City Council - Regular Meeting

Yeah. Yeah, it is. Good evening, residents of Everett, Washington. Like to call to order the Ever Council meeting of May 13, 2026. For information on council meetings and how to participate, please visit everwah.gov. /city councsil. Please note, we do not allow comments of any kind of campaigning, whether for or against ballot measures or candidates running for office. We also do not accept comments focused on personal matters that are unrelated to city business. We ask that the audience refrain from clapping, cheering, or booing, and no signage of any kind is allowed in the chambers. We ask that everyone take a seat and not gather in the entry room. Clerk, please take the role. Mayor Franklin here. Council member Weir here. Council member Zarlingo,

here. Vice President Ryan here. Council member Verbano here. Council member Tui here. Council member Bader here. President Schwab here. At this time, I'd like to ask Council Member Tui to lead us in the pledge of allegiance, United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. At this time, I'd like to ask council member Weir to read the land acknowledgement.

The city council wishes to acknowledge the original inhabitants of this place, the Stooga people, and their successors, the Tleup tribes. Since time and memorial, they have hunted, fished, gathered on, and taken care of these lands and waters. We respect their sovereignty, their right to self-determination, and honor their sacred spiritual connection with the land and water. We will strive to be honest about our past mistakes and bring about a future that includes their people, stories and voices to form a more just and equitable society.

Thank you. Um we have an agenda um addition and that is item number four. I made a special um a special exemption for this request because it was a last minute acceptance of $31,000 for the ongoing uh FIFA World Cup viewing events. So because of the need and the um the economic uh need to pay the extra cost, so we we put that on the agenda. So that's item number four. Um well, good evening, mayor.

Uh good evening. Uh first, thank you for putting item four on the agenda. Big event this summer, so very excited to see that coming forward. Um I have a proclamation to share to start things off for bike day. Whereas the city of Everett is dedicated to promoting safe and accessible transportation options that support active lifestyles, reduce traffic congestion, and improve air quality. And bicycling supports this commitment to sustainability throughout our city and encourages cleaner transportation choices while enhancing the livability of our neighborhoods. and Everett's parks, neighborhoods, and waterfront routes connect people to destinations like Forest Park, Langis Riverfront Park, and Everett Waterfront, offering safe and scenic riding opportunities for all ages. And bike day is an opportunity to celebrate the many benefits of bicycling while encouraging residents to explore their neighborhoods and parks and support local businesses and connect with one another. And the city of Ever continues to invest in safe streets and active transportation through infrastructure improvements, education, and partnerships that support a more bike friendly city. Therefore, I am proclaiming May 15th, 2026 as bike day in the city of Everett. And I encourage everyone to head over to Everett Station to celebrate this Friday from 3 to 7. And I think Matt and Amelia from Everett transit team and Sabina and Brock are here. So, come on down and I'll give you the proclamation. Okay.

Thank you for the opportunity. Oh, there we go. It's green. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to provide a quick comment on uh bike everywhere day proclamation. Bike everywhere month proclamation. Uh my name is Brock Howell. I'm a resident of Everett. Uh I am the uh executive director of Snowish County Transportation Coalition or Snow Track and executive director or CEO of U Stations Unitos. Uh I as a CEO of Station Unitos welcome uh having bike everywhere festival this Friday 3:00 to 7:00 p.m. Come on down in the rain and rain or shine. Yeah,

rain or shine. Uh it'll be great. Food trucks will be there. Should be a really great time. So encourage folks to to celebrate. I think bike day and bike month are about something bigger than just biking. Um our streets do need to be safer and building bike infrastructure is part is a major part of making our streets safer and so it's a good way to just reflect on the need to do so. Um we're about at the one-year anniversary of a kid who was uh killed while riding a bike between two schools that he attended. Um and so uh this is also a little bit turning into an anniversary of that acknowledgement as well of uh making sure that all of our infrastructure is safer. Um Snow Track his mission is to create safer streets uh and better transportation for people of all ages and abilities. And so I thank you for taking this leadership role.

Thank you Brock and our ET team. Appreciate this. Um, next I want to honor Jewish American Heritage Month and just want to uh recognize Rabbi Court who's here and I got to join her for the ribbon cutting of the renovated synagogue and it's beautiful. So, um, so whereas Jewish American Heritage Month is recognized each May and was established in 2006 to honor and celebrate the generations of Jewish Americans who help shape our nation's civic, social, economic, and cultural life. And the Jewish community has faced prejudice, discrimination, and anti-semitism throughout history. All challenges that cont continue today as Jewish Americans experience rising levels of hate and harm across our nation. And the city of Everett values the diversity of backgrounds, traditions, and experience experiences that strengthen our community and enrich our lives. And the city of Everett remains committed to building a welcoming and inclusive community where people of every faith, culture, and identity are represented. and empowered to thrive. Therefore, I'm proclaiming the month of May as Jewish American Heritage Month, and I encourage all our residents to join me in recognizing and celebrating the many contributions of the Jewish community to our city, the state, and our nation. And Rabbi Court is here to accept the proclamation. Thank you, mayor and council members and everyone who's gathered here this evening. It is such an honor to receive the proclamation and our temple beth or community right the established Jewish community here in Everett. We are celebrating our heritage this month but also um a spectacular moment in our

community's history. Temple Beth our is celebrating our homecoming to Everett. our community as well not our community but an Orthodox community established a synagogue here in 1913 and we were away from our building for the past year as we remodeled the historic sanctuary and built a new accessible building where we can thrive into the future. We've been away at a rental in Lynwood, but our hearts have been here on Lumbard Avenue. I shared this teaching from the Tolmud at our building dedication. When we build a new home, we are required to leave a small portion of that home unfinished. which is meant to teach that even in what might feel like our most settled moments, we're asked to remember that the world that we live in is an incomplete place. And it was a decision for our community to stay in Everett. And I'm so happy that we're leaning into our Everett community. We are affirming at Temple Bethor our belief in the community of Everett and look forward to being partners in building this city well into our future. Right. Uh having remodeled a building that is over a hundred years old, we recognize that we are simply the current builders in this project that spans generations. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for recognizing our place in the Everett family and we are so happy to be home.

Um, if anyone wants to come visit our building, um, we just ask that you call in advance. We can't be an open building for some pretty serious security concerns. And we would love to welcome you into our new space. Thank you.

Thank you, Rabbi Court. Um and then next I just wanted to share a few comments on my work on the Sound Transit Board. Um completing the transit spine and fully connecting Ever Tacoma is uh critical for our future of our region. Um light rail needs to connect all the job centers in Pierce, Snomish, and King County. And I just want to thank all of our transit advocates that have made themselves heard in the last weeks. Really appreciate you. A number of you showed up at the last Sound Transit uh executive meeting. Paula Ryan led the charge bringing a whole team of people. Really appreciate that and sharing the resolution that this council passed. I understand maybe council members Arlingo might speak at the Zoom meeting and this week um we have an executive committee meeting this week and then the vote on the enterprise initiative coming up on May 28th. Um, but your voices, your advocacy is really making a difference. Um, we've been waiting for 30 years for a light rail. Uh, Executive Summer's proposal holds the line on any further delay to light rail to our job center of Boeing and Payfield and our growing South Everett community and uh, the downtown transit center location. This is important because Everett is more diverse, more economically challenged and um more transit dependent than any other area of the light rail um system. So reliable, accessible regional transit is essential. Um we've seen the changes where light rail has opened and what that's meant for these communities. Even from I5, you can see a true downtown developing in Lynwood based on the light rail that opened there. Um, so it's not just about building the stations and the tracks. It's really about um shared prosperity and building equitable communities across uh the region. So we

are going to continue to work closely with Sound Transit um to foster that equitable development in station areas. Um we must continue to use a racial and economic equity lens that prioritizes Everett to Tacoma, which is the spine of the system. Um, our team stand ready to make sure light rail is delivered smoothly and quickly and we are quickly rec creating efficiencies in our local permitting team. Thank you to all the hard work that's going on there to ensure light rail is built as rapidly and affordably as possible. And as you all know, we're actively exploring the possibility of a regional transit service consolidation to increase service and improve connections to the light rail system. So, our city will do everything possible to find additional savings and ways to accelerate the timing of light rail. Um, our residents truly deserve these investments that we've been paying for for some time, and I will continue to be your voice on the Sound Transit Board and keep you posted as to our work as we move that forward. And I have no further comments. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you very much. Um, we'll go on to um public comments, which includes written comments. Oh, sorry. Let's go to old business first to approve the minutes for May 6, 2026. Council member Ryan so moves. Second. Motion and seconds when made. Clerk, please take the role. Council member Weir Stain. Council member Zarlingo. Yes. Vice President Ryan, yes. Council member Bravano, yes. Council member Tui, yes. Council member Bader, yes. President Schwab,

yes. Okay, now we'll go to public comments, which includes written comment acknowledgement. Under our rules, written comments shall be considered in the same manner as oral comments. The person submitting comments must provide their name of city of residence. Written comments require this to be made part of the official council record. And good evening, Angie. Um shall we begin with um those online? Good evening, President Schwab. Just to confirm, there is no written comments that we received. Okay.

