City Council - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon, I'm calling to order the July 28, 2026 at 4.30 p.m. Committee of the Whole for Parks and Environment Sustainability. All council members are in attendance and we have a very packed agenda tonight. So, you know, let's jump right into our agenda one. There are seven items on our agenda and our first agenda item is park impact fee schedule update and we have parks director Lauren Hamilton.

Good afternoon, City Council. I am joined today by Cameron Zapata, our senior parks planner, and our consultants from FCS on this park impact fee schedule update. I'm just going to hand it over to Cameron to present this item.

All right, thanks, Lorraine, and good afternoon, council. I'm here today to bring back the park impact fee schedule update. Last time we came to you, we provided three methods for calculating park impact fees, which included the current method and then two standard-based methods, one which was calculated using projects from our park's six-year CIP and then one using the park's 20-year CIS. Since we last met in June, staff invited folks from the development community, including one Redmond and Master Builders Association to a public engagement session where we shared information with them about the update and then sought their feedback. The meeting had representatives from the Master Builders Association and a multifamily housing developer. From that meeting, we heard that participants expressed general support for shifting a fee structure based on residential square footage rather than bedroom count. And they emphasize the importance of clearly defining what areas of the home count towards a square footage calculation

to ensure consistency and fairness.

They also highlighted that predictability is also important for project planning and encourage the city to clearly communicate the fee schedule and any applicable credits and then the indexing methodology which generally takes place annually along with every park plan update. This clarity helps them to incorporate costs accurately and then avoid any surprises later in the development process. They also noted that a phased implementation can help mitigate market impacts when impact fee increases are substantial. However, because of this fee update, it doesn't appear that there's a significant increase in costs, and they felt that the phasing wasn't necessary in this case. And then they also supported regular inflationary adjustments to prevent large and infrequent costs. Lastly, participants expressed appreciation for the city's proactive outreach and transparent communication throughout this process and emphasized that early engagement with the development community builds understanding and strengthens trust and helps address concern before the decisions are finalized. Additionally, we did receive some questions via email from Council that we'd like to address now, and I'll hand it over to Zach Hazel from FCS to help answer.

Okay, thank you, Cameron. Yes, I've got a couple questions. I'll summarize the question briefly, and then I'll provide my answer here. So first question is about the park impact fee schedule for the non-residential land uses. And the question was, because this is based on an estimate of demand created by employees, are the employee estimates based on full-time or part-time estimates? And we are using the Snohomish County Buildable Lands Report, which provides a number of jobs per 1,000 square feet. And so it seems, based on my reading of that, that would be inclusive of both full-time and part-time employees. There was also this statement that most cities and counties in Washington only charge parking back for use to residential construction. That is true, there are several in Washington that do charge to non-residential land uses, such as City of Tukwila, City of Camas, City of Fife. There are a couple others out there that charge non-residential land uses as well. Okay, and next question is about the, why is the fee for mini storage so minimal in comparison with other businesses? And the reason for that is simply that mini storage land uses create very few jobs. And if they're creating very few jobs, that means they're bringing very little in the way of employment based demand for park facilities. And so that is why the fee is so much lower for those mini storage land uses. Okay, next question is about how the fee for non-residential land uses was calculated. This is essentially the impact fee per residential equivalent, so $3,783, multiplied by the residential equivalency factor of about 0.11. And that equals in our, present in our model and in our report about $414, which is a little bit different from what was calculated in the question I provided at $416. And the reason for that is simply that our model and report are using the unrounded figures from our Excel model. So I apologize for the confusion there. So the other two questions I received along those lines were about examples for manufacturing and restaurant and maybe highlighting that they didn't match a schedule. And the reason for that, again, is just because we're using the unrounded figures directly from our model. So that explains the difference. The next question was about where technology sector would fall. Would it fall under services or some other code? And if I'm understanding technology sector to mean software, then that would typically, under my understanding, fall under the finance, insurance, and real estate category. I went back to the source we had for this to try and find which NAICS code they were using specifically for other services, and I was unable to find it this afternoon, but I can dive into that more if needed. Another option that the city has in this case is to just collapse the schedule down a little bit, which is something we showed in Exhibit 10. So you can just have one offices category if you prefer not to dive into the differences between different kinds of office land uses. And then the last question I had was about the updating cadence, like how often should these be updated? Generally, it's good to update the parking back fee as new data arrives, and specifically that occurs in the form of a park plan update for parking back fees, of course. And I believe, if I remember right, talking to city staff, that that plan for 2030 would be the next major park plan update. And then in between those major updates to the park plan that would spawn a new PIF report, it is recommended to annually update the park impact fee based on cost inflation. And that will kind of minimize any jumps that you might see when you get to the end of a planning period. You can kind of slowly raise your fees over time rather than having huge jumps up or down. And those are the questions I received. So unless there's anything else, I'll hand it back over to Cameron.

All right, thanks, Zach. I would definitely struggle answering those, so I appreciate that. So our asks tonight is to gauge if council is comfortable with staff moving forward with the standard-based 20-year application. And then our other ask is if council prefers to review a draft ordinance at the September 22nd PES meeting, or alternatively, council could choose to review the final ordinance in November That'll be included in a group package to amend RMC 310 to adopt new park impact fee schedule along with updated fire, transportation, and school impact fee schedules. So please note on that the future council dates in the memo is not correct and should read September 22nd for the PES Committee of the Whole meeting.

Open for questions. Council President Stewart.

Yeah, thank you, Cameron. Could you describe one more time the options available to the council? So one is a standalone ordinance for review on the 22nd. Did I understand that the second option would be to not have a standalone ordinance but to have an ordinance?

THIS DECISION INCORPORATED WITH OTHER DECISIONS IN A LARGER ORDINANCE LATER THAT'S WELL KIND OF CORRECT SO WE COULD SHOW YOU WHAT THE ORDINANCE WOULD LOOK LIKE WHAT THOSE RED LINES WOULD LOOK LIKE ON SEPTEMBER 22ND SO IT'LL HAVE THOSE NUMBERS AND THEN THE OTHER OPTION WOULD TO SEE IT IN IN IN NOVEMBER ALONG WITH LONG RANGES RMC 310 UPDATE THAT UPDATES does the annual indexing for fire transportation and schools?

So I think the options are for us to either pass it kind of as its standalone park impact fee update or to embed it in with the other park impact fee update. So it's really just more of a structural procedural preference for council.

Lindsay Falkenberg- Actually, if I can jump in here sorry, this is Lindsay Falkenberg parks planning manager i'm joining online today because i'm sick. Lindsay Falkenberg- Actually, no matter what you will see it with the November package that is when it will be passed as part of long ranges. Lindsay Falkenberg- kind of package of ordinances what we're asking is, if you would like to see a draft ordinance in September, in order to review it ahead of when we bring it with long range in November.

I saw Council Member Forsyth.

I prefer to see the redlined version, just even if it's a five minute topic on committee for September.

Council Member Kritzer.

I'd also like to see the redlined version if we can, also just for transparency, so that way we have that out there. Last time we saw this, there was a helpful presentation that showed some of the different options. and the potential increases in fees. So if we could get a copy of that as well, it kind of disappeared from the item attachments here. We do have the larger report. One question that I had, so is the recommendation the scaled or unscaled? Would you be able to answer that?

Sure. I will say that the RCW does actually require scaling in some way, shape, or form. So the proposal would be what's described later in the implementation chapter.

Okay, thank you.

Council Vice President Nuwa Kamina and then Council Member Parsi.

Thank you, Chair. I would also be interested in seeing the red line version in September rather than November, just as Council's work plan is going so that we're ready to go with it.

Council Member Parsi.

