City Council - Regular Meeting

So moved. Second.

And moved by Council Member Paschal, second by Council Member Arnold. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 6-0. Thank you, City Clerk. Will you please call the roll?

Council Member Arnold. Here. Council Member Prem. Here. Council Member Falcone. Here. Council Member Paschal. Here. Deputy Mayor Black. Here. Mayor Curtis.

Here.

All right, our study session tonight is on two items. First, we will hear an overview of corrections and related programs in Kirkland. Second, the council will hear a parking pricing study. We expect to reconvene our regular meeting at 7.30, City Manager.

All right. So thank you, Madam Mayor, Deputy Mayor, members of the council. So this is our next to last presentation on our criminal justice review. This is going to be focused on the Kirkland's corrections programs in the jail. We have our police chief, Mike St. Jean, who's going to do the introductions and introduce his team. We're looking for just council interest, questions, feedback. And then as you saw in the memo, happy to invite any council members who want a tour of the jail facilities at any time. We're happy to make that available, too. So with that, I'll go ahead and turn it over to Chief St. Jean.

Thank you, City Manager. Good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, members of Council. We want to thank you for the opportunity tonight to share an inside look at the Kirkland Jail, celebrate the dedicated men and women that operate the jail, and highlight the unique programs and services that are offered to individuals within the jail. With me tonight are Administrative Commander Melissa Petricor and Corrections Lieutenant Sean Stredwick. Our wonderful jail navigator, Annette Cornell, was excited to attend tonight, but unfortunately is not going to be able to be here. So we will talk about her program and the great work that she's doing. So our goal over the next half hour is to provide an overview of the city of Kirkland's jail and explain how the jail functions as part of Kirkland's broader criminal justice system. We'll have 25 slides tonight. And if we could wait for questions till the end, I think that would probably work best.

Thank you.

So when most people think of a jail, they think of custody, security, and confinement. Obviously, those components are essential, but they're only part of what the Kirkland Jail does. Tonight, we'll walk you through how our care cycle begins on day one, how our staff integrate safety with dignity and treatment access, and how reentry planning, not simply release, has become a cornerstone of our approach. You'll also hear about the innovative programs and partnerships that make our facility unique and how these efforts support both accountability and long-term public safety. Let's talk a little bit about our mission. So our mission in the jail is not simply to hold people securely until their court date or their release date. Our facility is really built around a broader mission to protect the community, to maintain a safe and secure operation, and to use the time we have with individuals to stabilize immediate needs, connect them with services, and reduce future risk. When someone is in custody, our philosophy is that we have a brief but important opportunity to stabilize immediate needs, connect them to services, and prepare them to leave in a better position than when they arrived. That is really the heart of tonight's presentation. Public safety does not end when someone is booked into jail. and that people housed in our jail are not just merely numbers. It begins as soon as a person enters our facility, when they're treated with respect, offered help, and continues through successful reentry and reintegration into our society. Commander Petrick will now explain in greater detail the care cycle.

Good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Council Members. Before we dive into... I had to have the clicker. Before we dive into our programs this evening, I'd like to talk a little bit about our population, the population that we serve and the approach that we've built to serve them. Everything we do begins with safety, security and accountability. At the same time, we recognize that the time someone spends in our facility can be used to assess needs, provide appropriate services and begin planning for a safe and successful return to the community. The people who come into our facility are not just navigating one challenge. They are often navigating several challenges at once. Those challenges can include substance use issues, behavioral health needs, housing instability, medical concerns, missing identification, multiple court obligations, Many have never been able or willing to connect with the resources that they need. A jail environment provides a unique opportunity to identify those needs, engage individuals with services in a coordinated way, and begin building a path forward. That's why we've organized our programs around a care cycle that begins on day one and continues through release. Our care cycle provides a structured approach through three stages, intake, in custody, and release. Each stage builds on the one before it, creating continuity from the moment someone enters our facility until they return to our community. What makes our model unique is that reentry planning begins on day one. It doesn't begin at release. So with that framework in mind, I'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to our jail manager, Lieutenant Stradwick, to talk about what this looks like inside our facility.

Thank you, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Council Members. The next several slides that we're gonna go over will cover the intake and the in-custody stages of the care cycle. One thing that I wanna make clear that I want to emphasize as we go through this is that the services that we provide, while we are keeping the people in the community safe and secure, that's not separate from the services and the programs that we offer. In fact, the services we offer are an integral part of making sure that we operate the jail in a safe manner. We'll start off with intake. This is The first opportunity that we have to establish some stability for the person coming in. As you can see on the list on the slide there, they will have access to a phone call during booking. We give them a brief orientation about what they can expect at the jail and where they can find and access the inmate handbook, which gives them all their rules. We also go over the rights they have under the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which is very important. And we give them an idea of what to expect as far as the beginning of their court process and how they can access bail if they are intending to bail out. And as one of the bullet points up there states, we do have access to the language line that supports people that don't speak English as a first language. That way it Doing these things just sets the tone of respectful and clear process, and it reduces anxiety and conflict during this. So we start with dignity. We want to interweave it in everything we do. And that's how we lead to a safe operation. We collect and record preferred names and pronouns. We also record gender-affirming searches and preferences, and we honor those things. We also go through any religious needs, ADA accommodations they may need, and we carefully list out and show them and have them sign a form. of the property that they have when they get there. That way they can be assured that when they're leaving, they're getting everything that they came in with. And again, we have forms and materials available in multiple languages, and the use of language line is something we do on a regular basis to make sure that the communication is there. That's all there in order to prevent confusion and protect those that we're keeping in custody. During the intake, we gather information through a layered interview and assessments. This is done through, and as you can see, there's medical and medication assessments done, interviews and questions on behavioral health, risk needs, PRIA vulnerability, and other navigator and support services that we have. This is done by jail staff. It's also done by our medical staff and our jail navigator. And this is to try and get a deeper understanding of what the individual's needs are and who they are so we can better serve them. Some examples of needs could be for medical. They could be assessed by a jail medical staff that's there at that time. It could be an assessment by an EMS, an emergency medical provider. Or it could be done at the hospital if they need to be stabilized there before they can stay in our jail. The main question that they're asking at that time is, is this person stable now? Can they stay here, and what's the need to be stable medically? We also, some of the assessments we go over are for suicidal thoughts and mental health crises. We have access to the RACER team, and they come in, we are able to contact them, and they can come in for any needs that we have. We also have specialized housing, and enhanced watches that we can use if needed, depending on what the crisis is. The whole point is we're trying to be proactive and prevent problems from occurring instead of reacting to them after they occur. Moving from intake, the next step in the care cycle is in custody and the services we provide there. We have to start with the question, where do we house the people that are in our custody And how is the housing, how do we use our housing to keep them safe? We can't simply just randomly assign housing to people, or we can't put them all in the same room. There has to be a thoughtful process, and that process we have is an objective classification system. It's a method that we use to determine the best way to house people while minimizing the likelihood of victimization while they're in custody. this process. It looks at gender, medical needs, behavior, mental health needs, reconsiderations for vulnerabilities. There are basically four levels of security levels that we classify people to. First being minimum security, which is somebody who has little or no experience in the justice system. A medium security is somebody that has some experience, but no significant crimes against people. Then we have medium violent classification. That, again, they have some experience within the criminal justice system, but they also have crimes against people. And the final and the highest classification we have is maximum security. Those are people that have extensive or significant experience in the justice system and have crimes against people. We have to make sure that when we house people, we make sure we don't mix them mix the different classifications and prevent situations where someone could be victimized. So classification, it does make everyone safer, including the staff and the people that are in custody. But it also limits how we can use our space. And it's one of the biggest, plays the biggest role in the difference between our design capacity and our functional capacity in the jail. Our design capacity is 70. We have 70 beds. And for somebody just looking from the outside in, you could think we can house 70 people. But the reality is with the classification system and making sure that we're not mixing the classifications and we have to, it limits our space. And our functional capacity is around 50 people. That's an area, that's a number we think we can manage well and still house effectively. Throughout this it takes a thoughtful balance and it requires some ongoing monitoring to maintain a safe facility and to house as many people as we can. Next section we'll talk about is our medical stability. We believe that's one of the most important ways that we can help somebody. It's important because it affects all the other ways, all the other aspects, sorry, of a person's stay while they're in custody and has a huge impact on their success when they leave. We have onsite medical care for 12 hours a day. And our medical healthcare team provides assessments of every person that comes into our custody. The question they ask is, will this person need medical care while they're in custody? That could involve medication or other health care management. They find this information with release of information from other facilities and medical facilities. And it also includes dietary restrictions or special diets for medical reasons, whether that be somebody who is a diabetic and needs special food for that, or somebody who has allergies. Speaking of dietary needs, we also accommodate dietary needs for religious choices or religious preferences and vegetarian, vegan preferences as well. Another major medical area we look at is pregnancy care. Again, special diet for that, giving them extra calories. They get prenatal vitamins. pre- and post-natal doctor visits as necessary, as scheduled already. We make sure that all happens. Our medical staff also oversees any ADA accommodations that are needed. If somebody has special housing needs, whether they can't get up on a top bunk or they need to be on a lower bunk, or they have special medical equipment they need, that all goes through our medical team, and we make sure that they have those things so that while they're there, again, they're medically stable. One other area that I want to talk about is the medication-assisted treatment program we have for substance use disorders. Our medical team runs this, and it covers all aspects of it. They do induction, which is starting somebody on medication-assisted treatment that hasn't been on it before, or continuation. If they've come into custody and they've been on the program, they just continue that care through. We also have a detox protocol, which is used to prevent withdrawals from becoming a serious medical incident. We do all this, again, because we think that medical stability is one of the most important aspects that we can provide, and we can do that when they first get there. When people are in custody, maintaining regular connections with others outside is important and it reinforces a person's stability and reinforces their stability. Some of the things we do to make sure that their connections to the outside remains is they have telephones in all of the cells. They have kiosks, which they can do video visitation every day. We also have in-person visitation that is allowed. That can be done for professional visits, including counselors, attorneys, and religious visits. We also make sure that they have access to mail to send and receive mail. And they have access to a law library as well, which allows them to be, take a, take actual action in their criminal case that they're being housed on. We try to create structure for them through a routine. We have regular laundry services, book cart services. Everything is done on the schedule. Hygiene items and writing needs are passed out every day at the same time, and they have access to a commissary menu as well, which they can get extra items from that. Another way that we try and that we create structure is through our kite system. And kites are started out as a slang, but has been kind of adopted by the corrections industry. And it's really just another way of saying a request. So we have a regular kite is just a general request from a person in custody to jail staff. That's done through the kiosk. Essentially, it's an email, and they can ask for anything from, I'd like to sign up for the haircut list to I'd like to use the workout room today or release dates, a litany of things. We have medical requests are on the kiosk as well, so they can receive the medical needs that they get the medical care they need. They can also fill out and submit grievances if they feel like they've been treated unfairly or that there's something unfair about the process we have. And there's also a way that they can access the jail navigator on their own. The nice thing about this is that it creates structure for the people in custody, but it also creates accountability for the jail staff. Everything in there is electronically saved. can be accessed, whether it be the initial request and the response, time, date, and stamp. Make sure that we're doing the job that we should be doing and that we can audit ourselves and make sure that we are. Next section I want to talk about is programs. Again, we use this to try and create structure and routine. Through this, we have programs such as AA and faith-based services. We have peers come in to create connections and to talk to them on a level that maybe they understand people that have lived experience, that have been where they are. One of the most recent things that we've had and one of the things that really is I feel strongly about and really enjoyed was we had music therapy. It's called the Concert of Hope. This is a program that we worked with the Washington State Reentry Council to bring in a gentleman named Eric Jenis. He has a group of classically trained musicians that came in and played a concert for some of the people we had in custody. Classical music throughout the concert that he gave a message as well. It was really, really touching. And it was really cool because it was a event that people don't get to do while they're in custody, generally speaking, and you get to see different sides of the population. Part of that event, the Concert of Hope, was also a talking circle. This was a time when, and this was coordinated by the Reentry Council, this was a time when the people in custody got to sit in a circle with some other people with lived experience, and it was a coordinated time to talk about anything, how they felt, their life experiences, what they want to do. And it was a time, what I found from watching it, was it was a time that they could be vulnerable in a place where you usually can't be vulnerable, where you feel like you can't be vulnerable. The engagement that I saw there was amazing. It was really, really cool. A lot of tears were shed, but the engagement with the People in custody was impressive. We do all this, all these programs, working with volunteers. And so these programs, they don't cost the city anything. But for those who participate, the impact is huge. And it's a way that we can really match a community that wants to help those who are in need and the people that have those needs. It's a great place where we can line that up. Along those same lines of meeting people with their needs and when they have, while we have them, we create treatment connections for people as well. We help people that are looking for treatment solutions, whether it be for substance uses or behavioral health. We help them to find their, excuse me, to find treatment and find placement. And what better way is there to use this time in our facility than to do these things? Some of these treatment and therapy sessions are required by courts, and some of them they want to do on their own. But this includes, again, behavioral health and substance abuse. We do evaluations for therapy. whether it be substance use or drug and alcohol treatment coordination, and prepare them to have success when they leave. And that's really what we're trying to do is we're trying to give them a step ahead, get them ahead before they leave, before they get out. But we don't, I want to make clear, we don't see these as extras. These are part of how we maintain a safe facility and how we become successful how we help them to become successful when they leave. And it's really how we see a major part of our role in the justice system. We have the ability to make these connections, and this is, I made a note, maybe a little cheesy, but I said this is the correcting part of corrections. This is really what it's about, is helping them to get better before they leave. With that, I'll pass it back to Commander Petricor.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lieutenant Stradwick. I'll try to keep an eye on the time. As the chief mentioned earlier, our wonderful jail navigator, and Nat is not here with us this evening. Unfortunately, she's left some very large shoes for me to fill, so I will do my best as we start to talk about the jail navigator program. And the final stage of the care cycle. This stage is where our work extends beyond the jail. Release is one of the most important moments in the entire care cycle. For many individuals, the transition back into our community is also the highest risk point. Without support, the challenges that brought someone into our custody can become immediately overwhelming again. Our goal is to reduce that risk by making sure people leave with real connections, not just released. We call this the warm handoff. A warm handoff turns referrals into relationships. Instead of telling someone where to find help, we help them connect to the people that will be waiting there for when they arrive. Before someone leaves our custody, we help answer the questions that matter most. Where will I go? How will I get there? How do I continue treatment? And what happens to me next? When those questions are answered before release, people are far more likely to stay connected to the services that support them through successful reentry. Successful reentry doesn't happen alone. It requires organizations to work together with a shared purpose and a coordinated plan. For many years, there wasn't a dedicated resource inside the jail to coordinate that work. People often left custody with referrals, but no one was responsible for connecting those services into a single pathway forward. Recognizing that gap, we launched the Jail Navigator program in February of 2025 through a COSEP grant. The Jail Navigator serves as a central point of reentry planning. While based within the police department and the city jail, this program reflects the city's broader commitment to human services by bringing human services and that approach into the correctional environment. The Navigator connects justice, healthcare, housing, treatment, and community partners into one coordinated plan tailored to each individual. Instead of handing someone a list of phone numbers, the Jail Navigator helps ensure those connections are already in motion before they leave custody. When partners work together, barriers are reduced, transitions are smoother, people have a greater opportunity to succeed after release. The numbers on this slide don't just represent numbers or services, these are people. The Jail Navigator Program launched in February of 2025 and since then more than 140 individuals have received direct support and that's through February of 2026. Every person that enters the Kirkland City Jail receives a needs assessment to identify opportunities for support. However, participation in the Jail Navigator program is entirely voluntary. These are 140 individuals who chose to work with the Jail Navigator, and 117 individuals chose to develop a plan for their return into the community. As awareness and success of this program continues to grow, we expect participation to grow as well. The data on this slide represents the primary service needs we identified during the first year of the Jail Navigator Program. Many individuals need support in more than one area, so you'll see a single person may be reflected in several categories. The data tells us one important story. People don't just have one barrier. They have many. These barriers include housing, employment, identification, treatment, transportation, and healthcare, and they're all connected. The Jail Navigator exists to identify solutions in these areas and develop a holistic plan for reentry. This slide is about those 15 individuals released directly to treatment. This is one of the clearest examples we have of a warm handoff and one we are very, very proud of. Direct release to treatment requires multiple steps. It requires securing treatment bed availability, scheduling intake appointments, coordinating assessments, communicating with court information on where these folks have gone, and arranging transportation directly from our custody to that treatment facility. There's a lot of steps involved. But this matters because releasing an individual can be a very high risk moment, especially for those with substance use disorder. Connecting someone immediately to treatment reduces the chance that they'll return to crisis without any kind of support. Again, a warm handoff model means we don't just release people. We prepare people to return to our community successfully. As a final step before release, and something else we're very proud of, we provide access to the community closet, which I think most of you have heard of, toiletries, food, and other essentials so that individuals leave custody with the basic necessities they need to begin their transition back into the community. All of this does not mean jail is treatment. It does not mean accountability goes away. It means we use the time we have responsibly. If someone is leaving custody with no resources, no plan, the risk to that person and to the community is higher. Our work is about reducing that risk. There we go, too many fingers. Our programs continue to evolve as we identify new opportunities to better serve our individuals in custody while simultaneously enhancing public safety. Some of our current priorities include expanding direct release to treatment, leveraging the Medicaid 1115 waiver reimbursement opportunities, strengthening housing and behavioral health partnerships, completing the COSEP-funded booking and nursing area remodel, partnering with the Department of Licensing to provide replacement IDs at our facility before they're released, and implementing the medical monitoring technology to improve health and safety. And with that in mind, I will turn it back over to Chief for closing remarks. Thank you.

