City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. It is 6 o'clock on Tuesday, April 14th. Welcome to the um city council regular meeting. We're here live at the mill and uh on our YouTube channel as well. I will call this meeting to order and then ask folks to rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Clerk Chelin, could we have a roll call, please? Absolutely.

Council member Aria, here. Council member McManis, present. Council member Donahghue, here. Council member Shipman, present. Council member Jarstad, present. Council member Edwards, present. Council member Packard, here.

Thank you. Uh, approval of the agenda. Um, I I wanted to bring to folks attention there's an item an action item uh 8B ordinance 1215 cannabis growing limitation that was uh originally slated to be on consent. Um there's been uh talk of moving it to consent. I just kind of wanted to get council's feedback about support or not to move that to consent or to keep it on as a regular action item. I was just curious what was different between what was being proposed here and what was in the past. And so I I just had a few quick questions I want to ask.

Great. Then let's just keep it as is. That works. Any other proposed changes or comments about the agenda? I also had a few questions around the pros plan. I could have that conversation separately with Sarah and it would generate some email questions. Uh or we could do it here. I know we have a full agenda today, so I didn't know what you would propose there. Right. I would say since the pros plan isn't on the agenda at all. Well, it's on the It's on the Oh. Oh. Oh, sorry. Seven seven delta. Got it. It's fully spelled out. It is. Um that's why I was looking for pros. There's no pros on the agenda. The same thing.

Council Packer, does that affect your vote tonight? Um probably not. No. So, yeah, I'm I'm fine to pass it. There's just some clarifying questions, but okay, make a move to motion to approve the agenda as written. Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Motion passes. We have an agenda. Moving to guest business. Uh, we don't have guest business.

We do not. Okay. Well, then we're going to skip guest business. go right to citizen comments. Um for citizen comments, we have I have a few green sheets here. Um we have some folks online, so we'll check first online. Just a reminder, uh when it's your turn to speak, we have three minutes to share any information you want to share. Please step to the podium and state your name and we'll start the timer. I'll have Clerk Shelon first check online. See if we have anyone there.

Yeah, thank you. As mayor prom Jorstad mentioned, if you're online and would like to speak to the council under citizen comments, this is your time to raise your digital hand and I can bring you into the meeting. Not seeing any hands. All right. Thank you. We'll start with the green sheets. The first one I have is Beth Phillips. Thank you, Beth. You have three minutes. As you said, my name is Beth Phillips. Some of you will recognize me from her community, which I enjoy very much. I've been approached or get another opportunity to be offered by the Last Leaf Productions to do Shakespeare in the park. I have been approached to request that you consider having them next year if this is something they would be willing to discuss anything here. Please let me know. Thank you.

Thank you, Beth. The next screenshot I have is for Janice Thompson. Oh. meetings on YouTube. Um I think I would recommend for a period of time and as I believe it's down fill that position um under your conditions and win a salary. I believe our employees need that continuity and that they're already adjusting to a new council and job stress, burnout, vacancies. Um it appears as though he's been doing that job for um perhaps quite a while anyway. And um maybe there's a lot of things that can back to do his present job as well as a part-time job. Um, someone new right now, he would have to spend probably a lot of time getting them up to speed too if we were to go out organization um as well as the staff beginning to spend their time in as well. So, uh, the city finance department is the core of our if it's not correct software hardware

that's really bad it's really bad so whatever that takes for you to get that support um I assume that that was the city but when I saw heard the last meeting I was pretty shocked Um there's not a lot of college graduates looking to work right now as well as um internships. Maybe they could come in and help out or just get on board doing their kind of findings. Um the purpose behind becoming GA was to um control urban sprawl and they also believe the cities were in a better position to provide the city services in the zone. basic city services are leased and roads police department is completely understaffed and at what point you decide no more building permits because of the volume of people that are here compared to percent of police officers that have done um anyway um it's either that everybody loves that truly the best keeping our roads maintained properly marked is a must and that also falls under being part of

we're at three minutes you are thank thank you Janice thank you all right uh the last screen sheet I have is for Pam Summers I didn't know there was one step on each is okay. I'm also here to speak a little bit to the Canadian replacement of your mayor and I listened to last week's

discussion and there were a couple things that came up that I would like to comment on. a lot of discussion about parttime versus fulltime and I too am leaning towards wanting to consider seriously a parttime position and my concern was I somewhat of last week about the fourth of people that are available just generally speaking it's concerned me u going forward who would be able to run for this position I know when um when Brett was campaigning, he campaigned for a parttime job and then it became a full-time job and I think that worked out okay for most people to come into a a fulltime job. So I worried about who the pool could be because you need to live here in order to run through the office as I understand. So not like you can run from some you know apply for the job and then move here you'd have to live. So the pool's conscripted to retire people and self as far as so I would like to suggest that that is looked at and maybe even just even for the moment going some of what is saying and think of which I know you guys will you'll slog all this out you'll figure it out but I just wanted to raise some concerns about more than anything my concern about future and I also am concerned about the ROI as also was mentioned last week and the 40 million dollars that um breath brought into the city and I would really appreciate something you did when you get a report from um administration if that could be broken down I would really appreciate that of the 40 million what

where what projects were those four because this feels like a very salient point for suggesting that it's necessary to have a full-time meeting. I would like to know what was involved in getting those funds and what those funds were then going to be used for for that to me. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Great comments. Thank you so much. I was I'm like trying you're up. I know. What do we do?

All right. That brings us to uh item number seven, the consent agenda. Can I get a motion? I make a motion to approve the consent agenda. I'll second it. Motion a second. Uh any discussion? All those in favor, please say I. I I Any opposed? Thank you. Motion passes. We move into action items. Our first item following the heels of some citizen comments um is the mayor vacancy process. And so I will turn it over to city administrator Jean. Thank you.

Yeah. uh last year or last year last week we had some discussion on this topic already and I really appreciate and that's one of the things I enjoy with working with this council is uh we did a lot of ideas deer sharing and there was comment on the existing code and so um our attorney went back and looked into that code and asked some of his um fellow attorneys at the firm if they'd ever run into this and lo and behold he found somebody and so uh in discussing with them it sounds like it was a part-time mayor position. But that being said, they recently that city recently used that language and filled that position. So, uh, our attorney Greg did provide a memo to the council. Hopefully, you've had a chance to read that and had some really good information. Uh, that being said, uh, this evening, that is one consideration that council can, you know, uh, talk about and discuss. If that's an option that you want to move forward with, we could do that. uh if you would like to go out, our city attorneys prepared an ordinance to update the code to where we would have a selection process and we would uh post for the position and receive applications much like we do for a city council position. Uh, and then in the council packet, if we choose to go that um second route of going out for applications, I've included and staff's included a series of questions that will need to get resolved from council. And I'll just read through them real quick. The position classification, that's full or part-time. We'll need to solidify that. Uh the review process, how that's going to work, and then the timing, which is basically the schedule. So, I'm going to open the floor for discussion. Uh, unless our attorney Greg would like to speak to the topic a little bit.

I guess the only thing that I'll add and of course I'll be glad to receive questions on anything that's in that I addressed you in the memo was you know I had the great the great thought uh last week. Well, is reducing the position to a part-time position something that we really want to consider? And uh uh one of my partners uh uh came to me uh this week and said, "Hey, look at the state constitution article 8 section 11." And unfortunately, our state con constitution prohibits a reduction in salary in a position. There's an old state supreme court case out of out of eastern Washington where someone was elected voted to fill the unexpired term of in this case it was a council member who who left. But uh the uh uh the city uh wanted to put him in in a part-time wanted to give him that salary that that that person had. They had cut the salaries and it went it went up to the court and the court said you can't do that because our state constitution prohibits any reduction in salary and this person is just filling this unexpired term. And and as I recall when when when we first went to the full-time mayor, the the issue of the the raise in salary was an issue, but fortunately our constitution allowed for a rise in salary as long as that person was not participating in the decision whether or not their salary gets raised. So the end result of that that you you saw in my man memo is really uh we're really you've really caught between the rock and hard space

and trying to at this time reduce the position to a part-time position because you have to keep the full-time salary. So that's I just wanted to explain that that part of it because that was really kind of the major change in what we had talked about last week. So I have a quick question about that clarification. Does that mean that the position salary could could never be reduced or it can't be reduced at this point? Be reduced to be effective uh for the at the next election. Okay. For a new term, not to f but not to fill the unexpired. Thank you. That's why I saying it's just for this current Yes. Right.

We have to fulfill the agreement that's already been made for the current term. Yeah. Mhm. Which therefore means that we could not put a temporary part-time Yes. person. And we would have to pay them full time. If they were parttime, we'd have to pay them full time. They'll be well paid for that. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people raise their hand for that job. Yeah. Councilman Packard.

And I guess I'm I'm not willing to concede the idea of part-time just for that basis. We're going to spend the money anyways. My question is, who's the best candidate to fill the job? If candidate X can do a better job in 15 hours a week than candidate Y in 40 hours a week, I'm not concerned about how much time they spend. I'm concerned about having them be the best candidate for the job. And so I get that they would be paid a lot of money per hour. Uh my concern is what's the best who's the best person for the job to help the city over the next 18 months.

How would we determine that? Like I guess what I'm saying is if we put out there, is it going to be a part-time going to be a full-time? We don't have candidates yet. So, how would we possibly be able to determine in advance we're going to have a better candidate that's going to be worth twice their salary potentially like if they're only working part-time than somebody who's willing to commit to a full-time job. This is a huge commitment and I agree the pool's going to be smaller, but it's somebody committed to working full-time for our city versus somebody who's committing part-time but getting paid as if they're full-time. I think it's gonna be hard for us to determine that that part-time person is going to justify that cost. I don't know. How would you how would you do you have an idea? How would we determine that?

I mean, through the same process and all the questions we're going to ask, right? At some point, we have to decide who we think is the best candidate. First, if it's part-time or full-time before we get candidates,

that would be a pretty good idea. I guess my proposal, this is just my thought process over the last week is can you put something in the application that says we're open to a variety of you know uh time and in the application you ask how many hours a week can you commit to to putting towards this job 10 20 30 40 and I mean we're when you say how do we decide right we're we're going to have to decide whether someone's uh the better person for the job right that's part of our process process. We're going to ask questions. We're going to uh we're going to come to an agreement. And um it I'm just concerned that if we say full-time, we get three candidates and we don't like any of those three candidates, what do we do? And if I get a fourth candidate that can only give me 15 hours a week, but I feel like they're a much better candidate and will be the best person for the city, I'm inclined to at least consider the option. I just want to give us the option to have that conversation. That's my biggest concern. Maybe there's some knock it out candidates that are willing to go full-time. This becomes a moot point. I just have no idea who's going to apply and I'd like to keep my options open.

Quick question. I apologize if this was covered last week. What is the threshold for part-time to full-time? Is it 15 hours? Is it 20? Is it 35? What are we talking is a maximum for part-time?

Well, our code doesn't specify that. Okay. Uh and I in fact I have I don't know I've ever seen a code that provide for a public officials uh office that that that designates that. I I I think the assumption is and I guess be interesting to go back and look at what the salary commission looked at when when they uh uh um made their recommendation for the salary for for both the full-time mayor position and the and the part-time. I don't know the there isn't to answer directly your question is there there's not a a black line here. It's uh uh I I think the expectation was and if you looked at the hours that Mayor Gaye put in, he you know, he put in what we would think of as a full-time job, right? He he went to a lot of meetings, had a lot of evening meetings as well as day meetings and so on and so forth. Generally, a part-time mayor uh is going to come to your meetings. He's going to put in maybe some daytime hours, not maybe necessarily five days a week. Uh um but there's no black line.

But but there are state and federal laws about that define a full-time worker versus a part-time. for certain uh uh benefits, right, for the application of certain statutes. Those wouldn't apply to a mayor's an a an an elected or appointed uh public official. Sorry, I just I want to make sure because that was going to be my next question. So, in terms of the constitution and any reductions, that is salary, not benefits. That is salary. Okay.

Yes. Can we as a council establish a floor or a ceiling for for part-time? Because I know I've had jobs in the past where as long as I didn't work 40 hours a week, I was part-time and so I ended up working 38. If we're talking about the difference between a candidate who's working 40 hours a week versus 38, I'm a lot more comfortable with part-time. Well, uh, right now you're, uh, uh, if you were going to go back to a part-time and hire someone part-time, uh, you certainly, I guess, could say that the expectation would be at least x hours, uh, whether you did a month, a week, probably two. May Mayor Pam, if I could uh the code section right now for the full-time position states that the mayor shall not accept or hold employment which will prevent the mayor from being available at the city offices during the hours that the city offices are open

to the public or which would prevent the mayor from regularly attending council meetings and such additional evening meetings, right? And how many hours is it open? Because I think this is probably wrong, but if last time I did the math, I want to say it was like 27 hours a week. Let's say we're 9 to 4 Monday through Thursday and 9 to noon on Friday is when our city hall offices are open. So, but that wasn't necessarily what So, it's 32 32. Yeah. Yeah, which is a If we're looking Okay. Right. But it says the city offices are open.

