City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the Kent City Council meeting for July 7th, 2026. If you would all please rise and join me in the flag salute. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right. Kim, could you please call the roll? Yes. Mayor Ralph. Here. Council President Kaur. Council Member Boyce.

Here.

Council Member Boyd.

Here.

Council Member Larmer. Here. Council Member Michaud. Here. Council Member Shoker. Here. Council Member Troutner.

Here. Thank you. Thank you, Kim. Item number three is approval of the agenda. Are there any changes?

No changes from staff, Your Honor.

Seeing none, a motion would be in order to approve the agenda as published.

So moved.

Second.

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

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries 6-0, and the agenda stands as published. We will move right into public communications, starting out with public recognition. We have several items on the agenda this evening. The first one is our July 2026 Employee of the Month. So every month here at the City of Kent employees get together and there's a nomination process to nominate one of their co-workers to be our Employee of the Month. The person that is nominated and ultimately chosen as the Employee of the Month consistently exemplifies the mission, vision, values, and goals here at the City of Kent and has has earned the the trust and respect of their co-workers i am very very pleased to announce that our july 2026 employee of the month is chris ward joining us here this evening chris was first hired by the city of kent on june 1st 1994 as a corrections officer He was promoted into his current position as a corrections sergeant on June 1st, 2021. That date's important. I'm going to tell a little bit of his story and we'll get right back to that. This position is the first line supervisor of the corrections officer in the performance of their duties. This position supervisors activities on an assigned work shift within the corrections facilities and those activities will include but are not limited to implementation of division policies to ensure the safety, security, control, and well-being of inmates and the preservation of the rights of the incarcerated. Work is normally performed in accordance with established plans, policies, and procedures, and with considerable judgment and latitude required in addressing emergency situations and directing assigned correction officers. Chris was nominated because he has been a valued employee of the City of Kent Corrections Facility for nearly 30 years. Throughout his employment, he has consistently demonstrated a positive, can-do attitude and regularly goes above and beyond to support his coworkers and fellow employees. He was first promoted to the corrections sergeant in 2017. During the COVID-19 pandemic, due to layoffs, budget cuts, and position restructuring at the City of Kent corrections facility and citywide, Chris was returned to the position of a corrections officer from a sergeant. Despite this difficult situation, he maintained his positive attitude and continued to demonstrate professionalism and dedication. In 2021, he was again promoted to corrections sergeant. Working in one of the most challenging environments within the city of Kent, Chris continually seeks ways to make the workplace more positive and supported for those around him. His professionalism and commitment to duty truly exemplify what it means to be a city of Kent corrections facility employee. Chris's professionalism and dedication make him an invaluable asset to the corrections facility, the police department, and the city of Kent as a whole. He continuously embraces our values, and we celebrate Chris Ward as our July Employee of the Month. Chris, thank you so much, and thanks for being here tonight. We very much appreciate you and how you show up every single day to support your coworkers, to support those that are in our jail and the city of Kent as a whole. So thank you very, very much. been told no. Never want to put people on the spot. All right, we are going to move on to our next two items of public recognition. The first one is our proclamation for Parks and Recreation Month. Joining us tonight is our parks director, Julie Periscandola. I'm going to steal a little bit of her thunder because she's going to say this, and I know she is, that parks is so amazing that they get a whole month as opposed to a week. I knew you were going to say that, so you can say it again, but we'll just start there. So, Julie, I'm going to go ahead and read the proclamation and then turn it over to you. Proclamation says, whereas July is recognized nationwide as Parks and Recreation Month, and whereas parks, trails, and open spaces and recreation programs enhance the quality of life for the residents of Kent, and whereas parks and recreation promote physical and mental well-being, foster social connections, provide opportunities for lifelong learning and recreation, and support an inclusive and welcoming community, and whereas parks and recreation contribute to Kent's economic vitality by supporting jobs, youth and childcare programs, tourism and community development. And whereas parks and recreation preserve natural resources, protect habitats and open spaces and connect residents with the outdoors. And whereas this year's national theme, the power of highlights, the power of connection, the power of play, the power of community the power of nature the power of belonging and the power of well-being now therefore i dana ralph mayor of kent do hereby proclaim july 2026 as parks and recreation month in kent washington and encourage all residents to celebrate by enjoying park kent's parks trails programs and recreational opportunities thank you sure okay

Thank you, Mayor Ralph, and thank you, Council Members. For those who don't know me, again, I'm Julie Perskindola, the Camp Parks Recreation Director, and I'm happy and grateful to accept the proclamation tonight on behalf of the department. The mayor's right. Some people get one day. Some people get a week. We get an entire month to celebrate all the great things that we do. And I really love that July gives us a chance to celebrate work that often happens quietly behind the scenes. You know, people go out to see a concert, but they don't think of the four months or five months of planning the concert. They might go out to a beautiful park and don't recognize the crew that was there before sunrise trying to get it ready. Even things like play structures, children playing on it, they don't think about the people that designed it, build it, maintain it, inspect it, and so on. And so, honestly, that's exactly why I love this month. It really gives us an opportunity to shine a light on the people who do the work that really is recognized by smiles, memories, and moments, not necessarily headlines. And the power of theme of the National Association this year is really cool because it is about the power of connection and play and community and well-being and so on. And those aren't just words to us. It's actually what we get to create every single day, which is very exciting. As you guys know, we have an internal park and rec committee that has staff representatives from each one of the divisions in parks. So we actually have like park maintenance, facility maintenance, and all trying to create and they come together and they're the ones who create the opportunities that the community gets to celebrate and also some staff recognition. Every year we try to think of a fun way to figure out attendance and who participates and celebrates with us. And this year, of course, every child gets to participate in all the fun, get some fun swag. But they also get to power up this really giant battery that we put together, thanks to multimedia, and they get to add their name to it. And we already had our first event last week. We had over 200 kids already add their name. And we hope by the end of the July that the battery is completely full because every name really represents a child that came out to play and created a moment and really created belonging together. So I'll make sure and bring that back in August so you guys can see the big belonging. If you haven't had a chance yet, if you haven't had a chance to join us yet, I hope you will. We have a great lineup of events planned throughout the month happening every Wednesday, and we'd love to see you there. For those watching, these are also on our social media pages and our website. Mayor Roth and Council, as always, thank you so much for believing in the work that we do and believing in us. And your investment in Kent Parks goes far beyond maintaining parks. And we truly do appreciate your support and partnership. And I guess I would like to just end my last few seconds talking directly to the Kent Parks team who may be watching. I'm not even sure which camera, but thank you. You know, two small words, but they mean so much. Thank you to every full-time employee, part-time employee, seasonal employee, thousands of volunteers that come and serve our community through Ken Parks. It's really you all who make our department so special, and I really hope that you know how much you matter. because the impact you have reaches far beyond what you do every day. And while our community may not know every name behind those moments, I do, and I see the pride you take in your work, I see the professionalism, and I see the difference you make every single day. And it truly is one of my greatest privileges to serve alongside the team, and I've always just truly believed the greatest power is the people behind the profession. And so this month is for the team, and thank you so much, and happy Park and Rec Month. Thank you.