Thanks, Melissa and Sean. So I just want to wrap it up, and this is our last slide. But to reiterate, we feel that our responsibility at the end of the day is twofold, to protect the community and to prepare people to return to it. These goals are not competing. They strengthen each other. A safe jail must be secure, consistent, and professionally operated, which ours is, as evidenced by our recent reaccreditation. But a modern municipal jail must also recognize that nearly everyone in custody will return to society. in our neighborhoods, in our businesses, in our parks. And when individuals leave with stability, connections with treatment, and a plan, the entire community does benefit. I really hope you enjoyed our presentation tonight, and I hope you can see how proud we are of the work that's being done, proud of the partnerships that make this possible, and committed to continually improving the care cycle so that every release is safer than the one before. So again, thank you for your time and your support and turn it back to the mayor for questions.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Lieutenant, Commander, and of course, Chief. Thank you for this presentation, and I hope that our community watches it. This is something that we don't talk about. It doesn't get a lot of visibility, and it's really clear your compassion and care, but it's also part of our city's continuum of care, so this has been very impressive. Thank you. I've heard a lot of typing while you were talking, so who wants to go first?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I like going last because I like hearing other people's questions and crossing them off my list. Well, thank you for this. This is really informative and I really appreciated so much of the work we do as a city, the person-centered approach to this, right? As the community, like you said, keeping the community safe, but also helping improve the lives of inmates so that they can be more stable and be more contributing members to our society and healthy. So thank you for that. So I have a couple questions related to that. You talked a lot, which I appreciate again, in talking about the importance of stability in the lives of folks who have barriers to a stable life, right? And one of them you mentioned was being able to connect to their social support network, whether that be professionals or family and friends and others. And so I have questions related to that. I know at intake they get free phone calls, and you mentioned there being a phone in each cell and a video conferencing device as well available to them. Can you talk about the cost to folks? Because I can imagine that for some of these folks that would be a barrier to being able to potentially connect with the social support network if they don't have the funds to speak to friends and family while they're inmates.

Yeah, for sure. So, yes, they get access to free phone calls when they first come in. The phones in the cells, they do have a charge. I believe they're 20 cents per minute, and that is something that is regulated by the company that we contract with. The company bases this off of the fact that we have to record and be able to monitor it. So there's a cost to all of that, and some of that has to be passed on. Each cell has, like I said, has phones, and each cell has the ability to do video visits. And video visits are, I don't know the exact cost of video visits. They're half hour long. And those are offered every day of the week during business hours. We do also offer free in-person visits on Saturdays. We do that because we know that while it's super convenient to be able to For somebody at home to jump on their phone and visit a person that's in custody, not everybody can afford that. But if you can come down, we can do a half-hour visit once a week. That way it doesn't overtax the schedule that we have between court and meal services and everything else that we're doing. We have a scheduled time for that. So it's not free, not all free, but it is something we try to make sure that they have opportunities to it.

Thank you. I appreciate that. And then do we have a mechanism for understanding? I know you mentioned there's open communication, right? The ability to share concerns and feedback while they're inmates. Do we have any sort of data collection on ideas they have for... helping support them better? Like, do we ask them either qualitatively or quantitatively, you know, what would make it so that you were able to be more rehabilitated while you're here? Perhaps, you know, I know that could, depending on where people are in life, could be challenging for folks to answer to give us practical advice and input for improvement. But I don't know if we follow up with people, if we have the ability, legal or otherwise, to follow up with people once they are stable to gather that type of information, because I can imagine that would be very valuable feedback if we're able to obtain it.

Absolutely. Thank you. And I'll have the lieutenant explain a little bit more, but that is the process we have in place through that kite system, if you will. That's where they can file requests and suggestions for improvement and all that. And I know we do keep all of those and use those as reference, and supervisors have access to all of that. Do you want to explain a little bit more about that, Lieutenant?

Absolutely. So two things. Yes, if they have suggestions for what they think can be done better, should be done better, they can send a request kite, a regular one. And again, like I mentioned, there's a grievance system. If they think that they were unfairly treated or something is wrong, they can submit a grievance, which gets reviewed by a supervisor, gets investigated, and gets answered and has an appeal process. All the grievances, we do an annual review of all the grievances to see what the final decision was, whether they were a sustained grievance, whether they were unfounded.

There's several different things we have for that.

We use that to try and make ourselves better as well. As far as giving input to how they can be better served, a lot of that also comes in when the jail navigator does her assessment. They're very open-ended questions as far as what do you need to be successful. Those are exactly, and it's asked at booking, but it's also followed up after the fact when the jail navigator is able to come in and meet with them personally. We try to give them as much opportunity to give that input as possible and work with that. Finally, you mentioned about follow-up afterwards. I know that Annette would love to answer that question because she has heard from people that have left custody and have been successful and has shared that with the staff, which is really cool because, one, it shows that We're not just doing something to do it, that it's actually working, and that people are being successful. So it's out there. It's not everybody. And we don't have a regular mechanism to follow up on people. It's very hard to follow up with people when they leave custody. But we do, when they reach out to us, we make sure and that gets shared with everybody so everybody knows the work that's been done has gone to a good place.

Thank you. I appreciate that. And I appreciate the invitation to tour as well. I would like to take you up on that, as some of my colleagues may as well. And in speaking with the city manager earlier today, I was asking, what is the end result of all this information and things that we're learning, right? And in my mind, I would love to think through, what can we do as a council to support the work of our criminal justice system? Are there things that we can do to help support you? The phone calls was one example of that, right? but would love to have a follow-up conversation more about some of those details. I've heard fellow council members talk about, you know, quality of meals and other things in the jail and seeing if there's ways that council can help support the important work that you do. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Mayor Arnold?

Thank you, Mayor. Chief Commander, Lieutenant, thank you for the presentation. It's really impressive, the work that you're doing. And beyond the outcomes of the people involved, that are released. One thing that was covered in the memo is how this, the work we do here actually saves the community money compared to these housing in the King County Jail or score. And it mentioned some of the direct costs of how we've been able to keep that score number low. One of the things I'd like to have is some backup information. It's just saying, okay, you've said, okay, if we housed everybody in score, it would cost more than $5 million a year. What is it that we're paying within corrections today so we can show both the fiscal value as far in addition to all the good we're doing in the community and living our values through the service you're providing? That would be helpful, or if you don't now, that would be great to know.

I can speak to a little bit of that. OK. It's a question that we think about constantly, especially when we envision where our jail goes in the future. We do balance the need for public safety as well as the cost to the community. And so with that last jail paper, we took a very high level look at some guiding information so that we could see where we stood with just looking at score costs or King County's costs versus our budget to demount. Answering that question very specifically, there's a lot of variables to it. What would it look like without a jail? What kind of personnel costs would be involved with everyone being transferred and taken to SCORE? How many officers does that take off the road as they transfer those individuals? Or do we need police support associates? It's a very, very good question and we think about it all the time because we want to be responsible and we want to make sure that we're investing in the right areas and investing in these services in the right manner, being thoughtful about it. But I can tell you that initial look suggests that it is cost effective. to have our own jail as well as supporting our public safety mission. I do feel like with that initial overview, there is room for us to look at more details and we've put mechanisms in place to better track some of that data that we need to really look at that nuanced information. And I can tell you that when we go to invest in services or we go to invest in these programs, We want to find ways to better house individuals here locally, provide them with mental health and medical services so that we don't take them to score because that cost is going up and up. So as we look at the future, we'll constantly consider, is this effective? Is this the right place for our funds? Is this the right move to make moving forward? Right now, yes, it is cost effective, but I think it's even more cost effective once we get more information.

And then secondly, you mentioned the jail navigator position has been in effect for just a year and a half now. When we got briefed on community court, they had some information over the history of community court before community court and with community court to be able to say, okay, this is impacting recidivism. Do we track that to be able to show, okay, before the jail navigator, after the jail navigator, here's the impact that we're having?

That's a good question. So I will tell you, nationally, especially with the COSIP grant and all the other jail facilities that are attempting to turn the corner from just a jail facility but more to programs and services and how do we support these folks to reentry, they caution us to not just look at recidivism as a number because it does take people a couple tries to get it right and they may return a couple times or we may not have gotten it right the first time. So we're cautious about that and we will, and I've talked to our jail navigator extensively about this, I don't want to hinge on just that number but then I want you to change your approach if they've come back and you've met with them and you've given them all the resources. What went wrong? Ask the right questions. Don't just revisit the same plan. Find out why did you come back? Was it something that we didn't look at or didn't address? So yes, in a sense, but I feel like our successes are going to be not just because they had to come back a couple times, because pretty much to get it right, to get through treatment, and to turn that corner, it takes a couple tries. But we will, and like you said, we only had a year and a half, but we do have mechanisms in place to really try to track what the success of this program looks like. What does it mean?

And both the quantitative aspect of it, but also the qualitative aspect of it, the individual stories of hearing how people really said the services and the support that they got were transformational. It's great to hear those stories as well. Thank you.

Council Member Paschal?

Thank you. First off, thank you for the presentation. Just the whole layout of it. You had someone who's very good at doing PowerPoints. That was pretty impressive. You upped the bar here in Kirkland, probably. I had just a couple comments, questions. Maybe I'll just kind of go through them and then you can, if you have a response, or you can respond later. One is I noticed that there was an increase in yearly bookings, particularly over the last couple years and kind of what's contributing to that. I echo some of the comments from my colleagues around the score and also the King County Jail and how we limit expenses there. We are contracting with other agencies and so I know when we had set out with that, we had looked at cost recovery there. How do we track that to make sure that we're kind of maintaining that cost structure as things change, right? Because each year, costs and other things change, and so are we continually looking at that and reviewing that? And if not, that's something I'd be interested in. And then finally, you're balancing kind of the services and the outcomes that we're trying to achieve and the values that we strive to adhere to versus the costs that it takes. And I guess what I'd be interested in is a little bit like forward-looking aspect in terms of what are those things that we, want to do that we haven't done yet? Or what are those improvements that we'd like to take that we haven't had the opportunity to do for a variety of reasons? I'd like to see what those five key things that we think would continue to up the game, so to speak, in our corrections unit. And then finally, the other thing that I forgot to ask about was staffing. You talked about the staffing structure. What I was looking for a little bit from that was the fact that maintaining a full staff in law enforcement is a continual challenge, not just for Kirkland, but for all agencies. And how does that impact kind of what we do and how we do it? And yeah, just kind of how does that play into some of this, too? That's a lot to throw at you, but those were some of the things that were on my mind.

I know all really good points and questions, and I'll try to hit them quick because I know we're running out of time. But staffing, we're looking really good. We have one position open, and it's been open for a while. We're being pretty picky on that. Thanks to the support of council and the good work of the two next to me, Kirkland Jail has kind of become a place where people want to come to work. We've got several laterals that have come from bigger jails because they like our approach. They like the size of it and have come here and have been super, super happy. The people that are here, if they leave, it's to go become a police officer. Others, it's absolutely a profession, and they've stayed for a very, very long time, and I can see them doing a full career here. So we're doing well there. The contracting with other agencies, yes, we are doing that. We try to keep a close eye, making sure that our staffing can handle that. And every year we look at adjusting the rate that we're charging based on collective bargaining agreement changes, medical costs increasing, those kind of things, to make sure we are recouping those costs. So we do do that. The services, I've got to give a lot of credit to Commander Petricor. She is grant master. And so we have gotten some really good federal grants and pass-through grants that have done the jail navigator. The one we just got was for kind of a medical... What are we... technology, and so it'll actually be able to measure people that are in custodies, heart rates, breathing, those kind of things, to make sure that we're being proactive on in case someone has an overdose or a medical emergency, we'll know right away. And as you know, in any medical emergency, time is of the essence. And so we haven't installed all of that yet, but we got the grant money through that. And so trying to be creative on how to improve our level of service, utilizing outside dollars where we can. And Melissa is really, really good at getting those. So I think I answered most of those. Great.

Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Councilman? Yeah, thank you so much for this presentation. Very impressive, and I agree with Council Member Pascal. The figures were top notch. So one question I had was around the jail navigator program, which I feel like that's one of the highlights of this presentation. I saw the, so the numbers, in the last year and a half, we've been able to recruit around 140 people, right, to participate. on a voluntary basis, obviously. And then I saw the bookings in the last year were, I think, almost 2,000 people, right? So I guess, how do we increase awareness of this program? And I guess, how do we recruit individuals to participate now? And then how are we planning on increasing the exposure to this program?

Great questions, and I'll give a little context to the numbers. It took us a couple of months to get the program, once we hired Annette, to get the program fully fleshed out. She wasn't meeting with people until we had, we built it from the ground up, until we had surveys, until we had a good direction, until we had assessments, until she went and trained at all these other facilities. So there were several months of 2025 where we didn't, she didn't meet one-on-one with folks. I think those numbers do seem lower, but I will preface the 2,000 are bookings and some of those people are repeat offenders, so they're not the exact number of people, just the number of times they came to jail. I think I was, believe it or not, impressed that 140 people agreed to meet with her just because this was brand new. They weren't familiar with it. It meant that they had to be in a vulnerable situation and communicate their issues and find a path forward. And not everybody's receptive to that. A lot of times they don't want to talk about substance use disorders. They don't want to talk about the homeless issues that they're having. So I feel like the more that gets out, the more people understand that that resource is there, the more she can, like the word gets out, it's just going to get better. And once that we stabilize a lot of those pieces, like we put it into the kiosk system in the jail so they can directly contact her. Once we get that private room remodeled in the front that we're working on, where she has a private place to meet with them, it's just going to get better. And I think they talk. So when they meet with a jail navigator and they go back to the cells and they talk to the other people that they met with her and it's really working and that she's given them great resources, the word's going to get out. I expect that number to go even higher.

Great.

Thank you. I have to move us on to parking. I apologize, but thank you. Great presentation. We really appreciate you being here.

Thank you very much.

All right, city manager, we're going to do the parking pricing study.

All right. So as we're switching out here and the public works team is coming forward, the goal tonight is to talk about the parking pricing study and some options for council consideration. We talked about this a little bit at the council financial retreat. The goal tonight is not to have the council pick options. It's a study session. But what we're really looking for is kind of impression and feedback, principles that our information council is seeking about parking pricing and sort of a general sense of should we continue to move forward on some of this, like bring some things forward in budget process or other ways to begin pricing for the potential benefits it creates. So with that as a high-level overview, I'm going to turn it over to our Transportation Manager, Stephen Padua, and our Transportation Planner, Kimberly Scrivener, and they're going to walk you through the results.

Welcome. Go ahead. Thank you, City Manager, Mayor Curtis, Deputy Mayor, Council. Looking forward to the conversation tonight about parking pricing. I have about 15 substantive slides. We're here to talk about better managing our very limited parking supply that is in very high demand with the goals of increasing access and availability for For our community to access our amenities in downtown to support our local businesses and with any additional revenue to show that direct benefit back to the areas that are served by parking. This body of work implements our transportation strategic plan policy to take an active approach to managing on and off street parking. And just a quick background, we currently charge $1 an hour in two downtown lots, and generally the rest of parking in our city is free. We do have some time-limited areas in our commercial centers, and we have our Peter Kirk Municipal Garage next to the library that is also free. We are also having this conversation based on council direction from 2022 to look at better parking management and monitoring. From there, we installed sensors in 23, we reported back to council in 24, and made live parking data available in 2025. The most recent presentation about that was the 2.0 version of that, and today we're talking about pricing. There are a number of ways that we manage parking. As I mentioned, curb management in terms of time limits. We have three parking enforcement officers. I mentioned our monitoring. We do a lot of work related to alternatives to driving through active transportation and everything we can do. to bring as much to support our community with transit and demand management. And we installed wayfinding in 2022 for parking. And so the question at hand today is about pricing, another important tool in that toolbox. As part of the study, we did look at Saturdays versus Sundays. And the reason, not suggesting that we start charging everywhere on Sundays, the reason why we looked at this is because on Saturdays, where we apply some of those tools for parking management, time limits, enforcement, and in one of the study areas, pricing, we wanted to look at behavior in terms of parking turnover, essentially, on days where we apply parking management tools and to the days that we don't, which would be Sundays. And the key takeaway is that our parking management tools work. The data is pretty significant. We see a lot more turnover on Saturdays when we apply parking management tools. And again, turnover is what we're really looking for to provide more people access to amenities, to our amenities.

Kimberly, are you okay with questions?

I would be happy to be interrupted at any time.

Thank you. So the Saturday, Sunday analysis I thought was interesting, and it made me just pause and think, is there a reason that we continue to have free parking on Sundays, and if that's something that we should evaluate as part of this discussion or perhaps a future discussion. So I wanted to mention that. I have my theories as to why we had that as a remnant of previous societal values and want to look at the intention there and if that's really something that's helping our community or if we should reevaluate that.

The quick answer is that it's a policy decision, and it has been for a long time. In a lot of cities, it's pretty typical. You'll see free parking on Sundays and holidays. I will address, when we get into the options, a little bit more on that.

Thank you. That would be helpful. I would assume that with our DEIB values, that it would be something that we would want to evaluate as well, given the history of probably how that was implemented.

Thank you. Oh, Deputy Mayor?

Thank you. Kim, at some point, I'd love to hear if we In addition to seeing the difference in behavior and the greater turnover on Saturday, if we have something more than just a hypothesis or a theory about what that means for businesses downtown, if you see that, for example, a theory could be when you see that kind of turnover, you see more people coming, you see more people considering coming because they find that it is possible to get a parking spot, and then they do frequent our downtown businesses. You can answer that now, or I can... Talk to you about it later.

