City Council - Regular Meeting

2026 to order. The time is now 7:00 p.m. Would you please stand with me for the Pledge of Allegiance. A pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice are. Last our city 3 Becky Jensen or our assistant city clerk Harry Gershishkin to please the great role. Councilm Beaton, here, Council Member Damon, here, Council Member Hudson, here, Council Member Oliver here. Council member Tearo. Councilman Van der Stoop, here, can't remember Wes here. OK, thank you Item 2 is the approval of tonight's council meeting agenda. A couple of things on this. Uh, one, that we decided in committee or it was talked about in committee that counsel may want um a watchdog presentation moved from the committee meeting to this meeting. So that's one thing. Also wanted to acknowledge um just item 6C under new business. It's been a while since we've talked about the, the canine program. Um, of course, it's drawn a lot of interest from the community, um, want to do acknowledge that it is on there Um, it's been on our agenda a few times this year. It's been on, uh, January 28th, agenda, uh we took public comment at that meeting. It was on February 11th agenda took public comment with that one. Counsel, you talked about it at your February 18th committee meeting. Um, we talked about use of force and opioid funding separation and just had a city budget overview. Um, at your March 11th meeting, you addressed the concerns about opioid funds going to support law enforcement, uh, you created a community grant program that ensures that 100% of the city's opioid funding uh would, that

we have in collections to date are going toward treatment and, and the impacts of the opioid crisis. We identified a funding source for the canine program that doesn't interfere in, in any way with the iOS budget. That's where we are to date. Still we kind of missed a typical beat, um, that we have in our process for having things on the budget in or on the agenda and that we didn't have a public safety meeting last week, Chief Chrisman is out of town, would have been the ideal time to talk about this, um. so just wanted to acknowledge that a few weeks have passed since we've talked about this and just wanted to confirm that this is OK to, to still have on the, on the agenda tonight. I will move to approve the agenda with the addition of the uh the wash out. I don't know why I keep calling you PSA. The wash.t presentation at 6A moving everything down and keeping the resolution on the agenda. Second, OK, it's been moved by Mary, seconded by Navor, and let's talk about it. Councilmember West Yes, so thank you. Uh, regarding the canine, I think the last communication that we had from Kevin regarding canine would be that we would get a consultation from the Washington Cities. attorney, which would be um, basically a free consultation regarding use of force, you know, specific to the canine. So unless I missed it, I don't think that's happened yet. So I think we should honor the intent of, of that you know, that we all agreed to and understood and not do any votes on the canine until we've had that presentation. It would be, it wouldn't make sense to have us. vote on something before we know the legal impacts

Agree 100%. We'll have that information to you, um, as we present the item, um, Kevin did reach out to WCIA. We do have all that information. Any other discussion on that item? I do, if I may, um, um, I just want to acknowledge that I, I personally was surprised when it showed up on the agenda. I, I kind of assumed that we were going to go through the normal process that you had described, um, but I do understand that it was just a, um, just because of circumstance. Um, so if there's other folks out there that we're also surprised, I understand and hear that. Um, and so, I would feel more comfortable even though we have absolutely um talked about this enough, in my opinion. I would feel more comfortable um if we had followed the normal process, so I just want to put that out there. OK. OK. Yes. What, what would that normal process have looked like? Um, it would have looked like, um, normally, I would say is that we have a committee, then, then from that committee, um, out of that Spurs council action. Um, that's, I feel like what we, we have done in the past where um let's say you would be the public safety chair here, right? And so during that meeting, at some point you would say the council agree that we should at some point um have this come before um the council meeting. Um, I think that the last time that I remember having a committee meeting about this, I believe it was the one that I was running. Um, it was DS, yeah, February 18th. Yeah, and so that is a while ago now, and from that, um, committee meeting, I do not, I do not recall saying, hey, this is, this should

come up at this meeting now. Um, and this is where we're gonna take a vote on it. Does that make, does that answer OK. OK. Um, any other discussion on this one? All in favor of the motion. So the motion was to retain that item 60 and to add as 6A um add the Wahdo presentation. All in favor, say I. All opposed say no, no. motion passes unless you want to do a, a roll call vote to clarify. I think passed. OK. Great. Um, we will move on to community comments. Uh, if anyone's present in council chambers that wishes to address city council, please come on up to the podium. Please state your name and city of residence, and we ask that you limit your comments to about 3 minutes. Hi, my name's Andrea. I'm a resident of Mount Vernon Um, first, I wanna thank the council for setting up the grant application for the rest of the $100,000 opioid settlement funds. I think this is gonna make a huge impact on some of the most vulnerable in our community. So thank you again for doing that. Um, I understand that the canine unit was budgeted for last year with an old city council makeup, and it is up for discussion and vote again, um. which I'm confused about because it doesn't need to be as it's below the monetary threshold for a needed council vote. Um, but here we are. So I'm asking the council again not to use our finite resources for a canine unit. A new proposal with additional information has not been provided yet, um, nor has any adequate data uh that this is the most effective use of our taxpayer money than provided. Um, I did look through the proposals for tonight and I saw nothing new. There's no new information in there. Um, just because we've had a canine in the past does not mean it's a good enough

reason to spend $100,000 on something that we don't need when we are in a budget crisis. Based on the police own their own explanation and conversations in the Citizens Academy. Over the last 3 months, there's not been one use case showing the canine was a necessary tool. In fact, it was stated in one case where the canine was used, it was not the best tool, and the officer would not use the canine again Uh, the canine did bite that suspect as well. Um, I understand that this is a want but it does not appear to be a need, um, and so I, I, OK, um a report recently came out that Mount Vernon is in the top 10%, most expensive places to live in the country. The families in Mount Vernon that are food insecure have doubled in the last year? People are unable to afford rent, and with the cost of fuel doubling and an impending fuel shortage crisis. our streets are still not safe to walk or bike on, though I know Chris does an exceptional job trying to fix that. Um, we saw a young boy two weeks ago who was hit by a car on his way to school. Uh, we still do not have a comprehensive plan. We do not have a public affordable housing. I would hope that the council would scrutinize over every spending request that comes across your desk and ask yourself if this is truly the best use of our city's general funds. So all of those things I mentioned like the library, for instance, $100,000 to get that open, the only library in all of Skagit County, I'm I'm not understanding why when we had 35+ people say they just don't want a K9. a ton of public comment weeks and weeks and weeks of this conversation. I'm not sure why we're still here again. Um, I do not want the K9 unit here. I appreciate that you guys sit here and listen to the, the

community give these comments, and I hope you will listen to us. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Andrea Anyone else to address city council tonight. Hello. Welcome. Thank you, Sage they them. I live here in Mount Vernon. Um, I didn't write this down this time, so I'm not looking at my phone for once. Woohoo. Um, I emailed all of you, uh, together about the flock, um a couple of weeks ago, and I got two responses back. So I just want to reiterate that it would be great if in between now and November, when we relook at the contract, we could request require ask nicely that all flock um uh requests have a reason put in from the police department. There's again, 25% just from that time that I looked, um, online, there's an overall count of about 36% that are blank. So just knowing why the police are looking us up would be helpful for me in my own sanity, I guess, but also just for that security. We went from having a lot of issues with Flock to just saying, yeah, we're going to keep it for another at least 5 months. Um, and with nothing in the middle, there's gotta be some sort of like middle ground that we can find between now and then. I really appreciate it. Um, I also want to thank you, just like Andrea said for that, um, uh community grant application. I know at least 3 or 4 really great community resources that have that have applied for it. So I look forward to maybe, I don't know if they're going to present to you and we can watch that or if there's going to be some sort of process for that, but I look forward to hearing those, those groups ask for that money and then hopefully it's a perfect amount that all

of them get a piece of it and we use our resources wisely. So, thank you for that. Appreciate it. Thank you, Sage. Hello, how are you doing? My name is Nicholas Levay. I'm uh from Mount Vernon. I'm actually pretty embarrassed with this council. Uh, not, not everyone, obviously, you know who you are. Um, I don't know if anyone's ever seen a canine dog in action. Not being in action like as in, hey, come on, buddy, let's go catch that ball. I mean like tear someone up. their arm off and they flesh off. Is that anybody seen that? No. Well, the people have understand that these dogs are weapons. They're not tools for safety. They're not tools for the community to come up and say, oh, this is a great dog, and then the next day he's out running after our community members. Does that make sense to you? Doesn't make sense to me. They are, people say, there's like 2, there could be two truths, right? But that is not in this case. That's a weapon OK? And you can roll your eyes all you want. Um, what else I know is that if you bring a canine to our cities. I don't even, no one's even gave me a good reason why you're bringing a dog to the cities. it's good. All right. Um, so I just, yeah, go ahead. I would just like to say this is, we don't if you read the, the minute you would see that this is not in a place where we will answer you. Is this your

