City Council - Regular Meeting

Ray Lynn, would you like to please take roll call?

Yes, Heather Watland. Here. Rob Toyer. Here. Yvonne Gallardo-Van Ornam. Presente. Michelle Blythe. Here. Nathan Semph. Here. Tim Abrahamson. Present. And Alicia Noback. Here.

Okay, before we have approval of the agenda, we will have a slight change in the agenda. We had the public comment listed towards the back of the agenda, but we're going to move it forward. So just wanted to make that note.

Mayor Vanney, I move for approval of the revised agenda.

Second.

Question.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? None heard, motion carries. Okay, I'd like to start off our meeting tonight with the presentation of the Mayor's Volunteer Award. Today we want to offer our sincere thanks to the American Legion Post 76 and Boy Scouts Troop 92 for their dedicated service to our community. Each year in honor of Memorial Day, you give your time and energy to place flags at the Arlington Cemetery in tribute to our veterans. This important tradition requires early mornings, steady effort and the support of many volunteers. It also includes the care that happens afterwards, the drying, folding and storing the flags with respect and dignity. Because of your commitment, our community is able to honour those who serve in a visible and meaningful way. Your work reflects patriotism, service and deep respect for the men and women who gave so much for our country. On behalf of the city of Arlington, thank you for your time, your hard work, and your continued dedication to remembering and honoring our veterans. Our community truly appreciates all that you do. If I could get the leaders of the scout troop to come up first, and I will present this. Present that. If I can get the scouts to line up along the back wall, I got some stuff to present to you guys too as well.

So we'll get all in one picture.

And then I . You guys make two rows.

Well, I didn't, guys. Put the shoulder to the front. Shoulder to the front. Aaron, step forward. There you go. Bring it back there. Squeeze, guys.

Okay, one, two, three, smile.

Thank you again, guys. I appreciate it.

Thanks again guys, appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, at this time I'd like to open it up to the public comment. We'll start with those that have signed up and I have one I think online. Nope, okay, I guess she's not online, so we'll go to the signup list. Okay, we'll start with, it looks like, is it Celine? Please state your name and address, and please limit comments to three minutes.

Hi, my name is Celine. I've lived in Arlington my whole life. I'm a mom and a sheep farmer. I wanted to speak on Project Cascade. Amazon is the fourth richest country in the world and the third richest. That amount of wealth is hard for any normal person to comprehend. But what's clear is that they don't need another distribution warehouse to ensure their success. They have enough. Everyone knows their distribution here is fine. Same day delivery is plenty. With data centers popping up all across the country, communities have noticed a huge change in their quality of life. Data centers emit infrasound, which is sound frequency that our ears can't hear, but our bodies can feel. A double-blind study was done by Ben Jordan using a tiny fraction of the amount of infrasound that data centers produce, and the results are telling. Infrasound increases dizziness, cortisol, anxiety, depression, and fatigue. In addition to the aforementioned symptoms, people who live by the newly built data centers have also reported seizures, vertigo, shortness of breath. and infrasound can cause reduced blood flow to the brain and stress on heart function. Another troubling report is from farms near data centers. There has been a huge increase in stillborn death in their livestock animals. If a data center goes in Arlington, all the citizens will be affected. What happens to people who work in Smoky Point and have to be near it? What happens to the children at the daycares there? What good do citizens get in return? I worry about my daughter, my family, and my sheep. The City Council was elected to represent the interests of the people, and the people have spoken. We do not want a data center or a building that could be used as a data center in the not so distant future. I ask, will you champion for the people? Please approve the proposed ban on data centers tonight.

Thank you. Okay, we'll jump back to our online person. Nicole, are you on? You can unmute yourself and speak. Please limit your comments to three minutes.

Yeah, I am. Go ahead.

Yeah, we can hear you.

Okay, my name is Nicole Nigukui. I'm in Arlington over off 156th Street Northeast, and I'm hoping that you guys will listen to the will of the people you're elected to represent and vote for the ban on the data centers in Arlington.

And that's my comment.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Okay, we'll go back to those that have signed up. The next one signed up is Jay Lindberg.

