City Council - Regular Meeting

Sometimes you just want to hit this thing just because you can. Um, welcome everyone. I now call the March 10th, 2026 regular city council meeting to order. Please join me in the pledge of allegiance. Before we begin, I'd like to announce that during the month of Ramadan, we will be breaking briefly after sunset so that our bathl community members can break fast without missing out on participating in council meetings. Ramadan holds significant religious important for Muslims and is often recognized through fasting, acts of kindness and devotion and personal growth. If you'd like to learn more about Ramadan, consider reading more on the city's DEI educational resources web page. Our break this evening will be at approximately 7:07 p.m. At this point, we'll take a roll a moment to take roll call of the council members by position number. Please say here when the city clerk calls your name.

Council member Aguileri here. Mayor Thompson here. Deputy Mayor Alder here. Council member Kurd here. Council member Miles here. Council member Dodd. Council member Alcabra here.

All present with the exception of Council Member Dodd who is absent and excused. Thank you. First up is meeting agenda approval. Are there any changes to tonight's agenda? Seeing none, we'll go on to public engagement opportunities. You can grow your small business. Applications are now open for the 2026 through 2028 Pop Shops on Maine small business incubator and mobile food incubator programs. These programs support small businesses with retail space and hands-on support to grow at both Triangle Junction. Applications are due on March 23rd. Arts events and opportunities. You can join the Arts Alive art walk on March 12th from 5 to 8:00 p.m. Explore downtown, meet local artists, and visit the City Hall Gallery featuring Kathleen Fruge Brown. Visual and literary artists with direct ties to both can apply for mural activation exploring the theme intersection. Apply by March 13th. You can explore downtown and share ideas. Join a guided walking tour of downtown both as part of the city's downtown sub area plan update. Starting at city hall, you'll explore what's working, what could improve, and share your ideas. That's Thursday on March 19th from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. All right, we have a couple proclamations tonight. We are going to read the proclamations, then we will do pictures um together at the end of both of them just to save a little bit of shuffle. I'm saying that to remind myself just as much as to tell you. First up, we have American Red Cross Month. Whereas for more than a century, the American Red Cross has been at the forefront of helping Americans prevent, prepare for, and respond to large and small disasters. And whereas families and communities depend on the Red Cross in times of need, and the Red Cross depend on the American people to sustain the foundation. And whereas in the city of both, the American Red Cross works tirelessly through its volunteers to support us when disaster strikes, when somebody needs life-saving blood or the comfort of a helping hand. And whereas the American Red Cross provide 24-hour

support to members of the military and veterans and their families. And whereas the American Red Cross provides training in CPR, aquatic safety, and first aid. And whereas the Red Cross makes both safer and stronger. And the city of both honors the American Red Cross and the Northwest Washington chapter's contributions to making both a better place. Now therefore, I, Mason Thompson, mayor of the city of both, do hereby proclaim March 2026 as American Red Cross Month in recognition of its critical humanitarian role in our community. And I believe we have Sher Blumenthal here to accept.

Yep. Right there. Perfect.

Okay. Thank you so much, Mayor Thompson. I appreciate it. Um, I'm Sheri Blumenthal. I am a new member actually of the board of the uh, American Red Cross. I've been here a little less than a year and I joined the Red Cross really to help those um, people in kind of their darkest hour with disaster recovery. I had no idea the breadth of services that the Red Cross delivers. So, I'm going to read because um, I am new and I I want to make sure that I get everything. So some of the uh mission the mission of the Red Cross is pretty broad. So they prevent and alleviate suffering. They focus on immediate aid during crisis. They mobilize volunteers and donors utilizing community support. They have disaster services which I think we're all aware of providing food, clothing, and health services. They have emergency preparedness teaching safety skills and community training. And I did not realize this and some of you probably did not either is they support military families assisting with communication in emergencies. And the Red Cross volunteers in your community are continually working um to provide um shelter and assistance and there are a lot of home fires in this area and there's a lot of um wildfires obviously kind of across um across the state. So um it's amazing what this organization does and I'm really proud to be a part of it. Also, I wanted to thank both, the city of both for hosting the battle of the badges. Um, this is a blood drive donation and it's a really fun way to get both the police and the fire department out and we had a very close race uh when we did it before down to apparently just one vote. But I do want to award um the trophy to Kelly Cross for Fire because Fire did win and it sounds like people are definitely gearing up for um the October Battle of the Badges. So congratulations, Kelly,

and thank you again for letting us host that. All right, next up we have a presentation for Youth Art Month. Whereas Youth Art Month is observed each March to emphasize the value of visual arts education for all children and to encourage support for quality K12 art programs in our schools. And whereas Youth Art Month encourages commitment to the visual arts by local leaders, government officials, community organizations, students, families, educators, and the community as a whole. And whereas participation in visual arts education fosters essential skills including confidence, focus, dedication, accountability, problem solving, and creative thinking, skills that are fundamental to student success both academically and throughout life. And whereas nurturing and developing students creative capacities is vitally important for preparing a skilled workforce and maintaining leadership in an ever evolving global society. And whereas Youth Art Month provides a forum for recognizing the unique and valuable skills fostered through experiences in the visual arts that are not possible in other areas of the curriculum. And whereas communities across the nation participate in youth art month through exhibitions, student art showcases, and activities that highlight the outstanding artistic achievements of students, including state level student design contests and recognition at the National Art Education Association convention. Now therefore, I, Mason Thompson, mayor of the city of both, do hereby proclaim March 2026 as youth art month in the city of both and urge our community members to recognize and celebrate the importance of visual arts education and support the artistic growth of our young people. And we have um Fine Wickley here to accept. Awesome. Accept that. Thank you so much. I'm sorry if I butchered your name.

Oh,

hi. I'm Fostine Wilkkey. I am a member of Northshore Visual Art Partners. Uh we are an advocacy group uh made up of parents um of students in the Northshore school districts um because um our district doesn't have art teachers for as as specialists for our students. So um I myself have been an art dosent uh for eight years now uh for the district and um a few years ago I joined Northshore Visual Art Partners um because I'm not a certified art teacher and I did grow up in a district where we did have art teachers and the um I still remember um the lessons that I learned through visual art and I wanted to get involved in advocating for getting um art teachers in our district. So, I wanted to thank the city of both for your support in the proclamation of um the youth art month. Um because now more than ever, art is no is it's never been just extra. It's always been a necessity in education. And now more than ever, creativity and being the most human uh is very important for our our children's future. Um so I wanted to share with the community if you want to get involved with Northshore Visual Art Partners to help advocate to get um certified art teachers as specialists in the Northshore School District for elementary. Um, our next meeting is May 21st at 7 PM at McMinman's. Um, and then also if everyone uh inviting everyone to check out the um is our third annual

youth art month at the district admin office. So you can check out the youth art there. And then would you like to share? No. Okay. Thank you. All right. Do you guys want pictures? Let's do it. feel awkward. It is creativity.

All right, next up we have public comment. The city has accepted public comment in writing as well as accepted signups for those who wish to speak at tonight's meeting. Written comments submitted to the city clerk no later than 3 p.m. today were forwarded to all city council members and are part of the record. When the clerk calls your name, you'll have three minutes to speak. Please note that council will receive your input, but we do not engage in discussion of these topics. Staff will make note of items requiring follow-up. City clerk.

Thank you, mayor. Written comment was received and provided to council from Ray Thomas regarding the landmark preservation code update. And Mr. Thomas is also here to speak if you want to come on up. You'll have three minutes. Oh, go ahead and press the

Good evening. Um, thank you for this opportunity to speak before you. Um, I was surprised this morning and spent a considerable amount of time consolidating my thoughts to uh present a concise written comment to the uh council. Um, but I also felt it was u uh imperative to uh address you uh informally as well uh and get my three minutes worth in here. Um, the I've been on the Landmarks uh preservation uh board for seven years. Um, I've been dismayed at the dysfunction of this board and how little it carries forward the mission of landmarks preservation. Um, it deals with saving a lot of houses or buildings. Uh, a few places are marked. Um, and we look at the federal standards for the demolition of historic buildings. Often times we've actually preserved very little in the time that I've been on the board. And history is not about relics in buildings or even places. It's a narrative. A narrative of what people have done, how they've done it, who they've done it to. And we're not even close. We're supposed to be sharing that with our community. We have no funds. We have no money. All of the money that I've seen over the last seven years has gone into meeting federal standards for cities to have historic preservation boards, which require inventories of houses and properties and places. And those cost a lot of money when they're done by experts. And that's what

we spent money on. We haven't spent money on educating anybody. We haven't spent money on uh liaisoning with other agencies, organizations, tribal commissions. We haven't done any of that. We need money. We need people. We need a a democratic forum where people can come. They can be included. That means board members, commission members, and I'm not just talking about landmarks probably should be paid. Now, not of all of us are going to accept that money. It should be our prerogative to return it, but some people probably need that in order to participate. Um, we're supposed to be a primary resource. We aren't consulted about anything. We weren't even consulted when the staff decided to come before you this evening and possibly propose that you limit the scope of revisions to the code. Please don't do that. Hey, is there anyone else in the audience that would like to speak? And remote attendees, please raise your virtual hand if you'd like to speak. That's all, mayor.

Thank you. All right. Next up is the city manager report. City manager.

Thank you, mayor. And I have two items tonight. Um the first will be a brief update from me and then followed by a staff briefing on the city transportation safety plan and implementation. Um I'm going to share my screen very quickly for a presentation. And this is a bit of a um a trip down memory memory lane for for a few of you. Uh last summer in June, we had a conversation about uh some outreach we received from the city of Kirkland who was concerned about King County Metro ending a pilot program for uh the Wanita Metrolex per uh service area. For those who aren't familiar with Metrolex, it is a program where there are uh some designated areas within King County that Metro will surf service through an app uh where you're able to similar to a ride share program get a a van service ride for the cost of a bus uh for what a bus fair would be. Uh at the time then the council did give staff direction to go ahead and send a letter on behalf of uh this the both city council that was sent on July 1st of 2025. Um noting that uh while the the target score there was a criteria for the pilot to continue was at a 4.8 which was below King County's target score of 5.0. Uh there was a request to continue the pilot, especially with the fact that the Wanita uh area was very close to and were part of two upcoming stride routes for uh for Sound Transit and as well as the downtown area station for community transits uh Swift Line that will be coming to both. So the hope was let's not end the pilot before the things that might bring people to want to use that service um come. So just as a bit of orientation uh there was actually two uh

two of the metroflex areas that were uh around or in both the Wanita and Northshore region. Um so subsequent to that I the tonight's bottom line message to council is that um that you are heard uh and we we have some some positive news to share. I will also end with the punchline of that staff has also reached out to King County Metro staff and asked them to come to a future council meeting to share more information about this program. We're just kind of given the messenger of it now because from what we uh what we've been told there's actually some changes coming that will align with the service route changes uh that implement approximately March 20th. So possibly as early as next week there could be some changes to these zones. So again um here's what the current is. Here's what's proposed is that there's actually going to be two different regions proposed. So the orange um on this screen is the existing Northshore region which we just saw. It is being um proposed and again we suspected within the next couple of weeks will be replaced with a new Northshore zone which incorporates the portions of downtown both and a little bit more that up to 240th that were uh previously part of the Wanita zone. So before Northshore did not extend into both now it is proposed that it would also then um looking now at what was the Wanita zone there's that going away would be replaced by a totem lake zone which um also then makes connections near and around both put together is this slide just as as helpful and just for orientation again the blue in this case would be the proposed new northshore the green would be Totem You can see the existing Wadita region. Um, and this comes directly from from Metro. So again, not a lot of more information than that at this point, but

staff was made aware of this proposed change and that announcements may be forthcoming as soon as next week. So we wanted to put this in front of you for awareness. Again, the commitment is we're trying to get King County Metro staff to come in case you have questions um or want to encourage even you give a mouse a cookie if we got a little bit. Maybe we want a little bit more. But um we're really excited about this. And one of the other things that again from with what's within our control as a city is we've also talked to Metro about once this comes out. We really want to help promote this message to folks in both because it will still be a pilot and the pilot is only evaluated in continuation based on utilization. And this is one where we do have a sense that um that if more people know about it, this might be a service that more people would use. Uh and in particular to one of the council priorities which again is been one that has been a tough one to move forward but is around having circulator service within um within both. We've been working to try and influence that with metro and community transit. We'll have an update on that coming up later uh in the next month or so. Um but but this is good news that at least we're not losing the service. it is it is changing in some areas expanding and uh again gives a baseline to try and show acceptance and hopefully get some more good news. So we'll continue to monitor uh for when this news becomes official. We'll get it out to the community and again try and get an update to council from the experts. Um with that we also are joined tonight by our public works staff. Uh and this is for a city transportation safety plan and implementation briefing. You know, one of the most frequently uh uh received emails that council does get is from I'm going to stop sharing so Cam can take over. Uh is is around neighborhood safety implementation projects. And um we wanted to give council an update on some of the things that that are happening and are planned on happening. Um it's also an

introduction of sorts. Um many of you are familiar with emails from Jamal from uh from many many years. We had a longtime employee who uh who who retired and uh he was um his position has been taken over by Cam Zabbo who was our transportation operations engineer and I believe this was her first time before you in both city hall. So uh Cam is somebody who I had previously worked with not very closely but in a in a past organization but had a lot of mutual connections and a lot of colleagues who adored her. So, we were excited to um she moved back to the area and was looking for a job at the time. We were looking for a person and sometimes life treats you well. So, Cam, welcome to both and uh I'm glad you've been here for a few months and excited to hear the update on what's been happening.

Thank you. Uh good evening, council. Yeah. Uh thank you for the introduction, Kyle. Uh I'm Cam Zabo. I am your new transportation operations engineer. uh here tonight to present on the uh city of both transportation plan and the programs that we run with that plan. Uh with me I have my supervisor Vad Terry uh just here in case we have any additional support or questions we need answered. Um first and foremost we uh don't require any council action on this. We're here strictly to inform about the existing plan and how the programs and projects are moving forward. Um, tonight we'll go over a little bit of the background to the plan, how we how we got there, what the plan covers, how we use this plan, and the work we do daily, and what our next steps are, how we're moving forward with the plan. Um, as most of you will remember, uh, city council's vision 2040 and the strategic priorities specifically call for us to try and get ourselves to achieve zero traffic deaths through safe street structures. Um that's that's a something that is reiterated in our comprehensive plan as well. And the basically the the background of this plan is uh we are we are basically looking to eliminate both the severe injuries and the deaths. Um the state actually aligns with what we are doing and and they asked for that bas that requirement. They're trying to get there by 2035 which is also our goal. This plan was completed in April and uh it uses a safe systems approach which is the the graphic you see on the left here. Um I'm just going to talk through those five wedges a little bit to explain what safe systems approach entails. Um in the upper left you have the safe road users that covers education, enforcement and behavior interventions to reduce risky actions and encourage safe behaviors. The next

uh wedge to the right is safe vehicles. That covers uh vehicle design and technology that minimize crash severity and protect occupants. And then following along clockwise is safe speeds, speed management to reduce crash forces and injury severity, which is something as council's well aware we've we've all been talking about. How do we how do we get those speeds down? um safe roads infrastructure design that accommodates human error and protects vulnerable road users. And then the last wedge is the postc crash care which is timely emergency response and medical care to reduce fatalities and long-term injuries. Oops, went too far. That's me. Sorry. There we go. Just a touch pad. One more. There we go. Um, so this plan was in creating this plan, we built upon a lot of the existing plans we already had at the city of both. Uh, we had an existing 2020 road safety strategic plan. We incorporated information from that. Um, the comprehensive plan aligns with this plan as well, including now the new updated comprehensive plan and these other plans you see here. The plan is uh very much data driven. We use crash data as provided by the state and then we analyze it under a lot of different lenses to see you know to to figure out the patterns that we see in crashes. One of the other big sources of information for the safety plan was public information. a lot of a lot of uh community output uh input by us doing outreach exercises. And that helps inform locations of concern because sometimes what the community will tell us isn't um isn't just that the things that we get out of collision information. It's it's those little

hotspots in those places they don't feel are safe. the safety plan. Um also in developing the safe plan, we also worked very closely with our internal partners like police and fire. Um that's to ensure that anything that we are proposing as potential solutions to issues uh aligns with their operational needs and that as we move projects forward, we keep our internal stakeholders involved in in our project development. And then the last thing you see there is that systemic risks. Um, systemic risks are based on national data and they're captured as risk factors in our plan. Um, they include things like speeds greater than 30 miles hour, lack of street lighting, permissive left turns, um, and and even just congestion. And I know comm uh community engagement has always been a big a big topic for for city councils and it definitely was when we developed this plan. Um, we were fortunate enough to be able to piggyback on some of the city sponsored events that were going on with the comprehensive plan update that was rolling. At the same time, in addition, we did some solicited feedback on the safety plan itself. Had events that were just specifically for the safety plan. Uh, we also had a a web page developed to to try and take input in case people weren't able to um attend some of some of those other outreach opportunities. Um, the common themes that we heard included concerns about crosswalks and sidewalks, high-speed traffic, red light running, incomplete bike and walking trails, a need for ADA accessibility improvements, traffic calming, and uh, road maintenance. Uh, these are just a couple of the graphics that show some of the analysis and the output that comes out of this plan. Um, the left map there shows the

heat map of all the crashes. so that you can see the colored uh spots where that indicate where um crashes are predominantly occurring and the little dots on that map are the actual KSI which stands for killed or seriously injured uh locations. Generally, the heat map shows you that where roads carry more traffic, we have more accidents. Uh the right map on the right is our high injury network for the city. This uses um severity waiting for different types of accidents and collisions. And then basically we're we're seeing some of that same pattern where those those heavily used roads are are showing up as networks that are are high injury uh networks. The interesting thing about both of these is like the analysis shows that 54% of traffic related injuries and fatalities occur on only 12% of our city streets. that that's basically the definition of our high injury network. And another interesting result of the data was that pedestrians pedestrians and bicyclists those that we consider our are vulnerable road users are over represented in fatalities. The they are only involved in 1% of the collisions but 15% of those resulted in fatalities or serious injuries. And that is a big factor in how um our project list is developed. that's further on in this presentation. So the one of the outcomes of this list of the safety plan is having a prioritized project list. It it shows corridors that require some improvements uh specific hotspots at intersections and also includes systemic improvements. The prioritized project lists are incorporated into our comp plan list so everything kind of aligns and is reflective of our safety plan needs. Um

the systemic improvements help address near misses by preventing um by improving situations before we actually have collisions. So what is supported by the plan? Uh basically everything we do is supported by the plan now in transportation and in and in the city in general. Um we're we're improving pedestrian crossings by using a variety of tools. We are working on uh updating our neighborhood and collector roadway our uh calming programs. That's something we we do we do get a lot of customer input on and also doing safety upgrades and replacements to uh systemic and spot locations. Um yeah. So for what are we doing with this plan? In the past we've we've been doing some projects already that align with this plan. We uh recently completed safety project one. Um this project installed uh LED edge lit stop signs and also RFBS and radar speed feedback signs in six locations. Um safety project 2 is just in the latter ends of construction almost completed. Uh this was this year's project. It installed speed cushions on in three different locations uh in the street uh in the city and also uh radar feedback signs and an enhanced school crossing and school zone on Meridian by Shelton View Elementary. And then uh an upcoming project, it's just in the last stages of washd approval, and then it'll be going out to AD, which is um an RFB program uh project that will build RFBs at uh four different school crossing locations.

