City Council - Regular Meeting

To the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Mary Lynn, would you like to call a roll call?

Yes, thank you. Heather Watland. Here. Rob Toyer. Here. Yvonne Gallardo-Van Orno. Here. Michelle Blythe. Here. Nathan Senth. Here. Tim Abrahamson. Present. And Leisha Novak. Here. Thank you.

Mayor Vanni, I move for approval of the agenda. Second.

Question. All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? None heard. Agenda's approved. Okay, we'll start our meeting out tonight with a special presentation. This is for K-9 O'Oso Memorial. Presentation of a plaque. Chief, would you like to do the honors?

You want to hold this? Sure.

Well, I'd like to start with this is something that I'd like to start with for all of our canine oxers that have passed that we'd like to start a memorial wall in the lobby of the PD. So this is something that we'll be So this is something that we'll be seeing as the canine officers pass and proceed on. But this is, I figured, a good start where we can start with Oso and then we got, I think, three others. We got Annie and then I think we got Kendall's and then Anthony's that we're gonna work on getting the plaques to so we can put that wall together. So this is an appreciation of all the work that they did for our city and community.

Well, I had a nice ride up, but I don't find it. So maybe you would like to come up and talk a little bit about the dog? Since you have the... I wrote a nice write-up, but I'm sorry. It was a really good, nice write-up.

So, I'm Sergeant Kenny with Arlington PD. Prior to being a sergeant, I was a canine handler for our agency in 2015. I got selected and was fortunate enough to have some support from the community members to purchase Oso. So I was able to fly back to Indiana to a place called Von Lick and select, at that point it was a single purpose narcotics canine. We didn't have a patrol canine unit here at the city of Arlington, we hadn't. So I went back by myself, which normally you bring a trainer, so it was pretty interesting to go alone. And I looked at a bunch of dogs there and Oso was one of them and it was down to him and one other dog and he was the most dog-friendly. I had dogs at home. So I picked Oso and came back and we did a 200-hour narcotics class and were certified. We spent about 90 days at the Snohomish County Regional Drug Task Force as a detective team there. Our first alert or first vehicle we got was 10 pounds of methamphetamine and then it just went from there a lot. In 16, if I'm not mistaken, we had a proposal and went to a 480-hour patrol canine course in Port Angeles. So we went and lived in Port Angeles for those 12 weeks, which was a long time we'd come home on the weekend. But it was weird living there, but that's what we did and came back. We were certified after 400 hours, and our first weekend back, we were fortunate to apprehend a guy with... I think it was 13 kilos of MDMA. That wasn't alert, but a patrol apprehension. It was an interesting first apprehension. But from then on, we just went forth and helped the citizens of Arlington. And then the beautiful thing about K-9 in Snohomish County is that it's all of the K-9 units work together to provide that support for the citizens. So it's really been great. both from the citizens of Arlington and the community abroad. So it was great. Oso was a great dog. Unfortunately, when I got promoted, he had to be retired. And unfortunately for me, it was sad because he had a few more years to go, but he went home and then spent a lot of time with my kids as you can see them and my wife here being a house hound is what I called him. So there was no food that hit the ground that didn't get cleaned up by Oso and it was great. Unfortunately, he got a bone cancer about I think in May or June of this year and we had to make the really tough decision and we were very fortunate that Dr. Grant took very good care of him He's now in a box at home with our other dog, next to our other dog. So it's been great and I can't thank enough to the city and him being a kind of a trailblazer there for our first patrol unit, patrol canine unit and going from there. So the chief has some words to say, I'm gonna hand it over instead of rambling on and making the meeting much longer and sweating all over.

So this isn't everything I had, but I just wanted to point out that Oso was on the job for over seven years. During that time, responded to over 16,000 calls, had over 100 apprehensions on the patrol side. We received over 1,000 fines of illicit drug seizures. prosecution of over 100 criminal defendants and also wanted to point out the the name obviously sergeant kinney had the name and honor of the the oso event so very proud of sergeant kinney and the work he did with oso and i think this is a good tribute to to both of them actually um and our first dual purpose dog so thank you again i'm glad we could do this very much thank you

Where are we going, right here? Thank you guys very much.

Okay, we'll move on to our next item. At this time, we'd like to open it up for public comment. For members of the public who wish to speak to the council about any matter not on a public hearing, which we're not having tonight, but please limit your remarks to three minutes. Please approach the podium and state your name and address. We'll start out tonight with Holly Sloan Buchanan.

