City Council - Regular Meeting

all right good evening everybody um welcome to our welcome to our city council meeting uh tuesday august 4th 2026. um before we get started with the invocation i'm going to continue i'm going to keep trying to do a sound check here we have two council members remote so council member clingler can you hear me now councilmember fisher can you hear me yes i can hear you okay we can hear you so now we have to see if we can get councilmember klingler see if he can hear us councilmember klingler we could hear him before but Give me just a moment everybody while I'm trying to get this through chat. Rick, can you say something? All right. I messaged him to see if he could maybe log off and log back on. So Shane, if you can watch for him to come back and re-promote him to panelist. Okay. And we'll do one more double check with Councilmember Fisher. You hear us?

Yes, I can hear you just fine. Same here. Okay, great. All right. We got you on.

We'll continue to work with Councilmember Klingler. All right. Sorry for that, you guys. We're going to go ahead and start tonight with the invocation followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Please join me. Dear Lord, our hearts are heavy right now with everything going on in our area. We ask that you stand by and protect all of our first responders. You give all the victims of the disastrous fires the strength, courage, and heart to get through this terrible time, to encourage them to just stay the course, lean on each other, and have faith that things will come together. We are all there for each other. It's amazing how this community comes out to support each other in times like this. It's very encouraging that we just ask for you to stand by them, stand by our first responders, and put it in everybody's heart in our area to reach out and help where they can. 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.

okay all right we'll do a call to order council member darrow here councilman receivers present council member ball here mayor pro tim dunn happy to be here council member kurtz council member fisher here all right council member clingler i see him so we're just going to make a note that we're still working on communication it says he can't he can't hear anyone but will drop an attempt to reconnect still can't hear us all right we'll keep so he he's present but not able to hear at this point i don't know what we count that as um all right uh so we're not going to do an excusal at this point we're trying our best okay um can you hear me now yes we can can you hear us sorry for that guys yeah um little technical difficulties on my end can you you can hear us though

I can. Thank you.

All right. Glad we're past that. It happens sometimes. All right. So all present and accounted for. Agenda approval. I know we have two requests for changes. Mayor Pro Tem.

Madam Mayor, I ask the consent agenda item E be moved to general business as 12B.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Okay. We have a motion and a second by Councilmember Sievers. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay.

Aye. I would ask that the add to section 17 emergency ordinances, Liberty Lake City ordinance number 317.

Do we have a second? Second. We have a motion and a second by Councilmember Sievers. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. And you'll explain more about that when we get to it. There was an email that went out, but if you're like me, you did not have a chance to see your email later, though of course I knew. All right. Do we have any other requests?

Yes. I would like to move

uh consent agenda item d and then i guess that would be then 12 c okay so you're motioning to move d to 12 c correct do we have a second second okay we have a motion a second let me move this 12 c all those in favor please say aye aye okay any um any uh madame asked that we move that same item out Well, hold on. We have a motion on the floor. So just hold on. All those in favor of moving action items D to 12C, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. So we've got D moved to 12C. What is B? What?

It was item B, right?

D isn't David. 11E moved to 12B? Correct. Okay. And then D moved to 12C. Right. Yes. All right. Never mind.

You're done nothing good. Okay. Any other requests for changes to the agenda? All right, we have a motion to approve the agenda as amended.

of Madam Mayor, I move the agenda as amended.

I have a motion and a second by Councilmember Sievers. Those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, motion passes 7-0. All right, we're up to citizen comments. So if there's anybody in Chambers who'd like to make a citizen comment, we do have half-white sheets by the door on the table. If you'd like to fill one out and get it to Rochelle at the end of the table. I don't see anybody.

Sorry, I filled out this one instead of this one, but I signed the wrong one.

Go ahead and finish filling it out, and I'll go ahead and call you. And if there's anybody online who would like to make a citizen comment, please send a note to our meeting host in the chat feature. Since we are going to have an in-person comment, I'll just remind everybody that the time limit is three minutes and is on any topic. We just ask that comments remain respectful and a reminder that this is truly a comment period and no back and forth with the council. But we will follow up if need be. So Tisha Goodman, welcome. Sorry, that's okay.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. My name is Tisha Goodman, and I'm a resident of the Meadowood Homeowners Association and the general manager of Rockwood Property Management. I would like to start by thanking City Council members for voting to add our community sign to the agenda for further discussion at tonight's meeting, especially in light of all of the critical things happening throughout our extended community, like the devastating fires. As I stated in my July 7th testimony, the Gardens Community sign located at North Liberty Lake Road in East Settler was installed over 26 years ago under Spokane County sign guidelines. The sign was crumbling and needed repair, so the Meadowood HOA Board of Directors worked with a local contractor to make the necessary changes. After the project was completed, we received a violation notice that basically covered three critical areas. One of them was the signed permit requirement, which we remedied in May 2026 when we submitted our application for the signed permit and paid the fees. Number 2 is the sign appearance. Freestanding signs are not allowed. We discussed this with city staff and the meadow with board of directors. On how we can change the sign to to meet those requirements and we have a plan ready to implement and number 3 is the public right of way. So. like many other signs in liberty lake the sign is located in the public right-of-way and has remained in the same spot for 26 years during the july 7th meeting i showed city council members several examples of signs that were approved and installed in the public right-of-way after the sign code was enacted so this suggests to us that a process There is a process that allows city staff to approve non-conforming signs. A few examples of those signs would be the Huntwood sign, which was installed after 2008, and the ITRON sign, which was installed after 2013, both of which are in the public right-of-way. The STCU sign located at 1620 North Signal Drive was removed and replaced with a totally new sign after 2013, which is also in the public right-of-way. So our question is, why is our sign being treated differently? So one solution would be to vacate a portion of the right of way. So my understanding was that the right of way or the right of way in that area is excessively large at this location, which was done to accommodate the construction of the culvert that carries the lake outlet channel under settler. So at the time, the city didn't own that land. So I think this is how they accommodated that construction. And so that's no longer the case. So this would be one solution. Another solution would be to approve the sign as a legacy sign under Article 10-5C-2, which states that previously built structures like signs may remain and we're implementing current code requirements is impractical the exact applicability is determined by the director so the changes to the garden sign that were made did not change the location did not increase the size and did not increase the non-conformity so thank you guys for your time and consideration i appreciate it all right do we have anybody online okay do we have any written comments for show okay

Not hearing any, then we will move up to number 7 appointments.

Thank you. Um, as you are able to see in the packet, this is an item that stems from a scheduling conflict that has occurred with 1 of the members of the growth development and infrastructure committee. And so this action essentially, um. Removes Council Member Klingler from his obligation to that committee and moves to appoint Council Member Kurtz to the Growth Development and Infrastructure Committee. And so the mayor has made that appointment. And so the action item before Council this evening is to confirm that appointment. that will, from that point forward, constitute the Growth, Development and Infrastructure Committee's membership, as Mayor Pro Tem Dunn, Councilmember Linda Ball and then Councilmember Annie Kurtz.

And this is actually a miscommunication on my side. Councilmember Klingler had relayed to me that he can only do one one committee and i must have gone right over that so i take full responsibility for the miscommunication on that um and also when we sent that original list out i probably should have clarified when we put when when the list went out it lists the three members and an alternate there was an alternate for the for the main members of the committee this is an alternate for somebody to call if they can't make the meeting. So we'll get that list back out so each committee knows who the alternate is. So if you know far enough in advance that you can't make your committee meeting, please reach out to the alternate and see if they can stand in place. So we'll get that back out. But at this point, I'll entertain a motion to confirm the appointment of Councilmember Kurtz to the, what is it now? Community?

Growth.

Community Growth and Development and Infrastructure Committee. What he said.

Madam Mayor, I move the approval of Councilmember Kurtz to the Growth Development and Infrastructure Committee.

Second.

Second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

All right, any opposed? All right, motion passes 7-0. Welcome, Councilmember Kurtz.

Thank you.

