City Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome, everyone. I now call the September 1st, 2026 regular city council meeting to order. We're going to start by taking a moment to take a roll call of the council members by position number. Please stay here when the city clerk calls your name.

Thank you. Council Member Ongulary.

Here.

Mayor Thompson.

Here.

Deputy Mayor Alderks. Here. Council Member Curd.

Here.

Council Member Miles. Here. Council Member Dodd. Here. Council Member Alcabra. Here. All present.

Thank you so much. First up on our agenda is meeting agenda approval. First part of that is the city manager review of the agenda. City manager.

Thank you so much, Mayor, and good evening, City Council. It's been a while, so for those who don't know, we've been on recess since July, and I have not attended a council meeting since July 14th. What I've been sharing with people, I think, is the longest in over a decade that I've gone without attending a city council meeting, which makes me quite normal, I know. Tonight, though, then for the review of the agenda, we have three proclamations recognizing two annual and recognitions of a week and a month. So we'll hear more about that. And then also a special call out for Bernadette Bascom Day, which will take place later this year. Thank you to all of our guests for joining us tonight. You're welcome to stay as long as you'd like. Under the city manager report, we have three updates for you, including development activity, which is a report that the council receives every six months. A quarterly update about the city's financial performance and also an award that's been granted to the city. Later, council will be asked to take action on a couple of items, including consideration of several property acquisitions related to the Bothell Way Multimodal Improvements Project. which also includes a budget amendment and overall project update as we work towards moving that project forward, some of the things to come. And we also have one study session scheduled tonight to talk through options to right-size the bike parking development regulations in our city code, as well as for the council to appoint two volunteer representatives to join two of our of our Fire District 10 commissioners for our annual joint meeting in September. There's also an executive session at the end of the meeting, so that's where council will recess into private session and no action to follow after that. Finally, with several weeks off, you can imagine that our consent calendar has quite a bit to take care of. It's fairly stacked with four sets of minutes, July and June vouchers and payroll approval for Council to consider, some sidewalk construction, which is always great to see, and most notably, agreements related to the Sammamish River and Juanita Creek restoration project, in which we had a groundbreaking to celebrate last week, but also a contract authorizing demolition and associated actions with structures at the former Wayne Golf Course and North Creek Forest. So, those are two projects identified in the 2025-26 portion of the Capital Facilities Plan. and will be great to get them moving forward. Per usual, I do recommend all of the items on consent for approval. I'll turn it back over to you.

Thank you. Next up is council approval of agenda. Does anybody have any changes they'd like to propose to the agenda? I say we've had like a month to get it out of our system, so I'm not expecting any tonight. Next up is public engagement opportunities. Sustainamania returns September 26th. Sustainamania, our annual sustainability festival, returns for its 14th year. Join this free family-friendly festival to celebrate the everyday actions we can all take to lead a more sustainable life and build lasting change. That's Saturday, September 26th from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. right here at Bothell City Hall. Welcome home salmon. September marks the start of salmon season as salmon begin making their incredible journey home this fall. Watch for Chinook returning in September, sockeye and kokanee in October, and coho in November as they travel upstream to spawn. Because our local streams and rivers flow downstream, the choices we make every day can help protect water quality throughout the entire region. During Puget Sound Starts Here Month in September, learn simple ways to prevent stormwater pollution and keep our waterways healthy. I decided a couple of years ago I wasn't reading URLs anymore, so I'm just going to skip that last part. When you have to say forward slash in your meeting, like that's just, nobody needs that. All right, next up we have a handful of proclamations, and I'm going to turn it over to Deputy Mayor Aldrich to read the National Suicide Prevention Week proclamation.

Thank you, Mayor. Whereas suicide remains the 10th leading cause of death in the United States and over 49,000 people died by suicide in 2025, an estimated one death every 11 minutes. And whereas suicide was the second leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 10 to 14 and 25 to 34, the third leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 15 and 24, and the fourth leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of 35 and 44. And whereas suicide rates in Washington state have increased by 12% over the last 20 years and have been higher than the national average for more than 10 years. And whereas suicide and suicide attempts affect the health and well-being of friends, loved ones, coworkers, and the community, when people die by suicide, their surviving families and friends may experience prolonged grief, shock, anger, guilt, symptoms of depression or anxiety, and even thoughts of suicide themselves. And whereas the stigma associated with mental illness and suicidality works against suicide prevention by discouraging people at risk for suicide from seeking life-saving help and further traumatizes survivors of suicide. And whereas the power of sharing personal stories about mental health and suicide fosters understanding, breaks down stigma, and creates pathways to healing. And peer support plays a critical role in recovery by offering hope, connection, and the reminder that no one has to face their struggles alone. And whereas community-based organizations such as NAMI Eastside play a vital role in fighting stigma, engaging families, peers, and community members in suicide prevention efforts, and ensuring that those affected know that they are not alone and have access to support and resources. Now, therefore, I, Jenny Alderks, on behalf of Mason Thompson, Mayor of the City of Bothell, do hereby proclaim September 13th through 19th, 2026 as National Suicide Prevention Week because addressing the mental health needs of seniors, adults, youth, children, and families is fundamental to building Bothell's beloved community.

Thank you. And we've got some, and actually, just so you all know how this is going to go, after each proclamation, we're going to have somebody come up to accept the proclamation and say a few words. And then if you want a picture after that, at the end, we can all come down and we can do a picture. And first up, we've got some representatives from NAMI Eastside to come accept the National Suicide Prevention Week proclamation. Yes. Hit the red button. Oh, Becky's got you. All right.

My name is Joe Stevens, and I'm very proud to be here tonight and represent NAMI Eastside, who is celebrating their 25th anniversary this year. NAMI Eastside is dedicated to defeating the stigma associated with mental illness and suicide. The more we talk about suicide, the more we defeat the stigma. This proclamation tonight, This proclamation tonight is not minimal by any stretch of the imagination. It is so important to have agencies and communities like Bothell recognize the importance in having a position of suicide prevention. I'm very proud to be a citizen of Bothell for over 42 years, have been with NAMI Eastside as a volunteer for over 18 years. In that time, I've seen the effectiveness of NAMI Eastside model. Four years ago, NAMI Eastside dedicated itself to putting their attention on the youth during the COVID, which negatively impacted them quite a bit. The youth would would get cyberbullied, and then they couldn't go to school to see their friends and be able to get their mind right. And because of that, the suicide rates jumped. Since COVID has left, it's gone down, but it's still an issue. We also started, we focused on the youth. We have a youth ambassadors program which is among the best in the nation. They've actually put together a presentation that was presented nationally and they did a fantastic job at that. And the ambassadors of youth was a focus of ours about four years ago and now it's come to fruition. Three years ago, NAMI Eastside dedicated itself to suicide prevention. I have done quarterly Safe Talk suicide prevention workshops during this time. As a matter of fact, I have three Safe Talk suicide prevention workshops coming up the next month. one on September 12th in Redmond at the Together Center, one on September 21st at the Shoreline Senior Center, and one in Everett on the 26th at the Everett YMCA. So as you can see, we don't just talk the talk, we walk the walk. I would love to do one in the Bothell community at some time if you would have me. I'll have business cards I can give you, and if you're interested in giving one, I'd be more than happy to do that. Suicide is personal to me, as I lost my brother at the age of 35. The pain never goes away, but it certainly is softened in the healing and the protective positive efforts of communities and individuals like yourself. I was told in my initial training certification that the trainer wanted me to talk to one person a day about suicide. And I thought to myself, there's no way that's going to happen. I'll be the most boring guy to be around. But I can honestly say today, I probably talked to five to 10 people a day about suicide. And the one thing that is amazing, I was at a fundraiser for the St. James Kitchen for feeding the homeless. They feed 200 homeless a night yesterday. And I just was practicing, and this person came up to me and was sharing, what do you do? And I told him, and when I said I do suicide prevention, he teared up. He said his daughter committed suicide four years ago. And it's just amazing how people just keep themselves bottled up because they don't feel they can talk about it. And that's the stigma. And that's what we fight so hard. So we're very thankful to you and to the committee here tonight for giving that proclamation and making it known to people that you care. Because it does make a difference. So thank you for letting me express myself. God bless you and God bless the city of Bothell.

Mayor, council members, and members of the Bothell community, thank you for recognizing Suicide Prevention Week and for inviting Nami Eastside to be part of this evening. Joe has shared what suicide prevention means from a deeply personal experience of losing someone he loves. I stand beside him tonight with a different lived experience, that of survival. I am a suicide attempt survivor. When I was at one of the darkest points of my life, my son was not even two years old. I was a daughter, a sister, a wife, a new mother, and a South Asian Muslim woman trying to navigate tremendous trauma while also carrying cultural expectations stigma and silence that can make asking for help incredibly difficult. Throughout those years, the East Side was my home. I have lived in Kirkland for more than two decades. This is the community in which I experienced some of my most difficult moments, but it's also the community in which I survived, raised my son, rebuilt my life, found my voice, and ultimately found a way to use that voice for others. Today, that little boy is almost 18, and he's here with me tonight. Ahil, through a chapter of my life, you are far too young to understand. Your presence became one of my greatest sources of strength. As I fought to find my way back to myself, being your mother gave me a reason to keep reaching toward a life I could not yet see. You became part of my lifeline. It has become one of the greatest privileges of my life to watch you grow into the young man you are today. And there's something especially meaningful about standing here tonight with Joe. Years after that chapter of our lives, Ahil and I participated together in suicide prevention training led by Joe. Think about what that represents. The mother who once struggled to stay alive and the little boy who was beside her through that journey eventually set aside by side learning how to recognize when someone else may be struggling and how to help connect them to hope. That to me is what suicide prevention can look like. Today I stand before you as a mother, daughter, sister, survivor, community advocate, mental health professional, and NAMI Eastside board member. More recently, I have also had the humbling experience of being recognized for my advocacy in mental health and community advocacy. I don't share any of this because every survival story follows the same path. I share it because when someone is in their darkest moment, they cannot always see the life that may still be waiting for them. Joe spoke about reminding people that what they are experiencing now is not there forever. Tonight, I have the privilege of standing on this side of my story. With my son here and Joe standing beside me, nearly 16 years later, I know in a very personal way just how much life can exist beyond a moment when you cannot see a way forward. For every person who may not yet be able to imagine themselves standing on the other side of theirs, I hope this proclamation serves as one more reminder that their story is not finished. On behalf of NAMI's side and personally as a survivor, thank you to the City of Bothell for standing with us in suicide prevention, awareness and hope. Thank you.

To the folks that are here to accept the proclamation for National Preparedness Month, I'm sorry, you have to go after that. Whereas National Preparedness Month is observed throughout the United States each September to raise awareness about the importance of preparing for emergencies and disaster to keep families and communities safe, And whereas the City of Bothell recognizes that natural and human-made disasters of all sorts may occur at any time and cause significant disruptions and impacts to the Bothell community. And whereas research shows informed community preparedness is critical to reducing loss of life, limiting economic and societal impacts, and accelerating recovery during disasters. And whereas community preparedness is strengthened when neighbors know one another, build relationships before emergencies occur, and are willing to check on and support one another during times of need. And whereas fostering a culture of preparedness within our Bothell community also helps protect everyone's sense of safety, belovedness, and belonging. And whereas community members can take proactive steps to prepare for potential emergencies and disasters by meeting their neighbors, knowing their hazards, and making emergency plans and disaster supply kits for their families. Now, therefore, I, Mason Thompson, Mayor of the City of Bothell, do hereby proclaim September 2026 as National Preparedness Month in the City of Bothell and encourage all community members to take the first step in preparing for emergencies by meeting your neighbors, know your neighbors' hazards, and make emergency plans and build disaster supply kits. And we have our emergency services manager, Colby Cavanaugh, and some reps from King and Snohomish County here to accept the proclamation.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council, for supporting this proclamation. And thank you to our NAMI partners. As you've already heard tonight, togetherness is very important, and knowing one another and that human connection cannot be understated. So I would like to draw your attention very briefly to the fourth line in the proclamation where it starts with community preparedness is strengthened when neighbors know one another. It is very critical in our line of work and to reflect that and show tonight how important that is, I've brought with me a few of our neighbors from Snohomish County and King County and they're going to talk very briefly about emergency management there. Just briefly for introductions, we have Lucia Schmidt, the Director of Sahomish County Emergency Management, as well as Sunita Hall, our Zone 1 liaison from King County Office of Emergency Management, and Audrey Hohen, the Public Outreach Specialist there. So, Lucia, excuse me.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council Members, for having us here today. today and for your recognition of National Preparedness Month. My name is Lucia Schmidt, and as the director of Snohomish County's Department of Emergency Management, I work every day along with my colleagues up here and many, many more to ensure that government is ready to respond when disasters happen. We work behind the scenes so that all the different agencies and organizations that play a role in disaster response are prepared and able to work seamlessly with one another during a disaster. But we know that government cannot do it alone. Major disasters may overwhelm available resources, and individuals and communities will need to look after their own needs, at least for a while. National Preparedness Month is about shining a light on the steps that everyone can take to make themselves and the people they care about more resilient to a variety of challenges, from winter storms, flooding, and earthquakes and more. I'd like to take a moment to address a few of those steps now. First, know your area. We want everyone to learn more about the hazards where they live and where they work, as well as along their commute. Those of you in Snohomish County can learn more by searching for Snohomish County Hazard Viewer. You can search for your address of your home and your office place at that website. Everyone can take steps to stay informed. They can sign up for Snohomish County Alerts by Googling Snohomish County Alerts. Mayor, I share your dislike for reading out URLs, so I'm just going to give the search terms. By Googling Snohomish County Alerts to receive emergency information on their phone when it matters most. And for those who haven't already, we encourage everyone to bookmark the Snohomish County Public Safety Hub. During a disaster, that's where we post, that's where first responders post all of the information that we need to get out to the community. Everyone in the community can build a plan and take steps to be two weeks ready. By preparing for the worst, everyone is better positioned for lesser hazards. We know from computer modeling that a major earthquake will severely disrupt communications and transportation in our neighborhood, or in our region. And so everyone should take steps to be prepared to be on their own for a while. We recommend that everyone have at least two weeks' worth of supplies of food, water, and medication for themselves and their pets, as well as first aid supplies in their homes. That's a big lift for everyone. And so in many cases, it's best when communities work together. If you know your neighbors, know their strengths and weaknesses and where you can supplement, it becomes an easier lift for everyone. So thank you for recognizing it, for shining a light on it. And I will pass it off to Sunita from King County.