My name is Holly Sloan Buchanan. I live at 6811 Woodlands Way in Arlington. Having just celebrated the Fourth of July and what it represents, it has made me aware of the beginnings and the foundation of our great nation. The principles that made this country exceptional are free enterprise, constitutional rights, individual liberty, faith, love of country, respect for family, commitment to freedom, and commitment to freedom. You all have received a handout. And before you, and you'll notice number four, which is the one that I'm really honing in on, because I would like to see In God We Trust over someplace either in this building, on the edge of this building. Just that's our history, you know, is it was founded on faith, that God was very instrumental in the founding of our country. So that... That's my biggie, this. Okay, and I did bring more, so if anybody in the audience, I will leave them on the shelf out here, and you can grab one.

Thank you. Thank you, Holly. Next speaker, Jay Lundberg.

Hi, my name is Jay Lindberg. A couple of comments on the 4th of July. I missed your party because I had commitments, but I came up here at 2 o'clock and it was packed. You know, so it must have been a really nice party. I'm from Charleston, South Carolina. Some of my ancestors actually fought in that. So, when we're blowing up the fireworks, we feel like we're blowing up something British. It's really cool. So, anyway, I saw something in here on the war on drugs, and I've not been an advocate of the war on drugs, but I was never an advocate of legalizing everything, either, because some drugs were too damn dangerous to legalize. The most important, and this is something like, when you're doing a policy, you have to have in mind what the general policy is supposed to produce. A drug-free America wasn't going to work, and everybody knew that. But if you look at it and you say, my job, because The biggest problem with drug addicts and drug addiction is that they create new addicts to finance their habits. And that's a self-perpetuating loop. If you remember that when you're fighting the war on drugs and you're trying to break that cycle, which means you don't throw all the addicts in jail because it costs too much money to put them in jail. but you get them in rehab and you try to make sure they've got a stable economy when they get out, you break the cycle. And the real, you know, like I said, I've never been a proponent of the war on drugs and I wrote a book called Drug War Economics. But if you remember that, and I remember 30 years ago when I came out against the war on drugs, police officers that came out against the war on drugs saying it wasn't working, That was dangerous because there was so much corruption in the institution. And I know cops that got killed because they changed their minds. They said, this isn't working. We got to change it. Cops got killed. They got killed by their own people because the institution was so corrupt. So remember when you're dealing with this that there's a reason to fund public policy like the war on drugs. Make sure you get those reasons right because if you get those reasons wrong, You can end up with a drug war that Nixon started in 1973 with a couple hundred million dollars and made a comment, we'll have the drug problem beat in five years. And then 30 years later, the drug war was costing the country over $150 billion a year. They designed that badly and that's why it ended up creating this war on drugs and all the mess and all the corruption and all the gangs and all the messes. We did it wrong. We did that wrong. So remember when you're doing these policies, try to do it right. Thank you.

Okay, at this time I'd like to open it up if there's any other members of the public that would like to speak. Okay, none seen. I think we'll move on to the consent agenda.

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

Second. All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? None heard. Motion carries. Okay, we'll move on to our next section, which looks like we will be having an executive session.

That's correct. We will be going into executive session pursuant to RCW 42.30.144 to discuss interpretation and application of a labor agreement. And there are items on the agenda afterwards. And anticipate it will take about 10 minutes, which means we'll be back in session at about 6.25 p.m. Okay. Okay.

We'll adjourn into executive session. We'll return in 10 minutes. Okay, I'd like to call our meeting back to order. Is there anything, oh, Paul, you're the one that got this one. You got the lead on this one, there you go.

The first item in new business. So, Mayor, Council, we're asking the Council to approve a six-month temporary position at the airport. This would be a temporary operations specialist position. This is not a budgeted item. It would come out of the airport's operating funds, be estimated about $60,600 to fund this position for six months. That includes benefits. And I'm happy to answer any questions.

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

I move to approve the addition of the six-month temporary operations specialist position at the airport.

Second.

