City Council - Special Meeting

Justice for all.

Do I have a motion to approve the agenda?

I move to approve the agenda. Second.

It has been moved by deputy mayor and seconded by council member Neumann House. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Everyone's aye. The motion passes. Before we go to oral communication, I would love to see if there is any issue that we suspend the rule limiting oral communication to three speakers per site on a given topic. Since we just have one topic, we still have a limit of half an hour. So if there is no objection, we are going to remove that rule. Is there any objection?

Great. City clerk, we are all yours. Any speakers to provide oral communication this evening?

Thank you, mayor. So this evening, there are seven preregistered speakers. So before I start calling names, I will just mention that the council obviously appreciates members of the public engaging and contributing perspectives. Comments shared during oral communications represent the views of the individual speakers and not necessarily reflecting the views of council or the city. So a few of the rules that I'll go over, the total time for oral communications is for a period of no more than thirty minutes, and all speakers or all topics must be related to City of Bellevue government.

Individuals speaking to items on tonight's agenda will be called first, and then if time remains, people speaking to items not on tonight's agenda will be called. The presiding officer is authorized in both categories to give preference to those who have not spoken to counsel within the last sixty days or who will be speaking on topics that will come in front of the counsel within the next sixty days. Each speaker is allowed to speak up to three minutes to make their comments. And as you heard from the mayor and the council consented, this evening, the limitation on the number of speakers per side to a topic, will be suspended from the rules. So in addition, just a reminder to everyone that no speaker may support or oppose a ballot measure or support or oppose a candidate for election.

And if you do begin talking about those topics, you will be asked to stop. So with that, I'll call our first speaker who is Kian Bradley.

Welcome. Thank you. Good evening, mayor Malakutian, deputy mayor Hamilton, council members and staff. My name is Kian Bradley, testifying on behalf of Eastside Urbanism, but we're just one member of the Streets Are For All or SAFE Bellevue Coalition. This table wouldn't fit representatives from all 20 of the organizations that are part of our coalition.

But today, have Chris Randalls of Complete Streets Bellevue joining in person and Vicki Clark of Cascade Bicycle Club joining virtually so that we can share a little bit about our collective work. We hope our efforts will guide your budget deliberations both during tonight's discussions and beyond. To begin with some context for your body and the community at large, Bellevue residents expect and deserve to be safe in their community. That universal value shared by people across the political spectrum is what makes Bellevue Bellevue. Former council member Conrad Lee often said that providing for the public safety is the paramount duty of local government.

Our coalition agrees, and we know that you do too. That's why we're proud of this council unanimously adopting its Vision Zero Pledge in 2020, promising to reduce serious injuries and fatalities on city streets to zero by 2030. This is a feat that may at first sound daunting, but it's something that's been accomplished by pioneering cities from both around the world and across The United States. It's also a goal that's based on data driven best practices from the fields of transportation engineering, urban planning, and safe systems design. It's a hard feat, but as the opening of the Cross Lake Connection shows, Bellevue and our region are capable of doing hard things.

However, Bellevue is moving backwards. According to your staff's data, thirty eight people were seriously injured, and three people were killed on Bellevue Streets in 2025. In total, that's a record high forty one families whose lives were all irrevocably changed by crashes whose outcomes could have been prevented. Vision Zero as a project recognizes that these deaths and serious injuries do not just have to be the cost of doing business. Indeed, many cities in

The US and around the

world show that we can have a transportation system that keeps everyone safe while keeping everyone moving regardless of how they get around. But to advance beyond feel good platitudes and recognize Vision Zero as the planning paradigm that it is, our local government has a moral obligation to use data driven best practices to create a transportation system where it's impossible for someone to lose their life on our streets. My colleague Vicky Clark will share some information on these best practices and how they relate to our coalition's work and asks today.

No. Okay. So, miss Clark, can you hear me?

I can hear you. Can you

hear me?

We can. Your time begins now.

Okay, thanks. Good evening council members. My name is Vicky Clark and I'm the deputy director of Cascade Bicycle Club. When our coalition talks about data driven best practices, specific projects can take many forms, and local contexts will always be important. But we're speaking broadly about Complete Streets, which are streets that provide for the mobility needs of people walking, biking, rolling, taking transit, and driving.

From WashDOT's website, Complete Streets are an approach to make our transportation system work for all of us, strengthening communities, expanding options for non drivers, and making travel more predictable for everyone. The benefits from Complete Streets often come from the individual projects that are built during the transformation process. Protected bike lanes create dedicated space for cyclists, which reduce conflict points with motor vehicles. Wider sidewalks and more frequent crosswalks each increase pedestrian visibility. Bus lanes help our transit network bypass traffic, encouraging more people to take the bus and reducing vehicle miles traveled, which is itself a crucial safety and congestion reduction strategy.

Raised crosswalks, road diets, and narrower lanes create conditions that encourage cars to slow down to safer speeds through street design, not just through a change in the speed limit signage. Complete streets projects can also be delivered on different timescales and budgets. Cities can iterate and use cost effective, quick build infrastructure to use existing right of way to trial multimodal improvements. So for example, Bellevue used this approach in 2018 with a Hundred And 8th Avenue Northeast, an approach that we're strongly supportive of and one that placed a down payment on infrastructure that's now a state of the art connection in Bellevue's downtown. It's great.

Cities can also use do complete overhauls of existing streets by expanding right of ways or raising streets and rebuilding them from the ground up. It's expensive. Right? Bellevue's 1 30th Avenue Northeast mirrors this approach. The outcomes are undeniably high quality, but the data shows that the city is in a safety emergency that's getting worse.

Bellevue streets are dangerous, and its residents and workers deserve urgent cost effective action that will meaningfully turn the tide in the next five years. Shortfalls in Bellevue's transportation budget and the escalating casualties on our streets mean that we literally cannot afford to wait. The SAFE Coalition urges council to fund projects that will bring complete streets improvements to more areas of the city, improving safety and mobility for all who travel through and to the city. I wanna hand off to my colleague, Chris Randalls, to close out with some more information about our support for increased transportation revenue. Thank you.

Thank you, Ian. Thank you, Ricky. Good evening, council members. Chris Randalls, director at Complete Streets Bellevue. When the Safe Bellevue Coalition formed mid last year, we grew to our 20 members relatively quickly by sharing the logic we presented you with today.

Nobody, truly nobody, deserves to lose their life or get seriously injured traveling through Bellevue, but our transportation system facilitates that outcome in a way that is costing lives. Given that Complete Streets come with material safety benefits, Bellevue should move quickly to advance Complete Streets projects in cost effective ways. That's how we were able to send you all nearly 1,000 letters last year, urging you and your staff leadership to adopt this approach and its delivery of transportation projects. With this year being an important budget year, where your body is considering new revenue sources to address structural gaps while it's still delivering on Bellevue's key objectives, our coalition's work must continue. That's why last month, our 20 organizations, from service providers to nonprofits to community based organizations and more, with our focus areas ranging from sustainability and accessibility to safety and equity, agreed to advocate for Bellevue's adoption of a transportation benefit district to support the implementation of complete streets and Vision infrastructure.

In the weeks to come, our organizations will continue to meet to identify priority projects that we would like to see funded through a 0.1% sales tax. These projects will be informed both by our organization's collective missions and priorities as well as through feedback we collect via an upcoming community survey. Our project list will therefore represent a community based vision for how we would like to see Bellevue prioritize new transportation revenue to support street safety and Vision Zero. We sincerely believe that with data driven product design and cost effective tactical approaches, the $11,000,000 per year that a 0.1% sales tax would generate will save lives. And although sales taxes are a regressive tax, we recognize the limited options made available by the state to generate meaningful transportation revenue.

That's why we'd urge the city to use these funds for multimodal safety projects that would directly benefit the communities who will be disproportionately impacted by this tax and for Bellevue to use its state legislative agenda to advocate for more progressive revenue options. Our coalition looks forward to releasing our budget proposal in the coming months and remaining engaged during this year's budget process, but I'd like to close this engagement juncture by expanding upon points my colleagues have made. We are a city that cares about safety, and every life matters. Budgets, and by extension, the transportation projects they fund, are moral items. Our organizations maintain that planning for safety, accessibility, and mobility are goals that work in tandem.

Because when we have a mobility system that helps everyone move, everyone benefits. But should circumstances ask for trade offs to be made, please prioritize safety and accessibility as the foundational values they are. Do not let inconveniences be conflated with mortal dangers, and do not let the system that exists obscure your vision for the future that could be. We thank each of you for your service to Bellevue and look forward to continued engagement during this process.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Karen Armstead.

Welcome.

Good

evening, mayor and council members. I'm Karen Armstead from the Vassa neighborhood, and we're back again. We have several of us here tonight, and, what a wonderful statement to follow. We are on two of the streets that are in extreme danger, as you well know. And we came tonight as part of this discussion to remind you to please prioritize the fact that we we are not up to par even with the ones that are labeled dangerous right now.

And so we urge you to, remember that and, take it forward, its consideration. I'd also like to say thank you. We do appreciate and support the city of Bellevue. We're grateful to be here and especially have had wonderful support from both the transportation department and the police department in these months that we've been coming to talk with you. And so that should be recognized.

They have been very helpful in informing us and showing up for things that we needed, responding to emails, and, so we deeply appreciate that. And I won't take more time except to tell you, as you know, that we do value being in communication with you, and we will be back, and we hope to continue this conversation about improving our safety.

Thank you.

Okay. The next speaker is Bob Armstead.

Welcome. Thank you.

Good evening, mayor and city council members. Thank you for having this opportunity for the community to to speak to with you. We support your efforts in terms of transportation. I will repeat Karen's comment. We've had frequent conversations with your transportation department.

They've always been professional, courteous, and informative. We are here because we are a community, as Karen stated, that lacks even the basics in terms of street safety. No sidewalks, no crosswalks. Our kids go out to school buses, in the mornings, in the winters when it's dark, improper street lights. The traffic can't see them.

They can't see the traffic. We have a very serious situation in Vassar Park. We invite each of you and your staffs to come out and see our situation. Many from the traffic department and the police department have been out. They've walked the streets with us.

They have had concerns for their safety while they're out there with us. My ask tonight is that as you go through your planning and deliberations on your your budget and your plans for safety for all of Bellevue, Vassa Park, that you look at those areas that have nothing. Currently, it appears to us that priority is given to in place and existing infrastructure and expediency. We request that that same consideration, be given to to VASA, that it it's nice to improve what you have, but when you have areas and neighborhoods where there's nothing, to us, that should be given at least as much and in our point of view more consideration. So again, we support your efforts.

We're just asking that we be included in those efforts. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Tim Hay. Mr. Hay? Mr. Hay?

Thank you. I barely made it in the door. Welcome.

Thank you.

The United States is a huge country. Originally, we got around by horse. Trains took us westward, and we have transported much of our goods, and they have transported much of our goods ever since. And then what took over right after World War two? Yep.

You got it. The car. Irrespective of traffic jams, the car saves us time, net. The car is the one indispensable tool that frees us from the speed of the horse, the locked in destination of all types of trains, and even buses. The car is for everyone in this room, our personal genie, whisking us all to the errands and the places we wanna go quickly and beyond, and on a per trip basis pretty inexpensively.

I'll remind you that The US wouldn't be the world's leader in gross national product, in the sciences, in most things electronic, in English becoming the preferred second language for most countries and in their preference for our clothing styles, our entertainment, etcetera, etcetera, if we didn't get things done more quickly than any other country? Are we the world leader that we are solely are we the world leader that we are solely due to the car? No. But excluding the car, what would you put first? How would Bellevue Square become what it is without the car, and their secret sauce is free parking?

While I'm not advocating unlimited free parking, I suggest that the overkill of turning much of our free parking into the current stylist, soulless apartments that most builders are churning out is a recipe for turning Bellevue into Linwood. Please note the current recommendation that the parking space minimum now only is now only to be eight feet wide. Measure the width of your car, and then open both front doors to the opening you need to get in and out, and then measure the opening of both at a 90 degree angle from the car. Add up all three numbers. Does your total exceed an eight foot new minimum?

Now decide how you will get out of your car.

Mister Hayes.

And how will an old codger such as myself handle the problem.

Mister Hayes.

Call for the jaws Thank of

you. Our next speaker is Maria Hudson.

Welcome. I'm gonna need for

you guys to address your value gap when it comes to safety. I want to turn your attention to the Bellevue Police Department exemption log for case number 2364175 for both 12/1223 and 4324. I was at two of my daughter's child forensic interviews. That's why in one of the documents it says, Maria, I had sex traffickers coming to my home sex trafficking my daughter with the blessing of your police department. Their response to evidence of sex trafficking was to suppress it and destroy it, racketeer the rules of evidence and safety.

So as we sit here talking about safety, when Alexander Schleser told me on twelvetwelvetwenty three, I apologize for you sending your daughter to school and her being taken advantage of. And yes, this is racialized sex trafficking. As a parent, I sit here absolutely outraged at the deprioritization of the number one human sex trafficked child in King County, which are black girls, per Aaron's Law, a white namesake, even though the thirteenth Amendment discussed my daughter's black body and my own and our ancestors. You guys prioritize sting operations. You guys prioritize criminalization of black parents who are trying to protect their children as well as that child.

So I wanna be clear. You don't get to engage in violations of of the Adam Walsh Child Protection Act. That literally creates black and missing because your police officers are obstructing AMBER alerts. They are allowing abuse. They are actually aiding and abetting it and covering it up and destroying evidence.

And when I asked for an independent investigation, I meant that. You should not be investigating yourselves. In fact, going back to your prior city council, Chief Mylett emailed Brad Miyake to ignore child abuse. You guys have a pattern in practice, a literal custom of failing to protect black bodies in Bellevue. So as you sit here with these good people and you prioritize them, you need to explain to African American parents why you are allowing 80% white men with impunity to sexually resegregate our children into sexual slavery.

And that is a real question you will have to answer, including the criminal investigation into your police department for doing it.

That is the end of our preregistered list. So we do have a few minutes left. So at this point, I'd ask if there's anyone joining us online or anyone in the audience who would like to make a comment, please raise your hand. Miss Dean, I see you. Actually, I'm sorry. Hold please one second. Sir? If you can state your name for the record first. Yeah. When you get up here, I'm sorry.

I'm gonna keep it short. So when it comes to traffic safety, and I've talked about it with coworkers many times, oftentimes, I get a large dismissal. It's like, oh, it's not a big deal. You know? Like, people die. Literally, I had people say this to me. It's like, you know, it's just the fact of life. You know, I got hit with a car three times now. It happens, you know? Oh, right.

It happens. And I would talk with his coworker about it to the point where I'm like, I don't wanna talk with his coworker about it anymore. We all have our own opinions, yada yada. And then one day he doesn't show up at work. You can the implication is not that he is dead, the implication is sadder.

Well, you know, sorry, I don't know how to put this. He didn't show up to work because his daughter's fiancee, she just got married, he got he got hit in a car accident on a road that we all knew was dangerous and he died. And now, it actually is an issue for him, because it happened to him, because now he knows the reality. I'm not trying to be like, oh, so now he gets it. I'm like, this is this is just what happens. People don't take it seriously till it happens to them. Like, you know, I don't know what to say about that. Like, oh, yeah. No. It's a tragedy, but, you know, we ought to continue on.

It's just the way that things have been. Oh, wait. Unless it happens to me, though. Unless it affects me, then it's a problem. That's that's it for me.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Okay. Miss Dean.

Thank you so much. Good evening. So I'm just here tonight to listen about the funding for the transportation benefit district. I was involved when that was being created in 2022. We only have two remaining council members from that creation of the initial TBD here.