Um we do have one individual online. Claire, if you could unmute, turn on your camera if possible. And when you see the timer, please state your full name, city of residence, and you'll have three minutes to speak. And just give me one moment.

Okay, go ahead.

Greetings, council members and community members. I appreciate this opportunity to speak. I'm not an Everett resident. I live in Shoreline, but I attend school in Everett and I have family and friends that live and work in Everett. When the Fred Meyer on Casino Road closed last year after 50 years of operation, I paid attention, especially after learning more about how this closure would impact the surrounding community. The empty Fred Meyer property sits vacant now, just like we saw with Everett Kmart and Walmart properties in recent years. I'm part of a group of similarly concerned students who investigated how the city was addressing these commercial vacancies that negatively impact the community in so many ways. We found that there is an existing municipal code 1616 that was created to address vacant storefronts but has not been enforced and doesn't take property size into consideration. Our group is proposing revision of municipal code 1616 so that the vacancy fee appropriately appropriately reflects the size of these massive commercial properties. To avoid early termination fees, companies like Kroger choose to let their leases expire, meaning the properties remain vacant for extended periods of time. We think land owners and companies need to be held accountable for vacancies and the cycle of disinvestment they contribute to. Increasing the vacancy fee could help to get their attention and motivate them to release their leases. It could also generate more revenue to cover administrative costs and help fund community programs and revitalization. We urge city council to prioritize the revision of 1616 to address vacant commercial properties. Thank you for listening.

Thank you. Next, we'll move into chambers. And if Cat could please come to the podium, please state your full name, city of residence, and you've been given 5 minutes.

Thank you very much. My name is Cat Chin, and I am a lifelong resident of Everett. Thank you for this opportunity to speak with you this evening. Um, I grew up in Eastmont and attended Jefferson Elementary, Eisenhower Middle School, and am a proud Cascade graduate. Go Bruins. Um, I have been employed with Everett Public Schools for so long that my five-digit employee number starts with a zero. My child attends Everett Public Schools. I am invested in this community. It is for these reasons and many more that I'm here tonight to ask that changes be made to Everett Municipal Code 1616 so that vacant big box stores like the Evergreen Way Fred Meyer are assessed fees that reflect their size rather than the one-sizefits-all fee structure that currently exists. I'm currently in a master's of social work program at the Everett campus of Eastern Washington University. Claire Turner, who you just heard, is one of uh my partners in this project. Um so our core class this quarter is focusing on policy and advocacy. Working alongside Claire and three other peers, we created Everett Retail Vacancy Tax. You can find us online under that name and you can contact us at our Gmail account with that same name with any questions. um specifically get your investments worth. Residents of Everett invest in their community in big ways and small. But the bottom line is that by living in Everett, we invest in Everett. We invest in the businesses that also call Everett home. We invest in the schools through property taxes and the ways in which we vote. The recent passing of both the bond and the levy for Everett public schools demonstrates that we live in a

community that cares about its future. The discussion also of all the progress with light rail again shows that we are in a community that cares about the future and the residents. the presence of large vacant commercial properties such as the Kmart on Evergreen Way that remained empty for six years. The Walmart on 99 that has been vacant since 23 and now the Evergreen Way Fred Meyer that has been vacant for over 6 months demonstrates how big box retailers are not invested in our community. These vacant retail properties are visual representations of neighborhood divestment. As you can see on the fact sheet that I uh provided, vacant properties can reduce surrounding property values by up to 9.4%. Has been shown that violent crime increases and the mental health of community decreases in visual in visually divested neighborhoods. We propose that the council revise EMC 1616 to financially incentivize corporations like Kroger to release their leases so that these divested neighborhoods can begin the process of revitalization. As the code currently stands, the largest fine that Kroger will ever pay is $1,000 per year. and that's if the code is acted upon which to my understanding it hasn't been a lot and I understand that that's a staffing issue. Uh so part of our proposal is maybe if we can raise these fees to hopefully again incentivize these uh companies to release their leases so that it can be used in other ways. Um or if they choose to sit on it rather than break their lease. Okay, then great. That's money that we can then invest back into our community and community programs.

Um I had the pleasure of uh talking with uh council members Paul Ry and Luis Bondo um last Friday. We are at uh Connect Casino Road, the village on Casino Road um courtesy of Alvaro Guen, who is an amazing advocate. I I see you smiling. Yes, he's a great advocate for the South Everett um community and we I I feel like we had a very great discussion, something that was raised. Um so I kindly Angie helped hand out all my little um invest in my uh flyers. Um so while we proposed um we set up a structure. We're we're ma we're social work students, right? We're not the mathematicians. So what we're proposing um Luis pointed out that's a really big jump for Fred Meyer for Kroger to go from a thousand to by the way we figured it it it was in the millions. So he's like that that's a very big jump. Yes it is a big jump but also as Paula pointed out money speaks to these corporations. They are not invested the way that we are. So maybe we catch their attention with something a little bigger and maybe that allows us to get those fines collected. Am I at my

Yeah. Could you finish up, please? So sorry. Um, so I just really hope that there is a reconsideration of uh the code as it currently stands. And thank you all again so much for your time. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Next, if Daniel could please come to the podium. Please state your full name and city of residence. You have three minutes to speak. I'm Daniel Simon. I live in Everett. Back again to talk about the annexation of Ever Transit by Community Transit as it relates to employees and interlocal agreement negotiations. I'm not confident in a negotiation that keeps Ever Transit employees whole. Normally, they have their union negotiating on their behalf with the best interests of its members in mind. Now it is the city negotiating on their behalf who has reaching an ILA as its best interests. I fear concessions will be made despite commitments to keep employees whole. Verbal assurances regarding employee compensation lack formal structure. Although there are some federal protections. Ever transit's long range plan goes until 2045. If you look at the revenue forecast for the next six years, it's about $38 million with around 3% growth most years. If you continue that trend out to 2045, that's about $900 million. If a merge happens, it becomes $1.8 billion because the doubling of the transit sales tax rate, but the money instead goes to community transit. If C if community transit is offering a million dollars here, 10 million there, whatever amount during negotiations, it is still a rounding error in the long term. This perhaps is everything to them and maybe to the city as well. So I ask, in order to secure an ILA, to what degree are you willing to sell us short? I invite you to consider that part of

your legacy here could be that you are the ones who rid the city of its 133y old transit system. I have three things that are request of the city council. One, extend the ILA deadline 6 months from this fall to spring 2027. Two, have Senator Marco Leos make an in-person appearance at a council meeting to explain to the citizens the goal and intention of Senate Bill 581 part 10, as well as justify why he believes it was okay to take away our voting right. Three, I ask that each city council member clearly state their current and previous positions on a transit consolidation. Despite the circumstances, Ever Transit will continue to serve the people as best it can, as it always has and always will until you put it to rest. Thank you, Mayor Franklin, Council President Schwab, and the city council. Thank you. Keith, if you could please come to the podium. Please press the button on the base of the mic.

Yeah. And state your full name and city of residence. And you have three minutes to speak.

