City Council - Regular Meeting

to the flag, United States. to the republic for which stands one nation under God, indivisible with liberty. They asked the clerk to please call the roll. Councilman Beaton here, Councilman Damon, excuses tonight. Handsome member Hudson, here, Council memberer Oliver, here, Council member Tesero, here, Councilman Van der Stoop also excused. Council member West here. Thank you. Item 2 is approval of tonight's council meeting agenda. Counsel, I would entertain a motion to approve the agenda. So move. Second, should be Naor. Second by Melissa. All in favor say aye. Aye, all opposed, say no. Motion passes. Item 3 is community comments, and we welcome those of you here who would like to address City council and mayor tonight to please come on up to the podium, state your name and your city of residence, and please limit your comments to about 3 minutes for us. Uh, anyone here for community comments tonight. I'm going once, going twice. All right. Uh, we will move on. Tonight's consent agenda, counsel it includes, oh, did I miss someone? I think so. Oh. Oh, come on up to the podium if you would please. And if you could just state your name and city residence and Uh, my name is Ron Allen. I live in Mount Vernon Um 2120 Cascade Avenue. and I just have some things, um, I talked to the, uh, the city office during the week in the city office had uh one of the uh one of the uh policeman who was supposed to um you know run you know, uh, where we live

in that area. um north of Fir and uh we live at Cascade Avenue. and um so I just have some things that are you know, that, that I'd like to see done uh one of the things that we have, we have about 1000 apartments in, in back of us And there seems like there's always something uh, and what a lot of it is, I was hit. at the stop sign there last year. We had a car turned over in one of the 4 people we're one of those people. Uh, but a lady turned her car over in a yard. and she was hospitalized, one thing. but uh I'll say one thing that the speed limit's 20 miles an hour. and they've put in uh a 25. if you're going, uh, over 20. you know, it'll 225 now, some of the cars come over the hill. the ones, the one that hit my mailbox, for example, this is uh the 3rd or 4th time we've had to rebuild it. The my neighbor and myself and um you can hear the cars coming from way above, you know, above where the four stop signs are. So, um so the fact that you guys, uh, well, you guys, I don't know who works for what, but, but you're all there, so I'm addressing all of you. Um, and I'm it's one of the things that I'm, uh really, uh really um kind of at a loss to say one

thing, I, I've got a son who's uh captain on the Bremerton force. And so they, they surround me willingly. I mean, I'm willingly surrounded by them. So, um, they've done that, they've, um, you know, I had, um, uh one of the officers about 2 years ago come out because I put in a a complaint when I was hit, when I was stopped at the sign. and uh I was asking her to to pull her car into our driveway. and uh she pulled it on the shoulder and then I kind of got chewed out because my dog crossed the highway. So anyway, but that was it. But then that it was good. Um so I've seen at least 2 patrol cars. uh, the last within the last I guess 5 or 6 days. And so I look out my window. We, we bought our lot that our house is on and then we bought a vacant lot that's on the corner. It's a big vacant lot. And so, um, I've noticed some improvements and I, the officer I spoke with on the phone, uh who the mayor's office asked him to call. He seemed like a really good guy. He's, uh, said he's been patrolling that part for about uh 18 years. So, um, I was looking out my living room window. I'm retired, so I do that a lot. And so, I saw a couple of police cars going slowly, uh, and, you

know, some of the some of those guys back there, I was told uh by an officer that, um, that it's, uh, really, really bad. Um, and one of the reasons why there are no speed bumps. and it seems there should be because we get lots of people who were walking their kids or people of all ages going back and forth to school. and uh if they have to walk, and it's kind of a semi-ditch, which is part of my property and so I, I keep that cleaned up as much as possible. Um, but, but those things whether the kids, you know, and the, the pay, the people with baby carriages and all that have to walk in that ditch which it, it's full of grass. um, we're, we're running right up against our, our time limit here. I want to make sure though that we have your contact information so staff can follow up with you and, and talk to you about these things. Do, do we have that? There's a sign, there's a sheet at the door. Did you see that where you can put your name and it's so we can follow up with you. OK, I've been in here a couple of times complaining about some of this, but um I mean, the officers seem like a pretty good people. So, um, and the improvement in the people, uh, in the uh police who are you know, taking that as a patrol. Um, I thank you. I, I noticed an improvement. already and uh so I'm gonna be here one way or the other. Thank God I like it. So where we live, so but um I'm open for any suggestions or anything if I

can help. you know, if a patrol car wants to, you know, um stay at, at the end of our driveway, the vacant lot, uh, I've got some, uh, good things that I can lend, I believe, as far as helping these people, you, you can hear them God knows how far before they come over the hill, and it is scary. um, about how fast they are going. So we will follow up with you on that. We'll follow up with you on that tomorrow, and I appreciate your, um, coming here today. I appreciate that your, your kind words and you're welcome back anytime. Thank you. It's good to be here. Thank you Anyone else wishing to address city council tonight? OK? We will move on then. Item 4 is tonight's consent agenda. It includes meeting minutes, payroll, claims, agreements, and the street closure request for the Cinco de Mayo parade. next week. Uh, any motions to approve the consent. I second that motion by Navvo and a second by Mary. Discussion on this one. All in favor say aye. Aye, all opposed say no. Motion passes Uh, item 5A is council member comments. Any comments from council members today? Um, are you gonna talk about the bridge? in your marriage report? I certainly could, but would you like? I don't, I'm, I'm just going to throw it out again for everybody that the West Side Bridge is going to be painted. starting next month. We don't have the firm start date yet. Be, be aware that it's going to be about 11 month project and traffic will only go westbound one lane. so it's, it's

