City Council - Special Meeting

Evening.

I will call to order the City Council meeting for City of Lake Stephen special meeting. I will do that again. Good evening. Call to order the Lake Stephen City Council special meeting for July 21st, 2026. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag

Excellent. Deputy city clerk. Can we have a roll call of our council members?

Yes. Council member Donahue.

Present.

Council member Packard.

Present.

Council member Edwards. Present. Council member McManus.

Present.

Council member Shipman. Present. Council member Araya. Here. And council member Jorstad.

I would like to make a motion to excuse council member Jorstad.

Second.

We have a motion that's been properly seconded. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Hearing none, motion passes. All right. Council President, motion to approve the agenda.

Yes, could I please get an approval motion to approve our agenda? A motion to approve the agenda. Is there a second?

There is.

Is there any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Aye. Okay, we've got an agenda.

Excellent. All right, we'll move on to item number five, which is guest business. Lindsay, welcome, and welcome to your guest.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. So this evening, I'm going to go ahead and introduce Peter Becker is with me from Time Value Investments, and I'm going to briefly go over, there was a staff report in the agenda, and Basically, the city of Lake Stevens has an investment policy that goes back to 1992 and currently is not being acted on. So I'm bringing, as a new finance director to this city, I'm bringing it forward to you that this policy has existed since 1992. And I'm here to basically walk you along with me that we're going to... we're going to put this in motion and start looking to diversify the city's funds. So what that looks like is the policy is clearly outlined and that's attached in your packet. And what that gains is exactly as one does in their personal investments, they diversify their cash. So you have it laddered in terms long-term basically government agency bonds and us treasury bonds and are the two main ones and so then i've also brought in the expert in that field so if you do have questions to kind of walk through how that goes um but although i'm new to this city Peter and I are not new to working with each other. I think we have been working together for nine years and we have done this at two other cities and over tripled their interest. And so it becomes a very stable, a very predictable, which is what I love as your finance director, because it becomes very budgetable. Also, it is very structured. There will be a laddering system. And so every six months to an annual basis, basically one would become due or mature. And then at that time, the city would make the assessment on whether to reinvest that money at the end and just keep it going. Ultimately, the city does need short-term investment funds and they do need long-term investment funds. They need both. And so I'm just looking to lean into supporting the portion of longer-term investment funding per the policy. And with that, I am going to pass it over and let Peter do his part.

Thanks, Lindsay. Thank you, Council, for allowing me a few minutes to chat and introduce myself. So I was just going to go over a brief presentation, a little bit of information about us and kind of the general investment process for public entities in the state of Washington, and then open it up for questions. So briefly, our... Firm TVI Time Value Investments is based in Seattle, so not too far down the road. We specialize in public funds investing. This isn't something that we do like stocks for individuals or anything. It truly is fixed income for public entities, primarily in Washington. some other cities in the general area that we work with, Everett, Linwood, Snohomish, and Arlington. So Lake Stevens would be in good company if it decided to start implementing this process. We also teach on the subject, just a little bit more info about that. And for anybody who is interested, we do a monthly webinar. If anybody needs CPE credit, we have a CFA on staff that does that get an hour of CPE every month. So if anybody's interested, Lindsay can get your info. Next slide, please.

Is that me?

Okay, do we have packets in front?

Oh, okay, got it, okay, okay.

So the next slide, I'm not gonna go through this whole paragraph, but the RCW that governs public funds investing is 3959040. there is a very limited menu of available options for public entities. You can't do any of the fun Bitcoin or stocks or anything like that. Safety is the number one priority. So on this menu, I'll point you to number four, certificates, notes, or bonds of the United States or other obligations of the United States or its agencies. So that is by far and away the number one investment product for public entities. And then number five essentially is saying government agencies. It just lists a lot of them and it's kind of oddly written, but the big four agencies, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Federal Farm Credit Bank, Federal Home Loan Bank, there's some others as well. but um those make up between those four agencies and treasuries that's like 95 of all public funds investing um number eight um i guess now it's been about 10 years like in 2016 corporate bonds were legalized um that's something that you know not every city can or should do but those are now legal uh whereas they were not uh prior to 2016. um and then i guess Number one and two, those are municipal bonds. So if like City of Snohomish issues a bond, you can buy their bond as well. But other than bank products and CDs, that's about it for what can legally be invested in. Can't do mutual funds, can't do stocks, can't do pretty much anything that we would do for our own portfolios. And maybe most importantly at the bottom there, Lake Stevens' current investment policy in its current form allows for investments into these securities, specifically treasury and agency bonds. So as Lindsay said, everything that is currently in place allows for this as well. A quick snapshot of where the city is. So per Lindsay's records and the city's audited financials or financials that are being worked on currently, about $62 million, pretty much all in the LGIP. The LGIP right now is at 3.68%. If anybody doesn't know, the LGIP stands for Local Government Investment Pool. which is just a essentially state-run money market fund. So it's a cash account. I'll talk about that a little bit more in detail, I think, on the next slide. But at this point, essentially 100% of the city's funds are in the local government investment pool, small amount in bank deposits, and diversifying a little bit out of that would probably be good in the current rate environment. Next slide. So to that difference between bonds and the LGIP, oh, did we get one?

Oh, is this the next one? Cool. Okay, cool.

All right. So here's why the timing is probably good to be having this conversation. This is a chart of the five-year treasury rate going back about 20 years. Prior to the 2008 financial crisis, rates were significantly higher than they were post-crisis. That was the last time interest rates before recently even got close or touched 5%. Obviously, after the financial crisis for about a decade, rates were very, very low. The five-year touched 3% very briefly, I believe, in 2018. Then we had COVID. But then since then, we're actually back up to nearly 20-year highs in interest rates. We don't know where rates are going to go in the future. Maybe they go back to zero if something happens. Maybe they go higher from here. But looking back over the last 20 years, we can say with a fair degree of confidence that this is the best time interest rate-wise that we've had. The bond rates currently, this is a rough ballpark of just some ideas for a ladder like Lindsey talked about. One to five years, pretty standard laddering for public entities. Five years tends to be the typical maximum maturity. Some will go a little longer for maybe specific fund purposes. But by and large, five years is kind of the max. Having something mature about every year or if we did every six months, you can definitely tweak that. But what that would do, all of the bonds right now from one to five years are above the LGIP's rate of 3.68%. so we can improve interest earnings versus leaving the funds in cash. But more importantly than that is we wanna protect against rates falling again. If rates go back to zero, like they were not all that long ago for the better part of a decade, we don't want to see the city's interest earnings go away just like that. Like in 2008, I think it was the federal funds rate, which the LGIP tends to follow. um the fed i think cut from five percent to one percent over the course of about 18 months so pretty much devastating a lot of public entities expected revenues so with rates as high as they are right now it really makes a lot of sense for cities to take some of not not all of the funds you always will need a significant amount of cash in liquid form but taking some of those funds and diversifying into something that's going to be fixed and stable going into the future uh so that that's it i think we did miss one slide but i think we kind of got we got the gist uh there's uh the there's the differences i don't know if we need to go back and do that one um yeah that one i think we yeah Um, one more down that one. So with the, the. The primary mandates for public funds investing safety, liquidity, and then yield in that order, priority order. Here's just some of the key differences and similarities between treasury bonds and the LGIP. From a safety perspective, they're pretty much identical because the LGIP is buying these same treasury bonds that public entities can buy and should buy themselves. So treasury and agencies have never defaulted in their history. If they ever do, we've got big problems. 50% of the LGIP or more actually, it's probably more like 75 is composed of treasury and agency bonds already. So every dollar that Lake Stevens has in the LGIP The vast majority is already investing in these securities. That's kind of a common question for folks. Maybe they don't always realize that kind of whether you like it or not, you're already owning these securities, just doing it through the LGIP. Liquidity, there is no early termination penalty. That's another common question that we get. there's a liquid market so treasuries you know it's like a river that's just flowing by you can reach in and grab a treasury hold on to it for a while put it back in uh sell it if you need to we always recommend buying and holding but there is a very liquid active secondary market for treasuries the sale price will be determined by current interest rates if interest rates skyrocket the value of your bond tends to go down. It's that teeter-totter we all learned in finance class. If rates go back to zero, your 4% bond now looks amazing. And so it would be at a massive premium and you'd make a huge profit. So it just kind of depends on interest rate movement. Whereas the LGIP, one for one, like I said, money market fund. You put a dollar in, you get a dollar out. You're in some interest along the way meant for shorter term. It's like that. Lindsay talked about short term and long term, you know, for the short term cash needs. LGIP is a perfect place to keep your funds yield generally, but not always. A bond is going to have a higher interest rate than a liquid product just because of basic financial math. If you're going to lock up your money for an extended period of time, you should probably earn more. a little more interest than you would if you just had it sitting in the bank or in a money market. So typically bonds are going to have higher yields, not always. We actually just came out of an environment called an inverted yield curve. I'll spare you the details, but it just meant that a five-year bond had a lower interest rate than a one-year bond, which itself had a lower rate than the LGIP. But that's when everything was at five and here we are now, everything's lower than five and the fives looked pretty good actually. That's kind of a digression, but typically bonds are gonna have higher yields, not always, but it's not on the slide, but the even maybe more important keyword is stable. The yield on a treasury bond is fixed. It will never change from the time of purchase till maturity. The LGIP is variable. Can get better, did get better, a great place to be from 2020 to 2023, right? Shot up from zero to 5%. Um, since then, you know, went from five to 3.6. Um, so that can go both ways, but that's the, the, why they're a good compliment for each other to have both, um, in the portfolio. Okay. I think that's all the slides think, uh, that's all I had. I'll open it up to, uh, the council for questions.

I have a question, just a general city budget budgeting and account. So not using policy mean we're not seeing at all. Is that correct?

Or we are in the most of the city's funds are currently in the local government investment pool. And what I'm bringing forward is to make sure that council is aware that this policy exists and Just make sure that you are very aware that I intend to create a safekeeping account and start implementing it hopefully by the time of your recess is over.

Okay. That was my next question is if we're already using the LGIP, is that already in our budget? Like we already have that accounted for or... Yes.

So we have to budget to put into that. So this is where it gets a little tricky because you're what I believe you're referring to is the city as far as budgeting. What we're talking about here with local government investment and bonds is the cash flow, the amount of cash that the city has. And therefore, what we're proposing is basically to invest a certain amount of cash. If you go back to, or if we were thinking back to the slide of the bonds versus the local government investment pool, what that would mean is that we would have, you'd have both. You'd have, we're probably looking at investing about 10 million on a very laddered structure. So as you saw on that, on one of the slides, the city has 62 million in cash. That's right. So there is a percentage which also has some guidelines within the current policy back from 1992 that I'm not bringing forward to change any of that at this time. This policy was put in place and it still today absolutely checks the boxes for what we should be carrying forward. It's just not being utilized. And it... In all fairness, it was on the list. It was on the list of things to be implemented. Just so I'm very clear about that being very transparent too. This is just not something that is new to me. This is something that I've been doing. But when I did first come into local government in 2014, it was very new to me. And I spent a lot of time in time value investments classes learning about it because I didn't understand it. And I was very honest about that. And so then when I moved to a larger city, and they already had the policy in place, that was the opportunity to learn. And so that's where I actually got to watch it in action and to take a struggling budget and be able to show this is the only thing, this is what gets me so excited. This is the only thing that basically your finance department can do to walk forward for the city that affects every single fund that this city has. This is literally everything else is so restricted. You can only use it for this or that, or it's this color of money and it can't cross the being used for streets because it's X, Y, or Z, whatever. And we're going to have a lot of those conversations here in the next couple months. We're, you know, it's probably going to be a broken record, but this is, hits every single fund. It is allocated per the fund balance. And it's very stable. It's very predictable. And then ongoing, it's just going to become, we're going to, as a city, going to adopt the strategy. And then we're always going to implement the strategy, meaning we're never going to be trying to beat, quote, the market because you're winning no matter what. Either your short-term cash is winning or your longer-term cash is doing better. The goal is to stabilize it. So you have both vehicles working for the city. Did that answer the question?

