City Council - workshop

the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay, I'll do the roll call. Rob Toyer.

Here.

Alicia Novak. Here. Michelle Blank.

Here.

Tim Abrahamson. Present. Nathan Simp. Here. Yvonne Gallardo-Van Ornam. Here. Heather is excused.

Mayor Ranney, I move for approval of the agenda. Second.

Question? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? None heard. Motion carries. Okay, we'll start our workshop tonight with the first item, the interlocal agreement for Snohomish Regional Drug Task Force for 2026. Jonathan.

Good evening, Mayor, Council. We are looking at a renewal of our interlocal agreement with the Snohomish Regional Drug Task Force. This is something that's kind of a housekeeping item. It's a longstanding agreement we've had with the task force. If anyone is not familiar with the task force, the task force targets the higher level kind of dealers that operate within the area. Not that we would like to think about it, but Arlington is an area that does have four highways and a larger municipal airport. So we are an area that is susceptible to narcotics because just of the makeup of our city, just the northwest area in general is designated as a high narcotics area. We are considered a HIDA, which is a high region, high intensity drug trafficking area. There's a dozen or so of these designated areas throughout the country and the northwest is one of those areas. We tend to be an area that pushes firearms and money up north and drugs and people tend to go down south and Arlington happens to be just right on the I-5 corridor and with I-5 and 9, Arlington tends to be kind of one of those busy areas. So the amount of money that we pay into it, we do have pretty decent representation for what we do pay. And again, this is just one of those things. We do get federal representation on that task force. We also have local representation. Washington does have some of the more lax drug laws in the country, so it is nice to have any federal representation when we can. It also is a training ground for local agents, local law enforcement. We have had representation on the task force in the past. We do not currently have direct law enforcement from our agency on the task force, but it is nice to have that local county representation on that task force. But I'll answer any questions if you'd like.

Any questions? Tim?

Yeah, reading the interlocal agreement, Chief, are we also represented on the board as a contributor, or are we just a participating agency?

We're currently just a participant on that. We have representation in a roundabout way through the Snohomish County Chiefs and Sheriffs Association, so we can attend the board meetings. We have influence through that. we can attend any of the meetings we want, and we have some influence there, but we're not directly involved.

Thank you. Great, thank you. Any other questions? Okay, none seen. Okay, we'll move on to our next item, item two, the interlocal agreement for allied law enforcement response team alert for 2026 renewal. Again, Jonathan.

Again, this is something we've been a long-standing participant in. This is something that if you are not familiar with, this is what you would see as what you might know as a response to civil disturbance unit. Not as widely known prior to what you might, well, I look around this room and There's probably only a few of us that are maybe old enough to even know what this would be. I first became familiar with this in WTO. That was my first experience. I was a member of National Guard and we were actually activated to respond to WTO. But since that time, we've unfortunately had more and more activations for civil disturbance. But prior to that, it was... You'd have to probably go back to the 60s and to see some of that response. We had a big quiet period, but more recently they they have had more activations. These are those type of things where you have large gatherings of people and there needs to be some kind of response with FIFA in town. You'll see this unit on standby. This is that kind of in between response in between a. something less than a SWAT team, but more of large gatherings of people. It's different than a SWAT team. The tactics are a little bit different. but it is something that you see with large protests, large gatherings of people. The price for us is generally mostly involved with equipping our people, paying the overtime for training, and then if there is training costs, then the agencies that participate share that cost of whatever that training equipment is. It's usually pretty minimal. That's why there's not an exact dollar amount involved because it could change. It might be low one year. It might be a little bit more in another year. But the cost is minimal. Once you buy that equipment and invest in it, we can usually transfer that to officers as we rotate people through. And that training cost is usually pretty minimal. But I'll answer any questions that we have.