time to ask us and then I'm just, just an FYI most for anything. I appreciate that. for, uh, correcting me. Um, anyway, So back to the canine dogs. Um-hum. And I don't, will I vomit to take it that no one here has seen that then, OK? Um. if you do and you have seen that and you still vote for one of these dogs to come to your town I don't, then there's something wrong with you. Um, there's, that is not a good thing Um, to have in your town and have your community members being run down by a dog. Put that in your head A kid, it could be a 15 year old kid, one of your, one of the citizens here, one of the teenage kid from school, just being run down by a, by a dog That's OK Not OK with me No. hopefully you uh do the right thing and uh I don't know. not get the dog in our damn town. Thank you. Thank you, Nicholas. Anyone else want to address city council. minutes later. Evening, counsel Um, my name is Kelly Lowenstein, resting near Mount Vernon, your hillcrest. Um, I am here because I don't want to talk about the dog anymore. actually There are so many important things in this town and the vision I had for comment tonight, which I did not realize, uh, was to come with that pie chart of our city budget, right? Police Department is 31%. Why are we talking about expanding the police department when our parks department is a little tiny slice when our library is closed half the time that we want to go and take our children there. right? It's the one teen space in this town that is dedicated for our teenagers. We want to prevent crime, get our kids on the right track. Let's

create spaces and invest in things that actually engage them, right? They build them up and, and lift them up, not tear them down as, as Nick said. A couple of weeks ago, as uh I'm sure you all know, uh Mount Vernon Middle school student was hit by a bus on their bicycle. right? I'm sure I said verbatim like a couple months ago in comment, my greatest fear for my child in this community is being hit on the way to and from school, right? What are we prioritizing with our funds? Let's look at that pie chart Let's invest in our streets and making them safe. We should have safe routes to and from every school on all arterials, right? We should have sidewalks for people to walk in. It's the number one thing that was coming up when we were hitting doors in the summer was sidewalks for our community members. Let's stop talking about this dog right? It's not only the opportunity cost of the money, the funds that could be used in thousands of other ways that we're not talking about It's also our time and energy and our collective vision as a community. Let's invest our time in thinking about what, what it is that's really going to have the biggest impact. It shouldn't just be rubber stamping everything on one department's wish list while the other departments are just begging for scraps. Thank you. Thank you, Kelly Anyone else going once All right, we will move on. council of tonight's consent agenda includes meeting minutes, payroll checks, deposits, claims, and agreements. Council would like to move to adopt the consent agenda. It's so moved. pushed by before before Melissa because she's closer and I heard her voice loudest, all in favor, say I. I. I'll opposed say no I says, we will move on to council member comments. Any

council member comments tonight Oh, yes, Council Member Oliver Turn this on. Um, I just want to quickly remind everyone, um, I know that we're gonna talk about it in a little bit, but anybody who's here in person or watching online, the bridge is going to be partially closed for about a year or so starting soon after the Tulip Festival. I know a lot of people don't know that yet. Um, so please tell your friends, tell your family, tell everyone you know, but it's happening, so I just want to remind everybody. And it's also, it's not us, it's a state. That's it. They're right here will be given phone numbers. Thank you, Councilor Oliver. Yes, um, I kind of want to piggyback on that with Hannah. Hannah and I had spoke a little bit before, but just for everybody around knowing that West Side will be heavily impacted, so do as much as you can to kind of make sure those businesses still have the love over there, no visit, shop, still go over there if you can and still make the effort to be there to help out our citizens and our residents over there, OK. Thanks, thank you. I would say that is also true of our downtown. Downtown and west side will be impacted by this, so um, join us in being as intentional as we can about prequitting those businesses. Uh, any other council member comments? right, we'll move on to Mayor's report. Uh, Mayor's report, I wanna highlight one of our, our community gyms this week. No it right when I said that, Steve walked up, um, I was actually talking about the Lincoln Theater. Uh, they're having their centennial celebration in a couple of weeks, uh, uh, April 21st to the 26th. This amazing theater uh brings thousands of guests into

Mount Vernon every year. They're going to be doing a fundraising campaign. They are hoping to raise $100,000 for their 100 year anniversary. Uh, that funding's going to go towards some much-needed upgrades to the theater's HVAC system, fire suppression, and ADA improvements. The theater is actually going to be closed this summer to make those improvements. But before they do that, uh, please come celebrate with them and us this month. I'm going to have Mayor's copy there at the theater on April 21st. There's a great concert lineup on the 24th. They're gonna have Battle of the Bands, Savannah Woods, Chris Eager on the 25th, they'll have their centennial showcase, which is a a vaudeville style variety show and then on the 26th, there will be a silent film shown along with a live score with that. That'll be cool. And oh, and they'll have cake that night. Um, I can't leave that part out. So on the 26th, silent film. got scored live and that is your mayor's report. Get down to the Lincoln Theater and celebrate them. Thank you, Steve. New business tonight. 6A was moved, um. a new item was placed on the agenda. The Washington State Department of Transportation presentation, and I believe we have Melissa Ambler and David Rosbach here. Melissa, David, welcome You took my intro. Oh, good. Did you want to introduce them again? No, right. All right, well, thank you for having us. Um, as you mentioned, we're from Waho and uh we're here tonight to tell you about a couple project updates. We're gonna start with State Route 538. Um, typically called

College Way, and we can go to Mexico. So I have good news We are going to repay College way. So we um, so we, this project is programmed and funded. which is wonderful news, and we should be thanking our legislators for getting this project earmarked. Um, we will be doing what we call a mill where we take off about 2 inches of asphalt and put back new asphalt and then in areas that need structural repair, we do what we call spot repairs on those areas. It's going to be about a 3 mile stretch. We're going to go from leeway all the way to SR 9. on both sides And um we will be looking at pedestrian ramps and ADA sta and getting everything up to current ADA standards. So um, this is our timeline. And so you can see we are here in 2026 pre-design phase and I'll get into what Washop considers pre-designed, but then we'll jump into the design phase and we're shooting for an October of 2028 ad date, which means that the contractor would be on board to start after the tulips in May of 2029. Um, and typically this project should take about a year, give or take. So some might be thinking, why would it take so long? Wash that, what are you doing? And so, um, our projects, we have a lot of steps we have to go through. So like I mentioned, we go through predesign. There's a lot of coordination with a lot of different people. We have to get environmental permits. We have to do all the engineering

uh, if we have to acquire right away, that alone is a 12 month process and of course then we have to construct the project. though, right now we are in the pre-design phase, and the big part of pre-design is called complete streets. And so for those that don't, uh, aren't familiar with Complete Streets. It's where we have to look at the quarter as a whole, and it takes a lot of coordination. We coordinate with the city of Mount Vernon. We coordinate with the schools. We coordinate with the first responders. We coordinate with the community. We find out who's using the college way, what they're using it for and how they're using it. Are they in their car? Are they in a a freight truck? Are they walking? Are they on a bicycle? We take all of this information that we get from the community and we, uh, bring it back into Washdot, and that's when we start developing alternatives. And so an alternative might be bicycle lanes on each side and then a buffer and then a sidewalk, or an alternative could be a shared use path, which is where bikes and pedestrians share one path. So we take it in-house, we think of alternatives, and then we go back out to the community and we get feedback on these alternatives. So I, I want to be clear, we don't go out with 3 alternatives and say, vote for your favorite and then we just picked that one. We listened to the feedback, we bring it back into Washut and we look at our constraints. So our funding, our time constraints, things like that, and we come up with the best alternative for the corridor. Once we have that then we can go into the design phase. And so this is the phase, um, where we really put the pencil to the paper, although now it's all computerized, but we get down and we start doing our design. We um we start doing

utility coordination, so finding out if we have any conflicts, and if we do, then working with those utilities to relocate them, we get our environmental permits. Uh we look for any right of way that we need to acquire. Um and we come up with the best, um traffic control, because people are still going to want to use Collegeway while we're repaving it. So coming up with the best traffic control, with the least impacts. but still keeping in mind, people want it done quickly, so there's a lot that goes into it. So like I said, we're shooting for October 2028 to go out to add I will say that that's our goal, but all these dates could change, so I might be back here in a year and telling you it's a different date, and that's because of funding, it's because Washdo is told to do something different, um, but right now this is our goal, October 2028, with the contractors starting after the tulips in May of 2029. Um yeah, so basically just to recap, redesign, design, construction. is uh what we have for College Way. So you might be thinking 2029 is far away. What are you going to do until then, and we are going to continue to maintain it. So, our crews live and work in Mount Vernon, and they drive Collegeway at least twice a day So they're out there, they're seeing the rough roads, they are seeing the potholes, and they are doing their best to correct those um those areas. I can tell you that this summer, our maintenance crews are going to do a mill and fill of just the wheel paths, um, in front of Safeway and east of Continental. So patches along uh college way that are a little bit rough