Thank you. One question I had is about the calculation of the impact fee. You did mention that you use the rounded up numbers, but I calculated with both rounded and unrounded and the numbers don't add up correctly. I really appreciate if you could share the math in a more complete formula so we can double check. And then for the technology, I would really like to see which category it falls under. So we can kind of have that visibility and transparency. And then for the updating cadence, I have a quick question. So I did hear that we're going to have this updated with cost of inflation, but I also heard that we're going to update it at the next park plan update in 2030. So it just wasn't clear to me what is the kind of fee update cadence, if it's annual or if it's...

It's both. So the park impact fees are updated in this model based on our CIP. Our CIP is updated in our park plan. And so the park plan is what kind of helps set our capital priorities in parks, right?

So the new methodology that we have all aligned on is that we're looking at the system wide and the growth of that system. And so the cadence to update kind of the larger pro project list happens every six years when we do our park impact fee that being said what we heard from the development community and the best practice is to not wait every six years to do a big bump but to do a cost of inflation every year and so all of our impact fees do have it written into the ordinance that they will automatically update per cpiw One of the CPIs. It's written into the ordinance, and then that happens each year. So both. And that way there's not that really big hit every six years.

I had a question too about the calculation and showing our work. So the calculation that I got in the email here basically described a fee of $4.16.13 per employee. And it was noted that this isn't shown in the report. So totally fair point. We'll make sure to show our math in the report. But I did double check. And with the unrounded raw figures for our model, the calculation does work out to be $4 and $14. So just a little bit different. But that's OK. We'll make that very clear in the report when we go back and change this.

I saw Hansel. Council President Stewart, you had no question?

Dr. Hamilton, could you clarify when the next park plan update is?

Yes, the next park plan update will begin next biennium, but will likely not be adopted until 2029-ish.

But it takes usually 18 months to 24 months to complete that.

Any more questions? Seeing none. So we'll see this in the next coming to your full updates.

Yes, September 22nd, we will bring the draft ordinance for review and to answer any final questions on this.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Next, moving to our agenda number two, which is a four culture grant update. And this will be again presented by Parks Director Lauren Hamilton. We have Chris Weber, our cultural arts supervisor, and Brittany Pratt, our recreation business manager.

Hi everyone, my name is Brittany Pratt and I'm the Recreation Business Manager. City staff are here today seeking approval from City Council to authorize the Mayor to accept a four-culture grant contract in the amount of $72,000.

Yes, hello, I'm Chris Weber, Cultural Arts Supervisor. This grant will fund cultural arts projects, including the upcoming fourth annual Downtown Redmond Art Walk. Hope to see you on September 17th. and we're hoping to have this added to the consent agenda on September 1st regular business meeting. Any questions?

Any questions? I see thumbs up from one of the council members. We are good to move this on August 3rd for approval. That was fast. Thank you. Thank you for giving us that extra time back. Next, moving to our agenda number three, which is environmental sustainability action plan update on e-mobility. It's again presented by our parks director, Lauren Hibbleton. We have Who else we have? Okay, we have program administrator, sorry, Jenny Lieback, our sustainability manager, and Mika Bonkoski, our sustainability program administrator. Thank you.

Yeah, good afternoon, council. So again, Jenny Lieback, sustainability manager. So Redmond's ESAP highlights our five big moves that we're prioritizing as we work towards net zero emissions by 2050. Big Move 3 specifically prioritizes actions that provide accessible and sustainable transportation options for our community. And a key strategy that we're looking at to achieve that vision is ensuring that the vehicle trips that do remain are electric, right, that they're powered by clean, zero-emitting options. And so today, I'm joined by my colleague, Micah Bonkowski, who's going to share a brief update on our e-mobility work.

Thank you, Jenny. Micah Bonkowski, Sustainability Program Administrator. And like Jenny mentioned, we're providing a brief update on some of the implementation work we've been doing related to e-mobility. And e-mobility is just a small part of the ESAP Big Move 3 transportation. Emissions from transportation in Redmond make up 23% of the Redmond community greenhouse gas emissions. And a big focus of the TMP, the Transportation Management Master Plan and the ESAP is to reduce vehicle miles traveled. But as Jenny said, we know that vehicles will still be around. And so this action really supports electrification of those vehicles to meet our greenhouse gas reduction goals by 2050. In 2025, there were 6,000 EVs or plug-in hybrid electric vehicles registered in the city of Redmond, and we're estimating by 2030, there will probably be around 16,000, and they need the infrastructure to support the electrification of that transportation. We've broken this work down into the three categories that are on the attached memo. One is expanding access to community charging and electric active mobility options. Two is to catalyze community infrastructure through codes, policies, and partnerships. And then three is to modernize our own city operations. I believe transportation makes up a significant portion of our city greenhouse gas emissions as well. And so I wanted to just highlight a few of the highlights from this memo. There are several more in the memo. Our e-bike rebate program has gotten 367 applications for Redmond alone. We shared this program with Bellevue and Issaquah, and it's funded by a Puget Sound energy grant. Of those 367 applications, we're able to give rebates for 60 standard bike rebates, which is $500 per rebate, and 40 income qualified rebates, which is $2,000 per rebate, which should cover the cost of an e-bike for those residents. Those residents now have 60 days to purchase their e-bike, and if they don't by that time, the rebates will go back into the cycle and we'll do another draw towards the end of the year. We're also partnering with Puget Sound Energy to install A curbside charger in the Marymore village area on a utility pole at this point the utility pole has been replaced and the wires are just waiting for the charger installation and will definitely share with you when that gets put in place and have a ceremony and ribbon cutting. Our city fleet work is continuing with new charge ports being installed in the garage if you've been in the garage lately. They're in the middle of that installation right now. And those charging ports will be available for both fleet and employee charging. And we'll use this as a pilot to see what the demand is for employees to do workplace charging while they're here at work. And then it also allows us the additional capacity as our fleet electrification work continues. We will have a lot more electric vehicles that need charging, and so they can move into those slots once we get those new vehicles. We look forward to continuing to grow this work in the coming budget cycle, and let Council know how that's going. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Open to the floor for the questions. Council President Stewart.

Thanks so much for the update. Really excited to see the progress and the enthusiasm from the entire community. It sounds like we had about a third as many vouchers as we had rebates, A third of many as the demand for the e-bike rebates, and that certainly tracks with what we see in community. I did want to ask about our electric fire truck and how it's impacting our calculations, both in terms of energy uses and any emissions associated with that. The current EV fire truck is predominantly charged in the private market, either on the Redmond side of Overlake, there's a charger that it can use, or on the Bellevue side of 148th that it has often been using. Do we know what if, for instance, if it were to charge At home base, at the Redmond Fire Station, we would, of course, be subscribed to the PSE's cleaner and greener energy. Do we know about the energy makeup, the emissions makeup of those charging facilities? And how are we calculating that? And certainly I'm eager to see us make sure that when we get that fire truck at Station 11, it's able to charge at home. But we know there are some difficulties with this one. So just wondering how that is affecting the city's emissions at the moment.

We can, I would like to follow up with you to give you a really accurate answer because there's a lot of nuance to that. As you know, Green Direct, so we have clean energy for our own city facilities. But to your point, when we don't charge at our own facilities, we don't capture that. But we also capture that usage within our broader inventories that we work with PSC on. So I want to make sure I answer it accurately, so we'll follow up. If it's okay, we can include that in our September. We'll be back in September with a quarterly implementation update, and we can include that information there, and we can certainly highlight it at that point, too, if that's okay.

Perfect. Thank you. Council's Vice President, Ewa Kabino, and then Council Member Kritzer.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Council President, for bringing that up to tag on to Council President's question. We've also started the process of taking on our second EV fire truck and then looking to what would we, having some information as to what can we then expect to, as we're looking forward to take delivery of the second, and how the timing is going to be impacted.

Thank you. Council Member Gritzer.

