City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, and welcome to city hall. Thank you for being here. We really appreciate you take time and come here, and your voice matters. And we are glad to hear from you. City clerk, can you please do the roll call?

Thank you. Mayor Malikutian?

Here.

Count or deputy mayor Hamilton is absent this evening. Council member Barkabaugh?

Here.

Council member Breyer?

Here.

Council member Newhouse?

Here.

Council member Robinson? Here. Council member Sumidoriya?

Here. Thank you. Council member Newhouse, would you please lead us in the flag salute?

Certainly. Please rise if you're able. 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 so much. We do have a proclamation, sexual assault awareness month. Council member, Baragawa, will read that. Before that, I would love to invite assistant chief, Constance Slappy from Bellevue Police to sit on the table and receive that and give us some comment after, we finish reading the proclamation. Please go ahead. Hi. Good evening, everyone.

So whereas sexual assault remains a pervasive issue with incidents occurring every sixty eight seconds in The United States according to the rape, abuse, and incest national network, And whereas black, indigenous, and other people of color, people living in poverty, LGBTQ plus individuals, non binary people, elders, people with disabilities, and others who have been historically marginalized are disproportionately affected by sexual violence in significant and complex ways. And whereas, according to the Bellevue Police Department, there were 20 sexual assault incidents reported to the agency in 2025. And whereas sexual assault remains one

of the

most underreported crimes, survivors often face the fear of disbelief, retaliation, or further trauma while barriers such as language access, immigration status, gender bias, and systemic inequities can create additional obstacles to seeking support. And whereas the impacts of sexual violence trauma on adults, youth, and children include concerns for safety, physical injury, long term mental and emotional health effects, including symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder as well as missed work and school. And whereas King County is home to many organizations that provide culturally and linguistically specific services for survivors of sexual assault, and these services are critical effect actively responding to survivors' unique needs. And whereas preventing and addressing sexual violence requires a united community effort by ensuring accessible, survivor centered resources and challenging harmful attitudes and behaviors, we can foster a safe and more supportive community for all. Now, therefore, I, Vishal Bhargava, on behalf of Mo Malakuchin, mayor of Bellevue, Washington, and the entire city council to hereby proclaim April 2026 as sexual assault awareness month in Bellevue and reaffirm our commitment to a future where all members of our community, children, youth, and adults are safe, respected, and supported.

Thank you, council member Borgo. Assistant chief staff.

Good evening, mister mayor and esteemed council. On behalf of chief Shirley and the Bellevue Police Department, we truly appreciate this proclamation this evening, and we will also like to encourage all of our members of our community to please report any sexual assaults and any other crime that may occur to them so we can try to bring them justice. Thank you.

Thank you so much. If you don't mind, we take a picture right now. Do I have a motion to approve the agenda? Second. It has been moved by councilwoman Robinson and seconded by councilwoman Newnhouse.

Any discussion? All those in favor, aye. Aye. The motion passes. To the clerk, are there any speakers sign up for oral communication, please?

Thank you, mayor. This evening, there are eight preregistered speakers for oral communications. So before I start calling names, I'll go over a few of the rules that the council has in place. So the total time for oral communications is for a period of not more than thirty minutes, and all topics must relate to City of Bellevue government. People speaking to items on tonight's agenda will be called first, and then if I had time remains, people speaking to items not on tonight's agenda will be called.

In both of those categories, the presiding officer is authorized to give preference to those who have not spoken to counsel within the last sixty days or who will be speaking on topics that will come in front of the counsel within the next sixty days. Each speaker is allowed to speak up to three minutes and only a maximum of three people are permitted to speak to any one side of a particular topic. A final reminder that in compliance with Washington State campaign laws regarding the use of public facilities, no speaker may support or oppose a ballot measure or may support or oppose a candidate for election, which includes one's own campaign. And anybody speaking on these topics will be asked to stop. And with that, I'll call our first speaker who is Wendy Weicker.

Welcome.

Hello mayor, council and staff. I'm Wendy Weiker, the Republic Services Municipal Services Manager here tonight on behalf of my operations and leadership team that served Bellevue for over a decade. We are proud of our excellent services and innovative recycling education programs and customer outreach. We look forward to participating in the city's RFP process this year. We're confident that at the end of the process, you'll find our rates competitive, innovation second to none, and commitment to material recovery and clear alignment with public policies and implementation headed our way.

As you consider the important RFP components for the city's next collection contract, we encourage you to follow the staff recommendations and prioritize three key outcomes reliable service, cost effective affordable rates, and meaningful customer engagement with technology tools and education outreach programs. First, reliability. Waste collection is one of the most visible and essential city services. Residents and business owners in Bellevue expect their recycling, compost, and garbage to be picked up safely and on schedule every week in every neighborhood in every season. In the past decade, My Republic Services teammates have demonstrated the operational capacity, fleet resources, and contingency planning needed to maintain consistent service levels that have grown and evolved with Bellevue.

Second, community outreach and education to support material circularity and zero waste goals we all share. As Bellevue continues to grow and diversify, clear communications are critical. Contamination reduction, proper sorting, and participation in organics programs don't happen by accident. They require proactive education and partnership between our two organizations. Republic Services has a strong track record of multilingual outreach, school engagement, community workshops, and digital tools that help residents and businesses understand how to recycle right.

It's not only the right thing to do for our environment. It's also about the compliance with evolving state laws like the Organics Management Law and the Recycling Reform Act, which are helping us all to achieve better outcomes with our recycling initiatives. Third, and perhaps most important, sustainability and climate action alignment. Bellevue has adopted ambitious climate action goals, and our waste system must be a partner in achieving them. Republic Services has made a commitment to expand organics collection, invest in plastic circularity, electrify our collections fleets, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions across our operations.

These investments matter. Electrifying Bellevue's collection fleet would be a significant step forward for the city to lead the state in this innovative technology. Republic Services has EV fleets, not pilots, rolling in other parts of the country. We would love to deploy our first EV fleet here in Bellevue with the next contract. Thank you for your time tonight and for your thoughtful consideration as you provide direction for the next collections contract. My Republic Services team is standing by to support staff and look forward to participating in the process. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Juan Aruba.

Good afternoon, mayor and council city members. My name is Juan, data AI analyst here for America's for Equality, proudly representing the underserved community, all people of color. We're a nonprofit organization focused on tech education, mentorship, and development. Myself, my name is Juan. I am proudly a AI data analyst for Americans for Equality.

Before this, I had a following with University of Washington. Like a lot of people of color, we go to school unprepared, don't really know what to expect, things get juggled up in the air, so you fall back to that typical nine to five job. On behalf of that typical nine to five job, just as any city member of Bellevue or city member of Washington, to put it least, we're all looking to get in tech education to uplift ourselves and our communities. So what Americans for Equality did for me, myself, and the people around me was provide the opportunity. Not only were they that catalyst to give me that learning environment, into cloud computing, data data analytics, low code, no code, beyond.

AI first on top of everything. As you guys know, as it's hit the city of Bellevue, AI is the next wave. We have a lot of people that are ready, a lot of people that are not ready. A lot of people that are not ready are, like, people like myself, people of colors that don't have the opportunities due to expenses. One thing that Americans for Equality did, provide that free tech education, mentorship, and guidance, which is the reason I'm here in front of the council of city members speaking and vouching for Americans for Equality, that this is something the city needs not only to move every individual of color, but the next movement of taxpayers for the community.

Something that we have that nobody else has is that experience from beloved work members of our community, cities here in Bellevue, Seattle, surrounding areas that worked in Amazon, that worked in Microsoft, that are taking times away from their jobs to teach people like myself. And that gives me the abilities to go ahead and spread that knowledge to the communities that really need it, which is the reason I'm here, to vouch the way that it's changed my life and that that to vouch for the way that it's gonna change the city, the state of Washington as we know it, ever growing, evergreen. My name is Juan Arribe, proudly representing America's Ford Equality, and I can't wait to get the support from all you guys and the Belvid community.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Erica Hoard.

Welcome.

Hello, mayor and council members. Thank you for having us tonight. I also represent Americans for Equality. I am currently a senior program manager at Americans for Equality. But like a lot of our students, my journey started as just that, a student. Americans for Equality changed my life and helped me at a time where I, like everyone else, was going through a lot of barriers. I had a near death experience, and I was at a moment when I woke up where I'm like, I need to figure out something else. And that something else was Americans for Equality. I went through our Warp 10 program and some boot camps. I also participated in our internship program.

And what this program does for the community, it helps uplift us. It gives us confidence. It gives us knowledge and skills that we probably would have never acquired anywhere else. I had the opportunity, like I said, of going through our internship program here in Bellevue at the WeWork campus. And it is an experience for those to get hands on office experience in in a corporate world that probably would have never ever had that experience.

And I thank you guys for taking the time to listen to us today and to help hear our mission out and to also just know that this program is very important to not only Bellevue residents and not only people of color, for all people who have ever experienced a closed door or a no to an opportunity or even an opportunity that they never heard of. So I appreciate you all for hearing me out, and, have a wonderful rest of your day.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Umer Qureshi.

Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor, Council members. Thanks for giving us this opportunity. My name is Omar Khouraji. I'm a cofounder and CEO of Americans for Equality. I moved to City Of Bellevue in 2005. City looked pretty different. A kid from California moving here. And over the years, you know, I'm father of four. They're all born in City Of Bellevue in Overlake. I've seen the prosperity that's taking place in the city of Bellevue.

And yet there is a segment of our population, women of all ancestries, Latinos, African American that don't have the same level of access point. Now there are many, many reasons for that, but one of the key reasons that keeps on coming up is access to education and specific education. It's a certain kind of skills training that people in the tech world knows. Now if you go and talk to a attorney and they have passed a bar test and you say, much of that bar that you actually use on a day in, day out? They'll say it may be 5%, 10%.

Same is true with cybersecurity. Same is true with cloud AI. And what we have done over the last two years, we have curated a curriculum that really, you know, goes and hacks through that. Now outside of that, what we are also learning is there are community members who don't wanna be in tech. They're just small medium businesses.

They're just getting by, but they don't have access to the same level of experts as large companies do. We're also seeing their new residents, you know, members of our society that don't even know how to transform a resume. The skills that they already have are prepared for an interview. So American Store Equality that really started with a $2,200,000 grant from federally directed funds is now scaling into services that are somewhat tech, but it's really cross intersection to teaching people how to write a resume, preparing for an interview, job skills that are around program management, finance, so on and so forth. We operate out of South Bellevue, next to Bellevue Community College or State College in at WeWork.

We have 10 interns, and I would just like to point to my staff over here. They are the ones that really make it happen. Reason for coming out over here is we don't spend any money on marketing. You probably have never heard about us, but we operate in your backyard. And we are not asking for anything other than, you know, keep us on your radar. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

I'm going to pause here for a second because our next three speakers, I do notice that you're from the same organization and we do have a limit of three speakers per topic. So before I start calling names I'll just ask do you have a different topic that you'll be speaking about? And that would be Melvin Prelo, Eddie Rye and Dedrick Hairston. Yeah, okay. Okay.

Yeah.

Are you Melvin? Okay. Thank you. Come forward.

Thank you. A little loud. Good evening, mayor and council. My name is Melvin Pretlow. I am here with Americans for Equality. But the topic I want topic I'd like to speak on tonight is community engagement. The city of Bellevue has over a 150,000 people, 150,000 residents, and, you know, in this room, we have maybe 50. Why is that? Major reason for that is people are overworked. People don't have help.

I'm just advocating that we have more services, human services, for people in this area, for childcare subsidies, for being able to reach people where they are. There's a lot of people who honestly have the most, need who can't get out to these meetings, can't really vocalize what they're feeling and how to express, you know, the help that they need and the help that they require. When it comes to a city like Bellevue, the Human Services Fund is the largest one in the area, so there is a lot of commitment there. Just being able to partner with so many amazing, nonprofits we've discovered in these last couple of months, in this area, and just really understanding how best can we all serve the people here. Because the more people we serve is the more of a community we feel like we have.

As excuse me. As was mentioned earlier, the demographics of the city are changing quite rapidly. We have a bunch of people here who are coming from different backgrounds, have not really felt completely connected to the area. How best can we reach them? How can we let them understand and know that their voices matter?

That their feelings matter, and that they are truly a part of this community now and going forward. So again, my name is Mel with Americans for Equality. But overall, I just wanted to say, let's figure out what we can do to really strengthen just our bond between the city and its community members. Thank you.

Thank you.

You. Our next speaker is Eddie Rye Junior. Okay. Great. So, Dedrick Hairston.

Hello council hello mayor and council member. My name is Deidre Kirsten junior. I'm here to talk about community engagement. You've heard about Americans for Equality from our previous speakers. We teach AI, cybersecurityIT, Salesforce, and most importantly, career development such as resume writing and things of that nature, HR, so many things.

So, Eddie, just wanted to make sure that we have three people already talk about the organization, an amazing organization it seems. But let's just talk about the topic that you wanna talk about. Thank you.

Yes. Perfect. Yeah. Sorry. The introduction was a little long, but yeah. So a little bit of background about me is that I grew up in the Central District in South Seattle. I was born in 1999. So I kinda grew up off of the end of redlining and other things that happened in the city of Seattle. So the culture of my family and my general area and people around me was to just go ahead and work or do athletics or just do a kind of a short term little gig just to get some money. We emphasized getting wealthy moving up tax brackets, we never emphasized how.