right now. Um we are waiting for better weather. I know this week has been great, but it might not be next week. And so we're waiting for the weather that will keep that pavement in place the longest. So, if you see something, the best way is to email this nwpublic affairs Waho.wa.gov And that email goes to multiple people at Wado. And so it will get to the right person to take care of the issue that's being reported. And so if you see something, let us know, and then we can get our maintenance crews out there to take a look and see if there's anything that they can do about it. We're going backwards. But that, that was kind of it on College Way if anyone has questions on that, I'm happy to answer them, and then we can talk a little bit about the bridge. Now, let's pause for questions on the college Way project. Councils all, any questions? Because I've been, uh, with the city of Mount Vernon for about 10 years, and I remember a number of dates um that I learned about that the bridge, uh, the, the West Side Bridge was, was going to be painted or replaced or a pedestrian want, uh from, I think 2021 to 22 to 23. So I've been hurt before. with, with dates promised, um, and I understand that you said this is sometimes contingent on funding and that seems to be the sticking point with these date changes. How do we prioritize college way in Waco's list of miles of roads that they have to maintain. I is that public voice? Does that help? Uh

It does help if you let your legislator know. because they're the ones telling Wash that earmarking projects, right? And so we let them, you let them know, they let us know, and then we do it. So that, that's probably the best way. That's helpful. Thank you. So we'll make sure to publish a list of our legislators and their contact information. I think that's only, I mean, it, if that's what you're telling us that our citizens need to do, and us, I think that's only fair for us to give them that information. Yeah, they, they need to know. Council member Beaton, thank you. First off, I want to say thank you. You were scheduled for our 6 o'clock committee, which is not on camera, and you graciously, um, said that you would stay so that this presentation is on camera so that our community can see it. And so I want to say thank you very much for that. I think it's really, really important. I do have one small ask, and that is, I don't want to email that address. I want to let you to know that maybe 100 ft due east of Continental. It's about where the older um car wash is, it's really bad. So instead of me emailing you, I'm letting you know you could please take it from there. I would appreciate it. Yeah, so that is one of the spots that is getting the mill and fill of the wheel paths only, right? So, it's not the whole thing. Guess where your wheels go, and that will be this summer at nights, so maybe one morning you will wake up and you will say, huh, thank you. It worked. They listen. Thank you. Thank you for receiving my photos of that portion of the street too. Sorry to bombard you. All right Let's move along to. Sure, let's talk about the

bridge. All right, so the other project that we wanted to touch on is the SR 536 River Bridge painter. Um, so just some fun facts about the bridge that people might not know is that the bridge was built in 1953 and opened to traffic in 1954, and it was last painted in 1990. So it is due for a face lift, for sure, um. and about 1800 vehicles use the bridge, uh, each, each day, so quite a few uh vehicles. So what we're gonna be perfect. So what we're going to be doing is just like it sounds, we're going to come in, we're gonna uh take off the old paint. We're gonna replace steel members that are, are really corroded with new steel, and then we're going to repaint the bridge, and it's going to be the same color. So it's, it's nothing flashy. It's the same, um, had one question. Oh yeah, do you mean brown? It's a light gray. Oh, sorry, I was, I was unsure. Thank you. No problem. Um, that was good. So the work is expected to take 11 months. We have a contractor on board and we have not seen their schedule yet, so that could be compressed. Um, we're just not sure yet. So the 11 months is what our engineers estimated for it. Um and we will be working during daylight hours. Um, for obvious reasons. And um let's see We can go to the next slide, yes OK, so here's what you're going to

encounter while we're painting the bridge. As mentioned earlier, the eastbound traffic, it will be closed to eastbound traffic for the entire 11 months. So westbound traffic can travel on the bridge The contractor is allowed 4 weekends, so 3 nights of full closure. though not east and westbound traffic cannot go on during that time. Pedestrians and bicyclists can go across during the full closures, the contractor will have a shuttle service, and so they'll be a sign with a phone number. So if you roll up on your bike and you want to get across, you would call the phone number and then the shuttle service would come get you and take you across. During the entire project, including the full closures, emergency vehicles can go both ways. So if they need to go eastbound we'll have a temporary signal stopping traffic and emergency vehicle can go. Um I think those were the highlights of that one And yeah, so that's the bridge painter um, we will, uh, it was asked earlier about signage. Washed out, well, the contractor will be putting up lots of signage um about the bridge painter. Wash Scott will be at the Tulip Festival next weekend. um, with a booth there, talking about all of our projects, but highlighting the bridge, letting people know it's going to be closed. Use alternate routes, plan your, you know, your travel accordingly, um. and if if you see something that you think would help, you can let Washdot know, you can let myself know, David know, and we can see if we can arrange that with the contractor. So if you're seeing something within the town, let us know. Like I said, our maintenance folks live and work here, so

they're going to see it too. But if you see something, please let us know. We know it's an inconvenience. We know that people won't be that happy with us, um, but we're just trying to get the word out and um get in, paint it, get out, and then go on about your day. So these are our context information. Um, you're welcome to contact myself or David. Again, if you see maintenance concerns, the best is this NW Public Affairs. That's because it goes to a lot of people and not just one. And so we're not there or bogged down with work, um, this goes to a lot of people, so you'll get a better um response Any questions on the page um. When will the signing start going up? Do you have an idea? Was that? OK. I just wanna know how soon because yesterday would have been great, you know, I like what I'm saying. OK. So what we are waiting for is an executed contract with the contractor, so we've we've picked the contractor and so now it's just a matter of signing the contracts. So as soon as they're signed, then the contractor can get out there and we can pay them. And so that's all we're waiting for. And so I don't have an exact date for you, but I can't tell you it's it's definitely in the near future. Um, so definitely, yeah, get that word out to everybody. I have one more. Can I ask one, anyone else have a question before Mary's second? Go ahead. I have a question. OK. Um oh, no, I forgot what my question was. Uh, oh yeah, so for the like shuttle thing um, there will be big signs, I imagine that says I call this number, like it'll be very clear for folks? OK. Big is a relative word. So I, I can't tell you how big it will be, but they'll, um, if you, if you're a pedestrian and you're on the sidewalk, you will be able to see this

sign, if you want to get across, call this number. The, I'm not sure what kind of shuttle vehicle it is. There's requirements that it has to hold 4 people, 2 bicycles, and be ADA accessible. So I don't know what they're gonna pick to use um but it will be there at that service will be available during the full closures Council member Van deroo. Well, it's kind of a question, but it's, it's interesting. I think that the bridge will actually be more pedestrian friendly for this year long. I, and, and I feel confident saying it, this is, if you've been looking for a more pedestrian friendly bridge, I think that this is your year. Yeah, absolutely. It's super good. 2 shades one and only here but to clarify that, so that shuttle service is only during the full closures, that's not available to cyclists and pedestrian s all the time. Correct. If I live, the bridge is open to you so you can walk and you can ride your bike. Yes, we're just not going to put you in a car and get you across. Thanks for the clarification I got from you. It's OK. I can look. Um, so I see that May 1st is a Friday. OK. So, um are we, uh, is the target date still 51 or has it, is it, have we, have we got an actual target date to start, or was that still relatively tied to the contract. It's tied to the contract in getting the schedule from the contractor. Um I would assume that during this time that we're working out the contract that the contractor is making the schedule and so as as soon as we get that contract, then we'll get the schedule and then we'll have a better date that we can share with all of you. Is it possible to give them a bonus for fish finish it before yours to festival start. That would

be great. That's not in the contract right now, but you never know, right? I our legislators. Yeah, yeah. Good question. Any other questions? Thank you. Thank you both for being here and thank you also for being on, on camera and, and for extending your evening to get this information. Yeah I did have one more update for you all, um I don't have any slides for it, but um we have been working with Chris and, yeah, Chris, and uh about uh Kincaid and the crosswalk that people from the housing used to come down to downtown library area Um, and so we watch that um has been telling Chris and Frank, uh, what kind of flashing signs we use for, you know, pedestrians ahead, so they have that information, um, and what Washa just did recently, yesterday, so you'll have to let me know how it's going is that we increase the signal time for the crosswalk itself. So people have more time to cross that crosswalk. So again, it just, just did it yesterday. Uh, so hopefully you'll hear good things. If you don't, there's my contact. I know, and we can see what else we can do, but you'll have that flashing sign and extra time to cross the crosswalk Thank you. That the request that we get um frequently from folks who live up on the hill and want to walk downtown safely. Um, that'll make a big difference, I think. So thank you for working on it. Thank you. Thank you again for waiting. No problem. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. OK, we are moving on to item 6B. It's the appointment

of a new arts commissioner and Parks and Rec director Jennifer Berner is going to introduce this item. Jennifer in the Good evening, Mayor and council members. Um, so this evening, um, we are happy to be able to bring um Deborah Prestimo to um who has applied to be on the arts commission, um, and she comes to us with a lot of experience, so really happy to have her on board. We do have um several members or a couple members on the arts commission that do know Deborah. Um, so that's great, um, as well. And she um has been able to um I'm trying to look at her application here I'm sorry. She's been with the League of Women Voters, she's been a long time, um, watercolor artist, so she brings that to um the table as well. So I think she'd be a great addition to our arts commission. Is Deborah here tonight? Yes, she is Um, so we will, um, if council has questions for Jennifer, she can answer those. Uh, we will otherwise swear Deborah in tonight as arts commissioner. Questions for Jennifer. I'd like to say she has very good um references. We, I appreciate that. And motion to motion to approve. Somo. Sorry. motion by Mary in the 2nd by was that Navor? Any more discussion All in favor, say I. All opposed say no. motion passes.

