City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, good evening.

I'll call to order the City of Lake Stevens regular council meeting for August 25th, 2026. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

That's hilarious. All right.

Caitlin, can we have a roll call of our council members?

Of course. Council member Dorstad.

Present.

Council member Donahue.

Present.

Council member Packard. Council member Edwards. Present. Council member McManus.

Present.

Council member Shipman. Present. Council member Araya. Here. Who's to excuse council member Packard from tonight's meeting?

Second.

All right, all in favor say aye. Aye. Okay, and Angie, how about the approval of your agenda?

Yes, thank you.

Please do. Welcome back, Council. Good to see everyone. We have an agenda in front of us. Are there any concerns, changes, or a motion to approve?

I'm making a motion to approve the agenda as written.

Second. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Thank you. You have a mayor.

I thought you were going to say have an amazing people on our council, which I would say absolutely we do. Okay. Let's move to guest business. Item number five. If there's anyone who has not turned in a green sheet and would like to speak, or if you also came for item 10B, which is the traffic calming program, now is your opportunity. So I'll start with our green sheets first. Can we get her a green sheet?

Yes. Yeah. And we're on citizen comment, right? Yes, we are. All right. Awesome.

Remind me to do online.

Okay.

All right. Ray Welk. Welcome. You have three minutes. And typically this is a opportunity for council to listen and we usually don't have an interaction. Okay.

Thank you. I'm Raymond Welk. A lot of you know who I am. Myself and Elaine are 15 year residents up on 117th. And I'm here just to cover a couple of concerns that we have on that. Number one, we're glad to see that it's happening finally. Anyway, I have some questions on the engineering drawings. They show a planning strip. And I understand that some places it's close to the road, other places the planning strip is four feet wide. My personal preference would be that we don't have that, just to take up less real estate. And if you go up on 91st, where they did it a couple of years ago, about half of them are growing weeds. So the other thing that looking at the drawings, and I don't know if this is a technical thing, but the apron on the street doesn't line up with our driveway. and I'd like to see that happen. The other thing that I would like to request, and I know that I will have to pay some money for this, is right now we have a seamless paved driveway, and wherever the city cuts our asphalt to put the apron in, I would like to pay the contractor to pave all the way up to our cement slab, so we have, again, a seamless driveway. And then the traffic calming devices, five of them in four-tenths of a mile. Is that a bit excessive? And if they're like the ones that they're installing right now, up on 91st, I have a 2002 Dodge 2500, rides like a one-wheeler wagon. I can take those at 40 miles an hour. So they're not slowing anybody down. in my opinion. And then the other thing is, you know, how are people going to be paid for the real estate that's acquired for that? I know in 2023, there were two or three that got paid. And as far as I know, the rest have not. So that's all I have.

All right. Thank you. Next green sheet I have is Tom Hanson.

Good evening, council. I'm here to talk about a service request I sent into public works department back in May. As a professional civil engineer, I'm supposed to point out safety issues that I see. And as a public works director locally for 15 years, I got an eye for them because that's what I had to do. Well, I live in the point in crosswater. I usually enter into the bigger street system at the intersection of 89th Avenue Northeast and Soper Hill Road. There is a traffic island on the south leg of that intersection between the two lanes. The issue is when you want to turn left off the Silver Hill Road at night and turn down 89th is you cannot see that traffic island. And the reason you can't see the traffic island when you want to turn left is even though there's a street light only 45 feet away, there's a bunch of branches from a pine tree blocking the light from shining on the end of the island. That was the essence of my service request. Please trim some branches. That was all. The tree is probably on private property, but when I was public works director, your city attorney, the guidance I remember getting from him when he was my city attorney was I could trim branches that grew into the driveway. Obviously, talk to the owner of the tree if the tree was on private property, but I had the legal right to do so. So I submitted my request on May 3rd. Not hearing anything, on July 4th, I sent a reminder email saying what's happening. Finally, on the 21st of July, I got a response back from the city. And the response said, talk to your HOA. Well, I'm not in the crosswater HOA. I'm in the point of crosswater HOA. I have no authority over crosswater HOA. The city does. I don't. And they can't trim branches, they said. Well, I know different. They can. The plan director the next day sent the request to the code enforcement, and they also requested the HOA trim the branches. Those branches still aren't trimmed. And the HOA on the 22nd got back to the city and said, yeah, we'll take care of it. Nothing's happened. On the 29th of July, I got a call from the code enforcement officer, said since the branches were more than 12 feet above the pavement, they weren't going to do anything. And they haven't done anything. Now, I also checked. Vehicles are allowed to be 14 feet high in the state of Washington. There are occasional trucks that go way down 89th. Why aren't branches trimmed up to at least 14 feet? The logic doesn't meet. I don't understand the logic of their statement. I checked with some other public works professionals in other cities that I know of, and I was not made aware of any requirement that came down that said we don't have to trim branches above 12 feet. This is a safety issue. You cannot see that traffic island as long as those branches are there. It would take about a half hour, three people and a pickup and a pole saw to take care of it. It's not this big ask.

You're over time.

Would you please summarize? I'm sorry. So what I'm asking tonight, I don't ask for a response from counsel. I ask that you dig into this, find out why your public works crew are not responding to a safety request. And with the track record I've created, if someone does get hurt or damage their car, if you're a professional, you're aware of the issue. And the other thing is, this is not the first time I've had trouble with a safety request. Last year on Catherine Drive, it took me over a month and a half to get your crews to clear brush so you can see the stop sign at Gray Road for more than 25 feet away. So this is not just a one-time issue. This is multiple. So please dig. Thank you. Thank you, Tom.

All right. Ron Rasmussen.

Good evening, council, Mr. Mayor, city staff, Deputy Chief Ron Rasmussen, so much regional fire and rescue. As you're aware, we're getting ready to build our new fire station over there, and we're getting pretty close. So I want to thank city staff for their collaboration and assistance through making this process as smooth as it can be. But I want to, I'm here tonight to publicly invite council and the mayor and all city staff. We're having a a groundbreaking ceremony on September 15th at 3 p.m. So I just wanted to publicly invite all you and I'm sure you'll get something from someone officially, but that's all I got.

All right. Thank you, Chief. That's very exciting. Tracy Trout. Welcome, Tracy. You have three minutes, please.

Thank you.

Hello, Council. I just had a couple comments about the Mill Spur traffic calming devices. That's going to come up later. There's the concept that she came up with. Whitney? So, but living there, I live next door to the boat launch. Bob Loss and Carol are here. They live right next to me. We're living with it every day. So we kind of know a little bit more kind of what's going on. Our suggestion would be we did like that concept D in addition, and one of the things that I think that they wanted was possibly the addition of those stop signs at the end of 17th and 123rd and at the boat launch. I don't know. These kids are racing. They may still just blow right on through them. But that's another thing that possibly they could get in trouble for. But that's just one other thing. The other thing, the rumble strips that are going in, because I know that that's going to be that that apparently is what's going to happen instead of the speed humps. putting those into the actual like boat launch and the boat launch parking lots because the kids go in there and they do donuts. And hopefully maybe that would stop that. In Mill Spur Road, I saw where they thought about putting the rumble strips, the current rumble strips. I have a picture on my phone about, and you can just go over there and look at all the burnout marks which are going to be in between those rumble strips. So I don't know what that's going to do. I mean, one of those big burnouts, it's the tires, pieces of tire. I don't know how these kids got all this money, but now these tires and it's aimed towards Jerry's house. I mean, like they're shooting down that way. I don't know what the answer is, but I don't know if the rumble strips are going to stop somebody from doing that. And then the third thing was instead of the shared roadway with a dotted line down 123rd, Why not? There's already a gravel drainage ditch. It's covered with gravel. It's more than six feet wide. Is there any reason why we can't put a sidewalk over that? Because that's along 123rd along the boat launch parking lot where they park the trailers. The grim house sidewalk before the construction ended on 123rd, and it looked like they were just going to turn the corner and just go down 123rd along that gravel strip. I'm not quite sure. I don't know if it's because of the cost or what, but that seems like a way better to have an actual sidewalk because there is enough room to put one over that drainage ditch. So, and it's already filled in with gravel. So it's not, so that would just be my suggestions.

All right.

Thank you, Tracy.

Allison Welch. Welcome, Allison. Three minutes. Thank you.