My name is Keith Jacobson. I live in Everett in district 3. I have a couple of more points I want to make about the backdoor sales tax increase, the proposed merger between Everett Transit and Community Transit. One of the reasons I've heard for this backdoor sales tax increase is that it's going to somehow encourage Sound Transit to bring light rail to Everett. Okay, let me let me see if I get this straight. Agency 1, Community Transit, acquires agency 2, Everett Transit, and acquires a backdoor sales tax increase in the process. And somehow this convinces agency three to bring light rail to Everett. I I I don't see the dots. The dots are not connecting for me. Um community transit acquiring Evertransit has nothing to do with SoundR convincing Sound Transit to bring light rail to Everett. In fact, even though we've been paying our Sound Transit light rail taxes for almost a decade, we're acting like we're characters out of a Dickens novel begging Sound Transit for light rail. Please, sir, may I have some light rail? Yeah. Two, there seems to be perception that Evertransit contributes to the city's financial difficulties. This is false. Ever transit does not cost the city a single red scent. Not one. Page 20 of Everransit's development plan has a chart listing Everrit sources of revenue in 2024, the last year that this document has actual numbers for. And looking at those numbers, we see that in 2024, the biggest source of revenue was the sales tax. Other sources of revenue are listed like the fairbox, rent from every station, state operating grants, etc., etc. What you don't see are transfers from the city. In fact, ET

pays the city. A bus gets fixed. MVD sends Everransit a bill and transit sends money to the city. It helps someone reset their password. It sends Everransit a bill and Everrit pays pays the city. In short, ET does not cost the city government a single red cent. Not one. Ever. In fact, Everrit pays the city many red cents. And if the backdoor sales tax increases, all those cents go away. Go away. There are no good reasons to merge ever transit and community transit. The city will lose the revenue generated by Everransit. The citizens will pay more both in fairs and sales taxes. And for this trade-off, we will get an agency that is less responsive to the city's needs. I encourage you all, for the good of Everett, when the time comes, vote against this backdoor sales tax increase. Thank you.

Thank you. Renee, if you please come to the podium, please state your full name and city of residence. You have three minutes to speak.

Hello, good afternoon. Good evening. My name is Renea. I'm a voter here in Everpayer and a residential. Of course, I don't want to be here. I'm here just because I see something and I have to say something. I wanted to show you some that there are some reasonable doubts in order to question the annexation of ever transit to community transit and uh this is too long so I might just send you a copy via email or if you are willing to accept please that will be appreciated instead of that I'm just going to tell you a story my story it's kind of funny but I was born and raised in the in back in Chile South America I was under 18 years of military government and uh you know how it goes. I mean you do as I say if you don't you still do what as as I say and I had the opportunity when I was 14 15 years old to come to the United States as an exchange student for a year in New York state and I found a new concept a concept of right you have the right what is that yeah you have the right to be to do whatever you want to up until the right of others comes closer to yours and then then we have a communication oh that's interesting concept and uh yeah it kind of took me out of my element. I went back to Chile and the military government was still there. The funny thing is that the military government with all this power and years of being exercising their power and authority they gave the vote to the citizens in order to decide the future of the country. So that was kind of a wow with all the power they put it independently of whoever was or what the reasons were behind they put it to a vote and guess

what the funny thing is that half of the population were inclined to stay and the other half not. At the end the government transfer the power to the civilians. Anyway the whole point of this is that a vote is important. A vote is what put you on those chairs. So please, those people that vote for you, give them a route right to vote on this annexation. Remember, my money, your money, everybody's money. Your tax is my vote. My money, your tax for the annexation tax, my vote, your vote. So decided, it's simple and fair. empires have fallen and risen by either respecting or not this concept. So, thank you very much. Thank you, Brian, if you could please come to the podium. Please state your full name and city residence. You have three minutes.

Uh Brian Pardington, uh Ever Washington. Uh I'm here to talk about the uh Sound Transit 3 uh cuts and specifically the um uh summer's proposition. Um I think that it is in in general a pretty uh good uh deal for uh Everett. We have already uh suffered from some station reduction with the um station at Airport Road in 99 being um deferred uh I think a couple years ago. Um but the uh uh wanted to offer uh some thoughts about the um proposed cut to the parking structure um at Everfort Station. And obviously this is a long way off from um being built, but um it always struck me as sort of odd that we were be building such a large or subsidizing such a large um parking structure that yes would serve uh people from Everett, but would also be serving people from um outside communities which uh don't pay into the tax pool for ST3. Um, I do think that there's some potential here to actually create a revenue center for the city. Um, if we're uh to build a a paid lot um in that uh space, um it could uh generate revenue to either offset car tabs or pay for things in the city. Um I do think that there's an opportunity um uh for investment here and uh you can look at options like um maybe not having uh maybe people who uh pay SD3 car tabs having free access or uh there's a lot of ways that you can set it up economically uh sorry financially that um that uh uh it should be kind of relatively costneutral for um for for

the city and its residents and its um taxpayers. So um just something to think about going forward uh that this is not necessarily a bad thing forever that it could pose, you know, presents an opportunity for the city as well. Thank you. Thank you. Janine, if you please come to the podium, please state your full name and city residence. You have three minutes to speak.

Janine Demery, Ever Washington. Uh first off, everything this woman said and the woman before her. Yes. Um, today, good evening, council Franklin. Uh, good evening, Mayor Franklin and council. Today, I had the opportunity to meet a local woman, not wealthy in terms of money, but in empathy and action. She has used her own money to change the lives of older women coming out of homelessness and extreme trauma. She made her basement to a place where they could live and be safe. And I thought, wow, if we only valued the lives of those born into this world so fully as to dedicate our resources to first making sure this kind of situation of living in dignity is the rule and not the exception. Just yesterday, I saw that KO News4 is going to be interviewing Cassidy from the Everree Pantry for the support she provides to the community. I am grateful to her and her family and I'm lucky to live amongst such good people, but I wish that these weren't the stories that we have to tell. Many folks used to think that these were heartwarming stories. Now they realize they are a sign of a society on life support and the plug is half falling out of the wall. We are not in a good place and a stadium will not make it any better. I planned on being here for the meeting on the 29th, but apparently the midday meeting occurs occurs the fourth and fifth Wednesday. I do wonder if there was any pause at all on removing your citizens opportunity to come together and voice their opinion on the day of the vote. People are still talking about this and angry. I know I am here speaking for members of this community today that cannot be here because they're are going to their second or in some cases their third job. I'm wondering, did you know the Mariners franchise is worth approximately $2.35 billion? They can build 10 stadiums and still be worth over a billion dollars. I hope that you did not know that information before you decided to force the taxpayer to fund a demand from the MLB for a societal luxury that they and some want, but not most of us as we would rather see that money put towards our needs here. Thank you, Council Member M. Tui, for voting against this stadium. We need you to be the leaders

offering strategic long range planning for the poly crisis that we are currently living in, not a stadium. A poly crisis involves complex interconnected risks across multiple regions and systems, often including ecological factors. This interconnectedness heightens the chances of widespread adverse outcomes or disasters, affecting various systems and triggering cascading effects. We have massive job losses. The real estate market is showing to stress sales for the first time in years. There is no snow in the mountains and summer's almost here with higher utility bills. We have an unstable federal government. Jerome Powell was the last major guardrail protecting our economy. And the potential for new spreading viruses cannot be ignored. I hope you ask yourself if the new stadium will look so good when all the homeless, hungry, and angry people are outside trying to survive by hiding in its shadow. We can do better than this. But I also want to say thank you for still advocating for light rail to Everett. Please protect Everett Transit so my elderly 77year-old neighbor can stay independent in the house that she has lived in her entire life and where she wants to remain until she passes. Parransit makes that happen for her. Thank you.

Thank you. That concludes our public comments. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you all the speakers. Um, let's move on to council comments, beginning with council member Erica Weir. Just one quick thing, and that is that I'm really excited that we'll um be seeing the reopening of the Wiggams Hollow Park in uh Delta neighborhood um hopefully by the end of next week when the fences should be coming down and it'll be um back open for the community. So, that'll be a nice um summer amenity to enjoy. So, that's it for me. Thank you, Council Member Arlingo.