OK, Deborah, we're just gonna pause here for a moment and I will come down and do a swearing in Thank you. Good morning here I have no question Do solemnly swear solemn swear that I will support, that I will support the Constitution and laws of the United States. The Constitution and laws of the United States and the Constitution and laws and the Constitution and laws of the state of Washington, of the state of Washington, and then I will faithfully and impartially, and that I will faithfully and impartially perform and discharge. Perform and discharge the duties of the duties of Mount Vernon Arts Commissioner. Mount Vernon Arts Commissioner for the city of Mount Vernon, for the city of Mount Vernon, in and for the county of Sca in and for the county of Scache state of Washington, State of Washington, according to law, according to law, to the best of my ability and understanding. To the best of my ability and understanding. That was a lot, wasn't it? That was a lot. Thank you. It takes me. It's always so cool to watch someone take notes. I just think I do. I just think it's great. Appreciate her serving that. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. All right. Item 6C is a presentation from our county assessor. Um.

and I believe that DS director Steve Sexton is going to introduce our assessor. Our esteemed assessor esteemed assessor predecessor Danny Hagan is here to give a presentation, and I think I heard it's how much he's gonna lower everybody's property tax. It's all yours. Well done. Yeah It's all yours. Well done. Yeah Thank you. Now, just for the disappointment, I don't worry you're at. Here, here you go, right at the top there. I feel like I infringed on a photography of one of the mayor's report. I hard point. OK. Popular lookout. Thank you and good evening. Uh, Mayor and council members, I appreciate you having me. It's uh the getting out and talking to city councils is, is really important and uh property taxes are, are really important to me. Um, little context about who I am. Scots County assessor, uh assessing isn't something that I kind of just accidentally fell into. Uh, my dad was hired in at the assessor's office in 1994, or as my kids say back in the 1900s and, and quickly became chief deputy and was the chief deputy assessor for Scotia County until around 2010. Um, so it's, it's been something that's more of a calling than than anything. Um, I've recently been, been voted by my peers to be president of the Washington State Association of County Assessors, um, and 2 Vice President, Waco, the Washington Association of County Officials. Um, I take this, this position very seriously, um and it's an honor to represent all of Scots County. Um so why are we gonna talk about property tax, um. coming up here and presenting is, is really cool because um I'm not only talking as a Scotch County assessor, but I'm talking about a as a as

a resident of of City of Mount Vernon. Um, my kids go to supervised playground every summer, and then they get a run, run around with their friends. They go to the playgrounds every, every day. Grandma took him there today um to to beakerview with the new, new bathrooms. Thank you. Um, and and when there's health issues that have happened in my house, we've called 911 and we didn't just get firefighters and and uh first aid, um, first responders, we, we got angels, um, and during some of the most difficult times of, of my life, um, they showed up. free of charge, um, because, because that's, that's their job. Um, so, um, how do we fund all that is is important to me and, and that's why I talk about property taxes. Um, it is the, the most stable source of revenue for jurisdictions in the state of Washington, um, unlike sales tax, it doesn't go up and down with the economy. It is, it is stable Um, and it's often misunderstood because people think that when values go up, that, that auto automatically means that their taxes are going to go up. Um, but that's, that's not how the system works in the state of Washington. Um then we'll kind of talk about how this all sets up, um, conversation about what is fair and equitable in a in a tax system. So, um, when COVID happened, um, I was just a residential appraiser in the, in the office, and we were sent home for a couple of weeks and uh we had to do training. One of the things we did for training was we found different publications. We read them and did reports on that. One of those publications I read was called a Good Tax by Joan Youngman, um, she's, uh, author and works for Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. I think it's honestly a really important reading. So these kind of ideas about the positives of property tax are not from my mind, they're they're from her but I, I repeat as much as possible. Um, so the three main positives, the property

tax, um, transparency, and property taxes are clear, visible, and is a public process to that. Um, the screenshot there on the screen is, is a screenshot of my property tax bill living inside the city of Mount Vernon. Um, that is what I pay per year and not only do I know how much I pay in total. I know how much each, um, each taxing district goes to. Um, if you can see there it's city of Mount Vernon, um, I pay $1,467. So for less than, than the AT&T bill I pay per year that I called 911 on. I got angels to show up. Um, I, I think that is pretty, pretty impressive. Um, because of that transparency, there's local accountability. When you look at these line items of a property tax bill, you will see that almost every single one of them is led by elected officials. These aren't elected officials that are your your governor or the president. These are local officials that your vote actually means something. I think the city council races in the city of Mount Vernon, 15, 20,000 votes somewhere in there compared to a state of Washington election where it's 3 million. Um, so your, your voice matters and, and that, that leads to the local accountability when when you don't have uh electives that are doing a good job being accountable with money. People can, can didn't say no, that's not what we want to do, um, or when, uh, electeds do. do, um, are, are transparent and, and have earned trust of their voters. They can go out for a levy lid lift and ask for for more money to be able to provide more in services. Um there's also efficiency to property tax. It costs money to send money So if you're sending money to Olympia, um having it come back or sending it to Washington DC, it's not going to come back dollar for dollar, and it usually comes back with strings attached. Um, usually through grants, um, and it's like, here's how you can have this money, and here's

how you have to spend it. Here's the rules that you have to do with it, and that costs money to to administer that. Um, so there's efficiency in in local taxes. So we're gonna talk about Washington state's budget-based system. Um, what, what a budget-based system isn't. It's, it's not a rate-based system like state of Oregon where the levy rate stays set and it's set by the state legislature each year, um, and however your values go up or down, so as your, your property tax bill. Um, it's also not an assessment cap system like Prop 13 in in California, where assessed values are capped and don't follow the market. Um, so in Washington State, it is Uh, you can see on the screenshot up there it is a screenshot of a levy, um a levy report, um, so these are kind of all the, the tax code areas inside the Skagit County um and on the, the left side there you'll see the different, the different cities, um, in the backside of this, and you can't see it on here, but it actually goes all the school districts, all the cemetery districts, and it, and it shows exactly how much each of those jurisdictions are taking in for total taxes and the total assessed value that goes into to calculating that levy rate. Um, and then on the, the right side of the screen, you will see that um the the levy rates are the different tax code areas. So um, everyone in Scotchet County pays a slightly different levy rate depending on the tax code area they're in and all the taxing districts they're they're paying to Um, so every year we, we recalculate assessed values, those assessed values and the legally allowed budgets are what go into calculating the levy rates. Um, this is kind of how it works um for the taxing districts, your budget divided by the total assessed value, it gives you your levy rate. Pretty simple. Um, and then for

the taxpayer, the value of your home times your tax code area levy rate equals your tax bill. Um, the budgets are restricted by law, so they can't just be inflated every year by whatever you would want. They are restricted to 1% growth per year plus new construction, and the idea of that new construction is that there's more homes coming to your, your city. Um, you're having to provide more people the same level of service and that costs more money. So, um, when the Highlands was built, um, that was generating more revenue, um, whether it was generating enough to actually provide all the services needed. It's a balance, but there is a 1% cap that's been in place since the early 2000s. Um, any taxing district that wants to to go above that, um mascot for a voter approved levy that really kind of ties directly into that, that accountability. Um, so when your jurisdiction is convinced that you are being accountable with your money, or with their money. They, they can choose to to do a levee lid lift and and increase those levees. Um, I like to talk my, uh, a mentor of mine, Rick Stewart. He's now retired, but he, um, ran the Department of Revenue for the state of Kansas for many years. Um, talked about a state tax system being like a three-legged stool. Um, you have your property tax, your sales tax, and your state income tax. Raise your hand if you ever sat down on a two-legged stool Yeah. I don't think you have, not very effective. I've actually heard that one-legged stools are more efficient and they used to be one-legged stools for uh dairy farmers when you were milking cows because you can kind of like lean with it. Still not two legs, doesn't make any sense Um, the state of Washington has gotten creative, um, has created a third leg, obviously, because currently there is no state income tax, and that is special taxes. So gas tax, syntax, fees, um, B&O

