City Council - Regular Meeting

Council Member Paschal. All present.

Thank you. Our study session tonight is on two items. First, we'll have an update on the Northeast 85th Street Station Area Branding and Marketing Project. Second, we will have an update on the Urban Forest Management Plan. We expect to reconvene our regular meeting at 7.30. City Manager. Okay.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, Deputy Mayor, members of the Council. So, as our first topic is going to be the 85th Street Area branding, I'm going to turn it over to our Economic Development Manager, Jen Davis-Hayes, to make the presentation. And we're looking for Council feedback. She's going to introduce our special guests as well. So, take it away, Jen.

Great. Thank you very much, Council Members, for hearing our update tonight. As you mentioned, we're here for the Northeast 85th Street Station Area branding. branding and marketing projects. So hopefully we'll have a new name for that later this fall. So as a reminder, this is one component of the work we do on Northeast 85th. For instance, in the last few weeks, I've met with three of the large property owners in this area and I continue talking to developers, and that's in turn have actually created interest in other Kirkland properties. We had two meetings recently with a multifamily development group of developers to hear insight and gather feedback. We're looking at having a third one in this fall. And, of course, there are thanks to council support for changes in parking development standards, et cetera, that help to further entice redevelopment in this area. And later this year, in 2027, we're looking at a multi-prong marketing strategy from these materials. So we hired Watson Creative, who you'll meet the team tonight, to help name, brand, and create marketing collateral for the real estate industry for us to be able to go out and go to develop sponsored events to do promotion through Puget Sound Business Journal and Daily Journal of Commerce, etc. We've worked with them with this internal steering committee of myself, communications staff, planning staff, and the Kirkland Chamber Executive Director. So tonight you'll hear a journey of where we've been so far, but also it's not just a status update, but to get a better understanding of the naming criteria. So tonight we are joined by our fabulous team from Watson Creative. And so first we have Greg Needham, who is the Director of Strategy, and he will be doing the presentation mostly tonight. But he is also joined by Byron Franey, who is the Brand Strategist and Writer, Trina Motta, who is the Senior Account Strategist, and Paolo Esteban, who is our Senior Project Manager. So they have done a great job, and we look forward to hearing from them today. Craig.

Thank you very much. Let me share my screen real quick. Can you see my screen?

We can. Welcome, everybody.

Right, thank you for having us, Kirkland Council. It's a pleasure to be here. I'll just add quickly, I think city councils and commissions are my favorite and often most effective level of government, so I really appreciate your time in having us and excited to run you through this. We don't want to take up much of your time tonight. We've greatly shortened the presentation. It started out when we were working with the team there at about 100 slides. We've shortened it down significantly. Just to familiarize yourself, we're Watson Creative, founded and based in Portland, Oregon. We've got a team of about 30 currently scattered all around, and most of them are contributing to this work. And in case you weren't aware, Kirkland has a warm spot in our heart. We've been doing work for the City of Kirkland Police Department for some time on recruitment campaigns as well. Just a brief overview of some of the sources and work we've done so far. We've had, as mentioned before, city leadership and staff conversations. We ran a workshop with some stakeholders to sort of narrow down where we were headed. Interviews with developers and civic leaders. We've gone through all of the previous work done, the 2022 Residence Naming Survey. And then a fairly sizable amount of secondary research that included looking at other district naming precedents, what worked, what hasn't worked, where they come from, and why they are successful in the end. A quick summary of just the multiple conversations we've had. Everyone agrees that this is a real asset based on its Kirkland address. Specifically, the developers feel that way. The elevation and west-facing views are undersold, in their opinion. It doesn't have its own story. We're looking to sort of start that story process with a effective name for the district, and a distinct third destination tied to downtown, not a copy of Bellevue. Naming does not address everything, it's just the start of the process, so obviously the fundamentals decide the deals. I-405 divide is real. Some of the developers we've talked to, and we've talked to quite a few, that first mover risk is fairly big for them. and it needs to pay off in the end and earn Kirkland with real jobs and housing. This is a sample of the kind of work we did. We looked across both the region there and then also went farther out to look at how names land and where they come from. So on this quadrant, you'll see at the top is evocative, at the bottom is more descriptive, on the left is a coined name, and on the right is rooted names. And these are just some of the things we look at to find a name that both developers, residents, And visitors can ascribe their own meanings to, but also takes on the character of the place and the place can grow into. Just quickly on some of the background we use to approach this. There are different types of names. Some are descriptive. You know what they do. General Motors, pretty clear what they do. There are surnames. There are conceptual names that try to communicate an idea. There's cognitive names that sort of try to communicate what a company or brand might do. There are bridge names when two things come together. And then there's wholly invented names. And you can see on the left and on the bottom, when you get up under descriptive, they're very clear, but less ownable. And then over on the far side, the invented and conceptual are very ownable, but not always as clear on initial reading. We also look at the qualities of a good name. Is it meaningful? Is it distinctive? Can it be aligned for future-oriented needs, decisions we make, places the district goes? Is it modular? Can it be easily combined? Or can someone use it to say, I'm from the area district? Protectable? Is it positive? Does it have a positive connotation? Is it visual? Does it lend itself to both the area it's in and as other businesses come in, can they turn that name into something that's appealing visual. You can't hit all of these, so we look at, sometimes you wanna lean a little bit more into the modular or the more distinctive. We sort of use these as filters to look at how we go through the naming process. And then on the subject of criteria, those are important to think about typically when we do these naming projects. It's very important that the stakeholders work internally to work on what the criteria are for their specific needs. But here are some high-level ones. I won't read through them, all the detail, but is it engaging and memorable? Is it distinctive? Does it stand out but fit in? Does it sound natural? Can you say it easily? Does it roll off the tongue? Does it represent what you're trying to name? Is it concise? Does it evoke a vision? And it can be a present or a future vision, but it needs to let people bring their own meanings to what it stands for. Is it easy to spell and pronounce? That's important. Is it appropriate? Does it express the vibe of the area? Will it stand the test of time? A good name doesn't box you in. You want it to be able to grow and expand with the district. Is it culturally sensitive across any numbers of either indigenous people or Spanish-speaking or any of these? You want to make sure you're not coming up with a name that is culturally inappropriate. Is it available? Is it not available? Used if you need to build websites, etc. Can you actually get that name? So these are very high level criteria for naming. Typically, in this process, we'll narrow these down or work with the client to get them more specific for the region area we're naming. But this gives you a good sense of some of the things that can be taken into account when you're actually trying to look at the name. And then finally. After the research, secondary research, primary research, going through the past work that you've done, our first step is we've charted out what we're calling naming territories. And these aren't names, but these are, after all our work, areas that we think are very rich to mine for possible names for the district. And the next step will be we're coming up with multiple names bucketed into these territories. And I just want to run you through the territory so you can see the areas that we're looking at to find possible names that sort of fit that high level criteria I just mentioned. And also the other things that I mentioned around the type of naming and what do we turn up and what do we turn down. So the first one is elevation. High ground and the views that come with it. This is a very, as you know, distinctive physical fact about the area. So we're looking at that as a territory where we can mine names from. The next is corridor. It's a through line. It's really a connector. It sits between a couple of areas and a number of key Pacific Northwest centers, continuation of downtown Kirkland. So in this sense, corridor is not a name we'll pick, but it's not a bad thing that it's a corridor. In fact, it can be a real bonus to the area. Heritage, obviously, Peter Kirk, the area's first people, the mill, the Kirkland name. So there's a real chance, obviously, to lean into those origin stories and sort of mine the heritage of the area and the city of Kirkland for valuable naming territory. We have community. We want more gathering places. We heard a third space all the time. So we're really looking at naming territories that are about being welcoming and human and that people can respond to that positive feeling. And threshold, sort of that sense of the edge of becoming more, there's always potential. And so we're looking at that area as another territory to look for names that will both work now, draw attention, help developers build out the area, but also over course of time, continue to point to the potential of the region as it grows. So the territories we're looking at are elevation, community, corridor, threshold, and heritage. And we'll use these as, Areas we'll look at, but also filters when we start to generate names internally. Do they fit within one of these? How well do they fit? And then bounce them off the other things the criteria will establish and also the types of names and how we turn those dials on the meaningful. Is it positive? Those sorts of things. So again, a greatly condensed amount of work that we did, but very happy to share it with you. And if there's any discussion or conversation you want to have, we're happy to do that.

Back to you.

Yeah, so I just wanted to mention that. So we're here tonight to present again a quick version of what we've been through. And then we will be back here in September to bring three names for you to choose from. So tonight we want to make sure you get a feel for the territories we're looking at, if there's any knee-jerk reactions slash things that we may be missing or just questions about the process. We're welcome for those.

Thank you. Council? This is a first. This is very unusual. All right, somebody go first. Why don't you tell us a little, so you're gonna come back to us with three names. We have a team that's working on those three names. Walk us a little bit through how that process is gonna work.

I'm going to pass it over to Greg to be able to articulate the story and how that goes. I mean, so, you know, they're going to have more names. We're going to whittle them down. But let's hear from the consultants about how their best practice processes work.

Sure, that's a great question. Now that we've established these territories and we've done the research, what we'll start to do is generate names within those territories. We may come up with 30, 40 names, and then internally we work through those We look at the positives of the name, the associations of the name, the availability of the name, any conflicts that we might see, and then also just how it works. In our initial presentation, we had a whole section about how you use a name if you are a resident or a developer. How do you refer to the district? Does it flow off the tongue? So we look at names that way as well. So we'll bucket those in those territories we looked at, always open to new territories that come out or some idea that may come out. And we work really hard internally to refine that list down. I would assume we'll probably come back to the team we're working with, with maybe in the neighborhood of 20 names. We'll vet those with them. We'll work through that process, see what rises to the top. And then through that process and developing the criteria, then we'll nail that down to the finalists, essentially. And when we present those back, we do... Each name will have will show it in in use in different circumstances how it works in design will look at how someone referred to if they lived in that neighborhood what would they say if they're referring someone come meet me at. and typically how it appears in all sorts of things. The other thing we look at is, is it something that will work within city government and how zoning laws work, et cetera? Is it a name that people will recognize? It's not separate and distinct from the legal name of the district, whatever that is. So that's pretty much the process. And then we'll work with the team there and then we'll finalize the names.

Thank you, that was very helpful. Because I was wondering if you would do some graphic design around potential names, how it would look on materials. So that's helpful. We finally have questions. Deputy Mayor.

I think, Madam Mayor, I did think of a question as we were talking. And it's probably for Greg. Well, maybe it's two questions. First, Jen, if you described the team here in Kirkland, maybe I missed it. So who is providing Greg and his team sort of the most local perspective? Because a lot of us live here, work here, some of us for quite a while, and we're gonna have opinions. I know I've met with Greg and the team, I'm sure a lot of my colleagues have, but other than us, can you describe that? And then I have one more question.

Sure, and so that's a little bit about the interviews and the one-on-ones externally versus internal team?

Well, when Greg and his team come back with 20 names, who is going to be calling through those 20 names with Greg and the team.

Yeah, so initially it'll be our internal team, so that's myself. We have two staff from communications, including our communications manager. We also have Allison Zeig from planning, who's been through this process a few times. And then also the chamber's executive director. But we do plan on bringing those names out as we whittle them down to kind of test it with the people that we've spoken to already. We don't want to get into where we're having a survey of what name do you like, because really we want to place the finalist in your hands in September. But we do want to make sure that, again, that it's not like, oh, my gosh, this reminds me of X, Y, Z. And, you know, 20% of Kirkland would think about that, but we may not, right? And Jim has also something to say.

Only that I'm on the team as well.

Okay.

Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry.

I do have another question, but I will say we're going to be all really disappointed if McDistrict, you know, McDistrict face or whatever is not one of the options. Noted. I guess maybe this one's more for Greg. So one of the things we heard from you, Jen, is that there is a very real first mover issue with the district. How does that, how to sort of make the leading candidates for taking that first move and what we know about them and maybe the type of projects they might have. I don't know how to think about this, but how do people who do this work think about this when they know that there is sort of a first mover question?

There's a couple ways to answer that. One is from the developer side, and I will let them speak for that. I can tell you what we heard loud and clear, and that was across the developers we talked to the name doesn't matter to them. They're very set on that perspective in that they look at all the other things, feasibility studies, capital funding, zoning laws, all of those things, the attractiveness of the neighborhood, future potential, all those things. And so we asked every single one, it was a little discouraging actually, how they rank and name for the district. And they said, it isn't that important. Interestingly, however, though, when I pressed them on that, If you were looking for capital funding and you were able to say to a funding source, we're looking at this multifamily development at Capitol Hill in Seattle, is that a shortcut for them? And they said, oh yeah, if we could just refer to it as Capitol Hill, then that says a bunch. First mover, not as important, but as it begins to build out, even in the early stages, that name takes on a life and people start to be able to refer to it that way, which builds a story in their mind around it. So it can be very helpful. First mover, not so much. As a developer, second, third, fourth, then it becomes more and more important. And once it's in usage, then it's very important.

Well, it's interesting because I think I can appreciate that because I've lived here long enough to remember when going and get funding for a project in Totem Lake would have had a very different sort of initial reaction than 2026. So I think we can appreciate that. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Paschal?

Yeah, thank you. Also, thank you for the good work you're doing for the police department. I've been impressed by the marketing and branding that I have seen.

Thank you.

So I didn't realize it was the same firm, so that's great. And thank you for reducing your number of slides. I'm a big proponent of that. You actually answered one of my questions. One of my questions was, I think, addressing the comment letter that we got today from the Commercial Real Estate Development Association, which is, I think, the new name for NAOP, or... you know, they're related to NAOP somehow. And they raised similar concerns to what you just said about, you know, the branding and the name is less important than some of the regulations to promote development and investment in that area. So I think what you said made a lot of sense. But one of the things that they raised, and I'd like to get your comment on this, Kirkland in general has a really strong brand and is well known just in the city itself as being a great place to live and work. And that by itself is often enough to kind of attract investment and stuff. So how would this branding or marketing kind of elevate us even more, I guess, is the question.

Sure, no, that's a good question. Yeah, we did hear from all the developers that the Kirkland address is a real draw in itself and very attractive. I think what it does is it just gives them a shorthand to explain to the audiences they're talking to, whether it's funding sources or potential residents or any of those various audiences they speak to. It takes on typically... I mean, it's not a great, good example, but nobody knew what Google meant. Everybody has sort of their own version of that. It took on a life of its own, right, to Google something. So that's your best hope for a district name, is that people sort of have their own thoughts and feelings about what that represents. And so the developers can lean into that. It will always be Kirkland's X district. Kirkland, whatever that name is, it'll always be attached to Kirkland. It's always in the context of Kirkland. And I think the developers recognize that and appreciated that that could grow into something that they could both respond to with their developments and use in future promotions for that development.

Great. Yeah, thank you for this. I mean, I guess my own perspective on it is that I find the marketing branding, that's something that doesn't come easily to me personally. And I look to the experts to kind of take that on and provide the recommendations and the less that we can debate names and branding and marketing at the council level. To me, that's a good thing.

Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Prim?

Yeah, thank you so much for this presentation. It's been fascinating. Just one question I had, which was around the qualities of a good name, and you describe various dimensions, like it being meaningful, distinctive, future-oriented, etc., So is there like a weighing mechanism, like you weigh certain aspects higher than others when you're coming up with a name, or is it kind of equivalent across the board when you're thinking of these various factors?

Good question. They all factor in. It's a little bit like a stereo equalizer. Once we sort of identify all the things that the research has taught us and we start to identify those territories we're going to look at, you turn some up and turn some down. So there's not one pat answer. Also, those qualities factor into the naming criteria that will be developed. These are the most important ways to judge the potential names for the district. And we can look at those and say, yeah, this is very distinctive. It's super modular. Those are really important. But there's not a right answer under those qualities. It just depends on all the different factors that go into it.

Got it. All right. Thank you. Anyone else? All right. Thank you, everyone. Oh, Council Member Tim Chisholm.

Hi. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. You know, I think you're right that the potential developers are not super focused on what the name is. And I am going to ask that staff provide you with a copy of the letter that we received from developers today, if you haven't received that. But my understanding is that we have $200,000 in order to promote the station area or catalyze the station area. And I'd like to see a significant amount of that money spent on the substantive concerns of the developers with regard to the inclusionary requirements and other pragmatic business requirements as opposed to marketing. I think the marketing, you know, if it's done prematurely when this location in our city is not investable, that we are... spending money that will not produce the desired result. So I'd like to know what portion of this $200,000, you know, what the breakdown is and the plan for that $200,000 is. That's more of a question to staff, but are we spending any of this money on the more substantive concerns that were included in the letter from developers that we received today? Thank you. That's a question, if anybody wants to take it.

Yeah, we can get to that. I think Jen tried to highlight that at the beginning, that this is just one of the many things that we're doing, including things like the actions we took on parking and other things. So we recognize this is just one small piece, and obviously there's a lot of things we want to still do here in the station area.

Thank you.

Deputy Mayor?

Oh, well, that's probably thank you, Madam Mayor. That's probably sufficient. I just if we're going to share out the letter we received today, it's also to people, to folks who don't have the full context. I mean, there are aspects of that communication that just misunderstand the work we've done in the station area. So. Doesn't appreciate that we have a pioneer provision for inclusionary zoning. It doesn't understand that we don't have a first floor retail requirement, that we have form-based code. So just making sure that the full picture is presented, not just the communication. Thanks.

Anyone else? All right, back to Watson Creative. Thank you for your presentation. The council is excited to see what comes next. So good luck to you. I know this is a fun, creative, messy process and enjoy. We look forward to it. So thanks so much.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

All right, we are gonna move on to our next study session item, which is the urban forest management plan update briefing number two.

Okay, so thank you, Madam Mayor, as we're switching out. This is your second big check-in on our urban forest management plan update, and our environmental program coordinator, Anna Heckman, is gonna make the presentation. She's joined by our planning and building director, Adam Weinstein, and our planning and building deputy director, Alison Zyke.

Council.

I'll turn the mic on so you can hear me. Thanks for having me again. Thanks for having us back again. I'm acknowledging that we sent you another five credit class on trees. Thank you for reading it and hopefully it helped with what you'll be providing us as far as your comments. So today we have about 25 slides. Most of them are with regards to the vision statement and goals, but we want to go through a couple A couple things we found in addition to what was provided in your memo. community tree survey. We've done a lot more data analysis on that. The canopy cover has been a big topic of conversation and tree permits and the public tree inventory. And we will be asking, we only have one vision statement to discuss and get comments on, but we do have four guiding principles and most importantly to me, five draft 20 year goals. And that's really what we're looking for, comment from you tonight. So as we go through this, if you have any questions that you would like us to follow up on with research, please don't hesitate to ask. And then, yeah, going over the vision statement. So the community tree survey. We provided you some comments and summarization. We went through the open-ended comment areas. We had three questions where people could provide other options or open-ended. And a lot of those comments when we went through them and categorized them, really follow a lot of the multiple choice stuff we had. Higher canopy cover was identified by many people as a priority. We had a lot of concerns expressed on how canopies even possible as we start to increase density here and I'll address some of those. We had a lot of comments desire to increase staff and most importantly staff resources for private property assistance. There was a 50-50 split almost exactly 50-50 between people who don't want us impacting their private property and people who do not want trees removed at all ever that it's a community resource. Separately, there were a lot of opinions on development and acknowledging that our development standards are different than our private property standards. And we have that there for a reason. Every property has been developed at one point or another, whether it was 1960, 90, 2000, or last week. Every single time we develop on a property, trees do get impacted. We're trying our best to retain as many as we can, but that time, we're talking time and space, that time between when a property develops and when it develops again in the future is what we're looking at as that private property tree canopy retention opportunity. So that will change over time. And then, yeah, lastly, there were a lot of recommendations provided. We mentioned some of those in the comment section of the packet, and we'll be implementing a lot of those already into our urban forest management plan. You all are very aware that we received something from the Fenhill Neighborhood Alliance today, as well as Master Builders. All of their comments, valid. Many of them will be implemented in the future when we start looking at action items, not necessarily related to the goals of this overarching urban forest management plan. So we're gonna transition to canopy cover. We talk 40% a lot. 40% is a magic number. It doesn't come from nowhere. There is research behind it for the benefits it provides. We looked at the neighborhood scale and level, and a lot of this data was provided in your packet. We know that all our neighborhoods are dominated by private property. We also know that the acreage in Finn Hill and Juanita dominates the whole city. And so the high canopy cover we have in Finn Hill and Holmes Point really pushes and drives our canopy cover for the whole city. So if those decrease, that is almost an exponential decrease compared to, say, Moss Bay. Moss Bay could be 100% canopy cover, and it probably won't make a difference with regards to the whole city canopy. However, it does make a difference to the people that live in the Moss Bay community. So yeah, canopy cover is necessary on private property if we want to maintain 40%. And we also know that canopy cover is decreasing in many neighborhoods, and I provided a graph for you there. This graph I brought back because of a couple questions that were brought up about canopy cover and measurements and the variability in it. How do we even know we have 40%? canopy cover is a highly variable measurement. Just the overhead visualization of the trees from one year to another, there can be a 3% difference, even if we did everything accurately. Ask any GIS expert, they'll give you the same thing. And so when we talked about a 1% drop across the whole city, that was the data that was provided to us by the consultant that we hired. It's not bad data, it's good data. We bought a tree canopy cover layer, the same layer that was used to create that 40% canopy cover. And when we look at different things, we get a little bit different perspective. We can look at things at a much tighter scale. We provided this. I thought this was really interesting because it does still show trends in canopy from one neighborhood to another. And you can reference that in the packet. So here's a good example of some change that we saw from 2017 to 2023. If you remember the Life Bridge project, it is complete now. This is what it looked like before the road went through, what is that, 118th? And forest was pulled back. We have the pedestrian bridge at Totem Lake. And we have some parking lots, one of them being up at the Village Green. There's an example of the entryway there. And when you look at the canopy cover at that scale, where the gray is canopy that hasn't changed, the orange, the brighter color, is canopy that's been lost between 2017 and 2023, and the blue is canopy that's been gained. You can see in the parking lots especially, those new trees are starting to grow. And you can see in the parking lot of the police department, we have actually some orange in there. And this tree isn't from there, that's actually from the village center, but we have areas where trees die back. Tree's not gone, it wasn't removed, but it's not healthy anymore. Here's another example for you of things we were looking at. This is a neighborhood up in North Juanita. You can see the cul-de-sacs on the street. You can see tree canopy overhanging the right-of-way. That's a really important thing that we wanna promote more of. And then you can also see in the backyards of these homes, these groves of trees. And these groves of trees are really important, functioning together. And you can see how those groves of trees have actually grown over time. And there are cities in the US that have actually shown tree canopy increases. without really having a planting program just because these mature trees continue to grow. I'm sure many of you guys have maples in your backyard and in the springtime you wake up one day and they have grown four feet and you find yourself spending your whole weekend managing that. Happens to a lot of us.

Do you mind if we interrupt? Yes, go ahead. Because this is one that I've been trying to formulate in my mind. Excuse me. Our replanting requirements are two-inch caliper. Yes. And the reason we do that is because they have a stronger opportunity to establish when they're younger. So at one point, and all trees grow at different rates, at what point does an average, does a two-inch caliper start showing up as canopy cover?

That's a great question. And I can go back here to this picture of the parking lots. The overhead canopy cover analysis looks at vegetation over 10 feet high. And so in theory, a healthy two-inch caliper tree, it usually takes about three years till it starts establishing and growing. But at about 10 feet, it'll start registering. Okay. Yeah.