Julie, thank you so much. I'm going to pile onto the thank yous to our entire parks team on our rec side, human service side, the operation side. I think about parks and I also think that it's a lot of people's first. It's kids' first chance to play t-ball or soccer. it's teens first job being a referee and working or after school after they're done with high school in their first career as a maintenance temporary professional those kinds of things that there's so many places where parks touches people's lives and and you said it and I don't think that we always stop and think about all of that but it is so important to the vitality of our community and I just want to say thank you All right. Our next proclamation is also about building a vibrant, safe community. And I'm going to ask Sarah Halstead to join us. Council, you've seen Sarah already once this evening. Thank you for hanging out and being back. I love that there's a wardrobe change in the middle. The next proclamation we have is for National Night Out. So proclamation says, whereas National Night Out is an annual community building campaign that promotes police community partnerships and neighborhood engagement. to make our neighborhoods safer, stronger, and more connected. And whereas National Night Out is celebrated each year on the first Tuesday in August and brings neighbors, law enforcement, first responders, and community organizations together through local events and activities. And whereas the City of Kent and the Kent Police Department are committed to fostering trust, strengthening relationships, and encouraging residents to work together to help prevent crime and improve public safety. And whereas National Night Out highlights the important role residents play in building welcoming, resilient neighborhoods where people know and support one another. Now, therefore, I, Dana Ralph, Mayor of Kent, do hereby proclaim August 4th, 2026 as National Night Out in Kent, Washington, and encourage all residents to participate in National Night Out activities, connect with their neighbors and public safety personnel, and help build a safer, stronger neighborhood throughout our community. Absolutely one of the most fun nights.

I know, everyone loves that. Let's do a quick picture. Okay. Well, thank you, Mayor Ralph and Council, for having us today to celebrate National Light Out. For those of you that don't know, National Light Out is a national event. It takes place across the country, always the first Tuesday in August. So it's hard to believe we are under a month away. It's like Fourth of July comes and goes, and then National Light Out is almost here. So we appreciate your support and you visiting with us every year. In Kent, a lot of communities do one big event in a park or they have people come to them. And can't we choose to go to the neighborhoods because that really what it is what nationally now is about is building neighbors, building neighborhoods, community, getting to know neighbors, getting to know each other because it is a proven crime prevention strategy. So so far this year we have 45 neighborhood events registered. They have until July 24th to register with us. Last year we had 62 so we are. Pretty good, right on track. I know many of you want to know what events are registered so far. And I thought I would share the typical barbecues, ice cream socials. There's a Nerf battle on the roster so far this year, bouncy houses, and a jam session. So people or neighbors are encouraged to bring their instruments and voices, and we'll see what happens with that. Again, neighborhoods have until July 24th to register with us, and the value for neighborhoods to register with us is that we will send you teams of visitors made up of city council members, Mayor Ralph, police officers, and fire, as well as other city staff. And then we also put together bags of giveaways for the neighbors to share with their neighbors that are participating in National Night Out. You can register by going to kentwa.gov forward slash NNO and help us. Again, last year we were sixth in the nation for National Night Out as far as awards go for populations of our city size. And every year we try to do a little bit better. So it takes all of us. So we just encourage you, if you're watching, please register and reach out if you have any questions. Thank you for this.

Thank you so much. I was out at the Hillcrest neighborhood last week for a drinks in the driveway event. They are one of our new neighborhood councils, and they are also signed up to be one of our newest National Night Out neighborhoods. So we're very, very excited. And we walked through all of the possibilities, some of the things you mentioned. And I know that there's going to be all kinds of fantastic events happening around the community. So thank you so much. All right. Council Member Boyce.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Upcoming events at the Cecil Showbiz Center is coming up. So, July 16th, we have the Kent Chamber of Commerce Business Bowl and South King County Employee Summit. On August 16th, we have the Pacific Cascade Mustang Club Car Show. So, you have a Mustang. Please bring it to the show. On August 30th, we have this group called Mama Moo. I had to Google that because I didn't know. But, It's a South Korean girl group, and that's going to be August 30th. September 19th, we have Sono Nigam, and that's an Indian playback singer. September 28th, that's the Seattle Thunderbirds having their opener against the Prince George Cougar. And those tickets go on sale August 26th. And then the entire 26th, 27th season ticket goes on sale September 2nd at 10 a.m. October 2nd, Seattle Thunderbird versus the Wenatchee's Wow. And then October 9th, Seattle Thunderbird versus the Vancouver Giants. And we got plenty more events coming here. So please go out to www.assessorshowbizcenter.com for more events in Kent. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Council, any other community events? All right. We are going to move on to reports. So each of the council members that are up here serve not only on the city council at the first and third meetings of the month, but also on regional and statewide boards and commissions. part of our agenda is an opportunity to share the work that's been done outside of these council meetings. I'm gonna kick it off, a couple of highlights from the last few weeks. I wanna start out with a huge thank you to all of our city crews that worked on the 4th of July. So it takes an entire team to be able to do that work. So our park staff, both on the recreation side and the operation side, our public works teams with street signage and that kind of thing making sure that that is out there our police department out on patrol and supporting splash and then all of our residents and neighborhoods that came together um 250 years is uh it's a milestone it's a it's a landmark and it's also a very short blip in time i had a chance to listen to a a yale professor speak last week and he noted that if you were at least 50 you've been alive for the one-fifth of our nation's history that makes it seem very, very small. Talked a lot about the fact that what we have here in this country is the promise of all of the things that are laid out in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Keeping and holding that promise strong, I think, is a very great way to look at it. So thank you to all of our city crews for helping our residents celebrate the 4th of July. Moving into a couple of committees last week had the opportunity to attend Association of Washington cities, or I guess it's been two weeks ago. looking for looking phone a friend down here uh... councilmember uh... shoker show accounts president for councilmember uh... boyd at attended the association washington of cities conference in spokane at that conference i was elected to represent district thirteen or south king county on the uh... statewide board so really excited to be able to serve uh... serve the south king county communities making sure that those voices are represented in those statewide conversations so big and small cities working together with that that board of directors to make sure that we're lobbying for the interests of cities across the state a couple of other highlights we also had an opportunity and if you saw it kent was our quiet zone was featured on como had a reporter come down and do a piece on the importance and the wise behind our quiet zone. So we are pretty excited about that and stay tuned. We'll be doing that celebration at the end of August. Finally, I want to shout out to the Kent Lions Club. So this afternoon I met with the president of the Kent Lions, Carol Aguilar, to talk about all the work that they are doing in the community, the good things that they are supporting, and part of the way that they raise money and support our community is through Cornucopia Days. And that is coming up this weekend, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, ending with a parade on Sunday. That whole entire weekend festival is put on by the Lions Club and their volunteers. And without that work, we wouldn't have that celebration. So I just want to say thank you so much to our Kent Lions for their dedicated service and all the work that they do in giving back to our community and the great things that they support. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Fitzpatrick.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Two things. We have a closed session toward the end of the agenda tonight to discuss collective bargaining per RCW 42-3144A. There will be action following that closed session, and we anticipate that'll take about five minutes. And then after that, we will go into executive session to talk about current or potential litigation. And that's per RCW 4230.110.1i. And there also will be action following that. And we anticipate that, too, will take about five minutes. So that's that. That's all I have. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. All right. I am going to turn it over to Council Member Boyce.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Appreciate that. So at 4 o'clock, we had our COW, Community as a Whole meeting. One of the things we talked about, we got an update on our financial statement. And I will say we are tracking just a little higher than last year. with a little bit of variance, but we are within the budget, so we are looking in pretty good shape so far this year. We also had, with our police department, we have an MOU, which is part of the Collective Bargain Agreement, so where we incentivize employees, I'm sorry, police officers, that we try to recruit and try to keep within the police department. We talked a lot about public works, but I'm going to let Council Member Troutner share the story about the public works that we talked about. And then in our workshop, we had three agendas. One was the Safe Place Program, which really is a program that was started by the Seattle Police Department back in 2015, and really exactly what is a safe program, which allows victims to remain on property until police arrive. For anybody that feel like harass or feel like there's a hate crime, we have a partnership with the business and organization where they can go and have a shelter in place where they can feel safe. If you want to know more about this program, we have it on our website, but there's a really good program for hate crime, anyone who's experienced harassment based on race, religious, gender, and sexual orientation, or disability as well too. Then after that, we have what we call our equity safe program that's run by our manager, UL. Really, this was started quite some time ago. I'm just going to really take a moment and really just talk about the goals of this program. I'm just going to take a moment to read about it. The city of Kent is committed to building an inclusive and well-informed community by working for improved communication about the city's service in a manner that is culturally relevant and equitable. The city of Kent is committed to providing a culturally relevant service and information in multiple languages. The City of Kent is a recruited and retained talented workforce that is increasingly reflective of the community we serve in across all positions from frontline staff, advisory board, and commission to executive leadership. And the City of Kent will provide an anti-racist and culturally relevant training along with other topics that foster constructive communication and cross-cultural understanding for the city's representatives and broader communication. And last but not least, The city can't engage in relationship building through ongoing dialogue, outreach, and inclusive center racial equity in our approach. So this is what our focus is around the safe, around the equity and strategic plan. If you want more information about this here, please go visit our website. They have a lot more information about that as well too. And then last but not least here, we have the Valley Independent Investigation Team. I'm going to look at my notes here. Really, it is an independent investigation team which consists of Auburn, Des Moines, Fenway, King County... and Renton and Tukwila. And really this group work together so we have a daily force activity or as in one of those city, this group get together and they go and they investigate and dig into exactly what happened. Really any body harm or accidentally forced to body harm or anything they request by the city chief of police. And what else do I have? I think that's about it. Also, I serve on the SEA PIC Committee, and we have a meeting scheduled for tomorrow. I'm going to start to my left, and I'm going to go with Council Member Ashokar, and then we'll work our way down. Please.