Thank you. A lot of really good work here, so thank you so much for all that you're doing. One question I had about the PSE project in the Marymoor neighborhood, is that a pilot that then we would look to scale in more places, or is it standalone as an effort?

This is a program through PSE called the PSE Up and Go program that cities can apply for. And as part of that application process, we did a review of where there was an underserved population in terms of charging infrastructure in the city. And the Marymore Village area was the one that rose to the top and also had curbside access that the city controlled the right-of-way on. So for now, this is a standalone project. There will be the one two-port charger that's being installed now. There's another light pole in front of the Evangelical Chinese Church that... is in design, and once that design is completed and passes through our permit process, there will be a second charger there that will be installed as well.

One other just piece of context is these are PSC-owned poles, and so that's kind of one of the pieces that made this a little bit more tricky of finding additional sites. It needed to be PSC-owned poles, infrastructure, right-of-ways where we had parking, and so it was kind of this. These two areas came and rose to the top, so these will likely be the only two, but Potentially there could be more in the future, but again, likely just these two.

Just a follow up question, if that's all right. So maybe not with PSE, but are we going to be looking to expand more of the publicly created on street parking that's using pole infrastructure?

We are not to a point yet in our kind of strategy and EV work in general where we can accurately answer that question or confidently answer that question. It's certainly something that we're looking at. We know it's a best practice, but it is also much more, you know, it's a tricky policy solution given charging for parking and, you know, street cleaning and that kind of thing. So it's a little bit tricky. So we are hoping to learn through the PSE process and then evaluate it as a solution as we build out our public infrastructure work.

Council Member Prakriya.

Thank you. I am wondering about, just reading through the packet, wondering about our charging capacity for electric vehicles between roughly 2030 and 2032, because I think the packet says we need about 875 L2 stations by 2030 but it seems like a lot of the steps that we've taken and these are great steps are a little bit longer term. Like, for example, the ribbon 2050 package mandating that multifamily housing has to have all this charging capacity will only probably start to see the benefits of that i'm guessing 2020 2032 2033 so in that in that meantime, what are we going to do to bridge the gap in those in those few years.

That's a great question, and I think you're right. That multifamily housing, and there's also the state law requiring commercial businesses to be 10% EV ready as well. I don't think the city is able to fill that gap entirely by creating a public charging infrastructure program. I think we're depending on partnerships with PSE and partnerships with other private businesses that are putting in charging stations in different places, and I think that market is still maturing. We're seeing a lot of new kinds of chargers go in that aren't just the Tesla chargers. So I think that's probably where some of that gap closing will happen. But the city wasn't planning on providing all of those 800 and some chargers. Yeah, it's kind of a mix.

Actually, that was my question too. Any more questions? Yes. Seeing none, thank you so much. We'll move to our agenda item number five, sorry, agenda number four, which is tree canopy expansion update. And again, this is presented by our parks director, Lorraine Hamilton. We saw Lindsay Falkenberg, parks planning manager online, and we have Emmy with them, our environmental resiliency civil spark fellowship.

Good afternoon, Council. Lorene Hamilton, Parks Director. I'm actually gonna hand this item over to Lindsay Falkenberg, our Parks Planning Manager, to provide a tree canopy update, as well as an update on our second annual tree giveaway.

Awesome, thank you, Lorene. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. Lindsay Falkenberg here, Parks Planning Manager, and I already kind of gave it away, but I'm sorry that I'm not there in person. I am under the weather today, so happy to be here online with you all. And I'm excited to provide a brief update on the work underway to protect, expand, and better manage Redmond's urban forests. So I'll start with a little summary of our tree code update, which I know you all just had the pleasure of deep diving into last week. But to summarize, work continues with our consultant facet on a comprehensive repeal and replacement of the existing tree code. The first draft and second drafts have been published on Let's Connect Redmond, where community members have had the opportunity to review the drafts, complete a questionnaire, and provide comments. We also hosted two virtual office hours to answer questions, and there is another office hour scheduled for tomorrow. As well as for additional learning sessions and staff are beginning to compile public feedback to help inform the next draft as we continue engagement with the planning Commission and technical committee. On the implementations implementation side tree canopy expansion projects continue across the city. parks has awarded a planting contract for hartman park idlewood park and the redmond Community Center campus with planting anticipated to happen this fall. Public Works continues maintenance and establishment work on recent plantings, and our Green Redmond program is supporting these efforts through volunteer stewardship, seasonal watering, and planning for this year's Green Redmond Day. We're also preparing to welcome 10 youth stewardship interns who will delve into the world of ecological restoration and sustainability starting next week. And I'll now hand it over to Amy Whittem, who was just introduced, but who is our Civic Spark Fellow this year and is going to provide an update on this year's tree giveaway program.

Thank you, Lindsay. Good afternoon, Council. I'm here, as Lindsay introduced, to provide an update on the tree giveaway. Last year, the tree giveaway was highly successful. It was the first year, and all 500 trees were given away pretty quickly. Registration was full within one week. A survey was sent out back in early summer to see the survivorship rate. There was 45 responses and over 90% of them had said that their trees were thriving and doing very well. This spring, we have been partnering with Plant Amnesty to deliver free tree education to the participants. This is through webinars and in-person tree walks and workshops. And for this year's 2026 giveaway, we're continuing to partner with 300 Trees to source our trees Plant Amnesty to deliver more tree education and the Washington Conservation Corps to assist with delivery of trees and planting assistance. Recognizing the enthusiasm on trees in Redmond, we have increased our tree total to 750 trees this year, which is 250 more than last year. Additionally, as provided in the packet, we have started to implement a more targeted outreach plan this year to address Redmond's tree equity within the city. It was used creating the tree equity score analyzer tool, which is a tool created by American Forest, which uses census data to create an analysis using both tree canopy data and socioeconomic factors to create scores for where trees are needed most. So using the data from this analyzer tool, we reached out to higher equity areas via mailers. So these were tree giveaway flyers that had the direct link to the application so residents in these areas could have priority in signing up for a free tree. Then just last week, we had our main general opening date for the Redmond residents, all of them, which was a mix of e-news, flyers, tabling at Derby Days and social media, which got the word out to all of them. As of today, about 300 of the trees have been claimed so far. Later this year, the giveaway will happen on October 10th, which is a Saturday. It will be at the same place it was last year, the Art Hill parking lot, which is on the municipal campus. And this year we're going to offer some new tree education day of including tree walks and pest education and still offering free mulch and other education for participants.

Thank you, Amy. Finally, I'd like to highlight two additional efforts that will strengthen our long term urban forestry work. Earlier this summer, aerial photography and LiDAR flights were completed to provide updated tree canopy data, which will improve our ability to monitor canopy change, evaluate planting success, and support future planning. We should have those results analyzed by this fall. We've also submitted budget requests for an urban forestry program administrator position and funding to develop a comprehensive urban forest management plan. Together, these investments will provide the dedicated capacity and long-term strategic direction needed to continue growing and managing Redmond's urban forests effectively. Thank you so much for hearing this update, and we're happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you so much. Any questions? Council Vice President Niwakamena.

Thank you, Chair. Wonderful work, and if I heard correctly, this year we are decreasing from 500 trees from last year's giveaway down to 300. And of the – no, is that – No. Up to 750. Okay, thank you. I'm so glad that I asked that. Only 300 have been claimed at this point. Only 300 of the 750 have been claimed at this time. Wonderful, because I was under the impression somehow in my understanding that it was down to 300 and that they had already all been claimed. So wonderful to know that the community still has plenty of an opportunity to claim the remaining trees of 450 before October 10th.

Yes. And we would appreciate all of your help with getting that word out. Wonderful. Thank you so much.

Any more questions? Yeah.

