City Council - Regular Meeting

good afternoon it is as it is 1 p.m. I will call the City Council workshop of June 9th 2026 to order reminder that this is both a physical and a virtual meeting the meeting may be viewed on YouTube and on Facebook following the meeting public comment is not normally taken at workshop meetings although the council may allow or request public participation on action items we have one action item on our workshop agenda today Welcome to all in attendance. We're going to start this meeting by the reading of a proclamation. I was reminded at our last meeting by Mayor Pro Tem Heisen that we had not created and put forth a proclamation in celebration of Pride Month. Considering the outpouring of comments we have received and the heartfelt testimonies from those local residents in and in support of the LGBTQ plus community, I believe this is the time to honor Pride Month and to revisit an action for the display of the Pride commemorative flag. among other recognized commemorative flags by the city, such as the Juneteenth flag, as proposed by Resolution 2610. And now, Mayor Pro Tem will read the proclamation.

Thank you, Mayor. City of Oak Harbor, Office of the Mayor, Ronnie Wright, Mayor Proclamation. Whereas... The origins of Pride Month has its roots in the gay rights movement in the early 1900s and the Society for Human Rights, founded in Chicago in the 1920s. And whereas about 9% of United States adults identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning, according to a 2025 Gallup poll, And whereas in June 2000, President Bill Clinton officially designated June as Gay and Lesbian Pride Month in recognition of the Stonewall Riots of the 1960s and gay activism throughout the years. A more inclusive name was chosen in 2009 by President Barack Obama, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. And whereas Pride Month is not only an annual celebration of identity and visibility, but of the many contributions made by the LGBT community. LGBTQ plus community to history and cultures worldwide. And whereas members of the LGBTQ plus community, along with their allies, have been showing up for each other for decades. And whereas Pride Month is all about promoting culture, diversity, making space and showing support. And therefore, Now we, Mayor Ronnie Wright, and the council members of the city of Oak Harbor do hereby proclaim June 2026 as Pride Month in the city of Oak Harbor. And we encourage all residents to enjoy local Whidbey Island celebration and events. Signed this ninth day of June 2026, Mayor Ronnie Wright.

Thank you very much, Mayor Pro Tem.

All right, so next up on the agenda is we have an action item, resolution 2610, display of commemorative flags. And here to introduce this topic is our city administrator, Sabrina Combs.

Thank You mayor council in the last meeting that we had there was discussion of the fact that this had been brought forward before and so due to the public comment and since this was an item that we already had available for us to revisit we brought it forward today for you to look at so I'm just waiting for Tim to bring up the information so it would be resolution 2610 affirming that the display of flags on city property is government speech and under which instances commemorative flags will be displayed and what we're looking at is updating with this resolution the policy to allow for flags to be flown for certain reasons or events

so the resolution if adopted would allow for these commemorative flags to be flown and the resolution is in your packet for more details great thank you so much and I will first confirm whether or not we received any public comments on this issue yes mayor we received a couple of public comments in this last week that we will display and then we will see if anyone signed up for speaking today okay great thank you So Tim, if you'll bring up those public comments. Yes. Mayor, that concludes the comments that we received in advance. I see a few people are still signing in to speak.

Okay, great. We'll go ahead and wait another minute or so for those to sign in, and then we'll take that list and begin receiving those public comments. No, I have a purple. I didn't know. Thanks, Deputy Chief Barton. Thank you.

Mayor, the first person who signed in to speak today is Tim, I hope I'm saying your name correctly, Tim Haslow?

OK. All right, Tim, if you could please step forward to the podium, state your name and your address, and limit your public comments to three minutes, please. Right back there.

Tim Hazeloh, 730 Soundview Lane, Oak Harbor, Washington. First of all, I'm not here to speak for or against any type of organization, ethnic group, religious group, sexual group. None of that stuff matters in this argument that we're having here today in this debate that we're having today. What I'm here to talk about is flying of non-governmental flags and banners on city property. This issue was addressed previously in previous sessions, and I respectfully request, why are we revisiting this matter here today? This decision has already been made previously, so why are we revisiting it? Is it because we have a couple of ideological people in our elected officials that take on a crusade and want to push this? That's a good question. Let me ask you another question. Is Oak Harbor an inclusive place for all to live? It's a logical question, is it not? I think it is. After speaking and knowing most of the council, after being around this country and this community for years and years and doing the things I've done, I've met a lot of people. I would suggest, yes, it is. In general, we treat each other with respect in Oak Harbor, in Island County for that matter. We could ask the police. They would probably agree. We can ask my friends on the council. They would probably agree. So if we're already inclusive in Oak Harbor, why do we need to break longstanding traditions by displaying special interest flags to prove it? Flying any ideological flag on a government property inherently favors that ideology by that government. That is not true inclusivity. It excludes those who don't agree with it. Whatever it may be, that particular message becomes a government message. So we become, as a government, divisive and exclusive rather than inclusive to all. I bet there would be heck of an uprising here in Oak Harbor if somebody came in here and said, I want to fly the Christian flag on the flagpole. I don't know for sure, because I would never suggest that. The cleanest, fairest policy here is to fly only the flag of the United States of America, the flag of the state of Washington, and the flag of the city of Oak Harbor. This unites all of us under shared citizenship without any bias and excluding offending anybody. A very simple and honest and easy way to fix this problem and have no animosity on either side. By definition, any secular or ideological flag represents one group's belief. When government flies it, we become exclusive rather than inclusive. Private citizens, on the other hand, and businesses have every right to fly whatever flag they choose and will reap the rewards or the consequences of that decision based on their decisions, not based on the government's decision. But government, government should remain neutral. Government should remain neutral on these stances. I'll end with this, a bit redundant but worth the repeat. Secular, or as we like to call it now, special interests.

Mr. Haslow, I'm sorry, that is your three minutes.

Thank you.

Mayor, next on our list to speak is Mike Radish.

Mike Raddick, 684 Southwest 2nd Avenue, a 55-year resident of the city. I'd like to know who Julie is, who I spoke to on the phone this morning. That's me, sir. I called Julie to ask if there was public comment possible this morning. I told her that I had written out my comments, and you said I could distribute those at this time?

Okay.

Has my time begun? OK. I only have 100 words. I want to read it as well as allow you to read it, because I want some of the inflection of my voice, perhaps, to say something that the words themselves don't say. I've come to voice my support for the policy now in effect, which was enacted by this council. by this council 11 months ago a non-discriminating policy which continues to identify our city as a community which stands for liberty and justice for all all means all oak harbor must continue to be a city that is home to all without preference to whatever without preference to whatever any individual or faction may wish to advance as their particular cause. Today, as in the past, let the stars and stripes be the banner which unites us under these two common details, liberty and justice for all. And I would also, I think I have a little more time. I'd like to just make a comment regarding the resolution wording in particular. There's a few things in here that are, I think, disturbing to me. One is the whereases. On the fourth whereas, which reads, the city council declares and affirms that flagpoles in the city of Willcarver property are not intended to serve as a forum for free expression of the public, but rather as a non-public forum for the display of flags as required by law. I've read that over five or six times, and I can't make sense out of that. What is a non-public forum for the display of flags? Wouldn't the display of flags be a public forum? And I just don't think I'm that ignorant of English to know that that's a very confusing statement. I think that needs to be clarified if this is indeed going to be enacted. And also, I have a concern about the absence of some information on the details. For instance, there is a glaring absence of any indication about how long a commemorative flag should fly. Is it a day? Is it a week? Is it a month? Is it all year long? There's nothing in here written. It seems like it was maybe written quickly without forethought of what the details would be. Thank you. Thank you.

Mayor, the next person who signed up to speak is Jennifer Juniper.

Hello, my name is Jennifer Juniper. I am an Oak Harbor resident. I live at 1085 SE Forgotta Drive. I've been a resident of the city of Oak Harbor for nine years. My partner passed away two years ago, so I am now a widow of a disabled veteran who served proudly in the United States Air Force during the first Gulf War and contracted cancer during that war. And she's also a disabled police officer as well. So she served her time and I'm continuing on her legacy by picking up this flag and running with it. I just finished organizing a very successful Pride celebration this last weekend. It was absolutely beautiful for any of you who weren't there. So what I'm asking now is that the city please pass this resolution to fly the flag, the pride flag, and other commemorative flags at City Hall and Flintstone Park and other parks properties during the month of June. For reference, Anacortes, Coupeville, Langley, all fly the pride flag during June, as does Skagit Valley College, Whidbey Campus, and Mount Vernon Campus. So the fact that Oak Harbor does not fly the flag, we are an outlier. And even though we are considered a super inclusive city, and I do agree, I think it's a very cozy, safe place to be. But sometimes there can be things, some bigotry and backlash that happens toward people in the community, even if they are flying the flag at their own businesses or at their home properties. So we also have, of course, probably the largest population of queer people in this community. And considering we have quite a big population, to fly the pride flag is not to exclude anybody. It's actually to say that we're being more inclusive. We're showing that we actually have love for our people that have been marginalized. And it's not to say that we're also not going to of course fly the Juneteenth flag and maybe a POW MIA flag as well. So it's not, I'm saying that the city property is not just a place only to fly flags that are government flags. Clearly we do tend to fly other flags too. So all I'm asking you guys is please pass this resolution. The reason why it didn't get any traction last year is because most of us didn't realize that that was happening. We just didn't know. So now that the community is actually aware of what's happening, then we're, of course, out here in full force supporting you all. So good luck to you all, council. I hope you make a good decision. Thank you for your time.