My short answer would be that our goal for this would be to continue to monitor if we make changes to our pricing or any other changes to our parking management tools. What we would look for is to make sure that we're seeing similar levels of occupancy. That's one of the concerns I've heard from businesses is that, oh no, if you charge for parking, people aren't going to come to Kirkland and support my business. So we want to... We are a little spoiled. We have very good sensor data, 24-7 data that allows us to do that. And that would be my job and our job as our team to look and make sure that whatever pricing we set wouldn't impact our lots continuing to be full. But we can talk about that more, but that would be my short answer. I will just a few assumptions quickly. We are talking about just our general purpose stalls. We're not including ADA permits, load zones, short-term parking. We are assuming that we would phase this out. So the order of the options does imply an order of phasing as recommended by staff. We did not come with an implementation plan right now. We have not done any community engagement because we really want to hear from council first if this is even a direction we want to go. So option one, increase parking in our two lots where we already charge. The bar to that is pretty low. We already have pay stations. Our last pricing policy was set in 1994 at $1 an hour. We, thanks to our finance team, gave us what that would be equivalent to in today's dollars. Again, the goal would be to induce turnover and to cover some of our maintenance costs downtown. We currently do not have any dedicated budget to maintain our existing lots. We pull from our paving, striping programs and other programs for that. For option two, this is a... Kirkland gets inundated with, Kirkland has some of the best waterfront access on Lake Washington, honestly. This map, we have seven waterfront parks with parking lots, the sixth on the map, the seventh is Marina Park downtown. And we just can inundate it. We get a lot of complaints from people. Our police department gets a lot of complaints from people and issue a lot of tickets during summer. And this would help contribute to just better managing our limited parking supply. The suggested rate of the $3 versus the $2 and option one is really to cover some of the maintenance costs for the waterfront parks. That's what that price, that fee setting is for. So we're trying to balance not going too high. We're not suggesting market rate, which is pretty typical of public agencies. still wanting to induce turnover, and still cover some maintenance costs. Our consultants provided us a wonderful tool where we can have conversations about what we would like to cover with any additional parking revenue. We can click certain things on and off. We can decide how long, whether we want to cover something over a couple years or over a six year period that can help us set some fee rates. And we can certainly bring that tool back to council, but this would be our suggested fee at just a starting point. Council Member Paschall.

Question, do we have data about percentage of residents versus non-residents that are parking at our parks?

Not for specific to our parks. We did receive some data from our city manager's office about general kind of tourism and where people are coming from when they visit the city, but not necessarily at parks. We have to do some analysis with license plate readers, which we could do.

Thank you.

councilman thank you madam mayor well thank you councilman pasco for that question i had a similar question related to that and other ways to achieve a similar goal um that we don't need to get into now but i'm curious i know that we have i'm going to blank on the name of the technology but tdc um you know has some technology that i know economic development utilizes to like to track people and where they are around the city not like in a like individual person kind of way but just like a numbers kind of way um so that i don't know if that would be a tool but i'd be curious to know if that has the capability of being able to know where people are coming from if we can like uh geofence our each the parks the waterfront parks and see where they're coming from that may help um answer counselor pascal's question Just wanted to mention that. I don't know, staff can probably speak more to that than I could.

Sure, we can follow up with that, check the terms of the placer agreement and work together on it.

Thank you.

We did pull out, we need a beach separately, just to give you some context of one park as opposed to all of the waterfront parks that have parking. This is an interesting example as well because of the gravel lot and then the grass overflow. We can certainly charge in the gravel lots, excuse me, gravel lot and in the grassy overflow. How that would work is to put up temporary signs in the grassy area and post essentially our pay by phone signs and time limits if needed. We don't necessarily have to time regulate, but we would likely want to be consistent with the rest of the lots. Because my understanding is that there is one ingress location we could monitor just through in and out without parking sensors, so that would be an option as well. And then if there is interest in charging in the grassy overflow area, My suggestion would be, too, that we would have our pay station in the gravel lot and people could still walk to the gravel lot. It's not that far if people wanted to pay cash. We'll go back one. In terms of enforcement, we do have our police department with us. They've been with us step by step on this. And the Winneta Beach, Heritage Park, Marsh Park, and Houghton Beach all do have time limits and are enforced for time limits. Waverly Beach and Odenny have less enforcement now. And then I do want to address Sundays. The suggestion here, so summers only would be Memorial Day to Labor Day, and the suggestion it would be a change to start charging on Sundays just in the parks, because Saturdays and Sundays are kind of equal when people are trying to access the beach. But that's really the only exception that we're suggesting now, but we can certainly look at Sundays and other places. On street, essentially our data shows that the free parking is more competitive. We're getting a lot more people circling, looking for free parking. So another objective is to reduce circulation downtown. the it would starting to charge on street would require a lot of pay stations one per block face and um and then essentially we would just want to keep the price consistent the suggestion is to keep the rate the same as the two lots so that we have consistency across all of downtown and then lastly the garage in terms of phasing this one is last we would want to um encourage people to park in their garage if that were free and if we were to start charging on street because the places on street have that direct access to businesses and freeing those up more often for people and so encouraging people to park in their garage is a good thing. But eventually, if council's interested in charging in the garage, there are, we do have three levels. This analysis looks at the middle level. The top level is managed by the library for library access, and we could certainly talk to the library. The lowest level is for permit, employee permits, and we could certainly talk about that too. But right now, the suggestion is just that middle level. And again, lots of conversations that we can have about what the council might be interested in funding. As I mentioned, with the rate setting, we are looking at essentially maintenance of the adjacent areas. And with that, I'm really looking forward to any other questions you have.

Thank you, Kim. All right, council, we have 20 minutes. So everybody fire their feedback. Council Member Arnold.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Kim. I appreciate all the really thorough stuff. These are my notes from looking at the packet. Lots of interesting stuff in there. Couple things on the study, the information in the packet showed kind of annual numbers of occupancy. One of the things I'm making a case, especially for downtown parks, I'd be more interested in peak and summer days to be able to say how many summer days are we hitting that 80% level that really justifies the need for turnover. So I'd like to see that data as we consider moving forward. Oh, I should have opened up with, I am interested in looking at options one, two, and three. moving forward, and this is some of the questions I'm gonna want to answer as we do this. As we're looking at paying for the parks, that's a big change, and I appreciate that this is the opportunity for revenue to support the parks, but I am interested in what's the impact if we standardize on $2 to say we're doing $2 downtown, we're doing $2 for the park. That's something I'd like to look at as we move forward. As we look at downtown parking, you do have the garage as a free option. As we look at downtown parks, I am interested in what we anticipate is the impact for people looking for free parking when we start to charge and how do we mitigate the impacts on the neighborhood between Lake Washington Boulevard and State Street and Juanita Village and its surroundings around Juanita Beach Park. And then I am interested, as we look at this, you mentioned the kiosks. How many people are paying via the kiosks versus the pay-by-phone app as we look at how much we need to invest in kiosks as we add parking? Those are the things I want to look at moving forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, thank you for this really thoughtful presentation. I know we've, as was noted in the memo, been working on this issue for years. So I do appreciate the thoughtfulness that we're going about this and that we have a focus of why we're doing this, right? That we're not just trying to you know, have a money grab for the public that's really intentional to help support our infrastructure and help increase turnover to help support our businesses and for more folks to be able to enjoy the park. So I think that's, I really appreciate that. I am interested in a plan at least to move forward with all four options. I, however, would like some built-in check-ins if we do proceed with the plan for all four as you mentioned you know Councilmember Arnold mentioned and I think you mentioned as well like the potential impacts of spillover into neighborhoods and other things I'd want to understand how things are going and check in before we implement a next phase or next option of it as we proceed I think that would be wise so I think having a plan for example for option four wouldn't necessarily commit us to definitely doing option four we'd have a plan in place so that if we think that it's logical at the time we can continue to proceed without doing a whole new study that we're prepared for that. I will be looking for, like I said, a proposal for changing our free Sundays as well. I want to understand the logic of that rather than that's how we've already done it and that's how other people do it. I suspect that that may be due to religious norms that we had in the past. And so just wondering, again, the focus on One of the goals being to help support, especially downtown, our small businesses in downtown, having more turnover for folks. What does that look like? Are there other days that would make more sense? Would it help small businesses if we had free parking on Mondays, for example, or Tuesdays? I really want to be thoughtful and logical about it, and not just because this is how it's always been done. So I'm interested in having that conversation. Also, I've said the next two things every time we talk about parking, but I just want to remind... Folks that I'm interested in knowing how this can play into or work this into our Kirkland Cares program. I want folks to be able to enjoy our parks, including downtown, even if they can't afford to pay for this parking. So I don't know what the technology looks like for that. If there could be a swipe card that they could have with a certain amount loaded on it per month or something like that so that they could still. enjoy parking without it being too burdensome for them. Again, with the goal of the Kirkland Cares to be a one-stop shop for folks who need those services to be able to provide that. I also want us to look at some point in our parking analysis, maybe not into the paid parking, but it could potentially impact it. Our usage of ADA stalls, do we have enough? I know I keep mentioning that every time, but I just don't want us to forget that because I think that's really important. I've heard in two separate conversations with council events, folks come to me asking about that, especially our senior population, saying that they struggle particularly with finding ADA parking in our city. So obviously we have the required minimum number of ADA stalls, but should we on city property consider additional ADA stalls? Is that needed? I would like for us to look at that as well as the placement, right? If there are Think of like Juanita Beach Park. Do we need to have more ADA stalls in the gravel lot versus the paved lot or both? Depending on where people's usage is, imagining grandparents or family members with mobility disabilities wanting to watch their kid play softball, for example, or baseball, that we don't just add extra ones in the park in general, but we really are thoughtful about the usage as well as part of that conversation. Also, when we talk about what the revenue is going to be used for, I agree it needs to be tied really crystal clear to what we're going to be using it for. I agree and appreciate the parking lot infrastructure maintenance and also the parks. I think there's precedent for that in other parks as well in other cities and jurisdictions that use the parking revenue to help maintain the park. That makes logical sense. Um, we received some email feedback and I also, um, thought, you know, had this thought as well that so I appreciate the email, um, that we should look at other hyper local transit needs. And we're gonna be having a transit study later this year, looking at whether it makes sense to use some of this revenue to help fund, um, that if that's an option that we consider proceeding with. And then lastly, related to the phasing in of options one through four, I share Council Member Arnold's concern about like really having some sort of free accessible parking for folks. I think of K-Tub right there and the Senior Center and some services that folks may use in the library. I can imagine that if we do charge there, there could be spillover into the library surface part of the lot or of the garage. And that might be harder for folks who need to access some of the services, not just, you know, families going to get books, but all the other wonderful services that folks in our community would need that having free parking. However, having some sort of Kirkland Cares program accessible to folks may help alleviate that concern a little bit. But I do want to mention that, that that's why I know there's logistical reasons why that's option number four. But in my mind, there's very like practical reasons for community members who have a greater need for free parking in my mind for that to be the last option as well. So I'd want us to consider how that would work where we have folks at the library who could distribute the parking cards or something like that. Again, I just want us to be mindful from the user's perspective what that would look like and making sure we're not creating additional barriers for services for folks in our community. Rather than that, I think this makes sense and I hope we can finally proceed with this. Thank you. Thank you.

Council Member Paschal.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for all the information so far on this. I know we've been talking about it for a while. I was most glad to hear about the fact that the outreach is the next step, that you really want to tailor the outreach to the things the council's most interested in, so I think that makes a lot of sense. I think I want to start out big picture. What I'm looking for is kind of, you know, really clear vision of where we're going, what are those objectives that we're trying to achieve, and then a you know, somehow compare those objectives or those options to those objectives and how well each option achieves those. So, you know, each one's gonna be a little bit different and I think that will help kind of show, kind of tell a story more on what we're doing and be clear because I think we each are gonna talk about different things individually as council members and I wanna make sure that we're all aligned. I'm most open to option one, you know, $1 arbitrary. So just, you know, open to kind of, you know, the other options there for those two lots. Option two, which is the parks, I'm going to ask for a little bit more information, which I alluded to earlier, which is just understanding who's using the parks, you know. Is the primary issue that folks from out of Kirkland are occupying 60, 75% of the stalls? I don't know. It would be good to understand that. And then, based upon that, and maybe regardless of that, I'd be interested in just other ways in which we could manage parking in our parks. I see parks as very unique because it's, in my mind, it's a service that we're providing residents that they're paying for parks and recreation and already through taxes and you know those that can afford to live near parks that's great they can just walk there those that can't where we're introducing more density and more housing you know they are gonna have to find other means to get there and I would it it feels odd to penalize them to access parks. And so what other options do we have for residents that may not live close to our parks that are still paying for our parks? Is there a permit program that we could offer our residents, for example? Or just other ideas, I'm just looking, that could just be a wacky thing, maybe no other city does that, but I'd be interested in you telling me that that's a crazy idea. But those are kind of things that I'd be interested in exploring with our parks specifically. I'd also be interested, and this is all kind of predicated on this option too, more enforcement of all our parks, not just focusing on the Marina Park or Houghton Beach, but making sure that we're doing enforcement of the time limits equitably across all our parks. I'd also, I think for parks more than anything, I'd be really interested in the Sundays. I think parks get a lot of usage on Sundays. I mean, regardless of whether we charge for parking at parks, I feel like we need to be enforcing the time limits on Sundays. Now, does that pencil out? I don't know, but that's just another idea. So that's all about parks. Option three, You know, this is predicated on, one, what we hear from the outreach. Two, I'd like to see, I'd like to understand our enforcement around that a little bit more. I'd like to understand the business metrics that the Deputy Mayor alluded to, Saturday versus Sunday. Are we seeing more economic activity on Saturdays versus Sundays? Like, trying to tie that a little bit more. And then option three for me is kind of predicated also on the curb management plan. We have not funded that, and I feel like that plays into the on-street parking issue in downtown. And then option four, just to be honest, it's not something that I'm super excited about. I would like people to park at the library. I'd like to incentivize that. I'd like to do these other things before we even think about that. I see that as kind of a longer-term thing, and if we get there, we get there. but it's not something that I'm super excited about. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Councillor Primm?

Yeah, thank you for this presentation. I would say I support seasonal fees for the first three options, so for the summer months only. I do generally agree that having parking fees for the library, I'm not a big fan of that. maybe partly because I want to incentivize people to go to the library and read books. So I don't want people to have to pay for that service. I also, I just want to emphasize, I don't think the goal here is to generate major revenue streams. It's really just to make sure that more parking is available when the demand is the highest. But at the same time, I don't want the fees to be so high to discourage people families, seniors, and others that are visiting to not come at all. So we kind of have to strike the right balance when we're determining what that fee structure will look like. And then I do think that we should, and I understand that there is this initial investment, But I would want to ensure that we're also just, if we do implement something, that we're also continuously evaluating whether or not we're meeting our goals. So are we increasing foot traffic into the local businesses, for an example? I think that's a major benefit of increasing the turnover, but I want to see that we're actually achieving those goals. So I think putting in like a evaluation plan for whatever option we do decide to implement will be important. But yeah, thank you.

All right, I guess I'll go ahead. So you've gotten really good feedback from council and I agree with 99.9% of it. So option one, yes, let's raise the fees to two hours for Lakeshore and Lake Central. Option two, I support I would do all waterfront parks, and I agree with the feedback you received to make it consistent that it's $2 an hour so that the parking fee is consistent through all. I'm looking at this in phases, as in that's what we would do in 27, which is increase the fees downtown, add the waterfront parks, and then 28, I agree with Council Member Paschal about the curb management plan is a keystone to this. So in 28, we have the curb management plan, then we start looking at paid downtown parking. I support my council members who want to retain free parking at the library and the Westerlot. I think it's really important that we have free parking somewhere. I love council member Falcone's idea. I agree that we should charge for parking on Saturday, but I love the creativity of is there a different day of the week that we could provide free parking? Would that help our businesses? Council Member Paschal said it was a wacky idea doing parking passes, but I actually think it's a great idea and I would like to explore that for 28. I go to Marymoor to walk my dog multiple times a week. It costs me a dollar an hour every time I go. I buy a parking pass so that I save a little bit money and it's just easier. so we could perhaps do parking passes for our lakefront parks, and in that, to accommodate Council Member Falcone's concern, those parking passes we could probably provide through our Kirkland Cares program at a discounted rate, so it would help our community afford the parking if they can't afford it. Let me see what else I have. I think we talked about evaluating employee parking permit only, and I would do that in 28. So I think that's it for me. Anyone else? All right, we made it before seven. I'm sweating over here. So thank you so much. We look forward to seeing you again. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, Deputy Mayor, members of the City Council. If I could go really quick, just make sure I confirm what I heard in terms of moving for next steps. What I heard from Council is that we're going to move forward on trying to put together a draft implementation plan for Council to review and go through looking at all four options and how that might be implemented tied to some type of goals or objectives that we would help us gauge where we're implementing a lot of what's proposed and then considering affordability option as part of the link to the Kirkland Cares program, potentially phasing a lot of those options with between 27 and after. Look at the potential spillover impacts. Also considerations of needs for additional enforcement with a lot of these options as well. Exploring parking passes for particularly our waterfronts but also as it relates to wherever we're going to be implementing any paid parking. And then two questions for you really quick. On the outreach, is the expectation or is council asking us to do outreach before we return to have the discussion? Okay.

That's a good question. Council? Everybody nodding? Yes. Okay. Okay.

I'm just considering timing with the budget discussions this year. It won't be as robust as we'd like to, but we'll work with Economic Development to try to get some discussions going this year.

Thank you. Councillor Falcone?