Thank you team. Really appreciate it. And thank you, Amy, for walking us through all of the strategy related to this year's tree giveaway. We have a map in our packets and it's maybe I should ask it this way. Could you tell us what this map is that we're looking at in the packet and

Sure thing. So I basically took the data from the tree equity analyzer tool, specifically the data around linguistic isolation, poverty rates, tree canopy, existing tree canopy and what tree canopy could be expanded. And lastly, heat disparity and balance them and clipped it to the neighborhoods of Redmond. So this doesn't include any places zoned for businesses or recreation. And there are some biases at play here. I do think particularly with the Idlewood section, it is labeled as like a moderate to high priority. I do think that perhaps in that section that there are a higher number of retirees who have been incorrectly marked as being people in poverty because when I was looking at all the factors in the Tree Equity Analyzer tool, that area did seem to have more, a higher percentage of seniors living in that area.

Awesome, I understand now. Okay, so this is the Tree Equity map that you were referring to and of course, it probably parallels pretty nicely with our climate vulnerability assessment that the city did a couple of years ago. I really appreciate the strategy to make sure that we are getting the right trees in the right places. And I'm just flagging like for the group, I think as we once we have the urban forestry manager, which I can't wait to support in the upcoming budget conversation, The idea that in the future, these tree giveaways could potentially even target those who live along the street and need to help us replace street trees as impacted by development along the way because I think there's quite a bit of overlap around the highest needs on your map where we're missing trees in our city and correlating with the urbanization in those centers in particular. Anyway, all to say thank you all so much for your work. And Lindsay, really looking forward to having that new team captain for urban forestry next year. Thanks.

Council Member Kritzer.

Thank you. And thank you, Amy, so much for that great overview and the work that you're doing. Really glad to have you here. One item that I just wanted to bring up as we're discussing tree canopy that came up as part of our work on salmon recovery with Raya 8 is just, The increasing impacts of the warming waters in the Sammamish River, which I know the Sammamish River Trail is King County land, but maybe something that we might want to think about just as we're doing planning going forward, since it is also kind of within the city of Redmond. and that area just has some really long stretches without significant tree canopy, but are very important, but that could be very important in terms of kind of cooling those waters for migration. So just wanted to highlight that. I brought it up to our staff, but I thought I'd bring it up in this conversation for potential future project or collaboration potentially with King County on that area of work as we expand our tree canopy. And since I know right now, mostly the sides of the Sammamish River along there are covered in blackberries, but it could be a really great project for future restoration and riparian plantings. Thanks.

Council Member Parsi?

Just wanted to say thank you so much for putting this program together and I saw the tree catalog and it looks like we have a lot of native tree options for people to choose from with really great information about planting. So I really wanted to encourage everyone to go take a look and find a tree that suits them. So thank you so much for putting this together and sharing the report today.

I do have my question, and this is first based on the map. Is this the same map that was followed last year, or we have put this map together specifically for this year, seeing the results?

This map was specifically made this year. I don't believe there was a map last year. It was just really trying to get all the trees gone and out there. It didn't matter where they ended up as long as they were within Redmond city limits.

And I have a question. So so I see that downtown Redmond is a very high priority area, and predominantly lot of families living in the downtown they are renters, and they may need landlords approval. So how this tree giveaway program is adapted for tenants in the multi family and, you know, in these high priority zones, like, you know, what's the plan for some of those things?

Yeah, we have on the main tree giveaway webpage a form that renters can print out asking their landlord for permission. And if they get that form signed, then they can bring that to the giveaway day of as a proof and then pick their tree. But I want to acknowledge that A lot of these spaces with really dense housing may not have space for a tree even, so we're going to explore in the coming years how to pair potentially some tree giveaway opportunities with deep paving where it makes sense.

Thank you so much. Any other questions from the council? Okay, with that, we can move to our next agenda. Our next agenda is park signage and wayfinding standards and strategy plan. Again, we have parks director, Lauren Hamilton, and Lindsay Falkenberg, our parks planning manager online.

Good afternoon, this is our planned update on the signage and way finding project that we have been undergoing and so i'm going to just hand it over to Lindsay in the interest of time.

awesome so i'm back and excited to share a preview of the final signage and way finding system design, along with a draft table of contents for the accompanying guidelines and standards manual. And while today's update is primarily an opportunity for you to see the final system and how it's kind of coming together, I also want to highlight the extensive engagement that informed this work. Throughout the project, we collaborated with regional partners, engaged community members representing a range of accessibility needs, and worked closely with city staff to ensure the system is practical from both a maintenance and operations perspective. We also had an opportunity to meet with representatives from the Snoqualmie Tribe to better understand the best practices for incorporating Lushoot Seed into our signage. We really appreciate their partnership and are looking forward to continuing that collaboration as we implement projects that include Indigenous language representation in the future. And looking ahead, our next steps are to provide final feedback to our consultants at Tool Design on the Guidelines and Standards Manual, Complete the design phase of the project and then transition into implementation, which has already been funded through our current capital improvement Program. And i'm happy to take questions I know it's it's mostly a visual update so. it's a lot of it's in the packet but yeah happy to take any questions you all might have.

Also, if you haven't had a chance to fully review and you want to send notes on to us, we would also be more than happy if you have not had a chance to review, you can send them to me directly.

Council Member Forsythe.

Thank you. I'm a little concerned because I don't see the feedback that we gave prior incorporated around accessibility for our community and the color palette. I went ahead and did my own analysis of the color palette and I just forwarded that to both Director Hamilton and to Lindsay. I have major concerns around the visibility for the most common red-green colorblindness community group, which is about 6% of the male population. And you can see that in the images that I forwarded. I also forwarded those to council as well. So I'm just curious what work has been done around expanding that color palette and the concerns I have around language accessibility. I love that we worked with the tribes and we're getting that language incorporated. But the color palette accessibility would also work towards the fact that a majority of our population is English as a second language, and we could have some iconic way finding through the use of color. Additionally, as the East Trail co-chair, we're pushing for an effort around branding the entire East Trail as East Trail instead of having cities call out the names that we've been colloquially using like Redmond Central Connector, Kirkland Central Connector. So we're really making an effort to make it more regional themed and make it more East Trail. I know they saw one of the sign types in here was for CONFUSING MOMENTS, AND ONE WAY WE CAN AVOID SOME OF THOSE CONFUSING MOMENTS IS TO AGREE UPON LANGUAGE ACROSS THE ENTIRE NETWORK. I UNDERSTAND WE WANT TO KEEP OUR LOCAL CHARM, BUT I THINK THIS HASN'T NECESSARILY BEEN A PART OF THE CONVERSATION AS WELL.

THANK YOU FOR THOSE COMMENTS, COUNCILMEMBER FORSYTH. I WILL BE HAPPY TO PASS ALONG THE COLOR PALLET CONCERNS TO OUR CONSULTANTS. They have a background and expertise in this and in ADA and accessibility and I believe they believe that this signage family is accessible and so I'm happy to share your concerns and pass along any feedback that they have or any explanation that they can provide on the color palette that was chosen. Um, and then in terms of language accessibility, uh, I think that I, again, I'll be curious to see what you have passed along in terms of, um, iconography and, and how that could potentially address some language accessibility concerns. Um, I think we've also really decided upon the QR approach as, um, an approach that can help, uh, signs be translated into many different languages. And that was something that we heard during our feedback sessions was people felt that, people who spoke many different languages didn't feel it made sense to have multiple languages on a sign, but to have a system for translation. So we stuck with the QR approach, but yeah, happy to look through and excited to see what you've passed along.

Just for clarity, I wasn't implying that we should have signs in multiple languages. I was saying the color can do the work of the need for multiple languages. Say you're telling someone to go to the library, follow the red iconography, right? Or you're wanting to go to the downtown area, follow the green iconography. So if you're a family member here in town, you can tell your family member, follow this certain color. And that will take you there. So there are just broader ways to think about wayfinding accessibility. This was my past career path. So happy to talk further offline about that. I just, I've mentioned this multiple times and I'm very sad to see we're at the final phase and we haven't incorporated any of that.