I have lived here for 30 years. Um, and I'm grateful that you're putting a sidewalk on 117th street, but I have a lot of questions and I have asked these questions. I've emailed both engineers. I haven't heard a word. Why do you need 12 feet for a ADA compliant 36 inch sidewalk? I don't understand that. Their plan is to take 12 feet of my property in the front, and I've been working on it, so it's not beautiful right now, but I had plans. I don't understand. I'd like to have some answers. It seems to me that that's awfully expensive and that there are cheaper ways to do that. Take four feet. Why do you need three times that? put in a simple sidewalk, especially because there is a sidewalk on the other side of the street that's already been started and goes at least a block. There's a church on the other side of the street that has a large parking lot and a big easement that would be easier, I would think, to pave. What happens to my tree? These are questions I have that have not been answered. I really think that the lack of communication in a city this size is sad, disappointing, even unconscionable. I hope that that is something that you will address. with whoever needs to be addressed. Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Alison. All right, next speaker is Tina Hell Devine. Did I pronounce that correctly? All right.

Divine. Divine. All right.

Three minutes, please.

Good evening, council members, mayors and residents. I would like to discuss 100 Drive Southeast is like a freeway now since we put the traffic circle in. And it's pretty scary. My back window, my master bedroom is exactly off there. So there's a lot of traffic from 4 a.m. till about 10 a.m. Then it picks back up about one o'clock until like six in the evening. And they're going really fast and coming out of 100 Drive Southeast. I mean, I'm almost scared and I like to drive. I'm from L.A. So it's serious. Also, I want to talk about and I apologize. I didn't write in 18 Willers Park behind my house. And they often park there, they hover. It's concerning that it's becoming a truck stop And my bedroom's there again, like sometimes three o'clock in the morning, they're cranking their trucks up. Maybe it's a resident there, but a lot of other trucks park there. I have taken numerous pictures. I did fall, got a little help from the DOT for Lake Stevens. And so also I wanted to... address the sirens, you know, emergency vehicles. I'm just not sure I understand an emergency because I'm in medicine, so I understand emergencies. However, I don't know sometimes why like two, three o'clock in the morning, they're racing with a siren. There's nobody on the street. Flash the light. I mean, but I'm not sure what the purpose, but I would like to know what's going on. It has increased. I've been here almost 10 years. And so it concerns me. And... The stop sign on 100 Drive, it's faded. We need to paint it, okay? It's just ugly. It still works. It's standing well, but it's just ugly. And that's all. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Tina. All right, Ralph Templeton. Welcome, and please limit your comments to three minutes.

My concerns are speed and safety down Chapel Hill. I've got a... letter here that I sent to the police department back in July of 2023. And basically, it states that they have three officers on duty per shift for 40,000 people. And then he states that he understands the concern at this roadway. And it's used by a lot of pedestrians. And a lot of people are coming off of 204 and Highway 9. and using Marketplace and Chapel Hill as a thoroughfare to get to Southeast Lake Stevens where they built all the housing developments. And Public Works put two new speed limit signs up. And then since 2023, there was one police car that was shooting radar, which was last month in the past three years. And My concerns are down at the bottom of Chapel Hill on 103rd. There's a lot of people walking their dogs and crossing Chapel Hill. And the same up by the Mormon church up there on 101st. I think there should be sidewalks put at 103rd and at 101st. And I'm wondering why we don't put more speed tables. Like if you go down to Marysville, almost all residential areas have the speed tables for speed bumps. And I think that would do a lot of good. And what somebody was talking about, too, was people's speed. spinning donuts and stuff you can go up to marketplace right now on highway nine there's black marks all over the intersection and i don't know if we need more cops and more radars and more speed tables but i think safety is a big issue there i know bellevue a lot of their resident areas two years ago they passed a deal in their council and all the speed limits now in residential areas are dropping down from 25 miles an hour down to 20 miles an hour. So I think Lake Stevens needs to look at a lot of things and try to slow traffic around town. And that's about my 10 cents worth. Thanks.

Thank you, Ralph. Appreciate your comments. Steve Ewing. Come on up. That's the council, you know, the direct the routine three minutes.

I'm Steve Ewing. I live in the 8600 block of 11th Street Northeast. So three things I'd like to thank council and staff for. One, AquaFest was outstanding. I realized it happened about six weeks ago. But a couple things that stood out to me that really impressed me. One, I saw two of your council members, Nathan Packard and Tasha Edwards, actively involved. And I thought that was really impressive to see them out there volunteering their time and doing that. So thank you, Tasha. And if Nathan's online or whatever. Super impressive to see them out there making a big impact in our community outside of their regular job duties. Second thing I want to comment in is I really appreciate the sidewalk that's going in on 91st Avenue. I appreciate the first phase of that. There were some difficulties. And I really like how public works and city staff has made the adjustments necessary. There's been minimal impact there. I don't want anything impacting my ability to get Costco. And so I can now walk from my house to Costco without walking on a street. I can walk on sidewalks there and back. So I really appreciate that. Third thing, I want to thank Chief Bezizos and his police officers. We had a recent incident in our neighborhood. There was a woman with a serious mental health crisis that involved multiple felonies. And the police officers expertly and masterfully managed the situation to minimize the harm that was impacted. As our HOA president, I was directly involved with the victim in the case. And and the perpetrator. So I just want to commend our police officers and encourage council to continue support training for our police officers to work with those in crisis so they can manage those situations with the lowest level of force that's necessary. So thank you for your efforts to make our city an outstanding place to live. Thank you.

Thank you, Steve. All right, Caitlin, is there anyone online who would like to have comments and address the council?

If anyone online would like to address the council, please raise your digital hand and I'll bring you into the meeting. I don't see anyone.

Okay. Thank you to our citizens for coming. This is important that we hear from you. All right. Item number seven, the consent agenda.

Second.

All right. Any discussion? All in favor, say aye. Aye. All right. Motion carries. All right, item eight, action items are none. And item number nine, discussion item, policy for the mill. We have Sarah this evening. Welcome, Sarah.

Let me just get this shared here on my screen. Okay. All right, good evening, Council. Sarah Garceau, Parks and Recreation Department Director here to bring the topic forward for discussion regarding the mill and a policy review. As you may remember, this was requested before the break and is being followed up on today. I wanted to start by just overviewing the mill as a whole. On your screen here in this presentation, you'll see all of the different rooms that are available. Specifically, there are three distinct rooms inside of the mill. They can be reserved for full-day or for hourly. In addition to the fees for the actual rental, we do have the option to add on fees with the AV system or adding microphone use. And we also do have refundable deposits that are put down for security, making sure that the facility is returned to the same condition that it was found, as well as an alcohol deposit. The alcohol deposit is used as a security deposit as a whole, but it essentially doubles the deposit when alcohol is involved for the facility. We also have cancellation and modification fees, and these are subject to the policies that are set up for the mill. Not shown in any of the tables are the 3% technology fee, which are applied to all transactions within City of Lake Stevens with very few exceptions. And then all payments that are made with credit or debit cards also have a 3% service fee. Of course, if customers do pay with cash or check, those fees are waived. Our rental reservations are all available on a first come first serve basis. Full days for the entire building of the mill can be made up to two years in advance. And then to go to hourly reservations and individual rooms, we start those at four months in advance and that is to favor full facility reservations. Our reservation timelines must be made 21 days prior to the event. Anything under the 21-day mark, staff absolutely consider all of those requests. First are viewed by our staff and then forwarded to me as the director. The default staff working that day, if they are available and working, we do book that reservation. If they're unavailable, they forward it to me and I try to secure another staff to oversee that reservation's check-in and process.

It is very rare that we have to turn any last-minute requests away.