Mayor Thomson, council members, good evening, and thank you for inviting us here. We're really pleased to be here representing the county, and we appreciate the city's leadership and partnership in recognizing September Preparedness Month. Preparedness is a shared responsibility. It isn't something that belongs to one agency or to one person, and it brings together all tiers of government, community organization, businesses, cities, emergency responders, and residents and neighbors. And one of the things we value about our partnerships and relationships that we build is that preparedness works best when we do it together. And our role at King County OEM is to help connect cities to one another, to regional information, material capabilities, so that as a region we are much stronger. And on a personal note, I'd like to thank Colby Kavanagh, who is a steadfast member of the emergency management community. I'm delighted that I work with him. And I thank you, Mayor Thompson and Council, for inviting us here today for the proclamation and emergency preparedness in general. And I'm going to hand it over to Audrey Hone.

Thank you for having me. I wanted to say a few words about the theme. This year, King County and Washington State's theme is prepared neighbors. We know disaster preparedness can be daunting, but by taking small steps to prepare with your community, you can feel empowered to make a difference. The theme prepared neighbors applies to our residents and communities, but it also applies to the disaster preparedness work that we do as emergency management organizations in the region. Partnerships exist between neighboring counties and cities. We know and work with one another. We work to exemplify what a prepared neighbor looks like, to be prepared for yourself, to know what help you can give, to know what help you might need and to and to contribute to a resilient community and i would be remiss if i didn't mention that king county also has emergency alerts that you can sign up for if you search alert king county so thank you so if we might uh practice a little bit of stretching with council we'll take a quick photo and then let you get back to your meeting we're going to do the photo after we do the next proclamation so we can do all the photos together beautiful

Next up is the Bernadette Bascom Day proclamation, and I'm going to turn it over to Council Member Miles. You guys are going to make the emergency management folks feel bad.

Here are my friends. This is what it is.

Hey, Ms. Bascom, let us read the proclamation first, okay?

You can stay there.

Yeah, you can stay there. Stay there.

I'll read it to you.

I met you for like two minutes, and I would never tell you to sit down.

I'll read it to you. Whereas Bernadette Bascom, a treasured member of the Bothell community, has dedicated her tremendous musical career to the entertainment industry and now dedicates the same talent to helping our children find their own voices. And whereas Ms. Bascom holds the distinction of having been the first artist signed to Stevie Wonder's Black Bull music label in 1980, yes, And over the course of a celebrated career, has shared stages with Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Ashford and Simpson, Al Green, and Frankie Valli, releasing the beloved Pacific Northwest anthem, Seattle Sunshine, in 1981. And whereas Ms. Bascom founded the Music Project Foundation in 2007, now known as Speak Music as Language, a pioneering methodology that uses singing to help children and adults with autism, down syndrome, Phelan-McDermid syndrome, and other speech differences achieve their dreams through arts and singing. And whereas Ms. Bascom was honored with an Emmy Award in 2013 for the King 5 news documentary, Bernadette's Touch, produced by John Sharifi and Douglas Burgess, which brought national attention to the dignity and possibility of neurodivergent learners in the Puget Sound region, And whereas, in partnership with Microsoft, Ms. Bascom released Speak Music as Language mobile application in 2023, extending her in-person methodology to families and learners far beyond what any single classroom could reach, and demonstrating the ability of Bothell-based innovation to serve a global community. And whereas, Ms. Bascom continues to serve our region as adjunct faculty, at Northwest University in Kirkland, where she has taught contemporary voice and performance since 2009, mentoring the next generation of singers, performers, and educators. And now, therefore, I, Brittany Miles, not Mason Thompson, do hereby recognize Bernadette Bascom as Bothell hometown hero and proclaim October 11th as Bernadette Bascom Day in the city of Bothell.

And real quick, I just wanted to say that I appreciate your work, especially around neurodivergent folks, because there's a whole lot of neurodivergence up on this dais, myself included. And I got to meet Bernadette for just a couple of minutes earlier today, and you can see that look in her eye, and I don't really know what it is. It's like that thing. It's some combination of like wisdom, joy, and passion. And it was really easy to see why you packed the room today.

Thank you so much, Mayor Thompson. Thank you, Deputy Mayor Jenny Aldrich. Thank you, City Council. I want to thank all the people that are here today to support me because none of it would be possible without every one of you. It's been an incredible journey. I was the little girl that my father did not want me to be a singer. He hated it. But he got to see it bloom into fruition, enough of it, that I know he's happy today, that his girl did what she believed, which in the final analysis, that's all any of us can do. So if you're having a problem making a decision about who you are, stop it and be who you think you are. And with that said, I am deeply honored and humbled to receive this proclamation from the city of Bothell. Washington has been such an important part of my life and my journey. And so to be recognized by this community is incredibly meaningful. I accept this honor with a grateful heart for the people who believed in me. supported my music, embraced my journey, and allowed me to share my gifts with others. This moment is not only about recognition, it is about reflecting on a life shaped by music, service, family, faith, and community. I also want to pay homage to my father, Reverend Marion Curtis Bascom, who was the first black fire commissioner of Baltimore. My father represented courage, leadership, breaking barriers, civil rights, and service. He taught me that when you are given an opportunity, you have a responsibility to open doors for others. He showed me that leadership is not simply about having a title. It is about using your position and your gifts to make life better for someone else. His commitment to community and civil rights became part of the foundation of who I am. The legacy he gave me was not about what we could accumulate. It was about what we could contribute. I carry that lesson with me every day. One of the most meaningful chapters of my work has been working with individuals with special needs. and exploring how rhythm, sound, music, and speech therapy techniques can help unlock communication. We discovered that for individuals whose voices were limited or restrained, rhythm could become a bridge to expression, a beat, a hum, a melody, a familiar song, or simply the opportunity to participate could open a door. That work changed me. It taught me that everyone has a voice. Sometimes we simply have to find another way to help that voice emerge. For me, that is where music becomes more than entertainment. It becomes connection. It becomes encouragement. It becomes a tool for healing and expression. We drew inspiration from some of the greatest musical artists of our time, Sly Stone, Earth, Wind & Fire, Stevie Wonder, and so many extraordinary soul musicians. These artists understood that rhythm could move the body, but it also could move the spirit. Their music carried joy, pain, Freedom, resilience, creativity, and hope. We use those sounds to encourage participation, communication, confidence, and connection. It reinforced something I have always believed. Music can meet people wherever they are. Okay. I don't want to talk to you guys all day, so hold on. I must acknowledge the enduring power of God's grace. Let me say that again. I must acknowledge the enduring power of God's grace. Standing here today carries a meaning that is difficult to put into words, especially after the recent loss of my daughter.

Grief changes you. It changes how you see life. how you understand love, and how you appreciate every moment. There are days when the pain is overwhelming and yet, through it all, God continues to give me the grace and strength to stand, to sing, and to keep moving forward. My daughter will forever be a part of my story and her daughter's story. She will be part of my heart, my music, and my purpose. This celebration is pivotal for me because it reminds me that my gift still has purpose. Perhaps now more than ever, I understand the healing power of music, not only for the people who hear it, but for the people who create it. I want to honor my daughter's life by continuing to use the gift God gave me to bring healing, hope, comfort, and connection to others, especially to those who feel unheard, forgotten, or unable to express what is in their hearts. Thank you City of Bothell for this extraordinary honor. I receive it with humility, gratitude, faith, and love. And I'd like to take this opportunity and invite all of you It's called The Life of a Voice. It's a celebration and fundraiser for my nonprofit, Speak Music as Language. It will happen on the actual day that is Bernadette Bascom's day. It will be at McMenamin's October 11th from 5 to 9. I hope you will come and enjoy, but also help us continue through this fundraising effort. Thank you so much, all of you.

All right, so we're gonna hop down and we're gonna take some pictures. And I think we will try to do the proclamations in order. And maybe we should just go out there and take pictures instead of having everybody come up here for Bernadette and the Bascombs. I just made that up. Yeah, I mean, that's who we've got right here.

Recording stopped.

All right, welcome back. Next up is public comment. Welcome back. Next up is public comment. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that we are in election season and there are certain campaign-related restrictions regarding public comment on ballot measures. Public speakers generally cannot specifically address a campaign or ballot measure at a public meeting or during the public comment period. RCW 29B45101 prohibits government agencies from allowing the use of public facilities directly or indirectly for campaign purposes. Allowing speakers to speak in favor or in opposition to a ballot measure or campaign during a public meeting or during a public comment period would violate this prohibition. That said, the City has accepted public comment in writing as well as accepted sign-up 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 Thompson. We received one sign-up for public comment tonight, and that is from Samantha Bogg. If you would step to the podium there, you'll have three minutes to speak.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Samantha Boggs. I am the manager of U Wave Radio at the University of Washington Bothell, and I'm also a current student at UW Bothell, and also a Bothell resident during the school year. I am here today to offer an exciting opportunity. We as a student organization have secured a construction permit from the FCC for 80 watts on 105.7 FM. And we are hoping to partner with the City of Bothell to bring this community resource to your constituents. The low power FM radio signal will be centered in the town of Bothell, but will cover also the whole area from Mill Creek to Woodinville and Kenmore. We see this as an opportunity for the area to have a voice on the airwaves and build connections between area business, residents, cultural events of the Bothell community and University of Washington Bothell campus. For example, number one, Emergency Alert System, EAS, will provide information connected to your local government and helping out alert your city citizens about emergency floods, storms, power outages, fires. Number two, it will also be a platform for community public service announcements, PSAs, to help with building a communication for both events, engagement activities, and area organizations. It also will be an outlet for community programming involving retirees, community leaders, and also high school students, which can help broadcast sporting events or hosting high school programmers to broadcast annual culture events to air local musicians and also to foster civic engagement through public talks, meetings and public affairs programming. We need your help and hope to enter a potential partnership with the City of Bothell to save the frequency which could also includes staff support and also potential opportunity to transfer the license in three years to the City of Bothell. The FCC may never offer another opportunity to apply for a non-commercial FM license for the Bothell region. We need to turn on the 105.7 by December before it expires. UA Radio has been 24-7 online studio run station since 2012, and we look forward to exploring a potential partnership with the City of Bothell at your earliest convenience. Contact us at uwbsm.edu, and thank you so much for your time this evening.

Thank you. That is all I have signed up. However, if there's anybody in the audience who wishes to speak, please step forward to the podium and state your name for the record, and you will have three minutes. If you're in the virtual audience and you wish to speak, please use the raise hand function. I will panel you in. That is all I have, Mayor Thompson.

Thank you very much. All right, next up is our report section, and first up is the city manager report and presentations.

Thank you so much, Mayor, and again, good evening, City Council. It is good to be back and back in a rhythm. We do have three presentations for you tonight, but before I kick off the first, which is an award for the city, I do wanna welcome our newest deputy city clerk, Tanessa Brown. As you all know, Laura hires really, really well. And what that does is it creates a pipeline for the city to find talent and move them to other places. So we're very thankful with the promotion of Amy Ross, who have been able to go out. And Tanessa has joined the city just a few weeks ago. She will be primarily supporting city council meetings. But her fellow deputy city clerk, Mason Kay, is here tonight to make sure that show her the ropes and we'll be attending council meetings going forward as well at times. So, anyway, Tannessa, really welcome. For council, she has years of experience with some other municipalities in the area and we're really, really thrilled to add her talents, her kindness, and her interests to our organization. With that, as I mentioned, we have three items for presentation tonight. The first I'd like to welcome forward is an award that the city received related to the North Creek Trail, specifically a 2025 WSDOT and Federal Highway Washington Award of Excellence. The city was awarded this for the North Creek Trail Section 4 project. This has been a project 20 years in the making over time. It's approximately seven miles long and crosses with six bridge crossings, so it's a complicated project. We're thrilled to have been recognized for it. I'm going to turn things over to Jason Torrey, who is our Capital Division Manager in Public Works, to share a little bit more about the project, but then also introduce our guests tonight who have a presentation. Jason, thanks.

Thank you, City Manager. wherever he went, and Deputy Mayor and Council, thanks for having us tonight. As was stated, this is an award for our North Creek Trail project, which was completed in 2025, and it completed the final segment of our seven-mile North Creek Trail corridor. And WSDOT is here to recognize us for our award of excellence for this project, which is really nice to shine some light on some of the great projects that we do here at the city. So this is... Jay Dye of Local Programs.