Great. Certainly all of us are here past that time. So the the full-time mayor would be required to be there 32 hours a week plus other what was other functions or whatever language you used or to be available to be there be available which feels like a being available at the city offices during the hours that the city offices are open to the public at the office. Okay. So they have to be there at the office or be available. So is it available to be there or available at those those are two very different things. It's they're not to have other employment that would prevent them that would prevent them from being available during regular office hours. Okay. Yeah.

I guess I I I wasn't here last week, but I did watch and listen to the meeting and and I think the conversation around full-time versus part-time. Um I think it's important I Jean, I think you mentioned whenever there's an open position, I think it's important to like, you know, let's take a step back and look and see what we need and, you know, look at the position. I I hear Councilman Packard, I think, you know, you make a good decision like we want to get the best person, but we also want to make sure that we're that we're taking into consideration what the city needs.

And my concern is that this is a big change, just getting a new mayor, right, to appointing a new mayor. This is kind of an unprecedented event to also potentially reduce the number of hours. That's another really big change. And I'm wondering if we want to look at the next 18 months as an opportunity to take the time to really consider what's needed versus trying to make that decision in a meeting. um appointing someone into the full-time position with the with the really transparent sort of conversation that we're going to take this next 18 months and really kind of do a deep dive into what are the roles, what are the responsibilities, how is this person spending their time, what does the city need, and that if we're going to change it from full-time to part-time, that maybe the point to do that is not now, but when that position is up for reelection. I guess my the the motivation behind my question is you said it's a big change, but I'm I'm wondering how big of a change is it really, and that's just what I'm trying to pin down. I'm not necessarily advocating one way or the other. I just want to know what that change would be in terms of hours expected. So,

I guess Angie, to to double back on on what you were saying, um our city's going through a lot of changes. um as a whole it has, but our city government has had a lot of changes sitting up here tonight on council. You know, over half of our city council is new. Um and Brett, whether whoever hire or whoever we place to replace Mayor Gaye has big shoes to fill. I think the majority of people do not realize how much time he spent for our city, not just in his day job, but how often he traveled and he was away from his family. And um and I'm not saying whoever fills those shoes has to do as much as he did, but it's I think a lot to learn. He um it's a lot to learn. And as a leader of our city or one of the leaders of our city, we already are so new and so young as an administration that I think it's going to take that time to learn the role. I hesitate to think somebody coming in part-time is going to know what they're doing or what needs to be done. Um especially because he's not here to train anybody. So it looks like probably um Jean's going to have to step up and do that. Um, that's my concern is someone coming in part-time. How much will they actually be able to learn and accomplish in those 18 months for a wage? That's a pretty significant wage. And and as somebody who is pretty particular about our budget, that is an important thing to me is that when we're spending our citizens money, we're spending it well.

Yeah. Thank you, Councilman McManis. I think something to consider is, you know, um Brett when he was elected mayor had zero experiences being a mayor, right? And he had to learn on the job. He went from elected to part-time, moved into full-time. I was a salary commissioner at the time, so I'm very intimate in what happened during that time. But I think anybody in life, you know, um working a corporate job, I'm salary. I've been salary for 30 years. I don't think I've le worked less than 55 60 hours a week. So, I I want to be careful we're not creating this hero kind of persona for the mayor. He did some great things. There's some things people didn't like that he did, too. So, I think we got an opportunity to get a good candidate in here, but I think this role has become a full-time role for our city. Um, you look at you're not going to a part-time mayor is not going to pull in 40 million. I don't know how much 40 million we actually realized, but let's just say we realized even half of it. You're not going to get that from a part-time. They're just not going to have the bandwidth to do that, right? and it'll shrink your pool of qualified candidates because people are looking for full-time work in this economy right now, not part-time unless they're retired to someone's point earlier. So, I'm just want to throw that out there.

Thank you, Kelly. What was the document you cited as far as the hour requirement? It's our code. That's our code. Okay. So, duty or full. So, presumably, that's for employees, but presumably as a council, we have the authority then to set the hours. It's not an executive function. and the marriage you could set the hours in in in the code that the person appointed to the position would have to follow the code is expected to yeah counciloman you could do that

yeah thank you um last week as we were discussing I think I was inclined to to to think that we should consider a part-time role in the interim in the temporary position between now and when uh an elected mayor comes along hearing about the fact that we cannot decrease the pay and about the the being available daytime during business hours. Um to not have it be full-time, it means it would be have to be someone part-time that has a daytime part-time job or a nighttime part-time job. Um and there's a lot of evening meetings. Um so I am very reluctant to to have it be a part-time job at all. I think it is a full-time role and that's just my personal opinion. Um, and as we see if if the mayor leaves or or if the city administrator leaves, it is the the top leadership positions in the city and it is very important that you have somebody that that can step in and keep continuity with city business should one of them leave. So, I think it is very important. Some cities have two or three senior executive positions that can help manage um not just one. So um I think my my thought on the part-time versus full-time if we're paying a full-time role and they need to be available and learn I'm more inclined to to keep it as that and and do that. Um the second question I have um or the discussion last last time it was about our process. The current process states that the mayor role has to be filled from the city council members whether that was part-time or full-time. That's what we have right now. So we could want and we've talked about you know if a city council member is interested do we keep them in the pool? are they, you

know, participating in the interviews? It would be a little bit awkward. So, a thought on that to me would be that since we have this process now, we should establish whether or not any city council member is interested, vote on that. And then if they don't have enough votes, then we can move forward with a process that extends that application process so that we don't have that mix of council members and not councsil members and we don't have to change this the the policy or process if we don't have to. So that's those that was my thought on that. Thank you.

One more comment. So if if we were to and I like that idea a lot. Um, if we were to do that, um, I think if we're going to open it to everybody, if we made the amendment to open it to the general public, anybody who wants to apply feels are qualified to come in, I think that's a disservice to voters. It should be restricted to either current or currently elected or former elected officials that were elected by the city at some point to serve versus opening it to everybody because we could end up with a mayor that's never been vetted or voted on by the voters. I don't think it includes former. Right. Right now, the process just includes current, right? I'm just saying your code is currently written. Yeah. So, either Yeah.

I guess my counterpoint to that would be the point you just made, which was our last mayor had no experience being mayor before he became mayor. So, I I don't know that I would feel entirely comfortable because uh Greg, I believe it was cited in your memo. I don't remember the exact date, but when was that policy established? Wasn't it back when we had less than 10,000 residents and 1995? So my my personal feeling is that might be a little bit dated. Um I personally would prefer to have a pool where anyone who's interested and able to serve under whatever conditions we set for the office has that opportunity. Um but that's me.

I I would tend to agree and I think I'm basing that on having sat in this seat and um had gone through the process with different council members. So, I think I've gone through three different processes where it was an appointed process and people could submit an application and a resume. Um, I every single time I've been blown away by the qualifications that people have brought to the table, by the pool of people that we ended up having to choose from. Um, and and I think there's just a wealth of um of knowledge and skill set in our community that um that that would bring forward. Uh, I don't worry about there not being a qualified pool of folks to be able to choose from. And I actually think that feels like more of a service to our community to open that door um to to the the most qualified person in our community.

And Angie, I would agree with you on that. Um, we have a lot of talent in our city that if they're willing to step up, I don't think we should overlook. And we have a lot of previously elected people as well that might be fairly familiar with how the city's run and you know that type of thing. And even though uh those of us sitting up here were elected officials, none of us were elected to be mayor, right? Um so I think in all fairness we should open it up to Lake Stevens residents.

Um okay, I'm going to ask you to look into your crystal ball here, Kelly. having done this a number of times or Caitlyn Gan too. How long do we expect this process to take? And where I'm going with this is the concern if I heard it right. Council member Packard is if we keep it full-time, are we limiting the pool to a point where maybe we're not happy with any of the candidates or we can't agree on one. So what I'm wondering is if we do keep it full-time, we go through and that's the position we end up in, could we then do it a second time under a part-time um setup and increase the pool that way? Would we have time to do that within the 90 days? Yeah,

Greg, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but 90 days would be July 12th. So, there is a proposed schedule that I put in here into your packet. Um, and if we followed this, we would open it up this Friday. Um, deadline would be the May 8th, May 12th council meeting. We could take first look. Um, see where we're at then about how many applicants we have. And certainly, Greg, and again, you can correct me. You don't have to pick from that group. No. No. You could go back out at that point. You'd have you'd have time. That's right. If you get started right away, Yeah. and get that first group of applications in to look to see what you're getting, you have time to make some changes if if you want to, you need to uh Yeah. Okay.

But you got 90 days to do it. Okay. Cuz yeah, to your point, it started. That's the main it started. Okay. To your point though, I believe there's a lot of qualified people in our city. I'm optimistic that in that first round, even at full-time, we would get several qualified applicants. But if we don't, sounds like there'd still be time to expand the pool and look again if we need to. So, yes, Greg, if we wanted to go open it up to everybody, we would have to pass this amendment that's in front of us.

Yes, that's the the ordinance that that was handed out. And it uh it it strikes from your current code language that the u the mayor would need to be selected at your next regular meeting and be elected from your um membership. So um and simply we've added language that you would appoint a qualified position to fill the office and an incumbent council member is eligible to be appointed to fill the vacancy. That language is consistent with state statute. Just to clarify that last line is that just for clarity like the the default assumption anyway would be that an incumbent council member is eligible. We're just spelling that out.

Yes. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. Those words are taken directly out of the statute then. Okay, got it. Thank you.

If we are open, if we are open in the long term, long term meaning you're willing to go back and reopen it up to part-time. I'm inclined to just open it up from the beginning. Have your candidate window, your application window open longer, see all the candidates at one time. I'm concerned about, hey, we get three candidates, we decide we don't like those three, or maybe we don't like 20, right? And then we say, oh, actually, we changed our mind. We're going to open it up to part-time. I'm just concerned about the public perception of that. Uh, if if you are if you're willing to explore part-time, I propose you just make it an option full right up front. You get all of the candidates all at once. you explore those candidates and you down select from them. I just I'm worried about going back and forth now. And to be clear, when I talk about part-time, I am only looking at the next 18 months. Moving forward, whoever the next elected mayor is, she or he should be a full-time role. I'm clear on that. I'm fully aligned on that. I'm only looking at the next 18 months. Clerk Chelen, can you share what the what the work would have to be done to go from a full-time to a part-time back to a full-time mayor or or Greg or Jean? I don't know. I think it would be an ordinance and a code change.

That's another code change to to another section the code. But uh the person so May of next year that person in that in that filing week would need to file if they're interested in the mayor position for the November ballot. Um so I think we would I'm not sure how what that would look like, Greg, as far as making that change prior to filing. Um I know. I think we need to Yeah, I think we need to we we need to do that. Yeah, if that's what we're going to do, we need need to make that decision fairly quickly. Fairly quickly. So, so walk us through what the timing what that would look like.

So, we'd have to change the code now to make it a part-time. Yeah, I given the filing week for Sage County Elections is in May, they would need to know what to put onto the ballot. Um, I'd have to check with them to see the the time frame. They would need to know that. Yeah, there's a there's a date. There is a date. So, we'll probably look at the beginning of the year to start really thinking about what that looks like. But that's only if we're looking at the long term. So, can I mean last week I thought we were all in alignment or the majority were in alignment that moving forward at the future mayor whoever is elected that that is a full-time position. Is there any

But I don't think it is the long term because I think we'd h you have to change it now if if we decided to go for a part-time mayor and then you'd have to change it again by January for sure. But I guess I'm I'm just confused how that's linked to May because uh I suppose you could make a decision to be part-time all the way through through this term. Through this term, people that are filing in May of next year know that they're filing for a full-time. Correct. Yes. How would they know that? We would state that as part of this application process. We say

Yeah. We'd have to be really clear about that. that that the intent is not to change it permanently. It's to we may change it temporarily and then when you file in May, it would be for the full-time spot. We may have to check elections, but yeah, that's under the assumption that we're all aligned that the future mayor, the elected mayor is full-time. So, I'm not trying to assume that. I thought that's what the general consensus was from last week. Councilman McMahon, just a quick question. We do have a pending request to provide an assistant for Gan. Maybe what we're looking at is a full-time mayor who takes on some of that role that Jean's doing currently versus going to AI conferences and flying all around and meeting people. Sounds like a separate conversation. But

well, I mean, it's it's a workload dispersement, right? So, we're adding headcount and we're either reducing to part-time or we're keeping our headcount and just taking some of that responsibility. I

just a thought you you might want to consider is not changing the code right now with respect to that, but in your notice to the public for applications, we could include some language that says that the council may consider a part-time role depending upon the qualifications of the people that they receive. So, if you're interested in that, go ahead, give us your application for that. You can see who you get for the full-time. You can see what you might be getting for the part-time and then make a decision as to which way you want to go. But, but but get that kind of announcement out uh so you can get that information back fairly quickly and then make your decision. Is that permissible under modern day HR standards that we look at who's available when and then decide based on that or does it have to be uniform for all applicants?

