City Council - Regular Meeting

I'D LIKE TO CALL TO ORDER THE CITY COUNCIL MEETING OF JANUARY 6, 2025. HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE. WELCOME, COUNCILMEMBER PRIM, AND CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OUR COUNCILMEMBERS WHO ARE BEING SWORN IN THIS EVENING. WELCOME, EVERYBODY. WE'RE THRILLED YOU'RE HERE. I HOPE YOU STAY THROUGH THE ENTIRE MEETING, NOT JUST FOR THE SWEARING IN, BUT THANK YOU FOR BEING HERE. CITY CLERK, WILL YOU PLEASE CALL THE ROLE? Councilmember Tim Chisholm.

Here. Councilmember Black. Here. Councilmember Prem. Here. Councilmember Falcone. Here. Councilmember Paschall. Here. Deputy Mayor Arnold. Here. Mayor Curtis. Here. All present. Do a little microphone explanation.

All right, we did not hold a study session for our first meeting of the new year. We have four newly elected council members. We will start tonight's meeting with our oaths of office for those council members. City Manager.

Okay, thank you, Madam Mayor, Deputy Mayor, members of the council. Welcome to family and friends for the swearing in. So this is how this is going to go. Our municipal court presiding judge, John Olsen, will come up front and will be doing the oaths of office in the order of position by election. So first we have position one, Jay Arnold. Position three, Shilpa Prem. Position five, Neil Black. And then position seven, John Paschal. Come down one at a time. And then after the oath is administered, we'll go back and sit and call the next one out. So I also want to mention that we're going to, after that, have the decision for Mayor and Deputy Mayor, and then there will be a break for opportunities for photos for everybody. So first up we have position one council member, Deputy Mayor Jay Arnold. Are you Jay Arnold?

duly elected to the office of Kirkland City Council, position number one, solemnly swear that you will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of this office as prescribed by the law and to the best of your ability, and that you will support and maintain the Constitution of the state of Washington and of the United States of America.

I do.

Congratulations.

Okay, next up we have position three, council member Shilpa Prem.

Following precedent, you're welcome to provide your family up too if you'd like to, if there's anyone you want to have join you.

Having been duly elected to the office of Kirkland City Council, position number three, solemnly swear that you will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of this office as prescribed by the law and to the best of your ability. And that you will support and maintain the Constitution of the State of Washington and of the United States of America.

Okay, next up we have position five, council member Neil Black.

Do you, Neil Black, having been duly elected to the office of Kirkland City Council, Position number five, solemnly swear that you will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of this office as prescribed by the law and to the best of your ability, and that you will support and maintain the Constitution of the State of Washington and of the United States of America.

I do.

Congratulations.

Now, position seven, Councilmember John Paschal.

Raise our right hand. And do you, John Paschal, having been duly elected to the office of Kirkland City Council, position number seven, solemnly swear. that you will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of this office as prescribed by the law and to the best of your ability, and that you will support and maintain the Constitution of the State of Washington and of the United States of America.

I do.

Congratulations.

Right, that concludes this portion. Congratulations to our newly elected and re-elected council members. Now back to you, Mayor Curtis.

Thank you, and thank you, Judge Olsen. And just so everybody knows, after we do the selection of the mayor, deputy mayor, we will take a break with cake, and we'll have time for more photos. That wasn't our only shot. All right. Next on our agenda is the selection of mayor and deputy mayor. For the public's awareness, the council selects these officer positions every two years. If there is more than one nominee for a position, we will vote on the candidates in the order that they were nominated. And as soon as a nominee receives a majority vote, the selection will be done no further. I'm sorry, the selection will be done with no further vote on any remaining nominees for that position. Nominations are now in order for the position of Mayor.

Mayor Curtis.

Deputy Mayor.

I nominate Kelly Curtis to serve as Mayor for a term of two years.

Second.

Thank you. This has been moved by Deputy Mayor Arnold, seconded by Council Member Black to appoint Kelly Curtis as mayor for a term of two years. Is there any discussion? Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. Kirkland has benefited from steady, consistent leadership and regional engagement where mayors have represented Kirkland, pursued the best interests of the city, and reflected the will of council. Kelly has demonstrated such servant leadership, and I believe it's in the best interests of Kirkland for her to continue. In particular, her leadership at Sound Cities has been demonstrated through policies and programs she proposed and shepherded on affordability, most recently pushing back on county tax increases and proposing the regional utility summit. Her thoughtfulness and preparation has come through in representing the community and council at numerous city events, regular council meetings, as well as the work delegated by the council to the mayor and deputy mayor through our policies and procedures. Kelly has earned a second term as mayor.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Are there any further discussion or any further nominations? All right, seeing none, nominations are closed. All those in favor of selecting, I think I'm supposed to call myself council member, council member Curtis as mayor for a term of two years, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Thank you all for your trust in me, and it's an honor to serve with you. All right, we are now going to move on to Deputy Mayor. Are there any nominations for Deputy Mayor? Deputy Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor. I nominate Councilmember Neil Black to serve as Deputy Mayor.

Is there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Council Member Prem. It has been moved by Deputy Mayor Arnold, second by Council Member Prem to move Council Member Black as Deputy Mayor. Is there any discussion, Deputy Mayor?

Thank you. Servant leadership requires putting council direction and city interests above your own perspectives. Neil has demonstrated this skill through his work in leading the legislative work group. Despite being a passionate policy advocate in previous work and through other organizations, Neil has definitely focused on city priorities and our adopted legislative agenda, recognizing when it's appropriate to check in, issues and legislation with the full council. Ten years ago, I was selected as deputy mayor as council member Doreen Marchione stepped back to provide leadership opportunities throughout the council. And similarly, I believe it is important for someone else to step into this role and understand the work required to support the mayor and the council. Neil is well qualified to do so and will serve us, the city, and the council well.

Thank you. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. All right, are there any further nominations for Deputy Mayor? Seeing none, I see the nominations closed. All those in favor of electing Neil Black as Deputy Mayor of the Kirkland City Council, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Congratulations. Before we move on, I'm going to take a moment of personal privilege. I want to thank our former Deputy Mayor Arnold. for his service as Deputy Mayor. And as you've heard, Deputy Mayor has served in this role for many, many years. I have valued the opportunity to work closely with you. I have learned so much from you. You are the most, one of the most thoughtful, strategic council members we have in the region. You make a difference in every room that you walk in. I admire your leadership and your statesmanship as evidenced tonight. But most of all, I want to thank you for your partnership over the past two years and your friendship. So thank you. All right, everyone. Now we get to have cake and take some pictures. So thanks for being here. We will spend about... Let's do 20 minutes, so we'll start we'll reconvene at 8. Thank you everyone All right, we are back in session after a short celebration, and now we're going to move on to honors and proclamations. Council Member Arnold will be reading the proclamations. City Manager?

Okay, thank you, Madam Mayor. Congratulations to all the mayor, deputy mayor, and new council members. So we will be declaring, proclaiming January 19th, 2026 as Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service in Kirkland, which is an opportunity for everyone to volunteer for their community. Before the proclamation is read, I just want to note to people in the audience or members watching online that there are numerous volunteer opportunities in the memo that's included in our packet and also on our website and many other opportunities. And here to receive the proclamation is Michael Pickney. He's a small business owner of Pink Meat Cookie Cafe and is also a graduate of our Kirkland Initiative. So welcome, Michael.

A proclamation of the city of Kirkland proclaiming Dr. Martin Luther King Day, day of service. Whereas the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was an American Baptist minister, political philosopher, and one of the most prominent leaders in the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. And whereas the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. devoted his life to advancing equality, social justice, and opportunity for all. And he challenged all residents to help build a more perfect union and live up to the purpose and potential of America. And his teachings continue to guide and inspire us in addressing challenges in our own communities. And whereas in 1994, Congress initiated the King Holiday and Service Act, a nationwide effort to transform the federal holiday honoring the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. into a day of community service, grounded in Dr. King's teachings that helps solve social problems while focusing on bringing people together and breaking down the barriers that have divided us as a nation. And whereas serving one's community on the King holiday is an appropriate way to honor Dr. King Jr., meet local and national needs, bring our residents together, and strengthen our communities and nation. And whereas Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service is the only federal holiday commemorated as a national day of service. And it offers an opportunity for Americans to give back to their communities on the holiday and make an ongoing commitment to service throughout the year, and whereas Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service projects are being organized by a wide range of nonprofit community organizations, educational institutions, public agencies, private businesses, and other organizations across the nation. Now therefore, Mayor Kelly Curtis, on behalf of the city council, does hereby proclaim Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day on January 19th, 2026. Kirkland and calls upon the people of Kirkland, Washington to serve their neighbors and their community through participation in community service projects and other acts of volunteerism.

That's true.

Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. I have recently gotten involved with the city of Kirkland through the Kirkland Initiative, which I don't know if everybody knows about, but it's an absolutely wonderful program to basically introduce members of the community to city government and how Kirkland is run. and is a series of classes, three hour classes over eight weeks where you learn about all aspects of city government. You meet the mayor and the deputy mayor and the city council and the city manager and the deputy city manager. and a number of other people in the city. And I recently completed that program and it was really transformative for me. And it makes me think of kind of what can I do on that day? So I'll be thinking about that. Just a quick aside. When I was a young kid, like 5'10", my parents never went anywhere without us. So if we went on vacation, it was the whole family. And one day they told us they were going away for the weekend and it kind of blew our minds because they never went anywhere without us. It was always the whole family. And then they came back. And they didn't tell us much about it because we were really little. I'm older than I look. But where they were was the March on Washington. And they'd seen Dr. Martin Luther King give that famous speech. So I had a fairly unusual upbringing in the parents that I had. So I was very fortunate that way. And I feel very fortunate to receive this and to be here. So thank you. And just a little about me. I have Pinckney Cookie Cafe. We're a gourmet cookie company. You may know us. We're up in the Totem Lake area next door to the Box and Burgers and the Fred Meyer Complex. So stop in and say hi if you're there. Thank you.

All right, we are now gonna move on to items from the audience. As most of you are familiar, this is time in our meeting where we normally hear from the public. Please limit your remarks to three minutes. We will provide up to a total of 45 minutes For our items of the audience with no more than six speakers on a subject, regardless of their position on the subject. If you would like to address the council during items from the audience period, you may sign up using the online public comment instruction link or the posted QR code in chambers. For those participating by phone, please dial star nine to be recognized to speak. Items from the audience is an important part of our business meeting, and we ask that everyone be treated with kindness and respect. We ask that you please not clap or applaud or otherwise openly express your agreement or disagreement with a speaker. When that happens, even when being openly supportive of a speaker, it can be disruptive to the meeting and discourage others from sharing a different point of view. We discourage people from using obscenities and making personal attacks against others. And we ask that you direct your comments to council, not to staff or audience members. In addition, because they can be disruptive, signs and placards are not allowed in council chambers during our meeting, regardless of content. Kirkland prides itself on being a respectful and welcoming community. We want everyone to feel like they belong in council chambers, expressing their viewpoints. City Clerk, who do we have signed up?

Thank you, Mayor. At this point, we have eight guests wishing to speak. We'll take the first four in this order. Paul Quinn joining us virtually, Ingrid Salmon on site, David Haynes virtually, and Murray McKinney on site. All right. Paul, are you there?

Do we see him? Oh, okay. Paul.

Yes.

Welcome. Go ahead.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. My name is Paul Quinn, and I live in Sammamish. I'm a person who cares about fairness and how Kirkland Solid Waste customers are charged for disposal. Right now, we charge residents and businesses for disposal based on the size of the container being picked up. The effect of this message is to say we don't care so much how much you put in or divert from the landfill. This approach is unfair as it charges all people based on the size of the container rather than what's in the container. We know this is wrong because our water, gas, and electricity charges are based on what we use rather than the size of the wires and pipes connecting us to service. I have emailed you handouts. Handout number one shows a graphic of the trend of the diversion rate for Kirkland updated through November 2025. And a graphic of the monthly cost for garbage disposal for your single family residences. The cost for disposal continue to go higher and last year King County told us their disposal charges passed on to the city's residences and business is likely going to double in coming years. What's worse than the trend is that this city doesn't allow residences or businesses to reduce their costs for disposal by properly diverting materials for recycling and compost. In fact, costs are basically the same, whether you work hard in sorting recyclables and composting food scraps, they're charged whether or not they, and some people that don't care, they're charged the same. And it's unfair and it can and should be changed. And this can be done by weighing the refuse each customer creates. To begin this change, I recommend a pilot program called Smart Disposal. And Smart Disposal is an innovative initiative. It's not a company. Handout number three outlines how smart disposal works in some detail. Smart disposal weighs each container picked up by the hauler at each single family home. This system uses postcards mailed to each resident and provides data specific to the resident, including a landfill diversion rate per pickup and how they use the utility compared to others in the community. And I provided you handout number four and show an example postcard report to residents. The system helps us move from a toss and forget mindset towards making better choices. We all know that feedback through measurement works because our water, electricity, and gas are metered, and they help us moderate our use. Smart disposal provides meters that our disposal utility needs. So I've talked to staff before, and frankly, there's some initiatives that are good, but I see a lack of urgency. The city's current initiatives don't provide sufficient impact to reverse these trends. And achieve your stated 2030 diversion goals. We need this council to provide the urgency and the leadership to drive smart disposal forward. What I recommend to you today is that the City implements smart disposal. Metering and reporting to residents what we dispose of at the curb provides fairness to help us abate the increasing cost of disposal. This Council should support fair pricing for our disposal utility. You're a remarkable City Council. Please act remarkably.

Thank you. Ingrid, welcome.

Hello, City Council. And elected officials, thanks for having me here today. I'm Ingrid Salmon, and I live in this wonderful city of Kirkland. I wanted to speak on the topic of water pressure. rather a pedestrian topic but nevertheless very important as well. The water pressure seems to be a big issue here these days in Kirkland. I wonder if there is excessive people pressure going on regarding this water pressure problem. I've heard that there are lower pressures periodically in the Highlands neighborhood of Kirkland. I keep hearing about this water pressure problem. In fact, I heard that at the Kirkland Alliance of Neighborhoods meeting, a gathering of 13 neighborhood associations, this topic of the highlands. water pressure problem is routinely discussed. Really? Wow. Must be quite a pressure problem. In fact, I went to a candidate forum and the last words out of one candidate's mouth were bad water pressure. I actually want you all to have, I want all residents of the city of Kirkland to have good water pressure and toilet flushing potential for each and every toilet in each and every I read the Kirkland, sorry, the Kirkland Residential Water Pressure Booster Assessment Project services, yeah, that cost, not to exceed $84,000. And so my concern is, How many folks does this impact? Are we talking about 20 connections or 30 or maybe even 10? Is this a life safety issue to address? The budget that I ascertained in the recent packet, which was October 2025, where the costs for potential short term, let's see. The costs are very high to address this pressure issue for a very small number of folks. in the upper highlands area. The alternatives cost between 8.7 million, 8 million and 3-ish million. That's a lot of money. So in conclusion, I wanted to ask whether this is really fair. I do not think that, I would prefer not to find out that all of us Kirklandites are paying for any temporary solution to a tiny segment of about 90,000 people in the city of Kirkland because that is not fair. Thank you very much.

Thank you. All right, next is David Haynes, who's virtual.

Is he there? I think he's in transition.

Thank you.

But David Haynes will be.

Oh, we can hear you, David. Go ahead.

Thank you, David Haynes. I live in Juanita Beach and there's a few issues like where the park shore senior living is going to be built. I think Kirkland needs to have a law that says if a developer gets a permit to come into the community and build that they have to promise to have either two shifts or one full shift on site because XL Pacific is building. Park Shore, split their shifts and sent a whole bunch of crew to Ballard to finish an apartment complex or something there. And the community in Juanita Beach has been like suffering from an abusive, disrespectful construction project and a lack of public works specifications when it comes to safe crosswalks for like moms and their little like babies. and people with bikes that can't pass another person on the path of the sidewalk. And there's these manholes, this one manhole at 120th Street and 120th Place and 97th at the T, right where Cafe Juanita is. Right in between the buildings, there's a manhole cover. And you need to get some sort of like rubber gasket and a noise stop type of like added cover noise abated like particular like piece of rubber to stop the metal clanging because people are going nuts living around there and when the people are driving road rates down the street at 120th when they get to the 45 degree angle turn that's where they put the sidewalk out into the street and people are hitting it and they're endangering everybody and they're not building it back proper with the hedgerow that give people a reprieve from the headlights And anyway, there's another issue at the Juanita Beach baseball fields. If you go to Corbella Apartments and to the left outfield of the baseball field that's right next to the creek, there's a public access path and it's all mud and people have been slipping and falling. And it's too angled. We need some like sod grass, because when they planted all the grass seed inside the baseball field and the crows ate like half of it, they never put any to allow people to go from the like open like path safely without slipping and falling. And all these elderly people are not even going through there anymore because they're sick and tired of falling and hitting their shoulder and getting all muddy. And, you know, it's like they've just neglected that part. They never put any grass seed on there. And it's kind of concerning, you know? And the other thing is, there's certain places in Kirkland where the high wires are way too low, looking like modern third world, like Venezuela or something. And we need to get them things higher, because I swear, it's not fair that people who are like a pedestrian or riding their bike are having to deal with high wires that are too low, arguably making people think slow.

David? David, your time is up. Thank you. And there's a number of Parks Department staff in the room who heard you about Juanita Bay Park. So thank you very much. All right. Next, we have Murray.

Murray McKinney will be followed by Scott Morris and Heidi Shore virtually. Thank you.

Yeah, good evening. I've been a Kirkland Highland resident for 50 years now, so there's a lot of changes in the neighborhood and the city in general. So I'm here tonight to talk about the water pressure issue, and we received on Monday from Julie a copy of Alternative 4, and Alternative 4 is... Temporary solution to bring in a booster pump for the neighborhood so instead of individual booster pumps of the homes this would be one in the right-of-way, which We actually reviewed a group of our neighbors reviewed with our private volunteer civil engineering consultant Scott Stoneman This looks like a good solution. I mean it's an interim solution, but based on the report We'd get our pressure back by hopefully mid-june, which is ahead of the irrigation system You know people starting to irrigate more at that time of the year, so we're in favor of it There's some sunk costs, but it looks like the city's tended towards option one for the permanent solution Which is probably going to take a year couple years to implement But this would with option one the sunk costs aren't as significant as if you took option two So you guys can go figure that out later But we'd like to get the council to approve this tonight and get moving forward with buying the pump, getting the vaults ordered, getting this thing moving so that it can be actually completed by June. I mean, we've been living with this situation since April of 24, and it's time to get this fixed. So this will end the nightmare of low water pressures. A lot of people got 30, 40 pounds pressure, which isn't, I mean, it meets code, but it's not satisfactory. It's not what we had before. And like I said, this has been going on for two years, and I'm really encouraged that we could get this thing wrapped up and finished. This has taken a lot of effort, a lot of time spent by a lot of the residents and meetings and discussions with the city. And I appreciate the public works department meeting with us, but in my opinion, this should never have happened. I mean, this has been really mismanaged and leaving residents with 34 pounds pressure and knowing that was going to be the case. And we've got documentation that public works department and staff knew this. I think it's really unsatisfactory. So I'd like to hear something back from that in the end of how all this came to be. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, next we have Scott Morris.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and council members. My name is Scott Morris. I'm on the board of the Finn Hill Neighbor Alliance. I'm a Finn Hill resident. And no surprise, I'm here to talk about the Green Loop implementation plan for just a few minutes. We've been working on this plan for Probably 1015 years. So we're very excited to see an implementation plan actually being taken over by the city. It will be a permanent. Framework for what will be a very long decades long project. It is good to have this in place We're also very pleased that the city is committing resources from the Parks Department to Shepherd that plan into existence and we've had a very good relationship with Jason and Jody and Mariah and and Lynn and we just want to give a shout out for the cooperation and collaboration that we've had with them in the past years. We've read the memo. We are very interested to see how the discussion this evening goes. And I think based on that, we'll probably submit some written reports or written comments. But for now, I'd like to just make a few observations. First, the Finn Hill Neighborhood Alliance would love to collaborate with the city and the city staff on the formation of this plan. We think we have a lot of information about residents and terrain and topography. and how trails are used and we would like to be a resource for the city as it develops the plan. We've met with the Juanita Neighborhood Association leadership. We're totally in support of the points that were raised in the memo about their having access to the Finn Hill Green Loop from the eastern side. I know Heidi Shore is following me. Hopefully she will agree that we're in alignment on that. I would say that a lot of that access will be through public rights of way that the city has. I think it's very important for the city to protect those public rights of way over the years to come. Final point is we can focus on trails and we can focus on maps. The key thing is to acquire the green space that remains on the Finn Hill neighborhood and to do it as quickly as possible. The funding is now here. And while the plan is being put together, I would just hope that the city continues to focus on those opportunities that are in front of it right now And acquired the property that will be useful for a trail. If we don't have the property, we'll never have a trail. And the property will also serve other purposes, canopy, wildlife refuge, also erosion prevention and surface water management. Thank you very much.

