City Council - Regular Meeting

Pledge of Allegiance

to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Okay, roll call. Yavvon Gallardo Van Orortum here. Heather Watlin here. Nathan Sim here. Tim Abrahamson present. Rob Toyer here. Lisa Noach here. Michelle Bllythe here. Mayor Vany, I move for approval of the agenda. Second. Discussion. All those in favor?

I. Any oppose? None heard. Motion carries. Okay, we'll move start off tonight. Our first item of the workshop, the condemnation ordinance for the 180th Street and Smoky Point Boulevard roundabout project. Jim Kelly.

Thank you very much, Mayor Vany and council members. Uh this first item for you pertains to a new project that we will be be bidding very soon. That is the 180th Street roundabout. Uh the city of Arlington has acquired property at all four corners of the roundabout except for one. Um we are negotiating with the uh the southwest corner property owners and just as a precaution as this uh extends out further and further we would like to have an ordinance allowing the city to move forward with condemnation if that becomes necessary.

Great. Any questions? Heather. Thank you mayor. Um, so my first question is the number that we have for the budgeted amount, is that how much we've already offered them? $3.8 million. No, that is okay. I didn't think so. How much have we offered them above? Um, we've gone up to 20% above. That's where we cut. That's where we draw a line. Okay. Um, and can we do this without their property? No, we cannot. Okay, Tim.

Yeah. Um, just looking at this number one, I I'm not sure if this was premature or not because it sounds like you guys are still working with the the owner, but I was looking at the maps and just wanting to to see where this was going. Is that building going to have to be removed or is there enough of a setback? Because it looks like the sidewalk goes right up against the house. There is enough of a setback uh from that existing building that's at that corner and I believe that's a duplex. Correct. That's but I'm just saying it's it's takes it right up against the house.

It goes close to the house. It doesn't go right up. It does not abut butt. Right. There's the proper amount of setback. Yes, there is. Based on our city policies. Yes. Okay. Heather, I have um one more question. Thank you. So, are we trying to just take the corner of the property or are we trying to take the whole entire thing including the duplex? Just the corner of the property and I believe this is a little bit over,00 square feet. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. No other question. Okay. Yvon. And just to clarify, um, it's the it's the dashes, but then they would get fair market value or they would and the 20% or would it they get Yes.

Just the fair market value. The the way this works is when you open us up to do condemnation, then we get to go into what would be a possession and use agreement with the uh with the property owner, which um we would enter an agreement where they would give us the property and we agree that we will negotiate after the project is uh completed and if necessary that we will go in front of a judge to let him determine what the fair market value is. So, um, yes, the offer could be even higher. Okay. Any other questions, Nathan?

So, I'm not to be like it's nitty-gritty, but um I mean, I'm guessing there's two different families that live there or one person that owns the whole property or it's one one husband and wife team that own the whole property and it's their retirement. Okay. And they have two renters that are in the in the duplexes right now. Okay. Yeah. Because that's one of the things is I I know right away in easements for this project or any project like 211 as well. Um I just would not want somebody to be displaced or think that we're trying to kick them out. No.

So that's one of those things. Um, I'm like, it's going to be really close to your property line, but you're having better traffic control at your intersection. So, but that that was just my concern. So, thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, unseen. Thank you, Jim. We will move on to the second item, position request for water treatment plant operator. Again, Jim,

thank you very much, Mayor Vany and council members. The city is in the process of upgrading our water treatment plant going on with a water treatment plant expansion. When we expand or over double our water treatment capacity, the Department of Health will require that we have an an additional operator at the water treatment plant. What we would and I've been planning this for the 2027 2028 budget. Uh what we would like to do now is to hire the WTPO position early so that we can get this person trained up, have them come in as uh an entry-level operator, get them an operator in training and have them trained on our system before it goes online in 2027.

Thank you. Any questions, Tim? Yeah. After last week's budget meeting, how is this aligning with what we were deciding to to do going forward? I mean, it sounds like we're adding a position and we're doing it at the detriment of the plan.

No, this is uh this comes out of utility funding. So, this is not part of the general fund. This is comes out of the water fund. So we have sufficient this has been this position like Jim said has been planned as part of this expansion and the the uh water fund has has money in the fund for the additional staff member. We're just asking to bring them on early so that we can start the training process has no effect on the general fund and the things we talked about last Friday about the general fund being short.