All right. Good evening. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Council, for allowing us some time on your busy schedule this evening. And thank you, Jason. So again, I'm Jay Dye. I'm the Director of the Local Programs Division for the Washington State Department of Transportation. And traditionally, we would also have some folks from the Federal Highway Administration here with us as well, but they had some things come up and they were not able to join us tonight. But each year we do this award process in close collaboration with the Federal Highway Administration. They provide a lot of the funding that I know helps support not just this project, but many other very important projects in the communities throughout the state as well. With me this evening is David Roman Sanchez from our local programs group here in the area, and Kelly Dean as well, and then also Danny Northhouse, who is part of our headquarters group, coincidentally she happens to live very close to this project so little near and dear impacting communities in which we all live so again I'm from local programs and You may think of Washington State DOT and think of the highways, but I'm focused, I'm more interested in your projects and other cities and counties throughout the state. So we help support about 1,400 to 1,500 active projects throughout the state being delivered by all of our transportation partners throughout. And like I said, each year we go through a process of looking at the best of the best projects. So out of that 1,400 projects, there's about 300 projects that are eligible for consideration. And like Jason and I were talking about earlier, more often than not, when we're having these conversations, it's about the things that are not going so well on projects. So it's really nice to take a step back and look at the projects that things went well and the successful delivery, because more often than not, we always overlook those and start looking towards the next project. So out of those 300 projects that are eligible for consideration, we go through a process to select the best city project, best county project, the best special project, which we're here to talk about this evening, and a director's award as well. Jason, I think, mentioned that this project has been a long time in the making, and I know when we go into our database and pull up, you have to really look carefully. There's a lot of North Creek Trail projects in there. This has been going on a long time, so it's really nice to see all of that effort and 20 years going into making those final connections. and when we're talking about transportation it feels like we're always looking at how we're getting around in the vehicles and those bigger mass transit type of things but the non-motorized connections are so critical as well and they offer other opportunities for us to be able to get around whether it's recreation for fun or commuting or critical access to needs that all of the people in our community have. So again We're here to present the 2025 Excellence Award for the Best Special Project and the North Creek Trail Project. So I think this is section four, phase two and three, is that right? Lots of moving pieces. So with that, maybe Jason can mention, but obviously you should be very proud of your Public Works team and all of the good work that they do. They do a lot of great things, so it's a pleasure to work with them in partnership.

Thanks, Jay. Yeah, this is North Creek Trail, Section 4, Phase 2 and 3. And it was 20 years in the making, and it is now complete. I definitely should have the project manager sitting here tonight, but our project manager, Young Ching, was on vacation. So I would definitely like to thank the construction team and the design team, which was Young Ching, Alex Wan, our secret capital engineer, Chris Behrens, our inspector, as well as our consultants and contractors who repair metrics, AECOM, HWA, and Johansen Construction. So thanks to all of them for helping deliver a project.

Congratulations again, and we have a nice plaque and a poster as well for the city to proudly display.

Mayor, you want to come down and accept the award?

Alex? All right, there's a good chance we're done with pictures tonight, but we still have more to go. So our second item under the city manager report is the third installment of every six month development report, excuse me. Council may recall that after the adoption of the 2024 comprehensive plan update, which was very substantial, there was a conversation about how do we know how these policies that we put into place, how do we know if they're working or meeting the intended result? So one of the things we committed to do is every six months bring an update about what are the development activities that are happening in the city. It started a year ago in September, and we also have the year end in the first quarter of the year, but we are now in year two of the changes being in effect. And so for a mid-year report, I'm going to turn things over to Christian Goetz, our Deputy Community Development Director, to share some of the things that we're seeing in the community and in permit activity. So thank you, Christian. Take it away.

Thank you, City Manager. Good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council. As the City Manager mentioned, I've been coming to you every six months, and I'll stop when you want me to, to give you an update on development activity. So just an overview tonight. This is the mid-year, trying to keep it at least at 20,000 feet. We'll do a little bit more deep dive at the beginning of next year. So just an overview and just general information. No action required for tonight. A quick overview from what we're going to talk about. I'm going to jump into just development services for those listening at home and to refresh everybody here. I'll shift into some current projects that are in review and in construction. I'll dive into a few numbers to look at how we're comparing to years past. and then wrap up with just a couple final steps for what we'll do throughout the rest of the year. So just a refresher, development activity, it does involve more than just planners. It involves three departments, fire, community development, and public works, and the various divisions within those. We work closely to make sure that we're all working together, we're collaborating and confirming how these new codes or any new code should be implemented and where there might be snags adjusting as we go forward. stepping into current construction. This slide is hopefully familiar to you all. I copied and pasted it from the last presentation, and you'll see it again. The city has some great tools, not just this one, where community members and other interested parties can search for, find, and view project information, not just project names, but what's the description. They can use that information to then dive into project details, reach out to staff through records requests, find what is it going to look like, what's it going to be. The construction project dashboard, it is interactive and it helps folks explore projects, not just residential, but non-residential, mixed-use, and public projects. So you can see what capital improvement projects are going on on roadway sections or park sites. These are just a few, I'm gonna step into a couple phases of the development process. The list here is not comprehensive. This is a snapshot of what we are seeing. These next two slides really just highlight permitting and then what's in permitting? That's land use, entitlement, and building permits. And then the next slide is gonna talk about, show what projects are in construction. So if you can recall back to February and even this presentation last year, this list was a little bit smaller. It has grown. These are the projects that are a little bigger. So these are generally 20 or more units, townhomes, subdivisions that we're seeing. We are seeing a variety of projects. We're seeing a variety of locations throughout the city. So there are several within downtown that are in for permit review. We're starting to see some residential development activity up in Canyon Park. And then citywide, there's a smattering of different project types, whether they're single-family, detached residential, townhomes, or apartments. We are seeing a little bit of commercial non-residential activity. That's to be expected. That is the norm that we're seeing across jurisdictions. We do see a good amount of new tenants, tenant improvements, changeovers from one business to another. throughout throughout the year so these are these are holding these are shifting pretty strong is what we're seeing projects in construction a little bit smaller these are the projects that have gone through that permit process and are under construction the crane you can see at 102 main we're starting to see development activity in downtown as well as citywide and to continue on the ground As well, we've got a couple of larger non-commercial. The bus base project is in construction and moving along. We do have a couple that we're waiting to begin breaking ground, and we'll anticipate those coming in in the next year or two, hopefully before those permits expire. Now I'm going to move into some of the numbers and kind of how we're compared to previous years. It's important to see... These are just through June, so the numbers here in red for 2026. We're running right around halfway, sometimes a little bit higher, sometimes a little bit lower. And we seem to be doing, I'll say, just okay. I do want to point out that since we put together this information, there have been a couple of larger projects that have come in. What that has to do with is the valuation of building permits applied. It was not in the report material, but I did feel that it was important to note. It jumps that $110 million value of building permits applied up to 205. So those are two really, really large projects. That's P-South as well as the 120th apartment project over by Home Depot. So those... change the trajectory for what our averages are looking like, but it also helps us understand kind of where we're moving on the averages and what type of development activity, construction activity is gonna follow. So the leading edge is land use and then building permit applications, and then we get into construction, so. The next couple of slides look at the preliminary project proposal phase, and then the next slide is going to talk about land use. Preliminary proposals, these are concepts. These are the leading indicator of what we see, and they are trending up since 2024. You can see that bump in 25, and it's holding firm in 26, even just halfway through. So these concept projects, We're looking at about 1,000 units per year that have been proposed. These don't always come about. Sometimes they change throughout the conceptual process as they work through the code. Two things to note here, one positive, one not so positive. The positive is we're seeing various housing types. So everything from detached single family, duplexes, townhome projects, stacked apartments ranging from 12 up to 320 units. So we're seeing a really big variety of housing. of those projects. We are seeing in areas where there are maximum densities established, we're seeing them develop well below that. The maximum densities, if you remember from the comp plan work, if we hit those and we achieved the assumed development build-out pace, we would hit our 2044 targets. Those will readjust at the five-year look back. All that to say we're We're moving in the right direction with residential development activity. We're seeing a lot of it throughout the city. We're seeing a lot of variety. But there is room for more that could be out there. The next step, oh, sorry, one last, no, I'll talk about that here in a second. The next step is the entitlement or land use application process. So this is where an applicant has put in the time and money and engineering and design into going forward with the project. Again, we're seeing a significant bump from 2024 where there was nearly nothing to the numbers up near 700, over 700 so far this year. Um, so it is, it is positive. Uh, these, we are also seeing a variety of housing types. So it's, it's the, the wave of, of preliminary concept projects. And then shortly thereafter, we expect that that curve, that bell curve to, to happen again for land use entitlement permits. And then we'd expect it to happen for building permits. construction, and then they're given their certificate of occupancy, they're completed. So it's not over till it's over. They're not there till they're actually occupiable. But it's worth noting here. And then what I wanted to say over these last two slides that kind of where Bothell stands in regard to residential growth rates, because what does this all mean? Is this good? Is this bad? Is this average? The national average for residential development is around 1%, so 10 new homes for every 1,000 that are out there. A high-growth community would see about a 2%. We are looking at anywhere, if these move forward, so I do want to preface it with an if, if these are built out and they are completed and they follow this pace, we'd be looking at somewhere between 2.5% to 3.5%. So well above the average and well above the high-growth rate. And... One other perspective note here is if we were to, if we or all other cities within Washington were to hit their growth targets, they would have to maintain that high growth rate for 20 years. So we're looking okay right now if this all pans out. And we look forward to continuing to see this trend in this direction. The last thing to note here is of the projects, I talked about maximum density and not quite achieving that. We did set in some zones a minimum density requirement where a project can't go below that. About 30% of all of the residential projects are in zones with the minimum density requirements that we established, that you established back in end of 2024 so take it for what it is I think it's it's doing what it what it needs to do by make sure making sure that they are maintained and the project lists that start on page 19 you can see some of those blended projects where there's townhomes and apartments they needed to do that apartment project in order to meet that minimum density so good to see that they're working through that The final stage is development, is construction. These are lagging behind the land use process. We'll expect these to grow. These do reflect the Office of Financial Management reporting numbers, so they are a bit of a lag. It's an April to April. We'll look to make sure in January when we return that we're probably looking at apples to apples, and we evaluate a January to January report. Comparison so we do expect these numbers to grow and we'll see the the permits issued as well as the permits completed Where occupancy is obtained to to follow that spike? but it'll probably be somewhere in the realm of end of 26 27 when when the beginning wave of those projects are completed and Finally, next steps, we'll continue to monitor this. I'll be returning in early 2027, probably January, to provide an annual update, a little bit more in-depth, and we'll look to amend any work plan items that we need to. So that's all I've got for you. Again, no action. I hope this was helpful and gave you some information to put you on. Council Member Dodd?

Thank you. Thanks for the update, Christian. I appreciate the note that reports will continue until housing improves. I wanted to ask, you mentioned national average 1%, 2% is high growth. Do you happen to know about the cities around us or roughly around Seattle and their percentages? Or is that something that's even possible to get?

I don't. It is possible. We could look into... trying to uncover what cities are seeing. We can look at the OFM data, so that's at least what permits have been issued, but again, that's a bit of a lag. So we could see what everyone's average would be, but we'd have to do a little bit of digging, because it all depends on what your current residential unit count is. We happen to have it readily available from the comp plan, so we know kind of how we'd go about doing that, and we could look to give a few comparables.

Yeah, I appreciate it just because I think it's interesting knowing that this last round of planning was kind of one of the first ones with teeth. But I also wouldn't want you to spend like so much time on that, that you're not doing the rest of your job. So helpful, but not like super required. Thank you.

Council Member Miles.

Thank you. Thank you for this report. This is really great. And you can keep coming back because you can. And we won't let you not. Quick question on slide six. You said these are current projects in permitting. Are these active projects, correct?

Yes, they are active projects.

Thank you.

Council Member Curd. Thanks. Thank you for the presentation. I find it really useful to get a tracking on... the sort of experiment that we run from policy to see how it filters down into the real world. You mentioned that about 30% of the projects are subject to the minimum density standards that we've set. In the future, I'd like to understand whether those peaks look different between translating between early permitting to late or if we're finding that people are throwing mud on the wall and then finding minimum density to be a huge barrier so I'd like to get more information on as time goes on whether those projects are seeing similar sort of rates of progress as the rest of the city or if that tool has got some different considerations to weigh moving forward as well. Thank you.

Council Member Angulary.

Thank you, Mayor. Overall, this summer, Washington real estate cooling down. A lot of us know. I'm sure Council Member Alcabara can give more data. When I'm looking at the slide, building permits, could you please explain a little more on 2026? So this is YTD. Is it year-to-date until like August or July? slide 11, where it is quite low.

Yeah, so that's the OFM data, the state data from 2025 through the beginning of 2026. So that's That's why I'm saying it's not really apples to apples with a January to January capture, or at least a January to June. We'll look to pull that, peel that apart a bit. It's a bit of a bear of a reporting document to uncover from OFM, but we do have the data that we can go back in time and reevaluate it, so it really aligns better with kind of how we're trying to clarify

I'm personally a bit skeptical about all the real estate market. It's moving to the buyers market and the rental. So I'm just wondering how we are anticipating. I think you have great statistics, but based on what is happening and the interest rates are going to go up, most likely interest rates are going to go up and inflation is still high. I just wanted to know, are we anticipating the same numbers next year based on what you're showing on the graph at this moment?

I think depending on how the economic conditions adjust, we're anticipating, like I said, the wave of land use entitlement permits to building permits issued to building permits completed to follow. And ideally, it would be a nice, clear graph that shows that bump or that mirror with a bit of a delay with each phase. But we'll, I'll know when you know.

Sure, sure. No, no, I understand. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I want to be wrong, but it looks like overall market is quite uphill, I think, and especially a lot of technology companies also not hiring and a lot of, you know, layoffs or whatnot. We also depend upon a lot of tech jobs. So I'm trying to see, I mean, how we as a city also trying to embrace all these changes that are happening, interest rates or inflation or whatnot. Yeah, that's all. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor?

Thank you. Thanks for being here, for doing these updates. We enjoy and appreciate them, so it's not a chore for us. It might feel like one for you, but we really do appreciate it. And I definitely appreciate how you've broken it down by current projects. so we might be seeing some names of projects that are new to us that weren't on the last update and so to hear you say that there is a variety of housing types coming on board is there one that you believe is particularly innovative that might be new on the radar?

I think one of the more innovative ones is going to be just up the hill on 101st so it is a blended what we're calling a blended project where it has nine townhomes and a 12 unit So that was in order to get their minimum density. They didn't just do 18 townhomes. They considered what products could they be mixing together. And we're seeing that conversation play out in other OTHER PROJECTS AS THEY'RE MOVING THROUGH THAT PRELIMINARY PHASE WHERE THEY MAY COME IN BELOW THAT MINIMUM DENSITY, AND WE WORK THROUGH IT WITH THEM TO SAY, WELL, YOU'RE GOING TO NEED TO BUMP IT UP. EITHER MAKE YOUR UNIT SMALLER, YOUR TOWN HOME SMALLER, IF THAT'S WHAT THE MARKET IS, OR ADD IN AN APARTMENT BUILDING. AND WE'RE STARTING TO SEE THAT MORE AND MORE. AND THERE'S A COUPLE PROJECTS THAT WE'RE EXCITED TO HOPEFULLY SEE MOVE FORWARD THAT HOPEFULLY MAKE IT ON THIS LIST BY THE NEXT TIME I'M BACK.