Mayor, the next person who has signed up to speak is Reverend Dr. Philip A. Bernhardt House.

Good afternoon, Mayor Wright. Good afternoon, council members. It was said at a previous meeting, my name is Reverend Dr. Philip A. Bernhardt House. I live at 101 Southeast Ely Street here in Oak Harbor. I was born here. I've lived the majority of my life here. The majority of my career has also been here. It was said at a previous meeting that the wheels of government click by very slowly, and so I applaud you all for taking very rapid action on this. There is much that could be said, but I will speak from my own experience. Having grown up here, graduated high school here, all of the times when I was a kid and didn't even know myself entirely yet, that I was called a little faggot. that I was called any number of other slurs has made this particular moment quite a moment that we have come this far in this relatively small period of time. As much as this city is inclusive, as much as the general population's experience of this city is quite good, it is not good for everyone, it has not always been good for everyone, and we cannot guarantee that it always will be good for everyone. I've continued to face both overt and covert discrimination in workplace contexts in this city, not only for gender and sexuality reasons, for reasons of disability, for reasons of religion, for many other reasons. This is a good step for saying that we recognize that there are people out there who are not experiencing the equality and liberty and justice for all that the flag of the United States represents. And there are many in that category, many other demographics of people. If it is not your experience, that that kind of discrimination is part of your daily existence, then you may not understand that that's the case. And so I invite anyone who that is not your experience to first of all, thank whatever deity you believe in that that's not your experience. And second of all, extend compassion and a hand of friendship to those that do not have that experience. Thank you very much for your time.

Mayor, next signed up to speak is Sarah Dean.

Good afternoon, Mayor Wright and council members. My name is Sarah Dean at 258 Southwest Judson Drive, and I am new to Oak Harbor as of February of this year. I moved here with my family after my husband retired from serving in the U.S. Navy for 20 years. I booked concerts for international touring musicians for the last 20 years, and I'm now the owner of a new vintage shop on Pioneer in the Harborside Village Mall. Last week I was gifted a fabulous flag from Mayor Ronnie that says all are welcome and I was very eager to hang this flag with pride. Yesterday I received an alarming request from my landlord asking me to remove the flag. She led with we don't participate in political things to which I said I'm confused as to how saying all are welcome inside of my business is political. She repeated her request and asked me to take it down. I was then called and offered an exit should I not comply. I am not a person looking for problems. I'm a peaceful person. I'm a person seeking community and my priority is to support the City of Oak Arbor with my business as a new citizen who has immersed herself locally with the Chamber, with the Main Street Association and I have even bigger goals to create opportunities within the community with my various skills as a music agent that I've picked up over the last one years. I am seeking support from my new community to pass this resolution in this moment to make it permissible in all of Oak Harbor to celebrate inclusivity. No flag should ever be considered a weapon. We're not here to make a scene about a flag. We just want Oak Harbor to stay a place where any business and any person feels like they belong, especially at Yawn Bureau. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Sarah.

Mayor, next to speak is Maria Gallegos.

Hi, my name is Maria Gallegos. I live at 65 Northwest Crosby Avenue here in Oak Harbor. As I stated at the last city council meeting, I am the student government president for our Whidbey Island campus at Skagit Valley College here. And so I am here to represent all of our queer students that couldn't make it today. I would like to point out that as a government, you have a duty to your people and your people also your queer community that needs your support as stated last time there is a lot happening with our federal government right now that has changed a lot of people a lot of queer people's lives currently and has put a lot of us in danger and fearing for our safety I want to say that government should be neutral on a lot of matters but putting up the flag is neutral this isn't saying that you are For everybody being queer or for everybody being against being queer, it's just saying that we recognize we have this community and we recognize that we have a duty to protect them just as much as everybody else. I understand that as Americans we should all be represented by the American flag, but it has historically not been that way and we have to acknowledge that. It is not enough for us to say that everybody should be recognized by the American flag. I will say, as myself, as a Mexican-American queer living in America, our federal government has said that they do not want me to be represented by that flag. Putting up that flag reminds people, especially in our town, that at least at a city level, our government stands with us, recognizes us, and wants to work with us and protect us like your guys' job is to do. Putting up the flag is neutral. And putting up that flag does not harm anybody. It is not saying we exclude anybody. It does no harm. So I don't understand why a flag would be so hard to get approved. And as stated before, this doesn't have to be the only flag. We're not going for exclusion. We are trying to say all these communities that have been harmed, that have not been represented by the American flag, we can show support of by a simple flag. so as somebody who does government in my school I just want to say that regardless of whatever we say there are always going to be people that do not feel included by default and it should be our job to make sure that they do feel included at the end of the day that is what government is for thank you mayor next on our list that signed up is Alexis honey

Good afternoon. My name is Alexis Honey at 563 Northeast Kettle Street. I want to first start saying that I am a Navy veteran. I was stationed in Sasebo, Japan on the USS Green Bay as a combat electrician, has been on eight patrols, have been in life-threatening situations, have lost shipmates, and fought for my country very strongly and proudly. With that being said, I was asked to come here just to support. And for the first time in my life here in Oak Harbor, I had seen that I had been in the most inclusive place that I had seen just because of the people that I've seen in big places. And it is very disheartening to think that flying the pride flag would be displaying an ideology, which is odd to me because being who we are isn't an ideology, it's who we are. And the flag is just to show that the people that who they are are safe in the places that they live. It's a a banner of sanctuary, knowing that the places that we go, we're safe to stand in. Because regardless if you want to see it or not, these marginalized groups are being discriminated against. They're being actively worked against that they don't exist, that their identity is somehow some mental illness. And as I stand as a veteran that has fought for this country, to know that the town that I live in and the country that I live in is ashamed to even represent and show me in the places that I'm safe in is just mind boggling to me. I'm sorry if somebody sees the pride flag and it makes them feel uncomfortable. But instead of externalizing and blaming other people, why don't you ask those questions yourself? Why does it make you uncomfortable? Is it hurting you? Is it causing a revolutionary war that's going to cause danger on you? Do you know what danger really looks like? Try floating in the middle of the ocean on Seventh Fleet, sharing River City, being with shipmates that don't know if they're going to make it home. That's what unsafety looks like. The flag is sanctuary and identifying that you stand on the right side of history, on the people that are marginalized is important in the seats that you sit in. We are not an ideology, we are a people, and we live here, and we're not going to stop existing, and we're not gonna stop asking to be acknowledged until it is true. That is why the American Van even exists, because we fought for our rights for a better country. So other flags that rise to show that we deserve to all be equal, let's all stand there. And for the people that don't want that, ask yourself, why? What are we afraid of? To be inclusive to people that just want to love who they love and pay their taxes. Just to know they can walk into a business and know they're included, what is that hurting you? Is it stopping business? No, it's part of business. It's also part of protecting the people in your country and your communities. Thank you for your time.

Mayor, next who signed up to speak is Cheyenne Kircher.

Good afternoon, Mayor and City Council. My name is Cheyenne Kircher. I live at 1624 Northeast 1st Avenue. Langley, Coopville, La Conner, Anacortes. Sorry. Langley, Coopville, La Conner, Anacortes, Port Townsend. All local places where I can go where I feel safe, seen, and welcome. All places that have art, fun shops, good restaurants, and the ever elusive tourist. all places that are visibly queer inclusive. Oak Harbor, I feel invisible, unwelcome, and at times unsafe. The city fully supporting the flying of the pride flag and other commemorative flags might be one tiny step towards us becoming the inclusive destination location that we all so desperately deserve to be. Thank you for your time.

Mayor, the last person on our list that signed up in advance to speak is Cheryl Johnston.