Thank you. I got to attend a bunch of community events, which was on the council newsletter and social media. Also, the AWC conference, which Mayor Ralph talked about. That was a very valuable experience. I was shocked to see that there's 600 elected official council members in our state. I was also appointed to the Sound Cities Association Equity and Inclusion Cabinet, and during our first meeting, we discussed how cities in our region are approaching diversity, equity, and inclusion, and we identified practical goals for the group. And then I also wanted to, I hesitated when you, when Council Member Boyce and Mayor Ralph were talking about community events, but there is a community event at the Senior Center tomorrow, which is a Babi and Chai event. Babi is a Punjabi card game, so if you want to come and learn that, and you know any seniors who are interested, please stop by. Thank you.

Council Member Michelle, please.

Thank you, Council Member. I will also have updates in the Council Newsletter. Human Services Commission meets next week to make their final grant funding decisions. Right now they are working on an optional individual funding exercise where they get to, on their own, determine how much funding out of our available 1.6 million to give each of the approved organizations. And then Human Services staff is going to collect that and kind of compare and show everyone next week at the meeting. And then those final decisions that come out of that meeting next week will come to council as part of our budget process.

That's all I have.

Thank you. Council Member Laumer.

Thank you, Council Chair. So I actually do not have a report tonight. I sit on the King County Growth Management Planning Council, and we will not meet again until September 16th. And then in our Committee of the Whole, we did not have any topics for economic and community development. So I will give the time back.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Council Chair. Here's a snippet of part of my update in our newsletter. I sit on the hazardous waste management program. And last week we had a discussion on our proposed 2829 rate adjustment. Right now, we're due to rising inflation and increasing operational costs. The program is facing growing financial pressure, and without a rate adjustment, revenues are projected to fall short of sustaining current service levels. So right now, the MCC board, we're supposed to be having a meeting next week, discussing the terms and how much money we're planning on raising the race. It's going to stay within the single digits, so I will have more for you at our next council meeting on this subject. Thank you.

Council Member Trapner.

Thank you, Council Member Boyce. We had Committee of the Whole earlier this evening. I am Subject Matter Chair for Public Works. It was all about public works today. We are doing some important work down on South 251st Street. We authorized an agreement and a project that will help with flood mitigation and hopefully protect our community in the event that we have a major flood event like we had in last December. Good work happening there. We also submitted two projects for the Transportation Improvement Board grant opportunity. We're always very lucky with those, so I'm hopeful that we will be able to bring that back to Council in the near future. I am on the Regional Transit Committee. I also sit on the Puget Sound Regional Fire Authority Governance Board, and both those meetings will be July 15th. And lastly, I will end with happy early birthday, Madam Mayor. Thank you.

okay there you go all right thank you everyone we are going to move on we do not have a public hearing this evening but we do have public comment public comment period is your opportunity to speak to the city council and the mayor on issues that relate to the city of kent or agenda items the 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 permitted. Additionally, the State of Washington strictly prohibits people from using this public comment opportunity for political campaign purposes, including to support or oppose a ballot measure or any candidate for public office. Speakers may not give political campaign speeches, but must instead speak concerning matters of the City Council's agenda, or matters concerning general business of the City of Kent. Further, in providing public comment, speakers must address the Mayor and Council as a whole. Remarks intended to target an individual on the dais are not permitted. And finally, please note that this public comment opportunity is for you to provide information to the Mayor and Council that you would like for us to consider, but we will not be able to answer questions during the meeting itself. Kim will go ahead and call the speakers. If you could come up to the podium, state your name and city of residence for the record, and then we will put the three-minute timer up on the screen.