taxes, all those other things to try and create that, that stability. that the, the actual two-legged stool is not giving. So what's the impact of uh no state income tax. Um, this helps working people keep more of their paychecks. It's,, a, it's a big benefit for working people. Um, and it attracts businesses and, and workers with a simple predictable system. Um, but it does increase the state's reliance on property and sales tax. It also creates challenges for seniors and people on on fixed incomes, and it raises a question about equity and how, how a tax burden should, should really be shared amongst all the population. Washington state's aware of that inequity, and one of the things that they have done to kind of correct that is they have a um a senior um and persons with disability exemption program. So this is a program that is um controlled by RCW and state law, but administered locally by assessors' offices Um, and it's designed to reduce the burden uh, property tax burden for, for seniors, um, and, uh, people with disabilities and, and veterans that have um with disabilities. Um, this really provides fairness. Um, this isn't uh uh kind of a handout. This is just admitting that, hey, our tax structure is not fair when when you are a retiree and you're effective tax rate doesn't change at all when you retire like, whoa. that's kind of hard on, on retirees. Um, so this provides, uh, provides fairness and kind of creates equity for for adjusting for a system that that really is hard on, on seniors and and people on fixed incomes. So, how does it reduce the burden? Um, it, it does a direct reduction on property taxes owed, um, depending on the level that you're going to, there's, there's a 40, 60, around 70% um reductions, um those all kind of depend on which tax code area

you're in. Um, it's an exemption from voter approved access levies, um, and, uh, now this is the exemption from the full state school levy, um, a modification of uh recent legislative change. Um, but also the first year you go in, it then freezes your assessed value. So the longer you're in the program, the more of a benefit you're gonna get. Um, there is a, a taxpayer that lives in the city of Mount Vernon, who went into the program in 1996, um, at that point, their, their home was worth or was assessed at $86,000. Um, so the reduced tax rate they're paying is still only based off of an assessed value of 8 $6000. Um, which is, uh, obviously a good thing and it allows seniors to stay in their home um, for, for as long as possible. Um, so yeah, and then this keeps future taxes tied to the frozen value, not the rising market value. So how do you qualify? Um, so you do have to be 61 or older, um, uh, or 57 and a surviving spouse, um or you have to have a disability, um, unable to work or 100% service connected dis disabled veteran, that actually I think has been changed to 40% um disabled veteran uh for the senior exemption program, um, starting in 2027. Um I kind of get with, talk, get into some of those other changes that, that just took place with legislature. Um, but you must own and occupy the home as a primary residence, so you do not get this exemption on your second home, your 3rd home, a vacation home. You have to live in it for more than 6 months out of the year to to get the um pro to get in the program um, and then you also have to meet the household, uh, income limits. Um, that's probably the biggest, uh, um restriction on people is the income thresholds. Um, currently for 2026, that income limit is

48,000, uh, 70% of the household median income based off of OFM's numbers in 2024. Uh, this includes all income, Social Security, pensions, retirement distributions, um, and most benefits. Um there is some veterans' income that does not get get counted, um, but they're also important deductions, um medical expenses, prescriptions, uh, Medicare premiums, um, and those deductible costs can, can allow people that are over the income threshold to still get in. Um, but I will also say that 48,000 annually is a very low number. Um, and it was, it's been low for, for a couple of years. Um, there's 3 different levels of exemption, uh, the higher your income, um, the higher the level is that you go in, um, and then, uh, the lower the income, the lower the level, the lower the income, the, the greater exemption that you get. Mr. Hagen, was that photo of you? Yes. Danny competes in the Highland Games. I do like to throw, throw that in there. And get, get to play on levels. Yeah, I see. I was like, what are, what's the purpose? I, I like it. Well, and also if, if the assessor has or if the assessor can throw 56 pounds over a 12 ft bar. They should also be able to spread awareness about the senior exemption program. Recent improvements. So there were some major recent improvements in 2023, but um actually as of two weeks ago, uh, Governor Ferguson signed into law in gross substitute Senate bill 6162. Um, so, so that is a big change. Um, so starting in 2027, um, when I put the slide slow together, I thought that they expected jump was to go from 48 to 65. Um, it's actually going to be going from 48 to

78,000. So the income threshold is going to go up um immensely. Uh, the other thing that I mentioned is the, the veteran, um, enabled disability goes from 100% down to 40%. So if you are just 40% disabled, that makes uh allows for you to be qualified, um, in and not have to be the age. So that that counts for the age instead. So you don't have to be a certain age, you can just be, um, veteran, um, with that 40% disability. Um, the other new thing that's being added is a standard deduction. So one thing that's been a real big issue for assessor's offices is um you saw a lot of those deductions were, were medical expenses. So seniors are having to bring their whole medical history to our office and paper and show us the receipts. Um, we don't want them to have to do that. We, we don't want to have to do that. We don't want to see all the prescriptions they have to pay for and, and we want to kind of give them some more of their dignity back. So one of the great things is that includes a standard deduction. So now for, for individuals, that is 7500, um, and for for couples, that is uh 15,000. So it, it also expands the the people that can get in um based off of that standard deduction um, but also makes the administration our, our end easier because there's going to be a lot more um work for our office to, to administer a program that we're expecting to to increase um probably about 60%, um, starting being in next year. Closing call to action, um, I like to go out there and and remind people that uh when compared to other taxes, property tax is, is good as long as it's administered fairly, um, in the state of Washington, the senior exemption program really helps protect the most vulnerable and we want to make sure that that program is, is out there and people are aware of it. Um, big changes

are coming in 2027. Uh, I, I know there's gonna be a lot more news coverage, um, and I'll be doing a lot um over the next 6 months to, to spread the word. Talking to people you know and spreading the word about this, um, the better, um, because we we, my goal is to make sure every senior that could be in this program is in this program and not paying any more um taxes than they have to be. And with that, I will take any questions. questions for Danny Yes, I got it, and this is not a joke, I promise. I've been inappropriate tonight, but um thank you for coming. It's been wonderful. Um, this is something that I was, and maybe this is an offline question, but um when I was going through and I'm, I, I like this idea of trying to um when we have a new development, figure out exactly how much property tax is coming from, uh, from that new development So, um, I, I was just looking up our numbers for this year, I believe, uh, Mount Vernon has about $6 billion of valuation, something like or yes, about $6 billion of valuation. So when we have a new development come in, and let's say it's $10 million. That total amount that first year, that gets dumped into the valuation as its entirety and that gets used in a different way than existing properties for a levy rate. It gives you kind of like a, a levy lid lift, like a it just lifts what you're highest capacity is for your levy. So when you're figuring out your, your, um, highest capacity levy rate each year that new construction goes on top of the 1%. So we figure out what percent of that 6 billion was added, um, and that the previous year's levy rate is additional levy capacity. Um. and so that

when we talk about um we in the office, we like to talk about levy capacity a lot more than rates, cause everything is really based off of that budget number. So we would calculate what kind of additional budget capacity that brings to your, to your total budget, um, and then we are then calculating that newest highest level that'd be the right. Excellent. OK I understood about 30%, and I will follow up a little bit later. And if anybody else is interested, I'll share that. Thank you. You have a question. All right, thank you, Danny. I hope you can come back sometime. Yeah, absolutely. Maybe a kilt next time. Absolutely. Thanks, Danny. Danny, right, I 60 is a resolution for police canine and vehicle purchase and our finance director, Dougalleski is going to present this item. Yeah Thank you, Mara. Good evening council members. Um, I'm here tonight to request city council approval of a resolution authorizing the purchase of a police canine and a dedicated K9 police vehicle. funded through the general fund as included in the 2026 adopted budget. The Mount Vernon Police Department seeks to re-establish its police canine program, which has been in place since 1979. The purchase will replace canine vector, who was retired in 2023. The new canine will serve as a critical tool in disrupting drug trafficking and sales within the city while also supporting public engagement at community and special events. A police canine requires a specially outfitted vehicle to ensure the animal safety and effectiveness. This includes features such as climate controlled kennel and heat alarm systems to prevent overheating. The dedicated canine vehicle will improve