Thank you. All right, we have Heidi next.

Heidi Shore virtually followed by Jessie Brown virtually and Jenny Jager on site.

Thank you. Heidi, are you there? Heidi?

Unmute. I am here.

Good. Welcome.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor and Deputy Mayor. I am calling in from very cold Austria at this moment at five in the morning. And I am, as I said, Heidi Schor, resident of Juanita, chair of the Eastern Green Loop Subcommittee. And I want to thank you all for your continued work on bringing the Green Loop to life. And we read the packet material memo with great excitement, and we will further comment as a neighborhood association via written letters to council and staff. And, but for this evening, and sorry, there's some weird fall going on there. Juanita Neighborhood Association strongly urges you to prioritize underserved Juanita residents access to green space and parks. In the proposed two-phase plan, it is unclear how long phase one is to last. In addition, phase one is grossly imbalanced as far as creating access to green walkable trails on the eastern side of the loop. This leaves Juanita residents essentially with nothing more than they are currently enjoying, which are walks on streets and sidewalks in Finn Hill. and leaves us with an indeterminate wait for access to nature, parks, and green space. To this end, we second Scott Morris's comments about acquisition of properties, which is the most important thing. If we do not acquire these properties now, we will never have a connected green loop. We will not have the connection of green spaces, which serves wildlife. They need the connected, extensive connected corridors to reproduce and to flourish and that the acquisition of these properties is the most important thing that can happen. We also second what Scott Morris has commented about that using the open spaces, retaining them and using them on the eastern side of finn hill to create the green space and we see that in phase two it's just the worry is that when is phase two really gonna be and that there you know we have no um no known time so to that and we also ask that you move the extension of the billy goat trail north from juanita heights park into phase one and the the acquisition of those properties In addition, we support staying focused on creating a green connected nature trail to serve wildlife and not dispersing the energy for this great vision into connections that are between shopping centers and school to someplace else, but staying focused with the large vision, which is a connected nature.

Heidi, I'm sorry, your time's up, but I assume you're going to send all of this in an email also. Did we hang up on her? Apologies, Heidi. Next, we have Jesse Brown.

Hello. Hi, Jesse, go ahead. I just wanted to I'm Jesse Brown. I live in Juanita. I wanted to voice my support for the prioritization of the eastern portion of the green loop trail. It would be a great enhancement to being a Juanita resident to have the have more access to green spaces. And I I second everything that Heidi and Scott just said So that's that's all I have to say. I just wanted to ask the council to please prioritize The eastern portion of the green loop trail, thank you.

Thank You Jesse All right our last speaker is Jenny Jenny please apologize to Heidi that we cut her off like that I will

And I know she will follow up with email. We as the Juanita Neighborhood Association will follow up. Good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council Members. I am Jenny Yeager, the Chair of the Juanita Neighborhood Association. I'm speaking on behalf of the JNA. Phase 1 of the Green Loop Plan currently seems to offer nothing new nearby to Juanita. The eastern portion seems to be nearly entirely or possibly entirely a green line on sidewalks that already exist. Phase one seems to, sorry, Juanita is the largest neighborhood in Kirkland by population and the most socioeconomically diverse. Compared to our neighbors, Juanita residents have very limited nearby access to acres of parkland or to trails through green spaces or to continuous trails. If you consider per capita access, the contrast is especially great. Please prioritize Juanita residents need for equitable access to trails, especially through green spaces. We ask that you include an extension of the Billy Goat Trail through Juanita Heights Park and north in phase one of the Green Loop Plan. Again, in phase one of the Green Loop Plan, we ask that you include an extension of the Billy Goat Trail through Juanita Heights Park and north. Thank you. We will follow your discussion of this topic closely. Thank you.

Thank you, Jenny. City Clerk, anyone else?

No one else.

All right, thank you everyone for your comments. We are now going to move on to the consent calendar. Before we have a motion, I'd like to ask our new deputy mayor to present the audit of the count.

Thank you, Mayor. We had payroll in the amount of $9,158,698.56, and bills in the amount of $9,858,483.84.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor. Is there a motion to approve the consent calendar?

So moved.

Thank you. Second. The move by Councilmember Arnold, second by Councilmember Falcone to approve the consent calendar. Are there any questions, comments, or corrections? It's going to be hard. Councilmember Arnold.

It'll be fine because for a long time it was Councilmember or Deputy Mayor. Yeah.

So it'll be fine.

Mayor, I'd like to defer consideration of the minutes in item 10A2 from the December 8th regular meeting for consideration at our next meeting.

All right, and do I see any objections? All right. We are going to move item 10A2 is removed from consent. Staff will be revising the minutes, and we will postpone that until January 20, 2025, rather than adding it to our business agenda. And again, any objections? All right. The question is motion to approve the consent calendar as modified. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Thank you.

Madam Mayor.

Yes, sir.

Maybe make it just a comment to understand why we're deferring things.

Oh, I'm sorry. Please do.

Yeah. Just for the audience and people watching, the minutes describing consideration of motions for the JBD and North Juanita Zoning Code included language Describing amendments as revised and displayed on the screen during the meeting, and that accurately reflected our motions as we were doing a number of things on the fly. But I'd like to see the specific code changes added to the record. And so I would like to take the time to do that in the minutes for consideration. The next meeting. Thank you.

Thank you. Council member Arnold and that was important clarification and I'm glad that you noticed that in the minutes. Okay, we are now moving on to our first item of the business agenda, the Upper Highlands Water Pressure Alternative 4 Update, City Manager.

All right, so thank you, Mayor. So we have a host of folks here to speak with you about the Upper Highlands Water Pressure. We want to talk to you about Alternative 4 and get council direction on whether to proceed with that. We have Michelle Campbell and Ryan Feskins from RH2 as well as our public works staff our senior project engineer yuen yang and rob english our capital project manager is here as well we'll be seeking direction at the end of the presentation thank you city managers good evening madam mayor deputy mayor council member

Last November, staff came before you to present an alternative number four in the attempt to address the high land pressure issues raised by community members following the zone conversion. This is meant to be an interim solution so that city has time to implement a long permanent solution. Of the four alternatives that's provided, alternative four seems to be the only alternative that has the highest likelihood to be deployed before the peak season of 2026, which is another requirement demanded by the community members. So at the time when we present the concept, this council direct the staff to move forward with the design from bringing concept to 30% so we can come back with a refined cost and schedule for you to make a determination. And that's the reason why I'm here today. After two months of dedicated effort to start the design into 30%, we have now the information. We can come back to seek your direction to see whether you will support, would you support the advancement of this temporary regional booster pump station as an interim solution. So, for the remaining of the presentation, I will be providing the information from the 30% design necessary for you to make the determination. The information including the scope, cost, schedule for this project, along with the risk and the mitigation plan for managing the risk, the funding implication, and the next step. So let's start by looking at the scope. What's in front of you right now, it's a map representing the existing water system serving the neighborhood of Highland communities. With this proposal, there are three specific components that will be implemented. One will be a regional pump station along with two check valves. The pump station will be located at the north portion of this community, where the water will be diverted to the pump station, boosted to raise the hydraulic gradient from 450 to 510, then serve it to this new created zone. The two check valves, one will be located at the north, which is right next to the pump station, and the other one will be located at the south, also along 116th Avenue Northeast, just a little bit north of the Northeast 95th Street. Under the normal operation, the check valve will be closed. It will serve as a separation for the zone from the newly created zone from the adjacent surrounding 450 pressure zone. However, if there is an emergency, such as the malfunction of the pump station, or if there's a fire event that requires much higher fire flow, the check valve will be actuated by the hydraulic and open to receive the water from the surrounding pressure zone. So when these three components are installed, the adjacent, the nearby isolation valve will be located and closed to create this new 510 zone. So how much does it cost to provide this improvement? Based on our 30% design, it is estimated that it will cost about 1.45 million, where the 0.61 will go to the pump station and the 0.84 million will go to the two check valve station. Now keep in mind this is a temporary facility, so there will be some cost in the future when this facility is decommissioned. however the level of the sunk cost will be depending on which alternative is selected and the reason of that is because this temporary or interim alternative is closer it's more compatible to one of the alternative than the other and to demonstrate that i would like to To demonstrate that, I will show you bringing these two maps up. Alternative one has exactly the same footprint of the 510 zone that you will be creating compared to the interim solution. And because of that, the two check valves that we will be pulling in right now as an interim measure can be reused and incorporated into the long-term solution, so it will not be wasted. Where in alternative two, the purpose is to reinstate the 510, former 510 zone footprint. And because of that, the two check valves will be in a different location and therefore cannot be incorporated. So as a result, if we select the alternative one, the sum cost will be limited to the pump cost only. Where if it's alternative two, the sum cost will be both the check valve and the pump station. Also, I wanted to point out, at this point, this is considered a class three estimation because it's a 30% design according to American Association of Cost Engineering. So there is a range of accuracy of what we present right now. So the cost can be as low as 20% or as high as 30% than what we estimate at this time. But the most important question that we should ask is, can we meet the timeline? So when we were directed to move forward with this design, we knew that we had to move forward as quickly as possible so we can come back to the council to ask for the direction. Because we know if we ask for a direction today, we only have less than six months to meet the timeline, which is deploy the system before the summer of 2026. And that is really a compressed, very aggressive schedule. On top of that, we also need to know that the equipment that we need to procure for this solution takes a pretty long procurement lead time. A typical valve, the Volt, requires about 12 weeks to deliver. So facing the constraint of long lead time with a very aggressive schedule, the schedule that the design team and the staff developed had to be creative. So we implemented two strategies. The first strategy is BREAK THE PROJECT INTO TWO CONTRACT PACKAGE. AND THE REASON OF DOING THAT IS THAT THE VAULT DESIGN CAN BE FASTER BECAUSE IT'S SIMPLER. SO INSTEAD OF WAITING FOR ALL THE PACKAGE, EVERYTHING WITHIN THE SOLUTION TO BE FINISHED DESIGN, WE WILL finish the design for the vote package first. So it can be on the market for bid and award and then get started with construction right away. While that is going, then we can finish up the pump station design and then submit it and get that going following the vote construction. Another benefit of using the two package is that then there's a possibility for the two package to be constructed concurrently and therefore expedite this schedule as well. The second strategy that we will be utilized is to request pre-approval for the awarded contract. Per city's procurement policies, any construction capital improvement project that is valued between $350,000 to $2 million. Staff can request for pre-approval of the contract to streamline the process, given that the bid will come in within the budget, and that's what we would like to use. By March, according to the schedule, we should be able to come back by March 17th and by April 7th to request for your pre-approval so that we can streamline the award process and get the construction started as soon as possible. So, this is how we are going to meet the design. We believe that with these two strategies, we should be able to deploy the system before the peak season as required. However, this is also with the assumption that 12-week procurement will happen, which is built into the schedule. But sometimes that may not happen. There will be a chance that there will be a delay from the supplier side. So in the event, if the 12 weeks did not happen, we end up having 16 weeks, for example, that means that the deployment will be pushed up four weeks. There is a risk here. So the next page, the next slide, what I wanted to represent is what are the risks and what are the mitigation plans that we have planned to mitigate them. So like any capital improvement project, every project has its risk, especially for the project like this where it's such an aggressive schedule. So the first risk that we have identified is the longer than expected procurement lead time, which may cause the delay. So there's three things we implemented to mitigate this risk. The first is get it started as soon as possible. get the purchase order out as soon as quickly as possible. So as we are here today, January 6th, we're asking for your direction to proceed with this, to advance this project. But at the same time, we already have the equipment specification finalized. We even have to quote receive from the supplier. Another word is we have positioned ourselves to be ready to submit this purchase order as soon as tomorrow morning, given that we received the agreement to proceed forward. Also at the same time, just like what we did earlier, we try to parallel the process as much as possible. In this case, instead of sequential to purchase the equipment and the construction process, we parallel them. So with the construction award and the bid process can happen while we're waiting for the equipment. And that way we can make it fast, as quick as possible. The third method that we try to implement is, in the case if there's still a delay, we will phase the vault delivery and the installation. And the reason of that is because voles typically are cast and manufactured in two parts, the bottom and the top. And usually it's the top that will cause the delay because the requirement to mold the hatch door is more complicated and you need to cast into the vole, so usually that's what causes the delay. So in the event if that happened, we have built in the specification where we will require the bottom of the vote to deliver first and have the contract to specify that the contractor will build the bottom of the vote and then the pipe and plumbing first while waiting for the top of the vote. So when the top of the vote deliver, all we need is to implement it to finish the construction. So that's how we going to mitigate that, or manage the risk of delay. The next two is the possibility of utility delay. During the design, we have discovered that there is a gas line in the location where we were putting one of the check valve station. So there is a utility relocation needed. We also need a power service connected to power the pump station. utility connection and utility relocation with PSE is known to have a very long lead time. So to mitigate that, we had to start as early as possible. In fact, we started last month already. We already submitted this application. We have started, we even identified the PSC project manager assigned to the case. We plan to work with them closely to get everything out of the way, relocated, service connected, in order to avoid the delay for the deployment. Finally, for the regulatory approval, there is a risk as well. Even though this is a temporary facility, we still require the approval from the Department of Health. And the review approval time usually takes about 42 days from the DOH. However, with the backlog, chances are this is going to be much longer. So to avoid delay, we may have to advance the construction in advance of receiving the approval. This is a risk because we may have to rework or redo the construction work in order to respond to the comment. To mitigate that, we decided to work closely with DOH staff, incorporate a comment while we design. So that way we can minimize the chance of redesign. In fact, we started the coordination with them last month. Our first meeting was December 12th, and we plan to continuously work with them throughout the whole process of the design. So what is the fiscal implication? In order for us to move forward quickly, as quickly as possible, without coming before the council to ask for a fiscal note appropriation, we utilize an existing funding that's appropriated under the current capital improvement program. There's a project funding that is allocated for the purpose of replacing an aged water main. This aging water main is located on 116th Avenue Northeast, serving Highland community. This water main is approaching the end of its service life, needs to be replaced in the near term. But we're now using this funding to meet the demand for this interim solution. It also has been used for the two other concurrent effort that is going on for resolving the highland pressure issue. One of them is we're using 150,000 from this fund to support the highland solution development. We also use this fund, 60,000 from the fund, to work with the peer review to evaluate the alternative, which is one of the demand from the community member and also from the council. So at the end, we might be depleting that funding from 3.3 million to 1.6. We will come back. We will monitor the cost closely and come back to the council in the future to develop this funding strategy to eventually implement the permanent long-term solution, including replacing the aging pipe. So, before I get into the final slides, I want to take the opportunity to explain why this cannot be a temporary, this has to be a temporary solution, cannot be a long-term usage. Even though this solution provides a critical relief that immediately resolves the pressure, but it is not because the time restriction, it is not designed to meet a long-term use standard. There's two long-term standards that's required by American Water Works Association and Department of Health that we will not have time to implement under this proposal. One of them is the pump station need to be housed with the structure that's engineered to meet the seismic event. We don't have time to do that and this is not, we did not, the structure will not have a structure, will not have engineer with seismic design. Second, the pump is not sized to meet both the domestic and firefall event, which is also another requirement to the standard in order for this facility to be used as a long term. Right now, as you saw earlier, when I described the scope, the pump is only sized to meet the domestic demand. Fire flow is pulling through the check valve. Therefore, because of these two, it is not going to meet the long-term standard usage. In fact, when we met with Department of Health, they specifically emphasized that the approval of this project is contingent on that there is a clear plan for a long-term plan to follow. Next, this is a reduced reliability solution because now we're supplying the supply with the pump, which is mechanical. Mechanical is prone to failure, so this has to reduce the reliability and also increase the maintenance cost to make sure that we will constantly troubleshoot to make sure that there's continuity in service. Also, because this is a pump station, we're using energy from power grid. where in a long-term solution, the water will be supplied using gravity, which is much more environmentally sustainable. And then because it's not seismic design, this system is less resilient in the event of emergencies. So finally here, what I wanted to explain this for the next step, for the temporary solution, if the council agree, we would then move forward with the design, the procurement permit, and coordination with utility. then return to the council for the construction award recommendation. At the same time, we are moving forward, continuously moving forward with the permanent solution effort. Right now, we're engaged with the consultant that conducted peer review. We believe we should be able to finish the report by first quarter of this year. We are planning to come back to present the finding and recommend the permanent solution by March this year. And we also will continue to outreach and communicate with the residents regarding our progress. With this, I conclude my presentation and open for questions.

Thank you. Great presentation. Thank you.

Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Black.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. First, some accolades for the staff and the consultants for the creativity in developing Alternative 4, the engagement that has gone into it, and also the the clarity of the information that was presented in our packet and also your presentation today. I think it's super helpful, not just for the council, but also for the public who's here and who's listening. One question, so you've done a really nice job of presenting the way that the parallel construction and procurement, the two-package, all the benefits associated with it, and also some of the risks associated with it. One risk I wanted to explore a little bit, just because I don't think you mentioned it. If you did, I missed it. With doing the two-package, with doing the parallel, what are the risks that maybe we as counsel or the public should be aware of with that approach? If there weren't some risk associated with that approach, we would do it in every project. So are there some risks that we didn't talk about tonight that we should be aware of regarding the parallel approach that we're taking on this?

That's a great question. I will address first and I'll have the consultant take over. I think this is pretty much possible because of the unique situation that we really have a very simple implementation. It's not complicated where there's a lot more of the tasks that involve. So this is just two check valves with one pump station and there are actually distance. In fact, the two check valves are distance apart. So there is not an issue where they will be on top, the activity will be on top of each other. I would not recommend this for all the other capital improvement projects where this will be risking having the activity on top of each other. It would be best to sequence them. But this is really unique, and that's why I believe this is possible. But I'll have Ryan to add that.

Yeah, the kind of things I'm thinking about are, you know, you get out there, you do a precast vault, and then the equipment shows up and it doesn't line up with the precast vault. Things like that that you avoid if you have the equipment out there when you're, you know, or you know what equipment you're using when you're casting the vault. So, just kind of want to understand if there's those kind of risks. So, and both to scheduled completion and also any price.

