City Council - Regular Meeting

I would like to call the order of the city council meeting on 03/03/2026. City clerk, will you please call the roll?

Certainly. Council Member Tim Chisholm?

Here.

Council Member Arnold?

Here.

Council Member Prem? Here. Council Member Falcone? Here. Council Member Pascal?

Here.

Deputy Mayor Black?

Here.

Mayor Curtis? Here. All present.

Thank you. Our study session tonight is on two items. First, the Kirkland Municipal Court will provide an overview of probation services. Second, we will review the status of the twenty twenty six-twenty twenty seven planning work program and consider updates for the twenty twenty six-twenty twenty eight planning work program. We expect to reconvene our regular meeting at 07:30. City manager.

Okay. Thank you, madam mayor, deputy mayor, members of the council. Once again, I have our special guest, the presiding judge from members of court, John Olson. We also have Kelly Owen, our assistant court administrator, and Sarah Olson, our probation supervisor here. I'm going turn it over to the judge, but we also have Juliana DeCruz is now in the city manager's office as our management analyst, and so she'll be running the show from the computer. So welcome all. I'll turn it over to you, your honor.

Thank you again for having us here. I brought the A Team today. I've talked to most of you about our probation department before. I'm very, very happy with the things they do. And every day, I see the impact that they have. So they're very committed. Callie has been with the court. When did you start, fifth grade? She started as a clerk was a phone operator answering phones. She's done everything. I don't think she's worked anywhere else. We won't let her go anywhere else. She's now the assistant court administrator working with Erin. She was a probation supervisor prior to that. And Sarah, my little sister next to me here, has been with us since about 2010.

She's done everything in the court as well, from a clerk. She's been in probation a first as a

Probation clerk.

Probation clerk and then a probation officer. And then she just stepped into the probation supervisor role. Both of them are very committed to what they do, and it's good for the people. It's tough for me sometimes because they're not afraid to tell me when, Judge, I think you made a bad decision. With that, I'll turn it over to them.

Just make sure I pull the microphones a little closer to you all. Thank you.

We wanted to say thank you, Mayor Curtis and Deputy Mayor Black, council members, city manager, city attorney, deputy city manager, we are very excited to be here today and talk to you about what we do in probation services. Tonight, we are going to give you an overview of what we do. So what is probation? Specific training for our probation staff.

Kelly, is your microphone on?

It is.

Is it? Not. Thank you. No, it's okay, I get that in court too. Our probation process, so what we do, how we meet with our clients, the evolution of probation over the years, our classes and programs that we have, the community support that we work with, the impacts of probation, and then what our kind of forward thinking is.

So what is probation? The role of probation is actually defined in ARLJ 11.1, that's the Administrative Rules for Courts of Limited Jurisdiction defined in part as an entity that provides services designed to assist the court in management of criminal justice and thereby aid in the preservation of public order and safety. Quite a mouthful there. Probation provides case management services to assist the client in identifying and overcoming barriers, connecting them with resources, and overseeing compliance with conditions imposed. Clients placed on supervised probation will meet with their probation officer working toward a reduction in recidivism through changed behavior.

Kirkland Probation serves citizens of Kirkland, Clyde Hill, Hunts Point, Medina, Wynnville, and Yarrow Point. When an individual is sentenced by the judge, there are often multiple conditions imposed which require ongoing participation from the individual. The goal of the conditions imposed is to address the underlying issues that led to the criminal conduct. An individual can be ordered to supervise probation for a specific length of time, depending on jurisdiction, or until the affirmative conditions of the case have been completed. Clients who have completed the conditions ordered either pre sentencing or after a period of probation supervision are then placed on court monitored supervision to continue through administrative monitoring through records checks completed by a court clerk.

Probation officers have additional training that help them complete the work that they do. ARLJ 11 is the authority that gives probation officers and probation divisions the ability to function and to work, and it guides kind of what is required of the probation departments. Probation officers are required to have a bachelor's degree in criminal justice or a related field, and they are required to complete misdemeanor a academy that is taught at the criminal justice commission down in Burien. So it's where commissioned officers also do their training, probation officers go for a much shorter amount of time, but it is required as part of our ability to be probation officers. One of the, a couple of other things I wanted to highlight were our NCIC access and training.

Our probation officers are required to maintain their training yearly, and then triannually we do an audit through Washington State Patrol to be able to maintain that access, and we're doing that this month, so this will be our audit for this year, and then we'll do it again in three years. And then interstate compact is an agreement or a cooperative agreement across the 50 states, Puerto Rico, The US Virgin Islands, and Washington DC, that allows supervised individuals to transfer their probation in between states, so it's really important that the probation officers maintain the knowledge that is required for the eligibility of individuals that meet those requirements, and then how to properly transfer that supervision from one state to another, so I really wanted to highlight that that is additional knowledge that our probation officers have to be aware of to share with prosecutors, to share with her bench, to share with defense attorneys so that our court and our city is in line with that cooperative agreement. Our probation division is made up of our probation supervisor who manages the operations and programs of the probation division while also maintaining a client caseload, so our probation supervisor meets with clients as well as managing the day to day operations of the division.

We have two probation officers, two full time probation officers that maintain a full caseload, and then we have two judicial specialists. One primarily supports the probation officer with administrative tasks and duties, and then one primarily does the court monitored clerk checks that Sarah mentioned are done administratively.

The probation process and I wish I could say there is a typical probation process, but there's not. It goes every which way, and oftentimes in ways we don't want. But the probation process starts out with an intake. After sentencing, a client is sent over to probation. They schedule an intake.

The goals of these intakes are to review the conditions imposed, make sure this client understands what the court expects of them, gather information. Probation, as Callie mentioned, we have access to resources that allow a broad overview of a client's criminal history and past or current involvement with other courts and probation entities. But the intake is an opportunity to listen and to hear from the client their perspective and identify barriers that may exist in them achieving the conditions of the court order. This, along with the risk assessment tools, help inform the case management level. A person with a higher risk level to offend will meet with their probation officer more frequently than someone with a lower risk level.

The intake appointment is also a really important opportunity for introduction, setting clear expectations, developing rapport, and creating a case plan for addressing those court order conditions. Individual appointments typically happen once a month after intake, but again, that depends on risk level. Appointments are held in person or virtually, again, depending on a client's compliance or needs. Prior to the monthly meeting, the probation officer will review the criminal history, check condition due dates, treatment records, as well as ignition interlock records or SoBRALink or SCRAM alcohol monitoring records. During the appointment, progress on conditions is reviewed with motivational interviewing techniques utilized to engage the client and elicit behavior change.

Motivational interviewing is done through open ended questioning, reflective listening, expressing empathy. We don't have to agree with what they're saying, but hearing, developing discrepancy. Oftentimes, have people who identify, This is where I want to be. It's really comfortable for me to stay here. So helping them identify the discrepancy between where they want to be and where they're at.

Supporting self sufficiency, empowering them to see where they've been successful, helping them to build confidence. Throughout a client's time on probation, the probation officer is often collaborating with resources and other support services. We will be in contact and communication with treatment agencies to assist in connecting with further services or exchange updates on clients about compliance issues or concerns. Often, we are able to identify needs of clients outside of those court ordered conditions, and probation, through our knowledge of resources available, can help direct clients to additional support services. Unfortunately, not every client gets it right away or is able to accomplish those conditions right away on that first try.

Going back to ARLJ 11.1, probation is to assist the court with criminal justice management. We do, though, spend a lot of time focusing on the person and their needs and the barriers, but the directives from the judge in the judgment and sentence ultimately dictate that case management so that when there is noncompliance with a condition, it must be reported to the court. Probation will prepare a report for the judge, the prosecutor, the defense attorney identifying noncompliance and providing supporting documentation. The report is also an opportunity for the probation officer to note the ways that the client is addressing that noncompliance, such as therapeutically through increased treatment if it was a relapse. And that's what we want, ultimately.

We want the client to address that noncompliance therapeutically so that when they come back to court, the judge can say, Looks like you are doing what we want. That reported, though, is also an opportunity to note continued opposition to court conditions and make recommendations where appropriate. Completion of supervised probation can look a couple of different ways. Successful completion occurs when an individual has completed the affirmative conditions of that sentence. So they've completed the substance use disorder evaluation and treatment, and they've completed that requirement for the length of time that they're on supervised probation, which was ordered at sentencing.

That final probation appointment is an opportunity to review and reaffirm the progress made by the client and to identify the tools that they have developed to sustain that change. If there's still court jurisdiction, the case will be transferred to court monitored supervision for the remainder of that jurisdiction. But all remaining court conditions would be reviewed with the client, and those would be things such as no driving without a valid license and insurance, things like that. Once jurisdiction has ended, the case will close. Probation has evolved over the past decade or so.

There's been a shift in the approach to how we do things. Ten years ago, the role of the probation officer in assisting the court was strictly managing criminal justice and aiding in the preservation of public order and safety. And that was done through monitoring behavior and enforcing compliance. The offenders or defendants, as we refer to them, were told the conditions, given the due dates, and given a list of resources to make it happen, and told to make it happen. If they did not, they would be returned to court, and oftentimes jail would be imposed.

Probation services has evolved with the support of our courts and our judges to focus on public safety and recidivism through restorative justice, identifying amenability of clients, recognizing stages of change, and acknowledging barriers that can impact that progress, working with the individual to elicit engagement and buy in. And these changes can be seen not just in how probation works, but in something as simple as language. Like I mentioned, we used to refer to them as defendants or offenders, and now we talk about our clients. Probation officers still have to navigate the separate and often conflicting goals of rehabilitation and enforcement. We do that through offering additional programming and classes, which is another shift in the evolution of probation, trying to bring things in house that we can utilize, tools we can utilize to assist our clients in completing those conditions.

One of the programs that we have been fortunate enough to introduce in Kirkland and provide to clients is the DVMRT program. In 2018, Callie and I had the opportunity to attend the domestic violence moral recognition therapy facilitator training through correctional counseling. The MRT program was developed in 1985 and initially was implemented in prison based therapeutic communities, seeing a need within our own probation department of clients who were on long waiting lists for DV treatment or couldn't afford the several $100 DV treatment. We saw this as an opportunity to provide a domestic violence intervention that was accessible and affordable, and we were fortunate enough to be given the go ahead to start that DVMRT program. The objective of Morawakan Nation is to change conscious decision making, increase empathy, and reduce impulsivity and self destructive behavior.

It's a structured program utilizing a workbook with assignments covering 24 modules. The program is presented in a group setting. The MRT program is evidence based and recognized by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and National Institutes of Health. Since 2018, we've had 146 people graduate from the program offered by Kirk land. Right now, the program that we offer is only for men.

When we started the program, we were looking at our numbers, and the program really does work better if you have a group of about 10 people. We just did not have the number of female clients that would support sustaining an ongoing group. There are jurisdictions and providers that do provide the service for women, and so we would refer clients to Edmunds, Tukwila, and Bothell for those services. A little bit later on in 2022, we're seeing more clients coming out with anger management class requirements. And typical anger management, you can go sit in an eight hour class online or a sixteen hour class online.

And I think Kelly did that. You sat through that, didn't you?

And in the alcohol information school?

All right. So a lot of those classes, you're just throwing statistics at people, and that can be overwhelming, and so much gets lost in translation. We, having familiarity with the MRT program, we're excited about the anger management MRT program. It's the same concept as the DV MRT, same objective, same structure, shorter program. It's eight modules, like giving people exercises and activities and actual tools to deal with anger issues. Since we started the program, we have had 27 people graduate.

And one thing that is different with these DVMRT and anger management MRT programs than an eight hour class or something like that, is that not only are you getting the tools, but then you have the time from week to week to practice it,

and then

you have that accountability from your facilitator to say, okay, what did you do this week to practice this tool? Or how did you practice this tool? And the way that the modules build on themselves, they have that built into that program. So that is one key difference in these MRT programs is that not only are they teaching you these tools, not only are they getting you to think about things in a way that you may have never thought about them before, but then they're asking you to practice it, so the more you can build that muscle memory, the more likely you are to actually utilize these tools in situations where you need them. And then we wanted to talk to you about some of the community support that we utilize and collaborate with that you guys may be very familiar with, so one, City of Kirkland Human Services.

It is such a great resource and way for us to connect people with resources that, again, may not be for things that they have in their court conditions, but that could help them continue that behavioral change so we can help them get out of the court system. Connections has been a huge change in resources that we have, especially since it's right down the street from us, so we can refer people to Connections and they can literally walk from their probation appointment Connections to receive services. Sofia Way, having people that are in house have the opportunity to have a place to stay while they're trying to rebuild and work on things and to comply with the court's conditions. The navigator, jail navigator and reentry services through corrections, Kirkland Corrections, has been a great resource, especially for helping us collaborate with clients that are in custody. We have the ability to go over and meet with clients that are in the jail, but having someone that is embedded in the jail that has more real time information and can help us relay information and set clients up for success upon release has been a huge positive impact for us.

The Regional Crisis Response Agency, having them here within the city has been great, especially for clients that we have that are currently experiencing mental health crisis, to be able to have that resource to connect someone with that additional support in that moment definitely changes the way that our appointments can go. And then Department of Health has wraparound services that we don't have available necessarily within our probation services or within the city, but we can get them connected with those services to continue to grow. This is a poem that came across our probation office a few years ago, and I think it really just kind of helps put into words kind of what we see. So it's called There's a Hole in My Sidewalk by Portia Nelson, and in the poem, a person repeatedly walks down the same sidewalk and falls into a hole. The first time, they insist it's not their fault.

The second time, they fall in again but begin to recognize their role in what happened. They get out a little bit quicker. Eventually, they learn to walk around the hole. The ultimate hope is that they reach a point of deeper change, choosing not to just avoid the hole but to walk down a different street altogether. So this kind of just embodies what we can see in probation, and sometimes they go through one, two, and three multiple times, many times, and not necessarily, we don't always see that change in probation, but we're hoping that by planting those seeds and the work that we're doing that they can continue to find that difference.

And then

we wanted to talk to you guys about the impacts of change, the impacts that we see in probation. Success in probation does not always look the same for every individual. For some, it may be maintaining employment or stable housing. For others, it may involve rebuilding family relationships, achieving sobriety, consistently complying with court orders and conditions, but progress is often incremental and deeply personal depending on the individual. Measuring that success can be really challenging.

While recidivism rates are commonly used as an outcome metric, they would need to include state and national data because clients don't always remain within that same jurisdiction. As a result, a broader view of success is recognizing individuals' growth and meaningful change in behavior, and that is essential when evaluating the true impact of probation. In probation, we work towards positive change and growth, but we want to acknowledge that probation does not always end in positive outcomes. Probation can end in jail sanction with a case closed. They can end when individuals pass away.

As probation officers, I will tell you that you don't ever forget the people that you lose. So I think Sarah and I can both think of the names of every individual that we have lost on our probation caseload, or clients that we have worked with that have not successfully made it through that process because they've passed away. But we would like to talk to you guys about some of the experiences we have seen and the changes that we have seen in our time in probation. So one example that I wanted to share with you guys is a client that I had early on in probation. Jail

and close

was the outcome that we ended with. The client had the opportunity to come back and see us again, and that second time around, there was such a different readiness for change that they put that work in. They put the work in, they made those changes, and they successfully completed probation. What was really important, I think, was at that final appointment to be able talk to them about what work they put in to get to where they were, what they were doing now to give back to their community. So it's really important that we recognize the difficult parts of work, and that we recognize that not everyone is successfully going to complete probation, but when you do get that final probation appointment where someone can outline the growth that they've made over that two year period, the changes that they've made, the work that they've put in, and recognizing that the relationships that they had before may not be relationships that they can sustain going forward.

So that's one example of it was about ten years in between when I saw them the first time and then when they came back and successfully completed. So sometimes it takes a long time, but building that rapport and planting those seeds, sometimes you're doing that and you don't really know what that outcome is going to be, but if you keep doing it, it can make a positive change.

