City Council - Regular Meeting

There we go.

I call this hybrid regular council meeting of July 28th, 2026 to order at 7 o'clock p.m. Will you please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance?

One nation under God.

And will our wonderful clerk please call the roll.

Mayor Olson.

Here.

Deputy Mayor Greeley.

Here.

Councilmember Pasarewski.

Here. Ramirez.

Here.

Keith. Here. Rasmus.

Here.

Edwards.

Here.

Sethered.

Here.

Roll's complete.

Okay, council, any items to add or delete to tonight's agenda? Yes, council member Keith.

We have a live agenda item that was left off the agenda, the MDCC issue. It's a council decision, and so if they want to postpone it, we need to actually vote on that. So when it comes down for council business, we should either deal with the item and dispatch it from the table, or we should motion, second, and vote to table it. We can't just disappear it from the agenda. So.

Well, I agree. It can't just disappear from the agenda. But it was my understanding at our study session last week that we agreed that if Maley was not going to have sufficient time to review it, that we would postpone it to the next study session. And I thought we had agreement on that. Did I misunderstand something?

We have to vote. We still have to vote. You have to dispatch the item from the table.

Okay. Well, then how about if you make a motion to dispatch the item from the table? Okay, so we will add an item to council business. Is it your original motion that we're adding and then we'll dispatch it? Okay, so Jill, as our city clerk, if you're tracking that, we will add an item to council business. We will call that the motion for the one-year extension of the Mountain View contract. Okay. How are you doing, Maile? Are you good with that? Is that good enough for a clear enough explanation? We all know what it's in regards to. It's in regards to a motion that Councilmember Keith had made a couple weeks back to put the one year extension to the Mountain View Community Center heating and cooling center agreement or heating and cooling agreement to the study session and then to tonight's regular council meeting. And now we will officially formally address that motion during council business. Okay. So we've effectively added that. Is there any other items to be added or deleted from tonight's agenda? Okay. First up, we have East Pierce Fire and Rescue Fire Chief John Parkinson. Chief Parkinson, would you step to the podium and give us your annual update as to life at East Pierce Fire and Rescue? Yes.