The first speaker is Cal McGinn, followed by Ben Huff, followed by Barbara Clements.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members. My name is Cal McGinn and I'm a Kent resident. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'm here tonight to ask you to end the city's use of flock automated license plate readers and to remove these cameras from our community. I understand why these systems are appealing. They promise another investigative tool and the possibility of solving crimes more quickly. However, not every tool which can help law enforcement is appropriate for a free society. The fundamental problem with flock is that it records the movements of everyone, not just people suspected of committing crimes. It treats the daily travel of ordinary innocent people as information to be collected, stored and searched. Our neighboring city of Renton recently suspended its flock program after residents raised concerns and council members questioned the privacy implications. I believe that demonstrates these concerns are serious and deserve thoughtful consideration. History shows that surveillance powers rarely become smaller over time. Databases expand, access expands, and technology improves. The question isn't whether today's officials are trustworthy. It's whether we should create a surveillance system which future governments can inherit and expand. Privacy is not an obstacle to public safety. It is one of the foundations of a free society, and we should not normalize a routine collection of innocent people's movements by their own government. I respectfully ask you to remove the flock cameras from Kent and affirm that suspicionless mass surveillance has no place in our community. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Ben Huff, followed by Barbara Clements.

Thank you, Mayor Ralph and council members. My name is Ben Huff, and I live in the city of Kent, and I am also a current employee of the Kent School District. First of all, I want to thank you for the work that you do for our community. It is greatly appreciated, the effort that you put in. However, it would be remiss of me to not express my concerns regarding the current state of our school district. As a former library pair educator, with the increasing focus on digital equity and in the face of a national literacy crisis that has been reported upon by multiple media sources, It would be counterintuitive to consider the removal of employees that are essential for the protection of our students in terms of analog and digital literacy. Currently, we are in a situation where we are increasingly focusing our financial and labor powers on the integration of digital tools as well as trying to protect the needs of our students. And with the lack of access that is provided when we remove the very employees that support that, I find it counterintuitive to continue such a system. We need to be sure that our students are prepared for a future where technology is greater integrated into our systems and our community. Without those protections with people who are very specifically designed to protect those and provide those services to our students, I find it that our students will not be prepared for such a future. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Barbara Clements, followed by Cynthia Reyes.

Hi, Barbara Clements can't resident for the last 40 years. I'm back again to speak on flock and to request an open. Interactive public hearing on this issue since I last spoke with you, ISIS just swarmed over our communities and arrested hundreds of people with more and more violence. And I my research team started looking into the actual contracts that the city is signed with block and we were assured that we're only sharing this information with certain jurisdictions now. and 602, put some guardrails on it a bit, but in looking at the contract, and I urge you to look at the 2025 agreement, it's in two-year contracts, in Section 4, the city agreed to allow flock to all data at any time, and in 4.2, it goes even further and gives flock unlimited perpetual rights. to use all the data they want and share it with whomever they want and modify what they want. In other ways, the information that is out there is not protected, is not being kept within the limits according to this agreement. And believe me, Flock, which is owned by a Trump supporter and financed by one, isn't going to pay attention to something that's not in the agreement. It's going to do what it wishes. And I would just, again, ask for an open, interactive public hearing on this and explain what safeguards are in place. Tukwila had a similar open meeting. They turned off three of their cameras, but they had an interactive meeting which revised that language, so it took it out. It's stamped into every agreement they make with the city or an organization, but many of the cities have taken it out because it gives them such leeway to share information. whatever information they want. So I know I was rebuffed earlier in April. I'm asking for it again. This community deserves an open and interactive public hearing on it where questions can be asked and Chief Padilla and the rest can say what guardrails are in the system so it's not inappropriately shared. Thank you. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Cynthia Reyes followed by Angela Wallace.

Hello, Madam Mayor and Council Members. I am Cynthia Reyes. I'm from Lake Taps, but I'm here to speak on behalf of Representative Entenmann's campaign team. I just wanted to come and introduce myself to let people know if they wanted to contact us.

I need to stop you there. Very specific state law indicates that we cannot use public comment for any type of campaign purposes.

Not even to, can I mention two candidates? Sorry. All good. Thank you. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Angela Wallace, followed by Logan Evans.

Evening, my name is Angela. I am from Kent, born and raised in Washington, and I am this my first time ever coming to a City Council meeting, so it's a little nerve wracking, but I felt like this was really important and I'm wondering what our data centers doing to protect the communities that they're moving into. Federal officials have been signing executive orders to streamline the permitting process for large scale data centers. The administration has explicitly argued that building this infrastructure at speed is necessary. Lawmakers have claimed that efforts to slow down U.S. data center production are actively being influenced by foreign adversaries, which I disagree with. Officials are telling the people that data centers will keep driving improvements in our country. But who is actually benefiting from these improvements? Not the communities that they move into, but the billionaires that are investing in them. They don't see the people that live here and rely on these resources to live every day. Data centers have proven that they take without asking. In Fayetteville, Georgia, Quality Technology Services was more concerned with getting their data center up and running than going through proper channels. QTS didn't wait for the city to convert to smart meters before taking 30 million gallons of water. Officials were only alerted when resident state started complaining about the lack of water pressure. During the county's investigation, it was discovered that two industrial scale hookups had been connected. One was installed without the utilities knowledge, the other was not linked to quality technology services. In Cheyenne, Wyoming, META's AI data center was caught infecting the town's reclaimed water system with a rare bacteria that was discovered by the city officials during a routine testing. data center noise is primarily a 24 7 low frequency hum or drone caused by giant air handlers air cooled chillers and diesel backup generators because this low frequency sound penetrates walls and travels long distances it evades traditional decibel limits leading to chronic sleep deprivation ear pressure and stresses nearby wildlife, including our livestock. Seattle and Renton have already implemented emergency moratoriums to protect residents from these exact threats. Please choose to protect our community by banning any more data centers in Kent. Thank you. Thank you.

The next speaker is Logan Evans.

Testing, testing, one, two, three, one, two, three.

All right.

I'm just watching the clock. All right. First off, I wanted to thank the mayor, the council, city staff, the volunteers, everyone, really. And I wanted to say what incredible movements that have been made here with the downtown quiet zone. I know you guys spent 14 years putting that together. And it's just amazing. And the infrastructure investments you did to make it happen, I just really appreciate that.

I was also- Do start, say your name and city of residence for the record, please.

Yes, I'm so sorry. Thank you for that. Hi, everyone. I'm Logan Evans, and I live in Kent. But yeah, I just wanted to thank you all. There's been such good things going on. I was at the Lake Meridian Fireworks Festival for the 4th of July and it was so safe. I mean, I was talking with neighbors and residents and everyone was saying just how happy they were that it went down smoothly. I know now I can drive by the Green River Trail, the Green River Road, and it looks beautiful again. I like walking those trails. I know the residents are happy. The soccer teams are happy. I'm just in such a hostile state environment that you guys have been operating within. I just really appreciate what you guys have been working towards and building here. And I wanted to thank you for that. I know I believe in criticism and critique and improving things, but I think it's also important to recognize when things are well done and when our public servants, our representatives are are really doing their part to make things happen. So again, thank you so much and thank you for your time. I hope you guys have a wonderful evening.

Thank you.

That was the last public commenter.