Okay, we don't have any announcements, proclamations, or special presentations, so we are up to City Council reports and inquiries. And for our two Councilmembers online, if with you being remote if I don't know if it's easier for you to turn your camera on if you'd like to speak or just reuse the raise your hand feature I do have the whole panel up on my screen so I will be watching for you if you want to make a comment but so those are your two options to to participate there so are there any council reports we had council member of all first and then Mayor Pro Tem

I was happy to see that I was appointed to the Federal Legislative Priorities Committee by AWC. They only meet two, three times a year, so it's not a lot of a commitment, but yeah, I just am pleased on that committee. And also, I would just like to mention that I was called out by CERT to go to fairgrounds yesterday to help out with the evacuated animals. But when I got there, they had too many volunteers already from heart. They were all stumbling all over each other. So they told me they didn't need me. So I helped the gal at the gate anyway for a couple hours. So, you know, I couldn't stand the heat and the smoke anymore. But it was, you know, at least I got called out. And I just hope with what's happened that we can take it A little bit. Harder look again at an evacuation plan for our city. Okay.

Okay. That's him. We want to go into that council member. I mean, Mayor Pro Tem and then after that, we've got council member Fisher.

Saturday is another movie night in the park. See you all on Saturday.

Okay. What's playing? What is it?

You know, Big Hero 6 is our substitute Super Mario Brothers. The rights were not yet available.

Yeah.

We are rights managed in our presentations and always respectful.

That's awesome. So, what is it then? Big Hero 6.

It's a great animated movie. Okay. All right. Councilmember Fischer.

Thank you. I apologize for my voice. The smoke and all of that has really gotten to me. And as most of you know, I'm here in Leavenworth and I thought that we would be able to run into clear skies. but it's worse up here than it is in Spokane. And visibility is pretty touch and go. So I raised my children in the Indian Trails neighborhood and my heart is very, very heavy. One of the pictures shown on the television was a house that I raised my kids in that was burning down. So my heart and my love goes out to everyone out at Indian Trail. It's just incomprehensible. So if you can give, give. I know there's so many avenues that are open for giving right now. Just make sure you choose the right one and please give. Thank you.

Thank you. And your hearts go out to you, Councilmember Fisher. And it's got to be tough to watch that happen. All right, any other council reports? Council Member Darrow?

Yeah, also going to be joining Linda on the AWC's Federal Legislative Priorities Committee.

Yeah, surprise.

And I just came back from my last of my Wasalli Collaborative elected leaders group. It was three days this time in Seattle at University of Washington at the Evans School, which is the first time we've done three days in a row, along with an in-person and an online, so that completes the course of the cohort for this year. Dang, it took us, what, six months to get through? There's still, I think, weighing which is the way to go, right? Spread out throughout and thinking on things between or all just kind of cramming it together. But I had a wonderful experience, had a lot of great connections and just looking at things from different perspectives. lots of council members I had spoken to before, got to spend a little more time with them, some I didn't know at all, mayors that I had met, mayors I hadn't met. It was really, really a good experience. I'm really glad that I went. Hopefully, those of you who've done it before, we could talk a little bit about your experience and mine, and I totally recommend it to anyone else who wants to do it next time around. Very interesting and very worthwhile.

What was your project?

So it was initially we were talking about navigating difficult conversations, which I think we kind of wove throughout the experience itself and through our project. And we landed on just more in-person connection, kind of like what you guys had been working on within the region and starting with a small group. So Ben Wick and Rebecca Long from CHINI. and just reaching out to a few others and seeing if we can meet on a somewhat regular and casual basis. Because what we found is when we got together, it was just really quick right off the bat, like mentioning some topic that's going on and not realizing that those of us neighboring each other were dealing with it in completely different ways and had totally different information. not that it was conflicting information necessarily just different pieces of the puzzle so just from standing around each other for five minutes we were able to understand some concepts a lot better and we realized if we could get together on a somewhat regular basis we would have the ability to call someone on the phone and talk to them about what they knew and not having to go real deep into a subject just just what is happening you know 10 minutes from here so yeah yeah very similar to what councilmember kurtz and i did with our project and there was jennifer morton from airway heights and mayor terry cooper so be interesting maybe to get all of us together yeah and that's we can speak more on that later but that's what we were thinking specifically um i think maybe just the timing wasn't right for you know that group or something and maybe it just needed a little bit more but the idea that we both had the same kind of kind of issue that we felt like a lot of us weren't communicating obviously means it's important yep super glad to hear it

Okay, anybody any other council reports? All right not hearing any, I'm just going to focus mine pretty, pretty narrowly here today. We still have in need of people for the farmers market between now and the end of the year. So keep an eye on your calendars for that. Obviously, you know, everybody's been paying attention to what's going on with the fires. I had mentioned this. folder, I think at the last meeting and we had, I put a stack on the table out here and I'll get a bigger stack for the farmer's market, but I'm personally taking one of these home. Can't find my other one. It's been a real eye opener for me that, you know, I don't think I would be ready if somebody knocked on my door. In fact, I've got a fireproof briefcase on order that's due on my doorstep on Thursday. but we do have these they are put out by I believe yep greater Spokane emergency management and it's a list to build your kit basically the one to like you know basically you can have almost everything ready to go and then maintaining your kit and you know personally I'm going to go home over the next few days and get a couple totes and put those sentimental things in there that I know I want to take if the time comes all I have to do is grab a tote and maybe get one in a different color. But we all need to think about this and Mayor Pro Tem Dunn made a very good observation after talking to someone who evacuated and came back home and everything in the freezer and refrigerator was spoiled and water on the floor. So note to self, if you're evacuating, put everything that can leak um and go bad in your garbage can basically before you leave if you think you're going to be gone for any amount of time so these are things we don't think about a friend in texas had to evacuate a couple years ago they said yeah we threw the kids and the dogs in the car and left we didn't have leashes or bowls or meds or papered nothing um so this kind of gives us a good chance to pause and you know to try to figure out what each of us will do and to help communicate that to the rest of our community as well And we've got, I haven't checked, but I know we are working on getting some good links up on the city's website for donations and things. And there's a lot of donation drives going on. My fear is that, you know, I've heard someone say, well, you know, these people don't really have a lot of room for things. They may have left in their car and maybe they're staying in a one bedroom at a friend's house or in a hotel. So I think everybody's intentions are great, but pay very close attention to those larger agencies and what the needs are. A lot of them are gift cards and food cards and grocery cards, and maybe in a Walmart where they can get a plethora of things, but not necessarily big items. So again, I think we all wanna help and we will in our own way. But pay attention to what those, those need lists are and just don't go don't use it as a chance to clean out your house. So, so, no, great great for that. And so with that, I'll turn it over to Mark for city administrator report.

Thank you mayor. Hopefully we can make this fairly quick this evening. We've got a couple of things to remind you of the 1st, 1 is Shane is pulling up that. A report is that today is primary election day and so you still have a couple of hours to get your ballot either postmarked or dropped in the official drop box. And there are several of those around the region for you to do that. And then speaking of the growth development and infrastructure committee, the next meeting and this committee in particular was one that we were having difficulty getting all of the members together at the same day and the same time. And so that's part of the reason why I'm reminding you that and we do have a new member. There is a misprint on here. It should say 4 p.m. at City Hall, but that is tomorrow. And I will send out the reminder to all of those committee members. So you have that on your calendars if you don't already. And then another reminder just for a week out or so is the end of the review period that the Department of Commerce has from our submitted comprehensive plan. So we should hear something back from Commerce over the next week or so, and then we will be bringing next steps forward to Council on the schedule that we've previously discussed. And Wednesday, August the 19th, which is a little over two weeks from now, is the 54th, I believe it is. I don't know if they've done 54 here, but the 54th season for Shakespeare in the Park. And this year's performance is Much Ado About Nothing. This is posted on our socials and website. And that is going to be 5 p.m. at Pavilion Park on that Wednesday, August And then finally, just another reminder, we have selected a day and time for the community meeting on the 2027 city budget, which is going to be at the municipal library, the Liberty Lake Library at 6 p.m. in the big meeting room there. And so those are the reminders of things that are happening over the next couple of weeks. Any questions about those before we move on to the briefing?