Did I get a little too excited? And maybe I'm the only one that doesn't properly or quite understand this, but I guess I'm just trying to... We have that $62 million that... That is already being invested or that's the whole cash flow, right? That's the whole amount. So I'm still trying to wrap my head around where this money is coming from to be invested, I guess. I don't understand that.

We would reduce the... Thank you for clarifying your question. And it is a great one. So we would reduce the amount invested in the local government investment pool and walk it over. I apologize for missing. That's exactly what was your question and walk it over into investing it. So it wouldn't be, it would be a transfer of how we are investing. That cash balance, the cash balance will not change.

So it's not more new money that we have to remove from somewhere else to be able to invest in it.

Yes, it's a reallocation of the local government investment pool funds. Thank you for circling back.

I appreciate it.

Does anybody else have any questions?

Councilmember Donahue has his hand up.

Oh.

Yes, thank you. So being virtual, I have the advantage of being able to do some back of the napkin math here while my other fellow council members are in the spotlight. I don't know, I'm assuming you've done some preliminary calculations on this, but I just want to kind of gut check what I'm, you know, working with over here and what I'm thinking. If we're talking about moving over roughly 10 million and it's an equal weighted five-year ladder structure, Given the rates I'm seeing here, it looks like we're talking about a difference of roughly an extra $40,000 to $45,000-ish in return per year. Is that correct?

Yes, in year one, based on current rates, that's correct. Okay, thank you. But to, I guess, to take that a step further, yeah, the... the goal would be obviously to try and improve interest rate earnings immediately, but in the future increasing the, or rather decreasing the variability of those cash flows to stabilize them going forward is equally important because if this policy or if this strategy is not implemented, and a recession were to happen next year and the LGIP went to zero, then the city would earn very little in interest going forward from there. So there's no, I don't want to say there's no safety net, but because the LGIP is an extremely safe place to keep your money, but it is variable and that rate can drop.

Okay, thank you. Understood. And I guess long-term, and I don't want to put the cart before the horse, but if we're starting with $10 million, I mean, what would a rough target allocation be between the LGIP and this ladder structure? Like, what kind of, how much money would we want in each vehicle?

Yeah, are you thinking, like, long-term endgame kind of number?

Yeah, like, ideally, is the city, assuming everything's, you know, proceeding as normal, where would we kind of like to be? So... Okay, yeah.

You go and then I'll possibly.

Yeah, so from, because we work with a lot of cities. So just from like a painting with a broad strokes kind of answer, it is very city specific. If you kind of drew a bell curve of what everybody's doing, you always have some folks out on the tails, but the bulk of public entities, Uh, 50, 50 is kind of the, the shoot from the hip answer. That's kind of in the middle of the bell curve. So having about half. So, and right now, if there is 62 million in the LGIP, there would be about 30 million in the LGIP staying liquid at all times. So that. It's important to hit that point again. We're not talking about taking every dollar. We're not even really talking about taking most of the dollars. At most, we would get to is probably 50%. And then if the city decided, hey, we actually can go even a little bit further if we want to, we can have that conversation. But 30, probably the long-term target goal just from a here's what other cities are doing standpoint would be possibly about 30 in each. Okay, perfect.

Oh, sorry, go ahead.

I would say both of my previous cities, it was target 50%, max 60% because of your cashflow can vary. And so you wanna put a little safety net in there. At this time, I am still a brand new finance director to this city. You also have a lot of capital projects going on that I am very aware of. So walking into implementing this, I would be cautious. And that's the plan is to go in cautiously until after this budget season, I will have a much better handle on the ins and outs of the city of Lake Stevens financials. And then at that time, maybe we can have a different conversation together to walk through where we feel comfortable as a city on. what the trajectory of this appropriate balance will feel like for here. And because every city is unique. And this city, I will just state, has a lot of capital projects. Therefore, what that means is a lot of up and down cash flow. So just very transparently, that makes me want to be just a hair more cautious. Yes, implement. However, there might be a different recommendation after we get this next budget across the finish line. So that may be step one and step two, I guess, in transparency.

That was going to be my next question is the alignment of our projects with tying up more money in these funds. So thank you for answering that proactively.

I have a question regarding the mechanism of implementation with TVI as, is that an agreement? Is that a transaction? Is it, is it a membership fee? Is it a fee per transaction? How does, how do you, how does your company come in or how will you bring that to us in the future or how does that work?

Yeah. Yeah. I know with everything being subscription based these days, no, so yeah, Backing it up, so there's really only two ways for compensation to happen in this arena. It's either a fee-based advisory arrangement where you're writing a check every quarter. For a city of Lake Stevens' size, that probably would be... Typically, that's more expensive. So for this straightforward treasury ladder kind of situation, transactional compensation is less expensive and easier to do because you never have to write a check for the services. So essentially we would be providing the securities. We're just able to buy them from Goldman Sachs or whoever on Wall Street at make up a number 4.1%. And then we retain a small portion of that yield and then provide it to the investor at say a net of 4%. So you're never writing a check. It's just coming out before it gets to you. But the yield that you purchase, if a bond is provided to the city at 4%, you will never write a check. You'll never pay a fee beyond that because our compensation has already come out of that yield. Does that make sense?

And that's included in an agreement that we would sign at some point?

Yeah, there's new account forms and things like that. Yeah, that would detail that.

Thank you.

Okay, any further questions? All right, thank you, Lindsay, for that presentation.

Thank you, Mayor and Council.

Yeah, we're just trying to be really good stewards and try to, if we can get $40,000 to $50,000 more a year by essentially doing what we're doing, then I think that's good. That's a vehicle for Public Works, for example. Okay, let's move on to citizen comments. I don't have any green sheets. Is there anyone online, Caitlin?

If there's anyone online that would like to address council during public comment, please raise your hand and I can bring you in.

See anyone?

Okay, thank you. All right. Item number seven, consent agenda. Is there a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda this evening?

I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

Motion second. Any conversation? Hearing none, all in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? All right. All right. We'll have our public hearing with Jill and Russ about the 20th Street and Grade Right-of-Way Vacation. This is a public hearing. Do I need to open it differently, Greg?

No.

Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor. Good evening, Council. I just have a brief presentation tonight. I think I've met all of you at various different times, but if I haven't, my name is Jill Needham, and I am a planner with the City of Lake Stevens. I'm going to share my screen here really quick. Okay. Okay. All right. So today we will be talking about a right-of-way vacation proposed. It's actually for the property over there. And while a lot of us might be thinking of various different vacations right now, this one is a little bit more boring and straightforward. So a right of way vacation occurs when a city relinquishes its interest in a public right of way on a piece of property. So in other words, the city gives up a portion of this area to the adjacent property. So some quick information about this project. It is a joint effort between the city and the owner and developer of the properties there outlined in red. So they have proposed a mixed-use development at the corner of Great Road and 20th Street Northeast. And that project is currently under review. So concurrently, the city has proposed a roundabout project at this corner to enhance the safety, pedestrian access, and improve efficiency as well. So the below image there on bottom is a screenshot which shows the 60% drawings for the roundabout. So you can kind of get a better visualization of the scale of the project. It is important to note, though, that these are separate projects, and the only topic for the public hearing today is going to be the right-of-way vacation. So a right-of-way vacation is a type five application. Type five applications require a public meeting with 20 days notice and a public hearing held at city council that culminates in a city council decision. The public meeting we had was held on Zoom on June 25th, of which the applicant and two other citizens attended. I also received a total of three public comments during this process, which are included in attachment four in your packet. However, none of which were directly related to the vacation criteria itself. So 10 days notice was given to today's public hearing. It ran twice in the Herald as required on July 11 and July 18. And as of today, no public comments were received. So the vacation areas up for discussion today are relatively small. They total 387 square feet according to the applicant survey. This will allow a smooth transition along the future pedestrian improvements and right-of-way frontage for that site. And it is important to note that the applicant will be required to dedicate right-of-way as well, which is typical for most new and replacement developments. So this process is going to occur separately and will be required before construction of the project begins, which is typical of most projects. So the city of Lake Stevens Municipal Code provides several criteria for approving a right-of-way vacation. These are outlined in a lot more detail in the staff report, but I do just want to whip through these really, really quick. So most of these are basically to ensure that the proposed vacation will be a public benefit and not adversely affect public safety in any way. So the first criteria states that the vacation will provide a public benefit of purpose. This criteria is met since the roundabouts project's purpose is to benefit the public. Vacation allows the frontage along 20th and Great Road to be smooth without unnecessary kind of chunks removed from it. Criteria two states that the vacation shall not adversely impact street circulation. This criteria is met since the roundabouts project's purpose is to ultimately improve pedestrian and vehicle circulation through that intersection. Criteria three states that the public need shall not be adversely impacted. The roundabouts associated right-of-way vacation is not expected to adversely impact the public need. Criteria 4 states that the right-of-way shall not be contemplated for future use. In this case, the vacated portion is not needed for the future roundabout occurring based on the plans that I showed earlier in this presentation. And finally, Criteria 5 states that abutting landowners or landowners will not become landlocked or have their access impaired. And so in this case, the vacated right away will not affect any other properties nor impair or landlock access to the subject properties. Okay, and finally, the code states that the applicant is required to fully compensate the city for the vacated land at the appraised value and. So using the county assessor data i've calculated the cost for square foot averaged over both of the properties and that turns out to be about $24 and 69 cents so based on the 387 square feet, the total valuation of the vacated area is just over $9,500. So today, the staff recommendation is to hold the public hearing and approved to the proposed right away vacation ordinance which is shown in attachment one of your packet and so before we pass it off to the Council for questions and ultimately open the public hearing breath that you have anything you want to add.

No, you did an absolutely great job tonight, thank you.

Questions.

PB, Lupita D Montoya- I have a question on the roundabout receiving the property needed from to to make the roundabout happen. PB, Lupita D Montoya- Is that a purchase back from the owner so we're we're making this vacation at about $10,000 receiving from the applicant in return for the right to buy the right of way needed for the roundabout. is there a price associated with that that the city would then have to pay the applicant for that property?

Yeah, that's a great question. So what you're referring to is the dedication portion of the project. And ultimately, we can only require the applicant to dedicate the portion that wouldn't be required for the roundabout. So the portion that would be required for the roundabout would be covered under what's called a TIF agreement, which stands for Traffic Impact Fee Agreement. So they would essentially get a discount on their traffic impact fees to cover the area that would be used for the roundabout. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Do you have an idea of what that area is in relation to the, or is it about the same, is it close to the same square footage or is it more or is it double or is it.

The dedication area is much larger than the vacation area. I don't have an exhibit in this PowerPoint for that though.

Okay, any further questions and just to confirm, we are not expecting Council take action tonight, we will come back at a later date. We are requesting action, we counsel tonight after. That's what I thought I just didn't see that on the agenda, so I was a little.