That's super helpful. Because obviously, as we develop, we have younger trees that we aren't registering on our... Right.

exactly and case in point here with like the village uh development there uh i would love to see that canopy over the roads and the right-of-ways continue to increase and cover the whole street and based on the photos it looks like it's on its way there yeah that would be an ideal for many streets So there were a lot of questions about can we even get 40% canopy cover and this is an example of one of the research papers that recently came out. This is in San Francisco and it shows density, block level density of people per kilometer squared and Kirkland's at like what, 2,000, 2,500 people per kilometer squared. Double that approximately for square mile. And so when you look at this, this shows the average in San Francisco drops down to 20%, but all those orange dots in that upper corner, I forgot I have a mouse here, all of these dots above this average line are all areas, are all blocks that have much higher canopy. And so this line right here is about where Kirkland is at. I was trying to be conservative, we're a lot lower. There is a lot of potential for us to reach 40% canopy cover in a lot of our neighborhoods. And there's examples provided here of good canopy cover and then what happens when we don't promote it. So it's possible. Tacoma had a study of development and canopy cover done by, I believe it was Mithun, fairly recently, and that's one that I can find and share as well. And then lastly, about canopy cover, it's not just about how much you have, but how we distribute it, because as you can see in these photos, this was a recent LinkedIn opportunity, You can see that where your canopy's at, some people are gonna benefit from it, some people aren't. And it's not just the number of trees, it's the amount of canopy. With that, with the canopy cover, does anyone have other canopy cover related questions before we continue moving on?

I think you should say canopy cover as fast and as frequently as possible. Canopy cover? Anybody?

All right, no, we'll go through real quick here. The public tree inventory, as everyone's aware, we had this done in the spring, The inventory was consolidated for the whole city, and so we pulled it apart to right-of-ways, parks, and looked at species size health. I want to note that our natural areas and forest trees were not measured as a part of this, the public trees, and so when we talk about things like benefits that our public tree's providing, we're missing a big section of our public tree inventory, and that's something we can look at in the future. New graph, but park trees we have, oh gosh, we have like 8,000 I think in this inventory. And so you can see the top of this graph is 3,000 and then the public work trees we have like 36,000 or something to that effect, 18,000. So even though we have these bars look similar, they represent a very large or very different amount of trees total. And if you look at the size, this is less than six inches, so these aren't significant, or regulated, I apologize. They're not regulated trees at this point in time. And as we grow up, these last two bars are landmark trees. And if you look, these darker bars on top are healthy trees, and the brighter bars at the bottom are dead and or nearly dead trees. Fortunately, most of them are small, therefore low hazard potential. But that's still a lot. You look at Public Works, and they've got over 1,000 trees that are on the docket to be replaced or something similar if we want to maintain growth of those trees. Some good examples, this is a small tree. It will never get large because the species is a dogwood. It's being pruned on its own by every car that drives and parks right next to it, so that's great. It's not a maintenance issue. And it's healthy, but as far as the canopy and the benefits it'll provide, not a lot compared to the ones behind it. Here's a great example of a tree that was planted potentially poorly over 20 years ago. This is a larger tree. This is over 12 inches diameter, and it had been backed into way back in its early days, and just one day out of the blue, it gave up. And so something the Parks Department had to remove, replant, and they're doing a great job of replanting and protecting the trees now as we learn how to do it. And then another one, this is right outside our door where it was planted very well, although the shallow soils and potential low irrigation, especially on a hot day, this one is slowly dying back piece by piece. These are things that I hope every one of you sees as you drive the rest of this week, not necessarily for the poor condition, but start recognizing that our trees are, they vary. Then tree species diversity. When you look at how many species were reported, 200 tree species for the right-of-ways, that sounds amazing. That's richness, that's not diversity. Diversity is how spread out your trees are along those different species. When we look say at parks, those 8,000 trees, half of them are defined by only six different species. So diversity is low in our city, even our right-of-way trees. We have nine species that consist of 16,000 trees, so a lot of flowering cherries. This was also commented on by some of our public comments. They noticed, you know, hey, more diversity would be great. Okay. And that impacts the benefits of the urban trees so that diversity that size where they're located can help is a great example of shade and Our downtown area and for those of you that were around when the lightning Was going on just a week ago great example of tree canopy keeping runoff from going down the street Any questions on that? All right, these next two are easy. Private property tree permits. We have a lot of limitations to this data analysis. I know we had a lot of questions asked, but getting the answers is difficult. It runs from a lot of people, even historically, we don't know who actually applied for permits versus how many trees are coming down. It's hard to see who hasn't done that. Database entry, training new staff to enter things in consistently. And then changing in the change of the code. So with that change of the code, we had a change in our database. So we do have some things we can talk about over a 10 year period, but a lot of the stuff we have is only four years or so. what we can say is that we did have a spike in the covid era of tree permits tree removals um and then a big drop and now we're kind of reaching back to those same levels that were pre-covered no trends increasing or decreasing other than that but we are losing we have about 500 permits these are private property tree removal permits not development and that's equivalent to about a thousand trees that are being removed a year not necessarily because they're a hazard or dead disease and dying, just people who want to remove a tree on their property. And then another one that's interesting is that with the last five years after our code was adjusted, we started documenting people applying for permits within that five year maintenance period after development. And there's no trend yet, but we did notice like in 2023, we had 28 permits from people who wanted to remove trees, whether they were dying or whether it's a new homeowner that doesn't want the tree. In some cases those are denied. And yeah, 17 just here in 2025, and those are based off of development. And then the other thing we want to address, we don't have a lot of data for it, but there's a lot of industry data, is our city urban forestry program. This is the people not just managing and planning the urban forest, but the people who are on the ground taking care of these trees. Proactive management example on Juanita Drive. Many of you might remember a few years ago when we did a lot of work there. We closed the road off and they did some proactive pruning. Nobody notices how good that pruning is or comes in and says, hey, great job, you guys. We noticed you haven't been back in three years. But they do notice this kind of stuff every time there's a failure, especially when there's a great-looking tree right next to it. And so it's just something to acknowledge that we have proactive and reactive management that we do, and our staff that are on the ground are the ones, and their knowledge is amazing. They know what's out there, and they know how much work they have to do. So that's about all I have on the research. Last comment is that trees are part of green infrastructure. They're just one tool in the toolkit when it comes to community resilience to climate. But they are a tool that when it's planned for, when they're thought of as an asset rather than an amenity or a resource, they can actually grow in value over time and often when well designed. they can outlast the infrastructure around them, which is one reason why we have tree removals with development and tree protection with development is because these assets can be great for us. So that's all I have. Does anyone else have research-related questions?

So you're going to move into the vision statement and so forth. So I have a question back to biodiversity. Because you look in particular at the parks, and it's what, almost 50% are Doug firs. And we know that we are seeing a lot of failure with Doug firs because of climate change, bomb cyclones. What are your thoughts around that? I assume you're thinking ultimately we're going to have some sort of action around our large trees?

Yeah, that kind of jumps into being climate ready. And I had a whole other set of probably 100 slides about that. I pulled it out.

Just you and... We can do it together.

No, no, no, we can, we can. We'll go grab coffee. But yeah, doug fir is one of the trees that, when it comes to being climate ready, the trees that we have will survive the incidences, hot weather, dry weather. but they as we increase in temperature and decrease um you know decrease our freezing and cold times they'll stop reproducing and that's why they're not considered a climate ready species which means in the urban environment we'll need to plant more um There's a lot of trees that we have that are like that, that might do just fine. They might do fine if we add water. There's a lot of different reasons. And yeah, we can talk about that more. But it is, even just in the park landscapes, those are landscape trees. And on the right-of-way, those are often the trees, if you think driving over Finn Hill, those are the trees on the right-of-way that are back of pavement. There's a lot of them, yeah.

And then the cottonwoods are the ones that are failing. You know I love them.

The black cottonwoods, a cousin to them, are the ones that were over at the ball field there. Not quite the black cottonwoods, but yeah, black cottonwoods. Right tree, right place is the concept, I would say. Those are trees that have valuable wildlife habitat. They are great in wetlands. They are not so great over a playground or... a new ADU development.

And Marsh Park.

Exactly, exactly. But they are wonderful trees in the right place.

Thank you. Deputy Mayor?

Well, thank you. First off, I wanted to say I really appreciate both your depth of knowledge and your breadth of knowledge, including the breadth of knowledge of all the different things that are going on within the city, whether it's parks, planning, public works, and that was a really good presentation, so thank you. I do have a question that kind of gets into that, maybe that breadth. What I want to explore is just, At a really rough estimate level, what kind of replanting is happening right now in the city of Kirkland? If you could talk about, generally speaking, on the aggregate, when parks are having to take out a tree, what's generally the ratio that parks is using as far as replanting? How's that different from public works? I don't think we have anybody from public works, so somebody is gonna have to speak on behalf of public works. And then kind of the same for, I guess, private, and that's where I'd look to maybe Adam or Ali to kind of give us an idea. Just remind us, what kind of replanting ratios are we generally seeing in our city when it comes to these different categories of tree removals?

Yeah, I feel confident in answering that. And if I misspeak, I know I've got help here. When it comes to parks and public works, and when I say public works, we have multiple departments. So we have the Surface Water Management Program. They provide funding for private property owners to purchase and plant trees. That comes out of the city forestry account. I looked at that compared to what was being removed as far as dead, diseased and dying trees because in our permit process there are no replanting requirements if someone has a tree that failed or died on their property. We do require on standard private property a one-to-one replacement unless of course it's in a critical area which it's a three-to-one replacement there. So those are the replanting requirements. We're in the process of looking again at how successful that has been. We had an intern a number of years back take a look at what was happening and there's a report about that and then we're gonna look at these next five years just to see. We have more assistance now so we can make that happen. When it comes to parks, I know that they try to replant at a three to one ratio. Parks has done a great job of prioritizing where they want to plant species. You can look on the tree inventory and see where they have their future planting designs. And Public Works is doing, I know that they are trying to do one to one. We have the CIP group as well. They're the ones that I know seem to get a lot of heat because they're involved in development-related tree removals. And in a lot of cases with that development, especially in the right of way, we're removing space for trees to be replanted. And so I know that they have recently had a lot of outreach with paying into the city forestry account, knowing that that money will be provided to other areas of the city to plant trees. um there are some things we can do about that to help different neighborhoods feel better about the development that goes in their area but that's after the urban forest management plan set up i do also know that with both our right-of-way tree planting and our parks tree planting they're not getting as much done a year as they would like to. They just don't have the staff. They could put a million trees in the ground, but if they can only water 10 of them in the summertime, the rest of it's a waste. And so they are very, both groups are very good about knowing what we put in the ground, we need to have a three-year plan for it, and we have to be able to staff that. And so that's another thing that we ran a experiment with three years of a seasonal staff to go out and water trees, and they're looking at survival rates, and we're at the end of the third year, and they're gonna look at the survival rates of what they were able to plant.

But if you asked either of them directly they would say we need more staff so that we can plant more trees and hands down Well, I can't second-guess the thoughtfulness that's going into that yeah, I can't I can't magically create the resources necessary to do it all but I do appreciate that The that there is generally a multiple when it comes to replanting And then I think the mayor's point earlier is well taken that, you know, we have to, we have to give it time. Um, and we're going to see the benefits of this and, you know, to the extent we're thinking like, what is the timetable? Um, you know, part of that is a lag, whatever associated with the speed at which a tree grows. So, um, okay. I appreciate that. Thank you for helping me.

Yeah. Um, councilman Arnold.

Just to follow up on the Deputy Mayor's comments, if we are staff constrained on the ability to plant and maintain a tree to the point it's self-sufficient, when we have a fee-in-lieu program, are we setting the fees so that it's covering that three-year fee? planting and maintenance costs to get the tree established?

That is a great question. Would you like my personal opinion? I think that the fee-in-lieu program for trees will be assessed after the urban forest management plan is completed. There are other cities that have very different fees-in-lieus for tree replanting and tree removals. But what works for Kirkland, we'll make sure works for us.

It's like a potential task list. It is. Something for the task list within the urban forage management.

That's exactly. And if it fits under one of our goals, it'll be perfect. But yeah, maintenance is often more expensive than installation. As many know, three years of maintenance can be a lot. Go ahead. all right so i'm not going to grace you with my voice reading all of this but we have the vision statement i know everyone has read it we highlighted a few of the key words that came out of different areas that we wanted to make sure we incorporated vital green infrastructure, shared stewardship of trees, resilience, community resilience, not necessarily the urban forest resilience. Those are two different things. Biodiversity and health and well-being. I would love to hear your thoughts and any comments and changes, proposed changes. Oh, and we don't have to have this perfect by the end of the day. We will come back with edits and updates. We're not going to be, you know, the urban forest management plan will be going another six months, so there's a lot of opportunity.

Council Member Falco? Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, thank you for this. I think this is really solid and I do have some thoughts as well. So I'm glad it's just in draft form. So thank you for bringing it to us to be able to provide this input. I really like that you talk about sustainability in here and resiliency to climate change. I think that's really crucial. Another aspect of that that we talk about a lot is really the intersection between housing and trees and sustainability and combatting climate change. And I think it's really important that, you know, I know we have a lot of different plans, right? As all cities do, right? But that they're not all individually siloed, right? We know that like tree policy has a lot to do with housing policy and as was referenced in the FinHill Neighborhood Alliance email that we got that these conversations are often had hand in hand with one another, right? So I think it's really important at like the highest level of the guiding language in this plan for us to be crystal clear about our values and our values around housing and that we understand the balance that needs to be struck between protecting tree canopy and making sure that we have sufficient housing for our city. And then perhaps later else in the document is where we really delve into more some of the details around that. We all know that, you know, that things such as trees can often be used as an excuse to not build more housing and more affordable housing. And I think it's really important that we talk about the impact on climate change of having folks live far away from where they work and all those miles on the highway and how bad that is for the environment. And that in the same breath, we also think and talk about the bigger picture right we're just talking about kirkland tonight because that's our jurisdiction but we don't live in a bubble right so we you know acknowledge like the growth management act and protecting our state's forestry and how the impact yes absolutely it's important for the everyday quality of life for our residents and community members to have a healthy urban forest and at the same time not at the expense of having housing close to people's jobs. And so I don't expect all of those thoughts in the vision statement, but at least acknowledging, some language acknowledging the balance of housing needs as well. We could at some point reference our housing chapter of our comprehensive plan perhaps. But I would like us eventually then to get into some more of those details and nuances later in the plan as well. Not going into too much detail about housing, but again, I don't want this to be used in a siloed environment and for folks to not fully understand the impact that it has on our decisions related to housing as well. So that's a really important point that I want to make sure is part of our urban forestry plan. Thank you.

Okay.

Anyone else? I was listening to Council Member Falcone and agreeing with her, but I was like, please don't try to fit that all in. That was more later down. I know. So it's something about supporting our... Our housing goals. Our housing goals. Yeah. Okay. Something really simple.

Okay. All right.

Any other thoughts? Okay. I loved it. So... Thank you. And you know, that's a big deal.

I have to say, no, I know. And it's not just me. I mean, we have a whole team of people that hold every word out of every document. How about the draft guiding principles? These were pulled from the comprehensive plan, from the sustainability plan, from a lot of our other research. The four main, we even looked at council goals. Ecological resilience, that incorporates our native areas, our critical areas. Livable communities, that is part of the as we do develop and increase in our density that we create these livable communities where walking to work is a pleasurable experience. Um, economic sustainability, transparency and efficiency. Um, I know that there is work to do on this one, but this had a lot to do with balancing, um, you know, community projects that balancing that public investment that short term gains versus long term. opportunities. And then transparency in there, communicating, you know, that we're communicating what we're doing and why. And then, of course, the research, science, technology, and innovation. I love the fact that Kirkland pushes this all the time, and it's a big deal, especially in urban forestry, which is a growing science. And what we were doing even 10 years ago isn't anything close to what we're doing today. Any comments? Yeah.

Thank you. My comments on the principles echo what Council Member Falcone had said about integrating with our housing goals. Totally support everything she said about that. When I was thinking about my feedback, it was more about how we do it and how we incorporate those into the principles. And there's a couple of things that I see missing from the principles or could be stated more explicitly. First, it's very important that this plan integrate with the comprehensive plan in our housing goals and not be a silo as Council Member Falcone has said. We have other language and things like the transportation strategic plan that says it's gotta integrate with land use and I'd like to see something explicitly there. The second principle that I think is important is that for our different types of land use, there's different things that can happen with the urban tree canopy. And what I'd like to be able to see is for every level of intensity of development, we have a plan for what we're going to be doing regarding trees. Here's what we're gonna be doing in our regional centers, our most intense development. Here's what we're gonna be doing in our neighborhood centers. And then here's what we're gonna be doing in other areas for Here's what we're to do in the areas that may have steep slopes or other critical areas and that's how they so having kind of a Principle that says every type and intensity of development has something to contribute to our tree canopy. You have some examples in those pictures to say, wow, the street trees around Juanita Beach Park are amazing. It's taken, you know, the decades it's taken to do that. But how do we build within our urban centers the policies that that will get there. When I was looking through the neighborhood by neighborhood analysis, I kept struggling with that because I kept going, okay, for this neighborhood, what's the land use that's happening? What I'm really looking for is saying, here's what we're wanting to do around a neighborhood center and to be able to say, okay, it's street trees. For example, you had a couple of comments in there that street trees could be Well, I'd like to understand that because we'd like to be able to understand the trade-offs and make the investments to say, here's the sidewalk, I forget the name of it, the sidewalk cell technology to say, okay, here's how we have the planting requirements so that we're doing the right things in this very urban environment to create what we have. And so that's what I'm looking for as additions and clarifications of the guiding principles.

Okay.

Council Member Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, thank you to, sorry, I'm still saying that. Thank you, Council Member Arnold as well. I appreciate your comments. Yes, I agree with, like when I said trickling down into guiding principles and then into goals, et cetera, with the housing, so thank you for that. And then with his comments about the different types of land use throughout our city, I had two specific things about that that I was gonna wait till later, but I'll raise them now just since we're talking about that. The first is, I know I've said this before when we were talking about our Vision Zero plans multiple times and our transportation strategic plans, that parking lots are an issue for safety in our city, both private and public parking lots, and we have work to do there. And we do know that some of the best practices to make parking lots safer are having planting strips with trees and other vegetation. And so I would love to incorporate that as a goal in here, that we can not only in city property, but have some sort of incentives or some sort of plan with private parking Property owners as well if they're repaving maybe they could restripe it and you know put in some planters with additional trees Which would help you know sustainability goals or urban tree canopy goals as well as our vision zero goals So I'd like for us to think through how we can duplicate you not not duplicate efforts But help check multiple boxes for the needs in our city with with that and mentioning it here can help let's document it and make it happen, right? Which would be a good thing, which would make all of us happy to keep our parking lots safer for folks walking to and from our shops and their cars as well. The second is also not gonna be a surprise that I'm gonna bring up the Holmes Point overlay that I bring up pretty much any time we're talking about trees. You know, I do hear a lot from residents of the Holmes Point area about tree, we hear about trees and housing, right, in there. kind of the stricter requirements that they have there. Obviously, we love the trees. We saw the 50% tree canopy in the Finn Hill neighborhood. I'm a Finn Hill resident, so I really enjoy that quality of life and also understand that sometimes there are trees that really create a financial burden or a quality of life burden on homeowners in the Holmes Point area, and they feel like they have very few options. And anyway, so I'm raising that because we've always said that we were going to come back to the Holmes Point overlay. I remember being on the Finn Hill Neighborhood Alliance Board and when we brought forth our neighborhood plan and asked the city to look at the Holmes Point overlay, the response was, let's look at citywide first, right? And then we looked at citywide. And then when we came back, you know, and I was then on council when we had the final year or two of discussion on the on the tree ordinance, and I brought up then, okay, well, what about Holmes Point Overlay? And I think a couple other times, and so this feels like the moment that I feel like we can finally have that in a document, in a plan, that we're gonna look, have a goal to reexamine the Holmes Point Overlay. So I would love when we, come back in the next briefing to know more about what the plans would be for that. What would that look like in this plan? What would the timeline potentially be for that? What are we going to be looking at? It would be great to be able to respond to residents in Holmes Point saying, you know, hey, we're going to look at it next year or in 2020 or whenever like the plan is. I think it's time for us to finally follow through on that promise and actually have that conversation and take a look at it. So thank you so much.

Your home's point is my green roofs. Yes. I just, anybody else have a comment? I just want to plus one what Council Member Arnold said. I think the neighborhood data is interesting, but I really appreciate him bringing up let's look at the intensity of the development and be more specific about the goals around that. So I thought that was well done. Thank you, Council Member Arnold. All right, go ahead. Oh, Council Member Paschal.

Just a couple things came up listening to my colleagues talk. One, and I think you're gonna get into the goals here, but I mean, one of my overarching principles is the health of our urban forests. That's the ultimate goal, is to promote the health of the forest, and I know you'll talk about that, but we tend to kind of focus on the 40% canopy a lot, but if the 40% canopy is made up of a portion of unhealthy type of forests, then how good is that goal, right? So I know that they're all interrelated. So that's something I'm looking for. And just to kind of tag on to my colleagues' comments about the Holmes Point overlay, I don't know that it was a promise that we would deal with it. Maybe it felt like it, but I don't recall it being a promise. I just, I recall it being you know, a topic of discussion that we come back to. I don't, I feel like that belongs in the planning kind of realm and maybe not in urban forest, but I understand how it's all kind of interrelated. But that's my only comment is like, I'm still scarred by the whole tree regulations and like have anxiety when we talk about tree regulations. And so like to even contemplate some of that is, yeah. Yeah. It's tough to think about, but I know we have to tackle these things.

Thank you. Go ahead.

Mayor, could I respond to that? Thank you. Yeah, thanks, Council Member Pascoe and Council Member Falcone. Just a couple of comments about the Holmes Point overlay. I know, yeah, both of you have been involved in conversations about how those regulations might change to promote more housing. So a couple of things. One is that we visited council a couple of years ago. Katie Hogan was still here and we talked to you about sort of the differences between the tree code and the homes point overlay. And I think what we ultimately concluded was that From a tree perspective, there aren't a lot of differences between the two sets of codes. So really what we're left with in the Holmes Point overlay are two main elements. One is increased lot coverage requirements in the Holmes Point overlay compared to the rest of the city. And then the other thing is a protected natural area requirement. That's where 25% of the lot has to be set aside as a natural area, basically with native vegetation. So I think what ultimately happened was that we ended up removing the Holmes Point overlay project from the planning work program, so it's not actually in the planning work program anymore, which doesn't necessarily mean that we shouldn't revisit it, but per Council Member Paschal's comment, it might be something that makes sense to revisit as part of either a separate project, if Council desires a separate project, or there are projects like the consolidation of residential zones, right? Because, again, there's not a ton that's left in the homes point overlay that makes it really different from other zoning districts other than that P&A requirement and the lot coverage requirement. We already have shoreline requirements as well in the homes point overlay. So we might, when we revisit the homes point overlay, we might want to think about it in terms of the comments that we heard earlier from council about how do we accommodate more housing in these areas? Do we really need a whole new set of zoning regulations for the homes point overlay? There might be other ways to achieve the environmental protections that are the sort of the goals of the HBO. But just want to make clear that it is not currently on the planning work program. So we either need to create it as a new project in the planning work program or incorporate it into another sort of logical project.

Thank you for that. Just a clarifying question related to that. I've heard from some Holmes Point residents that they don't have the same ability to remove two trees per year, to apply for a permit to remove two trees per year, that the response from city staff is that they're not allowed to do so since they live in the homes point overlay section. That's the specific issue that I hear most about, I would say. So are you saying that's not true? Are they able to have the same property rights to be able to remove two trees per year and get a permit for that?

Yeah, I invite Anna and Ali to jump in, but to my knowledge, that basic tree allowance removal applies to the Holmes Point overlay. What people might be talking about is removing trees in the P&A, the protected natural area, which is more restrictive. But in regards to the rest of the property outside of the P&A, the protected natural area, there are similar allowances as in the rest of the city for removing trees.

Okay, perhaps we could talk more offline just about specific situations. Is that right?

I would agree that that's right. And one of the potential solutions might be greater education on what these P&As are. And so that would be something that maybe we could put in as adding to the website or something like that.

Yeah, I think there may also be education of some of our contractors that work in the city, some of our arborists as well, because they also are having a typical time finding anyone even willing to submit a permit application because they may have outdated information, so thank you.

All right, anyone else? Go ahead.