And so recently I have worked with I started with Americans for Equality again. And I did a class for them. And now I am an intern. But again, growing up, we never really emphasized education. So sorry, that was the whole point that I was trying to go towards, but we never really emphasized education.

And so, now that I'm older and now that I know, I understand that your mind is the most important thing in this world, your mind and your soul, and you need to train that every single day. And then so, with Americans for Equality, they provided me the opportunity that I needed in order to get my skills that I need in order to be successful in my career. And, throughout just this world, and especially in The United States Of America, it's very hard to pursue an education. It's like I had looked up becoming a physical therapist because I am an athlete myself. And just to go and pursue physical therapy in Green River College, which is in Auburn, Washington, that's 30 k a year.

Most people don't have 30 k a year. The average American doesn't even have a thousand dollars in their savings account. So we need to be able to figure out a way to bridge that gap and create connections for people to we need to create connections for people to have, access to education so they can improve their lives. And Americans for Equality helped me with that. And there's so many people out there that that are just willing to work and willing to learn and excel in their life. That's all I have.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker is Suneet Duan.

Welcome. Thank you for having me. So my topic isn't as, you know, nice as these young people over here, but my house flooded. I live in Clyde Hill. It flooded on Halloween twenty twenty four. And it's not the first time this street is flooded. I live right behind Viewcrest. And so the first time it flooded, I actually reported to the city because I get up really early. And the shower wasn't working properly, so I reported it. And my neighbor's house flooded at that time. The day of the incident, it was really rainy. It was Halloween. We fed the workers out there. My wife did. She made them some Indian food.

I'm Indian. And the next day somebody called us on the phone and they offered us $20,000 for our damages. Somebody also came knocking on my door from City of Bellevue and said, we're gonna come clean your driveway because there was slush. I sit up I don't sit at the lowest point, but from where the leak was, I sit at the lowest point. Nobody ever came. So I lived in a dirty garage for and entrance of my house and everything for a long time. I built this house. I put I I I'm a young person that comes from Tacoma. I didn't come from much, and I I this is my dream house. I I built it.

I, you know, did well enough in life to come to live here. Later on, we had the adjusters come to the house, and I got a lecture about why my wife wanted a new wine fridge. The the adjuster said, well, you're gonna fill the landfill. That's what he told me. It wasn't wasn't very nice.

My contract contractor estimated about $500,000 in damages, some of that being personal items, and I got offered about a $150,000. They said that they gave me a very small percentage of my personal property because I didn't save receipts. If anybody here is married, try to save the receipts of your your wife after you move into a brand new house that you just built. I can't save receipts for furniture. For work I do, but not for personal stuff. The process is broken for you guys. I never got an apology, nothing. I hope that Bellevue works on their systems because I'm losing sleep. As you could probably hear it in my voice, my house is in shambles. I don't know if they want to come back and look at it.

It's been a year and a half. There's a lady at the city of Bellevue. Her name is Marlene. And she doesn't respond to anything. So I'm not trying to be a jerk, but she won't respond. She promises that she's going to call you back. She doesn't call back. I know I can get an attorney. I am one. My sister is one. My brother is one. I employ seven to 10 attorneys at my business in Renton, Washington. I can do that. I don't really care about the money. I can figure it out. I care about the process and at least an apology. That's all. And mister mayor, I I was gonna see you I see you at Bellevue Club. I was gonna bring it up to you there, but I didn't want to. So I wanna respect your space, but I I saw you the other day, and I was gonna tell you, but I just decided not to. Thank you for your time.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. The final speaker on our preregistered list is doctor Mercer. Yes. Thank you.

Good evening, counsel.

Welcome. I'd like to

report something good. You know that I house homeless people, and recently one of those had a otic break. And I spoke with his attorney this morning, and he has been moved to Western State Hospital, which is a very good thing for him. And his attorney says that he will be very happy for me to participate and make sure that when he is released, he'll be in a halfway. So some of our mental health is is working, but potholes and and street maintenance is not working.

I got an email from somebody saying that the the distance between a hundred and forty eighth and a hundred and fifty sixth on Southeast 22nd going east is not going to get done this April when it was slated for. It's been shoved off for a year again, and other things are more important. Now landscaping is not as important as keeping the roads. So take the money from landscaping and fill the potholes and resurface re the roads first. And, also, street maintenance should be clearing any limbs that are in the public right of way, and there is a limb down just, north of the five way stop on 156th, and it's been there since the snow.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. That is the end of our preregistered list. So at this point, we do still have a few minutes. So I'll ask if there's anyone else joining us tonight who wants to make a comment to the council. If so, please raise your hand.

Mayor, I don't see any hands on

Any online? No. Great.

Thank you.

Again, thank you so much for being here and sharing your thoughts and your comment with us. We appreciate that. We move to the council business. We have seven appointments, and usually, we would go to every council liaison for that. But because it is seven and we have a very long meeting, council member Brouillard, would you please just read the whole motion and just we vote on that? Certainly.

I move to reappoint Erica Enimoto and Joy DiPasra to the Arts Commission, Kenneth Wan to the Environmental Services Commission, Delfina Gonzalez and Moanafriti Rashid to the Human Services Commission, Rowena Klima to the Parks and Community Services Board, and Moriah Kennedy to the Planning Commission, each to serve a full term expiring 05/31/2030.

Second. It's been moved by council member Boudreaux and seconded by council member Newnhouse. Any discussion? All those in favor, aye.

Aye.

The motion passes. Do I have a motion to approve the consent calendar?

So moved.

Second. Second. It's been moved by council member Robinson and seconded by council member Newnhouse. Any discussion? All those in favor, aye. Aye. Everyone said aye. The motion passes. We have two public hearings. I'm going to ask city manager to introduce the first one, please.

Thank you, mayor and council members. So tonight, staff will present information regarding a proposed street vacation that's been requested by our parks and community services department and a joining property owner. This is for a portion of, the end of Northeast 55th Street. It's located on the East Side of the Bellevue Golf Course. Street vacations do require a different process than easement releases. So, staff will highlight that process tonight and the steps in the process and also their recommended criteria for the vacation. And with that, I'll turn it over to Lauren Malik, our real property manager.

A short staff presentation after which council will hold a public hearing concerning the proposed vacation of a portion of Northeast 55th Street, just west of 1 48th Avenue Northeast. Following the public hearing, staff will, request direction from council on whether to proceed with drafting legislation to approve this street vacation, citing the appropriate criteria within the Bellevue City code. Given the amount of time it's been since we last brought forward a street vacation as well as a number of new new members in front of me, I'll provide a little overview of the process and procedure. A street vacation is a part formal process by which the city can abandon a public right of way, which then reverts by operation of law to private property. This process dictated by state law and city code.

The process starts with an adjoining owner, in this case, the city of Bellevue via its parks department, filing a petition to vacate the road. City staff then review the petition to ensure it's complete and that no city departments have an objection to the vacation. A resolution is then adopted by council, setting a date for the public hearing. On February 24, council approved this resolution and set today resolution and set today for the public hearing. Public notice has been posted on the property, published in the newspaper, and mailed to property owners within a 500 feet radius of the proposed vacation.

Tonight, we are holding the public hearing to allow the public to comment on the proposed vacation of fifty fifth. If council provides direction to staff to proceed with the remainder of the process, staff will work with the petitioner to ensure that all conditions are met before bringing an ordinance back to council for final action. With a street vacation, city code provides specific criteria for council to consider when making a decision. The first four criteria on this list would support moving forward with a vacation. These are briefly whether a vacation will better serve the public good, whether the street is no longer required for public use, whether the cost of maintaining the road is greater than its public benefit, or whether a different route route for the route road, excuse me, would be more beneficial.

Weighing against these factors, counsel should also consider the bottom two which are whether conditions may change providing a greater public use than it does today or whether there are any adjoining owners to the subject area that oppose the vacation. I'll put this slide back up following the public hearing and highlight the factors that staff believes are the most pertinent to council's decision. And when council makes its motion to give staff direction, they should cite cite the specific criteria that factored into their decision. Okay. Back to the familiar part.

The proposed release is the westernmost half of Northeast 55th Street, which is the end portion of a dead end street terminating at the eastern edge of Bellevue Golf Course. Oops. There we go. The city of Bellevue and Parks Department owns the property highlighted green, making it the only adjacent owner to the portion of the roadway to be vacated as shown here in yellow. This portion lease currently serves as a city only access to city owned facilities.

Vacation of this portion of 55th will allow flexibility and park's ability to manage its maintenance area. And as it is a dead end street, there's no impact to the public from this action. Additionally, staff has received no comments from the public on the proposed street vacation. If council approves moving forward with this vacation, counts or staff will bring back an ordinance for final approval following satisfaction of conditions necessary to vacate the road. Importantly, franchise utilities will be notified. If they have facilities within the vacated area, easements will

be

recorded for their continued use, or they will be relocated out of the area. Again, following the public hearing, staff requests council direction on the applicable criteria and will seek direction from council on whether to proceed with drafting legislation to approve the street vacation, which will then be brought back to council for final approval at a future date. This ends our staff report. I will be available for questions during and after the public hearing.

Thank you so much. Do I have a motion to open the public hearing?

I move that we open the public hearing.

Second. It's been moved by council member Robinson and seconded by council member Brouillard. I know it was very close. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. There is no opposed. The motion passes. We are in the public hearing.

Okay. Thank you. So there are no preregistered speakers this evening. Evening.

So I

would ask at this point if there's anyone joining us in chambers or joining us online who would like to make a comment during this public hearing, please raise your hand. And we do have one individual online. Julie C. Can you hear me?

Yes, I can. Can you

hear me? I can. And I'm gonna ask you a question before you speaking. Are you intending to speak on the street vacation public hearing or the IOC public hearing?

The IOC public hearing.

Okay. That public hearing is next. So I'm gonna mute you again, and I'll call you in just a minute. Oh, thank you. You're welcome. Or, again, I'll do one call out for hands. Okay. No hands, mayor. I'll turn it back to you.

Great. Do I have a motion to close the public hearing?

I move that we close the public hearing. Second.

It has been moved by council member Robinson and seconded by council member Brouillard. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye.

Aye. The

public hearing is closed. Can I have first the motion before we even give you the slide? Actually, no. You go for the slides first and say your recommendation.

Tonight, council with recommendation of staff must identify which of the following criteria from the code apply when determining to authorize the street vacation. Staff rep recommends options a and b, highlighted yellow, as the guiding criteria for authorizing the vacation of this portion of Northeast 55th Street.

Would you like a motion?

Yeah. And that's the last slide you have. That's it. Great. Can I have the actual motion?

I move to direct staff to draft legislation approving the vacation of a dead end portion of Northeast 55th Street located on the East Side Of Bellevue Golf Course, citing criteria a and b to support the street vacation, and I'd like to add and to bring it back on consent.

Is there a second? Second. It has been moved by council member Robinson, seconded by council member Brouillard. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. There is no opposed. The motion passes. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

We are now ready for the second public hearing. City manager.

Thank you, mayor and council. I would like to invite Nick Whipple, our code and policy director, and Matt McFarland, our assistant city attorney to the table. They're here tonight to provide a little background on the interofficial control adopted by council on February 10 for Old Bellevue. And they'll give this background prior to you opening up the public hearing. There's no direction being sought this evening. And with that, I will hand this over to Nick. Great.

Thank you.

And good evening, mayor, and members of the council. We are here tonight, asking you all to hold a public hearing on the interim official control. As a reminder and as noted, the council did take action already on this, so there's no action sought tonight. You all already adopted ordinance sixty nine zero three. And as a matter of process, we now have to hold the public hearing.

And so that is our direction that we're seeking tonight is for you all to hold the public hearing on this already adopted ordinance, which imposed an interim official control in Old Bellevue along Main Street between A Hundredth and Bellevue Way. So for our agenda this evening, we'll touch on the background briefly, also highlight the components of that interim official control, summarize the process, which includes this date tonight of holding a public hearing, before asking you all to open up that public hearing. So we'll turn it over to Matt to walk us through the content.

So by way of background, I think council recalls that historically in this area in Old Bellevue along Main Street, the city's balanced preservation with growth housing production and mixed use development in downtown as a whole. The IOC tried to keep that same balance as we brought it back for the council direction. Council adopted the Old Bellevue Interim Official Control on February 10 as the city manager and Nick pointed out. That was after one prior touch at the end of the year in December when it was originally introduced by council member Robinson. And I believe all the councils are familiar with the process because we've gone over it twice.

But because this is a unique process that's authorized by the Growth Management Act and by our code city provisions, council can adopt an interim official control without first going through the standard land use code amendment process with planning commission consideration of public hearing and all of the notice and the public outreach that would typically occur. But the legal requirement is the council does hold a public hearing within sixty days after adoption of the interim official control in order to get the feedback on the interim official control after adoption. The interim official control is a temporary measure which will be in place for the next six months after this public hearing. That would be until August 16. The council also provided direction to consider permanent regulations for the same IOC area in Old Bellevue as well as Old Bellevue as a whole as part of Downtown Livability two point zero.