And I

think one thing we were talking about earlier is that sometimes a return to probation is not necessarily the worst case scenario. It's giving that person another opportunity, and it means that they're still alive to take that opportunity. So sometimes it's not such a bad thing that they're coming back. One of the things that I had thought about when I was thinking about positive outcomes from probation was when we had first started the anger management program, it was started with women. It was four women.

And these women could not have been more different. They were from all different socioeconomic backgrounds, ethnic backgrounds, and just very, very different women. The MRT program forces you to talk about things that you don't necessarily want to talk about with people that you know and like. And you are put into this group and talking about things with strangers. But you're all in there together, and you're all in there for the same reason.

And so watching people build that connection with each other. And these four women it was really interesting. I got out of group one day, and my mind was just kind of blown. They all had kind of individually identified this is not who they were. They were not angry people, but they were behaving that way.

And looking at their lives, they were able to kind of identify, I learned this. I learned this. I learned that this was an effective way to get something that I wanted. And it turns out all of these women had been involved in abusive relationships at different points in their lives. And so through trauma, through learned behavior, they had developed patterns themselves that were not appropriate.

And to watch these women interact and engage and bond over, Okay, this is where we've come from. Now where are we going? Where are we moving forward? It was really nice to see that progress in just one group. Of course, we have no control over whether or not they continue to practice the tools and skills and behaviors. That is a choice. That is a choice that they will have to make every day. But for that moment, seeing the realization and the recognition that, Okay, there could be something different for me here.

And looking forward, we just wanted to highlight that continued training is a huge part of what we do so that we can maintain those best practices, so we can stay up to date on our legislative updates because that is key in doing what we're supposed to be doing and doing it properly. One big change we have coming is that the court case management system that may be as old as our DVMRT program is going to be changing in June 2027, so some courts are adopting some of the King County courts are adopting that program this June. Our program implementation is June 2027, with that will be a new case management system for probation, and so we want to make sure that we do everything we can to prepare ourselves for that court wide transformation, transition, and then we wanna continue to research and implement new things that can help support the clients that we have coming through court and coming through probation, potentially utilizing the life skills program that community court is developing. Pierce County has implemented a program called Courage to Change, or implemented the Courage to Change program with their probation services, and so continuing to look and see what options are available, what things could be helpful, and continuing to grow.

Thank you very much. Thank you both. You're amazing.

And

Judge, you have a lot of amazing people that work for you in your court. And they stick around a long time, so you're amazing too. And it's really clear, not just in this presentation but the other presentations we have, is the through line is empathy and support, how to help people have better lives and move on with their lives. And you guys acknowledged it in your presentation, but when I was listening to you, I was thinking now I'm feeling teary. Sorry,

I see

it in you. I was thinking this is not work that you leave at the office. This was work that you carry with you in your day to day lives and in the future. So thank you both for what you're doing. Counsel, Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just want to add that I really appreciate you coming here and teaching us about the work that you do, letting us sort of educating us and letting us sort of study this work. Really appreciate the dedication to City of Kirkland, to the public, to the clients that you serve. As the mayor said, that sort of empathetic, person centered approach and the innovation, the number of programs that you talked about that are sort of innovative ways to approach this work. I just really appreciate it, really appreciate you coming and presenting to us today.

I've met, I think, both of you in the office or at the court at least a couple of years ago. We got to talk to you a little bit about your work. Just really appreciate it. That's all I I don't have any questions. Just wanted to make sure you understood how much we appreciate the hard work and the dedication and the innovation and the empathy.

Thanks. You. Councilmember Tim Chisholm.

You mentioned you didn't have enough women for the program. The majority of the DV cases I've seen with women defendants over the past five years, the alleged victim has been their own children and not a spouse. And it's been a situation where they exceeded the child discipline statute in beating one of their children. And I'm wondering if you've seen that, too, and if you have a class that corresponds to that issue, which is probably pretty different than a traditional MRT issue.

I think the MRT program can address family dynamics, but I think our concern is that in order to sustain that program, we would need to have a continual enrollment. So the way that the program works is that it's continuous enrollment. You've got someone that starts, and they're on module one, and then they work through their program, and then you could have someone start in the next week or two weeks later, so you can have people at the beginning of the program, in the middle of the program, at the end of the program, so you really need that rolling enrollment to kind of build that group, and then you can see your members that have been in there, and they're at week twenty or 24, and they're helping kind of show the people that are at one or two that they can do it and they can get involved. The dynamic when you have that parent child relationship, although it does get addressed and there are tools and skills in the DVMRT program, it may not be that most appropriate fit, especially depending on what is the underlying cause.

I think oftentimes you're dealing with more than just a parent who has abused their child. You're probably dealing with underlying mental health issues, underlying substance use issues, and so looking at a bigger picture and trying to address the behavior by addressing the underlying issues. Our directive is always from that judgment and sentence and from what the judge and what the parties have negotiated at disposition. So we get what the prosecutor and the defense attorney have negotiated. We get what the judge has ordered.

And then we work from there, trying to find things and tools that will meet those conditions.

You.

I

also want to just echo my colleagues to say thank you and the probation officers officers for all your leadership in building and implementing a program that truly helps people in the core of the issues that they are going through. You know, you talked about the four women from different backgrounds that came together, and was just imagining it in my head of them sitting down, talking through their issues. And I think that kind of goes into the complexity of human beings. Like, we're complex. And so really being able to kind of hit that and heal that, I think, is a very critical aspect.

So thank you so much for that. The only question I had was you talked about the DVMRT is only offered to men locally, and then women kind of have to go to different places to get those programs. Are there resources that you need to enable women to stay close by? And the second part of that question, I guess, is when women are referred out, is it difficult for them to get those services or pretty straightforward?

I think it tends to be a pretty straightforward experience. Interestingly enough, Kirkland is probably more difficult for people to access because we do our program in person. A lot of other agencies are doing it virtually, and we have made a conscious decision to go back to in person for our program because that group dynamic, that interpersonal dynamic, there just was something different about how the men engaged with each other, how they processed their module work that we didn't see being captured when we were COVID era doing it virtually. And so I think for us, it was the efficacy of the program was more important than ease, so to speak. So the programs that the female participants would be referred to are actually virtual programs, so they don't have to travel.

They're not needing to get babysitting care for long term.

Thank you.

And we try to find that balance between so we've got a morning group and we've got an afternoon group. If someone is in the morning group, but they have a meeting or something comes up, they can attend that afternoon group, we try and be flexible there. But when we were doing the virtual groups, it sort of took on a different life. We were, please put your shirt on for group today. Please don't take us into the bathroom for group today.

Please have your camera on. Please do not be driving while you're in group, and it just kind of took away from being able to really talk about what is the work you're doing, what is the project that you're presenting, what opportunities have you had to practice these tools, and so being able to do that in person, you reduce a whole lot of those distractions, and so like Sarah said, really focusing on the time that people have to put into this program, doing that in person we found was just much more effective, and it seemed like people got more out of it. You. Councilor Pascal.

Thank you. So I just have a few comments to offer. Nothing that's too different than what you've heard so far, but taking a step back, we've had a number of presentations so far on our criminal justice system and probing at different aspects of it. And when we first went down this pathway, my objective was to learn, but also to kind of identify, are we keeping pace with the best practices? Are we trying new things?

Are we continually adjusting? Are we leading on the issues? And, you know, as a council member, I don't know that. I I don't get exposed to this like some others might might that are in the profession or that have the unfortunate circumstance of going through the criminal justice system. But it was really just about learning and then making adjustments and ensuring that our system has the support to make the changes and the resources necessary.

All that being said, I honestly learned a lot from reading the packet and hearing from you. I don't have a background on probation, so I'm just really proud that we're doing good work and we're keeping it kind of people focused, human centric. And so just thank you for that.

Councilor Mary Falcom. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, thank you again for being here. I had one question and then one comment. My question is following up on Councilmember Tim Chisholm's question about, you know, parental domestic violence abuse against their children. You mentioned that there are some places where they, you know, kind of partner with neighboring jurisdictions that may have a critical mass of women, for example. Do we know if there is such a program in other nearby cities similar to what he was asking about, even if we don't have the critical mass here in Kirkland?

I think what you're going to find with abuse of children is those cases will more likely end up at felony level than they would at misdemeanor court level. And so those are not cases that are going to be often coming across. We did just a recent one through Kirkland, and she was placed on probation. I think there was some mental health evaluation and possibly some substance use that needs to be evaluated as well.

That would be King County Court. Do we know if they have such a program?

Well, I think, again, you're not going to get courts involved in child abuse treatment cases. There are going to be so many partners involved in child abuse cases. You're going to have CPS involvement at the Superior Court level. There will be Department of Corrections involvement if they're placed on supervision, and Department of Corrections will have their own programs that they operate.

Thank It

can be helpful if there are DV assessments that can occur where the assessor will get collateral information, and then they can determine kind of what the most appropriate course of action is. Sometimes it would be that DVMRT referral, depending on the case, but getting that assessment first with that collateral information can really determine what the most appropriate course of action is, and there are programs available in our region for that. It's usually best driven by that assessment first, and typically that's what the court would order

in those cases.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I do hear questions occasionally from community members asking specifically about the gap that they perceive in services for perpetrators of both physical and sexual abuse of children and getting them therapy that they need to be able to potentially heal from trauma that's causing them to be perpetrators. Thank you, I appreciate that. And then my one comment I just wanted to say, similar to my counsel colleagues but a little bit different, that as someone who has had I'm tearing up now has had loved ones in the past who have been clients of probation services.

I just want to say that this is in stark contrast to the things that I've experienced alongside them that they've experienced. So just thank you on behalf of the loved ones as well for the work you do.

Okay, no crying. No crying in JMRS.

You started it. I know.

Thank you, Kelly and Sarah and Judge Olson. We sincerely appreciate you being here.

And thank you all for hearing us and supporting.

Thank you so much.

We are going to transition now to the review of the twenty twenty five-twenty seven Planning Work Program status and the twenty twenty six-twenty twenty eight planning work program update.

Alright.

All right, City Manager.

Okay. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So as we transition, just a small word of introduction. So we have done this a little differently. Our normal practice has been that first the Planning Commission would look at the Planning Work Program updates and then make recommendations to the council.

I propose to do slightly differently this time, just given the complexity of the way the planning work program is going, the sort of relentless number of changes that the state legislature keeps imposing upon us, as these issues become more complex interwoven. So I thought it would make much more sense for the council to really look at it and say, how do you want the council's policies and procedures to be prioritized, what would you want the staff to work on? And then I've asked the Planning Commission to sort of take that first framework and revise it for you. So we're gonna go over this tonight. This is a draft.

The hope tonight is to get your feedback. It's obviously just the starting point. And then from the comments tonight, we'll then take those off to the Planning Commission, and it will come back to you for final adoption at a future council meeting. So with that, I'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to Allison Zeich, our Deputy Director of Planning and Building. And of course, we always also have our Deputy our Director, Adam Weinstein, as well. So

Thank you, City Manager, and good evening, Mayor Curtis, Deputy Mayor Black, and councilmember. Excited to talk about the work program with you tonight. I'm going to start with reviewing how we did on the adopted 25 to 27 work program. It's a fun look back. We got a lot done and then go into what staff has done, which is take a first go at a draft 26 to 28 work program.

I have 12 slides for you tonight, but one's a repeat. And that's the question slide. So before we dived in, I think city manager went over some of the questions that we have for you. We're doing things a little bit differently, so we identified some priorities that are really the drivers for the draft work program. We're identifying some policy levels that I'll go over to try to give everyone a little bit better idea of what's the scope of this task as we look at it on the work program. And then we'll ask you kind of our typical questions. Do you want to add any projects? Do you want to move any of them around? Do you want to take any away? So that's kind of a preview of what we'll be going over.

I was going to mute myself instead of going to the next slide. You might want me to do that in a little bit. All right, so this is, like, the funnest slide. What did we get done on the 25 to 27 work program? And it's a long list, so congratulations and thank you counsel for all your work last year.

I don't know if it felt like this to you, but looking back, we accomplished maybe it did. We got quite a bit done, so projects that we completed was the critical area ordinance update, the Juanita community initiated amendment requests, so those were known as the Michaels and the Goodwill sites. We rezoned the Houghton Park And Ride, adopted the Houghton Village development plan. You just kind of tied a bow on that and adopted some zoning code amendments for that last month or the month before. We met our state requirement for middle housing implementation.

We adopted another state requirement. We streamlined our design review process and updated our design review guidelines. We updated impact fees, and that was another state requirement to charge them scaled to the size of individual units instead of flat rates. Internally, this didn't come in front of council, but we did implement one of the actions from the sustainability strategic plan to look at a decision making matrix that we'll be using as we move forward and then also adopted unit lot subdivisions. That was a state requirement. Co living housing, that was a state requirement. And then did our typical kind of code cleanups and annual comprehensive plan amendments. Whew.

That it was a lot.

So thank you, and thank you to the Planning Commission for all

their I work was going say, you gave us credit, and really, the credit goes to you guys and the Planning Commission, so

thank you. Thank you. So that said, I read you that long list before I mentioned a few items that we're just running a little bit behind on. So the four items you see in front of you were ones that we had originally scoped to finish up last year, and they are ongoing. We did have a little bit of turnover on our long range planning team, so a few gaps in staffing, a couple projects that had to hold while we waited for someone's plate to clear up and finish up the project.

So those four projects are the code adjustments in the Northeast 85th Street Stationery Plan. You talked about these a little bit at your retreat last week, so we are preparing to take those to a Planning Commission public hearing this month, so those will be coming in front of you for adoption soon. We're still working on our adjustments to code enforcement policies and procedures. Those are also expected to come to you in the next couple of months. We're working on expanding housing opportunities on faith based properties, and that's one of those projects that, due to staff turnover, we had to kind of wait on that one a little bit until we had someone that was available to take it on and give it the attention.

And then, lastly, we are working on wrapping up establishing that neighborhood plan amendment request process, which is a new process that came out of our work on the comprehensive plan and updates to neighborhood plans. I'll pause there just to ask if there's any council questions about any of our completed tasks or ongoing projects.

I see none. Okay.

So I mentioned kind of our highlights. We feel like we did get a significant number of projects completed from the last work program and as I kind of went down that list, I think you're well aware, a lot of that work was driven by new state requirements, so that's kind of been the biggest determinant of what do we work on and when do we work on it, is really looking at what is the state handed down and when do we need to get it done by. But we've also been able to start working on some more kind of city initiated projects that start implementing our comprehensive plan policies that the council adopted in 2024. So that's exciting stuff, too. As we looked at trying to draft for you what 'twenty six-'twenty eight looks like for the work program, we identified these four priorities that kind of drove where do we place these projects, how might we adjust them a little bit, and what new projects do we want to propose to you.

So those priorities, which were also in your packet, you know, finish up the work we've already committed to in 2025, look at creating more affordable housing faster, and we did a lot of housing work in 2025, and we have quite a bit ongoing right now. Working to streamline the development review process as we talk to housing developers and the people that help us get more housing in Kirkland, we hear, again and again, calls and suggestions to try to make that process go quicker and more predictably for them, so that's a focus of some of the new project suggestions you'll see. And then, similar to the last couple of years, we expect that we might have new state mandates that we need to make sure to plug in. So I mentioned this a little bit in the intro, but one of the things that we've sort of heard from both council and planning commission and community members is trying to understand what does it take to get each of these tasks done, and it's helpful for us to think that through as well. And so we've kind of drafted these policy levels and have the idea of when we adopt the planning work program, assigning a low, medium, or high policy level to each task to give us all a good idea of how much change do we expect to come out of this, how much public outreach might we expect to do with this, and also if counsel might be the primary driver and kind of public forum for work on that task or if it's going to be more sort of drafted at the Planning Commission level and work its way up.

And so these were also in your packet, but I'll just talk through them quickly and happy to discuss any questions. So a low policy level is one where we really don't expect any change. This would be one where we expect to hold most of the public process at the Planning Commission, so the hearing, kind of any feedback we need to draft the code and then involving counsel really at that adoption phase. These are typically ones where we wouldn't expect to do a lot of community outreach, and some examples of this are miscellaneous code amendments or, in some cases, implementing state code when there's really only one way to do it and not a range of options for counsel to be considering. The medium policy level, probably the most common.