In that case, I'm going to invite- Hold on, we've got Council Member Ball. So Mark, you had mentioned at the big group meeting about what if all of us were to show up for the community meeting on the budget, so does this need to be put out to the public?

Absolutely. And we've started planning to make those announcements. And in the weeks preceding that, you will see sort of our regular routine of putting that out in various forms on various channels to let people know when and where and all of those things. Okay. it'll be officially noticed as yeah yeah yeah just yeah yeah councilmember darrow no i just i think she was asking about the official notice that's all i just wanted to clarify yeah thanks yeah yeah in case of a quorum right yeah okay that's regular procedure okay nice checking sure so with that i'm going to invite kyle up to the podium and he's going to talk through the financial report of the second quarter with you thanks mark

All right, so a rundown of second quarter financials, followed by a little bit of a preview of the 2027 budget calendar. So we got some key dates on there that'll get your eyes to. I will share that out as well, just so we're all generally aware of it. We have an iteration of it online right now. These are... Kind of semi final dates, but obviously anything is subject to change based on our ongoing review and if we need to add any special meetings or anything like that. So, obviously, that's all subject to change and we'll follow it up with a request that I got to give you guys a little bit of an insight on fund 117. that's our tourism promotion area fund. It has pretty minimal activity, but it's important to maybe make everybody aware of what that activity is and our partnership with VisitSpokane. So with that, next slide please, Shane. So we'll go over our major revenue sources first. And so front and center, I think obviously on everybody's mind is property tax. Our 2026 total general levy is 3.3 million. Um, and we, we do this exercise a couple of times throughout the year, just to make everybody aware, or kind of re, inform everybody of the tax increment financing program that that we are currently partner in with Spokane County and Spokane Valley fire. And so our contribution annually to that program is 500,000 dollars. Spokane Valley fire contributes about 350,000. And the county contributes the rest. And so that totals a million dollars. That million dollars triggers a match from the state for expansion for economic development. And so that makes up the bulk of our funding for our TIF and LIFT programs. Um, and so, um, countless improvements have have been, um, kind of conducted without Orchard Park was 1 Kramer overpass was 1. we've had several, um. Expansions in the river district for streets and other improvements for that. And so, um. Countless improvements for that program. So that's what that $500,000 for our contribution goes to. And so it's essentially us contributing $500,000 for a benefit of $2 million to the community. And so that's a great way we could leverage some of these property tax funds. And so 2025 general fund revenue then is 2.8 million. And so revenue collected through June, we've collected just over 1.5 million, 56%. And then you can see some cash flow considerations for Q3 and Q4, really nominal distributions for July, August, and September. And then it does ramp back up in October and November. And so you can see how those distributions hit us and when they do.

I'm a little confused on the 2025 general fund revenue. Why 25? Should that be 26?

Oh, yep. That should be 2026 general fund revenue. My fault. Yep.

I don't usually do that, but I want to make sure you weren't trying to do a comparison that I wasn't following.

Yes. No, thank you for that.

Why is the fourth quarter so much higher?

Uh, so so that's when our distributions from the cancer, the county collects periodic distributions from property taxpayers and the bulk of those happen in April and October. And then our just the bulk of our distributions then are in June and November. And so so you get minimal. income from property tax taxpayers from these other like q3 you'll get minimal income the county will and so they don't have um anything to kind of forward on to the cities or the the other jurisdictions and so those are those are your um two points throughout the year where the um the distributions are um obviously maximized so okay yeah uh next slide please

Yes, hold on just a second.

Oh, go ahead.

Next slide. So sales and use tax, if you'll recall, our first quarter, financial review, we saw a little bit of regression in sales and use tax collection year over year. And obviously you can see we have kind of more than made up for that in Q2. So we have a good trajectory here maintained as we look back through the past five years. And so we're budgeted to collect 7.1 million. We're tracking right there. Q3 and four collections historically do surpass Q1 and two. And so we'll see those monthly distributions creep up over and above what we've seen for quarter one and two. And so we're tracking right where we need to be in terms of our budgeted revenue for sales and use tax. And then up in the top right-hand corner there, you can see the breakdown. State received 6.5%, county 2.4, general fund receives 0.8. And then our transportation benefit district sales tax that we adopted back in 2023 receives 0.1 of that. Obviously, that's allocated to the streets fund. And that makes up our total 9% sales tax distribution. Next slide, please. So revenues for community development, you can see just by this graph that it's very dependent on... time and date on when these hit. And so you can see if I take you back through the full year, year over year, community development revenue is pretty steady. But it's all about timing on when these major revenues hit for large developments, mass submittal of building permits. And so those have a big impact on what you see year over year if you're narrowly construing it to a single quarter or the first half of the year. So there isn't any red flags here. This is just telling a tale of when these major expenses hit or revenues hit. And so another consideration is we have had revenues from the periodic comp plan and the climate resiliency portion of the comp plan so we've had reimbursements from those revenues that you see in 2024 there and or in 2025 continuing into 2026 and so on

Has that been the peak? Is that because of grants? When they can get closer to your mic when you ask your questions. Sorry. Yeah.

Partially. Yeah. So that peak there is reflective also of a major development and permit review undertaking that they had in 2025 as well. Next slide please. Some other revenues for consideration, so our general fund, we have a component of state and local shared revenues. A lot of that is a share of criminal justice sales tax from both the local and state level. We have an admissions tax that we benefit from for use of the area golf courses. Service charges are anything from activities at the library, even here at City Hall with copying services. At the PD, they have a couple of service charges as well. That's a pretty nominal amount, along with traffic and library fines as well. That's a smaller amount as well. Investment interest, if you look at this graph right here, this is actually coincidentally pretty indicative of the federal interest rate over the last five years. And so you'd see a pretty sharp increase from 2022 to 2024. And then you see that leveling off a little bit. That's partially true in our case as well because that contributes to it, but it's also a little bit coincidental because one of the larger revenues we had that is kind of under this umbrella is once a year, Spokane County audits and potentially refunds the city on housing and jailing services with the county. And so if we're paying an amount upfront based on the activity they think is gonna happen from Liberty Lake and we don't meet that, we'll get reimbursed. And so we had that happen both in 2024 and 2025 to the extent of, Roughly 100,000 dollars and so that's a big chunk as well. And so, and then miscellaneous revenues, if we surplus anything, or really there's any, that's just a really that's a catch all that can be anything. We received a 35,000 dollar payment for an easement for some land just adjacent to the new city hall. And so that's not anything that you would ever plan for. And so that that accounts for some of that as well. So. Next slide please. So getting into the streets fund. And so this is obviously a five-year look back on operating revenues. And I think we all understand the transition that happened a couple of years ago that I alluded to earlier. charged a three percent utility tax to fund street operations we transitioned that out in 2023 into 2024 and then we implemented uh the tbd sales tax and so that took over uh solely in 2025 and so you can see that dip there from 2024 to 2025 is reflective of that transition from the utility tax to the tbd sales tax and so there was a little bit of an overlap so you can see we collected a little bit of both for a period of time in 2024. You saw that increase there. Then once the utility tax went offline, you could see that Our revenue generation from utility tax to TBD sales tax, there's a bit of a delta there to the tune of about $300,000 a year. And so we're sustaining street operations currently with the TBD sales tax. That funds it at about 80%. The motor vehicle fuel tax and our other state shared revenues dedicated to street improvements makes up the other 20% of our revenue for streets funding.

Kyle, before you go on, if you would break out the motor vehicle fuel tax, what's that trajectory been looking like?

So that so those state shared revenues are remarkably consistent. They're not year over year. You're going to see, you know, a six, eight, 10% jump. You're also not going to see a massive reduction. And so they so we they program those into the state budget pretty early on every year. And so we'll get that information usually in September. And we'll have a pretty good idea of what that what that amount is going to be for the next year. And it's it's generally on the order of, you know, 3% year over year increase.