Okay. I have just a quick question. I don't have a lot of questions about this per se, because this is not the first time it's been brought to council. I think the last time we heard about it, the roundabout, what kind of was slated to go in as well. And now from what I'm kind of hearing, we've not really gotten a public update on it, but is a roundabout now been kind of pushed into the future a little bit? Are they happening at the same time? Because I remember when we talked about the vacation and dedication, that the dedication was a larger amount of property than the vacation. But it was my understanding that two were going to kind of coincide when they were going in. And it doesn't sound like that's happening anymore.

That is correct. The Roundabout project and Director Halverson can add on, but it's probably pushed out into a 27 project waiting on some funding at this point. Our federal funding, we've asked for that to be extended. We do have the design at 60% design. We know what our city dollars are, but the other funding for that project is pushed out. So they won't happen concurrently. But as part of the land use application separate from this process tonight, we're trying to get all of those elements aligned. So the first piece of that is the right of way vacation, which would be essentially sale of assets by the city a fee simple purchase as you've seen tonight and as council member araya has pointed out there is going to be also a dedication so there is some dedication that will be dedicated to the city um without compensation and then there is another part of the dedication as part of a TIF agreement has already explained that we're working with the applicant on that they will receive credits from their mitigation impact fees to compensate for their participation in this project. So we're hoping, well, one, we want to get all of the land ownership and the roundabout limits and the property limits completed now and then we're also in hope that we can work out an agreement with the property owner to construct some of the additional frontage. So what you're seeing tonight is is step one and councils piece of that pie.

I do have a question. So on page 52 of the packet underneath the staff analysis for Well, I guess that would be part three. Um, number four says the right of way, um, the vacation portion of the right away is not needed for the future proposed roundabout. Right. So I guess what's in it for the city specifically. I mean, I, I I'm, I want to make sure that our citizens understand why the city is doing this if this is not something that we have to do to construct the roundabout. Because that's what it's kind of seems like it's presented as and maybe I'm misinterpreting. So that's why I'm asking.

Yeah, great question. So really the vacation is just these three little chunks right here. And it's basically about making it a smooth transition along the frontage. And these are unnecessary. The city doesn't need these little bits anymore. And so essentially we are selling them to the applicant at cost.

So there's not really much of a benefit.

To the I mean, like, if there's not a benefit to retain, I'm sorry, maybe is another way to look at it. It doesn't. There's not a future city need to have that property be part of the roundabout and frontage design. In fact, it would create some irregular shapes and some little appendages that would sort of stick out.

I think it would be in the city's best interest, and you might have said this, Russ, to vacate these little pieces of property with or without the realm. Okay. I think they're almost two separate things.

Yeah, that's why I was a little confused as to why, if they're not impacting one or the other, why it would be put together kind of in that presentation. So I just wanted to clarify for not only myself, but for anyone else who might be

Yeah, if we were building a traditional four-way stop, we would still want to vacate these little pieces of property that we don't need.

We don't need them. Okay. Thank you. Council Member Donahue has his hand raised.

Oh, sorry. I thought I got it down on time. I guess I was just going to confirm my understanding of that response and that unnecessary doesn't mean unnecessary to the roundabout. It just means unnecessary to the city for other projects, as Russ and Erin just clarified.

Yes.

Okay. Thank you.

I have a kind of follow-up. The way I understand this is that the application of these little pieces will allow the developer to then reconfigure the parcel in and out to best suit the development, right? Or more or less. Just a question on the roundabout, the 60% design, I'm anticipating that it includes way buses go in and out and fire trucks and it's all, okay. I think that was- That was a head nod, so for- That was brought up in one of the emails. Yes.

I would anticipate that to be the case, but I just wanted to- Well, I want to be clear, Council Member Raya, we're still working on that. But yes, that is absolutely the intention to have buses, obviously. We've done with the fire engines and fire apparatus we've dealt with. The buses, as you know, are a little bit trickier, but we're working through it and we'll continue to do that. It's a tight intersection.

Both school buses and regular buses. I think school buses would probably travel that more often.

Yeah.

So we're concerned.

Okay. Is there anyone in the public or online that would like to comment on this particular subject only? And that would be the vacation, the proposed right-of-way vacation relating to Ordinance 1222.

Councilmember Donahue, you have your hand up. Is there something you want to say before we do the public comment portion?

I do. I'd just like to see if I can get a little clarification from Aaron. Can you explain how, if we're still working through that, we know what property and what dimensions we need to ask for in exchange for this vacation? I guess I'm confused on how we... are able to make a request to that effect. We're still working through how much room we need for certain vehicles to pass through the roundabout.

Well, these areas aren't immediately adjacent to the roundabout, so they won't have any impact on moving buses or fire apparatus through the roundabout.

Sorry, I should clarify. It seems like this is structured so that we're going to receive property simultaneously in exchange for the vacation. So how do we know what to ask for from the other party at the time of vacation if we're still working through how to get certain vehicles through the roundabout?

These are two separate, and correct me if I'm wrong, these are two separate things. This is a housekeeping effort to vacate right-of-way. The city does not need with or without the roundabout or a traditional intersection, and we're negotiating a separate agreement with the developer for a roundabout and intersection improvements and frontage improvements. They're two separate things.

And maybe I can answer that a different way. Council member Donahue. So the area needed to complete, you know, again, the private project, they've shown us what they would like to do the city through advancing to 60% design. of the intersection, they have already shown this is what we need to build this. What you're asking is a functional question. And so within the bounds of the final boundaries, you know, when you balance the vacation and dedication, you're asking how is it going to function? That's an engineering question that we're still working through that's separate from the boundaries that are determined. We've already gone through the process of deciding this is what we need to have a functional roundabout. Now we're just talking about what does the surface look like, what does the channelization look like, and some other technical things to move different types of vehicles through there. Is that a correct statement? Yes.

OK. So the amount of area, the surface area, the footprint is settled, and we know what we need there. It's just what we're going to do within that footprint that's still being sorted. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay, thank you.

That was my question. If you took one of the roundabouts in the city that's appropriately sized and overlaid that on that area, is that what we're kind of planning for? That's what we're working on.

We're not using the Soper Hill roundabout as a template.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

Yeah. All right. Any other questions before we move to the public comment? Okay i'll go back to my opening this up to public comment, either online or in Council chambers only on the proposed right away vacation ordinance 122 that subject only.

there's anyone in the online audience that would like to speak to this public hearing, please raise your digital hand and i'll bring you in. I don't see anyone.

Okay hearing none, what is the pleasure of the Council.

You would need to close the the public. participation portion, and then you would move on. Okay.

That was my original question to Greg.

Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll let the new kid have a pass on this one.

All right. Next time we'll be a little higher and tighter. All right. We will close the public portion of the public hearing. All right. Now we can move on to what is the council's pleasure this evening?

I make a motion to approve the proposed right-of-way vacation by the adoption of ordinance one, two, two is attached to number one.

I'll second it. Okay, we have a motion that has been seconded. Any conversation by the council? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, motion carries. Thank you, staff. Thank you, council. All right, item number nine, action item is to authorize for Adopt-a-Stream Foundation to replace two fish barriers on city property. Shannon and Taylor.

Good afternoon, Council. Taylor Pesci, your surface water field technician for environmental programs. I'm filling in for Shannon Perrant, who is on a much deserved vacation. So I'm here to request approval of landowner agreement with Adopt-a-Stream Foundation for the Catherine Creek Fish Passage Improvement Project. This partnership will address a long-standing fish patches barrier on the trail crossing between Gray Road and Bryce Drive, where two concrete box culverts currently support the public trail within the city-owned native growth protection area. These culverts were originally installed to provide access to a private residence, and a portion of that trail remains paved from that past use. From a habitat and hydraulic standpoint, the culverts do not meet state guidelines for fish passage. Their geometry, elevation, and flow characteristics create elevated water velocities during storm events, insufficient conditions for juvenile and adult salmonoid movement, and localized channel confinement and sediment deposition upstream and downstream. As a result, they function as a clear fish passage within Catherine Creek. Adopt-A-Stream has identified the culverts as a fish passage barrier and has asked the city to partner with them to correct the issue through a federal grant administered entirely by Adopt-A-Stream. The project will be fully funded at an estimated cost of approximately $300,000. Adopt-a-Stream is responsible for design, permitting, contracting, and construction oversight, including compliance with all local, state, and federal environmental requirements. The city's role centers on coordination and ensuring the landowner agreement aligns with the city standards. The Parks Department will continue their trail maintenance out in that area, and the long-term maintenance of the new bridge will fall into the city. However, the updated structure is expected to require less upkeep than the existing, which is already not much upkeep on our end. So the conceptual alternative is to fully remove the concrete culverts, replace them with the pedestrian bridge designed to meet city standards for width, safety, and future maintenance access. The new structure will span the active channel, allowing natural stream processes and sediment transportation and the unpeated fish movement. It will also support pedestrian use and allow limited city maintenance access, which would include our UTV or ATV. It's a small vehicle to get into and out to if needed. So with that approval land on agreement with the doctor stream would help proceed with the site evaluation detailed design environmental permitting. The project presents minimal risk to the city leverages federal funding at no cost to the city improves ecological conditions within Catherine Creek. and aligns the regional salmon recovery goals. Staff recommends city council approve landowner agreement and authorize the mayor to sign advancing the costs effective investment in the watershed. That's all I have.

Any questions for Taylor?

I just wanted to comment that I appreciated reading in the report about the conversations that were had with the people who live in the area. They came and spoke at the meeting about some issues they were having with that area. And even though it doesn't look like we were able to address everything the way that they wanted to, it was really nice to see that that follow-up was done. So thank you to whoever did that.

Yeah, I was part of a couple of their meetings. And yeah, it's just really good to make sure we're all on the same page and there's an understanding of what's plan to be happening and make sure that they're incorporated within that talk.

So, and I think it's really important too, that they know why some of the requests aren't really able to be made or, you know, done. So that was good. Thank you.

I just had a question. Is there going to be ongoing meetings with the HOA and the citizens that are concerned to kind of keep them up to date on the progress and timeline and that type of thing?

I would imagine so. You know, adopt stream has an outreach program, a part of any of their projects. So there'll be, you know, chatting with residents that are in the area that we be impacted with construction or whatnot. And Yeah, I'm sure we would be amiable to having more conversations, too. But I think overall, you know, it's a city-owned parcel, city-owned land. And I think this is an overall benefit. And, you know, we're here to listen, too.

Thank you, Taylor. Thank you. All right, Council, I'll turn it back over to you.

I'll make a motion to authorize the mayor to sign the land owner agreement with Adopt-a-Stream Foundation to replace the two fish barrier culverts on Catherine Creek on city-owned property.

Second that.

Okay, any conversation? Hearing none, all in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Okie doke. Thank you.