on our website. It's on Wahdots website. It's, we're trying to put it out as many places as we can. I just wanted to throw that out as another PSA, um, please know that we're excited about getting painted. We're not excited about how long it's going to take, but it, it's just the fact of life and um. please pack your patients and have alternative routes to Mount Vernon. Thank you. Thank you The other council members council members Councilmember West. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, so this is also a public service announcement. The first week in May is going to be the week in which folks need to get their canvas, candidacies filed? So we have a lot of frequent flyers here, you know, feel free to get involved, become part of the system and, and make changes. So, first week in May. Thank you. Anyone else All right We will move on to Mayor's report. Um, it's Adam Pearson comes up to advance the mayor's report slides. It's probably the perfect time to call him out and introduce him uh as the, the new city of Mount Brennan special projects manager. Welcome, Adam. Many people know, uh, that I've asked Steve and Adam put this program together. I couldn't believe he put his picture up there and everything. He didn't he did not. Uh, a lot of people know I've asked Steve Sexton to um to head up the development services department. He's doing that doing a great job, uh, with the opening of this special projects manager position, uh, the city was fortunate to land one of the most highly qualified professionals in the area, Adam Pearson, for this role in the mayor's office. Adam and his family are Mount Vernon residents with longtime multi-generational ties to

the city, um, Adam started in a part-time capacity last week. Was it last week? Yeah I think so. He's already begun, uh, working diligently towards um our, our city objectives. So excited, also relieved to have one of Adam's caliber in my office So welcome, Adam. Uh, Next, wanted to let our community know about an opportunity to learn more information about a topic of interest that has been surrounded by some complexity, some concern, even some misinformation. Imagine that. Uh, that's why this Monday evening some Mount Brennan City Council members, and I will join the county commissioners and other guests for an informational town hall on the topic of senior services in the city of Mount Vernon. Uh, it's a good opportunity to get good information to have your questions answered and folks with questions can send those questions in advance of Monday's meeting by emailing them to either of the addresses on the screen there, or you can also write them on paper. and drop them off in person at the senior center this week. The informational town hall event will take place Monday, April 27th at 5:30 p.m. at the Mount Vernon Library Commons. So plenty of parking, plenty of good information that our community wants to hear about the future of a couple of things, senior meal service and senior programming in the city of Mount Vernon. So hope you can join us this Monday evening. Uh, I wanted to let everyone know that our 2026 Community Academy graduation took place last Thursday evening. Community Academy is a 12-week program that's been in place for 32 years. It's designed to provide Mount Brennan residents first with firsthand information about how their police department operates

The purpose is to increase communication and understanding between residents and the police department. Um, some of our more astute viewers may have recognized a couple of graduates in this photo. That is right. It's our own Mount Vernon City Council members, Hannah Oliver and Andrew Van der Stoop. I am incredibly impressed that the two of them invested yet another weeknight for 12 weeks to take this class. So congratulations to them, um, and for anyone interested in taking this class next year. Now is a good time to put in your application for enrollment. You can do that on the city's website or in person at the police department next year's class will begin sometime at the end of January, beginning of February. And finally tonight we are in just the 4th month of 2026, and I'm already getting asked the question, what has the city done with this year's revenue from the parks and public safety levy that just passed in November, uh, back in November of 2025, our city of Mount Vernon voters told us that they were tired of the limited funding, the limited services in the city's parks department and our police department in our fire department, and so we told our community what we would need to make capital improvements in our parks to hire and equip a police officer position each year for the next 6 years, as well as immediately hire 6 firefighters to reduce our response times. We promised to deliver these things if the funding was there, and I'm pleased to report tonight that our voters committed to the funding and then just the 3, the 1st 3, 3.5 months, uh, we have begun replacing the 30 plus year old

playground at Hillcrest Park with a brand new ADA accessible fenced-in playground that will open this summer. We've already hired sworn in and ordered a new patrol vehicle for the city's 47th funded police officer position. That's Justin Blunden there in the photo from last week's swearing-in ceremony in the photo on the right hand side, you can see all six of the city's newly hired firefighters at their fire academy graduation, and we had some standout Mount Vernon firefighters at this year's Academy, I'm told. Um they excelled there and they are now back in the city and uh working for the city of Mount Vernon residences. It's, it's imperative to me that our community knows that when we say we are going to do something with the resources that you've entrusted to us that we get it done. and that we do it right and that those dollars are going directly into serving and protecting and benefiting our community as soon as possible. So thank you again to our voters for that trust. We appreciate that. That is your mayor's report for April 22nd, 2026. We will move on to new business. Item A. Thank you, Adam. is a presentation from applicants for the city's opioid settlement funding grants, and I believe Steve Sexton's going to introduce this item. Steve. Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, counsel. Yeah, this, in response to your decision to direct a $100,000 of the opioid funding to the grant application process. That's what we did. We established a process. We had 3 applicants respond to that and all very worthy as you can imagine, and this evening we're going to have the

presentations from those three. and just a question and answer session afterwards and no decisions made tonight. those will be put off until the next, next Wednesday. We will have the decision point at that at that period in time. And if I just wanna state, if any, any questions come up that you don't get answered this evening throughout the week, if you think of anything else, let me know, and I'll search out that answer for you. Any questions before we get started OK. All right. Uh, hitting leadoff is, I believe Lieutenant Shackleton from the Mount Vernon Police Corps. You didn't come on up and he, he got this and All right, there we go Uh, so, first, thank you, Council Mayor, for making these funds available for the grant, and I'm happy tonight to be here too, submit our application on behalf of the Integrated Outreach Services team at the Malvernon Police Department. I hold the command role for the team at the department, and I've got with me James Cammer, who is our unit supervisor. And so again, we thank you for this opportunity. Um, as we get started, I know counsel is pretty familiar with the iOS program, but for the sake of our new council members as well as for the record of the proceedings. I do want to go a little bit into the function and history of the program. And so, about a decade ago-ish, the department realized that there's certain calls for service out there that don't necessarily need a police officer to respond to, and there may be better ways to respond to those calls for service. So we came up with the outreach services program as an alternative to traditional police response