Thank you. The way that we anticipated that these vaults would be procured is that there's a size that's necessary in order to fit all the equipment inside of it. And to be able to get the base of the vault out on site and dig the hole so that the piping can go through allows us to field core the pipes to go in. So that's really a field fit application, whereas historically you would specify a vault penetration location and get those nailed down specifically. Beyond that, the fact that you're able to get these vaults in and work on two separate sites may allow us to have two separate projects. So we would require the north vault site to be completed first and then have them move to the south one, whereas then the north site could be then you could work on the booster station at a simultaneous schedule. So that's kind of the first and foremost there. The other part is with procuring this early, sometimes there is a risk associated with procuring stuff on behalf of the contractor. Basically, here's your stuff to work with. In this case, there's very little of that just due to the fact that it is equipment that is, you know, I picked a product, here it is, it shows up, and it's generally that size. So there's a little less of that risk, whereas if there's a problem with it, the contractor normally carries that risk instead of the city. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Tim Chisholm?

Thank you. This is a question to staff as well as the city manager. Is there anything that we can approve tonight that gives you as the city additional discretion so that the operational tempo of the decision-making on this issue does not need to follow city council meeting schedules so that you are empowered to make decisions without...

So my answer, and I would ask anyone else to do this, tonight we need a motion authorizing us to proceed with the booster pump station project. I think in future meetings soon, we might ask you to do things like pre-approve the city manager signing off on the projects, but those aren't ready for tonight. So it wouldn't be other action tonight, but there would definitely be other council actions soon that we'd be bringing back to you. I look forward to that.

Thank you.

First of all, thank you so much to staff for all the work and designing and coming up with this temporary alternative for the water pressure to go up for the Highlands community. You had mentioned reduced reliability of the pump. I just wanted to ask if other cities have used the same design that we are proposing. And if not, what is our confidence level that the overall design is actually going to work?

So I will also answer first and then let the consultant to add in. This has been done with other agencies. In fact, when we talked to the Department of Health staff, they have responded that this is a common practice, but it's not preferred. If we do have the alternative to use the gravity instead of mechanic, power to support the pressure of the water service. That would be a more preferred alternative. There are some agencies that may not have that luxury, so it is a common practice, and it is provided in the water design manual that there are boosted pump stations providing the regional support. The only thing is what we're doing right now is considered temporary. So just like I described it, we're not meeting the long-term usage. If we want to turn this into a long-term usage, the design, the construction will be completely different, and we would need to take a much longer time. I'll let Michelle add in.

Just to expand on what you and said that the configuration of what we call this is a Closed zone booster pump station is very common in water systems Especially in the Puget Sound area What is not as common is for this to be designed as a temporary booster pump station? Ryan and I have personally worked on a very similar project where it was a temporary booster pump station for a community in the city of Bellevue, and it was implemented. It was online for a year, implemented successfully. In terms of reliability, as Ewen mentioned in her presentation, in order to meet this accelerated schedule, There are some concessions we have to make in the design to reduce the reliability of the booster station, whereas there would be almost near full redundancy in a permanent design. IF WE WERE TO DO THAT. BUT, YOU KNOW, THE GOOD THING HERE IS IF THE PUMP STATION FAILED IN THIS TEMPORARY CONFIGURATION, THE SYSTEM WOULD REVERT BACK TO THE CURRENT CONDITION, THAT DOES MEAN ALL REGULATORY REQUIREMENTS CURRENTLY. SUPER HELPFUL. THANK YOU.

ANYONE ELSE? COUNCIL MEMBER BLACK?

WOULD YOU ENTERTAIN A MOTION? IS THAT WHERE WE'RE AT?

If there's no further questions, yeah, we'd prefer a motion authorizing staff to proceed with a temporary regional booster pump station, alternative four would be.

Okay, city manager, in making this motion, I'm wondering whether staff needs more than just approving that we include this project in the capital improvement program and authorizing the staff to proceed with final design project delivery. Are you also looking for any additional authority related to flexibility, or is?

How I'm considering this is, we'd come back with that additional authority, but by approving the framework, you're acknowledging that I'll be coming back with those future asks.

Okay, okay.

This will be more specific.

With that, Madam Mayor, I'll move to approve including the temporary The TRBBPS.

Regional pump station.

Yeah, the regional booster pump station. The temporary regional booster pump station project in the capital improvement program and authorizing staff to proceed with the final design and project delivery. Second.

Thank you. It has been moved by Deputy Mayor Black, second by Council Mayor Paschall to move forward with alternative four.

Thank you.

Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Thank you, and thank you for joining us this evening. All right, folks. It is 9.06, so we're going to take a quick break. We will be back at 9.15. All right, we are back from a very short break and we are now moving on to item 11B, school zone signing safety enhancement options, city manager.

So thank you, Madam Mayor, Deputy Mayor, members of the council. So tonight we have a series of options. You saw them in the memo, but we're going to go through each of them one at a time and ask for direction at each option. Here to kick us off is our transportation engineering supervisor, Jennifer Palmer, and she'll be introducing our transportation engineer, Ed Wang, who did all this amazing work.

THANK YOU, MR. CITY MANAGER. GOOD EVENING, MADAM MAYOR, DEPUTY MAYOR AND COUNCIL MEMBERS. I'M JENNIFER PALMER, TRANSPORTATION ENGINEERING SUPERVISOR AND WITH ME TONIGHT I HAVE ED WANG WHO IS OUR TRANSPORTATION ENGINEER FOCUSED ON THE SCHOOL ZONE SIGNING PROJECT. This item, these options that we're bringing you tonight, originates from a legislative request memo last year which turned into a service package that funds not only Ed's engineering position, but the cost of the materials to actually install signs around the city. This work plan item includes the evaluation of all school zone signs, starting with the automated enforcement area. The options before you tonight were previously discussed with Transportation Commission and their feedback is provided in your packet materials. Our team started this project by setting up systematic guidelines to ensure clear and consistent school zone signing throughout Kirkland. We've already started implementing some phase one signs. These phase one signs are a subset of signs that shouldn't be impacted one way or the other by council direction, whatever we receive tonight. So it's a way for us to get ahead get some work done while we're making decisions, and to avoid moving signs that we just installed. And the rest of the signs will be implemented throughout the year. For each sign, Ed evaluates the need for the sign and identifies a location based on the legal requirements, engineering standards, and common sense. and then that signing plan that develops is sent to the sign shop who then confirms fabricates and installs those signs um the some examples of those phase one signs are shown on the screen and i will mention also that for each before each one of the phase one signs was installed in the school zones. Ed diligently reached out to each of the administrators at each of the schools in the school zones to let them know this project was coming, let them know what kinds of signs were changing or being added, and then also to ask for feedback. What kinds of safety issues are you hearing about? Is there anything you want to discuss? That sort of thing. So with that, the schedule to complete will depend on what council would like to pursue in the future. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Ed, who will walk us through each of these optional safety enhancements.

Thank you. Welcome, Ed. Do you prefer Ed or Edward?

Ed.

Okay.

Thank you, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and Council Members. Tonight, I'll be presenting seven options for consideration. These are all optional, which means that they're not required by, say, state law or some engineering standard. But they've all been applied by jurisdictions around our region to sort of enhance and go above and beyond when it comes to school zone safety. The first topic is school speed limit signs. We have two types of school speed limit signs in our city. We have some with a flashing beacon that tells drivers when the school speed limit is active. And then we have static signs which do not have a flashing beacon and just have some text to describe when the speed limit applies. Currently, it appears as the sign on the left in the chart. It says school speed limit 20 when children are present. Our proposal is to change the sign and have it apply at a specific time or day range or alternatively have it apply all the time. There's published research showing that this improves compliance. People drive slower through the school zone when they know clearly when the speed limit applies. We consulted with the Kirkland Police Department. They're very supportive of this change. They expressed that when children are present can create difficulties in enforcement, particularly wet, cold, rainy days as we currently have. Sometimes there aren't children out on the street even if, say, school just got out. And then finally, we have received comments from the public that when children are present is kind of confusing and hard to comprehend. And especially around high schools, it can be hard to tell who is a child and who is a young adult. Our staff recommendation is for On local streets, consistent with previous council direction, we would apply the school speed limit of 20 miles per hour all the time. For collectors, our recommendation is to apply it over a school day, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on school days. And this would help create a concise, understandable timeframe that drivers would be able to see and comprehend as they're driving towards it. So, Madam Mayor, I will open it to discussion.

Thank you. Council, Council Mayor Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, first, thank you so much for doing this to both of you. I'm so excited that this work is being done. I can't tell you the number of walk-alongs and ride-alongs over the past decade plus as a Fenn Hill Neighborhood Alliance board member, as a PTA president, and now as a council member I've gone on. on this issue just because we've heard from so many community members and you know you know we um you know our families live uh this every day and experience it so thank you for this body of work you've done a really fantastic job um you mentioned ed thank you and great job on the presentation so far by the way um you mentioned um the uh previously council approved reduced speed limits on local streets to 20 miles per hour um and i'm can you um i'm curious i think i know the answer but just want to hear it um the addition of saying like that it's a school zone does the impact even though the speed limit would already be 20 through a previous council decision would the difference be that the um infraction would be higher than in the school zone areas i'm seeing a nod from our from our police chief thank you that's my understanding i just wanted to confirm that for the public on record that that that would be the difference here in having this signage rather than just the 20 miles per hour on our local streets if it has the school zone designation um that an infraction would be higher which is for good reason and i appreciate that yes councilmember falcon the fine actually is doubled in a school zone so that would be the main difference Thank you, and for good reason. So I appreciate that. Thank you. I also have a question related to this. You mentioned local streets and collectors, and I have a question about arterials as well. Have we thought through what our plan for that is? I mean, we have some schools, I think of like Juanita High School and 132nd, where the speed limit is currently 35 miles per hour, are we proposing that we would have, you know, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. be 20 miles an hour Monday through Friday on that street? Is that lumped in with the collectors or are we still thinking about and planning for those types of streets?

This is sort of relevant to the next topic where we discuss where we have school flashing beacons in place of static signs. We'd

It's a related conversation because the next item on the schools on flashing beacons, we're proposing to apply those more consistently. So 132nd Street in front of Juanita High School is an excellent example of an arterial roadway that would now have flashing beacons. So it would say 20 miles an hour when flashing, and it would have the yellow flashing beacon on top that very clearly describes when drivers are required to drive slower during that period. Thank you.

So this doesn't apply to our arterials that would just be the flashing that we would put there?

Again, it's related. So if council chooses not to pursue any extra targeted flashing beacons, like if we didn't put beacons in all of our arterials, that we would come back and revisit this and bring back options for that.

Thank you. Sorry to clarify my question. That staff's recommendation would be to do that then? Yes.

Thank you.

Anyone else on this topic? Councilman Arnold.

Thank you. Thank you, Ed and Jennifer. One question on option C. When I think about different school types, elementary schools are not going till 5 o'clock. When you went and talked to school administrators, is there a sense that this could be customized to a school type where junior highs might have the full 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., but elementary schools maybe later? LESTER, I DON'T KNOW ABOUT START TIMES. I KNOW THERE WAS A PROJECT TO CHANGE START TIMES ON SCHOOL TYPES. IS THERE A POSSIBILITY TO CUSTOMIZE THIS AND WAS THERE ANY FEEDBACK FROM LWSD ADMINISTRATION ON THE TIMING?

Yeah, that's a really great question. Our goal was to provide a broader time frame for option C that would encompass most, if not all schools. Some elementary schools go until nearly 4 PM, and then they have enrichment activities that go until 5. So it's meant to capture the realm of people who would be walking, rolling, and bicycling to school. entering and leaving school grounds during those times. We haven't considered customizing the signs too highly. And the reason for that is the school zone start and end times, or sorry, the school start and end times change periodically. And we want to set ourselves up for success where we don't need to go and change the sign every year. So that's kind of the theory behind option C. And then I'll ask Ed if he has anything to add.

on this topic um specifically for that 7 a.m to 5 p.m window yeah you basically covered it we wanted to avoid having to go back and change the signs in case the school district decides to swap the start and end times thank you so with that yeah i would support the staff recommendations of options b and c mr pascal

Thank you. So on option C, do we have an idea of how many locations are where there's a static sign on a collector today? Is that prevalent? Because I feel like many of them already have the flashing beacons.

Many of them do, not all of them. A good example is like 132nd Street in front of Fenn Hill Middle School. It is a collector, but it does not have a flashing beacon. Now we would propose to add a flashing beacon on that facility. That's in the next, I'm getting ahead of myself. Spoilers, it's like the next option. But we do have, are there other examples of collectors that would need sign C, option C?

Yeah, there's a collector in front of Kamiakin Middle School, 140th, I believe, Avenue North, or Northeast 140th Street, Northeast 90th, I believe, in front of Twain Elementary. I believe there's a few other examples. I can't think of them off the top of my head.

Yeah, I guess definitely in support of staff recommendations, I guess I'd just like to understand the magnitude of how many locations have static signs, like collectors or arterials that have static signs that we could upgrade with the flashing beacons. I think that, because I think the question more is like, what's gonna be most effective? And I think the flashing beacons have proven success in kind of really alerting drivers that they need to focus on the school zone. So I would default to that, but I mean, if it's 100, Locations that's one thing, but if it's 20 then you know That's that's something different, so that's why I was trying to understand the magnitude Thank you Was there a chart in this presentation if there was I missed it About how many hours per week?

These cameras are currently on and how many hours per week they would be on if we followed the staff recommendation I

The automated enforcement cameras are a related but separate discussion items per Kirkland Municipal Code. They would continue to enforce as they currently do, which is before 30 minutes before start time.

Okay, so you're not changing the... Right. No, you're not changing that. Okay, thank you.

All right. Any other questions, comments on this option one? Jennifer, what would help you so that you leave with clarity? Do you want us to all weigh in on whether we approve the staff recommendations or wait to the end?

I would suggest we do a motion to approve each one as we go.

Okay. So who would like to make a motion on option one? Council Member Arnall.

I move that we direct staff to pursue option B and C as recommended. Second.

It's been moved by Council Member Arnold, second by Council Member Falcone to move forward with option B and C on number one. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? All right, motion carries 7-0. City Manager?

I just want to maybe add to what Council Member Paschal asked about. So at the end, we talk about we would come back to you with a funding plan and an implementation plan and a timeline. So I think the issue you raised is we would be able to come back to you and say, here's all the potential static signs. Council, would you like to upgrade any of these to flashing beacon signs? I don't think you have to decide that tonight, but we'll still have a chance to check in with you if you want to make change later.

All right, let's go to number two.

Thank you. As previewed, the next topic is school flashing beacons and where we want to install these. School flashing beacon means there's a flashing light on top of the school speed limit sign that tells drivers when it's in effect. We have 35 school flashing beacons currently in our city. These have been installed by different projects over time, so we haven't applied a consistent standard on where and how we install these. So as has already been called out, we have some arterials which do not have a flashing beacon, just have a static sign. And conversely, we have some very low volume local streets which do have a beacon. There's published research showing that school flashing beacons are very effective at reducing speeds through school zones. The caveat is the research generally focuses on roads with higher speed limits, 35 miles per hour and up. In Kirkland, most of our school zones are on lower speed streets, 25 or 30. There's no available research showing how effective beacons are on these lower speed streets, but we would certainly expect they would have some speed reducing effect. Generally, when we look at regional practices, higher speed, higher volume roads will pretty much always have a flashing beacon if there's a school zone. On lower speed, lower volume streets, like neighborhood streets, they can be found around the region, but it's not common or consistent. Our staff recommendation would be to install flashing beacons in a targeted manner on higher speed, higher volume streets. based on thresholds that we have developed. With this criteria, we'd be looking at 30 new beacons in new locations and potentially removing 11 existing beacons when they reach their end of life on locations that do not meet the speed and volume thresholds. And I'll call out that the initial cost covers the beacon, which has an expected lifespan of 10 years. So we would expect that we would need to fully replace the beacon at the end of its lifespan. With option two, the cost would be in the ballpark of $330,000 up front.

Thank you. Any questions on option two with the flashing beacon? Council Member Paschal.

So going back to my question about locations along Collectors or arterials that don't have beacons today Are we saying that there's 75 locations then that are on collectors arterials that don't have beacons? Is that what we're saying under option 3? 75 includes locals as well Do we know of those 75? How many are our collectors are arterials?

There would be no arterials All arterials would be covered by option two. Low volume collectors would not be covered by option two. OK.

Just to clarify, Council Member Paschal, in the packet buried in attachment one, there is way more detail than you could ever want. One of those things are the thresholds that I'll just briefly mention here. So option two in the thresholds for when we would recommend installing a flashing beacon, again, to be applied consistently throughout the city when we talk about higher speeds or higher volume roads. So we're talking about roads that are functionally classified as principal or minor arterials. collectors with a speed limit of 30 miles an hour or greater, and then collectors or local streets with a speed limit of 25 miles an hour and a traffic threshold of between 1,500 and 2,000 cars a day. Those are the kinds of thresholds that we're looking at for option two. That's what's included in option two.

So option two would include all locations that are collector arterial that are 30 miles an hour or higher. Okay. I'm good with option two.

Thank you. Deputy Mayor Black, did you have a question?

There was a pause in the conversation, so I thought maybe it was time to make a motion.

All right, Council Member Falcone. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I have a question that I was going to wait until the end, but I think it's relevant to this discussion in the quantification of the potential locations for this. Can you go over what qualifies as a school zone? Is it all public and private school? Does it include preschools? Does it include like churches that may have a preschool or an elementary school? How are we deciding what constitutes a school zone?

That's a really good question. For the purposes of this project, we looked at both public and private schools K through 12. That was the targeting of the schools that we looked at for this project.

Thank you. When I looked at the in the memo and the list of schools under phase one that are completed and and planned for future completion, it looked like it was almost all public schools. I think I may have saw one private school in there and I just I honestly don't know the number of private schools in our city, but I was surprised to not see more on there, which is what prompted my question. So just wondering if we've really captured all the areas that really have this need. And, you know, I'm curious as to what state law is on definition of that and what our city's policy is on defining a school zone and then just making sure that we apply both of those here. I'm not saying that we're not. I just I don't know enough to know. And it just made me curious to make sure that we're really capturing all of that. We can follow up and bring you back more information.

Thank you. Councillor Arnold.

Thank you. Just a comment before we have a motion. There was a, in the memo, there was a transportation commissioner that recommended option three, flashing beacons in all locations. And that's something that I support as a philosophy, but agree moving forward with option two as an interim step, given that I'd rather solve this. And as we look at enhancements three and four about enhancements to the beacons, Do option two and do it right before pursuing a universal installation? But I do think it would be kind of a good long-term philosophy.

Thank you Deputy mayor black Now is it a good time to make a motion?

Yes.

Okay, and I'm gonna fold into this a little bit about what the city manager Said in response to customer Pascal's concern. So the idea of an implementation plan to come back so I MOVE FOR ADOPTION OF STAFF'S RECOMMENDATION OF OPTION TWO WITH A PROPOSED IMPLEMENTATION PLAN TO COUNCIL PROPOSED BY STAFF, INCLUDING THESE PROPOSED THRESHOLDS. DO MY COLLEAGUES UNDERSTAND THAT? DOES STAFF UNDERSTAND THAT? YES, THANK YOU.

All right. It has been moved by Deputy Mayor Black, second by Council Mayor Falcone, to move forward with Staff Recommendation Option 2, including a proposed implementation plan. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 7-0. All right. Option 3.

Option three is dual beacon heads on our school flashing beacons. Currently, where we have school flashing beacons, we have a single light mounted above the sign. It flashes on and off. With two beacons, we'd have two lights, one above and below the sign, and they flash in an alternating pattern. On, on, on, on. There's no research showing if this would decrease speeds or improve compliance, but this is a proven way of improving visibility of the school speed limit sign. And if we look at our neighboring jurisdictions, particularly Bellevue, Redmond, Kenmore, they all use dual flashing beacons on all of their beacons. So from a consistency perspective for our drivers who do cross city boundaries, this would help create a consistent experience for most of our east side jurisdictions. So as a baseline, based on previous council direction, we have already been planning to move forward with dual flashing beacons in our automated enforcement locations. Our staff recommendation would be to apply this at all locations, which would add about $27,000 approximately to do the second flashing beacon on all of our beacons.

