City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Good evening everyone and welcome to the Kent City Council meeting for Tuesday, June 16th, 2026. If you could all please rise and join me in the flag salute.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

Kim, could you please call the roll?

Thank you.

Mayor Ralph?

Here. Council President Corr? Here. Council Member Boyce? Here. Council Member Boyd?

Here.

Council Member Larmer? Council Member Michaux? Here. Council Member Shoker?

Here.

Council Member Troutner? Here.

Thank you. Thank you. Are there any changes to the agenda?

No changes from staff, Your Honor.

Hearing no changes, a motion would be in order to approve the agenda as published. So move.

Second.

A motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries. Agenda stands as published. All right. Moving right into public communications. We have just a couple of items this evening. The first one, counsel, for your consideration on the consent calendar is the reappointment to the Kent Special Events Public Facilities District, the PFD, and bringing forward Randall Smith for reappointment. Aye. It was appointed back in 2024. Just as a reminder, the term limit conversation that you all have had in the decision do not apply to the PFD. It's set up by separate RCW. So that is on the agenda. And my hope is that you will approve it under consent this evening. That brings us straight into community events. Council President.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. We have Assessor Sherwood Center recently actually had graduation, so congratulations to all the graduates. On June 21st, there's an event happening for mothers and daughters of Punjabi cultural event, women's only. On June 27 is Parker McCollum and July 16 is Kent Chamber of Commerce Business Expo and South King County Employer's Summit. And you can get details on these events and buy tickets for any concerts at assessoshowercenter.com. Back to you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you. The other event that I want to highlight is our annual splash event. We are weird to say, but at the we're now at the end of nearly at the end of June and rolling into the 4th of July. So check out our social media for all of the details regarding the splash event at Lake Meridian Park as well as the fireworks show. So just want to put that on people's radar with a reminder also that fireworks outside of the fireworks show at Lake Meridian in the city of Kent are It's a good segue into our public safety report. Joining us this evening is Chief Padilla.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the City Council. It's my pleasure to bring you tonight's public safety report. Mayor, you stole some of my thunder. I almost feel like I don't have to do my annual begging and pleading about the 4th of July this year, but I'll cover that in a little more detail. But to start us off tonight, we do want to take a look at our crime stats. We're almost halfway through the year and so I figured it was time to update. Before diving into data, there are three things I want Mayor, for you and the Council to know in our community. First, the message is overall crime continues to trend downward. and remain significantly below the levels we experienced in 21 and 22. We'll look at some five-year trends here in a minute. Second, while most crime categories are improving, shootings and homicides are increasing and remain an area of concern. And then third, Our officers, detectives, and professional support staff and our community partners are aggressively at work trying to do prevention, intervention, and enforcement to keep our community safe. So those are some main messages there. So there are the numbers just in general for the major crime categories we measure. You see everything on the far right. I sure hope that's blurry for everybody else, because it's blurry for me. The column on the far right is all in the black and trending downward. This is a three-year trend that we're looking at. If you remember, we hit 2019 level lows in 2025, and we are still continuing downward from that. The one area, as I mentioned, are our shootings and homicides. We'll get into that in a little bit. Really hard to see, but as you look at the next few slides, the blue bars represent where the average five years would be for the last five years. The red trend line represents where Kent is in 2026. So if we're below any of the blue lines or above them, we're below or above five-year trends. On the left, we have vehicle thefts, which is interesting. We had 168 cars reported stolen for the first six months of this year so far. That is incredibly hard to get your bright brain around when you remember back in 2022, it was not uncommon for us to have 200 plus cars stolen in a month. Okay again, I can't reinforce how important those automatic license plate readers have been to taking and reducing this crime. You know, I think one of the talking points I wanted to cover is that, you know, I think a lot of times this gets dismissed as property crime. And I am always mindful that losing a vehicle is far more impactful for those living paycheck to paycheck. You know, it's a bad situation regardless. You're a victim of getting your car stolen. But when people are struggling to make ends meet, losing the car can be pretty devastating. So I don't want to underestimate how important that is for a lot of the victims. The chart on the right is also where we're barely touching the five-year average at the bottom. Those are our vehicle prowls. And just a reminder for those that may not know, Those are vehicle prowl is when someone breaks into your car and steal stuff, but doesn't take the car itself. And so good news there, we're still trending on the bottom of the five year trend. Next are our burglaries. On the left is the graph for residential burglaries. I get the question, what's the difference between a burglary and a robbery? A burglary is when someone breaks into a property and steal stuff. A robbery is when someone uses force, wherever you're at, to take stuff from you. And that's the difference. So these are burglaries. So residential burglaries are ones where your houses are being