to some of these calls. So we are able to deliver the resources to the people that are encountering the criminal justice system, whether it's that underlying aspect of mental health, substance use, unhoused, and be able to provide that service differently. So hopefully they don't have to encounter the system in the future. So the team began back in 2017 when we hired Aaron von Pham, who a lot of you are familiar with. Uh, she is doing great work out there, changing lives, and I remember when I left our detectives division and came back to patrol as a sergeant, just watching Aaron running around all over the place, all the time, and so with that we recognize that she's doing great work, but if we have more people, we could probably even expand that great work that she was doing. So in 2022, we created four additional positions for the team in that time, we had again great success, which I'll talk about here in just a minute. One of the challenges with that though is there's only been about less than a 6 month period of time that we've been fully staffed. Um, and we want to get back to that point, which is part of this presentation tonight. Uh, this past year, we were fortunate we added an ARMP to our team. Uh, she's been an incredible resource, helping out with the people out there that have medical issues, and she's great because different than some of the um paramedic-based programs out there. Morgan has the ability to actually prescribe medication to the folks she's working with. Somebody doesn't have to wait to go see their primary care physician. She can do it right there. And one of the things we're looking at is, is there an opportunity to wear, you know, if we get dispatched to an overdose in the field. Morgan could come with us and offer the opioid receptor blocking type medications, Suboxone, the buprenorphine. to prescribe those on scene, and then even beyond that, uh, kind of researching is

there a way for her to actually have that. in stock, if you will. And so if we go there and we encounter somebody and they say, yes, we'd like to, you know, start our recovery process. You can say, great, here it is right now. and get them started on that process. When Aaron came to us, she brought with us with her seven operating principles for the team, as you can see looking at those, those are very person centered as opposed to problem centered. James continues those principles today, and has talked about how when, you know, we're sitting down, maybe in our morning meeting talking about the folks we're working with, making sure they're looking at the principles and making sure that we are following what we believe in. So the primary responsibilities of the team, they do intentional outreach to folks who are unhoused. So going out, handing out food bags, maybe going out in the early morning hours with some coffee waking folks up, doing that intentional outreach as opposed to responding to a call for service to try to connect people to services at that time where they are. And then with that, we know that when we do make those connections, it's not something that's just a one and done. It takes ongoing case management. So we do provide that intensive ongoing case management. Uh, one of the things I just want to highlight with that that we do is we really try to get folks that we're working with, uh, involved in some pro-social engagement. We take them out so they can feel the community, what it is, and be a part of the community themselves. And so there's a couple of examples here. We've got Halloween downtown, where James and his team have taken people and actually dressed up and their handing out candy to the kids at the city event, and then the Christmas parade, they go out, they decorate the team's vehicles and actually our participants in the parade themselves. Beyond that, we do some

medical outreach. We talked about that with Morgan, going out doing street medicine, treating people where they're at hoping to prevent further complications on the street or emergency room visits. Uh, they do the crisis response, so somebody's potentially actively suicidal. We'll bring the team out to, you know, use their expertise to try to find a voluntary surrender Another benefit of having them a part of that crisis response is if that person needs to then get to the hospital in an involuntarily treatment manner. We can rely on them and their clinical expertise to be able to write that good affidavit, better than what a police officer would do, uh, because of their clinical experience to make sure that person gets the care that they need. And then we do the independent response, which is the response without officers. So the things that come in like vagrancies, trespasses, welfare check type calls where there's somebody here We don't want them charged with anything. We just want them to move on. That doesn't take a police officer to do that. OK, so we can send a team of two of our outreach workers to go and contact them, start to engage them in services, so it doesn't the behavior doesn't continue and ultimately turn into criminal type offense. We want to stop that ahead of time, and we want to be able to have them and their expertise be able to do that and leave the officers for the true criminal behavior that's occurring. This is our last year's results, as you can see over 2000 field contacts for 265 different people, 81 people diverted away from the justice system and an average of 71 people that were doing case management for a month. Uh, this is our first quarter of this year. Uh, one of the things I want to point out, the last slide showed 81 diversions from the criminal justice system. We're already at 68 this year, and that is because of what we've added with

our ARMP program. We're now tracking as well our emergency room diversions because any of us that have been to the emergency room know that that's an expensive proposition, the emergency room is busy and so if we can divert that upfront, um, we want to do that and so we're tracking those now. We're already at 6 8 between the criminal justice and the emergency room diversions to this point this year. I'm going to have James come up here right now and talk about some of the kind of specific success stories that he and his team have had over the past few years. Good evening and thank you. I don't know if you've seen this car around town and it came into town about 2023. And my first encounter with it was right outside City Hall, um, it might be the reason why you got Plexiglass downstairs. Uh, it came into City Hall with a spear, demanding to use the restroom. and uh over time, this car made its way around town. Uh, we engaged with this person a lot, um, community action engaged with this person a lot. And um what we really tried to do is build a coalition of support for him. Uh, he was under 25, which meant he qualified for Northwest Youth Services and we continue to say, hey, go to them. Talk to them. Here's their number, call with us and over a period of a year, um, we didn't think that was working, but he won the apartment lottery by being involved with this part, this, this group that we were helping connect with. And meanwhile, we were creating prosocial opportunities. We are going out and doing things. Uh, he took part in, uh, cleaning up with the recovery cafe and uh we went behind the Walmart and picked up garbage along that

trail, and so we're really just engaging in our relationship that got him into an apartment. and, you know, he has his ups and downs. Uh, right now it's downs, but we continue to have that relationship. Um, he's out in Burlington. We still engage with him and we did a diversion with him today when he had a law enforcement contact. We are able to interdict with that. with our relationship and get him to the first step center, uh, for shelter for tonight. So, um, we continue to engage, we continue to support, and it's just long term for as long as it's needed and um yeah. Here is another situation that was a little bit more volatile, this individual, I wish we had a different camera angle, but the person down on the riverwalk assaulted somebody with a knife. and now they ran over here, and now if you can see he has a knife to his throat. So on the other side, you have officers trying to negotiate, but we've had a relationship with this person for years since before 2022 when I came on board. and we've had a relationship with this person and his girlfriend. Um, this is my partners, Mike and Mary upfront, and they were able to communicate with him. They were able to speak down to him, talk to him about our relationship about how this doesn't have to get violent, how we can help out and meanwhile, he's talking about, I'm really worried about my girlfriend. Where's my girlfriend? And so Mary upfront was continuing to engage with him and taking the lead on negotiations, and Mike in the back was able to find out, OK, where is his girlfriend? There was tons of officers