Thank you.

Council Member Falcone?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I appreciate this. I do support this. I have a question related to the implementation. The assumption is that this would just be the new flashing beacons that we've installation of the new flashing beacons. Is that correct? That this would be added to, and then we would wait until the lifecycle of older ones are completed and then add it. I would love for there to be flexibility in this. If there are ones that should be higher priority that maybe were installed a year or two ago and maybe there is a safety issue and we don't want to have to wait several years for this to be added, I would like for you to have flexibility to be able to have that type of discretion. I mean, I don't know when it was replaced, but I think of, you know, the coming down Finn Hill where Renita Elementary School is, that flashing thing flashes so slowly that, like, depending when you're looking, you may miss that it's even flashing, like, this time. Anyway, I think of things like that where I'm like, that really needs to be, it might be, you know, needing to be replaced soon anyway, but... Anyway, so I don't know if you need the motion to be worded differently than we normally would, but I just want to express that I would like flexibility for it to not just include, I'm not necessarily proposing to do it to all of our flashing beacons, to retrofit all of them, because I know that'll kind of mess with the life cycle of many of them, but just, again, flexibility for some that may be priority, either because they were just installed within the last year and it just makes sense because they'll still be new and so it'll still be on kind of the same life cycle

Or first, you know high priority safety ones If I may yes If you ever notice a beacon whose flash pattern is off Please use our Kirkland a service request and we will fix it lickety-split So please just for the public for council members submit those tickets. We're gonna take care of that.

Thank you Councillor Pascoe then I was just gonna make a motion to approve option to approve Second.

All right. It's been moved by Council Member Paschal, second by Council Member Falcone to move forward option two in number three. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries 7-0. All right, number four.

next topic is remote connectivity for school flashing beacons currently our school flashing beacons are all offline so a few times a year a staff member goes out to every beacon in the city plugs a laptop into the beacon to program it synchronize it whatever we need to do there's a few implications we don't have visibility into whether the beacons are working We rely on members of the public to go on our Kirkland and submit a request to have it fixed if there's an operational issue and Occasionally the beacons are subject also to clock drift Which means that the timing of when the beacon turns on and off doesn't exactly match when it's supposed to With remote connectivity we would be able to program the beacon from City Hall and And it would provide monitoring capabilities. So we would be automatically alerted in the event of an equipment failure, for instance. The quoted cost here is a package which covers 10 years of service. It's a one-time upfront cost. So the three options that we're presenting, we have what we currently have, no remote connectivity. There would be no upfront cost, but we'd have Staff effort to go out and program these beacons a few times a year option two is to really focus on the locations where the Reliability and consistency is most critical the automated enforcement locations where we really wanted to turn on at the correct time At to cover these locations the upfront cost would be around twenty four thousand dollars again covering ten years of service and And this would help slightly reduce the staff time effort to program beacons as some portion would be able to be programmed remotely. Then option three would be to apply remote connectivity at all of our beacons, which would allow us to program and monitor all beacons from one place. The cost of this would be $162,000 roughly. So for this topic, we didn't provide a staff recommendation as it's Less of an engineering question, more of a operational and funding question.

Deputy Mayor?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. This might be a question for Jennifer and Ed. It might be a question for Chief St. Jean, who is here. In thinking about this and thinking about prioritizing the spending, I do want to understand if having these flashing beacons Let us say there is clock creep and it is not turning on when it should. Does that complicate enforcement, and to what extent does that complicate enforcement?

Yes. It happened a few months ago, where the Fenhill school zone beacons experienced clock drift, and they started later than they were supposed to, but the camera doesn't know that, right? So we had to throw out the tickets from those first few minutes of when it was not flashing properly. We didn't know about it until we knew about it, and it's a compounding problem, obviously.

Okay. And that makes perfect sense in a zone where we have cameras flashing. I assume it is true to some extent in zones where we don't have cameras. If we have an officer who is doing traffic monitoring, if they do a stop, I can imagine the driver saying, how was I supposed to know that light is not even flashing? It is not even flashing now, and you got me pulled over here. Is that a complication, or am I making that up?

You are absolutely correct, Deputy Mayor Black. It really depends. It is kind of compounding this whole discussion tonight on what the sign says. So school zone when children are present or school zone when beacons are flashing, those kinds of things, that is what our officers can then enforce based on what that is. Back to the safety camera. ISSUE. WE ALSO HAVE WHEN THERE ARE HALF DAYS OR SCHOOL GETS CANCELED. ALL OF THOSE THINGS HAVE TO BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT ON THE CAMERAS AND ENFORCEMENT ON WHETHER IT CAN BE ENFORCED OR NOT OR THE CONFUSION OF THE COMMUNITY, ALL OF THOSE THINGS. SO I JUST WANTED TO MENTION THAT AS WELL. OKAY. THANK YOU.

Thank you. I appreciate the comment, Chief, on how you try to match the school calendar with the enforcement of cameras. If we were to choose option three, would that allow us to do the same responsiveness to the school calendar with all of the flashing beacons for the city?

It would, yes. We would be able to program them remotely. And right now what we do is we set the school calendar year basically when Lake Washington Schools publishes it over the summer. So we know when those conference half days are for elementary schools, for example. We'll go out and program the beacons to respond accordingly. In addition to that, if we did option three, any remote connectivity, right? Thinking about things like the big windstorm that happened in 2024, right? That knocked out power and school was canceled for a really long time, a few days at least. The flashing beacon didn't know that and we couldn't deploy Dave. to go and plug in the laptop because it wasn't safe to do so because some of the roads were blocked. So that might be another thing to consider as well, not just calendar events, but like ad hoc weather related events.

Thank you. Council Member Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, I'm glad you brought up that bomb cyclone event because my question was related to that. I remember hearing from community members who received tickets and some who complained, some who were confused because it wasn't flashing. But the camera flashed, but then they didn't receive tickets. I remember having a conversation with the city manager at the time, and my understanding back then, at least, was that, yes, we have our manual. At some point, while the cameras were still going, we were able to go out at least along 84th. in Finn Hill and manually turn off the flashing school zone. And so there was some confusion from folks on Finn Hill that the lights weren't flashing, but the cameras were still flashing at them as if they were speeding. And my understanding at the time is that there was some additional coordination and work to do with the contractor on the cameras and timing of that. Do We have a super quick update on how that's related to this. Or have we made progress on that? Or is that still something that even if we have this in place, we're still going to have the issue with the cameras when something wonky happens like the bomb cyclone or snow day, or other things that will change on the fly?

It'll still be wonky. I think it'll be better, but we still, when we get notification from Lake Washington School District and we're on their distribution list that for whatever reason they've canceled school at an area that we have a safety camera, then we actually notify the vendor to not issue tickets for that time. It might still flash. It might still do all of that, but those tickets will never be, they'll never even make it to us for review because the vendor won't issue them.

Thank you. My understanding is with the bomb cycle and there were still, I may not remember the number, I'm going to say 41 or something like that, that still made it to KPD, that still made it to us to review. And then we manually went through, is my understanding, because we obviously were conscious of that and then didn't issue the citations. But just wanted to mention that system is not perfect. And I just want us to continue to collaborate and figure out how we can do better with that as we're improving this technology, hoping that the vendor is Our expectations that they would improve their technology and future contracts and future future iterations of that technology Absolutely.

Thank you.

Thank you Learning so much councillor Pascal Well, I'd entertain a motion to go with option two But also to add that That that becomes a design standard for all camera locations and you know, all future camera locations if there are cameras that are added.

Thank you. Can I get a second?

Oh. Nope.

Okay. Anybody want a second? Council Member Paschal's motion.

Sorry, Madam Mayor. I want to ask a clarifying question. So... I don't usually turn to my colleagues and ask my colleagues questions, but, Council Member Paschall, if I can ask. The idea is we're not looking to have every flashing beacon remotely connected. It's just those in the safety camera locations, with future safety camera locations having the same standard. Okay. It's not my turn to speak, I guess, but it might help. I think I ultimately, given what we've heard tonight, I would like us to aspire to the remote connectivity citywide for all the flashing beacons. So that's where I'm at. And I think then Councilmember Arnold has a motion.

Yeah, and you called him Deputy Mayor. Thank you. Council Member Arnold.

If Council Member Pascoe's motion has died for lack of a second. Mm-hm, go ahead. Okay, then I'd like to move that we approve option three for remote connectivity citywide.

All right. It's been moved by Council Member Arnold, seconded by Council Member Falcone to select option three for school remote connectivity citywide. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 7-0. City Manager, you gotta figure out how to pay for it. All right, number five.

The next topic is in street signage for school crosswalks. What in street signage refers to is essentially what you see in the image. It's a sign mounted in the middle of the road on a flexible base. If you knock it over, it springs back up. There's proven research showing that these improve pedestrian safety. Drivers yield to pedestrians more often and give pedestrians more space when they do stop. The reason we haven't currently deployed these commonly is maintenance. They are in the street, so they get regularly hit by vehicles. They need to be replaced and repaired. So to address this, we've proposed to have an ongoing budget to replace these panels. So with option two, which is our staff recommendation to install in street signs within school zones where we're able to, We'd be looking at around $21,000 to install the signs initially, and we would request a $4,000 a year budget to go around and replace sign panels as they get destroyed. Overall, it's a fairly low cost way of improving pedestrian safety.

Thank you. Council Member Tim Chisholm?

Thank you. Seems reasonable. Where are you proposing that this money come from? Yeah, our current thinking would be the fund balance of the school zone safety camera citations. When was the last time we had a presentation on the school zone safety camera revenues and how it's being used?

Yeah, we haven't had a formal presentation in a while, but in the quarterly report from police, we always give an update that has in it a table of the revenue, but we can certainly talk about that if you want to hear more.

I would be interested in having some sort of presentation on how those funds are being used and how I, as a involuntary participant in this fundraiser that you're conducting, and the school community and the PTAs and the parents and the students, just in general, how those communities are benefiting from from this revenue, and I can't recall. I'm sure it's buried in a quarterly report, but I can't recall seeing a presentation on that recently or at all.

Yes, we haven't had, like I said, a formal dedicated presentation to just that, so I'd be happy to do that. Like I said at the end, we're going to come back with a funding proposal and a timeline, and we could just easily incorporate that. provide a big update to everybody on what's happened to date and what we'd be doing in the future. Just a reminder for those who haven't paid attention to this over the last five years, the ordinance that the council adopted that authorized the cameras requires that anything above operations be invested in school safety projects such as sidewalks, bike lanes, Crosswalks and and this these kinds of things.

I'm aware of the statute. I just wanted to dig a little deeper into How it's being used if we're coordinating with PTAs if we're coordinating with with some of the parents on the ground that see the problems and and how the coordination with the school district and particularly the Parent communities is going in and how we make the decisions on what to spend those funds on and that's that's kind of the area of my interests and I I'll let my colleagues speak for themselves, but that I think would be, because we're talking about millions of dollars annually, in my understanding. Is that right?

Like I said, we can easily incorporate that. I think that's a great idea to update the council. I also want to emphasize that where we start with these projects are from the school zone walk route project list that we did with the individual school districts, so we have a list by each school, and those are where we start first to invest these dollars, so We don't ask each time the school district what we should do. We have these adopted plans that we follow as the way we start the investments. But we can cover all that in a future council meeting. Thank you.

Council Member Falcone. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you for proposing this. I'm glad to hear that this is recommended by staff and the Transportation Commission. And in reading the memo that published research from the Federal Highway Administration shows that in-street crosswalk signage increases the rate of drivers stopping for pedestrians by up to 46%. I mean, that's pretty significant. And so this seems like a no-brainer, this type of investment, so much so that it makes me wonder if there are other areas that we should be considering installing these. I know that's not this particular conversation, but I think of, like, you know, the neighborhood safety program. I think of, you know, other locations. I also remember from previous discussions around, I think it was some NSP projects, maybe on Finn Hill, but on what defined a school crosswalk. And there are, you know, crosswalks that are near schools that school children use along their school walk routes that are not defined as school zone crosswalks, or I don't remember all that terminology, but I'm guessing there's a lot more than 21 in the city that this would HELP OUR SCHOOL CHILDREN AND HELP OTHER FOLKS IN OUR COMMUNITY BE ABLE TO WALK AND CROSS SAFELY. AND SO JUST MAKING A NOTE OF THAT THAT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE THIS EXPLORED IN OTHER AREAS AS WELL IN ADDITION TO THE CONVERSATION WE'RE HAVING TONIGHT GIVEN WHAT THE DATA SHOW ON THIS AND GIVEN WHAT SEEMS LIKE KIND OF LOW HANGING FRUIT. IT'S NOT A VERY EXPENSIVE INSTALLATION OF $1,000 IN PERHAPS SOME HIGH PRIORITY LOCATIONS. CONVERSATION FOR ANOTHER DAY, BUT I WANTED TO MAKE A NOTE THAT THAT SEEMS LIKE A WORTHWHILE FUTURE CONVERSATION. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU. ANYONE ELSE WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A MOTION?

SURE. MADAM MAYOR, THANK YOU. I WOULD LIKE TO MAKE A MOTION THAT WE APPROVE SAFETY ENHANCEMENT NO. 5 IN STREET CROSSWALK SIGNAGE.

Second. Moved by Council Member Falcone, second by Council Member Prim to approve the staff recommendation of option two.

Oh, thank you. Sorry, option two.

Or number five. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 7-0. All right, number six.

the next topic is gated signage for school crosswalks what this refers to is you have two signs one on the left side of the road and one on the right side of the road with arrows pointing downwards and in towards the crosswalk our current standard for all crosswalks including school crosswalks is that you only have the sign on the right side of the road with the single arrow so you don't have the sign on the left side the benefit is gated signage is a proven way to increase visibility of the crosswalk. There's no research on how it improves safety or yield rates, but it will increase visibility. And there's also a consistency factor. We've been applying gated signage on greenways. And based on engineering standards, all crosswalks which have a flashing beacon already have gated signage. So as you're driving through a school zone, generally see quite a few crosswalks which already have gated signs, and then you'll come across a standard crosswalk which only has a sign on the right. So our staff recommendation is to apply this at all school crossings to create that consistent experience for drivers at every crosswalk. The cost would be about $17,000 to do this at crosswalks within school zones citywide.

Thank you. Any questions regarding gated signage? Anybody would like to make a motion? Deputy Mayor?

Madam Mayor, I'll make a motion to adopt option two under item six, install gate signage at school crossings.

Moved by Deputy Mayor Black, second by Council Mayor Falcone to select option two for gated school crossings. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion carries 7-0. All right, last one.

Last topic is school zone stubs, and what this refers to is According to state law, we are allowed to designate school zones within a 300-foot radius of a school property. So in a lot of cases, we'll have a street that comes perpendicularly into a school. And that last approximately 250 feet of that road, we would be legally allowed to designate that as a school zone with a 20 mile per hour school speed limit. And that's illustrated with the two diagrams. If we don't do school zone stubs, then a driver which is on this perpendicular road approaching the school will not see any signage other than the new cross street sign which we've been installing. If we are to designate a school zone stub, then we'd have the full sign series creating a legally enforceable 20 mile per hour school speed limit on that last little stretch of the road. There's no research showing, given how short this school zone would be, whether it would reduce speeds or improve safety, but the additional signs would certainly provide emphasis to drivers that they need to slow down, be careful as they approach the school. So we present the two options. One is generally to not do stubs, so most of our perpendicular roads would appear as the diagram on the left. And option two would be to add school zone stubs on these roads that come into the side of the school so that they would appear like the diagram on the right with a fully enforceable school zone. We didn't provide a recommendation on this topic as there's no evidence or research on which to base a recommendation.

Thank you. Councillor Paschall?

A question on this, thank you. For these locations where there would be the stubs, are we talking about local streets that would essentially be 20 miles an hour after implementation of our 20 mile per hour speed zones?

Yes, in most cases. Maybe not all cases, but yes.

So it's just really whether it's a designated school zone or not. But in all cases, they'd likely be 20 miles per hour, signed at 20 miles per hour.

Most of them would likely be 20 miles an hour anyway because of the local speed limit change, but as You know Chief St. Jean mentioned earlier the infraction is higher Thank you Councillor Falcone

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you for clarifying. I had a question earlier today, which you definitely helped answer in your presentation tonight, really around what is legally required or allowed. And what I think I heard you say is that we are allowed within a certain number of feet, 250 feet, 350 feet, 300? Okay, thank you. 300 feet of a school. What are we required to do? That's what we're allowed to do. Are we just required for a street that goes along the school property? Does it have to be where the school entrance is? What is required by state law for a school zone?

That's a great question. Technically, we're never required to do any school zone.

THAT IS INTERESTING. DO WE HAVE CITY POLICY ON REQUIRING? IT KIND OF GOES BACK TO MY QUESTION EARLIER AROUND DEFINING SCHOOL ZONES AND WHICH SCHOOLS GET SCHOOL ZONES. I AM INTERESTED IN THAT QUESTION AND REALLY UNDERSTANDING HOW WE DEFINE THAT. I ALSO THINK OF NOT JUST STUBS BUT OTHER PERPANDICULAR STREETS. I THINK OF FINN HILL MIDDLE SCHOOL WITH 132nd AND 84th AND WHAT WE DO THERE. I KNOW THAT IS PART OF A LOT OF THE QUESTIONS THAT I HAVE GOTTEN IN THE PAST FROM COMMUNITY MEMBERS IS AROUND THAT PARTICULAR LOCATION WITH PEOPLE COMING FROM BOTH THE EAST AND THE WEST ON TO 84th FOR VARIOUS SCHOOLS, NOT CONFIDENT IN WHAT THE SCHOOL ZONE RULES ARE ON 132nd, FOR EXAMPLE. but there may be other places that I'm not thinking of as well. That just comes to top of mind. So I'm curious about that, how we currently handle not just Stubbs, but other like intersecting streets that may both border a school.

So our current practice, we don't have like a written policy that I'm aware of. We created a guidance, Ed created a guidance document that we're now following. And this is one of the questions in it. In general, our current practice is to designate a school speed zone with the 20 mile an hour when children present sign in front of school frontages or within 300 feet leading up to the school frontage. So that's the road that runs along the school building and parcel. And then that 300 foot mark is beyond that parcel line, essentially that property line. That's how we've done it in the past. There are a few examples of stubs as well. In Fenhill, approaching Thoreau Elementary, for example, there is a school zone stub of a few hundred feet leading up to 84th that is legally enforceable at 20 miles an hour when children present. It's kind of a, that's one of the goals of this program is to bring consistency to our school zone signing. And this, yeah, this is a good example.

Thank you. That's really helpful clarification. I mean, I do support this. I think it makes sense. I don't know what the studies, you know, you said that a study doesn't currently show that this is effective, but right along the road, right along the frontage. In my mind, that's less relevant than where kids are walking, right? Like if kids are walking or biking, that's common sense where, you know, we do have studies that show that, you know, obviously the the slower a vehicle is moving in a collision, the higher rate of survival. So I do think there are studies that show that this would link to this, that would keep kids safe. And so I would support this. Thank you.

Anyone else?

Thank you. There's a number of items through these enhancements that we have chosen the higher cost option. Stubs are a lower priority to me. As staff has mentioned, most of these and Council Member Pascoe has highlighted most of these are in residential neighborhoods. So I am in favor of option one.

Thank you. Anyone else?

All right, Madam Mayor, I move that we approve option two, school zone stubs under item seven, school zone stubs.