broken into. And we are trending below the five-year trend there. Commercial burglaries on the right are to our businesses and we are really low in the in the five year trends there. I'm really proud of that. What's exceptionally notable about our commercial burglaries is that we still have one of the biggest industrial footprints in the in the country. And for us to be trending low, there is really important beneficial to our economic development, sustainability of our businesses and whatnot. And then we have robberies. Again, these are incidents of theft where people take stuff by force. For most of the year, we're well below the trend lines. We dipped up a little in May. We don't have the full report for June just yet, but it's coming in. These are mostly convenience store robberies. There are some bank robberies in here, and there are some of what we call strong-arm robberies, which is where It's a crime of opportunity. They confront somebody and they take it by force, their cell phones, their wallet, that type of thing. That would be the category we're looking at here. Again, trending well. And then we have our shootings. And here's a bar graph. In terms of that, I don't have the other style graph for this data. This is what our analysts gave me. But if you look, it's hard to read. But the red lines, the red bars represent our homicides. Yellow are injuries from shootings. Green are when somebody's property got shut up and nobody was hurt. Blue is when we get reports of shots fired. Nothing was hit, but we find evidence that a shooting did occur. Usually that's in the form of spent casings left at the scene. And then, of course, our and so those are what the bars represent. If you look at the trend line, we are up somewhat from 2025. But are still below way below 2122 and 24. And then we have our homicides this. Is most concerning of the report tonight we are at 12 homicides this year. If you remember, we had eight homicides total in 2025. Breaking down what we have there, 50% of the homicides have occurred by shootings, 25 have occurred by stabbings. We have 50% of our cases are solved, if you notice there, and with 33 of the suspects already in custody and the remainder we are looking for and expect to have in custody soon. The remaining two cases there are active, and we are not in a position yet where the evidence allows us to identify someone as a suspect, but I do expect that to happen soon, or relatively soon, I should say. And I do expect, with the work that our detectives put in, that we will solve all, if not all, of these cases by year-end. We continue to be in the high 90 percentile in our clearance rates for homicides. It's unfortunate, you know, we don't have a lot of control on preventing these. We do our best, but we do respond to them very well. It begins with our patrol response and documenting the scene, and then our detectives get to work. They're really good at figuring out who did it. Wanted to add some data about whatever enforcement efforts have been. These are not all of our arrests. These are the top 20 categories of arrest. And as you see, there are some numbers there. They're not totals for the year. Again, these are just top 20 categories. Over 6,000 arrests, 2,500 charges. The average age of the person we arrest, the offender is 37. And we've had 49 juvenile case referrals. And we have 90 of these incidents involve people that are armed. It's very hard to read, I understand. But if you see that top line there, the top incident for arrest are warrant arrests. And these are the result of judges issuing warrants for people who have already committed crime or have been charged with a crime and failed to appear for court, those type of things. Assaults are our second biggest response. That includes a lot of our domestic violence incidents. Controlled substance for known possession. That's number three there. There is a lot of effort to deal with our open drug use, and so a lot of arrests being made there. And criminal trespass brings up number four, and the list goes down from there. What I like to point out in this graph that you see some of the higher levels of, I'll say, work production are proactive contacts by the police officers, not dispatch calls. And so that's a positive effort when we talk about our strategy. total cat incidents. Also, um, easier to read on my computer than that screen in front of me. Um, these cat incidents represent both 911 dispatch calls and self initiated activity by the officers. Again, they are not the complete data set. These are the top 30 incident types for our city thus far this year. If you look at the very top, that is a new thing. Traffic stops were not probably in the top five CAD incidents prior to the last couple of years. And you can clearly see there's been a lot of focus on DUI arrests and traffic stops, which is a good safety thing. Welfare checks, where it says well checks there in the second column from the left. That is our response to check in people are on house community members sleeping in places, people in crisis, things of that nature that still dominates a large portion of our workload. Follow up as it says there. These are responses to calls where we're getting additional information, things where we're following up and things of that nature on wanted subjects is the next category that also deals directly with our people who are trespassing. Overwhelmingly that are those are people at our businesses on House committee members that were being asked to leave. And then the trend line goes from there. That's one last thing. on this you know we still and are remain committed to a multi-faceted approach we do everything we can in terms of prevention with our programs for our youth board and our connections uh... the community passageways we do a ton of intervention with our youth gun violence initiative with project be free and with our fd cares co-responder program And those are important prongs. But it's also important to remember that an essential part of our strategy is enforcement of the law. It has to be all three components. And so we are loyal and committed to doing all three. That was a lot of information. So, Mayor, I'll pause there for questions.