Questions? All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? None heard, motion carries. All right, thank you. Great, thank you. We'll move on to item two, acceptance of the Stillaguamish Tribe fiscal year 2023, fiscal year 2024 community contribution grant for impacts from Angels of the Casino. Jonathan.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council. This is a grant that you have seen before for impacts from the casino. We wrote a grant this year. We've had many joint operations with the Tribal Police Department. As you are aware, they have housing developments throughout the city and properties scattered about our city. So we're finding ourselves just doing more and more operations with them. One of our recent operations was an extended operation where we had need for some drones, and we did have some, but we ran out of battery time, and we had need for ballistic rifle shields that weren't available to us. We do have two ballistic shields, but they're only rated for handgun use, so when this opportunity came for the grant this year, we thought it was appropriate to write that for some better quality drones than we've used in the past and for ballistic shields and they did approve that grant for us this year and I would ask that you consider accepting the grant. Thank you. Any questions? Tim? With the grant what were the What what is the tribe expecting us to report back about just the fact that we purchased it or what's the There's no reporting requirement at all I think when when we write the grant I think it's just continued partnership with them and should the need arise for the equipment that we You know, we continue to partner with them. We make it available to them and we work with them as we have in the past and

No, awesome. I appreciate you guys doing this and working with the tribe because, again, we have a great relationship and we'd love to keep that.

Yeah, we definitely do.

Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, it doesn't seem to have a motion.

I move to approve the acceptance of Stillaguamish Tribes Community Contribution Grant and subsequent budget amendment in the amount of $79,000 and authorize the mayor to sign it. Second.

Question. All those in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? None heard. Motion carries. Okay, we'll move on to item three, request for waiver of fees for FAA Arlington Municipal Airport 3-4 approach lighting project. Amy.

Thank you and good evening, Mayor Vanning and members of council. So tonight I have, excuse me, a few waiver requests that Community and Economic Development is providing on behalf of the United States Department of Transportation and Federal Aviation Administration for the Arlington Municipal Airport replacement of runway 34 medium intensity approach lighting system, which are malls. And then also balls with flashers the project is funded by the federal government which is Requesting the fee the fees be waived per the supremacy clause of article 6 clause 2 of the US Constitution The building permit fee is fifteen thousand seven hundred and ninety dollars and 32 cents This includes plan review permit fee and processing technology fee The state surcharge fee is not exempt and will be charged for the project which is $25 Any questions?

Yeah, Amy, just looking at this, I don't believe this falls under the supremacy clause because we own the property. And while it is an FAA grant or a federal government grant, it would just fall under our policies and procedures to waive these kind of fees from government agency to government agency versus the supremacy clause. Because I'm just in my research, I don't think this falls under the supremacy clause piece. It just falls under our policies and procedures.

Okay. I will defer to Oscar.

I'll confess that I have not researched this issue, but that I think is that may well be accurate. So I'll do my homework on this one afterwards.

Any other questions? Yvonne?

So whether or not it is required or not by the supremacy clause, this is just a CYA then?

Council has the authority to waive fees, permit fees. We generally do this for city projects. We don't charge ourselves for permits. This is kind of similar. This is related to the 172nd widening project.

The motion language doesn't need to change.

Any other questions? On the scene, do we have a motion?

I move to authorize the mayor to waive the building permit fees and sign the permit fee waiver form for the FAA Arlington Municipal Airport Runway 34 approach lighting project.

Second. Question. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? None heard. Motion carries. Okay, we'll move on to our next item. Second Amendment to the Professional Services Agreement with Safe Built Washington LLC for Building Plan Review and Inspection Services. Amy.

Thank you. So this is a renewal of a contract that the Community and Economic Development Department and the City of Arlington has had since 2018. Excuse me. We did the first amendment that extended the contract through June of 2026, which is right now. I'm not sure why, but our last amendment only did it for three years, so this one we're We are trying to extend it beyond that where it's just an annual. It's for five years with an annual automatic renewal as long as there are no needs for any changes or either party can still terminate. So this provides, Safeville provides services that we can't provide with our current staff. So instead of providing an employee that costs potentially more per year depending on the project, or I guess it just depends on what project we have in. So something like the Amazon building, we contracted with Safe Built. So they did all the building permit review, the inspections, and then our staff could do all the other permits throughout the city. So we're not taking it away with one person doing all of that work, basically being on that site 24-7. Excuse me, so this just allows us to keep doing what we're doing basically. Our budget does have $500,000 from the permit revenue allocated for this because we thought there would be a few big projects coming in this year. I think our balance is about $400,000 right now, so we've only paid out about $100,000 total so far this year.

Great, thank you. Any questions? Nathan. So when we have SafeBuilt as a consultant, if they do some of the extra jobs or things just so that way you're not focused on one specific project, who is the accountability piece? Do you still have to look through all of them, make sure they do all the things correctly or transparent?