So I would remind everybody that during that time, one of the asks was to have a project list so that when we come to funding for the TBD, that we have something that we can look at and decide, are these projects good? What projects how does it benefit everybody, not just the business sector, but also neighborhoods and that sort of thing, to get us all moving within the city? I don't see a project list, and I'm kind of wondering why that is, where it is, when we'll see it, because I do have, as a taxpayer, concern about starting to make decisions about taxing myself, my neighbors, and everybody without actually knowing what it is that we'll be paying for. I do want to point out that we have people coming here and lobbying for this who don't actually live within our city, referring to it as our city, but who do not actually live here in Bellevue. This is my city.

I've been here for twenty seven, almost twenty eight years. My husband has been paying taxes all this time. I went back to work this year, so I am now contributing to that. And I want to know, I want to know, what am I going to get out of this? How is this going to benefit my neighborhood?

How is this going to benefit being able to move around the city? So please, I want to see a project list before you start talking about it. I'm very concerned about the fact that we do a lot of talking about affordability, and there's a lot of people that are going to get hit by this, a lot of our lower income residents. This doesn't just hit rich people. This isn't just a millionaire's tax.

This is going to hit people hard. So please, before you do anything and again, saying I understand this is the beginning of all this, but please keep that in mind. There's a lot of people that are suffering. And please keep the neighborhoods in mind, always, always, always. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. I do have one hand online. Mr. Kunzler, can you hear me?

Yes, I can. Joe Kunzler here.

I just want to give the Bellevue City Council a a brief heads up that tonight, the Kirkland City Council is debating new council rules, and they're modeling them based on you. But as of right now, they're not proposing a city business guideline. I could assure you, my Bellevue friends, that the people of Kirkland are standing with me in making in fighting for this. They on Reddit, they have pinned my post warning about the inadequacy of these rules that that, somehow Kirkland doesn't have your rule that, quote, public comment should be limited to matters related to city built of government, end quote. And then, of course, they they even allow campaigning in Kirkland.

It's a corollary a bizarre state of affairs and hopefully your leaders can reach out to Kirkland and make sure that the next few weeks they get it right because they're using you, your your your city council rules, which are for the record resolution one zero five four four. With the time remaining, I do wanna thank Jared Neuhinheiss for his kind words about the rise of antisemitism we're seeing out there recently, such as, you know, quote, the level of hate, the aggressive behavior, and the violent language directed at attendees went far beyond peaceful protest, end quote. Quote, peaceful protest is a protected right, threatening language, obstruction, and creating an environment near fear or not. What eyewitness and what has been documented crossed the line, end quote. I really appreciate having allies in this fight like council member Jerry Nguyenhuizen, obviously, doctor Lynn Robinson as well.

And I will leave it at that and wish you well, Bellevue. And please make sure your streets are safe because I love this love riding my rail. Thank you.

Thank you. We do have time for one additional speaker. I thought I saw a hand. No? Okay. Mayor, I'll turn it back to you.

Great. Thank you so much. Again, thank you so much for being here. You are here just listening or you share comments. We appreciate you, and we will follow-up if and when necessary. Do I have a motion to approve the consent calendar?

I move to approve the consent calendar. Second.

It's been moved by deputy mayor and seconded by councilman Neuhaus. Any discussion? All those in favor, aye.

Aye. Aye.

There is no opposed. The motion passes. We are going to have our fun study session, the budget. Our city manager is going to introduce that to us.

Thank you, mayor, deputy mayor, and council members. It is really nice to be here in a workshop style setting tonight to talk about our upcoming budget process. We would like this evening to set the overall picture going into this biennial budget development, but also give you a little context that will perhaps help with what we see in the upcoming ten years so that as we're talking about the next biennium, you can see some of the things that we're starting to think about for the longer, future. This, is the first touch that you'll have, of many for the budget process. We'll go through a schedule, as part of the presentation.

But I'd like to share a little bit about what we know today. The economy, as you all know, is very inconsistent inconsistent these days. But generally, we do feel that we're in a stable position to sustain our, ongoing services, our programs, and, our planned investments. But we also don't see, or anticipate some significant resources to grow or expand into new program areas. We have asked departments to look for efficiencies.

We will also look at some of our pilot programs that are funded by one term or one time, monies, and those may, need to be considered for rollbacks. And at the same time, we feel some small level of comfort that we need to be looking at important investments that are needed for support of growth and addressing some of our key issues in the city. So drawing back on history, over the years, Bellevue has been very smart and thoughtful about how we make investments that support the future of the city and its growth and transformation. And we're at another point in time where we have to consider, how we do this again. And specifically with the planned growth in population and employment and densification and development, we understand that that growth and transportation and mobility go hand in hand.

So tonight, you are going to hear specifically about how growth and transportation, go together and they work together and what our challenges are with transportation. And that's including that's general transportation projects and also our transformational project of the Grand Connection Crossing. We look at this budget, as we're going into it. Ben's gonna tell me oh, no. Okay. We're doing well.

I thought

he was gonna bring me the mic. We are looking at this as we are a city in a strong position in a kind of a a national and global uncertain era, And so we do need to look at how we can invest in our future. We will always strive to be fiscally prudent, and this is an exciting time for Bellevue. We are increasingly becoming a global hub, an innovation hub, continuing to attract new businesses. We are a city that has a growing urban energy inside beloved park system and natural environment.

And we're recognized as a community that is community friendly, business friendly, with a high quality of services and a focus on being safe, open, and welcoming. So you're going to hear a lot of material this evening. This is workshop, so we encourage questions. We will try to answer those questions here tonight, or we'll take them down and we'll bring back the answers for you. We'd like we have a couple of stopping points in the presentation to gather deeper feedback from you.

And with that, I'm very happy to welcome our first panel here of staff. So John Reich is going to kick it off. He's our chief financial officer Ray Fleishman, manager in the budget, and financial planning Abil King, our director of community development and Tara Johnson, our assistant director in community development. So they're they're here for the first segment, and then we will switch out some, staff members as we go through the presentation. And with that, I'll turn it over to John.

Thank you, city manager. Mayor, deputy mayor, council members. So this is my fun spot. Like, this is budget plus. And I'm really excited for us to have a chance to chat tonight to share with you some thinking, to learn from you where you're you're at, what guidance we need to be thinking about as we work with Diane to get ready for a preliminary proposed budget in the fall.

Tonight, our there it is. Tonight, our agenda, the first section will be really about the budget and financial and thinking about that long view and bringing in the comprehensive planning and how it translates and some of the big factors that are going to be before you over the course of this ten year cycle that we think within. The second section really will get deeper into how we think about transportation and some of the lessons that we learned coming out of previous transportation conversation, including the transportation benefit district of past, and different way of thinking about those kinds of investments. And the third section gets really into the gaps of what we see, both for general transportation as well as for the Grand Connection Crossing. And we're gonna get into some numbers and really get some understanding from you and share some understanding and hopefully get to a good place where we're receiving great information.

So that's our schedule of events, and that's only three hours. So with that, we're gonna jump right in, and I'm gonna turn to Ray and let you give us a little bit of rundown on the budget process.

Thank you, John. As you can see, we have a high level calendar of the budget process for the year. We started back in February with council retreat and our approach to the budget process. Tonight, we're talking about the budget process and transportation. The next touch point will be in June when they come and talk with you about the forecast for the general fund development services and utilities.

Over the course of the summer, the staff will be working on pulling together the preliminary budget that will be presented on September 15 along with the second public hearing. And then during September and October, we'll be doing council briefings and talking through that preliminary budget with final public hearing and council deliberation wrap up on October 27 with hopefully tentative adoption on November 17.

So when someone asks you how you spent your summer Mhmm.

Yeah.

It's in the budget. And there's a lot of really great work that the staff is working on right now, and this discussion is incredibly timely to help us make sure that we bring forward the right proposals through Diane so that you're getting the right investments into the community. One of the things I wanna start with as we jump into this ten year cycle is a little bit of thought about the budget itself. So the budget process for staff and for the city is really a ten year cycle. You adopt two year budgets or a biennial budget each period along the way.

But the way we think about that is each ten years, we do a very deep dive into the base operations of the city. And in between those, we do what is much more of an incremental budget process where we're looking at the edges of it, implementing continuous improvement, making sure we're on the right track, but it's not the wholesale deep dive that happens once every ten years. Those are incredibly deep for the organization, and there's a lot of staff time that will go into that really important work. We are in one of those incremental periods right now. It happens to coincide with the, bouncy economy that we're facing, and there's a whole lot of things that we're thinking about.

And so we wanna start here to think about the long view and begin to tee up what that ten year cycle looks like from where we are through where we think we're heading and the kinds of things that we think you're going to need to be thinking about as council members to help us make sure we're bringing the right things forward at the right times. So if we're thinking about this, I start at the core of some of your greatest guidance to us, which is the comprehensive plan. That provides us a really big picture view of how the city intends to grow over the next twenty and forty years. We think about that because if we look backwards, the comp plan actually drives so many great things and making sure that we're bringing the right investments forward. We, as a city, have different kinds of responsibilities along the way in making sure the infrastructure is part of that discussion, whether that is for physical infrastructure or support of the people, both jobs as well as neighborhoods, to make sure all of those things are are ready when the development comes in.

So with the approval of the comprehensive plan, the major update in 2324, that started a whole sequence. So this last '25 and this year, you've been spending a lot of time as council members working on deep policy work in the functional plans, things like affordable housing, sustainable Bellevue, economic development, those types of pieces of additional planning to help us learn a little bit more about what's next and what's really important that we should be driving in some of those investments. So that's the kind of work you're doing leading up to this space, while we, this background, as staff, are doing all the work to draw those things together, also drawing in community engagement to make sure you've got as many voices at the table to inform your deliberations. As we start to step forward, we're thinking about that cycle. Well, we just approved a comprehensive plan.

We're getting into neighborhoods, Wilburton coming forward, and we're thinking about the fact that we're starting to see the permit counter getting a little bit busier, actually a lot of bit busier. And if the development cycle and the economic cycle behind it follows where we think it's going to go, there's gonna be a lot more growth that's going to happen in in the community, housing as well as commercial. We're looking at that and thinking about that to come forward with what are the things that we need to think about to get those in place. So right now in your budget discussions and the start up, as Diane suggested, we're really starting to think about what are some of the early decisions we need to be thinking about as a city to make sure we've got the components in place. What should be we'd be looking at from an affordability and expiring inefficiencies?

How are we doing that work? So there's gonna be the focus on that in our budget cycle and budget deliberations this year from a staff perspective. What we do also know is there's quite a number of other things that are ahead. Public safety, housing, parks. Those are some of the things that take a little bit extra lead time to be thinking about what are the next investments.

As we get into 2930, we expect that the construction will actually be starting to hit the city based off of those comprehensive plan approvals. And so we're then starting to get into real investment decisions of what do we need to do to help support that growth happening and moving from physical infrastructure to people infrastructure. And then we're starting to get out to '21 2031 and '32, and we're starting to see the people starting to show up with that development. And you as a council and we as a city are going to be wrestling with some of the next big things that we need to be investing in. Along that way, all goes well.

The Grand Connection Crossing will be delivered about 2031. We'll have people on on bikes and walking across that. And we've talked a little bit about a municipal plan in the Civic Campus. That effort should be well underway in planning, and we're gonna need a lot of thought and challenge because that will be a large likely public private partnership to make the kind of investments that meet our city's goals. And then as we're getting out to that 2033, 2034, that's our next big decennial deep dive.

That's also about the time when we're starting to see the humans really from all of those jobs and the new housing starting to really show up in earnest, and we wanna make sure that the, additional parks and our community services and other types of things that are necessary, including housing, is continuing to follow suit. So we wanna make sure that we're thinking about that, and you've had adequate and opportunity to help guide those investments at the right time in the right way. And so we're starting to think about this, and part of tonight is helping you start to see the context of that long view. We don't make all of the decisions in a single year because each one of those sets of conversations is a pretty deep set of conversations with the community and with you because we need your input to guide where it heads. We need the community to help us shape it, and you need the community to make sure that it's the right sets of investments at the right time.

And so we're very careful and thoughtful how we're starting to look at that ten year cycle to make sure that we don't overwhelm you and the community with all of those decisions, and there's a way to take those steps carefully and thoughtfully together. So what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna hand over to Emil and Tara to talk a little bit about that nexus to the comprehensive plan.

Tara and I are gonna spend a few slides talking about comprehensive planning and how it truly is the roadmap for the future. So on this diagram, let's first focus in on the local comprehensive plans at the center of the graphic. You can see local comprehensive plans including Bellevue. These are updated about every ten years in the state of Washington. The most recent updates happened in 2024, before that 2015, and before that 2004.

Bellevue is known for having a strong vision that guides how the city wants to grow. A vision statement describes a future state with associated goals and policies that guide implementation and investment. Bellevue's statements of vision, as articulated in its plans, have proven to be both ambitious and achievable over the years. Since our incorporation seventy three years ago, Bellevue has stressed the importance of planning. Ordinance number one at the city in March 1953 was establishment of the city's planning commission.

At the center of this diagram, working out from local comprehensive plans, you can see that we also operate under King County Countywide Planning Policies. These provide important guidance in recent years, most on housing, the environment, and economic development. The four county Puget Sound region that includes King County provides a framework for achieving shared goals in regional coordination. And on the outer part, can see the state planning framework that dates back to the early 1990s with the Growth Management Act, and this ensures that local planning for growth is coordinated with regional and state plans. The comprehensive plan is a Volume one and Volume two.

Volume one covers most all that our city does. The major elements are community engagement, land use, neighborhoods, housing, capital facilities, utilities, transportation, economic development, climate and the environment, human services, parks and recreation, urban design and the arts and shorelines. So you can see this covers our city operations. During our comprehensive planning effort between 2022 and 2024, it was branded as building a livable city for all, Bellevue 2044. So looking out that twenty year period, it include review it included review by all of the city boards and commissions.

So a lot of work happening in this room. Planning Commission ultimately sent that on to the city council for adoption in October 2024. I want to wrap up this slide by just stating Bellevue is the fifth largest city by population in the state with our 158,000 residents, but we have many features of cities larger in size. So the scale of our downtown, the types of companies we have here, the diversity of our city means that we're always striving to be a better city. We are known as a community that has beautiful natural areas, vibrant economy, a range of successful large and small businesses, some of the nation's best schools, healthy and diverse neighborhoods, and a safe, reliable, and efficient mobility system.

Bellevue's successes today stem from decades of community work and foresight and planning by this council and previous councils. Our comp plan vision will be realized by the entire city organization in concert with the Bellevue community and regional partners. I'm going go into a little bit of detail on job growth and then follow that up with housing growth. So this graphic right here represents our twenty five year job target of 70,000 new jobs. So this represents going from 158,000 jobs in the year 2019, with a target of 228,000 in the year 2044.

And this stems from regional planning and county coordination that happened with each city to develop specific target. Some of the examples of desired outcomes of job growth include economic diversification, additional small business opportunities and expansion of the tax base, just to mention a few of those. The job growth does represent an average of 3,525 jobs per year through 2044. This is an ambitious but achievable job target. You can see that the job growth does fluctuate as is shown in 2019 through 2024 with the pandemic, some of the technology sector changes and AI.

What we can do as a city to meet this job target is to have an attractive business climate, be a city where small businesses can thrive, have capacity for job growth from a land use and planning standpoint and have workforce housing opportunities for people to actually either live in the city or live in a place that they can easily access the city. Things that we're doing are we're continuing to attract and grow large employers. We're embracing AI growth with OpenAI, Databricks, xAI, for example. And we're also looking into education sector expansion and life science sectors as well. There has been questions about the job target and the amount of jobs that we would need to reach this.