Any questions?

on here it says that it just automatically gets extended why would what would be a cause to terminate and then is that a board comp a council vote to terminate or is it just something that you deem that like it's not working for us and we're going to terminate it um we we typically extend it um

kind of like it's a short-term extension on this. We could extend if we don't want to participate. It is nice to have it as an option for us. If we don't participate, then if we had a need, we're not going to be able to call it in as a resource. Thankfully, it's not something that we typically would have to call, knock on wood. However, there have been a few times where we've had to have them on standby. But again, knock on wood, it's been very very few times that we've had to have something like that. But it would be something that we would run through the council and through the council and mayor. It's not something that I would be comfortable ending on my own. Tim?

Yeah, quick question. Looking at the signature blocks, I noticed that most of these signature blocks are either the sheriff or chief, except for ours shows Mayor Vanney. Is there a reason?

I'm glad you noticed that. I recently actually had that updated because of some interpretation of law and changes to the RCW. Recently, ILAs were interpreted and changed some changes in the law to actually cover that exact topic. In the past, ILAs could be signed by a designee or a representative for the city, but some case law had changed that to unless the council... past a ordinance or a law giving that authority to the head of a department or to the chief of police, then it has to go through the governing body themselves. So I think that some of those names on there are going to run into some problems down the road unless they their councils go through and pass some ordinance or change some laws. So the original version of this did have my name on there, and I specifically went back and asked that that be updated because I'm not familiar with an ordinance here in our city that gives me that authority. In the past, I did have that authority, but under some recent law, that has changed.

Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, Nancine, thank you. Okay, we'll move on to the third item, the acceptance of Washington State Office of Public Defense, OPD, fiscal year 27, Simple Possession Advocacy and Representation Program, SPAR grant. Jonathan.

Again, thank you, Mayor and Council. This is something that is new for us, that has been around for a couple years, but it is a grant that we had applied for that is a cumbersome process to get approved for. It is labor-intensive and paperwork in need, but with our defense costs continuing to rise, with the number of arrests we've made in this particular area and what changes in in the law regarding substance use and with the decriminalization of it and the recriminalization of it at a much lesser offense and with so So much process in this area and with our costs so much in this last year. We made the effort to apply the state had approved a a sum of money that anyone could apply for. We did put in for a grant, and I have to give credit to our front office, Jen Bilo, and particularly Terry Joe. Myself, we all had some part in the application process. It was a large application and we all had input, but in fairness, Terry Joe had the biggest portion of that application process we were approved and To our surprise we actually were approved for a larger sum than we didn't know what we would get but you've probably seen what we spend in public defense and so We didn't know what we would get but we were actually approved for more than more than we actually expected and so with that we were actually given the opportunity to put in for reimbursement for up to $49,000. And so it's nothing to sneeze at. So if we would like to accept it through the next several months, we can work with our public defender's office and submit for reimbursement up to $49,000 if we're willing to fill out the paperwork to do so. So they were actually the Office of Public Defense was impressed with our application, actually talked to them on the phone. They had some questions, and at first I thought, well, why are you asking so many questions? And it turned out they're like, oh, no, we're happy. We're happy that we'd like to see more cities put in for this. They were excited that we were offering to offer applications.

more defense to people that are arrested for this type of crime so i took it the wrong way they wanted to give away more of this money so thank you any questions yvonne um i was just wondering um any new admin burden or software record retention costs that are going to be associated with this that you're going to need help with later it's it's really just a matter of working with the public defender

The records and then submitting it to the Office of Public Defense. So there is a little bit of admin burden on us, but it's spend the money, spend the admin time to get the money back or just spend the money. So it's... Six month half a dozen the other Spend money to make money. I guess we're losing money no matter what some of it back Tim did you have a question?

No, that was my question as well Just wanted to make sure that we had all the systems in place so that any requirements the grant had You guys are able to get those reports to them. So we we can meet all the requirements.

Yeah, we'll do our best some some are definitely not worth it I think this is This is not overly burdensome. I think it's not an entire wash. There are some others that cost more than we make.

Yvonne?

I just want to make another comment or a comment on that. I just thank you for even applying and putting the work in. Some of these grants are just so hard and it sounds like there was a lot of hours put into this, but thank you for at least helping us. Credit to Jen and Terry.

Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, none seen. Thank you, Chief. All right, thank you. Okay, we'll move on to item number four, the Medallion Inn and Suites Right-of-Way Dedication of Real Property for Public Right-of-Way of Purpose, THAAD.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. This is a pretty straightforward right-of-way dedication. Whenever a parcel goes through land division, whether it be a subdivision plat or, in this case, a binding site plan for a commercial property, one of the requirements is that they dedicate the right-of-way that we would need for future improvements. And that little piece of the Medallion Inn property only had a 30-foot wide right-of-way measured from the center line. And our current standard for Smoky Point Boulevard is a 50 foot right of way. So they'll dedicate that 20 feet to us. So then whenever there's either the city comes through and does a street widening project or if the developer at the medallion and say the adjacent properties wanted to do some kind of joint property, they would have the right of way to put in the required frontage improvements.

Any questions? Okay, none seen, thank you, Thad. Okay, we'll move on to item five, the May 2026 financial report, Shelby.

Good evening. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Members. So I gave you quite a packet this time, but I promise we'll just go over some high-level stuff in it. So we'll start with sales tax. This is all through May. So for sales tax year today through May, we're reflecting an 8% increase compared to 2025. But note that this does fall short of our budgeted target of 12%. So we're still playing a catch-up game. When we built the 25-26 budget for all of our different revenue sources, but especially for sales tax, we thought that sales tax would be up higher than it has been in 2025 and in 2026. So we're still playing that catch-up game. And so, you know, the 4% difference there between the 8% that we're realizing right now and the 12% that we need to get to. So why this is something we want to make a note of is that sales tax is our largest generator of the general funds budget, so the largest revenue source. And so this is why we talk about it every month. So I'm going to go over some of the different categories in sales tax and talk about what we're experiencing. The first category is retail, which is always the biggest portion. For May, it represents 40% of May sales tax revenue. We're experiencing a 16% decrease from 2025 in retail now. Watching that carefully because we need the retail sales tax to go up. Next is services, which accounts for 23% of May's total, and this is experiencing a 17% increase compared to May of 2025. And then the last category, or there's many categories, but the biggest category is construction, which contributes 18% of May's total. And this is experiencing a 50% increase compared to May of 2025. Note that with construction sales tax, that could be one big project that really increases it for the month. But then also construction sales tax is restricted to only use for one-time things. We move that to our capital funding. And so it's not something that we can depend on. And then even though services and construction are showing growth, we're worried about the retail category since it's the main driver of this revenue. And this growth is not supporting our general fund's ability essentially to support all of our operations. Expenses are still increasing, inflation is up, expenses are rising, and our revenues, especially in this category, are not supporting the same amount of increase that our expenses are. So we'll talk about that. It's kind of the theme of all the items we'll talk about tonight. Next biggest category is property tax revenue. And it's mostly important in May and October because that's when we receive our property tax revenues. Most property owners only, you know, they could make a one-time payment, but most like to make twice a year. And those we collect in May and October. So, so far we've received about 55% of our budget, which is great on those two payments, but we need to bring in this for cash flow for the remaining months. So we receive it in May and then we got to go through the summer months to get by until October when we get our next payment. And so, so far for property tax, we are doing okay compared to our budget. We're right in line with where we had thought. And property tax revenue is very consistent. It's predictable. We know going into it based on what the assessor had said that the property tax values will be. And it's very in line with our projections for the year every year. One thing to note here is that you'll see in the chart that I provided you or the graph there, the top line is 2026. So it is higher than the last few years there that we're showing. And bank capacity was used in 2024. And so that's why you see a big drastic increase compared to 2023. And I think you were maybe going to talk a little bit about that, Paul, about bank capacity and why that was higher.