Hello, my name is Cheryl Johnston. I live on Rock Rose Drive in Oak Harbor, and I've been here since 1996. And it has warmed my heart to see... Sorry. It has warmed my heart to hear everyone tell the wonderful stories of how loved they feel in this community. And I do feel like that is representative of our community. But I also think we have to think about the long-range situation of choosing an... You say it's not an ideology, but what you have to recognize is... It wasn't very long ago in Freeland when there was a neo-Nazi group that was very, very strong in this community. And it was taken care of. But there are odd ideologies out there that are dangerous. And if we open our... flag flying to one, we have to open it to all. And I can think we can all agree on a couple things. We don't want that neo-Nazi ideology to come in here. And we can agree on two other things. We are all American citizens and we all live in Washington state. Those two things are probably the only thing that we can all agree on in here, and that is the purpose of our flags are to unite us, not to divide us. Again, I'm going to say I love the fact that our community is so loving and so caring, and we take care of each other. But I do think if we choose one thing, we are opening ourselves up for everything. And we need to be careful of that. And I would say to those that are voting, am sure that you love and care about those in the gay lesbian community I think we all do at this point we've also seen that change from one it's getting bigger and bigger and bigger so who knows where it's going And then, shoot, I lost my point. But I just want to say, as you are trying to make this decision that was made 11 months ago, as you're trying to revisit the decision and make this decision, think long range. Because sometimes it is better to choose the hard way than the wrong way. long term with all the implications. And so I would say, let's keep ourselves united under the United States flag and the Washington flag, the two flags that we can all agree on. Thank you.

Mayor, that concludes those that had signed up in advance to speak.

Great. Thanks, Julie. Is there anybody else that is with us this afternoon that would like to step forward and make public comment? Yes. Okay, step forward, state your name, address, and limit your comment to three minutes.

Yes, my name is Peggy Sheckham. I'm at 2429 Van Dam Road. I agree with the previous speaker that I think this would be opening a problem to put up the pride flag. It has become a partisan political issue, not an act of kindness, and I think commemorative flags should commemorate things we have in common and that unite us. The other problem I have is under the... banner of pride. We also have a lot of other groups, man boy love association, polygamy, pedophilia, the LGBTQ, I can't even remember all the letters. Is that really what we want to represent rather than just recognizing gay and lesbians?

All right, is there anybody else that would like to step forward and make public, yes sir, please step forward, state your name and address, and limit your comment to three minutes.

Yes. Hello. My name is Christopher Dean. I live at 258 Southwest Judson Drive. I would just like to share all the same sentiments as previously mentioned by my wife, Sarah, who's sitting over there. We own the vintage store downtown. I just wanted to say that I resent the idea that the pride flag can be compared to the Nazi flag in this town and in this city council meeting. That is not what it is about. It is a symbol of love. It is a symbol of community. It is not a symbol of Nazis. It is not a symbol of man-boy love association or whatever the heck that is. And that is not what we are here discussing. So we are here discussing unity. And that is all I have to say. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Is there anybody else that would like to step forward and make public comment at this time? All right. Hearing, seeing none, we will close public comment and call upon council for their questions and comments at this time. I'll start council member Peterson.

Thank you. Well, um, I rarely seen more outpouring of people and their opinions in this chamber. And it's wonderful to see that you all are engaged. One of the things that I have come to understand is that this holds a lot of emotion on both sides of the opinion. I hold no animus for the people of the LGBTQ plus community and, in fact, have several family members, close friends, and a lot of people I know who identify as part of it. They are my family. I love them. Making decisions that affect a municipality, however, should not be made with emotion, but rather with facts, research, and information, looking for the best interest of all of the people. A municipal flagpole, such as the one that is flown in front of a government building, a city hall, that sort of thing, in my research is reserved for government speech. I read the United States flag code and it provides protocols. Washington state law actually requires the display of the United States, Washington state, and the POW MIA flag on certain days at government buildings. That is the protocol. There are also protocols for the display of commemorative flags. I found a list of the specifically classified commemorative flags. The Juneteenth flag is one of those flags. The Pride flag, however, is not. My concern is that if we make a decision to turn our government speech flagpole into a private speech flagpole, then we will be required to fly flags or consider flags of anyone who asks. That is not a position I want to see this body faced with. Our job is to find money to fill potholes and keep our infrastructure in good repair. I appreciate the staff bringing this forward to discussion. I do not believe that we were comparing the Nazi flag to the pride flag. I believe the Reference was that once we open it up to public speech, we must open it up to all public speech. There has been before the United States Supreme Court a case where that happened in Boston and they lost the lawsuit. I don't want to cause us to have to fight a fight in the courts over this. think there are ways to solve it using our government flagpole to do that is not i would like to see a procedure brought to us from staff where we set forth very clear policies on what we will and will not do i do not want to rush into this i appreciate all the passion and everything everybody has brought to this body it is very very well taken by me but i do need to let you know i will be voting no for this

OK, next. Council Member Merrill.

Thank you, Mayor, and thank you, Council Member Peterson. There was a study that showed that Oak Harbor among small communities is ranked among the most diverse that there are in the state of Washington. And I'm mindful of the fact that there's all kinds of types of injustices and troubles that people experience, not related necessarily at all to identity politics. But the practical fact of the matter is municipality represents all of the citizens who live here. And by opening a door to what amounts to a governmental endorsement of a position, and though those who hold the position may not view it as an ideology, it has ideological overtones and after effects. So we can use any number of extremes of people or groups that would want to take advantage of putting a particular commemorative flag on the municipal flagpole. And I'm confident that there would be no end to it, because there will be one after the other after the other after the other coming to this council requesting what amounts to special recognition. So I'm not convinced that we should be doing commemorative flags, except for ones that are basically for the nation, the state, and our municipality. And I'll be voting against it. But I am mindful of the fact of the intensity of the passion with regard to those who support putting any kind of commemorative flag, especially the pride flag. But I'm also mindful of the 24,000 citizens that live in this community, I guarantee you, that there is no consensus with regard to any one particular ideology or even though there may not be an identification as an ideological group, identity politics has with it an ideological component no matter what it is. I'll be voting against it. Thank you, Mayor. Next.

Yes, Council Member Wittgenstein.

Holy crap. Thank you. Yeah, what a topic to... I came in here thinking from the old school military thought process, the way I was raised. I've been doing a lot of reflecting over the last few years, and one of the things that I noticed as a theme throughout the story of my life is I have this structure that I built to navigate the world. We all have this structure. And in order to blossom and grow, in order to be a lawyer, you need support. In order to be a doctor, you need support. Whether that support comes from blood or from your queer friends, it doesn't matter, right? The government can be looked like a family system if you want to take it in that way. The different branches of the government are the aunts and uncles, right? We're mom and dad. And you guys are the kids, and we want you to grow and bloom and be prosperous in everything you do. And we want everybody that lives here, whether they like something or not, to feel okay coming in here and stating their belief as well. When I was in high school, no way would we have in this conversation, maybe amongst our friends and peers quietly in bathrooms or hallways and whatnot, because the reality is we've been gay a long, long, long time in this world. As someone who identifies as a queer individual, And I don't normally state that. That's something I keep very private to me because that's where I believe. And I have flown the flag at different times through the years. I've flown different flags at my home at different times through the years. I'm in favor of this. I changed my mind. I came in here flat no. I was already head strong. You guys weren't going to change my mind. But you said something. You refrained it in a way that made sense. Yeah. The old system doesn't work. We watched that happen for 250 years. Are the roots of it good? Probably. You bet. The basis of it. And how does it change? How does it become better? Do we wait for the people we've elected to decide for us what we want? No, us included. You're here telling us what you want. You didn't just elect us and let us decide for you. Overwhelming support for this. And to be the only city out of a bunch of cities feels like an odd duck out, even if we are one of the most diverse. So if the citizens put in rally to get things changed, Why not change it all the way up to change, chain, right? And that starts here. And then it goes to the state or the county. And then it goes to the U.S. government, right? I mean, that's how that works. I like to see civic stuff work in the way it's meant to work because we are due for change. This country needs a relief. We need our parents to stop hovering and forcing us to be something they want us to be. And I don't mean that. I mean that in a big group sense. Whoever your parent is or guide is that steers you, that is not supportive of who you are internally, I say seek one and find one out. I did. And so... Yeah, it's an emotional issue, you bet. There's no way around it. Everything we talk about when it comes to commemorative flags that might scare us is going to be an emotional issue. Yes, it does open the door. We're taking a risk. But that risk is the change for the better. And one question, is that the actual motion or is the one in the packet that I have up on my screen the motion? Because I read one, there was something in the middle that said the mayor was going to decide for the council.

I'm not deciding.

This isn't – I'm just making sure. I mean, if we need a civics lesson, I'm happy to give it. But executive legislative, so – That's the one I was reading. Okay, so – okay. My mistake. See, see? We all kind of make mistakes.

Okay.