And then for next projects, just last week, we put in for a a state HSIP grant for four different projects. Uh the biggest one of that is a comm collector project. Again, adding um adding speed cushions to five different roadways in the city. Uh improving the some of the crosswalks uh adding some school flashing beacons to those to those same streets. Um, one of the other I guess one of the other projects in that in the request for the grant was also um just doing uh street lighting analysis and improving street lighting at some of our mark crosswalks. Uh, in addition, we're reviewing street lighting across the entire city and we're continuing to work on the 20 mph speed limit reduction uh project that the council had directed us to continue to look at. Um, moving forward, future work is uh, as I said before, updating some of our other programs just to align with uh, with this new with the new plans to make sure that some of those changes we've made are are incorporated across our plans. um some of the uh yeah I think and then and then also just um making sure the project list because almost all of our plans do include some project list to make sure that we've got that safety covered on all of those um on all of those other plans. Um one of the things I would say about all that is that that um the coordination we do now really changes how we approach our projects. coordination like we saw this past weekend with with the washdock closures like just helping traffic flow and knowing what's going on on our streets really makes everything safer for everybody. Um and it decreases issues on our roadways. Um and the last point is keeping advancing those high injury network projects. So those bigger projects are the are the ones that are on our main corridors, our big re our

big roads and our our capital improvements projects uh list is constantly moving that forward with doing uh a lot of the heavy lifting on the on the near miss and preventative work. Um, one of the examples of that is the 228 streets southeast uh multimodal project is just uh that we're building it sounds like a multimodal project but we are massively improving the safety for those vulnerable air uh road users by building projects like that. And then how do we keep moving forward? Um the levy the levy has helped us greatly. the budget that uh council approved just last week to help us get those staffing positions back, to help us get our our tech position back, having the maintenance crews to support some of the infrastructure we're building. Uh those are those are huge for us. Um, collision data refers to the fact that we are uh our police department keeps great records and has a really nice uh uh website that shows you some of those collision numbers and like cleaned up data. But we're working still to closely tie into that data better because we are dependent right now on state data and our state data basically is a year out. So whenever we apply for grants and stuff, we are already a year off on safety data and and collision information. So and and we know we can we know we can improve on that. Um and of course enforcement, anything we do will require enforcement. Um I know there's you know councils have those discussions about the LPRs and how how we do enforcement, but increasing our increasing our school zones that we will potentially do with more beacons. Um, anything we're doing with trying to calm our collectors and get our speed limits down, it's going to require some enforcement, additional enforcement, whether that's, you know, police officers on the street or or some techn technology. Um, that that definitely

plays into how how we achieve the goals we are trying to achieve. And then ongoing monitoring. Um, in our safety plan, in the transportation safety plan, there is uh a requirement for ongoing monitoring. Uh there's five or six different um metrics we report back on. We we can report back on. We're still kind of fine-tuning that a little bit because the first report back will be 2027 and we're just figuring out how to make the reporting meaningful for what we're trying to present back to to our constituents and to your to the council. And I just leave you with this quote which kind of encompasses a little bit of of what the safe systems approach is based around which is the fact that the you know no matter what happens it's the actions and it's not just human error the actions are inactions of individuals it's human error and systems and we are kind of trying to address both with what we do every day. questions or comments?

Council member Kurt.

Thanks. Thank you for coming today. Welcome to the city of Bathl. We're so glad that you're here with us. Um I'm so excited listening to the presentation because the work that you're advancing right now is going to have a generational impact on the city. It's going to save lives. Even if we don't see it and if we don't hear about it, it's still going to save lives. So, it's really important work. Every time I see that high um stress network map, I think about the data points that went into that and think about the families that um have been um uh sort of broken um by our existing road network and that's horrific. So, I'm so glad that we're um advancing safety projects forward and I'm um I know that the community is really supportive of this work, too. So, thank you. Thanks for the presentation. I'm really excited to see the um advancing projects. One of the questions that I have for you is we often get folks who come to us with um stories about their um near misses or the problem areas that they notice. And I know that public comment is closed on the map. The map is in the comprehensive plan. Like it's it's kind of closed closed book at this point. So, in the absence of um continuing to expand on um that map that shows possible areas, what would you suggest um our constituents do to see whether a a road segment that they're worried about is prioritized or um or what should they do if it's not prioritized? How can they elevate their concerns besides just talking to us and us blabbing to you? Sure. Um, great question. Uh, basically we do keep an inventory of the near misses and the concerns. So the the customer action requests whether people submit them

online or come into city hall or just email you or us, whoever they have contact with. Um, that that is all that is all data we log and we keep track of. Um, we also in our neighborhood traffic calming program, we have a petition form. So people can look at that that form and get the right number of signatures submit that to us. So then we know we have some sort of neighborhood consensus about require you know that they that somebody it's not it's not just one person who wants a solution there's a lot of people so it's it has it has a little more weight. Um it's part of our process for that program. Um for our comm collectors program collectors carry a different meaning for us in transportation right they're carrying a little more traffic. they have a little bit most of them run a little bit higher speed limits but not all of them. Um and so that one has a little bit of a different nuance but they can certainly submit a request and and tell us they have a problem. Whenever we get those requests especially when it comes to um like a speed issue, we will collect data. we will go out and do fresh counts and check that the to see what is really happening on the roadway and then and then follow up from there. And and those are exactly the types of situations that like this comm collector um project that we put a grant application in for and the one that we're just completing right now. Th those projects have come out of similar type of requests and that type of knowledge that we've gained.

Totally. I really appreciate that you take seriously the requests that come from the community and just showing that staff is spending time looking and analyzing and um looking into it makes people feel seen and feel respected too in the community. So I really appreciate that. Um I think uh one of the things that I would suggest um would be to go through the website. We have a communications team that is excellent and might be able to um help uh uh make that um integrated with other city systems and help um help that process be a little bit cleaner, but uh last time I checked on the website, and this is before you arrived at the city, so I'm not sure if it's still there, but like the previous forms had like the old city logo on it and were like kind of um comic sandsy. So, I would just um encourage uh a second look at that and make sure that it's refreshed and like ready to receive perhaps an influx of comments and and concerns from our constituents now that we know that we're staffed up and it's um an exciting time for us to revive this this program. So, thank you for your work.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you. Um it's so good to meet you. Thank you for being here. Um I really appreciate that. um that public works came back with like a comprehensive safety uh plan and and really helped put into context our request for um considering 20 miles an hour. Um and and connecting it to the vision zero um really appreciated the quote you included in there as well. Um so in I appreciate the maps too. I have there's so many things. Okay. Um maps first and then I'll go there. Let me get back to where I was where the presentation. Okay. So, I appreciate the heat map. Um, and I definitely see that both leverat highway is that north of 228th.

Um, or is that malt B? Thank you. There we go. Yeah, that's it. So, that's 228 the Okay. Yeah. The the horizontal. Yeah.

Okay. And so then those that heat map really is um it catches my attention. It is eye-catching as as it is designed to be. Um, and so I'm wondering, are there projects coming up that are partnering with the with uh Washington Department of Transportation? Um, since that is under my understanding a state road and so we may not have the ability to to do as much in those projects, but we could be partnering.

Yeah, there is some discussions about like multi-road is proposed for a pavement overlay project. Um uh when we did the comprehensive plan update, we met with neighborhoods in that area. We did talk to them. We heard their concerns. So uh we also looked at the bicycle network. Uh we looked at so many different factors, sidewalks and things of this nature. If you can't do sidewalks, at least shoulders. So we can do we what we're planning to do is whatever we can do while the payment overlap project is happening by wash is for us to um invest into some additional minor modifications at least uh striping payment markings additional things like that that can actually help reduce speeds can improve the uh uh multimodal transportation along that road. Uh just an FYI, you know, uh there is a um as part of safety package number two, which is in construction as we speak or we're completing construction, there is um a signage uh there uh speed feedback feedback radar sign on that uh road as a matter of fact for to control a little bit of the speeding.

Great. I'm glad that some of that's already in process. Um, and I I would be curious to hear kind of updates um in in that particular on those projects as it goes along. Um, and then I'm really grateful for um, Council Member Kurd for bringing up near misses. Um, I was if it's if somebody didn't do it, I know that Council Member Al Copra was going to. Um, and what I heard tonight was really helpful that residents can report near misses through the customer action request form. Um, I did not know that. I I knew that the customer action request form is very useful in a in many different topics. Um, like you know, you see a possum on the road, that's a good one. Like, is there a broken street light? That's a good good thing to do. Um, and I'm not sure that many of our residents know about it. Um, and so really being able to help get the word out about that. Um, it might be something that I I write about in my um upcoming newsletter just because um I think it's an like not like obviously I don't want to make more work for you, but at the same time like I really do want to get at the needs and concerns of the community and so people can know where they can send their concerns um and get them dealt with in a timely manner. And I've been really requ uh really impressed at how quickly those requests are addressed and responded to in the community. and that's a large part, you know, sometimes it's parks, but sometimes it's you guys. And so I really appreciate the work that you're doing. Um, and and seeing how this is coming together, it's really nice to see. So, thank you for being here and presenting it.

Thank you.

All right, I guess it's my turn. Oh, is Oh, Ramy. Uh, council member Alcabra.

Okay, Ram Ramy, we'll do. Uh, thank you uh, Deputy Mayor Alder for stealing my uh, words about the uh, your misses because I always Yes, we do get data on collisions, but that's obviously after the fact of you know a danger a dangerous area. So it will be good to uh spread the word on the ability of our uh community to report those things. Um and the the easier it is to discover that functionality u the easier the more information we will get so that we can enhance those maps that we see in front of us right now. Thank you.

Sure. I would like to add something uh in there in terms of near misses and our for example neighborhood traffic calming program criterias and that so we don't just look at collisions uh because that's that that's not the criteria that it should be when we look at so many different factors and it will be renovated in the very near future in here it's it was published back in 19 in in uh 96 97 I think something like that or or 2007 cannot remember that it's been too I can't even remember the date but anyways so there is so many different other criteria that we should look at and we have been looking at so uh for example vicinity to schools and parks sidewalk presence or not uh vehicle travel or average daily traffic speeds uh and collisions all of these are you know parts of the things that we we need to look at and not just the collisions and that's why it's like that's the relationship between uh near miss versus an actual collision. We do not have to wait for an actual collision to happen as part of safety package uh uh two that uh cam uh or three that is coming up that cam helped me put out together. We did not really need uh receive uh much of um uh public request for traffic calming devices on the three parallel routes to Battle Everett Highway and Battle Way. uh 15th, 19th and 23rd are all proposed for improvements even without people asking for all of them because we knew once there was a request for one, but we knew once you request for one that there could be diversion to traffic to other neighborhood uh streets and therefore we did not want that to happen. So we proposed a complete package for all of them. So that's being proactive uh listening to um uh public comments

and trying to address the issues even before that happen in some cases. So right there's nobody else online right um I really appreciate this um and appreciate you coming to present to us. I love the focus on systems because humans make errors. They will always make errors and like we should design a transportation system where a minor error doesn't result in a fatality or a serious accident. So like I really I really appreciate the kind of focus on our responsibility um as the government in turn creating a a system that's safer and I love the quote too. Um the HSIP grants, are those funding any like structural improvements to protect vulnerable users barriers or are those more like the you know the beacons and like speed camera type things?

Uh in the this year's grant application of the four projects, so one of the within the comm collectors, the five roads, one of the ones that we proposed was uh Fitzgerald and 240th. So, that one is an expansion of that guard rail because we have had a few run off the roads in that area. Uh, in addition to, uh, speed cushions to just try and slow people in both directions of the curve, oddly enough. Um, and so I think that's one that I would say is one of the the probably the primary one that has a natural physical piece to it. Uh, there's a lot of speed cushions on all five of there's speed cushions on all five of the collectors. Uh so that's a physical thing but not something that separates users. Um and then uh and then improving the the actual pedestrian crosswalks, the existing ones on East Lake Samish that have a flashing system but not actually the newer RFBs which are proven to be a little more effective. When we do that work, we will end up having to improve, well, we will be improving the uh the crosswalk ramps again as well, but it won't be a separation.

Still, those speed cushions work. So, I live up close to the ones on Brickyard now. And let me just say like driver behavior has changed going down that road, which is lovely to see. Um I um I also just want to acknowledge and appreciate like not just this work, but the work that's already been done. like I showed up to a community engagement event that about Brickyard Road um and like rolled in and got to see Raid holding court and talking to my neighbors and like that project is done now and it is in and just seeing us be responsive to the needs of our community when we're told hey this is dangerous like seeing us like actually respond and do something and follow through and like make the problem better like just that warms my heart and I really appreciate it. Um, and just wanted to say that we have come we've come a really long way from how we respond to community members with concerns since I've been here in a very good way. Um, also wanted to just appreciate the ability to report near misses and look at the kind of structural issues that that you spoke about. Um, cuz like we shouldn't wait for a bad accident. Like somebody shouldn't have to get hurt in order for us to do something. And I I appreciate that ethic. Um, had another question. Um, I've seen some other cities in the area put down things like those like little armadillos, like the little things that you can put on the side of the road, so if a car veers out of the lane, they get, you know, a bunch of bumps and it's super uncomfortable. Um, are there any kind of lowcost, easy to deploy things like that, like a physical structure that makes people safer that we've been looking at at all?

There's something called tough curb. You're talking about delineators and posts. Is that what you're referring to? Well, yeah. Like a like a a way to like protect a pedestrian or bicycle lane that isn't a full-on structure, but like might be a lot cheaper and easier to to deploy and something we could do a lot faster. Um, I don't know. There are things and we've seen them used in other cities. Uh, the trade-offs typically become uh the maintenance aspect of those. most of the the things that are like firmer better barrier and they last longer but they cost a lot more to put out in the first place. Totally.

And then and then we can we can simplify it all the way down to just literally delineators on the pavement that

get hit more frequently and not not and not hit in a severity like that was going to take out the pedestrian and the cyclist, but just hit enough that they they disappear. And then that becomes our our our maintenance headache. They also come a lot of the questions we're still trying to resolve and in as we expand into the the uh multimmodal stuff is is and the space we need for doing all this work is um the maintenance of it, right? So like on the on the rare occasion we have snow or we just want a street sweep and clean and we want those paths and those shoulders cleared as well. that delineator becomes the obstacle of having having the the tool we currently have be able to clear the space.

Um, totally. And it was my impression that we have actually like a bike lane street sweeper kind of thing that we that we purchase. Don't we have something like that? Okay. Um, so no, I would just like we already have in our bike plan, you know, a whole bunch of networks that like we're waiting for protected bike lanes to get built over time and we're working on that. I'm just wondering if there's something that we can do that would be easier and less expensive that we could stand up a lot faster. Sure.

Um and like that's why I was thinking like the armadillos because like the the flex post car ticklers um um like I'm not not a big fan of those but like the armadillos are like I mean they're bolted into the ground like they're not the kind of thing that move around a whole lot or or probably need to be maintained a whole bunch. Um and I've seen some other local cities put those things up and I was a little jealous. So, I was wondering if that's something that that we had looked at at all. Um, we we have looked at it. Uh, I will say that the one project I know of, which is I think the one you're speaking of, mayor, which is the Armadill, they're called Zikla. Uh, they they are a sole source type of issue and they come out of Europe. Okay. And they're ridiculously expensive for what they are. Um, but

they don't look expensive. I know. I agree with you. Um, I I looked at them at a previous job I had too. Same thing. Oh, perfect thing. and then went what um uh they but but I would say one of the things we are doing currently and this comes back to you know trying to make the

try to get the best we can out of the what we have right now is we're we're working a lot with the pavement and the overlay like Ryan was talking about Maltby but we're doing that on some of our other streets. So where we are where we can and we we did that on Brickyard a little like you see the double stripe now. Um, we're narrowing the travel lanes, one to calm the traffic, but also to build a natural just a painted buffer even. And it's so much better and nicer than just a single stripe between you as a cyclist and and a car. So, just even getting a buffer that's two or three feet wide without anything in it does does a lot for what we're trying to achieve.