Funny how the middle is always that, But this would be work that's based on existing adopted policy, but there might be multiple ways to get to the outcome, so there's some choice in that. So for those, we would suggest that counsel provide some initial scoping direction to us to kind of let us know, of the range of options, is there any way you want to tighten that up or expand it? But then we'd still be working primarily with Planning Commission on the nuts and bolts of putting those options together and working through the public process. This, we would expect to do a little more community outreach, so but making it clear to the community where their input can influence the ultimate council decision, and so best example of this are really zoning code amendments. There's a lot of them, but, like, the Juanita cars were zoning code amendments.

They were guided by adopted policy, but a lot of different ways to there. And then a high policy level, we're establishing a new policy or precedent. We'd really be looking to counsel to be the body that we primarily work with on those with maybe very specific areas where you're looking for Planning Commission input, And then these would likely also involve the most community engagement, really making sure that we're providing opportunities for council and Planning Commission to hear from community members and factor that into your ultimate decision. So new comp plan policies or amendments with really broad or different citywide impacts. This is one of our questions for you later.

I'm not sure if you have any questions now.

Council, any questions on this? Everybody support it? Comments and questions?

Thank you very much for this. I think it's a good exercise to go through and see kind of you know what the different process should be for different types of policy things that the Planning Commission and Council will consider. My kind of 20,000 foot view lens on things that I just want to make sure that are important to me for our boards and commissions is, one, making sure that they have freedom to provide us recommendations that may or may not be what council wants to hear because that's the purpose of our boards and commissions, right, is that they're they are independent. They are you know, they dig a lot deeper into these issues than counsel is able to, and we appoint them for a reason. Right?

Because we value their opinion, and I don't want them to be, like, stifled in any way. And so I I think it's helpful for them to get input from counsel on certain issues. I would still want them to have the freedom to go outside of those parameters if they feel strongly. I think that's really important for us to give that freedom to our boards and commissions. And the other is this, I just want to make sure we're being efficient and that we don't just add unnecessary steps and check ins that could delay and cause things like extra meetings and stuff.

So if there are ways that we can be efficient with these check-in processes, I know in the past we've done a joint half day council planning commission retreat or something like that. There's something like really big, maybe one of the high policy level issues rather than have it like go to council and then planning commission and back to council and back to planning commission, you know, something that might take six months. You might be able to knock out in a few hours in an afternoon, right? And so I just want us to think through how this could practically play out just to make sure that we're being efficient with our time and really getting the best results for the community and, again, that we're not causing delay. But other than that, I mean, think the framework is really helpful and obviously it's in the implementation that I think is important. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Councillor Tim Tusen?

Thank you. Yeah, I do think that this will help us have the City Council establish city policy. I see two different types of things on a work program. One is developing policy on an item, and the second type of thing is like some of the CARs we handled, where there's a developer that's burning money as the process goes on. And on some of the regular items, I don't see urgency, on item where the developer is burning money, paying interest on the land, things like that.

I'd like to see a process that is speedy. Does that help? Thank you.

Anyone else? Councillor Pascal?

Yeah. I just I I I wanna offer my thoughts as well. My just so everyone knows kinda where I'm at. Maybe everyone does without me saying, but I'll say it anyways. You know, I think I I was concerned with some of the policy changes that kinda came through the CAR process and had citywide implications. And I raised that. That's not that hopefully is nothing new. That's not new information that I've I'm I'm sharing now. That that originated in many different places, but it came through the planning commission process. And

I would

like us and future councils to have the opportunity to weigh in on those citywide policies before they get too far down the road. And I think, looking back, I think it would have been nice to circle back on some of those early on in the process last year to not give false impressions to the development community about certain things and or make promises that other property owners now are going to assume that they should also be entitled to. And so we, as a city council, we are the elected body. We should, you know, have purview over the citywide policies. It's totally open to ideas, as council member Falcone said, and input.

But I wanna make sure council leads on that, not the planning commission. And so that was something that I kinda gathered from that. And as a former planning commissioner, I certainly understand the role that they're in and what they hear from. But now as a city council member, I'm also acknowledged that we ultimately are accountable. And I want to make sure that those citywide policies rest at our level.

Thank you. Anyone else? I'll just go ahead and weigh in quickly. I don't think what you've heard is conflicting. I think that this is a smart way to go. What it does is it supports both bodies, provides clarity that we where we're each going, it's better collaboration. As Councilmember Falcone said, it adds some efficiency because I think that we all agree that we want to make faster progress on projects. So I think this will be super helpful.

Great. Thank you. So in your draft work program that we're going to start talking about here in a second, we have taken kind of a we've drafted what policy level we think each of these tasks would sit at and that would be an item that we'd want counsel feedback on, of course, if we've kind of tagged it wrong. So, to get into the Draft twenty six-twenty eight work program, there was a copy included in your packet, and I printed out a version for you all as well. My plan for the next few slides is to go over the new proposed tasks.

There are several tasks that were on the adopted '25 to '27 work program that remain on the work program. In some cases, staff has, in a rough draft format, suggested sort of maybe moving it around on the work program, and we've tried to note in that attachment why we might be suggesting moving it up or down. But going to spend these next few slides walking you through a little bit of these potential new tasks. Adam and I will be tag teaming this so he can jump in wherever he wants. So the first bucket of potential new tasks is state and regional requirements, so these are must dos, and I think council is probably pretty aware of a lot of these, and you'll see that it makes up it's the biggest bucket.

We still have a lot of state requirements that we're going to have to pull through into our local zoning code, so the first one isn't it's kind of a combination of a lot of requirements coming our way, that's we've noticed that now there's state, regional, and county policies that require us to report our housing performance and production, and this is in addition to reporting permit review timelines and things like them. So as we were required to start doing this work in 2025, we realized, wow, this is actually taking a significant amount of staff time to pull together and so wanted to make sure that we recognize that on the planning work program and carry it through as an ongoing item that we're doing a little bit of work on every quarter because it's going to be an ongoing requirement, so it does take staff time and it's time that we can't we have to give time to it and it might be time we can't necessarily be working on something else. The next one is the parking bill implementation. Council has already heard a presentation on this. We're moving forward with it.

Council has directed us to employ the quick action ordinance, so it will be coming back to you soon. So we're already doing work on that. Another one is the lot splitting bill. So this is one more state requirement that gives people another option to segregate lots and sell them in different ways. This is sort of in the vein with the unit lot subdivision bill that we implemented last year.

The deadline for this one is until July 2027, but we've suggested going ahead and getting the work done. With the unit lot subdivision bill, minimum lot sizes are a little less relevant than they used to be in terms of how people can sell new units. So we think this just kind of adds to the bucket of options for people to keep producing housing in Kirkland, so we are suggesting early implementation of that, and we think we can get it done pretty quickly. This is one where there's not a lot options of how to do it, the state tells us, so it would be like a low policy level. The next is the TOD bill.

This is a big one, and we have until December 2029 to do it, but we think it's going to take a while, so we want to give it enough room on the work program and start it early enough that we can adjust as we go because it's probably one where there might be some local decisions that we can still make within the parameters of what the state has asked us to do. The next is the periodic shoreline master program update. So this kind of goes hand in hand. It follows the state's requirement for the periodic comprehensive plan update. So this is another one that we're proposing to start in 2028 because it did take us a while last time.

It garnered a lot of community interest. So, again, just want to plan ahead as our department title suggests we do. So next is the comp plan progress.

Oh, sorry. Councilmember Tim Chee.

Thank you. You know, I've never seen a legislative session where a municipal government has been micromanaged to this extent by our state legislators in Olympia. And as you attempt to implement some of these things, it would also be helpful, I think, to present the City Council with options as to how we can maintain some level of discretion in the face of oppressive micromanagement from our state government. Thank you.

Feel better now.

Yeah.

Well,

I would like I mean, for example, on 6026, it would be helpful to know if, like, I don't know the ins and outs of this bill. If you do a development agreement, can that development agreement require ground floor retail? If we do things this way, can we have a trade off in what we I don't have time to read the bill and understand everything about it. So it would be nice to, as you implement it, to present options that would

Get us the best outcome.

For that bill in particular, there will be a lot of choices that the council would have to make.

Yeah. I mean, if we have

Okay.

We're with you. All right.

Go ahead, Allison. All right. Next project, second from the bottom, is that we owe the state a progress report on our comprehensive plan, so it's due five years after the deadline to adopt it, so that gives us a deadline of December 2029 to do that progress report. And we want to make sure we give it a good look, especially with all of I mean, we made some big policy changes and with the council's focus on housing production and housing affordability. We want to make sure that we really give that good due diligence and as part of that are suggesting that we do another capacity analysis, so our capacity analysis is a required component of the comprehensive plan update.

And in addition to showing us how much zoned capacity we have for housing units and jobs citywide, it also requires us to kind of make informed assumptions about where we think that growth is going to happen. And so by doing another capacity analysis, it will allow us to see where the growth happened, did it match our assumptions or do we need to make any course corrections? And so we're suggesting that work start in 2028 to give us the time to make sure that we're learning as we go. And then lastly, as Councilmember Tim Chisholm mentioned, we want to save space on the work program for any bills that might pass in this current session that we need to start work on this year or early next year with 6026 kind of being at the top of our minds as one that will require some work.

What is the current deadline for 6026, recognizing it still be amended?

Last I heard was eighteen months after passage. Thank you.

Yeah, that's the current draft. And I will say that the city of Kirkland was the leader on getting extended from a year, so the reason we even

Yeah, I thought it was years.

The work that we all did.

Thank you.

I'll pause in case there's any questions about any of these tasks.

I do not see any. Okay.

The next bucket of recommended tasks for the 26 to 28 work program we kind of categorize as comp plan implementation. So after we get through the bucket of what we need to do to meet state requirements, what are other actions we can take to start implementing comp plan policies that might help us make progress on some of our priorities. And so the first of those is looking at AI based tools for permit review. We've really we have a lot of comp plan policies that talk about how we can streamline the development process. This could be one of them.

We are also looking at permit reform for our house moving permits, and so there's a lot of great reasons that we might move houses, one of those being as a sustainability measure. The other thing is a built house is, in a lot of cases, a more affordable house, and so we have quite a bit of a fair amount more than you might realize house moving that happens in Kirkland, some of it within the city, some of it from Kirkland out of the city, but the permit process is a little bit cumbersome. We think there's some opportunity to make that more efficient, so we're looking at that and then kind of paired with that, want to explore any incentives we might be able to offer for people to adaptively reuse some of these homes that are already built or other structures and that might also include things like ways we could disincentivize demolishing some of them, again, along a lot of sustainability kind of policy lines. I'll pause there because do you have anything to add on either of those? Okay.

The next proposed project is to look at our low density residential zones to consolidate them and try to streamline them, and this is one that we've talked about for a while. We do have a couple adopted policies comprehensive plan that direct us to look at this, and really one of the reasons that we found at staff is that our zoning code is quite large. When and I had an opportunity in the last few weeks as part of PSRC's efforts to develop a future land use map for the region. They asked the city to look at the assumptions they were making about our zoning and make sure they were had all the right kind of maximum densities and allowed heights plugged in for every zone in the city. And they sent me the list, and I realized I didn't have enough time to look at it within their timeline because we have about 136 zones in the city, and over 20 of those are just low density residential zones.

And we think that we have more unique zones than we have very distinctly unique areas of the city. When we're looking at low density residential zones, especially as we've adopted the state's middle housing requirements, we have a lot of different zones, but the standards aren't that different across them. And just anecdotally, something we've noticed over the years because we have all these low density residential zones is that even people that apply frequently and build frequently in Kirkland might get them mixed up, and it could be the difference of them having a building that they think can be 30 feet and it can only be 25. It slowed down the permitting process in some cases because they thought they were in an RS zone, but they were in an RSX zone, and so we have to go back. And we've included a few snips of our zoning map, and you can just see all of these bold lines are different zones, especially on the right.

You see all of the light yellow are low density residential zones, but within that small geographic area, we have one, two, three, four, five, six different low density residential zones. So we'd love to take a look at those zones and see if we can consolidate them, identify anything that is important to keep unique to the zones. Structure height might be the prime candidate for that, but look at other ways that we can really make much fewer zones, and that's also going to streamline some of our code amendment processes down the line, especially when we're making changes. So lots of efficiencies to be gained there, which is why we're proposing it. Along similar lines, I think counsel is well aware of this from your work on the Juanita cars that when you asked us to kind of identify an average development standards across all of our neighborhood center zoning, it was a little bit more difficult than we thought because, same thing, those neighborhood zones have slightly different standards when they might be fairly similar in characteristics and we certainly have similar objectives for all of them.

So we think there's an opportunity to look at those across the city, look at the possibility of consolidating some of them, and then also, per an adopted comprehensive plan policy, identify if there's any regulatory barriers that might be stopping them from redeveloping because those are areas where we do have a lot of housing capacity but haven't seen a lot of redevelopment.

Let's pause for a quick second to see if there's yep, I knew there would be. Councillor Mayor Falcombe?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I have a couple of questions. I appreciate the thoughtfulness in all of this and thinking through, like, the low density residential zone consolidation and streamlining and how that will help some of the other work that we're doing. I noticed that's kind of the '26 going into '27. Just want to make sure that that will be timed right to help with some of the other state mandates work that we're doing as well since that seems to be one of the benefits, but I'm sure we'll be thoughtful about that.

On the AI based tools for permit review, I hear often from developers that it's not just like the planning department part of permitting that gets in the way. Oftentimes it's public works requirements that really drags out the timeline. Have you thought about that and how that will that barrier be helped with the AI based tools for permit review? Or is that something we're thinking through, how that could also help alleviate that issue that we hear often from developers?

Yeah, I can take that. Councilmember Palko, that's a good question. Councilmember Prym requested an LRM on AI based permit review tools, and so we're working on wrapping that up right now. And we've been spending a lot of time over the last year talking to consultants and cities that have adopted AI tools, including the city of Bellevue, is probably the one that's closest that has made the most progress on AI. There are lots of different tools that are being developed right now.

There are tools that are mostly on the applicant side that allow applicants to get their basically permit applications reviewed before they're even submitted. Then there are tools that allow cities to perform the review quicker, more quickly. The public works requirements, that's an interesting one because we do have prescriptive requirements for public works. A lot of what we hear from developers is actually related to the difficulty of actually achieving those on project sites. It's like carving out a sidewalk and a landscape strip and whatever else is needed for the right of way.

So there's an element of that that is probably not something that you can solve with AI, and then there's another element figuring out what you need to do that AI can help with. I think most of the tools we've seen are focused on the building code and the zoning code as opposed to right of right requirements, which are a little more fluid. But it's a good question and something I think we need to look at.

Thank you. Yeah, it'd be good to have that in the back of our mind as we're considering not just AI based tools, but just permit review in general and trying to streamline the processes, looping in public works and how we can learn from what other places are doing on that. So thank you. And then I just have kind of a I don't know if it's a silly question, but you mentioned that there are more than we would imagine than we might think of the houses moving either within or into or out of Kirkland. Like, how many are we talking? I also had a hard time. Like, I might have heard of one or two in the past decade that I've lived here because I feel like people see that, right? Like it's a big deal when someone sees the house moving. Do we have an idea of how many?

As I said that, I feared you might ask me that question. There's several every year. They happen at night most of the time because it's easier for traffic control in

the

utilities. Not every night, like we're not moving you sleep. But do you have a better idea?

Well yeah, I think that's right in terms of the number. But I think the bigger challenge is that a lot of them just get demolished, right, as opposed to getting moved. That's I think probably the problem statement. Because it's so hard to do it. Right? You have to work with our public works department and figure out the route and move the house in the middle of the night. You have to find a location for it. We have restrictions on the locations. We have restrictions on the duration that an old house can be stored on a site. So there's lots of complexities that I think result in a lot of houses getting demolished.

This is so fascinating to me. I'm wondering if part of it too can be once we've done this work of just making sure that we encourage it as well, that we'll see more people doing that. Thank you.

