City Council - Regular Meeting

I was almost the culprit myself this time with the reverb. All right. Welcome, everybody, to our Tuesday, July 21st, 2026 regular city council meeting held here in City Hall and remotely by Zoom. We're going to start off tonight with the invocation, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Please join me. Your Father, thank you for bringing us together today to do the work in the best interest of our community members, those both in the city and surrounding areas. May we have respectful dialogue and keep good intent in mind and inspire a thoughtful discussion. Amen. Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Go ahead and call the meeting to order at so one. Our roll call. House member Darrow. Here. House member Seavers.

Present.

House member Ball. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Dunn.

Happy to be here.

House member Klingler.

Here.

House member Kurtz. Present. House member Fisher. Here. Awesome. All present and accounted for. We will move on to agenda approval. Mayor Pro Tem.

Madam Mayor, I ask that executive session number 20 be removed from the agenda tonight.

We do not have an update from the hearing examiner, which is the request. We have a motion. Do we have a second?

Second.

Second by Council Member Sievers. Those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? All right. Thank you. Do we have any other requested changes to the agenda tonight? All right. Not hearing any.

Madam Mayor, I move the agenda as amended. Second.

We have a motion and a second by Council Member Sievers. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion passes, 7-0. All right, we're up to citizen comments. I don't have any sheets, but anybody in chambers here who'd like to make a citizen comment at this time, we have white half sheets by the door over there if you want to fill one out and get it to Rochelle at the end of the table. If there's nobody interested at this time, we will have a chance at the end of the meeting, though I won't go through the rest of the rules unless there's someone online who would like to make a citizen comment. Is there anybody? Not? Okay. All right. We'll roll right through that. And again, there will be another opportunity at the end of the meeting. We have no appointments tonight. We do have announcements, proclamations, and special presentations. Chief Soto, welcome back. Good to see you. We have Spokane Valley Fire Department quarterly report.

Madam Mayor, Council Members, and fellow Liberty Lakers. Although I'm not a Laker fan, I was a Sonic fan, but the story. I'm just waiting, madam. How's everybody doing? Good to see you. I've been busy. I'm sorry. I've been gone a lot. There's a lot of fires.

Everybody stay safe.

Not the burning side. Other fires. Other issues. Oh, look at that. There's a little figure of me.

That's a new one.

It's a little thing.

It's reminiscent of 80s photos, right?

All right.

We're getting Bill in there too.

Probably wish you had some police officers in here. We're not. They all wanted to be firefighters. All right. Good evening, everyone. This is your second quarter report. Next page, please. All right, so for the month of June, I'll start off with June, and then we'll go into the actual quarter part for Liberty Lake. So for the month of June, we had 1,934 911 calls. Of those, roughly 82% were for emergency medical services. Next slide. This is a heat map of the 1,934 calls. You'll see the bulk of them were in the Opportunity neighborhood in the city of Spokane Valley. Next slide, please. So the calls, total calls to date for 911 is 12,406, of which 83% were for emergency medical services or EMS. Next slide. Of the 1,934 calls, those calls generated 2,369 responses. So as stated in previous meetings, not every 911 call requires just one unit. A lot of them do require more than one, and that's why that number is higher. It should always be somewhat higher. And then the 12,000-plus calls generated almost 15,000 total responses. If you look towards the bottom there, you'll see – Oh, wait, sorry. I feel like a weatherman. This area right here, we have roughly eight units with over 1,000 calls each and three over 1,500. So again, we're constantly moving and shaking. I don't know. Maybe I brought it with me from Albuquerque, but man, this... The only thing that has slowed is this Liberty Lake area, but we'll still kind of look at that and you'll see what I'm talking about here in a minute. Next slide, please. So of the call volumes of the location in the fire districts, and I say fire districts, but fire boxes really is what it is, where the location of the calls have come from. The first three areas, Station 8, 7, and 1, which again is that opportunity neighborhood, that generates roughly 45% of our call volume. If you throw in the next two stations, we're already almost at 70%. So those three stations are really busy. And you can see station three is probably right where I want them. And so that's been good for these guys in this area. The availability is much more or they are much more available here. Next slide, please. This is our auto aid. So again, for those that are new, auto aid, we have auto aid partnerships with D8, Fire District 8, Fire District 9, the City of Spokane, and Kootenai County Fire. And what that means is it's the closest appropriate unit goes. So even if it's my response area, but somebody from Fire District 8 is closer, Fire District 8 goes. And so we do this all the way around, and it helps share resources, and it gets you, our citizens, the right unit as fast as we can. So auto aid-wise, we went out 120 times. We provided auto aid, and then we received auto aid 112 times for the month of June. Next slide, please. So this is our year to date going back five years as well. And so the last five years have been the busiest. You can see that we're only a half a percent above last year's run numbers, which were the busiest we've ever had. So we're still, like I said, we're still moving in the direction north. And so again, I don't know when it's gonna slow. Next slide, please. The June itself, though, was pretty much the same as the last five Junes that we've had. Here's a heat map of the current year to date to give you an idea. Again, orange is the heat source of the busiest calls, green being the lightest number of calls. Next slide. And so now we'll just go into Liberty Lake's quarterly report. So this is just the last three months. Next slide, please. So we had a total of 322 calls of those roughly 78% were for EMS. Next slide. This is a heat map of the calls that were generated. And again, we have to make the bubbles a little bit bigger just because we can't show where they're exactly at due to HIPAA and PHI, but I'm trying to still give you an area idea of where your calls are generated. Next slide. For the 300 plus calls, you had 395 responses. And of those, you'll see that Engine 3 handled almost 65% of them. So again, that's good. They're right where they need to be responding to the bulk of the calls in their area. Next slide, please. And this is what I was talking about earlier. This was the busiest June or the previous month was the busiest June we've ever had. But overall, this has been the slowest. And I say that with air quotes, the slowest quarter, the second quarter that we've had in the last five years. Now, it's only by 35 calls. So I'd say it's more consistent with what we've had the last five years. That is your report. And now I'm here for any questions you may have.

All right. Does anybody have any questions? I was going to ask if there's anything you can tell us about the fire south of the city limits Sunday night into Sunday morning. Quintimose and Broken Lance.

look at this. So I, uh, it's funny. Everyone started calling me and they're like, do we go, what's going on? Give us a status. And those were just friends. Those, those were, weren't the firefighters. I'm like, everybody, you know, I'm like, it's all right. Be cool. Everybody was on this right away. Uh, T8 did a great job. We had a bunch of units there as well. Uh, jumped on it pretty quickly. It was only 11 acres. I say only 11 acres, but it's still 11 acres. Um, It's still under investigation, but I would say I can't say much more than that about it. I know that their social media has said what they believe it was. I'm not saying it wasn't. I'm just saying it's still under investigation, so I have no comment on it. But for those that are listening or watching, Stop with the fireworks.

Thank you. Obviously, it was District 8, but I'm assuming that there was nobody, because I know several people who evacuated, there was no pushback from anybody, I'm assuming. Did you hear anything?

There was not, actually. And it was good. So people are signed up and they're receiving the alerts and they're actually listening and following the alerts. I know that there's been some alert issues lately. We're working on that with the emergency management for Spokane County with the communication because some of the alerts are coming out as alert, you know, level two, and then it says downgraded. Don't go anywhere. And I know that is... That is confusing and it, and some of them have gone off county wide. You know, people contacting us from all over going like, hey, what the heck? That's like 20, 30 miles away. Why'd you send it? And so we're working on it. There's some issues. So we are addressing them.

We have some great handouts at the fire department. I think they came from emergency management, not through SDFD, but it's basically a thick file folder pulled up and it's got all the instructions on what you should be prepared to take and everything. And I know personally, after that happened, I'm going mentally through my mind because I've been reorganizing my garage. Okay, what boxes do I mark with a big red X so I know what to grab and go? But I think it's a really good wake up call for all of us to know what we're going to grab.

Have a go bag. As I'm telling you, it's going to be a bad year. And we've already had, we're averaging about nine of our personnel are out deployed right now on moats helping other cities, other states. And if you probably look around, you see how the weather is right now. This is like usually August, right? That's our fire. That's our fifth season, fire season, the smoky season. And it's already here. So we're pretty concerned. I would be concerned. I'd have a go bag. I have one ready to go. Yeah. Yeah.

All right, Mayor Pro Tem. Yeah, I was just going to extend a thanks to some personal friends, a family who was affected and evacuated, gladly had their swimming pool drained in support of putting the fire out. But great work by all the first responders. Thanks. Awesome.

Anybody else? Council Member Ball. I'm just curious, how many fires are burning around, I mean, just in the county? Do you know?

I can look it up pretty quick. I don't say, hey, use this or use that, but I use for myself WatchDuty. It's an app. It's pretty accurate. I'll tell you, it's pretty accurate. That's a lot. When I usually look at them, there's a fire here, here, here, here, and here. Not so much right here where we're standing. That's how many fires are going on. It's burning everywhere. We're completely surrounded by fires.

All right. Well, thanks for being here.

Yes, ma'am. All right.

You conveniently missed the dunk tank again this year. Every year. Just keep trying. All right. Reports and inquiries. City Council. Anybody have a City Council report? Mayor Pro Tem.

Hey, we're off to the summer movie season Friday this week, or Saturday this week is Zootopia 2 at Pavilion Park. So come with us and enjoy as a group.

Great.

Anybody else? Council Member Ball? We had our first meeting of the Capital Facilities Plan Working Group and just started to kind of prioritize some projects. And it went really well. And I think we all kind of agree that roads are really important.

Okay.

Mayor Mrakas, Council member Fisher Thank you so rich and I had the opportunity to cater for the hub for their founders and something dinner rich. Mayor Mrakas, Any anyway, just what the hub does is phenomenal and amazing, and you know I remember the day that the gentleman came in with the idea and back the time it was near Peterson. wanted, you know, they drug him out there and drug me out there. And I had panting hose and high heels on and sticker weeds. And it was, it's a true, if you build it, they will come. And we're so blessed to have that in our community and Phil Chaplin, the guy's angel. So happy to help.

All right. Anybody else? Okay. All right. Mayor's report. I don't have a lot since last meeting. We had our SRTC board meeting, lots of reports all the time. It was a fairly long meeting. There is a consortium of Western states kind of grouped together and tried to work together on federal transportation policy as well. So we had a bit of a longer session on that because there were a couple of things in that policy statement that they were trying to pull together that that not that the SRTC board necessarily disagreed with that we hadn't talked about it as any of our priorities and policies. So we were able to tag, I think there were four items in that letter to the federal government for federal funding and priorities and whatnot. We were able to get the board to agree to those four and then we will be adding those to our discussions with those in the SRTC policy going forward. Chamber networking. meeting last week at Trailbreaker and upcoming tomorrow morning. I don't know if there are still seats open, but the State of the Valley event through the Chamber is tomorrow morning. I've got the Regional Advocacy meeting for GSI later this week and then the Chamber meeting the following week. It's middle of summer, so some of our board meetings slow down a little bit during these two months. So that's, I think, all I've got from my side. So that's up to Mark, City Administrator, to report.

All right. Thank you, Mayor. Members of the Council and our guests who are either in the Chamber or online, I want to walk you through a couple of reminders of things that are upcoming before we get into some briefings that we have for you. And the first one is just to put this on your radar. I think you may have received an email from the Public Works Director regarding the future City Hall tour that has been scheduled for Thursday August the 6th and that's gonna be at 9 a.m. and so if you're able to make it great if you can't we can we can get something downstream of that scheduled as well but that's that's the schedule for this and we'll get out another reminder just so you have it on your calendars Beyond that, just another reminder, today is Tuesday. We have a series of questions that fit into the budget engagement. category that we call Talk Back Tuesdays and that will go through Tuesday, August 11th. And really what that is is an opportunity for residents to provide input into the budget process that's then used by department heads as they're going through and making their budget proposals. And so it's important for us to get that prior to putting pencil to paper on the budget and And so Talk Back Tuesdays is going to be out there for another couple of weeks. There isn't anything that says you can't go back and answer questions from the past. In fact, that's what we would like for you to do to make sure that you're able to provide input on all of these things. Beyond that, we're planning to have a community meeting to get sort of a collective understanding input from the community on the 2027 budget the community engagement commission tomorrow at their meeting is going to discuss this and come up with some final details and so the date on that is to be determined but it's it's going to be sometime in august really for it to be meaningful for the budget process it really needs to be done before august 21st and so you'll get more information about this as we finalize the date and then start messaging it out So for all of those events that we've just talked about, any questions about any of those before we move on?