All right, here we go. So the draft goals, again, these are drafts. We have five of them. These are 20-year goals, and with these, the pattern is gonna be the same in the Urban Forest Management Plan as why is this goal important? What is Kirkland's status? How does Kirkland fit into that? And then what can we do to close that gap? What can we do to reach the goals? Today we're only gonna be looking at why did we decide this goal was important? And we can adapt that based on opinions, research, anything that comes up. And we'll come back to you in the future. But one thing to think about is all of these action items that we're thinking about, you know, looking at canopy or creating incentives or regulations for different areas of the city. If they can fit under one of these goals, we're set. But if you're thinking of something that we would wanna do and it doesn't seem to fit under one of these goals, then we wanna kind of reassess how to work that out. So goal number one, the easiest one, 40% canopy cover. To answer the question of whether this is even possible, we had done some look at different zoning areas and messed with the numbers, and that is where we found out that we do need to maintain 40% canopy on private property, those lower density private properties in neighborhoods in order to maintain 40%, but there are ways to do that. And again, it's that canopy change over time. And so again, these goals are 20 years, but we're located in a forested region. We're not Las Vegas. We're not in the middle of the prairies. Our natural areas are 100% canopy cover, and that helps us with this 40% goal. That would be different if we were somewhere else in the world. Benefits from tree canopies, these benefits increase exponentially between 30 and 40%. A lot of our research is between that area. And we're lower density than a lot of these other communities that are looking at lower goals. And so even though we're increasing in density, we are still lower density than a lot of other big cities. We know that large areas of over 40% canopy cover have benefits that expand well beyond. If you have a 40% canopy cover, a block in size, you have a whole football field around you that is gaining from that cooling impact. There's a lot of research to that, so that goes into play. And then... We don't have to have it everywhere in the city. We can't expect to have canopy cover in these higher density areas of the city, but we can do the best we can and put it where it's meaningful. And so those are some of the reasons of why this is important. And I would send it over to you.

Thank you. I have Council Member Prim, then Council Member Arnold.

Yeah, I just had a general comment on all the goals at a high level. I actually really like goal number one because it's identifiable, measurable. And so I think for all the goals, I mean, I would love to see kind of a more specific measurable outcome tied to each goal so that we know, like, that is the plan um so i like for example for goal two you could include targets for increasing like tree canopies or tree survival rates like some numerical um objective that we could try to reach so i don't know if you had any thoughts on that um i don't know if that's um something that you were considering or it

That is, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. It is, and it's at the goal, at the 20-year goal level, we didn't have defined metrics, but when we put together objectives to meet these goals, those will have metrics associated with them that in theory, if we met all of them, we would be meeting our goals. And then even more importantly, when we go into the five-year action plans that are specific actions that each group, you know, right-of-way, parks, you know, is committing to getting done in the next five years, that those definitely have very measurable metrics so that we can check, you know, have we done it or have we not.

So are those objectives something that also come back to us?

Yes. So that's what we'll be doing next after the goals are finalized. Yeah.

Thank you.

Council member Arnold.

Thank you. Building on some of my previous comments, I do not support neighborhood level management goals. I think that's the wrong frame to be talking about this. It really needs to be based on land use types and say, like, goals based on development intensity, to be able to say what are we doing in each of those categories. So for that particular item of how we close the gap and some of the other language in here, I really would like to see something change as saying that different development intensities contribute and recognize that versus a neighborhood-specific discussion. You mentioned it in your presentation up to now, we could make changes in every other neighborhood and what matters, because just of neighborhood size, Fenhill and Juanita drive what's happening in the city. So let's figure out what needs to happen around the Finn Hill Neighborhood Center and the Juanita Neighborhood Center and those sort of things to be successful. Same with other levels of development intensity. So I really would like to take a scrub of this to change the conversation to development intensity versus neighborhood.

Okay. You can head nods on that. All right.

Go ahead. Okay, goal two. We want to build and protect a healthy and resilient urban forest as it adapts, recovers and grows through increasing urban development and climatic stresses.

We love it.

All right. Or we're hungry. All right, goal three, maximize the benefits urban forests can provide as an essential community asset and leverage these benefits to pursue the goals of other city strategic plans.

Council Member Arnold.

Couple of nuances on this particular one. I think this is an opportunity really on your previous slide to say, how do we maximize the benefits? What are the areas we wanna focus in having that urban refuge? And what are the areas we wanna have more distributed around the street trees? I wanna be intentional around how we're looking at benefits, and that may be a different type. The other opportunity on benefits that I think we should look at is, if there are areas we want to be thematic. For example, we've gotten some previous ideas where someone said, what if we, I think it was the Chamber that had said, what if we focused cherry tree planting on the Cross Kirkland Corridor to help establish that brand? I think there's some opportunities there to maximize benefits if we put some thought into where we'd want to be deliberate and thematic. in addition to all the things you've talked about, about increasing the diversity of our planting.

All right. Goal four, build public programs to educate and empower community members to participate in diverse urban forestry engagement opportunities and to increase community connectivity and understanding of Kirkland's urban forest.

Love it.

All right. I don't even have to tell you guys why it's important. All right. Goal five. Build programmatic capacity to maintain and grow Kirkland's urban forestry assets in a safe, efficient, and sustainable manner.

Council Member Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just a small note related to Council Member Arnold's previous comment about, you know, you've talked about like the age of trees and the impact on tree canopy. I would love for us to look at what the data that we do have in tree canopy and some of those different land areas throughout the city and like look into the future, right? On like which trees need to be planted now to have the eight, you know, so that they will grow. So when some of the other trees might be dying out that they're able to replace them and, you know, just thinking at looking at things holistically and looking into the future as well and not just the needs right now.

Thank you.

Council Member Paschall.

When I read this goal, I see it really focused on what the Kirkland government can do to maintain and grow the urban forests, and I'm just wondering if it should be broader than just the government. You know, build programmatic capacity internally, but I think that's externally. So that's how I read it. I don't know if that's intentional, and maybe it can be more maybe it can be modified to make it more apparent that it's also, I mean, the expectation is we want our private landowners to maintain and grow the urban forest canopy, well, urban forest assets as well. Or do you think there's another goal that gets at that, I guess?

Yeah, I'll let Allison give her thought, but I think you bring up a great point, and as you were saying it, I was trying to figure out how it might fit into the other goals, and I don't see that, and that is a very important point, because in our vision we talk about together we have to build this, and so I think there are ways we might be able to...

I'm just wondering if you could eliminate the first, like, four words there and just maintain and grow Kirkland's urban forestry assets. So it's not about the capacity of the government. It's about the need to maintain and grow the urban forest overall as a community, as a community.

Yeah, yeah, in partnership. Did you have any comments? Okay.

I just want to say that I agree with Councillor Pascoe, and I was assuming that would go in goal four, which is build public engagement programs to educate and empower community. And I just went the next step, which is also to motivate people to build the forest. So it could fit in four, or we can modify five. What I do like about five is build programmatic capacity, because that's what we need to do. So I worry about losing those words. So did you have something?

Yeah, just that, yeah, I had a very similar thought, like looking at the green under, you know, draft for increasing variety of one-time tree events and other things that go beyond education to actually increasing the tree canopy on private property as well. So I could see it fitting either one.

Yeah, and if we were to do education on how to find and select an arborist, or if we did education for arborists who are working in our community, that would all fall under Goal 4. One of the things about Goal 5 is it's not just about growing and making bigger, but to be efficient. There are a lot of communities across the country that spend a lot more money than we do on urban forestry, and they're not nearly as talented or as efficient as our staff. Well, I think that's it. Yeah, that was an extra slide about industry standards.

All right, well, does anybody have any final comments they want to share? All right, thank you, Anna. Great presentation.

Really appreciate it. Thank you. And we'll be back, oh gosh, September, I think. Okay, great.

All right, that concludes our study session for the evening. We'll be back at 7.30 for our regular meeting. Station area branding and marketing project and an update on the urban forest management plan. Before we begin this evening, I'd like to read a brief statement. There has been considerable discussion in our community recently regarding the presence of members of Patriot Front in Kirkland. Let me be very clear. The city council and the city condemn hate, intimidation and political violence in any form. Those types of actions have no place in Kirkland and have no place in a healthy democracy. We have also heard community concerns in connection to a large private event happening this Friday at the Pursuit Church in North Rose Hill. Many people have expressed concerns about the impacts on traffic and safety in general, and I would like to reassure our community that the city is taking this very seriously. Kirkland's public safety personnel have been in contact with the event organizers regarding logistics. Excuse me. Excuse me. There we go. And since the event is taking place near our shared border, Kirkland staff are also coordinating with the city of Redmond. As with any other event of this size, public safety personnel from both departments will be in the surrounding area during the event to help manage traffic and support community safety for all. If possible, we encourage people to avoid traveling through the area on Friday evening. If you choose to be there, we ask that you assemble peacefully for the safety of everyone. Later on tonight's agenda, council will receive an update from staff on the city's preparations for responding safely and lawfully to civil immigration enforcement operations occurring in Kirkland. That discussion began in April and is separate from Friday's event. However, it reflects the city's fundamental responsibility, protecting the safety rights and dignity of everyone in our community, regardless of who they are. Kirkland is strengthened by the diversity of its people. Everyone in our community, regardless of who you love, where you are from or how you identify belongs here. Thank you. All right. We are moving on to our agenda. Oh, wait. Did I skip a page? Nope. We are moving on to our agenda. I have one change, and unless there is an objection, we are going to postpone Item 9A on the Youth Bill of Rights to a September meeting to allow time for additional engagement for the Kirkland Youth Council. Is there any objections? I see no objections, so we will do that. Would anyone like to make a motion? Council Member Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I move that we postpone agenda item 9A, the Kirkland Youth Bill of Rights, until our next business meeting.

Second. Good move by Council Member Falcone, second by Council Member Prim, to postpone the Youth Bill of Rights to a later meeting. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Yes, go ahead.

The motion was our next business meeting, is how I heard it. Was that? August 5th?

No, we're going to postpone it to a September meeting.

Oh, thank you for that clarification. I have a friendly, you know, accept a friendly amendment to a meeting in September.

Okay, the motion has been made to postpone the agenda item to a meeting in September. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 7-0. In addition, I know that we have an item that has been tabled. If someone would like to move to take the affordable housing and low density zones item off the table, we will do that during council reports. All right, my housekeeping items are out of the way. We will now move on to our regular agenda. We do not have proclamations this evening, so we are gonna jump right into items from the audience. Welcome, everyone. All right, 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 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 counsel during this items from the audience period, please sign up using the 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 a speaker. When that happens, even when supporting a speaker, it can be disruptive to the meeting and discourage others from sharing a different viewpoint. We discourage people from using obscenities and making personal attacks against others. And we ask that you direct your comments to 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 a ballot proposition. Kirkland prides itself on being a respectful, welcoming community. We want everyone to feel like they belong in council chambers expressing their viewpoints. City Clerk, who do we have signed up to speak?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Right now we do have 11 guests wishing to speak. The first three in this order, Alex Zimmerman on site, Guillermo Rivera virtually, and Rick Long on site.

Alex, go ahead. Okay, I'm sorry. I never have first, so this will be a surprise.

Everything happened first time.

My name is Alex Zimmerman. I want to speak about something that is absolutely critical. First, what the mayor is talking about right now, from the beginning, is not true. I cannot use the word lie, but when a Democrat, a one-party system, acts like a fascist, it's going all King County, not only this city. You belong to one party. By definition, one party is 100% fascist. That's not my expression. So I give you classic example, what is you talking and what has happened. Six months ago, I made complaint to deputy mayor, you know what it's meaning. For six months in every meeting, I come in and ask, please give me answer. He don't give me answer. It's okay with me, you know what it's mean. When he don't want doing this, what is I can do? Nothing. He not a problem. You problem. Six consul, very quiet about this. No one consul talking. You possibly give answer for each complaint, each request. Why are you quiet? Because you are Democrat, because you are identical, and because you are fascist. Ever Hitler Nazi don't have something, what is you have? Why? Because Hitler Nazi don't have constitution for 200 year ago. In freedom of speech, you totally destroy American constitution. You are fascist. How is this possible? In America, after 250 years, we have a government, king country government, city government, who are acting like a fascist. I have 7,000 days of trespass from king country. Government from different location, how is this possible? What is I'm talking something? I want men for two and a half million people who talking about so we have a fascism government. And I give you classic example. For six months, he don't give me answer. Is this in your rules? When you have complaint or you have request, you post a big answer. Is six people you? Very quiet. No one talk yes with something you're doing about this. Can you explain to me when you this not fascist? But I told you, Hitler, nothing more important, because Hitler don't have constitution for 200 years ago. We have this. So how is this possible? After 250 years, can country for last 20 years come to absolutely fascism, one party system? God bless Trump, you know what it means. He every day brings something that is one changes. You understand what it means? Is this exactly last chance what my generation have? Because I'm very old. So don't talking about something what is you don't doing. What is you brainwash this idiot in this city, 100,000 idiot. Viva Trump, Viva New American Revolution. Stand asleep in happy cow, you know what I mean. Start doing something what is you talking. Thank you.

All right, next we have Guillermo. Guillermo, are you there?

Yes, I'm here. Thank you, Mayor. Dear Mayor and Council Members, my name is Guillermo Rivera, and I am with Eastside for All. Since 2019, we have convened a coalition for more than 35 organizations and over 160 community members across the Eastside to collaborate, share resources, and advocate together on issues affecting immigrant and refugee communities. We appreciate the passage of Resolution 5729 in April, outlining several actions to prepare the city for safe and legal response for federal civil immigration enforcement. I was encouraged to see that tonight's council agenda includes a discussion about possible moratorium on detention centers in Kirkland. Thank you for taking the time to consider this important issue. we have not had an opportunity to provide input specifically of the idea of the detention center ban or moratorium if the city have engaged with other impacted community members and local immigrant leaders about potential ban or moratorium on detention center why was not input included in the agenda or in the console packet for your consideration We only see a detailed memo with the staff analysis, but no materials presented by any community expert we support and represent. Our impacted communities have been calling for a full ban on established detention centers. Furthermore, we call for a full ban on any immigration office. The immigration office in Toquilla has been used as an illegal detention center. I respectfully disagree with the conclusion in the staff memo. A moratorium will not be merely symbolic. It provides the city with additional legal tools and value time to respond before a detention facility or immigration enforcement office can be established. Because several cities have been issued moratoriums or are in the process to do so, if Kirkland chooses not to take similar action, it could become the easiest option for federal government to establish a detention facility. We argue to please give an opportunity to the community-based organizations and the immigration and refugee communities that will be the most affected to speak specifically about these and other policies in development, not only general trends and needs. Lastly, we're wondering why there are any human services staff on the federal impact teams. Of all of the city staff, they are the most informed about local services being provided by immigrant and refugee communities and their needs. I appreciate your time and consideration and look forward to continue the collaboration. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Next, we have Rick Long. Rick Long will be followed by Kyrene Walker on site, Bart Chellis on site, and Jess Rowe virtually. Go ahead, Mr. Walker. Go ahead.

Good evening, Mayor Curtis, Deputy Mayor Black, City Council members, and other leaders of Kirkland. My name is Rick Long. I've been a resident of Kirkland for 10 years. I've worked and traveled in a lot of cities, and I can tell you this is by far the best city I've ever lived in. From the parks, activities, community programs, they're all very well managed. I especially like the community engagement that city leaders, police and fire departments do. It's a wonderful feeling to experience and meet leaders at local events. So thank you very much for that and for your leadership. I want to speak tonight about e-bike safety. I was scheduled to speak last week, but I had to leave, and I noticed that David Malcolm and Chris Fox covered many of the things I plan to talk about. So I'm going to modify my discussion a little bit. The reality that Kirkland and every city in the country is facing is the emergence and challenge associated with e-bikes and young children. Today, kids as young as 10 years old have the freedom to go further and faster on streets that are designed for cars and trucks. Few if any of these children have the emotional maturity to really deal with traffic, and it is just a crisis waiting or actually happening and will continue to happen. I think that we've already seen several instances where pain has been inflicted on people just riding their bikes. But also I want you to keep in mind the emotional impact if an adult accidentally hits a child who was not following safety guidelines, that adult is going to have to live with that for the rest of their life. So I really want you to, I would really like to encourage the city to develop policies that can help mitigate these issues. If not, the problem is only going to continue to get worse. And I know that Many cities in California are addressing this, and I would encourage you to look at Mill Valley, California. They implemented a plan last July of 2025, and Mill Valley is very similar to Kirkland. And they've addressed every class of e-bikes. They've done a very good job of it. And I think if you could reach out to them and go to school on what they've learned in the last year, you could develop a model that would be very successful in the state and maybe in the region in general. So I would encourage you to actively pursue this and help minimize this issue of children that are continuing to being hurt. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm going to Ms. Cain. Kareen, sorry.

Welcome. Hi. Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. My name is Kareen Walker, and I've been a resident of Kirkland for 22 years. I live along the Kirkland Greenway on 75th and 126th, and I would like to start by saying I'm not here to oppose any housing development. I understand our city is growing, it's beautiful, and that we need more of it to just... and have a thriving city. But what I am asking is that you would consider a small change that could preserve something truly special in our neighborhood. Currently there's a proposal for a short plat development along 126th and 75th along the corner. And they plan to open the driveways facing 75th, which is the Greenway, instead of 126, where all of the other houses have their driveways. And rather than orienting these new driveways on 75th, we would just ask that we consider having them face 126 instead. This section of the Greenway outside my home, it's not just a path, but it's where our community has come together for over 22 years, literally where I walk to school every single day. And it's my favorite place to connect with my neighbors. People gather under the mature tree canopy and monumental rock where it's shaded, spacious, and inviting, and parents often stop to talk with their kids. Kids ride their bikes, neighbors are walking their dogs and striking up conversations, and it's a place where people have paused for the last 22 years instead of just passing through. Yeah, it's a space that's become a social fabric of our neighborhood, and it's one of those rare places where community really happens naturally for us. without being planned. So by preserving this portion of the Greenway, which was only built I think last year or the last two years, and directing the driveways towards 126 instead, I just believe we can achieve both goals of accommodating new development while also protecting a place that already serves the community so well. And our mature trees and gathering spaces like this, if they're lost, they can't simply be recreated naturally like this. So I hope you'll consider a design that both accommodates new homes and this valued space in our neighborhood. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you, Kareen. Our planning director is taking notes. Why don't you send us an email so we can follow up with you? Thank you. Next, we have Bart.

Hello, good evening, Mayor, council members, and staff. I just want to say my name is Bart Chellis, and I'm here to talk about the same thing that Kareem was talking about. It's 7508 126th Avenue Northeast. I've been a I've lived in South Rose Hill for 30 years, so I've been over 30 years, been here a long time, and I also support new housing, but I do strongly oppose any action that would open the pedestrian pathway at 75th Street to vehicle traffic and allow driveways to cut through that pathway. This pathway is one of the most important features of our neighborhood. It's a small, safe, green space, as mentioned already, a quiet community activity and gathering place where neighbors walk and bike in the evenings. Children learn to ride their bikes there. People come together and connect naturally in this inviting space. It's also a core part of the city designated arts and leisure node, which is part of the Greenway planning, and converting it into a roadway would permanently damage that character and safety and livability that we have in South Rose Hill. opening this greenway to vehicles directly conflicts with multiple adopted city policies, such as Kirkland's 2044 comprehensive plan, which prioritizes walkable neighborhoods, pedestrian safety, active transportation, and protection of neighborhood. It also conflicts with transportation strategic plan goals. Goal T1, eliminate fatal and serious injuries. Goal T2, maintain a complete low-stress walking and bicycle network. And goal T9, support a livable, walkable, connected community. It conflicts with Neighborhood Greenways Program, which we just recently finished in our neighborhood and spent a lot of money on, which is explicitly designed to prioritize people walking and bicycling over vehicle movement. And it also conflicts with Vision Zero, which seeks to reduce pedestrian vehicle conflicts through safer street design. So the city's own greenway map identifies this segment as a pedestrian-oriented destination, not a vehicle corridor. And allowing vehicle access would increase cut-through traffic, it would raise vehicle speeds, and create new risks for our children in our neighborhood walking and biking to school. And once this pathway becomes a road, it's permanent. We're not gonna put trees back in the middle of the road. So a feasible alternative exists. The homes can access 126th Avenue Northeast through individual driveways. And we just ask that you guys thoughtfully consider and ask the developers to consider other alternatives.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

And I appreciate that you read all those documents and had all those citations. All right, next we have Jessica Rowe, and she's virtual?

She is. We're waiting for Jessica Rowe, and after that, she'll be followed by Alex Chellis on site and Maria Hudson on site.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

I'm here. Go ahead. Good evening, Mayor. Good evening, Deputy Mayor, Council Members, City Manager. Nice to see you all again. I'm sorry I'm not there in person. Jessica Perreault, Land Use Attorney with McCulloch Hill. I heard your study session on the station area, and I also heard the City Manager's, toward the end, the comment that marketing is one of many tools you'll be looking at, and I just want to say I think that sounds great. Um, and I hope you take our letter deputy mayor. I heard your comment. I hope you take our letter as a suggestion to open the dialogue on on some. Issues we see that could be opportunities to increase development viability within the station area. I understand that. The letter isn't we didn't try to make it extremely nuanced to address that all the different. Zoning that applies within different areas of the station area, but we did raise key issues that we think we could that could be discussed. I do understand that the AMI is a sliding scale, and we appreciated that at the time, and that's great. And now we're in a different environment, which is challenging. So we'd just love to offer the resources and data that we have on that issue. And then ultimately, that's a policy call that is in your hands. But that's what that is. Comment was meant to mean in the letter and on the commercial requirement. I understand that's not required in all locations, but in some so. Definitely some nuance we can discuss in more detail and we were not trying to capture that all in this brief comment letter that we submitted together with now. but really appreciate the city's efforts to look at that and just hope to, looking forward to a follow-up conversation with Allison and the city manager and others who are interested in this issue. Thanks so much.

Thank you. All right, Alex?

Okay. Hello, Kirkland City Council. My name is Alex, and I'm also here to provide public comment on the proposed short flat at 7508 126th Avenue Northeast. As a bit of background, I'm a lifelong resident of Kirkland's South Rose Hill neighborhood, and I hold a degree in environmental science and resource management. I agree with the previous concerns about the development. However, I'm here to voice some additional concerns regarding the retention of trees on the property. As has been shared, this development is directly adjacent to Kirkland's Northeast 85th Street Greenway and a grove of nine high retention value trees fall along the south edge of the property. This grove shares both canopy and root area with multiple public greenway trees. The developer has marked this grove for removal to accommodate a driveway and frontage improvements. The removal of these trees would be a significant loss to the local community and ecosystem. However, if development plans were adjusted to accommodate these nine trees, they would be included in the newly designated right-of-way area and become significant and valuable public assets as part of the Greenway. Most concerningly, Section 95.30 of Kirkland's Zoning Code requires this type of development to submit a tree retention plan. However, after reviewing the tree retention plan for this project, I found it is missing multiple of the required components. First off, for trees rated as not viable, Kirkland zoning code requires a description of the reason for removal based on the existing health condition of each tree. None of the trees listed as not viable had their individual conditions discussed. Next, the development proposal does not discuss any site alterations which are required to be considered to retain high retention value trees whenever possible. This allows the developer to modify frontage improvement requirements and is particularly concerning to me because the reason listed for the removal of all nine trees is simply to accommodate required frontage improvements. Additionally, Kirkland requires an explanation as to how tree retention was prioritized for high retention value trees and no such explanation has been provided. And finally, the tree retention plan must describe the impact of tree removal on trees to be retained, including those on adjacent properties. This was also not discussed at all and removal would definitely impact the adjacent public greenway trees. I'd like to thank you for allowing me to bring these concerns to your attention, and I hope that the city will be able to delay approval of this project until these concerns can be properly addressed and hopefully require these trees to be retained in order to preserve the greenway that city of Kirkland has invested in. Thank you.