This is a twenty five year target. We have stagnated over the initial period here. So what we're doing, along with some of our state regional partners, is tracking the impacts of the technology sector and AI specifically and look to see at the next update, which typically happens about every ten years, to see if these need to be modified. So we're in the early years of this window, and there may be changes in the future. Shifting on to housing growth.

So you can see here we had 63,000 units in the city in 2019, and this was split about 50% in multifamily structures, about 50% in single family structures. The target established in that period was an additional 35,000 housing units by the year 2044. This does represent a 54% increase in housing units over a twenty five year period. Housing was a key focus of the comprehensive planning effort that we did between 2022 and 2024, and this target represents the importance of adding more housing to the city. We have about 158,000 Bellevue residents now, and this would be adding over 70,000 additional residents to the city by the year 2044.

Housing unit growth, where we would need to average about 1,600 units per year to meet that target. Again, this is ambitious and achievable. Increases over the past growth cycles have been in the 800 to 1,000 units per year, so the council's focus on removing barriers and focusing on housing are consistent with this ambitious housing target. Some examples of desired outcomes of housing growth include affordable and attainable housing, reinforcing the transit oriented development that we have, being able to live closer to work, additional housing options and typology of housing, including more ownership opportunities, and the ability for aging in the city and housing for younger folks that we have as well.

As

you've heard this evening, we want to talk a little bit more about how we implement the comprehensive plan. So of course, the comprehensive plan sets our vision and roadmap for our city's future, planning over the next twenty year horizon and is really the first step with shaping Bellevue's future. The comprehensive plan acts as our overarching policy guide, while functional plans really are implementing that policy guidance. Functional plans really focus on specific departments to ensure that development aligns with that overall vision and guidance. Implementing the goals and policies in the comprehensive plan can either be short term actions or more longer term.

A lot of our functional plans are much shorter in duration than our overall periodic or comprehensive plan. They're typically around the five to seven year timeframe. Functional plans are typically detailed, they are actionable documents that implement these broader goals and policies for city operations through specific long range planning aspects for services like housing, utilities, parks or transportation, and they also include things like capital investments for infrastructure. Some notable examples that you'll see that we've highlighted on the slide here and highlighted in bold as well that have recently come across council review include the affordable housing strategy, the diversity advantage plan, the economic development strategic plan, the sustainable Bellevue plan. There are also a number of other functional and strategic plans like some of our transportation functional plans like the mobility implementation plan and the transportation facilities plan as well as some of our other plans like the fire and police department strategic plans.

In addition to several of the functional and strategic plans highlighted here, the comprehensive plan also provides guidance for planning efforts, like John was speaking to, the Civic Center master plan and Civic Center campus planning effort, which really provides an opportunity for us to envision and re envision through vibrant sequence of public spaces, civic facilities, things like the Grand Connection, how we integrate all of those various efforts as well as to really form a welcoming heart for the city.

I'm going to

turn things back to John.

Thank you. Now, if you want to grab your supplemental materials packet, Page three of that is actually an expansion of this slide because in its smallest form, it's a little bit hard to read. And while some of you have computers up, you can zoom in. This we wanted to provide everybody with a larger version of it. So we've got it here so we can have a little bit of discussion because this is an important piece of some of the things that are happening around us and are in flight.

And it becomes really important for you as you're thinking about some of the next decisions that need to be made. I'm going to start at the top and work my way down. Along the top, see some, what I believe, are gold or orange flags. Color blind guys sometimes gets colors wrong, so forgive me if I get them all a little off. But these are the levies that King County has in place or are about to enact.

And I haven't about to enact up there just because they've got their own transportation benefit district conversations. Right now, the best starts for kids, veterans, seniors in human services, crisis care centers, and AFIS are countywide levies that provide for countywide investments and services. They're administered by the county. They collect those in, and our residents have benefits from those, but they do all of the work in those spaces. The next row down has King County Parks, that is one that's roughly on a six year renewal cycle.

Currently, we do as a city and all cities get a pass through from the King County parks based off of I believe it's a population distribution formula. Roughly speaking, we get about $2,300,000 that goes towards our parks and they prioritize capital investments as well as some of the maintenance that goes with that. I have King County Transportation Benefit District up there because it has been proposed to begin funding. It is an active conversation at the King County Council and the King County Transportation Benefit District, and is running in parallel with some of our other transportation related conversations in this region. And so it is very active and they are looking at a tenth of a percent of sales tax, and under its current form, all of that goes to, county roads, for county investments.

There have been a number of discussions on whether any of that goes towards transit or any of that should go to cities. Right now, is no amendment that is active that has done that, but that doesn't mean that those conversations aren't happening. But that has a ten year renewal. If we're thinking about some of the other things, here we are going into 2027, and the first of our two parks levies expires at the 2029. It's usually about an eighteen month process of lead up to be out to the ballot, because we want to make sure that whatever we go out to the ballot, the community is with us, and that is a decision point on what that looks like, how we go out, and how we want to think about things.

By 2031, we'll be in the midst of discussions because by 2032, the second and larger parks levy will be expiring. Each of those levies have had both a mix of capital and maintenance for that new capital as part of them. And should those go away, there will be both a decrease in funding available for investment in parks or maintaining those new parks. We also have out there at the edge at about twelve years or so out, our 2016 transportation levy and fire levy both expiring at the same time. That is a pair of pretty significant levies that we'll want to be thinking about how, what, where, why, and where do we wanna go with those.

We're gonna need a lot of input and thought. So thinking about this cycle of our own levies and when they expire, also relative to when we know that voters will be at the ballots with King County, and this doesn't touch the school district, it doesn't touch KCLS or any other pieces that might come up along the way. So we try and think about those things, but we want to start making sure you see this on a regular basis because it informs your political engagements and how you want to help us think about the right timing. As we come down to the bottom section, this is a simplified version of what we have referred to as our investment swim lanes. We've been listening to you and to the public about the things that are really important in the next sets of investments.

And there are some key planning and implementation components that are underway or will be underway that we want to make sure that you're thinking about, because those will drive investment questions. I don't know what those will look like, but they will have implications. I'll use the middle of the page, the civic campus planning. That will likely get to a place where you might have municipal, you might have commercial, you might have housing, you might have parks and recreation, you might have a mix of different things that might be in play in that conversation, and what kind of public private partnership, and how do we want to be thinking about our government operations overall. There are many different pieces that will come with this, and your input in that process is going to be crucial to our ability to make decisions on that and what's the right strategy that will come with it.

The Grand Connection Crossing, we are right in the midst of the final planning and design. There are funding questions that are before us, and that is one of the reasons and one of the investment moments that we're at right now as a city and part of what we'll be talking about as we get a little deeper in tonight. If all goes well and you do decide to fund its investment and we get all the different pieces coming together, again, 2031, we're on that bridge. As we're thinking about community safety and health, we have funding within the fire levy and within the general fund to take up some next steps in funding the next most important fire facilities as we continue to grow moving from smaller facilities to the larger eight bed facilities to be able to support our growing community As we go vertical and there are more people here both in the daytime and at night, we need to make sure those services are there. We also have an opportunity that the legislature has given us, which is a limited duration opportunity.

Act now or it goes away. There is a criminal justice or public safety sales tax that has been made available to cities, but it goes away. And so we're looking at that as a sole set of discussions, and what does that mean in 2027? We want to make sure that we get everything stabilized as we then give you the time and space to be able to engage in the right kinds of things that go with that and think about that. And then as we come down to our vibrant economy, there are so many things going on in this community and our economic development planning.

But our convention center right across the street is talking about its next expansion as its investments are coming due or they're getting paid off. They're thinking about what next. And we are a vital partner to that. And it has such an incredible draw to our community for both people, as well as for tax dollars for the community. So we wanted to make sure that you had kind of this map of the different kinds of things that we think are in play. This is by no means everything, but these are gonna be really important factors that are going to weigh into your considerations and guidance to us as a staff team.

Okay. As John was talking about the long range kind of things that are coming down the pike in the next decade or so, we just wanna take a chant or an opportunity to circle back to the what's right in front of us. So this slide is looking at the investments that we did in 2526 budget by STA, and the boxes are in their relative size to their portions of the budget. And that's kind of just taking the long picture and the short picture to take the opportunity to set up for the how do we do all of this?

If we're thinking about this, one of the things that we draw out is things like safe and efficient transportation. That is largely the transportation department, both operations, maintenance, and capital investments combined. It is an important part, but it is a relative part of the overall investments of the city, and we think about those different aspects. Community safety and health is by far the largest sets of investments that the city makes. It is, quite frankly, one of the largest reasons why we exist as a city.

It includes things like police, fire, and clean water, like, core things to people's livelihood. Then we come to our city manager. You will note in the in the center of a balanced beam with plates on every appendage, This is the life of our city manager, and we all recognize and and greatly appreciate all that she does, and and we're all part of a large team to do this. But what's coming before you and your deliberation is that balancing of investments and revenues. We're thinking about what is in our core services as a city, what is expiring with those onetime investments, what kinds of infrastructure investments should we be making and at what levels.

Are there new and emerging services that are critical to right now that can't be deferred? And there always are. And are there continuous improvements in service changes or efficiencies or plain old reductions? Are the things that we can be stopping to do on the expenditure side to make sure that we are bringing forward that right portion of the investment side of house. On the revenue side, our general revenues are in flight, our property taxes, our B and O, our sales taxes.

But the things in an incremental year you're thinking about most importantly are your council contingency. There's a little bit of money, a million dollars a year that is set aside for key investments at the right time, but it is a contingency. There is some inflationary revenue growth, a very small amount of it that provides a little bit of an opportunity. We're starting a conversation as to understand whether there should be new revenues in taxes or some user fees that are likely to come forward, and we'll talk about some of those later on. And we do know that there needs to be some rate increases.

There are some challenging spaces, like in utilities where we're having pass throughs of growing costs for that kind of infrastructure, and we do recognize that that is part of your balancing. And you have to be really conscious of it, and we're conscious of it. And so we're thinking about how do we help find that balance, which is why our city manager stands at the center of its spinning plates on one leg. So now I really want to dig in and let us listen and answer questions. What we're really trying to learn now is we believe that the next set of investments, if we're going to make investments, are actually to follow that comprehensive plan and get to some of the longer term lead items, transportation infrastructure, start that now to give us time to really engage around the people side of the rest of the equation.

We know that there are future financial decisions that are going to come before this body, not necessarily in this budget cycle, but we anticipate over in the coming years to have time and space. Things like the criminal justice sales tax authority, the expiring levies. We really need to think about are we are we talking about single purpose levies? Are we talking about multipurpose levies? How are we aligning our overall investment needs with the right time and the right opportunity with that growth cycle?

And we believe that, again, the first up is transportation and transportation infrastructure. And part of tonight is, are we generally on the right path? Not asking you to to vote on a a budget decision, but are we heading in the right direction? And I'm gonna pause right there, answer lots of questions, and, we'll see where we go.

Thank you so much. Let's just go around the room. Councilman Robinson, we'll start with you.

Okay. Thank you. So my my my priority is not just exclusive to this, but what comes up for me are safe routes to schools, Springs, Zone 3, West Lake Sammamish Parkway, transit connections, and line bike routes. So I'm just going to throw that out there. I have some questions, and you can come back later.

But I want to know what is the impact to our taxpayers if we were to use bank capacity. If we were to choose vehicle fees only in a TBD at $40 would it raise comparable revenue versus a $20 vehicle fee and a 0.1% sales tax?

I can

answer those both sets of questions. We can answer that stuff as we go here.

Okay. Excellent. And then do we allow gambling activities already in Bellevue? The choices are raffles and amusement games. So I would love to tax that. I like taxing things I don't like. Then I think about what I want to know more about is a nonvoted transportation benefit district. So I kind of asked that question already, but I'd like to know more about that. I'd like to know about a local improvement district for a community like Vassa. Just curious.

Mhmm. I'd like to know about bank capacity for property tax. Sorry. I asked you that. Yeah. That was it.

So part of it, we are gonna spend some more time talking about the specific transportation specific revenues, but let's do a little bit of that. Ray, what is the impact? So we currently have about $7,000,000 of banked capacity as a city for property tax. So $7,000,000 a year on what does that equate to on a a household average household basis? Household using a

a percent of that is about a million dollars to the general fund, and it equates to about $12 to the average household.

Because of the millage rate. Mean, you can't collect beyond a certain amount. Right? So then it we're taking it out of what the state would have gotten. Right. Yeah. That's good. Okay.

So that that 7,000,000, if all of it were enacted, that's about $84,000,000 $84 of additional tax on a on a household.

Okay. Okay.

Not 84,000,000. Sorry.

Okay.

Just $84 on on the household. Okay. Relative to the transportation benefit district revenues, just so you've got frame of reference, councilmanic has a $20 authority for vehicle fees. Okay. Anything above that up to a 100 is vote of the people.

Okay. I'm just talking about councilman.

$20 of a vehicle fee would generate about $2,000,000 a year.

K. So how about versus, at $10?

Is about a million.

And then that's did you say that's for the vehicle fee?

That's vehicle fee. The sales tax Yeah. You can do one tenth of a percent councilmanically and up to three tenths of a tenth.

Three tenths of a percent. $10 vehicle fee and a point 10% sales tax, what would that bring you?

So sales tax is about $11,000,000 plus an additional million for the vehicle fee. That's about $12,000,000 a year.

Oh, wow. So the sales tax is really what? Correct. Okay. That's good to know.

Okay.

And then we did the gambling.

We will look into some of those questions. We've got one of the things you'll find in the back of your packet. We've done some extensive research. There's about 50 different revenue sources that are back there and different kinds of ways to look at different types of revenues. We've got this for future reference as well. We wanna make sure that we keep an active set of tables ourselves of all the various revenue sources. And there's some different ways of thinking about things that are back here as well that we'll bring out in at various times. As to Alid, they're very focused. It is really, targeted on that community, and that community would invest however much they wanted to to receive a direct benefit. But that is a this can be a very large or very small depending upon what their outcomes they're trying to achieve.

A good idea to wait for that neighborhood. So you answered that question. Thank you.

K.

Thank you. Councilwoman, you're very welcome. Thank

you. I think my priority is very because the growth of the jobs and also the housing, they are both accelerating really high speed. I would say the I think my focus is I want to make sure that while we're growing that we can have an infrastructure that can sustain the the transit orientated multimodule package that's going to be accessible for everybody, who maybe who doesn't drive, who also have a car, who can maybe just solely using public transportation. And also, I think it's really important to protect our neighborhood's character, make sure that the streets are often are always safe for anybody in the community from a baby versus a mom pushing the baby, right? So it's really important.

I have just a few questions. Actually, two questions. The first one is, so the sales tax rely it's like spread burden to everybody. Right? So for anybody who have a vehicle, they have to pay tax on the vehicle fee, is that?

So the vehicle fee, sometimes it has been referred to as a license plate fee or a tab fee. It is a charge per vehicle. It is not the sales tax, and it is a flat rate of $20.

Okay. I mean, for I would say I I think $20 to probably most of the people in this room is nothing. But to a very low income family, it could be maybe a meal for the whole family. So is there any flexibility of how I think, I guess, this tool can we like like, I'm just wondering if there is any possibility how can we help the most vulnerable community where they rely on car heavily because they could be working, you know, many jobs. Right? They need a car to go around.