If I may add a couple of things. One is there actually is an extensive iconography library that we have. This isn't a full report. This is just showing the sign family. So we actually do have significant iconography. I think the other thing to note, and your point is well taken, Council Member, and I will absolutely work with staff to ensure that we're working with our consultants and seeing what we can do in some of these spaces. But part of what we're seeing here are are the design standards, not the implementation. And so I think to some of the points that you're making right now, some of that is how we implement it. And so you are correct, like, oh, this particular icon can help do that work for us. I think some of that is how we implement it onto the signs with our designers, because none of these signs are in the state that we're gonna go stick them in a park. They'll each take their own kind of design packages, you would know. So I just wanna also call out that these are pretty general and not fully inclusive. We do have an iconography package, but the point about color is well taken and we can follow up on that as well. The last one is around East Rail and I do, your point is well taken. Lindsay has been in very close contact with East Rail, so I want to be really clear that we're not doing this in a bubble. And while helping people identify that they're on the East Rail is extremely important, it's also important to help them identify where on the East Rail they are. You know, I don't do long haul biking, but I have a partner who does, and he will often ride like the West Sammamish Trail, and it's very helpful for him when he has those centering things.

Oh, I'm out of Kirkland and into Redmond. And so again, these are kind of standards and will be in implementation, worked very closely with East Rail. The intention is absolutely not to sign along East Rail without being in collaboration with them. But it's going to be a nuance and it's gonna be, there's going to be some probably some compromise in that space.

And to be fair, that is a developing conversation that just came up since Lindsay rolled off of that committee. So just to be fair, that conversation is new. Yeah, I was going to say, yeah, yeah.

I know that there's been conversations. I just, yeah. So thank you for those notes and we will absolutely follow up.

Any more questions? Council Member Prakriya?

I'm just curious, how many total signs are we talking about here? And what is the estimated lifespan of them? Are you asking how many are in our system?

How many are we intending to replace with this new sign family that we so the goal is that this would be at the standard that we roll out throughout our entire system so in a new park it would be the signage we put in from fresh in a new in different parts of our system we would either replace them as their replacement cycle came up or they would be part of like a package deal where we determine to replace the signage in an entire park or trail. I don't think we have a full inventory of every sign in our system.

No, we do not. And that was something we discussed with our consultants was that we actually didn't think it was useful to have an inventory of every single sign in our system. Instead, we felt it was more useful to have standards and guidelines for how to replace and when to replace so that staff could make strategic decisions about that moving forward. And to Lorraine's point, that may sometimes look like a one-off sign or it may sometimes look like an entire package for a park. system as it becomes appropriate.

And in the last budget cycle, there were dollars put into the CIP to start the implementation of this. It will not replace every sign in our system, but it absolutely will help us start being really strategic and get used to how are we implementing these new design standards? Because as I was saying to Council Member Forsyth, some of it is standardized, but some of it is the implementation of that standard and us figuring out what that looks like in each space.

Okay I yeah I was just curious because I was wondering how are we actually going to budget for this if we don't know like the number of signs and where we're putting these signs and when we have to replace them and one other point I wanted to bring up was and maybe this is a conversation that we need to have when we're actually doing the implementation but I would have liked to seen as part of our materials you know not just the the standards for designs but what is actually being changed materially about these signs? Like for instance, I didn't see the QR codes on them until that was brought up in conversation. So maybe just a few quick paragraphs when we're designing the signs as to what, I guess, what new features they have.

Yeah, we can absolutely provide that. I think what I would share just in brief is our current signage standards are kind of all over the place and they're not really consistent, which is why we did this study is, over the years as redmond has grown we've had signs from different decades different eras when you visit different parks you can kind of see that the materials are also very and so what this does for us is says all of them are these materials they're highly resilient they will last a long time and as we replace we're able to do so in this new manner

To your first question about how do we plan for it, that is the next stage of implementation. How do we budget for it? Well, as we go into implementation, we'll start to say, okay, these are the parks that we're going to be identifying.

These are the stretches of trails that we're going to work to sign, and then we'll work with consultants to figure out how many signs are those, how the signage standards help us understand how far each sign needs to be.

So the plan helps guide the work, and then the implementation will help us guide the asks and the finances and the resources that need to back them up.

One last question by Council President Stewart.

Yeah, thank you. A small comment and then a question. My comment on the neighborhood park iconography, I am not an expert, take it for what it's worth, but neighborhood parks are where we play, and I think some of the most playful inhabitants of those parks are more like squirrels and chipmunks. The salamander reads a little tropical at first glance, so take that for what it's worth. My question, actually, to the director's point just a moment ago is... related to the need for lots of different types of signage throughout the city. Our tourism strategic plan also calls for increasing wayfinding. So I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit about the feedback that you received from the economic development staff and then their involvement in the creation of these standards.

I would actually love to give that question to Lindsay because she was heavily involved with economic development on the development of this.

Yeah, we've had members of economic development staff involved throughout our signage and wayfinding process. We have a biweekly meeting where we meet with our consultants. Folks from across the city join for that, specifically more from the transportation department. But, you know, other staff have been involved as well and come to our different meetings. when we've done workshops, for example, they've come to those. My understanding of how this is going to roll out is that, you know, economic development and transportation have been watching us do this process and seeing how it goes. And I think our planning to build on, you know, some of the branding and design that we've worked on here, but also undertake their own process to do wayfinding on, you know, a scale that is outside of parks. So that's my current understanding of what their planned approach is, that they've been present throughout our approach to see how it went, and I think generally seem to feel excited about where we've landed, and then plan to undertake their own approach to, or their own process to do this outside of parks.

And I think that what I would add to that is that the implementation of these, particularly along things like trails and in kind of parks like Downtown Park, for example,

is that we would also help direct people to places like the light rail station or to major economic, you know, towards Redmond Town Center, these areas within Redmond. And so that is part of the implementation plan for us is that, yes, we're wanting to let people know where you are on the Redmond Central Connector or, you know, whichever trailhead you're on, the Powerline Trail, but also that we're helping people find transit and find those central hubs within Redmond. And so as we implement, we'll also be looking towards in this park what are we trying to direct people to not just another park but within the city of redmond so that implementation piece will likely heavily involve economic development as well so that they can help us and transportation planning so they can help us direct people to the places in redmond that we're trying to get people to go does that help answer your question okay yes thank you want to be sure that we are able to move forward with a design standard that will accomplish many of our needs absolutely

Thank you. We are running short on time. So moving on to our next agenda item number six, which is events innovation funds update. And thank you, our parks director, Lauren Hamilton, for being here. And then we have Lindsay Tewsink for events and marketing supervisor and Brittany Pratt for parks manager.

Hi there, we will try to go quickly. I'm Brittany Pratt, Recreation Business Manager, and we're here today to provide a brief informational update on the Community-Based Events Innovation Fund, the new grant program created to encourage innovative events in Redmond. As a reminder, this fund was launched with a $25,000 allocation for the 25-26 biennium, but we allocated all of that 25K for events that were happening in 2026 only. The grant's purpose is to support small nonprofit organizations, specifically those with annual budgets under $500,000 a year, in producing free community building events that have an innovative element or are new entirely. And with that, I'll turn it over to Lindsay.