Just real quick, one thing I forgot, and I'm surprised Chief Soto didn't mention it. Friday, I just had to look it up again, at 11 a.m. at Station 3, they're going to do an engine push-in. So they've got a new engine being delivered, and the tradition is that people show up and we literally push it into the station. So I got to do that many, many years ago when they did one over at the old building. So if you're looking for something to do at 11 a.m. on Friday, come help us push a fire engine into the house.

Thanks, Mayor. Those are always fun to attend and see the, because the firefighters get really excited about that.

So it's good to see.

Moving on, we have a briefing for you regarding summer event attendance. We had talked last week about possibly bringing some data back to show you. And so as that is coming up, I'll also use the opportunity to remind everyone that July, every July, is National Park and Recreation Month. And so we would continue to invite everyone folks to come out and enjoy our parks for the remainder of the month in particular, but not only in July. As Mayor Pro Tem pointed out earlier, we have a movie in the park coming up and there are all other kinds of planned activities. So get on our website and check all of that out and come enjoy our parks this summer. And so what we're going to show you is some attendance or visit trends. And I'll explain why I'm using that word in just a minute. As you know, we are using a piece of software called Placer AI to do some foot traffic analysis. And one of the or the main unit of analysis is a visit. And so the way that they define a visit is that a person enters an area and we get to define what that area is. And in this case, we're talking about Pavilion Park, which you'll see in a minute. But when a person enters that area using a cell phone, they're tracking that movement. It's all anonymous. There's no issue with tracking individual movements, but they're aggregating all of that. And they have parameters for what defines a visit. And what doesn't. And some of that changes depending on the place that you're at. But generally speaking, it's anything over 60 seconds. And so if you show up to a place, stay for at least 60 seconds, it's counted as a visit. And they're not counting multiple returns from that same device. And so you're not getting one person counted multiple times if they leave and come and leave and come and so forth. And so as we go into this, if we can go to the next slide, please, it'll say I think what I just said. Essentially what this is, they're estimating total visitation based on that data point that I just described. And so it's not like a turn-style count where you have a head count, but it's a close approximation and it gives us orders of magnitude. and certainly comparables that we can compare one event with another event in a place. Next slide, please. And so if we look at Pavilion Park as just a what's called a point of interest, a place, you can see the visit trends over the last three complete years. And so those are months. And it wouldn't surprise you that the summer months you see the peaks going in the middle of those years and then coming back down at the beginnings. And so you've got this peak trough happening with visits to Pavilion Park. And you can see over 23, 24, and 25, July, August are heavy use or heavy visit months for Pavilion. And we can do this for all of our parks. The one caveat that I will add now, because we're talking about the 4th of July, is we know that people gather at the school grounds to watch the fireworks. One of the things that is common to place or data, regardless of the user, so it's not because we're a government user, it's any user, is they do not allow you to access data for places that are schools. So we can't access that data. It's not that we don't want to know how many people are gathered over there. we can't access that data using PLACER. So we don't have a visual into who was gathered at the schoolyard, but we know it's more than what we're seeing here for particularly July 4th. So if we can go to the next slide, and now we're going to go down and look at events. So if we look at July 4th plus Barefoot in the Park over the last several years, you'll see that the blue portion of the bar is July 4th and the green portion of the bar is barefoot in the park. And so what we talked about since we combined barefoot this year with July 4th is what does that look like attendance-wise? And so you can see in 2026, we're not going to have a barefoot portion of the bar this year. So July 4th outpaced 2024's combined visits for July 4th and barefoot, but lagged a little behind both 2023 and 2025. And again, we're not capturing any of the people who came and just went to the schoolyards to watch the fireworks. So in 2026, we had about 8,600 visits for that event over that period of time. Next slide, please. If we look in the pre and post trips for that event in 2026, You'll see that this split is happening. And what you're seeing the labels represent are categories. And the next slide will show specific locations. Go back one before we get there. So you'll see most people are coming from home and most people are going back to home. immediately before and after the event and then you'll see shopping centers and all the others and so you get that breakdown and so this is every visit to pavilion park on that date at the immediately preceding place and the immediately following place is what you're seeing here by category Now, if you go to the next slide, you get more of a breakdown. And this is these represent the top ten actual locations pre and post. And because of just the nature of people and where they come from and where they go. There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these individual places that you would see if you looked at this full report. We're not going to bore you with that detail. But the top 10 of both pre and post places or locations are shown here. And so you can see that, you know, people are coming from shopping, coming from gas stations at different places, and then where they're going specific location wise immediately after. And so this is the kind of access that we get and we're able to look at for these kinds of things at any of our parks or any other commercial location in the city. Next slide, please. And that is that summary. And so if there are any questions or comments, happy to discuss those.

Not seeing any.

All right. So we can move on to our new staff member introductions. And we've got three folks to introduce you to, a couple from the library and one from the finance department. So I'm going to turn the podium over to Jandy Humble to introduce the new library staff member for you.

Sir, just a quick comment. There was... somebody in the audience that wanted to comment. I just wanted to remind that we do citizen comments at certain times.

Oh, was there somebody raising their hand that I missed?

Yeah.

Yeah. So we have citizen comments at the beginning, at the end. So if you want to make a comment at the end, we have white sheets on the side by the door over here if you want to fill one out and turn it in. Hi, Jandy.

Hi, guys. I have two new staff members to introduce you today. First, I have Kathy right over here in the green.

Yes.

Kathy is our new children's librarian. She comes to us from the Spokane Public Library system where she's worked for many, many years. So we are really excited to have her as part of our team because she has lots of experience and jumped in with both feet. I asked her when she started, I was like, do you think you could start doing storytime in like three weeks? And she's like, I could do storytime tomorrow. Like, what are you talking about? So we really enjoyed having her as part of our team. um the other new staff member we have is chelsea hello hi um chelsea has worked for us for four years now um she was our our story time substitute so whenever miss aaron or i was like out of town or sick or something she would jump in and do story time for us and now we have officially made her a full-time member of our team so we're really excited to have her so she's our new children's associate um so she assists with all of our story times all of our after school programs check out and check in, all that kind of stuff. So both of these ladies joined us in June. And as you know, summer is our busiest time at the library. So they had to jump in and hit the ground running. We had a meeting like the last week of May where it was just like, This is what we have so far for summer reading. We got to finish this up. And we got it all done in like an hour. So they are incredible. And we are so happy to have them. As you know, we have so many families who come to the library. And these are the faces that they like to see the most. So they make a huge impact on all of our families and visitors at the library. So we are incredibly grateful to have them. If you have any questions for them, they're ready to answer. Congratulations. Yes.

Anybody?

Thank you for your service to the library. I appreciate it.

You've got a great little family there that you're working with. We all know that. All right. Thanks.

Thank you, Jandy. Thank you, ladies. And now a new member of our finance department on the IT team. And I believe actually Shane is going to introduce Michael. And so they're coming up now. The risk here is nobody's running the meeting now.

Kyle's on it in the background, I'm sure.

Hello, everybody. I'm very happy to announce that Michael Vigu, if I've got the name right. Yes, yes, because now there are two of us in the double the sized increased capacity now of our in-house IT team here in the city of Liberty Lake. And Michael joins us with great skills as an IT systems engineer and has been able to hit the pavement running, which has just been fantastic. Very pleased to have him on board.

I know everybody's excited to have you here.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for the introduction, Shane. My name is Michael. I was born and raised in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Lived there the first 28 years of my life and moved to the west side. Had multiple IT jobs, no IT jobs at this time over here. So I just knew, and I'm a Liberty Lake resident, so I just knew I had to move back over here and live in Liberty Lake. And then now I work for you guys, so.

Welcome.

Yeah. Hit the ground running.

I know Shane and the rest of the staff are very happy for your help.

Absolutely. It's been a lot. I don't know how he did it by himself. I can say that out loud. They say it every day.

We are all happy that Michael has joined the team, particularly Shane. Some of you may have seen some information about the Nyland stormwater project. And so I wanted to ask Ben to come up and kind of talk to you about some of the conditions on the ground. And I'll turn it over to him.

So I am happy to report that the investigation is complete. I can tell you what happened. Um, so we, we, we started our project, our stormwater project yesterday, and we figured we'd give you an example of what the project is going to prevent once we're completed. Um, so what that project does, it collects a lot of stormwater. You saw, may have seen some of that on Facebook, uh, last night. Uh, so what happened was, and, and Bill could elaborate a little bit too, because it was, it was kind of a joint thing with the water district. They had a line, a loop line that wasn't actually attached to any residences, but when they started excavating around the line, it just gave way. They didn't actually hit the line. So, uh, A little bit of water. No domestic users lost any kind of water service, but we got a cap last night and we're back on schedule. We expect to finish next week. So we'll be putting in, like I said, stormwater structures that will gather all that water that's coming down the hill. We'll stop flooding Sandy Beach and the trailer park there, as you saw last night. But yeah, by the end of next week, we should be all wrapped up. The road will be back open. It looks like everybody's been able to access the golf course as well as their homes pretty readily. So, so far, so good.

So the pipe that was there really, it wasn't supported like it would be today.

It was not. Yeah, it didn't have the thrust block. So as soon as they moved the soil around the pipe, the water left. And it was an old, I didn't believe it was, I talked about the water. It was an old potential expansion from the previous purveyor. And so it just kind of been left there for a while. So that's why nobody was connected to us. That was the good news about that.

Great. Any questions? Go ahead, Council Member Ball.

Is that little trailer park there that's, you know, they have lake access. Is that part of the city?

No, no. The county line really stops right there at the corner where we're really cutting the pavement, literally long our line. So no, that's county property.

Thank you.

Great. Go ahead.

Quick question. So have you ever had water lines that were tree trunks hollowed out? Have you ever seen that?

No.

It's in the city of Sheen all over.

We try not to see the water lines, to be completely honest. We've had two, and I know Bill doesn't like seeing them either.

So I was like, no way. You guys are joking. And I went out there, and it's legit. So yeah, it's crazy what they did back in the day.

All right. Thank you.

Thanks, Ben. And then finally, we have an update for you on the city logo. If you'll remember our last conversation, we gave a notice to proceed to visit Spokane to start working on some concepts that we wanted to bring back for you. And so we have those tonight. I'm going to tell you up front that I'm going to show you the three concepts that we have in a monochromatic form first. So you don't, you see kind of the design before you see the preliminary color scheme, but we're going to see both, but I'm showing you monochromatic first. And then we'll talk about next step. So if, if Shane, can you pull up that presentation so we can go through here?

Yeah, and there are times when we need to use just one color. That's probably the reason we're looking at this.

Yeah, so a monochrome, and thank you, Mayor. So part of the suite of things that we are going to get when we have a final design is a monochromatic version of it so we can use it in those instances. So this wasn't developed separate and apart from things that we would ordinarily be using. But Shane, if you could go to the first slide. So this is concept number one. And like I said, we have three concepts, but this is, again, monochromatically the first concept. And so you see kind of some homages to the current logo in this. We did in our communications make sure that the design team at Visit Spokane knew exactly what from the public engagement effort that went in the front end of this, what people wanted to see, the essential elements that they wanted to see in a logo and so they tried as best they could to incorporate those things into these concepts so this is concept number one if we can go to the next slide and so this is concept number two let me see a little bit different and some other some additional elements that are in this one that may not be or that aren't in the first one. But another piece of this is any of these elements can be mixed and wind up in the final design. So nothing that you see in a one doesn't mean that it can't be incorporated anywhere else. And then finally, sort of a modification of the second concept. If we could go to the next slide, a little bit different take on that concept for concept number three. And so if we go to the next slide now, prepare your mind, right? This is the Willy Wonka or Wizard of Oz going from Kansas to the... whatever they went to with all the colors. And so.