Jay Lindberg, I've been involved in a lot of classified research over the years and One of the things that we're uncovering now is the role of AI in manipulating the markets. A real simple example is there was a silver crash about three months ago, maybe five months ago, four months ago, and they said it was because a data center overheated and it crashed the market. and the market got reset and the whole bit and a lot of people lost a lot of money on that deal. But there's a lot of evidence coming out that this is going to, it's going to take a while for y'all to figure out that AI has got too much control of your life. It might not happen tomorrow, it might not happen in a year or two, but sooner or later, and it's probably gonna be sooner than later, if Musk is right, he says that by 2030, AI will look upon our species as obsolete. And if it's consuming all that power, then, That means that AI is going to look at us as irrelevant. There's so much history involved in this stuff. Like in the 1970s, I read a book by Vonnegut called Piano Player. And it talked about the effects, you know, about actually fighting against AI. You know, way back then, you know, with the automation coming up. We didn't know where it was going, but it looks like it finally got here. You know, this is... This is going to end up dominating our lives. And I think by the time you figure out that, well, there's another old saying that when you benefit from the status quo, solutions to the problems are the wrong answers. at the beginning of this mess, y'all are gonna benefit, especially the people in the government and whatever, things will get a lot more efficient, but gradually what you'll do is you'll start losing control of your own institutions. That's where the people that I'm, dealing with or telling us this thing is going. So be careful what you wish for because once again, remember, when you sleep with Bezos, don't be surprised if you wake up with a tramp stamp. So be careful with what you're doing here because there's all these NDAs and y'all don't wanna deal with that stuff. Thank you.

Okay, we'll move on to our next speaker, Dave Kraske.

Good evening, Mayor Vanni and members of council. I was looking this morning to see when our next quarterly public safety meeting was, and it is not scheduled. It's scheduled to be on like August 10th, and I'm like, they're not going to meet because they'll be on break. So it's not going to be till the fall. So I wanted to come tonight and introduce our new assistant chief of operations, Rick Jesus. And he will join me at the upcoming public safety meeting also. So a little bit about Rick. Rick was born in Guam, a tiny island in the Pacific. Yvonne, close to home there. and he moved to Washington in the fourth grade growing up in Arlington's Bryant area. He went through the Arlington School District and graduated from Arlington High School. After high school, he attended Skagit Valley College to play baseball and studied diesel mechanics. He then continued his education at Everett Community College where he earned an associate's degree and met his wife, Heather. Rick continued his education and earned a bachelor's degree in human services from Western Washington University. After college, he worked as a corrections officer at the Denny Juvenile Justice Center. Rick began his fire service career in 1998 as a part-time firefighter with the Marysville Fire District. He was hired full-time in 2002. and had the opportunity to serve in several roles over the years, including driver operator, paramedic, and captain. Rick was promoted to the position of battalion chief in 2017, and for the past two years before joining North County, he was assigned to the training division. Rick is committed to serving, continuing to learn and grow in our profession. He recently completed the University of Washington Foster School of Business, Seattle Fire Department's Executive Leadership Academy, and is currently enrolled in the National Fire Academy's Executive Fire Officer Program with an expected graduation in 2027. When Rick is not working, he likes to spend time with family and friends, traveling, camping, boating, enjoying the outdoors, and restoring classic cars. Rick and his wife will be celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary in September, and they have two amazing kids, a daughter, Emerson, and a son, Quinn. We are very happy Rick chose to join us at North County Regional Fire as the Assistant Chief of Operations. So I would like to introduce Assistant Chief of Operations, Rick Jesus.

Thanks for having me. I just wanted to say I moved here in the early 80s. This community welcomed me with open arms. It's been very exciting for me to come back to this community. And once again, the same thing's happening. North County has welcomed me with open arms. They've been very supportive. And I'm very excited to continue working for North County Fire. Thank you. Welcome.

Okay, we'll move on to our next speaker, Mary O'Toole.

Good evening, Council and Mayor Manny. Thanks for the opportunity to speak again tonight. My name's Mary O'Farrell, and I was commenting mainly to Thank Amy for the explanations of the zoning code ins and outs and definitions and things. And I'm commenting with a question actually. It's a new language explaining that the sub area plans shall supersede any listed uses within this chapter. So I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't a loophole in there for data centers based on what the subarea plan says because I believe the Cascade Industrial Complex is one of the subarea plans. And if it does, we'd like to know how people are notified when the subarea plans change so that we can make a comment in time to influence the decisions. And I'm glad that the fire department is here tonight. It's been a busy week on the West Coast for fires in big warehouses. And the one that's local is a plumbing supply place. And there haven't been many details come out yet about what caused that or what the challenges were in fighting the fire. But I think it was a total loss. The other big one is in Tracy, California in the Bay Area. It was a 1 million square foot warehouse supplied with medical supplies for the Medline Company and it serves all or served all of the West Coast hospitals and other providers with medical supplies. Apparently the fire started in the middle of the warehouse and being one million square feet in area, News reports say that the fire department was unable to reach the area where the fire started. Not only that, the sprinklers that were there didn't go off even though they were tested and presumed to be operational in January. The hydrants in the building and outside didn't work. There wasn't enough water pressure to run lines to where the fire was to fight the fire. Considering that the Project Cascade is even larger than this million square foot warehouse in California, I hope that the right analysis will be done to protect the residents who live next to it from a blazing inferno. It's also right under the flight path of runway 29 on the airport. So if a plane were to land in the middle of the flight of the roof, it would be hard for responders to get to it. And hopefully that wouldn't happen, but being in its location, it's a possibility.