It's been moved by Council Mayor Falcone, second by Council Mayor Tim Chisholm to move forward with option two for item number seven. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed? No. Motion carries 5-2. Who was the two? Yeah, I was going to say it was Council Member Arnold and Mayor Curtis for the dissenting votes.

Okay.

All right.

Well, thank you so much for your time tonight. I know it has been a long presentation. Thank you for hanging in there.

We were very interested, so thank you.

For next steps, now that we have your feedback, we'll bring back that implementation plan as well as a funding proposal to get this work done. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you both. Ed, you survived your first presentation to us. All right, we are now moving on to 11C, which is the briefing on the Green Loop implementation plan. City Manager.

Okay, thank you. Those are switching out. This is your first major check-in on the Green Loop implementation plan. So right now we're looking for initial feedback. As you saw in the memo, we'll be coming back with a draft plan, and then following that we'll come back with a final plan. So there'll be multiple bites at the apple for the Green Loop implementation plan. The main question we have for the council, which you'll see through the presentation, is in the phase one concept, everything that we would do would be on public property. And in the phase two, many of those options are then on private property. And so the question for the council is how should and when should we reach out to public to say, hey, we might be interested in your private property as an easement and to have that conversation in a way that goes in a positive way. So that's the main question for the council tonight because we are looking to have a community meeting in February on this topic. So with that as the overview, I'm going to turn this over to Mariah Murphy and Jody Galvin to give you the presentation.

Thank you, City Manager.

well good evening mayor and deputy mayor and council my name is jody galvin i'm one of the park operations supervisors and i'm here tonight with mariah gail murphy who is our park planning and development manager and we are quite excited to be here tonight to give you an update on the green loop corridor and get some guidance from you all and how we want to approach the next steps So what we'll do tonight is I'll speak a little bit about the background on this project and the timeline of what's been done so far and what we're planning to do next, how this could all roll out over the next several months. Mariah will walk us through in detail the work that's been done so far and give us our first look at what this corridor might look like on the ground, what the routes might be. And then we'll get into, I'll come back and get into some potential next steps, run you guys through some options that we're hoping you can give us some feedback on. So I think first and foremost, it's really important to ground this conversation in the community that has held this vision for many, many years. This is something that's been coming from the community throughout the city, but especially from the Finn Hill Neighborhood Alliance and the Juanita Neighborhood Association. And this is something that they've been working on together for many, many years. The reason why the community is so excited about the Green Loop is it really has this chance to preserve what is the remaining green essence of the Finn Hill area. This is the wildlife corridors that we know move through these areas, the recreational opportunities, the chance for people to connect with nature in these spaces. The green canopy, just the tree canopy and all the benefits that that provides as well as the slope stabilization, because that is a really steep neighborhood. And so there's a lot of interest in preserving the tree canopy there and preserving the green spaces on those steep slopes. So there's a lot of reasons why the community is excited about this. And because of that, In 2018, the Green Loop Trail was identified in the official Fenhill Neighborhood Plan and was adopted into the city's comprehensive plan. In 2020, Council approved Resolution R5446, which authorized the use of King County Parks levy funding for the Green Loop Trail. And that authorization included the creation of a master plan document that would be developed through the community and via a public review process, right? Like this is something that the community really needs to be the driving force of. And in 2024, the new comprehensive plan also included the goal of having the Green Loop Trail and having a master plan or implementation plan that guides how this trail is going to be developed. Specifically, the King County Parks levy funding in 2020 to 2025, there was $2.4 million that were allocated to this effort. That funding has been spent on three different priority acquisitions, and now we're using the last of that money to create the Green Loop implementation plan. We were fortunate enough to have an additional $10 million allocated in the new levy, and that money will become available incrementally, year after year, and it'll be available for reimbursement on projects that support the creation of the green loop. That could be acquisition of parcels, it could be development of trail, it could be the design of more extensive trail sections that might require some actual engineering and design work to complete. So just a brief overview of the timeline, and I won't read through all these bullets, but specific to the Green Loop Master Plan or implementation plan itself, in July of 2025, we engaged the contractor, Alta Planning and Design, and got going on a lot of really specific community inputs. We brought that community input and the steps that we were going through to Park Board each month, August through November, to make sure that they were continuing to have an oversight role in the project. In October, we were able to synthesize this community information that we gathered in order to come up with some initial route alternatives. And the subcontractor, ESA, did some field assessments of these potential routes with a focus on the critical areas to really understand where a trail would be feasible. Then we did a more in-depth alignment analysis of the different components or pieces of the Green Loop corridor towards the end of the year. And now we're going to hear from Mariah, who's going to talk specifically about those elements and let us see the first look of the corridor.

Good evening. A little taller than me. All right, so the first part of analyzing, you know, where does this route go, really was a desktop analysis. So essentially, once we engaged our consultant, Alta Planning and Design, We were able to provide them with a lot of the internal planning documents that we already had. So our comprehensive plan, our municipal code, our GIS layers, and then also a lot of the information that the community had already gathered on partnering with Fenhill Neighborhood Alliance and Juanita Neighborhood Association. So they took everything that they received and did an armchair analysis and the map on the right of your screen really shows kind of just from a mile high standpoint what are some possible routes that we could draw based on that information. The next step was to really start to get that public input and outreach component brought into the project conversation. So as Jody mentioned, this fall we really did a huge effort in engaging with the community, and the community was super excited to engage with us. So we had several in-person opportunities to meet the community members where they were. So Denny Fest was one of those opportunities where we engaged with over 100 people at our table through our planning consultant, Alta. We were at City Hall for All where we engaged with many, many community members who were excited to point to a map and show us where they wanted to connect to and what exciting features they hope to see in the green loop. We also launched an online survey, which I'll talk about in the next slide, but we got great feedback on the survey, and that survey actually had an interactive mapping component where community members were able to map potential trail connections, trail heads, problem areas, areas to avoid, areas they want to go to, and so it was really neat feedback to get. We also launched a website where we have an email list folks can sign up for, and we continue to field calls from the community, Jody and I specifically, and emails, so really getting ourselves out there and providing a meaningful way for community members to provide input and comments on the project. This map is a heat map showing where we got some of those comments from. And the exciting thing is this was from our online survey and mapping. We actually had feedback from every single neighborhood in Kirkland. 48% of the feedback did come from the Finn Hill community or neighborhood. And then Juanita neighborhood was the next highest represented neighborhood, but then the rest of the neighborhoods were represented, which was really exciting to see. Here's a snapshot of sort of our survey responses. As you can see, almost 900 survey responses. Again, represented from every neighborhood in the city. And the map on the right kind of shows what it looks like when we took all the different points and trails and comments that we received on the mapping tool and put it into one place. Impossible to read, but it kind of is a visual of how much data we were dealing with. Really exciting to see over 1,500 mapping inputs from almost 400 respondents. This heat map kind of shows where people prioritized their top destinations that they'd like the green loop to connect to. And what we heard time and time again is we want the green loop to connect to our parks. The parks were a recurring theme both in the survey where we had some open-ended questions as well as in our mapping tool. There was also a huge request for connections to regional trail resources, a little outside of the scope of the Green Loop given its location, but definitely something that we are keeping in mind and working with our consultant on. In asking the community what their priority was for the Green Loop, especially in the light of its place within the city of Kirkland, it was really exciting that folks were not just, they equally were interested in the recreational and exercise value priorities of the Green Loop as well as the wildlife habitat. This was a question that folks could select three of their top priorities, and so 50% selected either or both exercise and wildlife. So again, really strong priorities were set by the community in our survey. And then of those folks that were identified recreation and exercising as a top priority, it was also neat to see that, yes, 80% want to walk and or hike, and that was a huge interest, but there were also a lot of people that wanted to enjoy biking and dog walking and other activities. activities. So this kind of demonstrates that it isn't just one strong interest group that's super focused, you know, responding to the surveys. This is normal people who want to enjoy nature and just get outside and move their bodies in many different ways. Um so key takeaways again overall a lot of support um for the green loop. Um this as you've heard has been in in the community's kind of vision for over 10 to 15 years now. Um and so the the survey and our public outreach over the fall really um Emphasize that and then strengthen confirm that that is still community goals and and they're still very supportive of the green loop. There was a strong feedback, especially from the Juanita neighborhood, but also Finn Hill Neighborhood Alliance requesting access to 93rd. So giving access to Juanita neighborhood to the parks and green space resources of Finn Hill. So the future Green Loop have those connections to the Juanita neighborhood to serve that group of community members. Again, an emphasis on protecting nature, and there was also a lot of write-in comments on supporting future amenities to the Green Loop, recognizing that the goal right now is to build the trail, but in the future, you know, support for bathrooms and ADA pathways and benches and other amenities that could serve the trail in the future. There were concerns that were raised. Again, we had several write-in comments that were folks could write in anything they liked. And a lot of those concerns were around, again, environmental impacts and protecting our critical areas. So being mindful of having trailways and wetlands and ensuring that we're not damaging the environment that we're trying to protect. Accessibility, safety. Privacy and property impacts. We'll talk a lot about private property here in a moment. That is definitely a concern of some community members in making sure that those private property owners' privacy and safety is protected, as well as just trail user safety. And then an ongoing theme in public service is the fiscal responsibility. And so all of these items will be addressed using best practices, and a lot of it will be addressed in our, well, all of it will be addressed in our final implementation plan. So once we received or completed the bulk of our community outreach, we were able to work with our consultant to really move into some different alignment and route analyses that were able to start refining where that path may go. And so we had a series of evaluation criteria that we used to start whilling down where the path might yield. If you recall earlier, there were many, many paths. Now we're whittling it down to some actual feasible paths that may meet the project goals. So user experience, paths that go through open space and green areas were rated higher than those that went along a street shoulder. Slope and environmental packs. Like I mentioned earlier, making sure that we're working with the environment rather than against it. Connectivity, really high paths that connected to our parks and our schools were rated higher than paths that didn't connect to anything. Public input, making sure that the path met the community's goals and vision, and then finally, Routes that go along routes that we already have property control over and requiring no further acquisition are going to rate higher than routes that have to go through private property that we don't have control over. After all of this, working with our consultant We are now ready to share our preliminary corridor alignments. So phase one and phase two are used in our memo and I wanna address kind of the intent behind those terms. So this is a phase one map and the intention behind this route or these routes, again, very preliminary, but phase is not intended to mean priority. So the intent behind, These route alignments are to provide an option that allows us to continue to move forward while providing a natural pause to allow council to weigh in on how and when we engage with private property owners. As you'll see in the phase two map, there are several areas where a preferred alignment may go through private property that we have no control over. And we recognize the sensitivities around engaging with those private property owners. And so we wanted to provide an alignment that completes the green loop allows folks to enjoy a complete green loop walking experience while we recognize that's going to take many years potentially to engage with private property owners and complete a green loop that meets better meets the community's goals of an actual natural corridor that folks are walking through so this map that you're looking at here the yellow indicate sidewalks and The orange indicate road shoulders. The dotted purple line or dark line go through park lands or public lands that do not have trails. So those are trails that are yet to be built. And the solid dark line through the darker parcels are completed existing trails. So there is some work to be done even with this route, but this does entirely utilize publicly controlled lands. With this route, there's about eight and a half to 10 miles of trail proposed, of which almost half or a little over half of those trails are actually on roadways or on sidewalks. The phase two map here that you're seeing really looks at eliminating as much of the sidewalk sections as possible and placing the trail in green areas. So what you're seeing here, again, we have a lot of The dark solid line goes through publicly controlled lands or roadways. There are still some shoulder sections. So with this map, you're seeing about nine and a half to 11 and a half miles of trail of which only a mile and a half to three miles are on sidewalk or roadway shoulders. So drastically reducing the number of sidewalk and roadway shoulders. And then the hatched areas are areas where we'd love to make connections and partnerships with private property owners to complete the trail. So this is, I would say, the longer term goal. Again, it's not a second priority. It's something that we need guidance from the council. FROM YOU ALL ON HOW TO PROCEED AND WHEN TO PROCEED WITH THAT PRIVATE PARTNER, PRIVATE PROPERTY ENGAGEMENT IN A WAY THAT'S SENSITIVE TO PRIVATE PROPERTY, YOU KNOW, PRIVACY AND MAKING SURE THAT WE'RE SUCCESSFUL IN FILLING IN THESE GAPS.

THANK YOU. QUESTION FOR YOU OR THE CITY ATTORNEY. Hi. When you say on private property we have no control over, do we have no control over it or are we able to buy an easement? You know, if it's totally critical, are we able to...

mean the comment there is just that currently we don't have any control over that property at present so we could certainly obtain you know access to it um which is sort of the recommendation is that we reach out and try to negotiate that in that second phase okay okay and that would be that would come from your your office and Yeah, typically when we are engaging with property owners, particularly in parks, it comes from park staff first so they can explain the benefits of the project. My office doesn't get involved until, and we facilitate documentation once they're ready to close, but we wouldn't get involved unless we needed to sort of send letters that suggested, sort of moved into sort of eminent domain condemnation territory, absent the just facilitating closing on it when it's mutually agreeable.

Thank you. Mm-hmm.

Council Member Prim?

Yeah, if we were to reach out to the private property owners, how quickly could we practically move forward with purchasing and moving forward with this?

Generally, the process can really take a very wide range of amount of time, depending on how quickly the property owner wants to move on something. But normally I would say it would be at least a couple of months.

The other comment I'd add to that is here we're not sure exactly what interest we would be acquiring. Someone might want to just hold an easement. We might be interested in taking full ownership of a portion of property. It's just not clear, not the whole one, but the part with trail. So there's just different ways to acquire that interest to be able to allow the public to pass.

Thank you.

So I want to jump into some details now that will hopefully answer some of these questions that you all have. And it's great that you guys are thinking this way because we're excited to move forward on this. So we're here today giving this update, showing the preliminary routes and then seeking your direction on what the next steps could be. So a couple of options that we've got here. Option one, is we can start engaging these private property owners and really go through a second round of robust community engagement now that we have these preliminary routes that people could be considering. Our recommendation for going through that type of process would be to start with very customized letters that go out to the property owners that are within those hatched polygons, the polygons where We are actively seeking partnerships with the private landowners to find some way that works for them that would allow us to construct this corridor, this trail, through their private property. This would go to approximately 70 landowners. That's what we're looking at within those hatch marked areas. Those specific letters, we'll get into the details a little bit here in a moment, but they would be very customized to that particular property owner so that they could see exactly where they are within that potential route. We would also want to send broader, less customized letters to all of the other property owners who are located within approximately 200 feet of both alignments. The idea behind sending these letters out is we really feel like the next step is we need to get these proposed routes out to the community so that they can come back and give us more feedback so that they can say, you know, oh, I didn't really realize that this path might go through here. Actually, let me tell you something about this area that could be important to how you guys decide to move forward. We don't want to put those maps out there until the people who would be most impacted by this project have an opportunity to see those routes first. The people who, we never want somebody to come across a map that's been out in the community for three weeks that shows their house next to a trail and they feel like they didn't know about it, right? And so we want them to get that information first and give us some time to respond to them in case there's something urgent that comes up before we move forward with putting the maps out. more broadly to the public, which we would propose doing on February 11th. And why the 11th is because that's two weeks before we would like to host a community meeting on February 25th. There would be another opportunity for all the interested parties to come together, look at the maps together, provide the feedback that we know that the people that use and live in these spaces the most really know these spaces well and can give us the best feedback that we're going to get and while all that's happening staff and alta will continue to work on the design work and the way finding work the funding work the other pieces of the implementation plan option two is to wait and hold off on that really customized private property owner outreach and instead send a little bit lighter, briefer notices to all the property owners who are within 200 feet of the proposed phase one alignment, which uses all public lands, and then publish that proposed phase one alignment, and then have a public meeting on the 25th where people can come and talk about any suggestions or concerns they have about that alignment. Again, our recommendation is to begin the process now of reaching out to the private property owners who could partner with us. If we do that, this first connection with them is so vitally important that they understand that this is number one, a voluntary project. They are under no obligation to allow a trail to go through their property. We want them to understand the benefits, and we believe that there are many for them, and we'll talk about that in a second. We want them to understand how they can give their input. We want them to come to the meeting on the 25th, and we want most importantly for them to have a direct contact to city staff, myself and Mariah, so that they can just quickly and easily get a hold of somebody to get all of their questions answered, to have their concerns heard, and for us to be able to make any urgent adjustments if a new course of action is required. The benefits that we'll be going over in the letters, but also in any communications with people that we hear from that receive the letters, is that we do believe that this corridor has the potential to reduce trespassing in general. by providing designated routes for people to utilize. If any of you spend a lot of time in the Finn Hill area, what we've seen from the Finn Hill Neighborhood Alliance, who's been very gracious in giving us tours of these spaces, is that there are already social trails developing on a lot of these private properties. So this is a way to kind of formalize that and have that connection be happening in the places where we want it to be happening and not where we don't want it to be happening we believe that there's a real potential for enhanced property values to be located next to a regional asset like this improve quality of life with the access that people would have to this asset protection of the green character of that landscaping of that landscape, there's potential tax incentives, and hopefully people would be really proud to be a part of this project and to host a section of the trail. The ways that we can work with private landowners is through temporary trail use agreements, licenses or leases, trail easements, conservation easements, or fee ownership. And how you decide which one really needs to start with a conversation with the landowner themselves and to really understand what their goals are and what their concerns are for their property. The concerns, it's really important at the start of anything like this is to directly address the concerns that we're hearing. And we're in a good position to do that. You know, the city has been very proactive in having natural area restoration plan, urban forest plan, surface water plan, sustainability plans, park recreation, open space plans, diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging plans. Like, we are a thoughtful city. We already have a lot of guidelines and parameters in place about how we do this type of work so that we do a really quality job. There's crime prevention through environmental design best practices that we can follow in any trail construction projects. We have park management best practices to deal with privacy. As you all know, we have thousands of neighbors to our parks. And if you live next to a park, it's a privacy concern. And so this is something that we're well suited to manage. We have good fiscal processes in place to make sure that we're spending wisely. And again, with the property impacts, this is voluntary participation, and we truly believe that there would be a lot of both financial and recreational benefits for people to work with us on this project. So while all of that is happening, if you all advise us to move forward with that, while the letters are happening, while our communication with potential private property owner partners is happening, also we'll continue to work on the trail design standards, specifically on potential amenities, wayfinding, funding sources and financial strategies, operation and maintenance guidelines, and then the phasing recommendations for how we would try to roll this out. And in the end, we would be coming back to you with something like this, this is an example out of South Carolina, this is you know what we're going to be able to present to you all for our our green loop, which is. a map that shows where the trail exists now, where the different routes could be, some alternatives, specifically where you might have access points, where you might have parking, where you might have stairs, where you might have amenities and how it would be rolled out. And we'll also come back with some wayfinding design examples. And this is the part where it really just comes alive for me when you see these trail markers or the potential signs and the people following the route, and you think about the examples that we have out there in other regions, and it's really cool to think about people being able to go out to that sort of asset. And that leaves us with any questions, comments, or direction you all have. Thank you.

Thank you both. I know we'll have a lot, so hang on. Great. All right. Who wants to go first? Council Member Tim Chisholm.

Thank you very much for the comprehensive presentation. I really very much appreciate your work on this. I do favor your staff recommendation. I think the way I understand it is your letters would go out before the community meeting, and I think that would basically drive attendance at the community meeting.

Yes.