All right. Item number 10, discussion items. We have an update for our critical area ordinance this evening.

all right thank you mayor uh council david levitan principal planner uh here within the planning department so we last met with the council back uh exactly three months ago on april 21st highlighted some proposals as far as how we the city would be handling uh revising our stream buffers um and we now have developed a full set of draft code language an updated draft of that, which we vetted with the Planning Commission last month. So in advance of issuing the 60-day notice to the Department of Commerce, we wanted to make sure that we came back before the City Council, make sure that you were comfortable with our proposed approach in a couple of specific areas that we wanted to focus on tonight, highlight some kind of minor changes that have occurred over the last few months, And then just solicit any Council feedback before we move forward towards the public hearings with the Planning Commission and City Council. So I'm just going to breeze through these quickly because we've seen these before. But again, the Critical Areas Ordinances in Chapter 1488 is required to demonstrate and comply with best available science. This is the critical areas ordinance. It does not cover areas within shorelines of the state. So the lake, Catherine Creek, Little Piltruck, those are all bodies of water that will be covered by the next Shoreline Master Program update. And then as far as the way that the critical areas ordinance update works is we distribute it, we upload it, it gets distributed to state agencies. And then we also distribute it to local tribes and then to the general public to make sure that there are adequate opportunities to weigh in on the proposed updates. Again, we reviewed some draft code language back in April and then reviewed some updated language with the planning commission last month. And we have a website, which is just like stevenswa.gov slash critical areas, where we're trying to deposit all of our information and make it readily available to the public. Again, within Chapter 1488, really, the last major update was back in 2019. So a periodic update usually does occur about every five to seven years. So we're at the tail end of that. The existing code has all of the designated critical areas with the exception of critical aquifer recharge areas, which we are proposing new regulations for to cover some aquifers of potable drinking water, primarily up in the northeast portion of the city. Then the critical area ordinance generally deals with buffers, allowed uses, mitigation requirements, and really just addressing best available signs and how to ensure that the state-mandated or state-defined critical areas are protected. So as far as wanted to start with what's not changing, because this is kind of a targeted update, because we did our last update in 2019, a lot of our sections of the code are already consistent with best available science. So we are not really doing much to the frequently flooded areas section of the code. There's a lot of overlap with Chapter 1464, but there really weren't any identified needs to update that section. The same goes for geologically hazardous areas, things such as steep slopes. And then as far as wetland buffers, we are not proposing any changes to the actual distances of those wetland buffers because, again, they are consistent with the best available science as it's been developed by the Washington Department of Ecology. So we are not needing to update any of that. Kind of one of the biggest additions as opposed to revisions again is related to critical aquifer recharge areas. This is one of the five identified critical areas within the Growth Management Act, and we do not currently have regulation. So that's within pages 119 to 123 of the packet. So again, these are areas with a critical recharging effect on drinking water aquifers. And so it's important to make sure that surrounding uses aren't at risk of contaminating these aquifers, that we have adequate regulations in place, whether that's regulating permissible uses or making sure that we have adequate buffers in place. So happy to answer any questions as we get into kind of the discussion portion, but really pretty standard as far as a lot of these uses are probably not incredibly likely to happen in an area such as Lake Stevens, but we want to make sure that we kind of cover all our bases and specifically address them. This can kind of be treated as essentially supplementary use regulations to the permissible use chapter. when it comes to these types of uses when they're within proximity of these aquifer areas. One of the kind of major changes that we touched on and really focused on back in April is how we will be treating our stream buffers. So there was a best available science document issued by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife several years back, they were proposing that jurisdictions adopt buffers based on what's called site potential tree height. That's basically looking historically within these areas. So maybe looking 200 years ago at the types of tree species that existed within the riparian areas adjacent to our streams. And looking at the maximum potential tree height within those areas. So you might have an area that currently is dominated by trees that are 40, 50, 60, 70 feet. But the site potential tree height model might show that hypothetically there's the possibility that there would be trees up to, say, 235 feet or 240 feet. in height, what a lot of jurisdictions that are within more urban or suburban areas such as Lake Stevens has been looking at an alternative approach and developing best available science to substantiate kind of that deviation from the approach that WDFW is recommending. So what we're proposing and what's included on pages 110 to 111 of the packet is kind of a hybrid approach, specifically for type F streams. So for perennial and seasonal non-fish bearing streams, we're proposing to increase our buffers across the board. from the existing 50 feet to 100 feet. 100 feet is kind of the baseline as far as what's been deemed by best available science as far as providing habitat and water quality function. You really need that 100 feet regardless of the stream type. And so that's what we're proposing for our type NP perennial and type NS seasonal streams. For fish bearing streams, so type F streams, What we're proposing is to have a standard buffer bumping the existing hundred foot buffer up to 150 feet. And then we've also included some language that when certain conditions exist, such as that there's not You know that that there's say a bear riparian area that there's not adequate water quality function. that there isn't a healthy native vegetation present, that there may need to be situations where the stream buffer goes up above and beyond that standard 150 feet all the way up to site potential tree height. But that would be determined by a site-specific critical areas report where a stream biologist would need to basically assess the proposal's consistency with our code and note why or why not that site potential tree height wouldn't, you know, in a certain situation, basically assessing what the site conditions are. And then that critical area report would be reviewed by city staff and by a third party as needed. And we would, as far as critical areas ordinance compliance, we would kind of evaluate it from there. We've done a fair amount of best available science analysis over the last couple of months that kind of explains part of our delay in adopting the critical areas ordinance. We wanted to do that additional analysis. We wanted to see what other jurisdictions were doing. We've gotten some really good data working collaboratively with our public works department, who's updating, developing a basins plan right now. And so what we got out of that was actual average tree canopy data that reflects the actual conditions as opposed to kind of this hypothetical potential tree heights. So I'm going to get to that on the next slide, but I did just want to illustrate kind of what the impacts would be. So if you look at this area just north of Lundin Park and actually Lundin Creek coming down into the park, Um, the kind of the light blue areas are, is our existing buffer. So for lending Creek, which is fish bearing the one on the left. Uh, that would be a hundred feet currently, um, kind of the associated Creek there on the, on the right. That's the green line is a, um, unclassified stream. So that has a 50 foot buffer. Um, our standard buffers were proposing to increase those across the board by 50 feet. So the buffer for London Creek. would be that additional 50 feet would be the maroon area. So it would go from 100 feet to 150 feet. And for the unclassified stream to the right, it would go from 50 feet to 100 feet. And then kind of that greenish blob is if you were to extend out to site potential tree height, which in this case would be, in this area would be 235 feet. So that would add an additional 85 feet beyond the boundaries of a fish-bearing stream buffer and an additional 135 feet. So you can see that obviously has an impact on additional properties. And that's something that we've kind of generally assessed as far as the impacts. We've determined that we can still meet our growth targets The majority of these areas are kind of dominated by single family residential uses, but it would have an impact. I think I spelled out a couple dozen acres within the staff report. It would be essentially impacted if we were to go to that site potential tree height model.

Yes. Thank you, Council. So one of the things we've really looked at with the question of streams and fish and wildlife conservation areas is really trying to find that balance between protection of the resource and then really looking at the reality on the ground. So you can see the exercise up here showing the buffers, but the other part of this is we recognize there are already fully developed buffers. parcels within where these buffers will be expanded. So we do have language in the code that looks at those situations. So we recognize if there's fully developed parcels, the buffer is impaired, it's not intact, we don't expect that new buffer then to be applied to fully developed um disrupted parcels so we really are trying to again find that balance of how do we protect the resource and how do we also look at the reality of urban streams and what is existing as far as neighborhoods so we can really focus our protections i think Dave mentioned is in these areas where there are truly fish bearing streams, and that would be sort of one of those areas you heard about earlier with the Catherine Creek project. Those are the areas we really fundamentally want to protect, you know, those salmon bearing streams and their associated buffers, and then look at the other buffers again under the lens of best available science, but also recognizing the practicality of how do we administer that code under some these different bookings, if you will. So just wanted to sort of add that for more context into some of the decision making that's led us to this recommendation we have for you tonight. And I'll hand it back to Dave.

Yeah, thank you. Can I make a quick clarification comment? Because I know this has been discussed for a while and it was my understanding. So, Russ, talking about what you just said. So say somebody owns a fully developed parcel on that. They've got their house built. They've got a shed built. We're not going to tell me you need to rip down your shed. But if it's not fully developed and you want new construction on that parcel, it's going to have to fall within our new codes.

A case-by-case analysis to see what elements on the property cause the separation. So if it's something that truly disrupts, if there's a street in between where the critical area is a street, then the house, absolutely. That's a condition that, yeah, they don't have to comply with that if their property is, say, developed as a lot of the properties on Lundeen, very close to the roadway, will definitely look if they want to push back towards that street. Does that make sense for an example? So it depends on what's... the break from the buffer.

Right. And is this like new construction that you're referring to? Okay. Yes, that makes sense. Thank you.

To make sure I understand, Russ, you're saying, yeah, if they rebuilt on the same footprint, there isn't a concern. It's if they're expanding the footprint where you have to assess that.

Correct.

All right. Thanks, Russ. so just another exercise we did where we tried to incorporate the av the actual average tree canopy data to kind of show the difference between site potential tree height and average tree height as we incorporated that 2017 wdfw data this is the kind of the northern portion of london creek right before it's 92 and crosses north So what you can see here, the image on the left is basically showing tree heights. So the lighter the color, so the light yellows and mid yellows are the lower tree heights. As you get into the lighter shades of orange, the tree heights become taller. And then as you get into the dark oranges and the reds, you get into tree heights up into 100 feet and above. So when you look at this portion of Lundeen Creek, which is a type F stream, It's primarily kind of between 40 and 100 feet as far as the average tree height within this area. So that's obviously well below the site potential tree height. And so we're still proposing a buffer of 150 feet to make sure that we have adequate water quality and habitat function adjacent to these fish bearing streams because that is very important. But we believe that the best available science supports not going all the way up to that 235 feet per site potential tree height because we can accommodate that. We have stormwater regulations. We have a whole host of other environmental regulations. So when we come back before you for the public hearing and the ordinance, we'll have all of that additional documentation showing why this is a scientifically sound approach. And just highlighting a couple cities that have recently adopted or are still in the process. The cities of Linwood, Mountlake Terrace, Nahomish, Everett, and Marysville all have pretty similar approaches to what we're proposing with the 150-foot type F buffer and then between 50 to 100-foot type perennial and seasonal non-fish-bearing stream buffers. So a lot of the cities that have kind of There are other cities that have adopted a strict site potential tree height, but I would say especially the cities that have been adopting recently and doing this additional best available science, we're pretty much right in the middle as far as what other jurisdictions are doing and have done kind of similar best available science reviews. So circling back on something that Russ just mentioned. So the concept of disconnected buffers is really important within an urban environment or suburban environment, as far as like Stevens, because if you have a stream that runs through your property, but you have a large driveway, you have a large house, you have a large detached garage. It's basically all of those structures and all of those roads, those driveways, they serve to functionally disconnect the critical area from the buffer. So if, say, you had a stream on the western portion of your property, but you had a driveway run all the way up through the middle that was completely paved and your buffer extended eastward all the way through your driveway, all the way to your eastern property line, That buffer might technically cover the eastern half of your site, but because it's functionally disconnected from the associated stream or from the associated wetland, it doesn't really provide any buffer function. So there's basically this language is intended to show that development within that area in a lot of cases would be permitted if you can basically justify it through your critical areas report and analyze it through your critical areas report because there is no more buffer function being provided. So it doesn't really make sense for that area to be considered a traditional stream or wetland buffer. So we'll make sure to include some additional exhibits as we go through this and as we present this to the public. But conceptually, it's basically just to show that you really need to look at these things on a site-specific basis, but there are lots of examples where you might have a large buffer that covers the whole property, but that doesn't mean that it's actually functioning like a buffer. So it needs to be evaluated and assessed as such. So as far as next steps, so as I mentioned, and for I think All of you have probably had a code amendment by now, but for legislative type six amendments, we're required to issue a 60 day notice to the Department of Commerce that's then circulated to other state agencies. In addition to that official circulation at the state level, we'll be circulating this to local tribes and then also making it available for public review and comments. I'm going to have all of these materials on the website. We would anticipate starting to get comments. Usually, WDFW and DNR are pretty quick. They tend to provide at least their first set of comments within a few weeks. So we'd want to make sure that we have those and have another work session with you where we can kind of summarize what we've heard so far, some potential tweaks to the code language before we move into the public hearings with the planning commission and the city council, which As of now we're tentatively scheduling for September so we'd be doing a lot of this, the 60 day notice would be occurring during your break. We would then start to gather some of those comments have work sessions with the planning Commission and the City Council and then come back in September for public hearings. um. Sorry, that is an old slide. So as far as happy to answer any questions or comments. And again, we will be coming back before you likely in September, early September for a work session. And then as of now, late September for a public hearing.