And more information here, specifically in regarding reservations at 90 days or more in advance, you are able to modify the dates or the times. After that 90 days, we lock in all reservations. So after that 89, you can only modify your times. And so if you need to add hours on or make adjustments, sometimes people want to check in earlier or check out later. We are unable at that time to give refunds for shortening the duration as we've locked in all hourlies at that 90-day. And then we do have those applicable modification fees as we discussed. Our cancellation fee comes in if you cancel 90 days or more, we just have a flat $250 cancellation fee. After you get past that 90-day fee, we do not offer refunds for rentals. Reservations will automatically be canceled if the applicant fails to submit required permits or insurance. So that can be in a variety of ways. If you've proposed that your event is going to have alcohol, but you do not provide the Washington certificates through the Liquor Board to show that you can have alcohol at the event, we can say you can have your event, but without alcohol. Large events need to have insurance. So events that do not provide insurance are at risk of having their full event canceled. We do let everybody know at the time of booking that it's required and follow up with an email at the time of reservation, as well as one follow-up email before canceling. We have, in my recollection, not had to cancel any reservations due to non-paperwork over the past year. This was an issue about three years ago when we had payment plans and different days set up for getting the paperwork in. So we have a process that is working well overall now for that. Our department went ahead and reviewed different policies from around our area for public rentals. Originally, when the mill was built, the policies for this facility were modeled after the opera house, which is operated by the city of Marysville. So that is a close and direct comparison of this facility. And that is still the overarching policies that we have today. Our policies are consistent with industry standards and other local event venues. In your packet, you will see a comparison of over 20 venues. They're marked as being either public or private operated, as well as if our staff felt it was a direct comparable or not, but wanted to include all of our research to show what is available out there for different policies for different venues. Overall, ours did match the majority. At this time, the Parks Department does not recommend any changes to policies for reservations and cancellations, but certainly I'm here to answer any questions and open the floor to discussions.

Sarah, I have a quick question. Council Member Packard actually emailed some points around, and one of them was a question that I had, which is why the 90-day window? And I believe you just kind of addressed it in your comments there, but could you elaborate a little bit more on why we have a 90-day period for the cancellation?

Yeah, so why 90 days? It is following the majority of venues around us. So again, when we built the facility, I believe it was about five years ago, now in time, we modeled ours directly after the opera house. And as you look around to other venues, they also have the same policy. So why 90 days? After the 90 day mark, our opportunity for booking the facility goes drastically down. It's one of the reasons why we allow full facilities up to two years in advance. This building really does work better for a rental when all of the spaces are rented at the same time. When we try to put two different events in here, the noise transfers, and especially for sensitive events such as memorials, you don't necessarily wanna have a birthday party upstairs. And so that is why we have the two-year policy for full facility. I think I'd have to look at the date, but it was about a year and a half ago now where we said hourly rentals can only be done four months in advance. Before, that was a full two years as well. And we didn't have the opportunity to make sure that a four-hour reservation didn't block a full facility, full day rental. With the 90 days, it is very hard for us to fill reservations. Many people are planning their family reunions and weddings and birthday parties far in advance.

Thank you.

You're welcome. I had a comment on that. So if somebody cannot book until four months out, but then they're locked in three months out, it feels like they only really have a month to change or cancel. Is that... It feels like if you're planning an event... A lot of time in advance, you'd have a little more than the four months, and I think that window of time between four and three months can be going by very fast.

We offer individual tours of the mill when requested, and we also have mill open house. So there's ample amount of opportunity for the public to come and see the facility in person, to ask questions and make sure that this is the venue that they prefer. Usually when people lock in a venue, especially because you're already going to be losing your $250 deposit, they're reasonably sure they're going to continue. Normally, the reservations that we see canceled after the 90-day mark are for very rare unknown circumstances. So the wedding was called off or they decide to cancel the event as a whole. It's not typically because they found a different venue. at least from the verbal feedback that I have heard through my staff.

Are there any clauses, and I'm sorry if it is and I missed it, for emergency? Like if somebody that's renting, something happens, they're in the hospital or there's a death in the family, are there any circumstances that would allow an exception to the 90-day policy currently or no?

The written policy doesn't have any of those exceptions. The one qualifier would be if the city cancels on the rental. So what I can think with that specifically is during winter storms when the power is shut off or we know that the roads are covered in snow. There was one this last winter that decided to show up despite the snow on the road. Power was on and they were happy.

I just have a quick question. It says it's reviewed in the policy, but for large events that require insurance, is it like a million dollar liability insurance or what insurance? And then do you help? I don't imagine the city provides insurance. So do you help direct them where they could get liability or insurance?

Great question. Our standard policy for all events is a $1 million per occurrence, a 2 million aggregate. We recently reviewed all of our insurance rates through our risk manager and through our insurance company, WCIA. We have varying insurance amount, especially for special events, if you are going to be adding additional things. So large events like Farmer's Market, if they're adding a bounce house or Aquafest with a carnival, there's higher rates. But for inside the mill, the standard is the $1 million, $2 million aggregate. And when customers ask us for recommendations as a government body, we can only give one recommendation, and that is through WCIA. They have an insurance policy program that the public can go in and get insurance from. Other than that, homeowner policies often will cover secondary events if people call their personal insurance agencies.

Thank you.

Sarah, is there, or Director Garceau, is there anything in the policy that would provide some sort of discount as far as the refund amount if the facility is rerented within that 90 days?

There is nothing in the policy. And for tracking purposes, that is not something that we have the ability at this time to do. That would be a manual process through Excel if it was something that we looked at. We did prior have a payment plan for people paying in increments before the event. And what happened was a lot of staff time and following up. And after three reminders, we would drop their event And then I would receive a call or the mayor would receive a call with a very upset person because their event was canceled. And then we would have to rebook them and get that back in. Since we have switched to full payment up front, we have not had any of those issues and it is a lot more efficient for staff time. Additionally, the city should not be lending credit in the way of a payment plan. And so we did get all that brushed up at the same time. Thank you. I know Council Packard is not here in his email. He did also request for the count of how many reservations would have been canceled and lost their deposits. We don't have all of that data at this time. It would take manual searching and logging in order to create accurate reports for that. At a very quick high-level glance, when I look back at the 2025 full mill report that I did at year end, It looks like there were a total of four events at the surface level that I can see that would have had their full rental held. And that is with about 160 events throughout the whole year. So it's not a large amount, but it does exist throughout the year.

So I have, Sarah and I have chatted about the mill in general. I think we're going to probably bring this back to you later. My goal for this mill, and I think it's your heart too, is that this is a public building. It should be filled with people. Um, and having a process and rates that are fair, um, but don't put too much extra time on our staff because yeah, it is, it becomes cumbersome. Then that's all of a sudden that's all your parks director is doing is chasing down payments. So I think there's room for refinement and I sense that the council might want to take that up. So we're going to continue to work on something and then bring it back to the council later on if that works for all y'all.

Sounds good.

Okay.

I think it's part of that. I'd like to see at least an attempt at some sort of guidance on, you know, some sort of catastrophic illness or death to them, some sort of policy. We write exceptions for a lot of things in the city. Sure. You know, provide that kind of thing. So I think I'd like to see something worked out like that.

Yeah. I think there's plenty of room to refine. And that was the sense that Sarah and I came out of that meeting together. So anything else for her?

So I had a similar thought and in principle, I agree. My concern is, and I'm sure this will be fleshed out, would be how do you enforce that? I mean, just bring me a copy of the death certificate and you can have your money back and what kind of burden did we put on? Yep. That's what airlines do. Yeah. I mean, if that's where we want to go, then we'll go there. But I'm just saying that's the trade-off in my mind. Yeah. Yeah.

What I'm hearing from council is a little bit of a softer approach. Obviously, we have to have guidelines or people are going to go around the guidelines or over them or under them or ignore them. But we just want to be as thoughtful and respectful to our community and get as many people using this room as we can.

I agree with that as well. I'm also very mindful of the department staff and I want to be careful we don't implement policies that are going to impact their staffing. You know, that's from what I understand already pretty tight. And, you know, as we are budgeting, you know what I'm saying? I don't want to implement something that's going to impact their department significantly.

For sure.

One more comment, just to put an idea out there, and you probably have already thought about this, but the first thing that popped into my mind when I was looking over these comparable rates and stuff, because there are a lot of comparable places that have that same exact policy here in Snohomish County and even into King County. But maybe, and if it hasn't been thought of, maybe we should look at it. If it has, then maybe some more information for us so we know what the consensus was. But, you know, maybe like a staggered refund policy. So at 90 days, they would get you know a certain percentage back at you know 60 days they would get a certain percentage back and it would get you know less and less um and then have like a hard end date at like 60 days or whichever um but just just a thought so i wanted to share that okay all right anything else all right thank you we'll move on to uh our next city department report and that's lindsay our

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. Lindsay Vaughn, Finance Director. And I'm here this evening to basically just do a very brief verbal report saying that we've followed up on the action, the investment policy that's currently in place for the city. and that is over the finish line. And so I think as government employees, we don't always tend to give our shout outs. And so that is across the finish line and where you will see that first, those first investment, the yield payments will be in January, which ironically will be from my perspective, great timing because we do have a lot of invoices that go out on an annual basis in January. So the first installment of those will be in January. And the Delta, just from a timestamp today, because the local government investment pool, the LGIP, that rate is constantly changing from the time that we did make the change and invest, that stamp in time is going to be an additional $48,400 for the city, just that alone. And so I'm here to ask, entertain any questions and just if you have any, and if not, we can move on to the next item.