around, and so they were able to locate the girlfriend. Mike was able to relay information of safety and then we were able to get the girlfriend to safety and shelter that night. Uh, ultimately, he put the knife down and he was able to be taken into custody. We were able to visit him in jail and continue that relationship. So it's kind of different dynamics of what we do and uh when we come to work, we don't know exactly how we're gonna do it, but when we get the call, we're just gonna go do it. So this is our team as we sit today James is the supervisory role. Mike, who he just talked about, and then Morgan as our ARMP, the challenge that we have right now is that we do have 3 vacancies that are very difficult to fill, and so when counsel talked earlier this year about wanting to expand iOS. I'm on board. Let's do it. Um, love to have more people, but we need to fill the the team as it sits first. And when we did have a full team, we were looking at how do we expand ours morning hours, evening hours, can we look at a schedule where we could have weekend coverage, uh, so we can get more service out to more people. If we get back full of staff, we can expand and do that, to have those expanded hours and services available to folks. We are blessed in that we do have college interns that are in their MSW program, work with us. We have 2 currently. Uh, we've had 11 work for us over the years. Two of them have actually come and worked for us. Mike is one of those who did his internship with us and is now with us. We're trying to build the next generation Indeed MSW social workers to do that supervision, and so it's difficult to take folks on and do that one James and Mike are the only two that can

provide that supervision, but they are such a great help for the team, especially as we're low staffed right now. Uh, so get to our funding requests. The first one is for a hiring and retention bonus for our staff. He's got history with doing this for lateral police officers, uh, provide a hiring bonus and then another bonus that goes into a pot for existing officers that at the end of the year that gets distributed amongst all staff, and so what we'd like to do here is, um, you know, we looked at our salaries and this is iOS ' s salary at the MSW level. Here's some of the comparables both within policing and we've got some hospital ones in there. Uh, because, uh, we don't just compete with other policing agencies. Uh, it's not like a police officer position where if you want to be a police officer, you have to work inside a government agency. Social workers can go work anywhere. Um, there's jobs in different arenas other than government, other than them within police departments. And so I included some of the hospital ones in there, um. we're outside, we're working in the cold, we're going through the woods, contacting people. as opposed to being in a hospital setting where you're more likely to be inside warm People are stable. Um, when you look at these, the starting salaries, if we were to place iOS on the list, they would fit right here, uh, second to last and top-end salary would be dead last. with these variables. And so what we'd like to do is for the 3 vacancies we'd like to offer a $10,000 bonus which is paid out in two chunks, one at the time of hire, and then again at the time they complete probation and then for our existing staff, we'd like to offer them each 10,000 as well for a total of 60. uh for recruitment and

retention. Our second request is actually a partnership that we've entered into with Skadget first steps, which is an agency that would be eligible for these funds if they came alone, but we've worked out a mutually beneficial partnership with them. In your packet, you do have a letter of support that their executive director wrote as far as this partnership When you look at drop offs at the First Steps center, uh, they reserved 3 cabins for what they call law enforcement drop-offs. So if in the middle of the night I as a police officer encounter somebody that needs a place to stay overnight. There's 3 cabins available that I could put them in. You can see that Mount Vernon, between IOS and the police department, we are the, you know, consumers of that more than anybody else. And so one of the challenges with that is if IOS is some of their folks they're working with are taking up these cabins, that's less available when officers encounter somebody that's in need out on the street to be able to put them there. And so what we've done is uh we've come to an agreement with them that they will reserve one cabin for us for a year for our exclusive use for $30,000 for the year. I watched recently the joint uh county commissioners and city council meetings where the North Star program came in and talked, and one of the things that came up, I think council member Hudson he talked about the big gap that needs to be addressed as bridge housing. This is bridge housing Yeah, this school allows IOS, these cabin shelters are for overnight. And so this gives the IOS the opportunity that if we secured a bed and rehabilitation treatment center for them, but it's not till next week. Leaving them on the street is difficult. Will they continue to make their appointment on

Monday. A hotel can be an option, again, maybe not the best option. If we have a cabin here available all the time for us now we're able to bridge that gap for somebody to be able to get to the treatment center and not take up that law enforcement bid. First Steps has recently added 3 new cabins. So now one of those can be available just to us when the need arises. Our last request for this is radios for our interns. Right now when we're fully staffed, we don't have police radios for the interns when they're out in the field and so we're having to use spare radios from patrol or taking spare radios from our volunteer unit. which the challenge with that is our radios are all individually programmed, and so as an example, this is mine on the front there, that X-ray 3 designator, that's specific to me. And so if I'm out in the field and something goes haywire and I can't talk on the radio, I can still push my transmit button, and it'll populate to dispatch and to the other officers that it's me. that needs help And so if we have interns out there and they unfortunately get into something like that. We need to know who's using the radio. It doesn't doesn't come off spare 3 or come up as one of our volunteers, especially if we have other volunteers out there using it. And so we wouldn't know which specific person needed help. And so having some that are dedicated to our interns is really important for their safety as well. And so overall, our total request, like I mentioned, 60,000 for the recruitment and retention, 30 for the exclusive cabinet first steps, the radios are not cheap. and so for two of them, uh, it is $9300 and then some wiggle room in there if those radios go up, the actual, you know, physical radios or the programming that needs to be done. We've got some room in