Well, good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm going to wait. I think Jeremy is pulling up. PowerPoint here, and I think you have it in your packets, but just so that I can look along here. But for those of you that I haven't met, some of you I know I've met before, but then those online, my name is John Parkinson. I'm the Fire Chief of East Pierce Fire and Rescue. And I'll stall here for a second. There we go. All right, if you can go to the next slide. So I will hit on a number of topics. Just give you a flyover again to refresh your memory of who East Pierce Fire is. Talk about a little bit of how we're funded. Also talk about activity from 911 that relates to the fire department in Edgewood in 2025. Talk briefly about fireworks just because we're just past the 4th of July. So I would imagine you're interested in how we performed today. over the fourth, talk about capital facilities projects. And then if there's any questions on the presentation or any other questions, happy to answer them at that time. But the map that you see on your screens gives an overview of East Pierce Fire and Rescue. So in additions to Edgewood, we also serve the city of Milton, Sumner, Bonney Lake. We completely encircle Lake Taps, all the Prairie Ridge communities, Tahale, the town of South Prairie by contract. Then we go out to the borders of Buckley, turn south, go and completely encircle Wilkes and Carbonado and go all the way out to the Mowich entrance to the National Park. So next slide, please. So all told, that's over 100,000 residents, I believe around 115,000 currently, 153 square miles roughly. In 2025, we responded to just north of 13,000 incidents. That typically means that we are sending roughly 30,000 emergency units on the roadways each year. That's because most incidents take more than one unit for us to solve the problem. So pretty busy throughout the service area. So if you spend any time driving up and down Meridian, you typically see one of our units going north or south. Just like you, like the city, we have elected officials who oversee the district. They're in the form of fire commissioners. You'll see the seven of them on screen They're elected to six-year terms, just like city council. Their overall responsibility is to district policy as well as finance. You do have two that reside in the city of Edgewood, so you are well represented with Commissioners Garling and Commissioner Egan. Next slide, please. As far as how the district is guided and how we make decisions, the three documents that you have on your screen are really our core documents, kind of from left to right, our strategic plan, just like the city, I would imagine, has one. That's how we really set our path for the future. And currently our plan runs from 2025 through 2029. The last one that you see on the screen there is capital facilities. So that is really what has guided our projects since 2018. And then in the middle of the document that you see is called the Community Risk Assessment Standards of Cover. That's a mouthful, but that's a really simple document that helps us determine where we should put fire stations, what type of emergency vehicles should be in those stations, and how many people should be there, and then how many units should be responding to the various types of emergencies. So a lot of thought goes into that, and a lot of data goes into that. So those are the three core documents we work from. As far as how we serve the community, in 2026, we have 203 full-time employees. Our operational personnel work out of eight fire stations, so 24-7, 365 around the clock. We have seven engine companies, one ladder truck, five medic units, one battalion chief, and one medical service officer on duty at all times. So set a different way as far as emergency personnel go, we have 36 personnel on duty 24-7 around the clock around every day of the year. as how we're funded, we bring in the vast amount of our revenue comes in the form of property taxes. We do bring in some money from medical transport, but the bulk of the revenue comes from property taxes, and primarily to the fire levy and the EMS levy. Next slide. I'll talk about what, what those are, but you see the dollar amounts. If you can back up on Jeremy breaks out the current rate per thousand on the screen there, you'll see the fire levy comes in at a dollar 48 EMS levies at 41 cents and bond levy, which I'll hit on a little bit later comes in at 18 cents. That one does go away in 2038. So. Next slide, please. So those two levies, the ones that really make up the bulk of the operation from top to bottom, EMS levy, and that's the smaller of the two, if you recall from the last slide, really funds our medical services programs. So covers emergency medical training certifications for EMTs and paramedics, as well as pays for medical equipment, and then ensures that any district resident that's transported to the hospital by us never receives a bill. We do bill insurance, but we do not balance bills. Or if the person does not have insurance, we do not bill them. So then the fire levy really makes up the lion's share of our tax revenue and funds really the employees or the boots on the ground. 85% of our budget goes to wages and benefits, so very labor-focused organizations. Outside of that then does pay for some fire equipment as well as all the other supplies and services. So keeping the lights on and keeping fuel in the trucks. Next slide. So as far as the city of Edgewood, and so the slide that you're going and I'll kind of break down what you're looking at here, but this is specific to the corporate limits of the city of Edgewood. Understanding our fire stations respond outside of, we don't necessarily pay attention to city limits when we're thinking of where we try to send units. We want the closest unit to go to wherever the incident is. But the big table that you see, the bar chart that kind of is a horizontal one, breaks down the different categories. That's reported on the National Fire Incident Reporting System that the federal government requires us to report against. You'll see that the biggest bar on there says EMS, so medical calls. The lower right box says all responses in 2025 was 1,434. Back up to the top chart, 1,092 of those incidents were medical in nature. And then from there, you know, typically people ask, well, how many fires? That shows 31 in 2025. Hazardous materials are typically related to carbon monoxide alarms. That probably makes up the largest chunk of what those are. Service calls, good intent calls, and false alarms generally are kind of in the same category of they're well-intended. So that could be somebody reporting smoke from a neighbor's house that ends up being a barbecue. It could be a fire alarm that's malfunctioning that we respond to. incidents like that. Travel time, which is in the lower left corner, that's how long it takes us to get to incidents. That's something we keep close tabs on on average, four minutes and 40 seconds. And then at the 90th percentile or the slowest that we would expect to see is at eight minutes and 43 seconds. You'll see then some over on the right side of your screen, you'll see the two units that are stationed in the Edgewood Fire Station. So E-118 is Engine 118 and then M-118 is Medic 118. engine responded to over 1800 incidents and the medic unit went on over 2200 incidents. So If you look back at how many incidents occurred in Edgewood, it's a larger number, meaning those units are going on incidents beyond the Edgewood limits. And then E-124 is Engine 124. That's the Milton Fire Station. The reason I put that up there is if you remember, as of just a few years ago, the Milton Fire Station was not staffed around the clock. So the station here in Edgewood was covering both the city of Edgewood and the city of Milton. So when you combine both of those, that would have been 3,500 incidents between, that's now between two stations before it was just one station. 