The two basic components of the Interim Official Control are that it provides additional protection and preservation requirements with respect to the historic facades in Old Bellevue. The Interim Official Control took a existing land use code provision, which allows for voluntary protection in exchange for a bonus and made that mandatory with respect to the facade protection. It also has new design guidelines that require additional compatibility when redevelopment occurs after demolition in Old Bellevue. And as a reminder, it does not change the baseline development capacity in Old Bellevue. But if council remembers from the last meeting, the interim official control by its very nature does anticipate that there could be some added cost along with that facade preservation.

So as a quick summary, the 12/02/2025 meeting was the original introduction to council. The 02/02/2026 meeting was when council adopted the ordinance and also provided the direction to consider permanent regulations as part of downtown availability two point o. Tonight is the public hearing within sixty days of that February adoption. Council's opportunity to hear the input positive, negative, what whatever the public feels about the adoption, post adoption. And then the IOC will expire unless it's extended with additional public hearings on 08/16/2026.

And so the action here, this is primarily procedural, is to hold the public hearing in order to ensure compliance with procedural requirements on the interim official control that council has adopted.

Thank you both. Do I have a motion to open the public hearing?

I move that we open the public hearing.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved by councilor Robinson and seconded by councilor Newnhouse. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye.

We

are in the public hearing part.

Thank you again. We do have six preregistered speakers for this public hearing, so I'll start calling the names. Our first person is joining us virtually and that's Alex Kamara. Mr. Kamara, can you hear me?

Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me okay?

We can. Your time begins now.

Okay, thank you. I really want to talk first of evening, Councillor. Good evening, Mayor. I'm an Old Bellevue resident. I also am a member of the Old Bellevue Merchant Association and community support.

I support the intent of this ordinance, especially reinforcing the historical and cultural character of Old Belvieu, which is so unique in the approach that it has both now and also in the future through our community. The character of Old Main Street isn't just about preserving a few older buildings. It's really about the experience that we see in Old Main. The human scale, the light, the openness, the rhythm, the community itself and thousands, tens of thousands of people benefit from this every year. This is what people recognize and value as a pretty unique area called Old Bellevue.

The actual risks if we don't protect this unique area, right, goes towards more vertical flat facades, not preserving the unique cultural and historical character of this part of Bellevue. At a meeting last week, the actual old, Bellevue, Merchant Association talked a lot in conjunction with the council as well about not just, the street itself, but the actual events, the community, the experiences that all Bellevue residents will be able to benefit from in this very unique street. The audience as you know calls for a compatibility, unique design, pedestrian orientated streets and there are even more visionary ideas from community to how we're to achieve that. It's not about limiting growth, it's about really retaining this historical and very unique cultural character of Old Bellevue. The character is the experience of this street, human scale, light openness.

And without them we risk losing what makes Old Main unique and that won't be undone if we lose it now. So please do support this very important ordinance and I appreciate the time on the call today. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Bob Perkins.

Thank you very much, mister mayor. Council members, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak with you this evening. My name is Bob Perkins, and I am the owner of Perkins Property Group LLC. I'm here to submit my opposition to ordinance six nine zero three as it is written and hopefully to have you reconsider your position on this issue. We own three buildings on Main Street that are impacted by the potential of this ordinance, Bizon Main Building, the Title 9 Building, and Sotheby's Building.

Several other property owners and I have engaged miss Jessica Claussen from McCullough Hill to bring to your attention particular potential legal issues that challenge the ordinance. Therefore, your permission, I will use my time to focus on the common sense issues surrounding the ordinance. The city of Bellevue has never treated this area special, certainly never designated as as historical. Old Bellevue, what does that mean actually? I moved to Bellevue in 1987.

I'm looking at the council. There's people here. I'm sure that we're not here in 1987. At that time, the area we are referencing consisted of a car wash at the corner of Bellevue Way and Maine. Now there is the Maiden Building which houses a jewelry store on the corner, CBS Pharmacy, and apartments and condos up above.

Across the street there was a seven Eleven I used to take my kids to to get Slurpees after baseball games and a pancake restaurant, all of this replaced by the Ven at Main with what we know as the West Elm Building. Up the street from The Maiden from The Maiden is Main Place, which houses Monsoon and the Brown Family Winery with apartments and condos up above. Across the street from Main Place, from Veritable's to the restaurant on the corner of Main And 103rd is all going away and will be replaced with new construction which the Vanderhoax have already been permitted to build. The balance of Main Street from Fern type restaurant to the corner of A Hundredth Street has all been developed into modern buildings. The Pagliacci building gave way to a contemporary glass high end condo building.

Over 80% of the area we are talking about has already been developed or will give way to modern new construction that did not have to follow the proposed constraints that 6903 represents for the 10 remaining properties that are affected. This area of Bellevue will never be Kirkland or Redmond. That train left the station a long time ago. What we have now is a Frankenstein. If I do decide to develop this ordinance and it's in place, what does that exactly mean for me?

From a basic reading of the ordinance, I would be required to have the facades of my three buildings remain while we construct a modern structure up above. Does that mean I tear down the existing building, keep the facade, and then everything past the front door is new construction? Sounds like a gross Hollywood set where fake western towns were constructed to make a movie. What about what about the gas station? Will the ordinance require the owners of the property when they develop the facade of the gas station?

Mister Perkins Yeah. Your time has expired. Okay. I'd encourage you to email the rest of your comments to the council.

I'm sorry?

I'd encourage you to email the rest of your comments to the council.

Thank you.

The next speaker is Karl Vanderhook.

Mayor, council members, hello. My name is Carl Van Hook speaking on behalf of the our fourth generation family company, Van Hook Corporation, that has operated businesses and owned property in Old Bellevue for over eighty years. I respectfully request that council not renew the interim official control ordinance six nine zero three when it expires on August, what did we just say, sixteenth. Prior to the adoption of the IOC, no outreach was conducted with property owners or the Old Bellevue Merchants Association. Many of us who own, operate, or invest in this community were not given the chance to participate in the discussion despite being directly affected by these regulations.

History repeats itself from the city's Old Bellevue study recommendations in 1986. So I'm five years older than this piece of paper. But this says, specifically, one quote here says, preservation and rehabilitation of such structures would be at the option of the owners because it's not a historically significant area of Bellevue. It's not Pioneer Square, it says. On the other hand, the small size of many properties has discouraged new development in Old Bellevue by making it difficult to work within the confines of the existing code.

And it also says portions of the current bonus system, which in some instances may discourage the type of redevelopment envisioned for Old Bellevue. So here we are again, forty years later. As downtown livability two point o process proceeds, I urge council and staff not to use the IOC language as the baseline for permanent code. Instead, the city should begin with transparent, inclusive engagement with stakeholders. And elements such as facade preservation or relocation or emulation significantly increase project costs and further undermine the already challenging development conditions on Main Street.

This reduces housing feasibility and affordability and ultimately works against the city's economic and housing goals and works against the goals of the Grand Connection. Right coming through on Main Street here will be harder to achieve. It is important to acknowledge how we arrived here. The IOC emerged late in the HOMA process after it became clear that HOMA included a provision allowing upper level step backs to be removed as a way to incentivize affordable housing. Some were concerned that eliminating step backs or adding affordable units to the neighborhood might change the character of Old Bellevue.

This led to the last minute actions of the IFC in removing Old Bellevue from HOMA. But character is not defined by facades, step backs, or even buildings themselves and is not threatened by affordable housing. Character comes from the people, the businesses, the events, and walkability

Mister and

energy of Old Bellevue.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The next speaker on our list is Jessie Clausen.

Good evening, mayor and council members. I'm speaking on behalf of a majority of the property owners affected by ordinance six nine zero three in Old Bellevue. We are strong supporters of Old Bellevue and its unique value to the community, its walkable scale, long standing local businesses, and true sense of place. It really is the best part of Bellevue. I go there with my mom and my grandma, everybody.

We love it. We share the city's goal of ensuring change here is intentional and aligned with adopted planning goals. We support lawful design standards that steward Old Bellevue as a special and vibrant neighborhood. Our concern is that ordinance six nine zero three conflicts with two recently passed state laws. First, house bill fifteen seventy six limits local historic designation authority and requires owner consent when an ordinance would restrict use, alteration, or demolition of a building.

Ordinance six nine zero three operates as a de facto preservation ordinance by requiring all buildings fifty years or older to preserve facades or to prove to the city that a building lacks historic or cultural value, yet the ordinance includes no owner consent provision. State law cannot be avoided simply by not using the word landmark in an ordinance. Ordinance six nine zero three is a historic desert designation ordinance and it must include owner consent to be consistent with state law. Second, house bill twelve ninety three requires clear and objective design standards, meaning an applicant can tell from the code what is permissible. Portions of the ordinance appear subjective.

For example, it requires materials, proportions, and architectural elements to incorporate and reflect facades in the area that are fifty years or older. Main Street includes a wide range of styles and materials, so that standard leaves applicants guessing exactly what h b twelve ninety three was intended to prevent. So our request tonight is straightforward. If council decides to retain or extend ordinance six nine zero three or address it in Downtown Livability, please amend it to comply with state law by adding an owner consent requirement and revising the design standards to be clear and objective. We welcome the opportunity to work with you and staff on a lawful predictable framework that protects Old Bellevue's character. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Randy Brazen.

I will be much less articulate than some of the other speakers, sorry, but I am passionate about Old Bellevue. We've been on that street since 1997 when the old Montlake bike shop was there about ready to fall down. I love Old Bellevue, and what I love about it is that it's unique. It is not Downtown Bellevue. I think that we can have growth without losing the charm of what Old Bellevue is.

It's not meant to be Northeast 8th Street or Northeast 4th Street. It has charm. It has walkability. It's something special, and I I just truly believe that we can all work together. I know that part of this ordinance might cost me some of the value of my property with the restrictions, but I do want to keep the old facade of Old Bellevue. I think that's what makes it beautiful. I know that if I go to redevelop, you won't make me keep the front of my building the way it is, but you will want that charm to be there, and I think that's what's so important. I don't want another West Elm on the street. I don't want another CVS. Go to Downtown Bellevue to get that or go to Crossroads.

We are unique, and I think if somebody rebuilds and they take down six little stores, they should put in six little stores. That's what makes it unique is that we are not a big mall. We are not West Elm. We are not CVS. And I hope that when you work with us on Old Bellevue that you will allow us to keep some of that small town charm that makes it so special. That's all I have to say.

Thank you.

The final speaker on the preregistered list is Julie Caron. Ms. Caron, can you hear me?

Yes, I can.

Okay, your time begins.

I'm speaking in favor. I'm a resident of Downtown Bellevue, a member of the downtown Bellevue Residence Association, and I worked on the city of Bellevue neighborhood committee to brand Old Bellevue quite a few years ago, actually with Joseph Bresen. I live, eat, work in Bellevue. I enjoy shopping, going out to eat in the Bellevue collection and Old Bellevue. There is a difference.

We specifically identify how we would like to spend our time and money, what kind of experience we would like. We like both and appreciate having the choice of both. I'm speaking in favor of retaining the character of Old Bellevue on Main Street between A Hundredth Avenue Northeast and Bellevue Way because it's important to my family, my neighbors, our visitors, our quality of life, our city economy, and the future of our city. The character of Old Bellevue on Main Street is important and charming pedestrian pedestrian friendly district that serves as the historic and intimate soul of Downtown Bellevue. If there is an extra cost to a developer, I believe that keeping the charm and character, light, and look of Old Bellevue will pay them dividends and high return on their investment in the end.

The character of this neighborhood is built with brick sidewalks, open spaces for bistro tables, flowers, plantings, people, dogs, music, locally owned boutiques and restaurants. It creates our diverse dining and the personality of our city. It's also enhanced by allowing sunlight into the streets and creating that light and cozy walkable contrast to the surrounding high rises in the downtown core. The character and feel of Old Bellevue continue with its ordinance to assist developers to combine vision and creativity to create a mix of original charm and history with the modern upscale touches. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. That was the end of our preregistered list. But before we invite staff back to the table, I'll do a call out to see if there's anyone else who wants to make a comment in this public hearing. Doctor. Mercer, I see your hand. That goes for those online as well, if you could raise your hand. Doctor. Mercer. Ms. Mercer.

Please come to the table.

Can you hear me now?

We can hear you.

Okay. Where is the parking lot for a handicapped person to park to visit, Old Old Bellevue? There's a yarn shop I like to go to there, but last time I went down there, I had trouble finding a place to park. So in your ordinance, make sure that you've got maybe you have to build a parking garage only three stories high or something, some place there so that there is off street parking so you can maintain the pedestrian aspect.

Thank you.

Thank you. I do not see I'll do one final call up, but I don't see any more hands currently. Okay. No hands online, mayor. I'll turn it back

to you.

Thank you so much. Can we first close the public hearing?

I move that we close the public hearing.

Is there a second? Second. It's been moved by council member Robinson and seconded by council member Brouillard. Any discussion? All those in favor, aye.

Aye. There

is no opposed. The motion passes. I know this is a procedure, but I still want to give a chance to any council member who has any question or clarification from staff. Please raise your hand. Council member Yar.

Thank you, mayor. I had a quick question. We heard some comments during the the public hearing. I'm curious if the ordinance actually conflicts with state law.