Yeah, as I wanted to mention, because we do have some new council members on, so council elected to take some of our bank capacity in 2023 for 24 and beyond for a specific purpose. In the council retreat, we laid out a plan to, which was to Excuse me, let me back up. In the plan was to create a new sergeant's position in the police department and then backfill that patrol position. And that was accomplished in 2024. We had to stagger the new hires out so that we would have enough money to do it. We couldn't enact the bank capacity and then do everything at once because we wouldn't have enough funds. So the remainder of the changes were scheduled to happen this year in 2026, and that was to add one more new police officer, a new executive assistant in the police department, and an M&O maintenance worker. We haven't, we postponed those new hires in 2026 because of our revenue shortfalls. So although we, you know, I just wanted to mention it because in my mind, before we're back to 100%, we need to go back and do what we said we were gonna do, which was fill those positions. So down the road as revenues improve and our accounts get better balanced, Then I'll be talking to council about reinstating those positions and council will have to make that decision whether we want to do that or not. But I just wanted to put that out there because I don't think everybody was part of that discussion in 23 when we had that.

So I feel like that's another part of this catch-up game, right? That we're trying to get to something that we haven't been able to achieve yet. And so, but anyway, so yeah, so property taxes, we are experiencing a 4%, or sorry, a 3.4% increase compared to 2025, but we budget for a 4% increase. So we're right in line there. We're really close to, and we should meet our target budget by the end of the year in this category. But like Paul was saying, we still have that catch-up game on those positions, and if those priorities are still what we want to do, then we'll have to think about that in the future once this rebounds. And then some of our other general fund revenues are experiencing a decline too, which... You know, we don't have a crystal ball to figure out what's going to happen with the economy, but it might be a sign of something to come. So for the first time in the last couple of years, gambling tax, marijuana excise tax, and liquor excise tax revenues are down. And so they're down, you know, various different sources there, but approximately 5% on each of those categories. And that could be a sign that's usually... you know, a sign of the economy to come because it's one of the last things that, you know, once things get tight, you might not spend on those extra things in your life. And so, anyway, just a note there that that could be something to experience in the rest of the year and in the years to come. And then this piece that I've added here to kind of show you full picture is the general fund ending fund balance to date. So every month when we close our month, we get to see what our ending fund balance would be. Yes, it's not an exact science because we're not at the end of the year and we haven't had all of our revenues come in and all of our expenses come in. But it's a good little check to see where we are for the year and if everything's going to be imbalanced or if we're going to need to take from our fund balance by the time, you know, year end comes. And so this is measured if our revenues are higher than our expenses at the end of that month, then we're good. We've, you know, we would add to fund balance if it was at the end of the year. But if it's the opposite and our expenses are higher, then we'd actually be taking from that fund balance. And so you can see that chart there. This also comes in line with our 10-year projections that we do because we want to see where do we think we're going to end at the end of the year and are we going to have to draw from that fund balance? This is our savings account, right? And so we are continuing to meet our two-month operating reserve requirement, which is kind of the bare minimum to keep operations going in the event of an emergency. So keep in mind that's that bottom line there on the chart, and so we do have wiggle room there. But you can see over this five-year period, our fund balance is declining. It's on a downward trend. We, at this point, would be somewhere around 8.5 million, but it was up to almost 12 million back in 2022. And then we had a, you know, quite a dip in 2025. It looks like it's rebounding a little bit. But we identified in the 10-year projections that we would continue to need to draw from fund balance and eventually would get to a position where it wouldn't be sustainable anymore. And so we've reduced expenses and you can see the rebound between 2025 and where we stand right now, currently in 2026, is that those expense reductions are working and it's starting to level out and it's in a upward trend now. But we need to keep that, we need to sustain that throughout the year and then continue to sustain that in future years so that we don't get down in fund balance where it's not sustainable. Next portion, which makes up probably 100 of the pages in the packet, is our unaudited financial statements. So this is part of our work and our internal control process to show the governing board that we finished our financial statement, we submitted them to the state auditor's office, and so you can see there if there's any We'll be happy to address them. And then next starts that process where next we will be audited. And so here in the next couple of months they'll come and audit those statements and then we'll get final published statements again for you hopefully in the next few months. But you never know how it goes. And then the last piece is I'm giving you information from the June, sorry, the state's June economic and revenue update. So this is just insight into the economy and figured it might be a good time to highlight some of those. And so overall, you can see the different, listed a bunch of different categories here, but inflation is rising. Our CPIU for Seattle is, for April 2026, is 4.9% of an increase and it was only 1.7% increase in April of 2025. So big jump there year over year. The job, Washington's job growth is weaker than expected. Revenue collections at the state are down one to three percent depending on different categories and so that ends up a lot of our revenue collections come either from the state or from the county and so that can show you the trends there and then the housing market construction has increased by four point six percent which is great and existing home sales are also up by three percent. And car and truck sales have increased for the third consecutive month, which is great. And auto RV sales increased by just a small percentage.