Uh, just one thing tonight. First of all, thanks to our commenters. I really appreciate the uh the feedback and the suggestions and the analysis that you've done on all of these topics. Um I represent ever on um Snowish County tomorrow organization and also their exploratory committee which uh at the direction of their um general assembly has uh wanted to reanalyze how that house norish county moral's representation works and uh the most recent discussion that's worth noting is um around economic development and workforce development recognizing those two things really work together or not at all if separately. Uh the economic alliance county uh was represented there by former mayor Ray Stephenson. He's their executive director now. Uh economic alliance county works also with uh the future workforce alliance. That's the local workforce development board for our county. Uh and that's important in particular because it's the authorized local board that administers federal workforce development funds. Uh speaking on behalf of that was Samantha Paxton of the Snowish County Executive's Office. So anyway, just to let you know that's work that's ongoing. Uh but because there were some really um important questions about how those groups should be represented and what other ones should be represented in Snowomish County tomorrow, the larger steering committee, uh that's all been put off some till the fall. And that's all report from me.

Thank you, Council Member Ryan.

Great. Thank you. Uh thank you so much to all of our commenters this evening. I appreciate your engagement and input. Um very good comments. Thank you. Uh special thank you to Cat and Claire. appreciate you guys coming and appreciate having a chance to meet you guys on uh Friday I've asked our parks and built environment committee to bring uh to rejuvenate our discussions about uh vacant storefronts. I think there I see it as like three different policy areas uh all sort of the same thread of you know vacant residential properties that are nuisances, vacant uh small historic buildings downtown that are not contributing to life downtown and then also vacant big box stores that have a higher and better use for that property. So uh excited to get to work on all three of those issues with the same commonality. So I'm happy to meet again as well to uh continue conversations. Earlier tonight, we had our parks and built environment committee. Thank you to Kimberly for sharing an update about uh parks projects coming down the pike this year. I believe I counted around, don't quote me, will uh about 10 openings this year in 2026, mostly in like the next few months to be ready for summer for new playgrounds and um new uh construction starting across the whole city. So, there's restroom updates, dock replacements, and all sorts of good stuff. So, thank you to our parks team for the good work that they're doing. Earlier today, I uh went to the Lisk community o uh uh community roundt event and they shared more about uh community ownership model for um which is you know a community land trust basically but I was excited to hear about uh examples regarding a community land trust for commercial properties which I hadn't quite considered before. So looking forward to diving in on that. On Monday I attended the parks and built or the excuse me the uh Port Garter neighborhood association meeting. Thank you to our Ever Transit crew for coming out and sharing more about uh the different locations that they're considering for their maintenance and

operations uh rebuild coming down the planning process soon. Uh on Sunday, if anybody was looking for somebody, they were probably at the Ever Farmers Market. So, you should have checked there. Uh thanks to the team for all their work there. Um a reminder that farmers markets are every Sunday until I believe the very end of October. On Friday, I toured the Cedar Grove uh pro uh production facility here in Everett, and I just really appreciated seeing and smelling their commitment to uh sound environmental practices and waste diversion from our landfills. So, really glad to have them call Everett home. Uh and on Thursday, uh as Mayor Franklin mentioned, there are about 20 individuals uh who went down to the Sound Transit board meeting to share support for building the spine and the Ever completing the Ever Link extension. Thank you so much to Snow Track for helping to co-organize that event. I think we had a really strong showing and fantastic comments. Uh there were some folks that zoomed in from other places in Seattle and I was like, we're here in person and that shows just how much we're dedicated to this. So, uh as Mayor Franklin mentioned, we're not out of the woods yet. the proposal from uh executive summers uh does prioritize the two phases for the Everlink extension, but there is I'm expecting uh going to be a lot of push back from other uh board members in the Seattle area to knock us down on the list or off completely. Uh so I would encourage the public to continue advocating until the end of May when the expected until uh the vote will happen. Um you can email the board at meeting commentsoundtransit.org or to make sure that you let them know that you're glad to see that Everett's on the list and it should stay on the list. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Mayor Burbano.

Uh just a couple things. Um on Saturday I went pre-planting around the new pedestrian access to the Walter Eh Hall playground. I planted three of them. Once the playground is replaced, the pedestrian access will connect the Westman community with a playground with a playground. Um and the and the pedestrian access looks fantastic, very well implemented. So, thank you so much for that. Um council district 4 town hall is taking place May 16 at 1 p.m. at the Ever branch of the public library on fourth and evergreen way. This is on district 4. Uh this is a great opportunity to hear from Major Franklin um and learn more about the plans for district 4, especially that playground and me and me of course. And that will be it. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Tui. Uh no comment tonight, Council Member Bader. Uh just real quick, was it Riverside neighborhood last night and similarly to Council Member Ryan heard Matt Kums from Ever Transit talking about the uh planning for the replacement maintenance operations administrative base. So great I think coming to Lowel as well. Uh so very interesting proposals there. That's it. Thank you. Thank you very much. Um min do we have administrative report from Jennifer?

Yes. I have two items. Um I think maybe our council leadership asked for a little update on the city charter review process. Um the committee has their final two meetings tomorrow, the 14th, and then also on the 28th. What an eventful day for voting. Uh so public's encouraged um to continue to submit ideas. The the committee is open to receiving more more thoughts. They've already approved language that'll be in their final report um that will go to you in probably like in June and then for um passing along to the voters in July on um revamping the civil service article in the um charter. uh adding uh some changing some of the elements of the initiatives and referendum chapters in although they're going to revisit those and they might add in more procedures into that. That's for tomorrow. We'll see how that goes. Uh change clarifying eligibility for elected office, aligning the district council seats with the atlarge council seats to require a year of residence. Um and then not allowing council or mayor to hold a second elected office. Um so that's chapter 2.2. So those ones are done and tomorrow initiatives of referendum. We're going to look at that again. Um a proposal around transparency when the city issues debt. Um fine proposed final language around some modernizing some of the procedure related to the clerk's office. uh of in special interest to council. They are going to look at the final language to require the council to hold at least 36 meetings in a year. Right now it's like 48 and it's kind of tricky because if you hit a couple holidays on a Wednesday, it doesn't give you a lot of flexibility. There's some cities that

like take a recess in August. We can never do that. You might not ever want to do that, but the committee has discussed that 36 was a nice sort of threshold as a as a minimum to appear in the charter with a couple caveats that at least two meetings per month just to make sure you don't like try to cram them all in one time frame and that a schedule be publicized at the beginning of the year. So, um there was also in the spirit of like that modernization of language, there's a um article in 4.1 4.10 10 um that suggests that um officers of the city uh take an oath of office. And it's it's been interpreted we do the oaths of office for police officers, but this is more interpreted to be um elected officials of the city versus like the city clerk. The language is kind of weird. I'm pretty sure probably hasn't been touched since 1912. So, they're going to look at cleaning that up, too. And then the final one for tomorrow um is some language that's proposed to look at like kind of how the charter review committee is established. So in your resolution you put in a code of conduct and some other language and so they liked that and they want to talk about putting that into the charter. Um and then some other kind of different procedure for how folks are um confirmed I guess. Um so that will be new item for their discussion tomorrow. Quick question.

Yeah. Uh um on the dual office. Yeah. What about things like PCOS or charter review like the county charter review that are not full-time or even part-time offices? I was curious. Yes. The the P PCO positions. There's a lot of established we asked about that and the legal said there's plenty of established case law that that's doesn't sort of fit this. So you could still be a PCO and serve in one of your seats. Um, I believe that it would not allow um one of you or someone in one of your seats in the future to run for the charter review commission over at the county.