Council Member Troutner, followed by Council Member Boyd.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Chief, if you go back to slide eight where you talk about enforcement efforts, is that this year?

Yes.

Okay. So if you look at soda order violations so far this year, we've had 69. Yes.

Yeah.

How does that compare to when we started that?

I don't know offhand, but I know it's, it's a lot.

So we're seeing improvement in that.

We're seeing consistent enforcement is what I would say. Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you, chief. For all the hard work you and your force does. Are you talking about. The control substance abuse arrest. And I got a question. Have you been seeing any overdoses having to deal with this new drug, unregulated drug called Kratom?

I am unaware of any specific incidents in Kent. I was at a regional meeting, and we were talking about both national and state trends. Right now, the East Coast, as is typical, is seeing the rise in that. I believe we have some reported incidents in this state, but for Kent, we haven't seen that just yet. I expect with like we saw with all the other drugs that made their way across the country. We will have that here in our city sometime in the near future.

So are we preparing a response for it? Because right now it's not considered a controlled substance because you could go to liquor stores now and buy it from over the counter and stuff. But if it does reach our city, how do you expect or how are we going to deal with this?

Well, we're going to respond and our first priority is going to be to try and save the person's life. We would like to have an antidote, so to speak, like we use Naloxone for fentanyl. I'm unaware of something that does the same thing, but if there is, we will pursue getting that and we will administer it. Short of that, our officers are well-versed and trained in life-saving efforts. They will do everything they can to provide medical aid. And we have incredible partnerships with our fire personnel and medics who will also come and do everything we can to save the person's life. But we do not have like a designated tool like Naloxone that we could administer that's more effective at this point than I'm aware of.

Okay.

OK, thank you for that information because because it's the trend now that I'm thinking that you know sooner or later it's going to hit our city, our County and our state because it's growing really fast. Yeah, OK, thank you.

Right, Council Member Boyce.

Thank you madam. Can you go back to enforcement? After page. So you've got to rest and it's been 69 and 70 at the charges. So let me have multiple charges for the rest. I would think maybe like a one-on-one type thing.

Great question. Some of those are multiple charges for a single offender. Some of those are where we have, um, We always refer the cases to our prosecutor's office, both King County and municipal, but there are several factors that dictate whether or not someone is ultimately booked and remained in jail. We have issues with our jail population and the numbers we have there. There are court rules and laws that dictate whether or not someone will be held. So that's the discrepancy there.

Thank you, sir.

Council Member Shoker.

Thank you. So when it comes to the shootings and homicides, we're seeing more in just June than we did last year in the entire year. Is that correct?

We are seeing more the first half of this year than we saw the entire year.

Do we know, like, why?