Thank you. Any questions? Michelle?

Do you think, like going back to the general fund ending balance, so that's like May, so you think it'll just continue in your...

educated experience do you think it'll get um maybe to a much better place or do you think we'll just be status quo yeah it's hard because um the first couple months of the year you don't see a lot of activity with a lot of our revenue sources and so i know i report to you out every month but there's not a lot of activity actually um where we will see the most of our enlightening figures i guess would be for june um because we'll have six months in and really get to I know it's only, well, technically we're in June right now, but only a month away from this May report. But it's hard with certain revenue sources like property taxes only come in twice a year. Some of the other ones only come in quarterly. And so we haven't seen enough of a trend to really, you know, make real informed decisions. But we will see more in the June report, which is great. But it's just alarming with most of the revenue sources. It's that they're just not increasing by what we thought they were going to because the budget was And two years ago was a long time ago, and we thought that maybe the economy would be better by now, and it just hasn't been for us. So, yeah.

So I know you and Paul worked with different departments about cutting expenses. I mean, that's still happening. Do you think you might need to go back and ask for more cuts or not?

That's what we're kind of waiting to see what June looks like. So you're just waiting for June? The departments are implementing that.

Yeah.

the cuts and as um you know shelby pointed out it's it's working for this year but if you remember from the retreat we projected you know expenses and and uh revenue trends based on what we were seeing this year you know project them for next year and we we were 2.1 million um you know to the bad side and so that's where we're making you know we're working on cuts for next year that make up that like we talked about the retreat uh... you know we can split the difference we need to make up a million dollars in general fund expenses potentially we could take a million out of construction sales tax as a one-time use to help with our operating expenses. So we're moving forward still with that in mind. It's good and bad, that margin between our two-month mandatory reserve and where we're at in ending fund balance, we build that up in good times, and we had really good times for a lot of years. And so that chart starts at $12 million ending fund balance. That's very, very generous for a city this size. but that eight to 10 million is really a comfortable spot because we want to have enough money in that margin to be able to do what we're doing. We have to realize that we have a problem and then make incremental adjustments to correct it. And so this is a fairly large organization to change directions in a timely manner. So that's what that kind of buffer, because we don't want to get into that two month reserve if we don't have to. So that's kind of the buffer that we keep. And so we watch that really closely. Thank you.

Yeah, it's really delicate with the timing because you don't want it to get down too low because it will take years to get it back to a sustainable level. But the same thing goes with cutting expenses. You can't do it just immediately. If it was that easy, we would have done it probably a long time ago type of thing. And so, yeah, so it's just a delicate balance between those all the time. And so really looking out to the future and trying to decide when is a good time to make those reductions and things. So we did that, but it just takes time.

Good, thank you. Tim, did you have a question? No? Yvonne?

I was just kind of curious. Have we seen or heard or do we even track any data on like how the World Cup might be helping us or doing anything different for us? A hotel occupancy, anything? Not yet?

Didn't you know initially at least leading up to it the hostels didn't plan on seeing any increase Which kind of surprised me actually because I thought being centrally located You know miles wise between Vancouver and Seattle that there might be some people that want to kind of split the difference But it'll it'll take quite a while before we see that because it's just the delay in revenues But we'll watch it just to see if it did.

Yeah. Yeah, one of the things I did see locally posted was the Seattle area. They weren't seeing the hotel fills and the crowds that they thought they were going to see. They're seeing the crowds, but not as big as what they thought.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Any other questions? Okay. None seen. Thank you, Shelby.

Thank you.

Paul, do you have anything to report for tonight?