Um, and that's just uh that's important to note because other cities allow electeds to be on the charter review of like the county charter review. So, I just I I I don't know anything about it. I just was just noting that that's a a a big adjustment. So, thank you. And as a as a note, all of these come back to council. So differently than the county. You guys have the final vote on what makes it um in front of the voters for amendments. So we could clean up that charter review part of it. The county, although I think it died, but we were at the county charter commission. They were looking at um a similar language on no dual offices. Um which would have anyways it would have impacted the charter review. There's a whole other thing, but that one died. So, it's irrelevant now anyways, but some something to think about. I think it would make sense to maybe continue to allow, not that any of you are having the pleasure of serving on that right now, but other there are plenty of other city council and mayors on the charter review commission at the county. Okay, I hope that wasn't too long. I'm trying to be brief. My other item is just about two of your agenda items. So, um they both relate to improvements at Clark Park. Um Bayside Bayside neighborhood has let the parks um department and maybe some of you know that they're really happy with the dog park that's been open there for a while now. Uh it's really well used. The neighbor complaints from neighbors to the parks department have gone way down. Um our care team does regular checks at the park and they are just seeing folks using the park for what it's there for. Um there is a mutual aid group that does um distributes food and other things on Sundays. Um they clean up after as we as we like them to do. So like if there's like food wrappers, things like that, they make sure that that's gone and they're providing that service um still

kind of at the other end of the park, but that seems to be um working all right. Um so that's related partly related to these two items. So, one is the consent item and it talks about the gazebo because we're closing the um original plan from quite long ago where we were looking at enclosing the gazebo at Clark Park with metal work that turned out to be expensive and kind of set us on this different path where the gazebo's been removed and the dog park is there. Um the ordinance that you have that is an amendment to there's an amendment and a closing ordinance. Um that's all part of that item for the dog park. Uh so that just closes that project out. All good there. Uh an update on the gazebo. The folks that were at the parks and built environment uh committee meeting heard more about this or if you listened you heard more. But just a couple points on the gazebo. Um we are parks are looking at place replacing a creating a faithful replica of the gazebo at Harborview Park. Uh they had a meeting with Harborview Seahur Glenn Haven neighborhoods. The folks that were there were positive about the idea. Uh, and the parks team is working with the parks board about um the concept and um kind of moving that along. They think it will cost uh about 300,000 and they're looking at mid to late next year 2027 um to be working on that. Okay, that's it. Thanks.

Any questions for admin? Um could you just make a couple of comments on the added consent item?

Oh yeah, please. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. So, this is a grant application and it's basically your we're asking for you to um allow us to accept $31,000. It's it's from federal government through the um Washington State Military Department and the organizing committee. So, this money helps us um pay for the added costs of the fan zone, keeping folks safe, and then also kind of materials and things related to that. you had already approved or ex accepted a grant for the transit team to do shuttles and do some kind of pedestrian access stuff related to the fan zones and then this is the we got all the money we asked for which was very cool. Um and so we would just like you to authorize the mayor to sign the grant and let us get that money and then get going on the fan zones which will be really awesome at Boxcar Park June 11, 12, 18 and 19. Um, and there should be really like a nice summer of or months of soccer in the community with lots of other related events.

The fan zone is going to be fabulous, but we do need this funding for security and safety and uh it is very expensive to provide that level of security and safety to thousands and thousands of people um for for this event. So, this will allow our our public safety teams to to do great work. Okay, thank you. How about a report from our city attorney?

We um tennis players who use those beautiful courts at Clark Park are very pleased with the dog park. Uh especially compared with the activities that existed there previously have dominated the park. It's nice to see uh people with kids and dogs abiding by the law next to the courts. And it has the added benefit of when we accidentally hit one of our balls over the fence, a happy puppy chases it down for us and brings it back. So, um, no report other than that, we are asking for a 10-minute executive session to discuss, um, possible authorization of five lawsuits related to code enforcement actions with council action to follow.

Okay, thank you very much. Um, okay, so on to our consent items. And for the record, clerk, we'll make I mentioned number four, we'll uh do the support operations for the FIFA World Cup activities is item number seven. for the record. Okay. So, we have seven consent items before you. Is there a motion? Council Ryan moves approval of the seven consent agenda items. Second. Okay. Motion a second. Clerk, please take the role. Council member Weir, yes. Council member Zarlingo, yes. Vice President Ryan, yes. Council member Barbano, yes. Council member Tui, yes. Council member Bader, yes. President Schwab,

yes. Okay, we'll move on to proposed action items. There are two items u before us. Um, Rose's action. Um, uh, council bill 2604-24, item number eight is the second reading. Is there any questions, council? Okay. Um, number nine, council 25. This is the first reading. adopt an ordinance to amend and close a special improvement project entitled Clark Park renovation and off leash dog area fund 354 program 101 as established by ordinance 4032-24. The third and final reading will be May 27th, 2026. Does council have any questions or comments? Okay, seeing none, we'll go to our proposed briefing and proposed action item. Um, item number 10, Council Bill 2605-27, first reading, adopt an ordinance imposing a utility tax on the city's water and sewer utility, amending chapter 3.24 of the Ever Municipal Code. The third and final reading will be May 27th, 2026. And there is a briefing.

Yes. Okay. Thank you.

Um, well, just as a reminder for council, this was an item that came out as a priority at your retreat in January. I think it was technically the top priority or right there at the top. Um, you heard a little bit about this at your March 18th budget committee and then tonight we've got kind of a two-part presentation on these two items. So, first remotely we have Mike Bailey and he's unmuted so he'll be ready to go um whenever I'm done talking. Uh so he'll start with the water sewer utility tax piece and then Brian is here and he'll come up and he has information about the the sort of the implementing piece of it which is your role um with the water sewer utility and the rates that have to be implemented. So Mike you can take it away.

Thank you Jennifer I appreciate it. Um on the next slide, we're going to talk a little bit about the context of uh the water and sewer utility tax that's being proposed. U in cities in Washington state, uh the utilities uh rely like any business in a city does on the infrastructure that the city provides for its ability to provide services. Now, other businesses in cities provide a variety of resources to the city that help uh us enable us to provide these infrastructure, property taxes, uh business taxes, a variety of of ways that other businesses contribute to the city's ability to provide infrastructure. That's uh different and unique to utilities. Uh while the utilities can rely on this infrastructure to uh perform their mission, uh they do not contribute uh to any of these taxes that I just described. Uh utilities do not pay uh city utilities do not pay property taxes or business taxes. And as a result, uh, the state of Washington has created a construct known as a utility tax that helps sort of fill that gap and enables, uh, utilities to also contribute to the city's ability to provide general government resources, uh, and therefore infrastructure and services that support and enable these businesses and utilities to uh, to thrive. As a result of this approach in Washington state, you will see as we talk about uh some of our neighboring communities and kind of what they do with their utility taxes that it's very

common in Washington state for cities to rely on a utility tax to help uh make up the resources that are available to cover these costs and provide for these services. the uh and in in fact in in uh in Everett's case um the water sewer utility tax is specifically unique uh to be able to help address some of the deficits that we've talked about in the past and we we'll talk uh touch on briefly here in just a moment. So on the next slide uh we'll talk a little bit about the um the the fact that the city in providing these services has been uh addressing and facing for many years now. a uh what has been referred to commonly as a structural deficit. And I think that's a a great way to characterize it. There there is an inherent deficit a difference between resources that are available to the city to provide these kinds of services and amenities and the costs uh that are associated with them. And the city does a very good job, as I've said to the council in the past, of projecting what these uh deficits are in the future. And in a 2026 budget, which was just published, the 2027 deficit is projected to be about $15 million, just a little over $15 million. And I'll remind the council that again, this is $15 million without setting aside additional resources for various pensions and and whatnot that will h have um need of additional funding in the future. So, this is $15 million just to meet the current needs of the uh city's ability to provide services and and again this infrastructure that uh that meets the needs of the businesses and the residents uh in the community. The um this is in a general government uh part of the city's budget. So, this

is not talking about the utilities themselves necessarily. This is in what we call the general government. So this is where we see public safety, parks, libraries, uh planning, uh planning, uh permitting and code enforcement. Those kinds of general government kinds of services that the city's responsible for. And as we forecast going forward, again, the city does a six-year forecast. And this is illustrated on this slide here. Uh we illustrate the the revenues are the green line uh and the top red line is the projected expenditures. uh the uh the lines that are trending downward below are the fun ending um what we call fund balances or account balances in the general government that um decline as a result of expenditures for being forecasted to exceed revenues in in the in the future. The red dash line represents the council's policy as to how much uh of these resources or savings fund balance that we should have on hand to meet unforeseen needs. So you can see that we quickly dip below the uh the uh council policy threshold for fund balance savings um quick if we do not address this structural deficit with some sort of a response either from a revenue or an expenditure side. And I would say that the expenditure side has been uh addressed uh for many many years now. In fact, um I I was uh surprised, I'll say, to find that the city currently spends less on its parks and recreation and and sort of quality of life kind of amenities, library services, administration, then to today in the 2026 budget than it did 10 years ago. So, we're we're currently spending less on a real dollar amount without taking inflation into account uh on those kinds of nice to have amenities in the community just because these deficits have been addressed uh from an expenditure