Great detail, Dave. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Any more questions for him?

Yeah, one question. How does this... I mean, we did our comprehensive plan trying to accommodate the growth mandates.

If you went to... Yeah, we're doing some additional analysis, but at first glance, it was, I think, a little bit over potentially 200 units, primarily of single-family residential for the proposed buffers, and then probably about another 150... units if we were to expand to the site potential tree height. But again, we haven't done site specific analysis. So say the site potential tree height were to extend to a lot of properties that had functionally disconnected buffers because they were already fully developed. those larger buffers may not impact development potential as much because they may not be considered functioning buffers. So we need to do a little bit more site-specific analysis, and that would be something that we would include when we come back before you.

Yeah, ultimately, I ask not because I'm worried about what the state wants to have happen, but, I mean, it's supply and demand, right? And so the more... restrictions that are imposed on landowners to do things, makes it harder for them to build, makes it more expensive for us to build houses, makes it more expensive for my kids to buy a home in Lake Stevens down the road, right? So it's a difficult proposition to serve both masters here.

Yeah, there definitely are some competing interests. And that's why we've kind of taken our time and really wanted to do this additional best available science review so we can balance our housing needs and our employment needs with, you know, the importance of protecting the natural environment.

Did you have a question? Okay.

I just, I was, I appreciate the fact that we, we, you are thoughtful about the approach and kind of compromise on the best way to protect our environment with at least impact and not just applying the, the buffer that was the, the, like, you know, just the bigger buffer overall and showing that what that would look like. So I appreciate that. So thank you.

Okay.

I do see council member Donahue's hand up. Just going to ask.

Yeah, just really quick. I wanted to say thank you for posting the link to the previous meeting video in the agenda. That was actually really helpful to have a quick pointer back to where we discussed this as a refresher. So thank you for doing that. And I don't know if that might be something on particularly dense topics for staff to look at going forward because I found that very helpful. Yeah, thank you.

Okay, thank you. We will move on to Sarah with our parks service level.

Thank you. Good evening, Council, Director Garceau with Parks and Recreation Department. I am here to give an update on our parks, specifically the service levels that are being given to the 10 locations. About two months ago, we came to council to announce that we would be taking over management of those 10 locations that were previously managed by their local HOAs. So I'll take you through each of those 10 locations so that you can get familiar with what they are, let you know what we have done, what is upcoming in the next five years that we've identified, and then take any questions or comments at the end. So the first of these locations is Baker Vista. What I did on each of these slide decks was put a green dot on the overall city map so you can know about where they're at in proximity to our city limits. I outlined the actual tax parcels surrounding the location. When you see larger locations like this, it is including all of that in GPA area. Often when you see the word trail, it has a trail that cuts through that in GPA area. And then if there's a specific park area, I put that in blue. So in this case, Baker Vista has a playground, which is located on the south side, located in that blue triangle. And then up around the house is over that storm detention area, vault, there is a fenced area that is used. They have a above ground basketball court as well as poles to put up a net for either tennis or pickleball. So this one's Baker's Fista. Bryce Park is the next one on the list. This location is smaller and is defined almost entirely by a playground. This is the newest playground out of all this areas. If my memory is correct, it was installed in 2009. Playgrounds such as this have somewhere between a 20 and 30 year lifespan. It really depends how it was maintained throughout its life, how often those nuts and bolts were tightened to make sure that we don't have stress on the unit itself. This one does have more than five years left on it at this time. Cedar Road is just a big grass area at this point. We expect to leave it as a grassed area. Then it has a storm detention area as well as NGPA behind it. Catherine Creek Drive is mainly a network of trails, but off of one of the trails hidden behind the houses, if you know where to look, is a fenced off basketball court. I believe there was an old playground here, but that would have been removed before the Parks and Recreation Department was formed. It would have been just adjacent. We can see the outlines of where Those borders were. This was the condition before we took over maintenance of the location. You can see it hasn't been used in some time. At this point, all of the vegetation is cut back and the area is blown off. It could be used today for basketball. We will keep it as long as we can with lifespan there.

Greenwood Village, this is 125th Street.

It's through the reserve area, and there's two reserve locations next door, as well as another Greenwood Village just south that we'll go over here shortly. This one is plotted as a storm detention area. We had no record of the playground being built here. This is one of the playgrounds that was removed about two and a half or three years ago now at this time. It is hidden out of public view. You kind of have to go down and around in order to get to it. Greenwood Village 4 is that south parcel that I was talking to. You can see the cul-de-sac just north and east outside of that yellow area. That was the park we were just looking at. This is the largest usable green area that we have. This is a playground that was just taken out in March. The playground border still exists today. Right next to the storm detention vault is a basketball court. The reserve 125th area is a very small pocket park. It does have two play structures on it. It is an old tire swing as well as a wooden structure that has likely less than a year or two left. You can see where we've already had to remove certain components on it. Remaining is a slide as well as a spiral plate item behind it. The reserve also has a 10th Street location, which is consisting of a basketball court. At this time, it does have poles for some kind of badminton or volleyball net, although a net hasn't been present since before the department was formed. There was a very small play structure, which was for toddlers located behind this. That one was removed about three and a half years ago as well. Summerhill Estates' steeped, slight hill area. The only flat portion was where that playground was. And when I say playground, what we removed about three years ago was one very small tube that remained. Everything else had been removed in prior years. And lastly, Woodland Hills. This one was most recently developed in partnership with the city and accepted. Simply, the Parks Department didn't have this on the radar for maintaining and the HOA had continued to mow it. And so we have it now on our official list of to be mowed when the need arises. Now that you've seen each of the locations and have seen what locations we did take over, I have this chart showing you that two of these locations are actively maintained today. The parks department is driving by each location, either a one or two week interval. If the need arises to mow them, we will get that into our weekly routine, but right now only two are happening on a normal basis. The upgrades that we have already made to these locations to reduce risk and increase usability was at Bryce Park. We made a few different playground repairs, including a toy car. We added a safety label that is required. We cut back vegetation from the play area. We've removed real wood that was used as fall material. Real wood chips are not EPA compliant, and they can also splinter, so we're not allowed to add those to play areas. We removed that and replenished the proper playground chips in that area. Catherine Drive was that sports court that we pointed out where we removed the vegetation and reopened access. Fourth Street, we replaced a bench. One of them was completely broken, while another one needed a little bit of repair. And I actually have this noted as remove the playground surround, but that is upcoming. We haven't yet done that location yet. And then the reserve 10th Street, we also cut back vegetation on that basketball court to make sure that all of it was outside of the play area. For five years we're really looking at tracking playgrounds that need to be removed for safety. We have a plan as to what playgrounds need to be replaced. Really, we're looking for playground conditions to make sure that they're in line of sight of the general public, as you never want kids playing outside of the general view for safety reasons. We are also looking at when does a basketball court need to be removed, such as the one at Catherine Creek? When does that concrete start cracking or the fences beyond repair? Again, that one would be out of sight. And so it doesn't quite need standards where you can generally keep it in your inventory. So that one is going to be tracked. um fourth street is the one where we definitely want to repurpose that old playground area so whether we decide to put in another playground or possibly convert it to an off-leash dog park area or work on what else would be desirable within that portion of the city we'll refer to our first plan to see what the community uh said they need most in order to drive from that and get it into future plans A lot of these other areas are going to be left as grass in the near future. And so service levels are really minimum and we are able to take these on with our current operational budget. Any of the items that need to be put into a larger capital plan will be integrated into our six, 10 and 20 year plans to order to properly plan to replace those. Any needs will go into budget if it can't be taken care of with operating. Coming into this next year, we'll show the need for another staff member in order to keep these at the highest quality. But if we are able to maintain them at the lower service level, then adding another staff won't be necessary as we just continue to spread our resources out. Other than that, we don't identify any large lists where there's going to be a capital request on any of these locations the next year. A lot of the small repairs we're looking at would be two or three years out or done within that operating budget. The next step for our department is we do have a 20-plus page guide for grounds operations and maintenance standards. It talks about all of our locations, what standards that we maintain those to, and we'll be integrating all of those parks in order to update the language and working on some other Department of Defense will be within that packet. I am happy to take any questions or comments that you may have.

So like that basketball court you're talking about, the Catherine Creek, it's kind of hidden. If we're going to remove that, what do we do with that land? Is it just going to be kind of open space or is there going to be a surplus there?

It's in an NGPA area, so we would let it return to nature. Thank you.

And I just have a comment. I walk through a lot of the trails that the city keeps up and I've been doing so for over 25 years. And wow, these last storms of this last year, these huge like I can't even begin to guess how big the root ball is of trees that have fallen over. and our city and I'm assuming parks, cutting those down or into pieces and getting them out of the way and maintaining the trails. It's been just like incredible amount of work. I hadn't been through, I was just out last weekend for the first time in quite a while. And like I said, I've been walking these trails for 25 years. And this year there are all these huge, huge trees that went down. And instead of having the trails blocked or unsafe, That type of thing. The city's been out and they've cleaned them up. The trails are all open. And it's very impressive to take kids on these trails right now and see what's underneath these tall trees when they fall over. So I just wanted to say thank you for doing that. And it was a very impressive thing to walk through.

Thank you. I'll certainly pass that along to our parks crew. And I'd like to note that a large part of being able to maintain those trails is our contract with the work groups. out of the correction system, provide some great labor for us. And so we appreciate our partnership there. Thank you.

All right. Anything else for her? Online? Okay. We'll move on to Lori with our strategic planning. And this is important because this is going to inform the work that we do while you're off on your break.