Great job. Thank you.

No, I appreciate Lindsay. She's come in. She's coming late, right? The budget director should probably be here in April and she started in June and she is rocking and rolling and I really appreciate that. She'll come into my office and just tell me about all the good things that she and her staff are doing. And it might seem 40,000, 50,000 might seem small, but these are just good practices that we should continue to do. And so I'm very pleased at her and all of our staff for that matter. All right. Trafficking calming devices today. Tonight we have Whitney from Public Works, and this is her first council presentation. Is that right? You told me earlier. Yeah. All right. All right. So be kind.

Well, Mayor, I'll introduce her real quick too. I appreciate that. We're pleased to be here tonight, Mayor and Council. Whitney Ogiletto. Ogiletto. See, I did a soft J and I should have known. I've worked with Whitney for years and I still haven't gotten it right. I'm sorry, Whitney. Whitney is our civil engineer. She is very practical and She's a fantastic engineer. It's step-by-step. It's wonderful to have her on the team. And she's the right person to do the type of work she's going to present to you tonight. So I'm excited to have her do this. This is her second presentation. You're going to see more of her. We introduced her years ago when she started, but this is really her first time, I think, with this council. So anyway, take it away, Whitney.

Thank you for that nice introduction. Good evening, council, mayor, and members of the public. I'm here tonight to talk about our traffic calming program. And I have two separate, but related topics to cover tonight. The first is going to be an update on our overarching neighborhood traffic calming program. This is a brand new program that's currently in development, and we'll just briefly review the need and current state of traffic calming and speed concerns in our city. And also touch on how this program is different than other services that engineering and public works currently provide. And then the second part of the presentation, we will be presenting the mill spur traffic calming project. And there is a slight change to the original staff report. We were originally going to seek council action tonight. Our goal tonight now is to just introduce the project and our current proposal. Also provide an opportunity for public comment, which we heard earlier tonight. And then we'll take that council feedback and public feedback, update our final plan as needed and come back to council at a future meeting. Hopefully the next meeting with a final plan and request council action at that time. All right. So our neighborhood traffic calming program, as I mentioned, this is a brand new program. And of course the intent of the program is to reduce vehicle speeds on our neighborhood street network. And so if we have a goal of slowing down drivers, we can generally do that in two ways. We can do it through enforcement, or we can do it through engineering design. And I am preparing a traffic calming program. So the intent of this program is to target the engineering design aspect of speed management. And the key takeaway with traffic calming devices is these are physical changes to the roadway travel lane. And they're generally categorized as either horizontal traffic calming devices like a chicane that's shown here. This causes the driver to navigate around a horizontal element in the roadway. Um, also neighborhood traffic calming circles would fall into this category or, uh, bump outs or chokers. And then there are also vertical traffic calming devices, um, such as the speed pump, sorry, speed hump that is shown here. There's also speed cushions, speed bumps, speed tables, race crosswalks, uh, and, um, On the other hand, we have traffic control devices, and I wanted to include this slide because it's really easy to confuse the two. Both are traffic safety devices that would be installed by engineers using engineering guidance and judgment. However, with traffic control devices, these are devices that are regulated by the Federal Highway Administration, the FHWA. And they have a very lengthy manual, the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, or MUTCD, that establishes specific criteria and guidelines of exactly when we as an agency are required to or can choose to install these devices. And the primary purpose of most of these devices is to purely communicate a message to roadway users. And so this includes Uh, paint edge lines and center lines, transverse pavement markings like traffic arrows and a variety of signage. Um, so regular, uh, sorry, warning signs, regulatory signs. And I did specifically include a stop sign here. This is a great example of it's really easy to get confused because stop signs are often thought of as speed management devices. In fact, the MUTCD explicitly states that stop signs are not to be used for speed control. They are used in other traffic safety contexts, specifically if you have like a sight distance obstruction at an intersection or you need to use them to assign right-of-way. But the reason this is important is when we receive these types of requests, it's helpful if we have robust workflows in engineering to correctly categorize and respond to these requests and help educate. And when we build out this program, that will help us do that more effectively. All right, so this map is a current, This map shows the current state of our traffic calming requests. These are all the requests that we've received over the last few years since we launched ViewWorks in the spring of 2023. And I guess to clarify, these would be requests that are eligible for consideration under our traffic calming program. This is separate from our capital project delivery program and the eligibility criteria that we've established. It's listed down below, but we're really focusing on non-arterial streets. And these are local streets. So they have a posted speed of 30 miles per hour or less. And the road segment that we're looking at ideally should be at least 300 feet long for us to really be able to analyze and come up with an effective design. And so out of the 100 plus requests of speed reports that we've received, When we run those through our preliminary criteria, it works out to about 70 separate requests. And then some of them are multiple requests for one particular location. So we're looking at right now around 30 distinct locations where we have requests for traffic calming that we would like to evaluate and prioritize and run through this program. All right, so this is a really brief overview of the program. Last year, we drafted a policy which outlined the eligibility and scoring criteria. And we also did early outreach to emergency response. So that's fire and PD to understand their kind of minimum requirements for our program. We have started traffic data collection at those 30 locations that I mentioned, and that will allow us to kind of further prioritize and look at develop a work plan of what locations we can do in the first few years of this program. And then going forward, in order to build out the program, there's a couple of components that we really need to focus on. There's developing the program workflow and that is kind of like what a typical project delivery timeline should look like. And we have some administrative processes that we might need to review and make sure that those are in alignment with the type, the level of service that the program that we wanna build, which is hopefully a quick delivery responsive program. And then the final deliverable that we're looking for is some sort of toolkit or guide, a handbook that's accessible to the public that lists all the different types of traffic calming devices that are available under this program and the different contexts that they would be applicable. And we'll initiate public engagement throughout this process, including engagement with council. And hopefully we can put together this program and launch it by the end of the year. So one goal that we have, and it's sort of a unique opportunity with this program, being that it's a standalone program that's separate from our capital projects program, is to have a really nimble and responsive program. And we can do this by prioritizing quick build and pilot projects where we can kind of go out and test iterative solutions in real time. This is a cool example of this from Bainbridge Island. And This does assume that we will have our traffic engineer on staff to run this program in future years. And the future vision of this program is the traffic engineer will run this traffic calming program alongside our traffic safety cameras program. And the funds from the traffic cameras would fund this traffic calming program. All right, and before we move on to the next part of the presentation, I just wanted to open it up and see if there are any questions at this time.

I have one. I guess, do you, within this program, speed bumps are one measure. Is there a guidance on their use on roads that are used by public transit and has community transit provided any input into that because buses and speed bumps don't go together very well. Sure. Is that in or is that a consideration?

We'll definitely have to make sure that community transit is one of our specific identified stakeholders that we reach out to when we're, you know, developing the specific standard designs and standard plans that we'll use. But that is for sure something we'll take into consideration on bus routes within the city. Yes, thank you.

Yeah, absolutely.

I can't help myself. It's a really neat program. Okay, so we have 100 requests for traffic calming. Some of the people are here tonight in the audience to ask about that. But there's 95 more people who have asked for service. We have an obligation as a city that's growing to provide this service as far as we're concerned. And we hope you support us in that effort. And what's neat about the program that Whitney's developing is it's a step-by-step evaluation and it's a quick win program. So we're going to buy tools and equipment that aren't high cost that we can employ quickly to these areas to test things and then come back with a capital project if we need it to fund it. So the delineators like we've done in the past – or plastic speed humps that we can put deploy. So it really is a, it's a quick win for the community and I'm really proud of the way she's shaping it. And I think it's very unique actually in this area. So anyway, really proud of where she's taking it and we'll be back to talk more about it later.

Just one comment, if I may, about the quick win piece. I think over the years, we've had many people come and use public comment to talk about just tonight, like tonight, we have people racing down the streets, people that are being, well, kind of in the middle of the night. And prior to this, I feel like it's always been a big undertaking to do a study and then to find the money. And then what are we going to do? So I'm all for the ability to listen to the public that's struggling. you know, that has folks right in their backyard that are speeding and that we have a program in place where we can study that quickly and get a solution in place quickly. So thank you.