Very cool. So it sounds like that project on 101st is sort of an example to others and people are seeing what's possible. I really do think that being able to build to the needs of the market is a lot of what the affordable housing crisis is all about. That recognizing that, sure, the market may be able to support only luxury homes, but we also have needs of our community at other levels. price points, um, and at other stages of life for people. And so, um, I'm always going to be really excited when you, when you send, you know, share with us a starter home option, um, that is being built in Bothell, but, uh, you know, you know, that we kind of all up here have our like projects that we hope to see. Um, and, and I really do hope that, uh, builders in our area will, uh, we'll look at holistically the needs of our community and, and want to build and see the market for each income level, um, rather than just building the most of what they could sell, like, right. And more, more of the same that we've been getting. So, um, we can't necessarily compel anybody to build anything of anything particular, but we can maybe set the table to, to allow that variety to be built. And so I'm grateful that we're continuing to work on that and you're continuing to track that progress. So thank you.

I have a couple quick questions. I'm going to kind of just start off with the minimum density. Like, are we tracking, because obviously you're having conversations with folks and trying to figure out how to get up, and some people are figuring that out and some people probably aren't. Are we tracking, like, pull through of those pre-app meetings compared to anything? Like, are we, anytime we're doing policy that's novel, I'm curious, like, what are we doing that can contribute to the betterment of the region as a whole?

And anecdotally, there's a few projects that came in for a preliminary proposal that didn't work out. And we can look to track that a little bit more closely. They inevitably become projects. So I think I've mentioned before, a preliminary project, when there's land for sale, it's going to redevelop. It's just a matter of time and what ends up going there. So staff within all the disciplines work really hard to make sure that we can provide them the information and give them what they need to know to get to a yes. And that yes may not be the product that they initially anticipated delivering, but we're going to get them to something that is going to align with the code and achieve that target. So right now, there were a few that have adjusted. Some we haven't seen come back in yet. Other ones we have seen come through. So a project does come out of those conversations. Okay.

And if they don't want to build what they need there, they'll probably sell it to somebody who will.

Right. And we've heard, we've heard from developers say, well, I don't build that, but I know somebody who does. Yeah.

So we hear from the developers who don't build something else and would prefer to go below it. Um, the, um, do, um, roughly, do you know off the top of your head what percentage of the city we have minimum densities in?

I'm presenting on this next week. I can circle back. You're presenting on minimum densities next week? Yes. Here? No.

Oh, okay. Cool. I was going to say, like, I mean, I can just wait a week. An email is fine. Okay. I noticed that the property on 102nd and Main is tiered and, like, steps back away. Is that because we have upper-level setbacks, or is that just because that's how they decided to build it?

I'd have to look back at the, okay.

The decision on that one. Okay. Um, I would love to, as we do the downtown sub area plan, I would love to revisit the upper level setbacks. Like, is that something that I need to get like hands raised for? Like, can we team that up for a conversation?

The downtown, the downtown, the downtown plan.

So it's on, it's on the list for discussion. Yes. Okay. Building design. Cool. Massing. Yeah. Awesome. That's it.

Cool. Thank you so much. And, and like, I agree with the deputy mayor, like this may be a lot of work for you, but like, this is maybe the presentation I look forward to the most of any of them all year. So thank you.

Yeah. Being able to see what actually could be coming out of the ground and is, is really an encouragement.

So thank you. Nobody's life gets better until something actually gets built.

Yeah. So we're going to go from a six month update now to about quarterly. Um, as council is well aware, the, um, We don't have a pneumatic tube that carries sales tax and property tax revenue to the city from Olympia. So it takes a little bit of a time, and we have a bit of a lag. But staff is here tonight to give you an update about our financial conditions through May of 2026, which is where we have been able to close the books so far. And we try to come to council about every quarter to let you know where things are at. Tonight's a particular interest as well, because starting next week, we'll be having a conversation about how we want to budget resources for the city, starting for 27 and 28. And so what we know of what's happening in this year helps inform what our projections and our forecast will be for those years. So we wanted to make sure to get this information to you tonight. As mentioned, then next week, you will get first review of the preliminary budget with a substantial study session to follow on the 15th, where we start teeing up what questions council may have. So be looking forward to that. In the meantime, though, let's look at where we're at today. And with that, I'm going to turn things over to Andrew Wachong, our deputy finance director, who's, of course, accompanied by our finance director, Kwan Wong. Andrew, take it away.

Thank You city manager mayor deputy mayor council members good evening we are here to present to you the update on the city's financial position for the 2526 by name through May too far there's no action required tonight this is only a staff briefing for your information the Citywide revenues and expenditures through May of 2026 are both coming in under projections majority of it is due to capital project timing so. spending has not been what we expected. And with that, the grant revenues are also not coming in because we haven't spent the money. And sales taxes are unfortunately also still lower than what we expected. Looking by fund, you can see general fund is about $2.5 million under. This is mostly due to salary savings from vacancies. But the remaining funds, the parks cumulative reserve, the capital improvements, asset replacement and utilities are all due to the capital project timing that I mentioned. So for general fund, the revenues and expenditures are both coming in about 2% lower than expected. They're pretty much on target. Sales tax, again, is the major factor for general fund revenues. We're watching inflation. It's still above the 2% target from the Federal Reserve. June inflation was 3.8%, which by contract is what we will use for a cost of living adjustment for salaries. The major revenues, we see sales tax about $1.8 million below what we expected. Business and utility taxes are coming in a little higher. Electric and gas utility taxes are exceeding what we expected. And the other miscellaneous, we're still getting interest higher than we expect on our cash pool. Sorry. Speaking of sales tax, the 25, we ended 25 about 1.2% down for sales tax. We expected about, what was it, 5.4% increase. And this year, as of May, we're down year over year another 0.6%. And we expected, well, we projected based on forecasts, an 8.7% increase from 25 to 26. We did get our June sales tax in last week, and it looked better. So we're actually slightly up as of June, but it's still something. Hopefully that trend continues, but it's still something we are monitoring. But if you have any questions, we'd be happy to answer.

I don't think so, no. Thank you very much for the presentation. We appreciate it.

All right. And then get used to getting some finance updates because I do believe like every week between next week and the end of November, if not into December, we'll be talking about budget. Looking forward to that as well. So with that, as you may recall, we were under the city manager report. That concludes the reports we have tonight. It's been quite a journey. And with that, I'll turn it back over to council.

Thank you very much. Next up on the agenda is council reports and conversations. Council members. Council member Curd.

conversations that could have just started. Last week I had the privilege of attending with the mayor the Wayne Creek restoration groundbreaking. It's always weird to hold the golden shovel when I'm not the one doing the work but I'm super excited for this project. Over the next two construction seasons of summer we're gonna see that area change dramatically. We had this really complex puzzle of funding assembled from a variety of really interesting and novel sources for the city. And I'm really grateful for the work that our public works team and surface water department is doing to move forward on our council goal of restoration there at Duenia Creek. Keep your eyes open. There's going to be some construction impacts over the next couple of weeks. We have some items in our consent agenda as well. So I'm sure you're all up to date, but would just like to say thank you to the public works team for keeping that ball moving.

This is exciting news. Thank you.

I also want to include a shout out to an activity that will be featuring members of City Council this weekend, but not be taking place in the City of Bothell. Pride Across the Bridge is going to be hosting a Pride event at Marina Park in Kirkland. And if you want an opportunity to dunk Councilmember Dodd, find the dunk station and get in line.

It's for charity, so I won't take it personally. I recommend dunking anybody from the Woodinville City Council. Thank you.

I was going to say take my money.

I just want to quickly update. Last month, I had an opportunity to meet Kenneth Doubt. He's at our museum, a new director, it looks like, and he has a degree in history, and I was able to look at a lot of artifacts. One thing that he kind of mentioned previously preserving a bottle history, artifacts and all seems quite important. And he also moved from Shoreline. It looks like he worked at Shoreline. I visited long back, but visiting again, I think it was a detailed tour. So I just wanted to share. Thank you.

I'll note the tour is open Sundays through October. So you still have time if you haven't gone.

Oh, by the way, he's a part-time director, looks like. He's not full-time.

And the museum is part-time, too.

We all know something about part-time positions. I would love to accept a motion to approve the consent agenda.

Excuse me, Mayor? Mayor Thompson, we also have the projected agenda.

Oh, thank you.

I did want to say something on projected agenda. We heard tonight about a potential radio station partnership, and I would just like to ask that that could be a potential agenda, like a conversation that the city has, and then if it is able to be prepared to come back to us as an agenda item, I would appreciate that.

Can you tell me a little bit more about like what, what you would like to, what information you'd like to have to understand what, like what shape a partnership might take, um, and, and better understand what the ask is.

Um, and if there is something that could come back to council for us to be aware of what those conversations have been like, that would be helpful.

Yeah, I did hear from the government relations director, Ryan McGirvin, today, and I'll follow up with him to find out a little bit more from the campus perspective, and then also we can find out what things are looking like. But as always, anytime people come for a financial request as we follow our revenues are down, I'm gonna be a little bit cautious, but we'll find out more.

just want to say I'm also interested in that as well and I had reached out to you after that after that comment with the same request I am also interested I also want to know how much because that is important and partnership is very big um there is one thing also and I wanted to know more about, I've been doing a lot of reading during our break about, what are they called, data centers. And I would love to get a perspective from staff about data centers and how they work and what our peer cities are doing and what should we be doing and how we should be thinking about it ethically, morally, and financially.

I would second that.

Do we need more? Do you need to count to three?

Under projected agenda, your protocol states for three voices. I'd be curious to think. Councilmember Miles, is there a timeframe of where you'd want that to come back?

We fit it in where it fits in. We have a lot of other things that are going on that I know that are high priority, but if something could be scheduled or looked at by end of year, that's fine. If not early next year, it's fine.

Okay. We'll take a look and communicate an update, especially if it's going to be a little while. I will say that in our initial reviews of land use, too, there's... Never say never, but there's very little opportunity for a data center, but as we've also had the conversation, that's a term of art, and a data center means something different to different people, and we've had data centers for years, but some of the ones that I think people are concerned about very, very large data centers. Those ones we're probably not going to see in Bothell, but we can get more information and bring it back. And like I say, if it looks like it might just scheduling wise be a while, we'll bring an update to council so you know we didn't forget.

That's fine. And as a technologist, I just have a lot of vested interest.

Thank you. City Manager, I think your last comments got what I was going to say, but data center is broad. There are data centers in Bothell and have been forever. AI data centers are what people are concerned about. So a conversation that doesn't differentiate is... kind of useless. So it sounds like that nuance will be in what eventually comes back.

We'll talk about the spectrum, yeah. Thanks. What all that means. And again, I think there's always a challenge of regulating into the future when we don't know what the future holds too, right? And so we'll consider that in the conversation as well.

Can we put knowing the future on the projected agenda?

You have to budget it.

Just one last piece on this is that I'm looking for a point of view, not this is what we're doing. It's just directionally how we're feeling or what we think we should be doing.

Yeah, and Council Member Miles brought this up with me yesterday. I went back to a former position I was in where we would talk about the triple bottom line of what's the economic factor, what's the social factor, what's the overall opportunity factor. So we'll look all over and see how we can bring information to have a first step of education.

Please do.

I move to approve the consent agenda. Second.

I have a motion from Council Member Dodd to approve the consent agenda and a second from the Deputy Mayor. Would anybody like to speak to the motion? City Clerk?

I was going to speak to the motion. Oh, okay. We heard it kind of mentioned, hinted at tonight that it's really exciting that the work on the Juanita Creek restoration project is moving forward. And so one of the items on the consent agenda is to continue providing the funding so that work can continue. And so that's exciting for us. And I'm grateful that it is on the consent agenda. There's no debate about it, but just something to note and be grateful for. So thank you.

Hear, hear. City Clerk?

Thank you. Please say yes or no when I call your name. Council Member Ongulary?

Yes.

Mayor Thompson?

Yes.

Deputy Mayor Alderks? Yes. Council Member Curd?

Yes.

Council Member Miles? Yes. Council Member Dodd? Yes. Council Member Alcabra?

Yes.

Passes 7-0.

All right, we're going to move on to ordinances and resolutions. And our first of the evening is the Bothell Way Multimodal Improvements Project Offer Package 8, Negotiated Settlement and Budget Amendment. City Manager.

Thank you very much, Mayor. And yes, this is our first annulment tonight. Staff is going to be here to cover a number of items with Council related to the Bothaway project. We're going to be asked to consider two additional offers for Offer Package 8 and then also just know that over the past nine months you've been being asked to approve these, and there's consistency here. Second, we have also reached six settlement agreements with property owners through negotiations that staff will be bringing you tonight. And then finally, we are also looking for an increase in the project's budget. We'll be providing some project details on what's behind that and touching on maybe lightly that there will be more to come on this as we continue to look at how are we going to drive this project forward as some of the both revenues, but also the federal funding, which we've been so successful at achieving, is not flowing quite as much as it was once. So just know that there's more to come for that. But tonight we're going to be hearing from our senior capital project engineer, Brenda O'Neill, joined by city engineer and deputy director Steve Morikawa presenting. And Rita is also at the table. She's the supervising capital project engineer. to cover things, and we'll walk you through what we know. So I'll turn it over to the team to present.