Okay, good evening, Council and Mayor. My name is Laurie Erickson. I am the Human Resources Management Analyst, and it's my pleasure to come back for a third week in a row to keep chipping away on this topic with you all. So tonight, our agenda looks roughly like this. We'll do a super quick review of the work we've done so far, and then we're going to get to the meat of the topic tonight. We're going to look at the survey data I will give you what my two senses, my recommendation on what you should consider prioritizing for the next year and a half for us. We'll talk about Along with that kind of a proposal, I want to plant another seed with you all as far as a check and adjust coming up in the next year. And we'll have room for discussion. Ultimately, the goal that I have coming out of tonight's meeting is to have you all agree on what the top four to six projects and initiatives are outside of the ones that we are required to do for regulatory reasons or otherwise. So without further ado, let's go ahead and jump to it. So essentially, this is my third time coming back. The previous two weeks, essentially, when I came to you all, we looked at what the projects and initiatives currently are on our five-year citywide strategic plan. We did a little bit of a deeper dive, gave you more insight as to what those projects and initiatives are. And as a quick reminder, some of those are more defined than others. At last week's session, we did, during our discussion, we were able to kind of get a feel for where each of you who were in attendance, where your personal priorities were. And out of the about 20 ideas that, or projects rather, not ideas, about the 20 projects and initiatives we had, we were able to narrow that down to like your top 12. And as an action item on the back end, we ran a survey with you all from last Thursday to midday yesterday, asking you to rank, prioritize what your top four, well, really what all of your, you know, of the top 12, where do you rank each of those? The goal with that is we were trying to get to what the top four was basically for council. So here were the survey results. We did have five responses that I received. And I will go ahead and just kind of highlight this here. So our top five out of the 12 include PI, which stands for Project or Initiative, 1.2, which is our Traffic Calming and Cameras Initiative. This, out of the five responses that we had, had the heaviest weighted vote. The second one is PI 2.6, the plan for maintaining and replacing infrastructure. As a quick reminder, this initiative is really focused on our like external infrastructure, things like sidewalks, roads, things like that. Number three came in at PI 1.5. This is simplify and reduce regulations. This one is really a public facing initiative focused on making services and things easier for our residents to access and understand. Number four came in as PI 5.6. This is repair what we have. Repair what we have is similar to 2.6. However, it's got more of an environmental focus to it. So it's focusing on correcting, you know, and improving like where we have areas of erosion and things like that. PI 3.1 is zoning analysis for industrial areas. This is a project and initiative that we were planning on doing hopefully in 2027 anyways. And so I personally was happy to see that it also aligned as being one of the top five that you all ranked. The other remaining ones, as you can see there, they did not receive as high of a ranked priority from you all. So what I would recommend is considering this as our prioritized list of projects and initiatives for the rest of 2026 and for 2027. As I believe it was Mr. Mayor had mentioned, this is a critical tool for us as we're entering our budget season. If we're really aligned and we understand like what we have capacity for and what's important to council, we can then align our budget to hopefully reflect that as well. So the items there on the left are the five projects that we have to do for regulatory requirements. The ones on the right are essentially the ones here in the red box, but they're listed in a list view for you. What I also recommend considering is for 2027, maybe mid-year or so, is that if council decides that you would like to do a check and adjust on the citywide strategic plan, that's a great opportunity to do that. We'll be about halfway through the plan. I do have thoughts and ideas on how you all could engage with the community as well so that we could adjust this a little bit further. I do not recommend at this time, seeing as we're so close to budget season, adding new projects or initiatives. And so I appreciate your help to prioritize what we currently have so we can focus on hopefully either progressing on those items or hopefully wrapping a few of them up. All right, that is it for what I have to present to you all tonight. So I want to open up the floor. You've heard my recommendation. Are there any questions or anything that you all want to discuss?

Taylor, can you kind of define the traffic calming in cameras? Because I think it's an outcrop of not having enough police officers, honestly. You should focus on that versus medication.

I am happy to. Let me get my cheat sheet out for you.

I know I read it, but I can't remember what the hell was on there.

No worries. Yeah, there's only 32 projects and initiatives on here, so it's okay that you don't remember. Okay, so this one. So PI 1.2, traffic calming and cameras. This one is described as the initiative combines data-driven traffic calming measures with automated safety cameras to reduce speeding, improve safety for pedestrians and school children, and create a consistent and forcible framework around schools. I believe in the last couple of months or so you've received presentations on the Traffic Calming Program. So the Traffic Calming Program is one of the projects tucked into this initiative. The idea is that in a nutshell, we would be using cameras specifically starting in school zones and essentially ticketing people that are violating the speed limit with the revenues from those tickets, we would be then looking at how can we make those areas or those road segments safer so that it's safer for especially children to be in those areas. Director Halverson, do you have anything you want to add to that summary?

I had a feeling. I repositioned myself. I think that, Council Member McManus, that's a good question. And I would love to have some time at a retreat in the future to go over sort of the three prongs of traffic control. And Chief and I can do, we can even do like a whole presentation on it. So there's three arms. I like to think of it this way. And it just helps me remember. There's engineering, which is what we're talking about. There's enforcement and there's education. Those are the three ways. And that's just, that's a common industry saying that we control traffic speeds and roadway safety. So what we're talking about is the engineering side. So how do we design the roads so that it reduces speeds and keeps people safe? Does it make it safe? No. You have to have law enforcement there to enforce some of the laws. People will still speed in areas that are uncomfortable to drive. We can do our very best to engineer it. And we do that hand in glove with the police department.

I appreciate that. And we talked a little bit a while back about, you know, the flashing crosswalks that we have, like your plumbing part.

Yeah.

As part of that initiative, like every school crosswalk, we have those flashing crosswalks. That seems like a pretty easy... Simple thing to do.

Yeah, it certainly could be. I mean, that could be a low hanging fruit issue. And we have a lot of those already. We we actually recently in the past two years updated all of the school zone flashing signs that you see. We had several vendors and varieties and outdated versions. They're all standard now. And they can all be controlled by our phones. So those are things that we are planning on doing. And part of this is the traffic safety camera program, which will generate revenue for these things in these areas. So yeah, yeah, that's all part of it. Awesome, thanks.

Could I just add some clarification? Because we've talked about this for quite some time. And so something I want to clarify is Washington State is very strict about where we can place these cameras. They have to be justified. We can't put them out there willy-nilly, right? They're very specific where they can be placed in addition to very specific about where the money generated can be applied. In other words, we can't take the cameras in school zones and take that money and put it in the general fund. It's very specific on what it can be spent on. So these are things coming out of the state. And I don't know if you guys were in those meetings. I'm trying to remember exactly how far back this was discussed. Also, there's a lot of statistics I think would be really, really helpful as refreshers on the percentage of survival when you're talking about if a pedestrian is hit by a motorized vehicle. Just five miles over the speed limit, 10 miles over the speed limit. I mean, dramatically, the survival rate drops dramatically. and even more so when it comes to a child. So like I said, I'm not sure how far back it was before the beginning of the year that we went in real in-depth discussions on this. So I just wanted to make sure everyone sitting here tonight is aware that this is already very heavily regulated by our state, where they can be placed, where we can spend that revenue, and why we considered it a priority to protect our kids in the school zones.

And that it's separate than cameras.

Yeah, cameras. They're not any at all the same as blocks of cameras. Totally. Got it. Yep.

Are there any other questions? Oh, great. Councilmember Donahue.

Yeah, thank you. So I guess I was trying to recall what I read in the project box for number three there, the simplify and reduce regulations. And I guess just in thinking about it, to me, it's one of those things. It sounds good. from a public facing perspective, we wanna make things simpler and easier for our citizens to understand. But in terms of a project where we're gonna devote significant staff resources and prioritize it, I was curious, what sort of feedback have we received from our citizens and people operating within the city about over complexity in the regulations and has that informed specific areas? where we want to tackle certain regulations. I'm assuming we're not talking about a complete overhaul of the code, but maybe rather specific sections.

Yes, that is a great question. Hold on one moment, because I do have some additional notes on that one. And I did stop sharing my screen for a moment.

Well, she is looking for her notes. One potential is we have very older local agreement with the fire department regarding inspections, fire marshal, and investigations. And so I know that It's very disruptive to businesses when a fire truck and a medic unit show up unannounced to do inspections. And so that is a potential item that we can address pretty easily on streamlining that and making that more business friendly. That could be, that's an example. That's one example.

And thank you for allowing me to pull up some of my notes on this one. Okay, so for this one, we're essentially addressing it in phases. So what we kind of scoped out as phase one is complete. And so that was really a lot of work done by our planning and community development department. And they were really looking at kind of improving the public facing forms that our residents and others are using and also making process improvements to our permitting software. So essentially phase one was about making permitting processes easier to understand and to use. Phase two is, it's at least in process. So phase two has been really focused on business licenses, licensing specifically. And it's been around improving how do the internal staff who engage in the business process, the business license processes, how do they do their work so they can be more efficient, be more clear when they're working directly with those applicants, so on and so forth. Um, and, um, there's also some code, um, requirement updates that will be coming as well as part of the PCD long range work planning. Um, so there's more to come on that, but it's a multi, um, faceted approach that we're taking on that initiative.

And I can just quickly add, those are just sort of ongoing tasks that my team work on consistently every year. So I don't know if that needs to be on the council's priority list, but it is a priority that we work on continuously for business and process improvement. And some of the things you're reading off are already complete. We are already moving forward with the next initiative for simplifying the business license process. there would definitely be a check-in with the council to see if there were very specific items that you were interested in that. But again, that's a continuous process improvement for my team. I think the biggest limitation is the forward-facing component and how do you continue to improve that and engage the community more and make it simpler for the community.

Yeah, thanks for us that because that was my feeling as well hearing that is that sounded like a lot of work that's already being done. And so I guess I just want to make sure that as a council, you know, we're aware of what that means what's being improved how it benefits the city if we're going I mean it's it's all good stuff but if we're going to prioritize it, the, you know, the first few things I heard where we're streamlining. business operations that that sounds great to me and i'm totally on board with that but i just want to make sure we're clear about what regulations we're simplifying and what the benefit is to the city so we can adequately determine whether it's worth prioritizing

Yeah, I'd like to propose that as part of that activity, yeah, there's some sort of check against the other municipalities nearby, right? So in a conversation with Master Builders a couple of weeks ago, right, they were talking about how, yeah, I don't remember the details, but there was a specific... Tom Preston- item within our permitting process or building regulations that makes like Stevens just especially obnoxious to deal with right. Tom Preston- They said we'd much prefer to go build in marysville or Granite falls or Snohomish then like Stevens just because of that one issue. Tom Preston- Again, I need to get back with him and figure that out what that item was but it's those types of things where. If we've got something that's particularly different or obnoxious and maybe unnecessary, we can check that to make sure that we're not an outlier or someplace that people don't want to work with for some of those reasons.

I think that could have been the ADU.

It can be ADUs or there's different things out there, right? So yeah, what can we glean from the other municipalities who have gone through similar exercises over the past few years to remove some of those roadblocks and make it easier?

And to Russ's point earlier, though, you know, I also want to make sure that that's the type of thing I'm sure he's well aware of, has had conversations about, likewise with Gene and the mayor. So as far as it being a council priority, I just want to make sure it's something that we need to emphasize versus what the executive side and staff are already handling.

It's almost like does that belong lower on the list because you guys are already handling it.

Ryan, was there something else you felt it should be swapped with?

No, not necessarily. I just wanted to make sure I better understood it. And if anyone else had similar questions about it, they understood it. And just kind of confirm whether we think it belongs on the list, whether it meant what I thought it meant. So like I said, things that streamline business and make it easier, that bring in a measurable benefit to the city, I'm all about it. But if it's something that staff is already kind of doing quietly on the side, then maybe we need to reevaluate whether it should be a priority. And I'm open to what should take its place if we decide that.

Lori, can you tell us what's number six? Yes, I can. And if I can, while I pull that back up and re-present, I do want to just add a comment to, I think, Council Member McManus and Council Member Donahue's point. Oftentimes, process improvement feels like an extra thing. And we all know here that it's our job to basically run our organization, but we also have a duty to improve it. I just wanna throw that out there because as we're thinking about budget, we also need to think about staff capacity. So this conversation will drive direction for both of those pieces, if that helps. Thank you. Okay, so here, oh, let's see. Item six, let me go back. Okay, so it looks like the sixth top prioritized one here was the fleet and facilities management plans. I do know that these are, they're in process currently. The facilities plan, we have another major phase to do with that one as far as incorporating that work that we've done as far as estimating the costs and the timing for replacing our facilities assets like roofs, windows, things like that. We have the work done as far as the analysis piece, but it's a matter of getting it into our new asset management system, which we're just launching right now. If I had to guess, we would have that piece of this initiative wrapped up by the end of the year, hopefully sooner, but... The other piece is our fleet management plan. We have been continuously working on this. We've made a lot of really good progress on it this year. I might ask Director Halverson if you have an estimate on when we might be able to say we're done with the fleet management plan.