I can answer that. Yes. That was actually raised at the last meeting as well. We are we were very familiar with

I can't hear you.

Is this microphone on?

Is that better?

No. No. No.

That that was raised at the last consideration that council had as well. And we're familiar with both the most recent state law, which amended the code city provisions 35 a twenty one four fifty, which has certain restrictions on a city landmarking buildings and preventing their demolition rehabilitation, or redevelopment. So we did draft the ordinance with that in mind. That's part of our code. So to maybe give council a little grounding in the way that we looked at it, we're drafting the ordinance.

We took the council direction from the December meeting. We then looked at our existing policies and code the policy direction that we already have in the comp plan plus the development regulations we already have in Old Bellevue. And then we went back and looked at both the historic research that the city had done, which is mentioned in the ordinance back in '93 and '97, as well as the more recent, historic analysis that the, periodic update to the comp plan did through their consultant. And then we built off of that fully mindful of the state law and tried to come up with an ordinance that complies with the state law and also with the policy and the code that's in place. And the big you know, the the two big complaints are the or or at least from the public commenters, are the facade preservation and protection, which is currently voluntary in our current code but the IOC makes mandatory unless the redeveloper can show certain aspects of the facade that don't require protection.

So the result of asking for, if in the future council were to amend the IOC to require developer consent for that facade protection, it would basically be the code as written today because it's voluntary today. So that request is asking to maintain current code rather than the IOC has presented. The other objective design standards, which is in the Growth Management Act, that is the letter and and the comments from McCullough Hill saying that a section of the IOC that would be two c two is not compliant with the objective design standards because it's too subjective. I I would say an irony there is when we drafted it, we were trying to provide development flexibility with that section. Maybe we failed.

But the goal actually when we drafted that section was to provide a redeveloper more flexibility with respect to what facade design they would need rather than prescribing a specific facade design. So those were we we were fully aware of both of those state laws. I can't as I said at the last meeting, I can't predict the future. Whether it's lawful or not is up to the Growth Management Hearings Board or Superior Court if it's challenged. But we definitely did pay attention to that and tried to make sure we honored the state requirements as well as the council direction and current code and policy.

Thank you. I was just trying to understand compliance by design was implemented,

and it

does sound like that's the case.

We did our best, but I but I can't. I've I've been practicing too long to try to predict the outcome of it. I have a legal challenge.

Thank you.

Thank any other questions? Councilwoman Smolivia, please.

Thank you, mayor. I have a few questions. So when I'm reading, is there a very clear definition of what a historical reservation is?

Historic preservation just in general?

Yeah. It's like very clear definition, for example, because every building in the Old Main is a little bit different. Right? And that's why it's so cool to be there. But because they're so different, how can we be create a very fair and just, like, definition? What defines that?

Yes. So just once again ground council kind

of Yeah. Thank you.

Where we were coming from is that the historic resources study that was most recently prepared for the for the periodic update, That was prepared by one of community development's consultants, environmental sciences associates. They used the National Historic Preservation Act standard to designate historic buildings. And they went forward fifty years. So that's where we came up with the criteria that we used was based on the preexisting study, which was attached to the, environmental impact statement for the periodic update. So we wanted to make sure that if council, whether it's it's very difficult to build off of that for an interim official control, which is put in place quickly.

But we wanted to make sure that if council or or development services or community development builds off of that for other parts of the city, that we're honoring that methodology and that criteria that's grounded in the National Historic Preservation Act, but also was already documented in our environmental impact statement for the periodic update

too.

Was this process, like, clearly engaged with not only maybe every property owner on Old Main Street?

The IOC process? Yeah. No. It was not. And and that's the nature of the beast with an IOC. Yeah. Now that being said, the future downtown livability process will in fact be a full blown land use code amendment process. So when council makes the decision to move forward with an IOC, it it allows for quick action without that level of public engagement that would happen under the land use code and the Growth Management Act.

Okay. And then there's one more question. Can you help me understand, is there incentive for any property owners to preserve the the facade and, you know, the current state of the oath? Is there incentive, like voluntary incentive already in the code?

Yes. That that that is the current code provision that we built off of for the interim official control. So it's 40 I I believe it's 40 bonus points for every thousand dollars spent on that facade preservation.

Okay. Thank you. Thank And one I'm sorry. One last one is, is there any room for us to actually engage more through before the expiration? Maybe it's like a neighborhood conversation. Can we do that of the more engagement of the property owners? I just I think, like, I'm a business owner myself. I think it just really is more fair and understandable to see what's the process look like and what's the definition. And because these are the it's like generational investment in something they try to to love. We love value, old value, but also any property owner will love their investment as well. Right?

And and I would I I'll point this out, council member, as well is the IOC can certainly be improved upon with the permanent regulations. I mean, the idea would be that the IOC was put in place quickly, but that much more robust public process that goes into a ALUCA, where it goes through the planning commission, has council direction, it has stakeholder engagement, would hopefully improve upon the IOC that we drafted and council adopted relatively quickly. I'm looking forward to the engagement. I'll defer to Nick on the timing for that type of engagement because I think it depends on when counsel actually initiates Old Bellevue 2. I'm sorry, downtown.

Yes. And

we do intend to head to you all. We're hopeful May is when we would be able to come forward with scope for downtown mobility two point zero. With that, we'll also have engagement plan, so you'll be able to see how we intend to engage with folks on this issue specifically.

Okay. Thank you.

Go ahead, Jared. You.

You announced. Thank you. Yeah. My position on this really hasn't changed all that much. I just feel like we we it it has been passed.

I'm not in favor of this being extended one, once the six months have been have run its course. I think that, for a a lot of the reasons that, councilmember just shared right here, and why I don't like the IOC used in this particular case is because there's no in engagement with the community. There's no engagement or discussion with the property owners, which in this case, in particular, is a big missing point. I think also we have property owners that all understand and value what they have. The uniqueness of Old Main and I don't think anyone in this room or anyone on this dais would disagree with you that Old Main is a unique treasure, and we need to, maintain that uniqueness, that unique character of of that part of our city.

Now I can make that argument. There's a lot of great areas around our city that have a unique character, and those should be saved as well or preserved in any way that we might see it. But to do it through an IOC just doesn't feel right to me because it lacks that key component of that community engagement. Plus, Nick, when we had this conversation earlier, it didn't seem like anyone was ready to put shovels on the ground, so there was no immediate need for this. So again, I will look forward to when this expires and then we get to the business of downtown livability two point o, and then we have real conversations about some of these existing issues that we haven't quite and I appreciate your comment about the flexibility when it comes to design the facades, etcetera.

I think that's important. But when you have an IOC, but yet you really can't define what that facade or what that design is and what is the point of the of the IOC. I mean, there's there's so many different facades. There's so many different design styles. And, you know, maybe taking it to the to the gas station example is a bit extreme, but but there's plenty of other examples out there that who knows which property owner might might select or choose?

But some of them you know, could we make improvements on them? You know, maybe, probably. So that that is my position. I think we're just having and and this is also part of the process where we're having a public hearing on this after we've already made the decision. This feels for me personally, who just put such a strong value on that public engagement, feels very backwards. But that's the, as you said, the nature of the beast, so I I I I totally get it. But that's been my position this this entire time on this. And, again, I look forward to getting to that downtown livability two point o going forward. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Anyone else? Oh, council member Robinson.

Thank you. Well, I really appreciate hearing from all sides of the issue. And this is the most important thing, is to have the conversation and to make decisions on what character is and what preserves character. So I thank you, everybody who's been working on this. I feel like I remember doing an IOC not that long ago on East Main for the Vulcan property that extended to a bunch of other properties, and we extended that, I believe, three times. Did we not? Do you remember that?

If you're referring to the downtown IOC, that was extended three times. I think the last time it was for maybe a two or three month period, not the full six months. Each time council asked for us to come back

to take

care that.

So we've done this, and we've done an IOC with the same process process and and extended extended it it twice. Twice. Am I right? For a different reason. Was for converting office plans into residence, I believe. And then we put some clause in that if you did affordable housing, you got to increase height.

Yeah, was looking at the purpose there was to spur some of those projects that were leaning towards office to move towards residential and really incentivize or encourage that type of residential development.

So we did use an IOC, correct?

Yes, Councilman.

And we did extend it twice, correct? Yes. Okay, just checking my memory. Okay, I'm in support of this, thank you.

Thank you so much. Might as well Please go ahead.

I'm actually not gonna speak to the IOC. What I'm gonna say is as we look ahead into downtown durability and what we're going to try and propose there as a more sustainable strategy, I would encourage us to think about what are the things we need to do. There's a lot of resonance across the council around the character, the pedestrian oriented nature of Old Main. One of the things we have to do to maintain that character, balance that out with development capacity and the need to be equitable in that process to the property owners. Also make sure that we're thinking of not just land use regulations, but other out of the box strategies that we can put in place to bring that balance about.

Really important, keep in mind affordable housing in Bellevue because that is part of what the balance is. And the last thing is what we need to do support our small business retention. So those are parameters for us to not forget about when we go into this next phase of work beyond the IOC. Those are the things I would like to call out and like to see more rigor and increased engagement and stakeholder process. But keep in mind the outcomes that we're looking for is the right balance across, at least from my perspective, those outcomes. So thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Matt and Nick. I appreciate you. Now we are going to our first study session, and we go through that, and then we are going to have a break. If anyone object, that's your moment to object. Great. Can you please introduce our first study session, our city manager?

Thank you, mayor and council members. The first study session tonight is regarding our affordable housing strategy. This is a significant body of work that provides us a roadmap for how we can address our preservation and increasing the supply of our affordable housing. And it also addresses some other housing goals. So council was presented the recommended affordable housing strategy early in February, and at that time provided feedback to the staff to regarding some of the recommendations and also asked staff to continue to work with the community and stakeholders.

They've done that and tonight they're providing you with some draft revisions to the strategy based on their further work with stakeholders and that council feedback. So we have from the office of housing, Bianca Siegel, our director, and Hannah Bond Miller, our senior affordable housing planner. And with that I will turn it over to Bianca.

Thank you. Good evening mayor and council members. We're glad to be back before you with the updated draft affordable housing strategy for your consideration. I'm going to turn it right over to Hannah to take us through the presentation.

Thank you mayor council members. Our goal today is to very much focus on the work and the revision since our last study session. We are asking you to consider direction for us to bring back this document for adoption at a future meeting. As we're focusing on the recent work, we will just very briefly touch on an overview of the project for the benefit of the public, but again focusing on that community and council feedback and the draft provisions that we are proposing. The affordable housing strategy is the city's strategic plan on housing.

It was originally adopted in 2017 and focuses on near term actions that the city can take. It is heavily focused on that income restricted affordable housing but does address other housing priorities like stability, access, and overall market affordability. The work to update the affordable housing strategy was launched in November 2024 and it intends to build on the successes and past implementation of the 2017 strategy. It also recognizes that we have a continued need for affordable housing in our community and at the council launch or at the project launch, council established a new need based affordable housing target that does heavily weight towards that deeply affordable housing that's most needed in our community. This update process also did draw on existing city guidance within the comprehensive plan update as well as the city's strategic target areas.

There are five overarching goals that guide the work of the affordable housing strategy and under those we have 24 strategies that implement those policy goals. Within this work there is an action plan, we have 81 actions and that action plan functions as a flexible tool for implementation. So those 81 actions, they are those specific tasks for implementation and provide a menu of actions for us to consider over the next seven years. The action plan also does consider contain metrics that allow us to track and report on our progress over time. Of the 81 actions identified within the plan, we've elevated 20 as high priority actions.

These are actions that demonstrate significant alignment with our community identified priorities and high impact. These are going to be emphasized over the implementation period of the next seven years, not necessarily implemented first but over phased over that planning period. This project had a strong policy and engagement foundation to build on from the comprehensive plan. We did do additional project specific engagement that used a phased and tailored approach to engage organizational partners, people with lived experience, and the general public. Since our last council meeting, we did conduct additional public engagement holding two information sessions for the public reaching out to partners and presenting to forums like the chamber's plush committee as well as inviting public comment on the full draft strategy.

We did see that this feedback in the final phase generally reflected the key themes that we heard throughout the overarching project engagement. Takeaways that were really elevated in this final phase were the importance of reducing the cost to build and operate housing as well as the importance of partnerships to continue into the implementation phase. During our February 3 study session with council, we heard council feedback centering on three areas. The first was a desire for more time to engage stakeholders so that they can familiarize themselves with the draft strategy and have an opportunity responded that by deferring direction and doing that additional public engagement I just spoke to. We also heard a desire to better understand how the actions within the plan related to advocacy worked relative to the city's legislative agenda setting process.

To respond to that, we looked at other citywide strategic plans to see how they addressed and incorporated advocacy items. We did find that other citywide plans do incorporate these type of recommendations around legislative advocacy and that it would be consistent for the updated affordable housing strategy to retain these actions. However, we are recommending two revisions to make it clear that actual support for specific policies or legislation will come through that legislative agenda setting process. A final discussion by council was around items that may impact the cost to develop or operate housing and we did conduct a review of all of the actions within the plan, identify those that may have an impact on development cost, and provide justification and rationales for those that do. These actions are largely related to supporting housing stability and housing for unique needs.