I think it was awesome.

Yes, thank you. It was like Cleveland or something.

Colors can be modified.

Yes. And that's why I wanted to show it to you first without colors, because any of these colors can be modified. So if we can go to slide, next slide, concept one with the colors that came in the original design concept. So here you see it with full color. concept number one, and if we go to the next one, concept number two, and then finally modified concept number two, next slide. There you go. So that's what we have to work with so far. And so if we can go to the final slide, just to give you a preview of what we're planning, we wanna take these concepts, go back and do some public engagement over the next couple of weeks incorporate revisions that we get in that process and come up with a final design that we would propose to bring back to you for approval. And the target for doing that approval piece of it would be the first or second September meeting. And that really depends upon the length of time it takes to get to a final design. Um, and so that's where we are. I wanted to give you that update and talk to you about the immediate future next steps and get any feedback that you may have.

Councilmember Klingler and then Kurtz.

I think they're all really spectacular. My first vibe off of the very first random was It reminded me of the Japanese flag and the rising sun. Somebody else. So that was interesting. But when you render it in color, that kind of goes away. It's not as prevalent when you look monochromatic. The other two I thought were spectacular as well. They definitely had a PNW, Pacific Northwest, kind of stylized vibe to them, which I think is keeping with our region. So I think they did a great job.

Okay, Council Member Kurtz, you're next. I like that you guys took the feedback that the people who engaged with this process in the beginning, it seemed like people talked about having trees and having some of the same colors and things like that. So I appreciate that it feels like the public feedback was listened to in the design. I felt like I can see that in there. So I'll be curious what other people say once they see what it looks like.

Okay, anybody else? Council Member Cedero.

Just briefly on the first one, the monochromatic version, there's no differentiation between the sun and the mountains, which could have just been a line. And for me, that's something that if it was in black and white or was just monochromatic in that way, it doesn't read the same as the color where the other ones do read the same as the color, just colorless. So that's just my sort of initial doing a disservice maybe to that first one when it's put in front of people. And then I, you know, my LASIK has worn off. Right. So, um, I'm, I'm looking at these, um, maybe a little bit differently than other people are. And I think that that's something to consider as well, that some of the font sizes, um, do play a part in what's happening. So, um, for that, I did appreciate the, the first one and some of the larger font, um, and some of the font choices. So, um, I guess we'll see what people say, but that is to me a consideration that, um, there'll be from a distance or people with different abilities.

Yeah. All right. Next council member ball.

Then remember Tim can, can you pull up the last either two or three? Cause they're very similar. Okay. So I'm just wondering on the outline of the mountains. I mean, is that, Oh, that one doesn't have mountains. Go back. There you go. No. The mountain one that shows mountains. That one. There you go. Is that realistic? I mean, do we have a mountain? I mean, and the tree is as big. I don't know.

It's just... One of the feedback, piece of feedback we got was that people wanted a mountain or... Right. Pseudo-mountain. It...

So what we heard a lot during the public meeting was that people wanted to see a vista that was actually realistic. And so I would suspect, and I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth, but I would suspect that we're going to hear some of the feedback being maybe shave the peak a little bit to be more what we actually see. But to the design point, anything realistic, Anything can be incorporated into the final design. These are concepts. Okay.

Mayor Pro Tem.

I always reflect on the usage. A logo is something you would see presented on documents. I'm going to say embossed in certain places on physical features, but I can see that, I think, in any one of these examples. I think they're all definitely reflecting what I've heard at the you know, the community outreach in terms of incorporating ideas and concepts and look forward to hearing what the feedback is from the actual examples.

Okay. Anybody else? We haven't heard from, well, no, we haven't heard from Council Member Fisher or Severs yet.

Go ahead. I want to stick with what we have. Most of you know where I come from on that. So thank you. Okay.

Anything from Council Member Severs? No.

Okay. Council Member Klingler then.

Do we do... Merch. I've never looked up.

Not officially, but we put our logo on. Susan got her shirt on, right? Yeah, we do. We do put it on a lot of things.

I'd like to think of myself as pseudo fashion forward. And I think any of these would look good on merch. And people would wear them with buy them and wear them with pride around the city. So that's definitely an improvement. Yeah, my perspective.

Yeah. Yeah, and a couple of the things that, you know, because Mark and I have been going through this now for a while as these come in. Colors, a person I could see colors came closer to what we already have. The brighter blues, the brighter greens, brighter yellows. And I do have concerns both ways on some of the logos, logos on some of the fonts. We just don't want it to get dated. So those are things that can be tweaked. One of the things I love about this one is that it's got the established date on it.

I really like that. I'm sorry? Didn't that other one have it? The second and third section? I don't know. I lost track.

The one without the mountain but has the trees? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

But the yeah yeah so and you know, like this one on the wing dinghies on the liberty lake not sure about but, again, those are things that. People who are more educated in graphic design than I am can weigh in on. All right, go ahead, customer, move on.

I just have a question. The original plan was to have this new logo by the time of the whole brouhaha, you know, on the 4th. So why are we even doing this now?

Well, because we still just had an anniversary and the timing didn't end up working out with the resources that we had.

Mark? Yeah, I mean, the purpose of reimagining the logo was... not just for the celebration of the anniversary of the incorporation, it's to use going forward as the symbol of the city. We originally talked about having the reveal on that date, but like the mayor said, from a resource perspective, and just wanting to make sure that we didn't rush something that just became not feasible.

Okay. All right. Looking forward to future engagement. Thanks.

So Mayor, that concludes my report.

Okay. And I'm going to jump in back one more time with something else I forgot. So the market schedule is looking pretty bare. We don't have anybody from council signed up for this coming weekend or the next weekend. So if anybody can help chip in, I can try to be there to at least help set up. I can't guarantee I can stay. I've got a couple of things going on the next couple of weekends, but if somebody can, help clear their schedule a little bit, at least for one shift and over the next couple weekends, that would be great. And if you find yourself, I know we had an issue earlier in the season, putting your name in and then you go back and it's not there. If you can give Mikhail a call, he can help out. I appreciate any help we can give. And we did, we made the decision Friday last week because air quality and what the projections were that the air quality was going to be the next morning to not set up. But we now have, thanks to Jen, she's provided the guidance from the Department of Ecology and Health with regards to their guidance on what the air quality levels are and when you cancel. So we may not make those decisions as far in advance now that we've kind of been through that last week because it ended up being beautiful Saturday morning. But that was, you know, I want to make sure that we put our volunteers, all you guys and our commissions, health and safety and our staff as well above anything else, which is why we decided not to set up. So thank you for that. If you can take a look at your calendars, I would appreciate it. Yeah.

In other words, Jen's in this, like, for example, if I sign up for this coming Saturday. Oh, she's going to notify me?

Well, so if you, if most everybody has, and we can provide the link, maybe, Jen, we can provide everybody the link that we're, the official link we might use for the Air Quality Index. I know I just look at it on my phone. And if it's over, you know, if it would be over X that morning.

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. We'll get that. I'll work with you and we'll get that guidance out to everybody and where to look. All right. Next up, Liberty Lakes Water District. Bill, good to see you.

Mayor and Council, Bill Genoway, Sewer and Water Commissioner. So, We are done with the backflow testing, and it's 91% complete. We're probably going to end up with a couple hundred out of compliance, but we're working with these people. It's just a matter of them getting the inspector's information to us, and a lot of times they're having trouble getting somebody to do it. The people that have been around, so it's mostly the new people because they don't really know how to get it set up. Get a guy that comes out and checks it. So we're working with those people. So that's going to be going to be over pretty soon. So I've got a few little facts and figures here, and it's kind of interesting. It's about pumping, and it's very similar to some of the charts I just saw here tonight. And so January, for instance, we pumped 31 million gallons of water. In June we pumped, a better number, July we pumped 271 million gallons of water. So if you take that and look at it realistically, the 30 million is probably residential and commercial use. The rest of it's irrigation. So... You know, if your lawns get a little brown once in a while, it's not a big deal. So every time we get a chance to conserve a little bit on the water, it helps all of us. And we're upstream, so we don't really have a water shortage. But as the aquifer goes down from us, there's people down at the other end that have a little trouble. So that's kind of an interesting little tidbit. Another thing is everybody knows about PFAS. So it's a forever chemical that's in water. So we have all of our wells, we have four of them, tested regularly. And we have the samples have come back non-detect. It's called ND, which means that we're currently, you can trust the water you receive from our systems as being safe. And that's kind of a big deal now, especially on the west side and, of course, up on West Plains. So we're kind of blessed with having a pretty good system and some decent water. That's about all I have. Oh, the patching on Malta is great, by the way. Thank you, Ben. I might have a little suggestion. I don't know how many of you have done a lot of public speaking, but you need to get a little closer to the mic. You do an excellent job. Some of you, not so good. So if you listen to this back, you'll notice that people that don't speak into the mic are not heard.

Good timing because I just had similar feedback from some of our other people. Okay.

Any questions?

Bill, I was talking to a friend recently who had their double check valve inspected and it failed. And do you know, do some of the inspectors also give bids to repair the check valves? They do. Is that not considered a conflict of interest like it would be in a regular home inspection?

It's usually part of their business. A lot of these guys are independent, so they don't repair them, but they have a connection with somebody who does. So usually you need a plumber to do it. These guys aren't plumbers. They're just inspectors. Just a landscape contractor. So the problem is a lot of landscape people put these in and they put them in backwards or wrong. And so that's why they don't work. And the question about why do we do it every year, that seems to be a big deal. We live in an area that freezes and thaws. And every time that happens, you've got a potential for a break. So that's why we test every year. I know it's inconvenient for some, but people have gotten into the habit of doing it now. So we're getting much better results. Thank you.

Sure. Thank you. Any other questions? All right. Thanks so much. Sure. All right. Next up, Parks and Arts Commission. Welcome, Nancy.

I'm going to talk into the microphone.

Okay. Good evening, Council Mayor Nancy Hill, Parks and Arts Commission. And I do have a PowerPoint that they can pull up in a minute. I will say, looking back at the fourth, with all the stats that Mark shared, I think most of them were in our rock painting booth. It was really exciting there this year, particularly because of the new rock garden at the corner. It created a lot of interest. Is that my first slide or my second slide? Oh, okay. Well, they're stapled backwards. I apologize. All right. We'll go into our Parks and Arts Commission projects. There we go. The goat sculptures for Town Square, still a work in progress. I actually saw a picture the other day from the artist of a head of a goat. So I know that they're actually being worked on, but it is a lot of foundry time. And I doubt they're working on it right now. be a little warm. Our city birthday art, for those that have been out, we have our historical outlook down by the pavilion, and then our first two carousel figures. And I will say the carousel figures, they are so user-friendly. They're so great for kids. And I mean, the second... We unveiled them, kids were on them, and every time I've been by since, they are. So we're really inspired as a commission as we look forward to our next budget process to continue to add figures to it so that it's a full circle. And then the artist, Peter, had an idea that we could do a little kind of connector thing to actually make it look like a carousel. And I think that... It's such a great vantage point in the park, so I'm really thrilled with that birthday art. As I said, the budget is a work in progress. We hope to adopt it in August. And the Rainbow Bridge, we're still waiting on a concept from popular companions. They're working with a landscape architect. So at some point, that project will come forward again, and you'll find out a little bit more. Next slide. Our Rocky Hill basketball mural is nearing completion. And I will say the artist, Melissa Cole, has done an outstanding job with that. I mean, it's phenomenal. She did need just a little bit more blue paint to complete it. So that'll take about a week to get here. Then we'll have Aero Concrete come in and do the striping, and then we'll be all ready to go. But it looks fantastic. And what a pop of color as you pull into the parking lot. um, to the park and it's fairly bright. It's very bright and it's very cool. Um, yeah, it's, uh, when it gets done, I know the kids and the adults are going to be thrilled being on that. Uh, the baseball field story walk, uh, that's for 2027. As I mentioned before that Spokane Valley tech, uh, they've already presented the design and then they'll work on it over the winter. And then we'll install that, um, over by the baseball fields, uh, hopefully in the spring. we're working on getting some benches installed at orchard park if you've been there along the tennis courts there's a lot of them a lot of stuff's going on there's no place for people to sit and spectate so we'd like to put a line of benches down that walkway on what would be the south side of the courts We're also looking at some possible bike rack designs for the new City Hall. There's some space constriction, so we'll be sending some of that information over to Ben so that he can evaluate it for space, but we want people to be able to bike to City Hall and have a safe place to park their bike. Kramer art dedication. We haven't worked too hard on that because no one wants to be outside right now. But we'll get to that and we'll get that on your calendar. But if you haven't seen it, be sure and drive by. We've already got an artist lined up. It's the one that did the restroom mural at Pavilion Park. And he'll do the people in the ticket booth windows. So that's going to be kind of a fun way to finish off that booth, which was rebuilt last year. And it looks great.