So salaries don't come out of the general fund. utility salaries don't. They come out of the the fund that it belongs to. So, water department employees come out of the water fund, sewer, those are the ones we were talking about. We have 33 different funds. Only the general fund is, you know, short on revenues. The rest of them are are uh stable. The water, sewer, and storm, they they're enterprise funds as is the airport. So, they're paid for out of the your water bill. No, thanks. I just wanted to make sure that's clear. Yeah, you know, because it looks like what we talked about Friday and who what now are we going to have to go back and think about?

Yeah, this again, as Paul stated, this is not part of the general fund. Yeah, it's confusing. Just wanted clarification. It's perfect. Any other questions? That's a great question. And so many people don't understand that um the these are restricted funds that they only could be used on uh operating the water treatment plant and water uh expansions and replacement just like the sewer and just like the storm that those are restricted enterprise funds. Yvon,

um, are you expecting any, um, with looking so far ahead and trying to hire so soon? Um, is it also something that's a very specialized position that you you you think you need that much time to find somebody or is it something that like this is one of those positions that no, there's there's there's people out there?

Um, it takes there are people out there. Um it's going to take a while to get the position hired, but what's going to take the most time is um training. You you can train and pass the test, but unless you get the requisite number of hours under your belt, you won't be able to go from an OIT operator in training to uh water treatment plant operator class one or water treatment plant operator class two. And that is what's what holds us up. This gives you that time frame. Yeah, it does. Yep.

Any other questions? Tim, did you have another question? No. Okay. Thank you, Jim. We'll go on to your third item, change order number two for water treatment expansion design. Okay. Um thank you very much uh Mayor Vany and council members. Uh we are coming in at the end of our uh design for the water treatment plant expansion and over the design phase. We've ran into numerous issues um design issues that we had to adjust the plant or adjust the design for. The biggest one was um the discovery of liqufiable soils where we wanted to put the water treatment plant expansion. Um the uh the consultant you know kept these uh cost overruns to the very end and unfortunately I did not get these early on and that's now coming to me at the at the 12th hour. Uh overall when you take a look at the estimated cost to construct the water treatment plant, um typically design fees are about 12% of the construction cost. With our existing budget that we have plus this uh change order number one, we're still under 10% of what the construction cost is on the plant. So we're getting a very good value for our design. Good. Thank you. Any questions on that one?

Okay. Unseen. Thank you, Jim. Thank you very much. Move on then to the utilities and transportation quarterly report again. Jim. Okay. So, I'm going to time myself. So, I got to beat Amy. So, um six minutes.

Um So um the the good thing about this report is starting off is a senior engineer. Um we have a senior engineer who is accepted. So he will be starting on June 15th. He's coming from the city of Samish. He wanted to give the city some time before he came over to uh join Arlington. Um the city engineer, we have uh a viable candidate and we are in negotiating with him right now. The water treatment plant operator position we just discussed over here. And then we also have three seasonal positions that uh we have identified a short list of the applicants that we have. One for the storm water department and two for the sanitary sewer one. Um, as we were driving over here, I we walked out of the public works admin building and I noted to Chris, I said, "Do you hear that?" And she didn't hear anything. And that was because we have the new turbo blowers running. So, after a long time of trying to work out some bugs, we do have the tur turbo blowers up and running. Um, let's see. Six. This normal stuff. The station two is now running with the pump number three. We had a lot of uh been having a lot of growth. So, we had to stick in the third pump in lift station number two ahead of uh ahead of schedule. We're looking to put it in actually in uh in 2030. Lift station 11 bid package is ready to go out. Um what's not on here? 67th Avenue phase 1 sewer replacement, which will be replacing about 2,000 linear feet of sewer in 67th Avenue is out for bid. uh the Prairie Creek BNSF bridge project. We um executed the agreement and we're coordinating with the uh BNSF

to procure the the uh parts for the bridge so we can move this project forward. Um and then as you know uh for Hallow North um the we we went forward and we agreed to the purchase and sale agreement. We are now moving in our 30-day window to um close on the property purchase. Um, we've also had a lot of interest expressed from, uh, Senator Canwell's office and Congresswoman Delb Benny's office that they would like to each put a million dollars of investment towards this project. So, uh, Caitlyn and I have been coordinating with staffers from their office, and we are getting ready to put an application in for each one of these, uh, each one of these offices, Canwell and Delbani, to help support this very valuable project for the community. Um, if you've driven around Division and Broadway today, you would have seen they were out there striping. So, uh, with the warmer weather, um, Broadway and Division is closing up as well as the pickle ball court. It will be, uh, getting its striping. Jensen Park improvements, the the bathroom has been energized, the parking lot has been installed, and the striping has been completed. Um, Smoky Point Boulevard corridor, the overall design is still moving forward. We are coordinating with community transit on two fronts. One is on uh regular uh day-to-day transit stops along the six at along the Smoky Point Boulevard corridor and the other one is with the gold line because the gold the gold line will be coming up here. 180th