Well, it also gives us space. if we want to put something up there in the future, like if you want to put a jersey barrier up, you need 18 inches or two feet or something. So, cool. Thank you. Okay. All right. We're still in the city manager report or we take it take it away. Completed the city manager report and um I will note the time is 658. So, just to make sure you're doing a time check as you think about I appreciate that. We've got eight minutes. Um, I'll bet we can get through the next few things in eight minutes. Um, council committee reports, community reports, and conversations. Council members,

deputy mayor. Um, I will share that the uh newly formed community safety uh subcommittee met last week and um I wrote a little bit about it in my newsletter because there have been a number of community members who have reached out expressing concerns around immigration and um immigration enforcement here in both. And and I wanted to I wanted to let the folks who, you know, who have subscribed to my newsletter know that we are taking their those concerns seriously. and um and working to to be responsive to the needs and concerns of our community. Um and so just to kind of give a report on that, um we discussed kind of the different possibilities that communities around the country have experienced and and sort of the work that our police department and um city executive's office has done in in preparing for possible eventualities. Um and then also a discussion on um body cams and how that technology has changed um over time and and become more widely adopted.

Council member Angulari.

Thank you. Uh this is my first report on Eltech lodging tax uh uh basically advisory committee. We meet every quarter. uh we met once and we are planning to meet on March 17th. If anybody wanted to join from the public, you are welcome to join. So as I'm new to this committee uh I've been meeting with uh tourism manager DA and parks director uh Nick and city manager Kyle. They have been greatly helpful to provide a lot of information for the last two years. So we are hoping to have a subcommittee and please do check our website biget bottle great website. Uh our goal is uh LTAC. Our goal is to reinvest uh lodging tax which is a hotland mortal tax uh reinvest to make sure that we have more visitors visiting uh both staying for a day or for a week or for a month so that uh yeah it's reinvested and we have more visitors in our city. So definitely hoping to serve on this committee and uh you know bring more visitors to city. uh and we will be meeting on March 17th and hope to provide more update later. Thank you.

All right, next up is projected agenda discussion. Does anybody have an item they'd like to bring up? And if not, I would love to accept a motion to approve the consent agenda. Deputy Mayor. Motion to approve the consent agenda. Second. I have a motion from Deputy Mayor Alder and a second from Council Member Kurd. Would anybody like to speak to the motion? Seeing none, City Clerk, please say yes or no. Council member Angular, yes. Mayor Thompson, yes. Deputy Mayor Alder, yes. Council member Kurt, yes. Council member Myers, uh, yes. Council member Alcabra, yes. Passes 6.

Fantastic. All right, we are going to break. Um 7:07 is sunset. Hey, uh Council Alabra, 10 minutes good enough. We We'll go 7:20. We'll be back at We'll reconvene at 7:20. May I ask like 25? Yes, you may. We'll reconvene at 7:25.

Thank you. Welcome back. Excuse. First up, we have agenda bill 26035 BMC title 17 amendments including transportation impact fees. City manager.

Thank you again, Mayor, and good evening, city council. So tonight you are hearing once again on a topic related to amendments to both municipal code title 17. Uh council, you've had um a few study sessions on this on a public hearing recently. And tonight we are joined by Boyd Benson, our utilities and development services manager and as well as Steve Marawa, the deputy director for public works to guide you through uh through the presentation. With that, I'm going to turn things over to Boyd. Thank you, city manager, and good evening, mayor and city council. Tonight, we'll have a very brief presentation about the proposed title 17 updates, including our transportation impact fee update. We'll be requesting a council action to approve an ordinance adopting the amendments to municipal code title 17 along with the impact fees. So just a brief summary of some of the key information we presented in the past. Uh as part of the 2024 comprehensive plan, city council adopted a multimotal level of service. That means it's not vehicle tripbased but vehicles, pedestrians, bicyclists and all modes of transportation. Uh the transportation impact fee was updated to incorporate this change and it includes the multimmoal level service. It includes new projects that were developed as part of the transportation element of the 2024 comprehensive plan and also includes some revisions to allow uh affordable housing and change use reductions and exemptions. Uh these updates are required to adopt the impact fee schedule and the concurrency approach. So where we've been and where we are. Uh the last major impact fee update was in 2019 with some minor minor updates in 2023. We've had a total of three um study sessions and a public hearing with

council and the same with another three total uh meetings with the planning commission. And we've completed se review and our department of commerce review with no comments. And tonight we're bringing forward this for adoption with an effective date of May 1st, 2026. Key topics. Um we've discussed level of service policies. That's how we show how our system works and how our system will perform even with growth. Uh concurrency. How can we make sure that as growth occurs that improvements are constructed concurrently with that growth so we can accommodate our planned uh impacts or mitigator impacts to the transportation system and impact fees. The portion of the future projects to mitigate growth that we can apply to uh new development. Once again this is a very short presentation but uh these updates will adopt the multimal service. that includes significant permitting process simplifications. In the past, the concurrency approach was somewhat separate uh with respect to timelines and process to the underlying land entitlement process. Now, they coincide nicely. Um and yeah, I'm just going to skip the slide since we've already kind of spoken about this and give you a summary of the impact fees. Uh the fees aren't changing significantly, but what we do have is the affordable housing reduction with up to a maximum 80% reduction for projects that are 0 to 30% of the average monthly income. And then a graduated system with decreasing uh reductions for up to 80% of AMI. And this is a small part of the cost of development, but it's a good step forward to help promote more housing options and affordable housing

option. uh alternatives. And then we have the 10% impact fee reduction area that's within a quarter mile of our major transit routes and including our growth centers. And the change of use exemption. And I've added a slide to explain this a bit more. Um but that's for minor interior change of use uh of existing buildings where you may not see full redevelopment, but you may see some incubator space or some other type of use until full development. and we've just kind of shown a comparison to other cities and um what we're proposing for let's say a multif family rate. So you can see we're we're not at the top we're not at the bottom and the changes are somewhat uh similar to what we have currently. Uh oh that's interesting. Well, we have a missing slide. Um, which I don't know how that could happen. I can pull it up from a different presentation if that would work.

Boy, why don't you just uh address it? Was it in the packet at all? Is there something you point to?

Um, it was a comparison of our change of use exemption examples. It's a it's a very nice little picture. Um but what we're trying to explain is uh most every city charges for any type of change in use. Council provided policy directions. Are there certain changes of use that could be exempt? And we brought that forward with our consultant and we address that. So, what we're proposing in and sorry you can't see the pretty pictures um in the code is that if if the if the change is wholly internal and we're talking about taking an existing building and changing it from a bank to let's say a restaurant or a furniture store into something else or a garage into um neighborhood scale residential commercial. Uh those aren't significant changes to the structure. uh we're able to demonstrate that we can exempt those from the program and we've looked at the actual cost impact from that and it's relatively small. Once you start looking at other changes, demolishing a building and rebuilding it or even taking an existing building like a bank and turning it into a fast food restaurant with a drive-thru, those are significant exterior uh

okay exterior revisions and the change of use. coupon. Yes. Uh exemption would not apply. So we'd we'd charge full transportation impact fee for that type of change. Oh, how'd you do that? It was hidden. Oh, shoot. You have skills. I used to. I would be done by now if I had skills. Look at that. Oh, we got to share it. Remember that time we worked together? Thank you, sir.

Kyle, I like how you're like, "Keep going while your boss's boss's boss is like running tech support over your shoulder." No big deal. All the time every day. Look at that. These are some really cool little images

we'd like to share. So, thank you so much, sir. I don't know how that happened, but it happened. So exempt wholly internal. We take an existing building, remod remodel the inside. We're exempt from impact fees. You take someone's residential scale garage and you change that up so you can sell produce. That's exempt. Not exempt. And I' I'd like to kind of point you to the far right image. It doesn't take much to alter the exterior of a building, but that's an image of a bank that may turn into a fast food restaurant. Those type of uses are significant. The change is significant. we charge impact fee commensurate to the the change in impact. That's what we really wanted to try to explain as as part of this.

Can we have like a higher impact fee for somebody that wants to put a drive-through in? Uh that's kind of a joke, but kind of not. Yeah. No, we have to base these on trip generation data and the rest, but once again, um we're we're able to demonstrate that these uses can be exempt and that we will be charging the full impact fee for these other types of changes that you see on the right. And with that uh stated uh that we're requesting that council approve an ordinance adopting amendments to both municipal code title 17 including the transportation impact fee update. Council member Kurt,

thank you for the presentation. Thanks for going through the presentation six times in different committees. Um uh and thanks to our consultant support too uh for the work on this action. I think the community has been asking for a long time about change in use um fees especially on historic Main Street. Um and I think this is going to unlock a lot more opportunities for folks to utilize the properties around um both that already exist um and um put them to better use. So um thank you also Void for your comments. Um earlier today um I had brought up some questions on really detailed questions on uh transportation impact fees uh with uh drive-throughs and without drive-throughs and why it's different for fast food restaurants but not for coffee shops. And it's just a little inconsistency in my head, but um I'm satisfied with the answers that you provided. So thank you. Um, and with that, I will make a motion to approve the ordinance adopting amendments to both municipal code, title 17, including updated transportation impact fees.

I will second. I have a motion from Council Member Curtain, a second from Deputy Mayor Aldrich to approve the recommended action. Would anybody like to speak to the motion? I would like to speak to the motion. Um, I amum am super excited for this. I just like council member Kurd, I'm really looking forward to empty buildings turning into things downtown and to be able to build more place and more things for people to do and just make our downtown the kind of place where more people want to hang out. So, I'm uh super excited about this in particular. Um, and thanks to the staff for all their work on it and for council for bringing it this far. City clerk, please say yes or no. Council member Angular, yes. Mayor Thompson, yes. Deputy Mayor Aldrich, yes. Council member Kurt,

yes. Council member Miles, yes. Council member Alcabra, yes. Passes 6. Fantastic. Appreciate you. Thank you so so much. All right. Next up is a study session down there.

All right, that was a stimulating conversation on carbonated beverages that we just had here uh momentarily out of the blue. Um but we aggressively. Um, next up we have agenda bill 26036, the Balfl Municipal Code Title 22 Landmark Preservation Code Update. City Manager.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, so the first of two study sessions and as we just are on the heels of updating title 17, now we shift to title 22. And I do want to just as we frame this of remind council that this is a zoomed out look at the entitle entitle entire section of of code and um this case it's about landmark preservation uh which we've um yeah it's been on the work plan to take a look at b on best b on based on past feedback and experience. So we're looking forward to tonight's conversation. With that um I'm going to turn things right over to uh to Jacqueline. Go ahead. Hello everyone. Um so um like what Kyle um said um we will be talking about um BMC title 22 the lemar preservation code update. Um so tonight there's no action required from city council. Um staff is just requesting initial council input evolving code and policy topics involving updates to the both of municipal code um BMC 20 title 22 um including the desired scope level of regulatory flexibility and opportunities for process efficiency and clarification. Um these are discussion questions tonight. They're also in your packet. Um I'm not going to go over them just yet. um but they'll be at the end of this slide um the slide deck as well. So this will be our agenda for tonight. Um we will be going over um title 22 um as well as the purpose of this update. Then we'll go over some main themes of code updates that staff have seen um after reviewing um title 20 title 22 and then um we'll wrap it up with some next steps. All right. So landmark landmark reservation code today. So the city's landmark reservation code so title 22

provides the process for identifying and protecting both's historic and cultural resources. Um this code helps preserve important buildings, sites and districts that reflect the community's history and identity. Um, it also establishes the Landmark Preservation Board, um, which is appointed by city council and reviews nominations for landmark designations as well as proposed changes to designated properties. Once a property is designated, most exterior changes must be reviewed to ensure they are compatible with the historic character of the building um, or the site. The code also includes a state program that offers property tax relief to owners who rehabilitate designated historic properties using approved and preservation standards. Um so more information about the code itself can be found in your packet as attachment one. Um though that will be a summary of title 22 um with the different sections within that title. So, the purpose of the code update tonight, um, both's landmark preservation code, title 22, plays an important role in balancing historic preservation with other city priorities, um, such as housing, um, economic development, and downtown revitalization. As staff begin considering potential updates to this code, we um are not presenting specific changes at this time. Um, instead staff are seeking city council's highlevel policy direction to help guide the scope of future work. This includes feedback on how the council would like the preservation process to function. Um, particularly regarding efficiency, flexibility, and the role of advisory boards in reviewing landmark related decisions. Um, again, there's no draft code proposed at this stage. All right. So, here we'll just go through the different themes of the code update. Um, for starters, we're going to talk about overall approach. So,

updating the landmark preservation code is an opportunity to make sure um the city's rules and processes are clear, they're transparent, and they're consistent with current preservation practices. A key question is whether the update should mainly focus on clarifying, improving, and improving the existing code or if it should also consider bigger changes on how reviews are conducted and who makes certain decisions. As staff define the scope of this work, um the goal is to balance historic preservation with other city priorities like housing um development and overall community growth while still protecting the characters of both historic resources. The next theme will be the role of Landmark Preservation Board or LPB. Um as part of the code update, the city will review the role of LPB and how it fits into the overall preservation process. Um, one question is which decisions should cons continue to be reviewed by the board and which could be handled by staff using clear standards. Um, the BS the board's role may focus more on landmark designation, policy guidance, and interpreting preservation standards while staff could handle routine project review. Clarifying these roles could help improve consistency, accountability, and efficiency while making the best use of both staff and volunteer time. um process efficiency and streamlining. So the city is also looking at ways to make the review process more efficient. Um some landmark related reviews may overlap with other development regulations which can create extra steps for applicants. Um staff will explore opportunities to better align these reviews while um within the overall development permit process to reduce the duplication while still protecting historic resources. The city may also consider allowing certain actions such as demolition of non-desated properties

that meet clear criteria to be reviewed administratively. Um code organization and clarity. Staff are also considering updates to improve how the landmark preservation code is organized and written so it's clear and easy to understand and use. So one potential change would be to move the section that governs LPB to title 22. Oh, sorry, to title two of the um both municipal code where other city boards and commissions are located. Um additional updates could um focus on simplifying terminology uh clarifying definitions and organizing procedures more clearly. Um these changes would make the code easier for applicants, staff, board members, and decision makers to navigate. um alignment with state law and best practices. So finally, the city will review the code to ensure it is consistent with state law and current best practices. Washington law requires local governments to have a consolidated permit review process with limited hearings and appeals. So one open record hearing, one closed record appeal. Some parts of a code include multiple decision points and appeal steps that may need to be updated. Um, for example, staff have identified potential opportunities to streamline downtown special review area or the SR process in BMC 1264. So, currently projects that involve an older structure in downtown um, they have to go to an additional design review with LPB. Um but in practice these buildings already undergo a demolition review under BMZ 1228 which evaluates opportunities for mitigation and material um salvage. So um those buildings have to go to double the review process in order to um uh get approval for demolition. So that's kind

of an example of um one of the projects that has or one of the pro processes that has multiple decision points. staff will look at ways to simplify these procedures um and align them with other development review processes while also reviewing how other cities can handle um historic preservation to identify best practices. All right, next steps. Um based on city council's feedback tonight, staff will begin developing a clear scope and policy direction for potential updates to the LP um the landmark preservation code. staff will also coordinate with both planning commission and landmark. Um we have a scheduled meeting with planning commission in April. Um and I think the one in April for LPB got moved again. So we'll get back to what we'll get back to y'all when that gets scheduled. Um after that, staff will prepare draft code amendments and support materials for public review and formal hearings. Um, in addition to all of that, um, staff are currently updating, um, the city's historic invent in inventory update, which identifies historic properties throughout both. So, no code changes are being proposed for adoption at this time. Um, again, no action required. Staffer are just requesting initial council input involving code and policy topics involving updates to the BMC title 22. And here are discussion questions. Again, there's in your packet also for you to look at, but should the landmark preservation code update it focus on specific administrative items such as process improvements, definition updates, and consistency with state law? Or should the focus brought in to consider city advisory and regulatory rules? Could additional project level actions be eligible for administrative review with clearly defined standards?

And how should the city balance landmark preservation priorities with broader land use and development goals? All right. Thank you. Thanks for the presentation. Um, tonight we had public comment from one of our landmark preservation board members and I um really thankful that he came to give comment. Um, and I'm also wondering about like how maybe this has been communicated so far. Um, I know that council has the per like this is council's purview. So, yeah, we should be hearing about it. But um I'm also wondering if um can you elaborate a little bit more on the feedback that you received? Is it because um attendance is spotty? Is it because um folks on the board are airing their frustrations to you? And is that kind of the impetus behind some of these? Or is it just purely from like a code cleanup standpoint? Like it belongs in title 2. it we need to go through and do a state review like it just kind of clean up. Can you elaborate a little bit more?

Yeah. So um this is will be this is the first presentation that we have on um the preservation code. So again it hasn't been brought to planning commission or um the board just yet. Um the comment that we received today was the first comment I've received in general about um everything that we talked about in the presentation today. Um so we will um keep what he um the comment we re received today in mind. Um when it comes to uh I guess with title moving everything to title two um I we aren't necessarily changing anything um just yet. We haven't proposed anything or um we are just purely kind of just reviewing everything. So this is very like highle review as of right now. So nothing has been proposed just yet. Um so there hasn't been really any idea of like removing any um uh uh opportunities for landmark or anything like that just yet.

Sure. And council member, I'll just uh weigh in too just from an overall process standpoint with any of our boards and commissions just as the orientation or reminder around the fact that um the council is as you you alluded to the council owns the the purpose, duty and function of board and commissions. They are advisory to you and so um the the the code currently then defines and will continue to define the purpose behind the function, right? And so starting off with the council of is there anything you'd want to see and then having a conversation with other impacted parties is is oftentimes how things are done. Um I do know that staff has received feedback from the landmark preservation board throughout the years and I know that all of that goes into it but again that kind of prompts then what would we like to see? I think you've received some of that that feedback as well. I also um I'll just add and then if there's anything to correct or change um at the break I did also speak to um the community development director and learned that the last two landmark preservation uh meetings have been cancelled due to last lack of quorum. So there's also hasn't been an opportunity to have a preview or a heads up that this was coming. So circumstances being what they are, we're here tonight and hopefully getting some some feedback. And if there's not a lot of strong feedback, then too, we'll see what we hear from the advisory bodies as well.