Right. Thank you, Kim. Okay. With that, we will go ahead and move on to our consent calendar. Consent calendar is a compilation of items that council has worked on through both workshop and the Committee of the Whole over the last several meetings. They had an opportunity to have discussion, ask questions, and these items have been voted out of Committee of the Whole without controversy. Tonight, we have items A through J for approval on the consent calendar. Is there a motion to approve the consent calendar?

So moved, Madam Mayor. Second, Madam Mayor.

We've got a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Opposed? Motion carries 6-0. All right, we are going to move into item number nine, which is other business. Tonight we have a state legislative agenda development presentation. I'm going to call up Kyle Moore, our government affairs manager. Joining us online is Brianna Murray, our contract lobbyist. And I'm going to turn it over to Kyle to get us kicked off and also...

Kyle Schroeder.

Second Kyle. Kyle Schroeder is joining us in person as well. So Kyle and Kyle and Brianna, turning it over to you.

Yeah, Kyle. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Kyle Moore, Government Affairs and Regional Policy Manager. And Brianna Murray is here online where she is from the other side of the state. So thank you, Brianna, for joining us. And just quickly, I wanted to give an opportunity for the council to meet Kyle Schroeder if you wanted to. Introduce yourself very quickly.

Yeah, my name is Kyle Schroeder. I'm part of the contract lobbyist team at Gordon Thomas Honeywell Government Relations with Breonna Murray, and I'm joining here with the team to help Kyle and Breonna.

Yeah. All right, so tonight we're kind of setting the stage. We're going to be going through kind of early this session our legislative development, and we wanted to give council a greater opportunity early on to kind of weigh in on what's going on for our state. And so I believe Priyana, no, actually, Kyle, you're going to be starting us off.

Okay, so the purpose of this agenda item tonight is to begin discussing the 2027 legislative agenda and begin developing that for the city of Kent. And so we're going to start, we're going to dive into that today by doing a couple of things. We're going to give a preview of the 2027 legislative session. We'll then go over some of the documents that we need some feedback on and that we've begun preparing for you guys. We'll then look at some of the emerging priorities and policies that we have been discussing and looking at, and then we'll look for some feedback and discussion from the council on some of the documents and preparation that we've done. So with that, I think the next person up is Brianna, who will provide an overview of the 2027 legislative session.

Thank you, Kyle M and Kyle S and mayor and council. Thank you for your indulgence in allowing me to appear before you virtually this evening. I am presenting to you on the 2027 legislative session preview to give you a flavor in some context as you start thinking about your next legislative agenda. As you might recall, the legislature operates on 2 year cycles and the 2027 session will be kicking off. At the beginning of that 2 year biennium, the 1st year of the legislative biennium is always considered to be a long legislative session. So it will last 105 days. It will kick off the 2nd, Monday in January and run run those 105 consecutive calendar days. The legislature's primary task in a long legislative session, the 1st, year, the biennium is to develop by annual budgets and we'll get into a little bit more around the budget dynamic on a subsequent slide. Politically, we are expecting Democrats to continue to maintain the majority in both the House of Representatives and the state Senate. However, there are over a dozen legislators who announced that they are not planning to seek reelection and regardless of election outcomes. They will no longer be in office as of December 31. So while we may see similar party majorities, we will see over a dozen new faces in Olympia. I'd also note that the August primary is around the corner, and we are seeing multiple challenges from inside parties, both on the Republican and on the Democrat side running against one another. So Democrats running against Democrats, Republicans running against Republicans, and many of those races are dividing traditional party lines. So looking at the August primary results and obviously the November general results will be very insightful as to the political leanings of the caucuses that are in power. So Democrat majority in the House and in the Senate, but is it leaning more progressive, leaning more moderate, or are there other shifts occurring within those respective caucuses? After the November general election, just a reminder that the legislature embarks on a reorganization process where they elect their leadership, they elect their committee chairs and ranking members, and they assign legislators to what committees they will serve on. It's always worth noting that the legislature is not bound to keep their committee structure the same. They can change the committees, they can change what jurisdiction those committees cover. and all of that gets revisited on this every two year cycle. Going into this next legislative session, there are rumors of leadership changes in both the House and Senate Democrat caucuses. On the Senate Democrat caucus side, less a rumor around wanting to change leadership from fellow Senate Democrats and more that the Senate Democrat majority leader has a significant primary challenger. And worry about whether or not the majority leader will even be returning on the House Democrat caucus. There's been more active discussions with representative April Berg coming out publicly within the media announcing that she is planning to challenge speaker Jenkins for that leadership position. I flag all of that to say that while Democrats will likely continue to have the majority in both the House and the Senate, there are going to be some changes between the last biennium and this biennium as we move into the 2027 session. Let's go to the next slide on budget context. I noted that one of the primary tasks of the legislature in a long legislative session is to develop the biennial budgets. The biennial budget fiscal year runs July 1 of 2027 through June 30th of 2029. The legislature will spend the first half of 2027, developing that biennial budget. However, the budget development process has already kicked off. The budget process starts with the Office of Financial Management, which is the governor's budget office, asking state agencies for their feedback on the development of the state's budgets. At the end of June, the director of the Office of Financial Management sent a memo to state agencies indicating that the 27-29 budget is going to be the most challenging budget in recent memory and that the state is facing an approximately $4.3 billion deficit, which is subject to change based on subsequent economic revenue forecasts. The reason for that deficit is that inflation has driven up costs that's estimated to be around 39% population growth in the state has gone up 14.2%. And the state has been grappling with federal funding cuts and costly court decisions that are that are increasing their costs. The Office of Financial Management noted that they are not that they are asking agencies to reconsider any program that was put in place 2019 or later. And to evaluate whether or not that program should continue, they're also asking state agencies to look at any program that other states are not providing and whether or not that is necessary. The governor has been very publicly saying that he's not interested in increasing taxes to balance the budget, but that he would like to look at making cuts. As a reminder, there are three different state budgets. There's an operating budget, a transportation budget, and a capital budget. The operating budget is the one that most of the media attention and comments are focused on. It funds the cost of all state agencies, including the K through 12 and state college education systems. Uh, and is predominantly funded by sales tax tax, property tax, real estate, excise tax, and a handful of other taxes. If the millionaire's tax is upheld, the bulk of the revenue from that tax would be going into the operating budget. Uh, the, um, challenges with an operating budget are, are, uh, are focused on, as I mentioned, inflation, population growth, um, and also policy decisions or additional investments that have been made in the last 8 years or so. The transportation budget is the 2nd budget that is facing challenges. The budget funds highway construction maintenance also operates the ferry system makes multi modal investments. Most notably for cities, it funds several different grant programs that cities rely on, like the transportation improvement board. The regional mobility grant program, the washed off bike ped facility grant program. Those are all funded out of this transportation budget. The budget is predominantly funded with fuel tax, which is a declining revenue source as vehicles become more efficient and adoption of electric vehicles becomes more widespread. Combined with that declining revenue source project costs are increasing, which I know is something you all are experiencing at the local level as well. The legislature is likely to have a very robust discussion this next session on how best to replace the fuel tax as a declining revenue source or augmented. I hesitate to use the word replaced because we're not certain that the fuel tax would go away, but it is likely that we will see another transportation oriented tax or fee. Designed to fund this budget. There are 2 concepts that are being discussed. 1 is a road usage charge, which aims to charge individuals a fee based on the vehicle miles that are traveled by a driver. And the 2nd is a highway use fee, which would be a vehicle registration fee based on miles per gallon. A vehicle gets based on the manufacturer's label. The 3rd budget is the capital budget. It is the most stable of the 3 budgets and it funds construction of state and local facilities. It's primarily funded with bonds that a percentage of the operating budget are dedicated to paying back. And it is, as I mentioned, the most stable budget and continues to be developed in a bipartisan fashion that may change if Democrats get a super majority in both chambers. But as of now, it continues to be developed in a bipartisan fashion. Um, the, the budget context, I think is important as you start thinking about how best to, um, line up fiscal requests for the legislature. Um, and I think that dovetails nicely into the 2 types of legislative documents that we've historically organized our advocacy between, um. When we're working with the legislature, there's always a challenge on how to remain focused while also being able to respond to the dozens, if not hundreds of different bills that get introduced that have an impact on city business. We've been able to manage that balance by organizing our advocacy and policy priorities in two different documents. The first document being a legislative priority document that outlines our very most top three to five high priority items where we're going to ask our local legislators to focus the bulk of their time and energy and where we as your advocacy team will focus our time and energy. These these top 3 to 5 items should include any specific funding requests that the city wants to advance. And I would just note that funding requests that are going to be most well received or most achievable. This session will be in the capital and perhaps the transportation budgets, not within the operating budget. The second document is a document of policy statements. It lists the various policy areas that impact city business where we may see legislation introduced or where we know other partners are introducing legislation and we want to be supportive as part of a coalition. The purpose of the policy statements is for us to be able to timely engage on issues without having to Go through a lengthy process with to get direction on each bill as it's introduced. We can more get that get that direction from you all more proactively and be able to respond real time and expressing support or concerns. So, we use those 2 documents. Your packet materials should include the prior years, legislative priorities and policy statements. For the legislative priorities, we start from scratch every 2 years in developing those legislative priorities. Sometimes they carry over and build on previous years efforts, which you'll see is the case this year. But for the most part, every year, we re, look at what those top 3 to 5 items would be. Whereas the policy statement document is more of a long standing document that carries over from year to year that we make modifications to. And it helps us keep track of issues where we weighed weighed in on previous years that we may want to weigh in on future years. So the modifications to the policy statements tend to look a bit more like track changes to the existing document. Whereas the legislative priorities tend to look a bit more like drafting from scratch. Um, we are just kicking off the development of those 2027 legislative priorities and I'm going to turn it over to Kyle more to review some of the items that we are contemplating, including on those draft documents.