Yeah, I was just curious a because of, you know, our our fuel tax going up over the last couple of years and then with the huge almost dollar per gallon disparity now between us and Idaho, how that was looking.

Yep. And so the local Yeah, the local portion of that largely remains unchanged. I think the state will take a larger share of that, but yeah. Next slide, please. So here is our, this is a snapshot. This is kind of what I send out every month. And so this is just where we're at for June. We see this in the financial report every month of where we're at in any given month. And so the far bottom right hand, I know that that looks small, that's the total. for general fund and public works activities. And so we spent 35% of our budgeted amount heading into the second half of the year. There is a component of that where we have capital costs that will start coming in. They have already been coming in, but will start coming in as well. And so the general fund will pick up a portion of that and then REIT or real estate excise tax funds will pick up a portion of that as well. You can see across the board, some of these are in excess of 50% where this is representing the 50% mark of the year. And so there are no red flags in terms of the expense side at this moment because you front load a lot of those costs in the first and second quarter with annual subscriptions. And so we would expect the increase in expense to be less than our progression through the year between July and the end of the year. Next slide, please. And so this is a snapshot of our general fund ending balance. And so as we contemplated the 2026 budget, we were cash funding capital improvements. Obviously, we've seen rising costs on the operating side as well. But we've spent about, I want to say, $2 million to date on the city hall expansion and so we're splitting that between the general fund and our refunds and so that was just what i alluded to a little bit ago um and so we'll we'll continue to draw this down a bit um but uh we'll get a much better snapshot for the q3 as we head into the new 2027 year of what our beginning balance is going to look like and uh in our reserve and then also uh our restricted reserve there at the bottom there is just shy of two million dollars

It's still above our statutory minimum. Yep.

So that's tracking right where it needs to be. Next slide, please. Streets Fund ending balance. So we alluded to this a little bit ago in 2024, you saw that sharp increase. And so we had both a period of time where we're collecting the utility tax and the TBD sales tax was online. And so we transferred a good chunk of that out to the Streets Capital Fund and dedicated that to some capital expenses. I believe we purchased a water truck and a back truck with uh some of that surplus that we had which was um really necessary and so you can see we've leveled out back to where where we were prior uh to that uh down there at the bottom uh so our streets capital ending balance uh for q2 is 142 000 and then a big component of Our streets operations is also stormwater and our aquifer protection activities. And so a large portion of that is obviously it's street side, it's swales. And so those considerations and those activities are funded by those two at the bottom there. Next slide. So here's a snapshot of our real estate excise tax funds one and two. So REIT one is capital projects that are kind of not necessarily narrowly defined. So you can fund facility improvements, you can fund street improvements, you can fund parks improvements. REIT two is a little bit more narrowly construed. It's really for street improvements only. And so you don't have the ability to fund facility improvements. or parks improvements with the re2 funds and so but collectively uh we're ending um June with uh 3.3 million dollars again we're gonna um some of those funds have been earmarked for the construction of the new City Hall and we also have a couple of mission projects one that just wrapped up and one that's just starting uh that we'll tackle with us as well so next slide please Golf revenue. So golf revenue continues to grow. And you can see first half of 2026, we've had considerable expense as well. And so we are fully funding the bond repayment. with uh golf revenues and so this is the first year that we're doing that and so you're going to see an increase uh in in those expenses uh as as um this fund takes on that responsibility and so but you can see we've seen substantial revenue growth and if if i could give you a snapshot of july 31st we netted 130 000 just in july so that's not wholly um unexpected but it's a it's just it's a it's a continued positive development that we think that this is a long-term solution to pay down that bond because what you would see here on this graph is that we would have collected about a hundred thousand more than we've spent and so um so we're trending in the right direction from july out uh as we prepare for the uh the rest of the bond payment um in november but obviously we have so July, August, September will be continuing. We'll have significant revenue generation, and that'll taper off a little bit as we get into October through the end of the year.

Kyle, can you remind me? Obviously, we've talked about prepaying, paying it down early. Can you remind me what the increments are that we can do that in? It's $100,000 increments?

It's in $500,000.

$500,000.

Okay. Got it. We make the payment, the regular payment in November.

Oh, we made one in June, and we make the rest of it in November.

Okay. And how much is each payment again?

$443,000. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah.

Next slide. So as I give you a snapshot of that in Q3, you'll see the revenue graph exceed expenditure graph. And so we have confidence in the long-term viability of them prepaying that bond. Okay. So, what you see here is the 2027 budget calendar and so 1 of these dates has already happened. So we've already sent budget instructions to our department heads to begin preparations for their 2027 budget. And so, as you get into here, I will start compiling those once I get that information back. uh distribute that to uh the mayor and the city administrator and then on september 15th we'll have a discussion on revenue sources for 2027 um and then we'll get into um review uh council will have their budget binders that'll be available to the public um on october 9th and then we'll start knocking out um budget review discussions during council meetings so we'll take a look at the calendar i'll be gone september 25th through october 9th okay Perfect. So and then again, this is a version of this is on the website right now. But we'll distribute this to council and David as well to have him included if there's any updates to include on this and so. Next slide, please. And so Fund 117, we don't talk about this fund all that often. We talk about it briefly kind of during budget review. But it's a tourism function whereby hotels provide the source of revenue through a tax that gets distributed directly to the Department of Revenue. And based on entities in the area that are available to do the work, Local governments will either do it in-house or they'll contract with what's called a destination marketing organization. Ours is Visit Spokane. uh to to carry out eligible activities defined by uh rcw so a little bit of history fund 117 was established via ordinance in 20 2004 and it was brought to us by the local lodging establishments um as a way for them to generate revenue whereby they're increasing awareness and marketing uh for the area which they're by increases traffic to their facilities and so so that was the um That was the initial reason behind establishing the TPA. It imposes a per night charge. And so it's whether it's a dollar or $2, that's how the revenue is generated. It's not necessarily a percentage tax. It's a fee dedicated for tourism promotion. And so that amount is based on the annual revenue of the establishment. And then there's also some other considerations that happened back in 2022, whereby we are lodging establishments um were reclassified into a separate zone so they weren't collecting as much based on their annual revenue and so um revenue is restricted to tourism promotion defined by rcw essentially what you see there on the left under the management of the tpa um it is activities um uh allowed or executed by what's called a destination marketing organization The city does not have the capacity to deliver that program internally, so we redirect any revenue generated by this to a destination marketing organization for them to carry out those activities. So we have a contract with Visit Spokane, and that outlines the parameters whereby Department of Revenue collects it. The Department of Revenue distributes it to the city. We distribute that exact amount to Visit Spokane for those activities. And so, and we already talked about who collects and distributed. But as you can see, Fund 117, the five-year look back, we're collecting upwards of, you know, 135,000 a year back in 2022. Visit Spokane approached us in 2022 to become part of a regional destination marketing effort. And part of that ask was that we would increase the nightly charge. I believe from 2 to 4 dollars a night and that ultimately was not approved by the council at the time. And so our existing agreement with visit Spokane did not change, but shortly after the county changed their zones by which they classify it per night charge. And so ours, I believe, went from 2 dollars down to 1 dollar. And so you can see that revenue reduction. directly reflective of that. And so, so in 2024 and 2025, we collected about, you know, $50,000 a year. And that, those funds get So we're essentially a pass-through at that point. So those funds get distributed directly to Visit Spokane. For again, destination marketing organizations, there was discussion on some of their work on the city logo. And so they didn't charge us over and above what we had already distributed to them. And so they included that under their purview as the city's destination marketing organization. So yeah, just... Um, we don't touch on that very often. There's a couple others that, you know, we could do this every once in a while just to kind of brush up instead of our usual once a year, because a lot of our funds really have minimal activity. Um, and certainly for the city side, this falls into that because we don't directly have. A program dedicated to this in the city, we rely on an outside Institute to deliver this program. So. And with that, I'll stand for any questions on this or anything else. But yeah, look for the budget calendar, and then we'll start having discussions more in depth as we get into September.