Yeah, thanks for that context. I think um I think that there's a lot of perceptions right now um from members of the board. Um we're going out for um we've we have it advertised and we're going to be we're going to be reviewing membership and um it's an opportunity for new board members to to be instated. And so I just think that now is an kind of a unique time to be having this conversation. Um and I'm also um curious about um you answered my question, city manager, about I guess why are we going to planning a commission before landmarks board to solicit feedback. Um it seems like um it could be more respectful and um acknowledge the challenges that they face on the board by going to them first maybe for feedback before planning commission even if it sets it back a little bit of time. I think that just might uh going cold turkey into planning commission to get their feedback on something that they're uncertain. I don't want to set up any like board on board um violence. So I

like Are you gonna finish that?

I don't know. Yeah, now it's on the record. Great. So um I just want to be uh mindful that um all of our volunteer boards and commissions are doing an extraordinary amount of work for us. Um and we really value all the input that they provide and the juice has to be worth the squeeze for them to be involved. um and if they're not seeing uh their um their work benefited or their work benefiting the city and the city's organization, it's really hard to volunteer your time. Um and I know that as from my experience on the board, being heard goes a long way to feeling valued. And so, um want to make sure that we're uh we're demonstrating that we value their feedback. um especially during this kind of transition period or um you know there's new board members coming on, we need to I think really set the stage that um we value what they have to say. Um even if it's something that we might not be able to do or um take action on, I think it would be helpful to to go to them first. So that's one piece of feedback that I would offer. Um the next is um really tied more towards the discussion questions and just from a a perspective of um utilizing this body in the context of wider volunteer opportunities. I think just demonstrating how how engaged our community is with how many people have volunteered and have filled out their applications for boards and commissions this this year. Like we had nobody come to the Okay, we had three people come to the um to the open house, but we had how many applications? Tons. So there's a huge demand for um opportunities to engage with the city to volunteer. And I think that there's a perception when people are onboarded

into boards and commissions that they're volunteering for the city and that's not actually like there's a disconnect between what they think they can bring as volunteers to the city and what their advisory roles and capacities are. And so I wanted to be very clear when and this is on us because we're the ones who vet. We're the ones who interview. It's five minute interview but we can still outline what those expectations are a little bit better. um uh we need to be very clear on what those expectations are and then also offer alternatives. So a great example of this was the library board which we sunset and we sunset at the direction of the library board. They're like, "We don't think that our our board is moving anything valuable forward." And instead, everybody on the library board is now in Friends of the Library where they're actually moving the work that and the volunteer work that they wanted to move forward. And it's not really the city's purview and the city's responsibility to do that work of volunteer coordination, of setting up story time, of doing the work that Friends of the Library does. Similarly, I'm thinking both Historical Society has a they have an office. They have regular meetings. They have um an organization that um maybe needs a little infusion of more volunteering. Um and that's a partner organization that's not funded by the city, but um partners with the city. And that's maybe an opportunity for folks who are interested in historic preservation and telling both story and getting the communication word out there. that's an opportunity for those folks um to really plug in and use their talents and their volunteer attitudes. Um whereas really we're we're getting into the nitty-g gritties. We're doing the nerd work of like going through code. That's not going to be everybody's cup of tea. And if they're coming to us with their application and bright eyes being like, I want to help the city and they don't actually want to read code and they don't actually want to like wow, they're not going to show

up to the meetings because it's not worth the squeeze. So that's my really broad brush strokes and I've been talking for too long so I'm going to be quiet now but um really thank you for bringing it up. Um thank you for coming to us first and I'll just re reiterate please talk to landmark board before planning commission. Thanks. I don't think you talked too long because I think you had a lot of really good things to say. Um and you put into words a lot of things that I was thinking like how do I say this like because we've heard not just you know tonight from um one of the members of our library board who's also just a wonderful member of our community in general. Um we've heard a lot of frustration that they can't do the kind of things they want to in the setup that we have and I don't know that there is a way to do that in our code. like we don't get to the city council doesn't get to make you know we don't do project negotiations like we don't get to say you know individual projects well how about you do this and that like that is handled at a staff administrative level and I think what the board has has wanted to do is a lot of that kind of work and I just don't know that we have that work for them in our system of government um the um I guess my question is in this setup where you're talking about handling projects at an individual level and you're going to the board for kind of big picture guidance. How much big picture guidance do you need? Like is that a function that we need a board and commission for? like uh so for we're a a CLG uh Jacqueline can help me out with the acronym uh but it's a a a designation with within the the department of historical preservation. I'll just use that general term. Uh so we are one of two cities

Seattle and both have our own board. uh other cities utilize uh that are eligible for grants, CLG grants. Um they contract with an through an interlocal with King County. So they and they kind of pick and choose what their complexity of their code is, how the what the criteria are. Um they you lean on those other cities lean on King County for that historic preservation lens. Um because most cities don't have a historic preservationist on on staff. Um, and so each city decides based on the policies that are established in the comp plan. Uh, it's not required within the comp plan, but it's it's it's going to look at what our current historic resources are. Uh, how we want to preserve those, how we want to make sure that development activity or which includes demolition, modifications. How do we want to make sure that those historic resources that have value as established by the community are preserved and and coming up with a criteria to follow? Um so you can you can dial that way up. You can dial it, you know, somewhere along that um from 1 to 11 uh if you want to. And that's that's one of the questions that we we want to consider with the the preservation board is when we when staff are, you know, sitting with an applicant saying here's what the project is. It's to modify the structure to demolish the structure and to redevelop this site. Um what are the criteria that they would would like to see? There are limitations um that we have to consider um when something's not on a when it is on the register, when it is not on a register, a preservation list.

Another question is like we've already done an inventory, right? Like so we know what we have. We know what buildings are eligible for landmarking and which already have been. We do and we're actually pursuing an update to that. So that was within the last uh last budget. It is going forth right now where we will scour the city um especially the areas of the unincorporated uh parts of of or the the parts that were uninccorporated at the time of the original inventory uh to really understand what's out there

um what has potential to be added to the register uh based on um a number of factors. So, that's going to be happening simultaneously, which would be great to go through and great to update. Um, so we're putting in a a lot of a lot of resources into that as well as this code hasn't really been updated since 2011. There was a small one in 2020, it looks like. Um, but it just definitely needed a refresh um to go through.

Okay. And hey, we have at least a couple members uh of this body that are in those areas that weren't part of the city in 2011. myself included. Um I guess so similar to what council member Kurd said, one of the things that frustrates me is when we have people that are super interested in volunteering and giving their time to the city and then we don't have much meaningful work for them to do and it kind of feels like a little bit of a bait and switch and like I guess is there meaningful work for the landmark board to do? I mean, and that might not be a totally fair way to phrase that question, but like this is what I'm like, do we need this board? Like, and is it better to not have a board than to have a board with a whole bunch of people who are frustrated that they're not doing more on it and not showing up to meetings? And like historically, like I just looked up like we had a bunch of applications, our board and commissions. We had one application for landmarks board. Like typically when we interview people, we have to say, "Hey, we really liked you. We don't have a spot for you here. do you want to be on this board? Like, so it's not something that has a high demand in the community either.

So, not to uh not to turn tables, but with the intention of the study session and of being a conversation among council members, I would encourage that to be a conversation that the council has on whether or not you need one because it is advisory to you. So, if you look at the current scope of the code and what's required and hearing that there's two cities in King County that have one and knowing that it does lead to the fact of currently there's volunteers who are frustrated, I think that'd be a good conversation for for council to discuss. If we're one of two cities, the other being Seattle that has one, I mean, I'll I'll go out on a limb for staff and say, "No, we don't need one." Yeah.

Do you want one? And I think that's a different question. And then the other part of it is mayor you you eloquently noted earlier is that you know some of the things that maybe are wants of what people want to do is actually not a role that would be equivalent to the to the advisory body piece or council member Kurt we've heard from two of you so far but council member Kurt you talked about like I know for a fact that both historical society is desperate for volunteers and there is work to do so you know there there I think that's a it's a great question it' be good to hear from from others but I think from the staff perspective, you know, we're going to support whatever wars and commissions there are. Looking at the scope of work and then hearing, you know, again, from one person, but from the comments from tonight of what they'd want to do, that certainly doesn't seem to be within the code. And I I don't see how that would become part of the code.

And I will just leave my fellow council members with this and I'll stop talking like, you know, it doesn't seem that we need a function here. And the function that we have is frustrating. Like Rey is a wonderful community member. He's shown up. He's involved. He's got great values. He's somebody I respect quite a bit. And I don't want to have a board if what it's functionally going to do is make community members like Rey feel like that. Like I like what are we what are we accomplishing here? And is that what we want to accomplish is my question. And with that,

well, thank you. And I'm glad that this can be a conversation. Um, I would just, you know, I would just recap that in the last few years, we have had similar conversations like this around the shorelines board, and we used to have a shorelines board, and now it's a function of the planning commission. Is that correct? Yes. It's it's at It it it's it's enacted. It's it's it's it's not sunset. It's I guess hibernating until we update the shoreline code. So it it will come and go. So we will we will reenact them for

the 2029 SMP update work. It's prior to that. Yes. Okay.

Um yes. Bring it out of hibernation. Um so that is one model that we've seen happen in the past where um and thank you for for correcting my memory there that uh it could be that a board like this only needs to exist when there is an opportunity for that work to be done. Um, I think we discussed like, well, maybe the land uh the planning commission could take over the work of the shorelines board. Um, and and see that work done that way. I would guess that our planning commission is um pretty busy with their docket and it would be a stretch to move the landmark process over to them and make it part of their docketing. And so I wonder if part of what we're part of the inks that we're experiencing here is maybe it could be ad hoc. Other thoughts that I've had, I'm not convinced by that idea. I just am putting it out there as a as a possibility that we've seen before. Um when I joined planning commission there was a project that was kind of on our docket but it was really being done by the landmark preservation board and that was uh telling both's whole story. Um let me get it right telling both's full story and it was finally p published in March of 2024. I highly recommend reading through that because that's part of the preserving stories, not items or not objects um work that had been done by the city. Um, and it hasn't necessarily gone beyond that because it's not the role of the landmark preservation board to take that information that they, you know, that the body worked on compiling, you know, in consultation with staff and

consultants to bring forward that report. Now, it's up to other departments of the city to enact that those stories and to tell that story. And so I you know when when preparing for this meeting I asked about you know has this has this statement or um has this document been shared with the folks who are working on developing a design for um for both Landing? Like are we able to tell some of both story in our parks um and especially the historic district that we have at Both Landing? Can we can we get rather than just the settler colonial story um that we we often see most preserved and portrayed, is there more to the story that we can be telling and and really lean on the work that the Landmark Preservation Board had done in the past? Um this work really does seem to be it's time to hand it off to other departments. Um, and so I I hear the frustration of like there's not enough to do um maybe it would be better to have, you know, the board called together when there is a project um that's ongoing. Maybe is there more to Hold on, let me go back to the questions that you were asking us because I thought they were good ones. um you know should the focus broaden and and I would be curious to know like what are the opportunities for that focus to broaden like is there a broader scope that we could be considering and are there options available to us and to landmarks to to consider um but yeah so those are sort of my thoughts in terms of

well okay and to the last question let me just answer the last question briefly Um, my house is now considered old enough to be, you know, landmarked and I and while there we we do joke around that there's maybe something in the water there because I am not the first elected official to live in that house and I did not have being an elected official on my radar when I moved into that house. And so I wonder is it something about that house? Um, that doesn't make it landmarked. It's a it's a trile or not a trile, it's a split level from 1976. like it was the the butt of the joke in the game of life. Like that's what I thought of split levels until I moved into one. Um and so I do wonder, you know, what are what are we trying to preserve through through looking at how our community is going to change and and be shaped over time. So, the broader land use and development goals, you know, we we didn't preserve the the bank down on the corner here um so that we could have housing and and I supported that decision. Um I I do think we have a comprehensive plan that we don't want landmarks to weaponize the historical nature of a place to prevent change from happening. And I think in many communities we've seen that that be done. Um and so, you know, I I'm all about like I but I also really loved and was pleased at the Mcadoo um preservation as well because that told an important story of redlinining of why was that house built there? Because he wasn't allowed to build that house inside city limits. Now it's part of city limits because it was annexed. Um, and and I think that that

that's a really great example of why we preserve some things. Um, and and while there may be more work to be done on newly annexed places, so you know, since 2014, um, we may find that there are other historic buildings that that deserve to have their story told and preserved. Um, I think that the work will continue even if we change the the scope of the landmark board. Um, so those are some of my thoughts. I'm not necessarily I don't think I know this is the way to go and I I'm not going to fight for it, but I do want to raise some of these questions and thoughts so that we are considering them. Thank you. I was thinking about my 1970 split level that was annexed in that has been part of the register. I'm like, "Oh, that's over 50 years old now. It could be historic, but it's just old."

I wouldn't want to reinstall the like the dark wood paneling that it came with. Don't forget the 3-in shag carpet

that was under my under my cabinet in my kitchen. I have a couple of questions here while we preserving lot of uh these how many Bottl residents know about our Bottl historical museum for example what are the number of people are the visitors the reason I'm asking is we are preserving we are investing Are we also marketing? I know we have a beginner bottle but how many people know like bottle is named after David Bottl family right? For example, how many people while we are all doing like either marketing or like I was looking on Amazon the book there is a book from our bottle landing preservation board then and now right then and now like 164 page for example can we can we make more I don't know I'm talking about different things here make more innovative content because both bottl has been growing a lot of people coming a lot of my friends don't know why bottle is named bottle for example so may know what we are doing how we can improve like even we have visitor center at chamber of commerce I don't know how many visitors we are getting so I'm asking do we have a statistics how are how is it increasing and all that's

yeah and council morangulary just to clarify too the bathl historical museum is not run by the city it's actually from a nonprofit um and so we could find out from them But um but it we other than having an agreement with them of that the facilities are in our park and we do some maintenance to the building. Um it is run by a nonprofit again who are frequently looking for volunteers.

You done council member Angular?

Yes. Okay, cool. Um, I uh thank you for uh for this uh bringing this and I do share this the sentiment that the mayor mentioned about uh Ray Thomas. He is an invaluable member of the U of our community and uh I I I mean I take his word and I was actually before I joined council I was on uh landmarks and I very much appreciate uh Ray's leadership on that on that board. Uh the flip side of that, even though I was a short timer on that board before I joined council, we did not have I was I was actually torn uh between this or I did not understand fully is that whether that board was a um a project by project. Let's go. And a developer applies for a permit and then it comes to the board and they decide whether it's a historic or not historic and add a plaque here or no do it this shape or that shape in this color or that color you know or it's a more of a high level citywide advisory just you know similar to what the planning commission does. So to me that's still a question and I I I felt like I didn't want to get into the nitty-gritty details. It's like land use and zoning conversations. You know, there's like two different things. And do we want that single board to decide on both of those things? I I wasn't sure of that question. So I I uh and we do have a B historic museum or society that does look for volunteers. So maybe there's uh opportunities there. Um I wanted to ask clarifying questions about those questions if that's okay. Um the question the first so I will start uh from yeah from the top. So what

what do you mean by uh should the landmark reservation code update focus on specific I mean what did you mean by what are you trying to get out of this qu this question? uh mainly to see if if council's interest would be for us to focus very narrowly on making sure that it's consistent with state law requirements. There are a couple of of inconsistencies with public meetings that we do need to clean up. Um and then just look at the code from a a strictly uh streamline efficiency perspective. make sure that that we've we've we've cleaned it up and and it it is relevant with all the other codes that we've updated in the last few years or should we look more broadly and consider the the kind of how in which it's it's administered and and getting into more procedures because as you as you point out the Landmark Preservation Board does do both. They provide recommendations to code amendments to the chapter as well as they are um the the decision makers on on projects for uh certificates of appropriateness for uh changes to a structure or or removal of a structure. Um so that's really what we were looking at and I think we've got a we've got a lot to to pull from from this conversation and it's definitely not something that we're looking to to be done with quickly through this through the first half of the year. We're we're we're planning to take the time as we have to kind of bounce back before back and forth between landmark planning commission, city council, making sure we're we're providing input and everybody's uh up to speed with what what LPB is saying, what planning commission is is uh is providing as well as as this group here.

Can I ask though why is the planning commission involved in this conversation? I'm just curious. I don't know. Uh well for the for the changes to the code planning commission would have to be involved in it. So Landmark Preservation Board makes the recommendation uh through planning commission. It's a little convoluted. Um so when when an ordinance comes before council, it's it comes from planning commission with their findings, conclusions, and recommendation that's built step one with landmark goes to planning commission. Planning commission carries it forward. So, it's a sort of a soft a soft handoff there.

I uh I understand. Um um there was a uh there was two there's two things that were uh mentioned. Um one is if we're going to continue this conversation, uh it will be good to bring in the landmark to minimize frustration. So bringing the affected folks into the conversation earlier in the process than later. Uh I think that was I I sense a a frustration because it was whether the perception of that it came out of nowhere but that's uh whether that's a reality or not but the perception is there. So I think it'll be good to bring the folks who are affected sooner rather than later. And the second question which based on the conversation we're having here is do we uh move forward with do we do we uh the the question that I have after hearing listening to everybody is do we want to consider the question of whether to continue with the board or not right now or do we want to um postpone that till another time in the future and maybe that's a question to my fellow council members more than it is to staff. This this is a study session.

I'll jump in at once. Well, I'll just respond and say to Council Member Kurd's point, um, it really it really depends on hearing from landmarks. Like they they need to be able to have this conversation as well. and and it does feel a little premature to be having this conversation without, you know, like we heard from Ry, which I appreciate. Um, but it's also hard to talk to a body that isn't meeting. So, there's kind of a a rock and a hard place there, and I get it.