All right. Next slide. Oh, which one? Rolf or Peter?

Rolf.

Okay.

Yes. Looking ahead at some of our programming, we've been developing, delving more into the programming aspect. We're going to have some music in the park. We've obtained a band called Tamarack Ridge, which is country with a little bit of rock.

Good.

It's going to be August 22nd in Orchard Park from 6 to 8 p.m. And you'll see more of that coming out on social and that. But we're kind of excited to try to drive people more to the parks for more family fun in the summer. So that's a new area for us. And then we've also looking at chalk art. It's my understanding we did that a number of years ago, I believe, during COVID. And we're bringing that back. And that's going to be October 3rd for driveways. And if people don't have a driveway, they can sign up to do some chalk art in the parks. We're working through the final details. There'll be a registration process. And then a little map and it'll be really fun, I think, for families to kind of look at that. And if it rains, we have a rain date. So we'll look for more programming as we go through that. Next slide, please. This is our project that we've been working really hard on the last couple of months. The Harvard Road Trailhead, there's going to be a new park there. It's my understanding Greenstone is developing, and it's called Ripple's Park. And this is the four sides of the new restroom building there at the trailhead. And you'll see it on your agenda tonight to vote on that artist's agreement with Ellen Pickin, And this is the design that we're looking at. And I think it's going to be a nice kind of welcoming spot of color as people come into the city and go to there and the new park and it should tie in nicely with the theme with all the blues. Next slide, please. Our other building mural project we've been working on is at Orchard Park. This is the concession restroom building. We're only focusing on three sides here. The backside is fenced and has a lot of mechanical stuff. So we're not working with that. This artist, Yolana Yuen, has presented this design that we have selected. And we're really excited. It's going to be vibrant, add a lot of nice color. There's a nod to the farmland and the orchards and things that have come before. And that also is on your agenda for this evening. And our final slide. As always, I welcome questions and any feedback on our projects. Councilmember Kurtz.

My only feedback is

that I love the pictures of the art. I'm excited to see what you guys have done, especially over the last probably year and a half, two years since we sort of committed to like the goats and the art and making things really look nice. And it's really just, you guys have been able to put together and see the, you know, what things will look like moving forward. So thank you guys for all the work. It adds to the city. Thank you.

Absolutely. All right. Anybody else?

Yeah, I looked at the artists today, just some of their work, and I was impressed. I mean, they do an amazing job. Some of the pricing, you get a little bit of sticker shock when you're looking at that. But just researching it, those kind of murals are pricey, but you get what you pay for. And maybe this will come up, you know, during later on in the agenda in the vote. But it was interesting that we're responsible to prepare the surface for the mural.

Well, and I'll maybe let Jen speak to that, but the artists don't really know what's happened to the building before and that and whether it's been coated or treated. And so we've incorporated that unless the artist particularly wants to do the prep themselves. We want to make sure that the paint and everything adheres correctly, just like we have to prepare the basketball court, for example, at Rocky Hill. It has to be And that we do the basketball courts in conjunction with the resurfacing and relining of the court. So it all makes sense to do it. But that's kind of the thought process behind it.

And is that factored into the overall cost?

Yeah, we usually have an artist budget and then we have an extra more budget added on that's for any kind of prep, supplies, install, like for installing the carousel figures. For example, there was some concrete and footings and those kinds of things. So we build that into the budget. Only a portion of the budget is what the actual artist receives for the project.

And then I had just one last question about an anti-graffiti sealant. Do we do that just to kind of protect that investment?

I think we've done that. It doesn't always work wonderfully, I don't think. But it does help to get graffiti off. And I think that we've done that. We do that. Not the bosses back there. One thing I didn't mention is we are in the middle of working through the selection process for the city hall art. There's some council people, some citizens and some staff on that committee. And we're working on the selection and narrowing down and discussion of the commission pieces and, and, the portable pieces so commission pieces will be the large kind of impact like when you walk in and the commission pieces will be smaller that might be in conference rooms and possibly council chambers and that but when you brought up the artists and and the quality of the artists we really had a lot of submissions I thought for that and some great opportunities to you know see what's out there and pick something that's going to work for for City Hall.

All right. Any other questions or comments, Council Member Ball?

This is really more on your quarterly report. So maybe Jen would know more about this. But I was kind of surprised that there's so much vandalism in the parks this summer. And I'm nervous now about not being up at the mic here. So, I mean, we put in those fancy new cameras. How come we're not catching the perpetrators? Or are we?

I can't answer that. We don't monitor the...

I could partially answer. We talked about it in our public safety.

You can get closer to your mic, Rick.

And the vandalism is mostly happening inside of the buildings and not to the buildings. And you obviously aren't going to have... cameras inside of the restrooms um so it's a little bit harder for the cameras to pick it up and then to respond to it so um there's not like an immediate plan on how to address that well there was a photo of some red squiggly graffiti over something i can't remember and i just thought you know we spent a lot excuse me a lot of money on those fancy cameras and they should have

Pick that up. The inside or the outside?

The skate park. Well, the skate park and then at Rocky Hill, the rocks, the boulders.

So Deputy Chief may be able to shed some additional light on this, but from a camera perspective, as you may remember when we brought the item before you to upgrade some of the park cameras to the Verkata system that we talked about, that all has happened. And so part of the future plan capability that that brings to us is, I think, much clearer views of some of those areas. To Councilmember Klingler's point, we're never going to have visuals of inside of the restrooms. And so all of the vandalism that is occurring inside of the restrooms is, unless uh people are caught in the act which has happened we have caught some people in the act um the the camera isn't going to help us much there but uh deputy chief do you have any additional comments regarding camera placement

A lot of the camera placements are there and they do work really well. And the investigators have looked through all the cameras in order to try to define anybody that might be doing anything. It's just hard to catch somebody that might have the actual equipment in their hands actually doing the things at the time in order to establish who they are. And then, as you know, just by identifying pictures and looking through video footage, sometimes that camera footage is so far away, it's really hard to get any defining features off of them.

uh i can however say that is an ongoing investigation and there may be some photos being put out later to see if we can get some identifications off individuals thanks thank you anybody else have any questions for parks nerds councilmember darrow um i was wondering on the on our city website i know we have a lot of the art featured either in events or at the different parks do we have anything that is just specifically for the different art projects that have been completed

Up anywhere. There is an art. There is an art map on the, uh, on the city website past that. I don't know if there's a list, but there's a, you can click into each item on the map and see a little thumbnail about what the project is. Awesome. Thanks. Yeah.

All right. Thank you. All right. Well, let's keep Jen up here. Um, next on our agenda, our first workshop is pavilion park play structure.

I have a few slides to share. And I've got Jen Dial here with me, who took the reins and did our parks plan. So I've been working with her through the parks plan process. And I believe, is Chris online, do you think? Chris Overdorf? Yes. Yes, there is. Shall we promote to? Yes, please. Please promote him. It's Overdorf. Is that right? Yeah. OK. So I think the goal this evening is to have a discussion with the council and get some guidance regarding the scope of this project that I'm working on that RCO grant, which I've talked with you all about previously. When you do the RCO grant, it's really important that we put the information into the application and into the presentation and that it is as close to the actual scope of the project that we're going to do and right that's really difficult to do because we haven't even been through budget season yet um we do have 374 000 dollars slotted on the cfp uh and have had it in there for a couple of years at least. So we know we have a set aside amount of money to put towards this project for next year. But as we went through the parks plan process, we received a lot of feedback through community engagement from citizens that use the park. And we heard a lot of citizens saying that they would like to see the playground be expanded. So the original plan in the CFP, the $374,000, was to replace this play structure like in kind. And that is where that number came from. And it's grown a little bit every year with inflation and whatnot. $374,000. I've done some research that will get us a like and kind replacement. So if you could go to the next slide. I'm going to share these slides with you. So keep those points in mind before and then hopefully at the end we can kind of discuss what council's thoughts are on the scope. The existing playground structure, I will note that is the only play structure at Pavilion Park. We have the splash pad. That's a splash pad, but this is the only play structure. It was 1997, so it has fulfilled its useful life. Did you want to mention the condition rating? So in the parks plan, it was determined that it has a condition rating of two.

Yeah, and so the Recreation and Conservation Office, state agency that kind of gives out guidance on ranking and the National Recreation and Parks Association has methodology and metrics that they recommend for ranking. A two is nearly the bottom. So it starts at five. If it's perfect, it's brand new. One is this is a liability, you should close it. So that the playground received a two, we noticed major structural issues, cosmetic issues, maintenance issues, and the potential for reliability issues.