They're professional. They're licensed building officials the people that are doing the that work for safe built Okay, so they're accountable to all their they're either their architect staff their engineering stamp or The building code in general. So yes, we do look at it. We charge the fees It does come through but we're not looking at the details. We're looking at the overall project.

Okay. Thank you any other questions None seen do I have a motion?

I move to authorize the mayor to sign the second amendment to the professional service agreement with Safe Build Washington LLC for building plan review and inspection services. Second.

Question. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? None heard. Motion carries. Okay, we'll move on to our last item of new business. Professional services agreement with Safe Build Washington LLC for planning review services. Again, Amy.

Thank you. So this is a new contract. This one came about, I didn't actually know that they provided planning review services, consultant services. So earlier this year, we had a resignation of the planning manager position. And so instead of rehiring at that level, Within the city, I wanted to bring someone up throughout our organization or hope to in the future, starting them as like an associate planner. They moved to senior planner and then to a planning manager. So they really understand the city, what our codes are at that level. It was kind of a mistake bringing someone in from the outside at a planning manager level, which we learned. I just want them to know Arlington better when they get to that level. And so right now we only have one planner and we're not refilling the planning manager position. So this would help with any coverage that we need. We don't have anything that we're looking for right now. For them, we have all the code amendments taken care of. We have some comp plan stuff that we're working on. All of that stuff is, and we're fine with plan review right now. It's just if we get hit hard with certain development, we want to be able to send this out. So we've talked to Safe Built. They will not be the full planner on... on a project. So we would still review and then say, can you review this, these pieces farther in depth for us? So they would be basically an employee with us instead of sending it off. The building portion of state built, we send it off and they pretty much review everything. The planning services we're going to be a little bit more conservative on and we'll be working with them on a review, not letting them solely do it because I still want our piece of knowing Arlington within those reviews and not just a straight, subjective line of, this is black, this is white, this is how we do things here, is what we want it to go through with them. Kind of gives you a little background on why we're doing or why I'm asking for this service, this agreement. This is for one year, one year timeframe with an automatic renewal unless we terminate and we can terminate it's 90 days in advance. But there's no fees to it. We just pay per hourly rate for any services that we use. And currently in our budget, we have $30,000 that could be expended towards this. If a big project came in and we needed more than that, I would need to do a budget amendment before the end of the year. It would all come from the Permit Revenue Fund, though.

Good. Okay. Any questions? Okay. None seen. Do I have a motion?

Before I motion, I just want to say thank you for wanting our side of it still, the City of Arlington, and having that.

That was my only question, and you answered it. So thank you. Yep.

I move to authorize the mayor to sign the professional service agreement with Safe Build Washington LLC for the planning review services.

Second.

Question. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? None heard. Motion carries. Thank you. We'll move on to, do we have any comments or reports from council members? Nathan?

I was going to say I came down to the carnival for the Fourth of July, and it was wonderful to see our community celebrating America 250. I got to see the parade via livestream because I'm an uncle now, so I had to welcome somebody into the world on the Fourth of July. So I still saw a whole slew of wonderful community members presenting the Stars and Stripes up and down the street, Andrew's Hay, all the tractors, all the truckers, all the fun things that we as Arlingtonians have seen since as early as my grandparents can remember when they were younger in town. It was just amazing to see that. I also just wanted to remind people that this weekend is street fair. So Friday, Saturday and Sunday, you will see community members out and about in town as well as you get to see a whole bunch of vendors up and down the main street of Olympic. So just giving a shout out for all of those businesses and the city as well as community members to make that happen. So there you go. Thank you. Any others? Alicia.

Just I'll echo what Nathan said. I mean, the 4th of July parade was amazing. It was awesome to see. And I just enjoy being from Arlington and seeing the downtown and everything we have to offer is awesome. And this weekend is also street fair. There we go.

Great. Thank you. Any others? Unseen Paul, do you have anything to report tonight?

I'll think there's anything else this evening. Thank you.

Okay. No, I just I got a couple things I'd like to personally thank M&O for the job they did on the 4th of July as well as the PD They all did an outstanding job taking care of our community Also echoed it was like Leisha and Nathan said it was great to see everybody downtown on Saturday It was pretty good festive day Started from I think eight o'clock at the pancake breakfast till six o'clock after the end of the parade But no, it was really good fun to see everybody And I think that's it. I think we're ready for adjournment motion to adjourn All those in favor Any opposed? Motion carries we're adjourned probably