3,500 incidents for one station or one engine company would overload that unit and make it highly unreliable. Meaning when somebody called 911, there'd be probably a very high likelihood that they don't get the closest fire unit that we have to bring in a unit from Puyallup or Sumner. Go on to the next slide here. As far as 4th of July, and this is just kind of a simple overview, across the district, we responded to 115 incidents, and it captures over a 48-hour period, so from July 3rd at 6 p.m. to July 5th at 6 p.m. As I can imagine, you can understand if you're listening for fireworks around the 4th, it starts to ramp up typically on the 3rd. Yeah, it's extremely busy. On the 4th, we typically see about double to two and a half times our typical call volume just on the 4th of July. And then whatever fireworks are left on July 5th typically get set off and then things start to settle back down. And then we also track and report to Washington State Patrol if we have incidents that we can specifically tie back to fireworks or that we suspect are. So we had 21 incidents, so they would be fire-related incidents that were related to fireworks. And then three injuries related to fireworks. And then the last bullet that you see there specifically in Edgewood City Linux, six incidents that were related to fireworks. And next slide. So shifting over to capital facilities, and you'll see just some notes on here, the new stations that we've been building that we started construction on over the last five years or so. was funded through a voter-approved bond back in 2018. Citizen Advisory Group oversaw that and was meant to replace four stations, build one new fire station that didn't exist before, as well as replace all of our frontline emergency vehicles. All the vehicles have been completed. So the next few slides here, I'll kind of walk through where we're at as far as bond projects go and then kind of the what's next in fire stations. But you can go to the next slide. So just in the order of stations that were completed, the Edgewood Fire Station was the first one to be completed, as I'm sure you know and saw what was there before. That was a station that was built when Harry Truman was the president. So now a brand new station. All of our stations that are built, we tend to overbuild them, knowing that they need to be able to capture future community growth, and they also need to last us a minimum of 50 years. So we do tend to overbuild and make sure that we don't have to put a portable out one year down the road. Next station that was complete was our Bonnie Lake headquarters that was completed in early 2025. Next slide. The station that you'll see on the left is our Talley Fire Station. That was a new station that did not exist before. That is actually a sister station to the Edgewood Station. It's just a mirror image of it. We did that to save on a lot of architecture and engineering costs for the facility, and we shaved off some demolitions. some square footage off the building, but we're able to recycle the plan quite a bit. And then the most, right after that one, both those stations were opened in mid 2025. Our Lake Tapp Station opened up right after the Tahalee Station in July of 2025, and that's on West Lake Tapps. Then next slide. So Prairie Ridge, which the picture that you're looking at there is the existing older station. That one is near completion. We're hoping by next week or the week after at the latest that we're into the new fire station, which is a mirror image of station 114, which was the Lake Tapp station. Same thing again. We did a mirror image of it and it cuts about a half million dollars off architecture and engineering costs. So that will wrap the five stations out of bond projects. So that will shift us over into any new facilities that I'm about to show you are coming just they're funded through our regular levy. uh, and just, uh, money that the board has been able to allocate to future projects. So the next one that we have coming up is the city of Milton's fire station, uh, or that will be built by East Pierce fire and rescue. So the existing station that we operate out of there is owned by the city of Milton, just like everybody else they're bursting at the seams and need that space. Uh, so they have asked us to, if in a nice way, if they, if we could move out, uh, over the years. So we acquired property back pre-COVID, and now that we're ending our bond projects, we're getting to work on this station. It is currently in permitting, and we expect to be out to bid later this fall. That's located on 11th and Milton Way, kind of across the street from Dave's at Milton. Like I said, it should be out to bid later this fall, breaking ground early 2027, then occupying probably late summer of 2028. Next slide I think I had reported out on this last year, all of our logistics functions, all our supplies all our vehicle maintenance so to cover the entire district and all the stations and all the vehicles. It was being done out of basically a couple old fire stations, places that weren't really suited or fit for those functions. What you're looking at is Peak 410. It's a commercial occupancy warehouse out at the east end of Bonney Lake. So we acquired some lease space there and consolidated those functions about a year ago now. So that's where all of our logistics, fleet, and supplies are located at. Next slide. And then just last project that we're currently midstream, what you're looking at on the map there at the bottom is Foothills Elementary, which is just outside of kind of the eastern boundaries of Bonnie Lake off 234th. In the green square is our fire station 116. And the red square is roughly five acres of property that we acquired from White River School District. and that we're currently in the planning process for building a training center. Kind of the same timeline as the Milton Fire Station, hoping to be out to bid later this fall, construction throughout 2027. Next slide. And just a reminder, if you're keeping tabs on what's going on with us, we do kind of quarterly put out a newsletter or postcard giving you updates of what's going on. We're very active on social media. Facebook's the easiest place to follow us. But all the other platforms, if you're interested in following emergency incidents in your neighborhood or in your area, that app that you see at the bottom there is called Pulse Point. You can subscribe to that. You can follow Central Pierce or most other departments in the region. We'll let you know what's going on. And then last item is just our website. Tons of different information if you ever have questions about what's going on. Obviously, you're welcome to get a hold of me, but tons of resources there also. And last slide just says if there's any questions on the presentation or anything that I didn't cover that I can answer, happy to do so.