I'm actually very disturbed by your detectives discrediting child victims. The law is the law is the law, meaning consent is not a defense for your detectives and then discrediting a child victim because she's black or disabled. Consent is not a defense for the perpetrator. We were unhoused in February 14, 25. I sent my daughter down to the front desk to get a cookie. And then she was lured by a perpetrator that was placed there by your police department. after you created a special relationship with us for us to report sex trafficking that occurred at Juanita Beach. I need you guys to understand that black mothers and parents are not marks. Your cops can't be corrupt and act as if corruption of our minor by Caucasian men for sexual purposes and drugging can then be covered up by discrediting them. I took my daughter to Mary Bridge Hospital. There is a sexual assault kit. There is a toxicology kit that your police department is concealing from the prosecutor's office. Have yet to do a forensic interview with us over 510 days later, and my daughter was a minor. So I want to be clear, for whatever misinformation is coming out of your police department, I have contacted Adult Protective Services to go after them for their violations and mandatory reporting duties. So I will literally prosecute your cops for aiding, abetting, and allowing. She was a minor, and any kind of, you know, it's interesting you talk about political violence in the Patriot Front, because historically, lynching, sexual assaults, with it being suborned by police officers, by Caucasian men, have been a literal ritual for white men on black child bodies and female bodies. We will show up with Adult Protective Services' Stacey Eberle, who we met with last night, because it is unacceptable as you talk about the Patriot Front and acts of intimidation. How intimidating is it for your officers to discredit my child victim to my face by dehumanizing her, hypersexualizing her, telling her that she took drugs on her own or sold herself to this Caucasian homeless man? If you don't do something about the crimes of your officers, I will. I already am, which is why I'm meeting with Adult Protective Services who has their own law enforcement. And I will meet with them about the violations of your officers. And they have yet to do a forensic interview to send over a complete investigative package to the prosecutor's office. So if you want to do anything about intimidation or political violence, start with your officers because they're continuing to commit it.

Madam Mayor, we have three guests wishing to speak. Our final guest for this evening, Beatrice Vasquez joining us virtually, Katie Malek on site, and Liz Hunt on site.

Beatrice, are you there? Beatrice?

Do we see her? We see her, but we can take Katie Malik while she's going through the transition, if you prefer.

All right, Katie, come on up.

Hello?

Hello can you hear me katie sorry beatrice go ahead.

Good evening city council my name is beatrice I have been a resident of kirkland for fourteen years and this is my first time speaking to my city council. Yermo has already spoken on the issue so I will be brief but I am speaking to my city council about humanity. I'm reading them after reading the memo that Kirkland City Council received on imposing a 1 year memorandum on detention centers in Kirkland. I am deeply concerned and disappointed that the city may make this decision without meaningfully consulting the communities that would be most affected directly. Please don't just rely primarily on the staff recommendations of the people who are not affected by this decision. I urge the city. Council to consider engaging directly with our community based organization, like the 1 that represents. and consider adopting a moratorium on attention centers as a proactive measure to protect our community. I would consider a full ban, but at least having a conversation with community-based organizations. I would hope that Kirkland continues to ensure that it is committed to being a welcoming city, and I want to thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you. Katie. Thank you for that. Come on up.

Hi, I'm Katie Malek and I live in the Houghton neighborhood. So I'm here to talk about the Houghton Village and it being put up for sale again. According to the staff memo in your packet, we're being led to believe that the Houghton Village easement is a brand new discovery, which four years later may stand in the way of a potential sale or lead to a significant reduction in the sale price. The city knew about this over four years ago when they purchased the property. The city knew about it when the meeting with consultants developing grand ideas throughout focus groups, public meetings, courting developers, and the like. Why was this easement not discussed with the community as potentially being an impediment to potential development? Why in July of 2026 has it been, and I quote, determined that the existence and location of the easement may complicate development options and may reduce the purchase property value of the Houghton Village property? And then there's the contamination of the property. The city knew about this as well. In fact, due to prior usage by gas stations and dry cleaners, the property has been under the watchful eye of the State Department of Ecology for years. After the purchase in June of 2022, the city did acknowledge that the site is contaminated and, quote, redevelopment of the property will require remediation of contaminated soil. In their initial appraisal, the city insisted that CBRE assume the property is free of both environmental and contamination, as well as any easement. Why? What was the rationale in excluding these two property defects? The cost to taxpayers was $15 million. Add to that the interest on an Interfund loan that's well past payment due date, in addition to millions that have been spent on maintenance and upkeep. I'm hopeful that this takes a sudden positive turn, but as of now, it looks to become one of the biggest money-losing debacles in the history of our city. Accountability needs to be taken for this failed project. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, last is Liz Hunt.

Hello Mayor, Deputy Mayor, City Council, and staff. My name is Liz Hunt. I live in Kirkland. And I'd like to speak to item 90 on your business calendar, which refers to zoning changes to increase stores and businesses in residential areas. This is something which, if it's done well, could be a real benefit to the neighborhoods, enabling services to be more walkable and less driving required. I would like to give kudos to the staff for a very thorough and detailed memo. I don't think I've seen as detailed a community engagement plan for any other project. I would like to comment on the multiple tiers of engagement that are proposed in this plan, and suggest an adjustment. The public outreach plan breaks the public into two categories, kind of a tier one, tier two, and the tier one folks are primarily the business owners or people who would like to own or expand businesses, create new ones or expand existing ones in residential areas. So they're the tier one folks. And then the tier two folks include all the residents in the affected zones and some other people. The Tier 1 folks are high level of participation. They will be involved in very detailed outreach meetings, discussions, and other kinds of activities. The Tier 2 folks also will be involved but at later times and with less active engagement, I think is a good way to put it. And I would argue that the residents of these neighborhoods that are gonna have increased number of businesses there should be more in the tier one category. and there's a lot of detail in here as to how involved each of those groups will be, but I would encourage you strongly to make sure that the residents are highly involved because they're one of the reasons that this is being done in the first place, so they will have workable services, walkable services. I see that the outreach to the Tier 1 folks is already starting in July, so time is of the essence. Thank you very much.

Thank you. City Clerk, is that everyone?

That is everyone.

Thank you. Thank you, everyone. We are now going to move on to our consent calendar. Before we have a motion, I'd like to ask Deputy Mayor to present the auditive account.

Thank you. It's epidemic. It's catching.

It's catching.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. We had payroll in the amount of $8,099,287.42 and bills in the amount of $3,739,885.85. I did want to make one quick note for those paying close attention among the public or my colleagues, payroll amount does show an increase over the last two reports, and that is a product of the fact that we hire between 200 and 300 seasonal employees every summer. So, helpful reminder of both the services provided by important people working in our parks and pools and beaches, but also helps explain the slight inflation of payroll during this period.

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

So, second.

Moved by Council Member Falcone, second by Council Member Black to approve the consent calendar. Is there any discussion?

Discussion. I'd like to ask the item on youth traffic court that that be put on an agenda for the criminal justice section or matter at a future meeting. I'm not asking to pull it. I'm just asking staff to note that subject on a criminal justice Council meeting.

Look at our next check in on the criminal justice. Yes, please.

Council Member Prim. Yes, I would like to request that item number H2 regarding the $8,000 membership fee for the Tourism Development Committee for the Seattle Sports Commission be moved to the normal business agenda item for later today.

Thank you. All right, Council Member Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just wanted to note the memo with the subject Kirkland Culture Arts Commission recommendation for art donation of the Big Smile sculpture and thank the artist Martha Spack for that donation. And I'm looking forward to finding out the recommended location by the Culture Arts Commission. It is a beautiful piece of artwork and a really fun and bright piece of artwork. So thank you again to artist Martha Spack for that donation.

Thank you. All right, item 8H2 is removed from consent and will be our last item on our business agenda. The question is on the motion to approve the remaining consent calendar. Moved by Council Member Farrell-Cohn, second by Council Member Black. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Consent calendar is approved 7-0. All right, we are moving on to our first business item. Yes, Council Member Paschall.

Before we move on to that, I just wanted to bring up another topic that you had mentioned earlier. You mentioned about, you know, untabling the affordable housing fee until the council reports, but I'm really fearful that we have a lot of important topics tonight and that that could, you know, be at the very end of the meeting and it's a really important topic and I just disagree with waiting until later and I'd like to take up that topic now.

Council Member... Second. Councillor Paschall, we do have guests here ready to do item one, but it has been second. So the question is on untabling.

Ordinance 4937.

4937 has been moved by Councillor Paschall, second by Councillor Jim Chisholm, to untable ordinance 4937 now.

Yes. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just have a procedural question. So for untabling, does that need to be seconded and voted on to untable, or is it just untabled and then the discussion and vote happens?

So it has to be voted on in order to untable it. Okay. Thank you. No debate on the question, though.

All right. All those in favor of untabling Ordinance 4937, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Nay. Motion carries 6-1. The motion is now untabled. Councilmember Paschal.

Thank you all. I know this is irregular, but I recognize that it was caused by myself being at the June 2nd meeting, and so you arrived at a 3-3 tie on this ordinance, and it required us to We couldn't untable it until all seven of us were together, and this has been the first time since the beginning of June. And so I'm not going to go into all the merits of the ordinance because we've had a lot of discussion on the affordable housing fee. I just wanted to be here to be able to vote on that fee tonight, and I'm going to be supporting raising it to $2,500.

Council Member Prim.

Yeah, I would like to move to postpone this item for consideration until the first meeting in September, given that the August meeting is going to be virtual, just because I think I personally need some more information in order to make a decision. There was a lot of data that was provided during our last meeting regarding the number homes that have been constructed that were in the range of the 2000 square feet to 2500 but a lot of them were averages um so i i would really like to get a little more granular to understand you know what the overall need has been for um housing products that are under the 2000 square foot threshold and with that information plus i think having all of the other information that we had in the original memo in this memo would make it much more helpful for us to be able to move forward and make a decision. So I would really like to have kind of a comprehensive, all the comprehensive information in the memo for the next meeting where hopefully all seven of us will be at the meeting in order to make a decision.

Second. All right.

Thank you. It has been moved by Council Member Prim, seconded by Council Member Arnold to postpone consideration of Ordinance 4937 to our September 1st meeting. Any further discussion? Council Member Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I appreciate, wow, we are spending a lot of time on this one vote. And I appreciate the thoughtfulness and I appreciate Council Member Prem's thoughts on wanting to make sure we have all of the data. You know, I shared last time that, you know, in my mind, the main two goals here are to encourage smaller housing types or, in other words, to disseminate disincentivize like huge McMansions, right? And to increase revenue for low income housing. And then the reason why we had a threshold is because we want to exempt missing middle housing, right? And so regardless of what the data show in my mind, a townhome with a garage is missing middle housing. And that would be the 2,500 square feet, which is basically a 2,000 square foot home with a garage. And so In my mind, I don't think my mind's gonna change whether we have a lot of housing currently being built between 2,000 and 2,500 or not. We know that we need that type of housing. We need more missing middle housing in our city and I wanna open up opportunities to be able to build that much needed housing. If we wanna talk about raising revenue more, if we're concerned about the 7,000, we can have a conversation about continuing to disincentivize huge McMansions, you know, looking at maybe like additional fees for houses built over 4,000 square feet. I think we can get a lot more money out of that than we could over, you know, adding a garage to a townhome and really disincentivizing the really desperately needed missing middle housing. and achieve our other goal at the same time. So for that reason, I don't support this motion just because I feel like we have a lot more work to do and I personally want to take the vote. I feel like I have enough information and move on because this is a lot of meetings on one little detail. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? The question is on the motion to postpone consideration of ordinance.

Sorry, we have one.

Oh, Council Member Tuchison.

So my understanding is this topic was discussed in the mayor's agenda setting meeting with the mayor and deputy mayor. If either of you would like to share shed any light on that meeting, I wasn't there. Please do. But I'll be supporting 2500. I think we've had enough meetings on this particular topic. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Councillor Arnold.

Thank you. I recognize we have talked about this, but part of the discussion is getting the interaction between all of us, and I'm really concerned about taking action on such an important item on a topic that has not been noticed, and so support pushing this to September so the public knows that we're taking action on a particular issue.

Thank you. Deputy Mayor?

I'm not going to speak to the motion. And so the only thing that's in order right now is a conversation on the motion. But I am happy to briefly answer Council Member Tim Chisholm's question after we address the motion on the floor.

All right. Thank you. All right. I'm going to call the motion. The question is on the motion to postpone consideration of Ordinance 4937 to the September 1st meeting. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. I think we're going to need a roll call.

Okay, on the motion to postpone consideration of ordinance 04937 to the September 1st meeting, Council Member Tim Chisholm?

No.

Council Member Arnold?

Yes.

Council Member Prem?

Yes.

Council Member Falcone? No. Council Member Paschal?

No.

Deputy Mayor Black?

Yes.

Mayor Curtis?

Yes. Motion carries 4-3. Thank you. Deputy Mayor, go ahead.

Thank you. I just wanted to address the question that was raised by Councilmember Tim Chisholm. The topic, as I recall, did come up in the agenda meeting. We were advised by the city attorney as to what the rules of what the council rules are with respect to what occurs at the next meeting where all seven council members are present, and what the rule states is that the matter can be, there can be a motion to remove the matter from the table by any council member, and that's the extent of what we were advised. Other than further advised that then it would be in order to have a motion to either discuss the item or postpone the item for a future meeting. So what we engaged in here is pretty much the full extent of what was discussed during the agenda meeting. Thank you.

All right. After that little interlude, let's move on to 9B. I think I mentioned that we postponed our first item, 9A, the Youth Bill of Rights. So we are now on 9B, City Manager.

All right, so thank you, Madam Mayor, members of the council. This is your second check-in, and we're hoping potential action on the city park rules updates. We noted in the memo, and you'll hear again today, that this is a long and complicated chapter, and we think that getting action tonight, and then if we need to fix things in the future, we can bring them back, would be the appropriate recommendation, but we're going to tell you what you asked us to bring back and see if Council has any further questions. We're hoping for action tonight. So with that, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to our Parks and Community Services Director, Lynn Zwalkstra.

Thank you, City Manager. Good evening, Madam Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and City Council. Appreciate you having us back here this evening to talk about the park rules. As the City Manager mentioned, we do have the ability to come back and make tweaks at any point in time if we decide that any rules aren't quite working or we want clarification or whatnot. So in order to respect everybody's time, what we have this evening is actually a presentation on just the codes that were edited since we spoke to you in June. So what we're gonna be covering, next slide. Oh, okay, thank you. So we'll be talking about some changes to the definitions, motor vehicles, bicycles and electric-assisted bicycles, trail use. We also have a lovely little table that demonstrates where each type of vehicle can be or cannot be in the parks. We'll talk about activities posing risks to persons in parks and pets in the parks. After that, we'll follow up with a little bit on implementation plan and then seek council feedback and whether or not you'd like to come back for another round of edits or if you'd like to take action this evening. On that note, I'm going to introduce our other presenters this evening. We have Juliana The cruise. Wow. It's not even that late. Juliana to cruise who works in the city manager's office as a senior management analyst and our park superintendent, Jason filing. Um, Juliana is going to talk to you about all of these edits this evening.

Thank you, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and City Council. The first slide we have today is a review of some changes to the definitions. So at the June 2nd Council meeting, Council directed staff to clarify some of the definitions that were used in the draft code, including sidewalks, trails, paths, motor vehicles, e-bikes, and bikes. Staff made some updates to these definitions and made sure that they aligned with definitions in other portions of the Kirkland Municipal Code. So for example, the new definition of motor vehicles aligns with the definition of motor vehicles in KMC 19.40. Speaking of motor vehicles, as defined, the motor vehicle section provides a lot more clarity because of the new definition of motor vehicles. An electric motorcycle is defined as a motor vehicle, whereas an electric assisted bicycle is not a motor vehicle. The clarification to the motor vehicle section then states that motor vehicles are allowed only on roads or parking areas unless otherwise posted. The 15 mile per hour speed limit is in existence except where otherwise posted. Washing vehicles is prohibited in parks and there is an exemption for emergency maintenance in city authorized vehicles. The next update was to bicycles and electric-assisted bicycles. As directed by Council, the update to the draft focuses on rider behavior rather than the type of bicycle ridden. The same rules apply to both e-bikes and standard bicycles and motorized foot scooters. Bicycles are allowed on paths, sidewalks, trails, roads, and parking areas, but are not allowed on causeways, docks, sports courts, synthetics, turf, or natural and grassy areas. That was a lot of code, and so here is our little table to give you an overview of where wheels are allowed and not allowed. You'll note that Causeways has been asterisked for bikes and e-bikes, as well as motorized foot scooters. There is a concrete causeway in Juanita Bay Park that's an old road, and it's commonly used for transportation purposes. bicycles and motorized foot scooters. And so that is a permissible road pathway for bikes to take. However, other causeways like at Totem Lake are not acceptable places to ride a bike. Not all users will be riding bikes and so the trail use section was updated to provide clarity for all trail users regardless of their mode of transportation. All users have to comply with the 15 mile per hour speed limit on trails and they have to be reasonable and prudent in their travel, taking into consideration the environment and the path and how busy it might be. They also must obey official traffic controls. The other section updated since the June 2nd council meeting is the section regarding posing risks to persons in parks. Previously this was called projectiles in parks, which was confusing because projectiles was not defined. The intent of this section is really to focus on behavior rather than the device that is thrown or hurled or projected. And so the title change reflects that intent. That is really about activities that pose risk to park users. And so the title was changed. The next section that council asked staff to clarify is where and when dogs are permitted on beaches. Staff updated the draft code to state that dogs are prohibited on designated swim beaches between May 1st and September 30th. That's because those are the beaches that swimming is common and are tested for bacterial levels, and we know that dogs and other animals can contribute to bacterial levels. Dogs are prohibited on swim beaches when they're closed for other reasons. So for example, if a beach was closed due to high bacteria levels, they would be closed to humans and dogs. Dogs are allowed on beaches that are not designated swim beaches at all times. And for example, dogs are allowed year round at the beach at Marsh Park. And the designated swim beaches are Houghton Beach, Waverly Beach, and Juanita Beach. As a reminder that dogs must be on leash at all times.

Council Mayor Falcone. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, thank you for this. I just have a clarifying question for those who are listening to the meeting tonight around that last point that dogs must be leashed on some of our non-designated swim beaches. Does that same rule apply if a dog is swimming in the water at those parks? Must the dog be on a leash if they are to enter the water?

It does. Yeah.

Thank you. That's helpful for those listening. Thank you.

Anybody else? Deputy Mayor?

Well, I want to let Juliana finish dogs before I ask my question. So let me know when you're done with dogs, and I have a question for you.

Great.

Thank you.

The last comment we wanted to make is that there are some logistic and ecological considerations with an off-leash beach dog park. And for that reason, staff are not making recommendations to the code that reflect an off-leash dog beach area. And now I'm finished with the dog portion.

I want to make a dog joke, but I don't have one.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you, Juliana. All right. Um, so, um, supportive of this overall framework, I am, uh, thinking about how we are, do we have a plan for, um, communicating this? It's a little bit nuanced. It's just only during certain times of the year. It's only at certain of our waterfront parks. And I wanted to be fair to our dog owners that we're communicating this clearly to them. And what I'm imagining, and help me understand what other plans may be in the works, but what I'm imagining is some fairly clear signage with like A-frame boards at the specific parks where dogs are prohibited on the beach, in the water, making it clear that it's the sand, it's the water. And what would be great in my mind is letting dog owners know that there are other locations maybe at that same park or at other nearby waterfront parks where dogs are allowed. So that's a little bit of a leading question, but my point is what are we thinking about as far as being fair to communicating with families who have dogs?

That's a great question. We can definitely put up signage at the swim beaches another tool that we have is a great one is the guards are really good about communicating and they can share if someone has additional questions about hey where could I go but we can definitely do that for sure easy ask right thank you

Okay, and Deputy Mayor Black, your question actually was a great segue into this next slide. It's titled implementation plan. We weren't going to talk too much this evening about the entire implementation plan. There would be a very robust community education process that goes along with this implementation. Not only that, but we will actually need entirely new park signage for park rules. So there will be a pretty fair amount of work in a phase two of this project. But the thing that was most pertinent to this evening is, well, how are we gonna train the park rangers? So first and foremost, we do collaborate with Kirkland Police Department right now on park ranger training and we will continue to do so. So one of the first things we'd like to do is work with PD on acquiring a handheld citation unit. We would then also need to establish clear procedures for using that. Right now all of our citations that we give are done manually and so this would streamline the process and of course we'll have to make it a little bit more formal. We would also need to document a procedure for escalating violations, specifically misdemeanors to KPD. So those are all part of the plan. And then in addition to that, there will be, of course, more in-depth training with the rangers. Just mentioning that there's one full-time ranger and they'll have a much higher level of training and proficiency because they work full-time year round. Then we have the part-time rangers who come in the summer. So we'll have to have a pretty concise training program for those seasonal rangers that would consist of a code overview, so really teaching them what the code says and specifically some focus on civil infractions and misdemeanors and what their role is with those. We also have done de-escalation training with PD and that's been very successful for our staff and we'll continue to do that. Customer service training within kind of the auspices of Parks and Community Services. So what is our focus as a community serving department? and then we'll have ongoing in-service training and case studies with the rangers as well. So we do have training in place right now, but the code changes are pretty specific and significant. So we'll have to greatly expand that and formalize it.

Any questions on that, Council?

Okay, and then the next slide is essentially seeking council feedback or answering any questions that you have. Our park superintendent is looking forward to some of your questions and then we'll go from there.

Any questions, anyone? Councillor Falco.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just want to say thank you for being so responsive to both council and community input on this. I feel like you can clearly draw lines between the comments that were made and things that we've heard and the edits that were updated in this. So thank you very much for that. and also thank you to the community members we heard from, and I think a lot of us met with folks in the community who are regular users of the park, whether with their dogs, or I know I personally spoke with a lot of folks who are cyclists in our area as well to really understand the nuances of this policy and its implications, and it sounds like we struck a good balance. So thank you for that, I appreciate it. Council Member Paschall?

Yeah, thanks. I know that last time you came to present to us, I could get the sense that you were hoping that we would approve it at that time. And I don't know, that's how it came across. And I totally understand because these are important updates, I think. And you continually get feedback and complaints and stuff that you're unable to address fully without some of this increased authority or clarification. So thank you for your patience as we kind of walk through it, but I felt like my comments around bicycles and really focusing on the behavior of a cyclist rather than the device itself, I think was the way to go, and I appreciate you incorporating that into the code. There aren't other questions. I'd like to make a motion to approve Ordinance 4945.

Second. Moved by Council Member Paschal, seconded by Council Member Prim to move forward 49-45. Before I call a vote, I just also want to echo my, you did a great job of cleaning this up and responding to our concerns, and I know mine was, As a dog owner, I was confused what was okay and what was not okay. And you can buy 30-foot leashes, just saying. All right. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Roll call, please. Roll call. Ordinance. Go ahead, Count.

No problem. Thank you, Madam Mayor. On the motion to adopt Ordinance 04945, Council Member Tim Chisholm.

Aye. Aye.

Councilman Arnold. Aye. Councilman Prem. Aye. Councilman Falcone. Yes. Councilman Paschal. Yes. Deputy Mayor Black.

Yes.

Mayor Curtis. Yes. All in favor.

Thank you. Ordinance carries 7-0. All right. We are moving on to proposed changes to parking enforcement and vehicle impound rules. City Manager. City Manager.

All right. Thank you, Mayor. We're here tonight to make presentations on some changes to the vehicle parking and impound rules to give you that briefing as our Lieutenant Troy Knafla and our Assistant State Attorney Ryan Comforts.

Unmute.

Thank you, Darcy. Good evening, Madam Mayor, Deputy Mayor, City Council members. My name is Ryan. I'm here with Kirkland Police Lieutenant Troy Canafla, and we're here to speak to proposed Ordinance 4946. This ordinance proposes amendments to KMC Chapter 1240, which regulates impounding abandoned vehicles in the city, and KMC Chapter 1245, which is the city's parking code. Before we get into sort of what these ordinances are proposing, I'd just like to address a quick legal background. The code provisions we're discussing today were enacted in 1986 and 1996 and have not been substantially amended since their enactment. Much of the associated state law that these operate within the context of has changed and the industry practice around those have changed as well. So today's ordinance looks to close these gaps, seeks to modernize the city code. So I'll turn it over to Lieutenant Canofla now for some background on the issues that the proposed ordinance seeks to address.