There are some tools that are available for working with the state to have some mitigation. They're a little bit challenging to pull off, but they're doable. Okay. And should that be something you want us to investigate deeply, we're happy to go investigate Yeah. And see what options might be available and how the state has had experience with other communities that have done that.

Yeah. I know we love to just more, learn more before we make any direction. I think learning the knowledge will be really helpful. And then my last question about this is what happens if we cannot identify the revenues for a period of time? Is there a hold off of a project? How can we effectively share the news with our residents? And what type of projects should we prioritize?

I'm going to ask if I can hold the answer to that because the next two sections will actually give you a lot of insight into that, and we'll get down to some of what it means.

Okay, thank you.

So, John, I know you're in the first part of the agenda. What type of question you prefer we ask you if we are not going to ask you the question that is belong to part two and three?

I'll let you know if it's part of a two or three if we're gonna hit it so we don't have to spend too much time there. Okay. I'd rather have it out there and know that we're getting to the right things.

Okay. Councilor Brouillard.

Thank you, mayor. First, I want to say that there's an implication here for us council members, which is that we don't build the budgets from scratch. We review what's already structured, and I think this takes an incredible amount of work, so to say the least. So John and the other colleagues there, owe you a huge thank you for all of the work that you've done. So this question perhaps is out of scope, but because of recessionary conditions, you went into an economic downturn, you know, neighboring cities had to cut programs and staff.

We didn't do that, which is exceptional. But I understand that department heads are likely going to make difficult decisions and focusing on efficiency gains. What I wanted to ask is that we, for example, have sustainable Bellevue. If the data shows that this program has been effective in achieving its outcomes, can we explore funding opportunities in a way that is cost neutral, like partnering with Alaska Airlines and having folks voluntarily donate funds when they purchase tickets or exploring things similar to this caliber to help continue the important work of sustainable Bellevue?

I think the answer to that, and not speaking too much for my colleague who I'll turn to, is we're always open to looking at all sorts of alternative approaches. Emile?

Yeah. Our stakeholders are clearly aware it's a budget year, so we are engaging with our full range of stakeholders for sustainable sustainable Bellevue and other initiatives that we have on hearing from them on ideas for investment and ideas for revenue as well.

Fantastic. Thank you so much. Okay. And then one last thing I wanted to share is that I personally my values lie in pushing for more pedestrian safety and walkability as much as possible. Parts of downtown and neighborhoods right with are walkable, but we don't have the sub area equity in terms of pedestrian infrastructure and safety. I think we need to prioritize equal distribution of this. Like, I walked around Vasant Park, and I can't just imagine having my child cross the street in the winter morning without a crosswalk, proper sidewalk. So I want to emphasize scalable and equitable distribution here. And then sort of embedding this in the broader narrative as well is, according

to

my research, if you can even call it that, across The United States, I think cities on average only have five to 7% of their residents use transit. 7% to 8% of our residents use transit here in Bellevue. So we're above the national average, which is really cool. And because we're head nationally, think our policy should also be built on that advantage as well. So I really emphasize accessibility, walkability, safety, and pushing for efficiencies of all modes of transportation, but really emphasizing not going on a project by project basis, but having a very comprehensive approach to completing multimodal transportation in our city.

And then I think I will pause there. Thank you, mayor.

Thank you so much. Councilwoman Ewenhoes.

Thank you, mayor. I'll echo the comments of my colleagues. Thanks so much for getting us to this point, and I really appreciate your overview as well as the city manager's kind of overview setting the stage for tonight's discussion. Really appreciate it. And I know the amount of work that goes into that, and I know you've been tracking everything very closely as I check-in with you from time to time.

I I I just wanna dig in a little bit on kinda where we're at right now as well as the optimism or maybe tacit optimism as as as you mentioned or, quote, small level of comfort. And you had mentioned, John, about the about the permits, which is one, you know, encouraging metric, for for sure. My concern is that things have changed a little bit, though, where we had more ability as a city to kinda chart our own course. Other cities may have taken different directions when it comes to different economic policies, But now we're starting to see more of those decisions being made down in Olympia, and we have less control over some of these decisions, and they're going to impact us. So given that, you know, my concern is always that we're gonna, you know, kill the goose that laid the golden egg here in in in in Bellevue with that less local control that we have.

And I'm looking at the tea leaves. And, again, these are not necessarily Bellevue specific, but, it gives it gives me pause, and and that that's why I want to get more of a sense of the the the optimism given that that change in that in that framework that we might not be able as independently be able to make some some or maybe we still can, but we're still gonna be impacted by other bills that have been, passed that are going to affect us. But when I see that, you know, there's 65 more homes for sale on the market now compared to last year, a lot of inventory. When I see that our unemployment rate, this is the state, we have now one of the highest unemployment rates in the country at over 5%. State revenues for March 2026 is well below expectations.

$76,000,000 below expectations. And job losses, again, not Bellevue, but Starbucks announced that moving 2,000 jobs to Nashville. So while these things are not impacting us right now because we have done an incredible job, I think, especially city staff in terms of being fiscally conservative, being prudent, always thinking about future needs and planning ahead, as well as having a tremendous council over many years that have, you know, adopted these great policies. And I don't know you don't have your crystal ball with you, but at what point could some of these some of these things potentially catch up with with Bellevue? Right now, things are are great, and I am cautiously optimistic.

We are still bringing jobs in. I'm not sure it's gonna be at that rate that we need to maintain given the graphic I saw earlier. But at some point, it's gonna catch up to us to some degree. To what degree? I have no idea. But I think to some degree, it is, and it will start impacting our budgets and our economic outlook. So can you speak just a little bit more in terms of your, I guess, cautious optimism where we are now and and and going forward?

I appreciate that, council member. It is a crystal ball, and there are things that happen at the state level and at the county level that we have little control over and will affect the overall climate for our residents and for our businesses. And we have to be very thoughtful. We've got an incredible government relations team that is spot on and deeply embedded in many conversations at the state and regional levels and at the national levels. Mhmm.

And it is critical for us to stay engaged in those spaces because without that, our voice gets lost. And the truth is we are viewed as one of those bellwether voices, and it is important that they do hear from us. I'll offer you some smaller notes to validate. Bell Bellevue may actually be a little different than the rest of this region. Mhmm.

I just got off with Standard and Poor two days ago with a credit call because we're getting ready to sell bonds. Mhmm. They're doing their final pieces and was just looking at some of the trends in our top 10 employers. You remember in '22, '23, we might have had a large company that was vacating and left us. We've actually rebounded from those jobs, and we've grown past that number of where we were at by another six to 10,000 jobs over where we were at going into that that before the downs downturn.

So we're seeing trends like that. We're seeing the movement in our permits are actually in heavily in housing. And so while there is a high amount of housing that might be hitting the market, it's also because you're being successful in getting housing to market. Now the question is, is it affordable and can people get into it? And that is one of those crystal balls that, guess what, we live in a landlocked county with growth management, and that's part of the trade offs that go with it.

And so I think there's gonna be some challenges. And the more work that you do around affordability and finding that right mix for our community is gonna be really important to those pieces. I wanna express some great appreciation for the shoulders that I'm standing on. Right? The staff and the council members who got us to this point gave us such a strong foundation and a strong relationship with our community, both residential as well as business, that is the envy of so many.

It is critical for us to maintain those relationships because we will hear those things that are most important and try to influence those things that we possibly can. And so I think you're spot on in in worrying about those things. I don't know where that point is. What we do see for us as a community is there is a continued draw and a continued interest, and we are following that lead of the market. And if the market start tell starts telling us things, we're gonna be right back here before you to share with you what the market is telling us. And right now, the market is telling us, be ready. We're coming. We may be coming from a different side of the lake or a different area Mhmm. But we're coming.

Okay. Okay. I appreciate that. And I I think the more that we can stay in tune to the, you know, the the the data that comes in that you're privy to and our ability to pivot as as necessary that we have done before and we can do again, I think, is is is really important. You know, I share those concerns at the same time.

You know, it's it's it's so important that we continue to, as as you rightly pointed out, continue to grow and have that infrastructure that can support the the growth of the city as well as, as has been mentioned many times tonight, making sure that we have this right safety precautions in place around our infrastructure, especially around transportation and other things like that as well. And I think the more that we can become, almost, maybe not independent because we're always going to need money from, from, you know, the county or or from at the state level to accomplish the things that we want to accomplish. However, I think the more that we can take on some of these projects our own and we don't have to wait, the the the the the better off we are, especially when it comes to the the those types of scenarios where lives could be impacted. We we we we don't wanna wait, and we wanna and we've always been a a fantastic multimodal city. We wanna continue to do that and keep growing out our by corridors and pedestrian corridors, etcetera.

All of that is really important. So the more that we can become or at least keep pushing towards those goals, I think the the better off we are. And then I'm one more question, although I think we're gonna get into the funding sources a little bit later. But since it's been brought up, I'm gonna mention it about those those funding sources and and and well, I'll save it. But I wanna I wanna get to understand why those some of those funding sources were highlighted in in in the materials here because some of them I have, you know, some some concerns over, like, councilor Sumadwari I mentioned in terms of the the tabs, car tabs, for example.

And and today, I actually read a story that that there are 600,000 Washington State residents that do not register their car. They don't have car tabs. 600,000. K? A number of reasons for that. But the primary drivers are economic strength and the high registration costs. And my colleague's absolutely right. If you're choosing between feeding your family or getting car tabs you know? Plus, I believe it's Washington State law. You can't actually pull someone over just for expired car tabs now.

So there's very little incentive to paying that. So I'm not sure that's a dependable revenue source for us even though it's a $20. Again, we might look at the Bellevue data, and everyone's paying for their tabs in Bellevue, which I'm sure they are because everyone living here is absolutely up upstanding citizens and and and have have paid for it. But but this is one thing that I would love you to get kinda get into in terms of how you how you came to some of those, I guess, recommendations. Let me get into that into that a little

bit later. But thank you. Absolutely.

Thank you, mayor.

Thank you, councilor Munehouse. Councilor Mubargavo.

Yeah. Thank you. I also wanna start just by saying thank you for the incredible work so far and on past councils who have brought us to a place, and thank you city manager for balancing those many place. Mean, I didn't offend it, he says. Don't call them.

Appreciate it. Before I get into the specific questions and comments, do wanna share the overall sentiment that I do feel a little bit requires caution. Our projections in job growth and housing growth as set forth in our targets are is our best information, and over the last couple of years has been what we believe with conviction to be the reality of where we're headed. The last twelve months have been really tumultuous in, especially in job creation and the nature of how substantially there is going to be a change in work structure. AI is really transforming many industries.

Technology being a core part of our job growth here is also facing some of those challenges. So this growth of 157,000 to 228,000 jobs is something that we should put a very close eye on. This is just a word of caution for our sort of discussion as we get into it because I feel like that input could be very volatile and unpredictable for us and something that we should try to figure out. When you presented your materials, you talked about coming back in ten years as a a process to see if we need to validate some of our input assumptions. I know you don't really mean that because if it changes what we will come back here right away.

But I think we should create some cadence where we are creating a forcing function for us to evaluate in-depth some of our planning assumptions for growth and the investments that are commensurate with those because that I think is part of the course today. I also believe that there is a need for us to invest. I'm gonna switch to transportation because that is a flavor of the day.

In

transportation infrastructure to support the growth that we are planning. We did a comprehensive plan in '24. We've done more things this year with HOMA and other things where we are increasing the intensity of development and the expectation of growth. And we need to make sure that we are putting our money where our mouth is. That one of the things that's really beneficial to Bellevue is this growth has been real.

We've seen job creation happen in Bellevue, contra to some of the trends we have seen nationally. So we're very fortunate, and, you know, I I thank our strategic processes that we've laid out. I mean, much of the work that the city has done in economic development and and planning that has that is paying us our dividends today. And, also, in principle, I do support the idea of the primary mechanism TBD, and I think that's gonna come in later into the conversation. So I'll just skim over that part of my notes here.

But I do think that while there is, the need, there are three specific areas where we need to be more precise in terms of how we approach the framework for our investments. The first, I think, is specificity for me. I think we need to be very articulate, not today maybe, but as we evolve this process about where our money is going and why that is clearly an important critical need for our city. That brings me to the second part. How will we know if this is a clearly an important need for a city?

We need to have a framework for prioritization, and this is where my questions will come in a second. But I think we'll I this resonates with me strongly. We need to put safety first as the framework for prioritization. That has to be really important from a transportation standpoint. Community safety has to be the paramount goal.

Second, how do we achieve balance across modes? This is going to be you ask anyone, you'll have a different answer. But we, as policymakers, need to have a clear framework on how we establish that balance across modes. That's the second thing from a prioritization standpoint. Third, we have to make sure that when we make these investments that we're focused on being able to measure the impact of our investments.

So measurable public benefit has to be part of our core investment strategy not on day nine when the investments are baked, but on day one to say how will we in the future measure the public benefit so that we are confident that we're making the right decisions on our investment priorities. Couple other things if I can keep going. Please. I think affordability is the next key tenet for me. There is real tax fatigue in the community.

It is a challenge, and we have to be very cautious when we put the burden of additional, whether it's $20 per tab or point 1% increase in sales tax, everybody pays that. And it is incumbent, not just incumbent, it is our fiduciary responsibility to make sure that we have scraped the bottom of the barrel before we ask anybody to pay anything extra. I know there is a need for that. All I'm asking for us is to make sure that we keep that front and center in our framework for investment. I'm gonna go through my questions.

This is more educational in this sort of stage of our conversation. How have we historically prioritized our investments? And have you stayed consistent to that through that process in prior budget cycles? And do we know that we have achieved the outcomes for safety and reliability and equity through that process of the approach you have used in the past? That's my first question.

Just a simple question.

It's more a discussion question, John. To be honest, I'm this is for us to help flush it out.

Council member, our last eight to 10 budget cycles have been built around our high performing framework and our strategic target areas. We have focused in on goals and measures. I will offer to you, they're probably more tactical measures than outcome measures, and we're working on evolving that to do a much better job for you and for the community. Are we are we moving the needle in a in a large way? That's one of the initiatives that our city manager is pushing all of us in thinking about that so we could do an even better job of engaging around results to help you have the right kinds of resources.

And when you're struck with the the challenge of trade offs based off of policy interests, those are going to be policy choices, but you wanna make sure that the investments are actually producing results to move in those directions. And that is a high priority to us. We have used those frameworks. We provide there is reporting that's available on an annual basis. We want to actually up that game to make sure we're seeing much, much more real data on a timely data rather than look back data.

So we're working on those pieces to make sure that we've got that framework in place, and there's some really big efforts that we as a staff team are driving in that direction. But we actually have been using it and why the STAs or the strategic target areas framing is such an important piece because we're lined up towards advancing those, and we're spending more time talking about those collective investments rather than individual department investments. Because you can't be successful in transportation without police, without IT, without finance, without a whole bunch of other things, and that creates that environment. And safety and and this is one of the things you'll get more of a flavor of. There isn't a single project in transportation that doesn't improve safety.

That's unfortunately, it's the the reality of it. It's really hard to differentiate. Is this one more safe than that one? Every time you do anything, even in even striping improves the safety, of the system. And so they're looking at that next layer as well as safety, but that is a key function within that. Does that help get you started in that conversation?

It does help. I do think that we should continue to I appreciate that. I do think we should continue to set what I would call strategic targets for each of these strategic areas, and then we can then once we if we align on those targets and it resonates with not just us, but the larger community, then we can actually measure our way to success and then rebalance our investments against that performance. That gives us a framework that is more performance oriented than intuition oriented. So that's one thing.