Hubert, I'm Lindsay Toosing. If you'll recall, we were here last September to receive your final input before opening the grant call in October. At that time, we solidified grant eligibility and grading criteria. The grant call was open from October of last year until this January. Ultimately, we received six qualified applications and scored those organizations on their performance in four categories. Their events ability to bring new and innovative activities to the community, build community and increase quality of life, accessibility and appeal to a wide audience, and the financial needs of that organization. Of the total qualified applicants, the top five scoring organizations were awarded their full requests totaling 23,000 of the $25,000 budget. Our final grantees were Green Stage with Shakespeare in the Park, Falunqo Sports with Passport to the World Watch Party, the Turkish Women Charity and Aid Organization, One Redmond's Fall Concert Series at Downtown Park, and Bigfoot Kids Kids Book Festival. In March, we completed contracting and routed payments directly to each grantee. That was very important to Council, so we made sure that happened. The grant-funded events take place between July and October, and post-event reporting is required from every event producer 30 days after the conclusion of their event. While the fund attracted a small number of qualified applicants, we believe the quality and impact of these events is proving to be substantial as several of these events have already taken place and were well attended. For instance, these events could very well be a Redmond Child's first introduction to live theater, Shakespeare, or interacting face-to-face with their new favorite author at the book festival. We're grateful for the input and support of Council throughout this process and excited to see the remainder of these events unfold through the summer and the fall. With that, we're happy to answer any questions.

Thank you so much. I see Council Member Kritzer.

Thank you. And I first want to express my appreciation for the work on this and to those who proposed and put on the events. I had proposed this during the last budget as an idea to be able to address a need that I heard from community-based organizations. that maybe didn't fit with say LTAC funding to be able to create things that were really meant to be for our community as well as to seed events that could grow into something bigger. I did hear from several of the organizations that had expressed those concerns to me that I had thought about this as a way to solve that it turned out that the way this was structured didn't work for them to be able to apply for it. So I do think there is more for us to do to ensure that we do meet the intent I think there were just some pieces, I think, and we talked about this when we talked about the eligibility for the program. I think it did pose some barriers, and I will just say, in my vision for this, it wasn't necessarily that it would only be $3,000 to $5,000 grants, but it could even be more micro grants to be able to support smaller events. I think the size of the amount of attendees that were required or some of the other pieces may have been some barriers, so I would just suggest I think it's great to see that this has been going forward and if we want to move forward with it in the next biennium would be to revisit and maybe gather feedback from our community-based organizations on ways that anything that might have kept them from applying given that we didn't get as many applications as I might have expected. I'd also note that I was surprised to see a couple of the grantees in here specifically around the World Cup since we did have a separate World Cup granting program and I don't think that was the intent even though it does seem like those were great events. So not putting anything down on those events, but I do think the intent of the World Cup grant program was to be for those watch parties. And similarly, I guess I have a question about how One Redmond qualified of being an organization with a budget less than $500,000. So just curious about that. Maybe it's the foundation, but I guess that the vision was for our smaller nonprofits to be able to have access to this.

Yes, they did qualify because of the one rep and foundation. They were able to provide sufficient financials that came underneath that $500,000 operating annual budget. And to some of the organizations that you might be mentioning that didn't quite qualify, we did have some of them reach out to us and they weren't on the bubble. They were quite over the budgetary limit that made them ineligible. So they didn't apply, they just inquired. And I think that was the barrier there. But I think we really did kind of, come toward our ideals of supporting smaller organizations with that grading criteria for financial need. This was intended to make events possible that might not necessarily be feasible without a little bit of monetary help. So I think we really made some impacts in some of those organizations, especially the Shakespeare in the Park, something that hasn't been in Redmond for many, many years. Excited to see those kind of things start to creep back into this community.

yeah super excited about the shakespeare in the park that seems great um i yeah and and again i i appreciate everyone who came up with the ideas that that were funded i just think in terms of process and i think the idea when we set this actually i think it was written that council was going to be a part of reviewing applications that came in or to be a little bit more of a part of it and we didn't really get to be a part of that so which i i get that um Once we budget for it, you all execute. But I also, I think maybe we could take another pass at it going forward to continue to achieve the goals of the program.

Council Member Forsyth. Thank you. I'll just echo a lot of what my colleague said. When we established this innovation fund, in my mind, it was really to provide space for our small nonprofits to really innovate on a program that they really kind of wanted to try, but didn't necessarily have the funding to do, and that it would be a way for them to test the waters for a program that had longevity. And the longevity part, I guess, is the part that I'm missing here. I see the Shakespeare in the Park, and they'll hopefully come back and that will that's a good test case for testing the waters but the the watch parties felt a bit out of place in my mind as well so i do hope we get another shot at this i do hope we can bring another budget offer forward to try again and to really find out from those nonprofits that maybe didn't apply, what were some of the barriers to applying? Did they understand the intent? Did we understand the intent? And if we could try this again and really expand it into those programs that really need legs to grow and this is a way to make that happen.

If I might just also add, definitely well noted. I think some of those organizations as well we have worked with and or discussed being community contractors with us, which is where these smaller programs that need space, that need legs and room to grow, but are free to the community, but maybe don't reach some of the thresholds of this, are able to apply through a community contractor process in our recreation team to get space within our community centers. I know we've worked with folks like Pride Across the Bridge to have conversations around those types of programs. And so that process actually was born out of some of the early conversations that we had with council before this ever came through, because I think we're talking about a couple of different things here. And I think that is where perhaps some of each council member's intent behind what they were hoping to see here maybe feels like it missed the mark is, when we get money for an events innovation fund, we're going to think about special events. What I hear being discussed a little bit more is programming, which is a different level and a different level of resource and different paths because oftentimes they're actually asking for space in our community centers.

And that's why we came up with that community contractor process, which I believe we have shared with council in the past. So the feedback is well noted, but I just do want to, I like to continue to remind about that particular process because it is such a helpful, impactful process for our community groups that want to be able to run free for the community programming and don't want to, don't need to pay for rental space because we're able to help accommodate them through that process. So definitely noted and always places to improve. But I do think that some of that language is where maybe some of the expectations aren't quite being met in this.

And I would just add too about the doubling up on the watch party grants. This particular grant was juried in January, and a lot of those decisions were made prior to the watch party grants opening up. So some of my grantees were awarded additional monies through the watch parties. So it was sort of an after the fact, but a separate process. Yeah, and they were eligible for both of those grants simultaneously according to the grant terms.

Thank you. Now we are really short on time. So moving to our last agenda item, which is teen center project update and again presented by Lauren Hamilton, our parks director. Thanks for being here for all the agenda items today.

Absolutely, and I did see a couple more hands on that last item So if you have questions, please send them to me and I'll work with staff to form responses And while I know we are over time these updates are important So we're more than happy to continue conversing with council as long as you are

So today we are here.

I'm joined by Shaylee Jane, who is our project manager from Public Works, and Steve Gibbs, our Public Works manager for the CIP program, is online, as well as Brandon Buehler. And today we're just going to give an overarching update as to where we are on the Teen Center project. late last year the direction was given by city council to rebuild the teen center in an expedited manner on the current site and to center teen voices and ensure that we included music as a central central program for things like a sound recording studio and performance space Since then, staff has been heavily engaged in this process. Early this year, after Shaylee was assigned to the project, we began to meet with various design builders in the area to understand how to best approach this project as we were looking to both expedite and center team voices. In those conversations is when we came to the determination that the progressive design build alternative delivery method was the best way to accomplish that. We did update council before that final decision was made and I believe that all of us were on the same page that that was going to be the best way. Since that conversation, Shaylee and I and others within the public works team have been meeting with design builders and allowing them to ask us questions as we worked towards our preparation for the project review committee at the state. We brought on a consultant as our owner's rep. They are called PDBC, Progressive Design Builder Consultants. Very creative. And they have a long track record in delivering progressive design build projects. The overarching agreement is that this project is ripe for this particular delivery method. It helps look at ways to expedite the schedule, save time, but it also has a never-ending feedback loop where we can bring information and feed it into the design the contractor is able to give us more real-time information on cost and then we're able to make more real-time decisions. As we were preparing for the PRC presentation, which was last Friday, and our application was unanimously approved, we've also been working on the request for qualifications, which was published yesterday. In that RFQ, the project goals were robust engagement, a creative and inclusive design, and an efficient delivery and process, which helps us look for ways to expedite the project for delivery. At the same time, staff is working closely to ensure that we are living up to our fiduciary responsibility, that we're being good stewards of the taxpayer dollars in Redmond, making well-informed decisions, and bringing things forward to the decision makers with as much information as possible. The request for qualifications, like I said, was published yesterday, and that request for qualifications will be closing on, sorry, I'm pulling up my date, August 10th. Is that correct? sorry, August 24th, thank you, Shaylee. After that, we will shortlist our applicants and do a request for proposals. At that time, we will do meetings, interviews, and as a project team, look for the team who has really been able to center the project around the goals. incredibly key to this as we've been meeting with design build teams and they've been asking us questions is how are you going to ensure a robust engagement process that is creative and is thinking outside of our traditional engagement box to make sure that we are engaging team voices. This is written clearly into the RFQ and written clearly into the RFP to ensure that that is a key tenant to their proposal. And I think that that's going to be one of the really major ways that we're able to see who's going to be up to the exciting challenge that we see in this project. The goal will then be to offer this to a finalist by November 4th.