I think because it's I think you're giving a uniform announcement to the public that right now you're you're you're you've had you have salary for a full-time position. you you're you're seeking applications for the full-time uh but you're also if interested if there are people that would accept maybe considered for part-time mayor position. Yeah. Okay. You reserve the right to do that. Just let the public know that that you would have to to take a an action to

change the code to allow that. But you're interested in in in in receiving the knowledge of who would be interested in that position if it if if it were that anyone who wants to disclose. But but didn't they've got to be available when our offices are open, you know, during the week. Correct. Didn't Kelly just read that they have to be available? You have to change it. Well, that that that language, right? If if you were going to open up and and hire to hire actually hire a part-time mayor, we would change that section of the code short term. We would take out the language that it's a full-time position and we take out the language that you have to be available during those uh during those hours. So,

yeah. But then we still have to pay a full-time position. Still have to pay a full-time. Yeah. Yeah. You might also find that somebody can do 30 hours a week. Maybe you find some I mean, maybe it's somewhere between part-time and full-time. Councilwoman Edwards.

Yeah. So, I've gone back and forth, fulltime, part time, back. I I think I've come to an ideal 18 months. We've got 18 months. We need to get someone in here who's effective and can do the job, right? And so, they're going to be paid a full-time position. Um, have it be a full-time position for this this temporary position. Keep it the way it is. I think personally that the citizens and the city of Lake Stevens deserve a full-time mayor that can get in there and get busy and do the work and advocate for the people in our community. And so after hearing all of this, it sounds like it's doing a lot of stuff just to potentially go back and not have any changes. So I I I think that we are going around in a circle. And my personal opinion would be to let's just change the code. Let's have it open to the public. Let people apply. And if we don't get applications at full time, then we can re-evaluate it. But I think that we're stalling.

Change or not change. I think that we should change it to open to the public because right now it says we have to choose from council, but not full-time, parttime. Okay. Not full-time, parttime. And you may get you may get surprised as students. We may get amazing candidates at full time. You may get amazing candidates. You just don't know. I'm just worried that we won't and then we're going to have to do it again. But we can do it again if we have to. We can if we want to. And I I don't want to jump in and solve a problem that we don't have yet. That's fine. There. There we are. Is this ordinance number 1216 we're talking about? Yes. Right. Can I make a motion to approve ordinance number 1216?

An ordinance of the city of Lake Stevens, Washington, relating to the vacancy of the office of mayor providing for a summary publication by ordinance title only and an immediate and an effective date. We have a motion. Do we have a second to discuss it? Second is for discussion. I will second for discussion. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? I just got this right before the meeting. Uh so I'd like some time to read it. That doesn't mean I can't do that for five minutes and vote, but I'm not ready to vote on that now because I haven't actually read the document. Okay.

Feel free to take some time. We have a motion on the floor. That's okay. Just to clarify, Greg, this is the current ordinance for the city. The only thing that's changed is the part that is stricken uh and the underlined part the correct replaced by the under

the language that is being stricken from the current code is is there's strike through and uh new language is underlined.

So what we're voting on is that change. So where it says if a vacancy occurs in the office of the mayor, the city council for striking at their next regular meeting shall elect from their number a mayor. We're striking that language and adding as provided in chapter 4212. 4212 is the chapter uh the statutory procedure for uh selection of a mayor. You shall appoint a qualified person to fill the vacant office. So, it's open to all qualified uh persons. Those are adults residing in the city of Lake Stevens. Um who not otherwise have lost to the right to vote. Uh and they shall serve uh until a mayor is elected and certified at the next municipal election. And then we've added the language as I indicated a few minutes ago. an incumbent council member is eligible to be appointed to fill the vacancy. That's language that we also see in 35A 1205. And then Greg, um if we do have a current council member that because right now we don't know if anyone's going to run for mayor or not. Um or for this position. Um, if we do have a current council member interested in um, filling that vacancy for the next 18 months, then may we open a discussion at that time as far as um, confidential sessions to so we're able to have open dialogue without you that person, you know what I mean, in that because it'd be kind of awkward to have a conversation about applicants if one of the applicants is sitting at the table. I think that discussion um can happen as we talk about the mayor vacancy process, but it's not relevant to the motion.

Um regarding the motion to pass this ordinance, I just want to clarify. I'm looking at section two, the effective date. Looks like there's a requirement to publish and then a 5-day waiting period, which would conflict with the proposed schedule in our packet. So, I just want to note that not necessarily ahead get started even if if you go ahead and approve this tonight. It's just a matter of publishing before the ordinance is quote legally effective. But but having approved the ordinance, you can go ahead get your announcement out because the ordinance is going to take effect in five days. And so you can go ahead

and preemptively before it's enforced. You can go ahead and get the announcement out. You're not going to make a selection until after this ordinance is uh effective anyway. So, okay.

I have a a comment on the ordinance. I think it kind of follows um council member Shipman's comments. Um, I am of the opinion that if we follow process that we have now and should a council member want to fill the vacancy and we go through the voting process and they're not voted in that we wouldn't have the problem of conflicting or awkward or having them take place and we would actually have a majority vote. seven uh versus having to potentially recuse themselves for voting for themselves in a in a vote. Um, so I guess I am I'm a little I I want to vote yes on this, but I would want to go through the process first and vote for it if there's no council members that are voted in as mayor and then modify the process if that makes

uh unless you intend to use this process and follow through with it. I'd recommend you not do that. That if if you're seriously seriously want to first open this up to uh a council member uh to uh say raise their hands, say yes, vote vote vote vote for me and uh uh and then take a serious vote as to whether to vote up or up or down. uh because you want this process to work, then use it. If right,

but just as a test case uh to get somebody to say yes and then possibly vote no because you want to open it up and I I I I think it just raises a it doesn't look good. Yeah, Greg, can you clarify? If there should be a council member, if we if we vote the ordinance in and there's an open process and there is a council member who does decide to go through that process, are they also then allowed to participate in voting?

Yes, they they are allowed. They don't have to. Uh I I gave you some words about that in your uh in in in the memo I wrote and there's some you know a a a council member who decides that they want to be uh considered for the for the position. uh would probably exercise good discretion uh in uh making volunteering to recuse themselves from discussion and perhaps even voting. But uh but it's but uh but they're not prohibited from voting under statute. But as a council, we can take more restrictive measures and prohibit that if we want to as a body,

not not prohibit them from voting on the in terms of process and discussion. Then you you you in terms of your process as to whether they sit in on all discussions or not. I'm going to get us back to discussion on the motion on the floor. This is all good discussion. I think that that falls under the mayor vacancy process item, but we have a motion in a second on this ordinance in front of us. I want to keep the discussion focused on that. And I would call for the question. Thank you. Call for the question. Any further discussion? All those in favor of ordinance number 1216, please say I. I.

Any opposed? N. So just to clarify two nas are McManus and Aria. Thank you. Motion passes. So of the checklist that um Jean gave us, we have made one decision which is that we're having an open process. Uh we still have the full-time part-time discussion conversation on the table. Um we don't have a mechanism to we don't have like an ordinance. Are you just looking for

I think by the first vote that answers the second question about the classification. So I think we're on to the back end. Uh review the process. Sorry. So just want to clarify what you just said. Yeah. That passing of this implies that we're going fulltime. We talked about this is what I heard. We will put some language in the advertisement that suggests will entertain the idea of part-time hours. That's what I heard was suggested by the city attorney.

I'm in favor of that, but I think we should maybe not officially vote, but I'd like to hear everyone's concurrence on that because I'm not convinced that's the majority view. I'm supportive of that. Maybe we can just go. Can you clarify what you're supportive? No, that's totally fine. No, no. Greg had mentioned that in the language when we post the position, we could state that it is currently a full-time mayor position, but that we will consider applicants who um are not able to or don't plan to serve full-time and to include that in their cover letter and information.

Right. Yeah. I would um hesitate to open that book wide open like that without a requirement. If somebody wants to apply and they're saying, "I can't fulfill the full-time position, but I think I'm available enough to do it." How many hours is that? What are you actually committing to? Because having I'm an employer. I would never hire anybody that says, you know, I don't want the full-time position, but I think I could do it part-time and then not give me a minimum hour that they're going to work part-time. I would never hire someone under that.

Yeah, I I may be speaking out of turn, but I I do think this very confusing uh for people um especially if the interim person is part-time and I start getting questions about can I file for the mayor position in May and and is that going to be part-time or full-time? Oh, no. It's going to be full-time, but you've been running a long time on part-time. I think staying consistent just makes a lot of sense here. I think the public's going to be confused. Uh especially when we're paying a full-time salary. And again, I never speak up and so forgive me if I'm speaking out of turn. Um this would be hard to to tell somebody. Not to mention, I I think I see no difference between saying we're open to part-time applicants wholesale versus we're going to consider them because then if we get a strong part-time applicant, we're going to be right back at this discussion in a couple weeks.

You have time. I mean, if you don't if the applicants are not strong or you don't get very many, um, you very much have a right to regroup and say, "Maybe we're looking for something different." If you get your notice out quickly, you you we'll find out quickly whether you got good full-time candidates or not. Then I don't know if we need a vote, but I I say we make a decision on this right now and then either proceed with the fallback plan or we concede that we're open to part-time applicants. So, don't know if like I said, don't know if it needs a vote or not, but do we need to make a motion for it to be a full-time or part-time position, or unless we change it from full-time, it just stays full time? just give us some guidance on what to put on the vac. Yeah. On the notice.

So unless someone makes a motion, it stays full time. Okay. Thank you for the discussion. That's correct. We need to clarify.

I will then make a motion. I I would like the application to say that it is open to part-time. I would like to be open to that. So I'll make a motion that the application contain some language that the city is open to exploring a part-time mayor. We have a motion on the floor. Is there a second? Hearing none. The motion dies. We will move forward with full-time mayor. The next uh stop in our decision making tonight is the process review. Uh currently we have a outline of how we fill council vacancies. question for you is do we follow that standing practice? Uh one of the things we talked about last week which is if we get feedback from the directors and some staff on maybe some leadership qualifications got head knocks from all the council members present. There was four of them. So we've launched that. So we will have some feedback from that today for council to look at. You know you consider not consider it but at least it's another piece of information to help make your decision on the final candidate. So uh question for you is do we move forward with the existing process that we have for council vacancy?

Is that what this said we would do? It's in your packet. It's already in the packet. It's on page well 233 of 283 pages. This is essentially what we do once we get the candidates. 233 232. I guess I thought that that was implied within this ordinance, but perhaps not. No. No. This just implies that you can Yeah. scroll to like 231ish and then you can go down

just to speak to the council appointment process. Um and feel free to weigh in others that have been a part of that. I do find it um to be pretty objective process getting applications and cover letters, being able to review those um being able to come up with appropriate questions and ask those questions, have like an interview process and then to be able to deliberate amongst ourselves um who who makes sense to move into that role. I think it's worked well um for council in the past. I agree and I like that every candidate um is asked the same set of questions and then afterwards it opens up to a little bit of clarification of their answer. Um but it seems very fair and very straightforward to me. However, like do we now if we maybe are assuming we're not going to have very get very many candidates, but say we do um is it was there like a number of six or if there's more than six or something we don't have to actually interview all try to remember what the number was.

I don't know why the number six is sticking. You're correct. It was six. Is it six? Yeah. Yeah. So say if we get 12 from those 12 paper applicants or email applicants, we can narrow it down to the six. And then with those six, we go through the interview process where they all have the same set of questions and move forward. It seems very straightforward. And it and it does say the council may elect not to. So that still gives us the decision if if there's seven great candidates, we can do all seven. We have the we can make the decision to interview all seven.

Nice. I would refer to the people that have gone through that process. So, your feedback, I think, is really important for me. Um, I think that I would be okay with leaving it as is. If it works, if it's not broke, don't fix it.

There are a couple points in this that I think we do need to discuss just cuz we're to some it's it's a very rounded edge square peg, but it's still going into a round hole here. The first one being that when you are filling a council vacancy, the council member exiting the seat does not get to vote for their own replacement. Um, given the gravity of the office we're looking at here, and I say this before any candidates have been considered, named, announced, I'm trying to keep this as objective as possible. Um, I think we need to look at whatever measures we can put in place to screen out anyone from this table up here that wants to apply for this position from participating. My preference would be that they do not vote just again because filling a vacant council member seat, the outgoing council member does not get to vote for their own replacement. The second thing too, um, just in the interest of fairness says the mayor may cast a tiebreaking vote because our mayor prom is a council member. feel like we should at least discuss that too. Again, just looking at the office and and thinking about, okay, does that effectively give someone two votes or how how does that work? Do we have an alternative? Do we need an alternative procedure? Um, so those would be the two points I would like us to discuss.