So while it's still deemed safe, we have the slide boarded off. It got vandalized a while back. And rather than replace it, and when you replace things like a broken slide, it is not cheap. So we chose to make the decision to not replace it, knowing that we were going to hopefully have a new structure at some point soon. You know, it's not unsafe yet, but we don't want to wait until it is unsafe and then have a bigger problem on our hands. But you can see in the pictures that, you know, there's powder coating peeling away, the tiles are very worn, the plastics are starting to crack. It's been well loved. Next slide, please. So the other issue with this playground structure being so old A couple of things. In today's age, we have what's called inclusive equipment as an option. Inclusive play equipment goes a step further than ADA accessible. And so ADA accessible, essentially, if I can summarize it, gets the person to the equipment, but that's kind of where it stops. So it might have a smooth roll-in feature for a wheelchair, to get to the play equipment, but the equipment doesn't necessarily engage that person in that wheelchair, using that as the example. Inclusive equipment actually will put a person who is in a wheelchair, roll them right up to it, and put them on the play piece so that they can engage on that piece the same way that kids who aren't in a wheelchair can engage, and they can all be together on that same piece of equipment to play on. It's a fairly new trend, but it is a very passionate trend that we're seeing, and we did receive a lot of feedback on community engagement through the parks plan process on people wanting to see inclusive equipment. The other thing about this playground is the lack of shade. We did hear that. These items were all listed in the community feedback that we received. So they're not coming from staff. They're coming from the citizens who use the park. Lack of shade, that area is very warm. So splash pads next door, but it definitely could use some shade. There is the shade of the big trees around the edge of the playground, but that shade does not reach over onto the playground as of yet. And this play structure was designed for five to 12 year old age group only. So play structures come in, I believe there are toddler structures as well, but the typical structures are two to five year age category and a five to 12 year age category. And so right now, I mean, for 30 years, there have been little ones playing on a five to 12 year age group structure, which it has worked, but the recommendation would be to span that a little bit and build something, put something back that, you know, provides for a broader age range. So I mentioned the other, there are no other play amenities there. And I think ever since I have been here, I have heard people call and say, why don't you have swings? We want swings. They want swings. The issue with swings, if we did put swings in there, is we would have to expand over into the potential fallen hero circuit course area. There's not enough footprint in the existing circle there to put swings in. Swings are unique and they need a very specific and very large footprint for the The way that they swing and there's got to be so much space to the front, so much space to the back. So, you know, as we have been going through this process, we have been sort of racking our brains to decide where could we put the swings. There's not a huge amount of room for us to grow in that little bowl that everything sits in. We could potentially relocate the Fallen Heroes circuit course at some point and put swings there and a couple of other play amenities, and that would work. So again, think about these options. When I talk about expanding the playground versus liking kind, these are all things that we heard through the community engagement. Next slide, please. So this, you cannot read this, but it's familiar to all of you. It should be. It's the CFP, the six-year CFP. This project has been on for a few years. Next slide, please. So these are just some comments that I thought we'd share. This slide is actually on the RCO grant presentation. A little feedback from what people's opinions are, but it just kind of proves the point that they want swings, they want more structure, acreage. They'd love to see an upgrade versus the like and kind, and the existing play structure needs to be replaced. Next slide, please. So after the parks plan was developed, staff decided that we would continue a community engagement survey online. And I believe we had, I looked at it today, 482 responses. Does that sound right? Uh, we ran it for a couple of weeks, a couple of weeks. We wanted to continue the conversation and keep it fresh in people's minds. Uh, so that when we came to you with this information, it was still fresh information. Uh, and, uh, this is, this tells the story, you know, if, uh, you have two options, would you prefer to see the city take half the liking kind, or would you like more and. 90, what does that say? 93% said replace and expand, not just replace. So that's, that's a pretty heavy way in. Next slide, please. And then we added a final question to the survey regarding would you be willing to pay more property tax or through sales tax or other taxes? And if so, how much would you be willing to spend to renovate the Pavilion Park in the expanded way? And 70% of people said that they would pay, that's tiny, between 12 and $60 per year. So that's, again, that's pretty impactful. Uh, that's that's good information for staff to have, but I think it's really good information for council to have as we, you know, decide what the scope will be on this project.

Yes, was that 70% of the total. Total respondents, or just 70% of people are responding to this question.

So it was you don't forget your microphone. It was 70% of the people that answered the question that they wanted to replace and expand. So only those people answered the question about, would you be willing to pay more for the expansion? Perfect. Appreciate the question too.

Awesome. Next slide, please. And this is an example. It's purely an example. It is by no means what we're anticipating. But it gives you an idea that if we just replace the existing structure where it's at, this happens to be a 2 to 12 structure that's all one. And it falls... around the $463,000 to $500,000 cost range, give or take, just for perspective. If we moved over to the side where the fallen hero circuit course is, then of course, you'd have the added costs of removing the circuit course. you know, basically rebuilding it elsewhere in the park. The recommendation would be to keep it a pavilion. I have actually reached out to the Fallen Heroes group that fostered those and they are in full support. In fact, we got a letter of support from them for the RCO grant to propose moving that course if need be and adding more amenities for the playground. so but this again this this is also an inclusive uh option so an all-inclusive playground 2 to 12. uh this this would be a minimum recommendation i i suppose from staff i did get a recommendation from uh It was a true like-in kind, 5 to 12, and it had a separate 2 to 5 play structure, two very small structures side by side, and it was to the tune of $300,000. But it wasn't inclusive, and it didn't provide for the feedback that we received from the community, other than update the structure. That's the only checkmark that that would provide. would provide.

So anything you want to add?

I mean, just just to talk a little bit about engagement from the parks plan as well. I mean, the parks plan was just adopted pretty recently. So that engagement took place last summer. And we heard a lot of feedback specific from the community about Pavilion Park. It's one of the most loved and used parks in your community. I think going back to some of Mark's slides earlier about visitation, I think that park received 145,000 visitors in 2025. So definitely high use and just thinking about the population growth in the city over the next 20 years and the demand that'll be on that particular system and thinking about just projecting out into the future. If a playground has roughly a 20 year life cycle, What type of facility would you want to provide for the city over the next 20 years is something to think about, and I think you're projected to be around 22,000 people in the next 20 years so that's just some context for you to consider as you think about this. one thing from the the parks plan as well was just looking at your demographics and the large percentage of young children under 10 years old in liberty lake as compared to even spokane county or washington state you have a higher percentage of young families here so there's there's that consideration And then in the capital improvement program, that's kind of the mini CFP that's in the parks plan, the community weighed in on that, thinking about investment, how they would want the city to invest dollars in park improvements in particular. And Pavilion Park was ranked, the playground specifically, was ranked number two out of the top five projects there. So definitely community support for all of the things Jen has mentioned. Yeah.

So I think if we could have some discussion or I would appreciate feedback on the scope of this project, then that will help me round out the RCO grant presentation, which is coming up here in a couple of weeks. And it'll be the final presentation. And so if I can leave here tonight with enough solid information of what we think is going to be a comfortable scope for moving forward on this playground next year, next year and a half maybe, then I can fine tune that RCO grant and that just all puts us in a better situation with the competition of the RCO grant. So a reminder, the RCO grant is matched dollar for dollar up to $500,000 if we place.

All right, before I go to comments, just rough numbers. Say it is a million. We take that whole $500,000 and match it. At a 20-year lifespan, that's only $50,000 a year. I think we need to look at it in... I know it's a large chunk up front, but I think at $50,000 a year, it's well worth the investment for our community and the kids. I'm just going to start everything off with that. So who would like to go first? Okay. Council Member Pro Tem, then Council Member Ball.

I'm very interested in the age range and specifically expanding the age range well beyond the current five to 12. Your references that two to five is a different category. I'm not an expert, of course, at a playground equipment, but I definitely can identify with the number of two to five year old, I guess it's a, you know, children in our community. So I'd say I'm very interested in expanding that age range to include the, I'd say, span from two to 12.

Council Member Ball.

So this particular rendering, so it would fit where the current one is, if only if we move the hometown heroes things, right?

No, this one, this particular image is just the existing footprint. Fallen Heroes is not even on the picture right now. And this is what age range is this?

Two to 12. Two to 12. Okay, thanks.

No. Council Member Kurtz.

I'm interested in listening to the community. I think that it sounds like the engagement that you guys have done, that the community is willing to potentially pay for this and then is interested in having it expanded. So that would be my hope is to have it be bigger. And then I think you guys actually reached out to the

grows forced to see, and it sounds like they're supportive of moving it.

So if we, thank you, can find and engage with the community again on where a good place for that might be. I think those would be two things that I'd be interested in moving forward and expanding. And then the swings, swings are a really big deal. And the elementary school took their swings out. There's no swings and the kids know and they're expensive from what I hear from my 11 year old. Who heard it from the school? I don't know. I don't know how that came about. But there's no swings. And they would really like swings. It's a very easy activity for kids to be a part of. So I'm supportive of the project and expanding it because it sounds like that's something the community is interested in. We'll, of course, have to figure out where the funding comes from as well and talk about that coming forward.

And Rocky and Orchard have swings. They do, yes. But Pavilion does not. Yes.

Yeah. Okay. Councilmember Darrow and then Klingler.

Yeah, I'm certainly in favor of expanding. And as far as Fallen Heroes, I got a lot of personal feedback whenever I was at Barefoot in the Park or other just engagement opportunities that a lot of people felt that it was unsafe that close to the playground. And when we first moved here, one of my kids was pretty small and it was nerve wracking to kind of watch and babysit that all the time. At the same time, I absolutely love that we have those. I think it's so awesome that we're we're doing the following heroes course. And I think it's a great opportunity for adults to work out at the same time. So, um, I think maybe a separation there would actually be beneficial in a lot of other ways too. Um, definitely think the swings are something that's really missing and people have talked about a lot. Um, so I, I'm totally in favor of the expansion. I love, um, going from two to 12. And I also think that if it's a match up to 500,000, I think that's a That's a good place and not that far off from the 473-ish that you were talking about. So to me, the big ask is kind of where I'm at.

Council Member Klingler?

Yeah, I'm also in favor of expanding it. I think we need it now and we'll need it even more as we grow. I'm interested a lot about the inclusivity aspect of it. It may not be a ADA requirement, but I think with OHANA here and that need being present in the community, I think that that would show that we care about engaging. I am interested in learning more about the cost difference between the regular equipment and updating it to inclusivity, what the age range would be for those pieces of equipment. the safety concerns and stuff like that, what types of challenges kiddos can actually participate in it. I also want to echo Councilwoman Darrow's comment about having the fallen heroes equipment, our hometown heroes. My daughter's a nanny and she cannot keep the kids off of it and its proximity to the playground. So I think it's a great opportunity to relocate that, have it more, you know, in an appropriate place for adults to use and reduce the safety hazard.

Council Member Seavers.

uh i think it's an excellent project i'm fully in support of expanding and doing basically exactly what you're saying my number one comment would just be let's do it right and move fallen heroes whatever we need to do to make this right for 20 years from now it's lasted 30 years at this point it's probably gonna be there a while so we need to move fallen heroes expand whatever this area is awesome to go after a grant and get matched dollars it's fantastic use of city resources so thanks for your work

That's Mara Fisher. Thank you for your presentation. I personally have lots of grandkids, and we have five that are seven and under. So the toddler aspect is important. We've got little toddlers that think they have big legs. And also the inclusivity, I had a chance, we had a birthday party over at Lake Basinger, and they had an all-inclusive park for children with special needs. And it was amazing the difference that it does make. So I fully support this. Thank you.

And 10 votes from me for the mommy and me swing. I got to use the one at Rocky Hill Park for the first time yesterday. It's popular. Same thing before, plugging the little 14 month old over there. And that was an amazing little invention to be able to sit there and swing and have the baby right across from you and watch them fall asleep. So the more of those, the better.

anybody else about council member ball back to you i like the mom and me swings too um i was just going to say you know speaking of the proximity of the fallen heroes it's right next to the playground at um rocky hill you know so i mean it also gets a lot of use from children the one at rocky hill yeah yeah they try to get on it yeah but i support the project it needs to be done and 2 to 12

I would just have one last comment about an ETA when it drops down to one, because we don't want to wait till one. We probably, it would have been better to do this at three, you know, or something like that so that we reduce that. So do we have a timeframe around that?

Well, the goal with RCO and Jen, correct me if I'm wrong, because Jen is way more familiar with RCO than I am. But I believe I put on the application that, I mean, technically the project would hopefully begin in 27, probably wouldn't be till late 27. And then you have to wait, you have to go through a process with RCO if you do get grant funding. which I'm not fully understanding quite yet, but you get it. I want to say spring, springtime is when the RCO grant starts coming, you know, kicking back in and you start working with them on your project. And if we were, let's just say to install a new playground late summer, early fall, which is a really good time to do it because all of our activities are done for the most part. And then wrap up by 28. But by then, you know, the first thing we would do is pull the old one out. So that would be right at the head of the project. So 27 would be the goal.

I agree. Thank you.

All right. Thanks, everybody, for your hard work. This was a great project. All right, thanks. Next up, our workshop on the STA Proposition 1 ballot measure. We all had our presentation by STA a few weeks ago. I've heard it two or three times now. And just the reason for the workshop and possible, there is a resolution on the agenda for later, should you guys choose through this workshop to move that ahead. um to to support to come out as a council and support it or not so i just kind of like to open it up for discussion on whether the council is open to voting on the resolution i know there's been there's been times in the past over my 16 plus years here where the council has decided to support or not support things other times when they've chosen to not take a position at all And it's really varied over the years. So instead of just making the assumption that, no, we're not, you know, you guys don't want to vote our show, show a position on this at all to let you guys talk through it since we have basically a whole new council and kind of go from there. So I'm not sure who might want to go first. I might suggest Mayor Pro Tem since he's on the board. But I know you will have to recuse yourself probably from, I mean, I don't know for sure.