And if you did it the reverse way, then we would have low attendance at the community meeting, and then everybody would receive their letters and contact us. So I favor your recommendation. I think we should move forward, and I think we should treat the, and I know you have, and we have, but treat the Finneal Neighborhood Alliance as a partner, and I very much appreciate you doing that. They have the relationships with the community that will facilitate cooperation in, not only from the property owners, but from the greater community. Thank you for your work on this. This is really an exciting thing to see happening. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Let's not all raise our hands at once, right? Thank you so much for this presentation and all the hard work. You know, Mariah, Jody, Jason, Lynn, Fin Hill Neighborhood Alliance, Juanita Neighborhood Association, all the community members. As we heard in public comment tonight, this has been in the works for quite some time. I know before my days even on the Fin Hill Neighborhood Alliance board when I was brand spanking new, you know, 12 or so years ago that that THESE WERE A LOT OF CONVERSATIONS THAT WERE HAPPENING IN THE FINN HILL NEIGHBORHOOD AND SO I APPRECIATE THEIR LEADERSHIP ON THAT. I APPRECIATE THE FEEDBACK THAT WE HEARD TONIGHT FROM THE FINN HILL NEIGHBORHOOD ALLIANCE AND WANITA NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION RELATED TO PRIORITIZATION OF LAND ACQUISITION AND WE DON'T WANT TO MISS OPPORTUNITIES THERE WHERE WE CAN AND ALSO and also keeping both of those organizations involved. As Council Member Chisholm said, those are valued partnerships that we want to continue throughout this process. I am also really excited for this. I mean, I still have my necklace from the Finn Hill Neighborhood Alliance with a billy goat on it from supporting the Billy Goat Trail as part of the Green Loop. And I think this is going to be a great, as you mentioned, regional asset. And I like your slide that you had on wayfinding. That gets me excited about it. I feel like I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit, but I'm excited to see in the future kind of branding and marketing as a regional asset around this as well. So just putting a pin in that, but mentioning that that is really exciting to see that. I'm also glad that we're... almost there in putting a plan in place to have prioritization, to have the steps in place to achieve this goal and achieve this vision of the green loop over time. I think it's important to have that and to have that kind of order to the work that we're doing in creating the green loop. I would like there to be flexibility in it. Like I said, if there's like an opportunity that comes up to acquire property and it's not the next up in the list, but it's something that we don't want to miss that opportunity. I want to... hoping that we will have that kind of flexibility in the plan as well to be able to not miss those types of opportunities. As far as the communication aspect that you are looking for feedback on tonight, I also support the staff recommendation. I think it is really important that we communicate early and often, especially when it deals with people's personal property. That is something that I know we all care about really deeply and the impacts on our families' lives and our personal lives. and privacy as well. I wonder, the 70 or so in the hatched polygon that you mentioned that we'll be actively seeking partnerships with, that was a larger number than I was anticipating. I wonder if among those 70, if there are ones that are kind of super high priority, ones that we think will really need to acquire property or might be like a bigger piece or a more strategically placed piece that we should have additional follow-up in addition to sending the letter a little bit more tailored personal communication with some of those folks to really make sure I don't know if that's following up with a phone call or you know invitations for personal meetings I know we'll already have that in the letter but among the subset of the 70 I would think that there may be a need for additional bringing folks along and and building those personal relationships to get folks excited about the opportunity. Again, I think early on and having folks be able to give input on a plan that's going to impact their families is really an important opportunity for folks to be able to do. So, yeah. Thank you very much for your work on this. I'm excited to have future discussions on it.

Councillor Pascoe.

Thank you. Thank you for all the information so far. You know, I think there's a lot of support. I mean, and you've kind of shared that through the presentation, a lot of support for this vision of the green loop. And we've seen that from the very beginning that that discussion occurred back when the Fennel neighborhood plan was prepared. So it's not a question of, you know, of kind of general support for the vision. I think it's more now. about how do you actually go and make that vision a reality. So I kind of have like four things on my mind that overlap a little bit with some of what my colleagues have already said. My first point is just kind of maybe taking a step back to the broader picture here is it feels right now that we're very focused on the trail and the trail alignment. I want to make sure that the attention is also just as focused on the preservation of green space and bringing those opportunities under public ownership or easement or whatever. Obviously, these two things are related, but that needs to be just at the forefront and a priority as a trail itself and or trail segments. i think it's good to have the vision of the of the entire you know loop so to speak but we also i think you've said that and i think we all know that that's that's something that's probably going to take decades to to come to realities but there are really important strategic segments like councilmember falcone said that we could really you know perhaps focus on it and see those sooner than later so i just want to make sure that the preservation and the public Taking advantage of the opportunities are just at the forefront as well as the trail itself You know when we approach property owners they're gonna have cons they're gonna have questions and We're gonna need to be prepared to answer some of those questions And I do think there are some there's going to be legitimate questions about feasibility along some of these steep slopes and You know, I have looked at some of those alignments. There are a few segments that are really, really challenging. And so just, you know, it just feels like before you ask a landowner about it, it's like, are we really sure that that's actually feasible would be kind of a question. And then there are some segments that go across private land that's under a natural growth protection easement. And that's, you know, that's already a designation where, Little is allowed on that property. The property taxes are already lower because of that. So what advantage is there going to be for those property owners, for example, to allow a trail across their land if they already have low property taxes for that area of their property because of that easement? And whether that's even legally possible. So I'd actually like to hear from the city attorney about the legality of that. at some point, not tonight, but unless you have the answer. Um, and then, uh, I guess the, the, the last thing is I just want to make sure that we get this right, that we, we take the time that's necessary, that we don't jump the gun, so to speak, um, because that could jeopardize kind of that longterm, um, play. Uh, and so I just want to make sure that we're really, that, it feels like a really big undertaking to send out all these letters and there's going to be a lot of questions. And I'm just wondering if we really have that level of resources to really kind of have those conversations, those individual conversations, those group conversations, you know, all at once. And I think we're still doing some of our due diligence. So I just want to be really thoughtful. And if that means that it's a more kind of sequencing of how we roll this out and how we engage with some of the property owners. Let's do that. Let's do that right. Because what we don't want to do is jeopardize the end goal here, which is the vision of the Green Loop. And so that would entail working closely with the neighborhoods as well and using their resources and their relationships to our advantage as best we can. So I would just... of just really kind of focus on some of the comments that you've already heard from others is just really be strategic that's maybe winnow it down on kind of those key sections and kind of see what we hear first and then we can use that and then we can go out broader is it is it the best idea to just like blanket it all right away when we know that we're not going to be building it all right away or we can't even we don't have the resources to do it all right away but we do have the resources to do specific strategic Segments and properties and that's focused on those. That's kind of how I think about it Thank you.

Thank you councilman Arnold Thank you.

I agree with a lot of what I've heard from our colleagues in the in the Finnehill Neighborhood Alliance and the Juanita Neighborhood Association that we want to Move judiciously on the acquisition to come from or Pascal's point You know when you're talking about somebody's property it will be needs to be a quality contact and there may be priorities in that. So we want to do that well. So that's important. One question that I had is that the Juanita Neighborhood Association has suggested some connections to the loop itself. Is that within the scope of the plan so that we can have those discussions as well?

Yes, it has been, well, after the community feedback and after receiving, I mean, having connection points to the broader community is definitely a goal of the project. It's not shown on the maps right now because those are considered spurs and that will be part of the final implementation plan where we show how do people get to the trail and where are those trail heads. So that is still under planning, but it definitely is a priority of the project. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor.

Oh, thank you, Madam Mayor. Thank you for all this work. Thank you for the presentation. Thank you for answering our questions. And I agree, like my colleagues, I agree with a lot of what's been said by my colleagues, by the Thin Hill Neighborhood Association and the Juanita Neighborhood Association representatives who have spoken to us. And I share the excitement for the vision of the Green Loop, and I'm glad that we're moving to an actual implementation plan, because I think the great thing about having this implementation plan is that we will be able hopefully to, hopefully the plan will actually sort of identify these most strategic opportunities. So I just want to share a couple thoughts, and that's one of them, is that I want to I'm hoping that we're able, at least aspire to an implementation plan that really identifies those areas where, and I guess what I would say, is where we're making new connections that we don't have today. For all the reasons, certainly related to preserving the open space and and the green spaces, but getting closer to that vision by acquiring when we're being acquisitive, when we are thinking about prioritizing, that we're prioritizing those parcels where we're really adding to the vision and making that connectivity. So I wanted to sort of emphasize that. I'm really glad that This isn't the implementation plan, right? There's going to be a draft implementation plan. It's going to reflect what I think, based on my colleagues' consensus, which I agree with, related to the type of communication we're likely to have with property owners. We're hoping to have robust attendance. And I'm glad that even that will just be a draft plan, and there'll still be opportunity to review a draft plan before we have a final plan. So I'm excited about all of that. Let's see. I do want to emphasize, this has been on my mind ever since looking at this, is just when we're communicating with potentially affected property owners, just really emphasizing the voluntary partnership that we're talking about. Because I think that's the first question that folks are going to have. I appreciate Council Member Paschal's comments because he went a level deeper into some really detailed questions people who are potentially affected property owners are going to have. And they're really good points. But the first thing they're going to have is, I saw my property on a map. and with a trail going through it, is am I being compelled to put a trail across my property? So just in all of our communications, being really thoughtful about how property owners are going to react to seeing their property identified on a map with a trail. Some are going to be potentially excited, but some are going to have some really big questions about whether they're about to be involuntarily enrolled in this so that's a point of emphasis for me and then also those those opportunities for connectivity especially on the East Slope to the Juanita neighborhood Just thinking about really those also sort of strategically as priorities. I already mentioned sort of prioritizing where we're really extending connectivity. I think that includes those nodes that connect the Juanita neighborhood to this amenity. Related to that, I had some conversations with our representatives from a couple of our neighborhood associations, Juanita and Finn Hill, obviously. And one of the things that was pointed out was that we probably have some public right-of-ways that are potentially being encumbered by property owners where there would be more access, maybe even today. but for just sort of long-standing practice of property usage, basically encumbering property that's otherwise belongs to the people of the City of Kirkland. I don't want to be heavy, my idea isn't to be heavy-handed about that, but my idea is for us to include in this implementation plan a strategy for how we're going to opportunistically communicate with property owners who we may know are encumbering public land Perhaps when properties are put up for sale, etc things like that So I hope the staff could push more thought into that but I where we you know where we do have public access we ought to look for a Friendly way to sort of make sure we're preserving that for the good of the people of the city of Kirkland and for the vision of the green loop with that Yeah, I think I covered all my thoughts. So otherwise, I'm excited to move forward. And I guess the feedback is, I like the the idea of option one, just with a really carefully crafted communication plan to the affected property owners. That's the key to the option one communication plan for me. Thanks.

Tim Chisholm.

Would you like to entertain a motion?

I don't think we need a motion, do we? WOULD YOU LET ME MAKE MY COMMENTS AND THEN WE'LL GO TO THAT? OKAY. COUNCILMEMBER PRIM, DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING? THANK YOU. SO I AGREE WITH EVERYTHING YOU'VE HEARD THIS EVENING, AND I WANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT Thank you to the community members who have been driving this project for years. This is truly visionary and I am incredibly excited to put it on paper. We've been talking about it. I've met with community leaders and to codify it on paper and create a plan means it's going to happen. I recognize that $10 million does not go very far. So I hope as we move this plan forward that we have some idea of the true budgetary need for creating this vision. And I think we all recognize that we want to move forward incrementally. And it's going to take us years, maybe a decade to truly complete this project. but at least we have a vision going forward. So I'm excited about that. What I'm hearing from my council members is maybe we're moving a little too fast. As Council Mayor Paschal presented, as a property owner, There are questions that we need answers to and we're driving towards this community meeting at the end of February What is driving us for that? Is there any downside to? Adding a little six more weeks on to our timeline Just so that we can answer more questions and be more thoughtful about how we're reaching out to these properties because we all recognize that when the cross Kirkland corridor is was first discussed people were nervous they were nervous about the trail next to the property now they love it now they would hate it if it ever went away but we recognize that this is going to be a very careful process that we need to walk through so my recommendation is not to just necessarily drive to this February date but let's just make sure that we have all our ducks in a row before we go out to the public that said um i do think we need to be very transparent we know the impacts of maps we saw that in the comp plan so let's don't publish a map until we know until we've notified everybody of what's going to happen potentially the opportunities that are going to happen my other comment is We didn't talk about the park board. I assume that they've been involved in this process I think it would be super helpful if they're an integral part of the community Because they are our park board representatives, so it'd be an integral part of the community meeting when it does happen so

Go, Jodi. Just to speak to the timeline a little bit, because I do think that's a really important point in all of this. The community who generated this vision is very excited to see the map provide comments on the map and help develop the map so that it can be finalized. We don't feel like it's appropriate to put that map out to that community to be able to review it until we have personally connected with all of the landowners who would be the most impacted by it. And so that is, I think one of the primary reasons, why we're feeling an urgency around connecting with these people. Also, especially because we are having this conversation tonight, right? And there will be people who will look this up and see it in the memo. And the very last thing that any of us want is for someone to feel caught off. Guard with this. Um, and so we do feel an urgency to connect with those people and let them know that that we are here that we can answer their questions and that this is a voluntary project before the. Someone starts to misinterpret this right? Um, that's a big piece of it. The other piece is the urgency around acquisitions. And knowing what our priorities are. So we have this $10 million, right? There's also conservation futures funding and application that will be due February 9th. That's another source of funding for this project, and it comes up each year. And we want to be able to start. pursuing those priority parcels. But how can we know exactly what the priority parcels are until we've all agreed on what we believe the route to be? It's a little bit of the cart and the horse type situation. And so even though I think Mariah and I, we understand what it means to put this communication out to all of these people. but it feels like it's the right time and that we're ready to do that. And we would make sure that you all were very prepared with what we would expect the frequently asked questions to be, to have a very robust website to support that for people and to do everything we can to answer those questions on our side so that you all don't have concerned community members coming to you saying what is going on right now.

Thank you for bringing the conservation futures monies up because I meant to ask about it. What is the timeline for that?

When are those grants? The applications are due in February. Okay. It's a long process though So this last year we received some funding from conservation futures from applications that were submitted in February But they're not actually allocated to us and available to spend until now Okay, but we are planning to apply for your plan into it.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely Councilman Falco. Go ahead

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just a quick follow-up comment. I share the concerns about putting a map out there, and it does feel like a little bit of a chicken and the egg, right? Folks want something to react to, but also want to make sure that they are helping in development of that thing that they're reacting to. to right which we have had robust community involvement like you've already mentioned tonight and so i've heard you know some language here tonight i think might have been counselor pascal or deputy mayor black that mentioned like really emphasizing the voluntary nature of this right i think that's really key in communication i would also say on the visuals with the maps really crystal clear that it's a draft right when we're first putting it out there and still gathering input maybe having a watermark on it it was the same kind of thinking of when we had like the houghton park in play we were starting like saying temporary everywhere just making really crystal clear and kind of learning from past experiences of um every way we can making sure that it's really clear that we still are gathering input we still want uh it's still a work in progress um at the point where we're asking for for input so thank you thank you councillor tim chisholm did you want to make a motion

I will. I would like to move that we adopt the staff recommendation timeline and host a public meeting on February 27th at 7 p.m. at the Parks Maintenance Center. Excuse me, 25th.

Moved by Council Mayor Tim Chisholm and seconded by Council Mayor Falcone and move forward with the staff recommendation of public outreach including the February end date. Any further discussion? Councillor Falcone.

Thank you Madam Mayor. We've heard from I think at least a couple few of us tonight just the desire to have even a little bit of additional personalization of communication above and beyond what was originally on the slide so I don't think that needs to be in the motion but just want to highlight that that at least that's how I interpreted the motion that would include that kind of feedback at the discretion of staff but just that we're We're looking at least to initiate that kind of with, you know, those properties that staff may see fit to require a little bit more personal communication.

Anyone else? Council Member Paschal?

I guess I would, I mean, with the motion, it's very specific with a specific date. I'd feel more comfortable just moving forward, but by giving staff the flexibility to go out, you know, based upon input, further discussions with the neighborhood, Representatives the park board kind of taking our comments Back and kind of thinking about how to be most thoughtful and strategic here And if that still is the date so be it but but I think I just want to make sure that there's flexibility there You can amend the motion Well, I'm just talking about whether that is.

I mean, I can amend the motion. I'll amend my motion to give staff the flexibility to change the February date if needed.

Okay, that's a friendly amendment. Everybody okay with that? Looking at city attorney. She always makes her nervous.

Prior to April 1st, 2026. Right.

A second. OK, so we have a new are we getting rid of our first motion and doing a new motion?

OK, I'll withdraw my previous motion. Yeah, that would be all make a I'm going to make a motion. I'm going to make a motion that we adopt the staff recommendation with communication plan number one. To host a forum at the scheduled date or prior to April 1st. 2026.

All right. I'm going to let you second. All right. Oh, okay. You okay with that? All right. The questions on the motion put forward, the new motion put forward by Council Member Tim Chisholm and second by Council Member Falcone to adopt a staff recommendation. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Motion carries 7-0. Thanks all. Thank you very much. Thank you. City Manager, it's 11. Yes. Do we want to revise our agenda in any way?

Yeah, so we've been talking about that. And so we do think we can defer the two executive sessions to a future meeting, or maybe direct contact with individual council members between now and the 20th. So I think we can do that for sure. We could probably also defer some of the discussion on Well, actually, other topics we kind of can't. We have to talk about the community, the boards and commissions. We have to talk about the positions you all might want to have on committees. So I think that would be the two main things I would change is no executive sessions.

Let's move the exec sessions to another date. I know you all are very disappointed with that. Deputy Mayor, do you have something to add? Okay. But we do need to move forward with our other business item and All right, we are moving on to our final business item, which is item 11D. It's here somewhere. Independent force investigation team update and propose interlocal agreement modification. Welcome, gentlemen.

All right, so just as this is being set up, we're looking for action tonight on approving An amendment to the in local agreement that sets up IFIT to allow the city of Seattle to join, which will be explained in the presentation. We have Chief Mike St. Jean here to make the presentation and our Deputy Chief Phil Gogan as well. And city attorney is here to also answer questions. Do you want to take a short break while we do this? We've been going for a while.

Sure, we'll take five minutes. Just five minutes? Yeah, thank you.

Well, this one, the Bain one, advance.

All right, we are back from a short break, and we are going to continue with Item 11D. Chief, welcome. Thank you. Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor, Deputy Mayor, Members, Council. I want to thank you for allowing us time tonight to provide a brief refresher on what is an independent investigative team and provide you an update on the King County Independent Force Investigation Team, or IFIT. This presentation and the accompanying council memorandum will provide an overview of the laws that mandate an independent and transparent investigation of any use of deadly force by a police officer. We will also provide an update on the great work being done by Kirkland personnel as part of the King County IFIT team. We will talk about the request from Seattle PD or the need from Seattle PD to join IFIT and the timing behind this request. Finally, we will be asking for you to authorize the city manager to sign a modification to the existing interlocal agreement. We have 13 slides on this topic tonight and welcome your questions. With that, I'll hand it over to Deputy Chief Phil Goggin.

Thank you.