Great question. Good points. Good points. I guess I assumed that I would be acting as a council member in that process and not as a mayor prom and would not have tiebreaking ability. Is that accurate?

Well, it once you're the mayor pro 10, you're the mayor prom until the mayor uh uh someone is appointed to fill the uh the the mayor uh position. So, you would be you would be uh voting as if you're voting as a council member uh for for the selection giving you a right as mayor prom to break the tie. you can make the decision that that is not a provision that you want to follow that that it will require a majority of the council members to uh to fill that position. We can change uh the procedure for the mayoral election. You have every right. Somebody can make a motion to that will follow the procedure for selection of council except for X and Y. You know, you you you can do that.

If Angie wasn't or council member George was not acting as mayor like our proter mayor, um who would be doing that job? So, no, I mean um we've got a vacant mayor seat. So, heaven forbid, for some reason, Council Member Jordat is not able to step up to that. Um, who would then go into that position? Is that something Jean might take over? I think it would go to you. Oh, that doesn't solve anything.

Well, or you could elect a special mayor prom. Mayor Prom was that you if your council president was unable to fulfill the duties of mayor prom, you could select a vote among yourselves for someone to fill that position. But it has to be from among us. So I we're in the same boat, right? Unless we just resort to a simple majority and we slug it out until there's a majority. Okay. Yeah. Um just Greg I think I think there's question about Gan holding an executive and a legislative role and we know he could not do that. Do you want to just talk to that for a second that he could not do the mayor duties? We had a citizen comment about that tonight. So I just want to make sure that's clear. Okay.

That in the absence of the mayor well that the team can't hold the role of mayor and city administrator. No. Yeah. I just want to make sure that's clear. Oh no no yeah no that's okay. to clarify. So both an employee and and extra pay to clarify. So council president jurist dad would she be able to act as a council member and vote or would she have to wait if there was a tie and she can vote as a council member. Yeah. I think we're then there's a tie. She gets to break the tie. Yes. So the mayor prom is a council member, right? So in in a hypothetical situation, she gets a double vote basically unless the council decides that's not an appropriate role,

which yeah, that's the discussion I want to have. I think that we should hash it out until there's a majority. Personally, I think that's a lot of pressure on council president Drake's dad to be there. I concur. Thank you very much, council member. But now I'm gonna like step up and override all of you and my you know what I mean? I would not want to be put in that situation. I mean, I think there are seven of us, so they're if they're they're You know, you would think there wouldn't be a tie. And if there's somebody who if there's a council member who steps up and the council decides that that person shouldn't then also get to vote. That's the only situation where we would be looking at a tie. Right. I thought council it wouldn't be up to council. It's up to that individual whether or not they vote. Isn't that what you said?

Yes, that's that's correct. Thank you. So, we can put we can put restrict we can choose as a council to put restrictions on the process except for the voting. Yes, the individual who if an individual puts their name in the hat, they would have to make that decision not to vote. Yes. But we could put other restrictions across the whole process. Greg, I guess that

or or if you had a council member who was in that position, threw their hat in the ring, they're they're down to the final six, they could relieve you of making those painful decisions and simply agree that they would abstain from participation uh in the in your meetings leading up to the questions and doing the questioning and they would simply participate as all other candidates. Someone could do that if if they wanted to. Well, okay. I guess the first question is, should we should we tackle one item at a time here?

I think that's a good idea. I I think first decide your your your your process if the uh if the process for selecting a council member works except for a couple of provisions there, then uh I would recommend that you somebody make a motion to uh approve that process. and uh then you can go on from there. So for each thing we do not want we have to do a separate motion. So we approve the process except for a you know you could say that I move to approve the process council process for in our rules of procedure for the selection of a vacant council position except for these items

then oh sorry go ahead. No is it a motion or are we just giving staff feedback? Well, I think you should do a motion because you need to approve your process. Okay. Thank you. Not staff. I have a Oh, sorry. Go ahead. I have a question about the interview. It states here that um the interview is about 15 minutes in length. That seems very short. How is that? It seems like you were able to answer three questions, five questions. Seven. Seven. And it feels it feels like an hour. Trust me. Okay. I think 15 minutes is is Adam is given the number. So it's either that or you spread it out over multiple nights. I mean you've got at least six candidates to go through 15 minutes pop.

Okay. I was just I was going to say interviews but you know it's two minutes per question. I was going to say and also we will have resumes. In other words, they're going to apply for the job. They're going to give a resume and then answer the question. So you won't just have that 15 minutes. You will have what they want to present why they feel they would be a good person for that position. Yeah, I just haven't had an interview process that lasts 15 minutes with a candidate. That's why I'm I I asked that because I have done plenty of interviews. It's just that seems awfully short. Average corporate interview for Amazon is 16 days and 20 seconds.

Craig, I'm assuming just as in regular interviews, if if if we went through the process and we did our two minutes per question and and maybe narrowed it down to two, it Is there an opportunity for like a second interview process or what what what you pass by motion as your procedure your selection can be amended. Okay. You can change it if if you want to add an additional process you you get down you want you want more time with a couple of candidates you as a counselor can decide you want to do that and you can do it.

Thank you. Can I make a motion to accept um the current city council procedures and leave it open the motion open so people can then amend that motion so that if they want to change small things within it we can and then vote on it. You can make a motion and it can be seconded and then people can offer amendments. Okay. I'd like to make a motion to accept our current filing for city council vacancy procedures without any changes with you have to second and then you can discuss and change. I'll second the motion. Okay. So now it's open for discussion for changes.

The floor is open to anyone making any proposed amendments to the Yes. So on the floor now is how it's currently written in your packet. So any amendments we could discuss during this period of time? We will vote on each individual amendment to be approved or not approved and then we'll have a final conclusive amendment. So just for clarification process, when we say council, we mean mayor with this procedure. Yes. Thank you.

So Greg, I guess I'm I'm looking at RCW4223701 and you've you've cited the language here. I I'm reading this and I'm I guess I'm not sure how that couldn't possibly be read as applying to this situation. I see you you made a comment here about if the appointment included non- voting residents of Lake Stevens, but I I guess I don't see how that applies to an officer using his or her position to secure special privileges for himself, herself, or others, i.e. voting for themsel to become the next mayor. you h how how would

you're looking at 4212 42 So this I'm reading this from the memo rcw42.23.070 sub1 and then the site language says no municipal officer may use his or her position to secure special privileges or exemption for himself herself or others. And then you you go on to talk about how you say this language could encompass this circumstance if the candidates for the appointment include non- voting residents of Lake Stevens. And I guess I'm not clear on how the non- voting resident changes whether or not one of us can vote for ourselves to be mayor.

That would give them an advantage over the uh nonvoting public. But isn't that exactly what we have? Is now now that we've opened up the pool, we have non voting members of the public. So, doesn't that mean Well, my my advice would be this. I think that gives extra caution to a council member as to whether they want to vote or not. It's their decision.

What is the penalty then if this comes back to bite said council member? Well, if they viol actually if they violate the ethics code, if if uh the the action that was taken, it could nullify that decision. Okay. And uh uh uh say they were in fact elected. And we as a council have we lack the authority to say we don't want to go down that road. We don't want to have to do another mayor selection process. We're not going to allow that. It is solely up to any individual whether or not the city goes down that road. Yes. Okay.

Make your own ethics. Well, I feel like someone's making it for me in this case potentially, which I don't like. Other discussion on the motion. Yeah. So, I'd like to make a motion that in the event an amendment

I an amendment to the motion uh in the event that a member a current member of the city council uh becomes an applicant they are fully recused from any part of the application process. They don't participate in review of the applicants. They don't provide a question for the interview process. They don't participate in the interview. They don't participate in any discussion of the applicants etc. They're fully recused within the limitations minus the vote which you've already addressed. Second,

I would say we have a amendment and a second to the amendment. Uh discussion. I agree with everything council member Packard said. So do I. I would like to check in with our uh city legal guidance around that amendment and whether go ahead there any concerns. Okay,

I'm going to make sure I got that down. Recusing let me let me propose a scenario. There are going to be parts of this process that we discuss in open in an open meeting that is open to the public. My assumption is that that also is open to that person. Um, so what what do you what would you propose that person do during that discussion?

How how did you guys handle it when Marcus was when Costco came up? I mean, I because I I wasn't here for that specific thing, but I was I've heard stories, you know, he got up and left the room. I've heard he didn't participate in executive session. That's that's the general process that if a council member uh is accusing themselves uh from discussion or participation in a particular decision uh they get up and they leave the room

that way they're not sitting in the audience giving you head nods, winks and people. Yeah. I would like to clarify that that and make it pretty straightforward that if anyone who's currently on council decides to um apply for the position of mayor, they recluse themselves from the entire process. It's up to them if they vote obviously legally, but otherwise they must recluse themselves whether we're at a public meeting, we're in an executive session to discuss it um during the interview process. other than as a candidate during the interview process. Obviously, they're going to be there, but that they recluse themselves from all other areas except for the vote, which is legally their right to decide.

So, can we frame it that way? Recuse themselves from all council member duties related to the process except for voting and that requested that they that they also recuse themselves from that. They vac Yes, they vacate themselves from council chambers during any such discussions. Do we need to change that language? I'm just thinking about we aren't asking them to recuse themselves. We are saying they are prohibited from participating in Well, yes, they're required to not I'm not even ask requiring to recuse themselves. We are preventing them from participating. The word recuse suggests that they could choose not to do that

unless we require them to recuse. It's semantics. You just say they're prohibited from participating in the or excluded, whatever you want to call it. I just recuse suggests they still you just want strong language. I want strong language of they are not they are not allowed to participate. You know, you're getting here into I understand

ethical decision making and and Marcus made an ethical decision that uh you know I don't want anybody raising the any suspicion or I don't want to hear that I voted this or I was influenced the council this but and the best way for him to do that was simply be absent when those discussions and those decisions uh were being made. Whoever, if there is one of you that's going to want to participate and you want the vote of your other council members, are you going to sit up here and say, "No, I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that." You know what? You just told everyone, "Don't vote for me." It It's I I think we're getting a little overly worried about a problem that we don't even know we have yet. But uh uh uh so I and you have time to deal with that situation if it occurs.

You don't even know if it's going to occur yet. And and so I don't think that that's necessarily how deep we get into that at this point in time. I think we're kind of maybe putting a little bit of the cart before the horse. But if I could, I completely agree. And also remember, you're going to have applicants possibly in the audience listening to all your discussions anyway. They may be somebody that's in your pool. Um, and you've you've got a current counselor you've told to recuse themselves, but the other applicants can be in here and they can actually be in here during your interview process. That's right. They they can be observe it, but they don't participate. Correct. But they could be privy to the discussion.

Yeah. And and if there's a council member here who puts in their application, they get into the pool, I think they're probably going to tell you about the degree of participation that they expect and how they might help you uh by voluntarily recusing themselves or following the the motion, the general motion that's been made here that that they be not participate uh in those discussions. I it's your motion. So

I think that I think the other thing I want to just make sure we're all considering too is that um I think as council members we're sort of we have a unique perspective. um we have a a different set of qualifications than maybe someone in the general public and I I would hate to make it I would hate to put artificial barriers in place for someone who has those qualifications and and I and I agree with the amendment at the same time, right? like and I think I think I appreciate Greg you saying that um at some point it is incumbent upon the individual to make a decision about what is ethically um right or wrong or in their best interest and I think that's going to also be very telling for all of us who are um not maybe not in that position but need to make a decision. I I think that council member Packard in moving forward and putting something in place whether we may or may not use it depersonalizes it. Um if somebody on council decides to apply for the mayor position and then we make amen it becomes a little more personal. Um doing it before we even know if anyone's going to I think depersonalizes it and you know what I mean. It's not something where we're saying against a particular council member because I respect everyone sitting up here. Um, but I do think if a council member decides to apply for this position and particularly if they end up getting the position, the optics on that are pretty bad.

Council member Rya.

Yes. I think for me the important portions are that they do not review the applications or score them and that they not ask the questions of the candidates so that somebody else that's you know in that position doesn't get to to look at their the person that's um that they're running against um interviewing them. So I think that that for me are the important pieces of an amendment in the process. Um and the the rest are more on the ethical side versus the process side. So I think that I would be comfortable with that type of an amendment versus the full exclusion of everything and and having them leave the room or something.