Okay. Council Member Keith has her hand raised.

Not that it's terribly important, but I'm dying to know what the difference in a good faith call and a false alarm call is.

Aren't they both false alarms? So false alarm typically is where we would, so I mentioned a grouping of calls. So false alarm, we would typically, if you think of like a smoke detector in a a school or something that goes off that gets labeled as a false alarm a good intent call is the person saying i think my neighbor's house is on fire and then we get there and it's their barbecue so it's some we do end up with some overlap of where well that seemed like this and it seemed like that so they actually that that system of coding incidents has been around since the nixon administration it just did a wholesale change out at the end of 25 and so starting in 2026

the way that we track incidents did a complete 180 on us and we're still trying to catch up with that so next year you'll see totally different uh categories so yes council member pazaruski hey chief parkinson we met i think i believe last year at the chamber of commerce function um excuse my ignorance i just have a question regarding the um the new builds with the fire stations you mentioned in your earlier slides that Bonds are 18 cents per thousand dollar assessed value. So are all the new build fire stations coming directly from the bond money?

Yes. Yes. Right up to station number the fifth station, which is that Prairie Ridge station. Once we get past that, we will have expanded all bond funds and then we're transitioning to just our regular operating budget to fund any future projects.

Expanding it to, because you said that bond's going to be in place to 2030-something.

Yeah, 2038. It was an $80 million bond. First $40 million was sold with a 20-year repayment. Then in 2021 or the summer of 2021, we sold the second series as we were getting projects up and going and money was starting to flow. And if you remember right about then was historically low interest rates. So we were able to sell the second half of the bonds, the second $40 million, capture the low interest rates. And then we did a 16 year repayment on that. So effectively it lined up with the first series. So they all expire in 2038. So the board basically has a couple of goals. One is to fund any projects without ever having to go out to bond again. And then basically, if there's the opportunity to then also pay down those bonds in the future so that we can get them paid off before that date hits.

That was my question. So, yeah, it looks like, I mean, it's great to get all these new fire stations and it seems like they're all good to go.

Financially, we are on track to pay for all of our future facilities and also on track. I don't want to jinx us, but we are on track to see those both series of bonds paid off before they reach their full maturity.

Great. Thank you.

Yeah, fingers crossed.

Council, any further questions for Chief Parkinson?

Not seeing any, so thank you, Chief. Appreciate it. Well, thank you for letting me speak. And again, if I can ever be of assistance, you know where to find me.

All right.

Oh, sorry. One more question. A bonus question.

So with the new stations, what do you have? The new stations, Lake Taps and Talala? Holly. Holly. Did that bring in more employees or did you have to kind of shift around employees?

Lake Taps was an existing building that was torn down and replaced. So no, we already had the employees. To Holly, we did have to bring in additional employees. We were awarded a safer grant in 2023. So that's a federal grant under FEMA. So staffing for adequate fire and emergency response. It was three-year funding for 12 employees, $5.1 million. That was 100% federal funding. That has since actually just in the last couple months, we received our last payment from the federal government. And so now that that cost has shifted. Um, the timing for a grant like that in our case is designed to take a community that we know is growing rapidly. Um, and that we know that by the time that three years expires, they're going to be generating the tax revenue to offset those, those new employee costs. And, and right now, just if you follow to Holly, they're around 11, 12,000 residents. So, um, And that's set for roughly 30,000 to 35,000 residents.

And they're growing.