That was my only concern because I was stuck on that one. And that one makes more sense. So I'd be in favor of it. And I'll actually make a motion.

Well, let's give – You can discuss it after the meeting is made.

Yeah, yeah, sure. For sure. You know? I move to approve Resolution 26-10, affirming that display of commemorative flags on city property is government speech and in which instances commemorative flags will be displayed.

Okay, so we have a motion on the floor as presented and we have a second. Before I call for a vote, some of you have not had an opportunity to weigh in on this subject matter. I want to give everyone an opportunity to speak. But before I open the floor back up, I just want to point something very important out. You all talk about the research you've done when you come to these meetings and the things that you fact checked. You all need to look up ideological and understand what the definition of that word is before you start throwing it around because you're using it incorrectly. With that, who would like to speak next? Yes, Mayor Pro Tem.

I'll go next. Yeah, something that... kind of befuddled me as well is hearing things being identified as ideological when that's, you know, the abolition of slavery is not, that's a historical fact. That's not an ideology. As an example, I think that people can throw words like inclusive around and political around and ideological around. But one of the problems that we face is these misunderstandings. And so if we accept that there's a really common misconception about something, And we just say, yeah, but I know it means this, but some people think it means this. And so we want to stay away from it for that. All we're doing is perpetuating that misconception and perpetuating that ignorance when what we can do is try to bring some clarity. Because a lack of understanding, and I don't mean ignorance in a pejorative way. I mean, you don't know what you don't know. You just don't until you learn otherwise. And so if we can increase understanding of anything, really, then we've taken a step forward. I I was thinking about the comments that we received at the last meeting, and the word that kept coming up over and over again, and it did again today, was safe and safety. If I say, Chris, you are safe here, Barbara's immediate reaction isn't going to be, well, that means I'm not safe. Like, no, nobody said Barbara wasn't safe. I just expressed to Chris that he was safe. And so when someone puts out a symbol of inclusivity, meaning all, everyone, and someone's initial reaction, if they can't relate or don't understand or don't identify or whatever, immediately... takes exception to that. Me telling someone they're safe is not me telling anyone else that they're not. And so it's fascinating to me that that's what some people choose to hear. Because that's not the message. And if I'm out and about in the world, as a queer identifying person, if I'm out and about in the world, if I'm exploring a new city and I see a business with a you are welcome here flag, I'm absolutely going to that store first. Absolutely. And I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the concept that I exist in a world where the statement all are welcome here is somehow political or ideological or divisive or unwelcome. It's literally the opposite of what that means, but again, that's the kind of ignorance that we have to try to fight against. So me personally, yeah, it's not rocket science to figure out how I would personally feel about this issue. But I am trying to keep in mind, as Councilmember Peterson said, what is our role as council? Where do we get bogged down? Where do we end up in the weeds? What things are worth taking the time to consider and making a statement about? And what things are just simply not in our purview? We have to make those judgment calls every day. we make calls every day about what gets a proclamation and what doesn't, what kinds of events the city's gonna support and what kind they don't. So to automatically say, well, then everybody's gonna ask and we're just gonna have to approve them all. It's like, well, that's not true because those are decisions that we and the mayor makes every single day. I mean, we can function with some discernment and people can have their, thoughts about that, that's fine. That's fine. But whoever happens to be sitting in that role, exercising that discernment at that time, then that's their responsibility to bear. I am wondering if this might be, I don't know, I don't want to say like a non-issue because the flagpole, sorry, the flag specifically. The flag, the one big flagpole outside with the U.S. flag on it. We seem fixated on that. And I walked into City Hall and there's two brackets on either side of the double doors as you walk into City Hall. I mean, can a commemorative flag go there? I looked at the ordinance and I'm not sure if we're talking about the Capitol flagpole or if we're talking about city property period, is there anything stopping us from hanging a pride flag in the vestibule there by the front door or in one of the, yeah, like I said, there's two flag brackets on either side of the front entrance doors as you come into City Hall. There's a number of ways that the city can show its support without necessarily making a change to the actual code. and the ordinance. When I say non-issue, I'm just thinking we don't necessarily need to fixate on that one place and that one form of expression. There's lots of ways that we can tell people that they are safe here. For young people especially, there are kids out there that do not feel safe simply existing as themselves in the world, and that is something that most of us probably can't relate to, and that's fantastic. If you cannot relate to that, Good for you. Absolutely yay. That's amazing. But there are people that don't feel safe out in the world. And so if some new family is arriving in town and they're driving down the road and some young person sees a pride flag in front of City Hall and the only thing that that conveys to them is you are safe here, to me that is a message worth expressing. So I would like us to find a way to do that. And we can make it complicated or not, I guess. I don't know. I'm all about compromise. So that's a very long-winded way of saying I support the motion, absolutely. But if the rest of council decides that they don't want to change the actual flag ordinance, then I think that we've got lots of other options available to us. Thank you.

Council Member Stuckey. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem.

I grew up as a homeschooled only child in Sequim, Washington. Oh boy. And then for the first time of many, I went to school. I wasn't the greatest student. I went to Fargo, North Dakota. Not a lot of diversity in those sentences. Naturally, I think we want to be people around people who think like us and look like us. And that was certainly the truth for me. It took a while to come out of my shell going to events. A perfect example is the Juneteenth event that was held here. I'd never been to a Juneteenth event. And to be honest, I had to look up what it even was. going to those events started to shape things differently in my mind. Getting to know people that aren't like me, don't look like me, maybe don't talk or think like me, opened up my world. And so I would encourage those who maybe are very quick to be anti any community or any set of people to get to know them a little bit before you make those judgments. We keep talking about inclusivity, and that comes in many forms, but the hate that I see on social media, we all know I play in the social media sandbox, sometimes well, sometimes poorly. It should have no place here, and so I wanna be very clear for those that are using hate against any group, it is not welcomed, or at least it shouldn't be welcomed. There's a but. We are here to talk about the flag ordinance. And I wanted to make sure that I listened to every comment. And the nice thing about having our videos recorded is I can go back and I can see every comment again. There's one comment that stuck with me a little bit. And I had to think about it. And it was by a member in this audience that would kind of restate it. Not putting up the flag is not remaining neutral. Putting up the flag is remaining neutral. with all I've said, I'm not sure I fully agree with that. So I think of national police week. We show our support for national police and our officers. We show that through a proclamation. We show that by thanking them. Some businesses show it by providing donuts. Sorry for the stereotype, but I love donuts too. All right? But we don't fly a thin blue line flag, and no one's accusing us of being anti-police. I think, and now I'm going to go in the deep end a little bit, I'm going to think the Christian flag, which, you know, you have flags that are traditionally more on the left, flags that are traditionally more on the right. I wish it wasn't the case, but it often is. You know, we don't fly the Christian flag and not suggesting that we should. But for National Day of Prayer, we still advertise it on our reader board. And we still work with local churches to have church in the city. And I'm thinking, if I'm not identifying myself as a Christian, what's going to be more impactful for me? Seeing a flag on a flagpole, I can really quick go that stupid. Or having an event where maybe I can get to know those people a little better. You know, with the proclamation and everything we've gone over, one thing that keeps getting mentioned is other places flying the flag. I talked to the mayor of Coopville, and I don't think she's lying to me. The city of Coopville does not fly the pride flag. But it sounds like we're hearing about them being inclusive by doing other things, kind of what Tamir Potem was alluding to. I think the flag we get really, flags are important. I mean, there's a reason why it's taking an ordinance to change the flag when, Mayor, you could do quite a bit of things without having the flag ordinance. I too lean towards no on the flag. Only because if you look at this conversation we're having here, it's an important conversation to have. We're learning about other people's perspectives. Is it bringing us closer together? I don't know. I don't see that. And I don't want to do anything that causes more division. I also do, as a technical, have a little bit of an issue with this portion that says, the city shall only consider additional requests to display the commemorative flag when such requests are made in writing by the mayor or a member of city council. Requests to make commemorative flags made by members of the public or other private groups will not be considered. I don't think there's any vitriol in that statement, but I do take some issue with it. So all that to say, let's be kinder to each other. Let's have events. The Pride event, that's great. It gives people opportunities for different perspectives. But I am of the mentality when it comes to those flags that it should be the flags that everyone... that apply to everyone. If that's geographic at a basic level, I mean, I understand everything going on nationally and how that can be a scary time. And hey, I acknowledge I've got every advantage. I have very little. I have a special needs son. That's my thing. But other than that, I've had it pretty easy. And you're helping me understand there's a different side. I just don't think flying the pride flag is the hill. I think events, I think other ways to get to know individuals, to think outside of our current head space. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Stuckey. Anybody else? Yes, Council Member Arms.