Thank you. I want to clarify one thing. I didn't add this, but this is something I've been... Mentioning to the city manager for years is the idea of the residential parking permits. And so I think I heard a couple of different ideas. And so I just want to share what I what I thought on that as well is I think I heard from one council member that having some sort of free residential or very low cost residential permit and then people who. would have to pay that don't live in Kirkland. And then I also heard people could buy a permit, like a monthly or annual permit, which I think is a slightly different idea. I mean, I know the idea that I've been sharing with the city manager is kind of like beach tag type of parking permit that a lot of places back east. I know, you know, if you own a house in where the beach is, then you get free beach tags and you get to be on the go to the park for free. And so there's a lot of precedent for that in my experience during my lifetime that residents get like free passes to the parks. But if you don't, then there's a process you have to go through. And anyway, and you have to pay if you don't. So it's I think there is a lot of precedent for and I'd be more in favor of that of having it be free for residents on our that's why I had the similar question about the the PACER, I think it is, Jim, data and around who's using our parks, whether it's residents or not, because the assumption, however, there can also be the assumption that there may be economic, I'd want to also look at the economic impact depending on the location of the beachfront park. Like, oh, Denny, there aren't really walkable businesses around that people may go to. So we may want to consider that versus like Juanita Beach Park where there may be an economic impact where we want people to come in and incentivize people to come in from out of town. to spend money locally in our businesses. So I think it's a little bit more nuanced than just resident, non-resident. I want to look at economic development as a factor in that as well. Thank you.

Yes, thank you. And then my last question for council is parking sensors. So one of the questions posed was, do we want to look at expansion of the parking sensors to a lot of these additional areas for paid parking? Include that in the implementation. Okay. All right. I think that covers everything unless I missed something.

I don't think so.

All right, thank you both.

Thank you, thank you.

All right, that concludes our study session. We'll be back at 7.30 for our regular... All right, we are back in session following an overview of corrections and related programs in Kirkland and a parking study. Council Member Tim Chisholm was excused earlier this evening. We will start tonight's meeting with honors and proclamations. Our first proclamation will be Disability Pride Month, and our second proclamation will be South Asian Heritage Month. City Manager.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, Deputy Mayor, members of the Council, and our distinguished guests. So today we're going to be proclaiming July as Disability Pride Month in Kirkland. For all the reasons that will be outlined in the proclamation, for those in the audience and watching at home, I want to note that there are some links to additional resources and information about Disability Pride Month as well. And then we are delighted tonight to have receiving our proclamation, Sarah Tompkins, who lives in the Bridal Trails area, and she is a board member, and we're a patient advocate with Connective Strength, which is an organization supporting local patients with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and connective tissue disorder. So I'd like to welcome her and her family. Please, Sarah, come on up.

You're all welcome to join us up here. Sarah, there's a copy of the proclamation. All right, well thank you for being here with us tonight. As the Mayor said, I'm Council Member Amy Falcone, and I'll be reading the Disability Pride Month Proclamation. Whereas Disability Pride Month is celebrated every July, marking the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which was landmark legislation signed into law in 1990. that broke down barriers of inclusion for people with disabilities and protects against discrimination. And whereas researching, learning, and talking with your community about disability is an important and ongoing conversation that will help foster inclusion for the next generation. And whereas while society often thinks of people with disabilities as a single population, there are diverse group of people with a wide range of both needs and accomplishments And whereas Disability Pride Month is an opportunity to honor the history, struggles, achievements, and experiences of everyone in the disability community. And whereas Disability Pride Month also recognizes and honors the invaluable role of caregivers, family members, friends, professionals, and advocates. whose love, patience, and dedication provide essential support and empowerment to individuals with disabilities, enabling them to thrive and participate fully in their communities. And whereas the city is committed to making Kirkland a safe, inclusive, and welcoming place where people of all abilities truly belong, Now, therefore, Mayor Kelly Curtis, on behalf of the City Council, proclaims July 2026 as Disability Pride Month in Kirkland and encourages all community members to promote acceptance and appreciation of people with disabilities as our family members, friends, classmates, coworkers, and neighbors making valuable contributions to our community.

Thank you so much, Amy, and thank you so much, Kurt, for that amazing introduction. Thank you so much, Mayor Kelly Curtis, and to the members of Kirkland City Council for this meaningful and powerful proclamation during Disability Pride Month. Your words tonight do more than recognize a community. They affirm a shared responsibility and a shared future. The disabled community is not a distant constituency. It's a part of every life. Whether disability comes from birth, illness, injury, a rare connective tissue disorder like me, or the natural process of aging, Every one of us will experience disability at some point, visible or not, temporarily or like me for the long term. That reality calls for policies and practices that are not optional but essential. This proclamation acknowledges this truth and sets a standard for how a city can lead with compassion and clarity. This also highlights the significant Washington State 2024 legislation, Nothing About Us Without Us, mandating disabled participation and engagement in development of legislation and policy impacting disabled people. a law that embodies a principle we must all live by. All decisions about our lives must include all voices. Kirkland's proclamation and the city's commitment to the 69 initiatives and forthcoming 2.0 roadmap work show that this city is not only listening, it is acting. By centering accessibility, diversity, equity, and inclusion in concrete initiatives, the City of Kirkland and this Council are modeling what municipal leadership can look like and should look like. You are demonstrating that diversity is not a slogan but a practice, that equity is not a checkbox but a process, and that accessibility is not an afterthought but a foundation. The commitment matters to residents with disabilities, to families, neighbors, friends, and to every person who wants to live in a city where everyone can participate fully. Thank you so much to Erica Marscono, the Kirkland City Manager, Mayor, and for this council because this proclamation and the work that you do and have already begun and continue to do and dedicate towards and your continued leadership gives hope and sets a path forward. Let's keep moving forward together, listening, learning, and ensuring that Kirkland remains a place where everybody of every ability belongs. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

All right, our next proclamation is going to be the South Asian Heritage Month Proclamation read by Council Member Prim, City Manager.

Okay, thank you, Madam Mayor. So we'll be proclaiming July as South Asian Heritage Month in Kirkland. Again, for the reasons that will be outlined in the proclamation, and again, I want to note that there are links to more resources and information. on the website and in the packet. So we also have a unique honor today. We're receiving the proclamation is the Consul General of India in Seattle, Prakash Gupta. Consul General Gupta is a current diplomat with the Indian Foreign Service. He's currently leading India's first consulate in Seattle. So we're so grateful to have him and his folks with us. He has served in key diplomatic roles in Beijing, Shanghai, Jakarta, United Nations in New York, and the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi. He played a central role in India's tenure at the UN Security Council and helped pilot the International Day of Yoga resolution at the United Nations. He contributed to the planning and coordination of India's G20 presidency and summit in 2023. And Consul General Gupta is fluent in Mandarin, English, Hindi, and he brings deep experience in diplomacy, multilateral engagement, and community outreach to the Pacific Northwest. Joining Consul General Gupta is many distinguished guests and his advisor, Debiduta Dash, who worked with us in making this happen. So welcome.

I would love to invite all of the guests as well, please, to come up on stage. All right. I am Shilpa Prem, council member, and I'm extremely thrilled to announce the South Asian Heritage Month Proclamation. Werao's South Asian Heritage Month celebrates the vibrant cultures, history, languages, and traditions of the South Asian region, which includes India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and the Maldives. And whereas South Asian Americans have significantly contributed to the social, economic, educational, artistic, and civic life of the United States, and more locally, of the city of Kirkland. And whereas many in our community celebrate cultural practices and festivals, such as Diwali, Eid, Vaisakhi, Holi, Navratri, and more thereby enriching Kirkland's cultural landscape. And whereas the City of Kirkland recognizes the importance of celebrating immigrant histories and honoring the lived experiences of South Asian residents while addressing ongoing issues relating to representation, identity, and inclusion. And whereas celebrating South Asian Heritage Month aligns with Kirkland's values of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, and it reflects the city's commitment to being a safe, inclusive, and welcoming place for people of all backgrounds. And whereas local organizations such as the Indian American Community Services, The Sphere, API Chaya and South Asian American Digital Archive hosts events, film festivals and educational programming to spotlight opportunities to experience South Asian art, storytelling and support services that address the needs and amplify the voices of the South Asian community and the city encourages community members to engage with these organizations. And whereas the Council of General of India in Seattle, established in 2023, has played a vital role in the region by bringing the Indian diaspora together and fostering people to people ties between India and the United States, engaging with the city of Kirkland, advancing partnerships and trade technology, higher education and cultural exchange that contribute to shared prosperity and understanding and strengthening cultural bonds through celebrations and traditions that highlight the richness of South Asian heritage. And now, therefore, Mayor Kelly Curtis on behalf of the City Council, proclaims July 2026 as South Asian Heritage Month in Kirkland and encourages all residents to learn about, engage with, and celebrate the rich cultural legacies and contributions of the South Asian community as part of Kirkland's diverse community.

Would you like to say a few words?

Good evening. Namaste and Jai Hind. On behalf of the Council, I first want to convey my sincerest appreciation and thanks to Honorable Mayor Kelly Curtis for inviting me today to be able to join this special proceeding. I also feel very happy and delighted and honored that I am receiving this from Shilpa Premji today and that you have read this out. It is, again, very befitting that a member of the South Asian community is representing the community in the city council in Kirkland. And perhaps as the first such individual of an Indian origin, I compliment you and for representing our community so ably at this high office. Thank you so much for all that you do. I also want to thank all the other city council members. I think by recognizing the entire South Asian community for this month, you are in a sense acknowledging the great work that they have done in the city of Kirkland. And I do hope that we continue to build on this relationship and the overarching message of what this country represents, that they have been here as their second home, welcome, and contributing to the economic prosperity of the city. So thank you so much. It means a lot to us. I also want to thank each and every member of the Indian American community. for taking the time out and being here. To me, this recognition that has been given to the consulate has only been possible because of the great work that each and every one of you have done in contributing to the richness, cultural diversity, and economic prosperity of the greater Seattle area, particularly in Kirkland. So thank you for your work that has made this possible. And on a lighter note, Wherever I went, I was told that July is the FIFA month. To see this now as also the South Asian Heritage Month is really, really welcome in Kirkland. And a lot of South Asian teams have also made it to the FIFA final roundabout. So looking forward to it. Thank you once again. And I also hope that with this very positive step, very soon we will have a delegation from the city of Kirkland visit India. And we would like Mayor Kelly Curtis to lead that delegation at the soonest. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you.

We're going to take a quick little five minute recess. We are gonna resume our session, so now we are moving on to items from the audience. This is a 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 45 minutes for our items from the audience with no more than six speakers on a subject, regardless of their position on the subject. To address council during items for the audience period, please sign up using our online public comment instruction link or the posted QR code in chambers. For those participating by phone, please dial star nine 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 point of view. We discourage people from using obscenities or personal attacks against others, and we ask that you direct your comments to council, not to staff or audience members. In addition, because they can be disruptive, signs and placards are not allowed in council chambers during our meetings, regardless of their content. As a reminder, State law does not allow items from the audience to be used for promoting, opposing, or discussing a candidate's campaign or ballot proposition. Kirkland prides itself on being a respectful, welcoming community. We want everyone to feel like they belong in council's chambers, expressing their viewpoints. City Clerk, who do we have signed up?

Our first three speakers are all on site. Our first speaker is Jennifer Koukoumides, David Malcolm, and Rick Long.

Jennifer, come on up.

Yes. Hi. I am here because I unfortunately live next to the Pursuit Church, and I have had a lot of issues with them. My main two issues are twofold. One is what we call the operational noise. So it started off on Tuesday nights as their youth services, but it has expanded to Wednesday nights, Friday night, Saturday night, all day Sunday. I'd hear their bass, their drums, and it is very disruptive. It is within the decibel limit, but it is disruptive, and you can hear it in my house, you can hear it in my yard, and it's a really big problem. The only thing that drowns out the sound of their base is the helicopter they have landing right next to my son jumping on the trampoline every Sunday. I have asked them to stop. I have been very, very polite, and they will not. And that's my main problems. Thank you, Jennifer. And I know that you've been working with our director of planning and building. I have. And unfortunately, they are continuing on with their noise. Thank you.

All right, next we have David.

Good evening, members of the council. My name is David Malcolm. I want to talk to you about e-bikes, especially the hazard they pose to children. E-bikes have proliferated. At one level, they are a great idea. They offer mobility on the hills of Kirkland without the need for four wheels. They also require no training, no license, no registration, and no helmets. It means that your 12 year old and their friends can race at 20 miles an hour at the touch of a throttle. Is this a good idea? To answer that question, a friend and I have put together a report comparing the hazards of e-bikes against conventional bikes, with and without helmets, broken down by age and type of injury. Council members already have a copy. The results are sobering. Very briefly, the likelihood of a serious accident to a student on an e-bike is between two and four times that on a conventional bike. If you still have doubts, talk to anyone who works in the local emergency room. They will tell you that they will never let their own child on any type of e-bike. By one estimate, e-bikes have led to 53,000 ER visits nationally last year. At one San Diego Children's Hospital, they are the number one cause of pediatric trauma. How have others dealt with this problem? The states of Oregon and New York have limited all e-bikes to those over 16. New Jersey requires all e-bikes to be treated the same as motorbikes. All that this state has done is to set up a working group to define what e-bikes are not. In other words, motorbikes. Meanwhile, what should you do when your 12-year-old says that they want... David, I'm sorry.

You have run out of time.

Okay. Well, thank you for your attention.

All right. Oh, Rick? Rick, you're up next. Is there a Rick on site?

They signed up as onsite, but if they are not here, I can announce the next three speakers.

That would be great.

All right, our next speaker is virtual, and that is Charlotte LaFair, and then we have Connie Chapin, who is onsite, and Susan Davis, who is onsite.

Thank you. We'll go back to Rick. Charlotte? Charlotte, are you there? Charlotte, I can't hear you. Can you hear me now?

We can. Go ahead. Hi. Thank you. Thank you. My name is Charlotte Lefevre. Just some background. I'm Director of Capitol Hill Pride. I served as Capitol Hill Community Council Vice President in 2008. And for the past year, Capitol Hill Pride has been actually scheduling and hosting many of the 50-51 movement and No Kings rallies. Last year, we were proud to introduce Attorney General Nick Brown, September 1st. So just to let you know, we are very familiar with rallies and community engagement. So we are here today to express to City Council our concerns about an upcoming presentation by Erica Kirk of Turning Point USA. We are greatly concerned about, of course, safety issues for the city. If you review the background of Turning Point and Pursuit Northwest, they do, unfortunately, have a documented background in their rallies, which have caused a lot of community concern. We're inviting and really encouraging the city of Kirkland to look at this event coming up for the safety of the community. And it's because we are hearing comments and such. And, you know, above all, we are looking at the safety of attendees, of protesters, But today we are having many communities and organizations be alarmed that this kind of event is in our area. Now, I want to point out, whereas Turning Point has announced this speaking engagement publicly. For us, it's very much a public event, not just an enclosed small private church event. We follow a code of nonviolence and encourage attendees to rally with art, music and speeches and to demonstrate with a support and a message of love is larger than hate. But we also do realize many protests and rallies can get out of hand, that there are insiders.

And so we really want to encourage Kirkland to note that many of these presentations... Charlotte, I apologize, but your time is up and we have received your email, so you will get a response from the city. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you. All right. Next, we have Connie.

Good evening, Mayor, council members, city manager, and city staff. My name is Connie Chapin, and I live in the Upper Highlands. I'm here tonight for a very different reason than I've been here in the past. Tonight, I simply want to say thank you. For a little over a year, many of us in the Upper Highlands have been dealing with extremely low water pressure. It affected our homes, our businesses, our irrigation systems, and for some of us, our fire protection systems. At times, it was frustrating, and there were many unknowns about what the solution would be. Throughout this process, I had the opportunity to work closely with public work staff, engineers, contractors, and members of the city council. While we didn't always have easy conversations, I always felt that the people were listening and genuinely trying to solve a difficult problem. Since the temporary regional booster station came online, my home's water pressure has increased to about 66 PSI from the previous 30. For the first time in a long time, everything in my home is working the way it should. It even appears that many of the costly modifications I anticipated, including a booster pump for my own home, may no longer be necessary. We are still waiting for the final testing of my residential fire sprinkler system, but the improvements we've already seen are remarkable. Projects like this don't happen without tremendous amount of work behind the scenes. I'd especially like to thank Maria, Mikulak, Senior Project Engineer, who is always willing to answer questions and work with residents throughout the process. I'd also like to thank Senior Project Engineer Aiwen Yang, Capital Improvement Project Manager Rob English, and Public Works Director Julie Underwood. and everyone in the Public Works team whose hard work made this project a success. Their professionalism and patience were greatly appreciated. Thank you to the City Council for showing up at our homes and recognizing the importance of this issue and supporting a solution for our neighborhood. Reliable water pressure isn't just about convenience, it affects public safety, fire protection, and quality of life. On behalf of my family, my business, and I know many of the neighbors, thank you for your commitment to finding a solution. Your efforts have made a real difference, and we truly appreciate all the work that went into making this happen, so thank you very much.