These are policy outcomes within the plan beyond supply and affordability and they do represent a small subset of the actions. During the strategy process, we've tried to balance these different policy objectives thinking about ways to create opportunities for folks to find and stay in their homes, but also balancing keeping costs low. Based on the feedback that we heard as well as a preference towards some more discretionary approaches, we are proposing three revisions that we think may better calibrate the balance between those policy objectives. I will walk through the specific recommendations in our next slide. I just want to note that in this presentation will not be covering actions that we are not recommending changes to.

We welcome questions and can speak to them as requested by counsel but they will not be covered in this presentation. For example, we are not recommending edits to Ah 10.1 and Ah 5.1. These refer to land use tools such as inclusionary zoning. We did hear feedback that these actions should include voluntary incentive options, and we believe that as currently written, the actions do leave the door open for both a mandatory and voluntary approach, and so we have not recommended changes to that. Going back to our first recommendation for revisions, we have five we'd like to propose for you today.

The first is recommending amendments to Ah 7.4. This is amendment that would keep the main recommendation to advocate for at the state level for new local revenue tools but it would remove the reference to specific mechanisms and make it clear that the support for any specific tool would be directed through the legislative agenda. HS 1.3 relates to rent stabilization policies within covenanted affordable units and land use or tax programs. The city does have a rent stabilization policy for our MFTE program. This amendment would keep the main recommendation to explore rent stabilization policies in certain affordable units but it would create more flexibility for implementation by directing consideration of these policies.

HS 1.4 relates to supporting state enacted tenant protections. Staff recognize that a city by city approach to tenant protections can cause complexity for landlords and tenants and reasonable statewide protections can help prevent displacement. The proposed amendment would again keep that main recommendation to support these states policies but removes reference to specific legislation and makes it clear that support for any specific policy would come through the legislative agenda. Our next recommendation relates to the proposed rental registration program HS 4.1. On one hand, we did hear strong feedback and concern around these types of programs during our final phase of engagement and on the other hand throughout our project engagement, we also heard from renters that health and safety issues can be challenging to expeditiously resolve under current enforcement and compliance mechanisms.

Right now rental health and safety issues can be addressed by tenants through existing mechanisms within the landlord tenant act. These are not enforced by the city. We do have enforcement enforcement mechanisms through our city's code compliance processes, but current enforcement tools aren't tailored to the specific types of issues that renters may face compared to the individual remedies within the landlord tenant act. So in recognition of the continued importance of this issue and a desire to take a more voluntary approach, we are recommending striking the recommendation for a rental registration program and amending the action to focus on landlord tenant training and education while continuing to monitor rental health and safety issues to see if more city intervention is needed in the future. Our last recommendation is to strike HS 3.3 which relates to the city's existing rental rental relocation assistance program and considering expansions.

Cities are authorized to establish these types of programs under state law and can and these types of programs can require landlords to pay a portion of relocation assistance to low income tenants in certain cases. We are recommending to strike this action as we already have a program in place and we believe on further review that expanding it would require significant additional processes and capacities to adequately enforce. These revisions intend to respond to counsel's feedback to balance our various policy objectives as well as acknowledge that further refinement analysis engagement is going to be needed in implementation of these actions. We want to be clear this is not the last time these actions will be before you or the last time that you will weigh in on this work. The majority of the items within this plan will be advanced back to council for further direction, have additional public engagement, and ultimately come to you all for adoption.

And these may advance through different processes such as the loopy work plan, different project launches, the legislative agenda setting process, and the budget. Additionally, we will come back with regular updates to council talking about what we're currently working on, what we're queuing up, as well as key metrics related to this work. And with that, we would be happy to answer any questions and that concludes our presentation.

Thank you so much both of you for being here and doing an amazing job. I open the floor for any question. Please raise your hand if you have. Council member Brie, I'll start with you.

Thank you for the thorough work conducted here. I really appreciate it and for incorporating the feedback so meticulously. One thing I wanted to ask is if we could go back to Slide 11, I think it was. Slide 11 says on HS 1.4, I think it is, or 4.1 perhaps. Yes.

It has been revised to promote healthy and fair rental housing through education and training. I just wanted to ask a follow-up question. If I'm a landlord and I've got a parent as my tenant who has a child and my tenant tells me they have no access to hot water or perhaps heating in the middle of winter, and I don't wanna budge and provide that. I mean, I can be educated as much as you want. I can do all the online learning courses. Is there sort of enforcement mechanisms so the tenant who's paying the rightly dues can access the utilities that they're legally obligated to have access to?

Yes, thank you councilmember. That would relate to some of the enforcement mechanisms that I outlined that exist within the state landlord residential landlord tenant act, so there are individual mechanisms for tenants to seek recourses in case where maintenance issues aren't being responded. The city does not play a role in that and it is on the responsibility of the tenant to be aware of and then follow those procedures to be able to access that remedy.

Does accessing that remedy come with linguistic barriers as a state equipped with such resources to help one, even disseminate that these resources even exist for tenants, and then two, sort of help guide this person through this what might sound like a bureaucratic process, if I'm understanding this correctly.

There there are resources exist and organizations that offer lower no cost legal assistance related to these issues. The recommendation to revise this as an education and training program would intend to further those education efforts and spread and disseminate that information and hopefully improve its accessibility as well.

So the educational aspect is for tenants that might be experiencing some of these issues. Is that correct?

It would be for both landlords and tenants. We would approach them on slightly different tracks for tenants that would be informing up them of their rights responsibilities and the remedy avenues and for property managers that would sharing some of their obligations as well as some best practices to consider.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. I I mean, I appreciate that we're not directly replicating things that have not gone so well in Seattle, for example, but we are our own entity and and I guess my only concern would be just ensuring that everyone is doing what they've legally committed to do, whether that's a tenant that's misbehaving or whatever, or a landlord that's preserving or, excuse me, providing that housing unit that may not be meeting certain standards. So, yeah, that's my only comment there. Thank you for refining everything else. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Councilwoman Brioche. Councilwoman Robinson, please.

Yeah. I just wanna thank you and and the whole team for all the work that you're doing. You're moving so strongly on this. And you're really, I think, an example for the region. So I hope that we can share all the work we're doing and can't wait to see the results of it. So thank you.

Thank you, council member Robinson. Councilmember Barbarghaba, please.

Yes. I'll keep it quick. Thank you, Hannah and Bianca. Really, really appreciate this second go at it. Also, the additional stakeholder engagement has been really great. Appreciate that. I also really appreciate the fact that you're focusing on cost of not just the operating of building and operating, but also the feasibility. So that is a really great addition to the framework. I plus one the role of the legislative agenda being clarified and that I think is a great addition as well. And the clarification that what you already have stated and no original amendments are required for incentive versus mandatory.

That clarification is super helpful. I know it came back as stakeholder input as well in this round, but that clarification should put that to rest. And then on the last aspect of removal of the rental registration, I I do appreciate that there is this court enforcement process that we have, and they're gonna continue to monitor. So I would just encourage us. I would actually like to see us come back with what you find and how we need to think about that differently if there is a need.

Because the last thing we want is substandard rental units in Bellevue and no mechanisms for us to try and address that. I don't believe that may be the case. Maybe that is, but I think that monitoring and a clear timeline for when we can learn some of those inputs, I think, would be very helpful.

Thank you, council member Barkabo. Any other comment or question? Please go ahead, council member. Smade, very you.

Yeah. I don't have any questions because you guys you actually answered all of them during our briefing. And then thank you for a great briefing. And so answer my question also providing the resources our community was looking for. So I have no question, but thank you for your work. I'm ready to move forward.

Thank you so much. Councilman Newhouse?

Thank you, mayor. Great work as well. Appreciate the updates to this based on feedback, as all my colleagues have previously shared. I just want to point to two items and just dig a little bit deeper. So on HS 1.4, support reasonable state policies to reduce tenant displacement of the state legislative agenda. Who is going to define what is reasonable?

Thank you, council member. So that would be at your discretion in the legislative agenda setting process.

So we will set that in the actual agenda?

So it would be up to your discretion in that process to support any specific recommendation from staff, and our guidance to you in that consideration would be that reasonability standard.

Okay. Okay. Fair enough. And then also, can you on the one previous one there about stabilizing rent increases. So consider, who is going to consider and how will we consider stabilizing rent increases?

So we have adopted a similar type of policy within our MFT program and so this would be as we continue to advance changes to our land use incentive and performance units, this would be one opportunity to consider incorporation of these types of policies and specifically the consideration element would come into play as we're doing that feasibility analysis as we're awaiting those policy options and incorporating that into that consideration.

Okay. I'm not really sure what you said there to be honest.

You want to try and repeat?

Yeah. So we we currently have policies that that regulate rent increases in in MFTE

units. Mhmm.

This is saying that as we look at other affordability requirements in the city, we could consider, we, the council could consider adding a similar stabilization requirement to those covenanted affordable units for consistency of expectation and for tenants in those units. But that we part of a discussion.

So for, Okay, so what would that look like? Give me like a real world example of what that might look like.

So as we're considering expansions, we have another action in here that considers expansion of land use tools to our mid rise and high rise residential zones. So if we were considering either a voluntary or mandatory program in those new areas we could consider adding a rent stabilization provision in accompanying that new program being established.

Okay. Thank you for that. That brings further clarity. This does give me a little bit of heartburn when I see rent control in here even though it's affordable and we want to maintain those affordability levels. But how will we know if it's set at a rate where it basically is not penciling out and it's hurting our ability to create more affordable housing.

So previous work going into this recommendation did draw on rent roll data from Arch, who does our monitoring and compliance so we would be able to utilize similar information to look at some of that feasibility impacts as well as ongoing engagement with our development community.

Okay. Well, I would ask that this would be one of those areas that we continue to monitor closely to see what the impact as well as the incentive piece. I appreciate your explanation of that, but that might be another area that I personally would just wanna keep track of in terms of its impact overall to this to this strategy. But other than that, thank you so much. Great, you know, great report, and look forward to moving this forward. Thank you.

Thank you, councilman Newhouse. Great job. All of my council member said everything that we I wanted to say, so I think we can just go to the motion, please. Can I have a motion, please?

Are we all comfortable with

Could you consent calendar?

Calendar?

Yeah.

Okay. So then I move to direct staff to prepare the twenty twenty six to thirty two affordable housing strategy update for action in the consent calendar, that's action, at a future meeting.

Is there a second?

Second.

It has been moved by council member Robinson and seconded by council member Brouillard. Any further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. There is no opposed. The motion passes. Thank you so much for all of your hard work. We will take a break. It's 07:41. Let's just be back by 07:55.

Thank you so much. We are back. We have our second out of three study session, 2026 state legislative agenda. Our city manager is going to introduce that.

Thank you, mayor and council members. This was a short session, but an extremely busy legislative session. And city of Bellevue, we are very fortunate to have experienced, hardworking, and very dedicated staff managing our legislative agenda and interacting on behalf of the city down in Olympia. So I'd like to introduce Katie Kussenpaulze, our assistant director of intergovernmental relations, and congratulate Diana Hart on her first session for Bellevue completing that. Our she's our state relations policy adviser. And with that, I'm going to hand it over to Katie to do the introduction and carry out this update for you.

Thank you, city manager Carlson, mayor, and council members. It's really great to be with you here today, and I am delighted to be with you to share with you the session wrap up. I'm also delighted that session is done. It was a quick and busy session, and I am certain that the impacts from this legislative session will carry forward after the last gavel banged down on March 12. So you'll hear more about that from Diana.

But before we begin, I do wanna make sure and thank you all for your continued effort and willingness to participate during this legislative session. I really think this was a impressive year for being a short session. How much city council and staff and leadership engaged during this session? So I wanna say a real personal thank you for your commitment. And as, city manager mentioned, this was our first session with a dedicated state relations policy adviser.

I don't know about you, but I really wanna say a personal thanks to Diana. She had the focus, the drive, and the experience to really amp us up so that we could be nimble, strategic, and outcomes oriented, even when there were very challenging policy discussions that happened during this session. And as we continue to evolve and grow in our state engagement, I think you'll see that with Diana's focus, we are going to be just as nimble but just as engaged during the interim process leading into 2027. So with that, I'm gonna hand it over to Diana.

Good evening, counsel. So tonight, we are here for information only. We have a couple items to discuss with you this evening. First, we'll be doing a quick review of how session went, quick look at the supplemental budgets that were adopted. We'll review some of the key legislative priorities that were adopted or not adopted related to our legislative agenda, some session takeaways and then as Key mentioned, looking into 2027 session already with interim work coming up quickly.

So this was a short sixty day session. It was gone in a blink of an eye. The governor's this was his first budget proposal that he introduced since taking office, and he came out swinging with the millionaires income tax proposal concept. While there were strong Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, that meant that they had a lot of room to take to pass their priorities this year and there was very little that the Republicans could do if they weren't in alignment with priorities. As we look at some of the quick facts, there were more than 2,500 bills available for consideration this session, and the legislature passed just 267.