Madam Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Council, I appreciate this opportunity to talk about Initiative I-940 and IFIT, how it relates. So I-940 is the catalyst for why we have IFIT. Voters passed I-940 back in November of 2018. The purpose for reforming law enforcement practices around use of force. Four primary topics came out of that. that they wanted to see changed. One was to change deadly force standard for prosecutors from malice to objective good faith, a reasonable officer. It established mandatory training for officers in the forms of de-escalation, mental health, and first aid. It provided a duty to render first aid for first responders when force is used on persons. And it established that an independent investigation of all incidents where force used resulted in death, Substantial bodily harm or great bodily harm be conducted. I-940 was modified in February of 2019 and it has been turned into what we now know as LaTasca or the Law Enforcement Training and Community Safety Act. RCW 10114011 kind of gives us the rules around IFIT and when it is to be used and why. So I'll read through this rather quickly. Except as required by federal consent decree, federal settlement agreement, or federal court order where the use of deadly force by a peace officer results in death, substantial bodily harm, or great bodily harm, An independent investigation must be completed to inform any determination of whether the use of deadly force met the good faith standard established in RCW 9A-16040, which is the justifiable homicide RCW, and satisfied other applicable laws and policies. The investigation must be completed independent of the agency whose officer was involved in the use of deadly force. And one of the discerning values of this is that all the investigations that are done by IIT investigations are criminal investigations. They're not administrative investigations. The legislature also provided a roadmap or blueprint of what their expectations of the investigations would look like and what they needed to consist of. There are five principles of deadly force investigations that they included. Independence, which is achieved through the compliance of rules designed to prohibit undue influence. No member of the agency involved may participate in the investigation. No information is to be shared. And criminal investigations must remain separate from any administrative investigation conducted by the involved agency. They establish the need to have a credibility of the investigative process. The investigation is to be rooted in the best practices for homicide investigations published annually by CJTC. It establishes the requirements for what the involved agency is to do and what IFID is to do or IITs when they respond to the scene. It also emphasizes the importance of the credibility of the investigator themselves. It established minimum requirements for lead investigators. And basically what it did is it said that for anybody to be a lead investigator, you must have at least three years of continued experience as a detective. You must have received advanced training, which comes in the forms of basic homicide, an interview and interrogation, patrol tactics, and then eight hours of ongoing annual advanced training. And then there should be no sustained complaints of serious misconduct for lead investigators. For communication, they recognize that a lack of communication leads to suspicion and damages trust. They wanted to enhance public's perception of the legitimacy of the investigation. One of the ways that they did this is we created, anytime IIT comes out, they will assign what is called a family liaison. A family liaison detective will be assigned to identify the family associated with the person with whom force was used against, and then that detective will remain with that family member in communication throughout the investigation. They will provide updates on a weekly basis. They will provide the family with access to the press releases prior to them being public. They will also, if the person that force was used on is a member of a recognized federal tribe, then IAT members will reach out to the governor's office of Indian Affairs Make a notification will be put into place in contact with somebody from that tribe as a tribal liaison, and they will mirror what the family liaison does with regards to sharing information, providing that on a weekly basis and making sure that they have access to the press releases. before they are released. A PIO is also part of the investigation. So anytime we come out, a PIO is assigned. They will provide weekly updates to the public, irregardless of whether or not there's new information that needs to be shared. And then transparency, which is the critical element of procedural justice, allows community members to access the investigative process. In the case of use of force and IIT is out, a minimum of two community members who have been vetted that belong or come from the community of the agency that used force will be part of that investigation. They will have access to the information. They will have that prior to its release in the weekly press releases. They are also responsible for reviewing all of the information CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENTS THAT ALL THE PARTICIPATING INVESTIGATORS HAVE TO SIGN TO ENSURE THAT THE INVESTIGATION IS FOLLOWING THE INDEPENDENCE PIECE OF THINGS. THOSE COMMUNITY MEMBERS WILL ALSO HAVE ACCESS TO THE CASE REPORT IN ITS FINALITY BEFORE IT IS RELEASED PUBLICLY SO IN OUR CASES WHAT WE USUALLY DO IS DO A POWERPOINT PRESENTATION AND WALK THEM THROUGH THE ENTIRETY OF THE INVESTIGATION. Thank you. All right.

It's always the last one, isn't it?

There we go.

All right, so since 2021, the city of Kirkland has participated, been a participating member of IFITKC. IFITKC was created through interlocal agreements, ILAs with 11 member agencies. Since the original one, there's been one minor modification, and that was to allow WSP or Washington State Patrol to participate and join IFITKC. A member agency can withdraw from the ILA for any reason by providing each member agency at least 30 days written notice. Withdrawal of a party does not result in the dissolution of IFIT-KC. The ILA can also be terminated and IFIT-KC dissolved at any time by unanimous agreement of the executive board, which is comprised of the police chiefs and the sheriffs and member agencies. Currently, we have 13 agencies that are part of KCIFIT. They include Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, Mercer Island, Issaquah, Snoqualmie, and North Bend, Washington State Patrol, Clyde Hill, University of Washington Police, Medina, Lake Forest Park, King County Sheriff's, and the City of Duval. Our area of operation goes from I-90 north to the Snohomish County border, and then west to the City of Seattle right now. IFAD KCA created a mission as to how we are going to operate and what we want to accomplish. The purpose of the organization is to perform an independent criminal investigation of officer-involved incidents where the use of deadly force by a peace officer results in death, substantial bodily harm, or great bodily harm. The goal is to apply best practice methods for a thorough and complete criminal investigation. To conduct objective, professional, consistent, independent, multi-jurisdictional investigations utilizing principles that lead to enhanced public trust and using the five principles that I mentioned earlier from MAC 139. To maximize the availability and sharing of the latest technology, equipment, and techniques. To consolidate and share the skills of the most experienced and qualified commanders, supervisors, investigators, and technicians. And to conduct thorough investigations in a timely fashion. So, Kirkland PD has been a committed partner to IFIT KC since its inception. I served as one of the original command team and helped shape the initiative core protocols, procedures, and best practices. Lieutenant Slominski has since taken over my spot in September to maintain continuity and to be able to have a voice at the table when it comes to leadership within the unit. Kirkland PD has four lead certified investigators that have been signed off by the CJTC. Anytime the city of Kirkland is the lead agency, we have a public information officer that is assigned and we use ours to manage communications and media relations. Oftentimes additional investigators are needed for flexible staffing and to meet operational needs. Those are for very specific and unique and oftentimes it's for the initial call out and then they are no longer part of the investigation. Since its inception in 2021, IFIT KC has had 14 callouts. Of those 14 callouts, the Kirkland Police Department has had personnel respond out to at least 12 of those. And of the 12 that we have responded out to, we have been the lead investigation, we've had lead investigation responsibilities on seven of those cases. So I know that there's been expressed a lot of concern about the time commitments of Kirk, Kirkland personnel to IFIT, especially in anticipation of Seattle PD wanting to join. So currently, limited qualified lead investigators from other agencies outside of King County Sheriff's Department, Washington State Patrol, and the Kirkland Police Department have meant that Kirkland PD has been more involved in investigations than other agencies. Seattle PD being a part of that offers an opportunity for additional resources that would come in that would offer assistance in that. And we've been told that Bellevue and Issaquah in particular are working very hard and diligent to get lead investigators to take some of that pressure off of Kirkland. Investigators' roles are gradually reduced as the case progresses. So what we typically do when a call comes out is we try to organize with as many personnel as we can to show up to the call so that we can complete the investigation in as much of its entirety as possible on the evening that we come out. So we can have people that are available to be able to process the officer, process the scene, interview witnesses, reach out to the family, and etc. And then as that case winds down, we start peeling people back from that investigation to where the lead investigator and maybe a small number of investigators are still actively working that case. The initial response is designed to maximize efficiency. All non-lead investigators are usually released promptly. So in those cases where Kirkland is not the lead, our officers who come out to help are given specific tasks. They complete those tasks usually the night of, and then they withdraw from the investigation. For all members of IFED KC, being a detective or an investigator is an ancillary position, and we all recognize that. Our primary responsibility is is to our agency and to our community. Our community takes priority in anything we do. An example of that recently was in September when we had a homicide, and then a very short time after that, we had an officer-involved shooting that we were the lead investigator on. Our officers went out, conducted the investigation in the IFIT. Once that was done, they came back. I was able to pull investigators back from that and then reassign it to the homicide case, and we worked that as our priority. leaving one detective to work the case until such time that we were able to pull some other people in. The nice thing about these investigations is that the timeline of the case is circumstance dependent based on totality of factors involved. There is no deadline. We have completed investigations in as short a time as four months, and we've had investigations that have lasted as long as eight months.

Okay, so in addition to providing some education on why we have independent investigative teams and bragging a little bit on how great our Kirkland officers are, the other reason we are here is to talk about why Seattle PD is requesting to join IFIT at this time. So, Seattle PD entered into a federal consent decree in 2012. On September 3rd, 2025, so 13 years later, the consent decree was terminated after a federal court determined that SPD had achieved sustained substantial compliance with the consent decrees requirements. So now that the decree has been lifted, Washington law requires that SPD must join and end IIT because they had been exempted beforehand because they were under the decree. So now that they're not, they have to follow the law. So they scrambled a little bit and they entered into a temporary MOU with King County Sheriff's Office to ensure compliance with the law. But that was a temporary solution. They're requesting to join King County IFIT. And to be fair, King County is as well, to get some additional help there. I do want to note that the Washington Attorney General's Office does have a Office of Independent Investigations. It's called OII. They're slowly ramping up. They're actually sending investigators through CJTC, the Basic Academy, to get trained. They are not law enforcement officers. That was kind of the big plan. when this whole thing started. They're slowly ramping up. They've taken over what's called Region 1, which is like Thurston County, Vancouver, that area. They've just announced that they're going to move into Pierce County. Their next piece, which would probably be another couple of years, will be eastern Washington. I think King County, Snow County will be the last ones that they ever have staffing to get to, and I'm not sure they'll actually ever get there. But Seattle did ask them if they would take to do this for them, and they said no, they just don't have the staffing available to do it. So Seattle was left trying to find a partner. So big concern on workload. Deputy Chief Gogan talked a little bit about that now. So what would it mean adding Seattle to King County if it? So historically, SPD is averaged between two and four use of deadly force incidents per year. That's if you look back about 10 years. There were some years before that where they were much higher, but through police reform, consent decree and all those things, they've averaged about two to four over the last 10 years. which would obviously increase the workload for IFIT, right, because we haven't been doing those in the past. If you look at the numbers that Deputy Chief Goggin said we had done 14, so since 2021, so we've been doing about three a year with all the agencies that are currently involved in that. There are some positives. that we believe adding SPD so you know they are going to bring a bunch of additional resources. They've got great detectives, very experienced investigators, very experienced commanders and supervisors. They've been doing their own investigations internally for years. They would join, and we would be able to have them as help with commanders, help with our supervisors, most importantly, help with our lead investigators, which is where we're short on right now. So anything that occurred outside of Seattle, so God forbid if we had one here or if Bellevue had one, Seattle could take primary on that. We wouldn't be doing that. If it happened in Seattle, they obviously can't take part in that, and so it would be up to the rest of the 11 or 13 agencies to take primary in Seattle. So it could end up lessening the amount of times Kirkland is lead investigation because Seattle would be able to take all of those outside of Seattle. One of the issues that Deputy Chief Gogan mentioned was, you know, for the most part, it's been so far on these 14. It's been either King County, WSP or Kirkland that have been the lead investigators on that. Again, that's been the primary kind of what we're not getting from some other agencies. Please know, retired Chief Harris and myself now, we're continually talking. We just had a meeting yesterday, actually, Eastside Chiefs, where we have an IFIT meeting. And we've been continually trying to get additional lead investigators from the other agencies. We're getting some really good traction on it now. A lot of that was kind of perfect storm where lots of people were retiring at that 2021 years with reform. So new detectives coming in, it was just a matter of getting them experience, getting them to their required training, that they're there. They've made the commitment to do that, and we're super close with, for sure, Bellevue and Issaquah. We just voted in two other commanders yesterday. So we're starting to expand that out, and everybody is seeing with Seattle joining, there's going to be a need for more. So we do have that commitment. We are having traction in that. So that is good news. So just kind of recap, this is the proposed resolution. I do want to mention that multiple agencies have already signed this. We just found out Bellevue passed this on consent tonight. So everybody has either already done it or is working with their councils right now. But the proposed resolution would authorize the city manager to sign a second modification to the existing interlocal. Amendment would add Seattle PD is a member I fit agency and would also clarify some of the procedures. Clarifies when I fit is activated to provide an independent investigation, including statutorily required IIT investigations and for qualifying incidents at the Kirkland and Esquire jail. We're a little unique, having two municipalities that have a jail. With that I will pause and. Questions.

Thank you. Thank you, Deputy Chief and Chief, and it's very clear that you both take a lot of pride in this work, and it just... I'm sorry, KPD is a stellar organization, so thank you. Council, I know that everyone has lots of questions, so who would like to go first? John, go ahead.

So... I am skeptical about this. The other municipalities that are listed on this list, we have a lot of synergy with. We share a municipal court with them. They border us. There are other municipalities that are relatively small. Once Seattle joins this organization, it seems like this organization will turn into a Seattle-centric organization where the gravitational pull of this entire organization will center around Seattle. They're likely statistically to have more officer-involved shootings than all of the cities on this list combined. And that will probably drastically affect this organization. The city of Kirkland has a tremendous amount of faith in you as officers, pride in our police department. I've worked with police departments all over the region, and we have the best. The political relationship between Seattle's police department and their elected officials is uncertain at best, is yet to be determined. I think there's uncertainty in that relationship. And it sounds like other members of IFIT plan on basically allowing Seattle into the membership and therefore, I'm not sure if we have a choice in this or not. But the theory that Seattle is going to contribute enough to make it worth having them in the organization, I would be skeptical about. The city of Seattle has a dashboard officer-involved shootings, which they have enough of to need a dashboard on their website. So I trust you. I trust our police department's leadership. I see a lot of synergy with our east side cities, and I fear that the involvement of Seattle will make this organization a Seattle-centric organization where we have to constantly deploy resources to the city of Seattle. Thank you.

In theory, if this addition creates more focus on Seattle cases and dilutes our need for swift investigations. Could we join another F I fit? And if so, how hard is it to do that? Is that even practical?

I will start to answer that and then look for the city attorney. So there is a clause to get out like we could remove ourselves from I fit. The problem becomes we still need someone to do our independent investigations, which we've always done, but now everybody's tied up in all these different. If it's right, this one's so big that it would be trying to find another neighboring agency that would do it. It would be looking at Snohomish County, which has its own difficulties because they don't do like their prosecution is different and You know, they would have to accept us and that again would pose some difficulties. There's a South County independent team for like Kent Federal Way and all that. They're very busy. So we would have to ask to be part of that. So you want to add anything?

Yeah, I mean, an alternative is that if Kirkland is dissatisfied with the level of work that's coming from Seattle, we could work with our other agencies to form a different IFIT. Nothing in the state law requires the specific ones that exist right now. They're just the ones that have formed sort of naturally about the region and the borders. And so we could leave with 30 days' notice under the current language in the ILA. And we would need to have something planned in advance in order to join a new IFIT since we're required by law to have one. But we could do that and work with our partners to form a new IFIT. You know, if enough, I know Seattle certainly is large relative in size. The east side, the chiefs that lead the sort of governing body of IFIT are delegated through the ILA by the council's agencies. has a one-to-one vote. So everybody has an equal vote. Seattle's vote is no larger than Kirkland's or Bellevue's. And so they could vote to dissolve if it wasn't working and form new IFITs. So I do think there are solutions. There are ones that already exist that we could work with, but... the more likely scenario would be that you join something new i just in a practical standpoint i know chief didn't offer this but i would say the the impact to member agencies of disruption and and you know i think they work really well together right now um we have a legal advisors team of of the same group sort of that meets and and i just think they work really well together my in practice i think that the issues will be resolved with members negotiating and working together rather than having to go so far that you need to leave if that's helpful and i will just add to that is because king county has been working in an mou with seattle since whatever was september um they have

Worked out their following King County IFIT protocols, even though it's just King County that have handled. They've had two. And I talked to the commander for King County. And they said it's actually gone fairly smooth. They've worked out their guild issues. They've worked out their community oversight issues. And they said if we're going to come in and do this, you're going to do it the way we do it because it works really well. So kind of the nice part is Seattle isn't really coming from a position of power. And I don't mean that in a negative way. But they need this partnership, right? So for what it's worth.

To note that, I mean, to follow up on that, Mike, the Section C of the ILA was meant to build in what King County and Seattle had already worked out in terms of eliminating interference from the Guild into those, and also sort of civilian oversight. Seattle has significantly different than other members. So it sort of provides a note that's essentially like, you'll do what IFIT already has in place. We aren't going to follow any of SPD's protocols for the investigations that they've developed internally or with their guilds negotiating power. So that section was specifically intended to address the issues that King County had negotiated out of being issues.

Council Mayor Falcone.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, thank you, Chief and Deputy Chief, for all your work on this and for, I mean, I echo a lot of the comments that we've already heard about just the pride we have in the Kirkland Police Department and the stellar work that you do and the regional reputation that you have. and your leadership in this particular work as well certainly demonstrates that. I do share some of the concerns that have already been articulated tonight as well. I am having a hard time really grasping the benefit to Kirkland. As a Kirkland City Council member, what are the benefits to our community and to our taxpayers in the City of Kirkland? As is noted, it will likely double the amount of need and workload of IFIT-CASEY to add Seattle as a member. And from what I can see, please correct me if I'm wrong, with little if any guarantee that Seattle will step up in the way that we're hoping that they will, with the use of their commanders, supervisors, lead detectives, and evidence technicians. I think of, you know, the heavy lift that Kirkland has done so far over the past four or five years, and that, you know, even though we comprise just 8% of the membership, being, you know, one of 13, that we were a lead investigator in 50% of the incidents. That's pretty stark. And I'm concerned that if the existing agreement is not strong enough to ensure that other cities are really pulling their weight. that there is no guarantee that Seattle will as well, that they will increase the need and may or may not bring forth the resources that are needed because they have a lot of need there too, right? And they may need to prioritize use of their resources within their city. So that does concern me. We have talked through, thank you for staff articulating some of the options of what could happen in the future. My question is what happens if we vote no? Does this need to be a unanimous vote of the member jurisdictions in order to be ratified changes to the to the ILA? Or are we just, is it just a majority vote? Do we have an answer to that?

The ILA, the existing ILA, has a provision for modification that requires effectively unanimous agreement by all the parties. I'll note that there's some disagreement among member agencies about how effective that would be. And some indication that if somebody, a member agency had voted no, that they may end up, they would sort of not need to respond to Seattle. They wouldn't need to sort of respond to the call outs. They wouldn't be included in any call outs to Seattle. but that they may otherwise lose access to IFIT KC if they were in the minority. I'm not saying that I think we wouldn't have legal recourse to do that, but it would cause conflict between member agencies if a member voted no. on this. But the legal language of the current one does state that it's by all parties. And so we have a good argument that it's not effective. I don't think that's the position of King County and some of our others that they would be proceeding under because they have sort of already executed between WSP and King County and have been operating as providing resources to Seattle since they've executed, I think.

What is the timeline on this? Could we not take action on this tonight and then go back and address some of the concerns that we have around guarantees in the ILA? We already have additional proposed amendments to the ILA that are being proposed tonight as well, like you mentioned with the jails. Is that something that you think would be a worthwhile discussion?

I think it would cause conflict. Again, it has already gone through a number of councils. It has already been signed. It would have to go back through all of those, so that would be just a simple answer.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Chief, Deputy Chief. Your work on not only IFIT, but the team that participates is shown the high standards within the department. I believe in the independent investigation model, and I think that's the benefit to Kirkland in supporting that. But I am concerned while Seattle is bringing resources, those resources can't be deployed in a case of an investigation in Seattle. So instead of looking at the benefit to Seattle joining, I want to make sure that there's no harm. Is there any provision in the ILA for a member that's making a contribution, not just in personnel, but a financial one as well, where Kirkland could be reimbursed for the work that we're contributing beyond the work that we're requiring?