perspective and and uh we're kind of at the end of the ability to address these from an expenditure uh approach. In fact, I've heard many council members express interest in re being able to restore some of those foregone amenities that that have been a result of expenditure reductions and u and so therefore the uh the alternative at this point is to look at re revenue alternatives. On the next slide, we actually characterize the what the deficit looks like by itself in a on a going forward basis. that first year illustrated is the 2027 deficit and again as illustrated in the budget which is uh the assumptions are well documented. So anybody who's interested in looking at kind of what we're using to think our way forward in terms of these forecasts is welcome to look at the budget and see that in 2027 we're we're forecasting a 15 plus million dollar deficit. And of course with that being the case then deficits in future years continue to grow from there. As we saw in the previous slide, the lines continue to diverge. So once we begin to address the deficit in 2027, that will improve this picture on a going forward basis. Each year will be better than is illustrated here by whatever action the council is able to take to address the deficit in 2027. So, so this is the uh this issue that's before us uh today is uh how do we change the trajectory of future uh budgetary forecasts that enable the city just to continue to provide the service that is providing today. Not to enhance service, not to add um you know increases to some of the things that have been foregone in the past, but just to keep doing what we're doing today. That's exactly what we're talking about. So on the next slide, we we see that um the the uh the approach that we're recommending is consistent by the way

with everything we've said up to this point both at the retreat and at the previous budget committee meeting of the council. There's no change in the recommendation. And that is that while the city has had what it's called a payment in le of tax on its utilities uh initiated in 1983 at a rate of 6%. We're recommending instead that uh that we replace that with what's known as a business and occupation or utility tax. um that would as indicated earlier continue to support these general government needs that that enable the utility to thrive and provide service that it does throughout the community and even beyond. As you know uh the city is in the business not only of providing utilities to its own residents but also uh to much of the region uh especially through its water systems. So while utility rates are directly related to providing for the cost of providing water and sewer infrastructure and uh and the uh day-to-day operations of the utilities themselves, this is a utility tax on the utilities total gross revenues that would be paid to the general government and help offset those costs that are associated with supporting the ability for the utility to thrive as as it does in any other business in in the community. And just to reiterate, this is in lie of any other taxes that are available. There are no other taxes that the city would impose. Uh there are a few minor state taxes that the state imposes on the city's utilities, but for the most part, the city uh is only able to utilize utility tax to provide for resources to support the utility as it conducts business throughout the city. The to reiterate this would be a net

increase of 6% uh replacing the 6% payment of L of tax. pilot is a acronym for pay payment and lo tax and we are recharacterizing this as a water sewer utility tax and u and so the 12% rate would be a net of 6% increase and uh the utility tax is a much more established approach across the state there there's only one other entity that we know of that even continues to utilize the payment and l of tax so we're modernizing our approach uh to be consistent with other communities around the state. We anticipate this would generate around um 7.5 million between 7 and $8 million. Again, these resources would be uh dedicated to the general fund and uh and that general fund is the same uh account of the city that we've been talking about that has a structural deficit. So, if the structural deficit is 15 million plus dollars, then 7.5 million would be approximately half of that deficit. And uh so therefore that's the reason uh in large part why we've recommended the rate uh of increase that we have recommended. Also we believe it's pretty consistent and actually modest in comparison to the communities that surround Lynwood. Uh they are faced with many of the same challenges that the city of I'm sorry of Everett. they they're faced with the many of the same challenges that the city of Everett is facing and as a result have in the past already begun increasing their utility tax rates um in in uh in recent years. So here is that illustration of comparison uh and you can see they range anywhere from 8% currently ever is at the very lowest at six but beyond that at 8% all the way up to to 21% uh if you go across the eastern Washington and I will tell you from experience that in

fact there are other eastern Washington communities that have much higher rates than 21%. But um but in terms of the Puget Sound uh comparable cities, since cities have few alternatives, uh cities as a as a rule of state law can only implement those uh tax measures and fee measures that are specifically permitted by state law. Uh so there are very very few alternatives and this is one of the ones that the city has some control over and as a result many of our neighbors have taken advantage of that ability to make these adjustments and have already increase their utility taxes in some cases for quite some time and in some cases just recently certain certainly some of your neighbors to the south have just recently increased their utility taxes to address some of the same issues we're talking about here this evening that the city of Erit needs to address. So, so, uh, so the Everate is, uh, is looking at this as basically, uh, uh, trying to address the structural deficit, but also doing it in a way that's consistent with what we're seeing, you know, not only across the Ptown region, but across the state. And, uh, with that, if there's specific questions with respect to the utility tax, I'd be glad to answer those. I know that Ryan has some comments about how the tax would impact utility rates and uh that would be next.

Any questions from council at this time? Okay. No. Oh, council we so with this um proposed increase, has there been consideration for utilities to re-evaluate the um the programs for assistance for lowincome or for our seniors and fixed income? uh individuals with disabilities and uh the rate changes they get. Yeah, that's an excellent question. I know Ryan is anticipating being able to address that. Uh so, thank you for bringing that question.

Any other questions? Okay, seeing none, thank you very much. Um we'll go to item number 11, Council Bill 2605-26. First reading, adopt an ordinance amending efforts established utility rates for 2025 through 2028 operating years. Third and final reading will be May 27th, 2026. Our next presentation, we're ready.

Good evening. Ryan Sass with Public Works and Utilities. I also have with me Sean Bridge, our finance and support services superintendent. Uh, I guess I'd like to start by answering your question. So, uh, currently we have two rate assistance programs. We have the Ever Water Utility Lowinccome Assistance Program. This program uh assists customers who have received a shut off notice and who are at or below the 200% of the federal poverty income level. Our second program uh is discounted rates for seniors and people with disabilities. That's uh incomebased and is uh included in the Ever Municipal Code. Um given the uh proposed rate increase, uh yes, our finance staff would be happy to take a look at our current programs and come back next week with additional ideas of what we can do to increase our assistance

on that because looking at this, it um it looks like for seniors or dis disabled individuals, they have to own the home. Um, is there can you look at what it would what that would um what the impact would be if it was also applied to those that are renting that are um paying those utilities themselves as opposed to a landlord paying them. Certainly take a look at that. Thanks.

Okay. Um before I get started, I would like to briefly address our transitional 40-day bill reads. Uh the recent increase in customer utility bills is due to a shift to monthly meter reads rather than every other month. This is a necessary change. Uh the utility used a three bridge cycles of 40 days each instead of 30 to catch the billing cycle up to the new meter reading cycle. Um the increase is due to the additional days the additional 10 plus days being build along with the fact that we're in 2026 rates now. When complete the bills will be more predictable leaks will be able to be identified sooner and bills will be for the immediate prior month of service. Unfortunately, this has had a substantial impact on our customers and I take responsibility for the challenges that this transition has presented for our rateayers and customers. The increase is temporary and customers should see a substantial reduction in the range of 20 30% in their monthly bills starting in late June, early July. All right, with that, I'd like to uh got ahead of myself here. Okay, I'd like to have ask council members now to put on your metaphysical hats as utility commissioners because you are as council members are utility commissioners. Um, Everett's Water and Sewer Utility provides outstanding water and sewer service at an excellent value. Utility rates protect public health and protect our forever infrastructure.

And by that I mean critical infrastructure that is intended to serve in perpetuity with appropriate maintenance and replacement cycles. The utility reduces the risk of system failures through system maintenance and capital reinvestment. Replacement cycles lower the risk of service disruptions and help avoid the higher cost of replacement if left until system failure. The work of the utility improves water quality, responds to regulatory requirements, and protects the environment. Okay, with that I want to provide a little background on our current rate structure and uh how we incorporate uh the utility tax. So uh starting with some background information, we're nearing the midpoint of our current four-year rate ordinance that established our rates for 2025 through 2028. It's common for the utility to make midterm rate adjustments that may be needed to reflect changes in our cost of delivering service. In our current 25 to 2028 rate window, non-discretionary capital projects and historic return to an inflationary environment largely determined our four-year rate structure. These non-discretionary capital projects fall into two general categories. regulatory required projects which we are mandated to do and replacing of aging infrastructure. First on the regulatory required projects and this is somewhat of a review of our current for your rate structure. The utilities required by an agreed order with department of ecology to reduce or eliminate combined sewer overflows or csos to one per year per outfall or less.