Thank you. Aaron, I got a quick comment as well. The ultimate traffic calming device is law enforcement, right? More enforcement. These are great programs to mitigate that. We know we're behind on that. So just kind of a heads up to our council to refocus on. We need to support our officers more. I know we hired a couple more. I know we needed several more, but I think we need to look at Not just throwing out, well, it's hard to hire police officers. That's our job to figure out how to entice people to come work for the city and become police officers here. So a lot of these programs are awesome. They take up a ton of money and budget, right, to do them. Some of them are quick, some of them are easy, some of them aren't expensive, but a lot of them are. So I would like to just make sure we're concentrating on when we look at root cause. the root answer to the root cause, plus all these things that can enhance and help traffic cameras, things like that. So just another putting a bug in the air. I said a couple months ago that give them everything they're asking for and more. We got to do something to make Lake Stevens a place where police have all the work.

Okay.

Okay. All right. Mill Spur Traffic Calming. I did want to take a second to thank residents for coming tonight and taking the time to attend and share your comments, both here at the meeting and over the past few days with myself and other city staff. And just a quick reminder tonight, we are not seeking council action. We are just hoping to get some input from the public and council, and we'll finalize our plan and come back at the next meeting with a proposed action for council. So on the screen, here is the project location. The project in question is right in our downtown. It's right off of Main Street. It's this loop road that goes right through North Cove Park. So it includes three separate streets, Millspur or Festival Street, 123rd Drive Northeast, and 17th Place Northeast. And the project has been underway for quite a while. So in late 2024, there was a community meeting held with Parks, Police, and Public Works. And at that meeting, staff listened to residents and generated this list of issues and potential solutions. And this is just a flyer that was sent out to residents after that meeting. Following the meeting, staff began working through some of the identified solutions. This included posting signs in North Cove Park regarding the park's hours. fixing the lighting by the grim house, there was the Community service officer position that was created and the intent of that position was to be heavily dedicated towards park security and. One other interesting. Change from our our it department, they reached out to some of the navigation mapping services. and had the default route change for the boat traffic. And we've heard that, anecdotally, that has helped a lot with the boat traffic routing and congestion that we've seen through the loop here. And then in late 2025, Public Works, we lost two out of our three engineers. And that's important for a couple of reasons. As it pertains to this project, following that, we decided to hire an engineering consultant to help us out and prepare an analysis and some alternatives for consideration at this location. Also, shortly afterwards, we had to reallocate our staff remaining to out of engineering programs and dedicate them more heavily towards capital project delivery. And that was the end of last year and the better part of this year. And as of August 1st, I have now been reallocating. rededicated back to engineering programs and projects and i'm very happy to be here we have been able to fill our capital projects coordinator position barb stevens our previous finance director has been um she's on our engineering team now and that's been very helpful so um we're pretty excited to get back to engineering programs and deal with um Yeah, we've got a few projects that we're trying to launch, not just this project here tonight, but the overarching traffic calming program and a few other ones in the works as well. So as we kind of started digging back into this project, we were looking at the administrative process in the code as it's currently outlined. And it's up here on the screen. It's a little bit convoluted, but the more we looked at it, the more we thought, To meet the intent of this section, it would be best to have two separate meetings for the current proposal. The first meeting would be a public meeting held by city council where the public would have an opportunity to comment. So that's tonight's meeting. And then we'll take any feedback, make any needed updates and come back at the next meeting with a proposed action. All right, and here is our current plan. So this is one of the alternatives that was prepared by our engineering consultant with a few updates by our city team after collaborating with our partner departments and stakeholders. So one of the changes, as was mentioned earlier, is we are proposing to do rumble strips on both Millsboro Road and 17th Place Northeast. At this time, we're not recommending that we start with speed bumps as our first pass at this. And that's because Festival Street, the intent of that road is to be a pedestrian-focused road that can be closed to vehicle traffic. And that entire facility is designed to be an at-grade ADA-compliant facility. And so we want to preserve the intent of that as much as possible. Also, 17th Place Northeast and 123rd Drive Northeast do not have dedicated pedestrian facilities. So we would like to start with the rumble strips and we can test these out and monitor the conditions and we can always come back and, you know, escalate from this point if needed. So that's the proposal for Mill Spur Road and 17th Place Northeast. And then the treatment that is recommended here on 123rd Drive Northeast is to formally designate it as a shared street. This would maintain two-way mixed mode travel, which is... How the road functions currently and has functioned for a while. The available without there is only 16 feet so it's insufficient to mark two separate travel lanes. But legislation was recently passed within the last couple years that allows cities to formally designate certain streets as shared streets and sign them as a 10 mile per hour posted speed limit. So we would like to do that here. However, in order to do that, we do have to adopt a formal process with design criteria. So if we move forward with this, then staff would come back with a formal process that might look like an ordinance and then design criteria that would be probably a signed standard that we would adopt into our eds. And we would bring that back at a future meeting. So at this time, I'd like to open it up for any discussion or questions.

Real quick, before we entertain questions, Aaron, can you talk about the relationship between risk liability and the engineering of this?

Yeah, yeah. I'm glad you asked that question. So currently, I'll go back just real quick. Currently, the code, the city's code requires that council review and approve traffic calming measures. This code is from 2002. This is not a good practice. You do not want to make engineering decisions from the dais. You don't want to do it. You want to rely on engineers to do that. So we're going to come back to you and change that code. I think the best thing the council can do is approve policies and procedures and how things are reviewed and help us through that rather than making engineering decisions. So that's the first thing. There's a risk element to that, and I think that's what you're referring to, Mayor. If council's going to make engineering decisions from the dais, for example, If the council said, yes, put a speed bump out on 91st and I want it six inches high and I want it, you know, I want you to go slow. I want slower traffic. And a car goes through there, a motorcyclist or pedestrian is hurt or something happens at that location. They're going to review the meeting notes when there's a lawsuit and they're going to find that council approved that thing. And they're going to ask you where you went to school to learn about traffic engineering. You don't want to do it. And we've seen it happen. This has come up. There's cases in Washington where this has happened. Crosswalks were added because the council wanted it. Someone's hurt in the crosswalk. This is a recent one. And that's what happens. WCIA doesn't want to see it. So part of this program is for us to actually come back to you and change that portion of the code so that we don't have to bring these 30 traffic calming things to you and for you to approve them. Is that?

Yeah. I just figured that would come up. Why? You know, there's engineering standards and that's where it's based off of. All right. Questions. Great.

First, I want to thank you for sharing these slides with us. When I was reviewing my packet and I'd try and zoom in, it got blurry and I couldn't read the things I wanted to read. So thank you for sharing them on a bigger screen with us. And then kind of on your engineering note, because I was at 17th place out there. Northeast leads to the boat launch. Are the strips better for someone trailering a boat? So when you're trailing and you've got that tongue weight, it's a little different than a regular vehicle. So are the proposed strips easier to trailer over than a speed bump would be?

Yeah, I think it's definitely a consideration. It's certainly better for boat traffic. I think if it came to it and we decided that speed bumps were warranted and we needed to install them here, the option's not off the table. But it's important to keep in mind that this is a public street and it serves a lot of different travel modes and we have to consider the needs of all of the different users on the public street.

I have a couple questions. So first, I want to thank the community for giving feedback. I think it's really, really important that we get this feedback from our community members, whether it's an email or coming here and speaking in front of the council. Because if we don't know that people are having these problems, then there's not really an opportunity to address it. And so I think that's really, really important. And I appreciate everyone coming out to give your opinions and your input. I had heard I was I've talked to a lot of people, but I was talking to someone and they said something about enforcement here with the like teenagers at night being in a code issue where it's a it's. it's a code violation and not like a legal criminal violation when people are down here and that there was something that might be able to be done to change that around. So I just, I don't have the whole story and I heard this. So I wanted to get some clarification on that. Like with enforcement, what if say I'm a citizen that lives down here and there's a bunch of youth out here that are smoking pot and peeling out and playing their loud music. And it's 11 o'clock at night. Now that we have this, community service officer position, what would that look like when they come out to address these complaints? Is there an opportunity to cite these people for noise ordinance violations? Because I feel like what we've heard is the law enforcement will show up and they'll talk to them or tell them to leave, but then the next night they're right back there. So it doesn't really seem like these people that are causing these issues are having any consequences. And you know, maybe the signs and the speed bumps or whatever will help with that, hopefully. But I think really just some sort of consequences for these people that are continuously, you know, coming and doing the same thing. And so I was just curious to like, what are the consequences for those people and what that process looks like?