there to to flex for that. So, overall, uh this team has been so beneficial to the city and what they're doing really moves the police department closer to achieving our vision of safe and enjoyable community living, but then looking out on a broader scale really at the city's vision. these are professionals who are providing efficient services, and we could tell stories for hours. of the positive difference they're creating in our community. So with that, uh, any questions counsel might have of us in our request. Thanks, Lieutenant. Questions for Lieutenant Shackleton. Questions? Yeah, it's Amber Hudson. Um, Lieutenant, um, the bonuses that we're that you're talking about, is there going to be some sort of a um minimum amount of time that they need to be employed by us to keep that said bonus. Well, they'd have to complete probation, which I, I'd have to check with Director Kater to find out if that's currently a year or if it's 6 months, laid out basically the same way as we do for the police officers. OK. I didn't know if there was a longer like you get this, but you need to stay with us for 2 years kind of thing, you know what I mean? Something we could explore though. Thank you. Other questions OK Thank you gentlemen Appreciate your time Right, and our next applicant is going to be from uh it's

actually a pair. teaming up from MV Hope. is Marie Carlson, and from Children in the Valley is Flora Lucatara. That had all these up here earlier it is, MDO. see that part. the to. like OK Well, thank you, Mayor. Thank you, counsel for uh letting us have the opportunity to come and talk a little bit about our partnership and what we are doing in the community. I'm Ray Carlson. I'm the executive director of Social Impact programs at the Skagitt Valley Family YMCA, um, and one of the programs that we, uh, support as the fiscal agent is MV Hope. We've had the privilege of having some of our middle schoolers come and present some of their uh substance abuse prevention, uh, to, to you all a couple of years ago Um, and, uh, we, we have partnered with uh SCOV for 5 years or so, um, providing prevention, uh, curriculum for, for their staff. So I'm going to go ahead and let what I introduce herself. Good evening, Council Mayor Donovan. I'm Flora Lucatero, and I'm the executive director for Children in the Valley. Thanks for having us here tonight. So, as you guys know, I've presented before, um, we've partnered with MV Hope

for the last 5 years because social emotional learning is very important to the use that we serve. We serve kindergarten through 8th grade, um, students in our after-school programming around Skagitt County in Cedra Woolee, Mount Vernon, Burlington, and Conway School Districts. And we've been partnering with MV Hope to provide, um, they fund us to provide the social, emotional learning curriculum that we use um across all of our sites to really what you're hearing, what you heard earlier on the prevention side of our students to help with mental health and substance prevention at an early age. It's a best practice program that MV Hope has researched and trained our staff in using that we can start it as young as kindergarten, and we've been using that in our elementary school, um, programming. and we're asking, um, for funding because of the best practice program that we've used and the impact that it's had on the students that we serve, um, socially and emotionally. We, we are really finding the need at our middle school and older, um, youth level, and that's where Marie um is coming in to help support us to provide that work on the preventative side, um, for our youth, many of them have shared the um aren't parents, especially aren't informed as to the risk um regarding substances and the impact that it has in our community, um, but they're seeing it and they're afraid for their children because they don't know how to um talk to them about it or how to even inform them of some of the substance use that's rampant in our county, in our community, but also in regards to the mental health and well-being, which they're seeing some of their students and, and children leaning towards um because they aren't unable to um really talk through with

their kids on how to keep them mentally and emotionally stable through the many crises that they're facing. So, uh, if you're not familiar, MV Hope is a community coalition that serves the Mount Vernon School District geographical area, so you don't have to be a Mount Vernon School District, uh, used to benefit from, uh from this coalition. Um, it's made up of 12 sector representatives from all over uh the community. Um, and I, uh, what we are doing is focusing on reducing risk factors. Um, and so, uh, we provide a curriculum, uh, for Centennial Elementary on, on this positive behavior support, um, and resilience training, um, and character development. Uh, for every $1 that you put into prevention, you save $10 in health. social services, and criminal and, and law enforcement down the road. So that's where we are. We get to be on the hopeful side of things, um, and I especially in regards to substance use, uh, finding those communities where those systemic barriers are going to be addressed. Uh, we're really grateful for, uh, our partnership with COV. We have an equity team that is monolingual who provides equity sessions in partnership with Mount Vernon Police Department and other community resources to do parent education nights and resource nights. And so those have been collaborative between uh our 2 R2 programs that were really grateful for. So, um the, uh, why we are here is because we believe in youth. We, uh, we believe that, that prevention is the best use of, of these, of these dollars. Um, and, uh, we want to build on what we have already been, uh,

been able to achieve in the elementary level. We are looking at doing, um, I'm going to skip ahead because uh what you have seen is our middle school peer to peer program, which uh right now is with uh Laventure Middle School. Um, it takes, uh, the, the club is uh you come in, they decide topics that are relevant to them that they're seeing in their community. Uh they are looking at things like um peer pressure, mental health, uh, advertising and they learn that information, then they go out in the community and present it. Um this has been highly successful. They've been able to go to every elementary school in the Mount Vernon School District to present to 5th graders as we have identified that that is a a key time to, to, uh, address some of these things with youth. Um, and, and now we are looking to be able to bolster the middle school programming that CO V is doing by being able to implement this program with their middle school programs that they've been working in. So, as you know, we're recently expanded into the middle school age group. We, we serve our most under-resourced youth, so youth that are referred to us by their school teacher, school counselor. to already facing multiple ACEs, adverse childhood experience in their life. So there already is mental health, substance abuse, and other issues that they have been born into And so those are the students that we serve in our elementary school program, as well as now our middle school program. And so we are really seeing the need for, as Marie shared, our 5th through 6th and 8th grade students to have this curriculum. Um right now we're using it in our elementary school model, but we don't have anything for the middle school um students that we're currently serving. So with this funding, we would use that to then partner again with MV Hope to provide this curriculum to the middle school students