The Port Gardener Storage Facility or PGSF will repurpose and reuse the former Kimberly Clark wastewater treatment plant. This acquisition by the utility in 2018 is saving our rateayers millions by reducing the cost to build the storage needed for the PGSF facility program. The 36th Street combined sewer cso control project is similar smaller storage that will reduce CSOS to the Snomish River. Together with supporting pipeline conveyance projects, this program will meet the mandated requirements and result in water quality improvements to the nearshore and the Snomish River.

Thank you. Quick question on since we're on this subject. Um, you've said it before. I think it was important. Um, I really want to emphasize this opportunity to buy that Kimberly Clark facility. I mean, what was the approximate savings? Uh, we haven't calculated, but you can imagine it would be many millions of dollars to build the kind of structures for that kind of storage. And then you'd mentioned um we are close to meeting the Rick State um requirements. Yeah, we our program is intended to meet the requirements by the end of 2027. Is that we're pretty much ahead of most cities at this point, aren't we?

We are ahead of the other city that still has a major cso compliance issue is Seattle and we're well ahead of where they are. Thank you.

Um the other non-discretionary uh project type is replacement of aging infrastructure. Reservoir 3 was originally built over 100 years ago. And yes, that's a real photo of it being built with a uh muled drawn grading tool. I love that picture. I don't have any of those in our equipment inventory, though. Um, reservoir 3 replacement phase one is now complete with phase two to follow in the next two coming years. Water filtration plant phase two is the first major upgrade to our 40-year-old water filtration plant and that is also substantially complete. So, we're making progress on our mandatory capital projects and our aging infrastructure replacements. When the costs of providing water and sewer service increase, rates must be adjusted accordingly to cover those costs. This midterm adjustment is needed to recover the costs of the water and sewer utility tax increase and a small increase in filtration. We will need to increase rates commenurate with the change from a 6% pilot to a 12% utility tax. This is an increased cost on the business of the utility to provide water and sewer service. We're also requesting a $1 increase to the base filtration rate, which will enable us to retire outstanding filtration debt early in 2026, 2027, and 2028. Retiring this debt early is good business. It will save financing costs and reduce or eliminate the need for additional

filtration rate increases. This will also provide a needed increase in our available bonding capacity. With the amended rates, the typical residential customer will see a base monthly increase of about $12 per month in 2026, about $13 per month in 2027, and about $14 per month in 2028. This slide represents the combined monthly utility rates, water, sewer, and surface water for a typical residential service using the base amount of water. Our proposed rate adjustment is scheduled to take effect in August of 2026. Our current rate ordinance is shown in blue, and that represents our current rate ordinance under the current four-year ordinance. It includes increases of about 10% in 2027 and 2028 to cover the costs of service including the required major capital projects we discussed. The amended ordinance is shown in green adds an increase in rates in August 2026 by about $12 a month. Rates in 2027 and 2028 will increase at the same rate as the existing ordinance. This slide shows how our utility rates compare with other cities and providers. Seattle and Tacoma are very comparable to us in that they are both large regional utilities and both wholesale providers like Everett. Seattle is also a good comp for us when looking at the sewer and surface water side and that they are also under a combined sewer overflow reduction

elimination mandate. And so you'll see that our costs are largely being driven currently on the wastewater and storm water side. And our costs and Seattle's cost will be affected by our current need to comply with the mandated uh compliance under agreed order. Our schedule, the proposed implementation includes a second reading and public hearing next week, followed by final reading and action on May 27th. The rate increase would go into effect August 1st and begin to be reflected on bills due in September. This concludes our presentation and we're happy to take questions.

Great. Thank you, Council Ry.

Great. Thank you. Uh, thank you, Council Member Weir, for bringing up uh considerations for our low-income and fixed uh income residents. Um, I support that 100%. Um, I would request a re-evaluation of what metric is used because you mentioned the uh it's 200% of the federal poverty level. Um, I for one don't really like being on the same judgment scale as the rest of the country. I think we're pretty special here. So maybe if it could be uh I'm not suggesting that it needs to be changed, but maybe just looking at what other um uh to maybe align with what other city programs are out there for alleviation of bills or support for the community like maybe CHIP uses local AMI or some other unit of measurement. If we align with that, I think that might be helpful just for continuity sake or whatnot. So just a suggestion there. uh and also support uh council wears uh mentioned about support for renters as well. I think that's a absolutely critical component. Um I was curious about the $1 per month uh base filtration rate. Is that is it a dollar per month or um and then I curious if there uh if that amount would need to be adjusted to make up for considerations for our lowincome neighbors. So, if we were hoping to meet a certain dollar amount with the proposal that's before us today, but we um a proposal comes back for forgiveness for low income, does that need to be offset by a change in the $1 per month

filtration rate? It wouldn't be offset by the $1 infiltration, but it would be an offset toward their total utility bill each month. I was thinking more about the total dollar that um the that staff was hoping to meet in order to pay off debt sooner and meet some of the other metrics that you had mentioned. Um so I guess I wouldn't want to fall behind on the uh financial goals of uh this measure. Um so just maybe just making that mention out loud. Yeah. Thank you.

Oh, Sean looks like he's ready to You ready? Yeah. No. Um you know, we um when when we have a project and it's one of those large capital reinvestment type of projects, um what you end up with is really, you know, a bunch of long-term debt. And we're in such a a key spot to retire some of that debt. Um our Clearwell number two project of the filter plant, which is really was our last major project taking place between 2006 and 2010, and it was it was really heavily debt funded, and a lot of that debt's coming to maturity. So, as Ryan and I looked at this, I thought, boy, if we could get $1 now, that will almost I want to say 100% certain, you know, I don't want to overpromise and underdel, but I think what that'll end up doing at the rate at at the end of this rate window is that will largely take a ton of the pressure off of filtration such that it won't need a rate increase out in those future years. And it's balancing, you know, we our customers look at our entire utility bill, but you know, we have to balance on each of our service areas individually. And so by not having to increase filtration because we're able to retire that debt in the 226 27 28 operating year, I don't think you're going to end up seeing a rate increase in filtration. So if we do have to go up to fund those you know regulatory required projects as part of our cso reduction we won't have to add pass additional burden onto our rate payers onto our customers because filtration won't have that necessary for increase.

Right. And if I may, um I I would just say council member Weir, I appreciate your interest in making sure that the utility meets its total revenue uh need in order to address the issues that it's working to address. And we will certainly take uh that into consideration as we look at alternatives to address uh the needs of those who have a harder time paying their utility bills. I appreciate you bringing it up. Thanks. Um, I guess to so with the suns setting of the debt, would that also mean a sunsetting of the $1 per month fee? That that fee will stay flat.

No, but it won't increase. Okay. It really is to prevent the need for a substantial increase in filtration in the next rate period. Understood. Great. Thank you,

Council. Uh yeah, thank you for uh that all this information. Um I do have a question. It seemed to me um we had a pretty large rate increase in for 2025 and I can't remember what that was. I would like to go back and see what our rates were in 2024 so that we can you know our rate payers don't look at whether it's a utility tax or what it is. They just see the bottom line. And so for them they're just seeing increase after increase after increase. So, I just wanted to kind of get a full picture of where we've gone since 2024 would be great. And um and I did have that question about when we do retire debt, do our bills ever go down? And I'm I'm guessing no, but um you know, people might want to know that too. So,

yeah, I can easily provide you that rate history. Perfect. Thank you, Council Bader. Thanks, Mr. President. I'm not sure if this is for Mike Ryan. If we look I think I'm looking at slide 17 here, Ryan. Um, so if I tell me if I don't understand this correctly, but what what of that $11.74 increase for 2026, maybe more accurately, I think the $12.94 increase for 2027 under the proposed ordinance. How how much of that is it would be attributable to the utility tax essentially going up uh from 6% to 12%.

So so that 1174 you see there all but a dollar of that is utility tax and then that's the $1 of filtration. Okay. So so you haven't had to increase uh any of this because of ant unanticipated costs or increases in the projects we those non-discretionary projects. No no increase due to that. Okay. Correct.