Are the interviews public? Are Mhm. Yeah. Okay. Are you proposing an amendment to the motion? I am I don't know if it's a modification of the amendment but but first we have to to to vote on the amendment and then if that gets voted down that I would propose this amendment in itstead. Okay. Thank you Councilman McManus. Yeah. Just one quick comment for council just by the time if if we take the whole 90 days and we go to July 12th to make a decision that's a very short window for whoever gets the role to be in there and the voters are going to decide the following November anyway. So let's just think about that as we're going through this process. It's a very small window of time that we're talking about here. Whoever

gets the role say the motion is on the table. It was your language. So I don't know if you want to modify your amendment or motion. I hear what you're saying, Greg. From my view, having something definitive in the language at least communicates to the city, right, that we the rest of the council feels strongly this way and that we don't want even a perception of impropriety. And so that's why I'm inclined to keep the language in there. Can you repeat it one more time, please? Can I can I just repeat what I've got just because I'm starting on the record. So, an amendment to the motion that in the event a current uh council member becomes an applicant, they are fully recused from the process.

I would revise that to say they are prohibited from participating in the selection process outside of what any other applicant can be involved in. Right. So, they you're the second. Do you agree with that? Okay. Motion and a second. Any further discussion? amendment and a second. So we will first vote on the amendment to the motion. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. I. Any opposed? Motion. Amendment passes. Okay.

And now the original motion as amended. We will vote on the original motion as amended which is to accept the um process the filling count city council vacancies process to adopt that for the mayor. See if there's well so that was one amendment. I I believe there should could be other amendments. Yes. To which I will make a motion. I would move that we accept the city council procedures as amended absent the tiebreaking vote for the mayor or in this case mayor prom and instead require a majority of council members. I second

motion and a second uh to further amend the original motion. uh discussion as fer prom I fully support that and again nothing it was yeah I I thought about this I want to get all this out of the way before people were actually involved I apologize that you were the one person who's already in that role but yes who was the second on that council member okay any further discussion voting on the amendment to the motion do I need to restate This is the second amendment. I think we just just had it on the floor. So, let's second amendment vote. All those in favor, please say I.

I. Any opposed? Thank you. Second amendment passes. Do we have any further amendments to the motion? Do we need to make a motion around the period of the 15 minutes? I don't think 15 minutes is long enough. It does say it will be approximately 15 minutes. I don't think we need to put that in motion. We can just decide how long we want the interview to be at a later time. Right. Okay. Am I correct though that it has to be uniform? We can't give one candidate more time than the others. That would be a good idea. I Yeah, at least everyone has a 30 minute window. It may not take the full 30 minutes. I hope it doesn't.

I would suggest that we um wait and see how many candidates we're having. As long as we don't need to define that here, I'm fine with that. Okay. and you may want to see what your questions are based on your candidate pool. You you may have some questions that will require lengthier answers and and last process, Deputy Clerk Weaver was your moderator and she did an amazing job and she so you didn't have to be the ones to ask the questions. So something to think about. Yeah. Do we need a another amendment to strike the approximately 15 minutes language? No,

I mean it says approximately. Okay. Hearing no other proposed amendments, I will take us back to the now amended motion. We have a motion and a second on the floor. Any further discussion? So that original motion was to accept the council vacancies procedures for filling the mayor vacancy and then the amendments are attached. All right. All those in favor, please say I. I. I. Any opposed? Thank you. The amended motion passes, man. Now we got what, threequarters of the agenda left to get through.

And I'm going to take that as we just handled step two in our process, which is city council shall authorize staff in council or the mayor's process. That's what I'm moving forward with. The last decision point we have is the timing and the clerk's provided a post schedule here and if that is something that works for everybody that's we'll move for any concerns about the proposal to I think two weeks for it to be open or the 17th through May 8th actually maybe three weeks. I think that's three weeks. Yeah, three weeks. That's good. Looks good to me. Okay, sounds good. got a process. Excellent.

Nice job, council. That was great. Uh, moving on to action item B, ordinance 1215, cannabis growing limitation. Uh, chief, anything you'd like to say about that?

Just real quick, I'll make this quick since we've been going for this long. This is just to make it enforceable through our city prosecutor. Right now with the Blake decision back in 22 that changed our whole possession of paraphernalia, drugs, all that stuff. The city legal and I worked we made it look at our ordinances. We adopted the RCW by reference. We just need to add the 6951 because legislation updated and allowed those to come in. Having this ordinance doesn't affect anything that Russ and his group do with zoning or anything like that. It still makes it in there that they have to follow those compliances. They can't be within schools. All that stuff is listed in the RCW. It just allows our prosecutor, who we pay for, to do the enforcement instead of us having to go through district court, which we probably would not get as much help.

Thank you. Any questions? So, I believe there's a typo in there in the Yeah, smelled. It should be smelled. I'll work with Greg. Okay. We had it. We can make that amendment. It's a new word using I just was making sure that wasn't term of art. A cannabis word I wasn't familiar. It's in slang. It's in slang. Any other questions for Chief?

Chief, I have a tangential question and if you want to talk about this later, we can. Um, we've kind of talked about this in the past. Uh, I've had some citizen complaints made to me about properties where there is undeniably a smell of cannabis emanating. And then I've heard from you and some others that there's enforcement difficulties with determining what those plants emitting that smell actually are. Is there any wiggle room under the statute for us as a city to improve our code? Is there anything we can do to give officers better tools to address situations like that? Because I know there are some neighborhoods where it's the odor is becoming a serious problem from other residences in the neighborhood.

It'll take legislative changes that we some of this stuff we cannot do. It has to be done at the state level. Do we not have noxious order or odors already? Don't we already have a noxious odor or nuisance?

Marijuana enforcement falls under my team and code enforcement and our code enforcement officer visits all of the grow operations quarterly and checks in on them. And we did do a compliance update. What you'll see is um there is greater odor in wintertime when the clouds are low and holds everything down. So, we should be going back into where the smells are subsiding, but we do actively go out and visit with those folks and make sure that they're abiding by their clean air um requirements. So, can can citizens then reach out to code enforcement under the noxious odor?

Yes, there is a on our website there is a code enforcement portal and there's specifically one for odor. With odor, we have to do uh point of odor. So, we have to track it back to the specific place if we want Sound Clean Air Agency to take any um action. Otherwise, for us, it's really um education. I have a clarifying question here really quick. This um ordinance is for um non-commercial, correct? Like this says in a house like 15 plant. So, like an individual citizen So, are we talking about smells coming from citizens homes or from actual grow ops?

The the one I'm referring to, which again is kind of adjacent um potentially here, is it it's I believe an unsanctioned but I guess permissible under the RCW um residents. I have no idea how many plants are involved. Neither did the person talking to me, but the odor is definitely problematic. And so I believe that would run a foul of this and and I believe they've contacted uh police code enforcement and it's still an issue. So while we're discussing this general subject, I just want to make sure that there's nothing we as a council can do either from the police officer side or code enforcement side to give better tools to address this type of issue in our city. It's pretty limited. As the the chief said, our our tools in code enforcement again are really um educational um because it's hard to track back the source to the source of origin. a lot of odor. But I would encourage you if you're talking to your constituents, have them use our portal and at least and file a complaint and at least we can um start the conversation and um know areas to be on the look for. So

we have to be consistent with state statute with respect to this particular police procedure and so they can consider those evidentiary items that are listed in the statute and we we're adopting those by reference. We can't add additional or subtractive additional because it's state statute. Criminal law has to be uh consistent with each other. Well, that's why I'm wondering if potentially under our nuisance ordinance if we can, you know, create better definitions or somehow relax a standard for tracking it back to the source before, you know, uh, the penalties listed in our our nuisance statute are then applied because again, my understanding is this citizen has reached out and has interacted with both police and code enforcement and still has not been able to get the issue resolved. So, I just want to make sure there's nothing else we can do on our side. The problem with infractions and in criminal, this is an infraction. I can't get a search warrant off of infractions.

Understood. So getting into a residence to confirm how many plants they have, what they have, all that stuff. We have to work with our resources and some of our resources is liquor and cannabis, zoning, code enforcement, trying to come together as a group to be able to do that. But right now, we just need to have this. So if we do that kind of investigation, we have the resources we need. Okay. I I won't

it's a difficult area because um growing cannabis and certainly smoking cannabis creates an odor and state statute says people can grow up to so many plants and in these cooperative uh where where you have multiple people living together who all have their certificate the okay to grow it you're going They have an odor and it's all legal because because state says they can do this

unless it's readily smelled from a public place which is anyway I I won't beat the the horse any longer. It's already dead. Um can we adopt this ordinance with an amendment for the typo or does that need to be corrected first? We can simply note in the motion that okay I move correction of the typo that's been recognized. Greg, just some clarification. When you said you have, you know, several people living in one house, um, and I'm looking at the RCW and it says housing unit, so that I read that as one dwelling can only have 15 plants. That's not correct. Each person can have 15 plants. If you're in a building where the the bedrooms are rented separately, then those would be separate units.

I Oh, because it's a housing unit, right? Okay. I think that's um the RCW69.51A talks about that the um cooperative establishments. Yeah. Could I get a motion? I move to adopt ordinance number 1215. I second it. I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Do I need to make a separate or is it now when I note the typo or should I note that? It's been noted. It's been noted. Okay. got it in the record and we'll staff will make that correction. Got it. Okay. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say I. I.

I. Any opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. Moving on to action item 8 C, resolution 202604, authorizing the mayor to sign opioid settlements. Matthew.

Yes. Thank you, council. Um, I'll try to keep this quick. Uh so since 2022 the state and um and the national opioid official settlement group um have reached settlements with distributions and pharmacies um for opioid um remediation um and uh we haven't been a part of that but we can be a participant of those and we have been um we've been um signing on to we've signed on to nine of those uh currently um and each time well not each time but uh sometime when we get uh these notices that we can be a participant. We bring them to council um for council's approval for us to sign on to these. Um there's uh there's for us to sign on to them. There's no cost to the city for signing on to them, but we do get um additional funding um from from these settlements uh that allow us to use it for um a wide range of o opioid uh remediation types of um purposes. And uh so um so the only downside um that we would say about signing on to these um participations is that we cannot go against these distributors or um or pharmacies in the future. Um but uh the the costs for us to go after them in individually um ourselves um would be costly and um the and the costs would not outweigh or would would outweigh the benefits for us to even do that. Um so signing so um uh council has you know has routinely approved us to be able to sign these and so I did talk to Greg and got and we are able to get um authoriza or just to get kind of a blanket authorization um from council um and that's what we're proposing for this authorization and this is just specific

to these o opioid um uh settlements that we have. This isn't authorization for other for other things. It's just specifically for these. So, um we're asking for that so we don't we don't have to spend the staff time um to always bring these um uh these these and I don't know how many we will have in the future. Um and these just come up um come up and we have one that like in our report here we have one that that's um pending that we have to do by May 4th. Um, and we've estimated that we'll get about three a one-time payment of $3,000 uh for that. Um, so, uh, my idea, my thought is is that we're going to be significantly seeing maybe some smaller ones trickle in. Um, and we've probably received the larger amounts. Um, as you see, we've we've already received 245,000 and anticipate receiving another 466,000 on the ones we've already participated in. Um, I believe that we're probably just going to be seeing some trickle down ones, some smaller ones coming in. So, um, so anyways, um, you have any questions on that?

I'll make a motion to pass resolution 2026-04 to authorize the mayor prompt to sign the opioid settlement.

Second. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Yeah, I I guess reading this I I completely see the benefit and I'm in favor. My only concern is the the language a blanket just hand off of this authority to the executive branch. I would prefer that we cap it or you know force a renewal every like four years or something like that just so that in case there's ever any future settlements related to some other issue that might fall under the language of this resolution, any future council has an opportunity to re-evaluate that. That would be my only suggestion. So I guess and I mean you're proposing amendment.

I'm I was going to say I'm flexible on the length of that. If people want a motion, I would I guess I would just default to four years. So I can make that a motion. Or if anyone else has a different time frame in mind or thinks I'm completely crazy for this, let me know. You can propose the amendment and you'll find out. Okay. Uh so I move that we adopt resolution number 2026-04 with the amendment that the mayor's authorization or uh authority to sign is good for four years before the council needs to reapprove or just a suggestion why don't we just add an additional section that says that this resolution will expire

that I move that I second that resolution to expire. We have an amendment on the floor to the resolution um and a second. Any discussion four years from today? Yeah, because that should more than cover date of approval. Dave Yeah, that Yeah, any current council member. So, okay. And McManus the second. Okay. Any discussion on the amendment? All right. All those in favor of the amendment, please say I. I.

I. Any opposed? Amendment passes. Uh then we'll go to the original motion as amended um to pass the ordinance I'm sorry resolution number 2026-04. Uh all those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Amended motion passes.