Thank you.

Okay, do we have any other members of the public that would like to speak at this time? Okay, none seen, then we'll move on to our consent agenda.

Mayor Vanni, I move for approval of the consent agenda as noted.

Second.

Question.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? None heard, motion carries. Okay, we'll move on to our first item, a new business, the Arlington Marysville Interlocal Agreement for Project Cascade, FAD.

Thank you, Mayor and members of Council. I brought this to you in early May in draft form, and now we're here to vote on the final version. The only substantial changes between the May version and today's version, we updated the permit names between Marysville and Arlington to closely match what they actually are. We added a section about making sure that both at the initial stage and then if there's any potential change of use in the future that we're being notified of water and power usage because i know that's a big concern for the public and then third was we removed a section that either jurisdiction could terminate the agreement without cause. We removed that at Marysville's request. And then just to note, with the consent agenda, you've now put data centers on the excluded list for the zoning code. And this ILA is not to approve Project Cascade or approve any permits. It's just setting the working parameters for Marysville and Arlington to work together should Project Cascade want to submit for permits in the future. Happy to answer any questions. Any questions?

Tim?

Yeah, just a couple questions. One, looking at the binding site agreements that have already been done back in 2020, 2022, what are we as Arlington bound to? And again, in my research, since data centers were never part of what was allowed in the light industrial, that means that that's not a vested account, correct? They couldn't come back and say, well, because we have a binding site. agreement in 2020 and 2022, we can still build something that we just voted we excluded from all of our zones. Am I correct?

I can grab that one. Yeah, so the Binding Site Plan was a preliminary Binding Site Plan that was completed, so it's not been recorded. So they're actually letting that expire because the Binding Site Plan took one lot and split it into three, and they no longer need that. So they asked previously if they could just let that expire, which it expires five years after that approval. So the Binding Site Plan will be null and void. If they chose to record it, I don't know why they would. So yeah, the binding site plan that is in will become expired at the five-year time limit. And that did not bind any uses. At that time, it was still manufacturing industrial. That's what they've always proposed any project on. At the time we did the binding site plan, it was not Project Cascade specifically. It was not called out as Amazon. It was General Two buildings, two buildings on two parcels at that time with square footages that were attached to it for industrial manufacturing, distribution, warehouse kind of buildings. So there is nothing binding or vesting an adding center to anything.

Thank you, and then I got one more. And again, based on the proposals that they could come back with, we're gonna make sure this meets the vision of Arlington and creating jobs and not creating a large building that doesn't create the jobs that we have the vision for for that sub area plan for Cascade Industrial, am I correct?

right whatever they proposed at some point in the future if it wasn't amazon and some other company comes in and buys the facility and wants to change the use it still has to meet all of our zoning codes it still has to meet the intent of the sub area and all of those criteria for creating jobs and whatnot so yes thank you that's all my questions alicia

This ILA is it just for Project Cascade or is this like for if anything so you just said like if another building was to but the building has to be there the permits have to be because we don't have any of that yet so does the ILA still go if it's not Project Cascade?

So the ILA is specific to Project Cascade in that it's a building that's gonna span the two property lines, or the two jurisdictional lines. If they came back and said we only are gonna build within the Arlington portion, then this ILA is null and void and doesn't mean anything.

Any other questions? Okay, none seen, do I have a motion?

I move to approve the interlocal agreement between Arlington and Marysville related to Project Cascade and authorize the mayor to sign the ILA. Second. Question?

All those in favor?

Aye. Any opposed?

None heard. Motion carries. Thank you, Thad. Okay, we'll move on to Item 2, Pickleball Court Project Change Order Number 2. Jim Kelly.

Thank you very much, Mayor Vanni and council members. This item before you is change order number two. It's the final change order and closeout on the Pickleball Court. And the change order request is in the amount of $32,426.13. There were four major items with this change order. The handrail, we had to put a safety handrail up. We needed to put up pedestrian crossing. I'm sorry. We had to remove an extra tree We had to install an additional inlet we put topsoil around the Northwest corner of the site on school grounds to make it look nicer and the biggest cost in this one is extra excavation there was a calculation error and The city did the design and we did a calculation error came up and the quantity of soil to be excavated to meet the stormwater infiltration requirements was larger than what was put in the plan for bid.

Any questions? Nathan.

So, because you said the city came up with the plans, was there just an oversight issue that happened where it needed more excavation, or was it just as you went along, all of a sudden this... was an issue that you needed to do a change order for. I understand there's a few things like curbing and all that as you go along, but the trees have been there since day one, and there was some other things that have been there since day one, and it was just an oversight problem. Is that what?