Good evening, Deputy Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council Members. Thank you for listening to our proposal for the changes this evening. So what you have up on the board is kind of a six-year trend for abandoned vehicle calls in general. And what you have listed up there is two things, calls and cases. And what that represents over the last five years, six years on this board, is the number of calls is the calls that the Kirkland Police Department receives regarding abandoned vehicles per year. The cases are the ones that actually end up resulting in the vehicle being impounded. All vehicle impounds result in a Kirkland Police case report. So as you can see from the data that's up there in 2025, 632 calls for service on abandoned vehicles. Of those 632 calls, 100 of those vehicles ended up being impounded. As far as numbers for 2026, as of today's date, pretty much on track with similar numbers to 2025. So the trend continues to be moving upward. So in having, in looking at the numbers, so 632 calls came in for abandoned vehicles. Of those, 100 of them ended up being impounded, which is only, which is say less than 16% of the calls actually ended up in the vehicle being impounded. And what that reflects is the officers really are looking to find a way to work out the problem and resolve the issue without resorting to impoundment. as is evidenced by only 16% of those cases ending up being impound. In all the rest of the cases, they were able to find some sort of resolution that avoided the impound of the vehicle. So officers are aware of the impact that impounding somebody's vehicle, RV, boat, trailer, whatever it might be, has a negative impact on everybody financially and in a lot of other ways. And officers do understand this, and they work really hard with the community and the people involved in these to try and resolve the issue without resorting to impoundment. And with that level of calls for service per year, it behooves us to look at our KMC's and our processes to make sure that they're streamlined and efficient so the officers can respond to this level of calls and do it in a streamlined, efficient manner. So in looking at that, some of our proposed changes were addressing the street storage, community concerns frequently highlighted, recreational vehicles stored along residential streets and school zones, creating hazard concerns and traffic bottlenecks. Specifically to RVs, they're just a larger vehicle, so they pose more of a problem. They take up more of the roadway, so it narrows the roadway even more. They have more site limitations attached to them. Even if one is parked, like similar to this picture here, even if it was parked farther back from the stop sign and not in violation in that rule, if the road has a natural curve in it, that would still, because of the size of the vehicle, make it difficult for anybody to see the stop sign coming around the corner and around the RV. So we get a lot of calls specifically related to the RVs just because of their basic size. The proposed amendment to make RV storage on any public right-of-way a civil infraction, the reason we're specifically citing the RVs on that is RVs are not the same as vehicles. They have a different design and a different purpose. RVs are for temporary, quarters, travel, leisure, vacationing, that type of thing. They have a different design and a different purpose than a regular vehicle does. And so right now, if an RV is left on the street, parked in violation of current KMC's over 24 hours is considered an abandoned vehicle. If that is the case, our only recourse right now is to mark it as abandoned, which we do, and I'll explain the process here a little more in detail in just a minute. But we mark it as abandoned. If the person moves it from that side of the street to the other side of the street, it's no longer abandoned. We have to start the process all over again with marking and tagging, right? And all it's done is displaced the problem from here to there, whether that's across the street, to a different neighborhood, whatever it might be. And so we end up just impacting more more of our community negatively without having any recourse to address the behavior other than we tag it and they wait until it gets tagged and then they move it to another place and the process just starts all over again. We continue to do this over and over again, kind of a cycle. We usually only find that happens with RVs because of their nature and what they're designed and built for. People are using vehicles on a regular basis, generally don't let this happen or occur. They find a resolution prior to that, but RVs are a little bit different. And having this being a civil infraction would give us kind of an intermediate area in the middle where we could influence the behavior to have them not be in violation of the abandoned vehicle code in the city. All these proposed changes don't impact the authority of the Planning and Traffic Engineering to designate places where in the city it's acceptable to park RVs or large vehicles like semi-trucks, et cetera. None of these impact any of their authority to do that. Additionally, we're bringing in line, trying to get the KMC in line with the current RCW allows, which is related to Um, the city on property, uh, parking lots, sitting on properties, et cetera. Right now the KMC's list rights of way only for roadways and it doesn't really address it. So it becomes a little bit confusing and ambiguous for the officers by bringing the KMC verbiage in line with what's with what was already allowed by the RCW. It just makes for a cleaner, more seamless process for the officers and more efficient to be able to respond to vehicles left on city property for extended periods of time. So would that be vehicles or RVs? Is it the same for both? The pros meant doesn't change anything from our CW falls in line with it and they are CW does mandate a 24 hour notice being placed on the vehicle for 24 hour notice given. And then the next section there's preto outreach and here's what kind of like make the point of kind of how the process works in related to vehicles and our reason that how they differ a little bit. As far as an abandoned vehicle so when the call comes in the officer goes out and first identifies whether that meets the definition of the abandoned vehicle by our came see parked 24 hours without being moved on a city street right away or public property. And then they start their investigation piece on it, right? They try and figure out who is responsible for the vehicle.

Sorry.

They try and figure out who's responsible for the vehicle and locate that person and make contact with them and find out why is this situation occurring, right? Why are they there? Is it broke down? Are they visiting family? What is the circumstance revolving around why the vehicle is left there? You know, median definition of abandoned and to notify them of the code as well. And then based on the response that they get from the responsible person for the vehicle, the officers would then work with the community to try and find that resolution, right? So the officer would go back to the reporting party and go, look, it broke down. They have a mechanic coming out in two days. They hope to have it gone in three or four days. Is that acceptable for you? And so they'll try and work it out. And if that's acceptable to the reporting party, then that's the resolution. And a lot of times that resolves that and the vehicle doesn't get impounded. Other circumstances might revolve around homelessness. is a person living in the vehicle or the RV that is their primary residence at the time, right? So again, we have an entire process. And again, the officers, um, last resort is impoundment. And so if there's any indication either by the reporting party for the officers observations that somebody might be living in the vehicle, um, we start our outreach program. So the officers would talk to the person about it. Are you, are you living in the vehicle? And then start with working on resources, which include our heart team, which is the community services unit and the human services unit, the fire department, everybody that's involved, code enforcement, everybody that's involved in that, and start the process of offering resources and see if the person is willing and wanting to work with the city of Kirkland to find permanent housing. And then we work with them, and then we work with the impound piece and the parking piece to try and resolve it without resorting to impound. And we've been successful in that 100% of the time up until now. And we hope to continue to be that way. So, The officers always have three things at their discretion, which is the policy, their officer discretion to enforce a citation or an impound, and the KMC. And with those three things, and just to clarify, our policy, although the state law requires only a 24-hour notice, our policy requires 72 hours. Again, we're trying to give people as much opportunity as possible and work with them to be able to resolve the issue without moving to impound. But by having RV specifically called out to be able to cite as a civil infraction being stored on city streets, It gives us a little bit of intermediate direction if we need to go there. This is kind of how the process works. It starts with the vehicle tagging. Again, even to meet the definition, it's already been there at least 24 hours. Once we tag it, state law requires an additional 24 hours, but our policy goes 72, and we write that on the notice that we put on the vehicle. We give that 72 hours. We advise the person of it, make contact with them by phone or in person, let them know the circumstances, and then work with them on how we can resolve it without resulting in impoundment. And then again, if it's related to homelessness in the vehicle, then we start the outreach program with the HART team, and we work on different ways and resources that we can help and resolve it without resulting in impoundment. But if it does go to impound, then we contact a registered tow company to come. We provide them with all the information on the tow form of who's responsible party, et cetera, all the current information that we have access to. And then once the tow company tells us that they are required by RCW to send out the notice by first class mail within 24 hours of impounding the vehicle. Currently, our policy says that we do that. The KMC says the Kirk Police Department does that. It's just redundant work. They are required to do that. They do it as a very regular matter of way of doing business. And they also provide the impound hearing form to them. And they can also be referred to the Kirk Municipal Court to get that form as well if they want to contest the impound.

The proposed ordinance will help address community concerns over RV parking, clarify KPD's enforcement ability for vehicles abandoned on public property, and modernize our towing requirements to be consistent with state law. For 1240.010, this will expand impound enforcement currently limited to streets and rights of way to all city-owned public property. For 1240.020, this will eliminate the duplicative notice mailing requirement while retaining KPD's role in providing notice at the time of impound. And for 1245-210, the code currently prohibits storing large vehicles in the public right-of-way. This amendment will expressly clarify that this includes recreational vehicles and empower and support our officers in their work to ensure that these spaces remain safe and clear for regular traffic and parking. Finally, sort of while we're in the codes, the proposed ordinance will also amend the code at two points, which currently reference code and state law provisions, which have been repealed or reclassified in the roughly 30 years since this code was last amended. For those reasons, staff recommends that the City Council adopt Ordinance 4946 and amend the city's parking and impound codes.

Thank you. Thank you both. Before we get started, I just have a technical question. Lieutenant, you refer to vehicles as abandoned. Is that a legal term? Because when my car's on the street, it's not considered abandoned, and then we're saying that an RV on the street is abandoned. So can you just walk me through that a little bit?

Microphone? Yeah. My apologies. So for a vehicle to meet the definition of abandoned, it has to be parked for more than 24 hours without being moved. And the RV piece would just, the KMC would not allow RVs to be parked on city streets.

At all?

At all.

So it's not a ban and it's just don't park there?

It's not allowed to be parked there. a semi-truck or some other vehicle used for a specific purpose.

Thank you.

Council Member Falcone?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, thank you both for that presentation. It was very clear and helpful. I like the visuals that took some of the heavier text in our memo to a nice visual presentation. So thank you for that. I appreciate that. I have a couple of points that I want to talk through. The first is I appreciate cleaning up, you know, a lot of the cleanup that's happening here. particularly around duplicative communication with the first class mail. That just seems to be a waste of resources, time and money for both the towing company and the Kirkland Police Department to be sending pretty much the same letter to folks. I do want to make sure, however, that if someone's cars towed, that they have very clear and timely communication that it was towed and where to get their vehicle, right? That if whether it be on the street, whether it be, you know, an RV or another vehicle, any vehicle that's towed, that they do receive clear and timely communication. So I just have questions. I want us to talk through, and I actually think that this point and the other point that I'm going to make in a minute, I have so many questions that I feel like tonight that I don't have enough information to move forward with this tonight. I think I would like us to have more discussion So that said, I don't need all of the answers right now. But I would like to know who has access to what contact information to vehicle owners and how we access that information because I think that getting a letter in the mail could take quite some time. And if my car was impounded, I would wanna know right away. I would potentially walk outside and think someone stole my car and wanna know what happened. So I think proper signage, particularly on city property, rights of way I know might be a little bit more expensive to do all those signs, but anywhere on city parking lots, you know, parks, city lots, I think we need to have really clear communication with the phone number of the tow company so that people know immediately If they see that, they think, oh, maybe it wasn't stolen. Maybe it was towed. And they know a number they can call and get their car back right away, if they have the resources to get their car back right away. But at least people have that information. So I think we really need to consider signage and communication there. And also, in the follow-up, I know that you talked about, and I was in the memo, that the Kirkland Police Department does reach out to folks, obviously, beforehand. I think... I want to say, I do think we have a very human-centered approach on a lot of this, right? Really trying to prevent impounding. I really appreciate that. And when there are folks who are unhoused, trying to get them into housing and connecting with the HART team. Thank you for that. And for folks, though, who... you know, who need their vehicle, right, and they don't know what happened to it. So we do reach out to them beforehand before it's impounded. So I assume we have some sort of phone number and or email address in some of these cases. If that's the case, I would like us to have policy that KPD, or if it's appropriate, again, I want to have a discussion about this, if it's appropriate to share that with the tow company, I'm not sure that it is, but that from either KPD or the tow company that the owner of the vehicle gets immediate within an hour, I don't know what the timeframe would be, but very timely communication, not just through a first class letter in the mail that could take some time. So I think a combination of the signage and either KPD or the tow company, again, I think discussion for another night when we have that information. I do think that timely and clear communication is really key, just thinking of it from the car owner's perspective, from the driver's perspective on what to do in a situation that's gonna be not a great situation for them to kind of understand what their next steps and options are. So that's my first topic that I had. The second is just around, I know you mentioned some of this policy is pretty old, right? Did you say 1980? Wow, I mean, I wasn't even on this earth yet when some of this was developed. And so I want us to think through, just because it has been policy doesn't mean it should continue to be policy. And really the why around it, right? I think you mentioned a lot of it is around like the, it can takes up a lot of space, right? So it maybe takes up a lot of spot on the right of way or in parking lots. Also line of sight issues. To me, that's a size issue, right? That's the size of the vehicle. But then in the memo under 12.45.210c, item one, it says for the purpose of the subsection, the phrase recreational vehicle means any vehicle designated for temporary living quarters for recreation, camping, or travel use. I don't understand what that has to do with size. If it's really purely about size and not about whether someone is sleeping in a vehicle on the street, then we need to say that and not talk about someone who parks a vehicle that can be used to sleep on it. on our right of way or in our parking lots, it makes me think that this is not just about size, right? And so we need to have that conversation and we need to have that conversation publicly. And I think that needs to be a council policy decision that we make. And we need to re-examine, even if that's the way things have been done, even that's what's, you know, we're just trying to clean that up, what we do in practice. That's a really important conversation that we need community engagement on that I think we can't just pass edits to tonight. For example, I have... multiple friends with vans, right? I'd have a minivan, not a full-size van. But I have multiple friends with full-size vans. I have a friend who uses it for a disabled family member who uses a wheelchair. I have it for, you know, I know somebody who has a lot of children who uses it. And I know somebody who has a nice camper van. And they're all the same size. I mean, I haven't measured them, but I've seen them all, and they're all about the same size. And you're telling me that two out of those three can park on the street, but one cannot, right? And it's because it's designated for sleeping. I want to understand. That doesn't make sense to me, the logic behind why it would be because it's something that is designed for temporary living quarters for recreational camping or travel use, that that would be prohibited, yet the other two would be allowed. So if it's really about size, and I want to have a conversation about size, what would limit the sight distance, what height and length, and really what is the safety issue here that we're trying to address? And so, You know, I just think we need to have more information. And how can we tell from the outside in those van examples? How can an officer tell if it's used for sleeping or use a transport, a large family or use a transport, someone who uses a wheelchair? I don't know that we can. And so that's a challenge with the way this is currently defined and kind of maybe what the why is driving here. So again, I think this is a much bigger issue than maybe we anticipated it might be. And this isn't, to me, this is not just a,

cleaning up of code but this is a um a policy decision that really impacts our community that i want to hear from community and i want to have a more robust council discussion on thank you thank you councilman prim yeah i just had a just a couple of questions i think my first one was you spoke about um officers having kind of a discretion around you know, after they have conversations with the individuals that may have parked their vehicle in a prohibited area, they will kind of work to understand what their situation is, scenario is, and then work with them to, you know, like if it's, for an example, if the vehicle is being repaired and it's going to take four days, then they'll say, okay, well, you can keep the car there for four days. I guess, is there a written policy? How much discretion does the officer have, or is it based off of well-established policies that say, in this scenario, you do this, and in this scenario, you do this? Or is it just truly left to the officer to decide in the moment?

Thank you for that question. The discretion, it's not lined out in policy. Policy is a general guidance, right? You can't write policy to meet every specific situation because they're endless. There's all kinds of different circumstances. So officers use the policy and basically our fundamental guide to, we're trying to help people out and work with our community to resolve issues as best we can. So yes, the officer does have quite a bit of discretion, but it's not solely, it doesn't live in a vacuum. Like the officer would share also with their supervisor what the call was, what they did, and what their resolution or the proposed resolution is, and get agreement upon with the supervisor as well. So it's not just one officer and what they feel their discretion is. And in general, our discretion is pretty uniform across the department for what's reasonable, how we're trying to help out people. We try and find the best solution for everybody involved and to see if we can get some agreement and people to work together. Sometimes it actually brings community members together. They previously didn't talk. And now this issue came up between them, and we've engaged, and we try and resolve it and work it out, and now we actually have better communication between the two parties. That happens as well. And that's all part of the discretion that happens in there.

So just one follow-up then. So you said that it's pretty consistent then across the department how certain scenarios are treated, right? So then is that based off of a written policy then? Or no, it's just like... You know, one group of officers had this experience and then they share it with another. Is that how it works? I just want to kind of understand that.

I think it's based more on, you know, what our overall philosophy is, which is to serve our community. That's our basic driving. So the results of how we resolve it is based on that framework. How do we best serve the community?

Okay.

All right.

Thank you. Anybody else?

Mayor, can I just add something?

Yes, there you are. Yes.

Thank you. Everything Lieutenant Canofla said is absolutely accurate. I think it's important to note that almost all of these calls, we are reactive, right? This isn't proactive police work. We do a lot of other proactive police work, but this is a community member has called, which usually means the car has been there much longer than 24 hours to the point where they're now calling us. We go out, we try to problem solve that. Oftentimes there is an excuse or a reason. We work it out, okay, move it. Then the community member calls back or maybe then the officer is proactive on their next week of work and goes back there and it's still there. Now we might tag it as abandoned, that kind of thing. But I think it's just important to note that this is a lot of reactive work based on community complaints that we're getting. And then if I could just address Council Member Falcone as well. Thank you for making me feel old, by the way.

Yeah.

It's important to note as far as making sure the registered owners know what happened to their car. So just like Lieutenant Canofla said, we go above and beyond trying to get a hold of them, and we have lots of databases to try to figure out phone numbers and those kind of things. If a vehicle, unfortunately, does get impounded, it is entered by dispatch, so NORCOMM. So if someone comes out, comes back from vacation, whatever, and their car's gone, they would call the police, right? So they're going to call NORCOM to report their car stolen, and the dispatcher would be able to run the plate and know that it's been impounded, and here's the tow company, and here's the phone number to be able to call them. So that's immediately, that happens as soon as the impound is. So there's the Kind of that immediate thing. If we can't get a hold of somebody before they get their first class mail, it's a phone call away. They're going to be able to find out what happened to their car.

Anyone else? Thank you, Chief, for that. I have the same concerns that you're already hearing. I think that this ordinance works really well for abandoned vehicles, but are we talking truly stored or abandoned vehicles, or are we also talking about people who are living in their RVs? And I don't want to punish people that are on their RVs, and I don't want to impound their home and force them to be living on the street. And I recognize, and we all in this city have a very compassionate outreach to people that are unhoused to help provide them services, help provide them a safe place to park. But that, as Council Member Prem said, that's not codified. And I don't want to create a tool that can be used by future councils in a punitive matter rather than a compassionate one. So I'm not comfortable moving forward to this unless we talk about that more deeply and be more honestly about the risk of what we're doing here. And it may be that we create a policy that if someone is unhoused and they're living in their RV, that we provide them a seven-day grace period so that we can do the outreach and we can try to get them to services or we can provide them a safe place to park. But I think that this, as currently written, doesn't give us the flexibility and doesn't recognize the steps that we need to take for people. I did appreciate hearing that it's not 24 hours, it's actually four days, which is good. Again, it gives us more time to work with people. But reaching out to our homeless action team, I wonder if four days is enough. My suspicion is that it takes a longer time to connect with people and get them to services. So, I mean, that's my thought is we need to look at this again, figure out how we're going to talk about people who are unhoused and living in their RVs and not just create a tool that enables us or a future council to just move people along.

Mayor, do you mind if I just add one comment? I know Lieutenant and Mike already sort of talked about this a little bit, but I just want to amplify that when there is someone that they're facing with a vehicle that they're sleeping in on the right of way, it isn't even four days. I end up in multiple meetings over months talking about how to support and assist PD and homeless outreach, so it's never four days if someone's living in their vehicle.

Understand that but with this tool we can move them in four days Anyone else Councilmember Arnold I appreciate the discussion from my colleagues and want to do the right thing on this and we have successfully when we think about what happened near 132nd on responding to some RV parking and finding resources. I also recognize here that we are dealing with some code that is decades out of date and just wondering on the path here, because what I think I'm hearing is wanting, and I'm trying to understand which of this is policy and which of this is code that needs to be in the KMC. When I think about the Kirkland Municipal Code, What I'm hearing from my colleagues is you want the flexibility to go do something. So that'd be language like this time frame could be waived if the owner is working with the heart team. And I think I'd be looking from staff for some language that Could be added to the KMC while we work through the policy issues that don't have to be in the KMC. I'm wondering if there's any thoughts from the chief of the city manager or lieutenant on what's our path forward here?

I think I would look at the city attorney or Ryan on the legal piece of how to do that.

Yeah, certainly. Thank you for the points, Council. I appreciate your thoughtful and compassionate engagement in the subject matter, taking some thorough notes on our discussion. And certainly we could take this as Council feedback and come back and propose updated code amendment language that reflects some of these changes, have further discussions and more thoughtful discourse on it. And to the degree that there is that distinction between what's in the code versus what's in policy, I appreciate your point, Council Member Arnold, as well.

Council Member Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, thank you for that, Council Member. I agree with having that discussion, but I don't want to get lost from the discussion as well, my comments about the size of the vehicle. Because I think if it's about size as well, I really want to make sure that we don't have unintended consequences for this policy and that we really think through and make sure that, you know, because you could... have an RV that doesn't have beds in it, right? That you're just using to transport a lot of people around, but is not intended for sleeping, right? And then you would think it's an RV, but it's really not anymore. But if size is the issue, I really want to make sure that we're clear on that. And then also my other issue about the different vans, right? So I don't want to miss that in it as well. Yes, to what Council Member Arnold said and what the Mayor said. but also want to think through, you know, the sightline issues and making sure that we are clear on that and making sure that we're thinking about the safety and the purpose of doing this.

And, Councilmember, I think we can look at, they have different classes, and there's like Class A, B, C, motorhome, you know, that kind of thing. I think we can address it maybe using those official classifications, and that would make it more clear and address some of your issues.

Yeah, that would be great, thank you, rather than replacing it, you know, striking the sleeping, you know, made for sleeping.

Thank you.

Councillor Paschal.

Yeah, thank you. Good discussion so far. You know, I came into this kind of looking at it from, you know, enabling our police department to have the tools to address very egregious and situations that might arise, you know, after exhausting all And that's kind of how I feel and what I hear that you all, that's how you do things. And I think we all would agree with that. You know, so I understand the concern about down the road that maybe those procedures get altered or changed or modified. And so it'd be good to have those in written format somehow as policy. So I totally support that or whatever ideas you have to do that. But I do think we need to have the laws on the books to address the most egregious situations when those arise. I've just seen and heard about many, many issues and having that in place just to be able to deal with something is helpful. But I think we do need to document better our current standard procedures for dealing with issues. Thank you.

Anyone else? Thank you both. These are complicated issues, so we appreciate your time.

Thank you, everyone.

All right, we're going to take a break, and we will be back at 9. All right, we are back from a brief break. We are up next on 9D, discussion of home business and neighborhood commercial allowances project. The city manager just got in his chair. Go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So this is your first check-in on the home business and neighborhood commercial. We're looking for council feedback before this goes to the Planning Commission. And here to give you the presentation is Leander Baker-Lewis, our Senior Planner.