that we're serving. And we're serving about 80 students um across all three county or communities gadget or excuse me, Sira Woolley, Burlington and Mount Vernon, Conway students, um, annually through our middle school bike Club program. So we'll get another preventative, um, opportunity for the students. Um so here, here you're looking at some of the, the program components that, that we have been able to do and that we want to continue. The other uh, the other synergistic benefit of, of this partnership is that a lot of our middle schoolers who are a part of this program, uh, are able to then also volunteer within NCOV and, and so, uh, and then also be able to provide uh opportunities for education for those middle school and high school, uh, volunteers to be able to implement them. So the way that we do operationally is we do, even though students end our program at 5th grade, they then could be part of our bike club. for 12 weeks, so it's a way for them to still be involved in the community and still get you services through their middle school. um, career and education, um, as to what Marie is speaking to, we, um, would like to continue to operate and, you know, provide support to them with that social, emotional and substance prevention um curriculum, and that's kind of what we're looking for today. We're currently doing that inadvertently through, we're providing teen workshops every month, where we bring in different speakers, um, and we coll we collaborate with other partners in the community to bring resources to these teens that are so desperate for looking for an outlet or a positive place to be, um, after school, but we're also bringing resources into them, but we would love to bring in the best practice curriculum to really still

continue to help them make those positive choices, um, and those positive actions, because we're seeing that with those kids that we worked kindergarten through 5th grade with so hard in the preventive, um, through our positive action curriculum in middle school, where they're really being tempted the most with peer pressure and really struggling with their mental health They still need that support in the middle school age group. So one of, one of the stats that, that we look at is that 90% of adults with a substance use disorder, had their first interaction before the age of 18. And so what, what we are looking at is uh one of the biggest risk factors that MVHOP has identified as part as part of our uh Washington Healthcare Authority, uh is, uh, community disorganization um as being one of the biggest risk factors for, for youth. And so, uh, by, by integrating our, our programming together, uh, that, that helps to bridge some of those, those gaps in, in our community to, to engage youth at at an early age. There we go, yeah. We just want a sustainable, healthy community. Um, and open to any questions. All right. Any questions for Laura and Marie. Yes, coach's member Oliver Thank you for presenting. Um, do you have numbers of how many students have participated in the program in the past or how many you're hoping will participate in the future? Yes, I, I have the numbers on like peer to peer students who are currently a part of the program? Yeah, or whatever, whatever it is that you want the funds for. Yes. So, uh, there's, there's currently 45 students who are involved in the peer to peer program at Laventure

Middle School. Um, and it is the largest club at at La Venture, uh, out of all of the clubs, um. part of it is due to the pizza and donuts. I'm sure that we provide but, um, but nevertheless, uh, they show up and the and they talk about it and are just looking for more engagement opportunities. So, and then as far as you, uh, you've served at COB. Yeah, so in our elementary school program, we're currently serving over 200 annually. And so those are 200 kids that are being part of this positive action curriculum every day, um, which we already partner with MV Hope on this. Funding would go specifically towards providing support for our middle school students, and then it'd be about 90 students annually. Um, that we are serving Any other questions All right. Well, thank you both for being here tonight. Thank you so much. Sure. Right. And with our final presentation for this evening from Community Action, Skagit County. We have Paige Cobs here to do that. Thank you so much Good evening. Um, today I also have Kendall Stafford. She's our outreach coordinator, so I wanted to have her join with us as well. M present Sorry, I decided. It's OK. So with Community Action of Skagit County, um, are, today I'm gonna

be presenting on our street outreach program. um, street outreach program has been around with community action for roughly 10 years now. It was a volunteer-based program at first, and now, um, with some funding, luckily we've been able to kind of build from there. As our mission here at Community Action is to break the poverty in Skagitt County by walking alongside people, uh, who want to build a hope-filled future for themselves, their children and the community. And again our um reiterating our mission, but our vision is also to um a community in which everyone works together to end poverty in Skagitt County. Our hope is really to continue working with the partnerships that we currently have been able to build, um, we are, I know iOS said it earlier, but we're in great partnership with them. We're in great partnership with um First Steps, helping hands, a multitude of partnerships throughout Skagitt County. Um we have 4 different resource centers throughout Skagitt County, ranging clear from Anacortes all the way out to concrete um, the individuals that we serve can walk into community action and receive access to our opioid street outreach, um. they have any staff member within the resource centers knows how to get a hold of us to be able to make contact with us so that our street outreach team can respond as quickly as possible to assist the folks that are in need. Uh, within our resource centers, we provide things like um access

to food banks, access to EBT like uh signing up for EBT. Um, we also really just strive to make connection to other resources in the county as well, rather in community action or again outside resources. A lot of the requests we have, um, even from our street outreach program is transportation needs the um access to phones, access to clothing and food, uh, shelter, housing. A lot of those programs we currently have at Community Action in which we can support them from Street Outreach, clear to housing. Here's a lovely photo of all of our staff members, um, it does need to be updated, but we're a very large group of individuals with a multitude of different, uh, knowledge, um. everybody on our team is very, very unique We currently have a very small team for street outreach. We only have one full-time, um, coordinator. Uh, we have two part-time students at Mount Vernon Colle um Skeget Valley College, who are also working part-time with our street outreach team. So very small but mighty team. Uh, so our major areas of focus, um, our resources and referrals that street outreach and critical need. Uh, we really, really aim to gain or gain relationships with individuals out on the streets where they're at and provide those critical needs in in hopes of building trust and that focus of walking alongside them to ensure that they feel trusted and they feel safe regardless if they're coming to community action or if they're coming to any other referrals that we may make, uh, we, again, walk alongside them to these

other referrals as well, such as we have many people wanting to apply for EBT, but they don't feel comfortable going into DSHFs. So we have a street outreach worker who will walk alongside them to DSHS and provide that support. Um we also, uh, provide access to housing and shelter as well. Um, we've made numerous referrals just from street outreach and individuals with that critical need, and it's very much so a critical need for a lot of folks but, uh, be able to make that transition from homelessness into housing, uh, with the way that our programs are structured. Our programs collaborate every morning to figure out, you know, who's been identified and is ready for housing. Our street outreach team will go out and help bring them in to our building or send one of our um housing specialists out to the field with them and complete the intakes and the paperwork so that these individuals again build that trust and continue to build that connection. Uh, with our food and access to nutrition. We have emergency critical need vouchers that we can help provide fooding with food with um, we provide not their, not super sustainable, but we provide snack bags on a daily basis. Any individual that walks into our office, um. regardless, you know, if they, if they're hungry, they're gonna get a snack bag. We also provide them with socks. Uh, many people living unhoused, their feet are sore. They have sores on them and they ache and uh we want to provide that at least a little bit of comfort for them right then and there and um see what we can do just to provide that kind of safety net right there. Uh, with energy assistance, this is just another service that we provide at Community Action previously and something that we