Over the next few months, we're going to be working really hard answering questions, reviewing proposals, and while it may seem at times that the conversation is relatively quiet, it's not because work's not being done, but it's because we need to go through our proper procurement process.

In the meantime, we are doing an initial engagement scope with our owner's representative, PDBC. They have a rich history in community engagement, and so we will be working with them to do some preliminary listening with the community as well as gathering the information that we have so we can validate that with mayor, council, and the community so that we can validate what we've heard. So that will include things like listening sessions, dreaming sessions, our ability to say, what is it that you want here? The sky's the limit. Let us know so that we can bring that information in and help pass that off to the design builder so that they can then help us create an even more well-informed scope for community engagement in the next phase of the project. After the design build team is on, we will start our validation process. The validation phase is key in the progressive design build process. The validation phase is where we help set the scope, the budget, and the schedule. And in that phase, we will be listening to the community, taking in everything that we're hearing, and begin a design towards the budget. The current budget that has been set in the PRC packet and that will come through the budget process is $35 million. A big piece of the PRC process is being able to say this is the scope of the project. I was asked over the weekend by one of the council members, has the decision passed that this project could go either direction? The answer is no. The validation phase helps us understand truly what we want this project to look like. We have a rough idea. It's a teen center. We have a site and we have a rough budget. And in the validation phase, as we listen to the community and set our priorities as a community, we'll be able to come back to council and say, this is the project that we will be able to get for the allocated dollars. These are the items that the community requested that we are unable to fit into this project and then make a decision on how we are going to proceed with that $35 million project. When the validation phase ends in mid next year, mid 2027, we enter into design and permitting and then final design and construction. The great thing about progressive design build is that as we go through design, there will be key points where we come back to the community and say, hey, how do we, you know, here's a design question for you. Can we hear your input? So that then we can begin to incorporate that and move it forward through. And so that's one of the greatest things about the progressive design build process. When we met with the PRC last Friday, they do a deliberation on if they're going to approve the project or not. And one of the panel members said that this is the type of project that progressive design build is created for because it allows that real-time feedback loop and it allows us to make decisions based on the goals that we place around the project. And so at this time, we are working hard to continue to move the project forward. We have not, it has definitely been a priority for parks and public works to get the work going. We also appreciate the support of our finance team to ensure that we had a budget so that we could move forward. So at this time, did I miss anything? No, okay. Shaylee said I didn't miss anything. So at this time, we'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Council Member Rakhria.

Thank you, Director Hamilton. I was wondering if you could just explain a little bit more about our relationship with PDBC, the consultant. I didn't fully understand their purpose here as well as how they will help us with the community engagement and what type of community engagement in particular we're doing. How many members of the community are we engaging? in what ways are we going to be engaging them? More specifics there.

That's a great question. So PDBC is on an initial contract with the city. Shaylee and I met with three different owner representative firms to determine who would be a good fit for us. In order to get through PRC, because we don't have a long history of delivering on progressive design build projects, we needed to bring on an expert to kind of help continue to guide us. Similar to what we have on the MOC, we also have an owner's representative on that project because it's also an alternative delivery method. So PDBC was the firm that came to us and seemed to understand two things very paramount to us. One was the importance of community engagement and two was the importance to expedite. No other firm that we had talked to had identified being able to do some pre-initial engagement with the community prior to bringing on the design build team. So when they brought us their proposal, they said, we hear that this is important. You wanna keep the project moving and you wanna do some community engagement. Great, let's overlap some of these timelines so that we're not losing time during procurement because procurement of the design team is just gonna take time. And so we are in an initial contract with them We will work on scoping with them for further contracting service consulting services through the project right now They were on a small contract to get us through the PRC process and We are working on an initial scope to bring back through City Council for approval for a larger budget with them but the real goal was for them to contract with us to work through getting the project review committee and Your second question on initial engagement. One of the partners in PDBC, her name is Becky, has a strong history in community engagement. It's a big part of the work that she's done throughout her career. This initial engagement will be open to everyone in the public, but we will be doing teen-centered listening sessions as well. And so we are still working through that final scope, but it will include things like... meetings with stakeholders and elected officials as necessary it will also include a community listening session where we invite the community in and say you know sky's the limit what do you want to see in this facility what would be you know a successful project to you and then we will also do at least two teen centered ones as well because we want to ensure that we cast that net wide but also accommodate schedules because we'll likely be back into the school year when that hits so wanting to make sure We're also connecting with the school district. I met with Barbara Postumus at the district last week, and they're going to be working with us to connect better within the schools as well. We've got some connections here and there, but we're wanting to cast a wider net. We're going to need some networking to get into the schools at a higher level. The goal of this first initial engagement is really that conversation. Last time I was here, Council Member Kritzer asked me, well, can we just do a dreaming session? And I was like, let me get someone on board to help us do that so that that feedback can be taken in more productively. And that's the point that we're at now. It'll allow us to do that. Sky's the limit. Let's talk about what we're really wanting to see in this facility so we can hand it off to the design builder. but then that team will have a community engagement plan as well. So this is just like step one of community engagement. Does that make sense?

Currently, we are 21 minutes over the meeting, and I just want to check with the council members if they want to have the conversation or the council president's to it.

Thank you. Appreciate the conversation. Director Hamilton, I think if I understood you correctly, the $35 million budget and the 20,000 square feet or so that are listed in this RFQ came from a place of working with the finance team to pick a responsible budget number. I do really appreciate that and also want to flag for the council that we ultimately are gonna have a choice to make. And so we gave direction earlier in the year that we will be exploring debt financing for the upcoming CIP needs, including the MOC, including the teen center and a variety of other things that we may need to do. So I do just wanna say that As a council member, I look forward to our chance to be able to, after the engagement, make sure to validate for ourselves that number. I am curious, Director Hamilton, if you have a sense of timing, because of course we have our CIP budget preview. It looks like on September 8th, so it looks like the assumptions around the $35 million, we're gonna hear about those more on September 8th of this year. We'll adopt a two-year budget and then spend a year doing validation we may come up with a different number after a year. We've got these other projects in the works. How are those aligning with the potential schedule for debt financing?

I'm actually going to ask if my finance director can come help answer that question a little bit because that's her wheelhouse around the debt financing piece.