Good evening, Mayor Thompson, Deputy Mayor Alderix, and council members. My name is Brenda O'Neill, and I will be presenting the Bothaway Multimodal Improvements Project Offer 8 Package and Negotiated Settlement. As the city manager mentioned, Steve Morikawa, city engineer, will be presenting the budget amendment. Tonight, I am requesting council to adopt two resolutions for right-of-way acquisitions and easements and one ordinance for the budget amendment. Action item one, resolution for offer package eight, right-of-way acquisitions and easements. Action item two, resolution for negotiated settlements. And action item three is the ordinance for the 2025-2026 budget amendment. So here's an overview of what we're going to cover. We will go through the three action items. Action one is offer package eight. Over the past nine months, city staff has presented to council right-of-way offer packages. This is number eight. Action number two, negotiated settlements. These are parcels that we filed condemnation and now we've reached settlements with property owners. They are no longer in condemnation and we've settled. Action three is the budget amendment. Steve will discuss the need for a budget amendment and the overall project status. We will describe the project status and the next steps city staff is currently working on. The Bothaway Multimodal Improvements Project is from Reeder Way to 240th Street Southeast. It will be completed in three phases. Phase one is the southern portion. It is from Reeder Way to Northeast 192nd Street. Phase two is the King's Tahomish County line to 240th Street Southeast, the northern portion. And phase three is Northeast 192nd Street to the King's Tahomish County line, the middle portion. The focus of tonight's council meeting and action items are all necessary for the completion of phase one and two of the project. The first council action is Offer Package 8, which includes right-of-way acquisitions and easements for two parcels in Phase 2, the northern section of the project. If the right-of-way offers and settlement offers pass council tonight, then we will have a total of 33 out of 37 parcels for Phase 1 and 2 completed for the project. Second council action is in negotiated settlement agreements. In September of 2025, council approved an ordinance authorizing acquisition by eminent domain if needed for the project. Petitions for condemnation were filed against seven parcels in phase one. The city and owners continued to negotiate and reached settlement agreements. These parcels are no longer in condemnation. We've reached settlements with the owners. This will leave us for remaining parcels to acquire for phase one and two of the project. And at this time I will turn it over to Steve to discuss the budget amendment.

So good evening. The third council action tonight is the 2025-2026 budget amendment for the Bothaway Multimodal Project. I'm going to focus first on what budget is actually necessary to finish up the work this year, and that's the subject of tonight's action request. However, what I will also do is follow this up with a short overall project status in terms of the project on an overall basis and how we're going to move forward. So for the remainder of 2026, as stated on this slide, more funding is necessary, is needed than originally allocated to continue with design work, and most importantly, to allow the team to complete the phase one and phase two right-of-way acquisition. And the acquisition also includes relocation of businesses.

Next slide, please.

So in the current 25-26 budget, it was anticipated that we'd spend about $9.3 million in 25-26. Most of this was grant funds. The projected expenditure is quite different. It's $29.3 million. This is a cost increase of $20 million. Most of the cost increase goes toward right-of-way acquisition and relocation. The design cost increases on the order of about $5 million, and the right-of-way acquisition and relocation cost increases on the order of about $15 million. There's adequate funding available to cover the cost. About half of the $20 million increase will be coming from grants. So we've been negotiating with property owners for a while now, and being able to close with them would be a good thing. We don't want to leave them in limbo. In addition, there are businesses that are in the process of relocating and are dependent on reimbursement from the city to complete their move in a timely manner and keep their businesses viable. I would also add that this budget amendment is necessary to close on the properties that were addressed in the Action 1 and Action 2 request of this evening. Next slide please So why the increase in design and wide-airway acquisition costs? For the design side, the increase reflects not only the difficulty in working in this corridor with the presence of critical areas. There's a fish-bearing stream, there's wetlands, and there's steep slopes, which means more regulatory requirements and costly design. But it also reflects the ongoing effort to try to continually reduce the cost. It was recognized early on that original cost estimates were low. and we've been trying to continue to work to see how low we can keep those costs. Things like trying to maximize the reuse of existing pavement, exploring the use of different culvert types, there's three culvert crossings of Horse Creek on this project, and even modifying cross sections to try to save construction costs. So the intent is to try to spend a little bit more design costs, which is a fraction of what it would be in a construction realm. Generally, from the right-of-way side, I believe we just underestimated right-of-way acquisition costs originally. When you're going through a right-of-way, there are decisions made in the planning on what kind of impact you may have on certain parcels. And when it really plays out, you work with those parcel owners, and the impact may be a little bit different or quite a bit different from what you anticipated originally. And that could be the difference between such things as a strip take versus buying the whole parcel. So in some cases here, we're buying whole parcels. And what that also triggers is more relocation expenses. You're trying to move the businesses. You're trying to make sure they're whole, as much as whole as you possibly can make it when they move to their other location. And those are some of the reasons why these costs are going up. On a smaller scale, some of the required reimbursement minimums have changed. in progress during this process, and they've kind of gone up on us, which again was not anticipated at the beginning. So that's the 25-26 budget amendment request. Next slide. So my understanding is that you'll be receiving a 27-28 draft budget as well as the 27-2033 draft capital facilities plan soon, and I'm gonna point out that you'll see that the total cost of this project all three phases from two years ago when the last capital facility plan was done, it's almost double. And that's going from 30% design to about 90% right now. The project team received a 90% design submittal not too long ago, and this includes plans, specifications, construction estimates, and our initial review of this has kind of informed us where we think we kind of are right now. Up until 90%, even with the rising cost, the staff had a plan, could figure out a plan on how to move forward with all the grant funding, the timing, the staging, and everything we needed to work through. Unfortunately, with this last submittal, we currently can't identify a path that meets the current schedule. So what we're doing now is we're wrapping up our 90% review, but what we're doing is trying to interpret the information and seeing what we can do with it to do things like make sure we understand the costs, figure out if there could be savings anywhere, make sure we understand the completeness of the submittal and how close and how much more work needs to be done before we can go out to bid and whether that meets the schedule that we need to meet in order to get out the door next spring. What can be done by the design consultant in this time as well as looking at potential funding opportunities that could be used? So our goal is to identify a workable path forward and update the council either concurrently or via the capital facility plan process over the next couple months But I want to say right now unfortunately The design team has come a long way, and we've had a lot of hurdles on this project. We've had COVID come up. We've had NEPA changes in the environmental process. We've had changes in the administration, which requires to do different things with the funding grants. And we've been able to get past each obstacle, but this one, we're not seeing that path right now. So we need to take about a month or so and work with it and see what we can do and bring it back in the CFP process to give you our recommendation on how to move forward.

So in conclusion, tonight I'm requesting three action items from council. Action item one, resolution for offer package eight for right-of-way acquisitions and easements. Action item two, resolution for negotiated settlements. And action item three, an ordinance for the 2025-2026 budget amendment. And at this time, we'll open it to the floor to council questions.

Council Member Dodd.

Thanks. Thank you for the updates. They are alarming to me. I guess the first thing that I'm thinking about is the bus rapid transit that depends on some of these changes to my understanding. How... I guess my alarm and why I'm talking uncharacteristically slowly is it sucks that that would be delayed. I hear from people all the time about how exciting it is. People that I don't even know, it's not just me pumping people up. How do we even get to move forward with that without moving forward with this project that we're not sure we can fund?

So I've had initial conversations with staff at a certain level at Community Transit to let them know that we're working through scheduling and funding issues. I'm going to be talking to them next week again to give, again, the team some time to figure out a path. It's kind of like a puzzle. There's a lot of scheduling, cost, funding requirements, working and partnering with Community Transit, and how do you get through that? So one of the things that we need to have time to do and now that we've got a 90% design is figure out how much we can do and how long it'll take. The other thing we need to do is if we can come up with a different approach. As an example, we have phase one, two, and three. And we've already talked to community transit about if we can get phase one and two, will you come down the road? and then we will build phase three, requirement is likely you can't shut them off. You have to have a lane through and you can't hold them up. So engineering, how do you figure that out? There could be other ways to approach that rather than just phase one, two, and three. As an example, one of the big hiccups we have are the fish passage culverts, which you can imagine are 12 feet wide and 90 feet long and you gotta cut the whole road across the whole thing and how do you do that without stopping traffic? So, again, some of the things that we are preliminarily looking at is can we change the order of work so that that happens up front before buses come down the road. Maybe that allows us to do something with the road that allows it to happen quicker and maybe a little bit less expensive. And then we need to talk about how soon and when can we get phase one and two up such that they're comfortable coming down the road. And then doing phase three, because the culverts are in, potentially we have an opportunity. So these are kind of what-if scenarios that we use a whiteboard and we go work it out and see if we can do that. We also have to look at the bigger picture, though, because we have, I mean, the city has been great in getting funding so far. I think we have about $90 million under secured. The project is huge, though. So phase three is always the one that, I'm worried about because it's great to finish one and two, but you have to finish phase three. So we want to make sure we have a plan to get through phase three and it looks reasonable. It might be take a little longer or it might be a little optimistic or a little harder. Um, but, um, we, we want to make sure we looked at all three phases in a finished product rather than jump into phase one and two before we can do that.

Appreciate that and I and I want to acknowledge the a lot of the challenges you mentioned are not unique to Bothell NEPA changes we've heard a ton about from Everybody and so this isn't like At you in that sense but I guess In the surprises and things that come, because critical areas aren't a surprise, but the surprises that have developed and raised the cost, this is informing future work, like we're re-evaluating. I think the fact that the estimate was low on the design is also concerning to me. Can we identify why we were so far off, aside from the general state of the world? Is there anything more to that? Do we see this happening on other projects?

I think... I think bottom line, I think when we started planning this, we were low. I think that's part of, in the past, we probably didn't do sufficient planning, and now we're looking at a different way of approaching projects where we want a planning phase, and in your capital facility plan, you actually see that. because now we'd want to, before we even go out for the first grant, we want to have done some work so we have a better idea of what our risks and our costs could be. In this particular case, what I've been seeing in the increase from 30% design to 90% design is a lot of it's the stormwater. Again, I think I think a couple things are going on there. I think there's been some changes in requirements and their approach has been a little bit different, but I think also it's a little complicated in this particular instance with horse creek going back and forth three times and how do you get through it and how do you capture water and how do you do all that stuff. So it's been a challenge, an ongoing challenge to try to figure that out. The other big cost was walls. There are steep slopes on one side, and one of the things we've been trying to do, which increases the design cost, is we said you have to have two lanes in each direction to try to get sufficient less congestion so that we can get buses through and we don't hold them up as well. But that didn't mean we needed a fifth lane. So can we narrow this thing and shorten the walls and do things like that? So again, increasing the design cost, but right now we're not seeing that. the change in the walls and we're not sure why. And that's one of the third party reviews that we got input from and something we're gonna explore. The last one is a little bit what I talked to you about order of work. The traffic control and the cost of traffic control during construction has gone up significantly and we're not sure why. And one of the things we're exploring is the designers who went through this, what did they have in mind when they're putting those costs in? And so again, we need to explore that a little bit more. And again, an opportunity there is if we can change the process and the The order of work, is there a potential for savings there? So I think, again, long time ago when we started this process, we started low and that didn't help us. And again, we've changed our process for future projects. This one, we've been in the game and we've been figuring out how we can get more funding, how we can do things and make it work. With this last submit, however, the hurdle seems a little bit... hard to overcome within the time we have to meet us going out to add in the spring, essentially.

I appreciate that, and I apologize in advance for not knowing quite how to ask the last question that I have, which is basically if we acquire property, condemn property, and then we can't move forward for either a long time or I'm not going to say ever, but I think there's a concern that we move people, you know, have all this stuff happening and then we can't start the project. So if you could talk me through, maybe you're thinking on that and if that's even a risk.

Council Member Dodd, could I help with that answer?

I would never say no, Kim. Hello.

Thank you. A delay in the project is not a problem that happens. There could be problems if the project was canceled while we still had condemnation cases filed and ongoing. That would require us to pay the petitioners their attorney's fees. So. But, but just delay in a project that happens once the city acquires title, it has the title and just needs to work with the delays as it would with any other project. Canceling that would cause problem.

Yeah, and I would add a couple more things. As we work through with the property owners in buying property and negotiating, and there's an expectation that there's a closing date, we really suggest getting through that because that gives them a little bit of certainty for them. They're not left hanging in the middle of a negotiation where they're going to be. The other thing is the relocation. So part of this is relocating businesses and... There were more than we anticipated. Again, part of this is It's not a black and white process. The city and the staff has made a decision to work with the people who have to be moved and the property acquisition to try to make them as whole as possible, because if you just follow the straight criteria, that's not necessarily the end result all the time. Different property owners, you'll get one property owner and another property owner affected similarly, but the way they're running their businesses or the business they have makes a decision that's very different. So we are working through that. And in my opinion, it would be wise for us to finish this phase and get the right of way for phase one and two behind us. I think as Kim said, if the project were canceled completely, then you would be holding property That's probably not the issue. It would probably be more working with the grant agencies that helped you buy the property, so you could always hang on to that property, and if way down the road you wanted to build it, it would be there for you. But again, I don't think we're in that situation either. I think what we're telling you is this is kind of the highest priority project for the city, and we're looking for a path, and the path may be delayed a little, or look a little different. Um, um, but right now as it stands of just phase one and two going out the door in the spring, we're not seeing that path. So we're readjusting and we're going to come back to you and say, okay, this is how we think we can move forward.

Okay. I really appreciate it and I feel like I've seen your department and teams do really amazing work. So it's, I appreciate you walking me through all those questions.

Council Member Alcabro.

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Council Member Nadal, for the great question, because there is a concern. I'm not worried about cancellation. It is a very important project. And my worry isn't the short term, isn't the long term. We are borrowing from the future money. And I wonder what it's going to be like next year or the year after and the year after, once we get to Phase 3. How are we going to, and we just heard the update, the funding isn't, revenue isn't that great. How are we gonna, I know you wanna solve the phase one, phase two issues right now. There's a very short-term thing, but then we are in the budget season and we have to plan for the next two years, which I'm sure you wanna fund this project in the next two years. So how are we gonna approach that?