response times and operational efficiency in drug interdictions efforts. The vehicles will be procured through the Washington State bid process for police-related vehicles. Funding for these expenditures is included in the 2026 General Fund adopted budget approved by city council in November of 2026 through ordinance number 3927. Budgeted costs include the acquisition of a professionally trained police canine professionally trained in narcotic narcotics detection detection and traffic tracking, excuse me. I dedicated a Kine vehicle necessary equipment and associated training. City staff will utilize the Washington state bid process to procure a properly equipped Kine vehicle. So tonight's city staff requested the city council approve resolution Number 1094 authorizing the purchase of a police canine and a dedicated canine vehicle as provided for in the 2026 adopted budget. Nicky, OK, um, Chief Christman is, is not here tonight, um, Lieutenant Mike Moore is here. He can answer questions Kevin Rogerson, City Attorney, is here, uh, and one of the questions, I guess for you is already come up about the, the WCIA and the, the use of force policy that we have Can you tell us what, what you learned from from our risk pool. So we have a risk pool or a membership of. It's the largest one in the state. It's called the Washington City's Insurance Authority. They have an excellent program called a risk program. You can request that they give you legal consultation on policies to see if it complies with the law or if there are changes that are recommended. So the city attorney's office made that request that was accepted and an outside attorney was assigned, did review the policy, and we have had follow-up discussions with police. on the policy.

There is a draft policy that I believe is close to the final forum that's based upon legal review. Uh, I've looked at it, um, outside councils looked at it and it complies with both federal and state laws and the standards. the legal standards on use of force, including, I know there was some discussion on objective reasonableness. It does follow the requirement under the Federal standard that any use of force by a cana must be objectively reasonable based on the totality of the circumstances. which this focusing on three criteria. They're known as the Graham factors. Why is a grams based on a case called Graham v. O'Connor. Graham v. Connor in 1989. but it still requires consideration of all the facts. And it also complies with state law, which includes uh that you know K9 team has to be certified and asked to follow uh certification process including regular training and tracking and all the standards that are set forth in the criminal justice Training Commission that's required in our Washington administrative code. So, um, there is a draft policy that complies with uh the. applicable law, both state and federal level. Questions for Doug on budget, Lieutenant Moore on police impacts or for Kevin on policy. Mr. Ann Hanna been right Um let's see. So first on the policy, so this is like an internal like this is like a Mount Vernon specific policy that is being drafted. Use of force policies are drafted by this common practice for the use of force by your law enforcement. So

our policy obviously wouldn't apply to that cord to SPD. wouldn't apply to Burlington PD. It would apply to our police department, correct? Do we have a copy of this? I don't know what you have, but police have a policy provided a copy. Did he? No, I don't think so. Negative. Melissa thought he did. I, I thought that after our, one of our last meetings, he had indicated he was going to provide us with a number of I thought he did or maybe I looked it up on my own Um, there's a canine model policy, um, dated 25-2026. Um and then question for Doug. Um, so the 100,000 from the general fund. that could potentially be used for basically anything else if we chose to Is that right? Or are there restrictions of some kind for these funds. So what we have we have budget numbers that we have to follow within, within the year. So there was a $100,000 of general fund money budgeted for this purpose. It was stating that um we were going to use opioid money for that. Counsel has sent um approved ordinance 1093 last time to. secure that money for use for other things. So one of the other items that is budgeted in their budget is 1000 excuse me, a million dollars in vacancy savings. The first quarter we've already realized $654,000 in vacancy

savings, so we have about only about $345,000 left. to make up for the remaining 3 quarters. So, um looking at the numbers and then from here, yes, it looks like there's gonna be some available vacancy savings money that we could use for this purpose. OK. Let's remember just to make sure that I understood that correctly. Thank you. um. if we do not fund the canine, we will have that those funds unrestricted to any other GFS or General Fund. categories, correct? OK, thank you. And then I do yep, go ahead. Thank you. So Kevin, regarding the so I looked at the, you know, this is a high interest um item since I've been on council. And I did look at the, some of the other policies, city-level policies that are kind of common throughout Washington. Um, at least from what I was able to find, but one of them, for instance, it's just some some of them seem to be common sense. The canine would not be used against disabled, would not be used against elderly, would not be used against adolescents, would not be used against people who are experiencing a substance abuse issue or a medical issue. Are those contained in the policy that we have now? They're not contained. If we want to have a discussion about amending our policies on the legal risks. I'm prepared to have that discussion with you, but I can't have that discussion unless you waive privilege by a majority vote and it needs to be done and attorney-client privilege, so I can candidly tell you the legal risks involved, uh, with, with amending policies uh on use of force,

because they're, there is potential legal risk Because I understood that, but I'm I can't talk about it in an open session. Well, I, I can't make a good vote in an open session, and we, we can go into executive session to discuss with legal counsel enforcement actions or litigation or even the potential litigation. to which uh public knowledge regarding such discussion could result in adverse legal or financial consequences that's allowed in the law and be more than happy and prepared to have that discussion. Councilmember Weston, do you want that that question answered before we move to a vote because we can't go into exact session. Mr. Mayor, I will say if there is an extreme need to have the vote tonight before we know what the policy is I can, I'd be happy to entertain that. However, oh, what is the extreme need to have the vote tonight, considering we don't know what we're voting on. We don't know what the policy of enforcement will be. We don't know what the policy of deployment will be. So we don't even know the situations in which it'll be allowed. So what's, why would we, it seems like we're putting the cart before the horse, right? We, we have a policy in place. Um, did you get that policy on, were you on that and that policy from what from my read, it does not include the updated terms that most of the cities have have added, which are not used against disabled, not used against adolescents, not used against elderly, not used against people in medical crises. Yeah, Lieutenant First of all, I want to thank the council for putting up with this. It's been a long, long road, and I understand that. And uh for some of the folks in the audience who we may or may not agree with. I also

appreciate them being passionate about their cause. Um I guess to explain force use a little bit. Um every call we go to has gun involved. And that's because the officer arrives with a handgun on them. The city council and the city and state law has allowed us to make force use decisions. Uh, I've been here 30 years. I have helped craft, uh, raft policy on force use, and I've also been a Forest and I've also handled our internal affairs. Um For use is a very complicated process and you have trusted officers my entire career to make the right force use decisions when they arrive on scene. With that the canine use over the last 20 years, I believe there was only 3.1%, I believe I may be off a percent, 3.1%. horse use in all the canine deployments. When officers arrive on scene, I could be going to arrest a felon wanted for a homicide. If this felon is compliant. turns around, listens to verbal commands, places hand behind their back. They're arrested without force You end up going to another call. It could be a trespassing. You get there and somebody assaults you in that process, that changes the force use. Force use has got to be put in the hands of people that you trust, and those are the people that are selected properly. There are people that are trained properly, and then there are the people that are supervised properly. This is no different than with a K9. Um, in that situation, the canine is no different

than me showing up with a handgun. A lot of the misconception is that the canine is a rogue tool. out on its own, making its own decisions. It's force use instrument, and it's used the same way as any of the other instruments we use. I guess, council member was. OK, so help me understand uh. why would some jurisdictions restrict the canine use under, you know, I said it 4 times now, but why would some jurisdictions restrict the canine use It force use is always officer jurisdiction at the time. I have they, have they tied their hands behind their back. this jurisdictions, they have, they have placed themselves in different difficult position If, if they don't trust, if they don't trust their officers, the training and how they've gotten to where they're at. Mr. Mayor, this, so I do have a follow-up question. Can you, can you provide um letters from those jurisdictions that have those that have those restrictions. that endorse what you've just said. I'd just like to, I just like it would help me. I was part of the conversation with our city attorney and the WCIA representatives, and I, I think uh you may entertain the idea of listening in closed session. I'm not, I'm not a legal expert as far as the city attorney, so we're not going to get letters from other jurisdictions. If, if you want to have a, a force discussion as, as we said, we can do it in executive session. That'll be helpful, Mr. Mayor. There's a certain thing that's critical. It's called voir dire. You're trying to

find out whether the person is telling you information that is reliable. So one way to, to say, hey, this is reliable as Mr. West. Here's the jurisdictions that have complained and said, I'm holding, you know what you've just endorsed. That's one way of gaining voir dire, and that's a common, that's a common legal, legal concept. So it's what I'm asking isn't, it's not unheard of. Um, but I'll, I'll table it, I'll table it. Um we can, we can vote tonight. I'll, I'll make the record and we can vote tonight. Other questions? Yeah, Council member Van deroo. This is a total left turn from what we were just talking about. Um, but I, I do feel as though they're, um, for me at least, I just want to open it up for like some general discussion. There is a communication error I think, or I felt like there was, and I just wanted to see if the rest of the council and maybe the mayor felt the same way around um how this was being done this time. And if there's a way of, sorry, not not, not trying to be accus ator here, but the it, it has been at least a month since we've talked about this last in my recollection, I think it's been a month and a half, and then it was brought up as a surprise, and I was just wondering if the rest of council feels the same way, and if there's a way that we could change that in the future and so it's not such a surprise. And if you guys don't want to talk, I completely understand. I'm calling you guys out. My, my apologies. I'll talk about it first, since the surprise was for me, I put it on the agenda. Uh, it wasn't intended to be a surprise at all, um, you know, after talking about it and, and getting public comment for 3 public meetings. Um, I, I think it was, I thought it was clear to counsel that this would be on an upcoming agenda when I will completely admit I did not even know after we were done with our last meeting on