Thank you, Connie, and I particularly thank you for calling out staff, because they did work hard on this problem. All right, Susan Davis.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the Council. My name is Susan Davis. I'm from the North Rose Hill neighborhood and I'm here before you tonight because I want to make sure you know that we are in need of assistance and to have the city planning and also the Kirkland Police be proactive regarding the Pursuit Church. So I didn't know the person two times ago, whatever, Charlotte, who spoke, but I also have concerns. I've had neighbors contact me. I'm the neighborhood lead. And basically, first of all, we have an issue with And it's been this relentless noise. As Jennifer has mentioned, we have a helicopter that's landing on Sundays. We have four or five nights a week of major noise. And they really need to do something to solve this. Another thing that's not the Pursuit Church, it's the City Church who owns it, is the Park and Ride. And again, we have mentioned this for two years now. We need some kind of resolution or some kind of agreement with them because they're cutting through our neighborhood on our greenway. And we really need something. The bigger issue that I feel like is the Erica Kurt coming. I don't know if you guys have seen it. Charlotte mentioned it. If you go on social media right now, different sites, they have all of these counter protesters that are planning to show up at the city. I mean, at the Pursuit Church on July 24th from 3 to like 8 p.m. or probably even later, we need to get the police to get a plan together with the Pursuit Church. This is the church that is highly, highly volatile. They have, unfortunately, they have a deep track record of controversy. They like filing hostile lawsuits with cities that try to challenge them and say that it's their First Amendment or whatever. But also, a main thing was if Cal Anderson Park in Seattle last summer, they had a big event There was a huge counter protest. People were injured. There was a lot of things. This turning point, Erica Kirk, is like a bigger, I think, issue than what happened last year, especially with all these social media organizations, these other people that are, you know, wanting to make sure that they know how unhappy they are with Turning Point, which is totally fine. But our neighborhood is... is important to get protected. I understand the city, as Charlotte said, but I'm coming here as our neighborhood. We need a plan in place. We want to be able to, I want to be able to get an email from you guys that you would send to our listserv that we would put on our Facebook page what you guys are going to do for the July 24th Erica Curt thing because it is going to be big with protesters and we need help and please do something. Thank you.

Thank you.

City Clerk? Our next three speakers are all on site. They are Alex Zimmerman, Aaron Belmore, and Chris Fox.

Alex?

Hi, my name Alex Zimmerman. Yeah. I'm a happy man, very happy man. Last meeting, Mayor cut my right for speech because I want to speak about zoning and housing. And I like this. What does this mean? This means that when rats have a problem, rats start to be very aggressive. This is exactly what is happening right now with them Nazi fascist junta that is controlling the country. Sound Transit steals $35 billion from us. Can country housing authority spend $100 million for thousands and thousands not legal immigrant without document? And 20,000 homeless, most is American citizen, live in street. And people like me, senior citizen, cannot do this, but this is against law and constitution. First, you need serve American citizen. You don't do this. And number three, what is absolutely idiotic, We have in King County right now syphilis epidemic. For my understanding, the last syphilis epidemic, what does I know? It comes from 15th century. How can country have syphilis epidemic? Who brings this syphilis epidemic? Huh? Yeah, you know? I can help you. It comes from every country. You know what it means from south, yeah, most of them. India includes too. Guys, what has happened now is so different than like before, you know what I mean. This is absolutely critical because everybody who is not a pure idiot, not disability people, you know what I mean, understand. Three point what is I delivery right now to everybody without exception in order. Need understand what has happened for last 30 year under them, Nazi, fascist, junta control. They kill American. They start killing American. They start kill people who born and live here for 250 years. They are pure bandita. You know what it means? A criminal by definition. So right now I speak to everybody who listen to me. You need something doing about this. You cannot be quiet. Two and a half million people very quiet. I never hear one man come and talking about this. So this bandita, this Nazi Gestapo kill American citizen who live here for 250 years? How is this possible? Viva Trump, viva new American revolution. Stand up, slap, and happy cow. Stop stealing us money. Why you doing this like a bandita? You steal us money. Thank you.

I have a statement. Mr. Zimmerman is allowed to complete his remarks because the council is committed to free speech. and we've been talking about free speech earlier this evening. But I want to reiterate what I've said many times, that this council finds his comments hurtful, divisive, and completely at odds with Kirkland's core values as a safe, inclusive, and welcoming city. Thank you.

Alex?

All right, we're going to move on to Aaron.

Hi, sorry to be here. Not my doing, but here we are. I'm going to cover kind of bullet points, get through it quick, because I only have three minutes. I've documented complaints with city misconduct affecting disability homeowners, ADA, civil rights, public rights concerns. I had a meeting with one of the gentlemen here in staff today, covered a bunch of coded violations, asked him a very simple question. Are permits required or permits not required? If they're not required, give me supporting documents. I have an HOA doing work without permits as a licensed contractor for over 20 years. I'm very familiar with what requires a permit and what doesn't. I can't sell my house now that permits have been done. without disclosing that work has been done without permits. Come to the city, the city won't help me. John, the inspector supervisor, keeps turning me down. I also read a letter that you wrote about expanding home ownership opportunities. I'll be replying to that too, Speaker of the House, because I'm not certain that you know what your staff is doing underneath your control. I'll go through some bullet points and hopefully get through a few of them. I've also been silenced by David, who was in the meeting with me at May 1st, not to contact the fire department about safety concerns. And I didn't contact the fire department or the police department. There's code enforcement that's not going on. The city manager's not helping. David has introduced a city attorney to my email chain. I don't know if that's a legal threat or what's going on here. ADA rights are being abused. Civil rights are being abused. Property homeowners' rights are being abused. The homeowners, HOA, and other residents are being able to operate above the law. I don't know why. John is a city inspector, supervisor, friends with one of the owners and renters there who is allowing to operate above the law. David's writing in jigsaw puzzles to me after I've disclosed that I do have a disability. This disability month, you guys should be honoring that. David doesn't seem to know that. He's writing jigsaw puzzles. I told him I'm dyslexic. I can't follow jigsaw puzzle emails. I can't do email threads. That's why we had to have an in-person meeting. What's going on here is an absolute disgrace. You people have come on to this staff to support the people and the public, and you're not doing it. You're failing. Each and every one of you that I've contacted is failing, and each and every one of you that are on that email thread are failing. Doing the right thing is always the right thing. Do it, even if nobody else is doing it. One of you people have to be strong enough to stand up and do the right thing and make this nonsense stop. You're taking my equity away from me. The city of Kirkland has been stripping my rights and my equity. And I'll give you your time back for your meeting, and I'll continue to push forward with other avenues to get enforcement done outside the city of Kirkland.

Thank you. Next I have Chris Fox.

Good evening. My name is Chris Fox. I'm a long-time Kirkland resident attorney and parent who, with my wife Nancy, raised our family here. I want to speak briefly in support of David Malcolm's comments and to add a perspective that is personal and deeply relevant to the decisions before you. David laid out the data. I want to speak about the human reality behind those numbers. When I was 11, I was struck by a car while riding my bicycle. My first memory upon regaining consciousness was waking up in a hospital On an exam table, crying out for a pillow because my head hurt so badly. The doctors wouldn't give me one. They couldn't. My skull was fractured. A spoke went through my lower leg. The wound later turned septic. I nearly lost my calf. I spent a week in the hospital and months with bandages around my head and my leg. My parents were terrified. I recovered and ironically became an avid cyclist. The memories and the scar on my leg remain vivid to this day. That early trauma permanently heightened my awareness of the risks that come with speed, traffic, and vulnerability on two wheels. And that accident, that collision involved a conventional bike, no throttle, no 20 mile an hour per, no 20 per hour acceleration, no ability to carry two or even three kids at once, no silent instant speed. When I see children in Kirkland riding e-bikes at high speeds, performing wheelies through intersections, often without helmets, often in traffic, and often with multiple riders piled onto a single bike, I don't need a spreadsheet to understand the stakes. I have lived the consequences, and I have seen them again as a parent when my own son fell from his bicycle and broke his wrist simply riding on a sidewalk. The injuries David described, head trauma, internal injuries, broken bones, are not abstractions. They are what happens when a body meets a vehicle or a curb or a tree at speed. And e-bikes multiply that speed. They multiply the risk. They multiply the force of the impact. This council has been given the data. You have been shown the trend lines. You have heard what other states have already done, and what I want to impress upon you is that behind every statistic is a family, a child, devastated parents. Kirkland has always prided itself on being proactive. That's why I liked living here. on protecting its residents, especially its youngest. I'll close by urging you to take the steps David outlined. Put e-bike safety on your legislative agenda. Keep it there. Advocate for it. Support education in our schools. Set clear rules for e-bike use in parks and on trails, and empower enforcement that prevents dangerous riding before a tragedy occurs. These are not burdens. These are safeguards, and they're urgently needed. Thank you.

Thank you, Chris. I'm going to go back. Is Rick Long in the room? OK. City Clerk?

The next three speakers are Murray McKinney, Meredith Dodd, and Christopher Wade.

Murray.

Good evening. Murray McKinney, long time Highlands resident, and I'm here tonight just to thank the council and staff for getting our water pressure restored. Finally had a good shower after 18 months. My wife and I were actually able to take showers simultaneously, which was really nice. And the irrigation system is back working again. So I've talked to a lot of our neighbors. They're very pleased. But again, this should never have happened. I mean, this is The consultant knew that it would be dropped to 30 pounds, and that was totally unacceptable. Our water pressure never got that low. Ours was 48. Now we're at 78, which is a 66% increase. Anyway, it's nice to have it operational for the irrigation season that we're going through right now. But it took a lot of meetings, a lot of time, took a lot of staff time, and I appreciate the time that was dedicated to make this happen. And I think there should be some sort of proclamation for Scott Stoneman, who's the neighbor that I drug into this whole deal. It's a licensed civil engineer that had experience in municipal water systems and was able to come up with a solution. Now, the final solution for this temporary pump Was kind of a variation of his well, whatever but he stepped up and attend a lot of meetings and had zero Compensation for it and he was not in the zone where the water pressure dropped. He was just outside of that So I think there should be some sort of proclamation for Scott and he's a very humble guy He'd never asked for it But I don't think we'd ever gotten to the solution without his help and he sat down did calculations the evening on his own time and was able to help us out so Anyway, we've gotten through that one now, and I'd like to ditto to these two gentlemen on the e-bike situation. My wife and I were out walking last week on 7th Avenue coming from across Kirkland Quarter, coming down past Jay's Automotive, and here comes an e-bike with three teenage girls on it. And they were just flying down the hill. I mean, they had to be doing over 35 miles an hour. No hand signals, just take a veer off on the sixth. And I mean, it's just a matter of time until there's a serious accident around here. Also walking through the park over here by the Lee Johnson Field, there's signs out there, no e-bikes, no e-scooters. several kids just riding through there, and they don't pay any attention to the signs. So there needs to be some sort of enforcement, especially in the parks. I mean, you guys got park rangers. Go confiscate the bike. Just take the bike away from them. Let the parents come pick it up. I think it's just a matter of time until there's another serious injury. And last of all, last meeting, I think you guys talked about this bike lane going past Peter Kirk Park or Lee Johnson Field. $4 million for two blocks of bike lane. I mean, you know, we talk about affordable housing. A lot of it reverts back to property taxes and asking taxpayers to put up that kind of money is just ridiculous. So anyway, I'm out of time. Have a nice evening.

Thank you. Pastor Dodd?

Council members, staff, and guests, good evening. My name is Reverend Meredith Dodd, and I serve as lead pastor at Lake Washington United Methodist Church on Rose Hill. For 15 years in our church parking lot, we have hosted a safe parking program for women, trans people, and families with children who live in their cars. We offer people not only a safe place to park, but also access to food, hygiene supplies, showers, laundry, and resources to help find and keep permanent housing. This month, after 15 years of operating this program in our parking lot, we are finally repaving the lot to make it safer, smoother, and less prone to flooding. We are grateful that the city of Kirkland has written a fiscal note using the council's special projects reserve fund to allocate $100,000 toward completing this repaving project, contingent upon our continued operation of the program for three years. We are grateful for your consideration, and I, for one, would really like you to vote yes on this fiscal note. But regardless of how you vote tonight, We are so grateful for your partnership, for our partnership with the city, for your referrals to our program, for grants to help unhoused Kirkland neighbors access showers and laundry and furniture as they move into housing. As an organization whose primary value is loving our neighbors, all of our neighbors the best that we can, We are grateful for your service toward all Kirkland residents, housed and unhoused, of any race, religion, national origin, ability, sexual identity, and economic status. We are grateful you are our neighbors. And we are grateful for all of the ways you take seriously your responsibilities to steward the city's resources toward the common good. This Saturday, July 11th, council members, staff, guests, our community will celebrate the repaving of our parking lot with a barbershop quartet concert and an ice cream social at four o'clock. And regardless of how you vote tonight, we hope you come eat ice cream with us. We are grateful to serve alongside you as we create a safe, inclusive, and welcoming Kirkland for our neighbors who are currently experiencing homelessness. And we look forward to continuing to work with you toward a day when everyone in our city has a safe, affordable, and permanent place to call home. Thank you. Thank you.

Next, I'm moving on to Christopher.

Hi, Mayor. Hi, City Council.

My name is Christopher Wade. I am a special needs father of three, a United States Army veteran, and a 14-year resident of Kirkland, Washington. And just a little about me, on top of that, this happens to be where I currently live, my 47th address on this planet, and is by far my favorite town I've ever lived in. I would like to suggest an art concept installation, and it occurred to me about 20 minutes before the meeting that perhaps it's the Kirkland Downtown Association that's best to have this presented to you. But I had this on the calendar, so I thought I would come and share it with you anyway. There at the, I think it's 25 Lakeshore Plaza in Marina Park, right there by the restrooms, there's a 12-pointed star that lists 12 activities that I call the activities of Kirkland. And I want to back up for a second and I also want to say I'm a student of Kirkland. I understand that a gentleman by the name of Eric Shields was a planning director here for a number of decades and I believe that we all benefit from his genius and so I just want to mention him real quick. That 12-pointed star that I think was installed or the Downtown Association was instrumental in getting that done. Those activities are sunning, wading, my last name is Wade, so. Sitting, listening, picnicking, boating, fishing, living, shopping, strutting, dining and eating. I thought they were the same, but... And I don't know how my brain works, but I'm walking around on Lake Street South, and I was on the west side of the street, lost in thought, and I looked over to the east side, and if you're familiar with the 200 block of Lake Street South, on second, as you climb the hill there and make a right, you have an elevated parking area that's above Lake Street South. Well, on the eastern side of Lake Street South, you have a retaining wall. And that retaining wall happens to be divided into 12 panels. And so the idea is simply this, to have murals mirroring the 12 activities that you see on the stars. Gemini Google AI is amazing because I uploaded a photo of that retaining wall and asked it to do murals, and ba-ba-bing, like five seconds later, you get a depiction of exactly that. And so I would extend the concept and the idea to invite 12 notable mural artists from Seattle or the Pacific Northwest to come.

Christopher?

Yes?

The red light is flashing.

Oh, thank you so much. That's all I have.

Why don't you send us an email and we'll put you in touch with the right person. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm going to do a last, I haven't seen anybody come in, but I'm going to last call on Rick Long. All right. City manager, or city clerk.

Not quite. We have one more guest signed up to speak. That is Joe Kunzler, and they are virtual.

All righty. Thank you for having me. Joe Kunzler here. I've got my hands up for you. I don't. I can't see the clock, so I'm going to. I'm going to track it on my own time, but hopefully I get right. I heard the statement that the mayor gave Mr Zimmerman. I appreciate it. I'll be get to step in the right direction. That appears Mr Zimmerman heard that statement. However, this isn't the first second or their time that we've heard Mr Zimmerman, and that's a stretch. Alex Zimmerman come to you and demean you using Nazi rhetoric and. I have had my feelings about how this council's dealt with Mr. Zimmerman, but I don't think you're, I just don't think you're evil. I think you're just approaching it wrong. And I think there's a difference and I think there's a dramatic difference between the two. And I think it's time that someone stood up and said, you need to stand up for yourselves and each other. And I think it's time for individual council members to start calling out Zimmerman and making points of order. I think it's also time for council members to start, you know, thinking about looking at Redmond. I know this is old news for both Kirkland TV viewers around the world, but there is a community. It's called Redmond. They figured out how to keep the pressure on Zimmerman and get him out. He's right now finishing up a second six-month exclusion. And then there's also Mercer Island that's handed Zimmerman two one-year exclusions, and he hasn't come back. I really think that this kind of rhetoric It's normal for Zimmerman and you know how I know it's normal because he does it all the time at King County Council. And he used to do it at Sound Transit. If you decide regional council until you truly came down like a Super Hornet and afterburner in the sunset to force the issue. With that I understand Erica Kirk is coming and I think it's you know I Hope that people will be respectful. I don't agree with everything that Turning Point USA wants to do. I would have paid good money to debate her late husband on the virtues of public transportation, for instance. But I just hope that we can all find a way to get along and treat each other with some dignity and respect some way, somehow, someplace, because the kind of rhetoric we heard tonight is not the kind of rhetoric that you deserve. You are not what Zimmerman called you. I'm not even going to repeat it. I just think it's time there's a voice in the room saying enough is enough. So thank you for your public service and thanks for having me at the end of the meeting. Thank you.

Thank you. City Clerk. There are no more guests signed up to speak.

And we just made our 45 minutes. Thank you, everyone. All right. We are going to move on to special presentations where we will receive a special presentation from the Kirkland Community Foundation City Manager.

Okay, thank you, Madam Mayor. So we have our special guest today. Carmen Dalziel, the Executive Director of the Kirkland Community Foundation is going to provide an overview of their past year and their achievements. So welcome, Carmen. Thank you.