Uh... Just one item, wanted to mention, next week is the fifth Monday of the month, so we get a Monday night off, and so our next council meeting is July 6th.

Yes. Yeah, the third.

The only thing I have for my report tonight is I will be out of town the rest of the week to AWC conference in Spokane. So hopefully to pick up a lot of good information there. I know we talked this afternoon in the North County Mayor's meeting that we talked a lot because the first thing we have, I think it's Thursday morning, is our federal legislative priorities commission meeting to to try to see what we can push the state and some of the federal government to help fund some of their mandates and so forth, instead of us having to try to come up with the funds. I know a lot of us talked about that's being our biggest push this year, instead of a whole bunch of little things for different cities, try to pick one or two big items to try to get the state to help. So that's all I have. Any comments or reports from council? Nathan?

I was going to give a shout out to Nikita and Ember. They're tribal members for doing the 211th Tribal Art Wall, because that's in my neighborhood, and got to see her and her mom working on all the native tribe art that she's putting together and making a great mural. It's got the mountains in the background, the fish, all of stilly art from our local tribe. So I was very impressed and they've been out in the heat and the city has been really good at going out and making sure they're not, they got everything, they're not dying of heat, but they are doing a really good job and she's such a, an influential person based on all the things that we've noticed on that road when we did the project of 211th last year. She was on a board to figure out where most of our artifacts come from. So local tribe stuff. And I was like, oh, there's a lot of information. So it was great. And then I also liked that when we have young entrepreneurs at the farmer's market, there was a bigger group today or this last weekend. And I actually There was a sophomore from Mount Vernon Christian that came down, him selling his own bags and print. He's an artist. So it was really nice to see all the young people get their opportunity at a farmer's market. And then our first Father's Day cook-off from this Chamber of Commerce in Java was I hope a great success. I was there for the first like hour and smelled wonderful. And lots of things to do with little, young families or coming out with your father and figuring out what to do and there was a whole cook-off judging competition on who had the best pulled pork or beef or some all kinds of things and it was great so I appreciate all those involved for that but that was just my little little tidbit of information and thank yous for our great small town any others Yvonne

Okay, left field again. So anybody who might be watching and curious, Arlington has some amazing ranch. So all you tourists from other countries looking for places to find ranch, come visit Arlington's restaurants. We have some great ranch you can take home with you in your check-in baggage. And then I have to apologize a little bit too. I was kind of embarrassed this weekend. Somebody came up to me because apparently I was at Music in the Park and I had a table for Rotary and somebody had told them that I know a lot about the city. And of course that got me nervous and I was like, oh great, what are they going to ask me? And so they asked me about a Zen garden. And they'll then walk. And I was like, why does that feel like we have one, but I can't picture it? So I was like trying to tell her about other stuff in the path. And of course she comes back about an hour later and she's like, actually, you guys do have one. There's like a little brick path over here and it's down by the apartments. I was like, yep. I can picture it now. I remember taking my kids. I totally know what you're talking about. So anybody wondering, we do have a path. It's bricks and it's over there by the apartment. It's kind of hidden. But in case you're wondering, it's there. And I apologize for not knowing the answer to the lady that asked me that. And then I got a lot of thank yous, again, because I had the booth out. So I guess I was representing everything yesterday or on Saturday. But there were a lot of folks. So I just wanted to say thank you to the council and everybody involved on staff that helps organize that, volunteers to put that together, Sarah Parks. It was a lot of fun and I got about at least five different families coming up and like, oh, this was so much fun. I can't believe you guys do this. And we had two families that came up that had never been to Arlington and just kind of heard about it. So that's where they came and totally just fell in love with Arlington and just had really nice things to say about the city. So I just, again, just thank you. It's really nice to hear those things and I wanted to share that with everybody.