Does Dan gonna have to recuse himself from any vote if this goes forward since he's on the board?

Okay, all right.

I speak in support of the resolution specifically as a participant in the board and the observation of the staff and its operation. This agency, in my opinion, is one of the best run, I guess I'd say in perspective, definitely within the state of Washington and possibly within the greater United States. It's an agency that has operated with a fiscally conservative position, and I'd say never, I'd say spent into debt. That's an important action to consider for a public agency and specifically transportation. As we look out across the state of Washington and see public transportation agency mired in unbelievable amounts of debt in order to perform projects, this is one who takes on only projects if they already have the funding to present. So in that regard, yeah, I speak for observations of the actions of the agency. I speak for Connect 2035, the strategic plan, to be able to step forward and incrementally add service in support of it. I'll mention the North-South Division Street BRT project, which is ongoing within Connect 2035, and that ongoing grant opportunities are actually dependent on the inclusion of this as a funding mechanism. So I see this as really, I guess I'd say, agreeing that what they have done so far is acceptable, and we will proceed at the same rate.

All right. All right. Don't everybody raise your hand at once here. Councilmember Klingler.

Ditto. Yeah, the presentation and just some additional research that I've done. I love the fact that they promised on certain projects. They funded it from existing funds and they executed on all of those projects. I love the projects that they have. in the hopper for going forward and increasing the service level and the types of service that will be available to the community. And I also echo the fact that they run a very tight ship there as compared to other transit authorities. So yeah, I'm full-throatedly in support of it.

Thank you. Councilmember Sievers and then Kurtz.

So when I hear STA, I'm by and large immediately in public transportation. I want to share a couple of opposing points only because I heard them this week. So one of them is they've expanded from a 10-year sales tax to a 20-year sales tax.

I think the last one was 16 years, wasn't it?

It was approved in 2016. Oh, am I bad? It goes out in 2018. So that can limit, that can limit accountability on an organization. I agree that they've been a fantastically run organization, but it limits accountability and it limits voters' ability to go double check that they still like that tax in the future. So expanding to 20 years. Another piece is going to sales tax. Sales tax is sort of aggressive tax. It's really, it hits lower income people the hardest. Lower income people are also the people using these systems, but that's a, it's a worry and we're all talking about 0.2 percent but that you start adding them up with all the other sales taxes that are coming in it's it's a worry um and i guess the last point is um we've got other ballot measures coming up that this will be competing with people will hear more taxes so i'm i'm in favor of st i'm in favor of supporting our support of it but i think it's important for us to think about that um and uh as you guys are thinking through how to vote tonight.

Right. Council Member Kurtz next. When I was looking at this, I wanted to make sure because we talked in the governance manual process about ballot measures and if we would or wouldn't do it. And so I checked in with Sean today about kind of where we landed with that. And we didn't say we wouldn't do those. So I wanted to make sure that whatever discussions we had about ballot measures or whatnot in the future, wouldn't be contradicted by whatever we would be doing tonight. The other thing that I looked at were our legislative priorities and our strategic priorities. And the strategic priority, number one, quality of life and connectedness. One of our strategic priorities is we will connect transportation networks so community members can travel freely and easily throughout the city using a variety of modes. So I feel like this directly connects to one of our strategic priorities. And because of that, it would be in favor of supporting that from a connection of all of our priorities together. Good points. Next, Council Member Fisher.

I kind of echo with Council Member Seavers that, you know, STA is totally debt-free. They have been for a long time. They do have subsidized and lower rates to benefit riders who need that service. My understanding is they also have a reserve of $230 million. And I realized that this current tax has expired. And that's my understanding, Sean, if I'm right, that's why it's on the ballot is because it has expired.

The end of 28.

28. It will expire. So, you know, it is a renewal, but it's not a renewal. It's an expired tax that the voters have to say, yes, I want to be taxed again.

So, yeah, renewal, I think, is probably the best description.

Correct. Also, I'm a big supporter of STA. I wrote STA when I worked at the Federal Building for 15 years. I loved it. Took a nap on the way home. I think it's one of the most efficient modes of transportation in many cities that I have seen. and um i do support sda but i do want to point out those facts that you know they are debt free they are a very um wealthy uh public transportation organization and so we just want to be careful um with those points in mind so thank you all right thank you all right now let's get let's finish everybody else we haven't heard from council members darrow or paul yet go ahead

On what Annie was saying, I was thinking along the same lines that a city's partnership with public transportation is very important and clearly part of our vision of the future. So I think if ever we were to support or consider a ballot measure, it would be hopefully about something that we're deeply connected to. So for that reason, I would say that I think that we should consider it. At the same time, I do want to be careful about what that looks like and what other ballot measures we've turned down interest in or what might be coming up. I just think that's an important piece of that, maybe more so than the ballot measure itself.

If I may just speak to that for a second, and I'll grab. So the one that was in the most controversial was the last couple years was a state measure, which is the one that came up in the past. The ones that we've supported have been around public safety. Dan, jump in and help me with this. Public safety measures. Public safety, public safety. Yeah, they're not coming to my mind right now, but we have definitely weighed in on the local measures as it affects our citizens.

When this came up last time around, did we? Oh, 16.

Oh, gosh, I had to go back in the archives on that one. I don't know if it was discussion or not.

It was a couple of years ago.

Well, the STA was back in, like you said, 16.

And on another note, also, as far as Dan recusing himself, if it's up to any of us, I think that we appointed him, we chose him for this, and I would hope that he would be able to speak to that.

Yep. Okay, Council Member Ball. Well, okay, I'm very pleased that STA is doing so well and that they're so highly thought of. However, one thing I want to say, though, is just regarding our internal, how we're doing this, I think that when we are going to, what's the word I'm trying to think of? you know, recommend, that's not the word, endorse this or whatever, that it should be a majority. I mean, or not a majority, a super majority, because that last one we went through, that was hair-raising. And, you know, there was a lot of us that were not happy about it. So I think it needs to be, we need to be thoughtful about how we vote on this. It should be, like I said, that everybody, you know, at least five of us are in favor.

No, I think it's probably, that's not how it's structured right now. So it's something we can look at on the governance manual going forward, but that's not something that can be changed for tonight. Council Member Darrell.

I also am excited to put this in front of voters, to be honest. So I think this is one of those times that if majority of people are not in support of this, we'll see that. And if they are, we'll see that too. So I'm also willing to take that chance to put it in front of people and see what they have to say. Council Member Klinger.

This is just a comment about their reserves. And Mayor Pro Tem, correct me if I have this incorrect. The reserves are there so that they could get match funds from grants and things like that. And it's also there so that they can prove that they are fiscally responsible so they can get those fundings. And for a rainy day kind of slush fund in case of any decrease in service and or emergency service needs.

I quickly observed that the connect 2035 as well as financial projections call for the spend down of that specifically on capital improvements. That these monies in reserve are actually already targeted and budgeted for regarding, for example, the complete replacement to zero mission vehicles. Under not only the state of Washington, but federal federal standards, they're looking at retiring all diesel powered buses. So for whatever alternatives lie ahead, whether it be hydrogen or battery electric, the agency is facing considerable, specifically one-time capital costs in order to fund. That I think is critical to consider when it's like, you don't fund ongoing operations with what might be reserved cash. That's really dedicated for what you consider are one-time expenses or capital that ensures the agency's ability to operate. Good point.

Yes, their savings account for big projects. And it's great that they can pay cash for those projects.

Called for and budgeted in 2035.

Yep. All right, anybody? Go ahead, Council Member Sears.

I guess the first point of order would be Should we vote on whether or not we want to take a stance on this?

It's come up a couple of times or can we just kind of give a head nod on do we want to say if there's no what I'm hearing is that you probably want to go ahead and move to the resolution that's already on the on the agenda.

So unless I do we agree that we want to take a stance on this?

Is there any objection to moving to taking action on the resolution? Is there any objection on taking a vote? Okay. Sometimes that takes a year.

And that's fine. Mayor, I was just going to say that if no one moves a resolution, that it doesn't. Right, exactly. So that's the other option.

Yeah. All right, great. Thank you so much, everybody, for the thoughtful discussion. Next, weed control practices. We're going to turn this over to a few people. I think Mark's going to kick it off.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. So we wanted to take the opportunity to talk a little bit about the city's weed control practices. And so we're going to take this in essentially three slices. We want to talk about regulatory requirements, our maintenance responsibilities. treatment methods that we use, and then levels of service associated with all of that. And so the first slice that you're going to hear is from Jen from a parks, ball fields, open space perspective. Ben is going to come in and talk about kind of rights of way and streets perspective. And then Sue is going to present the code enforcement private property perspective. And so with that, I'll turn the floor over to Jen.

Thank you. So I think the most important thing that I could share with you on how we manage our weed populations in parks is by priority. It's a priority-based task. If we get a weed notice or we have noxious weeds in our parks, which we do in a couple of our parks and on the golf course, we have a couple of bad areas where we see repeat offenses of noxious weeds. Those are generally a letter from the weed board or from our code enforcement that she'll let us know that, hey, you've got noxious weeds, you need to get it taken care of. That is our number one priority for a weed problem. Second priority is, you know, the example of Pavilion Park, 4th of July. all the focus went to that park or that big one-time event. So most of the work that we do get to undertake regarding weeds, weeding flower beds, weeding around the playground, that's the priority for that event. So it can be a visibility slash event-based priority. Then Generally, each park from there, each park has its own set of staff. It's either one or two staff that takes care of each park and they will maintain the rest of the weeds the rest of the time. We have been very short-staffed this year. Two of our four crew supervisors have been out on extended leave. So it's been making it very difficult. And we've had Orchard Park and Rocky Hill Park, both irrigation systems had significant failures. And so when that happens, all priorities are dropped and the focus is on taking care of the irrigation system. So it's a constant shuffle. The priorities of weed control in parks is a constant shuffle. We also have to weigh in the fact that if we spray in a park, We are not always supported by the community in that process. So we try to spray very little, as little as possible in parks to honor those that, you know, don't maybe understand weed sprays and hand labor is not ideal. Hand labor is, We do use it if we need to. So between using chemicals to control weeds or hand labor, it's a tough call. Chemical control is a much quicker process and hand labor is cleaner, but takes a lot more resources to get things under control. And you're weeding again in two weeks. So then, of course, it's the goats. You know, we've used the goats over the years at Rock Hill Park and Pavilion and actually down on the golf course. They went home early this year because of staffing challenges. We just we didn't have the capacity to keep moving them from pen to pen to pen. It takes a lot of labor to move those goat pens. So we made a call this year, which we've never done before, and said, let's just take them home. It's one less thing for staff. So we did that a few weeks ago, and it's helped ease the load on staff quite significantly. So I think that's kind of it in a nutshell for parks. Are you going to do questions per section, or do you want to wait until the end?

If we can, let's wait until the end so you can get all three slices, and then we can start with the council discussion. Great.

Thanks. Ben? Ben?