I have a point in here that I skipped over that says in terms of why I don't have evidence or data that explains why at this point. We are looking, you know, in years past we were able to look at some impacts regarding changes in laws or emergence of more drug or gang activity. Right now, that's not something that's being significantly reported to observe. So we're kind of at a loss for why. One of the interesting things to note about the data was that we saw a good percentage, almost half of those incidents were by means other than firearms. That is not usual. So we've got strangulation in there and we have stabbings and we have one assault, which is different than what we typically see.

And is this a trend that is like regional, national, not specific to Kent?

I think our numbers are similar around the board. I will say that specifically with homicides, we are higher than most cities.

Thank you.

Any other questions for the Chief? All right.

All right, thank you. And in line with what the mayor kind of queued up for me earlier, we want to talk about the 4th of July, a little bit about our staffing plan, America's 250th birthday, or I found this, the semi-quincentennial birthday. That's a long word. Anyway, first up for the community, we want everyone to celebrate safely and responsibility. There's my ass. There's my bag, my pleat. by choosing to attend an organized event like our 4th of July splash and complying with the fireworks ban, residents can help reduce injuries, fires, and unnecessary calls for emergency services. As a reminder, I can't say this enough, there is a fireworks ban in the city of Kent, and it is unlawful to sell, possess, or detonate fireworks in the city limits. As we have with every year, we've beefed up our staffing numbers. We freeze vacation. No one gets to go on vacation if you're in the patrol division. We have assigned firework emphasis teams out as well. in addition to a large contingent of officers on patrol and a large contingent of officers at Lake Meridian for the splash event. The 4th of July is one of our busiest days of the year. And so both fire and police and medics are extremely busy that day. One of the busiest for sure. We're asking that you please do not tie up 911 for non-emergency firework complaints. We would ask instead that you call the non-emergency line, which is 253-852-2121. Good, I remembered to put it up there. this year and so you can call that we will do our best to respond to fireworks complaint. But I have to be genuine every year the reality is we will not get to many of them. Even if we did nothing else but do fireworks complaints. If I took my contingent of officers and responded to nothing but fireworks complaints, we would not get to all of the complaints. That's how many we receive every time. So with that, we are encouraging everyone to go to a public show. And we think we have a fantastic option in our 4th of July splash at Lake Meridian. some details about the event is that the park opens for people to come in and shuttle buses start running at 3 p.m. There will not be any loading on loading unfortunately so you have to pack everything in and parking will be restricted for ADA compliance first responder parking and city staff and that will be it the parking lot is pretty small and it gets filled right away. So we have to limit it. and then live music food trucks and fun for the kids and families run from 5 to 10 p.m. the fireworks display is tentatively set at 10 p.m. when it gets dark. Once that is done the show usually lasts about 25 minutes the park will be cleared and we will shut down and lock the gates at midnight. So that's the order of events it has been a fantastic event for many years so we're hoping to see everyone turn out for that. Mayor Ralph, that concludes my report for this month, and I'll take any questions.

All right. Thank you, Chief. Council, any additional questions? All right. Appreciate the update. Thank you.

Thank you.

The next item on the agenda is reports. So all of our council members are engaged not only at our council meetings on the 1st and 2nd. Sounds like there's a train coming. One more time. It's all good. So that was few. I'm interrupting our normally scheduled reports to announce to you that we officially have a whiteboard designation. There it is. Super high. We got word last night, Rob got an email, hold it up there, that after many, many, many years, we are there. So I'm going to sit down so this can get on the mic. Thank you, Kevin. We got the official email from the Federal Rail Administration yesterday. So the 60-day period will begin. We can establish our quiet zone starting on the 24th of August. So we'll be figuring out when we can hold an event sometime. The hope is sometime that week. We'll be providing all the notification to all of the traffic on the Burlington Northern. So a reminder that this is the Burlington Northern, all crossings within the city limits, not the UP. We are beyond excited. Huge shout out to Rob Brown and his entire team, Public Works. And then the final push came from Senator Murray's office. She- got us over the line with the documents that were sitting waiting to be signed. So, um, some of you will, will appreciate this. I, I did call council member Higgins, um, former council member Higgins this morning, right after I found out, and he is over the moon. So, um, yes. So, uh, we are really, really excited. This is going to make such a significant difference in the quality of life for our downtown residents. Um, I will tell you, we were at a drinks in the driveway event in North park and, there were there were periods in between uh trains were maybe one or two sentences and we had to stop because of that train traffic so um thank you all for your support for so long for getting this done um you know it's been a huge lift and we could not be more pleased that it is finally a reality in the city of kent so Um, so with that, um, that is, I will leave my report there, um, because I don't know how we top the quiet zone. So, uh, Pat, I'm going to turn it over to you.