Thank you. Okay. Any others? None seen. Okay. At this time, we'll open it up for public comment for members of the public who wish to speak to the council. Please limit your remarks to three minutes and state your name and address. Looks like we have Rob Berry. Hey, Rob. Do you want to make sure that mic's on up there for me?

good evening mayors council members uh i understand that the city's budget is tight just like most of ours my concern that i'm bringing up today is a letter that was sent out from public works to the members of blue sky estates and specific regards to the retention pond uh it's our detention pond uh the letter that came out uh seemed a little uh abrupt, basically saying that the pond is the responsibility of the tenants that live in that area. They did provide an unofficial document that was signed in 2003 that they used kinda to prove that. and stated that if the members that live there don't fix the detention pond and clean it up to code, that the city would do it and then charge all the houses in the area. The problem with that is in 2010, Arlington started charging for stormwater, which is the direct funding that goes into that system. So we're not understanding why we're being threatened a charge to clean up a retention pond that we already pay money into a fund that should be taking care of that. So that's my main concern in looking at how we can work with the city to one, see how we can better approach those situations.

Okay, thank you. Okay, it looks like our next one is Mario Farrell.

Hello, I'm Mariel Farrell, PO Box 12 in Stanwood, actually, but I'm a frequent visitor of the Arlington Airport, which we have loved for years. And I got a suddenly depressing and upsetting email from the airport on Thursday. Three days before the, or the same day, before the three-day weekend and therefore there was no time to take action with people who are making the decisions about the PUD's transmission line project along 59th Avenue which is going to seriously impact the trail around the airport in that section. I took some pictures yesterday in case you haven't been there recently but it's a lovely trail between mature Douglas fir trees that were planted about 100 years ago after World War II. And they have provided so much benefit to the residents and visitors and tourists of the area and people who come to the air show or dog walkers or bicycle riders. Just a whole lot of people use that trail. The work started last night at eight o'clock. They were already cutting down trees along the line. And so if you drive back that way, you'll see piles of limbs and wood that's been taken down and they haven't even gotten to the big ones yet really. So I'm hoping we can do something to figure out what can be done. they want to build a 115 kilovolt transmission line, but the current distribution line is working just fine. It's... not damaged by the growth of the trees that are there now, but because of the expansion of the grid, they want to take the whole works out. These trees absorb all kinds of carbon dioxide, help clean the air from the fumes of the marijuana roasteries, traffic, airplanes, whatever. They give shade and help the atmosphere of Redmond and the airport. If this kind of project continues, we'll no longer look like the evergreen state that used to be known for its trees. The other ironic thing is there's no substation yet at the end of this proposed route, and they called it, ironically, the crosswind transmission line, and it's very close to the airport traffic patterns, which is a risk of 85-foot towers and transmission lines. I was gonna tell the PUD that they're getting the cart before the horse to proceed with this project like this. They said that they consulted with the Economic Planning and Development Department of Arlington who helped them establish this route. But if you look on the PUD map the route just says it's going up 59th and one would assume rationally that it would be on the side that does not have the most number of trees which and on the side that has the PUD property with the battery storage area. So that was misleading and then I'm wondering who's looking out for our interests. If they're gonna meet with the planning department and public is not informed, the only thing you would have a clue is the tiny little red tag on the back of the trees, not facing the road, you would not have a clue that anything was gonna go on there. So I would assert this is not the progress that residents, tourists, and visitors to Arlington wanna see here or anywhere. So I appreciate your help on this matter. Thank you.

Yay, at this time we'll review items for the consent agenda.

I need those. If those were submitted tonight as a handout, they need them for the city clerk. Thank you. I've got about two items that I'm sure of and potentially an executive session for the six, though we do have some other items coming forward.

Can we ask questions about what was commented? What's that? Are we allowed to ask questions about what was commented?

We normally don't discuss comments. Not us, right, okay.

Couldn't remember, thank you.

I'll make sure and respond to all of them.

Thank you.

Okay, everybody good with everything on the floor?

Wait, what are we doing, one through four?

Consent agenda, one through four? Okay, sounds like items one through four.

Okay.

Okay.

This would be for July 7th. The next one is July 6th.

Okay. I think that's all we have on the agenda.

Move to adjourn.

Second.

Question.

All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? I want to stay longer. Motion carried. Thank you. Have a good night.