That might sound a little smaller than the numbers you've seen in the last couple of years, and that was due to the fact that the Republicans, one of the main strategies they had was to take up time on the floor that resulted in fewer bills being passed this year. So you may have heard that the millionaires income tax proposal had a 24 debate. That meant there was twenty four hours during which other bills weren't being passed off the floor. So of those more than 2,500 bills, Bellevue was tracking two seventy, and of those 270, around 50 were passed into law. In the many ways that we engage on bills from stakeholder meetings, public hearing sign ons, coordination with our partners at AWC and with other cities, meetings with our legislative delegation and other lawmakers, councils played a significant role in two visits to Olympia and engaging with our legislative delegation and testifying in eight bill hearings.

While budgets looked pretty grim going into session, the February outlook increased revenues and made legislators decisions a little easier on the budgets. The operating budget still relies on program reductions, account transfers, and new revenues. There's nearly a billion dollars taken from the rainy day fund, which is backfilled from some other accounts that had excess revenues. There's sweeps from the public works assistance account and the 2029 budget relies on 2,230,000,000.00 from the new tax on personal income over $1,000,000. And there is still nearly a billion dollar shortfall in fiscal year twenty twenty seven.

So next budget cycle is going to be a tough one for the legislature. The capital budget is relatively small, providing modest investments to housing and homelessness, and the transportation budget bonds to support maintenance and operation, but no new projects were included in this proposal this year. There are some temporary diversion of local project appropriations funding because they're often projects aren't quite ready when the funds are available, but we don't anticipate this will have any negative impacts on any of our transportation projects that have been previously allocated revenues. The state considered several new revenue proposals. Because of that shinier outlook in February, they didn't have as urgent of an issue to worry about this coming year, and they were able to fill many of those budget gaps with those out transfers, as I mentioned earlier.

But they still wanted to look at new revenue proposals for the out years to start looking at balancing the state's tax code, which has historically been referenced as one of the most regressive in the country. If the bill is not repealed by initiative or court ruling, it will expand sales tax exemptions, roll back some of the taxes increased or changed last session, and increase B and O tax breaks for small businesses, all designed to make the state's tax policy more equitable. There is disagreement on whether or not that's effective in this proposal, but that was the intention behind its structure. Initially, there was some public defense funding that was identified for local jurisdictions, but that was removed throughout the budget the bill's consideration, and there is now potentially some funding that will be allocated in future bienniums to offset city's revenue losses from the sales tax reductions in the millionaires tax proposal. There are unknown impacts to the local economy.

There is this proposal has less direct business impact than some of the other proposals we've seen the state consider in the last few sessions, but there are expected to be some changes that individuals may make because of this proposal being adopted. The legislature also considered a payroll expense tax and a couple other proposals, but those were not advanced as they focused their efforts on the millionaires tax proposal this year. So what we do in Olympia is grounded in our city's state legislative agenda, which was approved in October. The key legislative priorities are items of utmost importance where Bellevue is leading the efforts. The state policy statement aligns our work with city council's strategic target areas and covers a broad set of issues, which gives the city flexibility and charge to weigh in on issues, funds, and bills that may arise and impact Bellevue during session.

Starting with our legislative priorities, our first item on our priorities list was economic prosperity and partnership, which included considerations for the legislature to weigh impacts to economic competitiveness, cities, residents, and rate payers when balancing fiscal needs if when they considered new proposals, which we referenced earlier, they did many. On affordable housing, we supported partnerships to address the affordable housing crisis, including flexible funding options and time to effectively implement recently adopted state land use and housing laws. The residential and mixed use areas is one policy that you may have heard about this session. Mayor supported testimony to ensure the proposal did not negatively impact Bellevue's hard work to foster thriving walkable neighborhoods. And we also had streamlined permitting and support for e city gov alliance budget request.

Unfortunately, the tight budget this year couldn't dedicate revenue for this program, but we were successful in deferring or improving many land use and permitting proposals. And then finally, we had transportation. We were successful in having the pilot program to allow employer shuttles and business access and transit lanes pass this session. Thank you to councilmember Robinson, councilmember Newhouse, and mayor support with testimony over the biennium to get this bill passed. And then we'll take a look at our state policy statement proposals.

So this as I mentioned earlier, this provides the framework and guidance for advocacy on policies that advance the city's council strategic target areas. We review hundreds of bills throughout session, and the state policy statement is essential for knowing which bills to weigh in on and how. Among the many ways that we engaged on legislation in Olympia this session, we were successfully we successfully secured revenue flexibility and limited liability exposure. We supported food security and facilitation of housing construction on property owned by faith based organization organizations. We had several council members testifying on rep bill in advance of that proposal this year.

We advocated for our small and family owned businesses. We mitigated local transportation revenue impacts. Thank you to council member Newhouse for advocating or testifying on a bill to do that this year. And approved policies relating to citing supportive housing developments and advancement of high quality built and natural environment. Again, thank you council member Robinson for testimony to improve incentives for local jurisdictions in that proposal.

And continuing to highlight the importance of indigent defense funding in advancement of community safety health care community safety and health. Excuse me. Councilman Newernhaus advocated for AWC's championing of this issue this year, and we believe that that was very helpful in the work that they did to advocate for it this session. Overall, land use mandates aren't going away. We saw them this year.

We expect that there will be some version of them in the future. Cities were more impactful on improving legislation in this space this year than we have been in the past. We improved the shelter citing and residential and commercial bills, and we deferred consideration of the homelessness bill of rights and mobile homes proposals to future sessions where we can improve them that better reflect the realities in which local governments operate in those spaces. As I mentioned earlier, there will be budget uncertainty next year. Budgets rely on an income tax that will be facing ballot measure and court challenges, and so it's unknown what that bill will look like and therefore what the budgets will look like in the future.

And we're expecting continued caseload increases, which will just further complicate that budget uncertainty at the state. Human services continues to be a focus of the legislature, both in responding to things happening at the federal level, but also in how cities interact with homeless individuals, and we expect proposals to come back around that next year, and there'll be a lot of work around that this interim to develop and improve the legislation that was considered this year. This will also be a campaign year for the legislature. The legislature adopted some big new taxes over this biennium, and we anticipate that those will be part of the conversations that legislators have with their communities when they go out to the ballot this coming year. And whether from retirements or election results, there will be new legislators in 2027, and we'll get to foster new relationships with any of those newly elected members.

We do also anticipate some changes to leadership in the Olympia next year, partly because of those turnovers and just because there's a little bit of tensions happening in the different caucuses right now. So we expect some changes coming there as well, so more to come on that front. And then that takes us to next steps as we look to interim in 2027. So the first thing we do after session is take a little bit of a breather, but then we are immediately looking at all the bills that were passed to understand truly how they impact each of our departments. So city attorney's office will review legislation once final action is taken by the governor.

He has until early April to make all of his signings or vetoings as he sees fit. And then they will be reaching out and engaging with departments to understand what, if anything, needs to be done to truly implement those policies here, and whether or not that means there's an emergency clause and we need to act immediately or we have a couple years to figure out how to implement them or those are just new tools in our toolbox that we can consider in the future. The relationships that the city, but also that each of you have with our legislators, was very evident this session. We want to make sure to take time for appreciation and gratitude for all the work that our delegation did on Bellevue's behalf this session. So whether that's having them out to visit all the great things that we're doing here, celebrating the ways that we're implementing work that they've done in the past, getting them out in our community and showing off how great Bellevue is, and improving and fostering those relationships with our delegation and other legislators from around the state so that when we go back to session in January, we have additional and improved relationships to lean on.

And that also is how we're turning to 2027. We'll be reviewing funding opportunities, identifying opportunities for collaboration with our regional partners and our stakeholders. We're engaging in AWC's legislative priority development. Last session, we were able to successfully advocate for public defense as a priority for AWC. The legislative priorities committee will be convening for their first meeting in early May, and council councilmember Suma Deburia will be representing Bellevue at that table this year, and so we'll have yet another opportunity to advocate for things that we'd like to see AWC championing on cities' behalf.

And then, of course, developing our own 2027 legislative agenda. That work starts now. We'll be as we review legislation that was adopted this past session, identifying if there's any opportunities for improvements or implementation fixes. A lot of legislation happens in the last couple days of session and amendments come flying, and then they realize what they had passed wasn't that great and need some fixes. And so we'll help them find some of those areas for improvement.

We'll also be identifying new proposals in coordination with departments as they look to adopt or implement new plans and policies, as you referenced earlier on the affordable housing plan, references to what should come out of future legislative agendas. And so those help guide the things that we should be looking at as we're developing our next legislative agenda. And then, of course, conversations with counsel as you'll get the final say and and direction on which what that structure looks like. That is what I have for you today. Happy to answer any questions you have. Thank you.

Thank you so much. The one of the reason that the city of Bellevue is one of the best city in the world is amazing staff. From the two police officer that is protecting us from all of the you that are sitting by city manager and everyone else who are not here. And you guys that I had more connection because of this session has such a excellent done such an excellent job. Your professionalism, your integrity, your savviness, and paying attention to details was amazing.

So I just wanted to thank you for everything you have done. And we go around the dais to see if there is any question. Any question or comment? Councilwoman Robinson.

Robinson. I'll just say thank you.

Thank

you. Really did a great job, and I appreciated the council involvement. Everybody really worked hard to get the message to represent Bellevue. And we had a strong message, and for the most part, I think things went really well. So thank you.

I'd also like to say thank you, Katie. Long time no see. The work that you both conduct is just incredible. And you enter with an amount of fire and passion that is sort of rare to see. So incredibly grateful. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Any other comment or questions? Please, council member Neonhaus.

Bring him over. Well, oh,

well, first, I wholeheartedly agree with my colleagues. I wanna thank everybody who participated in one form or another, lobbying for, Bellevue's interests, or trying to lessen the impact of some of some bills, twenty four eighty nine being, for me personally, one of the top ones that that unfortunately sounds like it may come back. But to remove local control of being able to manage encampments in our city is something that we need to be able to maintain. Your work was impressive once again. Thank you.

You know, it's such a short period of time. There are so many bills as you as as you mentioned to even keep track of the, what, the 200 plus, even that. I mean, I was tracking only about 10 and that was tough, so I commend you for that as well. I'll start off with a question. Do you think we were effective in communicating to our legislative delegation in terms of what was important to us as a city?

And if not, what should we change, or how should we change our approach on that? Because in some ways, I'll be honest, I feel like they hurt us. In other ways, not as much.

I will say that I got to walk into meetings one on one with Bellevue council members. Our deputy mayor came down to AWC City Action Days, and we met with all of our legislative or all of our legislative delegation. And they could effectively say our legislative agenda back to us in those meetings. And so I think you have done a fabulous job of sharing Bellevue's priorities with delegation before session even starts. So they definitely knew what we were coming there to say and the issues that were there to talk about.

I think there's always room for improvement of having that turn into outcomes that we would like to see. Just because someone understands where we're coming from doesn't mean that they're always going to vote in alignment with the ways that we want to see. And sometimes that comes in behind the scenes negotiations to tweak something a little bit so that it gets us a little closer to where we want so that they can support a bill, even if it doesn't go as far as we'd really like. So think Bellevue has been very effective in the relationships that it has. There's always room for improvement.

And I think especially as we have some newer members of the legislature, there's always room for improved and expanded relationships there.

Okay. Well, I think that's a process that we can continue to refine.

Yes.

And especially on some bills that we know are going to come back.

Yes.

Maybe head that off as quickly as possible or make our thoughts on that known very much upfront. Like, for example, it seemed like we were successful on the payroll tax, for example. I think that was one. Then there were some other maybe other revenue options on the table that didn't seem to get traction on. They didn't really track exactly what our delegation was doing on that.

And like any session, it's always a mixed bag, right? Like I'm thrilled like 1980 was was passed. I think that's that's great. That's a win for our city, and there are other wins there too. But there's this, like, huge gray cloud over this for me, personally, over this entire session that the millionaires tax was passed. Hasn't been signed by the governor yet, but and I I don't know if I heard you correctly, but I thought you had said that, this was something that had less local impact referring to this millionaire income tax, but I think it will have a dramatic impact on the city of Bellevue. I don't know if I misheard you on that.

An unknown local impact.

Okay. Well, I would disagree. I think there is a known impact on on on this. I am very concerned, as I voiced before, and also in terms of our economic development strategy, what this is going to mean going forward. Unless the governor ends up not signing it, but, I mean, I literally have neighbors that are putting their house on the sale you know, on the market and moving out of the area because they feel like they're going to be impacted, maybe not immediately, but shortly thereafter.

I worry about the companies, the startups, especially the tech startups. I worry about small businesses. I worry about Bellevue being this really beacon for a lot of companies to to to set up shop. It's been not just for Bellevue, but for the entire state. It's been one of the reasons, one of our real competitive advantages that we didn't have this year, that that we don't have an income tax.

Heck, even the Seattle Seahawks have said that it's gonna be more difficult, more challenging to sign players knowing that they're gonna have to pay that 9.9% now. So that's something we're gonna have to manage somehow. I hope that we're thinking about ways that we might be able to influence this going going forward, you know, much like the the capital gains. They they they clawed that back from 35 percent down to a much more even though it's the highest in the nation with Hawaii, but a much more reasonable 20% than that 35%. So that's a good sign that at least there are those that are willing to listen and see that negative impact.