Yeah. Real quick shout out to public works for all the hard work there. And thanks to Kyle who made some calls, uh, to get this finally over the finish line. So thanks to staff. And I'm going to refer to my report that is in the agenda packet.

All right.

Council president. Thank you, Madam Mayor. And congratulations to our team for getting this done, Public Works and Rob Brown. We earlier had a council workshop, and we had a presentation from our Port of Seattle partners. And they were here to share and notify the public about public comment period on the SEPA for the Sustainable Airport Master Plan. And their public comment period is open until July 21st. And our community members can find the plan on the website and email at assamp at portseattle.org. All that information is available in our council workshop or in presentation earlier on YouTube and on our city Facebook page. With that, I'm going to go ahead and get started on my right here, Council Member Troutner.

Thank you, Council President. I set in on the Public Issues Committee meeting on June 10th for Councilmember Boyce. And during that meeting, we talked about the vacancies that are still available on the SCA. We also talked about the King County Flood Waste Division is proposing a re-increase in 2027 and SEA is putting together a response letter. So there'll be more discussion on that and I will let Councilmember Boyce bring those back to this group for discussion. SEA also presented responses to a survey that was done on the 2025 flood response. They highlighted some of the things that went well and obviously some of the things that we can improve on with an event like that in the future. So that was a great conversation. I also sit on the Regional Transit Committee. We have a meeting tomorrow. It is a packed agenda. I will report on that next time. And the RFA meets tomorrow evening. And that is all I have. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Troutner. Council Member Boyd.

Thank you, Council President. I have nothing to report out today. But what I do have to report on will be in our newsletter that will come out tomorrow evening.

Thank you, Council Member Boyd. Council Member Boyce.

Council Member Trout, thank you for the last minute pinch hitting for me. I had to go to my grandson's championship game and they won, so thank you very much. But I would say on the solid waste rate, so they've proposed an 8.5% increase up until now, 2032 we just come with about 63 right so kyle i think we need to have it to june 26 to kind of put our letter in place so we'll work with you to kind of put our letter in place and i think that will go to the board for honestly so but i think we're walking down a slippery slope but we have to do something so That's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Boyce. Council Member Michel. Thank you so much, Madam President. I have been to a bunch of events, so there's a lot of pictures in the council newsletter. The mayor gave a nice speech at the state of the county address. Learned about some projects that are happening here in Kent in conjunction with the county. Let's see, human services. We have our second grant meeting this week on Thursday, and we will be narrowing down the list of grants even further. We have our yeses and maybes, but we still need to narrow it down, so a lot of work. happening on Thursday. And then I just want to say Happy Father's Day to my fellow council members, Council Member Boyce and Council Member Boyd and Pat as well. And who else is here? The Chief and Chad. Happy Father's Day and to the spouses.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Shoker.

Thank you. I was recently appointed to serve on the Sound Cities Association's Equity Inclusion Cabinet, where I'll work alongside elected leaders from across the region to help advance diversity, equity, and inclusion. And our first meeting is this Thursday.