Second question, and maybe this is something that well, I'm actually I'm thinking this is an easier question. How have we balanced our funds across modes in the past? What framework have we used to do that?

I'm gonna save that for our second section because there's actually some discussion on that. And with transportation up here, they'll be in a much better position to help engage in that.

Okay. Two very quick comments. One other is, I think when I think about transportation and the change in jobs and housing and all of that drives it, the change in how we move, transit being a core investment area, pedestrian and bike connectivity being a core investment area, the evolution of the automobile to autonomous vehicles being another core investment area. The idea of keeping the change in technology and human behavior at the center of transportation investments has to be part of what we're thinking about today. Otherwise, we're gonna fall behind in that evolution.

So You've been reading our notes, sir.

So that is another area where I would push for consideration here today. And then I've got some more detailed thoughts on policy framework and how we can actually create that, but I'll save that for the third part of our conversation.

Great. Thank you so much. Deputy mayor.

Thank you, mayor. Appreciate the presentation. Really good kickoff. I know this is challenging and stressful work. I'm already feeling it, and I've I'm just getting going on it.

So thanks for all the hard work so far. I think, ultimately, you know, we do come up with a plan, and this is kind of the the promise to just help ensure our community thrives. And I know that's something we're all, certainly aware of. So, again, obviously, more work to come, but a perfect start, really. And then I think too as we continue through the process, and this has already been talked about, but I think it's worth emphasizing, just remaining transparent and community focused as we just move towards final adoption in November, hopefully, of course, before Thanksgiving so we can all just kinda relax.

So critically important. Two, you know, our budget is filled with a variety of critical investments for our community. And like all investments, we wanna be strategic, thoughtful, and careful. And like all investments, we wanna get a good return. I think Bellevue has a great track record of maximizing the return on the investments we make, and I'm confident that this budget process is gonna be no different than that.

Couple of just general comments. 100% supportive of including a proposal, for new transportation dedicated revenues and expenses in the preliminary proposed budget. So looking forward to seeing that. While we, of course, need to continue to do everything we can to bring in revenues that have been committed to us from outside sources like federal government, state, county, etcetera, we certainly can't act as if any of them are going to come in and solve our transportation challenges for us. So basically, you know, with no one's coming to rescue us, and we're gonna have to continue to solve most of our own challenges.

And that means we need to come up with the money to pay for our critically important transportation projects. I think it's important that we're we're clear on that from the very beginning. Few general questions for you. I'm just curious too. I had a question in, council member Newnhouse, I think, kind of even reminded me of it. But I was just noticing in the discussion, materials that there is, it's mentioned about the, revenues. 43% of our taxes account for 43% of the city's revenues. I'm just curious if you could talk about what makes up the other 57%.

Number one, fees. Utility fees are actually a pretty substantial portion of our revenues. There's a handful of small taxes and and things that come in in a variety of different ways. But actually, the next biggest chunk are intergovernmental contracts. So we provide fire services to other communities.

Those are revenues that are within that. There's a whole variety of different types of chunks of those revenues, but it really it's it is kind of an odd thing that people think about the government, and they're like, oh, taxes are the bay are the biggest. It it's actually a significant portion of our revenue, but it is not. It's not the only thing. And we are, in many ways, entrepreneurial and looking at those things.

We do look to when we have a strong philosophy based off of you and your guidance of user based fees and really making sure that we've got the the best match we possibly can find between, user and benefit and making sure that those fees have that relationship. But in other spaces, like in parks, we also heavily subsidize those because we wanna make sure that there's maximum access. And so there's always a balance to that. And so, as you will see coming up in June, you'll get a pretty detailed look at all of the different kinds of revenue. We won't go into the literally dozens and dozens individual lines, but you'll get a much greater flavor of that, and begin to really see those different kinds of revenues and how they trend.

Thank you. Two, just want to talk a little bit about the development activity and that's one of the primary drivers of sales tax revenue. We seem to, as we've already talked about, have a healthy development pipeline. I'm just curious what are we projecting the near term development activity to do to our sales tax collections in the 2728 budget period?

You will definitely get a better flavor of that during the forecast. There's

not a

lot of growth in that space. We're trying to get back to a normalized position. We don't think you'll actually see sales tax on construction, much of it until maybe 2829. If you're thinking about that construction cycle, the permit activity the construction lags behind that about a year to two years depending upon the timelines of some of the larger stuff, and that's where the largest investments come from. Our largest sales tax is from the big big construction, the large multifamily, the large office, hotel.

That's where you're gonna see the biggest, and those probably are are closer to '28, '29 rather than 2728. So we're going to see that more towards the end of that, which is why we don't see a lot of that growth coming in in our sales tax revenue and why our forecast will not likely have a lot of that growth, and it will start to ramp up in those out years. Okay. So reason

to be hopeful, but maybe not reason to start counting those dollars quite yet.

Not not ready to write those checks,

sir. Okay.

And, you know, when it comes to sales tax, do you is it possible to break it out between kind of the percentage that residents of Bellevue pay versus the percentage of sales tax that visitors to Bellevue pay? No. Do you know that?

No. Okay. Just cross that off.

Yeah. Sorry. We we've tried that one. It's very challenging to know that.

Okay. Just trying to kind of consider the overall tax burden on Bellevue residents that are coming.

I say no, but we also make sure we are watching all of the various national evaluations and, the regional and state evaluations that are trying to get some of the survey trends to help us in guesstimate that. And so we try and look at some of that information, but it is it is not an a simple process to do that. And so we can get some alignment around different types. Okay.

So and I know tonight we're fund we're focusing on transportation funding gaps. So I'm just curious kind of, like, when in this process are we gonna focus on other funding gaps, like maybe human services, arts and culture, climate, other things. So I'd like to I'd like to consider those gaps and maybe others that my colleagues might identify and and any related funding tools for them. But are we gonna have a deep dive on some of these other ones? Or and if so, when?

Yes. And some of that's gonna be up to you. We wanna get through this cycle and then start as we're stepping into '27 and '28. We think lined up with some of these conversations is your guidance and help in what are the next most important investments. We have some things that are expiring and some opportunities that are before us.

Those aren't your only drivers, but you don't wanna lose sight of those. And so we know that '27 and '28 are going to be discussion years about first getting that lineup on the priority, understanding the results and the orientation of what we're trying to get. What do you need to be able to have those conversations and to engage in the right levels of discussion, and what are those those factors? And so part of tonight is teeing up that, yep, we need to to look at this thing right now, but you are absolutely right. 2027, 2028, 2029, 2030, there are a series of conversations and engagements with you and the community about what's next, how do how are our current taxes and fees performing, how is that working, is it producing the right kinds of results, are there changes to our overall operations feeding us through that process, but we're gonna have to engage with you.

And I'm looking to our city manager about thinking about that timeline because we wanna make sure that we're meeting you at the right spaces for those.

Okay. So maybe not like a super deep dive, but I do think that those are areas that we really wanna be focusing on now, and we should expect that as we do our community engagement that we're gonna hear from the community about these other various gaps, and and they're gonna expect it to be addressed. And and I would like to to at least have some broad information on on other funding gaps outside of transportation. Yes. So okay. Great. And then to I I appreciate your email that we got earlier today, kinda regarding the goals of this workshop.

Complete with the typo in it.

Yes. Noted. I was gonna let it go, John, but

I'm gonna own that. I I I copied and pasted to the wrong wrong location. That was all on me.

We got, you know, at the beginning, just kind of a schedule of upcoming touches to the budget process as well, and I hope that we can have that same kind of information at those points as well. So what are we looking for? What are the goals of each of these other various topics? That might help, I think, with some of the planning. And then, too, I think just kind of generally, you know, this while we are generally rely, we need to rely on ourselves to, you know, fund the priorities of the city, I think, you know, we're gonna be looking at our federal ledge agenda.

We're kinda having a download from the recent session in Olympia. And so, I mean, 70,000 new jobs, to Bellevue by 2044. We need to rely on our partners like the federal government, state, county, Sound Transit to accomplish that goal. And, I know we're again, we've got the federal ledge agenda coming up and and the downloading on the session. But it as a part of that process and this budget process, I think it's important for us to keep in mind how important it is that we have the support that we need and that we deserve at all levels of government, and we continually advocate for that support. So look forward to continuing the process. Great work so far. Thanks. Thank you, mayor.

Thank you, deputy mayor. I I agree with everything that my colleague has said. The only thing that I'm struggling is your answer to deputy mayor questions about other priorities. I think the and let me say what I'm understanding, and then you correct me if I'm wrong. In the first section that we are talking about comprehensive plan long term, you are saying out of the comprehensive plan, we are realizing that transportation is the most important thing that we need to address.

Common sense. We talk about it in comp plan. We knew there are going to be issues, and now we need to, after approving the comp plan, approve that. But I'm not understanding why you're saying the rest of other stuff is going to be in like five years from now, six years from now. So what what is my disconnect from what you are saying? And if you go back to the first, I think the second slide.

I know. That's exactly where I'm going.

Yeah. A little bit too far.

While you're bringing the slide, we didn't do that two years ago. Like, didn't say we talk about, like, pick one topic. We talk about public safety now, and then we talk about sustainability and affordability and housing and all that in five years from now. We just said, hey, this is the whole budget. This is the whole big picture. We have all of these priorities. We are now this is how much money we have. That's how we are allocating. But I think this is a different version. Is it because from comprehensive plan and priorities, this is a new way of thinking?

So couple of different things around this. Number one, we're growing. We're looking I look at those jobs and housing growth targets. And from a financial perspective, I worry about that. I worry about are we doing the right things at the right time?

And that's the reason for this slide. We didn't do that in the previous budget. We just were finishing up the comprehensive plan and there was not time to have the pre conversation. You've engaged as a council very deeply in some big policy discussions and we're bringing back the realities of those policy discussions are now we've got the next series of decisions that need to be made. But if I'm thinking about this, the reason why we think some of those other things, if we're thinking about the top row of the long view, as the growth starts to happen, the first thing is the construction.

There's not as many humans that are going to be coming in. We're gonna see some of that growth. It's gonna be fits and starts. We think that that about the six to eight year point, we're really starting to realize the benefits, and we need to be ready for that point in time. You don't start all of those services on day one.

You wanna time those a little bit closer to the matchup with the people coming in in that growth so that you're getting the right mix of timing. There's a little bit of art and science to that space, but that's part of what we're teeing up in this conversation is we know we have to have those conversations. What are the most important? What kinds of lead times do we need to get in there? As we think about the planning and levies, what are the touch points where you've had the opportunity as council members to weigh into some really big community discussions and help us make sure that we're asking the right questions on your behalf?

So parts of this is an evolution and growth of us as a city. We're taking a much more holistic path following the guidance of the comp plan that just got adopted and now starting some of those big visions.

Good point because a lot of this is new for the council. A lot of it is new for the council. We heard from you in the last discussion about the budget that it was important to understand kind of what's out there in the future as you're as we're bringing you investment decisions. So we're trying to get into that pattern of sharing a little bit more about what we're thinking about at the the staff level and the department level about what's coming at us in the future. To give you a sense of that as we focus on transportation in this biennium perhaps.

I also want to note that in the regular budget process, we are in we will be investing in the strategic target areas and those functional plans. Right? So you will hear that as well because it's part of our decision making processes in developing the proposed preliminary budget is what part of the action plans in those updated plans or those strategic plans and the functional plans, can we invest in to move those forward. I do think in this process, we will hear from you. Well, how do we think about bigger investments in some of the areas that the deputy mayor, asked about?

And those are conversations we need to have with you because we likely won't be able to invest big dollars in them without new revenues, and that becomes that's where you all get to balance on that balancing theme to help us understand what's affordable, what's a priority, what's what's a value to the community, if you want to look at a broader set of revenue sources.

Okay. Great. I think I am getting to where we are. So when you said those conversations should come, how the public knows that they need to inform their council members their priority, that when we as a body know all of those inputs and then let you all know, okay, we believe there should be an extra investment in public safety for some reason. There should be an extra investment in human services. There should be an extra investment in sustainability or everything that we have heard. How where that process looks or how that process is.

John can add to this, but the first will we we continuously hear from the community through the budget process. So over the next nine months. Right? But we'll have the public hearings. We'll have our forecast which will then inform us about how much we think we have available to spread out.

And then as we develop the preliminary proposed budget, we'll be thinking about what are the potential options that could be brought forward when you get in in the fall conversation with the public hearings and the debate about have we made the right proposals to you about where to put the money, you will have the option and we will be responsive to you in terms of new revenues if you wanna consider them for the things that we haven't been able to accommodate in our proposed budget.

John?

Where you'll also hear that and where you have been hearing it, over the last year in the functional plan discussions, as you're preparing to adopt and in those functional plans, they actually have specific strategies and investment strategies to move the needle. You're hearing from the public in those spaces. We're hearing those things as well. So those are the foreshadowing of what's important and the next sets of investments. The more specific two year timeline of investments that a budget process is starts to get more targeted.

This particular cycle doesn't have a whole lot of new revenues, and we see that there's a gap that needs to be addressed immediately and to tee you up for the next ones. And so your question of how does the public know and when do they get engaged, they get engaged in the functional plan. They get engaged in the budget process, which we actually have more we have an extra public hearing that most communities don't have. When we do a public hearing, when we're talking about revenue, most cities don't do that. That's an extra space where you're getting input, we're getting input before we're actually writing the budget document.

Great. That was just section one and is eight zero six, then section two is transportation needs, and then the funding tools for addressing those needs. So we will be back by in fourteen minutes at 08:20.

Great. We are back and we can start. John, let's just combine the section two and section three. We don't pause between them. And I am asking my counsel in their question to be a little more concise. And whenever you feel that you can give that answer later on via a format, we are all open to that. So please.

Okay. Let me get started talking about the transportation needs and just a little overview of the transportation planning process. I'm sure a lot of you are aware of it, but it really starts off with the transportation improvement plan, the TIP and this is something that is required of the Growth Management Act, it's pretty much every jurisdiction in the country has the same type of process. It's really trying to identify the overall need, not it's in a six year time frame here, but it's not fiscally constrained. It's like what is it everything that we need?

And for in the case of, of Bellevue during our TIP, we do have, some cost estimates in it. We it was about 1,700,000,000. I've never been in the community before where it wasn't over 1,000,000,000. There's never ending need for transportation, everybody knows that. And then the second aspect of it is our new mobility implementation plan where we are trying to take that whole massive amount of need, apply factors to it that are, you know, used in ranking, and from then come up with a a transportation facilities plan which is goes to the transportation commission, but the council ends up approving it every time we do it.

So I do it every two or three years when or when conditions change. It's physically constrained. It really operates off of past history of the amount of revenue that we get. We can assume a certain amount of grant money, for example. We've got the levy.

Even though it expires within the twenty year period, we can assume that it's going to end up going forward when we try to figure out what gets into that twenty year transformation facilities plan. And then finally, there's the CIP which she will be adopting. It's a budget and it allocates funding over a six year period. And so we've been recently working on with a consultant trying to pull together a new approach to our capital improvement program. There are portfolios.

Two This is the more general transportation portfolio. It's actually called transportation safety and mobility because we really want to make it really clear that safety and mobility are key factors throughout all the different. We're calling them categories now, but that may change to programs later. Vehicle mobility is primarily intersection improvements that are needed to accommodate the growth. Bikepad is figuring out the connectivity and accessibility for throughout the city for bikepad projects, the high injury network, things like that that we're taking a look at for safety.