So Council Member Edwards, you're exactly right. Our coordinates needs to be updated. There was a change in the ordinance that made the Title 10 and the title, another title, made it reference to 14 and 17, which is an administrative action. It's not a fine. So Jill, who's here tonight, and my administrative manager are working on this project. They're meeting next week or this week to fix the court ordinances so they go back to the citation so we can run into court. The second issue that we have here, they're juveniles. There is no court in the state of Washington right now that are dealing with this type of behavior in the court system. So anybody under the age of 18, there is no system other than writing a ticket to district court for the drivers that are 16 to 18, what we can do.

Does that count as far as ticketing for the noise ordinance?

The noise ordinance is administrative code right now, so it has to go through the administrative process, which is not a court process. So that's what's got to be fixed so we can write citations. So we have to adopt that that is a civil infraction, not an administrative process.

Okay, and you're working on that? Yes, ma'am. Awesome. Thank you. I appreciate it.

You bet.

We should work on an ordinance to hold their parents accountable maybe. That'd be nice. Give them a ticket since they can take the ticket. That might change things a little bit.

Can you help me? Thank you for the presentation and the information. This has been super helpful. It's great to see different alternatives. I live next to a road that's turned into a speedway that has rumble strips, and I don't understand how rumble strips help deter speeding or any of the other activities that have been talked about. So can you say more about that?

Yeah, certainly. So I think they would fall more into the category of traffic calming that has to deal more with like roadways, surface and texture. So it's, it's tactile feedback. And it specifically targets like raising awareness of driver behavior. And that's the, I think that's the primary mechanism. Okay. Anything, any other questions?

Yeah, you're absolutely right in the application, but if you want to speed, they will not deter you from doing that thing. And we're going to come back to you and talk more about it, but the way we're building the traffic calming program is it's escalatory. So we start low and we work our way up. So there's nothing that prevents us from coming back and saying, okay, that didn't work. We're going to go to speed tables, temporary speed tables that can be removed during events. It's something we've talked about, but... It is frustrating. I share that frustration.

And kind of along with Council Member George's dad, a really easy comparison for me was go to Costco and they just put in speed bumps. And you're slowing down when you're going over those speed bumps in their parking lot. Go right down the street on 91st, you know, the same street, and they've got those strips. And I kind of was wondering the same thing. I mean, you guys have done a beautiful job on that street, and I'm really appreciative. But I thought to myself... I'm not sure that these are really going to slow anybody down because they are pretty minimal as far as you can feel them. And you're right. There's a texture difference. If you're somebody who maybe it's a distracted driver and don't realize you should be paying attention. I think that would be helpful for that. Kind of like the texture on the sides of a road or a center line, bring your focus back to the road. But as far as traffic calming, I do wonder if there's a effective as we would like them to be.

And so I'll speak to that really quickly. So the speed bumps in Costco are not designed for necessarily the posted speed limit to pass over them. So say the road is signed at 25 miles an hour. You cannot go 25 miles an hour over those speed humps. You have to slow down to 10, right? You probably should if you care about your car. Yeah. And that's fine, but the posted speed – so say the road is – the posted speed limit is 25 miles an hour. If you put those in there, what you'll get, you'll get a behavior where they all – everyone slows down to 10 miles an hour, and then they gun it to the next speed bump. And then they gun it to the next speed bump. And then you're going to have people will come in and complain about everybody doing that behavior. So the speed tables – if you will, on 91st are designed for vehicles to pass over the posted speed limit.

Yeah. I do. I am really supportive of the 10 mile an hour shared roadway. And just full disclosure, I was, I was a speeder. I was a, I was a racer. I had a Toyota Celica Supra way younger than I should have had one. And I wouldn't have gone to a place that had speed humps or planters someday. So I was going to wreck my car, right? Like I wanted, I wanted to speed on the flat street roads and I'm not the only one in here. I know there's others. So that's fine. Um, I appreciate the folks that live there and that are speaking from experience and what you experience every single day. And, and I, and I want to come up, I understand that the phased approach, but I also think we need to figure out some solutions. We know what the problem is. We know, we know that rumble strips aren't going to change that behavior that you're talking about. So let's think about what's going to change the behavior. What's concrete planters. You do a few cookies or donuts into the, we call them Brody's, I don't know, into those concrete planters. You're not going to do those anymore in that area. So just, I appreciate the information. I just want to see some, some solutions. Thank you.

I have just a question. One of our citizens commented on the gravel and the sidewalk. I'm not as familiar with that here. Could you point that out on the on the image where where that is?

Yeah, absolutely. So it's along 123rd Drive Northeast. Is my mouse showing up on the screen there? Yeah, you can just barely see it. It's between the boat launch parking lot and 123rd.

I might be able to zoom in here.

Yeah, it's really hard to tell, but this is like a gravel ditch. I think it used to be vegetated. Now it's filled with gravel.

Okay, thank you.

Mm-hmm.

So it's been said in various forms already. But I look at this list. It's on slide 10. Residents express concerns. I read that list of concerns, and I worry that what we're talking about with traffic calming, again, as it's been said, is kind of designed to bring attention to behaviors that maybe you're not aware of, unintentional speeding or drifting one way or the other. If I'm there to race, if I'm there to do a burnout, I don't care about the signs. I don't care about the speed. I mean, I've already made that decision. That doesn't matter. And that kind of goes back to Councilman McManus' comment about Do we maybe need to prioritize updating the code and enhancing enforcement? I'm all for anything we can do from an engineering perspective, but I worry that a lot of these behaviors cannot be engineered away, especially if we're taking a tiered approach. Again, I understand that. We want to start low and kind of work up to that level, but I think we're already a couple levels in. Based on some of the comments I'm hearing, this sounds like something that needs to be addressed now, not three iterations of engineering for now. Um, so I don't know what the rest of the council feels about that, but I, I just, I don't want to waste staff time and resources, you know, throwing a bandaid at a missing limb.

I was going to say also during public comment, I think we should acknowledge the person that emailed us a comment that was also on this same subject about our roads becoming a speedway. I think this one was over by Tom thumb.

Is that the poetry?

It was the poetry. Yes, it was a very cool, very thoughtful poem. But I just wanted to bring that up because it wasn't mentioned during citizens' comments that we did receive one via email as well on this subject. It's a big concern in our city. As I tell my sons, you know, I was like Angie. I was a little speed demon. And I'm old enough to where the Boeing freeway was everywhere. Everyone went to speed. And the only thing that stopped me from speeding was when I wasn't getting away with tickets. Like I used to be really cute and charming as a teenager and I get a warning and they let me go. And once those warnings went away, I started getting those tickets and then my insurance started going up. Then I finally slowed down. So I think there's some very real truths to consequences for deliberate behavior, which these types of speeding that we're hearing about aren't, you know, distracted drivers. They're very intentional drivers. And I think they might need to be handled a little bit differently.

I would agree with both you and Councilmember Donahue. And I think that's why I bring up those consequences, because we were all teenagers, you know, if somebody can tell you not to do something 100 times, but until you actually do it and get in trouble for it, then there's not a whole lot of weight to it, I think. So, you know, I think and we need, especially with the minors and juveniles that are out there smoking pot, you know, if they're smoking pot and getting behind the wheel of a vehicle, that's a whole nother issue at that point. So I think that really, for the time right now hearing that we have that community, community service officer position filled, hopefully, that will help, you know, having a presence in this area, but also the enforcement and just, you know, whatever, if we can ticket them for the noise ordinance, we get that code fixed and get that done. I think that's really going to be where we start seeing a change in behavior from these, these people that are doing this. So

I'll just add anecdotally. I mean, I have seen our chief of police personally get up out of a council meeting and walk over to that area to deal with certain behavior. And it's still going on. I mean, it doesn't get any better than that. And it's still a problem. So there's there's a fundamental issue we need to address. And then just to kind of reinforce my point about signs, on that parking lot out there tonight, there were signs that say reserved for city council parking. As council member Shipman and I got our cars, I watched somebody look around, move one of the signs, and park their car there. So right over there, a sign failed to do what it was meant to do because someone had the intention of ignoring it, and I'm concerned that that would happen out here.

Maybe they can't read.