Kyle, yeah, thanks Brianna. Yeah, so we were looking at what are the emerging issues? What are we hearing from our local elected officials at the state level? And as a city, what are the biggest things affecting us as a city? And so I'll take you through a few of these administrative services building obviously next year. We're moving into the administrative services building. We want to be a green building to the best of our possibilities, really try to make it a sustainable building and be an example for the rest of the Kent Valley. And so we're looking to put some type of solar array on top of the building, possibly in the parking lot to try to capture that energy. You're hearing more and more about energy bills and the rising cost of energy. And so how can we be a solution to that? And by looking at that, looking at energy capturing systems, looking at any way that we can be a great example and use us as an example for the rest of the buildings and manufacturing buildings and warehousing and logistic buildings in the Kent Valley. And so that is one of the things we're looking at. Looking at also fiscal sustainability. So one of the things, the millionaire's tax, which Brianna addressed, one of the things as it's currently written, it can cost cities starting year one $200 million in lost revenues. year one, which will only go up. It's a loss of sales tax revenue, which, as you saw, the state is 48% of what goes to them. It will have a huge effect on cities, especially the larger the city, the more the effect is. So Kent will be significantly affected by that. There was a language put in the millionaire's tax that says there's an intent to have a local fund to help cities, but no money was allocated toward that. You may hear differently, but I've read that millionaire's tax multiple times. There's no money dedicated to helping cities. We're also dealing with here in Kent specifically with the streamlined sales tax loss. We're estimating that at the current year at about $20 million loss a year. And this is where money was originally coming from the origin, point of origin, where we ship a package from Amazon from Kent and it goes to your house in Bellevue. Kent would get the money. Now that money goes to Bellevue. So what's happening is the wealthier communities who tend to order more are getting more sales tax money, and the cities that invested heavily in the infrastructure, such as Kent, who are sustaining the damage to our roads from heavy vehicles and all the vehicle traffic, we're getting less money. So we're getting adversely affected by that. So that is something that will affect us a long term. There's also at the state level, lots of unfunded mandates, and that can come in a lot of different forms. Land use, every time we have to update the comprehensive plan, that is a journey for our planners. also for our legal department. I mean, a lot of people get involved and that takes a lot of energy and time and money to redo all of our policies. And also that, what happens with that, what we see with the developers is when the land use laws continue to change, Developers hold back. They're like, well, I don't want to make a start working on a building. If it's the middle project, then they're going to change the law. So we're seeing a lot of developers hold back, which means less revenue for cities. And so we're asking the state in that case to try to hold off on any new land use bills until we can kind of get everything going and. This is fiscal sustainability. I want to keep talking about the millionaire tax. All that money that's going to the state, if it makes it through all of the challenges, none of that's coming back to the cities. And so we've been asking for the state to look at ways they can direct funding back to us if they want to reform. The way taxes are done, you know, we as a city are very constrained on what we can do to raise taxes. And so I think we're pulling a lot of the levers that we can pull, but there's also limits to what we can do. And so fiscal sustainability city is really something that we're really looking at. Economic competitive is competitive. I can't even say that word in workforce. Sorry. It's what happens to this time of night You know here at Kent. We're very focused on space programs on manufacturing advanced manufacturing great family wage jobs and that includes the reason we have that is we have a current great workforce here in the region but we also want to train our kids our young adults here in kent to have those jobs so that they can move into those jobs as they graduate from whatever programs and so we're going to be working on that you may have heard the governor has started an economic development council which is a step in the right direction because the state hasn't had a direction on economic economic development. And so we want to be part of that. They're also the governor is wants to start a space commission, uh, and Senator, our local Senator, uh, Claudia Kaufman wants to also start a space commission. We want to be part of that too. We think that investing in these type of advanced manufacturing jobs is going to be very important to us. Uh, I know, uh, the mayor and I and others were at a space breakfast where we learned about, how competitive other states are. New Mexico offered one of the companies there to say they'll give them land for 40 cents an acre and will pay their entire staff salary for six months if they wouldn't leave Washington and come to New Mexico. I know Alabama, Florida, and Texas are right now really trying to lure our high-tech companies you know space programs and manufacturing out of state so we really need a policy statewide to try to protect these businesses these great paying jobs we want to keep these jobs here and keep this economy going not only for us now but for our future generations as well. public defense funding. As you know, the state Supreme Court made a ruling on public defense standards on how many cases a defense attorney can handle. That is raising our cost as a city. immediately. So what's happening is the larger entities King County has gobbled up a lot of the public defenders that exist and what that's done is created a more competitive market for even our current public defense attorneys. So they're able to charge a greater price. So we're paying more now for the same services that we were getting and it's only going to get more and more expensive for us. I believe we're talking about and I'm going to have Tammy White if she corrects me but is it somewhere between four and four million dollars extra. Sorry to put you on the spot. Yeah, I'm sorry. tripling our costs and so this is gonna what we're asking the state to do is if they're reforming the tax code to pay a hundred percent cost of public defense and if not a hundred percent a big chunk of it many many states here uh... do that they pay the entire public defense costs It's actually a rarity that cities are picking up the cost for this. So that's one of the things we're looking at. And liability reform. This is a huge one. We are seeing large scale verdicts