All right. We have any in-chamber questions? And if Council Members Klingler or Fisher have any questions, just raise your hand in Zoom, and I'll call on you. I'm not seeing any. Council Member Ball? I just have a request. Can you send us that calendar? Absolutely.

Yes, I will. Thank you.

Okay, Councilmember Fischer, go ahead. We can't hear you though.

Sorry about that. Too many buttons to push. Great presentation, Kyle. And if you could send that slide that Linda asked for Councilmember Ball to me as well, I'd really appreciate it. Thank you.

Excellent. I'll distribute it to the entire council.

Perfect.

Thanks, Kyle.

Thanks. Okay. Any other questions before we let Kyle go sit back down for a few minutes? Nope. All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mayor, that concludes my report.

Okay. Next up our 1st, since we have our nuke, we have revised revamped our council committees our 1st night for council committee updates. So it's kind of your chances kind of give a high level briefing of what each of the committees have been working on. And so who wants to go which committee wants to go 1st. Councilman receivers finance happy to do it.

Finance committees met several times now, 3 or 4 times. I think at this point. Excuse me. We met tonight, we meet before the first council meeting of the month. Specifically tonight, we were talking about CFP prioritization. There's another committee that's working on that, the one that was discussed earlier. But this is going to go hand in hand with finance. Finance committee has worked quite a bit. Kyle's provided a lot of pro forma type data, looking at the long term projections of revenues versus expenses in the city. There's a lot to discuss there, and Kyle's going to bring that back to council on September 15th so that we discuss that tonight also. that needs to get in the hands of council so that council can have specific questions about that understand different funding mechanisms so expect that on september 15th as a as an education opportunity prior to budget season we've been talking about things like bonding mechanisms and just just different available Sources of funding public projects. We talked a little about an education campaign for public safety tax that's going to be on the ballot in November. Talked a little bit about the leadership that Kyle and Mark are working on going into budget season and working with directors. They're doing an excellent job is what is my opinion. utilizing a newer method, Mark can correct me, to the city of priority based budgeting. That's something that I think we're really excited for. And one of the encouragements of Mark was for all council members to think about Uh, levels of service, um, expectations of the city, uh, things like fleet management or, and really think about the policy approach, meaning what was the role of council. And thinking about the policies, if we want to change anything in the future, I'll kind of leave it at that for now. We'll talk a lot more about it as we get into the budget season.

Great. All right next committee.

Brett KenCairn, i'll speak as development infrastructure we've had really one meeting as a group today Okay, and we will be also meeting tomorrow right so. Brett KenCairn, I don't have significant notes from a prior meeting, but we look forward to being able to greet the Council at the next meeting.

Okay, public safety.

Council Member Darrow, also Council Member Fisher and Klingler, if you'd like to chime in on anything as well. We've had some great and regular meetings at this point touching on micro mobility and kind of the rollout after July 1st. The command center working on solidifying actual space and getting that really up and running. And really, it's just been an opportunity for us to discuss the issues in a little bit more depth so we can have these conversations with people. There's a lot of questions in general about flock cameras and micro mobility and all the sort of hot button topics. And just to be able to take a second and slow down and ask any sort of questions has been really, really helpful. I will say that as a city, we're doing a great job on being proactive about things. Flock cameras is a great example, really proactive about getting everything to the AG's office and everything way ahead of schedule and really just thinking things through and seeing safety as the number one priority here, which has been the number one answer on almost all of our surveys across the board. So I think each meeting has been an opportunity for us to thank everyone on that side of things and really just take a second to um to touch base about everything um I think that's probably it on the on what we've done so far I think this is uh an obvious wake-up call to us as a city um to really um get to know each other and get to know where things are at in our city and what we can do proactively right thank you Councilmember Klingler or Fisher do you have anything to add for public safety

No, thank you. You did a great job, Summer. Thank you.

Yeah, I would just echo that. Thank you, Summer, for summarizing our meetings. I agree. It's been a great opportunity to see what the priorities are based on the surveys that were turned in by the citizens and then just proactively work with our police departments and... kind of have a roadmap going forward about how we can be even more prepared as a community to protect safety. So thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Not hearing any others. That does it for our council committee updates. So next we are up to item 10, workshop discussions. So tonight we have our gardens at Meadowood sign notice of violation. I believe most, if not all of the council members have had a chance to chat with Mark a little bit as well. And Amy's prepared with the presentation. And then as soon as that's done, we will open it up, the floor up to discussion for the council.

Hi Amy, good evening Council. So again, tonight I'm here to talk about a code enforcement case regarding a sign that was installed without a permit.

Next slide, please.

So, I will go through all of this. I know it's a lot. I do want to give you some background. So our code enforcement officer was out doing routine code enforcement work and noticed a new sign upon returning to the office. She confirmed that the sign did not apply for a permit and was also noted that it was located in the right away and didn't meet our design standards. So she reached out to the property owner who was the Meadowood HOA and after kind of explaining the situation, they did eventually apply retroactively apply for a permit, which staff was not able to approve because they didn't meet our location and design standards. At that time, the city proposed to the applicant, the potential of a sign easement on a city owned property directly behind where their existing sign was located. They were not interested in pursuing that and requested that the city take the next steps so that they could appeal that decision. And so, since. Since the issue began as a code enforcement issue, the next step was to issue a letter of a notice of violation, which was sent on June 16th. After the letter was sent, there was some back and forth again between the property owner and the city. There really wasn't any productive movement towards a resolution. And so that kind of brought us to council and where we are now. Next slide please. So this picture actually shows the previous sign, but presumably they're in the same location. So just to kind of give you a visual in time and space of where we're talking. For reference, everything that is the street and up to that red line is all city right of way. And then everything behind the red line is the city owned parcel that we were talking about the easement. So the sign is about 13 feet from Settler, about 27 feet from North Liberty Lake, road and about 13 feet from the city on parcel. Next slide please. So, the sign that you just saw has been there for a very long time. This area was plotted in the 90s, 1993. so the sign likely has been there since before we incorporated as a city. When the city incorporated and adopted our own development standards, this sign would have met the definition for a nonconforming structure. It would have been allowed to remain in place provided that it does not increase its nonconformity under the new code. There is also a provision in our nonconforming development section that. Provides flexibility should. Should implementation of the code standards be impractical? So that was, you know, the, that was kind of the city solution or the staff solution was to provide the opportunity for a sign easement that didn't really get very much traction. So. It's still to be determined whether or not the easement is a practical solution or not, but this does provide some flexibility should that be the case. And then the last one I put in there just so that you could see that our non-conforming development code does allow for maintenance of existing non-conforming structures, provided that it does not increase the non-conformity. Next section. Next slide, please. So, section 10, 5, C to B says that should a nonconforming structure be destroyed by any means to the extent more than 50% of its replacement costs, it must be reconstructed in conformity with the new code. Unless that's not practical kind of going back to our original the previous slide. I put the second bullet in there just so that you could see that our code does directly address nonconforming signs, and it does allow for maintenance of that sign, provided that the replacement or the changes do not increase the nonconformity. Unfortunately, in this case, the replacement sign does increase the nonconformity, so that's kind of where the issue lies. Next slide, please. So these are the applicable sections of our sign code. The 1st, 1 being that a permit is required. I think all parties agree that a permit was required and was not originally applied for. So I don't think we need to belabor that point. The 2nd, and 3rd bullet speak to the sign location. Well, 10, 3 and 10, 3. talk to the sign setback and basically prohibit signage in the right-of-way. 10.3 specifically says anything higher than 3 feet must be 10 feet back from the edge of the public right-of-way, which is a standard that we consistently enforce in all of our sign permits. I'll also note that the sign location also requires that freestanding and monument signs be located in a maintained landscaped area. Next slide please. So, these are the areas that we run into the increasing the nonconformity and what you see up there is a picture of the new sign. So, you'll see that our, our sign code actually prescribes materials for residential subdivision area name signs saying that they shall consist of decorative masonry wall, concrete, rock or wood. It also again requires that they be in a maintained landscaped area. Our code also prohibits freestanding signs with unconcealed poll supports. And I included the definition of freestanding sign in there because it further supports the prohibition on unconcealed polls by saying that they have to have at least 50% of the width be constructed in a monument style. So again, just kind of supporting the prohibition on unconcealed poll supports. Next slide, please. So at this point, what staff would recommend is that council direct us to continue working with the applicant to determine if assigning easement on the city owned property is viable. If that turns out to not be a viable solution, then we could look at allowing the sign to remain in its existing location, but with conditioned upon changes that would meet our design and landscaping standards.