I think when this has come up in other regional meetings that have similar um quorum issues, like a survey is sent out, that might be an opportunity to get more candid feedback, too. um instead of having it be on the you know people having to grandstand from uh microphone. So that's an opportunity to maybe get more crowded feedback and then be able to share that with us so that we can be prepared to have a conversation. I would like that. Okay. So it sounds like defer till later until we hear back from the board itself. Yeah, I mean this is a study session, so like we're not taking action tonight. So like I I I think that makes a lot of sense, too.

There's not actually something.

Do you need anything else from us? No, thank you. Okay, appreciate it. Perfect. Thank you.

All right. Um, next up we have another study session. Um, agenda bill 26036. Oh, nope. Nope. Nope. That was the last one. Agenda Bill 26037. Um, Baffle Fire Administrative Services. I'll pause for a quick second so Kyle can get back to his seat, but we'll reset the room in no rush. All right, welcome back. Thank you. Thank you everybody for a little time to reset. We do have a number of people here tonight to be able to um to respond to questions too. So we we're were able to figure out how we want to organize.

Um good evening council. We are here tonight to have a discussion about uh fire services and the future of the Buffalo Fire Department and how um it is administered. Tonight I'm also joined uh at the table by Danna Gregory who's with Pacifica Law Group. Diana is an experienced attorney in municipal finance and widely recognized for her role as bond council and financing for public entities including cities and counties and fire protection districts uh and regional fire authorities. So she has a a broad span of expertise uh and um is has been has been recognized for a number of things. So what I also want to note is that while you probably have not had a presentation from her before, her name may feel sound familiar to some of you as she was involved in assisting both and our partner agencies in another North King County initiative of forming the regional crisis response agency or RACER. So we've seen her work before and use it uh use it quite a bit. Um, I'm also joined at the table tonight by Chief Matt Cowan, as who as you know has been serving as both fire chief since June of 2024 and is the fire chief and chief executive for the Shoreline Fire Department, which we'll be talking about quite a bit tonight. Um, the last time we were before you to talk about the fire department was in June where we had celebrated the one-year anniversary of um, our current agreement of working with Shoreline Fire and getting a status update about how things are going and things are going well, which is a good place to be. Um, tonight uh, as as always with study sessions, we are not uh, seeking firm direction, but I will say uh, we are looking for some guidance and direction from you tonight. Um, as noted in your agenda bill, we're reaching a pretty important milestone of we are preparing for the 2027 and 2028 pioneerial budget as well as the 27 and 33 capital facilities plan. There's a number of things and assumptions and dependencies that we need to figure out

as we work on that. uh and um and so needing looking for some direction on that. In terms of uh when we when we first entered into our current agreement, which we'll talk a little bit more about here tonight, uh there was certainly um there was at least seven or eight options for you to consider. And those are all currently technically on the table, but knowing a little bit more of what you would like to pursue will help greatly as we prepare for the future. um for a bit of background and especially um we've we've been doing some onboarding with our two newer council members who weren't part of um each of these steps and so hopefully both council member Miles and council member Angulari feel prepared for this for this conversation. We've also included in the agenda bill the history of the different discussions including we've still maintained a website that has all of the presentations previous to council online. So anybody who's following along can go and see the same information. But a bit of background of how we got here was um uh really not starting from the 20 or 30 years that both have been having discussions about the future of both fire but looking at our current history. Uh in the early part of 2023, uh we had a retirement of our fire chief and knowing that um just a year prior, there had been a partial conversation with city council about the future of fire and there had been some other um opportunities where the fire department was being discussed when an opportunity came up. Uh the decision was made to take a step back and instead of looking at what's a specific opportunity in front of us with the retirement of the chief, we hired an interim fire chief. So we could all take a step back together and look at as uh deputy city manager Tony Col said at the time all legal options of what would be uh possibilities for for leading the fire department. Um we we looked at that the analysis of all legal options and what that led to um after narrowing down I

think we eliminated one option at a council study session um but then got direction to move forward with a request for proposals or RFP for administrative leadership and contract uh for running the fire department. Basically we're looking for is somebody to be a chief in a partner organization. And as a reminder, some of that came from recommendation from neighboring Washington cities of where they had made decisions of either annexing into a fire department or joining an RFA. That there was a recommendation of doing some interim work together to see if there's compatibility how things go. It helps employees. It helps the community. And um by by taking that first slow step gives an opportunity for an assessment of how things go. We did receive two proposals. we had one complete proposal and we were able to negotiate with Shoreline Fire which was that complete proposal to to contract for that fire leadership. Um what we've also then uh we had also had been focused on too is um part of then why would we do it? It wasn't just about having an interim fire chief, but the questions that had kind of bubbled to the surface over time was looking at what is the best opportunity or the best operations for the fire department. Looking at four principles that we talked about, maintaining or improving response times and service levels. We are looking to ensure long-term financial sustainability for the city and the department. We were looking to provide stable executive leadership and administrative support. There's certainly been a number of um fire chiefs in both history and um just speculatively you know that's something that that happens when you have a smaller fire department. Um and then also adapt to future service demands and regional coordination needs. Um looking at then well what have we done? What's our current approach? Not only have we uh maintained that arrangement, we've also built on it a little bit of making some different uh course corrections along the way of uh being able to

strengthen that working relationship with Shoreline Fire, which I appreciate. Um our fire chief, Chief Cowan, has uh is an exceptional leader. He is an exceptional fire chief and has been able to look at things and say, "Hey, I think we can do this another And so that includes recent changes too of promotion of um Kelly Cross to our deputy fire chief who then is the the lead uh person here in Boppel. And then um also how does uh her how does she and our other leaders in fire integrate well within the shoreline fire um organizational chart. So that's been going well. We've also one of the the steps we took was to not only um we had previously had an interlocal agreement for training cooperation with Shoreline Fire. We also in this the last two years have reached an ILA agreement for Shoreline Fire to maintain our fleet. Uh so there's as you can imagine maintaining a firetruck is different than maintaining a car and our we have we have great mechanics and here in both and there's certifications that are required to be able to work on uh emergency response vehicles and so we were looking for some capacity there and have been having shoreline fleet maintain our vehicles. Um we've also just recently in the fall uh been able to um we looked at the the contract. So, we were coming up on a contract date with our labor, our fire union, and um have come up with a one-year agreement that council approved to align the contract and policies with Shoreline Fire, which is a pretty significant thing because when you do look at working together with another agency, getting those the the rules and administrative procedures aligned, including things like timeke keeping and staffing, uh is a pretty significant step. And the fact that we were able to take that for this interim step is is a is a significant one. What we also did with that is we were at end of life with

a timekeeping system or staffing system and um instead of going out and implementing a new one and then awaiting the decision to see are we going to continue to maintain a fire department in both what we've done is with that alignment the contracted policies we've been able to move our staff onto the same platform as um Shoreline Fire and so they're also helping with staffing. So some alignment things that have happened. We're also then tonight in our presentation going to be talking about potential next steps and um we'll go into that in a little more detail. So here we have a timeline review of the things that I've just covered. Really uh what I will also note is that um the the one-year update provided to council really highlighted again of how are things going with all of these changes. Um we've seen um we've seen a continued uh strong service to the community which is our number one goal is to make sure that we are still providing exceptional service to the both community. Um and again with that too some of those those uh opportunities have prompted changes to align our our services. Okay. So taking um a broader step back to one of the things that um that wanted to note that when we started our analysis back in 2023 um one change that you'll see on this map is that shoreline fire was actually part part of the map that they're on right now, but we're also working under contract with Northshore Fire. And subsequently in February of 2025, voters in Kenmore and Lake Forest Park and Shoreline, all voted to combine those two departments, Northshore Fire and Shoreline Fire together as a regional fire authority. It passed with a 67.51% approval rate. I know we can appreciate that the down to the decimal is an important factor. So, congratulations to

Shoreline Fire. Um, also of note from our previous study sessions when we were analyzing all legal options, as a reminder, we we heard about um, yeah, well done, mayor. Um, we we heard tonight about only two cities in King County having landmark preservation boards, but as a reminder, there was eight cities in both King and Somish County combined that operate their own fire departments. Of them, both is the third smallest by population. we are larger than Snowquali and um Muckle Tio but otherwise um we are the the smallest that are still maintaining. What you'll see on the map then too is that predominantly cities have either joined or formed an regional fire authority RFA and extend to a fire service or contract for service. Um can and we can go into more detail on that if there's questions or need a refresher. Um, the other thing I wanted to note is that we do already have a partnership too, which I always want to acknowledge that both contracts via an inter local agreement again to provide uh staffing for Snowomish County Fire District 10. Uh, it's an important stakeholder to remind ourselves of as we contemplate the future because they do have um some autonomy too and who they contract with. The blue uh on this map is made up of that is uh the current boundaries of fire district 10. Um, and so our latest ILA with them was updated in May of 2024 and we agreed on a cost formula of increases in cost through 2029. Um, and again that means to that uh while fire district 10 owns uh the station for 44, city of both staffs and gets reimbursed for it. Uh, and it also then increases our square miles of what we service with our three fire stations to 16.6 six square miles. Um, also we know that data is important part of this. One of the things that we

want to contemplate of like why are we thinking about what the future looks like beyond the fact that it's come up a number of times but you know as we look at the future of providing fire services in both uh one of the things we're cognizant of is is that there is a growth in the number of incidents. So you'll see over time for the last 5 years there's been a total increase of 13% with a a smooth average of about 3.4% 4% annual growth in growth in number of incidents um of that as we've been discussing in um in some of the uh onboarding too it's about 80ish% 83 something for EMS for EMS yeah it's fluctuation between 74 and 78%

all right 74 and 78 close to 80 uh percent is medical response and then um the the rest are fire response um what I also want to note though too is we know that this will continue to increase. So in our comprehensive plan, we are anticipating growth over the next 20 years. We're looking at a population growth of projected at 30,000 plus housing growth of 20 12,782 new housing units. Job growth. So we'll have more people who are here during the day who often need medical services as well. I've been one of those people unfortunately my career. And so about 18,000 new jobs um potential two for emergency housing beds. So, the total estimated population by 2044 is we're looking at about um 80,000 plus residents with 33,000 uh housing units. And and something to keep in mind too is as you're well well versed, but as we look at this map, what we're seeing on the right hand side is response times in minutes colorcoded. Um what we know about the growth that we're expecting to see in both is we did not concentrate growth into one area of the city. it is spread throughout and we are looking at density within the community. And so as we look at where the the response times change, grow and uh and and morph, it would be important that we continue to look at where the response times are um because we we will see demand likely spread throughout the community. Um we also though know that we have some some centers right now that are coming around in North Creek of a eight-story apartment that's uh in in review and some more housing in downtown. So, we'll keep an eye on that. But one of the things that we also always are keeping our eye on to is on the um on the south end of town on the other side of the river is um what you'll see is some of the um some of the longer response times. We're very fortunate to have mutual aid. I think that's important to remind residents there and throughout the community is that we uh we don't only respond to calls within our geographic boundaries.

There are already mutual aid agreements with other cities. But at a certain point when you're um when you're happy takers in life, at a certain point there's consequences to that and sometimes that can be financial. It can be slowing down and there's operational frustration too of um we really do want to be able to provide the best service to our community in the best way. So that's something that we're cognizant of. And I mentioned that because as I mentioned in the preparation for the budget, our capital facilities plan, that is one where, you know, depending on what the decision is on the future of fire, we're probably in need of another resource or two and potentially um potentially an additional fire station. And as we look at that, uh if we maintain uh independence as both fire, that's something then that that is what we as a city will need to take on independently. if we're in partnership that um gives the opportunity to spread uh spread out in terms of both investment of resources but then also of looking at uh if there are response needs in other areas of the community that are on that side of the river including in Kenmore in this example. So just some things to be thinking about as we now I'm I need the city manager to come help me with my slides. All right, so have a hammer.

That's right. That's right. We'll go for it. Um, so we've talked a little bit about this already, but just again a reminder that while there have been steps taken, including fleet alignment and contract and policies and staffing systems, one thing that I just want to keep reiterating is that all options previously considered are still on the table. the city hasn't done anything that takes options off which is both a blessing and a challenge is that um again as opportunity uh that that you're looking at tonight. This is you know for council feedback um there are still things you can consider. I would ask though again as we're thinking about what's the feedback that we're looking for tonight. Um as we think about how would we um how will we anticipate this in the budget narrowing from seven would be quite helpful. Um and and you'll see in the um in the agenda bill too, there's a suggest suggestion that uh from a next step is one of the things we can do is pursue uh further partnership with Shoreline including to the to the point of considering an RFA. So, I want to talk a little bit about what that means um for you. And there are a couple of options um to to be thinking about uh as we look at next steps and looking for a consensus of what those options are. Um this slide really conveys some of the things that if you were interested, for example, in uh looking at an RFA, we want to come back with analysis and financial figures. So this isn't just a hey there's a budget coming up, but how do we inform the council of what your choices look like, but we didn't want to get too presumptuous of there's only one choice or there's only two choices. Again, the recommended approach would be definitely to be looking at the RFA. However, the we are we have momentum, things are going well and again that's we've taken deliberate steps in that direction. uh to do that. Well, some of the things that we'd want to work on and deliver to council for further

consideration would be looking at what the overall projected fiscal impacts are for both voters. As a reminder, if uh things were to go out for an RFA consideration, that is something that would be voted on by the community. Um a factor in that too is then the fire benefits charge analysis, which would look like look at what is the actual cost of service that would go to to voters. Um and what would it take what what's the offset instead of um operating the fire department ourselves? Um the either of our guests tonight would be able to talk more about that and questions and answers. Um and then again looking at public preparation timeline scenario and scenarios for impacts that would include the two-year uh option and as well as the seven-year capital facilities plan or six-year. Um, this next slide, um, what I I this is one where I'm gonna turn to Diana here, but just to give you an update as we've been talking about this, um, this is in particular related to if an RFA was to be considered is that we've had some previous conversations about RFAS and the the trade-off on costs. And um where where we were at in some of those conversations were talking about how that the assumption of reducing what um homeowners in both would be paying to the city in terms of property taxes to offset what would be going to an RFA. And as um as we've talked about this, there are still choices within that to make with great transparency and working with our community. Um, but when we think about what are some of the needs that we hear about and we'll be coming back soon with the budget survey of what what the community is asking us to consider. We know that there's community we hear from the community about investments in parks in the future or we had a conversation about the fact that operations of street maintenance is coming out of a levy when we know it is kind of a core service. is that um

before we just decide dropping property tax rates all the way down when they grow by 1%, is there also a community conversation we'd want to have of is there something between our current rate and all the way down? Um is there something in the middle where the the community would say we still we still want to pay towards that and instead of paying toward a fire department within the city, we want here's something another service we'd be looking at. So, I'm going to pause now and turn things over to Diana to talk about three case studies uh that we've seen and and she can get into as much detail as you want, but I think we'll uh we'll give you some highle examples to chew on.

Thank you. I appreciate the uh opportunity to be here today and talk about the financial impacts of um forming or annexing into the RFA. Uh the RFA would be a new separate taxing district overlaying the city. And so the analysis is just as was just said, it's it's not a dollar for dollar or cent for cent as we look at it in the um in the regular property tax world, but there is some flexibility there. So it's in in the big picture of the decision-making tree um how the city handles its levy uh visav going into and asking voters for um approval. if you decide to go that route um is part of that overall analysis. And up on the screen is just a snapshot. Um these are not the right way, the wrong way, the they're just really um they're they're examples of how different jurisdictions have handled being um annexed into or forming an RFA. And uh just really at again at a high level um the uh Camas Washugle is interesting I want to say be at least from my perspective because uh they did go out for voter approval. It did not pass the first time around. Um in that situation they had not intended to reduce their levy to the full amount of what the city was currently paying for fire services. Second time around they did. They also developed incredibly transparent um information out to voters about dollar fordollar what the service level was going to be. Um Mary'sville was in the same case. Uh they also reduced their levy um when uh to to offset the impact of the RFA when the RFA was um uh overlaid over the city. Um South County Fire is an example of how another jurisdiction did it. And there's a lot, like I said, there's these are

just a snapshot of what's um what other jurisdictions have done. Um and South County for South County Fire and when Edmonds just last year um had a vote to annex into that RFA, they were very transparent about what the plan was with the amount of their regular property tax levy that they were paying for fire services and what how and what the plan was going forward. how they were going to let the EMS levy phase out. They had two components to their overall fire fire um related levies. One the EMS and one the regular property tax levy. Their plan was to let the EMS levy phase out, but then to keep the uh regular property tax levy at current rates and invest those funds into other city programs. and state law um says that uh the actual regular property tax levy of the RFA will reduce the city's levy capacity but not the city's actual rate. So there is that flexibility there because both similar to many cities in this state for various reasons do not levy at their maximum levy capacity but they actually actual levy is significantly lower. So, as part of this overall discussion, as you're looking at cost of services and as also as you're looking at the fire benefit charge and the overall analysis of of what the impacts are of potentially being annexed into this RFA is really what the plan is for that capacity within your regular property tax levy and and how it should be handled and really what the the needs of the city and the community are.

Yeah.