Thank you. Deputy Mayor?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I appreciate everything that you've raised on this slide. I did have a question about the House moving, similar. You've answered it. Although you haven't really talked, I guess, it's nine months on the schedule. I'm trying to get an idea just how big a lift this is. Everything, you've made a really good case for it, if it's a pretty light lift. Otherwise, I think you've done a really nice job of trying to develop a work program that's actually achievable. And I want to I'm here today to try to help you make sure that it is fully achievable. Is this one that you feel like it's a light lift so, yeah, we can get it done in the 2026 time frame in the nine months that's required?

Is that what you're signaling to us? Yeah. Thanks, Deputy Mayor.

I can take that one. I think it can be a fairly light lift. I think this is not a project that requires a lot of public engagement, for instance. I think we know what the problem statement is and we can, we have some concrete ideas for how to fix it. And I think we can scope the project accordingly so that we can get it done this year.

Okay. And then staying on the slide in fact, I'll have more questions on other slides, I think. But same kind of question on low density residential zone consolidation. I read that and the potential efficiencies streamline that comes from it. I thought this was a brilliant idea. It also seems potentially big. I think it's twelve months on the schedule. I do think there's probably going to be community interest in some of this and what it really and just trying to understand what it really means in their particular neighborhood. How big a lift is this one?

Yeah, I can take first go and then Adam can weigh in. You know, I think we wanted to give a conservative estimate to leave room for making sure that the community understands what the project is doing and what it isn't doing. And so I think wanna give ourselves some good time for project setup to make sure that we can be really clear with the community when we do start talking to folks. It's also just a lot of technical work, so I think there's a lot of desk time assigned to this because of how many zones. It's a lot of tedious work, so wanting to give it enough breathing room that we're not rushing it and can kind of take our time with it.

So that's sort of the twelve month timeline or the thinking behind that. But I think that there's some possibility for us to be able to overlap it with projects that are kind of utilizing the consolidation. We might have a couple stages that we do the work in.

Okay. Well, I'll just wrap up and say, if there were a couple of items that you've touched on so far on the last two slides, it is this one and the House moving that I feel like could move. We could push it out a year if we're just looking at a work program that's just got too much on it. And frankly, 6026 moving to the top of the list, if it passes, you know, we're I feel like we're gonna need to save some space, more space than we'd probably imagine. So thanks.

Councilor Pascal?

Thank you. Real quick, I support the deputy mayor on on what he said there with potentially moving some of that. Two two things. One is one of the things I've heard and we've talked about it repeatedly is code enforcement updates. We're getting a lot more code enforcement complaints. And some of these can be things that are more straightforward and addressed more quickly if we had the right regulations. I'm hoping that that's part of the work program to streamline that process so that not everything has to

go through the hearing examiner if it's a very straightforward kind of issue. Yeah, thanks Councilmember Pascal. That's exactly what we're planning on doing. We're actually wrapping up the draft code amendments right now, so we're planning for a briefing with council in the next couple of months, and the code amendments will do exactly that, yeah, allow for a process where we can issue fines, and then those can be appealed to the hearing examiner as opposed to having to go to the hearing examiner to get fines.

And please share with, if you haven't with other council members, the issue around moving houses because that has been a code enforcement issue along the hundredth that I've had the opportunity to get lots of emails about. And so I like to share the burden with folks. Just as a background too, that's a nuanced issue. That's worth evaluating. And then lastly, Totem Lake Industrial Zone, the Southern Industrial Zone, that was something that we voted on in the comp plan update to do a study there.

I noticed that it's broken up into two phases. We're going to do a visioning exercise this year and then come back later next year with a market study and additional potential regulatory changes. I really feel like the visioning and the market study are need to be aligned because the market study looks at what's the viability of industrial and commercial land uses. Right? Where what's what's the market demand?

Where's that going? How's that changing? What does Kirkland need to be doing to, you know, to address that. And and so what I'm afraid of is coming up with a vision that is completely opposite of what the market demand study does. So I I'd really like to see those more aligned. If that means kind of front front loading the market study, that would that'd be great. And there is demand for that. I mean, we I I know I've met with the property owner there. They're they're really looking to to do things there. So I think there's some urgency to get this moved forward. That's just another comment. Thank you.

Council Member Tim Chisholm.

Thank you. I'm having trouble seeing an upside to the moving houses and the consolidation of residential zones. The consolidation of residential zones is likely to be a very contentious topic, and I'm not sure what the upside would be in terms of producing housing or what we would accomplish. The increasing school capacity on the work program is an item that I think should probably be removed for the time being. I'm on the Lake Washington School coordinating committee, and they don't seem to want to collaborate with us on that issue.

I don't see an immediate future on that issue without school district collaboration. So I don't just don't foresee that being something that's going to accomplish a lot. I also am in favor of having some space in the 2026 work plan for potential legislation as well as for potential new CARs or new projects that we know that we may get potential CARs within the station area or potential development agreements within the station area. So I think if somebody brings us a shovel ready project for 100 or 200 units that we agree is worth looking at, that that's going be a time sensitive issue that we're going to want to look at in 2026. Bumping some of these other issues would make sense to me in order to free up space on the work program for potential developments that are I think going to come forward, I think they'll be relatively similar to the Michaels and CAR Michaels and Goodwill CARs.

Or maybe not the same process, but similar projects. Thank you.

Councilor Graham, should I let Allison go back to her presentation?

I had a very quick question. Just the 85th Station area, regarding the cars, would cars relevant to the 85th Station fall under the 85th Station line item, or would those be separate line items on the plan?

Yeah, that's interesting. I can take a crack at that, Councilmember Prym. So that's an interesting question in that we have a separate process for CARs, right? And that involves applications by the end of this year. And then there's a multistep process that we take those through, right?

They ultimately end up at council, but go through the planning commission. The stationary plan, as you know, is something that we're trying to activate. So I think we're really trying to engage with the community and be open to ideas that might influence development happening in that area. So another one of the things that we talked about at the retreat the other day is a new development agreement process, code amendments that would allow for a more flexible code development agreement process that would allow us to do things similar to CARs but in the station area specifically. So I think we have a couple of routes for having a more streamlined expedited process for stuff that happens that could happen in the station area such as a more flexible development agreement approach.

Good question. Thank you. Okay, we're at seven and I'm hoping counsel is amenable to continuing on into our break. Okay.

Last couple of potential new tasks were counsel directed, so the first is checking back in with you on the affordable requirements in low density residential zones that you adopted last year. You asked us before June or by June to bring you any potential alternative methodologies for that, so we plan to revisit you with that work. And then we've also heard from you that you have an interest in evaluating the car process. Is it working well? Should we adjust?

So we're adding that onto the work program. Wanted to just make sure counsel and the community knows that we have received some comments on the draft work program. They were primarily asking counsel to prioritize specific projects. Those requests included the sign code update. It's one that has kind of moved down on the work program several years in a row, but some community members have an interest in making sure we get that one done.

And then several emails asking you to prioritize tasks that increase housing capacity, and I've noted them here, and I know council has received the emails as well. And then the last project, which the community member asked us to prioritize, was looking at home occupations and neighborhood commercial allowances. We do have that one on the adopted work program and are suggesting we start work on that this year. Lastly, just some next steps. Plan on visiting Planning Commission to let them know about the Council discussion tonight, asking them to recommend a draft of the work program for you to consider adoption of in April and then ending with our questions for you, Council, some that we haven't. I'll hand it back to you, Mayor.

Thank you. Good job. Seven on the dot. All right. Councilmember Arnold.

Thank you, and thank you for all the thought that went into this. Couple of broad areas of feedback to your question on additional projects. This is something I brought up in the retreat. We've had a number of discussions on affordable housing requirements where we've made specific adjustments in CARs. We've got specific rules in the station area.

We're talking about revisiting the station area. We need to have a citywide I'd like to have a citywide discussion on affordable housing and just decide this once because we know we need to update it. Other feedback, I agree with Deputy Mayor Black, 6026 is medium to high impact as written today. We're going to have to decide areas of the city that current require ground floor retail and decide which ones don't or which ones fit into one of the other exclusion areas. And there's a lot of media policy there, so I think we need to reserve a lot of capacity for that.

And then in order to do that, I have some suggestions on things I'd be willing to defer or change. I agree with Councilmember Pascal, the Totem Lake industrial sub area like to see options that don't take two years for that and can we combine the phases there. Agree on the increasing school capacity. It's not something that the school districts is engaged on cannot move to 2028. Although it pains me, I'd be willing to move the sustainability strategic plan update to 2028. And I'd also be willing to slide the sign code to 2027.

And

other pieces on this, I do see value in the low density residential code consolidation and streamlining and support taking a look there. I'm hoping that the changes to synchronize these are small and not as big as council member Tim Chisholm fears. I think there's some benefit in having that be understandable and memorable. We don't have 100 custom different zones that no one knows without looking them up. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilman Pascal.

Thank you. I'm going to just be real simple here and say that I thought, Steph, you did a great job in really prioritizing the work program. For the most part, agree with it and think that you hit the right priorities. And so thank you for doing this. I mean, other than some of the things that we mentioned, I think, that are minor. I do wanna respond to some of the emails that we received because I take issue with it. The title of the emails that we've received are fix the planning work program. I don't know if you guys agree with that. I don't agree with that. I don't know that it needs to be fixed.

It goes on and says the planning projects that will help the most are three years away in the current proposal. Do you agree with that? I I don't. I mean, I I just it doesn't acknowledge the fact that we've done amazing work over the last few years. You know, it doesn't acknowledge that this isn't just a Kirkland issue.

This is a regional, a state issue. It doesn't it assumes that all housing issues are purely on the side of the government, and there isn't other housing issues related to the financial side or housing supply housing material cost increases, tariffs. It doesn't also acknowledge what I'm hearing from a lot of people across the city, the significant increases in property taxes. Not property values, property taxes that have gone up significantly across the city for a variety of reasons, not because of necessarily the city. But those all contribute to housing costs.

And so I really took offense to some of the emails that we got that said that we should fix the planning program, planning work program. I just didn't agree. So thank you.

Thank you. Deputy Mayor?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm going to do sort of quick hit. Nothing that I haven't already I'm not going to repeat anything I already said. House moving, I would bump it to 27, low density residential zone. Man, if you can do it, great.

A little worried about that one still. The sign code, I'd push it to 27. I hate seeing it keep getting kicked down the road, but with just how much work we're asking you and the Planning Commission to do, I would move that one. Also, I'm going to follow the lead from my colleagues who know more about where the schools are as far as being ready to take advantage of our efforts to increase housing on schools. And then I do have a so that's kind of that.

Otherwise, I think you guys have done a lot of great work and nailed it. I already mentioned that. I do have a question about number 41 versus number well, it doesn't have a number yet. It's community it's the CAR request that's new for 'twenty six. And then we're also doing something with CARs under 'forty one and 'twenty seven. Just want to make sure I understood what those two what's the difference.

Yeah. So the new item that you see related to CARs is evaluating the actual process. And then the task 41 is assuming the process We remains the accept CAR applications in even years and we begin reviewing them in odd years so that's a placeholder on the work program just assuming the process stays similar, that we start reviewing them next year.

Okay. All right. And I'm really glad to see that I was wondering where corner commercial or corner store was, too. I'm glad you brought that up. It's in number 24. Thank you. I received the same communications that Councilmember Pascal received. I was wondering, like, okay, like, are we doing enough on housing? And I got to say, I did the numbers. Two of the carryover items are directly related to housing capacity, carrying over from 2025.

And then I just did some quick math. 15 of 30 approximately 30 items that we're working on from 'twenty five, 'twenty six and in 'twenty seven all relate to increasing housing capacity, streamlining permitting, making things more efficient. So ultimately, I did kind of want to stress test it based on the feedback we've got, and I did. And I really feel like you threaded the needle the way we need to. We've got a lot we're doing a lot we've done a lot on housing, and we're doing a lot of housing. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilmember Falcombe? Thank you, Madam Mayor. We've heard some great feedback from my council colleagues. I agree that this is, I mean, is always such a tough thing when all of these things are so important to prioritize them and to to figure out. It doesn't mean that when it's further out, it's less important. Sometimes it's just the timing and it makes more sense to do one thing before the other. So kudos to to the whole team for all the work on it's like, you know, timeline Tetris trying to figure out, like, how it all fits together. So really well done. I agree.

I appreciate the deputy mayor's quantification of it being 15 out of the 30 items are are related to affordable housing. Like Kirkland really has been a leader for many years on affordable housing work and that's something that we're really proud of. I really appreciate that we're looking at more complete communities and not just affordable housing. We're looking at corner stores that were on there. I know I advocated to get some of that language in there last year and changed to make sure that we really looking at that including that as part of it.

I think that's really important in addition to the work we're doing elsewhere on transit and transportation as well and so thankful for that. I mean I agree we're in a housing crisis, right? So I do still feel the urgency and the community feels the urgency. There are folks who, we know the issue, right? So in the interest of time I'm not going to repeat that.

I agree with Council Member Pascal that it's not just the cost of housing, it's taxes, it's utilities and I know the city has been leading on some work related to utilities. We're all feeling that and so we get that and we're approaching this just like every other issue thoughtfully with a multi pronged approach and you can see that in here and the other work that we're doing as well. Most of our largest need is on affordable housing so I really appreciate that we're prioritizing kind of the most bang for our buck with our time on affordable housing. We also know it's a supply and demand issue and we also need workforce housing in our city and missing middle housing is one of the ways that we get at that as we know. I think we have a lot of good stuff in here.

You've heard from my colleagues some great ideas of things to maybe bump a little further down, a little further out just to help prioritize some of the other things on here and I agree with much of what I've heard there. I would just say the one thing that I would bump up is the missing middle housing work. That is something that's so crucial. It really goes hand in hand with the neighborhood retail commercial space discussion that we're going to be having this year as well, really just looking at our less dense residential areas and what can we do to really make those complete communities and more thriving neighborhoods as well. We hear from people all the time and we know that the current missing middle housing that we see is not affordable because there's so little stock of it and that's why like we did lead on missing middle housing policy reform back in 2020 during when we were the epicenter of COVID.

We still passed that policy and the whole reason we're doing this is because we're not seeing enough production. I know we know that but it's just really important that we prioritize that and figure out the first step is really just figuring out what are the barriers, why aren't we seeing it, right? And I think that that's something that will help us determine the timing and the next step. So I'd really like to see at the very least just looking at bumping up significantly to this year, looking at missing middle housing, you know, talking with stakeholders, with developers, with property owners and figuring out what are the things, what are the list of things that we need to look at. Some of it's going to be, you know, setbacks and height and other things like that but some of it could be staffing things, some of it could be, you know, a streamlined permit, additional pre approved plans, could be fire code safety, like there could be like a whole slew of different things that are related to this.

I think it's important that we have a grasp of that to really know how much work that's going to be and then continue to move forward on that because that's something we've let on for quite some time. It's a huge missing piece and the more supply we have, the more those prices will go down and then we'll have more affordable and especially affordable home ownership as well. So I agree with bumping a lot of the stuff back, but I really would like to see the missing middle housing happen sooner, later this year and not in 2028. Thank you.

You. Council Member Prem, then Council Member Tim Chisholm.

Yes. I would agree with a lot of what Council Member Falcone just said. I would like to bring up the middle housing up to 2026. And if I were to give up a few of the things for 2026, I would say and move it down is the curb management policy sign code. And then after talking about the house moving, I think we can move that down, hopefully.

And then the low density residential zone consolidation, also, I I think we could move that down. The bottom line is, as you know, I've heard from a number of people in the community that purchasing a home today is still extremely difficult. The need for more housing is critical. And although we have the 85th Street plan, the Totem Lake plan in the 2026 and twenty twenty seven years, that will provide a lot of rental units. It's not going to provide a lot of homeownership opportunities.

And although the housing this type of housing, this middle housing, is not going to be cheap, I do think it provides some relatively cheaper housing options. And as most know, building middle housing is already allowed in Kirkland, but certain regulations regarding setbacks, floor area ratios, amongst other things, are not making it feasible to build these types of homes. And so I think that is where this opportunity really does come in. And I don't expect that the middle housing optimization is really going to provide, like, large number of homes that are going to suddenly pop up. But even if it's five homes, even if it's 10 more homes, it's more homes.

