zach, and Elizabeth. They were all incredible, and they pitched in, and it was a great turnout. And then Youth Council had bands before and after, and it was amazing. So it was a great night. And again, weather, you never know what it's going to be like. So it was great. Yeah, it was great.

Everybody was, what's it gonna do? Yeah, no, exactly. Okay, any others? Tim?

Yeah, I was just gonna say, I love our community so much, and I got the opportunity last night to see six men become Eagle Scouts for Troop 92 and that Eagle Court of Honor was well done and the fact that these milestones and these services, service organizations are all about helping build our citizens and the trust that we have. It's great to see these men meet this milestone and I think it was an awesome event. So again, appreciate all of our service organizations and definitely appreciate them inviting us and letting us see what they do.

Yeah, no, it's amazing to think that one of our small Boy Scout troops here in Arlington has six people at one time completing the Eagle Scout ranking. That's, I remember when I went through the program, it was just, you'd have one here and you might go three or four years later and you might get another one. And just to have six of them was just really impressive. Any others? Okay, none seen. Okay, I think at this point we'll move on to the public comment portion. Please limit your comments to three minutes. State your name and address. Rob, could you put the mic at the podium and just have them, have you all just go up to the podium and make sure it's turned on too, Rob. We'll start with Julie Winchell.

Hi, my name is Julie Winchell. I live at 22920 19th Avenue, Northeast Arlington. And I'm really excited about this ordinance that you're considering about data centers. Thank you so much for listening to the people of Arlington and their concerns. I'm curious how much power is consumed by an IDF and an MDF. I could ask my husband when I go home because he's an IT guy. But I'm curious if the ordinance limits the power consumption on those at all. or if they start as an IDF and MDF, they just continue to be within the ordinance. Also, does this new ordinance apply to Project Cascade, or would Amazon not have to abide by the new ordinance due to their vesting rights? I'm hearing about that in Seattle, that there's a moratorium that was passed, but at least one data center's gonna skirt underneath that and still be allowed to be built, so that's a question I have. And then I'm still curious about the 9.5 megawatts of power for the Amazon operations facility and how that much power could be used. And one theory is it could be a full-on robotics distribution center, which wouldn't add a lot of jobs to the Arlington community. And then I did some research, too. In the CIC, there's a tax exemption policy that if a company employs 25 people and pays them only $18 an hour, according to your website, that they are property tax exempt for a full 10 years. And I looked at the North Point parcel that's in Arlington that is part of Project Cascade, and they're paying $140,000 right now. But once a building's on it, I'm sure they'll pay a lot more than that. And I'm just thinking about all the property tax, the taxing districts that are going to lose out, like the school districts and the state schools and the hospital and the library and the city of Arlington. So that's a sweet tax break. And then I have one other question, and that's about North Point owns another 300 acres in the CIC. And I'm curious what the zoning laws say, if there's anything that would prevent a future occupant of North Point properties or any property in the CIC from being able to build an electric power plant to generate power on their own that the PUD might not be willing to grant them. So those are my questions, thanks.

Thank you. Okay, our next speaker, Craig McDonald. Please wait till you come up to the microphone, please.

My questions are gonna seem kind of trivial because we all are talking about data centers. But I've been here for a couple of years now. My grandparents right up here on Fifth Street, 319 East Fifth Street. My name is Craig McDonald. I'm wondering about noise. We got cars driving up and down Fifth Street. It sounds like you should be at the racetrack. And I don't understand. I've made several calls to the city and nothing seems to be happening. There's a bigger problem. As a taxpayer, landowner there, I'm wondering what happens when my next-door neighbor starts getting belligerent and fires up his industrial-level air compressor, which is right on the property line, and he does it whenever I'm there. So I've made calls to the city. The latest I got from an officer on the phone was, what do you want me to do about it? She kept saying, what do you want me to do about it? And I'm looking for help. And then most recently, just three, four weeks ago, a neighbor across the street hired a contractor to come in and build a fence. And of course, the fence had concrete pilings. And he took his leftover concrete slurry and dumped it in our hedge. And then it poured out into the city sidewalk. And now I got a mess because concrete slurry stains an old sidewalk. The sidewalk's been there for 60, 70 years. Now there's a big white stains there. So again, I call the city and the city then called the contractor because he's out of Camino Island. He lives in Camino Island, runs a small business out of there. And the contractor simply told this officer on the phone, I didn't do it. And you know, I have the evidence and pictures. It happened. And I'm just wondering, my question is a general question. What do I do as a homeowner, a taxpayer, a resident living here in this cool little town? What do I do when these offenses occur and I can't get my city to help me? And the person on the phone kept saying, what do you want me to do about it, about the air compressor next door, which just fires up. And our art studio is useless at that point because it's so loud. I made recordings. I have all the documentation. I'm wondering, you know, when she says, what do you want me to do about it, I'm wondering, well, why am I? Why are you asking me that question? So yeah, I wanna know, is the city gonna help us on this, or am I on my own? Thank you.