Perfect. So it gives you a sense of as we're um seeking feedback of scenarios of things again particular to an RFA in this case but if there are any thoughts about you know if you'd want a high medium low scenario that sort of thing that'd be something that we'd talk about at council and I just want to emphasize again ultimately the decision will be made by the voters in both right and so we want to um also get their input of what would they be looking for and what would they be willing to pay for. Um so again just to to complete it uh also on potential next steps of things that we can bring back and talk about would be uh internally uh it's not just all about dollars and cents but levels of service impacts on the city of both as an organization if you think about it um uh the fire department's an important department and um at the same time if it if if it was to transition to another agency or we're going to provide that service a different way there's a potential of an impact on um internal services being able to focus on um on other things or other areas or also potentially the other way of if we are to maintain Bing Both fire independently we may need to grow the fire department and so then we need to look at what's the impact to to internal services or fleet and that sort of a thing as well. Um, also don't we don't want to lose in this conversation. I think it's really important that is we discuss any potential next steps especially if there's a change in administration. I want the council to really weigh in on governance decisions. So the the primary example of that is again is you know if we're to join another agency um and there's an existing board or that sort of thing uh does the council want to maintain having a voice or a seat at the table? So, what representative representation for the community would we be looking for? Would it be um seats that are district for within both? Would it be seated council members that would

always be given uh a slot where much like you choose boards and commissions or committees that you take part in? Would there be uh an opportunity that you'd be looking for to have city council members who are thinking about the full service to both who sit on a governance board? Um and then um also next steps is if we were moving towards an RFA looking at a schedule of what that looks like uh in particular public engagement potential joint meetings with impacted partners including um the council the current shoreline uh board and the fire district 10 uh board potentially. We'd also want to be looking at what council action towards ballot direction would be and voter approval. So, those are things related to RFAS, but we also want to hear from you of if there's anything else you'd want us to consider so we can come back with uh further analysis here in the coming months. So, with that, I'm going to turn things back over to you to ask questions, give direction, and again, um I'm thankful for our two guests tonight who can probably answer a lot more than I can. So, with that, I'll turn it over to you, council.

So, I had a question. Is the RFA in both's best interest? Well, I mean that that's a great that's a great question and it's a bit subjective, right, in terms of of what we're looking for. I think the the agenda bill lists some of the advantages of an RFA and again that's what we're seeing regionally as the trend. Part of where that comes in is is that um you know fire service is a is a pretty specialized service and I think some of the reasons where cities have gotten out of the business of providing fire and gone a different direction for it is there is a scalability of it of when you think about um what our what our firefighters do uh they they don't go alone they go in teams and they don't ever they don't have hours off right so it's a 247 service and um being able to fill that staffing model. U we you always need a certain number of of resources to do it. And um so it's a lot. So the number that I always keep in my head and it depends on there's a lot of variables but throughout my career what something I've always remembered is if we're talking about one position that we need to add in the city for a fire department it's really you're adding four four FTE for every one position you're talking about because of the the scheduling or ladder trucks as we look at things. So both owns a ladder truck. We're about to get a replacement. Um but as we look up and down the 522 corridor, for example, it's the does every does Kenmore need a ladder truck? Does Lake Forest Park need a ladder truck to shoreline need a ladder truck? Or is that something that we can look as part of an RFA? You can spread and scale that across or again with fire stations instead of looking at just within your geographic boundaries of a city, how do you look at that network uh of where there's common management of the assets that are related to a response. So in terms of is it in the best interest what we have found is um like when with the council's previous analysis there was

enough curiosity to say let's look and see what common leadership would look like before we take a next step um because certainly there's some finality to joining an RFA is that that is while we've been the the councils for the last 20 years or so have been having this discussion there's a finality of once once you do it and so there it's a weighty decision um But those are some of the reasons that that you would that you would consider joining an RFA or forming. Thank you. That was really comprehensive. I appreciate it. My other question is when do we need to make a decision on this?

It the timeline on that is something that we'd want to bring back. I think that um there's certainly an interest of like if we were looking at wanting to be implemented and live for January of 2027, the answer rhymes with quickly. It's very very very fast. There's also then depending on what you want to see, there might be considerations again of public engagement. That means that we have to look at other other things. So, I think when we know what council wants to consider and what we need to bring back, that'll really help us dictate of we can put together a timeline of how to get to whatever there is. Hopefully, that's helpful. It's a bit of a bit of a not answer, but it's really more with the intention of uh our plan would be is coming back soon after tonight with more information.

The answer to that question is that's what we're trying to figure out and that's our decision to make. Like that's the whole point of all this is like do we think that or not? I think um I have been through this and remain hesitant to give up the governing authority aspect of it to give up the control and direction of our own fire department um as well as give up taxing authority um over our residents in both and not have control over that any longer. Um I I've been really happy with the partnership that we've had with Shoreline. Zero complaints at all. it seems to be working very well and we've been you know taking successive consistent steps to help make that better. Like when we have a choice to how to like do we change something to more closely align with them we're like yeah like that's who we're working with right now and that makes a lot of sense. Um we we want that partnership easier. Um my hesitation in giving up the governing authority has nothing to do with my opinion of Shoreline Fire the fire department or the opinions. Um now that we have done all of this work to align like I like the setup that we have now like we have an alignment with a bigger department. We have um leadership who I appreciate very much. Um this seems to be a very good option the way that we have that we are doing things right now. And I guess my question is is obviously like in the agenda packet it says this was going to be a temporary thing. Um my other hesitation this entire time is it's always felt like it's been a temporary thing very much going in a certain direction. Um like how much time do we have under the current arrangement that we have right now that seems to be working really well for our residents and we retain that control. So, I'm gonna uh take a quick stab at that and then I think we'd we'd we'd

benefit from hearing from the the shoreline RFA fire chief. But, um so, while the current ILA doesn't have an expiration date, um it was clear to me when we went into it of that it didn't go on forever. And I think that that's the question that um what I what I've seen an observation is is that the practices that we put in place have gone beyond what was uh what was initially contemplated but not in a way of um of anything other than let's make sure that we're providing the best service. So, Chief Cow has been very gracious of making suggestions that um have been have come I would say with some sacrifice and service of saying we're willing to do this to see how things would work if we better align services and that you know that comes into too again of the adjustment of the org chart of um deputy chief cross's role I'm changing that sort of thing. So, in in my opinion, I will I'll speak for me and let the chief disagree with me if he wishes, but I would say that um there isn't a and I've said this before, there's not a do nothing option here. And and even in this case, I don't think we can continue to operate under the current interlocal agreement um because it doesn't reflect what's actually happening. So, um I think you'd be looking more at um as an interim step of like a full contract for services or something, but I think we need to do right by Shorelines leadership to make sure that um what we're what we're providing back to them is because it with what they're providing to us. And I and I don't we haven't had those conversations because um again, we're looking for direction from council. Um, but I don't think we could just continue to operate as we we're doing um for for much longer than through the end of this year. I think

we'd want to do something different for 2027 no matter what. If that makes sense. Um, the other thing I want to do is before I turn it over to the chief too with his microphone on, you mentioned governance and something we could touch a little bit more on is that um he'll he can testify. I I talk about I talk about governance decisions and governance representation for this council almost every time we talk about it and um Chief Cow has had conversations with his board too of like what that of that would be a anticipated requirement and so I have some feedback on that. If you have anything you want to clarify before we go turn it over to Chief Cowan though I I don't want to derail you.

No, I have a couple other things to say but not on that subject. Chave, can you just talk a little bit more about like options and governance?

Sure. Um, I'll just touch a little bit to before I get into answering some of these questions as to regionalization. You asked, you know, why bigger isn't always better, but if you do it if you have the right fit, if you do it with the right intentions, it it can it can bring about higher levels of service and even more importantly, long-term sustainability from a financial standpoint. When you look at what the King County was set up for with fire districts way back in the day, there was 50 different fire 51 fire districts and you're seeing as as as Kyle showed you, the map has condensed and condensed. And the reason for that is because it there is a lot of of benefits coming from short and even more long-term, you know, benefits from the RFA. as far as the um you know the the governance piece, the um you know the as as as we were just discussing uh I did go to my board um and ask them for input as to what that looked like. Uh I remember remotely watching the uh meetings four years ago and it was a very robust uh conversation about what this looked like going forward. And what was very uh apparent to me was representation on the governing board. And that was exactly the same conversation that we had with the Northshore fire the legacy Northshore Fire Department uh that they wanted representation on that that governing board. So, uh, we had a meeting the other day and and our, uh, position on that is, you know, up to three of it has to be elected. Uh, so it could be council members or commissioners or you could have fire district commission. I won't bore you with some of that other stuff. Uh, but, you know, we are looking for representation on that governing board from the council or other electeds. So there there is definitely a a piece to that that that that's important for us uh because that that that is in the

genesis of where you got to from the last four or five years and so forth. As far as the the timing, Mayor, um this is not sustainable. Uh I'm not doing as good a job as I should be here. I'm not doing as good a job as I should back in Shoreline because I'm stretched. I if this was only a 20% job and that was only, you know, an 80% job or something like that, then then I'd be okay. But it but it's not. And so, you know, I um this was a a means to an end. This was temporary. this was us looking at being good regional partners and trying to come up with, you know, a better a better system at the end of this. So, I don't want to put a a finite, you know, um, you know, timeline on this, but it it's got to be it's got to be soon. this this cannot you know if we're not doing and we have some other again I don't want to get into the the minutia on this but we have some other things that are going to be pressing on us you know that we have to make some more longer um strategic decisions especially with staffing and and and growth and so forth and so I'm sorry uh so I like you a lot um so you know

trying to look at you yeah no it's okay um So, uh,

um, so, uh, we've got some vacancies that are coming up that we have to fill. We haven't done any long-term strategic planning because we've been kind of in this limbo phase and I do want to press on this too in that the the bodies, you know, especially the both firefighters have been without a a permanent fire chief for four years now and have had a revolving door of deputy chiefs and that weighs on our our people and it causes stress. It causes angst. It caus And you can only go so long before that really, you know, starts to show up. I am encountering that too in the shoreline because I'm kind of like, okay, we're we don't know if we're going to get married, you know, we're we're we're kind of dating. We're doing this this this uh dance. And so it's it weighs on my my staff back in Shoreline as well. So I I'm just sharing that with you because this is a this is a a factor that that this can only go on for so long for a number of different reasons. So I can elaborate but I I want to be respectful of your time and I know there's more more questions. So

well you mentioned that like just right now it's a bandwidth issue like you've got to be the chief for two different departments and that's a lot. I guess my question is is if it's a bandwidth issue being the chief of both and shoreline at the same time, if the two departments became the same thing, how like is there bandwidth there? And I guess how is that different? Well, you eliminate a lot of redundancies. You get you gain efficiencies uh with with staffing positions. You end up with better uh staffing depth as well. Well, um no, no, I get that, but I mean more from because you mentioned specifically your bandwidth. Well, my bandwidth is I I'm dealing with essentially two different fire departments right now. So,

he's he's reporting to a 10p person board, which could change the size. He's reporting to a city manager. He's got staff meetings in both. He's got staff meetings in Shoreline, right? They're independent agencies. So, once you fold together, you have one command staff, you have or you have one one team, that sort of a thing. And so, that's part of it. He's operating with so more meetings than anything else.

No, I mean he's also operating two different organization within two different organizations. And so when there's an HR issue, we have a both HR department. Shoreline Fire has an HR department. When there's a technology need, there's two different things. So there's duplic duplication duplication of it'd be the equivalent of being a department director in in two different cities or having two jobs in two different agencies. And I mean I again I've commended Chief Ken a number of times. I think about it of if um if I was doing this job and then for part of my time I also needed to report to the King County executive like it would be it would be hard to navigate of wearing both hats of leading leading bothl and being more of a department director somewhere else right so it's existing within two different systems and I think that that system and structure complexity is again when I look at it from my lens and that I have a very small view into it um but just in terms of the demands that we have um you know purchasing like all all the different things it's basically operating in two different organizations with a different leadership structure and so it's

we haven't we haven't fully integrated two departments right so that's that would be different if there was the creation of one agency I hope that a little bit just sounds like it's difficult to be accountable to shoreline fire and to both at the same time accountable. I I can be accountable. It's it's the different systems that create those ineffic those inefficiencies. And um and frankly, you know, there there's times I've screwed up uh in making purchases just because I'm I'm not, you know, I'm just not familiar with with the way the city I too am the kind of person who makes mistakes.

Yeah. Like daily. Yeah. Um, but I I would commend the the council and and and and the administration that we have done some things to align, but it's not it's not nearly where it is. I mean, is it is it really I'll just take my position. Is there really a need for two fire chiefs in our current system? No. But it's not one. It's somewhere 1.76. I I'm just making a number of decimal points. Um, but it's it's not two. We've got some efficiencies, but we haven't gotten anywhere close to where we got like a chief missing a leg kind of a thing. Yeah. Yeah.

Um the other thing you mentioned is like this was kind of always a means to an end and that is what I felt too and like I was assured that it was not a means to an end and like it's how do I say this? like it I don't want it to feel inevitable that when we signed up for the administrative services that like this was the only option cuz like we went out for for a bit on this and we got like one real response from you guys. The other thing that I still kick around in the back of my mind is that we do have another neighbor to the south that has two fire stations at the north end of their community on either side of 405 that are probably very well positioned to service without us without needing another fire station. and we don't know if they would ever be amenable to starting an RFA. But there is something about that that like makes me gives me pause and like if we haven't explored that uh it feels like we could do something without necessarily needing to go to both and say we have to build a new fire station. Um and I know that we haven't had a chance to have those conversations because we don't even know if we have a willing partner or what that would look like. But that is also in the back of my head that there if we if we take the RFA option, we close the door to any other potential future option forever. And that is very final and a little scary to me.

Yeah. The number of choices is getting limited, right? I mean, that's what we're seeing around us, right? And and it is it's a true fact that there is there are other cities in our region, but not many. And when we have pursued it, we have not come to a point where there's anybody who wants to pursue it with us. Right? So, you know, there's the the saying, you got to dance with the one that brought you of like we when we went out to see who all would be interested in this and sent it out to also to cities as long as well as other potential partners,

there was one that was interested. That's that's a data point to consider. Right. I do want to clarify though too of that again to your point it is 100% a true statement that there are no options have been taken off the table and we have also with the intention from the day from day one of the recommendation that that we had heard from others that have gone this path and have communicated to council was you've got to um that it it helps to start slow into working into a relationship to see how do things work and I think that's what we've been doing right is that we've and looking at how do we best integrate because we've got to test the waters of is this going to work? And so we've made changes further to make sure that is this going to work because otherwise we'd be back 2 3 years down the road and asking the question but what would it look like once we try and negotiate a contract together or what would it look like when we go to a same timekeeping system. We've had the opportunity of making those steps forward without having any paths fall down behind us. So, I do want to just again reassure council all options are up to you. There's consequences to options, there's complexities to options, but what we're asking is is what would you want us to bring back with analysis of what it looks like? Particularly with the fact that again, we're going to have to come up with a budget picture.

I uh Oh, no. Go ahead. Sorry. I was just I was just typing something down so I don't forget it. Um, and by means to I'm not saying you have to go with us. What I'm saying is that what I what I saw in four years ago when you when you all had the your conversations was that something needed to happen somewhere. Yeah. You could you absolutely could stay as a standalone fire department and if that's the choice I will help find you the new next fire chief and and and get the command structure back into place. But long-term from efficiencies and financial obligations and so forth that becomes less and less desirable. I'll just say it that way. Yeah.

Um and and as far as our partnerships, uh we are excited about this partnership because we have our training our people are training together under the same training consortium. I have one of my medic units right down the street and have been there for decades. Uh we work together on a daily basis. This is something that there's a lot of reasons which again I can go into if but there's a lot of reasons why we're excited about doing this and it you know high tide raises raises all ships you know it it it will help all of our communities um and so you absolutely all all options are on the table you can and I will make sure that whatever direction you give me I will try to fulfill it to the best of my ability I believe that this is the right I I'm biased, I guess, but I I believe that this is the right way to go. I think this is the right thing to do. It's the right way to serve all of our communities in the best way possible and give long-term sustainability. And everybody's biased, so you're good there, too. Um, I can uh Oh, the one thing I wanted to say is like I can't help but wonder what our options would have looked like if we would have gone out for partnership instead of administrative services because from the sounds of it, we've got a really good deal that isn't sustainable for our partner. And if we were asking for something that isn't sustainable long term, I mean, it makes sense why we didn't get a lot of people um responding to that. I guess I don't know what I don't know the distinction you're making, but

Oh, we were looking for administrative services rather than a full partnership when we went out. Yeah, that the the council's chosen decision wasn't for a full partnership. It was just for a chief. I can't help but wonder if we would have had more options if we would have been explicitly looking for something different at the time. from the interviews that took place with the people who were we did like a much like you would do in an RFP for a business situation. We did like a Q&A period and an open house to have conversations. There was two other potentials um one of which has been mentioned tonight that showed up for those. Um I don't think it would have made a difference. Okay, if that helps.

Cool. I'm going to stop monopolizing the time. Uh thank you very much. First question, do we have a slide pros and cons like is there a slide where it shows? Okay, good. And then the main reason if we go to both response times that will get better. Uh the main reason if we go with the RFA the bottl response uh the response times will that will be that will be more quicker basically. Is that right? If you go to the slide of response times.

Yeah. On the response times, what you'll what we what we've seen, you know, most recently, I think this is at least a year old, but um as we look at response times, I mean, what having more deploy, look at me answering fire questions, but having more deployable resources in different areas gives you the opportunity of figuring out staffing models that you can adjust. And we even saw this when we had an interim fire chief of coming in and moving a unit um to try and address response times for medical calls, that sort of thing. The more it's it's like playing chess. The more chess pieces you have on your board, the better strategies you have available to you. So that is one of the pros of re regionalization. The um the pros and cons that is on page 104. This was going back to in 2024 as the council gave direction of all of the existing options. Um, right now, I mean, tonight I will I will be uh clear again is that with having all options still on the table, this information is still valuable. If council wants to narrow it down and you want more discrete pros and cons with some um different factors weighed in, we'd be happy to um update some pros and cons as well. But right now, again, we have seven options. So, page 104 really is your is your chart. And financially if like for example how much benefit we will be having if we go with the RFA route uh how much like in layman words are we saving like yearly x amount of dollars.