are looking into is helping provide propane. Uh, this would help many, many individuals across Skagit County who are unhoused to be able to cook, to be able to stay warm in the winter time, um. and then and you know, if they're signed up for energy assistance upon moving into housing then they would, the services could transfer over. Uh, we also make multiple referrals to education, literacy, and job skills. Um, many people that we work in tandem with, uh, with our education and employment have been able to move forward with their lives, such as our interns that we have. They were once unsheltered in Skagit County, um, with substance use, and now they are currently employed with us, working part-time, uh, going to school, and it, there's just been a, a very beautiful thing to see. Um, senior and disabled services, uh, while we do see that kind of rising a little bit, the population for senior and disabled services has been rising amongst the unhoused community. We have a service in-house that can help provide that stability for them as well and provide um just support overall. So again, our street outreach program um, supports the in-house community by bringing those immediate needs to individuals. We, in the morning time just give you a kind of synopsis of our day and what that looks like. We have, uh, our team meet in the morning to go over exactly which area of the county they're going to focus on meet together and then they'll go over to our storage unit and load up our, our um community action vehicle with critical need supplies tarps, tents, sleeping bags, um, socks,

clothing, hygiene, um, naloxone. We have um medical supplies, a multitude of different items. Uh, and then also we have walk-in lobby hours where individuals can come see us on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. So those more critical needs like phones that take a little bit more time or access to coordinated entry that, you know the services take a little bit of time. They're, they can walk into our office hours and we have staff members that can support them right then and there. And this is just a visual of Skagit County and the areas that we do serve. We have Skagit County broke out into 6 different zones. Uh, so we try to at least go out to every zone, I would say once a week. Um, we really are focus is Mount Vernon mainly because the population is the greatest, but we definitely really try to broaden our focus and make sure that all of Skagit County is being met. Um, I'm talking, I'm gonna back up really quick. On top of that we also have a pop-up events that we host up in Marble Mount, uh. there's not a lot of resources up that way, so we really try to shift our focus and bring those resources to those folks. Uh, with that pop-up event, we have community partnerships that have uh joined us in the past, uh, one year we had a public health bring out vaccinations so people could get vaccines as they needed them, um, which was a super great turnout and a definitely a great need. So for somebody to be eligible for our outreach services. They have to be unsheltered, meaning, you know, living on the street in a vehicle, motor home, RV, or space not meant for human ha

Um newly housed folks are willing to, are, are, are able to reach out. There doesn't mean they're not necessarily going to get served, but we are, we're going to see what we can do to provide resources and referrals to in-house programs as well as external programs. And I am really excited to talk about, let's see here, sorry, I kind of already, I jumped ahead a little bit, but here's a, an additional list of um just a, you know, small portion of the services that we provide at Community Action within our outreach program. I, I would just say that although we do provide the critical need supplies. Um, the most important part of our job is just connecting with the folks that we serve in our community and building those relationships so that when they are experiencing a crisis or when they have something that they need help with or wanna go to treatment or detox like we are one of the first people that they come to because we have built the trust and built the relationships with them, so. yeah, it's definitely not based on just those critical need supplies it's built on that relationship and seeing the person for who they are and um allowing that door to be open. So here's an overview of the individuals served, um, this doesn't represent even the amount of contacts that we have had, um. for 2023, there was only our our data really ramped up in 2024 with how we were capturing it. just in 2024 we served 1,883 people. Um, however, in each

month, you can see that, you know, there's there's lows some month, and then some months are very high. We tend to see a uh uptake in services in November, December during those colder months. Um, just in 2026, we have served 355 individuals. I wish that I could capture the or would have captured the individual contacts that we have met because those have been triple these numbers. And then again, this graph here outlines, um, the individuals that have received SUD assessments with our support, admitted into SUD services and then MAT services. Um, again, we can see, you know, kind of a trend of the up and down and when people are, um, and more likely to reach out for those services based on again, I, I really truly do believe that the weather plays a big part in it, but also that trust and that um just knowing where to go, who to see, who to talk to. We OK, we, we make those phone calls with them if they're not comfortable making those phone calls, we will make them. We try to encourage them to be beside us and make sure that they are listening to the conversation and that they provide their information as well, but we know it's hard for individuals sometimes. Um, could you remind me SUD and MAT, what that stands for? Yes, so SUD is substance use disorder. And then MAT Medical Assisted treatment. Thank you. You're welcome. Sorry about that OK. Did you wanna? I was just gonna add on here that um these are great numbers cause

anyone getting help in our community is amazing, but, um, being that we have been so underfunded in this program and that we haven't been able to have a full staff, like we said earlier, I am the only full-time employee and our street outreach program, um. on top of it that we our street outreach program partners with our street medicine program to provide medical um treatment out in the field. We have an in-house doctor that's in our office, uh, and with us 2 days a week, as well as the Scatchet residency clinic. Um, we also have partnerships with public health and Diwali, where we take them out into the community with us to perform street outreach, um. we see an average of I would say 120 to 200 individuals every month, and I just, I just know that more people could be getting help if there was more people to serve them and um you know, we have great interns and they're only with us for so long and you know they're free to work for us, so that's what we utilize the most, um, but it is very much underserved in that way. Uh Kendall kind of talked about our street medicine partnership a little bit, but um just to kind of hone in on that. So people experiencing poverty and homelessness. They face significant barriers to accessing um medical care, even wound care Um, are our street medicine partnership has really grown and flourished over the past year, 2 years. Um, Doctor Stark, the individual that um has volunteered his