Yeah. So anyways, but so the good news, you know, it's obviously tax dollars still paid those wages, but it's dispersed amongst all the U.S. instead of all local taxes.

Great. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Chief. Appreciate it. Okay, Council, next up is audience comment. Audience, this is your time to step to the podium. You've got five minutes. We have one person that signed up, Eric Page, and he would like to discuss the Shober Rezone proposal. And I'll forewarn everybody. You don't have to have signed up. So if you want to also speak after Eric, feel free. So Eric, you know, the routine step right up and take it away.

Thanks so much. Really appreciate it. And thanks so much for your. advising us as a community about the proposal, and thanks also for the work of the Planning Commission. We recently discussed the proposal. I imagine you might have heard about it. It was something of a full house. A lot of people from the community had a lot of input. And I won't bother to reiterate the conversation that was had then. You might want to take a look at some of the records. But there were very serious concerns about the proposal from the community. There's, you know, concerns, of course, about slope stability, traffic, also whether or not the remedy of a rezone is really appropriate in this situation. But rather than focusing on that, I just want to say thanks in particular to the Planning Commission, I think also to staff for the fact that the feedback from the community did seem to be heard. It did really seem like a conversation was getting started. And I think there's a lot more that needs to happen. And really what we're interested in doing is following up on something that I think Mayor Olson, you may have spoken to this earlier that we want the energy and the focus about this subject, not just to be negative. You know, the community is really talking about this. There's a lot of people that are meeting with each other. And it's actually been kind of nice. Maybe it's just summer that we're out and talking with each other, knocking on each other's doors and meeting with one another. And there's some energy there. We'd really like if we can to try to direct the energy into kind of a focus on a long-term sustainable approach for this part of Edgewood, because one way or another, whatever happens with this particular proposal, we're still going to be a city. We're keeping Edgewoods the way that it is now, keeping the quality of life in this community good does require community engagement. So the two things I'd ask for is if you as a council have any guidance for us, and I extend this to staff as well, for ways to, as we're going through this process, make the feedback from the community as positive and constructive as possible. Of course, there's strong feelings about the subject, but we want to focus it in a way that's helpful to you as a council. And then the second thing is what sort of things should we be looking to try to do as we kind of connect with our neighbors to build something sustainable that's going to be able to support the community life of the city in the long run. So that's something that I'm happy to receive. Of course, if you have questions or feedback now, happy to receive it now. I left my email on the note there, so I'm happy to receive it by email and just get the conversation going.

Okay. Thank you, Eric. Any other audience comment? Don't see anybody here. I don't see anybody online. Jeremy, can I just slip in a comment? And I don't know, hopefully this is okay, but can you just refresh our memory as to when we will, as a council, see the Sjobert rezone? When's it on our calendar? It...

It is on the planning commission's calendar for tentative recommendation at their September meeting.

So the soonest it would be coming to the council would be late September. Okay. Thank you. Just while that conversation is fresh, just wanted to get that. Okay, I'm not seeing any other audience comment. Takes us to mayor's report. A couple of things. I mentioned this during council comment last week and then in my afternoon at the mayor post, but just wanted to mention it here in a regular council meeting during the mayor's report about the Highway 161 update. I had a conversation with somebody in Olympia. They informed me that the project, the repair project, of the road is scheduled to go out to bid in September and they expect construction to be complete before the winter weather hits. So again, just want to over communicate that situation. That's what we're being told. Go not to bid in September, construction to be complete before the winter weather. So fingers crossed that that happens. Just also remind you, if you're curious about what's going on, the fish barrier removal project is happening between Edgewood and Federal Way. So a lot of construction there. So be forewarned. Maybe schedule a little extra time if you're going to have to go through there because you could get hung up in a delay or a detour. But that project is ongoing. Reminder of the National Night Out. I'm looking forward to that next Tuesday night. So there's no council meeting, no study session. And those locations for host homes have been disseminated to council. It's your option. Those are kind of publicized homes. If you want to go stop by a few of them and say hi. You're welcome to do that. You're encouraged to do that, but no requirement. And I think we're just going to keep it informal. We don't need to sign up lists. Just do what you want to do. There's only three homes signed up right now. And I don't believe there's going to be any if it's too late for a fourth home if somebody signs up last minute.