roundabout. We talked about that going through with the condemnation. Um the project's at 90% design. We're still on target. We'd like to get this out for AD in June. SR 530, a Smoky Point Boulevard roundabout. The SEIPA was just recently passed. We have a meeting this week with the Still Guamish Tribe to start talking about uh finalizing our right-of-way transfers with them. Um SR 531 project still on schedule for bidding in 2026. The Jensen pump track. received an email uh this morning from the American Ramp Company construction arm and he wants to start talking about when they can move in to start building this project. We have a lot of grants and interest loans. Um public works trust fund loan, we've recently executed that one fully uh as we did with the uh drinking water SRF. Um the cemetery grant, we have two of our three funded projects completed. The rehabilitation of the cemetery fencing as well as rehabilitation of the veterans memorial. If you haven't been out there, I encourage you to go out there and take a look and see what they they did to build up the veterans memorial. Looks very nice. Um the last project is installation of a uh wayfinding sign because concrete made the foundation. We've uh identified a place, performed the ne necessary earth work. This week, we'll have the foundation delivered, and we'll have the sign installed on May 16th on a community volunteering day.

We have a couple grants that we've applied for. Um, we talked about the, uh, 180th connector construction grant. That one is still, it was a $5 million grant. It's on the contingency list with, um, PSRC. And then with Senator Canwell and with uh, Representative Del Benny, we still have a couple grants in with those at those offices. um cemetery operations. We had uh we have three um board members that are up uh positions who will be expiring soon. Uh one board member would like to um reapply and there will be two vacancies. Um, I sat in with Councilwoman Ble as well as with Chris Wallace and Tanya Post and with um Maxine and we did interviews on several people that came in for the vacant board positions. We will be uh discussing this with the uh with the board and then we will be coming forward to council with a recommendation on who to bring on. Um basically just normal operations with the pre-treatment program. A new uh operator Angel Perez received his um operator one, but he still needs time. He passed his testing. He still needs time to become get his operator certificate. and uh GIS has been moving forward and working with a lot of asset management. Are there any questions about uh anything that's included in this

quarterly report? Any questions? No. Explainer. Good. Jim, thank you. Thank you. Okay, we'll move on to our next item. Community and Economic Development Quarterly Report. Amy Rusco.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Vany, members of council. So, mine will be quicker than Jim's. Um, he has a lot of things to worry about. Um, so for the first quarter report, uh, I just went over our active projects that are under construction. So, you'll see that long list. Some of these are repeats from from last year, like they're still working away. Um, so the everything on this list is either actively under um like civil construction. So that'd be moving dirt to the final building inspection. So that's why some of them have been on here for probably a year on some of these. So they're just working their way through uh through their project. And then the next uh portion is our current land use um and civil permits that are under review. So, if you see where it says a zoning permit or um conditional use permit, those are under or preliminary plat, those kind of things are under the land use. Um, if it's under civil, that that means it's already received land use approval. So, if you see a civil permit, anywhere you've listed, they've already gone through the land use, but they haven't been issued yet to go start their project. So, I just want to make sure you understood where um what kind of that that meant. If you need numbers on that, I can get you those numbers. Um, I know some of them. So, if you have questions on how many of some of these units are, I can definitely get those to you. And then our next one is our general information meetings. So, these are things that may or may not come into the city, but we offer free meetings uh to the public. um any property owner and or developer can come in for free and have a proposal of their project get reviewed on what they would need to do uh permit-wise to before they start their project. So, these are the people that we met with and then we go into um our building permits. I actually think our building permits seem to be kind of up right now,

honestly. So, we did 246 246 uh building permits were applied for between January and March. Um, and we had 103 that we issued u between January and March. So I I don't think that's too bad. Some of them are smaller ones. Um, and but I our biggest thing was commercial alterations. So people doing um tenant improvements within commercial buildings was our biggest winner there. And then we have our code enforcement. So, um this is uh pretty low on um investigating. Uh we have 14 that are open cases right now and 170 that were closed or resolved. I do want to explain one of them that did make this a little bit higher. Um so you'll see at the bottom graph it has the right of way and illegal sign pickup. I wanted to track how many signs are actually getting picked up. Um so there were 117 signs in the ride of way that were picked up within the 3 months. So, I just wanted to let you guys know if you are seeing them still on the road, um, we are picking them up as well. So, if you have a certain location that keeps coming back, let us know. We are doing our best to get them picked up.