And so I do think that that will allow us some opportunity to get more homes on the market. But I want to say, you know, having said that, I've also heard from community members concerns regarding how middle housing could potentially create adverse parking issues, infrastructure issues, tree canopy issues, amongst many other things. And so as part of that optimization effort, I think that's what we'll have to focus on is how are we optimizing. I mean, the devil lies in the details. So I would love to have staff, if you guys could come back and provide us options on what do we mean by optimization. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilmember Tim Chisholm.

Thank you. I want to thank planning staff for the job you've done over the past several years, especially in your working with the Juanita and Goodwill CIRs. When I see our city working with a developer who has retained an attorney or retained development experts. What I see is our city working with developers that have skin in the game and are investing money in a project. And when I see that, I have a certain level of faith that housing is gonna be produced.

And I would like to see us keep that up and continue to work directly with developers that are going to bring quality housing to Kirkland. A lot of these and I have much more faith in working with a developer that's investing money in a potential project than I do in some of the blanket rezonings and theoretical projects that we've engaged in over the years, which have caused a lot of controversy, produced no housing and generally helped us feel like we're working on solutions to this never ending housing crisis that I don't think have produced much. So thank you for your dedication in working directly with the developers at the Goodwill and Juanita CARs. And I think we did a hell of a job on that. I don't you know, people wanna send us shitty emails, fine.

That's cool. But I'm proud of the job that we've done over the past year in working directly with developers that are gonna bring housing to Kirkland. And the and I think there's more to come. I think because the public and serious developers saw those two CARs go through, saw those work, saw those come to fruition, I think more developers are going to bring their money and their projects to Kirkland. So thank you.

All right. Apologies to staff. I have to turn this room over very quickly. This was a great work plan. It was you guys were realistic about what we could do with finite resources. It would be a miracle if we could accomplish all our aspirations. I do support the LDR. I think that it will make housing more efficient to move quickly, and we hear that, too, not just the lack of housing, but how long it takes to do things. Thank you, our Deputy Mayor, for listing all the housing because I actually have the numbers listed here. I'm curious on the Toter Lake Center redesignation, what the impacts will be not only with PSRCs input, but also 6026.

So I recognize Councilmember Pascal said move it forward. But again, 6026 is going to have a significant impact on that. Oh, I'm trying to go fast. Sign code. I feel for the community member that keeps asking us to address the sign code. My question is, is there one surgical thing that we could do that would alleviate their concerns. So if there's, like, a quick and dirty, low hanging fruit we could do to get that done as we continue to delay it. The other thing I would do and you know I love the housing strategy plan update I'd drop it. We are spending so much time on housing and implementing housing in different ways. I don't think we need to do another strategic plan update.

We are doing it. Thank you. Thank you both.

So I know we need to wrap up. I just need to ask a question. One thing that came up with the retreat was a conversation about a charter for the Planning Commission. And one of the questions that we didn't get to was, did you like the policy issue? And do you want us to develop some options for council about how those things might interact to charter and policies and procedures for the Planning I

think you heard was permission on the policy. Wondering. Okay.

Thank you.

Thanks, everybody. Oh, I have to close this out. We will now that concludes our study session. We will reconvene at 07:30 for our regular meeting. We have twelve minutes.

All right, everyone. We are back in session following an overview of the Kirkland Municipal Court Probation Services and a review of the planning work program. I want to thank staff for the super fast, efficient transition between study session and regular meeting. We're going to start tonight with our honors and proclamations. Councilmember Prem will be reading the proclamation. City manager.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, Deputy Mayor, members of the council, and our audience. We will be proclaiming March as Women's History Month in Kirkland, which recognizes and celebrates the vital contributions women have made and continue to make to Kirkland and our country. I also wanna note, as we're coming down, that the city will be hosting its fourth annual Women's Leadership Summit for staff later this month, which is a fantastic growth opportunity for our workforce. And in addition to the roles highlighted in the proclamation, it is my honor to be the city manager for workforce with more than 300 women serving in every department, from public safety to IT, who everyday contribute to Kirkland being such an amazing place to live, work, and play. And finally, our proclamation tonight is Valle Valle Hart, who is a PhD candidate, who's been a Kirkland resident for over twenty years as a marriage and family therapist, a mental health counselor, and a New Haven Native American medicine woman.

And she and her friends are welcome to come forward to receive the proclamation. So welcome.

Nice meeting you.

Everybody's welcome. Please come forward.

You can come on this side too, please. Don't leave me alone. Don't leave Thank you.

Alright. Whereas Women's History Month is a federally recognized annual observance in the month of March, including March 8 as International Women's Day to celebrate the social, economic, cultural, and political sacrifices and achievements of women And whereas women have been at the forefront of standing against injustice, including princess Angeline, the the oldest daughter of chief Seattle, who remained in her home after the Duwamish people were forced off their land. And whereas the city is inclusive and celebrates transgender and gender expansive people as they are part of the movement and have championed women and two s LGBTQIA plus rights. And whereas the city is proud of its long history of influential women within its elected body, beginning in 1911 with the election of Kirkland's and the state's first woman council member, Carrie Shumway, as well as Kirkland's first woman mayor, Doris Cooper, in 1984. And whereas the city is a champion for women in leadership with women holding cornerstone positions within the Kirkland city government, including mayor Kelly Curtis, council members Amy Falcoun and Shilpa Prem, deputy city manager Tracy Dunlap, and five women directors.

And whereas Julie Underwood, public works director, founded the Northwest Women's Leadership Academy in 2018 and continues to progress women in leadership through the city's Women's Leadership Summit. And whereas women's history is global history, and this month brings to light the significant roles women have played in shaping the nation and the world, highlights pioneers who are inspirations to the next generation of women, and fosters environments where women and communities can thrive. Now, therefore, mayor Kelly Curtis, on behalf of the Kirkland City Council, proclaims March 2026 as Women's History Month in Kirkland, Washington and encourages the community to celebrate the historic and current achievements of Kirkland women in arts, culture, science, business, nonprofit, religious and civic institutions in our city.

Hello, Halito Aloha. Her words remain a powerful reminder that when women rise together, we create lasting change and as we reflect on the women who have called us to rise, may we also widen our circle of remembrance to include those whose stewardship and strength long predate our own. May we take a moment to honor all women, including the original stewards of this land, our Native American relatives, especially the women of the Coast Salish peoples who have cared for the shores and the water of Lake Washington since Time Memorial, holding wisdom, culture, and community at the heart of this place. My name is Mele, and I am truly honored to stand here before you to accept this Women's History Month proclamation on behalf of all the work we do at Eastside Counseling Center, United Healing Center, Simplicity Biome, the Brain Enhancement Center, and the Hawaii Healing Sanctuary. I have been a proud resident of Kirkland, Washington.

For the past twenty three years, I've raised my two children. I started with a bilingual preschool called Puddle Stompers and in 2009 entered the beautiful field of marriage and family therapy. From writing a bilingual preschool to the work that I have done with couples, families, and individuals through developmental trauma, addiction, social and family systems, integrating complementary and alternative approaches that foster lasting and deep transformation. The ribbon that weaves together all of the centers and the sanctuary is a commitment to heart centered communities, communities that value the health of the people and the planet. My doctoral work grew from the same love and vision, reimagining mental and planetary health in order to create a safer and more compassionate world for our children and our children's children.

Receiving this proclamation tonight is deeply meaningful because it represents an official recognition from our community, a public affirmation that the work done by women matters, that our voices matter, and that our contributions help shape a stronger future for us all. Women's History Month calls us to honor the courage, resilience and leadership of the women who came before us while also embracing the responsibility to create opportunities for those who will come after us. This proclamation reflects the collective support of mentors, colleagues, friends and family, community members who have walked alongside us on this journey. May we continue to rise together to support one another and to remember that we are only as strong as the arms that hold us. I am grateful to be part of a community that lifts women up, amplifies their voices, and celebrates their leadership.

When organizations take time to formally recognize this work, it sends a powerful message. Representation matters and leadership by women strengthens us all. Thank you for this incredible honor. Thank you to everyone who continues to support, encourage and stand alongside the women making a difference every day.

All right. We are moving on to our next agenda item. This is items from the audience. This is the time in our meeting when we normally hear from the public. Please limit your remarks to three minutes.

We will provide up to a total of forty five minutes for our items from the audience, with no more than six speakers on a subject regardless of their position. To address the council during items from the audience period, please sign up using the online public comment instruction link or the posted QR code in chambers. Those participating by phone, please dial 9 to be recognized to speak. Items from the audience is an important part of our business meeting, and we ask that everyone be treated with kindness and respect. Please do not clap or applaud or otherwise openly express your agreement or disagreement with the speaker.

When that happens, even when supporting a speaker, it can be disruptive of the meeting and discourage others from sharing a different viewpoint. We discourage people from using obscenities and making personal attacks against others, and we ask that you direct your comments to counsel, not to staff or audience members. In addition, because they can be disruptive, signs and placards are not allowed in counsel chambers during our meetings regardless of their content. Kirkland prides itself on being a welcoming, respectful community. We want everyone to feel like they belong in council chambers expressing their viewpoints. City clerk, who do we have signed up to speak?

Thank you, Mayor. At this point, we have seven guests wishing to speak. We'll take the following three. In this order, Ingrid Salmon, Louida Hawkinson and Valentina Montilla.

Ingrid, welcome.

Thank you, counsel. First off, I heard the work discussion and it was lovely and very important stuff and also very moving presentation by Melanie Valley. My child did go to her daycare, so that was very moving to me. Of course, women's proclamation is important to me as well, given that I'm female as well. I'm here, though, to speak on a much more pedestrian concern, in that I'm concerned about water quality, and I'm trying to raise consciousness of everyone in our community.

I'm sure that council and staff are aware of the need to keep our water clean. And the water I'm speaking of is Lake Washington and in my neck of the woods, Juanita Creek. I'm here also to share my experiences on this topic in that I pick up garbage. Know, I'm an active transportation person, so even at the bus stop, the 02:30 is garbage right here. I brought it with right on the street. And it's everywhere. I'm sorry, folks. You just need to pick it up. In particular, I've noticed that there's quite a lot of cigarette butts on side of the road. And I ask that smokers be mindful of this.

Actually, those grates on the street, they actually end up dumping into our water at Juanita Creek perhaps or mostly in Lake Washington in the North End Juanita Bay, where we want to swim actually. I do. I have swum in important waters such as Copenhagen Harbor actually. I was in there which was kind of shocking but true and I wanted to ask the council and the staff if they can start working on some signage. I have put up anti dog poop signs.

They were very effective of those doggies. Want to say they were in the three areas that I put them in that there is much less debris from dogs there. So way to go, dogs. Let's see. So community, in case you think that government is responsible to pick up roadside garbage, I have a message for the community that no, government cannot do it all.

How high taxes do you really want to pay, right? I do work for the Washington State Department of Health, and so I know that as a as a state employee that we do have to prioritize the work that we do. And so I'm asking to raise consciousness here of community members to please pick up after yourself and do not deposit it in the great out of doors because it does end up in our waterways. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Ingrid. Next, we have Loida.

Welcome. Thank you. I'm here a year ago at the drop off boxes at the post office, they all disappeared. And if you wanted to mail anything, you had to park your car, go inside, and mail your your package or or mail your letter. It was a nuisance.

And when I finally found out, everyone was concerned that they were gone for good. I finally found out that they were being replaced with something new and improved and more secure because they are being robbed on the weekends for the checks. So they have been replaced and there's new and improved and they are more durable. They cost a lot of money, but if there's a will, apparently there's a way. And so I we just most a lot of us received our tax bills.

We're gonna be mailing checks. If you mail at the post office, take it in if you can't do it during their pickup hours. They only pick up once a day now at 05:00. So if it go goes in after 05:00, it's there all night. So I'm just saying we can do make it so that there's nothing in there for them to rob.

Then woman's proclamation, thank you for that. And because I consider myself an armchair historian, before there was a Kirkland, there was Juanita and Houghton. And women was the territory, Washington Territory. Washington Territory gave women the vote in the early eighties, eighteen eighties. And with this, Eliza Forbes, Forbes Creek, Forbes, early pioneer Forbes Lake, the Waneta Beach, where it was owned by the Forbes family, she was Justice of the Peace in 'eighty four, 1884, 'eighty five, 'eighty six.

She finally lost that position when they took the vote away from women before statehood. And then there was Julia Holly. She was another Juanita person. She was a King County juror over and over and over again. And there were a lot of jurors as well area.

In the And she was a bailiff, King County bailiff, for several years. And we know all of this is because it was in the papers. A lot of the new it was probably in our papers. Our papers are gone. But it was in the national papers how impressed they were with the Washington territories. So I just wanted to bring that up as well. Those women remembered. Been very progressive. Thank you.

Thank you, Lueda. All right, next we have Valentina. Welcome.

Hi, good evening. My name is Valentina. I am here to talk a little bit about a nonprofit called Recovery Navigator Program. My name is Valentina. I'm an outreach navigator. I am a certified peer specialist. What that means is that I have lived experience with behavioral health on a one on one basis. I personally have been in recovery for over seven years and I currently have been working for recovery navigator program for over a year. And right now we're just going around King County giving information about our nonprofit. We are under the Pure Washington nonprofit organization that has been around for about forty years.

We are fairly the most newest branch of it. We've been around now for about three to four years and I just wanted to let come in and let City Council know the work that we do in the community. We provide social services to individuals who are at risk of arrest due to unmet behavioral health needs. Our mission is to improve the health and wellness outcomes for individuals struggling with substance abuse as well as mental health and reduce their interactions with the criminal justice system. We currently work really well with Kirkland Jail.

We love one of your jail navigators. Her name is Annette, I just wanted to say her name because she really is an incredible person. And the recovery navigator, they employ like all the navigators, we all have lived experience. Our job is to advocate and help people. We don't want to give away.

We want to be able to rise people up out of the despair from what is drug addiction, which is a big epidemic that's been going on in our country for many, many years. And I'm not sure if you have ever had a loved one or know of someone who has unfortunately been a victim of behavioral health, including mental health. And we just wanted to give some information, and thank you so much for allowing me this time to come and speak about it. Thank you.

Thank you so much for coming tonight. Right, city clerk, who do have next?

We have Maria Hudson, followed by Kyle Sullivan and Scott Ruser.

Maria, Welcome.

Hi. My name is Maria Hudson. I spoke with you guys initially about a situation occurring at Juanita Beach, where your police officers failed to respond to active child sex trafficking and intimidation. I submitted to this counsel an email dated 02/10/2026. I was notified by prosecutor Jimmy Hung that the Bellevue Police Department misprisoned evidence from four child forensic interviews as well as child sex trafficking videos and so on and so forth.

Your police department initially made contact with us without ever reaching out to Bellevue, and they failed to respond. Related to this case number and the perpetrators identified. Even though this email says that there were no leads or suspects, that is because Q Tel is an independent system operated by the detectives there. They hid child forensic child forensic interview suspects and leads in their independent system. I've asked your police department to reopen the case, and they're gonna need to because the incident that occurred at Juanita Beach, independently, we were failed by your police department before they ever reached out to the disposition that they get to where they involved vice detective Alexander Schlitzer, who is presently being criminally investigated for felony misprisoning, mandatory reporting violations, furthering child sex trafficking, a bunch of other crimes.

And your police department is as liable. And when I spoke with your interim chief and your assistant chief, they were indignant. They keep doing a push off as if the King County Special Assault Unit doesn't include them, cooperation, and things of that nature. This is why you're supposed to believe victims, because a police department that is not your jurisdiction may be hiding leads and suspects, and you should always believe believe the victim because then you're going to be failing to intervene in federal crimes of child sex trafficking. You guys need to follow-up with prosecutor Jimmy Hung, and you need to have your police department reopen this case because they're not at all interested.