Next slide. I am if anyone has any questions comments discussion can you go back to the previous one just so we can have up there what the options were sure let me read it again wait too far thank you I just want to make sure everybody has a chance to digest that before we open up for discussions Okay, all right. I see council member severs hand up 1st.

I like your recommendations. I appreciate you want to work with with these guys and figure it out. I mean, there's a lot of a lot of nonconformity happening. It's tough. We don't want to set a precedent to allow things to happen in the future. It sounds like there's a lot of work going in. It's a frustrating thing, but. It doesn't conform you're making it very clear. So I appreciate you working with them and trying to come up with a good solution. Yeah, and I think your recommendations are excellent.

Um, and then, uh, I'd echo a recognition of the alternatives presented any, it's an excellent, uh, overture a gesture to try and continue dialogue with the applicant to see that we can come to a resolution. Um, I don't want to see consideration of the 1st, but if you could go back to the slide, which shows, um, red lines depicting easement position.

Okay.

to verbally describe where an easement would be suggested, on what side of the channel trail would you suggest that should occur? The paved channel trail is what I want to draw attention to.

So I imagine, I mean, again, we didn't get to the viability or where exactly it would be, but somewhere within that red square. Okay.

Just a great graphic here to recognize the sign, its current location, physical size, the alternatives. Thank you.

Right council member ball guys, make sure you're closer to your microphones.

So what is you said? There was 2 nonconformity. What's the 2nd 1?

The lack of the so the unsealed poll supports and then the maintained landscape area. There's also a requirement for materials. Which I think. We would have to probably look at what the materials I would have to look at that a little bit more because our code does say that they're supposed to be made of these certain materials. And I haven't I haven't taken a close look at all of the materials that are on here. And if that would meet that meet that requirement or not.

Okay. And then, well, I do believe that the plan was to landscape the entire area around the sign from attending the HOA meetings. Also, what is, who's the zoning administrator? That would be me. That's you. Okay. So I guess my question would be, if they met, The requirements of the nonconforming to do with the polls and landscape would that satisfy the situation?

Yeah, so that's that's kind of would be the 2nd set of recommendations was if the easement is not viable. So, moving that sign into that location is not going to work for whatever the reason is then then that we would allow it to stay in the same location. But with the conditioned upon meeting the design standards.

Okay, I think that would be. Great.

Okay, next we have Councilmember Dero. On the masonry or the materials, for example, if those materials were added to the current sign, would it be a mixture of materials? Is there anything beyond what we read there? Would it be the entirety has to be in those materials or a mixture of those materials?

It doesn't really specify. What you saw is what's there. So I think that there's room to meet that when we meet the design standards for the base for the unconcealed pole would be where I would recommend that we could meet that requirement.

Thank you.

Great. Okay.

Councilmember Kurtz. Oh, I see Councilmember Klingler has his hand up. We'll go to him next.

Yeah, I'm curious. If you move the sign back behind the red line, it seems like it's going to be awfully close to the trail and not potentially serve its purpose of letting people know that that's the neighborhood that they're going to because of the the angle and its location so you know far away from where it currently resides um that's my only um concern i guess on behalf of the hoa is is this not the sign that they said had been in place for um quite some time and then um you know, has it been redone? I guess that's a part I'm confused on as well.

So, so the original sign was basically falling apart correct jump in correctly if i'm wrong amy based like from what I understand from what I understand yeah applicant yeah that's okay yeah and I think. I know Linda was on the ho a board so I know she's got some background on this as well, so the original sign back when the county had when you before we incorporated it was falling apart, it was replaced with with a new one in the same location, from what I understand that's my understanding. Does that help.

Yeah, it does. And all I can do is echo Councilman Siever's comments as well. I think we should continue to look for a way of working with the HOA. However, I am in support of the conformity um because i do think we don't want to set uh precedents for other neighborhoods or replacement signs where it's outside of the design you know confines um i guess that's all i have to say about it now it's member fisher or kurtz well i'm fine with all the discussion so thank you

Thank you. Councilmember Kurtz? And I concur with everybody else.

I'm hoping that we can follow the recommendations that are outlined and hopefully the least restrictive path forward for everybody.

Yeah. And from my viewpoint, I was kind of focusing on um and again jump in if i misinterpreted this please um the location did not increase the non-conformity and the setback did not increase the non-conformity so in my brain if those two individual items didn't increase the non-conformity Why make it change and if we can satisfy the you know covering up the the legs and the material I think that's probably where we need to focus is working on those things that did increase the nonconformity All right, it sounds like you've got direction. Thank you. All right. Thanks so much Amy for all your work on this Okay consent agenda

Madam Mayor, I move our consent agenda 11 items A through C. Second.

We have a motion and a second by Councilmember Sievers. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, motion passes 7-0.

Madam Mayor, I move now on to General Business Section 12, Item A, Local Highway Technical Assistance Safety Package.

all right ben is on um go ahead and make a motion then we need a second i think you already had a motion i need a second and then ben will kind of walk through i moved general business section item a local highway technical assistance council is that what's this is that a second was that a second yeah i didn't hear the motion sorry uh except the donation i believe is oh yeah that was dan apologies second we're good okay so the emotions are second ben you're up can everybody hear me we can

All right. Thank you, Mayor. So LH Tech is actually the training resource that the Streets Division uses for all of their roadmaster safety training, things like that. And so once a month, they basically have a drawing for all the municipalities that go through training through their training environment. And this past couple of months, we won that drawing. So we received about... giving us about $6,000 equivalent of safety equipment, like safety cones, things like that. I think there's a list in the summary. I can't recall all of it, but it's definitely a little bit of an enhanced package. Our guys were happy to see it. And yeah, so they've given us some great training and now they're giving us some enhanced safety gear that we'll definitely put to good use.

anybody any questions about that always nice to win a drawing worth six grand congratulations being lucky yes thanks for the explanation and um so if there's no further questions or discussion um those in favor of accepting the donation from the local highway technical assistance council in the amount of six thousand dollars please uh value of six thousand dollars please say aye aye aye aye Any opposed? Okay, motion passes 7-0. Thank you.

Madam Mayor, I move now item general business B, authorize the mayor to sign design services contract with BCRA. Okay, this was D, right? Formerly consent agenda item D. Yeah, okay.

I just had a quick question. Second.

Oh, yeah, we have a second by councilman receivers. Thank you.

Go ahead. I just had a quick question. Maybe Kyle would. best person are you still here is this just um I mean is this I know it's not a lot of money but since eventually we're going to have a new library you know God willing um is this a waste of money to be or will it be improvements that when the police take over that building that would still be in order are we on the library are we on multi-road overlay

This is the BCRA.

I'm sorry, I thought that moved to C. Well, I know. Yeah, anyway.

We're on the library now, so let's roll with it. So, I mean, I know it's not a lot of money. Jandy's on, so why don't I have her address this? At least she was. Jandy, can you speak to the requested improvements?

We may have to promote her to panelists.

There she is. Hi, Jandy.

Hey, can you guys hear me now? We can. Sorry, I wasn't a panelist, so I had to wait for Shane to promote me really quick. So this is for just some regular maintenance. We've been in the building since 2009. We've never had the library repainted. So we're looking at getting new paint throughout to kind of update the building. We're looking at getting some additional lighting because some of the corners are quite dark in the library. And then eventually we would be looking at ceiling tiles and carpeting, which having been in the building for almost 20 years is needed. And it would definitely transfer over to the police department if that's the route the council eventually chooses to go.