No, sir. The registration is still open if another neighborhood wants to register. But yeah, as of now, just three neighborhoods have registered.

Okay. Well, there you go. It's not too late. So give that some thought if you want to be a host home. And then finally, just want to say that I attended Summerfest and it was a wonderful event back or down at the park and great job by that organizing committee of volunteers who did 95% of the work. And thank you to the other city staff for doing the final segment to contribute to that event. But the event went great. Second year in a row we've held Summerfest has been held at the park and it seems to be working out great as a location. So that concludes my mayor's report. Takes us next to the consent agenda. Are there any items to be amended or pulled from the consent agenda? Seeing none, may I entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented?

So moved. Second, Creeley.

Okay, it has been moved by Council Member Rasmus and seconded by Deputy Mayor Creeley to approve the consent agenda as presented. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say no. Okay, motion carries. Okay, next up, Council Business. We have the motion to extend the Mountain View Community Center Heating and Cooling Center Agreement by one year. This was a motion by Council Member Keith a couple weeks back. And so I'll let... We don't really have a staff update on this item because we're still kind of working on it. So... Barring that, it takes us right to I'll entertain a motion on this item.

I move that we move this item to the study session on the 18th.

Okay, it has been moved by... Council Member Southard has moved to postpone this item to the August 18th study session, and Council Member Rasmus has seconded that motion. Council Member Southard, you have the floor.

No comment.

Council Member Rasmus, you now have the floor.

Just is it possible to get that contract re-sent to us via email so that it's at the top of my inbox for review? No.

Yes, I think that's fine that we can do that. We had it previously scheduled to all go out with the packet, but I think we can make a one-off exception to send this. So we'll send you the agreement on a separate one-off, and then you'll also see it again with the August 18th agenda packet. Okay, any other council comment on this motion on the floor? Okay, seeing no further comment, all those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed, say nay.

Nay.

Okay, motion carries. Takes us to council comments. Are there any council comments tonight? I'm not sure who was first, but Council Member Keith and then Council Member Ramirez and then Deputy Mayor Creeley.

I received an email from a Debbie Garrison who has bigger questions than I can answer about subdivisions, plots, septic stuff. Do I send her to Jeremy or Chuck? Jeremy. All right. Debbie Garrison is coming your way.

Okay. Council member Ramirez. So as we begin to talk more about the budget later on, in the year. I was wondering if we could also include a discussion on the possibility or what would it cost over time to add another officer listening to police chief talk about burnout among officers. And it's a real thing. And what our officers do with the community takes them away from their family. I know they do a lot of good stuff and I just want, to see how we can better support them. So if that could be done maybe on a separate line, or we could have a discussion on what that would look like compounded, um, it would be helpful.

Okay. Duly noted. Thank you. Deputy mayor Creeley.

Thank you. I'd also like to second that for, uh, Council member Ramirez, when the chief gave a talk to us, the per capita officer stats was surprisingly low. So kind of a big concern. So yeah, I'm interested in hearing about that too. Giving you an update on the parliamentarian, interview or the, you know, putting out the net there to try to find some folks that are willing to join us. I sent out about close to 50 emails, personal emails from a list from, I think it's Washington state parliamentarians. And I did get two back who are interested. And so I'm kind of wondering, do you want us to want me to send that out to everybody so you can take a look at it and we can set up an interview or how would we like to do that?

I think it would make most sense to put that on a study session agenda. And you can kind of, since you were tasked with that assignment, you can just kind of provide an update to the council at an upcoming study session.

Okay. And include their info in a package.

Perfect. Sounds great. Are you ready for August 18th or would you rather September 2nd or whatever? Give you those two choices. August 18th or the first Tuesday in September.

What's the 18th look like? I didn't take a look at the file.

Well, we have the Mountain View Community Center agreement. That's on there. And Yeah, fences and alarm systems. Well, I tell you what, Mark, why don't we, or Deputy Mayor Creeley, we'll shoot for the 18th. And if we decide it looks too crazy, then I'll reach out to you and see if you're fine with the first Tuesday in September.

As we get closer, I'll send that email to Jill so she can pass it on or put it in the back.

Perfect. Thank you. Any other council comment tonight? Okay, seeing no further council comment, we are adjourned at 7.37. Good night, everybody.

Take care.