Thank you, Director Cochran. You're welcome. And I am just as anxious for our September study session. There's lots going on. Things are headed in a really positive direction for a lot of our projects. So looking forward to that chat. When it comes to the Teen Center and really any of the projects that we talked about in that session, Capital Financial Strategy. All of them are still on pace and working towards the same construction or bond issuance deadline of potentially late 2028. But there's a lot to... and a lot to know, and there will be a lot of changes along the way, but at this point, there's been no changes to that plan. In order to provide additional funding to the teen center, which we know is needed, we took a look at not only what the baseline plan was, but what the current plan was. So we're looking at building a facility that is larger than we currently have. which makes this project eligible for impact fees or more impact fees than we had originally expected. So that made up part of the gap. The other is that we have quite a bit of activity from both our legislative agenda and our park staff in pursuing grants and regional partnerships for this facility. And so we've made some assumptions that way. and most council is aware that there is a devastating loss of what I thought was ongoing sales tax. It is now going to be one-time sales tax, where we, in 2025, were given the, well, the taxable services were expanded to IT types of services, which in the Redmond area is quite large. I had about a six-week window where I thought that was going to be forever money, but it is one-time money. And so we've identified a very conservative estimate for that, but really targeting getting that over to the teen center to offset some of that gap.

Thank you. So I think just to wrap it up with a bow, and that's super helpful, is that this validation process, though it will take a year, using the conservative estimates that we have, does not preclude us from a debt financing decision even 12 months after that to build what we ultimately need to build. Thank you.

Council Member Kritzer?

Thank you, thank you so much for the update. And the work on this, I know a lot of our community is very anxious for us to progress this as expediently as possible. So appreciate figuring out what is the best method for doing this so that we can get that continuous feedback and move along as quickly as possible. I think in terms of learning from the process thus far, one thing that I think would be really helpful in the near term would be if we can create some communications around the kind of schedule for community engagement and input that is gonna be a part of this process and would love to be able to see that and give feedback as council on that. Also, and appreciate that it sounds like that's gonna be coming up, those visioning, dreaming sessions, that we do those early so that they can help to inform what we design. I also know that in our engagements last year, I heard a lot, especially from teens, of saying, ask us how we wanna be engaged. So I would even say in this early process, if we could actually go out and gather feedback from our teens on how they might want to best be engaged, what would make them feel most comfortable, most creative, most included, I think that that is an important step in the process, to not just say, this is how you can, join with us, but how can we best engage with you? And appreciate that. And then one follow-up question on the budget, because we've gotten a couple questions on this since the original estimate was 9 to 12 million. I think when we had the discussion about bonding, we were looking at like 20 million, and now we're at 35 million. Can you just clarify why we're seeing that number?

Absolutely. So the nine to $12 million was not a project cost. And we were really clear about that throughout our conversation. They were rough order of magnitude of either renovating what we had or rebuilding literally like for like of what we had. So it was meant to be a data point, not a budget number, which we were really clear about because we got kind of stuck on that in the senior and community center rebuild. If you'll remember, we had these numbers assigned really early of project cost. And then all of a sudden the building went from 20 million to 40 million. And I believe we had a very, I was not director at the time, but I remember very similar conversations happening. And so it was meant to be a rough order of magnitude for us to understand kind of the level of issue that we were dealing with at the time. The $20 million was set aside, again, when we built the senior and community center, we had already actually had capital set aside to do a midlife renovation of that facility. And so we had this amount set aside that allowed us to start with an architect, get design going, and get community engagement going.

It was a number that allowed us to get the project moving. That was the intention behind the $20 million. That was what Kelly said, Director Cochran said, we can set this aside so we can get the project moving so that you guys aren't held back so that we can move forward expediently. The $35 million is a placeholder at this point. It is for us to validate with the community. We could not get to the validation phase without PRC approval. And so we discussed as a, myself, the public work, former public works director, the finance director, the COO, the mayor, we talked about, okay, so what is a number that we feel reasonably comfortable with to start with as a validation for a project that can help meet the needs that we have heard thus far? And this was the number that we felt reasonably comfortable with. while we were able to do incredible work in the former teen center, it was also 8,000 square feet. And as we talked last year really extensively, I heard both centering teen voices and ensuring that we're preserving the legacy of the teen center, I also heard planning for the future. consistently in the direction that we were given as staff planning for the future means ensuring that we have space that's going to last us not five years or 10 years but 50 to 75 years and so that's part of what we need to talk about and validate through the process is what is that community need and how do we actually plan for the community for the future

Do you have a follow up on that? Because I wanted to go back to the comms and schedule, if you don't mind. Yes, agreed. We actually just talked in our manager's team in parks today about this next step. We've been meeting with Shaylee. We met this afternoon. Those are not created yet because we needed to get PRC approval first. If we were to not receive PRC approval last Friday, we would need to go back to the design bid build process, which would drastically change the structure of our community engagement, our outreach and our communications. And so it was really imperative for us to get that answer. to be able to say, these are our next steps. So we are working with PDBC. They're working on that timeline for the initial engagement. We don't have it yet, which is why it's not published or communicated. Additional engagement with the design build team, that schedule will likely not be available till either late this year or early next year. But that's definitely on our radar, getting those communications out as soon as possible. We were just waiting for that last domino to fall.

Thank you. And I'll just say... Having engaged a lot on this in the last year is, I think, just my goal would be if we cannot wait too long, because sometimes the lack of information, you know, that vacuum can create concern, uncertainty in the community. So totally understand that we don't want to put things out before we know or have to change it. And I'll just state for the record, just reflecting back what you were saying about the budget, since there were questions about it, is that what I'm hearing is that we are setting this larger potential budget so that we have room to dream. We have room to vision. And for our teen center. Because I think that is a concern from some folks, and I just want to address that. This really allows us to envision and come up with a teen center that's going to be last for our future. So thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Parsi, and probably that will be the last question so that we can wrap up.

I saw a number of 2031 for the timelines expected for the project and kind of hearing from the council in terms of the expediency of the project and the speed that we wanted to prioritize this project for it was a little bit further out than I had anticipated. So I would love it if you could speak a little bit more to that, see if we have opportunities to bring that number sooner and Yeah, we'd love to hear more on that.

Yeah, that's a great question and I appreciate you asking it. Yes, the goal is to bring it sooner. The timeline is conservative and the PRC, when we met with them on Friday, also noted that this felt like a very conservative timeline in comparison to other projects. that they had seen. Part of it is because we want to ensure that we leave enough space for things like permitting, which can take time. But the other piece of it is, is on a project like this, we're being asked two things that are both very important. We are being asked to be expedient, and we are being asked to center teen and teen voices. As we look at scope and schedule and budget, we're going to need to understand that every... every touch point that we add on to the process will add likely four to six weeks to the project. And so there are going to be spaces where we are able to lessen our timeline and there are going to be places where we choose to push the timeline out. And so as our design build team comes on and we build out the engagement scope, we intend to bring an engagement scope to council that we feel is able to accomplish what we've been asked to accomplish. while hopefully capitalizing and bringing that timeline down a little bit. And it's going to need to be a conversation with council about, you know, if we're, for example, we bring an engagement schedule and you all are like, well, we would like you to add four more. We need to understand that that will likely add a solid four months onto the project because an engagement touch point is not just a meeting. An engagement touch point

Takes us time to prepare to do to take that input in to understand it to bring it into the design build team to validate that we can do it and then understand the cost impact of that and so we just those are just information pieces that we all need to be aware of as we have these conversations is where these two things are both extremely important. And there's going to be moments where we're going to have to decide are we. pushing that timeline out in order to accomplish this goal, or are we choosing to trust the data and information that we've heard thus far and working to keep it expedient? And so those are going to be some of the decision points that we have that might be kind of tricky because both of those are really important and they were both directed to us by council. And so we're going to have to figure out the appropriate balance of those two things.

Thank you, and I will encourage all the council members, if you have any other questions, please do send it to Parks Director Lauren Hamilton. And this was the last item on the agenda. This meeting is adjourned.