Thank you.

With respect.

Okay, our next speaker, is it Duane? Duane. Duane? Kinney?

I wish I had six minutes or nine, but I have three. Okay, so I'm Dawn Kinney, a 30-year resident of Smoky Point Arlington area. And by the way, I didn't think your comments were trivial at all. And I'm gonna tie into what you just said a little bit. Even though, and thank you for announcing and thank you for the ordinance and Mayor Vanni, thank you for proclaiming this is not a data center. I'm still concerned that it's a large load building with equivalent to what a medium-sized data center would emit. And since the last council meeting a couple of weeks back, many Arlington citizens, including the people I am meeting with on a regular basis, we've learned a great deal About large load warehouses and data centers found out data centers have been here since 1940s, which gets into talking about you need data centers for hospitals and schools and things like that. So I'm talking about the large load ones and I'm hearing rumor through the PUD meetings that they're planning on four more of these size data centers that are 9500 megawatt 44,000 gallons of water. So, and then because the Project Roxy, which is the present Amazon building, had an NDA, and the present Project Cascade has an NDA, I'm asking for public records. I've submitted two public records requests. I don't even know if it's going to cost me a ton of money. The reason is Our group, thankfully, we talked to Amy. She's really great talking to us at a council meeting. We went to a planning commission meeting, but you only could talk about what's on the agenda. I get that. Everybody has limited time. A lot of people are volunteers, planning commission people. We met wonderful people. They're volunteer. So I'm asking, are there any permits, decisions, or approvals required before Project Cascade moves forward? What permits, decisions, or approvals are required for Project Cascade to move forward? Have any permit applications been filed by a developer for Project Cascade? Have any decisions, approvals, or permits for Project Cascade been issued by the City of Arlington? And I just want to know those questions as a citizen living up the hill with a well from this cascade industrial zone. I was a CTE teacher in Marysville. I promoted this. Hey, it's going to be warehouses and buildings and businesses and jobs for all you career technical ed people. And now I'm concerned, as was brought up, it might be a robotics center with 20, 30 jobs for high tech people coming in from California, God knows where. There aren't local jobs if those are the kind of buildings that we're allowing in here. And I want to volunteer, be positive. Can I volunteer?

It's time. Three minutes, thank you.

I do want to volunteer. I want citizen meetings.

Thank you.

Smokey Point Church.

Thank you. Okay, our next speaker, Jim Hafener.

Okay, so I handed out something that I was able, took me an hour to figure out how to print it off. It talks about artificial intelligence and I have copies for everybody that's interested, all the council people have one. But first off, I wanna say thank you and thank you for talking about the city and what you're doing here with the airport and with the people, and it's beautiful. I love it. Like the gentleman said, it's, how do you not love Arlington? So, I try not to be cynical. This is a letter from Josh Hawley, a Republican senator from Missouri. And I just, when I read this, and I just read, I don't read a lot, but everything, is intertwined. He's talking about essentially what do we need more AI for? I would really like it if everybody read this letter because he speaks to some things. He speaks to the great moral covenant that binds us together as a nation. I think Abraham Lincoln was talking about the same thing when he talked about the better angels of our nature and the mystic chords of memory. Does anybody know about that? Martin Luther King talked about the color of skin, content of character. He's talking about this moral commitment that we have as communities and families that I don't have the same God he does. I don't want him to assign me a God. But what he's talking about here is the nature of what our country is and what our community is. And if we get back to it, there isn't a day goes by that I'm not grateful for the, my parents and my grandparents and what they did. And we're forgetting that. And it's coming from the top. I don't want it to be a secret, but I'm going to leave these on the back. It's a good, and it's got the references and everything. It's not fake news. I still believe it's the Gulf of Mexico.

Thank you. Thank you. Is there anyone else in the public that would like to speak at this moment that didn't sign up?

Me?

then the scene okay we'll move on to review for the consent agenda i'm just thinking i was just thinking three four five and six for the consent just put the other two on there three three six yep Okay, then we'll find some more for you. Okay, looks like we are done then.

Move to adjourn. Second. Question.

All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? We are adjourned. Thank you. Thank you, everyone.