I think the goal, and in working with community transit as well, would be to get phase one and two out, and a methodology that if they start the bus rapid transit when phase two is done, there's sufficient improvement such that they're not concerned about holding up their rapid transit line. Somehow, again, we gotta address making sure that when we build phase three, we don't hold them up as well, because you can't have bus rapid transit stopping, essentially. It's gotta keep going. That being said, phase three might have to be pushed out further. This is where it becomes interesting and complicated, because the further you push it out, the time value of money goes up. So you need to account for that. But at the same time, the further you push it out, the more opportunities you have to look for funding. And there are several funding sources we have identified that we would need to go after. And to be honest with you, I think one of them was, as an example, one of them was going to state legislature at some point. and requesting funds as the last piece for this big project. We would rely on council and our elected officials to help us lobby for that. But to get that point, yeah, you're right, we would have to get several grants. Some of the smaller ones are pretty pretty comfortable with, because they're traditionally there, they have not been affected by the new administration and the funding is there. It's a couple of the larger ones that we will really have to work for on the federal level. And if we can get one or so of those, then that opens the door. And then we would look at local funding and we'd have to talk internally about what we can do there as well, because there could be an opportunity there as well.

Can you remind us again the timeline, like very high level of the whole project?

Well, for the one you see, we were supposed to go out the door in spring of next year with phase one and two. It would likely take a year and a half, two years for construction. That was the thought. Phase three would follow in 29, and again, take probably a couple years to do. If I were to just put my pencil down today and not talk about it further, what I would say is we might be pushed two years. We didn't have a federal grant application cycle last year because our local Puget Sound Regional Council, the staff wanted to readjust itself on how it projects competed and what we used to score the projects so that it could fit into the administration's viewpoint. And we could essentially get what the state wanted and our local agencies wanted, but still not penalize our stuff. So they did a really good job at figuring that out. It's actually pretty nice. But anyway, they took a year to do that. In 27, we're actually gonna apply for funding two years from now. So there's an opportunity there. What I'm thinking is that might be the delay we experience as a two year delay. And everything gets pushed two years into the future.

In the grand scheme of things, in 50 years, when our kids and grandkids are looking at this, and the project would be costing $100 billion, they'll say, you guys are arguing about $20 million, really? So I think it is what it is. We are learning from what we did, like the low estimates in the beginning. Engineers are brilliant. I'm sure they're going to figure out. Engineers are really good because we give them a lot of constraints and they're really good at coming up with really cool solutions. So I think we have, I'm optimistic, two year delay in the grand scheme of things. It sucks right now because people need transportation right now, but in the future I guess it'll work out. And we're gonna laugh at this when we look at it in a few years.

And again, we will come back in the CFP process because we're still working through what we see and got in the 90%. And we're going to talk it over and see how far we can get. I think one of the things that's holding us up is we would like to get there. It's just a matter of do we have enough time with the design team and consultant to get there in the time period we have left. And that's probably one of the bigger questions.

Oh, time left, meaning the grant periods and all that expire?

We're at 90%. But in looking at the package, there's some things that need to be addressed. And if we're also going back and trying to look at walls again and see if we can save funding, how much can you do in this period of time and still meet that timeline? So that's a discussion point we will have. It's not looking good, which is why I'm telling you that I'm leaning toward it's looking like it's pushing two years.

Thank you. Pushing two years, again, to use Councilmember Dodd's terminology, sucks. But, you know, it is what it is. Two years is not much in the grand scheme of things. Again, we're working on a 50-year project, not, you know, a two-year project. Yes.

Council Member Anguillery.

Thank you, Mayor. I am trying to understand and piece this together if I can. My apologies if I'm asking any question that doesn't make sense. So I'm looking at slide eight projected. So 2025, 26. So we anticipated 9.3 millions and we need additional 20 million. Okay. And I'm looking at page number 330 in our agenda. And so when it comes to parcels, we are not making any changes. Like page number 330 has one, two, three, four, five, six parcels. So is that also additional amount that was budgeted originally, page number 330 in the agenda?

Generally. We'd have to look parcel to parcel what our estimate was in the beginning, if that's your question. I will say that generally the prices have gone up since we first took our first stab at how much the total right-of-way costs would be. So I would imagine if we compared all these, these probably would be, most of them would be higher, slightly higher than what we anticipated. There are a few parcels where As I was talking about, and I'm trying to talk generally, but not specific parcels, but there are some parcels that were much more expensive than we anticipated. And some of those you may not have seen yet. Those actually increased across costs quite a bit. The other cost that we didn't accurately account for is the number of businesses we would have to move and the cost of moving the type of businesses we're moving. Again, that's something when you're planning, you're going through, you're drawing a swath, you're trying to determine whether you're gonna hit the building, not hit the building, how many parking stars you're gonna hit, what's the impact in that building, do they have to move out, do they not have to move out? So we do the best we can in that planning effort to catch that, Sometimes we just don't, especially with talking it over with the property owner, business owners, and what their preference would be sometimes is different from what you would think it would be. So, again, in working through all this, those right-of-way costs have gone up. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, so the design increase $5.3 million is an additional contract, right? Design increase. That's not going to the parcel.

Design increase means. Design increase is with a consultant, an engineering consultant, a multidisciplinary engineering consultant, and we're paying them to do our design. Okay. But that also, I believe, reflects our right-of-way. We have a right-of-way agent doing all this property work, and that costs a bit of money, too. And so as we deal... with more parcels or more complex negotiations, that cost goes up as well.

And the right-of-way increase is that that goes to the parcels? Right-of-way increase means does it go to the parcel owners? Yes. Okay, got it. And then if I go to 385, so we have revenues and then I see in 385, there is a arterial street. We are increasing expenditures from $6.8 million to $12.3 million. And if we go to the next page, this is where I see an increase in the capital improvements revenue 56%. approximately 56.7 million to 82.9 million. So is this where we are expecting the grants, the money we are tapping into? We are tapping into the grants. Are these grants specifically given this project? Are we, okay.

So we have multiple grants. We have, how do I explain this? We have what, we have, Surface Transportation Act grants, we have multiple ones for each phase. As an example, phase one, two, and three of right away, we have three grants. We also have a large raise grant for $19 million, which is also federal funds. Council worked with the state legislature to get us $7 million in MAW funds, which is state funding. So what we're doing is we're shifting that around and using it where we need to use it. And we also have a local match that we have to, we can't spend all federal money, we have to provide some funding. So my understanding is the way that this budget amendment works is we're telling you how much more grants we need to use, and that's in hand. We're also telling you how much traffic transportation impact fees more that we need, which is a number here that has increased. There are some funds that we have sufficient funds that we can move around, like levy funds. We already did an amendment. Basically, you included the amendment funds, the levy funds in the past, and we're using some of that. And we have some REIT funds. They've been fairly strong in the past, so we have some balance in there as well. So that's gonna contribute to some.

So my only final concern is, and I'm leaning my fellow council members, if at all possible, can we postpone until we are done with the budget session next to three months and understand more about what's happening with the financially? If we are adding 20 million to this one project, what else we need to add in other projects? Just like this, are there any other projects that we might need to tap into another 10 million, 20 million? Do we even have that kind of money from the grants? Is it possible to wait on this for three months once we are all done and understand the budget? I'm also new to the council and understanding. I'm just asking a question and I'm also leaning to my fellow council members however we want to do this.

Yeah, Council Member Aguilar, I've asked Finance Director Kwan Wong to come to the table to put some things into context. We're hearing about the project work itself. I think your concern is around transferring of money. But, Kwan, could you address sort of the thinking behind why we would make the change now as opposed to waiting to approve the capital facilities plan that won't be in effect until next year?

That's correct. So we'll be coming to you starting next week to talk about both the biennial budget 2728 and also the 272033 capital facility plan. So right now both plans in the work are balanced. So I just want to assure you that we have sufficient funding to come before you to propose to finish those projects. With this particular amendment before you, we are just moving money around, so that means we are delaying projects down the road, but in order to free up money so that we can fund the current proposal in front of you. Again, this involves finishing both phase one and phase two. And at hand, we are really under some pressure for the property acquisition. So we want to make sure that this is not delayed until November, because that's the earliest time that we'll be passing the budget. So we are confident that we can handle both. And again, down the road, how we do fund the rest of the project is up to council. And we'll be presenting both revenue options. We may have to borrow money, but that's a choice because borrowing, as you know, is a cost. And with the high interest rate that we are facing now, that may be not as feasible. But again, those will be presented to you and there will be options before you during the budget process. But for this particular action in front of you, we really need this to move forward in order to finish phase one and phase two.

Thank you, Kuan. If you are more comfortable, I might be comfortable too. Thank you for giving us more information.

Thank you. Our homework. And we have done all the magics behind the numbers. And again, we are confident that this will be done. And again, with the phase three, we will find money. With the federal funding situation in the next two years, that is not where I will put my money on.

I'm going to make a funny or interesting statement. We are okay. We are a $40 trillion debt as a United States. I think we are okay. We can borrow more as long as we can sustain and pay. Thank you so much.

You're welcome. Did I answer your question?

Sorry.

Deputy Mayor. Just looking at you, I'm sorry.

Why isn't she talking?

I've been trained. Quan, thank you for coming up and answering those questions. That was the answer that I was also hoping to hear tonight, that it's, from what I understand, the funds exist. It just means that we're prioritizing this project rather than other projects that we also would like to do. And so by moving money around, we're able to move this forward. And then ultimately we'll have to have a conversation about like how to prioritize those other projects going forward. Um, and, and that is very clear and very understandable. Um, and so I'm, I'm comfortable. Um, but I do want to allow others to ask questions that if they might have questions before we make a motion.

I have some questions unless my jumping ahead of me. Okay, cool. Um, you mentioned some of this was pulled through from acquisitions we expected in 2027 happening early. Like what percentage of the $20 million delta is that?

I think that's only about 3 million.

Yeah. Okay.

It's not that much.

Um, And we've talked about it. So we're essentially not funding other projects. Where does this money exist right now? Like, are you asking for it from the general fund or is it sitting in impact fees or like what, where is the actual money right now?

I'm going to get help from Quan, but I'll take a shot at it. The money's coming from several parts. Grants, mostly. Of the $20 million, $10 million is from grants. The remainder is REIT 2, transportation impact fees, and I think there's a little bit of levy funds as well.

Okay. That is correct. So none of this is coming out of general fund. It's from transportation impact fee leads to safe street and sidewalk levy funds. So those are all capital.

I know we have the percentage of the levy funds that was set aside for completing big projects like this. What percentage of those funds are we using for this?

Actually, right now it's fairly low. I think the way it was done, there was a pretty good, we went through the whole capital facility plan process, and Gretchen is wonderful, and at the end there was a fairly high re-tube balance as well as a TIF balance remaining. We kept it there for a couple reasons, because over the seven year period, cash flow sometimes becomes an issue, and like Juan said, sometimes you look at a bond just to get through a few years, but the end balance, by the time you finish the levy, nine years, you're looking pretty good. So I believe what happened is they pulled some of that end fund balance and pushed it forward. that's how they're paying for it I don't believe right now there are transportation projects that are suffering because to get through 26 your capital facility plan that you're gonna see is essentially what you're gonna see and they're funded just like we need them to be funded so what could happen in the future is there's levy funding which we would use primarily for the construction phase but if for some reason we have to switch it around that's also something we could do

Okay. How were there more business relocations than expected? And I guess, who determines that the business needs to relocate? Like, how does that process work?

I'm going to call a friend so I don't get in trouble.

I knew there'd be some reason to have me. I'd hate to think you wasted your evening. Yeah, right. Hi, my name is Hutch Goodman. I'm with Goodman Strath, and I'm the right-of-way consultant that's taking care of the project. Yeah, you hit the pulse of a sensitive and kind of complicated issue in relocation. Essentially, it's sort of a nexus between the way WSDOT would see the acquisition, the way our appraisers make a determination, and then the city's determination of whether or not the hardship that's being offered to the city is responded to with, okay, we'll buy your business. 25 years of doing this, it's rare to find a project where you have so many relocations when you don't have an acquisition that actually hits a building. So we have office complexes and we're taking anywhere between 30 and 65% of the parking in each of those. So when you're looking at that, particularly a lot of dentists, when you're looking at that, you're trying to make a determination as to whether or not a business can be viable. And some of that has to do with just the testimony of the business itself. It makes a hardship claim. It writes a letter. It gets an attorney. Their attorneys talk to our attorneys. That's part of it. The second part is an appraisal analysis that says in the after condition, a dental building that used to be a dental building probably needs to change its use. It needs to be something else because it's not going to support three dentists anymore, for example, in one building. When that happens, then WSDOT will look at that and say, you needed to make an offer for relocation. It doesn't mean you need to buy the whole building necessarily, but it does mean to mean you need to have to have some kind of offer to say, if you feel like this is a hardship and you need to be displaced, you need to be displaced. So as we went one by one, and right now there's about 11 businesses and then there's some landlords. But we happen to hit a whole slew of medical facilities that are just really expensive to move. the city can respond to this part of it too, but we worked for about six months to try to prevent almost all of these relocations through a number of different creative design options, swapping parcels, buying parcels, tearing them down, looking to see if we can reconfigure one parcel for parking to support the neighbor parcel parking problem. And it's just tight. It didn't work out from a design perspective.

Do we ever just go to the businesses on a weekday and look at how much parking is being used?

Yeah, absolutely. In fact, there's kind of an interesting phenomenon of businesses across the street using each other's parking. If you see that there's some sort of looking residential type building, acreage, and if you might see a couple different spots up there, it's completely filled with parking that's being used by the dentists across the street. So there's a lot of that. So we just... We had a project in a dense urban corridor where parking is a premium and there just wasn't any place to go. And so the dentist just said, look, we just can't do this. We can't survive this. So, yeah, the city had to make a decision and say, OK, then we need to offer relocation eligibility. And that's what WSDOT would say. And that's what our appraisal supported. So it's washed out the ultimate authority in deciding if that gets done or? No, it's the city. So the city is the, they go off with the basis of their appraisal analysis. So in a federal context, you have to have it appraised and then a separate independent appraiser review that appraisal and then make a recommendation. Usually the line in the sand is if there's a change in use in the after where they say, like to take an extreme example, a 6,000 square foot building basically needs to be like a clothing store and it can't support three dentists anymore because there's only six parking spots or something like that instead of 19. So there was a lot of that. Okay.