Yep. Most of these, I believe, are in Smoky Point or along the Smoky Point Boulevard corridor. So, hopefully it's getting um cleaner to your to your satisfaction as well. And then we go into some staff updates. Um we are currently adver um well this is um for the first quarter. So now we're in second quarter. So things might have changed from here now. Um but we're currently have an advertising out for an associate planner. Um I think we're actually going to halt that one. So just know that coming coming forward. This um was originally advertised to replace someone that that left the city. So they left in February. So we were back filling that job. Um I think we have a different plan going forward. So, I'm still working with Paul um and Sean on that and and Don. So, we're going to be working through whether that person is actually replaced or not or if we do something a little bit different. And then all of our permit permit technicians went to the Wobbo front counter plan review training. So, that was a good training for them where they can actually um we want them to start looking at plans a little bit when they come in uh the front counter. So, that's helping them with training. And then one of our big things or something that I'm really excited for um hopefully everyone is to give you an update on our scanning and laser fish project. We have scanned in 11,000 building permits. So that is not pages. That is full permits. So some of the permits have five pages because they're older, some of them have 40. So that is 11,000 building permits. They are all scanned. We have none no more to scan except for the ones that we're currently processing. When they get completed, they're already in PDF. So when they get completed they'll go straight into into laserfish. So we have so it's it is a process. So first we have to scan them. The second step is combining every folder that we can find for that address combining it into a PDF before it gets uploaded into laserfish. So out of the 11,000 we have 6,000 building permits that are uploaded and are currently could be currently active in laserfish to the public right now and

we have approximately 5,000 that um three of our staff are working on in there. Well, one is dedicated and the other two are working on it in their spare time trying to get all of the building permits uploaded. When that gets done, we'll be working more on the civil and land use. So, we do have 120 civil permits uploaded into laser feast right now as well. So, that's something that we're proud of or it's exciting exciting project. And we have our second shredding day next Wednesday. So, we have the big truck come out and we'll have the second portion going away. And then some unfortunate news. Um we are not happy with um the Civic Plus software. It's not working out how how we thought. Um so we're we did not get rid of IWorks. Um at this point yet because we are still needing to get documents out of it. So we'll be um not renewing our contract. Um, we'll be putting in the notice in the next month or two to Civic Plus that we are not going to be renewing them and we're going to go back to I works and then work with finance over the next couple years to see if we can get something. It might be sooner than a couple years, but we're we're trying to find a system that can do everybody in the city where the financial systems can be tied together instead of separate. So, that's something that might it won't affect it'll be a reduction to the budget, not um an increase. So, and that is paid for by the the permits revenue that has no effect on the general fund as well, but there will be a savings to that. Um, anyway, just so you kind of know if you hear us talking about the the permitting software. And then a couple things that we've been working on. Um, multiple departments. Um, so, uh, myself, public works with Jim, Paul, our attorneys, we've been working with Mary'sville on an interlocal agreement for the project Cascade. So, this project crosses the Mary'sville and Arlington line. So, that's why it's going to be an interlocal agreement. And we should be having it come to you, I

think we're having the first draft come to you on May 11th. So, look forward to that. And then, uh, we're also starting to work on a development agreement. This is kind of second quarter, but I wanted to make sure you knew about it because it will be something that'll be coming to the to the council and it might be before the the second quarter is over. So, you wouldn't know about it until then. We're working on a development agreement um with the Higgins building. So, I'm working with Paul and our attorneys with that as well. And then, uh just to give you guys an update on the upcoming items, uh to council. So, those are our remaining code chapters that will be coming to you in the time frame that we that we think. I went through July for you. We do have a a couple items that'll come in September, October, but this is the bulk of bulk of the code amendments we'll get through um before your break in August. And then a reminder, 2026 spring cleanup event is scheduled for June 13th. A notice has been sent out into the utility bills and then we're going to be getting that out on social media. So keep the date and bring your bring your items.

That is it. Any questions for Amy? Ivonne, will you remind me again um who gets the public meeting notices and land use notice postcards like um that get mailed out to folks? Um when how close or what's the vicinity of where that's being done? Right now it's a 500 foot radius. So if they live in an apartment or um it goes to property owner. So they like the actual apartment or senior living would not see them in their mailboxes. Not individual residents. No. Unless they're unless they're a property owner. Okay. So, like a condo, a town home, condo, things like that. They are a actual property owner, but renters do not get it within the apartment complex. No.