Okay. Probably get myself in trouble. I... When people talk about being inclusive or how they're treated, I grew up very differently from most of you. People don't know my story. My grandmother lived in San Francisco. She lived in the Fillmore District. way before they raised it and changed it all. My grandmother was very active in the community. I grew up with multiracial people. I mean, I grew up with everybody. I didn't know the difference. I had a young kid in my class trying to explain why we couldn't be friends, and I couldn't figure it out, because he was black. But I didn't notice that he was. So I don't have that. I don't have how I look at people. I look at people in a whole different way. That's how I was brought up. Not by my parents, but by the surrounding that I was in. of my whole life. I lived overseas. You can't live in a country that goes communist and think you're not going to learn something. So I have learned it. I agree with Brian. I think that we can have other ways to show our support rather than the flag. But I do have that experience. So don't think that I don't. I have a lot of experience. I could be here all day explaining it. But I grew up differently. Not because of my parents, it was because of my grandmother. I swore I would never be like my grandmother, and I am. I'm sitting here on council. I said that to grandma, and I had to apologize even though she's dead. I said, I'm really sorry, grandma. I did not intend this, but my grandmother taught me a lot. Even if I didn't like all she was doing or how, my grandmother taught me about caring and loving and being committed to others. So I'm not saying, you know, I'm saying no to the flag, but I'm saying you have other ways to project who you are in the community. And that's how I feel. You know, that's how we learn. Because a flag's a flag. To me, so you see it. It's about working together, having events, being out there and doing things together. That's how we learn about each other. That's how we learn to participate with each other. And that's how we understand each other on both sides, whoever we are. So that is where my position. You can talk to me anytime because I have that experience in my life. So thank you for coming and speaking.

All right. Council member Marshall, did you want to speak before we call for a vote?

I mean, I might as well, everybody else has gone. Oh, come on. All right. So when this came up a year ago, I did something that I very rarely do, and I wrote out my thoughts. And I wrote out my thoughts because I didn't want what I had to say to be in any way misconstrued. I wanted to be very guarded in my opinions. And I consider doing the same this time. But I wanted to listen to everybody. I wanted to get a perspective. I want to understand... why this issue is so important, right? Because to me, it's a flag. It's a symbol. It doesn't... We talked about safety. The flag itself inherently is not going to make you safer. It's a symbol, right? Admittedly, I have not lived your shared experiences. I don't have... I have not walked in your shoes. I don't know... what you've seen, what you felt, how you've been treated. I totally, I understand that. And unfortunately, our history as a country, we have marginalized different communities ethnicities and beliefs and ways of life it is it's a sad reality of the country that we live in and as much as i would love to be able to support everybody and and and make them feel safe i mean this is this is my home this is where i've lived since 1980 and i love this community and want people to feel safe and i want this to be an inclusive environment i want this i want people to that come here to feel like this is home for them and that they're safe to be here personally i i don't care about flags i mean it's it's like i said it's a symbol it but we have a responsibility up here as council to represent our entire community and if we fly one flag right yes we are supporting that community and And as awesome as that is, and as much as I would like to support that, then we have created a precedence where we now have to debate the merits of everybody that comes forward with a flag. And then I said, sir, you could disagree, but that's the reality of the situation we're up here. You have asked this question for us to debate this because this is what's important to you. But there are other organizations, there are other people that could, and I don't want to say will, could. I am a Christian, and I would love to see the Christian flag. That's not appropriate for me to bring forward and say, this is what we should be flying here. And so it's a responsibility to everybody. And the word inclusive has been thrown around. And while I understand this would feel inclusive to some, it is not inclusive to all. And inclusivity is just that, right? It's everybody. And we've kind of talked about... Sorry? Yeah, in your head out loud. And so... For that reason, I loved what Council Member Stuckey had to say. I believe it is by our actions is how we show inclusivity, by how we treat each other. It is by what we do as a community. It is not by symbolic gestures, but by actions, by how we treat each other, how we welcome everybody. And I understand, it's not gonna make everybody happy. I get that. This is not a position where we make everybody happy typically, but this is the role that we are in. And so I appreciate everybody that spoke and had what they had to say. And I appreciate you sharing your stories and I hope you understand, thanks.

Yes, Council Member Wittgenstein. Thank you. I'm not going to respond to Eric's stuff. He and I can chat later. It's all good. There's definitely inclusivity. We could sit here for an hour and discuss it and have 14 different avenues coming in. And guess what? That's inclusive. If you guys can count and do simple math, you already know where this is headed. Don't give up. Keep fighting for what you want and keep doing it. I don't know if you need, there's property owners that might let you put a flagpole up as you're coming into town. I don't know, go talk to them.

That's it. Anybody else? All right, so I'm gonna call for a vote. But before I do, I just wanna thank everyone that took the opportunity to spoke on both sides today. If you don't like something you see up here today, I encourage you to rally your base and vote and change who's sitting at this dais. That's what I would do. So with that being said, all in favor, raise your hand. Okay, we have two, four, all opposed. One, two, three, four, five. So the motion does not pass five to two. All right, next we're gonna call upon council to report on any boards, commissions, or committees on which they serve. Council Member Merritt.

Thank you, Mayor. As the representative from the Council on Island Transit, most recently they produced a draft resolution, or not resolution, a draft policy statement with regard to artificial intelligence and the government policy. And it was very enlightening because in public press they noted that artificial intelligence, AI, is already being baked into the software that's being used across the country. So the big emphasis on this consideration of this particular draft was the human element, that there would be a human last decider with regard to anything that's created through the AI process with regard to related to island transit. And I paused at the meeting, and I thought about white collar crime. and security breaches and all the rest of it. So I took a moment, even though it came as something of a surprise to the meeting, I would state, Just because you have a human element doing a check on AI results that can formulate into any kind of policy or whatever it may be does not assure that it's going to be good or right. And so they were taken a little bit aback because the emphasis was on making sure that they had a human element with regard to any final AI decision process. That's all I have on here.

All right, anybody else want to report out on their boards or commission? All right, hearing, seeing none, we're going to move on to finance and lodging tax annual review. Here to introduce this topic is our grants administrator, Wendy Horn.

Good afternoon, mayor and council members. I am here to talk about the lodging tax grant funding. So I'm gonna be covering a few topics. First, I'm just gonna give you an overview of the lodging tax, the purpose of the advisory committee, some changes that have happened at the state, proposed timeline for the 2027 cycle, and then funding balances and some funding levels that you can discuss So just as a refresher, the lodging tax is actually made up of two different taxes. The state collects a lodging tax of 6.5%. And then they distribute 2% to counties and cities. The RCW 6728-180 allows for cities to then tax an additional 2% for lodging stays. And in November 1999, the city council here approved that additional tax. So now we essentially receive 4% of lodging tax funds. So the RCW also outlines the allowable uses for these funds. They can be used for tourism marketing, special events designed to attract tourist operations and capital expenditures of tourism-related city facilities, operations of non-profit tourism-related facilities, and then LTAC staff support. The same RCW outlines the process for the cities to utilize these funds. Basically, it says that any city or county that has a population of over 5,000 people must establish a lodging tax advisory committee. And it outlines that there has to be the same number of members of that committee who collect the tax, hotels, motels, B&Bs, and the organizations that can receive those funds. So here in Oak Harbor, the municipal code outlines the fact that our committee consists of seven members, three collectors and three receivers, and then the chair is appointed by the mayor and it's one of the council members. So this is generally the process that we've been using for many years now in terms of how we award annual grants. So today you're going to discuss different funding levels, and then I will bring back the recommendation that you would like to see before you for an action item at a future council meeting. And then once you authorize that amount, we will open up the application period and allow organizations to apply for those funds. Following that timeframe, we then convene the LTAC to meet and hear presentations by the applicants. They score the applications and they make the funding level recommendations back to you, the city council. The city council then can vote to accept all of those recommendations or a part of them they can send one or all back for the LTAC to reconsider. And then once that happens, if that does happen, it comes back to you 45 days later and you can make the final decision on funding levels. So I wanted to note one change. that you might want to discuss today is that in the last legislative session, the legislature was proposing a change to basically stop the reporting requirement for the LTCH funds. Basically, it didn't make it to the floor for a vote because the session was so short. But that said, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee, which is JLARC, has paused the reporting for 2026. So technically, our grantees this year don't have to fill out that form that has the eight or 10 questions. And I just mention this again because you as a city council might want to consider having some city requirement for reporting. So that said, this is the tentative timeline for LTCH funds. Basically, today you're going to be discussing the different levels of funding and any other changes that you'd like to see. We will be bringing back your recommendation for an action item at a later council meeting, which probably will be in July, not June. Then once you've approved that, we'll open the application window, which we're looking at late July to mid-August. The applicant presentations will be hopefully mid to late August. And then the LTAC will meet again mid-September to decide the funding levels that will come to you, you'll approve or not. And ideally, everything will be wrapped up by mid to late October. So this is a 10-year fund balance trend. And I apologize, it's small, hard to read. But generally speaking, the gold bar to the far right is the fund balance at the end of each year. The first bar, which is light blue, which you can't really tell, that is the revenue that has been coming in annually. And then the second bar, the one in the middle, is the total grant awards for each year that you have approved. And you can kind of see the last three years, 24, 25, 26, you've increased the award amounts, but we've also been increasing the fund balance. So kind of still making money. Oh, what did I do? Okay, so the status quo. Basically, currently, we are estimating that by the end of 2026, we will have about $675,000 remaining in the fund balance. And that's based off the anticipated revenue that we will receive and the unspent grant awards. And then for the preliminary 2027 revenue, what we do is we just take last year's revenue and add 2.5% year over year to estimate how much we think we might make. We won't know for sure until February 2027 what 2026 is actually going to be, so we can update this later in the year as well. So we take that estimate, and then we account for any of the known commitments. And in 2027, we know that we committed, excuse me, $55,000 to the Marina debt service, and then approximately $45,000 to the would-be Camino Island tourism. So the ending fund balance, if we were not to award any grants in 2027 would be about this $928,000. So as in years past, we put together a variety of different levels of funding for your consideration you can see I added the $100,000 commitment and then the different levels and what the fund balance would be at the end of 2027 And then just a couple of other considerations as you start discussing this is whether or not you want to see single-year awards or single and multi-year awards, and whether or not you want to consider a report due to the city. And with that, I will answer any questions. I will try. Council?