We had a vacancy at the public works analyst position that has delayed. I say it as a joke. No, we are wrapping up the fleet management plan now. Lori's done a fantastic job and I'm grateful for her. We will have it when you return from your recess. We'll have the first draft.

Thank you. So, Lori, are you looking for us to say, you know, this is the feedback you were given, so let's go ahead and move forward with that? It is. Okay. I feel comfortable with that. I don't know how my fellow council members feel.

Just a clarification, Lori, what we were talking about earlier, too. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Staff, I imagine, would like to have that preferred in the top five for focus so you continue to have the bandwidth to work on that. Is that an accurate statement?

It always helps for staff. If we know what's important, we can prioritize our work to best meet that as best we can. And then to help us with 2027 planning. It doesn't mean at all that the other things on here aren't important and that we won't get to them. This is really kind of a short-term plan what do you want us to focus our energy on now? Discussion. Oh, Council Member Donahue.

Yeah, so thank you for phrasing it that way, because as I'm looking at this list, Now I guess I'm struggling a little bit. When I look at simplified and reduced regulations versus fleet and facilities management plans, to me it almost feels like the fleet and facilities should be the priority and then simplifying the regulation should be what can be squeezed in where time permits. If staff feels strongly about that and they think it's worth prioritizing, simplifying the regulations, then you'll find I'm open to that. But just looking at this list and kind of hearing what I've heard so far, to me, 3.5 feels like more of a priority than 1.5. I don't know what everyone else thinks about that.

I wouldn't mind reacting really quickly. And then I definitely want the rest of council to weigh in as well. The good thing about 1.5 versus 3.5 is that the primary leading departments are different. So for 1.5, simplify and reduce regulations, that's primarily being run by the planning and community development department versus the 3.5 fleet and facilities maintenance plans that is very much owned and being run by public works. So if that at all helps this discussion from a capacity and workload leveling, yeah, they're being run by different departments.

And maybe I'm biased as the planning commission liaison. I feel like I'm constantly seeing all the time and effort Russ and his team put into those regulations and improving them. So, again, for me, I guess that kind of feels like something that's already underway. But, you know, like I said, I'm open to staff feedback.

Where in 1.5, you're talking about software upgrades and all that stuff to kind of make things flow faster. That's part of that, right?

That is part of it.

That seems to me to be a priority because that's the trigger for everything going forward is the data you're going to pull by having a software upgrade.

Not necessarily new software programs for permitting, but streamlining and improving what we have currently for that one. I would also say, again, this one's an initiative. So it has multiple projects or activities tucked underneath that umbrella. So we're very much open as partners. you all are communicating with your constituents. If you're hearing things like Council Member Packard was hearing about the one he referenced, you can feed that to us and we can get that scoped and get it very easily mapped since it's already on the strategic plan. So these aren't necessarily hard and fast. A lot of these are not. That one currently, yes. Okay, thank you. That's not one.

I just wanted to quickly make everyone aware of the time. We've got less than five minutes before 8 o'clock, so I think we're going to need to make a motion to extend.

We do. We still have the planning update and executive session.

The executive session is currently at approximately 15 minutes, I believe.

And, Director Halverson, what are you thinking about the department report on Highway 2?

10 minutes or less.

And i'd like him to make a motion to extend our meeting to 830.

Second.

discussion. All those in favor. opposed. let's send the meeting to 830.

I did want to just add a comment for my fellow council members here. When I look at that 1.5, I think that there's a lot more benefit just to the reduced work on the staff. But also the citizens and the community, you know, a lot of stuff takes a lot of time, you know, maybe there's multiple forms they have to fill out. So I think I really like this initiative because it kind of does two things at once. It helps our staff and our city and our functionality, but it also helps our citizens feel like things are easier to get done. Without less hassle less complications less calls and questions and complaints to the staff and so forth, so I think that's probably a lot to do with why I put that in the higher areas.

I can also throw out there, it sounds like there is some energy right around the number six there, the 3.5 fleet and facilities maintenance plans. I did come in here with a hope we'd have fewer priorities than more. But if you want to have this be six priorities instead of five, that's totally okay.

That sounds kind of like what Director Howison, that's pretty, in this one way, pretty deep, right? It is. So maybe I see more, even more, based on that person.

And Councilmember Donahue has his hand up.

yeah um so i mean i guess just to make this easy uh i'm fine if we want to proceed with the top five you know we we took a survey these are the results i'm fine with that i guess just hearing 1.5 explained you know yeah i guess that's kind of what i was looking for to council member edwards comment i i was wondering if we were getting a lot of feedback from citizens about day-to-day interactions things they found overly complicated It sounds to me like in the answer, it was more kind of business facing and more sophisticated parties, permitting type stuff, inspections, things of that nature. So, I mean, I guess I wasn't really hearing the general day-to-day citizen component of it that I initially had when I saw the item. That being said, these are our five items. I don't, you know, if we expand the list to include everything, then we don't really have priorities anymore. So if these are the five the council wants to move ahead with, I'm not going to be a stick in the mud about it.

Hilarie Sorensen- Lori, can you just clarify, is the OpenGov switchover part of this initiative?

Lori Dengler- I would say it's part of multiple initiatives.

Hilarie Sorensen- Okay, but this one included.

Hilarie Sorensen- I mean streamlining and making things a little easier. Lori Dengler- Thank you for checking me, Russ. So no, for this one it's got very little impact on 1.5 just It could have an impact in the future, but right now it's not related. OpenGov, that implementation will impact for sure 2.6, 5.6, probably eventually 3.1, 3.5, the majority of these. It will have some sort of data component that either influences decision-making down the road or helps us track the condition and the location and what assets we have. But yeah, it just doesn't touch 1.5. Okay.

Thanks for clarifying. You're welcome.

All right. Thank you, Council. Oh, go ahead. I was going to say, are we good then with the five that I've chosen? Okay. Great. Thank you so much, Council.

All right. Thank you, Council. Erin, move on to the U.S. trestle, one of our favorite topics to talk about here in Lake Stevens.

I could appreciate that.

Well, let's keep this one high level, if that's okay with the council, because I think we're going to have more opportunities to talk about this. I would be surprised if we don't. I think we did a fair job summarizing where we are in the process with WSDOT and their evaluation of alternatives for the trestle. As you know, uh, the trestle is a, is a problem for a variety of reasons and needs to be replaced or upgraded. And so wash dot has been working on this for a number of years. Um, and they've evaluated alternatives through several lenses, uh, like they tend to do. Um, And what they found is the basic requirements are the replacement must improve mobility for all travel modes, driving, freight, transit, biking, walking, enhance safety, and strengthen the resiliency, including seismic and operational needs. Okay, so those are the three first criteria that it asked me. It makes sense to me. That's a good start. And then they go on to identify a need statement. So there are three priorities within the need statement. The new trestle or the revised trestle must provide multimodal mobility. By that, we mean freight transit, active transportation, so walking and cycling, I guess, perhaps others. Safety must reduce address injury and fatal crashes, and resiliency must meet the current standards. So they're looking through all these lenses as they evaluate options. And I won't go into the detail because it's deep. But what they've done, so they've done the first level of screening, which is what's called the pre-screening, and they looked at retrofitting the existing structure, which failed, which probably shouldn't come as a surprise. And then they looked at a State Route 526 extension, a new east-west connection south of the trestle, so sort of down the, what we call the Boeing freeway, sort of a connection across the valley that way, that also failed in their pre-screening. So those are off the table. And then they had two stages within the level two evaluation. So level 2A was focused on the trestle itself. How many lanes should the trestle have? Which lane types best meet the purpose and need? And they have some findings here. They had three alternatives were eliminated. There's a standard trestle configuration that was established for all remaining alternatives at this point. So here's what's, I think, important. Two general purpose lanes in this level of screening is what they identified. One HOV transit lane and full-time shoulders 24-7. So I'm going to share. Can I share my screen? Let's see if I'm upgraded here.

I tried to upgrade you, but you declined, Aaron. Let's try again. Thank you.

Um, we can keep going cause I want to, I want to get through it. Here we go. Okay. Um, so again, two general purpose, one HOV shoulders on both sides. If you've driven it, uh, which you all have, you know, that there are limited shoulders and it's really, if there is a breakdown or a disabled vehicle on the trestle, it is a nightmare. So getting those vehicles off to the shoulders is step one. Um, and then HOV, uh, continuation of HOV down 20th. And continuing through would, I think, also alleviate some of that challenges. Here we go. Okay, what the traffic analysis showed, they showed that 10% to 30% more westbound vehicles reach Everett compared to the no-build. There's a whole bunch of findings here. I'm really not going to cover it. WSDOT will come back and cover it. If you have questions, I'm happy to answer them, but I think I'm going to spare you the nitty-gritty details. Let's see if I can zoom in on this. Here are the alternatives. Oh, jeez. that they looked at. So alternative one has, this is, I apologize that this is so difficult to see alternative. And again, we'll come back, but alternative one had the three general purpose lanes, two shoulders, both directions, and then a sort of a separated pedestrian multimodal path option as alternative one that is sort of not viable alternatively. moving on so alternative two was the two general purpose lanes again the hov lane shoulder and shoulder i wonder if you can see my cursor um and that's consistent uh in both directions with a with a what looks like a center but a separated multimodal path And then alternative three is, again, the three general purpose lanes, a peak use shoulder similar to the eastbound direction now. And that would be westbound and then sort of maintaining the status quo for eastbound most of the length. And then alternative 5A and 5, or 5A and 5, again, three general purpose, three general purpose HOV on the shoulder on both sides. So Sort of kind of what you would I suppose it's what you might expect from this analysis. I don't see anything that surprises me. Stop me if if if you have questions at this point. So that's that's where they are there. And they're really looking at this to to a to a told and for analysis. as options at this point. WSDOT, now that they've gathered public feedback and that closed recently and they've advanced the study, I think they would be very happy to come back and give a presentation at a meeting and give you an opportunity to ask them questions, detailed questions. The purpose of tonight's presentation is just to bring you up to speed on where they are. So they're still in the planning phases. There's not a lot of engineering. There's a lot of traffic analyses, and there's still a lot of public involvement. If you have concerns about it, the status of this project, you can share them now. You can work through the city administrator and the mayor. There are alternatives for you to share those as well. And you could certainly respond to WSDOT on their public portal. Any questions?

Does our city have a public stance on the toll option? Like in other words, has the city of Lake Stevens stepped forward as a city and made a statement on that? Because that's the main thing. I mean, we all want, obviously, the trestle replaced. The feedback I keep getting is no toll no toll, especially when our emergency services are on the other side of this bridge, it does not seem like it should be a bridge that's told it's the main bridge over highway to so i'm just wanting to use our city. I think that's something important. I think as a city, we need to come together and have a voice. Standing on the sidelines doesn't really represent our constituents who have to go back and forth across that bridge. And even, like I say, emergency services, while we do have some medical providers here on the east side, our hospitals are on the west side. I've jokingly said many times over the years, I'm surprised we haven't had babies born on the trestle because the way it is now with no shoulder, oh my goodness, you're in a big semi broken down somewhere. You might be having a baby on that trestle because you're not getting through. So it's such an important highway. I think as a city, we absolutely should make a stance that it shouldn't be told.

Mayor, can you clarify your comment? You said if the council would like to do that, they should do that?