Thank you, Kirk. Good evening, Mayor Curtis, Deputy Mayor and City Council. My name is Leandra, and I am excited to be here tonight to introduce a new project that the Planning and Building Department is leading to update Kirkland's rules for home-based occupations and an exploration of the concept of allowing small scale commercial uses within residential areas. And that's a long description, so we're suggesting a more concise kind of colloquial name of Neighborhood Stores and Services Code Amendments. So that's how we'll be referring to it. This is an initial briefing and we aren't seeking formal council action. My presentation has 10 slides, and those slides will cover a project-related history, the suggested project scope and timeline, Kirkland's existing regulations for both home occupations and allowances for standalone commercial uses, approaches that other jurisdictions are taking towards allowing neighborhood commercial uses, and then importantly, some staff assumptions and plans for what to study and how to engage with the community on this topic. We've also posed a few questions for council to help confirm those staff assumptions, and we look forward to getting your input on those towards the end. So diving into history. So this project explores a sort of a renaissance or a return to the idea of allowing neighborhood commercial within our city. At one point, businesses and homes weren't so formally or aggressively separated before land use was heavily regulated. Buildings were often inherently mixed use and it made sense to live as close as possible to where you secure your livelihood or where you make your money. After World War II, of course, the rise of the personal automobile transformed the American landscape on a national level. And it allowed people to go farther faster. And with that came urban sprawl and the rise of low density neighborhoods dedicated purely or primarily to housing and located far from neighborhood, or excuse me, from city centers. So at the same time, land use regulations were in place that supported and mandated that separation. And I didn't have enough room on the slide for every stop along the way, but another important piece of this history is the Growth Management Act, which was enacted in 1990, and that really shifted the state and local municipalities away from sprawl and towards density-focused growth and comprehensive planning. And then in 2020, as we all may remember, the pandemic exposed the dynamic and often intertwined relationship between home and work. So by selling goods and buying things online, quick delivery services, working from home, learning from home, these are all examples of ways recently that we've already mixed business activity with residential uses. Kirkland also recently updated our comprehensive plan in 2024 and in it we made some commitments to more complete walkable neighborhoods. We've also seen state legislation proposed that would mandate cities to allow neighborhood stores and cafes in residential areas. And the most recent bill proposing this in the 25-26 legislative session did not get adopted, but it shows a strong kind of push or direction from the state regarding this concept. The task for home occupations was originally added to the planning work program in 2023, but it was expanded during the comprehensive plan update process and now exists on the adopted planning work program as task number 12. And that task directs the study of two things, as I mentioned, the updated and expanded rules for home occupations, which we already allow in Kirkland, as well as a new concept of allowing small-scale neighborhood-oriented commercial uses in residential areas. Aside from pressure from almost past legislation and adopted comprehensive plan policy, this project anticipates several community benefits, like increased accessibility, convenience for folks, local business opportunities, social connection, and positive health and environmental outcomes, and those are all really aligned with many of your council goals. And so in order to complete this project by the time forecasted on the adopted planning work program, we are proposing two study sessions with the planning commission following this meeting tonight. One to discuss regulatory options, kind of set the scene on all the different directions we could go in, and then another to review engagement and hone in on that regulatory analysis. And then we have forecasted to hold a public hearing in November with final council action anticipated by the end of the year. A little bit about what we allow today. As of May of this year, we have about 4,000 home-based businesses in Kirkland. And the business types range, as shown in this sort of distribution graphic. A large share of those are dedicated towards consulting and professional services. But there is quite a variety of businesses that are already supported in residential areas. And all home-based businesses are held to several requirements that restrict the number of employees, the number of deliveries, number of daily customers, square footage maximums, and limits to exterior and interior alterations. They're pretty stringent. but they do generally seem to be consistent with peer cities, although Kirkland is slightly more restrictive by allowing fewer deliveries, fewer customers, and more limited hours of operation just by a hair compared to some other jurisdictions nearby. Regarding commercial uses or standalone commercial uses, primary commercial uses, a lot of different ways to term it, we don't currently allow businesses to operate independently in our low density residential zones, which make up a large majority of Kirkland's land area as shown on screen. Even in our medium and high density residential zones, commercial uses require special approvals and compliance with very specific criteria within the zoning code. The overall message here being that the places which allow commercial are fairly limited in Kirkland today, and that creates a need for folks to travel longer distances, often in cars, to run an errand, pick up a missing ingredient for dinner, or even meet a friend for coffee. To overcome this challenge, several of our neighboring jurisdictions and several municipalities have amended or are considering updates to local development regulations to allow and even incentivize neighborhood commercial uses. There are a wide variety of approaches to this concept. We go over them more in detail in the packet, but some cities are limiting these allowances to corner lots or other locations such as close to transit or along certain arterials. Some cities allow a wider variety of commercial uses or fewer restrictions based on the zone intensity focusing their neighborhood commercial uses in zones that allow denser residential or areas where middle housing is specifically supported. Neighborhood scale commercial uses are prohibited along dead end streets in some cases and along cul-de-sacs in a couple of jurisdictions. Some cities also require these businesses to front the right of way directly. Seattle is a bit of an outlier as shown on this chart here. It has the most hands off approach to regulating neighborhood commercial and allows them on the ground floor or basement level of any structure and residential zone so long as it complies with the development standards of residential uses. We wanted to take some time to confirm our initial policy and project assumptions with you, which come from prior engagement, regional trends, and general planning practices. So we're assuming that we are going to explore this concept on a city-wide level since residential zones span throughout Kirkland. Part of that includes integrating these studies with recent code updates to areas that have received code updates, so middle housing updates will be applying these regulations in tandem with our middle housing updates, our critical area updates, and our new parking requirements that we adopted in April. Staff also assumes that you will be looking to learn more about typical neighborhood serving businesses and those specific uses which will serve neighborhoods best. as well as their potential impacts. So we'll be bringing forth recommendations for which uses should be allowed, which could be allowed with conditions, or those which might need to be prohibited for whatever reason. This also assumes interest in exploring neighborhood commercial not only as a secondary use to the dwelling unit, but as a primary use as well within residential zones. Development standards for both home-based businesses and neighborhood scale commercial allowances should retain building skills and development intensity that's consistent with residential uses. So not so much looking to focus on increased heights or increased kind of building mass, but rather use and other standards of how it interacts with the neighborhood. Any requirements for vehicle parking should factor in on street parking availability, but we are assuming that we won't be exploring curb management procedures as you've scheduled that work to begin in 2027, according to the planning work program. So those are our main staff assumptions for the project. And then finally, the community engagement plan, which is detailed on page, e-page 237 of your packet, builds off the feedback that we received from the public during the Kirkland 2044 comprehensive plan update, where a majority of people surveyed supported the concept of small cafes and corner stores close to home. We want to really understand the perspectives of the people who might one day operate the businesses. We're calling those our core stakeholders, so that includes business owners of all types, as well as community-based organizations that provide small business support. And we'll be contacting them to better understand the challenges and barriers to starting and maintaining businesses in Kirkland, their operational needs, and any potential strategies to encourage more of these businesses. We also importantly want to hear from the broader community to learn how the neighborhood functions today, to really collect and synthesize their thoughts and concerns and kind of display those to you, the decision makers, in ways that help inform your decisions. And we also really want to invite the general public to participate in the public meetings and allow you to hear from them directly. So our collaborative outreach to consulted stakeholders, which is kind of the more general group, will include more outreach-focused material. Both groups hold a... Yeah.

Yeah, just a question on the community engagement plan. You know, this is kind of following up on a comment we heard earlier, but the consulted stakeholders here that show up on this slide are kind of like everyone else, the general public. And I noticed in the plan at the end that under phase one that they're kind of, you're going to focus on kind of just digital outreach with those groups. I'm wondering if there's opportunities, or maybe you could talk about opportunities for in-person engagement with those groups as well, just because digital, you know, doesn't always work for everyone.

Yeah, so as scoped, the engagement plan takes into consideration the adopted timeline for the planning work program task. So we figured that because both groups hold really valuable information that will help us optimize the code, they might, given a time constraint, require different approaches. So the core stakeholder groups are busy, sometimes hard to reach members of our community that have time constraints and prior commitments, not to say our consulted stakeholders don't, but business owners and CBOs hold a perspective that's often very personal and maybe even private, and that requires a more intimate approach to engagement. So we were thinking more in the lines of dialogue, one-on-one interviews at the kind of scale and rate that is available to them. And then the consulted stakeholder group includes quite a larger number of people and consulting many Collecting those many perspectives requires kind of casting the widest net, so to speak. So we're planning on digital surveys, digital announcements, alerts, frequent digital contact. I think that from a staff perspective, extending the outreach and engagement efforts for either group could yield higher levels of participation, but it would likely extend the project timeline. So we would be looking for council approval for more in-depth outreach, other than what's indicated in the engagement plan.

Okay, yeah, I think what I'm asking for, I think it'd be nice to just get a little bit more thought on is having an opportunity, whether that's an outreach event, you know, at one time for consultant stakeholders, where someone can actually have a dialogue with staff, you know, rather than just, you know, filling out a survey online. That's all, but I'm not suggesting that both the core and the consultant stakeholders have the same level. I'm just looking for making sure that it's more than just digital, that there's an opportunity for actually an in-person discussion. Thank you.

Okay.

I think that is pretty much all I had for you. We have the questions that were posed in your packet on screen, just looking to confirm project scope, some expectations you all might have for engagement, stakeholder feedback you're seeking, stuff like that.

Well, thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you, Leandra, for the presentation, the memo, and the work on this. So I just want to kind of share, this is kind of our first time really going to talk about this substantively, which is actually related to one of my comments, the fact that this is the sort of first time. It's not truly the first time, it's, you know, we obviously adopted this as part of our comp plan, so that'll relate to my comments here as well, but right now we're actually undertaking this effort, and... What I'm, you know, sort of where I'm coming at is I think this is probably more complex than maybe we appreciate at this moment. So we're sort of underestimate the complexity of it, and I think that is leading to a concern that I have for the sort of the ambitiousness of the timeline. And so, and this relates to the fact that, so the Planning Commission's gonna get to hear this twice. They're gonna have a meeting that's probably largely dedicated to this. We're having a discussion today to try to focus the scope of this whole project. one agenda item in our much larger business agenda. I just feel like we're gonna have a really hard time, given the complexity of this, and I'll highlight some of the complexities in a moment, but I think we're gonna have a really hard time with the complexity of this, giving the Planning Commission all of the guidance that we will ultimately want to give them, just from this first meeting. So what you're gonna hear me ask, and I'm gonna look to my colleagues for support, is the idea that in the timeline that we're creating, that there's another check-in before the Planning Commission actually comes together and puts together their formally proposed recommendation to the council, that we get to, hear their conversation, we get to see some of their ideas. That will be shared with us, of course, and then we have a chance to digest this a little bit further, hear some of those conversation and ideas, and do a little bit more of the fine-tuning before we're faced with a concrete recommendation, this is what council, you should do on neighborhood shops and services. Because I think it's really hard for us as just, at this moment, just this short topic, to really give the kind of concrete guidance. And if you, Leander, if you can go back briefly to the assumptions. Yeah, staff. You know, I just wanna highlight, every single one of these bullets is really a set of questions. So explore citywide allowances, potentially to varying degrees. All right, to what degree, what are those varying degrees? The Planning Commission's gonna have a chance to talk about that substantively in August and again in September. We can't hope to really take it down. I mean, I don't see anything on here, the staff's project assumptions, that I would necessarily disagree with, but I also think I have questions about almost every single one of these. And I think my answers and my colleagues' answers to them are really what sets the scope for the Planning Commission. So I would just, really my high level comment is I think the timeline's a little ambitious. I think this is a complex topic. and I would like support for a timeline that allows us prior to the public hearing to have one more touch on this topic, to hear what the Planning Commission has come up with, not a formal recommendation by the Planning Commission, and then a touch by us before something more concrete is developed by the professional planning staff based on all that input, and then sufficient to have a public hearing on it. if that makes sense. And so what I'm kind of looking like I think is somewhere before the November public hearing that's currently in the schedule that we would get a touch. And I know this is on the 2026 work program, we're supposed to be completely done with it, but I do think there's a version of this where the planning commission is all but completely done with it. We're spending our December meeting approving our budget and then all we have is sort of a meeting sometime in one of our January meetings to sort of take the final vote on this. So I don't think this, I'm not expecting this to be a huge change to the planning work program. One thing, if I had guidance, high level guidance for the Planning Commission at this stage, I really would like to have them focus on the unintended consequences of this. I think it's gonna be really easy for a lot of us, especially all of us who are involved in developing the comp plan and the specific land use policy 4.6 that said, hey, this is something we should do as a city. I think it's gonna be easy for us to think of all the positives. I would like the Planning Commission to sort of think through the tiered allowances approach, the geographic limits, all the considerations that are sort of inherent to this and think about sort of what are the unintended consequences and what makes sense, how we can do this in a way that really delivers on land use policy 4.6. And what 4.6 says, and this is sort of my lodestar for all of this work, and I'm sharing this with my colleagues but also with planning staff, who I hope will share it with the planning commissioners. We spent a lot of time developing land use policy 4.6. It was supported by an economic development survey. It was supported by community-based home business community survey. It was supported by all the work that went into the comp plan, including several public hearings held by the Planning Commission. And it says, develop standards that allow small-scale neighborhood-centered commercial uses. So what I'm really focused on is those small-scale and neighborhood-oriented commercial uses. So I hope that's kind of where our focus is. I think that's what our vision originally was, and I think it's still a shared vision, I believe. And it includes corner stores and then commercial uses operating within homes. For me, that's the lodestar for the work we're doing. And I think it's relevant that we adopted the comp plan before this was ever introduced as a bill in the state legislature. So yes, this is a movement by the state legislature, but this is something City of Kirkland already, the Planning Commission, the community, and we as a council already identified as some direction we would like to go, but I still think the the Lodestar for me is that. And then I did have a question about the difference treatment of core stakeholders and consulting stakeholders, but Council Member Paschal asked that question and it was answered. Let me just check my notes to see if there's anything else I wanted to add. Yep, I think that's it, and thank you.

Thank you. And just to be clear, you're asking for a more iterative process between us and the Planning Commission before the public hearing and consider pushing out the timeline.

If possible, only slightly more iterative. Just one more chance for us to understand the range of conversation, because I think that we owe it to the Planning Commission to give them our thoughts and ideas and scope. And I think in a topic this big and important, I think we owe it to them before they come up with a formal recommendation.

Thank you. I have Council Member Falcone, Council Member Tim Chisholm, and then Council Member Paschal.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I first want to say, great job on this memo. I've heard from so many folks, not just in our city, but from around the region, that this was the best exploration of this topic that they've seen among folks who have been following this topic in our region. So really well done, really impressive. And to Deputy Mayor Black's comments about how the state is looking at it as well, I know other cities have done it. But like our missing middle housing policy before, I'm hoping that this could be an example for the state and for other cities in the state in the work that we do. And I think we're off to a really great start in your hands. So thank you. I agree with Councilor Paschall with having some sort of, whether it be an open house or something, I think that could be something that could be like a one evening event. I know we've done that. with some other similar issues in the past that may be a productive use without creating a ton more work and adding a lot to the timeline. I also had the same note about doing a midway check-in with the planning commission. I actually, my idea was not a briefing come back to us but to do a joint study session with them because I think A lot of these issues are very nuanced and I would like to be able to have a back and forth conversation with the Planning Commission on this so that we can let them know where we are. But I also, I know I've said this before, I want to be really clear that I don't want to tie their hands. If we, for example, give them direction that we only want them to do this in Certain neighborhoods of the city or certain parts of the city, and they're like, well, actually, I think we should also look at it in these other areas. I don't want them to feel excluded from doing that, even if that's not the direction we gave them. I just want that to be crystal clear that that's in my mind. The whole purpose of the planning commission right is to be able to be kind of an independent voice on issues related. for all our boards and commissions. But I do think it'd be helpful to have, just so they know where we're at, they know what to expect, and then they can choose what recommendations, whether within our guidepost, or if they have a strong rationale for going outside those guideposts, that they have the opportunity to do so. So I would love to have that back and forth. I think that would be the most fruitful. If we could fit it in the schedule for a joint study session, I would like to see that um i um i appreciate the discussion on um the deputy mayor said about unintended consequences i also agree i kind of just assumed that was the direction they would go like they would just start off with the assumption that we would do this everywhere and then as they learn more about potential unintended consequences that's where they would scale back like if you're you know on certain sensitive areas in the city or other places where it just doesn't make sense because of some potential unintended consequences that that's how they would probably go about providing the recommendations to us about when, where, and what types of uses where would make sense and that type of thing or what type of businesses. You know, this is a passion of mine. This has been a passion of mine for quite some time since, you know, before I even moved to Kirkland, but certainly since I moved to Kirkland, this is something that I think there's so much, as we heard from some public comment tonight, there is so much potential to have a significant positive impact on our residents' lives. You know, the quality of life, you talked about sustainability, fewer car trips, more connected among neighbors, more accessible business opportunities for community members who otherwise couldn't afford, you know, the mental and physical health. There's just so many reasons, right, that this is a good idea. So I do want to see this citywide. I don't want it just to be people who happen to be fortunate enough to live in a neighborhood, you know, but if there are very valid reasons, yes, but I wouldn't want it to be, you know, just based on the type of neighborhood because I want as many folks to have access to these types of amenities as possible. And obviously I want this to be a success. I think allowing more uses, allowing greater space within the home, square footage, all of those things are really crucial, really important to this work. But also we need to incentivize and encourage and reduce barriers to really help this actualize, this vision actualize. And I know this will not be the work of the planning department and the planning commission on the planning work program, but I think it's really important while we're doing this work to tie that work to this, right? So I'd really love to see in each of the memos that come to us, you know, a next step session that has, you know, the economic development department will, you know, will have a follow-up where the economic development department will provide recommendations on how to incentivize and market this, right? I think about us having some sort of marketing and promotion package to really push it out so that people know that we've made these changes, right? we have our annual pitch competition, right? I can envision us maybe having a separate category for neighborhood stores and services, right? That folks would, one, have the opportunity to have the education and kind of the hand-holding, because we're hoping that it's similar to our ADUs, right? That they're just an average person in our city that has kind of dreamed about doing a business or has something they're kind of doing on the side, might be able to actually have that dream actualized. Same with our pre-approved plans for ADUs. We try to simplify that. I would love for us to educate people once we're done the planning department's part of this work to then have economic development and marketing communications get on it. let people know, make it really accessible and easy to understand, provide opportunities to educate people, not just that it exists, but like I said, through the pitch competition or something like that, and then they have the opportunity, maybe we have a separate grant category or award category for neighborhood stores and services as well, and they could get, I don't know what it is, like $5,000 or $2,500, whatever that dollar amount is, and that could incentivize more people to think about this and actually see some of this happen in our communities, I think the mayor had an idea of maybe considering waiving some fees and things for the first year or two, if there's something we can do there. And I'm sure Jen and the team, economic development team, has ideas. We're not economic developers, right, us here in council. But those types of things that we do, what I don't want to have happen is we do this great work to allow all this stuff. And then in five years, we're like, well, we're not seeing a lot of it happen. And then we have to do like a, you know, neighborhood stores and services optimization, you know, item for us to work on later. I'd really love us to continue the momentum of this directly into that and have it immediately follow. Those are just, you know, a few examples. So thank you so much again for your work on this. This is a fantastic start and I'm excited to see what's to come. Thanks.

Council Member Tunchesan.

Thank you. Great work. Um, I look forward to the planning commission's thoughts on this. I don't want to micromanage the planning commission to the extent that we're making a recommendation to the planning commission of what they should be recommending to us. They have the time to do a deep dive into this and that is the purpose of a planning commission and we don't have the time to do that deep of a dive into this. I hope we take a relaxed approach towards some of the regulations here. I don't want to have such tight regulations on the sale of alcohol that it prohibits a wine bar from popping up. It says food must be served. I don't know if that means a full menu or goldfish in a bowl. But I look forward to the Planning Commission's thoughts on this, and I think it is... I think that these home-based businesses can work really well in cities with a very low housing cost for single-family homes, for a residential home that comes in at a lot lower than Kirkland. And I think it's fairly difficult for many of these businesses to succeed with the home prices that we have. So I'm looking forward to seeing what regulations can come out of this because these are probably only going to, these probably will be very difficult to be viable for somebody to actually purchase a home to run a home-based business here in Kirkland. So I I'm a little skeptical, and I hope we take a relaxed approach to regulation so that if we do this, that we actually see some materialize. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Pascoe?

Yeah, thank you. I'm not going to repeat what we heard already, but I just want to first say that I support the goal here that we're trying to achieve in seeing more neighborhood commercial businesses. And then, you know, I thought I thought Leander you had a really good slide that showed kind of the project assumptions I totally agree with. You know I think you've really thought through some of those issues and things that are going to need to be discussed, so I don't know that I have anything more there so other than i'm just curious to see where that goes. The one thing that i'd asked for one of the questions that you had was like more information. So. I think one of the pieces of information I know that we do have that I'd like to see a little bit of a summary on is all the complaints and issues that we have seen over the years related to the home businesses that we have today in our neighborhoods. Because those are issues that have cropped up that we've had to deal with, whether through code enforcement or other means. It's taken city resources, it's taken city staff time, and to kind of go into this and thinking that those issues are just going to magically go away by expanding legislation here, regulations, and then kind of wiping our hands and saying, oh, this is going to have no impacts on the city, would not be a good way of going about it. I don't think that we are going to do it that way. So I think that information would be really helpful in kind of crafting an approach and making sure that the regulations are going to be addressing some of those issues. And I'm not saying those issues are right or wrong, I'm just saying let's go in with our eyes wide open and being as thoughtful as we can. So I would actually love to see that information sooner, you know, than later.

If you have it, I can send it out.

I mean, I don't want to see like, you know, a spreadsheet of a thousand comments, but I mean, just more kind of like, what are kind of the main things that we hear from the community?

Can I list a couple off? Oh, sure, yeah. I had a chance to kind of collect that from our code enforcement group, and they expressed that common problems with home occupations relate to excessive number of vehicles associated with the business. Right now, I think we limit the number of business-related vehicles to one or two, excessive visitors throughout the day, unrelated visits and deliveries, noise generated outside the allowed hours for residential areas, and then storage of equipment or materials at the home in plain view, boxes, things like that, and then modifications to yards and setbacks, basically outwards. facing stuff that is very noticeable to people around.

Okay. Yeah, well, thanks for that. Let me see. Look at my list. Oh, my list is short. Yep, that's all I had. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Council Member Arnold?

Thank you. Um, first, this is one of the reasons why we have a planning commission. I look forward to them drilling in on this. I agree with council member Tim Chisholm that we should just let them do the work and do not support the, um, ask for another check in. Um, As far as some of the questions you have here, there was a question in the memo about the tiered approach, and I actually support flipping what was in the memo. We allow some home occupation businesses citywide today, and I want to continue that citywide standard and look for ways to relax Requirements that we have today, but I also think there's a bigger opportunity for some of the areas that have talked and talked about on corner lots and along arterials. So would also be wanting to look at options for wider or expanded uses allowed on those. Spaces and would hope the commission could. Really? Embrace complexity here. There's often times where we've asked the commission to go simplify things. This is one where I think we're going to want some more complexity where we end up saying there's a small set of things that's allowed citywide. There may be more expanded uses in other circumstances and getting this right is going to be important because if we do, as we heard from the public, this could be, um, this could be incredibly cool. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Prim.

Yeah, I agree with a lot of what my colleagues have said, and to answer some of your questions, I would definitely favor starting with the tiered approach, and I think it largely also depends on how significant the changes could potentially be in a given neighborhood. But I think beginning with locations such as like corner lots or properties along arterials will allow us to kind of evaluate these businesses before we consider like a broader expansion. So I would be very supportive of even starting like a smaller pilot to evaluate how things go and then of course council can meet and then revisit for broader adoption across the city if things look good. And then in terms of the assumptions, I think generally I agree with a lot of your assumptions. And I think, of course, I think there's a lot of detail that has to be worked out through those assumptions. I think one example was the off street parking requirements as an example, and that we would implement kind of similar minimum parking requirements that we would have for normal commercial use. But I think the the property types are so different um where you have a commercial property versus what like a residential area that i think we may have to think through that you know um i you know i was talking to a colleague of mine and mentioned that you know like if i opened a chai shop like i make amazing chai by the way um i would expect a lot of customers um and so if i get 20 people coming and you know parking on my street i'm sure i'm going to have some some issues from my from my neighbors so Just things to think about there. I think in terms of community engagement, I do generally agree with your strategy, but I do also really do agree that we really need to make sure that we're also getting the residents feedback as well, because ultimately it is going to be the residents who are going to be using these services. in addition to just what kind of businesses they would want to see on their streets, what concerns they have, and what questions they may have, and really providing them with specific examples, like images like you've already done in your memo, but really showing people what this could potentially look like so that they can visualize it better and have a better informative response for us. But, yep, that's my feedback for you. Thank you.