Gotcha. Okay. Good. Thanks that question. And and I I guess you know for for me I I mean obviously I don't like seeing my utility taxes increased either. Um and certainly we've been hearing from uh public comment at least via email about that. Um but given what we're talking about this the $7.5 million uh um ability to u uh cover our deficit. I guess if I if if constituents aren't wanting to go this route, I need to know from them where they suggest in the city general fund budget, they suggest we cut $7.5 million worth of uh expenses. Um uh and uh certainly obviously as Mike talked about our you know where we've been expense wise um you know I don't need to know where to cut 750,000. and they need to know where you want us to cut 7.5 million. I think Mike on the website um you put some good information there and obviously our budget's always there but I think there's some additional information you shared with us at the retreat that is also there and maybe some other information as well that would show constituents uh where which departments have seen the biggest increases over the last decade or so uh maybe even uh how revenue has grown or not grown over the last by segment as well. So, I would direct our constituents to that as they uh write to us or give input to us about the potential of this uh utility tax increase. So, thanks for letting me ask that question.

And Council Chu, I was quick to call on Council Bader. Did you have anything more? I just wanted to make sure that you were No, I just want to take a look at that.

Okay. Thank you very much for that. Um, Council Member Zamingo. Uh well, several things in no particular order. I guess with respect to following up on council member Baders, uh as I understand it, we actually are doing well um as Mike Bailey had said, the we're spending less on parks than we were a decade ago. And I see that think we're doing more with fewer staff. The the staff con the staff count per capita uh per resident in Ever is down. Um, and so I join with council member Bader in saying that we are already and have been doing a whole lot of cutting over years, even preceding my time here on council. So I am especially interested, as I've said a few times in the past, in people in comment about what they would like to trade off because trade-offs is where we are a mode we're very deeply in right now. So that's helpful to me in terms of choices like this. Um, one thing that I've been trying to make sure I clarify with um, those who questioned in the billing transition that you mentioned at the beginning, I haven't I'm not sure we've explained it as well as we should. So, let me try a short version and you can tell me if I'm wrong. We have always build monthly, but we have read meters every two months. We are switching to a situation where we will be billing monthly and be reading the meters monthly. And the transition between those two is where we will for several billing cycles do bills um covering 40 days rather than 30.

Excellent. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Uh let's see. Uh one thing I think that we are doing with respect to reservoir replacements is of the two reservoirs being replaced there, one of which is pretty much now done. One of those projects is done uh without a PLA and another one we're going to do as a PLA. And then there those and two other projects we will look at how our delivery experiences and management experiences with and without the PLA and use that to inform our future project decisions. Yeah, it's really an excellent opportunity for us when we have projects that are similar in nature to have that comparison. So we're excited to learn as we go through that.

Okay. And then one last point I think again the kind of thing that can get lost is the um uh these utility taxes that are going to be impacting our rates uh those will also be paid by non-Everit wholesale water customers for uh for for our water. Correct. I was going to ask a question about that too. What percentage like you said it's going to generate 7 and a.5 million. What's how much of that is going to be paid by non residents use var wholesalers? Okay.

I'm sorry. Um I I think I know that in terms of where our revenue comes from in terms of inside and outside, but I'd like to do a little more analysis and make sure the answer I give you is correct. Okay. We'll get you a precise answer. Yeah. Good. But if I may, nope. If to council member Silingo's point, uh the utility tax is a tax on the total utility itself. So it's encompassing all the revenues that are related to the utility work, the water and sewer and surface water utility work of the city. So it would be inclusive of the of the rateayers that are part of the larger system. You

got it. Thank you. That's clear. Great. Thank you. And um I had one more question. This might be for the mayor or Jennifer. Um when we're looking on slide 18 and we're making comparison to the other cities, which I really appreciate. Um it's good to see that we're towards the the lower end of the rate of the comparison. Um I was wondering how other cities how they're approaching this tax. Are they still planning to increase theirs? And I believe Edmonds just went through a big increase. Um they did. Yeah.

Yeah. And these are the the rates. There's also the earlier slide that with the table that has the um water sewer utility taxes. That's what I think that's what Edmonds increased recently. Um yeah. So the if you go back to the tax slide, but yeah,

I don't know if any I mean they wouldn't have really started their budget development, right? But they all face the same pressures that we do. um Edmond kind of made that big leap there to solve a really big challenge that they have. I'm sure going forward this remains a tool that they could consider just like all the other cities on here. And note that it's got the like we put them in order of the like water and sewer percent because that's those are sort of mostly consistent and then the storm water um tax rates a little bit different on a couple cities. That's why you see some variation across the table there.

I'll just say they they all operate the same. you raise the utility tax and they each utility has to raise the rate accordingly because that's how utilities are funded. They're funded with rate payers and so when when they get increased costs like any business that that cost gets passed on to consumers and and so the each each of those cities has adjusted rates uh accordingly. Um they're all slightly different depending on the city. Um but we still kind of remain at the the bottom of the pack.

Again, I think that's the key point. We're talking to our constituents that um Everett has a long history of being um economically prudent and I'd like to continue that trend. So, thank you for the staff for that. Even though rates are going up, it's still nice to know that we're still not the highest or close to council members.

One more point. I guess the the discussion going back for several years when we were talking about um rate increases and costs and I um and having toured the um gardener storage facility uh it is a colossal thing. I'm glad that was already in place on 8 million gallons of big concrete tanks. I'm glad we didn't have to build that from the start. But part of our discussions before in terms of uh well originally the 1% state limit on our tax rates um but also then comparing that to inflation over those same times something closer to 2 and a half or a little more percent. I think you had in the past talked about the rate the inflation rate for construction of the kind that you do there is an index for that. Um can you give a general comparison of that rate to say the consumer price index?

Yeah. Yeah. In fact, that was a a slide in our four-year rate presentation a couple years ago, and I'd be happy to kind of update that and send it to you. But generally speaking, the uh the inflation rate for construction tends to be more stairstepped and less linear. And so you'll see resistance to inflation for a long amount of time and then big spikes to a new level. And in 2022 alone, there was a 21% increase in inflation to construction projects. And I think it was like 38% over the four years from 24 uh from 20 the last year of our previous rate ordinance to 24 when we started the next ordinance. I think now we're probably in the range of close to 50 between uh our last rate ordinance and where we are now.

Okay. Because I've heard a lot about the difficulties of supply chains and material expenses and also about the difficulty in getting skilled trades uh the the resources we need to actually boots on the ground to build this sort of thing. So it sounds like those kinds of factors have all kind of leaned in the same direction to create some fairly large um cost increases. Okay, Kather.

Um, Ryan, I have one other question or um request. Um, when we when you come back with the assistance um payment um plan or whatever we're going to be looking at, it would be nice to also if we could compare our median income with the other cities that we're looking at with um with all their rates, that would be great. Thank you. Thank you for that. Coun Ryan,

I was at Costco rec or a big box store that rhymes with Moscow uh recently and uh on the way out a salesperson was like, "Hey, where do you get your water from?" And they were with a a water water bottle company and I said, "From the award-winning City of Everett water system." So, a point that I want to make is um how lucky we are in Everett to have literally a multi-year, multi-awward-winning water system that we benefit from every single day. And it's projects like we saw earlier that that keep it um healthy and safe for everybody in the city. So, I just want to give a shout out to that. Thanks.

Okay. Thank you for that. All right. Um with no further business, thank you for the presentation. We will be going to executive session for 10 minutes with potential action to follow.

Okay, welcome back from our our executive session has now ended. Um, I'm going to refer to our city attorney, David Hall, for a potential motion.

Thank you, council president. We are asking for a motion to authorize the uh filing the initiation of five separate lawsuits against five properties on Lombard Avenue. These properties have been um out of compliance with many codes for years. Uh we have tried to give relief to the neighbors with every administrative tool at our disposal and they have resisted compliance and so now we are taking uh would like to take the next step of um enforcing the code requirements in superior court. Uh those five properties that would be the subject of these five lawsuits are located at 3218 Lombard Avenue. Um 3118, 3114, 3120, 3128. The first property is owned by Michael and Sonia Dah. The next four properties are owned by uh project S24 LLC.

Okay. Thank you. Clerk, do you have enough for the motion? Thank you. Do I have a motion? Council member Ryan moves approval of filing the five lawsuits. Second the motion. Motion and seconds made. Clerk, please take the role. Council member Weir, yes. Council member Zarlingo, yes. Vice President Ryan, yes. Council member Rabbano, yes. Council member Tui, yes. Council member Bader, yes. President Schwab, yes. And with no further business, we