So obviously Jen mentioned noxious weeds. We have a very similar process for that. County sends it out, usually gives it to me or Sue, and then we go take care of that priority-wise. Obviously in the summer, Public Works is very busy with road repairs and things like that. So we have basically, we're responsible for any weeds in between the two curves. Medians, the trails, the grass along the roads in certain parts of the city where we have our roadside crew take care of that. I think we've got a good handle on that. We use a lot of pretreatment. We're mowing weekly most of the time. So a lot of our things that we're going to respond to and be more proactive going forward are those curb and gutter weeds. And that's something that we have to do mechanically because we have 55 miles of road in the city. We can't hand pull that. So one of the things that we've looked, we're actually going to be spraying Abaway and Liberty Lake this week. And so that's really our first line of defense. And then what we've really got to figure out is we've got some issues with our air sweeper. We bought a sweeper three years ago. It's slightly undersized for a city our size to do streets. And it is constantly broken down. So it's currently in the shop. We try to get all of our mains swept at least once a week, typically on Mondays when the garbage trucks are running around so we don't have to bother with garbage cans and things like that. And then in residentials, it's typically monthly based on our schedule during the summer. So we haven't been able to keep up with that. So you're going to see, you've seen a lot of that build up in the curb and gutter that turns into weeds. We've also put an emphasis on stormwater cleanouts, and I've actually talked to a couple of the supervisors in public works to say, okay, can we share some of this load? Because some of it's just grass that builds up and then weeds build up, and organic material typically turns into weeds if it's left for too long. So those are some of the things that we're responsible for, like I said, pre-treatment, getting that done more periodically. In the past, we've used the county. They've got a crew that will come and basically spray the weeds. They weren't available this year. They really aren't available until February. when we contacted them a few weeks ago to kind of get our annual. So we're going to do it ourselves. We've got some of the equipment. We're going to take a day and take care of mainly the main priorities, which are arterials, kind of work out there. We really don't have capacity to go into residential streets. And that's a lot of our A lot of our miles are in those residential streets. So really the focus will be on the arterials, the medians, the roundabouts. And those roundabouts and medians, we try to focus on one area because we're behind, really. We've done a lot of, as Public Works has stood up, we've stood up that horticulture group with Dan and his folks. And he helps with parks as well, assisting Jen's guys. But getting that staff to the right size so that they can focus. It's just hard to focus on everything all at once. So we've tried to focus and make other things better one spot at a time. Next year specifically will be Harvard, the roundabout, the median, so we can improve that. And so we've just kind of had to focus. We've triaged a lot in the last couple of years. We're trying to get more proactive.

Thanks. We're going to hold questions till the end.

Oh, I'm sorry. That's okay.

Um, so my focus since I've been here regarding weeds has been more of the bigger picture, the undeveloped parcels, um, the mowing back from sidewalks, um, finding out who the property owners are, who the property land managers are. and getting those parcels taken care of so our staff doesn't have to mow that um so that's been my focus i mean when i drive around i do see all the weeds in the sidewalk cracks and in people's driveways i mean i definitely see that but you know the scope of it is so large that i've kind of just started with the vacant parcels and then worked my way through um dealing with that um you know, now that I know who the property managers are, the land managers, you know, a lot of the times it's, I'll just send an email now instead of having to track them down and figure out whose responsibility is this. I have contacts for almost, every vacant parcel in town now. So I can save time by sending a letter or sending an email or not sending a letter, but sending an email or making a phone call. So that has helped. But again, my focus has kind of been more big picture in the big parcels and mowing it back from the sidewalk. So I haven't really got, um, focused on to the, you know, the weeds in the sidewalk itself. I mean, I know we have codes that will let me do that. And if I started enforcing, that would be a more big picture, like social media, um, sending stuff out on social media, um, doing stuff with the HOAs, sending notices out. Because I got a complaint today, a resident who was complaining about her neighbor's driveway, cracks in the driveway and weeds. So that would be more of a sending a notice to the HOA or having the HOA send out emails for me so I can... hopefully get people to comply on a grand scale and then targeting it as I go if, if I don't have compliance. So that's kind of been my focus so far.

Real quick, but not really a question just for clarification, high level, your process, you, you know, this is the first communication we, you give them this amount of time to respond high level, go through that real quick.

So typically, it depends on what the complaint is or what I see. If it's something that's popped up before, I'll just make a phone call or an email. If it's something I haven't dealt with before, if it's a resident, I'll try and knock on the door or leave a door hanger. If it's If it's like a business, I haven't contacted before, I might send a letter. It just depends. I try and mold it to how I'm going to get compliance the quickest. And then just resources, time. And sometimes voluntary compliance takes four or five tries. It might start with a personal contact. It might be a door hanger. It might be a letter. It's just kind of all of the above. Just try and get them to comply. Thank you.

So, and correct me if I'm wrong, from a voluntary perspective, I don't know that we have any specific built-in timelines. However, if we get to a place where we issue a notice of violation, then by code, there are 30 days for that cure to happen.

Yeah, so I try to avoid the notice of violation as much as I can, just because it locks me in. I mean, I do a lot of poking at people to get them to comply so if you issue that notice then you can't do anything more for 30 days is what you're saying well the the notice of violation once that goes out they have 14 days to appeal it the the code gives us 30 days to work with them if they don't appeal it that that window is still open that we work with them to try and get them to comply with

All right. Now we'll put up the questions. We have Council Member Fisher first. We've got everybody kind of on standby here.

Sure. First and foremost, thank you, staff. And this whole presentation, I own this. This is me. I asked for this to be put on the agenda. And the reason why is that I'm either at the Rotary booth or the city's farmer market booth. I have two full pages of citizens complaining about the, and I'm not talking about sidewalks. I'm not talking about the, you know, the Safeway area that should be dealt with the Safeway. Thank you. I'm talking about where the asphalt and the concrete come together. That's what I'm talking about. And I realized there's regulatory sprays. You got to remember, I've been a city manager of seven cities. I know this, and I know there are sprays available for that. And I get frustrated because people elected me to do my job. They know who I am. And I've had so many people say, I'm so embarrassed about the way our city looks. And we got to do better. And it's got to start with, with us, with city council members, with community and with staff. And my understanding is there's a hundred employees at the city now, a hundred. And it, I defend my city. I love my city. You all know that. But how do I tell people who say, and if I wanted to live in another part of Spokane that was unkept, I would move there. I don't want to live there. I want to live in Liberty Lake because Liberty Lake is the premier address of the community. And we're the most beautiful community, this side of Washington state. And that's my personal opinion. So we have to do better.

Well, I'm not going to make any suggestions at this point. I guess we look at that when the budget comes through. Because you've heard from everybody, we are short-staffed and short-handed. And short of dedicating several full-time employees to this, I don't see any way around it. But we can talk about that when the budget comes up.

May I follow up, Mayor? Absolutely. First of all, there's spring application. You can put that spray down. And you can put it down twice a year. It's very simple to do if you have the right equipment. And I know you're looking at me, Ben, and I know that. And it can be done. And it can be preventable. And spray is a lot cheaper than hand pulling or anything else you guys can do. And again, it's the city's responsibility, the weeds that I am talking about.

I think we have Council Member Ball first, then Klingler.

I have two questions. One's for Ben. When you said that the Street Sweeper is always in the shop, we bought that new, right?

We did.

Well, isn't there a warranty?

It was a one-year warranty on it. So we're actually talking with the manufacturer to see if there are some... avenues to uh a different sweeper so we're kind of in the middle of that because like i said it's been on the shop four or five times this year same thing last year so well they should make it right yeah we're working on that right now we're exploring leasing options things like that as well okay good and then the other question i have is um regarding spraying what are what do we spray when you do spray So it'd be a product called glyphosate. Jen probably knows a little bit more about glyphosate. It's basically the old roundup that is not sellable at Home Depot anymore. So you have to have a pesticide license. We're actually increasing how many people we have that so we can use it more because we only have a couple of folks that you can even touch the stuff in the city staff. So that's who has to, you know, we have, that's the only folks that can actually use it, whether it's in parks or on roadside. And so that, yeah, that's the commercial grade weed killer, basically.

And do we want that going down into our aquifer? Right. I mean, that's a general, and I'll confirm, yes, sir.

And there's lots of, I mean, there's conditions for spraying. You can't spray during high winds, things like that. You can't spray when it was about to rain, things like that. So you can time that correctly and like council member said.

But doesn't that have forever chemicals in it?

I don't know enough about glyphosate to answer that question, but I can have Dan put together something for you.

You're saying glycosate.

Glyphosate.

With an L. Yes. So that's different from glycosate. Okay. Because glycosate has PFAS in it.

Okay. That's what I was saying.

Well, should we even be using that?

It's available. It's a commercial grade available product. So we have been using it.

Yeah, I don't like that.

Councilmember Clingler, you're next.

My question was also about the chemical being used. And I think, Jen, you mentioned that residents have complained about it. And is it because it's not pet friendly? Or what is their chief complaint?

We have some folks that are very against chemicals. And they make their voice heard. I do my best to explain to them what the purpose is, that we follow the labels, we follow the directions. It's the same passion that's behind Council Member Fisher with get rid of the weeds, put some spray down. We have that same passion. group of folks that don't put spray, especially in parks. My child is playing on that grass and they're very passionate about it. So it's a tough balance to weigh. It's a tough balance.

I could have my dog come over and pee on it because everything gets destroyed.

Yeah, most chemicals, the chemicals that we use, most of them on the label, it'll say it's safe for pets and for people to use the grass after it's dried. And so in this heat, of course, things dry pretty quickly. But yes, the chemical is still there. It's just once it's dry, it's safe. But again, it's it's a difficult it can be a difficult battle to explain that to people.

Yeah. The balance between it being an expedient way and efficient and non-labor intensive versus... And you can only do it in the early morning because the park gets too busy.

You can't spray around people in the park so that you lose the rest of your day. So you have to shuffle around.

Thank you.

Before we go, I know Council Member Ball had her hand up. We've already heard from her. Anybody else before we go back around? Hold on just a second. Anybody else before we go back around? Council Member Garrow.

I'll just put it out there. Have we explored things like concentrated vinegar or other natural sprays? Is that something that we have explored? And is there a reason why we haven't chosen to do that?

Because they don't work as well. Great answer. Good answer.

Thank you.

Okay, we haven't heard from Councilmember Dunn or Seavers or Kurtz. I didn't know this much about weeds and the effort that you guys put in to think about them and do something. So it does seem like a predicament. When I drive around, I see them, like we put the weed, I'm not with the weed, but the city put in, took the trees out in the center by mulcher and put in the xeriscaping, is that the right word? Yes. And then I see the weeds there and I'm like, dang it, it looks so nice. But I also understand what you're saying about the complexity of when to do that and the hand pulling and all that too. So I don't, I mean, I don't have a question. I just appreciate that you guys are trying to do something and being thoughtful and listening to the community and that there's maybe not a great solution at the moment, but thank you for trying.

There was a whole weed board.

That's true.

Mayor Pro Tem. At the county.

No, I am particularly grateful for the observations of staff and I call it the discernment, the balance in observing and listening carefully to what is the community's need and having to make to some degree a judgment of when and how much and and when. So I'm grateful for that level of consideration, that it isn't just passe, we're going to go do this. It's like, no, we're trying to be responsive to what we perceive in our community. So thanks.

And we haven't heard from Councilmember Sievers yet, nothing? All right, now back around. I think Councilmember Ball had her hand up first.

Well, have you guys ever thought about, you know, where the weeds do grow, like at the sides of the roads and stuff of, you know, do whatever to get rid of them and then just plant like native stuff, you know, and wildflowers or whatever, and just

We actually are doing that at Orchard and at Town Square in the flower beds. And it takes, so the problem with that is it takes about three years for wildflowers to really get established enough to fight off the weeds. They will do that, but it takes time. And so in the meantime, you have weeds to pull out of the wildflower patch. But yeah, we're trying to find other ways.

Yeah, a long-term solution.

Yeah.

And they look cool once they're established. Yeah.

Okay. Councilmember Fisher. First of all, I don't have a problem with parks. I want everybody to know that the parks, they do a great job in the parks. I don't have a problem with whatever they do in the parks. That's perfectly fine. But what I'm talking about is asphalt and concrete where people are walking. It's the road. And I do appreciate the fact I don't want anything to harm our aquifer. I do not want that. I do not want the PFAS chemicals. And I know there are chemicals out there that will work that are not harmful to the environment and or to the water. And I will research that and I'll bring that back. Anybody else?

All right. Next up. Oh, go ahead.