Leandra, you do such an awesome job with these big, complicated, meaty projects. So I'm so happy that this is in your hands. And I agree with Council Member Falcone. This was an excellent memo. So thank you so much. So, I don't want to repeat what's already been said, but I do support doing, Council Member Prem just said it, sort of thinking of it as tiered and the first iteration as a pilot project, and then we learn more as we go along. I think we can expand it in phases. I wanna echo, I'm afraid you're gonna walk away from here with a lot of mixed direction and I can't really help you with that. You all are gonna have to regroup and think it through. I don't think we need to rush this. I think that it's okay to expand this in 27 because I want to do it right. So if we need to take a little more time, if we need to have a check-in with the planning commission before the public hearing, I think that's a good thing. I really appreciated Council Mayor Paschal's comment about what we're seeing in code enforcement, so that was really helpful. So the only two additional comments I have are on the engagement plan. And it occurred to me earlier today is we don't take advantage of our boards and commission members enough. And they are residents who are committed to the city, who are creative, who have a diversity of opinions and thoughts and life experience. So I would like you to check in with the boards and commissions to get their input. I think we should do that more often. And I also recognize that a majority of small businesses like this are minority owned. So you probably have it on your list, but I really want to make sure that we check in with our CBOs and see what they need and what kind of barriers that they're seeing. So, thank you so much.

Can I make one more point? I just, it wasn't very clear in the engagement report, but we will hold a open house before the public hearing. That's kind of a typical practice lately, so we will definitely do that. We can explore tabling. We have a lot of summer events coming up. kind of informal opportunities to connect with the community on this and then the home-based businesses are actually kind of a unique hybrid stakeholder because they are residents and they do live in neighborhoods that would be impacted by larger businesses and they also have that business owner perspective so we're very interested in hearing from the home-based business owners and we'll be focusing questions related both to their experience as a resident and a business owner. It's a very unique, valuable point or perspective.

Great. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right. We are now moving on to Item 9E, update on Resolution 5729 regarding the city's response to federal immigration enforcement. We have some guests in the back that are here for the moratorium. And I think I told you maybe 8.30. I lied. Sorry. 10.30 is what I meant.

City Manager. Thank you. Well, we're switching out. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So, yes, this is your first formal update on Resolution 5729. Lots of work's been going on behind the scenes, so we're kind of giving you our first sort of check-in report card, and we're looking for council feedback and any additional information you want before the next check-in. Here to give you that is our Deputy City Manager of Operations, Tracy Dunlap, and our Senior Management Analyst, Juliana DeCruz.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council Members. We're happy to be here to show you our first report card on Resolution 5729. Our intention today is to kind of walk you through a high-level overview and see what questions you have, but our other major thing that we're looking for is to get your feedback on what else you'd like to see. This was sort of our best Shot at not too much detail, but hopefully enough to give you a sense of the progress, but we definitely like your feedback on that. So if you want to go to the next slide. I wanted to talk just a little bit of the evolution of these discussions at Kirkland. I think there was a federal impacts team convened early on probably a year or two ago that was done kind of under the emergency management discussion on a number of what I'd say were maybe tactical impact decisions and so that group met periodically at the staff level And then as things evolved and as this resolution came into focus, we kind of did a fit 2.0 and we elevated the fit participation to really be focused on the directors and then key staff as issues were identified. And so the people that are identified on this list are the directors and some key individuals, the emergency manager, DEIB manager, government affairs manager, who are tracking very specific issues. But what I wanted to make clear, because I think one of the comments talked about human services not being involved, is the director of parks and community services is over human services and the intent of having the directors be the primary fit team is so that they can identify the subject matter experts and the contacts that need to be out talking about these issues and getting feedback. And so this isn't a permanent and fixed list, though the directors I think are permanent and fixed on it, that Subject matter experts will be added or switched out depending on how how things evolve so it's not intended to be static Councilman Falcone Thank You madam mayor.

Well, thank you for that Tracy. I have another suggestion that wasn't discussed already tonight and that is Adding a racer representative to the fit team you know when I see I think about the situations that we're talking about. There's so many where I can imagine behavioral health crises could be a part of it and be emerging, just like in a lot of the other situations that we have to deal with. So I think that's very appropriate to have them both at the table for these discussions, but also to bring back what they learned from the discussions to the rest of the RACER team. I know that it's unique and that it's not, we don't have a director that's just a Kirkland staff member. However, I think it's really important to normalize that we have three separate first response departments in the city of Kirkland and one of them we share with four other cities, but it's still elevated to the same level and um, has the same importance. So although it's not the same because they're not, you know, a city of Kirkland, you know, necessarily employee director, in my mind, and I think from the public perspective, it's still the same as having our chief of police or our chief of fire there as well. So I would love to add a representative to RACER to have their voice here and to make sure that we have that valuable input as well.

Sure, certainly, I think we can talk to them, and I think we have the chair in the room who we can talk to about that as well, the best way to the city managers, the chair of the board, I think, right?

Still, but I think it's... Officially the president.

Or the president. I knew there was something I was... Very important. Thank you so much. Thank you. So I think to just tee up the rest of the discussion, the next slide just kind of talks a little bit about, again, what we were trying to accomplish with what we provided you in the packet, which is hopefully a sense that substantial work is complete and has been underway. So even though you haven't heard from us formally, large groups of people have been doing a lot of work and things have been accomplished since you adopted the resolution. And one of the ways we've kept track of that from an internal standpoint is at one of our two monthly directors meetings There's a standing item. And so if there's a something that needs To be resolved we make it a formal discussion there, but it's also a place for us to follow up And make sure that we're making progress on the individual items again, I think My, I guess, chair role in all of this is because then I also meet with the department directors on a regular basis to make sure progress is being made. So we do it both sort of in a formal discussion but also in informal discussions to make sure things are moving. Our intent is to bring you a formal report quarterly, so our next one would be roughly in October, but we also intend to post information as it's finished and as we get your feedback the report card on the city's website so that it's available to the public and that they can explore it at whatever level of detail is available. And I'll let Juliana talk about that in a little more detail. And the other thing I'd say is this is very much focused on the resolution, but as Juliana You all are aware there are emerging items that get identified on a regular basis that maybe don't fit neatly into the resolutions categories or top subject matter. And so we added, I guess, a new category that's emerging issues, and that's where we're keeping track of things that have come up. For example, changes in grant language, which was a big discussion recently and a lot of feedback was received from across the country. but coordinated in the state of Washington. We keep track of those things there and the staff that are involved are constantly monitoring legislation and speaking with our peer groups, and I know you hear about it at your elected, your bodies where you're interacting with elected officials from other jurisdictions, and so our intent in creating this emerging items tracker is to recognize that this is not an event so much as it's a a process and that it's going to evolve over time and as things are completed they may come back to the top but new things may take their place in terms of the level of activity and so what um juliana's going to do is kind of walk you through just sort of a very high level of the dashboard to see where you might have comments but talk about the things that we're working on right now, which are marked there. And then we certainly welcome your questions and feedback. Thank you, Tracy.

As we go through the next summary tables, I want to note that the outstanding priorities will be circled in red. And by outstanding priorities, we mean items that are underway but are not yet fully complete. The memo had a lot more detail of subtasks for each of these high-level summary tables, but as we go through the summary tables and as you review the memo, this is a key underlining what we mean when we're reporting on each action. So many of these tasks are marked as complete, so it is a one-time task, we check the box, and we finished the task. Whereas established and ongoing can mean something that had initial work underway, but there's continual review. So for example, in a moment we'll look at lead policy review and training, We completed an internal policy review process, but we do want to touch base and review those policies regularly. So it's complete, but it's ongoing. In progress is work that is underway but is not yet complete. And pending is status where action is dependent on the completion of another task. The first summary table is for policy review and training. As noted, initial policy review is complete, but there will be ongoing review. For example, internal policies will be reviewed any time there's legislative changes that might necessitate a review, or any time there's federal immigration enforcement activity that involves city staff or is witnessed by city staff that would prompt another review of the policy to ensure that it's in alignment with what happened and are any findings and learnings we had from that incident. The two circled items on here are items 1D and 1E. These are priorities for the next quarter. Staff training is underway. Many staff have been trained on city policies, and there is a all staff training that is loaded and will be deployed to city staff, but it is not 100% complete, so that is why it's marked as in progress. And similarly, IT review of data sharing policies and camera system compliance is underway. For the education and outreach overview, many of these items have been established, and the priority item for the next quarter is finishing and continuing Know Your Rights information and education programs for the community. The city, in partnership with the Lake Washington School District, co-hosted Know Your Rights and family safety planning trainings, and some of these trainings will resume with the new school year. Item 3A is marked here as complete, but it is this discussion of the one-year moratorium on the acceptance of permits for new or expanded detention centers, and that is coming next on the council agenda. So it is complete, but not quite complete. And the next two priorities involve legal research to evaluate if the city may prohibit civil enforcement at city-controlled spaces and any actions that the city may legally take to protect free and fair elections in the city. That research is underway but not yet complete. The last summary table involves constitutional policing. The Kirkland Police conducted a very substantial review of policy and protocol documentation, which included review of Policy 308, Officer Response to Calls, Policy 400, Patrol Function, Policy 411, Consular Notification and Immigration Policy, Policy 436, Body Ward Cameras, Policy 600, Investigation and Prosecution, and a review of training bulletins. The next step priority is for the Kirkland police to update the website to provide clear information about the role of Kirkland police. And we think that this website might be a good place to report to the community about what work has been done to include leaks, links to these report cards as well as these policies and sort of be a catch all information place for the community. The emerging issues is what Tracy spoke to earlier. This is a summary of some of the issues that have been tracking to date. And I touched briefly on the focus areas for actions in each of the previous slides, but they're summarized again on the screen. And as Tracy mentioned, we are anticipating bringing a new report card to council in the fourth quarter. And as Tracy mentioned, we're happy to hear any feedback or answer any questions you may have.

All right, thank you so much. I know, but I don't want to call on you first because... Anyone else want to go before Council Member Falcone? Council Member Arnold. Nothing personal.

Just briefly, thank you for all the work on this and information. I look forward to the future discussions. Looks like we have a lot coming in the fourth quarter and some meaty, meaty topics. As you're looking at this, I would just encourage the team to... avoid a failure of imagination. We've given some particular area of topics and just want to make sure you're thinking broadly of possibilities both in what could happen that we need to respond to and then just being creative and how we can respond. You'll hear some of this during the detention center discussion, but even in areas where We may not prevail over the long term. There is value in some delay in process and time. And so I want to think through and make sure that we're presented with those options, even within the constitutional framework that will come up in the detention center discussion about federal versus city authority. Thank you.

Thank you.

Council Member Falcone. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, I agree with Councilman Arnold's comments, so thank you for that. The only thing I would add to that is that, you know, the impetus to bring this before us, right? There were a lot of reasons for it, but we were having a lot of conversations over the last year and a half, right? About really, I know some of us were really asking for a lot of information, particularly around 1B and 4C. 1B is the internal policies and procedures, and 4C is the police response plans for potential unlawful action by federal law enforcement agencies. So I would really like to have a briefing on more specifics on both of those items. It's great to say that we've reviewed the policies. What does that mean? Council hasn't seen the policies and reviewed them. Are there gaps or things that council also may want to add? or improve upon those policies. So I would like to be briefed on both of those so that the public knows, right? And so that we can daylight those policies and have a conversation around, you know, get community input as well as council input on what improvements we may be able to make. But at the very least, educating us on what those policies are. Thank you.

Anyone else? Okay. Council Member Tim Chisholm?

I agree with the comments of Deputy Mayor Arnold and Council Member Falcone. I think there's value in moving forward with this. I am also curious about some of the policies surrounding our Kirkland Jail and how we respond to phone calls from federal authorities to our Kirkland Jail and if they call up and request the immigration status or other information about an inmate. what our level of cooperation is. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, go ahead.

Since you gave me that question, I did ask the Chief to be ready to respond to that. I don't know if you want that response tonight or if you want it at the next meeting.

I'm here.

Go ahead, Chief.

Right. Like I said, City Manager had briefed me on this one. It's actually a pretty easy answer. So Anybody can go onto our website. We have a jail register on who is in jail. So we haven't experienced any immigration officers calling us kind of just out of the blue and asking immigration questions. If they did, they wouldn't get anywhere because we don't ask that question. So we have no idea what the immigration status of anybody in our jail is. More likely, they would look at our jail register, and they might see a name. They could run it through their databases. and then would call. We have very clear protocols and it's been state law for many years that if it's a civil detainer, which we have got a couple of those, then that doesn't mean anything to us. We don't hold, it doesn't do anything changes our protocol, we don't let them know when we're going to release them, anything like that. If there was a criminal warrant signed by a judge, then we would be mandated by law to notify them and cooperate with that because that's a criminal. We haven't had any of those, but that would be how we would handle that.

Thank you. Who are the civil detainers from?

They are like Um, I don't even know what the right term is. It's like, um, it's not a criminal judge immigration court or yeah, it's like, I can't remember the term. Thank you very much. Yep.

And just to be clear, the curriculum police department doesn't keep any information about immigration status. So that isn't an information that they would be able to provide even if someone did ask because under our policy under state law, they don't, they don't track that. They don't ask for that information.

Thank you.

Anyone else? This is going to sound really critical, and I apologize in advance. I was really dissatisfied with the memo because I wanted so much more. I wanted a deeper dive. I mean, what I'm seeing is yep, we did that, we checked that box. But as a policymaker, I have no window in what the decisions were made. And so, and we are the first people that people come to and go, what are you doing about this? And I have this, this felt like a very closed box that I needed to pry open. I want to know what policy decisions we've made. We've spent We spent months on our body worn camera policy, and then I read, we deployed a camera system policy. I don't know what that was. I don't know what decisions we made. What are we seeing? What kind of immigration enforcement actions are we seeing in our community? What is our response? Is our community reaching out to our officers? Are they showing up? Are we turning on our body worn cameras? What are we doing? have we sent this resolution and this report card to our community to get their feedback? Are there any gaps in it? I feel like we have much more work to do, or I need much more visibility in the work that we're doing, and waiting till Q4 doesn't satisfy my need. So, I don't know if that means that we need to do brief, some of it we can't talk about publicly, so I don't know if that means we need to do briefings with small groups of council members, but again, I'm feeling like trust us and that I do trust you, but my community needs to know that I know what's happening and what the decisions that we're making. So I feel like we need another conversation around this. One of the questions I have specifically is the state did pass a law that immigration officers are supposed to identify themselves and not be masked. I don't know what we're seeing in the community. I don't know what our interactions are. I recognize that we can't enforce that law. I see the chief smiling at me. I have a feeling that it's being ignored. But, you know, again, I just kind of want to know anecdotally, I mispronounced that, but what we're seeing in the community. Yeah, that was it, thank you. And I apologize, but. No, not at all.

We have all kinds of details, and so I think it's helpful for us to understand what that is. I don't know that you wanna talk about, you've given us great examples now, but as you think of them, please share them with us, because one of the things we spent some time doing is trying to condense what is a lot of detail, and so what the right forum is is another thing we'd really welcome your input on. If it's individual briefings, because you probably have different issues that you're even more But there is a wealth of information. It's just a question of how to make it digestible. And so any feedback you have is more than welcome.

For example, I told the city manager, it was, okay, we've reviewed our KPD policies. Here's the link to them. An executive summary of the changes that we made in response to potential federal immigration issues. actions would have been really helpful. So that kind of thing is what I'm looking for. What have we reviewed? What are the changes that we recognize and what are the changes that we need to make and why? Council Mayor Falcone wants to jump in here.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I agree with what the mayor's saying, and I think perhaps based on her response of that's it and what she's saying now, I think I may have been too soft and not clear enough maybe on what I was looking for. I was looking for the same thing, a lot more detail on all of this, right, and before quarter four, like in a recent, you know, a sooner meeting than that, whenever we can fit that in. And 1B and 4C were just my top priority for those. Because those are the ones that sparked the desire to have this LRM and to have this resolution, is really looking for answers to those questions. Which, as I said, I was really excited to open the memo and I was hoping to have that kind of information of finally getting those questions answered. that I've been asking for the past year and a half about our policies, about what we would do, you know, if some of those horrible, unlawful situations happen with federal law enforcement agents in our community. And, you know, how do, you know, our policies in all our different departments, right? And what are our policies and where can we improve them? I'm just, you know, holding my breath to finally get answers to some of those questions. So, but it's really all of the areas that I would like to have more information on some of the details and be a little bit more transparent. with both council and the public. And if we can fit it in, I know we have a lot going on between now and the end of the year.

It's interesting because it makes me think of the criminal justice initiative or something like that where it's been almost a year by the time we'll be all done with it to go through because each one of these is a vast amount of information. It is a lot of information. And I think that that's where any additional input you have on specific issues like identifying individual tasks to bring first is very helpful because it would be, I believe it would be very, the volume would be large enough that we'd have to do, I don't know, retreats or something like that to handle the volume all at once. And so maybe prioritization on particular topics is the most helpful thing.

Yes, which is why 1B and 4C are my top priority. For sure. But this is important, you know, and like I said, I have been waiting over a year and a half for these answers to these, so I think we've had time for that. And I also, you know, unlike the criminal justice, which is also very timely, it's very real and impacting people's lives every day, this is something that's even more time sensitive to that, right? That we cannot wait to continue to have answers to these questions, because there may be things that we need to be preparing for, that we would identify in a discussion with the community on our internal policies or our police policies that we're not thinking of yet, that an incident could happen before we've had that discussion, before we have an opportunity to make positive changes that could have protected one of our community members. And so the timeliness on this, it feels more of a sense of urgency in my mind, which is, I guess, why I'm really hoping to see something before quarter four. Thank you.

Tracy, my suggestion is maybe you interview each of us and gauge how deep we want to go, and based on that information, make a decision from there. All right, anyone else? Thank you. Are you staying for the next item? No. Okay. All right. All right. We are moving on to 9F. And I know our audience is so happy. Our last item, no it's not our last, our second to last item of business is the detention center discussion. City Manager.

Yes, speaking of going deeper. So this is one of the tasks on the resolution that we pulled out specifically to talk about separately from the prior summary. We wanted to walk you through what we learned. I wanted to start off by saying that the city staff's intention was to do a moratorium and in the process of developing the information to actually lay out the ways to do the moratorium. We were looking at the codes and we discovered that we didn't think we needed it, particularly for private things, which you're gonna hear about. But the goal, which you're gonna hear is, we understand the council's goal and the staff goal of not having detention centers in Kirkland. And so we're trying to find the best path to do that. So there is no intention in not having a moratorium of not trying to meet that goal. So I just wanna be clear about that. So we did a whole lot of work on the moratorium, concluded it's not necessary here, but well, you're gonna hear about that. So with that, I'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to you. Adam Weinstein, our Planning and Building Director, and David Barnes, our Senior Planner.

Thank you, City Manager. Good evening, Deputy Mayor and Council Members. So tonight we're going to talk a little bit about, as the City Manager said, privately operated detention centers, government-operated detention centers, staff review of detention center use, and hopefully that leads to a fruitful council discussion. So how did we get here? Back in December 2025, there was a federal notice that was issued looking for sites and giving details in the region in the Pacific Northwest for federal detention centers. That obviously created some consternation in the community. And a lot of neighboring jurisdictions and the counties adopted temporary and or emergency moratoria to address. I should note that, yeah, okay. And our response quickly was after that was to adopt Resolution 5729 in April. of this year, and as mentioned, I think I'm one of the subtasks at 3C to investigate the moratoria, and that's what I've done. So we evaluated the regulatory context, what would happen if somebody, whether it be the government or a contractor, and tried to do this and what the impact of a moratorium would be. And our stated goal is to not have detention centers in Kirkland. Just want to make that clear. So on the privately operated detention centers, if there is any good news that the privately operated detention facilities are not an allowed use in the Kirkland zoning code. That may be different than other cities around us, and that may be a reason why they actually did adopt a moratorium to examine that. But the way that it works is that if a use is somebody considers applying for a private detention facility, it wouldn't be listed on any use listings in the code. And what does that mean? It means that we don't accept, we prohibit that use. That's what it means.

Council Member Tim Chisholm.

Thank you. So the current zoning code prohibits a detention center by omission. Is that correct? If it is not a specifically itemized use, then it is prohibited by omission. And does it put the city in a stronger position if we amend this to specifically prohibit detention centers? in a stronger legal position.

Yeah, thanks, Council Member Tim Chisholm. I can take a crack at that. I think our practice for many, many years has been that uses that are not allowed are prohibited. It'd be really difficult to list all of the prohibited uses in all of our zones. I think that's why we've had that practice in place. For instance, in our residential districts, we list only a couple only several uses that are allowed it'd be really difficult to list all the specific uses the tanneries the meat packing plants the factories the whatever you want you know other obnoxious uses that would be prohibited so that's why we have the current approach that we have so i think that it is a strong approach it has been effective in the past we not infrequently tell people that the use that they're proposing is not allowed. So I think it's worked effectively in the city in the past.

From a planning perspective, I understand and agree. I guess I'm asking from a litigation perspective as well.

The code is, or I mean, Adam used the word practice. I don't actually think that's what it is. That's the interpretation the city takes on the code, that if it's not explicitly prohibited or substantially similar to one, it is not allowed use. I don't think it puts us in a stronger legal position to have it prohibited, and in fact, by listing one prohibited use, we end up needing, I think, to list the rest of them. Unlike Bellevue and King County, their codes are written in ways where it doesn't have to be expressly listed to be an allowed use. They write it in ways that say certain uses are prohibited in zones, and so their codes are just written differently than ours. So they're a little bit of apples and oranges when you compare the codes of King County or Bellevue in how they frame them compared to the way Kirkland does.

Okay, thank you, Adam, and thank you, Darcy.

All right, go ahead, David.

Sure. Regarding federally operated detention centers, we actually have a government facility as an allowed use in the Kirkland Zoning Code. And the definition is below, and basically it's consisting of services, facilities operated by any level of government. excluding those uses listed separately in this code. So unfortunately, a federal detention facility falls within those parameters, and government facility use listings are listed all throughout the city. We're in one right now, and we're in a residential zone. But they're not all the same, but that would clearly fall in that area. Also, various laws and statutes that have been described in the memo preempt state and local regulations for siting of detention centers. So likely, even in an area where a use listing doesn't say government facilities, they would not be necessarily obligated to follow that and could pursue that. In investigating this, they would have to comply with federal law, if not ours. And NEPA is a federal law, National Environmental Policy Act. And several other states have already mounted appeals for NEPA, and basically what NEPA does is it forces federal agencies to evaluate the environmental impacts of a proposed major action, look at the funding, the permits, and the land use management before making final decisions. And those agencies must prepare a detailed environmental impact statement or environmental assessment and invite public input. And I think probably from our experience in EISs, we know that they're not a short process. So anyway, I just thought that would be good to list that. So we evaluated a lot of the regional moratoriums as the primary starting point, and we looked specifically at Bellevue because they were one of the most recent cities that adopted a moratorium. And a lot of them didn't provide much detail about what or how they would provide protection against these facilities. In fact, I noted and a number of them noted ways by utilizing the moratorium to gain time to evaluate ways they would allow those facilities in their communities with appropriate protections and so forth. Again, we did examine the federal laws, had a lot of help from the city attorney's office with that. And the citations in the memo explain exactly that the federal government can propose an operated facility that they are doing, regardless of where the government facilities are listed. And we also found in the city zoning code review, I might be repeating myself, but this is a summary. that we prohibit privately operated detention centers and we would not be obligated. So if they came to the counter and said we wanna do this, we wouldn't have to accept their application. Should also note that the private contractors, even if they're working in the capacity with the federal government for detention, don't have the same legal standing as the federal government. So I think that's a good thing. And then looking at the risk for detention center siting, You know, looking at the federal government's document that they put out there that they cited, that the attributes that would make kind of a desirable city to site in would be a place where they already have an existing facility. Also, you know, an area that would be close to an airport. So, you know, on the scale of where we might be lower down on the list. I should also note that the New York Times did report that the federal government had purchased over a billion dollars of property in the United States with the purposes of siting these detention centers. And the reporting said that basically over three quarters of that money or that land value they're trying to shove off because they've realized how much it takes to take a warehouse and make it a facility like this. It's a big, big scale jump that we're not prepared for. I should also mention, this is not a reason, but this is full transparency to the council. They gotta have all the information. There may be some things that we might not be able to get to quite as quickly if we actually consider it a moratorium. It might take six months or depending on how much we decide to go into it could take longer. And therefore, we might be missing out or delaying several projects such as middle housing optimization. The project that Leandra spoke about, home occupation and commercial allowances could be delayed or citywide affordable housing requirements which actually directly supports the community that we're trying to protect. So staff determined that moratorium is not needed for private detention facilities since they're prohibited and the federal detention may be ignored by the government. So that's how we reached that determination. But we thought it would be good to provide some other options, because I think that's probably what's on people's minds. We could do something such as adopting a resolution expressing the city's opposition to detention centers. And that would send a message for sure. And also, we could consider adopting targeted code amendments. Yeah. I'm not going to comment on that because I just don't know how effective they could be, but I did see that I think that the city of Tukwila might have put something on one of their use listings for, I think, government facilities that says specifically doesn't include federal ICE detention facilities. But it is something that we could look into. So I'm hoping that tonight, you know, this maybe took a very complex topic. Try to make it simple, not only for you, but for anybody that's listening here, because there's just a lot of misinformation out there. And we just try to put all the facts in one place so that you could have, hopefully, a fruitful discussion about detention centers and the direction you want to go. So that's it. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Davidson. Deputy Mayor.