Perfect. And this is coming from the Library Capital Fund, just for clarification for everyone. Councilmember Sievers.

A couple of things. One, am I clear that this BCRA is design work only?

Yes.

What's the total project estimate to all the install of all these things?

Andy, I can take that if you'd like.

Go ahead. Ben has that number, I know.

So this is going to help get that number. So we actually have, I think right now the draft number for the CFP for next year is $120,000. But this will help hone that number. So this is really going to complete it to the design development phase. So we'll have a cost estimate from BCRA as part of this services contract. So we'll know kind of ballpark how much flooring, ceiling, painting, signage, and lining would cost. So we can kind of figure out what order we could afford to do that within the confines of Library Capital Fund.

I guess part of me worries that we're getting the cart before the horse where we have a non-budgeted project and we're spending money on a design that we may or may not put in a budget for a 2027 project. Am I right?

anybody else thank you that's one of the reasons I mean we're trying to get I mean we need design work to design work done first so that we can do this um if we choose not to do the or we can't afford the project next year then we would still have this design work uh that's one of the reasons I we were only recommending those two uh phases they actually had a couple more in there that we don't want to go and and take care of right now because we're that like like you said car before the horse

um but uh due to the minimal amount we thought it was a good investment i'd ask one more yes go ahead our packet says not to exceed fifteen thousand five hundred the contract i see in the larger packet says twenty nine thousand three hundred so is that because you're just picking out a couple of those phases and that's where the fifteen thousand came from then

That's correct. So the first two, which is design development, and then I think there's some casework for the circulation desk. So just those two and then half the deliverables, or consumables, sorry.

Yeah, so in the summary statement on page 33, it breaks it down with the 1550, and then BCRA provided an estimate for the work totaling 29.3, but we will not execute that.

We'll amend that before we sign it. Great.

Yep, and you guys are only authorizing so much, so we won't sign it until we give that.

Excellent. Thank you, guys. Sure. Appreciate the answers.

Council Member Ball. Yeah, and I know Jandy said this, Ben, but so all of this would be able to be passed on to the police. I mean, it would still be, it would work for them as well.

I don't know if they love the color scheme that Jandy picked, but that's a question for Chief Simmons. This is these are library color, obviously the lighting, the ceiling tiles, the carpet. Yes, but we chief Simmons may want it repainted based on the preliminary designs that we've, we've kind of notionally talked about with.

The 15-5 is within the current budget. It is a budgeted expense. Just making sure.

Yeah.

Okay. Great. And I do appreciate actually making a discovery regarding costs for some incremental, I'll call it improvements to the building. So I value that work.

Okay, let me check, make sure I don't have any hands from the other council members. Wait, I got, where's my button? Where's my button? There we go. Okay, no, I don't see any. So if there's no other questions or comments, those in favor of authorizing the mayor to sign design services contract for improvements in the municipal library in the amount not to exceed $15,500, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, motion passes 7-0. Okay, now the Malta Road.

Yeah, Madam Mayor, this is the General Business 12C Malta Road Overlay Agreement. Approve and authorize the mayor to execute. Second.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. And Kyle's here too, because it was Kyle's request to move it because there is a change.

That's correct. So we received an amended document from what was published in the packet from WSDOT today that amends the total engineering estimate included within that. And so I don't recall off the top of my head what page in the packet it is, but part of the local agency agreement identifies an estimated engineering amount of $141,975.

Page 39.

Perfect. Thank you, Mary.

Underestimated funding.

They sent us an amended sheet that calls for a total estimate of $143,975. That represents a $2,000 increase for what WSDOT has termed state services with regard to engineering. That is a new line item. And so that was not included in the published packet. So I just wanted the council and the public to be aware of the new amount that we're asking council to approve tonight.

okay so we have a motion um and second on the floor but can we have a motion to amend page 13 page one of the estimate um to amend the amount from one hundred forty one thousand nine hundred seventy five dollars to one hundred forty three thousand nine seventy five yes if we have a motion in a second for that we'll vote on the change and then we can you guys can vote on the amendment order mayor i move to amend page one of the document to from 141 975 to 143 975. do we have a second we have motion by council member ball any questions on that before we go forward i'm again making sure i watch our remote members okay um so those in favor of amending the amount uh please say aye aye aye Any opposed? Okay, so we now have, but motion passes 7-0. We now have an amended amount, which takes us back to the original motion to approve the agreement. Are there any, real quick, are there any questions on the agreement?

When will the work be done?

Yeah.

Ben? Ben?

Sorry, I had to get back off mute. So right now we're going to, once this gets approved, we're going to start design this year and then the project would be scheduled to start construction. Hopefully, as soon as the. The plants open next year, so spring spring 27. okay.

Great. All right. No, I'm counseling receivers.

Was this a change order out of the state or just something they just added?

So they are a fantastic partner, but sometimes they surprise us with documents. This isn't the first time that this has happened.

We end up amending a lot of things with them. so just shut up and do it okay if there's no other questions on those in favor of approving the multa road overlay local area agreement as amended please say aye aye aye any opposed a motion passes seven zero okay that brings us to council comments do we have any additional council comments um not including upcoming agenda items Not hearing any. All right, we have no public hearings or appeals. We have no resolutions. We have no regular ordinances. This brings us to item 17, which is an emergency ordinance that came together kind of last minute. The impetus behind this and Mark jump in where you'd like. Brett's Marine and RV on the east side of town on Appleway has over 40 acres of open space that they would like to open up to the victims of the fires to bring their RVs for a certain period of time. And so first we thought I was going to have to declare an emergency and then you guys do an ordinance change and then Through Sean and everybody pulling documents very quickly realize that our there is no such thing for us in the relay because declaring an emergency really always kind of go by the county in the state. So we may want to address that at some point. But so, in order to allow this to happen, because, of course, our current zoning does not allow that. we are able to do this emergency ordinance and i'll let mark and sean go through some more of the details and it will be good for a certain period of time it will expire but it doesn't mean that if there more time is needed that the council cannot come back and do a new ordinance or extend it and so after we get explanation and all of that and do a first read we'll ask for a motion to suspend the rules to do a second read and vote on tonight so i'll turn it over to sean and to mark

Or, oh, Rochelle, we have to, okay, I'll read in the first, the first read part. Thank you, Mayor. Ordinance number 317, an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Liberty Lake, Washington, authorizing a temporary suspension of certain development code provisions due to the Spokane Complex fire emergency. Thank you. All right.

And so just really quickly, and I maybe invite Amy up to the podium so that she is able to join the conversation. I want to make it clear at the outset and Sean can help walk through some of the procedural considerations that were made to get the document as it Uh, currently is in front of you this itself the, the ordinance itself does not put the guidelines in place. Those are going to need to be crafted based on discussions between the city and Brett's RV and marine. And so those discussions are ongoing and those discussions will likely proceed beyond tonight's meeting. And so what this ordinance does do is allow for the council to direct staff essentially to temporarily suspend certain aspects of the development code to allow for the result of that discussion to occur. And so I just want to clarify that. Um, and so with respect to why we chose to go down the ordinance route, um, and the procedural elements associated with that, I maybe turn that piece of the discussion over to Sean.