Moving on to action item D, interlocal agreement extension 2027 2028 with the county department of emergency management. And I will turn it over to Max. Thank you, Capital. Um, I actually had a couple of slides, but I'm not quite sure how to share them, so I'm just going to uh explain what we're talking about tonight. Um, I'm addressing you tonight to request your authorization to um extend the interlocal agreement with Snowomish County for Emergency Management Services. Um,

did you IT director's helping me? Thank you. Um, sorry settings here. Uh, you got to check it again because I don't think he hasn't have share settings on here. I don't want to hold the me. Go ahead, Max. All right, I'll

try like that. Um, the city has been in this um interlocal agreement with the county for many years. Um and the main purpose is to have a cost-effective way um to have e emergency management services in place for the city um to protect the community basically. Um the current is a term runs out the end of December of this year 2026. Um but the agreement uh lets us extend for two more times two years each. The action I'm requesting you um from you tonight is to authorize a one u a one-term extension for two years. And secondly, as an administrative formality, I would also ask to designate the mayor as the ILA administrator as well as the me voting member of the advisory board for this interlocal agreement. Um briefly, what does this um agreement um provide for us? Which services do we get from the county? Um well, basically they span all the way through the emer emergency management cycle from preparedness over response all the way to recovery. Um a big um part of it is obviously planning. Um the county provides technical planning assistance for all of our plans that are required either by state law or required for us um to be eligible for various grants. Um, examples of that are a comprehensive emergency management plan where the county maintains a base plan and the city has an annex to this plan. Similar example would be hazard mitigation plan. But the county also provides us um technical expertise and technical guidance for um continuity of operations planning for example which is a big issue and is actually um a big priority for the city this year. Um secondly, training and exercise. um the county through the ILA provides us um training

and training assistance. They also organize um exercises such as the um swift 27 exercise which is um um a big um earthquake planning preparedness exercise that will take place next year and so on. Um furthermore, the county does outreach and volunteers. Um and then moving on um if we look at readiness and response. So what what do they do for us if ever an emergency were to occur? Well, obviously they maintain a state-of-the-art EOC over in Everett, but they also have a 20our 24-hour duty officer that we can reach out to any time um if there was need for us to contact them. They further maintain a public alert and warning system that we have access to and can use internally for communication and notification within our organization. Um and if it was ever needed, they would also provide onsightly zones to help with any kind of um emergency facilitation. Um and lastly um probably the most tangible um service is their deployable resources. They have an array of command vehicles, operations vehicles, um, and communication amplification tools that we have access to if it was ever needed. Now, all of this, um, comes at a cost. Um, the city has to pay an annual service charge to the county for these services, and this service charge is calculated on a per capita rate multiplied by the population um, of Lake Stevens. Um for this year the service fee amounted to $59,000 roughly um with a um $144 per capita rate. Um however this year uh this rate gets adjusted annually um by the Seattle Belleview Everett um consumer price

index and obviously by the change of our population number. Um, so we're not we do not have the definitive rate for next year yet. Um, because it won't get decided until July 15th of this year, but it will be in approximately in the $60,000 range for next year. Um, all these services, important to note, are and the rate are contingent upon the availability of certain um, federal grants the county receives. So in case those grants would fall through for whatever reason um they would come back to us and um renegotiate either the services or the rate um and that would be an open discussion. Then um that's it. Um if you have any questions um please let me know.

Thank you very much. Any questions for Max. Is there a significant a significant difference in the annual price of almost $60,000? Is that a change or is that pretty close to what we've been paying? That's pretty we have been paying 59,000 this year and last year and I expect we'll pay an adjusted rate probably 3% more plus um our population increase which is I don't know plus 600 or so. So, it's it's going up, but it's within the same ballpark number. Thank you. Do we have a motion?

I'll make a motion to sign the inter interlocal agreement extension. It's Snomeish County Emergency Management. I second that. Have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Thank you. Motion passes. Council member George, do we need to vote on extending our meeting? We're gonna we we probably will. Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna see how long this uh social media discussion that's the reason I was

goes. Let's let's start down that road and then we'll I think we'll have a better sense of how long we need to extend. Thank you for asking. Um so our discussion item for tonight is social media for council members. Um, I know that uh, Jean and our clerk staff have worked really hard on this and I uh, look forward to our discussion and turn it over to them.

Thank you very much. This topic came up right after the first of the year and since that time staff and city attorney have looked into all sorts of options how to facilitate this under the city rules. We even went to the extent of going to one of our current vendors uh to see if they would be able to provide a space. This is on Zen City uh a space for council members to do public outreach. They offer services across the country and they haven't been able to build out a mature model to be able to capture all of the data that would be posted on the site long term and to because of your council member that the retention cycle is a lot longer than an average employee for example. So at any rate, we weren't able to come up with a uh program working with the vendor that was going to work and meet all the um retention requirements and all the things that we have to do as a city. Then we dove into the Facebook side of things and after fully vetting that and this is months of work at looking at this, uh we don't believe that we can meet the requirements under that either. And we've looked at other cities. We've looked at counties. You name it, we've looked at it. And we don't believe that we can check all the boxes that city has to do long term to retain records. And uh one of the main things that we discovered is when city staff posts on Facebook, we have to physically toggle off the comments. And if we were to allow other users, council members in this case, to uh post your own stuff on a city Facebook page and it was forgotten, not that anybody would do it intentionally, but if it was forgotten, then we'd have to maintain those comments forever, right? And we already discussed that the city pushes

information. We don't receive comments. we always toggle that off so we don't get into a situation where we're receiving comments from the public, good or bad, and we don't have to maintain that. So, all this being said, we concluded that we are going to turn it over to council members to operate as you see fit. If you choose to post city information on your private Facebook page, that's up to you. you will re be responsible for those public records. And the idea we have behind that is for you to take a screenshot of the information you posted. Put in an email to yourself and under the subject line, let's say we're talking about the park out here, North Cove Park. Put that in the subject line. So when we fill public records requests and we do use our search terms, it would come up under that. Right? So that would be the retention. The other thing that you'll need to be aware of if you post that in two years somebody gives you a thumbs up or gives a comment or something need to rescreenshot that because that's new information on that thread that needs to be captured. So uh that's where we're at today. We're giving you the reigns to do that because it just got too owners of um not only staff, but we were looking at the um council president to have to monitor posts and all this stuff and it just really got out of hand and uh it's a task that we couldn't take on and meet all the requirements that the city has to do to maintain public records. So, that's where we're at tonight and I'm open for questions, but we are giving you the green light to move forward. you just know the requirements and we're happy to to aid in that any way we can.

Could I ask for an update if we know it? Um, we received on a Tuesday night in our packet and I didn't get a chance to read it till that meeting after when this subject was on what is the update going on in Spokane regarding somebody who posted something on Facebook. There was a public disclosure request. The person missed that. So, it did wasn't part of the public disclosure and the city was sued and last I heard it was over $200,000 and they're expecting it to exceed 300,000.

Are you referencing the email I sent about Spokane Valley? Yes. I believe that's still in litigation and it's with I think they're up to two council members. Um, and I believe it was a Next Door account. Um, and those records were not being turned over. And so they're estimating upwards of $200,000 as per the article that I sent out. and they are paying for that um part partially by getting rid of a crime analyst position within their police department.

Yeah. So the consequences just something I just want to say I mean right here out loud is the consequences are huge if a city council member makes that mistake. Um we just recently had a public disclosure request that you know we had to do things. I had made a comment um on my personal page thanking um the person involved who had served on our council and said as a council member I enjoyed working with him and so I screenshot or actually I made it public so you could actually capture the whole thing and then sent in you know what is my Facebook name on my personal account. Um, but it does happen and you really don't know what it's going to happen about. Like the last thing I thought is congratulating someone. I was going to have to public disclose that. But the consequences are pretty severe. And so I just kind of wanted to let everybody know that in case you had missed the email that Caitlyn had sent out. C

can I add a little bit as the IT director here? Um, if the requesttor is crafty, they can actually request for the metadata and uh for you guys to extract metadata from your post, it's a little bit more difficult. We have a third party capturing software that actually cra captures the JSON metadata. So, that is something that you have to be aware of as well. There there are actually now some very educated uh public disclosure uh seekers who are now just looking for social media and um there are some examples of where uh council member I believe he's in Port Townsen had his actually his Facebook page got hacked into and uh and then of course I discovered other posts in there that are embarrassing to that council member. Personal stuff and uh uh it's it's it's it's not a real safe thing to do. Let me let me just say this from the city standpoint. You know, my my my job is well, how can we craft this that reduces the potential of city liability and and and our potential liability in this case from social media posting comes from both public records uh and also from things people may say in their in their posts. Um, my recommendation to Gan was, "Look, we can't control this. We we can't control Facebook. They operate by their by their own rules. We aren't doing the posting. Um and uh so we really have no control and uh the best thing for the city is not to sponsor it

to to review it to look at because there were suggestions you know of having reviewed and looked at and my uh my recommendation was city keeps its hands off of it as much as possible. If a council member really wants to do this and they're going to do it, then it's up to the council member to police what they're doing and to accept the possibility that they may someday uh you know, not thinking that right before breakfast, they don't turn off the comments, they say something uh uh and and that's going to be their responsibility, not ours. I don't want. So my recommendation was that we basically stay out of that end of it. We leave the responsibility for uh for the post up to the council members that that uh choose to do that and we stay out of it uh as much as possible because the ramifications the other the other thing we're seeing is that if you don't have if you include a message in a in a stream, right? any kind of a stream by accident, you forget to turn off, you know, to make this a separate item is that people can request everything in your stream. Okay? Not just that post you thought was the business post, but your person anything that's personal connected to that uh can be discovered under public disclosure and those kinds of things are happening. So, uh, so basically the the re the recommendation that Gan has given you is that not that we're giving you the green light, but you have the right to do it if if if you want to do it, but it's going to be your responsibility and you're going to have to comply, especially with the public records uh uh so that we have those records because

it's the city if it because if the records request comes in and we can't provide the stuff. It's the city's that's going to pocketbook that is going to have to pay the fines uh uh for for for doing that. So that's Thank you. It's 8:00. The basis for the recommendation. It's 8:00. So we will need a motion to extend the meeting. I want to check in with Russ really quick. You have two uh department reports. Do you have an estimate about Okay. So we have 15minute uh department reports. We have council business and then we have a what I understand as a brief executive session. So wait 8:30. So Greg, how long do you think you need for the like 10 minutes?

That's Yeah, that's that's yeah 10 minutes. Okay. So and if we extend say to 8:30 and we are done sooner than that we can move to a Yeah. Okay. I move that we extend the meeting to 8:30. Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor I.

Any opposed? Motion passes. Thank you. I have a comment on the social media post. I think I reading about it and seeing how others do it. I think that that's a a good way to address it. I think that I would be um concerned about putting barriers to an account by screenshotting, putting an um like the subject line. This is an it's like posting twice. Um and that doesn't seem to be applicable to other things that we do in our email, in our records that are also public disclosurable. So to me um first of all I think the conversation came about because we some of us um would want to have a medium to talk to our constituents or to share information that may come through the city council may not maybe volunteer opportunities or things that we are interested in or businesses that are still city related but may not be applicable to our personal accounts. So we want the medium to share that information that may not be a newsletter um or too formal. So to that extent I think in my mind it would be a public page so available and searchable that we would be responsible for. Um that would that public records request would apply in the same way that we're searching everything else when a public disclosure request comes in. so that I would have a page that I personally to me I would turn off the comments similar to the city so that to me it's easier to manage um and that when a public disclosure

request comes in I do a search similar to what I would do in my email inbox and would let you know that I have now this medium that is public disclosurable Are you advocating that every time a public disclosure request comes in, we'd have to go to everyone with a Facebook page and say, "Do you have anything that might be relevant to this?" Because we get requests for land use action for very general terms for any and all every metadata. So, not having it captured with screenshots and having it in a zone where we can't get to it would mean we'd have to go through you every time to search everything. Um, is that kind of what you're saying?

Yeah, I would say like when you when you when we had the public disclosure request and you asked me if I have any relevant information and I said no, I don't and I sign off on it, I would say that that's the same process, right? Like if there's a public disclosure request that says, did council members talk about this in their media? So, my social media that I'm telling you I I'm discussing city business. That would be a medium I would search in response to that request. I could anticipate you getting that request quite often then to search everything and quite often. It could happen. I mean, you can speak to this as well. But if we know you're creating a mass of records somewhere else that we can't get to it,

every time we had a request where we didn't know what you've talked about or what you've posted or what what's been shared, we would have to come to you. Could could we could get five requests in a day that could be relevant. This conversation tonight, I will tell you, may result in a request. Yeah, it's happened before. So, it would it would give us one extra step as records officers to have to come to every single person that has that

and and then be facilitating an external process where we can't just go into our large email archiver, which I know the screenshotting feels duplicative. Um, you don't have to do that for the things you're creating inside of our system because our system's already capturing it. So that's why you're not like screenshotting things that are already in your city email and your city teams because we have a system that's grabbing that, right? So if you're creating a large group of records outside of that system, we would need you to push it into our system manually. So we would need screenshots. We would need to be able to go do that searching. I mean, we're searching all day, every day for records requests. We have them I mean, we have them come in all the time. We're working on them all the time.