Can I put a couple of closing thoughts before the council? So a couple of things to keep in mind as we move forward. One of the things that you will hear when we come back to you with a follow-up with the sidewalk master plan process, particularly with the engagement, is that... From Sue's perspective, as she was presenting, talking about the code enforcement piece of this, the abutting property owner for sidewalks is responsible for the weed control on the sidewalk. And so that would become a piece of the decision making when we get to the sidewalk master plan discussion. Because if the city takes over ownership of sidewalk maintenance, it would include weed control. And so we'll talk to you about that when we get to that. The other thing is just another plug for our budget engagement. Today's question on Talk Back Tuesday is specifically about weed control. And so if you're interested in weighing in on this discussion from a budgetary perspective, get onto our website, click engage online and answer our weed control question.

Yeah, I would say it's interesting that you what you're hearing with regards to, you know, next to the street. What I've heard over the years is more of those vacant properties and like what we saw behind Safeway for months earlier this year. Why aren't the yeah, the long mission there at Country Vista? I mean, that that spot between the sidewalk and the street. I don't know what happened there. But I don't know if they changed landscaping companies or what, but it's those, it's the ones in front of the bridge line. It's the vacant property owners that I always hear the complaints about. Hold on a second.

Go ahead. The Safeway was a property manager that was filling in for someone who was on paternity leave. So his crew wasn't didn't take care of that like they should have. So it just took a while for that to catch up.

Yeah. But I, you know, it's, you know, people riding their bikes from the Valley to Liberty Lake on Appleway or country Vista or whatever that is there in front of Ridgeline 20 years. I still don't know which part of the road that is. But, you know, cause those, those weeds, you know, that are owned by, I don't know who, you know, flop over into the sidewalk. And that's what I've been hearing. And it's, it's just such a challenge. That's why it's one of the reasons I was so glad that you came on board just to address some of that stuff.

Go ahead. Oh, I just wanted to say the one I think is just unsightly as all get out is in front of a Vista's, what do you call those things? The station there. Transfer station. Yeah, that piece of property that looks like maybe it was something at one point because it has concrete and then just weeds.

Liberty Lake and Harvard.

Yeah. No, no, no. Yeah, Liberty Lake Road and Appleway. Before you turn the corner to either get on the freeway or go to the other side. Okay, that piece of property right in front of that utility thing. What is that? Is that a business? Well, can't they do something about it? It's ghastly.

I'll work on that. Okay. I, like I said, like I have a lot of people now that I can just call them up and say, yeah, I shouldn't have to do that. Some of them have been trained to now do regular maintenance, like a long mission where Centennial owns that mission up in the river district. They're mowing that by hand now. Oh, so all of that.

the way down to country vista so that's in progress yeah yeah yeah the piece i'm referring to yes it's gasoline okay councilmember darrow and then hopefully we'll move to the agenda here yeah just um quickly on the talkback tuesday question that asks for the budget um it's The question is asking, we're currently doing $25,000 allocated across several programs to do weed control. And the question is if you'd want more or less or about the same, what would that look like if we were to have more in the budget for weed control? Would that be more staff, more products? What would that look like?

So we would have to come back to you with a proposal, but more would mean essentially more staff members and potentially a mechanical apparatus that would fit under the street sweeper that would make it easier to control street weeds. But none of those options is inexpensive. And so... the, the, the number and both dollar wise and FTE wise and equipment wise, what we would have to go through some planning to get you that. Sure. Sure. But that's what it would be.

It would be a high level question for that. Yes. Yeah. Thank you.

Yeah. There is ironically just today, I looked out my front window on country Vista there in Rocky Hill and there was a guy tooling around. It looked like a small, right. A small stand on mower apparatus with a big tank on it. It must've been somebody that the HOA hired and, I'm like, what, what is he doing? And so that's, he was just kind of riding along and it was slow. I can't imagine how long it took him to, even if he got through Rocky Hill today, but yeah, I think the HOA is actually doing country Vista and stuff in Rocky Hill.

Mayor, if I can make one more comment before we move on. We don't often get the opportunity to have Sue at the council meetings, and so I want to take the opportunity. I say this all the time. Cops, dog catchers, and code enforcement officers have the hardest jobs in city government. And so I just want to take special opportunity to say thank you to Sue and for all she does, because she, without question, helps our city grow. from a beautification standpoint and from a code management standpoint, keep everything on the up and up. So thank you, Sue.

And I know you've dealt with some really crappy people.

And Sue, I've seen you skulking around neighborhoods. I'm like...

And my question is to you, Sue, just one final one. I promise, promise, promise. What's the penalty after 30 days? If, you know, the voluntary, is it like, you know, a pointless sword?

We're going to be here for four hours. Sue's about to get into it.

We could impose fines or I could ask the police department to go out and give them a citation to appear in court. Which then costs us more money. Yeah, that's a bigger discussion. Yeah, thank you.

Mayor, can I make one final? Sure, go ahead. So, you know, we have a big task ahead of us, but I can tell you once the initial undertaking is done and we clean up what we have, the maintenance of that is half of what it would be the original cleanup. It's not that hard. And we need to seriously think about doing this. Thank you.

All right. Next up, consent agenda.

Madam Mayor, I move consent agenda item 11, items A through G. Second.

We have a motion and a second for the consent agenda. All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? A motion passes 7-0.

Madam Mayor, I move agenda item 12A, a donation to the Liberty Lake Police Department. Second.

A motion and a second. Deputy Chief Morgan, can you give us a little bit of a history on this? I don't know if the couple who was here was up here for that or they weren't.

That was a different couple. I'm not sure exactly what they were here for. But the bottom line on this one is a gentleman actually purchased these for a safe room that he was going to build up in his house and realized it was on the second floor. And these are monsters. We're talking about the size of a door, yay wide, six foot tall, and you have to have wheels underneath them in order to move them. So they're great for what we're planning on using them for is putting them into the actual school so officers responding and kids responding or active shooter type of situation will have something to protect them. So it'll actually work out great. But he had these two that were sitting in his garage for a number of years. He never put the safe room together because he realized he could not get them up to the second floor as heavy as they were. So he was moving and he chose to donate them to the police department. I thought that was an awesome thing to do.

That's amazing. Wow, I just learned something new. So now it's amazing that they thought of the PD and the use for that. And I love to thank them.

These online are like to thank you very much. I appreciate that. Great.

Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. Are they portable?

They are portable to a certain extent. So... That's why we're going to actually put those in each one of the schools as far as Ridgeline High School and Selkirk Junior High School. So we actually have them kind of pre-positioned in case we do have something along those lines. We have other portable actual shields that we can utilize. But these are big enough where you can actually put a couple of people behind in order to protect them if they're trying to get out of the area in a very quick time. And they have wheels so you can actually move them as well.

Just not to the second floor without an elevator.

Yeah, probably not going to the second floor without an elevator, but they do work well. And they're level 4A, which is basically any bullet protection up to a rifle round.

That's amazing. Great asset. Great asset. Thank you. All right. If there's no other questions or discussion, all those in favor of accepting the donation to the LLPD, please say aye.

Aye.

Okay, any opposed? I always forget that. All right, not hearing any motion passes seven, zero. All right, we are up to council comments.

Anybody have any additional comments for today?

Not hearing any. OK. Now we have no public hearings or appeals. Next up is our resolution. So Rochelle.

Resolution number 26289, a resolution of the City Council of the City of Liberty Lake, Washington in support of STA Proposition 1.

And we have a motion.

I move resolution 26289. And a second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Okay, not hearing any. We do open.

Is the actual resolution? Oh, never mind.

Okay, never mind. At this time, we do open up for public comment on resolutions. So if there's anybody here in chambers, we have two people who aren't staff, who'd like to make a comment on the resolution or anybody online who'd like to make a comment on this specific topic. If there's anybody online, just shoot a quick note to our meeting host in the chat feature. There's nobody. Okay. And we don't have anybody here. So no public comment. So we will go ahead and move to a vote. So those in favor of resolution 26-289, please say aye and raise your hand so I can make sure I get everybody. Aye. All right. Any opposed? All right, motion passes 7-0. That was easier than I thought. I wasn't sure where that was going to go. Mayor, may I make a comment? Yes, absolutely.

I just want to be clear on this, that the motion we did is to put this on the ballot.

No, just support.

It's already on the ballot. To support it, that it's on the ballot, so the people will have a choice.

Yes.

Thank you.

So, okay, next we have no ordinances, no emergency ordinances. Introduction of upcoming agenda items. You've got your list in front of you. It's pretty much the same as the last time we did add TBD for, oh, I thought we did. Oh yeah, there we go. TBD for the governance manual social media, just to make sure we don't lose sight of that. Then we have our budget workshops and more budget workshops. So just to remind, well, for those of you who are new, so typically what we've been doing over the last many years is, so I'll present the budget early October, you'll get your binders, and then we'll come back and we'll do workshops. And we've been doing separate workshops on that, basically going through page by page, really, and asking your questions. And we do that at separate meetings just so we're not time constrained as much. And we get to, you know, get to have a little bit more open. Back in the day, we did mayor's budget questions. Everybody would send their questions in. They would answer to go back. But sometimes people weren't reading those answers. And we have found that doing this in a workshop format, it drives more discussion, more discussion. more thought. You may not have a question on line item 124, but somebody asks a question over here and now you might. So it drives a lot of great discussions and great questions. And it's great for people helping to understand the different line items. So that's why we've been trying to do them in separate workshops. So when we get to that point, you'll start to see some proposals for workshops on the budget on alternate Tuesdays. So just be prepared for that.

Okay, just one question. Go ahead. For the governance manual, Sean, do you have an update on like, I think we are going to get your visions back out to us at some point to see if we had any, just on the governance manual to see if there was anything out, and then we would go forward with the governance manual. So do you have any updates on that when we might think about it?

No, I mean, I'm through a portion of it. I'd say probably a quarter of it. Give me an idea of where I am in it. So I forget what it is. What is it? 80, 90 pages, something like that. But I'm also going through, Rochelle sent me the minutes to review the minutes too, as it relates to your discussion. So I'm trying to make sure that... what's in the document and what's in the minutes so it's taking a little while to to do that from that standpoint so i i would say my goal would try to be sometime in september okay by the time to get through all of it as far as turn around sometime in september that the council would see it okay perfect thank you thanks all right so anything else on workshops go ahead and just for upcoming um

pieces um maybe a little bit of a report from the different committees um i don't i think that we kind of talked about doing it really issue-based but since we just started maybe just a brief reminder of who's in which committee and just kind of the basics of what the feel is right now no real big issues yeah and maybe within each committee if you guys want to decide how often you want to report and what that looks like maybe that's and And again, I was more thinking just for an initial, just to kind of start that. And then we could maybe decide, like you said, to go on further.

Take a look at the next agenda. Maybe add just a short section there. It doesn't have to be long. We used to do that when we had committees before. We would actually report at every meeting. Some of them were very, very, very short. I looked like you had your hand up. Nope. Okay, great. Okay. Council Member Ball.

Just a question.

The issue we were going to be discussing

Oh, the issue we were going to be discussing tonight in executive session. I know we're waiting for a decision. Is there a time limit on how... Yeah, it was 10 days.

We're at 40?

41, yeah. What? Isn't that illegal or...

No, I'll just leave it at this. We're working to see if we can get some update. And so as soon as we do, we can let you know what's going on. But it's more of a lengthier conversation to get into that than probably we want to have this evening. So if you want to have a discussion, I'm happy to have it with you at some other time.

We can wait and see at this point. Okay. So good question, though. All right. We are back to citizen comments. And once again, if there's anybody online who'd like to make a citizen comment, topics are open. Please send a note to the meeting post and chat. Nothing. And if there's anybody here, don't jump at the podium. No, you keep threatening. Go ahead and let us know. Still nobody online. And I know Rochelle and I had checked earlier, there were no written comments to read into the record tonight either. So, all right, since we have no citizen comments and no executive session, and there's no further business in front of the council, so we'll adjoin at 823. Thank you. Thank you.