Awesome. Thank you, Council Member Shoker. And as my colleagues mentioned, council newsletter comes out tomorrow. It will have all of the events that we have attended in the last couple of weeks and all the meeting notes that they have. So with that, back to you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you. Before we move on, I do want to highlight that this afternoon at 3.30, we presented a proclamation to Kent Black Action Commission, Gwen Allen Karsten, and raised the Juneteenth flag out in the plaza. So, nice turnout. Appreciate all the work that's being done. And there is, again this year, at Morrill Meadows Park, beginning at 10 a.m. on Saturday, a Juneteenth event put on by KBAC. So... Hopefully I will see all of you there. Awesome We're gonna move on we do not have a public hearing this evening. The next item is public comment Kim Do we have anyone signed up for public comment?

Yes, we do. We have one person Okay, we have Karen Lisi

So just a few reminders, go ahead and come on up. The public comment period is your opportunity to speak to the council and mayor on issues that relate to the city of Kent or agenda items council will consider. This is not an open public forum and comments that do not relate to the business of the city of Kent. are not allowed. And additionally, the state of Washington strictly prohibits people from using public comment to comment on political campaign purposes or oppose or support a ballot measure or any candidate for office. We do have a three-minute timer. And if you could state your name and city of residence for the record, please.

My name is Karen Lisey. I live in Kent. I actually live in the Lakes, which is pertinent. I hadn't planned to speak, but then hearing the chief's report reminded me it's summer and car racing is back. And they move. So I mean, in the past, I've reported it through the public online comments, but they move. And so you report one location there at another location. So it's just a reminder that they're here. Yay. And they're very, very loud. And it's much worse than any train horn. I can tell you that. So that's all. I just wanted to remind you that the racing cars are back and we're not happy about it. Thank you.

There is no one else signed up to speak.

All right. Thank you, Kim. Item number eight is our consent calendar. This evening we have items A through N. This is a compilation of items council has heard both at workshop and committee of the whole. Had an opportunity to receive presentations, have conversation, get questions answered. These items have passed out of committee of the whole without controversy. Again, Items A through N and a motion would be in order. So move.

Second.

A motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries 6-0. The consent calendar is passed. We do not have any other business this evening. That brings us down to item number 10, which is bids. We have the Mill Creek Establishment, 76th Avenue South to North of South to North 76th Avenue South. to north of South 212th Street and 76th Avenue South. Large storm paint pipe maintenance. Chad, that is I'm sorry. Yes, joining us this evening is Chad Baron, our public works director.

Let me explain that strange title for a second. We're actually very excited about this for having such a long title. It's a pretty neat project. We were planning on adding some access points to our major storm pipe that runs just to the west of 76th Avenue between 228th and Mill Creek. This is just south of the area we just rebuilt on 76th Avenue, just south of Blue Origin there. We wanted to get that done this summer, get the pipe cleaned out and get some new access points. Staff was also working feverishly to get a permit to clean out an additional area of Mill Creek that's just downstream of the brand new roadway on 76th. So we didn't think we'd get it. We got the permit. So we actually pulled the ad and re-advertised and put the project together as one big project. So This is the next big section of Mill Creek. We'll have it cleaned out by the end of summer. So very excited about that. Another shot in the arm with regard to keeping water moving through the valley and keeping things out of the flooded areas. So also a very good bidding climate right now. So we advertised and got nine bids. A low bid was from Janssen Inc. out of Bellingham for just under $2 million on an engineer's estimate of $2.167 million, and we recommend a war. All right.

Council, any questions for Chad? So much work has happened in that area. It has been such a significant improvement. Cannot be more grateful. A motion would be in order to accept. I am not reading that title. One more time.

I move to award the Mill Creek Reestablishment 76th Avenue South to North of South 12th Street and 76th Avenue South Large Storm Pipe Maintenance Project to Jansen Incorporated and authorize the mayor to sign all necessary documents subject to final terms and conditions acceptable to the city attorney and public works director.

Second. Got a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 6-0. Thank you. All right, we do not have an executive session this evening, so that brings us down to the bottom of the agenda. Again, I want to say a huge thank you to everyone involved. Rob Brown, the entire Public Works team, Kyle, Senator Murray, we have a quiet zone in Kent, you guys. This is This is really big news, pretty excited about it. So I might as well end on that high note. With that, we are adjourned.