So basically all of the business relocation is due to parking? Completely. Yeah, every single one of them. Yeah. I'm generally very skeptical of parking problems being as bad as people claim they will be in the future. But it's just one of the examples of how much parking costs us. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a premium on this project. But good news is with several of these displacements is that they most I think all of them have relocated within the city. So that's good. But yeah.

They're all in process right now and requiring these funds. Okay. There's a property like a tri-pyramid and we're buying the whole parcel because of an economic remnant determination? Correct. What does that mean?

It means that in the after condition, it means that we only need a portion of it and the uneconomic remainder is the rest of it that we don't need for our project, but WASDOT says if we basically rendered that business use moot, then we need to say we will buy the rest of the property even though we don't need it for the project. That's the line in the sand that makes it from a partial to a full acquisition. They don't have to sell it.

They can keep it, but we have to make the offer to buy it. Okay. and then we would own it and then we would sell it. That's right.

And that's the same with K&M. Sorry, there's another dentist building there too. Okay.

Is there a chance we're going to recuperate any, like if we're, you know, of this 20 million extra dollars, 10 million of which is just coming from us, like what do we anticipate from real estate sales and proceeds coming back one day?

Yeah, I was just talking with the team about that yesterday. It looks like, I mean, again, it'll be a change in use, so we'll have to see how it plays in the market, but they will be buildings and they do have some parking, so there's some options there. Some development potential will need to be analyzed there. You possibly could do a tear down and then create a smaller building footprint that creates more parking stalls. There's going to be a new bus rapid transit line there. Yeah, that's right. At some point in time. So it's a little bit of a development game to try to figure out who can strategize to use those parcels. But yeah, they're good parcels in the after condition.

Tearing down a large building to put in a small building so that there can be more parking is a whole mood.

So that $20 million that we're paying, we haven't conservatively accounted for whatever sale. profit you make from the sale yeah so you're right there could be recovery typically when you use grant funding for a project like this in the right away phase you have to use those profits for transportation purposes so in other words that would likely be rolled it back into the construction phase or phase three of this project I'm not worried that we're gonna like run out of things to spend transportation money on so like we're good there the

This is one of those agenda bills that you just, I mean, I know you guys don't like this any more than we don't like this. And all of the negotiations, these are all in process. Businesses are relocating. Like everything is settled pretty much. This is.

That's right.

Okay.

But we have this amendment basically funds, I don't know, 70% of the acquisitions that are closed and the business relocations. Yeah.

Okay.

All right. For whatever it's worth, also, all of the displaced dentists, they've all signed on replacement sites. So they have found sites, but they need these funds to pay for them. This is the dental relocation fund here? There was five of them. Yeah, exactly. I didn't know we had this many dentists in Bothland.

I mean, now we know. Council Member Anguillery?

Sorry if I'm asking any question that doesn't make sense, but right-of-way increase, $11.9 million. In our agenda, do we have details about $11.9 million? What is that for? I heard that is for some parcels, but when I looked at the parcels, it's only adding up for $4 million or something like that. It's not adding up to $11.9 million. What is that $11.9 million? Can I have details, please? I can explain. It's just property income, right?

Yeah, it's two buildings.

Yeah. So there's still more properties to come. And so we're doing a budget amendment now so we can get through the rest of the year. And the goal is to bring those last four properties before the year ends. So we're trying to make sure we have enough funds

So we don't have details of $11.9 million right now in the packet.

It's just the amount of funding that we need for the right-of-way and relocation phase.

There are four additional properties. That's the delta that you're saying. So the four additional properties will come to council, but instead of asking for an amendment of the budget tonight and then coming back and asking for another amendment of the budget, we're taking care of the budget portion. The actual properties that make up the difference will be coming to you before the end of the year.

So right now I see three, four, five, seven parcels in page number 338. You are saying there are another four parcels that will require approximately another, I don't know, eight, how much is approximately those four parcels?

Sorry, some of these expenses get a little bit convoluted because of the relocation dynamic. So there's the acquisition costs. There you go, I got sticky notes.

We can't be specific, can we?

I don't, I can speak generally.

Yeah, Council Member, these are all legal negotiations that are going on. And so I think we need to not get into property by property specifics. So hopefully you have enough. You're not going to get an accounting of property by property tonight, but that's the general theme of what is...

All I'm asking is $11.9 million total money goes to the parcel owners, yes or no?

That's what we're asking for the allocation and the budget for.

City Manager, I have a point of information for Councilmember Angulary. If you look on the ordinances, you'll see the parcel numbers and the amounts. And you can compare those to the parcel viewer for both King County and Snohomish County to see the specifics about which ones they are. But we don't need to talk specifically about them on the dais tonight. And I have not gone through and added up between the three motions before us tonight, but you can add up what the amounts are for at least action one and two to see what those amounts and which parcels they are. I hope that's helpful information.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. And the transfer of funds, $3 million, what is that for? $3 million. It doesn't say what is that far. It says we are transferring from 2027.

Oh. So we had assumed we would close some properties in 2027, sometime between January and June when we had to obligate construction and go out to bid. But we're planning on closing that this year. So that $3 million we're going to spend in 2027, we want to use in 2026.

Okay. So it's moving forward from one year to the other. It's the same money, just moved forward in schedule.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you guys for the presentation. This is probably not the one you were looking forward to all week. I would just encourage you as we finish this up, I want to make sure that we make people whole, but I don't want to run the voluntary relocation fund for people. I mean, I want to do right by folks, but I don't want this to be a huge economic boon or opportunity for somebody who wanted to do something anyway. So go negotiate well on behalf of the city, and we appreciate the work you do. City Manager? Actually, I need a motion before we call anything. Anybody want to make a motion?

Do we need three separate motions?

Yeah, and we're doing them separately, like in a row, right? Not all as one?

Yeah, I think it'll be cleaner if we take them separately, each one separately. So if I could get a motion for recommended action number one.

I make a motion to adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute all necessary acquisition documents for the purchase of right-of-way and easements associated with the two parcels named in our agenda. Second.

I have a motion from Council Member Alderix and a second from Deputy Mayor Alderix and a second from Council Member Dodd. Would anybody like to speak to the motion? Seeing none, City Clerk.

Thank you. Please say yes or no. I want to call your name, Council Member Onguluri.

No.

Mayor Thompson?

Yes.

Council Member Alderks? Yes. Council Member Kurt?

Yes.

Council Member Miles? Yes. Council Member Dodd? Yes. Council Member Alcabra?

Yes.

Passes six to one with Council Member Ongulary dissenting.

Would anybody like to make the next motion? Council Member Dodd? I saw your finger.

I move the second recommended action, which is all you're going to get from me.

Second.

I have a motion from Council Member Dodd to adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute settlement agreements in the condemnation cases filed for the following parcels listed on our agenda. Would anybody like to speak to the motion? City Clerk?

Thank you. Please say yes or no. I want to call your name, Council Member Ungulary.

No.

Mayor Thompson?

Yes.

Deputy Mayor Alderks? Yes. Council Member Curd?

Yes.

Council Member Miles? Yes. Council Member Dodd? Yes. Council Member Alcabra? Yes. Passes 6-1 with Council Member Ongulary dissenting.

Council Member Dodd?

I move the third recommended action.

Second. I have a motion from Council Member Dodd to adopt an ordinance amending the 2025-2026 budget. And a second from Council Member Kurtz. Would anybody like to speak to the motion? Council Member Aguilera.

I just want to say I just needed more time. I'm not able to move forward. That's all I just wanted to say for the record.

All right. City Clerk.

Thank you. Please say yes or no when I call your name. Council Member Aguilera.

No.

Mayor Thompson?

Yes.

Deputy Mayor Alderks? Yes. Council Member Kerr? Yes. Council Member Miles? Yes. Council Member Dodd? Yes. Council Member Alcabra? Yes. Passes 6-1 with Council Member Ongulary dissenting.

Thank you, guys. All right. It is 837. We are going to break until 9 o'clock. We'll see you at 9. Welcome back. Next up on our agenda bill is appointments to Joint Fire and Medical Advisory Board. City Manager.

Recording in progress. There we go. As the mayor just introduced, we have an item for appointments, agenda bill 26-156, joint fire appointments. Council, by way of background, you'll recall that we have an interlocal agreement with Fire District 10, and their board of commissioners, every September, selects two of their three members to meet with two members of the city council for an annual meeting. The meeting is really to do an overview of kind of the state of the fire department and really focuses on the areas of which we partner with Fire District 10. In your packet tonight, you'll see a copy of our interlocal agreement of which you'll note of substantial consequence is that the fire chief is the primary point of contact who is meeting with the fire district Throughout the year, he attends or sends an appointee to each of their meetings, which is twice a month. And then there's this this annual check in point. There's also a copy of last year's agenda, just as a reminder of the types of items that are covered, which ultimately comes down to. WHAT'S LISTED IS OLD BUSINESS BUT KIND OF A REVIEW OF WHAT HAPPENED IN THE LAST YEAR. SO TYPICALLY THESE MEETINGS ARE ABOUT 30 MINUTES. THE AGREEMENT THAT WE HAVE SAYS THAT THE MEETING TAKES PLACE IN SEPTEMBER. HELPFULLY YOU'LL SEE LAST YEAR'S MEETING TOOK PLACE IN OCTOBER SO THIS ISN'T SET IN STONE BUT WE NEED TO FIND A MUTUALLY AGREEABLE DATE. The fire district is proposed September 30th. So that's what we listed in the agenda bill. But ultimately what we need tonight is to identify two representatives of council who would be interested in taking this meeting. And then we can work on really finalizing a date and time that works for those two representatives. So with that, I'll leave it up for council conversation. I will note, you don't have to vote on this, but only if there's so much interest in being one of the two people that we have to narrow it down for more than two. I'll bet no. With that I'll turn it over for conversation.

So I'd like to be an alternate if possible.

I did this last year and I'm happy to do it again.

Bless you.

I'm willing to to step into either in an alternate role or as one of the council members. Unless someone else from Snohomish is interested.

I love that for all of you. I think we're good.

Do you need a motion?

No, I think what we'll do with that then is we'll pull all three of you for dates and times and then make sure that it works. I will note too that even if we have two people who kind of want to be alternates, typically all three of the fire commissioners come. So if all three of the council members came, that'd be fine too. We just have to identify who's voting.

All right, let's go do a study session.

All right, so council members, we do have one study session tonight, and as you'll see on your agenda, it's really about right-sizing the bike parking standards. This comes out of our comprehensive plan, and we put some standards in place, but we've had a little time to look at it, and I know the Planning Commission's working on it as well. So tonight's study session will be presented by Eric Jasuski, who's a long-range planner with Community Development. He's going to provide an overview about that right-sizing to the city's bike parking standards, development regulations. And what we are doing is we're looking for some feedback from Council as you review the proposals along with the Planning Commission. We'll put all that feedback together and bring some code for action. That'll turn things over to Eric.