February 18th. Didn't know when it was going to fit on agendas. I just knew it was coming up and that we would have this, this discussion and this item on the agenda after we talked about the opioid grant program and, and, and all of that. Uh, the fact that we didn't have a public safety meeting last week. Nothing to do with this. Uh, that was, had everything to do with a lack of, of items that uh could go on that agenda and Chief Christman was out of town. uh, circumstantial hindsight, if it would have been helpful, absolutely could have held that meeting, held the public safety meeting, put this item on there and, and talked about it, uh, at that time, so. No, thank you for that context. And I can hear it in your voice that you're recovering from something. So thank you for coming tonight. Um no problem. but to the rest of the council, do you guys also, is that just me that was feeling that way? I, I don't feel that way I, I, we've talked about this, um, a lot. So, you know, we've had public input, we've had, uh, discussion amongst ourselves. I, I don't see that in a similar way. I also felt that um I think the reason we, it didn't go last time was because we were really focused on not using the opioid funds, realizing that this was going to come back. This was just saying, no, not using the opioid funds that this was something that the previous council who voted on the budget. um, and said, yes, we want to do this unanimously. Um we knew that this was going to come up and this would come up again. So no, I wasn't, I mean, I wasn't shocked, I guess it's probably the right word to use. But I hear what you're saying about if this is, if something would come, I mean, there's obviously things that can happen with urgency. There are things that we need to

address urgently that aren't going to be something we discussed beforehand, right? But I see what I see what you're saying. You know, if this is something similar, if you will. I mean, I don't know what it would be at this point, but could we have maybe the week before the talk about it. At least have a heads up if you exactly. Council member West and Council member Dean. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So one thing that would make things I think, better for in terms of process is if there items which are likely to go to needing an executive session Wouldn't it make sense to have the executive session prior to the vote We absolutely could and still can. It's awkward. That would seem to make sense to me. Yep, and that offer still stable, yeah. Council member Damon, yes, I was agreeing with Mary, and I do think if, if there's something with the agenda, I personally would like to see it before Friday if possible, like maybe if it were the beginning of the week. I know I'm sorry, pain was, sorry I'm Um, but just, just know if there's more research or things that need to be done between us then. if it's possible. That's a. my 2 cents. Good. I'm just gonna say, Carrie, welcome to the job. And um and uh yeah, uh you know, there's always gonna be those last minute things that come up and we're up against a time, a time crunch and we need to get it on the agenda. I completely and totally understand that. But when we have issues that are near and dear to the community, um, that take more time um that it's critical that we do know about it. I knew it was coming. Um I thought it was gonna be on uh in March and was a little

surprised, and then I, so I asked, and if I forgot we were waiting to hear back from um our outside council. So, um, the only thing for me and I can understand um where the public might raise their eyebrow, if you will, is we um tried some new tech technology and we changed the format of the agenda, and we eliminated a sentence of what the agenda item is. Um, and I kind of, I, I, I looked at it and I thought, well, where's our, where's our business? I didn't even see it until I went back later and I realized, oh, it's there and this is what it's missing. I mean, it doesn't necessarily have to have staff on there that's presenting it. But what that item is. And so I can see where it would look like. The term was used in the past. The city's using the switcheroo. I could see where, you know, unfortunately that's been said before, that was my greater concern, but we now know we're gonna leave a sentence on there, so let's remember all of them. Yeah, I'm, I just want to say I, um, also think we should have discussed this in committee at least a week before, or even same day if we need to. Um. I think this is the 3rd proposal relating to the police songs that we have discussed, I believe, the first two we did discuss in committee, um, and I think in the name of transparency, I think really we should have discussed it, um. even last week when we canceled the meeting instead. The hindsight is 2020. Yeah, I, uh, just want uh thank you all for saying something. I really appreciate all the feedback here. Um, uh, for me, I, when I work through like a problem like this, I know something

is going to be very contentious. Um, I think I get a little bit fixated on the process. And so I do not think that there was necessarily a lack of transparency, but in the effort to be as transparent as humanly possible, there's a system that I would have preferred to follow in this case. That would have let left all doubt out if that makes sense. And that would have for me looked like a committee and then after that committee with an informal suggestion is, OK, let's have this, and then we have both. So thank you guys for entertaining this. The other questions or discussion. I have some questions. Yes, yeah. I have a question. So, um, with the canine dogs, so I know that there's different certifications and things, so would this potential dog be certified. I'm specifically looking to see about the certification for drugs. Like I know that there's a like a certification for narcotics and other things. how it training certifications are set forth by the Criminal Justice Training Commission and their standards. And the dog needs to meet that standard in whatever discipline issues, whether it's tracking or narcotics or both. And if the dogs don't maintain that standard, they can be decommissioned during the time that they're being retrained or if the dog's not suitable at that point, they can take just like an officer, take away the dogs certification to function as an officer. because that, that's kind of what you're looking at though is getting a dog to be certified and tracking like that's, it would definitely be certified to operate within our city. OK. Cause I had other topics, uh have been brought up in saying that some of the previous dogs weren't certified, so it's just. Well, that, that was, uh,

Luther, Luther was certified as a tracking dog. Um, but what happened was, uh, officer Ra at the time was Luther resenting the end of his career. Officer Wright was a master handler. He wanted to train Luther in narcotics detection, but he knew Luther would never be used for narcotics detection. So he was trained in narcotics detection, but it wasn't used and we wouldn't use a non-certified dog in that position. Uh, that was more of a training tool for the trainer. OK. So as he trained dogs for other agencies and trained vector later on. Um He had a skill set developed. But yes, any, any dog that we would deploy would be certified by the state and meet state standards in both. in both. Other questions, yes really, I don't have a question. Um but I just wanted to respond to kind of what um what Randy's been talking about, about the restrictions and making sure that the dogs are used properly. It's really not that any of us distrust the police. It's not that there's a lack of trust necessarily. It's that we want to make sure that these dogs are used properly now and into the future. It's the same way we have checks and balances and restrictions on us as the legislative body We can't just do whatever we want. The mayor can't do whatever he wants. Um. it's the exact same thing. We need to make sure that any of our tools, whether it's your gun or a dog. we need to make sure that they're used properly now and into the

future. I also want to say I really wish we would put more focus and more of our budget into crime prevention versus crime response. A small fraction of our budget goes to crime prevention or harm prevention. A lot of folks earlier were talking about sidewalks and safe streets. I would rather put this money into a study on making our streets more pedestrian and bike friendly, or putting the money into um the library. We could pilot the Sundays at the library. Um, Isaac said it was $100,000 same cost. I would love to do that. Studies show that when we have free public spaces for people to go to. Crime goes down. I would really like it if now and also into the future when we make other decisions, um, especially in the budget that we think about crime and harm prevention. instead of only response. in Yes, Councilor. OK, and I added this. I know I said that I would kind of rest, but there is one concept that Hannah reminded me of when you were speaking, so I appreciate that, Hannah. And that's um I think if you ever seen my first email to Chief Chrisman regarding the canine issue a couple months ago. It was related to it's, it's not the, it's not a lack of trust in the police department. It's basically the idea of we're talking about a German shepherd, right? Correct. I most likely. OK, so German Shepherd. A happy German shepherd is one that's behind a

fence where he knows that that's his domain. and that's really the concept that I'm thinking of is offense doesn't punish the canine. It allows Him a place for her, a place to realm successfully. right? It's protecting, you know, I love my neighbors, but I also love that I have a fence in my backyard. It doesn't mean that I don't love my neighbors. And they probably would say the same thing, you know, vice versa. I, I've, I've kind of lost me on that. The fence, the fence basically is the restrictions, right? Restrictions aren't punishment. Restrictions are saying your healthy domain is within this yard. Don't go over to other yards. That's what, that's what I'm trying to say by someone who's disabled someone who's elderly, someone who's an adolescent, which are things that other cities have done recently. Boosting common sense to me. Now if the, if the person jumps out of the wheelchair and starts running, that's a different story, of course. That's, that's not what I'm talking about But I'm thinking about where I live, you know. off of college way There's specific uh disabled community that asked me, Brandy, if you get on council think of us and it's a, it's really sad that I can't. it doesn't seem that I'm gonna be able to get them something that's satisfactory And I, I don't want a what if any situation to death. Um, and hypothetical you have somebody causing self-harm in a wheelchair You have several options. You can send an officer up where you may have to use