So maybe that's something that we need to be tracking very closely. If we can provide that data in terms of what it is doing to our economy, maybe we can relay that to our delegation and we can hopefully make an impact if it does move forward, share the impact that it's having and the detrimental effect that it's having, not just in Bellevue, for Olympia too, those are less tax dollars that we're sending down there. So I I really hope we start tracking those types of types of impacts. House bill twenty two sixty six, I'm curious if and, actually, I should have asked this during the affordable housing conversation maybe, but what kind of impact will this have? So this is the bill that will allow permanent supportive housing, traditional or transitional housing, indoor emergency shelters, etcetera, in residential neighborhoods.

How is that going to work? How could that potentially impact the city of Bellevue?

So I know each of the uses are treated a little differently under the bill. It's not a blanket everywhere everywhere. As there the the bill is far broader. When it was initially introduced, it definitely got reduced as it was going through session. And so Mhmm.

CAO and the departments will be working closely to truly understand, like, the real details of it. There's an expectation that the way that our code is currently drafted is fairly in alignment with what the proposal is is by understanding. So there may need to be some tweaks, but the citing piece should be a smaller impact than some other jurisdictions that have been more actively trying to ban these types of housing and emergency shelters in more areas of their community. And a lot of the bill was targeted at cities that have attempted to restrict these facilities from anywhere in their community. And so that was there will be some impacts to the way that we if a future facility were to try to come and site in Bellevue and there were no funds that Bellevue were contributing or property that Bellevue was contributing to that facility, there will be little less ways that the Belt City can influence where they're cited than previously under the bill or previously before the bill was implemented.

But it is a smaller impact than we were initially concerned about when the bill was brought forward.

Will we still be able to implement operating procedures or operating standards for housing providers?

Not in all cases. Many of the elements that jurisdictions, in good faith, utilize for operating agreements were put in law so that they are now things that operators are required to provide local jurisdictions. So instead of having to do one off negotiations on contracts in every city, a lot of those standards are now in state law as best practice. And then when jurisdictions contribute land or financially contribute to the operation of the facility, then they can require additional elements under operating agreements. But if a facility were to utilize exclusively their own funds, their own property, they may not necessarily have to have a operating agreement as we may have previously.

So if if an operator was established, say, permanent supportive housing facility and it became, I don't know, a a nuisance for, I don't know, litter or assaults or 911 calls, etcetera. Are you saying that there would be nothing that we can do as a city to help to try and mitigate those impacts?

I wouldn't say that. I think if any facility was having issues, we would have opportunities to do to engage with the property. Okay. And I will absolutely defer to city attorney's office and the departments that will be implementing this on what that actually looks like and how we would partner with those facilities moving forward. There are a long list of ways that operators are required to engage with jurisdictions that include contact information and things like that are often some of the things that are negotiating negotiated in operating agreements.

Mhmm. And then we we pushed hard to get some of those elements about cities contributing to these facilities to be added into the proposal because Bellevue has been a good partner on facilities like this in the past that we believe that that was one of the and was in alignment with our legislative agenda that looked for incentives for jurisdictions to cite these facilities. And so when jurisdictions have a tool to require operating agreements, that they can utilize. They are incentivized to help with the development, either operating costs or finding land for them

to be on, if that makes sense.

And if if I may, I also think it's important to think about this piece of legislation and many other pieces of legislation as a strategy, not only with our relationship with legislators, but also our relationship with other cities and with AWC. In this particular case, there was significant movement on this bill. We pushed in some ways. Other cities pushed in other ways so that we could really push the needle. And I think that's a testament to the relationship that Bellevue has in helping to foster conversations with other peer jurisdictions and also with AWC.

And AWC is the Association of Washington Cities, for those who are watching. I just want to reflect that it's not just Bellevue who needs to make every single amendment. Sometimes we work it from different angles as well.

Yeah. Good point, Kate. So last question. What are the bills that you are most concerned about coming back, and which bills are you most excited to come back that might have a very positive impact on Bellevue?

I think the the one that is most on my radar is twenty four eighty nine that you referenced.

Yep.

That bill had some implementation concerns that even on the so that bill had to do with our ability to remove homeless individuals from right of way was effectively what that bill was about. Mhmm. And it allowed for a variety of mechanisms that just aren't feasible yet and aren't aren't realities for how cities engage and support our population. And so our hope is this interim that we can work closely with the bill sponsors to find a version that reflects the realities of how we engage locally and the supports that we need in order to house individuals who are in crisis.

I will also mention that in our partnership with other cities and other peers, we are starting to work on what are those issues that we want to start working together on now. One of them that we have heard repeatedly are liability concerns, on cities. And so that's another area that I think we're going to be really digging into a lot over the interim. In terms of positives, I will say I think that there is a lot of opportunity for Bellevue to take a look at what happened in 2026 and to make some positive recommendations as we move forward into 2027. The other thing I will just mention is that this is gonna be a big budget year.

And so there are also opportunities for us to push in some of our key priorities that might be projects or might be areas where we may need some funding that could also serve as a way to amplify the city's voice in Olympia.

What about autonomous vehicles? Do you think we might have a chance to move that forward finally so we can at least get a pilot going in Bellevue?

I the the bill was introduced, and so we've got legislation to work from if we're and there's definitely business interest in that proposal moving forward.

There is.

Yep. Thank you. Also say federally, we're also paying

Yeah. That's right. Yep. Good point. Thank you so much.

Mhmm. Thank you. Any councilor Borgaba?

Yeah. I just wanna reiterate, first of all, the great work. This is really incredible. I really appreciate all the the council also supporting and all the incredible work and and congratulations on an incredible run for Bellevue for the first time. My questions actually piggyback a little bit on what Councilmember Moon has was because I was really wanting to know what's upcoming and what's exciting and what the place is where new work.

So that's really helpful to already see. Sort of piggybacking on that question, looking back this is more a retrospective session. Looking back at what happened and thinking about tactics or learnings beyond relationship building and, of course, developing a thoughtful legislative agenda, are there any suggestions you would have that we should be thinking about proactively to improve outcomes for us in being able to achieve the, you know, push the legislators in a direction that we see, better aligned with our priorities?

So one of the things that I'm hoping to implement is a state advocacy strategic plan to some extent so that we have a very focused effort in our interim about how we leverage that time outside of session so that the time in session is is as effective as possible. That's most most of the year is spent in interim, and our legislators are that's when they're in the community and able to engage in here where we are, and we don't have to drive all the way down to Olympia for a fifteen minute meeting. We can have them here and have those conversations here with our community, and so that's one of the ways that I'm hoping to leverage this position where we can focus on state work year round and really build out a strategy that's not just reactive during session, but proactively developing a plan for a full year engagement around state work.

Okay. I mean, I would love to see that plan more flushed out and be and of course, you can be taskmasters about telling what our mayor needs to do and others as well to support that effort. And, you know, I'm sure there'll be a lot of residents across this dais for that. And so looking forward to

that. Great.

Thank you. Councilman Borghavo.

We're we're going to put you to work work here very soon on that AWC legislative priorities committee.

Okay. I'm ready. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Great job, and we look forward to hear from you back. Thank you.

Thank you.

We are going to our last study session, the favorite topic of everyone, solid waste contract procurement.

Thank you, mayor and council. Yes, this is a favorite topic for many. And it is the last this evening, but it's a very important conversation and study session. So we will tonight review the timeline and draft objectives for a competitive request for proposal process that will lead us to procuring the city's next solid waste contract. As you know, there'll be contracts with private vendor for our citywide solid waste services.

And the current contract, which began in July 2014 and was extended in 2021 is set to expire in June 2028. Staff is seeking council direction tonight on some proposed objectives and service elements for the package that will inform the procurement process. And to review this tonight, we have Lucy Liu, our director of the utilities department, and Scott Edwards, our deputy director. With that, Lucy?

Thank you you City Manager Carlson. Good evening, Mayor Malikutian and council members. It is our pleasure tonight to provide an overview of utilities, solid waste contract procurement process. Focusing on the key objectives and contract elements to inform the procurement plan for later this year. Thank you.

So tonight, we are seeking your feedback on the recommended solid waste service objectives, as well as two contract elements we wish to maintain. And here is our agenda tonight. We'll start with some background on Bellevue's current solid waste services and the RFP process, then review the contract procurement timeline and the recommended service objectives and the key contract elements. So let's start with background overview of Bellevue's current solid waste service schedule, rate structure, and contract terms. Bellevue solid waste services include garbage, recycling, and composting.

Single family residences receive weekly collection service, and multifamily and commercial properties collection schedules varies based on their individual need. Moving to their rate structure, currently customers are charged based on the size of their garbage containers. So the more you throw out to the landfill, the more you pay. And what this creates is an incentive to reduce waste and maximize recycling and composting, which are services that are embedded in the rate at no additional charge. We also have pass through charges under the rate structure.

Garbage transfer and disposal are provided through a separate agreement with King County. And the costs related to the King County services are passed through via the Southland waste contract, and that makes up roughly about a third of the contractual costs. Now for the contract term, as city manager mentioned, this contract began in 2014, and there are no remaining extensions available. Currently, our community pays about $37,000,000 for these services annually, and the contract covers all the operational elements of solid waste services, including collection, billing, and customer care. I would like to note that the weekly collection for single family residents and the embedded rate structure are two existing contract elements we wish to maintain in the future contract because these elements have served the community well over time.

So why a request for proposals? State law, the city's procurement policy, as well as industry best practice require the use of a competitive process for a contract of this type, value, and duration. And that is to ensure fairness and transparency, as well as to allow the city to take advantage of the innovations and the most up to date best practices in service provision, as well as technology, so that we could, at the end of the day, provide the highest value outcome for our community. The council was not being asked to approve an RFP this evening. Today, we are seeking feedback on the recommended service objectives that will guide the procurement process.

And next, Scott will review the timeline for the procurement process.

Thank you, Lucy.

So here's the timeline for the solid waste contract procurement process. Moving from left to right, we reviewed the procurement process with the Environmental Services Commission on March 5. We received the commission's unanimous support of the four staff recommended objectives as well as maintaining weekly collections for single family residents and an embedded rate structure for composting and recycling, as we've mentioned. The commission's recommendation is included with your materials this evening. With the council's feedback tonight, utilities will develop a detailed services package to support the request for proposal or RFP process, which will begin as you can see mid year.

The RFP process does require a few months to receive, evaluate and score vendor submittals. And by Q4, we anticipate returning to the Environmental Service Commission with an update on the RFP process. By early Q1 twenty twenty seven, we anticipate seeking the City Council's direction on an apparent successful vendor with an expectation to award the new solid waste services agreement by late Q1 or early Q2 twenty twenty seven. And this would ensure sufficient time to prepare for future services before the current contract expires in mid-twenty twenty eight. As mentioned, here are the four staff recommended service objectives that vendors will respond to with their proposals during the competitive solicitation.

These objectives are all considered equal in priority and we'll briefly highlight each one. Over the last five years, nine regional neighbors have gone through competitive procurement processes for solid waste contracts. We want to learn from our neighbors by leveraging the most current thinking and local service provisions. We're also looking beyond the region. We have hired new gen strategies and solutions as our expert consultant, which will enable us to fully consider lessons learned from solid waste contracts from across the country, what's working and what to avoid.

For instance, we will look at ways to modernize the contract provisions to prioritize reliability and user experience while keeping affordability in the forefront. The combination of recent regional examples and national best practices will ensure our next contract is aligned with the strongest models in the industry. The next objective is to ensure the services package complies with state law, local policies and plans most relevant to future solid waste services. Washington's solid waste policy landscape has evolved since 2014 with two key laws now in place. The organics management laws aim to cut organic waste to landfills by 75% by 2030, prioritizing prevention, recovery and composting.

Second is the Recycling Reform Act, which establishes producer responsibility for residential packaging and paper and requires harmonized lists of materials be accepted statewide as well as direct materials to responsible end markets. On the local level, the procurement provides an opportunity to increasingly align with the city's core values and priorities, including the Diversity Advantage Plan 2035, which calls for reliable, high quality and affordable utility services with equitable access. And also the Sustainable Bellevue Plan, which sets a 50% recycling rate by 2030 and a long term zero waste goal by 2050. The plan calls for leveraging the solid waste contract to advance waste reduction and lower greenhouse gas emissions. The next solid waste contract will be developed to operationalize these laws, policies and core city values.

The next objective is to be responsive to our communities' needs. Utilities has conducted considerable outreach via surveys, workshops, listening sessions and user experience research alongside ongoing dialogue with the Bellevue Diversity Advisory Network. We're also engaging subject matter experts across the city departments to ensure service provisions align with operational needs. Based on the input we've received, we heard three consistent themes: reliability, affordability and user experience. Looking first at reliability, residents and businesses want regular, predictable service as well as clarity on how service disruptions are addressed.

Utilities is evaluating bill credit provisions to ensure they properly reflect missed collections and encourage reliability. We're also looking at the availability of real time performance data, which would be accessible to both the public and city administration. Greater visibility drives accountability with clear reporting, service level agreements and accessible dashboards a priority. Looking next at affordability, that remains an essential community need. The current pay as you throw structure, where garbage cart drives cost, provides customers with levers to lower their bills while reducing waste.

We'll also explore ways to expand bill assistance beyond single family customers. And finally, a modern user experience. The community wants self-service tools and expanded alerts and notifications. Also, ensuring citywide access to compostable collections is both state policy and a core user expectation. We know multifamily and commercial participation is below single family levels, so we're looking for an opportunity in the next contract to address this gap.