So, um, a couple of things, um, you know, what you might have seen at the, at the county level, um, and the state level, there's statutory ability to have emergency declarations, emergency resolutions. Um, but what you see in those arenas are generally. as it relates to competitive bidding processes, contracts, obtaining supplies and materials and things like that. There's a regulated process you have to go through that and it can take time to do that. And so you see these emergency declarations, resolutions that will suspend those processes because you need to be able to get those things or enter into contracts sooner to assist victims and others that have been involved as part of the emergency. So that isn't necessarily what's occurring in Liberty Lake, right? Because it's not necessarily right in Liberty Lake where the events have happened. So, but there is the possibility with regard to what the ordinance attempts to do to try to assist those individuals that have been harmed by the damages, loss of homes, what have you, in order to utilize the facility that's been proposed or elsewhere within the city. So, as all accounts members are probably aware resolution doesn't necessarily change an ordinance and ordinance has the force of law. It's the codes of the city. And so utilizing an ordinance to temporarily suspend what's currently in place gives the authority to do that. So that's why you have an ordinance and not necessarily a declaration or a resolution. Um, the ordinance right now, as you'll see in there provides just a temporary relief for a period of time can be extended by the council based upon where everyone is at that particular time. And there's justification for extending it. The ordinance as an emergency ordinance requires a majority plus 1. So, of the entire council, so that means requires at least 5 members voting affirmatively in order for it to pass. And then also it would become effective immediately as an emergency ordinance. So that the things can progress forward with negotiations discussions as it relates to what it will look like. Amy is the zoning administrator so she will be the one that's delegated the authority by the ordinance to act on behalf of the city to provide the interpretation of the codes and what what uh may or may not have to be followed relative to the authority granted under the ordinance that's a lot but hopefully it makes sense to everybody so they may have any questions for Sean procedure procedure on this is not a it's an emergency is that we have to suspend the rules like we normally do yeah we will in just a minute yeah yeah so i can answer yeah um yeah so um what will happen is um there'll be a motion to suspend the rules a second everyone will vote um to suspend the rules and then after that there'll be a motion um there'll be a motion to move this to a second read rochelle will read it as a second read and then go through the process of voting like like

yeah thank you okay Councilmember ball okay I just have a couple questions um did did Brett's RV come to us or okay so it's the property West of their existing all their stuff yeah yeah a blank spot right so do they have like are they set up if these new RVs come in for a sewage sewage Get rid of that.

So I would invite Amy up to sort of cover some of these details. The general answer is yes, but those details are going to have to be worked out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So those are the details that I'm going to kind of work out as far as the rules of engagement. But Brett's RV actually approached us with the idea and said that they they have concepts to address that. They have like a basically a truck that would go around and pump everybody's tanks out or depending on how it kind of lays out, there will be other considerations to make sure that sanitary and hygiene are met. Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

Okay. All right. So do we have a motion to suspend the rules to move to a second read?

Please go ahead. I'll make the motion to suspend the rules and to allow us to then take a look at this ordinance. So your motion is to suspend the rules to move to a second read? Yes.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor of suspending the rules, please say aye.

Aye.

right any opposed all right motion to suspend the rules is um approved seven to one now we need a motion to um move uh well we read it first okay ordinance number 317 an ordinance of the city council of the city of liberty lake washington authorizing a temporary suspension of certain development code provisions due to the spokane complex fire emergency

Right, so we have a motion to approve the ordinance.

I move to approve ordinance number 317.

2nd, we have a motion in a 2nd, any further discussion with the council before I go to. Citizen comments go ahead.

Councilman receivers just thank you to Brett's RV and marine. That's a really, really incredible thing. We live in a. Great community and businesses are always stepping up like this and just just awesome. I'm so glad the cities. you guys are working together with them and making this work. So very cool. Thanks to Brett's RV and Marine.

Yeah. And I'd also, I don't know if you're planning to speak in a minute, I won't steal your thunder. no I know but yeah I I yeah I I will I will uh I will that former council member Schuller current uh police foundation board member Schuller is also doing something similar on her property but I'll let her speak to that a little bit in a little bit um oh I do have a question how do we let the people know we're doing this so there's um well so it'll be up to Brett's oh no okay um to publish it but I think Dave is working on a press release

So we are working on a press release regarding the action of the temporary suspension of the ordinance.

the the guidelines that uh the community development department and brett's are working on will define how the word gets out to folks who may need this place okay yeah and i gave shanda chandra emergency management a heads up yesterday that this was most likely coming so they'll we'll need to make sure that she's up to speed as well absolutely yeah and all the other partners okay any other council comments all right and so oh go ahead councilmember fisher

I apologize. Our Rotary District 5080 is also putting together some plans to help these victims as well. So it's throughout our entire Rotary community. And we're really we're really proud of that. And it includes Brett's as well. So thank you.

Great. Thank you. All right. And with every ordinance, we open it up for citizen comments. So if we have anybody who'd like to comment on the ordinance, if not, we have another spot for citizen comments later in the meeting. So it's up to you. I'll still need you to fill out a sheet later, Susan, but come on up. You got three minutes. You might want to introduce yourself to those who don't know you.

Of course. Thank you, Mayor Kaminskas and council members. My name is Susan Schuller. I'm on and off a long-term resident of Liberty Lake. Do you need my address? You're outside the city limits, but yeah, you live in the community. Yes. Okay. Yeah, so I just wanted to say that couple days ago I came we're trying to figure out how to help right so we had a displaced person a friend of mine come and stay and her the fire at the autumn lane was started at her neighbor's home and so she and her dogs came and stayed with us and it just got me thinking you know what do we do to help so we have 56 acres it's up here behind Liberty Lake it happens to all sit on the Idaho side of the state line don't hold that against me And we are developing it into a destination place for our first responders, our vets, and our community, which Liberty Lake is absolutely my community. And we don't have power or water yet, but we have lots of places to put campers. So what I did was yesterday around noon on my personal page, well, first I reached out to Brett's. I called Brett's. No one answered. Don't put that on the record. And then I called another camping place and they said, we're a national brand. We don't do that kind of thing. So I thought, okay, well, Chris would know this and Dan would know this. I don't usually take no very well. So I thought, okay, well, I'm just going to do this myself. So I put it out on my personal Facebook page. We have over 4,000 people have responded. People are offering to bring campers from Ohio. So I have since met with Chris George down at Brett's and we're going to try to coordinate what we can do because we can offer dry camping for people with pets they can provide services so we're also looking for anyone who wants to partner with us to offer generators and potable water you know, tanks or something that we can put up there. So it's only 10 minutes up the mountain. You might feel like you're in another world with mountain, you know, lions, bears, and, you know, lots of wildlife, moose. But it's a beautiful spot for people to come and just kind of get a reprieve from what's going on so first i just want to say thank you for working with bretts they're doing it for all the right reasons and we're going to partner with them and tomorrow you're asking how the word's going to get out um khq has reached out to me last night and asked to do an interview so we're meeting tomorrow at 11 and that will get the word out so it i i don't know how i'm going to keep up on this project but um yeah any help you guys can give um support um and we will do everything we can to make sure that this is a manageable thing that's happening in our community because we know this can be you know quite um overbearing sometimes when it comes to we offering the floodgates open but it's for a good cause and people are really in need they're also looking for and this is one minute time you times up okay thank you very much sorry

No, thank you for all you're doing and thanks for reaching out. All right. So if there's no other citizen comments on the ordinance in particular, is there anybody online? Nope. Okay. Then we will go ahead and move to a vote. So all those in favor of approving ordinance number 317, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? All right. Motion passes 7-0. Thanks, everybody. You know, I feel like we've been helpless over here. So this is, you know, This is a drop in the bucket. I'm glad I appreciate everybody's support on this. And again, like everybody else said, thanks. Thanks to Brett's for stepping up and thanks to Susan and your family for partnering with them and trying to make this happen. Okay, introduction of upcoming agenda items. We somehow somewhere. There's my copy. Oh, that's your copy. No, I got it. our upcoming workshops um we've got a short workshop on august 18th for records retention um i know uh mayor pretend had brought something to our attention shouldn't take very long to discuss um government governance and manual and social media tentative for september along and then after that it's budget budget budget sign code and capital facilities plan just another reminder watch your alternate tuesdays for possible um special meetings Is there anything workshop wise? Anybody feels like we need to add it to the agenda that we're going to be really bogged down with with budget coming up really fast. Okay, great. So we have another citizen comment spot. I'm not seeing anybody rushing the podium here. There was somebody online, I understand, who wanted to make a comment, but it doesn't seem like she is on any longer. Okay, so we have no further citizen comments, and we have no executive session, and since there's no further business board council, we will adjourn at 738.