The third one being mobility, neighborhood mobility, which was in some ways a catch all because there are a lot of smaller projects that just don't compete well with the other categories, but there are things like traffic calming and safe speeds Bellevue falls under this category as well. And dealing with the, you know, the the issues that occur out into the neighborhoods, which is a majority of the geography of the city. And then finally, major projects, and a really a good example of that would be Spring Boulevard and the final connection for that. It's it's huge, and it's a big project. It's going to have to get funded in some way.

But, again, it can't compete with some of the other pedestrian, mobility projects that are out there as well. They're they're bigger. And then finally, we've got preservation and reconstruction. These are things that don't make it into our operating maintenance budget. Rockery projects are a good example of that.

Westlake Sammamish Parkway, which is a reconstruction project. And just keep in mind too that some of these projects will overlap into multiple categories. That's the nature of them. And in your materials, are illustrative examples of the type of projects that we're talking about within each category and staff has been spending an awful lot of time really prioritizing this based on several factors. Safety and Vision Zero is one.

Capacity and growth is another. Multimodal mobility is another reliable infrastructure being another one to equity and community access leverage, leveraging existing funding. And, you know, just really we've got lots and lots of lists and one of the big challenges that we had was going in from what was a programmatic aspect of our plans and pulling out projects so that they are more discrete projects that are gonna be that are listed. And and as I said, the staff has been going through the the process of prioritizing that and you will see that at some point. Next.

Grand Connection Crossing, the there we've kept this out of the five main portfolio buckets for transportation because we don't want it's still part of the transportation investment. We just don't want to dwarf the rest of the investments. This is a onetime transformational movement. We wanna see it we want you to be able to see it and see it right next to those investments. But we also don't want you to lose sight of that what's the right levels of investments on that ongoing basis.

So we've been really careful to keep them really close. The Grand Connection Crossing is about a 200,000,000 to $225,000,000 project. We've already selected our general contractor construction management partner who is already on staff and helping us begin that prioritization process. We'll talk a little bit more about that funding stack later on, but this is a piece that a number of us are spending a lot of time on and quite a number of you council members and thank you for your time.

Yeah, it is transformational and will really increase the economic development of the city. And then this is just what we're showing. We put the categories that we came up with in to the current CIP, and that is the distribution of where those numbers end up. That's not necessarily where I would like to see it end up, but that is right now what we have. Next slide.

This is an important piece that we're not gonna pause for discussion at this space based off of the guidance from there. But be thinking about this because this is an area that will help us understand when we bring a preliminary budget and bring the lists of projects that are underneath these layers, this is helping us target the right types of investments in that prioritization. So let's talk a little bit about funding tools and gaps. So let's just jump right in to the gaps. So from a transportation general perspective, there's about 10 and a half million that comes in from the levy.

The general fund is got about $15,800,000 a year in debt service for transportation projects. There's about $3,200,000 that's coming in a year on average for fuel tax and impact fees. And then the transportation department is very successful in the grants environment, and we usually end up with around $10,000,000 a year in grants. We're targeting, with all of that, about $50,000,000 a year. If you take out the debt service, that's about you're really looking at about $34,000,000 a year of a target.

That's about a $10,000,000 shy of where we think that right level of investment for capital and then the new maintenance that comes with it. Because if we put something on the street, we want to make sure that we have the capacity to maintain it. Not looking backwards. We actually got current maintenance. We're looking to the future.

On the Grand Connection Crossing, I want to be a little careful here because we've got a little bit of apples and kumquats in this conversation, but we're starting from if we are assuming about a $225,000,000 project, that's about 15 and a half million a year in debt service, just frame of reference. Our existing general fund and a little bit of a contribution from our, friends, partners, we're at about 46 and a half million dollars of funding that's already contributed to that. We are anticipating about another 25,000,000 more in contributions. That leaves us with about a 153,000,000 left to fund. And that debt service, this was not intentional.

It just turned out that they're both about about 10 a year. It was completely accidental and coincidental, but they both have about a 10,000,000 to $10,500,000 gap that we believe. We're going get a little bit deeper into it, but we wanted to make sure you saw the math as we started things and how we're thinking about those gaps.

To kind of address some of those gaps, we have general revenue tools available to us such as property tax, b and o tax, sales tax, all the ones you see up here in the darker blue section. Of those, things like property tax have both councilmatic and voter approval sections to them depending on what council decides to do. Sales tax also has some councilmatic program options to it such as the TBD that we're talking about or the criminal justice sales tax, those type of things And the utility sales tax sorry, utilities tax can be also available to the consummate adjustments. We have three newer ones down there in the lighter blue that are specific for transportation. And if you want a more general or detailed breakout of what's in these kind of hexagonal squares,

you can

see that on page 19 in the handout. That's a big long list of all of these.

So as we're thinking about this, and we started to target a little bit more tightly, we thought about the things that you could do right now that didn't take away from your options for the future, and we're much more focused on transportation specific investments linking that relationship. We're also thinking about the who benefits, who pays, which you'll find some of our traditional handouts in this that talk about our residents, our business communities, our visitors, and how the taxes apply to each of those. We wanna make sure that you've got resources at your disposal, so when you have those questions, you can start there, and we can help get you through that. So we're this is all about getting you as much information in your hands and then we'll supplement that as you've got questions on it.

So those three lighter blue hexagonal ones from the prior slide are more detailed here in specific revenue tools. We have the transportation benefit district side of things, specifically the vehicle fees and the sales tax. Vehicle fees, as we've talked about earlier, is estimated at $20 to be about $2,000,000 a year in that. And the sales tax at a point one or 0.1 is estimated to be about $11,000,000 of revenue bringing in from that.

Have Just a second. To answer the question right up front on vehicle fees, how do we get at that? We actually get the from the state how many vehicles are paying registration. So we're we're going by the people who are already paying. So if you're not paying, you're not counted. We don't go we don't have an an estimate of the number of vehicles. We're just doing a straight count off of what the number of people who are paying here in the in city.

On the other side of the slide there, we have other transportation options such as the tax increment financing. We're already doing transportation impact fees, but there is some space here for expansion of those fees. We have curb management fees, which has been authorized to go forward with. And we also have automatic traffic safety cameras. We're doing a limited amount of them at this point in time, but we are talking about expanding them in this next budget cycle.

So the things with the check marks up there are things that you have actually acted on and are moving forward. We believe that these are things that are dedicated to transportation. And while you may be having some ongoing discussions about refining that, we recognize that those are transportation specific investments. The TIF, we do not have a check check mark up there because you will be having discussions very specifically May 5 and May 19 as we're engaged with other jurisdictions in that conversation. And that left us with this question of TBD.

Why was that important? Because we started thinking about the intersection of these two gaps because they are all transportation and transportation and mobility specific. On the general transportation and mobility side, we've got general fund contribution, the levy, grants, fee based revenues for our existing and anticipated things that are are in play. On the existing and anticipated for Grand Connection Crossing, we've already had a pretty sizable general fund contribution. There's philanthropy, both already received and anticipated, and there's the tax increment financing.

We've got this on the anticipated. We are hoping that this goes forward, we have a strong belief that there's enough movement, and we'll be looking forward to your deliberations. But that really says, is there a way to get at this gap? As we looked at that, we think this tool of the transportation benefit district funding with very specific investment strategies for transportation and and for this new portfolio structure starts to get at the right approach to investments. Now we also get really detailed.

And I'm gonna spend some time. You may want to look at a copy of the the actual gaps to try and help you understand a little bit more deeply. I'm gonna start on the general transportation funding side, the left side of the chart, the left pie chart. If we're thinking about that $50,000,000, about 20% of it comes from grants, about 6% from the fuel and impact fees, about 20% 21% from the levy, About 32% of the transportation capital investments are in debt service, and we started looking at how to fill that pie. I'm gonna tell you, you you may look up there and see that there's an 11.7 instead of 10.5.

That's because the tools that we've identified, if they're used at their maximum, actually fill this bucket a little fuller than than we had than the gap was. Don't know that that's a bad thing or a good thing. It's something that we don't wanna lose sight of, because then we'll come over here to the right side of the pie chart and talk about the target for the Grand Connection crossing. If we're looking at this, the initial dollars that have already been targeted or identified is the general fund at about 20%. There's a little bit of received contributions and then about 11% of anticipated contributions.

And then I'm thinking about that debt service or the cost of the debt service. And then I look at the at how to fill those gaps, and that's what we'll talk about in the center. We're gonna start with the left side of that stacked chart. And if we're thinking about that, those user based fees, so the curb management and the automated enforcement, after some initial repayment for the start up costs associated, you get to about an average of about $3,900,000 a year that needs to go back into that transportations system. So we've identified that as the first portion of meeting the gap.

Then we looked at the transportation benefit district revenues and we looked at it from a standpoint of what we're hearing from you and from the community that the transportation benefit district should be a majority supporting the general transportation and mobility needs and to a lesser degree, the Grand Connection Crossing, but we still have to be able to balance and be able to meet debt service. What that meant was about a sixty forty split. So about 60% of the transportation benefit district revenues for sales tax and vehicle fees over in the general transportation side. And over on the other side, it's about 40%. So that 800,000 and the 4,400,000 for sales tax.

What you see below sales tax, the tax increment financing, that's the equivalent for debt service purposes. We think there'll be a little bit of grant money that'll come in over the life of future. And at at And So we're looking at at the this set of investments. And we're were you to look at the transportation benefit district and we're developing strategies around that, we believe we can be meet both of these gaps and, in fact, maybe overfill or bite a little bit more heavily into the transportation needs on a general basis while still delivering on a transformational project. And with that, we got through both of those sections, and now is an opportunity for you to give us a whole bunch more detailed questions on transportation.

We'll take some of those funding questions, and we'll get back to you with those and also answer some of those things around the needs and gaps.

Thank you so much. Councilman Newhouse, we are sorry with you. Oh. A role model for every other council member.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Well, first, comprehensive. Appreciate you rolling this out for us to evaluate tonight. And there's just a lot of things to, I don't know, take into consideration.

One one one request that I would have is can we separate the pedestrian and pedestrian mobility and bike mobility? To me, those are two very different modes of transportation, and I'd like to see the breakup too in terms of I know combined, it's 30% of that CIP, but I I I'd really like to see going forward that broken up into two different distinct categories. I think that will also be beneficial when we look at priorities for both of those. So for me, just going forward, I I I would like to see it broken out that way. Does that cause any heartburn for you, Andrew, in in terms of that?

The only thing is that we try to get away from our current CIP, which has, like, 17 different programs. Mhmm. And so the more categories that you end up having, the more it is resembling that. But you would be able to see within each of the, you know, each of the categories if it was, you know, bike, ped, which ones were the bike and which ones were the ped Yeah. To be in the list.

Okay. Yeah. So I would I would like to see it then separated. And I I I just think it's gonna help as well when we when we get to to priorities later and what projects fall under what. Of course, there might be some crossover at times, but I I think that's gonna be very helpful moving forward.

In in in in terms of the funding, can we talk a little bit more about that in terms of the okay. So you answered my question about the about the vehicle fees, so I appreciate that. And then and then and then the sales tax, I'm not sure you're meaning this as a recommendation, but it's, you know, is that the is that are those the right two mechanisms? How did you land on that and and and and why? I know it's gonna, you know, get us to the goal of of of addressing the gap, but can you just go into a little bit more depth?

Very quickly, because I also heard it from a number of members. Yeah. Yeah. And we'll follow-up with some more information. But as we thought about this, one, we had to have something that you were able to act on quickly Mhmm. That was dedicated in purpose and function and could actually solve the problem. So it was timing. It was result, and it was actionable. K. And is that the right mix? There are other tools and other options out there. We thought that this was an expedient approach that gets at that and provides the kind of linkages and controls.

So then I'm assuming then you're thinking councilmanic for for this then rather than taking this to a vote. It's fast. Is it fair? You know, it's affordability is the number one thing I hear almost every other day. And I know I might be a broken record on this, but there are a lot of families that are hurting, that are challenged to remain in our community.

I I I think there's a an absolute recognition that Bellevue needs to make these investments, that they're they're critical to our future. But I also recognize the fact that a lot of people are feeling very tax fatigued right now as well. Getting getting back to the conversation about the county and the state, etcetera, plus what what what what we do, but there there is and then all the levies that are coming up that that you mentioned as well, they they are feeling very tax fatigued. And and and and I think they really want a voice in that as well. I you know, they they wanna be able to vote on what, I think, what we're going to be funding.

And I think as long as we have that right list of priorities and why we're doing it, I think the the the the public would agree that, we're on the right track if we make this make the decision to move forward without their buy in. And and I know you have the engagement piece next, which I'll I'll wait. I've got some thoughts on that. But but that's that's the true engagement. We're putting it to the voters for me.

But that that that affordability, when you consider that, you know, we're one of the most expensive places in the country for groceries, for restaurants, for housing, for across every core metric, it's it's really impactful to to every to every household for sure, and it's getting increasingly more challenging. That's kind of where I'm headed right now. I appreciate the fact that you're absolutely right. That's going to get us there fast, but I really think that we should consider putting this to the voters, making the case that this is the right the right time, the right investment, the right priorities, and get their buy in that way versus just passing this and putting this into in in into place without without the resident sign off. That's kinda where where I'm coming from on on on this, and I I believe that in this case, in this climate, in this environment right now, I think we would be better off as a council doing that, and I think the the voters of Bellevue would appreciate that as well to have that say and that buy in.

So I'll stop there because I know I'm probably over my my time. Thank you, mayor.

Thank you so much. Councilman Borigaba.

Others. There is a slide that you had for the 10.5 gap. First question for you is, Is there any way that we could be overestimating our gap here? Said differently, two two mechanisms. One, is there a way for us to look for other internal prioritization to make up the gap on that left side?

And I would love to see if there is, and you may I'm sure you've already done that, what some of those trade offs could be because that could change what we do downstream from that. I'll lay out all three questions. The second is, I know you said this is coming from input from us and from the community, but that sixty forty split that you have taken, I'd like to just see a little bit more rationale on why that because moving allocations across that can also address the gap, and then we could try to find a large chunk is coming from philanthropic sources for the grand connection. Could we further leverage our partnerships to try and balance that somehow. That's my second push.

And the last one is councilmatic action versus putting it out to the public, which I think is a really good point. Tell me, without having a value on that, like a state position on that, I'd love to understand your point of view on the puts and takes there. Because I think if I had read this correctly, you can go over $20 after twenty four months or you could go in with option options if you take it out to the public to the residents, and we could we could see a larger willingness to pay there that could actually bridge some of that gap more effectively. So I just wanna understand from your perspective, and then there's a timing trade off there. So what are some of the puts and takes that you've already thought through so that we can come up with a point of view that is more informed on one or the other approach?

That's it.

Let me give you just a little bit additional flavor on the puts and takes, if you will. K. One of the important things that we, staff have to think about, which is your political capital. The number of times you go to the voters and how you go and what's the right things to bring to the voters versus you, we don't know all of those answers. And part of this engagement is about learning that.

But part of this is also about you also have a very large set of discussions in upcoming years. And one of the pressures that you've got is, one, we've got to solve Grand Connection Crossing, and we have a gap on transportation infrastructure, and there's a way to get there. So is part of your political calculus and how frequently you go to the voters and we go to the voters as a city is going to be a really important piece of that conversation. And it's one of the things that we've thought about is in that expediency is a piece of that conversation. Very important things.

This is no secret conversation. It is very open. We're bringing it up, not waiting until later in the fall. We've been talking about different options for some time, and we're being very careful and thoughtful about how we bring that before you.

I'll just add one other component to that, which is the engagement. Over the next six months is really important to informing that as well. Right? So we need to make sure that we are making the case to the public about the value, whether it is a public vote or a councilmanic vote. So that's very much top of mind for us as well.