Building on user research we conducted with the University of Washington School of Human Centered Design and Engineering, we plan to offer an online item lookup tool with customers able to quickly find out how to properly dispose of specific materials and avoid contamination. The last objective is to explore technology and data. Electric vehicle technology is advanced with options now available for support vehicles as well as emerging for collection vehicles, which could reduce emissions and noise over time. Onboard software and hardware in collection fleets has also matured with near real time performance reporting. And while AI has long been used in recycling facilities to improve sorting accuracy, we'll carefully evaluate appropriate AI applications across customer services, billing, collections and public education, always with customer privacy in mind.

And equally important, we intend to maintain a strong pilot framework in the new contract, allowing opportunities to test, measure and refine innovations before scaling. In summary, the service objectives will ensure our next contract is anchored in best practices, aligned with state law and local policy, responsive to what our community needs and informed by responsible use of technology and data. In addition to the objectives, we intend to maintain weekly collections for single family residents and an embedded rate structure for recycling and composting. This approach positions Bellevue to deliver solid waste services that are reliable, equitable, affordable, and future ready while advancing our climate and zero waste goals. That concludes our presentation, and we are available for questions.

Thank you so much. Both Lucy and Scott, Scott, welcome. I think this is your first Dice presentation?

I think a while back in '24 or

once Okay. Thank you. Mhmm. Welcome back. This is one of the services that people don't always think about it until it doesn't work. And when it doesn't work, god bless our mailbox and inbox because we receive a lots of emails. Let's just go around, guys. And if you have any question, please raise your hand. Council member Newnhams.

Thank you. Well, we had a great discussion with the Environmental Services Commission on this unanimous support. We are speaking of being blessed as a city. We're blessed to have such an incredible utilities department. Luis, I think we have all the confidence in the world in you and your team to continue to forge another great relationship with another vendor here.

I'm glad we're getting started so early. The criteria in terms of the RFP and what we're looking for in terms of reliability, affordability, user experience, etcetera, For me, it hits all the things that we should be looking at, especially some of the more, know, maybe technology forward type things that we might be looking at as well, be it EV or be it other ways to reduce waste, other recycling technology. So I'm so glad that we're we have an eye towards the future on that as well. My only real question on this is what, and you don't have to speak to all of them, but we have a set of metrics, right, that we're tracking, Republican. I'm assuming we would continue those, but but maybe we would adjust some of those.

So, you know, in terms of, like, key learnings, in terms of the metrics that we're tracking right now to gauge the performance, and I'm glad we're gonna that real time performance dashboard is great, But what are the metrics that have proven insightful or accurate in terms of overall performance and which metrics maybe we won't be tracking moving forward? Like, for example, I would say reliability in terms of and I forget our rate, but it was something like, you know, we expect something like 90% reliability in terms of garbage and waste pickup. I I think there was also something in the contract about customer service or customer support, which is, you know, we demand good support. However, sometimes when garbage trucks can't make it up to the top of Somerset because it's icy and snowing, that's usually one of the last places in the city where it's drivable for those, those complaints that maybe that are coming into the city might not be fair per se because we can't endanger the public or other or the drivers, for example, because they can't make it up there safely yet. So just two random examples, but I would just love to know in terms of what you see right now are the core metrics that we're going to really be looking towards in terms of that level of service that we expect, and maybe some of those that might drop off or maybe not elevated quite as much going going forward.

I think you're touching on something that is exactly our intent is to align with best practices, including performance, measuring that reliability consistency. What are the ways to incentivize or disincentivize performance on certain levels? Mhmm. So some of the ways that we do track missed collections or call volume, hold times, things like that are obvious for us. But we really do wanna look at the metrics that are in use not only regionally but nationally, which is one of the reasons why we partnered with NewGen. They have that national view and they can see what ways this industry is being measured and tracked and monitored for performance. And so that's what we want to really explore and find out what can we tap into to drive a better contract and performance level for this community. Can

you give some specific examples of the types of things that we'll be looking for? Or if you wanna provide that at a later date, that's fine. But for an example of what that national metric or whatever metric will say for now, what that might look like and how we're gonna implement that into the contract.

Certainly. And and I do acknowledge that at this point, we are early in the process with NewGen and just getting into bench work. It is very early in our process, but it is something we fully intend to do.

Okay. Great. I look forward to to to learning more and see exactly how they're going to be held to that standard. Because, certainly, our our residents expect a certain level of service, and we wanna maintain that. So thank you for all your efforts now and going forward, and I'm sure we'll we'll select a a a great partner. Thank you.

Councilor Raswande Verghu.

Thank you, mayor.

Thank you for the great presentation. Also, the briefing was really informative. I love that. And I just wanna say that I wanna really give you praise about aligning all the key priorities of the city in this RFP program, which talk about the diversity, the procurement, and also the it really meets the needs of the community. I just have two questions. I want to find out more. So for the community engagement part, I see the the what and, you know, what part we were doing and how. Can you give me, like, a number? Like, how about how many community members or household did we reach about engagement part?

That's an excellent question. I don't have that information in terms of the quantity. Uh-huh. But I know that we conducted our not only our annual surveys, but we have bimonthly surveys that are conducted in via our current vendor. But we also conducted listening sessions with various housing associations, the downtown, I think Bellevue Downtown Association, the Chamber of Commerce. Those are other areas that we tapped into. So I don't have a statistic for you on the number of houses specifically. We we can follow-up with that. But I can tell you that was a broad and comprehensive process, I

will say.

Yeah. And then do we have more detailed data about the range of needs or the preference? Because I think we know that we see the needs, but I to dive into deeper data into that, if it's possible.

Certainly.

Thank you. And my next question is about the technology and data. I see my my favorite thing, AI. What are we thinking about AI using on this?

So we know AI is currently in use in things like recycling facilities for sorting purposes. We also know that the technology is very robust. It's growing all the time. So we know it will be available for things like customer service billing, you name it, performance tracking monitoring. So we know it can and will be used, but the question is how.

We want to be able to evaluate it thoughtfully. We wanna be able to apply it in a way that makes sense, that is cost effective. But again, as I said, we certainly wanna protect the privacy of the individuals and the households that we have. The feedback that we received on AI mentioned the need for maybe collecting the data in aggregate, not so much on a household level, which gets can feel invasive or violating, I guess, on some level. So we just wanna be very sensitive and thoughtful as to what we consider in its application and how we look to implement. And that's something we'd absolutely likely consider piloting as well just to ensure that it's effective and operating in the manner we would expect.

Yeah. I love the safe part because I do not want to get caught with the recycle is right. So thank you.

Please go ahead. Councilman Baragaba. Yes.

So thank you, Scott. And Lucy, really appreciate this solid framework overall. I think it stands up from my perspective to a really good recruitment process and RFP process that we're going go through. I really agree with the four four pillars. I think identifying and implementing best practices, great idea, going national.

That's even better because limiting ourselves to the 10 or 12 jurisdictions who've done this seems very narrow from my perspective. I also think not just meeting, but also we should consider exceeding, not yet, but when we get to performance standards, once the selection is done, especially the the 2030 goal for 75% organic waste not getting to landfills, that I think is is definitely something that we can get ahead of. So I would think about that very seriously. I also love the ideas that have come forth in the conversation so far on community needs and technology. I have two specific things that I wanna focus on.

One, on the leverage of technology. I think there is a such a lot of opportunity in this space for us. So as we go out, I think we should I know we're not looking for solutions here because this is an RFP framework. But the kinds of things that we would want to look at are really important and keep ourselves open to the most innovation innovation possible. AI for route optimization is already being used. You called out segregation at recycling facilities. People are talking about smart bins for a while for contamination. Know, leaching is a big problem for recyclable, especially for organic and composting waste. I think that is something we should probably put out there. It's a little bit on the cutting edge, but I think worthwhile considering.

I also think we should really focus on customer centric apps when we think about this because and my second point ties to that customer centricity, and I'll get to it in a second. Education, proper segregation at source is the single largest issue or the lack of it is the single largest issue that drives increased landfill burdens. And so I don't know what we can do, but there is an opportunity here without being specific. But that is something we should look at in our process, in our selection processes, who can do the most in terms of achieving those outcomes for us. Community needs you talked about and I like the idea of focusing on the three elements you talked about.

But one thing that I said in the briefing as well and I'll reiterate here, many of the metrics, whether it's the level of recycling, our greenhouse gas reduction targets, our ability to segregate its source, landfill burdens, our metrics that are really important from a city planning standpoint. But we have to remember that the outcomes that our customers focused on are reliability and affordability because we can achieve all of those things, but we can miss on those metrics if it's going to increase rates significantly to get to those outcomes, especially in the very heavy, what I would say, tax fatigue environment that we're operating in. We have to be sensitive to that for our residents and for our community. So I would stress on trying to be as close to a zero increase in rate. I know that's not probably realistic because we they're going after a 2014 contract being renewed or something in that range.

But as low a rate impact as possible should be high on our list of parameters while achieving the many of the outcomes I was describing. And then reliability as our mayor said right at the beginning, when it doesn't work and we've experienced some of that in the recent years, this can be a real hot mess. And so it's really important that we try to factor in those sort of challenge our responders, and there's only a handful of folks. So, you know, challenge them equally to try and see how we can achieve those outcomes. So but overall, it really resonates with me what you put together. Thank you.

Thank you, council member Vargabo. Any question on this side? Please go ahead. Council member Brouillard.

Thank you, mayor. Just wanted to reiterate what mayor Malikutian said that this is our favorite topic ever, waste management. My first introduction to waste management was through the tribulations of mister Tony Soprano. So, hopefully, we operate a much better standard here at the city of Bellevue. But, nevertheless, I thought that the prevailing guidelines sorry, the prevailing guiding objectives are excellent.

One is aligning with community needs and like my colleague council member Bhargava already mentioned, residents are concerned about reliability and affordability. Obviously, I know with a contract that's existed for a a deck more than a decade now, cost neutrality is probably not going to be possible, but emphasizing sort of the the financial responsibility as much as possible there. And then one question I had was actually, I wanted to leverage your expertise here. I did some of my own research, if you can call it that. I noticed that the city of Everett implemented an alternative approach to pricing that is different than the embedded rate structure that we've used.

And so when affordability is so, you know, critical to a lot of our residents, I wanted to gauge whether or not this alternative approach pricing is viable if it offers cheaper cost cheaper cost to our residents. I know that we as a city have to operate at a risk adverse, manner for reasons that are obvious, but I just wanted to understand your expertise on this.

One of the things that we will be looking at is looking at ways to modernize the contract provisions. And we're gonna prioritize reliability, user experience, but we're gonna keep affordability on the forefront. So as we look at that, the the structure is one of the elements that we will be looking into.

Okay. Thank you.

Please, council member.

Those are good comments and questions from my colleagues. Really appreciate this and nice presentation. So I was involved when I first got on the council with the first contract with Republic. And at that time, we really begged them to have a solid recycling program. And I just am not convinced that this recycling program that exists is as solid as it needs to be for our city.

And I would love to know the percentage that is actually being recycled versus is contaminated or whatever going to landfill so that we can kind of judge the effectiveness of our recycling program. So I don't know if we can put in that we'll be measuring these things with whomever we do the contract with, but it'd be nice to get that data from the companies that send in the RFPs or send in the Ps, if you know what I mean. So the things that I prioritize are the recycling program that is actually going into recycling and not just filling the landfill, the potential for electric vehicles, and then, looking at waste to energy options. If any of the companies are looking into pilot projects that do pyrolysis or what other whatever other waste to energy programs, I'd be really interested to know.

Thank thank you so much, councilor Robinson. I also appreciate a great presentation. You're starting early. I really appreciate that. You are very thoughtful about this. It's a big contract. It's going to touch every household, basically, the 3,000 businesses in the city. People, as we all mentioned, expect this to work, pickups on time and clear communication. No surprises. I appreciate you are using the tech thinking about technology as has been mentioned, huge supporter of recycling and composting.

And, of course, cost should be reasonable. It is a long term contract. So if we can be have some provision that we can be nimble and we can be flexible, technology change, what we can do that about that, I think that's important because when it's in place, it's hard to adjust any contract. The only thing I just wanted to build on what council member Baragawa mentioned, if there is a way we can use this RFP and new contract to kind of do a behavior change and kind of make the the people who all of our resident kind of actually, we reduce our waste. We reduce or reduce waste, increase recycling and increase composting.

I think that's going to be a very key thing that we can do. How we can something to designing for behavior change would be something to think about. But thank you so much. Appreciate you all. Before we adjourn, I just wanted to mention that there would be no council meeting on March 31 as it is the fifth Tuesday of oh, we need a motion. Sorry. What I'm doing? Can we have a motion to direct a staff to develop a solid waste service package?

So moved.

Is there a second? It has been moved by councilmember Robinson and seconded by councilmember Newnhouse. Any discussion? All in favor, say yes. Aye.

Aye.

There is no opposed. Now thank you so much. As I was mentioning before we adjourn, there is no meeting next week, March 31, as is the fifth Tuesday of the month. Our next regular meeting will be on April 14. We'll with that, we are adjourned. Thank you so much.