against cities and municipalities, against the state, against the counties. You heard Brianna talk about it when she was talking about the state budget. And we're looking to limit those liabilities against government agencies. We think if we're liable, we should pay whatever our liability is. But there's this legal term called joint and several liability. And I hope Tammy or Pat will correct me if I get it wrong. But basically, if the city's found 1% liable on something, that we could have to pay a... a hundred percent of the cost plus lawyer cost whether we are at you know at one percent fault or not and it can cost the city a lot of money and that's taxpayer money leaving the city not going to parks not going to roads not going to programs so there were several bills during the last legislative session that would increase liability for cities and we worked very hard to make sure those bills didn't get across the finish line because We can't afford it as a city to have that money leave our city and not go to our residents and such. So for our policy document, this is the, I used to call it the back page document. These are a few of the items we're looking at. Law enforcement funding, obviously 2015 we were the first city in the state And thanks to Chief Padilla, who's not here tonight, and the command staff, and the legal department, Tammy, and the legal department, we were able to cross the line and be the first city in the state. And thank you, council, for passing 2015, that we were able to get that .10, .1, why am I, . to get a grant funding from the state for programs and so we' re going to be looking at we' re hearing that they want to reopen this because a lot of cities are having a hard time getting across the finish line a lot of cities are calling our police department like how did you get across the finish line and so we think that' s going to be reopened So we want to be part of that conversation on how maybe the flexibility of funding, maybe different ways to increase the funding, but we want to be part of whatever conversations happening down at the state. Automatic license plate readers, this is something that we were very involved with last year, along with many other cities, including Seattle. A lot of cities, I'm part of a lot of intergovernment relation groups that we meet. all the time in the interim cities. They're all concerned that there needs to be a reopening of the law that was passed, that it didn't deal with all the things that needed to be dealt with. And that means we want to be part of that conversation too. There's this kind of language in there, it's called sensitive areas, which really is not very specific and it made it impossible for us having to turn off our dash cams. Seattle had to turn off all of their parking reader cams that they go around the city and issue parking tickets because if you're anywhere near what's called a sensitive area that can change and no one notifies you there's no system that tells you what a sensitive area is that there could be legal repercussions and so that's something that we want to be part of those conversations and the governor's office has agreed that this is something that needs to be reopened during the next session. to 24th corridor. This is something that we were originally funded for 2526 funding and it was pushed to 2729 funding. This is the second half of the 224th corridor, the east to west vital corridor here at the city and we worked really hard. We got it in one budget and didn't get it in the other. I believe we got in the Senate didn't get in the House budget and when they did concurrence it didn't make it across during the last session. So that money is needed to complete that corridor and so we're going to be working hard to make sure that money stays in the budget as you heard the constraints on the transportation budget and it's I think it's going to be even more constrained next year because with gas prices rising yes there's a higher percentage of tax it goes but I don't know about you all my friends stopped driving they tried to cut down driving because they didn't want to spend $7 a gallon or $6 a gallon and so working on that and then public records this has been I think it was 1972 when the law was passed if I'm correct and it really hasn't been changed since then it wasn't made for the digital age and one of the things we're hearing from our clerks department is a lot of YouTubers are very vocal in saying they want 50 body cam videos and then putting in these large-scale requests requires huge redactions and then they pay a deposit or maybe sometimes they don't pay a deposit and then they're like oh well maybe i only want two of them because i don't want to pay all the money so it's creating a huge burden of work for our our clerks It's not the public benefit that the Public Disclosure Act was first invented for, which was the public to hear about their own community and look at transparency of government. These are people that are posting these videos on Instagram, on YouTube, and they're making huge profits off of our videos that they're not doing. and they' re paying very little for and so that' s one aspect of it the other aspect is we' re seeing people request videos of children sexual assault cases and they' re getting the audio for that and they' re making our staff listen to these horrendous audio recordings and we have to give them out because that' s what the public disclosure law is and so we' re going to be working with our our legislators to try to change that this session. Public disclosure, I will say, is a very tough law to change. There's a lot of forces that don't want it changed, but I feel like we have a really good argument on what we want changed in it, very specifics on it. We want to make sure we are transparent and open, but we also want to make sure we're serving the right things. Some of those audio recordings we don't think should be out there to the public. The other thing is, I think last year over 1,000 bills were dropped. We were monitoring, I think at one time, almost 400 of them. What happens is, as we go through the various deadlines for bills, it gets less and less, and then we have to pay more attention to certain bills. But... you know we're always tracking in the beginning of session a couple hundred bills and then trying to like figure out where we sit on all these bills will this bill make it across the finish line and one of the things they start doing is these cutoffs come off is they start taking language from one bill and dumping it into another bill so then you got to be ready for that so that's kind of one of a lot of the things that we work on during the session so and then so now we've gotten to the point and uh you know is this something council agrees on as issues that we should focus on for this session or there are other issues that the council collectively would like staff to focus on and so i'll turn it back to you all right thank you i'm gonna start with uh councilmember boyce followed by councilmember troutner okay thank you madam mayor um cow and team you know