Thank you, Mr. City Manager. And good evening, Mayor and Council members. Thanks for staying with us here. Again, I'm Eric. Well, you're welcome. It is past my bedtime, but I'll be okay. My name is Eric Jasiewski, and I'm presenting today on the draft proposed bike parking standards at your study session. No action is required, simply for discussion questions on the proposal. Some questions you might consider as I present are listed here. Obviously, we'll take other questions or suggestions, discussion. this proposal the goal as city manager mentioned is right-sizing bike parking and I would say sort of meaning by that optimizing the city's bike parking standards unpacking that a little bit is I want to explain, so as we mentioned, there's bike parking code that is currently in the Bothell Municipal Code. We apply it to applications, development applications, and seeing the real-world application of the bike parking code uh prompted the department to take another look and see maybe we can adjust some things here tweak some things kind of an iterative process so that's that's what we're here today to discuss with you first i'll present some background on the issue go over a usage survey bike parking utilization in the city of bothell the proposal itself and then have a an opportunity for discussion among council members and staff. First, some background. The comprehensive plan, as some of you might recall, was adopted in the end of 2024, has policies to emphasize travel by non-auto modes, especially biking, walking, and transit, and policies to require new development where applicable and appropriate to include bicycle and micromobility parking. Implementing that, in summer of 2025, the City Council chose to repeal vehicle parking minimums in the code and, at the same time, adopt initial bike parking standards. Those are the ones that we're iterating on today and this year. We've been working with Planning Commission in various study sessions in May and July. We heard a variety of feedback, which is listed here and has been incorporated into the draft proposal in your packet. They were supportive of the staff's approach, mainly lowering quantities, adjusting some things, looking at specific projects and what those amounts of bike parking might be. Broadening the code actually as well to not just residential retail and office, but to other land uses. Including some more rules in there about ongoing management and maintenance of bike parking areas. Focusing on the quality of bike parking as well as the accessibility and other priorities listed here. Again, these are incorporated into the proposal based on Planning Commission's feedback. We continue to work with planning commission. The next meeting with them is on October 7th. Another piece of feedback from the planning commission is they wanted to hear not just general research, which we went over, but also local conditions, the utilization of bike parking in the city of bottle. So we. Conducted a very simple survey to sample bike parking usage through telephone and observational methods. The two types of bike parking that we looked at and which are addressed in the code are short-term bicycle parking, which is typically those racks in the front of buildings or properties, and then long-term bicycle parking, which is typically interior. We sampled about 10 or 11 different land use types. and also observed street-fronting bike racks around the city in suburban and urban contexts, trying to get a broad cross-section. And I won't say that the survey was extremely scientific, but tried to get a good sample of what these bike parking areas were used for during the summer. So for these two categories, we found long-term bicycle parking for residential uses specifically was somewhat well utilized. Around 20% of residents parked their bikes in their homes or in their apartment bike parking areas. And another way of looking at the data, about 25% of units utilized the bike parking spaces, long-term bike parking spaces that were available. For non-residential uses, these would be where, say, employees are bicycling to an office or a grocery store. There was lower usage, and it varied between zero employees using any long-term bike parking and up to 15% in some office contexts. For the short-term bike parking, this is where I went around the city observing the street front bike racks. And where there were bike racks, I looked pretty broadly around, you know, our sort of commercial suburban areas downtown, obviously. And very few bikes were parked on an afternoon, a weekday afternoon in these racks. So limited short-term parking, short-term bike parking. More information on all the surveys in your packet, one of the attachments. So after reviewing the background information, the survey information with Planning Commission, best practices, other jurisdictions' approaches, staff prepared some draft proposed code amendments for your consideration. Something to keep in mind before I dive into the proposed code is that the current regulations are as follows. We require bicycle parking for any occupancy permit of a new or enlarged building or a change in use in any existing building. So it can be a new construction or a change of use remodel, for example. This is not proposed to change. For the proposal, It includes the expansion of additional uses to have bike parking required. Currently, the code I mentioned applies to multifamily residential office retail, so the proposal adds in a lot more uses here. The quantity requirements for these uses are proposed at low levels, recognizing, again, that bicycle parking for employees is not a terribly in-demand activity. But again, having some bicycle parking available if a few employees wish to use it or visitors. Changes to the required quantities in the code are listed here. First of all, mentioning residential, we would have reduced quantities required for multifamily, multi-unit residential, co-living, affordable housing, step housing, disabled housing, and retail, restaurants, things like that. There would be exemptions for special cases, single family housing, senior housing, limited bicycle parking usage, golf courses. Not a lot of people ride their bikes to golf courses, I believe. vehicle repair shops, car dealerships, things like that. And then for any uses that aren't in the proposal or not listed, they would be determined on a case-by-case basis by the director, looking at similar uses and activities to determine those levels. Also, large mixed-use developments, when there's a lot of uses together, may not just be the simple addition of a specific business and a mixed-use residential and things like that. So it might require some fine-tuning there by the director. And then other uses that wish to have adjustments to the requirements in the code can submit evidence to substantiate whether there should be less. Another comment we heard from Planning Commission was to focus on quality over quantity. And so there's more rules in there to making sure that bike racks are more easily accessed by people with different abilities. A certain amount of bike racks cannot have to lift the bike over a certain level. The racks must fully support bikes, trying to make things usable, useful for people that want to use the racks. Also, making sure that any bicycle parking areas are properly managed, so an applicant would need to show that there's some sort of plan in place to manage that. And then the Planning Commission was supportive of showers and lockers, but didn't feel like it should be a requirement, so some guidance included in the proposal if applicants wish to include it. Siting flexibility was also an important component that Planning Commission highlighted for us, making sure that while bicycle parking near the front entrance is important, the current code has a 50 foot limit and that may not be practicable in some cases, so loosening that up a bit. making sure that the requirements can be credited if there's any existing on street racks, allowing short-term bike parking and recreation space to a limited extent, making sure that bike lockers are allowed to satisfy bike requirements, and unit bike parking can be permitted to meet the requirements with certain conditions, mainly that those in-unit spaces have to be Easily accessed a wide corridor through elevator things like that again not making people lift bikes up multiple flights of stairs And then also making sure that the code permits conversion of existing vehicle parking if that's what the applicant wishes to do I Lastly, the other changes in the proposal is to recognize the use of these spaces by micromobility devices, making sure that those can be locked up to racks or in parking areas. Prohibiting the blocking of pedestrian routes, making sure that racks are properly placed for safety purposes, and other sort of code cleanup and minor improvements are included as well. Next steps for this proposal, as I mentioned, we'll continue working with Planning Commission, hopefully get their recommendation sometime in October, and we'll come back to Council for a full review, public hearing fall, potentially considering approval at the end of 2026. So once again, any Council discussion, questions?

It's on the micro mobility. This is just coming kind of like from my resident hat is that I see a lot of these like devices or these whatever they're called around which I think are great but they also are just kind of left places and there is no place where I'll call out Lyme has like parking for them. So I see them all around my apartment complex park. Some neatly, some others are just left in the middle of the sidewalk. So it would be nice if we did have some sort of parking place as you're talking about in your plan for these things. I mean, they're nicely lined up at bus stops, I see. And I think they're great to have, but they're almost a menace without having something to kind of corral them.

So that's just my feedback. Just to tag on to that, I think, and I'm looking at Kyle because I'm going to paraphrase a longer discussion, but I think as we revisit the agreement that we have with Lime, because ours is very bare bones at this point, and we've seen other cities, like it's advanced since we first adopted it, I think understanding how we can get responses to scooters without just going and moving them ourselves would be great, and then just really improving the communication between like residents in Lyme would be great. Because there is supposed to be accountability for parking, but if they're not taking that step, How do we make sure that there is?

I agree, because we had a lovely council member, Council Member Curd, do some of that moving and wrangling of a line scooter, not to put you on the spot or to embarrass you in any way. But we do need to revisit that agreement. And I don't know what that agreement is and what other cities do. And I'm just thinking, I'm wondering, like, coming from New York, you know, they've got everything. And I'm sure they're just not left everywhere, right? Yeah. I think Lime should be accountable to us, but it sounds like they come in the middle of the night and pick them up whenever they choose to pick them up, I guess.

Well, Calgary, to some extent, is further along in their relationship with Lime, and there are other vendors, too, that we have to be thinking about, so that's why it's good to be comprehensive. But Lime in Calgary has corrals and they have helmets on each scooter. So there's other ways that the company itself is looking to evolve and change too. But I agree that we need to have that as part of a wider conversation about our relationship with Lime. And yeah, micromobility goes beyond just vendors and companies too, because there are folks that have scooters that need parking if they're not going to be bringing it into a building too. So. Yes, those are sold at big box stores as well.

Yeah, I completely agree. And I mean, it's not just Lime, it's also Uber and all the other vendors that are out there. And I think we just need to have some sort of policy and some sort of, again, point of view about what we want and what we expect. And if we're a college town, we have to be open to these things because this is how the young people, as I can see it, The youngs. The youths. The youths get around, especially if they're carless. And if we're wanting people to not drive everywhere, we have to give them some options, but we also need to make sure that they are respecting the property that surrounds them.

Totally agree. I think it's a really great thing, and we should get to where a couple of Lime scooters where they aren't supposed to be is something that's solvable and doesn't derail it for everyone. Yeah.

I'm going to circle us back to the agenda bill here. Thank you very much for bringing this back to us. It makes me really happy when we are quickly reevaluating things that we're doing to make sure that they're working. And that brings me joy. And if something's not working, we should change it. I am in favor of the ordinance in general. I generally like kind of removing some of those restrictions. There are two things that I don't like about it. I don't like exempting senior housing. Because seniors are a huge growing contingent of people that buy e-bikes. And there are a lot of people that age out of driving. And if those people had a place to park an e-tricycle and they could retain some manner of ability to get around, I think that could be a really big deal. And I think if you look at senior ownership of e-bikes, I believe they're higher than the general population. The other thing is in housing for people with disabilities. People with disabilities drive at a significantly lower rate than people without. And I want to make sure that we're giving folks with disabilities in Bothell a way to have as much mobility independence as possible. And requiring them for a general apartment and not people that have more of a need doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. So those are my two things that I'd like to see changed.

like plus one to that and say, we've had discussions. I don't know if it was this exact seven of us about how expensive it is to own a car. And that one of the ways that you can save like thousands of dollars a year is to not have a car for every eligible driver. So the exemptions that the mayor mentioned for housing for people with disabilities or senior housing, also affordable housing, like I don't necessarily understand that reduction on the face of it. The other part of bike parking for just people of all abilities, like one of the apartment buildings in Bothell that I'm familiar with, all the bike parking is vertical. But if you are disabled, you may lean towards an electric trike. or a bigger cargo bike to get all of your stuff done, and you're not necessarily going to be able or want to pull it up. So you mentioned not all vertical, but I have had, with the cargo bike I used to own, trouble using some bike racks and securing it. So having standards that accommodate several different types of bicycles seems better than saying, oh, people in this type of housing won't necessarily use bicycles. Maybe they just can't secure the kind that they can use. So I'd love to look at that a little more holistically and maybe talk to the disability mobility initiative. I couldn't remember the last word. Thank you. Because they've done a lot of work there. And it seems like there's a bit missing from that. And I will say that the vehicle-oriented use, I will take my bike home from the car repair shop. So I don't need to park it there, but that Just because you brought a car in doesn't mean you get to drive it home that day. Thanks.

I have a question. With our philosophy with bike parking, is it if we build it, they will come?

I don't think that... How can I reply to that? I think that the bicycle parking infrastructure is really central to encouraging bicycle usage. I think that the bicycle parking is like an effect of that or a secondary result of that. I think infrastructure, there's a lot of other things as well that encourage people to bike that is not on the top of my head right now, but I don't think bicycle parking is like a... will induce that necessarily. So kind of what we're doing in this proposal is to respond to the situation today, which I think is more limited bicycle, bicycles used used as transportation. And then, you know, maybe in the future, when the infrastructure does become more built out in Bothell, then we come and revisit this and increase the quantities.

Sure, and I was just kind of just thinking about this and not just trying to oversimplify, but just trying to frame it up for myself. That's all. Thank you.

From a simplified answer, I'd say yes. Like, you know, it's hard to judge demand for a bridge by counting the people swimming over the river kind of a thing. Like, if there's nowhere to store a bike and nowhere to ride a bike, nobody's going to ride a bike. So we've got a situation right now where there's not many places to store a bike and there's not many places to ride a bike, and we're trying to fix that, and bike parking is just part of the...

Building infrastructure that makes it possible because everywhere that has ever done that has seen people use it more Well, once we have a network that people are more comfortable traversing It's not like every building is going to redevelop quickly and they'll be hit with new standards that we then update later so some of my concern I think is if we don't I Don't want to over correct either because then when we do have the infrastructure it'll be like I'm here and now I'm attaching it to a telephone pole and which I have a friend who does in a place he goes with no background. Old school. Thank you for telling me about that, Council Member Alcabra. I wasn't there then.

I thought that the numbers that we're moving to, and I'm looking for them in the packet right now, were really reasonable. We're going from two per unit or 0.5 per bedroom to two or one per unit up to 100, and then 0.25 per unit thereafter. Honestly, if somebody's got a 300-unit building, I mean, a third of the people probably aren't going to need dedicated bike parking. So this seems like I don't feel like this is a big overcorrection. I feel like this is all pretty reasonable.

I don't disagree. I just want to see more kinds of bikes. And as Steph mentioned, micro mobility stuff accommodated.

That's where I was going. It's like, I think bikes are here to stay, obviously, because they have been for over 100 years or more. But I'm just thinking it's about the young people and the other mobility. Like, that's where I think we have the, what is the word? But where everything is, it's late. And I just think that we should definitely have parking for bikes, but also start thinking a little bit broader and a little bit larger.

That's it. So one of the ways that I think of bike parking, especially within our downtown core, is almost the same way I think about the benches that got put in for seating along the multiway boulevard. It makes sense to me that they would be, and I'm not saying everywhere in the city, but in heavily traversed places, just like periodic, right? You could imagine a trash can, a bench, and a bike parking area and that we would and a little lime scooter corral. We do definitely need those. So I'm glad it was brought up that hopefully will come back to us at some point. But that's kind of how I think about bike parking so that it can be accessible and kind of frequently seen like frequently as you know and i'm thinking about like as you're as you're traversing along that like you see opportunities to park your bike and it's near places where it would want to be so like a lot of this code is looking specifically at how do we make sure that people who are building um have have bike parking available to folks who are there i love it you know i love the idea of having showers and lockers available for employees at some of our larger some of our larger employers, but also even some of our dense areas where there's a lot of maybe retail space. It might be cool to see a building say, hey, we have 10, 12, 20 businesses that operate here. We have a shared place where people who do commute to work could have showers. Just a thought there, but when it comes, I think what I'm thinking as a member of the public is I want to see that there are kind of frequent opportunities to park my bike that aren't necessarily the responsibility of just the responsibility of the people who own and operate the building that I'm going to, but can also be part of like our public infrastructure. That's a piece that I wanted to include in this conversation.

just a side note I meant center of gravity the words have come back to me now thank you one of the things that I saw here was security with bike parking and I like the idea of bike lockers but that's not gonna work everywhere security for Existing on-street bike parking in front of businesses varies in the city based on when the properties were developed. There are some businesses with bike securing racks or whatever that literally can be like just a wrench could take it off out of the pavement. And so that's not really secure. I'd be looking for... something that's encased in concrete or has secure points to chain up a bike. And there are some facilities, even on City of Bothell properties, that the wheel or the tire of my bike doesn't even fit into. So I end up just securing the bike at a park to other people. um, you know, signposts or whatever, where it's out of the way. But, um, yeah, standardizing is a really important element of this effort. So I appreciate it. Um, and I think that we can course correct, but I'm also thinking about how do we, um, how do we bring up all the old stuff to standard too? And there are some businesses downtown that like I would pay for them to put a bollard or something out in front of their business so that I could park my bike in front of it. So I think that's a separate conversation is like how do we bring everyone up to usable standard and have it be accessible and occasional like Deputy Mayor mentioned, I really am going to be looking for security measures to be a standard as part of the regulations. I guess it would be more development or it would be standards rather than the regulations, but yeah.

You're saying in addition to what's in the proposal?

Yeah.

Are we good? All right. Thank you. We're adjourned. Sorry, we're not adjourned. Hold on. Elaine wrote me something to read. Eileen. Why did I call you Elaine? It's late. All right, it is now 9.34. Council will adjourn to executive session to discuss potential litigation pursuant to RCW 4230.110.1i for 20 minutes with no action taken. Council will adjourn the meeting from there at 9.54 p.m.