Well, the problem still exists in the sign didn't do anything.

All right.

Any other comments or questions for staff? All right. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Great presentation.

All right. Item number 11, council member business. Angie, I'll turn it over to you.

All right. Let's start at the end of the table with Councilwoman Edwards.

Okay. So I know we've been on recess, so you would think that we wouldn't have a lot to talk about, but recess for me gives me more time to do stuff. So I attended the budgeting program in Leavenworth with AWC, Association of Washington Cities, and I really, really appreciated having that opportunity to As someone who has never had experience with municipal budgeting, it's a lot different. And so we learned stuff from the budgeting process A to Z. We talked about taxes, different taxes. You know, taxes can only be spent in certain areas depending on how they were received. um, different revenues and expenses and, and, um, ways that, you know, cities are looking at increasing revenue without putting, um, you know, a dent, um, on the citizens. Um, we talked about procurement, uh, and we also had a lot of really good resources. So a couple of the ones that I marked down that I wanted to share was the revenue guide on MRSC. Uh, that was really helpful, uh, on the state auditor's office. They have the financial intelligence tool called fit. Um, you can go in there and you can see exactly how much funds your city is receiving for what taxes and what areas. Um, and they actually, um, yeah, they had the, the, the auditor's office there giving a presentation on those. So that was great. Um, on the 10th of August, I also attended the legislative field trip. So we had a bunch of our legislators come in here. Um, and we drove around, we went to Cavalero to talk about the street that needs, um, put through. We went to the new civic center, the library, the new elementary school. We talked about the 36th Street Bridge. We went through the industrial center, the new fire station. We talked about the museum. So being able to have those legislators here and show them the issues that we're actually facing in our city was really helpful. And I think it's really important to be able to do that. So I wanted to thank the city and everyone for putting that together. I also went to the HomeGoods opening. So HomeGoods, if you haven't been there yet, go check it out. One thing that I took away from that grand opening ceremony, besides the gift bag that they give you when you come in, was that they actually hired 70 employees for that store. So talk about an employment boost in our area. So that was really exciting to have those positions. I also went to the Stevens Creek Restoration event open house that they had here. So there's the historic stream down Hartford, which apparently has been there since before the Rucker Mill was even built. I guess they were trying to get water from here down to the flats where it's all saltwater. And so that was like something that never happened. So I thought that was interesting to hear the history about that. But what I was really impressed by is the community members that showed up here to that meeting, the questions that they asked. And then also city staff member Shannon, she was amazing answering questions and making sure that everyone really knew, you know, what to expect as a property owner around that area and I think that everybody was really It seemed like they were very happy with what the plan was. So that was really nice to see. And with that restoration, they're working on flood control, which is a huge deal over here on Hartford, habitat improvements, as well as the overall water quality. So that was really great. And then lastly, I got to sit in on the state auditor's office as we are going to have an accountability audit. So I learned that there are accountability audits and there are financial audits. So the accountability audit is where they audit processes and expectations. So the city will be being audited on how they are following and complying with state and federal laws. So I just thought it was interesting and wanted to share that some of the things that will be being looked at will be accounts payable grants applications payroll open public meetings which that's really important you know that our citizens are having access to our meetings and the overall financial condition of our city so. As for being on break, that was my break. It was great. I love being out in the community. Like one of our public comments said, I was at AquaFest, and so just being out there in the community and being able to attend these events was really eye-opening, and I hope to be able to learn a lot more. So thank you.

Thank you. Councilwoman Shipman.

Wow. I hope at some point you took some time for yourself. It's important to care for yourself as well. I actually took this time to just spend some time with families, go around our city. So I just wanted to reach out to our various departments, our public works. I've noticed all the striping on our roads and the repair work to our roads. I wanted a quick comment. We've got schools starting right around the corner. If you could please bring us a crosswalk report. I would like to see where we're at a mile around each of our schools to make sure that our walkers have visible crosswalks. But our Parks Department, of course, we've got beautiful parks. I mean, just getting out to enjoy the parks and talk to the people in the parks. And as I've mentioned before, it's not just people from Lake Stevens. I mean, people from all of our surrounding areas come out and enjoy our parks. And our Parks Department does a great job. So thank you. And then I also want to acknowledge our Police Department. I'm out and about walking all the time. And it doesn't matter if i'm up walking before sunset to sit i sit on a hill and watch the sunrise with my dog often and people will drive by and they're looking at me or people will walk by and i feel safe doing that in our community and i don't think there's a lot of communities where you feel safe as an individual single woman out walking your little dog at night or walking him in the morning or And so I think that speaks volumes for the safety of our city. So I just wanted to thank our police department for help providing a place where we can come in the summertime and feel safe being out and about in our community. That's it.

Oh, go ahead. You can introduce me if you want to.

Councilman Donahue.

Yeah, I spent most of the break as well with my family. But a couple of weeks ago now, I think it was almost three weeks, I attended the planning commission meeting, had a great discussion with the commissioners about watching the commissioners discuss how to better engage the public. and establishing guidelines for doing so. I'm hopeful that that work will carry through and maybe even find its way to us in some form. And then we also got a new planning commissioner, which was very exciting. I had a quick conversation with him at the end. Seems very enthusiastic about being part of the community and giving back. And so I look forward to seeing what that group can do. Awesome.

Councilman Maness.

Thank you very much. I was pretty busy too. I did also attend the AWC budget meeting in Leavenworth with Councilmember Edwards. I won't repeat everything she said, but she's dead on everything she talked about. It was really interesting. I sat in on the emergency management meeting because that's part of what I do and I It was interesting to hear some of the challenges they've had, especially in the city of Leavenworth this year, with being kind of closed during their premier event of Christmas, because of the floods and everything, and the roads being torn up, and how they're getting around that. And other things, we talked quite a bit, Council Member Evers and I, about you know, the affordable housing program. So we kind of listened to some of that and she was a great help in getting me up to speed on a few things that I was pretty much just didn't get, you know, I couldn't get it through my head what the deal was. So yeah, we're going to try to partner on some of that and come up with some ideas for the city, uh, as a result. So it was good to get some more time with Tasha directly and just get to know her better. Um, Great meeting. I suggest everybody attended. It was a good refresher. Also, I've attended multiple sewer commissions, sewer meetings with the sewer team. They have a meeting pretty much every Thursday, so I've been attending those pretty regularly and really just trying to get that relationship going. moving again, kind of repaired instead of so much animosity. So they'd say hi to me when I walk in. That's a good thing. I always tell them they're my favorite sewer commission. They always remind me that I'm their only sewer commission, but we still shower it out. So we're breaking down some barriers there, but they have their pump replacement programs going really well. And then they've been working on the new membrane, which covers the ponds that keeps everything from getting crazy and digest everything quickly. Also had a phone call with our Sonoma County emergency management section. It was an introduction call. We're setting up a time to meet and go out for the facility and then get our city more connected with them outside of our first responder community, you know, some of the council members. And then, you know, I think we all love our staff. They do a great job, but I would be remiss not to give Caitlin Weaver a shout out for keeping us updated every step of the way, but not over updating us, which is great. I didn't feel like I had to check my email every day. So I'm going to miss out on Caitlin. But she does a great job. She's super professional. I don't know if you've ever traveled with her. You don't have to use your brain at all. She just tells you what everything's going to happen on time and everything. And then I thought these water bottles were just a very innovative idea. It used to drive me nuts how much plastic we were going through. So thank you for all you do. Thanks for everything staff does. But thank you, Caitlin, for it.

Thank you so much. I love supporting council and I'm very grateful to be here. So thanks for the shout out.

Thanks. Council Member Araya.

Just one thing. Thank you for all the comments that we received tonight. That is a lot more than usual, and I hope they continue. I've attended the board meeting for community transit at the beginning of August. They adopted their six-year transit development plan and their 2025 annual report. Conversations about a potential consolidation with Ever Transit still continue. The timeline for that is geared toward a draft plan to be published mid September with a public hearing mid October and council and board meeting community transit board vote toward the end of October. So stay tuned on that. And that's all I have. Great.