Just to make sure we're all clear. So what what you're saying is if we if we proceed in the way that um Councilwoman Mariah is saying we could be doing five affidavit a day. We could be doing essentially yeah in public records officer work. We we would be working with you all the time because we don't know what you're posting. So if you post like a recap of a meeting, you could speak about five different topics. What if we get a request about any of those topics and every time we those topics could be requested, we come back to you every time and say now do you have it? do you have anything else? Or so it it would create quite a quite a um laborous process for us as public records officers

to have all of these records being created outside of our system, especially since you're a council member. So your records are legacy records. So there'd be a records management piece where those would have to be retained forever. But if I put a subject matter of council meeting such and such and then do a screenshot of a post recapping that meeting, how are you searching inside the screenshot for a certain term? the subject line. Yeah. But if I put like the subject line is recap of the meeting or my thoughts on the meeting or you know volunteer. I may have that post having multiple lines of information, multiple subjects, right? Even that's very challenging. It's not ideal. It's really

I'll I'll speak up on that a little bit. So perview has OCR capabilities. So it actually can um you know read text from pictures. Okay. But again, it's uh it's a process. This is why you have city phones and city computers that do city business

and we have a city Facebook. Can can you if there's something like can we just say as a council maybe we would like our city Facebook page to have a summary of what our city council I mean I know that they they post when we have it but maybe a summary of our council p on our already open and standing page. And I remember council member Donahghue I thought had a great idea. Sure. Um when it comes to our YouTube page because we were talking about communication as a whole. And right now our YouTube page if you're watching after the fact, you're kind of guessing when the subject's going to come up by the agenda that's posted. Maybe putting markers on. We talked about this subject at this time and this subject at that time because I think the point or at least what I gathered back in I think it was January we were talking about this is that we want a way a easier communication for our citizens is kind of what I've heard is we want an easy way for them where they don't have to go to our website and look through all this information and if we because we already have an existing Facebook page if we were to just say as a council hey we would like a summary of the meeting. This is what was discussed. It's posted on YouTube and then when you go to our YouTube page, there's a menu where you know at this time we discussed this, at this time we discussed that. Is that something possible? Then then that would be really easy to capture and I can let our IT director speak more about that. But we have looked into it. I think there's a lot of tools in YouTube's creator space where um when you're making the video inside of YouTube before you're posting it, you can you can do that kind of automatically because we're live streaming it. It's already out there. So, we'd have to look into technology to pull it back and try and do time stamps and then put it back out if that makes sense.

So, it's not that it's not possible, but that's definitely something that we've we've talked about. And then the recap, we've also started looking into there's some other cities that are doing it in a way that's um uh a little more minimal. So it's not like a full-blown recap, but just kind of um approve action that's taken or approvals. And so that is something we're also working on. And then that then citizens could reach out after they see that post and say if they have a specific question for a council member they may or may not have a connection to where they they feel like comfortable asking this council member that they could then email them through the city email account through like your your city council email and then again the city already captures that and it doesn't create more work for our staff.

Yeah, we Oh, go ahead please. now you haven't spoken yet.

Um I have a question about we had previously talked um in reference to the city's Facebook page um and we had just briefly touched on the programming that's used to monitor that account um that automatically you know logs all of the data. Um, I never heard a followup, I don't think, on that. Like, what was the downfall to like, let's say, as a city council person, I have a city email, I have a city phone. What What would be the downfall to me as a city council person setting up a city council Facebook page with that software that's also being utilized for this the city? I I think Jean and Greg, if you want to speak to that, that's a road we definitely looked at, but that's one of the one of the ones that we had concerns about.

That's Yes, I think comments was a big thing. I mean, just sure. Yeah, cuz every how I understand it, Olivia is certainly the expert, but uh you have to turn comments on off. Yeah, there's no global setting there's no global setting in Facebook to disable contacts on a Facebook page, but but you could expect us to follow the procedure the same way the city staff follows that procedure. And if and if we and if we make a mistake then on that one instance you correct capture it and correct it. But the assumption is we will follow that procedure and we would talk about a disclaimer that this is not you know not an opinion of the whole council and you know that kind of thing. But

it just seems like a lot less risk to go that route than to just say, "Well, you can if you want to just be careful, you know, I don't know." And I think in that discussion, that's where our city attorney advised us to to not be facilitating it as a city. So, I'll let him speak more. Some of the problems, you know, like uh Spokane was they had a policy. They had a policy, but I didn't give up. The expectation of the council was yes, it would be fed

and and a council member didn't follow it and then when they reprimanded or tried to reel him in, he's backed and they're suing each other and he's lost his council positions on committees and What do you mean they're suing each other? They're suing each other. uh the uh the uh the city uh uh uh uh made a finding that he had violated the the uh the policies. He had an appeal that went to the city's hearing examiner. He's appealing the city's he is appealing the city's hearing examiner decision.

So they were going after him personally for the money.

Yes. Well, no, not for the money, uh, but to impose discipline on him for violating the city policy. They also found out in the process that he has more records on his uh person on his devices that they didn't know about. They're wanting to see all of that. He's fighting that. Uh so uh that's in I think there are two cases in Spokane County Superior Court uh with reflect with respect to this. Uh the problems that I've we've seen in other cities is where either a council member uh doesn't follow the policy or just you know

what about an indemnity state you're just thinking what I need to do at this particular moment and you you know that's a problem with emails and text messages. We we tend to write things and and and then press the button and uh without sometimes what about what I wanted to say or should have said,

right? What about an indemnity agreement? Is that a possibility for anyone that wants to engage because I understand the city doesn't want to, you know, sponsor this or sign off on it, but that doesn't remove the liability portion. So I I mean to me it seems like some kind of voluntary indemnity agreement if anyone wants to go down that road. I guess I feel like the public records act would supersede. So we would be responsible whether whether there was a valid indemnity agreement that would reimburse us and possibly I look at that issue but I uh because then you know but we would still be the primary responsible party to the person

but it would at least give the city a potential avenue for recovery and then if and then it also you know it it adds that sting if somebody wants to get lax with the policy now there's real consequences so it's up to the individual to decide if they want to go down that road. What happens if so there have been probably at least 50 50% of the time when I've shared something on social media and then right afterwards oh gez I can't you know autocorrect right and you're going and you're editing your post and is that the meta you're talking about and so they're going to go back and see anything that you edit after the fact

right and so if you're editing it and you're trying to capture this and share this is what I've said You're gonna have to share every version of your edit. So hopefully you have better thumbs than I do if you're on your phone. But you're, if I understand, every single edit is going to have to be captured, right? And possibly numerous times a day, our staff is going to be asking for that your personal devices. If this is the way it goes down, you're going to expect that some of these requesters, they're going to want to have your device examined

to make sure that you have in fact provided everything that you should have uh provided. which then gets into this problem of people seeing things that they shouldn't see or you really don't want them to see or that leads them to uh uh make additional re requests like in one example I saw that a a council member had gotten into another made a comment to another council member who made a comment to him. It was all in the same stream, right? In the same stream as a comment about a council. Well, all that stuff was disclosable, which was embarrassing to the other council member because the personal comment he made, he didn't intend to have uh released to the public. So it's unfortunately this type of communication has a set of problems with it that are there difficult to handle and the technology is really ahead of us. It's

Greg can can I add to that a little bit? Um so the reason why we have a policy around that uh there's no personal use of uh technology within city business is because of that exact process right there. Um I've been called out in my entire career here two times to elected at people's houses to try to find information from a PDR request and that's not fun for me. You know I've gone through there because I'm having to search their computers because they don't know how to do it and and it's been it's it's it's embarrassing. So um there's a reason why we have a policy where we don't co-mingle personal and work product and that's exactly why

well I would say that Facebook is not a personal device uh issue. It's a web-based platform. So it it you can access Facebook and you can have access to your Facebook page regardless of the device you use. So I don't I mean I understand texting or calls are tied to the device. Facebook is not. So I would I would counteract that because if I if I access it on this computer you can if you can see it then I'm guessing we can't access if you put in so so think about like you might be posting pictures or images or documents any kind of content that might go into your post that could be a work product.

Yeah. Um, and thank you for the clarification that you can actually search within the picture because I think that that to me was more of a worry like do I have to capture the subject of everything that I'm talking about in the post? But if what this is saying is that every time I post I screenshot that, email it to myself so that with a subject line of that I posted something about one of the subjects in there. But if you can look at the image itself, then I think that that's great. That's nice.

And that's something that the uh uh PE the the public records staff have to understand when they go and build a case in the eiscocovery portion, there's a there's a setting that they have to turn on to make sure that their OCR and images. Yeah. So it is if they miss that step, there might be a possibility they might not catch it because it's only taking place within the OCR process within the purview environment. really quick. I just want to point out the time and yep, don't want to rush this if anyone has any burning concerns, but and I just I just want to say like one more thing and then I don't care if we move on.

Um I I think that we've got a Facebook venue to talk to our constituents. We've got it there. If it needs to be improved, it needs to be tweaked. It's risk-free. Our staff's already doing it. It's not going to cost us more in our budget. it's not going to put an extra burden on our already very busy staff. So, I want to say that and then I also just want to say this is nothing personal against anyone. Like obviously I'm not for this. I'm not for us having Facebook pages. I don't see the necessity. I see a huge risk. But this is nothing personal against anyone sitting up here. What this is is this is a policy. So if you don't run again in someone else sits in that chair or we have a dynamic within our council in the future like I've seen at other cities which can be a bit combative. I can just see in the future this becoming an issue and I totally respect and understand if we have current city council members that feel we are not communicating in a way that could be easy and clear to our citizens. I think we need to work on that communication as it is risk-f free and doesn't overburden our staff with public disclosure requests. That's just that's well I'll have to stay on it.

So and then I just want to state that I understand all the risk and I appreciate all the work that everyone has gone through to gather the data and to bring forward and to answer the questions. Um and that and we do have a Facebook page for the city. However, I couldn't do a live video from the Easter egg hunt this weekend and invite people to come down. Um, you know, I it's it's more about my relationship with my constituents and the people that voted for me than it is about the city. Um, in in my personal opinion, that's that's what I want to be able to uphold. um that I'm going to be a part of being able to disseminate information that I know I struggled with understanding as a constituent myself. Um and so I understand all of that and again I do appreciate everything and I'm I'm going to chew on this and I'll probably reach out to a couple of you. Um but yeah, I get I I I'm disappointed. Um how I I do understand um but I am I am disappointed. Well,

so to clarify, and I'm not critiquing, I'm adding to what you're saying. The disappointment is just that there's not a an official city page because we're still saying, this policy is still saying that we can post things. We just need to be careful about uh tracking, keeping track of the data. So whether it's on a page that I create that says Nathan Packard Lake Stevens city council position number seven and that's not an official city page. It's my page but I put that title on there and I post things and I choose to prohibit all comments. I I can get the same objective whether I do it that way or through a formal city page as long as I follow the procedure of being very careful about not allowing post not allowing comments and then keeping track of that data and sending the appropriate data back to the city so that they can keep track of that.

But that's not taking into account the device that you're using to access it. So that's my concern. But per council member Aria's point, the device should be irrelevant. If I if I do that on If I do that on a personal phone or on a work phone or on a something else that I go to the city library and log into the Facebook page from there, yeah, that doesn't matter where I do it. It's a post that anybody can access and as long as I'm capturing the data that's there and feeding it to the city, whether it's on an official city page or some other mechanism, I can meet the same objective. And to keep it even cleaner, if they have comments or want to follow up with you, do it on your city email.

Yeah. So, and that's I guess yeah, that's that's a good

So, so I I I agree. I would prefer an official city page, but I at least understand where they're coming from. The objective can be met as long as we follow the guidance and this language here. So, I I just want to clarify that the device because I was under the impression that if I had a page that I was using strictly for city council only and I logged into that on my personal computer at home because that's the device that I use since I can't use my city device. If I did that, would that open up my personal computer to all of this? That that's what I'm understanding. I I don't want to take up time with this, but I would encourage anybody with these concerns to reach out to Greg offline about the difference between a public records request disclosure and then discovery during litigation that stems from one of those because that can potentially be much more invasive. I just don't think we have time to get into it right now.

And I will say that anyone at any time could put in an ask for a non affidavit process and could say, I think that you're doing records on your on your personal devices. You're going to need to search everything and sign an illegal affidavit. That's that's a risky. you need to be aware of and accept that risk if that's what you want to do. The other thing to be aware of that's not in this is the OPMA issue. So if like three of you created pages, you guys could not follow each other and interact with each other. So just to be very aware, there's a risk for you as elected officials in that capacity as well. Okay. Yeah. Thank you.