What if I have annual reports? I'm always afraid I'm gonna hit the keyboard with my notes. Hi everybody. Hi, thank you. Thanks for having the Kirkland Community Foundation here. I want to acknowledge and appreciate Mayor Curtis, Deputy Mayor Black, council members, and the city leadership for making this time for us today. We came here to say thank you to the council and the city for their investment that they made into this community foundation and hopefully show you a little bit of what we've been doing and the impact we hope we're making. The Kirkland Community Foundation exists because people love Kirkland and they want a way to invest in Kirkland. And sometimes that is a gift that has an immediate action. And sometimes it's a long-term legacy that will benefit Kirkland long after anyone will ever remember. My name's Carmen Delzell, I'm the executive director of the Kirkland Community Foundation. I have been in service for nearly two years. I am also a resident. So as I said, there's a lot to share. We're gonna take a little look at it. At the foundation, we have a simple belief that people who love Kirkland invest in Kirkland, and that that investment should have a meaningful impact moving forward, that the work that's done today and the time that people put in should be continued to be recognized and to evolve and to continue to make our city great. Investment takes all sorts of forms, the service that you do, the service of our volunteers, financial donations, relationships, connection service, all sorts of different ways. And the foundation is a place where we can offer a flexible, responsive, and trusted local vehicle for those things to come together and make a meaningful impact. Because of our fun little way we live in the world, we have the opportunity to talk to a lot of people and see a lot of different perspectives. And so we're out in the community and we're hearing some fun things and finding ways that as your community foundation we can be in support. So when I'm out in the community, we call it sidewalk time. I'm finding and running into people who've spent years in Kirkland, made their whole life here, and people who've just chosen it because it's the best place on earth to live. And they all are looking for meaningful ways to stay connected to the community that they care about. They want to feel like what they do makes a real difference here close to home. They want to know who they can trust, and they want their giving, service, time, dollars, to reflect their values. At the same time, we're talking to non-profits. I recently met with Deputy Mayor and Mayor and said, you know, there are 450 non-profits registered in the city of Kirkland. The Community Foundation has about 200 of them that we interact with on a regular basis. And what we're hearing from them is, well, everybody wants funding, but it's bigger than that. They need visibility, they need introductions to potential donors, and they need volunteers, and they need community champions and stronger relationships with one another so we can continue to build the net. We're also seeing a growing interest in legacy giving, more people thinking about how the values that they live today continue to benefit Kirkland in the future. And finally, we're learning that some conversations have no natural home. Sometimes there is no single organization that's responsible for bringing people together, sharing information, identifying gaps, helping a group move a concern to action. And all these things are ways that the foundation is kind of finding our way in our community to be in service. The foundation is a little different from a traditional nonprofit model that many people are familiar with. We are not focused on just one cause, one program, or one population. We are a trusted hub for local giving across many causes and community opportunities in Kirkland. We are not here to compete for a share of the same resources. Our role is to help make the pie bigger. Our role is to encourage generosity and help it find its way to the people and organizations already doing meaningful work in this Kirkland. We're not financial advisors or estate planners. But dang it, we can really help people understand their charitable options. We conduct appropriate due diligence so that you can feel confident about where your gift goes. And we can help someone support a nonprofit right now that's a thing that they care about. But we also offer opportunities to participate in collective giving, to join your neighbors a little at a time and make a big impact. We also host donor advised funds and allow you to do philanthropic things all over the world while staying rooted right here in Kirkland. Overall, we provide one place where a person's care for community can become lasting community impact. Got a little example for you. So the foundation has been, we've been throwing a lot of spaghetti on the walls and testing and seeing what works. And most recently, one of the things I'm really proud of is our work with Summer Food Access. So last summer, I went online, tried to find where a family could get free food during the middle of the day for kids during the summer. students are losing possibly 10 meals a day, and how does the family respond? And ironically, there was nothing listed for Kirkland, and I was like, gosh, whose problem is, oh, dang it. So we wanted to do something to make a change. So this spring, we brought together about 22 participants, partners from non-profits, schools, governments, funders, community leaders to say, what's going on with the summer food access and what can we do to help? We also were sure that sometimes it isn't what you think it is. And what we found was that it wasn't actually an issue of a lack of caring people, it wasn't that there were no willing partners, and it wasn't even that there wasn't enough food, although there's always a need for more food. But the barriers that really made their way to the top were organizational capacity, people's awareness of what was available, and Access, how do you get it? All those things have been a challenge. So it's great, so we had this great meeting, learned all those things, and then went to work. And the foundation responded by bringing in a new philanthropic partner with Nourishing Neighbors through the Albertsons Foundation and are putting some dollars to work through smaller organizations that those are resources that they wouldn't have been able to access by themselves. So today... Grocery cards are being distributed through Africans on the East Side, MAPS, and Essentials First, all small organizations, and helping those organizations support families when they are out of their regular resources. So it's meant as a capacity building backup for those nonprofits so that they can continue to serve and they don't have to turn someone away. Over the Fourth of July weekend alone, Africans on the East Side helped 58 people who couldn't find resources anywhere else. and the gift cards that we had made a difference. We also partnered with Noticias en Español, which is a Spanish language non-profit that we met actually through Ignite Kirkland, little preview there. That organization helped put together a Spanish language video about resources, summer food resources, that is visible and watchable and translatable on YouTube. I've been in non-profit and human services a long time and this made me cry. It's really cool. It's really cool that there is a video message that says, here's how you can get some help. And we're also working with Safeway right now to fund a pilot transportation program to make transportation food delivery free for the families that just can't get food at the resources that are available. Maybe the hours aren't right. Maybe they don't want to leave their home. Maybe they can't leave their home. So what can we do? Let's try by making food delivery available with them.

So we're part of a pilot. Still details unfolding.

But what stood out most, again, wasn't really the need. It was that no one organization had the capacity to hold the whole conversation. They're out doing the work. Go get the work done, right? But who can stop and say, what's going on? So sometimes the biggest gap is coordination, and that's where philanthropy, partnership, and community can really make a big difference. That is your community foundation in action. Hopefully you are familiar with Ignite Kirkland. It's another example of what happens when a community foundation makes local philanthropy more visible and accessible. I know many of you are supporters of that project and many of the projects there thank you and I have been thrilled to see many of the projects and nonprofits that we serve in the room today. So it's just really fun and that's very rewarding. So the numbers only tell you part of the story. What stands out to me each year is that someone will go online to support a cause that they know about. They'll get an email that says, I know that you care about youth, please donate to this campaign. But when they're there, they find the other things. They find other projects, and they leave with a bigger picture of the people and the organizations that are working every day to strengthen this community. Ignite makes local needs easier to see and helps make it simple for people to choose where they wanna help. The foundation is working to be a strong, important community asset here in Kirkland. To date, the foundation has helped raise $1.7 million for community impact. We have funded more than 206 projects and supported 60 Eastside-based non-profits. If you include the nonprofits that our donor advised funds also support, that brings that number to 82 nonprofits supported. Much of this work would not happen as easily, visibly, or collaboratively if there wasn't a foundation to help. And as more people learn that the foundation is here to help them and turn their generosity into local impact, our ability to strengthen this community will continue to grow. Looking ahead, we're working on a 2031 strategic plan where we envision a Kirkland where shared giving strengthens the community. On Monday, we're launching our Arts and Culture Community Impact Fund, which is created to collect resources for people who care about culture and art, and then provide a local resource that our nonprofits can pull from to provide public art, placemaking, heritage, cultural opportunities that continue to help strengthen the values of Kirkland and our identity and sense of place. You've also, many of you were present at the dedication of the windward Founders Sculpture, which now lives at David Brink Park, and that is another example where community philanthropy can make a big impact and bring bright joy with collective giving. I also want to recognize the people who make the possible in the room today. I am joined by two of my beautiful, amazing board members, Chairperson Jonathan Heuer and Board Member Nancy Goethe. It's wonderful to have them there. Oop, I lost it. Hold on. Okay, we have three new board members, Sherry Skager, Jen Dean, and Gary Sawyer, who are joining us, and we continue to do the work that the people who started us, our founders, and want to acknowledge them and the people who made the initial investment into the foundation to make it possible. I also want to thank our sponsors, which include Amazon, PSE, and Columbia Bank, who are also supporting our general work. In closing, I wanna say thank you. Thanks again for your partnership, for everything that you do that is seen and unseen. For the city's early belief in what the value that a foundation can bring to your community, our community. We help people who invest in Kirkland and the Kirkland Community Foundation is here to provide that trusted local pathway for all those forms of generosity to turn into good that sustains here in Kirkland. We're grateful for our relationship with the city. We're grateful to work alongside them. Grateful to work with our local nonprofits, businesses, donors, residents, and the council. Together we're building relationships, resources, and opportunities that will strengthen this community for generations to come. Thank you for your time. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Carmen. You know, I've been on council for a while and I've watched the trajectory of the Kirkland Community Foundation and you guys are, you're running now. There's no more walking. So congratulations. And I'm so grateful to you and your board and other community members who have a heart of service. And so thank you for that also. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you, Carmen. The mayor stole most of my, I don't have questions. I really just wanted to take a moment to say thanks and also express gratitude. Like the mayor said, I really want to thank the Community Foundation for just the tremendous growth and the vision of what the foundation stands for and all of the effort commitment I've seen the effort and commitment to delivering on this this powerful growing vision and I just want to thank you thank your board thank the founders of course who include former councilmember Tom near and his wife Sally and The gratitude of the partnership with the city. We meet regularly with you and Board President Jonathan Heuer, the leadership of the council and your leadership. And I think that just gratitude for the commitment to that relationship and all the work that you do in the community. So thank you and thank you for being here tonight. Appreciate you and appreciate the organization.

Anyone else? You get to say that. I like her. So Council Member Falcone has suggested if you're game, do you want to do a quick picture? Always.

I figured that.

So Nancy and Jonathan, why don't you come up too, and we'll just group right here. You guys, you're down there. Sorry.

That's why you're up there.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.

All right. We are moving on to our consent calendar. Before we have a motion, I would like to ask Deputy Mayor Black to present the auditive accounts and to highlight the proclamation we have on consent this evening. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. We had payroll in the amount of $9,545,254.52 and bills in the amount of $9,529,176.81. As part of tonight's consent calendar, the mayor, on behalf of the council, will be proclaiming July as Parks and Recreation Month in Kirkland. This national observance recognizes the power of parks and recreation to improve health and well-being, connect community members, support environmental resilience, and enhance quality of life. Through this proclamation, we celebrate the staff and volunteers who make Kirkland's parks system possible, including more than 2,000 recreation programs serving nearly 20,000 youth, adults, and seniors each year across our parks, athletic fields, beaches, community centers, teen center, and pool.

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

So moved.

Second. Moved by Deputy Mayor Black. Second by Council Member Prim. Is there any discussion? The question is on the motion to approve the consent calendar. We have ordinances. So, City Clerk, will you please call the roll?

On the motion to approve the consent calendar, Council Member Arnold.

Yes.

Council Member Prim. Yes. Council Member Falcone. Yes. Council Member Paschal. Yes. Deputy Mayor Black.

Yes.

Mayor Curtis.

Yes. Thank you. Consent calendar is approved 6-0. We are going to move on to our first business item. The Kirkland Youth Council has asked that we postpone their presentation this evening until July 21st. One of the presenters can't be with us this evening. May I have a motion to do so?

Second.

Moved by Council Mayor Falcone, second by Deputy Mayor to postpone the Kirkland Youth Bill of Rights until July 21st. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries 6-0. Any opposed? Motion carries 6-0. All right. We, in recognition of our audience members, before we take a break, we are going to move on to safe parking, our first business item, the Safe Parking Program Fiscal Note. City Manager.

Okay. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So at the June 16th council meeting, the council approved a motion to bring back a fiscal note for council deliberation. This is the return with that fiscal note. And here to give the presentation is our Deputy City Manager of External Affairs, Jim Lopez.

Thank you, City Manager. Welcome, Madam Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council. It's my pleasure to be before you tonight presenting on the fiscal note for the proposed allocation for the Lake Washington United Methodist Church Safe Parking Program Repaving Project. It's always wonderful to be part of those things that we do to fulfill our continuum of care to service those in need. Starting with some brief history of the Safe Parking Program generally. It has been in operation since 2011, serving women, trans people, and families with minor children who are experiencing homelessness. It's a safe place for guests to sleep in their cars and access resources. In 2025, the program hosted over 400 guests. It's been a very successful program in serving its purpose. Kirkland Homeless Assistance and Response Team also regularly refers eligible unhoused clients to safe parking. It is a very important element of our program here in Kirkland. Focusing a little bit more specifically on the repaving project itself, the estimated project cost is about $426,000. The scope involves removal of nuisance trees, removal of existing asphalt, repair, subgrade. They are installing ADA parking spaces, underground conduit to support internet for guests, safer, smoother walkways, improved signage and striping. It's a pretty comprehensive project. So turning your attention briefly to the special projects reserve. This is where the funding is coming from and these are the rules associated with that. It is limited to one time projects, pilot programs and budget amendments or special events. That is its history. It's currently funded at about $250,000 but there is no established minimum allocation amount which is important to note. Typical allocations have been less than $50,000, and I do have a chart if you would like to see that. Typical allocations that have exceeded $50,000 do include things like the citywide implicit bias training, a reasonably big one in 2020. The first Kirkland Health Fair had a substantial allocation in 2023, 24. The park lane study, the analysis of closing park lanes to vehicles actually came from this fund. and the council provided $150,000 spread over three years appropriately introduced at this time for the Kirkland Foundation, the community foundation that you just heard a presentation from. So let's talk a little bit more specifically about the potential allocation agreement itself. This would be a disbursement of funds contingent on a signed agreement between the Lake Washington United Methodist Church program and the city. This would be a three-year agreement that would compel continued operation of the Safe Parking Program in return for the $100,000 contribution. Now, working through that, the repayment for the program, should it end early, is listed above. The repayment would be $66,000 if the program were to end in year one, $33,000 in year two with no obligation due if the program fulfills its three years of operation. So that's kind of the structure of it and the allocation of the funds would be contingent upon execution of that agreement. So I am before you tonight seeking a motion to approve the fiscal note for the Safe Parking Program on the condition that the funding be provided to Lake Washington United Methodist Church only through the written agreement that I just discussed. that requires the program to be operated for at least three years and that it is approved by the city manager. Those are the parameters of the fiscal note.

Back to me? Yes. Thank you, sir. Before I ask Council if they have any questions, I do want to thank Karina O'Malley and the Safe Parking Program leadership who worked with us to put together this structure that hopefully would give Council peace of mind in approving this fiscal note, and we sincerely appreciate the work that the Safe Parking Program does for our community. Council, any questions before we entertain a motion? Take a motion.

I propose to approve the motion as stated on the screen.

Second. It's been moved by Councilmember Prim, second by Councilmember Falcone to move forward the fiscal note for the safe parking program on condition the funding is provided to Lake Washington Methodist only through a written agreement. Requires safe parking program to be operated for at least three years. As approved by the city manager, the fiscal note is $100,000. Any further discussion? Council Mayor Paschal.

Thank you. You know, I regret that I missed the last meeting where you all talked about this funding. And I just wanted to say that I agreed with much of what was said at the last meeting about, you know, why this is an important program to support. You know, even though I didn't attend the last meeting, I did raise some questions with the city manager, just kind of wanting a little bit more information and background about the project itself, what it was specifically going towards, how it was benefiting the community, and then asking for, you know, a little bit more kind of a written agreement that would assure that there was some accountability. Taxpayers, if something, you know, goes awry down the road, you know, unfortunate things can happen. And as stewards of the taxpayer dollars, we do need to just account for that in agreements. I don't expect anything. I expect everything to go well, but happy to support this, but really pleased to kind of see the added background and context and due diligence that occurred between now and last meeting. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Question is on the motion to approve the fiscal note for the Safe Parking Program. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 6-0. Thank you, Council.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jim. All right, let's go ahead and take our break, and we will be back at 9-10.

This one is.

All right, we are back after a quick break, and we are moving on to proposed Mark Twain Park Land Exchange City Manager.

Okay. Hold on, let me get to my section of my... Move too fast. All right. All right, so we are looking for hopefully council action tonight on this resolution to allow this exchange. Here to give you the overview of this is the Associate Planner, Colin Carter, and then we also have our Senior Assistant City Attorney, Kevin Hanson, to help make the presentation support. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council. I'm excited for my inaugural presentation to Council on a 20-year-old land use decision. Can't imagine anything more exciting. Let's see if we're advancing here. There we go. The agenda follows a typical presentation of, I'll do seven slides of staff presentation. I know it's a pretty complicated issue, so there's lots of diagrams, hopefully lots of explanation. Hopefully answer some questions from council before the council considers resolution 5739. To begin, Mark Twain Park, located in the eastern half of the North Rose Hill neighborhood, was purchased by King County using forward thrust bonds. Forward thrust ballot initiative, passed in 1968 and 1970, were intended to fund major civic projects and preserve open space throughout King County. As a result, Mark Twain Park must be maintained in perpetuity unless comparable land is provided to ensure no net loss of public park land. After Kirkland annexed North Rose Hill in 1988, King County transferred the park to the city of Kirkland, but included in the transfer deed were provisions that the city obtained prior written approval from King County Council for the sale, transfer, or trade of all or any portion of Mark Twain Park in order to maintain compliance with said forward thrust bond provisions. In 2005, Jagpal Basra, which I'll refer to as Mr. Basra throughout the rest of the presentation, and his brother, who are the adjacent property owners to the southern border of Mark Twain Park, approached the city and sought release of approximately 3,005 square feet of Mark Twain Park to construct, at their expense, the full-width right-of-way connection as part of their proposed development project. Doing so would avoid an awkward and largely unusable half-road, as the city would have otherwise been responsible to build out the portion within the park. Hopefully I can use my cursor to maybe highlight. There we go. So Mr. Bosworth's property in part is to the south here. He would have been responsible for this kind of smaller 20-foot section, whereas that portion to the north falls within Mark Twain Park. And so that just 150 feet of road wouldn't have been usable unless something were to happen with that portion of the panhandle there. Thus, Mr. Bosworth's ask. A quick note on naming conventions before proceeding as well. This panhandle portion of the park is also referenced as right-of-way dedication or dedication in past documents and staff report prepared for this meeting. As you'll see in the next bullet point, this portion of property is ultimately proposed to be conveyed to Mr. Bowser and not in the right-of-way due to a shift in the final right-of-way alignment. So to avoid further confusion, I will reference this area as the panhandle portion. In addition, Mr. Basra sought to conduct a one-to-one land swap adjacent to the panhandle portion of Mark Twain Park, as shown in the red and blue hashed areas in the diagram to the right. The benefit to Mr. Basra would be a more rectilinear north parcel to support his development proposal. For the city, this land swap in conjunction with the release of the panhandle portion would result in 150 linear feet of right-of-way constructed at no expense to the city, eliminate an impractical panhandle of the park, and provide a net gain of seven mature grove trees to the city, which I did confirm are still there, still happy, still would be a benefit to the city. As mentioned prior, the final alignment of the right-of-way dedication area shifts approximately 20 feet south from the initial location, resulting in the alignment shown on the screen. This shift supports a superior alignment for the new right-of-way while maintaining the total area to be dedicated by the developer to the city. Both the release of the panhandle portion and the one-to-one land swap were brought before Kirkland City Council in May of 2006 and resulted in a motion of approval for both the release of the panhandle and the one-to-one land swap, otherwise known as option two according to the 2006 City Council staff report, which is attachment two in your packets. Council did add a verbal proviso to the motion to provide a tree plan to delineate the new property and the park. After recent discussions with the Parks Department and the applicant, the tree plan will entail a deposit of funds to the city's urban forestry account to fund the installation of 15 trees by our Parks Department, resulting in an additional benefit to the city. Following City Council approval, Kirkland staff worked with King County to obtain the required written approval, and on October 16, 2006, King County passed Ordinance 15620, which is Attachment 6 in your packet.