Thank you. Just a few follow up comments. I also attended the legislative field trip on August 10th and a couple of shout outs. I want to thank Superintendent Teppelman for your support, for your color commentary, for sharing your teachers and your students with us on that day. It was great to see the robotics team and the robotics work, but also just really lovely to partner with you and partner with the school district and showing off our city to our legislative friends. So yeah, super appreciate it. Also with the help of Caitlin and Kelly, I know Olivia Baumgartner really took the lead on making that happen. And I'm sure there were bumps maybe that were happening, but for those of us attending, it was super smooth. It was a lovely day. It was well put together. It was so well organized. I learned things that I didn't know about the city, and so please pass along our thanks to her as well. It was really, really well done. I didn't get to go to Leavenworth for the budget meeting, but I found a budget workshop on the MSRC website. And so took a couple hours out of my day and brushed up on that. Also learned some great things about the budget as we head into budget season. I feel a little bit more prepared. But I'm happy to send the link. I can send it through Caitlin. It was really, you know, go at your own pace. Some of it was stuff I knew, but it was interesting and just helped me feel a little bit more ready for what we're about to dive into. So... I think that's it for me. Thanks.

All right, council. Well, I am so pleased that you all took care of yourself. That was one of my. one of my emails to staff was, please take care of yourself this summer. We can't take care of others and do our jobs properly if we're not taking care of ourselves. So I appreciate your comment that you made earlier, Kim. Holy cow, I have been busy, as you would expect. And so I wanted to take advantage of being the new mayor. Obviously, when you're a mayor, people will take your phone call or meet with you. But when you're new, they doubly will. So I wanted to take advantage of that. So I'll just give you some brief highlights. I could probably talk for an hour on detail, but I'm not going to do that. So it's been a busy summer meeting and listening to our stakeholders, community groups, employees and residents, mayors of Everett, Marysville, Snohomish and Monroe discussing our regional issues such as the trestle and individual partnerships like the Bayview Trail extension in Marysville. I also had a chance to meet with a few of you, and I still have a few more to go. So I haven't met with you yet. That's not any slight. It's just trying to get through everyone and building a good relationship with council. I think that's really important that the mayor trusts the council and vice versa. That's the only way we can get policy done. But now as we're turning our focus to the upcoming budget process and our upcoming meeting for that in, what is it, two, two and a half weeks, we're going to have some work to do. My goal is to have staff and myself provide with the right information and then the why. A lot of times you're getting these data figures and dollars and cents and asks for stuff, but I want you to know why, why we're doing that. Yeah. The tag on what you guys said about the legislative field trip. Yes, Olivia is a rock star. She put that together and it was wonderful. And it's a good, really good chance for those who are advocating for us at the federal and state level to see the good work that our council and staff have done. So that was very rewarding. And we did come in under time. So that was great. We scheduled two hours and we were done before that. And why that was a successful event. There was one thing that happened at the end of it. only one person left right away when they got off the bus. And that's because she had a meeting and she had double booked, but she wanted to be here for this. Everyone else lingered and talked. That tells me everything I needed to know about that event, that it was successful, even legislators. And we had a secretary of state there, people who are super busy and have not a lot of margin in their schedules. They stayed to linger and talk with our staff and with the council members and their colleagues that were there. Well, um, To all those who came and spoke tonight about speeding and safety, I think your council hears you. I know your mayor does. In fact, I had a conversation last week with our police chief and his commander, and then again today with Gene, now that he's back from vacation. We do have six, seven openings in our police department. That's not unique to Lake Stevens. It's not unique to the police service, or police either. Fire service is experiencing that. Healthcare is experiencing that. I don't want to, as your mayor, I'm not going to rest behind that. I just don't want to say it's hard for everyone, so we're just going to live with that. We're going to meet here in the next week or two to evaluate what our own internal processes are that get in the way of that. And then we're going to figure out how we do recruiting differently. I get a sense that A lot of public safety organizations are still operating kind of in that 80s and 90s mindset where a lot of individual, you would have one position and you'd have hundreds of people apply for that. That's not the case anymore. And so we need to change how we recruit. We actually have to recruit. That means we have to change what we're doing. And frankly, what we're doing isn't working. And I think five, six, seven officers is a reasonable number. reasonable effort. Obviously, we have competing staffing priorities or projects and stuff that we have to do in the city, but we are going to do something different. And then one note about grant funding. This grant here for the roundabout, potential roundabout, $2.5 million. I spoke to that, I think, at the end of July. We have worked with Senator Murray's office, Senator Cantwell's office, as well as Congresswoman DelBene's office. And we're hopeful that there'll be a continuing resolution in September that gets reconciled between the two parties in Washington, D.C., and that will extend the date. that would be a big win for us. It's not ideal. It doesn't put a body into the Department of Fisheries or wherever it is that needs to do that fish study. But what it does do is it buys us more time to be able to figure out how we can get that done. So that's... I mean, I could go on for another hour. Like I said, there's so much that's going on, and I've just dove into that opportunity to just not be distracted by council meetings or council and just be able to go do that work and then bring back that to you guys so that we can rock and roll this fall with the legislative stuff that we have for the policies as well as the budget, because that's going to be a big deal, our budget. All right.

You may. As part of council business, I was remiss. I had one little note to myself. Deputy Clerk Weaver, could you go over next week's agenda really briefly with council? Thank you.

I'm going to share our screen with our lovely planning schedule again. This is always subject to change at any time. It changes often. So looking at the workshop meeting next week, we have just a couple items. Surface water utility rate study introduction. There is a piece coming in from planning around guidelines for public participation, processes that lie in different departments, as well as a parks department report. Looking at 9-8, which is our next regular meeting, we have quite a few items. We've got some ordinances. We've got potentially, and again, all this is subject to change, the Cedarwood Community Recreation Center contract. We'll bring back a brief conversation on coffee with council. We have an ILA update with Snohomish County. We are hoping, fingers crossed, to be able to do a demonstration with our amazing drug dog, Sia. That's something that we've got on the schedule, which I'm very excited about. And then potentially the traffic calming program. I just kind of made notes from Whitney saying she'd like to bring it back to the next regular meeting. So hopefully that will, if it's ready on the 8th. A quick note, our council retreat is on the 11th. We're still working on refining that agenda. And we're sort of looking at the 15th potentially to cancel because it would require staff to produce two packets at the same time. So unless there's an emergency item on that meeting, we might just cancel that and focus on the retreat based on staff's ability to do that work. So that's kind of where we're at right now.

Caitlin, just an idea. Let's say we go to the council retreat and we make great progress, we get everything done, we still get some parking lot issues. Could we use that 15th meeting to maybe continue the retreat part so it's not a new packet for the city to have to put together just more of a summary to continue on with?

Do you mean it as like a carryover from the retreat?

Yeah.

We could talk about the logistics of that. We just need to know what would be carrying over. We'd only have a few days to do that, right? So if the 11th is a Friday and then the 15th is that Tuesday, I don't know if we'll have enough time to get that stuff put in and produced in the notice to the public. So we can definitely workshop that. But I mean, we haven't done that in the past, but we could look at logistics.

It's not feasible, but just consider it. Because it seems like every time we have those long meetings, there's a parking lot. We never get to some of the others. Yeah. So just if we could use the time since we're already accustomed to being there without putting a burden on staff.

Sure.

Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

Thank you so much.

Okay. Anything else? Then we will adjourn into executive session.

Very quickly. Could we do a motion to extend? Cause we do need 30 minutes for the executive session. Okie doke.

I'll make a motion to extend to eight, 10.

Second. All in favor say aye. Aye. All right. So the Lake Stephen City Council will adjourn our recess into executive session, confidential session of the council for RCW 4230.110 with potential action to follow.

Yep. And the topics to be discussed are property sale and acquisition, again, with potential action to follow. So they're going to be 30 minutes with a return time of 810. We'll need just a few moments to clear the room.

Right. Thank you, Caitlin.

Mayor, if you want to go ahead.

You want to bring this back?

I'll do it. Welcome. We are back from executive session, and we have a motion. We move to authorize the administrative staff to take the actions necessary for the acquisition of the trail easements required for the construction of the Phase 1 of the Bayview Trail on the preferred route, including obtaining title reports for the affected properties and appraisals necessary for offers to purchase prior to seeking condemnation authority. Do I have a second?

Second.

Motion and a second. Any discussion? I just want to thank our staff for helping walk us through this process. It was very informative and we look forward to ongoing completion of the trail. All right. Anything else?

I just wanted to say that I appreciate them sharing with our substance surveys and comments that this is one of the most desired things. So it's always exciting to see Marizone Lake Stevens working together to accommodate that, make that happen. Absolutely.

All right. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye.

Any opposed? Thank you. Motion passes.

Okay.