So it depends on who we is. So, the the sustain the long-term sustainability that we that we've discussed really gets into um as much about future investments or opportunity cost as anything else. We can do our best to quantify that, but what um Deanna covered in terms of there are some choices for council to make gets to um overall so you can look at this in terms of as a as a governing body of just for the agency of both which I would not suggest that you do of you could you could save millions of dollars by saying we're going to get out of the business of providing fire services and there's $35 million of the bianium that we that we now have. Right? But that would be I would say that that would be a a poor poor leadership decision because what who isn't saving money is then you as a taxpayer, right? So homeowners are going to be paying the burden of paying twice, right? So we what we would need to do and that's part of the direction we're looking for is if there would be any interest of having an engagement plan with the community to talk about like if what's and what's the level of um of what they would want the city to potentially maintain to pay for other services in lie of fire while also paying for fire services. The opportunity costs are that long-term cost. What you're going to start seeing though is the spreading of costs ac across um um different uh different geography. And Diana, I don't know if you want to can you speak to that a high level in terms of how that in rates and that sort of thing how that comes out or have you seen do you have an example or just overall thoughts you could talk about from a financial?

Sure. I don't have any examples off the top of my head but um maybe the chief does but um from a economies of scale um the RFA would have a um its own property tax levy that would be level throughout the entire RFA and so that same rate would be applied to its entire jurisdictional boundary. It also has a um a charge that goes along with it um for services for cost of services. And so um it's a different analysis uh compared to the um the regular property tax that the city allocates to fire. So, we would want to look at the kind of more on a holistic level um the uh the property tax rate plus the overall um fire benefit charge plus you and um and then how that looks to individuals um as opposed to just looking dollar for dollar to the property tax um payer. Um but I think on a broader scale um and chief can probably speak to this more because it does get into services and the efficiencies that you get from um get eliminating some of those redundancies. I don't know if you can say in your experience what it looks like.

Are you talking about the differences with the fire benefit charge and and and also just combining two jurisdictions?

Right. So um again you can tell me to stop but uh this some of this will be redundant because there was a lot of discussion you know years ago when you guys uh explored this idea of of what this looks like as a three-station you know fire department and all that. Um we if we were to combine sorry if we were to combine we would have better depth uh in our administrative staffing we would be able to have better depth in our operational staffing. It gives us more flexibility with how we staff not only the apparatus but with how many people. Um potentially even reducing overtime depending on on how how it works out because right now as as Kyle said actually I'm going to correct you. Every firefighter you add is not four, it's about five or six um because of vacation sick leave, you know, disabilities, other other types of leave. And so as you you have to build in some extra staffing to maintain your minimum staffing level or you it costs you a lot in overtime. I do the same thing with my shoreline staff. But combined we some we save on some of those efficiencies as well. Purchasing you know a bigger bigger department you know more economies of scale. We qualify for better grants. we get better uh our apparass now a fire engines $1.3 million ladder trucks 2.3 uh you know if you're buying if we were combined and we're buying multiple fire engines you start to get some discounts on on that I mean insurance costs uh I mean there's I've gone through I was not joking but I went through the 1,800 lines of my budget um spent most of the day today going through it and I'm about twothirds of the way through it Um it's only about 900 real lines but because there's extra lines in there but 1,800 lines and I tried to look at an efficiencies of like each line where could there be a savings or is there a full cost absorption

things of that nature and this this is what what Kyle has been talking about that we need to do a financial analysis that that gives you a better picture and part of that is to do the fire benefit charge analysis. I can't do that. we uh contract that out to a third party um that uh you know could do an analysis where a fire benefit charge has more weight on commercial and multifamilies than it does on single families. So, it's a pretty it's a more convoluted way or not a convoluted way, but a convoluted waiting of, you know, how our taxpayers are going to be impacted.

And so, Council Member Angularity too, part of that's what the direction that we'd be looking for, too, is if there's interest in doing that. And um I I would have not slept last night if I knew the chief was going to spend his day looking at 1800 lines of code. in terms of like contracting to have that we can get that financial analysis to come back if that's something the council would like to see be happy to do it. Yeah. The main thing is what would be our burden next 10 to 20 years like if we go with RFA going with RFA or staying our own. So what would be the next 10 to 20 years?

We can 20 years might be too big of a window but we'll come up with a long term. But I also want to reiterate that as the operating values that we've been working under um is that the economically sensible has been one of them. But I do want to reiterate that I would I would not want council to make this a a financial decision. We really do want to look at you know again first and foremost is we want to provide the best service to the comm to community too. So, there's more to it than that, but I hear you. And I think um again, if there's interest in knowing RFA versus soul source, we can bring back more analysis and be happy to do it. I know that council member Alabra has his hand up, too.

Uh thank you. This is a very good uh it's a good discussion. Um I I would love to see this financial analysis. Actually, I have it written down as a note here. get a financial effect because at the end of the day the u that the the the money the salaries need to get paid and the bills have to get paid so somebody has to pay them and that is going to be the residents who use the service. Uh so whether it goes out of our budget and goes into an RFA's budget like at the end of the day it's going to be paid by the taxpayers. So I'd love to see the impact on that on them. uh uh like the scenarios of go joining an RFA and just the scenario of going back to just uh is that what you mean by soul source but us like it's a bathl fire department.

Yeah, it's probably probably a better term for it. But yes, if we were going to just maintain being baffled fire and growing from on our own.

Okay. I think I think I would I would personally benefit from seeing the two analyses next to each other because it sounds like the current arrangement is not scalable which I can kind of see you know uh so I will I will not argue too much about that but it'll be good to see those two scenarios in my for me uh especially the impact on our residents it's not just the city's impact on the city both city of Buffalo's impact on the residents of the city of Buffalo The economies of scale was also mentioned. I'd like to see that analysis what that might look like operational wise. How's that going to improve level of service? Because as you mentioned, Kyle, that's first and foremost uh our role as a city is to provide top level service to our residents. So, I'd love to see the two scenarios. And I'm saying I'd love to, but I don't know what the rest of the council is. I'm the only one. Then throw, you know, throw it in the trash. Uh the the third thing which is related to economies of scale is the how the level of service will improve with those economies of scale. I'm making an assumption there that they will improve but if they're flat that's also good. Uh but it sounds like from that chart you showed as a table uh there is an increase in the need for extra service. So, uh, maybe economies of scale will help alleviate some of that pressure, uh, which will inev inevitably hit us at some point. Um, those are the three things that I I'd love to see as as as we evaluate this and sounds like there's urgency in this matter and u but I don't know what the rest of the council wants to say. Uh, thank you. And and um I I want to expand a little bit on the economies of scale because you touched on something there about the level of service at at

and that map kind of described what our impacts are, our responses to the south end of of the city and and the mayor, you're absolutely right. I it we could continue rely on mutual aid, you know, potentially to provide those services to us. They could stop at any point too. We could figure out something there. But even heavier than that is the load on our our downtown station here at 42. It is becoming unreliable. Uh meaning it's not in service in quarters enough regardless of of what we do down there. Now, building a station in the south end would to, you know, to council member Alcabra's uh point improves the levels of service and removes the weight on on uh 42 u because we would have better response times and we would have better reliability especially with the other growth that's occurring. And back to the economies of scale piece on this. If we were to build that station on our own, I very very rough estimate, it's going to cost about 14 cents per thousand on a 10-year uh UTGO. Uh if it's part of the RFA and it's, you know, amortized across the entire RFA, um I'm looking at I have a similar situation. I won't get into all the details. In in Shoreline, we do both those stations. it's 5 cents to 7 cents somewhere in that neighborhood. So those those are some real, you know, financial impacts that at some point we have to figure out my opinion from just the fire department or fire chief standpoint. We have to address our South Both, you know, situation.

Your your voice is fairly important in this conversation. So like don't downplay it. Like I don't know who else I'm supposed to ask about this kind of stuff. I'm not Ramy, I see your hand up. Do you want to respond?

Yeah. No, it's not a response. I just wanted to follow up and and this is the the exact analysis chief that I I would love to see uh when this comes back to us. I don't know you know soon. uh it will be good to see what that uh how it will financial impact of this and then uh level of service impact of this which is slightly more important than financial impact. It's important finance is important but level of service is if it's people's lives uh on the line then I think that's more important than money. Uh so I think it would be nice to uh to get that analysis as well. Okay. But you illustrate it. You gave a very good example. Sorry to

perfect. Thank you. That's helpful. That's helpful feedback. And again, I we'll we'll be prepared.

All right. My turn. Um I appreciate Council Member Alcabra. Um just making, you know, and and I would I would just say I agree that I would like to hear that financial analysis, too. So, you've got three. Um I know how to count. Um I and I apologize if I feel like I'm taking a step back with the questions that I have, but um I'm also sensitive to the fact that um Shoreline just added what? Two new cities to the RFA. Uh yes, but we've been

Yes. Uh it was two cities uh that joined the RFA, but we did a full consolidation of the fire departments four years ago.

All right. And so I um that's good to know. And so my question I guess is like how is that going? And does South Kenmore have some of the same kind of struggles and strain that South Both has and and being like with Kenmore being part of that RFA and having that consolidation come together. Um are are we able to possibly see some of those same like level of service improvements that that other partners have benefited from? Again, I'll try and be brief because this is kind of a complicated situation, but the you're absolutely right. South Kenmore has the similar situation that South Bathl has with limited access across the Slooh and, you know, with longer response times because of the limited access and so forth. Not at the same level. Roughly, we're estimating that there's about 1,500 calls in South Bathl and there's only 500 calls in South Kenmore that that are are being impacted by this. Um, building a station in South Bathl, I would build it in the southwest corner of both so it could cut over and and address the Kenmore issue. There's benefits to both cities in in doing that. So, there there is some benefit there for sure. um you know the the full consolidation that we did uh with the uh legacy Northshore Fire Department about four years ago uh all of the all the personnel came became employees of Shoreline. We um essentially it was it was a it was a basically one department for the most part except for the governing board. The the commissioner still u maintained authority and you know the on the contract and supervised me and so forth. But that relationship went really well. Um, and partially because as as Kyle has mentioned too, you take incre you can show incremental steps and show that collaboration and

the good partnerships and if it's not working then you can, you know, say, okay, we're we're done. And I believe that one of the biggest things that you can do for, you know, looking at regionalization is training. And so we were very intentional about trying to get our training, you know, our departments all together on training. And at one point it was it it was all four of the departments including the Woodenville Fire Department. Um and so that has led to better and better you know efficiencies and operational uh same page kind of approach. And so I would argue that it's gone very very well. The RFA uh last year was kind of like a almost just a formality. uh we formed the RFA so that the governing board in Northshore had seats at at a strategic level on the RFA governing board. Uh instead of just managing the contracting and supervising me now they are sitting at the table you know uh helping make strategic decisions. Uh I can keep going but

no that's actually really helpful. Um, and I appreciate the description. You you answered my questions about, you know, how um how joining Shoreline like Kenmore and both could have sim similar benefits. Um, and like I was using Kenmore as a use case because they are similar to us in having a um a city that is split by a slooh that has minimal access points. Um, and and so that that is helpful to me. Um, I like uh Council Member Alabver's approach of sharing kind of what his priorities are. And so I would like to share my priorities. So you could start doing some like overlapping of of where we're kind of at as council. Um, and so what I appreciate about all of these conversations is that um, a high level of service is like is a given. like I'm I'm not like that's there

everything is everything is building on how can we take what is good and make it better. Um and so with that my priorities are um you know being respon like being responsive to the the needs of our firefighters and recognizing that you know they really do care about economies of scale and improving their training and development. Um I hear possibly maybe tax savings like through those economies of scales that I like

maybe um and I'm curious if that's possible like how you could present that information to us and I also know that when it comes to the governance role I would prefer that council remains part of the governance body. Um and so to me that takes off some of the options. Um like the new or annex fire department and the partner in full like we haven't we haven't taken off an option in a while and I don't know how my colleagues feel about this but I personally would be okay with taking off those options because it doesn't retain a council governance role. And so, um, I'm looking at kind of, um, remain as both fire as sort of a that's where we're at and something's going to something's probably going to change. It already has changed because we're contracting for administrative services and the administrative services is also going to change because that's not sustainable based on your experience and feedback. Um and and so um when it comes to like to me the path forward is to um engage the community in a process of determining yes question mark to an RFA. Um and then with who. And I think the discussion that we've heard tonight is that it would be really hard to get Kirkland to the table um if they haven't been interested in the past. Is it possible to be able to go back to them and say, "Hey, we're now at this point where we want to do this. Are you interested as just a circle back?"

If I mean, if that's direction that that council wants to give me to go pursue, I can do it and we can I can ask that question. Um I think your timeline for getting there is going to be five years. So that's just some

Yeah. So we basically would undo everything. We just again and that I want to be careful and as I respond I want to be practical too, right? that's an option, but it really would be a um it'd be a creating an RFA like as we go back and we could dust off what that means. But um even the very fact that that Northshore and Shoreline create an RFA makes the process of us joining so much easier because there's a difference between creating one and and joining one. Um there's a number of factors that I think would would be limiting and um yeah I I just don't know I I can't give you an answer. I can give you a better answer next time we come. Yeah, I you absolutely cannot should not speak for

another police or another fire department like but but you do have it within your power to like just circle back and ask but and I but what I can definitely tell you again is that it'd be a much longer um process and would feel a lot like starting over and with your putting it out there. You talked about fire firefighter needs and support. I think I can reiterate what the chief said earlier of the idea of they've been some people feel like they've been in limbo for four years. Some people feel like they've been in limbo for 20 years. But a message of you're going to be in a limbo for another 5 years is a tough one to deliver.

Yeah. And so that might be at odds with my own priorities in the sense of like it's not necessarily going to have the the the sustainability that that is wanted. Um I and I think like and I'm sorry if that sounded like I just went way off and on like veering off on that one. And it's good to have the conversation. It's basically because it was hard for me as a council member four years ago to be presented with one viable option.

I like having options. Um and and so this is me, I think, an attempt to can we get two viable options to choose between and and really be able to have a compare and contrast conversation of like here's the pros and cons of each. Um and and that even if it's a clear no to one of them, like that feels better than having only one option that we didn't be that we weren't able to compare it to. Um that's kind of a philosophical preference on my part. Um but it would be those are those are some of my thoughts.

I would just jump in and add to that like it's I feel much the same way. It felt like we were presented with one option a few years ago and we've been presented with the option to like, you know, further align a few different times and we've always done it and at every point in time we're like, "Hey, this isn't like anything final. There's nothing we can unwind." And now it's like, "Oh, but we'd have to unwind all of this." And it just feels like we've only had one option this entire time. And that option is not bad. Like, I don't think it's inherently bad. I just don't it doesn't feel good to really feel like we've only ever had one option. I'm utterly confused by that statement. Okay, explain

how. So, I I would love to hear from others. Council has had multiple options. Every decision that's been made has been a decision that this body has been asked to make and you can always say yes and you can always say no. So, you've been given choices and right now I've heard four options that you want to pursue. So, I I'm having a hard time figuring out how council is being presented with one option. Maybe we are having a different conversation. Let me explain. Um, we certainly have all of the different options, but we work on policy. We don't work on we don't work on implementation and we evaluate the options that you guys bring to us and you guys make recommendations and we have options. You know, we we went out for, you know, for this and we got one real response. Um, and that's not that we don't have lots of theoretical options because we do have lots of theoretical options, but practically speaking, there's only ever been one right answer throughout this entire thing. Like that that has seemed to me that like I mean there hasn't ever been another realistic option for us. And one option is I think that might be some of the push back that you're getting. It's not that like there aren't other theoretical options, but it's just it's felt this whole time like

what you're saying. This is the only right decision to make is what we've had brought to us. And I think part of that is the consequence of past decisions from past councils. Totally. Is that I mean, and where I would caution you of starting over or saying, well, we'll remain bottle of fire and see what happens in the future. You're running out of choices. How do you mean? I'll push back here. If we become baffle fired again, we're like, you know what, like we're going to become baffle fired period. If other opportunities come in the future, I guess we'll evaluate them then, but we we have no plans. And then five or 10 years down the road, we want to join the Shoreline RFA. Are they going to tell us no? I don't know.

Like, but you'd be basically but but you would be re revisiting a decision that you you've already had. So, it's that there aren't a lot to in fairness to your point of if it's felt like there hasn't been a lot of options to consider. It's because there's not a lot of options left to consider. That is a that's a fair statement. It's reality. I don't know that that gets better. I don't know that it gets worse either, though. I think it would. Okay. I mean, but if our option is remaining baffle fire, that doesn't seem terrible to me. Yeah, go for it. Like, okay.

I I think what we'll be able to get so far on the table, and I I really do want to make sure I'm getting all of these, but I mean, I I've heard bring back some analysis of what it would look like to be a Bifier, which gets to your your point right there. I've also heard wanting financial analysis level of service to compare with joining Shoreline as an RFA. Um, I've heard a couple comments about saying if Kirkland would want to engage in a conversation. I We're not going to be able to get an answer on that question by the time we have to make a decision point. I'll still ask. But yeah, I hear you.

And then um earlier I think your first round of comments, Mayor related around liking how things are going currently with the partnership and administration, but what would a different agreement look like? So I mean those are the the four options that we're balancing but predominantly I think we're looking at compare and contrast between remaining baffle fire and joining an RFA. Those are the two strong themes that I've heard.