I'm going to. Mayor Mero, Council Member Mero.

I wanted to take an opportunity to brag on you for the wonderful successes you've had with grants and all of the rest with regard to going forward. And with that being said, the financial statements of the applicants and so forth who put forward, I'm looking forward to a thorough examination of them, though I'm not on that board, so that we can make wise decisions about where the money is going. Thank you.

Anybody else? Council Member Stuckey.

A couple of thoughts I'm rattling around. Definitely one of the key components... One of the key components, I think, is that... I love it and I hate it, that reporting element. Some things are really... I mean, the previous LTAC chair has now turned over Mayor Pro Tem... We would see a lot of applications have really easy ways of getting their data. But then ones that don't. I mean, Renfair. You got to buy a ticket. Most of those tickets are bought online. Not all. Most of them are bought online. Your address is there. I would argue that's probably the second biggest tourism event we have in Oak Harbor. The first probably is still the music festival where you just show up and Maybe you take a survey. So it's very difficult to report. But I think some reporting is necessary because otherwise you could just make something up. And when you get an LTAC group, they'll just nod and say, that looks good. And then when you actually see the JLARC reporting, I remember I'm going to pick on Main Street for a moment. For like three years, they reported nothing. So how do we know that any of the money we gave them mattered for anything? So it could be so hard to quantify. One thing that will help, shameless plug for Whibby Camino Tourism, we just had our first new meeting on the new structure. There was talks about the Datify and getting those out to LTAC committees, not just the people who asked for it or who were in the know or the people who it supported them are all about it and the ones that maybe it doesn't support the event they've had not asking for it so we're trying to work out a system to get those to municipalities also of note is the declining slowly declining fund balance i know when i took it over from council member cervadius at the time i asked him why there was such a big amount in there and it was mentioned uh well maybe for an amphitheater or some big ticket item um I don't want to steal Mayor Pro Tem's thunder, but she had perhaps an idea which might perhaps be a good use of funds if she'd like to share.

So before I call on Mayor Pro Tem, to your point, I just want to add something. When we're talking about maybe potentially the second biggest event, The financials that they present then should reflect money in their coffers. And they do not. So there needs to be some credibility to the information that they're submitting with their applications. And we need to be vetting that as a committee. Because we're giving them tens of thousands of dollars a year. And I'm not seeing where they're doing anything with that. The other entity, which would be the leading entity in the community, they actually turn around and put that money back into the community through scholarships. So, I mean, there's a huge disparity there and a huge concern of mine. So I know events are fun and we all have our special interests, but that's not what the LTAC is for, I didn't think. So anyway, with that, Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I'm going to be really curious because the LTAC committee itself is going to be made up of almost entirely new members. I think Alinda Jenkins is our one holdout. We have two people. So I'll be curious to meet with the group and see if they have any strong feelings about You know, whether it should be limited to nonprofit organizations or stuff that happens just within city limits. I certainly have my own opinions about that, but I'm just one person. So I'm, yeah, I'm kind of waiting for the group to get together for the first time because I don't really know what the dynamic there is going to be yet. But from council, I am... curious about thoughts on the amount to award, the overall amount to award. And the idea that I had, which Wendy, you did some research on. Thank you. I appreciate it very much, was the public restroom facilities and whether or not LTAC funds could be used for a capital improvement like that at some of the locations where they're needs to be an upgrade or there aren't any at all uh restroom facilities and that would enable any event happening there um to i i think that that would that would be a boon to yeah any anything that's scheduled in that area so that would benefit everybody in that case but the city would have to have a plan and submit application with along with everybody else and it So depending on how much something like that cost, if the council had already said, well, we're only going to distribute $400,000 this year, yeah, unfortunately, this is kind of something that we might have to play by ear and or revisit next year. Personally, my own personal opinion, I'm loathe to release the entire amount because there might be a big project like that that that we could use those funds for. And so I'm pretty happy with the status quo and what the city has traditionally been doing, this somewhere between $350,000 and $400,000, keeping several hundred thousand dollars back in the fund for a potential big project. So I guess, basically, I don't want to make any real radical changes until we've had a chance to meet with the committee itself. But I am curious to hear from the rest of council if you have any strong opinions about the reporting. Again, the reporting is we want some accountability, but it's hard to quantify. So what kinds of things are important for us to know about these events or these organizations? what kind of reporting do we want them to be doing so that we have some accountability and some responsibility in our decision making. So let me know how we can, I can help them help us or something like that. Thanks.

All right. Anybody else? Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, Mayor. I took a look when I was running for office at the CELTAC pretty carefully because I'm very interested in it. And I have a question for you, David, based strictly on ignorance. Currently we have, it looks to me, I don't know, several hundred thousand dollars in our account. Probably what? hundred thousand dollars or so is that sit in an interest-bearing account can we put that in a CD how does that work so all of our fund balances operate in a pooled investment methodology and those are used to

earn interest investment earnings. So we do have an investment committee meets four times a year. We have a couple of council members who are on that investment committee and we do report out our overall investment earnings periodically throughout the year. So yeah, it does. Yeah. Okay.

So it's not just sitting there getting a half of no percent somewhere. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Council member Stuckey. What do we know about how much the Camino Island would be? What's our return on that? Do you know? Because you're on that committee, right?

Are you asking monetarily?

Well, I mean, if we're going to give money, we should have some way to quantify how much it gains us for giving that money, right? Or am I wrong? In an ideal world.

In an ideal world. Okay, I'll give you the short version. As I've often said, when they came back to us for more money about four years ago, three or four years ago, I was up here probably the strongest opponent to giving them more money. Okay. And then Mayor Bob decides to, like two minutes later, appoint me as the liaison there, which is hilarious. Okay. It took me a while to realize that as a member of Oak Harbor here, I'm not going to see much of an impact necessarily.

Okay.

Because the marketing's not targeted at me. It's targeted at 50 miles plus. And when you ask how to quantify that, that's pretty tricky. I could show you graphs that show you how many people visit the Facebook page, if you need a quantifiable. Because that's been my gripe, too. How do we quantify? If there's an article in a tourism magazine, how do you quantify that, right? So we, as Whidbey Island Community Tourism, lowered our budget so we could be a little more narrowly focused. We've done things like build your perfect escape where you could give your email address and build your perfect vacation here in Oak Harbor or anywhere, Whidbey Island or Camino, because it's the whole kit and caboodle. And we got thousands of responses. I could give you numbers that show we got X amount of responses. We also, the big thing I would say is the data fi. That doesn't show exactly what Whidbey Camino Island tourism is, but Whidbey Island Camino tourism pays for that data fi. It's tens of thousands. It's not like two grand, right? We're putting in, it'll be like 48-ish thousand, because based on a percentage. So just that data fi is pretty helpful. If we pulled out, I don't know if... they'd be willing to share data with us. So if you're looking, Island County Tourism brings an X amount of dollars. I've seen numbers. I question those numbers a little bit because of how you prepare the data. So instead of looking at it that way, I would say look at the tools that they provide. And I think those tools are going to be a lot more apparent going forward under a new structure with a county employee just dedicated to that. I would love to be able to say this brings in this much amount of tourism dollars. I can't.