Do you have...

In the years since the 2006 proposal, the lot line adjustment necessary to execute the release of the panhandle portion and the land swap was never carried out due to numerous factors, including project delays, failed recording attempts, and for a time, a notion that the swap was done and no further action was needed. After discovering the 2006 LLA permits were never formally recorded, staff advised Mr. Bosworth to resubmit permits in 2024. During permit review of those 24 submittals, Staff identified the King County ordinance never authorized the release of the 3,005 square foot panhandle portion, while the one-to-one land swap portion was. Realizing the issue, staff did reach out to the King County Prosecutor's Office, which is their version of the City Attorney's Office, to examine whether the existing county ordinance would support release of the panhandle portion. Unfortunately, the Prosecutor's Office determined there was insufficient authority in the ordinance as passed. While the 20-year-old record does not reveal why the panhandle portion was not included, its absence prohibits the final configuration approved by the 2006 City Council. Finding that the intent of the 2006 City Council was to achieve the final configuration illustrated in attachment to page 8, which is somewhat similar to what we have on screen here, and that the benefits for both parties are still as valuable today as they were in 2006, staff recommends the city convey all 16,279 square feet of Mark Twain Park Panhandle in exchange for Mr. Basra's 13,274 square feet. However, to ensure the city is compliant with those forward thrust bond obligations mentioned at the beginning, the city must provide the difference to ensure no net loss of park. To provide the difference, staff recommends placing the restrictive covenant upon the Lamas property. The Lamas property is a 26,570 square foot property located to the northeast of Mark Twain Park and is close to being acquired by the city following council's authorization in February of this year. Once acquired, the restrictive covenant would set aside 3,005 square feet of that parcel to be maintained as parkland in perpetuity and would be recorded on the property with King County following King County Council's approval of the transfer. Staff would also like to note that other means of resolution were considered, but to preserve the configuration approved by the 2006 Council, maintain the benefits for both parties, and because it's frankly the simplest solution, staff is recommending this restrictive covenant approach. So to aid the more visual learners among us, here's the proposal showing current conditions on the left with the Basra property shown in blue, Mark Twain Park in green, and the Lamas property in white. The middle image shows the aggregate total land swap occurring between the park and Mr. Basra, as well as denotes the restrictive covenant that would be placed upon the Lamas property, as shown by the asterisks. The last image on the right shows the final configuration once all documents and agreements are recorded. To summarize, the absence of King County's authorization to release that panhandle portion of the park prevents the city and Mr. Basra from realizing the benefits of this exchange. The proposed solution to this problem in the form of Resolution 5739 just re-endorses the original configuration approved by the 2006 Council, but adds the additional step of placing the restrictive covenant upon the llama's property necessary to effectuate the agreement. It is for these reasons that staff recommends adoption of Resolution 5739. If adopted, staff will immediately take steps to receive King County approval, as well as coordinate the remaining permitting elements with Mr. Basra. I'm happy to answer any questions the Council may have. I brought backup since this is a little bit complicated, but I will do my best. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Colin. Great explanation. Love the maps. So appreciate it. Council, any questions for Colin? I thought not. I will entertain a motion. Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll move for adoption of Resolution R5739. Second. Second.

Move by Deputy Mayor Black, second by Council Member Arnold to move for Resolution 5739. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 6-0. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. We are going to move on to... The next business item, which is the agreement amendments related to the Kraken Iceplex and Kirkland Community Center. City Manager.

Okay, thank you. Madam Mayor, as the crew switches out here, just a quick introduction. We are asking Council consider and approve an amendment to the original agreement. That would allow the Kraken to stay on their current path and get their financing while still protecting the city's interests as we did before. Here to walk you through the amendment and explain it is Darcy Eiler, our city attorney, and Jim Lopez, the deputy city manager for external affairs.

Thank you very much, city manager, Madam Mayor, Deputy Mayor. It's great to be back before you again tonight with the city attorney. We are making a presentation on a proposed agreement amendment for the city of Kirkland and Kraken Iceplex. Essentially, as we move through the complexity of our partnership with the Kraken, some issues have come up that need to be addressed timely, and that is the substance of tonight's presentation. Probably helpful to start with the project status itself. We are now in pre-construction. The Kraken is out there working on the site itself. They've spent about $3.5 million on early design and work for the project, so we are in and engaged, and there is good momentum moving forward. Now, perhaps the key item tonight for consideration, there are several, but this is probably the key one, is that the agreement to lease, the document that we have with them signed now, requires building permit approval before closing on the document called the ground lease. This is not yet signed. And that is what needs to be signed. It's a prerequisite for them to build. Now, what happened is one of their contractors, they had to make a late change. They had complexities and delays. And that has pushed back their schedule to obtain building permits to late August. The current process requires building permits to be issued before the ground lease is signed. Now the challenge for the Kraken is they need to sign the ground lease in order to obtain financing. So it has become a sequencing issue. Now, I'm gonna turn it over to the city attorney in just a minute, but just as a quick overview of what's really happening for the city, is that in this sequence, the city wants to ensure that all of the design elements in the documents we're working with the Kraken on meet our approval. And in all scenarios, the standard by which we review those design elements is the same. We get a certain, they have to meet our approval on certain things. So if we allow the Kraken to sign, if we sign the ground lease now, the question becomes, how is the city going to be ensured that the Kraken are following the design elements in the existing contract? Because remember, in the current scenario, they have to get the ground lease in order to build. And we could say, if you haven't satisfied our interest in design, we're not going to sign the ground lease. So for the council's edification and for the city to know, how would the city be satisfied should we allow for the ground lease to be signed now? And this is the key language I would draw your attention to. Because in this scenario, as we say here now, It is the ground lease. What we're doing if we sign the ground lease is moving the requirement to the permits. So the standard is the same. If they don't fulfill our obligations on design, we wouldn't issue the permit. And that's the language before you that we're bringing to you. And let me turn it to the city attorney to take you through those details.

And now we know Jim's taller than I am. All right. So I thank you, Jim. That was a good introduction to this sort of that we sort of summarized here what looked a little more complicated in the agreement to lease amendment. And that's because there's multiple different times in the agreement to lease where we mentioned that the permits need to be issued. before closing on the ground lease and just to bring back a little bit to center us on why we included that there's a number of reasons we would include that part of it was they don't actually they didn't at the time we were negotiating the agreement to lease wouldn't have wanted to get the ground lease before they had permits issued because the ground lease triggers a number of things that have to happen quickly they had to have started construction within 30 days of signing the ground lease so They didn't want to have any building permit at the time imagining they'd only have one comprehensive building permit. They didn't want to get a ground lease executed until they were ready to go construct because otherwise they would have been in breach of the ground lease if they hadn't started construction quickly. And so that's some of the reasons. It was sort of a mutually beneficial agreed time that they'd have the permits issued. We also then as a city would know that they were invested in proceeding with this project, that they were ready to go and that they had everything ready in order to do so. And now they've been doing, as you heard from Jim, significant amounts of work. Even by the time we signed the agreement to lease, they'd started a lot of design because it took a long time to negotiate. And so at the time that was written, we didn't know, initially written, we had no idea that they would even have plans already by the time we approved this in December. So one of the ways that, one of the interests left remaining in why we would want building permits issued is that we want to know that we're in agreement on what that building looks like. And there are a number of, there's a couple different ways in the agreement, at least we do that. Permitting was really a side of that. The design standards set forth in 6.2 are really where the city has a lot of power to say no, that isn't what the community center's gonna look like. That's the primary concern, right? We have some authority to also say, we think you should do something different in the restaurant or in the iceplex, but the agreement to lease acknowledges that they're the experts in building those spaces, but we're the experts in building community center spaces. And then before I go to the next slide, which details to you what 6.2 is in the interest of being helpful to tell you what that is. The last thing I'll note is just that we also removed a requirement for the community center lease to be executed at ground lease closing. We'd actually planned to remove that earlier and just was an oversight in hundreds of pages of agreements to do that. The city doesn't want that community center sublease executed until we're actually ready to go sublease it. And that isn't until after substantial completion. Okay, just a summary of 6.2, which is several pages long. The primary point here is that for the skating and restaurant facility under 6.2, the city has the opportunity to submit concerns and suggestions, and the developer can consider those in good faith. And for the community center, we have the sole and absolute right to approve only those project documents for the community center. And that that approval needs to be done in writing. The amendment that we're proposing carries over these obligations, which all existed pre-closing, assuming they'd be done with design. And it moves those past closing to say, you don't get to get your building permits if you haven't met your obligations under 6.2. Okay, and then we have in the amendment, the ground lease is an attachment, an exhibit to the agreement to lease. It will be executed at closing. We have some additional modifications that you saw in your packet related to the ground lease. They're highlighted here, moving substantial completion from October to November. That's associated with requests from Kraken from their delays that they've experienced with the contractor and getting that final building permit issued. And then correcting a trigger for paying into the CapEx fund. Right now, the ground lease says that has to start at closing, but there's no building that that CapEx would be supporting the additional capital maintenance on. And so the normal sort of real estate time for starting would be at substantial completion that you'd start funding those later improvements and maintenance. And then I sort of summarized, oh and I missed a resolution number, I apologize for that. Incorporating modifications required by Kraken's lender. City Council actually gave the city manager authority to agree to those because we knew that the lender would be reviewing those once they had a financing lender and would likely ask for some changes. There were several of them included all in section 24, but they're all for clarification. The main one that you might have triggered on was some deletions about lean language and those getting extinguished in a foreclosure. There's other places where liens have to either not be at all on the property but also to be extinguished and so those were just removed because they weren't the location that it was really supposed to be and the lender flagged that. And then the last changes are just acknowledging known parties which is the Kirkland Ice Center LLC we indicated to you. They've now made that subsidiary of Slapshot. That will be who the ground lease holder is and then B&B Builders is their contractor.

All right, I think that's our last slide.

Oh, next steps. So if you approve this amendment, we'll execute it, and then we'll proceed to closing potentially by the end of this week. Lots of everything else is fairly in order. And then they'll continue early construction activities. We gave them some early site access to start doing some of that early site work to keep on schedule. Any questions?

Thank you. Council, any questions? Deputy Mayor?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just one quick question, because it came up repeatedly when the council was discussing the overall structure of the agreement, was to ensure that the center of gravity of responsibility and liability was not a thinly capitalized Subsidiary just for the public who followed that discussion and is now following this discussion The fact of the Kirkland iceplex LLC We were naming that party because now we know that party's name But that does not change the structure that the city of Kirkland negotiated with respect to making sure the center of gravity of liability on behalf of the on the part of the Kraken lies in It's most, it's highest up parent company. Yeah, excellent question. And the one most capitalized.

Yeah, nothing about substituting in Kirkland Ice Center here under the ground lease changes anything about the guarantee that we get from Slapshot and from Seattle Hockey Partners, which is the other subsidiary of Slapshot that sort of directly owns the Kraken hockey team. Both of them are the guarantees that we have separate from the agreement to lease and from the ground lease that say we will make sure that everything under the ground lease that the Kirkland Ice Center has to do under the ground lease is performed, and so that is still intact, and pre-closing, one of the requirements of closing is that they do that first set that we'd asked for, which is to demonstrate to us that Slapshot and SHP have sufficient funding in order to build a $60 million building, and to sort of cover that cost if something went wrong with financing or something otherwise to ensure that building's constructed.

Perfect, thank you.

Anyone else? Deputy Mayor, you want to do the honors?

I'm sure I can do that. Maybe. Yes. I'll move for adoption approval of resolution R5740.

Second. And moved by Deputy Mayor Black, second by Council Mayor Prim to move forward resolution 5740. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries 6-0. Thank you both. All right, now we're gonna move on to the crack and right-of-way dedication. City Manager.

Okay, thank you. So we're looking for the council to make a decision to dedicate the right-of-way through the property. This requirement is in order for us to be able to get what we call a break in the property so that traffic can exit the property onto 116th. And so here to walk you through that is, again, our city attorney, Darcy Eilers.

It's been so long. Yeah, pleasure in my company again. You're welcome. All right, well, knowing that you thoroughly read your packet about right-of-way dedication, I jump right in here to what we're talking about. And I didn't have in the packet a picture and realized maybe it would be helpful to know where the limited access break was. So for those listening, The unlimited access area is the area of the interstate and some boundaries outside the direct freeway that you travel. That WSDOT, the Washington State Department of Transportation, and the Federal Highways Administration, the Federal Transportation Arm, have control over the limited access area. And so you can see here with this blue line in this map, right abutting the sort of eastern edge of the right of way, right along the sidewalk, is where that limited access break is. So they control this entire intersection, and actually several other intersections in this area, in order to make sure that there's efficient movement along the freeway. Without WSDOT and FHWA approval, the parcels, the Houghton Park and Ride parcels, including the one that the Iceplex Community Center will be on, won't have access to exit out of the western boundary from this access road at this location we're seeing here. We'll only be able to use ingress and ingress out of the location on 70th. So I have a picture here. Sorry about the dimensions here. A map worked a little better with this north off to my left. And this is the existing access road, so that the bus is used. And even when the park and ride was operating, only buses exited out of onto 116th. There was never any ingress. And then there's ingress, egress out of off to northeast 70th place. As part of our negotiations with WSDOT, they've asked that that they've indicated to us that they will not agree, wouldn't even consider an application to break that limited access to allow egress onto 1 16th if it's not a public right-of-way. If we leave it as an access road, they won't consider the request. If it's a public right-of-way, they'll consider the request. No guarantees, but at least we can submit the paperwork. And so Ordinance 4944 would declare this access road as public right-of-way. And if it's adopted, staff will record the ordinance. That's what we record. Often you see dedications done in plats or things like that. The City Council doesn't often declare a right-of-way in this manner anymore. But this ordinance is actually what will be recorded. And then the roadway will be open following completion of construction activity. So right now it's still all fenced off to allow construction. Any questions?

Council, questions? I will entertain a motion.

Madam Mayor, I move approval of Ordinance 4944. Second.

It's been moved by Council Mayor Arnold, seconded by Council Mayor Falcone to move forward Ordinance 4944. Any further discussion? City Clerk, will you please call the roll?

On the motion to adopt Ordinance 4944, Council Member Arnold? Yes. Council Member Prem? Yes. Council Member Falcone? Yes. Council Member Paschal? Yes. Deputy Mayor Black? Yes. Mayor Curtis? Yes. Thank you, Council.

Ordinance passes 6-0. We are on to our last business item, which is an update of the school zone flashing beacon, City Manager.

All right, so this should have said update and possible action. We're hoping to get council direction on some of the options that are gonna be presented tonight. So when we last came to the council, the council got a briefing on flashing beacons and their costs, and you asked us to go back and see if we could come to you with some options that were closer to the original estimate you saw. Here to give you that presentation is our Transportation Engineering Supervisor, Jennifer Palmer.