deadly force because the subject's got a knife. You could try less lethal options. or you can send canine in for the take and then get the person into custody and safely to treatment. Oh wow Uh, supervising canines for 20 years. Uh, that's exactly how they work. So that would be a situation where we had policy that you could not deploy a dog on somebody in that condition. and we didn't deploy the dog and they self-inflicted. So but there again, I don't want to, I don't want to take every situation, but this is where the trust in the law, all law enforcement officers training, experience, and supervision comes into play. Any other questions I know. Sorry, but I just Kevin does that sound like the way that this should be applied. I mean, I can tell you what the los states currently, and then I can tell you in the appropriate venue changes to your policies to make it mechanically applied Um, and I can give you legal, uh, legal consult's opinion on that, but you know, I'm a, I'm an officer of the court. You're my client. I have to be able to do that under attorney-client privilege in the appropriate. venue provided in law unless you waive that privilege. It's your privilege to away. Um that would take a majority vote of the council. I look And I'm happy to have that discussion tonight or at any time at your leisure. Council member Van deroo, um, is there an appetite to go into. Yes. I, I would be willing to. Yes, yes. OK. I have 3 others. OK. I would ask the city attorney to please call City council and the mayor to executive session. We're

going to have an executive session to discuss legal counsel regarding agency enforcement actions, litigation, or potential litigation to which the city of the governing body or a member acting in an official capacity is or is likely to become a party when public knowledge regarding the discussions likely lead to result in neither adverse legal or financial consequences to the city. pursuant to RCW 423,110 subsection 1 I. Uh I'm gonna call it for 20 minutes, so we would reconvene at 8 40, 54 with potential final action after since we still have an agenda item. Um, for members of the public if we go over, I'm obligated by law to come out and announce the time we go over. Otherwise, if I don't announce, then we

would reconvene at the time I just stated.

OK, OK, with that, we will adjourn into

executive session.

Yeah All right, the city council meeting for April 8, 2026 is back in order. Uh, the time is now 8:52 p.m. Council, any other discussion on this item, uh, 6B, the resolution for a police canine and vehicle purchase. Yes. Let's remember Oliver Before we vote, I just want to remind everyone that if we don't fund a police dog right now. We could do a whole lot of other things. with these funds I know that the police department has had a dog in the past. Great That does not mean we have to have one. moving into the future I think there's a lot of other great things that we could do with these funds. I know that the amount of money is not a huge amount of money. Um, at least compared to the rest of our budget, but $100,000 can do a whole lot for this community. And I just want to remind everybody that Thanks. Council member West That same 100k will pay for 52 weekends, 52 Sundays of library use. Other thoughts counsel this's resolution 1094. Go ahead I'd like to call for the question Second, OK, a motion by

Navora, second by Mary for uh to pass resolution 1094, uh, any more discussion on this? Just a point of clarification, we don't have to call for the question. You can just do the motion. Um, just for, just so instead of the question, just if you say to pass this. no question needed. I thought I'd already moved. Uh, I don't believe that there was a motion on the floor. This is, are, you made a motion, I assume, to, to approve resolution 1094. Correct. So do we capture that and then Mary's 2 and then Mary's second to that. You got those, sorry, not, not trying to just, just for clar't read my book yet. Any discussion on that? Roll call vote, please. I'm sorry? Roll call boot Oh. Oh, just discussion since we're still on it just for a moment, um, I, I hope that it doesn't come to a it's, it's unfortunate. I, I do wish that we would do more sidewalk improvements. I wish that there was something that we could spend $100,000 on. I was recently almost in an accident. That was very scary for me with the pedestrian, um, and I do hope that we are able to open up um the uh library for Sundays. I hope that this isn't an either or thing, um, but the other things that we're talking about are not in front of us tonight. Um, I do not feel comfortable with taking boats when um the council is um so contentious when this group here is not an agreeable form, and I would prefer not to do it tonight. Um, that's my only comment. Other comments? Yeah Yeah that's my. Thank you. I'm going to make a statement. Um, first, I want to thank everyone that has taken the time to um email, call and speak on this issue. Uh, community engagement like this is important, and I appreciate the perspective and concerns of everyone. Um, it was important to me that any decision

that I make includes hearing from as many community members, um, as possible, and I think that I have done that. Um, I wanna, I wanna briefly uh talk about HB 1054 from 2021. It was a police reform bill, um, that was sponsored by 36 Democratic legislators, including two of our local legislators. Um a number of things came from that. And I'm just gonna briefly state them. Officers can no longer do no knock warrants. That means they cannot get a search warrant. Go to the mayor's house and just knock down his door. That they can't do that anymore. Um uh, they must have identification at all times unless, of course they're undercover or something like that. Um, they cannot engage in vehicle pursuit unless under certain factors. um, we may not acquire any type of military equipment. We may not use tear gas unless of course it's a riot type of situation. Um, one of the things that came from this bill was um that also there's reporting requirements for the use of a canine. When a canine is deployed, um, but a work group, a statewide work group was created and included the following members and it was large. Uh, families who have lost loved ones as a result of violent interactions with law enforcement. An organization advocating for civil rights. A statewide organization advocating for black Americans. A statewide organization advocating for Latinos, a statewide organization advocating for Asian

Americans, Pacific Islanders, and native Hawaiians. A federally recognized tribe located in Washington State, a community organization in eastern Washington, working on police accountability. A community organization from Western Washington working on police accountability. I need to breathe. A community organization serving persons who are unhoused. The faith-based community with advocacy on police accountability. An emergency room doctor with relevant experience. Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, Washington State Patrol, Washington Fraternal Order of Police and the Washington Council of Police and Sheriffs, uh, Washington State Patrol Troopers Association and a Council of Metropolitan Police and Sheriffs, and also teamsters. This group was tasked with the model policy to be used um for canines And it was to touch on the training curriculum, including the history of race and policing, circumstances where the deployment of a canine may not be appropriate. Circumstances where deployment of a canine on a leash may be appropriate. Strategies for reducing the overall rate of canine bites, circumstances where a canine handler should consider the use of tactics other than deploying a canine. The list goes on. What I heard was that people were most concerned about using our opioid funding, and we have resolved that issue. Our community continues to be impacted by bad actors who prey on vulnerable individuals.

Our children and people in active addiction. while our city works to provide hope and support to those affected, we should also address the root cause. Police canine units are one of those tools that can help in that effort. We know our police department has been understaffed for years, both by national standards and on a per capita basis locally. Given these limitations, it's important to make effective use of the resources we do have. Canines are a valuable and highly trained resource. They live with their handlers, and they're carefully integrated into both their professional and family environments They serve critical roles. Some of those are in detection, assisting in local drugs explosives, or God forbid, missing persons especially our children, deterrents, discouraging suspects from fleeing and helping to de-escalate the situation. Officer safety allowing for safer building checks. You're sending in that canine as opposed to no canine, and we are sending in our officers with their guns drawn. Some of the concerns raised were risk of injuries to civilians, and while any use of force carries risk. There is no pattern of repeated past injuries in our community indicative of the significant training both the handler and the dog undergo on a continuing basis. Training and maintenance costs. These are significantly lower than the cost of hiring and training additional officers, and while we recently passed that levy. that is adding one officer a year and still keeps us below the national

average. When canines are not part of a high of high-risk responses. It often means greater risk for our officers and our community. Our officers are part of this community and care deeply about it. In fast moving situations involving potential weapons, events can unfold quickly, and the consequences can affect everyone involved. Using a canine as a de-escalation tool can create distance. reduce immediate threats and potentially prevent the need for deadly force. for the safety of both officers and suspects, I believe, canine deployment can help save lives of victims suspects, and our officers. And for those reasons, I will be voting to support the canine in the police department. Thank you, Councilman. Any other discussion before the book? OK Uh, we will do a roll call vote, and will start with councilmember West, yay or no? Nay. Council member David. Yes. Council member, yes Councilmember Hudson, yes. Councilmember Josera, yes. Council member Oliver. No. Council member Van der Stoop. Yes. resolution 1094 passes. for item 7, I will ask our city attorney if there's a need for executive sessions. No. And with that, we will adjourn the city of Mount Vernon City Council meeting for Wednesday, April 8, 2026 at 9:03 p.m.