There isn't any provision currently in the ILA for financial contribution from member agencies who don't participate, who don't provide active resources. I mean, a number of the smaller jurisdictions really don't have the ability to have resources available, and that was sort of aware, we were aware at the time when it first was enacted, group was formed that some of those smaller ones really wouldn't have any resources to provide and hopefully also wouldn't have a lot of call-outs. I will say that in conversations about this amendment, Kirkland did raise to some of our member agencies as part of our push to get more resources, particularly from Bellevue, that a solution would be that if member agencies who did have resources but weren't providing them could pay instead to fund those agencies who are providing resources and and that didn't we didn't sort of implement that as part of this but it would certainly be a solution to problems if they continue and I think our members the other member agencies would be amenable to considering further amendment in the future if it ended up because I mean you know Bellevue recognized the issue King County has the same concern that we have they are also providing significant resource. I mean, we responded to seven. King County was responding to the others. So I think we would be able to get some traction if we ended up having unbalanced resources moving forward. Thank you, City Attorney.

Yeah, I think that's the card that we should have in our back pocket moving forward and given the...

a discussion of uh that we can monitor this have monitored this and have a potential uh opt out in the future i i think those are enough things to move forward thank you councillor pascal i was just going to say that i appreciate the comments so far from everyone here and shared the same concern and that's why um you know i had an amendment to our resolution that that i can share um Oh, you can bring up, thank you. To try to get at some of the comments that I think have been made, which is that we are assuming how this is going to go and that additional resources are going to be expended by Kirkland above and beyond kind of what we're providing today. And so let's monitor that. and that's report back and see how it goes. And then, you know, if, if it is going in a way that is not, we feel sustainable, then, then we could take action. We'd have good justification for that and good information. And so that's, uh, the point of this amendment is just to make sure that we do have this, this check. And I know that we'll be monitoring it. I know the police department will, but just to have it publicly documented so that we can have those Conversations then with our partners and say you know we had to make this difficult difficult decision because we've been tracking this and this is where we're standing and so they can understand that Why we might go in a different direction if we end up doing that but I think it's important to document that and so that's Amendment that I have added or proposed, but I can't propose it yet until someone moves a motion I think we should finish comments so deputy mayor I

Well, I was going to consider making the motion, actually.

I was going to say simply Do you have any comments you want to add?

I was going to simply say that I agree with a lot of what has been said. I appreciate the thoughtfulness of the comments. Ultimately, I'm going to support THE RESOLUTION WITH COUNCILMEMBER PASCHAL'S AMENDMENT.

OKAY. THANK YOU. I'M GOING TO MAKE MY COMMENTS THEN BEFORE WE DO MOTIONS. I SHARE MY COLLEAGUES' CONCERNS, AND I THINK THAT COUNCILMEMBER TEMPTSCH ISN'T ARCHITECTURATED IT WELL. WE HAVE THESE ENTITIES, AND SEATTLE IS THIS BIG GIANT ENTITY THAT DOESN'T FIT WITH THESE WELL. WE'RE SO PROUD OF YOU, AND YOU You are, it's flattering that another agency wants to collaborate with us. I mean, they see the important and valuable work that you do, so I can understand them wanting to work with us, but I don't think it's a... A partnership that's going to be successful for us. So I will be voting no on this resolution. And I am concerned of the threat of that with the other agencies as they are in support. So it'll be interesting. One of the questions, you know, we've talked about if this doesn't work out, we can leave. But if it doesn't work out, can we invite Seattle to leave? City Attorney, is that an option for us?

I mean, we can, certainly that is an option, right? If it's not working, trying to encourage them to find alternatives.

And we would need to get all agencies to agree.

Yeah, it would be another amendment to the ILA.

Okay. I'm just, I'm really worried about the resource impact. I don't think this is a balanced partnership going forward. And, you know, I also want to say I looked at their dashboard. Ours is so much better, so much better. It was really hard to find the information. But in 2022, they had 177 officers involved firearm discharge. I mean, obviously, that's a very small number. that requires an investigation like this. But it's just, they're a different entity than we are. And again, I'm sorry, I'm not being very articulate. I just don't think that this is a good idea. So thank you. All right, I will entertain a motion. Can I just ask a clarifying question?

Absolutely. So if we get an update and we don't like what we see, then what practically is the recourse? The recourse is we'd have to get alignment with all other members to make a motion to do X, Y, and Z. Is that... Is that the task that would be at hand if that was the case?

Yeah, I mean, either alignment with everyone to modify the ILA or alignment with several other members in order, or at least one other member to spin off a new organization, a new group.

And I'll just add, before we would get to that point, just a reminder. So, like, I have a quarterly meeting with all the chiefs that make up IFIT, and so, you know, We're going to have check-in points at my level as we move through this on how things are going, continuing to put pressure on other agencies to add and lead investigators, all those kind of things. And so I think I will have the first kind of touch, right, on how is this going and can try to steer that towards, okay, we need to figure something else out. or we need to make some tweaks here before it got to that point where, okay, we've got to pull the ripcord, basically, and we need to figure something else out. If that helps.

Thank you. Okay. All right. Who would like to make the motion? Deputy Mayor?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So I'll move for adoption of Resolution R5712. Second.

It has been moved by Deputy Mayor Black, second by Council Member Paschal to move forward Resolution 5712. Any discussion? Deputy Mayor.

Just really quick, since it sounds like we're not, you know, there's a greater amount of hesitancy than I think I may have assumed coming into this conversation, I just want to quickly address. I just, for me, the work is too important. The work that you do, the cooperation between the agencies and the work is so important. I've already said with Council Member Paschal's amendment and the check-in, and I think that what I'm hearing is that Kirkland's actually going to have a lot of leverage in any conversations around things not working, because we are devoting resources. We are perhaps the most, other than the county, the most skilled agency. So I think that because of the importance of this work, we move forward. that we have the check-in and then we have the conversations with our partners about what we're going to do. And a noisy withdrawal with some of our closest partners is an option. And when we threaten to do that, I think we're going to start having conversations about what kind of changes maybe need to be made to the ILA. So that's where my confidence comes from. But my confidence is bolstered by the fact that we're going to have the Council member Paschal's amendment and the check-in. So, thank you.

Thank you. Council member Paschal?

Yeah, I'd like to make an amendment here. But before I do, I just want to ask a clarifying question of the Chief. I had picked out a date of December 31st, 2027, which is about two years. Is that too far? Is that too much time? Or should I make this for the end of this year? What would be an appropriate amount of time to have to kind of see how it's going?

I think it's appropriate for the resolution, personally, with me checking in with the other chiefs on a quarterly basis. And if there's major issues, that doesn't mean we can't come back earlier. But this at least puts something in writing that's reasonable, gives us a couple years to see how this is going.

Yeah, I'd like to make a motion to amend Resolution 5712 at E page 111 after line 41 to add this new Section 2, which reads, the City Manager and the Police Chief are directed to present to the City Council no later than December 31st, 2027, an update on IFID activities and activations since the addition of the City of Seattle, including the number of activations in all member jurisdictions that involve Kirkland staff as part of that activation. the resource impacts on Kirkland and information on how all members are contributing to IFID activations.

Second. Moved by Council Member Paschal, sorry, second by Deputy Mayor, to amend the resolution to add a reporting date. Any further discussion, Council Member Tim Chisholm?

I have absolute faith in the Kirkland Police Department. I will be voting no on this resolution, but I would like to make a motion to amend the amendment to be December 1st, 31st, 2026. Okay. It has been...

You guys are testing me at midnight. All right. It has been moved by Councilmember Tim Chisholm and seconded by Councilmember Falcone to amend the Pascal Amendment to read December 31st, 2026. Any discussion? Councilmember Arnold.

I'm going to be voting against this amendment. I trust that I don't want to require work. I trust that the team would bring things forward if there are issues and brief us on this if needed before 2027.

Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? All right. The question is on the Tim Chisholm Amendment of the Pascal Amendment to change the date to December 31, 2026. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Okay, we have to do a voice. City Clerk?

On that secondary amendment, Council Member Tim Chisholm?

Aye.

Council Member Arnold?

No.

Council Member Prem? Aye. Council Member Falcone? Aye. Council Member Paschall?

Aye.

Deputy Mayor Black?

No.

Mayor Curtis?

Aye. All right.

So that was the motion carries. There are five yeses and two noes.

Thank you. All right. So the question is on the amended Paschall Amendment changing the date to 2026. All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

That did not sound unanimous. Let's do that again.

City Clerk? Can you restate the motion? Restate?

Yes. The question is on the Paschal amendment that has been modified to change the date to December 31, 2026.

Only voting on the amendment, not the resolution?

Correct.

Thank you.

Okay. So all those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Question is on the amended motion, resolution 5712. I know we're going to need to do a voice vote on this, so let's go ahead and do it. City Clerk?

On the motion to adopt resolution number 5712 as amended, Councilmember Tim Chisholm?

No.

Councilmember Arnold?

Yes.

Councilmember Prem? Yes. Council Member Falcone? No. Council Member Paschal?

Yes.

Deputy Mayor Black?

Yes.

Mayor Curtis?

No. Motion carried. Resolution passes 4-3. Thank you, gentlemen. Difficult discussion, but I appreciate your time this evening, and I have confidence that this will go well.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

All right, City Manager, we are now moving on to reports. So we'll do council reports first, and I usually start with the Deputy Mayor, so Deputy Mayor.

It is after midnight, and I have nothing to report.

Thank you. Council Member Paschal.

Nothing to report.

Thank you. Council Member Falcone.

Happy New Year.

Council Member Proud.

Nothing to report.

Council Member Arnold.

No report.

Council Member Tim Chisholm.

No report. Thank you.

Mayor Curtis, nothing to report. City Manager, it's all yours.

Okay, thank you. I have two quick topics that I do need to go through. I will make them brief. The first is talk about committee assignments. While they're pulling this up, I'm just going to show one of the slides and then ask council members to send a council committee request to myself and Ana Campbell. If you might go into slide number three. Thank you. So I want to highlight one issue. So you've all seen the memo. You know all of the various committees we have. We did discover a few errors of the transition between Diana and her files and what we put out. So we have corrected a few of those things, and we'll have a final correction in the explanations in the background for the 20th meeting, but I think we've caught most of them. But this is a list of all of the current assignments that we think we have correct. And you notice there was a lot of former councilor sweets on them. One of the things we want to highlight that we didn't include in the memo is to remind you that there's also the new Arch Council of Elected Officials, which they are asking that we appoint by the end of January or sometime in early February. So I just want to highlight that one in particular because it hasn't happened before. But happy to answer your questions on any of these. But again, we just want to make sure you all have your last chance to think about assignments you might want or already have. And if you have requests, you send them to myself and to Anuradha Campbell, and then we'll work with the mayor and the deputy mayor between now and the 20th. The goal would be that the Mayor and Deputy Mayor would make a proposal to the Council for adoption on the 20th that has all of the committee assignments. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. And City Manager, I just want to follow up. What you see on January 20th won't be a surprise. We will take stock of what people want to do with their committee assignments, new things that they're interested in. We will have a conversation with you before we come to January 20th with a, something to approve I am curious we have not a couple people have expressed interest in the Arch Council I think there's quite a few of us that are interested in that that is the only thing I anticipate that there will need to be a negotiation and a discussion with otherwise my initial conversations with everyone Everyone's been very generous with giving other council members opportunities, committee opportunities, and I thank you all for that. I have been working with Council Member Prim on some suggestions I have for her, and my colleagues have been very generous with opportunities. So I think this is going to go smoothly. Anybody have any questions? Okay.

Okay, thank you. So we'll send a reminder email out as well. So get that tomorrow and check back in. And if anyone has any questions, again, call me or Andreana. I'd be happy to help. The second item we need to do a check-in on is our board and commission recruitment for 2026. As they're putting up slides, there's only two slides on this slide. So as we're setting it up, I guess three because I put a title slide in. My bad. So go to number two. So the issue is throughout last year and in my conversations with council members, the council has expressed an interest in improving the board and commission selection recruitment process as part of our retreat in February. But the retreat is now tentatively scheduled for February 27th. If we don't have this conversation until February 27th. We can't use any of those changes for the current process, right? So the issue, we have several options for you all to consider. I just wanted to briefly remind you of the timeline of our current process if you've made no changes. And thank you to the city clerk for putting this together for me. So we would normally open the recruitment this week We would have an interview selection committee appointment on January 20th We'd have interviews in between and council members would make final decisions at a special meeting on March 9th and The current board and Commission terms would expire on March 31st and the new terms would begin on Wednesday April 1st So if we do nothing, that's what would happen and so you wouldn't have an opportunity to change anything. Next slide. Thank you So this is my last slide. We have sort of three what I'll call meta options, and then council can obviously make some small variations. So option number one would be just keep the current process and timeline for 2026, have the council retreat, have a thoughtful sort of improvement and reform process, and then implement that in totality in 2027. So just give yourselves time to spend this year doing it the way you want to do it. Option two is you could extend the expiring terms. That would take legislative action, but through like June of 2026 is what we're thinking. You could then implement any potential changes from the retreat. We would start the recruitment process in March and then follow the same process we have. We'd end and then the new terms would start on July of 2026. So that would give you the ability to do it this year for these terms, but we'd have to take some further legislative action. And then option three, you could identify the one that has come up the most is the planning commission. You could identify a specific board or commission that you have. that you want to deal with, and you can just let the rest of them follow the current process. So you can basically have two processes. And in that case, if you chose option three, we could reach out to those folks and just extend those terms, and you could have a different process for that board or commission. So those are kind of the three major options. The reason I'm sitting in some direction tonight is we would need to know whether we're posting a recruitment very soon or not. So with that, I'll be happy answering questions.

Thank you, City Manager. Over the year, we have had a number of conversations about our boards and commissions, so I just want to remind you guys of things that I have tracked. We've talked about the process needs to be improved. that we need to change the application, the questions. We've had a conversation about whether we should ask for specific qualifications, particularly on the planning commission. We have had a conversation about whether asking applicants to disclose affiliations, We've had issues around residency, and we've talked about our recruitment process. We also have talked about whether the random interview selection committee process works, because some council members feel like they're always on the committees, and other council members feel like they don't get an opportunity to do it. So those are the things that we have talked about through the year. It's not my place to go first, but I am. I feel like we've had enough conversations about this that it's an important retreat topic. I think that we need to have a deep conversation about our recruitment and our process for recruitment. So I'm interested in either option two or option three, but we can continue to discuss that. Other thoughts, comments? Council Mayor Tim Chisholm.

I agree with the mayor. I think if we, that option, the option that treats all the boards and commissions the same would be, I think that's two.

Examine all terms, yeah.

Would be the one I lean towards just because option three I think would require us at this meeting to start getting into deciding which boards and which commissions we treat differently and I think that's opening up a lengthy conversation.

Thank you. Councillor Falcone. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I have a question about option two. So our retreat, refresh my memory, is when? End of February. End of February.

Currently looking at February 27th is what you've all agreed to.

So end of February. We're going to be discussing it. We don't know if we're going to be coming to any conclusions at the retreat as to what that process could look like and so we're just spitballing ideas brainstorming all of that and option two seems to presume that we will be able to provide guidance at the end of that retreat as to what the process is going to look like given that the recruitment would start in march of 2026. do you feel confident in that i'm a little bit unsure of That assumption.

I'm somewhat confident given again that as the mayor said, you've talked about a lot of these issues. I think the way we try to frame up the memos and things is to sort of capture things and provide very specific options. So I think it wouldn't just be a complete, you know, free for all discussion. I think we'd sort of focus on the topics we've heard again and again and again. So you may not solve all of them in time for it, but you might have the key things that you want accomplished and then maybe others get phased in in 2027. So, but you're right. It's an important point that it constrains a little bit.

Will we need to take action at a subsequent meeting in March based on the discussion at a retreat?

Right. We'd have to update the board commission's policies and procedures and a few other things, yeah.

And that would likely be the second meeting in March, given just the timing and preparing the memo?

Probably, yeah.

So it would be, like, very end of March if all goes well. Just want to make sure I'm understanding that detail enough and, like, where the potential risks are. Okay. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor, I'm sorry, Council Mayor.

Thank you. Looking at the existing boards and commissions, there's only one commission that will have an open seat because a commissioner is term limited from serving further. That's the Planning Commission. And so our tradition has been that we look at potential reappointments of people if there has not been an issue with attendance or other concerns from the board or commission chair. In some cases, we've done that without even an interview. So I think that I am comfortable with continuing the current process for all of the boards and commissions because of that for all the boards and commissions except for the planning commission. And so I support option three and looking at extending only the commission term for the planning commission. Any discussion that we have at the retreat of wholesale changes we want to make could happen for 2027 for the other boards and commissions. Thank you.

I'm looking down to you two.

Hi. I like Council Member Arnold's proposal because I kind of feel the same way, but I'm also open to option two, so.

All right.

Well.

I'm going to go ahead and call.

Sorry. Deputy Mayor. Yeah, I agree with what's been said. I actually thought that Council Member Falcone was going to suggest like a July 2026 date or something based on your questions. I'm trying to figure out, I guess what I'm struggling with, I'm trying to figure out whether this assumes that option three does assume the auto renewal of all of those other board members and council, or sorry, late, all those other members of our boards and commissions in a way that maybe are we prepared tonight

So what I was going to say is we could- To know for sure? We could decide tonight.

What I can offer is that you'd have time to evaluate the current members who are up for renewal and make a decision if you don't want to renew any of them. So you can do that in your current process. So there's still time between now and the barge decision for the current process of people who might be just straightforwardly renewed. So if that helps. So having the one vacancy where you're actually recruiting for the vacancy is a little bit different.

Okay. So the proposal on the table is kind of like Option 3. What it really is, is we are going to extend the expiring terms for the Planning Commission, we are going to enter into this discussion of the potential improvements at our retreat, and we are going to let things ride with the existing boards and commissions and if we identify improvements we want to apply to them we'll apply them in the 2027 cycle assuming let things ride mean continue our current process yes yes which is roll over the incumbents we have that option but we would be recruiting for alternates and and doing and under this proposal we wouldn't otherwise and i'm sorry to be speaking over Under this, we otherwise would not be starting the recruitment process this month. There would be no recruiting starting this month because we're not recruiting for any open positions. Okay, I can support that.

Jay.

Thank you. I think we would need to recruit for alternates, even though we would be having the potential to reappoint in comments. So I think it just is continuing that current process.

Okay. Council Member Timchison, did I?

I'll withdraw my. Thank you. I have a question again about option two. I feel like we can still do option two and still get to what council member, sorry, I'm so used to calling you deputy mayor, still can't like, council member Arnold says, and that if we extend it through June of 2026, people that we are likely to automatically or, you know, renew, we could just renew them back to their original expiration date, right? Is there any harm in that? And that way, it gives us that opportunity to one, recruit for alternates at the same time, and also just have that option that we have the time, we don't have to make the decision tonight. And I think it still gets at the same thing. It's just kind of a temporary short extension, and then with the intent that we likely will continue our practice of renewing them, re-upping them for another full term. Does that make sense? So I feel like option two kind of covers option three, given what Deputy Mayor, or given what Council Member Arnold said, right? Okay, so. I support option two because of that. And with the flexibility that if needed, we would have to push back. I hope that we don't, but if we have to push back the date a little bit.

I heard some conversation down here. Council Member, no?

Okay.

So I think we need a motion now.

I move that we adopt option two. I second.

And moved by Council Mayor Falcone, second by Council Mayor Prim, that we go with option two. Any further discussion? All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Option two, motion carries 7-0. Anything else?

Last one is calendar update. Obviously, it's the beginning of the year, but is there anything that council wants to make sure gets on a future calendar council meeting?

No.

Okay.

Seeing none, that's all I have, Madam Mayor.

All right. Council Member Prem, your first meeting went into the next day. Welcome. Congratulations again to everyone, and Happy New Year.

We are adjourned.