I'm a type of guy that I believe the glass is half full, right? That's my approach. But, you know, it's pretty clear that the expense so far is superseding the revenue, right? The governor said no new taxes, right? But, yes, so you're asking what the city wants. I mean, there's a lot of programs out there, and some of the programs are very important, and some of the people are very attached to the program, right? The only way to do that, you have to cut expenses, which is going to be extremely tough to do. And then on top of that, we want to be able to give the city more, I would say, more money back, you know. And I just, it doesn't quite add up, right? And we'd like to get the streamlined sale tax back. It's probably not going to happen. It's pretty clear. I mean, I read a millionaire tax as well, too. I mean, none of that money is coming to this city, right? So I hear what you're saying. I support this here, but I just... I don't see how this doesn't add up. I don't see, you know, how we need to be realistic about it, right? I just don't see how we as a city are going to be able to receive more, as they say, no new taxes, right? And expenses outweigh the revenue right now. So help me understand that, sir.

Yeah, you know, I'm not there during the caucuses for the budget. I do get the reports from Office of Financial Management. You know, I'm there during the hearings when they discuss the budget. You know, I know during the last session, the House leader said no cuts to anything. They were pretty adamant about that, the way that they were able to fund the budget. Because they were... i i made 2.5 billion over last budget uh and the way they did it is they raided funds so they went in and took the left which is the law enforcement um and law enforcement and firefighter uh left one funds and they swept them yep One of the things that A.W.C. and the cities we said is, hey, hey, hey, we as cities paid into that fund. We paid for our employees, and you just swept those funds out from under us without backfilling it back to the cities that actually put the money in. And there's also a medical cost involved where cities continue to pay the medical cost of our Left 1 members, and that did not go to the state yet. That is one of the things that we want. It's like if you're going to sweep these funds, You should pay for medical costs. So um, that was one of the things they did They swept our public works assistance account Which is something that chad and team would rely on to get money from and they just started going around and sweeping Large-scale sweeping funds. I know councilmember basho said that they were trying to sweep I think there was a tree fund that they were going after they were just trying to find funds wherever they could and just pull it in to try to bolster up the budget but as we know it's not sustainable to do that to keep sweeping these funds and so the millionaire let's just say the millionaire's tax made it through it would not start till 2029 so they are still in a 4.3 billion dollar hole for the next two-year budget regardless of the millionaire's tax if it goes through or not so um i don't know where they plan to get these funds for but we as cities are saying don't take it from us and don't take money from us

and don't create more unfunded mandates to us as we're seeing declining revenue just like you are so thank you councilmember voice i think that that that is the most important statement is that i i too want to be optimistic there's not new funding coming our way i don't believe that i think what we do need to continue to say very clearly and out loud is don't take any more away from us leave it, let us, and don't keep putting things on our plate. You think about public defense standards, and while that was done by the Supreme Court, it was in front of the legislature last session, and the ask was, please help us. In most states, that's the case. Continuing to say all of those things and making it very clear, making sure that we are all singing from the same sheet of music as we're having those conversations with the legislature, that is how we're, that's how we're effective.

Council Member Troutner. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I think you just said it just right. I agree with this list, and I appreciate you and Brianna and Kyle working to bring this forward to us. I'm on the AWC Legislative Committee. Thank you to Kyle for you were at the meeting during the conference. We were both at the meeting at the beginning of this conversation, and then we have a meeting in a couple weeks. We are hearing this from cities across the state. A lot of these things that are on our list are priorities that they are having. And I think when you bring that voice together and everybody's on the same page, it can be more effective. But I do think a lot of these things are going to be difficult asks. But some of the other things we talk about is there are things that are not going to cost any money. It's giving us the tools and having, you know, like looking at public records, looking at liability reform. There's some things that you can give cities the tools that is actually going to save them money in the long run. So it's also advocating for that kind of stuff and just looking at ways to be really creative. So thank you very much.

Councilmember Michaud.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Kyle and Kyle and Brianna, I want to thank you for spending your time. I feel like you are the experts and you know what will work best and what has the most chance of going through. and so i will agree to this um yeah so i just want to thank you for your work and i think it's super important that we get other cities involved and on our side sometimes i talk to council members from other cities and they don't really know what's going on in this you know in the state legislature so i appreciate you doing that work to bring everyone together and advocate for our similar needs so thank you

Council, any other comments, support for the direction that this document is heading? Any other things you'd like to focus on? Okay, so at this point, and Kyle, I don't know if there is another slide after this. With that, there we go. That is what I was going to talk about, next steps.

So yeah, next steps. We will be bringing this back before council, so this is just your first blush with this. I also will plan to meet with all the department directors to kind of hear some of their needs during this session, which is normal for us. We'll come back with a more completed agenda for all of you to look over and talk about and eventually approve. Thank you.

Thank you.

Sorry we didn't give Kyle Schroeder a lot of time. Thanks for having me.

All right. That concludes our other business. Item number 10 is bids. We do not have any bids this evening. Item number...

I'd like to have a personal privilege, please.

Before we move into the last agenda item, Council Member Boyce.

Well, since it's your birthday, Madam Mayor, I think we all should sing happy birthday to you.

It's not until Thursday.

But we're not going to see you before your birthday. How about that? Anybody disagree with that? All right, here we go. Pat, lead us out, please. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Next time, I will ask you and not Pat to lead us off, okay? Thank you.

That was really embarrassing, and thank you very, very much. I appreciate that. All right. Item number 11. We have a closed session this evening relating to collective bargaining that will last five minutes. Council will be coming back following that closed session and there will be action taken. The closed session, I need to ask everyone that is not related to this session to please clear council chambers. Again, we are looking at five minutes. It's now 8.22. By the time we start this, we'll be five minutes in. 828 will be coming back in. Council will be taking action. Following that, there will be an executive session regarding current or potential litigation. That is also scheduled for five minutes.

All right.

Council has returned from the closed session related to collective bargaining. I am now going to turn it over to Carrie Endicott, our Human Resources HR Director, sorry, to provide counsel with a short presentation, and then there will be action.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Carrie Anticot, HR Director. I'm pleased to present the collective bargaining agreement with Teamsters Local 117. They represent our city field operations staff. After several months of negotiation, the city and the union has reached a mutually beneficial agreement that supports our employees and the services they provide for our community. With that, I respectfully request your authorization for the mayor to sign the Teamsters Local 117 Collective Bargaining Agreement.

All right. Council, any questions for Carrie? Okay. Seeing none, Council Member Boyce, do you have a motion?

Yes, I do, Madam Mayor. I'd like to make a motion. I move to authorize the mayor to sign a three-year collective bargaining agreement with the Teamsters Local Union Number 117, effective January 1, 2026, through December 31, 2020. I second.

All right, we've got a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 6-0. Thank you. Council is now going to move into an executive session regarding current or potential litigation. We are anticipating this executive session lasts for five minutes. It's now 8.30, so council will be back in session at 8.35. Thank You mayor before councils consideration tonight is the

accepting a settlement agreement for work that was not completed related to the Madison Plaza development over at the intersection of Madison Avenue and Meeker Street. There was work required by the developer that wasn't completed, and the bonding company that guarantees the work of contractors related to development has been involved with trying to make sure that the city is whole and getting those improvements, both the existing improvements that have some punch list items related to it and the improvements that weren't constructed completed. And so after a long back and forth with Bonding Company, we are recommending approval of the settlement agreement.

Any questions for chat? Seeing none, Council Member Troutner, do you have a motion?

I do. I move to authorize the mayor to sign the settlement agreement with Old Republic Surety the amount of $463,153, subject to final terms and conditions acceptable to the Public Works Director and City Attorney.

Second. We've got a motion and a second. Any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Motion carries 6-0. Thank you.

With that, we are at the bottom of our agenda for this evening. Just another quick reminder, Cornucopia Days is happening all weekend long right here in downtown Kent. Huge thank you to our Kent Lions Club for putting this event on year after year. Hope to see you out and about on Friday and Saturday and at the parade on Sunday afternoon.