Okay. I guess for me it was more like if we do have that data file and I built my perfect vacation or whatever you call it, do we ever follow up? Thanks for playing. Did you do it? I'm not. I'm not doing it.

Well, in that case, it was a contest, and we awarded the contest. We received the email addresses, which then gave us the ability to message them to direct them to our website, which is going to be getting a revamping.

Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I would say that I did look at some of those grant applications, and they were pretty interesting. Yeah. and not very well done, and I thought, wow, I probably wouldn't give these people money out of my own pocket, let alone municipal funds, because it's kind of like, well, what's in your bank account? Money, great. So maybe, and I'm sure we will be watching a little bit further to see what we can do. Thank you all for your answers.

Anybody else? Council Member Romero.

So, Councilmember Peterson, just your eyeballs for that detail is part of the reason you're just right for the job. And I did want to mention, too, in passing, that I did speak with some of the organizations with regard to an event. I'm not going to say what event or what organization, but I did relay a message. I said, you know... your organization has a strong contributing factor and, in my opinion, is deserving of grant funding, but you've got to do better with your financial reporting. And then in another case, there was one I was looking at that I said, how on earth did this ever get approved? So I'm just stating that, you know, scrutinizing and being discerning about what is really deserving is so critically important to build trust in our community. Thank you, Mayor.

Anybody else that hasn't spoke would like to speak? Mayor Pro Temp.

Yeah. I'm curious if the rest of council has any strong feelings about whether it matters whether an applicant is a for-profit or a non-profit entity and whether or not the event itself takes place inside or outside of city limits. I know that the heads and beds, the filling of hotel rooms is kind of the ultimate metric, which happens inside city limits. So I'm not sure how hung up some of us are on that particular factor. And Wendy, for today, before we can proceed, we need to pick a number for the funding level so that we know when people apply to say there is X number of dollars available. So that is a decision that we need to make today. So I'm curious about how council feels about the award amount this year. And let me see, as compared to last year,

Last year it was $475,000. You upped it by $25,000 from $450,000. Yeah, it went up a little. Thank you.

We pick the amount before the applications come in. Yeah, we can't wait and see what comes in and then decide how much to award. We have to say we're only going to be awarding $475,000 And that is the total pot that the committee has to distribute when the applications come in. So that's guidance that council needs to give the committee.

I say just do the 475 like last year and give them a, you know, if you're getting a whole new board or committee and whatnot, not complicating it enough that there's a lot of change in that regard and just allowing them to.

absorb with this kind of the same status quo for a little while until it can be adjusted that's that's kind of my feeling as well yeah um as far as i know we have been outside of the city limits for altac and i don't know if we want to continue it or we want to just review it and say no or little um So that's something that I think we need to figure out. How far do we want to go in that scope? Because we were down to almost Freeland. Yeah, when we went to Merritt Gardens, when they wanted money. So everybody knows it's there, and they want it. And so we're getting everybody from anywhere. I think Council Member Stuckey probably knows that. you know and some of those others have LTAC but they're trying to latch on to our LTAC so maybe we should find out who has LTAC and say you know maybe you should stay in your neck of the woods and we'll play in ours you know that's all for that if I can respond to that I believe Island County is the only other entity that provides LTAC funding on the island But Wendy, is it specific, like Cootville does it, we do it?

No, it's Island County does it for the entire county. Okay.

It's just when we disperse it, that's what I'm saying. What we're doing is we're giving it all the way down the other end of the island. So do those people have the capability to have that money, and do they disperse it, or are we the only ones for LTACs?

So the city has its own L tech funding and then Island County as a whole. Um, they distribute to entities across the county, both Camino Island and on would be Island. There's no other town or community on the Island that's large enough to have an L tech.

Well, the problem was that then we're getting it all the way down the Island you know, instead of keeping it more in our neighborhood because everybody's coming to us and you know, is that really what we want or, you know, so that's something I think we need to think about.

Council Member Arms, are you asking about setting parameters around who receives the funding? Yeah. OK. Just for clarification for staff.

Yeah. What's happening is we're having people way down island that are asking for this money instead of taking that resource and maybe better using it for kind of a closer circuit for our community.

Yeah. And I know we've talked about that. So there has been conversations in the past, and council's even talked about it too, staff has talked about it, where we see applications that are from people that are absolutely outside of Oak Harbor. And it is likely that that event, when they say in the application, oh, people will come to Oak Harbor, go to our event, and then they'll stay in Oak Harbor, that likelihood is very minuscule is the word I'm going to use. so with that in mind the understanding is is that the staff has talked about this council's brought this up on occasion could we set parameters around only focusing on either north would be meaning Oak Harbor and north or specifically just within a certain radius of our community or the city yeah that's what I was thinking about thank you councilmember Marshall

Thank you, Mayor. Mayor Pro Tem, because I represent one of the organizations that traditionally receives funding, won't speak to the funding levels per se, but I will speak to your question about whether or not they should be in city limits. I believe rent fare occurs just outside of city limits, but having spoke with the hotels, they do fill our hotels. And so it is something that has a direct return to our community and to replenishing those LTAC funds. And so, as Sabrina mentioned, perhaps a North Whidbey or Oak Harbor area type of situation. But I personally would not favor limiting just the city limits.

Council Member Stuckey?

I'll dispense some, I'd say wisdom, I'll say experience, because I don't know if I'm always the wisest person. So, a couple thoughts. One, should be restricted sensitivity limits, in my opinion, absolutely not. I mean, if you wanted to make the argument of the 98277 area code, maybe, because to counsel Marshall's point, it's also worth noting that Oak Harbor can be very difficult to promote for tourism. So we deal with this on Wibby Camino Island tourism, right? We're known bluntly, if you're going besides an individual event, as the place where you stay because we have the hotels. There is like two or three hotels south of Oak Harbor and some Airbnbs. There's a reason why our LTAC is like 10 times Langley and Coopville. So you got to use some discretion on is there this event in Cootville that is an overnight event that people are coming from 50 miles plus that will be staying at our hotels. So I would encourage you to do what we started doing last time and we played with the scoring. So you were scored higher if it was up north. It didn't mean that you were out if you weren't, but you scored higher. The trick you're gonna find is you have seven members who all have their different opinions, and Wendy and I have worked out different ways to try to leverage, because if you have somebody that puts a zero, and you're going by scores, the average score of seven individuals, you've already tanked that application with that one zero. So then you get to the point where you say, okay, do we just say to heck with it and throw all these scores out and go by what we feel will do better? Or you go by these scores. And when you see those scores from seven different individuals, because you're going to think that your way is probably the most logical, you're going to be shocked on those scores. So it's really easy to say, I didn't feel that those had that merit. I get it. But those scores you're taking an average of, there's tricks. You can say the bottom scores out, the top scores out. You can't score your own, which you shouldn't. So all those different kinds of things. I would be going okay with going with an amount kind of in the middle. Because A, it makes you do those hard decisions. I remember the first year I took over, we applied more than what people were applying for. And we just gave it all out because it was easiest. I feel like last year was a good combination of picking and choosing because, again, tourism is defined as 50 miles plus. How many events will someone here go to Linwood for? If Linwood had a Main Street event like a Sasquatch walk, sorry I'm picking on our Main Street again, would you drive to Linwood for it? Would you drive 50 miles plus for it? I might drive to Anacortes. So that's the trick. What brings people 50 miles plus? And I think by having an amount come in the middle, it forces those hard decisions as opposed to the easy decision of, well, we've got this money, so let's go ahead and spend it. Because it's real easy to do, and I've done it. I mean, if they want to do 475, that's fine. I would suggest something a little bit lower, not the lowest, lower. We also have to be careful with the multi-year grants. I think last year was some vagueness on, is this a multi-year grant in perpetuity or is this three years? And I think I actually saw one application said three years and it got this weird little sticky thing. I think traditionally we've done a new multi-year grant cycle every three years. That might not be a bad idea to continue that. And then you're going to have to work with those groups that have relied on this and gotten it every time. Say, the marathon. It brings people, but they rely on that grant every year to make it happen. And tourism, from a city perspective, it's kind of a, from the city of Oak Harbor, it's kind of a losing perspective. We're taking money that people stay at our hotels. This is not local taxpayer money unless they're staying in a hotel here locally. And we're distributing it to get people to come here to spend money at our businesses and to spend more money at hotels, which refills the coffers. So I know Councilman Marshall has said a couple times when it comes to something like the marathon. Do we make money on this? No. As a city, we lose money as the city entity. But certainly the businesses make money. Certainly the hotels make money. So there's different ways to look at it. Yeah. But getting those seven scores and finding a way to make those average of seven scores make sense, that is gonna be the trick. And good luck to you.