Well, thank you, Madam Mayor. First, I want to thank everyone who was involved in the research and the memorandum. I appreciate the amount of thought that went into it. I appreciate how carefully it was researched, and I also appreciate, I think, what I would say the transparency that Kirkland using in this case and that may not be the same with some of our fellow jurisdictions so I just want to say thank you first and then the next thing I wanted to mention I actually want to ask you a question David because staff has concluded that a moratorium in Kirkland's not warranted because of the way our codes written it's not allowed, at least the private facility is not allowed use, so a moratorium's not really warranted. What I heard you say though, so some of our peer cities who've done moratorium, which is only temporary to begin with, so it's not an actual ban, It also sounds like some of them are really using the time to figure out how to allow this use, which is not really a part of their transparent communications to the affected communities that what they're really doing is giving themselves time to figure out how to allow this use. Is that what you said?

I think what I said was, yeah, they had mentioned, because you have to establish a work plan, and several of them actually talked about ways that they could allow that use and putting the proper protections in place. Like you said, what that means, I think that one thing that we did that was really valuable is that we had the ability to stand back and look at all those. and say, what do we need to do? This is what everybody else has done, and evaluate what the best direction and the best recommendation we could make. If we could affect change by a moratorium, that's what we would have recommended, right?

It's not really warranted in our case.

I don't believe so.

I, you know, our... One of our important directions as part of this Resolution 5729 was to engage actively with affected communities and organizations that represent affected communities. And one thing that I think we've heard, we've done a lot of that work, maybe not perfectly, or at least reported out on it maybe perfectly, but we have done that work, and then those of us on the council have also had lots of conversations of representatives of the affected communities. And one thing that's, we've heard this pretty clear, is the affected community would really like Kirkland to do something to demonstrate our preference that we are not the site for immigration detention facilities. And one of the options is here on the screen that I thought I found interesting, at least wanted to put something in front of my colleagues that we could at least talk about and consider. Also put it in front of the staff, give them a chance to evaluate it, get back to us. We're not going to do anything tonight because anything we might do, and the option I'm referring to is the targeted code amendments. Anything we might do would be an amendment to our zoning code, it would require a public hearing, which we could hold as a council. In fact, we were gonna hold a public hearing as a council on a moratorium. So we'd sort of put that back in place and then we could potentially consider this. And the staff would have a chance. I know they're evaluating the idea I came up with. They're evaluating it now. and I want my colleagues in the council to have a chance to evaluate it as well. So I focused on adopting targeted code amendments. I thought that might be the most meaningful. What I sent to staff and my fellow council members, and of course just at the moment that I want to refer to it, my computer logged out. If we were going to do adopted target code amendments, I wanted to put something in front of my colleagues for consideration that would be simple, straightforward. And I thought there might be a way to do this without necessarily, unlike maybe the effort that might go into a moratorium, there might be a way to do target code amendments without necessarily having to put things on the public planning work program aside. And that really... was enticing to me. So I did create something for everyone's consideration. It addresses the, or sort of is a response to this option for targeted code amendments signaling the city's preference regarding detention facilities. It's calibrated to not only apply to federally proposed immigration detention facilities but to detention facilities at all, from all levels of government. But it's also calibrated not to scoop up beneficial uses, like behavioral health facilities, and also our criminal detention facilities. So it's carefully calibrated in that regard, but it does apply to all levels of government. And it basically involves, I'd say, two main edits to our zoning code. The first would be, in the definition, a government facility. It would specify that a government facility does not include an immigration detention facility. A government facility, that definition, that's the definition of an allowed use. So Council Member Tenchisan asked the question. how does our code work and it's by omission. The way that a detention facility would make its way into our zoning code is everywhere, as David said, everywhere it says a government facility is allowed, a detention facility would be allowed unless a government facility does not include. immigration detention facility. And then you need a definition of what an immigration detention facility is. And so it would add a definition of an immigration detention facility. I included a third element, which is for consideration by the staff and my colleagues. It would actually go into, it would actually create a one-line prohibition to immigration detention facilities. I'm not personally as wedded to that concept, since we basically do have a a code that's designed to prohibit uses by omission rather than specific bans. So that's in front. Again, this isn't a motion to take up this matter. This is an opportunity for this to be considered and probably brought back to us with staff's evaluation.

Thank you. Council Member Arnold?

Thank you. Um, thank you, David, for the, um, and and team for the analysis here. Um. While the analysis states that regulations would likely be effective. Ineffective and preventing citing, um. We need to consider the same strategy and practices that the administration is, which has been even given some plain language interpretation. They are testing every court, testing every assumption in court, and we should do the same because there's value in delay. So while a moratorium is not... Warranted moratoriums used to freeze things while you have time to evaluate. We're not. Vulnerable given what we have in the analysis, but that doesn't mean we. I don't want to take action here. I do support targeted code amendments. I appreciate Councilmember Black bringing a proposal, but I think it's too specific and I want to not fail from a lack of imagination. We're talking about detention centers right now, but it could be other uses as well. And so what I'm looking for is some targeted code amendments that could be considered directly by the council where we're holding the public hearing. We're not slowing down the planning commission from doing their work. Um, that would look at, um, government facilities and whether we make those a conditional use approved by council, whether we remove that as a, as a, um, uh, use altogether. Um, I'm looking for something like that that would, um, take away the risk around government facility versus specifically targeting detention facilities. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, thank you for this. I have to say, when I heard about the results of your work, I was proud that we already had this on the books, right? Like many other things, we're ahead of the game on some things. So that's good news to hear, and I am really proud of that. Essentially, I'm in favor still of doing a moratorium. I agree with Councilmember Arnold of doing a moratorium and also potentially looking at additional targeted code amendments that would help. If we can have extra layers of protection here, we should. And also want to be really clear on where we stand as a city. And I think that having a moratorium will help achieve both of those things. We have clearly heard from leaders in our immigrant community that that's what they're asking for. And I think it's really important to listen to that. So I understand and appreciate the rationale in the memo, and that's very valuable. And I don't see a downside, and I see a lot of upside to doing a moratorium. as well on top of that. Some of the testimony we heard today provided specifics on things they'd like to see that make sense to me in a moratorium, including it being, you know, either private or feds owning it, the immigrant detention centers, but also including immigrant offices as well and not just immigrant detention centers. We've heard stories from other cities in the area where there's been immigration office that has been used for purposes other than just offices where folks actually have been detained and slept on couches or floor or other things. And so I think that's prudent for us to also have in the moratorium immigration offices as well as immigration detention centers. I agree that I don't want this to go through the Planning Commission. I think we need to expedite it. I think this is time sensitive and also needs to be elevated to a council meeting and a council hearing on that. If we move forward, thank you, Deputy Mayor Black, for your really thoughtful proposal. I appreciate you putting a thought into that, and I agree with the intent of that. And if we do move forward with that, like I said, I would just add, or immigration offices as well, right, to that consideration as well, if we look at that in addition to a moratorium. So I think... I think that's everything I wanted to say. Thank you so much.

I'll keep it super short. I do generally agree that we want to make Kirkland's position pretty clear and do support considering code language amendments. I do agree with Council Member Arnold that we do want to be careful though on how we're defining detention centers and just ensure that we're thinking about any sort of creativity that may be imposed to think of other facilities as detention centers. So just want to make sure we have a broad enough definition, but really do appreciate Deputy Mayor's proposal, and I think that is the right direction overall to take. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else?

Madam Mayor, so I just wanted to, there's a few things that are gonna be a little hard to reconcile as we take this away as staff. One is speed and some of the other comments. Just an example to Councilman Arnold's thing. When we were looking at the issue of detention centers, you get into correction facilities and other things that start to become, even under state law, essential public facilities that can't be banned. So this gets really complicated really fast, which is why we actually really liked Deputy Mayor Black's initial proposal. It was pretty simple and pretty targeted. That doesn't mean we were done with our analysis of it, but... I think the message is clear, we're gonna come back with targeted amendments, but I guess we need your permission to be creative and specific, because like I said, it gets pretty difficult pretty quickly. And when I hear about the immigration office, you start to get into office uses, then you start to get into a whole another layer of complexity. So it's just, it's not that simple to move fast and think through all the ways that this administration could do something difficult. But the last thing I want to get on the record, and I think I've heard it, is that you want to make sure that whatever happens, the public hearing is held by the council. So if we could like get that as a motion and direction, we can then just make sure that the two things are held together. We don't have to worry about the planning commission.

Thank you. Councillor Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just want to clarify, because we've talked about both targeted code amendments as well as a moratorium. My comments on time sensitivity was on the moratorium, which would give us time to do the targeted code amendment. So I just wanted to see if that's what we were discussing, since that wasn't part of your comments.

I think that's directed to you, City Mayor.

Well, I guess I would have to ask. I didn't hear the others talk about a moratorium. I heard the others talking about coming back with specific targeted code language, but obviously that's up to the Council to provide that direction.

Deputy Mayor?

Well, that's a good segue to my question. I was going to ask that question. What does the professional staff think we get by doing targeted code amendments expeditiously? and at the same time a moratorium, what's the advantage to doing those both in parallel? Parallel may be the wrong word, but basically initiate them both at the same time.

I don't know if you have a thought on that. I do have a thought on that, but go ahead.

Yeah, thanks, city manager. The only thing I was gonna say is that I think, again, if we can have a take the approach of sort of clarity and reducing complexity to the extent possible. I'm not sure we gain a ton by doing a moratorium, although against the council prerogative, I think we can actually bring back some options, even ones that are a little imaginative about, you know, potential federal actions. We I think we can bring this forward relatively fast as code amendments without enacting a moratorium and going through the public hearing and creating a separate work plan and so forth. That said, David has done all of the work that we needed to do for a moratorium. We have everything written. So if council wanted to do that, we could do that. But I think we can bring code amendments relatively expeditiously to council.

Because the purpose of a moratorium is to figure out what your code amendments are. So there's no benefit to doing a moratorium if we can just expedite the code amendments.

Right.

Right. Okay.

Okay.

Okay, and that's certainly, that was certainly my intent in creating this, and I also just note that although the definition is immigration detention facility, I think the actual, and it may need to be improved, but the actual definition of an immigration detention facility is broad enough in what I propose to include an office that is intended to be used for confinement or detention. So I don't think we need wholesale changes, so. Just highlight that.

Councilor Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Because I feel so strongly about the community input that we've heard specifically from the immigrant community, I am still, just so that it's on the record, going to make a motion for us to ask staff to bring back a moratorium on immigration detention centers and offices in the city of Kirkland.

Okay. I'm tired. Bear with me. All right. Council member Falcone has moved that we bring back a moratorium or anything else I should add to that on immigration detention centers and office and immigration offices in the city of Kirkland has been moved by council member Tim Chisholm. Uh, second, I'm getting tired. Any discussion? Council Member Arnold.

I will be voting against this motion, not because I don't support doing something, but I think this is an additional step that slows us down to the final solution.

Deputy Mayor.

Essentially plus one to what Council Member Arnold just said. We're doing more than a moratorium. We're doing more than our peer cities. I think we're responding to the affected community because if me or one of my colleagues doesn't move for targeted code amendments, I will. So my plan is to take that approach and do what is truly a prohibition in the city of Kirkland and not just a wait and see and make plans for how to allow a facility under certain conditions a year from now. Thanks.

Thank you. Councillor Pascal?

I too will be voting no. I'm much more in favor of a permanent solution rather than temporary. That's what a moratorium is. It's temporary. We have a permanent proposal here. Let's move forward with it.

Thank you. Anyone else? Councillor O'Brien?

Yeah, I agree. I'd rather have your resources being spent on a permanent solution.

I agree with that. Well, okay, discussion. Yeah, go ahead. Are you proposing a motion, Deputy Mayor Black?

After we finish this motion.

Right, no, I'm not. I was explaining what I plan to do so my colleagues understood. And my opposition to this motion will ultimately be conditioned on the fact that I intend or hopefully one of my colleagues will make a motion for the targeted code amendments.

Okay. A question to the city manager. Do you want to weigh in here on whether a moratorium or targeted code amendments is something that you, what would you prefer?

I would recommend targeted code amendments. With the staff coming back as quickly as we can draft options for council to review and approve.

I second this, but I'll be voting no, but in favor of the city manager's recommendation.

Council Member Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just want to be clear that I support both, and I think I was clear on that. So my motion is not in opposition or as an alternative to Tardio Code amendments. It's addressing and responding to the community request, as well as I don't, I think it's optimistic to think this is going to be quick, but that would be great if it was. I think that this is something that is going to require some community engagement and some other work, which is another reason why I support the moratorium in addition to the Targeted Code Amendment. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll be voting no on this moratorium because we could just skip the moratorium and go straight to the targeted code amendments. But I will say that if we approve the motion for targeted code amendment, that can go to our communities to get feedback for them. So we're not cutting them out of the process. I'm going to withdraw this motion.

Pardon?

Questions on the motion? Moved by Council Mayor Phil Cohn, seconded by Council Mayor Tim Chisholm to move forward with the moratorium. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed? No. Motion fails, 1-6. Deputy Mayor. That's a new one for me.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'll go ahead and... get the motion for the target code amendments. Before I actually make the formal motion, I did intend to make it clear that I do hope that the time we spend evaluating these target code amendments is also time spent communicating with the affected communities and the groups so that they have all their questions answered about what we're doing, which is a prohibition versus what peer cities are doing, which is a one year moratorium. So, and, and certainly we're listening and getting feedback. And if that's, if somehow us doing basically all a city can, almost all that a city can possibly do that doesn't have an existing office or detention facility, if doing that is not, then we, I certainly want to understand that. But, um, I guess I'm challenged to understand why this measure would not, that's all we can do would be sufficient. So I'll move that we adopt targeted code amendments. Sorry, thank you. The clerk just reminded me. I move that we direct staff to come back to us with proposed targeted code amendments.

Second. It's been moved by Deputy Mayor, seconded by Council Mayor Prim to advise staff to come back with targeted code amendments. Any discussion, Council Mayor Arnold?

Deputy Mayor, was your intention that those targeted code amendments have the council holding the public hearing?

Absolutely, they did. That was part of the plan for simplicity and expeditiousness.

Thank you.

Does that need to be appended?

I think you just did.

Um, also have a question. Is your intent that it includes immigration detention centers and immigration offices or just immigration detention centers or options for both?

My intent is reflected in the draft language I provided, which is any building structure premises, including any portion thereof used or intended to be used for the confinement or detention of one or more persons for the purpose of enforcing or administering civil immigration laws.

I have a question then, probably for city attorney related to that. If a situation does arise, like what happened in Tukwila where there is an immigration office and they are detaining people that are sleeping there, how would we know that and how would we enforce? Would we just shut them down immediately? With these targeted code amendments, it's saying we're not going to allow it if it's used that way, but we won't know that it's used that way until it's actually already cited, permitted, built, and then they're using it that way. And then what do we do? Can we shut them down immediately? How would that work?

Councilmember Falcone, it's difficult to answer your question because, as we tried to note in the memo, we don't have authority over the federal government to stop their operations in a lot of capacities. There's a lot of flexibility in terms of investigations the state can do in terms of health of a contractor and things like that, but I don't want to overpromise that we would go out and stop somebody if they were... holding someone in an office and they were the federal government. But I do think that as we're helping draft and refine code language that Deputy Mayor Black provided and to bring that forward to you, giving you some staff analysis on that and refining it a little bit, we can contemplate the situation that you're talking about and try to give you some more details. Thank you. So you don't need that explicit in the motion language?

I would not. Thank you.

Anyone else? All right, questions on the motion to ask staff to come back with targeted code amendments, including council holding the public hearing. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Thank you all. Thank you. All right, we are moving on to our last business item, which is... Item 8H2 on the Tourism Development Committee recommendation for Seattle Sports Commission membership and fiscal note, which was pulled from consent. City Manager.

We don't have a formal presentation on this. We are prepared to answer questions. This was moved from the consent calendar.

I will call on Council Member Prim.

Yeah, this is a much lighter topic. So I understand that the staff is recommending that we spend this $8,000 a year on this membership to the Seattle Sports Commission. And I understand that a lot of the surrounding cities are a member of this organization and that they will provide us with kind of a seat at the table to be able to bring in sports events into the city. But I think, I don't fully understand whether the cities that have actually signed up for this have actually received a benefit. I think getting some more information on the tangible benefits we will actually get I think $8,000 is a lot of money to be spending every year, and I do understand that the $8,000 does come from the lodging tax, which can only be used for lodging-related expenses. advertising, marketing purposes. And so I understand that the scope is very limited on how the money can be used. But I want to better understand, you know, what are we really going to get from this membership? And then what other ways we can actually spend this money. And then I think until I get that information, I don't think I can support this.

Okay. As long as you're not cutting Jen off. No, no. We chatted about it briefly at break. So I'm happy to take our first stab at answering that as TDC chair. I just want to clarify, you had mentioned that it's a staff recommendation. This is actually a recommendation of the Tourism Development Committee. And so it was a unanimous vote for us to recommend this. And just a little bit of context around that. The primary purpose of the Tourism Development Committee is to put more, what we call put more heads in beds, right? Like it's to help promote tourism and events so that we can have more folks renting nights in our hotel rooms, right, in our city. Our event that is most aligned with this purpose is the Junior League Softball World Series. We really fill our hotels with those folks, both the players and the families and the umpires, let's say, at a different hotel, like multiple hotels in our city, experience tremendous benefit from that event. And also, so, I wanna mention that because we've also been working on with through economic development as a city, really branding ourselves as a sports town, especially a women and girls sports town. And that's a big focus of the Seattle Sports Commission. A lot of that is soft benefit through relationship development that takes time that this is a great opportunity to do so. to be in the conversations about potential future opportunities and to position ourselves as the town to do that, which could support both existing things such as the Junior Softball World Series where we are working to expand promotion of that event as well to encourage tourism of people in the region to come and some of them perhaps stay in hotels to watch that series through our celebrity softball kickoff event that we have and welcoming rally. So this could help with establishing relationship to get more high-profile women athletes, for example, to play in that exhibition game, which would draw more folks in. Could also, you know, as we are, the Kraken facility is gonna be opening. That's a potential for, you know, we need more beds to put more heads in beds, right, for tournament events and things like that that will also promote and help economic development in our city. So it will definitely help with that, which is why the TDC is recommending this, just like we do, you know, we recommended $120,000 for lighting for downtown Kirkland, for example, right? There are like, we provide grants every year to events, but also some other ongoing things through marketing and development and other things. So there's precedent for us recommending things like this that will help broad tourism in our city and economic development, but also specifically to try to put more heads in beds. And again, like these kinds of sporting events that we want to bring more to our city, we've had like, three and three basketball tournaments, and there were some other things mentioned in the memo, really do drive the mission of the TDC, which is to get more people in our city staying overnight in hotels. So that's why it was recommended. to continue and grow support of our existing events, but also as we look forward to new events in our city to set us up for success, that we can kind of hit the ground running when the Kraken facility opens, that we can get, you know, maybe the really cool, you know, maybe like Pride Month, you know, hockey tournament in our city or things like that that really align with our values that would be good for economic development and getting more heads in beds as well. So that's the overarching, and Jen may have things to add, or my vice chair, Council Member Chisholm may have things to add as well.

Council Member Chisholm?

Thank you. This recommendation comes from the TDC, and the TDC is a board that is a little bit unique. It's not a normal board or commission. It's made up of the heads of every hotel in town, basically. The Heathman, the Woodmark, and the Doubletree. And the managers of those, general managers of those hotels sit on the TDC board. Those TDC members run the businesses that pay these taxes, and so we traditionally defer to their expertise in how to spend this money. And that's why, so that's where the recommendation's coming from. Thank you.

Anyone else?

Yeah, you pretty much read off my notes. I think as far as tangible, so I know that when I worked for the city of Issaquah, we were a member because we had the Association of Volleyball Professionals that had a large event, a regional national event in our community, and it brought... like Council Member Falcone mentioned, it brought additional opportunities to draw more people in because the connections they had. It also elevated the things that we were doing just because of their expertise by providing us technical assistance on how to do some things. Kirkland has already had some conversations with the Seattle Sports Commission about how to do that for the Junior League Softball World Series, and they've already played with some ideas. The other piece that's integral to being a member is being at the table, which is important, but that also means that we can pitch opportunities for people to come and stay in our community, to have that event in our community, and we don't have that ability to do that at all if we're not part of this. Like a lot of things in economic development, it is about having relationships, but also then connecting those people that you meet with the things we're doing. And I think there was a lot of excitement from the Seattle Sports Commission about the Junior League World Series, Softball World Series, and potentially the Kraken for sure here, and then potentially Torrent being here, and how we could build upon that. So those are just some additional things. But our two TDC members said it well.

Thank you. Thank you so much for the additional information. I think I feel comfortable now, which is why I wanted to bring this up and have the discussion publicly. So I appreciate it. Thank you. I'm glad you did. Thanks for asking the question.

We get to brag about the TDC. All right. Council Member Falcone, why don't you make the motion, and then Council Member Tim Chisholm can second it.

Thank you. Madam Mayor, I move that we approve the recommendation of the Tourism Development Committee to spend $8,000 of TDC funds on membership for the Seattle Sports Commission.

Second.

Thank you. It's been moved by Council Member Falcone, seconded by Council Member Tim Chisholm to adopt the TDC recommendation and join the Seattle Sports Commission. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 7-0.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right, we are on to council reports. Deputy Mayor?

Point of order. I believe after 10.30 we don't do council reports. Is that true?

Oh my gosh, I think you're right. And I was actually, he was going to say let's not do council reports. We've got an executive.

Yeah, thank you for that. That's exactly what I was going to say. It's 11.15. We have 11 professionals here, and we still have an executive session. Anything I want to provide you, I'll do it by email.

All right. We will forego council reports, and I'll hand it over to city manager.

We do have one business item under city manager reports, which is the discussion of the Hoche Village easement. We have a short presentation, which we could skip. We're just looking for a motion to authorize us to negotiate either the extinguishment of the easement or the movement of the easement. Skip.

Skip.

Council just wants to make that motion. We can send the presentation to the council members so you have the information we would share, which is only five slides.

Thank you. Anybody want to make a motion? So moved that.

It's to authorize the city manager to negotiate modification or extinguishment of the Houghton Village easement either through termination or relocation approved by the city attorney.

Second.

Did you just make that motion? I did. You had him read it? Yeah. Okay. I don't know what was happening there. All right. It's been moved by Council Member Falcone, seconded by Council Member Prim to move forward with the negotiate modification of the Houghton Village easement. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 7-0.

Two quick calendar items. I just want to note we'll come back with targeted code enforcement as soon as we can. We will also set a September 1st affordable housing discussion on the 2000 versus 2500 with a full memo and ordinance and any additional information Council will see. And then we'll also schedule a Youth Bill of Rights for September. Is there any other Council calendar issues?

No.

Okay, that's all I have, Madam Mayor.

All right. We are now going to go into executive session to discuss litigation as authorized by RCW 4230-1101I. We expect to re-convene our regular meeting at approximately 1150, only for the purposes of adjournment.