Do want you to address the rest of these questions one and two that is not as an address?

Let me remind you. It's the 10.5 gap and looking for other things within

the budget and the sixty forty split. We are looking for how can we solve part of the gaps that we've got overall because we also have things that we wanna be careful about what we stop doing as well as what we are doing. And so we are we're actually deeply engaged in that conversation as part of this discussion.

Yeah. One of the things I think I would suggest, at least I would love to see is what is the top items on your list to potentially stop doing even three to five that would make up a chunk of change, and then one can value the trade offs. So that that would be a really good list to see.

And your last question about philanthropic.

64, yes.

Well, the philanthropic partnership and how much our philanthropic and our business partners are contributing, There is always an opportunity to receive more, but they are also balancing a whole lot of different demands on their organizations as well. And so we're being careful and thoughtful about how much participation there. And let me be really clear, our friends of the Grand Connection have been amazing partners throughout all of this and not just stepping up with dollars, but stepping up with time. And so I know that there are some of those representatives behind me who are very much appreciated in the conversation that they've been with us already.

100. I completely value that and I appreciate that just as much. I'm just curious if the 40% was landed on based on what you saw as the gap or what you see as the opportunity.

We see we got to the split based off of the gap. Okay. And filling making sure we filled the debt service gap without creating too much of a burden of taking away from the general fund and finding that that balance, and then the opportunity that that represents on the transportation side. As I noted, on the general transportation side, that's where it overfills what our gap was intended by about 1,200,000. There are some opportunities that we as we look at that, do we do some tweaking and some adjustments to that?

This is not a budget proposal. This was really, as our city manager suggested, an a way to test with the with the public that understanding and are we getting at the right kinds of things.

K. Helpful. Thank you, council member Borgadov. Council member Brouillard.

Thank you, mayor. Really quickly, I just wanted to say I wanted to reiterate council member Newhouse's point about if possible, if it's feasible on your end to break the pedestrian bike infrastructure into two compartments. I think sometimes maybe it might be unclear for investing in in bike infrastructure, and then we say, oh, you know, because of the outcomes and how we report it, we've also enhanced pedestrian infrastructure because of this. Maybe there can be more clarity in reporting on that, but I I fall to your discretion here. Ditto on council member Bhargava's point regarding for efficiency gains prior to, maybe I don't think this was his conclusion, but I I wanna reiterate looking for efficiency gains prior to asking for more money.

I think we're familiar with entities that have collected money and can't account for it, so I think we have to be very responsible with the money we're collecting. Mayor, with your permission, may I ask a question about slide 19, or would you like me to move on beyond that? Because I remember during

the pres yeah.

Go Sorry. Okay. On slide 19, what has informed the percentages and distribution of the CIP investment? Do we think 20% of neighborhood mobility is sufficient to address the gaps that we have in the pedestrian infrastructure there?

You know, we've been talking internally about what that would end up being and just the nature of those projects. And I don't we we wanted to get your feedback on this too, but we were we were thinking internally about a 50, a 15% split. Let me find it here, actually. We would be talking internally more along the lines of 25% for vehicle mobility, 25% for bike pad, 25% for major projects, 15% for neighborhood and then 10% for reconstruction. But, you know, again, input from the council is going to be very important in that regard.

Right. Yeah. Okay. So I think this is a better starting point than the numbers you just reported internally. That makes me really nervous about having 25 for vehicle, 25 for pet, and the neighborhood getting 10% or lower than the other entities. I would personally prioritize neighborhood mobility, bike and pet. In terms of major projects, and perhaps my framing is incorrect here, but is there competition amongst these things? Like, for example, if we're seeing neighborhoods where kids can't cross safely to the other side to go to the school bus to get to school safely, you know, but we're looking at investing millions and millions of dollars into the Grand Connection, which, by the way, I'm a huge fan of. But are these two entities competing with one another? I'm trying to understand that dynamic there.

But the Grand Connection is gonna it's its own portfolio altogether, and this is just really the Transportation Department program for capital improvements. So the Green Connection doesn't fall under major projects. They were more intended to complete the arterial street network and Spring Boulevard is a good example of that. A hundred and twentieth is a good example of that as well.

Is completing arterial roads not part of a vehicle mobility though?

It could be, and that's where the overlap comes into play because when you put a big project like Spring Boulevard into vehicle mobility, smaller projects just can't compete with it. That's why we segregated them out. They could be from big projects as well. The Mount Sassan Greenway is a big project as well, so it's not like they're just vehicular capacity projects either.

Yeah. Okay. So my framing could be incorrect here, but it sort of seems like we've got walkability in downtown. We've got arterial roads we need to focus on. And then there's areas that have are like missing just basic walking infrastructure.

And I know I'm sounding like a beating a dead horse here, but maybe we need to recalibrate a little bit. I'd like to see a better focus on a comprehensive approach to walkability amongst all neighborhoods of our city as opposed to just concentrating on perhaps making other areas even better. That's not very refined, so happy to take your feedback if you want to push back on that. Another question I had is that we have the Grand Connection crossing. The gap for this is 10,500,000 as it is for the other gap.

But perhaps this is not a scope question. I thought TIF resolved some of this. I love the TIF because we're borrowing against future taxes as opposed to increasing or introducing a net new tax to our residents, many of which are cost burdened and struggling to make ends meet. Does the TIF address a $10,500,000 gap, or is that addressing part of our general fund? I just wanted to seek some clarity there.

It is a portion. It is $2,300,000 on an annual average basis of the gap. So TIF is a piece of the stack. It does not generate enough to fully fund the project.

Got it. Okay. Thank you for that clarity. One last question that I had. So coming from Texas, I got pulled over because of my tabs. And I was like, I don't know what this is. Why am I getting pulled over? And I had to pay for tabs. So I hate that concept of the sales tax or or tax on tab, but, nevertheless, I do support it. What I'd like to understand is, for example, a lot of our residents are cost burdened and tax burdened.

If we do the TABS financing or sorry, funding tool, could I for example, could we create a program where I pay $20.40 dollars whatever it may be, and then I could also opt in to donate an additional $80 to cover four people's cost? Can we have residents who are perhaps a little bit more financially comfortable help contribute to a pool that could go towards covering other residents' costs? Does that make sense?

The concept makes sense. I am not sure if it is technically feasible. But as we look at the options, we will take a look at what options are available, because we are constrained by the state who is responsible for the collections and what their capacities are.

Interesting. Okay. Is there anything we can do on a city level to just establish a pool of funds and and have residents who are very passionate about this, mobilize and get folks to donate on an individual basis? Because I know we're leveraging private partnerships, philanthropists, but I I imagine some residents might be excited about helping that in this way as well.

We will investigate.

Okay. Thank you so much. Those are all my comments.

Thank you, council member. Member Robinson.

Thank you, mayor. Boy, I think we have a very wise council listening to this. It really is impressive, the conversations that we're having. I do have some questions. I have to say these categories don't mean much to me.

I think really there are wants and there are needs, And I think safety is a real necessity. And there are some safety projects in all of these. And so for me, if I were to categorize things, I would prioritize safety projects. So here are my questions, and I'll come back to that. I asked you this at break, you answered it, but I thought everybody should hear this. Are Vision Zero transportation projects considered public safety? Because that's the category you have to use gambling fees for.

For the record, they could be. We have to absolutely look at that and understand it. What we will also explore is we are believe collecting some or receiving some already, and we'll we'll investigate that and and give you the whole answer on on that tax source and what its use is and what we are actually doing on it.

Thank you. Where is the Vassa Park neighborhood if you were to fulfill the needs there? Which category would that project fall under of the five? Do you know?

It could fall under multiple ones, wouldn't fall under the, large project category, and it probably wouldn't fall under the reconstruction category.

Okay.

But there'd neighborhood biped, definitely.

Okay.

Getting back to your point too, just about the safety being an overarching issue, that's why we're calling the entire portfolio safety because we tried before to saying, okay, safety projects, but they all should be safety projects. They all should end up advancing safety. The whole thing of what we're doing is safety, and that was the thinking behind that.

Okay. Well, that's comforting. It just it just I kinda share council member Bargava's concern about the taxes taxing. I think council member Newnham said it too. Like, where do we stop?

We have so we never have enough money to do everything we wanna do. And I I wanna make sure that if we go the tax route, that there's, like, an end in sight. There's a goal, and and we achieve it, and and we stop and reassess, and we just don't do a lifetime tax on something. And I would like to hear a little more about where we're trimming our budget in other areas because we have a big budget, and we have lots of categories outside of transportation. And so I just would be curious to know what we're doing on that end because I think that's part of balancing the budget.

I have a I'm curious. How much money would you say that we are missing through federal funding that we used to get?

I thought that we ended up, you know, joining in on a lawsuit, so we're not really missing out on anything, at the moment.

Okay. Well, that's good.

And we do collect significant we we have been very successful at, in the grant arena for sure.

Okay. Well, I'm just going to do my little list again of the things that I prioritize, and you can put them in whatever category you want. The safe routes to school Mhmm. The Spring Zone 3, Lake Sammamish Parkway, transit connections, line bike routes if we're gonna be bringing line bikes in, and then I'm gonna add the Vassa Park neighborhood. So I think that's a real significant safety project.

Thanks. Okay.

Thank you. Oh, sorry. One more. Councilmember Newnhouse talked about and, councilmember Breyer also about the separating of pet and bike projects. Can you just tell me the pros and cons of doing that?

To me, it's an additional category when our big goal was to try to reduce the number of categories in our CIP. I'm sure it could be done, but I think you'll see different proportions up there as well if it does happen. But we'll take a look at all the projects that are in that category.

Okay. Well, doesn't really I'm not that interested in doing that. I'm more interested in prioritizing the safety, the ones that bring should

be all safety.

I know, but to different degrees. True. I mean, seriously.

Yep.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Morales. Councilor Morales, where are you? I

almost lost my thought. Everybody's question was so great. So I'm gonna try to look back with my brain a little bit thinking just land on tax right now. Right? So I counted for the b and o taxes 20 items only under b and o.

And with, you know, with customer Newhouse, I said, like, I think I believe that we should be not only affordable for the residents, but also affordable for businesses, for the people who wanna invest in community. I just think that I I I think we can think about how can we avoid barriers for my micro or small business to be part of the value community because I think their voice is important. So I would just wanna put on your radar too. We as we evaluate, you know, trying to meet the gap, how can we protect our business and also the residents' voices too. That goes to, I think, the voter, how to communicate.

Because as we see there is some of the levy is not expired yet, like the transportation fire, they're still going. Right? So before it's expired, how can we proactively communicate with the resident or the slash the voters so they have a full picture about what's coming to their way. And like, you know, I think the mayor maybe touched it, like, what's the timeline? How early they can know? Because sometimes community engagement is a lot of work for our staff to do, but also it's a lot of work for our residents to able to understand as well. So it's a two sided story too.

Some of the things that we should be thinking about are different kinds of report cards, if you will, or information on what we've delivered. And part of the emphasis that our city manager has is focused on capital improvement programs is to be able to do a better job of sharing with the public what are we delivering and be able to tell that story much better. And so I think that's one of the key features. And while transportation is a focus of tonight, all of our capital improvement program portfolios are going through the same process of do we have the right ability to tell the story and help our voting public and our businesses understand what they're investing in and what they're getting out of it. And so that capital improvement program is part of the deep dive that we're right now engaged in.

Thank you. And that leads to my exactly, I think that is my next question. So do we have any historical data that's transparent that we can share, see how other investment like allocated proportionally to different neighborhoods, including Eastgate or Victoria, different neighborhoods? Because I guess, I think the number of residents also needs could be very different. Is there anything that we can learn about that?

Tentatively, yes. Qualified, yes.

Out of the five area that I think to me very I hold really close is the pedestrian bike lane and then the neighborhood mobility and as well as the major projects. I think because these are three very nicely mixed priority that's needed to the growth of Bellevue, we are growing so fast. And then as we're growing fast, we have to make sure that not only we're meeting the business development, but also the needs of the average day frontline workers that able to find a job, right, and able to live and then able to transit closely to here. So I think that safety is really important, and and also the multiple option of transportation modes should be also, to me, it's a very important priority to be on the head of the game so we can proactively thinking about as we're building more affordable housing, the things that can boost the economy. I mean, collecting tax eventually with the retail space is gonna be filled up.

Right? And how can we make sure that we are also supporting them in the I think all the services wrap around that. Another thing I would say, I think the equity mapping to me is very important in this planning of the budget. So I'm wondering just Mary, is that okay for us? Okay. So I think because there's five priority when you're picking the choices, I'm wondering how does the equity access community access part play in making decision of a project we're gonna invest in.

Give us a criteria. It's one of the criteria that we use to rank projects in the MIP. Uh-huh. So it's a key part of what we do.

But like what I'm I guess sorry. Let me explain this. So how how is it actually weighted on one project per se amongst the five? I guess five others. I

don't. We we do when we're looking at prioritizing projects within these five categories, we do have the criteria that you see in your handout. Mhmm. And these do actually have weights on them. So I don't have them memorized Okay. For tonight. Yeah. But we can get you that.

Could you share?

Would be great. Absolutely.

Okay. And one last question is, I think this like, think share of the proportion of the investment is really good and then also, very equitable. One thing I would kinda advocate a little bit for us to think proactively is, as you know, the Bell Red and Wilburton, also Crossroad, they're increasing very fast in the resident numbers. And then I would say, especially for the bike pad and also the neighborhood mobility, would be I think that we need to think ahead how to allocate proportionally to the growth of the three area too. I think planning ahead of the game is always better than, gonna survive and putting out fire. That's all my questions. Thank you. Thank

you, council member Smothar, very deputy mayor. Great.

Thank you. Thanks, you guys for all of that. Just wanted to I know there was a question that you had put to us about policy and mobility outcomes for staff to take into consideration, for developing the final recommended allocations. And so, a little bit on that. And Councilmember Robinson touched on this, but, safety, I think, you know, that's a critical policy consideration.

And then looking, obviously, we have our Vision Zero goals, but drive, bike, walk, roll safely, focusing on our high entry areas. Efficiency, let's keep folks moving kind of no matter the mode, but focusing on roads and intersections that don't meet standard or won't meet standard soon, prioritizing multimodal connections, especially in the TOD neighborhoods, enhance our bike network, including designated East West and North South dedicated bike lanes. I think if mode connections are called out specifically in any of the prioritization criteria, then I think we're good. But if not, I think that should be in there. Of course, looking at cost, we've had plenty of discussion tonight about affordability.

So helping folks connect to low cost transportation like transit, safe biking, walking, and again, especially in the TOD areas, climate impacts. So any way we can kind of improve transportation options that are climate friendly, I think that should be a policy priority. And then, just maintenance generally, maintaining, what we build in the city, I think is really important. Also to kind of it was asked about questions as you prepare the preliminary budget, about historical approach to transportation funding and investment levels. None really on that.

I do think that the past practice has worked for us relatively well. I also think it's time for a bit of a shift and to look for more ways to fund especially the transportation investments that we need. I think that, the more conservative approach we've taken historically has put us in a position now to be a little bit more bold and take more active strategic approach to funding transportation investments in this upcoming budget. And then just looking at kind of overall guidance for development of the budget and under the new transportation portfolio structure. And I think aside from guidance regarding the policy and mobility outcomes for the final recommendations that I already mentioned, I think we should be looking for some quick wins.