I'll jump in. Um I um share a lot of the same frustrations that the mayor has brought up. Um, I've been watching a lot of I've been watching a two-year-old and Paw Patrol is on too much. And there's a reason why Marshall the Dalmatian is part of the team. Um, it's because when we have conversations with our constituents about taxation, the buck stops with us and we have to answer to them on why their taxes are high. And when we um delegate authority, taxation authority to other um entities like the school district or like it when it's not only us controlling what our people are being taxed. Um it's it's taken out of context and you know there's maybe needs but it's not prioritized over the holistic like city. Um, and that's where people are really frustrated about the cost of living here because it's not holistically seen like our car tabs are so high. Okay. Yeah, but that's because of transit, but we'd have only funded through here and here. So, we just have this really complicated system here of governance with overlapping how many tax there's like 300 in Snowomish County of just like taxation districts. It's so confusing. Um, and so when we're like the inevitability is like we haven't uh there aren't a lot of options for um both fire to continue to exist as it does um that is respectful of the the um workers um and our options are very limited with

RFAS. I say like yes, we should do a hail hail Mary to Kirkland. Uh because I just don't feel like we're equally yolked with Shoreline. Um we we're the small guy. We're at the edge of the district. Um, and I feel like RFAS are somewhat of a like exploitative way of eating up area in order to um subsidize cost over the wider region. So like yes, this economy of scale works um but when you lose out on the taxation authority and representation, it becomes like the federal government. like I I'd never thought that I'm like a fiscal conservative, but here we are. Um I think that some of the my fears might be allayed by having direct um uh connection between our council like our cities each of our cities into an RFA and that might kind of help solve some of the issue but it's still just um delaying um the concerns like you who goes to water district meetings nobody. And there's no like I've looked online for fire um district like meeting minutes and stuff and they're like not posted all the time and like it's just another taxation district and sometimes that just like everything is so black boxy and that transparent that loss of transparency is really like it strains on me because right now people can ask us and the buck stops with us about like when I call 911 and I'm having an emergency. I need a response time. And the buck stops with us. Like, okay, well, we can do something about that. We can change taxes. We can move things

around. We have the capacity to do that. But when we lose that capacity and we say, oh, go talk to somebody else. We lose that connection with our community and our constituency, too. So, I'm just really hesitant. I have been hesitant all along to be like, uh, we have to give up being our own fire department. Um um but I do think uh that the fiscal analysis is going to show uh kind of what what staff has been leading us toward. Um and probably rightly so because that's where every staff in every city is leading toward. But um I just I I have this like I want to keep all the options on the table just because um I just don't feel I feel like we could be bullied by Shoreline. Um, and if we were um if we started a new RFA or if we were in an RFA where we had more political weight, um we would be able to really um exercise a lot more like um control over and oversight over um excessive increases or um loss of that sort of like that accountability to our constituency. So, I'm just I'm really hesitant, but I know that it's probably an inevitability. So,

so what a couple things that I want to clarify. Do you want to see analysis for an RF? I mean, we've already got the three, but you do.

Sure. And I think in that then too what I'm hearing is and deputy mayor you mentioned this too is like you definitely want to eliminate options that don't include a voice for the both city council and the governance. So there's at the very least right like there's you have a fear around what the future could bring and what a bad relationship could bring. Fortunately, we're part of what we're trying to tow in the water here is is there a good relationship and how do we learn more? And again, that's where maybe a joint meeting with the board, that kind of stuff. But again, people change and representations change. So, we don't know what it looks like in the future. Totally understand. So, I think having a role for both city council on that board, I think, is important. And what would that look like? We can bring back information on that. Um and then again while it's not necessarily related to governance I will just also say though that we're also seeing success with other regional partnerships. So I want to like that if we can balance the success of doing it with the right governance there's an option there because again with Racer we didn't say we're not sure if we can share resources across North King County. we did it and it's working or we've joined NorCom for dispatch for both police and fire and and that that model is working and so we've we've gotten into the regionalization and that's that's one of the things about the Puget Sound region that's pretty special actually is that we we can we've figured out how to do that. I think the net that we have to really crack on this though too is from what I hear you saying is worrying about the what could happen in the future. How do we make sure that there's a voice for both city council so you have that accountability to uh taxpayers which which the board would overall have as well but totally totally understand. I think we can dig into that a little bit more and talk about what that looks like too. Appreciate it.

Council member Ker brought up something that I thought was a really good point that I hadn't brought up before. You know, if we when we go and work regionally with other organizations like that, the elected leadership at that or city council members that we have relationships with that we see at all sorts of different meetings that we know understand our context and having to balance a lot of different things like they get us because they do the same job. Um, it's a different thing regionalizing with a body of elected officials that have one scope of responsibility for one service and one department. Like that's just a different thing. And that brings me I mean this it's not a super big deal, but that brings me a little bit more discomfort with this in terms of regionalizing versus a lot of the other options that we do. You're correct that my board focuses on I actually see that as a really positive thing. They are very very engaged in in delivering services.

Totally. They're not you they're not dealing with with other things. I I see that as a real positive that that they're f they're not they're not focusing on the whole they're focusing on a fire department. I'm not talking on like inherently positive or negative. It's more just they're less like me. Like if that makes sense. Like they don't see things the way that I do because they have a different scope of responsibility. They're not at the doorstep hearing about utility rates and fire service and the time that a tree fell down in the park and nobody did something about it.

Totally. It's it's not that the inherent structure is bad. It's not that they are bad. Like there's nothing inherently negative about it at all. It's just different and that makes me a little less comfortable. And it's not even that it's bad. It's just that's real.

I I do want to uh address Council Member Kurt, you know, we're talking about escalating costs and and you know, and all that. Uh I do want to we have some really positive examples of how we not only partnered with Northshore four years ago and started cutting costs and then again last year with the RFA there. We've been able to push our equivalent levy rate down at a rate that is I'm super proud of to be honest and you're absolutely right in all of these conversations you could say standalone. You absolutely could, but your costs are going to increase that that you talk about tax burden and and you're worrying about, you know, what the taxpayers are going to ask for and they may continue to support it and they could uh but this is the reality that that all this is why most fire departments are regionalizing and in fact King County and our whole King County, Snowomish and Pierce County is late to this to this movement. other states, other you they've been doing it for a long time and there's reasons for that. You don't have to pay for two fire chiefs. You don't have to pay for duplicate, you know, etc. And so it we we can continue to do and I and I and I appreciate, you know, Kyle and I have had this conversation of like, you know, trying to have the duality of being a fire chief in two different fire departments. I try to put my both hat on and I will set up the both fire department however the best way I can with whatever direction I'm given. But I'm telling you that this is he's right. There are less and less options available especially if you want to keep governance. There's you can I I can go through his but I don't need to. It's in the it's in the um it's in your handout.

I have one last question. If we join a partnership with your RFA, is it usually permanent or like once we join it's like kind of permanent? There is a method for separation, but it's really ugly. It's not good. Um, so there there that would be the procon. You could do something that's less something that's different that might have a better exit strategy. But the analogy I've always tried to use, and this came up in the Northshore RFA talks last year or the year before, which is are you setting up for success or are you setting up for failure? You know, are you are you getting married thinking you're going to get divorced or are you getting married because this is going to be your long-term relationship?

No. In my language, we have something you always need to weigh in what could what could go wrong and then decide. That's where I'm just asking uh I mean if we are making a permanent decision for both that's all uh yeah thank you and that's smart I'm not I'm not disagreeing with that sounds like practically speaking yes but if you you there's messy messy options it it's probably never going to be a good option to unwind it I've also learned the power of what could go right

too like that you in in decision-m there's always the um what if it's awesome option to consider um and and so I think that we you know to be fair we can look at it from both l both both lenses you know what could go wrong how terrible could it be and also what if it's awesome

I I will add to and I've said it earlier today tonight too I am super humble and proud to be part of this department and and all of our personnel are super excited about these possib possibilities because they do see what could go right and what that future looks like. Um, and that's one of the reasons why I had Kelly here in case you wanted to get some historical context cuz, you know, she would be able to share with you what the decades have looked like, you know, in the Both Fire Department. Um, I've been at Shoreline now for coming up on 13 years. So I I have a sense but I until the last couple years I haven't been as intensely involved but I do want to relay to you that this is got a lot of support and excitement.

Yeah. And absolutely I think that's um yeah not lost on this is that whatever options we're going to have committed firefighters who are looking to serve because that's that's what they do every day. We're fortunate. Council member Alabra I see your hand. Thank you. I'm learning my lesson not not to be there anyway.

Um the the qu the question I just want to reiterate the uh the analysis. So there are the governor's thing governance question u I was looking at that table that we have in our agenda packet and there are four options with yes uh city council say our council governance role. Uh one of them is remain as bathl one is new both only fire district uh one is partner admin or arrangement and partner full which uh partner full and then new RF I forget partner full there's new RFA so those are four options is new RFA is what we're talking about right now

no we would be we would yeah we would be annexing into an RFA oh no joining we'd be joining an RFA. I'm sorry. Okay. Because that option is not listed here. It's not. Yeah, that is true. I think I think at the time when we developed this um shoreline wasn't an RFA. That is correct. Yeah. Yeah. Good point. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh so is that an option with the city governance uh city council governance then this uh

Yes. And that is it is something that again that the chief has is addressed with the shoreline RFA board. Um because they would have to be agreeable to it too, right? We can't just impose our will as much as we'd like to. Um and so the there's some conversation then around okay well what would that look like? And the chief is um the chief mentioned how there's a number of things that are kind of in limbo waiting to see what would both want to do. And so, um, when when Shoreline RFA was formed, they now have a 10p person board. Um, there's potential for that to change, but they'd want to know what the whole picture was. So, again, as the chief mentioned in their conversations recently and what he's relayed to me, and he can again correct me because I get it wrong, but was the idea of like, let's look at something like three city council members joining the board. that way you don't trip quorum to be having a concurrent council meeting and RFA meeting every time. Um and then also I I think that there's additional opportunities to look at right sizing the board of where there would be maybe more of a spread geographically of 333 and you have a nineperson board. So, that's an option um that that would be open to it. And again, that's something that would need further discussion and and coordination, but I think that's a good working I I've been advocating that I suspected that that would be a requirement that this council would have, and it sounds like I wasn't wrong. I may not have been right, but I wasn't wrong.

Yeah. Yeah. I I I just wanted because I I I for me the decision making just want to make sure that it's a deliberate decision because we do have some previous work that happened and um the process of elimination that the deputy mayor mentioned is actually a good thing because we don't want a bottlon fire district right we don't want we don't want to with the current uh which is partner administration uh partner in admin is not working very well uh the chief is very upset with it. So, we need to do something about that. Uh, yes, I had to be ready.

Um, partner full that's not there. New RFA, we're not going to do that either because that's uh there's already one there. So, it's similar to creating a both only fire district in my mind, you know, it's like the same amount of work. So there's only two options that are left for us to consider which is uh go back to fire only um remain as bath of fire or join the RFA. Yeah. And I think I mean there was there's some interest in potentially new RFA. We would just have to find a willing partner. So that's where Kirkland conversation comes in. Oh yeah, the one the Kirkland one. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. We can have the conversation. We'll need to have the conversation with them.

Um Sure. But that would you be able to do the financial analysis, level of service, economies of scale, all that stuff. Correct. The new RFA and and yeah, the the joining an RFA, I think the annex RFA and this could be that this the I tried to give you not eight pages to go through the one pager was nice, but we will update it.

The annexing RFA, as I recall, was specific to annexing into a Snowish County RFA. And the value that why we rejected that especially for our two new council members was we had just recently aligned our dispatch of now police and fire both with with Norcom which services King County. Any Snowomish County agency would be on snow 911. It would be a different call. So we'd be back to a situation that we were in uh previously of when you call 911 being asked police or fire which again somebody in emergency shouldn't have to make that choice. Medic program too.

Yeah. And that Yeah. and the the King County kind of so there were some things that and also our racer partnership of we we have some nice alignment um with that and so it didn't make sense to look to the Snomish County side and that was for sure those options were were eliminated so that was kind of the easy one and it probably got captured in shorthand as annex into an RFA

the uh the secondary or that was part uh one of the the part A which is these are the two three things that we probably should analyze the including both fire the column that's not there joining shoreline RFA and then new RFA with Kirkland potentially or somebody else uh I guess so that will be analysis and then the second level if we're going to pursue a shoreline u fire RFA then would it make sense for city our council and the shoreline board to get together and have those conversations as well. Question mark.

Uh I did bring this up uh recently. Uh was it just Monday? Yeah, it was Monday. Um at at our uh uh RFA board meeting um and and they are interested and excited about meeting with you all. Um but you know, probably the designated three or or whatever. Um but a we didn't want to jump in front of the horse either and kind of waiting for the the resolution or whatever it is to move forward and and then that would make sense to start building that relationship. It doesn't it it's not probably I mean it might be worthwhile to do it now just to start doing developing the relationship but we don't know where we're going. Um so

I I hear you on this. I think it might help. It might help just understand better how it might work together. Oh, you guys are talking. You want to say something, Mayor? Go ahead. I was thinking about saying it, but then the chief said it. We're good. Which is basically that, you know, if you guys were getting together, then it might help with the uh the understanding, the inter relationship. It's nice to know people before you put a ring on it. Uh yeah, there was a saying that uh the city manager said what you you know if you're dancing with somebody you have to dance with bring somebody dance with them whatever the saying is you said something really cool like remind me of dance with the one who brought you

there you go. Yeah, but that's a country song. Council member Alcabra and you and I do better with different genres. Indeed, I'm a Tupac. Okay, everybody knows about Ramy country Alcabra. Basically, you need to put it into a rapper or hiphop and then we've got it.

So, are you down to two options with a phone call? Hail Mary for a potential third. I mean again I want to bring you I want to bring you the information to do a decision. So I will I I don't I won't even quantify it as a Hail Mary. We'll make the inquiry and see what would it look like and then you have an informed decision of what it would have looked like. Okay. I think that's completely fair. Um I would like to deliver a message from Council Member Dodd who should be sleeping. Um but um I would I I recall her saying if you could at least bring up that her priority is um Oh, thank you.

I was just like somebody should turn their microphone. It was you. Um that the governance is also a priority for council member Dud. So just another voice for for that. Thank you.

Absolutely appreciated. And again, I think the conversations of what that could look like it would be when I think about the potential of a joint meeting, again, I appreciate the let's not let's not try and offer it too early, but I think that gives a perspective. I think you also something that could be a benefit is is that you do have uh individuals who were representing Northshore Fire who are now part of an RFA board and Shoreline Fire that are now part of RFA board and maybe hearing a little bit about their experience in decision-m and what they saw for their communities. Um because again they the the thing you have in common is elected representation but again I do think there is there is a strong value I feel it too in terms of um it's different the the types of issues that are brought to you as city council members are broader and so I think being able to share that and getting their perspective would be way their answers will be a lot more helpful than anything that we can provide as staff. the um the governance fe again I knew that this was a super important thing. we have talked about it um and and they are trying to be um rep they are trying to be respectful and making sure that you guys feel welcomed on I I can't speak for I'm not going to speak for the board but that was what I believe is is and is a high priority for them and eventually getting down to three three and three from the legacy shoreline three from the legacy northshore and then potentially three from from both to have equal representation

chief count not to say Kyle brings it up every time we talk. Council member Ker, were you about to go on? Uh, just before I I sense that we're winding down, but Diana, thank you for being here. And I'm hopeful that um you can leave your contact information with city manager so that we if we have questions, we can Great. Thank you. And and I will say the financial analysis that you've been asking for, you're going to see DNA again. I promise you. Thank you. Okay. And really appreciate it. I'm worried I'm going to forget to ask this question after the meeting. Did you teach a bond class at um AWC in Spokane three years ago? I did. Okay. Thank you. I was been wondering that. I've been wondering that this whole time. Or is it time to start talking about bonds now? Cuz we could I could do this all night.

I think I have to hit a G. Tells me that you really like bonds. There we go. #bondlife.

Thank you. No, this is very helpful. And I think we did we did narrow it down. I think we will update procons. Council member Angular I heard you that we're going to bring back some level of service projections, some cost projections. Um we'll bring back some timelines what the the different options look like. Um because there is an aspect of like to go to an RFA like there's a real real quick option and there's a uh and then we'll look at what happens if we don't have those timelines but we'll figure it out. And um also uh again just to we'll we'll we'll see what else comes through but I really appreciate the conversation the feedback the cander um we really understand um I just want to reiterate again not not only is am I appreciative of the um fire department staff who have been who have been watching and waiting and curious also recognizing for counsel is that again the ongoing nature of this conversation. I really do mean this. It hasn't been made easier by the fact that previous councils have got right up to the line and then and then didn't do things. There were other options that that would have made a lot of sense that just don't exist today and and that's put you all in a situation where you have a big decision to make with what's available and that is that's not what you want as an elected official representing your constituents. I I appreciate it.

And we went out for a bond in 2018 and didn't address the fact that we need a new fire station. I mean, come on. Like, that's a big whiff. So, my apologies to any formers that are watching this, but I'm right. Yeah. Um I mean, and that's the thing. And none of us were on counsel then. Nope.

And always in life, what we'll do is we'll make the best decisions that we can in front of us. So, um we're we're going to get we're going to get to the right place. I have two things. Um, Chief Khan mentioned like pushing the levy rate down and some things you've been able to do in the former nursery area of Shoreline Fire. I would love to know more about that. That interests me. That's good information for us to have. And um, Quan, you're right back there. You weren't expecting this. I mean, you're here, so maybe you were. When do both residents stop paying off the bond and levy that were in 2018 that were passed? I believe it's uh 2040. Okay. It's it's a 20 year. Yeah.

Okay. It's got it's got 20 more years. Okay. Cool. I I didn't like do that as a mic drop. I've been thinking about it the whole time, but it's been a fluid discussion. So, no. And fortunately, it is an anticipated question. And so it is one that when we do financial analysis and think about how what are we going to explain to the community as a voter, I'd want to know that if I know that I just voted for a bond that's going to be in place, what does that mean? Am I still paying for that? What am I getting from that? So in the Didn't we just fix this?

Yeah. So in the financial analysis, it'll be a comprehensive financial analysis where we look at the overall what as somebody who lives in both, how is this going to impact me? And there are a number of financial decisions that um Chief Callen and Quan have been discussing and we will put into motion of answering questions around assets of uh pension plans of vacation buyout like what are all the different things that go into it because again it is as you might imagine it's not a simple math formula which is why now we look at the table of now that I'm over here that's why these three are here. Thank you. Thank you both. We appreciate it. Chief, I know we're not like yes, full steam, but you're one of two options like and we appreciate the work that you've done and um and we'll continue to do.

Well, thank you and thanks thanks for your patience. Um and and I meant what I said. I regardless of the direction you whatever direction you gave me, I will try and make sure that that both is taken care of. Thank you. whether it's in the RFA or standalone or whatever. Cool. And with that, thank you. Anybody else? We are adjourned.