They're doing a push off and saying that this is a Bellevue case number. It's a Bellevue case number related to child sex trafficking that they ignored all by themselves at Juanita Beach. So I would appreciate follow-up with this because time is of the essence with regard to evidence and suppression of evidence and things of that nature. You guys need to verify with the prosecutor's office that they are now only getting to a disposition about these perpetrators that we reported in your jurisdiction and your police department ignored us. I thank you for your time.

I expect you to follow-up because this is child sex trafficking. Last thing I will say, I don't want to be captured by coerced concubinage of my kids.

Maria, I'm sorry, your time is up. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Kyle Sullivan?

Kyle, come on up.

Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Been a little while. I did indeed send an email about the planning work program that had a more aggressive stance than I usually take on email, but that's because, you know, I this is a really important issue to me. The city does do a lot of work on housing, and that's been ongoing.

It's constant. But you know sort of like I believe council member Tim Chisholm said sometimes the outcome we get for that work isn't always proportional to the amount of time we have to put in so that's really why it's important to look at all the things in the planning work program and prioritize things accordingly. And, you know, but I was encouraged by some of the things I heard tonight. I think I do still think like we're on the same page at the end of the day but the I'm really focused on where we're getting on outcomes And honestly, I'm just a little concerned about how that five year check-in on the comp plan is going to look because yes, there are a lot of external factors beyond the city and it's always difficult. But in the face of challenging circumstances that just unfortunately means we have to work harder, there's really no way about it.

So I will continue to advocate for the city to keep doing more work, focus on the outcome, and achieve the visions and goals we have set. Thank you.

Thank you, Kyle. Scott?

Scott Rooster followed by Alex Timmerman.

Okay. I would like to talk about the planning work program also. And since I have been on the Planning Commission and I'm going into my seventh year, we've pushed SignCode and Curve Management. And for a light lift on SignCode, look how it's going to activate retail, especially in our new density zones, the station area, Waneta. I think we already have a SignCode, but that would be highly beneficial.

On curb management, we live in a new community now where deliveries are a part of life, Amazon, UPS, and it's constant all day long. We need curb management for all these density areas so we don't become a Capitol Hill where the delivery trucks park in the middle of the road in the turn lane. I think that could be quick for planning staff and an easy fix and get it off the planning work program. I also put on the or suggested home occupation businesses four years ago for the planning work program. Please, I really hope you do it in my last year so that I can work on it.

I would also like to provoke a couple new subcategories that I think we can work on. First of all, especially with 5,184 making such huge changes, I would like to see a category for overflow parking realize this is going to change the scope of the station area and Juanita. All of these parking places that we will have in these buildings, developers are going to charge for, but we are going to have huge overflow parking. Let's deal with it before there's a problem. Let's have a plan in place where neighborhoods are not inundated.

I also would like to take a quick look at our design review. We've put such a huge amount on our staff's plate. The same staff that can't get these items to us on the work programs, we're now asking them to be landscapers, designers, architects and looking at these buildings. Why are we not looking at maybe paying a very small siphon to consultants? I can look at a landscape plan and tell you how it's going to look the first year, fifth year, twenty years.

I see the new construction that we're putting out, and we're making mistakes. I see, from my time on design review, simple things like venting kitchen vents out onto white panels. It ages a building, it looks bad. You can't ask staff to know that or do that. Ask a professional. If you paid me $50 I would look at a plan and make the suggestions to staff. That would alleviate design review and staff's time. And I actually am very proud of what the council has done for housing. I think you've done an excellent job in the planning work program. Thanks.

Thank you, Scott. I'm surprised you didn't talk about trees. All right. Alex Zimmerman. Hi.

My name name Alex Zimmerman, and I come and speak about something what is very hot potato, not only in in Kirkland, not only in state Washington and all America. I talking about King Country Housing Authority, what is supposed to be give apartment to people to American citizen by law. And I come and spoke here because commissioner Blackhair, who part of board of director of King Country Housing Authority. So I try understand how is this possible. You know what has been for twenty year, and he knows this because I spoke three time.

After three time, he and his another five brother, you know what has been giving me trespass for six months because don't want what is I come and talk as a crook, a liar. For twenty year, I car outright restore my section eight. But as I have before, is they cut me, cut me, and cut me. Probably because I don't like people who speak too much against Nazism, fascism, but as we have in King country in the state Washington too. Yep.

I doing this for thirty years. So two weeks ago, I give letter to him. You know what this mean? What is about US Supreme Court decision because trespass what is he give me together with his with his board of director, partner. You know what this mean? It's not legal. And I want answer. So for two weeks, I don't have answer from him. You know what this mean? This little bit confused me. Why? First, because he's a director and he give me trespass. And for twenty year, I fighting for my section eight. I have this twenty year ago. They dismiss this.

Second, because he's a consul. In every consul right now, supposed to be talking about King County Housing Authority, another housing government problem because it's a very deep problem. They ignore in our state, in our skin country, in our city, king country. They ignore American citizen, take money from them, and give to people what is don't have a document. It's a crime. And I told you, he's a criminal. He's stealing money. It's exactly what has happened. So there's two reasons what is supposed to be answering me. The reason number three, what is supposed to be answering me because he's attorney for thirty year.

So for my understanding, it's a nightmare. You know what has been when attorney, professional attorney for thirty year. Don't know US Supreme Court decision. Shame you. How is he can be a consul and acting like a crook. You understand what this mean? We were Trump. We were new American Revolution. Stand up, slave and happy cow. Guys, housing is number one for poor, disabled, old people. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Anyone else? No. All right. We are now moving on to our consent calendar. Before we have a motion, I'd like to ask Deputy Mayor Black to present the audit of accounts and to highlight the proclamations we have on consent.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. We had payroll in the amount of $8,891,015.79 and bills in the amount of $8,082,437.7 For our proclamations on consent tonight, the mayor, on behalf of the City Council, proclaims March 15 through the twenty first as National Safe Place Week in Kirkland. National Safe Place is a nationwide youth outreach and prevention program providing immediate help, crisis intervention, and safe shelter for youth ages 12 through 17. Kirkland has many Safe Place locations, and youth in need can call 22 also 8336. Or simply text SAFE, S A F E, to that number, and the system will provide instant data on the nearest Safe Place site.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor Black. Is there a motion to approve the consent calendar?

So moved. Second.

Moved by Councilmember Arnold, second by Deputy Mayor Black. Are there any questions Councilmember Tim Chisholm.

Thank you. Just a comment. I wanted to let the public know that the city has heard you regarding the Denny OO Bridge at that park and that we are taking construction and fixing of that bridge. So I will not pull this off the consent calendar, but wanted to mention that and thank the city manager for addressing that important issue.

Thank you, Councilmember. Anyone else have comments, discussion? Councilmember Pascal?

All

right. So it has been moved by Councilmember Arnold, second by Deputy Mayor Black on the motion to approve the consent calendar. All those in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? Motion carries, seven-zero.

Okay. We are now moving on to our very first business item, which is the state of the urban forest and urban forest management plans. City manager.

Okay. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So this is the first of several check ins on our urban forestry management plan update. So this is a quick overview, and I want initial council feedback. And here to give you that presentation is our environmental program coordinator, Anna Heckman. Welcome, Anna.

Welcome, Anna.

Good evening. I need a little assistance pulling up my nine slides. All right, good evening. I'm Anna Heckman. Many of you know me already.

This presentation will be quick. I gave you guys enough information to become certified arborists in your own right, but in the next nine slides I'm going to skip over all the fun stuff. I'm sorry. But all the things talking about how trees are good for our community or all the work we've done, unfortunately, don't have a lot of time to do that. But I do want to provide you guys some information for your decision making here.

One of the first ones is talking about what makes a healthy urban forest. It goes beyond canopy cover. We talk about canopy cover a lot. It's an important metric, but we want to talk about where that canopy cover exists and how that canopy cover is helping us benefit our community. We also want to talk about resiliency.

Having a resilient urban forest matters, and I'll give you guys some examples of that. It helps to have diversity in our species, tree species, and the size of trees, the age of trees. And if you look at the species diversity that we have in our public inventory that we just received a couple years ago, you can tell that a lot of our native trees really dominate Douglas fir, our maples, our cedars. We can diversify more. Another part of a healthy urban forest is having a strong urban and community forestry program.

We have a great urban forestry program, and we're investing in it quite a bit, but there is room to grow. A proactive program versus a reactive program is very beneficial. Managing trees as an asset rather than a natural resource to be used is a key indicator of a very strong program. Being prepared for storms, pests, climate all these impact the urban forest. Having a risk management program and having community engagement and community ownership over the urban forest, These are all great indicators.

So I've got a little case study here, and it's about a little green bug called the emerald ash borer. And in 2002, the emerald ash borer, an invasive species, was discovered in The United States. We had no idea what was coming. In 2009, a small community, St. Paul, near Minneapolis, about three times the size of Kirkland, discovered that they had emerald ash borer.

They discovered it because all the ash trees are dying. Now, St. Paul was prepared, they had an inventory, so they knew how many ash trees they had. They had 26,000 ash trees in their public inventory, so they were able to ask for a bond. For fifteen years, they had a crew removing ash trees from their city streets and replanting.

They just finished removing their last ash tree last year. Now, this this is one of those horrible situations, right? But there's a silver lining to this. Because St. Paul included stump grinding and replanting in their program, the trees that were removed back in 02/2010 now look like this on their city streets.

They have a more diverse urban forest, a healthier urban forest, and now they're working at how to maintain this as it grows over time. During that time, the little emerald ash borer was making its way across The U. S, devastating every community in the Midwest, and just a year and a half ago, it was found in Vancouver, B. C. And in Portland, Oregon.

So it's made it to our area. Portland has just created a pest management plan. They know they have 10,000 street trees that they have to manage. They know they have 16,000 trees on private property that will be dead in the next decade. They also have the native ash trees in the ash oak forests.

There's like 68,000 trees in their native forests. They're going to manage these all differently because they have to. That's a lot of trees. It's only 1% of their urban forest canopy, so even though it's a lot of trees, it's not taking out their whole forest. Now, when we step back and look at Kirkland, we have 700 trees ash trees in our public inventory.

But 700 ash trees, when you count that it's one thousand to two thousand dollars per tree to remove, stump, grind and replace, that's almost over $1,000,000 that we would be planting and dealing with over the next ten years. Something to think about. We know that now because we have an inventory. And if you take a step back and think about what happened if this was Douglas fir, much bigger deal to us. It's not unfathomable to think that that can happen.

Spokane, just this winter, had to remove 200 ponderosa pine trees because those trees had drought stress, and bark beetles took them over. Those trees were alive a year and a half ago. So this kind of stuff can and will happen as we move into the future. So are we ready for this? Nope. We're not ready. But are we making progress? We sure are. In 2013, we had performance standards associated with the urban forest management plan, and we ranked very low on a lot of those performance standards. When we re rank ourselves now, we're doing a lot better, and that's with the old urban forest management plan.

So what's going well in Kirkland? Well, we have this tree data now. We can use it. We have successful program examples to work off of, like the tree replacement work that we do for reimbursing private properties. We have the Green Kirkland Partnership, a great outreach and education and natural resource with our Parks Department.

We've improved our internal communication. We've improved the skill set and the amount of people in our community in the city itself that have tree related expertise. And where can we improve? Well, we've got this plan and it shows that we can improve a lot in our planting. We need to do more planting.

We need to invest in taking care of the trees we have. We have a lot that are in good condition, but they need pruning proactively before the branches fall, before we have storm failures, and where we can care for some of these trees that are in decline because keeping a canopy does a lot more good for us than letting a tree die and then replacing it. And then we want to invest in our community part of urban and community forestry. It's a great example of where tree planting might be a good thing. And the community part of urban forestry this is a piece of artwork I saw at David E.

Brink Park, a couple dead sticks planted in the sand. But what I love about this is whoever did it put mulch rings around their planting. So we're doing some good. So should we develop a new urban forest management plan? That's kind of the question that we're providing to you guys today.

Well, we have the comprehensive plan and the vision statement that Kirkland is a livable, sustainable and resilient community, and that comprehensive plan helps dictate a lot of these strategic management plans. Urban Forest Strategic Management Plan is the oldest one of all of them, 2013. The vision statement for the Urban Forest Management Plan is to maintain 40% canopy cover. It's a great goal, but it might not necessarily be a vision statement. We want these plans to be able to work together and when we develop our six year work plan, which is kind of our technical implementation plan that the city uses, we want to make sure that they're clear, they can work with all of the plans, and that we can have measurable, meaningful accomplishments come out of it.

So they all need to work together. Which leads us to the options I provided. All of these options have the same outcome, where we have an urban forest management plan that is guiding our work and we have a six year work plan. Option number one is the least expensive option where we don't do any changes to our urban forest management plan. We just keep it and we let it ride for the next six years.

We'll develop a new six year work plan and it will be to meet the goals of our existing urban forest management plan. There's still work to do there. Benefits of this is it's low cost, easy to implement, staff time can go into implementing some of that plan, developing some of these projects that haven't been developed yet. Some of the challenges here, we're not really using a lot of public engagement, we're not updating and clarifying performance metrics if we maintain this status quo. The urban forest management plan doesn't represent our comprehensive plan anymore and yeah, it's not really a very clear plan to move off of.

If any of you guys read it, you'd probably follow. Option two: we can create a new urban forest management plan. We can keep it simple, we can use it similar to our sustainability strategic plan as far as the framework, but we can update that. We can use our new best available science that we have in the industry, We can incorporate a lot of the other parts of our comprehensive plan and our other strategic plans. This will take a little bit longer.

We wouldn't be completed with this until December. We wouldn't be able to create a new six year work plan until we have the goals of that urban forest management plan, so there'd be a little bit of time lag before we have new goals, new metrics. It doesn't mean we're not doing urban forest work. There's a lot that we have to do parks, public works, we have a lot on our plate still. Some of the challenges in this is also that the outreach that we would do for this might not fully encompass the diversity of our community opinions.

We would really lean on what we've done with the comprehensive plan. We put so much energy into that and as you guys know, I don't think we can talk about a single subject without trees coming up. They're a part of everything. And so we have a lot of that data we can incorporate, which leads to Option three. Option three incorporates all of the best management practices we have today in the urban forestry realm.

And a lot of that includes really engaging the community. You want to maximize community input into developing that vision statement for what they want their urban forest to be, and then helping with the strategic planning goals. We would do as much data assessment as we can in the time given. There's a lot of data that we have and there's a lot more we can get fairly simply. And this urban forest management plan would reflect, similar to the second one, those industry standards and that best available science.

Challenge in this, it's kind of a no brainer, is the high cost, both in time and resources. The scope wouldn't end until 2027 and that's still a tight scope. Usually this is a two year process to go from start to finish. It would be helpful to have a consultant not just because of the skill set, but it's beneficial to have a third party when you're doing a lot of this community outreach as a mediator and a moderator, and then we have a lot of consultants in the area that have experience developing these large plans. I gave you guys some examples, 300 page examples of urban forest management plans that have been recently developed, and that's kind of what this would look like.

And then again, our six year work plan would definitely be delayed because you can't build the six year work plan until you have your goals set and ready. It doesn't mean we won't be continuing urban forest work, but a lot of those larger projects that we want to invest in might be delayed. So with that, just a few questions for you guys, but I want to make sure you guys have the ability to ask about the state of the urban forest, any questions you have about those update options, and then I would like to leave with knowledge of what you would prefer us to do.

Great. Thank you. Councilmember Pascal, when transportation projects come, do you get all giddy? Because I'm, like, giddy over here by that tree.

I have a lot more tree All

right. Deputy Mayor?

Well, thank you, Madam Mayor. And Anna, great memo, very informative, and great presentation. I appreciate the way you presented us the options. I have a couple my questions all are related to number two, questions about the different options. And what I really one of the things you said in your presentation was that the current thirteen year old plan does not represent the comp plan. Could you tell us a little bit more about how the urban forest management plan does not represent the comp plan updates that we did in 2024?