The tree, so there was one tree that was, we took two trees down, there was one tree that had to be, that was next to it, that was in extremely poor shape, so we took that one down also, knowing that it was going to die. We have to pay the contract if he takes it down. We needed an extra inlet for the stormwater facilities. And then we also had to do, we did some topsoil dressing to make, we put some nice lawn in and seed. There were some other portions of the lawn that didn't look that well. We just top dressed it and we put seed down. The biggest cost on this one was the extra excavation and the extra import of stormwater material. The dimensions on the drawing were correct. It was the calculation that was done by one of the engineers on what the quantity was, the length, the width times the depth. So it was an error.

Thank you. Any other questions? None seen. Do I have a motion?

I move to approve change order number two for the Pickleball Court project and authorize the mayor to sign it. Second.

Question? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? None heard. Motion carries. Thank you, Jim. Thank you. Paul, do you have any reports or anything for tonight?

Nothing else this evening. Thank you. I just, the only thing I have is it was a great weekend downtown.

It was packed. Lots of cars. I think everything went really good. And other than that, I think I was glad to see the nice weather. Finally. Any council members' reports or comments? Michelle?

I have a comment or a request with the support of my peers. So Washington State has upgraded animal welfare laws and changed them as early as 2021, and Arlington has not updated our animal welfare ordinances since 2005. Like, for instance, a lot of people don't know that you can't sell a cat or dog in a retail environment anymore. So essentially, there's no pet stores that are able to sell cats or dogs. It can only be done through adoption agencies. And my understanding is that sometimes you see that in the city of Arlington, where there's a retail store that is selling either puppies or kittens, and it's illegal. laws about animals being displayed on sidewalks. That's not legal in Arlington. So I just think it would be beneficial to our city and to the residents and to people that do care about animals that we do update our code in alignment with Washington state laws and then any changes or anything we want to do within the city. So I was just going to throw that out there and see if other council members might want to consider doing that.

Any of the other council members in support of doing something like that?

Would that be a workshop item?

Yeah, we'd bring it to a workshop for discussion.

Yeah.

I was just going to say for piggybacking off that, the idea is we're also talking about mobile vendors and a few other things that are popping up in our community that some of them may not understand the rules or the laws. It's been a while. And so it's another way for us to also just kind of educate the public on if In any area that we have, we don't have people that are just abusing a system or doing things that are also could harm animals or in this case, like if we have pop-up things that come up with... permitting issues and things for food vendors, that they all are having the necessary paperwork and making sure they are actually going through the actual process, not just because we just wanna be the one that goes, eh, this is a law and we're the mean people, but more of trying to get everybody to understand there are laws, there are rules, and the rules have been in place. We're just reeducating and then updating so that way it makes sense across the state and the city. So I would agree. Yvonne, did you have your hand up?

I did. I think it would be worth just a clarification.

Yeah, I just wanted to clarify, just so since, Amy, you're part of the code in planning and development, my issue is with animal welfare specifically and making sure that those ordinances are updated in conjunction with Washington state law. I think it benefits all of us when we are voices for animals that aren't able to speak. And so the sooner we can do something, the better for me, especially with the season coming. And people are more apt to put animals out for show when that's not legal. So yours can be a separate topic, but I just didn't want to confuse anything. Mine is on specific animal welfare.

Okay.

then only because it kind of gets to me a little bit but um just a reminder too that when we're thinking about this and i don't know if this is something we can implement any way shape or form but thinking about animal welfare and how it as it's getting hotter and windows are getting rolled down and people out there just being safe with your animals and making sure that you're paying attention to like i don't know what we can put in that and how that discussion happens within a city but um seatbelt your dogs or just be careful when you roll the window down so they don't jump out and kill themselves. But yeah, I think it would be worth a conversation as we're getting into the summer season and puppies are starting to be born and people think they can display them at retail stores.

Mayor, I hope I didn't cut anybody off, but I just want to comment. Seeing that we got a head night for, I think, the majority of the council, staff will add that to their work plan, and we'll bring it back to a workshop as soon as we can get something drafted. Great. Perfect.

Thank you, Paul. And it would be an education piece for all of us, right? What it really means, what it really looks like. Because when we get the phone calls...

Okay. Any other comments or reports? Yvonne?

It also, I was brought to my attention, and I just want to put a reminder out there. Anytime you're dealing with food completely separate, I think you were kind of piggybacking on this part. There is... As we're getting into the summer and folks want to go out there and kids are trying to make some extra money, just pay attention to where you're putting up your lemonade stands. And just pay attention to your health code. We do have a new health code inspector and point of contact. So we don't know what this person is like. We don't know what's happening. But just pay attention to what you're doing with your health code and your permits and your pop-up vendors. I know we're going to deal with them later, but just putting that out there. Great.

Thank you. Lemonade stand? Any other comments? Okay, none seen. I think we're ready for adjournment.

Move to adjourn.

Question? All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Meeting adjourned. Thank you.