I think as a city as a whole. I meant whole. I mean, that's just four, five, six bucks every time you cross that thing. Come on, that's for the birds. On the other hand, the reality is... Will we get legislative support from other districts if we don't include that? Looking at other projects that are going on, that notwithstanding, I think we should probably take a position. Yeah, I agree with that. Whether or not that's going to be fruitful or not, let's just cut it, right? If we can come out and say we don't want a toll, heck no, no toll, and do more bumper stickers. Is it more of a feel-good thing and we've stood up to the man or is it going to be practical? Those are probably a conversation we should have. I don't think it's futile, but...

but but but but but what's that yeah but the but the reality you know we i mean this is a conversation probably not for tonight and i and i i agree kim we just wanted to approach the subject we need to have that an answer tonight that broached the subject and as a city i think when we come back from our break this is something that we need to discuss and um I think we'd be letting down our constituents if we did not discuss a toll when it has such a direct effect on them.

Yeah, and I think that's something we can ask DOT. It's like, hey, look, this is almost our driveway to our city, and we're going to have to pay for it every time we have to go across that. And here's the impact. Here's our concern. I think you're right as I'm thinking about this out loud.

And emergency services, to me, the huge component of this is our emergency services are on the other side of that bridge.

Yeah.

Our life-saving services.

Providence Hospital, our level two trauma center is over there. A lot of our services are, we commute to work there. So yeah, definitely a conversation I think we should have this fall.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'd just like to add, I think it's a regional problem. It's not a Lake Stevens problem, right? You... I think what I would propose is not just that we, in addition to establishing a position, right, we need to propose that we need to be partners with WSDOT in looking at those solutions, right? So they shouldn't be doing anything in a vacuum. our community marysville snohomish at a minimum if not more right should be involved in those conversations to say hey what are the unintended consequences if you put a toll there does that mean less people are going to come across the two and more are going to keep going up by five and come across city streets in marysville right what's the impact uh down into or down into snohomish right people are going to go across the snohomish river road and then come up highway 9 and then you have other unintended consequences right It's not just a Lake Stevens problem. It's a regional problem. We need to talk about getting the regional leaders, municipality leaders involved in conversations with WSDOT to talk through that.

We might have a faster ramp and a quicker time getting a hospital to build a hospital over here than we do get that trestle replaced in the next 30 years. That's another topic.

100%. So yeah, I propose, yeah, that should be an item for fall agenda and be proactive so that by the time they come and talk to us, we've got something to talk to them about. Absolutely.

Anything else for Aaron?

Thanks, Aaron.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Thank you.

Council business. I'll start with you. I think if we can, it depends how long you talk.

Okay, so let's go ahead and start at the other end of the table. Council Member Packer, do you have anything for Council of Business?

Not today. Okay.

Okay, Councilmember Edwards.

Yeah, so I do have something that I want to just bring up. After the Fourth of July holiday, we were probably all anticipating some feedback about the fireworks. And so I'm going to your favorite council person and talk about fireworks for a second um i do want to bring this up because i feel like um you know we we voted as a city to allow fireworks here in lake stevens and i think it's important to uphold the vote of our citizens at the same time i do also recognize that there are regulations as to what fireworks are legal and illegal And I have a little bit of a concern because majority of the fireworks that I've seen cause issues are typically the illegal ones. The concern that I have is I don't see any enforcement at all. So I think the people who are, you know, using these illegal fireworks know that there's... And so I want to I want to bring it up whether it's something we add on an agenda at another time to discuss i'd like to have a conversation with our police department and kind of figure out. what's what's our city stance on illegal fireworks because I don't see that being enforced anywhere, and I have taken a look at Mr se and they have some really. great handouts that can be provided. So does the Washington State Fire Marshal. And I think that if we as a city become a little bit more proactive and start enforcing the illegal fireworks, that maybe it would kind of lower some of the financial burden on our citizens and the city and places that, you know, get damaged, as well as, you know, this year I think was exceptionally bad because it was the 250th anniversary and it was on a Saturday, but I live on a hill above another road, and that driveway, they were lighting off huge explosives that were setting off car alarms. And when they set it off from their driveway, it literally explodes right outside my sliding glass door for my kitchen. So my whole house is lighting up, shaking. You can't medicate a dog enough to handle those things. So I know that a lot of people love their fireworks and that's great. And I think that, like I said, our city voted to continue to allow that. But I think with that, we need to be- Oh my gosh.

Sorry, I thought I turned it off.

We need to be responsible with our usage of fireworks. And again, I wanted to kind of understand a little bit more why there's no enforcement on that, because I do know there are other cities that have done a lot of things as far as enforcement during the day, and a lot of it comes down to law enforcement. So anyhow, that was the number one thing that I wanted to talk about during

My time here, so that Council comments.

I think we can. I think we can bring them.

Well yeah i'm just curious because it was talked to about a year and a half ago there's still no so I definitely would like to retake it yeah Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Manis.

Nothing for me this week, thanks.

Thank you, Council Member Araya.

Thank you. Been away for a couple weeks, so thank you for allowing me to take that time off and kind of working my way through emails. So I attended the community transit July 2nd board meeting. The main items at that meeting were the transit development plan, which I had mentioned as accepting public comments. I had Just a technical question on that, on the data from 2022 that I provided to them in writing. And then they approved the design of the Smoky Point Transit Center, which is an exciting development for the Gold Line. It was a $2.7 million award for design on that. So that's moving forward. And that's all I have.

Okay. And I just have a couple things. First of all, I would like to welcome our new planning commissioner. I think his last name is Tony Matisa. I think it's how you say his last name. So I wanted to welcome Tony to our planning commission. And then I attended the senior center meeting. And probably the most exciting thing is they have almost 300 members there. This year, and we're only midway through the year and they've already surpassed last year's numbers. So that's super exciting. And again, to encourage anybody over 55, who's looking for like-minded people, their age, our senior center is absolutely amazing.

Thank you, Council. And just to piggyback, we met with Carrie this week, actually last week. 20% of the population in Lake Stevens does qualify and is eligible to become members of the Senior Center. So that is an important group. And so without any encumbrances, we did commit that we would figure out a way to help them i believe the seniors obviously have a position of respect in my heart and i believe that the city needs to step up and do a little bit better and a little bit more as we can with our with our bandwidth and our finances to help that uh i continue to meet with people uh we met with the county executive staff um you talked about having two masters when it comes to growth uh we voiced probably what you were thinking in your head, the challenges of regulations that often compete and inhibit our ability to meet our goals of having affordable housing. And you said exactly what I told them. Our children are growing up in Lake Stevens and they can't afford to move back here. For me, that's a problem. It's a big problem. Not just our children, but, you know, the point is, you know, we look at our families first and our circumstances. And so... Tomorrow I do meet with Congresswoman DelBene's staff. We are running into a situation where we have been approved for federal grants. However, when we go through the grant process of what we're required to do, they ask for information and then we say, well, what kind of information do you want? And then they say, well, we haven't developed that yet. Meanwhile, the clock ticks, and some cities are abandoning the grants that they have received altogether. We are not going to do that. Even if it feels like we're pounding our head against the wall, we're going to find a way, if there is a way. And so we're going to meet with our congressional delegation, and hopefully we can meet with our senators as well to have this conversation. Because we've been awarded that money. I don't want it to go away just because... games are being played, if that's the viewpoint. I don't know. I don't know what's going on. All I know is we're not getting the money and our staff is frustrated dealing with it. So Jean and I are determined we're not going to be like other cities and walk away. We're going to continue to put that money because we need that money. Our residents need that money. We need sidewalks. We need parks, et cetera, et cetera. We need safe streets. So while you guys are on your well-deserved break, and I do encourage you, if you have plans, we're going to continue to work hard and provide you with the information. Please get rested. There's a lot of work to do. So I appreciate our counsel, every single one of you. And I will reach out because I want to get to know what makes you tick and what your priorities are so that the mayor's office and staff can better serve you as you serve our constituents. So We probably need a few extra minutes. So I would ask if we can get a motion to extend to

I'm sorry, Council Member Donahue wanted to share council business. Oh, my goodness.

I am so sorry, Ryan. Please forgive me. No problem. You were on a roll there.

I didn't want to interrupt. Go ahead. So really quick, I attended the Planning Commission meeting last week. We had a great discussion on the Lake Stevens Center subarea plan update. That's roughly the area around the SR9, SR204 junction area. And then I guess the second thing I want to touch on really quick now that it's come up, I feel compelled to go to bat for law enforcement and Lake Stevens a little bit on the firework thing, because I was part of that discussion that we had. And I specifically pushed on the enforcement and some of the logistics there. And they actually had some really enlightening answers about the challenges they face. I will sum it up briefly to say that it's not a lack of effort or desire on their part. It's more issues like you need to collect evidence, and it's really hard to prove a firework is illegal when your evidence goes up 50 feet in the air and explodes and catches on fire, or when you need to call in a bomb squad to handle special ordinance. It's just things like that that are practically not feasible from an enforcement perspective, and it kind of forces the city into an all-or-nothing proposition situation. You know, and that's where we have to fall back on the vote. So anyway, I just wanted to mention that briefly for law enforcement and we can have a more detailed discussion about that later.

Yeah, I think we can have PD come in and have a,

conversation about the challenges that they have with that i would appreciate that and i think like i said there are other cities that are doing things that seem to be working there's even one city that's using a drone for enforcement during the day um to look over large gatherings um and i i just i think that it needs to be talked about because well i did get at least one citizen reach out to me about it um and i've been seeing and hearing things about you know Well, they're legal. That's great. We voted to keep them, but we voted to keep the legal fireworks, not the illegal ones that explode and blow stuff up. So they're not the same old M80s that they used to be when we were kids, you know?

Yeah, for sure. We will have Chief Bezizos or his staff come in and have that chat. All right. Any other council business? All right. Then a motion to 840.

Does that work? Yep.

I'll make a motion to extend the meeting to 840.

Any conversation? All in favor say aye.

Aye.

Okie doke. All right. The Lake Stephen City Council will adjourn to confidential session of the council to discuss property sale with potential action according to RCW 42.30.110. And they're leaving at 825.

They will be returning at 840 with potential action. Okay, it's 840 and the council would like to extend for five additional minutes again with action.

I think...

So we'll pause for a minute. Okay, so the council is just gonna hold for two minutes until 8.45.

Actually it's 8.44 right now, so we got one minute.

Sales matter.

No, I think you have a good point. We do need to have PD come back in and have that conversation of the challenges of, because fundamentally it's weight-based.

The enforcement is based off weight and

Just to let everyone know.

I mean, OK, we're still talking. No, we know it is. We're trying to kill. We're marking time here.

And we do need, like, a bomb squad, like, car to transport fire. Like, the police can't take fireworks away and put them in their vehicle. You have to have a bomb squad. And I think we only have two or three in the entire state.

It seems like it'd be straightforward, but unfortunately, it's not.

They're really busy. I mean, this is from the fire department. We'll have Jeff and his team come in.

All right. The other thing too.

Okay, I would like to make a motion to direct staff to create a purchase agreement for the property located at 2008 71st Drive Southeast in Lake Stevens.

Oh, second.

Motion that's been seconded by Councilmember Packard, I think. Okay. That sounds great. Any discussion? All right. Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. Motion carries. All right. We'll entertain a motion to adjourn. Item number 15.

I'll make the motion to adjourn.

All right. Council Member McNabb is all second. It's seconded by Council Member Packer. All in favor, say aye.

Aye.

Did I hear an aye on line? Aye.