Yeah, so a lot of what we did in 2013 represented our urban forest at that time, and there was a big push to get data. The comprehensive plan uses the 40% canopy cover and then some. There's a lot of incorporation with housing, for example. So when we're talking about selecting the right tree for the right place or putting trees in the ground that are going to be surviving in forty years rather than what's surviving today, those are things that the comprehensive plan is thinking about the future and our urban forest management plan that we have now wasn't there yet.

Okay. And I'm guessing you'd say the same thing probably about our sustainability strategic plan.

Yeah. Roughly.

Yeah. And I think the sustainability strategic plan was informed by the Urban Forest Plan. And when we update that plan again, it would be nice to have it informed Well, with new

what I'm trying to balance as best as I possibly can is we do have a new comp plan. We do have a sustainability strategic plan. I understand how they represent more advanced thinking than we might have had in 2013 with the urban forest management plan. So that leads me to want to at least update the forestry plan. But I'm also trying to balance that with, listen, like, how much progress can we make in the meantime?

Could our you know, how many if we're going to do a longer effort to update or even possibly, depending on what my colleagues' direction they want to go, whether we're going to develop a new forestry plan, are there some easy, early wins that we can keep winning in the meantime? I wouldn't want us to focus on a two year update well, two year replacement and have our work on urban forestry kind of get put off to the side. I don't think that's what you said, but we've got to be cognizant that you're going to have a lot of your attention focused on creating a brand new state of the art 2027 forest management plan. So I'm trying to balance that. And I'm and I guess this leads to a question, if we you know, if the goalpost is 100 yards away, like how close can we get to a touchdown just focusing on, let's revisit, let's put together a really strong six year work plan and focus on the things that are really going to make a difference because we know those better today perhaps than we did in 2013.

We do have the learnings from the sustainability plan. We do have the learnings from the comp plan work. Is that where I'm trying to figure out if that's where our focus should be. Does that make sense?

Yeah. And I think

What's your reaction to that?

Can you explain? No. I think from what I am understanding you saying, Option three is the one that would really take the longest and would really revamp the urban forest management plan. I'm not sure that would gain us more than Option two other than that community engagement and acceptance and movement forward. I think our six year work plans would be basically the same.

Our staff have been working off of a lot of the inventory work, so in that tree inventory that we received, there was a list of work to do. Some of that was high priority and needed to be done immediately. The rest of it has to be set up into a proactive situation, so for example a pruning plan, knowing what the rotation is of how do we prune all our trees now that we've gotten the safety issues out of the way. And I think that stuff would happen no matter what, even if there was a delay because parks and public works, they're always going to be doing the work and they have that set out. The difference in option one to option two is that that six year work plan would base its goals on the old urban forest management plan, so it's not really incorporating a lot of the things I talked about, that urban forest readiness, we wouldn't be able to create metrics to measure that because we don't have that in the urban forest management plan.

So we would be basing it off of those older goals. That's not a horrible idea. It's just six years until we start becoming more progressive.

Okay. Under Option one and Option two, would the six year work program be essentially the same?

No. One and two, they would be very different. Two and three, they would be the same.

The six year work plan that we if we just focused on a state of the art six year work program, Option one, but Yeah. Nothing if we did Option two, update the forestry plan and also improve the six year work program. Those two six year program work programs are not going to be the same in the language or in the amount of time we can spend implementing them. Can you

There would be some overlap, for sure. For example, if we were to work with Parks Department, they would have some goals we would want to incorporate into that. But when you're writing your six year implementation plan, that plan is meant to meet the goals of the urban forest management plan. So it's based off of those goals. We don't necessarily go rogue because then we have nothing to swing back and say, hey, look, we did great. Just checking off boxes of we did it versus we didn't.

Okay. Well, I think I know where I'm coming out is, yes, let's revisit the forestry plan under an option two a version of option two, bring it into the twenty first century or whatever, the 2020s, reflecting the work on the comp plan, reflecting the work on the sustainability plan. But in the meantime, I would really like us to probably bifurcate the six year work program into improvements we can make to the six year work program based on what we on good targets we already have and on goals we already know and then reserve the second part of the six year work program for improved implementation of new goals and clear goals under a slight an updated forestry plan.

Yeah, I think that's a great idea. And just because we do a new urban forest management plan doesn't mean we just throw out the old one. There's probably actually, I know there are some great components of that old plan that would be incorporated into the new plan So that fits

I'm kind of talking about an enhanced version of Option two, where we do try to get some real some good early wins in a revamped six year work program where we can still do the great work that where we do have good targets and good goals under the existing plan.

Thank you. Councilmember Arnold?

Thank you. Thank you, Anna. I lean towards option two and I want to explain some reasons and checkpoint some of the assumptions and how I got there. One of the things I'd like about option two is it reflects the work and the great community outreach we did in Kirkland 2044 and the sustainability strategic plan. I think these are the key areas that we're going to be talking about whether it's our planning work program in the study session or the legislative update that's coming up, we're going be talking a lot about housing.

There's a lot of and that's where my mind is. There's a lot of development in the city, lot of it market driven, a lot of it coming from state mandates. And one of the those are reflected in Kirkland 2044. But also within the plan is we recognize that we have this 40% tree canopy goal that has been sliding with that development. So one of the things I'd like to get to is saying, how do we take the growth that's going to happen under Kirkland 2044 and the climate change impacts as we see more frequent and more severe windstorms and losses of tree canopy from those factors, how do we get there?

And can you get there in Option two? Or do you need the rethink and the rebuild from scratch that is envisioned in Option three?

I think we can get there in Option two. I think the difference between Option one and Option two is Option two will be more clear, and it will have clearer metrics and goals so that our six year work plan can be defined by those metrics and goals. I don't think we would get more in option three in that realm.

Thank you.

Councilor Repascal?

Thank you. Thanks for the presentation. And Mayor, before I was a transportation engineer, I was a forest engineer.

Oh, forgot. Yes.

So, you know, I had the privilege of writing forestry plans for the state coming out of college. And so, yes, definitely interested in this subject. With that being said, you know, I'm I'm really about, like, trying to balance planning with implementation. And I still see us needing to do things on implementation of just caring and managing for our urban forestry. And I want to make sure that we're continuing to put forth the effort there and not just in the planning.

And what I mean by that is, for example, we have one of our greatest opportunities is to continue to support trees in our public rights of way and our open spaces in the areas of our parks that aren't maintained by Green Kirkland. And and there's there's a lot of work there to do. These are big areas that we're talking about, and they're being overcome by invasive species and other things. So I just want to make sure that we're balancing all that, that we have we still have a very valid plan, but we are lagging behind on some of the implementation. So that being said, I'm really in favor of Option two. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilmember Valcombe?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I agree with what we're generally hearing from my colleagues here tonight on this. I think Option two seems to be the right balance of what we're looking to do. I think you you've made a really clear and compelling case as to why we need to update this and not just with the existing plan's goals, but also I share my colleagues' passion for wanting as well, right, and not wanting to have too much process that kind of gets in the way of actually getting stuff done, right? And so I think Option two is a good plan.

You highlighted the main difference between Options two and three with the additional public engagement. As you've mentioned, just want to highlight we've already had extensive public engagement on this issue through other work that we've done in recent years, and so really thankful that we're able to capitalize on that. Also, you know, those opportunities are to gather information from folks but also to share information with folks, right? So I really hope that coming out of this that we also have a great kind of PR market, you know, communication plan that comes out of this. Like you mentioned, engaging the public and having the, you know, community buy in on kind of ownership of these goals and this plan and this shared vision for wanting to have a healthy urban forest is really key, right, because this isn't just city property.

Like Councillor Pascal said, we have a lot of work to do as a city. We also want to continue to encourage and incentivize folks

in

the community, so I would love to see, you know, a program that educates, that engages, and that excites people. I know we've already done some of that work, which is I would like that to be a piece of it since we won't have that engagement on the development of it, but or additional engagement on that, just to make sure we don't miss that opportunity to bring people along and make sure that they're excited about this, too. Thank you. Councilmember Prem.

So I am not a forestry engineer, so your memo and your presentation were super helpful for me, so thank you I for do support Option two as well, similar to the comments that have been made by my colleagues. I think it's probably the most pragmatic, fiscally responsible approach, and it protects our trees that we have but also provides targeted investments in making sure that we are able to meet kind of our goal of 40%, hopefully. I also really loved the collection of data on existing tree inventory canopy and then combining that with permit data to be able to tailor where we are going to aim at making sure we're planting trees in targeted areas throughout the city, so a very strategic way of evaluating where to go first. And fantastic. Looking forward to that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Apologies, I'm a little bit under the weather, so I am forgetful this evening. I forgot one quick thing I wanted to mention. Thank you for highlighting that we're going to be really strategic like Councilmember Prem said and that I know we have our equity tools as well to make sure that we're considering that throughout the city and also want to underscore the need, and I'm sure we already do this, but in the process to continue to coordinate with utility providers as well in this work. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. So thank you, counsel, for I had this long speech. I thought I was going to have to convince you we're stewards of the future, trees that we won't sit under later, so this is all good. One of the things that was interesting is that our tree cover decline has slowed over the last five years.

I attribute that to the hard work that we did on the tree code. Just going on record, I am not interested in opening the tree code while I'm alive. And another thing is, think as we go through this work, we're using the 40% canopy coverage. We all know that may not be the best metric that we're using because it's about the quality of our forest, not just the quantity of our forest. And I think that will come out in our plan.

I'm definitely a supporter of Option two. I'm more of a 2A. And what I was interested in Option three that I'm hoping that we can jam into Option two would be IPM plans, mapping of permit locations. You've wrote it in Option three. The correlation of urban heat islands, I think that would be a fascinating thing to explore.

So I really want to stress that as we move forward with this, that we're not taking shortcuts, that we're really looking at our data and using the best available science. I have a whole list of firewise mitigation in our green belts, what we can do to respond to bomb cyclones, champion forestry concepts such as tree islands, preserving our wildlife corridors. All of this is hugely important, and I expect it to come out in Option two. The other things I'm going to add is exploration of green infrastructure. Said it for seven years now.

I'm going to say it one more time. Talk about environmental benefits, and I know you will beyond stormwater. What is our carbon capture on our forest? And what can we look for there? This is more of a personal thing, and you had an excellent slide on it. And thank you for the memo and the presentation. It was wonderful. I understand. I appreciate. I'm a firm believer in biodiversity.

But as we integrate our planting structures with other departments, I also landscape aesthetics. Like, why are we planting where, and do we have a vision for what we want our city to look like in twenty, twenty five years? We have a tree list, but we're not really thoughtful about what trees we're putting where and how that impacts our public spaces. And then I also you and I have talked about this before just whatever opportunities we can take to teach people about our trees, tagging our trees with the date and the variety just more and more so that people appreciate our urban forest and see and understand the work that we're doing. So thank you, counsel, for your Option two support.

I'm Option two plus, but I think we're all pretty much on the same page. So thank you, Anna.

Thank you. We'll do the best we can.

All right. Thank you for listening to me, counsel. We are now going to go to 9B how are we doing on time? Which is our Tourism Development Committee recommendation. City manager.

Okay. Thank you, madam mayor. Yeah. So we are looking for council discussion and approval of a fiscal note related to some recommendations that came from the last tourism development committee meeting. And here to provide you with that overview is our special projects coordinator, Kristin Lash. Welcome, Kristin.

Welcome. Thank you. Good evening, council. Tonight, I'm gonna present on, TDC's Tourism Development Committee's recommendation to authorize up to $20,000 of lodging tax funds to support activation around key destination events in 2026. I'm a little concerned about my lack of trees in my presentation, but I think I'm gonna be alright. Okay. So we have three options that we're gonna review tonight. The ask, basically. So option one, authorize the use of up to 20,000 to activate specific key events, which we'll go through. Option two, we can modify that, but it will have to go back to TDC and then come back to counsel, which is fine, but it would delay one of the items.

Or option three, don't authorize it. So pretty straightforward. Alright. So as you know, Kirkland is the home to the Junior League Softball World Series. This will be the twenty sixth year in a row happening this summer.

In 2025, the city hosted the first welcome rally where we had council in attendance and had lots of fun photos and celebrities and all the pieces. We were really hoping that this year we will be able to expand that a bit. So increased place making throughout downtown. We're going to be moving the opening ceremonies to Lee Johnson Field, so a little bit more activation within downtown, again with the celebrity game which is full of Seahawks players, so that's probably gonna be a nice big draw this year in particular. The second event is the Umbrella Fringe Festival.

We have a city hosted venue at K Tubb and within that we did some passive activation in Peter Kirk Park in 2025, but we're looking to make that a little bit more active

with the Reverse Amphitheater having live music or performances

we're and extending that show times and the amount of shows repeated at K Tub. Additional to that, we'll be looking at increased place making throughout downtown, so you probably saw stuff on the light poles, we're looking to improve that. Oh, and we're also going to be teaming up with the Kirkland Library. The third item is a little bit more vague, so I want to talk a little bit more about that. FIFA, the World Cup is coming this summer.

The city is focused on supporting our businesses and their activations. There's a lot of rules and guidelines and tools and information about how to welcome our international visitors, how to appropriately use any logos or FIFA branding and to accommodate that, we're working with our Chamber of Commerce to host workshops, the first of which will be on March 27, and that's in partnership with the Seattle Sports Commission, which is the leading organization for FIFA coming to the Seattle area. The goal of this is to make sure that those businesses have their items amplified through city channels, through Explore Kirkland and pushed out to our greater region. There's a little bit more about lodging tax impact. So I'm going to read this because I don't want to get anything wrong.

As outlined in your memo, the Washington State Department of Revenue informed us that beginning on 04/01/2026, Kirkland's lodging tax rate will be reduced from one percent to 0.8% due to King County Ordinance correction and statutory 12.5% cap. This is estimated to reduce the revenues by $50,000 in 2026 and $67,000 annually going forward. So when we're asking for $20,000 I just want to clarify how that's going to work. Even with that reduction, our funds will remain strong. We have an estimated beginning balance of about $501,639 The revised be $275,607 and then the required operating reserve is $151,297 That leaves around $121,300 in our account, and this would be $20,000 less than that.

Lots of numbers, but I put them on the screen. If you approve this, we'll be within that requirement reserve. While twenty twenty six expenditures exceed the revenues, that was due to a onetime investment with permanent downtown lighting and digital marketing, and we remain in a healthy environment there. I also added a time line so you can kind of see what we're looking at. This is a relatively short term, so when we're talking about activation, these are things that would be this year specifically. So we're back to the ask, and I'm here to answer any questions that you might have.

Thank you, Christian. And I also want to just thank the TDC committee and staff that supports it. Just super creative and great energy and doing really fun things for the community. So thank you. Any questions for Christian? Councilmember Falcone?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, thank you, Christian, for this great work, and thank you to my fellow TDC member, Murcham Chisholm, and the full TDC and staff for this work. Just for the benefit of my fellow council members here, like what's shown on the screen, we've had this ongoing, like, excess of reserves, like too much reserves that we needed to spend down, so we've had a lot of conversations over the last couple years of how we can be really strategic about keeping our focus on increasing heads and beds is a focus of getting more people to stay here overnight. We have a focus on the shoulder season. We also have a focus, obviously, on just long term branding of the city and one of the things that I know that we're working on is branding our city as a sports city, right, and specifically women's sports, but sports in general.

So these all help that, right? Obviously, the Junior Softball World Series is something we're continuing to support and is growing support and popularity. We want to get more folks, not just heads and beds, but, like, spectators in seats at the at the games as well to support these athletes and support the tourism and business development in our town. The Umbrella Fringe is, I think, is just going to continue to grow. I'm so excited about that, but that's during the shoulder season, which is when it's harder for our hotels to get more heads and beds, so that's also very strategic in the kind of the long term growing events that will be popular during the shoulder season.

And like I mentioned, with FIFA stuff and supporting our business community, it's something that just continues an emphasis on creating our brand as a sports city. So just wanted you to know kind of strategically, these are, as you know, like really well thought out, great recommendations from staff and great discussions that we feel like there's lots of great ideas out there and there's more we could do, but these are the ways that we feel like we could really help that mission. I hope you'll support them. You. Council Member Arnold.