I'd like to see us deploy our funds obviously with due care and consideration, but as soon as possible, reasonably possible, and of course focusing on our highest priority items. A little bit of talk earlier about taxes. I think obviously any kind of increases, we should be very, very careful with. And again, affordability generally is something we all hear a lot about, and I think there's a lot of sensitivity. But I did just want to point out that in the workshop materials, know, point it does show that the city is below the county average when it comes to property tax, $7,000,000 bank capacity.

I bet there's not another city in the maybe the state that could say that. Maybe there is, but I know that's a rarity. And, the increase in sales tax is just gonna put us right where Kirkland is, right where Redmond is. Doesn't mean we automatically go for it, but I do think it's important just to think about our increase in that greater context. We're still beneath plenty of other cities in the sales taxes they charge. And then just one last question for you, and that is, the our parks levy. Is is are we able to use any of the parks levy money in support of the Grand Connection Crossing or East Trail?

That's a complicated ance there's a little bit of a complicated answer to that. Does it fall within the investment buckets? Likely. But I think that's a much deeper conversation about is the Grand Connection as important as some of the other identified investments that went before the voters. And I'm not in a position to answer that question, but I think that is a excellent parks engagement, who can help wrestle with some of that that question.

Okay. Yeah. I think it'd be great. I'd love to, hear a little bit more about that. And I know that we talk about certain funding priorities in parks levies and sometimes those move forward quickly, sometimes not as quickly, sometimes maybe not at all. So think if we could look at that revenue and if there's a reasonable place in the Grand Connection crossing to use that, then maybe worth considering. So that's it for me.

Thank you, mayor.

Thank you, deputy mayor. Such an excellent conversation. So proud of this council, and I think one of the reason Bellevue is doing great because of all of this brainpower that this council has. Plus one to safety, plus one to asking for more tax as our last option, plus one to find some saving and being more conservative in our budgeting, A plus one to metrics, transparency and accountability, where the people are paying, where their money is going, and what benefit they are getting. I have two quick questions.

One is the slide 19 that you are on. This is the CIP program distribution based on how we historically spend money or that's a shift in that. You mentioned something and I was not capturing what you mentioned. That is

the current CIP that we have broken out into the categories that we're proposing for the portfolio. So you are proposing this? No. That's the existing

What it is Yeah. Right And then you said you don't like it.

Well, that I don't like it, but no. We think that they should be different. I think that we, as staff, thought that, you know, really should be looking at something that's gonna be a little bit more for the vehicle mobility, bike ped mobility, and made and major projects.

So then if you as a expert think it should be different, why you are not presenting that different to us?

I I I advocated for showing what I didn't make the deck.

Think it's

Yeah. And I

we read it off, right?

Yeah. This gives this gives context of if you if we were to apply today's capital program to the proposed five categories, this is what it would look like. I think that, yes, we probably should have spoke a little more strongly recommendations going forward for twenty seven to thirty two is. And as Andrew mentioned, we'd like to see we're recommending more of a balance between vehicle, ped, and major. Neighborhood at 15%. One thing to consider with neighborhood projects is they are smaller in scope, so you get more of them for a lesser percentage and then preservation at 10%. And and that's what we're building our project list off of right now.

I'll just add one other thing to that, which is, again, the engagement. We want to hear from the community, and we want to hear from the council what are your priorities. So there's three components to this, right? So what is their professional recommendation based on the evaluation and the criteria? But then also what are the community and the council values here in terms of the policy direction for the investments? So think it all goes in all goes into that calculation in the end.

Absolutely. All goes, but one of those thing that goes is the staff expertise and subject matter expert, the consultant you guys have, so you know much more than me. So I would love to see what your recommendation is based on a logic that you guys have and I would love to see that. The other question is a slide 22, if you can go there. This is where I think maybe Councilmember Barg 22. How did you end up with that target EUR 50,000,000 per year?

So I think if you look at our historical CIP spending over the last decade, we've averaged about $35,000,000 of capital per year. So if we target 50,000,000 and we serve that 15 about $15,000,000 of debt that we have each year that we're serving annually, that gets us at about $35,000,000 of available capital each year. We know over the last decade, that's moved the needle very well for us for providing facilities in a multimodal fashion to, complement the regional facilities that have been built and to continue to move mobility forward in Bellevue. So as that is a guide for us to go forward because we know we're going to continue to to grow and need to provide additional infrastructure. That was the target that we came up with.

Okay. So it is based on historical historical data. Yes. So then that's where I'm a little bit confused because we've heard that we went through a comprehensive plan. Okay. And the main gap came from there is transportation. Sure. But we are making the left column based on historical data, not the future comp plan that we Homer, I don't know, Wilburton, all of middle housing that we are going to.

I mean, a big part of this really is the dull red area and the TIFIA work that we did in advance of the light rail coming. It's largely there. That is contributing to the debt service. But what we had before, we're we're trying to make up for where we were before, basically. And I don't know. Maybe John can better articulate that.

As we're thinking about that gap, the Bell Red was actually a really interesting first foray. And and as they're looking at their last decade, we made some major investments in Bell Red following that neighborhood planning. That worked. It's produced the infrastructure that allowed the development to to follow it. Their recommendation follows that approach, which has been successful based off of recent history.

So we've shifted maintenance and gotten it covered as part of the regular ongoing operating. So we're taking care of that. And taking that strategy of a higher level of investment to really hit some of those really big issues because, frankly, going in and building out the bike and pedestrian infrastructure onto a built out network is a sizable set of investments, and that's one of the biggest challenges is looking at some of those things. We have a largely built out system, and so the types of work that that that are before transportation, they believe that is the right level of investment based off of the kind of growth that's ahead of us.

But it doesn't make sense because the growth ahead of us is much larger than the historical happening in Bellevue based on the comp plan. The if, Mark, I heard you correct, you said this 50,000,000 is 35,000,000 what we need year per year, and 15,000,000 15,000,000 is our debt. So 50,000,000 gap. Is that correct? And you landed on that 35,000,000 based on historical investment that we did that we we were successful.

I am saying the future based on comp plan, based on all of the stuff that you told me this six section one, the first first parts of the you said transportation. All of this growth we need to invest, and you are putting the left side, forget about Grand Connection for a second, based on historical investment that we did.

But historically, over the last decade, we've grown tremendously as well. We didn't show you the pictures of the growth curve from 2012 to 2023.

Let me ask you another different question. What happened if we I am rich and I magically make that 50,000,000 to 70,000,000? What we get more? You'll

There's a whole list.

So that's my point. I am getting to this. I'm getting to how did you get to the 40% to 60% of allocation of TBD to Grand Connection and 60% to the transportation capital new maintenance. Something that maybe Council Member Gao was trying to get. To me, it seems we had this TBD.

The money was there. Then we said, What is the maximum we can allocate to Grand Connection? Then someone throw a 40% number. And then we reverse engineer and said, okay, if we have 40% of the TBD goes to Grand Connection, 60% goes to there, then our target is 50,000,000. And I'm not sure if that's a correct number and if that 50,000,000 is 70,000,000.

We have a lots of again, I have been on planning commission for now ten years ish. Based on what I have seen, the future investment that we care about safety, we care about bike, we care about pedestrian. There are some neighborhoods that they are on their own when they go to take their kids to the to school because there is no pedestrian. Those to me, that side of the left of the equation is should be more. And if you go to slide 26, then that beautiful math that you did, if it is it doesn't work like the TBD, the 40%, the TBD cell stacks, the TBD cell stacks on both sides, and the that doesn't work if we increase the left side more.

So because it's a very important topic, I wanted to give you guys another round if you have any question. Councilman Robinson, if you have a question, please go ahead.

Thank you. I I just, you know, I'm thinking a lot about what we're talking about here, so I don't have any set opinion, but I'm leaning toward thinking that, like, Spring Zone 3 and West Lake Sammamish Parkway, in my mind, are large projects that we've been waiting to be able to afford. We've been waiting I've been on the council for twelve years and been talking about Westlake Samantwich Parkway that entire time. So I feel like we really do need to raise funding to get those things done. We're asking children to walk to the school bus without a sidewalk and having cars going 35 miles an hour next to them.

That's just not acceptable to me. So when I think about using some of these tax raising tools or revenue raising tools, that's where I want to put those. The other things I see a little differently, and so I might want look at different tools for those projects. But like a temporary TBD to get those major projects done with a time limit on it, could you do that?

The vehicle sales tax has two different types of time limitations. First off, the the one tenth of a percent for general can be for it's only ten years, and you have to make another decision to re up it. Or you can use it for debt service, it is specifically associated with debt service. And we'd probably look at splitting it should we bring it forward in the end, where portion portion of it would be specific to debt service and end when debt service was done, and the other has a ten year time limitation, which would have to come back. Yeah.

Okay. So

in our next conversation, I'm going to be really interested in looking specific tools and how we might apply them. Okay. Thank you.

You. Councilor Morgowan? So I think

some of the comments from the mayor sort of resonate the challenge I had with your budget allocations, and I think it'll be helpful to get more clarity on the inputs there. That's one. And sort of as a thought exercise to help provide input into the actual sort of framework, I'm just gonna lay out four or five points here. One, safety is the first filter. I think lots of people have said that today on this dais.

So investment should reduce the risk and increase safety outcomes. That should be that will be continued to be a yardstick we use. Clear transparent prioritization. I think public benefit, urgency of need, and alignment with our growth plans should be how we think about prioritization from my point of view. Number three, balanced model investments.

And that balanced model investment actually cuts across those five categories that we were looking at in some ways because now you're looking at different ways to invest in transportation infrastructure in those five categories. So for me, that can be a very similar framework. Number four, focus on high impact projects. Transit access is really important for us. Supporting downtown and key economic development drivers in the city, really important for us.

Strengthening the overall connectivity with back interest in frameworks, very important to us, which ties into some of the feedback we've heard. So prioritizing those is really important. So focus on high impact strategic issues that we're dealing with. I think financial discipline is the next one for me, which we've talked at sort of at length, but I'll I'll just say that existing resources have to be fully optimized. I think new revenues have to be tried to measurable outcomes.

And then investments have to be sequenced responsibly so that they're not overinvested in something. And I think that was the point you were making, John. So I'm just following up on your lead. And the last thing is maintaining some form of flexibility and look back on a frequent cadence so that we're not oblivious of the market changing or the conditions changing. That's it. Great.

Anyone else? Deputy Mayor, please.

Just a question on the $15,000,000 debt service. What have we built with that $15,000,000 What are we what's that go to?

Really all the TIFIA projects out in the Bell Red area. We really did the arterial network in advance except for that small piece of Spring Boulevard that needs to be completed And several other projects too that were bonded, including the extension of 4th Street, for example, was one example of that too. And we've got the detailed list of what that looks like.

So it's old debt. This isn't to this isn't new debt we're taking on that's gonna we will be servicing.

No. That is debt that's just wrapping up its final delivery.

Just I'm thinking about it on council member's comments and and also mayor in terms of, you know, we're looking forward towards the future and understanding the additional infrastructure and needs that we're gonna have moving forward. So when are we because this seems very specific to short term, but we're building to 2044. So where are at what point are we gonna see? How are we going to get what does that, like, what eighteen year horizon look like in terms of between now and and and and and 2044 to to get where we we need to be, not just just short term, but long term.

Yeah. I think that going through this process and with all of the listings and everything that we've been doing internally

Mhmm.

That it would lend itself to a t a TFP update that will show everything that's going to be in there in that twenty year period, and it'll really kinda show what the new revenue is actually gonna be paying for.

Okay. So based on the work that we're doing today, you'll be able to then see that horizon in terms of what we need. Okay.

Yep.

Okay. And then, mayor, are we gonna have a chance to weigh in on the engagement? Are we still gonna get to that, or are we wrapping up now?

We're wrapping up.

Okay. Well, let me speak to the engagement piece then.

Yeah. Let us you finish your engagement, and then we go to council member. We are wrapping up.

So I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm looking at the engagement slide. Tell me how these tactics are going to result in a different outcome versus what we saw during the middle housing conversation. Meaning that I'm seeing a lot of the same tactics that led to a gym being overflowing with residents that didn't know anything about middle housing coming and and were very concerned and did not feel as if they had a chance to weigh in on the on on the process. I'm not saying that's going to happen, but my point is is that I we still haven't found the the the magic formula in terms of of of engagement, especially on really big projects. And we will have failed on engagement if we at the very end, I expect a little bit.

But if if it's overwhelming numbers at and when we get close to November to and and and there are a ton of public coming forward saying, I didn't know about this. I didn't get a chance to weigh in. Then I I I think we have failed on the engagement process. So, you know, we we can talk about this more later in terms of the specific tactics, but what I'm just seeing here on this slide, it just feels like a repeat of what we've done before, and I don't want to I don't I want that surprise for for residents finding out the last minute regardless if we go the councilmanic approach or it goes to board, etcetera. I I really want to ensure that we go above and beyond to especially if something is important and as, you know, impactful as it can be to not only residents but businesses in terms of their budgets and operating expenses.

I would really wanna make sure that they have an opportunity to to to weigh in on on on their on their priorities and understand how it's gonna impact them.

I think when we develop some of the objectives for the public engagement, we did go back to 2223, the last TBD effort, and Yeah. Tried to reflect on some of the feedback. That was one of the major feedbacks

Yeah.

Especially from the neighborhoods. We weren't aware of this. So that is definitely reaching out to CBOs and neighborhood associations, letting them know that we will be available not to just answer questions, but to come to them to present. That is something that we have as part of our strategy.

Love that. You know,

how successful that will be, we'll we will see. We'll certainly make the outreach. Yeah. So and then just the other modes of approach that you see on here that you are already familiar with. We do wanna continue to employ those as well. So but we are reflecting back to what worked well and what did not work so well the last time on the TBD, and we will apply those lessons.

Well, it's not just attached. It's also the timing. Right? Sure.

I mean, know, people are

gone during certain times of the year, vacation, school schedules, etcetera, etcetera. So, yeah, so take all that in consideration. Yeah. So thank you. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Councilor Slover, you will finish the whole thing. I promise to. Council member Briar, if you have any other questions, we are wrapping up before we go to council member Sumada Verio.

Yes, mayor. I just wanted to say I wanted to I appreciate the comments of council member Robinson and Bhargava as well and using safety and urgency as a prioritization framework for for understanding all of this. I also would just add accessibility to that as well, and and that's all that I have to to share. Thank you, mayor.

Thank you so much. Customer Sumodu, Maria. So

I just wanna just plus one to deputy mayor talk about the the park levy. Because out of the park levy, there's 30,000,000 allocated from the Healthy Community Fund. I I'm a the co I'm a I'm a co chair, actually, the King County Open Space Equity Cabinet. So we give out millions of funding every year. And Grand Connection, actually, when I was a friend on the Grand Connection, they did come present in the cabinet, and that's exactly the project they're looking for. It's looking for underserved community, creating open space. It could be space, could be park, could be anything. So I think maybe that's like a like a pivot. We could talk to them, just see if they get interested. And, also, that's just a plus one too.

I just thought about it. I thought it's just like a good opportunity just kind of pivot thinking about be creative about the funding without taxing our residents. I sent an email already, by the way, to you.

Great comment. It seems councilor Bargavo doesn't want you be the last person. Councilor Bargavo, you have one sentence.

I think I have one

sentence request. In fact, I read it into Diane on a napkin.

Would love to see

long term, twenty years sources and users view if you have it.

If you see here, they are going to ask for fifty years and then one hundred years and then more breakdown with everything. So thank you so much. We really appreciate you. Appreciate you being here and making all of these very complex presentation digestible for us. Again, thank you my fellow council members. Amazing job. Amazing questions. Bellevue is lucky that you are here, and they voted for you for a right reason. On that note, we are adjourned. Thank you.