Thank you, Mr. City Manager. Good evening, Madam Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and members of Council. As Mr. City Manager said, I'm Jennifer Palmer, Transportation Engineering Supervisor, and tonight I'm here to give you an update on the school zone signing project and request Council direction on how to implement them. I mean, I found this GIF. It's a good one. It's flashing and everything. Um, this project advances the city's vision for a safe, connected and multimodal transportation system. It aligns with our vision zero goal of zero transportation related deaths and serious injuries and a reduction in all crashes by 2035. And we get there by using the safe system approach, which is a multi layered approach to transportation safety that acknowledges humans make mistakes and reduces the risk of injuries within our transportation systems. A brief background. Council voted to support additional school zone beacons in January. We're in the middle of developing this plan. How are we going to implement them? And then we can start implementing them no earlier than 27. Also background for the phase two of our signing project. Only a few school zones left to go. Phase two focuses on school zone or school speed limit signs except for the beacons. So everywhere that's not going to have a beacon. And the in-street crosswalk signs, the city did post about the in-street crosswalk signs on social media and in general public sentiment was very positive with many requests for please put them in my crosswalk too. This is a summary of the scope adjustments that we are proposing. So, because the expected costs increased between the January and March meetings where we discussed the school zone flashing beacons with council, staff proposes, we propose to better align it with what we proposed in that first meeting, the original estimates. The details are in your packet, but in the March meeting, which was the larger cost, we proposed to replace 19 existing beacons and then install 24 new beacons. And now with the adjusted scope, we're reducing the number And now we're proposing to replace eight beacons and install 18 new beacons. There's also some options for remote connectivity. As we discussed in previous meetings, there are many benefits of remote connectivity, including real-time alerts when our beacons malfunction, on-the-fly schedule changes during inclement weather events like snow and ice and wind, and automatic correction of clock drift, which is where the internal workings of the beacon, the clock, starts to drift away from what time it actually is. Remote connectivity, we can reevaluate this to save budget for other future safety projects. The upfront cost for the beacon assemblies with remote connectivity would be $544,000. If you do them only at the eight automated safety camera locations and around 54,000 more to do it everywhere. And it comes with 10 years of connectivity, which would need to be replaced along with the beacons at the end of their life cycle. In the last meeting, I believe there was a request for more information on maintenance and life cycle. One of the things that I just wanted to point out, the details are in the memo, of course, but I wanted to highlight that the maintenance of solar items like school zone flashing beacons cannot be deferred. It includes cleaning and inspecting and repairing the units. In particular, solar panels need to be cleaned. If they aren't cleaned, the unit won't function properly, and that's why it can't be deferred. Staff can absorb, or existing crews can absorb this maintenance of the new beacons. However, we continue to add more and more assets with each year, so in the future, eventually, we're gonna need to ensure we have the right resources and number of people to ensure we're taking care of these items now and in the future. The other item that we touched on in the last meeting were what happens to the existing beacons that were shown in that meeting as to be removed or that don't meet our proposed criteria. So as a reminder, transportation staff came up with criteria around where school zone flashing beacons should be installed based on research of where they're most effective, which essentially amounts to higher speed and higher volume facilities. This includes arterials, most collector streets, and a few local streets. There are eight beacons shown in the memo where we propose to remove them over time as they fail or with other project types. All eight of them are on streets where the speed limit is now or will be 20 miles an hour in the future, like neighborhood greenways or on local access streets. We want to avoid driver confusion. For example, if you're driving on 128th Ave, the neighborhood Greenway in Rose Hill, in front of Mark Twain Elementary, you pass a speed limit sign that says 20 miles an hour, because it's Greenway, and then you pass a flashing beacon that says 20 miles an hour when flashing. So as a driver, what do you do? So we want to help correct that. We want drivers to know which one is correct all the time. Our goal is improving transportation safety, and one of the ways we get there is providing a clear and consistent experience for drivers. That being said, I only have a few slides left, and we're happy to discuss this and other issues and follow council direction on this item. So our recommendation is to upgrade the eight beacons, install 18 new school zone beacons, And then we do have an option for remote connectivity to do it either only at the automated safety of the camera locations or at all of the locations. I also wanted to mention there is sufficient fund balance to fund the larger scope and higher investment level presented at the March meeting if council chooses to do so. And we're seeking direction on the scope. So with that, I'll open it up to questions.

Thank you, Jennifer. And I just want to be clear. So you need to walk away tonight with whether we prefer option one or option two?

Yes.

Okay.

Can you go back to those? Yes.

Council, questions? Council Member Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, Jennifer, for the presentation.

I have kind of a 20,000-foot view question, and I know I've kind of asked this in different ways before, but I'm still struggling with it. So I'm not a transportation expert, but I am an expert in both walking and driving along school walk routes thousands of times. And so from that perspective... It makes sense to me, and I just want to understand, that some of our most vulnerable children walking to school are those who are furthest from the school, when there's not 50 kids all in a group that are very visible, and where there's not crossing guards, and where there's not as much flashing things to go across the street, the RFBs. In my mind, those seem to be the most vulnerable. As a driver, they're the hardest to see and hardest to spot. And they're alone, you know, and maybe not as many people to help in those situations too. But then I can understand the rationale for, and this is just a question about why we have, honestly, why we have school zones in general. You know, why we put the most infrastructure closest to schools, where the students there are already the most visible, right? And I wonder, so I think about that and that lens and some of the recommendations to reduce the number of flashing beacons, right? And to specifically reduce the ones that are furthest away from schools. Again, in my mind, those are the places that children probably need the most protection because they have the least protection as far as visibility, flashing beacons, and crossing guards, and just proximity to more crowds of people to help them. Is there, what is, you mentioned based on studies, but I'm not, can you understand, or can you explain the logic a little bit behind that? Is it just because the impact will be higher, the risk may be less because they're already more visible, but the impact would be higher? Like if a car veers off the road, it would harm more children if there's a lot of children there versus just like two children?

The study I mentioned previously, there's not a lot of data out there. The studies that we did look at as a group, it wasn't where it would be most effective, right? It wasn't in terms of far away from a school or close to a school, it was what type of road facility would it be most effective on. And on that, the studies show that they're more effective on higher speed, higher volume roadways.

Okay, so we're basing it on speed and volume. On the slide six, it says that we're omitting six school crosswalk beacons and locations further from schools and which see less activity. So the volume there, but it still mentions the proximity to the schools is what grabbed my attention.

Yeah, so when we were adjusting the scope to better align with the budget that we have for this, what I tasked my engineering team to do was look at and prioritize where can we do the most good with a constrained budget. And so that's how we came up with this. I have an engineer, Ed. He's presented here before. He's on vacation this week. Ed went in, watched the crosswalks that he was targeting, and picked the ones with the most kids. That's how we got there.

Okay. I'm still struggling with the logic behind the most kids, but thank you. I appreciate the explanation.

Anyone else? Deputy Mayor?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. This is a really quick question, and I'm sorry if I missed it, if it was in any of the materials. And it might be a question for the city manager, honestly. At a really, really high level, what's the opportunity cost that comes from the council appropriating funds from the same source that we're using, let's say the $544,000 for option one, Those are dollars that will otherwise go to what?

They're all coming from the safety camera fines and so they're all by ordinance to go for basically school walk route safety investments. So it'd be crosswalks or sidewalks or flashing beacons over time. So any one of those things that we had on the list qualify, and if we reserve that money for the future, it'd probably be proposed for similar kinds of things.

Including safer routes to school projects? Yeah, safer routes to school. Okay, some of which would probably get a little bit more to Council Member Papin's concern. Mayor, are you looking for direction? Sure. I think because of those, well-taken remarks and just my study of this issue and conversation with city manager, I support option one.

Councillor Paschal.

Thank you. Thank you, Jennifer, for, as always, the in-depth analysis and documentation on how you arrive at your recommendations, so I appreciate that. I can just go back to the fact that the city's done some And Public Works has done some really good work here. I don't know of another city that's kind of putting this much emphasis on school signage and beacons and everything else that is proposed here. So I just go back to that fundamental thing where we're making some good progress here. And so that's the thing to kind of kind of keep front of mind, recognizing that there's always improvements that we can continue to look for, but that this is really good progress, and I'm gonna agree with the Deputy Mayor on option one, that that's prudent, that's what staff recommends. I think having a really clear guidance on when and where and how we install different types of devices is going to be helpful for staff down the road as things change. So good work and option one is where I would land.

Thank you. There are no questions. I'll take a motion.

Madam Mayor, I'd make a motion to recommend that we go with option one. Second.

It's been moved by Council Mayor Paschal. Apologies, I heard Council Mayor Falcone first. Any further discussion? Council Member Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yes, I also do support option one. Obviously, I seconded the motion, but I would like to look at, per my comments earlier, additional improvements to further out parts of the school walk routes, which I think, again, in my expertise as a mom walking and driving kids to and from school thousands of times, seem to be the most dangerous parts of the school walk route. We all feel quite safe really close to the schools, and children do not feel as safe further out closer into the neighborhoods. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, questions on the motion to move forward with staff recommendation option one, moved by Council Member Powell, seconded by Council Member Falcone. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 6-0. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, that concludes our business items. We are going to now move on to council reports, and I'll start with Deputy Mayor.

A couple items, but given that we have an executive session coming up, I will email them to the council.

Thank you. Councillor Pascoe?

I was just going to say that I think I'd give an update on the Cascade Water Alliance. I know that I missed the last meeting. You all had another presentation on rates. So as a board, we're continuing to have that discussion, particularly around the proposed capital a facility plan, funding plan that is, which is quite different than we've seen before in terms of just the overall magnitude of cost to implement the Cascade Supply Program. And I just want to thank city staff that are supporting us for preparing a letter. I don't know if the rest of the council has gotten a copy of the letter that we sent to Cascade. raising some questions and some issues to look at regarding the capital funding plan. But if not, I think we'll have to send that along. Yeah, that was a good letter. Our new CEO of Cascade sent that out to the rest of the board, just so the board was aware of that letter. And so they're in the process of responding to it. Thank you.

Thank you for your leadership on that committee.

Councillor Falcone. Thank you, Madam Mayor. In the interest of time, I won't give full reports tonight, but as always, there are lots of meetings and events and wonderful things happening in the community and that we'll continue to enjoy. Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Proud.

Yeah, I'll echo. I will send my updates via email. Thank you.

Two brief things. You might recall from our affordability discussions, solid waste is looking at options for long-term disposal, whether we export when the landfill fills, whether we export by rail or invest in a waste-to-energy facility. This is going to be a key part of the solid waste comprehensive plan that MISWAC is dealing with. SCA is really involved in this as part of the affordability work, and I've been asked to serve on the SCA working group on working with the county on that long-term disposal strategy. This group is a combination of people from MISWAC, the Solid Waste Advisory Committee, and the Regional Policy Committee. And I will let you know as those things move forward. Second item is tomorrow night. East Trail Partners kicks off the Wednesday summer concert series at Farrington Spur Park in Kirkland. I have on great authority there's going to be two hours of fantastic music beginning at 6 o'clock. Thank you.

Thank you. I can't top that. Lots of events. City Manager, to you.

Okay, thank you, Madam Mayor. So the first item is one that I emailed the Council about, and that is you had two applicants for youth positions on the boards and commissions. We wanted to get a little direction from Council on what you would like to do with those two applications. We suggested three options. Option one would be the Council could suspend the rules and appoint the two youth who have qualified. tonight. Option two would be the council could decide they're sufficient. You want to do an interview with them and schedule a special meeting to do that, either in person or virtual. Option three, the council could decide that you want to try to recruit new folks in maybe September when people get back from school if you felt like you needed a bigger pool. But given that option one requires a suspension of the rules, we put out a motion together for council consideration if that's an option that someone on the council is interested in pursuing.

Thank you.

I can answer questions.

So I was, Council Member Paschal and I have been talking about this because Council Member Paschal was the one in our last meeting to suggest that we go ahead and appoint, fill the teen youth. We decided to hold the recruitment to our normal recruiting process for the adult placements. So I suggested that we go ahead and move forward tonight. So I will hand it over to Council Member Paschal.

Yeah, well, I think you summed it up. I think, you know, we had an issue with not getting applicants for the two youth positions. We opened it back up. We got some great applicants. We're in the process of, you know, a very busy summer. It was really difficult to all get together to interview, to do the other interviews for the adult commissions. And given that... We're all pressed for time, and these are really two good applicants. I think we should move forward with these two motions. So I'm going to propose a motion to suspend Section 8.13 of the council policies and procedures relating to the appointment process in order to appoint the only two applicants we had for youth member positions without interviewing them. Second. Second.

It's been moved by Council Mayor Paschal, second by Deputy Mayor to suspend Section 8.13 so that we can point our two applicants to our youth positions. Any discussion? Council Member Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I really appreciate these applicants for applying for these positions. As was mentioned, it was really hard to recruit for their applications do look great. I'm not comfortable appointing anyone to represent the city as an appointed official on a board or commission without interviewing them and meeting them first. So I do not support these motions. I would support, you know, some sort of compromise like a reduced interview committee. Maybe the interview selection committee could interview the folks. I just think it's important to screen and meet anyone who's going to be representing the city as an appointed official. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? I am going to support this motion. These are two applicants. We actually met Ava. She has come forward to speak to council. And these are two qualified applicants. When we do interview youth members, they're short and sweet interviews. And frankly, we make them quite nervous when we interview them. And I think that these are strong applicants and we should move forward. No other comments? All right. The questions on the motion to suspend Section 8.13. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? No. All right. Motion carries 5-1. Thank you. Council Member Paschal.

Thank you, Mayor. A motion to appoint Ava Spanhauer as the youth member of the Park Board and Rehab as the youth member of the Transportation Commission, each for a term ending March 31st, 2028. Second.

Moved by Council Member Paschal, second by Deputy Mayor to appoint, as shown on the screen, the youth members to the Park Board and the Transportation Commission. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. Motion carries 5-1. Thank you. City Manager, back to you.

Okay, thank you, Madam Mayor. There's one other potential business item under city manager report, and that was a suggestion to approve the mayor signing a letter of endorsement for the federal homes for every local protector, educator, and responder, or the Helper Act. The memo in the packet said how this got here and why we put it in front of you. We have a brief summary of it, but I know there's been some discussion, so I'm happy to answer questions on it before the council begins this discussion, but we did find that there was substantial bipartisan support in the House and the Senate, 130 sponsors, and Councilman Susan DelBene is a sponsor. She did not ask us to sign this, but she supports us sending the letter. The request came from a public affairs group that's been trying to gather local government support.

Council, any questions? Councillor Arnold.

Thank you. I appreciate bringing this forward. I don't have a particular objection to this, but what we have done in the past for state advocacy, at least, is run things through the legislative work group, and I would note if there is council interest in looking at this, the work group already has a meeting scheduled for the end of the month, and we could come back to council for our August meeting if there was interest in more analysis on this.

Thank you, Council Mayor Arnold. FYI, did send it to government affairs and city manager to ask what the best way forward and legislative work group was not brought up. What is the time frame that we need to respond to this?

There's no current action scheduled in Congress. We don't know when there will be, and so the goal was to have something so if they didn't pick it up, and I will say that one of the reasons that I recommend just putting this forward is the bill itself is very short. It's one page, so It didn't take a ton of research to look at it, although we didn't do a lot of context searches around it. But the key elements of it are the bullet points up there, which is based on a similar model for the military. So no down payment is required. And rather than monthly mortgage insurance, participants pay a one-time upfront plan. And then one of the reasons we recommended it was that it was consistent with our policies around increasing home ownership, especially for first responders and others. So that was the reason we didn't recommend it go to the Legislative Work Group, but there's certainly no particular date by which this needs to be sent. So happy to support that if the council wants to.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you, City Manager. And I appreciate your comments, Council Member Arnold. Thank you for that. I agree with Council Member Arnold. I think it might be prudent for us to have a little bit more discussion and legislative work group. I also think it looks like great legislation, right, that's worthy of supporting. One of the things that, for example, that stood out to me in addition to the context that you mentioned, is I didn't see crisis responders defined it as first responders in this, and I wonder if we could have a conversation with our Congresswoman about the potential for consideration of the addition of crisis first responders as well, which would benefit employees of our city as well that do very similar brave work that... I think would be worthy of benefiting from legislation like this. So I would like the legislative work group just have a little bit more discussion with staff about how we can make this or use any, not that we have the city of Kirkland in the federal government have a ton of sway, but if there's something that we can do to at least say that we've done our due diligence to try to make this as best as it can to serve the city of Kirkland, that would be worthwhile for us to discuss.

I happily defer to the legislative work group. So we don't need to make a motion, we can just.

Don't need to make a question.

Okay, great.

Okay, so two other quick updates before we get to executive session. First is, I think our deputy city manager, Tracy Dollop, had a chance to talk to you all, but just for the record. Unfortunately, some of the materials and equipment that we're going to use to upgrade city council chambers are not going to be here in time, and so we will not be able to do the work on July 21st. So there won't be a July 21st virtual meeting. There will still be a meeting, but you'll actually be here in chambers. So there may or may not be a suggestion for a virtual August meeting. We're going to know that at the end of the week, we think. And so more to come on that, but we will be here in person on July 21st. I want to note that for the record. Secondly, we want to note that in our due diligence, the city attorney and the planning director, looking at the issue of a moratorium for detention centers for the city of Kirkland, we're pleased to report that our current code does not permit detention centers. So we don't actually need to do a moratorium, however, We want to bring you a memo that explains all that on the 21st, but we want to put out a notice that repeals the public hearing because there's no reason to do a moratorium, so we don't need a public hearing. So before we did that publicly, I wanted to make sure that the council do that and knew why, and we'll provide a memo on the 21st as well as an update with the other federal impacts team work items. So any questions on that?

No questions on that. Anyone? I have a couple additional items when you're ready.

And then finally, any calendar updates before? Okay, that's all I have out of here.

I just want to respond to some of the items from the audience. We have received emails and testimony about code enforcement issues around the Pursuit Church, including helicopter landings. So perhaps we can get an update on that action and what's happening and what we can and can't do around helicopters. I also think it would be helpful to tell the public how we're responding to potential demonstrations at the end of the month. And thank you, Chief, for all the work you're doing around e-bikes and enforcement and education. and we are still not able to capture everybody who has concerns. I'm just wondering if it might be good to do a special presentation just on what we are doing and next actions and what the legislative work group will be doing next session on e-bikes.

Thank you.

All right. We are now going to go into closed session to discuss collective bargaining. We expect to reconvene our regular meeting at approximately 11?

Yeah, you might have questions, yes. At 11, only for the purposes of adjournment.