Thank you. Thank you, Christian, for these. I totally support the three headline events that you're talking about. And granted, this is kind of a knit and this is 20,000, so I'd call that kind of small ball. This is a bun. But there was a fourth category that wasn't in your presentation, additional opportunities, let's say, come up the TUC wants to engage. What are you trying to enable with that additional opportunities category?

Yeah. So on occasion, things pop up where the city would like to be substantially involved. So one of those items would be, for example, the ice rink this past winter. There would have been some opportunities where the city could involve, get involved with it and have a little bit more of a presence but there's no budget to really do that. So to have a little bit more of a buffer, this is what this is meant for. So we added that in. I know it's a little bit more vague, but.

Yes. Like I said, I don't have an objection. I want to hold up this process given the timeline that you have held up. I think you can I think the $20,000 going to go pretty fast given the three big marquee things happening? Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Like to make Deputy Baer?

I was going to ask Madam Mayor if you would entertain a motion. I'll move to approve the fiscal note authorizing the use of $20,000 of lodging tax funds for the events recommended by the Tourism Development Committee.

Second. It has been moved by Deputy Mayor Black, seconded by Councilmember Prem, to move forward the fiscal note authorizing the 20,000 Logitech funds for the Tourism Development Committee. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion is approved, seven zero. Thank you, Chris. Thank you. Okay. We're going to get through our item 9C, vacation and management leave for non represented staff approval. City manager.

Okay. Thank you, Madam mayor. So our next item is a topic that we asked you about before. And you told us to go ahead and bring back some options. I wanna note before the presentation, the council asked us to also look at the potential for vacation with respect to the public sec or the private sector and as well as potentially looking at whether some of those could be removed from the code and put administrative work. We've chose not to that at this point because we have some positions that are open and wanna take some early action quickly, but just wanted to note in the memo that we intend to still come back with a future event to look at some of those options. We heard you. We just wanted to move quickly. So with that, we're looking for some action tonight, and here to give you that presentation is Lauren Knox, our labor and employee relations manager. Welcome Lauren.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, Deputy Mayor, members of the council. So as the city manager stated, I'm here to present on vacation and management leave for non represented staff. And as the city manager also alluded to, there was a previous conversation with council on February 3 where we kind of brought this forward as an informational item, provided some background and then we are here this evening for some action items. And so our purpose tonight is that we have two ordinances for the council's consideration, one regarding vacation leave and one regarding management leave. And really, know, again the overarching goal here is to attract and retain qualified staff for these critical non represented positions.

And so I'll just kind of dive into the two ordinances and give a brief overview. For our vacation leave ordinance, There's really kind of three major components. The first one is regarding new hires. So this ordinance would give the city manager the discretion to set vacation accrual rates for new hires that take into account prior government or nonprofit experience and that addresses some of the issues that we had mentioned previously to the council regarding recruitment of some of these critical positions. And then the second element is regarding existing employees and this is in direct response to some comments that were brought forward by the council.

As we're kind of recognizing attracting staff, we also want to put some focus on retention as well. And so this item gives the city manager again discretion to consider making modifications to vacation accrual rates for existing staff going back to new hires from 2022, so about four years. And then the third piece applies really to both but that is authorization for the city manager to develop some administrative policies just so that we can implement both of these items in a fair and consistent manner. Management leave, really this is just the change as proposed in the memo, but just to present it here, the council will recall that we had some market issues with this benefit where we were sort of lagging our comparable jurisdictions, especially at the lowest tier that you see here in the highest tier. And so the proposal that we have for you this evening addresses those issues and has the increases that you see on the slide.

And so staff's recommendation is to adopt the ordinances for both of these items and the ordinance numbers are listed here as well as the relevant KMC sections. And then as the city manager mentioned as well in terms of next steps, we do intend to come back to the council at a future meeting to discuss more. There's some conversation with the council regarding should these items be in code, should they be in policy. We presented some sort of initial data to the council just to provide a little bit of background, but we do anticipate bringing fuller and kind of more thorough recommendation at a future meeting. And so with that, I'll turn it over to, you know, questions, discussion, anything from the Council.

Council, any questions for Lauren on either ordinance? No. All right. Somebody want to give me a motion? Councilmember Falcone?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I move that we adopt ordinance 4,927.

Second. It's been moved by Councilmember cone, seconded by council member Prem to adopt ordinance 4,927. City Clerk?

Thank you. On the motion to adopt ordinance 4,927, council member Tim Chisholm?

Yes.

Council member Arnold? Yes. Council member Prem? Yes. Council Member Falcone? Yes. Council Member Pascal?

Yes.

Deputy Mayor Black? Yes. Mayor Curtis?

Yes. Ordinance passes seven zero. Now we're looking at ordinance 4,928.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I move that we adopt ordinance 4,928. Second.

It's been moved by Councilmember Falcone, second by Councilmember Prem to adopt ordinance 4,928. City Clerk.

The motion to adopt ordinance zero four nine two eight. Councilmember Tim Chisholm?

Yes.

Councilmember Arnold? Yes. Councilmember Prem? Yes. Councilmember Falcone? Yes. Councilmember Pascal?

Yes.

Deputy Mayor Black? Yes. Mayor Curtis?

Yes. Ordinance four nine two eight carries seven zero. Thank

you, Council.

All right. We are moving on to 9D. How are we doing on time? Which is an update on the judge pro tem compensation. City manager.

Okay. Thank you, madam mayor. So as mentioned in the memo, this is an issue that came to our attention. Again, this is about attracting and retaining, and particularly for judge pro tems, we wanna make sure that we remain competitive so that our court runs well. So we need to make a change to our code to adjust to the market. And so here to give you that very brief presentation is our city attorney, Darcy Eilers.

Good evening, everyone. Thank you. As the city manager said, we're here to talk about pro judge pro tem judge compensation. Just to clarify for the public, judge pro tem is a temporary judge serving in the absence of the presiding judge and supporting court. Our court commissioner is also paid as a pro tem judge, and so we have several pro temp judges.

They fill in when the judge is on vacation or when they need to have two courtrooms running and the commissioner is not available. The change in compensation by state law is required to be acted on by ordinance. As we noted in the memo, in 2008 was the last time council updated the pro tem compensation. At time, it was $60 an hour. It was increased administratively by the court in 2023 to $70 an hour to better match market, and we're trying to update the ordinance so that we can meet that and then suggest a little increase given comps.

As we note up here and in the memo had a much more detailed description of the various comps ranges of compensation but 65 to about 105 that that 105 is a little bit out of market compared to the rest most of them fall within the $70.75 $80 so staff recommendation is that ordinance $49.29 which would increase compensation both acknowledging the retroactive increase that's been paid of $70 since 02/01/2023, and also increasing it from starting in April effective to $75 per hour. I should note that there's a minimum of a three hour minimum, so that's just to acknowledge that sometimes calendars go quicker than you think. But most of the time, think they have longer than three hours that they're working. And then it also adds some authority to the city manager that could increase, not required to increase compensation to reflect cost of living adjustments, exceed that of any MAC increases, just to give a little more flexibility to meet market without having to come back to counsel. We hear you say, why is this coming to counsel all the time?

This one does need to be by ordinance. We think this meets that state statutory requirement. That's the end of my presentation. I didn't even put a question slide on.

Thank you. Any questions for the city attorney? I will entertain a motion. Deputy Mayor?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll move to approve Ordinance O49.29.

It's been moved by Deputy Mayor Black, second by Councilmember Falcone to approve ordinance o 929. City Clerk.

On a motion to approve ordinance o 4,929, Councilmember Tim Chisholm.

Question, Darcy. Did the judge have any feedback on this ordinance?

No.

I he's aware of it and supportive, I believe.

Yeah. No negative feedback. Okay.

Yes.

Councilmember Arnold?

Yes.

Councilmember Prem? Yes. Councilmember Falcone? Yes. Councilmember Pascal?

Yes.

Deputy Mayor Black?

Yes.

And Mayor Curtis?

Yes. Motion ordinance 4929 is approved. Seven zero. Thank you, Darcy. Oh, I am so going to call a break. Sorry. Nice try. All right. I haven't eaten yet. So we're going to come back at 09:10.

All right. We are back after a short break. We are moving on to 9E, which is the 2026 legislative session update number four. City manager.

Okay. Thank you, Meniere. You sort of said it all. So here to give you our update number four is Audrieta Campbell, our Interim Government Affairs Manager.

Thank you, City Manager. Good evening, Madam Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Members of Council. I am always trying to iterate and make things a little bit clearer, a little bit better, so my title slide today has days 30 eight to 50 of session. I thought that might be a little bit better indicator than just number four. I mean, what is update number four?

So I have six slides tonight, beginning with a look at the agenda. We'll briefly touch on the timeline, talk about the Senate and House capital budgets that were released, and then spend the bulk of the presentation on Item three. As we go through, I will pause after each of those bullets in Item three to see if the workgroup members want to chime in or if the Council has any questions. Can you believe we are nine days away from sine die? It's flown by.

This Friday is the last cutoff, so opposite House cutoff at five p. M, so bills that are not necessary to implement the budget need to make it out of the opposite House chamber by then. Some good news. Supplemental budgets were released, and two of our four capital budget requests have proposed funding in both the House and Senate budgets. So that's a really, really good sign when there's appropriations proposed in both.

We don't know yet the exact amount, and we won't until final concurrence happens on the budget, but this is a very, very good sign. Diving into the bulk of the presentation and starting off with phenomenal news that happened during your study session, and that is on engrossed substitute House Bill sixteen oh four. Representative Salahudin's body searches bill passed out of the Senate, off the Senate floor with 30 yes votes, 19 nays, and will be on its way to the governor's desk because no amendments were made. It doesn't have to go back to the House for concurrence. So this is a bill from last session. It's just it's huge. I can't get the

smile off my face. Sorry. It's

so great. Okay. All right. Moving down the list, in gross substitute House Bill two thousand two and sixty six, often referred to as the step housing bill, was referred out of committee with additional amendments since we last met. They are not the legislative workgroup specific amendments, but amendments worth noting, if a city or county can't reach an agreement with a housing sponsor after good faith negotiations, they'd now be required to help identify other suitable properties rather than just deny the permit.

The legislative workgroup has signed in pro at the February 26 hearing for engrossed substitute House Bill 2,442. The bill was amended in committee and unfortunately lost the new REIT increment option for cities. However, there's still a lot of good in this bill. For example, it extends single year voter approved levy lid lifts to two years and six year levy lid lifts to ten years. It also expands how cities can use existing REIT $2 and adds a councilmanic oneten of 1% sales tax that cities and counties can use to support children and families.

The legislative workgroup signed in pro at the February 26 hearing for engrossed second substitute Senate Bill 6,027. As a reminder, this bill expands the allowable uses for local sales taxes collected for affordable and supportive housing and is headed to the floor. It has good momentum. The workgroup signed in pro and testified on engrossed substitute Senate Bill 6,110 requesting the inclusion of an e motorcycle definition and language directing the workgroup to examine civil infractions for juveniles ages 12 to 16 as well as civil penalties for adults who provide electric motorcycles to minors under 16. This is to mirror the language that the workgroup successfully secured in Representative Zahn's eMoto bill.

Unfortunately, the eMotorcycle definition did not hold, but committee amendments did adopt the legislative workgroup's language for the workgroup to study how it would enforce civil infractions for juveniles and penalties for adults who provide e motives to juveniles. I realize how confusing it is to talk about the legislative work group and the work group in the bill. Two different work groups. All right. Moving on to 6262. The legislative work group once again signed in pro at the February 26 public hearing for engrossed substitute Senate Bill 6,262. It is also making good progress and is headed to the floor. I want to pause here. Went through that very quickly. I want to see if the workgroup wants to weigh in on any of these or if counsel has any questions.

Just if you see Senator Dhingra on 1604, thank her for her work. Forcibly she brought it to the floor of the Senate and forcibly debated it during his passage. And I would also say if you see representative Saludine to congratulate him on passing this bill. And then on 2266 if you see representative Springer around he was the one that did the floor amendment that enabled operating agreements on shelters and permanent supportive housing. It's not exactly as Arnev had said, it's not exactly what we want but he did push that forward. Thank you.

Thank you. All right moving on to major updates this time around I have two bills under this section. Representative Zahn's Imoto bill did die in committee, but as you saw, we do have Senator Shoemake's version of the bill still alive. They are not companions, so one will not have to be concurred with the House of Origin. It's an important thing to note.

Then, of course, we have engrossed Second Senate Substitute Bill 6zero 26. The legislative work group is signaling cautious optimism on this bill because it did make it out of policy and fiscal committees with amendments that moved the city to a more neutral position, but we're cautious because the next stop is the House floor, and this is where the bill made it to the very same point in the Senate when we watched all the good work in the policy and fiscal committees unravel and have favorable amendments rolled back. So we're not being alerted of any horrific amendments being proposed to the bill, but we'll be watching the floor debate very closely, and depending on what shape the bill is coming off the House floor and over to the Senate for concurrence, the workgroup is going to be pushing pretty hard on our Senate delegation to concur with the version that's coming out of the House. If the chambers can't reach an agreement through concurrence, it will go to conference, and that's a risky place to be when the policy margins are very thin on the bill. So we don't want to see that.

I'm going pause here and see if workgroup members would want to chat about this one or if there's any questions.

Councilmember Arnold.

Thank you. Again, if you have a chance to run into Representative Dewar, I would acknowledge her work to get this bill back to a place that addresses our concerns. She said she felt like she aged a year in the negotiations to get there. Also, Representative Zahn, even though she is not a member that represents Kirkland, she is a former Bellevue Council colleague and she really did ton of work consulting with us on the Emoto bill and even though we didn't get her version that we would have preferred, she was very collaborative and worth our thanks.

Thank you.

I don't have more to add on 6026, but I did want to list it here as there is still a bit of a rocky road ahead, and we can't quite breathe a sigh of relief yet. Substitute Senate Bill 5,972 has been a tough one. I want to take a moment to recognize the hard work from the legislative work group. They have signed in, in opposition to this bill many times, testified at multiple public hearings, proposed amendments, talked with the sponsor and members of leadership, and even sat down with bill proponents to try and find a path forward, but nothing has seemed to stick. This bill is on its way to the floor, and it's unlikely that I will have a more positive update council meeting.

Anything you want to add? Thank

you, Madam Mayor. All right, I'm using this slide to call out a piece of legislation that has hefty state budget implications as well as the ICE related bills discussed at the last council meeting that are still alive. So starting at the top and working our way down, in gross substitute Senate Bill six thousand three and forty six, or what people are referring to as the millionaires tax, This bill would establish a 9.9% tax on individual income over $1,000,000 starting in 2028 and is projected to bring in over $4,000,000,000 to the State in 2030. So as both chambers work toward a final supplemental budget, each side builds their spending plan around the revenue tools they've passed out of their own chamber. I just find that fascinating.

So, the Senate can include the revenue projections from this bill in their budget math, even though it hasn't been signed into law. Okay. Just let that sink in. So that means revenue projections from this bill can drive major budget decisions before those bills have even cleared the full process. So moving on to its implications for Kirkland, broadly, this bill does two things.

It creates a state income tax and removes certain items and services from being subject to sales tax. More specifically, it exempts sales tax on hygiene products, cleaning products, diapers and repeals several new sales taxes implemented last year. Removing those taxes alone creates $120,000,000 revenue gap for cities by the year 2031. The State is trying to address some of that revenue offset by setting aside a portion of it to be shared across all cities for indigent defense costs, currently shaping up to be about $15,000,000 statewide. A couple messages that AWC is pushing in Olympia are that the indigent defense set aside should be more like 50,000,000 to $70,000,000 annually for cities.

We are also hearing that another message being pushed forward is that House Bill 2,442, which we talked about earlier, does not offset the effects of this bill, as it primarily offers flexibility on existing tools rather than new revenue. And finally, and maybe most obviously, is that even if this bill passes and the Governor signs it, it is widely expected to be challenged on the November ballot and legal challenges over its constitutionality. The big one.

May I ask a question?

Absolutely.