And that would include Sorry, I have one more. Is that anybody else? Sorry. Okay. Um that would also include like the road expansions or the if we're going to finish a road. Yes. All of that. All of that. Anything that we're doing with land. Yeah. Yeah, we did a super fun one or Katie Shores helped me do a super fun one for the sea that we just did for Smoky Point Boulevard. So, we went from 173rd Street to 200th 500 ft on both sides all the way down the boulevard and just did that mailing. So, I think it was about 400 or 5 400 people or 400 properties that were sent out. Thank you. Yep. Any other questions? Let's see. Thank you, Amy. Thank you. Well, do you have any reports? I

I don't think I have anything else tonight. Yeah, I don't have anything. Does any of the council members have comments or reports? Nathan,

do you want to do Okay. So, uh, over this week, I went to a Friday night, the first fourth Friday spring fling event in town with the pop-up shop where a lot of businesses in town open till 7:00 p.m. And there's there was bingo cards. You had to go and find different things to check off for that. With the Stilly Valley Chamber of Commerce, um, there was Hawaiian uh, food trucks. There's been twice now where I was like, we've never I've never really seen Hawaiian food trucks in town before. And so it was really good food. Um just the fourth Friday of every month starting this month is when the chamber really focuses on small businesses. Um and they come together and do like little miniature farmers markets at the innovation center. So just a little plug. Uh I also did the uh Saturday night Arlington Boys and Girls Clubs boot in Buckles auction and dinner. Um, I was there also with general council women and Heather and Lysa and we saw a lot of money raised for the auction uh for helping with children's lives in our community with scholarships and heard a really good testimony about why um it is important for students to feel part of a community when they may have not had a good experience at home. um that they trust and love that Arlington has this area that they can come to. So, it was really really fun. Lots of horse related things where you had to go dash and get dessert while riding a blowup horse, you know, those are the fun things. Um but that was pretty much it for the the weekend for me and the budget retreat. So,

thank you. Any others? Michelle, I just want to thank Jim and Chris for inviting me to partake in the interviews for the cemetery commission and thank you Paul for setting up a uh a really nice educational retreat Friday. Thank you. Thank you. Nobody else. Okay. And at this point, we'll move on to our public comment period. Uh for members of the public who wish to speak to the council, please limit your remarks to three minutes and state your name and address and step up to this mic over speaker over here. Uh looks like we got Julie Winchell. Rob, do you want to turn it on for?

Thank you, Mayor of Vani and council for this chance. I'm here on a factf finding mission because I've heard a rumor and I hope it's not a rumor like project Roxy that yielded us the big behemoth Amazon center but the rumor is that there's a data center planned for the property east of the Arlington airport and I called the PUD but unfortunately the Snowomish County PUD won't let you talk to your commissioners. You have to email them and nobody there would talk to me to tell me if that was a project or not. And I don't know if you can tell me, but I'm here to to my express my concern about that project, especially in terms of the use of the amount of water. I know that you've just purchased property because you need more water for the city of Arlington. So, so allowing um a data center that uses millions of gallons of water to move into our city and draw from that same aquifer. Well, not that aquifer, but the one out by the airport. Well, it also uses huge amounts of electricity which could cause our rates to go up. I have concerns about um when the water is used to cool the servers at the data center, it then has to be placed into a stream or a river, I would assume, which raises the temperature. And the Siligwamish River is um habitat for shinook and coo and pink salmon. And I heard on KO today that the Stellaish tribe only could take 26 shinook out of the river because the numbers were so low. So that's another concern. Noise is a concern. Um we've had four drought years in a row.

I can tell you as this will help you is that there is no applications for any data centers in the city of Arlington. So we don't have any pending ones. Nobody's come and talked to us about one or anything. And if there was an application, how would the public be informed? It would be through the permitting process. And it would it would be a concern of of ours, the amount of water usage. So So through the permitting process, is there then a public notice? Like in the county, there are the big orange signs that go up. Is that the same thing that be part of the land use process? Yes. Okay. Yeah.

Well, great. That's good news to hear. I don't know how that rumor started. One rumor. They do get swirling. Okay. It's nice that you could talk to somebody at the city. That's why right now is a huge national trend. I know that. Yeah. That's why you probably have some crazy rumors. Okay. Well, we'll keep an eye on the website. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Review the consent agenda.

Four and five are info. So, yeah. So that's why it's two, four, and five for sure. Yeah. Two, two, and three. Okay. Two and three.

Paul's famous words. But I got more. Five more for you. Yeah. He always says just a few few. Okay. So, just two and three. Yeah, I'm I'm good with two and three. Okay. Okay. And I think we are ready to adjurnn. Uh motion to adjurnn. Second. Second. All those in favor? I. Any oppose? Motion carried. We're adjourned.