Next, Council Member Romero.

Addressing the matter with regard to the total dollar amount, in response to Councilmember Wittgenstein's keeping the same amount, was that what I understood? I think in principle there's merit to that, but of course prices increase, and I think that stepping out and pushing a little harder than just the status quo would show that we're investing in the future and promoting and advancing the whole program. And using a zip code has some merit as well, but really one of the comments that I heard in discussions with regard to say Ren Faire is that well everybody's just going to drive home and then they're going to come back the next day and that didn't sound right at all and I started saying well if we start thinking about a radius where it would be a reasonable drive to come to a daily event you know on a daily basis as opposed to staying in a hotel then that might be a way of doing it Because I don't know what the zip codes are with regard to the actual distance. And then also the three cycle, I think that has merit as well, because those who are organizations that are performing, and even if our city is not much stronger, but the area is, If they come back and they know they're going to be able to come back, I think there's great merit in that because if they're having to, it's a roll of the dice whether they're going to be able to come back and will come back here. So, yeah, but two years is probably not enough. Three is probably about right. Four, probably too much. That's all I have, Mayor.

Anybody else? Tara, do you feel like you have what you need, Mayor Fritton?

I think so. I'm more... I want to make sure Wendy has what she needs. So it sounds like if we stick with what we did last year and award 475, up to 475, I like that, up to. And just so stick with what we did last year, everybody seems pretty OK with that. Same with making any big changes to the overall criteria and application process. So, but yeah, the scoring and stuff, that's something that we can work together on. So what else did you need, Wendy? So we have an amount, we can do up to 475.

Just, you do have a consensus that multi, you want a single year and a three year grant application? Have the option.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, like we have done. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that makes sense. Instead of making any major changes at the committee level or maybe.

What we did last time.

OK. Yeah, I think I would be in favor of not making any real drastic changes to the system while the new committee is kind of figuring itself out. The timeline for the Island County, you and I chatted about that and not knowing what other events also have LTAC applications in with the county. But because we're all kind of on a similar timeline, it's not really possible to wait and see who receives what, unfortunately. So we're kind of flying blind when it comes to the distribution. Do you have any, um, I don't know, thoughts or guidance on that or is just, it is what it is.

Well, their application window opens July 1st through July 31st, and then they take about the same amount of time as we do. They're a little bit sooner than we are, but, um, in order to make that end of year timeframe, we kind of need to get things opened up sooner than later.

Yeah, they don't make the decision soon enough for us to have our decision contingent upon whatever someone does or doesn't get, unfortunately. I do have some thoughts about the actual application process, but that's not something that we need to iron out up here. So do you feel like you have what you need to move forward? Yes, thank you very much. Absolutely. Right. If Wendy and David are good, then I'm good.

All right.

And thank you, Council, for the feedback.

Council Member Merrill has another comment.

Thank you, Mayor. With regard to the scoring, there is a tendency to take as objective data as being more reliable and more insightful with regard to scoring. And I just, you know, having done countless scorings in the Navy, I can say there's a subjective component to many types of scoring elements that could have an effect on the success or failure of a particular organization. So I would just state in a general principle that as you go into the scoring piece that you try to discern what is really tangible and relevant and it might not always be the number of widgets sold, the number of human bodies appearing, the number of dollars accumulated. That's all I have.

right anyone else all right moving on to police department police capital project discussion here to introduce this is our deputy chief Kevin Barton good afternoon mayor's committee council thanks for having me today a great part about this presentation is you don't have to make any decisions so that's kind of a win there we go

All right. Give you a little background. During the creation of our budget for 2526, council approved us setting aside some funds for some capital projects for some of our equipment. Um, and here's some of the remaining funds. It's about $70,000 that we have in remainder right now. Um, due to some changes, um, and needs for the police department, we're looking at reallocating those funds to, um, realign with our strategic plan. Um, some of those things revolve around compliance, safety, and life savings. So we have some legislative changes that have, uh, been instated by the, by the state of Washington in regards to use of force. And we're trying to get in line with best practices established by the Attorney General's office. We're looking for equipment that's going to help support the safety and security of this community, as well as some additional equipment to help in these life-saving measures as well. So when we're looking at that, we're really looking at three different items that we're wanting to reallocate these funds to. The first is establishing ballistic shields. This helps us gain some compliance in regards to our use of force policy for de-escalation, being able to address some critical incidents and things like that that allows us to establish more time and distance so we can resolve things in a safer manner for our citizens. And it also provides additional safety for our officers. The next piece of equipment that we're looking for is we're looking at acquiring 25 new AEDs. We've applied for some grant funding for this in the amount of a little over $27,000. We'll see if that grant funding is accepted or we receive those funds. If so, we will reimburse those funds back into the account at that time. But really, we were trying to make sure that every one of our patrol vehicles has AEDs, so we have that availability to deliver that first aid, that immediate care on scene. in those life-saving opportunities. It also is something that allows us to help comply with some of our state requirements for reasonable care, which was established by the state of Washington for law enforcement. And then the final item is putting an acoustic device on our rescue vehicle. It allows us to make sure that we can conduct negotiations, deliver messages, things like that, in a safer way so we can provide safe resolutions to critical incidents or in times of natural disaster where we may need to provide messages to the community in a mobile opportunity. So the funds for that is about a little over $13,000. So in total, it comes to a little over $70,000 with a little bit of a remainder. And again, like I said before, about 27,000 of that we've applied for a grant and we're hoping to recoup some of those funds from that as well.

Any questions? Council Member Wittgenstein.

I'm in favor. I love it. Can you play music with that speaker? Because that's important. You probably could. I'm good. Yeah, I love it.

Council Member Peterson.

It looked to me like you only had five of those ballistic shields. Why only five?

So part of it is the cost, making sure that we stay within our budget. The other is right now the need is to make sure that we have one for each patrol squad and then one for our investigations unit. So each patrol squad would have a signed ballistic shield assigned to their team. So there's always one available to every one of our patrol officers in an event of a critical event.

What? So they were in about $4,000 apiece?

About $5,000, yeah.

OK. And then $25,000 or so for firearms, taser gear, what's that $25,000 for?

Are you talking about in the original budget?

No, I'm in this intended purchase.

We're not purchasing any firearms or tasers. So we have two pools of money. One was set aside for a SWAT vest, and we've already purchased our SWAT vest at this point in time, so we no longer need the remainder of those funds for this year. Oh, you know what?

It's used and unused. Never mind. I should learn to read the graph. Thank you.

Yep.

I'll get there, I promise.

Was that it? Council Member Merrill.

Thank you, Deputy Chief Barton. I, of course, favor getting these items, and especially with the observation that I hope they're not necessary to use. I would ask, just in general terms, if that's available information, what is the useful lifespan of an AED?

It really varies. The AED itself has a significant lifespan. I don't know the exact years, but there's ongoing maintenance, so there's... ongoing maintenance to them, whether it's battery checks, replacements of pads, and things like that. So they're inspected frequently when they're no longer functioning well.

So you don't just toss them? We don't, no. And then also with regard to SWAT vests, do they have a lifespan also?

They do. All of our ballistic armor is about five years. And that's a manufacturer requirement. It's also an OSHA requirement to replace at the time of manufacture.

Thank you, Deputy Chief Barton. That's all.

All right. Anybody else for the good of the order?

Yes, please.

Yes.

Yes, please. Yeah. Hopefully the good of this for this. Yes. No, sir. You said good in the order. I thought we were done with him.

Well, we already had council comments. Are you wanting to make a comment? Well, it's time to adjourn, but if you're wanting to make a comment.

Yes, please.

Okay.

All right. In reference to something that I said earlier about the Juneteenth flag having an absolute classified distinction for a commemorative flag, I'd like to ask if staff could bring us a resolution to June 16th to say about flying that particular Juneteenth flag on June 19th.

I can work with staff to see if that's a possibility for the meeting. It's just some action steps that we'll have to do with creating the item.

Council Member Stuckey.

I'd like to request that not be done as we had just had a discussion about flying all flags or none commemorative flags. I feel like that's a little hypocritical to be honest. I understand you're going on the distinction of what is classified and what is not. I think that's what you're hanging up on. I think that's a whole can of worms we just discussed that I do not want to do that again. So I would request no.

All right, whatever council wants. I just, because of the distinction, I wanted to be able to, but I get you.

Anybody else want to speak up?

Yeah, I agree with Council Member Stuckey. I prefer not to go that route.

Never mind. No, appreciate council's discussion on that.

All right, so there being no further business, we will adjourn at 3.02.