I'm going to move us along. Um, we have two city department reports from Russ, the community development first quarter update and our capital projects update. It is 8:24. Russ had mentioned needing about 15 minutes. Um, plus we have an executive session in council business. Jean, what do you think that we could put that off to the next meeting? It's it's not that essential. Okay, we're going to postpone the executive session. Um, but we still have around 15 minutes left. So, we will need an amendment to extend the meeting. Move to extend the meeting to 8:45. Second. All those in favor say I.

I. Any opposed? I'm going to turn it over to Russ. Okay. Good evening, council. Russ Wright, community development director. Give me just a second here to get my screen organized so we can end the evening tonight on a more light-hearted um note. You've had some heavy topics tonight. So, everybody need to take a breath. You doing all right? We're good.

Okay. So, we'll go through the planning and community development um first quarter report. That's something we try to do. Um the last council had instituted this idea. So the council could keep track on um some of the work that the planning commission is doing and just a general followup of the work program. So it covers a variety of topics. So um we'll go over some of the long range things that we're working on. We'll highlight some of the efficiencies we're working on and some of our permitting um data and statistics. And it's more in depth in your staff report. So, um I did want to take a minute just to reintroduce um some of my team. Um we have a varied team. We do different things. And what was sort of funny going through this process is we don't have a single picture of the whole team. One of my team members said, "Hey, why don't you AI us together?" I did. And then I shared it and they said, "Why does it look like we all just got punched in the face?" So we went with the individual pictures. So we have four primary divisions. We have our planning division. They do the long range planning. They also do the development review projects for land use review and economic development also falls under this category as does environmental review. We have our building division. They are our inspectors and the people that are reviewing our building plans and our building official and some of the other team members. And then we talked a little bit earlier about our code enforcement. It is a division of one and um Cameron is very educationoriented and we go out and u we don't actively look for violations. um we are more

reactive and um address the violations as they come in. But we do try to push out education um with the building team quarterly just so right now for example we're coming into deck and dock season. So we put out sort of a Q&A to the public just say hey remember you know don't go building stuff in your backyard unless you check with us first um you know to make sure everything's safe and solvent. And then we have our permitting division. They are our front counter staff and they are our conduit to the public and so they have very important jobs. They they keep us honest when they route the permits to us um take u payment for our services and again they are the face of our department and of the city. So, let's talk a little bit about the long range um planning work. You guys have been involved in this a little bit already. So, we start the year off where we get our staff, the planning commission and the city council together. We talk about the comprehensive plan docket. You both take your independent actions to move that forward. You help set the work program. And so this year we have a pretty light um docket as far as the comprehensive plan and our development code updates still stays rigorous. Um over the last couple of years we've really gotten sidelined from moving a lot of our code development forward being more reactive to changes in state law. That will continue into um the latter half of 26 and into 27. Um, and one of the big um, code amendments we're working on right now is our critical areas um, update that came out of our comprehensive plan. That's something that we're mandated to update every few years, usually following your major comprehensive plan

update. And in this case, we were pretty far along and some state agencies have reinterpreted some things. So, we've that's set us back quite a bit. So, um, we will be bringing a dedicated presentation to you soon on that topic. As far as the docket, as I had already mentioned, it is going to be pretty light this year. This is just an example of one of the map amendments. It's uh more of a cleanup. We purchased a property within the bounds of Eagle Ridge Park and so it will become a park property and that we just have some general map cleanup, some text cleanup. And the um big things we're doing in the comp plan this year is we are going through our three sub area plans and updating those to make sure they're consistent with our newest comprehensive plan and we also have put off working on our industrial plan for a couple of years. So we're really hoping we can pick that up this year and move through that. So I've already sort of touched on the 2026 work program. I won't really um dwell on that, but again, it's really what we're working on is to either make sure that our regulations are consistent with our comp plan after the updates, responsive to changes in state legislation, and then we do have a slew of items we'd like to work on for the betterment of the community. Um, one of the other things that I do personally in the first half of the year is I'm engaged in our legislative review. So any housing related bills, land use, and in this case there are some um fees bills that I follow. And I just listed a few. These aren't all that I reviewed this year, but these are the ones that have passed um that have some changes we need to deal with. The first being step housing. This undoes um some

of the work that the council worked on last year. So we'll be bringing that back with some amendments. Um, another one that's going to be kind of hard to implement is the residential uses in commercial zones. Um, unknown effects of that on our growth capacity and our job projections. So, we're going to have to work through that. And then there is some movement on some new potential affordable housing funding which cities could adopt either through referendum or sort of more council manic type procedures to add a sales tax that could go to affordable housing. And then there are some changes to the REIT laws that does allow some of that money to be used to support some types of public services related to child welfare and family welfare. So you hear about records management a lot from our clerks. It's also something my team is very very involved with. We have we are probably the most paperheavy and intensive department. We have tens of thousands of records. And so before we move to city hall, we're not going to have tens of thousands of pieces of paper. We are going to digitize and we are digitizing our legacy files under our retention schedules that we have to keep. Getting rid of redundant files. And then we're trying to be that disciplined with our electronic files as well because it's very very important for us. And so um the whole team has been taking about one day a month where we're all sitting down creating logs and going through paper files to achieve that goal. And along with that some

other efficiencies we're working on in our intake um process. So lots of process improvements. Again, that's been a big priority for the city and something that's important to me that we're providing really good customer service. So, we've done some pre-application enhancements. We're continuing to tinker with our workflows and make sure that they are effective and streamlined as we can have and then always working on internal coordination with uh other departments or other agencies. And then always looking to how do we upgrade our software and our building official who does a lot of that has really been focused on a lot of automations in our permit software um to try and um save some some labor and simplify some things. So I guess this title is repeated. I apologize for that. This should this should be related to our permit statistics. Um so we've seen a little bit of increase in our permit growth. The valuations are up. Um we've seen though um a decline in some of the revenue and then the inspections also have changed a little bit. And what that points to is the types of projects we're reviewing in the first quarter that it would um with lower dollar amounts coming in, higher permits and more inspections tells me that we're reviewing a lot of water heaters and things like that that are fairly labor intensive but don't um generate a lot of revenue, but still that's a service we provide. Um and so I'll keep you up to date on those permit statistics throughout the year. And then other things that you may not be aware of. Council member Shipman at our last meeting made comments about the

wayfinding signs. That's also something that my team works on um for economic development and beautifification. So over the last few months, we had gone through the process of ordering several new gateway signs. The first one to be installed was the monument sign off of Grade Road by 92. And my team's also been responsible to coordinate the artwork for the banners. And then we have public works and parks help us out um to install them in different locations. So really happy with the banners and we just had the spring ones put up this week. I don't know if you noticed the change or not, but they've been really fun addition to our downtown. Um I'll talk about the capital projects in a couple of minutes. And then we've also um assisted with some of the grant activity. Some of the federal asks this year we assisted on getting some information. And then we've been working closely with Olivia um on some grants and some utility rebates for our campus project. And then as far as economic development goes, really have been focused on tenant um recruitment at our four locations. So, we had two open suites down where our civic campus is going to be. We have one of those spots filled and another likely tenant down there. And then we've interviewed tenants for our Milspur yard and we are working we're in contract with one and working closely to get another tenant into that space and we have a backup if that one doesn't work. So, that's some of the work that we have been doing. And with that, that is the department report. Are there any questions about the department report before I roll into capital projects?

Thank you. Good job.

You guys have done just amazing things. It's beautiful. Thank you. So, I'll do that. Okay, big screen. There we go. Okay. Um, also just wanted to give you an update on our capital projects. We haven't talked about the um Milspur yard and the civic campus since the retreat and just sort of wanted to run over that quickly with the council. So, the purpose of the project was to give obviously our team a modern facility with easier access for the public. We've gone through um a lot of planning exercises where we brought in different stakeholders, all of the departments. We vetted that um pretty recently with the department heads who got to tour the space and we're going to be forming an interior committee pretty shortly and continue to refine the timeline. And big actions right now is that the project is under permit review and we're getting queued up to start the bidding process for this project. So actions to date as I mentioned um we've had stakeholder engagement we've gone through a series of design and budget planning efforts u making sure that we keep the project affordable um we've been working on the mechanical systems with our public works team to make sure that the equipment we get matches their needs and we've also been

looking for rebates ates and grant options for um our electrical and mechanical upgrades. And then as I mentioned, we are in permit review and layout right now. And I just wanted to share a couple of pictures with you, couple of models of what the campus may look like um when it gets done. One of the recent things we've done is we've got our paint colors narrowed down. Um, again, working within the constraints of the project. A couple of things we were working against is the roof one. It's a very specific color and then there's stone cladding on the base. So, we had to find happy colors to play with the roof and the stone cladding. And I think we've come up with a really beautiful concept and I'm really excited about it. So phase two, we're in phase two right now, which is the permitting phase. Again, public works has been out there doing an incredible job cleaning up that site. They've done power washing on the building, cleaning the gutters, some pruning, and they're going to start doing some fence repair, and they've been inside the buildings and started to remove a lot of um all of the old appliances, some old furniture. So they've been a huge help on the project. Phase three becomes construction and then you know again just some project goals that meet our strategic plan is that just it needs to be a sustainable project and adherence to our budget compliance and operational needs and long-term sustainability. Okay. So head over to Milspur Yard. Thank you to all of you who attended the grand opening a couple of months ago. So, the project is moving along quite nicely. The foundation is complete.

We've had several meetings with our lead team. Um, for those of you who aren't familiar with that, it's an environmental compliance rating that just um you have to have certain sustainability efforts into your building. In this case, it's material choices as well as um very high functioning equipment that's going to be calibrated to get the most out of that equipment. And then this extends to our tenants that they also have to abide by the lead standards that we set when they again build out their spaces. Um we've had tenant engagement. I've already mentioned we've um got a couple of potential tenants at this point and just this project is going to entirely enhance our downtown. Um and it just has really been a great project and especially through the partnerships we've had. So just sort of summary of both projects, you know, they're strong coordination. They've gone through the planning process. We have the next phases we're in the middle of and looking forward to with the civic campus. We've already talked about the sustainability of both projects both at the city campus. little things we can do like upgraded high efficiency hot water heaters, switching out to um LED lights, and then the whole project design at the Millsur yard. And both of these projects have um huge community benefits both for economic drivers, um access to our residents at a new campus and then making downtown more lively. So that is the end of my second presentation. Again, any questions of council on our two major um building projects

regarding the um new city c city campus. Do I remember that the possible begin to move in date is the end of this year? It'll probably be first quarter of next year. Okay, great. Thank you. Any other questions for Russ? Great job, Russ. Thanks. Yep. You're welcome. Thanks, Russ.

Moving on to council business. We have three minutes. Um, so I would ask council members to keep their comments uh brief, high level, unless you have something just incredibly important and then you can take up somebody else's time. But we're going to be done in three minutes. So, um I will start and say that I have nothing um to report. I appreciate everyone's support as I've transitioned into this position. Um I'm excited about our process to move forward and just um thank you all for all of your hard work.

Congress, Congresswoman, Councilwoman, it's late. It's late promotion. I will I'll keep my other comments for uh the next meeting and thank you for stepping up into the role and um we're all uh looking forward to the end of this process. So, Councilman McManis, I have nothing to report this week other than to just thank staff for everything they're doing and and realize that we all know you're kind of in a rocky canoe right now as we go through transition. So, just hang in there with it. Thank you. Thank you, Councilman Donnu.

Um I do have one thing. Normally I would run this through council president and the clerks uh for a discussion item or potentially action item, but given that I got an email saying our finance director posting is now live, I feel this warrants me mentioning it as soon as possible. Um I in short I I noticed the compensation range for the position. Um, I feel as a group if we're going to be budget conscious, it might be worth a discussion about that position, how much we're willing to pay for it, what that could mean in terms of other salaries within the city. Um, so I would I would very much like to see that come back as a discussion item before we make any offers and kind of figure out, you know, where those numbers came from, how much discretion do we have to move them, do we want to move them, that sort of thing. So that's all.

Thanks, Councilwoman Shipman. Um, I have nothing to report. I just want to thank our citizens that came forward during citizens comments for sharing their thoughts with us and um Council President Jodstad, Mayor Pro Tim, congratulations on your first meeting. It was a long one. Good job. Thanks, Councilwoman.

Um I just wanted to say that I attended the Snowomish Conservation District um and Lake Stevens uh storm water facilities um online webinar thing that was really interesting. Um the main thing that I learned which I was curious about is the difference between detention and retention. So for those who don't know detention is just when you have like big storms and you need extra holding and retention is something that's filled all the time. So I just had to share that and um thank you to everyone who uh put that all together. Nice. Thank you Councilman Packard. Nothing for me tonight. All right. Thank you. I would entertain a motion to adjurnn. Move to adjurnn. Second. All those in favor? I. We're journed.