time with us has come out into the community countless number of times to help bandage wounds, provide prescriptions um, make referrals, um, he's, he's just been an amazing individual. Uh, we really, you know, again, we strive to try and get those individuals into longer care, um, longer support. But with having the street medicine partnership, it's, we're able to help kind of bridge that gap for at least a short period of time to build that relationship and get them comfortable to going into further services. He's a lovely picture of Doctor Stark here. And then our internships. So again, we have uh students from, um, Skagger Valley College that have joined us, um they're amazing, but as Kendall mentioned, they're only with us for a very short period of time, but this opportunity gives them to give back to the community, uh, one intern that we recently uh he's actually with us now. He expressed to us that this opportunity has given him a chance to be able to give back to the community that he was once. running amuck in, um, so that has really, you know, stuck with us and the importance of having our interns is is great, but we, we still, we need more full-time individuals so that we can be out there longer, um, serve a more wide. area of Skagit County, um, and just really be out in the community. Do you guys have any questions for us? Any questions for Paige or Kendall? Um how,

what are, what are you gonna use the funds for, I guess. Can you give me a breakdown on that? Yes, so we would like to use um roughly 50,000 for a, uh, one full-time employee. and then uh we would like to be able to use the additional funding for our critical needs supplies and to help really build up our street medicine program as well. As of, as of right now, we, we work off of a direct service budget of $800 a month, serving 120 to 200 folks with tent sleeping bags, tarps, snack bags, Narcan, uh, all the things that you can imagine. Um, and so there's many times where, uh, even though we're low staff, we are doing donation drives and going to places to pick up extra things so that we can provide, especially in the winter months when people are freezing and they don't have shelter, um. it's that's a lot of need and a lot of um working and uh So $50,000 is going to pay for one full-time employee for for how long? A year. Yes, a $50,000 is for one full-time employee for a year. Is that the whole cost? for the individual, I would say, I mean, we, we work based on the pay scale fluctuates. So it's dependent on, I would really have to get together with our finance department, um, and really narrowed down that number and I'm happy to do so after this and

ensure that you guys have that. Thank you. Any questions OK. Well, thank you both. Thank you so much. And Steve, you talk about next steps again. Yeah, absolutely. So again, next, next Wednesday we'll bring this back to you for some decisions at that time. And again, if there's any questions you have or information you'd like to get your hands on. Shoot me an email and I'll do what I can to get that information out to you as soon as I can. So, right? Any questions for Steve before thanks for your work on this. I appreciate it. so we will move on in our agenda to item B. It's an approval of an agreement with Enterprise fleet Management and our city finance director Doug Valesky will present this item of Doug. Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, Council members. City staff is requesting council approval of a master lease agreement with Enterprise Fleet Management. This agreement will allow the city of Mount Vernon to transition from a traditional vehicle ownership model to a comprehensive vehicle leasing and fleet management program through Enterprise Enterprise fleet Management. As the city continues to face increasing operational demands, aging fleet assets, and budgetary constraints, it is important to evaluate opportunities that enhance efficiency, improve service reliability and provide long-term financial sustainability. Transitioning to a fleet leasing project, our model offers several key advantages. predictable and stabilization to stabilize costs that allow the city to replace large irregular capital expenditures with consistent budgetary monthly payments. reduced maintenance and life's life cycle cost, which ensure vehicles are replaced at optimal intervals, intervals, and reducing costly repair associated with aging equipment Improved fleet, reliability and

service delivery, which minimizes vehicle downtime and enhances reliability um city er operations. Excuse me. um, enhances risk management and safety since newer vehicles are equipped with the latest safety features and technology helping reduce liability exposure and improve employee safety Administrative efficiency, outsourcing police management responsibilities allows city staff to focus on core services rather than vehicle procurement, resale, and life life cycle tracking. asset management and resale value optimization avoids the risks associate associated with depreciating assets and resale timing. Um, that helps ensure the city maximize residual value and avoids market volatility. and scalability and flexibility, which allows the city to scale its fleet more easily in response to changing service demands without being constrained by long-term ownership commitments. In summary, a transitioning to a vehicle leasing program with Enterprise Fleet Management represents a strategic approach to modernizing the city's fleet operations. It aligns the best practices in municipal asset management and supports the city's goals of fiscal responsibility, operational efficiency, and high quality service delivery. So city staff recommends that the city council approve a master lease agreement that would allow the city to implement a fleet leasing program through Enterprise Fleet Management. All right, thank you, Doug. Council so any questions for Doug on this? We've had a couple of presentations already. Entertain emotion, emotions. Well, second, ocean by Navvo and a second by Mary discussion on this. Right, all in favor, say I. I, all opposed say no. Motion passes. Great. Doug thanks for your work on that. Thank you,

counsel. Adam sees a resolution for the city's ACH and EFT policies and Doug is back. Doug, Doug didn't go anywhere. Welcome back City staff requests city council approval of resolution 1095, adopting an automated clearinghouse, ACH, and electronic fund transit transfer EFT policy. The city has been receiving an increase in ACF and EFT requests, and as suggested by the state auditor's Office and the city's 2024 Accountability audit, the city has determined that adoption of a comprehensive policy providing guidelines for the authorization and processing of ACH and electronic funds transfers is the best interests of the city. This policy would assure proper authorization and execution of ACH and EFT payments to reduce the risk of erroneous and um fraudulent transition transactions. So city staff request city council approval of Resolution 1095, adopting an ACH and EFT policy. Counsel, questions for Doug for resolution 1095. Yes, Council Member Chasero, is there a net cost to the city for taking these tax payments? No, actually, it's, um, it's probably the most cost efficient because there's no cost to it at all. I mean, as far as like writing checks or that processing. Other questions I don't have any questions and state auditor thinks we should do it, and I think it's good accounting principles. So with that, I'll make a motion that council approve Resolution 1095. Second, motion by Melissa and a second by Navvora. More discussion. All in favor, say I, I, I opposed say no. Motion passes. Thanks for taking care of that, Doug. Thank you. Item 7, there's no need for an executive

session tonight. Uh, so the Mount Vernon City Council meeting for Wednesday, April 22, 2026 will stand adjourned at 8:15 p.m.