City Council - Special Meeting

Great. We can start the meeting. Welcome, everyone. Thanks for being here and taking the time to engage with our city work. City clerk, can we please do a roll call?

Mayor Malhotynki? Here. Deputy mayor Hamilton?

Here.

Council member Barkabaugh?

Here.

Council member Breyer? Here. Council member Newhouse? Council member Robinson? Here. And council member Suma Doria?

Deputy mayor, would you please lead us in the flag salute?

Yes. Please stand if you're able. I pledge allegiance to the flag of

The United States Of America and to the public coercion, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you so much. Do I have a motion to approve the agenda?

I move to approve the agenda.

Second.

It has been moved by deputy mayor and seconded by council member Brouillard. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes. We have one ordinance, city manager. Would you please introduce that to us?

Thank you, mayor, deputy mayor, and council. This is a very short special meeting to seek your final approval on what has been a large body of work and a real team effort between staff and council and our many public and private partners to implement a tax increment financing tool for the Grand Connection Crossing. So today, we have a very short presentation and a request of you, and that will be provided by Genesee Atkins, our deputy city manager, and John Rischa, our finance and asset manager and chief financial officer. With that, I will hand it over to Genesee.

Okay. Thank you, city manager Carlson. Without further ado, I will go ahead and get us started. Could we get the slide advanced? Great, thank you.

So this afternoon, Mr. Risha and I are bringing back as directed by you on May 5, an action for you to consider to adopt ordinance sixty nine nineteen which would designate an increment area. So briefly we will just recap in shorthand what we covered in the May 5 meeting and are returning with tonight. Alright So, when we came before you on May 5, we gave you an update on what had been happening most lately with the Grand Connection and the Grand Connection Crossing specifically. We recapped how tax increment financing works and how it figures into our overall funding proposal for the Grand Connection Crossing, including the mechanics of how tax increment financing works.

We also discussed briefly the adoption timeline that we have gone over for the last year and we reported on the taxing districts and their progress in taking actions to choose to participate in Bellevue's tax increment financing which of course on May 5 we received the final action. So we have received affirmative actions from all of the taxing districts to participate in Bellevue's tax increment financing proposal. And so then you gave us a a couple of good questions and then direction to come back to you with an ordinance for consideration to establish the TIF. And by taking action tonight, it would be effective prior to June 1. And then I will hand it to my colleague to talk about a potential amendment for your consideration.

Thank you, Genesee. Mayor, deputy mayor, council members, As we've been going through final discussions and wrapping things up on the staff in, we've come across a potential for looking at minor adjustments based off of the valuations of the properties. In fact, we started this process, we actually started our state information going down in October of last year. And so there's we're working with the assessor's office on the actual valuations. As a result of that, we may have a need to administratively just do minor modifications to make sure that we're within the $500,000,000 cap and this would provide for that flexibility, but only if necessary.

And so we would have respectfully request your consideration of providing us with that flexibility. Happy to answer any questions.

And I'll bring us to a back to your action for your consideration this evening, which is adapting the ordinance before you to designate the increment area. Thank you.

Thank you so much. If you can go back to the previous slide, I just wanted to go around the room, see if anyone has any questions or any remarks that they wanted to make before I ask for the motion. Deputy mayor, do you have any question? I'm good. Thank you, mayor. Councilman Newnhouse or Smadevaria, if you have any questions or remarks before we get the motion, let me know. Raise your artificial hand.

Mayor.

Great. Great. Can I have the motion, please? I

move to adopt ordinance number six nine one nine designating an increment area, setting a sunset date for the increment area, identifying the public improvements to be financed, indicating the city's intent to issue bonds to finance public improvement costs in an estimated maximum principal amount not to exceed 84,400,000, providing that the increment area will take effect on 06/01/2026, imposing a deadline for commencement of construction and providing for related matters.

Second.

It's been moved by deputy mayor and seconded by council member Robinson. Any discussion? Yeah. Please go ahead.

Mayor, with your permission, I'd like to offer an amendment.

Please go ahead.

I move to amend the motion by inserting the words, the city may administratively make adjustments to the Bellevue IA as necessary to comply with the maximum assessed valuation stated in subsection four of this section. This authority to make adjustments shall not be for adding any property that is not already identified in the Bellevue IA as described in exhibit a at the end of the motion.

Second. The motion has been moved by council member Brouillard and seconded by council member Robinson. Any discussion?

Mayor? Yes. If I might. I just wanna make it clear that those are that is an insertion at the end of subsection two of the ordinance. So Just making it for the record.

For the record. It is subsection two, not four. Great. Any other discussion?

Yeah. I would like to just say something positive. Yeah. This is a good time to do that. Absolutely.

I just wanna thank everybody and for the ambitious leadership that has been shown in this project. It's the most ambitious thing I've seen our city do, and I want to start by thanking Brad Miyake, our former city manager who launched this, and Diane Carlson, you've done an amazing job bringing it to this point, and Genesee and John and all the staff that have been involved, and our council as well. And I wanna thank our partners at King County and all the taxing regions that we are collaborating with. It's truly the biggest collaboration I've seen in a long time, and it was not easy. And I wanna thank you for all your work.

But, mayor, your leadership has been very important in this as well. So thank you for this, and I'm really proud to be at this point to be able to take a vote.

Thank you so much. We have a motion on the table. Any other discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. There is no opposed. The motion passes. Now the actual motion. Any further discussion? All those in favor, aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes. Congratulations. Thank you so much for being here. And I think at this point, we can adjourn the meeting. Charmaine? Great. The meeting is adjourned. Thank you so much for being here.